Random Notes from a Suburban Basement vol. 1

Stoned again.  Funny how it happens but it happens alot... and i'm here to tell you that the best 60 bucks i've spent in the last year was on this shitty little record player, yes record player not turntable cuz that's what the thing is, a little record player with crappy built in speakers and damn do i fucking love the thing, i can sit here at the old typer and fuck off to no end listening to records and pissing about, not working on all the things i should be working on, whatever that might be...

So happens i stumbled on the an article over at the AV Club about the bleak state of American Fiction, i'd like to say the article was spot on but it wasn't, it raised some good points but ultimately it's still written by people in the club, which to it's credit it does point out... but they're still in the fucking club and it's the club that needs to come crashing down, i'd like to think that publishing will soon go the way of music and little independents and writers themselves will just take to doing it themselves, in a nutshell fuck New York and it's antiquated way, fuck academia and it's antiquated ways, the system needs to be torn down and the stigma of what was once vanity publishing wiped clean cuz let's face it the more i read and learn about the whole process the more it's a fucking joke, the industry needs a bunch of little indies who work in a different style to help find and procure good fiction cuz let's face it, the shit being pushed today is flaccid bullshit perpetrated by a bunch of kids in the same two clubs (described as MFA and NYC in the article) and we all know how i feel about MFA programs...

Or do we? Let's just say if you want to piss away a shitload of money you can email me and i'll send you my address, i'll even give you my real name so you know who to make the check out to because i'll save you the colossal waste of time that is the Creative Writing Programs of America, it's a fucking business kids, how do you employ all the kids who got MFA's in creative writing in the first place if there isn't an ass ton of programs to staff? It's a suckers game and one that i always believed was for those who need patted on the back, who need a little positive re-enforcement from their peers, as Otto Maddox once said, "Fuck That", it's a safe haven for talentless hacks and those with talent to hack it off so that they can all write in a similar style, about similar things, in a similarly uninteresting way, i can spot an MFA written book after about 3 pages, oh i might keep going and finish the book cuz i very rarely don't finish books but truth be told i know what's going to happen and when and am usually bored stiff by the end, it's like listening to mainstream pop radio, the shit all sounds the same...

You see one might call me a fucking hopeless romantic because i believe that if you want to learn how to write you start by going to the library or finding a good used book store or shoplifting what you can from the big box chains, you start reading and keep reading, doesn't always have to be fiction but if you're going to write the shit it helps, hell you never have to write a word, if you keep reading the rest of your days that will be reward enough itself, those books and the people who write them will be your teachers, Henry Miller, Louis Ferdinand Celine, Charles Bukowski, Alvaro Mutis, Nelson Algren, William S. Burroughs, these are the people who will teach you... and oddly enough none of them have an MFA... and while you are still convinced of my hopeless romanticism for some idyllic vision of writing i'll just say what i am is a fucking realist, a pragmatist, a contradiction, a gigantic fucking middle finger... if you want to write you write and then you write some more and you do it ad nausea, to quote Allen Iverson it's called practice, of course i don't have to tell anyone this, the smart ones already know it and the ones that don't should find new ways to spend their time...

But to get back to the business, the business is bullshit and it needs to be dismantled, the old ways of publishing and the method by which they select what's published are useless, you will find nothing cutting edge or interesting in the list of titles, like punk and post-punk and the rise of independent rock and roll the little guy can get his art out, the writer with a box full of rejection slips (John Kennedy Toole) can do it himself now, that is of course if not deluded by fame and wealth (which let's face it many people are, this culture fucking breeds it, it's not about doing it, it's about getting on the telly and into magazines) because there's not a whole lot of writers getting rich out there which leads us back towards the MFA/NYC trap of survival which the article points out but i'm of the opinion that in this day and age you don't need them, it's like the sad cliche of the frustrated writer working in the book store, and honestly i don't trust fucking people like that either, you can starve for your art sure or you can get a job, do what you have to do and write in the margins, in the time you carve out, i mean when was the last time this country in particular actually valued art? The fucking GOP would outlaw the shit if they could, except of course for books written about their lord and savior Jeebus...

Maybe the problem with American Fiction is the pussification of the American Writer, i mean Hemingway, Buk, Miller, Algren, they liked to fuck and fight and drink and have a good time, jesus now half the titles that come out every year are some feel good story about redemption or making it through therapy, fucking hell, it's all Wonder Bread toasted and buttered, it's useless, even the shit about drugs and drug dealers, the hustle, have any of these people lived that shit? it's all the same and let's face it if you lived a little bit of it you'd have a bit better insight into the fucking shit which doesn't mean it's all gotta be realist, hell the world could use more Phil Dick's but if you're gonna attempt to write a gritty tale of depravity at least do a little research, hell might be more fun than the actual writing, (for once i might be speaking from experience here)... and don't even get me started on that twat James Frey, i ever get in the same room as that fucker and i'm gonna knock his fucking teeth in...

But what i'm getting at here is the DIY model, the banner that the kids took up years ago and said "fuck the system", they did it themselves and got on with it, toured relentlessly, did all the promotion, made all the contacts, in a word (a word which i fucking despise due to it's business-speak beginnings) they networked... and guess what kids? they didn't even have the internetz, the darlings of the MFA programs all think they'll be fawned over in their brilliance, be put on stages and given microphones so the unwashed masses can hear every golden turd that dribbles from their lips when the reality is no one gives a shit about some nonce who spent the last X number of years paying to learn something that can easily be learned for free, it takes some elbow grease and perseverance but fuck me if it can't be done, i guess it's called hard work but most of the time it doesn't feel like it, not if you really want to do it, the hard part that is not the fantasy part of accepting awards and banging book nerd groupies... what i'm getting at here is i believe there is brilliance out there and it will come from those unwashed masses who were to busy working jobs and banging it out on the side, the ones not wanting to dazzle us with golden turds but to just listen to their story and it's also my opinion that the system of which i speak would pass right over these people hence tear down the system, go around it, it can be done, it will be done and when it is done we'll all be the better of for it...