THING 1: Volta 5ive (The Lettered Edition).

Although not called for in the colophon, this is letter “__” from an edition of 26 lettered copies, each accompanied by an original found Kodacolor print from the Halloween Party.

THING 2: Straight Up.

I was scouting a flea market a few weeks ago when I stumbled on a copy of Badfinger’s fourth record sitting in a musty box with maybe a dozen others. I don’t really bother digging through booths that specialize in records anymore. They’re just too expensive. Which is a strange thing to complain about—if records are selling (and they are), then they’re priced exactly where the market says they should be. Still, I can’t shake the memory of my own buying “heyday”: the early aughts, up through about ’05. That’s the price baseline burned into my brain. But there are still deals out there. You just don’t find them at record booths. You find them behind the table of kitchenware, next to the wobbly stools, beside a box or two of empty beer cans (anyone else collect those in the mid-’70s?). That’s where the dusty crate of mostly forgotten ’70s records lives. And that’s where you pull out a copy of Straight Up on the Apple label for four bucks. Six, if you can grab one more record to sweeten the deal. I couldn’t.

THING 3: Support The Revolution.

I pulled the Wallace Berman monograph off my shelf recently and spent an afternoon back inside it. Partly nostalgia, partly timing. Sending Volta 5ive out into the world put me in the right headspace to revisit it. My copy came off the remainder table at Moe’s in Berkeley maybe thirty-five years ago. I didn’t know anything about Berman at the time. Not even his Semina 2, which featured a Bukowski poem. Support the Revolution was my first Berman encounter. The book was published in collaboration with the Pasadena Art Museum and documents his Verifax collages, assemblages, correspondence, and the strange gravity of his orbit — Beat poets, mystics, outsiders, printers, believers, rock stars and celebrities. Call it an obsession if you want. I think of it more as a long, quiet influence that keeps resurfacing when I’m busy making things.

Thing 4: Tombstone, Arizona.

I haven’t really sat down to write anything “serious” in years. I wrote a novel that got me out of grad school. I turned that into a screenplay. I wrote maybe a dozen short stories. A couple landed in the little-little lit ‘zines of the early ’90s. Really little. Like, teeny-tiny. Then life happened. Lately I keep circling the same thought: maybe it’s time to try something substantial again. And for reasons I don’t fully understand, the right side of my brain keeps whispering Tombstone. Not the O.K. Corral version. Not the gunfights and good guys versus bad guys. I’m more interested in the other population — the sex workers with their daddies, the performers and their stages, the hucksters and con men, the preachers, the drifters, and the glorious freaks and geeks who really made the place. The Earps’ shenanigans are background at best. Which then feels like it could be an original story. And maybe the one I’ve been avoiding.

Thing 5: Erotica

I just spent a not-insignificant amount of money on a small chunk of Eric Kroll’s erotica collection. I love this material. Not the penis-in-vagina hardcore stuff. I’m drawn to cross-dressers and spankers and spakees and leather-clad femme dommes and Bettie Page and the figures most people have never heard of — Sam Menning, Reuben Sturman, Cass Carr, Irvin and Paula Klaw, Bunny Yeager, John Willie. Then there’s the fringe legends: The Mish, Louis the Fink, Subway Pete, The Walrus, Glass-Eyed Benny (who didn’t have a glass eye — just one that “didn’t focus right”). Early producers who hired photographers like Menning, who hired models like Page, who made content that ended up in small fetish magazines like Erotique and Exotique and in 50-foot loops that ended up in the grindhouse economy of the dirty, filthy Times Square.

Now all I have to do is price it.

THING 1: Volta 5ive

If you know me, you know I’m a huge fan of Wallace Berman. I’m an even bigger fan of Semina—his artist’s book / little magazine / zine-before-anyone-called-them-a-zine—which was (mostly) gifted to Berman’s pals. Enter Volta. It’s my response to Semina. Not that Semina needs—or deserves—a response from me. But damnit, I felt I had to. I named it after James Joyce’s business venture, The Volta: his failed movie theater in the middle of Dublin around 1910-ish. How does a movie theater fail in 1910? Especially when it’s the only one in the middle of a major European city? Joyce sure did. But then again, without failure, a lot of great fiction never gets written. But I digress. I’m up to the fifth installment of Volta. Berman got to nine Seminas. Maybe that’s when I’ll quit, too. Maybe. Anyway, if you’re reading this—and obviously you are—there’s a good chance one’s already in the mail to you.

