tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE as Interviewer
I've always been interested in what people really do more than what they just fantasize about doing. As a child in elementary school, I was steered toward reading a biography of Charles Proteus Steinmetz, a hunchbacked, cigar-smoking, black-suit-wearing, pioneer of electrical research with a leftist political bent. I suspect the librarian or teacher who nudged me in his direction was probably also leftist & had some ulterior motives. Whatever. Steinmetz fascinated me. I vaguely recall wearing a Steinmetz 'costume' for some elementary school event - maybe when I was 10.
One thing that always impressed me about Chris Burden was that he made a point of bringing his fantasies into reality. I like to do the same - but I make a point that I'm discriminating: I choose my fantasies, I choose the most positive ones.
I like to say that I've lived my life as if someone someday will write my biography & I want to make sure it's juicy reading. In other words, I try to actually do things - not just create fictions about doing things (although I do that too).
The people that I interview are probably of a similar nature. I pick them for interviewing because I see them as taking active roles in life - but not just active roles, roles that tend to challenge the status quo. I'm not interested in, say, celebrities or sports stars or rich businesspeople, I'm interested in people who are what I call Cognitive Dissidents, people who are consciously working toward paradigm shifts. Maybe someday I should interview a couch-potato just for contrast.
1989.10.05 'John Doe', bank robber, interviewed by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE
An interview with a man about his personal life & criminal history - with special emphasis on his 17 bank robberies & subsequent arrest in Virginia.
1994.12 or 1995.01 Gordon W. Zealot interviewed by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE
The interviewee is Neoism's most prominent chef & tabla player. He talks about his remarkably mischievous history & his near-continual state of being-at-odds with bureaucracy & the status quo in Toronto.
1997.07.21 & 1997.07.24 Interview & Language Experiment with Florian Cramer
A Neoist who delves deeply into language theory & who collaborates with the interviewer & friends on a language experiment in Berlin.
2000.04 The Lab Rats Explain Their Veggie-Oil Powered Van
In 2000, etta cetera & I made our way into the outback of Australia w/ the assistance of the "Lab Rats" - a daring duo of alternative energy activists whose van was veggie oil powered & who had a sound system that was solar powered that they used at activist events. We stopped at a dump at Woomera (a US military town where people drove on the right side of the road instead of on the left as it is elsewhere in Aus) to refuel. This involved heating & filtering the discarded veggie oil. This movie was mainly made there as a "How to" instructional.
2000.06.01 Street Ratbags meet John Safran
While staying in Melbourne, Australia, in 2000, etta cetera & I were exposed to the work of media trickster John Safran. Safran had shot 2 pilots for a proposed tv show that were chockfull of mischief. The tv show didn't happen & Safran became a radio talk show host instead. Impressed by his shenanigans, etta & I wanted to meet him & prank him a bit too. SO, on June 1, 2000, we called him from a squat we were staying at & asked if we cd visit him while he was on the air.
2000.06 Ghanesh interviews "Free-Range Intellectual" Damien Broderick
Sometime between June 8th & 12th, 2000, my friend the God Ghanesh interviewed "free-range intellectual" Damien Broderick in the back yard of his home in Australia. Broderick is clearly a thoughtful & tolerant man w/ a sense of humor b/c he managed to express his ideas clearly & politely despite the deliberate disruptive silliness of the interview technique.
2000/2001 Amy Kwasnicki of PDAG interviewed by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE
A Philadelphia-based political activist recounts the trials & tribulations of resisting the Republican National Convention & the Police State repression.
2000/2001 Dave interviewed by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE
The interviewee was arrested on his way to a protest against a chemical warfare mock attack in downtown Pittsburgh. He was interrogated & both his apartment & his father's home were searched without a warrant.
2001.07.10 Andrew Smith interviewed by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE
An Australian anarchist activist recounts his travels in North & South America & his polirical experiences during this time.
2002.12.05 Courtney & Babs discuss "Cuntralia"
Having made a movie partially about sexual obsession, I thought it would be interesting to have 2 young anarchist women friends discuss it. What made it even more interesting for me was that my choices for this were 2 open-minded people who were so tight with each other at the time that they tended to complete each other's sentences. They were also heavily reliant on speech crutches.
