The Because of My Writing

As I sit and write, my Kickstarter project passed the $2000 mark.

This is mind-blowing, for a number of reasons. Primarily, it's that knowing friends, acquaintances, and even some strangers have faith that I am a writer of worth, and want to work to help build my dream.

Secondarily? One of my major stumbling blocks in getting published has always been my lack of confidence in hyping myself. I was really, really bad at it, to the point that it became a subplot in one of my novels. Working as a producer for a night of sketch comedy, where you have to relentlessly plug not only your work but the work of others, I've gotten better.

I couldn't do any of this, though, without support in a lot of ways beyond the financial. A director at my theater, Sasha Goldberg, offered to film, edit, and produce my promo ad. Major supporters Scarlett Litton and Scott Barrett have been undauntingly aggressive in retweeting and getting the word out. My buddy Jeff Covello came up with the brilliant idea of offering a personalized poem to anyone who donates $50 or more. And on and on.

Kickstarter's whole mission statement is grassroots efforts in getting creative stuff off the ground. Its base statement is all about a community getting together and making things happen. I have several communities: Comedy, Disney, Stephen King, Drive-By Truckers, Springsteen, and more - and ALL of them have rallied to get my name out there and my project funded. I am blessed to know you all.

It's a weird dream growing up, wanting to be a writer. At some point early on, you realize that lightning doesn't generally strike in this field. It's a lot of hard work and a lot of dashed hopes, and luck plays a significant part in you getting famous ... hell, getting read. Careers like Stephen King are well-documented because of their rarity. Some of my favorite writers, like William Goldman, were never household names (even if everyone knows the movies The Princess Bride and Marathon Man). I got kicked in the balls early on in my career by having my agent and my publisher drop me on the same day. (To be fair, my first novel was a weepy little slice of dick lit that works better as catharsis in the wake of my break-up than it does as a story.) By and by, things got easier. The right assignments started coming when I needed them the most - a month after I was laid off, and my severance had dried up. And on. And on.

I was in therapy a few years ago, and one of the most important breakthrough moments I had was in realizing I didn't have to be Stephen King to be a real writer. It's not that I shouldn't chase a dream, it's that I shouldn't be chasing HIS dream. Mostly because he's someone else and I have my own path to forge, but more prosaically because publishing in the 2010s isn't like publishing in the 1970s. The midlist has all but disappeared. You're either a rampant success or you toil in obscurity. Mostly.

Right now, I'm toiling. It's not bad. I've got a few contracts, I write nonfiction books about my favorite writer, I have a sweet gig doing a column for a horror website. It's not bad. It's not rampant success, but it's all right.

But sometimes, just sometimes, it's nice to get a little break. My friends, my readers, my supporters are all giving me that break. Thank you for that. All of you.

It's called Roller Disco Saturday Night, and it's about who I was in high school, and about who I wanted to be at the same time. Donate if you can. Spread the word if you can't.

Love, Kev

"It's Based On Grease 2 ... Sorta."

Folks, I now have a VIDEO of me hyping the Kickstarter for my novel, Roller Disco Saturday Night! I ... may be just a touch hyper. I may also have chugged a Red Bull just before this happened. Either way, world of yay!

Let's keep it rolling, folks! I am 56% funded and we only have 12 days left! WHEEE!

Why I Wrote Roller Disco Saturday Night

Here’s why I wrote a book called Roller Disco Saturday Night:

There’s a longstanding tradition in fiction of modernizing classic works of literature. Steinbeck did it with the story of Cain and Abel with his East of Eden. Annie Proulx brought King Lear up to date with A Thousand Acres. Heck, Stephen King started his career by bringing Cinderella into the horrifying 70s with Carrie. It’s a noble pursuit – the best stories never go away, they’re just retold in different, sometimes more interesting ways.

But one of the things that always struck me was that all those modern works were taking on good, established pieces of lit. From where I stood, no one said, “Hey, let’s take something obviously crappy and try to make some gold out of it.” That’s where I came in. More importantly, that’s where Grease 2 came in.

In my novel Maybe You’re Right, I go on and on ad infinitum about this one scene in Grease 2 where the movie seems to stop and realize it can be good. Michelle Pfeiffer and Maxwell Caulfield are in a diner, just having a conversation. It’s a well-shot scene: everything looks bright and beautiful. There are double entendres, but they’re not gross and obvious, like in most of the film. They have chemistry for the first time in the movie, which is sad for a film for which a whole subplot is chemistry. It’s well-written, well-acted, well--lit. Everything about this scene belongs in a better movie, because right after it, the movie goes straight back to crap.

I realized that I could write that scene – or something similar to it – into a better piece of fiction. I started thinking about both Grease and Grease 2, and that whole 1970s and 1980s obsession with the 1950s, and how I might be able to use that. Then I started thinking about my own 1980s experience – about my obsession with the smart-kid sitcom Head of the Class, and the show You Can’t Do That On Television, and how I had weird crushes on Alan Alda and Steve Gutenberg when I was young. I thought about my first real sexual experience, and reading the book Then Again, Maybe I Won’t, about a struggling family who suddenly becomes rich. And I thought about all those nights spent at the Silver City Skating Rink in Taunton, Massachusetts, skating that big oval to Skid Row’s “18 and Life” and “Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar On Me.”

All of that into the book, which started off life as a National Novel Writing Month project. It’s one of those books whose title came to me before I started writing it (it actually came to me years earlier, during an improv show in which we were supposed to call out the name of a fake movie and they would create scenes around it. I shouted out “Roller Disco Saturday Night!” every week and they never picked it. I think I was trying to rectify that, too). The book started strong, got tough in the middle, and then got way darker than I’d intended in the final stretch. It’s a glorious, ambitious mess, and needs a whole lot of love before I can get it right for publishing.

