If you who don’t know who Joe Peacock is, that tells me two things: 1) You don’t listen to our podcast and 2) You’re missing out. Why? Let’s just say Joe’s lived a pretty interesting life and the stories he tells are almost unbelievable and widely entertaining to read. So much so that he got a publishing deal with Penguin Books. His book, the first to be published by a major publisher, entitled Mentally Incontinent: That Time I Burned Down a Hooters, That Time My Stalker Crashed on My Couch, and Nine Other Stories from My Weird Life was recently released and he was nice enough to invite me out to the Stonestown Galleria in San Francisco for a book-signing event he was having. I had never met Joe in person up until that point, my interactions with him based solely around our the times he guest starred on our podcast, so I was excited to actually meet him in person. What can I say, I love meeting people and Joe seemed like a cool enough guy.

So, Thursday rolls around, which is usually the day I work a late shift at the UC Berkeley dorms checking student IDs (gotta pay the bills somehow, right?). Luckily, I had managed to get a friend to cover my shift and picked up an extra shift to make up for it, which was awesome. I mean, who wants to deal with college freshman when you can hang out with a published author? Anyway, my timing sucks, mainly because I didn’t expect the Bay Bridge toll-booth to be so backed up. I don’t drive, so there was no way for me to anticipate the massive traffic jam that I would hit when my bus reached the Bay Bridge. That, coupled with not having any idea where to find the SF Muni train that would take me to the Stonestown Galleria caused me to be late, arriving at Borders just as Drew Curtis, founder of Fark.com and author of It’s Not News, It’s Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap As News was finishing up his presentation and introducing Joe. Not a total disaster, by any means. Everything was fine. The seats were mostly full, so I just made my way to the back next to, unbeknownst to me at the time, Joe’s wife Andrea Peacock, with Joe giving me a “wassup” nod as he noticed me arrive, which I returned. However, as I reached into my pocket, the Blackberry that I forget to lock started blasting Dragonforce’s Through the Fire and Flames, immediately interrupting Drew and making me as red as a tomato. I’m sure Drew hates me because of that, but Joe got a real kick out of it.

So, epic fail on my part right there. Anyway, with Joe starting his presentation, I decided I would film it…unfortunately, since my digital camera runs on AAs and not a rechargeable battery pack, it drained most of my battery, cutting out the tail end of his little speech, which was over half an hour long by the way, and meaning I only had a very limited sliver of battery life left with which to take photos, meaning I would have to rely mostly on my Blackberry’s camera. So yeah…double fail on my part right there. Still, the actual event was great. If you’ve read Joe’s book or heard him on our podcast, he’s a really funny guy, especially when he just acts like himself.

After the presentation and the signing, Joe and Drew were nice enough to invite everyone who showed up, myself included, out to a nearby Chevy’s Fresh Mex for some food and drinks. And that took up most of the night and Drew was kind enough to pick up the tab for everyone. Oddly, I found myself sitting with Andrea and Joe’s friends rather than with the group of people who showed up for the signing, just having fun, drinking some margaritas and just talking the night away. If there’s one thing about Joe, it’s that he likes telling stories about his life, like the one about how his wife flipped a guy who was trying to hit on her at a conference in Georgia. She will flip you…she will flip you for real. At one point, Joe attempted to give a teen some “fatherly” advice, which his wife and friends thought was probably a bad idea. Joe and I also talked about his guest spots on the Pixelated Podcast, which we agreed were just a whole lot of fun, especially when he got Nelson to do the truffle shuffle for the people tuning into the live video feed. Needless to say, hanging out with Joe was a blast, and it’s easy to see why Nelson has such a big man crush on him.

Joe gave me a copy of his book with a special message just for me. Unfortunately, he doesn't know how to spell Hideo Kojima.

If you don’t really know about Joe Peacock, check out MentallyIncontinent.com and read the Wal-Mart story. Believe me, once you read that, you’ll see why Joe is awesome. His book, Mentally Incontinent: That Time I Burned Down a Hooters, That Time My Stalker Crashed on My Couch, and Nine Other Stories from My Weird Life is available in stores and on Amazon.com and is definitely worth a read, though most of his stories can be found on MentallyIncontinent.com in case you’re not convinced.

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