Ryan: any more spazzing to do on yr blog or am i good
me: well you said incite and i said entice
why dont you interview me
Ryan: whoa dyslexia
ok hang on let me get my notes together.
me: ha
Ryan: Russell. It takes a sad story to write a sad song. Do you have to have a good life to have a good blog?
me: HA
im a sad guy and kind of in love with it, mostly annoyed, but now ive come to terms with it, i accept it for what it is and i don’t need medication – people are drawn to sadness, there must be an element of tragedy in order for us to care for more than 15 minutes
Ryan: By now you must feel that you’re well past the sixteenth minute with what you’ve done with your blog – what do you see in its future? Any foreseeable outcome?
(take your time, or just say next)
me: i dont feel that way at all
(sorry fonecall)
it takes ten years to be an overnite success and this is my “career” – so everyday what i do is my job right, just as everyday some banker does their job, but is that banker thinking oh my 15 minutes are almost up i better get on this before people dont care about my mutual funds anymore? i have the benefit of being a lazy man’s celebrity – they don’t want me to get too big, but some do so i don’t quite get what people are implying or trying to say to me when they say shit like that, like shut up what the hell are you trying to achieve
Ryan: I do – you raise allusion to Andy Warhol – do you feel that your expression is rooted in finding art in the mundane, that your beer can chicken is his campbell’s soup can – or are you afraid of becoming too close to or detached from your audience?
me: re-word this question so that it is actually answerable
Ryan: good call
just tryin to give talking points
Who are your primary inspirations, if any?
me: being detached or attached to an audience has nothing to do with creating art
im inspird by people i know, conversations, movies, the melancholy, books – any thing or one person that has inspired me happened years ago, now it’s simpler things that encourage me, music helps
Ryan: Great songs have been written on napkins. Do you ever get an idea for a post at common places like a restaurant?
me: all the time but you have to write those down, because you DO forget them and will, living in toronto is inspiring, living in smaller towns also is inspiring cos you are like i want to get out of this small town and be bigger than it. the “i’ll show them” factor but then some dickhead invents facebook and then all the people you never spoke to are in your inbox like what is raymi who is this raymi slghporegtqyrotyreovifdjlvnjrewoig nrogre
Ryan: Do you see yourself and your setting as interrelated, as say Hemingway in Cuba or Stephen King in Maine?
me: for now
but i’d like to be a crazy lady with long hair and wellingtons in some remote village in ireland or wherever quaint stories come from
the thing that motivates me is pictures in my head, something you see in a movie or conjure up from a book, then i go out and do it
right now it’s barfly and music
though it should be something more
Ryan: To entertain a dickhead from facebook, for our readers, who is this Raymi? Where did the inspiration for the name come, is it an exotic alterego, did you want the Pink Floyd fans to sit around wondering what it stood for?
me: i was 14, i had been hanging out with my cousin and brother, my cousin (kerouac side) was in a weird phase, where he was like, i am weird, anyway, i read some of his pen and paper ramblings, we were all very into nirvana at the time, and inspired by his dirty basement bedroom and filthy clothes i wrote a two page story beginner called the last minx, written from the perspective of a girl in an asylum
and i sat there in my suburban mississauga livingroom staring at the christmas tree, the complete opposite of what i was writing about, i was a pretty depressed kid but hid it well, anyway, the girl needed a name and my own name was not interesting enough, and raymi just came to me, from nothing, it was the perfect name then i expanded that into a longer story, i thought i would be a published author by the age of 16
arrogant little fuck
Ryan: Does it inspire you to wonder what that story could someday be worth?
me: anyway that story sucked, i have it typed out somewhere and on floppy
well it became a self-fulfilling prophecy
the crazy ward part
i wrote it before girl interrupted
and i thought i was really fucking savvy
the premise i thought was groundbreaking
anyway, asylums are not glamorous at all, there’s no fucking ballet lessons with angelina hipster jolie
Ryan: And she doesn’t get topless either? There still is a certain mystique and bullshit glamour about the crazy artist
me: oh there always will be
Ryan: Do you need to be crazy to have a crazy blog?
me: the candle burns brightest before it flickers out right
when you’re mad you are at your skinniest and you become looks-obsessed
so there are crazy outfits and hairstyles
in that respect it can be quite hollywood
re: crazy blog, uh, what do you think
Ryan: off the record yeah or maybe just bored or happy
me: off the record?
Ryan: tryin to be pro and have a continuity to the interview
minimal editing, larry king said it’s not suppose to be about the interviewer
me: im looking at papers i wrote when i was in the psyche ward
im adding them to my book
also a journal i kept
and things i wrote and havent read since highschool
i was a little more eloquent back then
Ryan: simpson gene i have it too, you get dumber when you get older
me: you drink more
Ryan: maybe you just attempt and attain less
yeah that too
let’s end this interview:
me: well you afford yourself the luxury of lazy by working harder in the beginning, building the “fanbase”
Ryan: well sometimes anything anyone touches becomes gold too,artists like picasso could make it look cool irrespective of the perceived worth of what it was he was looking at
me: what is the question
Ryan: so you with your writing voice sharpened and always-on could look at a beer can in a chicken’s ass is that fair to say?
nm that a wrapup question
me: i suppose, i notice things in the real world and it’s obvs that people on the internet should share in it, blogging is storytelling and some people like picture books
Ryan: Yours seems to be a success story; shows people what’s possible – are you inspired by the amount of blogs that, via sidebar or otherwise, you’re a precursor to? Do you even have time to read them all?
me: i read blogs sure, theyre all good, save for the crazy ones, cos after awhile even your fans turn on you and forget that you inspired them
whatever
i just keep on doing what i do
