Ballad of the Red Bag Man

By Kirk Alex

Ballad of the Red Bag Man by Kirk Alex

 

Blue collar free verse without the fakery & pretentious bullsh*t.

 

Won't find any of that bogus/tough-to-discern rhyming crap here that way too often is squeezed out

by certain academics with the cushy gig to impress their white collar pals. Guess what? Most of us

have no use for it. Scream it from the gut, or else don't bother. Better yet, flush it.

 

The author has been a cabbie/factory worker/warehouse shipping clerk/bread delivery driver/plant

nursery flunky/printshop gofer/meat plant packer/shelf stocker/jackhammer operator—to mention a

few jobs he's toiled through over the years in order to subsidize the writing. It's called paying dues.

Hand-to-mouth. It goes on. Wage slaves. Millions of us. Get it.

 

This is for readers who relate to writers like Bukowski/Louis- Ferdinand Céline/Knut Hamsun/Nelson

Algren/Eddie Bunker/Derek Raymond/Jim Thompson/John O'Brien/James M. Cain/Horace McCoy/

Dan Fante, Chester Himes, Clarence Cooper, Jr., Donald Goines, et al, who nailed it raw & real

without the convoluted agenda & word trickery.

 

Kirk Alex is also the author of Blood, Sweat & Chump Change — L.A. Taxi Tales & Vignettes; Lustmost:

Anatomy of a Serial Butcher; the Edgar "Doc" Holiday L.A. Private Eye series, the Chance "Cash" Register

Working Stiff series, and a few other novels & short stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kirk Alex
• Release date: Oct 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9780939122431

Kirk Alex

Instead of boring you with a bunch of dull background info, how about if I mention a few films/singers/musicians and books/authors I have enjoyed over the years.Am an Elvis Presley fan from way back. Always liked James Brown, Motown, Carmen McRae, Eva Cassidy, Meat Loaf, Booker T. & the MGs, CCR. Doors are also a favorite.Some novels that rate high on my list: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole; Hunger by Knut Hamsun; Street Players by Donald Goines (a street noir masterpiece, a work of art, & other novels by the late awesome Goines); If He Hollers Let Him Go by the incredible Chester Himes. (Note: Himes at his best was as good as Hemingway at his best. But of course, due to racism in the great US of A, he was given short-shrift. Had to move to France to be treated with respect. Kind of sad.Am white by the way, but injustice is injustice & I feel a need to point it out. There were so many geniuses of color who were mistreated and taken advantage of. Breaks your effing heart. I have done what I have been able to support talent (no matter what the artists skin color was/is) over the years by purchasing records & books by talented folks, be they white/black/Hispanic/Asian, whatever. Like I said: Talent is talent, is the way I have always felt. The arts (in all their forms) keep us as humans civilized, hopefully). Anyway, I need to get off the soap box.Most of the novels by Mark SaFranko (like Lounge Lizard and Hating Olivia; his God Bless America is one of the best memoirs I have ever read, up there with Ham on Rye by Buk);The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway; A Farewell to Arms also by Ernie; Mooch by Dan Fante (& other novels of his); Post Office by Charles Bukowski; The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath; the great plays of Eugene O., like Iceman Cometh, Long Days––this system has a problem with the apostrophe, so will leave it out––Journey Into Night, Touch of the Poet; Journey to the End of the Night by Ferdinand Celine (not to be confused by the Eugene O. play); Postman Only Rings Twice by James M. Cain; the factory crime novels of Derek Raymond (superior to the overrated Raymond Chandler & his tiresome similes & metaphors any day of the week; Jack Ketchum; Edgar Allan Poe; The Reader by Bernhard Schlink; Nobody/s Angel by Jack Clark; The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester, et al.Filmmakers: Akira Kurosawa (Ihiru; Yojimbo); John Ford (almost anything by him); horror flicks: Maniac by William Lustig and Joe Spinnell; original Night of the Living Dead; original Texas Chainsaw Massacre; original When a Stranger Calls; The 400 Blows by Francois T.; the thrillers of Claude Chabrol; A Man Escaped by Bresson; the Japanese Zatoichi films;Tokyo Story by Ozu . . . and many other books, films and jazz musicians like the amazing tenor sax player Gene Ammons; Sonny Rollins, Chet Baker, Jack Sheldon, Stan Getz, Paul Desmond; singers like the incomparable Sarah Vaughan, Shirley Horn, Dion Warwick; Al Green, Elmore James, Lightnin Hopkins . . . to give you some idea.However, these days though, tv does not exist at all for me, nor do I care for most movies, in that I would much rather pick up a well-written book. I get more of a kick from reading than I do watching some actor pretend to be something he is not.Having said that, I confess that as a young man I did my share of wasting time watching the idiot box and spent my share of money going to the flicks. But those days are long gone, in that there is no interest in movies (be they cranked out by the Hollywood machine, or elsewhere).Final conclusion when it comes to celluloid? Movies are nothing more than a big waste of time (no matter who makes them). Reading feeds the brain, while movies puts the brain to sleep. There it is.

