DUCT TAPE SHORTS!

Inspired by an early Soundgarden video, custom made and modeled by the artist.

CLUB HELL

The whole idea of Hell being the center of EVIL is all wrong. Okay, let’s go back to Heaven before the Fall. There’s Lucifer the brightest of all God’s angels, and one day he just gets fed up with sitting around all day worshipping God. He says FUCK THAT! This is BORRRRING! And he decides to split the scene and start his own Heaven. But God owns all the good property and Lucifer has to go way down south before he can find something that he can afford. And he finds the perfect place, except that being in the deep south it’s REALLY FUCKIN’ HOT! But what the hell, he says, at least the rent’s cheap. And he puts up a sign that says HEAVEN SOUTH but then all these high-powered lawyers for God show up and tell him that the name “Heaven^®” is copyrighted and they threaten a whopper of a lawsuit so he says fuck you and he puts up a new sign that says HELL. But then he looks around and he notices that he’s the only one there and that it’s kinda lonely, and he thinks about all those suck-ups in Heaven all kissing God’s almighty ass. Good riddance, he says! He doesn’t want any of those losers in Hell, and then he remembers one of God’s side projects, that place called Earth at the far end of some galaxy with all these HUMANS on it. Maybe when they die he can get them to come to Hell instead of Heaven. After all, they don’t know what Heaven’s really like… walkin’ on eggshells all the time so you don’t piss off God. And God is old and he goes to bed real early, like by 9 pm even on weekends right after Lawrence Welk so there’s NO NIGHTLIFE AT ALL and the TV sucks with just three shows—Lawrence Welk, Little House on the Prairie, and Hee-Haw. And as for music… GIVE ME A BREAK! MUZAK and elevator music. Heaven’s like this great big dentist office without the Novocaine! And there’s nothing to do except worship the old man. Day after day year after year millennium after millennium… I mean, the place is a PIT! Yet EVERYBODY wants to go to Heaven because they have this awesome PR firm and everywhere you look there’re these ads for how great Heaven is, blah blah blah! So Lucifer takes a business trip to Earth and he meets with Andy Warhol in New York City and he says:

“Andy, I really love those soup cans!”

“Thanks, Lucifer.”

“Call me Lou…”

“Okay Lou…”

“So Andy, I have this place. It’s like really huge. I mean, enormous! And I need somebody to come in and decorate it. You know, make it the coolest place in the universe, so all the coolest hippest people will want to go there…”

“Sounds good,” says Andy. “When can I start?”

“Well, the only problem is that you have to die first… I mean, you’ve heard of Heaven, right?”

“Um, I think so…”

“Well this will be the anti-Heaven.”

“I see. And what was this part about dying first?”

“Well, it’s just a technicality really. But once you’re there I mean, it’ll be like this non-stop-party-rock-concert-performance-art-love-in… Kinda like Amsterdam on crack!”

“Sounds great. Will you be in my next movie?”

And a few months later Lucifer put up a new sign: CLUB HELL. And with Andy Warhol’s contacts they got the best rock bands like The Doors and Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana and Alice in Chains and all these great industrial-techno and metal bands who weren’t even dead yet but they’d come to play anyway because word soon spread that CLUB HELL was THE place to play! And to make the experience even better Lucifer provided an unlimited supply of free drugs (and he eliminated bad trips and overdoses). And soon all the cool artists on Earth started killing themselves so they could get to CLUB HELL, and then the cool writers, poets, musicians, and filmmakers followed suit and pretty soon Lucifer’s place was the center of all that was happening in culture…

“This place is awesome!” said Kurt Cobain.

“Thanks, man!” said Lucifer. “And if you don’t mind me saying so, I like ‘Bleach’ better than ‘Nevermind’…”

“Me too, man! Hey, can I ask you somethin’?”

“Sure Kurt…”

“Any chance you can, you know, like keep Courtney outta here?”

“Sure thing!” said Lucifer.

“Thanks man! Whew! I was worried there for a second!”

“No problem!”

“Hey Lucifer!” said John Lennon.

“Hey John! Good to see you!”

“Kurt… Hey, you got that doubled vocals thing from me!” John Lennon said to Kurt Cobain.

“Only steal from the best!” said Kurt.

John Lennon smiled. “So Lucifer…”

“Please John, call me Lou! This is Hell! We’re all on a first name basis here!”

“Okay Lou… So I was wondering, like why they all say back on Earth that Hell is such an evil place…”

“It’s God’s PR firm,” said Lucifer. “The old man’s pissed that so many people are coming here, so he’s just spreading his lies. I mean, get real! I split from Heaven for a reason! I wanted to get away from all that oppressive shit, so why the hell would I make this some big ass prison so God wouldn’t have to deal with the consequences of free will? I mean, I didn’t give ‘em free will. He did! And now he expects me to clean up his mess? Fuck that! Besides, why would I wanna surround myself with all that no-good riff-raff for eternity?”

“Makes sense,” said John Lennon, eyeing the tabs of acid on the table. “So they say there aren’t any bad trips here, is that right?”

But after a while, problems arose as more and more people wanted to get into CLUB HELL. And the last straw was when the Olsen Twins made a double suicide pact and appeared at the door and Lucifer had had enough. After that he hired God’s very own PR firm to spread the word even further that Hell was where all the evil bastards ended up after death to suffer eternal flames of woe. And Lucifer even did a few PSA’s himself, dressed in red holding a pitchfork with some fake horns on his head, the green screen behind him showing CGI images of fire and brimstone and the damned all writhing about in eternal agony. And from that point on, CLUB HELL became an invitation only place and Lucifer was the happiest angel who ever lived.

IT'S NOT THE HEAT IT'S THE HUMIDITY

Hell is only Hell because we know that it’s HELL. So how better to disguise it than by making it look like the EARTH! Let’s say that we die and we end up in the Underworld, and there's this sign at the gate that says "Welcome to Hell" and “Arbeit Macht Frei” and there's Satan with a pitchfork and fire and brimstone and the damned falling in pools of molten lava... Well, you're in Hell, right? So by definition you'd expect things to be pretty awful. But the thing about pain and torment is that you eventually grow inured, so the predictability of hell in the traditional sense would make it less than effective as a form of punishment. I mean, if we’re damned to hell and things are bad... well, whadaya expect? We’re in hell, right? And in hell there's no hope of release, we're damned for eternity. So with nothing to hope for, even hellfire would be something we'd get used to... True torment comes when one still holds on to hope. So with this in mind the Evil Deceiver (or ED as I like to call him) created Hell on Earth. Think of our lives. We have good days, good months, good years even when suddenly out of nowhere shit happens. We get fired, somebody dies, we get cancer and we recall the times that were good and we wonder if we'll ever see them again. And meanwhile we look around and there're all these people who don't have cancer, who are rich with beautiful wives and husbands and good jobs and this and that. The CONTRAST is what makes our OWN suffering acute. WHY ME? WTF?! Whereas, in HELL we're all in it together, misery loves company, so while I'm burning for my sins everybody else is burning for theirs. But here on earth, we're each of us alone. And the suffering, it's all so arbitrary. The innocent are senselessly slaughtered as others go blithely about their lives, and this makes the bad that happens seem so much worse, because it appears at times to be utterly random and undeserved. But that’s exactly the point! We've all died, you see? We lived on earth and did bad things and we were damned to hell and sent here. And that's the genius of it! We’re under the illusion that this is all we’ve ever known. What better way to inflict suffering upon someone than to have them believe that this is THEIR LIFE, that they haven't died at all but on the contrary, that they're very much alive and that this world is the planet earth—a place of hope and possibilities. And this is the crux of it because it’s the spaces between the torments that make them so effective. Take Chinese water torture for example. Between each drip is a space and in each space we hope that THIS time the drip will finally stop, and this hope is what makes it torture. If there were no longer a drip there would be silence. And if the drip were continuous it would be a flow of water and could even be pleasant, like a gently flowing stream. True torture is made up of torment followed by an absence of torment in an endless repetition, juxtaposed against a background where we perceive others to be better off than we are. And this is a microcosm of our lives here on "earth". I mean, if I left my house and got mugged I would think it was terrible. But of course it doesn’t happen every day. It’s the unusualness that makes it seem so bad, especially since nobody else I know got beat up today. Why did the world single me out? But if you knew that this in fact was HELL then you’d say to yourself, “Figures!” The problem is a matter of perspective. Then when that bastard cuts me off and that guy at the copy place is rude and I get fucking Leukemia instead of complaining I’ll say, “Is that the best you can do?” It’s all part of the torment, personalized to make it seem that it’s OUR’S ALONE while everybody else goes around thinking the same goddamn thing! GOD’S A FUCKING GENIUS! I mean, I always thought this fire and brimstone stuff was a bit one-dimensional. But THIS... The world! All of history, the great men and women, their achievements, their triumphs and failures, and each of us with our individual lives, our personal histories. So much intricate detail, but all of it an ILLUSION created by ED (the EVIL DECEIVER) to complete this vast mural of hell. I mean, think of the work that went into creating it! It's incredible! THIS is a God I can respect! A God I can believe in!

And this explains other things as well. Like why are there so many lousy books that become bestsellers and so many lousy movies that get made? ANSWER: To frustrate the starving artists. And why do bad things happen to good people? Well, to FUCK YOU UP! (And besides, you’re not really good after all since you’re in Hell, comprende?) I mean, if you take the earth at face value then there are some things that are downright incomprehensible. But if you reframe your thinking... If you see that this isn't earth at all but HELL then everything makes sense. And instead of being ridiculously absurd it now seems almost comical. Then you're finally let in on God's inside joke. And the illusion is complete by making us believe in a finite world. If we know that we’re immortal souls suffering an eternity of torment then it will lose its potency.

“How was your day?”

“The usual… flames of woe. Eternal damnation.”

“Yeah me too… BORING!”

In Hell, HOPE is what crowns our suffering! So we therefore must believe that we are mortal, that our lives are finite. And if we live to be 80 we’ll want to maximize our pleasure and minimize our pain, and even if our life is full of suffering we have the hope in an afterlife where our pain and suffering will be vindicated. So we "die" here in hell only to come back again as a "new" person, to suffer all over again in a new unique way, which of course is completely unknown to us and all part of our punishment, on to infinity. It’s the MOTHER of all conspiracies! And the first thing to do, as far as I can see, is to get rid of hope.

(But then again, where would we be without it?)

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)

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…

AN OPEN LETTER TO PUBLISHERS & LITERARY AGENTS...

Your place in the world is of no consequence. Spending your time and energy waiting to discover the next Dan Brown or Nicholas Sparks you add nothing to the world but distraction. You do not add to its wonder nor do you help us to see its beauty, but rather you put your cynical stamp on everything you do and everything you touch (along with the price tags that you so value). You do not inspire nor do you awaken anyone from their sleep. In fact, the product of your labors only goes to help the masses sleep more soundly. This, I’m afraid, is your legacy, and in the process you may have made a fortune but you also have reduced the world to balance sheets and dollar signs. You have done nothing to show the world that you were here beyond the corporate boardroom, that you were a unique individual, capable of inspiring others and discovering beauty. You are nothing, and the only thing you leave behind is an inheritance, which I’m guessing your children are already anxious to get their hands on.

CHECK OUT MY NEW GROUPS ON FACEBOOK!

1. PUBLISHING TODAY (GOODBYE FREE SPEECH!)
....(An impassioned rant against the abyss called the publishing industry)

2. THERESA PARK IS THE GREATEST LITERARY AGENT EVER!
....(A Swiftian broadside at my nemesis Nicholas Sparks!)

3. nTELLAkee
....(My alternative writer's group)

