ICYMI, Part X
FM: As for myself I can boast I stole a Roberto Bolano book from City Lights hanging out with your current editor and company. What book it was I can't say at the moment and not just in light of incrimination. I know you are a huge collector yourself, namely Clive Barker if I'm correct.
What lengths are you willing to go to secure 1st edition prizes from renowned authors/artists?
Karl Koweski: Would you believe I've never read Roberto Bolano? What book would you recommend I steal? It feels like a gap in my literacy knowledge that I must fill sooner than later.
I am a huge collector of all things Clive Barker. I've got twelve of his books signed, three of those in person. Four of the books have sketches he made during the signings, most date back to the late eighties. And I have one of his original pieces hanging above my desk. So he is one of my favorite writers and artists, but I have a pretty impressive collection of signed first editions, most of them acquired legally, some of the sellers I beat down on the price until you could make an argument I was robbing them. I have a lot of signed Elmore Leonard, Joe R Lansdale, Jack Ketchum, Nick Tosches, Harry Crews, several collections of Michael Madsen's half ass poetry signed. I've over 150 signed books.
The lengths I'm willing to go? I'm willing to piss my wife off by dropping a chunk of my savings for a favorite author. As far as getting diabolical, I'd probably slit a throat for a signed first edition Blood Meridian. So a life is worth about 18k to me. It's kinda funny, I began reading earnestly at an early age and began stealing books immediately. I'd steal them from the library like the fucking Polack I am. I had a library card, I could borrow books any time I like, but I preferred stealing them so I could hoard them in my room. I wasn't much of a thief in any other aspect of life, but I'd gank a book in a breath. That said, I don't allow anybody into my own library
I personally started with his poetry and ‘The Savage Detectives’. The Visceral Realists were a group of authors and poets that would've kicked the shit out of the Beats, but maintained that same pitch of hyperbole that I respect.
I have to ask why you refer to yourself with a racist slur, even though I think I get the intent, it is offputting when you say ‘Polack.’
To be fair, I guess it's similar to my use of ‘nigga’, which was a term I had to learn comfortability with, growing up adopted in SC Kentucky; the connotation and spelling differed greatly from where I'm at now.
KK: Would you believe I've never been asked that before? It would seem the Poles are the last group of people the majority feels it's okay to malign. I suppose I don't see it as a racist slur because it's so much a part of my identity that I'm utterly inured to it for good or bad. I come outta a Polish neighborhood and if somebody yelled Polack outta window you'd have twenty guys looking around wondering what they did wrong, now.
I'll tell you a quick story, about fifteen years or so ago I got approached by a Polish professor out of the University of Florida who was putting together an anthology of Polish American writers. During the course of our emails he mentioned both of his parents were DPs. I admitted that only my father was a Dumb Polack, my mother was French/German. Come to find out DP means Displaced Persons. I was mortified, but he said he expected no less from a Dumb Polack.
I'll be honest, one of my biggest interests of late in my writing is race relations. Here's another story, I'm going on vacation to Upper Michigan in a couple days. I mentioned this to a friend at work, he asked if I was carrying a gun. I said yes, though I have no intention. He said he carries a gun everywhere ever since he was in Walmart a year ago and saw six Haitians. I said what were they doing. He said they were in the aisle listening to music. This is just a normal dude, but his casual racism kinda boggles my mind. I mentioned it to my son who I work with and he said, it's probably because he thinks you're racist too. He wouldn't elaborate on it and I had to sit there and try to figure out what I might have ever said to make either one think that way. I still don't know. In the end, I think with Trump and all his ilk, the wrong sort of people are becoming a little bit too comfortable with the aggressive tribalism. Which is a long winded answer that says nothing, really. I try to treat everyone with grace. I hate the whole "I don't see color" bullshit. I think race, sex, creed, all should be celebrated and accepted. But then calling myself a dumb Polack opens myself up to the question, if he ranks out himself, what does he say about others. It's like when I get mad and punch a wall. It's easy to extrapolate from that I could be aggressive with women. I'm not, but I'm certainly not doing myself any favors.
Christ, I'm writing novels. But it's questions that strike at the heart of things.
I do believe you've never been asked about that.
KK: One of the main themes of the novel I wrote is the effects man children have on children. And part of that is just the casual racism that just gets pummeled into kids heads by adults who think it's cool to talk shit.
Hell, when my brother went to prison, it was out in Oklahoma. It was full of Choctaw. He was playing cards with a group of them, and one of them had a straight up Native American name, Running Elk. My brother said that's a crazy ass name for a Puerto Rican. He had no clue.
I always feel unqualified to talk about race, obviously, because I'm now a white guy in Alabama. But it seems all I can say is that the amount of casual racism from people who are supposed to be community leaders, the preachers and teachers... It's continually astounding.
I believe that, and obviously have my own experience with that kind of cult mindset.
