The Rumpus: Where did you grow up? What was it like?

Parry Gripp: I grew up in Santa Barbara, California. I am still growing here.

Rumpus: What did you want to be when you grew up?

Gripp: I wanted to be a computer programmer. Mainly, I was interested in computer graphics.

Rumpus: What was your first job?

Gripp: I worked at a computer store called Personal Electronics.

Rumpus: Who was your first crush?

Gripp: The Bionic Woman, Lindsay Wagner. She was incredibly hot for a part-android/part-woman.

Rumpus: How did you get into music? What was the first instrument that you attempted to play?

Gripp: I always liked music. I remember going bonkers for the theme song to the Pirates Of The Caribbean ride at Disneyland when I was a little kid. My first instrument was piano, because I had to take lessons, but the first real instrument of my choosing was the bass. When I was 16 I was really into the band Rush, and my mom bought me a nacho-cheese colored Fender Mustang so I could learn to play like Geddy Lee. Man, I could never play like that guy. I really wish I still had that bass.

Rumpus: This might seem like a softball question: Do you think that the value of humor increases in times of national peril?

Gripp: I sure hope so. I am banking on that.

Rumpus: What did you do following 9/11 professionally?

Gripp: Nerf Herder was pretty active then. We were touring a lot. I remember we went to Australia a couple of weeks after the attacks. That was weird. People over there treated us like our mom had just died.

Rumpus: Tell me about Nerf Herder. It sounds like you guys have a shit-ton of fun. Was that your first band?

Gripp: Nerf Herder was pretty fun. That was our schtick. Look at us, we’re having fun! I was in several bands before Nerf Herder, but just small time, back yard stuff.

Rumpus: Have you ever gotten in a fist fight?

Gripp: Oh, no. I am afraid of conflict. Although, in Nerf Herder, if someone was heckling us I would sometimes act like I was going to kick the person’s ass, knowing that security would throw the dude out before I ever got into an actual beating. That worked like a charm, every time!

Rumpus: Do you enjoy playing live and touring or do you like the creative process of songwriting better?

Gripp: Songwriting is much better. That is pure fun. Touring is okay for about a week, and then you want to go home.

Rumpus: How do you go about making the Songs Of The Week? Is it really demanding?

Gripp: Well, I am pretty lazy about it, as you might notice from looking at how many songs I still need to put up there. I don’t spend that much time at it. If I am lucky, an idea will just pop into my head. For example, I’ll be walking along, or driving, maybe taking out the garbage, or toasting a bagel, and I’ll think of a title, like, “That Banana Looks Funny.” Then I’ll get a little tune going a long with it. I like to have it mostly figured out in my head before I sit down and start recording.

Rumpus: What’s your day-to-day life like? Do you do anything other than make people laugh? What’s your day job?

Gripp: My family owns an orchid nursery here in Santa Barbara. I have worked here on and off my whole life. Currently, I live next door to the nursery, so I’ll walk over there, do some of the FedEx shipping, come back over to my house, work on some music, and then go back over, eat a donut, come back here, check my email, etc. From overhead I probably look like the ball in a very slow game of pong.

Rumpus: Have you ever made a video that you didn’t like?

Gripp: I am big on self-loathing, so I suppose of most of my videos I don’t really “like.” There are parts that I think, “Ha! That is kind of funny.” But mostly, I try to focus on the bad. That is how I roll.

Rumpus: Do you prefer waffles or pancakes?

Gripp: I like to switch it up. Both of them are great. And I really like French toast. I invented a recipe where you basically just dip toast in melted vanilla ice cream and cook it. Honestly, this is the best idea I ever had.

Rumpus: A lot of nerd lovers have crushes on you. Do you have a special someone in your life?

Gripp: Crushes on me? That is crazy talk. As unlikely as it seems, I am married.

Barefoot Contessa: Back To Basics

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“The site was becoming unmanageable as just a hobby… so I decided I either needed to quit the site or turn it into something I could live off of… The bigger challenge was how to balance taking the site seriously while simultaneously not worrying about it too much.”

By 1998 Jason Kottke had began to transform the landscape of the Internet by simply challenging the idea that blogs had to be ideological, or websites had to be boring via his digital postings: 0sil8. His next site, kottke.org, was one of the first aggregated sites of its kind: content that intrigued the creator, put forth for the public to consume. Much in the way that a riveting conversation with a friend can introduce you to new ideas, events, news, and opinions, kottke is like your buddy who always has something new to say, in a way that’s never off-putting, pretentious, or, God forbid, dull. The Rumpus sat down with the curator of the Internet to get the DL on his HTML.

The Rumpus: Did you keep a diary as a kid or was 0sil8 your first foray into journaling?

Jason Kottke: I was not a diary keeper as a kid. Aside from one or two high school & college essays, the personal web sites I built in the mid 90s were the first instances where I wrote about myself. But that phase didn’t last very long. I mostly ditched writing about myself and started doing 0sil8, which was very much about playing around with Photoshop and HTML. Even kottke.org, which was semi-personal when it started, became quickly focused on stuff I watched/read/listened to than what I was doing and is now almost entirely non-autobiographical.

Rumpus: I’ve read that you didn’t go to school for design or computer science. What did you go for?

Kottke: I went to college not knowing what the hell to major in — I was interested in everything and couldn’t decide — and popped out with a physics degree. My senior honors thesis was on the physical properties of rubidium and cesium borosilicate glasses. I had more fun tinkering with the layout of the thesis than doing the research, which eventually led me to reconsider my career path. However, the varied subject matter that makes up kottke.org on a daily basis is attributable to the to the wide range of interests that I entered college with and the even wider range of subjects I was able to study in college.

Rumpus: Okay, this question is a little selfish. Could you explain HTML to my mom, please?

