Like It Matters

Something is happening to my brain. (Or has it already happened?) I'm out of control. My emotions are volatile. I can't sleep for very long, though the good news is that I don't feel very tired really. (And no, Linda, or any of you other psychotherapisser-vampiric-assholes, lemme just paraphrase the not-so-great David Bowie here: May all your vilest nightmares consume your shrunken heads etc., I don't think I'm freakin' manic.)

I get angry alla time, but almost immediately, I swing back to humor and noisy enthusiasm. I can't sit still. I pace constantly, kick my legs and grind my teeth. I feel like I'm on methamphetamine. (So I guess I should be grateful! Whatta rush!) I can't focus on one thought or activity for very long. It's hard for me to fuckin' finish anything. I can't stick to a plan. When I'm supposed to be writing or reading or whatever, I'm figuring out how to convert AAC to MP3, posting @ Zoetrope, or downloading and configuring Mozilla (including the Herculean task of importing and organizing all the cock-knocking bookmarks).

My reading habits have become similarly erratic: In addition to Infinite Jest, which I'm 'posed to be reading, I'm in the middle of both Lester Bangs books again. For, uh, "bathroom reading," I'm stuck in the middle of Chapter 2 of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and I just took Affliction offa shelf 'cause I needed a good laugh and so went straight to that truly hilarious routine about men beatin' their kids in the Teutonic Village of the soul, (or whatever,) and how it all comes down through the generations like some sorta biological predisposition to illness-- like a... well... hmmm... Really need a simile here... What's a good word? Like. A. Congenital Earache!!! Yeah! That's perfect! (Or you could just go with, "It's like an affliction." I guess.)

Anyhoo, I'm happy to say that Russ delivered the laughs, though I must admit that my memory of this passage was even funnier. But see, I had this idea-- probably from alla the Lester Bangs-- that I should write an essay about how Affliction is, like, the worst book ever. And though you sorta have to respect that in an Ed Wood kinda way, (while acknowledging that there really are many books that are worse,) I'm also disgusted with the way in which ol' Russ passes himself off as a "literary" author, when the truth is that what he's peddling here is a cornpone Yankee-toughguy-cop thriller with some clumsy, pretentious sociological and self-reflexive musings thrown in to make it all seem like art. Gimme a fuckin' break, Russ! Why dontcha just write a dimwitted New England version of Walker: Texas Ranger for TV or some shit? Your dalliances with Hollywood seem to've rotted your brain. (Not to mention what they've done to your integrity.)

I mean, I know you've always been an overrated hack with a serious strain of narcissism that runs through your work like urine in a public swimming pool. (Wo! If I fixed the meter, that could be, like, a haiku! Rad!) Sorta like that presumably autobiographical tale about the chubby-chaser in Success Stories, in which you wax rhapsodic about your own body for fuck's sake!

I've seen you run your humble-craftsman-niceguy con in person, back in Ann Arbor, when I was but a timid writing student in '89 or '90. (Can't remember which one.) I swallowed it then-- hook, line and shrinker, as Zappa sez-- or maybe you've since become more cynical. One thing's for sure: if we were to graph the literary growth you've displayed between, say, Continental Drift and Affliction, it'd look pretty much like a straight line. Which means, humble craftsman schtick aside, that I don't think you've challenged yourself much. And niceguy or not, you ain't no Dostoevsky, lemme tell ya.

And who am I to make that judgment? Touche. A fine point. After all, Russ is published and agented and optioned and so on, and I'm not. I won't quibble with that glaringly obvious truth. ('Cause that's not an arbitrary standard, is it? Checked the bookshelves or lit. 'zines lately? Whoever's supposed to be separating the chaff from the wheat seems to've fallen asleep at the switch. Or some such mixed metaphor.)

Still, I don't think this is just sour grapes here. I think it's genuine esthetic disdain. Not in the least, because just as the Chicago Cubs recent efforts have suggested about them, I don't think Russ is trying real hard. I think he's laughing all the way to the Bank. But I could be wrong about the sour grapes. (As wasting so much time thinking about a yahoo like Russell Banks might suggest.) Can you trust your perspective in matters like this? You could've crossed over into Rashomon territory without even realizing it.

I know for a fact that I am much crueler as an appreciator of creative efforts than I am as an artistic peer. (Not, of course, that I'm anywhere near Russ's vaunted plateau.) I mean, I think I'm a good and encouraging friend to the other artists I know. But I think we should expect more from someone who the NY Times is always (patronizingly) lauding as the Great White Trash Scribe. ("Isn't it fascinating that he's able to string words together like that, in spite of his lack of breeding? Of course it's probably just onomatopoetical, sorta like a trained parrot.")

Anyhoo, Happy Memorial Day weekend, me-- and anyone else! (Like anyone else even reads this stuff.) Steve Forceman's outta here like Vladimir. (The Impaler, that is.)