The release party for Death Thing at Radio Coffee and Beer went incredibly well. Holy War at the Sex Store was the opening band and they played classic standards like, "Stigmata Handjob." Francois Pointeau also acted as a fluffer with a short reading of his poetry. Chris Mattix was the host of the night. The Weekly Weird Monthly was represented by Cheryl Couture at the merch table. One lucky buyer got a can of tuna. It's possible they said, "Fuck tuna," but reports are unsubstantiated.
It was quite a night.Sold some books, signed some books, drew some silly doodles that I regret. Such is life.
Francois is a local man-about-town. He's a bartender at one of my regular haunts, he's a radio show host, and a poet. I met him at Owen Egerton's One Page Salon at the Whip In almost a year ago now and we became fast friends. I was lucky to have him invite me on his radio show the first time in promotion of my chapbook Toilet Stories From Outer space and he invited me again to promote Death Thing yesterday.
The first time I was on the radio, I was nervous. This time it was a breeze. Francois is good at making things feel like a conversation (albeit without all the cussing).Anyways, I'm pretty exhausted. I knew I wanted to promote the hell out of Death Thing as much as I could with live performances but I didn't expect to be so damn tired.
The MEV rolls on, though. Next week I'll be performing at the Badlands for the Badlands Blotter. On the 14th, I'll be at the Whip In for Francois's Frenchie Bastille Day Festival and Hoedown. Then to round things out on the 22nd, I'll be at Bookpeople's Noir at the Bar with Brad Parks.
We're not stopping there, either. I'll be announcing more dates soon.
One big surprise of this past weekend was that my mom and grandma showed up in the humid hellhole of Austin right now to be at the release party. I was pretty nervous about the whole thing but they, as always, kept me near planet Earth. My grandmother is Donna Hilbert, a phenomenal poet who has always been an inspiration to me. She's encouraged me since the day I asked her how to write poetry when I was just a little snot-nosed twerp. She also printed the first edition of the first book I ever wrote, Fat Legs. At 29 I still have the same sense of humor as 5 year old me. That's something.
In other news... Ted Cruz does terrible Simpsons impressions
Ted Cruz astounds me. He managed to do every impression with the same voice.
Now, there are people on my Facebook feed that -I shit you not- refuse to watch the video because they don't want to give Ted Cruz any more legitimacy. I can assure you, watching this video will not add an ounce of credibility or legitimacy to the walking SCOBY that is Ted Cruz.
In fact, it just adds to a narrative of his own delusion.
I finally saw Mad Max...
Nina and I went to the first showing of Mad Max on a Friday. We were the only folks in the theater. I thought it was excellent. It was a lot of fun. It was just a damn good action flick with damn good action and damn good heroes.
Luckily, Tom Hardy had as many lines as I do fingers on half of my left hand. He only delivered half of those well. The other half sounded like bad impressions of Mel Gibson's Max. Small potatoes there. I didn't go there for lines.
And in the end, like every good western or samurai movie, the hero walks into the sunset for the next adventure.
ADIOS.