This brought up the typical transcriber's dilemma: to edit or not? The general practice seems to be to eliminate speech crutches in the interest of greater 'literateness'. Since the original was so 'extreme', I found it interesting to heavily edit it for publication in my book "Not Necessarily NOT Very Important" (published by the San Francisco Cinematheque) for its 1st appesarance there (reading from front-to-back) & to then have an accurate transcription later in the book.
The result thus isolates the apparent intended content of the 2 speakers as well as presenting their actual mode of presenting it in real life. I find the contrast between the 2 revealing & entertaining. Only 60 copies of this book were printed so very few people have ever read this. While this isn't strictly speaking an interview, it is a discussion situation that I generated so I feel that it fits here.
A Baltimore-based civil disobedience activist tells some of his more inspiring stories - including a disruption of the trial of Iran-Contra criminal Oliver North.
2004.04.11,13,15 Gyorgy Ladanyi interviewed by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE
A Hungarian-born Neoist explains his extensive experience as a world traveler & his history as a document forger.
2004.04.13 Frithjof interviewed by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE (with help from Gyoergy Ladanyi)
An East Germany born man discusses life there & subsequent to the reunification of Germany & his run-ins with the law as a symbol twister.
2010.07 [no longer identified woman] discusses her [no longer identified book] with tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE
From July 20th to July 25th, 2010E.V., [no longer identified woman] & I conducted a series of sometimes vaudeoed interviews w/ each other - mainly about each other's writing & our philosophies & other such ruminations. This excerpt is from the section where [no longer identified woman] discusses the meaning of the title of [her no longer identified book]. Unfortunately, the woman who was in this movie with me continued to cause trouble for me with YouTube 10 years after we broke up so I removed all 5 of the movies that I'd uploaded featuring her. In this case, it's a bit of a shame because I did an exceptionally good job with the edit.
2010.10.31 Richard Cameron-Wolfe re Franz Kamin
I had the extreme good fortune to meet pianist/composer Richard Cameron-Wolfe. Richard has known Franz since the mid 1960s & has performed in many of his pieces. I've since made a documentary about Franz called "Depot" & my interview w/ Richard (wch was made as a part of "Depot") deserves to be presented in its entirety independent of its inclusion in the finished doc.
2010.12 George Quasha re Franz Kamin
George Quasha met Franz Kamin in 1973 in New York - either thru Barry Alpert (Franz's version) or thru Jackson Mac Low (George's version). George & Susan Quasha are the publishers of Station Hill Press - Franz's primary publishers. George also performed in many Kamin pieces - as a Borrel non-player & as a percussionist, etc.. George is an artist & a poet & is also renowned as the coeditor of the historic poetry anthologies "America a Prophecy" & "Open Poetry" amongst many other things. Here George reminisces about Franz on December 20th & 21st, 2010 as part of the shooting sessions for my documentary about Kamin entitled "DEPOT (wherein resides the UNDEAD of Franz Kamin)".
2010.12 Interview with John Beaulieu about Franz Kamin
A musical healer discusses his long history with composer/writer/pianist/performer Franz Kamin.
2012.07 Skizz Cyzyk interviewed by email about MicroCineFest & beyond
Skizz is a filmmaker & musician who ran a long-lasting series of open screenings at a former funeral home in BalTimOre that eventually turned into MicroCineFest - which lasted for 10 years. This interview is embedded in a broader context about the history of the H.O.M.E. (Horse Opera Meanderthal Encounter) Group & was published both in hard-copy & online by the excellent movie magazine "Incite".
2015.11 Monty Cantsin interviewed at Who Unit?
Monty Cantsin is a collective identity used primarily by Neoists created by David Zack in 1978 or thereabouts. Many people are still inspired by the way its use enables participation in a project of substantial openness. This particular Monty Cantsin assumed the identity in 2006.
Soon thereafter, in that same year, Monty arranged for me to be an invited guest of the Olympia Film Festival in November. 9 years later I arranged for him to concertize at Babyland in Pittsburgh & to present a screening under the Microcinema sidebar at the Three Rivers Film Feestival.
A movie was made of his visit & of our collective activities & an interview threaded through it. The movie's entitled "Monty Cantsin Rides Again" as a way of showing the character lives on in new situations & incarnations.
2016.08 Monte con o sin safos interviewed at Frick Park
The name "Monte con o sin safos" may seem suspiciously close to "Monty Cantsin" & that, of course, is deliberate. Enter another newish player on the field of Neoism. Monte came to visit me for 2 weeks in the beginning of August, 2016, & he & we proceded to do & don't the town. Monte con o sin safos, too, "Rides Again".
