Category Archives: Friends & Acquaintances

May 29, 2012

An interview with Amy Adoyzie

By welcometoflavorcountry

Amy Adoyzie is a fine lady who I know of through the magic of Razorcake. We finally met this past summer in Portland, Oregon, after knowing one another for many years, and she is just as awesome in person as I figured she’d be.

Illustration by Amanda Kirk

When you went to teach English in China, did it help you understand your parents any better by living in that culture?

It helped me to understand what I knew about them, but not necessarily who they are. If that makes sense.

Sort of, but can you expound upon that?

The thing is that my parents didn’t grow up in China. My parents were both born in Vietnam. But we’re ethnically Chinese. I think the mainland Chinese that live there now weren’t raised much different than my parents because of the Cultural Revolution. People my parents age would have lived through that. They’ve had a really different upbringing in that way. My parents had to go through a war in Vietnam. So in that way it’s different.

It didn’t directly tell me more about who they were but more in an indirect way. The way I can explain it is like this: Before I went to China my parents didn’t want me to go. I think there were a lot of reasons, but I think one of the main reasons was that they wondered why I would want to volunteer in a developing country. I know that China is becoming a huge economic powerhouse, but there are many parts of China that are very underdeveloped and people would consider them a developing country. There’s this notion that my parents came here so I could have a stable job and earn a stable income and not to go back to the native country and live and work there. So that’s something that showed me who they are.

When I was getting ready to leave they were really worried about me and how I would survive there. They were concerned I would get hurt or harmed somehow by thieves or bad food or whatever. My mom told me that she saw some story on the news about how they re-use broth. When you’re done with your soup they’ll pour it back in the pot and heat it up again. Things like that. They were worried I would get ripped off. So it wasn’t so much cultural things there that showed me who they are as it was how they felt about me being there that showed me who they are.

They were being paranoid and over-protective of me and actually very negative about me doing this. They also don’t have this idea of volunteer service. I think that’s because of where they came from and how they got here which is more of a dog-eat-dog culture.

Were they South Vietnamese?

Yeah. They both lived about three hours from Ho Chi Minh City.

So they came after the war was over?

Yeah. In ’79.

Did they come directly to Los Angeles or did they move around a little before settling there?

I don’t know if you want to hear about how they got here.

Sure. Whatever you want to talk about.

My mom and dad didn’t know each other in Vietnam. Things there were pretty dire, though. My mom told me about how they had to eat roadkill once – a dog that got hit by a car. Things like that.

I guess a boat pulled up to shore – I don’t know if this is true, but it’s the story they told me – and they literally had a split second to decide if they wanted to get in the boat. They knew it was a refugee boat and there was only so much room. That boat would take them to Thailand and then they would get processed through Hong Kong and then they would get sent to America, or wherever.

So, my mom, who is the oldest of six children, and her brother, who is the second oldest, got in the boat. And my dad got in the boat too. That’s how my parents met. My mom had another boyfriend at the time, but she got on the boat. The way I heard the story is that she didn’t even have time to say goodbye to her parents.

My mom has terrible motion sickness and so my dad helped my mom with her sea sickness. And when they got to port where they process you, my mom had the choice to go to Australia where she had an uncle or go to the States with my dad. And she chose to go to the States. So, my parents weren’t in love when they came here. I think my mom and dad got together for survival’s sake. They weren’t in love in our Western, romantic sense. I think they were in love in another way.

So they went to LA because my dad had a brother there and that’s where I was born in Chinatown in Los Angeles.

How did you get into music and writing, since I’m guessing it wasn’t instilled in you in your home life?

I think I just wanted to escape. I think I found that through the Arts. Either watching TV or things I learned at school. I just wanted to be someone else. I always felt like I didn’t fit in with my family, and I didn’t fit in with my community. I created these worlds. I started writing when I was in third or fourth grade. I would write these stories about this curly, permed, blonde-haired girl. I’d draw her and her name was Angela because that seemed like a white person’s name. She was popular and a cheerleader and her friends were always jealous of her. Her boyfriend was a football player. I drew these stories out and then I never showed them to anyone. I made book covers for them out of construction paper and put them together like they were books.

Nobody recognized I wrote until I was in sixth grade. My parents had bought an electronic typewriter and I decided to type out my class’s yearbook. I had no idea what a yearbook was and I viewed it abstractly from watching TV. So I wrote out all these weird stories about my classmates. Just totally random, made-up shit. The sports section had all these stories about how our teams played others schools, but I didn’t know anything about sports. All I knew was about basketball because my uncle liked to watch the Lakers play and so I’d be writing about baseball and the final scores would be 89 to 92 because I didn’t know any better.

I would write totally random, fake stories about my classmates and it was just for me. But one time in sixth grade I had re-written the Christmas Carol with my classmates in it. And I showed it to my teacher and she loved it so much she had me go into another classroom and read it for them. And around that time I showed them the yearbook I had written and everybody thought it was super funny and interesting. And then I thought, “Oh, this is my thing now. I like to write silly stories about people I know.”

I also think that in Junior High School I got totally into reading terrible young adult horror fiction. Did you ever read Christopher Pike?

I’ve heard of him, but I don’t know if I’ve ever read anything by him.

I’d read his stuff and then before middle school I’d read Garfield and the Peanuts cartoons.

Oh god…

And I loved Beverly Cleary’s Ramona series because I identified a lot with Ramona.

Really?

Yeah, because she’s mischievous and stubborn and a know-it-all and a brat. And even if I didn’t show it all the time, I felt that way. And all the time I was reading my mom would see me reading and be upset with me. For my parents, they didn’t understand reading for pleasure. In their minds, you read to get knowledge so you can do your homework and get good grades.

Hmm. That’s interesting. So, we had talked before we started recording about making some changes in our respective lives. Do you have any you want to mention?

I really want to travel again. It’s been years. And I’m referring to serious travelling. I just want to pack my backpack and get on an airplane and go somewhere. But that’s also unsatisfying because it’s like traveling in vain. I have to be doing something, too. I have to have a purpose when I travel. So I’ve had to think and re-evaluate the things that make me feel good and purposeful when I’m traveling. I think one thing is helping to share stories of people whose stories don’t get shared. But I have to find those stories. I don’t know what those stories are. But that’s also sticky because I also feel like a very privileged American. It’s like, “Let me tell your story for you!” I recognize that there are citizen journalists in every country. They can tell their own fuckin’ stories. Who the fuck am I to tell their stories? I know I’ve told stories that haven’t been told before. I know they exist. I just don’t know where they are and if they are better equipped to tell them than I am.

I think I just think too much. I think about things to the point where I wonder if I should even do them. Some people miss that part of their brain where they don’t think enough and then they do some crazy shit. I want that to be removed from my brain so that I can act that way sometimes.

You don’t do any crazy shit anymore?

I do some crazy stuff now and then. I’ve been thinking of doing some more photojournalist things, but I don’t know what stories I want to tell. I’m just stuck.

Does this mean you’ve put away the idea of grad school for good or just for a while?

Probably for good because I don’t want to be in debt any more than I already am. A lot of people around me think that I don’t need it. I think a lot of people in my life – it’s not that they think it’s a waste of money, but that I don’t need to pay to learn these things.

I think if I were to go to grad school for writing, a lot of people would say, “Why would you do that? You can write.” In a way, I get that. I’m so stuck right now that I can’t imagine going to school for writing.

So, since I know your writing through Razorcake, I’m curious how long you’ve been doing the column for them.

Since 2005. It was crazy when I got that call. As a person who writes and a person who does zines, that was a big fucking deal to get a column in a punk zine like that.

Totally.

I wrote a column about how I ended up with the column and I was so much ballsier then. When I first met Todd, I told him I wanted to design a cover for the magazine. And Todd didn’t know what I could do so he asked me to do a layout first and he liked that so then I got to do some covers. And then I wrote one web column and Todd liked it and decided to put me on the roster.

Has anyone famous (at least in punk rock circles) ever reached out to you based on something that you have written in a column?

The thing about writing is that it is done in solitude. You write it, put it up, people read it, and the vast majority does not get in touch with a response. The columns I tend to get the most feedback on are the ones that are totally posi-core. People like that. People need someone to tell them that someone is experiencing a good thing in life and thus it creates hope for them. In the past two or three years since I got back from Bangladesh I think my columns have been complete downers and I recognize that, but that’s where I’m at right now. I’ve literally gotten zero feedback. I think you’ve written me a couple times but outside of you, nothing.

The one exception is this column I wrote that was probably my least well-received column. It was correlating something that Lauren Measure had written about sexism and punk rock. She pointed out how when men take their shirts off at shows it creates a sexist environment. So I wrote a column about how that small butterfly of an act does not necessarily create rape but that it contributes to a culture where it’s more susceptible to happen because it’s a patriarchal, male-centered culture where men are always allowed to assert their male-ness and female identified people are just supposed to be there to take it in.

So, I wrote that column and Todd and I got into a tangle about it because my first draft wasn’t that great. It was poorly written and not very tight. And he said, “If you’re gonna do this, you better have your shit together.” So I had to re-write it two or three times.

In my column I say that as a man, when you’re at a show, it might seem like a really innocuous act, and I can understand why you would feel that way, because that’s how we were raised. But there are people in that room who find that gesture very threatening. I’m not saying people who do that are rapists; I’m saying, “Think about what you’re doing.” Think about all the privileges you have as a male and in the punk rock scene, as a straight, white male. Your privileges are boundless sometimes.

In that same column, I wrote about how this young girl in Bangladesh was raped by her cousin and then she was lashed to death for adultery. I talk about another story of how this young girl in Texas was systemically gang-raped. I’m sure a lot of men don’t feel comfortable reading a story that talks about men taking their shirts off at basement shows and also these horrific acts of rape and death. But for me, at that moment in time when I read those stories and read Lauren’s story, I think culturally they work together. Maybe they’re thousands of miles apart, but culturally, I think there’s something there.

About male dominance.

And our culture and how men assert themselves. In a culture where half the people are not them.

I got a lot of shit from a lot of people about that, for sure.

But to get back to your question – sorry, I veered off track – there’s a columnist for MaximumRocknRoll named Mykel Board and he wrote me. He said he liked my perspective in my columns because I’m a woman but not too girly. But this column was ridiculous and he was calling me out on it. And he asked me if I wanted to respond to him because he was going to write about what I wrote in his column for MaximumRocknRoll. I was like, “Are you creating some kind of zine flame war?” I didn’t even respond. Well, maybe I’m responding now that I’m telling you about it. I don’t really care what some guy writes about what I said. It doesn’t affect me in my daily life.

What was his problem with the column?

He was also focused on the taking your shirt off thing. My point was that you should respect those around you and not take your shirt off and he said that if you’re a woman you should join in and take your shirt off. It was completely off the point of what I was talking about. I was saying that our culture is very unsafe in many respects and punk shows are theoretically supposed to be safe places and I would say the majority of women would not feel safe taking off their shirts anywhere – even at a punk show. So to say that you should liberate yourself and not adhere to these norms and join in on it – well, it’s not that easy. It’s not that simple. It was intense because he attached the column he was going to run and I just didn’t respond.

Wow. I don’t understand the taking off your shirt thing. I think maybe I would have when I was a teenager but I don’t feel comfortable enough with myself to take off my shirt. I don’t want people to look at my tattoos or my farmer’s tan. I don’t understand why dudes are so full of themselves that they would take off their shirts. You wouldn’t take off your shirt other places, so why do it at a punk show?

Personally it doesn’t bother me. But if I was a survivor of sexual assault and a bunch of men simultaneously take off their shirts and start dancing violently, it could be triggering. And I think that’s what Lauren was talking about. People who were upset about what she or I had written didn’t understand why it was that big of a deal and why we were being so sensitive. Well, it’s not for you to say how somebody else should feel. These things happen to people. Be respectful.

Well, I hope you continue to get more positive comments from your columns. If you do get negative ones, I hope they will be edifying to you in some way.

You know, for someone as sensitive as I am, they don’t bother me that much.

Do you think you would have been more sensitive to them in the past?

No, I don’t think so. I may be bothered by it for a day or two and then I let it go. Everyone has their own opinions. It’s not true of everything in my life as far as negative criticism. But as far as my column, whatever. It’s just a column in a punk zine. I’m not going to get too upset about it.

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May 7, 2012

An interview with Tim Showalter of Strand of Oaks

By welcometoflavorcountry

Tim Showalter is one of the few people I know who can fit in both the “friends and acquaintances” category and “musicians” category on this blog. We grew up in the same neighborhood together and I interviewed him a number of years ago before he became a full-time musician under the moniker Strand of Oaks. But for this interview we both agreed to focus more on the non-music stuff and see where it took us.

Do you ever miss teaching?

I miss the routine of it. There was a lot of gratification in seeing results in kids doing well. As a whole I don’t miss it that much. I think I was pretty good at it but not great at it. I don’t know if I’d go back to it. I’d like to work with kids but not in the form of a classroom teacher. Maybe something different. I always had a lot of big ideas with the kids but it was hard with the details. I think teachers are really good with detailed plans and day-to-day stuff and I like the larger arcs of where to take things.

