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Stop Requested
"A series of rueful, witty and occasionally heartwrenching stories about riding the bus in L.A. These are folks living on the margin between nothing and everything, stuck between Rodeo Drive and The Highway To Nowhere. Doyle's gift is in capturing those tiny dramatic moments that linger for a brief moment on the periphery of vision. He has a Zen-like ability to cut through the bullshit and get to the heart of the matter (and everything matters), he finds consequence in the inconsequential. He's Bukowski without the nasty streak. And he's real good. Highly recommended."
-- Marc Campbell, Dangerous Minds
"...a poet's gift for the carefully-chosen detail and a playwright's gift for dialogue that rings true yet has a sense of both menace and comedy, like in an Edward Albee play. This is 21st Century America. Someone who wants to understand this age 100 or 200 years from now should read this book. It's all here." -- Bill Shute, Kendra Steiner Editions
"The poet laureate of public transportation."
-- Josh Alan Friedman, author of Black Cracker
-- Marc Campbell, Dangerous Minds
"...a poet's gift for the carefully-chosen detail and a playwright's gift for dialogue that rings true yet has a sense of both menace and comedy, like in an Edward Albee play. This is 21st Century America. Someone who wants to understand this age 100 or 200 years from now should read this book. It's all here." -- Bill Shute, Kendra Steiner Editions
"The poet laureate of public transportation."
-- Josh Alan Friedman, author of Black Cracker
180 pages, Hardcover
First published April 8, 2010
23 people want to read
About the author
Wyatt Doyle
46 books18 followersWYATT DOYLE is ringmaster of New Texture, and he edits and designs most releases. His own books include STOP REQUESTED (illustrated by Stanley J. Zappa), DOLLAR HALLOWEEN, I NEED REAL TUXEDO AND A TOP HAT!, BUTY-WAVE IS NOW CLOSED FOREVER, and JORGE AMAYA DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE. A retrospective of his photography has been presented by Gallery 30 South in Pasadena, CA.
With Robert Deis, he edits the Men's Adventure Library series, exploring vintage pulp fiction, art, and history. With Jimmy Angelina, he created THE LAST COLORING BOOK and THE LAST COLORING BOOK ON THE LEFT, as well as BE ITALIAN. Together with Hal Glatzer and Norman von Holtzendorff, he produced THINGS THAT WERE MADE FOR LOVE, collecting the songsheet art of Sydney Leff.
He assisted in the publication of Georgina Spelvin's memoir, THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT, and published Josh Alan Friedman's BLACK CRACKER and TELL THE TRUTH UNTIL THEY BLEED via his Wyatt Doyle Books imprint. He administers the creative estate of Rev. Raymond Branch, and curates RevBranch.com.
His screenplay with Jason Cuadrado, I'M HERE FOR YOU, was produced as DEVIL MAY CALL. A member of The Stanley J. Zappa Quartet, a recording, THE STANLEY J. ZAPPA QUARTET PLAYS FOR THE SOCIETY OF WOMEN ENGINEERS, has been released.
With Robert Deis, he edits the Men's Adventure Library series, exploring vintage pulp fiction, art, and history. With Jimmy Angelina, he created THE LAST COLORING BOOK and THE LAST COLORING BOOK ON THE LEFT, as well as BE ITALIAN. Together with Hal Glatzer and Norman von Holtzendorff, he produced THINGS THAT WERE MADE FOR LOVE, collecting the songsheet art of Sydney Leff.
He assisted in the publication of Georgina Spelvin's memoir, THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT, and published Josh Alan Friedman's BLACK CRACKER and TELL THE TRUTH UNTIL THEY BLEED via his Wyatt Doyle Books imprint. He administers the creative estate of Rev. Raymond Branch, and curates RevBranch.com.
