Jones and Me” and “People Fighting and Pepper Spray and Superheroes and…I Don’t Know,” the last title a quote from someone on the phone with 911. One of the most memorable moments of working on Heroes was a rather terrifying night I spent following RLSH Phoenix Jones in Seattle. I’m currently working on what I hope will be books 7 and 8. My book American Madness, which I think is my best, also spun out of this work (though it went in a very different direction). Since then, I’ve had five more books published. ![]() After many rejections from agents and publishers, I sold the book to Chicago Review Press in 2012. I also learned how to write a book and a lot about the writing process in general. More on that last city in a moment.ĭuring that process I met several people that I still consider to be friends today. I went out on patrol or participated in RLSH events in Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New York City, New Bedford, Vancouver, San Diego, Portland, and Seattle. For years I worked my day job(s) and spent many nights on patrol with people who had adopted their own homemade superhero personas, a secretive subculture of Real Life Superheroes (RLSH). ![]() Writing that remains one of the great adventures of my life. Phoenix said, “We’re going to stay for an hour and consolidate the block do you want to stay with us?” And I said, “No I do not!” So I went back to my hotel where my legs buckled, and gave way, and I fell onto the floor.It’s been almost ten years since my first book, Heroes in the Night: Inside the Real-life Superhero Movement (2013, Chicago Review Press) was published. Then they all started walking towards us, and they got to us, and one of them said, “You are seriously willing to do for this?” And Phoenix said, “Yeah.” And he said, “Well if you’re going to be so stupid as to die for this, then I guess we’re going to have to go home.” And they all dispersed and went home. I mean, I’ve done a lot of dangerous things in my line of work, but this felt really like this could be the end. So I thought I remembered from watching The Wire that a burner was a stolen mobile phone, but that didn’t sound contextually right at all-yeah, “if you don’t get off our block we’ll show you our stolen mobile phones?”-so I said to Phoenix, “What’s a burner?” Phoenix said, “It’s a gun.” And then they all came towards us, about four or five of these guys, all came towards us with their hands down their pockets, and then one of them whispered, “If you don’t get off our block, we’re going to kill you.”Īnd then they all gathered at the bottom and then Phoenix said to his superhero cohorts, “Do we stand or do we leave?” And they both went, “We stand.” And I still had my suitcase with me, actually.Įventually the crack dealer said to Phoenix, “If you don’t get off our block, we’re going to show you what the burner do.” Those were his very words. The superheroes all had bulletproof vests on-I had on like a T-shirt and a cardigan. I was obviously nodding in agreement with everything the crack dealers were saying, in the hope that if the shooting started they’d considerately remember to shoot around me. This group of guys were saying, “What are you doing coming here with your superhero costumes? This may be fun and games to you but it’s not fun and games to us. We turned the corner and it’s like three o’clock in the morning at Belltown, in Seattle, and it was like The Wire. I spent a bunch of time with Phoenix and with other real-life superheroes across America. ![]() Now, this isn’t really my idea, it’s the idea of a real-life superhero in Seattle called Phoenix Jones. My dangerous idea is “Can real-life superheroes surpass the police in crime-fighting?” ![]() Jon Ronson is the author of "The Psychopath Test" and "So You've Been Publicly Shamed," as well as the audio documentary series called "The Butterfly Effect"
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