Kottke: Mom, HTML is what’s called a markup language. You can use it to tell a web browser how to display text and images. For instance, if you want a certain word to show up as bold on the screen, you can just put <b></b> “tags” around the text in question, which tells the browser, “hey, make this bold!” There are also tags for “Yo, put an image here!”, “Dude, this text links to some other page!”, and “You there, make a box to type text into!”

Rumpus: Does kottke.org have trolls?

Kottke: A few, but they aren’t too bad. I don’t feed them and encourage others not to either, so they generally just give up and go elsewhere after awhile. Trolls would likely be more of a problem if I opened up comments on the site more frequently.

Rumpus: Have you ever wanted to just give up editing the site?

Kottke: Every few months, although not for awhile now. The major turning point came back in 2004. The site was becoming unmanageable as just a hobby— I was spending 20-30 hours a week on it in addition to working a full-time job — and was more fun/challenging than what I was doing at work, so I decided I either needed to quit the site or turn it into something I could live off of. It took me 2-3 years to figure out how to do that. And not only financially… the bigger challenge for me was how to balance taking the site seriously while simultaneously not worrying about it too much. Paula Scher talks about that balance in this TED video, great design is serious (not solemn).

Rumpus: What’s been your greatest triumph? It doesn’t have to be related to the Internet or websites or anything. You could have won a game of cricket and that could be the biggest feather in your cap, which would be awesome.

Kottke: I can’t think of any individual events. There are some things that have built up over time — like being able to work for myself — that don’t have a triumphant feeling associated with them but are significant to me nonetheless.

Rumpus: You’re a dad. What’s your favorite children’s book to read?

Kottke: The Dr. Seuss books are always great, especially the tongue twister ones…he and I have equal difficulty reading them.

Kottke: I’m an advisor to a start-up company called Buzzfeed and part of the deal is that I get a desk in their office in Chinatown. I’m here pretty much every weekday from 9-5.

Rumpus: Do you always take a lunch break?

Kottke: Almost always. At good jobs, it’s nice to have lunch with coworkers and chat about something other than work. At bad jobs, it’s essential to escape to a restaurant for an hour with a good book. Today, however, is a rare lunch at my desk.

Rumpus: You recently redesigned the site. I loved what you wrote about it, that you realized that people had become comfortable with the previous, hello!-yellow look and that they’d be irked that you changed it. You also said that you knew that design was a process, which is so fucking true. How did you make the choice to do something that you assumed wouldn’t jive with the majority of your readership?

Kottke: I redesigned the site because I was tired of the old design and to address feedback I’ve gotten over the years. kottke.org was long overdue for a kick in the pants. I knew people wouldn’t like it at first because I didn’t really like it right away either. But I got used to it and was confident that others would too. There’s still some stuff that I’m not comfortable with and as solutions to those issues become apparent through feedback or intuition, I’ll fix them.

kottke.org is different than a lot of other “pro blogs” (yuck) out there because I’m not trying to generate more pageviews or maximize advertising revenue or project a certain image. I’m not trying to “appeal” to a certain “demographic”. In many ways, kottke.org is still a personal web site that reflects the personality and world view of the designer/author/editor rather than that of the reader. The site is more for me than it is anyone else.

Rumpus: Semi-related, how did you come up with the “home of fine hypertext products” line?

Kottke: I thought it sounded a bit olde tymey in a McSweeney-ish sort of way that seemed appropriate for the site.

Rumpus: As a hungry and poor freelance copywriter I have to say that seeing your jobs section always makes me happy. It feels like you’re paying it forward in a way. Where did you get the idea to post openings on your site, and when did that start?

Kottke: I think it started a couple of years ago. I was getting 3-4 emails a week from readers asking if I knew of any good jobs or people to fill jobs and I felt bad that I couldn’t really help them out all that much. When Jason Fried emailed and asked me to include the 37signals Job Board on the site, I thought it was a perfect way to make some money for the site (I get paid for running the job board posting) and to help my readers get jobs or fill jobs. IMO, this is exactly how advertising should work…everyone should get something good out of the deal.

Rumpus: Do you ever get recognized on the street?

Kottke: Sometimes, although I almost always find out about it later via email, blog post, or Twitter. I’m still not sure whether that’s creepier than being approached in real life or not.

Rumpus: What do you do to prevent burnout with the incessant onslaught of information processing and site updating that you’re tethered to?

Kottke: It’s not so much about prevention than it is about learning to live in a constant state of burnout. Life is suffering, right?

**

You can see what Jason’s discovering every day at kottke.org.

God-des & She are a hip-hop and soul duo originally from the Midwest who are shaking speakers as out and proud lesbian recording artists with an unmistakable and addictive sound. Featured on The L Word’s Season 3 finale, the video for their single, “Lick It,” was banned from MTV, a sure sign that superstardom is on the horizon.

To be a female duo breaking boundaries and shattering stereotypes within the hypersexualized rap and r&b scene is enough, but the media has often focused on their sexuality just as much as their tremendous talents. With their most recent release, “Stand Up,” being available on iTunes and Best Buy, and with an epic tour under their belts, it’s safe to say that this duo isn’t going anywhere, and homophobes and haters had better get used to it. The Rumpus caught up with the girls the day after they arrived in Albuquerque to start recording their new album, and to prove that they aren’t car thieves.

(Note: God-des is the wordsmithing rapper of the two, while She croons and does more than simply hold her own on their tracks. The interview was mainly conducted with She, while God-des attended to some business just within earshot.)

The Rumpus: First of all, congratulations on getting back in the studio. I hear you’re recording with Dom Beatz and Brian Hardgroove?

She: Mainly just Brian now, in a really cool studio. Dom got an offer to move to LA at the very last minute. He’s working on some really cool new record so he had to just up an move to LA in, like, a week. We were like, “Oh no, what are we going to do?” But we traveled and found this really cool guy who used to engineer Jimi Hendrix’s old studio, he’s an older guy and he’s doing the project for us, but Brian is going to produce everything.