I liked my specific job. I liked the school I was at. I think why I enjoyed teaching so much was because my school was so cool. It was a loose setting. I only had eight students every year and so I had a lot more freedom than a public school teacher.

What kind of school was it?

It was a preschool through eighth grade Orthodox Jewish School in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

What do you think you’d like to do with kids, then?

I’ve always been fascinated with working at a summer camp. Or working with curriculum. I really have no idea. I always knew I was good at it, but I got into music so I kind of lost trying to define what I should do with it. I stopped thinking about it as much. If I would have stayed at it a little longer I probably would’ve discovered it. Maybe writing kids’ books. Something along those lines.

Your undergraduate degree was in what?

Psychology and elementary education.

How has the psychology undergrad affected your daily life? How do you use it?

I don’t think I use it at all. It was a requirement for the school I went to. They required you to do both. You couldn’t just get a degree in elementary education. Psychology just fell in line. I just started taking a lot of classes. It was really interesting but I don’t think I could do it. It was too much science when you got down to it. I took a class on pharmacology or something and I had no idea what was going on from beginning to end.

You went to Wilkes University, right?

Yeah. I actually picked it because it was close to my apartment in Wilkes-Barre. It wasn’t some dream I had when I was fourteen. It was more about the proximity to where I lived. It was a great school but it didn’t have a lot of identity. It seemed like a school where a lot of people were business majors. It seemed like just a normal school.

Just a second ago you mentioned a dream you had when you were fourteen – what was a dream you had when you were fourteen?

When I was fourteen it was just Indiana University. That’s where everybody went. I knew for one thing that I never wanted to go to Goshen College (Goshen is where Tim and I grew up). From my earliest memories that was something I knew I didn’t want to do. College was such a utilitarian thing for me. I just wanted to get out of school and get a job. I probably wasn’t the best student. As opposed to somebody like you who just loves going to school, I was just ready to not be in school anymore.

But did you have any other dreams when you were fourteen? Not even things related to school, but what did you think you wanted to do then?

I don’t know. Probably be in Joy Electric. Be the touring keyboardist in Joy Electric. [laughs]

That actually leads into something I was wanting to talk about with you. (Note: Joy Electric was a Christian band.) What specifically happened with you to go from growing up and affiliating yourself with a lot of Christians – I guess I’ll say that because I’m hesitant to speak for you in regards to your religious beliefs – to not practicing that anymore?

I think I was a very emotional teenager. I was either lonely or sad and it was a pretty immediate gratification to be part of a community. I think back – and not to discredit people who think that way – and traveling around I think that I could’ve been part of the local hardcore community or the local skateboard kids in California. Something along those lines. What happened is that at that age the friends I had went to church and instead of drinking beer and skateboarding it was youth group. Even shows; there was no non-religious oriented things that happened in Goshen. They all had something to do with a church. I think it all had to do with where you grow up.

I got into it pretty genuinely and I also don’t know why. If you can get into it that much and easily get out of it, I don’t know how important it was to begin with. It was more like wearing a certain kind of clothing for me.

I’m not an atheist. I just don’t know. I don’t put a lot of thought into it anymore. I think a lot of people put so much thought into why they’re not thinking a certain way anymore that it seems just as strange as someone who wants to believe in something so badly.

There’s still times going on hikes and thinking of Lord of the Rings that I get those feelings.

Did you just say Lord of the Rings?

Yeah. Going out on hikes and thinking of Gandalf. I think that’s spiritual. I got really into Battlestar Galactica and I think I was about into that as much as I was into youth group.

And again, I have this tendency to make humorous situations out of serious things but I genuinely think those ways. It’s not just me trying to make a joke. It’s not me trying to avoid real emotions through humor. That’s how I genuinely think about it.

But was there some point where you thought, “I don’t feel like I identify with Christianity anymore?”

I think it was just moving away from it. When you live in places like Goshen or other parts of the country it’s what you do because it’s what your friends do. Just like a lot of friends may drink and so you drink. It’s not peer pressure; it just feels like location. It seems kind of natural.

I think if it would have been a deep desire and need I would have stuck with it. I don’t know if I ever understood it or culturally understood it. When I was at the Jewish school I related to Jewish practices. It was around me every day. I loved being around it. Maybe it’s community that I loved being around.

Well, I know for me it was moving away. It’s complicated though.

Yeah. I think it’s complicated for people who even believe in it [Christianity]. Another thing for me is that I have friends and family who really like it and I want to respect them for doing that. I feel people respect me for pursuing something weird like playing music for a living and I should just as much respect them for wanting to have stuff like that as part of their lives. I don’t understand it but I can see why they want to believe in that.

Have you run into anyone from high school that thought you were a certain way spiritually and you’re not that way anymore and has there been conflict over that?

I don’t think so. Most of the people I hung out with who were in those scenes and churches were all really cool people. I don’t see many people from that time but they were all pretty genuinely nice folks. The only time it gets weird is with the people that weren’t. Then, over the ten or twelve years it’s been since I’ve seen then they’ve got a lot more serious about church and that’s almost harder for me to relate to. It’s like, “Whoa! I guess you’re really into this now. That’s different.”

J [a mutual friend of Tim and I] and I were talking about this once and I was noticing this same thing and I said to him, “What’s up with all those people we went to high school with that were fuck-ups?” And he said, “Oh, they’re still fuck-ups, but they’re fuck-ups for Jesus now.”

Yeah, it feels like that. It’s like all the hippies who dropped acid started all those rock and roll churches. They wanted to keep that experience going but they had kids and were losing their hair and getting older. And let’s just try and find that same release and community.

Now, am I imagining this, or at some point did you want to be a youth pastor?

I think I probably did. It seemed like something similar to being a teacher. But I don’t think it was some inner calling as much as it was circumstance and what my proximity to people was and what you know. I wanted to do a lot of things. Ask my parents. My mind was changing constantly.

Do you worry about people who might hear this and think you sound flaky or insincere?

I think I’m kind of full of shit. I honestly think I am. Ninety-nine percent of the things I say are bullshit. I probably disappoint a lot of people and I look up to the people who don’t change their opinions but for some reason I always am changing and moving around. I’m always thinking about different stuff whether its music or books or other stuff I enjoy. I might be flaky. I might be flaky with friendships. I think I get really excited about things and then that excitement changes to other stuff and for my personal perspective it seems normal. “I’m just shifting into something else I’m really into.” There’s the people who never shift and are into some things their whole lives and I think some of that has to do with me probably being really good at being mediocre at a lot of things and not mastering anything. I think those people who can really focus on one thing can become great at it. It’s just not a quality I have.

I don’t know. Don’t you think you’d say that about music?

Maybe that is the thing I’ve found that I pursued to no end. Even in the past year I’ve realized I’m really good at this. This is the one thing that I’ve realized I got the equivalent of my doctorate in. Performing and making records and writing songs. It’s grown. It grew from a hobby and not being very good at it and especially in the last year or so it’s solidified as something I do well.

Two words for you, Tim: Birthday Boy. (This was one of Tim’s first recording projects.)

Yeah. I’m really glad I wasn’t good at recording because I had no idea how to make music. I don’t think I knew how to make music until about six months ago. It’s exciting now. Songwriting has changed for me. It used to be this thing that kind of happened. “I have no idea how I wrote that song.” To where now I know how I want to write a song and put it together. It’s exciting to me, creatively. It opens a lot more doors because it’s not so random anymore.

I’d like to go back to this flakiness thing. How does your wife handle that?

That’s another area of my life where it’s pretty stable. The focus on being married is consistent. She knew what she was getting into when she married me. It finally has settled since I’ve known her, especially. As I get older. There was a time in my from fifteen to twenty-two where I was changing every second, which I think is important for people to do that.

Socially I have really good friends that I keep as good friends and then I have this constant shift in social circles. Sometimes I just don’t hang out with anybody and sometimes I hang out with a lot of people.

Do you worry that the music business exasperates that?

It does. Sometimes when I’m done with a tour I don’t want to talk to anybody at all. I love connecting with people and talking with people but it does require you to say a lot of the same things over and over again. It’s not the fault of the people who are asking the questions and it’s not my fault for answering them, it’s just the nature of it. It comes to such an automated place that it’s just as automated as playing a song every night.

I definitely think that touring for an entire year changes you. You’re talking to so many different people and meeting so many different people where you get to the point where it’s like, “Man, I don’t know if I could meet a new person.” My wife wanted me to go out to dinner this weekend with some other people and I said, “I just don’t want to meet anyone new just now.” I’m kind of flushed right now with people.

Does it bother you to hear yourself say you’re full of shit?

I don’t know. Maybe it’s kind of healing. Hopefully it will help me change. It can also be seen as an excuse and it might be seen as me making an excuse to cover flaws I might have. I don’t try and make it that way. Maybe I’m not full of shit because I do mean what I say, I just change meanings a lot. When I am saying it I am very sincere but a year from now I might change again and it might be something different I really care about.

Somewhat related to that – what’s one of the biggest regrets you have in your life?

*sigh* Regrets. Going back to the flakiness thing – the thing that’s the least flaky in my life is my family. Moving around so much and pursuing music, the people who are the most stable and make me feel the most comfortable somehow get neglected the most. That’s a regret. Not being at nephews’ birthdays or having phone calls with my parents when they’re at their nice family functions and I’m not there again. I’m in San Diego playing a show or something. That’s definitely a regret.

How often do you get back to Goshen each year?

Not enough. Maybe one or two times. I need to do it more. The more I go back it’s great. But going to Goshen now doesn’t mean going to Indiana, it means going to see my parents. I don’t think Indiana holds much to it; it’s just good to be back with my family.

Are you still much of a drinker?

I’ve actually kind of cut that out recently. I’ve replaced it with seltzer for the time being. It got to the point where I was drinking a beer and whiskey and I just said, “I don’t need to do this so much anymore.” It wasn’t benefitting me whatsoever. It was just like everything else in my life; it was just a phase that I’ll probably go into again. For this day, this time you’re talking to me, I’m not into it much right now.

I didn’t know if you had been like, “The beer gut has gotten big enough!”

Yeah, I don’t really have the greatest skinny jeans body. Maybe I do need to work on it. I’m starting to look more like a bouncer than I am the guy who plays the songs. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or bad thing.

Whose hair is longer: yours or your wife’s?

Oh, my hair. It just keeps growing. The last haircut I got was in 2006. I cut it once for Locks of Love about three years ago. It just comes back. It’s always there. There’s so much of it. I was joking that in the summertime in that place underneath my beard around my neck if I put a thermometer down there it’d be about 350 degrees. It’s so warm. It’s like the same kind of climate as Laos in the summertime.

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April 9, 2012

An interview with Liz Prince

By welcometoflavorcountry

Liz Prince draws comics and lives in Somerville, Massachusetts. Recently, she and I sat down at a coffee shop in nearby Cambridge. She had coffee, I had tea, and we had a conversation.

How do you describe to people what you do?

I’ve always just said I draw comics and I’ve never gotten an adverse reaction. Some people think I mean newspaper strips, but it’s more books. I actually have a funny story: When my first one came out – I don’t describe it as a graphic novel, but my mom does and she was talking to one of her friends and said, “Liz has a graphic novel coming out!” and her friend said, “Oh, you’re okay with that?” And she said “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” And her friend said, “Well, graphic novel…like porn, right?” And my mom said, “No, like comics.” But I mean, there were boobs in it.

But they were cartoon boobs, so no one was aroused.

Well, I don’t want to stroke my own ego, but I think a couple of people got pretty aroused by it. [laughs] There’s this college professor that does this graphic novel “Reading Rainbow” class where the students are assigned to read graphic novels of their choosing and write a review. They’ve been posting them all on Tumblr and someone reviewed that book. I don’t know how old the person who reviewed it was, but one of their statements was “I saw boobs in this book and I wasn’t expecting to and it made it more interesting all the way through.” That’s probably the best thing anyone has ever said about my comics ever. I’m going to have to use that as a tag line on the back of my next book. I’ll also probably have to make sure there are some boobs in there for good measure.

[The band Minus the Bear starts to play on the coffee shop’s stereo.] I think this is Minus the Bear. Weird.

A guy from Santa Fe is in that band.

Are you from Santa Fe?

Yeah.

Were you born and raised there?

I was born here in Cambridge and my family moved to Santa Fe when I was six and then I moved back here to go to Museum (of Fine Arts) school.

How was Santa Fe?

I really hated it when I was really young because we lived 30 minutes outside of town and there was nothing to do. So my brother and I pushed each other into cactuses a lot. It was really great. But in high school I got involved with this teen art center that did a lot of DIY shows where kids were booking the shows. By the time I left I felt like, “I don’t want to leave! This place is awesome!” I had a really awesome community. But I don’t think I’d move back there until I was not ready to have a life.

Did you go to MFA school straight after high school?

No. I graduated in ’99 and then hung out in Santa Fe for another two years and worked. So I was a little older than everyone when I started college.

At MFA school it probably doesn’t matter much.

