Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 1980 election, bush, detroit, evil republicans, ronald reagan my father, short fiction
In three weeks my first collection of short stories, Ronald Reagan My Father will be released. Interestingly enough, a book by a Bush staffer has also just been released. It’s interesting because one of my stories bears, I’ve been told, a coincidental resemblance to the personal, somewhat ironic, history of this former Bush staffer.
As a rule I do not bring cursed objects like an autobiography of a Bush staffer into my home, so I have no idea if certain parts of my fictional story resonate with his story. Either way, any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. Below is my story, for entertainment purposes only.
The Gift of the 12th Congressional District of Michigan
1.
Paul parked his Gremlin in the strip mall lot as night settled in. He hefted his body out of the car, feeling like his belly dragged behind a few good seconds. Approaching the door of his small law office he peered through the glass, past taped-on posters in red, white, and blue that urged citizens to “Vote Paul Poplawski for Congress,” and his personal least favorite, “Pops is the tops for the House!” That one was Mitch’s idea. No one had ever called Paul “Pops” before.
(more…)
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: drunken boat, free fiction, free music archive, joyland, ronald reagan my father, the fanzine
Many of the short stories from Ronald Reagan My Father can be read online at various journals and lit stops. Here’s a basic link list.
WEB
Ordinary People | Bury My Heart at Tataouine | Johnny |
CELLPHONE OR PDA ONLY
The Bourguignon Prize | The Lame Shall Enter At Five Miles Per Hour
RADIO PLAY ADAPTATIONS
Listen to them all, with brilliant performances and eerily accurate foley effects.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: book tour, cellstories, cursor, jim hanas, joyland, quimbys, richard nash, ronald reagan my father, w2
Most of the dates are confirmed. All details are below and thanks to everyone who is helping out: Kevin from Joyland Van, Matt at Joyland LA, Richard at Cursor, Jim Hanas, Dan at Cellstories, and the bookstores Quimby’s, and McNally Jackson.
NEW YORK CITY, APRIL 5: McNally Jackson, 7pm FREE
The Fiction Feed 2. I’ll be reading with Jim Hanas and then we’ll talk with Richard Nash about publishing and technology. Sober this time!
CHICAGO, APRIL 6: Quimby’s, 7PM FREE
Reading and then talking with Dan Sinker about Joyland and Cellstories respectively.
LOS ANGELES, APRIL 9: Outpost For Contemporary Art, with Joyland LA authors Jennifer Krasinski, Janice Lee. FREE
VANCOUVER APRIL 11: W2, 7PM FREE
Joyland night. Reading with Emily Schultz, Vancouver’s Claire Gibson plus others. Hosted by Kevin Chong
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: inaugural poem remix, steve reich, wfmu
Has it really been a year since WFMU’s Ken Goldsmith put out a call for remixes of Elizabeth Alexander’s much derided poem? I didn’t think it that bad. My household did vote Obama so we were too happy all around to notice a poet, good or bad (but mostly bad). But Ken asked, and here’s what I did. (Though my favorite is probably this by People Like Us.)
Each word of the title and first line was cut and looped and brought in and out of the mix. Tres Steve Reich, which I thought was keeping with the mid century modernism of the entertainment that day. Though the title here is completely inaccurate ( I believe I was at deadline). It should be, “Every Word of The First Sentence.”
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: matrix magazine, matthew timmons, mayor mccheese, ronald reagan my father
Will be spending much of December in the Mojave working on a novel, though we will be driving into CalArts for one day. I’ll be speaking to Mathew Timmons‘ class about text-as-art and vice versa.
As for Ronald Reagan, My Father (out April 1st) I’ve just finished recording and editing radio play versions of several stories with a group of incredibly talented performers. Here’s one play hosted at Matrix Magazine which had published the original story.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: fiction feed, flu, joyland, richard nash, ronald reagan my father
10 night assignment for the Globe…finishing book…struggling with new web project (I mean it, I’m now the Terry Gilliam of media art)…flu…and here we are.
In good news, the tour dates for “Ronald Reagan, My Father” are coming together.
New York, April 5, McNally-Jackson
The Fiction Feed 2: The rise of the machines, with Richard Nash and Jim Hanas
Chicago, April 6, Quimby’s
with CellStories’ Dan Sinker
Los Angeles, April 9, venue TBA
Vancouver, April 11, W2 Gallery: Joyland night, with Emily Schultz, myself, Claire Gibson, host Kevin Chong and surprise guests.
Toronto, April 13, Supermarket. Only Toronto event of the spring! Come out you lazy Torontonians.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Slow summer, project-wise as I was winding down my tenure at the Blocks Recording Club and the last two releases I was working on; very, very great albums by Picastro and Nadja.
Going on tour for Joyland.ca for the rest of September, then working on getting Ronald Reagan, My Father prepped for publication in the spring.
Working with a cool curator on a project tentatively titled 10 Music Critics Singing that will start to see the light of the internet around December. More news on that soon.
For now, I did re-edit Dan Brown for the Globe. Results here.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: drunken boat, fiction, joyland, the fanzine, ubu
This week Drunken Boat publishes the complete Johnny in their conceptual fiction folio. This features a whole different section at the beginning. The reason for the cut was that the grammatical structure seemed a bit of a jump in terms of recording the performance so I went with the more unified monologue as appears on the Mercer Union recording and in the upcoming collection, Ronald Reagan, My Father (ECW, Spring ‘10).
On that note, my publisher and I are are trying to place every single story or work on a different webpage by publication time. Here’s the tally so far:
Johnny (Drunken Boat)
Voice Over (Ubu)
Ordinary People (Joyland)
Bury My Heart At Tataouine (The Fanzine)
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: blocks recording club, fake albums, free music archive
Halfway through designing the CD sleeve for what was going to be my second, mass produced release I stopped and thought: something about this does not seem all that interesting. I used to make CDs as art jokes. That said, I took those jokes seriously and I remember the pain and fun of hand cutting and gluing Digi-packs together and building a home shrink-wrapping unit all just to see how far into real existing culture I could hurl these things. With the shrink-wrap, surprisingly far. (I’m looking at you Wired and Pitchfork.)
As well, these are live recordings of instrumental sound works. Over the last couple of years I’ve been making art jokes in front of actual people, in galleries and performance spaces. That is far more satisfying than anything else I’ve done and putting it on a CD and then sending it off on its way to navigate the increasingly brutal waters of music retail would be myself losing track of the joke. So where do I go? Death-spiral artisanal irony, like releasing an 8-track cartridge, or something not even an object at all?
So thanks to the Blocks Recording Club, who are promoting this as much as a physical release (okay, stop giggling) and to the Free Music Archive for creating the tools to make this a very easy thing to do.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Nixon’s secretary demonstrates how she improbably erased 18 1/2 minutes of the Watergate Tapes by reaching for the phone at the same time as hitting the wrong button. Coming as part of the tapes project in late 2009, “10 Watergate Tapes Erased, Then Played.”
