GIVE ME SOMETHING GOOD TO EAT A VERY SUCKDOG THANKSGIVING: A CONVERSATION BETWEEN MILES PFLANZ AND LISA CRYSTAL CARVER

Thanksgiving, a miserable holiday by any measure, but uniquely so in 2020, the year when misery was the only measure. COVID was in the air, civil war too, and in a few weeks crybabies in khakis and carpenter pants would attempt a coup, but for 24 hours the nation had a mandate to chill, pig out, and fake gratitude. Makes me want to puke. I skipped the traditional festivities and Skyped with Lisa Crystal Carver, a trailer trash polymath who I think needs no introduction, but here’s some highlights for the uninitiated. She first gained notoriety stalking GG Allin, but cut her own rug with the masterful slumber party gone wrong record Drugs Are Nice. She took that giddy meth’d out cabaret on tour with Costes, Psychodrama, Smog, and every other transgressive outsider act of note. She married and divorced tiki troll and fascist bore Boyd Rice and detailed the nastiness of their relationship with brutal honesty, exposing the limits of reactionary shock and its proselytizers. She played zine queen with Rollerderby and covered marquee names like Kurt Cobain and Royal Trux as thoroughly as sub-underground bright lights like Seymour Glass. As the 90’s came to a close, she came into her own as a writer. She’s still on a spree of small run books devoted to topics like life in Nevada, the stranglehold power of money, and Yoko Ono. You can’t go wrong with picking up whatever’s in stock, but I’ll single out the recent I Love Art for its contagious enthusiasm. As far as I understand Lisa, she’s been around or sought out cancelable company her whole life. She’s probably said and done cancelable things in her long career, but, of course, cancel culture is a comparatively recent contextual shift in that career. It seems like it would impact the work she does, but it hasn’t come to get her or changed her approach at all. She still chats with convicted rapists and murderers, stages violent plays, says whatever she wants and figures out why after. I don’t think Lisa views anyone or any idea as worthy of exclusion, so when she finds herself in extreme territory it’s by virtue of the same curiosity that leads her to try organized religion or standup comedy or plastic surgery. Lisa’s commitment to candor about all she experiences gives her an edge as much as her willingness to get into difficult shit. No moralizing, no rubbernecking, all so innocent.

M: Where are you this Thanksgiving

L: I’m in St. Paul.

M: St. Paul. How’s that?

L: It’s fine. It’s whatever.

M: Why are you in St. Paul?

L: Well, I don’t know. I don’t know, Miles. I was in Vegas. Love was on the rocks. My friends have a second home they can’t go to b/c of Covid. They said, “Why don’t you just go there?” So I went.

M: That’s St. Paul.

L: That’s that. The same thing happened three or four months ago. I went to Alabama. Montgomery.

M: What?

L: I don’t want to sound like a northerner. It is gross. It’s wet and buggy.

M: Someone wanted you to housesit the bugs?

L: Yes.

M: So love’s on the rocks. Bailed to Alabama.

L: Yes. I stayed in Montgomery until I couldn’t take it anymore and went back to Vegas. Love was still on the rocks. So I’m in St. Paul and when l go back, I know love will still be on the rocks. I’m heading for Botswana next!

M: Do you have a housesitting gig there?

L: I don’t have a housesitting gig. I’m not sure how to move there. I figure the best way to do it is to do it.

M: Why Botswana?

L: I read Number One Ladies Detective Agency which is set in Botswana. It’s really fun. And ever since I started reading that I’ve wanted to go. There’s beautiful migrating animals, it seems like the place for me.

M: What’s this Detective Agency?

L: It’s like Nancy Drew in Botswana.

M: You could join them.

L: Oh yeah. There’s lots of death metal in Botswana.

M: You could start a new band with the death metal fans.

L: I don’t really like death metal. Take what you can get I suppose. I don’t know what one does. I think a visa there is good for 3 months. So I’ll have 90 days to get married or get a job.

M: Job or marriage. Don’t you like to keep moving? Are you wanting to settle down there?

L: I like to keep moving. I’d like to be there for three years. Get used to it. I’ve really done it in America.

M: All you can do? Time to blow town?

L: Are you happy in NYC?

M: I don’t really prioritize happiness or think about it.

L: Me either.

M: I could probably be happy enough anywhere except Alabama. Did you find a scene down there?

L: Well, I don’t know. I barely left the house.

M: Oh right. Covid.

L: No one knew that in Alabama. Everyone was French kissing everybody.

M: Strangers French kiss each other down there?

L: They don’t care. It’s an incredibly moist place.

M: People have strong opinions about the word moist. You have a strong opinion about the word funk.

L: You remember that!

M: Why is that? Why don’t you like the word funk?

L: It’s like smelly, dried up, really old jissom. Even for the music I don’t like the word funk.

M: With death metal there’s no pressure. A lot of pressure with funk.

L: Stop saying it!

