It looks like Eugene Robinson is gearing up for his assault on the Times Bestseller List. November sees the release of Fight: Or, Everything you Ever Wanted to Know about Ass-Kicking But Were Afraid You’d Get Your Ass Kicked for Asking, and I could not be more excited. Although the subject matter has been broached before by Eugene (VICE Vol. 9 No. 10, or, the second issue I ever owned), I am going to buy this anyway for a multiple of reasons, and I think you should too. Here’s why:
First, Eugene is a great writer. Like, an underrated genius. There were nights in college when I would sleeplessly read through all the old newsletters and Oxbow tour diaries on their website, and his prose had the ability to make me feel completely fucking miserable. At times I wondered if I was going insane. That’s way more than I’ve ever been affected by any number of canonical authors combined. Eugene was educated at Stanford, which makes him way, way smarter than me (and maybe you, too!). This is reflected in the tone of his writing, which is both confident and combative. The points he raises are always poignant. He has an ability to scoop out all his inner turmoil, find the precise language with which to describe it, and yet never sound like he’s mining for pity. If anyone else tried that, you’d think of them as a pithy Emo faggot, but with Eugene you’re still scared to death of him. It’s something I greatly admire.
Second, he’s definitely got the proper pedigree to write a book about fighting. He used to body-build, he was a bouncer, and he considers himself to be addicted to fighting. He studied karate for almost ten years as well as Muay Thai, wrestling Brazillian Ju Jitsu, and regular old street fighting. His writing credits include, “[writing] for GQ, was editor in chief of EQ, written for Hustler, the LA Weekly, Decibel, the Wire, Grappling, Raygun, Hustler’s Busty Beautys, Code magazine, Harp magazine (fuckers who still haven’t paid me), the SF Weekly, MacLife, Vice, and a few more magazines none of which were the New Yorker.” He’s shown up in music videos, and on advertisements (one identical to the above photographed billboard was located right outside the Holland Tunnel for a while) He even worked for Adobe, the smart, computer-literate motherfucker. Someone once raised an issue about his swastika tattoo on a messageboard, and he signed up for an account to respond to the kid. Then he left his personal phone number in case anyone had a problem with what he said.
And, if you haven’t heard Oxbow, they are an incredible art-rock band. The guitar/drum interplay is ungodly. It could be considered avant-garde. Then you have Eugene with his beautiful, literary lyrics. As for their live show, Matt Kadane once wrote, ” What came out of Eugene’s body the night we played with Oxbow in France one night was definitely not crap! I believe it is called jiz…This night [Bedhead] played with them, in Lyons about ten years ago at a place whose name I cannot remember (although someone else may from the description below), we had gotten lost and showed up only about ten minutes before we were supposed to play. The non-Eugene members of Oxbow came out of the club, greeted us with big smiles and handshakes, and helped us load in our equipment…We finished playing and went upstairs to eat dinner. The club burned every band a CD and video of its performance, so they had a camera constantly on the stage, the feed from which we were able to watch on a monitor in the dining room. Kris Wheat had his eyes on the TV while the rest of us were stuffing our faces. The first thing Wheat tells us is that the singer in the band, the Oxbow, is taking his shirt off. We keep eating. Then Wheat says the singer is pants-less. Some of us bother to look back and see him on TV in his underwear, but turn away and continue eating. Seconds pass, and then we hear that Eugene’s jerking it. At this point we all turn around. The food falls out of our agape mouths, Eugene blows a load on the ecstatic Frogs, and I don’t think we speak for several minutes. About two hours later, and right on cue, Come, yes Come, from Boston, Massachusetts, shows up at the club, where they were scheduled to play the next night. We were all very happy to see each other, but of course right away we start telling them about what had happened earlier. Brokaw was a little incredulous, which is more or less his default setting. Thalia could only repeat, nuh-uhhhhh. Two weeks later Come played with Oxbow in Sweden and watched, as true believers, as Eugene unloaded on the Swedes.”
If you want to pre-order Fight, do so here.
If you want to read Eugene’s newsletters or tour diaries, start here.
If you’re looking for one of their records, I’d suggest King of the Jews, Fuckfest, Let Me Be A Woman, or An Evil Heat, which are all available here.
If you want to fight Eugene, you’d better start training.
