'He’s here. Scholars of online identities foretold of a great writer gone from the internet who would return once more to their digital flock. Rumors flew like those psychotic birds in that Hitchcock film, think the name of it is Birds. A writer would return to restore order to alt lit. Zachary German is that writer.
'Zachary German left the internet a mere boy. Living the ‘IRL’ lifestyle taught him who his true friends are. They are here, on the internet, willing to pay him vast quantities of money. He needs their love. But he needs their money even more. He wants their Paypal accounts.
'How did Zachary German obtain such enlightenment? Did he do a lot of drugs? Knowing him, yes, but Zachary German is drugs. Drugs can’t guide you. They only drain users’ already strained bank accounts. No, Zachary German wanted true enlightenment. And there’s only one place for true enlightenment: Sarasota, Florida.
'I mock Florida a lot on here. Florida is pretty mock-able. It is a state of plastic, with huge shrines built in the name of tackiness. Yet I am afraid of Florida. Look into Florida and you’ll see America’s soul: trashy, weird, sprawling, unsustainable developments. I lack the guts to find myself in such a harsh, false environment. But I’m not Zachary German.
'A plane landed in Sarasota not long ago. It contained Zachary German and his girlfriend Megan Boyle. They went to Florida for spring break. Florida they felt represented salvation from things like culture or taste. It begged them to explore it, to discover what secrets it held, as a final resting place for millions of elderly New Yorkers.
'Megan Boyle and Zachary German immersed themselves into Sarasota, Florida ‘Stranger than Paradise’ style. That meant doing a whole lot of nothing. Zachary German was up to the challenge. He’s very good at doing nothing for prolonged periods of time. Like the movie, they went to the beach, wandering aimlessly. Like the movie they went to a shitty dog racing track. To finish their homage to Jim Jarmusch’s movie, they stayed in a crummy, dank ass hotel.
'Since quitting the internet Zachary German had grown long hair. He kept his trademarked oversized glasses. He drank. He lived in dirty, unwashed clothing. Half the time he was barely conscious. The rare times he remained conscious were spent watching local news and old repeats of classic 90s sitcoms.
'The turning point came when Zachary drank a beer. It was a beer that would change his life. It was a Coors Light and it had done more than tapped the Rockies. It had gone to the top of the mountain and seen the light. Zachary placed the beer can into a Pringles can. That activated the spiritual awareness of the beer can. Slowly it began to clear its throat.
'“Zach, return to the fucking internet.” The anthropomorphic beer can loved the internet.
'“I have everything I want here IRL. Fuck the internet. It is filled with a bunch of assholes. The internet can eat my cock fuck. One of them said I was an underwear model. I wish. I don’t own a pair of underwear. I hang out at Laundromats and steal clothing from total douchebags. That’s how I dress.”
'“I’m a fucking anthropomorphic beer can. Do what I say.”
'“Okay, sure, whatever. I think I still have some links to my writing on Muumuu House. Think it changed the writing world forever or something.”
'From then on, Zachary heeded the call of the anthropomorphic beer can. He kept his day job of walking dogs. At night he’d bother people on the internet. In fact, he became considerably more optimistic. Now he’s working on a new book, a sequel to Eat when you feel sad entitled Eat when you feel rad. Here’s a sneak peek at the genius at work:
'“Robert sits on the beach. He is completely naked. Somebody gives him $400,000 for existing. He laughs loudly. He looks at his cat. Robert says ‘Fuck, I rule so hard.’ His speech is overpowered by the surf. Robert cries.”
'Prepare yourself for the second coming of Zachary German.'-- Beach Sloth
____
Further
'Who Is Zachary German?'
'AN INTERVIEW WITH ZACHARY GERMAN'
'On Zachary German’s “Eat When You Feel Sad”'
'Zachary German, The Void Of New Literary Microcelebrity, an Interview with Adam Humphreys'
'TWENTY AND BORED AND ALIVE'
'the nike swoosh is beautiful'
'BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE 2010: ZACHARY GERMAN'
'9 Reasons To Watch My Film'
'Zachary German Explained'
'Book Notes - Zachary German ("Eat When You Feel Sad")'
Zachary German @ Soundcloud
'What's Eating Zachary German?'