Rumpus: Jimi Hendrix, huh? Wow. And Brian has worked with Public Enemy, Wu-Tang, Aerosmith, some pretty huge artists. Is it intimidating when you meet these guys who’ve worked with pretty big names?

She: Not really. We met him a couple of months ago when we were here. We had lunch with him and we just really vibed. He was really nice and super easy to talk to, and we all got on really well. I never really get too freaked out, they’re just people like me. People are just people, we’re all just the same under everything, so I never really get star-struck. A few times I have, but…

Rumpus: With who?

She: Slick Rick was cool ’cause he’s one of the founders of hip-hop music, that was pretty crazy. We opened up for him, and it was like, wow. That was a while ago. We’ve opened up for MC Lite, we’ve opened up for all kinds of people. We’ve been really fortunate.

Rumpus: I guess this is a bit of a strange question since you just got to Albuquerque yesterday, but what’s the daily process like when you’re recording? Can you walk me through your day?

She: We’re going to do kind of like a regular workday, a 9-6 kind of thing, but, the truth is, we’ve always been self-produced. We’ve always done it ourselves, so this is the first time that it’s going to be a process like this. We’re excited, ’cause we really don’t know. Normally we’re at our house or at some other kid’s house, you know? So it’s really exciting to be working with somebody who really knows music and really can help us with arrangements and ideas, it’s really exciting. We’re so excited.

Rumpus: I’ve always wondered how you two write music as a duo. It seems that there’s a weird divide between solo artists and bands, solo artists obviously have all the control over what they do, and with bands it’s at least assumed that making music will be a collaborative experience, but with a duo it’s split kind of evenly. How do you guys balance the duality of the creative process?

She: I think that we’re really equal. As far as rapping goes, a lot of times it’s like the rapper’s the main focus and then the singer just hooks, or whatever, but our dynamic is so intense that it’s really become this very equal partnership of two dynamos on the stage. In writing, I think that we both have lifted each other up. I’m very melodic and I’m the singer, and she’s very rhythmic ’cause she’s a rapper, but she’s become way more melodic and I’ve become way more rhythmic. We just have taught each other so many things by osmosis pretty much. Not like intentionally, but it just kind of happened over a great period of years now, going on nine.

Rumpus: Wow. You guys have been a duo for that long?

She: She’s been God-des for eleven years and I joined up with her a couple of years after she started. We were in Madison for three or four years just making music and doing shows and stuff. Then she was like, if we really want to be serious about this we have to move to New York, and we’ve been in New York for about five years now. I grew up in the Midwest, in Madison, Wisconsin, and she grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, so we’re Midwest girls that were transplanted to the New York craziness, but at this point we’re used to it. I think we’re ready for a little bit slower pace. Going to the next level, I’m ready to chill.

Rumpus: You guys have been touring a whole lot, for a long time. How do you guys stay sane on the road?

She: Well, we travel really well together. It’s always an adventure. You basically just have to learn to roll with whatever is happening, and become  very Zen, because what’s happening is what’s happening. And if it’s not what you want, and you fight against it, it’s just going to make it worse. So we just kind of try to roll with whatever’s going on and try to keep a positive attitude, and we fail, we fall short of that sometimes, but we do all right for the most part. We really are grateful to be able to do this for our job, and we’re grateful we’ve been able to travel and meet all these weirdos. No one else has our life. So it’s really exciting to be able to do this.

Rumpus: How have you been received overseas?

She: Man, Sweden was off the chain. We played Europride, which is pride with all the countries, and there were so many people, and we also played this club show that was 800 people and they were losing their minds for us. That was really cool and really fun. We’re going back to do Stockholm Pride this year, and hopefully do a little tour, but maybe just Stockholm Pride because it’s right in the middle of pride season in America, so we really have to figure it so we can be back. Because we are professional musicians, and we make our living at making music, so that’s main a factor in how we roll.

Rumpus: Do you find that at this level of success it’s difficult to manage the business side?

She: We’re just now kind of getting used to treating it as a business. We sell so much merchandise, there’s so many factors that go into it, and we’ve been doing it all on our own this whole time. Now we have a team, Allie Shaw, our manager, and Keven Davis, our lawyer who’s also Ludacris’ lawyer and Serena William’s lawyer, he’s really basically an angel who was sent to us. He’s been working for us for about four years, pretty much pro bono. We pay him what we can, and he’s just been there for us, he’s really helped us a lot. He’s saved us from making bad decisions and doing dumb things. It’s a process of trial and error, figuring out what really works and what doesn’t. Having it be your job, I thought it would ruin music for me. But it really hasn’t. It’s taught me that I really like being in control of my career and I like having it be something that I’m learning to do, and getting better and better at.

Rumpus: Do you guys eventually want to manage yourselves entirely again?

She: It depends. Maybe. I think that right now it would be too much, ’cause I’m hoping for a Grammy in 2010, and that level is just going to be a little harder to manage.

Rumpus: I have to commend you for keeping your private lives private. I’ve read interviews where you’ve explicitly stated that you’re not talking about personal stuff, which I really respect. I think that, because you’re labeled as lesbian recording artists, often a lot of very intimate questions are deemed appropriate to ask. I want to know how you handle drawing that line between sharing with your fans and keeping a level of discretion.

She: If they start to say that everything’s just about the queer stuff, or the gay stuff, we try to just kind of direct it more to the music and who we are as people, and that’s just a piece of what our music’s about. At this point, we’re writing music that’s for everyone and just trying to make it really fun and really uplifting. We’re trying to make people feel good and empowered regardless of what their sexual orientation or gender may be. It does get a little tiresome because certain publications really want to focus on that sometimes, but for the most part we try really hard to keep it chill. We try to not really focus on that, to talk about what records we’re doing, what places we’re playing, who we’ve played with, stuff like that. Yeah, it has been an issue. We were in Billboard Magazine and they basically just talked about the fact that we’re queer. And we were all excited to be in Billboard and it was like, “Oh.”

