Two and a half years ago, my friend, and now fellow TNB contributor, Brin Friesen was visiting L.A., and I arranged for him to read from his recently-published novel Sic at a place called the Tribal Café on a stretch in Filipinotown known for crack-dealing. I organized a whole night, in which I would read from my own novel, Banned for Life (soon to appear on Brin’s imprint, And/Or Press), and afterward I’d screen a film directed by another friend who regularly supplied me with writing jobs.

I’m always nervous before readings, so I brought along a bottle of Bushmill’s, which I shared with the audience. It evaporated quickly, so I asked my mentor, George, if he’d mind grabbing another bottle from a store across the street. (I met George when I was a teenager in New York City, and it’s in no small part due to him that I ended up becoming a writer. He was the first bonafide intellectual I knew, and one of the few intellectuals I know still.) He returned with a liter bottle of Cutty Sark—and so the seeds of disaster were sown.

I nervously did shots all during Brin’s reading. Then I drank about three bottles of water to dissipate the buzz. Got to clear my head for my own reading, yes? I consider myself a modest type, but I have to say, I was in excellent form that night. It didn’t feel like a reading at all; it felt like a punk-rock show, with my friend Pete throwing beer cans, and me calling out another friend for ordering a cappuccino and so causing the fucking machine to grind. In fact, Banned for Life is largely about punk rock, and a lot of my friends are musicians, and several came up after the reading to say how much they enjoyed it. For once I didn’t doubt them. Then the movie started, and I figured I deserved a drink.

And drink I did. I sat at a table with that huge bottle of Cutty Sark in front of me; and I’d barely eaten all day, and I’d barely slept after staying up late to clean my apartment, since my eviction-minded landlords were coming by to inspect it—this after, only a day before, I’d returned from San Francisco, where I’d also failed to get much sleep, between the boozing and the snores at the hostel and the sheer excitement of being out of L.A. I mean, who can sleep after a jailbreak? So I was clearly in no shape to be drinking so much (as if any shape were ideal), but did that stop me? No, it did not. I kept knocking back shot after shot, with no sense of how much I was downing, meantime guffawing at the movie like a regular Homer Simpson.

Then, next thing I knew, I was standing outside on the curb and a car was pulling up, and people were telling me to get in the car. I had no idea how I’d gotten from the café to curb, just as I had no idea what I meant when I heard myself say that I’d fucked up the whole night and nobody was ever going to talk to me again. I didn’t realize I was coming out of a blackout. I got in the car, where George was behind the wheel, and he dropped me off at my place. Then my friend Bryce showed up, which was weird, considering the hour. I could tell he was somehow concerned about me, but I was clueless as to why. I mean, yes, I was drunk, but I still had no concept as to just how drunk I was.

Well, Bryce stayed for maybe forty-five minutes, and we talked (with some difficulty on my part), mostly about the reading. It really inspired him, he said, which struck me as the greatest compliment of all time, since he was and is in one of my favorite bands, Die Princess Die, and I’d long harbored a not-so-secret desire to be the fifth Dead Princess. Then he left, and I was about to get some much-needed sleep when I realized my car was still parked at the café, which meant I’d undoubtedly get a ticket once 7 A.M. rolled around. I walked—that is, staggered—all the way back to Filipinotown, and drove my car home. By then it was daylight, and I realized I was missing a camera I’d brought to the reading, so I called George and said, “Hey, do you know what happened to my camera?” I had it with me in his car, he said, and I suddenly spied it, right by the phone. Then he proceeded to share a few details about the previous night.

First of all, he said, I tripped outside the café and knocked over a row of sandwich boards, one after the other, and afterwards fell on top of the sandwich boards, like a stunt in a slapstick comedy circa 1925. He also said I screamed things at my friends like, “Who are you people?! I don’t need you!” He couldn’t believe I had no memory of this, which I didn’t and don’t. I’d never had a blackout before. (And I’ve never had one since.) I called other friends, who provided more details. It seemed I’d fallen out of my chair during the movie—repeatedly—and knocked the bottle of Cutty Sark off the table and kicked the broken glass across the room. I not only fell on top of the sandwich boards, but collapsed in the street, where one person said I “rolled around” while shouting things like, “I am so punk rock!” and “Punk rock for all!” Then, after being restrained, I sat on the curb and said, “I live by the code, fuck everybody,” over and over again. Even I didn’t know what “code” I had in mind.

It gets better. I screamed, “I will never write for you again!” at the director. I tried to choke Pete, who’s likewise in Die Princess Die, and who, I was told, was understandably pissed. Not that I was really trying to choke the guy, though we were a bit estranged at the time. We’d been talking about starting a band together and—well, it’s a long story.

I called George again and said, "Jesus Christ, you didn't even tell me the worst of it! I must really look like an asshole!"

"Oh, I don't think so. I think your friends kind of see you as Keith Richards."

“Well, I’m not Keith Richards. And if I’m going to get drunk and shout shit, why couldn’t it at least be cool? I mean, why couldn’t I say, ‘I’m the Lizard King, I can do anything!’ instead of ‘I am so punk rock!’ Man, is that retarded! You think I should call everybody and apologize?”

“You think Keith Richards should apologize for doing heroin?”

You’re a pal, George.

I slept, and later that day, stiff-gaited and cotton-brained, saw that I’d parked my car in the middle of the street. Do you recall how, back during the O.J. case, the cops thought he’d parked his Bronco kind of funny, and that sparked their initial suspicions? Well, let’s just say if a murder had taken place the night of my reading, and I’d been a suspect and the cops had seen where I’d left my car, I’d be dead right now. They would’ve pulled their guns and said, “Freeze, killer!” and if I’d so much as flinched, they would’ve opened fire, turning me into a six-foot salt shaker. I still can’t believe it wasn’t towed or ticketed. I called Pete and the director to mend fences. I saw my friend Hawke, who told me that he’d kept a shard of the broken Cutty Sark bottle as a memento. He’d brought a friend to the reading, someone who’d been torn as to how to spend his night: go to a punk show or go to my reading.

“I told him this was going to be a punk reading,” Hawke said. “He asked what I meant. Well, he sure knows now!”

TAGS: Banned for Life, blackout, brin friesen, Cutty Sark, D. R. Haney, Debauchery, Die Princess Die, Filipnotown, jackass, los angeles, O.J. Simpson, punk, the Tribal Cafe

D. R. HANEY was born and raised in Virginia, the son of an Angus beef farmer. In his teens, he moved to New York City, where he studied acting and supported himself through the usual odd jobs, from Wall Street waiter to parcel-wrapper to telephone pitchman. Relocating to Los Angeles to headline a film for legendary producer Roger Corman, Haney soon found himself with a second, unsought career as a screenwriter. He also began to contribute to zines and alt-weeklies, reflecting his growing participation in the underground music scene. His interest in music, coupled with the consequences of a life-altering car accident, resulted in Banned for Life, a novel about punk rock that was published in May 2009 by And/Or Press. Haney continues to act on occasion (recently, for example, in Jennifer Lynch’s Surveillance), meanwhile working whenever time allows on a novel tentatively entitled Look This Way. Friends know him as Duke, short for Iron Duke, a nickname he acquired after the aforementioned accident.

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