Adam Selzer: King of the Wild Frontier

Fun!

2008-05-18T01:45:59Z

We went down to scenic Normal, IL for the Illinois Young Writers Conference, at which I met with about a hundred or so 6th graders and talked about being a writer. Each kid got a copy of "Pirates of the Retail Wasteland," and the campus bookstore - which was well stocked in advance with both of my books - sold out of everything I had about five minutes after the book signing started. Man, that's a nice feeling. Great bunches of kids, too. I don't envy them having seventh and eighth grades in front of them, but, hey, that's 10 more years til they're out of college - maybe the economy will pick up by then!

Open letters

2008-05-16T16:17:26Z

Dear Oil Companies:
I'd fart in your general direction, but you'd put it in a jar and sell it. Jerks.

Dear Mr. President:
Bad form, Mr. President. But good news: I still don't think you're QUITE as big a jerk as Andrew Johnson was! Of course, he didn't have his finger on the same sort of button that you do.

Dear. Mr. Roosevelt:
You got robbed in 1912, and I know YOU wouldn't have taken this kind of crap from the oil companies. I'll be back in the ballroom you're supposed to haunt several time between now and election day if you want to make any statementss. The MAINSTREAM press has unfairly ignored you for too long, Colonel.

Dear Oil Companies:
Oh, what the hell... pppppppppppbbbbbbbbbbbtttttttttttttt.

adamselzer @ 2008-05-15T07:34:00

2008-05-15T12:34:46Z

I was pretty sure I'd heard every single song the Oldies stations had to offer. How did I ever manage to go so long without ever having heard "Hats Off to Larry" by Del Shannon?

Woohoo!

2008-05-14T16:12:08Z

PIRATES OF THE RETAIL WASTELAND has been named a Booksense Pick for Summer, 2008! This gives me a nice push with indie booksellers, who are fast becoming my best friends.

Here's the blurb sited:

PIRATES OF THE RETAIL WASTELAND, by Adam Selzer (Delacorte Books for Young Readers, $15.99, 9780385734820 / 0385734824) "Pirates of the Retail Wasteland follows the exploits of a group of cynical, disaffected, and talented high school students who rouse themselves from their torpor to try and save the last non-chain business on their town's strip -- a grungy, congenial coffee shop called Sip. Selzer's character are dead-on, and his readers will thoroughly enjoy this one." --Kenny Brechner, Devaney, Doak & Garrett Booksellers, Farmington, ME

Current Reading

2008-05-14T12:27:02Z

I'm reading a pretty nifty book called 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft, Debs and the Election That Changed America. It's all about the year when Teddy Roosevelt ran as a Bull Moose party candidate - Roosevelt got a lot more radical after his presidency; the Bull Moose platform reads, today, like a template for what the democratic party would become under FDR. Fascinating stuff; as part of my Weird Chicago research, I've gone back and read a lot of contemporary articles about that election lately - the ballroom that was Roosevelt's headquarters at both the Republican and Bull Moose conventions that year is a regular stop on my tours. Roosevelt is only one of many ghosts that are supposed to haunt that room, though I've yet to find a single person who actually claims to have SEEN that ghost. Still, we went in there a while ago with all of our niftiest gear to see if we could get the Colonel to endorse a candidate for 2008, but, uncharacteristically, he kept his mouth shut.

Working on editing the Weird Chicago book today, trying to keep it from turning out to be the size of a phone book. The draft of the first three chapters is about 340 pages long!

Jerks.

2008-05-13T16:17:04Z

So, someone broke into Ronni's car last night. On the plus side, there wasn't anything in there to steal, other than a copy of Highlights for Children and a Les Miz CD set, both of which they left. I kinda wish they'd taken the magazine, as a bit of Goofus and Gallant might have done them good.

Taking it to get fixed later at a low low cost of $160 bucks. For now, I took the opportunity to politicize the event:

Oh, YAY!

