Daniel Clausen's Blog, page 39

Underground Party!

When is a party more than a party?

When it takes place in the confines of a novel called "The Underground Novel."

When it features Vanilla Ice performing his monumental hit "Ninja Rap!"

When Richard Branson hints that he may have had a thing with your mom in the 70s.

When it features an epic game of Twister

...when...when....

Aw, forget it!

Check out the party for yourself right here:

https://www.wattpad.com/472004051-the...

Bring your friends, bring your family, bring your sidekick monkey...just don't bring corporate vampires!

Write The Shit Out of Today

There was something that happened to you today.

It was amazing. It happened. It happened in imaginative Imax. It may have been the most normal thing that happened to you. Maybe it happened a little different than you remembered it.

The old lady on the bus got you in the ribs with her bony elbows. Maybe it just hurt a little. But let's make that lady's elbow a little more hostile. Let's pretend that she did it once and then wouldn't stop. Maybe she was just trying to get some elbow room you just couldn't give. So, she attacked your ribs with a bony vengeance. Your wife was talking to you about divorce that day, so you were already in a bad mood.

What did you do?

You pushed the old lady. That's where you are in the scene. You standing over an old lady you just pushed on the bus.

That's not working out for you? Then maybe you need to dig deeper. Maybe you need to go more meaningful.

Perhaps you need to go back to that time in high school when you were alone on a swing imagining the end of the world because you'd just had too much crap from a bunch of adults who didn't understand you.

The scene needs to be more concrete, so let's say it's a day in winter.

You'd left the house without your sweater. Your knuckles are bleeding because you'd been taking out your frustration on this tree. So, there you are with bleeding knuckles, cold, and yet hot enough to think you've got a fever. And that's when you spot the broken piece of a glass bottle. Maybe you start picking at your bloody knuckles with the glass bottle, contemplating whether you're going to kill yourself or whether you're going to turn your anger on some malicious adult who doesn't know when to stop.

Then you see the blood running down your knuckles and you think something. What do you think?

These are scenes that need to be written, but they're not your scenes. You need to go further inside of you.

Why? Why do you need to go further into memories and things unusual, everyday, and tragic? Why does your world need to be written?

Because you are you. And every day poetry and creativity and frivolous art wins is another victory for every adult with a bruised rib and a kid with bloody knuckles who imagines the end of the world. And we learn about each other and the great randomness of life.

We learn how unbelievably meaningful it is and how much fun it is to communicate, write, read, live, and breathe word-music. Even pain becomes beauty.

So, yes, write the shit out of today.

TrainPottering

Choose Magic. Choose a wand. Choose drinking butter beers thinking about Hermione Granger as your second wand swells into a boner erectonus. Choose playing quidditch matches in designer broomsticks. Choose a house to call your own, a Gryffindor or a Slytherin, you remain a complete fucking embarrassment to the foster parents who ignore you and force you to clean the shite out of their kecks. Choose having a nemesis played by a post-English Patient Ralph Fiennes. Well, I chose not to choose magic. I chose to shoot magic heroine into my veins and watch episodes of Charmed.

Desire, Not Greed

The Novel in Short: After graduating from university with a degree in business, Dustin has a problem. He needs to figure out a way to break through the confines that the world has built for him. The confines of middling employment opportunities, family expectations, and the small imaginations of others. Luckily, he's not alone. With his monkey sidekick, Dustin braves the hazards of the real world, demonstrating his own unique brand of hippy entrepreneurship.



Advice on Greed:
Greed is not good. In fact, almost all greed is vile shit.

The Truth about Greed:
Greed is a way of avoiding desire. It’s the projection of desire onto paper and metal.

The Good, Good Advice about Greed:
Don't use greed to avoid desire. Desire that is Real is the best thing in the world. Follow desire.