My publisher, Cemetery Dance, has offered to publish my work – even the non-horror stuff – as an ebook, but the problem with fiction is that it’s chancier than nonfiction (at least the nonfiction that I write), and I don’t get any up-front money for something like this. And there’s nothing wrong with it being a labor of love. I’ve written 18 novels, directed numerous shows, acted in shows, and remain producer for a night of sketch comedy – and they’re all labors of love. In general, I don’t see a cent out of that. (Contrarily, I work a day job where I move numbers around on charts and I do get paid for that. Not well, but I do get paid. The world is a mystifying place.)

I’m trying to raise capital so I can take time off from one of my many, many jobs and work on getting Roller Disco Saturday Night up to fighting shape. It’s a book of memories – some good, some bad – and I’d like to do right by my past. I’d also like to make sure it’s compelling and entertaining for anyone who isn’t me and hasn’t lived my life. And I’d like to do it by October.

Last year, you guys helped me get my first novel, I’m On Fire, published. This year, if you can help at all, I’d really appreciate it.Writing is my life, and publishing is a big part of that. I have a large, busy existence, and getting the time and tools to make Roller Disco a viable reality would be the best possible platform from which to leap. I'm already off to a kick-ass start! Let's keep that rolling!

Thank you all, you are awesome.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/521727074/roller-disco-saturday-night

Disco Fantastic

Last year, you guys helped me raise the money to take some time off of work and get my novel, I'm On Fire, written, edited, and ready for publication. Let's do it again!

Writing novels is hard work for anyone, and it's even harder when you work 6 jobs and you're writing because you love, not because it pays well. My publisher has agreed to publish Roller Disco Saturday Night as an ebook, but as with my last book, I'm not getting an advance, and royalties are a far-flung dream of the future. Here's where I need your help:

In order to fire up this new project, I'd like to take a month (or two) sabbatical from one (or two) of my jobs, so I can focus my energy fully on getting Roller Disco up and running. The hardest part is that first month - once the novel gets going, it'll run on its own steam. But in that time I need off of work, I also need to stay afloat, and ahead of the curve as much as possible.

I'm currently working on three other writing projects, as well - nonfiction work that will be paid on delivery. Shuffling those projects around to make room for a novel is also a financial decision that impacts what I'm doing.

On Roller Disco Saturday Night: it's a coming-of-age story set in the late 1980s, when there were still video arcades and teenage girls (and boys) could legitimately still have crushes on Alan Alda. It's a time of great upheaval for Ruth Rose and her five friends, as they enter high school and everything about their small-town life is about to change. A novel about the discoveries, adventures, and upheavals of young people as they try to hold back adulthood for as long as possible, Roller Disco Saturday Night is sometimes funny, sometimes shocking, and always disco fantastic.

So, there it is: no advance, no payment on delivery, and a hope for royalties somewhere down the line. Fiction is hard, but I'm hoping you guys can make it easier.

Thanks for supporting my dream!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/521727074/roller-disco-saturday-night

Heaven Can Wait

Halfway through my friend TC’s memorial service, I think, No, wait, this is unfair. He’s my age. He’s my friend. This is ridiculous. You don’t have a memorial service for someone who’s my age and my friend. Cut it out, everyone, there’s obviously been a mistake.

It’s not a mistake.

I got the call on January 11th. It was almost a comedy. I was at the gym and missed Deana’s call. On the voicemail, she’d said something about TC, so I ran upstairs to call her. No answer. I called TC. His girlfriend Gillian picked up and told me to call Deana. Meanwhile, Deana was calling me back, popping in on the other line. The pancreatic cancer had done its worst. TC wasn’t expected to make it through the weekend.

I hung up and just stood there for a long while. People went by me. No one stopped. No one put their hand on my shoulder and consoled me. They had no reason to. Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on except when it doesn’t.

The service is great. My friend Mark is in for the weekend and he’s surprised … yet not really surprised … that the thing will have a performance aspect. I was never surprised. We are theater, after all. We are this theater.

Gillian’s sister sings “Alfie” and breaks. TC’s son comes on stage and makes everyone laugh. Actors and actresses who have performed TC’s songs in the past take the vast stage and try to approximate what it was to inhabit his music. Kara Gelormini performs a song…

Way back at the old theater, TC and Adam Brooks put on a show called Ladley & Craig. It was brilliant. The songs were written and rehearsed in advance, but the show itself – something like a Behind the Music for theater, looking at this performing troupe through the decades – was improvised. The tagline of the show was “Music to Love By,” and I did. I didn’t miss a single show back in those heady days, and after the last performance, the whole cast signed sheet music for my favorite song, the Hindenburg dirge, “Oh the Humanity!”

But Kara’s song weekly brought a tear to my eye. Step left, step right, and dance in place again. Tonight, I am overcome.

Everyone’s here. It sounds diminishing, a little, but it’s just the truth. Everyone is here. People I haven’t seen in years. People who I used to watch perform all the time, before I was a director and a producer, when I was just an ImprovBoston fanboy. Friends. Actors. My buddy Josh is here from California, and when I see him I am reminded how much I miss him, especially on stage. There’s a slideshow of TC moments playing on the gigantic screen above, and I’m pretty sure I took one of those pictures: TC at karaoke, doing that thing where he’s holding his ear that I always thought was so adorable and actory.

So, this obviously isn’t real, right? It’s can’t be real. We hung out. This isn’t like going on Facebook and reading that a friend of a friend’s great-grandmother has died. It isn’t even like when my great-grandmother died. Nana Burke was old, old. And it’s not like when my ex’s best friend died, although I went to his memorial when I was 18 and it ruined me then. Al had AIDS. When I met him, I knew that. That was a known quantity. This … I fucking knew him. We did stuff. We ate pancakes and did a duet together a few times, and he sang Meat Loaf songs and he was my friend. My friend. My friends don’t die until we’re way older. This doesn’t happen. This can’t happen.

This is happening.