Well, it kind of did because I lived in the dorms my first semester and that really sucked. Being old enough to buy beer and everyone else isn’t. And you also hate everyone.

Why did you hate everyone? Because they were young and immature?

Or cause I’m old and stuck up. I really didn’t get along with my roommate at all. She had this 30-year-old gross boyfriend who would come visit her and say all kinds of racist shit to me. She was Hispanic and he said, “Did you think she wasn’t going to be able to speak English?” And I’m like, “I’m from fucking Santa Fe, dude!” He was the worst and she was the worst and so I moved out of the dorm after the first semester.

So you’ve lived in Boston ever since then?

Yeah.

So what keeps you around here?

I have a really, really good living situation where I don’t pay a lot of money to live in a nice apartment. So that’s what keeps me here. I’ve never been the type of person who has wanderlust. I like traveling but I don’t have the travel bug. I’ve only left the country once and I never went to Mexico and I’ve never been to Canada.

So where’d you go then?

I went to France for a comic book convention.

When was that?

In 2007. I have a publisher in France and he set the whole thing up.

How was it?

It was cool because I went to Paris with two friends of mine and we rented a little apartment and the comic festival was about three hours south of Paris. So they stayed there while I went to the comic fest.

My publisher told me about the hotel we were going to be staying at and said that there were four beds and that my friends could come if they wanted to. So I was thinking it was going to be some swanky-ass place – and I guess this was normal for a roadside motel in France, but it had four bunk beds that were tiny. And the bathrooms were self-cleaning. So everything was open and plastic and in the middle of the night it just sprays itself. There were a couple other American comic creators with us. One of the guys got up to pee in the middle of the night and didn’t bother to turn on the light in the bathroom and the thing started. I guess if you turn the light on it won’t start because it assumes it’s being used. So he got sprayed with some horrible bathroom cleaner in the middle of the night. But it was depressing and desolate in that hotel. The people in the room next to us were chain-smoking and watching TV all night. I don’t even know if what was between our rooms was a wall. It was not what I was expecting. I had this totally romantic view of France and that just shot it in the foot.

Also, being vegetarian over there is kind of a bummer.

So do you have fans in France? Were you surprised at the turnout?

There were definitely a lot of people that were interested. It’s really hard to not be able to communicate with the people who are talking to you about your work. My publisher was acting as a translator the entire time. I got asked some really bizarre questions about my personal life. I thought my publisher was fucking with me and then he had to repeat it to me in English.

What kind of questions were they?

Well, my first book is about my relationship with my then boyfriend so it’s all a bunch of stories like that, so people were asking in-depth questions about that. And some woman said, “I read somewhere that the only reason you dated this guy was so you could write a comic about it.” She was basically saying, “You’ve been accused of this. How do you plead?” So yeah…that’s France. And that’s the only place I’ve ever been. Except for right here!

Cambridge? So the earlier story about growing up in Santa Fe was all a lie?

Yes. I just wanted to make myself sound exotic.

[I mention an upcoming trip to Taos, New Mexico.]

Yeah, I never spent much time in Taos. I went to Girl Scout camp close to there.

You were a Girl Scout?

I was a Girl Scout. And the funny thing: I lied to get all my badges.

Oh, do tell.

They give you this book – the Girl Scout guidebook. It has all the badges and shows you what they look like and so I chose the ones that I liked the way they looked the most. You have to complete a certain amount of tasks to get them and so I would say, “Yeah, I totally saw twenty wild birds and catalogued them!” I remember the one that I really, really wanted was the wildlife one that had a raccoon on it. Because…

I love raccoons!

Actually, I used to be really afraid of raccoons when I was a kid and lived here because they’re kind of scary and there was this tree across the street from our house that had a family of them living in it. I’d stand in the door at night and watch them going in and out of the tree. If we ever left the house at night my parents would have to carry me to the car because I was afraid a raccoon would get me or a slug would get me. Those were the two big fears when I was living on the mean streets of Medford.

So are your parents separated?

Well, my dad actually died in December, but they had been separated for…forever? I dunno. Funny thing about raccoons, actually – the world’s biggest raccoon tried to break into my apartment on the day my dad died. It was so big. It was the size of a horse.

It kind of ruins the story to tell you that it was a raccoon. But I live on the third floor and in my living room there’s a door that goes to the fire escape. It was probably midnight and I was getting ready to go to bed and one of my cats was in my bedroom and all of the sudden she ran into the living room and was staring at the fire escape door and I thought, “There’s someone or something on the fire escape.” I could hear them up against the door and they were trying to move the doorknob. I didn’t know what to do. There was a window and I was looking out it but couldn’t see anything. I knew that my friend was across the street at this big holiday party and if she just looked out the window she could see if something was on the fire escape. I called her and she was so drunk. I told her what was up and asked her if she could look out the window and tell me what she saw. Before she hung up the phone I could hear her say, “Let’s go guys! Liz needs our help!” I see her run out the front door across the street and she’s running and I hear her in the alley. And she starts running up the fire escape.

I was freaking out because I don’t know what’s out there. There could be some dude with an ax. I mean, I read a lot of Tales from the Crypt. And she’s running and screaming and all the sudden she yells, “OH MY GOD! NO!” And then the loudest thing ever is on the roof. I can hear she’s outside so I open the door and ask her what it was and she says, “There was an ape man!” I asked her, “Was it a person?” and she said, “I don’t know. It might be. I’m scared!” I didn’t know what to do so my friend told me to go across the street to where the party was so I went over there and we’re looking out the window and I couldn’t see what was on the roof. At some point my friend goes back to the window and says, “Oh my god!” and there’s this giant raccoon walking down the fire escape.

But this was the same day that your dad died?

Yeah.

Did you draw any kind of correlation between these two events?

So this is going to make me sound weird but I believe in ghosts. Why not? I don’t think you have to be religious to believe in ghosts. I think believing in ghosts is fun. It’s more fun than believing in no ghosts.

So you’re looking for the maximum amount of fun when it comes to your theology and spirituality?

Yeah! I like Buffy the Vampire Slayer so why not? So like I said earlier, I used to be really afraid of raccoons growing up and used to have my dad carry me to and from the car. Before he died I didn’t get to say goodbye to him but his girlfriend held the phone up to his ear so we could say whatever we wanted. So I basically told him, “If there’s anything else out there, let me know!”

So he was trying to break into your apartment!

Well, I told my younger brother that story and he said, “So you think dad’s a raccoon now?” And I was like, “No, asshole – I think he’s a dick who sent a raccoon to my house in the middle of the night. I think he controls them. I don’t think he is one.”  [laughs]

[laughs] Please tell me you’ve worked this into a comic somehow.

It’s on the docket.

Was there anyone who inspired or encouraged you to start drawing?

I don’t remember any sort of catalyst moment. I always drew. I have all kinds of stuff from when I was little, like a drawing of me holding hands with Luke Skywalker from when I was five, which is funny because I don’t even like Star Wars now.

Really? I’m surprised you’d want to go on record saying that. I’ll erase that from the interview.

No! You keep that in. That is a thing I want known! [laughs] But I distinctly recall believing that cartoon characters were real for the longest time. That’s what I wanted to be when I grew up: a cartoon character. Then someone told me they weren’t real and I was like, “Fuck my life! Now I have to re-evaluate everything!” I’m sure that it was more like, “Nuts!” and then I probably cried. I don’t remember. And then I thought I’d be an animator and I used to make a ton of flipbooks. But it took way too long to animate something. I’m not very good at it. There’d be a walk cycle and at the end my character would be really small. “It’s forced perspective! I’m walking into the distance! But still from the side.” When I realized animation was a lot of work, then I thought I’d go to comics. It’s like animation and cartoons but slowed down. You get to tell a story with words and images.

What are you working on now?

I’m working on a longer story. It’s the third issue of I Swallowed the Key To My Heart. It’s about breaking up with my first post-high school boyfriend, which I’m releasing as issues.

And my friends and I are working on this project called “Four Squares” where we each draw a short autobio comic every day for an entire month, and then we compile them together. The first issue was called Four Squares, the second was called More Squares, and the third, which I hope will be out in time for Boston Comic Con (I don’t know what everyone else’s status is on finishing) will be called GORE SQUARES because it took place in October and we think we’re really fucking clever.

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February 27, 2012

Best & Worst Jobs #2

By welcometoflavorcountry

A while ago I did a feature where I interviewed people, asking them what their best and worst jobs were. I thought it was fun and so decided to do another round.

Sara Billups

Sara and I went to college together. When I think of Sara, the first thing I think of is the Misfits song, “Mommy, Can I Go Out And Kill Tonight?”

What’s the worst job you’ve ever had? Why?

Writing dry-as-bone articles about information technology, fitness, endowments, you name it, for a poorly-designed alumni magazine in the Midwest. The rag was stuck in the 80s, and I was stuck attending homecoming brunches with wild Indiana sports nuts driving banana yellow convertibles.

What’s the best job you’ve ever had? Why?

Right now, working as a writer from home. It’s certainly the scariest and the best at once. I take that back. Motherhood is both the wildest and most insanely excellent thing I’ve ever done. And it was pursuing the classic work-life-balance thing (such a trendy topic right now, I admit!) that compelled me to leave my stable job working for an small art book publisher. But see, I have a kid. I like him a lot. I wanted to be around him more. So when the chance came to leave my job and work remotely for a company in the Bay Area, I took it.

The last several months have been a hearty lesson in the beauty of losing control. I’m writing blog posts, press releases, and SEO web content for a few clients now, and also writing a column about kids and food for the Seattle Weekly’s Voracious blog.

Roy Culver

Roy is Roy. Like the dude even needs an introduction. Okay, fine…

What’s the worst job you’ve ever had? Why?

For me, there’s a razor thin line between love and hate when it comes to employment. Responsibility and I, well, we have often had a strained relationship. I like to go to bed when I want and get up…occasionally. I am responsible enough to realize that I can’t spend every day in bed watching Netflix but I’m still grieved by this fact. I know that some people like their work but, as a friend said to me once, my resume is basically just a list of all the things I hate to do.

That being said, out of high school I did a bunch of odd jobs but none more disgusting than making sausage at a local meat shop. It was winter break between semesters at the local community college and a friend got me the job. For eight hours a day I would stand around a metal table in a freezing room with other unfortunate souls and dump boxes of pig parts on the table, mix them with spices, grind them, and then make links out of the shredded meat. The thing I remember most was how cold it was – we could all see our breath and, because we were never given gloves, our hands would freeze from handling the meat. I also remember a guy who worked around the table with us who had a nasty beard and no front teeth. He’d regale us with stories of all the girls he’d had sex with and all the pussy he’d eaten. He referred to his beard as a “flavor saver.” I also remember spit constantly flying out of his toothless maul and into the meat as he talked. I hated that job.

What’s the best job you’ve ever had? Why?

I guess my favorite job was when I worked for a record label in southern California. I have been accused of being cynical, sarcastic and nihilistic but truly, compared to the crowd I worked with there, I must have seemed positively hopeful. There are so many incredible stories from that experience but one of the first that comes to mind is the morning when the executive assistant to the president who, having been given the duty of planning and executing the annual company retreat, called me at 6am on the day of the retreat to let me know that she was in the office parking lot, having been up all night doing blow, and needed me to come pick her up and take her grocery shopping. That was an adventure. There were also the meetings with Frodo, that little dude from Lord of the Rings, who decided he wanted to be a band manager and picked up one of our bands. That was surreal and, unsurprisingly, didn’t go anywhere. There are other stories of threats of violence from unpaid reggaetone artists, games called “Who’s in my Mouth?”, a coked up forklift driver, meetings with David Hasselhoff & Michael Bolton and on and on it goes. In addition to all the ridiculousness I also got to work with and sign some bands I really liked.

Adam Gnade

Adam is a musician and writer who currently lives in Kansas. I forget exactly how we met but I think it had something to do with an old website I had. I’ve also reviewed his fine book, Hymn California. You can read all about his life here.

What’s the worst job you’ve ever had? Why?

The worst job I ever had was watching people die. I was 19 and my girlfriend at the time did home-care for people with late-stage cancer. She didn’t want me writing and neither of us thought I’d make it, so when she got too busy I “volunteered” to take over.

At the stage my patients were at, there was nothing I could do but sit by their bedside and talk to them and give some kind of comfort at the very end of everything. It was a lot of waiting and a lot of quiet rooms and a lot of holding hands.

And they died. One by one. It was devastating.

There are people who can work jobs like that and they’ve got something both steel-strong and more gentle than anything I’ve seen. I wasn’t one of them.

That was the point I learned just how weak I am.

What’s the best job you’ve ever had? Why?

My best job was my very last non-writing/publishing gig. In the midst of burnout from the home-care job I got hired as a waiter in a retirement home. It was a proper post high school job–everyone as decadent and horny and stone-dumb as teenagers get. Busboys on acid. Pregnant 14 year olds. XXXXX and XXX and I leaving mid-shift to score beer and drinking it in the boss’s office. Terrible pranks. Blood on the walls. Darkness. Poor, doomed XXXX who did a barrel of speed and disappeared for three months and came back schizophrenic. Sweet, curly-headed XXXXX who took it on herself to “learn to give head” in the broom closet and ran through all of us and broke half our hearts.

