[Jandek] Jandek: the Book?

[Frank Hardy]

Okay, so my posts this weekend were my typical jackass-hiding-behind-the-veil-of-the-interenet-because-there's-no-way-I'd-have-the-balls-to-say-this-to-your-face sort of thing. And, though it's barely an excuse, I was kind of drunk for the second post. I'm sorry I was rude. I tend to get swept up the thrill of writing in an acusatory and inflamatory style without realizing how damaging it can be to my actual point, not to mention the person I'm attacking (though I should mention that when I said I thought the project was a waste of time, I meant that I thought it would have been a waste of time for ME, not Danen. Even drunk I'm not so dim to think that I know what's best for other people). SORRY. I pray for forgiveness in the name of the Jandek, the Sterling, and the Holy Corwood.
   
  So, stop if I'm wrong, but let me get this straight: Niagara Blues is not about Jandek at all, rather about Danen Jobe's impression of what the narrator of the Jandek songs might be like. So there's Danen's Jandek and Corwood's Jandek, and they're kind of like alternate dimension versions of the same person, and this is different from, say, the portrayal of Virginia Woolf in "The Hours" who is a fictionalized impression of a real person doing fictionalized versions of things the real Virginia Woolf did, or and different from the story "Treatment" by Juan Martinez, which features a mostly metaphorical Jandek writing songs the real Jandek never wrote. Right? In that case there's been a misunderstanding. I thought Danen was trying to mix what we know of the real Sterling Smith with his fictional Jandek in some frustrating Oliver Stone-ian mess. If this Jandek is entirely fictional, I'm cool with it. Which leads me to a few questions for Danen:
   
  1) Does your Jandek live in Houston?
  2) Is his name Sterling Smith? 
  3) Did he grow up in Providence or spend time in Ohio?
  4) Is Nancy a character? John? Eddie? 
  5) Did he record the songs starting in 1978 or before?
  6) Are any of the journalists and DJs he's been in contact with also used as characters? I'd love to hear your fictionalized versions of the phone conversations with Irwin Chusid or George Parsons, just to name a couple. 
  7) Does your Jandek ever end up performing live?  
  8) Does he write seven novels and burn them?
   
  A few more thoughts: Is Corwood's sanctioning of the project a signal that we should all make up our own Jandeks? He's hinted at that idea in the past- remember he told one guy "your imagined story would likely be more interesting than anything we could provide" or something to that effect. Perhaps that's how we wants people to look at his art. And that's cool- really cool. In fact, I think we should follow Danen's lead and all write Jandek books, or make Jandek movies, or a Jandek play. Jesus has multiple different biographies, why not Jandek?
   
  I've been hashing around my head a coming-of-age tale in which two young friends venture off to Houston one dull summer day determined to find Jandek and get them to autograph their copies of Six and Six...  
   
  F. Hardy

 		
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