CUNY at the Crossroads

 

Earlier this Fall I teamed up with some very bright comrades in the City University of New York (CUNY) system to draft an accessible guide to CUNY's political history and the challenges we face today. Even if you aren't in the CUNY system, I'd reccomend this text to anyone grappling with the battle over accessible public services under the coming presidential administration. If you're organizing around these issues, or if you're just in New York and would like to connect, drop us a line!  

The full text and a printable version of the guide can be found here. To order paper copies, email cunystruggleinfo@gmail.com.

Hard Crackers Issue 2 Release // Open Forum on the US Election

 

This Sunday (11/20) join Noel Ignatiev and other contributors to Hard Crackers for a discussion the unfolding political situation in the United States. We will also be launching our second issue. 

Hard Crackers is dedicated to taking the pulse of everyday life in the US -- the good, the bad, and the ugly. Our writing has focused on examining race, class, wage labor, incarceration, and the madness of life in the contemporary United States, from standpoints of everyday working class experience.

As the merchants of conventional wisdom pluck the typical low hanging fruit to explain the upset victory of Donald Trump, it is more urgent than ever to push against easy answers and face the complex realities of daily life that contributed to this moment. In other words: What the hell is going on in this country? 

Sunday 11/20, 2pm

Freddy's Bar and Backroom

627 5th Avenue, Brooklyn 11215

Hard Crackers #2 Now Available

Hard Crackers #2 is now available for purchase online! I have a short piece about fine dining behind bars, which I wrote before I realized that dude Prodigy from Mobb Deep has a book of prison recipes out this year. Oh well. Below is Noel Ignatiev's editorial introduction to this issue, which really sets the table for what you're in for this time around:

Welcome to the second issue of Hard Crackers: Chronicles of Everyday Life, with reports from north and south, New England to California and up and down the Midwest, depicting life at work, in prison, on the street, efforts to save communities, reminiscences of growing up in another time and comments on films old and new. There are obvious gaps in our coverage, which we hope to fill in future issues.

As we send this issue off to be laid out and printed, we note three things happening in the country: 1) the prison strike called for September 9; 2) Standing Rock, North Dakota; 3) Charlotte, North Carolina. It is too soon to provide analyses; for now it is enough to know which side we are on.

From a correspondent:

CNN interviewed an unnamed person in Charlotte who assisted a protestor:

UNNAMED PERSON: “I left the hospital after an asthma attack. I went to Buffalo Wild Wings. I was
walking down the street with my wings. I saw a man on the ground bleeding. I helped carry him into the Omni hotel. The police were not helping. Gosh! They held me there in custody. I ended back in the hospital with an asthma attack.

CNN INTERVIEWER: “You mean you had a second asthma attack in the tear gas, and you are back out on the street again tonight! Why are you there?”

UNNAMED PERSON: “I used to just walk around. Now I have to walk around with an inhaler. But you have to take a stand. If you do not stand for something you will die for nothing.”

That is why we publish Hard Crackers.

New Essay in Insurgent Notes, Readings in Brooklyn and Providence

I wrote a piece on a work stoppage at Rikers Island for the Insurgent Notes journal. It can be read here.

If you're in Brooklyn on Saturday 9/10, come by a talk I'm giving at 1pm, along with some friends, on this piece and other observations from EMTC. We'll be speaking at Freddy's Bar, 627 5th Avenue in South Slope. Here's the event page. This event is sponsored by Insurgent Notes, and Hard Crackers.

And if you're near Providence the following Saturday, 9/17, check out a reading Noel Ignatiev and I are doing to celebrate the release of Hard Crackers Issue I. We'll be at the IWW union hall, 375 Smith St, Providence, at 6pm. Here's the event page.

Morbid Tales: An Anthology of Weird Fiction

Death Wound Publishing has been generous enough to publish one of the strangest essays I've ever written, "The Marriage of Maria Braun, Sequel to Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS" in a short fiction anthology available now! It's a must-read for all fans of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the most execrable dregs of exploitation cinema, and Michel Foucault's 1978 lecture series The Birth of Biopolitics. So, basically... nobody.

The essay appears in an anthology entitled Morbid Tales: An Anthology of Weird Fiction, alongside nine other stories that are equally, if not more, bat shit insane. Needless to say I recommend everybody get a copy, along with DW's other dope publications.

This essay is part of a planned "Sequel To" series. I have also written "Bad Lieutenant, Sequel to Blue Collar", which may see the light one of these days. Say something nice about this one and I may write another.