Monte's very energetic & athletic. Given my general lack of interest in sports, I'm delighted to break my habits by adding a movie heavily featuring exercise routines to my body of work. Monte frequently shoots app-savvy footage of himself & his activities producing more or less unedited results. Cobbling his Pittsburgh footage together with my own in a way satisfactory for myself was a considerable editing challenge. I think it succeeded nicely.
2016.11.03-19 AG Davis interviewed by email by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE
As I recall, my attention was 1st called to the work of AG Davis by Monty Cantsin in Belarus who told me that Davis was one of his favorite sound artists or some such. Not long thereafter, an offer was made to publish a split 7" lathecut record with a piece by me on one side & one by Davis on the other.
We got in touch with each other online & traded by snail-mail. Davis sent me a CD & a tape done in collaboration with {AN}-Eel & a book of his entitled "Báthory". The proposed split 7" didn't happen & AG proposed that we collaborate. I counter-proposed that we each interview each other for my "Interviewee" & "Interviewer" websites.
2017.04.30 Tom DiVenti interviewed at Who Unit?
I met Tommy DiVenti no later than 1977 in Baltimore. He & our mutual friend "Billy Mo" Moriarity were very active as a performance poet & the 2 of them cofounded one of Baltimore's 1st punk bands, Da Moronics. Still in 1977, Tom started the Apathy Project, a performance venue in the carriage house he was renting. I gave my 1st reading there. Later, Tom started Apathy Press, & published, amongst many other things, my 3rd book, "How to Write a Resumé: Volume II: Making a Good First Impression", in 1989.
When this interview was shot, I hadn't seen Tom for something like 17 years.. Tom, under the name of T. T. Tucker, has had "cancer of the career", as he puts it. While this interview was done in a bit of a hurry it gave me an opportunity to dig some artifacts out of my extensive archive to intersperse at relevant places. There's footage here (thanks to Lizard Media Systems) that quite probably no-one has seen for 35 years until now.
2018.11.16 (& beyond) Aitch interviewed by email by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE
I 1st encountered the existence of Aitch when he was going by the name Pete Horobin. He'd written a book about The Neoist Network's First European Training Camp in Würzburg, West Germany, in 1982, which he'd been a participant in. We probably started corresponding in 1983. We finally met in person in early May, 1984, when my girlfriend of the time, Gail Litfin, & I arrived early for the 8th International Neoist Apartment Festival that was headquartered at the squat-turned-Council-House that Pete was living in along with Steve Thorne. Reinhardt U. Sevöl had been living there & had had a part on organizing the festival but had moved to Paris. Pete later wrote a book that I call APT 8 about this period.
Pete has gone through many names since then & was somewhat (un)known at "Aitch". I conducted this interview initially because I was aiming to interview as many people as I could who've been associated with Neoism. Aitch was a 1st choice because he & I were/are still sporadically in touch with each other, because we've collaborated, & because I've always found his activities interesting.
It might be important to mention that Pete hates this webpage & has insulted me over it. There are artifacts in some of the images that look like snow, It's not snow it's a technical artifact that resulted from Pete's sending me images in a format that I had to change a few times in order for them to work in my 1997 webpage app. He also objected to the way I repeated one part of his answers. Truthfully, I was so tired of Pete's abusiveness by this point that I just left it all as is. I'd put more than enough work into it as it was.
2019.08 Pata-No UN LTD interviewed by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE by email
Pata-No UN LTD approached me as Karen Eliot by email to contribute to a Neoist book to be published by Autonomedia in honor of the 40th anniversary of Neoism. Having had troubles with the main initiator of the project, Monty Cantsin Amen (Istvan Kantor), I was pessimistic that anything that I would provide would be used. I was pessimistic in general as to whether the book would even exist &/or whether the whole thing was a hoax. It didn't seem like the type of thing that Auronomedia would necessarily be interested in & Autonomedia hadn't been very active as a publisher for awhile. Nonetheless, Pata-No turned out to be an interesting correspondent so I proposed that we interview each other & that one or both of the interviews be part of the book as well as things that I'd put online. "2019.08 tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE interviewed by Pata-No UN LTD by email" is also online.
