Beautiful writing. The paragraph describing Duke’s emergence in the bookstore is outstanding.

And, yeah, I love Peewee. I agree: what a kid. But he does redeem himself for the records, I think. Moral of the story: Beware the little man.

And I love your characters. I’m in PeeWee’s story right now. What a kid. But I’m mad at him for breaking Jason’s records.

Hope you’re writing a screenplay to go along with it. A musical perhaps?

Of course I love that you propose a T-shirt with my saying on it. As for your suggest that we all start naming characters in forthcomingnovels, etc., James Irwin has already written the first draft of a book in which he does just that. Now, I guess, we all need to start following his (and your) example.

Meanwhile, I somehow remain among the living. Knock wood.

That could be the TNB motto. We should all have T-shirts made up.

As for TNB as a literary movement/salon, I think instead of a nonfiction book about all the TNBers with some TBD conflict built in (as much fun as the motto-adhering mayhem that would ensue from Nick traveling round the country to rile us all up and make mischief), the easier solution is that all TNBers from now on need to name characters in their fiction, their screenplays, whatever, after other TNBers. We should have some kind of sign up list so that the TNB cult faves don’t just appear over and over again, but lots of TNBers are represented. In fact, I am going to do this in the next thing I write. Seriously. There are plenty of us to choose from!

Meanwhile, how come every time I haven’t read TNB in a few days, I come back and there’s a post on Duke coming near death? Geez, glad you made it. Can’t wait to come to Bakersfield myself, Nick.

I’d love to hear Zara’s awesome voice! Zara, are you ever going to make it to Chicago?! When will you be in LA and New York this time around, again? I’ve forgotten, are you going to Miami too? Maybe I’ll see you somewhere when I’m touring for my collection.

– J. J.

And I was just kidding about the therapist remark.

Anyway – I had actually gotten to the point where I had accepted it – that oh well – it’s just not me anymore. I wanted to get back into it, but I just couldn’t – I was scared or who knows. Even though it was the thing that totally saved my life – gave me everything in my life. Oh, god – this is such a long story. But anyway – long story – short – I read Banned and it had a profound effect on me that made get back into my music. I’ve been writing and will be recording soon and playing out soon. It basically thawed this very frozen part of myself. It came at the right time and I’ll be eternally grateful for it.

Very hard to put down.

In fact, I’m logging off to go get lifted and read a little more.

goodnight all!

Matildakay: When the speed train goes in (when we’re around 70) then we will be able to.

Union Station was crazy for sure. I didn’t look up and see the ceiling I was too busy running around looking for my connecting bus. Next time I will have to look up when I’m in Union Station.

Thanks, Nick – I tell ya – you’re the best!

Your move.

And the specifications in its manual proudly declared that it was “self-excited.”

Have your characters talk about that.

(The orange peel incident is hilarious).

Anyway, it was nice to see Duke survive that adventurous ride only to find a pig-tailed driver ready to take him to the Random Writers Workshop.

Thanks for the pleasurable ride and conversation, sweetie!

Very cool of Exene. To get any response, as you well know, is unheard of.

Doe seems very approachable. I debate whether I should go the “right” channels and go through his agent, or if I should stalk him at a show. Any thoughts?

that just made me very happy.

Also, Chrissie Hynde had (or has), seriously, one of the best voices of all time. This is one of my favorite songs by the Pretenders, very underrated by most:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdDwZWG2rGo

You have good taste in music, sir. Kim Gordon is up there with PJ Harvey, Chrissie Hynde, and Exene as major influences (another SSE when I read the X reference in BFL, since John Doe is one of the musicians I’m chasing for a role.)

I love Kim Gordon also.

I didn’t know she was in Free Kitten. Love Kim Gordon so much.

I remember the chick from Pussy Galore was working the retail shop.

