Portmanteaujamboree: Book Publishing Follies
For Harry, on her 62nd birthday
Years ago, a book release week could land writers (aka men) on talk shows (see: Norman Mailer on The Tonight Show, Arthur C. Clarke on The Dick Cavett Show), but nowadays those who fight with pens not swords are rarely seen on the bronze screen. Full of edibles and once again inserting a telescope into the eye of my abdomen, I thought: Wouldn’t the readership like a top ten list of the highlights from a week in book self-publishing? I then answered myself with “Absolutely not!” and continued anyway. Moral: eat more edibles, not more chikin [Chick-fil-A sic]. <— “I don’t eat there because they disapprove of homosexuals,” some of you thought while reading on your phones built by indentured child slaves.
My pal, Connor O’Brian, arrived at three on July 28th ready to match the book cover and document parameters to Amazon’s KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) formatting, which much like December 2019’s first go-round, led to seven hours of re-re-re-editing and error messages (one must upload everything, watch the screen spin for five or so minutes, and await the inevitable “Fuck you, try again!” messaging—not a direct quote). As Connor packed up his shit to leave, I thought, “Why don’t we just use the same exact numbers from our template last time?” Nonetheless, minutes to midnight, the process was largely done…aside from my sedulous re-formatting of the document for several days afterward, a perfectionist’s simultaneous dream and nightmare, or the equivalent of meeting the Hawk Tuah girl in a motel room only for her “spit on that thang” to be a strap-on used for pegging. Alas, a boy can dream.
Publishing a 719-page book is one of the most self-indulgent things I’ve ever done—until I bring a copy to flash in the house of mirrors when attending my next carnival. However, pretending you care about what happened in its wake rivals the feat (good humor me—I’ll take a toasted almond), which is why you only have yourself to blame for continuing to read this essay. While publishing writing that lived on the Internet for four-and-a-half years wasn’t as cathartic as the first go-round, I now have a murder weapon with my name on it available for $20.44 on America’s fifth most heavily trafficked website.
10. My mother has grown vegetables in a raised bed by a skate park in town this summer, yielding me doorstep drop-offs of cucumbers, parsley, non-ripening cantaloupes, and a torrent of tomatoes. I’ve been enjoying cuke slices on whole wheat toast with labneh almost as much as guessing what delivery method Harry will select when bequeathing items from the food pyramid’s third tier. My favorite L.O.L.-like Surprise was easing the drawstring on a nylon bag that once contained her bedsheets to find a few sad, tiny pieces of broccoli, a handful of peppers about whose origins she said were unknown, and basil wrapped in a paper towel with a rubber band around it, Enfield’s Gertrude Jekyll too busy greening up her thumb to purchase sandwich bags or a Dungeons & Dragons pouch. Of course, this has nothing to do with publishing a book, but it struck me as a mother’s worthwhile celebration of her offspring, a man on pins and needles for his autumn apples to arrive inside water balloons resting atop a hay-filled Radio Flyer wagon bed. Even better, she sometimes uses Lyft’s helicopter option to surprise my neighbors as carrots and cauliflowers rain from the sky.
09. The owner of the business I work for announced in Slack that new company-branded (free) merchandise was available: white and black tee shirts along with a variety of New Era-style baseball caps, the type whose puffed up front brings to mind train conductors with walrus-y mustaches. On the shared Google sheet doubling as our “order form,” I requested, among other things, a company-branded ascot, winter gloves, and an eye patch. The real excitement transpired when our COO called me soon thereafter. “Adam, I wanted to be the one to tell you that a very limited one-of-one Ed Ruscha-branded commemorative butt plug is being mailed along with the shirts you requested!” While this wasn’t as enticing as the bag of licorice I hinted at including by “accident” with my order, the butt plug would come in handy when Hawk Tuah sent her brunette friend to meet me in that mythical motel. “Who the hell is Ed Ruscha?” you may have been thinking, and really, if you’re not into modern art or books with titles that create portmanteaus out of the word portmanteau, does your time have any value? (“Are you actually asking yourself something more serious, Adam?” Rebuttal title: Shade in America.) Oddly, my mother’s next scheduled conveyance is blueberries tucked inside a fisting glove.