'QUICK QUESTIONS WITH ZACHARY GERMAN'
'Zachary German isn’t dead (he just doesn’t give a shit)'
'Guest Post by Zachary German: Thoughts On Kanye West’s New Record'
'Zachary German is an Underwear Model'
'interview with Zachary German'
'ZACHARY GERMAN WAVVES ROBERT EAT WHEN YOU FEEL SAD REVIEW INTERROGATION'
____
Extras
Zachary German - For
zachary german eating cake in fabulous port jervis ny
Baseball (short film)
Shitty Youth (2012)
_____
Interview (2010)
from 3:AM Magazine
3:AM: How much – in a percentage – is Eat When You Feel Sad autobiographical?
Zachary German: One hundred percent, or zero percent. It seems like we’re all mother nature’s children, in a way, and so my story is your story is [something]. I’m being serious…
3:AM: How much – in a percentage – are you happy with the finished novel?
ZG: Ninety five maybe. Sometimes I think about things that could have been made more consistent. I never went through it thinking about the climate, and trying to make the weather correlate with seasons in a way that would make sense. So I sometimes fear there may be some inconsistencies there. There are other things I probably could have done, times when I should have expanded on dialogue or something.
3:AM: How long have you been working on it?
ZG: I worked on it from autumn 2007 to autumn 2009, pretty much, I think. So two years. The majority of that time was spent editing – I had written most of the text within the first six months.
3:AM: Since its publication, is there a part/scene that you are unhappy with, and wish you could edit out/change?
ZG: No. I think all the scenes work. For the Bear Parade draft there was one scene in which the narration went into first person, which a few people seemed to like, but in the end it seemed too inconsistent, so I took it out. Nothing like that in the final draft.
3:AM: Stylistically it is consistent throughout, written in a very pared-down, minimalist way – “Robert turns off the light. Robert turns on the light. (etc)” – Did you find these stylistic choices ‘trapping’ or ‘freeing’? How did you come to choose this style to write in?
ZG: I found that style very freeing. I am easily overwhelmed when looking at a blank Word document, and it is a lot easier if I know exactly what I’m going to write. So I can just say “This is what happens” and write that down, in a very specific format. The part I like the most is the editing I do later, where I change the word “Robert” to the word “He,” or vice versa, things like that. Having very small, specific choices seems fun.
3:AM: Is the character of Sam actually Tao Lin? And in Shoplifting From American Apparel, is Robert you?
ZG: Oh… it’s just a novel, Chris.
3:AM: Okay, I know what you mean. But I also feel interested in knowing a little more about that ‘overlapping’ scene in both books – page 117 in Eat When You Feel Sad and page 78 in Shoplifting From American Apparel. Was there some sort of conscious decision made between you and Tao at some point to include this overlap between events/conversation/names etc? Or did it just occur naturally, due to the autobiographical natures of both books?
ZG: [question not answered]
3:AM: What question would you most liked to be asked in an interview like this?
ZG: What is your favorite Blink-182 song and why?
3:AM: How often – if ever – do you think of the title of your novel as an acronym?
ZG: Between 1/3 and 2/3rds of the time, probably. Like when I think with sounds it’s ‘Eat When You Feel Sad’ but when I think with pictures it’s ‘ewyfs.’ Not sure if that is true, makes sense, sorry.
3:AM: You said you enjoy the line-editing part most. Do you have a specific memory of a time/place when you felt especially happy with how your novel was going? If so, please describe it.
ZG: No real specific memories of feeling happy with how it was going, more memories of feeling it sucked but could easily be so much better. One morning I got up early and lied down in McCarren Park in Brooklyn and read a printed out draft all the way through, making notes and line edits, and feeling really good, like I was a genius who had just found a really shitty book that I could quickly change into something just terrific. Then I made the changes and probably the next time I read it all the way through I thought pretty much the same thing.
There were a number of drafts like that, where I felt each new set of edits was a revolution or something. As time went by that feeling got less and less, until it started to just seem like a pretty finished novel.
3:AM: Similarly, was there some point during the writing of the novel when you felt something along the lines of, ‘Oh no, this a complete fucking piece of shit, I’m going to give up on it’? If so, please describe.
ZG: Oh, well, I think I only ever really thought about giving up on it in fall of 2007, soon after starting it. I forget why exactly, I know I had a gmail conversation with Tao Lin about it so could probably look it up, but yeah I was just tired of doing it, and that’s when I asked Tao if he thought I should just make it a Bear Parade thing, and he said it could probably be both, and so that’s what happened.
