People at the Core
People at the Core
Poet S. Galvin on Seattle's Inferiority Complex, Pirates and Pronouns, and the End of Small Press Distribution
Are you an aspiring writer looking for daily motivation or tips to overcome writer's block? You're in the right place. S. Galvin shares their valuable insights on the mental landscapes of creating and performing poetry, offering practical advice on maintaining a daily writing routine and the emotional benefits it brings. We also dive into the transformative power of Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way," the trials of relocating across cities, and the cultural shifts in places like Seattle and New York. Personal stories of moving, adapting to new environments, and the bittersweet feeling of cultural loss provide a poignant backdrop to our conversation.
We cap off the episode with a heartfelt and humorous discussion about our favorite Muppet characters, drawing parallels between Kermit's stability and Gonzo's wild antics. The importance of community support in navigating gender identity, the challenges of maintaining a digital presence, and the impact of mental health on creativity are all part of our rich, multifaceted dialogue. This episode is a blend of laughter, thoughtful reflection, and practical wisdom—don't miss out on the camaraderie and insights shared in this memorable conversation.
Books by S. Galvin
Ugly Time
The Three Einsteins
The Best Party of Our Lives
Mentions
- Low Life by Lucy Sante
- Tender Data by Monica McClure
- "The Small Press World is About to Fall Apart." On the Collapse of Small Press Distribution by Adam Morgan
- Six to Eight Black Men by David Sedaris
- Who's Afraid of Gender by Judith Butler
- Dan Savage
- Seattle's The Stranger
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From the Greenpoint Palace Bar in Brooklyn, new York, writers and bartenders Rita and Marissa have intimate conversations with an eclectic mix of people from all walks of life about their passions, paranoia and perspectives. Featured guests could be artists or authors, exterminators or private investigators, or the person sitting next to you at the bar. This is People at the Core.
Speaker 2:Okay, hey, hi, how are you okay, how are you all right? Yeah, we talked. I've had a? Um, an emotionally high, anxietized week. Um, our guests tonight, uh, or today, it's the morning, I don't know. One of them is my Zelda, who had a seizure last week, and so I've just been rightfully concerned just watching her and there's not much I can do other than be around.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then I'm working like a dog, so then that's hard, hard, and then I feel guilty and then all that fun stuff. So she is with us today just chilling it's a vicious cycle, isn't it?
Speaker 3:but, hi, zelda, we love you. We should put a picture. Can we put a picture of her up so people can see?
Speaker 2:oh yeah, I think that would be a great idea.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I think we should.
Speaker 2:Also, she's just gorgeous.
Speaker 3:Yeah, she is gorgeous, it's true.
Speaker 2:But yeah, so how are you? You all right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm okay. I went through my murder addiction again, so I have like a severe murder addiction where I'll start on a murder show Of television shows, of television shows, oh yeah.
Speaker 4:Sorry, I just said a topic of interest full of murders, I think it just did for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's talk about your relationship with murder, so segue. Our official guest today is S Galvin, who is the author of Ugly Time, the Three Einsteins, the Best Party of Our Lives and a contributor to the Guardian, vice Magazine, the Stranger and City Arts, and also is a human bottle rocket. They have an MFA in poetry from the University of Washington. S submitted some of their poetry for the Palace Reading Series and we loved their humor and style, but when they performed live, we were transported to another dimension. The entire room was doubled over with laughter and in awe of their wit. If you ever get a chance to see them read, do yourself a favor and go.
Speaker 3:I could not agree with that statement more. I mean your reading was just phenomenal.
Speaker 4:I had so much fun with that reading. Yeah, I've been to the series a couple of times and just had a blast. It's such a good. It's such a like um, receptive audience, just such a like people were really. People really listen here and they react in a way that's like makes my show better. I feel like.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I, I mean, I agree with that completely, like that's the one thing we can't control.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean, I agree with that completely. That's the one thing we can't control yeah. Like we can control who is coming up and then our you know picking of the people, but we can't control the crowd. As you know, I'm sure you have been to other crowds you never know, but we're just really lucky.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah this for yeah this. I don't know if it's just like the space or the people, but it's always a great reading series.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks, thank you. I mean, I think so too. I think it's like when, I mean, in the beginning, I would be so nervous as marissa, I would just shake like a leaf and I think I cried our my very first reading here, and then it just got so easy and not easy easy is the wrong word but comfortable excited, exciting that really comfortable when, the when, the moment that the anxiety turns into fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, it's a do you have a have? Do you have a hard time reading or do you? Are you very comfortable? I would.
Speaker 4:I'm actually more comfortable on stage than off honestly Like um. I, I think, uh, I think, I, I, I, uh, kind of. It's like I kind of watch how people are doing around me in a group, you know, and when I can see an audience having a blast because I'm talking to them and then it just feeds you.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, so would you call yourself a writer or a performer first?
Speaker 4:Or is it a reflexive relationship and feeding into itself? Well, writer first, but I would say there's an inherently performative aspect to language, whenever it's being, whenever it's outside of your own head, and even, and even then, even then you know, maybe it is then too, yeah because not all I mean.
Speaker 2:It feels like you write to write and you're very funny and smart and it, but it also lends itself to being performed, and not every writer or poet is led to, lends itself to performance that was just a happy surprise for me.
