7/06/2009

desecrated my body to promote my literary career

i feel the 'sole purpose' of this tattoo is to 'promote my career'

i see journalists 'inadvertantly' noticing my bluefin tuna tattoos, automatically asking if i have more tattoos

i see myself saying 'i have a fuck america tattoo' in a severely depressed monotone

i see journalists being at their computers late at night emailing their editors 'the lede of this article will grab people immediately and in a refreshingly bloggable manner, increasing the hits of the huffington post while fitting excitingly into the broader meme of generation y's increasingly relevant expressions of ennui, post elizabeth wurtzel depression, and pre obama optimism post 9/11; highly twitterable, specifically relevant to the lucrative 18 to 24 demographic, and image-based enough to get significantly reblogged re tumblr, i believe this would make a viral-ready article and would like to request more space in order to include a photograph and an in-depth analysis of lin's role in mainstream society'

journalists who 'hate america' will feel temporarily purposeful and 'work harder,' causing readable articles to be produced, affecting the average reader with the ability to 'retain interest' 'even after 2-4 full sentences'

additionally, by promoting a 'fuck america tattoo,' journalists will experience the vague sensation that they are fighting capitalism, saving the environment, and avoiding the 'crippling irony' that has afflicted so much of today's media content

in barnes and noble across the country, perhaps, people will whisper things in the poetry aisle

my career will blossom from something that looks like a rose that has been 'laying' in a cesspool 'deep in brooklyn' for 2-6 days into something that looks like a rose that has been 'trampled upon' for 1-3 days unintentionally on a sidewalk outside a non zagat rated indian restaurant outside park slope

has 'a new low' been reached in my career

feels both like 'i can't reach any lower lows' and 'obviously i will reach many more new lows, probably within 3-5 days'

just typed in gmail chat 'damn, typing the retardedest blog post ever' without using 'any' quote marks

typing the word 'retardedest' without putting at least one set of quote marks around it seems like 'a bad sign'

wonder if this blog post creates situations 'too meta' for journalists to successfully 'angle-ize' re their editors

or do modern journalists require some degree of meta in order to 'even begin to think about writing something'

when i think 'modern journalists' i see robocop sitting with straight posture on a wooden carton somehow 'eating' watermelon

not sure how, 'maybe "just" by absorbing it through his forehead using advanced technologies'

'he seems severely depressed'

just remembered another post where i end the post with an image of a nonexistent entity appearing severely depressed

'what does this all mean'

'is this what it feels like to be a character in a thomas pynchon novel'

honestly feels to some degree like i'm in 'the crying of lot 49' right now



*i don't smoke cigarettes & feel probably unable to philosophically defend smoking cigarettes

58 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

it's a push down post.

scary face below. out of sight.

7:55 PM  
Blogger Tao Lin said...

'h8 my life'

9:12 PM  
Blogger thomasplevy said...

your doing it wrong

should read "fuk" america

9:17 PM  
Blogger Tao Lin said...

'what do you mean'

9:17 PM  
Blogger kyle said...

why are they smoking while reading they are ruining the books i feel

9:20 PM  
Blogger Tao Lin said...

'the youtube account is about smoking'

9:21 PM  
Blogger Clark Blue said...

most of my internet life is spent on youtube watching girls smoke. it's very calming. thanks for this find.

9:36 PM  
Blogger Clark Blue said...

also, america is highly fuckable.

9:39 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i'm going to take a bath in thirteen gallons of warm coffee

10:34 PM  
Blogger Buttercup McGillicuddy said...

i like this post

i think it is very 'vivid' or a synonym that just refers to the sense of imagining but excludes 'imagining that you are seeing' something

like 3-D imaging

i feel like reading this triggers the same center of my brain that the matrix would trigger in practice and that makes me aware that i am dreaming when a dream becomes lucid

i smoked a cigarette while reading a copy of 'cognitive behavioral therapy' at least twice today

i feel like i could squeeze into the demographic the hypothetical journalist referred to

i think that i tend to post comments that are 'somewhat long' but not 'ryan manning long'

i felt anxious about this a moment ago but suddenly feel indifferent about this

i wish i had something to say

i feel severely depressed for reasons that i hadn't thought to 'bring up' to anyone until now

11:17 PM  
Anonymous so said...

i very much appreciate this community of lower-case users

11:26 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

don't feel like you can in good faith use words like "crippling loneliness" or "alienation" after these girls "vanna white" your work

but a fun video nonetheless

12:01 AM  
Blogger Will Ragsdale said...

again, ha

1:35 AM  
OpenID ryanbrosmer said...

