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Hello and welcome to Incverse Algorithm, the Writer's Pod.
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I'm your writer and host, Mookie Spitz.
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And as we do get out with the box, humans versus the LLMs in the war of slop, I would love to share a sloppy, very human tale.
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Back to my college days, D-A-Z-E, called Doctor's Orders.
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My harrowing tale of getting the clap in college.
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This one dovetails off my recent podcast about Frank Zappa, Friedrich Nietzsche, and all of us needing a little bit more cheapness.
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The key takeaway there was cringe and even outright failure are the stuff of artistic legend.
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At the very least, make for some really good writing and hopefully some fun reading and in this case listening.
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I guess the thesis should be self-evident.
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The proof, as it were, is in the pudding.
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Let's give this one a whirl.
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Put your hands on your head, he said with a distinct southern accent.
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I complied.
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Now drop your breeches.
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I complied.
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I said put your hands on your head, son, he repeated.
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How can I pull my pants down if my hands are on my head?
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I asked, really wanting to know.
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You should have asked her that question before she got you into this predicament.
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I pulled my pants down, then rapidly put my hands back on my head, hoping he wouldn't notice the momentary lapse.
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The campus physician couldn't have cared less and got to work, without further ado, slipping a needle into the tip of my penis.
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Ah I screamed reflexively, reaching down to my flaring cock.
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Boy, shouted the doc, looking up at me with stern eyes and a grinning face.
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Take your hands off your dick and put them back on your head.
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I complied.
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Didn't I just tell you to keep your hands on your head?
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You did.
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Then why didn't you?
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Because you just slipped a needle into my dick.
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You can thank her for that later.
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Her name was Paula, and she was a junior at California State University Northridge.
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We were introduced by Ava, my boss at the pizzeria where I worked, as a way to keep me away from her voluptuous girlfriend, Dana.
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I ended up getting Dana pregnant and getting a venereal disease from Paula, so I guess it all balanced out.
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The coup de grade was the earthquake that hit the city a few years later, killing nearly 60 people and causing over$20 billion in damage.
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I couldn't recall the exact moment I caught chlamydia from Paula because we fucked constantly over the month or so that we dated and never used protection.
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She described herself as full figured, which meant she had big tits and a body that turned me on.
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A bit of a control freak, especially in bed, she would pull her panties down, spread her legs, and direct traffic from there.
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I wasn't allowed to eat her out.
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She never climaxed or blew me, but she encouraged me to come inside her.
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I'm on the pill, she informed me on our first date, as if that magically shielded us from diseases, too.
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The oral contraceptives apparently didn't shield me from the other guys banging her either.
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The logistics were complex and clearly not considered every time I ejaculated with impunity inside her.
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Nobody keeping score except my penis, which began screaming bloody murder one morning when I peed.
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Much to our mutual astonishment, we didn't break up after I told her she gave me the clap.
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Who did you have sex with before me?
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She asked immediately, deflecting.
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Who else are you having sex with now?
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I fired back, figuring by that point I had nothing to lose.
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I've had it before, she replied dismissively, like she was talking about seasonal allergies.
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The meds are such a pain in the ass.
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We were advised by our respective medical professionals to avoid sex for the full week of antibiotic treatment.
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By day three, she was in my bed again, naked from the waist down, legs spread, violating doctors' orders as casually as ordering takeout.
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Of course, we broke up right after we both tested negative again.
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None of this came as much of a surprise to me except for Paula's abrupt pivot from wanting to marry me to discarding me like college fuckboy trash.
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I discovered the true absurdity of the entire situations months later when Ava filled in the blanks.
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She thought you were it, Ava told me, like the guy.
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She expected you to propose eventually.
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Get out of here, I guffawed.
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You've got to be kidding.
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I shit you not, grimmed Ava.
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She thought you were a nice Jewish boy, ploughed her well enough, and didn't mind that she was fat.
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That's all it took?
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Check, check, check.
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Then why was she fucking half of Fullerton, California?
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Last hurrah, pal, advised Ava.
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She figured you two would marry soon, so she had to sow her oats before settling down with you.
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I'm gonna barf, I winced.
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We dated for like a month.
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All of her friends were getting married.
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That's it?
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That's plenty.
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Then why did she suddenly lose interest?
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I think she bailed the second you didn't scream at her for giving you the clap.
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Why?
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I really wanted to know.
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Was that a test?
