Set in Los Angeles in the early 90s, the novel chronicles the early days of an indie band as they meet, practice, make their first record, and get their first break/big gig. It’s also the story of the the flowering love affair between John and Jenny, the two charming if troubled guitarists/singers in the band. John is by day a misanthropic substitute teacher in the zany, sometimes horrific LA Unified School District; Jenny is an mysterious recovering child prodigy. Along the way, the couple and their bandmates make momentous discoveries about themselves and the Hollywood milieu in which they struggle to succeed, a world peopled by narcissistic actors, wannabe screenwriters, pretentious musicians, weirdo fans, crazy neighbors -- and an emu. The King of Good Intentions was originally to have been published by Henry Rollins’s 2.13.61 press in 1999. When Rollins decided henceforth to publish only his own work, Fredrick set the novel aside to focus on his musical and teaching career. Now it will finally make its long overdue debut.

The King of Good Intentions

Literature & Fiction

Fredrick, John Andrew

Literary

Verse Chorus Press

The King of Good Intentions II by Los Angeles songwriter and novelist John Andrew Fredrick picks up where we left off cliffhangingly, unsure whether John and Jenny, the brilliant and charming on-again/off-again couple who play in the fictitious fledgling indie band the Weird Sisters, will break up or not—as a couple or as the principal members of a getting-great band. Reconciled after an infidelity-that-can-be-explained or at least atoned for, King II opens as the Weird Sisters are on tour during the fateful day Kurt Cobain's suicide is announced. This undeniably hilarious sequel pits the little jangle pop band we're rooting for against an evil record label CEO'd by a guy who believes in aliens, various nefarious bookers and sound guys, drunken "punters," and lunatics and maniacs galore that Jenny, John, bassist Rob, and new and uproariously ridiculous new drummer Raleigh encounter on the zany road. A quintessential L.A. novel as well, King II finds John, the not-so-humble but endearing narrator, confronted by yet another dilemma of the femme fatale kind, as well as grappling with his deepening love for and attachment to Jenny, his beautiful girlfriend and bandmate and former piano prodigy. As II ends (with John getting a job as a P.A. on perhaps the most ludicrous video shoot in rock history), it sets up The Hollow Crown, a third installment—for Fredrick, without meaning to, and almost accidentally, has written a goddam trilogy.

The King of Good Intentions II: The Continuing and Really Rather Quite Hilarious Misadventures of an Indie Rock Band Called The Weird Sisters

Rare Bird Books, A Barnacle Book

Wes Anderson is now seen as one of America's greatest and most stylistic filmmakers. With movies like The Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Moonrise Kingdom, and The Darjeeling Limited, Anderson has solidified his place among the best and brightest of contemporary filmmakers. Anderson's early films, the films that rocketed him to stardom, are often written about separately and in contrast to his later films, in Fucking Innocent, John Andrew Frederick, who has taught Anderson's early work at the University of Southern California, examines his three earliest films and discusses each individually and as the burgeoning of the art of one of most talented of American directors. Frederick's criticism looks at Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and The Royal Tennenbaums in this fun and sharp critique.

Fucking Innocent: The Early Films of Wes Anderson

Humor & Entertainment

Movies

Rare Bird Books

Set in ancient Rome, Your Caius Aquilla is composed of hilarious letters between a doting and brave but quite bumbling legionary and his beautiful, zaftig wife, Lora. While Caius fights barbarians (and fights off―often unsuccessfully―homosexual feelings for his fellow soldiers), Lora cossets her to-her adorable (and very cruel) children, and fends off (read: encourages/takes) lovers of both sexes. An act of fate and mistaken identity eventually brings Caius home for good from campaign―where, as he and Lora truly love each other, he belongs. Despite the fact that handsome Caius Aquilla is a singularly brave Roman legionnaire, his brother-soldiers keep on having mishaps (fatal, no less) whenever he's around. A situation which doesn't endear him to them one little bit. One day, however, humping back to base camp with his platoon after a successful fray against some Gauls or Picts (he never seems to know which barbarians he's subduing), he spies a diminutive general being attacked by a swarm of killer wasps. Thinking fast, Caius throws himself upon the general (who, in attempting to swat away the mad, deadly insects, has fallen from his horse), thus sparing the superior officer a possible fatal fate. Caius thusly goes from pariah to golden boy, and shortly the hand of destiny (and a spelling error in the ranks' roll sheet) sends him home from campaigning―home to his to-say-the-least fanciful and beautiful wife Lora, where things really go off the rails. A satire of U.S. militarism and imperialism, Your Caius Aquilla is a gem of a novel and a smart and sometimes too real portrait of a society beholden to its military.

Your Caius Aquilla

United States

the knucklehead chronicles

Independently published

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