The girls in that video look very uncomfortable, like they are about to become physically ill, on multiple occasions.

6:20 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

re: ryan

yeah, we did, finally, right at the end there

6:49 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

to clarify, i mean we finally puked. hard.

--the blonde chick

6:50 AM  
Blogger DJ Berndt said...

"puked. hard."

hahaha.

9:06 AM  
Blogger ryan manning said...

Vomiting (known medically as emesis and informally as throwing up and a number of other terms) is the forceful expulsion of the contents of one's stomach through the mouth and sometimes the nose.

9:15 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

next time i have to vomit, i'm going to try and make it come out my nose. just to mix it up.

9:56 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

make it come out your nose and then eat it. the 'french inhale'

10:27 AM  
Blogger 1979 said...

this is your "best post recently" tao

10:27 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i've always been partial to ralph, ie "i went to the bathroom and this dude was just ralphing all over the stall."

10:29 AM  
Blogger redpencil said...

Do you know about the semaphore in San Jose? And the "contest" to decode it?

11:33 AM  
Blogger ryan manning said...

Anonymity is derived from the Greek word ανωνυμία, meaning "without a name" or "namelessness".

12:06 PM  
Blogger andrew worthington said...

@ryan manning
you can vomit through your nose?

2:37 PM  
Blogger Brittany Wallace said...

o yeah i've had vom make its way through my nose before

not fun

3:29 PM  
Blogger Patrick @ LitVision said...

Who are those twin French bitches?

Why did you get 'tuck america' tattooed on your penis?

4:11 PM  
Anonymous the asiatic african said...

"or do modern journalists require some degree of meta in order to 'even begin to think about writing something'"

now that was "relevant".

tao lin is a martyr. his own loneliness made him do it. he could have taken his "literature" and "ran with it", but he decided to share it with the rest of the over-privileged narcissistic "im-so-confused's" and now they mimic him without relent.

do they feel what he feels? who knows! what kind of a writer is so comfortable with mimicry to begin with?

(commenters, refresh your blogspots and repeat this question)

tao you got too much for this.

4:55 PM  
Blogger Matty Cries said...

10 Reasons Tao Lin should read Rachel Horton's blog:

-Rachel Horton is a fan of Tao Lin's and likes him a lot.

-However, her fiction is not derivative of his and not really the same style, so it won't be boring or feel like he's reading his own blog if he reads some of it.

-...That said, there are some similar underlying themes, such as the willingness to admit that such unpopular, unliterary concepts as social networking websites, the word "hipster", etc., exist.

-Rachel Horton just put her blog up today and feels like puking because of it.

-But if Tao Lin acknowledges this comment in any way, her whole mood will turn around and she will probably feel elated for a whole day that someone well-known acknowledged her existence.

-Rachel Horton is from Seattle, enough said.

-Rachel Horton was born in 1987, enough said.

-Tao Lin has a soft spot in his heart for self-promotion such as this (right?)

-Rachel Horton is starting to feel really awkward talking about herself in the third person.

-When its cool (and it will be) Tao Lin will be able to feel cool by saying he knew of it first.

Thank you and goodbye.

5:23 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You've lost all the non-stupid people in your audience now. Both of them.

6:22 PM  
OpenID nathantyree said...

I would fuck America so hard that she would orgasm until the rocky mountains crumbled and all the rivers crashed their banks. Levees would crumble from America's undulations.

8:04 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nice tat, Tao, but you spelled "myself" wrong.

Also always put quotes around the word "career" when the word "my" precedes it.

This blog must be the longest, most drawn-out, most boring suicide note in history.

8:47 PM  
Anonymous Jacob said...

dear haters,

let me just ask you guys something:

1. are you a hater?
YES

2. are your blogs shitty?
YES

c. are you a virgin?
YES

i think it's a positive thing that middle-aged men with smoking fetishes are masturbating to tao lin via this video; haven't u guys heard of 'spreading the love'?

9:14 PM  
Blogger ryan manning said...

lol

9:35 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

lol @ anon 8:47pm

12:12 AM  
Anonymous Russian Skateboarding Space Cat said...

great post. really "captured" the helplessness of the "american dream" in a "post-modern" world, much like those feelings displayed in the American classic "Death of a Salesman."
do you know how addictive it is to do that? surely you must. you're good man, you're good.

and making jokes about eating disorders is still funny when you're 17 and jerk off to your dad's sports illustrated swimsuit edition when you think everyone else is asleep, but then are too lazy to find a tissue so you just cum on your bed and forget about it. got more "boners" than a quirky "blurb" in adbusters from "cuties."

