The Counterforce No. 61

AWP25

My dad’s last words to me as he dropped me off to catch the train to JFK were ‘take some pictures’. A good idea, and one I thought of often as I wandered around the conference and city of Los Angeles in general. But it seems the only photos I actually got around to taking were one of a bowl of Ramen Hood’s gluten-free vegan ramen, one of a bowl of Ramen Hood’s gluten-free vegan ramen plus half a vegan egg, also gluten-free, and the above shot of a gluten-free vegan banana nut muffin with a bite taken out of it.

kylerseibel

A post shared by @kylerseibel

I had a blast though. The festival belonged to Kyle Seibel. And rightfully so. Pics of his recently released Hey You Assholes have been all over social media the past few weeks and everywhere you went at AWP someone was talking about the brilliance of his readings. It was catching his set at the Morning, Fuckers event the very first day that set the tone. No shade on the other readers, they did what you do at a reading – read. It was great to catch Kevin Maloney again and hear Mike Nagel. Kevin’s Cult Of Loretta, The Red-Headed Pilgrim, and Horse Girl Fever and Mike’s Duplex and CulDeSac are works of comic genius everyone should own. But headlining was Kyle, and he took things to another level entirely. There was a focus from the get-go, which quickly spilled into a full-on performance of John Belushi-type intensity. Throwing the mic down, tossing the book aside, jumping into the crowd, and shouting til his moustache is surrounded by a sea of red. It was Awesome.

And holy shit, there were like 80 people at that event, all showing up to Nico’s Bottle Shop first day at 9:30 in the morning. It was nice to be back in my old hood, so many good memories, and I’d seen quite a few comedy nights at that venue, did at least one myself, and attendance today had all of those beat. It’s rough though as I had been up since 3:30 AM with the jetlag and as I had volunteered to work at the conference in exchange for a ticket, napping is out of the question. After the fun morning, where I met a whole load of cool folks, I hightail it down to Ramen Hood for some soul-nurturing vegan ramen. Their broth is out of this freaking world. Good enough to take photos of to the exclusion of all else, apparently. Then on to the Convention Center.

There is a certain magic to festivals and here is no different. On my way out after my shift I’m shocked to run into Lou and Bikki, two students at Rosemont College just outside of Philly who I had hung with late into the evening after my panel there last summer. I had just met Bobby Miller in person, who I had on The Counterforce podcast a couple weeks ago, and he said he was going to 33 Taps to meet Jessamyn Violet. Lou and Bikki come along and although no one expects anyone to know where their hometowns are, it turns out Lou and Bobby’s are right next to each other. I also found out there’s apparently two poets who currently live in my town and run retreats which kinda blows my mind, not expecting much to happen in Stratford, though I never ended up meeting them. There’s still no time for sleep as we all pile into my car – cheapest I could rent, there isn’t even a button to open the doors on the keyring, have to do it by hand, the old-fashioned way – and head to Silverlake Lounge for the House Of Vlad/Rejection Letters event, which constantly gets referred to as ‘House Of Rejection’.

I’m looking forward to hearing Emily Costa as I had recently learned she’s another Connecticut native. We actually had a Connecticut Contingent at AWP, representin’, and on the final day getting into a comedically heated argument with Kevin Maloney over CT versus Oregon, ending in sharing our experiences ingesting nutmeg (don’t do it, crazy dreams) Over the three days I would also meet a number of folks who had lived around the corner from me in Allston, MA. Tis a small world indeed. Emily’s reading is ace, the title story from her Girl On Girl collection. Thinking she might appreciate the Connecticut references in The Ballad Of Buttery Cake Ass, I give her a copy, and she awesomely gives me her book in return. A group of us are chatting afterwards and Lauren Lavin tells Emily “the word that comes to mind when I hear you read is ‘arresting’” and this is spot on. At the Saturday event, Emily would follow my, by all accounts, ‘wild’ performance, and I was impressed by how calm, cool, and captivating she is. Back at the hotel that first night as I wait for my body to decompress enough to get to sleep, I read some of her stories. She has a lovely way of putting things, turns of phrase, but my main takeaway is that she does tension very well. Palpable and building throughout. I read four stories, all of which make me uncomfortable.

