So... Alright - Book reviews and forgotten bands

Episode Date: June 17, 2025

Geoff reviews the book Amulet, by Roberto Bolano, and takes a trip down memory lane, to discover a past he never knew.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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So I've got a few things to talk about today. Got a little story, got a book review, et cetera, et cetera. Let's get right into it, shall we? From time to time, I get asked for book recommendations, and I very rarely have one at the top of mine to give, but I just finished a book that I really, really enjoyed called Amulet by Roberto Bolaño, who was a Chilean author, who I must admit I hadn't heard of until I bought the book.

I just found it at the bookstore, it looked interesting. The cover pulled me in. Synopsis made made me even more excited to read it. So I went home and immediately started it burned through it. It's a very short book about 180 pages. And it is about a woman from Uruguay named Achille. Oh, I believe is how you pronounce her name, who considers herself the mother of Mexican poetry And it's sort of about her life and how she ended up in Mexico Befriending all of the poets and all of the professors and administrators at the local college there where she spends a lot of her free time just helping out working for free just she just loves to be around talented creative people and

Sort of yeah kind of serves as a surrogate mother for a lot of them, gives a lot of sage wisdom and it kind of follows her life as she happens to be at the university one day when in the fall of 1968, I think October 2nd of 1968, the military rolls in and arrests and kills some students, I guess as a result of student demonstrations, formed in response to the killings of some students at a different college or a couple of different colleges. Anyway, it turned into this crazy standoff. I had never heard of it. But it also was somehow surrounding the Olympic Committee coming to Mexico in

the 60s. And people in Mexico didn't want that. They said protesters took to the streets and said, we don't want Olympic Games, we want revolution. And so protesters took to the streets and said, we don't want Olympic games, we want revolution. And so while none of the Olympic backpacks, I was just reading about that and kind of learning about what was going on in Mexico at the time. That's not really a part of the book. What is the book is really just about this woman stuck in the fourth floor women's room at this university, somehow they miss her when they

sweep the school. And in an act of resistance, she stays put and is like, you're not gonna kick me out of this university. And she stays there and has an impromptu hunger strike for 13 days. The entire book essentially takes place during those 13 days. But it is so much more than that because it is her sitting there on the tile floor

in this bathroom, recollecting her entire life. It jumps around. It's really interesting because she becomes unstuck in time and she's revisiting her past. Now she got there. She's also dealing with the present, but she's also going into the future and you're seeing what's going to happen to her and and where things are headed. But also she has these memories that she explores that she acknowledges aren't true. These are like fantasies and they're really deep and interesting.

And it's sort of this dissection, self-dissection of her life and what it was, what it is, what it will be, what it could be. And it's a, it's real brief. It's about 180 pages. I'm not sure if I mentioned that, but it is fascinating. And it reminded me, I guess the best way I could describe it would be it reminded me of a cross between Slaughterhouse Five and the Ingmar Bergman film Wild Strawberries. Slaughterhouse being a guy who is dealing with PTSD

from the war and himself becomes unstuck in time. And it's just surfing through all the painful memories of his life and trying to organize it and make sense of it and not being able to stay rooted and grounded in the current time. Wild Strawberry is because it's about this professor on this road trip to receive an award as he kind of is forced to go through his life and evaluate his wrongdoings and the missteps and the mistakes that he made and come to terms with that, right? And you definitely get that vibe from this book, but it's really fascinating.

She's an enigmatic character. I loved her. I love that she is nakedly honest about her own flaws and abilities. And I thought it was a really brilliant and well written book. And it made me realize that I have a real blind spot to Central American and South American authors. And it really made me want to dive in and learn more. Bolaño was a poet primarily through his life, I guess, in his later years.

