old crow book club

The Old Crow Book Launch Party!

NSP Meditations , , ,

I walked out of the bookstore on a warm Friday afternoon and received a hailing from across the street. It was Jaime and Jacob from the Old Crow Book Club hanging out at the usual sidewalk. I waved and dashed over to meet them. As I’ve written countless times before, no one greets me with such authentic enthusiasm as the homeless people in my neighborhood. It truly feels good.

Jacob was drinking a can of malt liquor and Jaime was eating something from a carton, which she set down.

A bespectacled man of indeterminate age with a wispy white beard stood near them. He was introduced to me as Doc and I learned that he was an Army veteran of Iraq, on disability, and the VA had just got him into housing across town. He had returned to the neighborhood because prior to housing he had lived in the wetlands in and around the Oaks Bottom Wildlife for a couple of years.

So here was someone who had helped utterly destroy the wetlands with a malicious residence, a subject I had written about multiple times with considerable vitriol. I wanted to talk to him about that subject but this didn’t seem to be the right occasion.

The recent partial sweep of the encampment had apparently prompted Doc to seek out housing. And now he was housed in a one-bedroom apartment that he had yet to furnish even though the VA provided him a thousand-dollar allowance to do so. I asked what he needed and he said, everything. Jaime offered to help him shop and decorate. He liked that idea.

Jaime told Doc I had written The Old Crow Book Club. I told everyone to wait. I dashed across the street and retrieved a book for Doc and two tins of fine pipe tobacco for Jaime and Jacob. Upon my return and presentation, hosannas went up.

It was time. I knew it was now or never for the book launch party even though I hadn’t seen Mark for a couple of weeks. I asked Jacob and Jaime if Sunday at one in the park by the creek would work. I’d bring everything. Could Jacob and Jaime round up everyone? Could we pull this off? This was it!

They agreed with profane enthusiasm. I invited Doc and then we discussed the types of pizza to order. Jaime promised to bring her flute. I made a mental note to bring paper towels and a table cloth. I wanted this gig done right and that meant decent local beer and not corporate malt liquor swill.

We were getting pretty giddy with all the party planning. Then Jaime said, “Matt, thanks for all this and your charisma.”

“My charisma?” I said, laughing. It was such a weird word for the moment.

Jaime explained: “I mean, if I was in a grocery store and we were standing next to each other in the meat department, I would listen to you forever.”

It was easily the strangest and greatest and unique compliment I had ever received! Meat department! And I don’t eat meat!

It was time to go.

In roughly 48 hours the launch party for The Old Crow Book Club would take place or not. It was either going to be a total bust or rank as something unprecedented in the annals of American literary history.

Forty-eight hours passed and….

I saw Donny wearing a Prince Purple Rain t-shirt and debriding a bloody wound on Jaime’s left leg. She took a belt from a pint of Old Crow and howled from the burn. Donnie sterilized the wound with a splash of Old Crow and Jamie screamed from the pain. It was right out of cornball Western, you know the kind where Jeff Chandler or Victor Mature plays an Apache. The only detail missing was Jamie biting down on a stick or piece of rawhide.

This was quite obviously the only incident of its kind at a literary event, the launch party for The Old Crow Book Club, in the annals of world literature. It was remarkable because Donny had discharged himself that morning after four days in a hospital drying out and taken a cab to the park. It was even more remarkable because 24 hours earlier I’d seen Jamie whacked out on something, splayed in the parking lot of a mausoleum.

The highlights:

We ate pizza. Or should I say it was devoured.

We ate a salad prepared by a homeless woman. She had walked a mile with the bowl and three bottles of salad dressing.

We laughed.

We drank good beer.

A few vaped dank weed.

Johnson Creek gurgled behind us.

We admired Sean’s stones he’d collected from the Clackamas River.

We talked about writing and finding housing. Everyone wanted housing but they didn’t want to be crammed into shelters with miscreants.

We talked about the difference between convivial and voluble.

We discussed Rachel Ward’s voice.

A black dog ran around raising hell.

We talked discussed our favorite stories from the Bible. Mark’s was a tossup between The Prodigal Son and The Good Samaritan. I’ve always favored Jonah and the Whale.

I doled out 40 tins of fine pipe tobacco. Someone knifed one open and Jacob began rolling cigarettes for the smokers.

One formerly homeless man told the story of how he had the best shot of heroin in his life down by the Willamette River, woke up two days later, walked out of the wetlands and never used heroin again.

I thanked Mark for not dying.

