VOTM: What's the most unusual experience you've had at a reading?
JOSEPH MATTSON: The first ones that come to mind are a 3-way tie: Jerry Stahl telling a room of 50 people that I was looking to buy some speed.
A rich, philanthropic, but disheveled drunkard wandering into the gig asking where he can park his elephant. Twenty minutes later he bought 20 copies of my book.
I did a reading at this notorious dive bar with Six Organs of Admittance backing me up. The patrons heckled the hell out of the two opening readers, or they just talked loudly through the whole thing. We brought knives: I had a machete, and the two Six Organs guys had a hunting knife and a dagger (they were playing their guitars with them). We three--already a little boozy--proceeded to drink an entire fifth of Jim Beam--just us three--blades in hand. Of the 75 people in the audience, nobody heckled us or interrupted. Nobody was cut. We ended the reading with a Bob Seger cover--"Fire Lake."
Come heckle Joseph Mattson at the Mountain Bar on Sunday, November 8 at 8pm.
