Shopping Bag
My AccountThis essay about life on the road is provided by Jaret Ferratusco. Jaret is the founder of Patient, Folded Hands Publishing, and author of the novellas I Grew Up In Amaltherey Hill and Please Don’t Leave Me. Jaret was recently featured on W + K Entertainment’s Story Time program, where he read from one of his short stories. Upcoming releases include a revised edition of Please Don’t Leave Me for rerelease through Patient, Folded Hands, and a new short-story collection titled To Make This Easier, which focuses on very lonely instances of personal horror and hopelessness in the summits of love and loss.
In early 2009 the groundwork was laid for a new Portland publishing company called Patient, Folded Hands. I started this venture in an attic, basically while drinking large amounts of energy drinks (the kind with high alcohol content), quietly getting myself prepared and excited about starting something all my own, with the only rules I would have to follow being those of finance. It took a bit of time to get the first publication off the floor, and that work is a story called I Grew Up In Amaltherey Hill, now available through my website. Although this book is the first breath for P, FH as a company, it was my second published book as an author, so I considered that I had a marginally accurate view of how it would probably go, moneywise. Which meant I’d better save up, because it takes much more money to do it than what you’re apt to make doing it.
What I figured is that I would probably (hopefully) end up getting out a good amount of books at first, then I could reasonably expect sales to slow a month or so after the release after initial promotions had been done. That was pretty accurate. I wasn’t able to save any of that money from the first month of sales for building the company up any little higher, because all of everything I made that first month went to paying off my investor.
So while getting everything arranged nicely, an arm’s length assembly line built up in a circle around me while I sat with my legs crossed on the floor in my attic, I started filling orders and drinking more energy alcohol beverages and advertising day and night to try to coax such orders into continuing, I also set about seeking new authors. People who like to write the kind of things that I generally want to read. And while doing those things, I also set about getting out on the road to tour this new book and this new company.
The tour wasn’t too difficult to set about, as I just hopped onto someone’s already scheduled route, a band called Unwed Sailor, from Tulsa, Oklahoma. For almost a decade I’ve been going out on the road, usually as a photographer, so I’m used to the city-to-city, club-to-club, night-after-night route, but only just recently have I been selling books too. In 2008 I went out on just such a tour right after my first book, Please Don’t Leave Me, was released. This was the first time I had really tried to push something to an audience, because as a photographer I don’t regularly deal with people in the kind of salesmanship where I need to talk much. On this jaunt I did very sporadic readings, one in this town at a show before the bands went on, one here at some party or other in the next city, and things like that. I’m used to traveling and seeing a new city for the first time but having to leave it within 24 hours for the next stop on the tour and starting fresh every day. Doing the most you can while you can before it’s gone. But it became a new thing once it came time for opening my mouth in front of a crowd to read from a book.
More so than being an interesting new aspect of being on the road, it proved to be something I kind of dreaded from night to night. A fair thing to say is that I’m not used to speaking in front of crowds. In fact, I’m not really even used to speaking in front of strangers at all. And I don’t think that this has much to do with being apprehensive or nervous, but that I don’t feel I really have all that much to impart unless I want to say something I think is funny. Not having anything to say to people in person works fine when the things you make, the books and photographs, can be taken in on someone’s own time. But being up there and having fifteen minutes to get something across to someone, or a whole lot of someones, seemed really out of place.
And in that regard it’s amazing how fast talking into a microphone can turn into stand-up comedy if you just don’t have anything to say, which is a real drag considering the book is pretty serious and not so light-hearted at all. The only thing in my mind was to read from the book, say thanks to those who paid attention, and then get down off the stage again. This frame of mind feels tedious, so for the first few times during that first book tour, I just didn’t enjoy it at all. It seemed like there was something I was not understanding. Maybe other authors hated it at first too. I could definitely understand that.
So once I got through the uncomfortable and almost insignificant little things, such as how to prop open a book with one hand while at the same time holding the microphone in the other without losing stage light on the paragraphs or vocal comfort in my positioning, I kind of lost my nervousness out of sheer desire to get it the fuck over with. Realistically it felt like being the speaker at a company picnic, so all I wanted to do was get it over with. Driving toward the point like that made it easier to get through, but of course it didn’t mean I got any better at reading in front of a crowd on that tour. The best of what I think I learned was how to get past the point where it matters how I feel. It’s something I wanted to do and that’s what I came here to do, so I did it, regardless of fumbling about like a marionette and making my friends backstage laugh at me doing it.
Well, that was the first tour. I’m pleased to report it got better this time around.
