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This conversation took place at 10:34 PM in Mykle Hansen’s dining room in NE Portland, OR on 03/22/2022
Length [01:22:42]
Mykle [00:00:00] I feel a little bit bad that I didn't get back to you sooner.
It was one of these things where I got the message, and I was like, Okay, I need to get back to that guy.
James [00:00:07] Oh, don't feel bad at all man.
Mykle [00:00:08] And then I looked at it like, Oh shit, I almost missed my chance.
James [00:00:11] No, no, you're good.
[sets recorder on dining room table]
Check.
Mykle [00:00:16] Okay, that's beautiful.
I ended up in Portland really when I was 18 because of a girl.
James [00:00:26] Okay.
Mykle [00:00:28] Who I knew and because I, at that time, was I dropped out of college after my first year in school.
I was like, I'm going to be a writer.
I’m going to write the novel and the world will be a path to my door.
James [00:00:41] [laughs]
Mykle [00:00:41] And then I will spend the rest of my life in a fluffy purple bathrobe, issuing opinions on the events of the day.
And she said, Come check out Portland, Oregon because it's really cheap.
James [00:00:56] [bursting laughter over the idea of Portland being cheap]
Mykle [00:00:56] When I first came to Portland, we were splitting a house.
Me and three college students were paying, I think, a hundred and twenty dollars a month rent, which is incredible.
James [00:01:11] That's disgusting.
Mykle [00:01:11] I really struggled to find a job because the economy was shit back then.
I didn't really have any skills as such, and I was very broke and basically, I had no money at all.
And I still survived for like six months because living was so cheap.
Yeah, go scrounge food at the Reed College cafeteria by like standing at the spot where people drop off their trays.
Yeah, if I eat everybody's unfinished sandwich...
James [00:01:42] So you were borderline homeless?
Mykle [00:01:45] I had a home.
James [00:01:45] So you ate like a homeless person?
Mykle [00:01:47] Yeah, I guess it did.
James [00:01:48] You were on that homeless diet.
Mykle [00:01:49] I had this thing like I didn't need much, but I didn't really realize how hard it can be.
And actually the hardest thing back then, of course, I was like a Californian in Oregon, I didn't realize that you can't just wear cotton all of the time.
And I was getting pneumonia and freezing and soaking wet.
And just I was not good at life back then, and the whole thing was silly and the thing with the girl didn't work out. But then we were housemates anyway.
Which got weird and awkward and uncomfortable.
So like, yeah, so I kind of failed at Portland the first time.
Came back a couple of years later to try to go to Reed College.
James [00:02:23] You said you came back.
Where did you go?
Mykle [00:02:24] I was living in Santa Cruz after that.
James [00:02:26] Doing what?
Mykle [00:02:28] Computer systems administration.
James [00:02:30] In what year?
Mykle [00:02:33] In eighty-eight, eighty-nine?
James [00:02:37] What the hell does computer systems administration look like in eighty-nine?
Mykle [00:02:37] Oh God. Well, like, I worked for this company that made a Linux operating system for PCs before Linux existed.
James [00:02:45] Bro, I haven't run a Linux machine—they're called Linux machines [rolls eyes reminiscing on grad students correcting him]—I haven't worked on one since college, and it's very confusing.
Mykle [00:02:55] Yeah, right.
That was my world was that stuff.
And there are a bunch of people trying to use it who were confused, and I was the guy who you called when the computer doesn't work, and the computer didn't always work.
Sometimes it's training people.
Sometimes it's figuring out why it's busted.
Sometimes it's installing the new stuff.
I mean, it was a good job.
I learned a lot about how to solve problems, how to debug.
And I also learned, I mean, there's like a special kind of autism that's like typical of the computer industry that, that's me, and some other people a lot worse.
And basically, computer nerds are really my people.
Like I can relate to that type of thing in a way that a lot of people don't.
And it's always paid well, but...it's funny because as a career, I've tried again and again in my life to get out of it.
James [00:03:55] Okay.
So all the computer people I know were in my age group got into coding and then got into like app building.
There's this really cool respect that all of my friends, who work on the Nike+ app and stuff, of their predecessors who are just like old school computing
Mykle [00:04:18] [laughs] Okay.
James [00:04:18] This nostalgic aspect of, Wow, I used to work on it when it was just a PC.
Like really old stuff.
Mykle [00:04:21] When I was coming up.
It's the same thing.
Like, we knew that there were people out there who fucking wrote programs by literally punching holes in a punch card and like handing a stack to somebody, and then they got another stack back.
It's like, here's your output, and, Oh, it's another stack of cards.
James [00:04:40] Wait.
The output would come out as another stack of punch cards, and you'd have to read it and figure—
Mykle [00:04:45] You'd have to read and figure it out.
James [00:04:46] That's computer braille.
Mykle [00:04:47] Exactly, exactly.
And it was hard back then.
It's gotten easier and easier.
James [00:04:52] It's so easy now. It's not hard at all.
Mykle [00:04:54] Yeah, yeah.
Different times.
And it's a trip because the tech world now is, I mean…
I think if you're a college-age kid, you're looking at, should I get one of those good computer programing jobs and so all sorts of people are going in the field.
When I was doing it, you had to be this kind of weird sort of obsessive to think of computers as cool.
And it was always grabbing people who like, again, autism really, people who weren't good with people.
James [00:05:26] Mhm.
Mykle [00:05:26] But really could deal with machines.
James [00:05:29] Yeah.
Mykle [00:05:29] And I mean—
James [00:05:31] It's still an interaction.
Mykle [00:05:33] It is. Yeah.
James [00:05:36] Well, I actually don't know anything about that world.
Was there skepticism in tech in the old days where people were just like, this isn't going to go anywhere?
Mykle [00:05:51] Well, I don't know that anybody really figured it would be as big as it became.
James [00:05:55] You mean essential, in our lives?
Mykle [00:05:56] Like, yeah, yeah.
Like the redefinition of every fucking thing that you can imagine.
The rewiring of how human beings even think and behave.
Like really, I think if we'd known, we might have said, Fuck it, let's not do this.
James [00:06:15] [laughs maniacally] Oh my God, I agree.
Mykle [00:06:17] But it was always in steps.
And what's funny is that I think everybody I knew in tech, myself included, had tremendous optimism about where it was all headed until about when Facebook happened.
James [00:06:33] Mm-hmm.
Mykle [00:06:34] And these days, I just hate the internet so much.
James [00:06:38] Why?
Mykle [00:06:40] Because it just seems to bring out the worst in people.
James [00:06:44] Yeah, absolutely. It's a freedom.
Mykle [00:06:46] I mean, it's there was always this thing of like, I can't believe I just got in this ludicrously heated argument or some bullshit thing on the computer.
But the computer somehow brought out people's desire to bicker about shit.
And be like one person on the end is just thinking he's having fun and being kind of clever and charming, communicating with some other person who feels like their life is being destroyed by this cloud of hate, that kind of like—
James [00:07:12] Oh my god.
Mykle [00:07:13] —and the two people not really having any concept of how differently they're seeing the conversation that they're having because they're not near each other.
That was always the thing.
But now that's just like everybody's experience on the internet all the time.
James [00:07:26] Well, if I have hope for the human race which I do, which is rare.
It's like the smart people—and I don't mean to push that there are people who aren't smart and are smart, because when it comes to things like Facebook, everybody's Facebook smart.
You can do Facebook if your grandma.
It's how sincerely are you taking things on the internet is honestly how I judge some people.
Mykle [00:07:56] [humming laugh]
James [00:07:56] It's like if somebody said this on Facebook, it's like, Okay?
How you react to that, I'm going to judge you by it.
Because if you take something that someone says sincerely on Facebook, it's like, Come on, it's not...
Mykle [00:08:10] That's the thing is.