As I read, he became an author to pay the bills because he had kids to feed. And I guess he realized that you you can't pay the bills. You can't feed kids with poetry, I guess. And so he became a novelist and was quite successful in that regard. Died at the young age of 50, which kinda scared the shit out of me because I'm gonna be 50 in like, you know,

a week and a half or two weeks or something. And it just seemed so impossible young to die. But fortunately for us, he left behind a legacy of brilliant writing that we can still enjoy today. This book is apparently a companion novel to a very successful book that people loved called The Savage Detectives. I guess this kind of plays in that same world. I might be getting that wrong, but I think that's right. I'm going to try to read The Savage Detective soon because I'm excited to jump back into this world he created, honestly. So I recommend this book. He was a Chilean author who, from what I am reading, led a

fascinating life. I'm just going to read this is this is from his Goodreads biography. For most of his early adulthood, Bolaño was a vagabond living at one time or another in Chile, Mexico, El Salvador, France and Spain. He moved to Europe in 1977 and finally made his way to Spain, where he married and settled down the Mediterranean coast near Barcelona, must be nice. Working as a dishwasher, a campground custodian, a bellhop and a garbage collector, working during the day and writing at night.

The life he lived, and I'm a little jealous of him, the life he lived is the life I thought I was gonna live when I left the army. I thought I was gonna, I think I've talked about this before in this podcast and recently, but I had this idea that I would become a writer and that I would work, you know, odd jobs here and there six months at a time. I had a friend who built fences. I had a friend who worked for a private investigator. I had a friend who cleaned chimneys. I had a friend who was a pool boy. And I had this idea before I got out of the military that I was going to

I had a friend who was a pool boy and I had this idea before I got out of the military that I was gonna Explore all of these careers and jobs to develop Stories and ideas and characters for writing and I think essentially that's what Balaña did It sounds like it didn't work out that way for me Unfortunately, but luckily there were people like Balaño who were able to funnel all of that into poetry and then eventually fiction in his 40s and gave us the gift of some truly wonderful works. I'm very excited to read more. I feel like I have such a blind spot around Central and South American writers,

and I didn't even realize it until I read this book. And man, the scenes that were painted of Mexico City in the 70s, the art scene in Mexico City in the 70s, it art scene in Mexico City in the 70s. It reminds me so much of what I've read of France in the 60s and that cultural revolution. And it sounded so similar and of the same spirit that I just I want to dive in and learn as much about it as I can. So if you know any really, really good South or Central American authors that kind of cover

this landscape, I'd love to hear of it. Send me an email to Eric at Jeff Spass.com. Anyway, he unfortunately died far, far too young. But I guess fortunately for humanity, he left behind a rich tapestry of prose. There you go. That's my recommendation, my book recommendation, Amulet by Roberto Belaño. It is about the mother of Mexican poetry and her stance against military occupation at a university. While she dives into the intricacies of her life, past, present, future, and what could have been,

it is quite a ride, and I highly recommend you check it out. I thought that wasn't a mess of a book review. I got to listen to it and see if it makes any sense. I'll clean it up and have it make sense in the episode. Well, you're hearing me apologize for something I've already fixed at this point, no doubt. The other day, here's a little story for you.

The other day, I was at a coffee shop doing some writing and it was dead ass middle of the day, probably two or three p.m., so pretty fucking hot. In Austin, it tends to be the hottest somewhere between four and six p.m. It kind of builds up to that and then that's just, then it just punches you right in the dick with heat So it was approaching like the worst part of the day. It was probably a hundred hundred one that day

We haven't hit like the truly miserable heat yet, but a hundred Degrees in Austin can mean a lot of different things if you're on a bike on the hike and bike trail around Town Lake a hundred degrees feels like about about about like 82. If you are standing on asphalt surrounded by buildings and windows that reflect sunlight back out at you, 100 degrees can feel like about 125. It's fucking brutal depending on where you're standing in 100 degrees. I'm sure you know that. So I was at a coffee shop and I was sitting there, like I said, probably 2.30 in the afternoon on a very hot day. And I watched a moving truck pull up

