So I’m heading out for the first leg of the National Dinner tour – California! In preparation, I’ve sold my truck and bought this gem of an RV. Despite the fuel leak and some other minor problems, I think it’ll do. Over the next few weeks I’ll be preparing for the journey.

As it stands right now, there will be no TV show or book and it’s all personally funded. The major media players wanted the project to be about dating – my quest to find a wife! Cause I wouldn’t budge and said the project is about community building and the importance of conversation, they took their interests elsewhere. Oh well! I’ll be doing some odd jobs along the way and trying to get funding from private sources, i.e. grants. Thanks to those who have supported the tour already with their private donations. So keep an eye out for me and maybe we can share some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch somewhere along the way. All the best!

In an effort to get another full-fledged national dinner tour off the ground, I have carefully placed my name and cell phone number on a piece of furniture in a well-known furniture catalog. I’m unable to make mention of the particular catalog, because they have requested that I remove their name from my site. This will in no way effect the tour, and I will complete it as planned, without mentioning “the catalog” company. The National Dinner Tour II is non-profit, non-commercial, and personally funded. It is based completely on chance (who will call the number on the piece of furniture), and the dinners will serve as a forum for individuals to share conversation and exchange ideas.

To Date, I have received over 15,000 calls and e-mails regarding the project. The calls range from Portland, MN to my very own San Francisco, and all the way accross the world in Japan, South America, Australia, The UK, Canada, The Vigin Islands and many other countries. Strangly, the project has already taken me to several homes through national and international radio, television, and newspapers.

If you would like more information or would like to participate in the project, please e-mail or call 510.872.7326. The project is slated to commence later this month and continue through the year. I’m interested in meeting with as many people as humanly possible as it is your life stories and hometowns that make this project happen.

click to listen to a few of the phone messages I received as a result of publishing my name and number in the catalogue

I’m looking to eventually produce a book/ documentary about the project, so keep your eyes peeled.

I recently did a huge media tour, which aided in the amount of calls cause they kept reproducing my number everytime I was on the air – click here to see the press video.

Here is what the Gothamist had to say about the tour on 10/08/04 just when the media started getting excited about it, things have gotten much bigger and changed quite a bit since:

Crate & Barrel Catalogue: A New Pick Up Scene

Who said snail mail was dead? A photo assistant who put his phone number in a Crate & Barrel catalog received 500 calls from the curious. San Franciscan Marc Horowitz added a bit of realism to the Hideaway Home Office Armoire by writing “Dinner w/Marc” and his phone number on the whiteboard (and, yes, Gothamist paged through C&B’s online catalogue to find the image, which was at the end of the book). And people called him, and now he’s got 70 dinner dates across the country lined up – dates with women, couples, and other people he felt were “interesting.” Naturally, Marc has a website, I Need To Stop Soon, and aspirations of turning his 70 “Dinners w/Marc” into a film. The Post reports that Crate & Barrel weren’t thrilled at first, but since the situation was out of their hands, their spokeswoman says, “We do have sense of humor — it happened and we have no ill feelings. But we do think Marc owes our CEO a dinner.” Gothamist is distressed by the sorry state of meeting people for some. Don’t these people have computers? There’s MeetUp, for God’s sake! But we’re impressed with Marc’s chutzpah. The boldest we’ve ever been with giving out our phone number is drunkenly insisting that a mutual acquaintance pass it along.
Posted by Jen Chung in Style