It’s probably pretty obvious by now that I’m not really sure what to do with this column since “the big comeback.” When I planned to start producing regular content again (for some reason, the first reference that pops immediately to mind whenever I think about this is Willy Wonka starting up his factory again – my run-on sentences being, I suppose, linguistic Everlasting Gobstoppers with their sub-clauses, parentheticals and my personal favorite – “stretching a sentence to paragraph link by way of a dash”), I knew that Sarcastic Voyage had to be among the features.
As I love to point out to anyone who’ll listen (typically anyone I’ve lured in with a different topic altogether), I was writing this thing regularly long before the foul non-word “blog” polluted our collective consciousness. I’ve been putting my thoughts and humorous observations on the web for well over a decade now. If I were Howard Stern, I’d claim to have invented the whole idea. But I’m not, and I don’t think I’m better than you because I thought to do this before most of you even got your first e-mail address. I know I’m better than you for one simple reason: volume. I published a 500 page book of this crap, and that was still only what I’d deemed the best ten percent or so.
Here’s one of the big, shameful secrets of Sarcastic Voyage: I don’t actually believe any of this egotistical crap I’m spewing. Mostly I’m mimicking the best writer you never heard of: the seemingly retired Mark Leyner. Leyner wrote an entire novel (Et Tu, Babe) that took the entire concept of “power fantasy” to absurd new heights, imagining himself as a global megacelebrity with more money than God and more balls than those colorful and almost certainly biohazardous pits of plastic at Chuck E. Cheese. And, as far as I can tell, the entire ludicrous ego trip is predicated entirely on a single semi-favorable review he received for his previous book.
By posing as this triumphant god of literature, Leyner sheds light on the shameful secret of all writers: we’re all, every one of us, a bunch of insecure little children, hoping to one day earn the love we think we don’t deserve through the craft we feel we’re no good at. (And if you think I’m being self-deprecating to prove a point, just ask my ex-wife. She’ll describe me exactly that way – only probably in far fewer words.) And by shamelessly stealing Leyner’s shtick, I’m hoping to continue the tradition.
The sad truth of the matter is, folks, that Mister Sarcasm isn’t doing quite as well as he might be. Who’d have thought that 11 years of experience building airplanes and helicopters wouldn’t turn up anything resembling a decent job in one of the country’s biggest aerospace markets? Who would have imagined him working a shitty job in the middle of the night, down at the train yards, just another face in a blue jumpsuit? And who among you would have ever dreamt of the day when he’d have to make up letters to answer for this column?
Okay, that one’s pretty much been a mainstay from day one. But seriously, if you’re reading with any regularity, would it kill you to send a quick note? If you’re taking pennies from the tray, you should occasionally drop one in as well. It’s only fair.
Anyway. To return to the much-belabored point, despite this being the ninth installment since the relaunch, the simple fact is that I still have no idea what it’s about. I’m still more or less burying my head in the sand, politically speaking… at least till Emperor Palpa-tard steps down. I’m not nearly the pop culture wunderkind I was when this thing began (wait, wasn’t I the guy who didn’t know what a Spice Girl was?), so there’s not much ground to cover there. And while I could easily fill nearly infinite column inches with my b—g-like personal whining, neither of us wants that. I mean, typing out that paragraph about me being a colossal failure made me uncomfortable. I’m sure it did the same for you. And while making people uncomfortable may be an acceptable form of comedy in, say, the U.K., it’s just not my style, man.
I guess the problem is, I don’t really know what my style is anymore, man. I more or less exhausted the possibilities inherent in ripping off my favorite humorists of ten years ago – Dave Barry, Christopher Buckley, Dennis Miller, Douglas Adams and the aforementioned Mark Leyner – but I haven’t really replaced them with any new guys to rip off in the meantime. Like most of the rest of the world, I stopped reading books in favor of the Internet (which, incidentally, is not a big truck, but a series of tubes) a long time ago. And I refuse to rip off (at least consciously) anyone on the Internet, because that kind of plagiarism is much too easy to prove. I’m not the greatest literary thief who ever lived, but I at least like to make you work for it a bit if you’re planning on busting me. I’m of the mind that anything found via a simple Google or Wiki search isn’t anything worth having in the first place.
So, for the moment, the answer seems to be to keep writing in these absurd holding patterns about absolutely nothing. Unless and until inspiration hits me, that’s really all I have. Or, as my hero Mark Leyner once said, “as a writer, the idea of being paid to masturbate is not at all unusual to me.” Of course… you, the reader could put an end to all of this with a small donation of a letter to Mr. Sarcasm. Maybe I’ll even throw in a stylish tote bag if you write now.