2008-05-12T20:19:59Z

One of my only politically-based regrets in leaving Georgia was that I wouldn't have Bob Barr to kick around anymore. He was my congressman for a while. He pandered to racists, bigots, the more maniacal wing of the gun lobby, and, as I recall, was the first to call to grant Bush special emergency powers (like Jar Jar Binks in Attack of the Clones) after 9/11. When, after we successfully kicked him out on his ass, he became a voice AGAINST the patriotic act, I knew his game - he was just trying to get his name in the papers. He was the guy I loved to hate. I drove a long way to vote against him in person so I knew that the vote would be counted - the whole fiasco in 2000 made me pretty sure that my absentee ballot would have ended up in a landfill someplace.

Now he's running for president as a libertarian. Oh, frabjous day! Let me dig up my kickin' shoes...

Ugh

2008-05-12T11:52:45Z

Woke up feeling fine yesterday, if a bit sore from all that Wii. And some pre-tour headbanging from when the Hard Rock Cafe (where my tour bus picks up) was blasting "Bohemian Rhapsody." That left me sore, too.

But the soreness didn't hit my throat til about noon.

It MAY have been compounded by taking a mile-or-two walk in the rain yesterday morning at 6, or maybe it just felt like it was time to strike. It knocked me out HARD all day, and today doesn't look promising.

Anyway, got til Friday to be over it.

what what

2008-05-11T19:09:25Z

Whoooo just got a tip equivalent to a week's pay at Starbucks for running a really fun three hour tour?

Tour - yay!

2008-05-11T05:36:14Z

Back in the old days, when i worked for the other ghost tour company, my usual driver was an improv comic named Hector. Over time, we developed a regular two-step routine in which I was (usually) the straight man, and had a GREAT time giving fantastic tours. He's a major "character" in the ghost book I'm doing for Llewellyn, even.

But it all went to hell after that company split up; we stayed friends, but couldn't work together.

Til tonight. Tonight was our first time working together in about a year and a half.

It was great - we kicked back old times, brought some of the more venerable jokes out of storage, came up with a couple of new ones. Hit a couple of old haunts, if you'll pardon the pun, that aren't usually on my tours anymore.

Weird Chicago Tours have gotten WAY better in the last several months, as we've developed enough solid stops that we can run different tours every night and never have one fall apart, and as we've incorporated more of the research that we'd been sitting on. Having Hector back makes me feel like we've got the band back together.

Getting an early plug in...

2008-05-09T13:06:24Z

...on September 8, I'll be releasing I Put a Spell On You, my first middle grade book. It's a satire of the spelling bee genre, based upon Watergate and Our Mutual Friend (though a lot of the latter, now that I think about it, got weeded out in editing).

It is, by far, the hardest book to write I've ever done. There are four main narrators (two male, two female), including:

Jennifer Van den Berg: An over-scheduled, Shakespeare-obsessed free spirit who dreams of running away to be a hippie while her dad plots a break-in to steal the master word list for the bee from the school.

Chrissie Woodward: the school snitch who realizes that she's been working for the wrong side all her life after she uncovers a web of corruption in the principal's office.

Harlan Sturr: a class clown who spends his nights planning his own funeral, he sees the all-school bee as his last chance to leave his mark on Gordon Liddy Community School.

Mutual Scrivener: a new student, previously home-schooled by his fanatical parents, who has been enrolled in school just to compete in the spelling bee; he befriends a headbanger and a wannabe-witch and becomes fascinated with heavy metal - and Jennifer van den Berg.