*


Greed, they said, was good. Gordon Gekko was a cock -- not someone to be emulated. But I'm not a greedy man, at least not in the way most people think about greed. I'm not some megalomaniac idiot (every day except Tuesdays; Ego-trip Tuesdays where every ego-trip comes with a free mojito). My conscience is not diseased and dying. I don't wish death to the poor. No, I'm a businessman with a heart. The only kind of businessman in my book. What ails me is that people have lost sight of value, the Real of human desire.

These days (the future, not 2004), I have assets exceeding (OMITTED) dollars, yet I refuse to use MBAs, consultants, or any other of the pseudoscientists, witchdoctors, and snake oil salesmen that pass for professionals. They are insects eating away at the souls of those who provide Real value in the world.

I don't want your money for this book. I want you to find value in your life. I want you to do great things and feel Realer things. I want you to avoid greed like the plague, but always be open to desire. I want you to be successful in business the way I am -- in thinking about the desires of others, in providing for them.

A British friend of mine, who shall remain nameless (think of him as a slightly dodgier version of Richard Branson but in political consulting), said to me at a pub once: "Greed is gluttony, a self installed force feeding mechanism that bloats you with more and more and more till your liver bursts. What pleasure is there in greed? The duck never eats its own ate. Now desire is different. Desire is the gourmands delectation. The absolute, perfect exactitude of what people lust after is what you most need to know, what they see behind their eyes, what they ache for, get wet for, cry out for. And then you provide it for them. At a price."

Now, I doubt I can get more quotable than that, but I’ll try.

So, here is Gordon Gekko's shitty speech from “Wall Street” played in reverse.

Let's call him Reverse-Gordon Gekko.


Reverse-Gordon Gekko:

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I'm not here to shower you with the shitty political rhetoric you've been fed on for nearly two decades now. This shitty rhetoric plays on negative fantasies of fear of decline and lost masculinity.

When I listen to it in passing, it seems like some middle-aged man's obsession with his underperforming cock. Every word an admission that he’s afraid he won't be able to get it up. He hears that one out of five men fails to get an erection and ingests a bottle full of Viagra, then he wonders why the world looks at him funny.

Well, Senators, the reason the world can't stop staring at us is that we've been parading around with a chemically induced super-erection when we should have been doing good in the world.

When we needed desire, we settled for some branded pharmaceutical. Our cheating has become so habitual, we hardly question it. We cheated desire, and thus, we cheated ourselves.

We've been worried about trade and fiscal deficits, without worrying about deficits in common sense, virtue, skill, and decency. We'll listen to any blowhard with a chemically induced erection and megaphone because our paranoia has made us think that "Greed" is good.

In other words, the same principle of action that would get a toddler kicked out of pre-school is the foundation for our abundance, an abundance of stupidity and crap.

America, with its chemically induced super-erection, needs to stop picking on the kid who gives up his dollar to the poor boy in class who can't afford his lunch. That thoughtful kid knows more about Real desire than the other idiots. Even though that kid may not have ever lacked a dollar for lunch, he can at least imagine hunger.

He's not an empathetic idiot -- by the way, an empathetic idiot, someone who doesn’t care about the desire of others, is another word for sociopath. You know, like Hannibal Lecter.

So, to every greed-espousing sociopath that calls him or herself a true capitalist and walks around with their chemically-induced super-erection, I say to you: Stop eating the face of American capitalism with a side order of fava beans and a bottle of Chianti. And for the sake of America, go back to pre-school.

The point is that Desire is the Real good. Real. Human. Desire. For those who know Real desire, nothing that is human is alien to them. Virtue, hard work, and business -- Real business -- these things come naturally.

Desire works. Virtue works. Empathy works.

Empathy clarifies, shines through, and makes the business of human desire possible.

Desire, in all of its forms -- a desire for life, love, knowledge, companionship -- has marked the upward surge of mankind.

Money has and always shall be an elixir for human enterprises, nothing more.

I should know, I am human. And nothing that is human is foreign to me.

And desire -- you mark my words -- Real desire, will not only save the growing population of chemically induced mega-erect morons in this worlds, but that other malfunctioning human enterprise called the USA.