M: Ok, funk. Let’s move on from the funk. You’ve been painting. How does that work moving a lot?

L: I just pack up the acrylics. Unpack them. Use them. They dry really quick. Not a problem.

M: You had a painting that’s cursed?

L: Yes. It’s of a demon. I sent it to a patron and he put it over his bed. His back went out, he couldn’t get out of bed. His relative died. He put it in the trunk of his car. With cursed things, you can’t throw them away. It makes the demons angrier.

M: Says who?

L: I don’t know, demonologists. I guess yr supposed to bury them. He put it in the trunk of his car to see what would happen. His back felt better and no one else died, but it wasn’t better enough. He’s a Buddhist, so I found a Catholic who renounced his faith and said he could handle owning the painting. I had the painting sent to him. His girlfriend ended up in a mental institution and his landlord kicked him out. So that guy’s like, I guess the curse is true. It’s with an atheist now. I don’t know if anything bad has happened yet. He sent me a postcard that things aren’t good, but didn’t connect that to the painting. Have you seen Trilogy of Terror? Of course you have.

M: Is that a Vincent Price thing?

L: No, a Karen Black thing.

M: Oh no, I haven’t.

L: It’s the best movie in the world. Ever. It scared me so much. There’s this voodoo doll. It’s chained up. It arrives in the mail and Karen Black doesn’t believe it’s cursed. She plunks it down on her coffee table. All downhill from there.

M: You used fairy tales and religious imagery with Suckdog and in your plays. Do you have a fascination with forces of good and evil?

L: Not good and evil. Everybody with their own force. Those forces will strike some people badly and some people good. That’s something I want to learn about in Africa, I’ve always been interested in Voodoo. Americans are so picky about what we’ll believe and not believe. I could believe anything. It just makes you richer the more you believe, poorer the less you believe.

M: Anyone could be a successful cult leader if they believed in something absolute enough.

L: Believe in anything, it doesn’t matter! Have some fun with it.

M: You think Americans are picky about what they believe in? With Trump it seems like Americans will believe anything.

L: You mean with QAnon?

M: Well, QAnon and I’m shocked by the continued success of televangelism. The send me a dollar and now yr good with God kind of Christianity.

L: Here’s what I have to say about QAnon. What that’s based on is not believing. It’s based on thinking that you are being tricked and that you can expose the lie. It’s more about not believing in things. I think that about all these conspiracy theories. They’re all about finding out lies. What do they actually believe in? Nothing. If they don’t have enemies they have nothing.

M: True. They’re right that politicians and media lie, but they aren’t socialists with a program or anarchists who want to organize against the lies.

L: No. There’s nothing. What are their ideas? What do they care about? Nothing.

M: You’ve had some experience with right wingers in transgressive art circles. Do you see a similarity between the far right internet based groups now and what far right trolls were doing in the 80’s and 90’s?

L: No. I don’t know. Back then, it seemed to me people were pranksters. They didn’t seem rotten, snide, and nasty. Now they do. These seem like very different people now. Hard to say without being specific. Are you talking about Boyd? Gavin?

M: Gavin. Or a trajectory from GG Allin to people who cast far right trolling as transgressive and fun now.

L: GG I think was a wild prankster playing loose. I don’t think people involved with that were hateful. Maybe they’ve changed and are now. I think everyone used to be more fun.

M: You mentioned Gavin. I’ve read a few interviews with Proud Boys and they always say what they’re doing is a joke. There was a ProPublica interview after Charlottesville where a Proud Boy kept insisting it’s all a joke even after the murder of a protestor. I understand playing with far right ideas can seem like jokes because they are so extreme and so dumb. It’s hard to justify brushing far right trolling off as a joke if there’s a body count.

L: Well, I don’t think the Proud Boys are a prank. The world got uglier. At least this country did. As far as artists are concerned, there was a time when far left and far right people could hang out and have the same love of art and travel and shock and drugs and performance. One side wasn’t killing the other at protests. The political division wasn’t that serious.

M: What do you think made things more serious?

L: The whole world got so serious. People think they’re in a position to judge someone else. People think they’re in a position to teach or correct someone else. No one’s in a position to correct anyone else. You’re not gonna have any fun if you’re trying to get people to see things the way you do. First of all, you’re not going to succeed and second you’re just gonna bum everyone out.

M: Do you view what you make ideologically?

L: I have beliefs for what would be a good political system, but I’m not running things. I’m not an expert.

M: I always felt a utopian, anti-authoritarian impulse in yr writing and music.

L: I think I’m an expert in writing and what I say there about what I believe matters, but it’s not very political. Yoko Ono says “If I could’ve turned Hitler on the world could’ve been different.” I feel the same way. I feel like if you can make the equivalent of dropping acid, that can give someone the chance to not be on a fascist arc. It’s not much of a hope, it’s better than waiting until their side gets stronger with hate for your side. Then you have a whole war.

