Barstool Prophets is not just the coming-of-age story of a young writer working in a bar in New York's East Village, but also the chronicle of an iconic neighborhood and its wild spectrum of characters. From a love-addled bartender to a suicidal doorman to the junkies in Tompkins Square Park, they are a family, of sorts. In many cases, this is the only family some of them have, complete with all the joys and dysfunctions. The nameless narrator guides himself, the reader, and, in some ways, the entire neighborhood through the highs and lows of the past and into the present.
Rich Boy Cries For Momma
Set in Washington, D.C. during the turbulent 1980s, Rich Boy Cries for Momma is a coming of age novel told from the perspective of the good son turned teenage punk rocker. While the nice kids of the Washington elite bully and reject the teenager because of his dyslexia, the punk rock scene accepts him as he is. This fast-paced novel pulls us into the teenager s dangerous and erratic new world filled with violence and drugs, yet funny and touching. A disparate cast of characters from the rich, powerful and successful to the beaten, broken and besmirched become entangled in the punk rock subculture. We follow alongside the somewhere-in-between teenager as he wades through his learning disability and relationships that sometimes betray his perceptions, sometimes break his heart and sometimes save his life.
= a line break Rich Boy Cries for Momma features ink and paper drawings that capture the essence of D.C. during in the 1980s. The book also contains the lyrics of more than two dozen songs of the hard-core punk rock bands of that era.
Not yet published.
The Antagonist is a hybrid between memoir, history, and fiction. Everything in this book happened, but theis storyevents has have been rearranged, and, the characters have been compressed into archetypes to tell an easy- to- follow story. The book focuses on a community of unknown artists struggling in the New York City art market were money rules supreme. They each came to New York to pursue a dream and, with the support of their artistic family, must figure out their own paths and what success means for the individual. This is also meant to be an inspirational work that can act as a how-to manual for the creative mind.
Mellow Pages Library.
A live reading from the book by Ethan Minsker in Brooklyn.
Psycho Moto Zine: Promo
"Feels Like The First Time" 2018
Psycho Moto Zine
is a periodical published from the late 1980s to present, consisting mostly of short stories, reviews and artwork. This fanzine would later birth the Antagonist Art Movement, a consortium of like-minded artists, writers, filmmakers, etc. The magazine was originally published in 1989 under the name East Coast Exchange by Ethan H. Minsker. Copies were produced illicitly by friends who worked in copy shops during Minsker’s college years at School of Visual Arts in New York City and in Washington D.C. during Minsker’s summer breaks. By 1994 Psycho Moto Zine (PMZ) had transformed into an arts and literary fanzine with reviews that covered underground art, fanzines, films and music. This connection between different creative elements was the inspiration for what would later become the Antagonist Art Movement.
Barstool Prophets: book release party
NEW YORK, Dec. 12, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Barstool Prophets is a unique, fresh account of New York City's bar scene, one told from the other side of the bar: the bartender's side. The New York bar scene is usually told from the customer, mingling and drinking point of view, often glamorized and exaggerated. This witty novel exposes the drug-fueled, low-life secrets of Manhattan's bar scene through the eyes of a young bartender. Humor and melancholy collide to showcase a brutally honest narrative of this seemingly private world. Written by Ethan H. Minsker, Barstool Prophets shows how bartenders are the rock stars of the Lower East Side. When people say New York City is the cultural center of the universe, they actually mean a barstool in an unknown bar. Readers entertainingly learn what bartenders think about their patrons and what really happens when the sun sets. "The book follows the lives of a wild spectrum of characters in the 1990s and early 2000s, all of whom become the bartender's family, for good or bad," said Mr. Minsker. "As the characters grow and change, so does the Lower East Side. The narrator takes you through this evolution with frank humility and sympathy for the characters."