The one I’ll never forget is good-hearted, gentle XXXXX who threw himself off the 10th story of our building the day his wife gave birth to another man’s child.

The place was called Wesley Palms. It was tragedy and lust and triumph and I miss it every day.

Ann

Ann and I used to work together at a library. I miss our Monday morning bitch sessions.

What was the worst job you’ve ever had? Why?

This is a tough question, because I’ve had a lot of jobs that weren’t that great. But it’s probably got to be the time when I was the personal assistant for a venture capitalist and his filmmaker wife. He worked in agri-business—you know, the world of GMO: Syngenta, Monsanto, all the people who bring us self-destructable seeds and chemical-ridden foods. His wife was usually high. He was besties with lots of famous people, and would always ask me if I knew who they were, like I was supposed to be impressed with everyone he knew: Daryl Hannah, Lou Reed, Adam Clayton. But I never met any of them, despite the fact that Daryl often came to stay with them. I managed his calendar and all of his phone calls. I ordered and mailed out birthday gifts for friends and family. I managed his cell phone plan and prepped his paperwork for tax time (which I wondered if it was a sneaky way to show me how much money he made). I was pretty much on call whenever I wasn’t in the office—like the the time I had to come in on a Sunday afternoon so he could dictate an email to me. Or the time I had to be at work at 5:30am to dial the phone number for him on a conference call to India. I even scheduled bikini waxes for his wife! I also handled all of their RSVPs for both his business engagements and their personal party invites. They were, in fact, invited to Fidel Castro’s 80th birthday bonanza that was canceled because he was hospitalized. Remember, when Fidel turned over control to his brother Raul? That one… Anyway, they required me to have a college degree for the job, but then called me “Kiddo” every day. But they also expected me to eat at all of the fancy restaurants they ate at and shop where they shopped, despite the fact that they did not pay me the big bucks to do this job. It was just degrading….and oddly similar to The Devil Wears Prada.

What was the best job you’ve ever had? Why?

The best job I’ve ever had was when I worked for a 200-year-old membership library in Boston. There was a real sense of purpose at the place—the people who work there know that the place they work at is special. I was just a graduate student and learning the ropes, but was always treated like a real colleague, like I had something to contribute. Because I did! We had birthday parties every other month. We celebrated the re-opening of the terrace each spring with champagne (yes, during work hours). And I got to research and use rare materials every day I was there. I got to work with authors I knew and admired, who also respected me back. It was fantastic to walk by a Gutenberg Bible, or a well-known portrait of George Washington and to feel the history around you. But the kicker, the thing that made this job the coolest, is that the building is haunted. I did not believe in ghosts until I worked at this place and encountered one myself. But it’s true, I swear.

Julie

I interviewed Julie before. She’s still pretty badical.

What’s the worst job you’ve ever had? Why?

The worst job I’ve ever had was detassling corn in Illiniois. This job paid a lot for someone who wasn’t even of legal working age. I think I was 14 or 15. For those who don’t know, detassling is actually pulling the penis off of the male corn to make it into female corn so that the corn can have sex. Or something.

This is a seasonal job, taking place during the hottest months of the year. Your day starts before sunrise at about 5 am. Because there is dew all over the corn, you have to wear a rainsuit. My mom bought my brother and I the camo rainsuit because it was cheaper and ironically we stuck out like sore thumbs, which when you’re a self-conscious teenager, that sucks. You also have to wear a mask to protect your face from the corn’s leaves because they are sharp and cause a paper-cut sort of situation. So you look like you’re about to hold up and bank and you can hardly breathe. With gloves on, you pull the tassel out of every corn stalk going down the rows. As the day heats up, you have to get rid of the rainsuit and your clothes underneath are soaking wet. I really did not like this job. My mom forced us to do it because all of my cousins did it every summer and she didn’t want us to be the soft grandkids who never did backbreaking labor in the fields. This did nothing to harden my composition; I am still a wimp, just a wimp with nightmares about walking through endless rows of corn. And camo rainsuits.

What’s the best job you’ve ever had? Why?

I love what I do right now; I teach college and I do consultant work on the side. I love being around college students. They are idealistic and unaware of how the real world will eat you up and spit you out like an angry komodo rhino. I get to teach writing which I’m good at, and assign whatever I feel like reading and talking about. My consultant work allows me to be creative and I get to meet interesting people and travel. I don’t have to work very many hours and so I have plenty of time to live my actual life.

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February 20, 2012

Interview with Chris Estey

By welcometoflavorcountry

Chris Estey and I go back a ways. We trolled on the same message boards in the late 1990s, but didn’t really get to know one another until I moved to Seattle in 2006. While at first glance Chris may appear intimidating, he’s really an incredibly sweet guy with a great sense of humor. He’s also a fine writer, whose piece on Phil Ochs was part of Da Capo’s Best Music Writing collection in 2010. Chris has led a really interesting life and if you ever meet him, you should ask him to tell you the story about how he kicked Henry Rollins out of his bed back in the ‘80s.

What’s your connection with the documentary Spokanarchy!? How did you get to doing press for it?

I told you some stories about Spokane.

Yes.

Like the one about kicking Henry Rollins out of my bed. And Joey Shithead getting mad at me for chasing people with fu-fu haircuts at a party at the group house that D.O.A. was staying at. You know, after I lost my testicle.

[laughs]

Well, my parents were living in Spokane and I was living in Seattle back in the early 1980s. I was doing a bunch of political stuff over here like a Marxist-Leninist faction. I was doing a lot of protesting, like pro-abortion protesting and anti-Reagan war in Nicaragua protesting. So my parents had moved to Spokane from another town in eastern Washington, Kennewick, and I decided to go live with them because I had no money or friends left in Seattle after donating my life to the cause. I was an administrator for a group called North American Anarchist Network. So I thought I could go to Spokane and do that shit and I did for a little while until I basically got run out of town. While I was there I made friends with everyone who was in the movie. Basically everyone in the movie I know except some of the people who were in the bands later on. The principal filmmaker was Dave Halsell and he worked with four other people. It was a five-person team who did the movie. Dave was the guy I knew. Dave was in a band called the Sow. Actually, their full name was An 425 Pound Yorkshire Sow. It was a noise performance art band that would freak people out. And he was one of those poor unfortunates in the punk rock scene in the 80s who got sent to a Mormon boot camp. His parents were Episcopalian but they decided to send him to a Mormon boot camp in Utah. When I entered the Spokane scene everyone loved Dave. He endured a year of that shit and then eventually made his way back from Utah. So he was kind of a martyr to the scene when I got involved with it. I knew him briefly before he left and then when he came back.

When he got a hold of me, Spokane was having a bunch of reunions. Some people had emailed me and wanted to know why I wasn’t responding to peoples’ emails. And I’m not a big nostalgia guy. I had some very bad times in Spokane; most of them caused by myself. It was almost all my fault and I didn’t want to relive it. Then when the movie was done and I found out it was Dave, I told him I’d send him a list of publications where it should start being reviewed. I just thought it was going to be a punk rock doc but I knew that Spokane is weird so I knew it was going to be a weird doc.

While Dave and I were never particularly close back then, I respected him. He said he’d like to have some help with where it needed to go. And even though we hadn’t seen each other for almost 30 years we got together at the Elliott Bay Bookstore here in Seattle and spent five or six hours talking. He had read my interview with Steve Ignorant of Crass and knew I had handled the Black Angels and knew my work with Light in the Attic Records. And I changed my mind about being involved. I decided it would be interesting to be involved, especially since I had felt completely ostracized and cut out of that scene.

Why had you felt that way?

At some point in my life I felt that everyone in that town hated me. I felt I had been driven out of that town due to my behavior.

What had you done? Just drugs and drinking and stuff?

Well, without naming names, I’d do something like walk into a club and punch the bouncer in the face. I burned a guy on a speed deal and that guy has never forgiven me. I asked Dave why he was getting involved with me, because I was under the impression that people still hated me and he said, “I don’t think so.”

So this kind of came out of nowhere, but Roy told me that you did this movie with Calvin Johnson called Have You Ever Grown A Beard? What was the impetus behind that?

I do have to ask you – have you ever grown a beard?

I’ve tried but it doesn’t turn out well.

Well, you’re a good-looking man, so I guess you don’t need to hide.

So what happened was I got that story published in Best Music Writing 2010 –

Phil Ochs?

Yeah. It was from a fanzine and never intended to be in any mainstream, commercial thing. I sent copies to a bunch of different people and one of them was Daphne Carr, who at the time was editor at Da Capo. So it got published. And then a year ago this woman, Kathy Wolf, meets me. She’s going out with Pat Thomas, who wrote Listen, Whitey! They’re kind of a creative team and they decided to do a movie.  I don’t know how they came up with it, but they thought it would be interesting for me to interview Calvin Johnson. They didn’t know if I had ever met Calvin Johnson before.

Kathy never told me why she chose Calvin and I as a topic. I actually didn’t know Calvin. I knew of him. There’s a venue here now called Columbia City Theater and it’s a beautiful old, historic theater. Kathy wanted to film a documentary there. The idea would be to have me read from the book, so that people knew who I was and then have me interact with Calvin. My take on it is that it’s just a film version of the live fanzine I like to do. As opposed to reading discographies and discussing specific histories – basically I take the place of the audience because I’m as big as the audience collectively. [laughs] And I sit up there and I usually get very drunk and ask knowledgeable questions but also fucked-up questions. I make it meaty but also weird where anything can happen. And that’s what I tried to do with the Calvin piece.

So how do you feel about it? Are you happy with how it turned out?

Oh, I’ve never seen it. [laughs] It’s showing in Portland on February 24th and Calvin’s going to be there. But because I don’t leave within four blocks from my home I won’t be there. But I will make it up to Capital Hill in Seattle for the March 5th showing at the North West Film Forum and I think Calvin’s going to make that too.

It’s a short film – about a half hour at the most. I’ve seen some clips and they’re very good. I thought it was interesting Kathy gave me a bottle of Jack Daniels about halfway through it. I was reading from the book and I was sweaty and itchy, but once I had the liquor in me I was doing better. And then we did the interview. I think the first question I asked him was “Have you ever had a beard?”

Was he receptive to this process or did he seem taken aback to being interviewed by you?

Calvin is a gentleman. He’s a sweetheart. When he initially met me I was sober and we were able to talk and things were going very well. I think after I ingested the Jack Daniels and he had performed he seemed a little bit nervous about what was going to happen and my questions may have been a little strange for him. And there was no audience. I think if he had had an audience to play to it would have been a different thing. But what had happened was, because of the nature of his persona, which I don’t think is contrived at all, when it was juxtaposed with mine I think it created an interesting energy. Which is I overshare and spill out everywhere. And his work is appreciative of that. He’s passionate about flakes and losers and freaks like me. So as different as we look from each other, I think people will be interested in the juxtaposition of the similarities and the differences.

How was it different than the other interviews you’d done in a similar setting with Eugene Robinson from Oxbow, Steve from Crass and David Yow from Scratch Acid?

Not very because Calvin and I are really passionate about what we’re doing. And even though Calvin isn’t as aggressive musically or socially like those other guys are, he’s still an extremist. He’s still a freak. All the people I’ve interviewed and all the people I’m interested in are people who try and re-define reality in their own way. They’re not really happy with how society projects itself on other people. People don’t want you to be strong or mindful because it takes away from how they can manipulate you. The stronger you are with yourself, the more off-putting it will be for those people who don’t share those energies. So every single interview I’ve done, including this one with Calvin, has been with someone who has basically said, “Fuck you! I’m starting a house where all the weird kids can hang out.”

It seems that music has affected you more than any other thing in life and I’m wondering why you think that is.

That’s an interesting question. I think all the stuff we’re talking about – it all leads to one thing: Punk really wasn’t about punk. A lot of this was about learning a way of life: how to live and create a reality that isn’t imposed upon us by others. You can get all socio-political about it but I don’t think that’s necessary. I think reality – not just society, but reality – really sucks. If I turn on the TV, the most asinine crap will be screamed at me and I’m supposed to accept that as reality. When you realize how lonely people are you realize reality isn’t doing them very much good. Whatever they’re clinging to in terms of sanity, it’s all really based in vanity. The only thing we can do is to find mutual self-indulgence, which is to really enjoy the passions of others and ourselves and make that as mutual as possible. And if it seems reckless or childish, then I think that’s probably it as its most transcendent. Being there for other people in joy and in the pain is the only meaningful moment in the world.

I think in punk rock – as Jaime Hernandez of the Love & Rockets comic said – punk rock was how you drank your coffee in the morning. And he doesn’t answer that – how you drink your coffee in the morning. It’s how you do it. And what it is, is that you wake up and you know the day is fucked and you’re basically going to kick at the darkness as hard as you can. Or laughing at it as hard as you can. But the reality is such a sheer, horrible burden, so fuck the shit out of it. Just enjoy the fuck out of the moment. Whatever you’ve been given now is awesome, but it’s also on loan and hopefully your shoelace won’t break. But it will. [laughs]

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December 19, 2011

Interview with Danielle

By welcometoflavorcountry

Danielle and I have known each other for near ten years now. We met through the record label and zine I used to run. This past summer we got to see one another for the first time in forever. It was really nice. She’s now married and has a son and is still a good egg.

