summer tour report: chicagoland

CHICAGO: did I think julie would actually show?....well, wred and I were debating that point in the car and my predictions kept changing along with my belly….i think the final tally was as follows: 8% chance that julie would actually show, 12% chance that her family would send some off-duty cops (or a lawyer) to literally/figuratively beat my ass, 40% that nothing would happen and a 40% chance that julie would send some sort of spy……and if it were me, I think I would have gone for the latter…..when I got back from the bar, there was an older lady sitting in the back row that looked incredibly out of place for quimby’s (perhaps the koolest alternative bookstore that I’ve ever seen)…..the lady in question was in her late sixties; she was well-dressed and appeared to be quite wealthy/refined…..(*note: did you notice I included the first semi-colon of my parents’ medicine just now?----just for julie’s aunt, ya know)…..i know that julie used to go visit an aunt who lived in chicago who was the headmistress of a school for gifted kids and although I can’t 100% swear that this lady was julie’s aunt, I’m relatively certain that it was…..the lady looked like julie and talked like julie….how do I know?---because I dedicated the whole show to her in what turned out to be my best performance of the tour…..in two words, I was WILD and CHARMING (and the special cookies and a bump in the alley didn’t hurt my cause either)…...did I mention that I was drinking an open container on stage in the bookstore?....did I mention that a rival “literary gang” sent their asian posse to heckle us, but I ran them off in less than 30 seconds after inviting the sleeveless one to “join the gunshow”?.....yeah dude, and I was easily more psyched to do a whole show for julie’s aunt than I was for the 75 rockfans in cleveland…..i think the first words I said when I went onstage were a thank-you to “julie’s aunt”…..i also told her that I was good/normal and that I lived in iowa now…..i told her that I was a college professor and that I hadn’t stalked anyone in 7-8 years….and julie’s aunt smiled and was quite cordial…..i also told her that wred and I had been debating in the car what would happen at the chicago show and how, if it were me, that I would have sent a spy…..and julie’s aunt looked at the ground while squirming a bit in her seat….then it was time for the crowd to request stories from fat on the vine and I announced that I would only take requests from julie’s aunt……and julie’s aunt asked for julie stories…..julie was/is a lesbian, so there was really no way to get around that (and I have to assume that julie’s aunt already knew)…..other than that, I think my julie stories made her look like a rockstar (somewhere between courtney love and the merry pranksters)…..like obviously julie’s aunt appeared uncomfortable when I described how julie would role-play with panties that I had stolen for her, but overall, I think she understood that I was paying tribute to her niece as opposed to trashing her ….and when it came time for another round of stories, julie’s aunt perked up and requested “top ten lovelife stories after julie” (and you know [censored because i like my job] was on the list, but she’ll be happy to know that in real time, I skipped over her name---on that particular night)…..and before I told those stories, I stressed the point that they were all absurd----that I wasn’t onstage to brag about the miracle nights when I did actually get laid, I was onstage to retell the most embarrassing stories of my entire life---“peanut butter parfait” was there as was “bossycow,” “the toilet troll” and “secretary liz”…..and six weeks later in the swiss cheese that is my brain, I don’t remember the other 5 stories that I told….no doubt, I was on a roll as exemplified by the fact that the original crowd of 8 people had swelled to close to 11….and as soon as the show ended, julie’s aunt popped up and was halfway out the door when wred said: “brother, I think you should give the nice lady a book for teasing her the way you did”…..julie’s aunt turned around, smiled and quietly replied “no, thank-you”---classy to the end or at least classier than me…..

summer booktour selections

BALTIMORE: i was the headliner that night, so after rummaging through the socialist book section of the store, I decided that my intro would entail offering to trade the poor socialists copies of my book for their panties----needless to say, my “joke” didn’t go over too well, especially with the head socialist, kate (who looked an awful lot like a girl named kate who was a student at that school in virginia where I was fired)….i forgot to mention that my “routine” basically entailed letting the audience choose from a list of 10 topics ranging from “tales of the big handsome” to “bad professor” and then I would improvise the rest…..one of the more popular choices on the list was “____ gets arrested” and you know that any good socialist worth her salt would wanna hear of battles with the Man…..of course, [CENSORED BECAUSE I LOVE MY MAMA] AND YOU JUST HAVE TO KNOW THAT WASN’T GOING TO GO OVER VERY WELL IN A COMMUNIST/ANARCHIST/FEMINIST BOOKSTORE…..i spent the majority of the rest of my time on stage apologizing to head socialist, kate and assuring the young socialists in the crowd that “MY KARMA WAS MUCH BETTER IN 2007 AND THAT I HAD LEARNED MY LESSONS WELL”…..needless to say, the co-op didn’t order any more of my books…..before the evening was over, I did manage to take some photos with some of the sexier socialists….i also took a shit in their bathroom that would have made karl marx use the exxon crapper down the street…..i personally sold 2 books that night---one to a high school english teacher who was trying to act much kooler than she really was and the other to a taiwanese doctor who was snapping pictures of me like I was elvis----I can only hope that the masturbatory pleasure that originates from photos of me can equal those of lil, baltimore-socialist whores…..