Greg Wymer, DJ, wrote to me days before the memorial and asked me to give him like five or six songs that TC liked to sing at karaoke. Well, “Bat Out of Hell,” of course, and “Town Called Malice,” by The Jam. Oh, and “Oh! Darling,” by The Beatles, which Gillian also sang during one of hers and TC’s few Rosebud Karaoke nights. When they play “Oh! Darling,” that’s the moment I first break entirely. Shawn is next to me and holding my hand. Mark touched me on the back. I am surrounded by my friends and the people I love with one exception. It’s a big exception.

Gillian sings and we all lose it. A big song from TC’s play, What the Dickens? A sing-along to Monty Python’s “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” It’s funny. We’re all singing. We’re all having a good time, because seeing everyone like this, it’s impossible not to. Everything’s great. Everything’s awesome. Except it’s fucking not.

I cram food into my face and for once don’t judge the smokers. Some people are drinking. Some people have to perform tonight. I keep hearing songs I recommended to Greg and on the stairs, I see Emily Holland and I grab her and can’t even get words out. I bet she’s freaked out. I wish I hadn’t mentioned all those songs, because it’s Way Too Much. And I keep thinking, when I go, will this be the type of thing I want? Yes. Sure it is. But I don’t want to go. And I don’t want TC to go. Because he was my friend, and I loved him. I love him. I miss him.

I really miss him.

Step left, step right, and dance in place again.

heAthens Homecoming

It's called Homecoming, and it comes once a year, during MLK weekend. It's in Athens, but because it's Drive-By Truckers, they call it HeAthens Homecoming. The longer you're there, the more it's home.

I've only been into Drive-By Truckers a short time. Someone put their recent "Birthday Boy" on a mix tape for me in 2010, and it took me another half year to explore a little deeper. Last year in April, I attended my first Rock Show in Atlanta ... and instantly went nuts. (They call their concerts Rock Shows. It's pretty much the coolest ever.) I started collecting Rock Shows like I used to collect Garbage Pail Kids. I went to the August shows at the Georgia theater and the Patterson Hood solo show up here in Boston, and bought tickets to the DC show but then got viruses and couldn't make it. This was my first Homecoming, and I didn't know what to expect. All I knew is that I wanted to get up close to the stage, rock out, and maybe see some familiar faces.

Oh man, did it surpass everything.

That first night was pretty goddamned mind-blowing. The Chitlin Soul Revue was fantastic and it was awesome to sing "Fuck You" with everyone. There was also a longhair lead singer I was powerfully attracted to. Then came Thundercrack, a Springsteen cover band. A Bruce Springsteen cover band, made up of Drive-By Truckers' crew, opening for the band. Guys, Springsteen is the only music I like more than DBT at this point, so Thundercrack was a revelation. Patterson getting up on vocals for "Candy's Room" was like the peanut butter meets chocolate moment, only more righteous. It's what happens when you cross the spiritual with the dirty-down physicality of fucking: transcendent in all the right ways ... and maybe some of the wrong ones.

I won't go too much into the setlist that first night. A guy on my DBT message board, Beantown Bubba, has this way of judging shows, determining by which song he felt he got his money's worth. I was in from the start, but things kicked into high gear with "Mercy Buckets." The song's a game changer. If that wasn't enough, I got "Tornadoes" - I could listen to a whole show of "Tornadoes" - and my inaugural DBT song, "Birthday Boy."

But: I also got to hang out with my friend Paige, who I'd first met at the Georgia Theater. I hung out with Sarah and Luke, who I knew from the Patterson show. I reconnected with the Swamps, hung out with Beth and her husband (whose name keeps escaping me), and millions of others. Danny, whose name should be "So where's your brother?" Then came the big-name fans: I met Jonicont, who runs the message board! I met Clams, for chrissake! It was kind of a big deal for a Boston Yankee like me.

Then the tragedy. We found out early the next morning that merch guy, Thundercrack band member, and longtime friend of DBT (and one-time manager of Patterson Hood) Craig Lieske had died of a heart attack. At first, I thought it couldn't possibly be true. I remember reading it, thinking, "No way, I shook his hand and bought a shirt from him literally eight hours ago." But yes way. This after my friend TC died after a long battle with pancreatic cancer, the day before I'd flown down to Georgia. The Homecoming Shows were sort of my way of escaping that for a little while. Tragedy should not strike twice in one damn week. I met Craig only briefly in August and of course he remembered me this time.

The show was intense, the most intense Rock Show or concert to which I'd ever been witness. Some of the choices seemed countercathartic at first, but of course they were exactly right. On my left arm, I've got a Cooley Bird tattooed, and underneath I have the legend "It's Great to Be Alive." When the first strains of "World of Hurt" started up, I almost lost it. Again. For whatever reason, I started crying during "Girls Who Smoke," a song I'd never really liked before last night's show but now loved. Talk about countercathartic.

"People Who Died" ruined us. All of us. Everyone at the front of the stage was either in shock or in tears. Swamp passed around a flash and although I never drink whiskey, I did that night. Patterson holding up the bottle of Maker's Mark, upside-down so it drizzled down his arm: an image that will stay with me forever, although I took almost no pictures that second night. It seemed wrong, somehow.

The final night, I saw Danny ("Where's your brother?") outside again. Inside, Sarah introduced me to the other known gay dudes from the boards. Big Tom - is that right? I suck at names - and his partner. I bought a lot of merch. Like, way more than I probably should have. Up front, I met with all my friends again, and the atmosphere was a little different tonight. Still reverent, but more jubilant, too. It's not that we were getting over, it's that we were getting through. And we were ready to rock, because rocking is how Craig left us.

I didn't know what to expect of the Camp Amped band. It's a band made up of kids from the local rock and roll camp, and DBT's invited them to play with them for the last three years of Homecoming. I was prepared to be supportive of the kids at any cost. It's gotta be scary to be a teenager and get up in front of a paying audience and sing, so my mindset was, "Even if they're not good, cheer for them, because you don't want to ruin them or stop them from pursuing their dreams." But, MAN, were they actually GOOD. I knew that when they launched into a cover of "Rhiannon," but then when they started switching instruments and singing, I was thoroughly impressed. Was the singer playing keyboards? Was the lead guitarist playing bass? Did everyone get a chance at drums?

