Et Tu, Glenn? === by wC, with apologies to Mark Leyner June 6, 1997 Atlanta Dear Michael Korda, As you know, I am not your average writer. I dress like your average punk suburban kid: black tee-shirt, beach shorts, high top sneakers, big-ass pinky ring. The glass inset in the ring filed to a point. Just in case. I drive a candy-apple red Mitsubishi with a loaded 9mm Glock semiautomatic pistol in the glove compartment. When I walk into a party I'm like this: my head is bopping to a Glenn Boots song only I can hear. For her birthday, I gave my girlfriend a uranium-depleted tank shell, the kind that NATO had stockpiled in Germany in case the Russian hordes knocked out the airfields and the supply lines. But that's just the kind of guy I am. Creatively active. Quick- witted. A two-PowerBar man. A man who makes things happen though sheer force of will. Big hairy hands. A powerful fist that comes down on a conference room table with peremptory authority. Then there's stunning Myrna Ernstmann, my latest fling. Mystic. Sensualist. Certified Novell Technician. My whole life has been a long infrared hyperactive attention deficit of a nightmare. But yes, I am an author. (And also a skin care specialist. My practice is going quite nicely, thank you.) The other day, I imagined that it was the year 2137 and a dozen people were gathered at the grave site of Wired Child to commemorate the hundredth year of his death. Dammit, I want to be remembered by more people than that. I don't know -- maybe that's why I write. Immediately after finishing _Talking 'Bout My Gl-Gl-Gl-Glenn_, I outlined a new book about gatesatrichtotillomania .... people who are compulsively obsessed with thoughts of pulling out the nose hair of Bill Gates. There are 2 to 4 million Americans who have gatesatrichtotillomania. That's a lot of books! (And a lot of Bill Gates.) I abandoned that thought though -- that's not the kind of book that Vintage wants from Blue Devil, right? Well, I'm confident that, after reading the following notes, you'll agree that the novel I propose is indeed the kind of book that Vintage wants from Blue Devil. ET TU, GLENN -- a monster jam of relentless action and bathroom humor, teeming with little creatures and their short and brutal lives -- will undoubtably be, page by page, the most important book Vintage will ever publish. I'm ready for it, babe -- I'm swallowing nootropic Diet Sprite by the gallons, and I'm loading up on Boofoo, the steroid made famous by Bradley Hicks, the javelin thrower disqualified in the 1996 Olympics. Oh, one last question, Michael. My new girlfriend has very large breasts, dimpled with just the right amount of areolae. Actually, this wasn't really a question. I just wanted you to know that. Yours Very Truly, ];-) --- Excerpts from E T T U, G L E N N Q: What advice would you give the young people of today? A: When I was eight, I was sent to an exclusive boarding school in Holland. My headmaster was a sixth-grade dropout with an IQ of 70 who could not speak Dutch. Since I could, this produced profound feelings of inferiority in the poor man. One morning he served me dinner which contained lettuce. I told him I would not stomach eating the same type of food that rabbits routinely ate. The next day he served me yet more lettuce; I was forced to shoot him in the back of the head. (I stood on a chair to get precisely the proper angle.) I stole his pickup truck and drove out to a windmill outside of Oosterbeck and had my first sexual experience. Afterward, I looked up pensively at the sky, and there was God, wearing a pink polo shirt, khaki pants, and brown Top- Siders with no socks, his blond hair blowing in the powerful wind of charged particles and intense ultraviolet radiation from the galactic center. I hated him. And he hated me. I have spent the majority of my 30 years in orphanages, reformatories, prisons, mental institutions, and living with Communists. I was forced from birth to hunt for my own food -- I learned then the lethal art of _c'oppa- doh_, or the killing of small animals with pennies. Since then police departments around the nation have been warned to only approach me with palms spread outward, lest I take offense and react quickly. I hated the other children. None of them would acknowledge my innate genetic superiority, as evidenced by my skill at Ms. Pac Man, my ability to carve my initials in glass using only the power of my voice, and the fact that I could kick any one of them in the top of the head, the soft spot that doctors hide the existence of lest every playground fight turn into a fatality. Now I live in the luxorious splendor of wealth. I have a laptop Pentium which at