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Also this issue: Take This Job and Shove It Follow My Lead Middle East Memoirs |
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June 26-July 2, 2003
cover story
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Punk rocker Phil Irwin came and left, but still loves Philly.
Hostile City or Bust (Steel Cage) is a tighter, more linear novel than ex-Phillypat Phil Irwin¹s first, Jobjumper. There may be an obvious reason why: It¹s about a road trip. The beginning is about Irwin¹s gnawing discontent in Portland, Ore., and the conclusion is the happy arrival of the Irwin family in Philadelphia. But like any journey, Hostile City or Bust is all about how they get there. And like everything the Whiskey Rebel takes on, the trip doesn¹t go smoothly. But would it be as much fun to read about if it did? Of course not. Even the Brady Bunch never had an easygoing cross-country trip. And, duh, the Irwin family is not the Brady Bunch; would Bobby Brady make a game out of counting the number of times his father cursed while on the road? It¹s the extreme frustration Irwin feels as every little thing goes wrong, and his explosive temper, which propel the book forward and make it funny.
Right now, Irwin is on the road again, doing readings for Hostile City, along with competing at expert level in the National Open chess tournament after 22 years out of the circuit. (He was knocked out of competition by a 9-year-old in the last round.)
Besides being an author twice over and a nationally ranked chess player, Irwin is the leader of the punk-rock band Rancid Vat, an eBay salesman (mainly of his band's out-of-print records), a prolific online diarist (www.whiskeyrebel.com, naturally) and a former child prodigy. Jobjumper was about leaving jobs that destroy your soul. Irwin makes it clear that he's not a quitter, but willing to strike out and find new territory where others have been too chicken to try. And in Hostile City, it's short and sweet: He's got guts, he's outta there and see you later.
"I know damn good and well 80 percent of people in the U.S. never move from the county they were born in," Irwin says. "Most people never leave the jobs they hate either. They just suffer through it. A lot of folks believe in some Œreward' in an afterlife. I say hogwash. I keep moving on to the next outpost of humanity hoping things will be a little better."
Irwin says, about his novel's tight structure, "I just try to follow the example set by writers I admire, ranging from Don Pendleton to Warren Murphy to Ann Rule to Andrew Vachss to Charles Bukowski. Rule No. 1 to me is: 'Thou shalt strive to recognize when thy night of writing turned out boring.' I suppose some people learn to write in classrooms. I've picked up more in barrooms and watching old pro-wrestling promos on VHS. The flow of an old drunk or wrestler's dialogue is always better and sharper than examples provided by academic types."
Which leads us to why Irwin calls Philly "Hostile City." Irwin recalls a U.S. News & World Report study of America's grumpiest cities (research was conducted by pollsters asking random strangers on the street for directions and the like). Philadelphia ranked the nation's surliest. Irwin loved it, and coined the term "Hostile City." Rancid Vat even made a record about it. What punk rocker wouldn't love the fact that Philly has the worst attitude in the U.S.?
What underscores Hostile City is Irwin's pride in being a pioneer, for having an adventurous spirit, for daring to leave everything familiar and uproot his family just to see what it felt like. And remaining true to that spirit, before the book about coming to Philly was even published, the Irwins packed up everything and left for Texas. Irwin says he hasn't forgotten the reasons why he came here in the first place.
"I haven't turned heel on Philly. I loved my years there. I eventually got tired of the neighborhood kids in our old South Philly street screaming and behaving like subhuman freaks from dawn to dusk. We had to get out of that hellhole. The cheesesteaks here suck bigtime though. That's the price I must pay, I guess."
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