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EGR - Flu Season
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Christopher Locke
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Nov 30, 2000 14:29 PST
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Valued Readers:
FACT - After all I have done in my life, NOTHING has made me as much
money as I am now making in a LEGITIMATE home-based business!
Uh... where was I? Come to think of it, where *am* I? Oh yes, how many
of you noticed that the New York Times used the word "autochthonous"
today? I am SO bummed out that they beat me to it. But that's not
really what I wanted to say either. Hmmm.
I was just looking for this thing to send you and I found this other
file instead, labeled fucked-up.txt. I opened it wondering what it
contained (though the date stamp says I created it this month). Here,
see for yourself:
The world is very fucked up and everybody knows it.
That was it. Just the one line. Why do I leave these little notes to
myself? I'll never know.
So I get email this morning from this kid who just discovered the book
that dare not speak its name. He was pretty excited about it. Here's
all the context I've got strength to quote (cut-paste, cut-paste,
jesus, does it ever end?):
| | I'm sure you have heard of this stupid school system in the UK with
these large, traditional independent schools...
|
He said a bunch of other stuff about the hard time he was having there
and expressed a certain unhealthy fondness for computers. However, I
was touched by his sincerity, so I wrote back (as most of you know
from experience, I usually ignore the little people).
Nico,
actually, "control freakism" *is* the correct technical term. you
have my complete sympathy, as school was one of the nightmares I am
still trying to forget. I found that sabotage and covert
insurrection worked best for me, though you may experience
different results (such as a lengthy term in borstal). More
seriously, speaking of borstal, I was greatly inspired by a book I
read back then called The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.
Has nothing to do with IT, but that stuff will rot your brain
anyway (e.g., javascript is known to cause cancer in laboratory
rats). You can get it here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0586092412/
You might also check out:
The Anarchist Cookbook
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0962303208/
...but don't get caught with it. I hope this is helpful, though I
suspect not. oh yes, and be sure to play lots of VERY LOUD rap music
at odd hours. with lots of bass.
my respects to your headmaster.
RB
So, my good deed for the day, you know? Now where is that fucking
file I was going to send? Wait a minute...
Ah here it is. But I should explain a few things. First, I don't
*really* hate David Weinberger. Heavens no! In fact, whenever I talk
to him, I get these inexplicable tingling sensations in my loins and I
want to convert to phenomenology. Second, there's this guy on the EGR
list who's an editor at The Guardian in the UK. Surprisingly, I have
learned that this is a respectable publication. No tits and ass like
those shitrags Rupert Murdoch puts out. Anyway, he invited me to write
a column. On something. I was as messed up as it sounds like when I
wrote this, so I guess I'll have to try again. I send it to you on the
general Mikey-Will-Eat-Anything theory. Ready? Got your spoon out?
Go!
"...you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and
with the right kind of eyes you can almost *see* the high-water
mark -- that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."
Hunter S. Thompson
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Gonzo Marketing: Winning Through Worst Practices
How many days have I been racked out on this couch? Three? Four? I
got back from speaking in London late last week and immediately
came down with the flu. Influenza the ancients called it. An evil
influence from the stars. Between hits of Alka Seltzer Plus and
fitful bouts of restless, fevered sleep, I've been reading Elmore
Leonard's novel, The Hunted. Maybe that's what did it.
Somebody's banging on my door and bellowing. "Locke! Come out here
you bottom-feeding scum sucker! I know you're in there. Come out or
I'm coming in!" Something much harder than a fist hits the door
with a sickening thud. A window shatters. I'm waking up now. More
like coming to. What was I just dreaming? Something about the book.
Something terrible. You know those dreams that keep repeating,
won't let you go? One of those. I won't be able to finish it on
time. I don't know what I'm doing, what to write. What if my
publisher wants the money back? But this is worse. I stumble to the
door, undo the bolt.
And find myself eye-to-eye with the uncompromising orifice of a
shotgun barrel. Look how round it is. Nasty. I am definitely not
ready for this. "Look," I croak, my voice breaking, "I've got a
mother of a cold going on here. Could you maybe come back later?"
A rough hand reaches through the door and grabs me by the shirt,
yanking me out into the cold, then hurling me back against the long
bank of entryway windows. It's not the Fed-Ex guy. Not UPS or the
mailman. Nobody else ever comes here. "Who are you?" I manage, "and
why are you doing this?" The man looks crazed. He looks as if he's
been drinking. Maybe even on drugs.
Then I notice the cigarette holder. Oh dear God. My worst nightmare
come true. It's Hunter S. Thompson. In that case, definitely on
drugs. "I wish I had something to offer you," I say, thinking as
fast as I can, which isn't very, "but I quit drinking 16 years
ago." He jacks a shell into the pump. Uh-oh, wrong approach.
