June 3, 2012: Finally, I want to get to this issue of the Killer Bees, because tonight they're feeling like the perfect metaphor for the new Fear that's gripping me around the ankles, throat and genitals, and all simultaneously ... And wasn't it Anne Sexton who spoke of that "awful rowing toward god?" ... or perhaps that was Dan Woog, referencing those idiots on the Saugatuck River in Westport.
The point is, I'm drowning in the awful visions of corporate domination and one-percent control and private GOP armies and the like, and the Fear has me, like it did in the early '80s when Reagan first came to power and I was sure a nuclear strike was imminent, and that it would be hitting ME in particular ... It's like the Killer Bees, which were poised to attack when I was just a little lad, if you can imagine such a thing, me being all grown up and devilishly handsome and all, but at that time existing on pure Fear, adrenalin, and iced tea ...
But you see the question comes to mind for me: What the hell happened to the Killer Bees anyway?! I mean, I was told they were attacking. We all were! They were allegedly flying north from Mexico, as all dangerous things are wont to do. There were kitcsh TV movies about them, where dopey victims were stung repeatedly beyond recognition and the heroes outran them to the last, but not before stomping a few of the worse ones into pulp ... So where are they now?!
It's interesting, for I remember someone telling me -- some idiot in the never-ending series of idiots I've known -- that "the scientists" -- and that's what he said -- would merely meet the Bees at the border -- the Rio Grande River, I guess -- and they would spray them and solve the whole problem. Such a comforting image it still evokes -- a small group of Gary Larsen-type white-coated nerds shooting a few puffs of gas out over the water with one of those little metal pumping cannisters, and halting dead the rampaging cloud of gangland Bees in an instant ...
I guess that's what happened, because after the 70's I stopped hearing anything about Killer Bees ... Except, just three weeks ago I found a book at the library that's right now, at this very moment, sitting in the other room (probably overdue, actually), and there are probably additional answers there waiting to be realized ...
But you know what? I don't want to know them! I don't want to know anything, except that SPACE CASE is selling and you're going to buy a THIRD copy and will bring a harum of gorgeous women to my speaking engagement this Wednesday night at the Westport Library ... That's all I want to hear about! F*** the Killer Bees and Reagan and the crooked governors ...
But no, my stomach is being wrenched by the new knowledge of widespread corruption and union crushing and proletariat neutering and supreme court stacking and graft, and ongoing corporate malfeasance and chicanery and scum selling lies and scum telling lies and liars lying with straight-faced sociopathic integrity and old fools believing them and young fools as well ... Ouch! It makes my stomach hurt! Ouch! I AM Charlie Brown, you see, and my stomach always hurts ...
But wait! For now I'll quote Robert Plant, who bubbled so specifically in that lovely "The Song Remains the Same" movie rendition of "Stairway to Heaven," "But there's good news! Listen!" Yes! Why not?! Why not good news, for the Killer Bees are away from my radar after all, and all dead and buried at the bottom of the Rio Grande, for all I know ... and that's where one day soon we may find all these malfeasants and supplicating nitwits and schmucks and greedheads after all ... Aren't they just Killer Bees, really, on a demented rampage to keep alive and sting out at anything they THINK threatens them -- a fear-fueled frenzy of sociopathic stupidity ...
Even as we speak, there are probably focused, intelligent scientists in nerdy white lab coats who are developing vaccines for bullshit and marketed media manipulation and stupidity, and they'll be innoculating mankind before I know it ... And these lovely simply honest smart men (and women -- a few hot ones, with horn-rimmed glasses!) will be using their antiquated DDT puffer devises to soundly gas the bloodsucking parasites and heinous stinging bastards ...
They'll wait for them by the side of the River Styx, or some such river, and make it clear to them that they'll never be allowed in to heaven, which is probably here on earth after all ...
And heaven should be a place without sociopaths, Killer Bees or plastic surgery, and we'll all sit together by a quiet springtime stream and read aloud from the Bagvhad Gita, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and Space Case ...
Showing posts with label corporations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label corporations. Show all posts
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Jarret Liotta on Writing -- Part I
December 2, 2009: Many of my most loyal readers constantly ask where I get my ideas for essays and stories. (Maybe they don't actually ask, but I can tell what they're thinking from the way they look at me.) As a rule I don't like to talk about myself, but I thought I'd make this rare exception and, per chance, enlighten some of my fans and followers as to the esoteric processes that drive and motivate this complex and -- dare I say -- scintillating young man.
In actuality, I get a great number of ideas when I'm out walking. I like to walk because it gives me a chance to ponder my victories and agonize over my defeats, as well as get a little exercise.
