If Books Weren’t Dead, I Would Be Famous Right Now
For the last week I’ve been trying to find something in the news about books or authors to blog about. Why? Well, I’m glad you asked. Because I am now officially available in print — like in a book store. And, no, I’m not talking about Vol. III of the ill-fated Cracked magazine where I delighted Janet Maslin of the New York Times with my ribald satire of Lindsay Lohan’s vagina. I’m talking about being published in an actual book. With pages. And a cover.
Uber-hip, literary website McSweeney’s Internet Tendency has seen fit to include me in their latest offering: McSweeney’s Joke Book of Book Jokes. How exciting is that? Pretty exciting. Just ask my bosses. They’re extremely pleased about the much-needed credibility my literary achievement has brought to this blog. (Lex, thank you for the roses. Jack, the According to Jim DVD collection was nice too.) Sure, Ian Cooper was included in McSweeney’s last book, and Jason “one blog post then quit” Roeder has a whole book out now, but screw ‘em. They’re not here. They took off to their ivory towers, leaving me to languish alone with my child-like, functionally illiterate co-bloggers.
So, yeah, I’m a pretty big deal. But for some reason, I thought I could only justify telling you if I found some story about another wildly important and famous writer first. But no one reports on writers anymore. I found one article about Tom Clancy — his house deck burned down last week. Not much to support a post. God hates homophobes, I guess. Then I found a story about JK Rowling saying she contemplated suicide. Apparently, it was before she was famous. I had assumed it was after she saw the Jar Jar Binx-esque CGI that was used for werewolf, Mr. Lupin, in Prisoner of Azkaban. But that’s about it. No good author news. In fact, DIGG doesn’t even have a category for books or literature. Not even a category.
What does that mean? It means we live in a world where authors are no longer rock stars. Hell, rock stars aren’t even rock stars anymore. Who are the rock stars today? Reality show contestants? I’m not sure, but I do know my inability to find a blog-worthy author story almost kept me from sharing such wonderful news.
But then I realized something. Who needs to link to a real story? That’s for amateurs. Children. I’m the oldest Cracked blogger, and I’d better start acting like it. (I actually don’t know if that’s true. I know nothing about Chris Buckholz other than he’s part robot and has no interest in speaking to me.) But as someone 
clinging to the edge of Cracked’s demographic, I will assert myself now. And why not? I earned it. I own some vinyl LPs, I have a 401k, and my testicles have fully descended. Do you understand? I bought OK Computer the day it came out. I got bloodied up in a Soundgarden mosh pit in ‘93. And I know that my state income tax from the previous fiscal year can be claimed as a deduction on my current Federal return. So if I want to explain to you that I sold a 600 word piece to McSweeneys for $100.00, and it’s now included in a soft cover anthology, then I’m going to do it. Does that make me the world’s greatest satirist since Jonathan Swift? In a way, yes. Yes it does.
Some of you might be saying, “Is Gladstone being hyperbolic here?” And when I say “some of you,” of course, I mean the readers. (Mikey, Rossie, and Dannie think “hyperbolic” is a word for some kind of chamber that can turn you into a super hero. Chris might use that word, but, like I said, he’s a robot so…) But to answer your question, yes, I’m exaggerating a wee bit about the above. I didn’t actually bleed in the Soundgarden mosh pit. The rest is all true. Or I don’t live in Maine.
Check out some more Gladstone over HERE and OVER HERE.
April 7th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
nice work Gladstone.
In fact the entire Cracked blog has been fantastic the last couple of days
April 7th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Great Job! Also Thanks for turning me on…To McSweeney’s that is. I am catching up all the posts since its inception and it is an enlighteningly overwhelmingly hilariously awesome experience second only to reading the Cracked blog. Also I think the Beatles suck. I’m out.
April 7th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
and Kurt Cobain rules!!!!!!
April 7th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Awesome! Congratulations!
Which one is Gladstone again?
April 7th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
C’mon, Kingmonkey, you know which one Gladstone is. The old one. Always whining about his social security check and his “books.” Blogs about things that haven’t been relevant in decades, (Cobain and the Smashing Pumpkins? In the same post? Neat!). Is pulling for Samuel Tilden in the next presidential election. Trouble urinating. Gladstone.
[Gladstone is very old.]
April 7th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
I’ve told you for the last time O’Brien: GET OFF MY LAWN!!!
April 7th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
You can claim your previous year’s state income tax on your Federal Tax Return?? My God, where would I be without Cracked.com?
April 7th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Geez I bought OK Computer when it came out too. I am old! It’s true what they say, it creeps up on you. Come to think of it I bought The Bends around when it came out too!
