an interview with Jonathan Ames

The appeal of 'What's no to Love?' is the brutal honesty. Was that difficult for you to convey? Did you ever second guess yourself, or feel regrets over what you'd written?

Well, I wrote the book over the course of 3 years in the form of columns and essays for the press, so with each individual piece there sometimes would be regreat and fear: why did I have to write that? But that's often the sign that I've written something half-decent. When the book was all collected, I did regret the piece about venereal diseases, but as I've state elsewhere (I'm not sure where), I left that essay in since a friend of mine told me he used as a medical text to check himself for symptoms, a kind of personal essay as a physician's desk-manual; so I figured I was providing a service and would have to leave it in there. But the whole question of 'honesty' is complex. I'm not so sure that I'm so honest. I play a little bit of a shell-game. I show you the nut under one shell but I don't show you what's under the other shell. Now there may be nothing there, but, to be honest, there probably is something there, a much uglier nut. A nuttier nut.

Over the progession of your New York Press columns, did you have thoughts of collecting them into a book? Or did the descision come later?

Probably about 1.5 years into it, I thought that maybe a book was forming.

We recently discovered 'I Pass Like Night.' What was the initial response to the book, considering it was 13 years ago?

The response was good, strong. People were shocked, but they liked the book. Most of the reviews were positive... but it didn't get that much attention. A number of books had been published by young authors about disaffected characters and so my book got kind of dismissed as another in a series... maybe rightly so. But I'm glad it's back in print.

'What's Not To Love' is a memoir. Some of the stories from 'I Pass Like Night' are very similar. Where did you make the distinction?

I kind of like it when in a writer's work autobio work and fiction work overlap or mirror each other, keeps the astute reader guessing. So I guess that's what I'm going for. And distinction: well, it's all confusing. I've played the shell game with myself. As I wrote in an essay for Bookforum, I'm like Stalin, but with my own personal history: I keep revising it, until I don't really know what happened any more. And now I don't even remember what happened any more. My brain is falling apart.

You're bald. So are we. Thoughts?

I asked a barber the other day if I was employing the right 'style' for my balding patter, which is basically short on the sides and then the patches up top a little longer and combed back (a comb-back, instead of a comb-over), and he spun my chair away from the mirror and to a window, and said, "That's the right style." Meaning, that the right style was not to look at myself. So it's kind of annoying to go bald, but the women still seem to like me, so I guess I can't complain.

Since 'I Pass Like Night' was published, you've only released two other books. What is your writing process like?

I Pass Like Night came out in 1989, then I nearly went crazy -- or did go crazy -- for the next nine years, until somehow I overcame massive self-destructive tendencies and published The Extra Man in 1998. Since then, What's Not to Love? came out in 2000 and now My Less Than Secret Life came out in 2002. I also wrote a novelization of a movie, 200 Cigarettes, under the name Spencer Johns, and that came out in 2000, I believe. And I'm working on a new novel (about half done) and have a half a new collection, so I've become a lot more productive, ever since about 1997 when I started writing for NY Press and had to get things in by a deadline. As I wrote in What's Not to Love? (I think I wrote it there, who knows), I prematurely ejaculated I Pass Like Night at the age of 25, now in my thirties I'm able to last longer, not come so soon; something like that.

When you were depressed, balding, impotent, and sexually frustrated, what exactly kept you going?

Never was impotent. Thank god. Unless cocaine was involved. One more reason not to do cocaine, besides the fact that it rips your lungs out, scorches your soul, and makes you feel like a box of crackers that a truck has driven over. So what kept me going... not much. Friends. Coffee. Books. Prayer, when I remembered to pray. Mostly people helping me out, and somehow plodding forward. My parents have been very good to me -- housing and sometimes money. And my great aunt has often sustained me, regularly giving me little jolts of money. Basically, all the stuff that keeps me going now, though I'm a little less depressed and destroyed than I was from 1990 to 1997.

What would a short, personal list of likes and dislikes include ?