next to some apartments, like a big apartment complex. Think two buildings separated by a courtyard, maybe a couple hundred feet apart and with a huge courtyard in the middle. This moving truck pulls up, this young lady, looked like she was in her early 20s, gets out, and two movers who were just like young dudes who were clearly hired to move all of her stuff

into her new apartment. And I watched them kind of unpack and unload the first batch of stuff and put it on carts, and it looked rough. And before these dudes even got the first loadout, they were already drenched in sweat and just looked rough. And before these dudes even got the first load out, they were already drenched in sweat and just looked miserable. I felt so bad for them while I was sitting

in the air conditioning, playing on my laptop, listening to music and drinking iced coffee. And eventually they got enough stuff. It was a bunch of shit, right? It was the first load and they pushed it. And it was like taking two dudes to push it, it was so much. And she led them into the building. And I didn't really think anything of it after that.

I got lost in thought thinking about something else. Went back to writing, looked up a few minutes later and I noticed they were coming out of the same building. And she looked she was like kind of smiling in an embarrassed way. And they came behind her with all of that shit pushing it back down. And she just kind of like hunched her shoulders and pointed in the direction of the other building. And then she just kind of walked that way and they hauled that shit behind her. And I can only imagine, and by the way, they looked fucking done with it at this point.

And I realized what happened is because they were in the building for a while. I'm going to guess And I realized what happened is because they were in the building for a while. I'm going to guess it was like a five story building. So I'm going to guess not the first floor took them up second, third, whatever floor went looking around that giant building for her apartment, discovered it wasn't in that building, had to come all the way back downstairs, pushing all this stuff all the way across the courtyard, all the way around the back of the other building and then they went into the other building I never saw them come back out I was at the coffee shop for maybe another 15 minutes and then I got on my bike and I left but I can only assume that they found the right apartment at that point, but those poor dudes looked so fucking

exhausted and they hadn't unloaded a single thing yet. And I felt so bad for them. And then also in not equal measure, but in similar measure, so bad for her because she was clearly confused and made a mistake. And it was a exhausting mistake for them, but only an embarrassing mistake for her. And I spent the rest of the day wondering how the rest of that move-in went. I couldn't stick around to find out I had other places to go. I assumed they found the right apartment

because they didn't come down. Anyway, wherever those dudes are, they have my sympathy and I feel bad for them. I hope the rest of the move went smoothly, but it was like a miserable day for everybody involved. Which moving is, right? Have you ever had fun moving? Is there anything worse than moving?

Is there anything worse than going through everything you own and having to catalog it and decide what you want to keep and what you want to get rid of and then going through the torture of that, you know, and trying not to be a hoarder, but wanting stuff that you don't necessarily need and going through the decision making process of what to get rid of and what to keep. And then you see the pile of shit that you're getting rid of. And it makes you mad because you're like, why did I buy this in the first place? It's just a load of crap. And if I wasn't moving, I'd still have all this crap in my

house around me shit that I don't need shit that is so unimportant to me. I don't want to move it seven miles to another house. Right. Knowing that when you move seven miles to another house, you're just going to fill it up with more crap that you're going to have to get rid of when you move out of that house. It's just like, it's just, and then that, that act of moving, you have so much shit, it's so much heavier.

Everything is big and bulky and it slams into shit and you get scratches on your walls and your floors and everything you do to try to protect from that happening. It doesn't matter. It doesn't work. You end up it's like a war zone moving. I fucking hate it. And I know I'm going to be doing it again in the next couple of years.

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to learn more. Canada Life, insurance, investments, advice. Anyway, you know how there's music that you hear at a point in your life and it sticks with you and then you bring it with you for the rest of your life? It'll always be in your consciousness. You'll always be a fan of bad religion

for the rest of my life. I may not listen to Bad Religion often, but I don't go a year without listening to them, in some capacity. There'll always be one song on my playlist, just as an example. It's not even my favorite band or anything. I'm just pointing it out there.

