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I Have Fun Everywhere I Go: Savage Tales of Pot, Porn, Punk Rock, Pro Wrestling, Talking Apes, Evil Bosses, Dirty Blues, American Heroes, and the Most Notorious Magazines in the World
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Product Description
“If your book’s subtitle is Savage Tales of Pot, Porn, Punk Rock, Pro Wrestling, Talking Apes, Evil Bosses, Dirty Blues, American Heroes, and the Most Notorious Magazines in the World, you have a lot to live up to—and somehow Mike Edison does . . . Edison seems to have nine lives and enjoys every moment of each of them to the fullest . . . His journey takes him around the world, but he always returns to magazine writing, and his insider scoop on these bizarre workplaces is what, finally, makes this memoir truly memorable.” —Penthouse
“Cooler than Toby Young and more credible than James Frey.”—Bookforum
“Will have you alternately envying Edison and being glad you’ve avoided such encounters.” —New York Daily News
“Gloriously told . . . Surprisingly intelligent.” —SF Weekly
“[Edison’s] an engaging, sardonic guide to some of magazinedom’s more disreputable territories.” —Entertainment Weekly
“Brash, irreverent, funny as hell and beautifully written.”—PopMatters
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #87781 in Books
- Published on: 2009-05-12
- Released on: 2009-05-12
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Paperback
- 352 pages
Features
- ISBN13: 9780865479036
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
- Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
This hilarious insider look at fringes of journalism and magazine publishing is written with a gleeful burning-his-bridges-behind-him vibe. Edison is a child of the '70s who came across High Times magazine and immediately recognized that it was a miracle of lifestyle journalism. A daily high school pothead, he delivers an amazingly detailed remembrance of life in New York City after his surprising acceptance into New York University and then, after dropping out, Columbia University, which leads to jobs working first for the World Wrestling Federation, then writing porn novels, before moving on to men's magazines like Cheri. He shamelessly admits that putting out inconsequential slap rags was a lot of fun. After a dalliance with the Raunch Hands punk group, Edison is back writing for Hustler and Penthouse, until he finally gets an editing job at High Times. This stint—the bulk of the book—provides a riotous look at that magazine's stoned style, where the staff couldn't arrive on time to planned meetings unless Edison could fold the fabric of the universe onto itself and led the staff through some sort of cosmic wormhole. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
“This book is beyond blurbs, so let’s just get to the jack. If you have any interest in pot, pornography, punk rock, or professional wrestling, just buy this f*cking thing. Much more important than food for the table or the starving children of wherever.” —Nick Tosches
“Half the time I spent reading this laugh-out-loud saga of depravity and mayhem, I found myself wishing I'd lived this life; the other half, I was thanking sweet heaven I didn't. In a world where many would-be rebels (myself included) would like to consider themselves or their work ‘anti-establishment’ or 'punk rock,' Mike Edison hasn’t just talked the talk, he's walked the walk. May God have mercy on his soul.” —Todd Hanson, writer and editor, The Onion
“Half-intellectual, half-media whore, (and all-man), Mike Edison takes you on the last roller coaster ride through the American counter-culture. Buckle up for a fabulous read.” —Josh Alan Friedman, author of Tales of Times Square
“Edison's book is so funny and smart and delightfully filthy that I wish I had written it myself.” —Al Goldstein, Screw founder
“Cooler than Toby Young and more credible than James Frey.” —Andrew Hultkrans, Book Forum
“Will have you alternately envying Edison and being glad you’ve avoided such encounters.” —Patrick Huguenin, Daily News
“The perfect summer reading companion for anyone who would rather lace their weed with the Ramones than with the Byrds.” —J.A. del Rosario, The Rake
“Fucking awesome.” —Joanna Muñoz, URB Magazine
“Over the past twentysomething years, Edison has written for and edited magazines of varying degrees of ridiculousness and decorum: Wrestling’s Main Event, Screw, Cheri, Hustler, Penthouse, and High Times. What better journalistic outlets for a guy with a refined sense of the absurd and the overblown? . . . Edison’s writing style is a gonzo-type rush, filled with hilariously inventive descriptions . . . [He] might never wind up on the masthead of a sunny Condé Nast publication—but why would he ever want to?” —Amy Finch, The Boston Phoenix
“Spectacularly gripping . . . While the subject matter might be lowbrow at best (covering pro wrestling) and downright sleazy at worst (reminiscing at length about penning 28 pornographic novels), “I Have Fun” is a rollicking joyride peppered with rip-roaring anecdotes that will end up eliciting unseemly guffaws.” — Lisa J. Curtis, Go Brooklyn
“If your book’s subtitle is Savage tales of pot, porn, punk rock, pro wrestling, talking apes, evil bosses, dirty blues, American heroes, and the most notorious magazines in the world, you have a lot to live up to—and somehow Mike Edison does . . . Edison seems to have nine lives and enjoys every moment of each of them to the fullest . . . His journey takes him around the world, but he always returns to magazine writing, and his insider scoop on these bizarre workplaces is what, finally, makes this memoir truly memorable.” —Penthouse
“They don't make guys like this anymore . . . high-spirited sleaze, overeducated yokelry, and intensely American egalitarian humor . . . gloriously told . . . surprisingly intelligent.” —Hiya Swanhuyser, SF Weekly
“[Edison’s] an engaging sardonic guide to some of magazinedom’s more disreputable territories.” —Clark Collis, Entertainment Weekly
“Edison doesn’t disappoint . . . From page one, the book threatens to burst at the seams with larger-than-life characters and dirty deeds that might’ve made the late, great Hunter S. Thompson squeamish in their potency and the best part is that, unlike Thompson’s work, nothing is embellished . . . The portrait of existence that Edison paints as he remembers the strange turns that his career has taken is terrifying, funny and elating all at once.” —Bill Adams, Ground Countrol
“Readers in search of a fun ride through recent American cultural and media history will do well to consider Mike Edison’s stunning memoir . . . Edison is a renaissance man among drug abusers and porn peddlers . . . [He] glides along the edges of society with an intense dose of wit and a startling eye for the insane.” —Jason E. Sumerau, Metro Spirit (Augusta)
“[Edison is the] Somerset Maugham of filth . . . the Horatio Alger of trash, and if he doesn’t actually have fun everywhere he goes, he does always learn something, and he reveals it in lively, vivid detail.” —Rodney Welch, Free Times
“Definitely a fun read.” —Lori J. Kennedy, Remix
“One couldn’t hope for a funnier guide to the doped-up, rollicking good cheer of 20 years in outlaw culture.” —Amy Benfer, B&N Spoltlight Review
“Edison’s juicy screed of a memoir is like a kick in the solar plexus: It may hurt like nobody’s business, but at least it wakes you up . . . a beer-sozzled, speed-cranked nail bomb of a book—what everybody’s Saturday night should be like.” —Kirkus, starred review
“This hilarious insider look at fringes of journalism and magazine publishing is written with a gleeful burning-his-bridges-behind-him vibe.” —Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Customer Reviews
Porn, Pot, Punk Rock...How Can It Get Any Better?
