December Update

Poundland is still coming... Don't worry! We've been delayed because of problems with cover art, but the 'novel' should still be on the shelves pretty soon!

Update

We're still waiting on cover art for Poundland: The 'Novel', so please be patient. The book release is still scheduled for November 4th, so don't worry.

An Interview with David Wills

David Wills is the author of the forthcoming CoRP title, Fact & Fiction in Las Vegas: Truth in the Life of Hunter S. Thompson. This interview just appeared online, and is regarding his other project, Beatdom, which is publishing by Mauling Press...

---

Everywhere I go on the internet these days, I read something about Beatdom magazine… I wondered to myself, what the hell is this thing? Why haven’t I heard of it before?

Beatdom, it seems, is a glossy literary journal that has taken the literary world by storm since its conception in 2007. It is dedicated to the publication of excellent writings about the Beat Generation, as well as contemporary writing and artwork inspired by the Beats.

All over Twitter and the Blogoshere, people are talking about the next issue, which will feature poetry by the hippest voice in modern music – Scroobius Pip.

I caught up with the busy Mr Wills, founder and editor of Beatdom, to ask him about his magazine.

What is Beatdom?

It’s a magazine – or rather, a glossy literary journal – that aims to keep the influence of the Beat Generation alive today. We promote the work of new and established Beat scholars, as well as the occasional piece of poetry or fiction that takes inspiration from Kerouac, Ginsberg etc.

We also look at the work of people like Hunter S. Thompson, for example, who had links to the Beats, and whose ethos was somewhat similar.

Hunter was similar to the Beats?

In a sense, yes. He was friends with Ginsberg and Burroughs, and took little pieces of influence from the literature of the time. Remember, he was a young guy in the fifties, and he read On the Road like everyone else.

How did Beatdom first come about?

When I graduated university in 2007, with a good degree in literature, I didn’t know what to do. All I did was drink, read and write. I tried to get jobs with publishers and newspapers, but I couldn’t get anything. The job market was poor and I didn’t have the relevant experience.

I got bored of taking rejection letters and decided to start my own magazine. I was drunk at the time, and had a lot of talented friends. I called in a lot of favours, went begging to a lot of writers, and put together the first issue without starving.

How was the first issue received?

The first issue was a fantastic success and I immediately fled the country, swamped by fame.

Really?

No. It was successful, but not that successful. I didn’t lose any money, and I made a lot of friends and gained a few devoted readers. People kept trying to make me do a second issue.

I did, however, flee Scotland. I went to America to do research for the second issue.

What happened in America?

America was amazing fun. The people were so nice in California and Colorado, where I spent my time. I walked around San Francisco a lot, and met some old Beat poets – Michael McClure and Neelie Cherkovski. I interviewed Barry Gifford and spent a lot of time in the Beat Museum and City Lights. I got a lot of material for issue two from that trip.

Do you still keep in touch with your interviewees?

Yes, a little. I make friends, rather than have business dealings. Poets, it turns out, aren’t really into business. They just want to talk.

When did Beatdom suddenly become popular?

I don’t know… After issue two, things died down. I wasn’t making any money from the magazine, and I fled the country again. I went to Asia to teach English, and continue writing. But Asia didn’t exactly fill me with the Beatnik spirit, and the magazine almost died.

Issue three was a response to strange demand. I’d almost forgotten about Beatdom, but the fans kept e-mailing me. The website kept drawing in kids who’d read Kerouac, and oldtimers who didn’t spend a lot of time on the internet, and eventually found Beatdom.

I didn’t have the energy then, so I intended the third issue to be a collection of articles that were cut from the first two. To an extent, that’s what it was. But we also took a lot of submissions, and it made a very short issue.

What did people think?

They loved it, I guess. The website hits went crazy, and fan mail began rolling in. It seemed people read the third, and then the first two, and loved the first two. I’m not much of a businessman, so I’m not sure how or why all this happened, but I knew I had to make another issue.

Half the fans of Beatdom are writers, and when they read the magazine they want to submit something. I constantly have my hands full with queries. Most of them are great, because we seemed to be read by a lot of scholars and professors, who make excellent contributors.

So what can we expect from issue four?

More of the same. It’ll be more like the first two issues than the third. The third was actually black and white… This will be another big glossy, image-heavy issue. The poetry section is short but sweet. The articles are certainly our best yet.

We also have Scroobius Pip – a hero of mine – writing for us! That’s probably the most excited I’ve been about the magazine in two years. We’ve got ‘interviews’ with Carolyn Cassady and Gary Snyder, too.

‘Interviews’?

You’ll see.