I shouldn't go too much into Velocirapture, because although the music was good, I had a really prurient reaction to the lead singer and I was very distracted by the flashes of skin through his torn-up T-shirt.

When DBT took the stage, the crowd went NUTS. I think some people expected "Lookout Mountain," but everyone was still thoroughly rocked. It rarely stopped rocking after that, though of course they slowed things down with "Heathens," a super intense "Used to Be a Cop," and a draining "When the Pin Hits the Shell." Clams grabbed me around the shoulders during the explicitly gay "ten fingers and ten toes" part of "Zip City," and that made me so happy. I've never felt ostracized in this community, something I never expected and something I am sincerely grateful for.

There's a moment during "Hell No, I Ain't Happy" when Jay, Patterson, Cooley, and Matt get up on mics and sing the title together. It's like that moment in DBT's cover of "Like a Rolling Stone" when Patterson and former members Jason and Shonna join Cooley on the last chorus - when all the voices mix together in such a wonderful noise that it feels like being delivered into something better. The show the night before was necessarily short - there was no way the band could have encored after "People Who Died" - but this was the even more necessary sequel. The psychobilly end of "Angels & Fuselage" worked as a way to underline the whole weekend, and when EZB slammed his drumstick down once more, it flew into the crowd and someone up front caught it. Then someone else grabbed one of Patterson's guitar picks ... and handed it to me.

There are few words to describe what this band now means to me (which is why I used a lot, ha-ha). I flew down to Georgia knowing this was a weekend I needed. It ended up being a weekend we all needed.

Thanks, everyone, for my first Heathens Homecoming. You made it special.

See you at the Rock Show.

Whiskey and Waffles

Running away from grief has always been my thing
geographic cure, best way to avoid the sting
there were always excuses not to be by your side
I was on a plane searching for silence when you died

Touched down in the middle of a standstill storm
up the road was the music I needed to keep me warm
but tragedy never stops, it just spreads around
there’s no relief from grief in this whole damn town

and the band, they played the necessary sound
and we cried as we passed that flask around
and as the crew broke down, we stood stranded in the dark

We met in the light a little while later
over waffles and sweet tea and mashed potatoes
and as we broke down, we shared that bottle of Maker’s Mark

so rarely do we know what we mean to one another
when strangers are friends and friends become your brothers
you never know the way it’ll hit you inside
sometimes there’s no catharsis when the people you love are the people who died

and the band they played the necessary sound
we wept as we passed that flask around
when the crew broke down, we stood restless in the dark

the light was blinding just an hour later
we never finished our waffles or our mashed potatoes
we just mourned and swapped that bottle of Maker’s Mark

I’d never go so far as to say my grief was unique
but tragedy shouldn’t hit twice in one damn week
the memory of a laugh shouldn’t hold this much sorrow
or that handshake when he said he’d see me tomorrow

I want to be able to deal with this the proper way
instead of framing it in rhymes or running away
if this isn’t the solution, then maybe it’s a start
lose myself in the noise and blow this pain apart

I hope the band plays the necessary sound
and that we pass another flask around
and that we hold it together, together in the dark

whiskey before waffles, deep in the night
I hope that we all find the light
and that we never finish this bottle of Maker’s Mark

The Best Year of My Life - An Epic Adventure in 12 Parts: December

For the final 12 days of the year, I thought I'd look back at my 2012 and determine why it was the best year of my life. Every month brought new adventures, achievements, bits of awesome that worked to make my world a happier, more fulfilling, more exciting place. Come along with me, won't you?

December

As I finish up this series of entries about the best year of my life, I sit under the spell of liquid Percocet, trying my best to get over a viral infection I picked up somewhere. This year, everyone has the flu, or a cold, or something severe. I spent much of yesterday in the waiting room of the Walk-In Clinic at Mass General, waiting patiently to be examined, waiting desperately for someone to give me something to take care of the rattle in my chest and the excruciating pain in my throat. Because of my sickness, I had to cancel my trip to Washington DC to see the Drive-By Truckers (twice!) and I had to cancel my New Year’s Eve plans: visiting bears and theater friends at big parties. Am I disappointed? Of course I am. I would have loved to have seen those concerts, and I bit the cost of the tickets, and one of my best memories of this past year was kissing Shawn in a huge crowd of friends, cheering as we welcomed the new year in. And I would absolutely rather not be sick, because I don’t cotton to it well. But in a way, I’ve made my peace with it, because it’s allowing me to do the one thing I didn’t do much of in 2012: relax.

I started off December in Walt Disney World. One of the more hilarious aspects of my year is that, starting in August, I was going to be at a Disney park at least once a month for the rest of the year. That won’t be happening in 2013, for reasons I’ll be getting into soon.

My new sketch troupe, Duct Tape Revolution, finally took the stage on December 20th. We got a huge crowd. Shawn and Ian came. Not only did I get to be super proud of my actors and writers, but I also got to be an actor – my longest time on stage yet. I didn’t speak much (I was in a dentist’s chair most of the time), and it wasn’t anything shocking like showing up onstage wearing a Sasquatch outfit … but it was the best acting I’d done yet. Acting, at least in small doses, is something I can apparently do. How about that?

Though I’d hoped that Drive-By Truckers would complete My Year of Concerts (the tally: Bruce Springsteen with Neil, Blue October with Marty, Patterson Hood with Joe, Drive-By Truckers with Joe, Drive-By Truckers alone, Bruce Springsteen alone, Bruce Springsteen with Ian), getting to see The Gaslight Anthem at the House of Blues with Neil was the best possible substitute. They were fun, they were thrilling, and man oh man were they loud. Neil and I both got T-shirts. My Year of Concerts could well be My Year of Concert T-shirts. I got maybe a zillion Bob Seger shirts this year, a few DBTs, one Springsteen shirt from Neil and one from Jeff for Springsteen’s Fenway shows – an early Christmas gift. An awesome Christmas gift.

