August 10th, 2010 / 5:56 pm
Roundup
Blake Butler
Roundup
My puberty ostrich
1. @Gawker, 4chan founder tries to explain ‘b-tard’ to federal prosecutors.
2. @Thought Catalog, Brandon Scott Gorrell lists all the drugs he’s taken in chronological order, in 4 parts.
3. Tony O’Neill is reading at the In The Flesh reading series August 19 in NYC, details here. Also, here is in conversation with Adam Carolla.
4. I enjoy creative interpretation of indistinguishable language.
5. Anybody read Tom McCarthy’s C. yet? I am curious to hear about it.
Tags: 4chan, C., tom mccarthy, tony o'neill
Just got the galley of C but haven’t dug in yet. Was a big fan of Remainder, so eager. Will comment something in a few days when I’ve gotten through.
that would be great, thanks joseph
I think BSG is holding out. Others?
between all 4 parts?
C looks wonderful.
If I wasn’t such a geographic lamer I would go see O’Neill read. I finished his latest recently and it was the kind of prose that would make for an engaging performance.
You mean 5 parts, his 5 segments?
Yes.
I write things like this all the time (not comparing us as writers–I wouldn’t do that to a human, I am mediocrity on a cracker served at a rest stop) and wish I’d taken it next step. BSG easily could.
BUT
I think he skipped harder drugs I bet he has done. Could be wrong. I also think this could be expanded into something BIG, our obvious contradiction between Just Say No and being the most prescribed nation. Etc.
All the friction/fiction about drugs.
I guess that was my point.
brandon stayed a night in my home. trust me, he hasn’t done any hard drugs.
i am sort of surprised to not see any mention of anything from a pharmacy.
tony is a natural story teller, for sure.
‘sick city’ was the most honest writing about drug use i have ever read.
Agreed. Haven’t read Sick City yet, but I look forward to it.
This is funny because I don’t care. I mean to say go ahead. Etc.
But staying in your house is the litmus test for if/if not someone has done hard drugs?
BTW, what are “hard” drugs?
I assume The Wiggles are included.
no sean. you assume so much as usual.
the litmus test is i am the judge. he stayed in my home. i observed him.
“BTW, what are “hard” drugs?”
come to hollywood and we’ll discuss.
oh i see the pharmaceuticals now. the site didn’t make finding the other 3 parts intuitive.
i don’t think brandon was taking oxycontin according to the description. it hasn’t ever come in a dropper. the description of the container makes it sound more like a morphine based pharmaceutical, which isn’t nearly as good as oxy.
also the use of an opiate with another sedative, alcohol, in a user with little to no opiate tolerance would end abruptly in sleep.
so in other words, this is probably another bullshit list devised to manipulate thought.
“brandon is cool. he does drugs. fornicate with him.”
oxycontin is just a brand of oxycodone.
there are a couple companies that make a liquid version of oxycodone.
i love how that judge came back to rickrolling after a minute… like it sort of sparked his interest or something.
I just kind of thought… so what?
Touche
Read C. Reminds me of G.
According to Tony O’Neill, drugs you inject with a needle.
Blar, blar me, jereme. Have no idea what u mean by “as usual”
My simple point was any user of anything knows 200% tactics outside observation. No observe of any user can be valid.
Anyway, who cares? Seems a small argue.
I, in general, think there needs to be more writing about drugs.
Drugs are a metaphor and reality, always. Appearance vs reality. They are what we are, subversive, what-we-do, a turbo beneath the soil.
Always.
So they are lit, is my point.
Rejoice.
I read somewhere that if “Remainder” was McCarthy’s “Beckett novel,” this was his “Joyce novel.” Seems interesting/possibly sweet.
sean did you see all four parts? there are a lot of drugs listed including cocaine, acid, MDMA, foxy, mushrooms
you can find all four parts on my writer’s page on TC: http://thoughtcatalog.com/author/brandon-scott-gorrell/
jereme i feel pretty sure it was oxy. i had never heard of liquid oxy either my friend who had it said it was, or said it was something similar, or something, and she is a conscious person, conscious of the things she does, the drugs she takes, and she was handling all her dad’s prescriptions for alzhiemer’s as she was his caretaker
my first diazepam experience did end in sleep, just not abruptly
stu just kinda thought ‘so what’ to your comment, seems like we’re even
blake thanks for linking this
brandon,
the fact that you don’t know exactly and specifically what drugs you are putting in your body only helps my argument.
i mean i can tell some of these are true as shit. but others you are sort of bullshitting.
oxycontin, by definition, is a time-released drug. there is no way to time release a fucking ingested liquid.
what it was, like i said, was probably morphine but very weak. i mean you are stealing opiates from a brain atrophied old dude. his drug selection would be completely different than a chronic pain patient.
oxy is short for any oxycodone based pharmaceutical. the media pushes the term “oxycontin” very incorrectly.
the diazepam description was mostly honest. i could tell.
i dunno about the stu comment. i read it as his affirmation to my comment—not in support of you.
“so what”
we half agree. i think there needs to be more new ways of writing about drugs.
re ‘jereme’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AqiQoltlVU&feature=related
Big Sean. XXL Freshman 2010. Ya heard…
stephen,
like a knight in shining insecurity, here you are.
a reply;enjoy!
Gay As Fuck is also dope.
jereme, it is true, i like boys: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFzfmj9NXko
shout outs to ana c. for introducing me to…TONETTA
Just got the galley of C but haven’t dug in yet. Was a big fan of Remainder, so eager. Will comment something in a few days when I’ve gotten through.
that would be great, thanks joseph
I think BSG is holding out. Others?
between all 4 parts?
C looks wonderful.
If I wasn’t such a geographic lamer I would go see O’Neill read. I finished his latest recently and it was the kind of prose that would make for an engaging performance.
You mean 5 parts, his 5 segments?
Yes.
I write things like this all the time (not comparing us as writers–I wouldn’t do that to a human, I am mediocrity on a cracker served at a rest stop) and wish I’d taken it next step. BSG easily could.
