HOLY CRAP! IT'S MOJO NIXON!

So here's the MOJO NIXON interview. If you don't know who he is, try this link or the great man's website.

Note that I wrote the questions, while Crackpot Dave actually asked the great man the questions over the phone. This interview also appears over at the entirely more legible Crackpotpress.com.




In the mid-eighties, at the height of the Reagan-Thatcher era, there was a lot of earnest arena-protest music, U2, Peter Gabriel, Midnight Oil and the like. Tepid stuff, mostly, lyrics that most people would have a hard time arguing with...war is bad, racism is bad, poverty is bad, etc. Whatever nugget of anger that may have existed in the genesis of the song was so blanketed by studio wash that all you that came across was whining.

But there was one voice that managed cut through the crap by being insensitive, funny and celebratory of sex, 'shrooms, and Bigfoot. That'd be MOJO FUCKING NIXON, of course -- no bullshit lyrics gibbered over some primitive ape-man rock and roll. With one whimpy email, we were able to get Mojo put it all back into perspective.

Who can forget such classics as "I Aint Going to Piss in No Jar", a version of “This Land is Your Land" that was probably intended to rock Wooody Guthrie out of his grave and "Stuffin' Martha's Muffin", about a desired sexual congress with MTV VJ Martha Quinn?

10 Albums and 20 Years later, you cannot kill Mojo Nixon. The rock-n-roll redneck prophet’s latest project, a political rantfest called “Lyin’ Cocksuckers” can now be heard on Sirius Channel 102. You can also hear Mojo Daily on Outlaw Radio, also on Sirius.

On to the interview:

Hail, Mojo.

G: So, a batch of cocksuckers got thrown out of office earlier this month, and have been replaced a whole new batch of hatchling cocksuckers. You think we’re better off?

MOJO: Look, the Republicans and the Democrats have been selling us the same bag of shit with different colors on it. You know it’s just a matter of who’s paying the piper. All politicians are whores. You don’t get elected to the Congress or the Senate without getting somewhere between 5 and a 100 million dollars. So somebody is paying those people and who’s ever payin’ is makin’ them dance. So I don’t think there is that big a difference, but I do think the election was a big FUCK YOU to George Bush and his idiotic Iraq policy. You’re gonna hear a lot of talk, I have a political talk show on Sirius 102 Sirius Stars, my political talk show LYIN’ COCKSUCKERS and you are gonna hear a lot of talk about how Iraq was mismanaged. Which is why we had to fire Rumsfeld. Iraq wasn’t mismanaged. IRAQ WAS A BAD IDEA FROM THE BEGINNING. Iraq has ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY nothing to do with 9-11. Saddam Hussein and Bin Ladin are TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE. Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11 and invading Iraq is possibly -- I mean short of dropping a nuclear bomb on Mecca it was the second dumbest thing we could do.

G:Anyone get elected that seems reasonably human to you?

MOJO: Naw, not really. I didn’t see anybody. There is a Senator from Vermont who claims to be a socialist and looks a little crazy. You know how John MCCain has that far away look in his eye? I know John McCain has kind of transformed himself from Maverick to Conservative stalwart here in the last ten years. Whatever they did to John McCain in the Hanoi Hilton, he’s looking at something REAL FAR AWAY that me and you can’t see. Same thing with the Senator from Vermont. He’s looking at something way off in the horizon. In his eyeball Karl Marx is dancing with Frederick Engels way off in the distance.

G: Michael J. Fox, who in 1987-ish you deemed the anti-Elvis, made an appearance this election season in campaign commercial down in
Missouri. Have you ever met up with the dude? Has he gained Elvisness throughout the years?

MOJO: I’ve never met with Michael J. Fox. AND I STAND BY WHAT I SAID. I will not pretend. I don’t care what kind of disease he’s got. I don’t pretend to be an evil yuppie twit, he shouldn’t pretend to be a rock and roller. In that BACK TO THE FUTURE movie, and in that awful Paul Schrader, Joan Jett thing, LIGHT OF DAY which had the Springsteen song which should have been a great working class rock and roll movie. And it’s a TURD! Because Michael J. Fox is in it. I don’t pretend to be an evil yuppie twit, he should not pretend to be a rock and roller. The idea that he invents duck walking and the Chuck Berry guitar riff.

CHUCK BERRY INVENTED THAT. Well, actually it was the guy from Louie Jordan’s band, but that’s a whole other story. The point being is that there is this Louie Jordan song, Caledonia, the famous Chuck Berry riff that’s at the beginning of Johnny B. Goode and all the Chuck Berry Songs (Mojo Performs Riff Here) that is actually from a Louie Jordan Song, Louis Jordan was kinda rock and roll before rock and roll. He was kinda novelty R&B guy in the late 40’s early 50’s, had a ton of hits. He has that guitar riff in the middle of it, only played half as fast. (Mojo does riff here). The Chuck Berry Riff. Nobody’s inventing anything. Everybody is STEALING something.

But back to Michael J. Fox and stem cell research. It just shows the poverty of the intellect, the poverty of the imgagination to say that somehow you are against abortion but you want to keep people crippled. I don’t understand… if you want to help- I understand the urge to want to help. I understand the urge to feed, to clothe, to heal the sick, to get the people good jobs and houses, to give people hope for people who have no hope but to be so crazy as to say “Oh no we can’t do stem cell research or the government can’t fund stem cell research” We MIGHT do something. Kinda like Iraq MIGHT have weapons of mass destruction and MIGHT have a link to Al-Qaeda. I can’t understand people calling themselves religious and being hateful. To me if a preacher is preaching hate, is preaching you to hate your enemies, to fear God... that’s not religion, that’s not helping humanity, that’s organizing an army to defeat somebody.

G: In his endeavor to become the new governor of the Once Great State of Texas, Kinky Friedman unfortunately did not succeed, but it was nice to have a guy that seemed like a human being rather than a haircut. What was getting out on the road with him like? Did you get the sense that people were excited by him?

MOJO: RICHARD KINKY BIG DICK FRIEDMAN, talked to him the other day.I got a great sense that people are sick and tired or regular politics. They’re sick and tired of people just standing there lying. Ya know politicians play this game “oh you know I am lying and I know I am lying but for the sake of political correctness, I have to lie”

Kinky just said what the fuck was on his mind. Ya know from one perspective Kinky should have gotten NO votes. He should have got one or two percent. He got twelve or thirteen percent. He got half a million votes, so that in and of itself is CRAZY, man. A Jewish comedic alt country singer song writer post-Chandler detective novelist gets a half a million votes in TEXAS? It’s amazing. But the other side of the equation is, there was one point in the middle of the summer when I was looking at the polls, I mean I can go online and look at the polls, Kinky was at about 24 percent. The Governor, the incumbent hand picked by George Bush to succeed him, Rick Perry was a bout 33%. All Kinky needed was for Rick Perry to get caught fucking a sheep or something and he could have WON! I talked to Kinky the other day after the election, I’m in San Diego and I called him and thanked him for letting me come along and you gave a good fight and he’s like:

“Now I can I tell you all the damn nasty perverted sex jokes I wanted to tell you during the campaign”

And there is a tape, a friend of Kinky’s, Kinky’s old manager Cleve, Cleve is an old time Austin Hippie and was Kinky’s right hand man for years, he got pushed out during the campaign. Cleve got me a job at a porno magazine. I was doing this thing called the “Poontango Report”

Cleve got a job there and said “Touring rock-N-Roll is gonna kill us. We’re gonna get jobs as editors of Porno Magazines”

I’m like HELL YA. This is a great idea. The greatest thing about working for a porno magazine -- one thing is -- you can say whatever the hell you want! SHIT, NO ONE’S READIN IT! Second thing is, my wife would come out and I would have all these porno magazines out on the floor, and she’d go “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?”