Things got a lot better this time, on the Winter Tour of 2009, for P,FH’s first release I Grew Up In Amaltherey Hill, out once again with Unwed Sailor as well as their new sister band, Native Lights. The shows went smoother. Previous to starting the tour I actually practiced alone in the attic before leaving home. Standing around, pacing, reading, starting over if I felt like it. It worked nicely that way, to a certain extent, so I figured I’d probably do this a lot more since I had billing in the papers and listings, and would be doing a reading every night this time instead of the sporadic, spread out ones from before.
There’s a line from a Smoking Popes song that goes, “It’s hard to be yourself with somebody else. I practice a lot . . . when I’m alone.”
It felt a lot like that to me, only I was actually practicing to be somebody else. Reading to a crowd, when all is said and done, is really fun when you don’t stumble on words or go too fast or too slow, but I don’t think I actually liked going up there. I’m still not sure about it, though. Overall I’m glad I was touring with friends.
It’s nice to be on the road with friends, who go up every night too. So I got on a plane to Oklahoma with a suitcase full of books; within six or seven hours I was on stage in a club I’d never been to before, reading to a noisy crowd.
The way this tour would progress was, there would be an opener or two, then Native Lights would play, then I would read for ten to fifteen minutes, and after that Unwed Sailor would come up. It worked pretty fluidly like that, with few changes in the two weeks. For the most part, crowds were very receptive, which cannot be expected when you’re reading from a book at a rock and roll show. Sometimes people out there in the crowd are going to talk over you, and that’s just how it is. It takes patience. Sometimes, or maybe most times, it’s good to have a really good drink on stage so you can have some personal back-up and keep it to yourself. Responding to loud people isn’t worth it. You can be really funny about it or whatever, and the crowd will laugh with you and they’ll tell the talkative people to shut up too, and all will be fine again, except it’s not entirely fine again. Once you stray from the story by responding, and you bring everyone back into the present, into the room, you’ve interrupted your flow, interrupted the narrative, and it’s not as powerful or dizzying when you slip back into it pretending nothing happened. Maybe that sort of thing made Charles Bukowski readings fully entertaining events, but it won’t work like that for everyone. So, when people are talking too loud, it’s better to either talk louder yourself, or have a sip from a good drink, and keep reading the story. Those in the audience who are into it will thank you for it.
The first reading always used to end up being an unpleasant experience for me regardless. I didn’t practice before I got on stage (which would turn out to be a recurring theme for every night thereafter despite my intentions to practice more). On a side note, and in response to any allegations that practice is mostly necessary, I would discover that practice wasn’t for me after all. Rather than assisting me with speaking out loud, “practice” beforehand more disturbed my sense of the moment and my ability to really enjoy doing it when it mattered. So that was a lesson in itself. Doing it in front of a crowd is the real practice anyway.
The club in Tulsa was really dark; hard to see the pages. I couldn’t hear myself on the microphone but assumed everyone out there could, so in order not to shout and in effect become overly loud, I just kind of listened to my own voice in my head while reading over all the talking. The problem felt like a fault on my end, so I just went with it, fully accepting of my inadequate understanding of the PA system.
The applause therefore was like a round of golfers clapping, only barely audible to me. When I got off the stage, Unwed Sailor’s drummer, Nathan, told me the microphone was on an improper volume to begin with, and almost nobody but the front couple rows of people could hear me. So it wasn’t just my ears, it really was a defect. But I still needed to show more life on stage, he said. Nathan’s a frankly positive guy, and he told me not to take anybody’s shit when I’m on the stage and if I want to talk louder, then I should, and that it shouldn’t get me down. He said if someone’s talking, then you talk loud too. No reason to let it get to you. Just drown them out. You have a speaker attached to you, he said, fuck those people.
The next night I took Nathan’s advice very seriously, because I really hate it when I let technically simple shit like that get to me.
Standing in a backstage area in Denton, Texas, looking up at an original print poster from a performance of the Winter Dance Party tour from 1959 (soon-to-be-dead-legends Richie Valens, Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper), I told myself that it doesn’t matter as long as you’re doing what you want to do. What if we all die tonight, I wondered. If those people don’t want to hear a book reading they can leave. If they want to talk loud, then they can do that, because so can I. It’ll just be one big yelling fest.
Except that I don’t ever really raise my voice all that much, so I just planned on getting loud enough to drown them out to my own ears, which isn’t too hard to do with stage monitors facing you and a heavy drink placed next to you.
So I got up there and the first thing I did was position the microphone so I didn’t have to bother holding it. Screwing around with a microphone in front of a room full of people staring at you always used to make me feel uncomfortable. But I didn’t originally suspect that remaining uncomfortable just to avoid feeling uncomfortable any further is a fucking stupid thing to waste your time on. Truthfully, it is, though.
I would have to get the knack of not caring so much one way or the other so long as I felt okay.