This is, again, the thing about if you're having a person-to-person conversation, there is all of this non-verbal language that's really explaining to you what types of feelings and what degree of sincerity and honesty and openness the other person's bringing.
And you coordinate around that and it works out.
It's missing.
James [00:08:33] You mean body language?
Mykle [00:08:34] Body language.
James [00:08:35] Body is a language.
Mykle [00:08:36] And also voice and all of this other stuff.
James [00:08:40] Tone. You know how I speak.
Mykle [00:08:41] Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
You know, there's a whole bunch of probably largely just racist and prejudiced assumptions that I make about you that I don't know you very well, but look at you and think, Oh, well, he's got one of those hats.
He must be one of those hat people.
James [00:08:59] Oh my god, that's so funny.
Mykle [00:09:01] But the funny thing is like, you know, that stuff, it can go really badly, but it also can prevent certain misunderstandings.
James [00:09:10] I like, well, hm.
Mykle [00:09:12] But, you know, I mean, it's apropos of writing, I don't know if you're familiar with this thing that happened several years ago, which I have been referring to as the “Ultimate Bizarro Meltdown”.
You remember that sort of #metoo era?
James [00:09:31] I was going to ask.
Was there something that happened at a Bizzarocon that was weird.
Mykle [00:09:35] Exactly.
James [00:09:36] Oh, okay, I heard about this and then it got all hush, hush. So Jeremy Robert Johnson, he's been in email contact with me very briefly.
Mykle [00:09:45] Mhm.
James [00:09:45] But like while I was finishing like my first big thing after I got some short stories done, he's been extremely kind and a very nice person.
Mykle [00:09:52] He's a sweetheart.
James [00:09:53] He's very tender in my opinion, but still, he’s famous now, and he gets back to my emails way too fuckin slow.
[laughs]
But still, he's very busy now with Saga Press and whatever.
But like I heard, like little detailed things about Bizarro con in interviews, but no one tells me anything.
[reaches a hand out over table]
And if I need to cover this microphone. I will, Mykle.
Mykle [00:10:12] No, no, no, no, no.
I mean, like, I'm the only guy who wasn't there.
Not the only guy, but like, it is a thing that I experienced only through the Facebook shadow of the actual events.
James [00:10:25] What happened? I'm confused.
Mykle [00:10:27] Well, I mean, two things happened.
One is that a writer on Jeff Burke's imprint of extreme horror came to this.
There's been this weird tradition at Bizarro con called the Ultimate Bizarro Showdown, which was a little bit based on a kind of gross out contest that was held at a certain horror writers’ convention.
James [00:10:55] Mm-Hmm.
Mykle [00:10:56] The ultimate Bizarro showdown was basically a contest of who could do the weirdest thing, and usually, there was a performance or a reading.
But it really just became a kind of one-upmanship performance art kind of ludicrousness party.
[Points at my face]
And the face that you're making was made often at the ultimate Bizarro showdown.
And yet, this is this thing about the community of people who embraced the Bizarro scene, I think what we all felt was patience with people trying to reach as far outside of normal as they could.
James [00:11:36] Mm-hmm.
Mykle [00:11:36] And searching.
So a lot of that is provocative writing and a lot of that is weird writing, and a lot of that is uncomfortable writing.
James [00:11:43] Mm-Hmm.
Mykle [00:11:46] But there's something really interesting there.
The ultimate Bizarro showdown was kind of like, I mean, it was very funny.
Everybody did what they did was trying to be, you know, some kind of entertaining.
Jeremy Robert Johnson, who was the emcee for many years, would do a fantastic job emceeing and basically rehashing his old stand-up comedy act.
But he's a very, very, very funny guy.
James [00:12:10] He did stand-up comedy?
Mykle [00:12:11] I guess so.
James [00:12:13] JRJ did stand-up comedy?
Mykle [00:12:13] Yeah, I guess so. Once upon a time.
Well, a lot of writers do it. It's a writer's field, really, I think.
James [00:12:19] I mean, secretly, yes.
I mean, I've written, you know what, we'll keep it off record, it's fine.
Mykle [00:12:24] But the point is, so the one thing that happened that year was that this writer whose name I don't even remember, I'm sorry, he was just…he didn't really know anybody.
He was new there.
He was told, just try and do the most bizarre, offensive, disgusting, weird thing you can.
James [00:12:43] Right.
Mykle [00:12:43] And he succeeded in offending everybody there!
James [00:12:48] How do you offend people who read Bizzaro?
Mykle [00:12:51] At an offense-proof group like that!
The fact that he offended those people is astonishing because nobody has been harder to offend than this particular room
James [00:13:00] I don't even know how that's possible.
Mykle [00:13:06] Although this was the year of MeToo.
James [00:13:10] Mm.
Mykle [00:13:10] And a wave of thought from the internet flowing through the world.
That was quite easy to offend.
So what this guy did was something gross involving like a fetus, I don't think a real fetus, but like blood and shit, and I don't even know the details, but it grossed everybody the hell out and everybody got upset about it.
But then, like in the hubbub around that, the real thing came out, which is that…I mean, I wasn't there.
James [00:13:52] Mhm.
Mykle [00:13:52] I know what people tell me.
James [00:13:54] Mm-hmm.
Mykle [00:13:54] So this shouldn't be considered any official history.
James [00:13:58] Okay.
Mykle [00:14:03] And it's also a thing that the reason why people don't want to talk about it is because, well, I'm getting there.
To my understanding, right, there were some accusations about both sexism and creepiness in the Bizarro community, like, yeah, we're all real creeps in the Bizarro community.
But like, what are the rules, and what are the boundaries?
What's right and wrong?
I don't know.
There was a writer who was accused of some sexual improprieties in a disturbing but low-level kind of way.
Or I mean, I call him low-level.
Somebody is offended that I even said that.
But I mean, it wasn't like Bill Cosby.
It wasn't like Harvey Weinstein.
James [00:15:01] Mm-Hmm.
Mykle [00:15:01] It wasn't like that, Jeffrey Epstein.
James [00:15:05] Mm-hmm.
Mykle [00:15:05] It was like somebody, you know, who was a little bit pushy when drunk, I don't know.
But then again, there's accusations, and then there's proof.
And so this guy, you know, vehemently denied it, in a very loud way, not like a shrink off and go hide the response. This was in a context where this #metoo thing was raging across the internet and our society was discovering like, Oh wow, there are these sexual predators among us.
Cosby, oh my god.
Jeffrey Epstein, never heard of them.
But probably, you know Harvey Weinstein?
Well, I think everybody in Hollywood knew that for the last 20 years—
James [00:15:55] But no one said shit.
Mykle [00:15:57] —but it's actually been said. But, that's good, right?
This is good that you find these people.
It's good that there's proof that there's corroboration.
James [00:16:02] You're right. Absolutely.
Mykle [00:16:03] But then came this massive cloud of accusation that I know a lot of people—
James [00:16:10] A lot was very vague.
Mykle [00:16:11] Well, yeah, I mean, there was a cloud of accusation and an ethic that there's something wrong with, not just believing that, you know, there was for a little while the idea of the presumption of innocence was thrown out the window, and pretty much everybody was—
James [00:16:31] It's still gone.
Mykle [00:16:31] —if you were accused of this, you probably did it.
James [00:16:33] Even if you actually were legally tried for anything right now, even if you went to court if there was a public opinion and you were shown not guilty, if the public thought one thing, you're done.
Mykle [00:16:46] The court is flawed because it's a process.
James [00:16:47] At least the broader internet will tell you who's guilty or not.
Mykle [00:16:53] Now, I mean, I'm on the record here.
I wanted to say that there's this real difficult paradox around a crime such as rape that so often leaves no real physical proof.
And people who have been, you know, assaulted and violated in this way have a very difficult time getting together the proof that's needed to convict someone.
Furthermore, there's the whole world of sexism that prevents certain crimes from being investigated, even when there is proof.
