By Allan Sko

It can be exhausting navigating the choppy waters of Life, forever battered by those fickle winds of change, the metaphorical albatross hanging limp round neck, adding its guilty burden to your own. As such, when you spy something fun and light-hearted in your daily orbit, it’s a good idea to grab onto that rock for dear life.

Enter Might As Well Be Me, which acts less like a rock, in this somewhat tortured metaphor, and more a full-blown luxury oasis. It’s a brutally honest, elegantly light, and downright hilarious read and will undoubtedly play a part in lessening the load of what ails ya. For a few hours, at least.

A Gen X memoir fulled by vinyl

Might As Well Be Me is the memoir of a shockingly young-looking 52-year-old Canberra-based vinyl record dealer, Shane Stark, and plays out like an autobiographical rendition of High Fidelity (though, sadly, with somewhat less Zoë Kravitz). But what it lacks in Kravitz, it more than makes up for in crazy.

Adhering to the ‘write what you know’ mantra, Shane recounts moments both significant and salacious, using beguiling vinyl records of his past as time-stamps. In 50 bite-sized chapters, each linked to a particular album, a glimpse is given into the world of a Gen-X guy who, for the most part, fell into his unconventional life, including the last 10 years as a vinyl record dealer and obsessive.

It is, frankly speaking, a brilliant idea for a book that Shane has expertly actualised and, continuing to frankly speak, I hate him for it.

Themes in the book include the fads of youth, Scottish escapades, Costa Rican and Caribbean adventures, encounters with celebs, memorable gigs, life as a semi-professional poker player (he once played with actor James Woods), flatmate horror stories, and some genuinely hilarious attempts at romance, including a particularly noteworthy encounter with a triple-widowed Canadian redhead.

Eighteen of the book’s chapters focus on Shane’s life on the road, buying and selling vinyl. As he says in the book, the characters he met along the way had him laughing, crying, or reeling in horror, sometimes within the space of an hour. With Blackadder-esque sarcasm and wit, he relates observations of, and dealings with, the weird, wonderful, and wacky gamut of homo sapiens who came into his record-dealing purview.

It is a book in which the author continually asks, ‘How the hell did I get here?!’ in an increasingly desperate and/or resigned fashion. The answer, for the most part, alludes him. But it made for a great book title.

Music, laughs and plenty of heart

I asked Shane who he thinks Might As Well Be Me will appeal to.

“It will resonate with most people because so much of our lives—events, memorable moments, highs and lows, and so forth— can be traced through the music of the time.

“Music helps embed our memories into our souls, whether we’re aware of it at the time or not,” he says, poignantly.

“Ultimately, I’ve written a, hopefully, hilarious little book; one that can be quickly devoured, even by the most phone-addicted, focus-challenged millennial (most chapters are less than three pages).”

Fear not, stupid millennial. Old Man Stark is only teasing.

“But seriously, I’m pretty confident it will strike a chord with vinyl record and comedy lovers alike.”

Laughs aplenty though there be, the book also tugs at heart in a very different way.

“My favourite part is the last chapter on my late brother Craig, to whom the book is dedicated,” Shane reveals. “I wasn’t initially going to include a chapter on him, as the book is almost solely comedy. But ultimately, it felt like the right way to sign off.

“Much of Craig’s short life was defined by mayhem and tragedy,” Shane continues. “But there were also so many beautiful, crazy, and happy memories of him. Again, many of them linked to music.

“In the end, it was a no-brainer to include him. Besides, he would have had a go at me if he didn’t get his own chapter.”

There’s that pesky, unpredictable Life thing at it again. Aye, those seas be choppy, alright; those winds a few knots fiercer than before. But with Shane Stark as our wayward captain… I reckon Everything’s Gonna Be Alright.

Meet the author!

And if that last part has made you want to meet the author and give him a big hug (and help soothe his pain a skerrick by grabbing a signed copy of the book while you’re at it), then you, my good friend, are in luck.

There will be book launch events at Paperchain Bookshop at Manuka on Thursday, 30 November, at 5pm and Dirty Jane’s Vintage Emporium on Saturday, 2 December, at 11am.

See you there.

Might As Well Be Me is published by Pegasus Elliot MacKenzie (U.K.) and available online at Pegasus Publishers, Amazon and Booktopia.

To RSVP to the Paperchain Bookshop, Manuka launch:
info@paperchainbookstore.com.au

To RSVP to the Dirty Jane’s Emporium, Fyshwick launch:
johnnythefoxrecords@gmail.com