Rumpus: That sucks. I’m sorry.

She: (A car alarm goes off, loudly.) I’m sorry…oh my God! (laughs) She set off the alarm!

(There is commotion, the alarm continues. The phone is handed off.)

God-des: Sorry, she got a little overwhelmed. (Alarm is still going off) Are you there?

Rumpus: Yeah.

God-des: Sorry about that. (Alarm stops going off) It stopped. We’re in the car, the alarm was going off, that was pretty bad. So what were you guys talking about? Where did you leave off?

Rumpus: My last question was what music are you guys listening to right now?

God-des: Oh man. We listen to a lot of older music, I’ll tell you that much. We listen to Neil Diamond. All the time. I don’t care, I’m proud of it. I really like that “Chasing Pavements” song by Adele, I actually kind of like that Kings of Leon song “Sex On Fire.”

As far as hip-hop, like, man, I haven’t been that impressed with a lot of stuff that’s come out. It’s not really that new anymore, but I really listened to Lupe Fiasco’s last record a lot. And I liked Kanye’s last record, not the one that’s out right now. I like the older records. And I love Public Enemy, big ups to Public Enemy. We really  have a very diverse musical taste, we listen to everything from classic rock to a few country singers, to so much hip-hop and R&B and 80s. We get a lot of influences from a lot of different sources of music.

**

Check out the God-des & She homepage and MySpace to find out when they’re coming to your town.

Andrew W.K.: I remember you asked for me to type these answers. As much as I love typing and writing, and I think that I spend most of my time typing, I don’t really like doing interviews over the email for some reason.

Rumpus: Better stuff comes from two people talking. But I think a lot of times people are busy and want to do it at their own pace. Anyway. Over the years you’ve worked with all kinds of artists, like Lee Scratch Perry, Mike Pachelli, and Baby Dee. Who have you had fun making music with recently?

W.K.: Well, right now I’ve been working on producing two new artists. When I say ‘new’ I mean they are new to me, as far as me working with them, but they’re also relatively new in the world, in that they’re coming out and presenting themselves for more or less the first time. I’ve been working with them in the capacity of producer, as a friend, of course, and, as a sort of creative developer. And the name of the first one is Aleister, you can find him at MySpace. And the name of the other artist is Bad Brilliance.

Rumpus: Aleister and Bad Brilliance. Nice. Are they both young people?

W.K.: I guess so. Bad Brilliance is younger than Aleister, and Bad Brilliance is younger than me. Aleister is younger than me but older than the combined ages of me and Bad Brilliance.

Rumpus: Huh.

W.K.: So I don’t know their real ages. But I can tell who is younger. For a long time I worked with other musicians, and was in bands, and played music with my friends but when I started doing Andrew W.K. as my main focus, I sort of swore off collaborating, mainly because I didn’t want to be associated with anybody in that initial period of establishing myself. I wanted to come out clean and not related to anything if I could help it. That was of course very challenging, and it clearly helped that I didn’t have a lot of musical connections and I wasn’t working with other people. Eventually that became very limiting, and after following that rule for about five years I decided to contradict it, and started working with other people, and it’s been very, very rewarding. But I’m glad I didn’t do it any earlier.

Rumpus: Do you think that both Aleister and Bad Brilliance could succeed without any attachments, the way you did it?

W.K.: That’s an excellent question. I certainly had a lot of help and a lot of people working with me and giving me tons and tons of energy. More literally speaking, I just didn’t want to have a musical association with anybody at those early days, but it’s interesting. I never really thought about that before. These guys are coming out and their having a musical association with me, but I guess that they’re okay with that. Which is great, ’cause how can I blame them? ‘Cause I did the same thing. I’ve had some interesting experiences lately, and I’m not going to name names, but I’ve seen younger, up-and-coming bands or musicians who seem to have been inspired by things that I’ve done, or who I’m well aware are inspired by things that I’ve done because they’ve told me and we’ve talked about it, and then I’ve seen interviews when someone asks them what are their influences, “What are some of the people who have inspired you?” and they specifically don’t mention me. I can’t get mad at that, ’cause I did the exact same thing, and I didn’t want to be associated with it.

Rumpus: What kind of music inspired you?

W.K.: I was influenced and inspired mostly by people who made music that was nothing like mine. I didn’t want to sound like their music, I just wanted to have the feeling that I got from that, that feeling of excitement and joy that their music gave me, I wanted to give that to other people. So even though I was inspired by these bands, it was wrong to say that they influenced me in terms of this is what my music sounds like.

Rumpus: No man is an island, especially when it comes to art, right? It’s a collaborative community.

W.K.: It’s an absolutely communal experience. Especially music. And no matter how much someone might make music for their own sake, or think of it as a personal pursuit, the minute it’s played and anyone else can hear it, it exists in a communal atmosphere. When you listen to a piece of music, you’re not only listening to the people who made it and who recorded it, you’re in touch with everyone else who has listened to that song, and everyone else who’s ever listened to it takes that into the world, and you are participating in this communal experience of having heard that song, especially songs that we’ve heard thousands, or maybe hundreds of thousands of times, which, really, collectively is a beautiful aspect of humanity. I really think it’s one of the best things that humans have ever done. Perhaps the best thing. Though I don’t know if I’d like to order it as the “best.”

Rumpus: Tell me about collaborating with Bad Brilliance and Aleister.

W.K.: Bad Brilliance and Aleister don’t need me. They’re able to do everything themselves. They write the songs, they record the songs, they make the album covers, they take pictures, they take videos. I mean, that’s why I want to work with them, because they can do everything on their own, so, they don’t need me, so whatever I contribute is like an added bonus. It gives it that much more energy, but I think that anyone I’d like to work with wouldn’t require me, because then I think we’re working on an even level. If the relationship is too skewed and one person is needy and the other person is all-powerful I don’t know if that’s a healthy creative process.

