In 1986, David Bowie was sweeping world stages on his “Serious Moonlight” tour. Unable to afford tickets to the Portland, Oregon show, Palahniuk and his friends posted up in an alleyway a block away from the venue, guzzling beers and listening to the rockstar and his band rehearse “Young Americans” repeatedly during soundcheck (per Esquire). A decade later, when it was time to pitch his first draft of “Fight Club,” Bowie gave the young author an encore performance that delivered a knockout punch to the competition.
In 1996, Palahniuk was scheduled to meet editor Gerry Howard at a local bar with a copy of his book that he was determined to get published. Only one problem: Every other aspiring author in the greater Portland area was there with the same intention. However, a solution presented itself in the form of a jukebox in the corner of the room. Palahniuk later shared, “I couldn’t get near Gerry Howard so I asked the bartender for $10 in quarters, and I fed them into the jukebox and selected the same song to play forty times. It was ‘Young Americans,’ a song I could listen to forever on a desert island. Most people were ticked off. Soon everyone left, and I had Gerry to myself. Eventually, I sold him ‘Fight Club’ and 15 more books. To this day, he doesn’t remember that song, playing over and over and the haters hating me as they abandoned the bar” (via the Independent).
