Hangover Breakfasts available for pre-order

I'm happy to announce that my new book, Hangover Breakfasts, is available for pre-order from Bottle of Smoke Press. If you're not familiar with Bill Roberts' work, everything is hand-printed and exquisitely produced. His books are pieces of art in their own rights. But they're also limited-edition. There will only be 26 signed hardcover versions that will go quickly, and a limited number of paperback copies. If you're family, a close friend or--- for some strange reason---a big fan of my work, order soon before they sell out. Here's the link:

http://www.bospress.net/order.html

Hangover Breakfasts is a collection of interconnected prose pieces that follows four 20-somethings living on a remote lake in New Hampshire after college. Harrowed by drugs, alcohol and a relentless winter, they struggle to find their footing and identities among the elements bearing down on them. End of liner notes.

This is my first book since After the Honeymoon in 2009 and, honestly, it is one the closest to my heart for myriad of reasons.

I will also be reading from the book on November 10 in Kingston, New York, with Rebecca Schumejda, John Dorsey and Cheryl Rice. My good friend Becky is having a book release party for her awesome new collection of poetry Cadillac Men, which is being published by New York Quarterly Press. Here's the link for ordering it. Even if you're not a big fan of poetry, you'll love this book. It shucks all of the pretension, self-possession and surrealistic abstruseness of so much contemporary poetry. It's a gritty, blue-collar story of real people in the futile pursuit of the American Dream, a Gatsby for the working-class.

Okay, enough. Football is about to start, and I'm starting to make myself sick with all of this talk about books and literature and The American Dream. It's time to buckle up, be a man, drink beer and watch dudes beat the shit out of each other.

And one more thing: Let's go Orioles!  

Mittens and Red Sox

It's been a sad run for Sox fans this year. But if there's a silver lining, it's watching Josh Beckett get thrown out from right field by Carlos Beltran. Good ole' Josh. Charlie Hustle. Thanks, LA. How does Boston's nut-sack taste?

With the Sox out of the playoffs and the Yankees so old and lame it's almost futile to root against them, I'm turning my attention to other avenues, such as indoctrinating my children with my liberal ideals. Actually, as a middle class public school teacher, I don't consider it indoctrination, rather education. I cannot, for the life of me, understand how anyone who is female, a minority, gay, human, or making under $250,000 a year would vote for Mitt Romney. While McCain was a certified nut-job and the idea of Sarah Palin as president was sobering to the core---Matt Taibbi pegged her as "a combustive mix of clueless novelty and suburban sexual tension"---at least I didn't have the chilling, puke-in-my-mouth repulsion that a rich man running on a straight-up platform for other rich men invokes. Mittens, in every sense of the word, is certified douche.

So my daughter and I recorded a version of Neil Young's "The Campaigner" and put it on Youtube. Please, forgive the shoddy out-of-tune guitar playing. At least I used a capo. But my daughter's voice is gorgeous; and, more importantly, here's a 9 year-old exercising her civic rights and railing against Mittens and an antiquated party of rich white men preying on the stupid and paranoid.

I love this girl.