Planes, Trains & Automobiles
Corporate Rock Sucks Book Tour Part 1
For a brief period in the summer of 2018, I got to ride on the Bad Religion tour bus. It was during the European leg of the tour and I was following the band around Germany and Italy. What I didn’t know prior to that summer was Greg Graffin doesn’t travel with the band. So when I stepped off the tour bus, as improbable as it might seem, the locals thought I was Greg Graffin. The band thought this was hilarious, especially Jay Bentley who made me take pictures with fans.
I’ve been waiting four years to tell this story and in the last week I’ve told it four times. (If you were at one of the events where I told this story, don’t worry, I’m not going to repeat my whole introduction.) The point I was making then and now is that I’m so very happy to be able to celebrate the release of Corporate Rock Sucks with actual humans outside of my house. I took so many things for granted prior to the pandemic and I’m making the most of every opportunity to connect with readers. Here’s a recap of how the first half of the tour went…
April 12 at The Book Catapult in San Diego
San Diego is my home town now. I’ve lived here longer than I’ve lived anywhere else. I can’t stay away from this place. I was stationed here when I enlisted in the Navy. Hell, I was conceived here—in Imperial Beach no less. (Sorry if that’s TMI.)
Lots of regular readers of MFTU came out to celebrate with me at The Book Catapult as well as a handful of new acquaintances and friends. SST fans tend to look a lot like me: white, middle-aged, male—do I need to go any farther? So it was especially nice to see some young people in the audience. Also, shout out to The Book Catapult—my favorite bookstore in San Diego.
The real star of the show was Ray Farrell, former SST employee and record executive whose bio is so impressive we could have spent the entire hour on that alone. Ray was as generous and gracious in person as he was during our email exchanges. We had so much fun we’re going to do it again on Friday May 19 at the Barnes & Noble Encinitas at 6pm. Encinitas is Ray’s home turf so this time we’ll have a more in-depth conversation.
April 13 at Book Soup in West Hollywood
I woke up on Wednesday and took the train to LA. I did a few interviews at Union Station, ate a tuna sandwich at Philippe’s, and made my way to West Hollywood. I met up with Paul Rachman at Dialog Café, a place where you are guaranteed to see at least one writer working on a TV or film script (I was kind of envious to be honest).
Paul is a good friend and creative collaborator who was a huge help with the SST book. He cheered me along when I hit a wall and introduced me to several key contributors. Many of you know Paul as the director of American Hardcore but (and I’m going to embarrass him here) perhaps his best known work is the “Hunger Strike” video. That night Paul had a bit of news: the film adaptation of My Damage we are working on with Keith is starting to circulate around Hollywood, so light a candle for My Damage.
The editor I worked with on My Damage, Do What You Want, and Corporate Rock Sucks lives in West Hollywood part-time and he came to the reading. It was the first time I’d seen Ben since the pandemic. In this business, it’s great to have people who believe in you and Ben sits at the top of that list for me. Another highlight of the night was getting to meet Erin Osmon, who provided a lovely blurb for Corporate Rock Sucks. Erin wrote the book that accompanies the Hüsker Dü box set from Numero Group. Her concise and insightful history of the band influenced my own consideration of Hüsker Dü.
Also in attendance was Jack Rivera (aka Gilbert Berumen) who joined the Stains when he was 15 years old and drummed on the band’s self-titled album. Jack also contributed to the book and was instrumental in setting up an interview with Robert Becerra. One anecdote that didn’t make it into the book was Jack’s unbelievably high cymbal stands. According to photographer Wild Don Lewis, Jack would practically jump out of his seat to hit them. There was no musical reason for having them so high, it was all for dramatic effect. You can see one of these stands on the flip side of the album.
The last time I was at Book Soup I read with Barry Gifford. One person who came to both readings was Nolan Knight, who drove all the way up from Long Beach to be there. That tells you all you need to know about what a solid guy Nolan is. We hung out on the Sunset Strip for a bit and talked about the reissue of his novel from Down & Out books, which you should preorder this instant, and then he drove me to the airport. In the canon of LA saints, those who will give you a ride to and from LAX get an EZ Pass through the pearly gates.
April 14 at Powell’s Books in Portland
I caught the shuttle to the airport and took an early flight to Seattle. No, that’s not a typo—I flew to a city three hours north of Portland. Why? Because that’s where Josh Mohr lives.
The first time I encountered Josh’s work I was stuck on the freeway in Alpine, California, due to a brush fire. The book was his debut, Some Things That Meant the World to Me from Two Dollar Radio, and it made a big impression on me. I invited Josh to a Vermin on the Mount event and then another and another, and I gradually got to know Josh and his expanding body of work. If you need an example of an artist who gives everything to his art and then gives it all back to the world, look no further. Here’s a photo I took of Josh with the paperback of his memoir Model Citizen, which just came out. I’ve mentioned it in this newsletter before because it shares the name of a song by one of Greg Ginn’s guitartechno project Bias.
