So it seems, from what I've read lately on your blog, The Old World Oracle, that you've been pretty heart broken. The girl named Becki has...driven you sort of crazy recently?
:nods: Yes. Quite. I haven't felt well. Sometimes i feel a bit..sick.
I find the relationship you had w/ her a bit bizarre, personally. For a long time everything I read by you was rather adamantly anti-marriage, anti-children, maybe even anti-nuclear family. It seems you were about ready to throw literally all of these ideas away, if Becki would have you. Is it truE?
I'm honestly not sure. I envisioned another style of life with Becki. I think I thought that together we could become rich or something. I read statistics :laughs: and it said married couples are richer. So i thought...let me try to marry her, let me see if I can. Maybe I'll get rich and then it'll be easier to write. Who knows?But you could marry a woman? No offense but :laughs: you seem pretty queer to me. Do you identify as queer? Did she know you were queer?
I don't know. I once tried to tell her I felt gay and she accused me of lying to her. I went on with it for about 30 minutes, like really trying to come out to her. But then she said I was joking and lying and, I got so nervous, I just said yea, beck, you're right, I'm joking and lying.
So you identify as a queer, maybe even a transgender, as you often write?
Again I seriously don't know. I might never know. I feel like a woman but ... being trans seems like a major challenge, especially financially, that I'm not really willing to take on. As I've often explained, I live a frugal life. It's easy to live a frugal life. Especially as a writer. There is a quote from Gore Vidal I really always think of: "A writer only needs a desk and a typewriter, and maybe a view, and they're okay."
But Gore Vidal was a multi millionaire. He lived in a literal castle by the sea.
:nods: Yes. He did. But , you know, he kind of lived a pretty quiet life there. In the world he came from, Gore Vidal was almost sort of oddly modest. It sounds ridiculous I know, but the point is that he devoted his life to reading and writing and didn't often pay complete attention to the physicsl world. He writes this essay I really love where he comments on writers who try to become "worldly". He says , the more worldly a writer becomes, the worse he will be as a writer. It's very important, I think, to disconnect from the physical, as much as you can, in order to write well.
So to you, becoming trans would make you a bad writer? That sounds pretty nasty.
I think it might, but not because being trans is bad, but rather because I'd be so happy being trans, and being a "real woman", that what sense would I have to write? As it stands now, I'm terribly motivated by how far the entire life of a woman is from me, in my reality. In fact, when it comes to Becky, I really think I was so desperate to connect with her, because in her, I found a voice that I wanted to capture. I was determined to get inside Becky's head, to understand what had driven her to make these choices that, to me, to my male friends, seem so terrible. Shes very much, like, a sort of stereotype of a working class white girl , and... well, I just wanted to see inside her mind as much as possible. I think I accidentally fell in love with her, and started thinking i should marry her, just to slip even further inside. In some way, as a gay man, if I am a gay man, I was maybe trying to vicariously live through her. Even though she lived a pretty bad life. I was shocked by how close she let me get. Becky told me every thought in her head.
She seems to have had a major influence on you, yet still you cut her out of your life.
Well, I had to, becaus she ultimately ....as much as she let me in her head, she ultimately failed me, when she revealed how frightened she was, to see me in "reality". I guess i lost respect and admiratio for her when she did that. I always sort of saw Becky as so inspiring because she seemed like a woman who just, like, was sorta in control. I then started to become disturbed by her when I saw, for example, how obsessed with "submission" she was. As a poor person, I just think playing aruound with submission is kind of dangerous...i couldn't afford to be around that so often. As an artist especially. I need to be able to create and to create you need dominance.
How important, then, would you say friends or lovers are, for what you create and write?
Depends. Oftentimes i seriously don't think they're important at all, if you don't want them to be. Sometimes maybe its better for a writer, again, to just exist in an imaginary world of characters. Its easier that way, to come up with ideas. I think someone like JRR Tolkien really only had a few select friends. Imagine a writer like Tolkien with a therapist, even, talking bout his World War One trauma. It sounds absurd. Tolkien spilled all of that trauma into the Middle Earth stories and I think I like to try to have the same approach.
You work a lot with diary entries, which often sound like you're talking to a therapist.
Right. I believe mightily in the diary and also the so called "epistolary" form, i.e. letter writing. I think its a very good way to find stories . Oftentimes, if i try to do third person writing, I feel very blocked and can't write a thing. 1st person always flows though. Its easier to me. Even in terms of reading its easier. Every one has a different method to get the ball rolling. I use diaries sometimes. That story I posted the other day began as a diary, as a fantasy of being a girl, etc.
Did Becky know you wrote stories as a woman? Did she know all of that?
:Nods: I often mentioned to Becky that I wrote stories as a woman, yes. I told her I wrote erotica.
YOu never sent it to her?
No, never. It was embarassing. The stuff i sent her were poems and some paragraphs sometimes, fragments of stories. I never sent becky anything complete, not a single time. She didn't seem interested to me and I also actually think I Was frightened she'd steal it or something. :laughs: I have trouble trusting people. I don't know. She just....nothing sat right for me with her sometimes.
Would it ruin your life as an artist if you married her?
I have no idea. I said before, maybe, but maybe not. Maybe it'd make it better in the end. Who knows? I might veer off into regular stories if I married Becky, instead of the rather whacky shit I write now. I might write about married couples or something. Children. Healthy lifestyles! :starts cracking up: I wish she had been more intellectual, i suppose. She was very adamant about not choosing a side when it came to liberalism, for example, which angered me to no end. I'm extremely liberal, I don't care what anyone says. I don't care. FRee college, clear out the prisons, legalize the drugs, help the minorities, its the only way. I really can't stand Republicans. I admittedly fancy some aspects of "Republican culture", like cowboys and cowgirls, or even a state like Texas, I find fascinating, but .. I don't dig their idealism. I can't stand them. I am liberal. I identify as a feminist, even if I'm not the perfect one.
I think you should just have the sex change.
What!
Im just saying, its what I think. Stop being afraid. You're making excuses. It wont ruin your writing. It will probably make it better.
Agh. I ...don't make me uncomfortable. I'm staying a man!
Do you think there's a spirit in you?
A spirit of a woman?
Yes. Like you wrote in that story, Angelina's Soul.
Where I wrote about how I felt some dead girl Angelina, who died young, came in and possessed my body, taking over? Not realizing i was male?
Yes! that one. =)
I think it sometimes, yes.
So you're fighting the soul of Angelina taking over, just like the man in the book?
Maybe.
Let her win.
What kind of interview is this! I thought we were here to talk about art.
We are. We will. I'm sorry. Hold on a second, hold on. :grabs a caffe macchiato, and takes a sip: We will talk about art, music, artists. Tell me your latest opinion on Azealia Banks. You still like her?
Absolutely.
Hey, hold on a second, the phone is ringing, hold on.
[interview ends abruptly]
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