BUT
I think he skipped harder drugs I bet he has done. Could be wrong. I also think this could be expanded into something BIG, our obvious contradiction between Just Say No and being the most prescribed nation. Etc.
All the friction/fiction about drugs.
I guess that was my point.
brandon stayed a night in my home. trust me, he hasn’t done any hard drugs.
i am sort of surprised to not see any mention of anything from a pharmacy.
tony is a natural story teller, for sure.
‘sick city’ was the most honest writing about drug use i have ever read.
i feel bad about what i said to stu if his comment wasn’t directed at my articles
sorry stu
Agreed. Haven’t read Sick City yet, but I look forward to it.
This is funny because I don’t care. I mean to say go ahead. Etc.
But staying in your house is the litmus test for if/if not someone has done hard drugs?
BTW, what are “hard” drugs?
I assume The Wiggles are included.
no sean. you assume so much as usual.
the litmus test is i am the judge. he stayed in my home. i observed him.
“BTW, what are “hard” drugs?”
come to hollywood and we’ll discuss.
oh i see the pharmaceuticals now. the site didn’t make finding the other 3 parts intuitive.
i don’t think brandon was taking oxycontin according to the description. it hasn’t ever come in a dropper. the description of the container makes it sound more like a morphine based pharmaceutical, which isn’t nearly as good as oxy.
also the use of an opiate with another sedative, alcohol, in a user with little to no opiate tolerance would end abruptly in sleep.
so in other words, this is probably another bullshit list devised to manipulate thought.
“brandon is cool. he does drugs. fornicate with him.”
oxycontin is just a brand of oxycodone.
there are a couple companies that make a liquid version of oxycodone.
i love how that judge came back to rickrolling after a minute… like it sort of sparked his interest or something.
I just kind of thought… so what?
Touche
I’m about 1/3 through C, also loved Remainder. This is just as chilly and precise. Slow to figure what it’s about or where it’s going but I’m starting to get pretty wrapped up in its odd preoccupations (sound, shapes, architecture – both settings so far are amazing).
Read C. Reminds me of G.
According to Tony O’Neill, drugs you inject with a needle.
Blar, blar me, jereme. Have no idea what u mean by “as usual”
My simple point was any user of anything knows 200% tactics outside observation. No observe of any user can be valid.
Anyway, who cares? Seems a small argue.
I, in general, think there needs to be more writing about drugs.
Drugs are a metaphor and reality, always. Appearance vs reality. They are what we are, subversive, what-we-do, a turbo beneath the soil.
Always.
So they are lit, is my point.
Rejoice.
I read somewhere that if “Remainder” was McCarthy’s “Beckett novel,” this was his “Joyce novel.” Seems interesting/possibly sweet.
sean did you see all four parts? there are a lot of drugs listed including cocaine, acid, MDMA, foxy, mushrooms
you can find all four parts on my writer’s page on TC: http://thoughtcatalog.com/author/brandon-scott-gorrell/
jereme i feel pretty sure it was oxy. i had never heard of liquid oxy either my friend who had it said it was, or said it was something similar, or something, and she is a conscious person, conscious of the things she does, the drugs she takes, and she was handling all her dad’s prescriptions for alzhiemer’s as she was his caretaker
my first diazepam experience did end in sleep, just not abruptly
stu just kinda thought ‘so what’ to your comment, seems like we’re even
blake thanks for linking this
brandon,
the fact that you don’t know exactly and specifically what drugs you are putting in your body only helps my argument.
i mean i can tell some of these are true as shit. but others you are sort of bullshitting.
oxycontin, by definition, is a time-released drug. there is no way to time release a fucking ingested liquid.
what it was, like i said, was probably morphine but very weak. i mean you are stealing opiates from a brain atrophied old dude. his drug selection would be completely different than a chronic pain patient.
oxy is short for any oxycodone based pharmaceutical. the media pushes the term “oxycontin” very incorrectly.
the diazepam description was mostly honest. i could tell.
i dunno about the stu comment. i read it as his affirmation to my comment—not in support of you.
“so what”
we half agree. i think there needs to be more new ways of writing about drugs.
re ‘jereme’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AqiQoltlVU&feature=related
if that was his beckett novel that’s fucked up
you guys are arguing about what drugs are hard
fuck you guys
anyone who comments on a blog has never done drugs
Big Sean. XXL Freshman 2010. Ya heard…
stephen,
like a knight in shining insecurity, here you are.
a reply;enjoy!
i’m willing to wager some of y’all in here think this thread has crossed over and become ‘literature’
stop being a piece of shit
Gay As Fuck is also dope.
jereme, it is true, i like boys: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFzfmj9NXko
shout outs to ana c. for introducing me to…TONETTA
i saw this note in the cue on the right and kinda hoped it was directed at me.
i don’t know what else to say other than: what?
i dunno
nothin really
just dogs
just cmaera
bitch i am not arguing about which drugs are hard.
i am arguing about the authenticity of the fucking piece.
it is bullshit.
oxycodone is not oxycontin chris. your facts are way off. its like saying a fiber is the same as a noose.
are you going to tell me fentanyl is the fucking panacea for sore throat too?
i went and found this: http://www.artemisblacks.com/degra/images/Bren%20Cmaera.jpg
btw: right on about people commenting on blogs = exercising sophrosyne
this is what this stuff is really like: http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=37792
tread, lightly.
I used to do steroids.
just be quiet at look at something sometime
jereme.. oxycontin is pure oxycodone with a time release coating, available in 40 and 80mg pills. when you put the pill in your mouth and spit it into your tshirt and wipe off the outer coating, you have 40 or 80 milligrams of pure oxycodone. this is fact bro. i was a junkie for close to five years. google that shit.
i feel bad about what i said to stu if his comment wasn’t directed at my articles
sorry stu
I’m about 1/3 through C, also loved Remainder. This is just as chilly and precise. Slow to figure what it’s about or where it’s going but I’m starting to get pretty wrapped up in its odd preoccupations (sound, shapes, architecture – both settings so far are amazing).
if that was his beckett novel that’s fucked up
you guys are arguing about what drugs are hard
fuck you guys
n00b question: for thise in the US, hiw did you order ‘C’? Still not out for another month or something. Tried to order it online, failed. Hm.
anyone who comments on a blog has never done drugs
stop being a piece of shit
i dunno
nothin really
just dogs
just cmaera
bitch i am not arguing about which drugs are hard.
i am arguing about the authenticity of the fucking piece.
it is bullshit.
oxycodone is not oxycontin chris. your facts are way off. its like saying a fiber is the same as a noose.
are you going to tell me fentanyl is the fucking panacea for sore throat too?
I used to do steroids.
just be quiet at look at something sometime
jereme.. oxycontin is pure oxycodone with a time release coating, available in 40 and 80mg pills. when you put the pill in your mouth and spit it into your tshirt and wipe off the outer coating, you have 40 or 80 milligrams of pure oxycodone. this is fact bro. i was a junkie for close to five years. google that shit.
“stop being a piece of shit”
yipes
n00b question: for thise in the US, hiw did you order ‘C’? Still not out for another month or something. Tried to order it online, failed. Hm.
my apologies for late night drunken commenting
apologies for late night drunken commenting
I’m gonna come to your defense here zusy and agree. I’ve always considered HTMLG a literature of sorts, a cyber-serial with real characters and audience participation.
And Blake just apologized for drunken commenting, so all is right in the world.
IF IT’S NOT LITERATURE WHAT IS IT?
Dood, I am slightly weary of white kids getting mild drug habits just so they can write about it all later. Especially when it’s a white kid’s Free Credibility Pass to send dispatches from The Hood. The calculating aspect of that plus the inherent vampirism of a kid who is able to flirt with danger just enough to make a little money (or publishing credits) from the experience… while leaving the genuine denizens of the Sexy-Scary Milieu behind… I find it just too symptomatic of the Exploit-Everything Era. I have an acquaintance who scored a bestseller from her relationship with an AIDS sufferer and she used that very modus operandi as a career path; she worked her way up from reporting on (and egging on) middle class “Nihilist” heroin users. Only difference being that she did it a staggering 20 years ago. The Squares will always eat that crap up (especially if you are a well-behaved Ex Junkie).
A good writer doesn’t need the corny prop of a fucking “real” hypodermic to be interesting. Well, fuck… if you’re going to go that route, throw in ten years of prison and at least I’ll grant you that you earned the right to exploit the fucking milieu.
It’s funny, I saw this thread because of Blakes drunken posts/ Blake, thanks for hipping me to this post with your drunken posts (which I enjoy) and thanks for linking to my reading / radio show.
This is really a reply to Steve Augustine.
Before I get too far into my reply, since I might have misconstrued what you are saying here, let me just askL
Was that comment directed at me, motherfucker?
AND SUPER-GALACTIC PHOTO-OXIDATION TO KEEP THINGS SPARKLING WHITE AND SMELLING FRESH
Oh, Tony. I like the “motherfucker”. So white.
“stop being a piece of shit”
yipes
Okay, good. So it was directed at me.
Listen Steve, lets just start this off by saying that you don’t know jack shit about a – my motivation for using drugs, or b – how many drugs I used, or whatever.
However, I do know from reading your posts that your a shitty pseudo-intellectual who posts incredibly pretentious poetry on his blog. This would normally mean that I wouldn’t even bother engaging with you on any level because you mean less than nothing to me. But I’m feeling feisty this morning, so let me indulge you.
I’m not sure what your whole race thing is. “So white” well, I am white. Never labored under any delusions that I was anything but. I do see the implied racism in your comment here:
“it’s a white kid’s Free Credibility Pass to send dispatches from The Hood.”
(i.e. only those scary black people live in ghettos)
or “I like “motherfucker”. How white”
(i.e. only those scary black people use words like “motherfucker”)
I’d also find this remark pretty offensive, if it was directed at me;
“I am slightly weary of white kids getting mild drug habits just so they can write about it all later.”
1 –
Again, you seem to be under the illusion that a drug habit is some kind of birthright for blacks, latinos, asians (did you imply asians with that comment? I took it to mean that only white drug users are “faking” and everybody else is authentic. i only ever met one Chinese junkie though, i was married to her for a bit, but she was only half Chinese, does she count???)
You also seem to think that all “whites” are whites of your kind – i.e. comfortable, college professor types, who sit around jerking it over images of edith sitwell and puffing on a pipe all day. Well, some of us weren’t born into money, and some of us feel perfectly comfortable around those “scary” black, latinos and whoever else’s, because we grew up with them. Hate to ruin you illusions Steve, but my first exposure to black culture was not listening to an NWA album during my first week of college.
2 – my drug habit was not mild, it was severe. Don’t talk shit when you obviously dont have a clue about what it is you’re talking about.
3 – i did not get a drug habit so I would have something to write about. I doubt that has ever happened to be honest, and if it has, I doubt it worked out for the person dumb enough to try it. I used – and continue to use drugs – because I enjoy them greatly. I didn’t get a heroin habit to chalk up any “life experience” or what ever else you believe. I’d had plenty of real life experience before I put a needle in my arm. Drugs, chaos, fucked marriages, homelessness, all of that came first, writing came much, much later. If I had spent my formative years jerking off to kiddie porn and then posting snarky comments on lit blogs like a lily-livered bitch then maybe I would have written about that. But that was not my experience.
4 – Unlike, say, BSG’s piece which was also posted here, my work is not about simply talking about how may drugs I’ve done. Everybody has done drugs. I’d be more shocked to meet someone at a party who told me they’d never done drugs. Drugs are passe now,in case you didn’t know, they are part of mainstream culture. However, since I was an intravenous heroin user for most of my teens and well into my late 20s I think it would be almost impossible for me to ignore those experiences and not have them inform my fiction.
Tony: you were a user of drugs such as Crack and Heroin, yeah? Aren’t these drugs illegal still? Why aren’t you doing 150 years in prison? Why weren’t you deported?