Rumpus: Obviously you’re getting something out of producing them. It’s fun for you, too, right? And it’s probably helping shape your music-making as well.

W.K.: Absolutely. Working with Lee “Scratch” Perry especially had a huge musical impact on me. Not so much, again, about, “I’m going to change the way I make Andrew W.K. music,” but more like a fundamental impact that changed my whole understanding of life and how creativity fits into that. And that’s what I can take from working with someone else. It wasn’t so much like the literal things, like how to record the best possible sounding drums, or learning this particular trick of how to write this particular song, I wasn’t looking for that information. I was looking for the more subtle experiences, and the more magical quality. I used to think that you had to be in a lot more pain, and you really had to be going through a lot more struggle, to really prove that you were working hard. But then I realized that was just working inefficiently, and perhaps even working detrimentally, and perhaps self-destructively, and that when I’m at my best it’s when I’m enjoying working. It’s not that it’s easy, it’s that the things that seem hard about it are still so much fun to do that you’d never call it hard. And that’s how we’re able to do what we’re able to do well. And that goes for everybody, I think, that if we’re ever going to be really successful at doing something we have pick something we really enjoy doing ’cause that’s the only way we’re going to have the motivation to put in the thousands of hours to be successful.

Rumpus: Are they both in New York?

W.K.: Yes, they both are. Bad Brilliance was originally from Brazil, but he’s American.

Rumpus: How’d you meet him?

W.K.: I was at a concert at the Bowery Ballroom, and I was doing some interviews with some of the performers. During all of this excitement, I saw this man walk by me on the stairs, and for whatever reason I was completely blown away. He wasn’t wearing any particularly crazy clothes, and he didn’t have a crazy hairstyle, or anything that would make him stand out specifically, but his entire aura, his entire charisma, was just so strong, and so unique, it was just very intense. And he looked familiar to me even though I was sure I had never seen him before. I just remembered seeing this guy, even days later. And I don’t know if that’s ever even happened to me. I mean, I’ve seen people on the street before, men, women, kids, just people that you notice, and this is one of those guys that I really, really noticed. Then a few days later someone went to my MySpace and posted these incredible photos. People have done that many times before, and I’ve been tricked a few times into thinking that the pictures were created by the person who posted them, and I’ve actually had a lot of fun talking to people about their work and figuring it out. But I was a little hesitant, even though these photos were so mind blowing, I was wondering, “Gosh, did this guy who posted them really take them?” So I wrote to him and I asked him, “Did you really take these photos?” And he wrote back, “Yes.” And I said, “I’m blown away by your pictures, I’d really like to work with you taking photographs.” He sent me his number and I called him and it turns out that we had some mutual interests and we were really passionate so we scheduled a time to meet at the McDonald’s in Times Square later that night. And I realized after I got to the McDonald’s and I was waiting out in front on the sidewalk, I realized that I had never told him what I looked like, and I didn’t know what he looked like. I wondered how I was going to recognize him. I thought that hopefully he’d seen pictures of me on my website, or hopefully since he’s familiar with me, he’d recognize me. I was wondering how I was going to respond to this guy, and sure enough, ten minutes later he walks up and it’s that guy I had seen at that show, that guy was Bad Brilliance. Those types of what some people might call coincidences, the more I appreciate those types of things. Those types of circles or connections, those moments that seem like destiny, or fate, or like a great dream coming true, I really try to cherish them, and be really grateful for them, and really pay attention to them and not just say that it’s funny that it worked out like that but really say that, no, it was meant to work like this, this is all proof that the right things are happening, and to really put stock in those types of things. And, of course, the more you do it, the more they seem to happen. Or at least the more you notice them.

Rumpus: Then what?

W.K.: Then you can take it up another notch and make these things happen, but making them happen doesn’t seem to work as well as allowing them to happen.

Rumpus: Right. I mean, don’t you think that if you’re just open to these so-called coincidences that makes them happen more often?

W.K.: Exactly. I think that maybe some people might have some difficulty grasping these types of ideas, me included. It’s been really hard sometimes to imagine that we really have this type of power and control. It’s a little different type of control than what we were just talking about in terms of I want to make things happen a certain way. It’s a lot more subtle than that. I think we do have influence, and I think that basically what we want to have happen is happening. And the reason why that’s been kind of unsettling, or kind of disturbing on the other hand, is ’cause then maybe we can think that everything that we haven’t enjoyed, maybe all the not-so-nice coincidences, or the not-so-nice experiences, that we have to take credit for those too, maybe that’s why it’s been a little painful.

Rumpus: So if you’re going to take responsibility for the so-called good and the so-called bad, and with the good things, like meeting Bad Brilliance, that requires gratitude, do you feel that with the negative or the things that aren’t as enjoyable or traditionally thought of as beneficial–

W.K.: Like the economy for example?

Rumpus: Sure. If something bad happens, what do you feel?

W.K.: Humility. Yeah. That sounds like a good opposite of gratitude. I’m only making this stuff up as I go along basically and trying to figure it out every day. A lot of times, on a personal level, if things don’t go well, or I get bad news, or something bad happened, I’ve been sitting there and tried to think why did I want this to happen, somewhere deep down inside, very deep, maybe a place I never even knew existed in my mind, somewhere I wanted this to happen, now why? Most of the time I’ve been able to figure it out. That, to me, is a lot more productive than blaming it on outside forces, blaming it on other people, blaming it on the world just sucks.

Rumpus: I think maybe what I learn from a negative experience can make me strong enough to be even more grateful the next time something good happens, if gratitude is that sort of universal constant you’re trying to foster.

