WHY DO YOU DO IT? WHAT DRIVES YOU?
Money, Power, Respect, Attention, Recognition. If I were to take full honest account of what motivates me, I’m sure at root of most of it there’s an intense craving for attention and influence. I think these base desires consumed me more than I’d have been willing to admit until I actually began putting in a real effort towards starting this print magazine and humbling myself through the process. There’s a lot of unearned entitlement that, however ugly, is useful and even necessary in some ways when you’re starting off, but now that I’m in it, I feel that what drives me is much more objective and mundane — it’s more like problem-solving and meeting the demands of my work.
If we’re talking specifically about AMERICAN VULGARIA, I’m unsure what my “why” is. I’ve always loved magazines and spent a lot of time poring over issues of PLAYBOY and SPORTS ILLUSTRATED(Swimsuit Edition) and gaming mags in the gooncave of my youth. Once the idea of starting my own took hold of me, it never let me go. Now that the magazine as a source of news or information is obsolete, they’re free to function almost solely as art objects (coffee table ornaments, something you can show off on Instagram, etc.), which also excites me. I love the idea of creating something beautiful, something physical, that people can be proud to own and be a part of, just as much as I hate the idea of “owning” others with regurgitated “takes” online.
WHAT IS ONE THING YOU DO FOR SANITY MAINTENANCE?
Whenever I feel I’m going “insane,” it’s typically because I’m neglecting something obvious like showering or eating. Getting enough sleep and sunlight. Running around and having fun.
Very cliché but the one thing I do regularly for my sanity is go for a walk every morning. We haven’t gotten much snow this winter — instead everything the past couple months has been covered in a thin layer of FINAL FANTASY frost and thick SILENT HILL fog, making my morning walks of late all the more eerie and beautiful. Usually, I walk around the lakes down the street, sometimes trekking even farther to the river. Maybe I’ll take a nice picture of some ducks on the water or something. I understand Tony (Soprano) in these moments: I love those ducks, it’s a bummer when they’re not there.
WHAT IS THE SCRAPPIEST THING YOU’VE DONE TO MAKE OR SAVE $$?
I went through a minor shoplifting phase in high school and I’ve regrettably sold precious items for dumb reasons (drugs, beer, bad dates, etc.), but nothing too criminal or self-debasing.
Probably the scrappiest thing I’ve done to make money was exploit the player’s club system of
Montana’s gas station casino chains: Montana Lil’s, Lucky Lil’s, and Magic Diamond. At each location, when you sign up for their player’s club, they give you a free $5 (and snacks and shit), which is significant when you’re 18. If you don’t gamble it, that’s free money. And these casinos are everywhere, so you can make a quick $25 or so in the busier parts of town. Later, after my friends and I exhausted all the player’s clubs, this turned into us pretending to gamble for the complimentary booze before heading downtown — or wherever. This is still a great way to save $$.
Ultimately, we all lost more money gambling than we “won” at these casinos, but the initial rush of free money back when $5 mattered was fun while it lasted.
YOUR TASK IS TO PRESCRIBE ONE BOOK OR FILM TO THE COLLECTIVE FOR MANDATORY CONSUMPTION. WHAT IS IT?
Book: UNDERSTANDING MEDIA by Marshall McLuhan. I picked this up after reading that McLuhan was a major influence on Camille Paglia, whose SEXUAL PERSONAE was a major influence on me. I think everyone is familiar with McLuhan’s “the medium is the message,” which is a good enough summary of his theories on media, but the way he lays out how media “works us over” through his concepts of Narcissus narcosis, “hot and cold” media, and Hans Selye’s stress theory really blew my mind. Reading SEXUAL PERSONAE and then UNDERSTANDING MEDIA back to back had a far greater impact on the way I think than all four years of my undergrad combined. Should be required reading for anyone with ambitions in art, media, or education.
Film: JACKASS NUMBER TWO. Easily, my favorite moviegoing experiences have been seeing the JACKASS movies in theater. Recommending JACKASS in “prescriptive” terms is kind of ridiculous and ruins the magic of those movies, but I do think they present a vision of men at their happiest, as well as a form of entertainment where the performers have literal skin in the game. Every time I return to them(especially NUMBER TWO, the best of the four), I feel a renewed lust for life that’s otherwise completely absent in all other male-targeted media right now.
current obsession?
Nadia Lee Cohen. She’s an incredible artist — amazing on both sides of the camera. I’ve gone through waves of fascination with Nadia since I first caught pics of her "HELLO MY NAME IS" exhibition, but lately I’ve been totally preoccupied with her work. There’s definitely a kinship between AMERICAN VULGARIA and Nadia’s glam-trash vision of US pop/mass culture.
MOST USEFUL FAILURE?
All my past relationships, romantic and otherwise. It’s easy to learn from professional failures, much harder to digest and act upon the lessons of a failed relationship, which filter down to: (1) stop being a selfish piece of shit, or (2) stop putting up with that shit.
After slaying Adam Lehrer in ass naked battle in the pit of a volcano, in the arms of my loved ones.
WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY WORKING ON?
Right now, I am wrapping up AV3: THE MAN ISSUE and moving onto the Girl Issue — or “Woman” Issue; I’m still undecided on this.
DISCIPLINE OR ANARCHY?
If I can’t say both, I’ll say discipline. Ideally, I’d like to impose discipline on everyone else and enjoy anarchy for myself.
