Shoganai author Servo Jefferson talks about his “year on tour”

zine-cover-shoganaiZine author Servo Jefferson recently released Shoganai, an epic tale of love, punk rock, and teaching English in Japan. It’s an amazingly well-written story which delves deeply into the titular concept of “shoganai,” which is Japanese for “nothing can be done.” Essentially, Jefferson gave himself over to it, allowing a focus “upon oneself and one’s inability to change the external world.” This is good, as Jefferson encounters poor work conditions, bizarre roommates, and being stranded in unfamiliar parts of Japan. The positives outweigh the negatives, however, and it’s all handled with good humor and aplomb.

Jefferson will soon be going on what might be the longest book tour ever to promote Shoganai, starting in January. He was cool enough to do an e-mail interview with Rock Star Journalist regarding the tour and Shoganai.

What exactly are your plans for the coming year? I know you’re planning on going “on tour for all of 2011,” as you put it. What does that entail? What’s the reasoning behind it?

So my plan for 2011 is to go on a year-long book tour. I have no idea what it is going to entail. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, and traveling is of the utmost importance to me. Somewhere in October — around the time I reached the point where I had applied for over 200 jobs in 2010 with no success, I was really down about things, how direction-less my life had become.

I thought it through in my head, “If I could do anything what would it be? Travel to see all my friends all over the world.” I realized that if I could get a job, I’d get maybe two good weeks of travel in in the next year. I like moving around, and the thought of being so tied down was just horrible. I’ve been unemployed for like 40 months at this point, and have been making most of my living just flipping vinyl records. It dawned on me that I needed to sell the valuable stuff in my personal collection, take the money, and run. To hell with growing up and the debt I’m in. I want more life. Possessions aren’t important; experience is. At first I just wanted to go south for the winter, but the idea kept snowballing.

At the same time, it dawned on me that maybe I should try to accomplish something tangible with my travels. I’d always wanted to be a writer, but did not want to suffer the same pratfalls I’d seen every young person who tried to make at as a writer suffer. I knew in my early twenties I wasn’t ready, hadn’t developed to the point where I knew I could craft quality instead of just grasping at straws, but recently, I realized I had grown to a point where I knew I could do this. I decided to blog daily about the trip on my website, but then it occurred to me I had a lot of really good stories I had accrued over the years.

So, I started work on my memoirs at the age of 27! Part one, Shoganai, about my post-college time in Japan came out a few weeks ago and I’m busy with part two, Unemployee of the Month, which is about, well, being unemployed and taking as much advantage of it as possible. So, now I have these zines, and I’m going travelling, why not just make it a book tour? And if it’s going to be a book tour, why not make that in and of itself something worth writing about? Why not make it a challenge? Tour for a whole year — no home, no rent. Taking the DIY ethics of a lifetime in punk rock scenes and applying them to being a writer seems way cooler than getting a job! I’m still figuring out how I’m going to do this, but I will be doing small spoken word bits at shows and am even planning to tour with some bands over the course of the year. I’m also looking into zine culture for the first time and trying to find places and people that could help me. My only goals are to have fun, be read, and make friends.

So, have you a route planned out, or are you just playing this by ear? Like, do you have certain places you plan to hit at certain times because of people who are putting you up and whatnot?

Well, I have the first six months roughly mapped out. I’m gonna head from Iowa City to Denver because I have friends who want rides there. Then, I’m taking one of them to Lawrence, Kansas. From there, I’ll head south to Oklahoma and Texas (the only states besides Hawaii I’ve never been to!). Then, I’ll head to the west coast, go up it to Canada, drive across Canada, come back down to Iowa for a second and make my way to New Hampshire to start a tour with pop punk sensations Billy Raygun in June. After that, the plans are hazy, but I’m sure they’ll become more clear.

I don’t really have to be anywhere at any time. I’ve traveled a bunch before and made a lot of friends from message boards whom I’ve stayed with. One of the things I did when formulating the plan was make a list of cities and the number of nights I could feasibly crash with friends there. The list was over 50 cities and 200 days. Shouldn’t be too hard to stretch that to 365, especially if I can hop on more tours. I have dreams and schemes regarding the second six months that are totally grandiose and likely unrealistic, but the plan is to shoot for the stars.

Are you familiar with the book Evasion at all? I ask because this reminds me a lot of that.

Haha, definitely. I didn’t read that book ’til I was almost done with college but it really helped reignite the dying punk rock flame within. Great read, everyone should check it out. I actually spent some time with “Mac Evasion” a few years ago. I made it a point to book him for a speaking gig so I could meet the dude. He’s totally nothing like you’d expect and has been through some crazy shit. One of the most articulate and interesting people I have ever met. His real world persona still refuses to openly cop to writing the book (with somewhat good reason) and the time I did talk to him about it everything had to be framed “hypothetically,” even though it’s not a huge secret who wrote Evasion. Dude’s a great writer and super passionate. He gave me some of the best writing advice I’ve ever gotten that I rarely follow. This tour won’t be nearly as punk as Evasion cuz I actually like have a car and a few bucks, but if it weren’t for “Mac” and his book there’s no way in hell I would have ever thought to do this.

That’s fantastic. What do you have planned for your speaking stuff?

Well, I really don’t have anything firmly planned yet, just some vague ideas. Don’t know when I’ll do my first show. There’s a few I’m trying to jump on. But the idea is to do a short spoken word thing (5-10 minutes) — just go on between some bands, introduce myself and the idea of tour, tell a funny story or two, do the “buy my zines” shtick and get off the stage. I’m not super worried about it, I did years of speech and theater stuff in high school. If things ever go sour on stage, I’ll just tell some off-color jokes and insult the general intelligence of the audience.

Thanks for your time doing this. It’s been fun.

Word. Thank you so much.

You can buy Shogani at Jefferson’s website for $3.50 postage paid, and follow him on Twitter (@servoFTIdotC). If you’re lucky, he’ll write you a note on the inside front cover (or maybe not). Evasion, the epic tale of freegan living through left-handing and dumpster diving, can be purchased from CrimethInc’s website for $5.