Interviews Imagined

“Seriously though, that’s what’s most incredible to me. Here you are, it’s like what, 2011, 2012? You’re in your 40s and you’ve really got nothing at all going. You co-wrote some graphic novel that went nowhere. And now you’ve got this little boy, Henry. You’re having health issues but you still have to keep modeling to pay the bills. You say you couldn’t write to save your life. But then you start going on Facebook. You say you make a total ass of yourself. Eventually, your wife actually leaves you over it. She couldn't take the humiliation. Let me see here, yes, you said in Rolling Stone, ‘I tried and I tried but I could not stop myself. So I just surrendered to it. It was like writing in the sand, you know, on the beach. You wrote it and then it was gone. Sometimes no one would even see it. It was beautiful, perfect. The more inspired it was, the less people responded. It taught me everything I needed to know. What an incredible time. People hardly even remember it anymore. It was exactly what I needed to be doing. Looking back, I’m pretty sure I knew it. I knew it would lead me out of that hell. Of course, I had no idea it would lead to all of this.’... I guess what I’m asking is how did you know it was an important thing to do? How did you know to follow it, to trust it? I mean, it must have seemed absurd.” “Well, yeah, it was absurd. It was beyond absurd. But, I don't know. Artists have very little to go on. I had less than most.”“Why is that?”“Well, I was an idiot. I was completely incapable of doing all the things that keep a person together. And it only got worse over time. I got worse over time. But when it came to writing... Well, you know, that’s what’s so funny, I never really even thought of myself as a writer. I was limited to writing, I was resigned to it. It’s all I had. It's all I could do really. I had no talent whatsoever. But you know, something happens when you’re doing what you need to be doing. You learn to look for things, for signs. For me, it’s sort of this feeling that the world begins to turn on you. It feels dangerous. Like the wolves are circling. You look at friends and something has happened to them. Their faces change, their eyes change. It’s a scary thing. Fears arise, fear of the mailman, of the telephone, your neighbors. Everything is out to get you. But over time, you get used to it. You learn to live with it, to not let it get to you, to not let it get in the way. You actually start to trust it. It tells you you’re on course. Another funny thing is that I know I'm writing well when I have strange food cravings. I crave Ramen Noodles and rice pudding. Bologna and cheese sandwiches, liver and onions, shit like that. But the whole Facebook thing, yeah, I don’t know. For me, it was just sort of this thing that was there. I fell into it. But now look what it’s become! I mean, who in the hell could have predicted that?”