Tag Archives: Julian Gough

julian

Berlin-based Irish novelist julian Gough (and daughter) makes a special case why YOU should send a man to Vegas.

It’s for important literary RESEARCH.

Julian writes:

“I’m a writer of peculiar and, I hope, enjoyable fictions. My stories sometimes win awards, sometimes appear as novels, and sometimes turn up in more unusual places. (I wrote the narrative at the end of Markus “Notch” Persson’s wonderful computer game, Minecraft; I wrote the first short story ever printed in the Financial Times; I’ve had a number one Kindle Single in the UK, etc.) In the world of more traditional writing, I’ve also had a couple of radio plays on the BBC, a stageplay performed, a book of poetry published…”

Get you.

“The Las Vegas Postcards is a little art project; a literary experiment. It will let people who enjoy my work help to fund a research & writing trip, from Berlin (where I live) to Las Vegas (where my next novel, Infinite Ammo, is set), for the month of August.

In Las Vegas?

“In return, each funder will, firstly, get a PDF of my favourite, as-yet-unpublished, short story. It’s called “Harvest”, and was shortlisted for the €15,000 Davy Byrnes Award this year. (The judges, Yiyun Li, Jon McGregor, and Booker Prize winner Anne Enright, called it “a superb story””;

Kerching!

“…but I didn’t win. That’s one reason I’m short of cash, and need your help with this.) You will also get to follow my adventures in Las Vegas through my Kickstarter updates; and, most importantly, if you are in for more than ten bucks, I will send you a postcard from Vegas.

It’s certainly a novel idea we’ll give you that.

“Thanks.”

Novel.

“Yes. Got that.”

The Las Vegas Postcards by Julian Gough (KickStarter)

It’s no Limerick A Day but…

Irish Writer Julian Gough writes:

I was fascinated by Mitt Romney’s honest and thoughtful words in the recent video filmed at a $50,000-a-plate dinner for his donors. And I was sad to hear him say yesterday that he thought he could have expressed himself in a more elegant way. There is nothing more elegant than verse, and so I have taken the liberty of converting Mitt’s thoughts into a poem.

Feel free to set it to music; perhaps a simple, honest, country tune. (Now that I think about it, the last verse sounds like a chorus to me.) In fact do, what you like with it; I’m giving it as my gift to the world.

 

The Elegant President

It’s hard to be rich, ‘cause then poor people bitch ‘bout
Our houses, our cars, and our cruisers.
When I’m king, I won’t do a thing for the whiners
In diners; I don’t work for losers.

I love you because you just paid fifty grand for a plate
I wish there were more of you great guys to love in each state
Don’t worry, I won’t do a thing for the folk serving dinner
I’ll talk like they’re not even here, ‘cause I just talk to winners.

No representation without some taxation
That’s what the first tea party meant.
I’m the best man that money can buy for this nation;
The poor can’t afford presidents.

What we need is an elegant country for elegant folk.
Not fuckups in pickups with hiccups from drinking and dope
Who can’t afford healthcare, who can’t afford dinners like this
Those people aren’t drowning, they’re waving their communist fists. 

The president’s not there to help forty seven percent.
I don’t care if they starve, I don’t care if they can’t pay their rent
It’s their own fault for borrowing money from people like us.
Trying to own cars, when God meant them to travel by bus.

I’ll be an elegant president, there for the elegant few.
I’ll do what you pay me to do, because I’m one of you.
If Jesus had just paid some taxes, I’d represent him
But he didn’t, so fuck him, the loser can learn how to swim.

Julian Gough