#breakingupwithruss

You’ve implied it. You’ve asked for it. You’ve begged us to do it. Now, it’s all here in one small video package. Brett and Russ (FINALLY) go on a date.

It’s a new year, and we’re back from hiatus. That’s right, people, Russ and I took a hiatus and didn’t even tell anyone. What’s the point these days…do we have to inform everyone of everything we do. Yes? Okay, well this is what we’ve been up to in the last month or so:

Holidays, travel on planes, family, friends, girlfriends, boyfriends, (lovahs?), new jobs, old jobs, new apartments, old apartments, apartments in Trump Towers with no furniture, cocaine covered surfaces and stripper roommates, new people, old people, people who flirt with our girlfriends via email, drag shows, gay lisps, burlesque shows, tittay shows, blasphemy, clapping and screaming to blasphemy on parade, theater shows, judging people harshly for bad gay jokes, emails back and forth about being on hiatus, emails back and forth about saying “hi”, body shots, birthdays, sects parties (!), reading books, eating Indian food, writing books, knitting sweaters, vet visits, removing books from Amazon, admiring peoples’ shorts, poking fun at the book industry, emails back and forth about meeting people for drinks, meeting people for drinks, emails back and forth about previous night’s drinks, buying new clothes, throwing old clothes in the garbage, seeing old friends, drinking in bars, taverns, saloons, greasy spoons, diners, concert halls restaurants and cocktail lounges, making oatmeal, eating oatmeal, looking at street parties, cold weather repelling, planning, scheming, dreaming, sleeping, stirring the pot, watching movies, listening to new music, etc.

Obviously, one cannot say that we’ve not been busy. But, it does feel good to be back.

Oh, and MAKEFUCKINGSURE to check us out tomorrow or the next day, really…WEAREGOINGTOMEETOURFUCKINGIDOL, LAURENFUCKINGLACANDYCONRAD! She’s totes doing a “reading” in NYC…and guess which two schmucks are going to bumrush her?

Oh, and yeah…this year, it’s all about monetizing. And a secret investigation. Stay tuned!

I read a disheartening article yesterday about one of Tiger Woods’, ahem, extracurricular activities, Loredana Jolie Pitt Fellini Follana (or whatever her name is) claims that she saw Tiger fuck a dude. It all reminded me of my favorite text message on TFLN in which one guy texts his friend the following message: “Fucking a dude.” Then, a few moments later, revises his statement: “I meant: Fucking A, dude.” Response from his friend: “That comma made all the difference there, huh?”

Whether this Loredana is telling the troof or not, I really don’t care. But, here it is…this is what we all have to be afraid of.

See that? Did you see it? The last line in the first paragraph… YES! Publishing have officially become a scheme of the get-rich-quick variety. YESsssssssss!

What’cha up to, Loredana? —> Oh, nothing, just riting a buk abut Tigger fuqin a dude n schopin it ‘round for 7 figgers. U?

7 FUCKING FIGURES, people. She is currently TRYING TO SELL HER TELL-FUCKING-ALL FUCKING BOOK FOR SEVEN FUCKING FIGURES.

This really is not about Tiger (or Loredana) at all. This is about us. What does it say about our industry when mistresses of high profile athletes are banking, BANKING, on selling her tell-all shocker for 7 figures? What does it say about our claim to be the “purveyors of fine content”? (a claim which we throw in the face of self-publishing companies all the time.) What does this say about our inability to refrain from salivating over cash money making schlock? Yay for being no better than the National Inquirer! Holla back atcha!

I think Mike Cane put it best, when he said, in response to this article: #PublishingIsWhores (@mikecane, Call Us!)

Ok…so a little less soapbox and a little more bullhorn for a moment: Russ, Lucy and I are going to be interviewed on the Twitters for #followreader today at 4pm EST with the ever-fabulous @KatMeyer. Check us on the hashtag; we’ll be talking QBAH2, hookers, bookers, nookers, cookers, vookers, lookers, and maybe (just maybe) Jersey Shore. (Not really.) (Really.) (No way.) (Way.) (No.) (Yes.) (No.)(Uh huh.)

Our interview with Richard Nash, who saves publishing in his sleep. Put us all together in a room, and it’s a WHOA Fest! #publishingismothafuckingsaved.

In case you missed this gem of a video, here it is in all its glory: PAULA FUCKING DEEN (Russ’ mother, grandmother AND aunt) HIT IN THE FACE WITH A FUCKING FLYING HAM! Yes, a ham. Flew. Through. The. Air. And. Connected. With. Paula. Fucking. “I Fry Butter.” Deen’s. FACE! Yes.

“Hey, y’aaalllllllllllllll, it was a travesty, y’aaaalllllll. I didn’t know they were throwing the hamms. So, I took that ham, smothered it in butter, y’alaalaaalllll. Then, I fried it. Then, I ground it up and mixed it with butter to make a ham salad, y’alallallalalalalalalalallllllllllll. Then, I took the ham salad, rolled it into balls, and fried those, y’aalalllll.”

I shit you not. This is what she said about the flying ham. I swearz.

So, PAULA FUCKING DEEN, CALL US! WE WANT TO TALK TO YAS ABOUT BOOKS AND FLYING FUCKING HAMS!

