film: commentary
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DINNER WITH CHUCK
(PART TWO):
My second
interview with Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club and the upcoming
Fugitives
and Refugees
and Diary
By John
C. Lyons
Film Critic
Welcome to the second half of Erie Entertainment's Dinner with Chuck.
In part two Palahniuk opens up about his future writing plans, success, stripper bingo, and answers some questions from his fans.
So grab something to sip on, sit back, and get that scroll wheel ready!
part 1 | part 2
JOHN: Future projects. I want you to give me some dirt. Book ideas? Are you working on any screenplays? Last time we talked you said you couldn’t get into screenplays, they would be over your head, but I have heard that maybe you are working on some or thinking about some…Chemical Pink?
CHUCK: Chemical Pink is not going to happen until David (Fincher) has a window in his schedule.
JOHN: Well he dropped M:I-3 (Fincher was to direct Tom Cruise in the next Mission: Impossible flick).
CHUCK: He did?! (Very surprised)
JOHN: Yep.
CHUCK: Then what’s he signed on for?
JOHN: (I think Chuck should maybe put me on the payroll) He’s supposed to do something about skaters in the 80’s. Lords of Dogtown.
CHUCK: OK, I can’t even keep up. (Laughing) Last time we talked it was his 40th birthday, last summer, so…it was still when he was debating around Mission: Impossible.
JOHN: Yeah it was maybe January or February that he dropped that. OK, so anything else? Book ideas?
CHUCK: I'm taking a class, with a really successful screenwriter who has written 60 movies with the Lifetime network. She’s made a fortune writing these.
JOHN: Well that would be someone to give you good advice…
CHUCK: Yeah. These three, no actually they are 8-act movies, because you’ve got to have ten commercials so they are broken into 8 acts. She hates every movie I like. She is a really, really good mechanic and in her class I just wrote a screenplay that my agents are really excited for, and I’m going to rewrite on that before they start selling it. But, they seem to think, after years of telling me that I can’t do this, suddenly they are saying ‘Wow, this is really good.’ So I’m thinking maybe I finally have gotten the knack of it.
JOHN: So can you give me a little info specifically on that screenplay?
CHUCK: It’s an idea I have had forever about a failed artist, who’s married and his job is he mixes paint in a big hardware store. And he is approached by this little cartel of collectors, curators and art critics and they say ‘Hey this hot-shot artist who you knew in college, who is the new Andy Warhol, his current work is really destroying the value of his early work, he is losing money and is damaging our investment. We will make you the next big famous artist if you kill him for us.’ And he says ‘No, I am not killing anybody.’ And they say ‘Would it help if we told you that he killed to get where he is at…and that he is having an affair with your wife?’
JOHN: Wow! (Chuckling)
CHUCK: And so this guy, the first act, is that he ends up killing this other artist…
JOHN: I would imagine…
CHUCK: And in the second act he ends up being roped into being a professional killer and traveling the world in this dark comedy, killing other famous artists who reach the end of their productive period in order to boost the value of their earlier work. Because as soon as an artist dies the value of their work just explodes. So it’s this dark comedy about him, a professional killer/artist.
JOHN: Do you have a working title?
CHUCK: Ambition.
JOHN: (I laugh) That’s good.
CHUCK: I’m just really amazed how funny and yet how conventional it is.
JOHN: Cool. So anything else for adaptations or anything else new you would like to jump into? Any new themes you would like to write about?
CHUCK: I want to do a big re-invention of ghost stories and do a collection of them, sort of new, re-inventive ghost stories…
JOHN: Not like Ghost Ship though?
(Both laugh)
CHUCK: No, as wonderful as it was, we totally did ghost ships.
JOHN: I’m sure they would have liked to have your quote on their poster, they probably don’t have any other ones to use from reviews: “Chuck Palahniuk says…”
CHUCK: I said “WOW!...”
JOHN:“…Ghost Ship kicks ass!”
(Both chuckling)
CHUCK:“…It wasn’t as stupid as I thought it would be. I thought this would really suck!”
JOHN: I’m surprised you saw it, if you don’t get to see it too much…
CHUCK: Somebody in the household brought it home. That’s all I am going to say.
JOHN: Alright, ‘nuff said.
