Cabin Life Ain't Easy: A Collection of Short Stories, Essays, and Articles

By John T. Schmitz

Cabin Life Ain’t Easy is a collection of John T. Schmitz’s early work, some of it never before published. This hilarious bunch of stories takes the reader along on several drunken, ill-advised trips up north, where the season has no effect on one’s sense of adventure ... enjoy a finely-tuned interview with the Minnesota band, The Tim Malloys ... read several of the epistolary pieces that appeared in Mr. Schmitz’s first novel, Roomies ... and even be exposed to a handful of letters that Mr. Schmitz has penned to places like KSTP, Sprint, Senator Norm Coleman, and more!

Cabin Life Ain’t Easy is a humorous look at sometimes serious subjects, but even the author himself admits “No matter how hard I try, I simply cannot sit down at a keyboard with a straight face....”

• Language: English
• Publisher: John T. Schmitz
• Release date: May 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458048974

John T. Schmitz

John T. Schmitz is the editor & publisher of Secret Laboratory; he is the founder of Maple Hills Press and has also freelanced as a writer and photographer, contributing to various local and international publications. Mr. Schmitz lives in Minnesota with his Kim, some cats, and a Maki; he is the author of five books. Visit Mr. Schmitz at http://www.secretlaboratory.org

Book preview

CABIN LIFE AIN’T EASY

A COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES, ESSAYS, AND ARTICLES

John T. Schmitz

Published by Maple Hills Press at Smashwords

Copyright © 2011 by John T. Schmitz

All Rights Reserved

Cover design and photograph by John T. Schmitz, Copyright © 2011

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Smashwords License Statement 

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction, unless otherwise noted. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Please visit Mr. Schmitz at http://www.johnschmitz.hpage.com

For a few of my closest friends: Rick Finger, Nick Hansen, Billy Kroona, Lance Roper, and Josh Stout. You guys were always there when I needed to get my head straightened out; without you, this book would never have been possible.

—JTS

Every man dies. Not every man really lives.

—William Wallace

Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious.

—Brendan Gill

TABLE OF CONTENTS

AUTHOR’S NOTE

CHAPTER 01 – The Tim Malloys—Bloody Good Irish Music

CHAPTER 02 – Battle of the Bear

CHAPTER 03 – Caroline

CHAPTER 04 – The Bottle is Your Best Friend

CHAPTER 05 – Cathedral Street

CHAPTER 06 – A Medical Use For ... Marijuana?

CHAPTER 07 – Cabin Life Ain’t Easy

CHAPTER 08 – Ice Fishing Ain’t Easy

CHAPTER 09 – Stripping Ain’t Easy

CHAPTER 10 – Salvia Divinorum—An Experiment in Legal Highs

CHAPTER 11 – Rock the Vote?

CHAPTER 12 – A Walk in the Park

CHAPTER 13 – Letters

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This book is a bit different from my previous two, in that it is a collection of short stories, essays, and articles, as the title suggests. Most of the following pieces were written during the first decade of the new millennium—some turned out better than others, but they were all fun. Some of these stories made it into print in various magazines and journals, while others did nothing but collect dust and remind me that being a writer is hard.

I selected these stories because they are some of my favorite early work—and although my style has evolved over the years, I still think that I hit some high notes in most of these. I once thought that I’d be able to make a living at journalism—but even when I was writing journalism, it really was fiction.

So be it.

Fiction is what I do, because it is what turns me on. I’ve loved books for as long as I can remember. I gave up on children’s books and Young Adult fiction while I was still in grammar school; I traded in my Gordon Korman paperbacks for novels by Peter Benchley and Joseph Wambaugh and Stephen King—I couldn’t have been more than eight years old when I read Jaws for the first time.

One of my characters in Roomies, Jessica Strom, had this to say: That’s the beauty of fiction, Stiles—it’s all a lie, anyway; it’s good as long as it’s good.

And that’s true enough, isn’t it? Good fiction is when you can turn a lie into the truth.

David Sedaris is a humorist; he writes memoirs, mostly; but one of my favorite books by him is called Barrel Fever, which contains mostly first-person narratives that someone who didn’t know any better might think are true. As far as I know, though, Mr. Sedaris has never carried on a domestic partnership with Mike Tyson nor has he ever been the female author of a Christmas newsletter.