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Beats me, shrugged Ava.
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Maybe you didn't seem jealous enough.
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Maybe you didn't seem angry enough.
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Maybe you seemed too calm, especially after the college doctor made you put your hands up and surrender.
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I'm a nice Jewish boy, remember?
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And you apparently love to fuck fat chicks too, stared Ava, an implicit warning.
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Who knew, I said, trying to change the subject.
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What a fun little story.
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I remember it like yesterday.
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Another part of this story was when living with Ava and her hot, voluptuous girlfriend Dana, I met the future world famous singer and songwriter, Grammy Award-winning Beck, who was squatting in an apartment in the apartment complex or the condo complex where Ava, Dana, and I were living at the time in Resita, California, in the valley, the San Fernando Valley.
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So this is a part of that whole phase of life, which was kind of crazy, kind of wild, and fairly typical collegiate, post-collegiate, semi-collegiate, early twenties, self-discovery, young, dumb, and full of cum kind of stuff.
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The pizzeria where Abe and I worked actually got robbed once a month, and it's no exaggeration.
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This was the mid-ish 1980s.
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And that's a whole separate story right there.
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We used to do we used to do cocaine on the job.
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So we would snort cocaine off the countertop in between rolling calzones.
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That's another little tidbit from the 80s in Valley Girl and Boy Southern California.
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And I'm dying to write more of these stories.
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And hearing myself read them, however half-ass the job I'm doing with it, is part of the fun too.
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So I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, not not the uh chlamydia, or getting berated by uh by an angry, jealous lesbian here.
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But uh but this is fun stuff.
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And I and I'm really thinking about turning it into its own little novella or series, because there was so much going on, and the tragic part of this is that the underbelly leads right into my mother's suicide at this time.
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So there's this veneer of collegiate bullshit and sexual shenanigans, and the clock was ticking on my poor mother who had suffered from postpartum depression since I was born and never got over it.
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Postpartum depression since I was born.
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I guess that's redundant, but the non-redundant part is just never really shaking it.
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Obviously, it was more complicated than just the biochemical hormonal post-pregnancy thing.
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My mother was in a strange land, she didn't really speak the language, it was her second emigration.
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She realized she married an asshole.
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She lost all of her friends.
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Her daughter was left behind in Caracas, Venezuela.
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So there's a tragic, a deeply tragic, traumatic underpinning to a lot of these sex capades and shenanigans.
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And that's juicy stuff, too.
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And hearing myself even talk about this motivates me even more to eventually get this on paper and eventually get this on another pod, too.
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There's a lot to dive into here.
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This is another point that I brought up in my Zappa Nietzsche rant recently, that as we get older, we're able to reminisce not only with impunity but with authority.
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Life kicks all of our asses, the stuff they don't teach you in school.
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The other thing they don't teach you in school is that if you're smart about this, maybe even an extra little dose of selfish about this, you get to extract a lot of value from the inevitability of the suffering that life throws at you.
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And that icing on the cake of existential angst is processing this in the reminiscence and overcoming it in the sense that it is juicy juicy stuff for wonderful storytelling.
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Every part is a good part because all the parts are cringy.
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They're simultaneously funny and disappointing, annoying.
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Like watching a car wreck, you feel that something is violative here.
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You're watching someone else suffer.
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You're helpless to really do much about it, but you feel obligated to maybe risk your own life and limb to do what?
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You don't really know.
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So then you just kind of sit back and watch.
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That's its own kind of cringe.
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It's the emergent phenomena, getting all this on paper, sharing your story, reading it aloud, and then sharing it the world in the way that it resonates in the hearts of your audience.
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And they themselves can't help but start to reminisce about their own cringe.
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That's the power of this kind of humor and storytelling, I really think.
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It opens all of us up.
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When you see a stand-up comedian who's really, really good, they usually dive in deep and they share the truth in a way that's excruciatingly funny.
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And I think good writers do this too.
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And you can't help but be moved by it.
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The laughter itself is its own catharsis, but it really hits you after the fact.
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You feel like a changed person after seeing a great stand-up routine or reading a good story.
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Something inside you has connected with the material, with the person revealing themselves in this way.
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And that's liberating.
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If nothing else, you might feel a little bit forgiven.
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That yeah, you fucked up too.
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You've got your own skeletons, the things you can't fess up to.
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But it's all okay, because this fool, this hunger artist, this exhibitionist could laugh it off.