Speaker 4:I had no idea the place where my mind is when I'm writing is so different than where it is when I'm like reading when I'm on the stage. Yeah, because like when I'm writing, it's basically just like my mind is just kind of traveling through all these images that you hear in the poems.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know it kind of like feels, like feels. It feels more like dancing than than thinking or performing, more like dancing than than thinking, or, yeah, or performing. But then, like when I'm on stage, of course, like I'm in performance mode, I'm thinking, I'm thinking about the audience, I'm thinking about you know how best, to how I should read in order to make the poem you know hit hit the way that I wanted to.
Speaker 3:That kind of thing. Oh yeah, I mean it's definitely a performance, it's a delivery, like when you look, you know Marissa's scene, like you know my book, right, but then I have the book that I read from. And the book I read from is completely different. I mean, it's X'd out, there's, you know things circled. There's pause. I write, pause I write, don't pause. I read to the dog over and over and over again until I feel like it hits.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and so like, my writing and my reading are two totally different experiences yeah, if you look at, uh, you know just how one of my poems looks. Once it's done, what we're done, quote, unquote, you know, once it's like on the page. Yeah, uh, and typed versus like I write I write everything longhand. Yeah, the drafts are all longhand, you know, but but if you look at those, those drafts, it looked like they're really crazy looking crossed out things in the margins, pretty illegible to anybody but me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm very much the same way. I understand that process completely, you know, and it is two different platforms and you know like how people absorb that information.
Speaker 4:But the the place where I like go when I'm writing, just when I'm, when I'm alone, writing is like it kind of feels more like uh, talking to, like the universe and I get really, uh, depressed if I don't write poetry because, like I, I don't feel it's like a way of connecting with everything around me you know, like if, if you know two days, you know the same thing happened and one one of those days I write a poem about it and the other day I don't.
Speaker 4:The day that I don't is like so much less fulfilling. Yeah, I mean it almost feels like. Don't is like so much less fulfilling. Yeah, I mean it almost feels like well, when people, when people describe prayer.
Speaker 2:That's what I was thinking of like a religious experience, yeah, like a conversation with the bigger, the, something else, the god, the, whatever it's definitely like, takes you away from solitude.
Speaker 4:I'm like yeah trying to get some kind of response from the bigger. I'm like, when that happens, it's the best feeling I've ever had in my life. Yeah, do you write every day, almost every day. I try to yeah you know, living in Brooklyn, yeah, there's a lot of working that goes on, unfortunately. Uh, yeah, of course, to live here, that's for sure, I mean it is hard.
Speaker 3:I'm more of a like empty, like the I mean Marissa does. Like I will'm more of an empty, like I mean Marissa knows like I will write like a maniac for a week straight and then I won't write for like four months. Yeah, and it's really depressing. Like I definitely love the aspect of writing daily more. I mean it makes more sense.
Speaker 2:I have the Julia Camerons. You know I'd been doing it years before, but having now this morning page, whatever term, but my husband will be like you need to write, he's like I don't care because he's like.
Speaker 4:I see you getting anxious, I see you working yourself it's like if you, if you stop taking antidepressant you know the people around you can sometimes see it happening absolutely, and I'm organically a lot more like you. I I will go through phases where I'm just more motivated to write, but I've just discovered that if I don't do it regularly, regardless of how I feel, even if it's going to be crap, if you basically like the moment that you give yourself permission to write garbage things that are in fact, like if I'm teaching teaching writing, and somebody says they don't have inspiration, they have writer's block or whatever, I always just tell them to write the stupidest thing they possibly could think of, like intentionally write something dumb yeah, or just like things that annoy you so that you don't sound like an asshole to other people.
Speaker 2:Then I'm just like complaining about the same crap, whether it's things I do or things other do, other people do.
Speaker 3:Well, what was the book you guys are at? Was it called the artist's way?
Speaker 4:Yeah, julia Cameron, yeah, my first girlfriend in high school was really into that book.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:But I don't think I've ever actually read it.
Speaker 3:I don't think I did. I mean, I think I tried to.
Speaker 2:Doing a job that I hated, that had a lot of money, and I started. I was like I need to make a change, but I don't know how to shift and I actually did the. I'm a nerd. I read footnotes and all of this I do that's great. So I did the whole book and then I quit my job and then it was great and then, shortly thereafter, the pandemic hit and I I was like okay, oh, so it was recent, so that was in 2018, 2019. Sorry, 2019.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think I was introduced to the book when I was like 16, 15, 16 or something. My dad probably gave it to me or something.
Speaker 2:Oh, Ken had it, ken made me do it.
Speaker 4:Well now I'm curious about it. I hadn't thought about it, since my high school girlfriend had that copy of that book by her bed. Because I think there's a journal thing right.
Speaker 3:I think the whole gist of it is that you have to write every day.
Speaker 2:You have to write every day, but then there are prompts and it's kind of a workbook and it's things that you've probably done, but maybe one question you haven't. And then that prompts something else. It was your memory of your best friend in kindergarten or something, and like random things, it just like goes in and it's just yourself.
Speaker 3:I'm not now. Oh yeah, I will lend it to you. Yeah, I'm gonna buy it because it's a workshop book, isn't it? Don't have to rate them.
Speaker 2:We have to write your own stuff yeah, it's just yeah, you have to bring your own notebook anyway, any okay. Yeah, it's just yeah, you have to bring your own notebook.
Speaker 3:Anyways, anywho.
Speaker 2:So okay, so backtracking a little bit, you're originally from Seattle, yes, yes, and you've been in New York. Two years, two years.
Speaker 3:Oh, you're a newbie, very new.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, that's exciting Fresh off the plane. Yeah, okay, I'm very interested in also like journeys of how people physically came and went. Because it changes things.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I stuffed my cat. I drugged my cat and stuffed her in a box and flew across the country.