You will find a lot of weird things in this book—more of it fantasy than fact. Each story is preceded by a brief note from me, bringing to light any information that I feel is relevant to the piece. This is a work of fiction—a different brand of fiction, to be sure, but fiction nevertheless.

And just what is the point of this rambling introduction? I’m not sure, anymore—I think that I set out to say something profound about the stories you are about to read, but like so many times, I have ended up wandering off on a tangent, which probably means that we should just get on with it.

Enjoy.

—JTS

CHAPTER ONE

I stuck this one right up at the front because it is probably the closest thing to the truth as anything in here, with one possible exception. An edited version of this story appeared a handful of years ago in a Minnesota music magazine, but this is the original piece before it was chopped down for size. Some of the information is outdated, of course, but The Tim Malloys are still performing and releasing records to this day—visit their website for current information.

THE TIM MALLOYS—BLOODY GOOD IRISH MUSIC

I first caught The Tim Malloys’ act about two years ago at the Half Time Rec (located at 1013 Front Street in Saint Paul) on a Tuesday night. I didn’t go there with the intention of watching their show—I didn’t even know that they were playing—but I was pleasantly surprised. As it turns out, The Malloys perform at the Half Time every Tuesday, as well as at various other times according to a rotating schedule of about a half-dozen groups such as The Old Triangle, Irish Brigade, Bedlam, and Peter Yeates.

I was barhopping that night; I had been to about five other places before finally making my way to the Half Time to finish off the evening. I had put in an appearance at the Dubliner (formerly the Ace Box Bar), a swanky little Irish pub at the corner of University and Vandalia. I don’t remember who was performing there that night, but the friends that I was with tell me that it was some long-haired weirdo strumming a banjo and doing his take on old Irish folk songs.

Whatever it was and whoever he was, the overall impression that it left on my buddies was a bad one ... and it left no impression on me whatsoever. All that aside, they tell me that I didn’t like it. I’ll have to take their word for it, but since I can recall a few other live performances at the Dubliner, I don’t doubt the fact that I found it a colossal disappointment. Speaking with a fan of The Malloys at the Half Time later that same night, I heard the Dubliner condemned as a hangout for girls from St. Kate’s and a lame popcorn bar. Indeed.

But fuck the Dubliner. We’re talking about The Tim Malloys, a local band that’s been around for ten years now, first coming together in 1994 around founding member and bassist, Neil Johnston. It’s a shame that it took me eight years to discover them, and it’s a pity that when I did it was a drunken accident that I barely remember.

But what the hell, right? Some would say that heavy drinking is deeply embedded in the Irish culture. I’m not sure if that’s a fair or accurate statement, but there are a lot of references to alcohol in a lot of Irish songs, and The Tim Malloys themselves encourage members of their audience to go ahead and have another, or as guitarist/vocalist John Sjogren puts it: "Remember—the more you drink, the better we sound."

Yeah.

Drunk or not, I immediately recognized the talent that The Tim Malloys possess ... and the potential for a story. Luckily, I was armed with my tape recorder and camera that first night, so I was able to bring an otherwise blurry picture back into focus. I believe the most striking thing that I remember is the repertoire that The Malloys have with their fans and the obvious admiration emanating from the audience.

At the end of their set when they asked everyone to stand—The Tim Malloys’ Sobriety Test, as they put it—for the Irish National Anthem, every person in the bar did so. I can recall the look in people’s eyes, the reverent way that they raised their fists.... I’ve never once seen that kind of devotion from a crowd anywhere else, even at baseball games when the spectators are admonished to rise for our own National Anthem. Instead, the kids behind you go on squabbling, the fat guy next to you takes another bite of his Dome Dog, and some asshole two rows over seizes the opportunity and uses it to go to the bathroom.

Once the show was over and everyone had been hustled outside, I had a chance to talk to a few of those people that had shown such great enthusiasm throughout the performance. In fact, wandering around outside of the bar and up and down Front Street, it was obvious that the energy from inside had carried over and was still going strong. It was 1:30 in the morning and no one wanted to leave. That, in itself, is not uncommon ... but it is when you’ve already been thrown out of the