3:AM: How do you think you and your writing would be perceived by the following people: a) a 26-year-old Italian/American female poet/blogger, who occasionally reads online journals like 3:AM, HTMLGIANT, but who also cites people like Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson and T.S. Eliot as influences.
ZG: Probably negatively, a woman named ‘Oriana’ who I believe roughly fits that description has already written an in-depth scathing review on Goodreads.com.
3:AM: b) an American, somewhat alcoholic, on-the-brink-of-retiring, divorced male English Lit. professor, who at one time in his life had the desire to write fiction but never did so.
ZG: Feel he would either disregard it completely or like it a lot.
3:AM: c) an English, 38-year-old male, who reads “everything from McEwen and Palanuk (sic) to greats such as Dickens and McNab (ha ha)” – note: he reviews DVD box-sets constantly on Amazon.
ZG: Feel he would get a real kick out of shit-talking it on Amazon/not like it.
3:AM: d) ‘someone’s mom’
ZG: Damn, depends on if it’s ‘my mom’ or not. ‘My mom’ would ‘say she liked it,’ if memory serves. Others’ moms would probably not read it all the way, I feel. If they did they would probably feel disturbed … in a bad way.
3:AM: Your author biography on the back page of the novel reads: ‘ZACHARY GERMAN was born on December 17th, 1988 at Shore Memorial Hospital in Somer’s Point, New Jersey. In 2006 he dropped out of high school. In 2007 he published his first short story. In 2008 he moved to Brooklyn. In 2009 he works as a dog walker on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and maintains two websites: thingswhatibought.com, and eatwhenyoufeelsad.com, which collects videos of people eating while feeling sad’. Do you think you could carry this third-person sentence-per-year biographical description on to provide a speculative description of the years of your life from 2010-20/30/40/whenever-you-get-bored?
ZG: [question not answered]
3:AM: What is your favourite Blink-182 song and why?
ZG: ‘Untitled’ off Dude Ranch. Seems really catchy/memorable with several distinctive sections. Confused as to why I wrote ‘with distinctive sections.’ I have good memories of running around the track in tenth grade gym class with Colin Gilmore singing this song. Seems apt to a number of situations, lyrically. Don’t like how there’s a weird talking thing at the end of the studio version though. That should make it lose points. So maybe ‘Josie,’ also off of Dude Ranch.
___
Book
AVF Press
'Kortprosa. Amerikansk. Om minner. Formgitt av Håkon Pagander.
'John asked what we were cooking for breakfast and when I told him I was trying to learn how to poach eggs he said he was very good at poaching eggs. He offered to show us the video that taught him. He brought out his computer and I paused the new Interpol album, which seemed no worse than we’d expected. He said that the guy in the egg video was weird, but that it was a good video. He said we could fast forward through the beginning.
'Thank you is unfortunately sold out in print. Download here.'-- AVF Press
_____
Excerpt
I slept through the stop at 30th Street Station and woke up in the White Marsh Mall parking lot. I looked through old emails on my phone, found Katherine’s number and called her, the only person I thought I might know in Baltimore.
I hadn’t seen her in two and a half years, during which time she had married and become estranged from Joseph, once my very close friend. She didn’t answer, and I was shopping for a ticket back to Philadelphia when she called back, saying she’d meet me at the McDonald’s in forty-five minutes.
On her father’s porch swing we drank his warm, imported beer, and I feigned happiness about Joseph’s recent book deal. We talked about the end of their marriage, and recalled fondly a time she and I had visited the Overstock.com outlet store near Druid Hill Park.
Around eleven AM we walked to a bar called DeMitri’s where we drank Southern Comfort and played Keno. We made out at the bar and bought condoms at 7-11. In the late afternoon her father walked in as I was going down on her, to ask about some pain pills he couldn’t nd. It was later established that his roommate’s son had taken them.
John asked what we were cooking for breakfast and when I told him I was trying to learn how to poach eggs he said he was very good at poaching eggs. He oered to show us the video that taught him. He brought out his computer and I paused the new Interpol album, which seemed no worse than we’d expected. He said that the guy in the egg video was weird, but that it was a good video. He said we could fast forward through the beginning.
*
I didn’t drink for something like forty days shortly after New Year’s, knowing that the lease I shared with Katherine would soon end, the money I had inherited from a friend of my father’s would soon run out, and that clearing my head for a little while was not generally a bad idea.
