[admin / December 20th, 2009 / Interviews ]
John Haggerty spins a delightful yarn about The Incredible Teeth of Bobby Mcgraw in the December issue. He offers us a brief tutorial on California geography, an update on the state of his teeth and more in today’s interview with Guy Brookshire.
Heading north from Los Angeles, where does Northern California begin?
Assuming you are driving on I-5, that would be at the small, dreary highway off-ramp known as Los Banos. In fact, if you coast your car down from the teeth-grinding 85 mph that you are doing (it appears to be impossible to drive I-5 any other way–the dominant emotion while on that highway is a fervent desire to be somewhere else) you might be able to feel the change in atmosphere there, from the shallow, desperately status-concious narcissism of Southern California, to the smug, self-righeous, faux-spiritual narcissism of the north.
Also, Los Banos means “the toilets” in Spanish, and it amuses me to imagine a long line of blue porta-potties stretching off to the horizons, marking the border between the states. The fact the Los Banos could also be translated as “the baths,” and that this, in fact, is probably the original meaning, is not nearly as entertaining, and I suppress the thought, when it arises, by mentally enumerating Tiger’s mistresses.
Are there times when you try to write, but stop because you don’t like something you have written? Have you ever frightened yourself by something you’ve written?
My wife says that everything I write is either quirky or bleak, and I have, in fact, tried to get away from a number of stories that were becoming too depressing to read. I generally go back and finish them, though, out of some vague puritanical notion that it is good for me.
I don’t remember ever being frightened by anything I’ve written, though I often get the feeling that when people read something particularly weird of mine, they will shake their heads in disgust and back slowly away. I continually impress myself with the disturbing nature of the stuff in my head. To paraphrase Anne Lamott, “My mind is like a bad neighborhood. It’s best not to go there alone.”
Do you still have all of your adult teeth?
In fact I do, including wisdom teeth, though I don’t feel particularly wise. I am now considering having them extracted and wearing them around my neck, because nothing says wisdom like jewelry made of human teeth.
Is there any particular vintage of wine for which you feel a great affection?
This is probably enough to get me expelled from both Californias, but I’ve never really been much of a wine guy. Back in my big drinking days I was the sort of snob who hated snobs, so I swilled beer and mocked the affectations of the wine crowd (and let’s face it, there’s still plenty there to be mocked).
Now, having been requested by the cosmos to cut back on the drinking considerably, it might be too late for me to actually develop an appreciation.
Have you ever realized you were making a mistake in the midst of making the mistake?
Constantly. It’s like there’s this little guy in my head watching my actions in horror, mumbling “Oh man, this is really going to suck.” And I go on ahead and do it anyway. And it does suck. This used to disturb me, but it just seems to be the way things are.
Do you think, if someone had enough information, it would be possible to accurately predict the future?
No. I believe that in the current moment, there is complete freedom. And in the face of freedom, predestination doesn’t exist. Having said that, I also believe that human beings are generally so consumed by the past and the future that we miss this point of liberation, and that most of what we call our “choices” are, in spite of their apparent whimsicality, little more than reflexive, conditioned responses.
I should probably make something up here, but the boring truth is that I don’t think I ever have. I think I go into a movie with the implicit notion that I paid good money for it, and, goddamn it, I am going to get my money’s worth, no matter how miserable I become doing it.
Have you ever been inspired to write a story by a tattoo you have seen on a stranger?
No, though now that I think about it, I did once, in a public bath in Japan, see a man with one of those beautifully vivid, full-torso Japanese tattoos. It was quite remarkable, those colorful dragons and geishas coiling around his chest, and made more interesting by the fact that those sorts of tattoos were, at the time at least, almost exclusively the province of the yakuza. Seems like there’s a pretty good story there. I find though, that even though I lived in Tokyo for over a year, and that I find Japan to be a strange and interesting country, I am not attracted to writing about it. It’s hard to get away from the culture clash/fish out of water gaijin thing, and that’s been done pretty much to death.
What is longest it has taken you to read a book?
I’m still working on Ulysses. Going on twenty years now, from when I first started it. I started it again this year but foundered on the infamous Wandering Rocks chapter. Next year for sure.
What was in the last package you mailed?
Sadly, predictably, it was a manuscript. It sits, even now, in a slush pile somewhere, waiting to be pawed at by some hungover undergraduate with idiosyncratic facial hair. The result of this will almost certainly be a form rejection, the whole process having served only to annoy everybody involved. Good lord, I’m wasting my life.
