• What do you do for a living?
Food Service Manager in a large county hospital. That's how I pay the bills, anyway. I also try to do some REAL living when I can find myself outside of work. • Who are your favorite artists?
Anyone who attempts to push into some new territory, bend the rules, and suspend or terminate conventions. Especially when it comes to form. The idea that one should write this way or that way makes me extremely ill. • What influences you to write about/how you do?
Subconscious fears and desires. The desire to turn thought and language upside-down. Testosterone driven sexuality. Love and hate. Cynicism laced with an understanding of the humor and beauty that lies within the apparently "negative" things in life. Having been dropped on my head as a child and having wrestled too many matches in high school without one of those funky head gear that you are supposed to wear. Cigars. Caffeine and lack thereof. Exercise and lack thereof. 18 years of Catholic education. The need to explode, implode, and kill on paper in a vicarious attempt to avoid doing so in real life. • Where do you see the underground writing scene in 25 years?
The "underground" to me is simply a state of mind and being among those who aren't doing it to be "discovered" or to make money. People who are driven by their own artistic sensibilities rather than the flavor of the week or the common thread. The medium will change, and perhaps continue to make these subterranean thoughts and ideas even more accessible which has it's ups and downs. The romanticism of the chapbook, for example, may continue to dwindle. However, allowing our madness to fire more rapidly and farther also has it's benefits. But the bottom line is, there will always be individuals and groups of people who will be propelled by a need to discover self expression on their own and who will want to include The Back Door Boys and Danielle Steel in a line-up with Osama Bin Laden. • from cait - make up your own question and answer it honestly! ?
Q: Hey fuck face, what'd ya eat for breakfast this morning?
A: Pop Tarts, bitch.
• questions submitted by contributors (no names) •• Chicken or Egg?
Steak and eggs, scrambled, with A-1 and tabasco. Hash browns, shredded. Wheat toast, buttered with jelly. Black coffee chased with a solid nicotine buzz. You were inquiring about my favorite diner style breakfast, were you not? • Talk about what being an editor gives you that keeps you going from issue to issue despite the above and other challenges you face.
Well, I've been slacking big time on my so-called "Co-editor" duties as of late, and it may be just a matter of time until Cait pulls the plug on my position, if I ever had one. However, when I edited my own print 'zine, I can recall that there was a tremendous sense of pride collecting, compiling, and producing my own product. The whole idea of gathering the works of other artists whose work you can relate to and organizing it in a way that it becomes an expression of the self as well as the group is a pretty amazing idea as well. The editor/producer as an artist I guess. • What goes bump in the night, lives in the basement and /or haunts your dreams?
I very rarely am woken in the night nor do I remember my dreams. And most homes in this part of the country (Nevada,) don't have basements. • How many pinwheels does it take to start a tornado?
My guess would be that since a tornado is a product of nature, you can jam those pinwheels, wiseguy. • Jump?
Huh? • Is there any subject/object not properly a subject/object of art?
Nice try. Anything is fair game. Who the hell asked this one, Tipper Gore? • What taboos, if any, remain for the artist in general and/or for you personally?
See above, Tipper. • What are your top three artistic priorities?
To have none. I get enough time setting goals and priorities in my 9 to 5 life. I'll be damned if I'm going to structure my writing. I just want to play some music, smoke a cigar, get a little wine buzz going, and have some fun. • Tell us what makes you melt and why.
What am I, a fuckin' candle? • It's obvious that the idea of community is important to the editors of The-Hold. Talk to us about how this community developed over time and what you see as its future.
I can't take much, if any credit for cultivating anything. I have not been around long enough, and I have only been a part of the editorial team for a portion of the time that I've been involved with the hold on any level. It's obvious that "underground artists" as I described above are attracted to the sense of freedom that is there. It seems as if on The-Hold, one can do no wrong. The purpose is to create and share our individual and collective creations with one another in an un-biased and supportive environment. I can only see it growing in terms of exposure and sheer number of people who are either involved or simply enjoying the view as a reader. As this happens, more ideas will spawn even more ideas and enhancements. It can only get better. I predict that Cait will continue this thing forever, and if death is a possibility, we will pump enough formaldehyde and ice into her ass to continue the experiment. My main contribution as a co-editor has been to sift through the submissions of would be new contributors. Most get sent to the shitter. That may not be very nice or "communal" of me, but people who write rhyming poetry get whatever the fuck they deserve. |