08. Speaking of work…my co-worker, Grant, sat next to me when we dined at Spago, the Wolfgang Puck restaurant in Beverly Hills, during my July trip to Los Angeles. He learned about my hatred of those little yellow shit stains called Minions, sending me memes like “If TGIF is Thank God It’s Friday, then Today must be SHIT, Sure Happy It’s Thursday!” with a smiling Minion staring at me as my upper row of teeth angrily bit into my lower lip. And what I’m about to type isn’t a source of pride, dear reader (there’s only one of you left), but it had to be done: I scoured the web for rebuttal images, looking at more Minion porn than I could’ve imagined existed. There was a “Happy Friday!” response featuring a Minion in BDSM gear, a Minion with nipple clamps and a fidget spinner around his cock, and my favorite, a cartoon Danny DeVito sheepishly sodomizing a Minion, admittedly a more enticing option than his not-quite-ex-wife Rhea Perlman. As you can deduce, life after self-publishing is as glamorous as when Mailer helped get parole for an ex-murderer only for the parolee to kill again six weeks after release. Onward and upward…which was the title of the DeVito porn tape.
07. Well, look at this: an actual graph about the book itself! After emailing roughly ninety people that PMTJ, the acronymical [sic] abbreviation for my behemoth, had been released, I re-checked the document and found a glaring, almost idiotic typo in one Iranian cinema review, a case of accidentally hitting the keyboard, not seeing an issue while being too afraid to hit control and the letter Z to undo whatever happened (fearing it would reverse a previous correction), and being horrified when the fallout presented itself, a fatwa issued on my own copy editing. Since it takes Amazon at least twelve hours to upload a freshly edited document, a few people likely received an “error copy” with a bungled review of Through the Olive Trees, an act of utter disrespect to Abbas Kiarostami. Turning shit into shiitakes, I had been itching to buy a new movie poster for the “spillover room” I’d been reorganizing in Sue’s absence, so I purchased a poster of the motion picture to commemorate my literary lapse by hanging it in a room where I will clandestinely watch my neighbor chain smoke white-filtered cigarettes in a wicker chair outside her mud room while contemplating if the elderly man who hangs flags from a tree in his nearby front yard will ever out me with a semaphore performance accusing me of voyeurism.
06. Each morning’s soundtrack during the run was Clairo’s album Charm, my favorite new release since Jessie Ware’s What’s Your Pleasure? in 2020. New music affects me most deeply during presidential election/leap years, it seems. While Clairo’s general hipster aesthetic makes her look like she may not bathe more than thrice monthly, she coos over eleven cozy, sparse but addicting soft rock-slash-hip-hop-accented tracks. Desperate to see her in late October, I tried to talk myself into visiting (a) Boston on a (b) weeknight during (c) potential Yankees World Series game dates. “Oh, fuck off, AHF, that team ain’t winning shit!” Excuse me, but you could’ve told me the truth without such vitriol. Anyway: I love having previously enjoyed but largely forgotten about an artist’s work until a new release knocks me sideways, adds a pseudo-newbie to my personal pantheon, and allows me to giddily play an album into the ground like when I discovered favorites in high school, the type of musical obsession I chase each time I press the right-facing arrow on my monitor. It’s why I stream innumerable new releases each year: for the once-every-1,400-days chance an album lodges in my ears for the long haul. To where? Clairoklahoma, where the wavin’ beat can sure gel sweet. Note to self for Sir Dumpling (official title of Book Three/some are already collectively referring to it, Lazerbeam Sandwich, and Portmanteaujam as The Carb Trilogy): Find a fucking copy editor. “This copy editing fuhhhhhcks.” While we won’t speak of this paragraph again, we (meaning me) will keep blasting Claire. Ohhhh! *STAHHHHP!*
05. Since getting rid of cable a few months ago, my primary nightly viewing when not fighting with my cheap antenna is a movie. There’s something about browsing the wall of DVD spines at the town library—a convenient half mile walk from my house—that reminds me of my first job at Blockbuster. In an attempt to watch popular fare I’d somehow evaded throughout the years (The Lost Boys/pure rubble; The Last Emperor/I hate when cinema uses a trick to make characters whose native tongue is not English incongruously speak our language; Revenge/I, too, would like to penetrate early ‘90s Madeleine Stowe in a moving car, but not with Kevin Costner on hand), I screened Scott Pilgrim vs. the World along with two other Edgar Wright titles, my co-worker informing me how he’d written his final exam essay for a bygone film studies class about the motion picture in question. How could anything starring Brie “MOOSE” Larson, Anna Kendrick, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead—better known as the butch lesbian pool party next door I dream about each summer/weird curveball, huh?—bore me to tears? By casting Michael Cera as an alpha male who two of those women illogically lust after. Both Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead were more entertaining, not that any of the three are likely to be re-watched, and while there’s little satisfaction to populist flicks ultimately disappointing me, it’s at least why I felt confident in telling a buddy how I’d continue ignoring Days of Thunder and Top Gun for the foreseeable future, the whereabouts of Shelly Miscavige be damned. We really lost the plot in this graph, huh? “You mean the entire essay?”
