Long Live the Wrestle

Mike Edison's new book I Have Fun Everywhere I Go is kind of a relic: They don't make guys like this anymore. The tone of the book is high-spirited sleaze, overeducated yokelry, and intensely American egalitarian humor. Add a love of (and skill with) the absurd and lots of underground punk music, and you've got a book in which shaggy-haired NYU students save up TVs to throw out the window. Edison's love of wrestling -- and the rest of the world's hatred for it -- is gloriously told as well. "It is the only sport where you can kick a man when he's down," the author points out, and proceeds to describe watching his first pro bout. He was on acid, but Liberace was actually there in real life, with Rockettes. From there, the story veers to GG Allin, marijuana journalism, and pornography reviews, all in the surprisingly intelligent words of a man who willingly subtitled his book "Savage tales of pot, porn, punk rock, pro wrestling, talking apes, evil bosses, dirty blues, American heroes, and the most notorious magazines in the world."
Tue., May 20, 6 p.m., 2008