Also, are you and John Hodgman close friends now? Does he play board games?
Also also, congratulations on being published in print. Now you can drive around in your Porsche reading your book outloud to impress women. That is what Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails would do with his music. Remember him? I used to babysit him. Old.
April 7th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Sure, I’m fairly certain Trent and I went to Hebrew School together.
April 7th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Congratulations, now you need an ill-fitting sport coat and some thicker glasses.
Start taking your fiancee to coffee houses and overdramatise everything, when they bring your coffee take one sip, bang your fist on the table and yell “fuckers! I did NOT WANT ‘insert whatever your coffee has’. Oh why do I waste my time on LITTLE PEOPLE LIKE YOU!?”
The baristas will simply roll their eyes and say to one another, “that’s Wayne Gladstone, he’s a writer.”
April 7th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Fuck ,I do that and I’m not even a writer, just an asshole.
April 7th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
You ARE old. I was 9 when OK Computer came out. Old men can write blogs? Do you want to me to chew up your steak for you?
April 7th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
I was 9 and half with a sizeable allowance and exquisite musical taste.
April 7th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
it makes me so sad that writers were once rock stars. and now… now we’re like snow leopards. no! now we’re like an episode of “where are they now?” that aired in the 1920s. i was reading a book about suicide and literature, and there have been at least TWO “suicide trends” attributed to novels. one of them, in the 1920s, was a french book based on the “inconnue de la sienne,” an unknown young girl pulled out of the sienne. there are various legends about it, but the story goes that some writer (whose name i would know know IF IT WEREN’T FOR TV) was in the “doe” section of the morgue and found himself so moved by the serenity of the girl’s face that he made a plaster cast of it. this may or may not be true, but it was a huge fad amongst bohemian college-goers to erect these plaster cast “death masks.” they’re actually what lifeguard dummies are based on now. you should google her… because these death masks WERE extremely creepy, serenity aside. point is: a novel spurred on an entire merchandise craze! that never happens anymore, unless the novel is adapted to film!
oh and in the late 19th century, there was a novel about a man suffering from unrequited love. he also distinctly wore a blue overcoat and a yellow petti-thing underneath, which became a trend of attire DUE TO A BOOK. that probably hasn’t happened SINCE. he also shot himself, this character, and there was an account cited in the book of a man who shot himself with the book opened on the table to a certain page. dedication like that no writer can find.
well, i did hear that lots of fight clubs started after the book came out, but i think what chuck actually meant was “after the movie starring brad pitt and edward norton came out.”
shayn n.
April 7th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
oh and congratulations. duh! i’ll probably buy that book.
or wait for the movie and illegally download it.
shayn n.
April 7th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
I got through “i was reading a book” of shayn’s post before my brain started spazzing once it realized I was about to be learning something.
Could someone just sum all that up for me in a nice 3-4 sentence summary?
April 7th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Gladstone is not that old, at all.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
If you’re so old Gladstone, how come you referenced a plot device from Dragon Ball Z? (The Hyperbolic Time Chamber for anyone else who thought that show kicked serious ass). Shouldn’t you have been a little too old to watch that when it came out?
April 7th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
I was thinking of metabolic chamber. And hell, just ask Glendoor42, I’m not so old. But compared to guys in or just graduating from college? Yeah, I’m older than that.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Vegeta pwns t3h gladst0n3.
April 8th, 2008 at 12:04 am
Puberty does sound fun! I cant wait until it happens to me!
April 8th, 2008 at 12:36 am
Me either, and I’m old enough to remember TV without cable. Old enough to have seen Star
Wars( when it was Star Wars and not called episode IV) the first time it was released in theaters.
April 8th, 2008 at 7:20 am
Gladstone’s soooo old…
April 8th, 2008 at 7:32 am
… that when he told Hannah Montana jokes in college, everyone was all like, “what the fuck?”
(and specifically “what the fuck” — not “wtf.”)
April 8th, 2008 at 8:03 am
books aren’t dead. some of also old folk believe greatly in the power of the written and printed word. so congrats! Now pass my bengay, my arthritis is kicking up.
April 8th, 2008 at 9:56 am
I’m just kidding about the old age jokes, though. Why, in my day, we used to beat kids on the head with a stick wrapped in cheesecloth, if they told old age jokes. There were no laws about child abuse back then, you see. No, we’d just sit around in our old-timey gazebos, drinking mint juleps, smacking random kids in the head with our cheesecloth-wrapped sticks. Correction sticks, we called ‘em.
Truth be told, it wasn’t a big problem back then, though. That was so long ago, there were only three or four old age jokes invented at the time.