- - -

You can read more about Beatdom at www.beatdom.com . The fourth issue of the magazine will be out by the time you read this, and is available through the website.

Still Spying in June!

The dirty pigfuckers at Poundland are still busy making money from the suffering of others. In the economic downturn, they're robbing the consumer and screwing their employees in the ass. They are fundamentally evil and detrimental to the furtherment of the human race!

But apparently they are not to busy to spy on former employees... This screenshot from 23rd June, 2009, shows that Poundland keep coming back to check on progress at City of Recovery Press.

What they hope to achieve by spying is a mystery... There's nothing they can possibly do to hinder the release of Poundland: The 'Novel'! Everything is set for its 4th November release...

Poundland Competition

To celebrate the forthcoming Poundland: The ‘Novel’, City of Recovery Press are giving away ten signed copies of the book. The book will be released on November 4th, 2009, and the competition will close June 1st. This will be an extremely rare edition of the book, printed exclusively for the winners of the competition.

To be eligible for the prize, send an e-mail to editor (at) cityofrecovery (dot) com, telling us why you hate Poundland and how you can help the world free itself from the grips of this evil single-price retailer.

Submissions must be less than two hundred words, and must not include the word ‘scumfuck’. Entries must be submitted by June 1st, 2009, and a winner will be picked the next day. Prizes will be delivered within a month of the announcement. Ten runners-up will receive free e-Book copies of the ‘novel’.

Particularly brilliant entries will be posted (with permission, of course (you are free to keep your entry confidential)) on the City of Recovery website. 

City of Recovery Press Website

City of Recovery now has a permanent web home at www.cityofrecovery.com. The site is still under construction, so please be patient. However, feel free to read our submission guidelines and browse our forthcoming titles.

Updates

Poundland: The Novel is approaching its release, and has been met with condemnation from the Poundland corporation, who have managed to have the book's MySpace page deleted! 

Please visit the blog to show your support: www.poundlandthenovel.blogspot.com

Beatdom Issue Three is now available for download at www.beatdom.com/Issue_Three.pdf

It's free and easy to download, so go grab a copy now. 

Dundee at Night

If you are a true Dundonian, then chances are you’ve been to Londons, Fat Sam’s, Lloyds, Starz, or one of the other centrally located, gaudy, cheap and bright lit cesspits that make treacherous the evening walk home for any non-scum unfortunate enough to have to make the deadly journey across the city. If you are really a typical, Poundland-loving Dundonian, then I can guarantee you’ve thrown back a few WKDs or some other blue or pink drink, on a Friday or Saturday night, and gotten an STI from another scumbag, then gone outside, puked on the pavement and started a fight. Of course, you’ll be friends with the local chav constabulary, the members of which you will have no doubt been drinking and fighting with, and you’ll get driven home and tucked in, while students and decent folks trying to navigate their way across the city will be picked up for no reason except to even out the numbers and make the pigs look good.

A walk to work in the early hours, from the decency and relative civility of the West End, to the centre for reluctant employment, requires walking past the doors of these foul smelling dives, housed in ornate and ostentatious old relics of the city’s days as more than slumsville. The pavements are covered in vomit, there are tacky souvenirs of the previous night’s degrading shenanigans – party hats, balloons, everything pink shaped like penises, bought from places like Poundland – and still all smelling like cheap aftershave and perfume. 

Pure Shite, Like... Musings on the Future of Dundee

Dundee is centre of poverty & ignorance; of abandoned buildings left to rot as homes for junkies and rats, standing as monuments to the city of industry that once stood where now we have only tower blocks, Mecca Bingo and the JobCentre; of diseased, ugly and uncouth people w/ not a shred of care for anything but reality TV and low-brow fuck-wit celebrity culture; of Poundland shoppers waiting for giros & smack & discount clothing stores selling them what they don’t deserve, hanging on to that which they deem life until they’re stabbed and kicked to death in the schemes by someone exactly like them, and all for a mobile phone with two pounds credit & a packet of cigarettes. What a fucking shame. Another scumbag dead on the streets of Dundee. A true tragedy, I’m sure, as rather than roll them into the Tay and watch their rancid corpse float off to Norway, the government intervenes and pays for their funeral from the kitty driven from the pockets of those whose lives are made unbearable by scumfuck jakey Dundonian swine.