PHILADELPHIA: next up: philly (the home of the underground literary alliance)…..as you know I’ve been to philly a couple times before, so I kinda knew what to expect…..the 007 secret headquarters of the underground literary alliance are so underground that you have go through the looking glass of the inner city to even get there…..in this case, our bookreading was at a satanic bookstore filled with aleister crowley and anton lavey memorabilia….not to worry though----in this particular instance, the “satanist” turned out to be this middle-aged widower who had placed a handwritten note next to the toilet with instructions for maximum flushing efficiency…..you were expecting glen danzig?---me too, but after philly, I get the distinct impression that most “satanists” got picked on a lot in middle school….well, if some bully picks on david (the bookstore owner) in 2007, david might just have to send his lord/master, satan over to the bully’s house to give him a danzig-style beatin’…(*note: I’ve always hoped that god and the babyjesus appreciated the pain and/or sarcasm in my writing and I would hope that lord lucifer would extend me the same courtesy*)…….the bookstore itself was full of freaks---winos, the near-homeless, drug addicts of all shapes and sizes, plus the avant-garde of the philadelphia literary scene….my favorite moment of the evening was when I got this “hot” girl from the audience to call the big handsome on speakerphone…..i put “hot” in quotes because the girl in question appeared to have had a drug-induced stroke which left her with just a touch of the bell’s palsy----like she was 25 and had a nice ass, but one side of her face was kinda dead…..she was also a satanist who attended the bi-monthly “bloodsugarsexmagic” parties at the bookstore along with her boyfriend…..if you’re curious, I passed out fliers of a goofy-looking big handsome at each show and encouraged women from the audience to call and flirt with him (his cell phone number was included on the fliers, so if you’re in an eastern city, be on the lookout at all the bus stops and dive bars)…..anyway, after a lil speakerphone smalltalk about his “beautiful cats,” the chick asked big handsome if she could COME OVER TO HIS PLACE AND “CUT HERSELF”----the big handsome’s response: “THAT WOULD BE AWESOME” (and the crowd went nuts)……

NEW YORK CITY: next up: new york’s titty…..and I know a lot of you poseurs out there think that all life begins and ends in new york, but judging my entire value as a human being on how much I tip the bartender aint my idea of nirvana…..if you want me to try to give a shout out: at one point, wred and I were stonecold lost and I had eaten enough marijuana cookies to be a lil scared/intimidated…..and it struck me in the middle of that busy intersection that it must be pretty hard to live in new york, especially if you don’t have the bankroll to back up the value of your soul….that’s it, new york----you and bette midler are certainly welcome…..

PAGE 10 (with some 2007 censorship)

my attempts at interacting with the hipper joycean crowd was just as memorable albeit embarrassing (even for me)....with in the ranks of the new guard was this fat, speech-impediment having, new york blowhard we unaffectionally dubbed eclaire.....eclaire fancied her self as the fuckin ___ ohio equivalent of gertrude stein and would have lame-ass cocktail parties where she served mimosas, played tori amos records and spent the evening getting sloppy drunk.....the first one of these parties i attended i actually hooked up with some chubby goth girl so i was kinda stoked to hit the 2nd with julie on my arm....i brought a fatty bottle of jagermeister with me and began pouring shots for all of my professors----especially my chick professors.....as the evening progressed the trippy trips began to kick in and i sorta lost control.....eclaire got hongry and decided to make her some pizza.....supposedly i got hold of some of the toppings and began to not so subtlely clock some of my professors in the head with slices of pepporoni....i went into eclaire’s bathroom, opened her medicine cabinet and decided to steal her laxatives.....i’m not exactly sure why, but i guess i just thought fat-ass eclaire would be needing to shit sometime in the future and her not being able to would be funny....at the time, eclaire was almost as fucked-up as me so she really didn’t notice what i was doing....as julie and i got ready to leave eclaire came up to me with the intention of drunkenly kissing me on the cheek.....on instinct, i turned and kissed her full on the mouth....there had been an ice storm the day before so when i hit her front step it was a solid sheet of ice....i slipped and fell right onto her flower pot shattering it into pieces....in the span of about 30 seconds i had kissed my current professor on the mouth in public and drunkenly fell on her porch breaking a flower pot.....eclaire wasn’t mad that night but by the time word got around to her that i had stolen her laxatives, she was furious.....i tried to apologize and give her some of my father’s homemade wine but she would have none of it.....i skipped her next 3 parties and finally decided to crash her last one before i left ___ state for good....i gave her a box of chocolates and asked if i could stay at her party..... this fat, watered-down gertrude stein said that i couldn’t come in the house but that i could stay in her yard as long as i didn’t smoke any marijuana.....again, why would anyone prefer a fictitious ernest hemingway when papa could be in your house stealing your laxatives and clocking you in the head with pepperonis?......you know i put a motherfuckin plastic yard duck down my pants before i left that party.....