I stopped drinking Heaven Hill all day and night and started drinking Cafe Bustello all day and night. I’d go to a café called e Dew Inn when it opened at four in the morning and read the paper, then go home and fall asleep watching Netix on an iPad with a cracked screen that Keith had given me.
In mid-February my parents traveled to Florida. I looked after their dog and ate their frozen pizzas. One night I drove to Belco Liquors, in Mays Landing, New Jersey, where I purchased a beer called Coors Extra Gold, which I had long seen advertised in a certain bodega in Brooklyn but had never before seen for sale. I drank the six-pack on the sofa next to the dog, watching basketball.
*
The last time I saw Mark was at Bushwick Country Club, although now I can’t remember if it was Mark or it was his boyfriend, Jean-Eric, that I saw there. It was only one of them, as they’d recently broken up.
Whoever was at the bar, Mark, or Jean-Eric, was there with a large group of friends I’d never met. They had accumulated too many cans of Pabst, which they offered us when they left, and we thanked them for, but didn’t drink. That was another bout of sobriety. It was the night Rachel and I met Andrew, on the L platform at First Ave. He was holding a piece of crumpled up gift-wrap, or a bow, I forget. Rachel asked him about it and he said it was from a present he’d given a friend, or that she’d given him.
The next summer at a dinner party, one of Andrew’s roommate’s friends talked about working for Fantastic Man, which was then in the process of launching a women’s magazine. I said, “But isn’t Fantastic Man basically already like a standard women’s magazine?” He said no and asked if I’d ever read Fantastic Man. I had, in fact, and didn’t know what I’d meant by the comment. I still don’t, it had just been something to say.
*
It was during the few weeks I lived with my parents in between living with Katherine and living with Rachel, both exes by that point, that my father sent me to Woodbury, New Jersey to pick up lumber. Because of, and as a neces-sity to, the nature of his business, he has an arrangement with certain of the region’s wholesale lumber yards such that when an amount of stock is damaged, or returned, or just left to sit on the lot too long and go grey, he will pick it up, or at times have it delivered, for pennies on the dollar.
Long-term financial pursuits have not panned out for my father, as a rule. Describing the low prices he pays for lumber, as compared to the high prices one would normally pay, is perhaps the chief memory I have of his expressing pride, a satisfaction at having gotten the best of an unjust system.
He gave me rope and directions to the lumberyard. I used an FM transmitter attached to my iPod to listen to the FIDLAR album, and missed my exit. I turned around at a Canal’s Liquor Store just before the Delaware Memorial Bridge, bought a liter of Evan Williams and asked for directions.
At the yard the man who I was to talk to was with another, ostensibly paying, customer, who seemed to be leaving as I approached. The clerk looked my way, as if to address me. When I identied myself as my father’s son he announced that he knew who I was, brusquely.
I loaded the wood and tied it as well as I knew how. I don’t remember my father ever using ratchet straps, although in the time since I have learned their value, and would recommend their use on any similar transport of lumber.
I made no stops from the lumberyard’s gate until a mile or two from my parents’ home, where the Toyota Tundra was struck from the side by a Mercedes-Benz GLK which had run a stop sign. The other driver and I parked in front of an eighteenth century Presbyterian church and exchanged insurance information.
By the time I got to the house my parents had already received a phone call from the driver, who acted graciously in our brief dealings with him. The truck’s damaged metal was removed and sold for scrap and, with the insurance money, my father was able to build a new truck bed, tailgate and racks, all of mahogany, on which he had the name of his business and his phone number professionally gold leafed.
