Vermin on the Mount

INDIE NIGHT AT THE MOUNTAIN!

Sunday, July 20 at 8pm join Jim Krusoe, Sean Carswell, Tosh Berman and Dickie Murphy for a night of irreverent readings.

THERE WILL BE CAKE

Come celebrate the release of Harry, Revised with a night of irreverent readings and a bellyful of booze and cake!

YEAR OF THE VERMIN

Happy Year of the Rat/St. Patrick's Day!

Vermin on the Mount has an exciting year of filth planned with more than a few surprises in store. So let's get to it:

The first ever St. Patrick's Day edition of Vermin on the Mount will be held at the Mountain Bar on Sunday, March 16 at 8pm.

JOHN SELLERS (aka Angry John Sellers of New York) will be reading from his memoir in music Perfect from Now on: How Indie Rock Saved My Life. Fans of Guided By Voices, Joy Division, and U2 take note.

JOE O'BRIEN is a recent transplant to Los Angeles from Portland where he tended bar and edited Flop Sweat, a zine dedicated to jokes that go over badly and the comedians who tell them.

OWEN DARA is an actor, performer, and author of White Horse: An Irish Childhood, a memoir in the comic tradition of Flann O'Brien and Frank McCourt.

To celebrate this fine occassion, I've had special Year of the Rat/St. Patrick's Day t-shirts printed, which I'll be giving away in the raffle and selling for unbelievable low prices. Check back soon for a sneak peak at the t-shirt design!

VERMIN #20

No, that's not a mind-sucking space alien probe preparing to rob you of your wits inside the chamber of blood. It's a new light fixture at The Mountain. If it was a mind-sucker at least I'd have an excuse for the lateness of this recap.

Here's Doug Cordell, recent Los Angeles transplant and all around nice guy reading a story about not-so-nice roommates. He suffered so that we could be amused.

Sam Quinones knows a great deal about the rise and fall of the velvet painting boom. How much does he know? He didn't even have to refer to his book, Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream to tell the story.

Jami Attenberg came all the way from New York to read from her novel, The Kept Man. She's not the first New Yorker (or the last) to grace the stage at Vermin on the Mount, but she's the only one to do it twice. You can hear an excerpt in this short film inspired by the book here.

Veronica Gonzalez's Twin Time: Or, How Death Befell Me is the kind of haunting debut that made me want to start Vermin nearly four years ago. Listen to an excerpt at The Writers' Block.

Pretty.

 

DIA DE LOS VERMIN

As many of you are undoubtedly aware, November 2 is Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, in which those who have shuffled off to the great cheese plate in the sky are remembered and honored by those still stuck on this rat trap of a planet.

On Sunday, November 4, we'll be celebrating Dios de los Vermin at the usual time and place -- 8pm at the Mountain Bar in Chinatown -- with four fabulous writers:

Anaheim native GUSTAVO ARELLANO is the world's foremost authority on the Mexican-American experience. His hilariously irreverent column "Ask a Mexican," is nationally syndicated and was released in book form last May. Arellano makes frequent appearances on radio and TV and is currently food editor and investigative journalist for the OC Weekly.

DUNCAN MURRELL is a freelance writer, Pynchon enthusiast, and former Marine. Murrell spent a year in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. His ground-breaking essay about his experience, "The Topography of Resurrection in New Orleans," appeared in the July issue of Harper's. He presently lives with his family in North Carolina and is learning to play the mandolin.

MARY OTIS is the author of the short story collection, Yes, Yes Cherries, a New Voices selection from Tin House Books. A Los Angeles transplant from Boston, Otis's stories are full of flawed, fractured, fascinating characters "amidst the fantastical circus of life" in L.A.

Amusement park expert KEVIN MOFFETT is the author of the acclaimed short story collection Permanent Visitors. Moffett is a graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop and teaches writing at Cal State University, San Bernardino.

BANNER NEWS WEEK FOR VERMIN

In Alaska, biologists want to eradicate rats to protect other species on a sparsely populated island. You'd think the one place vermin would be safe would be "Rat Island." But noooo...

A woman in Utah got a scare when she opened a can of green beans and discovered the head of a mouse. Incredibly, the Arkansas company that canned the produce, offered the woman $100 as restitution.

How about a two-week vacation at the Rodent Suite in Vermin Villa on Rat Island?

GBV: SUNDAY AUGUST 26

To paraphrase a line from Tuco: "If you miss, you had better miss very well. Whoever double-crosses me and leaves me alive, he understands nothing about Vermin."

Translation: Don't miss it!

SENOR SINISTER & ME

Matt Singer of the Ventura County Reporter wrote a charming review of the reading I did with Bucky Sinister at CSU Channel Islands in Camarillo. I'll post a full recap of Bucky's performance at Vermin on the Mount, along with Razor and S.A. Griffin, later this weekend.

ARE YOU LONELY?

Posts here are going to be a scantier than usual for the next month while I gear up for the official release of my short story collection, Big Lonesome. On October 15 there will be a huge party at the Mountain in Chinatown and you're all invited. Until then I'll be posting some sporadic thoughts about being a first-time author here. There will be some road reports, reader reactions, links to reviews (he said hopefully) and the inside dirt on some of the stories in the collection. Stop by, lurk or link as you please.

ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL

I’m just a wee bit tardy in seeing this story about indie publishers in the Weekly Literary Supplement in last week’s LA Weekly, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Vermin centurion Sean Carswell, editor-in-chief at Gorsky Press and author of Barney’s Crew, is one of the 18 publishers profiled, and that your humble host gets a flattering mention as well. I would like to add that I’ve been to a lot of Sean’s readings and have never once seen a bottle or chair used as a missile, although it sounds like a fine idea.