Dear diary,
I’ve been suffering from writer’s block for exactly three entries now (that’s umpteen entries more than Christ was dead for); thankfully, however, a Good Samaritan approached today and gave me a much-needed cure-all: My friend Ryan Baldwin gathered from his own weblog's readership an entire wheelbarrow of questions which he then personally delivered to my office at the morgue. So now I’ll dedicate this entry to addressing them. I will copy the questions verbatim and answer loquaciously:
1. Do you have a car? If yes, do you drive it? What kind of car is it? If not, what is your preferred mode of travel?
I own no car. I do not drive a car. But my driver licence is valid, current & legal: I’ve never gotten in trouble with the law for anything. I simply prefer to live life in the slow lane.
2. What kind of work do you do (other than being a good house-pet)? What makes you cry, & how does God comfort you? Also: How long is your lunch break?
I am against work, and I wish I could say that I refuse to work at all; but the truth is that I have not discovered a way to leave this existence. I hate this existence: I hate its form and its content; that’s why I shroud myself and write words. (My lunch break is fifteen minutes; but its fame is forever.)
3. What does a usual day look like for Bryan Ray?
After I write a blog post in the morning, I eat oatmeal. I eat it plain, unsweetened. Because oats are what good farmers feed their horses; and my sweetheart is like my farmer, and I am her horse.
4. Did you attend college, or are you naturally stupid?
I was born stupid, because my mom and dad were both stupid, and they passed on to me this wonderful gift of stupidity. So when I reached college age, my stupid dad said “Dear Bryan, you can either go to college or just work low-end, unpaid jobs for all of eternity; it’s up to you.” So I had the opportunity to... Wait; what was the question? I guess I wish I could make more actual money.
If we lived in a perfect world, I would LOVE school and have my place there; and I would also LOVE religion & have my own church, which would make people’s lives unthinkably better. Believe me.
5. What made you want to abandon your Fundamentalist upbringing? Are you aware that you shall certainly end up in Hell?
Instead of wanting to “abandon my Fundamentalist upbringing”, I actually wanted to serve in the church and be part of it. I was raised as a Baptist, and our church taught that the Bible is the sole authority: it is the ONLY book written by God. So I studied the Bible quite a lot, and I became convinced that it would be wrong for me to continue to hide my candle in a bush; instead I should attempt to challenge the sun; so I joined a local church.
And, yes, people have indeed warned me that I’m going to Hell on account of my exuberance. They’ve told me this even recently. My mom, just this Christmas, said that her greatest fear is that I Bryan her son shall end up in Hell, because I dare to follow Jesus and say "banks suck, but all that lives is holy".
6. Were you a novelist from the day that you were born, a veritable writing-machine? Or did you have to work really hard to "pull off" the scam?
From birth, I was the opposite of a novelist; and I think I still am. I’ve always loved stories & essays & poetry, but my favorite books were the ones that seemed not to fit in any category, so I never saw my conspicuous lack of novelistic traits as a disadvantage; on the contrary, I suspected that my disqualifications & general “unfitness for office” might be proof that I am the reincarnation of DADA. (Always keeping in mind Tristan Tzara’s truth: “...the real dadas are against DADA.”) And that choice that you give in the last part of your question, asking whether I was “a mechanical writer by nature” or if I had to “work hard to ‘pull it off’ — I answer the latter: I’m far more of a slow learner and a revisionist than one of those artists who are stale from the get-go. (I’ve never done anything decent in my whole life.)
7. I woke up this morning to the glow of my wood-burning stove. Do you use a wood-burning stove?
Thanks for the question, O inquisitor! It was negative thirty degrees F. when I awoke this morning. But that was the outside temperature; inside my house it was much, much, much, much colder.
Did I singlehandedly plant the forest that provides my firewood? No, but I did chop down all the trees that I used to build the deck on this place I just bought — I checked out a few library books about woodworking, and I ended up with a puppet that looks like an anthropoid — not because I wanted to but because I couldn’t afford to pay a contractor to do it, and the Wall Street Cops demanded that we homeowners enslave ourselves. So now they own all our exterior structures, (our "skin") EXCEPT FOR the main two windows, which are the eyes of our house.
8. Are you really terrified of public places? If so, then how do you go shopping or get your brain examined? Do you fetch your mail from a genuine P.O. box? Do you ever mow your lawn? How do you shovel snow without being seen? You said one time that the art of conversation is like doing "The Locomotion Dance", the highest action possible for a human being. So, how do you speak so gracefully, if you’re scared of raising your voice? Do you ever wear makeup, or is that just a mask?
I’ll take this avalanche flake by flake:
“Are you really afraid of the dark?” No, I’m afraid of the LIGHT; or rather I abhor the sun in heaven. But I’m afraid of the dark as well.