Thank you very much. And don't worry about the erection I just got from this speech. That's not chemically-induced. I didn’t cheat. It's the Real thing.

Make Like It's Wacky Tobacky

I was shopping with my sister in an outlet mall in South Florida, some posh place with things outside the price range of normal mortals. Mostly, I waited outside or just stared out into the ether. It was a weird time in my life when I didn't have much going on besides waiting outside and staring out into nothing.

This older man was with his wife, probably doing the same thing as me. He gave me a sympathetic look. Then, he looked right into my eyes and said, "You desperately need an adventure!"

I looked back at him and said, "I could say the same thing for you. It seems like you need an adventure too."

"So, what's it going to be, then, youngster?" he asked.

"I don't know, what you got?"

He fumbled around in his pocket and brought out what I thought was a big fat joint.

I looked around to see if anyone had noticed. A few people looked back curiously, but no one stopped.

"Where would we smoke it?" I asked.

"I'm tired of walking. Can't move fast at my age. I say we smoke this thing right here."

Now, I was searching around frantically for mall security guards.

"It's just a hand-rolled cigarette. It just looks like it's the good stuff. But I suggest we smoke it like it's wacky tobacky and see what happens."

He lit it up and took a drag and then passed it to me.

"What do I do if my readers have no idea what to do with this story?"

The old man looked at me, pretending to be slightly stoned. "Well, if they need an adventure as bad as you and me, tell them to print it out, go to a popular outlet mall and make like it's whacky tobacky."

Review - Lord of Misrule

Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The novel sits on the cracked counter of a Veloce chain coffee shop, crease-weary, and smelling of seven-year-old pages. The yellowing hadn't started, but that would come soon enough. One more coffee spill on her front page might make her a used up, spoiled thing, but she ain't no spoiled thing, and I be careful where I put my coffee. She's still got three or four good reads in her, yet. In older days, she would be read up 20 to 30 times before people lose interest. Then she'd sit on the shelf of some person, a trophy like.

The book young enough still to run a good literary race, but not so young to be on some hip millennial's reading list. Hip millennials ain't what you find around Book Off anyhow -- that the used bookstore's name. The millennials somewhere else. Coins come to them as gifts from heaven, not as something sacred to hold in your palm -- so sacred, make you want to wait for the right opportunity to use them. Like water in a desert, if cliches be okay for this book review.

Old horses and lost souls are the stuff of its word play. The book that is. Enough to get you in and then you find that there is more going on. Gangsters for those who are inclined. You can borrow some money. You can ride some money on a book, even this one. Down on her luck. Was 1800 yen in her day. Now, took her for 108 yen. That's Japanese money. I wonder if some old man named Natsume done had her first. I don't think I done had her last. There will be another owner, someone to ride a cool 100 yen on her. She be used, but not used up. No sir.



View all my reviews

Street Performer, Hamanomachi, 2004

He was there with his guitar case open. Just some youth -- in his early 20s like me -- in the alleyway of the arcade of Hamanomachi in Nagasaki, Japan, perhaps for reasons he didn’t clearly understand. This was back in 2004 when you could still get thousand-yen nomihodais at one of the izakaiyas not too far away.

I bought this 20-something another bottled water and listened to him play. He strummed his guitar, played old Elvis songs and popular Japanese ones I'd never heard. He didn't have his own songs. Not yet.

Miserly passersby would drop in ten yen coins, the equivalent of ten cents. It was almost as insulting as nothing at all, but he would thank every single one of them.

A drunk salaryman came up to us. He asked for the guitar and the street musician obliged. This salary man started strumming and jamming. He didn't sing, he just started going to town on the strings in such a way that it made you wonder whether he'd been keeping his rock-and-roll soul in a bottle.

One of his colleagues spoke to me in English. She made me understand that he was her boss. I told her she had a “cool fucking boss” and tried to translate that as “totemo kakui” which is probably like saying he is really handsome.

The boss left with a bow and took his coworker with him.

The guitar was now back where it belonged.

I told the street performer all about my troubles with a girl I liked. He told me all I needed to do was propose to her. That was it, just propose to her. He probably misunderstood my problem. The girl didn’t even know I was alive yet.

Still, the answer seemed simple enough. I ran off and bought another bottle of water for the street musician and we sat together for most of the night, nothing but hound dogs mixing classic rock with fixtures of 2004 Jpop.

The Underground Novel - Versus the Ninja - Part 2 - Fighting Ninjas...Like a Virgin

The Novel in Short: After graduating from university with a degree in business, Dustin has a problem. He needs to figure out a way to break through the confines that the world has built for him. The confines of middling employment opportunities, family expectations, and the small imaginations of others. Luckily, he's not alone. With his monkey sidekick, Dustin braves the hazards of the real world, demonstrating his own unique brand of hippy entrepreneurship.


Good, Good Advice (ripped off from Richard Branson):
In business, as in life, don’t forget to have a good time...even when you’re fighting a ninja.

Good, Good Advice for Fighting Ninjas:
Buy or rent Richard Branson’s How to Fight Ninjas Like a Virgin.

*

We must have been really distracted, because neither the ninja nor I saw the air balloon dropping in. But as it was coming in, its pilot introduces himself with a big 80s style boom box playing Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop Thinking about Tomorrow”. As the ninja turns around, the pilot of the air balloon throws the boom box at the ninja.

It explodes, throwing the ninja several feet into the air back towards the beach.

The pilot of the air balloon leaps out and introduces himself.

“Hi there, Dustin. I’m Richard Branson.”

He smiles and it takes me a full three seconds before I can get any words out.

“Uhhh….umm…wow!”

“Yes, that’s usually the first experience people have when they meet me. Most often women use those exact same words.”

I manage to stand up and dust some of the sand off of me.

“Looks like this is your first go at taking on a ninja,” he says by way of casual observation.

“Second actually.”

“Well, looked like you could use a hand. Why don’t we give it a go together.”

“Uhhh...ummm….”

“That’s the spirit.”

The ninja has recovered from the boom box blast and is getting ready for another attack.

“You know, it doesn’t seem that long ago when I had to deal with my very own first ninja. Back then many record companies were jealous at the success Virgin Records was having. Back then, all it took was one good smile to disarm a ninja.”

At that moment, as the ninja is about to cut us both down with his katana blade, Richard Branson turns around and gives him his award-winning smile. The ninja is instantly blown back several feet and has his katana knocked out of his hands.

“Now, Dustin, I want you to notice that I’ve only stunned him. I could have had my smile focused on full blast. That would have instantly sent him into a euphoric state that would have required him to attend one of Virgin’s legendary rock concerts. In fact, there will be one in Ireland later this year if you want to have a go. But I wanted to leave something for you. After all, this is a good learning experience for you. Now, I want you to try to stun him with a smile.”

Just as he is recovering, I turn around and flash him my most charismatic smile, but if anything that just emboldens the ninja because he is able to pick up his katana again.

“Well, that wasn’t quite right. But that’s okay. You gave it a go. And that’s important in life, just as in business. Now, this next move is something I’ve perfected over the years. I think you could learn how to do it pretty easily.”

As the ninja recovers and gets ready for the next swipe of his katana, Richard offers up one of his signature moves. “How about a pint, mate?”

Instantly, we all find ourselves at a bar that materializes seemingly out of nowhere on this secluded beach. We’re drinking beers and having a laugh. Richard has his arm around the ninja and they’re reminiscing about the way ninjas used to do things in the old days.

“You wouldn’t believe this, mate. But the second ninja who ever tried to kill me had a tie-dye robe, multi-colored and all. The third ninja who tried to have a go at me had traded in his katana for a bong. Tried to bludgeon me to death with the thing. That was a bleak time for the ninja assassin industry, but boy did we all have a lot more fun back then.” They both have a chuckle at that.

They finish up the last of their beer.

“Alright, Dustin. Your turn.”