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And you laughed with them.
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You even laughed at them, and that made you feel better for a little while until it ricochets back and you realize shit, you're probably just as bad.
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It's just so liberating.
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Most Western religions and even philosophies have this idea of original sin.
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And I've ranted before about this idea that people are just shitty.
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When you live amongst your own and you look at yourself in the mirror, you can't help but feel compounded by just how selfish, narcissistic, greedy, short-sighted, and stupid everybody is, including and especially yourself.
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It's so disappointing.
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Friendships, romances, business partnerships.
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It's the Schopenhauer thing that life is just inherently disappointing.
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All roads lead to a maudlin shrug and grimace.
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So on top of that, we try to give it a little transcendence.
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Jesus came down from heaven, suffered, and died again for our sins.
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God is empathetic.
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And Jesus didn't come down to party, throw a rave.
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And that's again because it's an acknowledgement of just how shitty other people are and how hard life is.
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And that's built on the bedrock of Judaism, where God isn't even corporeal, a burning bush, the pillar of salt, the uh the lightning.
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You can't imagine who the hell this guy is.
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You can't imagine him.
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It's it's inconceivable.
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It's the Einsaf R, the infinite negative light, uh light of the Kabbalah.
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God is just so damn far away.
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The universe is so very, very big.
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Nobody gives a shit.
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So Jesus rectified that, became empathetic, but it's still all about sin and suffering and maybe redemption.
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All that shittiness.
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So that's the heavy-handed approach, I think, to what cheapness solves.
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Which is, yeah, we're all selfish, we're all a bunch of assholes, but out of that cauldron comes great art.
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That's the Nietzsche component, which is quit your bitching and drop your linen.
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Don't feel pity for your fellow man because they don't deserve it.
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And who are you to give it?
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And revel not only in the sweetness and light of the Apollonian reason, and don't only just get naked, drink wine, and dance around with the Dionysian free spirit, but overcome yourself, do the Ubermensch thing, like Zarathustra, to the point where you can come down off the mountain, and you're not so much going to share wisdom as you're gonna share your own cringe, you're gonna share your own cheapness with that sense of release.
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And that's really what art is.
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And the moral foundation of it is ambiguous, ambivalent, and sometimes contradictory.
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It's not about right or wrong or good or evil, truth or beauty, or justice for that matter.
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It's really the cringe, it's the cheapness, it's the release.
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It's an amalgamation of all these things.
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And I guess it just boils down to energy, thermodynamics.
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Complex to messy systems breaking down.
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As Thomas Pynchon wrote, the paranoia rushing in.
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And then we take a big toke of that joint and inhale deeply and freak the fuck out.
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And that might be the closest thing that you or an I and anyone else have toward any sense of transcendence.
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And along the way, put your hands on your head, take them off your dick.
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Cause one way or another the needle's going in, and you know what?
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You deserved it.
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Thanks for listening.
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I've inspired even myself to continue this series from this time.
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And it does make me think about my mom.
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I think there's a lot more to dive into.
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You know, as a side note, I I can't help but bring bring up my abhorrence to genre and convention.
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Bringing up, bringing up Nietzsche and frankly, Frank Zappa again.
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I'm inundated by a lot of science fiction and fantasy writing for one, just because I've got the other podcast.
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I get press releases from presses, from publishing houses, new author, old author.
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And I read the synopses of these books, and I feel like they're an exercise in prompt jockeying a bot.
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I'm looking for something original.
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I'm looking for something fresh.
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And usually that comes from genre mixing, genre blending.
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I had a refreshing experience with Matt Witten's 51%.
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And I'm that specific because that is a book from an author.
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He's got a background in TV writing for 16 years or so.
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He wrote for Homicide, CSI Miami, the TV show Jag.
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So he's good with dialogue, and he's got the crime drama, the crime drama, the procedural detective TV stuff.
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And here he takes a crack at science fiction in this dystopian near future novel where corporations take over everything.
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But with Zing, and I liked it because it finally, finally broke the mold.
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And that's what I like about stories like this, too, the little cringy vignettes.
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Heart memoir, extrapolated Romana Clay, looking back, and not just storytelling for storytelling's sake, like mad living in the characters and the situations, writing a good book that a developmental editor would nod their head about, crossing out the adverbs in any kind of internal state, but just writing from the heart and accessing a vocabulary that part of which you create an a j an approach to genre of which you're borrowing from the various ones that suit the story instead of suiting the story to these tropey, ropey, tired conventions.
