L.A.’s underground celebrates the life of punk iconoclast John Albert

Once upon a time, the collected works of music journalists, film critics and other cultural correspondents appeared with regularity on the literary landscape. “Almost as soon as John died,” Donnelly said, “I started thinking about the responsibility to preserve his writing legacy.” Donnelly approached their mutual friend Iris Berry, co-founder of Punk Hostage Press, about the project. He definitely left us too soon.” It’s only fitting, then, that “Running With the Devil” will receive a grand, old-school book launch at Wacko Soap Plant from 4 to 7 p.m. on Sunday, June 30. As a recovering addict, he found salvation in sport: first and most famously through baseball, which he wrote about in “The Wrecking Crew: The Really Bad News Griffith Park Pirates.” Writing about a team of recovering addicts, washed-up rockers and miscellaneous oddballs, he captured something magical about L.A. “He made sense of Los Angeles in a sort of Didion-esque and Eve Babitz way,” Donnelly said. As my mom would say, ‘It’s definitely a mitzvah.’” Join Iris Berry, Joe Donnelly and friends at Wacko Soap Plant, 4633 Hollywood Blvd., on Sunday, June 30, from 3 to 7 p.m. Jim Ruland is the author of the novel “Make It Stop” and “Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall of SST Records.”