Blood Mud [Paperback]

It's not false. Constantine's my middle name, K is the initial of my last name, and C is the initial of my first name. In any bureaucratic organization where taking names is part of the drill of subjugation, it's the last name, first name, middle initial. Rearranging that order is my protest against alphabetizers everywhere. K.C., why have a pen name at all? You ashamed of what you do?

When I do it badly, yes. I hope nobody reads The Blank Page because I screwed up large in that one. Otherwise, I'm proud of the other books I've written, even the ones that I haven't published. K.C., why no pictures? What's with you and cameras?

Nearly everybody I've met with a camera either takes my picture without asking, which is rude, or else is a closet Nazi: "Short people in front;" "Stand still;" "say cheese."

K.C., why sign books in the storerooms? Why not in public?

Strangers make me nervous, especially ones who say, "Inscribe it, 'To Marv,' and sign it, 'Your pal, K.C..'"

K.C., everything you do is designed to keep you poor and anonymous. You un-American or something? If I ever went into a bar where everybody knew my name I'd know it was time to quit drinking. However, I would like to be rich, just to find out whether the rich really have the same problems as the rest of us. I suspect that's plutocratic propaganda to keep us lowlifes just anxious enough to look for jobs but not ambitious enough to start a real revolution. Where the corporate welfare bums are not executed exactly; just deported to Paraguay.

K.C., your books are all talk, no action. Can't you make things happen? Rock concerts, sports crowds, the Fourth of July, the 1812 Overture, they all hurt my ears. Some mornings just hearing the water boil for my rolled oats is more stimulation that I can stand. But just because something's happening doesn't mean it's interesting. Great clouds of alien fart dust, man, why bother to write at all? Because excepting sex, there's nothing more exciting than taking all the marks of punctuation, the alphabet, and a blank screen, and creating somebody who wasn't there before, somebody who if you cut them would bleed blood instead of ink. Done well, that's art. Done badly, when the characters talk like they're chewing cardboard and move with all the grace of warped lumber falling off a flatbed trailer as it's hauled squealing around the bend from Plot Street to Action Avenue, there's nothing more contemptible. Except the half-time show at the Super Bowl--unless you consider what precedes it and what succeeds it. If you like that sort of stuff, it's okay if you buy my books; I encourage you to do that. Just promise you won't read them. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.