Speaking of awesome Christmas stuff: Shawn and I rented a car the second Saturday of the month and, after months of planning and saving, came home with our first HD flatscreen television (and our first live Christmas tree in two years). We also spent our pre-Christmas evening with my Dad and his girlfriend Donna, a Christmas tradition three years running. Dad got me The Last Picture Show on DVD. I got him and Donna Kindle gift cards. Dad got me tickets to the Drive-By Truckers three-show run in mid-January in Athens, Georgia. So, (1) my Dad is the best ever, and (2) there’s a reason I’m not too-too sad about missing the Truckers this weekend.

On Christmas Eve, Shawn and I made our way over to Tracey and Liz’s house for our annual gift swap and meatball eating. I think we’ve been doing this for literally a decade now. I went a little nuts when I realized Tracey wanted Disney movies and stuff involving cheese. (I saw they wanted cheese knives, so I went rogue and got them a cheese serving dish and also some Gruyere. I’m … getting into cheese). Tracey got me Adventures in Babysitting on Blu-Ray, because of course. Late in the evening, Marty arrived bearing cheese of his own. I brought out the Yule Log I made from scratch (from scratch!) and we all dug in.

Christmas morning, halleluiah! From Marty: the DBT documentary The Secret to a Happy Ending and Quarry’s Ex by Max Allen Collins. From Joe: the new Fables hardcover and the Disney movie The Apple Dumpling Gang. From Paul: the Batman: the Black Mirror hardcover. And from Shawn: The Art of Betty & Veronica, which I desperately, desperately wanted. I have simple wants. They’re plentiful, but they’re simple.

When Shawn’s friends arrived, we ate our huge Christmas brunch and I lulled them with the Disney Christmas Parade on TV. My buddy Neil showed up to partake and gifted me with a new sandalwood shaving soap in its own wooden bowl. Then all of us sans Neil went out to see The Hobbit, which I thoroughly enjoyed. After, we all (including Neil) headed out to Kowloon in Saugus to have deliciously trashy Asian cuisine. I had the masaman curry, because some traditions are meant to be kept.

I wrote one article for FEARnet, and one poem, “Lost Boy.” Me and my actors rehearsed for the final World of Hurt show in January. I began to structure next year’s Sketchhaus schedule. I continued (but did not quite finish) the Irving Cycle, in which I inexplicably read or re-read John Irving novels at a pace befitting a normal year with me and Stephen King. As it stands, in 2012 I read: In One Person, The World According To Garp, The Fourth Hand, A Prayer for Owen Meany, The Hotel New Hampshire, The Cider House Rules, and I am about fifty pages from the end of A Son of the Circus.

I also picked up The Color of Light, by William Goldman, a book I first (and last) read fourteen years ago. When I set that book down after first reading it, I went to my computer and immediately began composing my first novel, Spare Parts. Stephen King and my many wonderful English teachers convinced me I could be a writer. The Color of Light convinced me I could be a novelist. I was terrified to start it again, thinking it couldn’t possibly be as wonderful as the book that changed the course of my life. To my delight, it was. (To my further delight, my friend Jeff had actually read the book. People just keep surprising you).

I started this year off a bartender, a box office clerk, a guy who could only get his books on Stephen King published, and someone who hadn’t finished writing a novel in over two years. I’m ending it as a director, producer, monologist, and actor, whose shows did pretty damn well – well enough to give me complete creative control of the night. As a guy who has a short story published in a book featuring Stephen King. As a writer whose short story collection and poetry collection are published by an actual publisher, and whose novel is coming out this winter. As someone who got mentioned in Cemetery Dance magazine. As a guy who finally made it into The Stephen King Desk Calendar. As someone who made at least one amazing new friend. As someone who got reborn in the crucible of rock and roll, over and over. As someone who stepped onto Buena Vista Street and wept, knowing that it was just as beautiful as it had been in my dreams.

All of my dreams came true this year. Fucking all of them, even the ones I didn’t know I had. And when I come home at night, I still come home to the man I have spent nearly fourteen years with, and we laugh at our favorite shows, and cook meals together, and go out to movies, and support each other, because I love him and he loves me and I could not have had my best year ever without Shawn being the best part of it.

So, here it is, for 2013:

1. Get into cheese.

2. Get some abs.

3. See comedy in other cities.

4. Write more sketch.

5. Finish this novel, edit an earlier one, and start a brand-new one.

6. Get a new laptop.

7. Take your friends to Disney World.

8. Write for Archie comics.

Are you ready? I am. Let’s make next year even better.

The Best Year of My Life - An Epic Adventure in 12 Parts: November

For the final 12 days of the year, I thought I'd look back at my 2012 and determine why it was the best year of my life. Every month brought new adventures, achievements, bits of awesome that worked to make my world a happier, more fulfilling, more exciting place. Come along with me, won't you?

November

The culmination of everything I’d been doing at ImprovBoston all year finally came to fruition. From that very first time I stepped onstage way back in January, to my first shot at directing with Sketch Avengers in June, to my monologue in August … here was my big shot, my big deal, my big idea. World of Hurt, the show I’d poured my heart, soul, and life into for months, was on stage. And selling out.

Vaudeville Night put my actors in the opening slot, giving the big 45 minute slot to the first Vaudeville show I’d ever seen, Groaners & Boners Schtick It to Vaudeville. Variety Show night put us in Laugh-In territory, with random dance breaks and box jokes and drinking on stage. I got to play the Sasquatch, running on stage shirtless wearing a furry hat and mask and gloves and terrorizing the denizens of a North Dakota strip club while the Scooby-Doo theme played. And my Lincoln sketch played out to laughs galore. Shawn was in the audience and he laughed, too. I almost wept.

The theater was closed for Thanksgiving, so our third show – Saturday Night Live week – was pushed to the last week in November. Which kind of sucked, as I’d already made plans to go to Disney World for the annual Reunion event. I gave my actors instructions to record the whole thing; I hoped against hope that every night of my vision would be a sellout show.

