Doug Stanhope Wikipedia Photo, "Ablutions" by Patrick deWitt, and a snippet of a story

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It's not the fucking drugs, it's the fucking idea of fucking

Ubiquity, transmogrification, obsession, and drugs (metonymy).

Richard Hermes is a lonely guy. That's why he spends a lot of his time with the most vacuous people in London. Who are these people, you dare to not ask? They are only interchangeable vessels of lust and syncophantry for the adman/madman known as Bell.

Will Self is probably my favorite writer. Not because his characters are the most developed or the most endearing, but mostly because of the prevailing voice. He has a way with words, and knows how to use them. He's also endowed with a vision that he elucidates in a way that engages both intellect and primal instinct.

He's said that his writing is only communicative of a tangential relationship with reality. Which is to say that he doesn't see himself as an observer/social commentator but as a participant. His stories are journeys into alternate dimensions where psychosis and drug abuse are orders of the day.

With "The Sweet Smell of Psychosis," one of his earlier novellas, Self explores a dimension where Richard Hermes is constantly tormented by his desire. The only thing that stoked his curiosity (in the first place) with regard to the Sealink is Ursula. He sticks around because wants so badly to get close to her. To know her. To fuck her. To love her (maybe). All this keeps him under the influence of Bell. Ubiquitous, transmogrifying fucking Bell. Richard sees the man's visage everywhere he goes. Billboards. People in the street. People at the Sealink. Did I mention that Richard often dines with Pablo (you shouldn't have to be a cokehead to get the reference)? He does. He hangs with Pablo so much, it's like they're fucking roommates. But Pablo isn't a good roommate. He's put Richard on the bubble at his shitty job.

So.

Without giving away the ending, let's just say that for a man, sex would never be the same if what happened to Richard happened to us. A man will go through a lot of shit if he thinks he's going to get laid. A lot. He will not question, complain, or avoid compromise. Of course, he will lie, but doesn't it make sense to use a manipulative tactic as a countermanipulative measure? No? Okay.

Whatever you do, don't say it's the drugs. Pablo doesn't make a man hallucinate. That's bullshit. If Richard didn't spend all his time trying to fuck Ursula, he might've continued just being boring ass Richard Hermes. But that would've been... boring. What actually happened was a lot more interesting.

Book Review: "God Hates Us All"

When I first put this book down, I thought of how I'd approach it as a text. It's quite clear, by sheer fact of its existence, that it was intended to be seen as a piece of a whole. That is to say, that it was never meant to stand alone as a piece of literature. It was published in all its metafictive glory to be a "media-tie-in." Where most books might be labeled fiction, non-fiction, or memoir, that is exactly what this is stamped: Media-tie-in.

This makes it near impossible to review this work without referring to or at least mentioning the fact that it figures quite prominently in the first season of Showtime's "Californication." When you get to the title page, you will notice that there is, under Hank Moody's name, another. One Mr. Jonathan Grotenstein. I assume Mr. Grotenstein is the genius behind this particular piece of fiction, and while I do not mean that in a derisive or dismissive way, I'm not sure if I'd want my name attached to it if it was my work.

I think that part of asking your audience to "suspend its disbelief" is asking them to understand/accept that within the context of the show, this is a piece of literature. A piece of literature that made a man a hit in the literary world. So when I picked it up and saw that, I thought, "why didn't this guy ghost?" Maybe there is a specific reason, and if there is, I won't argue any further. But that is my impression.

The synopsis on the back sleeve of the book calls it a "wry literary masterpiece," which I find funny because if you flip through it randomly it seems more like something you'd find browsing in a YA fiction section. Less than 200 pages, large text (as opposed to the scene in which Hank goes into the book store and skims through it, seemingly reveling in his own youthful genius; it is larger and the text is smaller) and an ad for the 3rd season on the final page.

Of course, I was still able to suspend that disbelief I wrote of a couple of paragraphs earlier. I wanted to. I'd been waiting to read the thing since I knew it really existed.

So, is it a "wry literary masterpiece?" No. Not by any stretch. Is it good? Yes. Readable? Infinitely. In fact, it's a quick read. Hank Moody is definitely not a postmodern trickster. He uses conventional linear narration and doesn't bog the story down with big ideas (not a bad thing either way). I could definitely see how it could be turned into the sappy chick flick "A Crazy Little Thing Called Love," and I hope they never get the idea to actually film it.