Because you aren’t Black?
(As a Black man I’m curious)
Steve, i didn’t end up doing 150 years because I never got popped. So you can chalk that up to luck, or street smarts or whatever.
Nobody’s saying that the system isn’t fucked. But the cops pinching a white dope-fiend with an illegal weapon, or needles, or rocks or whatever is not the same as the cops popping a wall street banker walking down the street with a rolled up one hundred dollar pill in their hand and an 8-ball of coke. The wall street banker would probably walk, but the broke ass white dope fiend will get treated pretty much the same as any other dope fiend, black white or whatever.
I’ve had plenty of white friends who have done time in the states and back in England, and I hate to break it to you, but none of them got off because they had white skin.
All of which is veering slightly off topic, but whatever.
“The wall street banker would probably walk, but the broke ass white dope fiend will get treated pretty much the same as any other dope fiend, black white or whatever.”
Uh yeah.
“All of which is veering slightly off topic, but whatever.”
Not in light of my original post, Tony. Tony, hey, had you recovered from your “serious drug problem” by the time you gigged with “Kenickie (1997–98), Marc Almond (1997–98), The Brian Jonestown Massacre (2000) and Kelli Ali (2001–04)”?
Laugh.
Steve, that is a bullshit, cowardly response.No substance, no real life experience in this matter, no nothing. Exactly what I’d expect from you, actually. Um, yeah.
Sure, Tony!
Well Steve, since youre interested, I’ll answer you questions. (However, if you’d like the whole story there are these great places called bookstores, I believe they even have them in Berlin, were you could learn this information and be entertained at the same time by buying either “Digging the Vein” or “Down and Out on Murder mile” both of which cover these parts of my life in detail)
“Tony, hey, had you recovered from your “serious drug problem” by the time you gigged with “Kenickie (1997–98),”
No, I was 18 years old and I hadn’t used hard drugs at that point in my life.
Marc Almond (1997–98),
ditto
The Brian Jonestown Massacre (2000)
Yes, I was heavily strung out on heroin at the time, resulting in my ejection from the band
and Kelli Ali (2001–04)
Yes, although i was on a methadone program at the time and slightly more stable, but I was still using heroin, crack, and other drugs.
“laugh”
I guess maybe there is something funny about the idea of someone making their living playing music, I’m just not sure what it is. We don’t all have rich parents sending us money while we swan off to pretend to be artists, you know.
“We don’t all have rich parents sending us money while we swan off to pretend to be artists, you know.”
Good one, Tony! But…
Grew up in Chicago (near Indiana: bonafide ghetto: rats, roaches, guns). Mother refused Welfare as *demeaning* and I owned my first bike at 25! But I was always an avid reader. Books were a huge part of family life. I had a library of 500 books in my little ghetto bedroom. Father was affiliated with the Black Panthers. Went to many Black Nationalist Jazz concerts. Met Cassius Clay in my father’s South Side office etc.
Moved to Philly when I was 16 to help with a family business (Funeral Home). Able to attend a prep school based on grades and tests (always top 1% in the country). Saw c. 1,500 dead bodies during my High School years and so forth.
I went to college on scholarships based on spectacular SATs etc. Fled the U.S. with money I earned painting houses. Moved around Europe while writing and earning money in recording studios, or painting houses and even once selling an option on a script. Always wanted to write but never wanted to write bullshit that pandered to expectations. Worked hard on developing a style. Sometime in the 90s, a techno miracle happened, and I found that I could find an audience without pandering to expectations. Bliss. I prostitute my musical talent to afford the freedom to write. Roughly 700 pages of hard-won material online.
Most of the material is a subtle, vaguely-surrealist satire of White Privilege.
I now earn my money as a composer in Berlin. Never saw a nickle from either of my parents, who were dirt-poor Black Bohemian (well, father, a jazz DJ and painter, was more Bohemian than my mother) Intellectuals. My idea of Fighting Racism and Making Art is to Defy the bullshit stereotypes and Never Sell Out.
What’s yours, “motherfucker”?
Steve,
I grew up in a cardboard box outside of Manchester, and we ate coal at Christmas, and survived on fresh air and pebbles the rest of the time. At nine I was sent out to prostitute to truck drivers so we would have enough money to pay for grandmas morphine suppositories. The old lady was senile, so i used to steal them out of her ass, and sell them to desperate junkies make enough money to feed my glue habit.
Actually Steve, the line about not having rich parents was not a dig at you, more a dig at the fact you seemed to think it was funny that I was actually, y’know, working on and off. You were the one who finished up quoting the fact I played in a couple of bands with “Laugh”. Seems even stranger now that you tell me you compose to pay the rent. I could have also put down that I worked in liquor stores, and laying concrete to make money at various points, but didnt think that anybody would give much of a fuck about that. I wouldn’t presume to know jack shit about your family, your circumstances, or how you make your money.
However, you seem to have me all figured out as a rich white boy who dabbled in drugs so he could get a publishing deal, having never met me or – presumably – read my work. The only thing you actually got right about me was that I am white. The rest was pretty much pure projection, which resulted in my pissed off reply to you.
“However, you seem to have me all figured out as a rich white boy who dabbled in drugs so he could get a publishing deal, having never met me or – presumably – read my work.”
a) Never thought you were rich, Tony B) I’ve read your work (perhaps you don’t remember the old GU days). My original line was, “I am slightly weary of white kids getting mild drug habits just so they can write about it all later. Especially when it’s a white kid’s Free Credibility Pass to send dispatches from The Hood.”
As a 51-year-old Bohemian of Color, that is my sincere perspective of the Genre you mine and you are free, obviously, to ignore it!
PS “you seemed to think it was funny that I was actually, y’know, working on and off”
No, I was laughing at the Marc Almond thing.
