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Jim Ruland









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Black Cloud Release Party

Come celebrate the release of Black Cloud by Juliet Escoria from Civil Coping Mechanisms. I'll be reading at Nunzi's Cafe in San Diego with Ana Carrete, Hanna Tawater, Keither McCleary, Theron Jacobs and, of course, Juliet Escoria. Come and get it.

Giving the Finger in Seattle Times

Giving the Finger gets a brief mention in today’s Seattle Times. 

"Campbell, a Bering Sea fishing-vessel captain who is center stage during the popular “The Deadliest Catch,” TV program, recounts some of the issues not seen on television."

Read more…

The Floating Library #40

Three recent novels by Stephen Graham Jones, Attica Locke and Michael Farris Smith through the lens of Repo Man and True Detective:

There's a scene in Repo Man where a car-lot attendant explains to a young repo man how the world operates, a worldview he calls the "lattice of coincidence."

"Suppose you're thinkin' about a plate of shrimp," he says. "Suddenly someone'll say, like, 'plate' or 'shrimp' or 'plate of shrimp' out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconsciousness."

Lately, my plate of shrimp has been True Detective. It's been at least six weeks since the season finale and I can't stop thinking about the show. I see it everywhere—even in the books I read. But is it me, or is it the "cosmic unconsciousness"? Because the last three books I read all contained uncanny echoes of True Detective.

Just read it. 

Giving the Finger interview at SDWI

I sat down with T.C. Porter at San Diego Writers, Ink to talk about the art and craft of memoir writing. We discuss interview stratgeies, book proposal development and the unspeakable horror of the literary life.

Razorcake #79

One of the strangest things that happened to me last year was a bout of vertigo that literally knocked me on my ass while I was in Walla Walla, Washington interviewing Scott Campbell, Jr. for our book, Giving the Finger. The whole story is in the new issue of Razorcake, which also features a rad interview with punk pop phenom Tony Molina, an oral history of East L.A. punk curated by Alice Bag, and a stunning essay by Cheryl Klein. 

Giving the Finger interview at Hobart

Thank you, J.Ryan Stradal for this bracing interview at Hobart. We talk about my experience in the U.S. Navy, crab fishing in Alaska and the weirdness of the Bering Sea.

Giving the Finger excerpt in Parade.com

Before he was a star on Deadliest Catch, Scott Campbell Jr. had a rocky childhood and an even more treacherous path to becoming the captain of his own vessel. He tells his story in Giving the Finger: Risking It All to Fish the World’s Deadliest Sea.

After the deer was dressed, we’d cure it out by hanging it in the rigging. We did this with all the deer, so by the end of the hunt, we’d have a pretty impressive display. If we had a half a dozen or so men aboard, and we each got our quota, we’d come back to Kodiak with thirty to forty deer hanging in the rigging.

Read the rest of the excerpt.

The Floating Library: Juliet Escoria & Bonnie ZoBell

Two new short story collections by a pair of San Diego writers. 

AWP Swag #3

I bought some books at the table shared by Magic Helicopter and Publishing Genius. I happened to be there when both Mike Young and Adam Robinson were there and so I was saying my hellos while selecting books in a somewhat discombobulated fashion and after I'd made my purchases someone sitting behind the table handed me If I Falter at the Gallows and instructed me to read the following:

COMIC RELIEF

At the top
of a dune

in the desert,
a bearded

man appears, only
only to be pushed

in the back
and caused

to tumble don
the dune by

another beared
man.

I laughed and agreed it was funny, but after a moment's hesitation I put the book down because I'd already made my purchases. I went back to the Razorcake table and at odd times throughout the day the sentence would come back and I'd wish I'd bought the book. In other words, I regretted having faltered. 

The next day I went back and bought the book and have been teasing over the story/poems over the last few weeks, sometimes reading the epigrammatic sentences over and over again. I'm sure there are other writers who work in this mode but these absurd little vignettes remind me of the comedian Steven Wright, king of the deadpan non-sequittur. Highly recommended. 