04. Okay…back to the basics. I met up with my college pal, Mooch, to conclude book publishing week. Two WHUS personalities were (not) on hand to discuss the upcoming twentieth anniversary of our semester in London in conjunction with my book being released, a would-be impromptu UConn radio video profile shot in a corner booth at the Athenian Diner in Middletown, the town most conveniently in the middle of Enfield and New London. Mooch defied her nickname to treat to dinner and purchase my book mid-meal—after she offered me a bite of her western omelette—although I had a gladiola bouquet in a cold water-filled bucket on the floor of my passenger seat awaiting her. She also gifted me a recent collection containing one essay she penned (and didn’t have to self-publish, that lucky and gifted duck), a funny, acidic take on female aging and continuing to be accepted by the boys from her teens who remained loyal friends. Bit on the schnoz for our dynamic, including my comment that her Iranian boyfriend would initiate a fatwa on me for the flowers. [Mythical Editor’s Note: Unexpected—and probably unnecessary—fatwa humor in this essay.] While I wasn’t as elated by publishing a book this time, I am prouder because of its presentation, that it marks a bulk of the most noteworthy occurrences in an unpredictable four-year stretch, and to know it wasn’t a fluke the first time. [Mythical Editor’s Note, Part This 2: Electric Boogaloo Shall Pass: 368 pages wasn’t a fluke, bub. 719 pages is…something else.] Nice to commemorate that feeling with an old crush, a fellow scribe, and a genuine, kind, and supportive friend. But geez, seriously, did she steal one of my car’s floor mats?!
03. My buddy, Rick, had been having a rough go of it in the Deadwood Forest, his long-employed nickname for the resale ticketing industry, so I cold called him, a rare occurrence that produced a two hour and twenty-two-minute chat. At one point, he kindly said how well I continued to be doing in grieving Sue’s loss, to which I responded, “Handling it better than many people handle the deaths of their dogs!” Rick takes deserved pride in how he treats his dog akin to how people treated dogs in the good ole days—admittedly not the goodest of ole days for dogs themselves—and said how he’d already issued his “one get out of jail free card” with a life-saving surgery several years ago. I keep a list of potential essay topics (“No shit, Holmes!”), and ripping apart the self-importance and general obnoxiousness of dog owners, especially the clowns who feel empowered to drag dogs into stores and crowded public spaces, has been bubbling for longer than most other topics not named wiffle ball or my step-grandfather Fred, all three of which I hope will be documented soon. By the end of the call, I’d nicknamed Rick’s weed bubbler “Bubbe, the Jewish grandmother who gets you high,” and he returned to the forest without Little John to hold his hand, some renewed pep in his tequila-soaked step. Meanwhile, I listened to my neighbor’s dog yelp for ninety minutes to begin my workday the following morning, yelling “SHUT UP, YOU FUCKING CUNT!” out my kitchen window more than once (or once hundred). The stuffed Buddha nearby on the counter never said a word, but for as much as he could’ve warned me about moderation, I still defecated into a plastic bag, tied the handles into a Windsor knot to be classy, and launched that stink missile into the backyard where the sound seemed to be emanating from. I knew I didn’t thoroughly chew all the previous night’s peas for a reason! Now they call me Bark Kent the way I change my shit into dog food. “Did that paragraph even have a point?” Illuminati code readers know. #RebuildTheGeorgiaGuidestonesForDogOwners