1:30 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i think brandon's really cute

2:21 AM  
Anonymous Russian Skateboarding Space Cat said...

my outrage at eating disorders lingers on

russian skateboarding space cat regrets nothing

i fucked both of those girls at once on my magic deck as I shredded on the rings of jupiter

2:35 AM  
OpenID lauramatsue said...

'just because the lyrics are in french doesn't mean it's a good song'

12:04 PM  
Blogger don't bother knocking said...

Tao, how influenced are you by 'Bennett Brauer'





http://www.hulu.com/watch/2331/saturday-night-live-update---bennett-brauer

12:11 PM  
OpenID waitsandbukowski said...

On the subject of Fucking 'America' I think Ginsberg already covered that.

3:11 PM  
Blogger brandon said...

why are there so many comments

seems obscure

5:26 PM  
Blogger brandon said...

what happened here

5:28 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

fuck you brandon

5:56 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

bro: hipster runoff

6:14 PM  
Anonymous Nick said...

wow, the skin on your arm looks so smooth--not a single blemish on it. Even the veins look clean and straight. I think it is kind of a shame that you chose to soil it, especially with a profanity.

I have quite a bit of hair on my arms, so I think it's less of a big deal to get a tat on them. I dunno. I think if I had such a pristine forearm, I would leave it the way it was.

Let me know!

7:04 PM  
Blogger kyle said...

http://artpad.art.com/?kmhkom1fjztg

7:17 PM  
Blogger Tao Lin said...

@redpencil no, can you elaborate

@ted thank you for coming to the reading, i do not know that person you linked

8:45 PM  
Blogger redpencil said...

hey! tao

re: "....feels to some degree like i'm in 'the crying of lot 49' right now..."

"google" "san jose semaphore" for info/details, or "youtube" it, to see a video (you haven't already?!?!?!?)

it's 'the crying of lot 49' continually "broadcast" in semaphore code, with cool, attendant, kind of unintelligible sounds, from the top of the Adobe building in downtown San Jose

it makes me very happy (VERY happy) to know that 'tcol49' is being sent out into the world, in code, IN TIME, slowly, not all weird and complicated, just "in code", but that doesn't matter because I don't "read" it (the semaphore), I just know it's there, near me. So in a way one can feel "in" it. In it's presence, in time.

It's like if I knew that someone somewhere stood on a street corner and read 'tcol49' continuously, outloud, only it's a little better, actually, because it is in code (so I don't know exactly where in the book it is at any one moment, which "generalizes" it) and it's on top of a really tall building and visible from a distance, from the freeway, etc, and I can visit it if I want to.

Anyway, check it out.

Also, I think Pynchon lives (hides, sneaks around) down in Aptos or something (or did?) Not sure. Gosh, I better google him!

2:41 AM  
Blogger Carpet Demon said...

haters get stitches

9:53 AM  
Blogger redpencil said...

And here are my thoughts on your tattoo. It feels "incomplete" to me, "unfinished". It "needs" something.

Punctuation, maybe:
"fuck" america

More words:
i fuck american apparel models

A "message":
buy american
fuck american
live american
die american

"Sincerity":
dear republicans,
please don't fuck america any more. i love it so much.
yours truly, tao lin

Or something "random" and "poetic":
clusterfuck america jamboogie

I don't know. Something. It needs "something".

10:48 AM  
Blogger Tao Lin said...

@redpencil thank you for the info re semaphore

11:10 AM  
Anonymous bearfish said...

nice work with that tat. when i look at it i think 'you have a beautiful arm' but also 'i hate capitalism'.

i puked hard when i watched that video.

i wonder how robocop could eat watermelon?

4:49 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

two forks.

8:32 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dude, your so right to do this, since Obama has fucked America, I say fuck America too, now you need to get 'fuck Obama' for the other arm, fuck Obama, fuck everyone who likes Obama, fuck America its gone

5:50 PM  
Blogger ladybugladybird said...

'refreshingly bloggable' was my favorite part.

5:42 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

13 gallons isn't enough coffee. You need at least twenty five to fill a tub

4:47 PM  
OpenID litter-ladder said...

to fully 'fuck' amerika, you may need 'both arms'

11:58 AM  

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