And that's terrible and wrong.
Nevertheless, which makes it seem so much more heinous because we're aware of it.
James [00:17:35] Yeah. And I mean, like…
Mykle [00:17:38] So some people's solution was that you should just believe women, like women are always right in these situations and men are always wrong.
I saw a lot of men unjustly accused by women who maybe later even recanted the accusation, and nobody heard about that.
I heard about, you know, all sorts of ruminations…at any rate.
So this was happening in the Bizarro community.
These allegations came out against this writer who I'm not even going to use this name, but it's pretty easy to find out.
And the whole community of writers was very, very split about this and divided among people who felt very strongly that, like our whole freedom of expression, was at stake in a community where we can't feel safe.
I mean, okay, so there's allegations and that's a serious thing.
I don't know what to do about that.
James [00:18:39] Mhm.
Mykle [00:18:39] And there's also this sort of like, Oh, are we the people?
Are we now the people who are offended by literature?
Because that basically is the death of everything.
And everything Bizarro was doing, good and bad and, you know, mixed probably in the end.
So a lot of people came down on both sides of this question.
And then there are these issues about like these really important freedoms that we have that we use that we care about in speech and expression.
James [00:19:22] Mm-hmm.
Mykle [00:19:23] Being innocent until proven guilty.
And this is a community of people who come together.
But Eraserhead Press had always really focused their attention, and encouraged all of their writers to focus their attention, on Facebook and maybe Twitter to some degree.
So like, these arguments were happening on Facebook, which we all recognize as the worst place to have an argument that never resolves.
But also these arguments we saw across society were ones where it's really, really hard to say, it's I mean, they're not easy questions.
I know that I am on the side of freedom of speech and freedom of expression and presumed innocent until proven guilty.
James [00:20:18] Mhm.
Mykle [00:20:19] But I see all kinds of problems with getting justice for the people—
James [00:20:24] Mhm.
Mykle [00:20:24] —in those constraints, and I don't know what to do and I don't even know.
Anyway, there was all this anger.
And that's set all of these people in the Bizarro scene against each other.
And it wasn't just the Bizarro scene writers.
I think around the world writers were feeling this crazy chill.
You know, there was a group of writers who just, I don't know if you might call this really pretty innocuous open letter, I think in Harper's, about, you know, we're just seeing an awful lot of attacks on the freedom of speech coming from the left.
And that's new and weird to us, and we're creating an environment we probably don't want to be in.
And really, we should all chill out a little bit like nothing very unreasonable.
And yet people lost their jobs for being signatories to this.
James [00:21:15] I mean did you hear about the story 'I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter'?
Mykle [00:21:19] Oh, yeah, I heard about all that.
Which is a great story.
James [00:21:22] Which I can't find it.
Mykle [00:21:23] You can't find it?
James [00:21:24] I've always wanted to read it.
Mykle [00:21:25] And then like, meanwhile, you know, this was happening in Bizarro.
This other stuff was happening in the alt-lit scene and again.
James [00:21:31] Where it shouldn't happen.
Mykle [00:21:33] Well, it's a trip because it's a young scene, and there were a lot of allegations about people being involved with underage people there.
James [00:21:40] M-luuhh. [sound of general distate]
Mykle [00:21:41] Well, I mean, I’ll tell you, when I was underage, I was really excited that anyone at all would be involved with me.
I mean when I was 16 and had sex with a 20-year-old.
I was a god for about six weeks in my friend group.
It was a very important deal to me.
And at the same time, there are problems with that and there can be problems with that.
And it's just like, I mean, I guess what I object to is not...I object to the idea that you can be fundamentalist about it.
James [00:22:07] It's nuanced.
Mykle [00:22:07] That you can just look at it all in terms of we have this rule and it's shaped like this and one size fits all and it broke the rule.
You're evil and you're out.
But at the same time, any other way of dealing with it, you have to admit, is more complex.
James [00:22:21] Absolutely.
Mykle [00:22:23] So I mean.
Let me cut to the chase, you're coming here to talk to me about writing.
I haven't written anything since I, Slutbot.
James [00:22:32] That's fine.
Mykle [00:22:32] But no it's not.
I don't sleep at night because I feel like what happened to my, I don't know, my career, which I briefly thought maybe I had in writing?
But maybe just like my community in writing, where did they all go?
Why are we all hiding right now?
My motivation to do it, my, you know, an audience like where...You know, actually, I, Slutbot was a really kind of a painful book for me.
James [00:23:06] Why?
Mykle [00:23:07] Well, I worked really hard on it for a really long time.
James [00:23:09] It's a beautiful book.
Mykle [00:23:10] Oh God, thank you. Thank you.
James [00:23:11] Beautiful book.
Mykle [00:23:13] I appreciate it.
James [00:23:14] I read the opening to a friend of mine yesterday and he goes, How I never heard of this?
What is bizarro?
And I went, I don't know if I can articulate it.
You were like a huge motivation here, bro.
I’ll tell you.
So one time I went to Powell’s years ago—I used to live in Portland.
Mykle [00:23:33] Yes.
James [00:23:34] And I bought I, Slutbot and Help! A Bear is Eating Me. And I was like, This is the best shit I've ever read in my life because most people get reinserted into writing through Chuck Pahlanuik, that's like a good entry-level.
And then you find your Mykle Hansen, Jeremy Robert Johnson, J. David Osborne (or JDO) who are very kind through Twitter and shit like that.
Mykle [00:24:00] He's also, hell of a guy.
James [00:24:07] Recently, I finished, and I have like different short stories published.
And then I got some referrals to agents and stuff like that.
Mykle [00:24:19] That's great.
James [00:24:20] Well, I finished my first novel finally.
Mykle [00:24:22] Congratulations.
James [00:24:23] Thank you.
I sent my sample.
And within 48 hours, two agents both said, I would love to see the full manuscript.
Mykle [00:24:37] But man, that's hot.
Most people don't get that.
James [00:24:40] Oh, but are you ready for this?
Mykle [00:24:41] Yeah.
James [00:24:42] Both very, very nice dudes, by the way.
Really kind responses.
Both within the same day.
Say they love this style.
Love the voice.
But there's no way I could send this to a publisher without meeting resistance.
Mykle [00:24:54] Mm. [lips rolled in]
James [00:24:54] Both of them use the word resistance.
Mykle [00:24:55] Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, well, there's resistance out there.
James [00:24:58] But the book deals with pornography.
Mykle [00:25:01] Uh-huh.
James [00:25:01] But the truth is that on average, in the United States, the first hardcore pornographic film kids will watch in the United States of America is at eight years old?
I consider that scary.
Mykle [00:25:16] That's a trip.
James [00:25:17] That's super early.
You're like, you're not going to be able to comprehend what the fuck is going on in that.
And so the book deals with that.
And then I realized like, Oh, this will never be on a major press, and maybe it never wanted to be.
Mykle [00:25:31] But keep those relationships.
I mean, like these, these are people who say, Hey, I think you've got something, but I can't sell this, but you can show your next book to those guys.
James [00:25:39] Yeah, you're right.
Mykle [00:25:40] I mean, you know, what you're telling me, this doesn't happen to a lot of young writers, so appreciate it.
Those connections are they’re super important.
I mean, you don't have to have connections with people you don't like or who you think are douchey, but in general, like, you know, I mean, you know, don't take it for granted that those guys say that to everybody.
It's really not true.
James [00:26:09] Oh, really?
I thought they were like brushing me off.
Mykle [00:26:12] Oh, no, no, no.
Agents have no problem giving you a proper brush-off if it's how they feel.
James [00:26:17] Oh, okay, oh, I should've been kinder in my emails. [laughs]
Mykle [00:26:20] I mean, I'm sure they're right that they don't think that they can sell your book and therefore don't want to represent it.
James [00:26:23] I mean their job is to sell shit.