2022.08.13 Brian Gentry interviewed by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE in person
Brian Gentry is someone I've known since the mid-1980s thru a variety of connections: zine production, neoism, anarchism, etc. He's exemplary of the type of person that I reference in my introduction above as "what I call Cognitive Dissidents, people who are consciously working toward paradigm shifts". Brian's led both a thoughtful & a very active life. At this stage of it he's a biophysics professor. In this interview, he gives a brief introduction of himself & then I ask him questions about physics, a subject I know very little about so this was educational for me.
2023.05.27 "Interview PM"
A series of intercut interviews that include me being interviewed by Zivan Vasquez & me interiewing April Gilmore. The series was created as a part of "Sylli-G" that further includes Kelly Stiles, Matthu Stull, & Morgan Cahn. Think absurdism, people.
2023.06.25 "Ralph Eaton Interview"
From June 22 to June 26, 2023, I went to Roanoke, VA, to participate in AfterMAF (After Marginal Arts Festival) at Ralph Eaton & Brian Counihan's Art Rat Studios. This festival is sortof a family reunion for talented fringe folks from 100s of miles around - taking place in one of the most psychedelic environments one could hope for. Ralph Eaton is one of the people who's been in on this festivity since the Marginal Arts Festivals beginnings in 2008. I interviewed him & 3 other people active in its on-going creation on June 25th at Olchar's Avalon Minor so that i could intercut their explanations & memories in with footage shot at the festival itself. The overall documentary is - on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/H_L3xPNLqm8 & on the Internet Archive here: https://archive.org/details/caress-of-the-periphery . As such, Ralph's interview is scattered throughout most of the docmentary. I may just put it all in one place someday but, for now, I like it put in its context.
2023.06.25 "Olchar Lindsann Interview"
From June 22 to June 26, 2023, I went to Roanoke, VA, to participate in AfterMAF (After Marginal Arts Festival) at Ralph Eaton & Brian Counihan's Art Rat Studios. This festival is sortof a family reunion for talented fringe folks from 100s of miles around - taking place in one of the most psychedelic environments one could hope for. Olchar Lindsann is one of the people who's been in on this festivity since the Marginal Arts Festivals beginnings in 2008. I interviewed him & 3 other people active in its on-going creation on June 25th at Olchar's Avalon Minor so that i could intercut their explanations & memories in with footage shot at the festival itself. The overall documentary is - on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/H_L3xPNLqm8 & on the Internet Archive here: https://archive.org/details/caress-of-the-periphery . As such, Olchar's interview is scattered throughout most of the docmentary. I may just put it all in one place someday but, for now, I like it put in its context.
2023.06.25 "Warren Fry Interview"
From June 22 to June 26, 2023, I went to Roanoke, VA, to participate in AfterMAF (After Marginal Arts Festival) at Ralph Eaton & Brian Counihan's Art Rat Studios. This festival is sortof a family reunion for talented fringe folks from 100s of miles around - taking place in one of the most psychedelic environments one could hope for. Warren Fry is one of the people who's been in on this festivity since shortly after the Marginal Arts Festivals beginnings in 2008. I interviewed him & 3 other people active in its on-going creation on June 25th at Olchar's Avalon Minor so that i could intercut their explanations & memories in with footage shot at the festival itself. The overall documentary is - on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/H_L3xPNLqm8 & on the Internet Archive here: https://archive.org/details/caress-of-the-periphery . As such, Warren's interview is scattered throughout most of the docmentary. I may just put it all in one place someday but, for now, I like it put in its context.
2023.06.25 "Tomislav Butkovic Interview"
From June 22 to June 26, 2023, I went to Roanoke, VA, to participate in AfterMAF (After Marginal Arts Festival) at Ralph Eaton & Brian Counihan's Art Rat Studios. This festival is sortof a family reunion for talented fringe folks from 100s of miles around - taking place in one of the most psychedelic environments one could hope for. Tomislav Burkovic is one of the people who's been in on this festivity since the 2nd year of theMarginal Arts Festivals beginnings in 2008. I interviewed him & 3 other people active in its on-going creation on June 25th at Olchar's Avalon Minor so that i could intercut their explanations & memories in with footage shot at the festival itself. The overall documentary is - on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/H_L3xPNLqm8 & on the Internet Archive here: https://archive.org/details/caress-of-the-periphery . As such, Tomislav's interview is scattered throughout most of the docmentary. I may just put it all in one place someday but, for now, I like it put in its context.
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