So I’m very thankful I have Brian Alan Ellis’ The Errors Tour to provide some comic relief as I trudge on through the insomnia. When Brian read at Silverlake Lounge, I freaking loved it. The room was in stitches, and I found my laughter rang out even past when most folks’ had died down. I was very happy he was up for a book trade. There’s a piece called Depressh Mode in there, I’m pretty sure I’ve at least thought his line “@me if you taste like Taco Bell & wanna make out”, there’s the right-on Whitney poem below, and KISS’ Unmasked even gets a mention somewhere, Tomorrow being my favourite KISS song. I found his work inspiring too, as I have written short prose-poems in that same spirit before and thought to myself ‘why don’t I do more of that?’ And Saturday morning I did. A piece coming to me about how I’m still convinced Natalie Imbruglia stole one of my lines for a song in 1998 even though I never wrote it down and she was 10,000+ miles from where I lived. Maybe I’ll submit it somewhere

The Silverlake Lounge event is all kinds of awesome, and it seems everyone is there. Tex Gresham & KKUURRTT’s reading is very funny and I’m psyched to snag their book, Pop!, that they are just giving away for free. And it is very cool that the headlining act is a multi-player affair between D.T. Robbins, Aaron Burch, and Kevin Maloney, who have collaborated on Kettlebell Friends Forever, in their words ‘the greatest book ever written’, about the aftermath of the death of Kyle Seibel – not taking the stage this evening, but represented nonetheless – which is hysterical. The three take turns reading and they had printed up a limited edition of 50 copies of the book, which I make sure to get. Such a cool thing to do too. The part where Kevin is tripping in the bathtub and asking someone to check to see if they’ve put Kyle’s moustache up on eBay yet still has me giggling. After the readings everybody is just hanging out, with nearly everyone taking minor shocks to the system as a hidden step out back sends us flying and scrambling to regain our balance. Folks are heading to karaoke after, and much as I love it, my body feels like pummelled jelly and I desperately need sleep.

Friday morning I wake up still feeling dilapidatingly tired. I remember Kyle’s energy of the day before and know I have to get mine going. The phrase ‘sack the quarterback, go after his family’ begins to repeat and ring through my grey matter, and will continue to up until the second I step onstage the following evening. Used in both Back To School – a formative film for the young Aug Stone – and I believe one of Nikki Sixx’s memoirs, it is exactly the vibe I am going for. I have 2 minutes 41 seconds the next night to deliver Buttery Cake Ass to a Los Angeles crowd, the length of the song Crocodile by the band Movie Club, who are providing the soundtrack to 14 of us reading. Plus I have to take this energy to the book fair itself, where I am hoping to get people to know about my books and maybe trade for some humorous ones too.

And then on my way out, I get the most unexpected hit, right to the spiritual solar plexus. The poet Brad Aaron Modlin is hawking his book, offering alcohol and cheese, neither of which I partake in, but as I am making my excuses Brad says ‘well the book is called Everyone At This Party Has Two Names…’ - pulling out a Hello My Name Is button and pen - ‘so this is your second name.’ He proceeds to write Aug/Andrew. Now those of you who have read my Nick Cave’s Bar would know that Andy was the name of my best friend who left us all too early in the summer of 2020. As I watch Brad write his name, my eyes immediately begin welling with tears, my body shaking involuntarily. I thank him and move on, wanting to get away if I am going to break down into a full-on sob right there on the convention floor, exhausted as I am. But I do a quick lap and go back to buy the book, believing this to be quite a sign. The thing about your first time at a festival is you can feel quite on your lonesome and a bit of an outsider as everyone already seems to know each other, and my work is so different from what everybody else is doing anyway. This feeling would be gone the next day but it is quite acute in this moment. And Andy was always so supportive of my writing. This is like his way of saying ‘no, you belong here too, just stay with it’. And his support was always a much welcome surprise considering how negative the two of us were when we were younger. I mean, at one point in time were known, interchangeably, as SuperPoz and Happy, the sobriquets dripping with sarcasm. But in the few years before he died he was always so damn supportive and complimentary about my writing, telling me to stick with it at a time when it all felt new and overwhelming and I had no idea what I was doing. I step out into the lobby, visibly shaken, and text Andy’s mom, the incident blowing her away too. She proceeds to tell me that in her last medium session, the word ‘lighthouse’ kept coming through, and she has no idea what that means. This in turn floors me as I’ve just started writing songs again this year and the b-side to the upcoming single is called A Lighthouse I Ain’t Ever Been To. I really just want to go back to the hotel and have a good cry but I have to pull myself together and get to

Jim Ruland

’s reading. I take heart that Andy would’ve loved Jim’s Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall Of SST Records. I recommend it to everyone with even the slightest interest in that scene, an incredibly detailed and highly readable history of the label and many great bands.