Speaker 3:Did you really? Yeah, I did the same. That's what I did for Minnesota, and I just had two suitcases.
Speaker 4:Oh, and then had to mix up another one for her. You know she started meowing on my lap On the plane.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, oh no that poor the woman I was dating right before I left Seattle. Like the day that I left was like, oh, look at that happy cat playing in the lawn. She doesn't know she's about to be drugged and stuffed in a box. It's going. She doesn't know she's about to be drugged and stuffed in a box. It's gonna wake up 3 000 miles away. Oh, my god, I mean, is it sweet? Is the cat indoor or is it outdoor? Is it still indoor? Oh she, she was an indoor outdoor and that was like I was really hoping to find. You know, you'll find the rare apartment that has a little itty bitty yard. I was hoping to find one of those ones that was just like completely like box, boxed off by other buildings, so that she could go out and play in the yard. But like it's not going to happen anytime soon, because where are you?
Speaker 4:You're right across the park right, oh yeah, I'm just right over on it's 53 Driggs, like right at the corner of the park, oh, so yeah, I'm NASA, nasa and kingsland so we're literal neighbors, we share. We share a wall, yeah, um an entryway wall, yeah, um, but I was really hoping for her to have her be able to go outdoors, but it's new york, I mean yeah and I have like a very long, narrow apartment that she can gallop back and forth like everything.
Speaker 2:yeah, railroad, shotgun, what do you? Okay? So I grew up hearing railroad or no, I grew up hearing shotgun. I heard shotgun.
Speaker 4:I heard shotgun growing up, and then here it's.
Speaker 2:PC for railroad.
Speaker 4:I thought railroad was uh like the you know the, the, the apartments it's like right under the uh you know, above ground train. Oh yeah, I used I lived in one of those when I first got here was the worst place oh, what neighborhood was it? Uh, it was uh, it was like on ralph and atlantic okay, yeah I was right under the elevated train and it was like yeah, it was.
Speaker 4:Um, it was pretty much a cartoon of the first new york apartment. Yeah, like illegal sro, five people I had never met before, cool, uh, crazy people throwing stuff. You know, I got out as soon as I could, oh yeah, I mean it's I.
Speaker 3:When you say like when I first got here I stayed with a friend in bushwick and I was was like I have made a horrible decision. What am I doing? You know, it wasn't until and for me it was age Because I moved here in my 30s, so you know I was older than everyone at Bushwick.
Speaker 1:What year was it?
Speaker 3:I'm 10 years now, so two Okay.
Speaker 2:I was just shortly after us, yeah.
Speaker 4:That's why I feel too. I was like 35 when I moved here, yeah, and it felt like I should have done it like 10 years, me too same yeah, I would have, but I like I got married and my wife did not want to be here, so really yeah.
Speaker 3:So oh wow, now it just got deep.
Speaker 4:The plot thickens oh, you know she's not here now, so Okay, well, that was going to be my follow-up so you moved by yourself, yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean, that's so right around the same age as me. I was like, I hate to say, for me it was kind of a midlife crisis, but it was.
Speaker 4:Where are you from?
Speaker 3:Well, I'm born in Missouri but basically raised in Minnesota. My dad's from Red Wing, oh, really, yeah. Yeah, I know where Red Wing is Awesome, where they make those shoes. Yeah, the expensive, awesome shoes. They're great shoes though. Yeah, they really are, yeah.
Speaker 2:So what brought you to New York?
Speaker 4:then, well, seattle used to be an amazing city for the arts. Okay, I think what went on with music in the 80s and 90s there brought a whole lot of people there that, when they were all in the same city, did amazing things Right. And in fact, a band that I associate with all that, um, the oh no no is played here a couple of weeks ago and that was really cool, oh cool, uh, but there used to be. I mean, this would take far more than the length of this podcast to get into, but there was an incredible art scene. I used to live with the band taco cat, uh, years. Love the name. I don't know them, but I love the name. Oh, they're a great band and everybody you know there's just punk. It was kind of like a network of punk houses and there is a huge writing community. There is this place called the Hugo House that had workshops and grants and, you know, people kind of gathered around that.
Speaker 4:but then, you know, initially everybody was angry at the tech people for ruining the city uh, you know san francisco yeah, turning, you know, family businesses into a mattress firm, or yeah, I mean, like I remember I was living with this band in this slum that had actually been in rolling stone and awesome and two condos got built, one in either side of our place and one was called the anthem and one was called the decibel and they had, like paintings of guitars and yeah, it was just so gross.
Speaker 4:It was really dumb, but so yeah, if you want what happened to Seattle in a nutshell, picture the anthem and the decibel bordering an actual band's like shithole where it rained in the kitchen. I mean I can't believe that house is even still standing. Oh, they didn't buy it. Oh, it's a long story with that house.
Speaker 4:But anyway, though initially everybody was angry at the actual, like the workers, the tech people, it's not. They didn't ruin Seattle. Who ruined Seattle is the overseas investors, the real estate investors and the city for not having any Protection. Yeah, seattle has a huge inferiority complex and it will always bend over for a dollar, and that's what happened. Basically, these investors bought up all the property that, like they don't have any stake in the community, so now it just kind of feels dead. Plus, pretty much everybody I know either moved here or new orleans right, or or went to Europe.
Speaker 2:The same shit's here. Well, I was just going to say it's just happening here now.
Speaker 3:I mean it's always happening, it's just bigger.
Speaker 4:But the thing about this place though is. It's so big and so old. Like not even the richest people in the world, are going to fuck up New York Like, really Like it's.
