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Local Guides
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Mike Edison
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by Bill Adams
July 3 – 9, 2008 |
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Sometime in the Victorian Era, a new marriage custom began that
has continued to be regarded as folk wisdom to this day. On her
wedding day, it is considered good luck for a bride to be in
possession of ‘something old, something new, something
borrowed, something blue’ as she walks down the aisle. No one’s
really sure exactly where the custom comes from, but it is
regarded as a time–honoured cornerstone of marriage which is,
by definition, the act of taking two established individuals and
making one new and glorious thing from them. He might not have
thought of it at the time, but those are the elements that Mike
Edison had in place when he launched his new book and CD –
both entitled I Have Fun Everywhere I Go. Both are works of
incendiary innovation that tell the stories of Edison’s most
colourful life spent working at “some of the most notorious
magazines in the world” including perennial megalith mota
publication High Times, Wrestling’s Main Event (“The #1 Magazine
For Mat Fans Today!”), the self–proclaimed “World’s Greatest
Newspaper” Screw, and notorious stroke books Hustler and
Penthouse as well as collaborative musical stints with hardcore
head case G.G.Allin among others. For those keeping score, the
new book and old stories it outlines make up one half of the lucky
formula and the double threat of Jon Spencer borrowed from the
Blues Explosion completes the mixture for giving the union the
best imaginable initial shot. Now with the book and CD that reads
excerpts from it out, Edison has set about promoting both in an
all new way. “We’re trying to take the book and take it into a more
rock & roll environment,” explains Edison of what form he’s
envisioning his tome will take. “I play with my band, the Rocket
Train Delta Science Arkestra and this summer we did a couple of
great gigs, we’ve got Jon Spencer playing in the band now who
produced the spoken word record and it has been really well–
received so far.
“It’s the world’s loudest book tour,” exclaims the author. “It
cannot be stopped. We’re going to be doing some high profile
gigs in New York City – big gigs – in a circus tent. It’s more of a
rock & roll venue; playing with rock & roll bands.
“The album is more like a psychedelic, X–Rated comedy
record,” continues Edison, laughing. “It’s not just the band
vamping and me reading it though – that would’ve been cool, but
it wouldn’t be what it is. I think we did something really brand
new with this record; that’s why I’m so excited about it. It
wouldn’t exist without the book of course – the book is probably
a ‘greater work’ – but lots of people write great books. I don’t
know anybody that has ever made a record quite like this.
“I think we went into some new territory with it and hopefully
it’ll be at the vanguard.”
When the idea for the project first came up, the author does
admit that he wasn’t sure what form it would take. Edison has
been a professional writer for the last twenty–five years so the
prospect should’ve seemed like the height of simplicity itself but,
according to the author, with so much time spent it seemed like
an imposing feat to figure out what exactly what to include and
what to omit. “I didn’t write about everything,” says the author as
if pointing out the most painfully obvious thing in the world.
“When I started thinking about the book, it became very easy to
connect the dots. I said, “Well, I’m certainly going to start with my
first job and kicking my boss’ ass at Wrestling’s Main Event – the
professional wrestling magazine that I used to work for. That was
a very dramatic anecdote and I think anybody can relate to
wanting to kick the shit out of their boss and move into his office.
From there, it was really easy to connect the dots right up to the
end.
“That’s all in hindsight though; I really did work at it,”
continues Edison on the sometimes agonizing process that
eventually yielded I Have Fun Everywhere I Go. “You know there’s
a lot of walking around involved in writing? People don’t realize
this. I spend a lot of my time pacing around my apartment,
walking in the woods, walking around New York City thinking
about it and it became very natural to link the events together
once I decided it was going to run chronologically and once I got
into the stories, of course there are always things that stand out.
Some of the best stories are the ones that got told over and over
in bars over the last twenty years.
““My editor’s a fucking genius; she’s brilliant and she really
helped me turn the book up to eleven. There was never a
question of chopping the best part out. The book was looked at
by about a hundred lawyers who were very careful. Some things
were re–phrased, some names were changed, but no one ever
asked me not to tell a certain story. The only thing my editor
would say is that I went too long in some places or, in some
cases, that I should expand upon an idea.
“Some pretty kooky things have gone down and it’s still too
early to tell everything though,” laughs the singer coyly. “There
are some statutes of limitations that need to be considered. As
long as Spain has an extradition treaty with the United States, I’m
keeping my mouth shut.”
With a career of ‘smut peddling’ and hard partying already
behind him, there were more than a few detractors that didn’t
think (or hoped) that the endeavour wouldn’t amount to anything
– or at most it would be a spectacular mess of drivel barely held
together. But with the possibility of a documentary outlining the
book tour performances now seeming like a possibility (“We’ve
been taping casually, but it would be a great documentary so I
think someone needs to come to me immediately and present
that. It’s interesting because what we’re doing is very new; every
asshole I know has a band, but I’m the only asshole with a book,”
hints the singer at future prospects), I Have Fun Everywhere I Go
is proving to be a more remarkable project than anyone could
have imagined. According to the author, that success is the single
greatest thing that he could have hoped to take away from the
experience. “I’m sure there are people out there that either
thought I wouldn’t be able to pull this off or hoped I wouldn’t,
but that only served to drive me harder,“ says Edison with a hint
of malicious glee in his voice. “The book wound up being exactly
what I envisioned and it’s all true; I promise you, I guarantee it. I
don’t have to make shit up. The “memoir”, as a form, has come
under much scrutiny these days because there are assholes out
there that think they have to puff up their own story and the truth
is that I had to tone it down in some places because I didn’t think
anyone would believe me. As for the album, we spent much more
time on this record than I ever have on a rock & roll record. I
used certain things from the book that just lent themselves to
being told as self–contained anecdotes. Of course, a lot of the
stuff on the record has been edited and changed because what
reads well on the page might be a mouthful of marbles when you
try to put it across on a record especially when you’ve got
Theremins and outer space synthesizers running behind you, but
we were flexible enough to know what to change and also to
eliminate certain background noise and not refer to things that
weren’t referred to in the story so people can come in and hear
the record or hear my performances without having read the
book. The whole thing has been really well–received and that’s
great because I did have people telling me it wouldn’t work.
“When somebody tells me that I can’t do something, I
generally do it twice; the first time to prove them wrong and the
second time out of spite.”
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