His screenplay with Jason Cuadrado, I'M HERE FOR YOU, was produced as DEVIL MAY CALL. A member of The Stanley J. Zappa Quartet, a recording, THE STANLEY J. ZAPPA QUARTET PLAYS FOR THE SOCIETY OF WOMEN ENGINEERS, has been released.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
May 8, 2014
This book is excellent. I chose this book because I saw it whilst walking through a bookstore. Since I too live in Los Angeles and use the public transportation system here, I was very interested in reading Doyle's book. I myself have had a fair share of outrageous experiences related to the bus and thought it would be very interesting to read this book. The book itself is just a collection of short true stories and experiences which happened to Wyatt Doyle while using the slightly unorganized and mildly dangerous LA Metro. My favorite line from this book is "Now at the tail-end of a lengthy commute home from a hard day at an unstable job working for a bunch of pricks, it's quite a thing to be chase away from the bus stop so as not to disturb the preparation of a ballroom party for overprivileged assholes." This is my favorite line because it is completely true about the celebrity crap part of Hollywood. Coincidentally, I too was caught in the same predicament at one point on Hollywood Boulevard in front of the Chinese Theater trying to get to the bus stop on the other side of pop-culture madness, but was made to go around or turn back around for the stop before the one which lay ahead. Wyatt Doyle's writing style in this book is very interesting. It has many elements of humor and is filled with captivating detail. This was a great quick and fun read. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who uses public transportation, and even to those who just enjoy reading about the many mishaps of LA.
March 9, 2014
I decided to check out Wyatt Doyle’s book STOP REQUESTED because I knew that his indie book company New Texture had published one of the most fascinating autobiographies I’ve ever read: BLACK CRACKER, by writer/musician Josh Alan Friedman. I wasn’t sure what to expect from a book about riding the bus in Los Angeles. But I figured that if Doyle was cool enough to be Friedman’s publisher, his own book might be cool. In short, it is. The bus is the vehicle than connects a series of insightful and lyrically-written vignettes about various people Doyle talked with or observed on trips to and from West Hollywood. Some are the type of people who inspired the nickname “Hollyweird.” Most are just regular folks. And, that is where Doyle’s talent as a writer really shines through. The pieces of conversations, personal details and visual details he relays about his fellow passengers (and some of the bus drivers) work together to create poignant reminders that all human beings are interesting and unique in their own way and that most are good people who are just trying to get by. Doyle’s writing style is simple but somehow magical, almost poetic. That style is perfectly complimented by the simple but evocative line drawings by Stanley J. Zappa that are used as illustrations throughout the book. Bottom line: STOP REQUESTED is a literary trip that’s well worth taking.
May 6, 2015
Wyatt Doyle reveals, in a straightforward and poignant fashion, the humanity inside each of us.
Due to isolation, culture, hunger, addiction, or any combination of such, there are those who think with a different level of coherence, at least compared to “polite company.” They are too easily condemned as crazy, shunned as if their life would somehow infect ours. We as a society prefer to ignore or avoid those we perceive as different or less well off.
But in this gallery of wry, sad, funny, lonely, lost, found, and authentic vignettes, Doyle communicates. He is an approachable everyman. He listens, he prompts, he remembers, and receives a wealth of insight from the gratified other. Some episodes are his own interactions with others, some are told from the drivers.
Each life is divergent, sometimes painfully so. What may be of passing interest is vital to someone else and, for a moment, to you as well. If you’ve ridden public transportation, you will nod in agreement because yup, you’ve seen someone like that before.
If there is a lesson, you must teach it to yourself, or better yet, go on these same everyday adventures. If there is a moral, you must make one up. Yet as you pass each snippet, you may become a little more complete.
Due to isolation, culture, hunger, addiction, or any combination of such, there are those who think with a different level of coherence, at least compared to “polite company.” They are too easily condemned as crazy, shunned as if their life would somehow infect ours. We as a society prefer to ignore or avoid those we perceive as different or less well off.
But in this gallery of wry, sad, funny, lonely, lost, found, and authentic vignettes, Doyle communicates. He is an approachable everyman. He listens, he prompts, he remembers, and receives a wealth of insight from the gratified other. Some episodes are his own interactions with others, some are told from the drivers.
