THE RED AVENGERS OF GENERATION X Because we can't, we won't, and we don't stop writing words that mean things.
Making literature cool again, rocking the WWW with thought, and. . . making light of the darkness, and grunge, and stuff.
This isn't virtual reality-- we're the real thing.
We don't mind the term,GENERATION X, but we don't think corporate-elite liberal baby-boomers should be the ones defining it.
Ahoy mate! If you haven't already, be sure to sign aboard The Jolly Roger, the fastest-sailing literary movement on the seven cyber-seas! Here, we'll take you for a quick cruise right now, so hold on to your hat and prepare to ship under full sail, as we let the canvas stretch taut in the truth's ragin' wind.We're navigating the world, setting in stone the deeper reality of the common American consciousness, and embroidering terror into the tenured elite/editor/professor/media mogul heart! They read our poems, find themselves thinking, and start getting nervous. This we understand, because they know what we've come for. We've come for what is ours. We're pirating Academia and Pop-Culture, and returning them to the soul of the common man. And what really gets 'em is that we're having fun doin' it.
We at Beaconway Press can't come close to expressing how fortunate we are for the presence of the WWW, and we're keeping busy rising to the occasion. This is a historical moment folks, for no longer does one have to submit one's literature to liberal journals that nobody reads to start a literary revolution. Instead, one can submit their thoughts directly to the intellects of the people.
We're proud to be using this new medium to pay homage to the deeper souls of our generation. MTV isn't set up to do it, the bastion of tenured-liberal-elite professors are too busy filling out grant proposals to fund the journals that nobody reads, and the pot-heads on alt.society.generation-x think that words were invented to brown-nose their feminist instructors, or something. It's up to us to do the job that the Universities profess to do, but for the most part are failing to accomplish. We're going to educate a generation by inspiring it to educate itself. And while we're performing that noble task, we're also going to do MTV's job. We might as well. We're going to express our souls in an artistic manner. And we're going to do it with words, even if it means that David Geffen can't make a buck off of it. It's called the New Literature, and we're writing it today. We're not waiting for the New York based editors to acquire an appreciation for the Great Books and develop respect for the common sense and intellect of the people of this country-- we could be dead white males by then.
HELLO GEN-X! (and stuff) We would like to extend a special warm welcome to our peers-- the members of Generation-X. We didn't coin the term, and we're not trying to get you to drink Pepsi, so like lend us your ears a sec. We're proud to be the voice of the contemplating Generation X-er's, inspired by truths higher than heroin, preferring thinking to drinking, and mowing the grass to smoking it. We're cultural mutineers, guardian angels of common sense, defenders of the subtle, known and feared in creative writing workshops across the land. We're the most dangerous poets alive, and should be watched, according to a few feminists we've encountered on the net. They're pretty desperate, with their power-base fading and all, so like they have to stoop to trying to tie us in with the recent Oklahoma tragedy. But really we're just your clean-cut Boy Scout types who don't mind havin' fun, now and then, with an attitude. What really freaks the fringe feminists out is that we believe in romance, and our poetry is written in such an oppressive context. We like Beavis, Butthead, and Rush, and we fear no administrators armed with degrees in education-- we've got a Canon on this frigate, and it's a big one. We're the writing on the wall, the whispering wind, the unseen crack, and MTV doesn't have a half-hour show on us, 'cause they don't know what the hell we are. We're invisible to the whole mass-market media industry, filtering into the consciousness of our peers, undetected by the elites' out-dated radar. There's no way that they can use us to get our peers to drink Pepsi, so like, what we think doesn't matter. We just have one question for the record industry-- alternative to what?