4. INCEPTION SUCKS!
....(re: the recent horrible movie)

MANIFUCKINGFESTO

I’d like to talk about what’s happening to writers, and consequently what we’ve come to view as art. With the multi-national conglomerates taking over the publishing industry their over-riding, one might say all-consuming all-driving all-motivating ethos has become a virus which has infected everyone it touches. That corporations are about making money is nothing new, but now they have restructured art itself until it’s become an objective money-making enterprise intractably governed by the bottom-line; an unchanging, immutable “round hole” into which all the “square pegs” must be reshaped in order to fit. We’ve abandoned the Muse in favor of a kind of Capitalist Socialist Realism where the artists have adopted the role of the state/corporation, measuring their “art” by how it will sell, and adjusting it accordingly to fit the prevailing guidelines of commerce. The best most vital most dangerous most life-affirming life-changing art out there now is that which is being made in spite of this omnipresent mindset, and is consequently ignored to the point of invisibility. We are engendering and supporting a generation of “Capitalist-Socialist-Realist suck-ups to the man” in the name of “art” while simultaneously giving birth to, and ignoring once again, a generation of Van Goghs who labor in obscurity, monetary oppression, and constant rejection because their art is defiantly rejecting the status quo mentality. The struggle of the artist today, specifically the writer, has become especially perilous. The paramount challenge is no longer to be a good writer, nor is it to be published and recognized. Rather, it is to avoid the self-censoring and thought control dictated by the bottom-line driven corporate publishing conglomerates, for the sole purpose of getting published and maintaining a livelihood and a career. “What’s selling?” is the question today’s writer asks himself, and he promptly answers, “So that’s what I’ll write.” And the cost is true creativity, originality, and art itself as it’s redefined; as it becomes nothing more than Socialist Realism as in the old Soviet Union, with the artists and writers censoring themselves. And where is the truth of the artist’s vision, its uniqueness, its voice, if it is merely an echo of the officially-sanctioned and acceptable “truth and vision” allowed by corporate publishing? As T.S. Eliot once said, “The artist is the only genuine and profound revolutionist.” I pray that there are still some of us out there who believe this.
.
.
.

INTERVIEW

So how would you define this?
This what?
This novel.
Why must it be defined?
You know how people are.
And how’s that?
They like things to be defined, spelled out…
Spoonfed?
Now you’re being…
What, cynical?
Some might say that.
But not you…
I’m a journalist, I…
You’re unbiased.
Well, yes, I… I try to be fair and balanced.
(laughs) So why don’t you define it then?
But isn’t that one of the things you rail against?
What?
People who are unqualified to judge passing judgment?
More like passing gas...
Would you define that as a “cheap shot”?
(laughs) Mea culpa.
So if you had to offer a definition…
I already did.
I didn’t catch it.
See what I mean!
(nonplused)
All right, how ‘bout this… an “involuted-nouveau-roman-postmodern-fabulated-anti-meta-novel”.
Say that three times fast!
But it’s ridiculous, I mean…
What?
It’s like jazz, what jazz is supposed to be. A mode of expression that’s wide-open, unlimited… before Kenny G and a million “Autumn Leaves” copy bands got a hold of it! It’s the same with the novel.
Before Stephen King and the mega-bestseller got a hold of it.
Well, yeah.
So you’ve called it a “manifesto”, a “declaration”…
Do you know Coltrane’s “Meditations”album?
John Coltrane? Um, no, I…
What they tried to do in that… (shakes head) they wanted to take music to a place where music-as-we-know-it didn’t exist. (pauses) But that’s where it exists most fully, do you understand?
I think so. It’s like a Zen thing.
I want to write a novel in which all other novels are possible. Where there’s nothing to limit you.
Except the definitions.
(laughs) Exactly!
Or the marketplace.
Well, yes, there’s always that...
So you want a literary “free-for-all”, is that it?
Freedom with responsibility.
That sounds good, but is it possible?
What do you mean?
