Q: So you’re a weird little guy.
A: Thanks for noticing!
Q: How did you get that way?
A: I don’t know. I had a normal childhood like everybody
else. Raised on the side of a mountain eating nothing but organic wild-foraged
food, instead of bedtime stories we would do a nightly family production of a
scene by Ibsen, didn’t see a TV screen until I was in high school. Not sure what
happened to mess that up; I guess I blame my friends.
Q: What were they like?
A: Oh, you know. I grew up in one of those towns that’s too
big to be really stultifying but too small to be really interesting. It was the
skaters who seemed to liven things up a bit, so I gravitated towards them. They
taught me to daredevil and I taught them about dramaturgy – it was a good
tradeoff.
Q: You have a reputation as a thrill-seeker. How’s the
injury, by the way?
A (rubs shoulder): It’s getting there. Once we got back to civilization
the doctors were able to set it properly. They said I’d done a pretty good job
by myself. I guess I should have done some research beforehand on how to sew a
limb back on but… (shrugs)
Q: Does your reckless behaviour play a part in your creative
work?
A: I think you have to be willing to go out on a limb, put
it all out there. (stands, pulls down pants, grins)
Q: Put that away.
A: (shrugs, pulls up pants, sulks a bit)
Q: I mean, you’ve never been happy with just making a play.
It’s always got to be something else: a multimedia spectacle, an avant-garde
dance piece, a philosophical treatise, a cookbook …. Do you take things over
the edge just to take them over the edge, or do you have something else in
mind?
A: Listen. I don’t know what I’m doing. I never know what I’m
doing. I’m constantly wracked with doubts as to whether I should be doing
anything at all, much less whether I should be doing what I’m doing. Who am I?
A speck. A mote. A dust bunny under the bed of existence. So when I ask people
to pay to come see something I’ve made, I want them to get their money’s worth.
They need an experience, the memory of a lifetime, the full monty…. (stands,
begins to remove pants again)
****
(15 minutes later)
Q: Ready to behave?
A: Yes. (to departing police): Thank you, officers!
(belches)
Q: We were talking about your restless artistic spirit. You
say you know nothing, yet every time you do something new, you win a major
award.
A: (laughs) That’s not quite true! But almost, yeah. You’ve
seen Forrest Gump, right?
Q: I wasn’t going to mention it.
A: The trick is … and I shouldn’t jinx it by saying it out
loud … You know the Zen concept of beginner’s mind? I take that one step
further and get to the place where I have a beginner’s mind approach to
beginner’s mind. If you’re learning how to walk, you need to first forget
how to crawl. If you’re learning to sing, you have to forget how to speak.
Q: That doesn’t make any sense at all.
A: (shrugs)
Q: But since that approach seems to pay off for you, would
you consider branching out, say, into being a music producer?
A: Honestly, I’d do anything for a buck right about now. I’m
mortgaged to the tits and I haven’t worked for years. But if you’re talking
about your band, no.
Q: Why?
A: You need to start with a seed of something that contains
a universe. Your band is more like a football that contains a walnut.
Q: Have you ever considered being less honest?
A: That reminds me of the dream I had last night! I was
getting frisky with Scarlett Johansson at the Met Gala, and there were all
these cameras just shooting us from every angle. Then somehow I was watching us
do it, sitting in a room watching a screen. I was really getting into it when Michael Fassbender comes into the
room wearing a top hat and monocle and Bermuda shorts and ejects the tape. He tucks
it neatly under his arm and takes it with him, saying he’s already sold the
rights for $10M and I’ll be hearing from his lawyers if I try to do anything
about it. He gets into a DeLorean that’s being driven by Scarlett Johansson
and blows me a kiss as they speed away – but I could tell he meant it in a
condescending way. Then I got a phone call saying I was late for rehearsal – it
was the Caravan Farm Theatre production of Aunt Mamie’s Egg Fiasco – and
I was going to be fired if I was late again. (begins to visibly sweat)
Q: You seem to have a lot of anxiety about celebrity. Would
you have liked to have been more famous?
A: I don’t know why I never got picked up to be a character
actor, like the successor to Steve Buscemi or something. The small amount of
fame I have had is weird, because on the one hand it’s creepy to have supercuts
of your “hottest” screen scenes on YouTube –
Q: You uploaded those.
A: – but on the other hand, the fans that you get at my
level just aren’t that attractive. I think the real payoff comes a couple
levels up, you know?
Q: One more question: You seem to have this thing about
Jordan Peterson.
A: I don’t know what it is. There’s something about the way
he manages to wrap his small-town prejudices in a veneer of intellectual
pomposity, and to deliver them with such unshakeable conviction. And there’s
nothing I like more than taking self-help advice from people whose lives are
objectively an utter shambles.
Q: Any parting words of wisdom?
A: Two things: First, to thine own self be true.
Q: Polonius, whose meddling garrulousness ends up costing
him his life.
A: Second, don’t stop till you get enough.
Q: Jackson. Whose unhealthy appetites ended up costing him
both his life and his reputation. Not to mention his eternal soul.
A: Action Jackson. It’s been a pleasure.
Q: Mostly mine. Happy birthday, Jonathon.
A: Thanks. You too.
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