But like the thing is, Bizarro was where I got back into fiction because I didn't like books.
I didn't like them at all.
And I remember reading, I, Slutbot and even though this premise may be weird for people, it's so well-written.
It's so, so well-written.
Like every bit of the wording, you can tell somebody spent time with it and you read books coming out of major presses and you're just like, Did you spend time with this?
Did you take care of it?
Did you?
Did you nurture it while it grew?
Like, I didn't know how to write a novel.
And by the way, do you know the writer Sam Pink?
Mykle [00:27:03] Oh, yeah.
James [00:27:04] So he's an email friend.
Mykle [00:27:05] Oh, cool.
James [00:27:05] Yeah, he looked at my thing when it was um...you know, that really cool thing when you're writing your first novel and it's really just a bunch of vignettes where you don't know what the fuck you're doing?
Mykle [00:27:15] Mhm. [laughs]
James [00:27:15] So he was very kind to be honest and say, By the way, this isn't a novel yet.
And he expressed something that was really important, and he said, there's a naivete you're going to miss when you finish this.
Mykle [00:27:29] [laughs]
James [00:27:30] And he goes, please enjoy this.
And he was right.
But like, the weird thing about it is I told him about what happened with my interaction with the agents.
And he goes, Welcome to the fucking art world.
[00:27:45] [both laugh maniacally]
James [00:27:50] Sam's the shit dude.
Mykle [00:27:51] Yeah, yeah.
Well, you know, and that guy's hardcore.
But I mean, you know, this is the thing.
It's like, why do we do this?
What are we hoping for?
I feel like at Bizarro con every year I used to meet all of these young writers who were like, I'm going to publish a book and the book is going to do really well and I'm going to be famous and get deals and do another book.
And I'm going to be that writer-type of figure who I see when I go to the bookstore, I like, you know, Neil Gaiman or like [inaudible] or like Neil Stephenson.
James [00:28:35] Sure.
Mykle [00:28:35] A bestseller type of writer and like, that's what that's going to be like.
And they are hoping for that kind of success.
[Mykle picks up a tortilla chip and dips it in salsa and chews]
And I don't think I should do this but I picked it up—
James [00:28:48] Oh no eat up.
Mykle [00:28:48] —you know, you can't put it down, make a mess.
James [00:28:56] [luaghs maniacally]
Mykle [00:29:02] [chews chip]
And you know, as writers, you know, they want to be novelists.
They want to be like, This is my voice and I'm famous for being me and a my book is a book that people like because it's me rather than like—I mean, because like, Bizarro is so personal and kind of like inward searching.
It's not, you know, it's not to say that there are no Bizarro books that are broadly relevant, but there's a whole world of people who are writing books like, I'm going to write a book about this thing that's happening in the world today and my view of it.
And those books, I mean, they might be full of shit, but those books can be sold by one of those agents because they're like, Oh yeah, we're looking for a book about this thing that’s happening.
James [00:29:40] Well, those books are more about a topic than it is about a person.
Mykle [00:29:43] And so like, I mean, my point is just like writing a fictional novel, this is actually like such a small—
James [00:29:50] An actual fictional novel.
Mykle [00:29:51] —such a small subcategory of the world of all the things a writer can be.
But it's kind of like an apex thing.
And like and we all want to start there rather than at any of these easier to do jobs that you could maybe get.
And we all really want to be the one who really is like the breakthrough hit.
And like, when that doesn't happen for you, then what?
Is a thing that I saw a lot of people asking.
And a thing that I asked myself...and, um there was a point to this.
There was, um, [swallows] you know, I think at some point I decided that desire for fame and success is like a fire under some creative people's butts.
James [00:30:43] Mm-Hmm.
Mykle [00:30:45] And some creative people have a big success right out of the gate and then they're like a rocket.
The rest of their career is just rising on that success until some point it sputters out because they lose success and they're like, Fuck what do I do?
But like, I look at the world of a lot of my favorite writers, they didn't really start out like deciding that they were going to be bestselling novelists and then go write a bestselling novel.
Neil Gaiman started in comic books.
And like a lot of people, stay in journalism and people are, you know, there's a lot that you can learn on the way....there was a point to this.
I'm sorry, what were we talking about before?
James [00:31:27] No, that makes total sense.
And I follow you, by the way, what you were talking about just a second ago.
We were talking about like what sells and what doesn't sell, kind of, but like a little bit of that I don't get.
I don't understand.
You'll probably just laugh about this.
I don't understand the books that come out.
To me.
Suck ass.
Mykle [00:31:57] [laughs]
James [00:31:57] I don't like most books and dude, I was talking to Jeff [Jackson].
It's on the first Gemini Sessions interview.
I put the first post up on Gemini Sessions today.
I was talking to Jeff and I was like, I don't like most books.
And he goes.
Me neither.
Mykle [00:32:11] How do you even get around to reading most books right in front of you?
James [00:32:15] Bro I have no idea.
Dude if you can read a book a week, you don't have a life.
And also, it has to be entertaining.
It has to be more entertaining than television in some way.
But like, the reason why I really liked I, Slutbot was it was just different.
It also immersed me in a certain way.
The opening is kind of perfect.
And also because it’s from the perspective of the typewriter, which I think no one's done like—
Mykle [00:32:48] That's not true!
There's actually a really interesting book called Hermes 3000.
James [00:32:55] There's a book called Hermes 3000?
Mykle [00:32:56] Yeah.
James [00:32:56] Oh, that just blows it out.
Mykle [00:32:58] But I hadn't heard of that book until I finished mine.
James [00:33:00] Anyway, I don't read that many major publisher books.
People ask if I’ve read the new Sheila Heit, I'm like, Who is that?
I don't like most major publishers stuff.
I don't really follow.
Mykle [00:33:29] You know, people in the publishing world are all interested in what's doing well, and they all follow the sort of heightened releases from the major publishers because there's always some buzz they're working on beforehand about the news.
Somebody's novels coming out is amazing.
I mean, like, there are good and bad books that come out of that.
But the publishing world, they're all about making money because they have to be.
James [00:33:57] Which makes sense.
Mykle [00:33:57] And they like trying to come out with a book that's got an audience already.
I mean, this is the thing.
It's like, what they really want is to publish a book that doesn't need to be well written in order to succeed.
James [00:34:09] Okay well that disgusts me. [laughs]
Mykle [00:34:12] What's well written, it's utterly subjective, and they don't even agree on it among themselves.
But they do agree that right after 50 Shades of Grey had happened, everybody was looking for a housewife bondage novel because those were hot right then.
And so that happens.
All of these trends happen.
And the longer you look at it, the more you're kind of just like, Why the fuck would I want to get published by a major publisher?
James [00:34:34] I've moved past the dream of it.
Like the couple of dudes who run independent ones, are the only ones who have been happy with it.
It was like, I'll get back to you about it, which has made me feel great.
I don't care if no one takes it, because I’m was happy with what I've done.
But I also don't believe the lie of like, well, if it never gets published I'm fine.
No, I'd love it to be!
Mykle [00:35:02] Of course, of course.
James [00:35:03] The weird part—thank you for being a realist—the weird part is that the majority of books I've read are just not interesting.
I swear to god, I don't think I'm like a special adept.
But I can smell when you write a story and you just replaced your name and everybody else's name and you called it fiction.
Mykle [00:35:29] Oh yeah. That happens. That's a thing.
James [00:35:33] So where's the exploration then?
Mykle [00:35:37] Well, I mean, oh man, I don't know how to classify good from bad fiction.
I just know it when I read it and like the things that I like. I mean, the thing is I'm kind of out of touch with modern fiction and keep going back.
I mean really, another major confession.
What does Mykle Hansen read all fucking day?
I mostly read comic books.
I'm really, really, really into comics and graphic novels, like Alan Moore is my favorite writer.