What surprised you the most when you were pregnant?

It really surprised me that I felt awful the entire time I was pregnant. I was really looking forward to the physical experience of being pregnant. I don’t know why. I thought it was something unique to my body that I could experience. It happened that I got pregnant very easily but then I was sick the whole nine months to varying degrees. I just didn’t feel right in my body. At the end of my pregnancy I developed really high blood pressure and it’s very dangerous for the mom. It’s basically like your body has an allergic reaction to the pregnancy and the only cure for it is to get the baby out. I had been planning to have a natural birth at a birthing center but because of this condition I developed I had to be induced and give birth at a hospital. I had a really difficult, awful birth. So from start to finish, nothing I did made any difference. It didn’t matter how many pre-natal yoga classes I took or organic avocados I ate. I did everything the right way. But it didn’t turn out the way I hoped.

So you’re really excited about having another kid? You’re going to get right to it? *laughs*

Yeah, I’m never having another child. *laughs* That being said, I am VERY grateful for my son and love him very much.

Besides raising a child together, what’s something that you and your husband bond over? Do you have a hobby or activity you enjoy doing together?

It’s going to sound very bizarre but one of our mutual interests is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. During the years we lived in New York we went to a lot of lectures and museum exhibits about Jewish history or Middle East politics. My husband keeps up with the news on the modern aspects of things and is knowledgeable about that, and since I have a background in medieval studies I am knowledgeable with the core roots and how these things developed and emerged in the past 1000 years or so.

It’s an area where our interests converge. Obviously we don’t spend as much time on it as we used to but that’s definitely an interesting thing we have in common. We’re Zionists but we’re also very much in favor of a two-state solution.

You had told me before that you and your husband were Zionists but I didn’t know how much that permeated your life and how staunch you were about that.

It’s something we think and care about a lot. In the years since we met there have been so many turning points where we had hoped the situation would improve. There have been many times along the way where we thought, “This is going to be it and maybe something positive will emerge.” And unfortunately we haven’t seen it so far and I really pray that in my lifetime I will get to see a Palestinian state and an Israeli state side-by-side.

So you’re not a militant Zionist then?

My husband said that perhaps a better way to describe our type of Zionism is to say that we’re anti-anti-Zionists. We think Israel has a right to exist and for some people that’s a major sticking point – they don’t think Israel has a right to exist, but I definitely do.

That’s a pretty extreme position to think that Israel doesn’t have a right to exist.

Well, there are even people in the Jewish community who don’t believe Israel has a right to exist.

What’s Israel supposed to do? Just say, “Alright, we’ve had enough of this. We’ll just stop being a country”?

It’s hard to erase that many years of a democratic nation but there are people who would be happy to do it, which is really too bad.

That’s very bizarre. Keeping with Jewish things, though – and I don’t remember if you told me this or I read this on your Facebook page – are you teaching Hebrew now?

I’m a teaching assistant in Modern Hebrew language at the University of Pittsburgh.

What’s that like?

Believe it or not, it’s really fun.

I would think it’s fun.

Yeah. I never thought of myself as someone who was great at Modern Hebrew. I’m much better at medieval Hebrew and Biblical Hebrew. It would be like someone who was much better at Shakespeare teaching modern English. I love my students and am having a really good time with them.

When you were just an English speaker and before you knew any Hebrew, how hard was it when you just started learning it?

For me, I’m very good at learning languages so it wasn’t that difficult. I think for most people, when learning a language that’s not written in the Latin alphabet, it’s just about learning the alphabet. When you learn that, it’s much more clear. As far as Semitic languages, it’s one of the easier ones to learn. For example, I found learning Modern Hebrew much easier than learning Modern Arabic. Although I’m still good at reading and writing Arabic, the grammar and pronunciation is a little more intricate than Modern Hebrew.

How many languages do you know?

*laughs* I know a lot of languages. It depends on what you mean by “know.”

Well, okay – how many can you speak?

I’m very comfortable having conversations in Spanish and Hebrew. I can read and write Arabic. I could tell you the structure of a sentence but I couldn’t tell you the vocabulary. I don’t have much conversational Arabic.

As far as ancient languages that I’ve studied, I know Latin very thoroughly, so because of that I can read the medieval Romance languages. I’ve also studied modern French so I can fake it a little bit. The only language I have not successfully mastered is German. I failed my German translation exam for my PhD – twice, in fact. If I ever want to finish my PhD I really have to work on my German.

But you told me a while ago that you had put that to bed?

I did. I didn’t finish my doctoral program and I’m trying to decide what I’m going to do next: whether I will do teaching, look for another job, or go back to working on my PhD. It’s a little unclear what’s going to happen next.

What’s your favorite Jewish holiday?

My favorite Jewish holiday – I have two answers. My favorite holiday to celebrate as a non-parent is Purim because it’s sort of like the Jewish answer to Carnival. You’re meant to get very drunk, everyone dresses up – it’s a day when you can turn the notion of right and wrong on its head. Especially living in New York City it is a really fun holiday to celebrate.

As a parent, Hanukkah is the most fun. Even though from the religious perspective it’s a very minor holiday, the rituals around it are really nice: lighting the Menorah, eating different treats and playing dreidel. My son has always really loved Hanukkah.

What’s something you used to believe in but no longer do?

I think this question kind of goes back to what you were asking me about with my pregnancy. I think I really did use to believe that if you do a good job and work hard and do everything the way you’re supposed to, then things will work out the way you planned. I learned and firmly believe that there are certain things you don’t have control over.

I know I come from a place of privilege to be able to say this, but most things have worked out okay for me in the end.

I feel incredibly privileged to live in a country where with my medical problems I was able to live and come through it and same thing with my son – that he was able to get the medical attention he needed. We do have a very good life, in the end.

So is there an overall philosophy that permeates your life?

It’s probably a mish-mash that permeates it. For me it’s Judaism – Jewish culture as much as Jewish religion. My mother-in-law has offered me a lot of support and she has studied a lot of different traditions so I’m sure some of the Buddhist teachings that she finds nurturing, in a trickle-down way, are nurturing to me too.

If somebody – God or whomever – told you that you had a week to live but you couldn’t spend it with your family, what would you do?

I’d probably want to do a combination of traveling and studying. I feel that there’s so much in the world that I’d like to see but I haven’t seen and so many things I want to read or want to know or want to learn but I haven’t had the chance to yet. In daily life it’s having a family that can make those things less of a priority but if I knew my family was going to be well and taken care of, then that’s probably what I would do. There are some beaches I’d like to swim off of.

What would you say your biggest fault is?

Not asking for help when I need it and trying to take on too much. And thinking I can do things better than other people and not giving them a chance to do it.

Hmm. That sounds like some bosses I’ve had.

Yeah, it’s definitely a personality type and it’s unhealthy for me and unhealthy for those around me. But it also becomes a dynamic. Once you’re set into that pattern in certain relationships then it becomes really hard to change it. It’s definitely something I think about and try to work on.

In what way do you think you’ve changed the most since we first met?

I was actually thinking about that. I was wondering if you were going to ask me something along those lines. In certain ways I feel like I haven’t changed at all. I was always a very nurturing person. So obviously the things that have changed since we first met was that I got married and had a child but what that changed about me is that it gave me something concrete to focus those tendencies on.

And the same thing with other aspects of my personality. When we first met I had just started grad school, I’ve learned – I’ve learned whole new languages – and I’ve studied and taken whatever drive or hunger to do those things when we met in our early twenties to fruition. I don’t feel like it’s completely to fruition because I don’t think I ever will but I feel like I’m further along on the same path than I was.

Well, you’ve definitely changed, but in all good ways. Just natural things: you’re more mature and you have your shit together pretty well – in fact, you have it together very well – but I would hope that is natural for most people as they get older.

I would hope so too. I think I feel happier than I did when we first met. I think when we first met we were both – it’s actually making me tear up a little to remember.

Why? Because you were so unhappy?

Not that I was unhappy but I was just remembering very intensely what it was like. Just that feeling of searching for something and trying to figure it all out. We had both just finished college and we didn’t know what was happening next.

Yeah, it was scary.

Yeah. But I think that’s why we made friends and why our friendship was intense the way it was, was because we were both in a similar place of trying to figure things out or wanting to figure things out.

I’m still working on that.

I definitely feel like I am too. Completely.

I will say that one thing I have learned recently and I’m sure you can attest to this is that getting married and having a child really gives you direction in your life.

It does. Because it’s not just about you anymore. You always have to consider them. I think that was good for me.

I think it’s good for most people. I think that’s why you have a lot more people who are flipping out and going nuts because in ages past for many people it was religion and their family and work. And now, a lot more of us don’t believe in God or gods or whatever –

Or in the same way that people did in the past.

Yeah. Or we don’t find as much fulfillment in our work. I think it’s left a lot of us – myself included – trying to figure out our direction. But I think that if you have a family that can help provide a lot of direction. You know what you’re doing is to look out for your family and to make sure they are happy.

Right. And to just make sure that their basic needs are cared for.

Yeah. I’ve got to say I think you’ve turned out pretty damn well, Danielle.

Aww. Thanks. I think you have, too.

Eh, that’s debatable. But that’s a whole other thing. Anyway…have you ever had a really horrible job?

I don’t know if I want to admit this and put it out there for posterity but did you know that one summer I worked at Wal-Mart?

No, I didn’t!

The summer before I went on my study abroad to Spain, I worked at a Jewish home for the aged in Youngstown, Ohio, my hometown. I worked there during the day and at night I worked as a “management intern” at Wal-Mart. I totally did it for the money. It paid $12 or $14 an hour, which at the time was very good. This was in 1999.

At the time Wal-Mart was recruiting college students who spoke other languages so they could continue on their path of global domination. I spoke Spanish. I think it was an actual program where you worked at a Wal-Mart store as a management intern in the United States and then if you signed on with them when you graduated they sent you somewhere and you helped open stores for them in whatever country.

I had no intention of ever doing that. I just needed the money because I wouldn’t be able to work when I was in Spain and I paid for all my own expenses in college. I just needed the money to live off of while I was in Spain. And I had to do the other job during the day for my service learning fellowship. So yeah, I was a manager at Wal-Mart. *laughs* Hard to imagine, I know.

Well, this kind of leads into my final question – and you can’t use what you just said as the answer – but do you live with any regrets?

*laughs* I don’t regret the summer I spent at Wal-Mart because I feel like I got what I needed from them, which was money, so I could study. And I don’t have to support them ever again if I don’t want to. Do I live with any regrets? I really try not to. If I notice there’s something I’m regretting I try and change it in the now. If I start to feel regrets about relationships or interactions or dynamics then I try and see how I can change that feeling so it doesn’t keep happening.

I don’t live with any regrets, either, but it’s always weird to talk to people who do.

It seems like it would be a heavy burden to bear.

Yeah. It’s a lot easier just to let things go, if you can.

And accept it. And if it happened in a way you’re not happy with, then –

Go to therapy.

Exactly! *laughs*

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September 13, 2011

Interview with Alex Wrekk

By welcometoflavorcountry

I’ve known Alex Wrekk for many years from being a part of the zine community and through the great Russian blogging website, Livejournal. She does the zine Brainscan and has published two editions of Stolen Sharpie Revolution, a DIY zine resource. She also runs a button press company, Small World Buttons. Recently, she put me up for a few days in her spare bedroom when I went to visit Portland, Oregon. It was then that we did this interview. After speaking with her I realized that a number of the questions I asked were answered in issue 26.5 of Brainscan, so if you want to know about her relationship with her partner or how she affords to live, then check it out!

Tell me about the next trip you’re taking.

We (Alex and her partner Paul) really wanted to go to Riot Fest.

What is Riot Fest?

It started a few years ago in Chicago and we went and got to see The Dead Milkmen and Screeching Weasel and all those bands you listen to when you’re a teenager. We saw that The Dead Milkmen, Weston and Plow United were playing the one in Philadelphia this year. Paul has family he hasn’t seen before in New York and my sister wanted to go to Riot Fest so we thought since we’re going to be on the east coast we could go to the Richmond Zine Fest, too.

For someone who has never been to a zine fest – I know they’re all different, but in a general sense – can you explain what they’re like?

Some are a single day, some are two days, some have workshops and others don’t. Mostly all of them are in a big room or a couple of rooms that have tables in them. And on the tables people are selling and trading zines. Some people have different amounts of other things they allow. The (Portland) Zine Symposium (which Alex helps run) says that your table must be 51% published titles: books, zines, comics, etc. Our tables are generally cheaper because you don’t make a lot of money selling zines.

Besides your own fest in Portland, what is one you really like?

I like the Richmond one because I’ve been there – this will be the third time I’ve gone. I like the London Zine Symposium. Besides being in a different country it was in a trendy area of a big city. It was people wandering in not knowing what was there, but it’s been going so long. It’s the same with the symposium in Portland. It’s kind of this institution, but this was a very large city, unlike Portland. I got to meet a lot of my friends who do zines in the UK.