M: Going back to what you said about people believing they can correct everyone else, I think that’s an especially bad thing for the arts. I see a lot of art who’s purpose is the same as a bumper sticker. And I can’t think of a single artwork that has impacted me that came from the artist thinking they know better than their audience. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of artists who think like that.

L: Exactly. I don’t even know better than I know. I change my mind so much about what would be the best way for people to live. Was I wrong before? Yes. Am I wrong now? I don’t know. so I’m just now thinking about this. So what’s good about these horrible cursed things people are doing on the internet is that it does shake your mind up. It’s an exercise, that’s cool. I can’t handle it, God bless you if you can. That’s what I think a demon curse really is. This demon doesn’t really want to mess with anyone. I don’t believe there are pure sadists. I think this demon has a different perspective. Maybe it’s not a curse to have your back go out and your relative die. The demon doesn’t close a window before he opens a door. The demon is an opportunity. I don’t think there’s good and evil. A curse is not evil, it’s just different. Being dead in life is when you don’t notice things. It’s why I’m tired of America, it’s not new.

M: Is that what heaven is?

L: Yes. You just sing about how great God is all the time. All the time. That’s all it is.

M: Wow. So heaven is North Korea.

L: Except you don’t have any pain in heaven. I like pain though. It’s a lot more interesting than no pain. Let’s you know what’s up. I feel like this floaty, awful - no, I’d hate to go heaven. I’d rather go to hell. Well, I don’t think either exists. The Jewish idea of hell, being on earth and being disconnected from people, that’s probably hell.

M: Is that the Jewish concept of hell? I don’t know much about any religious tradition.

L: Well, you’re just not a believer. No wonder you don’t have a cult.

M: I’ve checked out some bits of the Bible, Upanishads. I’ve been checking out the Tao Te Ching. If I had to convert it might be that. It’d never been explained to me this way, that Lao Tzu was this very elderly historian who was mean to everyone. With the Tao Te Ching, if you’re a grumpy old historian this is a really convincing way to understand the world. I’d maybe consider Judaism.

L: I was half way to converting to Judaism in my 20’s. It was very enjoyable. I’m intrigued by the grumpy historian.

M: What’s 2021, Lisa?

L: I have a book coming out early 2021 about all the things we’ve been talking about. God, living the desert. God, the best sex of my entire life and I’m an old lady so there’s still hope.

M: What will the book be called?

L: I don’t know. The Pahrump Report.

M: One final report. It’s a collection?

L: A collection, smoothed out and I added to it.

M: Who’s publishing it?

L: Pig Roast. And I just had three short stupid films come out. The plays we did in New York. Well when we staged them in Stockholm.

M: Oh wow.

L: The most deadpan, slapstick version.

M: And those were Killer Dentist, Killer Weremonkey, and?

L: The Killer Artist, George W. Bush.

M: I didn’t see that one.

L: I made it after the East Coast run. George W. Bush, the Killer Artist.

M: You filmed the plays in Stockholm? They’re deadpan?

L: They took it like really seriously.

M: Like Bergman? Strindberg?

L: Yes. And you know how stupid my movies are.

M: Where can we find these?

L: Ruby Wells is the filmmaker. She filmed and edited them. She’s putting them out through suckdog.net

M: I loved being in the Killer Dentist. What are you thankful for this year?

L: I don’t care. Are you thankful for anything? I hate that.

M: Fuck it. Jane Chardiet, asked me to ask you, did you do Thanksgiving for your kids?

L: Does she really care? No. Wolf doesn’t eat because he’s G-Tube only. He wanted to. He wanted to be like other people. So I didn’t make food. I sent the girl off with her dad and took Wolf to the beach every year. We’d be the only ones there. It was cool, our thing. We’d buy flowers at a gas station and throw them in the ocean for people we love. I was happy to not torture him.

M: He’s not alone in feeling tortured by Thanksgiving.

L: You don’t like eating?

M: I do like eating. And making ornate meals. I don’t like compulsory enjoyment. I feel the same way about holidays as you do about the word “funk.”

L: Yes. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong.

M: I’m happy other people enjoy them.

L: I hate holidays.

M: You too. Why?

L: Same reason. I don’t like these people telling me to do things and that I have to enjoy it. Like you, I don’t care about happiness. All this pressure to feel happiness, why? I’ll feel happy sometimes, sometimes I won’t. Doesn’t matter. Out of everything that could be important. Fleeting happiness. It’s gonna come and go.

M: When it happens its great. What’s your favorite Catholic hymn? Do they call them hymns?

L: I don’t know I like all of them. My favorite Psalm when I was little and read the Bible went - he speaks and the sound of his voice is so beautiful that the birds stop their singing and the melody that he gave to me within my heart is ringing. Isn’t that so nice?

M: That’s great. What’s your favorite song about Satan?

L: There’s a Suckdog song about Satan. “Give me something good to eat.” I don’t remember. I’ve written so many songs.