And Brian K. Vaughn in the stuff he's doing these days with Saga and with his other thing.
James [00:36:16] Saga is incredible.
Have you read Transmetropolitan?
It’s is incredible.
Mykle [00:36:22] Yeah, I mean, and there are so many others I mean, I'm sorry, those are all white males.
James [00:36:26] [maniacal wheezing laugh]
Mykle [00:36:26] There's all of these really amazing people and comics and I love that world because it's like, I mean, it's entertainment.
It's people who work for publishers who are trying to get the thing out every month, ideally, and they're trying to get stories that pop and are interesting.
James [00:36:46] Mhm.
Mykle [00:36:46] And of course, they're also driven by all of these trends.
The interesting trend lately is diversity and audiences seeking it out by pressing for diversity in characters, which is a thing that's occasionally really great and often strikes me as just very, very tokenist.
James [00:37:08] Tokenist is probably the best way to describe that.
Mykle [00:37:09] But there is a lot of great stuff coming out of that.
James [00:37:12] Absolutely.
I agree, but it insults my intelligence a little.
Mykle [00:37:13] Yeah, I mean, it's just like you can tell when they say well let's make this character black because we need a black guy on this page.
James [00:37:24] I was in a workshop and somebody was asking for feedback.
And there was this one story where I felt there were trans characters in it just to check a box.
Mykle [00:38:19] Well, you know, you're a really good writer when you can take your editor's requirement that you check a box and throw in a particular identity of character and then actually go and make that character real, even though that's not you.
That is the magic of character-based writing.
And what's interesting is how much fiction doesn't do that right.
And it still succeeds as fiction because there's action or because it gives readers some other things to do.
James [00:38:54] True.
Mykle [00:38:54] And so you get used to reading and enjoying chewing on this somewhat two-dimensional but interesting sort of escapist story.
And then you pick up something again, I'm going to say by Alan Moore, and you read him like, you know, inventing these characters that are so beyond my life and his, and that are fascinatingly deep and interesting and just surprising that they surprise you with their life, with how much is in them.
James [00:39:25] Mhm.
Mykle [00:39:25] And it's like, I mean, I don't I mean, I would chop off my left arm and sell it to be able to write like Alan Moore.
James [00:39:37] Yeah, no. I think most people would.
Mykle [00:39:38] It's astonishing his ability.
And you look at him and you just think he must just have this tremendous, like, um, you know, sympathy for other human beings that I don't have.
I must just be a really bad person.
I mean, when he's good and I'm evil and that's it. I don't know.
[laughs]
I mean, it's hard.
I don't want to go down that track.
James [00:40:00] But no, that's an indicator of a good writer, in my opinion.
Mykle [00:40:15] But the point is that he doesn't do throwaway characters.
He doesn't put anybody in a story who doesn't.
It doesn't really to be there, you know?
And then everybody who is there really gets their due.
James [00:40:31] Do you know how uncomfortable I just got when I said it doesn't need to be there because I'm already thinking in the future if someone goes, what does he mean by doesn't need to be there?
Who does he believe doesn't need to be there in this story?
And then I'm thinking, Oh my God, someone's going to think I'm prejudiced.
It just adds an extra layer.
Mykle [00:40:53] I just come down these days to like, if you're going to take stuff out of context, then you're not going to understand it.
[chews tortilla chip]
I think if you're going to insist the world take it out of context as well, the world's not going to understand it.
If we're going to live in a world where everybody is running around looking for opportunities to take words out of context in order to misunderstand others, then we're all headed over the cliff.
But I mean, you know, I'll make a public statement and somebody will say, Oh, what do you mean by that?
And I'll try to not have the first defensive reaction that I have, even though I'm probably way too defensive of a person. And I'll try to listen.
And I'll try to say, you know, maybe there's something that I should have been thinking about there.
We can all grow and improve in an environment of mutual respect.
None of us are growing and improving in an environment of constant character assassination, and, you know, recrimination that, like Twitter gives us.
James [00:41:52] You're asking for a lot Mykle.
Mykle [00:41:54] I don't know.
I think the pendulum will swing back.
Honestly, I think everybody is getting sick of this current surge of pessimism.
James [00:42:02] Like, if anything, you want to talk about the biggest American attribute for any social justice is overcorrection, and it swings back and forth.
Things don't just swing back —
Mykle [00:42:14] That's it.
James [00:42:14] —they swing back and forth.
And hopefully, we get to where we want to be, which is the middle path.
Mykle [00:42:21] Yeah.
James [00:42:21] But that doesn't really matter, because the important thing is...why haven't you written anything since I, Slutbot?
Mykle [00:42:27] Well, okay.
So I was telling you—
James [00:42:29] You can eat your chip
Mykle [00:42:30] Okay, well, chewing on this question.
[dips chip, puts in mouth, chews]
James [00:42:37] [laughs] Thank you so much for that.
Mykle [00:42:43] Well I was telling you there was a kind of painful release.
I went through this one process with it, and my editors and publishers were really like, Get it done, get it done.
But it wasn't quite everything I wanted it to be and I didn't know how to get it better.
Though I got a lot of help from Cameron Pierce editing it.
But I also felt like he and, I mean, everybody...basically everybody Eraserhead was like, really busy all the time because they've got all of these fucking writers on the press and more all of the time.
And when I first got involved with Eraserhead, it was different. It was like a handful of us.
It was Jeremy and Carlton and Kevin Donihe and me and Rose and you know, and Cameron and Kirsten and I really felt like we, you know, as the press grew, I got less and less attention.
James [00:43:41] Mm.
Mykle [00:43:41] You know?
But I mean, I don't want to be blaming them.
But you know, there was this time at Bizarrocon, where they had the party every year where they say, these are the new books coming out Eraserhead Press this year. And they don't even have my new book coming out at Eraserhead Press.
James [00:43:59] Oh man.
Mykle [00:44:01] I was really kind of offended.
You know, I have to like, remind everybody, Oh yeah, me too.
But of course, then it was all their first-time authors, brand new books and like, that's whatever.
James [00:44:19] That would bother anybody.
Mykle [00:44:19] Then with the launch of the book came and there was like, You know, the cover is actually really, really cool.
It's not exactly what I wanted. But it is pretty easy to fall in love with because [Matthew Revert] is such a great artist.
The book design, I had a lot of problems with.
And this thing is Eraserhead has always had this deal about, No we don't change cover things or book design things or fix typos.
Even even though it costs all of 30 bucks to upload a new book block file to our print-on-demand publisher.
James [00:44:51] Why?
Mykle [00:44:51] It’d be really easy to fix certain things.
James [00:44:53] What if you paid for it?
Mykle [00:44:55] I mean, I'm afraid they won't do it. I don't understand why.
So there were some things about the book that I didn't like what it came out.
But then like I, I had, you know, we had a promotional wing of the press that was going to do a promotional project to try and get the word out.
And they just vanished on me.
Just disappeared.
I didn't know what it was. I began to think, maybe they don't actually like this book?
Maybe there's somebody from the press who is offended by this book, but they're not telling me that, and they're saying they want to publish it, at least for the POD equivalent of publishing something.
I had a big promotional launch I was trying to do, that was a sort of a fiasco, although it wasn't necessarily any one thing, but a couple different writer friends of mine who I was going to ask to come and do readings at the event canceled on me, and I didn't really figure out why.
And just felt like people were disappearing on me and people said they were going to review and…
You know, in the #metoo era, a book like I, Slutbot would be immediately shot down.
I mean, it's not really about a normal human woman at all.
It is about this completely other thing, about a robot trying to become human.
James [00:46:28] But it's also a feminine type robot who is programmed—
Mykle [00:46:35] As a sex object.
James [00:46:36] —who is programmed to be objectified and broke free of it.
In a way to defend themself.
Mykle [00:46:45] To me, it's a story about empowerment, and at the same time, it's full of, you know, cliched pornographic sexuality and objectification, obviously, and all that.