PAGE 1 (with some 2007 censorship)

i wonder if she’ll ever read this.....i don’t really give a fuck if she sues me for using her real name....i haven’t spoken to her in 11 months now and if i don’t write this down soon i might begin to lose a piece of her....the fifth phone message i left last may 8th under a cloud of mushrooms and jagermeister was a lil hazy then and it is a lil hazy now.....it went something along the lines of: “dude, maybe you should just go ahead and marry some oldfat___..... no one in amerika is gonna give a ___ a job......they couldn’t fuckin afford the $80 zit cream anyway....go ahead and marry j. bob.....take his goldcard and go eat out your hairdresser...... i bet you could still make it back in time to be the goya ornament on his arm at the fuckin faculty mixer!”...... i was 28 years old and julie was the first girl that i had ever had sex with....(note--i’ll leave the king’s english behind because i didn’t vote for his ass anyway)... now i’m 30, work as a middle school librarian in virginia and live in my parents' basement..... julie supposedly lives in chicago where she gives piano lessons 10 hours per week and lives off her kalifornia parents......as we speak i’m sure julie is dining in a fabulous restaurant and discussing fabulous places with some fabulous, upper-middle class, cosmopolitan, bohemian muthafucker... for assmass, i had the art teacher at school do her portrait....in the painting, she was wearing blue jeans and a nirvana tee-shirt and holding 2 tix which read “choke horse”...... the trees in the background were in the process of turning into lollipops and by the time i framed and mailed it, i had spent like $200 bucks...i even included presents for her mom,dad and dog.....i didn’t hear anything from her but at least i got to play the martyr again.....maybe that is all that is left now....i have to prove to myself that i wasn’t an idiot for making her into my ideal....how could i not be in love with someone who would get so fucked up that she couldn’t even wipe herself?..... i remember taking her home to virginia to go hiking and having to wipe her ass because she was too high to do it on her own...it might sound crazy but i dug that more than i could put into words.....the fact that she trusted me enough to let me do the most private of things meant the world to me.... i would have wiped her ass for the next hundred years...she was just like a lil baby and she needed me....

BABEL REVIEW BY VICTOR THORN

REVIEW: CRAZY CARL ROBINSON’S FAT ON THE VINE

Back in the heyday of Babel magazine, one of the heavy-hitters who stepped to the plate each week was Carl Robinson. As the editor of this publication, I got to stand back and watch what type of reaction each writer received, and the feedback for Robinson’s no-holds barred catharsis was predominantly positive. But what I enjoyed even more were the comments from those who were outraged, offended, or disturbed by the words Carl laid on the page.

Why, you may wonder? Because literature is supposed to evoke a reaction. It’s supposed to get under people’s skin, strike a nerve, push their buttons, and make them squirm uncomfortably as they consider the schizoid world around them. And that’s exactly what Robinson does in Fat on the Vine. In between howling with delight at his antics, obsessions, crimes, loves, and out-of-control habits, the reader also sees things that aren’t normally discussed in “polite” literary circles. I could spend hours listing them all, but that would spoil half the fun for you. I mean, how many times have we read a blurb that says a certain novel is “hilarious” when in actuality it’s not funny at all? But I can say with 100% certainty that no book has ever produced for me as many laugh-out-loud moments as this one in an ultra-cool Sam Kinison kind of way (and you can’t get a much better compliment than that)!