Everyone agreed the book cover would make a great tattoo. Jacob said he’s do it!

I asked how they managed to survive living outdoors. They all said “one day at a time.” It occurred to me that was the language of recovery but perhaps some of these people were in type of recovery from personal disaster.

Mark said he had an appointment to secure a place in line for a slot in a tiny home village under construction. Someone at the hospital where he almost died from two heart attacks had greased the wheels and made something happen in a way official channels could not. It struck me that I probably should have bribed someone last summer when I tried and failed finding Mark housing.

Tammy rode a half mile in wheelchair and then knitted a scarf.

I read a short chapter from the book and felt very rusty and a little emotional. The crowd wanted more but I didn’t.

We raised our paper cups of Old Crow and toasted to The Old Crow Book Club.

I observed we were all here because I met Mark because he was reading a book. If he’d been playing on his phone—nothing.

I thanked everyone for their trust and candor. Without it, no book, no gathering, no possible inspiration from our gathering.

I mentioned I didn’t think anyone would show up. Fifteen had, all but three were homeless. Every member of the book club made it. Someone said I shouldn’t be such a cynic!

I said if the book helps one person get off the streets then it will be the greatest thing I’ve ever written.

Someone observed a love of books built this unique community. I wondered if these people got into housing and began working would they ever find a richer community than this.

I met an elderly woman in a walker who was not homeless but lived in a nearby apartment. She was friends with many members of the book club and often let them take showers or crash on the couch in an emergency. She was writing a book about the recent death of her daughter. She was also writing poetry. Would I help her publish. Yes! This was the first time she’d ever tasted whiskey.

Jamie played her flute accompanying an early Green Day song before they went corporate and Broadway.

We debated the metaphysics of why Prince was dead and Dick Cheney was not.

We sang “The Time Warp” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

I gave away 25 books and said to distribute as they saw fit.

At some point, I knew it was time for me to leave. We said our goodbyes and I got hugs, handshakes and fist bumps.

I turned on the CD player. Prince’s “You Got the Look” came on and I cranked it up as I drove away toward home. Prince never sounded so good.

The Old Crow Book Release

NSP Meditations , ,

(My new book about the Old Crow Book Club is available through nestuccaspitpress.com)

It was a Wednesday afternoon and I took a stroll through the neighborhood. The cherry blossoms craved to bloom, but the cold weather wouldn’t allow it.

My mind felt cluttered with thoughts of all I had to do once I got the print run of The Old Crow Book Club back from the printer in McMinnville. Which was the next morning.

There was Mark, co-founder of the Old Crow Book Club, sitting on his usual sidewalk. The last time I’d seen him, about a week ago, he looked near death, but denied my urgent request to call 9-1-1 and the Street Response Team. Later, I regretted my non-action, but Mark was adamant and lucid.

So, it was much to my surprise and relief that I saw Mark reading a book while also smoking a Swisher Sweet and drinking a can of malt liquor.

I asked him what he was reading. He told me, The Odyssey (for the fourth time!), a hundred-year old edition he had rescued from the bookstore’s recycling bin. It occurred to me that Mark was undoubtedly the only human being in world history who had read The Odyssey multiple times while smoking a Swisher Sweet and drinking malt liquor.

We briefly discussed the Greek classic. I then told Mark about picking up The Old Crow Book Club the next morning. He perked up. I told him I’d swing by and give him the first copy.

“It better be signed,” he said.

“I’ll sign it,” I said.

I briefly told Mark I didn’t know how he and other members of the book club might react to the contents of the book. I wasn’t nervous about a possible negative reaction, but his opinion mattered to me, so I wanted the straight shit once he read it.

“I’ve always loved everything you’ve written,” he said, “especially that zine about Joe.”

Over two years ago, we had met because I saw him reading a book just as he was now. Then, a few weeks later, I saw him reading one of my books in front of the can/bottle recycling machine. He’d discovered it in a street library. We’d gone on to establish the book club and become friends. My discussions with him about literature were the most interesting ones about literature in my entire life.

“Mark,” I said, “whatever happens, if your reading the book changes your mind about anything related to your homelessness, like wanting to get into housing, I’m ready to try again.”

We had tried last summer and totally failed, but it wasn’t Mark’s fault. He was ready then; after that debacle, he was not.

“I’ll let you know,” he said.

And with that I walked away. I’d see him tomorrow and the sequel to The Old Crow Book Club would begin to unfold on the very sidewalk where it had all started.