Each life is divergent, sometimes painfully so. What may be of passing interest is vital to someone else and, for a moment, to you as well. If you’ve ridden public transportation, you will nod in agreement because yup, you’ve seen someone like that before.
If there is a lesson, you must teach it to yourself, or better yet, go on these same everyday adventures. If there is a moral, you must make one up. Yet as you pass each snippet, you may become a little more complete.
July 27, 2014
Wyatt Doyle has turned the mundane bus ride into a study on human behavior. And he, himself, is one of the participants.
Having just finished STOP REQUESTED, my first impulse is to hop on a plane to LA, stalk the author and force him to take me where he's been. I want to ride the buses. I need to know that his appalling, tragic, impossible, and uplifting characters exist. And I need to know what has become of them.
I love this book.
Having just finished STOP REQUESTED, my first impulse is to hop on a plane to LA, stalk the author and force him to take me where he's been. I want to ride the buses. I need to know that his appalling, tragic, impossible, and uplifting characters exist. And I need to know what has become of them.
I love this book.
December 20, 2010
Loved it. 'Stop Requested' book of vignettes about the nutty, interesting characters that one may meet while riding public buses around Los Angeles, CA.
August 10, 2011
Really a great read! Short little (true) stories about travelling around LA on public transportation. You can only imagine...
August 11, 2016
If you have ever in your life ridden on an inner city bus you have to read this. Every large city has it's people that are down on their luck or just plain not right in the head. You will recognize some of the types in here. Wyatt Doyle's wit comes through in the way he puts things that have happened on his bus rides. Interesting conversations and events that will make you smile and laugh. I look forward to more books by this author. I knew him when we were kids and he had a great wit then and certainly has not lost it but has enhanced it with age.
August 10, 2016
Great read. Totally captured the essence of LA life. This guy is a talented writer.
December 7, 2018
First I thought...what ?!?!? Then I kept reading. I mean, I met this guy on Myspace and he must have said said something intelligent because I started looking at his page. One day, I asked him "how'd we meet?" He said you were added to the "Cool New People" section so I added you (I wanna say he said "cause you were hot" - Yes, I like that). Then he said shortly thereafter I met a woman/girl who's now my girlfriend.
DAMMIT, now I like this guy because he isn't offering me dick. I asked him what he did for a living and he told me at which point, feeling very smart I said "that's the job you tell your mom but your dad really knows you _____(something "pornish") . He replied with an "lol" or something (definitely NOT "ROGLMFAO" because that shit is grounds for an immediate
"UNfriend" or whatever Myspace called it.... DELETE maybe).
So I read what I thought was "pull stop" now I know it was "Stop Requested". I'd never read anything like it. I wondered where it was going. It seemed mundane and ordinary and like a waste BUT I never forgot it. I think I know why no, at least to me which is what the world revolves arounf anyhow so whatever.
All that gibberish to say you're a "cool (old) person" . AND thanks for never correcting my spelling, run-on sentences and grammatical menagerie.... I like to talk and NOT get bogged down on noun/pronoun agreement ;-)
DAMMIT, now I like this guy because he isn't offering me dick. I asked him what he did for a living and he told me at which point, feeling very smart I said "that's the job you tell your mom but your dad really knows you _____(something "pornish") . He replied with an "lol" or something (definitely NOT "ROGLMFAO" because that shit is grounds for an immediate
"UNfriend" or whatever Myspace called it.... DELETE maybe).
So I read what I thought was "pull stop" now I know it was "Stop Requested". I'd never read anything like it. I wondered where it was going. It seemed mundane and ordinary and like a waste BUT I never forgot it. I think I know why no, at least to me which is what the world revolves arounf anyhow so whatever.
All that gibberish to say you're a "cool (old) person" . AND thanks for never correcting my spelling, run-on sentences and grammatical menagerie.... I like to talk and NOT get bogged down on noun/pronoun agreement ;-)
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews