Gerald McClellan vs Nigel Benn
by Sam Pink
Wormblanket Press, 2013
$10.00 buy from Wormblanket Press

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Who are these people. I picture Gerald McClellan in a ring with Nigel Benn but maybe they’re just labels on a whiskey pint, they’re on the shelf next to each other like “Hey, we made it,” and maybe they have. Shelf life for life.

2. Sam’s Chicago doesn’t require much “game” or at least if you’re pretty for a white boy it kind of seems like the junkies are all thinking like a bunch of teenage girls.

3. I felt the distinct possibility of having teenage girls want to/pretend to want to fuck me to be alluring but not in a sexual way. All those big eyes with mascara and vodka and older brothers smaller than me. Everything would ride on those brothers being smaller than me, though. They’ve got retractable batons. My little brother once had a friend named Erin that I wanted to like me because she was going to art school in France according to my mom.

4. I worked in a warehouse once. So did I. The people in Sam’s warehouse seem like chillers. I want to throw a jammer with these chillers, and then they do. Same thing about the feeling in “Nice Job”. I would have never said “Nice Job” to anyone driving a forklift. Thought about it though.

5. Limited death types/options on pursuing boxing as a future.

6. Every story has a choice. Listing choices is easy. Spending the night outside of your girlfriend’s apartment because you have no other choice, even if you think the rats are sweet, is a hard choice to make. The movements of Sam’s characters feel both arbitrary and necessary, but always made by one person alone.

7. No matter what, the homeless will always have more friends than you.

8. G’be k’n me is something I’d like to incorporate into my regular speech.

9. If my grandfather always said, “Hey, now who’s this little shithead?” I would be okay with it because my grandfather has Alzheimers. Mine are all dead.

10. Just went to the movies last night. Didn’t question why no one talked to me. Kind of want to move to Chicago.

11. I saw a guy today that had a massive face tic. Thinking of Sam, I wanted to call him Tick. But then I remembered there was already a comic and then two TV shows called “The Tick” and I felt unoriginal.

12. What is this fruit flavored malt drink. Anyone? Seems to only exist in Chicago. We’ll order it if you want to drink it in the library.

13. Sam seems to understand the human desire to separate and exclude others, including himself. But he goes further by relating to those who dislike him because, according to Lacan, we are originally separated from ourselves. Or because we all suck. There aren’t a lot of mirrors in Sam’s stories. I’d like to come together with someone on a shared distaste for myself. I’ll be that someone.

14. Is there any type of oral trauma that would make a person pronounce J’s weird? Like J’s=Th’s? Probably. That would make the whole Jesus thing funny, at least to people who hate school and Jesus.

15. Sam will make streets and places like Fullerton and Pilsen Neighborhood famous. People will go there and try to replicate something. Not sure what you’d do other than post up in the park.

16. If I lived above Sam, I would play Fifa 2013 because I hate that game and I hate the people who play that game because they’re all better than me because I don’t have a TV or a PS3 so the scenario doesn’t make sense anyway and I would stomp and yell and throw shit just because.

17. Next time I burst into a single bar bathroom I’ll be ready for anything.

18. One day, you will be able to purchase a Sam Pink Personality Shield 6066.

19. If I were Sam’s girlfriend I’d probably be pissed. “He talks about me like twice and both times he throws a chair at the wall or says ‘fuuuuhh-cuueeee’ in his head.” That’s what I would think.

20. I want to try and die and then have someone stop me. Then I want to go on the internet where people will have already typed, “I want to try and die and then have someone stop me,” and type, “why don’t you fucking do it,” in all caps. Then I will laugh and google some more.

21. Sam has a good sense of what to include and what not to include in a story. Never did I feel like, “easy there,” during a car driving out of a gas station on hydraulics.

22. Keep picturing myself as the LumberJack on the subway, though I don’t necessarily know what drug I’m on. I went over to the end of the car to find more maybe.

23. Sam notices a lot of little gestures that somehow I can picture easily but they also don’t seem like things I’d notice in real life.

24. Yesterday on the subway, I wanted to fall on the floor and start crying. I thought that Sam would think that that was funny. So did I.

25. There are no page numbers and that feels good. They way you should read this book is all the way through and then after that flip. Flip. Everything is worth reading multiple times. It will make you feel things that are entirely positive.

 

Librarians’ Note: We received two copies of this limited issue book (39 and 43 of 50, respectively) through a kind donation from a tumblr friend/publisher wormblanket. Find him. Upvoteworthy fellow.

 

You can check out Gerald McClellan vs Nigel Benn here at Mellow Pages in Bushwick, right above the Morgan stop. Or if you don’t like Sam (he’d like that) then check out the tons of other goods we’re housing, open daily 11-8. http://on.fb.me/WJgv1B and http://bit.ly/13dctU3

Tags: 25 Points, Gerald McClellan vs Nigel Benn, sam pink, Wormblanket Press