… is shockingly excellent. Currently streaming on hulu. That is all. Carry on.
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Mighty Denis Johnson, My Hero and “Contemporary,” RIP, Part II
THIS POST IS INEXCUSABLY LATE. IT WAS A ROUGH SUMMER. IT’S BEEN A ROUGHER FALL. ANYWAY, LET’S ROCK.
Hey, warning: copious name-dropping ensues in the following text. I can’t help it. This is my Denis Johnson story: fact, not fiction. Denis wrote about weirdos and losers burning at the edge of town, weirdos and losers burning at the edge of everything. I’m one of those weirdos and losers. Denis saw right through me. His sentences blasted my shadow on the concrete. Here we go.
IN THE FALL OF 1986 I was 21 years old and trying to write a dystopian novel called RUIN. (A dystopian novel! Jesus Christ, what a concept!) Anyway, my immediate readers—friends, slackers, poseurs, weirdos, losers—they all shook their heads and said, “Who the fuck is going to want to read this?”
Well, my teachers read RUIN and liked it. My teachers at the time were Peggy Rambach, onetime wife of Andre Dubus, and Robert Waukenon of The Art Institute of Boston. And they both said to me, independent of each other, “Go read Denis Johnson.”
God, I wish Denis could read this. He’d be amused.
Let me clarify: when Peggy Rambach and Robert Waukenon told me to go read Denis Johnson, they were in NO WAY likening my sentences to Denis Johnson’s. BUT they recognized what I was aiming for—the darkness, the yearning, the passion.
Peggy recommended that I should read Denis’ first novel, ANGELS. I had to special-order it. The special order took months. It was worth the wait.
“Dazzling and savage.” Indeed. Denis Johnson’s ANGELS ripped me to shreds. SHREDS. What a book. What words. Holy shit, Peggy Rambach had ushered me into an arena I wasn’t fit to enter.
Waukenon suggested I read Denis’ second novel, FISKADORO.
Like the rest of the world, I didn’t like FISKADORO. “Curse of the second novel,” which is a myth I do not buy into, it’s nonsense. For example, Iian Banks’ second novel, Walking On Glass is infinitely superior to The Wasp Factory. But at the end of the day FISKADORO just didn’t work. As much as I wanted to like it, I didn’t.
But then…
“Daring” is putting it mildly. I’ve never read a text written by a man more convincing in conjuring of the voice of a woman than The Stars at Noon. What… balls. no screwy pun intended. I wouldn’t have even tried such a feat.
BUT THEN—
JESUS’ SON hit the reading/writing community like an ELE (Extinction Level Event) slamming the planet. Suddenly, everybody fucking loved Denis Johnson! Writers, readers, and editors whom I loved and respected were all over him like Uncle’s Day at a whorehouse, an indelicate but accurate comparison. It was sick. But no one made me sicker and madder than Gordon fucking Lish.
For those not in the know, Gordon Lish’s chief claim to fame is to have “discovered” Raymond Carver— a claim Carver himself came to vehemently refute, going as far as commanding Random House to forbid Lish from editing his final books.
Lish was my editor, my publisher, and my “employer,” ha. I would show up at his office early in the day and do all his slave work, and all the other editors in Random House (Knopf, baby) would walk by Lish’s office and shout, “GIVE BOUCHER SOME MONEY, GORDON.”
He never did.
Anyway, when Denis Johnson hit the planet like an ELE around 1991, 1992, 1993, Lish was THE BIGGEST poseur, like he was in on Denis from the start. He wasn’t. Not even close. Which really incredibly pissed me off—Lish was just following the fucking crowd, the same way way he did a year before when Cormac McCarthy made it really big with ALL THE PRETTY HORSES and Lish crowed and crowed that McCarthy made Faulkner look like “a punk.” (He didn’t. Not even close.)
Which led me to an important realization: despite Lish’s self-delusion that he was a trail-blazer, Gordon Lish revealed himself as a follower, a fucking privileged white boy coming from money and literary snobbery— a liar, a faker, a ghost.
Denis Johnson was a real man, man. He ate, bled, shat, fucked and wept like a real man.
These are all of his books:
https://www.amazon.com/Denis-Johnson/e/B000AQ3FL0/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1508181439&sr=8-2-ent
Crying as I finish this. Goddamn it. God fucking damn it.
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Supergirl in Bondage (a photo essay by yours truly) NSFW
I know. Today was Wonder Woman Day. And this was by far the most charming photo:
BUT THEN! I was accused of a crime I didn’t commit! It was awful! Stupid bathroom bs in my stupid boardinghouse! The landlord looked like this, the late (and mightily missed) DENIS JOHNSON:
(God, Denis. I can’t believe you’re gone. I wish we’d met, I wish we’d shared a smoke and a drink at 9am and talked about god.)
So anyway.
I was so outraged! I was furious! Accused of something I did not commit! First World Problem: so many men in prison are currently incarcerated for crimes they did not commit! So I stormed around, grimacing, making fists, sneering at the sky (like a Michael Moorcock hero), until I realized…
I needed to tie up my super-powered girlfriends.
All of my girlfriends had super powers. All of them. Why else would I have been with them? Because they had powers that dazzled me.
My ex-wife, for example, is a 4th degree Black Belt. Karate. Our second night together? She put on black tights, barefoot, and slashed around her (very small) kitchen, cutting the air w/ Sais like fucking Elektra, and I was like OH MY FUCKING CHRIST I’M GOING TO MARRY THIS GIRL.
I did. We got married. She had super powers. ‘Nuff said.
My sisters had super powers. My mother had super powers. Every woman I’ve ever been attracted to has had super powers.
So, like a dope, like a complete weakling—I needed to bind the pretty sexy girls I liked and wanted and needed, I needed to tie her up
I didn’t realize this until later—way later. She was so powerful. Bronze bare skin my hand ached to touch, like an exploding sun.
.
She will wake, she will rise, she will break free. (And I’ll probably be wicked embarrassed by this post tomorrow, but fuck it. I love my super-powered girlfriends.)
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Wake Up Wake Up Wake Up
Fan vid by MrMarrs. It’s really excellent. Check it out.
The ghost of Denis Johnson stands across the street, coins over his eyes. Soon, everybody’s going to be telling his story. I have only one story to tell about Denis, but it’s a fairly potent tale. Stay tuned.
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That Feeling When it is 7pm EST on a Black Monday and She is Grateful for Your Attentions
Photo credit TK.
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i am mighty drax, hear me roar
Happy Monday.
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“WHAT DOES IT MEAN?!”
It means: repairing a beloved book for a beloved son.
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