I’m looking at the competition, Baby.

So anyways, Cleve’s wife was sick. There was a big benefit for her down in Austin and I went. There were doing some kind of webcast through Digital Club Network. And they say you and Kinky gotta go into this little room and just talk for ten minutes. Kinky said some of the nastiest, craziest, perverted, shit you have ever heard in your life. If they had found the tape Kinky would have gotten negative votes.
Had they found the tape, they would have killed Kinky. They woulda killed Kinky and me. My head would be on Kinky’s body right now. Luckily they didn’t find the tape.

That’s one of Mojo’s rules. No audio, no video evidence. LET THE MYTHS BEGIN MY FRIENDS!!!

G: Mojo, what gives with this alt-country? What’s “alt” about it and what’s country about it? Who would you claim to be the godfathers of Alt-Country?

MOJO:There is a lot, Ryan Adams and No Depression and there is a bunch of snooze grazing sensitive fucks who think that Gram Parsons is the second coming of Bob Dylan that is giving this whole thing a bad name. Kinda of Poindexter types who think too much. The Alt-Country that I am interested in is the “Fuck You” alt country. You know that picture of Johnny Cash giving the finger? Johnny Cash giving the finger, David Allen Coe, THE BEAT FARMERS, the Blasters, you know, George Jones.

GEORGE JONES.

You know, his wife takes the keys away from him. So he drives the lawnmower to the liquor store.

THAT’S what I am talking about.

When country and rock and roll come together… Joe Ely. Joe Ely is the perfect artist. Too country for Rock-n-Roll… Too Rock-N-Roll for country. Steve Earle. He’s been married seven times and had to get off of heroin nine different ways.

Steve Earle has a nice FUCK YOU attitude.

G: What are you rocking out to these days? Do you still tour with the Sonic Love Jug?

MOJO: Naw, I’m retired from touring. We came out of retirement to help Kinky get on the ballot in the Spring, that almost killed me. Sonic Love Jug has been retired for ten years. I haven’t been playing much at all. My bass player Earl Friedman… his wife, something of a hussy, left him. Went off with some other guy. We might have to get the band together next year to get Earl Friedman laid.

We’re not doing it for me. We’re doing it so Earl can get some new poontang.

G: What sort of voodoo is needed to kill Nashville once and for all?

MOJO: Oh, it’ll never die. Nashville.

The thing that you always have to remember is that Britney Spears and Madonna have more in common with today’s Nashville than today’s Nashville has in common with Loretta Lynne and Hank Williams. Those people CAN’T WAIT TO SELL OUT. They’re selling out on the way out.

Selling real hillbilly music is a niche market. It’s like selling Zydeco or Ska or Bluegrass or Rockabilly. There are only so many people that like that kind of music, right?

Occasionally someone may make the cross to the mainstream, someone doing real country music. But they don’t care anything about that; it’s just pop music to them and it has been for a long time.

And most of the guys in Nashville are really just doing the Springsteen, Fogerty, Bob Seger, Johnny Cougar three chord rock. They’re not country. They have more in common with John Cougar than with Hank Williams.

And Garth Brooks, he’s a problem. Garth Brooks biggest influence was James Fucking Taylor; James Taylor and KISS… and he makes both of them look good! You’ve got to imagine, these guys grew up in the 70’s, the guys who are the pretty boy country singers now.

You know I was out with Sirius doing Outlaw Country and Keith Urban played and everyone talked about how good he palyed.

HE STUNK. He was awful. HE put the M in mediocre. I called him Mr. Nicole Kidman and almost got fired.

But hell, it was worth it.

G: In the 80’s you were a vocal opponent of the War on Drugs, suggesting “we should have a war on wars.” Whatever happened to the War on Drugs, did we win? Is it still going on?

MOJO: Oh, it’s still gong on. Police Departments are still getting money. Sooner or later this will all go away. The War on Drugs is still going on.

It’s good business for the jailers, for the prosecutors, for the police departments getting grant money. You know, getting a piece of that DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) grant money so they can buy a tank. The War on Drugs will never be won. There will always be a sheriff in a small town in the middle of nowhere who will turn his head for five minutes for $100,000. In fact, where I grew up in Danville, Virginia… just one county over in Martinsville, Virginia they just had a big deal where the local police who don’t get paid much money were confiscating the drugs from the drug dealers and selling it back to them at 80% of the dealers’ selling price.

They just got caught doing that.

That’s always going to happen.

Eventually all drugs will be legalized. You know people get on their high moral horse. As long as cigarettes and alcohol are legal, you have no moral foot to stand on. As long as drug companies are on the T.V. advertising WHAM-A-SEX or whatever the fuck it is, a purple pill, you have no moral foot to stand on.

Why can’t we, as adults, pick and choose what drugs to kill ourselves with? We’re all going to die, I want to die happy.

G: How’s radio treating you? Lying Cocksuckers, your show on Sirius Satellite, is one of the finest of all frequency modulated products currently available to peckerwoods like me.

MOJO: It’s going fantastic. I was working for awhile for Clear Channel, I went to Cincinnati in 1998, I got fired from talk radio there twice. I was working on a morning show from WNEN and I learned a lot about radio, but I was being handcuffed quite a bit. So I came back to San Diego and I was doing afternoon drive on KGB. I was making a ton of money, but I was not happy. This Sirius thing, Outlaw Country and Lyin Cocksuckers is the greatest thing that ever happened to me.

I can play anything I want. Once a week, I play “Tie My Pecker to My Leg” by ME.

I CAN SAY ANYTHING I WANT.

I can say “George Jones sings so good it makes your dick hard. Mojo Nixon, Sirius Satellite Radio.”

And then, I am doing this out of my house is San Diego.

So I can say anything I want, I can do anything I want. I’ve got little to no supervision. On LYIN’ COCKSUCKERS, I even tested it one time to see if someone was secretly listening and say “Oh. No you can’t go that far”

I did fucking ten minutes about Barbara Bush having a clit like a hot dog. Her clit is so big it has little clit’s orbiting around it. NOBODY SAID NOTHING!

I am FREE to SPEAK THE TRUTH!