W.K.: That’s absolutely right. I think that we should have as many ways to be happy as possible, and as many ways to interpret our experiences as we can, ideally with all those different interpretations leading towards meaning, understanding, appreciation, and most of all, for me, joy. I do think that is the point of humanity. And I’ve heard many times, from extremely smart people, like, even Wittgenstein, the philosopher, he has a quote where he says, “I don’t know the purpose of life but I’m pretty sure it’s not to be happy.” I don’t know. I kind of think that it is. Because we have the capacity to experience it in the first place, to understand what causes it for us and what doesn’t, and we’re geared towards satisfying that desire for happiness. I think that our understanding of what happiness is is different and maybe that’s what he was getting at with that quote, but I think that being in a state of joy is ultimately what the human spirit wants to experience.

Rumpus: Well, then why do people try to work against that? To take the argument that the natural state of humanity is to be joyful, then what is it about humanity now that seems to work directly against that?

W.K.: I think that in the past there’s been a lot of different behaviors, and some of them worked well, and some of them didn’t. But I don’t think, and I really believe this, I don’t think that people were ever really trying to ruin the world. I think that some humans’ versions of what happiness is were different than others, and some peoples’ ideas about what would achieve happiness for them or others were different, and that’s when we’ve seen the clashes. When someone has tried to impose their will on someone else. I still think that the reason why that person tried to impose their will was to pursue happiness, and that’s also been perhaps, the danger of that pursuit of happiness, is: To what lengths will people go?

Rumpus: So what about now?

W.K.: I think that instead what we’re experiencing now is that we’re joining together and we’re combining our collective happiness and figuring out new ways to be happy that don’t involve some of the old ways that we used to think that we needed to be happy. For the first time we can conceive of an era where rather than someone wanting to buy a tee-shirt, we can imagine an era where someone would rather have a really cool graphic on their computer page, or would rather have access to this piece of information, whether it’s a song, or a picture, or article, or whatever. And things like Second Life and MySpace, and I never would have imagined I would have been saying something like this even a few years ago, but they’re pointing towards a reality where what we value will no longer be material experiences. They’ll be just pure experiences, not necessarily based in any one version of reality or another, it will just be raw experience, and whether that experience is information or sensation I think less and less of it will have to do with material objects. And it’s the same thing with what’s been happening with CDs, it’s no longer important for people to have these plastic CDs as much as it is to experience the music.

Rumpus: So for Aleister and Bad Brilliance are you planning on only releasing their music through the Internet or on their MySpace pages or through MP3s or something?

W.K.: We’ll do it all those ways. But I really like the artwork being a large size. So I’d like to do limited runs on vinyl and CD as well. But I hope that no one throws them away, I hope they don’t wind up in a landfill. Have you ever heard of a book called Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson?

Rumpus: No.

W.K.: It’s mind-blowing. I can’t even begin…at any rate, Neal Stephenson, in Snow Crash, he anticipated, with many other people, and many science fiction writers, he anticipated many of the technological advances that we’ve already been experiencing, and he’s predicted more. Perhaps some day, just as we’ve grown to spend more and more time on our computers, and interacted more and more using the computer as a portal, eventually we’ll, perhaps, just as the Snow Crash characters, we’ll just live in a storage space where we have a computer, like a terminal basically, and we log in there, and there, that’s the world. The world wide web, the Internet, in terms of a street where you can just visit these different addresses, web addresses, eventually the street, like in Second Life, is the main Internet, and each website is not just a page but is in fact a three dimensional space that you can explore, in virtual reality or cyberspace, or on the flat screen as it is now, and people there, now I can play a concert in Second Life. Now, I have not joined Second Life, but in theory I could play a concert in Second Life, and then I don’t need to fill the venue, or buy equipment, or manufacture anything other than what I already have to put on this concert in Second Life. I could manufacture clothing in Second Life, like I was saying. I could design, like this Chinese woman who made millions of dollars, she designed buildings for companies, but they’re Second Life buildings, they’re computerized, they’re just a picture on a screen, so that involves nearly no material consumption, except for energy. And it’s really interesting to imagine a world where people only value a computerized version of a material object over the actual material object.

Rumpus: That’s a promising theory. I hope that we get there sooner rather than later.

W.K.: But think about how much has gone on already! Just with CDs, newspapers, and books.

Rumpus: I guess so. I guess we have to think that negative things, like pollution, global warming, the economy, mass consumption, these negative things will lead to positive changes.

W.K.: They have to! We have to think that. I mean, we might as well think that.

Rumpus: Santos’ Party House is the nightclub you opened last spring. Speaking of positive changes, thank God Mike Bloomberg finally got around to scrapping that lameass, outdated dance police law.

W.K.: Actually, that cabaret law is still in effect. Nothing’s really changed. He’s just made it not quite as difficult for people to get them. But it still exists.

Rumpus: I remember being a teenager in New York, and I remember being chased out of places for fear of the fire marshal coming and shit. It was so stupid.

W.K.: Yeah, we’ve been very fortunate, and it’s great what he’s been doing. I actually like Bloomberg. For his general support for the arts, for downtown New York, for the creative residents of the city. He’s been very vocal about that. That’s had a really positive impact for everybody working in this field.

Rumpus: It’s good stuff. So, is there anything else?

W.K.: I just announced today that I’ll be releasing a solo piano album. I had mentioned that before, but it’s called Fifty Five Cadillac, it’s on Ecstatic Peace! in the US on vinyl, I’m releasing it on CD in the UK through a label I’m starting there with the company I’m going to be working with to release the Aleister and Bad Brilliance material. It’s called Skyscraper Musicmaker. And another project we’re working on is a mixtape called Damn! And that features Bad Brilliance and Aleister and a producer/DJ called B-Roc. It’s got a bunch of songs on it, remixes and special tracks, the mixtape we’ll be releasing it in spirit with what you were talking about, about completely offering it in the digital format, but we’re also probably going to make CD copies to pass out to people. I personally, probably ’cause of my age, I haven’t been able to really completely separate myself from compact discs. It’s always been my favorite format, I like vinyl because of the big artwork, but I’ve never really liked listening to vinyl, though I understand its appeal entirely. I really like the large sized artwork. But the CD case is still so great.

