I'm a Junky: Here's My Card. My Agent Will Be In Touch With You. . . .

[Mittelwerk at aol.com]

man, i'm really sick of junkies, and even more sick of heroin chic--which
reeks of the kind of officially-sanctioned bourgeois cultural
approval--that's condescension to you, Jack--formerly reserved for jazz
(which could then be systematically de-Negroized), Native Americana (which
could be converted into self-help), and, lately, homosexuality (which could
be--with the aid of AIDS (we like to humanize dead people)--de-politicized as
fashion).

as someone who stole to get high, and watched my former best-friend (who
introduced me to Pynchon) turn to shit on it, i've had it with dope as real
and/or literary substance.  In Burrough's shadow (and he's no picnic himself,
but at least he doesn't cut corners), Welsh is a self-aggrandizing piece of
shit.  You watch:  I've already noticed a proliferation of junky fiction in
the bookstores.  The MO is always the same:  do the drug for a coupla years
after college, fuck over your friends, commit a crime or two (don't worry,
you can pay bail with touching the principal on your trust), and lo and
behold, out spews a novel of your exploits.  As for trainspotting's
romanticization of the life, let's just say it seems to be a movie (and book)
written on speed, about heroin:  it's all wrong.  It romanticizes by
rationalizing.

i also find Welsh's defensiveness about his past amusing:  he takes it
personally when someone says he' not a junky.  a wretched omen of cultural
'authenticity' to come. . . . kind of like a gangsta rapper posing with his
uzi when his record turns platinum.