CBGB’s CBGB’s CBGB’s

The first time I went to NY, I was 16. I had 80 bucks. My first day there I spent 60 at CBGB’s. Spent the following week very hungry, but very happy.

I had to take a bus once from Michigan City, Indiana to Chicago and
the facilities smelled so bad that I had to peel this orange that I had with me
and hand out bits of peels to counteract the stench to the people on the entire bus – so that we could all survive. Then I lost my wallet on that same bus and had to go back on the bus after we docked in Chicago and feel around the floor of the bus for it – it wasn’t there.

Ah, the memories.

And yes, it will be a sad day when City Lights closes. As sad as when CBGB’s closed.

But it’s a very funny story. And you stomped the offender to smithereens! That’s one bastard who definitely didn’t win.

Bakersfield is in the southern end of the Great Central Valley. Think agriculture: hundreds of square miles surrounding a city of dust.

Thanks for your compliment. Much appreciated. Tehachapi is an interesting little town. It’s close. But I rarely go. A lot of people commute from there to work in Bakersfield.

On another note, Landen made the music for the Bakersfield Condors ECHL ice hockey team this year. It plays on the Jumbotron before each game. It’s a remake of “The Streets of Bakersfield.”

Never heard of The Crownhate Ruin. But I just looked them up.

Heck, don’t part with a favorite coat unless you really have to. I learned my lesson. I’ll let you know if we get the Peace Train and TNB City Lights gig rockin’…

I think I found one of your snarkies. I added one.

Stephanie: I thought you liked my feet. Hahaha. reminds me of a guy who I worked in a factory with. He didn’t believe in deodorant. We stacked boxes for 12 hours a day. I’ll stop my story there.

I’ve taken some pretty awful bus rides. Like the time – it started to smell really awful,
for about hour until I realized the man behind me had taken off his shoe and he had his
hot smelly socked foot on my arm rest – I had been napping within an inch of it.
I just dry heaved remembering this. I had no trouble asking him to take his foot
down and he gave me this look like,”How could you?”.

Nick – if I ever get out to the west coast – god willing – cuz I’m way overdue
and need to meet all of you fine people – I promise to get a hot “pic of you as a writer”.
That goes for any of you!

It was right before Y2K. He was nervous about what would happen. Asked my opinion about whether to board up all the windows. I thought he should. Looters. I didn’t believe in Y2K, but I hadn’t forgotten the riots. People love a good reason to riot. At any rate, he agreed with me. We lamented about the fact that no one reads anymore. That the bookstore was really a labor of love. I’m sure Amazon has killed whatever revenue they were making. Poor City Lights.

He wanted my coat. I wouldn’t trade. Some girls love shoes, I love coats. No way was I parting. This one came from a thrift store in Memphis when I was on tour with a band called Crown Hate Ruin. Do you remember them?

At any rate, he signed my journal. It took me several years before I would write in that particular one. I didn’t want to taint it. Then I moved to NY and money got tight, so the journal was finally put to use.

No spiders involved.

Glad it all worked out! Seriously, Nick, I know you wouldn’t want to give away the workshop sessions, but maybe some recordings (snippets) would be cool. It might even help recruit more attendees.

If you all weren’t 3000 miles away, I know I would drop by!

That’s image enough
right there.

Art is suffering I
‘ve been told.

I just finished a novel where my guy drives through Tehachapi. I included it because there is a cool golf course carved into the mountains there.

Maybe my new thing will be to include the word “golf” in every post I write or comment I leave, so eventually, when people type “golf” into Google, TNB will be one of the top returns. Yes, that sounds like a splendid idea.

I’m certainly glad I decided to read all these comments. Fuck you, Greg. Hahaha.

Nick: I am both grossed out and completely engrossed by that story! I think the deepest I’ve ever gone (in a story) was to have a person be beat so bad that the tormentors tore the ‘person’s’ flesh off his bones revealing that his beating heart was electronic. He was a hybrid which in my commentary mind is how I deal with racism of any form.