April 8th, 2008 at 11:36 am
So does that make you on first-name terms with Dave Eggers now? Could you ask him why he refuses to publish my space-dwelling waterfowl erotica epic?
April 8th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Shockingly, Dave Eggers does not challenge each and every McSweeney’s contributor to a game of scrabulous. I did work for Neal Pollack for free for six months though.
But really, I’m no one. Even Cracked Editor Jack O’Brien stiffed me on my request to be Facebook friends. It was humiliating.
April 8th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Jack O’Brien stiffed you?! Man, that is embarrassing; he has like no standards.
April 8th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
StiffLimpen: I read a book that showed me conclusively books used to inspire far-sweeping trends. But pretty much not since movies, unless the book is adapted to film.
shayn n.
April 8th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Like that book H.G. Wells wrote that convinced all the Martians it would be cool to invade us. Oh, sure, their media puppet Orson Welles covered the whole thing up, acted like it was a hoax, but the fact is: they did invade, and now they are among us!
That, my friends, is why burning books is a good thing.
April 8th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Jack informs me he didn’t stiff me. He just hasn’t approved me… yet. On that note, why don’t the rest of you commenters take the step that shayn and Kingmonkey already have? No, i don’t mean nipple piercings, I mean, become my cracked buddy! You can click on the “Gladstone” link at the bottom of the post. The rewards are many.
April 8th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
oh, come on. All the really good books are retroactively based on the movies they inspire.
April 8th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
You want to know why writers aren’t rock stars any more?
Here’s a lovely excerpt from an Ernest Hemingway letter:
“Got tight last night on absinthe and did knife tricks. Great success shooting the knife underhand into the piano”
You start doing that Gladstone, you’ll be famous too.
April 8th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
In responce to what shane n wrote.
I bought a Batman Mask after reading Dark Knight Returns. Does that count?
(the cape was wayyyyy to expensive)
April 8th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
That depends if you decided to dedicate your life to wiping out crime in a fit of monomaniacal obsession to regain control from an event which shattered your soul. Did you do that? If so, then yes. If you just bought a mask, then you’re still an individual. Congratulations.
April 8th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
meh…
Even if you are old you can use phrases like ” Back in the day(silly cockneyed phrase here)” and you can talk about life without electricity! It cant suck that much if you get to bother all the youngins about stuff they dont care about and dont want to hear about.
April 9th, 2008 at 8:31 am
What is Ok Computer? and, also, is Gladstone old enough to be my father, and if he is, old enough to be my father, is he, in fact, my father? Maybe i have a daddy after all my friends! i do demand to go on Maury, and afterward, we can go for ice cream, and play Doom, just like real father son units.
April 9th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Wayne Gladstone: Doom Dad.
April 9th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Christ people, I’m just in my 30’s. Leave me alone and keep down that racket. You call that music? Don’t make me turn these lights off and on.
April 9th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
I guess you’re not really a dad, then. Otherwise you would have been genetically encoded with some of the following threats:
Don’t make me turn this car around.
If I have to come back there, you’re going to be in trouble.
You’re not really my kid, I bought you from Gypsies.
April 9th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
My Dad was so controllng over the thermostat(he would not turn on the air until June, and in Alabama and Texas that is a BIG deal) anyway, he was so controlling over the thremostat
that I was in college before I realized that I could control the temp and turn on the heat and shit.
April 9th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Dear God! he is old enough to be my father, as i am just now 18, well, i will make you proud, i swear, i will go to college, and all that, and pay for your old gray ass to get all the ladies in the hottest condos around. Just because you were not there for me as a father, doesn’t mean i wont be there for you as a child.
April 12th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
whats an OK computer???
April 13th, 2008 at 7:34 am
Radiohead’s finest album, unless you’re more old school in which case you say The Bends, or if you’re an insufferable non-conformist (and wrong), Amensiac.
April 13th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Or any Radiohead album and like the sound of an English guy being tortured to death while laying on three synthesizers.
May 11th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Wow Gladstone I am impressed and depressed. I am depressed that I have the same taste in music as a geezer like you. I m obviously not as hip and cool as I thought. I am impressed though that you were a Soundgarden fan before Superunknown came out. You are getting better every post I read.
June 6th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
A few comments:
1. Crap, you’re old. Well, I know you’re not _really_ old, but what with me being jailbait that’ll make it difficult for me to hit on you.
2. He is never called “Mr. Lupin.” Mr. Lupin, according to the internet, is Remus’s FATHER. *gigglegiggleSNORT*
3. Is the book good aside from your contribution? And do you get money from sales? Because otherwise I’ll just walk into the bookstore, read your part, and leave.
oops, you mentioned scrabulous. gotta go!