So I stood there until the microphone was right and the lighting was right. It would come to me really fast that if I face the side of the stage and read with my profile to the audience, it’s the best light, and I can breath comfortably and get the story out without shifting around. And in reality it takes maybe ten to fifteen seconds to do that. Not a lot of excess time at all. I said hello, started reading. When someone was a little loud, I gave it a second, then raised my voice a bit. Drowned them out. Good stuff. Before I knew it, it was over, and it had turned out to be my best reading yet. People clapped, said nice things, bought some books. And I thought, Jesus, all it takes is just being comfortable with yourself and it’s not so bad.
Afterward I thanked Nathan and that was one of the best first nights on any tour. I started to realize just how little these nonsensical trials matter so long as you do what you want to do. I guess they call it stage fright. It’s something you can get past just like most other unimportant things. For some people, you have to remind yourself of this all the time. I don’t mind the repetition as long as I feel good about it.
So I set to talking more about Patient, Folded Hands. How it’s a new company as an offshoot of Corpse On Pumpkin Photography, which I’ve been doing for almost ten years.
Within a few days I was already in the right mode.
Pushing the book, talking about the company, discussing the type of work I want to put out and asking people in return, in every city, if they had any friends who were the type of writers I was looking for. By the end of the tour it felt like I’d been hunting people. And I came back from tour with not a single name of any new author looking to put stuff out . . . doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good start, though. Far from it, because it really was a good start.
Asking questions, explaining things, elaborating. If anything it just gave me a clearer vision of my own work. For such a regularly quiet person it took me pretty far out of myself. I was glad though to return to normal after the tour and go back to being mostly quiet and drinking alone, but I was glad that I had discovered another of the many inexplicable sides of the power of what art can do to people. You spend all day in your bedroom working on making things, but when you don’t go outside you can’t really see those things take wing in all the myriad ways they are apt to. To be fair, there’s no way to keep a perfect hold on anything artistic. Once it’s not private anymore, once it’s made public, it goes off to live a life of its own. I like my little quiet world of Corpse On Pumpkin. It’s controlled, familiar and lovely. It’s sometimes very unfriendly, and disjointed, but it’s home.
And it’s good to let it breathe, to watch the expelled breath cloud up in the frozen air.
Then you set it free, you put it in a frame on a wall, or in the pages of a book, and it flies off into the distance and pretends you never existed. And then it doesn’t need you anymore because it’s fine the way it is, and that feels pretty good. Time to work on the next thing.
On the road you can climb up on its wings and go too, for a while anyway. By the end of the tour I knew I would miss it. It’s always like that. The prospect of returning home to clean clothes and washing machines and eating any other place than a gas station is kind of nice and it beckons toward you, but you miss the road. I miss stepping away from myself and reading a story and losing myself in that story. When it’s quiet in the room, and people are paying attention, and they gasp at the uncomfortable and awkward moments, it’s really nice. It’s like giving a better life to the story’s wandering, shitty, sad, lost people; a tangible existence they didn’t otherwise have in the paragraphs until you let them breathe out loud in a room full of people.
I’m headed out again with Unwed Sailor in April 2010, with another box of books. I’m not sure if I’ll get to do as many readings as last time because I’m not on the official line-up this time, but hopefully I’ll be reading from I Grew Up In Amaltherey Hill on at least a handful of dates or something. So far things are going good with the company. As good as can be expected. I’m happy to say that I owe nobody a dime, and although I haven’t begun to make back any of the money I saved up myself to put this together, I have certainly been able to pay off all the funds I borrowed from others to build P, FH. I don’t expect to see my own money back for a very long time. There’s always more postcards to print, more stickers to make, more books and posters and fliers, and drinks to keep me up while sending them out. It all just runs in circles.
Pleasant, lovely circles. I’m perfectly fine with that.
Yours,
JARET.
P,FH Spring Tour 2010 w/ Unwed Sailor & Jaret Ferratusco:
4.7 – Lawrence, KS @ Jackpot
4.8 – Omaha, NE @ Slowdown
4.9 – Minneapolis, MN @ Sauce
4.10 – Milwaukee, WI @ Cactus Club
4.11 – Chicago, IL @ Ronny’s
4.12 – Columbus, OH @ the Treehouse
4.13 – Youngstown, OH @ The Lemon Grove
4.14 – Cambridge, MA @ TT the Bears
4.15 – Brooklyn, NY @ Union Hall
4.16 – NYC, NY @ Pianos
4.17 – Philadelphia, PA @ The M Room
4.18 – Washington, DC @ DC9
4.19 – Norfolk, VA @ The Tap House
4.20 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Brillobox
4.21 – Newport, KY @ The Southgate House
4.22 – St. Louis, MO @ Cicero’s
