Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Random Notes barely above Ground

Madmen, it's who i like to read, why? because they take my mind off the mundane, life in general is a fucking long string of mundane encounters, people being nice to each other because of some fucked up moral code yet when the lights go out and the curtains are drawn they are just petty, evil fucks looking to advance their own careers or whatever it is, i don't know about careers because i don't have one, which is why i turn to the madmen, most of them toiled away in menial jobs doing what they could at night, in the early morning, on lunch breaks, i tend to sleep on my lunch break but what's the difference, i understand where they come from due to the sheer amount of frustration that comes from every encounter with my fellow man, i just don't get most of them, of course there are some gems out there but they like me tend to be on the outside looking in, so one could say that art is my career but what kind of fucking statement is that, when one makes that statement they cease to be an artist, Damien Hirst can now spray gold on dogshit and sell it for millions, books are published by MFA's because they studied the craft of sucking ass and i bet dollars to donuts these people would say they are artists, writers, yet one wonders if they now the first thing, a recent study in some academic journal was amazed at the amount of kiddies in writing programs who didn't read books, interesting, it becomes about fame and money at some point and at that is the point i get off, it's more about being cool, if you can't play guitar you pick a paint brush or learn to type, preferably poetry, of course the universities like this because you feed the beast money for the piece of paper they dole out at the end and let's face it, universities like money, yet this is not disparage art or literature, it's out there and it keeps me going, what it rails against is the consumer culture created by the taste makers, so i read madmen and i write and i paint primitive pictures, not to get laid or make money because changing light bulbs and moving furniture is the way i pay bills, the meaning is in the fact that it is not my job and i do it for no reward, there is a theory out there about the Writers of the No, people who produce these fabulous pieces of work and then disappear, stop, turn their back on the public because they do not/did not like what they saw, it's not done for money, it's just done, i get pretty fed up with all the whining i hear from writers, all the demons they fucking have, David Foster Wallace hung himself because he was depressed and apparently he was a genius but i never liked a thing the guy wrote, yet the MFA's and poets came out of the woodwork and discussed how horrible it is and how writing is cathartic, therapeutic, well in that case keep writing in your fucking diary instead of yelling from the rooftops about all your problems, in a sense shut the fuck up and write and quit talking to me about why you are writing, in fact i really don't care, if it stands up on the page then great and isn't that all that should matter? of course i may sound like a hypocrite and if i wasn't yelling into the void one might call me one and toss in that i was an asshole for good measure, and i would smile, take a long drag off my cigarette, blow smoke in your face and say you were probably right...

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

standing ovation.

Kevin Sousa said...

fuck, shit...you can write.

Anonymous said...

do you like charles bukowski too?

Kono said...

ah dear nursie that's a subject i'm well versed in, started reading Hank some 20 years ago and devoured his books, at last count i had read more than 50 not including biographies and crap written by friends, he was a big influence earlier in my life and though i think some of his stuff is genius like every drunk he begins to repeat himself and like every rock star begins to believe his own myth, early Buk was best in my book and after watching the documentary Born Into This, i sat in my car in downtown pittsburgh and cried, i had finally killed my father and emerged as my writer, still pull him out and read him now and then but he's been knocked out of the big three as far as influences, those being Louis Ferdinand Celine, Henry Miller and Nelson Algren but then again i think everything i've ever read has influenced me in some way but that a tale for another night.

Anonymous said...

I loved that bukowski doco!

have never read any Algren. how would you describe his work?

Anonymous said...

Get a room.