I’ve been in touch with Jim the past couple of years online and he’s been greatly supportive too, even giving me a blurb for Sporting Moustaches, but we have yet to meet in person. The thing about these events is, cool as they are, there isn’t much of a chance to chat beforehand, and Jim is rushing off afterwards to the Rare Bird shindig. But we talk for a bit then Jim reads a pretty powerful piece about the awfulness of the last few years - on a personal and worldwide scale - the ending of which hits hard and everyone bursts into applause. The reading takes place at Sick City Records, which is one of the best record stores in the world. And the dudes who run it are so nice and cool about stuff. I popped in on Sunday and they took two copies of The Ballad Of Buttery Cake Ass where I believe it will fit right in with their eclectic stock, spanning a huge range of all stuff I listen to. There’s a fab shirt of Siouxsie’s face hanging on the wall which we are admiring before the reading begins, and if you look closely in the upper righthand corner of the pic below, that’s a Van Halen 1984 tour shirt.

Kicking off the night before Jim is a former student of his, Erik Bitsui, who introduces himself in his native Navajo. I love stuff like this and hope these languages stay alive. About half the readers have made the trip up from Phoenix for this, and up next is BacPac Franko who blows me away. She reads a piece about them trying to take the smell out of spraypaint and it is hilarious and scientific and personal as she waxes on the memories that scent can evoke. I freaking love it. Next, poet Brendan Constantine has us all in hysterics, and Brian O’Hare keeps that up reading from his novel Surrender. This is an outstanding event, one I thoroughly enjoy, though much as I want the evening to continue and follow Jim to Rare Bird and hopefully hit up Kyle’s event too, by this point I am the type of exhausted you get on tour where you feel it deep in your bones. Needing sleep like my life depends on it, I grab a Monty’s Good Burger next door (all vegan) and head back to my hotel room.

I’d like to say I am refreshed the next day, but it had taken me five hours to finally fall asleep, just laying there feeling the ache of my muscles, and I wake up around 7 and know I should just get up. Do the day’s writing and drive over to Kitchen Mouse to get some fuel, repeating to myself ‘sack the quarterback, go after his family’. In preparation for taking this to heart at the reading tonight I buy three gluten-free vegan banana nut muffins – made famous above – that I will stagger eating throughout the day so I can peak at just the right time. A further reminder to bring it comes as I run into Kyle a couple blocks from the convention center and we chat Pynchon and big books until we get there. On to the Asterism table where I’m signing from 12-1. More sports phrases come to mind, the one that always does when I’m signing – Gretzky’s ‘you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take’. Smile and say hello to everyone, you never know who might be interested in your book. As it turns out, despite many laughs at the descriptions, 100% of them decline to buy any. But no matter, that’s how this often goes. Get out there and give it to people who might dig it. God bless May May and Dan Tremaglio though for insisting on paying for them. I trade for basically everything I want and come home with 15 books and a Split Lip mag.

There were so many things I wanted to do in LA now that I was back again but it’s important to stay focused when you’re on a mission. And soon enough I find it is 4PM and almost time to make my way over to Redwood Bar where the Maudlin House event is to be. I hit Ramen Hood again beforehand, scarfing the second of my banana nut muffins an hour later to kick in just in time for my 6:15ish set, or so I think. I manage to find a free parking spot right near the venue so I grab it and head in at 4:15. Jessamyn, Mallory, Bulent, and Bobby Miller are all there, just waiting, Duncan Birmingham soon joining us. I’m psyched Duncan wants to trade books as I’ve had my eye on The Cult In My Garage for quite a while. Plus next day I learn he’s the cousin of my friend Suzy! Then it’s that familiar pre-gig dread. Is anybody gonna show up? Complicated here by it being the soundman who decides not to. Issues getting the equipment running push the start time later and later, all feeling very hairy, is this gonna happen at all? The idea of 14 of us reading backed by a live band always seemed like it was going to be loose-bordering-on-chaotic from the get-go anyway and hey that’s rock n roll. But we need to be amplified to rock. Thankfully the venue has filled up by 6 and it is just a matter of waiting.