Come to think of it, maybe Tony Romo won that round. Yeah, on second thought, he definitely did.

Godspeed to the boy in Bakersfield.

In all the times I’ve been to City Lights, I never once had the good fortune of running into Ferlinghetti. But if Ducky were to attend anything we put together in SF, I have a feeling it might just happen.

Or, come to think of it, maybe not. How old is he at this point? Ninety at least, yes?

And of of course I’ll sign your copy of my book. It would be my honor. In fact, it occurred to me when I was in Bako that I might not have signed Nick’s copy (I couldn’t remember, still rattled by the bus ride), but I never got around to mentioning it.

Ah, well. It’ll happen. I’m sure to see you all again.

As to the fallout of writing about family, there’s fallout almost every time a writer takes a real-life person (or people) as a subject. Old sitcoms — I Love Lucy and The Dick Van Dyke Show, among others — had episodes built around that premise: “So that’s what you think about me!” I was involved with a fellow writer for a long time, and she once wrote a story in which a character was obviously based on me, and I tried to be cool about it, but I have to say, some of what she wrote got under my skin.

Writing is a dangerous thing to do, in more ways than one. It really is.

And, David, I have a strong feeling that we’re bound to meet, and I say this not simply to scratch a back that’s scratched mine, but you’re one of my favorite TNBers. And to think that I was once certain that you didn’t like me. The politics (for want of a better term) of TNB commentary lead, in my case, to paranoia of the high-school sort: Why didn’t such-and-such say hi in the hall? That kind of thing.

And, Ducky, you’re, from what I know of you, pretty damned dedicated yourself, so I guess like appreciates like, homeopathic-style.

In other words, I may well one day end up in a wheelchair because I did something dangerous just so I could write a blog. But if I wrote that blog, I’d have succeeded in some way…

But, hey, I loved Serbia, which a lot of people also consider Hell. Also, the bus ride was sort of fascinating, including the West Indian guy (who, in spite of threatening to slit his enemy’s throat like a pig, was a nice guy) and the bus driver (who was Southern, though I couldn’t place the accent, and I know that Southern knack for dramatics very well, and so can oddly appreciate it).

Meantime, of course, you guys are flattering me something crazy, so I just have to return at some point, yes? Oh, and M.? I love trains. I would’ve taken one if a train to Bakersfield existed. I also think Union Station is pretty fucking amazing — especially the ceiling. You have looked up when there, yes? Even in the midst of your traveler’s panic. Man, I’ve had that experience more than once. It’s especially bad when you find yourself in some far-flung location where nobody speaks your native tongue.

Union Station is a strange place. Never get lost there for long or you’ll end up a transient.

Well, some people think Bakersfield IS Hell. So at least you said that awful place is just the bus ride over…

I will say that Duke’s hellish journey was worth it to us Random Writers. He walked into Russo’s bigger than life like a beacon of hard knocks inspiration that everyone soaked up like mother’s milk. He oozed wisdom.

Having recently journied to San Diego on the Amtrak train whose first leg over the Grapevine to Los Angeles is on a bus, I will say I liked riding the train much better. Union Station in Los Angeles is one confusing train station. I ran all over Union Station looking for the bus back to Bakersfield. I finally found it hiding on the side of the building. Who would have ever thought to look there?

At any rate… weather and all, it was another great time with Duke. I look forward to more visits from Duke and any other TNBer’s we can convince to cross the mountains down into our foggy Central Valley. Although after reading of Duke’s bus ride they may classify Bakersfield as that place you have to cross through Hell to get to.

You have a delightful accent. Is that better?

My editor wrote “Women of the Beat Generation.” She did a reading there with the son of Neal Cassady and some others a few months ago the night I rolled into town. They were honoring Jan Kerouac in a new book that’s out about her.