“Are you really terrified of public places?” Absolutely: I must do all sorts of mental prep-work like someone heading out into battle whenever I visit the marketplace. That’s literally what agoraphobic means:
AGORA = ‘place of assembly, market’
+
PHOBIA = ‘fear [of]’.
“How do you go shopping?” I don’t go shopping, if I can avoid it. I'd rather even starve to death. But I don’t mind visiting hardware stores, because the folks that you meet there are usually very friendly: the employees as well as the fellow customers. Most hardware shops out here in the Midwest are like the place that Jeffrey Beaumont visits to get his bug-spraying equipment in the film Blue Velvet (1986).
“How do you get your eyes checked?” I don’t. Or I avoid doing so until everything’s completely blurry. So every twenty years, when I finally break down and visit the optometrist, once I try on my new glasses, the crispness of the visuals makes me nervous.
“Do you go to the mail box?” Not yet, I haven’t.
“Do you mow the lawn?” Sometimes, yes. I don’t mind mowing the lawn, because I love all my neighbors. It’s the marketplace that I’m afraid of, because I dislike wheeling and dealing, and I’m averse to all the exact valuations of the price tags and the money exchange. Money ruins everything, for me. But mowing the lawn is a very satisfying activity. I also like raking leaves and shoveling snow.
“How do you shovel snow without being seen?” I don’t even try to hide my physical form. I’m not like God, who has to skulk about imperceptibly: I welcome anyone to watch me; in fact, I prefer that I have an audience, otherwise my actions feel futile, and I grow sad, because only the angels are watching the show. It’s my lifelong dream to live in an all-glass house.
“How do you socialize if you're scared of people?” Unfortunately the truth is that I rarely socialize; but, again, this is not the way I’d want it: I’m only averse to shopping centers, mega malls, meat markets… I love social environments like schools & churches & square dances. I find dining establishments mostly irksome, because of the bustle; and I don’t like the fact that the staff is underpaid. Finally, re: “Makeup vs. masks?” —I highly value fantasy, imagination, & mental adventurousness.
9. Are you ever going to publish another book?
I have no plans to publish anything more – I’ll just keep contributing to this here public-private blog-diary, until my body catches up and breaks like my spirit did.
10. People desire to orally consume your visual art. Do you have any plans for making an edible version of your blog's imagery?
O! I’m so happy to hear this! My idea is to transfer what appears on screen, as exactly as possible, to the dinner table. Yes, I have plans to serve each image on a plate.
11. Many readers claim to have conceived children while listening to audio recordings of your voice. Six out of ten dentists, in fact, have testified under oath that "I, the undersigned, felt more manly than I have ever felt in my life, upon hearing the voice of Bryan Ray: it helped me procreate nations."
Again, I appreciate hearing this scientific evidence. I’d gladly record more text readings, especially if it will help save cannibals from extinction. I got out of the habit only because this last year or two, my life grew hectic, with my old neighborhood becoming a cesspool, and then I had to figure out how to translocate, which is always a drag. I should also learn how to use my smartphone’s camera, cuz I’m interested in filming family vacations.
12. What kind of computer do you use? And what do you use to compose your weblog entries?
I just use a shitty old Microsoft piece of shit. Cheapest laptop you can steal.
13. Many people doubt that you are authentically stupid. Some say you sound somewhat smart, cause you write passably half-wit stuff. Are you really as dumb as you look? or do you have to work hard at feigning ignorance?
"Under-promise and over-deliver." that's what Gary Noesner advises his co-worker, in the miniseries Waco (2018).
The realm of art rewards the novice, I reckon. Futurity always favors the rule-breaker, the so-called fool who doesn’t respect angelic etiquette. Self-taught, experimental, naive – all these terms are kingly, and they all share something with the notion of “stupidity”. Obviously that word, to me, is not exclusively pejorative. At least I’m trying my best to take the disapproving edge off that term. If more people would simply act without fear of consequence, as long as they remain earnest in their endeavor (neither seek to grasp nor flee from failure) then a lot of the world’s problems would dissipate quicker. Everything would be funner, prettier, snazzier, moraler...
But as for the thot of “coming from a good family who enriched you” — let me vehemently disavow this notion, for myself. I like my family, as they have been merely adequate, but my parents did not supply an intellectually stimulating atmosphere or enrich my artistic development ONE IOTA; in fact, both my mother and my father, in different ways, actually worked against such development in me, and roadblocked, as much as they could, any pathway to the imaginative life. Everything about me that persists in the mental fight (here I refer again to Blake: I will not cease from Mental Fight,/ Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand:/ Till we have built Jerusalem,/ In Englands green & pleasant Land), I say, everything about me that persists in this divine calling is due to my fancy.
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