THING 2: Plur1bus

Plur1bus, now streaming on Apple TV+, is one of the strangest and most quietly unsettling science-fiction series in recent memory. Imagine being the key to saving humanity from its own happiness. Enter Carol Sturka. She’s a best-selling pop fiction writer who hates her audience. She’s also one of just eleven humans immune from “The Joining.” And she’s the main character of one of the most original TV shows I can remember in a long time. I don’t want to give much more away, except to say it’s pretty much what you’d expect from the writer who created what is, perhaps, the greatest T.V. ever made, Breaking Bad. But this isn’t that—that’s for sure.  What Plur1bus does—quietly, patiently, and sometimes very, very slowly—is ask whether happiness without misery can ever be “happy” at all? Or even human? It’s eerie, creepy, and funny in a dry, almost irritating way. And it’s anchored by Rhea Seehorn (as Carol Sturka), who makes bitterness feel normal. You know—the same way your angry dad or brother or boss or uncle or fill-in-the-blank angry person does for you, too. Only here, it’s art.

THING 3: Train Dreams & Jay Kelly (tied)

Talk about two terrific films that, as the final credits roll, make you take a step back and reconsider not only Robert Grainier’s life or Jay Kelly’s life—but your own. At least that was my takeaway from both.

THING 4: 3 Shades of Blue

One of the things I loved most about Cameron Crowe’s memoir were his stories about musicians—not just during the interviews, but afterward, once the tape recorder was turned off. James Kaplan does something similar here, except instead of Bowie or Gregg Allman or Eagles (before the “The”), he spins tales of Miles, Coltrane, Thelonious, Bill Evans, and everyone else who mattered when jazz was at its absolute peak—say 1955 to 1970. Give or take. The difference is Kaplan wasn’t there. Somehow, it doesn’t matter. He still pulls it off.

THING 5ive: Let it Be — The 40th Anniversary

Speaking of Cameron Crowe—and I’m paraphrasing loosely here—one of the great things about music is how a favorite song can drop you back into the exact place you first heard it. In the fall of 1984, I was living next door to Ben. Ben managed a used record store. I spent a lot of time at Ben’s. And in addition to giving me a first-rate education in music, he also guided me through all sorts of (first-time-for-me, duh) recreational drug use—soundtracked by records like Let It Be. This was before big corporations told us what to stream. But again, I digress. Ben and I are still close friends. And whenever I hear “I Will Dare,” “Unsatisfied,” “Sixteen Blue,” or “Gary’s Got a Boner,” I remember Ben handing me that record forty years ago and telling me to take it home and listen to it. It’s just been reissued as a Deluxe 40th Anniversary Edition, with all sorts of cool new doo-dads added in. But honestly I’m happy with the original to go along with all my memories. (Quick aside: my photog pal Steve Diet Goedde (who’s made my list before) made a terrific pic of the band around this time and you can buy the print here.)

THING 1: LA DIA DE LOS MUERTOS.

For me, November started on the 9th at Tucson’s Día de los Muertos / All Souls procession — a mile-long walk of drums, candles, flowers, and memory. It’s a community ritual with roots in Mexico’s Day of the Dead traditions, where the living honor those who aren’t here anymore. I asked this woman if I could make her picture; she said yes, and as soon as my shutter clicked, she began to cry. Which made me cry. And together, we quietly wept for a brief moment. Without another word being said. Of course I didn’t know who she was thinking about, but I had my dad on my mind. My Da.

THING 2: THE UNCOOL: A MEMOIR.

SAVE OUR REPUBLIC! JOIN THE JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY! “The Birchers,” my mom rumbled—she was never one to squander an opportunity to teach—“watch out for the John Birch Society” she said. “One day they’ll take over. They’ll disguise themselves as Republicans and put all the teachers in jail.” This is Cameron Crowe, and he’s reading The Uncool, and it’s wild how fast it drops me back into the world that became Almost Famous. I’m eight chapters in, and just like the movie, Crowe’s mom in the memoir runs the house with a kind of fierce, loving, borderline-claustrophobic control. But in the book, she’s full of terrific aphorisms — and also a bit of a soothsayer. She certainly is close with her Birchers prediction; and early on, when she’s teaching in Japan before Crowe’s birth, she gets this overwhelming feeling that something terrible is coming. So strong, she moves out of the apartment she shares with another teacher. A few months later, a tsunami hits — killing a whole bunch of people, including the roomie who stayed in the apartment. And I haven’t even gotten to the part where Crowe meets David Bowie.

THING 3: MINX.