*
p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, Yes, Doug Edwards! I'd heard he had died. A lot of people from LA, heavily including me, owe him a lot. I really like early Bertolucci, as this weekend's post will make clear, but, man, I think his Bowles film is really dreadful. But I think we've had that conversation before? ** Tosh Berman, Gosh, thank you, Tosh! Focusing on Bowles' music would make for a very interesting and not typical Bowlesian post. I wonder how much of his music is online for sharing. I'll check. In any case, terrific idea, thank you! ** James, Hi, James! My pleasure. Yes, I have the new Kobek on the way to me as well. Exciting. An ex-boyfriend of mine was really into Lilly when he and I were together, so I heard a lot about him, although I don't think I ever actually read any of his books. What a nice effect his stuff is having on you! The Cobain one is quite rudimentary and not shocking or anything. Enjoy Austin. I enjoyed it the one time I was there. Mm, I used to have friends in Austin, but I don't think any of them live there anymore. I think a d.l. of this blog who hasn't been around here in a while lives there. Love back to you! Have big fun! ** Steevee, Hi. Well, sure, that's understandable. I would imagine that venues for film writing are not exactly chomping at the bit to commission or even run things on non-narrative film, so that's no doubt part of the problem. I just wish that wasn't the case. It would be so interesting to read takes on non-narrative/experimental film by younger film writers/buffs. If you really search around online, like I do for those posts, there are random younger people fascinated by that kind of film who post about it on their blogs and things, although they mostly quote older critics' writings. ** Tomkendall, Hi, Tom! Things are relatively pretty good with me. Migration stress sounds really stressful. Hopefully after the preliminary hassle, you'll be warmly embraced. Those stories sound super interesting. Yes, of course, I would love for you to do a Day about the book! Please do whenever you and it are ready! That would be really awesome, thank you! Best of luck with everything, my pal. ** S., Hi. Nice blog post, dude. Hot. I used to be able to play chords, but that was it. I was always the rhythm guitarist in the two and half bands I was in. But one of those bands used to do some covers of early/ contemporaneous Velvet Underground and Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd and other kind of complicated stuff, so I must have been okay at chording to be able to keep up, I guess. Bon Jovi has a good quote about love? That I can not believe, I'm sorry. Thanks for the Avital link! I'm in the mood! ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! Me too, about reading books in their original language, but the 'sad' thing is that I mostly read fiction by French and German and other non-English authors, well, except for new books 'cos the US is having its amazing renaissance of daring new fiction writers right now. Having that paper is a good thing, yeah, probably worth sticking to school for. I just wanted to be a writer, so I didn't really need to have a degree. If I was into teaching for a living like most of the writers I know, I would be in trouble now without it. Yeah, that's a great subject for your thesis, obviously. Incredibly rich area. Wow, how did I not know that Marching Church is playing here on the 24th? Weird. Thank you for telling me, my friend. I'll get on that pronto. Have a superb Friday! ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Ha ha, I almost included that Tiger Woods one, but it didn't make my final draft for some reason. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff. Yeah, it's unpleasantly weird about that shared trait among film programmers. They also have a consistent tendency to say they'll get right back to you about your submission and then go completely silent and not respond ever again. Super obnoxious way to do things. Our new film is pretty different, yeah. It has single narrative and a single cast of characters/performers unlike 'LCTG'. 'LCTG' is about sex and desire, and the new film isn't about that at all. I'm sure there'll be some holdover in terms of how the material and so on are approached cinematically. That's Zac's doing, and we haven't talked about that yet. We want to get a producer nailed down first. But Zac's visual ideas, while various, are pretty distinct, and Michael Salerno will be doing the cinematography again, so, no doubt whatever shifts happen won't be entirely radical. Thank you asking. Sure, we can Skype. When do you want to? Let me know by email or here or something. Oh, and your guest-post, which is wonderful, of course, will run here a week from today, on the 18th. Thank you again so much for that! And, yes, I'll pass along your GH interview. I spaced on doing that yesterday. Everyone, the fine, fine fella and scribe Jeff Jackson, who goes by Chilly Jay Chill when he's here, has interviewed the fine, fine fella and scribe and fellow d.l. Gregory Howard about his great recent novel 'Hospice' over the always crucial Fanzine, and you can read it right here. ** Brendan, Hi, B. Well, while it's nigh on impossible to judge a painting based on snaps, I think I can safely say it's fantastic. Call it my intuition or super-powered eyes or something. Yay! About the chunneling! And the two! ** Misanthrope, Oh, that's good, isn't it? I think there are a number of drugs happening in 'Enter the Void', but, yes, I do think DMT is very prominent among them. Oh, what I meant was that Americans use French and Spanish words in their day-to-day talking all the time. It's just you guys' flat American accents that make them sound like unusually spelled English words. It's in the 20s here right now pretty consistently, and it's not that cold. But I think I'm not a weather wuss. Except when it's a high temperature. Then I become a whiny bitch. ** Bill, It's weird, right? I was surprised. I just started looking for them on a whim, and then ... bonanza. So sorry about your allergies interfering with you. Fuck them. Just fuck them. With a sledgehammer. With five sledgehammers at once. That should do it. Love, me. ** Right. So, Chris Dankland's alert yesterday that the new Zachary German book is out and available for free download got me so excited that I quickly put together a post to welcome it. And there it is. All please hail Mr. German. See you tomorrow.