THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL BOOK NEVER PUBLISHED?

Everyone knows that banning, or burning a book results in increased interest and sales. But what would happen if the publisher, and everyone involved with the making of the book, were slaughtered mercilessly? Preferably starting with the artists, and excluding the author.

Would it be even more astonishing, and profitable if the victims were massacred by disciples of Mahatma Gandhi?

Those are the questions I had to ponder long and hard a week and a half ago, just five days before my book, THE RIFF n RAFF REBELLIONS VOLUME 1, was scheduled to launch.

Well, that’s a fib; I knew damn well that such an atrocity would boost interest and sales of the book. So, the questions I actually had to ponder were: was it worth it, and if so, how could I convince my publisher that it would never happen, and hope that it did?

Okay, that, too, is a fib, because I did not believe, for a second, that publication of my book would result in mobs of murderous Gandhians laying waste to the office and everyone inside. Nor, for the record, did the publisher, but no argument could convince the other conspirators that there was any point risking it.

Now, i have zero doubt that my silly/serious book will be controversial, if it becomes widely read. But I could not have imagined that having an illustration of Gandhi DJing a dance party would be the most contentious thing about it, and I am endowed with a fuckin’ eh wild imagination.

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, we will never know just how insane Gandhians would become by seeing an image of the Mahatma spinning some vinyl (and it’s not as if I was the first to come up with the idea).

because we have agreed to kill the cover.

So, for those of you – too few, boo hoo – who were anxiously awaiting your chance to read my magnum opus (thus far) are going to have to wait awhile. How long awhile? Fucked if I know. This is India.

If you really don;’t know what I mean when I shrug and say, this is India, let me see if I can explain in a way that will amuse you, and hopefully not result in me, or anyone I know, being disemboweled.

When I leave here, wherever I go, I am going to open an Indian restaurant. And I’m gonna name it… TOMORROW. I will name it TOMORROW because, no matter what you order, expensive or cheap, complex or simple, you ain’t getting served until TOMORROW. And everyone employed at the restaurant will be an artist (so, you may not get your meal until NEXT FUCKING WEEK!).

I swear, the only job Indians finish is fucking. And even in that, they stop for tea. Three times, if you’re not quick about it. So, if you are getting jiggy, hot and heavy, down and dirty with someone from the land of Gandhi (aka TOMORROWSTAN), and they get up and just walk away in the middle of all the passion, you’ll know why: because it’s fucking tea time.

I’m gonna be an asshole, and leave you hanging, scratching your heads and wondering WTF?, for the moment, but when we pick the story up again, I will explain just why it is not absolutely beyond belief that Ganhians might have killed us all, if we went ahead with the cover.

For now, good people, I leave you with this, which I know to be true, from more experience than i wish i had gained over the course of my life, so far: FEAR IS THE MOST PERNICIOUS THING IN THE UNIVERSE.