August 8, 2007

Where Do I Get My Ideas?

People, and sometimes animals, but very rarely plants, often ask me: Where do you get your ideas?

I don't feel I need to dignify such a personal question with a response. Instead, I will lie and make up a number of places from where I pretend to get my ideas.

Wait, that's a response, isn't it?

Oh well, here's your dignity then.


1. Beat up creative children, hanging them upside-down until all the ideas tumble from their pockets.

2. Stand really close to the television to better turn it off.

3. Throw darts at people until they come up with an idea for me to use.

4. One word:
http://www.ideasforbrendontowritefunnylistsaboutonhisblog
aplayadayandlysteriawhichisathttpcolonforwardslashforward
slashbleeetdotblogspotdotcom.com

5. The idea of neighborhood garage sales.

6. Straight from local idea farmers: in bulk, all organic, delivered by bicycle in the brains of people who don't wash their hair with or even think about harsh chemicals.

7. Frequent 96-hour sessions of no sleep where I consume only live lizards.

8. From my other ideas.

9. IdeaMart - We Think You'll Like Our Low, Low Prices.

10. A special reserve brain that I carry in a plastic bag.

11. From staring at naked breasts - always in need of more volunteers here.

12. Surprisingly, from oxen, but never from just an ox.

13. Consuming the brains of people who are thinking about things.

14. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Seriously, the dude fucking e-mails me, like, every goddamn day.

15. As birthday presents.

16. The Government Printing Office in Pueblo, Colorado.

2 comments:

Jim H. said...

The poet and essayist Ed Dorn used to drive from Los Angeles to San Diego with one hand tied to the steering wheel and the other writing ideas on a notepad. Somehow he also managed to smoke cigarettes and take some pulls from a whiskey bottle, too. "The Ceaseless Jets of Miramar"

Charles Bukowski mostly chased women and avoided legitimate employment.

I find their inspiration inspiring.

So now you have been mentioned in the same comment as Dorn and Bukowski. As an incisive and highly-paid network interviewer might ask, "How does that make you feel?"

Brendon Etter said...

Well, Jim, I'm glad you asked that...

When I started work on the "Where Do I Get My Ideas" project back in '77, just me and Dean Martin and Thomas Pynchon, I was young, naive... green even... then one night, while snorting Colombian White Heat off the naked chest of some Brazilian supermodel, I forget her name, but...