G: It’s jive, of course, that truly interesting adult type conservation is banished to subscription radio, for the Sake of the Children. Who are these Children and how’d they become such tyrannical bunch of assholes?

MOJO: I don’t know. This whole idea of family values. Ya know, how do you make a family?

Ya make a family by fucking. How do you fuck? By getting nekkid.

So, the two greatest family values are nekkid people fucking.

G: You just started a new Nascar Show on Sirius in addition to Lying Cocksuckers…

MOJO: I just did my preview the other day. It went great. I have been preparing my whole life to do a NASCAR talk show. I think it will all work out real good.

G: Tell me about Nascar. I don’t get it. I don’t get the fans. I don’t get the sport. Enlighten me.

MOJO: I love racing. Did you ever race a Go-Kart as a kid? You go into the turn and there is point when you go too fast and you are going to hit the turn too fast and spin out and hit the wall. There’s another part when you are going too slow. Then there is the racing part when you are in between, on the razor’s edge of adhesion. If you go much faster than that or you break a little less you are going to wreck. If you do it just right, well then, you’ll beat the guy behind you. I grew up around it down South. My Daddy was a big fan.

I LOVE RACING. I LOVE NASCAR.

I love smelling the rubber. I love hearing the sound of the engines, seeing the flames coming out of the exhaust. I love seeing three guys going for one spot down the back straight away. AHH!

You know, it’s really just three guys from North Carolina turning left for no reason. You know what it really is?

It’s an existential need to fill the void, the emptiness that you feel inside. I know your life is empty. I know traditional religion and Lama Lama New Age shit is not fulfilling your life. I’m fulfilling my life with a bunch of rednecks from North Carolina turning left for no good reason. HAHAHAHA!


G: Let me just say that your album “Bo-Day-Shus!!” hipped the teenage me to the fact there were alternatives to wearing khakis and listening to Phil Collins, or wearing eyeliners and listening to Depeche Mode. So, I owe you. Records, you making any?

MOJO: I don’t think so. I made a record around eight years ago called SOCK RAY BLUE, nobody gave a shit. I spent a lot of time on it, writing songs and it’s about the best record I could have made.

I COULD make another record that would be just a different version of SOCK RAY BLUE.

But FUCK, I made ten records, ain’t that enough? I keep thinking I am going get a lot better as singer or a songwriter or a guitar player, but I’m not, I’m a one trick pony. I got three or four kinds of songs I can write and play. They’re okay, but they’re not great.

What people really liked was coming to the show and seeing the monkey show. The greatest thing about the show was Hell Fuck you didn’t know what I was going to say. HAHAHAHAHA. Hell, I didn’t know either.

And DEPECHE MODE: how come they didn’t die in a plane crash? Lynard Skynard gets killed in a plane crash and DEPECHE MODE is as alive as a motherfucker.

G: Who is the biggest lyin’ cocksucker of them all?

MOJO: You know I would tempted to say George Bush, but you know he is just…

You know who the biggest lying cocksucker is? The biggest lying cocksucker of all time is whoever convinced us that the act of creating life is dirty. And that we should be ashamed and we should be ashamed our naked bodies. I really don’t believe that there is a god in the traditional sense of the word. If there is a devil.. that’s who it is.

WHO TRICKED US? Who somehow tricked us into being ashamed of our bodies and creating life? THAT is greatest lying cocksucker of them all.

Jim, maker of strange and profane toys

Obviously, this is not Jim

Friend and sometime commute pal Jim comes from an incredibly large and talented family of musicians, authors, editors, and other sort of fancy pants bohemians.

Jim himself is an author, but the kicker for me is he is also a toymaker. Jim is a co-founder of StrangeCo., “Purveyors of the Peculiar”. He’s also a bit of an art toy evangelist. Here’s a briefish email interview with Jim. He’s cool.

G: So you make… dolls? Toys? Objects d’Art? Thingies? What do you call them?

J: We make collectible vinyl toys, based on original designs by independent artists. They're known by all sorts of descriptive terms - Designer Toys, Urban Vinyl, Art Toys, Fashion Toys.... I do like Thingies, though, certainly the most concise.

In our host high falutin’ moments, we like to think that we are creating accurate, fun 3-D representations of a particular artist's 2-D character design, an in the process making affordable pieces of sculpture art - kind of like a vinyl limited edition print.

G: Who designs them?

J: We work with quite a number of artists, actually, most of whom have had some success in one form of subculture art mode or another - street artists, independent cartoonists, illustrators, etc. To bat around some names for your avid readers: Mars-1,Jim Woodring,Ron English,Friends With You,Gary Baseman,Tim Biskup,Todd Schorr,Kathy Steico-Schorr,tokidoki.... there's a ton more and even more that we'd like to work with, but hey - can't take up too much room in your blog, eh?

G: Do you have an art background?

J: I'm more a man of letters, but I certainly appreciate good visual art.

G: Is “playability” considered when creating your stuff, or is it meant for the shelf?

J: It's actually more about "poseability" than playability - the toys we make usually have a few points of articulation (arms, legs, and neck are the general standard), so you can move the character into a couple of different postures. But we see the advantage of playability, too - we'd like to make the perfect desk fiddler for those nervous moments of pause between typing on the computer and answering the telephone.

G: You’ve commissioned some heavy hitting underground and fancy pantsy comic artists, like Peter Bagge and Jim Woodring. Do they dig what you’re doing? Do the artist ever get hands-on with the production stuff?

J: Yeah, both of those guys like what's going on with the weird toy
thing. It's an opportunity to take ideas that would otherwise only
exist in 2 dimensions and turn it into 3-D, and still retain some of
the feel of a mass-produced publication.

G: How big is the market for art toys in the US versus, say, Japan?

J: Japan, I think, has a more established toy collector culture, and is always "cooler" than the United States. But for what we do, the US
and Europe are bigger markets.

G: You just got back from the San Diego ComicCon. It’s interesting to me because your stuff has more of an urban culture feel in contrast with the whole men-in-tights thang that I associate with Comic cons. How do the more straight ahead comic fanboys approach you guys?

J: Well, Mr. Mills, it just ain't your granddaddy's comic con any more. The San Diego Comic Con is huge now, encapsulating way more than the normal superhero fare. A lot of people attend comic con specifically for the contemporary art angle. Ralph Bakshi has a booth at Comic Con, and this year I met Moebius. How cool is that? With that said, the folks in Batman costumes either like what we do or are indifferent to it. There's something for everyone at comic con now.

G: So, at your desk, it’s late, no one is around. Do you bust out some figures and start making explosion sounds?

J: I have a new USB hub on my desk that makes an auto-destruct sound when you flip a switch, I suppose to stand in for those times when you really feel like blowing up your computer. It makes a nice explosion sound, without me having to screw my face up and risk spittle all over my desk.

G: Can you guarantee that none of your figure will come to life and stab me to death in my sleep?

J: No Chuckies that I'm aware of. You're in good shape and can rest easy.

