The Impact of Writing about Friends and Family

I was interviewed by Michael Cuthbertson for MC Press about self publishing and the potential consequences that can arise when you write about your life and the people in it…

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Piltdownlad #10.75: From Uber/Lyft to Taxi

Piltdownlad #10.5 – Notes from an Uber/Lyft

 

Piltdownlad #10 – Behind the Wheel #1: A Lyft Driver’s Log

 

From the trenches of San Francisco’s sharing economy comes
 a Lyft confessional.

Ride shotgun with me as I cruise through San Francisco’s latest Tech Boom and divulge the stories, conversations and opinions of the passengers I pick up along the way.

The size is 5.5” x 8.5” with a saddle-stitched binding. The page count is 56.

Piltdownlad #07 – The Murky Realm

“The Murky Realm” is a biographical sketch of a tragic union with some creative engineering…

My parents never should have gotten married. But even though my father was gay and my mother was chemically imbalanced, this was the 60s, when single men in their forties did not identify as queer and people with personality disorders were rarely diagnosed, much less treated. And marriage was inexorable. The tragedy, of course, is that, besides ruining their own lives, five children came out of this unhappy coupling. But that’s not the point of this story. That comes later. “The Murky Realm” is about how these two people got together, fell apart, came back together, then fell apart again only to get back together again…

I pieced the facts together from what we were told growing up, what I remember from talking to my parents as an adult before dementia set in. I used my imagination for the rest, after walking many miles in both their shoes.

The text is typewritten on my Olympia Manual. The size is 5.5 x 7 and the cover is black cardstock with a handwritten title piece glued on. The page count is 44.

COVER VARIANTS:

 

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THE FINISHED PRODUCT:

Piltdownlad #05 – The Detour Guide

60 pages
wraparound cover
typewritten text
hand drawn titles
staple bound

Piltdownlad #04 – The Nasty Oh-Dear

 

Piltdownlad #03 – Junior Careers

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Piltdownlad #02 – Women Got Me Drinking

 

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Piltdownlad #01 – The Qüero Chingòn Stories

Originally published as individual micro-zines (2.75 x 4.25) under the title “Güero Chingòn” and distributed around downtown LA during the summer of 2011. They were written on my Olympia typewriter but transcribed into InDesign. My friend “Art Mark” illustrated them and Irina did the cover graphics.

I printed fifty to one hundred of each issue and attributed them to “Piltdownlad.” When that name went from a pseudonym to the name of the zine, the five Güero Chingòn issues became Piltdownlad #1. They were collected into one zine with a new introduction.

The first issue of Piltdownlad has been reprinted multiple times.