Dr. Frank's What's-it

The Shows Get Booked, the Shows Get Played

Well, this is a show update I probably should have posted a bit sooner, but these things have a way of sneaking up on a person. Anyway, come to these.

Friday, January 23

Vroman's Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd, Pasadena, CA, 91101. 6 PM.

I will "rock" as hard as it is possible to do in southern California's largest and oldest independent bookstore.

Then afterwards on that same night:

Redwood Bar, 316 W. 2nd St., Los Angeles, CA 90012. 9PM

With Kepi, Bad Cop/Bad Cop, Turkish Techno, So Social, Pizza Wolf. This is a rock and roll show at a pirate bar and it cannot fail to be real, real fun it seems to me. (FB event page here.

Saturday, January 24

I can't figure out exactly when it goes up, or out, or off, or whatever the word you use to describe where a podcast goes when it is released to internet, but I'm doing the Jordan Jesse Go! podcast on this day.

Sunday, January 25

Porchlight + Sketchfest, Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa Street, San Francisco, CA 94110. 8 PM.

This is the Porchlight storytelling series show where they team up with the SF Comedy festival Sketchfest, and I'm gonna be doing it. These are always a good time, so basically you should come.

Monday, January 26

StudioNPL, Nashville Public Library – Green Hills Branch (with sales by Parnassus Books), 3701 Benham Avenue, Nashville, TN 37215. 5:30 PM

Tuesday, January 27

The Booksellers at Laurelwood, 387 Perkins Extended, Memphis, TN 38117. 6:30 PM. More here.

Saturday, February 7

The Night Light, 311 Broadway, Oakland, CA 94607. With Blag Dahlia, Kepi Ghoulie, and Jon Gianoli. 9 PM. $10.

Linkus Interruptus

Here's a bunch of links I would have posted earlier if the book release, Christmas, New Years, and Second Christmas (Feast of Kings) hadn't got in the way.

-- Photographer (and great all around gal) Julie Pavlowski Green took a bunch of photos on the day of the Oakland book release show and posted some of them under the title Dr. Frank: A Day in the Life of a Rock n' Roller. Yeah.

-- Once again, I was honored to be invited to contribute a playlist to Laregehearted Boy's excellent Booknotes series.

-- I did an interview with Tuffgnarl.com.

-- Some reviews of KDA: Guyslitwire; Willamette Weekly; Jersey Beat; V's Reads.

-- SF Chron: Grab a title from one of 2014's notable Bay Area authors.

-- Popsugar recommended KDA as a Christmas gift for the awkward high school guy. I really should have posted this earlier. Next year, maybe?

-- According to OC Weekly, I've got one of the five best punk rock day jobs. I agree it's great, except for the always being broke part.

-- I am interviewed about songwriting on Terry Morrow's blog: "My dad took me to see the Pirates of Penzance when I was a kid. Probably the first brush with music I liked. Then I heard Metallic K.O. and decided to try to combine the two as best I could."

-- If It's Too Loud... recommends the purchase of the "King Dork Approximately" cassingle, because why not? I whole-heartedly concur.

-- Hippodilly Circus has kind things to say about KDA.

-- Sophie has also has kind words about King Dork: "I urge you all to read this book at some point in your lives. I'm a 17 year old British girl and I related to the 15/16 year old American boy in this book so much."

-- Finally, I'm doing a KDA book + t-shirt giveaway on goodreads.

Fan Mail

Most correspondence I get these days is of course electronic, but every now and again I'll get an envelope from my publisher containing physical mail sent to their address in New York. These are almost always the result of write-a-letter-to-an author school assignments, from what I can tell.

This one, carefully written in pencil on lined notepaper, comes from a middle school somewhere in Indiana:

Dear Frank Portman,

I just read your book King Dork. It was horible. It could not keep my attention at all. Sorry but it was probably one of the worst books I have ever read. The only reason I even read the book was because my teacher made me for a book report. To be honest though I might have liked it if I liked to read. But I am not a fan of reading.

Sincereley,

[name withheld, of course]

The teacher added the school's address underneath the student's name, and of course I'll write back. Maybe this kid will find something to interest him in King Dork, and in reading, in a couple years or so. Then again, maybe he won't.

Take it away, Leonard:

Come to Moe's, Prevent a Tragedy

Just reminding you all that my thing at Moe's in Berkeley is tonight. (Tues. Jan. 6, 7:30PM, free.)

I just learned last night that one of the events co-ordinators happens to be my upstairs neighbor. Basically what that means is that if no one shows up, I'll be (or will remain) the laughing stock of the building. Help me out here, folks, come on.

Patrick's

My January

Well, Christmas, New Years, and Second Christmas (Feast of Kings) always come all in a row and it's weird how that always seems to come as a surprise. Hope you all had a great one.

I have quite a bit of catching up to do with my all-important "web presence" and I'm getting right on that but first things first here: you must go to these shows. I mean, if you're in the area and feel like it and it doesn't conflict with anything more important of course. Don't forgo surgery or miss a funeral a wedding or a parole check-in or anything like that. But if all you've got going on on the days in question is watching the endless succession of Big Bang Theory reruns that are all TV ever shows anymore these days, well, I bet I'll be at least as funny as the Big Bang Theory. At least I'll try.

The first one is tomorrow, Tues., Jan 6 at Moe's in Berkeley, followed by all the other ones.

Tuesday, January 6

Moes Books, 2476 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94704, 7:30 PM

I'll be playing songs, talking up my book, reading something maybe. I'll make it fun I promise. (This is the fb invite/event thing.)

Saturday, January 10

Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, 3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd., Beaverton, Oregon. 4PM.

Songs, talking, reading, that sort of thing.

Sunday, January 11

Sandy Hut, 1430 NE Sandy Blvd, Portland, OR, 97232. 9 PM.

With Beach Party and Faster Housecat. This is a rock and roll show in a bar. The plan is for me to around half the set solo-acoustic and then to be backed up by Faster Housecat for the other half. They learned some songs I haven't done in forever so I've got to work on trying to remember how they go as soon as I finish typing this. Wish me luck. (FB event page here.)

Friday, January 23

Vroman's Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd, Pasadena, CA, 91101. 6 PM.

I will "rock" as hard as it is possible to do in southern California's largest and oldest independent bookstore.

Then afterwards on that same night:

Redwood Bar, 316 W. 2nd St., Los Angeles, CA 90012. 9PM

With Kepi, Bad Cop/Bad Cop, Turkish Techno, So Social, Pizza Wolf. This is a rock and roll show at a pirate bar and it cannot fail to be real, real fun it seems to me. (FB event page here.

Saturday, January 24

I can't figure out exactly when it goes up, or out, or off, or whatever the word you use to describe where a podcast goes when it is released to internet, but I'm doing the Jordan Jesse Go! podcast on this day.

Sunday, January 25

Porchlight + Sketchfest, Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa Street, San Francisco, CA 94110. 8 PM.

This is the Porchlight storytelling series show where they team up with the SF Comedy festival Sketchfest, and I'm gonna be doing it. These are always a good time, so basically you should come.

There's more to be filled in here I think, and I'll update as appropriate but this is what I've got now.

Priscilla

(Here she is with AK from a ways back.)