Monday, September 13, 2010

HULA HOOPS


So WHAT THE FUCK is with this latest appalling literary trend (and I use the term “literary” VERY LOOSELY) of adding vampires or zombies to everything these days including famous works of literature and historical figures? LOL! Didn’t we learn ANYTHING from the HULA HOOP? That fads are… well, FADS! Flashes in the pans! Like those 3-D movie glasses they had in the Fifties. (Oh SHIT! They’ve come back as well!) What’s next? EISENHOWER & ZOMBIES IN 3-D! Why is it soooo fucking difficult, nay, IMPOSSIBLE for those gatekeepers in charge of our words to believe and understand that the public wants something more than the latest HULA HOOP? Are we indeed living in an IDIOCRACY after all? My brief tenure in the belly of the beast (meaning the MFA program in Creative Writing) taught me that if you want to be published today and actually have someone read your book that you have to familiarize yourself with what’s on the bestseller lists, what kinds of books are reviewed in PEOPLE MAGAZINE, what authors are on the important talk shows (and of course the EVEREST of talk shows, as far as writers are concerned, OPRAH!). And it goes without saying that the right agent who has carefully analyzed the marketplace, the current and projected trends, and who has the New York and Hollywood connections is indispensable and in fact a requirement today if the fledgling writer hopes to get ANYWHERE with their writing career outside of some shitty no-advance no-promotion black-hole press. And now as if it wasn’t hard enough for an unknown to get published there’re these latest bestsellers-soon-to-be-major-motion-pictures:

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (!!!)


What’s NEXT? I mean, what are we as serious wri… OH FUCK IT!!!

If ya can’t beat ‘em…


GEORGE WASHINGTON: WOLFMAN

Valley Forge was a dark time for General Washington. Not because it was a harsh frigid winter, nor that it was the lowest point for the rebels in the war against England, but because when the moon was full George Washington roamed the frozen landscape as a werewolf.


ZOMBIE MOBY DICK

“Thar she blows!” cried the deckhand, a man of such insignificance that nobody including Ahab bothered to learn his name.

“The great white whale!” said the yeoman.

“But… somethin’s diff’rent about ‘er. She… She looks…”

“She’s a zombie!” blustered Ahab.

And it was true, the horrible leviathan’s flesh, although white from a distance, became a sickly pale green the closer she swam to the Pequod.

“There’s pieces o’ whaleflesh peelin’ right off ‘er!” said Hucklesworth, an able seaman.

“An’ I ken see me ‘er bloody ribs!” said another.

"An' how come we call 'er Moby Dick if she's a she?"

“Beat ta quarters!” commanded Ahab. And as he stared into the lifeless glazed-over black eyes of the mindless bloodthirsty brain-hungry beast his blood ran cold.


FINNEGANS WAKE & ZOMBIES

Because to explain why the residue is, was, or will not be, according to the eighth axiom, proceeded with, namely, since ever apart that gossan duad, so sure as there’s a patch on a pomelo, this yam ham in never live could, the shifting about of the lassies, the tug of love of their lads ending with a great deal of merriment, hoots, screams, scarf drill, cap fecking, ejaculations of aurinos, reechoable mirthpeals and general thumbtonosery (Myama’s a yaung yaung cauntry), one must reckon with the sudden and gigantesquesque appearance unwithstandable as a general election in Barado’s bearskin amongst the brawlmiddle of this village childergarten of the lovely longsuffering laird of Lucanhof who’s been turned into a zombie.


(this is an excerpt from my new novel: LIVE NUDE GIRLS)

Saturday, September 11, 2010


What kind of world is it where Nicholas Sparks compares himself to Aeschylus and instead of everyone rolling on the floor laughing their fucking heads off he gets bestsellers and movie deals? Instead of being condemned as a shameless pandering hack he becomes a role model for aspiring writers and the cynosure for literary agents and publishers! And am I the only one who can see where this will lead?


See Spot.

See Spot run.
See Spot lift his leg.

See Spot pee on the rug.

OUT damned Spot!

See Jane.

See Jane meet Dick.

See Sally meet Harry.

See Dick and Jane and Harry and Sally have a foursome.


It used to be that the artists (not all of them but a few of them at least) were like bold explorers of new undiscovered worlds. But now the worlds are strip malls and the writers are the next franchise waiting to move in next to Jiffy Lube®. In theory being a writer is one of the most egalitarian of artistic pursuits. All you need is a pen and some paper (and being literate helps but is not required by today’s publishing industry). So one would think that with all these writers out there writing away we’d see all this amazingly different stuff emanating from all these different creative minds bursting with fresh ideas and new perspectives… NOT!
Everyone and their brother are writing like… well, everyone and their brother trying to be the next Nick Sparks or Dan Brown. FML! I want to be surprised! I want to be outraged! I want to fall in love again! And not with the slick-packaged plastic love object designed by the in-house marketing department. I read somewhere that Francis Ford Coppola thought about changing the title of Apocalypse Now because he thought people wouldn’t know what Apocalypse meant! But he was the ARTIST for Christ sake! Call it whatever you want and let the public pick up on it! The job of the artist is to do their thing and NOT worry about the fucking public and the job of the fucking public is to WANT to be inspired by the artists. But now it’s just one big factory that produces sleeping pills in the form of books and movies and paintings so the masses can sleep more soundly and undisturbed! Don’t fret precious I’m here. Step away from the window, go back to sleep