I knew something for certain about what happens when one of my books is released: the better stories related to the subject of the newly-released book, are always better—ALWAYS—than those that made it into the book. It is true as gravity and the heartlessness of the Republican Party.

The morning drive to McMinnville on Highway 99W was hellish. How people tolerated this every morning and evening for a commute or just getting around was beyond me.

I listened to an old mix tape from the Nineties. Nirvana still had some kick left. I wondered who Cobain would be if he were alive today.

Everywhere along 99W for 40 miles were homeless people pushing grocery carts full of possessions, straggling around, living in tents or derelict RVs along roadways, driving duct-taped cars that were clearly domiciles.

I arrived in McMinnville and saw elderly homeless men and women shuffling through neighborhoods and the downtown commercial district. I saw more zombie RVs. Here I was about ready to pick up my book about homelessness and its subject matter was all around me and moving in dirty mono.

The 2000-print run was ready for pickup. I have a 20-year relationship with this family-owned Oregon company and they have always provided incredible service. It’s always nice to spend my publishing money with an Oregon business and help employ Oregonians. I wish I could do it more.

I tore into one of the boxes and fished out a copy of The Old Crow Book Club. It looked fantastic! A couple of dudes helped me load 17 boxes of books into the Subaru. They barely fit. I thanked the crew and drove away.

Now the hard work really began. How do you get a book out to readers? There are dozens of ways, but with this particular book, I was distributing it almost exclusively through street libraries around Oregon. There is a phone app that shows you all the registered Little Free Libraries in the world and Oregon must boast more capita than any other state in the nation. There are almost 30 in my neighborhood alone!

I would do the bulk of this distribution, but I planned on hiring some members of the book club to distribute copies around the area on foot. I was also going to hire another homeless man with a vehicle to help me cover the tri-county area. (If anyone wants to support this unique distribution effort, please go to nestuccaspitpress and make a donation. It will pay to hire these homeless men to assist me.)

Mark was set to get the first copy, but now it would be the second one because a receptionist at the printer simply had to have it after she overheard me describing it.

So I gave it away right there. She wanted to pay, but I said read it, then stock it in your nearby street library.

I hit 99W and headed for home. I thought about consulting the library app for immediate distribution, but I wasn’t in the mood to look at a phone and ruin the moment of celebrating the release of a book.

Traffic slowed a bit in Lafayette and I spotted a street library near a park of this tiny agriculture and wine community. I pulled over and stocked it with the Old Crow book and some of my other titles. Five feet away on a bench of a bus shelter, a homeless person was asleep or passed out inside a sleeping bag. A couple backpacks rested under the bench.

So yes, Lafayette has at least one homeless person.

I considered leaving a book near the person, but didn’t want to spook whoever it was.

By the time I made it home, it was pushing noon and I was starving. I decided to treat myself at a pizza joint with a lunch special and pint of beer. As I ate, I wrote in my journal and outlined the distribution plan for the book. I also signed Mark’s copy of the book and thanked him. I called him a friend.

After lunch, I drove to Mark’s sidewalk. He was there, reading and smoking a Swisher Sweet. Sean, another member of the club was there, too, with a large bag of cans.

I walked up to Mark and presented the book.

“Oh wow!” exclaimed Mark. “The cover is great.”

“I really like the way it looks and feels in the hands,” I said.

I raced to the car and retrieved a copy for Sean. I handed it to him.

He held it like a spiritual text and immediately thumbing through it. He said nothing.

I took a photograph of Mark holding up the book, but not before he pulled back the cowl of his hoodie and spruced up his hair. A homeless man was primping for a picture! That should tell you right there that hope still exists.

It was almost two years to the day Mark and I had met exactly where we stood now. I remarked about that.

I briefed Mark and Sean about the upcoming plans to gather members of the book club for a pizza and (not malt liquor) beer launch party down by the creek. I also said in the coming weeks I would be paying them to distribute the book to all the street libraries within a two-mile radius.

Sean said, “Matt, I may just have to celebrate your book with some Old Crow.”

That made me laugh.

I looked at Mark perusing the book. What a funny feeling it must have been for a man to be handed a book about himself by the author who wrote it. I know it was pretty overwhelming for me—certainly a first in my writing life.

And as I stood there, it dawned on me that it’s never good for an author to have any expectations for a book upon its release. I’ve been burned and disappointed before and thus, learned my lesson.

But…I did want something from this book. It didn’t matter if Mark liked it or not. My wish: I wanted him to read it and decide to try and get off the streets. We both knew he wouldn’t last another year out there.