Indeed, evoking visceral responses is Robinson’s most endearing strength, for once you start flipping through the pages of Fat on the Vine, any previously held notions about “literature” being safe, sterile, or far-removed are immediately dismissed. Instead, Robinson gives you “blood real” art that is stark, direct, and as compelling as our most private fantasies (you know, the kind we cherish, yet surreptitiously hide from respectable society). In other words, forget about all the status quo authors who want to keep their work at arm’s length. As you’ll discover, this book is impossible to remain separate from, for every crazy tale becomes indelibly marked upon our psyche like a backroom tattoo.

Why? Because it demands intimacy. Whether the reader consciously decides to or not, they’re very alluringly drawn into a world that is quite likely far different than their own. And, of course, this heightened sense of the extreme which transports us to realms never before experienced is precisely what differentiates quality story-telling from that which gets tossed by the wayside.

What we’re talking about here isn’t just another standard, run-of-the-mill throwaway book like thousands of others published each year. No, Fat on the Vine is worthy of a single word of praise that I wouldn’t bestow on many novels. It is IMPORTANT, and it is a book that deserves to be recognized as being important. If literature/prose expects to remain relevant in George Bush’s post-illiterate 21st century; or if it wants to be respected and recognized; then creations that are real such as Fat on the Vine need to be at the forefront. Forget about the academic automatons, pretentious poseurs, and formulaic phonies who currently sit on your local corporate-owned bookstore shelves like pretty little paper posies. I think its high-time we let a few of the unruly weeds run rampant in the garden to strangle the precious breath out of the more refined creations. Yes, I’ll take low art over high art any day of the week, and few push the envelope further than Crazy Carl Robinson.

The late demented visionary Friedrich Nietzsche once maddeningly declared, “The greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously,” so anyone who still values the printed word should throw caution to the wind and get their hands dirty, because this book is alive, vital, and miles ahead of anything else out there. My only regret is that I’ve already read Fat on the Vine (twice), because I’d give almost anything to be able to re-live (virgin-like) once again this dark, exhilarating masterpiece for the very first time. That’s how good it is!


-Victor Thorn, Publisher and Editor of Babel Magazine

2007 afterword

tommorrow morning i have to get up at 8 am to help the nuns move seats into the new theater...on monday, i have an english search committee meeting in the morning and a handbook revision meeting in the afternoon...i have short hair and am in bed most nights by 9 pm...are you surprised?...i am smart, ya know...i have good parents and the scorpio (that was meant for me) is close and i believe...and 10 years removed from starting fat on the vine, i still think it's stunning...debauchery and self-hatred fill every page and it reads like one long, bloody scream...i like to think of the crazycarl that wrote it as my alter ego---and if we ever met, i don't think you'd ever believe that the narrator was actually me...this is how i felt in 1997 though and i don't wanna hide from what i was or am...it's possible to grow and it's possible to heal...i’ve written two other (unpublished) novels, “dead in the head” and “my parents’ medicine,” but in many ways, both are chasing the blood-reality of fat on the vine...i don’t think they’re quite as good because ugliness can’t ever really be substituted for heart…as for my 2007 edit: there are certainly grammar mistakes that i didn’t catch….the dude who wrote this didn’t give a shit when he was filling the pages with his own assblood and i can’t say that the dude who edited it really tried that hard either…as for my writing style (the punctuation and the ellipses): if you had asked me in 1997, i would have said it was designed to “fight the power”…if you ask me today, i would simply respond that it’s how i write...i wasn’t gonna be in oprah’s bookclub then and i’m not gonna be in oprah’s bookclub now…if you want some new age philosophy before i go: it’s ok to be yourself….it’s ok to let your freak flag fly and it’s ok to bushwhack up the mountain the wrong way...i still don’t get laid that often, but that’s ok too...the nuns still like me as do my students, dogs, lesbians, fat kids, drug addicts and a who’s who list of assorted freaks...there’s power to be gained and connections to be made even if your drug dealer thinks you’re a pussy...

ABOUT THE BOOK

Fat on the Vine tells the story of "lil bigsexy," an overweight, 28-year-old virgin and drug addict. Robinson's antihero is torn between the two women in his life: his born-again Christian mother and Julie, the hard-partying lesbian to whom lil bigsexy eventually loses his virginity. The author's unique writing style is reflected in a protagonist who is pushed to the brink of insanity by drugs, self-hatred, and obsession. Robinson writes without social filter or shame and his novel is as disturbing as it is beautiful.