This was a tough one (and the sequel was even harder). The plot is WAY more complicated than most of the other books I've written, and tying all of the threads together and setting up the sequel was a lot of work. Sometimes I felt like I was collapsing under the weight of the thing. I wanted to satirize the spelling bee genre, but I wanted it to work kind of like, say, 'The Princess Bride," in that it's a satire, but it still stands on its own. I remember seeing Princess Bride in a theatre when I was a kid and being absolutely swept away by the story. I caught a joke here and there, but had no idea that it was really a comedy. Obviously, few kids are going to get jokes about Richard Nixon's secretary, but I stand firm in my belief that what happened to Nixon is one of history's greatest farces. You need need to get the references to enjoy the story - it's just a special bonus that'll pay out dividends to kids who come back to the book when they get older. To some kids, the book can just function as a really ripping mystery story with a lot of jokes thrown in.

Tour!

2008-05-08T14:09:31Z

In "work that I AM qualified for" news, I got to run a GREAT tour for a student group last night - a group of 16 7th-8th graders. I love doing tours for that age group; they always get into the tour, and always have a lot of good questions to ask. About mid-way through, I'm always thinking "See? THIS is why I write for kids this age!"

No one looks back at middle school and thinks "boy, those were the best years of my life!" But I look back on it fondly for three reasons:

1. I had a good group of smart friends, who helped me become who I am.
2. It was at least better than high school for me.
3. I've blocked out 90% of it.

Towards a New View of Education

2008-05-08T13:37:16Z

In my parents' day, or perhaps just a decade ago, employers might see that you had a degree and years of experience working at a restaurant and say "yes, you seem smart and you obviously have a good work ethic. You can handle this job." That doesn't really happen much anymore; employers just look for 3 years of experience in the field. A business degree right now isn't much less useless than a philosophy degree. I could have quit school at 13 and racked up a police record and I wouldn't be any less employable than I am.

There are probably a few degrees left out there that will get you a job (education, perhaps), but if you want to get a good job now, your best bet is really to skip (or at least delay) college and get an internship instead, with a part-time job at night to pay the bills). Let's look at the breakdown:

4 years unpaid internship:
- a marketable skill and experience in the field
- no student loans

4 year degree:
- no experience, even if you do learn a skill.
- years of student loans.

Maybe there are places out there where it's different - in some cities, I imagine, a college student can get a paid internship. In the towns where I went to college, those didn't really exist. To pay the bills, we had to work regular old nametag jobs.

This doesn't mean that I'm telling people not to go to college - no, no, no. I don't regret going, because I came out smarter than I was when I went in. It's simply time to re-evaluate WHY we go to college. You go to college to become a smarter, happier, well-rounded person, not a more financially successful one. People in college who aren't there to get any smarter really, really ought to rethink their path.

Maybe things will change when the economy starts to recover. But as of right now, an undergrad degree is about like having a high school degree thirty years ago. Go to school to get smarter, not to get richer.

Weird Chicago: The Book!

2008-05-07T15:16:46Z

Coming this summer to a bookstore near you (if you live in Chicago, especially):

Check out that fine photo in the main frame - it's by Ronni!

inflation

2008-05-07T12:13:35Z

1994:
slim jim - .99
can of jolt cola - .65
Spider-man comic book - 1.50 or so.

2008:
slim jim - 1.20
thing of jolt - 2.99 (they don't make it in cans anymore - just big 24 oz things)
Spider-man comic book - 3.99

But the simple joy of a Slim Jim, a Jolt, and a Spider-man comic book hasn't changed a bit.

The whole thing they did lately where Peter Parker and MJ made a deal with Mephisto to erase their marriage from memory (along with whatever else Marvel thought was convenient) to save Aunt May's life was one of the bigger cop-outs in comic book history. And that's saying something.

BUT now Peter Parker is a single guy in his mid twenties struggling through life, trying to make ends meet and deal with his groovy, How I Met Your Mother-eque group of pals (with Harry Osbourne as Barney to Peter Parker's Ted), dealing with the pressure of having been a fast-track gifted student with nothing to show for it as an adult, is, quite frankly, MUCH better than having him be married to a supermodel. They've been trying to write their way out of that for years. Getting out of it had to be messy. But from what I've read so far, it was worth it. It helps that the newer issues have been a whole lot funnier than Spider-man has been in years.