G: You’ve got smallish kids in your home. Do you play the “Dude, I’m a freakin’ toymaker. You are living with a goddamn TOYMAKER. Do you even comprehend HOW RAD THAT IS?” card very often?

J: Nathaniel, my eldest, who's in 2nd grade, took one of the toys that we sell to his class sharing day. He's already spreading the mystique around without any prompting be me, so I'm saving this card for an occasion of maximum effect. In the mean time, I prefer to rule with an iron fist - with an occasional boom explosion sound, runaway spittle and all.

Giant Robot Interveiw

Here’s another interview. It’s Martin Wong, founding editor of Giant Robot , which is probably the best magazine on the Planet, at least the best magazine about Asian and Asian-American pop culture, with a nice side little business on pointless pop trash, vinyl figures, exploitation cinema and pretty art.

Seriously, if you have a decent newsstand near you, see if you can pick up a copy.
(The interview was done for my friend Dave’s webzine, Crackpot Press.)
***
GREG: First let me get all the embarrassing fanboy gush out of the way so we can move on to more manly things. It’s in the form of a question, so it’s not totally inappropriate.

So, in 12 years you’ve gone from a zine to a freakin’ media empire (a magazine, four storefront galleries, a restaurant and an online store), you have done an amazing job keeping it, well, real. Through a decade of change, you’ve managed to imbue a sense of wonder and guilelessness into every issue. There is no bullshit, no lazy irony, no exploitation, just people talking about interesting stuff they believe in. In other words, it still feels like a zine in very much a good way. How’d you think you’ve kept it that way?

Martin: It’s super important to us that we believe in what we write about. We don’t feel like it’s our responsibility to reflect what’s big or report on things that are trendy. Fuck that! The whole point of having our own mag is to write about what we want. I think readers can tell that we are honestly into the topics of our mag, and not writing articles from press releases or fluffing products from advertisers. By covering a range of stuff—and not just music, toys, art, movies, or whatnot—we not only turn ourselves onto new things every issue, but we lead readers to check out things they blow off otherwise. For example, someone who buys GR for movie-related articles may read something about an artist and get into it. If that reader never reads art mags, the article could be mind blowing! That’s how we feel every issue.

GREG: Your masthead reads “ASIAN POP CULTURE AND BEYOND”. Are you guys on some kind of mission? Do you have a pillow at home with the Twelve Giant Robot Directives sewn into it? Seriously, what sort of responsibilities, if any, do you think you might have to the subject matter you cover? Do you guys have any ambassadorial duties? Do you ever feel protective of your subjects?

Martin: We’re on a mission to document and promote new, neglected, up-and-coming, obscure, and underdog Asian, Asian-American, and hybrid culture. We want readers to know about the stuff that inspires us, and hope it inspires them, too. We are protective, sure, but we are also proud of them and think the world would be better served if it knew about them. The other mission is to get as big as we can without sucking!

GREG: Do you keep the old zines lying around? Do you ever take them out and experience a personal montage sequence, starting at age five when you first saw Ultraman and ending at exactly the moment you found the old zines, stuffed in a shoebox you found in the trunk of the Rolls Royce Silver Shadow you drive now?

Martin: We totally have old copies. I look at them and can hardly believe we crammed so much stuff into each issue. Some of that is because we came out quarterly and didn’t believe in trimming articles. Another factor is that Eric was still doing the design. When Wendy came in, she brought all these new concepts like readability to the table! As for the Silver Shadow, that’s in the shop. I drive a Mazda station wagon. Eric is driving his dad’s old mini-van!

GREG:You see more and more aesthetics from Asian popular culture being appropriated for the US market. Do you see yourself as informing this trend at all, or are you outside of it? Do you ever want to say “I was into those guys since before you were picking your granny’s ass?” And why would you say such an awful thing? Dirty.

Martin: Well, I enjoy the white man’s culture now and then—certain pasty British bands and alcoholic novelists with dysfunctional families. So why can’t others appreciate interesting Asian culture? In the end, I’m all for the evolution and sharing of culture, which builds up to new hybrid manifestations. For example, Guitarwolf is a band that took rock ’n’ roll from America and turned it up to 11. Or a guy like Johnnie To has taken gangster movies and made them beautiful in addition to violence. Then bands or filmmakers from the west take their work and get inspired. Sharing like that is cool. Besides, if we had to rely only on Asian readership, we’d be dead. Most of them have average tastes just like most white, black, brown, or other people.

GREG: Your coverage of art and artists is pretty low key. Not a lick of fancy-pants Art in America theory stuff. What sort of artists end up in Giant Robot, both in the magazine and the galleries?

Martin: To quote Lux Interior from The Cramps, “I don’t know about art but I know what I like.” We can’t really say who’s important or what’s going to last, but we can say what we like. It’s important for us to say why we like things, too, though. That’s one thing that separates us from a vanity publication by some dude jerking off to his rare toys or whatnot.

GREG: Is there much interest in Giant Robot in Asia? Like when you approach folks that live and work in Shanghai, or Hong Kong, or Manila, or Tokyo, how do they respond to the magazine? I know Asia is hugely diverse in culture, so perhaps it’s a crude question, but what the hell, I’m going for it.

Martin: We have fans all over the place, but it’s kind of like here. Average schmoes—Asian or not—just don’t get it. They’re rather read about mainstream crap like what the Friends are up to or what Tom and Katy’s baby burped yesterday. Just like here, we get the arty folks, the punkers, and the geeks. Only fewer, because most don’t read English!

GREG: GIANT ROBOT is at least partially about living in California, isn’t it? It has a California vibe, to be sure, just like the old Thrasher I read as a hairless 7th grader in the early ‘80’s did. How much is your editorial voice is informed by being Californians?

Martin: Well, we are in L.A., and that’s one thing that informs us when it comes to art, music, food, and everything. We can surf in the morning, drive a couple hours, and snowboard at night. Then skateboard when we get home! When I was in college, it seemed like single band that matters comes through town, and now it’s the same way with artists and filmmakers. That helps us put together a mag that’s local, but not incestuous. And, damn, we have the best of every type of food. Not just Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Vietnames, Korean, Thai, Malaysian, Hawaiian, and any other Asian-Pacific cuisine but also Ethiopian, Cuban, and whatever else.

GREG: Your magazine does great travel pieces, covering stuff off the Lonely Planet path. Has there ever been any moments were either of you fellas, or one of your writer got into some deep shit when on the road? Rip-offs, cops, explosive diarrhea, vicious animals, one eyed pimps, etc.

Martin: The sad fact is that I hardly ever travel! If you read the travel pieces they’re usually friends who are on the road for work, play, or whatever. Eric gets out now and then, but the most exotic place I’ve gone lately is San Diego.

GREG: Any major plans (Sixty second Superbowl spots, Giant Robot Days at Magic Mountain, subscriber-only orgies, etc) for Issue Five-Oh?