Rumpus: Do you like to imagine a completely computer-based world?

W.K.: It’s been pretty scary to me to imagine a completely computer world. But even Neal Stephenson in his book, where things have essentially evolved to that point, the typical world still does exist, and it’s still more or less the same, but there’s this other, entirely other world in cyberspace. I can’t believe, I mean, I used to think these ideas were so stupid, I really didn’t like them, I did not like the idea of cyberspace, I did not like the Internet, I fought it for a really long time, probably until I was about twenty years old. And then I just faced it. And I just think it’s just heading that way, it is that way.

Rumpus: What happened?

W.K.: The big change for me came from reading Ray Kurzweil. He’s an amazing man. He’s an inventor, I think that’s what he’d most like to be referred to as, he invented some of the best and earliest synthesizers. He started a keyboard company called Kurzweil, and he worked on this company with Stevie Wonder developing new era of keyboards, it was a big breakthrough. And he’s invented, if I’m not mistaken, dozens of equally important technologies. He’s also a brilliant writer. He’s a futurist, he writes about what’s coming, and it’s extremely intense. His greatest and perhaps most powerful idea is about the moment when technological advancement reaches a pinnacle, much how the speed and power of computer processors advances at a very rapid rate. It actually doubles every, I think, fifteen years, but because it’s doubling it’s even able to double faster, it’s exponential growth rate. He says that the moment that the exponential growth rate hits vertical, meaning if you’re looking at a chart of the advancement of technology, the power of technology getting more efficient, more powerful, it looks like it’s just going up in a forty-five degree angle, but because technology enables itself it’s actually going up in a curve that is approaching a ninety-degree angle. And once we hit straight up, at vertical, that’s when he says we’ve reached this great moment. It’s called singularity. And the name of his book is called The Singularity Is Near. He’s saying that it will be within our lifetime, and when this singularity occurs, life as we’ve experienced it for all of civilization will completely change and be completely unrecognizable, and then he has a whole book describing what that’s going to be like.

Rumpus: Yeah. Wow. Unrecognizable? That’s a scary idea. But it’s one to be prepared for.

W.K.: Exactly. I don’t think it should ever not be scary.

Rumpus: Interesting.

W.K.: I think it should be scary in the way that it was scary for us to go to school for the first time when we were little. It’s cool because Ray Kurzweil says it’s going to be very different, but it’s going to be very great. There won’t be any more health issues, there won’t be any more issues with population or resources because all of these things will be solved, and the most beautiful thing that he says, and the thing that made me change my mind about computers, is that he says that the distinction between a human being and a computer will no longer be any different than the distinction between one person and another. Meaning that he sees computers as a direct extension of the human world, of the human spirit — similar to other tools, like the hammer is an extension of a person’s arm — but an extension of their spirit as well, and their will, and eventually of their intelligence. He just says that the conflict and the pain that we feel about computers arises from that disconnect, that confusion that sees them as something alien, that sees them as something separate from ourselves, when in fact they are the result of our self and a result of our spirit. The whole idea is that we’re like God. It’s God manifesting through us, and us manifesting that through computers, and then it all loops back, and then it becomes one.

Rumpus: So you like computers?

W.K.: Computers are amazing. Why would I fight this? But then there’s other people that say it’s black magic. But I like to think of them as just pure magic. It’s sort of just alchemy, and whatever you’re going to turn that energy into is really up to you, so I like to think that people will use it for good.

Rumpus: Does online music sharing bother you?

W.K.: I used to get pretty upset about downloading on the computer, people stealing music, even though I did it a lot. I don’t anymore so much, but I used to do it a lot. I wasn’t bothered by people downloading my music, I just didn’t like the idea that what I was familiar with, that process of waiting for the album to be released and going to the store and buying it, I didn’t like that that had ended. I don’t know why. Now I could care less. It’s so strange. But fifteen years ago I probably would have felt very different. All these people can spend huge portions of their time now making music, being engaged in an active creative process, whether it’s a thing, a statement, and then they can share it instantly. Now that, to me, means that I put more people in a good mood more of the time.

Rumpus: The thing with technology is that it’s changing so rapidly. It’s like what Kurzweil is saying.

W.K.: Exactly. And if you think back to human civilization, when the ability to see anywhere beyond a few feet in front of you was limited, imagine, we never could have imagined that there ever was a whole world, that the concept of their being a whole world, our perspective was so specific. And eventually we were able to travel greater distances, we developed methods to see greater, so eventually we were able to see the idea of ground grow, and then we were able to explore. Now we see ourselves as nations, and already we’re seeing ourselves much more than ever before, and now because of the information age we’re seeing ourselves as a planet, and that’s very exciting to me. And you’re right, it’s happened so quickly, I mean, really it’s been within the past ten years, it’s unbelievable that it’s happened so fast, and that’s when if you read Kurzweil it’s very exciting, ’cause he says just ten years from now it’ll be unrecognizable again. The change from 2000 to 2009 was massive. Even in the last few months. So just imagine the next ten years. The intense part is that it’ll keep going faster.

Rumpus: That’s what’s so scary.

W.K.: Fortunately the computers have conditioned us to experience life at a faster pace, to be able to exist at a much faster pace, and fortunately for the young people, it’s all working perfectly well, and they’re living with computers from the very beginning, so they’re completely fluent on them. And it’s all headed in this direction. Now, again, there’s that paranoid side that says it’s all been designed this way for malicious purposes. But I’m enjoying it, so maybe the powers that be aren’t so bad. I really like to think that. Even if there’s a secret one-world government controlling it all, I’m having an okay time.

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You can see what Andrew is up to at his website , and check out Aleister and Bad Brilliance to see the magic made from his alchemy.
Santos Party House is the nightclub that Andrew and three friends opened in the spring of 2008. Check out the site for upcoming shows, table reservations, and a whole slew of other assorted awesome anecdotes.

