Writer's Corner

The backyard of Noah's childhood home

Noah Cicero

He is a genius with magic balls!

Over the last few days I've been trying to come up with a good way to introduce this weeks author, but I really couldn't come up something to top Noah's preface to his response to my questions. I could talk about his novel's (The Human War, The Condemned, or Treatise) or his collaborative novel with Tao Lin or his frantic and blunt interpretation of human interactions, but my commentary on these fine works would simply not blend with the interview that follows.
Here is how it all started:
"Jason before I get interviewed I want to tell you about the last several hours of my life on this planet. I was going to go to a party. The girl throwing the party kept telling me to come, I think she knows I don't have friends. I got pumped up about it. I brought clothes with me to work to change. Gina Badass kept telling me she was going to be there. I convinced myself that life was going to be great. The girl lives in some strange place outside of Warren, and it was dark and I couldn't find where she lived. Now this is the existential question: who do I blame? Was it the fault of directions, I wrote them out instead of printing them out with the map, should I have printed them out from mapquest? There was also directions the girl left at the restaurant, should I looked at the directions to see if they differed from mine, if there was a fact in them mine were lacking. Or was it because the streets were dark and perhaps a sign could not be seen, but for sure if I had a cell-phone I could have called her and she would have led me to her house quite easily. But I can't get a cell-phone because I can't afford one because I'm lazy and won't do something with my life.

So my question who do I blame? Who is responsibility for me ruining my night. but you know I am going to blame and who I think most people will blame, it'll be the town she lived in for not properly lighting their street signs. Why do I choose this? because it will help me sleep better. Existentialism.

So I'm currently in a very pissed state, but coming home crying jean rhys tears seeing that someone wanted to interview cheered me up a bit. There is nothing better than an interview, better than sex. If a person only gets interviewed once in their whole life, they will remember it. A truest form of validation except for maybe a general sending millions to die and they go without asking and die."

Here is my interview with Noah Cicero.

Orange Alert (OA): There has been a recent push to get your novel Burning Babies, a novel you wrote a few years ago, published. What originally happened back 2005 that caused this book to go unpublished? What do you need fans and readers to do to assist in the campaign?
Noah Cicero (NC): Burning Babies was supposed to my Season in Hell. Maybe it still will be, that makes sense then if hasn't become famous. I told the truth in that book, I wrote it like it happened. Reality stripped of all notions. the Beatniks, they said they were "stark naked" and had their "naked lunch", but they still had the notions, they weren't naked. They weren't like us, tao, nick, me, Bear parade, they were escaping, they weren't in terror, they had something different though, they could see what the world was becoming, the revolutionary road world of sprawl and bread for everyone, they were a last "howl" before the Last Man fully came.

Burning Babies is kind of Gonzo and sad, it has parts that are plays, parts resembling poems, but it is all prose, all fiction. I don't care, no one cares about me, so why should I take part in some form. I want to rip people's heads off and shit down their throats. That's my desire. You want to know what happened? Why doesn't Burning Babies exist, it had several chances, i think three total, but bad shit went down. Bad shit can go down when you are writing about fucked people, writing fucked sentences, and being actually fucked at the same time.

OA: I recently read the first chapter of Burning Babies, and started punching myself in the face. Do you get that reaction often? Also, I enjoyed the little note to your mother at the end. Can you give us an idea of what the rest of the book is like?
NC: You should punch yourself in the dick. Thank you, that is the best compliment I have had in awhile. I try not to hear people reactions, I don't like it. I actually don't like having my book reviewed at all. I don't like good or bad reviews, they both piss me off, and the fact I to get validated by someone else. I don't need your validation, I know how big my pecker is. Most reviews are assholes sitting in a room trying to write clever lines to feel great about being a worthless shit. I'm a worthless shit, I write horrible lines, but not out of cleverlessness, or some desperate need to get validated.

There is no validation in the universe. There is no justice or fairness. go outside and look at a tree, you think that tree gives a fuck about anybody, no. Humans they put themselves in the center of the universe. there is no center. There is a tree and its roots eroding into the soil, my fingers eroding the keys of the computer, dust collecting in the corners of your bedroom, and a fat woman sweating somewhere thinking about taco bell.

my mother is a piece of shit. I wrote that because she always told me to put a suicide at the beginning. She was every stupid notion this culture has compacted like dried shit in one human.

the rest of the book is about how I should kill myself but I don't, because I have this dream, this lie I tell myself, that someday, that some moment will come and there will be love, and you know sometimes it does come, that feeling, that overcoming feeling that someone loves you and someone will let you love them back, oh for so long, no one would let me love them.

go here The Legend of Burning Babies Post on oct 8th. There are some stories there, go to goodreads, listen, Burning Babies will not die, Burning Babies is transcendent, you can't sit on or shoot Burning Babies, Burning Babies is here, it will rise, like a thousand suicide bombers on your momma's pussy.

OA: Recently you reorganized and reposted the book your wrote with Tao Lin, Hamster, which is available for free on the Hamster blog. How was this book written, and what was your role? How were the decisions made as to which chapter would be posted when? It looks like the first post was Chapter 9.
NC: I wrote a chapter, then Tao wrote one. HAMSTER is about a lot of things, i think we say more things about culture, dialectal materialism concerning the Global Economic structure than Chomsky says in his 400 books.

OA: How did you decide to make Treatise available for free download? Do you find that people are still purchasing the physical product? Do you see PDF downloads playing a bigger role in the future?
NC: I'm not concerned with if people buy it or not, I haven't checked to see if anyone has bought in months. I'm not concerned with that. I don't know what will happen in the future.

OA: Who would you say are some of your biggest literary influences?
NC: With every book it changes. I'm young or was young when I wrote those, I still hadn't had my influences cemented down. My old influences were Proust and Beckett, Kerouac, and Dostoevsky. Now, they are like Chekhov, Richard Wright, and no one. I don't care anymore. I used to know this stripper named Aries, and she would stick her finger in her nose and yell like an ass, "I don't give a fuck." That's how I feel when I write.

OA: What's next for Noah Cicero?
NC: I have Burning Babies and a novel called The Insurgent in submission status, hopefully the places will take them. If they don't I will submit them. my plan is to go back to college, finish, and go live out west

Bonus Questions:

OA: Coffee? If yes what is your favorite type of coffee and where is your favorite coffee spot?
NC: My favorite straight out coffee is Waffle House's coffee. It tastes good and helps me shit. I like starbucks caramel frappacino thing. Somebody should write how I am an asshole for going to starbucks, well, somebody should come to where i live and try to find some tasty coffee. There is one good locally owned coffee house here and the guy who owns it wanted to kill me because I read Italian princess while there was a bunch of children there.

OA: What type of music do you enjoy, and who are some of your favorite musicians?
NC: I really like early Metallica albums. I didn't say Metallica present tense because whoever Metallica is now is not who I like. They are like old write guys with money now. They were young once and wanted to kill people, and they told people they wanted to kill people with killer riffs and sweet finger tapping solos. I lay in bed for hours and listen to Master of Puppets, I become the music, I am notes, it takes me away, it is a release.

I like Sunny Day Real Estate's Diary album. that is the greatest album ever, like ever, that's true, now if anyone asks you what is the best album ever, what do you say, "Sunny Day Real Estate's Diary.' and when they ask why, "Noah Cicero said so sir, he is a genius with magic balls."

For more information on Noah Cicero please visit his website