I realized at the start of the month that I was addicted to directing sketch comedy, and I wondered if I could do it with a whole new (well, mostly new) group of people. I cast my nets out – to established sketch writers and actors, to students, to sketch veterans – and within weeks, I got enthusiastic responses. Soon enough, I’d formed Duct Tape Revolution, a brand-new sketch troupe at ImprovBoston. We’d have our first show – an opening act slot – in December. Once again, it didn’t hurt that I was the producer … but when you juggle these roles, you have to be careful not to give yourself too much rope. Go through the same steps that every troupe goes through. And then do your best. Always, always do my best.

Shawn and I traveled up to upstate New York to visit my family for Early Thanksgiving, then headed down to the City for a night of minor debauchery. Marty and his friend Brian and Duncan and I of course took in Rocky Horror in Chelsea – the first time we’d been that the place felt like a sellout crowd. The hot tubby emcee was back, sans bunny ears. We hung out with my friend Mark and watched Happy Endings and Archer and had the most relaxing day and a half. Ever since I learned how to enjoy New York, I have thoroughly enjoyed New York.

I wrote one article for FEARnet, on the Jack Ketchum/Lucky McKee novella, I'm Not Sam. Someone on Facebook shared the review with Jack Ketchum, who reportedly said, "Wow. What a good review. He really got it! Thanks!" Bliss.

My trip to Disney World almost didn’t happen. Money issues and other factors kept my traveling companions from joining me. Happily, my New York friend Jeff had

an extra place in his hotel and invited me to join him. We arrived separately … and then rarely spent a second apart. One of the best things about Disney is the stuff it does to friendships. It made Joe and me closer; ditto Paul and me. It sparked my friendships with Kristen and Doug and Kim and the rest of the Crew. And with Jeff: we’d met at Reunion the year before and hung out intermittently throughout this year, but we’d spent very little time alone together. This time, while we both had brilliants of friends to hang with and catch up with, we spent a lot of the time at Walt Disney World becoming each others’ friend. There was so much new stuff to experience – New Fantasyland, the updated Test Track, the wondrousness of LeFou’s Brew and the Pork Shank – and we experienced it together … not to mention the classic, understated thrill of Tom Sawyer’s Island. Over the course of five days, Jeff and I became the sort of friends I keep thinking I’m done making, and never am.

While I was there, I got word from home: a blackout on the last Thursday of the month meant that Saturday Night Live week of World of Hurt would be canceled. Using only the power of my phone, I simply rescheduled the night to January 10th. Now, not only would we get more than two weeks’ worth of rehearsal, I was actually going to see the show I was directing. Small miracles.

Late in the month, Cemetery Dance sent me comp copies of my new chapterbooks: Stephen King Limited, books 1 and 2. No matter how many times I see my books in print, it never, ever gets old. After the print versions were exhausted, the ebooks would come out and I’d start making royalties.

Cemetery Dance also wrote back to me regarding my short story, “I Am Become Poe.” They were accepting it for inclusion in Shivers VII … a collection that also included Ed Gorman, Clive Barker … and Stephen King. For the first time ever, I would be published alongside Stephen King, and not because I’d written something about him. It was because something that came out of me, something I’d invented, was deemed good enough to be in a collection with him.

On my way. On my way.

My temp boss came up to me near the end of the month and informed me that, due to the strictures of my temp agency, I wouldn't be able to temp there any longer starting in December. She then said to update my resume and that she'd submit it to the higher ups and see what she could do about getting me hired. I did, hoping against hope and remembering the lean, horrible days of last December. The next day, she came into my cubicle and told I'd been hired. For the first time since 2009, I had a full-time job.

I had a job.

The Best Year of My Life - An Epic Adventure in 12 Parts: October

For the final 12 days of the year, I thought I'd look back at my 2012 and determine why it was the best year of my life. Every month brought new adventures, achievements, bits of awesome that worked to make my world a happier, more fulfilling, more exciting place. Come along with me, won't you?

October

I looked up from my computer with a sense of disbelief. Out of nowhere, with no training and no help, I’d written my first sketch. It was called “Seward’s Folly,” and it was about Lincoln and his advisor, William Seward, who went on to buy Alaska. My sketch started off as a critique of social media and ended up with Lincoln being precognitive, for some reason. Most of the people I sent it to liked it. Some didn’t. But being the guy who’s producing and directing the show gets you some perks; the sketch was going in. However, being that guy also alerts you to the dangers of that, so when it was read out loud for the first time with my actors (my actors, OMG), I listened to their critiques and modified the sketch to focus on the funniest parts. Until you’re there, you don’t know how immensely satisfying it is to write something and watch other people give their all into learning it and performing it. It’s an immediate sort of writing you don’t get from writing novels.

Rehearsals for my three World of Hurt shows launched into high gear. Juggling three completely different shows to be performed in a single month is absolutely not easy, and is probably one of those things only new directors attempt, because we’re full of ambition and vim and vigor and all that. But man, my writers and actors were absolutely bringing their all. Even more thrilling than having my own sketch performed was seeing my idea brought to fruition. I had an idea, brought it to these people, and they ran with it.

I wrote one article for FEARnet – my first non-Stephen King audio review – and one poem, “66 Days.” Work continued on My Agent of Chaos, a work I was gradually realizing could be subtitled Kev Is Working Through Some Shit. Just when you think you’ve examined every aspect of yourself, you launch into a novel about your first time. Or at least I do. And not that I knew it was going to be a novel at this point. I’m going to say at least half the novels I’ve completed have started off as either short stories or novellas. And despite how painful some of the stuff in Chaos was to dredge up, I was so happy to watch it grow.

Midway through the month, Cemetery Dance sent me comp copies of two books: The Stephen King Illustrated Trivia Book and The Stephen King Illustrated Movie Trivia Book. I’d written the afterword for the former – “Trivial Matters” – and a giant chunk of the latter (co-written with Brian, my editor, and Hans-Ake Lilja, a buddy of mine and the fellow who runs the only Stephen King site on the internet more popular than mine). The books would be published in three editions – limited, regular hardcover, and trade paperback. For the first time ever, my work would be published in hardcover. On my way.