James [00:47:00] Oh, you should see the novel I've been submitting, friend.
You'll find it hysterical.
Mykle [00:47:05] Maybe I will.
James [00:47:07] Oh I'll email it to you if you want it.
Mykle [00:47:08] Well, I can't promise when I'll get to it.
James [00:47:13] No, no, no.
Don't worry about that.
Mykle [00:47:14] It took me five years to read Vince Kramer's last novel, although it was worth it.
It's quite good.
I'm just that disorganized.
But if I have it around, I'm more likely to read it.
James [00:47:27] I found the book empowering.
Also, the tagline is like 'programmed for pleasure, but then she made humanity her bitch'.
That's hysterical.
I understand nowadays if that's on the cover people will have an issue with it.
Well, I have an issue with short stories of mine where I've noticed I've used certain phraseology even with the person who's supposed to be the villain in the story using harsh language.
I've noticed people like to...they'll see a certain word instead of reading the whole story.
There's a whole different aspect to that.
Mykle [00:48:08] People are reacting to individual words instead of like complete sentences.
James [00:48:13] Context.
Mykle [00:48:13] Context.
Exactly.
And it's been also, you know, demanding that be other people's problem and not sort of their own.
James [00:48:21] Mm-hmm.
Wow.
Yeah, it's true. It's really true. [laughs]
Mykle [00:48:25] But I mean, I have this theory that we're all sort of being driven towards that kind of thing because I'm triggered by stuff, too.
I don't want to be, and I think it's my problem to solve, but I see it happening to me.
You know, I think that what the internet and our phones are doing to our attention is making us scatterbrained in this way that makes people super reactive and it's not good for us.
James [00:48:52] Mm-mm.
Mykle [00:48:55] And but yeah, people react to certain words.
And I mean, there's I mean, it's led to real fundamentalism.
It's really crazy how the left and the radicals and the revolutionaries are behaving so much like the Christian Right behaved when I was a teenager with the insisting upon, you know, the enforcement of really complicated rules that they got somewhere.
James [00:49:25] Thank you for saying that, by the way.
Mykle [00:49:26] Everybody's given all sorts of training and tools for how to not consider ideas to not listen and to instead block out.
I mean, I'm quite generalizing here and I hope it's not too unfair.
James [00:49:50] You're not incorrect, by the way, because the one thing I pointed out was your intensity.
I grew up with hardcore Christians, my parents being them.
When I noticed living in Portland post-college—
Mykle [00:50:04] What years were these?
James [00:50:07] So I graduated college in 2015.
Mykle [00:50:14] Okay, so relatively recently.
James [00:50:15] Yeah, yeah.
And so, that’s the only thing I can compare this.
You are creating rules strictly and hoping other people you don't know will follow.
That is almost identical to the Christians I grew up with.
And those are the people you despise.
And it felt just kind of like...
Mykle [00:50:34] Yeah.
I mean, you know, ostensibly if you talk about injustice, if you talk about the patriarchy, if you talk about systemic racism, I'm on the exact same page as all of these people.
I feel the same things.
It's just that I don’t want to do things …
Thoughtlessness is a real problem.
You can't live a life on reflex.
And you can't communicate with anybody you haven't gone to an effort to understand and to listen to.
And you know, I used to think that being an anarchist meant not trying to force other people to bow to your will all of the time.
That's still my definition of anarchism, but I'm kind of alone in that.
James [00:51:26] No, anarchism was we take the current structures and put them in check, and if they're not valid, they're taken out.
That's what anarchy is supposed to be.
Mykle [00:51:34] Well there are different ways you define it.
James [00:51:36] Well mine's the best, Mykle.
Mykle [00:51:38] Well I'm sure you're right because you're always right.
James [00:51:41] [laughs maniacally]
Mykle [00:51:42] Forgive me for questioning you.
I don't know.
I mean, I'm politically homeless these days, and it's a weird feeling in Portland.
It's become kind of there's a certain kind of insanity here that used to not be here.
And it's really crazy for me because I'm so deeply in love with the city, but these are not our best times at all.
And I tried leaving and I couldn't make it work.
So I came back and I have to live with this.
And the cracks are everywhere, everywhere.
There are so many people I talk to who are sort of secretly whispering about how things have gotten really crazy, but there's still kind of afraid to speak up.
And I have been afraid I've been a coward.
I've been afraid to speak out.
I've been feeling like I don't know enough.
I've been feeling like, you know, when George Floyd was so horribly murdered.
Portland's reaction is kind of internationally famous now and kind of was a combination of like the best intentions and also a really weird, modern need for people to be seen doing certain things on social media.
So it had a crazy performance aspect, and I was like, you know, I don't know what to do, but I know, you know, at least this many African-American friends and neighbors, and I'm going to ask them what they think I should do in these situations.
And I just listen to them.
And it was really weird the degree to which what they say and what they're hoping for and what their complaints are and what their desires for the future are not really what the radical left was talking about and doing at all during all of this.
James [00:53:43] Oh, that makes total sense.
Mykle [00:53:46] So that was frustrating.
But then, I mean, it's hard to even know how to speak out anymore.
I'm really alienated by social media postings, I got on Instagram as a kind of methadone for getting off of Facebook, and I thought, Well, at least here it's just photographs and nobody's going to post memes.
But that's not true anymore.
James [00:54:11] Mm-mm.
Mykle [00:54:12] That was nice for a little while.
And it's just like, I don't have all of the answers, and I don't think I'm all that wise as a person.
And I do recognize that my perspective as a white male guy is, generally speaking, considered to be well represented by others, although I've never really related much to a lot of that.
I'm at this point now really craving to know what I would write next and to do it.
Just for the feeling of not having lost the power, you know, to not have, like given up.
James [00:55:01] What was the first thing, the first novel that got published?
Mykle [00:55:03] Help! A Bear is Eating Me! That was my first novel.
James [00:55:09] So after that was done, what was the next one?
Mykle [00:55:11] The next one was a trilogy of novellas that's Rampaging Fuckers of Everything.
James [00:55:17] Okay, so those are the babies on the cover?
Mykle [00:55:19] Yeah.
James [00:55:20] Okay, by the way, I went to Powell's to go buy the rest of them because only have the first one and I, Slutbot.
Before I got on my plane to move away from Portland I grabbed those and I was like, I fucking love this.
I went to go buy the rest of them today and I couldn't find them in Powell's.
I was really mad, so I'm going to probably have to order them.
Mykle [00:55:40] Well, this is a thing about Eraserhead and how they do their business is like they're very focused on sales through Amazon, and the way that they price their books makes it very hard for normal booksellers to carry them.
James [00:55:52] Mmm.
Mykle [00:55:53] And that is the thing that I've sort of taken issue with many times over the years because I like bookstores, I like booksellers, I want to visit them.
I want them to do well.
And yeah, the print-on-demand ecosystem, whatever.
When Eraserhead started out there was this very clever thing that you could do that hadn't been done much with that made it really profitable to sell books on Amazon.
James [00:56:24] Mm-Hmm.
Mykle [00:56:24] But Amazon, you know, Amazon owns you when you publish on Amazon.
James [00:56:29] Sure, yeah.
Mykle [00:56:31] You know, I don't know who my customers are.
Amazon does.
Not even Eraserhead really gets that information, and we're all kind of like—
James [00:56:38] Wait really?
You just get the money?
You don't get to see any—
Mykle [00:56:40] Not on a customer-by-customer basis.
No.
James [00:56:43] Huh.
I didn't know that.
Mykle [00:56:43] I mean, like probably most publishers don't really.
James [00:56:49] I'm sure. [drawing long on the 's']
Mykle [00:56:49] They can talk to booksellers.
And so like, they can build up a network of booksellers to talk to you and say, Well, how's it?
How's it doing here and how they're doing there?
