Chewed through this thing the way you chew through those pieces of gum that come with your garbage pail kids cards. Everything here reeks (so wonderfuChewed through this thing the way you chew through those pieces of gum that come with your garbage pail kids cards. Everything here reeks (so wonderfully) of the 80's and 90's. Regal in their retro-ness, delirious with depression, this collection was exactly the kind of thing I needed to fill my brain with tonight. These are less like poems and more like a cool ass conversation with a most chill-as-fuck dude. Rock on, Brian, with your badass self. ...more
Brian Alan Ellis and Bud Smith are a bit like beer and hot wings. You can, and do, enjoy them individually. Yet, when paired together, they are crazy Brian Alan Ellis and Bud Smith are a bit like beer and hot wings. You can, and do, enjoy them individually. Yet, when paired together, they are crazy complimentary and before you know it, you are wondering how you ever went through life having one without the other.
Brian's the jokester, drawing you in with his sharp wit and sarcastic comebacks, while Bud charms and disarms you by finding humor and hope in the most mundane things.
Reading Tables Without Chairs is like walking in on a conversation between two guy besties. You know the kind, where they are speaking their own language and laughing at their own jokes and stories, and at first you're like "are you kidding me right now, they are so full of themselves, they sure do like to hear themselves talk", yet the longer you sit there listening, the funnier their jokes and stories become. And then you realize that they are actually quite hilarious and you're all "dude, I want to be besties with you too", because they have been through the coolest, most fucked up shit ever and you think that if you hang with them, well, then some pretty cool and fucked up shit will start happening to you, because you'll totally be orbiting their awesomeness and isn't that how it works? Hang with the cool kids and cool stuff will start happening to you?
A fun and fantastic mashup by two of the hardest working and handsome fellas in the small press solar system.
Read 11/26/14 3 Stars - Recommended to those who appreciate Sam Pink and Charles Bukowski and the likes for their scrapin-the-bottom-of-the-barrel outlRead 11/26/14 3 Stars - Recommended to those who appreciate Sam Pink and Charles Bukowski and the likes for their scrapin-the-bottom-of-the-barrel outlook on humanity Pages: 45 Publisher: House of Vlad Released: June 2014
Disclaimer: Yes, I am quoted on the second page inside this novel. And yes, I am the only blurb on the back cover. No, that super squee-worthy, holy-fucking-awesome fact has had no impact on the honesty of this review. And no, I really don't care if you don't believe me.
King Shit is a super-shortie. No, not the dude himself, though I guess he's not really all that much to look at if we take him at his word. He's a scrawny, pudgy bellied, thin haired guy rumored to have been named for either Elvis "The King" Presley or Elvis "the shy and geeky" Costello. Either way, we get the sense our main man falls extremely short of both namesakes.
In this shorter-than-novella sized illustrated story, we are taken on a night out with Elvis and his right hand man Ralph and are made to bear witness to the oh-so-sad shenanigans that follow. Bar crawling around town, they rub elbows with an obese Mexican Santa, a strange jukebox bike riding fella in a lavender suit, an ex-girlfriend of Elvis's who parades her lady-parts around in front of her current beau (an angry dwarf of a dude), two grease-heads puking it up in the men's room, and a whole lot of nothing to go home to.
Typical of Brian Alan Ellis, we're hanging with the grimy, dingy underbelly of society here. His characters are the kind of slimy, pickled, sleazy bastards that, were they to slide their squishy behinds onto the bar stools next to yours, you'd quickly down the drink you were nursing and find a reason to up and excuse yourself before they attempted to suck you into one of their bad-breathed ballads of woe.
Ellis's straight forward approach to storytelling can be compared to that of Sam Pink and Charles Bukowski. His uncanny ability to humbly dress his characters in yesterday's dirty, beer soaked, rumpled clothing and march them back and forth from place to place like it ain't no big thang speaks directly to the insecurities in each of us. And the fact that this is the norm for these guys, that they think this is what life is and are living it the only way they know how, that's fascinating to us.
I only wish we had been given more time to get to know these guys. I get the sense there is much more to them, more raggedy adventures to be had. That their stories are only just beginning....more
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