Talk about an estate mess. You been following all that Kerouac news about the alleged forgery on the will by the Sampas family? Crazy stuff…

Simon and Zara: Hahaha… I’m sticking to my addiction to hockey, basketball and football. Olympics are coming up. I dig all those wintry sports. Cricket drama sounds kind of fun though.

Shane Warne (a bowler widely regarded as being one of the greatest ever, who was renowned in Australia for putting on weight) to Daryl Cullinan: I’ve been waiting two years to humiliate you again.
Daryl Cullinan: Looks like you spent it eating.

Have either of you read White Widow?

And Duke, you are one dedicated writer!

I met Ferlinghetti there one time. He wanted my coat. I have a picture of that day. Awesome day.

“I saw cricket once. I like baseball better.”

“Why?”

“A cricket bat looks like a canoe paddle, but a baseball bat looks like a weapon. If you’re going to hit something with it, it should look like a weapon. And the ball goes farther and you don’t have the same batter all the time and the running’s in a circle, not back and forth.”

My feelings exactly. Sorry, ZP and SS.

More than one kind of cricket out there.

Obscure enough? Not to Simon and Zara.

By a wonderful stroke of good fortune, I am the gorgeous Zara’s mama.

Hate mail. It’s a living.

How are you and Zara related?

I keep meaning to write a post about how I almost died from a black widow bite. I hint at the story here and there. Six days of hell.

@Duke I’ve been told that I’m so sweet and innocent that I cry kittens. And then they find out the truth…

Just yesterday, she was going through my FB photos, making snarky comments about my many awful shots.

Just recently read an article about when Lionel Shriver wrote her latest book based on her family – and the s**t hit the fan in a big splatter! But even though she had to deal with the consequences, which were very unpleasant, she said she’d still write the book again.

To quote: My relationship with my parents has never fully recovered. It hasn’t helped that I’ve never, exactly, apologised. But then in any sincerity, I can’t. I like my fifth novel; I think it nails some sound if uncomfortable realities not just about my family; but about most families. So even cognisant of the consequences, I’d write that book again. That may make me a real person. It doesn’t make me a nice person.”

I, too, spent much youthful time on Greyhounds. That’s why it was nice, in a strange way, to sit alone at the station after Nick dropped me off: I remembered being at other stations in similar circumstances once upon a time. There’s something strangely romantic about places of transit after hours — and I say this even after experiencing, yet again, Greyhound Hell.

I ride the train a lot and have had my own Greyhound adventures. They’re strange things, those public transpo adventures…

I’m sure everyone’s childhood has a plethora of stories lurking…

Greyhound bus. I swear to jeebus, I just about did a double take when I read this.

Anyhoo, I have to say, that is one epic meeting. I’m quite sorry that I couldn’t be there to watch D.H. Haney spill off the bus and into the crazy. You lucky bastards.

I jest, I jest.

I would’ve brought copies, Connie, if I’d had any to bring, though it felt a bit presumptuous on my part. But next time for sure.

Oh, and one other thing I’d wanted to say in my list above: I love the idea of TNB being a kind of twenty-first-century Beat Generation, or Bloomsbury (though without the posh-twit thing) or some other old-school literary salon. That was something we discussed at dinner, and I’d never seen TNB in that way before, but it was an interesting angle to consider. And it’s really your angle. I congratulate you for coining it.

1) I’m honored to have been subject of a TNB piece, and I thank you for it, Nick, and also for the way you wrote it. It’s flattering to have been painted by the same brush that created “Dead Generation.”

2) No one knew the weather was going to be as it was, so no blame necessary. I was thinking of the ole postman thing on the bus: “Neither rain nor snow…” or however it goes. And why was I taking the bus? Because my car died last September, when Simon and Zara were visiting L.A. and with them in the fucking thing at the moment of its expiration, which was pretty embarrassing. And we were headed to dinner with Brad, who very kindly kept me company till the tow truck arrived — which was very late, as in 3 a.m. or some such. I thought about writing a post about that incident, and started one, but never finished it.

