An Evening With The General

Way back in 2021, a whole lifetime ago it seems, when my first novel $100-A-Week Motel got published by Punk Hostage Press, my first big book review was obtained by my publisher, the legendary poet and punk queen of Hollywood, Iris Berry. She sent my book to General Labor, and he loved it, writing a review heralding me as the next great American writer. And that kicked off a wild, wandering, long distance friendship bordering on brotherhood.

General Labor writes often for a punk magazine in Australia, and I shit you not, his review of my first novel in their magazine has provided me with a rabid and passionate Aussie fan base of five. I don’t care if I’m big anywhere. I’m just glad if someone there knows my name.

Beyond that punk mag, he’s written a wheelbarrow full of columns in just the four years I’ve known him, for various underground publications and a few true righteous causes. His writing predominantly reviews music, from Bowie to Beasts of Burden to John Prine, the comrade has even turned me onto some of the best, purest underground punk I’ve ever found, and along with the music there’s the scathing hole punch commentary that shreds the facade of the American Dream.

The General is such a righteous dude that I’ve dubbed him the last of the true hardcore punks. We all know punks that mellow as they age, and maybe they stop flying fingers at the man much, but comrades, General Labor is probably more punk now than he was 30 years ago in his youth, and I got a soft spot in my hard heart for those rare ones that stay true to themselves despite all other odds.

Over the last few years, we’ve emailed back and forth, sometimes weekly, sometimes with longer stretches in between as life drags us all back and forth through gauntlets we rarely see coming. We’ve snail mailed each other postcards, a few letters and artist care packages. You know the type. A box with a few books or magazines, some buttons, a bookmark, couple of stickers, you know, an artist care package. He’s always more consistent than I am, but if you stick around and know me better, you’ll learn everyone is more consistent than me when it comes to socialization of any kind.

The General is originally from Kentucky, but spent some of his teen years in Northwest Ohio not too far from where I’ve lived the past two decades, so we bonded over what it’s like to be a creative misfit in red, redneck states. He has lived all over since then, playing in rock bands for years in New York and L.A. He’s played with and knows other rock band people that me and you rubberneck for when we hear their names, and he’s a fucking literal walking encyclopedia of music history.

Our friendship and correspondence has meant so much to me that I intentionally wrote a character into a scene of my last novel based on him. (In chapter 45 of The Dead and the Desperate he’s JD.) And if he wasn’t so insistent on staying low and under the radar I’d be raving to you all more to check out some of his work. But like most Generals, this one likes his locations to be undisclosed, and his actions top secret. He just wants to be left alone in peace with his family and do his thing these days, something I admire more and more all the time.

Having told you that, I’ll only say this, while we were out west in November on our poetry tour and road trip, somewhere far in the middle of the mystical and magical desert, my girlfriend Jess and I were honored to be guests at the General’s home on a warm desert night.

You know how you correspond with someone for a long while, and how often times you’ll meet up finally, and it’s not quite what it’s hyped to be? Yeah, that wasn’t the case here. From the moment we entered through the gates of their place it was like meeting up with family you hadn’t seen in a long time. The General, his wife Tonya, and their son Isaiah greeted us with hugs and instant chatter. That evening we sat around a fire out in the desert and I don’t think there was a lull in conversation for the next five hours. Looking back from a few week’s perspective, I couldn’t even tell you with confidence much of what was said now, but I know the long lost full heart feeling of knowing you’re somewhere you’re supposed to be, when you’re supposed to be there, and as an antisocial introvert that’s gotten used to dropping in, saying my hellos, then looking for the first chance to slip away unnoticed Irish style, I know the rarity of spending time with others and wishing the night never had to end. Such was the case the evening I got to hang with the General.

We hugged the hug of brothers upon departure, and I told this high ranking officer of the punk working class that we’d see each other again, and I pray it’s so. The west is wild, life is unpredictable, and I’ve got a heart full of roadmaps and a brain that can’t figure out a plan much to save any of us, but I know that the General is still making art, and I am, too, and that’s already more than anyone expected from either of us.

Love,

Dan

*author’s note: General Labor is one of my friend-like-a brother’s most frequently used pen names. I told him if he’s a general, then I’m a sergeant. Neither of us would have ever been a fit for military service, but I know a chief union steward is the equivalent of the higher ranks of enlisted folks. The committee members and higher would be the officers.

and yes, I’m aware General Labor can mean something other than the high ranking officer, but my way is more fun.

me, Jess, The General and Tonya

Isaiah, The General, Me and Jess

ps. check out that first book review here