Steve-
I have to stop responding now. You are becoming something more than a mild irritant now, you are becoming a distraction. But for my last reply to you I will say this:
“Never thought you were rich, Tony B) I’ve read your work (perhaps you don’t remember the old GU days). My original line was, “I am slightly weary of white kids getting mild drug habits just so they can write about it all later. Especially when it’s a white kid’s Free Credibility Pass to send dispatches from The Hood.”
Yes I remember you from the GU days. You were incredibly irritating there, as well. Nothing worse than an old “bohemian” sniffing at everything the younger writers are doing as being “inauthentic” or whatever. Youre totally free to go live in a time capsule if you desire. But if you did read my work, then you’d know that the whole “mild drug habit” thing is a straw man. Maybe you need to get your bifocals fixed.
As for it being a “fee credibility pass” or whatever – you are making no sense here. I wrote about things that I experienced and lived through. I didn’t move into “the hood” as you put it (well, youre 51, so I suppose I can forgive you that) to gain experience, or get credibility or whatever. I lived wherever I could, wherever there were drugs, and where ever there was a place for me to crash. Believe me, if someone was offering an empty bedroom in Beverly Hills, my ass would have been there in a heartbeat. I dont think I would have sat around worrying about how it would affect my credibility.
“As a 51-year-old Bohemian of Color, that is my sincere perspective of the Genre you mine and you are free, obviously, to ignore it!”
You’re damn straight about that. Maybe you should try peering at the world without the whole “Bohemian of Color” glasses coloring your worldview. Your statements here seem to come a kind of reverse racism ideology which is pretty fucking stupid if you ask me. “Stay out of our ghettos, white folks! They’re OURS!” Give me a fucking break. When I was shooting up with people, the last thing on anybody’s mind was the color of our skin. We were junkies, and we watched out for each other. We were mainly prejudiced against non-users.
” No, I was laughing at the Marc Almond thing.”
Go ahead and laugh. Doesn’t mean shit to me. Marc was actually a really cool guy, and I learned a lot playing with him. Also got to see parts of the world I would probably have never made it out to unless I had landed that gig. So laugh away Steve.
(PS anyone who uses the word bohemian to describe themselves is an ass)
Sorry to fuck with your pseudo-cred, Tony.
“Marc was actually a really cool guy, and I learned a lot playing with him.”
It was the agony of working with Marc that led to the heroin, prolly.
my apologies for late night drunken commenting
chris,
i am well aware how to extract the oxycodone out of it.
you are using street chemistry here. which is cool but you should at least know what you are doing
the pill has a binder imbued with the opiate specifically to mitigate misuse and accidental overdose which can be caused by GRINDING OR CHEWING THE PILL. The prescription bottle for oxycontin ALWAYS has a sticker with the words DO NOT CHEW OR CUT, or something similar. It does not say BRO, DO NOT SUCK ON THE OUTER COATING AND SPIT IT INTO YOUR SHIRT.
The only thing you remove by washing the pill is the outer coating that tastes sort of not bad.
you are a genius by the way.
keep on failing, bro.
apologies for late night drunken commenting
Dude, Brian Jonestown Massacre. Dig
! is like, one of the best music documentaries….ever.
LOL
i had a few people recently ask me if tony o’neill was legit or not.
he is most definitely legit.
but i think this is more about protracted differences and not really about legitimacy.
just say what is really on your mind steve.
it’s okay. everyone will judge. but we all die anyways.
be genuine and say what you want to say.
ha, it would take more than a bitter old pseudo-bohemian who thinks he has big nuts (at least when he’s hiding behind a computer screen) to fuck with my cred, or fuck with anything else of mine, Steve.
Tony: wow. Just: wow.
I’m gonna come to your defense here zusy and agree. I’ve always considered HTMLG a literature of sorts, a cyber-serial with real characters and audience participation.
And Blake just apologized for drunken commenting, so all is right in the world.
IF IT’S NOT LITERATURE WHAT IS IT?
In UK C has been out about a week. One memorable scene was this little ‘God is dead!’ allegory in the ‘Crash’ section. It involves a seance which the hero Serge takes control of via remote transmitter. He sends messages through the medium on-stage to his girlfriend then debunks the whole set-up, calling out a chap in a fedora who drops his (less powerful) transmitter and absquatulates, causing a riot on the streets a la Burroughs. It is full of these rich scenes, asking to be read multiple ways.
Dood, I am slightly weary of white kids getting mild drug habits just so they can write about it all later. Especially when it’s a white kid’s Free Credibility Pass to send dispatches from The Hood. The calculating aspect of that plus the inherent vampirism of a kid who is able to flirt with danger just enough to make a little money (or publishing credits) from the experience… while leaving the genuine denizens of the Sexy-Scary Milieu behind… I find it just too symptomatic of the Exploit-Everything Era. I have an acquaintance who scored a bestseller from her relationship with an AIDS sufferer and she used that very modus operandi as a career path; she worked her way up from reporting on (and egging on) middle class “Nihilist” heroin users. Only difference being that she did it a staggering 20 years ago. The Squares will always eat that crap up (especially if you are a well-behaved Ex Junkie).
A good writer doesn’t need the corny prop of a fucking “real” hypodermic to be interesting. Well, fuck… if you’re going to go that route, throw in ten years of prison and at least I’ll grant you that you earned the right to exploit the fucking milieu.
It’s funny, I saw this thread because of Blakes drunken posts/ Blake, thanks for hipping me to this post with your drunken posts (which I enjoy) and thanks for linking to my reading / radio show.
This is really a reply to Steve Augustine.
Before I get too far into my reply, since I might have misconstrued what you are saying here, let me just askL
Was that comment directed at me, motherfucker?
AND SUPER-GALACTIC PHOTO-OXIDATION TO KEEP THINGS SPARKLING WHITE AND SMELLING FRESH
Oh, Tony. I like the “motherfucker”. So white.
“I didn’t move into “the hood” as you put it (well, youre 51, so I suppose I can forgive you that)…”
Tony, can you teach me some edgy lingo like, “But the cops pinching a white dope-fiend with an illegal weapon, or needles, or rocks…” ? I want to borrow some of your authentic Marc-Almond-Crew drug terminology street cred! “Dope fiend” is really rad. And “pinching”… that’s so… street!