Brainscan Zine Table at the Portland Zine Symposium

How often do you get people who know nothing about zines asking you what they are about? Not just people at a zine symposium but in general.

I feel like I’ve built a little castle for myself where I don’t go outside of that except for this woman who lives next to my parents’ river house. She was like, “Your mom talks about these zine things and I don’t understand. Can you tell me more about it?” Everyone who has been in zines long enough has that 30 second talk: “Well, they’re kind of like these self-published magazines and you can do anything you want to. Some people do comics, some people do writing, some people do collage, and some do non-fiction or fiction. You can do it anyway you want. You don’t have an editor telling you what to do. It can stop there or it can be something bigger. You can trade it with other people or you can put them in stores and distros.”

It’s often asked, “How do you make money off this?” and that’s not the point. Zines are a hobby. For me they are. Some people may use it as a stepping-stone for a bigger thing but for me it’s a hobby and for being part of a community.

On a more personal note, what do you think is your biggest fault?

I’ve had a really hard time speaking up before. I’ve gotten a lot better at saying what I mean or finding creative ways to say things and not be hurtful about it. Sometimes it’s difficult.

I don’t remember people very much. I meet a lot of people so it’s hard to remember. You meet people and they’re in different cities each time and I feel like a jerk.

I’m not as social as I could be.

You were saying to me yesterday that there are some days you don’t leave the house.

Yeah, definitely. There are days I don’t leave the house except to go on a walk or something. I have a handful of really close friends and I have a lot of people I work on projects with but sometimes I wish I was more social but I just don’t have the energy for it. I think part of learning my own boundaries is realizing what I can do and what I can’t do. I really don’t wanna go out and party and go to shows and drink a lot. I do a lot of work creating a house that I’m really comfortable in and a space I’m really happy with that – why do I want to leave? Maybe that’s a fault, too. I don’t know.

Do you think that’s a product of getting older or is it just you?

No, I think it’s probably a product of getting older. I don’t feel like I’m doing it because of obligations like children or because I have a demanding partner. It’s just me.

What’s something you used to believe in that you don’t believe in any more? (This question has been a problem. I keep asking it in interviews and it seems like people keep defaulting to religion so if you can think of something else that would be great but if not that’s okay.)

Yeah, religion is an easy one. I used to have a lot of faith in people’s intention. Like, “I didn’t intend to hurt you,” and I would say, “Oh, okay then.” But the thing is you did still hurt me and hurt other people so your intention doesn’t really mean anything if you don’t see how it was hurtful. I used to believe, “Well, that person didn’t really mean it,” but then I realized that they keep doing the same thing.

I also used to believe in punk. Not to say I don’t believe that it can do good things, but I don’t let that blanket who that person is. I’m sure as you get older and as I get older you have lots of friends who aren’t punks, although I do find it difficult to be friends with people who don’t come from that background. So this whole part of my life is the base of my ethics and my beliefs. How do I explain that to someone who didn’t live it?

That’s why it’s hard to be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t understand that. They’ll say, “I’ll just stop in McDonalds for a sandwich,” and I’m like, “No.” I’m a minimalist, too, which goes back to my punk rock ethics so I don’t understand people who want to buy all kinds of stuff. Do you think there’s a way to overcome that or do you think that’s just the way life is?

I think you can create relationships where you can’t always expect your partner to like all the things you like or do all the things you do. But at the same time you have to be okay with that. And I know there are things that Paul and I have differences with and I feel no need to change him and he feels no need to change me. When something is threatening your boundaries you talk about it.

But it seems like Paul comes from a similar enough background that the two of you can relate.

Oh yeah. I feel really fortunate for that. Having someone who has known you through some of the worst times of your life and who still loves you after all that feels really good.

Have you ever tried dating people who weren’t in that similar ethic?

I dated a raver once.

How’d that work out?

It was very weird. It didn’t work out. It wasn’t over any consumer issues, we just were like, “Yeah, we’re not going to do this anymore.”

The DIY movement is something that is very contradictory to how our society is. And people don’t understand that. It’s kind of like a religion –

No, it is. We were talking about that the other day. I joke that I’m DIY by default. Part of that was my parents. My mom was really crafty and made things a lot. It is like a religion in the sense that your default is, “How can I make this myself?”

I think there are people who have a DIY approach to things such as computers or carpentry but they look at just that one thing. They don’t look at it as an ethic that underlies everything they do. But thinking about things outside the box with issues. How to approach your politics, where you eat, what you eat, what you wear – it runs a lot deeper to me than “I like to craft things on my own.” That’s a good start—

But it doesn’t filter into everything else you do. I think I’m really fortunate to live in Portland where there are a lot of people here like that. I don’t know whether it’s a trendy thing or not but there’s definitely a DIY spirit here.

Yeah, there are so many restaurants here. People here don’t start up a restaurant and make it into a huge chain. Maybe there’s a few of those, but…

I think Greg Means (creator of the comic zine Clutch) put it best when he said Portland is the kind of city where you say, “I have this great idea!” and a bunch of other people will jump up and say, “That’s a great idea! How can I help you?” Because they support that kind of industrious, DIY spirit.

There was a woman who just did a PhD dissertation in linguistics on zines and how people tell a story and the physicality and word choice. She sent it to me and when she did she said, “I didn’t understand how important DIY was and the mechanics of it.” Now she wants to go do more research on DIY and how it fosters these creative things.

How long has the idea of not wanting kids been instilled in you?

I’ve never wanted kids. At this point I like my life so why would I want to complicate it? I enjoy what I do. My sister doesn’t want kids either and even playing with dolls as a kid we would make these elaborate scenes but we wouldn’t interact with them. We weren’t concerned about the children thing but more about the space that they live in. She’s an architect now, so…

That makes sense.

But I don’t have any interest. I don’t see how it would better my life.

Do you think you have other reasons as to not wanting kids?

Well, we live in an overpopulated world with a finite amount of resources. It’s difficult because I don’t want children and can’t understand why other people don’t want children. But if they do, I really want them to want those kids. I want them to adopt kids. I want them to have kids that are loved and cared for and have two parents and I don’t care what the gender of the parents are. I just think it’s important for kids to have two people to count on. It makes me sad that there’s so little of that in the world.

It’s a difficult thing to talk about without sounding like a calloused jerk. I feel like this conversation can go differently depending on who I’m talking to. I don’t want my friends with children to think they’ve made a bad decision or that I judge their decision. It’s just a decision I have for myself and I don’t understand how it could pay off.

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August 23, 2011

Interview with Elizabeth McDonald

By welcometoflavorcountry

I’ve known Elizabeth since middle school and we hung out in the same circles in high school. We’ve both become very different people since then but I believe we have some similarities in the paths we have followed. I called her while she was at the airport in Orlando, Florida, waiting for her flight home from a residency for the university for which she works (Walden).

 

What is it that you are doing for work?

I teach online, is the short answer. I teach mental health counseling, so the majority of my time is spent sitting in front of a computer. I’m fortunate enough that the organization I work for has requirements for residency and they are one-week intensive, so I get to go to those and teach.

Why do you have to go to them?

Everyone I’m teaching is a graduate student and they’re all going to become counselors. Clearly, a big part of becoming a counselor is that you have to have social skills. There are things they do online. I talk with the students every week for an hour and a half. Part of the residency – before they get to that stage – is that they have to go through these experiences for us to do some gate keeping. They have two residencies that are six days each. So essentially it’s twelve days of gate keeping so that we can make sure that we can vouch for everyone who is going through our program.

Do you feel comfortable with teaching like that?

I do. It’s funny because I didn’t want to. I looked at it as a sacrifice and a second choice. I didn’t think there was any possible way to do it. But now I’m completely sold on it. I’ve done this for a little over a year now. Frankly, the gate keeping that happens through my institution is a lot stronger than any of the land-based institution than I ever experienced or was a part of. I’m blown away.

Do you think that going online is the future of education?

Without a doubt. I don’t even think it’s the future, I think it’s the present.

You think the education they’re getting is just as good?

Absolutely. I think there are always some aberrations but that’s everywhere. In my program, I’m evaluated every other month so I have to maintain a high quality of education. I’ve never heard of anyone who is evaluated every other month. We all have PhDs, so it’s not like we’re all slackers. But it’s not in an offensive or obtrusive way, but to ensure that I’m giving something to my students every week.

Do you meet some of your students at the residencies?

Yes, I do. I like meeting them at residencies and that’s for a couple reasons. I recently learned that I’m a “hard instructor.” I didn’t know this. It turns out that everyone thinks I’m a hardass, but what it really is, is that I want everyone to write well. I teach classes at the beginning and the end of the program. But in the beginning I really press forward to make sure that all the students I work with leave with the ability to write well. It sounds silly with a masters program but one of the benefits of the masters program is that we get students from all walks of life – the vast majority of students are much older than me, actually. A lot of them are returning to school and may have lost some of the writing skills they had before. So it’s nice to meet people at residencies and show them that I’m a real person.

It also turns out I’m a computer bitch.

What does that mean?

Well, at residency they tell all the students to put their computers down and listen to the speaker. Because there are so many students nowadays it’s hard to determine who is looking at a PowerPoint and who is on Facebook. So it’s ironic that we’re an online institution but when they’re at residency they don’t use their computers hardly at all.

But you’re pretty militant about it?

Apparently.

What’s a typical day like for you?

I am pretty militant in that. I know that because I teach online that it would be easy to keep weird hours. I get up at seven o’clock every morning and I sit down in front of my computer by eight-thirty or nine at the latest. I post at discussion boards, I grade papers and do track changes in them. I may have a phone call or two with a student who is struggling and needs to touch base with me and let them know that there is someone on the other end of the computer. Every week I have a one and a half hour teleconference with twelve students. Also, I may have a phone call with another faculty member. But at five o’clock I’m done. It’s one of those amazing things that doesn’t happen much in academia. I don’t ever work on weekends except for residencies.

So the school pays for your airfare to the residencies and all that?

Yeah. It’s awesome. I make a phone call or send an email and tell them where I am flying out of and where the residency is and it’s all taken care of in about five minutes. I don’t have to book the flight or set up the hotel or anything. The only thing I have to do is pay for my food while I’m there and then they reimburse me for that.

When we were in high school, is this what you pictured doing with your life?

Oh, god no. I had a couple visions for my life. One was that I was going to have my own restaurant. I wanted to go to culinary school before anyone knew what it was. Then I got into high school and fell into that whole ultra alternative evangelical thing – I don’t know what to call it because it was a very strange scene. It was a very unique evangelical community. When that happened I thought, “Well, maybe I could cater and be a pastor’s wife.” I really did have this desire to be taken care of, I think. I think more than a PhD or whatever, I just want to bring my own fulfillment into my life, which is very different than I could have imagined in high school.

What do you mean by your own fulfillment?

At the end of the day if I’m not answering to my partner or my parents, and I’m only answering to myself, I want to feel okay. Rather than wanting to check in with other people and see that I’m okay with what I’m doing with my life.

I think that so much of who I was when you and I knew each other was me looking externally not just socially but also spiritually. Or “I’m doing the right thing, so I’m okay.” So much of my life was consumed with making sure that others viewed me as being okay. I believe at the end of the day I’m proud of who I am and what I’ve accomplished and who the fuck else cares?

Where you live right now in Ohio, does it remind you of living in Goshen (Indiana, where we grew up)?

Yeah, it’s horrible. It’s half the size of Goshen. So if you would address a letter to Heather and me as the two lesbians in Wooster, it would get to me. That’s kind of our ongoing joke. I really fought it professionally because living in Ohio I have to go back and take classes and take the big counseling exam and get re-certified even though I’m currently certified. I threw a fit – a yearlong fit actually, for having to get re-certified. And also living in a small, Midwestern, Mennonite community. I think that like Goshen, there’s something weird about the Midwest. I think that wherever I am in the Midwest there are always a few freaks in the community and I tend to really be connected to them.

What kinds of freaks are there in Wooster?

Now I feel badly. I don’t really mean that they’re true freaks. I’ve found a connection with some of the Unitarian Universalists in the community. It’s funny because I really didn’t want to go to church and Heather’s an atheist. But we didn’t know how to meet people – quite literally. So we decided to go to the Unitarian church hoping for at least some intellectual banter. We are thrilled with the community we found there. We don’t go as often – not like when I was a Christian. I don’t feel like I have to go. But we’ve met quite a number of people who get along with me in terms of my socio-political view. I don’t know – maybe Democrats would be considered freaks in the definition I am providing here.

You may have told this before but what was it like coming out to your parents?

My dad guessed it. That was not a problem at all. For my mom it was a lot more difficult. She still struggles. She’s not a mean person, but she yelled at me. That was her first reaction – to yell at me and tell me it was not normal. Even though she’s not spiritual or religious at all. I haven’t figured out where that comes from. Heather came home for the first time for Thanksgiving last year. We’d been together for two and a half years when she first came home to meet my mom officially. My mom is standoffish and she never asks about Heather. She’ll be nice to her but coming out sucks, no matter who it’s to.