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But I digress! Thanks for listening.
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I'm eager to pen more of these.
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I'll be back soon, thank you.
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Hello and welcome to Incverse Algorithm, the Writer's Pod.
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I'm your writer and host, Mookie Spitz.
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And as we do get out with the box, humans versus the LLMs in the war of slop, I would love to share a sloppy, very human tale.
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Back to my college days, D-A-Z-E, called Doctor's Orders.
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My harrowing tale of getting the clap in college.
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This one dovetails off my recent podcast about Frank Zappa, Friedrich Nietzsche, and all of us needing a little bit more cheapness.
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The key takeaway there was cringe and even outright failure are the stuff of artistic legend.
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At the very least, make for some really good writing and hopefully some fun reading and in this case listening.
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I guess the thesis should be self-evident.
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The proof, as it were, is in the pudding.
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Let's give this one a whirl.
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Put your hands on your head, he said with a distinct southern accent.
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I complied.
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Now drop your breeches.
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I complied.
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I said put your hands on your head, son, he repeated.
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How can I pull my pants down if my hands are on my head?
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I asked, really wanting to know.
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You should have asked her that question before she got you into this predicament.
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I pulled my pants down, then rapidly put my hands back on my head, hoping he wouldn't notice the momentary lapse.
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The campus physician couldn't have cared less and got to work, without further ado, slipping a needle into the tip of my penis.
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Ah I screamed reflexively, reaching down to my flaring cock.
00:02:46.240 --> 00:02:52.159
Boy, shouted the doc, looking up at me with stern eyes and a grinning face.
00:02:52.800 --> 00:02:58.639
Take your hands off your dick and put them back on your head.
00:02:59.360 --> 00:03:00.639
I complied.
00:03:01.039 --> 00:03:04.400
Didn't I just tell you to keep your hands on your head?
00:03:04.800 --> 00:03:05.439
You did.
00:03:06.159 --> 00:03:08.000
Then why didn't you?
00:03:08.639 --> 00:03:12.560
Because you just slipped a needle into my dick.
00:03:13.759 --> 00:03:16.639
You can thank her for that later.
00:03:18.319 --> 00:03:25.360
Her name was Paula, and she was a junior at California State University Northridge.
00:03:25.680 --> 00:03:35.759
We were introduced by Ava, my boss at the pizzeria where I worked, as a way to keep me away from her voluptuous girlfriend, Dana.
00:03:36.319 --> 00:03:43.919
I ended up getting Dana pregnant and getting a venereal disease from Paula, so I guess it all balanced out.
00:03:44.240 --> 00:03:53.840
The coup de grade was the earthquake that hit the city a few years later, killing nearly 60 people and causing over$20 billion in damage.
00:03:55.120 --> 00:04:06.080
I couldn't recall the exact moment I caught chlamydia from Paula because we fucked constantly over the month or so that we dated and never used protection.
00:04:06.479 --> 00:04:13.919
She described herself as full figured, which meant she had big tits and a body that turned me on.
00:04:14.240 --> 00:04:23.519
A bit of a control freak, especially in bed, she would pull her panties down, spread her legs, and direct traffic from there.
00:04:24.160 --> 00:04:26.160
I wasn't allowed to eat her out.
00:04:26.319 --> 00:04:31.920
She never climaxed or blew me, but she encouraged me to come inside her.
00:04:32.399 --> 00:04:40.720
I'm on the pill, she informed me on our first date, as if that magically shielded us from diseases, too.
00:04:41.360 --> 00:04:47.600
The oral contraceptives apparently didn't shield me from the other guys banging her either.
00:04:47.920 --> 00:04:55.120
The logistics were complex and clearly not considered every time I ejaculated with impunity inside her.
00:04:55.360 --> 00:05:03.040
Nobody keeping score except my penis, which began screaming bloody murder one morning when I peed.
00:05:03.839 --> 00:05:10.399
Much to our mutual astonishment, we didn't break up after I told her she gave me the clap.
00:05:11.279 --> 00:05:13.759
Who did you have sex with before me?
00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:17.120
She asked immediately, deflecting.
00:05:17.360 --> 00:05:19.680
Who else are you having sex with now?
00:05:19.920 --> 00:05:24.720
I fired back, figuring by that point I had nothing to lose.
