
This is great. A friend made this. His name is Marcus Grundahl. Yes.






Franz Nicolay performs "Did Your Broken Heart Make You Who You Are?" from Radio Happy Hour on Vimeo.
I was on the new episode of John & Molly Knefel's Radio Dispatch podcast. I talk about a few books and poetry. you can hear it here. I um.
In Episode #17 of Radio Happy Hour Sam moves to Montana to ref the Montana Three Way, a three way professional wrestling bout between Rusty Trombone, The Shakespearean Punisher (Arthur Phillips) with his inept manager Dave Hill, and Osama bin Droppin’ Elbows. But when Osama’s manager, Elizabeth Ziman of Elizabeth & the Catapult, comes out to tell everyone that Osama is missing the crowd gets pissed and the mystery gets hot ‘n heavy. And by “crowd” I mean Steve, the one guy who comes to the Montana Three Way every year.
We're pretty thrilled to tell you about our next live taping. (It's not a banana.) On April 16th (that's only about two weeks from now!) we'll be back in the dark basement of (Le) Poisson Rouge drinking in the middle of the afternoon. This time we'll be serenaded by the serene tunes of Franz Nicolay. Franz is the brilliantly mustachioed man you've seen doing solo work, out on tour with our friend David Dondero, doing keys with The Hold Steady, and generally rocking in World Inferno Friendship Society. (A lot, I know, and that's not everything.)
Come celebrate spring, mustaches, and murder with us on April 16. The most fun you'll have in a dark basement on what should be a beautiful spring afternoon.
Oh, and if you're around on April 15th join us as the RHH crew go watch Franz play a show with our good friend David Dondero (remember episode #11, "The Don, The Delicious, and The Doom"?) at the Cake Shop in New York.
We've got a new episode of Radio Happy Hour up right now. Episode #16 "The House That Ted Built" features special guests Abe Vigoda, Marcellus Hall, and comedian Ted Alexandro.
I'll be reading at the Monkeybicycle Lightning Round on March 16th at the Cake Shop. It's the launch party for their eighth print issue as well (I'm in there). It will be fun. These people are reading too: Vince Czyz, Scott Geiger, Suzanne Marie Hopcroft, Blake Kimzey, Lincoln Michel, David Moscovich, Dustin Luke Nelson, Steve Peacock, Kathleen A. Ryan, and Katie Wude.
Also, they just started selling copies of issue 8 here. These people are in it: Summer Block, Matt Briggs, Aaron Burch, E. Michael Desilets, Ori Fienberg, Jesús Ángel García, Scott Geiger, Michael Hickins, Steve Himmer, Blake Kimzey, Ben Loory, Annam Manthiram, Laura McCullough, Michael Mlekoday, Dustin Luke Nelson, Ben Nickol, Steve Peacock, Jonathan Redhorse, Vincent Scarpa, Curtis Smith, Rosalynn Stovall, and Andrew Weatherhead.The fiscal crisis in Wisconsin, as in other states, was largely caused by the increasing power of America’s oligarchy. After all, it was superwealthy players, not the general public, who pushed for financial deregulation and thereby set the stage for the economic crisis of 2008-9, a crisis whose aftermath is the main reason for the current budget crunch. And now the political right is trying to exploit that very crisis, using it to remove one of the few remaining checks on oligarchic influence.


I've got a new poem up at Sink Review called "At the Auditions For the Lion King."Pitchfork: How did you end up working with veteran metal dude Erik Rutan on this album?
JD: This is a long story. First, did you see the Cannibal Corpse documentary Centuries of Torment?
Pitchfork: No.
JD: Tom, come on. You have to get this thing tonight because it's the greatest. It's like four hours long but it's seriously one of the best rock docs ever made. Cannibal Corpse are a bunch of dudes from Buffalo who've been doing it forever. They are amazing musicians and characters-- just amazing dudes to listen to. I brought this documentary out on tour, and there was a DVD player in the back of the bus, so the documentary was playing 24 hours a day. Any time you wanted to see Cannibal Corpse you could just go to the back lounge and they were there.
Brad Liening was just interviewed about his new collection Ghosts and Doppelgängers
We've got a new episode of Radio Happy Hour up here. From the RHH site:In episode #15 of Radio Happy Hour, “The Christmas Gayle,” Brain Aiken of Suckers, Tim Kasher, and comedians Joe Mande and Arden Myrin join the Radio Happy Hour crew as they mysteriously wind up at a holiday party of New York dentist. But it seems as though the person they’ve come with might be ghost.
Radio Happy Hour is the wry little nephew of A Prairie Home Companion—both serve up quaint, vaudevillian radio comedy, but only one of these will have raw riotess Thao Nguyen (of San Francisco Thao & the Get Down Stay Down) on deck tonight. Also, only one of these ends with a virtual river of Pabst on the floor. Quick-witted Nguyen should do well on "Radio Happy Hour"—as with all episodes, the guest will be tasked with helping the gang solve a short, spastic mystery by interviewing suspects, collecting evidence, and performing (because art is the greatest discovery of all, or something). Wear your Encyclopedia Brown best for a truly irreverent evening. With Jessi Klein, Ali Wong, and John & Molly Knefel.

Welcome to InDefinite Podcast, the new weekly podcast from InDigest Magazine. The podcast is going to range from author interviews to discussions to recordings from the InDigest 1207 Reading Series. This first episode features Arthur Phillips recorded live at the October 3rd InDigest 1207 Reading at Le Poisson Rouge in New York. Arthur discusses his introduction to the forthcoming publication of “The Tragedy of King Arthur,” which may or may not be the first play William Shakespeare wrote. This is one of the first times Arthur has discussed this book (April 2011, Random House) and what will likely be a somewhat controversial publication. I would start to explain exactly what we mean by “may or may not,” but then you wouldn’t need to listen to the podcast, and it’s far more interesting coming from Arthur. Enjoy.
So we've released episode #11 of Radio Happy Hour which featured guests The Postelles, David Dondero, and 2009 US Air Guitar Champion William Ocean, as well as some stand up from John and Molly Knefel and cello from Justin Kantor. You can stream the podcast here or you can subscribe to the podcast for free on iTunes.