Speaker 2:There's too many of us to like fight for our pockets.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's like squeezing a balloon animal, you know like you squeeze the face and the ass gets big. You squeeze the leg and the head gets big. It's like they. You know, they crush one neighborhood, Another one's just going to pop up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I mean that is. You know, I've never thought about it that way, but you're totally right. I mean that makes complete sense.
Speaker 4:I just wanted. I was like, okay, Cause I. Because what I felt like when I left Seattle is I made this gigantic investment in this community that doesn't exist anymore. It's like speaking a dead language. Even the way that I dress. It's weird to get dressed these days because the community that's sort of like the culture that shaped my sense of style doesn't exist anymore. It's gone, it's so weird.
Speaker 3:Wow, yeah, that's brutal. I mean I totally that makes sense. I mean I feel there's a lot of aspects of I won't get into it, but Minneapolis you know, I've talked to a lot of my friends and such a huge and there still is this great music writing community, art community, but I mean it has changed over the years to the point where it's like non-exist.
Speaker 4:certain neighborhoods don't exist anymore yeah, I mean I think it's. It's kind of the same thing happening all over the place.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's like it's a story that repeats itself and, like you know, the bigger and more towards whatever quote unquote progress something begets, then it changes I have a hard time, I guess, articulating what I feel like was lost or what I'm afraid is happening.
Speaker 4:I don't know what exactly I mean when you look at some soulless factory outlet where there used to be a gallery or a place where you used to the. Starbucks, yeah from.
Speaker 3:Seattle, I was, you know from Seattle. I was going to say from Seattle, right.
Speaker 2:Didn't it start as a beef with Pete's Like? Wasn't that a two-part?
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, I think there's Anyway, yeah, there's a few businesses like that, but I Kind of, on my way out of Seattle, got a poem permanently installed at Seattle's Town Hall. Cool. So I got to feel like you know, like I'm leaving this city Left your mark.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's amazing. Dug into the cement, the new cement on the sidewalk, put it on. I love that.
Speaker 3:So, two years in, how do you feel? Do you like New York, love it? Do you love it? Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 4:Oh, that happy, yeah, I feel like I, the only other city in the world that I wanted to go to as much as berlin.
Speaker 3:Yeah I love berlin but then.
Speaker 4:But then I was like well, I want to teach english. Uh, I mean, I, I write and, and, and you know I write poetry in english. So yeah, I'm sure I could, could learn german. But but I was like I don't know if I want that hurdle.
Speaker 1:It's going to be hard enough moving to another place.
Speaker 4:See how I do in New York. Maybe we think about Berlin later.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh, I mean, I went to school in Paris and it was for writing. Yeah, it was very cool but hard. I did not know the language. I thought I did until I got there and I did not at all.
Speaker 4:Oh, and the Parisians don't feel no, they're not very kind. That was a. I had a book tour in Europe at one point and that was the roughest spot on the tour.
Speaker 3:Oh, so many nights crying alone in my flat, just like I have no friends. Je ne sais pas, je ne sais pas.
Speaker 4:Me talk pretty one day Me talk pretty one day.
Speaker 3:Oh, my God, oh, so good, so good yeah, shout out to David. Sedaris Love that book.
Speaker 2:That book embarrassed me in public so many times because I would just ugly laugh like guffaw, like choke myself snot bubbles laughing so hard.
Speaker 4:I've ugly laughed on the subway a bunch of times when I think of it, it's funny.
Speaker 3:His readings too, I mean, are just.
Speaker 2:A hundred bucks to go. I can't, is it? Yeah, I mean, like the last time I saw, I've only heard them recorded, but.
Speaker 4:I mean, they're so good. I guess that's why I haven't seen them live. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that me too there's.
Speaker 3:I used to listen, I used to make my family list. I think it's called like eight men out. It's like it's christmas story, um, I can't remember what it's called, but we used to just sit around and listen to it and oh, holidays on ice yes, not holidays on ice, it's the one about when he goes to um amsterdam. Eight I think it's eight men out about the bad santa. No, I can't remember because I'm on.
Speaker 4:The pressure's on okay um, I'll look it up and I'll let you guys know but it is so good.
Speaker 3:It's like he's in a cab. He's in a taxi cab and the guy's telling him about his christmas, like his santa claus and like you know all the was it the one about krampus and all the?
Speaker 4:yeah, exactly that one. That one, yeah, exactly, that's a good one, yeah, yeah, I can't again.
Speaker 2:Anyways, anywho, so published. Yes, you've got some books out there. It's been a few years since anything. Oh, it's been yeah.
Speaker 4:My last book, there was this amazing press called let's see what was the first. Oh, it was called Grandma. Press called uh, let's see there's what was the first. Oh, it was called grandma um. And it was run by this amazing couple that, um, listen, if you are in a relationship and you think why don't we start an independent press together, it's a death knell. Don't do that. The same thing happened to two presses that published.
Speaker 4:Oh, no, really yeah it began as this romantic story about a press of these two people. And then, when that doesn't work out, then there goes the press and the writers and just don't do that, Just don't do that.
Speaker 2:Well, that's what like. If you're ever thinking of getting married. Start a business together first and then.
Speaker 4:If you can get through that, then I mean it might be more expensive, but I honestly think it's like starting a press with a partner is cursed.
Speaker 2:From what I've seen, I would say just don't do it, it means the relationship will end.
