Keeping the World Alive

Marked Men, Breeders, CIVIC, SWEAT & Judy Reeves

Last weekend I attended a celebration of Judy Reeves’s new memoir When the Heart Says Go about booking an around-the-world ticket after her husband passed away in 1991. The event was held at the special events suite at the Central Library in downtown San Diego. It’s a big, airy space and every seat was filled. It was kind of a big deal for Judy, who has mentored so many writers over the years, and it was kind of a big deal for me, who became one of those mentees at a critical time in my life.

Some people don’t know what to do with themselves when they get sober. Instead of focusing on their recovery they invent new problems for themselves. That wasn’t my issue. I was a writer and I was all too aware of the many ways I was shooting myself in the foot due to many years of substance abuse. One of the first things I did after I quit drinking was sign up for a memoir-writing class with Tom Larson at San Diego Writers, Ink in downtown San Diego.

I was greeted by a familiar face in Lizz Huerta, whom I’d known from the local poetry scene and is a long-time friend of Nuvia’s. Tom, who was also at Judy’s event, led a brilliant workshop, which isn’t a sentence you’ll hear from me very often. In my opinion, Tom has written one of the best craft books on the writing nonfiction, and The Memoir and the Memoirist has shaped my thinking about the form. It’s a book I return to often and have shared with other writers.

But what I really wanted to do was work on my novel. In the manic months before I got sober, I’d been dropped by my agent, abandoned the novel I’d been working on for the previous two years, and cobbled together a terrifying pile of words about a copywriter at a tribal casino who speeds up his circuit around the drain with epic alcohol and drug abuse. Either Tom or someone else in the workshop recommended me to Judy’s weekly read-and-critique group. Unlike a workshop that would end after a few months, Judy’s group was ongoing. Theoretically, I could submit my entire novel—ten pages at a time, every other week.

Judy was wise, patient, kind, and as I would soon discover, also in recovery. She had a great gift for helping me see my work in new ways, through the lens of others, yes, but also in terms of the places being described or—as was often the case—not being described.

One time Judy wrote a strange message in the margin: K.T.W.A. After class, I asked her what it meant.

“Keep the world alive!” Judy explained that the world my characters inhabited was still mostly in my head and not on the page, that if I wanted readers to go on this journey with me, I needed to give them a sense that the world they moved around in was tangible and real.

“When I’m in a casino,” she said, “I never forget that I’m in a casino. Why should your book be any different?”

Thanks to Judy, and the friends I made in the space that she created, that pile of words became an actual book that exists in the world called Forest of Fortune. More importantly, Judy’s group, which met at her house, was an oasis of clarity and calm during a time that was very chaotic. I was trying to manage how to be a husband and a father on top being a writer—all without alcohol. I’m still trying it figure it out, but Judy showed me that I could do it.  

So it was thrill to see so many people come out to celebrate Judy as she launches her book into the world. She pulled out all the stops and had a nice spread, a spiffy neon sign with her book title blazing away, and a collection of books that inspired her journey, including a 1991 edition of Let’s Go, the budget travelers’ bible before the Internet. (Why is it hard to talk about using books to navigate the world without sounding like Magellan?

Join me in congratulation Judy and wishing her well on her new journey with this book, and in case you’re looking for a little inspiration, Judy has also authored several books about writing.

Am I an all-or-nothing kind of person?

It sometimes seems that one week I’ll spend all my free time watching extreme Japanese cinema and then the next week I’ll be home in my robe reading poetry and then the following week I’ll kick off my slippers and go to a bunch of punk rock shows. This has been one of those weeks.

Last week I went to Casbah to see Marked Men from Texas and Generacion Suicida from LA. I missed most of Generacion Suicida and only caught the last few songs of their set, but I’d been listening to them all week and was entertained and impressed by their moody grooves laid over aggressive beats.

Marked Men were Marked Men. The legends of Denton, Texas, spawned a slew of imitators in the early 00s, but none could capture the blend of pure melody, melancholy, and sonic aggression that makes Marked Men unique.

It’s so strange that shows start earlier (and end earlier) now. Was it the pandemic? Are clubs pandering to the olds? Because I was out the door by 10:45 and in bed by 11. I beat a hasty retreat because I knew I’d be back at it the following evening to see The Breeders at the North Park Observatory.

There are bands that worm their way into your psyche without you being aware of it and The Breeders are one of those bands for me. When I was working at Eagles Coffee Pub in North Hollywood in the early ‘90s, there were about 15 CDs that we were allowed to play on the stereo system. Because the owners were industry professionals, it was an excellent sound system, so anything too loud or too aggressive sounded really loud and aggressive.

Bel Canto and Bitch’s Brew. Tom Waits and Tom Tom Club. A reggae mix. The Breeders Last Splash made the cut. Last Splash is a weird little record, an exercise in vibes, with Kim Deal’s sweetly laconic vocals setting a low-key mood but backed with bursts of supercharged guitars that sporadically ramp up the energy, like flares from a distant sun.

Standing at the North Park Observatory last week I was only dimly aware of all this. I’d looked at set lists online to see what I was in for and recognized a handful of titles because I thought I was only a casual fan. Then and now. I remember the first time I heard “Safari,” an absolute monster of a song, I said to the person next to me, “This is The Breeders?”

Last week, The Breeders played Last Splash from start to finish, which is one of my favorite experiences as a fan of live music. After a few songs I realized I knew every song, the way they ebbed and flowed, the intensities.

Playing a record from start to finish is hard. This was on full display as the show was interrupted while players swapped instruments and switched out guitars, which then needed to be tuned and retuned, effects modified for each individual soundscape. That made the show less cohesive than I would have liked.

For instance, when Kim Deal broke a string, the show ground to a halt. When it happened at the Casbah, Marked Men didn’t stop playing. They hunkered down and went for it.

Last night’s show at the Soda Bar was an all-timer. I went to see CIVIC from Australia play in San Diego for the first time. I didn’t like 2023’s Taken By Force as much as I liked Future Forecast, but they did not disappoint. However, SoCal hardcore band SWEAT stole the show IMO. They’ve got a new album from Vitriol Records coming out next year and I expect they’ll be making plenty of noise in 2024.

Tonight I’m going to the Tower Bar to see Smierc, a Swedish hardcore band (that sings in Polish), and a trio of hardcore bands from San Diego: Rival Squad, Angel Cuts, and Missing Limbs. Then tomorrow I’ll be driving on 5 (Hi, John!) to see Off! in LA. This will be the fifth time I’ve seen Off! play on the Free LSD Tour but I’ve never seen Keith play in Hermosa Beach—the birthplace of American hardcore. Stoked! Also on the bill are CUNTS and HB locals One Square Mile. Then I’m going to see DC legends Soulside and Scream at Genghis Cohen where if memory serves I performed spoken word at an open mic night 30 years ago. (Skip, can you help me out on this?) Soulside is a bucket list band for me and I expect to expire at the conclusion of “Clifton Walls.”

Is it any wonder I have trouble keeping the world alive when it goes by in a blur? Don’t worry, I’ll be back in my bathrobe, sipping tea, weighing in on Irish novels… or Henry Rollins… or whatever the next obsession is…

If you’re new-ish here and you liked this newsletter you might also like my new novel Make It Stop, or the paperback edition of Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall of SST Records, or my book with Bad Religion, or my book with Keith Morris. Message from the Underworld comes out every Wednesday and is always available for free, but paid subscribers also get Orca Alert! every Sunday. It’s a weekly round-up of links about art, culture, and science you may have missed while trying to avoid the shitty news about [gestures at everything].