Lit: Still Broke Ass after all these years

By Justin Juul

Broke Ass Stuart is a travel writer, an SF cult hero, and one of the luckiest sunzabitches you will ever meet. Not only does he get paid to travel the world and write, but he also gets to do it as himself. Most travel writers have to water their stories down for those crappy airplane magazines or they just write thousands of fact-of-the-matter-reviews designed for hurried tourists. But not Stuart. He doesn’t have to do any of that shit.

His first book, Broke Ass Stuart’s Guide to Living Cheaply in San Francisco, which he originally published himself as a zine, helped him carve a niche as a new voice in an industry overpopulated by impersonal clones. Since releasing his first book, Stuart has gone on to write a second SF edition and he recently spent ten months in New York doing research for his newest book, Broke Ass Stuart’s Guide to Living Cheaply in New York City. Sounds like a dream come true doesn’t it? Well, apparently travel writing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. After four years of writing Broke Ass Stuart books and doing odd jobs for Lonely Planet, Stuart’s life is in shambles. He’s homeless, disoriented, and still broke-as-fuck.

The Guardian caught up with Stuart recently to remind him that his job is awesome and that other financially challenged writers (ahem) would kill to be in his position.

SFBG: So what’s up with your New York book? Did you make tons of money off it?
Stuart: No dude. Let me tell you, writing books is not the way to wealth and fame. I blew through my New York advance pretty quick and wound up waiting tables the whole time I was there. The book’s not coming out till November so I won’t be getting any royalties for a long time. I can’t even think about that money, really. I mean, I’ve been waiting tables for nine years.

SFBG: Shit. Yeah. So have I actually.
Stuart: It’s like a fuckin’ bad habit. It’s such a weird subculture, you know? Like people in the restaurant fucking each other, tons of drugs. And then you get out at night and you’re all revved up from dealing with assholes all night…

SFBG: So you take all your tips and go blow it another bar.
Stuart: Exactly. It’s definitely, uh, special.

SFBG: How did you find the time to hit up all your review spots when you had to work?
Stuart: Oh man it was rough. I would get up early, go to all these spots, come home, go to work, and then go out and do bar research all night long. I know it sounds like fun, but being a travel writer is pretty grueling.

SFBG: Oh, that’s right. You work for Lonely Planet too. How is that going?
Stuart: Well, so far I’ve only done one gig for Lonely Planet. It was Ireland and it was awesome. But I didn’t work as hard as I probably should have. I had just gotten out of a three-year relationship. I mean, I was single for the first time in years and here I was in a foreign country for free. It was hard to stay focused, you know?

SFBG: Yeah, I bet. So how does that work, anyway? Does Lonely Planet pay all of your expenses?
Stuart: Yeah, they pay for everything. Basically, you sign a contract and there’s this lump some of money you can burn through. So the more thrifty I was, the more I would make in the end. I wasn’t very thrifty though. I don’t think I made anything. It’s like that for travel writers a lot of the time. You get to move around a lot -like I haven’t had a permanent residence in over a year- but you don’t make tons of money. Like I said, I was a waiter in New York.

SFBG: Speaking of New York, now that you’ve lived there, how does it compare to San Francisco?
Stuart: I prefer San Francisco. I mean Dolores Park is probably the most beautiful place in the entire world. As far as New York goes, well, New York casts a weird spell. It’s like hanging out with a friend who has a bad influence on you, you know? You get caught up for a while, but then once you get some distance you’re like oh wait there’s other shit out there. I always knew I would come back here though. I mean San Francisco is home to me.

SFBG: Yeah, I feel the same way. I would like to travel more though, which reminds me of why I really wanted to do this interview. How the hell does one go about becoming a travel writer? I mean, I see things come up on craigslist all the time, but they’re not, like, full time gigs. How did you lock down the Lonely Planet thing?
Stuart: My story is probably different from most travel writers. The Lonely Planet thing came about because of my 'zine. I started off with this 30-page 'zine, which was mildly successful, and then I did a longer version of it, which was even more successful, as far as 'zines go. Somewhere along the lines, it fell into the hands of someone at Lonely Planet who happened to be a friend-of-a-friend’s uncle. He liked it, so he put me in touch with someone in Australia, where they’re based. They liked it too and eventually asked me to submit some writing samples, which they also liked. When I passed that mark, I joined their official author pool and I just had to wait for an opportunity.

SFBG: So then they just started giving you gigs?
Stuart: You don’t just get the gigs that easy. You have to petition for them. So I basically just put it out there that I would pretty much go wherever they needed me to go. The guy who was going to update the Ireland book dropped out at the last minute and Lonely Planet gave me a call. I was like, fuck yeah I’ll do it. I speak English. I speak Guinness.

SFBG: And now you’re a high-rolling travel writer. Honestly dude, I’m jealous.
Stuart: Ha! It’s not as great as you think man. You wanna hear a funny story?

SFBG: Of course.
Stuart: When I got the Ireland gig I threw this really big going-away/getting-out-of-the-restaurant-industry-forever party. I was like, I’m a professional fucking writer now. Fuck restaurants. All you restaurant assholes can suck my dick. Fuck ya’ll. And then I came back from Ireland a few months later, broke-as-shit, and well, back to the restaurants I went. Slavin’ away.

SFBG: I’ve had a few of those parties myself. So what’s up now? Are you going back to restaurants again?
Stuart: Yeah man. I’ll be working in restaurants while I’m finishing up my New York book, but after that I’ll be pursuing travel writing more, pitching articles, and all that. There’s even talk of a Broke Ass Stuart TV show. For right now though, my life’s in shambles. I should probably go finish moving my shit out of storage and into my temporary sublet. It sucks though, because I’m just going to have to move it out again at the end of the month. After that I don’t know what’s going to happen.

SFBG: Sounds pretty glamorous.
Stuart: Shit, man. It gets a little hard sometime, but I’m not complaining.

SFBG: Any last words?
Stuart: Thanks for the beer. Buy my book.

Post a comment