Every generation, there is but one great work that not only redefines literature and the artistic endeavor, but also changes how we as humans perceive and relate to the world that surrounds us. I am, of course, still referring to LA Candy. But, all digressions aside, the subject of today’s LICK MY CRIT is not that masterpiece of masterpieces by Ms. Lauren Conrad, literarian extraordinaire, but rather a sort of precursor to LA Candy, The Book of Genesis. (Authorship is still debated)

So, let us start at the beginning. (Ah cha cha!)

The original title for the Book of Genesis in Hebrew before world rights we sold and translations were made, was B’reshit, which, loosely translated into English, means “Bear Shit.” The original meaning of this phrase, however, has been lost for centuries, and we will never be able to fully comprehend this work due to this discrepancy in modern language usage.

The English title is from the Middle English “Jenna’s Sis” due to the fact that some ancient trollop named Jenna had a sister who told this story in the oral tradition before it was documented with rock and chisel and eventually on animal hides and later on paper and bound. While finding this Jenna is not my immediate concern, it would, naturally, be an appropriate topic for future investigation would we want to be able to access the text more fully and more deeply and much harder and definitely much much faster.

In the beginning, God spake. And spake. And spake. Stuff was created. God stopped spaking. He then took a break to take a dump, and voilà we are at our first pivotal moment in the story when man, Adam, is created.  Adam is created from the dust of the Earth. And then a woman is created be companion to Adam, Eve. Eve is created from a full slab rib meal down at the Sizzler. Of course, this Eve is all kinds of dickmatized by Adam and walks around with her bits hanging out so that Adam takes notice more fully and more deeply and much harder and definitely much much faster.

But, conflict arises, as does in all good fiction, and we have a snake with an apple. Now, here is the question: What if we have completely miscomprehended the story all this time? What if the apple had been green? What, you mean to tell me they didn’t have Granny Smith apples in the greater Mesopotamian Metropolitan Area back then? My argument is clear: the fucking apple was green, and this PROVES BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT that we’ve all misinterpreted the ENTIRE story all this time.

Ok, so Eve eats the Granny Smith, and all the sudden is all, “Yo, I’m finna raise up outta here and get me some threads; I ain’t want my vejayge blowin’ in the wind no mo.” Then, she texts Adam and is all, “Dude, call before you come, I need to shave my cho-cha.”

So, Adam and Eve do the sexy times, and Eve is with child. Eve then proceeds to become the first and most revered of mommy bloggers and writes about her entire family history, so that we have this book now before us. After a few posts, she started blogging about ePub and signed up for Google AdWords to stay on top of the game and earn some cashish for her new burgeoning family.

Now, a shitload of generations pass. It was the first list in literature, and set the stage for what was to become “Literature of Inventory” much much later in the annals of literary history. There’s Cain and Abel and Enoch and Mehujael and Methusael and Adah and Zillah and Tubal-Cain and Lamech and Seth and Enosh and Gunther and another Gunther and Methuselah, The Other Methuselah and The Other Other Methuselah who, in turn, bore Eli and Lilia. (But, that is another story all together.) We end the lists, some million years later, with Noah.

So, what does this all mean?  (Besides the fact that this is only part one of an installment…)

We all long to be back in the womb? Yes

Creation and destruction are one in the same? Yes

The act of writing is our own way of playing God? Yes

Quirk has just announced a new book: Adam, Eve, and The Androids? God, Yes!

Hey Hookrz!, it’s a new day and we are premiere-ing a new feature on QBAH2. Lick My Crit is where we take one of our favorite books and anal-ize it, like the smart people do. Up first is Brett with his critique of a generational masterpeace (sic): LA Candy’s by Lauren Conradz.

Every generation, a writer of superior skill, tact and talent comes along and not only redefines the idea of literature itself but is successful at shepherding us into a new artistic age. Much like the Industrial Revolution which required the sheer force of metal upon metal of new machinery, this writer-revolutionary acts as forceful Sherpa to those of us in the art world and provides us with a conception of the world in a way that no one has ever seen or witnessed before.

Of course, this requires many ingredients to the literary recipe, one of which is considerable risk on the part of the literarian. In this case, we are talking about a writer who, despite convention, has done the unimaginable: she has created a book with no plot, no character development, some could even say no words. Much like the grands oeuvres of Marguerite Duras which were called, in retrospect, “fatigue literature” due to the fact that fatigue itself, of the characters, of their surroundings, even of the words on the page, held a special place in the unraveling of the story, this work will one day be recognized as “static literature”. The static nature of this book is its personality. 

The book I am speaking about is LA Candy by Lauren Conrad.

With its redefinition of language, its world within a world, its considerably risky approach to “literature”, and its complete refusal to bear reverence to anything that came before it in the annals of literary history, LA Candy forces us, as a society, toward progress and it moves Art (with a capital A) onto its next phase.

Before I read a few selections, I leave you with this thought: Ultimately, literature is always about shared experience. Such experience not only reveals us to ourselves but teaches us what it means to be human.

OH DIZAMN! QBAH2’s Brett caught dirty-handed at a planning session! Maybe I swore I wouldn’t post this, but…

-Russ