We need some more Chuck Palahniuk film adaptations.

[MacGuffin]

Fight Club Writer Pens Hard Hearts
Source: Variety

Fight Club screenwriter Jim Uhls and former MGM executive Yalda Tehranian-Uhls have launched production company Peculiar Films and teamed with Hyde Park Entertainment for its first production, Hard Hearts.

Written by Uhls, the darkly comic crime actioner concerns a bounty-hunting couple who must chase down their most dangerous prey while planning their wedding.

The film is being prepared for production next spring.

Peculiar is also developing Thornley and Oswald by Stephen Barnes and Fool That I Am, written by Uhls and Knarik Koop. Uhls is also writing Flicker for Darren Aronofsky at New Regency and Gideon's Force for Imagine Entertainment at Warner Bros. Pictures.

[BonBon85]

I finally got around to reading Diary. I enjoyed it, but it's not one of my favorites. One qualm: the letter at the end was a bit unnecessary.

I went to the Union Square reading, and Guts is hilarious. I didn't get anywhere near passing out/feeling sick although many people around me had to put their heads down. I'm desensitized. Unfortunately the reading was packed and Chuck couldn't get to most of the questions, nor could he individualize every book he signed.

[budgie]

I finally got around to reading Diary. I enjoyed it, but it’s not one of my favorites. One qualm: the letter at the end was a bit unnecessary.

I went to the Union Square reading, and Guts is hilarious. I didn’t get anywhere near passing out/feeling sick although many people around me had to put their heads down. I’m desensitized. Unfortunately the reading was packed and Chuck couldn’t get to most of the questions, nor could he individualize every book he signed.

Why do you think the letter is unnecessary? Isn't the shift outside of the narrative wrapping up the whole leaving your mark theme, as well as turning it from a woman as silenced victim story into something else?

I've been following Chuck's phone-ins, and the readings sound hysterical. I'm keen to see whether it'll be the same with a British audience, cause I can't quite see it somehow. Maybe I'll pretend to pass out to gain attention if it's a bit reserved.

[BonBon85]

DIARY SPOILERS

I just thought the letter seemed like something out of a novel intended for preteens. It seemed like something more suited to an R. L. Stine Goosebumps novel. I see that it gives the novel a slightly more optimistic end, but the final entry has already made it clear that Misty knows that the way to prevent these events from happening again is to make them known to the world instead of hiding them. It seemed like the letter was beating you over the head with the idea that she was letting people hear her story.

[budgie]

Well, I already said I thought it was clumsy, but I can see reasons other than narrative for having it (such as the idea that Chuck has edited, which makes the ending less straightforward and 'happy', more ambiguous and 'real', as is Chuck's tendency). Since the whole book plays around the idea of different realities bleeding into each other I think Misty's writing had to escape the confines of the world of the novel.

[MacGuffin]

Another fainting report:

Hey folks, Harry here with Bebop_chick and her brief report from Chuck's reading and signing at Columbia University. What on Earth is he reading... what spoken words can POSSIBLY cause 25 people to faint? This is a modern age. I would believe the people at these events have read Chuck's work before... What has he written to force their concious brain to simply shut down? That's astonishing to me. I must see/hear him read this short story GUTS... That's insane! Here ya go...

Hey Harry-

Bebop chick here - just wanted to let you know that I just got back from Chuck Palahniuk's signing at Columbia University. He read the now-notorious short story "Guts", causing his head count of individuals who have fainted during the full stretch of his American tour to rise to 25. Uniquely, the second person to pass out this afternoon actually fell forward into his chair, and was brought down onto the floor. After he came to, he started screaming at the top of his lungs (sounded like he'd had the crap scared out of him). I promised Chuck I wouldn't disclose too much info, but just thought I'd let you know that his upcoming anthology will prove to be everything it's hyped to be and more than you can fucking imagine.

On the Spike Jonze note - yes, Chuck DEFINITELY has spoken enthusiastically with Spike about an "underground movie project" after he is finished with his book tour (if Spike has not found another author before then - which I couldn't contemplate a reason for). He also shared a couple of other stories of friends, and examples of tales even his incredibly liberal publishers decided to censor (thanks to my question, of course) . . . there were numerous other goodies, surprises, etc. . . but I can't divulge too much. Any more questions . . . ? In the words of Chuck, I need that "like I need teeth in my ass-hole".

