Joey Goebel : cruci-fiction

-Your father, your mother and your older sister are social workers: is it why you chose punk rock as your first outlet, being more socially and politically aware than young guys playing music just for fun?

-JG: Well, normally, punk bands do have that sort of social conscience, but my band, The Mullets, didn’t have that much. I’m incredibly proud to come from a family of social workers, those people devoting their life to help the sufferings, and my family is kind and attentive friends of the poor, I love them for that. But, with my punk band, we were more having fun, and the most serious songs we had nearly dealt with the angst of the teenagers. Most of our songs were odes to American sitcoms stars like Tony Denza, and a typical Mullets title was: ‘she gives me a boner’! And even my American publisher said that, now I’m a novelist, I’m a social worker! But I don’t know, I see more myself like an entertainer!

-At some point, in ‘Torture the artist!’ Vincent said that music made him stupid: is it something you experienced with your bands?

-JG: The first thirteen years of my life, I was bookish, a real bookworm; I was an addict, a nerd, which is a good thing. My favourite kinds of people are nerds, freaks and geeks as you could classify them. I was top student in the class, but when I was thirteen, fourteen, I fell in love with guitar and music, and it consumed me to the point where I stopped reading altogether, and I don’t regret this one bit. When I got behind on my readings and my studies, I think throughout my entire high school years the only books I read were ‘The catcher in the rye’, ‘All the King’s men’ and some biographies; those first two books were good choices for me to read, but, as I said, music can make you stupid if you let it consume you, which I did. So, now, what I’m trying to do is balance my time, my iPod is often at my side, and I listen to as much music as possible, but I also read and write and try to do other things.

-Today, is it more enjoyable for you to be a writer than to be a singer or a musician?

-JG: I want to give you an honest answer, the thing is my publisher being a musician also and me a writer because, being a musician,on stage, you got that instant feedback, the instant applause that I crave. Whereas, a writer entertains people also, but they are entertained privately, at their home. I wish I could sneak into people’s home and watch them laughing at my books. Of course, I do have public appearances as a writer and signings, but it’s not quite the same than a rock show. I would say that, even if music is more fun, the gratification of completing an entire novel is pretty damn good, you really feel that you’ve done something of your time.

-Do you need to suffer yourself, when you write, or do your characters come from your imagination, and today, because you surely had in those two books things you wanted to purge before going somewhere else?

-JG: I love the way you put that out! Yes, I purged it like, and I’ve been told that, in certain parts of Germany, my name is synonym of vomit, and that sounds appropriate because my books means gobbling, vomiting all over my pain and suffering. I don’t think suffering is essential for writing but it certainly provides material, but I think that I have evacuated most of it. The good thing about life of a writer is the good material is always around the corner, shit is gonna happen now, wait! But we have a democrat now in the Office, the Bush years behind us, and things are going pretty well for me, so many I’ll write a comedy next!

-When I read ‘The Anomalies’, I saw it as a structure synthesising some of the most common American fears: the black guy, the beautiful false cripple girl, drummer and future nun, the little pyromaniac girl, ready to do crazy stuff, this dangerous Iraqi, maybe gay, and this old punk woman, fond of sex: was it your idea to mix all those people together, or do they have some things in common with members of your previous bands?

JG: The five characters you’re talking about are purely coming from my imagination. I wish I knew people like this. Living in Paris, you probably know some ‘anomalies’. I live in a small mid-western town in America, so I don’t know any of these people.