Great review of Hard Crackers from Louis Proyect, and a hot PSC-CUNY contract debate

Louis Proyect wrote perhaps the best review yet of Hard Crackers. Here's my favorite excerpt:

The articles in the premiere issue of Hard Crackers were just the kind that I dote on. They remind me of Harvey Swados’s classic 1957 Bildungsroman “On the Line”, a collection of stories about being an auto worker in the Mahwah Ford Plant. Or Michael Yates’s In and Out of the Working Class. Or even the novels and short stories of Charles Bukowski, who while by no means being a Marxist, conveyed through his fiction the observation made by Karl Marx in Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844: “…the worker feels himself only when he is not working; when he is working, he does not feel himself. He is at home when he is not working, and not at home when he is working.”

We're working on Issue 2 right now, and I don't think Louis will be disappointed. 

On the workplace front, my group CUNY Struggle has been part of an exciting grassroots campaign to defeat a terrible union contract being rushed through without debate in the summer while many people are away. Check out CUNYStruggle.org for a number of fantastic pieces making the case for a NO! vote. We had an action two weeks ago that got some press, and have otherwise been getting a little publicity here and there. I wrote a position piece on a NO! vote, which I left unsigned since the ideas came from everyone, especially Ruth Wangerin. I was also quoted to this effect in the Chronicle of Higher Education, in a piece languishing behind a paywall. Here is the video I made as a part of our "Faces of the NO! Campaign" project, where I expand on the same points.

  

New piece in Marmalade Umlaut

Hi readers! I have a new piece in my favorite hand made punk rock vegan zine with a strong female lead, Marmalade Umlaut. "Cruelty Free in a Cruel World" documents the struggle to keep a vegan diet behind bars. It can be done! 

To order, click on over to Food Feud and order Issue #34 (and all the other issues!) in the right sidebar. Thanks to MU for having this piece, and stop eating animals, it's just tacky. 

My piece "Some Bullshit" from Hard Crackers #1 now online

Thanks to everyone who came out to the release event last month, the other readers Mike Morgan, Tony Maniscalco, and Andy Folk, John Garvey and Noel for emceeing the event, and to Andy B for making actual hard tack! It was disgusting but strangely compelling. "Tough and edgy", as Marcus Rediker called issue #1. Here's a photo of me reading. Thanks to Maud for the photo, and to Ben Sherman on Mercer Street for going out of business and providing me with such a snazzy shirt.

My piece "Some Bullshit" is now available to read on the new HC website. You can also check out the growing responses to Issue #1, collected on our website, and this cranky and ultimately generous review written by Paul Buhle as a part of his "Good Summer Reading on the Left".

Issue #2 should be ready in the early Fall. If you're interested in taking part, get in touch!

Reading at Freddy's Bar in Brooklyn 5/22 to Celebrate the Release of Hard Crackers

Sunday 5/22, 1pm

Freddy's Bar (back room)

627 5th Avenue btw 17th and 18th, Brooklyn

R to Prospect Ave, or B63 bus

Celebrate the release of Hard Crackers with editors and contributors! We want to share our new journal with you, hear suggestions for future issues, and twist your arm into becoming a contributor. 

Readers will include HC editors and contributors Jarrod Shanahan (It's A Tough Economy!) and Mike Morgan (Lurch). 

Come and show your support for this new project!

"Hard Crackers is a new periodical looking at the lives of “ordinary people,” among whom there exists the capacity to overturn the present mess and build a new society. A place where black people can express their bitterness at the prolonged mistreatment they have suffered at the hands of whites, and where the resentment on the part of many whites at being blamed for a history they do not think is their fault can also be heard. “The alliance between a real estate tycoon and the people who live in shacks and trailer parks cannot endure.” This publication grew out of discussions among people who had been involved with the journal Race Traitor and virtually every article deals directly or indirectly with race."

-description from AK Press distribution (https://www.akpress.org/hard-crackers.html)

Hard Crackers, Issue 1

Issue I of Hard Crackers is now available for purchase through AK Press. Founded by Noel Ignatiev of Race Traitor (and a fantastic editorial team of which I am lucky to be part), these "Chronicles of Everyday Life" aim to document the complexities of daily life in the present, with an emphasis on the liberatory potential (and risk of reaction) of day to day life. In the time of the Trump ascendancy, our wager is, to quote Noel's introduction: "The alliance between a real estate tycoon and people who live in shacks and trailer parks cannot endure."