CHUCK: It was a double-feature Ghost Ship and The Ring. But you know ghost stories really have an oral story-telling tradition. You say them out loud and you say them late at night. So I want these to be stories that are short enough, and ideally written to be read out loud. And so the real essence of a ghost story is an unresolved issue in another person that can no longer be resolved because one person is dead. So they are really all these stories about regret and remorse and that’s really sort of it. I want to reinvent ghost stories of regret and remorse. And that will complete my personal commitment to three horror books.
JOHN: Hmmmm.
CHUCK: And beyond that I want to do a non-fiction book about writing. Not just writing, you know, using the tenets of minimalism. All the things that I wish someone had taught me years ago when I started writing.
JOHN: So kind of like a “How To” for other writers?
CHUCK: A “How To” but also sort of a psycho sociological, whatever…coping. Writing as a coping thing. Writing as sort of a way of living your life out on the page and using writing as an excuse. As a permission to go out into the world and be with people, and live your life outgoing as a student, constantly researching, constantly compiling information. Constantly sort of exhausting your personal issues in a fictional, detached way. So it’s writing that doesn’t keep you home in front of the computer. Its writing that keeps you active and participating in the world.
JOHN: Like when you need to vent, or get something out, that’s when to do it.
CHUCK: Right.
JOHN: Don’t make it like a job that you have to do all the time, is that what you mean?
CHUCK: Make it entirely a personal investment. But detach it from yourself so much that you can put it in a story, whatever the issue is. Go out, and in researching the story and completing that, you complete the issue yourself. So it’s about writing, and it’s also about sort of the personal coping mechanism that self-expression should be.
JOHN: So are you going to do it in your regular dark-humored kind of way?
CHUCK: Sure, you have to have dark antidotes about weird ways that I have researched things, weird ways in which ideas have come to me. How people brought me different stories, stuff like that.
When Chuck reads, people
listen (Photo by Jan Kinch)
JOHN: That’s how it will make someone like me read it. Because then you’re not just some other guy trying to show people how to write. Like your travel book, which by the way, how did you get that anyway? How did they come to you and say ‘Hey, we want you to write a travel book’ and why would you even agree to something like that?
CHUCK: Money. (Both laugh) Initially they said ‘We want 25,000 words.’ Which is nothing! It’s like 100 pages! ‘We want 25,000 words and we’ll pay you $50,000 up front for it.’ And I had a slow month, I thought I can do a really, just dash and get out, do a bunch of interviews, I could fill 100 pages easy. In two weeks.
JOHN: Wow.
CHUCK: You know, for a decent amount of money.
JOHN: Yeah, I wouldn’t complain.
CHUCK: Walk away, have another thing on the market, and if nothing else it would sell at the Portland airport. Someone’s always looking for a travel book.
JOHN: That’s going to be so funny though, like when the kid asked you today (at the conference) ‘Are you worried about any of it coming back to you?’ And you said no, it would be more like the big money people that would have to deal with that. But I think that’s just hilarious in and of itself, like you said its going to be sitting next to the other books in that collection…(I laugh – when and if you read portions of this book, you will understand)
CHUCK: It’s going to be next to those…
JOHN:…And people are not going to expect what they find.
CHUCK: It’s going to be in those “Made in Oregon” stores with the boysenberry jam and the Pendleton blankets, and the smoked salmon. And then this little…bomb.
JOHN: Do you think if the right or the wrong person looked at it do you think it would ever be made into a big deal by your local news media? Do you foresee that happening?
CHUCK: It will be. (He sounds very certain of that)
JOHN: If they do anything on the news about it, can you try and record it?
CHUCK: I don’t have TV.
JOHN: Oh, that’s right. Well have one of your buddies record it, that would be funny.
CHUCK: It’s going to come out in the middle of the summer, when there is no news…
JOHN: That’ll be a big story.
CHUCK: Yeah, just local stuff. And in the whole series, I forgot to say this (earlier at the conference) but in this whole series of 18 books, 18 “Journeys” books, only three of them have been picked up by overseas publishers. This is one of the three. This one has been picked up at this point by six different European publishers, so this is a book that is going around the world. The whole world will know how weird and dysfunctional Portland, Oregon is.
