What Would Kinky Do?: How to Unscrew a Screwed-Up World (15 page)

WHAT WOULD KINKY READ?

1.
 "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," by Edgar Allan Poe, 1843. This brilliantly tragic and peculiarly moral poet and author is widely regarded to have written the first, and certainly the most seminal, modern detective story. "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" has influenced generations of mystery writers all over the world for its pioneering demonstration of deductive reasoning.

2.
 "The Monkey's Paw," by W. W. Jacobs, 1845. Poe's great body of work and Robert Louis Stevenson's "Bottle Imp" notwithstanding, "The Monkey's Paw" may well be the most frightening, macabre, and downright spookiest story ever written. Always good to keep the night-light on for this one.

3.
 "A Study in Scarlet," by Arthur Conan Doyle, who first sent it off not very optimistically to
Strand
magazine in 1891. Conan Doyle's depiction of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson is clearly the most celebrated latent homosexual relationship in all of literature. The Sherlock Holmes stories can be read many times in the same lifetime for their fog, friendship, and unique, oddly comforting flavor.

4. 
A Pocket Full of Rye/The Mystery of the Blue Train,
by Agatha Christie. Though Hercule Poirot's head may be shaped like an egg, he is not Agatha Christie's greatest invention. Beyond question, that honor belongs to Miss Jane Marple, who divines great insights from the citizens of St. Mary Mead and applies these qualities to the world in general. Never underestimate Miss Marple.

5.
 
Busman's Honeymoon,
by Dorothy L. Sayers, 1937. Sayers is somewhat of a pointy-headed intellectual, perhaps, but her WASPY, dapper detective, Lord Peter Wimsey, is witty, eloquent, and fun. The books harken back to a more innocent, romantic era which, given our current spiritual ambience, is a welcome break.

6.
 
Maigret
and the Headless Corpse,
by Georges Simenon, 1955. Simenon, who had every human weakness known to God and man, somehow managed to create a magnificently moral mender of destinies in the person of Inspector Maigret. This peerless series can be seen as a remarkable guide to the sometimes rather perverse study of human nature. Simenon wrote about seven million books, all beginning with the word "Maigret," and every one of them is killer bee.

7. 
The Widows of Broome,
by Arthur W. Upheld. This Australian series features the half-aboriginal detective Napoleon Bonaparte who knows the outback better than Crocodile Dundee. These books are wild and weird and beautiful like the people and the country they describe. They offer sparkling insights into nature as well as human nature. Not to mention that
The Widows of Broome
is scary as hell.

8.
 
The Big Sleep,
by Raymond Chandler. Philip Marlowe, a spiritual pioneer in the American hard-boiled detective genre, is a man who walks his own road right through the middle of the mean streets of L.A.

Chandler once observed: "Scarcely anything in literature is worth a damn except what is written between the lines." He writes between the lines better than almost anyone before or since.

9.
The Green Ripper,
by John D. MacDonald. MacDonald's knight-out-of-time Travis McGee has become an enduring American hero. This stellar series reflects great compassion for human vulnerability, great sympathy for the ecology of this planet, and great empathy for the rare enough triumphs of love, justice, and life.

10.
The League of Frightened Men,
by Rex Stout. Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin are two of my all-time favorites. Like Chandler and MacDonald, (not to mention Jesus, van Gogh, and Emily Dickinson), Rex Stout was underappreciated in his day. Like every other author on this list, Stout is now a ranking member of the Dead Detective's Society, having many years ago stepped on a rainbow. Possibly because their creators have all checked out of this mortal motel, their fictional children seem more than ever alive today.

QUESTIONS FROM A BRITISH JOURNALIST-1999

Can we start by talking about your latest book?

My latest book, entitled
Spanking Watson,
deals with my quest for the perfect Dr. Watson. It also deals rather extensively for the first time with the lesbian dance class in the loft above my own. It is at the same time more profound and more profane than my previous work. I leave it to the reader to determine what is profound and what is profane.

Who were the writers who inspired you in your fledgling efforts?

Well, it wasn't J. R. R. R. R. R. Tolkien, though I do admire the fact that he invented his own language and geography and was almost certainly clinically insane at the time of his best work. So were van Gogh, Emily Dickinson, and Jesus, of course. My early writing influences, however, were probably Simenon, Hank Williams, and Conan Doyle.

