To die you'll do almost anything
Signed books, James Hubbell Studio & Hurricane Season
I was looking at my calendar the other day and realized the holidays are here. Halloween was over two weeks ago and Thanksgiving is a little over a week away, which means Xmas is basically tomorrow. I feel like it’s time to take down the holiday decorations I haven’t put up yet.
I understand time isn’t changing, it’s not speeding up or slowing down, but my perception of it sure is. For instance, how is it possible that my novel Make It Stop and the paperback edition of Corporate Rock Sucks came out in April and June?
Since I’m not doing any more events this year, I thought I’d offer a special on signed copies of my books—and not just the new ones.
Here’s the deal. Now through December 6, I’m offering free shipping on signed copies of my books anywhere in the United States. I’ll sign and send them to you, your sancho, your mom, your uncle in Walla Walla. I’ll even add a personalized note: “Dear Spike, You suck, Love Spider.” I’ll send as many books as you want, to as many places as you want. I’ll basically do all your holiday shopping for you, but you have to act now.
Here’s the breakdown:
Corporate Rock Sucks (Hardcover) $30: I found a box at my cousin’s house in Brooklyn and brought them home. I’m not saying they’re sold out, but I have a feeling these will be hard to come by soon.
Corporate Rock Sucks (Paperback) $20: The paperback is the corrected edition that fixes a few typos, errors, and sins against nature.
Make It Stop (Paperback) $20: The novel that Josh Mohr calls “A bare knuckle, punk rock fever dream about American health care." This one is especially relevant for my sober peeps.
Do What You Want with Bad Religion (Paperback) $19: The story of Bad Religion. Buy this book and die like a champion ya-hey!
My Damage with Keith Morris (Paperback) $17: The legendary voice behind Black Flag, Circle Jerks, and OFF! in his own words.
Forest of Fortune (Paperback) $16: My first novel is set in a haunted casino and was inspired by my time in the tribal gaming industry, which really does seem like a lifetime ago.
Big Lonesome (Paperback) $13: My first book is a collection of short stories about pop culture figures with a twist: Dick Tracy on the moon, Little Red Riding Hood in Nazi Germany, and The Previous Adventures of Popeye the Sailor. These are the stories that got me a literature fellowship from the NEA.
Please note: I only have about a half dozen copies each of Do What You Want, My Damage, and Make It Stop. First come, first served.
You can pay me through Paypal at verminonthemount @ yahoo dot come or via Venmo @jimvermin. You can also send me a check, but only if it comes with a nice letter about how you’re doing. If you’re buying multiple books, even if it’s to different locations, just add up the amount. Remember, shipping is on me.
Books will start shipping November 27 and will continue until December 6 and then it’s over to ensure your books arrive before the holidays.
Recap: Respond to this email with your order, address, and special instructions. Send me money. I’ll send you books.
James T. Hubbell
Last weekend was unexpectedly eventful. We went for a hike at the Santa Ysabel open preserve and afterward we bumped into our friend Armando in the parking lot at Dudley’s, a great little bakery that makes the best Apple Pumpkin Crumb Pie in all of creation.
Anyway, Armando is doing a residency at the James Hubbell Studio farther up the mountain and he asked us if we wanted a tour. Hubbell, who is now in his 90s, is a painter, illustrator, sculptor, builder, and all-around visionary. Of course, we said yes!
We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the grounds just as the sun was beginning its descent and shining through the gorgeous stained glass windows. It was an unexpected twist to an already beautiful day in East San Diego. This area made such an impression on me when I first visited it in 2006 that I made Santa Ysabel the setting for my fictional casino, Thunderclap Casino, in Forest of Fortune.
Hurricane Season
Today I want to tell you about a movie that’s hard to watch and kind of a downer. Many of you know I’m a huge fan of Fernanda Melchor’s writing. Sophie Hughes’s translations of her novel Hurricane Season was shortlisted for a Booker and Paradais, was a favorite last year. Both offer a brutal and utterly unsentimental look at violence in Veracruz, where Melchor was a journalist for many years.
I typically compare Melchor’s writing with William Faulkner because she favors long paragraphs that go on and on, except her sentences aren’t nearly as baroque. She writes the way people talk and presents the unseemly side of humankind from deep within the perspectives of its victims and perpetrators, who are usually a blend of the two—there are no innocents in Melchor’s world. In this regard, the way her characters swagger toward their doom, she reminds me of Roberto Bolaño.
But where both of these comparisons miss the mark is Melchor is always writing about masculine violence and the toxic machismo that runs through Mexican culture like a curse. Melchor doesn’t always center women in her narratives because she wants us to feel the way her male characters feel. A lot of the time that feeling is hatred. They hate the women they are attracted to and then bind themselves to and then blame them for their own shortcomings, which are also the shortcomings of being trapped by poverty, the kind of poverty that turns people into commodities.
Hurricane Season has been adapted for the screen and is now streaming on Netflix in Spanish with English subtitles. I’m not going to link to the trailer because if you’re focused on the story I think it gives away too much. It’s a crime story, it’s a horror story, it’s a story of social realism all wrapped in one.
The film is faithful to the novel and opens with the discovery of the body of a transgender woman known as The Witch. The story of what happened to her and why is told through several points of view, with each perspective bringing us closer to the crime and the story’s heartbreaking conclusion.
It's an ouroboros of a film. The characters prey on each other, and even when they think they’re helping they do more harm than good. Unlike Killers of the Flower Moon, another downer of a movie, there’s no justice for anyone. Thankfully, Hurricane Season is only 90 minutes long.
The fictional town of La Matosa in Veracruz is like a sickness that possesses the characters and makes them do despicable things. There isn’t a single scene where someone doesn’t look absolutely hammered by the sweltering jungle heat. It is a place that is slowly going stagnant, a place where nothing can thrive. You can only rot or go to hell in a place like La Matosa.
Some movies give you glimpse of another time or place. Hurricane Season drags you into its world and slowly pulls you under.
“Caveat Emptor”
You watched your war from T.V. screens
Immune from pain and human screams
You saw destruction from the sky
But never once viewed those who died
The haunting sight of blood-soaked sand
That never burdened T.V. land
Watched our nation swallow shit
And made the war a prime time hit
The war was just a passing fad
Just yellow ribbons nothing bad
No need to watch the senseless slaughter
Of loving mother's sons and daughters
No tears shed
For pre-empted dead
No tears shed
You're victims of the hypnotist
Waving flags and clenching fists
Believing that you're really pissed
About the affairs of foreign kings
Like sailors as the siren sings
To die you'll do almost anything
Intentions made of gold
You're hands are soaked with blood
But you cannot justify
The innocents who died
Your nation is no pining saint
Despite the picture that it paints
Our action leave a marring taint
When judged upon the human scale
The actions of the east will pale
With the carnage by the west wholesale
And you have the nerve to say
That patriots today
Must look the other way
You're murderers for ignoring what they do
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 of the day.