00:05:25.120 --> 00:05:30.959
I've had it before, she replied dismissively, like she was talking about seasonal allergies.
00:05:31.199 --> 00:05:34.160
The meds are such a pain in the ass.
00:05:35.199 --> 00:05:42.800
We were advised by our respective medical professionals to avoid sex for the full week of antibiotic treatment.
00:05:43.120 --> 00:05:53.279
By day three, she was in my bed again, naked from the waist down, legs spread, violating doctors' orders as casually as ordering takeout.
00:05:54.240 --> 00:05:59.040
Of course, we broke up right after we both tested negative again.
00:05:59.920 --> 00:06:10.800
None of this came as much of a surprise to me except for Paula's abrupt pivot from wanting to marry me to discarding me like college fuckboy trash.
00:06:11.279 --> 00:06:19.519
I discovered the true absurdity of the entire situations months later when Ava filled in the blanks.
00:06:20.160 --> 00:06:25.439
She thought you were it, Ava told me, like the guy.
00:06:25.839 --> 00:06:28.480
She expected you to propose eventually.
00:06:28.800 --> 00:06:31.040
Get out of here, I guffawed.
00:06:31.199 --> 00:06:33.519
You've got to be kidding.
00:06:33.839 --> 00:06:37.279
I shit you not, grimmed Ava.
00:06:37.839 --> 00:06:44.720
She thought you were a nice Jewish boy, ploughed her well enough, and didn't mind that she was fat.
00:06:46.079 --> 00:06:48.079
That's all it took?
00:06:48.399 --> 00:06:50.160
Check, check, check.
00:06:50.480 --> 00:06:54.319
Then why was she fucking half of Fullerton, California?
00:06:54.879 --> 00:06:58.480
Last hurrah, pal, advised Ava.
00:06:58.639 --> 00:07:04.800
She figured you two would marry soon, so she had to sow her oats before settling down with you.
00:07:05.680 --> 00:07:08.480
I'm gonna barf, I winced.
00:07:08.639 --> 00:07:11.040
We dated for like a month.
00:07:11.439 --> 00:07:14.720
All of her friends were getting married.
00:07:15.279 --> 00:07:16.399
That's it?
00:07:17.040 --> 00:07:18.480
That's plenty.
00:07:19.040 --> 00:07:21.680
Then why did she suddenly lose interest?
00:07:22.240 --> 00:07:26.879
I think she bailed the second you didn't scream at her for giving you the clap.
00:07:27.600 --> 00:07:28.240
Why?
00:07:28.480 --> 00:07:29.680
I really wanted to know.
00:07:29.920 --> 00:07:31.199
Was that a test?
00:07:31.839 --> 00:07:33.680
Beats me, shrugged Ava.
00:07:33.839 --> 00:07:35.680
Maybe you didn't seem jealous enough.
00:07:35.839 --> 00:07:38.240
Maybe you didn't seem angry enough.
00:07:38.480 --> 00:07:45.040
Maybe you seemed too calm, especially after the college doctor made you put your hands up and surrender.
00:07:45.759 --> 00:07:48.560
I'm a nice Jewish boy, remember?
00:07:49.199 --> 00:07:56.079
And you apparently love to fuck fat chicks too, stared Ava, an implicit warning.
00:07:56.800 --> 00:08:02.079
Who knew, I said, trying to change the subject.
00:08:04.800 --> 00:08:07.040
What a fun little story.
00:08:07.839 --> 00:08:11.199
I remember it like yesterday.
00:08:12.639 --> 00:08:54.000
Another part of this story was when living with Ava and her hot, voluptuous girlfriend Dana, I met the future world famous singer and songwriter, Grammy Award-winning Beck, who was squatting in an apartment in the apartment complex or the condo complex where Ava, Dana, and I were living at the time in Resita, California, in the valley, the San Fernando Valley.
00:08:54.799 --> 00:09:16.720
So this is a part of that whole phase of life, which was kind of crazy, kind of wild, and fairly typical collegiate, post-collegiate, semi-collegiate, early twenties, self-discovery, young, dumb, and full of cum kind of stuff.
00:09:17.759 --> 00:09:25.840
The pizzeria where Abe and I worked actually got robbed once a month, and it's no exaggeration.
00:09:26.080 --> 00:09:30.080
This was the mid-ish 1980s.