Okay, good. So it was directed at me.
Listen Steve, lets just start this off by saying that you don’t know jack shit about a – my motivation for using drugs, or b – how many drugs I used, or whatever.
However, I do know from reading your posts that your a shitty pseudo-intellectual who posts incredibly pretentious poetry on his blog. This would normally mean that I wouldn’t even bother engaging with you on any level because you mean less than nothing to me. But I’m feeling feisty this morning, so let me indulge you.
I’m not sure what your whole race thing is. “So white” well, I am white. Never labored under any delusions that I was anything but. I do see the implied racism in your comment here:
“it’s a white kid’s Free Credibility Pass to send dispatches from The Hood.”
(i.e. only those scary black people live in ghettos)
or “I like “motherfucker”. How white”
(i.e. only those scary black people use words like “motherfucker”)
I’d also find this remark pretty offensive, if it was directed at me;
“I am slightly weary of white kids getting mild drug habits just so they can write about it all later.”
1 –
Again, you seem to be under the illusion that a drug habit is some kind of birthright for blacks, latinos, asians (did you imply asians with that comment? I took it to mean that only white drug users are “faking” and everybody else is authentic. i only ever met one Chinese junkie though, i was married to her for a bit, but she was only half Chinese, does she count???)
You also seem to think that all “whites” are whites of your kind – i.e. comfortable, college professor types, who sit around jerking it over images of edith sitwell and puffing on a pipe all day. Well, some of us weren’t born into money, and some of us feel perfectly comfortable around those “scary” black, latinos and whoever else’s, because we grew up with them. Hate to ruin you illusions Steve, but my first exposure to black culture was not listening to an NWA album during my first week of college.
2 – my drug habit was not mild, it was severe. Don’t talk shit when you obviously dont have a clue about what it is you’re talking about.
3 – i did not get a drug habit so I would have something to write about. I doubt that has ever happened to be honest, and if it has, I doubt it worked out for the person dumb enough to try it. I used – and continue to use drugs – because I enjoy them greatly. I didn’t get a heroin habit to chalk up any “life experience” or what ever else you believe. I’d had plenty of real life experience before I put a needle in my arm. Drugs, chaos, fucked marriages, homelessness, all of that came first, writing came much, much later. If I had spent my formative years jerking off to kiddie porn and then posting snarky comments on lit blogs like a lily-livered bitch then maybe I would have written about that. But that was not my experience.
4 – Unlike, say, BSG’s piece which was also posted here, my work is not about simply talking about how may drugs I’ve done. Everybody has done drugs. I’d be more shocked to meet someone at a party who told me they’d never done drugs. Drugs are passe now,in case you didn’t know, they are part of mainstream culture. However, since I was an intravenous heroin user for most of my teens and well into my late 20s I think it would be almost impossible for me to ignore those experiences and not have them inform my fiction.
Tony: you were a user of drugs such as Crack and Heroin, yeah? Aren’t these drugs illegal still? Why aren’t you doing 150 years in prison? Why weren’t you deported?
Because you aren’t Black?
(As a Black man I’m curious)
“By the early 1990s, the effect of these harsher laws on African Americans was evident. In a survey of 1992 sentencing data, the U.S. Sentencing Commission found that 92.6 percent of offenders sentenced for crack offenses were black, whereas 4.7 percent were white. With regard to cocaine offenses in general, 78 percent of offenders were black, and 6 percent were white.”
Steve, i didn’t end up doing 150 years because I never got popped. So you can chalk that up to luck, or street smarts or whatever.
Nobody’s saying that the system isn’t fucked. But the cops pinching a white dope-fiend with an illegal weapon, or needles, or rocks or whatever is not the same as the cops popping a wall street banker walking down the street with a rolled up one hundred dollar pill in their hand and an 8-ball of coke. The wall street banker would probably walk, but the broke ass white dope fiend will get treated pretty much the same as any other dope fiend, black white or whatever.
I’ve had plenty of white friends who have done time in the states and back in England, and I hate to break it to you, but none of them got off because they had white skin.
All of which is veering slightly off topic, but whatever.
“The wall street banker would probably walk, but the broke ass white dope fiend will get treated pretty much the same as any other dope fiend, black white or whatever.”
Uh yeah.
“All of which is veering slightly off topic, but whatever.”
Not in light of my original post, Tony. Tony, hey, had you recovered from your “serious drug problem” by the time you gigged with “Kenickie (1997–98), Marc Almond (1997–98), The Brian Jonestown Massacre (2000) and Kelli Ali (2001–04)”?
Laugh.
Steve, that is a bullshit, cowardly response.No substance, no real life experience in this matter, no nothing. Exactly what I’d expect from you, actually. Um, yeah.
Sure, Tony!
Well Steve, since youre interested, I’ll answer you questions. (However, if you’d like the whole story there are these great places called bookstores, I believe they even have them in Berlin, were you could learn this information and be entertained at the same time by buying either “Digging the Vein” or “Down and Out on Murder mile” both of which cover these parts of my life in detail)
“Tony, hey, had you recovered from your “serious drug problem” by the time you gigged with “Kenickie (1997–98),”
No, I was 18 years old and I hadn’t used hard drugs at that point in my life.
Marc Almond (1997–98),
ditto
The Brian Jonestown Massacre (2000)
Yes, I was heavily strung out on heroin at the time, resulting in my ejection from the band
and Kelli Ali (2001–04)
Yes, although i was on a methadone program at the time and slightly more stable, but I was still using heroin, crack, and other drugs.
“laugh”
I guess maybe there is something funny about the idea of someone making their living playing music, I’m just not sure what it is. We don’t all have rich parents sending us money while we swan off to pretend to be artists, you know.
“We don’t all have rich parents sending us money while we swan off to pretend to be artists, you know.”