Our protagonist is a college drop-out in his late teens. He meets a slightly older girl who shows him what happens when you start fucking the first crazy bitch who comes round. But he's not the first man who's had one of those relationships that is solely based on wild sex and recreational drug usage. Far from it. This is a page out of Bukowski. Except, he doesn't turn down her advances because he's too drunk to get a hard on. No. She's fucked it raw. And when he "rejects" her is the downward spiral that sends his young life into upheaval.

There are smatterings of great dialogue and insights here and there throughout the novel, but a lot of it is pedestrian. You do find out why the novel is titled as it is, but even then, the creative way of putting it forth doesn't alleviate that "so what?" feeling. But maybe that's the point. Moody's protagonist doesn't know what he wants. He hasn't any aspirations unless you call landing a model girlfriend an aspiration. It's certainly not one to define one's life with.

The one thing that's certain is that the Moody on Californication only comes out subtly. Mainly in mannerism and witty dialogue. This is supposed to be the manifestation of a younger Moody's creation, and it can certainly be passed off as such. The one thing that never changes is hope. Moody's protagonist has hope despite his failings with women, and Moody himself, on the show, retains that childlike quality all while floating his liver and courting STDs, pissing women off in the process.

"I love women, I have all their albums."--  Hank Moody

I would recommend this book mainly to fans of the show. And really, only to the fans who like to read. It's a nice little companion piece that might offer a sliver of insight into the character that Duchovny portrays on the show. But within a real-world context, I don't see it as being a best-seller, nor do I see it having a huge following outside of the cult aspect. I see it as being a start. A work by a writer who might one day churn out his opus.

2010.
 
Photo at right taken from here: http://allnumerablemosts.tumblr.com/
 
Photographer/copyright holder: unknown. Will remove upon request.

In the stream of conscience: memory & ??

"Amnesiascope" By Steve Erickson

I'm late to Steve Erickson's oeuvre. The book, with its sleek cover design (UK's Quartet Books) and curious title, beckoned to me from the shelves of Paperbacks Plus. I read a couple of paragraphs in the store and decided to give it a try.

It's not exactly sci-fi and it's not exactly speculative, but the element of a setting that differs very much from the one we exist in is enough for me to pay the appropriate amount of attention (much like the futuristic vision of London in Tony Maylam's Split Second starring Rutger Hauer-- i.e., not very futuristic at all-- just different). Particularly of note is Erickson's "post-quake" rendering of L.A.

The narrator, apparently a  literary doppelganger semi-autobiographical representation of the author himself (referred to in a correspondence as 'S'), is a man in pursuit of memory. In existential terms, one could say he is in pursuit of that which is his very essence. There is mention of his past, his loves, his losses, regrets-- no chapters, only ellipses and divisions of streams by fancy marks-- but there is no real mention (nothing detailed) of the event that set his present in motion. He works as a movie critic for an unnamed paper and is part of a supposed "cabal" of writers and editors that conspire to do... (?) and he lives in an old hotel-- transformed into something like an apartment complex-- run by a suave Palestinian "terrorist" named Abdul.

Los Angeles is a shell of its former self, seemingly populated by shady men and seductive women, the latter of which being much more intelligent than their masculine counterparts. The reason for this, what Erickson does here, is not by design so much as it is by necessity. His narrator is bright, self searching, sensual by degrees of subtlety, and cannot function without a woman in his life. Viv, the most important of these women, his lover, departs for Holland to point a "Memoryscope" toward L.A. in an effort to "balance" her project, and as a result, his life becomes more complicated and devoid of meaning. His car is stolen, the paper he works for is falling into disarray, and his "fake review" of a "fake film" called "The Death of Marat" is turning into a nightmare of very real proportions.

Some of the better moments in the book involve the narrator's cinematic endeavors. He recalls his journey from novelist to critic, and even more interestingly, appropriates a chance meeting with an interesting woman in a bar in a screenplay for a project Viv conceived called, *White Whisper. Unlike many introspective efforts about artists, Erickson's narrator is active. He doesn't lounge in perpetuity. He doesn't idly ponder or too deeply intellectualize his search for meaning. For recovery of memory, his only bastion in a world that is difficult to define. Hell, he doesn't drink to the point of incoherent ramble or consume gargantuan quantities of drugs in this search. No. He's a workhorse. He simply exists.