Martin: Wow, that is coming up soon, isn’t it? I think we should have a Japanese New Year type thing where people line up to get slapped by Senator Inoki.
GREG: Name the three best dishes at GREats, Giant Robot’s restaurant out on Sawtelle Blvd, in West LA, home of The Cabbage Patch (the dance). You have eight seconds (honor system, since we’re on email).

Martin: Tofu Tacos (spicy) – Off the menu, but you can ask if Chef Nelson is there
Curry with Tofu Meatballs – Added to the menu by popular request (of me)
Whatever the special is – I don’t eat meat, but if I did I’d eat nothing but the fish specials. Chances are, Eric’s uncle caught something that was too big for the family to eat!

GREG: Finally, are you Punk Rock or New Wave?

Martin:Well, that’s not for me to judge, but I hope it’s punk rock. New wave styles come and go, but punk rock is for life.

##

You can check out Martin’s blog here.

I didn't interveiw Sluggo.

Ruby, surly mermaid expert.

Today, Ruby and I had a frank discussion about the dire implications of my lack of belief in mermaids. The transcript follows.

G: Roo, do you think mermaids are real?

R: No...wait, I do think it. And they probably don't like you, Daddy because you don't believe. Mermaids DO NOT like people that don't believe in them. They take over those people. You don't want to be taked over do you?

G: Well, no...

R: You better start believing.

G: Okay. Where do they live?

R: At the beach and in bays. They wash up everywhere, not in our country, but in Pirate Lands. And if you want to find a mermaid, Daddy, you have to work harder.

G: What language do mermaids speak?

R: They speak American! What's wrong with you? I mean they speak English, Pirate language. They're half-human and half-fish. And you're ruining mermaid kind.

G: I am?

R: Yes. Because the legend says you ruin mermaid kind by not believing. You'll be begging for mercy! Start believing in mermaids and tell your friends, too. So when the mermaids take over, they'll thank you. Better do it, Daddy.

Owen, who just ran into the room, nude: Can I have a cookie?

Ruby: Me too!

You heard it here. Start believing in mermaids, and start believing soon. For the day is neigh that all knees shall bow before our mermaid overlords. Just saying.

Suzanne, Art Dealertrix

Today I spent the afternoon reading Am I Gay?. Between questions about whether giving hand relief to a tranny rates you as a gay, I rattled off some questions to my pal Suzanne, who runs The Beholder Gallery an online no-bullshit gallery, where normal people can buy original, reasonably-priced fine art without dealing with the weirdness of a gallery.

She's also great art director.

Here's the Q&A. I did not ask her if she thought I was gay.

G: You've got a gallery, yeah? You just up and did it. Why did you do it?

S: I've always felt that the art establishment was just a little too
haughty for what is essentially a business driven by money.
Maybe I've got a chip on my shoulder for becoming a graphic designer and never wanting to play the art game seriously. But that's another story.

The Beholder was started to give people a way to connect with artists outside of the usual way. The web lets people look at their own pace and decide for themselves what they like for whatever reason.

I've sold a number of pieces to people I know are just getting into
buying art. And when someone tells me its their first piece of "real" art I get all excited, because that's really my goal.

G:Have artists responded to the web gallery concept?

S:I just got a submission today from an artist who has taken a really
established path: Yale Grad School and a bunch of NY shows.

When folks like that come to me because they like what I'm doing, I know that I must be doing something right. Some are doing it for kind of an experiment and are not sure my idea is for them, and some really get it and are helping me with shows and promotions.

G:Does it bring them closer to the collector?

S:There hasn't been that much "customer bonding" but the buyers who I do get to know are curious about the artists and vice versa.

G: Next! What sort of background do you have? Any fancy pants art training?

S:I have been working in the art-for-commerce world for about 15 years and have really enjoyed it.I was nervous at first when I started the gallery that I don't have any formal experience selling fine art, but I think that turns out to be a bonus most of the time. Sometimes I ask dumb questions, but for the most part, people are pretty understanding.

G:How do you find the artists? Right now, my fav painter on your site is Bob Bechtol. Great stuff. Perfect for say, a birthday present. For me. (And of course, Robert Hardgrave is awesome. And Katja.)

S: At first it was begging my friends and now it's almost half
submissions, which is great. Everyone has a different perspective and is in
different points in their careers, which is the fun part.

Robert Hardgrave just opened a big show at BLK MRKT in LA which is a pretty big deal. Pretty soon he won't be needing me anymore (sob) but I'm stoked that I found him before they did.

G: Have you ever rented art to porno film productions?

S: Maybe the stuff behind glass...

G: I have a dead trout in an aquarium filled with aspic. Will you unload it for me? 50/50?

S: You could try calling Saatchi, I hear he's quite a nice bloke.

G: One more question: Were you aware there's monster in
Advanced Dungeons and Dragons called a beholder? It's pretty badass, too.

S: Sweet. Maybe I can contact them to do some "cross-promotion."

Hank, a nice man who owns a gun or two

When I first came up with this little project of interviewing interesting friends, the first name on the list, writ large in all caps, was HANK.

Hank is the step-father of one of my most important friends, Abe. He's smart, a little creepy and a genuinely sweet guy. He once emailed my wife to ask if she'd like to collaborate on poems about Hannibal Lechter. He was only joking a little, I think.

A few years ago, Hank and I spent the afternoon of Abe's wedding talking under a tree, because it was fucking hot. We talked a bit about guns, along with the nature of love and the weirdness of weddings. Better than than doing the Bunny Hop by a long shot, I'd say. I've kept that conversation in the back of my mind since then, and I thought I'd ask Hank to dredge up that conversation for the blog.

Enjoy.

9 July 2006

Hi Greg,

When you invited me to participate in your web log as an "interesting person", I was immediately interested. After all, I find myself enormously interesting, but here was as a chance to be certified as such by another interesting person. And being certified, maybe even to receive a certificate, who knows?

But I am obsessive about writing, and after the first excitement, the inevitable miasma of conflicting thoughts began to settle upon me. Someone reading the first sentence above, the one that begins �When you invited me�� might have noticed I state that I was interested in being designated interesting. This was an issue from the git go. Being interested in being interesting is such a loser thing. Being interesting without being interested in being interesting is cool.

As everyone who has ever taken a writing class knows, and as some of us have realized naturally since our first, cramped strokes of the alphabet, the author's original question must be, "Who am I writing for?" And since I am one of the latter sort, who can never even make a lousy list, for Christ's sake, without seeing it in 12 point Bookman Old Style, I have to ask this question, as trite as it is, and yet important, too. "Who am I writing for?"

The idea here idea here is that you better damn well know who you are writing for, because you are always writing for someone, and it is better to have it out in the open at the beginning. Who did Kafka write for? Does anyone know? Or any other mostly-published-posthumously author? At the very least there has to a muse. And just because this all seems obvious to us, it must be looked at, don't ya know.