I turn to the ninja in what I think is my most affable look and say, “How about another pint?”

The ninja looks at me confused. Instantly, the spell is broken and he is picking up his katana again.

“Okay, okay, Dustin, that didn’t quite work out. No worries, mate. Just remember, when it comes to experiences like this, we all start off as Virgins, right.” He gives me a wink, knowing full well that he has simultaneously made a great point about life and business and just promoted his brand.

“Well, Dustin, this one is just for fun. But I think you could get the hang of it if you tried. This techniques is called ‘The Cheeky Ad’ method of disabling a ninja.”

The ninja is about to swipe down on us when suddenly he notices something behind us. On the beach a billboard has magically appeared in plain view of everyone who happens to pass anywhere within several miles.

The ninja stares in shocked amazement. There in bold letters it reads:

Tradition says ninjas live quiet lives of tradition...dare to ninja like a Virgin.

In the background is a ninja with a vodka martini surrounded by several bikini-clad girls.

“Obviously, that one is outside your skill level just yet, but I thought I’d give you a taste of what years of life and adventure can lead to. Now, obviously I’m not going to show you anymore techniques because that would just be showboating, but I was wondering if you had anything to offer.”

That is the question -- What on earth do I have to show Richard Branson that would impress him?

It’s clear that the ninja won’t be stunned by the sign forever, no matter how cool it is.

I rummage through my pockets searching for something...anything. All I find is one loosy joint.

“Well, I guess we could all smoke this…”

I feel stupid and lame for even suggesting it after what I’d just witnessed. But then the ninja sees the joint and says, “Aw man, I could use a hit after the day I’ve just had.”

So, Richard Branson, the ninja, and I sit on this gorgeous beach and smoke a joint together.

It turns out the ninja has a name. His name is Doug and he used to be a barista before he devoted his life to the ninja-for-hire trade.

“Man, that was awesome. When did you have the time to have a billboard made?”

“Billboard...what billboard?” and as Richard Branson says that we look and the billboard is gone.

We all have a laugh.

Richard Branson pats me on the back and says, “Not bad for your first ninja, wouldn’t you agree Doug?”

Doug takes a hit and shakes his head. “Honestly, I thought I should’ve killed you several chapters ago, but you did really great hiding out from me, man. Most people just die. Really, Chinese throwing star to the head and they’re out...How do you know Richard Branson?”

How DO I know Richard Branson?

“Dustin,” Richard Branson says, “We need to have a talk.”

He then turns to Doug.

“As for you Doug, you’re welcome to take a job with the Virgin Group. We’re always looking for up and coming ninjas who have the potential to become client-oriented entrepreneurs and are up for a good time. And you fit the bill. What do you say, Doug?”

But before he’s even finished the question, Doug the ninja has climbed into Richard Branson’s air balloon. As for me, I’m still wondering why Richard Branson rescued a nobody like me.

Two Short Works of Prose

Cheap (micro-short story)

I was 48, strapped to the passenger side seat of a Nissan Notto as it dodged and passed cars on the road. "Cheap," he kept saying over and over again like some exotic bird. He was trying to tell me that the car had been cheap to rent. But every time he said it, he leaned closer toward me taking his eyes off the road, as curvaceous as any plus-size model. And in doing so he exposed me to his jagged, misaligned teeth, and the both of us to certain death.



Kirin-Ichiban Blues (Micro-Short Story)

The charming girl at the beer stand was too young for him, too bright, too everything. And yet, he found himself becoming more and more of a beer-drinker. The more he drank, the more he realized that the charming beer girl was a fantasy, with or without alcohol.

The Underground Novel - Discount Novelty Editing for Begrinners

The Novel in Short: After graduating from university with a degree in business, Dustin has a problem. He needs to figure out a way to break through the confines that the world has built for him. The confines of middling employment opportunities, family expectations, and the small imaginations of others. Luckily, he's not alone. With his monkey sidekick, Dustin braves the hazards of the real world, demonstrating his own unique brand of hippy entrepreneurship.

