notes from underground 26#
by Joseph Ridgwell
The Rise and Fall of The Bomber
I was sitting at home drinking warm beer, working on a short story about necrophilia, when the call came in. Get thee registered to the Guardian online books blog, said the man. Contribute some cutting-edge literary views, for the world is changing, and the shock of the new is devastating the dead literary status quo, throwing cats amongst the pigeons, and upsetting that dusty old publishing apple cart.
Somehow the Guardian had got hold of a writer with a little bit of vision, the Gilbert Millstein of the noughties. This enlightened fella had published an article entitled, New Literary Wave Explodes, and in doing so had tapped into the cultural zeitgeist, and put in print what all those operating underground already knew. The literary guns were loaded and the scene was about to go over ground en masse, with vagabond writers, lost fellaheens, and immortal bum poets firing prose and poetical rockets into the mainstream dross as they went.
And this was where the Bomber came in. I registered, with the moniker, The Bomber, after the title of my fourth novel. All the underground players were mentioned in the article and all the cutting-edge zines, the ones that really matter.
I took a stroll around the GU site, there were some good, some bad, and some plain ugly articles. I didn’t bother to hold back, I posted here there and everywhere, I didn’t even read the shit, just used a devastating literary form of blitzkrieg.
Most regular contributors hit the barricades and bailed out or waved a white flag, others, those of a masochistic or suicidal tendency, made gallant attempts to slug it out with the newcomer. It was a brutal sight, a bloody massacre, but fun while it lasted. The dust clouds were visible somewhere North of Helmand Province.
A few weeks later I was working on my fifth novel The Last Days of the Cross, a tragic love story, when the call came in. Sensing that something big was about to break from the underground the editors of GU came a knocking at my door, or inbox, suggesting I write some articles above the line. I said I’d get back to them and then hung up.
They wanted quality 500 word articles on literature and all things bookish, but somehow writing for a national newspaper just didn’t sit comfortable with me. I mean, I should’ve bitten their hand off, but I was committed to the underground and liked it down there. The editors and writers who inhabited it were good people, people with soul, people with vision and verve, literary daredevils who weren’t afraid to jump onto the death train or a circus trapeze, and hold on tight.
Still beggars can’t be choosers and after consulting some of the finest minds of my generation I decided to give it a whirl. And once the decision was made I gave it my best shot.
I found writing the article’s easy and could polish them off in less than twenty minutes. As it was hackwork I didn’t take the sort of care I do with my writing, but even so they were powerful articles, thought provoking, controversial and bound to provoke a reaction.
And they did, some agreeing with my kinky literary stance others vehemently not so. I found it hilarious, a gas, pure internet theatre. But the nagging doubt remained, the doubt that repeated the worrying line over and over, ‘Don’t turn into a hack journo, it’s the sure death knell for the true artist.’
Anyway, despite my concerns, I banged ten or so articles out and then got bored. The writing of the articles was soulless, uninspiring, or in other words, work. And I already had a full time job, so I already had enough of that shit.
Then, just when I was thinking of packing it all in something peculiar occurred. The Guardian journo’s began making strange demands. Could I source my own internet links, or re-write a section of the article, petty tedious shit like that. It appeared they thought they were doing me a favour, or maybe I was bring paranoid, it was difficult to know either way, and being a man of anxiety didn’t help.
So, gradually I became disillusioned with the whole set-up, the same handful of hardcore bloggers waffling on and on, and hack journo’s struggling to think of something even vaguely interesting to say. Who’s your favourite author beginning with the letter Z? The shocking truth about the slush pile, Love Me, Love My Book, etc, etc, yawn, sleep.
And then one day when I was laid up with the Hong Kong Flu, the beep of my inbox sounded loud and clear. I roused myself and staggered to the PC. It was a hack journo from GU; he wanted to talk on the phone, about an article entitled, Do Creative Writing Courses Kill Creativity.
Being fuzzy headed, bones aching all over, I made a rare error of judgement. I said he could ring me on my mobile. Seconds later my ring tone sounded, always a bad sign. I was feverish and when the James Blunt accent came down the line, I sniffled and feared the worse. The hack wanted me to take another look at the article, make revisions, and being in a weakened state I somehow grunted a few easily subjugated yay’s and u-huh’s.
However, I’m a man of my word and when I say I’ll do something, even under duress, I always do it. I made the revisions in about five minutes and sent them off. But although it only took five minutes I made sure they were done right. Then all was silent. A day passed, then another, maybe the hack was mulling over my response, wondering how I did the revisions so fast, I don’t know.
And then came the day of reckoning. The hack wanted further revisions, his email was five pages long, all over a 500 word blog. I was stunned. Do professional Journalists have nothing to do? I was left with no other option and rudely told the old Etonian to fuck off.
And that was that. I never heard another word from the national rag, zero, de nada, absolutely nothing. My short-lived career as a hack journo was over, kicked into touch after just a few, but memorable articles. And so the Bomber was no more, gone forever, like a thief in the forgotten and obscure night.
For weeks afterwards the regular bloggers inquired as to his whereabouts, but all to no avail, and The Bomber’s disappearance became an internet mystery, the Scarlet Pimpernel of the web.
But I wasn’t bitter, I was bitter sweet. And anyway I still had the underground, fellow freaks and renegade editors who understood my liberty-taking and downright odd ways and even posted them on their cutting-edge literary sites. And boy did I feel better for that, and hopefully the hack journo’s did to. Viva underground, don’t you sell out.