There is always the temptation to write "for posterity", or, less abstractly, for one's children and grandchildren. I love language, so why not leave some of it for those who share my DNA? There is not much else I will have to leave, the Estates Montandon being short on the material side, and long on the intellectual. I take my stance here with Billy Blake, who said, "I am a mental Prince." Not only said it, but lived it. He also pointed out that "The Ancients committed to writing the things they Loved." For Blake, writing was a gift, and I like that notion, of leaving gifts behind, cultural gifts, intellectual gifts, in the form of writing.

By now it is obvious what one of my problems is. Every bit of writing becomes, potentially, a Project. Every phrase in every paragraph on every page is illuminated, as it were, by the Great Dead, or at least the writers I like. Stylistic influences? Hell, it's just not possible to meld together William Blake, Neal Stephenson, Henry Thoreau and many others in a way that won�t make the reader, or myself, wince. But even in these few words, I can detect some faint presences: J.D. Salinger, for one. Dorothy Sayers, for another.

Maybe there is a muse here, or maybe not. As to "who am I writing for?" that always changes too, like a kite in the wind.

Let's stop all this dreadful introspective bullshit and get on with it.

One way to do it, a way I like right now, is as a conversation.

G: Hank, at Abe’s wedding you and I had an interesting conversation about guns. In the past few years, you’ve taken up gun ownership as a hobby. I guess a lot of people have this preconceived idea of gun owners as these reactionary Berserkers, where as you’re a thoughtful, loving guy…right?

H: I don’t like to admit that I might be a loving person. There are too many counter-examples out there in too many minds to make any of those claims. Plus, it is Plus, it is way too limiting. I would rather have people think that I am not a loving person, and that way they can be pleasantly surprised, I hope.

One thing that propelled me into the "gun world", if you want to call it that, that I am very aware of is your typical jew-boy threatened by storm trooper scenario. I can make light of it, I do make light of it, but there is some fear there too. It's that old "4 A.M. and a gang of armed thugs smash their way into my house and drag me off to the camps" mental reverberation that I have had for as long as I can remember. When I took a look at that fantasy, I realized what was most terrifying was the sense of helplessness it gave me. I wanted to be in a position to say, "OK, you might get the best of me and mine, but I am at least gonna hurt you in the process." I can say that archaic fear of the Evil Invaders has softened considerably since my home has become an armed fortress (just kidding about the armed fortress part).

G: Well, I can relate to that, but it's really pretty much an abstract fear, isn't it? I mean in this day and age?

H: Yes, if you mean for most law-abiding citizens in the US or other parts of the post-industrial world. But in many places in the world, involving I would say a majority of the people who are alive today, it is a very real fear, a real possibility in their lives. I remember a few years ago on a Saturday afternoon there was a rumor in the town I live in that there was a gang of kids robbing stores in the malls north of here. A rumor, unsubstantiated by anyone in authority, but many of the shops in town closed because of it. As New Orleans demonstrated, any place may be only one natural disaster away from adventures with armed bad guys. I remember a quote from Orwell that I find speaks to this issue: "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men are prepared to do violence on their behalf." He was talking about wars between nations, but my feeling is now that everyone should be prepared to defend himself or herself.

That whole thing is the dark side of why I learned to shoot, and why I am a happy gun owner today. Of course there were other sides too.

When I turned fifty I made a list of things that I wanted to learn and study. Ball room dancing and French were on that list, but those interests died on the dance floor so to speak. Learning to shoot and learning computers are thriving.

G: Can you say something about how it actually happened in your life?

H: I am, as you note above, a thoughtful person, in that I like to think about things I am doing, learn a bit about them and let my motivation grow or not in the process. Someone gave me a copy of a book called Boston's Gun Bible which I found fascinating and in fact reviewed on Amazon. From there it was just a question of learning. To buy a gun in this country you usually have to have a federally licensed firearms dealer. I met a wonderful guy nearby here who is a real "there is no such thing as a dumb question" guy. A very decent and generous guy, who pointed me in the right direction. And I was lucky enough to find a master of the shooting arts, in fact quite locally at the Chabot Gun Club in Oakland. This man, John Maunder, is a life-long student of fire arms and shooting, and a real old-fashioned gentleman and honorable being. He has also been unbelievably kind to me and generous with his time. I have yet to meet anyone who shoots seriously who fits the stereotype you mentioned. I am constantly made happy by how kind and welcoming these folks are. John never lets any of his students forget that shooting is a potentially lethal pastime, so you have to be calm, cool, collected, humble and all those virtuous things or you are gonna be in deep dog-doo.

I am politically progressive, but I believe strongly that people should learn how to shoot, how to defend themselves. To me, the liberal knee-jerk reaction to guns is every bit as thoughtless as the right�s knee-jerk reaction to gay marriage. Thoughtless and very damaging. It is almost impossible where I live in California to get a permit to carry a concealed gun, but if it were possible, I would do it.

G: How did people you’re close to react to your nascent gun thingie?

H: My wife Thea has had a terrible time with it. She has a visceral reaction to guns that borders on terror. Sadly for her, her husband, her sons Abe and Alex, and her sister Colleen’s husband and son are all gun owners and enthusiastic shooters. I would say Mac (Greg: Hank's son) is probably squeamish on the subject, but he is somewhat at home with his dad’s weird interests.

My colleagues at work have turned out to be either current or former fire arms aficionados. That surprised me, but it no longer surprises me.

G: Meaning?

H: OK, here’s a story. A woman friend of mine who is a kind of archetypal Berkeley liberal invited me to have coffee with her cause she had something she had been thinking about and she wanted to ask me my opinion. Her question was: “What do you think about guns?” When I heard this my heart sank because I immediately thought we would get into one of those heated discussions that people on opposite sides of an issue tend to have. Turned out she had been doing a lot of thinking and reading on her own and had herself decided she needed to learn how to shoot! That really surprised me, but I think it is where people get to if they face the facts.

G: Did you grow up with guns? Did your father or any relatives hunt? When and how and why did your interest pique? What sort of instruction have you had?

H: Until I was nine I lived on top of a mountain in eastern Pennsylvania in a little town with about 12 families. Everybody hunted, except my Swiss dad, who preferred fly fishing! I have since reclaimed my Swiss heritage by learning to shoot, because Switzerland has no other army except for its armed citizens. That whole William Tell thing is not just some cute Disney cartoon to them, but a very serious founding myth.

I have taken a number of classes at different places, and I go to the range for practice. Like anything else, it requires total devotion to get really good at, and my total devotion is directed elsewhere, so I am at peace with that decision and glad that I have some minimal competence with fire arms.

It has been a very energizing and quite emotional experience. The first few years I did quite a lot of writing on the subject. I tried for a blend of humor and wisdom, since I am both funny and wise. Here's a sample:

A Fine Rifle Is the Poor Man's Yacht

These days, owning a rifle is not just about shooting. (Of course, owning a yacht is never just about sailing, either.) Ask any American who owns a rifle how he spends most of his time vis a vis his firearm and he will answer (if he answers truthfully and looks you in the eye and does not flinch),"Shopping."

Pragmatism has often been called the only truly homespun American philosophy. Now Pragmatism goes by a more familiar name. Retail.

