Jim Behrle: Your father invented the tuba?
Gary Sullivan: I'm not sure how that myth got started. My father was a
friend of John Phillip Sousa, and he liked to tinker. He did invent the
aquaphone, but it never really took off in the way the tuba did. It's
almost impossible to both inhale and swallow water at the same time--an
unfortunate glitch in human design that my father obviously didn't take
into account when he was drawing up the blueprints.
JB: Music is a big influence. Like Heavy Metal.
GS: Big influence, yeah. Crotchduster's "Mammal Sauce" is currently in
heavy rotation:
"Sliptoflappy rappy
And a carpal tunnel pudding flanker
Nabble and a stampy and a
Pigeon smelling generator [...]
Chinese diarrhea prison carpet
Chunky harplegig
Nopaliaseah perforated
Purple parkle pig
... My mammal sauce is the best mammal sauce!"
And it's not just the lyrics. Fornicus McFlappy simply OOZES poetry,
"as a person."
Naw, I'm just joshin' ya, man. I'm 42 years old! The truth is, I listen
to a lot of old Hindi film soundtracks and schmaltzy Arabic music.
But I'd be lying if I didn't admit that the first concert I went
to--when I was 13 or 14--was Kiss and Cheap Trick. We practically booed Cheap
Trick off the stage, so intense was our desire to watch Gene Simmons
spit fire and blood.
Q: I've also heard that you can only compose new poems while sitting at
the counter of a Waffle House.
A: What?!? Who told you that? That is such bullshit!
I mean, come on, go to http://www.wafflehouse.com and check their
Restaurant Locator. See any Waffle Houses in the State of New York? New
Jersey? Connecticut? New Hampshire? Because I sure don't. The closest
Waffle House I can find is at 1783 Airport Road, Allentown Pennsylvania.
Let's look that up on Mapquest, shall we?
See:
http://www.mapquest.com/directions/main.adp?go=1&do=nw&un=m&cl=EN&ct=NA&rsres=1&1y=US&1a=81+Ocean+Parkway&1c=Brooklyn&1s=NY&1z=&2y=US&2a=1783+Airport+Road%2C&2c=Allentown&2s=PA&2z=
Total Est. Time: 1 hour, 41 minutes Total Est. Distance: 90.94 miles
I could almost *make* a waffle in that amount of time!
JB: Admit it, you do eat waffles when you write poems. It's all over
your work.
GS: Well ... yeah. But not Waffle House.
Waffles are crispy *and* chewy. And you have options: I tend to lather
on the butter and raspberry syrup, but sometimes I'll just "have a
waffle"--dry, no frills. Some people eat them with ice cream: that's what's
called a Belgian waffle. "Waffle"--that means "take it all" in French.
And it takes a long time to cook enough for everyone, unless you have
multiple waffle irons. So I tend to eat them alone.
JB: Well, I was thinking particularly about the poem you published in
PRAERIE SCHOONER some time ago: "Maple Syrup Upon a Grecian Urn."
GS: Oh, I meant to say before: I used to really dig classic rock. You
know: Joplin, the 'Plane. [Laughs.] Just kidding. I've always hated
classic rock.
But, ah, no. The syrup poem, yeah, that was a problem. It took a long
time to write. Because I have no experience with maple--it's raspberry
syrup or nothing with me. But raspberry doesn't have the same
consistency as maple. I struggled with that for weeks, Jim. And then, I just
realized, I had to go with what *the poem* wanted.
JB: Do your poems push you around? Has a poem ever stuffed you in a
locker, or given you a wet Willie?
GS: Worse, Jim. Spicer had his Martians, right? With me it's more like
... Vietnam vets. I can never claim Spicer as a literary father--for a
number of reasons. You know how Spicer said to get rid of all the
furniture? I can't. The vets need it. For their *parties*.
JB: Who of all the dead poets would you most like to have really gotten
it on with? Why am I thinking Mina Loy?
GS: Well, probably because it would *have* to be Mina Loy.
I suppose it's morbid to think this way, but she's the dead poet whose
work and attitude seems most like Nada's. I fell in love with Nada's
writing before falling in love with her. Although blurring a distinction
like that--between one's work and one's self--I mean, I know the person
is not the work. But, still. Mina was a poet and satirist at heart.
Before Nada and I hooked up, I used to read Mina's work sometimes and,
especially when the writing got particularly uh ... well ... you know when
she like "Loys it up"? Which is pretty much every poem. Dig, for
instance, the final stanza of "Moreover, the Moon--":
Coercive as coma, frail as bloom
innuendoes of your inverse dawn
suffuse the self;
our every corpuscle become an elf.
I mean, "Come to Pappa." [Long, heavy sigh.]
The major problem would be that Mina was *not* my physical type. I like
short, curly haired Middle-Eastern/Jewish/Latin types. Mina's hair was,
like, *fluffy*. So, if somehow time warps backwards into a
loop-de-loop, and I'm thrown back to 1909, I think it's important that I'm
prepared--mentally and emotionally--to deal with this.
How tall was Mina? That could be an issue, too. I'm 5'6"-1/2, maybe
5'7". It's just--dealing with dead poets on a romantic level is just
incredibly more complicated than dealing with living ones--even really
neurotic living ones. It would be extra hard because, even if I could get
Mina, I'd be thinking about Nada. Except Nada wouldn't be born for
another almost 60 years. That's gonna put a heavy-duty strain on a
relationship.
I dunno. Maybe I'm making too much out of this?
JB: Do you see it as part of the role of a poet in the world to be
*sexy*?
GS: Well ... yeah. But "sexy" is in the mind of the reader.
JB: Larry Fagin once said, "Maybe everyone should stop writing poems
for 5 years." What do you think?
GS: Not writing anything for years doesn't seem to have helped Larry's
writing. I'm not sure how it's going to help anyone else's.
JB: What's been the most helpful beverage to your poetic career?
GS: I have a poetry career? I wouldn't drink what I've been drinking if
I were me.
JB: You ever tried that Japanese deadly blowfish dish?
GS: No. But Nada has. She said it's very--VERY--delicious. Also
"delicately flavored." They apparently lay it out in a flower-petal-type
arrangement. "With shiso." Whatever that means.
I *did* get to eat at one of those great soba places in Tokyo, right
under the train line. You put money into a machine and choose your
noodle, your broth, and whatever extras you want. The machine spits out a
ticket and you take that up to the counter and have a seat. It was just
like in Tampopo, but the slurping noises didn't have that Dolby bite.
JB: What's the closest you've ever come to dying?
GS: I was in a subway fire in Brooklyn in December of 1990. I was on my
honeymoon with my first wife and we were on a train going from Brooklyn
to Manhattan when the conductor stopped the train and said that there
was a fire on the tracks. It turned out to be not a trash fire but an
electrical fire--a pretty serious one. The fire department apparently
went to the wrong station, so we were stuck under there for about 45
minutes before one of the conductors decided to take matters into his own
hands and move the train back to the previous station. Two people on our
train died and about 150 were hospitalized for smoke inhalation. By the
end of it, we were on our knees on the floor of the train, spitting
onto the seats. It felt like we were inhaling water--I can't really
describe the sensation very well. We all thought we were going to die. As
freaked out as I was, the prospect of dying turned out to be okay. Either
that, or I was in extreme shock, which is probably more likely. In any
event, I dealt with post-traumatic stress for the next several years. I
thought I was over it after I moved to NYC and got back onto the
subway, but when 9/11 happened, all of those post-traumatic shock symptoms
came back with a vengeance. I'm still a bit nervous when riding the
subway.