Josh agreed to do the event with me at Powell’s so we left for Portland and immediately encountered a snow squall. Josh and I could drive across the country and we’d never run out of things to talk about so let’s fast forward to the event. Portland weirds me out a little. I like dirty cities but dirty burbs are a different story and Portland seems like a city of sleazy little suburbs. The event organizer was another member of the legion of Vermin: Kevin Sampsell, who I hadn’t seen in ages. In fact there were so many members of the legion in attendance—Kevin Maloney, Blake Nelson, Johnny Shaw—we could have had a reunion reading. After the show we went back to the hotel and retired to our beds and literally fell asleep while talking. It was like a slumber party for reformed scumbags.
The next day was an off day and we drove back to Seattle. I wrote a short piece about punk rock photo books for a publication that will come out later this week and we went out to see some live music. It was live and it was music and that’s all I’ll say about that.
April 16 at Three Punks Ale in Chula Vista
The event at Three Punk Ales was the one I was looking forward to the most because I had a feeling it would be the most chill, and it was. I really like the energy the Three Punk Ales crew are creating in downtown Chula Vista. You can hear what I’m talking about in my conversation with Steve Garcia on the Emo Brown podcast. I didn’t think to bring a PA system and the brewery is big so I scuttled the talk I had planned and basically just hung out and signed books and talked to people for a while. I had all my books with me and sold a surprising number of copies of my haunted casino novel, Forest of Fortune, a dark little story that’s near and dear to my heart—Pemberton por vida! It was more like a pop-up than reading and I’ll do it again at the end of May as part of Mercado Golondrina.
April 17 with Keith Morris in Paramount
On Sunday I spoke with Keith Morris via Zoom. The event was broadcast to those who signed up for the preorder exclusive. As many of you know, Keith caught COVID in Canada and the Circle Jerks tour was suspended indefinitely. I was planning on rescheduling the call but Keith was up for it. He’s feeling much better but is still battling symptoms with varying degrees of severity.
We’ve been visiting Nuvia’s parents in Paramount, where she grew up, and I took the call in her mom’s kitchen (in case you were wondering about the lace curtains in the background.) It was great to hear Keith’s voice and laugh at his wonderfully warped sense of humor. Our convo will be put on YouTube in a few weeks and I’ll share the link when it becomes available. Also, if you’d like to see photos from the events, check out my Instagram page.
This is a fairly light week travel wise, but the tour starts up again in earnest this weekend at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on Sunday April 24 at 10:30am. (After the panel I’ll be signing books in the signing line.) Then on Tuesday April 26 I head up to San Francisco for an event with Eugene Robinson at Green Apple Books. Then I’m off to New York for a screening of David Markey’s The Slog Movie at the Nitehawk Cinema with Tony Rettman, Brian Long, and Lyle Hysen on Thursday April 28 and then a reading the following night at Powerhouse Arena on Friday April 29. After that, I honestly have no idea. Maybe I’ll mosey on down to Coney Island and from there I’ll improvise…
Keeping me company on my travels has been the Apple TV show Severance, which I’m really enjoying but haven’t finished (no spoilers please), and the graphic novels of Ed Brubaker, which I absolutely love. I’m writing a profile of him for the LA Times so I’ll have plenty more to say about him and his work soon.
Because of my hectic travel schedule I’ll send out an abbreviated version of the newsletter next week with a round-up of links and a few other tidbits I’ve been saving. Then I’ll post Part II of my travel diary the following week. If you’re in LA, SF, or NY I’d love to see you or if you have any friends in those cities please let them know I’m coming by sharing this newsletter.
Corporate Rock Sucks Link-O-Rama
Alta Journal and Glide Magazine ran reviews of Corporate Rock Sucks. I had the pleasure of talking to Ryan Bray at Rock & Roll Globe and Julia Dixon Evans at KPBS Midday Edition. (If you missed the radio broadcast the interview is transcribed here.) I was also featured on the Rachel O Rama Show and Largehearted Boy. Thanks to all the booksellers, producers, podcast hosts, journalists, organizers, and the PR team at Hachette for making the first week a success. Most of all thanks to everyone who bought a book and helped spread the news. Lastly, thanks for reading Message from the Underworld. I always love hearing from readers so feel free to drop me a line.
Hi Jim, Good to hear more about your adventures! And I’ll have to visit Three Punks in Chula Vista now that I’m getting out again! Speaking of Ed Brubaker, I knew his dad (also an Ed) when I worked in the library at the College of Santa Fe in New Mexico between 2004-2008. He even gave me a couple of his son’s graphic novels. Just a great library dude who was obviously a proud dad. I’d like to meet Ed the youngster some day!
I know we could do a cool event in Detroit either at Smalls, the bar I work at, or maybe even Third Man Records, though it seems a bit weird to do an event about a label at the retail/performance/production outlet of another one.