00:09:31.519 --> 00:09:33.919
And that's a whole separate story right there.
00:09:34.080 --> 00:09:39.200
We used to do we used to do cocaine on the job.
00:09:39.279 --> 00:09:45.200
So we would snort cocaine off the countertop in between rolling calzones.
00:09:47.440 --> 00:09:56.000
That's another little tidbit from the 80s in Valley Girl and Boy Southern California.
00:09:56.639 --> 00:09:59.360
And I'm dying to write more of these stories.
00:09:59.919 --> 00:10:10.399
And hearing myself read them, however half-ass the job I'm doing with it, is part of the fun too.
00:10:11.120 --> 00:10:24.960
So I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, not not the uh chlamydia, or getting berated by uh by an angry, jealous lesbian here.
00:10:25.200 --> 00:10:27.679
But uh but this is fun stuff.
00:10:28.320 --> 00:10:44.480
And I and I'm really thinking about turning it into its own little novella or series, because there was so much going on, and the tragic part of this is that the underbelly leads right into my mother's suicide at this time.
00:10:46.000 --> 00:11:08.639
So there's this veneer of collegiate bullshit and sexual shenanigans, and the clock was ticking on my poor mother who had suffered from postpartum depression since I was born and never got over it.
00:11:10.639 --> 00:11:13.919
Postpartum depression since I was born.
00:11:14.080 --> 00:11:19.360
I guess that's redundant, but the non-redundant part is just never really shaking it.
00:11:19.679 --> 00:11:26.399
Obviously, it was more complicated than just the biochemical hormonal post-pregnancy thing.
00:11:26.960 --> 00:11:32.159
My mother was in a strange land, she didn't really speak the language, it was her second emigration.
00:11:32.320 --> 00:11:34.960
She realized she married an asshole.
00:11:36.480 --> 00:11:38.480
She lost all of her friends.
00:11:38.799 --> 00:11:43.360
Her daughter was left behind in Caracas, Venezuela.
00:11:43.519 --> 00:11:55.600
So there's a tragic, a deeply tragic, traumatic underpinning to a lot of these sex capades and shenanigans.
00:11:56.720 --> 00:11:59.039
And that's juicy stuff, too.
00:11:59.279 --> 00:12:09.039
And hearing myself even talk about this motivates me even more to eventually get this on paper and eventually get this on another pod, too.
00:12:09.600 --> 00:12:12.399
There's a lot to dive into here.
00:12:14.080 --> 00:12:26.240
This is another point that I brought up in my Zappa Nietzsche rant recently, that as we get older, we're able to reminisce not only with impunity but with authority.
00:12:27.279 --> 00:12:32.080
Life kicks all of our asses, the stuff they don't teach you in school.
00:12:32.240 --> 00:12:48.080
The other thing they don't teach you in school is that if you're smart about this, maybe even an extra little dose of selfish about this, you get to extract a lot of value from the inevitability of the suffering that life throws at you.
00:12:49.360 --> 00:13:06.559
And that icing on the cake of existential angst is processing this in the reminiscence and overcoming it in the sense that it is juicy juicy stuff for wonderful storytelling.
00:13:08.799 --> 00:13:14.080
Every part is a good part because all the parts are cringy.
00:13:15.759 --> 00:13:21.919
They're simultaneously funny and disappointing, annoying.
00:13:22.240 --> 00:13:28.559
Like watching a car wreck, you feel that something is violative here.
00:13:29.120 --> 00:13:31.919
You're watching someone else suffer.
00:13:32.639 --> 00:13:43.039
You're helpless to really do much about it, but you feel obligated to maybe risk your own life and limb to do what?
00:13:44.399 --> 00:13:45.840
You don't really know.
00:13:46.320 --> 00:13:49.679
So then you just kind of sit back and watch.
00:13:50.639 --> 00:13:53.600
That's its own kind of cringe.
00:13:54.320 --> 00:14:08.080
It's the emergent phenomena, getting all this on paper, sharing your story, reading it aloud, and then sharing it the world in the way that it resonates in the hearts of your audience.
00:14:08.960 --> 00:14:14.720
And they themselves can't help but start to reminisce about their own cringe.
00:14:15.360 --> 00:14:19.840
That's the power of this kind of humor and storytelling, I really think.
00:14:20.240 --> 00:14:22.240
It opens all of us up.