I’d also learned that the new Shivers anthology would be released this winter, and that there’d be a “lost” Stephen King story, “Weeds,” included. I wrote to Brian and asked if I had any chance of getting fiction in the collection. He instructed me to give it a shot. I emailed him my short story, “I Am Become Poe,” and waited.

At the end of the month, me and Shawn and Joe and Marty headed down to Walt Disney

World for Epcot’s 30th anniversary, and for the Food & Wine Festival, which Shawn had never been to. It was a trip fraught with peril – all of us lost something, making for some tension – but the memories I’ll take away are Shawn experiencing Food & Wine for the first time, surprising Marty with a birthday trip to Typhoon Lagoon, Joe and I dancing in a hippie circle with strangers to classic Epcot music, and the four of us experiencing Horizons: Resurrected, a fan-made virtual-reality exhibit that allowed you to “ride” Horizons, an attraction I never experienced because it was demolished before I ever went. On our first trip to WDW together, Joe played me the Horizons ride-through video and I fell in love with it. Years later, Joe and I got matching Horizons tattoos. Doing this event together was, for me, a culmination of the me-and-Joeness of going to Walt Disney World. Brothers from different mothers, he and I.

There’s a show at ImprovBoston called The Kerfuffle, which showcases the most bizarre and experimental comedy at IB. I try to never miss it. The morning of the October show (theme: “Running with the Devil”), one of the acts wrote to me and asked if I could be in her sketch. “Are you willing to appear in your underwear?” she asked. “We were supposed to have a naked guy, but he bailed.” I wrote back, “I’ll do naked if you want.” Because apparently that’s how I do. And that night, during a sketch where the director appeared in a bunny mask, I knelt before her, naked, wearing devil horns, and had fake blood drizzled all over my face. Because: comedy!

The Best Year of My Life - An Epic Adventure in 12 Parts: September

For the final 12 days of the year, I thought I'd look back at my 2012 and determine why it was the best year of my life. Every month brought new adventures, achievements, bits of awesome that worked to make my world a happier, more fulfilling, more exciting place. Come along with me, won't you?

September

My third draft and polish complete, I turned in I’m On Fire in early September. Added incentive? My man Shawn painted the cover of the book for me – our first major creative collaboration. I wanted my main character, Laurie, running into the woods, terror in her eyes, staring back over her shoulder in her trademark red hoodie. Shawn had me stand in that pose for minutes on end, wearing my trademark red hoodie, while he sketched me. You don’t know exhilaration until your life partner pulls an image out of your brain and puts it on paper.

I was asked to contribute an original essay to this year’s Stephen King Desk Calendar, which sounds weird unless you’re in the Stephen King community. It’s one of those prestige projects you don’t get invited into unless you’re considered one of the good writers. It was one of those incremental moments when I realized that I was one of the good writers, and that people were starting to recognize that.

Speaking of which: midway through the month, my signature sheets for Stephen King

Limited, Books 1 and 2, arrived on my doorstep. Here’s the thing with signature sheets: when I was a tiny young Stephen King book collector, one of the things I always treasured was a book with Stephen King’s signature. Objectively, I knew it didn’t really mean anything. King just scribbled a name in a book and passed it on. But emotionally, there was always that tenebrous connection I had with my favorite writer, that knowledge that he had held the book I now owned. Now that I’m on the other side of it, I have a deeper insight. He may not have held the book I now own. He may have just signed a sheet, like I do, that would later be bound in with the book. But I also know that it’s not just scribbling your name in. I had to sign 1,000 sig sheets over the period of a few days, and let me tell you: it’s work. If I wasn’t already convinced that I was earning my flat rate for these chapterbooks with my research and actual writing, I was earning it here.

My show idea, World of Hurt, went out into the ether of ImprovBoston, and came back with fervent approval. I found writers. I cast actors. It was my first time being conscious of myself as a director, and I was some kind of nervous. My month got truncated, too: I wouldn’t have four weeks to do my show, but only three. Immediately, I scrapped my plans to do a scripted “improv” show and focused instead on my three other shows: Vaudeville, Variety, and Saturday Night Live. I knew it was ambitious to do three distinct shows in three distinct styles, but that’s part of why I called it World of Hurt. Part of the other reason, of course, is the song’s refrain: it’s great to be alive. If I can do it, why not do it? My actors and writers were on my side. I knew from the very first pitch meeting that this was going to work.

Midway through the month, my temp boss told me that I'd be at this position at least until December. No more worries on that front for a couple of months, then. Hooray!

I wrote one article for FEARnet – my first actual assignment (it wasn’t King related), and late in the month, I got a surprise. The Overlook Connection (a publisher specializing in horror and fantasy) sent me the latest copy of Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished, by Rocky Wood. Which was weird, because I already had the hardcover and I hadn’t ordered it. That’s when I turned the book over and saw my name: I was a blurb on the back cover. Overlook used my review on FEARnet to hype their book. Never in life did I think I would ever be blurbed. On my way.

Near the end of the month, I did something I hadn’t done in nearly a year. I sat down at my laptop and put a new title at the top of the first page: My Agent of Chaos. And for the first time in forever, I started a brand new novel.

The Best Year of My Life - An Epic Adventure in 12 Parts: August

For the final 12 days of the year, I thought I'd look back at my 2012 and determine why it was the best year of my life. Every month brought new adventures, achievements, bits of awesome that worked to make my world a happier, more fulfilling, more exciting place. Come along with me, won't you?

August

Our dreams get fulfilled at different times, for different reasons.

When I first discovered Disney as a real thing in 2007, I never realized it would become this much a part of my existence, entwined inextricably with who I am and how I live. I first visited Disneyland, way out in California, in 2010. When you look at that year, so oddly futuristic to a boy of the 1980s, it doesn’t seem so long ago. But Disneyland was a whole different place in 2010, and I was a whole different man.

