There should be benign deities who would send ravens to pluck out one’s eyes so such sights could be avoided.

I did not need to see my friend make an ass of himself. And I sat there thinking, for a wonder, is this what a vast segment of the American viewing public truly accepts as “the rebirth of conversation”? This endless babble and confluence of self-serving “celebrities” who warm studio sets with the indispensable intelligence that they’ll be doing Pal Joey at the Country Squire Dinner Theatre in Lubbock, Texas from June 12th to 18th?

And I could not contain my sorrow that my friend had been driven mad by television, to sit there having been gulled into thinking he was having a “conversation” before so many millions of moon-white eyes in darkened bedrooms. But this time I will not inveigh against the Monster Video; that was the fulmination that served to introduce my previous collection of stories, Strange Wine.

No, this time I would speak of conversation; of speaking to the true and universal darkness that fills so much of our souls. Of mortal dreads and the value of such terrors as I present here.

I do a considerable number of college lectures every year. It helps pay the freight so I don’t have to write television ever again. From my lips to the ear of god…or whoever’s in charge. And frequently I will say something about the human condition that seems perfectly rational and proper to me, because I know we all share the same thoughts. Invariably, some feep in the audience will attempt to pillory me with the stunning accusation, “You only said that to shock!”

My response is always the same:

“You bet your ass, slushface. Of course I said it to shock you (or wrote it to shock you).