Looking for something to watch? I’m late to this one, but Minx hits a weird, sweet spot for me. It’s on Netflix, and it isn’t the amazingly-written, awards-season kind of show. Sometimes the ideas you care about only get heard when they hitch a ride on the vehicle people are actually paying attention to. Main character Joyce wants to publish a serious feminist magazine; the only way she gets it printed is by wrapping it around a stack of dick pics. Remember the guys who claimed they read Playboy “for the articles”? Funny thing is, the articles were great — and for someone like Joyce Carol Oates, Playboy probably offered the biggest circulation she’d ever get. That’s the grim honesty about building an audience, compromise, and how creativity travels in the real world. And yeah, I kinda feel Joyce’s pain — the one on Minx and the one behind the typewriter.

THING 4: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

Minx doesn’t do it for ya? But you’re looking for something to watch, right? You probably know about the new Ken Burns doc. Maybe you’re already working your way through The American Revolution. If not, you should. I’m doing it, but slowly. And by “slowly,” I mean in 45-minute (or so) chunks—the maximum my brain can handle before it politely taps out. Not because Burns’s new documentary is boring. The opposite. It’s fabulous! It’s like being trapped in a classroom with the greatest history teacher who ever lived, hitting me with beautifully arranged facts until my mental buffer hits FULL. Turns out, that’s actually how the brain works: after about 40–45 minutes of dense information, we drift, not from boredom but from overload. So I watch it the way I’m supposed to eat rich food—small portions, savor everything, breathe between bites. Which means it’s probably going to take me a month to get through it all.

THING 5ive: THE TONE POETS.

I’m not an audiophile — my ear isn’t that good, and I’m certainly not about to start arguing about audio cables or turn tables or JBL vs. Klipsch (I’m a JBL dude) — but the Blue Note Tone Poet reissues are magical. Joe Harley and Kevin Gray are the wizards behind them (I had to look that up), and whatever they’re doing, it works. The fine folks at Blue Note just shipped me A Night at the Village Vanguard; I close my eyes, and for as long as I keep them closed I swear I’m in the Vanguard: small room, clinking glasses, Rollins’ horn right in front of me. I don’t know how they pull it off, but these records sound alive.

Thing 1: RIP Ace.

My earliest record-buying memory goes back to the fall of 1975 and a Phoenix grocery store chain called “Smitty’s Big Town”. Long before Costco, Smitty’s figured out that people might want to buy their groceries, a tennis racket, a toaster, and a bike all in one place; hence, it’s a Big Town. For Sixth Grade Me, that meant one very important thing: Big Town’s small — but magical — record section tucked between the last of the food aisles and the sporting goods. I first saw KISS Alive! rifling through their tiny ROCK section, but I already heard about the record. And certainly the band. The rumors were already circulating at my middle-school (and probably yours, too): were they Satanists? Knights in Service of Satan! Did they even actually play their instruments? And certainly Gene Simmons had a cow’s tongue sewn onto his own. I asked my mom for the album, but she scoffed — maybe because double albums cost more, maybe because she just didn’t want that noise in her house. Her official reply: “You don’t like acid rock, so go put it back and meet me up at the cashier’s.” I said: “OK.”

(Photo credit: Chalkie Davis).

Thing 2: Richard Prince — Early Photography 1977–1987.

I caught Prince’s Gagosian show built around this book last spring in New York. What I love about Prince—pictures or paintings—is how approachable the work feels, which, I know, sounds ridiculous when you consider that thing called appropriation. But that’s the point for me, same as with Warhol and Duchamp: it’s less about how “easy” the work seems (I can do that!) and more about the reaction it provokes. I love watching people grow furious. That energy becomes part of the piece. And being at the gallery and standing in front of these prints really tightened it all up—Prince’s deadpan humor, the re-framing, the way an image shifts when you simply say it’s art. Because it is art, and no…you couldn’t do it.

Thing 3: Scot Southern.

I’m pretty sure I met Scot Sothern’s Work and Scot Sothern The Man at the same time—at his These Days show a handful of years ago—and I’ve been a fan ever since. I love his writing as much as his photography as much as his art. His voice, the imagery, our shared idea of the human condition— it hits me the same way a terrific Bukowski poem or one of Vollmann’s Tenderloin stories or some of Mikailov’s toughest photographs. In fact, I like Scot’s work so much the synaesthesia press will be publishing one of Scot’s short stories in the not-too-distant future.

Thing 4: Sofiya Loriashvili — куряче крило.