Is any of your early work publishable—or will it remain in a bottom drawer?

It was brilliant! And now it's lost to the ages! If I find any of that early shit I'll let you know. It probably is publishable. A lot of people are killing a lot of trees these days.

How do you regard your writing peers?

I belong to the Dead Poet's Society. Show me a book by a dead guy and it's probably going to be pretty good. Show me a book by a living human being and it's almost certain to be a dreary, derivative tissue of horseshit.

Violence and sexuality?

I don't do sex and violence very well so the point is kind of moot. I don't believe, however, in trying to protect people who hang themselves while masturbating: Who am I to try to stop them?

Tell me a little about your working methods?

When I write I pretend like I'm Oscar Wilde behind bars with my hair on fire. Also, you have to be pretty miserable to write humorous fiction that's worth a shit. The duller and more unhappy my life is, the sharper and funnier is my prose. So I fight happiness at every turn. I also strive not to be too successful in my lifetime. That's the kiss of death for immortality.

What do you feel is the principal appeal of the kind of fiction you write?

That would be hard to say. My life is a work of fiction. I'm merely writing an unauthorized autobiography over and over again. Hopefully, I'm getting a little better at it every time. But people are so perverse it's hard to imagine why they think something's funny. Especially Germans. I'm killing a lot of trees in the Black Forest these days. Maybe a few of them will fall on unsuspecting Germans.

Is music a factor in your inspiration?

As a former country singer and songwriter, my books are largely fueled, I believe, by the leftover lyrics of my life on the road. I wasn't that great a country singer but you have to fail at one thing before you can succeed at another. An eight-year-old who knew my situation, once asked me if I heard music in my head while I typed my novels. I told him yes. I thought it was a pretty insightful question for an eight-year-old. That kid will probably drive his car into a tree before he finishes high school. A lot of people are killing a lot of trees these days.

Do you remember a teacher or mentor who inspired you?

I had a few encouraging teachers along the way and I'm sure they've gone to Jesus by now and I don't really remember them too well. Miss Jean Brodie was pretty helpful. Of course, if you've taken as much Peruvian marching powder as I have, you're doing well to remember that today is Tuesday and the next meal's lunch.

Which comes first with you: plot or characters?

A plot can never come; only a character can. So I agree with George Bernard Shaw that plots are for cemeteries. I also agree with Raymond Chandler that plots are merely excuses for characters to go places and say things. Unfortunately, I don't agree with anybody else.

Is there a city that gets your creative juices flowing?

New York, of course. But the farther I'm away from it, the clearer it becomes in my mind. The characters become clearer too, the farther I get away from them. This includes myself, though it's rather difficult to get geographically away from yourself. It's not something you want to try at home. Anyway, it doesn't really work. A few weeks after you've gotten as far away as you can, you always see yourself in the rearview mirror.

How would you describe your relationship with your publisher and editor?

Not as friendly as Holmes and Watson, but not quite as latent homosexual.

Do you bear your potential reader in mind when writing or do you write for yourself?

If you keep the reader in mind you're an artistic whore. If you write for yourself you're a self-absorbed asshole. It's like trying to decide whether to kill yourself or go bowling. I suppose I write with an utter disregard, not to say a hard-on, for the reader, but this is not necessarily unhealthy.

Is reading important these days or a pleasant throwback to a vanishing past?

Reading is as important as ever. It's just that nothing else is. It's amazing how enduring some dead people's work really is. Oscar Wilde's "The Happy Prince," for example. It's kind of nice to know that a tortured homosexual can reach across an ocean and a century to touch a man and a cat.

Should a writer be of the world, or is a monastic solitariness useful at times?

I lead a lonely, ascetic, monastic lifestyle and it helps with my work. I don't like people anyway. They always look at me with pity in their eyes. I surround myself instead with animals and distance and croaked heroes who've crossed the rainbow bridge slightly ahead of the Kinkster.

Is the religious sense a help or hindrance for a writer?

I wouldn't know. I'm a Jehovah's Bystander. I think there might be a God but I don't want to get involved.

How do you feel about the fact that a writer is often a commodity, to be packaged and sold by a publisher?

A lot of people are killing a lot of trees these days.

What can you tell me about your next book?