And it's interesting because when the times my books have done well, it's very clearly like particular markets and you could see that it's like, Oh, they're selling in Chicago, they're selling in New York, and that's cool information when you can get it.
But yeah, basically dealing with all of these big digital entities after, like five books out, I as the writer didn't really have relationships with booksellers.
And Eraserhead, I think, has really limited relationships with booksellers.
And we don't have relationships, quote-unquote with Amazon.
But Amazon's not that fun to have a relationship with.
Plus, if Amazon someday decides that I've returned too many spoons and they decide to lock my Amazon.com account, I suddenly also lose my identity as an author because Amazon insists that they're like the same thing, like my publishing portal for e-books and my ability to order underpants on Amazon.com are alike.
I'm just a supplier to them on one end, and a customer and the other.
But I'm still just one of their millions of peons.
It's very automized, very automized.
And yeah, so I don't know.
I mean, this is the thing, it's like so much suddenly.
I mean, okay, I'm a grumpy old man drowning in his chips and salsa over here.
[chews roughly]
James [00:58:31] [raises tape recorder to Mykle's chewing mouth]
Mykle [00:58:31] Oh.
Yunumyunumyunum.
Mm-hmm.
James [00:58:35] Thank you.
[puts tape recorder back on the table]
Mykle [00:58:36] Really can't be as bad as all that.
James [00:58:38] No.
Mykle [00:58:38] But I'm very disillusioned and discouraged by what writing is these days.
As so many of us feel this need to create a bunch of free content for Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram so they can sell ads just as a way of feeling like we are relevant.
How does that make us relevant?
That we have our social media systems give us this illusion that we're listened to, even though we keep getting proof that, like the people who say that, they claim that our followers are getting stuff, but it's people getting paid to speak to our followers.
And they have.
I mean, all of our relationships are being exploited and mechanized by these systems I really hate.
I am...you know, the last creative stuff that I did was I just decided, like I miss zines.
James [00:59:32] Mh-hmm.
Mykle [00:59:32] I miss when I used to go and photocopy stuff in the middle of the night and staple it together and handed it out to people at shows.
James [00:59:38] Yeah, dude.
Mykle [00:59:38] And trade stuff.
So like, I just recently just made some zines and I’ve just been going around town here.
I'll give you some.
James [00:59:47] Oh, really?
Mykle [00:59:48] Sure.
James [00:59:50] I love zines dude.
Mykle [01:04:40] I wish there was more print, but nobody has the money to do it.
POD is cool, but people also think POD is lame.
It's fine, but we're not living in that world anymore.
The thing is like it should just be printed if it's printed.
I have a feeling there is a small renaissance of people who are getting very bored with books and they want something that's in any way stimulating.
James [01:05:02] one of my friends from college yesterday who I'm staying with, looked at my book and he goes, What the fuck is this? I said, Oh, I, Slutbot, it's on Eraserhead.
And he goes, What is Eraserhead?
I was like, You're about to be very entertained.
I read your opening to him out loud.
And he goes, That's in a book?
Mykle [01:05:40] [laughs maniacally]
James [01:05:40] That was his response.
And I was like, Yeah dude, there's a ton of books like that.
Mykle [01:05:44] You know, it's beautiful to hear you say that because the thing that really got me interested in working with Eraserhead press way back in the day.
The thing that Carlton [Mellick] said that was so exciting to me was that like he says, in his first novel, I don't know if you read Satan Burger.
James [01:06:10] The one where the girl is bent over backward to show her vagina?
Mykle [01:06:14] That could be any of a number of them [laughs]
James [01:06:17] [laughs maniacally]
Mykle [01:06:17] The cover for Satan Burger is actually like a naked woman.
Sort of like about to take a shit on a plate, on a nice dinner table.
James [01:06:25] Oh, see, I took it as completely sexual.
See how different we are?
Mykle [01:06:29] Well, it might be sexual for her.
I mean, you'd have to ask.
I mean, hopefully, the plate has given consent.
James [01:06:38] [laughs]
Mykle [01:06:38] But that's not the point.
The point is, it's a great book.
As a first novel, it's like, really?
Wow.
James [01:06:43] That was his first?
Mykle [01:06:43] That was his first novel published, I think, self-published, I think.
James [01:06:48] Wow.
Mykle [01:06:48] But the point is he told me that all of these people that all of his fans were people who didn't think they liked books.
A lot of them were like, you know, younger teens or early 20s people who had the experience a lot of people had in school being handed a bunch of stuff they didn't relate to at all.
James [01:07:16] Mhm.
Mykle [01:07:16] Like here this is great literature, and now you must read it.
And like, you know, got kind of scarred by reading, put off by reading.
James [01:07:24] Hated it.
Mykle [01:07:25] And these were the first books that people discovered that got them excited about reading again.
And I thought, Oh my God, there's really nothing cooler than that.
James [01:07:34] That's a top tier.
Mykle [01:07:35] Nothing cooler than helping somebody to become a reader who might have just decided not to.
Cat [01:07:51] [meow]
Mykle [01:07:51] And of course, the thing about Bizarro is it's just like all of this shit is utterly offensive to adults with actual sensibilities. But young kids are completely open to you because their minds are so wild and free and they haven't decided what's good and evil yet.
James [01:08:06] That's also a choice.
You can do that at any age.
Mykle [01:08:09] It's harder when you get older I swear to God.
James [01:08:12] Even you?
Mykle [01:08:12] You got to try, but it's not as easy as it used to be.
James [01:08:15] Why not?
Mykle [01:08:16] I don't know, man.
It's like…
It's like it's easier when you don't have history, it’s easier when you haven't learned as much, it's easier when you haven't had—
James [01:08:28] Yeah
Mykle [01:08:28] You know it's easier to be open to new experiences.
Eventually, more and more of your experiences are informed by your previous similar experience.
It's just the process of learning, and it happens inevitably as you get older.
I don't think it's what causes old age and death.
But yeah, you definitely have a completely different mentality when you're old because and then there are all of these advantages and there are all of these disadvantages, but it's just very different.
So like, being able to reach out and give something to young people's minds is just super, super awesome.
James [01:09:11] I just, I feel...by the way, it took me forever—It didn't take forever, it felt like forever—the two years I worked on this novel, it was like there was no doubt in my mind I was like, I really love this, I really enjoy it.
And the prospect of people reading, I'm like, people might fucking hate this and say it's terrible.
It'll probably never get published, is what I thought.
And I notice myself hesitating on what I liked about it more and more after it was done, and I honestly got hit with a fear of like, I don't ever want to feel limited to write something like this again.
I don't ever want to feel, no matter what experience or perspective, that I can't go in-depth on this stupid shit again.
You want to talk about hypocrisy and writing and shit?
I was in workshop where I showed them a story where literally the entire short story is a guy who catalogs different types of blowjobs and which ends in him discovering there's a whole phylum of people who strictly deep throat.
And his descriptions of it, and they applauded it.
They loved it.
I would hate to get tired of that with age.
Mykle [01:10:45] Now what happens there, I'll tell you, is there's this thing where, at the end of a story or a section of a story you're basically hoping, and you fail more often than not, but you're hoping to get the reader on your side and you're hoping that you've given them a thing that makes them excited about the thing.
And they've decided that they're on board and they're reading it and they're liking it.
And if they're liking it, there can be all kinds of shit wrong with it, but the stuff that's good is winning against the stuff that’s bad.
James [01:11:17] Correct.
Mykle [01:11:19] And if they're not liking it, they come to the end and then they're sort of sitting there.
They wish they liked it because they like you and they're nice, and they'd love to tell you that they think you're great, but they're not.
And they want to give you something helpful, like, why didn't I like this?
And they're thinking about why they didn't like it, and they're giving you some reason why they didn't like it.
But there's some other story that's exactly that same thing, but different in some other way that they would like.