Au revoir,

Bebop_chick

[MacGuffin]

From Entertainment Weekly:

A Knock Out

Fight Club author on why he's never attended one. And what Chuck Palahniuk's fans really want to know about the enigmatic creator of Tyler Durden


JOIN THE 'CLUB': Palahniuk's first novel was one of those rare books that fans actually fought over

Once again, Chuck Palahniuk is seducing audiences with a tale of blood and guts. And the author of Fight Club, the bruiser anthem behind the cult movie, is beat up something good this time, his assailant a crystallized mass of evil burrowed deep within his whimpering bladder. ''I go to take a leak and, oh my God, I'm bleeding to death,'' he tells a Portland bookstore crowd of 200-plus. ''It's like Carrie. And I've got another kidney stone. Right now I'm on half a Vicodin. So go ahead: Hit me.''

And the crowd goes wild. Palahniuk (pronounced Paula-nick) is making a three-night promotional swing through local bookstores to promote his hometown travel guide ''Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland, Oregon,'' and details of his bladder infection kill. His fans -- many of whom are young men, unemployed, or making do on minimum wage, tattooed and pierced, with black Sharpie pen on their nails and cut-off Dickies and red laces through their Chuck Taylors -- lap up his stories, so thrilled are they to be in their hero's presence. See, they didn't really read before. Maybe some Marvel comics or fantasy novels, maybe some Bret Easton Ellis. But they saw this movie Fight Club and something took hold and suddenly they're buying hardcovers and standing in line for three hours to meet a writer.

Dallas Webb, a 22-year-old struggling with borderline personality disorder, made the two-hour drive from Salem, Wash., to get his books signed by the master. Their exchange is clean and cordial and now Webb needs to sit down. ''This is a HUGE deal for me,'' he says shakily, embarrassed by his cotton mouth and trembling pierced lower lip. ''He's been the big influence on my life for the last couple years. I don't know, he's helped me a lot...the whole philosophy behind the movie. It wasn't just about violence, it was about how you can feel so alone in life and so abandoned and rejected by everything that you have to resort to violence to feel real.'' Like other hardcore fans, Webb flirted in the past with back-alley fight clubs. (One British kid wrote Palahniuk to say he'd officially changed his name to Brad Pitt's character, Tyler Durden.) And like others, Webb has self-mutilated in homage to Fight Club's infamous lye scene. To pay the evening its proper due, he'd poured superglue on his right hand and a buddy sprayed it with accelerant. His resulting chemical burn, a cracked, pink mess, is a source of pride. ''This makes me feel like I'm connecting with what I love. I have passion.''

Such earnest fanaticism propels Palahniuk's subversive novels, like Choke and Lullaby and the latest, a conspiracy horror story called Diary, onto the best-seller list. And at readings Palahniuk knows how to milk the love. He bought 45 masks of the WWE character the Undertaker at the dollar store and throws them out to the crowd, promising that ''these masks are excellent for sex!'' He signs everyone's books (''To Drew -- the best cellmate ever!'') and stamps the pages with ''Property of Oswald Men's Federal Penitentiary'' or ''Property of Dr. B. Alexander Sex Reassignment Clinic.'' He gives the crowd what they want -- and they want outrageous stories about acting up and getting loaded. They want to know when the next Palahniuk novel will bust its way onto the big screen. They want his personal e-mail address. They want to hear about his famous friends, like Trent Reznor and Marilyn Manson. Palahniuk loves to talk about Manson -- Manson this, Manson that -- and his painted-on shtick. ''It's almost like watching somebody do drag,'' he says. ''Because when he's up there doing his big nihilistic thing, it feels funny to watch him. Because I see it as this very put-on costume and persona.''

Chuck Palahniuk, 41, hasn't been in a fight since 1995. ''When I first used to tour,'' he says, ''guys would come up and say, 'Where's the fight club in my area?' and I would say, 'There isn't one.' And they'd say, 'No, no, you can tell me, you can tell me.' Or they would come and they would say, 'Is there one of these for women?' And I'd be like, 'There isn't one of these for men. I made it up.' And it breaks their hearts, it breaks people's hearts.''

Which is not to say that Palahniuk - who was raised in Burbank, Wash., a farming town without a gas station, in a trailer marooned across the street from the Burbank Tavern - doesn't have a family tree draped in violence. His paternal grandfather shot his grandmother to death before turning the gun on himself, Palahniuk's then-3-year-old father hiding under the bed. Palahniuk's parents, after years of messy, loud fights, split when he was 14. His dad, a railroad man and a great lover of drink and women, was shot and killed a week shy of his 60th birthday by the ex-husband of a gal he'd met through the personal ads.

"I started taking Zoloft after my day was murdered," says Palahniuk. "That was the year the Fight Club movie came out, same summer, and so it was a way to keep functioning and meet a lot of obligations. It was the best of times and the worst of times. [Zoloft] sort of kept me in the immediate moment. It didn't allow my mind to wander into a lot of tangentail negative thoughts about the trial and the murder and goddammit, the story of my father growing up and oh, if the sonofabitch hadn't placed that ad, you know, if he'd known what he was walking into, it just kept me from spinning off into all those different directions." His father's murderer rots on death row, "but he'll probably be appealing the verdict for the rest of our lives."

