I don’t know Mike Edison, but I like him. He’s part of a generation of NYC rummagers who came before me, stirring the trough around here when there was plenty of room at the edges to stink it up. Born in the suburbs of New Jersey, Edison parlayed a teenage marijuana habit into a resume that, in his own words, “reads like a crime scene”:
* driver of the crash car for the Rock Against Reagan tour in ’84, and crowd instigator for Reagan Youth’s sets
* columnist, then editor, of Wrestling’s Main Event, back when such business mattered
* drummer for GG Allin and the Holy Men, Sharky’s Machine, the Raunch Hands, and the Pleasure Fuckers
* author of dozens of anonymous stroke books sold in ye old Times Square
* writer for various Drake Publications offerings (High Society, Celebrity Skin, Hawk, Live Young Girls!)
* freelancer for Al Goldstein’s Screw magazine (and later there in management)
* journalist for Soft Drinks & Beverages Magazine
* publisher of High Times, who led the magazine into its most profitable stretch to date
* frontman and guitarist of Edison Rocket Train
I Have Fun Everywhere I Go (Faber & Faber/Interstellar Roadhouse, 2008) is the story of his life, as told by the man himself. I grabbed a copy at his book release party at Black & White, a bar I used to remember as a hipster dive, Italian restaurant worth a slight damn (depending on how messed up you were), and pre-game spot for SPA Wednesdays back in the dot-com days, before 9/11, when this town’s nightlife was still dealing in young decadence. Edison’s not the type of guy I would have associated with that sort of place, but it didn’t matter: he’s as much a part of what kept NYC as dangerously great as it was for years on end, and his writing is clear, solid evidence of that. Capturing first the awe and confusion, and eventual degenerate mastery of a metropolis on the verge of cultural bankruptcy, his prose dances through tales of peddling smut and heroic benders dance like Nero fiddling his way through the back alleys of a burning Rome. Edison also plies himself as the voice of reason, the one guy in the room who actually gets off on pride in his work, and in this regard he finds himself at odds with the remnants of the culture he loves so dearly (his struggles with the lifetime burnouts of the High Times empire are as entertaining to read as they were frustrating for him to deal with). Still the man trudges, onward and upward, into local legend status.
Sadly the same thing cannot be said for his CD. Sharing the title of the book, Edison recites his text with plenty of gusto, landing him between the Big Bopper and Wolfman Jack. He’s also got respectable backing musicians in Raunch Hands singer Mike Chandler, and producer-guitarist-theremin savant Jon Spencer (yeah, that Jon Spencer, of Blues Explosion fame). Sadly, this comes at a cost; namely, overlong rave-ups where seediness goes to seed, hoedaddy ramblings of the old guy at the corner of the bar to anyone who’ll listen. Great writing doesn’t need to be deflated by such rote music charts or hammy performance, and the lounge-bop-groove tracks have about as much legitimacy as flames on a silk shirt. But hey, in this day and age, who gets to bat .500 and be the last man standing? Edison’s lived it; he gets the pass.
Book Rating: 8.4
Intervention
Last night on cable, I watched an exciting episode of “Intervention”, the incredible program that shows some drug addict taking a bunch of drugs for almost the whole show until the drug addict’s entire family shows up at his house, bangs on his door, and starts crying and telling him how he is a drug addict and they are not getting off his lawn until he gets into the weird van that’s in the driveway.
The drug addict on last night’s episode was named Jason and his favorite thing in the whole world was to shoot up cocaine while wearing a pair of camouflage shorts and a baseball hat that was turned to the side in a manner that suggested he is the kind of guy who is not exactly opposed to good times. When he wasn’t shooting up cocaine in his fun hat, Jason was drinking from a big red plastic cup just like the kind you get at Pizza Hut, only instead of being filled with Dr. Pepper or something, it was filled with vodka or whatever else that damn drug addict could get his hands on. When he wasn’t drinking from the big Pizza Hut cup, Jason was talking on the phone with his drug addict friends. He called them “dude” and “bro” and told them how things were going to be “really awesome” just as soon as they got their hands on some more drugs, which ended up happening right after the next commercial.
In between shots of Jason taking drugs, drinking from the big Pizza Hut cup, or talking to his druggie friends about drugs, they showed interviews with Jason’s four sisters, most of whom appeared to be addicted to highlights and wanted Jason to not be a total drug addict anymore–except for Jason’s youngest sister Joy, that is, who explained that she was “just not a worrier.” Later in the show, they showed Joy snorting a big pile cocaine off the back of a toilet, and, boy, did that explain a lot. Sometimes they would interview Jason too and he would go on and on about how incredible cocaine is and also how his mother is a lesbian who moved to Florida.
After another commercial break, Jason’s whole family was sitting in a room with some lady named Candy who was all business. Even Jason’s mom was there and she was getting all worked up about things like only a lesbian from Florida can. Then Jason walked into the room in his crazy funtime hat and couldn’t for the life of him figure out what was going on even though all he or anyone else could talk about up until that point in the show was how much he loved cocaine and drinking from the big Pizza Hut cup. Then that Candy lady was all like “Jason, you don’t know me but I think you’re damn drug addict!” Then everyone started to cry and blow their noses. The next thing he knew, Jason was shipped off to rehab where he wrote a bad song on the piano about Jesus and also got his lip pierced. As it turned out, Candy was able to talk Jason’s sister Joy into going to rehab too, which worked out great because when they checked in with her three months later her hair looked incredible.