For my friends at Powell’s, the best bookstore in the world. Chris Faatz and Meredith Schreiber are like guardian angels. Everyone on the Publicity team (hi, Frances!) and in the Blue Room, especially Linda Watson, whose cookies and hugs have saved me a few times.
Many times to my always growing publishing-family tree. The writers I publish on Future Tense continue to inspire me. My friends at Akashic, Manic D Press, Chiasmus, and Word Riot have made me a better editor and writer.
Thanks to all the writers I’ve met over the years who have offered their friendship, writing secrets, blurbs, and support: Sam Lipsyte, Dan Kennedy, Miriam Toews, Jonathan Ames, Willy Vlautin, Jami Attenburg, Robin Romm, Davy Rothbart, Steve Almond, Jon Raymond, and Sean Wilsey.
Jeffrey Yamaguchi is one big reason this book exists, especially at Harper Perennial. A couple years ago, he introduced me to Carrie Kania, Amy Baker, and others at the New York office and he told them to pay attention to me, to keep me on their radar. Thanks for that push, Jeffrey. Your kindness cannot be measured.
For my agent, Michael Murphy, and my editor, Michael Signorelli—two men who were always encouraging at the right times and endlessly understanding. For Gregory Henry, Jim Hankey, and the others who help bring this book to readers.
For Barb Klansnic, you’ve kept me going during the hardest and most confusing times and you’ve elevated my happiness during exciting times. I’m lucky to have you, and I love sharing my life with you.
P.S. Insights, Interviews & More…
About the author
My So-Called Real Bands
About the book
Visual Aids
Read on
Future Tense Books: A Timeline of My Micropress
About the Author
My So-Called Real Bands
ALTHOUGH MY DREAM of being a famous DJ or pop star never came true, at least I did get to enjoy some time in a few “real bands.” Here’s the short list.
Drill: Drill consisted of two or three friends who would make noise behind me when I started to do spoken-word performances in Spokane in 1990.
The Girl Scout Cookies: My friend Vince from Drill decided we should try some rehearsed songs instead of just doing improv behind my poems and rants. We stole drum beats from hip hop instrumentals that Vince played guitar riffs over. We played two shows in Spokane before I moved to Arkansas in 1991.
Love Jerk: In Fort Smith, Arkansas, I became friends with two rocker kids from the local high school, and we formed a three-piece rock band. This was happening at the same time that Nirvana was hitting it big, and I was able to turn these guys on to other bands like Beat Happening and Teenage Fan Club. Phillip slashed around on his guitar, Jason pounded his drums hard (he was still into Metallica), and I tried to sing. We had one song that was an ode to Florence Henderson. We played two shows before I moved away.
Moon Boots: I reunited with Vince a couple of years later in Portland, and we decided to do a two-man band.
I played a minimalist drum kit like Moe Tucker, and he played electric guitar and sang. We played three really fun shows with actual bands that I liked, but Vince stopped smoking pot and decided that he wasn’t interested anymore.
God’s Favorite Pussy: This was more of a cabaret act. Five hot Portland females lip-synching to classic hits while in full costume (wigs, roller skates, Viking outfits, etc.). I was a “go-go dancer” for them. On the night that GFP opened for Deee-Lite in Portland, I stayed home tending to the early birth of my son.
“We played three really fun shows with actual bands that I liked, but Vince stopped smoking pot and decided that he wasn’t interested anymore.”
Visual Aids
HERE ARE PHOTOS and artifacts of some of the people and places that show up through the book:
This is a photo of our family home on Washington Street. I think the pillars on the front porch make it look more fancy that it really was.
Both of these photos are of Elinda, first as a little girl (probably around 1950) and the other when she was thirty-six
Matt towing me along in something that looks kind of dangerous. I’m always a little surprised when I see photos of me at this age because I look really chubby.
Dad when he was younger. I always thought he looked a little bit like Woody Allen. (Photo partially burned in fire.)
Me with my friend Todd playing air guitar with crutches.
Matt with the big teenage ’fro.
Two photos of Mom, first as a beautiful young woman in the ’40s and the other reading TV Guide in the ’90s. You can see why we called her “Fuzz.”
When I was home for Dad’s funeral, I found a couple of photos of our house on fire. It was so odd to find these. They almost look fake. Notice the early-’70s ambulance and the gawkers.
My dog Scooter at ten months old. Note the Cardinals sticker on the door.
Matt with his awesome green Kawasaki bike. He was the envy of the neighborhood.
A photo of the ceiling as we began installing it. This would become my favorite hiding place for porn.
This is one of those photos you find twenty years later and say, Oh my god! I believe this portrait of some of the Tri-Cities New Wave crowd (circa ’86) was taken at a dance somewhere. I’m in the back row, with the dangly earrings.
