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Gonzo Marketing: Winning through Worst Practices
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0738204080/entropygradientr
http://www.gonzomarkets.com

http://www.rageboy.com/blogger.html
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The Wolf came in, I got my cards
we sat down for a game.
I cut my deck to the Queen of Spades
but the cards were all the same.

dire wolf / grateful dead


Valued Readers:

I wanted to write something tonight, but I wasn't sure what. I thought
about saying it was high time I got back to writing about the Internet
economy, then I realized there isn't one anymore. I had an idea about
a Russian steppenwolf slashing this guy's throat at a dinner party and
ripping him to pieces on the long white linen tablecloth in front of
all the guests. A horror-stricken woman screams "You ate my date!" And
I say, "Isn't that what you were going to do?" She looks at me in
disgust and says, "Not like THAT!" But it didn't go anywhere from
there. None of these people have the courage of their convictions.

That doesn't tell you much about where I'm at these days. Or maybe it
does. Wandering the back alleys of Boulder tonight entertaining such
thoughts. It's not the violence of the fantasy that's salient. I was
trying to capture some essence of the wolf in myself. What can I say?
He was hungry. I settled for roast chicken and ziti in a lovely cream
sauce. Sitting just off the mall reading The Wounded Woman, drinking
Pelligrino with lime. I was feeling OK. Afterwards I walked over to
Starbucks, pissing on all the fire hydrants I passed, shaking a leg,
fluffed up, trying to look conspicuous. Taking back a little ground.

On the phone this morning saying I have to stay in limbo for a while.
Glad you understood. Wish I did. Choosing to remain in light. Under
the mercury arc lamps of this still too-partial heaven. The only faith
worth keeping when you're no longer sure what you believe in. How many
could talk in such cryptic code and know what was passing between
them? Through a dark glass all too clearly. Glad you got it.

And then tonight, an old friend drops around. Haven't seen her in
years and she waltzes right in like she owns the place, looks over my
shoulder as I'm typing.

"You need more discipline," she says. "You have no idea where you're
taking this, do you?"

"I was hoping you'd come around."

"Come around?" she says, arching an eyebrow. "Don't look at me. Draw
up your own agreements!"

"What? I just meant..."

"Yeah, yeah." She yawns. "Got anything to drink?"

"There might be a bottle of whiskey in that lower drawer."

"Bingo!"

"So what? You're gonna sit here, drink, get plastered while I try to
figure out what to write to these people?"

"Like you give a shit what *they* want, right?"

"I think I've pretty much flattened their expectations at this point.
There's no continuity. Zero. I could write anything and they'd be just
as amused."

"Or just as bored," she says, splashing a rock glass to the brim.
"Bottoms up!"

"You're a pig, you know that?" I say. "Sometimes you're just an
animal."

"Animal, good one." She laughs. "My adjectival form. You're getting
better."

"You think so?"

"Oh yeah, no doubt about it. Fucking GREAT writer."

"Fuck you."

"You tried that, remember?"

"How could I forget?"

"We talking rhetorical here," she says, "or you looking for advice?"

"I have all these readers for that. It never stops. Some of them, the
things they tell me? I can't even figure out what they're saying."

"That makes you dead even, then."

"Yeah, I guess."

"You get a lot of the Zen shit?"

"Oh yeah, always that. Carry water. Chop wood. First a mountain then
no mountain. Catch bull at four. Sort of a pastiche of Donovan and Cat
Stevens. I write back, say hey thanks I needed that!"

"No wonder nobody ever writes to you anymore."

"You'd be surprised. You shoulda been around here Sunday night."

"You forget who you're talking to."

"If I could only."

"Mesmerize yourself again? Yeah, what all the boys are wearing."

"OK, so say I don't. Then what?"

"Oh, like you want the program? The playlist? In the third act..."

"And why would that be so much to ask for?"

"Because then no surprises!"

"I've had enough fucking surprises, thanks."

"Really? I could arrange for delivery to stop for awhile. How long you
want to be unsurprised? A week? A year? Just name it."

"No, shit! No, that's OK. Just keep me on the route. You really love
fucking with my head, don't you?"

"Who could love it more than you?"

"Is that what you think this is? I'm fucking with my head? Seratonin
uptake on the downcreep. Don't tell me you went scientific or
something."

"Or something."

"So tell me."

"Tell you? Just like that? OK, the secret of life is..."

"No! Don't tell me."

"Why not? You just asked. Your wish is my command, you know."

"My *wish* is your chance to rag on my ass is what my wish is."

"You have a bad attitude."

"I've heard."

"So really, how come you don't want to know?"

"Because then no surprises?"

"Good, good. You're learning."

"And what else?"

"What, what else? You mean you want me to tell you more about what you
don't really want to know? Is that it?"

"Basically, yeah. I like how we can communicate sometimes."

"Your readers are going to be scratching their heads."

"Never mind them. Fuck the readers."

"Did I mention about your attitude?"

"Yeah, you did. What's that got to do with it?"

"More flies with honey, Sugar."

"Did I mention about fuck you?"

"You seem to have fucking much in mind tonight."

"Look, can we just not go there? OK?"

"Hey, where's to go?"

"All dressed up though."

"Yeah, I noticed. Nice undershirt."

"You come here, you interrupt my creative process when I'm trying to
get something out, you drink my booze..."

"Not like you were drinking it."

"Well, it's mine."

"Not anymore. Nothing's yours. You're just leasing. Or didn't you get
that letter went around?"

"Very funny."

"Hey, wait, I've got a new complaint..."

"Now you're ripping off Nirvana?"

"Where you think *they* got it?"

"Oh yeah, I forget."

"You do that a lot, huh?"

"Except when it would do me any good."

"And when would that be?"

"C'mon, you know. These endless tape loops. Memoria... memoria... Was
that yours too?"

"Haven't you figured it out yet? It's all mine."

"You're not leasing then."

"We could be getting into areas you wouldn't be able to follow."

"Try me."

"All a matter of trans-spectral harmonics."

"Ah, as I always suspected."

"Glad that helps you."

"We're getting nowhere here. Did you notice?"

"Where did you want to be getting?"

"Christ, that's your department, isn't it? What am I paying you for?"

"You're paying me?"

"Yeah, sure, buck-fifty a word. Standard rate in an economic
downturn."

"And for this you expect?"

"To get beyond mere amusement. As if this is even marginally amusing."

"Well ask me something, then. I'm tapped out over here."

"OK, you know that thing I wrote this morning?"

"You mean, 'I see you. Sometimes more than you want me to.' That
part?"

"Yeah, and the part right after. 'Want me to. Invite me. Trust
later.'"

"This is gonna be a future question, I bet."

"Yeah, what happens?"

"Cassie's litter box."

"That bad, eh?"

"You could always take it as advice to yourself."

"We keep coming back to that."

"Watchu mean 'we," white boy?"

"I hate it how you always leave me hanging."

"You know what they say. One percent inspiration, 99 percent
perspiration. Just wanna see you sweat."

"I shoulda stuck in limbo with the steppenwolf."

"Born to be wild, baby. What makes you think you didn't?"


[to be continued...]

ad infinitum,

chris

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