And my god was it worth it. Under the lights I can’t see but I know the passage well enough and begin riffing and I guess getting quite animated. It felt fantastic, and confirmed to me that being on stage is something I love doing and where I should be more often. The whole night is brilliant and I keep ducking out for air and gnawing at my third banana nut muffin to keep that feeling going. Huge thanks to Jessamyn and Mallory for making this event happen, I know it was a hell of a lot of work. I enjoy everyone’s sets and by the end it really comes together, Ryan-Ashley Anderson and Kevin Maloney are so good I told them afterwards they need to make an album together like this, stories over noise rock. Ryan-Ashley’s turn coming across like certain Kim Gordon-fronted Sonic Youth songs and Kevin’s is a totally different vibe than I’d seen him before, us discussing afterwards that you just gotta go with it. Post-show, Duncan, Mallory, and Bulent jumping in my car to head to the Clash afterparty at Bar Henry where the conversation continues to flow. Spilling down to Douglas Bar and back again, this time with Travis and Lauren in tow, Travis a fellow former Allstonian talking music, writing, his rad-sounding new podcast project and Lauren having been at one of those retreats in my town. A quick look around Bar Henry again and I get a message from Bobby they’re off to House Of Pies so I divert my route back to the hotel to put in an appearance. It’s after 1 AM by now and sleep is calling, less insistent than the last few days, but still. Plus the young waiter is so polite and earnest, trying so hard to be helpful, doing his best whilst working the graveyard shift of a shit job that it was breaking my heart. BUT A FUCKING FANTASTIC EVENING.

Next day I’m up at 6:45 but it’s all over now and I don’t need to be anywhere so I let myself sleep in. Only to get up at 11:45. Hey, that’s 2:45 my time! Throwing my whole day off. I do the day’s writing and jet to Sick City Records before meeting Mallory and Bulent at Stories. We peruse, do the same up at Reverie Bookstand, and truck on over to Atwater Village, where it all began. Literally, as we are at Kava Kulture, right next door to Nico’s Bottle Shop. We trade stories and make plans for world domination/a Chicago event. Go our separate ways in the rare Los Angeles drizzle. Before I head to LAX on Monday morning, I stop in to Kitchen Mouse for some more rocket fuel, only two muffins this time (which will become loose in their box in my carry-on, covering everything in crumbs. Still ate them, of course). Erica is there, whose restaurant it is and who was in Allston at the same time we were and knew Andy, though I didn’t meet her until last summer. I tell her the story about the two names pin, which is nice. And then it’s back to CT. I write on the plane and pick up Girl On Girl again on the train ride home. These stories are great. There are sentences where you just have to pause to admire them, thinking ‘yes, that’s that exactly’. Continuing to be quite dark, tensions galore, but very funny at points as well, especially the wonderfully titled Renee Ruins the Only Decent Bagel Place in Town. Highly recommended. And before I know it I’m back at Stratford station, in the rain, and this brilliant adventure is over. Can’t wait for next year in Baltimore.

Back in January I had a real fire lit within me when it came to making music again, and maybe I’ll write about that sometime. This weekend was like another kick in the keister when it comes to writing. The energy of AWP was fantastic and I met so many great people. It’s so nice to finally find that here in the States. I’ve always felt that’s been missing and one of the reasons why I loved being in London so much was the energy and enthusiasm everyone had about the music they and their friends were making, or whatever it was they were creating. An attitude I never really found here before. And once again it felt like on stage was where I’m supposed to be. I’m determined to do more of that this year. Whether it’s music, readings, or stand-up again. This on top of what I already thought was a hectic schedule, as there are now 36 songs I want to record in 2025. And I really want to have another book out in 2026. I continue to work at the big Connecticut novel, it’ll most likely surpass 200,000 words, and I think I might be able to finish it this year, but the most probable candidate for 2026 is the oral history of Clown Damage, one of the fake bands from the Buttery Cake Ass discography, which is a heck of a lot of fun to write. And only last week, listening to an audiobook about the Hartford Whalers, I found a way in to an idea I had for a novel back in 2008. Completely different now of course but it has been a total joy writing down all the notes and passages as they came to me on this trip. All this on top of what people would call ‘real life’. In his 70s, J.P. Donleavy described himself as ‘a comfortably burned-out volcano’. With so much fire in my birth charts and just general demeanour, and as Beckett said ‘with the fire in me now’, got to keep that lava flowing.