The Story Garden 5.0
Interviews
A Conversation with Kenneth L. Clark
Q:
This one time when I was a kid I was in the back yard with this friend of mine, Kevin Augeri, he moved to Arkansas or something a few years later. Anyway, I had on one of those black snowmobile suits with the yellow band around the arm. He dared me to climb up this apple tree and jump out into a snow bank. So I did but on the way down the belt of the snowmobile suit got caught on a limb and I was just hanging there out in space. My dad came out and looked up at me and shook his head and went back inside.
I guess that isn't really a question is it.
A:
I sat on the roof of a Captain D's fast food restaurant-- they serve fried fish. These fish fillets must be examined each morning over a bottom-lit cutting board, checking for worms. You do this after a wake-n-bake, or a blowjob. Despite the distraction the point is this is a menial task in a meaningless job. Robots would do better.
I was on the roof trying to talk the panties off of this 19 year-old. She wasn't wearing any and my knees had the bumpy mounded indentions from the shingles.
This is the Arkansas leg of the interview. I have been to 48 states (not Hawaii, North Dakota, or Puerto Rico). There was the year in the Philippines, the year in the cold misery of upstate NY.
You should ask my robot. He/she'd do a better job at this.
Q:
How would a robot know the difference between a worm and a piece of fish? I don't get it.
Arkansas? Who said anything about Arkansas? Not me and last I checked I was running this interview. I'll tell you what leg we're on as soon as I come up with something more interesting than Arkansas. Wait. Is that a Clinton joke? Like 19 year old chicks without panties = Clinton? Either way.
Where in Upstate NY? That's sort of my turf. I just read this article about a guy who got busted at the airport with 100 pounds of chocolate in his luggage. He was going to the Philippines on some illegal sex tour.
I think I just mistakenly took a fat Vicodin that I thought was an Ibuprofen. This can't end well.
A:
Utica. Rome. Isla d'Vicodinia.
Q:
My cousin is in the Air Force. Maybe Army. Navy? I don't know. We're not that close. All I know is that he wears unusually large silver belt buckles. Do you have one of those? I wondered if they were military issue now.
A:
I have a belt buckle that says "Republic Of Texas" which is where I was born. This is for my 'drinking nights' or 6 out of 8 nights a week. No, make that 7.
Q:
I got a pair of cowboy boots for Christmas when I was in third grade. I wore those things year round until some kid on a camping trip laughed at me for wearing them with shorts. That kid ruined everything.
Q:
. . . Hello?
A:
I hate Oklahoma City. I was out drinking beer with some store employees, a big no-no for my uppity corporate job. We were at OKC's alterna-club. Some shitbox in a strip mall where the girls didn't wear cowboy hats but berets and Che G. shirts. I kinda like Ali G. Anyway there we are and next thing I remember is bleeding.
I got sucker punched on the dance floor by some skater dude. This broke my heart. Punk bitch he was and when we got outside I tried to knife him but the bouncer had me pinned down like a cub scout. I took one of the women back to my hotel room. I bled all over her and had to stop, I couldn't handle the sight of bleeding all over her stomach while we fucked.
The next morning I was stuck to the pillow by my dried blood. The room looked like a murder had happened. That day I took a flight home wearing an eye patch. An eye patch is the perfect accessory for any occasion.
Q:
Ok. Uh. Well. Shit. Let's see then.
Do you want me to ask you a writing question or something? I mean I. God. Okay. What's the biggest writer cliche question I can think of?
Damn. I'm at a loss. Were you a skater dude too? Trying to knife someone sounds like a skate punk thing to do. Why'd he sucker punch you? You were probably all over his chick all drunk in your suit and all.
"This broke my heart" is pretty genius by the way. Do you just sit around all day thinking of pretty genius things to say?
Q:
Wait a second. What kind of corporate hack carries a fucking knife around in his pocket and tries to stab people? Actually, come to think of it, probably most of them do.
A:
I suck at answering questions.
I've skateboarded since 1983 and still own one though both my knees are blown out. Torn meniscus on both. I asked one of the kids to stop throwing beer everywhere. I didn't realize they were in 'start a fight' mode.
The knife was one of those Spyderco webbed thingies. This was pre-9/11 and nobody gave a fuck if I carried it on a plane.
Writing questions? I have had work in Equinox, Tabula Rasa, Poets Cut. I think those are all dead though. I have one novel underway and a nifty idea for number two but like most of us I suffer from laziness and fear of success. Well, maybe not most of us but I certainly make up more excuses, chores, and side hobbies to keep me away from writing. I am protecting myself, I tell myself.
Should I show my tattoos? Or I could tell you how I once got accepted into the Muslim faith b/c I was trying to keep my crazy ex-wife from leaving me. She "found" Allah.
White trash people will believe anything.
Q:
You may have figured this out already but probably the whole beer throwing thing was a sign that they were in, you know, 'start a fight' mode?
Dude. We should get together and skate sometime! Yeah, I called you Dude. I used to work security at the demos for our local skate shop. The owner's family owned this Chinese restaurant so we'd get free grub afterward then go skate with whoever. I skated with Natas (I have his board. I mean not his but his label. You know.) Mike Vallaley. Lance Mountain. Johnny Kop. Per Welinder. Bryce Kanights. I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot. Natas Kaupas was sick though.
So when you say you're writing the novel does that mean you're actually writing? Like on a schedule? Or writing like, I have ten pages stuffed in my sock drawer that I'm sure I'll get to at some point?
A friend of mine converted to Mormonism for a chick. It’s probably not that strange. The only thing I know about Mormonism (well, that's a lie straight off) is that this girl that I liked in high school was a Mormon and she pronounced the word towel , taal. I was a sucker for that. I didn't do anything stupid like convert though I guess people have done dumber things for love.
A:
Ha! Natas was awesome. I saw him in 87 or 88. I forget. Right now I have a Mark Gonzalez deck with my trusty old Indies and some Spitfire Classics.
I have about 160 pages but it is in like three different file formats, really disorganized. That is why I am trying to get it sorted out and finally finished. But yeah, I got a good bit. I had a schedule but slipped from it. That schedule thing is the only way I get anything done. Otherwise I just give up.
Q:
I've got creating a schedule on my schedule.
A:
I'm working right now:
Jury Duty
Silence: then voice over
microphone and videotape
rolls as I think of dinner
instead of this black machine
that closes our freighted
mind, rips the worker bees
from the colonies of Salary.
I should stand and speak
of my stomach that folds
in on itself to escape;
or how waiting for bail
winds time in reverse.
Instead,
deadwater music of nulla bona
rule nisi, per stirpes on & on.
We are charged to find for
or against, to not discuss
what matters.
I remember the soft wood, the sun
that danced in the gauze of dust
/end snip
but I'm about to give up and drink a beer instead.