AWP Swag #2

In the tradition of Letters to Wendy's, poet Lauren Ireland composed a series of short letters to Lil' Wayne while he was in incarcerated in 2010. Razor sharp and funny as hell, Ireland's aphoristic missives are barbed with surprises:

"Spirit animals are bullshit but I have one—it's a big huge knife."

Dear Lil' Wayne isn't out yet, but you can get a sweet deal from Magic Helicopter Press if you pre-order now, plus a chance to win even more swag from the cover designer Krysten Brown. Win/win and you don't even have to submit to a body cavity search. 

Giving the Finger book signing with Capt. Scott Campbell, Jr.

I took this photo of the pot yards during my trip to Dutch Harbor last year. Each crab pot is eight feet tall, weighs about 800 pounds and when fully rigged costs about $2,000. When the pots are not  being used they're stored in stacks that resemble ruined cities, ghostly and beautiful. 

A Closer Look at The King in Yellow

There's been a ton of great writing about True Detective and its influenes in the weeks leading up to it finale on Sunday night. Here's a closer look at the ur text of True Detective source material, Robert Chambers's The King in Yellow. 

An element of the supernatural hangs over the stories like black stars over Carcosa. These elements do a marvelous job of distracting the reader from the fact that none of the narrators can be believed. It matters less that their sanity has been compromised than the fact that their accounting of events is highly suspect. If you've been paying attention to True Detective, you know that the detectives' unreliability is crucial to the how the story-within-the-story unfolds. 

AWP Swag #1

I just got back from AWP14 in Seattle, and I brought home a ton of interesting books, journals, chapbooks and things in between: from perfect bound books from emerging presses to hand-made zines. I'm going to try to writer about as many as I can over the next few weeks. Number one on the list is A Secondary Landscpae by Aaron Gilbreath. I've been reading a lot of Aaron's work lately in places like Harper's, Vice and River Styx. A Secondary Landscape is a quiet mediatation about figuring out one's place in the world imbued with the recklessness of youth. The format is perfect: Scout Books makes little Books for Big Ideas. This 3.5"x5" literary object is made with recycled paper and vegetable inks and is a collaboration with Kevin Sampsell's micro-press Future Tense Books. It's so small I was afraid it would get lost in all the books, fliers and cards I brought home, so I read it on the plane. A Secondary Landscape is a great read for in-between places. 

Razorcake #78

The latest issue of Razorcake is here! #78 has a great profile of the band that put out my favorite record of 2013, Donna Ramone’s punk guide to silent films, plus columns, comics and book, zine and record reviews by the Razorcake familia. I’ll be at the Razorcake table at AWP Seattle (O21) all weekend. Come say hello!

Free Razorcake T-Shirt at AWP

We'll be giving away a limited quantity of these ferociously cool t-shirts at the Razorcake table at AWP in Seattle. Free with a six-issue subscription to America's only nonprofit indie music zine. Come by O21 and get yours early because they won't last. We'll mail you your subscription so there's no paper to bring home and you can pack one less shirt for your trip. Sweet, simple, rad. This offer is only valid at the Razorcake table at AWP Seattle while supplies last.

Reading in Echo Park

On Monday, February 24, 2014, Australian author J.S. Breakelaar will be launching her debut novel American Monster, "a deeply original apocalyptic novel" from Lazy Fascist Press at Stories Books and Cafe. I'll be reading with Ben Loory, Cecil Castellucci, John Skipp and Zoe Ruiz. Stories is located at 1716 Sunset Blvd. in Echo Park. 

Writers on Craft

I was interviewed by Heather Fowler at Fictionaut last month for the Writers on Craft series. Heather is a good friend, a member of the Legion of Vermin and we've been reading each other's work for years. You would think this would make answering the questions easier, but these were tough.

What do you feel is the purpose of literature?

To me, literature feels bound to the context of its creation in ways that don’t register in other arts. That’s probably a bias on my part, but there it is. Literature attempts to teach the reader about class, sex and power in human relationships at a particular moment in time. It’s meaningless, of course. We’re all passengers on this dinky life raft we call earth. We haven’t gotten to the kill-or-be-killed part of the endgame where your next-door neighbor starts to look like a roasted chicken, but we’re getting there. The water is slopping over the gunwales and we’re squabbling over when we need to start baling.

