Hunchin' with Hasil

No, no that Hazel.

This one.

I'm a little fuzzy on just when and how I found out about Hasil Adkins, the West Virginia wild man who sang songs about hot dogs, cutting the heads off his girlfriends, and doing chicken dances and "hunching," which is a word you might never have heard, but it's synonymous with what most rock singers want to do in their songs, if you catch my drift.

Norton Records issued an Adkins compilation, Out to Hunch, in 1986 but I didn't learn about it until the late '90s.

When I'm unclear about where to give credit for my musical choices, I usually dish it out to college radio. From the spring of 1995 to late 2001, I worked for Webnoize (R.I.P.). During those years, I listened a lot to MIT's radio station, WMBR, and Boston College's station, WZBC, both in the office and in my car on the way in to the office. They can share the credit (blame?).

I was happy when Webnoize West Coast correspondent Mark Lewis told me he was into Hasil Adkins as well. We talked about the crazy redneck rockabilly rebel and nobody else really knew, or cared, to join us.

By some miracle, ol' Hasil played a gig at the original House of Blues, in Harvard Square. He was on a 1999 Fat Possum tour with T-Model Ford; my buddy Jeff and I thoroughly enjoyed that show. I had no idea that Adkins was a one-man band. He ambled onto the stage, his wild mop of white hair stuffed under a floppy hat, sat behind a set of drums, got his guitar on and started wailing away simultaneously on the axe and the kit, while howling away into the microphone.

He flailed at the cymbals with his bare hands and kicked the bass drum, amazingly, in rhythm. He was missing numerous teeth and was most likely drunk. It was, as you can imagine, awesome.

Among the bands to cover Adkins' music are The Cramps and Flat Duo Jets.

I started writing this post a few weeks, but got sidetracked. I might've had a larger purpose in mind, but I think just sharing my love of Hasil Adkins with the world is enough, and will have to do. Of course, if you want to learn more, you might want to check out the movie, "My Blue Star," although I'm unsure whether it's available. Here's the trailer:

The Struggle

Like all writers, I struggle. And of course I wage those battles alone. I can't blame my boss or coworkers if I don't like an idea. And if I forget what a character did or said 20 pages earlier, I can't digitize an intern and send him into my laptop to figure it out.

And when reading works that go back years, even decades, I have no one but myself to blame for shoddy workmanship and blatant stylistic rip-offs. I was reminded of this when I recently stumbled across a copy of Frog Spit, a 'zine I published back in the '80s.

I wrote two stream-of-consciousness stories that were such obvious efforts to emulate Hunter S. Thompson (R.I.P.) that I found it embarrassing. And I was the only one in the room.

I do a lot of writing these days, between this blog and my other one (The Backside of America), and various book projects that I'll describe below. While none of my writing is perfect, I think that I've honed my craft in recent years simply by doing more work.

I also managed to refine my writing during my time at the late, great Webnoize (R.I.P.), and while writing my first book, which I published nearly two years ago.

I spent 10 years writing, rewriting, editing and self-publishing that book, (C)rock Stories: Million-Dollar Tales of Music, Mayhem and Immaturity. Sure, there were long periods where I ignored the stories, but I put a lot of work into the book.

I have a hard time editing on a computer, so I printed out the stories and went through them with a red pen, deleting, copy editing, writing new chunks of plot or character development.

Because the stories were related, and featured recurring characters, I needed to keep straight in my head who had done what, in order to make sure there was continuity. I had a hard time with this, and realized near the end of the process that I should have used two or three pairs of eyes to review and edit the book.

But I was reluctant to ask friends or family, because I wasn't confident in the stories and my abilities, and thought that if these reviewers questioned things too much I'd crumble and never finish the book. So I kept all the responsibility to myself, which wasn't smart.

I was happy with the published version of the book, but know that it could have been better if I'd been willing to put myself out there and let people judge it and critique it.

I learned my lesson, and since trying over the past few years to enter the children's book market, I've allowed friends and family to see drafts of stories. I haven't published a book yet, but I'm working with an illustrator on my latest, and feel confident that the book will hit the market eventually.

I'm excited about children's books. If my illustrator and I can get the first one published, I have a series planned. The books are very basic, but would fill a niche that I believe is under-served: easy, fun-to-read stories about subways.

While children's books and short story collections are obviously not easy to write, I find them much easier to do than novels.

I've begun three or four novels, but haven't finished one. The first was about a group of college friends going away for a weekend together, and that's about all I remember. Another effort surrounded a college band, based very heavily on my own such group.

My latest effort, which I began during National Novel Writing Month nearly five years ago, was about UFO's, road trips, government conspiracies, anti-corporate action and, of course, love.

I had a grand vision to write the novel and sell it packaged with a concept album that had actually spurred the novel. I haven't gotten very far on either account, and have come to realize in recent years that I may just not be a novelist.

I'm not giving up, so much as realizing that my brain just doesn't operate the way it needs to in order to keep track of all that goes into a novel: great character development, plot twists, strong descriptive language, recurring themes that move the story forward, and so much more.

I write best with a strong framework. I thought I'd established such a thing with my last attempt at writing a novel. Unlike with previous attempts, I'd made an outline based on the concept album.

But once I started writing, I just took the story off in all sorts of unexpected directions, which is OK, but I had a hard time reeling it all back in and pounding it into shape.

For now, I don't need to trouble myself with thoughts about writing the Great American Novel.

I continue to plug away on my road trip memoir, which I've mentioned before (see May 25, 2012, "Inspiration"). The linear narrative of the book is done, and I've got a plan for filling in details by getting in touch with the guys with whom I traveled.

There are other elements I'm adding, however, that need work. I write a lot about my childhood, and my life since the trip, especially the more recent years since my kids were born.

But all that information exists, so I know I can coax it out of my brain and onto the page. And I realize that I'll need people to read the book ahead of time and guide me to making it the best possible book it can be.

I just hope that in 10 years I don't look back on my books and think that they're total crap.