I like following sports, reading, and my girl friend. I dislike having to organize all my papers. I dislike being half-broke all the time and going into credit-card debt.

Where and when do you write?

I write in my apartment. I don't write often enough -- too busy attending to bullshit and having low blood sugar. But when I do write it's in the morning and sometimes in the early afternoon after a nap.

How did you get involved in the one-man performances? Do you still do them?

I got into it in 1990 when I couldn't write anything and I was at this artist's colony and so rather read something, I just told stories, and from there it grew. In 1999 I had a one-man show, Oedipussy, at Performance Space 122 in NYC. I've had hundreds of performances. I get a kick out of it, and yes, I still do stuff.

What are your current influences/contemporaries? Who do you enjoy reading?

I have a lot of friends who are writers, too many probably. Currently, I'm reading Peter Cameron's book, The City of Your Final Destination. Then I'm going to read Rick Moody's The Black Veil. They're both friends of mine and great writers. But, generally, I don't read contemporary stuff. I stick with the old-timers and there are tons whom I love. You guys are from LA: I love two of the big LA writers: Chandler and Bukowski. For the last few months, I've been devoted to the blissfully tedious series of 12 novels written by Anthony Powell. It's called 'A Dance to the Music of Time,' and it's sort of the English answer to Proust, though that probably wasn't the intention, and it was written from the fifties to the seventies.

Thoughts on Star Wars Episode II?

Haven't seen it yet, and I wish I wanted to. But I think Lucas botched the whole thing. We already know what happens to Darth Vader and so all mystery, story-telling suspense is sort of wrecked... it's a shame. With the money spent on that movie and the money spent buying tickets for it, so much could be done in the world.

There is a recurring theme of sex in your writings. How important has sex been in your life?

Sex is pretty important for everybody. A lot of my psychological problems expressed themself in sex, but that's the case with most people, so to work out the psycho problems I had to have a lot of sex, and I'm still working sex out; then there's love, in most love relationships, sex is an important ingredient -- why? -- and since I want to love and be loved, sex comes up again. It's just always there. And I have a wonderful son, and he wouldn't be in the world if it wasn't for sex. So there you have it: Sex. And I write about it. I try to write stuff that I liked to read: and one of the things I like reading about is sex.

How did you manage to overcome your sporadic bouts with alcoholism? Are you still sober? Do you think being a writer makes it difficult to maintain sobriety?

Most people know how you deal with a drinking problem, and that's how I deal with it. When it comes to booze, I'm like a boxer that has to retire and stay retired. I hope that this time, I've finally crawled out of the ring and won't tangle with it anymore. And it's not any more difficult for a writer to sober up than anybody else. Drinking only got in the way of writing. I've only been able to write when I'm sober. Think of what so many writers -- Kerouac and Fitzgerald let's say -- could have accomplished if they could have stopped drinking. I wish they had.

We don't know much about the new book. Anything you would like to share with the world via Hobart? Future plans?

My Less Than Secret Life has a lot of parts to it. The first part is a 'diary', which is a continuation of What's Not to Love?; that is the next year's worth of columns from NY Press. Then there's a section of short stories (fiction); then there's a true-crime story called 'The Nista Affair,' which is also coming out in the next McSweeney's; then there's a section of funny book reviews and one music review (the Lounge Lizards), and then there are essays with sexual content and essays without sexual content. It's a wide varied collection of stuff, but the diary forms a whole (about 200 pages), and then I think the whole book has some sort of mad cohesiveness... There are also pictures inside the book from the amateur boxing match I had in 1999 and the cover art is by my dear friend The Mangina.

Thank you for being Jonathan Ames,

I'm trying. And in the above answers, I sort of sound like me, and I'm not being untruthful, but some posing of some sort was going on... like I was imagining two guys from LA that I don't know, who have some impression of me and I was probably trying to fit that impression, and also keep my answers concise and silly so that they wouldn't be unpleasurable to read.
all the best,
Jonathan