I mean, it can so easily become artistic anarchy, like that painting of the crucifix smeared with human feces. Or that artist who put his own shit in a Mason jar and exhibited it as art.
Doo-Doo as opposed to Dada…
(laughs) So this brings us back to how we define art…
More definitions...
Otherwise we’ll have everyone shitting in Mason jars and calling themselves artists!
We already have that! (pauses) It’s a… (pause)
Conundrum?
Yes.
But you discussed this at length in Blood of the Sun, the question of internalized standards and authenticity. And if we no longer have this, then…
What? We need the “art police”?
Well, if there are no more internal standards then they must be external, right? Otherwise…
But there must be something more than just extremes.
Extremes?
Like Finnegans Wake and Doprah’s Book Club…
But wouldn’t you say this book of yours was more on the Finnegans Wake side than that of Doprah’s Book Club?
I’m saying why can’t a single novel contain elements of both? And everything in-between? If a novel is about life then by definition it’s about everything, or it could be. So why do we try to limit it?
Through definitions…
Yes, and money’s another definition.
So we…
Throw away the lights! The definitions!
What’s that?
Wallace Stevens… And say of what you see in the dark that it is this or that it is that, but do not use the rotted names…
That’s nice.
(laughs) Nice, yeah. I mean, it’s not like these ideas are brand new…
Ideas?
About expanding the novel, exploding form and style, abandoning conventions.
Literary conventions…
Yes.
You just don’t like any definitions, do you?
Coltrane didn’t like the word jazz, but that’s the section where you find his albums. I mean, think of Interstellar Space…
Interstellar Space?
It’s a later album of his. It’s just him and this drummer, him improvising to free rhythm. No chords, no keys, no tonal center. It was taking music to that other level, where the definitions no longer apply.
Yeah, but can you dance to it?
(laughs)
So why do we always seem to take the easy way out, I mean...
Ya gotta put food on the table, right? I mean, did you ever apply for a grant? Talk about when paradigms collide!
What do you mean?
The nexus where the artist and the non-artist meet! The impenetrable morass, the swamp, the labyrinth.
So it’s convoluted?
(laughs) The thing is, that the rich for some reason want to align themselves with what they think of as art and artists, to validate their lives or something: to give it meaning beyond money. I don’t know. I mean, who can understand the rich, right? (laughs) Maybe it’s just a tax write-off. (smiles) But the problem is, that instead of them learning the language of the artist they force the artist to speak their language. I mean, here’s an example… If I admire a painting it might inspire me to paint myself, right? To become a painter and see if I had what it took. So I’d go out and buy a set of paints and brushes, canvases, an easel maybe. You know, the works. And then I’d see what I could do, which of course implies a long hard process of honing one's craft until it becomes art, until the art and the craft are linked, until they play off of each other. Not to mention the soul-searching required in order to get to that deep place where art lives. I mean, we’re talking about a life’s work here, being an artist.
Or a writer… or a musician…
I mean, any creative artist. But the rich, what do they do? They like a painting by Van Gogh, right, so do they buy the paint set and learn how to paint themselves, to seek what the artist sought? No, they buy the painting for 50 million and hide it in a safe in their mansion. And meanwhile, the Van Goghs out there can barely make rent, and when they try to apply for a grant they decide that it’s easier to cut off one of their ears!
(smiles) But I notice you have both of your ears.
Latex foam rubber.
So what do you think is the foremost problem that we face today?
Self-deadening our senses.
What do you think of the Internet?
Infinity and Nothingness.
(laughs) So how do you want to be known?
What did they say… Know thyself? That’s how I want to be known.
So how do you want to be remembered?
Do you think Van Gogh gives a shit that his paintings sell for 50 million now? I mean, when you’re dead you’re dead. (laughs) You don’t need to eat anymore. You’re eaten.
So who do you like better, the dead or the living?
I like the reality of the dead.
And the reality of the living?
I’m still trying to figure that out.