JOHN: Right. But see, for the right crowd that will attract people, I mean before I didn’t know anything about Portland at all, so now it seems like this wild place. That marathon…
CHUCK: The “Ititerod”.
JOHN: Oh man. (Laughing)
CHUCK: The other thing you got to do is Stripper Bingo. They make up these special bingo cards...
JOHN: It’s not all like really old ladies in a church playing is it?
CHUCK: No no! You go to whatever club you want to go to with friends and they all have little stereotypical things that strippers do like “slapping ass”. So as you watch you keep track and whoever gets a full bingo, it’s just like Bingo. Just dozens of things like that.
CHUCK: (Back to Fugitives) Oh and ghost stories, there’s a whole chapter on just ghost stories and paranormal investigation teams.
JOHN: You’re really on this ghost thing now.
CHUCK: Well, there are metaphorical ways we talk about things that we can’t talk about, where we reveal ourselves more fully then if we were to actually talk about ourselves. And myths and legends and ghost stories are right up there. In history books that you would get in schools, they never record ghost stories, or the sex industry or the drug industry, or drag queens. None of that. So my goal is to report all that stuff.
JOHN: Well, give it some attention.
CHUCK: Archive it in such a way that a hundred years from now, somebody will open a window into the sort of “Alt Culture” of Portland. They could look at that book, and it would give them a really good cross section.
Writing about a certain
spikey-haired character in a future novel? (Photo by Jan Kinch)
JOHN: I wanted to ask you if you have final, creative control over your work, as far as edits. And do you have any say in what cover gets slapped onto your book? I heard that with Diary you wanted to have an actual diary with…
CHUCK:…a lock on it.
JOHN: Yeah, how come that didn’t happen?
CHUCK: Yeah, I’m not getting that.
JOHN: Yeah, well it’s far from that (laughing).
CHUCK: You’ve seen it? They said that with a dust-jacket that there was no way you could wrap a dust jacket around the lock and it wouldn’t work. And they really wanted to riff off the graffiti on houses, so that’s why it has that sort of graffiti look. You know you fight some battles and I am not a good visual person that way so…
JOHN: Ah, ok. And final edits, you said (earlier at the conference) that basically you get what you want in the final print. With the exception of a couple things here and there (Chuck’s original version of Fight Club had the commissioner’s balls actually being cut off).
CHUCK: If they can make a really good basis, a really good argument for not doing something, then I will do it, but really ever since Fight Club I’ve always gotten my way. The last re-write is so radically changed from even the previous draft that they are glossed over in surprise. They read the book like six times, and I want every time they read the book for the book to be significantly different. Almost like an entirely different book.
JOHN: And it is from what you say.
CHUCK: Yeah.
The fans begin to gather
at the opening night ceremonies (Photo by Jan Kinch)
JOHN: After 9/11 and the current state of our country do you think that your work will or has been affected at all? Do you ever think that you will be influenced by that?
CHUCK: It will influence the way in which stories are told because people aren’t going to hear stories in the same way. They aren’t going to hear sort of transgressional, funny, dark, obedient stories anymore. That’s all going to be sort of lumped together with terrorism. But you could still sort of comment through horror, or other genre fictions the way people always did through the Cold War and during the 40’s. And that’s the only effective way now. To tell your stories with charm and as entertainment instead of a social rant.
JOHN: Gotcha. OK, what’s the strangest experience you have had thus far with your fans? Have you ever gone to anyone else’s house (other than mine) for an after-party?
CHUCK: (Laughing) No, yours was the only keg party.
JOHN: I’ve got bragging rights on that.
CHUCK: I’m 39 years old and I’m at John Lyons’ keg party! Some old pervert staggering around!
JOHN: No, no! It was cool! You know how that picture of you is like famous; you know how it is on Dennis’ website, pictures from the party?
CHUCK: No. (A bit shocked)
JOHN: It’s not bad at all and everyone thinks it’s cool. You know, like Stephen King or whoever, people would never imagine him to be so cool as to hang out with his fans. Just sign your book and you’d never see him again. It made you more like a normal, regular guy. Like here’s Chuck, he’s done with the conference and he is having a good time with his fans.
CHUCK: (Chuck pauses to ponder my statement) OK, I will take your word for it.
JOHN: So what’s the strangest experience with fans?
