Phoenix, AZ

Great taste of Phoenix on the weekend, which was wholly unexpected. Doris and I stayed at a slum hotel where the towels smelt like they dry between guests and little else. It was near the arena, within walking distance.

The summer weather in Phoenix during winter was flabbergasting. People walking around with their shirts off. Hard to complain about that.

Went for a three hour hike in which I never worked up an appetite because I had eaten a protein brownie that I had bought at a Circle K for $2.39. Lack of hunger frightened me a bit. However once we stepped in Trader Joe's afterwards I was ravenous, ended up buying some applesauce among other things to take back to Flagstaff as there are no Trader Joe's here. Downtown Phoenix is worth checking out.

We were stationed in the art district. Fortuitously came across the club where I'll see Malkmus next month. Pretty jazzed about that. Will see if Roberto and J want to rent a room in a hotel on Van Buren Blvd and I will show them how.

A lot of our excursion reminded me of the finer points of LA. The hike had a slight Mulholland Drive tinge to it (minus the amnesiatic lesbian), while the neighborhoods around downtown were lined with palm tress and beautiful bungalows.

Before the Suns game, we grabbed a bite at Cooperstown, the insanely popular sports bar that Alice assembled. Lots of good memorabilia including a life-size dummy of him. I couldn't resist a beef brisket sandwich. Margaritas were damn good too. Actually they were called the best damn margarita and they ain't lying. The arena was next door. The Suns won. Impressive because they are not very good. Had a beer at an Irish Bar afterwards and called it a night to remember.

Year in Reading

I read some books last year. Some were too cumbersome to fit in my pocket. Others I would marry if they were girls.

Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem (12)
Boomerang by Barry Hannah (14)
Sons and Lovers by DH Lawrence (5)
Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan (11)
Reinhart's Women by Thomas Berger (4)
Swimming to Cambodia by Spalding Gray (6)
Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (10)
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by JK Rowling (25)
The Great Gatsby by F Scott (13)
I no longer believe in the sun: Letters to Katie Couric by Derek Fenner (21)
The Rainbow by DH Lawrence (24)
This is Orson Welles by Peter Bogdonavich (9)
2001 Australian Nights by Dave Graney (19)
Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes (15)
The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West (17)
Crazy in Berlin by Thomas Berger (18)
Pages from a Cold Island by Fred Exley (8)
Love in the Ruins by Walker Percy (1)
Bats Out of Hell by Barry Hannah (3)
Neighbors by Thomas Berger (16)
Never Die by Barry Hannah (22)
Black Boy by Richard Wright (7)
George Sanders: An Exhausted Life by Peter Van derBeets (20)
Norwood by Charles Portis (2)
A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O' Connor (23)

Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem NYC novel written with so much dash and flair you excuse the exceedingly nerdy premise. Instant classic!


Boomerang by Barry Hannah
Jazzy lit virtuoso with a spiked-stud punk credo.


Sons and Lovers by DH Lawrence Lawrence's ode to coal and the men who mine it. Essential read for sons of mothers, their mothers, and to a lesser extent their lovers. Became a communist manifesto embraced by wordsmiths such as Richard Wright.


Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan
Instructive surrealism/illogical beauty. Child-like! Life-changing!


Reinhart's Women by Thomas Berger
The last Reinhart novel has more heart, more sweetness to its core than it does women and food, and there's a lot of women and food in this definitive Eighties novel from the great heir to Twain.

Swimming to Cambodia by Spalding Gray
Gray documents his misadventures in Thailand and Cambodia filming The Killing Fields. A superb blend of darkness (recounting the horrors perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge) and light (Gray is a charming neurotic narrator).

Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
A supreme example of stretching high comedy over 500 farcical pages, really quite awesome.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by JK Rowling
The first fifty pages were pretty good angst.


The Great Gatsby by F Scott
Weirder than I remembered, eternally mysterious and beautiful.


I no longer believe in the sun: Letters to Katie Couric by Derek Fenner
An obsession with Katie Couric yields impressive high comedy.


The Rainbow by DH Lawrence
Went off Lawrence a bit after this. A slog. Felt like Twain on an island with nothing but Henry James.


This is Orson Welles by Peter Bogdonavich
If someone said that I had an opportunity to go live on an island where it would just be me and Orson, I would seriously leave today. After a certain length of time, I would come to want his movies there too and there would be no food left.

2001 Australian Nights by Dave Graney 
I like how it closes with a meditation on death. Beautiful. Actually death walks among the pages of this memoir from one of Australia's unique personalities/ musical treasures like the Atomic Rooster song David Nichols put on a mix-CD he gave me for my 35th birthday. Really feel Dave's presence as a noble artist with such an insatiable thirst for the culture around him and his seeking answers to life through his art.

Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes 
Its ample ruminations on love came at a less than ideal moment. Certainly one to read when you are in love!

The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West 
Is there a nastier low-rent femme fatale in American fiction than Faye Greener? The cockfighting, the midgets. Opens the door that Flannery rather assuredly walked through.

Crazy in Berlin by Thomas Berger 
Evil, and a testament to Berger's genius. His debut written in his twenties, Wellesian.

Pages from a Cold Island by Fred Exley 
The sex is off-the-charts and so is the Mailer-esque writing, grandiose and full of walloping torment. He writes Portis off for his “folksy parlance”. Brilliant and hilarious.

Love in the Ruins by Walker Percy 
Page after page of this book was just unbelievable. Some of my most favorite times of the year were spent reading this.

Bats Out of Hell by Barry Hannah 
Contains a good deal of Hannah's most brilliant writing.

Neighbors by Thomas Berger 
H texted me the other day: “Read Neighbors in three days. My favorite book of 2011 or 2012. Perfect economical dialogue. Not a wasted word. Berger has a fantastic quote regarding Neighbors and how it will be misunderstood. I'll forward it on.” He never forwarded it on.

Never Die by Barry Hannah
I'd like to give this bat-shit crazy western to a Zane Grey lover. Curious if Cormac M ever read him. 

Black Boy by Richard Wright
The prose is so clean you could eat off it.

George Sanders: An Exhausted Life by Peter Van derBeets It's entirely too bad we never got his life in words because his eloquence and wit offscreen was as finely wrought as the words Mankiewicz and other wrote for him. Him and Zsa Zsa, the great modern pair.

Norwood by Charles Portis
Slight, but a good model for what I am trying to do. I love it.

A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O' Connor
Not so much heartless, as not real empathetic. I'm reading Spalding Gray's Journals and his girlfriend criticizes his efforts at fiction saying he does not have enough empathy for people. Personally I don't know if I do either! Story collection ends with an old curmudgeon, who gets a change of heart, but it's too late. My recommendation: play Smog's Wild Love while reading Stroke of Good Fortune. It's a party in heaven attended by creeps you won't want to miss!

Parts of Alex Chilton's sock

Texted H yesterday saying thank goodness Hissing Fauna, Are you my Destroyer? is such a stunning album because the packaging is impenetrable. For whatever reason, I compared it to a bowel movement made by an author who did his best work in the 80s.

I'm just glad that I am not the first person to google 'parts of a sock.' True story. Didn't know the top part of a sock was called a cuff,  so I blimming googled it.

 Barry came by last night and we christened the Smile Sesh on the chunky acetate I received for Christmas. It was smashing, a word I apparently say all the time — I have no knowledge of this ever occurring, but I really love those weird and wonderful instrumental passages the Beach Boys put into action, they are smashing. Here's Barry and I from another time. We both like Alex Chilton a lot and always end up talking about him because what else you going to talk about? Let me rephrase that: why else talk about anything else?

Portland 1972-present

That's Dad bbqing a tri-tip, looking for a top up.

Saw Typhoon Babb in his Oregon Ducks uniform (#69) drinking a 7 & 7 at Bleachers Pub and Grill. He was playing pool with fellow Spartan alum Pat K on New Years's Day. What an exciting thrill! Bleachers is a beerhole that serves top shelf brandy liqueur on demand if the Blazers get to within ten points of their opponents with six minutes to play in the fourth quarter. The brandy was my idea. I am not no coach so every little bit counts. We had nachos and wings and it was delightfully sloppy. But the Blazers lost.

 I texted Tim the next day and waited to hear from him and waited some more. After wondering why he hadn't texted me back, I actually became quite cross, then I remembered! I had thrown his phone in the river on NYE. We went and saw the Pierced Arrows that night, Fred and Toody's post-Dead Moon project. I had succumbed to the Canadian Hunter a little too savagely by this point. I prowled the merch desk, enamored with the buttons they had on display for a $1, but I couldn't buy anything because I had left my wallet at Tim's house. Left a lot of things behind the last few days. Left my credit card at Bleachers. Went and watched the football game at John and Tami's yesterday. Left my phone there.

Tim gave me his leather jacket because he's been looking for someone to give it to and I happened to have the right build, so he insisted! It's a really nice jacket! What a guy! The thing is the pockets in new jackets throw me off and I always think I know where things are, but in actuality I don't. Therefore I am constantly leaving stuff behind. In likelihood this pattern will continue for the next few weeks. My New Years resolution will involve getting a driver's license, I think.