These are liner notes from a Neon Vomit cassette. I still have the tape if anyone wants to hear it.
Random note I found in one of Dad’s boxes after the funeral. It reads: I am a Catholic. In case of accident please call a priest. Thank you.
Me (left), Stephen (middle), and Vince (right) on the Oregon coast. A pit stop on our drive to Arkansas.
Read on Future Tense Books
A Timeline of My Micropress
1990: I make my first chapbook of poetry at the age of twenty-three while living in Spokane, Washington. I title it Words of Eternal Chaos and use the image of an old-fashioned telephone for the cover art. On the back, I decide to put Future Tense Press. Not knowing much about small-press publishing or zines at that time, I am more inspired by independent record labels such as Sub Pop and K Records.
1991: Using a friend’s employee discount at Kinko’s (and an electric typewriter), I produce three more chapbooks of my poetry (mostly sold at open mics at Auntie’s Bookstore) before moving to Fort Smith, Arkansas.
1992: I decide to return to the Northwest and choose Portland, Oregon, as my new home. I start reading around town at open mics (Café Lena, Jiffy Squid) and meet other writers to publish. I buy an espresso cart business with my Arkansas girlfriend, and we call it Espresso Happening in tribute to my favorite band, Beat Happening.
“Using a friend’s employee discount at Kinko’s (and an electric typewriter), I produce three more chapbooks of my poetry.
1993: After the death of River Phoenix, a few friends and I write some poems to celebrate the young actor’s life. We turn it into a small zine called Dead Star. For the next couple of years we make issues for John Candy, Charles Bukowski, John Wayne Gacy, and Elizabeth Montgomery. It’s the thing I get the most mail about during this time.
I also get my first computer and P.O. box.
1994: I self-publish my first paperback, How to Lose Your Mind with the Lights On, a collection of poems, collages, and stories—128 pages, 500 copies. It is dedicated to my son, Zach, who is born in July.
Another paperback release, by performance artist Drew Pisarra, comes out a few months later.
1995: At a local café called Umbra Penumbra, I start the Future Tense reading series for writers I publish and other friends.
1996: My first stab at a themed collection, The Diner Anthology, is released as a chapbook and includes an array of ’90s small-press stars.
1997: I publish a collection of poems, Jesus Christ: Live and In the Flesh, by “queen of the small press,” Lyn Lifshin.
My life becomes a shambles after I split with my son’s mom. On a somewhat related note, I become unspoken enemies with writer Jim Goad when my homewrecker girlfriend sta
rts dating him.
I begin working at Powell’s as “Christmas help” and become events coordinator less than a year later.
I get married to writer and performer Ritah Parrish at a pajama party reading at a tiki bar. Many people don’t believe it’s real, but we stay married for five years.
(Note to reader: Someday, when I write another memoir, it will probably start in 1997.)
“I get married to writer and performer Ritah Parrish at a pajama party reading at a tiki bar. Many people don’t believe it’s real, but we stay married for five years.
1998: The first Future Tense website is launched. It’s a big, garish yellow thing with a grenade on its front page. It eventually gets made over, with a sleek black and white design.
We win our first Oregon Literary Arts fellowship.
1999: A chapbook (Holes) by legendary rock writer Richard Meltzer is released. It consists of a funny essay on golf and a section of poems.
2000: Our first novel, Meat Won’t Pay My Light Bill by artist and bartender Kurt Eisenlohr, is released. Because of its size (240 pages), I can only afford to print 300 copies. The book goes out of print quickly until being republished in 2008 by another press. (Kurt’s connection to Future Tense remains: his art adorns our website.)
Jemiah Jefferson’s chapbook of stories, St*rf*ck*ng, is released. She goes on to write several acclaimed vampire novels.
Business-wise, I finally decide to make some kind of letterhead.
2001: We publish Please Don’t Kill the Freshman by Zoe Trope, a girl I discover in an eighth-grade after-school writing class I taught in 1999. The 44-page book, a diary of her first year in high school, becomes a local sensation and is bought by Harper Tempest. An expanded version of her book comes out in 2003. The chapbook is the bestselling title I’ve ever published.
“We publish Please Don’t Kill the Freshman by Zoe Trope, a girl I discover in an eighth-grade after-school writing class I taught in 1999…. The chapbook is the bestselling title I’ve ever published.
2002: Another Future Tense release, Grosse Pointe Girl by Sarah Grace McCandless, a book edited by Ritah (who also has two books released on Future Tense), is bought by Simon & Schuster.
Ritah and I get divorced.
The first version of A Common Pornography comes out. I start corresponding with a girl named Barb, who reads parts of the book on the McSweeney’s website.
2003: Barb moves from Los Angeles to Portland, and romance blooms. She moves into “Future Tense Headquarters.”