Disneyland is eternal, but California Adventure, its sister park, is new. It opened only nine years before I’d visited, the newest stateside Disney park, and while that should have endeared it to me more, it didn’t, exactly. To call it a failure of vision would be a kindness. I remember walking through the entrance plaza and wondering why they were playing rock music at a Disney park. Wasn’t that a Universal thing?

By the time I’d gotten there the first time, plans were already underway to make some radical changes to California Adventure. Disney pumped over a billion dollars into a refurbishment to add a new land, new experiences, and to completely refurbish the strip-mall entrance plaza into something Disney-worthy. The fresh new land would be called Buena Vista Street, and it would be an idealized recreation of Walt Disney’s Los Angeles in the Roaring 20s. For years, I scoured blogs, watching the construction happen. From various temp-job computer screens, I saw Disney constructing new shops, new worlds, and the new central icon – the Carthay Circle Theater Restaurant. Everything was sparkling and beautiful, and one of the biggest dreams I’d held for years was actually stepping through those gates and seeing this park in person for the very first time, and seeing it with my friend Paul Timm, one of my very best friends.

Standing on Buena Vista Street took my breath away.

The fountain. The Red Car Trolley. The live singers, especially Five and Dime (a jazzy sextet that arrived on Buena Vista Street in a jalopy). The Fiddler, Fifer, and Practical Café (really a high-end, highly themed Starbucks). Part of it was that I was there with friends – Paul, Steven, Betsy, Lee, Lori, the Braunsteins, Scarlett, Jeff, everyone, all the people who started off as Disney friends and became more than that – especially Kristen and Doug, who spent most of a whole day alone with me until we couldn’t take anymore. (Literally. They wouldn’t go on the spine-busting Matterhorn with me one more time.) Of course also the Little Mermaid ride, and the changes to Paradise Pier, and the Mad Tea Party, and holy hell the majesty of Carsland, a land I never thought I’d like but ended up loving. But Buena Vista Street, that’s where I was in August.

But it’s not all, of course, because no month is made up of a single experience. Perhaps just as importantly, mine and Chris Cuddy’s Sketchhaus show, The August Monologues took off in a biggish way, selling out the first and last weeks. In the middle, it was a bit of a struggle to get an audience, but we were never empty. The most important thing for me, personally, was writing my own summer monologue, a story about the first person I ever fell in love with. It was called “No Strings Attached,” and for three out of the five weeks of The August Monologues, I shared one of the most personal stories of my life with an audience of strangers and friends. I keep saying I’m not a performer, but those moments on stage were major for me. Half of it was catharsis; the other half was entertaining the masses. I think I succeeded at both.

Speaking of which: the idea I had for the four-part show was blossoming. It was going to be called World of Hurt, and it would be four distinct shows focusing on four eras of live comedy: Vaudeville, Variety Show, Improv, and Saturday Night Live. I didn’t have any idea if anyone would want to do it, but my ambition had gotten me this far, and I thought it would get me my show. I read a book about improve specifically so I could write an “improvised” show.

On August 14, I traveled to Fenway Park by myself to see Bruce Springsteen perform for the second time that year. It was a solid show – Bruce’s first stateside in awhile – and of course I went home with my throat hoarse and the taste of Cracker Jack on my tongue. But the next night, I was with my buddy Ian. We sat high up in the bleachers and halfway through, the rain started coming down … and it was still one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen. Later on, the Springsteen news site Backstreets would call it a “stratospheric performance,” and I cannot argue with that. He broke out rarities. He redefined classic songs. He was on, and so were we, and I thanked my lucky stars that I was there with a friend I loved who felt exactly what was happening.

Perich turned in my draft of I’m On Fire with … some reservations. The chief of which was that he didn’t like my main character. Hated her, in fact. So it was back to the drawing board for a third sweep through my novel, in which Laurie becomes a better person. That’s what beta-readers and third drafts are for.

Stephen King came out with two new short stories – “A Face In the Crowd” with Stewart O’Nan, and “Batman and Robin Have an Altercation,” one of his best-ever stories. I wrote reviews of both, plus one for the Peter Straub novella, The Buffalo Hunter. It remains my only month in which I have three FEARnet articles. I also wrote one poem, “A Place to Charge My Phone.” It would be the last poem I wrote until December.

I concluded August with another trip to Georgia, during which my buddy Joe and I took the drive up to Athens so I could once again see Drive-By Truckers. The concert in April had been such a life-changing exhilaration, and yes, maybe I wanted to capture that lightning in a bottle. Joe chose not to join me this time at the concert, but when I got inside the Athens Theater, I bellied right up to the stage, made a few new friends, bought some new merch, and screamed along with the show till I couldn't scream no more. On night one, Patterson Hood saw my tattoo - "It's Great to Be Alive." On night two, he sang the song it came from, "World of Hurt," and that's when I knew my show was going to work.

After my Disney trip, I headed out to Los Angeles for a few days to visit my

friends. My friend Josh and I drove back from Anaheim with the top down and listening to nerd music the whole way. And then my friend Paul Knepper picked me up and we drove through the Hollywood Hills. Paul K has become one of my unexpectedly fantastic friends; like every California Paul I know, he’s quietly infused himself into my life, making it better. Later on, we went to see Wrath of Khan at the theater and the director randomly was there talking about the movie, because that’s Los Angeles. We went to In & Out Burger and ordered off the secret menu. We walked down Hollywood Boulevard so I could find Roscoe Arbuckle. But I’ll keep going back to that drive through the Hills before we headed into the Valley. We were listening to the radio, and without warning, Bob Seger’s “Hollywood Nights” blasted on, and my world was bliss. Sometimes the moments don’t have to be grand to realize you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.

Books Read: Truth In Comedy, by Charna Halpern,Del Close,Kim Johnson; The Hotel New Hampshire, by John Irving