Knowing his dark history, and the irreverent, angry tone of his books, you might expect a man with menace in his eyes, someone ready to go off the rails. But in person, Palahniuk carries himself like a pussycat gentleman, eager and gracious. He took hard to swearing during his 13 years as a diesel mechanic at Freightliner Trucks (where he worked full-time until 1998), but he's sick of curse words and rarely lets one fly. Instead he uses milquetoast expressions like "Yes, Virginia" as in "Yes, Virginia, I have a kidney stone!" When he gathers with friends, it's for food and drink and board games like UNO or Trivial Pursuit. ("Hey, I hear Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston have game nights too!") He wears loafers and khakis and reading glasses. "People are surprised that he's not some tattoo-ridden guy who's just like 'F--- the government! F--- this!'" says Dennis Widmyer, the affable 26-year-old creator and webmaster of the site www.chuckpalahniuk.net, otherwise known as The Cult. "My first view of him, he looked like Gordon Geeko, he had that slicked-back hair, very tall, good-looking, well built, and I was like, 'Huh? I don't get this.'"

Sting's album Brand New Day is in the CD player of Palahniuk's pickup truck. Wearing a Boston terrier T-shirt in honor of his two pups, Imp and Chick (Manson owns Boston terriers too!), he's driving up to Hood River, Wash., to show off an $800,000 castle he's interested in buying. Depending on whether the movie rights to Diary sell, Palahniuk hopes to purchase the castle and turn it into a writers' colony. ''Boy, I'd like to create a structure for my old age, since I don't have kids,'' he says. ''And also to provide that for other people as well, so that there's a sort of faux family of people devoted to a common passion.'' The fifth floor of the castle is a beautiful open space, with four skylights, that looks down on the White Salmon River. ''Can you imagine a better space for a workshop or a reading?'' he asks, bouncing on the balls of his feet. ''People would pee.... Manson would love this! He would pee!''

''Writing gave me the world,'' Palahniuk explains later, so he wants to extend a hand to other frustrated scribblers. If he hadn't hit it big with Fight Club, he'd be just another schmuck clocking in at some crappy job. ''I would be a really alcoholic person because that's really big in my family,'' he says. ''Until I started writing, every Friday was about going out for that big act of denial where you drink so much that you forget the fact that you have to go to work on Monday morning.'' Now he wakes up every day at 4 a.m., ready to wrestle with his passion for patterns and words. He listens to the same song on repeat, maybe Radiohead's ''Creep'' or, for Diary, Depeche Mode's ''Little 15.'' He's happiest when he's onto an idea for a new book, so he's going to keep cranking out one or two a year.

Life is sweet. So much more than his blue-collar roots, his working-class days, could have predicted. But the pressures of celebrity nip and bruise. Like Manson, Palahniuk takes heat when kids copycat. "A lot of 4-H clubs on the East Coast," he says, "they decided not to raise sheep. They decided to have fight clubs instead, and now it's a big scandal and I'm getting blasted for turning 4-H into a fight club." He swears he doesn't get puffed up by such acts of imitation. "It depresses me a little that people are so unoriginal...they're modeling their acting out after this prepackaged commodity."

Then there's the rightous finger-pointers who take shots when he doesn't live up to his anarchistic alter egos. Last year, The New Yorker hosted a reading party, and Palahniuk says he didn't know Bacardi had sponsored the event. When his mug later showed up in a rum ad, some fans cried sellout, and the alternate press ran articles carping that Tyler Durden would never shill liquor.

And there's the endless touring, where long days end at midnight with damp club sandwiches in indistinguishable hotel rooms. Despite his gleeful performances, Palahniuk discourages his friends from attending his events. He's tired of the dog and pony show. "You start to sort of read without reading it," he says. "Boy, that's easy to do with some of my Fight Club stuff. You just run it off like a little tape machine, or a Teddy Ruxpin."

He spends hours each day personally answering reader mail, sometimes including odd packages with Jesus night-lights and cheap rhinestone jewelry. But then people want second and third letters. They want intimate relationships. So at a recent University of Oregon book event, he had to think fast to shut a fan down. ''We're in this huge auditorium, full of people,'' he remembers. ''A kid way up in the top says, 'Sooo, uh, Mr. Palahniuk. Could you tell us something about your private life, maybe your private sexual life?' In front of 1,800 people! And it felt like, Okay, I have to think on my feet, what a great, fun challenge. So, I'm like, I was so proud of this, 'Well, actually, uh, I've chosen not to talk about those aspects of my life, blahblahblah, but what did you have in mind?' It was such a funny turnaround, it got a huge laugh. The kid was mortified.''