-It must be far more difficult to be eccentric when you live in a small town than in a big city, where anybody cares about your appearance…

-JG: If you want to act like an eccentric in a small town of America, you’ll have to accept that people criticize you and treat you poorly sometimes. I live in a friendly town, no doubt about that, friendly neighbourhood. But when I was in high school, and wore my hair in very bizarre arrangements, of course people made fun of it, and I have to accept it because you’re entering a new territory. All that said, my hometown has been very supporting of my writing career, so I don’t want to bash them, but middle America in general is not so kind to the freaks. That’s why those metropolis like New York or L.A are magnets that attract all the free thinkers; and I wish there would be more free thinkers that resist that call to the coast, as I’m trying myself! But even in small towns, you have pockets of outcasts; I was part of these pockets. I’m such a pessimist I have a problem with that too, because they contain individuals who start to resemble one another, becoming conforming non-conformers! What I love about these characters in ‘The Anomalies’ is that they have somehow managed to be and stay different amongst different people, to maintain their individuality even in a midst of non conformity. It’s a tricky thing to do, and I can’t!

-That’s why they are real anomalies! Today, do you feel more like a punk writer or a punk who writes?

-JG:  when you put it that way, in the last ten years, my music tastes have expended so much that I would prefer to be called a punk writer, I would  take it as a compliment, ‘cause it suggests I’m a different kind, a rebellious writer, and I hope that’s true! Screeching weasel, bands on Look Out records, from Berkeley, California, for years of my life, I was only listening to that stuff,  but now I’m open to other stuff, older and new, I don’t wanna get snob, that’s something I don’t like about punk rockers, they can be as elitists and snobs as preppy cheerleaders in high school. If you’re listening to Green Day, you’re not a punk, for the elitists! But isn’t punk supposed to be free and like whatever you like? So, if you would call me a punk writer, I would take it as a compliment.

-By the way, talking about the new Renaissance and music, what do you think of all those waves of new MTV punk bands, posing around swimming pools with girls in bikinis: is it, in a way, the failure of  the New Renaissance, in your opinion?

-JG:  Yes, I never thought about that, but I would draw the line at Green Day, in 1994: if you listen to ‘Dookie’, to me, it’s real punk rock sounding like The Buzzcocks, fast, all about teen angst, songs about masturbating, and, when I saw his face on MTV, with the acne, it looked like me! Okay, fast forward to 1999 / 2000, then we have Blink 182, Sum 41, and I don’t like these bands. It’s still technically punk rock, but so watered down, that I think yes, they would reflect, if actually the New Renaissance existed, their infantry, their soldiers would be the emo guys, or New Found Glory, and even those new guys, Fall out Boys, who keep getting more and more poppy and less and less punk. One of them married Ashley Simpson!

-By the way, what were and are your favourite bands?

-JG: When I was playing music, the biggest influence would be the band of the Look Out Records label, Screeching Weasel, The Vindictives, from Chicago, Green Day, Rancid, Operation Ivy, and of course the Ramones, and the Dead Milkmen, from Philadelphia. Later on, I’ve been into the Dead Kennedys, which I love now, but not so much Black Flag, they were too angry, not angry but tough. As we were not, in the band, I couldn’t really identify with them. I worship the Clash, ‘Sandinista’ is my favourite album, and it pisses me off that it is kind of underrated. I prefer their sensibility to that of the Sex Pistols, which I like too. Nowadays, I’m worshipping the Pixies, pretty much obsessed with them, and also the Replacements, from Minneapolis, They Might Be Giants, Arcade Fire, the Strokes, Wolf parade, The Dresden Dolls, from Boston. I discover new albums all the time, I have a very good library near my place.

-In ‘Torture the artist!’ you talk about the cinema world, where you worked as a scriptwriter: have you been contacted by someone for your books?

-JG: Yes, actually, right now, I’m adapting ‘Torture the artist’ .The film has been optioned, and I try to keep my expectations low, but there’s a possibility for this book, one day, to be a film. I have actually finished the first draft, and it was difficult to compress the whole thing. I’ve seen several producers interested in ‘The Anomalies’, even LL Cool J read it, but nothing happened. This novel in fact started out as a screenplay, and I adapted it to a novel.

-What would you think of John Waters realizing ‘The Anomalies’?