And the New York Publishers think we're nuts. You'd think they'd be our friends with the way we're both fundamentally in the same business of trying to create things that people want to read, but we freak 'em out. To them we're off our rockers, we've got bats in the belfry, we're over the rainbow, playing without a full deck, gone fishin'. Our oboes are out of tune. We've never been funded by the NEA, nor have we won any creative writing awards, so our credibility is a bit lacking. And our work doesn't divulge any new sexual positions, either. And some of it even rhymes. Don't we know that they need literature to level the playing field, and poetry to compensate for the history of Western Culture's oppressive concepts, like the Parthenon, Hamlet, and science? The literay intellectual arenas they control, like Knopf and Norton's, are far too valuable to be wasted on concepts like the Truth. Why can't we be useful, and go off and make higher resolution TV's with our linear minds, so we can augment the world's Pulp Fiction viewing experience, when it comes to the corner Blockbuster? Why can't we smoke something, or drop something, or shoot something, and sing something so that we can create something MTV could include in their arsenal? What the bejeezus-- didn't we learn anything in college? Didn't we learn that words don't mean things?
But hey-- we'd rather be nuts than stupid, which is what they think you are. They think you're incapable of literature-- literature that means something, without pictures. Even some of the younger editors, fresh out of their deconstructionist theory courses, won't admit that you exist. You know, the happy campers who lived down the hall, who were always putting those "Save the GALS," posters on their doors. They went into the business to make the world a better place-- we wish they'd gone to Cambodia. 'Cause we're not sure if they'd know a piece of literature if it bit 'em in the hiney. It seems that for the most part they feel good about making money off of anything that has something to do with sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll, with a sprinkle of some PC social engineering, to assauge any guilt that a person might feel from making money off of sex, drugs, and rock'n roll. Their baby-boomer bosses all cleaned up on that strategy, and that's who they have to brown-nose to advance, so like they can't afford our irreverence. Meaning doesn't occur to them, so they conclude it doesn't occur to you, either. After all, you're not in New York. So then that's why they have to resort to trying to "fool" you into reading, by marketing everything with neon covers and getting their friends at Cosmopolitan to call it, "The Catcher in the Rye of the Grunge Generation." Then they complain that literature doesn't make money. They blame it on you. It's your fault because you're off listening to Greenday, watching Melrose Place, and sending all your money to Columbia House and your college loan officer, instead of buying their neon contemporary classics, that look more like boxes of Tide than books. You're too stupid-- so they're forced into printing more picture histories of Aerosmith. It's your fault we're all slackers. You're responsible for the illiteracy in this country, and teen pregnancy, drug addicts, and violence on TV, 'cause you're a flaming idiot, incapable of culture. That is what they think of you. You are holding back the literary geniuses of this nation, and as a result, America must be content with OJ Simpson. And Brett Easton Ellis has to compromise his Shakespearean tendencies, and write books about mutilating women. Douglas Coupland has to write about shampoo, because of you, and you won't let him put plot or memmorable characters in his contemporary masterpieces. You consumers suck-- just look what you've done to America. And now France is worried about the effects of our culture on them. You, Generation x, should be ashamed of yourselves, and stuff. Look what you're doing to the world. Just thank God that some people in congress are willing to give you an opportunity to correct it all, by paying more taxes to fund future NEA projects to enhance our culture. You'd better vote for them, or else things will really be your fault. I read it in Rolling Stone.
No.
This is America. If one wants great literature, one doesn't go and petition the government for funds to create it. One picks up a pen and writes it. And while the baby-boomer elite are whining that nobody buys the Generation-X "novels" they write for themselves, we're going to author the literature that means something to the sober soul of our peers. These days are cool. We can't emphasize the good luck we've had with the WWW. To start a literary revolution, we don't have to submit our thoughts, ideas, and literature to literary magazines that nobody reads. The WWW allows us to submit it directly to you. So welcome aboard!
All the best,
Drake "Red Avenger" Raft,
Becket "Bluebeard" Knottingham, Elliot "Ahab" McGucken.
So join the Intellectual Rebels, and sign aboard The Jolly Roger!
All items on these pages copyright 1995, Becket Knottingham, Drake Raft, Elliot McGucken & Beaconway Press, except for Beavis & Butthead, free love with Li z, and Kurt's last literary work.
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