any given moment is generating 6 VGA Planets turns. I don't play any more, since Tim Wisseman sent me a craven letter explaining that I was hurting his sales with my brutal intimidation and complete mastery of the game. In one important room of my winter house are two large, black boots. They are inhuman boots, molded from socialist realism ferrous cast-iron and the size of a small Hyundai. But they are there. My advice to the youth of today? I'm tempted to say: Surround yourself with lissome brunettes and yes-man, and have naked slaves, perfumed with musk, fan you with plastic fronds as you program. Because that's just what works for me. But what does history teach us? I wouldn't know. And you shouldn't either. --- I brought my fist down upon the conference room table with peremptory authority. "Let's get busy, folks. CJ, what do you have for me, dude?" "Well, first of all, Mr. Devil, Ken Dietrich -- he's VP of marketing for Pepsico, Inc. -- called about the agreement wherein you mention Diet Pepsi in a post on alt.sex.wizards and Pepsico remunerates Team Devil with $750,000 in cash, plus $250,000 in stock options. He basically wants to know if we've made any progress on the product insert. "Tell him it's done, not to worry anymore, and to get the check in the mail. Any paternity suits this week?" "Only two, Mr. Devil. Both women are members of the Portugese Olympic Equestrian Team, and their attorney's hired a forensic DNA-fingerprinting laboratory to provide incontrovertible evidence you're the father." "As soon as this meeting's over, I want you to Fedex the director of the lab a Team Devil T-shirt and matching insignia magnets, and an official Team Devil trivet. OK?" "Consider it done, Mr. Devil. It's also a pleasure to report that the initial response to the 1-900-BLU-DEVL number has been just fabulous." "What's the deal on that? You get a choice of different messages when you call or what?" "A fan calls 1-900-BLU-DEVL and -- using a touch-tone phone, of course -- dials 1 to hear an excerpt from your upcoming book, 2 for you singing a randomly selected "Glenn Boots" song, 3 for dating advice, 4 for an up-close- and-personal tidbit from your first wife, and 5 for a cute anecdote about your second wife. It's $2 for the first minute, $1 for every additional minute. Fans under 18, please don't call without your parent's permission." "We may have a problem, BD". This from my third wife, Carmella DeRossa, the only one present in the room permitted not to refer to me as "Mr. Devil". "We've recieved reports from media outlets that certain columnists have been spreading a campaign of hatred and jealousy. Veiled references, scurillous rumors about your supposed steroid use, your messianic fantasies, your weakness for large-breasted women..." "I am only going to say this once.", I said, my voice calm, low and deep. "I want everyone here to remember something. Team Devil's motto. If anyone -- and I don't care who it is, even if it's my own mother -- if anyone attempts to impede the fufillment of our destiny, we WILL f*** hos dead." "We f*** hos dead.", the room chorused. --- THE AUDIENCE: [Applause] THE CONTESTANT: "Blue Devil" for $100, Bob. THE HOST: "When he was in the third grade, he had stationary printed up that said "From the word processor of Harlan Ellison", and he'd write these unbelievably baroque, hallucinatory torridly erotic mash notes to the female teachers at his elementary school. "Today, farmers let their land lie fallow after having visions of his urine raining down from the heavens and fertilizing their fields. Their wives refuse to get out of bed, remaining supine after dreaming that he'd floated into their bedrooms like a muscle-bound incubus and made love to them, bringing them to seismic, apocalyptic bliss with one stroke of his unearthly.. ." THE CONTESTANT: Who is Blue Devil? THE HOST: "Who is Blue Devil" is correct, for $100! THE AUDIENCE: [Applause] THE CONTESTANT: "Blue Devil" for $500, Bob. THE HOST: "The size of a Ping-Pong ball, it's fifty times as large as that of a normal heterosexual male's." THE CONTESTANT: What is the third interstial nucleus of Blue Devil's hypothalamus? THE HOST: That's absolutely right, for $500! THE AUDIENCE: [Wild applause] THE CONTESTANT: "Blue Devil" for $1,000, Bob. [There's a deafening arpeggio of sirens.] THE HOST: It's Double or Trouble! THE AUDIENCE: [Jubilant shouting and stomping] THE HOST: You can risk your entire winnings to double your money with a correct answer for a total of $4,700, or play it safe for the $1,000. THE CONTESTANT: I'll risk it all! Double or Trouble, Bob! THE AUDIENCE: [Thunderous ovation] THE HOST: Her father founded