WHAT'S NEW

WELCOME TO THE NEW HEY-JOE.NET!

By Ted Lerner

This new site has been a long time coming! For several years�over three I believe�the old hey-joe.net sat idle doing a whole lot of nothin', just like some of the standby's(young unemployed guys) hangin out at a provincial carinderia(canteen) in the Philippines. Well not exactly nothin'. It did its job for a while. But it became stale and covered in cyber dust. And it just seemed to become useless.

Why was that? Well, it had everything to do with that technology trap many of us seem to fall into these days. Back in 2003, about the time my book, �The Traveler and the Gate Checkers� was released, I got a great web designer to make me a fantastic looking website. Man, that old site was the bomb. It was beautiful. We sold some books for sure. Problem was, when I wanted to fix or add something, I could never get a hold of the guy. Then when I did, it took him forever just to update the thing. Then he just disappeared. And I had no clue how to even access my own account much less change a few colors on the site. I was left hanging in website limbo-hell.

Things seemed to go downhill from there. It just sat there unchanged. Then it became out of date and useless. Of course I wanted and needed a proper website. Who doesn't want a nice site nowadays? But I was so clueless about the inner workings of websites that I was actually scared to go out and go through the whole process again. Web designers brimming with big ideas come and go in these parts. They all promise you the world. But it's a slippery slope for sure. You hand over a down payment and then you never hear from the guy. Or the design isn't what you had in mind. And I was terrified to try it myself because I knew that would open a whole big can of slippery, slimy worms. Call it a bad case of website phobia. I wanted a nice site but was literally scared to take the plunge. Overwhelmed with it all, I chose to turn my back. I simply didn't have the heart to deal with it.

Then came the re-release of my first book, �Hey,Joe,� in the third quarter of 2007. (read more about that below.) I knew I had to take the bull by his big balls and take myself to technological places that I'd never been before. After all, I told myself, I was a communications major at the University of Michigan. If I wanted to communicate in the early 21 st Century, I needed to upgrade my skills and learn how to do this thing myself, no matter how painful. I needed to be able to take control of the mother ship, and steer my message to where I wanted it to go. I needed to learn how to make my own website and upload the damn pages myself!

Web savvy folks out there can laugh all they want.(I'm more than willing to be the butt of jokes. I am a writer after all.) But this is no small matter for a web dummy like myself and many others. The internet is an incredible tool, but getting to that level where you can comfortably do your own thing on the web is a massive leap. The first time I opened up the ftp program and actually uploaded my own pages, which I worked on myself, was a revelation of biblical significance.(in my mind anyway.) I felt like Captain Kirk.

Anyway, now that I've dived in to this�learning the workings of the web design program Dreamweaver, working with images in Photoshop, uploading my own pages�there is clearly no turning back. I'm still a novice at this, and it helps that I have my friend Fred backing me up here. Fred's a tech giant who has shown me the way to be in control of my own ship. Fred's still down at mission control so at least I have a reliable voice to talk to when things go awry.

And so here we are now, late September, 2007. Hey-Joe.net is up and running and you can buy my books and read stories old and new about the Philippines and Asia and other topics of interest. For sure this site is a work in progress. I'm not going to say it's perfect or finished in any way. Which is actually the way it should be. I like to think of hey-joe.net as an organic site which will shed its skin regularly. But at least it works and, more importantly, I'm in control. Or at least I think I am. Frankly, no matter how many techno leaps I'm able to make in this e-world of ours, doubt and lack of confidence seem to hound me wherever I go. I guess it comes with the territory in this warp speed age.�Ted Lerner

TED LERNER'S BOOK �HEY, JOE� RE-RELEASED.

NOW AVAILABLE NATIONWIDE IN THE PHILIPPINES!

After two years being off the market, �Hey, Joe� , Ted Lerner's timeless classic depicting the ups and downs of a foreigner's life in Manila, has finally been re-released with a new publisher.

The Corregidor Peace Institute Press (CPIP), based out of Angeles City, Pampanga, is proud to announce the re-release of �Hey, Joe.� First published by Book of Dreams Verlag, Germany in 2000, �Hey, Joe� has been a popular mainstay in the local literary scene, entertaining both expats and Filipinos. Under its previous publisher, �Hey,Joe� sold over 8000 copies both in the Philippines and abroad.

The book derives its name from the phrase, �Hey, Joe,� which Filipinos once used to greet American GI's all the way back during World War II and even earlier. The phrase has since morphed into a friendly generic greeting which nearly every foreign guy in the Philippines hears on a daily basis. And perhaps nobody personifies the meaning of this moniker better than Ted Lerner, whose column, �Hey, Joe� has been entertaining readers in the Philippines and abroad for nearly 12 years. Most of the stories in the book originally appeared in a similar form in Manila's Businessworld newspaper, where Ted wrote his popular �Hey, Joe� column every week for six straight years from 1995 to 2001.

�Hey, Joe� is now available nationwide in the Philippines at all National Book Store branches, Fully Booked, PowerBooks, SM Kultura and other fine outlets. You can also purchase �Hey,Joe at the following hotels and establishments in Angeles City, Pampanga: ABC Hotel, Swagman Hotel, Pacific Breeze Hotel, The Orchid Inn, The Wild Orchid Inn, the Orange Lion Hotel, the Central Park Hotel, and CPI Call Shop and Business Café.

You can also order "Hey,Joe" and "The Traveler and the Gate Checkers" right here. We usually ship within 24 hours. BUY IT NOW.

For Philippines residents who wish to get a signed copy of "Hey,Joe" and/or "The Traveler and the Gate Checkers, click here. The books will be signed by Ted Lerner, thereby increasing the value of the books exponentially. That's because Ted uses very expensive ink.

For special and bulk orders, please contact info@hey-joe.net

FREE DOWNLOADS FROM �HEY, JOE� AND

�THE TRAVELER AND THE GATE CHECKERS.�

In keeping with that new business philosophy sweeping the globe called �Just give it away for free,� we're offering our visitors the chance to read parts of Ted Lerner's �Hey,Joe� and �The Traveler and the Gate Checkers� for absolutely no charge. That's right free!

For �Hey,Joe� you can download the entire first chapter, �Life on Arquiza St.� by clicking here. For �The Traveler and the Gate Checkers,� you can download the first eight pages of �A Fistful of Kip,� a story about a journey to Laos, which is one of five travel tales in Ted Lerner's second book. For that story click here.