But then there's music that you like and it means a lot to you and you get into it. And then one day you just forget about it. It falls off a cliff mentally, and then it disappears from your consciousness. And then 20 years later, you're scrolling TikTok and a Dancehall Crashers 30th reunion concert clip pops up and you go,

Dancehall Crashers, I really liked that band. Huh, whatever happened to them? Speaking of something that I went through recently, obviously, Dancehall Crashers was a ska punk band in the 90s that I really enjoyed. They had an album called Lockjaw that I really liked. And they had a little bit of popularity, like mainstream popularity.

I want to say they were on some movie soundtracks, like maybe Angus. They were kind of big when that kind of music was kind of big, right? And for whatever reason, I just stopped listening to him over the years. Didn't listen to a lot of Scott Punk in the 2000s and in 2010s. And before you know it, it's been 20 years and you forgot a band that you liked existed.

I saw their tick tock. I got so excited, I started listening to old dancehall crashers and kind of reacquainting myself with it. And sure enough, here I am saying sure enough what I'm talking about, a song called Enough. And before I know it, I'm reminded of songs like Enough and Lost Again that I really enjoyed. And I spent some time on Wikipedia reading about Dancehall Crashers,

because I thought, didn't, wasn't Matt Freeman from Rancid in Op Ivy in Dancehall Crashers? Didn't I remember that? I could have sworn I remembered that. So I Wikipedia'd it and was incredibly surprised to find out that not only was Matt Freeman originally in Dancehall Crashers,

he founded the band Dancehall Crashers with Tim Armstrong of Rancid also, but at that time of Op Ivy. I guess when Op Ivy broke up, it was founded in like 1989 by Tim and Matt. It was their next project. They wanted to do a more traditional ska sounding band. And I don't think that any recordings of them in the band exist from what I can tell. It was pretty quickly they moved on and Dancehall Crashers kind of just became this evolving

band that added and dropped members as it went it went think maybe like sort of like unwritten law I knew them as a band that had two female lead singers Elise Rogers and Karina Denike, I think it's how you say her last name and that's like the dancehall crashes that I know this dueling female Lead Scott punk band that they were pretty fucking good. They had honestly like five albums Across the the span of their career, but started with a different singer, a dude singer, not only a dude singer, the Tim Armstrong from Op Ivy at the time. And I guess he and Matt sort of as the band started to pick up steam, just

after all the work they put into starting, Man, I'll never be a musician, so I'll never fully understand how this works. But here, let me just read, I'm just gonna read this from Wikipedia. The original incarnation of Dancehall Crashers, named after the Alt and Ella song, Dancecrashers, was formed in 1989 by Matt Freeman and Tim Armstrong, after both musicians expressed an interest

in starting a band rooted more in traditional ska and rock study than they'd been playing with Op Ivy. The first lineup featured Armstrong on vocals and Freeman on guitar, as to be expected, as well as drummer Eric Larson, not the author or the comic book writer, whom they specifically lured away from a band called the Liquidators. The band also featured keyboardist Joey Schaff, vocalist Ingrid Johnson and Andrew Champion, guitarist Grant McIntyre and bassist Joel Wing. That's a big band.

The band experimented with various songs and styles until they played their first show at 924 Gilman Street in Berkeley in 89. Shortly after their debut, however, Freeman and Armstrong left to pursue other interests, mainly another punk-based ska project called Downfall. I had never, I had no idea Matt and Tim were in another band between Op Ivy and Rancid, let alone Dancehall Crashers, another band called Downfall. I don't know how I didn't know that.

I don't know how I missed that. When I was in my late teens, early 20s, my friends used it was a derogatory term, mind you. It wasn't a compliment. They used to make fun of me for it. But my friends called me the punk professor because I spent so much time reading about bands and learning about music and bands. And I was always the guy that was like, actually, he wasn't on that album. You know, and I was there. I was like, OK, punk professor. Goddamn.