Let me say it clearly. Your basic, hard working, patriotic American loves gadgets above everything else. If there is an American Religion, that Religion is Gadgetry. And your basic, hard working, patriotic American rifleman loves gadgets more than anybody.

Now a rifle is not a gadget. A rifle is a tool. But surrounding that rifle is a staggering array of what can only be called gadgets. It's not always easy to know what a gadget is. For example, consider pens. A pen is a tool for writing. But some pens are gadgets, a writing tool with attitude.

Take my friend Launders. Launders owns a pen store. For many people the idea of a store that sells only pens is a stretch. I was one of those people a few years ago, before I became a born-again gadgeteer. One day I asked myself a question. My friend Jim had a birthday coming up. I knew he likes pens. He always used one of those 89 cent roller ball pens. I wondered, "Wouldn't Jim like a really good roller ball pen?" I didn't know it at the time, but when you start thinking about a "really good" anything, you have taken a step on the path of Gadgetry.

I am in the neighborhood, so I stop in at Launders' store.

"What's the very best roller ball pen?" I ask him.

After a pause during which he reassures himself this is not a trick question, he answers, "Why, it's the White Mountain." (This is not the real name of this pen. My lawyer says not to tell you the real name.) You see one of these pens, from time to time, peering out of somebody's pocket. It�s got a little white patch on top, I guess to remind you of a snow covered mountain, or something.

"How much pain?" I ask Launders.

"Well," he says,"you can get a really nice one for around $200. But they have a cheap one that's about $150."

$150 for a pen! I would sooner take a politician to lunch than pay $150 for a pen.

"I'll think about it" I say.

After a few days of careful consideration, I realize that there is probably one fundamental difference between a White Mountain pen for $150 and your basic 89 cent roller ball. When your 89 cent roller ball runs out of ink, you throw it away. You don't do this with your $150 White Mountain. You get a new ink cartridge.

Aha!

So I stop in to see Launders.

"How much are the ink cartridges for your White Mountain pens?" I ask, smug with my new found knowledge.

"$4.50", says Launders, with a straight face.

"Score!" I think to myself. "Now we're getting someplace."

"And do you have other holders that will fit the $4.50 White Mountain cartridges?" I ask, humbly, hoping that Launders might overlook the point.

"Well, yes�" he says. "We've got some for about $20."

No Neanderthal hunter returning home with a mastodon haunch could have been as happy as I am at that moment. The outside of the White Mountain pen doesn't matter! What counts is the ink cartridge. THIS is the secret of its great success, surely. I leave the store with my new pen set, elated at the thought that I now own the functional equivalent of the $150 White Mountain pen for which I have paid $24.45! With careful thought and canny bargaining, I have scored a great victory, saving myself $125.55. I have also put one over on Launders.

At home I try my new pen. It writes OK. Nothing great, I notice.

After four days, it stops writing.

I go back to talk to Launders.

"I bought this White Mountain ink cartridge from you, and it only wrote for four days," I say.

"Yup," he says, "That's what everybody tells me."

When I first started thinking about buying a gun, my wife thought I had gone crazy. She accused me of being a survivalist. She inquired scornfully if I was now listening to Rush Limbaugh on the radio. None of these things being true, I had to ask myself, "What pernicious, dark motives did I have for my awakening interest in GUNS?"

I considered all the usual suspects.

Growing up in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania hunting was a way of life for everyone, but not my father. Repudiating his Swiss heritage, he forsook firearms for fly rods. Busy for days during trout season in the icy mountain streams around our home, he returned with the tiniest of fish, never more than three. Most often, he returned with nothing at all.

He was considerably more passionate about his other great sporting adventure -- blueberry picking. He was more successful at this, after a picking spree bringing back gallons of fresh blueberries.

To hear him tell the tale, blueberry picking was much more of an adventure than trout fishing ever could be.

The reason was the bears.

In those Pocono Mountain meadows, bears and blueberries naturally came together every autumn. The blueberry bushes were the size of cottages. More than once, my father, picking his way around the side of a bush, encountered a bear, coming the other way. The bear always ran, and so did my father.

But surely the fact that my father was a fly fisherman and a berry picker when every other adult male in town was a hunter could not have influenced me in the least.

For some reason, when I started to think about buying a rifle, it put me in a certain kind of mood. It was the kind of mood you get into that leads to buying binoculars.

I know this is sounding very irrational. But for some reason, when I started to think I was at last going to buy a rifle, I just had to buy some binoculars first. And not just some 89 cent binoculars either. The binoculars that seized me by the throat were German, and they looked it. They were large. They were armored. Using them in even modest light you could count the hairs on the back of a fly at 300 meters. And what they cost would easily serve as a down payment on a fair-size yacht. They were the binoculars that God would use, if He was giving His Omnivision a rest.

But, I was counting on my Secret Weapon. My SW was eBay, the Internet auction site. I had stumbled upon eBay in my early days of Gadgeteering. If Gadgetry is my religion, eBay is my Sacred Source. The power in eBay had embraced me and given me the Ten Commandments of Acquiring.

I. Thou shalt pay no more than 50% of the retail price.

II. Thou shalt only bid on what thou hast researched.

III. Thou shalt buy from a seller with 98% or greater positive ratings.

IV. Thou shalt wait humbly and snipe thy winning bid in the last flutter of the angel�s wing.

V. Thou shalt time thy transactions by the Atomic Clock.

VI. Thou shalt wait for only slightly less than eternity if that is what eBay commands to give thee the product thou most desireth.

VII. Thou shalt only pay by credit card.

VIII. Thou shalt pay really really fast and so be ordained a Great Ebayer.

IX. Thou shalt praise the seller who is just, but the unjust seller thou shalt smite with negativity.

X. Thou shalt hold no other site before eBay, unless thou art buying firearms.

The Sacred Buying Power which eBay had bestowed upon me had never failed me. My collection of plastic flat ware, believed to be the largest in California - eBay. My wife's dog's pajamas - eBay. The ten gallon drum of sun screen which will keep my pallid carcass from frying to a crisp in perpetuity - eBay. My confidence knew no bounds! Anything was possible!

The only thing was, everybody seemed to want those damn German binoculars! For months and months, I couldn't have gotten them except by violating the First Commandment of Acquiring, and that I would not do. Then came the national tragedy. The universe slipped a few cogs. Months went by, and I was starting to want to get up in the morning, when I noticed that SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE was offering the damn German binoculars, and no one was bidding on them! Ten days went by, the auction was winding down, no bids. Holy cow! I decided to take a closer look�

OH MY GOD! THE SELLER IS IN LEBANON! THE GUY IS PROBABLY AN AL QAEDA AGENT! HE ISN'T REALLY OFFERING TO SELL THOSE DGBs! I WOULD THINK I WAS BUYING BINOCULARS, AND HE WOULD MAIL ME A BOMB! I WAS DOOMED!