When the female hotel residents seek to have the already demoted Abdul removed from the premises, he inquires to the veracity of their damning claims, saying that when the truth comes out-- if in fact the allegations are true-- he will sign their petition, but until then, it's a no go. He doesn't bow to bullying or reactionary mentalities. He is, for all intents, a creature of ethics.

In Viv's absence, he is impetuous and unsure. Erickson makes it apparent. The narrator kowtows to the bar seductress's (Jasper) need for him. Something is wrong. And he caves. He goes to her secluded residence and gets sucked into a strange interrogation that refers back to an event that may or may not have happened.

"It was you in Berlin."

Hmm.

At some point there is a loss of time, and he wakes up floating in a tank flooded with water. Jasper is with him. He later gets his stolen car back and drives across the western states, eventually ending up at a film festival he was invited to... in an absurd completion to his joke taken absurdly "too far," showing The Death of Marat.

Erickson's writing is sharp, intelligent, lacking in pretension, and most importantly, funny. *The film White Whisper is a confessional film wherein women are interview by an artist while she paints them. They are nude in the interview. At some point the narrator himself is injected into a scene, nude so he can feed the artist lines. The justification for it was a beautiful display of what feminism should be. Logical and equitable.

Book Review: "¡Existe el amor solamente para matarme! or Love and Me Have No Business Doing Business"

¡Existe el amor solamente para matarme! or Love and Me Have No Business Doing Business by Stuart González


197 pages


Self Published, 2006


Though he'll call it a novel, González's exhausting, tongue twistingly titled tome (alliteration!) isn't so much a novel as it is a novella, and it's not really a novella inasmuch as it is a collection of loosely connected vignettes, all written between the summer of '05 and winter '06.


Within its pages lie stories about a brother and sister living together who are actually one person; about a man who falls in love with his empty bedroom wall; about a young woman who travels to Europe and is unimpressed with the supposed sexual virility of the men she encounters; about a tattoo of a girl's name that gets soused one night and wakes up on a man's hairy ass; about Spanglish becoming the official language of the southwestern US; about a painter who manages to accurately depict god; Ronald Reagan and Ayn Rand were secret lovers... etc.


Easily the best of these is "The Manhood of Europe" about a college grad named Sarah Leigh who backpacks across Europe with the sole intent of having sex with one man in each country.

Sarah got her man. She got him in every country. In Albania and Poland. In Italy and Germany. In France and Spain. In Denmark. She had them all. Men typical of their nations. Stereotypical. Some were greasy. Some pale. Some dirty. Too dirty. Some clean. Too clean. Some hirsute. Some androgynous. ... And most...

[...] her epiphany came as she ground her hips into a Scottish guy's hips in Glasgow. A room solely consisting of shadows and blue light. It was simple. She felt no joy. It was too easy. She could conquer, oh yes, and easily at that, but one cannot rape the willing. She wasn't doing anything new, even for a woman. And despite the much touted and spoken of romanticism that supposedly gripped Europe, she felt she must be in the wrong place (78).

González points out here that perhaps lust isn't all it's cracked up to be. Of course he's wrong, but he must be given points for trying. After all, it's not like from there it descends into piety, highlighting the finer points of celibacy. In fact, he's very good about doing the exact opposite of preaching: moral indifference.

On a bus in London, Sarah sat next to an older man. She was traveling from Greenwich to Westminster and she was reading "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love." When she took her eyes from the pages to look out the window, she noticed the man shifting his eyes from her face to the book in her hand.

"Raymond Carver is no Hemingway," said he, chuckling.

"And Italians don't fuck nearly as good as Chicanos," Sarah responded.

"Yes... yes. Very well," he said, and eased himself out of the seat with the aid of a cane. He tipped his hat to her (83).

This kind of humor, prevalent in the book, seems sharpest in this story. González likes absurdity. He likes shock. He hates Raymond Carver. A lot. In fact, every story has a line about how Carver sucks. Good one, Stu.

Cop this book.

descendingastaircase@gmail.com

Bottle of Scotch outta be sufficient.