Related posts:

1. The Rumpus Interview with Andrew Sean Greer

T Cooper

The Rumpus: You live in the East Village, New York. Manhattan is known as being the epicenter of all things cultural and literary. Does it ever feel claustrophobic being a writer in New York?

T Cooper: Not so much. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

Rumpus: What did you want to be when you grew up?

Cooper: A dolphin- and sea lion-trainer.

Rumpus: Let’s say you’re meeting someone in a fancy hotel. You get lost and find yourself wandering through a Young Republicans meet-and-greet. What would you do?

Cooper: I don’t think I could “pass” in any way, shape, or form at a meeting such as this. But if I were just some potentially “normal” looking chameleon who could pull off Young Republican realness, then it’d be totally excellent to grab a cocktail and have a seat with a few of them. I’d probably try to put “the” in front of various types of people, and then make sweeping generalizations about them. Like, THE GAYS sure are getting demanding these days, aren’t they? And so on with THE JEWS, THE BLACKS, THE TRANSGENDERS, etc.

Rumpus: How would you explain the nature of what transgender means to senior citizens?

Cooper: I would probably say something like, “You know how as you get older and older you start to realize how much you really don’t know everything about the world, and how the absolutes you clung to so tightly when you were younger started to dissipate?” Then I’d say that’s the deal with the concept of
“male” and “female”–that instead of two opposite genders, two presumed absolutes, there are actually endless genders, and that these nuances have always existed, it’s just that these days it’s a little easier to make changes (if desired) to one’s body to have it mirror one’s unique gender.

Rumpus: Who was your first crush?

Cooper: Alan Alda.

Rumpus: There’s such an emphasis on celebrities in our culture, and they’re looked at like deities, so I’ve gotta ask, these days do you have a celebrity crush?

Cooper: Alan Alda.

Rumpus: What, thus far, has been the best moment of your career?

Cooper: I’d say having a piece of my fiction published in The New Yorker (“Swimming,” August 20, 2007). When I was starting out as a writer and then in grad school, that publication was always like the gold ring, so when it happened it was pretty damn cool and fulfilling.

Rumpus: What is your next project? Is there anything you’re doing or working on currently that you can talk about?

Cooper: I’m working on both a graphic novel and my third novel. The graphic novel has an “environmental” slant, and the novel? I can’t talk about it. But the reason I can’t talk about it is not because it’s secret, but because it’s not finished, and I’m sick of spending significantly more time talking about NOT writing it than I spend time actually writing it.

The Rumpus: Which of your books was the most difficult to write?

Mary Roach: They are all buggers at one point or another, in some way or another, until I’m done with them. At which point a sort of soft-focus, amnesiac nostalgia kicks in, and I start  to remember them fondly — at least in relation to the current bugger I’m working on, whichever current bugger it may be. Access is always difficult, it was for all three, for varying reasons. The writing is always the easy part, provided I can get the good  material. It’s the getting of the good material that’s a challenge.

Rumpus: Did Bonk improve your sex life?

Roach: Sure, in that for two years it was a topic of dinnertime conversation…more so than normal, I mean. You start out talking about some researcher and his findings or experiments, and that leads to chatter relating to your own  two selves, and that’s always good, I think. And of course I picked up illuminating  tidbits here and there. But as sex books go, Bonk is not especially practical or self-helpy. For that you want that book Gay Men’s Guide to Straight People’s Sex, or whatever the title is.

Rumpus: When doing research for any of your books, have you ever vomited?

Roach: I love this question very much!  I have not even come close. In my whole life, I’ve never vomited from seeing something disgusting. Does it  really even happen, outside of movies and TV? I believe it may be a myth. Do you remember that scene in The Crying Game, where Stephen Rea runs to the bathroom and throws up after he sees that his girlfriend  has a penis? I so do not buy his reaction. Surprise, okay. Confusion. But vomiting? People are vomiting unrealistically in movies, and something must be done about it.

Rumpus: Have you ever been put in a tense or compromising situation when doing research for any of your books?

Roach: The beheader comes to mind. This woman was a diener, the person who prepares cadavers for researchers or for surgical instruction seminars.  In this case, cuts off the heads, (it was a plastic/reconstructive surgery seminar). No one had told her I was going to be there at the lab, and she wanted me gone. Just an unpleasant interpersonal confrontation in a roomful of severed heads. No biggie.

Rumpus: Can you divulge your next project?

Roach: The next book involves astronauts. People are vomiting in it. That’s all I can say.

**

Visit Mary Roach online to find out any upcoming readings or events.

By now everybody has heard that last night football fans in Tuscon got thirty free seconds of Jenna Jameson doing what she’s famous for in a mistake that was the answer to every teenage boy’s prayers. So Comcast messed up and showed some porn, PETA’s girls-on-vegetables ad was banned, and a few years ago Janet Jackson had a pierced nipple slip.

Sex, fear, and messing up seem to have a place close to the pad-protected heart of the Super Bowl. Countless warnings have been issued to coaches and players over the years, and hush-hush rules have been implemented to keep the princes of the pigskin away from nudie bars, booze cruises, and gambling, but that hasn’t stopped controversies from cropping up around the big game.

Back in ‘99, the day after he received a morality award from the Christian group Athletes in Action, Eugene Robinson of the Atlanta Falcons got caught offering an undercover cop $70 for a blowjob. In 2007 both a Snickers ad and Prince’s performance generated over 150 gay-haters to complain to the FCC.

In 1998 NBC rejected an advertisement for an impotence drug known as Muse because it wasn’t “appropriate for a family audience.” It’s a shame that it didn’t run, ’cause 1.3 million dollars seems like a fair sum to try and hock a product that is administered as a urethral suppository. First down?

Kind of sorta related, in 2007 the Boston Patriots were warned against sending their cheerleaders to distract the opposing team before the game.