This isn't a memoir; it's a crime scene! The author's raunchy and ridiculous romp through the underbelly of the New York publishing scene is not to be missed. The writing is sharp and powerful, like a burlesque rim shot, and the stories unfold effortlessly through fast-paced action and drug-induced narrative. This author writes as if Toby Young downed a bunch of uppers and got smacked in the face by a flying bar stool. With this raving party of a book, Mike Edison may prove a worthy heir to the pill-poppin', line-snorting, gun-toting and anti-establishment legacy of the good Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. It's that good.
The best nonfiction book of 2008
The book feels like it was written for me. The author describes his life through the worlds of wrestling, porn, and punk rock. A gripping account of man who's jobs take him to almost unbelievable situations. I wanted to ignore the outside world and keep reading taken in by such fun, mischievous, and spellbinding times.
I am jealous of his life and want to read more and more about his crazy exploits. If this is the only book Mike Edison writes then the world will be a far worse place.
Buy it, read it, love it, you're life will be better for it.
Low Brow Literature
I am a sucker for an entertaining autobiography, so I picked this little gem up at Watermark Books this past summer on the promise of the dustjacket alone, which features caricatures of Joey Ramone, Andy Warhol, Little Richard, Jerry Garcia, Ronald Reagan, Hulk Hogan, Larry Flynt and many other larger than life characters, like Mr. Edison himself. What really sold me about the dustjacket was the books' subtitle, which reads: Savage Tales of Pot, Porn, Punk Rock, Pro Wrestling, Talking Apes, Evil Bosses, Dirty Blues, American Heroes, and the Most Notorious Magazines in the World. For some reason, I hadn't decided to give it a go until just recently, while being bored to tears and giving up on Annie Dillard's latest novella, The Maytrees, which might have been more appealing were I not suffering a recent spell of ADD, an affliction which I seem to share with the author.
Mike Edison aka Lord Zeppelin (one of his anonymous pen names) took me on a wild ride going from punk band drummer to solo blues slide guitarist, smut mag to stoner mag, European tour to Asian wedding adventure, all without any apparent purpose other than to find some interesting things to write about in his autobiography one day, and that he did. There is no shortage of hilarious and interesting material here, and while I have to question his journalistic integrity from time to time, he is usually the first one to confess his own shortcomings in his relationships and in the workplace, so his tall tales carry much more credibility than that of say, I don't know, James Frey (A Million Little Pieces).
Make no mistake about it; Edison has no plans to sober up. This is not a coming-of-age tale, nor a rock-bottom to riches account. The amount of drugs he unabashedly consumes throughout the memoir is mind boggling, not due to the fact that he made it out alive, but because he was able to meet as many deadlines and complete as many writing and publishing assignments as he did. The type of magazines he worked for are not necessarily world class publications, but the author brought a level of professionalism to the offices of such noteworthy publications as "Screw", "Soft Drinks & Beer" and "High Times" that does not jibe with his otherwise anarchistic music career. His work ethic was inspired by the idea of "bringing something better to the bottle every day."
The most dramatic portion of the book recounts his stint at "High Times", commonly referred to as "that dope rag", in which Edison attempts to transform the office from a lazy stoner hangout into a high-octane, high circulation publishing empire. The staffers are heavily resistant to his mandate to cease smoking in the office during business hours, and he goes from being Editor and Publisher in Chief to "Head Fascist" in less than a year. Eventually, he is credited as being a producer for the High Times Potluck movie, featuring Jay of Jay and Silent Bob, which apparently went straight to DVD and is currently nowhere to be found for sale on the Net. You can however, purchase his most recent musical project, Edison Rocket Train Yes! Yes!! Yes!!!, however, I would highly recommend staying away from this noise and instead picking up a Jon Spencer Blues Explosion disc. Oh yeah, if you happen to love the Beatles, you might also want to stay away from this book, as he spends a fair amount of time rationalizing his distaste for the Sgt. Pepper album and Beatle-mania in general.
In the end, the pure entertainment value of this book and Edison's stories of a low brow lifestyle are through the roof, and his literary style and voice are much more advanced and coherent than I would have expected, but if you are looking for a story with any kind of redeeming social value, you will not find it here. Mike Edison has cemented his place in the literary canon as the hardest working screw up in show business.
Kristian Strom (Find More Book and Music Reviews at Kristian Strom Dot Com)
