5/5/26. Shows is thrilled to be featured in the May issue of @Xperience Monthly Magazine. He was recently interviewed by Liam Sweeny regarding his book, “The Footless Girls Of Camp C”. This was a great coincidence as Shows had simultaneously prepared to place an advertisement in the magazine for the book. The interview can be found on page 52  and the ad is on page 45.

Thanks to Rob Smittix for the great ad design work and thanks to Liam and Art Fredette for thinking enough of the book to warrant the interview. 

For more information go to www.showsleary,com, or on the Facebook @showsleary or @toolbelt jedis or even on the Youtube at showsleary7631 or hit Shows up at any of his upcoming concerts….freakin’ guy is everywhere playing bass. 

To order the book, go to Amazon for paperback, Kindle and Audible versions. The paperback is available worldwide on all Spotify sites. The Audio version is 21 hours of hair-raising and thought-provoking musical, jungle and military adventure. You can even get the paperback through your local library as it is in the upper Hudson Library System.

We invite you to get the magazine and read the interview but below is the interview in its entirety.

ARRX: Tell us a little bit about yourself. You’re the main character; let us get a sketch.

The Footless Girls Of Camp C  (Amazon paperback, Kindle and Audible…and your library) is autobiographical, though fictionalized to some extent. I was just a boring, normal kid. Had little interest in school. I liked athletics and shop classes, and I especially liked soccer, boxing, and wrestling, though I wasn’t really good at them. In 11th grade I got it into my mind that I had to become a Marine. That was 1971. The Viet Nam War was still going on. I was heavily influenced by television news and newspapers, which was the only way to get news. Of course I didn’t realize how slanted it was. I didn’t smoke pot and it wasn’t until my senior year that I got into drinking beer, but seldom liked getting drunk. I enlisted in the Marines in July of ‘72 but unfortunately I hurt a knee pretty bad in a soccer game a week later. That misfortune ended up requiring surgery. The Marine recruiter told me to get lost, try the Navy. That was a stunning and life changing reality. In 1973 I went to the Watkins Glen Summer Jam. The Grateful Dead really spoke to me for some reason. I had good jobs in construction and for the time was making good money so I travelled all over the country in 73-74. I got into LSD at this point. They played four concerts in ‘75, but all in San Fran, so I didn’t go. I loved solo camping and became very good with maps, compass and bushcraft. I still liked fighting, so I went to a boxing club and a martial-arts dojo in Albany. Turns out I was really tough, aggressive, and a quick and thorough learner – and I didn’t mind getting hurt. A guy came to the dojo and was impressed with my skills. He kept on the down low, but found out where I lived and he followed me for several weeks to work and my nighttime activities. I was never aware he was scoping me out. He liked what he saw and one afternoon in 1975 he came to my house, and he made me an offer to join an off the books, paramilitary army, what we call mercenaries or contractors these days. Soon I agreed and before I knew it, in the spring of ’76, I was on a jet to somewhere and a great adventure, which the book goes into great detail to describe.

RRX: You have a book out. Can you tell us a little bit about it? What genre? And if you have thirty seconds to tell me about it, what am I going to hear? 

It is a military/musical memoir. Contradictory? Perhaps. Turns out I was in a jungle in an unknown country with 40 men, all military veterans. I was the only man without military experience from Vietnam and even Korea. I had a lot to catch up on, but I did. We trained for the mission, went on the mission and completed it, though not without many difficulties and struggles. The guys gave me an insulting nickname on day one of training camp. Possibly my proudest moment in the adventure was when I earned, and I mean EARNED, a nickname that I am still very proud of and still use in my day to day music adventures. Recalling my life as a Dead Head was always running in my mental background.

RRX: A good novel has the ability to create scenes that challenge a reader, stop them

cold and make their breath ragged. What goes into a scene that is specifically intended

to stop a reader in their tracks?

I go into great detail in battle scenes to really bring to the reader the physical, mental and emotional aspects of what is happening. I especially like to bring in all of the senses that are affecting a scene. I also find that humor breaks the tension. I like to think I can be somewhat funny and sarcastic.

RRX: We all have heroes. But our heroes sometimes needed heroes and none came to the surface. We’re looking at you, Ernest Hemingway. The point is, sometimes a writer’s heroes shouldn’t be put on such a high pedestal. Who’s your hero, and what kind of influence would they be if they were sitting in your kitchen?

Since I was surrounded by battle hardened veterans who took the care to teach me how to work, I have to say all the men in my platoon were heroes to me. Though a few really stand out. Our leader was the most intense, ball-breaking asshole you can imagine towards me, (think Full Metal Jacket and Drill Instructor Hartman), and I was really bummed for a long time on the mission but I knew he was teaching me how to survive and how to protect my teammates. By the end of the mission I would have died to protect any of them and I’d like to think that they thought the same about me.

RRX: I don’t know too many writers that don’t listen to music when they’re writing. So what’s on your playlist? Or does it vary by the story? What makes it to every one?

The music of the Grateful Dead was with me throughout the adventure and it was as critical a part of the book as anything else. I would like to think that someday Dead Heads will try to find all the references to the Dead that are in the book. Some are not so subtle but many require a deep understanding of the Dead culture. In the day to day writing I did not listen to music, I found it distracting. Though a thirty minute Dark Star on low volume helped once in a while, such as the 48 minute version from Rotterdam, Netherlands from 5/11/72.

RRX: Swearing. It’s a fine line, right? Some writers won’t swear at all, claiming that a writer doesn’t actually need to do that to make people feel what they’re feeling. Where do you stand on swearing?

Oh geez. Military? Practically every sentence was started or completed with swearing, and it is constant through the book. Every insult imaginable was hurled at me and I never reacted harshly or with hate. I just gave it back to them and mostly in a humorous way.  I knew they were training and testing me and I took it as a point of pride that I could handle it.