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LET's consider, for a moment, exactly how much shit I have to do. Aside from drinking and recovering from said drinking and the physical aspects of creating my zine and this web site (photocopying, FTPing, stapling, staunching the flow of blood from massive, bizarrely deep paper cuts, boxing with the Rats in Smoking Jackets of unusual size during periods of detoxification), there is the writing. The endless, vampire-like writing that must be done, always be done, to feed the monster that The Inner Swine has become. Every time I finish a column, or mail out the last copy of an issue, I am left shivering with the draining knowledge that there is now a new issue or column to be written. It's endless. It's like some Greek gods decided to give me a task as punishment for stealing fire, or something.
Of course, the writing in itself ain't that hard. I didn't manage to earn an English degree from a reputable college while attending, at best recollection, a total of four classes during four years through dumb luck-I can write coherently about anything, anytime, for any length. Even, as said college experience proved more than once, about books I've never actually read. The problem, of course, is that writing coherently isn't the same, necessarily, as writing entertainingly. It's a thin line, kids, between a pile of turd-like words on a page or screen, and something that's actually entertaining. I know there's a lot of jokes you can respond to me with concerning that statement, and screw you. It ain't easy. I make it look easy, but it ain't. The thing is, all these ridiculous essays and articles have to have some point, some kernel of coherent argument that I'm trying to get across. Without some actual opinion, some actual meat, they're all just a loose collection of jokes concerning me loosing my pants in a bar and a lot of cussing. So I have to have a purpose every time I sit down to write something for my rag or my website-but, it also has to have an entertainment factor, something funny about it. People don't read this stuff just to find out what I think about something-if anyone does care what I think-they read this stuff, in large part, for the free grin or chuckle they get out of me writing something like and then Security Chief Ken West carried me home and took my pants home with him as a trophy. On the other hand, people certainly don't want to read two hundred repetitions of that joke. There has to be something else in there. It's a balance. Writing something coherent and amusing is a difficult balance. Sometimes I get an idea for an essay about something, and I sit down and start writing, and about five hundred words in I realize that what I'm writing is about as amusing as eating sand. Sometimes I sit down and start writing and about five hundred words in, I realize that while I personally find the laundry list of in-jokes, standard Swineisms, and voices-in-my-head dictations to be hilarious, no one else in the known universe could possibly find it entertaining. The former can sometimes be fixed by simply finishing my boring argument and going back and editing in random asides and ridiculous jokes. The latter usually can't be fixed at all, since it usually indicates I had no point to begin with. Either way, it's a lot of effort just to come up with something that's both mildly humorous and mildly inetresting. And a lot of people would probably say I never actually succeed in either case. Take these web columns, for example. This is number 55, believe it or not. Over the course of these 55 columns, I've had some good streaks where I had something to say and said it in an entertaining way. I've also gone through long stretches where the essays were a little dry as I rambled on about topics seriously, without much comic relief. Every now and then I've pulled my head out of my own ass and realized, with alarm, that the last two or three essays posted here were a little on the dull side, and made a conscious effort to inject more humor into them. This effort usually leaves me panting and sweaty on the floor of the TIS compound, where I am eventually attacked my mice until someone comes to find me after my unexplained absence from the Hoboken bar scene. And does this effort pay off? Probably not. The essays I think are funny you bastards probably hate, and the ones I think are interesting you bastards probably hate. I can't win. Not even against the mice, which are inexplicably strong, fending off my pathetic blows with ease. I am blessed and cursed to know how I am going to die: Eaten by mice. Until that glorious day, however, feel free to tell me what you think of these columns. You bastards. Jeff |
December 1, 2003