GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #602: FAILED IDEAS

Can't stand my work? Blame this book.

 

So here's a peek into my thought process behind ideas, in particular ideas that I should not have had. This happens to me often, sad to say. I come up with this great idea before I realize that it already exists in a very blatant way. This is the most recent idea that went south on me.

Writing last week about Vivian Schurfranz made me feel nostalgic for the kinds of things I used to write. My first stories were imitations of the Hardy Boys, so I started thinking about those books on Friday and throughout the weekend. I kind of wanted to go back and read some of the classics. 

If you don't know, the Hardy Boys were created in the early 20th Century. They're brothers who follow in their father's footsteps to become detectives and go on all sorts of adventures.

Then I started thinking, why don't I do something like the Hardy Boys today? Except they'll be actual teenagers instead of the sanitized all American clean boys that we know. These teenage brothers would think about things like sex all the time, just like actual teenage boys. And hey! What if they hunted monsters instead of criminals? Wouldn't that be cool?

It would be cool. Except at that moment I realized there already was a duo of young brothers following in their father's footsteps, hunting monsters. Supernatural, in other words. Whoops!

Although that goes a long way towards explaining why I enjoy that show so much. It's not just a love of horror. It brings back a feeling I used to have often as a child. It scratches that same itch.

Maybe one day I'll tell you about the time I came up with the idea to have a detective tracking down aliens and bigfoot and other monsters while accompanied by his skeptic partner . . .

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #144: THE AGE OF AQUARIUS

I'll be honest. I don't give a fuck about AQUARIUS, if not for David Duchovny. I liked RED SHOE DIARIES when I was a kid and looking for spank material. I loved X-FILES just like most of you did. And of course there was CALIFORNICATION, which I loved the shit out of. But AQUARIUS? I would not have watched it if not for Duchovny's portrayal of the main character.


The show is bad. Sorry. As a lifelong Duchovny fan, I wanted to like it. Every cliche you can think of is thrown into this show. Even the soundtrack is predictable. FUCK!


But the idea for the show? I love it. Pit Mickey Spillane against Charlie Manson? That's fucking perfect. That's what interests me about the show. Everything else sucks. Duchovny does the best job he can do with the shit he's given. Even the guy who plays Manson does his best. But fuck. I want to see Spillane vs. Manson. That's awesome, even if it's not the true story.


I don't want the true story here. I want the bizarro version. Spillane and Manson. To the death. Celebrity Death-match style. I won't get that, but I like that. It's better than what we're getting.


Although I do like the entire series being available on demand. That's pretty cool. I'm rooting for the show, I really am, but so far, I'm not impressed. I want to be. I want to believe. (Sorry. I couldn't help it.) But the cliched garbage keeps getting in the way.


The Manson rape scene is very good. It's highly unusual. But that's it.


I hope this show has more to offer. I want to like it.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #139: LAST CALL

My favorite song in the world is Nick Cave's "Time Jesum Transeuntum Et Non Riverentum." It's the secret song on the X-Files album, the one you have to rewind from the first track to get to. When it comes to music I like, I act like a child. I listen to a group of songs over and over again until I get tired of them and move on to the next group of songs I'm going to obsess over for a month or so.


I do not act this way with this song. It's so wonderful that I don't dare wear it out. I only play it whenever I'm going through a change in my life, like when I graduated college. Or when I got my first book published. Or, well, you get the idea.


I start my new job on Monday, so you can believe I'll be playing this song as I go to bed tomorrow night (at the absurdly early hour of 9:00 pm, by the way). This will probably be the last GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS I write, since I can't bring myself to write these things when most people are still up and about. I wouldn't have the time to do it, anyway.


I hope I've entertained you all over the course of 139 posts. Maybe I've made you laugh or I've terrified you (or, more likely than not, I've disgusted you), and I'm sad to see this regular column go. It will be good to not write something as I sit in my underwear directly before going to bed, but I'll miss doing this.


Anyway, I'm rambling. The bouncer has put all the chairs up on the tables, and the janitor is wringing out his mop. Let's finish our drinks and get out of here.


Goodnight, fuckers.