Official Slacker Handbook Read online

  BACKGROUND: Winnetka, University of Wisconsin, University of Texas. Currently A.B.D. toward his philosophy Ph.D. BACKGROUND: Raised in Atlanta suburbs, B.A. University of Virginia, M.A. in English literature from Brown.

  RENAISSANCE MAN CREDENTIALS: Lead singer and guitarist for popular local thrash metal band; publishes his poems and angry diatribes in his zine entitled Mysogeny; occasional graffiti artist. RENAISSANCE MAN CREDENTIALS: Currently hard at work on his long-awaited first novel as well as on Mondo Eduardo, his upcoming one-man poetry show.

  NARCISSISTIC SELF-DESTRUCTIVE IMPULSES: Plenty. YEARS HE GIVES HIMSELF BEFORE SELLING OUT: Three

  OTHER: Recently turned vegan; Closet Star Trek fan; practitioner of internal martial arts. OTHER: Sometimes likes to go through life pretending he’s a really flat character in a bad novel.

  FAVORITE MOVIE:Reservoir Dogs FAVORITE MOVIE:Dr. Strangelove

  LAST BOOK READ: From cover to cover? LAST BOOK READ:Plausible Denial by Mark Lane

  DAY JOB: Bicycle courier DAY JOB: Dog walker/plant care technician/part-time cultural event usher

  The Choice: Sophie let Edward move in. Brian’s looks were enticing (and who the heck is Tab Hunter?), but that bit about everyone’s heads turning reminded her that domestic bliss and long-hair flipping, testosterone-emitting gods-of-rock don’t necessarily go hand in hand. The bicycle courier bit is, frankly, a bit of a red flag. Even though it means Brian has rock-hard buns, Sophie doesn’t want to end up paying all the bills, and she’s heard rumors that couriers are often somewhat irresponsible. Edward’s jobs, on the other hand, bespeak a certain solidness (would you let just anyone walk your dog?); besides, that “cultural event usher” bit sounds suspiciously like “lots of free tickets.” Finally, Edward’s Master’s from Brown is infinitely better than Brian’s dissertation-less attempt at a Ph.D. Sophie dated an A.B.D. before, and she knows that if she moved in with Brian, that sad pile of coffee-stained papers passing for his dissertation would sit on her bedroom desk haunting them like the Raven.

  “Nevermore…”

  Intellectual Pretension

  Pretending to Read

  One of the main reasons you’ve chosen to slack, at Least ostensibly, is so that you can have ample time to read. Not only does this sound a lot better than, say, stepping off the fast track so you can nap more frequently, but it also contributes to your image as a card-carrying member of the urban intelligentsia.

  Once you manage to get the first twenty pages into enough books, you’ll find that reading is sort of like watching cable, only with fewer hair replacement infomercials. Piles of partially read books scattered around your futon insure that reading never has a chance to become a chore. Mental stimulation can be as consistent or as varied as you like.

  AND THE NICEST THING ABOUT READING IS THAT IT IS A RELATIVELY PAINLESS WAY TO COME DANGEROUSLY CLOSE TO ACTUALLY APPEARING TO ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING, DEPENDING ON A) WHAT YOU READ, AND B) WHO FINDS OUT ABOUT IT. THUMBING THROUGH THE X-MEN ON THE TOILET WILL NOT BE VIEWED AS AN ACCOMPLISHMENT, BUT HUNKERING DOWN WITH FINNEGANS WAKE IN THE RIGHT CROWDED CAFE WILL.

  BUT WHEN IT COMES RIGHT DOWN TO IT, WHO WANTS TO READ FINNEGANS WAKE? THEREIN, AS THEY SAY, LIES THE RUB.

  You must pretend to read Finnegans Wake. Better yet, you must pretend you have already read Finnegans Wake and The Gulag Archipelago and Moby-Dick. And you should assure new acquaintances that you’ve read and comprehended every word Pynchon ever penned. The Complete Plays of Aristophanes?—“Read it again just last week.”

  Foucault’s The Archaeology of Knowledge (and The Discourse on Language)?—“My favorite of his work.”

  The Critique of Pure Reason, Towards a Genealogy of Morals, and Either/Or?

  “CINCHY.”

  12 Books to Tell Other People You’ve Read

  -Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre

  -Being and Time, Martin Heidegger

  -The Bible, assorted authors

  -The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  -Das Kapital, Karl Marx

  -Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon

  -The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann

  -The Order of Things, Michel Foucault

  -Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein

  -The Postmodern Condition, Jean F. Lyotard

  -Remembrance of Things Past, Marcel Proust

  -Ulysses, James Joyce

  The Slack Syllabus

  -Another Roadside Attraction, Tom Robbins

  -Buried Dreams, Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer, Tim Cahill

  -Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche

  -A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess

  -Delta of Venus, Anais Nin

  -Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson

  -The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand

  -Hollywood, Charles Bukowski

  -The Illuminatus! Trilogy, Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson

  -Journey to the End of the Night, Louis-Ferdinand Céline

  -Juliette, Marquis de Sade

  -The Killer Inside Me, Jim Thompson

  -Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov

  -The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka

  -Miss Lonelyhearts, Nathaniel West

  -Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs

  -Querelle, Jean Genet

  -Sandman, Niel Gaimen

  -Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse

  -The Stranger, Albert Camus

  -Success, Martin Amis

  -Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller

  THE BOOKS WE LOVE TO HATE

  Bright Lights, Big City

  Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

  Generation X

  Less Than Zero

  On the Road

  The Official Slacker Handbook

  Slaves of New York

  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

  USELESS CAUSES 101

  It is not totally fair to characterize slackers as apolitical. They are simply not political in any sort of recognizable, quantifiable, or ultimately meaningful sense.

  But that doesn’t mean that you don’t have a firm grasp of the problems besetting our nation, nay, even those plaguing mankind in the aggregate. You do. And one of the more futile of your pastimes is coming up with solutions to what you see as our world’s most virulent ills, solutions that you know would never even make it out of a committee in Congress, seeing as the corridors of power are greased by the filthy lucre of corrupt bourgeois capitalist scum.

  PROBLEM SOLUTION

  Cars cause a lot of pollution. Gasoline strictly rationed and eventually taxed out of existence; work day dramatically shortened to accommodate swelling ranks of suburban bicycle commuters.

  Overpopulation causes a drain on precious natural resources. Retooling of the economy to accommodate only clay, wool, and hemp-based products; federal license required for reproduction.

  Some people live in poverty. Everyone grouped into two-hundred-person soviets geared to produce all items necessary for self-sufficiency.

  People of different nations, races, and religions tend to dislike each other. National borders erased, religion abolished, and intermarrying enforced.

  Humans often overlook how cute and fuzzy animals are. Ban on all scientific enquiry; national vegan diet strictly imposed from above; imprisoned house pets, farm and zoo animals emancipated and permitted to room free.

  Members of the underclass often feel powerless when confronted with impenetrable monolithic economic culture. Economically motivated crime decriminalized; idle rich corralled, stripped of all assets, and placed in “economic sensitivity training camps.”

  Attractive women are often ogled in public. Ban on all secondary sex characteristics; return to quaint primordial pastime of asexual reproduction.

  ARGUING PHILOSOPHY TO WIN

  -EMPLOY THREATENING HAND GESTURES

  -MAKE THINGS UP AS YOU GO ALONG

  -WHIP OUT THOSE LATIN TERMS AT RANDOM (IGNORATIO ELENCHI, ARGUMENTUM AD MISERICORDIAM, ARGUMENTUM AD
VACULUM, ETC.)