Presently there isn't any content online, so you just may have to buy this slick little commodity. I contributed a new essay "Some Bullshit", dealing with an experience all too common to many New Yorkers. Other essays revolve around topics like hospice care, factory work, running track, growing up in Brooklyn, life on the margins of white society in Apartheid South Africa, and a nice primer on the basic race politics of the US Civil War. Anyone interested in contributing to future issues should contact me or Noel. 

CUNY Struggle

For the past six months I've been organizing in the CUNY system, where I work as a graduate teaching fellow while earning a PhD. My union the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) has been mounting an increasingly confrontational strike campaign. A group of my fellow rank-and-filers started a small ad hoc

grouping called CUNY Struggle, to help facilitate a broader-based CUNY movement, while serving as a platform for cooperation and debate. 

Earlier this year we launched CUNYStruggle.org, a resource for news, analysis, and debate around CUNY activism. This week, as the PSC prepares to vote on authorizing a strike, I offered up my analysis on the role of trade unions in our society, and the CUNY situation in particular. The piece is entitle "I'm Voting Yes on Strike Authorization", and while the analysis is by no means perfect or complete, it represents my attempt of some years to come to grips with the role of trade unions in the US class struggle. If you're in the CUNY system or have some writing you think would fit on the site, email cunystruggleinfo@gmail.com. 

Piece in Art Handler Magazine

Art Handler Magazine has published my piece "Review of Chicago: The Very Best of Judy Chicago, by an Art Handler" in their inaugural issue. This is a cool publication worth supporting, and I hope to contribute to future issues.

Two Chapbooks Featured in "Our Comics, Ourselves"

Two of my and Nate's chapbooks are featured in a fantastic comic show at Interference Archive in Gowanus called "Our Comics, Ourselves". Here is how the curators describe it:

The exhibition Our Comics, Ourselves: Identity, Expression, and Representation in Comic Art presents the graphic stories that describe the complexity and diversity of our collective experience, and examines the social and historical contexts within which they emerged. Through comics we are not only able to recognize ourselves and our own experiences, but also the experiences of others. We can deepen our understanding of the world around us by reading these stories and engaging with their intricacies.

The curators selected "Satan Was So Over It" and "Sobertime!!1", which appear alongside many truly excellent zines and comics from all kinds of rad weirdos. I think I forgot to tell Nate this was happening actually. Man I haven't talked to Nate in a while and I really miss that guy. Anyway, Nate, if you're reading this, your art finally made it to Gowanus.

Thanks to Jan for having us, and thanks as always to Interference for their non-stop awesome programming. Sorry it took me so long to check this out.

The show is up through April 17th, at 131 8th St in Brooklyn.

Hard Crackers

I'm honored to be on the editorial board of Hard Crackers, a new journal spearheaded by my good friend Noel Ignatiev (Race Traitor, etc.). Below is the introductory essay, written by Noel. Get in touch if you'd like to participate.

American society is a time-bomb where the big explosion, whatever its form might be, is endlessly hinted at by the more or less horrifying “little” degradations of daily rape, murder, stupid violence of different varieties (perhaps most notably urban gang violence), episodic mass killings (with or without apparent motive), drug and alcohol-induced stupors, drug overdoses, callous health care and classroom teaching,

apparently crazy people talking on subway platforms, and so forth.  We “see” these kinds of events in different ways—sometimes up close and personal, other times by reading the local newspapers or the online media or watching cable TV.

Reading for the release of Jasmine Gibson's DRAPETOMANIA, Verso Loft 10/17

Hey Jarrod there's a line about you in my new chapbook!

Oh yeah, what is it?

"We saw a depressing Russian movie and now you're in a psychiatric hospital". 

I am so fuckin' excited to be joining my bestie Jasmine Gibson for the release of her new chapbook DRAPETOMANIA, from Commune Editions. Verso has been on a goddamned mission to make me feel bad for all the fun I have made of their press over the years, and has opened their dope loft to this very special evening of poetry and debauchery. If these people have any damn sense at all I'll be reading early and for not very long at all. Maybe Jasmine will finally teach me how to get other people to publish your shit. 

:: DRAPETOMANIA ::

It's a party for my chapbook, Drapetomania, released off of Commune Editions. You shd wear a costume. Get witchy and weird.