--excerpt from the novel "angrynastyhostile", by Kevin Postupack

I HEART DOPRAH!

He couldn’t help but notice that things started to turn for him as soon as he no longer gave a shit. Writing novels being a solitary venture, it’s not unusual to feel that it’s you against the World. After all, there’re all those literary agencies and publishers and magazines and they’re all run by really smart people who are extremely knowledgeable and well-read and well-educated and very-important-close-personal-friends-of Doprah and Henry Kissinger, and then there’s just you-little-you-little-unpublished-you, but then once you get published it’s even worse because then you’re no longer a potential-hot-commodity-with-unrealized-earning-potential you’re the guy-whose-first-book-sold-how-many-copies? That’s not very many. And that story this past summer in new york mag (what a rag) do all magazines these days aspire to be like PEOPLE™ (it seems so) the world went down hill when US NEWS & WORLD REPORT started accepting ads and what’s next the BULLETIN OF ATOMIC SCIENTISTS? And the conceit of this particular article was that publishing these days is more cutthroat than ever what with the conglomeration of the world into one big corporation reflected of course in publishing my pet peeve where random house-knopf-scribners are all owned by some Japanese conglomerate (and renamed BOTTOM RINE PRESS™) or else by some German consortium of high-powered businessman who’ve abandoned aryan racial purity for lots and lots of moolah but isn’t this taking the aryan ideal to its logical extreme just substitute money for race and why not I mean that’s one god we all worship (at least we damn well better or we’re fucked) and if I say I’m better than you because I’m part of the master race and you’re chaff then that pisses you off and you might eventually get your allies together and D-Day my NAZI ass but if I’m filthy-fuckin-rich then you say WOW! because that’s what we’re here for isn’t it to make money (and lots of it) our objective measure of success its platinum bar so to speak ourbankaccountportfoliohousecarboatplane summerhomewife (in that order) and you gotta give ‘em credit they’ve taken a business that’s subjective by definition (remember art, does that ring a bell?) and made it objective, which means of course that if ya got a Doprah’s Clubhouse bestseller then you’re-the-shit in like flint, and did ya ever watch her Doprah that is when she has yer average-middle-america-housewife on the show with some terrible problems she wants to share with 30 million others and she Doprah will be merciless! Get over yourself, girl, and get on with your life! (APPLAUSE! The “Doprah nod” en masse) and then when she’s through with ‘em she calls in Herman Goerring Dr. Phil to finish ‘em off and he lays into these poor dysfunctional bastards on national tv showing the entire civilized world how fucked up they are You gotta get over yourself, girl, and get on with your life! (tough love my ass, Bully! yet applause Dr. Phil bestseller-huge-advance-whopping-fees-big-bucks-for-lectures-seminars-workshops-consulting and is Dr. Phil a real doctor or does he just play one on tv?) But then when Saint Doprah has her friends on her celebrity buddies watch her genuflect-kiss-ass-suck-up treat ‘em like royalty-and-the-beautiful-people-they-are and it don’t matter if they be dysfunctional as hell, but she’s not really doing this what she’s really doing is shamelessly worshipping the god money on national tv with her rich parishioner pals like that plastic-blonde-Barbie-clone-money-makeover-bitch who shows us why it’s our fault we’re not millionaires like her and Doprah and in a way they’re kinda like the Bodhisattva after he achieved enlightenment he left nirvana right to help the rest of humanity get enlightened too and isn’t that Doprah’s sacred mission as well to help the rest of us poor-middle-america-dysfunctional-codependent-mortgage-paying-motherfuckers to break out of our financial samsara? You be poor it’s ya own damn fault, bitch! I mean, all ya gotta do is buy that blonde white bitch’s book a’ight? And why you wit him when he beat you? You gotta say Get yer ass outta my house, muthafucka, and don’t you come back! (APPLAUSE) Ain’t ya got no self-respect girl? Ya gotta get over yourself, girlfriend, and get on with yer life! (APPLAUSE) And when we return from a commercial break we’ll all remember our spirit! (heartfelt smile filled with warmth for all humanity) And I almost forgot, I’ll let y’all know what book to be readin’ for next month’s Doprah’s Book Club™ (and a million writers out there hold their breath)

TODAY'S PUBLISHING INDUSTRY IS BEING RUN BY NAZI BASTARDS WHO WANT TO ABOLISH FREE SPEECH!

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QUESTION: So how can we understand what PUBLISHING TODAY has become?

ANSWER: Imagine the PUBLISHING INDUSTRY TODAY as akin to NAZI GERMANY from the years 1933 to 1944, and then open your eyes to today’s BOTTOM-LINE-DRIVEN CORPORATE-CONGLOMERATES goose-stepping across the bestseller lists… Then imagine if you will, that the books that are allowed to be published are all by avowed loyal National Socialists and Vichy collaborators who use their malleable skills and Chameleon-like allegiances to write only about topics acceptable to the Reich: such as books by celebrities, celebrity politicians, celebrity chefs, celebrity prostitutes and porn stars, celebrity criminals, celebrity sports figures, and celebrity rich people. And then there are the mystery thrillers, crime thrillers, and sex thrillers! And then of course, there are the Hallowed Books, the ones accepted by the Reichminister of Propaganda herself, Oprah Winfrey, but we can only speak of those in a whisper. (You never know who’s listening!)

QUESTION: But what about LITERATURE?

ANSWER: LITERATURE?

QUESTION: Yes! Books that actually have something to say...

ANSWER: I’m not sure I like your tone. So these books by all of our loyal authors, are they not good enough for you?

QUESTION: Yes, but…I’m talking about REAL LITERATURE…

ANSWER: ……

QUESTION: Writing that says something! Something important! That might even dare to question the Reich itself!

ANSWER: Ahhh, you mean “Jüdische Bücher”! Jewish Books!

QUESTION: Jewish books?

ANSWER: Ja, so you are one of them… I suspected as much!

QUESTION: What?!

At that the Reich’s representative pressed a button on his desk, and moments later four SS men came in and took this particular annoying writer away. “But, I’m not even Jewish!” he said, as the SS men led him out the door.