Meat Won't Pay My Light Bill
by Kurt Eisenlohr (Future Tense)

"Jack Philly and I were on our hands and knees, two men who might have once held promise, putting together a Food Club creamed corn display. We were stacking the cans of corn into an enormous pyramid, one atop the next working it toward the ceiling.... I had a hangover. Jack had glasses, but he never wore them. Our pyramid kept toppling. The Egyptians had gone through generation after generation of Hebrew slaves before getting theirs up. Jack Philly and I were in danger of working through our lunch break."

Kurt Eisenlohr's novel, Meat Won't Pay My Light Bill, is the story of Lupus Totten, a heartbroken, drunken, working-man artist. Lupus holds two jobs, one in a grocery store and the other tending bar. Between shifts, he keeps busy with heavy drinking and heartache. In a strong, direct voice, he agonizes over life as a wage-slave and the irony of a world that only recognizes artists after death. The book pays tribute to Bukowski, creating a charming, self-destructive underdog.

Eisenlohr himself is a Portland bartender, painter, and writer. Meat Won't Pay My Light Bill is published in a limited edition, available most likely only for a short time, and well worth the price.