By Jay Stringer
JAY: Where do you get your ideas from?
JOHNNY: Great question. I'm glad you asked. I carry a journal wherever I go to jot down ideas as they come to me. So, whether I'm on my morning constitutional or on my evening constitutional or even my mid-afternoon constitutional, I can record my observations and wisdoms. Later, when I read them in the bath, I see their value. Full disclosure, it's about 90% erotic musings.
JAY: What is the most erotic word in your vocabulary?
JOHNNY: I think we can all agree that the sexiest word in the English language is "adequate." Not just how it rolls off the tongue with its playful rhythm and a soupcon of ambivalence, but it's meaning as well. To be just good enough. To not transcend the necessary. To not elate or even satisfy, but to step back and say, "Anymore would take too much effort." Isn't that what art is about, what life is about?
JAY: Does the temperature of the bath water matter for creativity?
JOHNNY: Oh, Gosh yes. I mean, Gosh. If the water is too hot, it impacts the structural integrity of my miniature frigates. And if it's too cold, then it jeopardizes the realistic depiction of the 1724 Battle of Tortuga that I reenact every bath time. I believe it was Lajos Egri who said, "Creativity is born from hyper-realistic miniature depictions of fictitious historical events in tepid water." So, who am I to argue? Gosh.
JAY: What is a zine? And why is a zine?
JOHNNY: Funny you should ask (because, in general, you aren't that funny to me. I mean, amusing maybe in a clownlike, jesterlike way, but an acquired taste. You know what I mean?) Anyway. For my whole life, I thought zine was short for magazine. It's not. Look it up. I just learned that zine is short for Thorazine. Because apparently, zines were the number one way Goths treated their bipolar disorder in the 1980s. Fun fact.
JAY: If you could have dinner with any three Goths from history, would you rather be alive or dead?
JOHNNY: Dead.
JOHNNY: Next question.
JAY: Traditionally the interviewer decides when to ask the next question.
JAY: Okay, next question.
JAY: Would you say you’re more the Captain Ron of writers, or the Carl Spackler of writers?
JOHNNY: You journalists and your gotcha questions. While I am considered the Carl Spackler of backgammon players, mostly because I'm one of the few ranked players to be licensed to kill gophers by the United Nations, I have always seen myself as the Navin Johnson of writers.
JOHNNY: That's mostly because of my tireless efforts to combat cat juggling syndicates worldwide.
JAY: This is like Frost/Nixon performed by a puppet and a bonobo.
JOHNNY: How did you know about that? Who have you been talking to? I've been working on "A Touch of Frost" for the last seven years. I just signed Alf to play Frost, a real coup. And my bonobo guy promises me he's found an ape with just the right amount of gravitas.
JAY: And by ‘gravitas’ I assume you mean you’re putting a monkey in a smoking jacket?
JOHNNY: He also has a monocle.
JAY: Oh, so he's a SHAKESPEAREAN bonobo.
JAY: What is the great American novel, and why is it Smonk by Tom Franklin?
JOHNNY: It's rare to read a book that doesn't have some level of self-censorship. But not Smonk. It's outrageous at almost unimaginable levels but works. Beautifully written. Elevated writing and crudity intertwined. Funny within moments where it seems impossible. Whenever I have doubts and frustrations about publishing, I remind myself that someone had the balls to put that book in the world. The finished book is so true to the vision, but the vision is fucking bananas. I've given away more copies of Smonk than any other book.
JOHNNY: Mediocrity has been swallowed up by the sheer volume of authors and AI. To survive, writers have to get weirder, more interesting, find ways to be more human. Smonk is the bullseye on the map of what we should aspire to.
JAY: Do you one day aspire to writing literature?
JOHNNY: I assume you mean in contrast to the hacky pulp I've been known to churn out in my pulp churnery. I suppose that someday I might aspire to be a literaturist like yourself, literaturing here and then literaturing over there. But is it worth it? After all, what is literature? Seriously. I obviously don't know what the word means.
JOHNNY: Not coincidentally, that joke was churned out in the hack pulp churnery.
JAY: I think literature is defined by how much your character looks at their shoes and how many em-dashes you use.