Now, gentle reader, comes the difficult part of this tale. You have probably built up a great deal of affection, even quiet admiration, for this writer. Obviously he is witty, with a keen philosophical mind, yet extraordinarily practical and down to earth. But here I must tell you that, in this moment of Religious Crisis, I was motivated by greed. Greed, greed, greed. Greed and nothing but greed. Greedy greed. The greediest greedy greed. I WANTED those damn German binoculars. And when I fall into such a Religious Fervor, I let NOTHING get in my way.

So I bid 'em and I bought 'em. Those damn German binoculars. I won't even tell you how much I paid. Let's just say that if you ever acquired a Dakota Longbow in .338 Lapua Magnum for the price of a tank of gas in your pickup, you would be in the same ball park, ratio-wise.

But I knew my doom was sealed.

Then something truly terrifying happened. The guy I bought the damn German binoculars from emailed me on the same day I won 'em to tell me 1) he was really, really happy I had bought his binocs (yeah, right. I knew why that was!) and 2) he was upgrading the shipping, at no extra cost, from surface mail (three to five weeks) to FedEx (three days). I knew that meant that in three days I would be dead.

Luckily I had thoughtfully arranged to have them shipped to my work, rather than my home. At least my widow would have a house to live in.

It was a Monday when I received the fateful email.

That THURSDAY a package from Lebanon arrived at my work. Three days! I can't even get a letter to someone across town in three days. And yet the package which I hoped was the German binoculars (but which I knew to be a bomb) had arrived in three days.

It was all happening too fast. The world was collapsing around me! Matters became much worse when the post woman dropped off the package, which was clearly marked "Lebanon" in several places, and which was wrapped in cheap paper, with suspicious bulges all around. She proceeded to alarm the hell out of everybody by commenting, "Hey! Y'all got a package from LEBANON! And it looks mighty funny!"

I opened that package very, very carefully. Inside was a brand new set of German binoculars which my covetousness had caused me to risk my life and the lives of my co-workers to obtain! Lord have Mercy. Glory Halleluiah and all the rest of it. I was glad to be alive.

The adventure buying the binoculars had taught me a hard earned lesson. What if the Lebanese guy really had been an Al Qaeda agent? It was clearer than ever that I needed that rifle.

Besides, now that I had gotten the binoculars, as ordained by the God of Gadgetry, I had to get the rifle. It was all part of the Plan.

By then, I had thought enough about firearms, read enough, talked to enough people, to realize that a fine rifle is a treasure. For one thing, a fine rifle is as near to perfect as it is possible for a machine to be. A fine rifle embraces all the principles of physics, up to and including quantum mechanics. Within a fine rifle, the moment of firing unleashes devastating explosions that are refined by the most sophisticated design science into a simple vector of the greatest force and precision. This is like seeing Dame Margot Fontayn knock out Mohammed Ali. To own a firearm is to enter a mythic realm.

But first I needed to find my FFL. Now for me, looking for an FFL was like Dante searching for Virgil, or Odyseus waiting for Hermes, or like Lewis and Clark needing to find Sacagawea. For my wife, it meant that I was going to be associating with red neck pinheads. Guys who, when they take their dogs for a walk, pee on the same tree. Instead, I found Dave.

Dave was an FFL out of love and devotion. Love of fine rifles, and devotion to all shooting sports. When Dave's best friend and personal FFL moved to Arkansas to make machine guns (!) Dave had stepped into the breach. Dave became my guide, teacher and friend. Willing to answer each and every question from a newbie musketeer. And about as far from a redneck pinhead as one could get. Dave was a glassblower, his province custom made scientific glassware. The meticulous care and concern it took to be a first-rate glassblower carried over into his love of rifles (or maybe it was vice-versa). Dave always spoke as slowly and carefully as he worked. For example, he never used contractions in his speech. Dave never said, "I'd rather" He always said, "I would rather" It gave a kind of elegance and old-fashioned courtliness to his spoken words.

Dave had thought for many years about the philosophy and psychology of firearms. Musing one day on his favorite subject, he said to me, "A fine rifle is the yacht of the poor man."

"I'm not sure I follow you there, Dave," I said.

He got a far away look in his eyes, like he was looking into a distance I could never see, trying to find the right words to bring me a Big Truth.

"Most of us cannot afford a yacht. Is not that true?" he asked.

"Most of us wouldn't want a yacht," I replied.

"That is probably true," he said, "but I am trying to make a point here. The point is that the same kind of freedom and adventure your rich man might find with his yacht, your poor man often finds with a well made rifle. As well as independence of spirit, self-reliance, responsibility. Like the Swiss, we have a long and honored tradition in the United States of fine riflemen and fine rifle women. As Thomas Jefferson said, "A rifle is the tooth of Liberty." Or maybe he said "the teeth of Liberty.""

"Abraham Lincoln," I said.

"I beg your pardon?" Dave said.

"I think it was Abraham Lincoln who said, "A rifle is the tooth, or teeth, of Liberty,"" I said.

"Very well, then," Dave said, "It was Abraham Lincoln, or maybe George Washington, or some other big kahuna who said it, or maybe I just made it up now, but it is a valid point, is it not?"

"Yes Dave," I said,"it is a valid point."

I understand that some owners of fine rifles give their rifles names, ((and even, note the double parentheses, sleep with their fine rifles)) but of course I am not the former and certainly not the latter. Even though I do live in California.

Now I am the owner of (notice I did not say "companion of") two fine rifles. I am still getting to know them. They are as different as two fine rifles can be. My M14 (Armscorp of Baltimore) is like a purebred Morgan horse - beautiful, spirited, and able to do whatever any rifle can do with a high degree of competence. My Remington 700 in .300 Winchester Magnum is like an Arabian, high strung, elegant, highly specialized for traveling long distances. I am still learning to use them for the task they have been bred to do for hundreds of years - shooting. But that's, that is, another story.

-- finis --

G: Obviously, guns are a semiotician’s wet dream. When you first started handling and firing guns, did you ever get freaked out, like “Holy Fucking Shit! I AM
HOLDING A GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING GUN!”?

H: Yes, yes and more yes. It is ceaselessly drummed into me that you better realize that you have a lethal machine in your hands when you have a fire arm. You better be healthily scared too. My teachers go by the strict ethic that there are no accidental shootings. The person who shoots someone else “accidentally” is always responsible for it.

I have become more respectful of the warrior ethic. We are taught that such a thing no longer exists, that the trenches and machine guns of WW I killed it off. But as an ideal to strive for, embracing honor, integrity, courage, a spirit of service, it’s not bad. I have found these qualities are highly valued among my “gun totin’ friends”. It’s very much a reputation-based culture. It doesn’t seem to matter what your politics or religion is. If you demonstrate those values, you get respect. There are apparently an awful lot of overweight,. middle aged guys out there who see themselves as warriors, and try in some measure to live up to an ancient ideal.

Well Greg, I know you are dying to ask me some more, but I have to go now. Let’s meet real soon and flap our jaws some more, OK good buddy?

G: That’s an affirmative, my strange friend.