00:14:23.279 --> 00:14:33.039
When you see a stand-up comedian who's really, really good, they usually dive in deep and they share the truth in a way that's excruciatingly funny.
00:14:33.279 --> 00:14:36.320
And I think good writers do this too.
00:14:36.799 --> 00:14:39.120
And you can't help but be moved by it.
00:14:39.200 --> 00:14:45.200
The laughter itself is its own catharsis, but it really hits you after the fact.
00:14:45.360 --> 00:14:51.600
You feel like a changed person after seeing a great stand-up routine or reading a good story.
00:14:52.320 --> 00:14:59.200
Something inside you has connected with the material, with the person revealing themselves in this way.
00:14:59.759 --> 00:15:01.440
And that's liberating.
00:15:01.600 --> 00:15:07.360
If nothing else, you might feel a little bit forgiven.
00:15:08.559 --> 00:15:11.039
That yeah, you fucked up too.
00:15:11.600 --> 00:15:16.080
You've got your own skeletons, the things you can't fess up to.
00:15:17.039 --> 00:15:27.919
But it's all okay, because this fool, this hunger artist, this exhibitionist could laugh it off.
00:15:28.399 --> 00:15:30.320
And you laughed with them.
00:15:30.720 --> 00:15:41.440
You even laughed at them, and that made you feel better for a little while until it ricochets back and you realize shit, you're probably just as bad.
00:15:41.840 --> 00:15:44.240
It's just so liberating.
00:15:45.039 --> 00:15:52.080
Most Western religions and even philosophies have this idea of original sin.
00:15:53.039 --> 00:15:58.240
And I've ranted before about this idea that people are just shitty.
00:15:59.360 --> 00:16:15.840
When you live amongst your own and you look at yourself in the mirror, you can't help but feel compounded by just how selfish, narcissistic, greedy, short-sighted, and stupid everybody is, including and especially yourself.
00:16:16.480 --> 00:16:18.639
It's so disappointing.
00:16:18.879 --> 00:16:23.519
Friendships, romances, business partnerships.
00:16:24.159 --> 00:16:30.320
It's the Schopenhauer thing that life is just inherently disappointing.
00:16:30.559 --> 00:16:36.080
All roads lead to a maudlin shrug and grimace.
00:16:37.279 --> 00:16:40.799
So on top of that, we try to give it a little transcendence.
00:16:41.120 --> 00:16:48.639
Jesus came down from heaven, suffered, and died again for our sins.
00:16:49.039 --> 00:16:50.879
God is empathetic.
00:16:51.200 --> 00:16:56.320
And Jesus didn't come down to party, throw a rave.
00:17:00.639 --> 00:17:08.160
And that's again because it's an acknowledgement of just how shitty other people are and how hard life is.
00:17:08.640 --> 00:17:23.440
And that's built on the bedrock of Judaism, where God isn't even corporeal, a burning bush, the pillar of salt, the uh the lightning.
00:17:23.680 --> 00:17:26.799
You can't imagine who the hell this guy is.
00:17:27.039 --> 00:17:28.240
You can't imagine him.
00:17:28.319 --> 00:17:29.839
It's it's inconceivable.
00:17:29.920 --> 00:17:36.000
It's the Einsaf R, the infinite negative light, uh light of the Kabbalah.
00:17:36.880 --> 00:17:39.680
God is just so damn far away.
00:17:39.839 --> 00:17:42.559
The universe is so very, very big.
00:17:42.799 --> 00:17:44.880
Nobody gives a shit.
00:17:45.599 --> 00:17:54.799
So Jesus rectified that, became empathetic, but it's still all about sin and suffering and maybe redemption.
00:17:55.599 --> 00:17:57.519
All that shittiness.
00:17:58.319 --> 00:18:05.599
So that's the heavy-handed approach, I think, to what cheapness solves.
00:18:06.640 --> 00:18:17.200
Which is, yeah, we're all selfish, we're all a bunch of assholes, but out of that cauldron comes great art.
00:18:18.720 --> 00:18:24.160
That's the Nietzsche component, which is quit your bitching and drop your linen.
00:18:24.559 --> 00:18:28.640
Don't feel pity for your fellow man because they don't deserve it.
00:18:28.880 --> 00:18:30.880
And who are you to give it?