Novel Editing Motto: When you dare to begrin, that’s when the real fun begins.

Sound business advice for begrinners: Occasionally, you have to give up monetary compensation and work for chaos and punk rock.

Fluctuat nec mergitur (It is tossed by the waves, but does not sink) - Unknown

*

I meet Pierce in this little diner not too far from my work in the city. It’s a slovenly dive that serves greasy food, gritty coffee, and has waitresses several sizes too big and too small, but it’s nice because people from my work don’t usually frequent there. People from my work kind of suck in an overtly successful, wear it on your sleeve kind of way. I won’t go into the details, but anyway, they’re mostly people you want to keep away from your kids.

I see Pierce but I don’t recognize him right away. “Ah, look at you. You look...well, a little fat and bald.”

“My thirties haven’t been kind to me,” he says with that same ironic smile. I notice immediately though that he’s really low energy. He hasn’t really “figured things out” the way adults are supposed to at his age.

“Nice suit,” he says. “Never thought I’d see you in a suit. Looks expensive.”

“I only wear it to impress my fat, balding university friends.” I try to say it in a joking, lovingly way, but immediately I realize I sound like the kind of overly competitive asshole who usually works in my office.

We have some small talk. Things I don’t want to divulge because it might give you too many clues as to my real identity and what happened to me at the end of this story.

I get down to business. “So, I need you to continue the work you started for me years ago. I need you to hammer this manuscript into shape. Smooth over the edges. Cross the ‘t’s. All that nonsense.”

He looks through the manuscript I have prepared for him.

“Why now?” he asks.

“I think that should be obvious.”

“Does the world really need one more half-baked, lazy attempt to bring sense to the nonsense of the world?”

The typical schtick of a defeatist liberal arts major bitter at other people’s success. I don’t hold it against him though, because well, he’s Pierce. And he’ll always be royalty to me.

“Let’s just say this - it might be lazy nonsense. But it also might be the most important lazy nonsense ever written..”

“Because of…” He doesn’t finish the sentence because I won’t let him. It’s too early.

He looks through the manuscript.

“Hmmmm...I see...I see…” It takes him about twenty minutes to speed read the entire thing, or at least read enough to get an idea of what’s going on.

He looks up. “I don’t think I should edit this.”

“What? Why? You said yourself, I tend to write like a middle-schooler on speed. I need you, damn it!”

“Yeah. I know. It’s a bag of word vomit and dicks, but it works.”

“You realize I have a wad a money in my pocket right now I’m prepared to part with. All you’d have to do is tell me the truth -- which is that it’s horribly written-- then make up some other imaginary problems to get my price up, and then, wa-la, you’re walking out of her with my wad of cash and probably wearing my expensive suit to boot.”

He wrinkles his brow at me. He’s a terrible business man and we both know it. He’s also a great friend and probably would have edited my dumpster fire for free.

“You know, instead of editing out the errors from the manuscript, why don’t we make it more of what it already is. Why don’t we add more errors, omissions, crude jokes, things that don’t quite work? It should be like a…”

I finish his sentence. “Like a rock concert where I bite the head off a chicken.”

“...or play your last song from a flaming guitar.”

I nod my head. “More punk rock.”

“More chaos,” he affirms.

“You know, Pierce, you’re a piece of shit, over-talented, non-hustling, workaholic, well...decent, if ineffectual, person. But, every once in awhile you say something that makes me think you’re not the most useless person in the world.”

I see one of my colleagues pass by the window and I do my best to cover my face with the menu.

Pierce looks confused. “Scared of being seen with me?”

“Scared of being seen in this place. My coworkers look down on those who eat with the plebs.”

“You used to call them the Extraordinary League of Shitty White Monied Aristocratic Assholes.”

“That was a lifetime ago. And now, they’re in power. More than anyone could ever know. Will you take the job?”

“Yeah, maybe. But keep your damned money. I only work for the gods of punk rock and chaos.”

“Fucking aye, Pierce. You stole my line.”