Turnarounds are a gas, especially when you get your pals in on it. ''When reporters call my friends, my friends start lying: 'Ah, yeah. He lives in a castle! He's a heroin addict!' And so they tell these contradictory stories, so it's fun for them.'' When the press makes references to Palahniuk's wife, everyone has a big giggle. ''My lovely wife!'' he smiles. In fact, Palahniuk has no wife, and declines to discuss his personal life on the record, preferring to keep his fans guessing (which they're not shy about doing). ''I just don't want the spotlight pulled away from my work,'' he says.

The Cult grows. On Aug. 26, when Diary hit stores, www.chuckpalahniuk.net received more than 250,000 hits. Aspiring filmmaker Dennis Widmyer has run the website, which is now advertised on Palahniuk's book-jacket flaps, out of his parents' home in Hickvill, Long Island, since 1999. He says he's not obsessed with the author; if he's obsessed with anyone, it's the model Millia Jovovich, thank you very much. But he doesn't have a steady job, nor does he make any real money from the site, even though he spends the majority of his days online.

The message boards are rabid, with topics like "Has Chuck Changed?" and "What Would You Do If Chuck Killed Himself?" The typical Cult member is a teenager, says Widmyer. "They're young, they're naive and their first dose of literature, real literature, is a guy like Chuck. And it's very liberating for them, and almost turns into a religion. They can get so wrapped up in some philosophy that Chuck puts in his book that if Chuck does anything to go against that philosophy, he's a total hypocrite and should be burned in hell." Later on, with five IM sessions about Palahniuk going, Widmyer says, "I think this world he created is now coming to get him."

Palahniuk doesn't go to the website. Too creepy. He already has enough on his mind, without worrying what people are saying about him behind his back. He suffers badly from insomnia. His record is 15 days. Sleep eludes him, and always has. "My parents used to fight a lot," he says, "and I think they fought a lot at night, and they would turn the television up to hide the sound of their fighting. Yeah, The Beverly Hillbillies really masks that! So in a way I just hated falling asleep with all that unresolved tension in the next room."

It was during a mean bout of sleeplessness that he stumbled upon the idea for Fight Club. These days, when he's staring sandy-eyed up at the ceiling, he'll pretend that he's falling alseep in God's hands (Palahniuk was raised Catholic). Or he pretends that he's dead. "I'm dead. I'm in a casket. I don't have to do anything. All the pressure is off. Every time I breathe out, I'm going to be more relaxed. I focus on the 'You're dead, boy, all bets are off, everything's okay and it doesn't matter.'"

[budgie]

That's lovely.

[bonanzataz]

Aspiring filmmaker Dennis Widmyer has run the website, which is now advertised on Palahniuk's book-jacket flaps, out of his parents' home in Hickvill, Long Island, since 1999. He says he's not obsessed with the author; if he's obsessed with anyone, it's the model Millia Jovovich, thank you very much. [/size]

it's "Hicksville" and model/ACTRESS MILLA Jovovich

those people

[MacGuffin]

it's "Hicksville" and model/ACTRESS MILLA Jovovich

those people

Yeah, sorry. Those are my typos. The website article didn't have the complete one from the magazine, so I had to transfer what was missing (a lot actually).

[bonanzataz]

oh. in that case i'll let it slide.

[budgie]

Exactly one hour till I see Chuck in the flesh. I'm so excited.

[ono]

Whoa, cool.  According to this, Chuck Palahniuk is going to be on Conan on Thursday, October 30th.  Thanks to tremolosloth for posting the URL in another thread.

[RegularKarate]

Well, Budgies off on one of her no Xixax kicks, so this won't be as fun, but I finally read my first Chuck P book (I know, it took me a really long time to get around to it).

I read Survivor... and I liked it... but I want to know... the people who's favorite book ISN'T Survivor, what is?  Because I was expecting something a little better.  I mean, it was funny... but it was a lot like Fight Club (I've only seen the movie, of course) and it didn't leave me saying "Wow, that was a great book" like I had been lead to believe.

Also, what's the deal with some little high-school goth kid thinking it was funny that I was buying a CP book?  He was over near the shelf, looking at Diary and I reached around him to pick up Survivor and he started giggling and whispering to his girlfriend.  Then they proceeded to follow me around the store, trying to stay sneaky about it (failing miserably).

Maybe I'm not hip enough to be reading his shit... that's the impression I got from this little prick... are most of his fans snobby little dicks?

[MacGuffin]

After his appearance on Conan last night, I wanna hear more about his readings for the public, especially the death by masturbation tales. Did he talk about that, BonBon? And what is "Guts" about?