And I just missed somehow that this band Downfall existed. I ran to Spotify, figuratively, not literally, and tried to find them only to discover there are a lot of bands called Downfall. You'd be surprised. And, maybe unsurprisingly, almost every band named Downfall sounds exactly like every other band called Downfall. Every Downfall sounds like you'd expect a band called Downfall to sound like. I could not find the Tim Armstrong, Matt Freeman Downfall on Spotify. It's not there, at least as far as I can see. However, I did find it on YouTube.

There's a couple of songs up on YouTube. Started to read about them. Actually, I'll just read this right here. In 1989, Downfall recorded what was going to be a 10 inch on very small records, but after a dispute over the amount of songs that should be included, the release was scrapped. In 1994, a number of those songs were gonna be compiled

on a release on Lookout Records, titled Get Ready for Action. The album would have been Lookout 99 and was scheduled for release in late 94. However, it was delayed and then never released. Brett Gurowitz of Bad Religion and Epitaph fame, remixed the album, but due to rancid mainstream attention It was also never released. So that band had a ten inch that should have been on

three or four different labels and Got bumped or canceled every time. However The song long way to go North Berkeleyulations, and My City were released on different compilations. There's a Maximal Rock and Roll comp, a Lookout comp, a Very Small Records comp, and an absolutely Zippo comp that featured those songs. I was able to find Long Way to Go on YouTube and listen to it, and it was pretty good. And it was pretty fucking cool to listen to a little hidden gem that a lot of people never knew about or forgot about,

but still exists. And if you want to hear what Matt Freeman and Tim Armstrong were up to between the seminal and important and groundbreaking and wonderful and one of the best punk bands of all time, Op Ivy, and then Rancid, one of the most commercially successful and still fucking good punk bands of all time. Listen to Downfall, you'll have to find it on YouTube.

Maybe it's on SoundCloud too, I don't know, I didn't look there, but blew my mind. And maybe you all knew about this band that never had an album release. Maybe I'm just incredibly late to the party, but I was so surprised and delighted to discover, all because I got served a random tick tock of the 30th anniversary show of dance hall crashers playing together.

And I looked at it and I thought, where's Matt Freeman? He was in that band. Wasn't Matt Freeman in that band? And before I knew it, discovered a little bit more of the world that I love that I was ignorant of. So if you're fans of Op Ivy or Dancehall Crashers or Rancid, maybe that information will appeal to you. If not, maybe Google and Wikipedia, your favorite band or artist,

and go back through their catalog. You might be surprised that they had some other music you just missed somehow. And what a surprise and delight it is if you find it. I think that's the lion's share of what I wanted to talk about today. I got a couple of emails that I still would like to go through, but I did emails two weeks in a row and I don't want to turn it into a whole thing. So instead, let me ask you, what are you watching on TV right now? I just kind of went through a period where I finished a bunch of stuff that I was into

and I'm diving into new stuff, but I've already devoured most of what I was diving into. I had a note here that I was going to talk to you guys about how I've been watching three new shows, right, that I've picked. Southern Hospitality, the studio and Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. But I'm already through with both seasons of Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Like, I watch that shit fast. I only watched the first episode of the studio, which I really liked, by the way. I thought it was really good.

However, I have to buy Apple Plus to watch any more of it, and I'm just not ready to make that commitment yet. And then Southern Hospitality, I'm struggling to get through, if I'm being honest with you. I watched it because it's supposed to be similar to Vanderpump and with the flavor of Southern Charm, which I just went through 10 seasons of Southern Charm with my wife and enjoyed it so much, I thought, how could I not enjoy the spin-off

of Southern Charm, Southern Hospitality? And it's okay. I'm not as into the people in Southern Hospitality as I wanted to be or I expected to be. A little bummed. I'm gonna finish it. I'm gonna go through it, because I'm only on season one still,

but maybe I just need a break from that world. I don't know. But I will say, I have been enjoying the hell, and I'm a little surprised. I thought I was burned out on Love Island, I really did. You know, I watched a lot of Australia, I watched almost all of the UK, watched all of the USA, and I kinda was like, Love is Blind and Love Island

have both dimmed a little bit for me in my appreciation. I think I just too much of a good thing, you know, too much, I think just a little bit of overexposure. But I gotta say, I am into this season of Love Island US. I'm up to date. The only thing I don't watch is Aftersun. I've never been a fan of the recap shows.

