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In my quest to eternally live in the 80s, I've been compiling the ultimate 80s compilations - a series of about 20 CDs. If you are desperate for that golden era of Freestyle Dance, New Wave Synth Pop, Hair Metal, Power Pop, Pop Soul, and Electro-Funk, I'll be gradually posting the track listings for your pleasure.

(Note: A few tracks included were released in the late 70s or early 90s, but still reflect what to me "The 80s" were all about. Other songs from the early 80s were excluded because they were a little too 70s or Disco or what have you. So don't get pedantic on me right now or you will not enter the Kingdom of the Heaven. Also, underground stuff is largely omitted, so you won't find Hardcore, Thrash, Industrial, Goth (except for a few notable exceptions that made the radio or should have), etc. Mostly Pop. Pop Rock, Dance, and R&B, with a few Rap and Country crossover hits.)

Without further ado:

Beach 80s Mix #1
1. Aldo Nova � Fantasy
2. Laura Branigan � Self-Control
3. Sly Fox � Let’s Go All The Way
4. The Hooters � Day By Day
5. Nu Shooz � Point of No Return
6. Dazz Band - Let It Whip
7. Billy Ocean � Loverboy
8. The Knack � My Sharona
9. Sheila E. � The Glamorous Life
10. Scorpions � Rock You Like a Hurricane
11. Blue Oyster Cult � Burning for You
12. Jody Watley � Looking For a New Love
13. Pretty Poison � Catch Me I’m Falling
14. Joe Jackson � Got the Time
15. Midnight Oil � Beds are Burning
16. Ratt � Round and Round
17. Scandal � Goodbye to You
18. Tone Loc - Funky Cold Medina

Here's the closest approximation I can get on Spotify (some album versions are longer and won't burn to a single disc):

One of the supposedly comical memes that show why the Oxford comma should be employed in simple lists. "I had eggs, toast and orange juice" might be confusing to people who aren't at all familiar with how the English language operates, or the cuisine of the English-speaking people of the West. For instance, they might think you have simply listed two (2) items, one called "eggs" and the other called "toast and orange juice." Because they are not familiar with the fact that two (2) items in a list are joined with the word "and" and no comma. Neither are they familiar with the lack of existence of a breakfast treat known as "toast and orange juice." However, the sentence "I had eggs and orange juice" is not problematic for these people. Yet as soon as you add one more thing to the list, they enter a realm of endless possibility: where grammar, punctuation, existence, context, and convention have no meaning. We should not judge but rather pity these poor souls.

In reality the only confusion that "I had eggs, toast and orange juice" is likely to generate is among people who have the standard practice of telling their toast and orange juice what they had for breakfast. These folks might assume that comma is separating a form of direct address. I haven't been on speaking terms with either toast or orange juice for quite some time, which leads me to wonder if this strange dish called "eggs" is actually composed of both toast and orange juice, because I ate as much lead paint as I could in my youth.

Let's get down to the nitty-gritty. My life was one huge transgression. Starting from the time I woke up and had to roll my drunken father of off me and onto the floor so that I could get up and piss in the bucket we kept by the washing machine crate stuffed with dead rats that we called a bed. I took a swig of whatever open beer was left lying around on the floor behind the biohazard waste dumpster we called a bathtub. Then I got into the serious business.

Here's what my average day consisted of at nineteen:

Thirty-eight marijuanas
Seven Bourbons
Two thousand cigs (what we called cigarettes)
Four or five lines of PCP
A tablespoon of dolphin gland extract
Eighty-five beers (usually Bud, sometimes Miller)
A cocaine pill washed down with a beaker of the raw chemicals used to make crystal ice

After that I'd think about hunting a dog for dinner, or go down 7-Eleven and see who was doing a crash-up derby in the parking lot. If my cousin Beatrix was there, I'd give her a nickel for her "phone booth special." Then I'd give her another nickel to pay the old witch at the edge of town for abortion magic, just in case you could get pregged by cum going in your ear.

Then I stole a bottle of Wild Turkey to give myself an enema. My diet was so poor I only shat once a week if I didn't use the Turkey method. After I sprayed out a mixture of feces and whiskey, I put it back in the Turkey bottle and snuck it back to the liquor store, quietly placing it in the shelf next to its brothers.

Life was hard in Brooklyn in those days.

Guess which famous novels these first lines are from! How many can you name without googling?

1. "What's it going to be then, eh?"

2. I first heard of Antonia on what seemed to me an interminable journey across the great midland plain of North America.