TV-OLFATO, the first global smell-o-vision network, whosse inaugural broadcast was "Que Olloroso!", an olfactory portrait of Julio Iglesias, beamed across Central and South America on September 10, 1995. Known variously as "Kid Woman", "Yuka D.", and "Squeaky", she consummated her affair with Blue Devil on a "bed" of plastic bubble wrap in a Bloomingdale's stockroom. THE CONTESTANT: Who is the Ecuadorian girlfriend? THE AUDIENCE: [Cheers ecstatically] THE HOST: That's exactly right! [shouts] Double or Trouble for $4,700! THE CONTESTANT: Let's stick with "Blue Devil" for $5,000, Bob. THE HOST: This Team Devil honcho defected from the organization and wrote a shocking expose. After hearing the title of his or her book, identify the honcho: Megalomania's Mascot: My Life With The Blue Devil Cult (As told to Kato Kaelin). THE CONTESTANT: Who is Kristin? THE HOST: "Who is Kristin" is absolutely correct, for $5,000! THE AUDIENCE: [Applause] === TEAM DEVIL TODAY! The sensational disappearance of Blue Devil following a mysterious letter from "the Chinaman" has ignited a firestorm of protest around the world! Mobs of rampaging fans have besieged U.S. embassies in London, Paris, Warsaw, Bangkok, and Tokyo, forcing the evacuation of terrified diplomatic personnel by troops wielding truncheons, attack dogs, pennies, and water cannons! Shadowy underground organizations have threatened the lives of American political leaders and major sysops and system administrators and - in clandestine e-mail - urged children to subliminally indocrtinate their parents by murmuring key passages from Blue Devil's texts into their ears as they sleep! YOU can be a vital link in the Team Devil chain of solidarity that girds the globe in Power and Bold Spunk! HOW?? Book sales are crucial. If Blue Devil is alive -- and we must assume that an individual who, as a toddler, honed himself into a ferocious, cunning and pitiless killing machine will survive whatever befalls him -- he's certainly monitoring the best seller lists and Publisher's Weekly. There's no better way to register your support for Blue Devil and everything he stands for than by urging -- and if necessary, forcing -- your family, friends, and co- workers to bulk-order _Et Tu, Glenn_ from their local bookstores. Remember, when you purchase a copy of this inspirational volume, 100 percent of the proceeds go to funding important Team Devil projects such as: o The production of large-print, Braille, and pop-up editions of compilations of Blue Devil's postings. o The construction of the Blueway, a 600-mile-long suspension bridge in the form of Blue Devil's outstretched body that will span the Arabian Sea linking Ras al-Hadd, Oman to Karachi, Pakistan. o The development of the World Institute of Advanced Science, a research facility in Lisbon, Portugal, that will reevaluate evolution from the Big Bang through the Cretaceous demise of the dinosaurs to the present moment as one continous teleological process leading inexorably to the birth of Blue Devil and to the propagation of his genetic lineage through sexual intercourse and auxiliary methods including "mole seeding". Call 1-900-BLU-DEVL TODAY for an exhortatory message from Blue Devil to his fans recorded on his answering machine mere hours before his disappearance! Stay on the line to record your personal words of support for the man whom Senator Uma Thurman (D-New York) has described as having "the face of Jason Alexander and the glands of a god!" SEED THE MINDS OF THE WORLD WITH BLUE DEVIL'S THOUGHTS! Help disseminate the incendinary words of this visionary warrior by ordering ADDITIONAL copies of Blue Devil's majestic vision for your family, lovers, and churchgoers! AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE About the Authors Blue Devil (real name withheld) is the pre-eminent philosopher of our time. His thoughts are scribed lovingly upon Tibetan prayer wheels and set into motion upon the rivers of Shangri-La, watched over by Shao-Lin priests. He is 30, unmarried (except under the "serial polygamy" laws of Utah), and will never die. Wired Child (real name withheld), an author, is 30, and unmarried. He is responsible for transcribing the brief "Team Devil" notes recorded after Blue Devil's disappearance. His death was foretold by Blue Devil in his seminal work _I Smell Like Teen Spirit_. **** ];-) ];-) ];-) ];-) ];-) ];-) ];-) **** ****** NEVER LET THE SPIRIT DIE!! ***** ******* NEVER LET THE DREAM DIE! ****** ******** ];-) ];-) ];-) ];-) ];-) ];-) ******* Free-will offerings can be sent to: Team Devil World Headquarters One Blue Devil Way Atlanta, GA 60148 phone/fax: 1-900-BLU-DEVL email: donations@teamdevil.edu