Was your dad okay with everything?

Oh yeah.

I know the easy answer to this, but if you wouldn’t mind digging a little bit – what’s something you used to believe in that you don’t believe in anymore?

Elizabeth followed up with me on this question, as she wasn’t satisfied with her original answer.

1) Research. All research is tainted. As a creator of the teeniest tiniest bit of research and “knowledge” I now know that all statistics are essentially bullshit. Most “knowledge” is based on statistics. And the alternative to research is often even worse than research itself. I don’t believe in “facts” without methodology and limitations. That kind of limits what I believe in general.

2) Education for the sake of education. I no longer believe in formal education for the sake of education. I think this is a luxury that we, as a society, have adapted, and it is a luxury that we can no longer afford. I can’t tell you the number of students that I talk to who want PhDs. When I ask them why, they can’t answer. This is upsetting to me. Why does our society want to be more educated through formal education? Why is academia so valued? Don’t get me wrong – I like formal education. I have a PhD for god’s sake. The problem that I have is when students who don’t have the money to spend begin to rack up debt to take classes in a profession that they don’t know anything about. I think that common sense and grounding is lost in our society and that we have needs far greater than more people with degrees. Education is best learned outside of academe.

What’s your biggest fault?

My biggest fault is over-investment.

How so?

I’m a relatively passionate person. I can get excited about things really easily and I don’t always know when to stop. I think that applies to my professional life. I know that my colleagues can spend half as much time as I do on their classes, but it takes its toll on me. I think that’s true of my education. I think that’s true of food. I think that’s true of a lot of things in my life.

Have you found ways to combat that?

I think asking others and inviting them into my life to help me keep perspective is important. I lose perspective pretty quickly.

Me too. That’s a good life lesson: have other people give you perspective.

Yeah. If you’ve got a pill for that I’d like it.

No, it’s just a constant reminder to reach out to people. And it’s also a good reason to have a therapist.

1 comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Friends & Acquaintances, Interviews

August 8, 2011

Interview with Julie

By welcometoflavorcountry

Julie and I met through couchsurfing but discovered we have a great deal in common, including our senses of humor and interest in the interweb as an academic subject. Julie is one of my favorite people with whom to have discussions, as they are both hilarious and rewarding. When I am fortunate enough to spend time with Julie my motto has been “non-stop party wagon” and thanks to that we’ve had some crazy fun experiences together.

What’s something you used to believe in that you don’t believe in anymore?

Well, obviously God.

That’s too easy but I’ll bite: you used to believe in God?

Yeah. I was terrified. I know why it got to be so scary. It’s because they had these things in the Catholic Church they used to give out to children to implant that seed of fear. They gave us glow-in-the-dark rosaries. Ostensibly children were supposed to stay up all night and pray for their infant sins. What kind of sins did I have when I was little? None. But now I don’t do that anymore.

Really? You don’t commit sins anymore? Is that what you’re saying?

I do, I just don’t pray for them.

Agnostic or atheist?

Atheist. I’m 100% sure in my mind.

What classes are you teaching this fall at your college?

I’m teaching the freshmen English that everyone has to take. I’m also taking a remedial one for adult learners that have to take it to get into freshman English. Then I’m teaching a second semester freshman English. So I’ve got lots of freshman. I’m indoctrinating them early.

With what kind of stuff?

I don’t have too much leeway with what I can teach. The school makes their own textbook edited by professors at the university.

Why do they do that?

I don’t know. I think it’s partially so that there’s unity in the course work but I think it’s also about the money they get from it. A lot of places do it.

What’s your favorite thing about Savannah?

I think it’s the aesthetics. It’s the juxtaposition of the old, Spanish moss and the old architecture and the freaks walking around.

The freaks?

SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) students.

Ah, okay. What’s your least favorite thing?

Not being able to walk around at night. I don’t like that.

You don’t think that’s the case anywhere?

I think everywhere. I think my neighborhood is the safest place but it’s still not. I lived in New York City and never felt scared to walk around anywhere at night. It’s like Disneyworld there now.

What’s one of your favorite memories from living in NYC?

Memories of New York were really about some of the routines we got into. My friend Kate and I went to Snacky every week. Every Wednesday night we went to this little hole in the wall in Brooklyn and drank shots of cheap Saki. For some reason it was this huge event every week. It was sort of our own Brooklyn version of taco night.

I don’t know what that is.

It’s when suburban people who are married – that’s the only thing they have to look forward to.

Julie as a kid – her self-proclaimed “apex of coolness”

So, you grew up in suburbia – what caused you to dislike it?

I just sensed it was bland. Knowing it was diluted. It felt cultureless. I knew there was more out there than going to swim practice and taco night.

Yeah, there was Wednesday night at Snacky!

Oh my god, it’s all so circular!

But you didn’t end up hating Georgia over it?

No. I never had anything against the South per se. I like it here. I was surprised when I went to NYC and went to Columbia and it was supposed to be this liberal institution and everything was supposed to be with social justice as the end goal. But it was okay to make fun of Southerners and talk shit about rednecks and it was blatant. I felt a lot of prejudice from my professors about being from Georgia. It renewed my sense of pride, though. For a while I tried to hide my accent, though, which is a weird mixture of North and South because of my parents being from the North but growing up in the South. The last semester I was there I was trying to be the biggest ‘neck ever.

But that’s not who you are, though, is it?

Somewhat.

How so?

I feel like I’m a Southern girl. I love the culture and the food and the centeredness on family. Maybe it’s not distinctly Southern. I don’t know.

Do you see that changing, though? Have you seen that culture being diluted or is the stereotypical Southern culture still there?

It’s different for me because I grew up around Atlanta and most people that live in Atlanta aren’t from there. People say Atlanta isn’t the South. But then I moved down this way and have lived here for seven or eight years in all including living and teaching in a really rural area. In different places it felt more Southern like when the kids were making sure my car was in running order and inviting me to go to the “mud bog.”

What’s that?

Well, it wasn’t even in that town. They had to go to the next town over to the famed “mud bog.” It’s basically a muddy hole and people drive their cars through it. And then if you come to school on Monday with lots of mud caked on your car you’re pretty awesome.

How did this become their thing to do?

I think it’s a way to show off the vehicles. They all had huge trucks with giant tires. And there’s nothing else to do. What are they going to do?

Drink and smoke pot.

Oh, they did that. With my colleagues at the school.

For real?

Oh yeah.

How’d you feel about that?

I thought it was dangerous territory and not at all desirable. But it’s not taboo there.

It’s something they’ve been doing there for years?

Yeah.

So what was it like coming from a situation where you were at an elite Ivy League school like Columbia and then returning to Georgia? Was there a sense of discrimination because you had lived in NYC and left the South?

Not really because I moved back. People asked me why I moved back and when you say you want to be closer to your family and people you care about that feels comfortable to everybody. My boyfriend’s dad was like, “How’d you like living in that big ol’ city?” I told him I was a teacher in Harlem for two years and he couldn’t believe it.

How was it teaching in Harlem?

That was fun. I didn’t have a boss so I could do whatever I want.

Why didn’t you have a boss? What kind of school was this?!

It was a GED program for adults. It was inside one of the public elementary schools there in Harlem. Everybody that lived in that particular neighborhood was from the West Indies so we had a language barrier. I was teaching math, which was laughable because I still can’t calculate a tip. I was literally teaching myself the morning before the lesson what I was going to teach that day. But their scores improved so I guess it worked. But everyone that knew me thought it was pretty outrageous.

Harlem was one of the only places that felt like home because I’d walk to work. I lived in Morningside Heights and would walk to work and people would say hi and greet me and that never happened anywhere else in the city.

Has your sense of style always been what it is or was it influenced by living in NYC? I’ve always liked your fashion sense and hairstyle.

I’ve always dressed abnormally. Maybe just the fact that people in NYC are more willing to take risks and they don’t care. When you live in suburbia they look at you funny if you’re not blending in. I used to be a seamstress and made everything I wore.

In high school?

College. When I became a vegan I decided I was going to be so anti-corporate I was going to sew my own clothes, so fuck you Gap!

Where did the anti-corporate thing come from?

Just getting out of my parents’ house and having more freedom to question some things that may have been at odds with their values and lifestyles.

But a lot of people come out of that and don’t question things.

I don’t know where it comes from. I think it was probably somewhat stemming from an obsession with the Beats and hippie culture.

Did you have friends in high school who were into stuff like that?

Yeah. In high school they had this thing called Marietta Independent Learning Environment (MILE) and they took us out of all our normal classes. There were ten of us who had our classes together and we would become obsessed about the same things together. I remember Vonnegut and Kerouac being passed around. We were allowed to create our own curriculum. So it started with that. We were really into talking about art that wasn’t really in the mainstream high school curriculum.

How did you get chosen for this class?

It was weird. Your teacher would pinpoint you and then you’d have to take this test and it was supposed to test your creativity. I guess I passed it. It’s funny because we’re all still best friends to this day.

It sounds like it changed you in a lot of ways.

I think so. That was my first year being educated outside Catholic school, too. Finding people outside of a class of thirty people.

So the ten of you would have really stood out amongst others?

Yeah, I think so. We were the freaks.

So all that is where the fashion sense comes into play? Exploring your personality through clothing?

Yeah.

And you were that way in college, too?

Yeah, definitely. It was a different sort of thing: long, flowy skirts.

Grateful Dead t-shirts?

Well, I still listen to the Dead to this day but I don’t think I ever owned a shirt. No tie-dye. That was offensive to me even back then.

Do you think you’d get along with 19-year-old Julie?

I think she’d think I was too serious now. I was a lot more – I don’t know if ethereal is the right word, but I feel like I existed a lot more in the clouds back then. I didn’t have any direction. I knew what I liked and didn’t like and wanted to have fun.

So what caused you to find the direction to go into education?

Well, I did always know that I was going to do that. I just thought that anybody could be a teacher and I didn’t have to work that hard if I took that path which turned out to be true in some sense. The further I went along the more serious I got about it. But back then you didn’t have to try very hard to take that route, unfortunately.

But how did it go from there to wanting to pursue the PhD and wanting to teach teachers?

I just realized I was good at it and I was better at it than a lot of my colleagues. [laughs] I wanted to make it worthwhile for kids to be sitting in there. I saw a lot of damage done by poor teachers, especially when you’re teaching writers and you’re squashing them with ideas like the five paragraph essay. No one wants to write anymore or they think they’re a bad writer because they can’t produce this highly structured, arbitrarily composed thing. But the doctorate, in particular, was because I saw how outdated the curriculum was and every time I tried to do anything with new media literacy, bringing in technology or visual literacy – then I’d meet a lot of resistance with the administration. There is all this fear around safety issues.

Do you think you have more freedom at the university level than you did at the high school level?

Oh yeah. I can do pretty much whatever I want. Part of that freedom is being able to justify whatever it is I do.

You can show them studies and information that backs up how and what you’re teaching.

Yeah.

Especially now that people have done the research. It’s not like the Internet is a year old.

At my old high school I was wanting to publish students’ work online and have them do podcasts and they just wanted to have it be within the school and put it on the intranet. And I told them to just forget it.

How come you didn’t want to do that?

I’d do that but it’s ridiculous that people didn’t even want to listen to what the benefits of having that wider audience would have been.

Getting people to learn from other people’s experiences.

Yeah, and kids are highly motivated by having an audience outside their own classroom. A lot of what we do is pseudo-transactional. It’s supposed to have an audience but it doesn’t really. They know it’s just the teacher reading it and then it goes in the recycling bin after they get a grade. There’s no motivation to do anything there.

Do you feel like that’s changing?

Yeah, I do. Just with some of the professional development I’ve been doing with the writing project and working with teachers – I do a lot of the technology and new media professional development and tons of teachers are showing up for this stuff on Saturdays on their own time. From what they tell me they have the hardware, software and wiring now to do it. It used to be that you’d have to get a grant out of your own pocket to get this stuff. Now it’s a given. I think the assumption now is that if your school doesn’t have this stuff it’s deficient.

Julie and some random guy

1 comment   |  tags: , , , | posted in Friends & Acquaintances, Interviews

March 24, 2011

Interview with Todd Taylor

By welcometoflavorcountry

Todd Taylor is the editor and co-founder (along with Sean Carswell) of Razorcake Fanzine and Gorsky Press.

I first contacted Todd in 2005 when I emailed and asked if I could write reviews for Razorcake. He said yes and I have been writing, podcasting, and doing occasional proofreading for Razorcake since. I met Todd in person at a reading he did in Seattle a few years back and he’s super nice and has a great sense of humor. Todd used to work with Flipside Fanzine and has written for Thrasher as well. He’s also an author and has written a few books. Todd is one of the hardest working people you’ll ever meet and no one could ever accuse him of not doing his part for independent music.

Who was the person that got you into punk rock?

