i want to kill the president of the united states...

here's something kind of fun. here's a monologue from the opening of an old book i wrote years ago called zero sum. zero sum was my ill-fated attempt at writing a book that would criticize male behavior and misogyny, but in fact ended up celebrating the very behaviors that i was attempting to critique. sometimes these things happen, and you don't realize what a collosal failure it is until you've completed it. it was ugly, vile, vacuous, full of blood and guts and sex. tell you the truth, i am glad it was never published, because i am ashamed of having ever written such a disgusting thing. the book was so terrible, it actually began with, "i want to kill the president of the united states..." at any rate, i still sort of like this monologue, and perhaps will use it some time in the future. it's quite mean-spirited, which zero sum was completely and utterly all the way through. but i still like the monologue. kinda funny in a black and mean-spirited way. it was delivered in the book by a guy named poe, who's only goal in life was to live life as he pleased, no matter who got trampled along the way. it's one of those books where at the end, nobody gets their comeupance, which isn't that bad, but really, this guy was a fucking jerk. he's one of those characters that comes from some deep and dark part of the mind. he's one of those characters that makes you wonder just how sick you really might be as a writer. the thing is, he wasn't a serial killer or anything. he was just a guy. a blatant psychopath. psychopaths don't have to be killers or rapists. they can be the guy you work with who just does things cause he can. enjoy...

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I want to kill the president of the United States. It's just one of those things in life that's really, really hard to do. If you can pull it off, you're famous. John Wilkes did it; Oswald did it. These aren't nobodies. They were, but now they never will be. Hinckley tried it in the '80's, but where is he now? Does anyone care? More importantly do I? History doesn't award the failures. Trying to assasinate the President of the free world acts as a yardstick for a man's soul. It's a hurdle that separates those that can and those that can't and leaves all those that might or won't on the sidelines to watch and judge and criticize and mock and generally, gives them a reason to exist. And it's not like killing a regular person either, or like blowing up a bus full of girl scouts on their way to a charity fundraiser for cancer boys. It's not even like shooting Lennon. I'd like to think that killing regular people would be an easy thing to do. All you have to do is remember to pick up the lug wrench, mop up the blood, and above all... don't ever get greedy. Killing the President of the United States of America is a whole different story. If you kill the President, they will hunt for you until the Second Coming. You'd better believe that they'd never give up. There will be no limited budget or shortage of manpower when you kill the president. And it's not like I want to be a destructive influence on society. God forbid I become an idol to some silly rat bastard of a kid who's so fucking stupid he'd be better off being abducted by some Internet predator. I don't want to be a part of the deconstruction of America. I just want to kill the President of the free world because I feel like it. I just want to see if I can get away with it. I don't want to be a part of the deconstruction of America... I just want to see America collapse in one shot.

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terrible, huh? the book is filled with it. seriously. jokes comparing hookers to onions and racist language and people watching videos of girls being mutilated and a guy waking up in bed after an absinthe binge with a gutted puppy and a scene involving a threesome with a broom stick... and it just goes on and on for what would have been, i shit you not, about a 600 page book in print. i'm not afraid of zero sum, nor what it made me think of myself, but i am ashamed of it. sort of like a mother who's child grows up to eat babies. i mean, given the chance, i would still defend it; you know, freedom of speach, blah blah blah... but it really is... terrible. if any book should be called this is hardcore, that should have been it. that's too bad, cause there is some really nice writing in there, like the carefully orchestrated office shooting that takes the point of view from three different characters and goes on for over twenty pages... horror movies these days have less of a body count. i swear to god. and the interesting thing was, the only people that liked it, were guys. my female friends couldn't get past the first couple dozen pages. that's how i ultimately realized what a failure it was as a critique on male behavior. that and the fact that reading it just makes one feel ill.