Keep Austin Noir

Unfortunately I had zero time to explore Austin or Texas over my Father's Day N@B trip, but damn, I had some wonderful beer, and chicken and waffles late in the evening, and got to spend the best hours of the night with kick-ass locals. The night? Went something like this -

Jesse Sublett got us all in the mood with a few songs (murder tunes by Lefty Frizzell, Son House and The Velvet Underground) before Scott Montgomery stoked everybody's blood lust with a brief story about the short road to hell robbing (or working at) convenience stores. When the Fritos dust cleared and the plasma puddles congealed, I stepped in with a tale of other bodily fluids and the high cost of saving money from A F*ckload of Shorts (which is only 99 cents for Snubnose Press's second anniversary). Scott Phillips read selections from Rake and had people laughing at really, truly inappropriate things (yeah, among others, he read the mugging scene) and singer Sublett made way for author-hat-wearing Sublett to close out the evening with passages of bizzarre sex and violence from his latest book Grave Digger Blues - that's some weird-ass, hardboiled beat-stuff right there. (Read the MysteryPeople account and see more photos right here.) Also, BookPeople is a great independent store that you can purchase my book from! Really, they've got several in stock. Support the hell out of that place.

I got to chat a bit with Chris Mattix (Thuglit 5) and learned about his new project - a prose and audio fiction site called Slagdrop.com (give em a visit or a submission) - sounds like a great idea - and match flesh to a couple of FaceBook avatars, plus meet the lovely and beautiful Beth Broderick (who you may know from Sabrina the Teenage Witch, but I checked her IMDB page and she was in one of my favorite early '90s avenging vixen sexploitation flicks The Silencer with Lynette Walden - whom I had/have a thing for - or, for those non-Phillistines among you, you might know her from her regular Huffington Post pieces - so, that's really cool.)

Next up in St. Louis is the Books & Booze Live event at Cicero's just three blocks from where we have N@B, and it's featuring some damn fine talent we've welcomed at N@B in the past, and more. This pic is one book I plan on picking up at the event.

Do yourself a favor and show up. Then do me a favor and buy me a drink.