Beijing Rules

For those who want to know where they stand in Beijing:

You don't stand, you kneel.




Smile, wave, murder millions.

Book Review: Fight Club

The first rule of Fight Club is you don’t read Fight Club.

It’s crap.
Rhythmic crap.
Nihilistic rhythmic crap.

But it has a punchy rhythm and short sentences. Short sentences tied together with longer apparently lyrical descriptions. Descriptions tied together by repeating the last word of each as the beginning of the next.

Some times two.
Sometimes two words to tie together, with brand names.

Iconic brand names like Impala, Armalite and whale stuff, that stuff they use to make perfume that costs so much. And pissing in the soup. But not Ellis. Not Havelock or even Brett Easton. And he’s never heard of Bob Ellis who maunders in that beautiful sad way about things lost and melancholia and being drunk.

Bob Ellis gets all his injuries from falling over drunk, while Palahniuk gets his from violence given and received, that isn’t a subtext for homosexual father-fixated longing at all. ‘Cos that would be gay. And not helplessly, hopelessly human and needing love but being too afraid to give, and not having anything worth anything to give ‘cos we’re too lazy to do the work.

Homosexual. Not homo-erotic.
Not auto-erotic. That’s wanking.
Wanking is a town in China.
Wake-up at the airport.

Wanking on a sadistic fantasy.
Fantasy that’s not sadism ‘cos I have a get-out. I get hurt too.

The door doesn’t lock. The lock’s broken.
Broken with a cordless penis, but I called it dick. Dad laughed at me.
Mum might catch me. In a town. In China.

Do the work. Make something of ourselves.
Did I mention the brand names. Corniche.
Vichyssoise. I beat myself up because I’m in inner turmoil.

More than you can know.
More than anything you can know. About me. And bullets.
Bullets are great, Marla.

Rain. Easton Ellis wrote a nasty book. But it wasn’t lazy.
Who’ll play Edward Norton in the movie? Me, and Brad.

The first rule about spell-making is that you don’t talk about lazy writing.

Nihilism. God.
Did I mention the Nihilism.
There are no questions in this book.

Because we have all the answers. Sure we do. Hit something. Hit me. I’m tough, dangerous. I have an inner Tyler that doesn’t fix the roof. The roof leaks. Everything swells. Nails stick out and snag and rust. Decay is cool. You should see the mould in my room. It’s fungus, fun fungus. It has a dangerous alter-ego with a fantasy.

A fantasy that I’m doing this
Fantasy that I’m doing anything.
And doesn’t take too long to read.

No Shirt. No shoes.
No shirt, no shoes, no service.
The service in here is terrible.

Lye. It burns.
I like lye burns. Burns like lies.
Sodomy. Fellatio. Cunilingus. Bondage.

It’s called ambergris. That whale stuff that gets blood all over you in the toilet. Piss in the toilet. Bum. Blood. Blood, teeth and aching. Pain that’s fake. Pain that’s just descriptions of bodily functions and made-up damage. Damage that’s just repetition, repetition that’s just painful. Painful and boring. Boring with a drill.

Freeze their locks off.
And boring.
Change the reels, Tyler.
Don’t eat the soup.

The third rule of fight club is you don’t talk about how bad the book is.