7pm

@ Verso Loft (that place you got drunk and embarrassed yourself after Left Forum that time)

20 Jay Street, Brooklyn

With readings by:

R U B Y B R U N T O N
::: is a New Zealand-raised poet and performer who now lives in Brooklyn. She spends a lot of time thinking about how to create community and education alternatives. Find her on twitter & tumblr @rubybrunton :::

S T E P H O N L A W E R E N C E
::: is a Brooklyn born & based writer, poet, & artist. She goes to art school, watches anime, & shouts at white people. You can find her on twitter @nnohpetss::

S A D E M A R T H A M A RY M U R P H Y
:::is a poet and artist from Houston, TX. Sade is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, the author of Dream Machine (co-im-press, 2014), and a columnist at Real Pants (Lonely Britches and What's the Tea). They are pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing and Activism at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. They are the current chapbooks editor for Horseless Press and co-curate a reading series held at Pete’s Candy Store.:::

J A R R O D S H A N A H A N
:::is a writer, activist, zinester, retired truck driver and mad scientist at the CUNY Grad Center. Jarrod's work has appeared in VICE, The New Inquiry, Keep This Bag Away from Children and the Gothamist. His chapbooks include "Satan Was So Over it" and "Twilight Reflections on a Ethically Raised Life" and "I Gave You The Gowanus!", and his debut novel It's a Tough Economy was released by Grixly in 2014::

A R T U R O C A S T I L LI O N

::aka Artie the One Man Party::

Art work by K Y L E M O W AT will be available for purchase.

Popsickle 2015!

Against their better judgment, the fantastic Popsickle liverary festival has invited me back, yet again, to poison the minds of poets from all over North America who have made Brooklyn their home (and this one dude from Bed Stuy who may be there). Join me and the inimitable Jasmine Gibson on June 20th and 21st (we read Saturday), for what promises to be a sweaty day with lots of words and a train rumbling by every 10 minutes. On a nostalgic notes, the first Popsickle was five years ago, right down the street at the space above Mr. Kiwi, and the JM trains provided some of the most boisterous contributions to the day, Its nice to have the J back this year, as it is equally wonderful to hear New Yorkers complain that the train runs too much.

POPSICKLE is Brooklyn’s literary arts festival. Now in its sixth year, the fest aims to unite Brooklyn’s array of reading series, publishers, and literary organizations into one weekend-long megareading. POPSICKLE 2015  is coordinated by Niina Pollari, Zane Van Dusen, and JD Scott. POPSICKLE is free and open to the public.

POPSICKLE 2015 will take place on Saturday and Sunday, June 20th at the Living Gallery (1094 Broadway, Brooklyn), and Sunday the 21st at Soda Bar (629 Vanderbilt Ave, Brooklyn).

Another New Release And Tabling At The BK Zine Fest!!1

I'm back in the news, with a new release and a spot at this years BK Zine Fest!

"Twilight Reflections On An Ethically Raised Life" is the first person account of an "ethically raised" cow facing his fate on the eve of a one-way trip to the Park Slope Food Co-Op. Written by yours truly, illustrated by the inimitable Nate McDonough, and released on the indefatigable Grixly imprint, this tale is sure to quell any doubts the reader may have about ethics, humanism, and the future of reason. It is now available online (along with a number of other Jarrod and Nate works) from the Gnarly store, in addition to NYC locations Desert Island, Book Thug Nation, Human Relations, Bluestockings, St. Marks Books, and Carmine Street Comics, and Copacetic comics in Pittsburgh, which was gracious enough to host Nate and me for a memorable release event earlier this month. 


OR you can come find me this weekend to pick up this and all existent Jarrod releases (except for the "Shhh..." chapbook, still haven't found a hard copy of that) at the fourth annual Brooklyn Zine Fest. I will be tabling on SUNDAY. There are also some great discussions on Saturday, including my vegan buddy Maud heading up a yummy food panel at 1pm, and a panel on zines and the Black Lives Matter movement at 3.

Dear diary, 

Things are looking up!

Your pal,

Jarrod



UPDATE: This was awesome! Thanks to the organizers, to Marmalade Umlaut, and everyone who came by to check out my work. Quite unexpectedly I sold a ton of shit and actually ran out of "Satan...", so if you missed the boat on this red hot commodity pick one up from the Gnarly store today!

Until we meet again...

