The Lightning Room With Christopher Cokinos

Christopher Cokinos explains Why I Want To Fuck Rupert Murdoch to me (spoiler alert: it combines scruffy and scrotum).

1. What do you imagine Rupert Murdoch smells like?

I think he smells like a lot many of us- Gillette and Old Spice but he probably likes cinnamon gum. He thinks it covers up the lobster bisque he had at lunch. You decide.

2. What do you think of Rupert’s twitter feed, do you follow?

I’m not on Twitter because he is.

3. Imagine Fox News as a wild animal. Please describe what and how it eats.

Fox News is a genetically engineered wolverine escaped from a lab in Delaware. It is a weasel. It is sometimes called a skunk bear or glutton. Unlike its truly wild kin, this creature will not take prey larger than itself, though it imagines it does. In fact, it takes no prey at all, feeding exclusively on carrion and, if near a cereal factory, on high-fructose corn syrup. Peeing on its food first, the gen-mod Fox “wolverine” (code name “Quick Hatch”) grumbles very loudly over its meal before snouting down into the most rancid, most sweet parts first. It is messy. When it is being watched by Ann Coulter, the creature mews, imagining she hungers for strange, transgressive things. It waddles up to her and vomits as a gesture of beckoning.

4. When I read this, I get the feeling I’m watching someone else’s secret home movies. Why do I feel that way?

Because you are.

5. My favorite adjective in the last paragraph is chapped, because it almost sounds nice–like ohh what a lovely chap–but it isn’t. What’s yours?

Scrofulous. A truly underutilized word, it brings together a sense of scruffy and scrotum.

6. Imagine you’re J.G. Ballard reading this piece and seeing the tribute. Write 150 word telegraph to yourself from him.

“I knew you when I knew Traven. You, placental, if that. Now stealing from me. I know you love me- that is, my work; personally, I don’t think we’d get along- and that you often think of how I thought of swimming pools, of sound-sweeps, of cars. I know you have a swimming pool. You should drain it and etch it with your own obsessions. Murdoch? Murdoch, Reagan, two spawn of prisons. Australia. California. I’m thinking suddenly of Nancy fucking Frank. I like it. Your piece, I mean. I was wrong. We might get along. You live in a desert, and we could go on a drive to one of the many mountain-tops with towers in the West. We could send messages in the air that no one hears or bring a hacker along and get some noise in the signal, the crawlers on the screens showing something shocking because it’s true.”