Haiku Inferno—a “performance group” consisting of me, Barb (a.k.a. Frayn Masters), Elizabeth Miller, and Frank D’Andrea—debuts and performs at various events for the next several years. A book (copublished by Future Tense and Portland’s Crack Press) comes out five years later.
Controversial sex writer Susannah Breslin’s book, You’re a Bad Man, Aren’t You?, comes out in a limited paperback release and quickly sells out.
Happy Ending by Mike Topp, our first New York writer, is released.
We also win our second Literary Arts fellowship this year.
2004: I bravely try my hand at a special fold-out chapbook, a collection of dirty poems by Shane Allison called Black Fag. It’s a tricky production (and maybe not entirely successful due to my folding), but it becomes a hit among queer poetry fans.
2005: I team up with legendary San Francisco publisher Manic D Press to start a paperback imprint through them, simply called the Future Tense series. An anthology, The Insomniac Reader, is the first release.
2006: Fast Forward: Confessions of a Porn Screenwriter by Playboy writer and Believer editor Eric Spitznagel is the second book copublished with Manic D Press.
A chapbook by Tao Lin is scheduled for summer before I pull the plug on the project due to editing concerns. The resulting ballyhoo is discussed heatedly on lit blogs for the rest of the year before Tao moves on to Melville House (we’ve since become friendly again).
2007: Dahlia Season by Myriam Gurba, the third book through Manic D Press, wins the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction.
Elizabeth Ellen’s debut, Before You She Was a Pit Bull, comes out to the delight of short story fans.
After many years of e-mailing about it, Partial List of People to Bleach, a chapbook by Gary Lutz (who is probably my favorite writer ever), is released.
Also after many years, we finally unveil a logo: a long stapler image.
“After many years, we finally unveil a logo: a long stapler image.
2008: After many years of criticizing the shoddy print-on-demand industry, I realize that it has vastly improved and become more accessible—no more 300-copy print runs! Bob Gaulke’s humorous book on teaching English in Japan, Embrace Your Insignificance, is released.
I meet a young man named Riley Michael Parker at Powell’s and give him some book recommendations. A couple of months later, he gives me a short manuscript that blindsides me. I quickly halt everything else to turn it into a chapbook (Our Beloved 26th) .
2009: Oakland writer and artist Chelsea Martin releases Everything Was Fine Until Whatever, our second paperback in a year. It becomes the fastest-selling paperback we’ve ever done.
To learn more about Kevin’s micropress, go to www.futuretensebooks.com.
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About the Author
Kevin Sampsell has been the publisher of Future Tense Books since 1990. His own books include the short story collections Beautiful Blemish and Creamy Bullets. In 2009, he edited the anthology Portland Noir. He works for Powell’s Books and lives in Portland, Oregon.
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Early Praise for A Common Pornography by Kevin Sampsell
“This is a heartbreaking and magnificent book. I love its mosaic structure—a portrait of a family and a young man created out of jewel-like fragments of memory. In its depiction of small-town American life—the ennui and despair and beauty—I am reminded of Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son. This is the kind of book where you want to thank the author for helping you feel less alone with being alive.”
—Jonathan Ames, author of Wake Up, Sir! and The Double Life Is Twice as Good
“For beauty, honesty, sheer weirdness, and a haunting evocation of place, Kevin Sampsell is my favorite Oregon writer. Ken Kesey, Chuck Palahniuk—make some room on the shelf.”
—Sean Wilsey, author of Oh the Glory of It All
“Embarrassing and honest, heartbreaking and hilarious. A Common Pornography is a great memoir from one of the Northwest’s best writers.”
—Willy Vlautin, author of Northline and The Motel Life
“Memory and truth are jagged things, and Kevin Sampsell’s memoir-in-vignettes expresses this forcefully. With grit and candor, he marches us through the heartbreak, horniness, and confusion of a West coast boy becoming a man.”
—Robin Romm, author of The Mercy Papers
“Kevin Sampsell’s stories are brief incantations, uppercuts to the gut, prose poems given over to the bloodiest realms of the self. It’s all here: the emotional squalor, the sweet bite of loneliness. Make no mistake: Sampsell can write like hell.”
—Steve Almond, author of Candyfreak and My Life in Heavy Metal
Also by Kevin Sampsell
Creamy Bullets
Beautiful Blemish
How to Lose Your Mind with the Lights On
The Insomniac Reader (editor)
Portland Noir (editor)
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
P.S.™ is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.
A COMMON PORNOGRAPHY. Copyright © 2010 by Kevin Sampsell. All rights reserved under Internat
ional and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
EPub Edition © December 2009 ISBN: 978-0-06-196611-8
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A Common Pornography: A Memoir Page 14