All Kinds Of Fun News

Good news Jarrod fans! Next week Nate and I are debuting our fourth collaborative effort, "Twilight Reflections On An Ethically Raised Life" — being the tortured last testament of an "ethically-farmed" cow facing his imminent execution, dwelling in the loneliness of his very own Gethsemane, and, well, ruminating on the meaning of his fate, all in the interest of fresh, locally-murdered dead flesh stocking the shelves of the Park Slope Food Co-Op.

Nate and I will be celebrating this and our other new(ish) collaboration "SOBERTIME!!1" in Pittsburgh on Wednesday April 8th. I'll be reading a story or two and we'll have mad shit for sale. This reading is brought to you by the generosity of $1 Megabus tickets.

In other awesome news, Nate and my luminous joint effort SOBERTIME!!1 and my boring non-illustrated prose chapbook I GAVE YOU THE GOWANUS! are now available for purchase on the almighty Gnarly As I Wannabe webstore. Also available for purchase are past collaborations of Nate and mine, the inimitable SATAN WAS SO OVER IT, and the almost-maybe-can-I-call-it-a novel IT'S A TOUGH ECONOMY!. In other words Nate and I have mad shit out there right now! I've been meaning to reprint my first chapbook "Shh... It's A Secret" (read it online here, from my tender days before I discovered caps lock) but have embarrassingly lost my only copy. I heard this also happened with The Sufferings of Young Werther, not to invite the comparison or anything. If any of you out there in Jarrodland have a copy of this rare classic I can borrow for a day or two, I'd love to run some off. 

Two New Chapbooks for 2015!

Interested in what your favorite author has been up to lately? Check out these two slick new chapbooks for the new year!

"Sobertime!!1" (14 pp, Grixly 2015) is the story of staying sober in the NYC summer. It features eye-popping illustrations by the inimitable Nate McDonough (grixly.com), my beloved collaborator of "Satan Was So Over It" and It's A Tough Economy! 

"I Gave You The Gowanus" (30 pp, Death Panel Press 2015) is the story of an intrepid group of developers hatching a plan to bring luxury to the shores of the Gowanus Canal, and the washed up Greek god who becomes their last hope for cleaning up this Superfund site to satisfy all those pesky environmental regulations.

Both will be available this week at the usual spots around NYC, and now Topos Bookstore in Queens, and coming soon to the Gnarly webstore (where my other collabs with Nate are always available).

I Cautiously Celebrate Return of Twin Peaks

...and the subsequent obsolescence of this flash fiction piece I dragged my feet on publishing. Enjoy!

Work Fridge
by Jarrod Shanahan

On my work fridge someone hung up a missing poster for the Twin Peaks character Laura Palmer, met with an angry note that “Laura was never missing". At first I sneered at this blatant display of Peaks poserdom. But then I realized this person has created a parallel universe in which the subject of Twin Peaks was the disappearance of Laura Palmer, not her murder, while simultaneously casting doubt on the reality of representation in the Twin Peaks program, and the perceptions of its characters. Thus, they have induced a transcendental state of indistinction between fiction and reality, rooted in the plasticity and subjectivity of both, and their inextricable interrelation. This lead me to the conclusion that this poster was placed on my work refrigerator by none other than David Lynch himself, and that its readers, myself, and now you, are all part of the Twin Peaks story, which is actually still being written, somewhere in that misty realm between sleeping reality and waking dreams.

Tough Economy Reviewed in Industrial Worker

Satan Review in Maximum Rocknroll

I hadn't sent anything to MRR since they wrote that Death Panel Literary Digest III "reads like the angsty offshoot of a community college literary journal... strictly for chain-smoking cafe-dwelling types." If I want to be insulted by a sassy punk I can just hang with Andy Folk. And he doesn't poke fun at peoples' class backgrounds either (is that PC now?!).

Anyway, I'm over it. So over it. And speaking of being so over it, Satan Was So Over It was selected in the top 10 zines for MRR's July 2014 issue, along with this generous review.

If you still haven't picked up a copy of SATAN, you can get one here. Strictly for sulfur-smoking Hell-dwelling types.

9 Reasons Why My Kitty is Featured on CATSTER.COM

1. I work as a residential mover in New York City.

2. I have an adorable kitty cat named Rasta and we love to snuggle and read together.

3. I like other kitties too...

4. Ahhh! Not as much as you Rasta! I only snuggle and read with you! Books we've read together include:

 

James T. Farrell's Studs Lonigan triology

Paul Mason's Why It's Still Kicking Off Everywhere

 

JG Ballard's Crash

Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre (Rasta and I are total Bro-ntes)


5. Last week I was "moving house" for this English guy Phillip with a very cute kitty named Mimosa.

6. Mimosa was making very cute noises and I couldn't help taking a video.

7. Phillip overheard me watching the video and revealed himself to be a blogger on the popular cat website Catster.com. 

8. Phillip said he was writing about his kitty and the experience of the move, and wanted to use my video. I said that's great, but what about my kitty! 