KK: Do you live in a fairly liberal minded area? Do you feel you have to continually be on guard? I feel like the racism is becoming more prevalent with Trump, but in my heart of hearts I know nothing really changed at all except the comfort level when engaging in racist shit.
***
On 6/27/26, I read that Linda McMahon has the honor of being the first Secretary of Education to face impeachment in the 250 years this country has claimed independence from tyranny.
I had to ponder Karl’s questions and wasn't expecting to stare into a reflecting pool for the next few days. I couldn’t make sense of many things. I was walking around confused in the daylight and thinking the heat was affecting my auras, so I resolved to make a new routine of late night walks, very late, when no one else could possibly be awake.
It was 6/29/26, 1:20am, and the Strawberry Moon had turned yellow. Misha and I walked to Governor’s Park to see if we could spot Jared Polis in a compromising position. Our walk down the alley presented foreseen obstacles: fenheads vibrating next to scattered dumpsters. I sent messages to LL about being on the prowl, but was unsure she would read them. I remembered that dogs supposedly look at their owners as one of the pack as rivers of fire flowed down the hillsides between Utah and western Colorado. The video looked like a lit trail of gunpowder running to its mark. The Red Cross urged everyone in the surrounding vicinity to have an evacuation plan in place, per Fox DVR news sources.
I leaned against an iron mesh picnic table while Misha scurried through the grass, until 17 sprinklers suddenly burst with repurposed water, drenching us and signaling our return to the sanctity of my apartment. I couldn’t help but notice that the mansion lights were on at the time, even though my Youtube Supermix was on point. I was listening to these same bangers from Washed Out when Odin put his left pinky underneath my Honda Accord and flipped it on W. 6th some 2 years prior.
Of course, I’m taking responsibility for the hand of fate. It’s 3:30 am, The Talking Heads remind me I have no girlfriend, that David Byrne is better than me, and I end the night by staring at the empty sockets of a plastic skull covered in dog hair, waiting for the answers to come to me.
***
I think racism/bigotry is more subtle here, at least in more enlightened areas. That was a huge problem for me when I first moved almost a decade ago. I couldn’t discern if a white person in authority was being racist, having a bad day, just an asshole, or being racist. Where I’m from, the bigots celebrate their ignorance.
Not to speak ill of the dead but my cousin lived in Mobile, Alabama, and made a point to always laugh about the fact he would ride up and down black neighborhoods waving a Confederate flag from the bed of a pickup truck while his drunk, dipshit friends steered course.
It’s a fair series of questions for sure. I think it’s more outspoken, more prevalent on the outskirts, places like Longmont, Golden, while more obscure in the wealthier areas like Boulder and Denver proper. I definitely miss the ability to see my enemies without their masks.
Ultimately, this state has made me constantly ask myself:
‘How thin is the line between being a bigot and being an asshole these days?’
Since we’re on the subject, this has been a pervasive feeling all my life and it doesn’t matter the location/job etc. I’d actually sent LL an excerpt from ‘light grip/dark phase’ (a lost novel) and realized I’ve been internalizing a lot of this and maybe that’s why I’m so quick to share now:
“There's something slow and sinister about this thing being here, between my legs because frankly, I hate motorcycles, and the cross dot emblem below what I assume is the chrome gas cap is, more or less talking at me the entire ride back to consciousness. My internal alarm goes off at 7:15am and there's a blistering 1.5 mile walk through 5 points and my 5th shift at Marcos waits on the other side of frozen glass. It's no coin toss symphony, a high pitch ringing from a headspin, that im awake late that night replaying the GMs remark about my DL Pic and how my afro makes me look "jewy". I wanted to fight him that very instant and we obviously don't know each other that well, not yet, but we will become familiar in the near future. There seems to be a general lack of consideration for respect in Denver, white menver menver, Denver labor industries being chocked to brim with illegal business practices and bigotry. I let the shower run hot for at least an hour before I step in, knowing fully well the gran mal im praying for will only come when I find a moment of [rest and peace].”
KK: I hear you about the subtle bigotry. One thing that always bothered me, there were white dudes growing up, whenever we'd get around black friends whether at work or at the bars would drop their "r's" and start pronouncing likka sto. Never failed to pronounce their R any other time. Ugh. They thought they were ingratiating themselves but I was always embarrassed to witness it.
Yea I'm familiar with those cringe worthy moments. I've often been the unwilling catalyst. Isn't it ironic, considering where we are just before the big 250 year birthday, that Hunter Thompson once called the Kennedy family the only hope for America?
KK: I feel like there's no hope now. Not for the country, just in individuals.
In your current novel, what measures, if any, did you take to educate yourself and the reader on these prejudices and misconceptions?
KK: I mean, with Mister Joe's Pirates, I pretty much lived it, though I wouldn't call it biographical. In the book, the preteens on the little league team are coached by men who mentally aren't much more mature. So you have these kids coached by men who were very much like them teaching them how to grow into the people they are. So they are handing down their tribalism, their belief in their own superiority over every one.
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