That’s a good question. There was this kid that was a year ahead of me in grade school named Eric Redding. He was a big Dio and Deep Purple fan. He had gotten some tapes from a relative and he really hated them and he let me borrow them. I remember X, Agent Orange, Alley Cats, Bags, Suicidal Tendencies and Social Distortion were all on one of the tapes and I loved it. And I pretended I lost the tape so I could keep it. But I had no context for it at all. I didn’t know it covered so many different years and areas. I felt bad because I never gave him the tape back.

Also, I lived outside of Las Vegas in this small town called Boulder City and there was actually this really good radio station that had a punk rock program in the evenings. That’s how I was able to put some context to it. I was probably about 13 or 14 when all this happened.

Do you find you have any time to do any writing any more?

Yeah. I overloaded myself last year and put way too much on my plate. The last six weeks of 2010 and beginning of 2011 I was trying to clean my plate off of a lot of stuff. I’ve been putting together a book for a long time. It’s organized very poorly and it’s very long. I’ve spent the last eight months organizing it and making it make sense. My goal for 2011 is to finish a very tight, cohesive draft of that book. Right now the book is 1200 pages and it’s probably going to end up being 600.

Oh my god!

Yeah, it’s retarded. I’m a very structured person so if I get to a point where I know I want to finish something I can set a six or eight month goal and work on it every free day up until that point. Putting a magazine together helps me out a lot. I use every two-month rotation to do something. So, it’s difficult but it’s doable.

What’s your writing schedule like? When do you write?

My best hours are the first couple hours of the day. It differs. What I’m sitting on today is that I have to write some intros to a couple of interviews I’ve done, I have some record reviews to write and I want to work on the novel again. I write an hour or two minimum five times a week. I tend to spend a lot of time and energy thinking about stuff during the day so I’m not at my top form at night at all.

How did you get into writing?

I was in a really bad accident when I was about thirteen. I was incapacitated for several months. I could sit and draw and sit and write and those were the things I got out of it. I didn’t know if I was going to get full motor function back. I scalped the top of my head. I decided that I wanted to do something I could do for a long time if my body deteriorated so those were the two things. Then after college I stopped drawing and just focused on writing. It was pretty pragmatic, too, because you can write with ten cents in your pocket. You just go get a pencil and keep on writing. Painting and drawing you need a little bit more. It just came to a finer point over time. I was interested in a lot of things as a kid. I think my mother has a clip-out from when I was in junior high where I said I wanted to be a microbiologist or a pharmacist.

*laughs* Wow.

Yeah, I don’t know where that came from. It wasn’t a drug thing either. Drugs didn’t even enter into the equation.

You kind of took a left turn somewhere there I guess.

Yeah.

So, what’s something you used to believe in that you don’t believe in anymore?

I believe that you can have completely differing opinions and still be great friends with someone. Before I would totally dismiss someone if we had fundamentally different opinions about politics or religion or something like that. Now, the first and foremost thing is, “Do I think this person is an asshole or not?” and then it goes from there. They may be the sweetest person on the planet but they just have a different opinion on whether or not there’s a higher being. Okay. That’s fine.

To just drive it home, my brother, who is two years older than I, is a colonel in the Special Forces. He’s been to Iraq twice and Bosnia once. We have completely different ideas about how our country should go about its foreign affairs policies but I love my brother unabashedly. He’s one of my closest friends. I’m learning that I’m not being hypocritical. I disagree with him but I can still appreciate him as a person.

Especially with punk rock and particularly at the beginning if you look at stuff like the Dead Kennedys, it’s very dogmatic. They’re drawing lines in the sand when I don’t think you have to all the time. You can agree to disagree and actually have really good, long conversations that span over the years. I may not agree with my brother on the policies but I can understand where he’s coming from.

When it comes to work, do you force yourself to work really long hours or do you stick to a schedule?

I’m much better now. When Razorcake moved about three years ago I actually got it separated from where I lived. It’s now in a basement so it’s a lot easier for me not to go, “Oh, I’ll just check my email” or “I’ll just do this one last thing” because I have it separate. I do have a ledger in my head so if I have to work late tonight I’ll take a little bit of time off on Friday morning. Overwork doesn’t help anybody. I try to make it 40-50 hours a week but I think it’s important to separate it and to stop because then you can breathe and get a perspective on it.

When you have time off, what do you like to do?

Nothing real exciting. I’ve been cycling a lot lately. I love reading, listening to music. I’m a handy man – I like to fix things around the house.

With all the punk rock, have you ever played in a band?

No. Never. I have a ukulele but I’m never going to play it outside of my room except with maybe one or two people. That’s the only instrument.

One of the things people will say is, “Oh, you’re a failed musician and that’s why you write.” Or they’ll say, “You don’t know what you’re talking about because you’re writing but you’ve never played an instrument.” I want it still to be magical to me. With writing, I can disassemble things in my mind really quickly. I can diagram things and figure out what they’re going for. With music, I don’t want to know scale or notes or tones or any of that stuff. People have other things they believe in, but I believe in music so I want it to be magical. I want it to be transcendental sometimes. And then if I talk to a person who doesn’t have any knowledge of how the music is made specifically then I can gauge my response and also my comparative abilities and not just be a d-bag about it. Being a historian is good, too.

When you were growing up, what were some of your favorite records in your parents’ record collection?

I’m a huge Kingston Trio fan to this day. My parents didn’t have a record collection. My dad had a reel-to-reel collection. There were some records and they were rarely played. Kingston Trio was a big one. That was where we could all get along.

They had this weird collection – a band called Galaxy playing all the hits of Abba. So it would be an Abba record played by a completely different band. I’ve never seen that stuff again but my dad had plenty of it. I don’t know where he got it. So a lot of stuff now sounds vaguely familiar to me. “That doesn’t sound quite right, but I know all the lyrics.”

Music was always on but it wasn’t a deep thing with my parents. They enjoyed it but I don’t think they ever were in a fan club or anything like that. They didn’t even go to see live shows or anything except in Vegas which once again, is people doing other peoples’ stuff.

Nowadays, what does your mom think of your mom tattoo?

She wasn’t happy at first but as I told her, “Mom, how often do you see me without my shirt on? I’m not one of those guys.” And she said, “Yeah, that’s true.” She would prefer I didn’t have it but my parents are pretty cool.

Speaking of familial relations (so to speak), how did you and your wife meet?

A friend of a friend. Apparently I met her before at a party and don’t remember. We were at a barbeque together. I was dating another lady at the time and Mary-Clare and I chatted and afterward she asked about me. Apparently her friend said, “Yeah, he has a girlfriend and if you do anything she’ll kick your ass so drop it.” Then a year later, after I had broken up with the other girlfriend we crossed paths again and we started dating. We’ve been married for two and a half years.

Are you a boxers or briefs man?

Boxers. But I think I’ve had to modify lately because I’ve been cycling more. I have to wear briefs when I’m riding. I don’t really like it when I’m walking around. It feels like I’m being cupped. I need room to boogie, man.

*laughs* That’s a good one. There’s always a lot of boogieing going on in my pants, so I can understand that.

Have you ever had any major dental surgery performed on you?

No. I never have. Strangely enough when I was growing up we lived in Australia for five years and they hyper-fluorated the water and my teeth are scarred and discolored but the enamel is really strong. When I was a kid in Australia my dad was a superintendent of a children’s home. One of the places we lived was an old hospital and they had a dentist’s chair and a place for a dentist to come. So a rural dentist would come every six months or so and I got in the habit of having my teeth checked as a kid. I’ve never had dental insurance but every six months I go in and get a cleaning and x-rays. My brother had braces and I know people who have had major dental surgery from getting kicked in the face or from a bat or whatever. It’s scary.

When I was in second grade I slipped on the ice playing football on the blacktop and fell right on my top front tooth and clipped the bottom part of it right off. They had to buff out the specs of asphalt and put a cap on it. It was good times.

Oh, man.

Yeah – so why were you living in Australia? I didn’t know you had lived there.

My dad is a high-energy guy. When I was born we were living in Oregon. He had an English degree and a social services degree and the visas for Australia were pretty restrictive. So the deal was if he would go and train the replacements for his job, we could be there. We’d go from children’s home to children’s home and teach his successor as superintendent and then go to another place. He was actually born in England and lived in Canada so it’s part of the Commonwealth and he felt comfortable. He really likes traveling even to this day. He’s kind of a restless guy.

I’m the same way, so I understand. I’ve noticed you like to laugh a lot so I was curious who some of your favorite comedians are.

Well, you’ve got your classics – I’m a big fan of Redd Foxx and Richard Pryor. I really like George Carlin. I like Steven Wright a lot. Patton Oswalt is really great.

Do you ever go to watch any stand up or listen to albums?

One of our contributors, Joe Evans III, played in a house band for the Chris Gethard show. They did a show out in Los Angeles about a month and a half ago. It was incredibly enjoyable and really fun. Part of it was that they took an RV and traveled across the country. Also, this fourteen-year-old kid had expressed an interest in doing comedy and he lived in Detroit so they flew him out to do a three-minute bit and paid for all his expenses. He was funny but he was more endearing. Chris said this really short thing at the beginning. “I know you’re nervous but nobody here wants you to fail.” It was awesome.

Why was it important for you to make Razorcake a non-profit and be totally legitimate with the government?

One of my talents and also problems is that I can see things way in the future. I pretty much guessed that traditional magazine making was going to fail within ten years after starting Razorcake. Typical magazines have to run based on advertising revenue and it was super inflated. I don’t feel comfortable asking for money that I don’t think is going to be well spent. I looked at the structure of how magazines were run and somebody mentioned non-profit. No one I knew had good information. I heard bad advice. “If you put a steeple on your house you get non-profit status!” Seriously. He wouldn’t drop it for six months. Then you realize that non-profit doesn’t mean that you don’t make money.

We were dealing with an IRS agent who I think was in Ohio or something and we had to convince her that what we were trying to do had nothing to do with the music industry. We’re not out there to make money or enrich ourselves; it’s about something larger than us. It was an interesting exercise at times and really aggravating at times. We had to explain that when we would go travel around we would stay at peoples’ houses and then we’ll extend to them the same courtesy when they come here. This is unheard of if you’re a touring band in a bus. So we really had to take DIY punk rock and explain every single part of it. It was kind of fascinating.

I wanted to do something that separated us from other magazines. If you’re going to invest in us in one way, shape or form then we show we’re doing the best we can. I can’t be personally enriched. I can’t just cash out and walk away with a lot of money. Razorcake can’t be sold to an individual. All these things are very attractive to me.

We went through this really difficult process. It took us three years. They just didn’t believe us. We had to hire a lawyer at the very end to get it all worked out. It was conversations like this: I’d be on the phone with the IRS lady and at the time we weren’t even putting out records but we were just putting our feet in the water and seeing what we could do. She goes, “Okay, so Michael Bolton is going to come play—

*laughs*

I’m trying not to do what you’re doing right there. But she said, “You can have Mr. Bolton play a benefit and pay him $10,000 once because that’s his going rate. But what you can’t do is record him and sell the recording because you’re paying him over and over again for an activity he did once.” So there are a lot of particular laws that we can and cannot do. So instead of spending time paying taxes we spend time showing where every cent went. But it’s worthwhile because it presses on other people, organizations and foundations that we’re serious about what we do but we’re also a lot of fun. We’re not a bummer. This sounds a little calloused but we were doing this non-profit strengthening training and we were next to the Down syndrome people and the AIDS Hospice people and they really liked us. It’s not as serious of an endeavor but I still take what we do very seriously.

How did you finally convince that IRS lady? Did you have to send her records or copies of the zine?

We did have to send her stuff. They wanted examples. They do calculations of how much of it is advertising and so on. But it’s just something they can’t penetrate. Me looking at IRS laws for the first time is how they look at DIY punk rock. They just don’t get it. So she never had a revelatory type experience but she got everything checked off by her superiors. I think when the lawyer talked to her he decoded it for us and we just had to file a few more things.

The thing is – most non-profits fail within their first five years and we got a 98% on our five-year review. So that’s good.

So I’ve chosen the most important question for the end: What makes for a great burrito?

Well, I’ll give you the short answer: Love.

*laughs*

But I’ll give you a second answer. There are so many regional differences even in Mexico. We’re not even going to talk about El Salvador or Honduras or anywhere else. You can’t skimp on anything. Everything has to be great on its own. You should be able to eat the beans or the rice on its own. Then when you put them together in a tortilla it’s the best thing ever.

I’ve found out that the further you get away from the Mexico border (with the exception of Chicago) the more depressing Mexican food gets. Just get Italian or Thai instead. But Mexican food suffers greatly.

There are regional differences in Los Angeles and even San Diego. But we try to limit ourselves to two or three a week.

But you don’t have any items that HAVE TO be in there?

You definitely need salsa. I’m a big cilantro and onions fan, too. Salsa is really super important though.

What kind of salsa?

Well, there’s a place with a horrible name – My Taco – within two blocks of us and they have an amazing guacamole salsa. It’s an awesome spicy green sauce and they have a good chipotle hot spicy sauce, too. If you’re ever in Highland Park check out My Taco or El Atacor #11.

Here is a two part video on Razorcake:

2 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Friends & Acquaintances, Interviews

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