Toward the end I mention a few projects that are in the pipeline, about which I'll have plenty more to say soon. 

Bill Burroughs: Addicted to Cats?

In celebration of Bill Burroughs' birthday month I wrote a pair of reviews about the drug-loving author of Naked Lunch. First I tackled Barry Miles' new biography, Call Me Burroughs, a fascinating examination of all phases of the author's life. 

"Call Me Burroughs" is riddled with weird anecdotes laced with gallows humor, bizarre coincidences and profane punch lines. It's a massive undertaking made complicated by Burroughs' peripatetic lifestyle and rampant drug use.

Then I took a look at a book that El Hombre Invisible wrote late in life called The Cat Inside. 

I'm not sure what's stranger—that Bill Burroughs, the godfather of punk, lifetime dope addict and firearms fetishist, wrote a book about his cats or that, in it, you'll find lines like this:

"... [A] scarlet orange and green cat with reptile skin, a long sinewy neck and poison fangs—the venom is related to the blue-ringed octopus: two steps you fall on your face, an hour later you're dead..."

That's classic Burroughs at his hardboiled finest. But cats? Seriously?

Seriously. 

 

Teenage Wastelands

Portrait of the author in 1988, shortly after I got out of the Navy. 

I've got a new essay up at Granta that goes with the theme for their new issue: Do you remember? Teenage Wastelands is about going to see Pearl Jam with my wife late last year and reflecting on other concert going experiences, including my first show: The Ramones at the Wax Museum way back in the early '80s. It's worth noting that I'm not a Pearl Jam fan, but I'm not a hater either--at least not anymore--but if indie music of the early '90s takes you back, you might find something in this piece for you. 

There are three things for which there is no substitute: sex, travel and live music. I applaud those who have their priorities straight. I watched dorkily beautiful strangers lose themselves in the music. I watched them get carried away. I watched them rock the fuck out. Throughout the show I kept thinking, My God, I hope I don’t look like that.

There's a link in the article to a YouTube video of Pearl Jam's entire performance at Lollapalooza at Irvine Meadows. It was fascinating to re-watch this show that I attended over 20 years ago. There's a lot I don't remember (as the essay explains) but I had completely forgotten that after Pearl Jam opened with "Baba O'Riley" they played a ripping version of "Sonic Reducer" by the Dead Boys that's worth checking out.

Death and Book Reviews

My first reviews of 2014 for The Floating Library at San Diego CityBeat have been on the somber side. 2013 ended with several deaths in the family: my uncle, my wife's paternal grandfather and my brother-in-law's grandmother all passed away. They each and enjoyed long, memorable lives. Nevertheless, their passing created a feeling of foreboding as the anniversary to the shootings at Newtown approached. 

First, I reviewed The Last of the Blue and the Gray by Richard A. Serrano, which takes a look at the men who laid claim to the distinction of being the last surviving soldier of the Civil War. It's a facinating book replete with tales of old soldiers. 

"Thirty-five years ago, I could call the roll of thirty in my company. But now, I am the only one living. They are all dead, and when a man dies, he drops out of thought and recollection." 

That quote has stuck with me. I don't want it to be true, but I know it is. Writing is a hedge agaisnt that, but that's all it is. 

I read Newtown with great trepidation for reasons I make clear in my review. I learned a lot of things about Adam Lanza and that horrible day that I wish I could unlearn.

Adam Lanza is a person who resists knowing. His crime, his horrible actions that day, didn't make him that way. He was a cipher all his life. Even to his family. Normally, one says "friends and family" but Lanza didn't have any friends.

On a lighter note, I reviewed Michael J. Seidlinger's bizarre boxing novel The Laughter of Strangers for the Los Angeles Times.

Seidlinger avoids the clinch of genre fiction that tells us boxing novels should be brooding and atmospheric tales. “The Laughter of Strangers” delivers a combination of psychological horror and strangeness that would not be out of place in a David Lynch film. 

Sedilinger is the publisher of Civil Coping Mechanisms and his book was published by Lazy Fascist Press, both of which are very popular with the indie lit crowd, which probably explains the huge number of Facebooks likes it generated.

Next: happiness.