02. A couple months ago, I went out to grab eggplants on my lunch break, left the car windows down, and heard a pissing thunderstorm begin as I stepped into the shower. I ran stark naked out into the driveway/end of story. As if: I drove to my buddy’s house through standing water (unaware of the severity until in the thick of it), the check airbag light came on, and later, said buddy’s son yelled down the basement steps, “Adam, my literary hero and inspiration, your car is going insane!” Such a thoughtful kid. The horn was permanently on due to the soaking wet organs (fake knockers) under the hood. Even worse, we both panicked until a friendly neighbor visited his driveway—surely wondering if he’d uncover a dead body leaning against the wheel—and disconnected the battery as we both helplessly watched, my buddy’s son mocking him when he brought a toolkit outside at the onset like a hornstar: “You don’t know what you’re doing!” Two days after publication, my mechanic told me to get a new car before winter, creating a conundrum for a guy who wants to finally purchase a RAV4 but worries that his potential next significant other will avoid talking to him for fear he’s actually a transitioning, budding lesbian. One thing that gets overlooked in saying farewell to the dearly decarted—let me have it!—is the bumper sticker retirement. Will I replace King Kong reading a book on the Empire State Building or Warhol’s Double Mona Lisa? I am not a superstitious person yet have long refused to discuss my car at length, forever knocking on (figurative or literal) wood whenever it’s a topic. Unwilling to buy a brand-new car due to reason code: OCD, I’m hoping to find a 2016-2018 Camry for the upgrade. Since I’m a Japanese auto loyalist, maybe I can request a discount if they give it a “Barbenheimer,” or detail it with a Ryan Gosling/Twin Towers mashup on the hood. Won’t need to worry about a potential mate when every guy flying a MAGA flag from his pickup tries to run me off the road. Better invest in a Mario Kart Starman for safety’s sake.
01. ALERT: There is genuine book-related content forthcoming! As I took a walk the night after publishing—technically, the book went live on MacKenzie Bezos’s ex-husband’s website that morning—I headed into the library soaked in sweat. Purposely trying to act breathless, I told the two women behind the desk, “Would you believe I’m on the lamb from the law?” “And you came in here?” “I figured they’d never follow me in!” When one of the ladies asked if I planned to read in the adjacent room, or “do a program” per library vernacular, I confirmed my plans and mentioned how my previous reading occurred a week prior to the nationwide Covid shutdown. “Maybe this time I’ll do it the week before the election,” I joked. “When ya bringin’ us a copy?” I told her it would be a week or so and she followed up by asking, “Should I read it?” “I mean, you’ll probably learn some cuss words you’ve never heard before,” I replied while the younger librarian, Abbie, vigorously nodded and smiled. I’ve long joked how my best audience is white women ages 40-75, which may seem questionable, but they’ve taken to me with the most welcome reactions throughout my adult life. Of course, Abbie said she leaves for the day at five and won’t return, so neither of them will be present when I enter the room to Culture Club’s “I’ll Tumble 4 Ya” and emphatically point at every single person in attendance. A flyer is being made for promotional purposes: me sporting a long, dark-haired wig and Groucho Marx glasses with attendant mustache. It may not lure in my first wife, but they do also post the flyers at the senior center. It’s time to expand my audience. Brace yourselves, octogenarians: taste the toe jam. “Mmm. That’s similar to butterscotch pudding.” “Ethel! You put your butterscotch pudding in your socks again?!”
Further exposition wouldn’t be fruitful at this juncture, right fam? It’s too bad I can’t be interviewed on The Eric Andre Show or chat with a self-serving local podcaster, but maybe Hailey Welch will be signing copies of her inevitable memoir, Spitballing and Hawk Talk, at the local Barnes & Noble soon. I’ll slip her a copy of PMTJ and pay her in Dogecoin to shoot saliva on the cover during a livestream. Deep down, she should know there’s nothing that turns a man on more than seeing his greatest creation desecrated by a filthy godless whore-turned-wholesome angel. When a friend recently said how sharing her own essays seemed like transmitting them to the void, I said to keep it up and the rest would sort itself out. What other choice is there when living begets creating? Writ on that, gang.
Speaking of having some living to do: Where’s that butt plug?