Speaker 4:I've never heard of it working out all right um, but yeah, the first one, the first, the three Einsteins is my first book and that was this press called Poor Claudia, a little tiny press, good names yeah out of Portland. That was a great experience. They really gave me a lot of creative leeway. I got to design my own book cover.
Speaker 2:Oh cool.
Speaker 4:Cool. And then the second one was a book of essays about queer weddings, and it was a branch of Random House that put that one out.
Speaker 1:Oh sweet.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that was a branch of random house to put that one out, oh sweet, um, yeah, that was like that was a great time. I got to just do nothing but write a book for a year that's amazing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like everyone's dream.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, um I was, and I interviewed 23 queer couples about their weddings. This, this all happened, I should say, because because I used to write this column for the Stranger newspaper in Seattle called Wedding Crasher, oh, okay cool when people could. I mean, I wasn't actually crashing the weddings. People would invite me to their weddings and I would go write. It was kind of like a society column, okay. So I guess Random House saw this column and was like hey, queer marriages became-sex marriage just got legalized. You want to write a book about it?
Speaker 3:and so I did oh, so they came to you. Yes, that's, that is awesome wow, yeah, it was a.
Speaker 4:That was a great time.
Speaker 3:Is that the same paper that dan savage got us started?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, I'm obsessed with dan, don't even get her going.
Speaker 4:Okay, we gotta pause, I know, yeah we used to work in the same office together and he never remembered who I was. I'm going to have to fix that peak. I'm like nothing gets her more emotional than love of Dan Savage. But he was kind of a dick. Well, no, not really. He was never like it was more like he just was in his own was like he is. When I was working there, I feel like his tv show just got started oh god yeah I was like an intern and he was working on tv.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, he's been doing it for so long. Yeah, I mean so long, that's really cool. Yeah, that is cool.
Speaker 2:Um so the the segues to kind of a preface of a conversation I wanted to have with you. So you've been published under Sarah Galvin, yeah, and now you present as S Galvin, and that's I'm curious like what that means, one as a person, but also from the literary sense, like you're putting on your bio and your backflaps of these future books that you're going to put, and then it's as S, and then you have these books by Sarah.
Speaker 4:So I'm sure that's like something that you've grappled with and questions of yeah, just Well, I legit don't know what to do, because my particular, my issue is like my uncle is also a poet and his name's James Galvin. I.
Speaker 2:Googled him. I mean, when I was Googling you I was trying to see like what came up under both names, and definitely Sarah has a lot.
Speaker 4:And I, like I want the family name. I would like to be called James, but I mean, he's also a writer. There's two James Galvins it gets really confusing. Plus, I don't want him to like feel like I'm copying him or something you know like do you have a good relationship with him?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, he's awesome. Oh, that's great. Um, but have you asked his?
Speaker 4:advice about this. Yeah, I don't think he would, even I think you'd be. I don't, I don't think he would know what I was talking about. He, he's definitely not. He's. He's not any kind of phobe, uh, I mean there's a great picture of him in my wedding like uh, wearing a necklace of rubber boobs, like with this drag queen like he's very he's cool. Well like, um, yeah, I don't think would. It seems like gender issues get way more confusing for people of a certain age than like sex stuff.
Speaker 1:They get that, they get that.
Speaker 4:But when I'm like when I'm trying to explain like and here's the other, like confusing thing for me is like I wrote a paper for the Stranger, like an article for the Stranger at one point, about like how being called Sarah was like being a boy named Sue, you know, like then I was just going to continue to be called that because it didn't really seem to affect how people will receive me or anything like that. Right, but that was Seattle. It's different here. Yeah, it's. Since I've been here and I've had to, like I mean, I'll be, you know, at a job and have even like the manager tell people they, them, they, them, they, them.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And they just don't do it and I get I feel really awkward, like asking people for that for some reason. To me it's like, especially if, like, there's a lot of apologizing going on. To me that's like if you fart in an enclosed space and then make a huge deal of it and keep talking about the fart and keep talking, and it's just like okay, now it's just is this a sex thing?
Speaker 3:This is weird.
Speaker 4:I don't, I would like to be treated just this, very like casual, just you know. Oh, so what are they? Them okay, great, and then we move on.
Speaker 2:Yeah right like it's yeah, that's I. I can't. I can empathize. Uh, I can empathize, I can't sympathize, I don't. You know, I've had lots of friends also like physically transition and bring on totally new names to represent what their preferred perceived gender be. But yeah, it was just like like the name part. As a writer I was like that's, that's an interesting space.
Speaker 4:It's so confusing. Actually, I know um the author of one of my favorite books about New York. Uh, low life.
Speaker 3:Love low life. Awesome book. So good that writer is trans.
Speaker 4:Uh, she, I didn't know that. Yeah, she, uh. I can't remember what her actual name is now, but if anything, I'd probably want to get in touch with her and just ask her how she handled that yeah, because I had no idea. I love that book yeah, one of my, definitely one of my favorites about, about Brooklyn, yeah, but like, yeah, I don't know. I don't know what to do really.
Speaker 2:Lucy Sante. Oh, I do know this book.
Speaker 1:Yes, yep, lucy Sante so have you thought about reaching out or?
Speaker 4:yeah, actually I'm gonna probably just message a few people. I've known there's a writer in Seattle that yeah, she slipped.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I'm sure anyone who's grappled with those questions that has you know. I mean you can reach out to Judith Butler. Yeah, I mean they. Just they just publicly recently, with the, published the book on on gender Um, I mean they're the, the OG on gender performativity conversation and publicly stated that they have transitioned to using the pronoun they, them, um, but they have an iconic name. That will always be that iconic name.