The potential for a decent wee city exists in some near hopeless form, and one might conclude from a brief jaunt around the West End of Dundee that it already does exist… When strolling across Magdalen Green or Balgay Park, amid the green finery of man’s concession to nature, or standing unharassed & unaccosted on the Perth Road, under trees and by old houses w/ character and residents that have no desire to shit where they sleep and start wars w/ neighbours… Or perhaps sitting in a pub and not worrying about being glassed, jumped by rivalled football fans, or catching AIDS, syphilis & genital warts from a Burberry clad skank w/ her asscheeks visible below her back fat… Or maybe grabbing a coffee in a coffee shop and not having to eat grease drenched bacon and sausage on the side in some manky, filthy East End eatery… Or walk down the street in a different coloured skin or with a different accent, and not be abused, insulted and beaten half to death by a run-of-the-mill chavvy, neddy fuckass Dundee yob.

Perhaps, as a responsible city, we should collectively grow a set of balls, level the city centre, Stobswell, the Hilltown and all other hideous deformities on the landscape, and then round up the survivors of the brutal demolition process, lock the fuckers away on a giant ship brought into the Tay (paid for by the cancellation of all undeserved giros and the eBay auctioning of mobile phones, tacky bling and Burberry scarves taken from the chavvy swine) and set them to sea until far enough out to sink the ship without any survivors making back to land. Then, we will create a great memorial park where once stood the city centre, and ban all chain-stores, hoodies, mobile phones, Buckfast, heroin and ignorant people. The West End will continue to be a centre of learning and civility, while organic farms and libraries sweep across the wastelands w/ no concern for the toxic dead beneath. 

Choice Moments from a Career at Poundland

I worked at Poundland almost a year, and am in the process of writing a book about it, containing some of the following...

 

Having to use Stanley knives to open boxes, so ending each week with less and less skin

Having police in the store each week to find sex attackers for whom Poundland is their shop of choice

Ignoring shoplifters because there are so many of them

Having to deal with violent customers every single last fucking day of the week

Being understaffed and forced to do two jobs for neither extra pay nor respect

Having a member of staff stabbed by a member management, who is allowed to keep her job and still use a knife

Hearing the manager laugh at the prospect of a non-white person being employed in the store

Hearing a pregnant, single, ignorant, fat bitch began conversations with “You know what I hate about pakis?”

Working a whole week with a broken foot for fear of being fired

Getting punched breaking up a fight between two neds

Junkies lying on the floor and looking at shiny things

The manager’s incompetent brother being promoted against the wishes of every member of staff and management except the two brothers

The manager’s incompetent girlfriend being promoted against the wishes of every member of staff and management except the two ugly lovers

A customer trying to pay for her goods with buttered toast

Junkies screaming abuse at staff for no reason other than it’s Poundland, where junkies rule

A member of staff getting a facial disease from a customer

Not being allowed off the till after cutting my hand open in the counter cache, and being shouted at by customers for not packing their bags

A customer cutting his wrists and bleeding all over the till

Staff being questioned by police for selling a knife to a criminal

An illiterate fuckwit of a manager talking down to educated staff

The manager showing CVs and private letters to other staff

Rotting food in the staff room and no cleaner hired

The manager insulting customers on the shop floor

The manager pretending to cut a child’s throat when the shop is empty

The Flip-Side

Evenings are for rampant drug use and binge drinking, without the needles, fighting and slagging around. Well, at least in Dundee that’s the best way to spend an evening. Maybe somewhere with cafes and civilised nightlife, where the days are possible to fritter away in sun and a pleasant atmosphere, there’s more to life than kill time… But in Dundee, where there’s nothing but toil and shite, the most courageous thing one can do is get trashed enough not to think too hard, and try and not make life worse for anyone else while doing so. Going to the Reading Rooms and collapsing after a few too many cut pills is fuel for banter and an easy way to stay away from the usual bullshit Dundee night out. It doesn’t sound too civilised, but this is what the educated and intelligent of the city do for fun when it becomes abundantly apparent that anything else involves fraternising with people so mind-numbingly retarded that one would rather just about kill oneself than engage the fools in conversation. Double-dunting ketamine is perhaps the closest a West Ender could come to experiencing the ‘plight’ of the voluntary ignorant of the East. Were a West Ender (or real human person) to then sit and watch reality TV, read The Sun, and then believe the prevalent political concerns of the day, while brain-dead on Special K, then they might come close to the sheer kill-me-now, ape-like social incompetence of a typical Dundonian, which would manifest itself physically in a poor-postured, low-browed, sloped-forehead, greasy, gel-haired, spotty, Kappa and Burberry-clad, glazed expression of incomprehensible ignorance and loathing… In other words, it is theoretically possible for a decent and intelligent human being to temporarily become a Dundonian, looking and acting unfathomably unintelligent.

So, to Dundonians I ask: Could you please just stay at home and get the fuck out of the way of the decent folks with the chance of bettering the world, or better yet, jump in the Tay on a cold day and don’t climb back out.