Monday, July 05, 2004

 
A message passed on from Eastern Kentucky University student Lex by way of Chi-Town. This is his first week living there. Lex grew up in Bardstown Kentucky.

"So you want to be a writer:

There is no choice, it’s like telling yourself you’re not going to fuck your girlfriend because she’s been a bitch lately...you know it never works..

But I’ll make a list so life can go on.

You have to be insane–like wanting to grind your teeth down with a sander just to feel–insane.

You must be scared to go out without a pen and paper–terrified without a pen and paper.

I left mine today–I almost cried–I got a pen and a napkin in a coffee shop–I’m okay.

You must need books to hide in. You must be scared without them–dark basement after Michael Myers at 5-years-old scared, or 7 am and the birds are chirping and your out of coke scared.

You must have women, or want to have women, because you write to them–no one else. You always write to Nancy or Louise or Taylor or Courtney or Natalie–I don’t lie.

You must love faces and arms and hair and voices–men and women–you must know if Seth or Scott is hot, like you know Gwyneth is hot–don’t be scared.

You must always be scared–only the reality of illusion can calm you.

Like this napkin, you must write on magazines and hands–you would write on her face if she’d let you–all your words on her forehead, on her cheeks.

You must drink or have drunk like your alcoholic uncle Bill or Bobby or Bud.

Gymnasiums and elementary schools must make you sweat. Subways make you sleep.

Mash and Mommas Family make you tie the noose, the late night news makes you hang it, a school bus makes you tip the chair.

Your newest short story or poem or the word gloaming you typed or wrote on a napkin is beyond Hemingway and Joyce.

You can like the classics but please know the year–it’s no longer 1877 or 1920.

You must judge: the person, the flower arrangement, your mom’s key lime pie. You’re not a good person–really not a good person.

You can burn your English degree, and fuck you’re A+ essay on Ulysses–you might as well study the puke by the bum on the sidewalk. Do that–study the puke and wipe his face with your Ulysses essay.

Coffee makes you crazy but you love crack, bums love crack, but don’t worry, mommy still loves you..

You must watch the escalator with wide eyes and know it’s all God–the escalator, and the puke on the sidewalk, and the bum. But not your Ulysses essay, that will never be. But the Handicap Sticker on the door–that is–it’s God, and Jesus, and Mohamed in great White Cloud Blue Sky Buddhaland Nirvana with angels flying by Heaven–that Heaven you saw as a kid and you can’t forget–this is the Handicap Sticker.

The Black dude that came in the coffee shop and said, "Write that shit man. Never stop." He must make you smile–he makes you burn the noose. You never had one anyway, you’re scared of death and dirt; and graveyards are like churches. You like to make love in churches–the best sex is with God–and you wash with the Holy Water–sex gets you hot, but the water is always by the door.

With pen in hand you grind your teeth. You shake and sweat and masturbate to forget about it, and your character Mike, and the next word. You drink or want to drink because of the next word.

Hot scrotum burning hell would be better–but that pretty little girl that just walked by and smiled at you–she makes it all peachy again.


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