First Person, Last Straw: essays and other humorous emissions

by Tom Waters

First Person, Last Straw is a collection of psychotic rants, pub crawls, and run-ins with the wrong kind of people. Its tirades smoking, religion, dating, dining, infants, pizza, room-mates, cartoons, work, reality tv, 9/11, Dave Barry, driving, gaming and high school reunions. Notable celebrity interviews and reviews Opie and Anthony, porn star/one time candidate for California Governor Mary Carey, cartoonist Shannon Wheeler, cartoonist Jason Yungbluth and Bob Dylan. It's the author's most offensive material to date, and will most likely be banned pending publication. If you're holding this book right now, hide it in your shirt or it will be confiscated! Plus there's some poetry, but not much.

220 pages, Paperback

First published August 11, 2005

About the author

Author and essayist Tom Waters has been writing since the age of 13 when an English teacher encouraged him to continue journal entries and poems. After editing and contributing to his high school paper, Waters went on to write for The Buffalo State Record. After leaving college, he freelanced for The Buffalo News, ArtVoice, Night Life Magazine, Acid Logic, Film Fax, Alt, Buffalo Beat, Boy's Night Out, World Wide Freelancer, The Circle and Dream Forge. From 2000-2010 he wrote eleven books and co-edited a non-profit anthology (Voices From The Herd: An Anthology For Buffalo, NY) with authors Alycia Ripley and Cindy Mantai. To date, he has published eight books ranging from humorous rants and essays (Born Pissed, Zany Hijinx, First Person Last Straw, If They Can't Take A Joke, Slapstick & Superego and Mockery), conventional and modern poetry (Breathing Room Volume I: Free Verse, Breathing Room Volume II: Rhymes & Relics and Poke The Scorpion With A Sharp Stick), Hunter S. Thompson-esque bar reviews (Clean Up After Me, I'm Irish: A Cheap Degenerate's Guide To Buffalo Bars) and autobiography (the limited edition volume Icarus On The Mend: Memoirs Of A Manic Depressive). From 2002-2005, Waters was a frequent celebrity interviewer for ArtVoice, conducting and transcribing over three dozen interviews with Bret Easton Ellis, Carrie Spadter, Diane Meholick and many others). From 2000-2010, Waters wrote exotic club reviews, bar reviews, interviews and a weekly column (Big Words I Know By Heart) for Night Life Magazine. Since 2007, he's been a frequent bar reviewer for The Buffalo News' 'Club Watch' section, favoring corner taverns, pubs and bars over flashy downtown 'it' spots. From 2008-2012, he agreed to host a one hour comedy show ('The Big Words I Know By Heart Radio Hour'), which rapidly gained a cult fan base on iTunes as well as the web. In 2014, Waters launched a YouTube comedy show, 'Big Words I Know By Heart' along with 'Big Words Video Bonus' episodes. The author lives in the town of Clarence (a suburb outside of Buffalo), New York with his son Benjamin.