Glossy Eyed, Buzzy Fly
In which we talk about my friend Mike and his cool new novel.
I don’t remember the first time I met Mike. It’s difficult to pinpoint when you met someone in the punk/hardcore scene, because in the mid-2000’s the same people were at every show. We all just sort of became acquainted during the pre/post show parking lot hangs. After a few of those, and various run-ins at coffee shops, or Tibetan lunch buffets, we were friends.
I do remember the first time he let me read his writing though.
In 2012, I applied to be a vendor at Craft Lake City (which is actually happening this very weekend at the Utah State Fairpark - sometimes procrastination pays off timing-wise). My friend Gardner and I were working on a comic book that I foolishly thought would be ready in time. It was not even close to finished (and never would be), so I had to pivot and come up with something to justify paying the booth rent. I had a Jerry Sloan tribute shirt, some pins, and a little mini-comic that Gardner and I put together as a teaser for the longer book that we never got around to making. I also made a little photocopied zine called—wait for it—Filler.
Zines have always been something that I loved (I have the rough draft of an entry about all the zines I’ve picked up over the last couple of years that will be finished and sent out at some point), and I wanted to try making one for the festival. The only problem was that once I started putting my own writing together, it was pretty sparse. There wasn’t a ton of time for me to write a bunch of stories, so I started grabbing talented friends and asking them to submit stuff to, you know, fill out the content. Hence the name.
Mike was always on top of whatever blogging trend was happening, and I followed all of them. He would post little snippets of his stuff on Tumblr or Blogspot or wherever else we all used to spend time when Instagram was only grid posts, Twitter was in its infancy, and Facebook was exclusively for your idiot cousins to post conspiracy theories (which it still is, but much, much worse). I always liked reading his stuff because it was different from what everyone else was doing. He was a philosophy major, and those elements and ideas were always tucked into his stories, giving them an extra layer that my own snark was missing.
When I asked if he wanted to contribute, he came through almost immediately. I went back and found the initial email from July of 2012.
“I attached that piece.
like i said it's just a piece of a much larger story, but i think it's representative of my writing, and kind of fun.
let me know what you think.
i'm not sure what the format of the zine is, but if you want me to write an intro or anything let me know.
thanks again.
-mike-”
It was a fun little piece, and got me really intrigued about the longer thing that it was a part of. I printed the zine, and he came by Craft Lake City to hang out for most of the day. I sold a few things, and Gardner brought a bunch of cool frames that he had built. Mostly, Mike and I got to talking about his writing, and about the novel he’d written. He pulled a little bit from it, and that’s what he submitted to me for Filler. It was just about finished, and he was hoping to send it out to publishers that fall.
About a year later, I was considering applying for Craft Lake City again, and thought about Mike. He spent the winter submitting his book, and I asked for updates every once in a while, with the distant thought of publishing it myself. I had put out a few CD’s at the tail end of the physical media era, and figured that book publishing on a small scale wouldn’t be all that different.
Mike wasn’t having a ton of luck with blind pitching, so he was into the idea, and things moved pretty quickly from there. I called in a bunch of favors to get it formatted, designed, and printed in time for the show in August. I threw together a second issue of FILLER, another mini comic, and resurrected my defunct record label, Old News Records, and tried to rebrand it as a publishing company1. TULIP was the first (and only) book I ever released. Mike came with me to Craft Lake City again, and we treated it as a book launch party, with Mike signing copies and talking to people all afternoon. It was a really fun time, and I was super proud of how it all came together.
It was more successful than I anticipated, and we sold out of the first run before the year was out. I still had access to the print company, so we decided to run it back and do a second pressing. Mike redesigned the layout a little bit, and I figured out how to add the ISBN code so that I could try getting it into local shops. We were also hoping to send it out to different publications for press opportunities.
Things slowed down a little, because I got too busy with regular life, and didn’t have time to be a vendor at a lot of events. It was also incredibly hard to get any actual stores to carry the book. I got it into a couple of local record stores and what not, but none of the bookstores would touch it without a distributor. Even with that, we sold most of the second press copies over the next year or so, and I eventually gave Mike whatever money the book made after I repaid expenses. I was so happy that I got to tell the bank to put ‘TULIP royalties’ on the subject line of the Cashier’s Check.
It was a fun project, and I’m so glad that we did it.
But the most important thing was that Mike kept writing. He wrote a second novel, found a real publisher and released The Reluctant Journey of Manfred Bugsbee in 2022. It’s a weird little fantasy-esque story. It has the same quiet, introspective vibe that Tulip has, but with a much bigger production budget. Mike really let his imagination take the lead on that one.
Last month, Mike released his third novel, and I think it’s my favorite thing that he’s done.
It’s called Glossy Eyed, Buzzy Fly and it’s a cool little crime novel/detective story mixed with his trademark insights into humanity itself. I think the best part of the book is all the unique names that he gives everyone (a trait he’s used all the way back to Tulip). The characters are already so fleshed out and real, but when they’re adorned with hyper specific and memorable names like Helva, or Awago, or Larsky, it gives them an extra layer that a lot of writers don’t think about. It’s especially helpful in a novel like this where characters disappear for a few chapters only to show up again later on when things take a turn.
My favorite books and movies have always been crime/noir, and reading how Mike plays around with the tropes, cliches, and themes of a classic genre filtered through his own philosophical worldview brings me immense joy. It reads like a stream of consciousness retelling of a fever dream, and the prose definitely takes a bit of getting used to. Once you have the rhythm down though, it immerses you in its world even deeper.
Glossy Eyed, Buzzy Fly is violent, cool, intriguing, and probably most importantly, it’s fun. It contains little asides about hardcore music (how Mike and I bonded in the first place), and drops casual lines like “...and I thought, blurted into my consciousness, kill nazis and beat up their friends. He looked at me and smiled, handsome devil, as if he heard my thoughts.” It’s a book that would feel right at home on the shelf between my James Ellroy books and Elmore Leonard novels.
If you’re not a Mike Farfel fan2 yet, allow me to be the one to convert you.
You can order Glossy Eyed, Buzzy Fly from Amazon, but if you really want to be cool, you should call your local bookstore and ask them to order it for you. The more people that call The King’s English or Weller Book Works or Ken Sanders asking about it, the better.
You can also buy it at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts gift shop. Mike has promised that if you buy it up there, he’ll buy you a coffee. A great book and a free cup of coffee? I might go get another copy just so I have one to loan out.
Another thing: Mike hasn’t committed to it yet, but I’m really trying to push him (bully if it comes to that) to have a book release party this fall. We have a spot ready to go, we just need Mike to say yes.
So if you know Mike, feel free to ask him when the party is. We’ll all collectively peer pressure him until it happens.
See you there.
This didn’t work out so great. People kept coming by, seeing the sign and asking “Where’s all the vinyl?” or “Why is it called Old News Records if you don’t have any records for sale?”
I also can’t tell you how much I love that he still owns and wears the shirt for my old band in official author portraits that accompany his interviews. It’s so fucking cool of him.