Book preview

High Praise for Kirk Alex

Throwback & Backlash:

Love, Lust & Murder Series

Kirk Alex gets right down to it. There’s not a wasted word. If you don’t know his work, you should.

—Mark SaFranko, author of Lounge Lizard

Lustmord: Anatomy of a Serial Butcher

Great book. Dark—yes. Grotesque—certainly. Sexually explicit—without a doubt. And the writing is excellent. Character & dialogue, is as real as it gets. A terrifying, non-putdownable horror.

—Jeff Bennington, Kindle Book Review

Zook

"Zook was a zoo ride! All of the characters were well written and you find yourself unable to put the book down! You might even find it a little sad. ***** out of 5 stars."

—NetGalley

Ziggy Popper at Large:

14 Tales of General Degeneracy, of Mayhem

& Debauchery – for the Morally Conflicted

& Borderline Criminal

Gruesome, violent, awesome! I absolutely LOOOVEEE Kirk Alex. I am always ready for his next book!! Extremely entertaining. A whole lot of violent, and just what I was looking for. Private detective Felix Choo-Choo Buschitsky and Ziggy Popper are now my two favorite characters. ***** out of 5 stars.

—NetGalley

nonentity

–A Rant For Those Who Can’t–

Presented as a Novel

This is a quick read and engrossing. I found myself wanting to know what happened. Many of the situations were funny in the way they were presented. Fast, easy read.

—NetGalley

BLOOD, SWEAT and CHUMP CHANGE

L.A. Taxi Tales & Vignettes

"After reading BLOOD, SWEAT AND CHUMP CHANGE — L.A. Taxi Tales & Vignettes by Kirk Alex you understand why the American Dream needs liposuction. It’s all here: Hate, poetry, sadness, hope and the ache of an aloneness that never goes away. Belly up!"

—Dan Fante, author of Spitting Off Tall Buildings

by Kirk Alex

Crime Fiction:

Throwback: Love, Lust & Murder – Book One

Backlash: Love, Lust & Murder – Book Two

Ziggy Popper at Large – 14 Tales of General Degeneracy, of Mayhem & Debauchery – for the Morally Conflicted & Borderline Criminal

Horror:

Lustmord: Anatomy of a Serial Butcher

Zook

Chance Cash Register Tucson Working Stiff Series:

Paycheck to Paycheck

Loopy Soupy’s Motley Crew

Journey to the End of the Week

A Confederacy of Mooks

nonentity

You’re Gonna Have Trouble

LA Cab Exploits:

Working the Hard Side of the Street – Selected Stories/Poems/Screams

Blood, Sweat & Chump Change – L.A. Taxi Tales & Vignettes

Eddie Doc Holiday Contemporary Mystery Series:

Hush-Hush Holiday #1

Hubba-Hubba Holiday #2

Hollow-Point Holiday #3

Hard Noir Holiday #4

Hammer-Slammer Holiday #5

Free Verse:

Ballad of the Red Bag