Spidey is back where he should be: a wisecracking everyman that I can identify with, with Gwen Stacy dead (and never having had an affair with Norman Osbourne, which was just icky) and J. Jonah Jameson barking out orders.

Hmph

2008-05-06T17:50:50Z

Sent out some resumes to see if I could get some free-lance work doing writing, light graphic design, etc. I've been pretty much self-employed these last few years, but I've been published by major publishers and run print ad campaigns for my companies, etc.

Unfortunately, I'm just as unemployable now as I was a few years ago. By then, a college degree was worth about the paper it was printed on; the only thing employers were looking for was specific experience in the field. My 11 years of experience in the retail and restaurant industries actually worked against me; people would look at my resume and suggest that I apply at the new Starbucks. Eleven years of work, a college degree and a spotless police record might have gotten you a job once. Now, it's about the same thing as having a high school degree and some light babysitting on your resume twenty years ago.

Let this be a lesson, kids: don't go to college to get a job. Go to college to become a smart, well-rounded person. Your education is all you're likely to get out of college these days - take advantage of it. Entirely too many people get out of college just as stupid as they were when they went in.

Nope. Being self-employed is the only thing that's ever worked for me. I have three sold-out tours this weekend, plus a step-on (that's where I just show up, get on some group's bus, and tell the driver where to go) for a school group that had me last time they were in town - back when I worked for a different company - and wanted to have me again.

More ads!

2008-05-06T16:27:02Z

I've done 40 in all. Here're a few more:

Weird Chicago - but where are the sea monkeys?

2008-05-06T12:13:59Z

Working on the Weird Chicago book is totally unlike doing stuff for Random House. for one thing, the turn around time between finishing it and having it for sale is going to be a matter of weeks. We intend to have it out shortly, and we still have time for new ideas.

The cover, like most of our print ads, is based on old EC Comics:

Just the other day we got the idea to have some comic-type ads in it that related to the content, so I've spent the last couple of days happily crankin' 'em out. Here're a few:

We intend to have a page at the beginning of each chapter, mixing in a few actual newspaper ads for events that ended in disaster, performances of Hamlet downtown starring John Wilkes Booth, etc. I've made about 30 so far.

Spidey Sense is Tingling....

2008-05-06T03:06:35Z

Hey, is anyone reading Spider-man since they did the whole retcon? I thought the ret-con was about the dumbest thing EVER, but, hey, making the last 15 years of Spider-man never have happened isn't all bad. I picked up one issue during Free Comic Book Day that also had a new "series bible" and all of that, and I'm intrigued. Whoever's in charge of this may be going for the ultimate deus ex machina, but could the end justify the means? They HAVE been trying to get themselves out of the corner they were painted into for ages, and I like the idea of having Peter Parker as a 25 year old single guy living paycheck to paycheck.

But I still say Aunt May should have stayed dead after issue 400.

Polka!

2008-05-02T13:23:23Z

Finished two rough drafts in the last week, including one yesterday that has spent a full year kicking my ass - middle grade books are hard! This one was especially tricky, because I had to figure out what sort of "world" it inhabited.

The book, "Lost and Found" is about a kid who wants to be a spy and tries to break into the lost and found room. I had to figure if this was going to be the kind of book where...

... the lost and found room turns out to have some sort of treasure in it
... there's really nothing there but old mittens
or
... it turns out to be only the antechamber to a secret room where the janitor is holding a polka band hostage.

In other words, is the kid REALLY spy, does he just THINK he's a spy, or what? There are a lot of subtle choices that have a huge impact on how the book works as a whole here.

I tried it each of those ways (and a few more, besides) before finding the right way to do it. But, after draft upon draft, I've got one that I'm excited about.

And now I don't know what the heck to do with myself this morning. Hence, I'm working on some new Back Row Hooligans songs. I have a real itch to do another album right now, and hoping this'll cure it.