куряче крило means “chicken wing”, and the fine folks at Paper Work just published Sofiya Loriashvili’s book in an edition of 100. I didn’t know her work; I did know Boris Mikhailov’s Case History—and the second I saw Paper Work’s advert for Chicken Wing I flashed back to the remaindered art book store near the Pompidou in Paris well over a decade ago. (It’s since closed.) It’s where I pulled a copy of Case History for 10Euros, and it’s been rattling around in my head ever since. Loriashvili isn’t doing Mikhailov, exactly, but his influence is there: the toughness and tenderness of looking straight at a place and its people without flinching, and then letting a small, ordinary moment do the heavy work. Which is a fancy way of saying the photog is limiting their audience. Which is a fancy way of saying Chicken Wing ain’t for everyone—bleeding heads and shootin’ dope and panties bled through—or, in other words, young Ukrainians barely holding their own in their (our) fucked-up world. I’m in for two copies.

Thing 5: Stephen Shore — Early Work.

If I could trade creative lives with anyone, I think it’d be Stephen Shore. I’ll digress: as a kid I watched my mom work her Canon AE-1; as an adult I found my grandpa’s color slides from the late ’40s/early ’50s. So yeah, I’ve always wanted to be a photographer—maybe it was even in my DNA? But I never wanted to be “that guy.” You know. The one with the camera flung around his neck asking people to hold still. Call it imposter syndrome, call it low artistic self-esteem. Call it not wanting to be perceived as creepy. I picked up a camera now and then during the 90’s (mostly then), but I never pushed it. Shore did what I couldn’t; and then, as a young man in the mid-60’s, he walked straight into the peak of Warhol’s Factory. With a camera flung around his neck being that guy. I’d almost sell my soul for that. (Maybe not.) What I love about Early Work is how assured his young eye already is—the quiet strangeness of ordinary life most people miss. It coincides nicely with Prince’s Early Photography: two photogs figuring out what pictures can do—one by re-defining images that already exist, the other by noticing the world most of us miss.

Thing 1: Pig by Sam Sax

On a not-so-recent run to Tucson—my favorite Arizona city—I ducked into another favorite, Antigone. There on the shelf, face out for maximum marketing, was Pig by Sam Sax. Gotta love when they face-out a book of poems! And yeah, I know: only suckers judge books by their covers. But whoever designed Sax’s cover deserves a gold medal pinned to their chest. It made me grab it. Heads up: these poems aren’t for everyone. Take “Pig Bttm Looking for Now”—raw, unflinching, and exactly the kind of poem that makes me lean in instead of looking away. I grabbed Pig for its cover, but Sax’s poems made me buy it.

Thing 2: Erik Satie

While scouring my usual places for interesting pictures to post on Instagram, I stumbled on a Man Ray portrait. The subject? Someone I didn’t know: Erik Satie. Turns out he was a French composer—and a full-on oddball in the best way, which is right up my alley. Satie wandered Paris in velvet suits, carried a small hammer just in case (no one ever pinned down what, exactly, “just in case” meant), and kept seven identical grey suits so he could always look like a “priest of boredom.” He collected umbrellas, ate only white foods (eggs, sugar, grated bones, animal fat, veal, salt, coconuts, rice, turnips, pastry dough, and certain cheeses), and scribbled musical directions like to be played like a nightingale with a toothache. And yup, Satie’s streaming everywhere. Even Bandcamp. Right now. On my player.

Thing 3: Flagstaff, Arizona

I’ve talked about Flagstaff before. It sits at 7,000 feet in northern Arizona, tucked into ponderosa pine forests at the base of the San Francisco Peaks. Once a railroad and lumber town, today it’s a mix of college energy, mountain-town super funk, and gateway-to-the-parks tourism. With four seasons—snow in winter, wildflowers in summer—it feels like a different world from the desert where I dwell just two hours south. Back in March I spent 48 hours here. Well—I’m back again now, winding down my week-long road trip. Not many bookshops to duck into; I drink my coffee at Macy’s; and I take my doggo Molly for a walk in Wheeler Park. I could never spend the rest of my life here, and certainly no more than a few days during the winter. But the summer? Just point me toward a cabin within walking distance of my coffee spot and Molly’s park, and I’ll sign the 6-month lease.