Speaker 4:That's a whole other. I don't really know how to. I mean, I have Instagram, but somebody told me recently that I'm pretty hard to find online and I don't really know. I sort of hate the internet.
Speaker 3:I would rather just go to a I?
Speaker 4:I I mean like I'm maybe not as old as I sound when I say this, but I'm.
Speaker 2:I used to just like find shows by looking at telephone poles and there'd be like oh yeah, flyers I I miss that you know and knowing where to go, and knowing where to go this grocery store I used to go back in the day in the late 90s. Go to Whole Foods, just feel so soulless yeah it does.
Speaker 4:I just feel drained by having an online presence at all.
Speaker 1:I'd rather not yeah.
Speaker 4:It just seems like I just want to do the shows. I just want to write and do shows.
Speaker 2:Yeah exactly.
Speaker 4:Do you want to make more books? Oh for sure, I actually. I I have one finished, a book of poems, and I'm looking for a publisher around here, but um, I know out to potential agents and publishers. Yes, yes, because, but I know that with spd, um, what's going on with that? Like that, really, I had no idea what a staple that was for the like, the writing community. I actually like don't really know what we're gonna do now.
Speaker 2:I know like independent presses can distribute through Ingram we explained to our audience a little bit about that. It's like um the, the breaking down of the small publisher.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I like I'm not sure what's going to happen with that, Because I mean now I'm hanging out with a lot of people that are, you know, there's like a community of people that have recently moved here or recently started writing and we all kind of do shows together and like workshop together and like, uh, workshop together and stuff like that. But basically I've met like a lot of people writing that are like 10 years younger than me at this point and it blows them away that I didn't have to self-publish right and I'm like is that where we're going?
Speaker 4:yeah, like our is. Is what we know? Is like independent press just going to be self-publishing, because that shouldn't be. Like people already have for like. There's a reason why we need, like a writer and a publisher. Yeah, I agree, I already feel like I wish the administrative, the whole administrative part of my writing career was somebody else doing that.
Speaker 1:Yeah and that's how it used to be, you know?
Speaker 4:like, when you be reading about you know some author biography and they they mention, oh, their secretary or whatever, and I'm like, oh, that'd be a good time I'd really like that I'd love a secretary, or, and then the maid brought tea I'm like hey, where's my tea?
Speaker 1:my tea's cold and gross.
Speaker 4:I got it from Dunkin' Donuts.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, and they also say like every good writer, there's a greater editor right.
Speaker 2:And you know, that's what we get in that form I mean you can see it even just in the community of doing the reading series, like having conversations after that and then talking about the work, just talking about the work, just talking about it, or like talking about your work like those are all building and enriching and and bettering of the work yeah um and building the relationship with the audience, because we write not just for ourselves in our diaries I am fortunate to have a lot of really good editors.
Speaker 4:I have my, my friends from grad school and people that I wrote with in seattle. That's amazing. Whenever I write a poem and I wonder is this a moment of genius or a moment that I will never want to be associated with me, I will send it to them.
Speaker 3:Great yeah that's how I am with my father. My father's a writer and I mean he's prolific with his writing and reading and everything. But I feel very fortunate that I've always had someone that I can send my stuff to and they're brutally honest about it, my friend.
Speaker 4:Robert Lashley actually has visited here a couple of times and we did a reading at Villa Kashmir. Yeah, I'm trying to convince him to move here, but he's one of my favorite editors.
Speaker 3:Oh fine, I love it. Well, it's question time. We did good. How do you feel? How are you feeling? I feel great yeah actually there's.
Speaker 4:There's several questions that I've just kind of wanted to address to the community, so that's like what are we going to?
Speaker 4:do about the closure of SPD? We can't, we can't be self-publishing. That looks, that looks untoward, yeah. And then also, we don't have time for it, but there needs to be. And then you know, what do we do about housing, with, like, gentrification, everything getting expensive, and then, of course, all the questions about gender and names, and I don't know what to do about that. Yeah, but I'm sure I'm not the only one thinking about it.
Speaker 2:No, you're not, like I said, judith Butler just wrote the book about it. Like she's, like I people kept I needed to participate in. They said I need to participate in this conversation and they've yeah, it's. It's not going away, these conversations. They just need away these conversations. They just need to become more conversations so it becomes less of a question.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think it's stressful for a lot of people to talk about. Yeah.
Speaker 2:When you have to become the defender or the explainer or the it feels sometimes like I mean, and this is just the culture, it's not.
Speaker 4:If this is like in this feeling, I think is like an illusion produced by this culture, but like sometimes it feels like I'm asking for this big favor when really I'm just like being who I am, I'm just existing and yeah, exactly, I was just gonna say existing anything that, like makes your existence feel like you're asking for a favor. I feel like that's where you examine your environment, rather than like whether you're of course you're not. I mean, that's just being a person right but what I mean?
Speaker 2:that's a challenge that I haven't had to deal with. In my sexuality, in my identifying of gender, I've dealt with it with ethnicity or with race and all of these things of you know. I get perceived as things that I don't identify with or are part of my identity, but I get excluded or included in certain things of being a light-skinned Mexican Like I have in certain communities. I have to go with all of these explanatory things. I have to go through genealogy. I have to go with all of these explanatory things. I have to go through genealogy. I have to go through, like, language acquisition oh, I live there and all of these things Others, I'm automatically accepted, but it just depends on the spaces.
Speaker 4:A friend of mine has a book of poems that deals with that issue a lot specifically that issue a lot.