-JG: John Waters? Oh, that would be an interesting pairing. My favourite director is Wes Anderson, ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’, and he could easily imagine all those misfits coming together. The first French review of ‘The Anomalies’ said it was reminiscent of  ‘Little Miss Sunshine’, because all the characters are going nuts, but my point is this book was written eight years before ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ was made, so they copied me! ‘The Anomalies was written when I was twenty/ twenty one, then I sold it, and ‘Torture the Artist’ was written about five years ago. Since then, I have written another one, ‘Commonwealth’, three years of work, and I hope that it will be translated in French.

-Could you tell me about it?

-JG:  Yes, it’s my big political novel, and it’s about a typical American redneck, with a ‘mullet’ haircut, big moustache, wearing flip flops, tank tops, denim shorts. He loves guns and loves to be tough, he hates foreigners and sissies, it’s the trashy American guy. So, as you have the picture, what if I tell you this trashy guy, whose name is Blue Jean, happens to belong to the wealthiest families in all the land, that’s ‘Commonwealth’. The idea is to dramatize class struggle in America, forcing these rich parents to interact with this low class son. That’s the book in a nutshell.

-By the way, who are and were your favourite writers?

-JG: I love Kurt Vonnegut, he’s probably my favourite writer, he’s from Indiana, just north from Kentucky. Charles Bukowski, Robert Penn Warren, Francis Scott Fitzgerald, who spent a lot of time in your city, and, at one point, he compares his penis size with Ernest Hemingway in the toilets! I love the modern American period, between the wars, Sherwood Anderson, John Steinbeck; ‘Light in August’ by Faulkner: he has this character called Joe Christmas, and I always found that stage name cool

-Do you think you’ll make records and gigs again one day?

-JG: I would adore to. My love of music remains and I would love to do that again. The thing, it’s just not practical, there’s no future in it…

-Which is very punk, in a way!

-JG: (singing briefly ‘God Save the Queen, Sex Pistols version), then:  I should mention I have a job, I teach at the community college, even if my goal is to make it as a writer, but that’s not quite there yet. Nowadays, when I get this creative impulse, it goes into books, instead of music.

-‘The Anomalies’ is very punk in its construction, with many very short passages…

-JG: Yes absolutely. Something I love about punk rock is you have songs lasting two minutes, some only one minute and a half, and, especially for a teenager with a short  attention span, I found it very attractive. I’ve tried to recreate that sort of experience in this book, where the reader is challenged pretty much at every page, so you’re constantly moving, and it’s meant to be read quickly: it’s the topographical version of punk rock, but ‘Torture the Artist!’ is very different, and ‘Commonwealth’ is 500 pages in English, 800 pages in German.  The traditional narrative structure is really mammothic, and I was very happy to sell it out!

-‘Commonwealth’ is dealing with politics and social reality, but are you concerned, yourself, by the political world, and do you believe it  could resolve the many problems of the world?

-JG: Yes, I do, I have a very non punk rock view of government, instead of being anarchic about it, I think the government can be our mother, a great big maternal figure, this is the son of a social worker talking! I think that what is great about France and the European countries is you have a more maternal government and we have a more paternal government, even for health care, which is much more friendly here, but Barack is working on that. I believe in great, big government that can take the masses and embrace them, what the Statue of Liberty  says, and it’s what we’re supposed to have, and that’s why I’m liberal, and why I’m pleased with what Obama is doing. The problem is, too often, the politicians are so corrupted and selfish, not really the model they should be. But I’m speaking in idealistic terms!

-Someone said that the main difference between artists and politicians is artists lie to you for your pleasure, politicians lie to you to fool you and make money in giving nothing back…

-JG: That’s what ‘Commonwealth’ is about: I think wealth is kind of force of life, that great elixir for the masses, and the problem with our world is that a tiny little percentage is holding that life force, that elixir. What I want to see happen is we take it from them and expand it, let everybody have a taste of it. Until that happens, civilizations are gonna continue to decay.

Interview made in Paris, on March 13th 2009.

Thanks to Anne-laure Clément (Héloïse d’Ormesson) and Marie-Laure Pascaud (10 /18) for their precious help.