The Bad Boy of Canadian Letters · Posted Feb 20, 04:01 PM by Todd Babiak
My friend and I were corresponding by e-mail, about matters of little importance like global warming and Barak Obama and testicular cancer, when he referred to Martin Amis as “the bad boy of British letters.”
It sounded inauthentic. I couldn’t imagine my friend saying it out loud, so I left the computer and phoned him. Sheepishly he admitted he’d read the phrase earlier that morning, on the Guardian’s website. I asked him to say it out loud and he couldn’t. He said, “It’d feel like whacking off in public.”
I Googled the phrase and it turns out several people have been “the bad boy of British letters,” none of them particularly boy-ish. At least in my imagination. I searched “the bad boy of American letters” and discovered there are only a few. Most people cite Bret Easton Ellis. Is he a bad boy? He’s 44.
According to Google, there is no “bad boy of Canadian letters.” And it’s a damn shame. We’re so averse to hero worship that we can’t allow for a bad boy in what is probably the least-bad industry in contemporary culture: the publishing of literary fiction. Every writer I’ve met is nice. Austin Clarke was mean to me once, over the phone, but I think it was his publicist’s fault.
Even if there were a bad boy of Canadian letters, no one would give a shit. To prove this, I have decided to pursue the title.
Later this afternoon, I will drink a bottle of tequila I brought back from Mexico, on the rocks. Then I’ll put on some leatherette pants, shave my meagre chest hair and go out, shirtless, until I find a small white dog.
And I’ll kick it.
From there, I’ll force my way into the Chili’s restaurant off Whyte Avenue and kiss the waitress. When the manager comes I’ll say, “You got a problem with that, Louis?” and I’ll take off his toupee and eat it, right there, right in front of all the people eating fajitas and drinking overpriced Australian red wine. When the police come I’ll call them Islamo-fascists and run down the alley.
There is a massage parlor near my house that keeps odd hours. Like all night. I’ll sober up a bit and go in there, and ask for a job. No, demand a job. When they turn me away, I’ll drop a sexual harassment suit on them and leak the story to the Globe and Mail. When the Globe and Mail doesn’t care, I’ll get my friend Shannon to pull off his pubic hairs and put them in a bag. I’ll send the bag to the Globe and Mail.
I’ll write, “Special delivery from the bad boy of Canadian letters!”
This is only step one. Step two is picking a fistfight with Austin Clarke, author of The Polished Hoe and other well-known novels. When he kicks my ass and the police ask for a statement, you know what I’ll say: the bad boy of Canadian letters doesn’t have complete dental coverage from his employer.
Steps three to nineteen are still in the works. Somewhere in there, I want to turn over a Smart Car, bust some solar panels, steal a mountain bike, drink the blood of a seal, and vote for the Conservatives. Does this make me happy? No. It makes me miserable. But I have the mythology of a nation to think about here.
Go fuck yourself.
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Poor Old Alberta The official novelist of the 2010 Winter Olympics
Yay!!!
— trinity67 Feb 21, 10:37 AM #
I’d probably have to vote for Mingus Tourette as Canada’s bad boy of letters. He looks pretty bad ass and “Nunt” was pretty extreme.
Not that Garneau Block wasn’t bad ass, Todd…
— Christopher Feb 21, 11:18 AM #
P.S. I’ve decided to enter you in Wikipedia, under Bad Boy of Canadian Letters.
...Okay I’m not but, it sounded good.
— trinity67 Feb 21, 01:36 PM #
Todd, You’re in! I’ve added the tag: “the bad boy of Canadian Letters” to your name, on my links section…Be careful what you wish for…
Best
t
— Thomas Feb 21, 04:42 PM #
Dead but not forgotten: Mordecai Richler (non PC, boozer, smoker, only two wives though)
Irving Layton (boozer, slept around, ignored kids)
Living: Stephen Henighan (running battle with Russell Smith and Toronto literati)
Kenneth J. Harvey (angry Newfie, ticked at T.O.)
John Metcalf (still ‘kicking against the pricks’)
Russell Smith (okay, a leather panted poser but he tries at least)
— Libarbarian Feb 22, 12:00 AM #
Mordecai Richler and Irving Layton!!! Yes! So Todd’s going to have to leave his wife and kids. Go through an ugly divorce, marry again, divorce again. Marry again. And drink, drink, drink!!! That’s a high price to pay…but it can be done.
— thomas Feb 22, 11:59 AM #
Not only that, I think your buddy stole the “whacking off in public” line from that Tibor Fischor carve-job of Amis’s Yellow Dog in the Telegraph. Remember? Fischer said that reading Yellow Dog was “like your favourite uncle being caught in a school playground, masturbating.” What up?
— shawn Feb 25, 12:38 PM #
I don’t know if you can truly be a bad boy of Canadian letters and have baby spit up on you. But if you’re voting conservative, then you truly must be.
— deb Mar 1, 11:59 PM #
Babiak. Let’s get shitfaced on MINGUS BEEZERS and yell about it. This is a situation of national importance.
— Mingus Mar 7, 12:40 AM #
The Beezers are on me.
— Todd Babiak Mar 18, 08:57 PM #