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05.20.2004
Many people have asked me, "Leonard, why are you so goddamn funny?" A variant on this is "how do you write the Ludic Log?"; and still more common variations are "how did you get past security" or "what's that thing on your face?" But really, they're all just asking one question: "where do you get your ideas from?" In the interest of answering this, certainly the most vital question facing me today which which does not involve my whereabouts on the evening of December 12, 1999, I'd like to ask you to walk with me as we take a tour through how the Ludic Log is put together. Like all men of genius, master creators and snack food mavens, I start with an idea. The scientist starts with a groundbreaking idea; the artist with an original idea; the convenience treat purveyor with a tasty idea. As for me, I begin with with a stupid idea. But it is not enough that the idea be stupid; it must also be obscure and, while perhaps not entirely unfunny, only funny in a very tangential and fleeting way. Eschewing the fleeting immediacy that informs topical humor and the difficult-to-achieve levels of quality that make up the most timeless humor, I choose instead the path of conceptual obscurity which rewards a tiny fraction of the reading public with the brief frisson of recognition and the mild twinge of a half-smile that only this unique brand of humor can bring. My dedication to drawing from source material familiar only to myself and people in my immediate vicinity means that I am ensuring an audience that is literate, intelligence, and as close to me as possible -- in other words, me, and anyone who happens to have read, seen or experienced the same things as me. I refer to this new form of writing as "micro-crafting", and not "pointless pseudo-intellectual masturbation" as some critics in love with their own cleverness have called it. I mean, come on, fellas! Why use thirteen syllables when four will suffice, plus you get the awesome and highly marketable 'micro' in there? So, where does this stupid idea come from? Well, part of micro-crafting is drawing inspiration from unconventional sources. In the past, under old, outdated paradigms of writing, authors have used as their source material classic myths, eternal themes, universally felt emotions, lofty fantasy, the human condition, or things that their audience might be both familiar with and interested in. I reject all of these are relics of a past that did not have me in it, and is therefore worthless. No, I draw my inspiration from things that are familiar to the Ludic Log's target audience -- that is to say, me. This process is known as 'autosolipsism'. Using highly sophisticated autosolipsistic techiniques, I can write an entire multipage entry about an emotion I felt briefly in 1974 in a context only I can remember; a piece of trash that I saw on my way to work this morning; the way that erotic imagery in a dream I once had bears certain slight resemblance to non-erotic imagery in another dream I had; a conversation with a friend unknown to my readership that never actually took place but very well might have in a different situation; or the juxtaposition of two cultural artifacts familiar only to me. But that's not the end of the process. Once the subject has been chosen, I run it through a series of painstaking tests using the Pierce-Conklin Humor Weighting system to answer one question of paramount importance: is it kind of funny, a little, but not really that funny? If it is, then and only then is it ready to become a Ludic Log entry. Take, for example, today's entry. It so happens that while going through a crate of books in my basement storage closet, I came upon a copy of the the then best-selling but now forgotten-for-decades 'humor' book, Real Men Don't Eat Quiche. For a plentitude of reasons (insanity, desperation, marijuana addiction), I hit upon the premise of a man who did not know the difference between fiction and non-fiction, and believed that every book he read was literally true. The log entry expounding upon this premise would consist of a series of notes in this man's journal, in which he records obliviously the lessons he has learned from his recent reading. Having read the abovementioned 1980s 'humor' book, for example, he writes: "NOTE: eating eggs made into a custard can turn you into a homosexual." Now, does this have what it takes to be a Ludic Log entry? Let's take a look. Offensive? Check. Pointless? Check. Built from a premise that's sort of funny, but cannot possibly sustain laughter for seven or eight paragraphs? Check. Likely to contain one or two good jokes and hundreds of words of padding? Check. Has cheap shot at gays? Check. Dependent for laughs upon the reader's familiarity with an incredibly obscure piece of pop-cultural trivia? Check and double-check! We've got a winner. Now it's just a question of smoking a sack and writing it up, and then letting TypoMatic 60O0 insert several randomly generated spelling and formatting errors. In this way is genius made manifest. There is method, friends, in this mundaneness. |
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| TODAY'S DRIFTWOOD: "A great novel is concerned primarily with the interior lives of its characters as they respond to the inconvenient narratives that fate imposes on them. Movie adaptations of these monumental fictions often fail because they become mere exercises in interior decoration." (Richard Schickel) |