Just tonight, for instance, an idea came to me for creating a lengthy fantasy interview with a car company executive who explained to me why headlights were being made much brighter these days. (The blinding headlights I kept being flashed with also played a role. The exec's name was Milton Dickwad, and in that frustrating politically charged avoidant manner unique to corporate PR men, he tries to convince us that the brighter, sharper headlights, though they hurt one's eyes beyond reason, are actually generating more energy back toward the cellunoid (whatever that is) through a very complicated process we're all too stupid to understand, thereby making the car more fuel efficient and, therefore, more environmentally friendly. And, of course, in the most classic of mass-American-appeal fashions, we blindly take his word for it and exit the interview grateful for the little pine tree air freshner he granted us gratis.)
Another recent idea, which came about thanks to a coworker, after he saw me drinking a bottle of Snapple iced tea, centers on exposing the sham of Snapple's "Real" Facts inside their caps. Very few people seem to know that these "facts" are mostly lies, but not all them. In order to differentiate, you have to visit their stupid website. I find this somehow monstrous, as they're planting stupid ideas in my and my children's heads every time we're stupid enough to read their stupid caps (and believe me, we're that stupid!) It infuriates me, because I know from experience that misinformation, once learned, will, over time, become fact in a brain, unless it's replaced. Therefore, unless we take the time to flush the information out by researching the facts -- and I promise you, we never will! -- we're stuck going through the rest of our lives believing erroneous trivia about bees and Indian monkeys and a whole variety of other stupid things ... Fucking assholes! I wish I'd stop drinking their stupid tea. (That'd show them!)
But I digress. I merely wanted to point out how easily and arbitrarily my story ideas arise. The key is getting them down. In some strange way, once the idea hits, in an instant I can almost feel exactly how the thing is to be written, and yet I still have to discipline myself through the process of doing it. More often than not, as you can see from the above, I flippantly make some notes on one idea or another, then never get back to it. On rare occasions I'll regret it, and maybe even revisit an idea many months later, but mostly those ideas are replaced by new ones which -- upon entering the mind -- simply seem like the best, most vital, most original and engaging idea ever to be thought up ... until the next one replaces it ...
Anyway, the most important point is, Why are you wasting your time reading about these stupid ideas when you should be away from your computer nurturing yourself with ice cream and pornography? Haven't I taught you anything, O favorite readers of mine!
In actuality, I get a great number of ideas when I'm out walking. I like to walk because it gives me a chance to ponder my victories and agonize over my defeats, as well as get a little exercise.
Just tonight, for instance, an idea came to me for creating a lengthy fantasy interview with a car company executive who explained to me why headlights were being made much brighter these days. (The blinding headlights I kept being flashed with also played a role. The exec's name was Milton Dickwad, and in that frustrating politically charged avoidant manner unique to corporate PR men, he tries to convince us that the brighter, sharper headlights, though they hurt one's eyes beyond reason, are actually generating more energy back toward the cellunoid (whatever that is) through a very complicated process we're all too stupid to understand, thereby making the car more fuel efficient and, therefore, more environmentally friendly. And, of course, in the most classic of mass-American-appeal fashions, we blindly take his word for it and exit the interview grateful for the little pine tree air freshner he granted us gratis.)
Another recent idea, which came about thanks to a coworker, after he saw me drinking a bottle of Snapple iced tea, centers on exposing the sham of Snapple's "Real" Facts inside their caps. Very few people seem to know that these "facts" are mostly lies, but not all them. In order to differentiate, you have to visit their stupid website. I find this somehow monstrous, as they're planting stupid ideas in my and my children's heads every time we're stupid enough to read their stupid caps (and believe me, we're that stupid!) It infuriates me, because I know from experience that misinformation, once learned, will, over time, become fact in a brain, unless it's replaced. Therefore, unless we take the time to flush the information out by researching the facts -- and I promise you, we never will! -- we're stuck going through the rest of our lives believing erroneous trivia about bees and Indian monkeys and a whole variety of other stupid things ... Fucking assholes! I wish I'd stop drinking their stupid tea. (That'd show them!)
But I digress. I merely wanted to point out how easily and arbitrarily my story ideas arise. The key is getting them down. In some strange way, once the idea hits, in an instant I can almost feel exactly how the thing is to be written, and yet I still have to discipline myself through the process of doing it. More often than not, as you can see from the above, I flippantly make some notes on one idea or another, then never get back to it. On rare occasions I'll regret it, and maybe even revisit an idea many months later, but mostly those ideas are replaced by new ones which -- upon entering the mind -- simply seem like the best, most vital, most original and engaging idea ever to be thought up ... until the next one replaces it ...
Anyway, the most important point is, Why are you wasting your time reading about these stupid ideas when you should be away from your computer nurturing yourself with ice cream and pornography? Haven't I taught you anything, O favorite readers of mine!
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