LETTERS FROM THE SKRÄUSS
You’re on the highway somewhere between Milwaukee and New York. You pass a mail truck. You know what’s on it? Letters from The Skräuss to Lungfull! Magazine. That's beacuse every mail truck in America has a letter from The Skräuss on it. Letters that anticipate all the thoughts you'll have today and have assimilated them into something much much more. We've gotten a lot of them, and other people have too. Too many to run in the journal itself — but becasue we love to get them and to read them we've typed up several to present to you...
24 Feb 12 What the heck is going on w/ the shamrock shake?!!! Whip cream + a marachino cherry? A two-tone swirl of minty green + white tra clear plastic cup w/ a dome lid? What is this the McRitz? What happened to the waxed paper cup + the semi translucent lid? Ennvi flood my gastrophogus w/every sip, Lungfull! must everything skew pretentious? Marachino cherry! Remember when painting went pretentious? Some say it happened as early as agriculture, but I, an opto-frickin-mist, say painting held out until Valazques, but nevertheless, it skewed pretentious. Remember when newspapers published poetry? When Ogden Nash made a handsome living on poetry? Well you can kiss that notion goodbye now that poetry’s skewed pretentious. “But what is pretending? Master the SKRÄUSS ?” And that’s master as in master not master as in a butler addressing Richy Rich. (His name is Codbury, by the way.) Well lemme tell ya it’s pretending to be high-culture, which means educated, which means better than everyone. I have a diploma right here (proving my mastery) + I got it by telling my thesis committee, “We’ve educated ourselves into isolation! Nobody can understand anybody w/in the art world let alone an outsider who peels into the gallery + says, + always says, “I could do that.” No, they don’t say “I,” they say “my kid,” which is fascinating. Only kids + skewed pretentious artists can understand art! At my thesis defense, they said, “You didn’t draw any conclusions.” I did a plop-take. You wanna know why I’m in this McGuts w/this skewed shamrock shake? I’m here because it used to make me uncomfortable. The people here are all from the bottom of society. Some might call them dregs. In fact, as I waited for this shake a bum tried to work me. I gave him advise, “Invest in a tie.” Nobody kicked him out. Send them a few issues of Lungfull! this May. It can’t make their lives any worse. SKRÄUSS, the |
27 Feb 12 Show me the money, Lungfull! tes. Show me the money. In the words of Jimmy Stewart, “It sure makes things easier around here!” Meaning Bedford falls. I chiseled those words on my 32° farenheit granite heart. I need to schmooze somebody wealthy enough to support my habits: words + pictures. I have this idea. Remember comic sections in newspapers: Imagine a daily comics section w/out the rest of the newspaper. It would be, on Sunday, like that awesome newspaper in the movie “farenheit 451.” In Milwaukee we had a thing called “The Green Sheet.” Google it. It was printed on green paper in the Milwaukee Journal. It had comics, light verse, serialized fiction, human interest news, wham doodles TM, a puzzle, + some groovy ads. The poetry + fiction vanished by the 40’s. I think a 4 page newspaper insert like this is the perfect vehicle for “the Milkwaukee2 Epic Cycle.” That is, the perfect vehicle for all my schticks. The only catch is that I don’t like drawing comics. The other catch is money. Can you find the owl on the U.S. dollar bill? Can you find the pentangle? Can you find the derailed train? That’s all I got today. Barely a page. I would like to write something special in this final letter of the winter. But I’m not feeling the wit this morning. Remember “Erasermate” pens? Who thought that was a good idea? Defeat your own purpose man, how will you defeat your own purpose today?” “Well I’m going to write this document in permanent ink, but I will use erasable ink.” “I think it’ll work. I think you could make money on that.” “Money?” SKRÄUSS |