However, he sees that I've recognized him. Sees the confusion
lifting, the fear dawning in my face.
"I understand you're writing a book," he drawls. And just lets it
hang there, the whole scene suddenly framed in tableaux. I should
have seen this coming. I should have called it Seven something. Or
something about Simplicity or Cheese. "Look," I say... but that's
as far as I get because the shotgun is now jammed between my teeth.
"Mrphh rmble xltrig forqwad!" I protest.
"A book about gonzo," he says with towering contempt. "A book about
gonzo *marketing*," he says, and spits -- an ugly gesture at the
best of times, and I'm thinking this isn't one of them. But at
least he's pulled the gun back some, so I can talk.
"Hunter, man! It's not what you think! You're gonna love it,
actually. See, the reason it's gonzo is what you said about the
writer needing to be engaged in what he's writing." I compulsively
add "...well, he or she." Big mistake. He rams the barrel into my
sternum, pinning me against the window. "Yeah sure, so it's a
business book, OK. But not *that* kind of business book. You know?"
It doesn't look like he knows. "Listen..." I try again.
But he says "No, you listen to this!" And suddenly there's a
blinding light and a very loud noise that I'm hearing with every
auditory synapse as I watch myself, fascinated, tumbling backwards
in slow motion through the glass, which has shattered into a
rainbow catching the morning light, fractal, delicate,
heartbreakingly beautiful. I slam into the Sony XBR TV, my head
crashing through the largest tube job on today's consumer
electronics market. Circuits spark and leap. The current streams
into my brain. I realize as consciousness fades that the damn thing
is trying to mate with me. Artificial intelligence attempting to
spawn itself on the far and fading shores of broadcast.
Predictably, the attempt fails.
The phone rings.
"Hello?" Tentative. Thinking maybe this is what comes after. You
get some kind of call. But it's David Weinberger. You remember him
from Cluetrain, right? "So how's the book coming?" he wants to
know, all rested and cheery. I hate him. "I've decided not to write
it," I hear myself saying. "I'm afraid people won't... you know,
they just won't *get it*." Even though it's dawning on me it was
all a dream. Still...
"What do you mean you're not writing it!" Weinberger thunders. I
can tell he's secretly pleased, though. He just signed a contract
for his own book and, really, the guy is more competitive than
Larry Ellison. Also, he senses something deeply neurotic with
strong psychoanalytic potential. But I head him off before he can
get into it. "I just realized it was too complex," I say. "These
business types haven't evolved enough yet. Maybe if I live another
thousand years..."
I don't want to tell him the truth. That Woody Creek is only a few
hundred miles into the mountains west of here and it's all too
clear that that fearful loathsome Dr. Thompson is still up there.
Alive and kicking.
Christopher Locke
November 28, 2000
Boulder, Colorado
Chris Locke (clo-@panix.com) is a noted industry speaker and co-
author of the Business Week bestseller, The Cluetrain Manifesto. He
is currently at work on Gonzo Marketing: Winning Through Worst
Practices (Perseus Books, 2001).
I put my name and the date there because I was thinking of using it as
the preface to the book. Then I sent it to my publisher and maaan... I
didn't know they would freak out *that* bad. The other self-serving
crap is there for, you know, like context. Uh-huh. And since I've got
this thing for echoes ever since OD'ing on dextromethorphan, here's
another thing I posted to Amazon the same day. I wonder if the
resident e-goatfuckers over there will have the balls... oh, would
you look at that! They actually posted it. Well I'll be damned. As
many of you never tire of reminding me.
Fear and Loathing in America:
The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist
(Thompson, Hunter S. Gonzo Letters, V. 2.)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/068487315X/entropygradientr
[five stars] Surfin' USA
History sure, yeah yeah. As if it's over. What can you say about a
guy who ends a piece -- on ESPN.com no less, two weeks ago -- with
this gratuitous aside: "And the whole Bush family, from Texas,
should be boiled in poison oil." What can you say except keep it
coming, Doc.
"...you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and
with the right kind of eyes you can almost *see* the high-water
mark -- that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."
So wrote HST in Fear and Loathing, part the first.
Except that it never really broke. Never really rolled back. He
said it never got weird enough for him. But it will. Believe it.
And it's coming in like a king-hell tsunami. As we say out here in
the wild and wooly world-wide west: Yee-hah!
And with that Yee-hah I must leave you, gentle readers, and get back
to work. If I don't cause some genuine damage pretty soon, what good
will I be? Plus, I am now totally and officially Out of Cigarettes.
Time for that trip to King Soopers I've been putting off all week.
Ad astra per aspera!
The Management
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