James [01:11:45] Mm-hmm.
Mykle [01:11:46] So when people give you their reasons about why they don't like it, you should take that with a grain of salt until three people have told you the exact same thing.
But on the other hand, the fact that they didn't like it, you should take that very seriously.
I mean, is it because again looking at like, say, an Alan Moore, I mean, there are all of these people who are so brilliant at story that they can just get you interested in anything because they know how to get people to enter a story.
Forget they're anything but in the story and be carried along the story, and the story gives them all of the wonderful things that stories give people.
And like, that's not always what I feel like writing, Honestly, I have a lot more to say than that.
The whole story thing is a little bit annoying because at some point you just feel like you're this really good hypnotist.
If you're good at it, you're like, Yes, I know that if I dangle these starry pieces in front of you, you will lap them up.
You silly little kittens.
James [01:13:01] But where's the style?
Mykle [01:13:02] On the other hand, it's like, you know, there's something in the story that you love and things really work, and it's not working for other people.
You really have to look at why not.
You really have to figure out like, Okay, well, I guess I'm just different or that because this thing I think is really clever isn't as clever as you know.
When you got something that worked, you don't have to.
You don't need to understand why you just need to not fuck it up.
James [01:13:39] Yeah, that works way better. What time is it now?
Mykle [01:13:43] Oh yeah, it's getting late.
How much time have you got?
James [01:13:45] I don't fly out until 1 p.m. tomorrow.
Mykle [01:13:48] It's quarter to midnight.
James [01:13:50] It is?
Mykle [01:13:50] Yeah, you didn't get here till 10:30 or whatever
James [01:13:53] Well shit.
Mykle [01:13:56] No pressure.
James [01:14:11] So you're not going to do another novel, ever?
Mykle [01:14:14] ou know, so like after my frustration of that last Bizarro novel, with my frustrations with Eraserhead, I have to say, and with the whole explosion in the bizarro community, I was like, Well, there's all this other shit I want to write.
And I was like, my mom just died. Let me write a long, depressing memoir about my relationship with my weird mom.
Well I started writing and it, you know, kind of depressed me just to write this.
I don't want to show it anywhere. This is terrible.
And I was like, Well, maybe I could be like a fun travel writer.
Here's like a thing I'm going do with some friends, and try to come up with like a fun adventure story to go and do for like a mountain biking magazine and try to do this adventure in San Francisco and trawling through a tunnel.
And the whole thing was a horrible fiasco. The tunnel was full of bird shit and nobody wanted to go, and the bikes we got were too big to fit in the hole.
It was like a waste of time, and it got super expensive.
I just got very frustrated and pissed off and didn't ever finish that, and I was just like, Oh God.
And then I was like, I'm going to try and write this other thing…
I just struck in a bunch of other directions kind of randomly, but didn't end up doing anything I liked.
And then I was like, You know -- and then I was actually, I was seeing a therapist and I remember having this crisis on what to write next, and like, you know, figure out the next thing.
There’s this therapist I found that, and I appreciate his help in my life, he was like, You know, you don't have to do that.
And I was like, Yeah, I don't have to do that.
And it's like, why don't I just not write for a while?
And that was great at first…
James [01:16:10] [laughs maniacally]
Mykle [01:16:10] To not have my identity wrapped up in it because like, I can still go get a tech job and get by, and there are other things I like to do.
But slowly, over time, I figured out I made a big mistake there because I hit a wall.
James [01:16:31] Mm.
Mykle [01:16:32] And I sort of just gave up, and now I don't respect myself for that, I feel like I gave up something that was really valuable and good and that I cared about too easily, and now I'm really puzzled how to get back to it.
To be perfectly honest, you just happened to show up at the time when I air out of my heart's deepest anguish.
James [01:16:59] I'm confused about one thing. So you're wondering how to reenter the thing that everyone has?
Mykle [01:17:05] Well, I mean, first of all, if I had the right story in mind, if I decide to write a thing I'm really excited about, like, okay, I could write a thing.
But, I don't really want to do another book with Eraserhead Press.
Sorry, Rose.
We've talked about it, and I'm not really sure where else I would take it, especially if it was something other than bizarro.
And you know, again, I don't have an agent.
I really sucked at, making the types of relationships with the publishing world and the person should have by the time they've written as many books as I have.
And I feel a little bit just like it just feels like this weird uphill battle.
I'm probably making it out to be worse than it is.
I'm probably just depressed, but I'm like, I'm searching for the motivation because like when I wrote Help! A Bear Is Eating Me, which actually started out as a NaNoWriMo project.
James [01:18:07] Really?
Mykle [01:18:07] Yeah.
There were two pieces of motivation, one of which was like, I just had this thought in my head about, like Nicholson Baker's book The Mezzanine, which is about nothing.
It's about this guy's thoughts as he travels down an escalator and Nicholson Baker for an entire book because he's a guy who can elaborate, expand and explore endlessly in an interesting way and digress forever.
But it's really like notoriously a book about nothing at all.
Right?
And I was just like, What if it was exactly that?
But while you're being eaten by a wild animal.
James [01:18:46] [laughs]
Mykle [01:18:46] I start chuckling and I just thought about it all day.
I was like, chuckling.
And so and I told the idea to my wife and she started chuckling. The next morning, when I started to do this, I laid down and started writing it.
And I'm like chuckling to myself.
I'm laughing.
And I got seven pages done and I'm laughing, and I showed to to my wife and I'm like this is hilarious.
I'm like, I'm a fucking genius.
And every day was like that for 30 days.
It was the easiest thing I ever wrote.
James [01:19:22] Are you serious?
Mykle [01:19:23] I loved every bit of it.
The other piece of the puzzle, though, was that I had just recently hurt my back really bad.
James [01:19:32] Mm-Hmm.
Mykle [01:19:33] And I had to lie down on the floor all day long.
I constructed this sort of weird sawhorse bench thing with a typewriter screwed onto it so I could lie on my back on that carpet there and type while staring at the ceiling.
And so, I'm writing about this guy who's lying on his back in no pain whatsoever being eaten by this bear while I'm laughing.
But I'm also in agonizing pain all of the time.
And it's like an excuse to get away from messing with this joke over and over.
So it was a very special set of circumstances, but I wouldn't want to recreate if I could, because it was actually a very, very bad medical situation.
James [01:20:25] Well, you know, those are things you can set up for.
Mykle [01:20:30] Okay, so like, it's never been that fucking easy and enjoyable before.
It's just like every book I've done since then was a little bit harder and a little bit slower and a little bit less obvious what I should do until finally, like, you know, it took three years to write, I, Slutbot, but I was like doing it every day and spending so much time, to get that five fucking pages a day was just like excruciating.
Like, if you ended up going like, Okay, I'm going to write a novel about and I'm not claiming I am, but if you're like, I'm going to write a novel about someone who is a journalist that visits someone who thinks that they can't do this, and I'm going to go do this now, and I'm delirious about it, which is pulling inspiration from actual life and then just going off the wall with it.
James [01:20:50] It would make total sense, but like, is there something holding back because you don't know what publisher you send it to?
Mykle [01:21:00] Maybe I just kind of feel like, I mean. I don't know. I mean, I guess I take disappointment really badly, I guess.
I'm really easily discouraged even for a human.
And my last book, I mean, I put all this work into promoting it myself.
I did this fantastic tour on the East Coast with Violet LeVoit and some other Bizarro people.
And I just pulled out all the stops trying to get people to care.
And I felt like so little back in return, and I was bitter and hurt.
And I'm like, I mean, I don't like to admit that I was such a fragile flower, but.
James [01:22:23] Hmm.
Mykle [01:22:23] But it's just not easy for me to have invested so much in that work and feel so little back.
But like a couple of people really have reached out to me who really did love that book and god it means so much to me.
Thank you so much.
James [01:22:42] Of course.
[END OF INTERVIEW]