25 March 12 Dear Lungfull!ans, I’m a fake. Or in the vernacular of contemporary regional American, I spoke w/poetic license. My last letter was written in a Star F a mile and 3 hours away from the McGuts that I drank the shamrock shake in. Don’t blame me.I voted Brendan Lorber for Milwaukee treasurer last Tuesday. Anyone who’s been going out of business as long as he’s been is perfect for our fair city’s wallet. But what’s honesty or fiscal competence between friends? It’s like playing Eukure w/Bob Eukure + listening to his entertaining, though distracting, prattle as you make your pass.* And as Mark Twain reminds us, someone who adhears to the truth “is a nuisance and an imbecile.” I’m imbecilic 65% of the time + short-bug retarded the other half, + yes, I said short bug + yes, I just adhered to that one cliché where you invoke a politically charged incorrectism then call attention to it. I could use that shamrock shake right now. The liar’s shake. (no rocks.) (no clovers.) What the heck is a shamrock? Is it a clover? Is it minty? Does it sprout marachino cherries? I invoke fakers liscense: Don’t blame me Brendan Lorber sent me a personal letter asking for a letter + all I had on my mind was, is, will be shamrock shakes, which are almost 3 bucks now! Keep the dang cherry + high-brow dome-lid + give me a dollar off! [pause, Harpo huffs + puffs] [cut to SKRÄUSS, the shirtless on a beach] [dolly out to L/S] [Leg in front of a painting of a beach] [he lifts a green cylinder to his lips] [SKRÄUSS, the – “No stones. No sign of man. More zen than you can shake your stick at: Brodfid Beach + a shamrock shake.”] rate this letter: I like you ? seen this gag before ? don’t meta anymore ? I’ve got better things to do: destroy the art world. Sell heads on Etsy.com (SKRÄUSS global commerce). Build a web headquarters from which to annihilate the art world. Comment on Kaz Propolinos’ facebook wall. Draw a mine centauritaur kissing a pony. Pan handling. Pan handling for gold. Tennesee panhandling for gold. Do my humor kolistheties. Write an accademic paper. Sharpen my elbows. So, I’ll see you where the sun don’t shine, or later, whichever you prefer. With sincere endearments, The SKRÄUSS 5th horseman of the artpocolypse *I don’t know anything about the game Euker or even how it’s spelled so I don’t want to hear your snide comments like “oh, they’re not even wearing shin gaurds!” or “Oh, I’m so sure! They’d nevre sock the ref at the wicket w/the scoop!” [McDonald’s receipt for a shamrock shake with a drawing on the back enclosed.] |
Dearest Lungfull! slaves, I hope this letter finds you testful + spunky as a dog sidekick. I have, since my last busshel of letters to you sent 2 others, I think. 2 to the President of D.C. Comics, + the other to the slave driver at Time. I have heard from neither. I think my next customer will be the head honcho at the Met. or perhaps the Guggenheim. Or maybe a shop accross the street from MOMA. But it’s not about me, Lungfull! slaves, it’s about you + you valiant attempt to inject poetry w/some kind of stimulant extracted from bull But it’s not about me; it’s about you. You guys are back! You should call yourselves a book + then sell yourselves in subway stations out of racks next to shoe repair shops. The cobbler in Union Station, Chicago permanently closed his roll-fence wall a while back + I refuse to not smoke because of it, + following my dad’s 1979 example I throw the butt on the terazo floor + squish it w/my shoe as I pass. I beat it w/my shoe. I murdalize it. I pound it into oblivion. Then I put the shoe on again + calmly evade security. 1984 all over again, what. “Security” increases + craftsmanship vanishes. What is the corollarry? I mean, relationship? The corolary is that poetre adherence to forms decrease as political correctness locks its talons around expression + slits its belly open. Ah, but the belly has always been slit open. Pre-P.C. there was differently abled P.C. Before E-mail letters. There was a burnt stick rubbed on a cave wall. Immortality…don’t make me laugh. <3 – the SKRÄUSS |
LUNGFULL!magazine
home * current issue * archives
in the house * submit * subscribe * faq's
special events * zinc * linkfull * contact us