But I gotta say, I'm enjoying the hell out of it. It's so good, and it's also so much fun to watch appointment television when it's consistent and constant. You get Love Island, I'm watching Love Island five nights a week. It's not on Wednesdays, I believe, that's their day off, and then Saturday is a bullshit show,

so I'm watching it the rest of the week, and it is so nice to sit down at 7 p.m. and go, oh, yeah, that's right. I know what I'm going to watch tonight. The thing that's new that's coming on tonight that comes on every night. I've really I've really enjoyed the consistency of it. And it's definitely filling a gap for me right now as I'm trying to find other stuff to get into. What are you watching right now? Send me an email at Eric at Jeff Sposs dotcom and let me know what I may have missed.

I watch a lot of fucking television, so there's a good chance I've seen it. But anyway, that's my current thing right now. I'm slogging my way through Southern hospitality and I am delightfully watching Love Island. And that's honestly about it. I wouldn't mind a new season of Secret Lives of Mormon Wives like yesterday, that would be cool.

I know we're a ways off from that, but anyway. I recommend those shows if you like stuff that's fun and good and enjoyable, that's great to watch, I'd check those out. And with that, I think it's probably time for a song of the episode. So I don't know why I'm even thinking about it. Why don't we just pick dancehall crashers?

Let's pick two. Let's pick enough and lost again, because those were their two most popular songs and they're both really fucking good. And I don't know which one's better. So there's your song of the day. Dancehall crashers enough and dancehall crashers lost again two different albums one from 94 one from 97 maybe something like that maybe 95 and 97 Hopefully you like them Definitely of a time Like I said I forgot those bands existed not because I didn't like him

But just like there's just so much music you accumulate and listen to. You can't keep it all in your head. And some stuff just gets lost, you know, it gets lost to the past and to imperfect memory. And to discover it again is awesome because you get this like, well of music that you already like, that you forgot existed that you can dive back into and you're not burned out on because you've taken 25 years off from. But also it's so of a time that I had this really strong reaction when I put their music on Spotify and I went back through their catalog. I was fucking 20 years old again for about 15 minutes there. I just, I was, I guess that's what aging is, right? Just nostalgia and sentimentality really kick in as you accumulate life and memory and age. And you have so much of your

past rooting around in your brain with nowhere to go that I think just as you get older, when you are reminded of these things that were important to you, but not important enough to keep present in your mind as you move forward, it's shocking how quickly and intensely you can be transported back to the time of those things. It is really heady in a way that I guess you just, you just don't get when you're in your 20s or your 30s

because you just haven't accumulated enough life to put that kind of distance between you and the stuff that you love. If you do, at that point, you're looking back on your childhood and you're having, I guess, the same feelings, but it's all couched in youth and development and growing and remembering being a little kid.

And it's very different than when you're 50, looking back on something that you enjoyed as an adult when you were 25, for instance. So anyway, hope everybody's having a good day. Hope you have a great week. I'd love to see you back here next week for another episode of So I'll Write. If you get a chance, listen to the regulation podcast. Don't forget, I am on Twitch at Fake Jeff.

I have created a Twitch archive on YouTube. People have been asking me to do that. So look me up at Fake Jeff on YouTube or fakie Jeffy on YouTube You can find me either way if you're interested in my twitch archives if you can't catch it live And of course, I'm on cameo at Jeff L Ramsey if you need somebody to help celebrate a momentous occasion or a beautiful moment in your life I'd love to be a part of it. Thank you for listening or a beautiful moment in your life. I'd love to be a part of it.

Thank you for listening. Thank you for being a friend, as the Golden Girls say, and I will see you right here next week. All right. La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la. This is the end of the show. La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la. Mwah!