Speaker 2:Oh cool. What is it? What's it?
Speaker 4:called.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Monica McClure Her not her most recent, but before that. But it's, yeah, like a lot of the same issues.
Speaker 2:So it's yeah, so I can understand that, but I don't understand that in my experience of gendering, yeah. Oof, I know that's some deep shit well, let's see what question you pull oh, so mind if I grab another cider so these questions that we pull sometimes act as tarot cards, which we mentioned before, but now I'm going to jinx it and it's not a weird thing happened the last time I messed around with some tarot cards.
Speaker 4:I like I was looking at the book that you know they come with that little book sometimes. I flipped open to one one card and was reading about it, and then I picked out a random card and it was the card that I had just been reading about.
Speaker 3:It was weird oh, that is weird. Well, ours kind of oh did you just do it again? Did it happen kind?
Speaker 2:of um. Oh my goodness, in what respects are you still the same person you were as a child?
Speaker 4:well, that's well. I mean I, as soon as I had any agency at all, I refused to wear like any women's clothes. Like I basically look as I do now since I was like five, so same in that way for sure. And also I feel very fortunate that my parents were like, they didn't question it, they just and of course, like now, like as an adult, we have talked about that and like because they didn't know what it meant.
Speaker 4:They just saw that I freaked out if they put a dress on me right um, actually I think about this a lot, like the parts of me that are still the same, and I think the place that I go when I'm writing a poem is really similar to make-believe on the playground, which you know. I, if you ever had that experience where a make-believe game was so vivid that when you remember, when you have that memory, you see the stuff you know Like. I totally remember my little kid's bike with the plastic streamer things on the handlebars, being like a horse as I rode into battle.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, oh, totally.
Speaker 2:Mine was a canopy bed that I would throw blankets over and I would hold the foot post. And I was. I was captain of a pirate ship and I was going on it. Oh, that's awesome, and I'm still always like seeking these adventures.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Unknown territory, not to pillage, but that was in the stories you know that I was familiar with, there were explorers.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:I dressed as a pirate for an entire year when I was a kid once.
Speaker 3:That is awesome. I love that.
Speaker 4:In retrospect.
Speaker 2:Eyepatch maybe. Oh yeah, oh yeah, I'm sure it was gender related.
Speaker 4:I was just like no, I will not be a little girl, I am Captain.
Speaker 1:Hook.
Speaker 4:And I drew a mustache on with like a felt pen every morning. Oh my God, I love that. It was the one that smelled like licorice.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, totally. Oh, I know those. Oh, that's amazing, there's some blueberries licorice. There's an apple banana. Oh yeah, they had all the flavors Sometimes.
Speaker 4:I think that, like becoming who you are, like growing up, is actually just reconciling the person that you are as a child with socialization yeah, absolutely, oh, 100, absolutely. We're all, I think, just trying to get back to that person in the sandbox, at sandbox, you know, pretending that there's dragons yeah but you know when I think of like the point of my life when I was the least like me was probably like middle school.
Speaker 4:Oh, definitely yeah, when suddenly I was like well, I guess everyone's doing this, so I guess this is what I should do.
Speaker 2:When my best friend wanted to like have her son leave the country for the entirety of middle school because it was just a waste and terrible and torturous oh, and my, my middle school is actually great like I went to this like alternative.
Speaker 4:It was like an art. You know, and it was still weird though, because at the developmental stages we just didn't know, we just didn't know, nobody knew what anything was, and there's an analogy that I'm trying to think of, but it's something like um, oh, uh. It reminds me of when I was really little, uh, when I would draw objects in motion. I would make those little you know lines with.
Speaker 4:Uh, I would draw little lines with, like a dirt cloud to show that you know, like a cartoon moving, yeah, but I I fully believe that you had to draw it really fast or else it wouldn't look fast so that part of it looked trash. Look, that was the worst looking part of my drawings. I couldn't figure out, you know, but it's ideas like that. That's what the first part of socialization motion dust bubble. Yeah, you're like approximating you have this idea of what, oh, it's supposed to look like this, but you don't know what it means or what it does. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:I feel like you have always been dark.
Speaker 3:I was expressive. Expressive and dark. I I mean I like I mean, you know, in my book, like I've I started to pretend to commit suicide at age five, you know, and and just have like all these scenes and setups of like death.
Speaker 2:Circle back to the murder obsession.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then circling back to the murder obsession.
Speaker 2:What spawned that?
Speaker 3:You know, I think in retrospect at 45,. You know I've gone through stages of like was I looking for attention or was I? You know, because I also had a lot of imaginary friends too growing up and they changed a lot to our religion. You know, because I was a preacher's daughter and so I remember, you know, jesus was my imaginary friend for a long time and then, when I started to learn about my mom and judaism, dave david, you know, king david became an imaginary friend.
Speaker 2:yeah, just really weird shit honestly like that's a really cool story. Yeah, and I remember, I specifically remember that religions through your imaginary friends yeah leaders yeah, and so I.
Speaker 3:I mean I hate to be like take away from my depth as a human because, you know, I'd like to think that I have a lot of depth, but really, at the end of the day, I think it was this mental illness. You know, I think I was born extremely bipolar and didn't get on correct meds really till my 40s. Oh yeah, and I think a lot of that. Really just I, you know, again, I hate to take away from my personality but at the end of the day, like that is my personality, I think I was just really sick for a really long time. Oh wow, you know, and just didn't know how to deal with it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like you know to be that obsessed with death at such a young age and to be like that morbid of a kid, but then also very positive, and have all these like imaginary friends. I was also very liked like.