Good one, Tony! But…
Grew up in Chicago (near Indiana: bonafide ghetto: rats, roaches, guns). Mother refused Welfare as *demeaning* and I owned my first bike at 25! But I was always an avid reader. Books were a huge part of family life. I had a library of 500 books in my little ghetto bedroom. Father was affiliated with the Black Panthers. Went to many Black Nationalist Jazz concerts. Met Cassius Clay in my father’s South Side office etc.
Moved to Philly when I was 16 to help with a family business (Funeral Home). Able to attend a prep school based on grades and tests (always top 1% in the country). Saw c. 1,500 dead bodies during my High School years and so forth.
I went to college on scholarships based on spectacular SATs etc. Fled the U.S. with money I earned painting houses. Moved around Europe while writing and earning money in recording studios, or painting houses and even once selling an option on a script. Always wanted to write but never wanted to write bullshit that pandered to expectations. Worked hard on developing a style. Sometime in the 90s, a techno miracle happened, and I found that I could find an audience without pandering to expectations. Bliss. I prostitute my musical talent to afford the freedom to write. Roughly 700 pages of hard-won material online.
Most of the material is a subtle, vaguely-surrealist satire of White Privilege.
I now earn my money as a composer in Berlin. Never saw a nickle from either of my parents, who were dirt-poor Black Bohemian (well, father, a jazz DJ and painter, was more Bohemian than my mother) Intellectuals. My idea of Fighting Racism and Making Art is to Defy the bullshit stereotypes and Never Sell Out.
What’s yours, “motherfucker”?
Steve,
I grew up in a cardboard box outside of Manchester, and we ate coal at Christmas, and survived on fresh air and pebbles the rest of the time. At nine I was sent out to prostitute to truck drivers so we would have enough money to pay for grandmas morphine suppositories. The old lady was senile, so i used to steal them out of her ass, and sell them to desperate junkies make enough money to feed my glue habit.
Actually Steve, the line about not having rich parents was not a dig at you, more a dig at the fact you seemed to think it was funny that I was actually, y’know, working on and off. You were the one who finished up quoting the fact I played in a couple of bands with “Laugh”. Seems even stranger now that you tell me you compose to pay the rent. I could have also put down that I worked in liquor stores, and laying concrete to make money at various points, but didnt think that anybody would give much of a fuck about that. I wouldn’t presume to know jack shit about your family, your circumstances, or how you make your money.
However, you seem to have me all figured out as a rich white boy who dabbled in drugs so he could get a publishing deal, having never met me or – presumably – read my work. The only thing you actually got right about me was that I am white. The rest was pretty much pure projection, which resulted in my pissed off reply to you.
“However, you seem to have me all figured out as a rich white boy who dabbled in drugs so he could get a publishing deal, having never met me or – presumably – read my work.”
a) Never thought you were rich, Tony B) I’ve read your work (perhaps you don’t remember the old GU days). My original line was, “I am slightly weary of white kids getting mild drug habits just so they can write about it all later. Especially when it’s a white kid’s Free Credibility Pass to send dispatches from The Hood.”
As a 51-year-old Bohemian of Color, that is my sincere perspective of the Genre you mine and you are free, obviously, to ignore it!
PS “you seemed to think it was funny that I was actually, y’know, working on and off”
No, I was laughing at the Marc Almond thing.
Steve-
I have to stop responding now. You are becoming something more than a mild irritant now, you are becoming a distraction. But for my last reply to you I will say this:
“Never thought you were rich, Tony B) I’ve read your work (perhaps you don’t remember the old GU days). My original line was, “I am slightly weary of white kids getting mild drug habits just so they can write about it all later. Especially when it’s a white kid’s Free Credibility Pass to send dispatches from The Hood.”
Yes I remember you from the GU days. You were incredibly irritating there, as well. Nothing worse than an old “bohemian” sniffing at everything the younger writers are doing as being “inauthentic” or whatever. Youre totally free to go live in a time capsule if you desire. But if you did read my work, then you’d know that the whole “mild drug habit” thing is a straw man. Maybe you need to get your bifocals fixed.
As for it being a “fee credibility pass” or whatever – you are making no sense here. I wrote about things that I experienced and lived through. I didn’t move into “the hood” as you put it (well, youre 51, so I suppose I can forgive you that) to gain experience, or get credibility or whatever. I lived wherever I could, wherever there were drugs, and where ever there was a place for me to crash. Believe me, if someone was offering an empty bedroom in Beverly Hills, my ass would have been there in a heartbeat. I dont think I would have sat around worrying about how it would affect my credibility.
“As a 51-year-old Bohemian of Color, that is my sincere perspective of the Genre you mine and you are free, obviously, to ignore it!”
You’re damn straight about that. Maybe you should try peering at the world without the whole “Bohemian of Color” glasses coloring your worldview. Your statements here seem to come a kind of reverse racism ideology which is pretty fucking stupid if you ask me. “Stay out of our ghettos, white folks! They’re OURS!” Give me a fucking break. When I was shooting up with people, the last thing on anybody’s mind was the color of our skin. We were junkies, and we watched out for each other. We were mainly prejudiced against non-users.
” No, I was laughing at the Marc Almond thing.”
Go ahead and laugh. Doesn’t mean shit to me. Marc was actually a really cool guy, and I learned a lot playing with him. Also got to see parts of the world I would probably have never made it out to unless I had landed that gig. So laugh away Steve.
(PS anyone who uses the word bohemian to describe themselves is an ass)
Ha, I just caught this comment Steve, good one. You made me smile.
“I want to borrow some of your authentic Marc-Almond-Crew drug terminology street cred! “Dope fiend” is really rad. ”
Heh, it was almost 15 years ago, Steve, get over it.
(Although when your past a half a century i suppose 15 years doesn’t seem so long. Must be a blink of an eye to a cantankerous old bastard like yourself… )
Sorry to fuck with your pseudo-cred, Tony.
“Marc was actually a really cool guy, and I learned a lot playing with him.”
