09.23.09 WERNER HERZOG TO OPEN UNIVERSITY OF HUGE BALL HAVING

(Werner Herzog on his first honeymoon)

The news everywhere today is that awesomely insane director Werner Herzog is opening a film school.  It’s really more like a series of weekend-long guest speaking engagements that he’s charging people to attend, but if Werner wants me to call it “Rogue Film School“, I will, because I’m scared he’ll bite off my nose and then tell me I don’t understand poetry.  Here are some awesome facts about the Rogue Film School, starting with the mission statement written by Werner himself:

“The Rogue Film School is not for the faint-hearted; it is for those who have travelled on foot, who have worked as bouncers in sex clubs or as wardens in a lunatic asylum, for those who are willing to learn about lockpicking or forging shooting permits in countries not favoring their projects.  In short; for those who have a sense of poetry.  For those who are pilgrims.  For those who can tell a story to a four-year-old children and hold their attention.  For those who have a fire burning within.  For those who have a dream.”

I’ve been a sex worker in a lunatic asylum, does that count?  Or am I going to have to take a class in remedial pilgrimage at community college?  Fine by me, man.  I’ve been to community college.  Fulla sluts.

Additional facts about Rogue Film School:

• The Rogue Film School will not teach anything technical related to film-making.
• Related, but more practical subjects, will be the art of lockpicking. Traveling on foot. The exhilaration of being shot at unsuccessfully. The athletic side of filmmaking. The creation of your own shooting permits. The neutralization of bureaucracy. Guerrilla tactics. Self reliance.
• Censorship will be enforced. There will be no talk of shamans, of yoga classes, nutritional values, herbal teas, discovering your Boundaries, and Inner Growth.
• At the end of the seminar, you will receive a signed copy of “Conquest of the Useless” by Werner Herzog, as well as a Certificate of Participation.

That last part sounded a lot more awesome before I realized “Conquest of the Useless” was the title of Herzog’s memoir.  It works much better as the title of a diploma.  If, say, my MFA in creative writing was called “conquest of the useless”, they at least couldn’t be accused of false advertising.  Anyway, Werner Herzog scares me, because I could easily imagine myself becoming a nazi if I had a crazy, impossible-to-please, paternalistic German like him shouting at me all the time.  What?  Sure! Of course I’ll shove these Jews in the oven! Would that finally prove I’m not faint-hearted?  Would it, Dad??  Uh, I mean commandant.