Here's a new song for today; I don't think it'd fit in on the album, but I sort of want to record it just because it would really fun to film a video for it. It's an instructional dance number.

THE POUR IT ON YOUR HEAD POLKA

Take a gallon of milk and pour it on your head, pour it on your head
a bottle of cola, gotta pour it on your head, pour it on your head
nice, cold lemonade, pour it on your head
iced vanilla latte, pour it on your head
and don't blame me when you get grounded!

Take a bowl of dog food, pour it on your head, pour it on your head
a box of cereal gotta pour it on your head, pour it on your head
refreshing apple juice, pour it on your head
communion wine, pour it on your head
and don't blame me when they kick you out of church!

Weird Things At My Place

2008-05-02T05:10:35Z

I'm not really a memorabilia/antique collector. Or, anyway, I try not to be. But some things I can't pass up. Among the stuff on my wall:

- A coat hanger bent into a neat shape by Bob Dylan
- the doorbell from a house where Jim Morrison used to live (I built this into my desk)
- a strand of Charles Dickens' hair (also now built into the desk)
- souvenir key from the 1933 World's Fair
- Copy of the Des Moines Register announcing Nixon's resignation (I'm holding it in the author photo on my next book)
- Counting Crows guitar pick from the 1997 tour
- Chunk of driftwood signed by all three members of Ben Folds Five

I've really got my eye on "battle flag" waved by supporters of the Bull Moose party in 1912, but, you know....memorabilia doesn't really MEAN anything. It's just cool. I can't really pay THAT much for cool stuff. Unless it's a wii. Which is more than just cool.

Wiiiiiiii!

2008-05-01T17:45:02Z

What better way to pull yourself out of the doldrums than buying your first new game system since you got an 8bit NES in late 93?

Rock!

2008-05-01T12:49:37Z

The best part of my last two albums have probably been the backing vocals (I know, it sure hasn't been MY vocals :) ) by Vixy Dockrey. TheVixy and Tony album is finally out, and it's AWESOME! Tony did a fantastic job on the production - better than I ever could have imagined, especially considering Vixy could sing along to someone playing a nose-flute and the result would have been fine all by itself without a single reverb filter. So many acoustic groups have "produced" albums that just sound like a mess. This one doesn't have a wasted note or beat. Not a one. Even songs that have been recorded live before, like Persephone (which has been a playlist staple of mine for three years now) sounds like it should have always sounded the way it sounds now. That's hard to do.

In fact, I suspect this is going to be one of those albums that gets into my brain and makes me deconstruct it until I think there are grand designs and concepts underlying the whole thing until it becomes a sort of epic that is intertwined in my imagination. One of those albums that comes out every now and then. You know the kind, probably.

Go buy this record. You can go to Itunes and have it in under a minute.

Song idea

2008-05-01T04:36:06Z

I have it in my head to write a Charlotte's Web themed song to the tune of "If I Were a Carpenter."

If I were a spider
and you were a piggy...

You'd have to sing "spider" with a third syllable - drawing out the i sound oughta do it. I haven't gotten past that first line yet, though.

I sort of have it in my head to start writing songs again and recording another album, but most of my brains are telling me "NO! Don't do it! No time! No room! You didn't even sell half of the first (very small) printing of Clark Street Carols, and you know you aren't gonna wanna go play in bars again to plug it!" "Yes," I say back, "that's very wise, but I still sort of feel like making an album again, if only to make sure my hands are always busy." And it shouts back "You wanna keep your hands busy? Why not finally get your guitar skills past 'advanced beginner?' Maybe even get THAT far on piano! THEN maybe you can think about an album again!"

My brain makes some good points sometimes.

Cross-post from the Weird Chicago Blog

2008-04-25T11:49:03Z

Perhaps no mosaic in the city is cooler than this one - the outside of St. George's Cathedral on Wood Street in the Ukranian Village features a big, shiny mosaic of St. George slaying a dragon.

Does this dragon look like Trogdor to anyone else?