Thing 4: Gay Nazis

Go ahead and think I’m crazy, but yeah—a friend and I brought up Gay Nazis in a conversation today. Specifically, the Brownshirts (SA), Hitler’s original street thugs in the ’20s and ’30s. They wore brown uniforms, roughed up opponents, and helped pave Hitler’s rise to power. Their leader, Ernst Röhm, was openly gay—unusual in Nazi ranks. Plenty of the SA followed suit. For a while Hitler and Röhm were very close. Röhm was useful. And when he wasn’t, you probably know the end of that story. So when a reporter asked The President how he was holding up after Charlie Kirk’s death—and the flippant answer “I think very good” before pivoting to brag about a new White House ballroom? No, the President didn’t have Charlie killed. But of course that’s an absurd response concerning someone who most likely got him to the place he is right now. Which somehow feels like it came straight out of history’s darker chapters. Just like a lot of other things happening right now. So yeah. Gay Nazis.

Thing 5: Pro Wrestling as Modern Folk Theater

The night before I left on this road trip, I shot the 7th anniversary show for Phoenix Championship Wrestling. Sure, we all know people love to mock wrestling as fake and stupid and just guys in tights pretending. But what they miss is the higher thing: pro wrestling as modern folk theater. Oh sure, you’re laughing. But hear me out—it’s a morality play in spandex, storytelling to scream back at (or laugh at), complete with heroes, villains, betrayal, and redemption—all unfolding in a ring that doubles as a stage. Like commedia dell’arte or old morality plays, the characters are archetypes: the cheating heel, the babyface who won’t quit, the crowd deciding in real time who deserves the win. It’s not about suspension of disbelief—it’s about collective belief. And there’s nothing like watching it in person. Of course everyone knows it’s scripted, but for a couple of hours, why not agree to play along? In that shared performance, wrestling feels as old as theater itself.

Leave it to a wrestling-nerd-cum-intellectual-book-nerd to critically think about wrasslin’.

I’ll kick off this installment with this quote from The Monkey Wrench Gang: “Seldom Seen Smith was in the river-running business. The back-country business. He was a professional guide, wilderness outfitter, boatman and packer. His capital equipment consisted basically of such items as rubber boats, kayaks, life jackets, mountain tents, outboard motors, pack saddles, topographic maps, waterproof duffel bags, signal mirrors, climbing ropes, snakebite kits, 150-proof rum, fly rods and sleeping bags. And a pickup and a 2½-ton truck, each with this legend on magnetic decals affixed to the doors: BACK OF BEYOND EXPEDITIONS, Jos. Smith, Prop., Hite, Utah.”

1. Back of Beyond Books, Moab UT.

You don’t know this, but I’m on 7-day road trip, driving “The Mighty Five“. So yea…this week’s installment will be all about that. Road tripin’ The Mighty Five. While in Moab, I stumbled across Back of Beyond, and it’s terrific. The new book selection is strong, but the real draw? If you’re an Ed Abbey geek, here ya go: their “Ed Abbey case,” holds pretty much every one of his titles in first edition—many signed or inscribed. Jonathan Troy? Check. The Brave Cowboy? Check. Shit, I’ve never held a first of Brave Cowboy, and I’ve only seen Jonathon Troy one other time. Plus all his later works still in print, including the Crumb-illustrated Monkey Wrench Gang and the University of Arizona Press edition of Desert Solitaire. Head to the back of the store and you’ll find a great section of rare books. A complete run of Jon Webb’s Outsider magazine, four of the five issues in jacket, and by far the nicest copy I’ve ever seen of Gypsy Lou’s Flowers Picked at Geronimo’s Grave, which, I’m certain, is still under her spell. And if that’s not enough, check out Ed Abbey’s writing desk on display—complete with a faux Abbey manuscript, like he just stepped out to make a quick run for a cold bottle of Schlitz.

2. Torrey, Utah

Torrey, Utah, was settled in the 1880s by Mormon pioneers. Today it’s best known as the gateway town to Capitol Reef National Park, and most of the town’s population are descended from said Mormon pioneers. So, after a terrific breakfast at the Wild Rabbit Café, we drove around their tiny town. Torrey’s population is maybe 120 (hear hear, Jim Thompson!), so you don’t expect much beyond the terrific, old schoolhouse, now a bed & breakfast. But in that parking lot I spotted a brand-new car up on concrete blocks, all four tires gone. I laughed and asked the couple standing nearby the other parked cars if the tires had been stolen—”because that’s the kind of thing that only happens in Big Bad Blue Cities, not here in Safe-and-Red Small Town, USA.” The woman glared at me and walked away. Yup. It’s their car. Yup, I felt like a giant ass. I apologized profusely to the man, who was good-natured enough about it. He told me the only dealership that could help was in Salt Lake, some 200 miles away. Seven to ten business days for new tires to get delivered to Torrey. My guess? The missing set didn’t make it far out of Torrey. Maybe someone over at that giant polygamist compound right down the street might know a little sumptin’-sumtin?