9. It's OK Rasta! Phillip agreed to include a picture of you in the article! Read it here! Thanks Phillip, now we can all rest easy. 

Reading At Popsickle V, Saturday June 28th In Brooklyn

As of writing, the 24 Hour Read-In is still rocking! You should stop by Grand Army Plaza today before 4pm and check it out. I had a great time reading last night, and thanks again to Urban Librarians Unite for putting this on. See you next year.

In more fun news, I'm reading again this year at the POPSICKLE literary arts festival in Brooklyn. Each year my old pal Niina Pollari puts on a day long reading comprised of dozens of local reading series and small presses. The readers are typically as good as the room is very very hot. The festival has jumped around over the past four years and is coming this year to DUMBO.

On June 28th M.T. Niagra and I will be reading at POPSICKLE on behalf of Death Panel Reading Series. I'm in the one o'clock spot, and M.T. is in the two. So get there on time! I'll be debuting a new piece I just finished about staying sober in the summertime. The rest of the schedule is up here and I encourage folks to come for me and stay all day. I'll have books and zines for sale for most of the day.

Reading At 24 Hour "Read-In" For NYC Public Libraries

 

This Saturday and Sunday (5/7-5/8) the group Urban Librarians Unite will be hosting a 24 hour reading on the steps of the Main Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library system, at Grand Army Plaza. I have participated in this before and its a fun way to call attention to the underfunding of libraries, and a generally awesome convergence of weird nerds. 

I will be reading some original work on Saturday at 10:30 PM, and plan to kick it a while before and after. Come hang out!

Handy Guide To My Boss Punching Story, Now With TEFL Lesson Plan

Last year I wrote a piece for VICE called I Punched My Boss In The Face. Despite the milquetoast political perspective (who am I kidding -- because of it), this bad boy has made its way around the Net more than anything else I've ever written.

The piece hopped the pond to VICE UK, before making it into Portugese, (joining in that language my "Beauty and a Beat" review, which I learned just now via an Internet search) and finally the almighty Deutsch.

 

OK, this was very clever.

I found this hilarious Reddit thread in which a bunch of teenage anarchists debate whether I could really be down for the struggle as a VICE employee. A lot of folks there and on other message boards expressed doubt in the truth of the story, which just tells me they have never worked in commercial trucking. (This was before I swore off reading Internet comments on my writing, and out of all the nasty shit people said about me and the piece, this was the point I came the closest to hopping in and debating. Because, you know, I'm fifteen years old.)

The biggest thrill however for me came from Libcom adding it to their archive, thus cementing my act of Google-assisted employment suicide for decades to come. Since then I've heard from a few teachers about using the piece in class, for the compositional quality (aw shucks) and the political content (ehh).

 Libcom had to paint it black!

The reason I'm writing this all now is because this week I found this dope TEFL lesson plan based on the piece, containing the pressing questions: "How would you describe the author's personality?" (Been asking myself that for almost thirty years!) And what does it mean to "blast" someone? I'm only too happy to guide the novice hand into the deepest recesses of cesspool known as the English language.

Since interest persists, I may as well mention that the story told in this piece, while completely true (did I mention that already?), is the basis for a chapter of my new book It's A Tough Economy!, alongside fictionalized versions of other true stories from around the same time.


Signed,

"Ohh... yeah... the boss punch guy!"

....And We're Back

   

The Tough Economy tour was awesome! Thanks to everyone who hosted Nate and I, put us up, came out to see us, bought our swag, etc. We'll be doing it again sooner than later.

The book is available from the Gnarly As I Wannabe store and you should get a copy there! Or if you don't feel like being punk, check it out on Amazon.com. Also after a brief lull between second and third printings (!!) the Satan chapbook is back. 

So far the book has received a lovely review on Small Press Picks. Also, excerpts have appeared in Keep This Bag Away From Children, and Communists In Situ. I've been catching up on some straight up bullshit since getting back from tour, but hopefully this summer will see more readings, more new work, and maybe a visit to YOUR city...