I want that pudding pop.

Grr [twitch twitch] whimper

I just read this entire thing from start to finish because the G&M book section is full of children's books today. I realize it's over now (go home boys, nothing to see here) but I dream of the day an American, instead of raging at his own government for what they have done to to world, instead turns outward and quietly apologizes. Right about at the words "I'm sorry" I'd start to listen to what that man had to say.

Oh, sorry. Was someone saying something? I was drinking a martini and reading The Corrections.

ninja, you can ssshush me, but I've lived in Ottawa, which makes Detroit look like an ornamental duck pond. I will not be silenced! Wait, I've lost interest. Nevermind.

I used to live in Ottawa too. A veritable snake-pit. I got rolled by a gang of hoods for my beaver-tail once.

I got McMugged in Windsor for my nuggets once. Or was that mugged in Windsor for my McNug...

Anyway, Windsor gets my vote for big, bad, dirty, ugly city.

[At the risk of firing this up again....]

Haw Haw

Funny bit on those ULA losers (LOL* MaudNewton).



Home

You guys are all fucking assholes.

Edited by author 12-30-2003 02:27 AM
Pot...Kettle....

From the Article: "They interrupted literary readings with chants and slogans. They ranted on the phone to George Plimtpon's secretary that the Paris Review was a fraud. They threw orange slices at John Irving during his commencement speech at Mary Hale College in Laconia, New Hampshire."

You should be embarrassed. These are the tactics of the infantile and untalented, bud. Jealous tantrums, that's all. You might think you're a band of blood-soaked Carries getting your revenge at the prom of "the New York elite" (to borrow from another King), but from the outside looking in, it looks pretty pathetic.

So, what? Success has eluded you? To protest this you head out like the Al Qeada of book launches (or would Trench Coat Mafia be more fitting?) to piss on other people's fun? What the hell? Grow up. You wanna be a writer? Stop chanting and throwing shit at people and fucking write something. You want success? Write really well and wait for it, sometimes it takes a while. You just want the notoriety of being an annoying gadfly in the footnotes of literary failure? Keep up the good work, your majesty, because you just might go down in history as a big fat nobody who went down kicking and screaming into the abyss of forgettable, punk-ass insignificance.

See, now that's what I'm talking about. Who wouldn't love and respect a movement whose leaders can write such clear, inspirational prose?

"You guys are all fucking assholes."

The subtle reference to "Withnail & I" is clever, (you know, early on, the pub-scene where "I" is called a ponce on his way to the washroom, and while pissing reads the graffiti "I fuck assholes.") taking us out of what appears initially as just a childish, childish, brainless taunt, and really making the most of those six words.

Not only can "you guys" (I assume he doesn't mean me, since he doesn't know my gender) now be defined as assholes, and assholes engaged in the process of fucking, you can also be considered to be just guys who, while not assholes yourselves, do seem to enjoy fucking assholes. The one criticism I would make is the use of the modifier "all." I'm not sure "all" is doing what King wants it to do. As it is written, the word seems to imply that each and every one of the defined group "you guys" enjoys fucking assholes or is the same, while a more effective attack would be to reduce "you guys" to that definition alone -- in other words "All you guys are, are fucking assholes." Or better, "You guys are only fucking assholes." -- now that's going somewhere. That's got some momentum.

But let's not nitpick during this festive season. I am willing to consider "You guys are all fucking assholes" as one of the ten best American novels of 2003. Please discuss.

Edited by author 12-30-2003 03:21 PM
killer, it's arses. As in

"I could hardly piss straight with fear. Here was a man with three quarters of an inch of brain who'd taken a dislike to me. What had I done to offend him? I don't consciously offend big men like this. This one has a definite imbalance of hormone in him. Get any more masculine than him and you'd have to live up a tree. "I fuck arses". Who fucks arses? Maybe he fucks arses. Maybe he's written this in some moment of drunken sincerity. I'm in considerable danger in here. I must get out of here at once."

Yes, I knew some lurking Withnail fan was going to get me on that. Nevertheless, Wenclas is making a clear reference to the struggles of under-privileged British actors in Clapham Common at the end of the sixties. Brilliant, really.

Hey, look what I found on the ULA site, dated just after our big squabble. I think we hurt his feelings:

http://outyourbackdoor.com/ULA/letters/letters.12.8.03.htm

Why doesn't he realize we mock out of love, not hatred? Right, we'll have to work quickly. A pair of quadruple whiskeys and another pair of pints.

I'm just getting caught up on this discussion, but it seems to me, judging from the link Killer has posted below, that this King Wenclas person is deluded in his righteousness.

It seems to me his philosophy is rather basic: established values should be questioned, and those who hold power should be held accountable. There’s nothing objectionable there. It’s just Political Consciousness 101 as far as I can tell. Bookninja.com offers its fair share of iconoclastic material as well (Paul Vermeersch trying to turn the solemn Governor General’s awards into a glamorous awards show, for example, or Bookninja’s unrelenting attacks on The Walrus magazine), and if it weren’t for all the childish sloganeering at other people’s parties and pelting people with fruit at commencement ceremonies and such, I’m sure he’d have more support here. But what he doesn’t seem to understand is that it’s the methods of the ULA, not its message, that draws all the ridicule and scorn.

Sigh. I'm finding this whole ULA discussion rather tedious. "Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;" must it continue? Let's go back to talking about Withnail. Then the fucker will rue the day!

Thanks, Mads.

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