It's entitled
The Mile High Club.
It's very similar to my last book except hopefully more profound and more profane. I'll leave it to the reader to determine which portions are profound and which are profane.

DOES NOT COMPUTE

Needless to say, I've never used the Internet, owned a computer, or had an e-mail address. Then again, why would anybody with a brain the size of a small Welsh mining town ever need those things? If you require information on a certain subject, go to one of those places, I forget what you call them, with a lot of books inside and two lions out front. Pick a title, sit on the steps, and read between the lions. This may seem like a rather Neanderthal method of education, but at least you won't be tempted to pretend to be someone you're not and you won't get carpal tunnel syndrome. In fact, the only things you're liable to get are a little bit of knowledge and some pigeon droppings on your coat—which most people will tell you, and most computers won't, means good luck.

Good luck, of course, is better than a good hard drive anytime. I'm not really sure what a hard drive is, but I've heard grownups speak of it in positive tones. I've always found it ridiculous to hear people talk about how expensive, sophisticated, fast, or small their computers are. There must be something Freudian here, but I don't know what it is. I'm sure Freud himself didn't know what a hard drive was since he'd never even been up to Amarillo.

Of course, one reason I don't use a computer is because I'm too much of a genius to learn how. In fact, I write on the last typewriter in Texas. I think that computers contribute to the homogenization of everyone's brain. The technological revolution is not bringing us closer together—it's merely making us more the same. I have this archaic idea that you should try to get it right the first time. And if you don't, you should tear out the page and throw it in the fire. If you know you can change everything with some kind of electronic mouse, you'll never know what it's like to fly without the magic feather. You'll never feel like Oscar Wilde behind bars with his hair on fire. Even Oscar had trouble with this sometimes. Maybe technology could have saved him. Maybe he could have called Emily Dickinson from a pay phone in the rain. Maybe Davy Crockett could have e-mailed Sylvia Plath from inside the Alamo, and she wouldn't have had to put her head inside the oven. But technology can't save everybody, and it may not be able to save anybody. There's no time between the windmill and the world to buy a van Gogh, help Mozart out of the gutter, Sharansky out of the gulag, Rosa out of the back of the bus, or Anne out of the attic.

The other night I got home from a rather extended road trip and found that lightning had struck the dish, which meant I couldn't watch
Matlock.
I figured I'd listen to a little music, maybe some Beethoven or Roger Miller. You can imagine my chagrin when I walked over and discovered that the cat had vomited on my CD player. Now I was forced to take the fifth on Beethoven. It was Roger and out. Without even the rudimentary elements of technological input in my life, I was truly back to the basics. There was nothing to do but think. Nothing to do but dream. Nothing to do but remember.

I recalled a small incident that had occurred earlier that afternoon when I'd walked into one of those OfficeMax places in Kerrville like a mad scientist, searching desperately for a cartridge that might mate harmoniously with the last typewriter in Texas. Of course, I didn't find it. As I was leaving in a snit, I saw an old-timer entering the place, carefully clutching what is now considered an antique, a hand-levered calculator. He was a tiny man with a long white beard and a crushed straw hat on his wizened head. He wasn't getting a Dell. He was just hoping that the young techno wizards at OfficeMax could repair his calculator.

"It's not even in the catalog!" the tall, impossibly young salesman crowed almost joyously. Other employees crowded around to voice similar expressions of amazement bordering upon ridicule over this piece of machinery that had once been a workhorse of American business. "This belongs in a museum!" they laughed. But it wasn't a museum piece to the old man, who carried it protectively out into the parking lot. I looked up at the garish chain store in the ugly strip mall in the little town that was growing increasingly similar to every other town. Something there is that doesn't love a mall, I thought. Something.

Back at the house that night, with the cat vomit slowly drying on the CD player, I sat back and lit up a cigar. I blew a smoke ring. It wasn't perfect, but it wasn't bad. I remembered how my old pal Wavy Gravy used to salute mistakes and imperfections. He said that's what made us human. Meanwhile, that obnoxious kid was back on TV, smiling satanically at me like some adolescent Ronald Reagan pitchman, telling me I'm getting a Dell. I don't want a Dell. I just want a typewriter cartridge. And the next time that kid says, "Dude, you're getting a Dell," I want a windmill to fall on him.