Damn readers! Damn them all to hell! They want me to sign their books and throw my wrist out of alignment. They expect me to add an extra horizontal whoosh when I cross my T. They want to compare the signature that I offer in one book to that of another. Well, don’t they know that I apply my creative acumen to my work? It’s there in my National Book Award-winning novel, Butterflies in Toledo. The groupies may have been smelly, but they were just competent in bed. Even so, don’t they realize that I’m not entitled to give these atavistic rodents anything? That they have B.O. and bad breath?
Well, the time has come for conformity, dammit! And this is why I must thank Margaret Atwood for taking a stand. Forget Iraq. Forget poverty. Forget AIDS. No! The single most important issue facing the world today is placating authors. And I, Albert Yonklas, will not rest until I am thoroughly pampered and fellated to the high heavens. That goes for readers. That goes for publishers. And that goes even for other published authors. They can all suck my capacious penis, if you catch my drift.
Very few authors are willing to confess the truth: that readers are soulless cretins who should just buy our damn books and shut the hell up. But the time has come to teach these troglodytes a lesson. You want me to sign your book? Without a complimentary blowjob? Take a number, amigo.
You actually want me to sign your book with a pen? And add a personal message? Or perhaps a funny little diagram? Who the hell do you think you are? I’m not a cartoonist. I’m a novelist! You’re not! And you are entitled to a signature as soulless and indistinct as your foolish questions. Where do I get my ideas? I’ll tell you where. By glimpsing up your stinking piehole!
I’ll never tour again thanks to the LongPen. You want a piece of me? Catch it on video. Video is more intimate, you slimebags! The fans prefer it! We have no basis for this, but everyone know it’s true. And before all you leftist scum start bitching about the environment, the LongPen is environmentally sound! I’m not getting the Al Gore crowd on my ass.
I have to hand it to Peggy Atwood. What a great scam to get some pocket money from the publishing industry. And what a great way to remove audiences from the equation. Why, even poets are duped!
Albert Yonklas is the bestselling author of Butterflies in Toledo, It Happened in December and Harold’s Nightmare. He is currently seeing a heart specialist about his high blood pressure, which he blames on his readers.
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The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (
Lev Grossman, yo.