3. You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler.

4. Elmer Gantry was drunk.

5. There's more than one way to kill a mockingbird.

6. Call me The Stranger.

7. I first heard of the Hunger Games when I was really hungry and scrounging for food in the bottom of a garbage barrel that doubled as my little sister's bed.

8. This book is called Fifty Shades of Grey. You probably bought it by accident or were given it as a gift by your aunt who just buys whatever is closest to the check stand. Also, this is more than one sentence.

9. I first heard of Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler... while reading the fist line of John Barth's latest masterwork, The Sot-Weed Factor.

10. Stephen King's DOOSHKILL.

Okay, I know you have all wanted me to talk about my experience on the set of Fast Times at Furious High, so here goes:

They called me in as a consultant. Basically, I was just there the one day to explain that I was not G. Arthur Brown, the first native Jamaican Governor of the Bank of Jamaica and notable economist--I was the other one who writes bizarro books. But while I was on set I got a chance to talk with Danger Slater (whom you might know better from the film as Fast Boi) and Jack Black (Turnip) while they were waiting for Paul Weller to get done driving his car irresponsibly. I could tell Slater was not very fond of Black, but Black seemed to think there was a real kinship between them and kept trying to touch Slater's face at weird moments. Slater laughed it off as he swatted Black's hands away time and time again, but I could see that Black had shark eyes and Slater was incredibly intimidated by the portly, beloved star whom many have likened to John Candy or a "less gropey Chris Farley." What was weird was when they started to arm wrestle over who got to pet the horses first (which turned out to be Harleys, long story) and I caught a very distinct scent of balsam wafting off their sweaty bodies.

I was only there for a few hours, then a cranky old Jewish lady told me to get lost while a polite young Jewish lawyer apologized for the mix-up, but the day haunts me and I wonder if one day Jack Black will return to try to reconnect with Danger Slater, only to find his affections not reciprocated and fall into a shark-like frenzy, all the while smelling of pure, fresh balsam. I like to find some comfort in that.

Cover art by

There are a few writers I'd really love to collaborate with due to a feeling of being kindred spirits riding those ragged edges of Bizarro and absurdism until we either invent a new color or we die. Zoltan Komor is the first one I've had the opportunity to realize that fever dream with.

There is a lot of caked on goodness in this little zine-style booklet. And it can be ordered for $7 domestic ($8.25 international) directly from me (send me a message). There are also potential discounts for those who have ordered previous chapbooks from me and reviewed my other works (even if you HATED them, yes). So hit me up if you want an absurdo-surrealist extravaganza that would make a monkey cry (lower primates do not understand irrealist fiction).

Komor also has an expanded, Hungarianer version available for those what speak that strange, non-Indo-European tongue of Europe, so hit him up if you are Hungarian.

Watch an amazing trailer that is sure to make you rush out and buy this book, hopefully in the next 4 days.




Governor of the Homeless:

"G. Arthur Brown - already respected as a syntactically immaculate weaver of tales both comical and absurd - now ventures into the darkness to deliver us the strange and unsettling horrors of Governor of the Homeless."
- Jeremy Robert Johnson, author of Skullcrack City

"G. Arthur Brown is at the forefront of a new generation of writers. One of my favorites."
- Brian Keene, best-selling author of The Complex and The Rising

Okay, there's another chapbook on the horizon. If you liked any of the previous ones, this one will really blow your mind. If you missed that previous ones, this one is a good investment. The theme is fastfood chemtrails (which will lead right into the next two collaborative chapbooks I'm doing) and it's insaner than ever. There will be all kinds of crazy collage work to help you sleep at night. And you can sample the title track If you like votive candles with images of Danzig and Divine on them, this is probably the chapbook for you.

Paypal me $6.50 US (7.75 international) to reserve your copy of this limited edition (25 copies only) chapbook. My address is garthurbrown AT hotmail DOT com.
Please include your name and mailing address.

This year will see the release of so many of these punk rock chapbooks that no one will know what to do with themselves. Zoltan Komor and I will be releasing a collaboration that deals with the secrets of the universe, some of which are located in his prostate. Pedro Proença and I will be releasing a Bizarro recipe book, some of which are from his colon. And I'll be releasing another solo effort entitled I Took a CHEMTRAIL at Taco Bell and Now I Dead which will feature some really CHEMTRAIL enhanced collages I've been working on, and also some really grody flash fiction. This is what the kids demand. It's what makes this underground scene like a real underground scene. A million little pamphlets you are afraid your mother will find and give to your pastor, who hoards them all to himself in the dusty church library.