Speaker 2:I was just very manic I was just made a reference earlier today to cheerleading and our account exactly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm a manic motherfucker, unless I'm on my medication. Well, I don't know.
Speaker 4:I was I was really violent too, but I was just pissed. Yeah, there was like legitimately, there's like things around me that were like would make anybody mad yeah, oh, me too same, you me too Same.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean.
Speaker 4:Don't like, don't just write it off the camera.
Speaker 3:Oh, and I don't. I don't. You know what I mean, Like you know, not to get dark in the last two minutes, but you know I lost my Virginie by being drugged, brutally raped and beat up, and you know. So that has an effect. I'm your brain. It literally changed my whole life. I mean, I watched me changed your brain. Yeah, I watched the path and I watched it split, but that doesn't define me yeah, and that's the number one thing that does not define who I am as a human being yeah, totally you know like it just made me darker and like drugs more.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know I like drugs and drinking and I'm sure it's a self-medicating thing, but it is who I am, so I guess you know okay dark no, but I want that. I want to end on a positive thing too, though, because I do want to say that you know, we all are. I love the innocence. You know, I like looking back at the innocence and seeing who I was. Yeah, and then it was still inside of me. You, you know that bad things don't change you.
Speaker 4:I mean, they do change you, but and you know better to reflect on the outside what's going on inside than become a Disney adult.
Speaker 3:Exactly, oh, I love the Disney adult. That's awesome. Explain more what a Disney adult is.
Speaker 4:People with no sense or value of irony.
Speaker 3:Yeah, awesome. Explain more what a disney adult is. Uh, people with no sense or value of irony yeah, love it, clap, clap um all right? Well, we're on to our last one more do you want to do one more question?
Speaker 2:I don't know this one's popping out and I don't know if it's on purpose okay, we can do a quick one, and then we got to do um okay, are you where you wanted to be at this stage in your life?
Speaker 4:Yes and no.
Speaker 3:Ditto Fuck no.
Speaker 4:All right, I feel like I'm almost there. If I could just get this new book out and, you know, be teaching poetry by the age of 40, I'm good. That would be sweet.
Speaker 3:My goals, simple goals those are great goals and I will go to your class cuz, you're exceptional.
Speaker 4:Oh, I would love to have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want my book published, my film made. I want to continue to make more words and visual things out in the world. A lot of things are just kind of at a pause, but I've started other projects, like this podcast and the reading series and other things that I've found talent and joy in. Financially, I would like some of my intellectual and creative endeavors to be, uh, something that supports me financially. So if I could achieve something, it would be to live a creative life that I don't have to do labor right, yeah, yeah, work to support myself and be nice, I'm fine working, I enjoy my job, I'm good at what I do, um, but yes, I would like to to live a
Speaker 3:financially stable, creative life I just want a bigger apartment. My apartment is tiny. It's cozy, is what we like to say, it's what the realtor, it's the size, the realtor term is cozy.
Speaker 2:The realtor called it rustic, intimate, exactly Intimate, cozy yeah.
Speaker 3:Yes, all right. All right. Well, I have my. Are you ready? We'll do a quick fuck be kill.
Speaker 2:Fuck, kill be.
Speaker 3:I thought of it on the way here. So you got, you gotta fuck somebody, you gotta kill someone, and then you gotta be someone yes, because we're not marrying someone.
Speaker 2:You are embodying them. Okay, you get to be and have all they have fuck marry be yeah, okay, I'm gonna come, I'm gonna put out the list. It's a weird one today, okay because, I've been watching murder all morning, okay all right, we're gonna do.
Speaker 3:Kermit the frog, miss piggy and gonzo, oh damn.
Speaker 2:Okay, not I'm usually good at like anticipating no, john ham no, john is piggy, obviously.
Speaker 4:Yeah, um be, I think I it's hard isn't it I'd rather be gonzo than kermit. So I guess, yeah, kermit would be kermit's such a caring. He would be a caring spouse I know man. He, like he takes such good care of you're gonna kill b oh, kill, oh shit.
Speaker 2:I gotta kill or fuck oh, you're fucking somebody you're not marrying. Uh, kill, yeah, okay, um, all right, who's the most sexual of?
Speaker 3:well she's fucking as they're fucking miss piggy yeah, okay uh, I guess I would.
Speaker 4:Oh man, I don't want to. Actually, kermit gets on my nerves. I'd kill kermit and I'd be gone. Sorry, kermit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not easy being green, it's not um, I'm gonna kill Piggy because she's so selfish and just whiny. Kermie, I'd probably fuck Gonzo More creative. More fun and I would be Kermie. I'm just like you know what. You got a good group of friends. Things always work out in the end.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Plus.
Speaker 4:Gonzo's nose is really suggestive yeah agreed. I agree. Creative.
Speaker 3:I think I'm going to do the same as you actually yeah. Miss Piggy might be a little too much. Gonzo's a wild man and Kermit's pretty stable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm like right, I, I could. Yeah, some steadiness. I guess you know some what, what was another one? Dan akroyd he's.
Speaker 3:He's the dan akroyd of yeah, exactly yeah on that note all right, we did it, guys.
Speaker 2:We survived and um, we've got some fun background noise of the park. We've got beeping and somebody's music. It felt like they were just playing outside the window. So cool.
Speaker 3:Any last words, anyone, anyone.
Speaker 4:Just that I had a pleasure talking to both of you.
Speaker 1:I have good time every time.
Speaker 2:I come here.
Speaker 3:We adore you.
Speaker 4:You as well.