00:18:31.440 --> 00:19:13.920
And revel not only in the sweetness and light of the Apollonian reason, and don't only just get naked, drink wine, and dance around with the Dionysian free spirit, but overcome yourself, do the Ubermensch thing, like Zarathustra, to the point where you can come down off the mountain, and you're not so much going to share wisdom as you're gonna share your own cringe, you're gonna share your own cheapness with that sense of release.
00:19:14.079 --> 00:19:16.000
And that's really what art is.
00:19:16.160 --> 00:19:23.519
And the moral foundation of it is ambiguous, ambivalent, and sometimes contradictory.
00:19:23.599 --> 00:19:32.319
It's not about right or wrong or good or evil, truth or beauty, or justice for that matter.
00:19:32.799 --> 00:19:38.079
It's really the cringe, it's the cheapness, it's the release.
00:19:38.480 --> 00:19:41.440
It's an amalgamation of all these things.
00:19:42.880 --> 00:19:47.839
And I guess it just boils down to energy, thermodynamics.
00:19:49.759 --> 00:19:57.039
Complex to messy systems breaking down.
00:19:57.519 --> 00:20:01.519
As Thomas Pynchon wrote, the paranoia rushing in.
00:20:07.759 --> 00:20:19.440
And then we take a big toke of that joint and inhale deeply and freak the fuck out.
00:20:21.200 --> 00:20:30.319
And that might be the closest thing that you or an I and anyone else have toward any sense of transcendence.
00:20:30.400 --> 00:20:36.720
And along the way, put your hands on your head, take them off your dick.
00:20:37.519 --> 00:20:41.839
Cause one way or another the needle's going in, and you know what?
00:20:43.200 --> 00:20:45.039
You deserved it.
00:20:45.920 --> 00:20:47.759
Thanks for listening.
00:20:48.079 --> 00:20:54.000
I've inspired even myself to continue this series from this time.
00:20:54.960 --> 00:20:57.279
And it does make me think about my mom.
00:20:57.519 --> 00:21:01.039
I think there's a lot more to dive into.
00:21:01.519 --> 00:21:10.240
You know, as a side note, I I can't help but bring bring up my abhorrence to genre and convention.
00:21:10.480 --> 00:21:14.799
Bringing up, bringing up Nietzsche and frankly, Frank Zappa again.
00:21:15.119 --> 00:21:22.880
I'm inundated by a lot of science fiction and fantasy writing for one, just because I've got the other podcast.
00:21:23.119 --> 00:21:33.440
I get press releases from presses, from publishing houses, new author, old author.
00:21:34.400 --> 00:21:44.960
And I read the synopses of these books, and I feel like they're an exercise in prompt jockeying a bot.
00:21:46.960 --> 00:21:48.720
I'm looking for something original.
00:21:48.880 --> 00:21:51.200
I'm looking for something fresh.
00:21:51.839 --> 00:21:56.480
And usually that comes from genre mixing, genre blending.
00:21:56.640 --> 00:22:01.920
I had a refreshing experience with Matt Witten's 51%.
00:22:03.359 --> 00:22:07.920
And I'm that specific because that is a book from an author.
00:22:08.160 --> 00:22:13.200
He's got a background in TV writing for 16 years or so.
00:22:13.359 --> 00:22:21.279
He wrote for Homicide, CSI Miami, the TV show Jag.
00:22:22.160 --> 00:22:34.319
So he's good with dialogue, and he's got the crime drama, the crime drama, the procedural detective TV stuff.
00:22:35.759 --> 00:22:43.920
And here he takes a crack at science fiction in this dystopian near future novel where corporations take over everything.
00:22:45.119 --> 00:22:54.880
But with Zing, and I liked it because it finally, finally broke the mold.
00:22:56.720 --> 00:23:03.839
And that's what I like about stories like this, too, the little cringy vignettes.
00:23:04.240 --> 00:24:05.519
Heart memoir, extrapolated Romana Clay, looking back, and not just storytelling for storytelling's sake, like mad living in the characters and the situations, writing a good book that a developmental editor would nod their head about, crossing out the adverbs in any kind of internal state, but just writing from the heart and accessing a vocabulary that part of which you create an a j an approach to genre of which you're borrowing from the various ones that suit the story instead of suiting the story to these tropey, ropey, tired conventions.
00:24:05.680 --> 00:24:09.279
But I digress! Thanks for listening.
00:24:09.759 --> 00:24:11.759
I'm eager to pen more of these.
00:24:12.079 --> 00:24:13.519
I'll be back soon, thank you.