It was the agony of working with Marc that led to the heroin, prolly.
chris,
i am well aware how to extract the oxycodone out of it.
you are using street chemistry here. which is cool but you should at least know what you are doing
the pill has a binder imbued with the opiate specifically to mitigate misuse and accidental overdose which can be caused by GRINDING OR CHEWING THE PILL. The prescription bottle for oxycontin ALWAYS has a sticker with the words DO NOT CHEW OR CUT, or something similar. It does not say BRO, DO NOT SUCK ON THE OUTER COATING AND SPIT IT INTO YOUR SHIRT.
The only thing you remove by washing the pill is the outer coating that tastes sort of not bad.
you are a genius by the way.
keep on failing, bro.
Dude, Brian Jonestown Massacre. Dig
! is like, one of the best music documentaries….ever.
LOL
i had a few people recently ask me if tony o’neill was legit or not.
he is most definitely legit.
but i think this is more about protracted differences and not really about legitimacy.
just say what is really on your mind steve.
it’s okay. everyone will judge. but we all die anyways.
be genuine and say what you want to say.
ha, it would take more than a bitter old pseudo-bohemian who thinks he has big nuts (at least when he’s hiding behind a computer screen) to fuck with my cred, or fuck with anything else of mine, Steve.
Tony: wow. Just: wow.
In UK C has been out about a week. One memorable scene was this little ‘God is dead!’ allegory in the ‘Crash’ section. It involves a seance which the hero Serge takes control of via remote transmitter. He sends messages through the medium on-stage to his girlfriend then debunks the whole set-up, calling out a chap in a fedora who drops his (less powerful) transmitter and absquatulates, causing a riot on the streets a la Burroughs. It is full of these rich scenes, asking to be read multiple ways.
Cantankerous indeed, man. But very lucky… in love and lust with the beautiful mother of my four-year-old daughter and earning money doing something I don’t hate; never have to kiss some boss’s ass or do anything that my daughter doesn’t tell me to do! It was a rainy day today, the Offsprung didn’t want to go out and I made an enormous Lego-race-track in the living room (for ping pong balls) between bouts of snarking-off with you. My Beloved was gigging (she’s a musician, and just got home, and we put Offsprung to bed) and pretty soon I’ll commence to putting in my three hours of writing.
It’s a *little* goofy that you’re clinging to the Age riff late in the game (it’s not an accomplishment to be younger than I am now, Tony; I’ve done it, myself, effortlessly, for most of my life)… what you should one day be smug about is adding some years to *your* arc and working it all out and *still* being out there doing interesting (to some people) shit. At some point you will no longer be able to trade on youth or lurid bullshit alone. That’s when you take The Test. It’s a “motherfucker”, Tony. Sure, I’m a smug cunt. You’ll understand later.
Good luck, man! I just wanted to air an opinion on all this paint-by-numbers drug-memoir bullshit and you helped me do it.
Your fans in this thread aren’t exactly thrilled (sneer, grumble) but if I helped *one* impressionable little white kid out there to re-think sticking his/her foot in a bear trap (just for the sake of writing for years and years, and unoriginally, about the self-inflicted wound), my work here is done!
See ya…
Uncle Fucking Steve
“I didn’t move into “the hood” as you put it (well, youre 51, so I suppose I can forgive you that)…”
Tony, can you teach me some edgy lingo like, “But the cops pinching a white dope-fiend with an illegal weapon, or needles, or rocks…” ? I want to borrow some of your authentic Marc-Almond-Crew drug terminology street cred! “Dope fiend” is really rad. And “pinching”… that’s so… street!
Hard drugs are
H
A
A
A
R
R
R
R
R
D
!
“By the early 1990s, the effect of these harsher laws on African Americans was evident. In a survey of 1992 sentencing data, the U.S. Sentencing Commission found that 92.6 percent of offenders sentenced for crack offenses were black, whereas 4.7 percent were white. With regard to cocaine offenses in general, 78 percent of offenders were black, and 6 percent were white.”
i think my last comment sounds… drunk or something. i was all nervy and cooped up in a toxic office environment when i wrote it.
MEMES, I CAN HEAR YOU TYPING FROM HERE.
@ZZZIPP i’ve no idea what i’ve done…
Ha, I just caught this comment Steve, good one. You made me smile.
“I want to borrow some of your authentic Marc-Almond-Crew drug terminology street cred! “Dope fiend” is really rad. ”
Heh, it was almost 15 years ago, Steve, get over it.
(Although when your past a half a century i suppose 15 years doesn’t seem so long. Must be a blink of an eye to a cantankerous old bastard like yourself… )
Cantankerous indeed, man. But very lucky… in love and lust with the beautiful mother of my four-year-old daughter and earning money doing something I don’t hate; never have to kiss some boss’s ass or do anything that my daughter doesn’t tell me to do! It was a rainy day today, the Offsprung didn’t want to go out and I made an enormous Lego-race-track in the living room (for ping pong balls) between bouts of snarking-off with you. My Beloved was gigging (she’s a musician, and just got home, and we put Offsprung to bed) and pretty soon I’ll commence to putting in my three hours of writing.
It’s a *little* goofy that you’re clinging to the Age riff late in the game (it’s not an accomplishment to be younger than I am now, Tony; I’ve done it, myself, effortlessly, for most of my life)… what you should one day be smug about is adding some years to *your* arc and working it all out and *still* being out there doing interesting (to some people) shit. At some point you will no longer be able to trade on youth or lurid bullshit alone. That’s when you take The Test. It’s a “motherfucker”, Tony. Sure, I’m a smug cunt. You’ll understand later.
Good luck, man! I just wanted to air an opinion on all this paint-by-numbers drug-memoir bullshit and you helped me do it.
Your fans in this thread aren’t exactly thrilled (sneer, grumble) but if I helped *one* impressionable little white kid out there to re-think sticking his/her foot in a bear trap (just for the sake of writing for years and years, and unoriginally, about the self-inflicted wound), my work here is done!
See ya…
Uncle Fucking Steve
Hard drugs are
H
A
A
A
R
R
R
R
R
D
!
I have watched this video 17 times.
I have watched this video 17 times.