JAY: Okay. Your publicist told me you have a great new project to discuss. But all she sent me were some staples and sheets of paper. What gives?
JOHNNY: For the last time, Tammmi is not and has never been my publicist. At best, she is interning as an aide-de-camp. At worst, she's a paid stalker. It's a complicated relationship.
JOHNNY: That said, that pile of papers that you've rudely dismissed is my current side project: YOU HAD TO BE THERE: A ZINE FOR THE FUTURE. Side projects are the bread and butter of creativity when you've worked as a professional for a long time. Or at least, the day-old bread of creativity. To create something that's often a dumb idea and then see it through to completion allows me to do stuff that doesn't fit my books. If my books were Suicidal Tendencies, the zIne is the Infectious Grooves. In more ways than one.
JOHNNY: YOU HAD TO BE THERE is a funzine filled with a bunch of fragments of humor and weirdness. Writing, parody, comics, a crossword puzzle, and so much more. And it's not only my stuff.
Jordan Harper contributed comic pages he drew when he was a kid. They're amazing.
Jess Lourey let me publish the first few pages of her horror screenplay, "Hog!"
And upstart provocateur Jay Stringer gave me his thoughts on starting a cult.
Plus, contributions from D.M. Pulley and the irrepressible Erica Ruth Neubauer.
JOHNNY: In a way, I've reinvented writing for the modern age. In another way, I haven't.
JAY: I can grudgingly admit this all sounds mostly swell. But I foresee a few challenges in making an ink-on-paper zine with no Marvel superheroes in it, at a time when people only want digital content with Marvel superheroes in it.
JOHNNY: I admit that the lack of Marvel superheroes is probably a mistake on my part. For awhile I had an appearance from Angar the Screamer, but I felt like, haven't we seen enough of Angar the Screamer? I'm sure the Angarheads would disagree.
JOHNNY: While I would prefer to sell the zines at a roadside stand like God intended, I couldn't get the zoning permits. But what is better than getting mail? Nothing. Nothing is better than getting mail. Especially if the mail is a funzine, which I must emphasize for the last time, is what YOU HAD TO BE THERE IS. A funzine. Okay, that last time was the last time.
JAY: Have you thought of putting some ewoks in it?
JOHNNY: Oh, Gosh yes on the ewoks. Do you know where to get any? Do you have an ewok guy? What I like most about them as characters is that if you look close, you can see the price tags stapled to their ears.
JAY: I think they must be desperate for work these days, what have they done since they had those two movies in the eighties?
JOHNNY: The only thing I can think of is the short-lived musical "Dead Man Ewoking" which was not well-received. The Kansas City Intelligencer referred to it as having "way too much nudity for a children's musical about the death penalty."
JAY: Was that the thing where Alf played Sadam Hussein?
JOHNNY: Two Alf references in one interview. Nice. Yes, that's the play. While that part was shortlived. It led into his one-man show "Alf Wiederhesen" where he delivered monologues depicting the final hours of famous tyrants. His Ceausescu was particularly heart-rending.
JAY: Bringing us back to your Alf connection is all about structure. Because we are proper writers.
JAY: Where can people get YOU HAD TO BE THERE?
JOHNNY: The exclusive sales channel (a term I overheard two businessmen use once, so it's legit) for YOU HAD TO BE THERE is https://www.patreon.com/c/tornpages/shop. It's also where you can find my Torn Pages project where I write real pages from non-existent books.
JOHNNY: So, YOU HAD TO BE THERE is actually a side project of a side project. A side side project, if you will. And I think you will.
JAY: Okay. last question. And this is the Columbo moment. With both Torn Pages and YOU HAD TO BE THERE, how does it feel to have finally answered the “what will i do for my mid-life crisis” question?
JOHNNY: That's fair. As I enter what I call my "colonoscopy years" and can feel the ice-cold hand of Death reaching closer and closer to me, it feels more and more important to embrace the moronic. I've always flirted with the moronic, but now we're together in the back seat of a Chevelle steaming up the windows. The funniest stuff is simultaneously smart and dumb, but weirdly the dumb part is often the more difficult part. In YOU HAD TO BE THERE, I've found the dumb, and I'm only getting dumber.
No comments:
Post a Comment