Greetings Earth Dwellers!
Welcome to the latest installment of my ongoing interior monolog, which I hope may someday provide material for the world’s strangest telenovela (currently untitled). This dispatch will be shorter than usual, and nauseating/horrifying news of the day will be confined to the notes section following these beautifully flowing (like the most pricey vintage bubbly, I’d like to think) paragraphs. Feel free to jump for joy but be careful not to hurt yourself while doing so, I’m not into that whole personal injury lawsuit thing.
The abbreviated word count is due to the earth-shaking importance of me quickly sending my S.F. Bay Area readers one last reminder that tomorrow night (Thursday, December 2, at 7pm, to be exact) I will again be hosting and interrogating (think Perry Mason) my friend Dmitry Samarov at The Green Arcade (1680 Market, at Gough). This time around we will be discussing Mr. D’s two most recent books, All Hack and Old Style, in a studied attempt to focus your holiday gift-buying tendencies in the direction of Samarov World.
The event will be free and live in person at S.F.’s Supreme Left Wing Bookstore, with none of that annoying Zoom business. Proof of vaccination and full masking required for entrance, note that there will be none of the snacks and drinks of the pre-pandemic era, so those masks will remain on at all times. We’ll also be happy to kick out idiots who feel compelled to lower their masks when they talk at you, a maddening fad of late.
I’m quite looking forward to watching Dmitry read from his books and then engaging in a wide-ranging gabfest afterwards. Be assured that we will take your questions, though of course we can’t promise satisfactory answers and any complaints must be directed to Arcade Grand Poobah Patrick Marks. Dmitry and I have engaged in two previous Arcade confabs and they were both a blast. You can go to audio of those scintillating events via the link in notes below if you don’t believe that I was able to keep it together and remain moderately coherent for two separate hour long performances.
All Hack is a marvelous mash-up which combines and expands on Dmitry’s previous cab driving memoirs, Hack and Where To?, while Old Style unfurls a slightly, or maybe more than slightly, fictionalized narrative (we’ll find out which tomorrow night, suffice it to say that “This is fiction but I didn’t have to make anything up” appears on the copyright page) drawn from our man’s experiences in the glamorous world of working class Chicago bartending. If you’re approaching these as how-to books, remember to keep them separate so you don’t wind up with a DUI.
Both All Hack and Old Style are crammed to the brim with Dmitry’s distinctive sketches and paintings, which you will undoubtedly recall have long graced the covers and inside pages of TerrallCorp’s pride and joy, the magazine for malcontents, misfits, and the maladjusted we call Namaste, Motherfucker! As with Mr. Samarov’s earlier books Soviet Stamps and Music to My Eyes, these latest offerings are at the opposite end of the spectrum from today’s shoddily manufactured paperbacks; none of that crappy paper or ugly covers infused with plastic that causes unsightly curling which are hallmarks of contemporary corporate publishing.
The art and fine packaging definitely make the books highbrow even as the writing inside embraces the lowbrow. The best of both worlds! None of that middlebrow crap you are faced with when stuck in an airport bookshop. No wonder these fine titles grace the coveted pride of place at the apex of The Green Arcade’s checkout counter. Please note that all of Dmitry’s literary output will be available for masked but up close and personal autographing, and if you for some inexcusable reason miss tomorrow night’s happening rest assured that copies will still be available in the store in the following days, months, and years (if we make it through 2022, but we won’t go there). Naturally they can be mail ordered from either the Arcade or Dmitry’s lovingly tended website (dmitrysamarov.com), which you should check out for its embarrassment of riches regardless of your shopping decisions.
Given that I was always on the other end of the libation dispensing, I don’t have any experience tending bar. However, from 1985 to 1988 I did make what passed for a living as a “full time” (i.e. I sometimes worked almost forty hours a week) cabbie.* It was during those halcyon days of yore that I met the teenaged Dmitry. I used to park the crappy USA-made chariot of the day at a cab stand near The Coolidge Corner Moviehouse in the overrated Boston-adjacent town of Brookline, Massachusetts and hang out inside that fine theater. Young Mr. D was an employee there when I met him, and since I liked to relax and recreate in the establishment’s lobby with my projectionist and manager pals, the budding artist in question couldn’t help overhearing interminable anecdotes about the life of a hack (of the driving variety, the writing came later).
Thus I fear I may have planted one of the mutant seeds which led to my friend spending years behind the wheel in both Boston and Chicago. One of the things I have to live with, I guess. But more power to him for turning those experiences as a driver for hire into the worthy literary endeavor that is All Hack. I’ve been especially appreciating the second half of that book in recent days, as it’s provided quite a few much-needed belly laughs in what has been an otherwise trying week. It’s always great to have a book that inspires out of control cackling on the bus, especially in the morning when the rest of the passengers are more easily disturbed. Get a copy and you too can have fun alienating your neighbors on public transit!
Some taxi pilots hate this word, which obligates me to use it. Kind of like “Frisco” instead of “San Francisco.”
NOTES
The Dmitry Show with special guest star Ben: https://benterrall.com/radio-hour/
GOP brain trust continues their campaign to outdo Satan:
https://www.axios.com/republicans-unemployment-unvaccinated-biden-3cf363b5-8789-4bb4-b431-70401320de94.html
Thinking outside the box on the campaign trail:
https://www.rawstory.com/scott-pio-sea-level/
Not our best, nor our brightest: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo/cruz-big-bird-propaganda-covid-vaccine
Good news about my one remaining vice, which I would rather die than give up: https://gizmodo.com/coffee-and-tea-linked-to-lower-risk-of-stroke-and-demen-1848068798
“Vaccine detox” options for Dispatch readers who have gone completely insane:
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/covid-vaccine-mandates-push-holdouts-get-shot-detox-rcna4859