Hey Genius

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Hey genius! Whatcha writing in that Moleskine ya got there?

Your memoir? Some poetry? Is it about your father? Is it about an old lover?

Did that person break your heart? Or was your heart already broken before they

met you? Or did you box that person’s heart about like a kitten playing with

spool of yarn? Do you feel so guilty about breaking that person’s heart that

you’re compelled to write everything down and cast them heart-breaking demons

of yours out? So when you write, what you’re really doing is yelling at them

demons: “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!” Ooooor, are you writing a screenplay, genius? A

sorta story in which a loveable Steve Buscemi-esque buffoon gets the girl that

works at the fashion design firm in Midtown who is way out of his league, who

also, in actuality, should really fall in love with the Jude Law-esque

character because that character has more money, is way more attractive, and

despite the overtly douchey way in which he is written, is actually a nice guy.

But since you see yourself as Steve Buscemi, except poorer, the Steve Buscemi

character ends up winning the girl based upon the merits of his stamp

collection. That’s pretty unrealistic, genius, but hey, it’s your screenplay,

right? Who am I to criticize your creative output? Or maybe you could be

writing a really swell novel, genius? Will it be a long one like those Russian

novels that I’ve never really read? Or will it be obtuse like Pynchon or overly

stylized like those overrated Beat writers? Will you use terms like “inky

night” or write about amphetamines in cool (not really) post World War II,

Nuclear Age slang that will influence decades of liberal leaning white people

and somehow convince them that their love of such literature is a confirmation

of non-whiteness, that they’re really not the wonder bread lamos that their

parents were? But I digress, I really don’t mean to talk shit genius, I just

want to know about your novel! I just wanna know about what you’re writing! You

have to tell me! The suspense is killing me genius! When I see you hunched over

your journal agonizing over each line you’re putting down like a surgeon

deliberating on which incision would remove that damn cancer, I’m just pushed

to the edge of normal curiosity, compelled to look over the cliff’s edge,

fantasizing about what kind of life a genius like you could live. Maybe I’m so

interested in you because my own life is a complete snore. A real fucking bore.

It’s okay though, I’m cool with having no interests or anything of specific

import happening in my little fish bowl of an existence, sometimes that’s just

life; the absence of life. That’s why god created ipods, marriage, and having

children; to give us something to do to pass the time between being 15 and

being dead. 

(MADDECENT)