  -MAKE PERIODIC USE OF PRELINGUAL VERBAL DISPLAYS

  -WASTE PRECIOUS HOURS EXAMINING EVERYBODY’S PRESUPPOSITIONS

  -REPEATEDLY FORCE OTHERS TO “DEFINE THEIR TERMS” TO BUY TIME TO THINK

  -CASUALLY THROW OUT FABRICATED QUOTATIONS FROM IMPORTANT BOOKS THEY WILL BE TOO ASHAMED TO ADMIT THEY HAVEN’T READ

  -CALL INTO QUESTION THEIR MENTAL HEALTH

  -INSULT THEIR MOTHERS

  18 Key Words to Employ During a Heated Cafe Debate

  1. Postmodern

  2. Jungian

  3. Existential

  4. Marginalization

  5. Deridian

  6. Gynocentric

  7. Phenomenological

  8. Praxis

  9. The “Other”

  10. Lacanian

  11. Semiotic

  12. Ontological

  13. Kafkaesque

  14. The Canon

  15. Deconstruction

  16. Chthonian

  17. Phallocentrism

  18. Gender

  FILM THREAT MAGAZINE’S TOP TEN SLACKER FILMS, GIVE OR TAKE

  OFFICIAL DISCLAIMER: WHILE THESE ARE ALL GREAT FILMS, WE DON’T RECOMMEND THAT YOU GO OUT AND BUY THEM ON VIDEO. INSTEAD, BORROW THEM FROM A FRIEND AND CONVENIENTLY FORGET TO RETURN THEM. AND, ALTHOUGH THIS LIST WAS DESIGNATED THE “OFFICIAL” AND “DEFINITIVE” AND “TIMELESS” SLACKER FILM ROUND-UP DURING THE TEN MINUTES THAT IT TOOK US TO THINK IT UP, IT IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE ON ANY GIVEN DAY, DEPENDING ON OUR COLLECTIVE MOOD, SO SUE US.

  Rules for being considered a true slacker classic:

  1. Should stand the test of time

  2. Has to star cool actors (Actors not stars!)

  3. Gets even better with a six-pack

  And now the movies, in no particular order. They could have been put in some sort of order, but that would require effort.

  REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE—Self-explanatory.

  Easy Rider—Makes slacker parents misty-eyed and gives us a glimpse into their souls. Good on an all-night triple bill with Five Easy Pieces and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

  On the waterfront—Marlon Brando has made a career out of playing slackers (The Wild One, Bedtime Story, The Chase, Nightcomers, and Last Tango in Paris, to name just a few) and gets bonus points for stacking off screen as well. His mumbling performance in Waterfront set the standard for decades of “hero” slackers.

  A Clockwork Orange—Stanley Kubrick only finishes a film about once every five years or so, so even if you don’t like him, you’ve got to admire him.

  Taxi Driver—This is the ultimate “violent” slacker fantasy. However, a true slacker would find a gun and shoot himself in the foot.

  Over the Edge and Rock ‘n’ Roll High School—They burn down the school.

  Repo Man—“There’s room to move as a frycook, I could be manager in two years.”

  2001: A Space Odyssey—Actually a bore, but the last twenty minutes of that colored light show is hypnotic.

  Apocalypse Now—The perfect substitute for actually going to war.

  Pretty in Pink—A lousy film, but ideal for a slacker seduction: The babes love it. Added bonus: made by Hollywood’s biggest slacker, pathological idea-recycler John Hughes.

  Rumble Fish—A slacker morality tale shot in arty black and white. Stars three generations of slacker Hall of Famers: Dennis Hopper, Mickey Rourke, and Matt Dillon.

  Animal House—So good it almost makes you want to go back to college.

  -Chris Gore and Film Threat staff

  Unshackling The Human Spirit: The Slacker as Unrecognized Genius

  YOU AND YOUR DORMANT POTENTIAL

  It’s sort of like a spore.

  It’s a tiny hardened nugget of possibility that lies buried deep within your soul, waiting for—well, you’re not sure what it’s waiting for. A change of seasons? A migrating bird to swallow it and excrete it in a more suitable landscape? You to save up sixty bucks so you can buy your friend Zack’s acoustic guitar? As I said, you’re not quite sure. But you know it’s in there. Waiting.

  THE FACT THAT YOU HAVEN’T ACTUALLY FINISHED A SONG, OR A STORY, OR EVEN A POEM IN THE PAST SIX MONTHS DOES NOT TROUBLE YOU. YOUR THERAPIST SAYS YOU ARE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH CLOSURE. STARTING, YOU LIKE. GETTING READY TO START, YOU LIKE EVEN BETTER. LYING ON YOUR BED WITH YOUR CAT ON YOUR STOMACH, THINKING ABOUT GETTING READY TO START, YOU LIKE THE BEST.

  IN YOUR MIND, IT IS PARIS IN THE TWENTIES AND YOU ARE ERNEST HEMINGWAY. YOUR FRIENDSHIPS (WITH EZRA, FORD, AND SCOTT, THE GUYS YOU PLAY PINOCHLE WITH AT THE CAFE EVERY DAY) ARE HALTING AND STRAINED, BECAUSE YOU REALIZE THAT YOU ARE IN HEAD-TO-HEAD COMPETITION FOR IMMORTALITY. STILL, YOU WILL BENEFIT BY YOUR ASSOCIATION WITH EACH OTHER, AND THAT THIS CRITICAL MASS OF GENIUS HAPPENED HERE AND NOW WILL BE LEFT TO FUTURE GENERATIONS TO EXPLAIN AWAY IN DOCTORAL THESES AND BLUE BOOK EXAMS.