3) I was indeed soaked to the skin as I dashed to the bus station. Wet, cold clothes clinging to the skin is one of the worst feelings I know. Plus my shoes were thoroughly drenched. While on the bus, I took off my shoes and socks and hung the socks over the foot rest so they could dry a little. Weird, huh? But necessary. As for the person sitting beside me, it was a guy from the West Indies, or someplace, who’d just been fired from his job for sending a letter telling another employee to “stay away,” and the other employee gave the letter to management, who canned the West Indian guy, who claimed the letter wasn’t threatening in any way. However, as he sat next to me, he was on the phone constantly with: “You tell that n*gger I am going to cut his throat like a pig! It’s only a matter of time! It’s worth it to spend a few years in jail!” At one point he asked what I was reading (it was the short stories of Katherine Mansfield, perhaps New Zealand’s most famous international writing export), and I took the opportunity to, as tactfully as possible, suggest to the guy that he may not want to cut anyone’s throat like a pig; that revenge is a dish best served cold. He agreed with me. I hope he sticks to it. But I’ll never know for sure.

4. The bus driver was a total drama queen. When he announced that we were going to be late, I asked how late, just so I could phone Nick to give him an ETA, and you would not believe the tirade I received. “They shut down the Five! People are having accidents everywhere! I’ve never heard anything like it!” And so on, for a good two minutes. This continued on the bus, where he was constantly on the loudspeaker to tell us all how very dangerous the conditions were, and he didn’t even know if we were going to make it, that we might have to turn around, and the company hadn’t even put his name on the route, or some weird work-related thing that no one understood but he nonetheless felt impelled to share. Also, he kept bickering with some guy in the back of the bus, who, recognizing the driver for the drama queen he is, baited him constantly with “Let’s stop at McDonald’s” or “I need a cigarette,” inviting still more monologues on the loudspeaker: “You want to get off this bus? Do you? Here, I’ll stop right now so you can get off the bus. It’s very dangerous conditions, and the company didn’t put my name on the route,” etc.

5. Moral of the story? Never take the goddamned bus anywhere. I mean, you’d think I’d know this by now, but…

Patty, you know, margaritas are heavenly. One of my fave drinks. You coming to Surface Gallery tomorrow? And thank Peter for the link to DogJudo.com Episode 10 is my favorite. It’s worth it for the “Whateverrrrr!”

Your very bad day is about to get way better!

–Phillip (a.k.a “Prose Junkie”)

And I know only too well how TNB can consume the soul. Um, believe me.

Oh, and you know I love any reference to BFL, Greg. Yeah, them Superego boys, huh? They lived up to their name (or the way non-Freudians would interpret it). But Russo’s is too nice a place to smash up.

During WW2 occupation, Parisians would often joke to each other with German soldiers in plain sight: “Germans? What Germans?”

Cool about Starbucks.

Actually no, I mean I see everyone and their mother while I’m there. Random FB friends show up, usually just in time for my brain to collapse and need to take a break. But yes, informal random writer get-together would work. Just don’t expect much talking.

Wow, talk about your images!

Did he channel the boys from Superego and break the chairs at Russo’s when he was done? That’s what we want to know. ; )

I second!

Awesome. I laughed out loud a few times and managed to slightly freak out my cats.

As we all know , I am not aspiring to become a novelist as much as I am trying to overcome a fear, and Wed nights workshop knocked some bricks out of the wall of fear I live behind.

Thank you Nick and special Thanks to Duke

Did he channel the boys from Superego and break the chairs at Russo’s when he was done? That’s what we want to know. ; )

We walk into the monster because we have a story that needs to be shared. A commentary—whether social or not—that needs to be told. And because apparently; we are lunatics.

Yes, Duke was awesome. You’ll have to let me know the next time he’s down.

Duke was hilarious and cool! I hope he comes again to hang out…