Or maybe I should say, who is mjp Books? In light of my last post, I should probably say that mjp Books is no longer. Mainly because mjp is no longer. The books that were hereare over at booksbyhannah.com. The books haven’t changed, even though I have. This blog, though, is done. Any new books …
Category Archives: Writing
In your ears
Oh look, he’s back. It’s been a few months, for those of you who didn’t realize I was gone. You’re probably thinking I ran out of things to say, but that’s not it. I have a few posts here that I’ve written but haven’t published. So my absence wasn’t due to a lack of ideas. No, what’s …
The Senseless, Tragic Rape of Charles Bukowski’s Ghost (the Prequel)
The article, The senseless, tragic rape of Charles Bukowski’s ghost by John Martin’s Black Sparrow Press tells the story (read that first if you haven’t already), but for the curious there is an interesting bit of back-story. In the 1990s I ran an artists/writers/photography site called smog.net, and it had a Bukowski section. The primary tool …
Continue reading “The Senseless, Tragic Rape of Charles Bukowski’s Ghost (the Prequel)”
Wasp Would Sting You
I’m in the midst of a seemingly never ending task. A place I often find myself. What makes my feeble mind encounter a ridiculous mound of sorting, scanning, building, fixing and otherwise general tedium and say, “There’s a great use of your time!” If this stuff was really important, wouldn’t someone else have done it …
Writing the world’s greatest novel
I am writing a book. I’ve written a few books, but this one is different. It’s really long. It started as a short story about being on the road in a punk band, Sonny Vincent and The Extreme, back in 1980 and 81. One day I looked at it and thought, “I wonder what it …
Hooray! It’s the mailman!
I’ve been considering running a month-long promotion to give away electronic versions of my books. I figure the typical person who would dig what I’m doing here might also be a book collector, so giving away the Kindle or iPad versions could spur some sales of the real things. You know, the ink on paper ones. Offering …
Meet the new blog, same as the old blog
Here we are, in a new – something. For years I had a blog, then I got tired of writing in it and shut it down. Now look at me, I’m back. Most of the posts from the old blog are back too, like it or not.
My baby, she wrote me a letter
Carol is working on a new book, and in an effort to make it as labor-intensive as possible, she is actually typing out the text on each finished page (hundreds of them) by hand on an old Underwood typewriter. This makes a clack clack clacking sound throughout the house, that was probably a very familiar …
Harry Potter, I’m coming to kick your ass!
Way back in the olden days (January of 1995) I signed a fancy looking contract with Mother Road Publications for a book of poems and short stories. It was a long and drawn out birth (as these things usually are in the small press) but finally, in April of 1997, alternative man appeared. It was my first book and I was pretty excited about it. When the first 5 or 10 copies came in the mail I opened one of them and smelled it. “Yeah, that smells like a real book,” I thought. Hey, you do weird things when it’s yours.
Hotter than July
Carol made a detailed post about a Miranda July reading we saw last night, but I thought I would add my two cents, because that’s just what I do.
Children of a lesser dog from hell
I wrote this last summer for the Charles Bukowski Gesellschaft Jahrbuch, which is the German Bukowski Society yearbook. It is presented here in lieu of actual entertainment. Thank you.
Dumb and dumber
I have in my hot little hands the final proof of the paperback version of Riding Out the Dumb Silence, and I’ll be damned if it isn’t right and tight and ready to go.
Decades and bits of centuries
Well I’m jumping ship. Gave a week’s notice at the old job, so I’ll work this coming Friday there and the following Monday at the new gig. A weekend is much better than the two years I had between jobs last time, so I can’t complain. Two years of unemployment has it’s positive points, but on the downside, abject poverty gets old real fast.
Scuttlebutt and innuendo
Now that the Bukowski material is all gone from smog there’s probably no one here to read this. Ah, well. Maybe you’ll all show up on the groovy new Bukowski forum, over at https://bukowski.net/forum/ and we’ll get to know each other better.
Beware the fury of a patient man
Yes, it’s true — I have finally received the mythical Peace Card set, a letterpress project that started well over three years ago. I sent off my contribution in October of 2002, and as you may have read here, waiting turned to disbelief, frustration, anger — all of those groovy emotions that make life worth living.