  The squalor that has come to define your existence is tolerable when you take this long-term view of your life. The fact that you don’t have enough cash for cigarettes seems tragic and meaningful rather than just ever so mildly annoying. All the things you are giving up are being sacrificed in the name of Art, and if you have learned anything in the past few years it is that Art is a cruel mistress, elusive and demanding.

  One day soon you will hit the mother lode. And you will look back on this time in your life with an almost inexpressible fondness, because they were the days when you toiled in obscurity rather than under the microscopic gaze of the demanding critics and your adoring public.

  Busboy to luminary in a few short years.

  It can, you believe, be done.

  Creating a Buzz: Telling Others About Your Talent

  A little local word-of-mouth fame can go a long way toward bolstering the slacker’s ever-dwindling sense of self. If you can walk into a cafe and have complete strangers whispering favorably about your novel—the novel that exists as nothing more than a nubbin of an idea that rolls around in your brain, occasionally, as you are drifting off to sleep—soon the need to actually put pen to paper will subside. Then you can spend your time participating in more rewarding activities, like smoking and drinking and taking lengthy naps.

  Most of the perks of being treated as a creative genius can be yours without your so much as crafting a single dirty haiku. Image, as they say, is everything, and any time or money you invest in cultivating a genius persona will be returned to you tenfold, in the form of the grudging admiration and jealousy of your peers. But forget the goatee, the heavy black glasses, the knit ski cap worn year-round, the thin brown cigarettes, the black turtleneck, the cane, the limp, the pipe, the dead grandfather’s pocket watch, the shaved head, the ponytail, the dreadlocks, the beret, the bandanna-as-cap, the giant pair of jeans worn backward, the striped pajamas worn out in public—been done. What you need is something truly original. Something that proclaims your disgust with the status quo as loudly as it shouts out your blinding individuality.

  Once you have selected your props, you are ready to infiltrate The Scene. Remember, seeing as no living being has ever laid eyes on your creative efforts, it’s up to you to be your own biggest fan. Seize every opportunity to speak favorably about your own work, while at the same time offering up insightful criticism of the aesthetic efforts of your contemporaries. Feel free to say things like “The most powerful short story I ever wrote centered upon…” or, “I felt his last short film was tired. Nobody wants to accuse him of running out of ideas—I mean, his early work was quite solid, in its own way—but it happens to the best of us.”

  It is possible to continue discreetly championing yourself for months without ever needing a second favorable opinion. Years even, so long as you don’t slip up and read a poem at Open Mike Night or get drunk in public and begin excavating layers upon layers of self-doubt. When you do sense that skepticism is beginning to infect the ranks, you’ll want to bring out the big guns, in the shape of evidence that you are just one small step away from “Breaking out.” The easiest, of course
, is to convince people that one of your scripts is “being shopped around Hollywood by an independent producer,” a state that is as totally unverifiable as it is apocryphal. Having stories published in distant cities, a band making a splash on the airwaves of Berlin, demo tapes finding their way into the hands of important producers—any of these will do. The important thing is that a brand-new air of excitement is manufactured around your public persona and you continue to get the attention you deserve. When even this wears thin, and people begin pressing you in earnest to either put up or shut up, you can either resign yourself to the drudgery of actual creation or decide it’s an ideal time to relocate.

  ALIENATION AND THE MUSE

  Medium Image Meaning

  Painting Guy crouching in corner of windowless room Alienation

  Poetry Guy lying on ground beneath leafless tree looking up at night sky Alienation

  Fiction Guy committing series of bizarre, senseless, exceedingly graphic murders Alienation

  The Poetry Slam

  “I wrote this first poem on the bus on the way over tonight…”*

  Welcome to the poetry slam. You are in for an evening of cutting-edge creativity and the wisdom of underappreciated urban sages. You better go get yourself a beer.

  Okay, now go get another one. Which brings us to the first thing you need to know about slams, which is that they usually take place in seedy dark smoke-filled bars. Not only does the poetry seem to go down easier when there are a few shots of Jagermeister under everybody’s belt, but the gritty backdrop goes a long way toward convincing everyone that the slam itself is very vibrant, very hip-very now. These are not poetry weenies fed and groomed in academia. These are angry poets. These are angry drunken poets.