CHUCK: The waiters in Berkley. Have you heard this story?
JOHN: No, I don’t think so.
CHUCK: It was this incredibly hot day in Berkeley and the bookstore has space for like 1,000 people, all crammed in this big auditorium. It was so sweltering hot! I took like two Red Bulls and four Advil because my arm was hurting so bad from signing. And I could barely stay on my feet, I was so light-headed. And just as the book event starts, all these extra people start cramming in, and they all have black eyes and gashes on their faces, and they are all dressed as waiters.
JOHN: No shit!
CHUCK: White shirts and bow ties, a towel over one arm…
JOHN: Was that like a huge shock to you?
CHUCK: I didn’t say anything because I thought that I was hallucinating. Fuck, I’m just gonna look like an idiot if I say something. And then as soon as I started reading these waiters started throwing dinner rolls at each other, and they are pelting everybody in this big auditorium with these big dinner rolls. And then one guy comes up to the front of the podium, and pretends to choke on a dinner roll and starts barfing clam chowder all over...
JOHN: So this was all recited for you or something?
CHUCK: Yeah, fuck. It was a cacophony society; it was the San Francisco Cacophony society pulling this big stunt. It was street theater. The bookstore thought I hired them. I thought that the bookstore had hired them.
JOHN: Wow. That had to have been weird.
CHUCK: Ahh!
JOHN: OK, well that’s a pretty weird one. My sister, she is an author, she just got her first book published.
CHUCK: Ah! Who with? Where?
(Unfortunately, sorry sis, I didn’t know these answers off the top of my head but Chuck, if you read this: Dawn Lyons The Dry Well under Accolade Books)
JOHN: Her name is Dawn and she wants to know: If you feel successful, and if so, at what point in your career did you feel this way?
CHUCK: I felt successful when I could leave my job. When I knew I wasn’t going to starve to death if I left my job.
JOHN: So you do feel successful?
CHUCK: Yeah. I have to. I’m too successful; I have too much to do.
Palahniuk speaking
at the Keynote Luncheon (Photo by Jan Kinch)
JOHN: Carla wants to know: Boxers or briefs?
CHUCK: Briefs.
JOHN: And Chris (my friend who is infatuated with the number 27), do you have anything to officially say about the number 27? (27, for example, was the page that the culling song was on in Lullaby)
CHUCK: No, but I just know that it is a bad couple. (Chuck and I talked earlier in which he explained to me that each number he has always related to a type of person, and person two and person seven are really a bad match). Seven should not be with two. And two should never be with seven.
JOHN: Dorota wants to know: Do they have Eastern European translations of your books?
CHUCK: Polish, Czech, Croatian, Russian, former Yugoslav Republic, it’s in Bosnia Herzegovina, it’s in almost every Eastern European country (Fight Club that is).
JOHN: Since you are traveling abroad a lot now in other counties, do fans in some countries react differently to your work than they do here? I have talked to some Polish guys when I was over there and because of the cultural differences they can’t really relate to the material in the same way. The concept of ever wanting to have a fight club. You’ve been to France and Italy…
CHUCK: And Spain, and England.
JOHN: Have you ever noticed anything where you can tell that people are reacting differently?
CHUCK: It’s hard to say. In France I didn’t have a huge number of people at my signing, but I was at a book festival. But in Spain I was swamped, the signing was just massively attended and it was again, basically like the same. Lines and lines. Which was sweet because I was with a group of really famous authors, and they had no one.
JOHN: Aha, well that’s awesome. So you had the same sort of demographic.
CHUCK: Yeah, but in England, as bad as it is here, in England it’s ten times more popular. It is incredible the numbers of people that show up at the book events. And the English books I guess sell like crazy.
Dennis, Carla, Bill,
and I (Photo by Dennis Widmyer)
JOHN: Well then, I guess we are all done.
CHUCK: Thank you John.
JOHN: And I thank you Chuck. Any last words?
CHUCK: Don’t buy tech stocks. (We both laugh)
So there you have it. Once again I had a great time at the Postcards from the Future conference in Edinboro, PA. Everyone is already buzzing about when the next conference may be. Luckily for me I happen to work at the one university in the country that managed to pull in an author that I actually read...twice! A huge thanks to Chuck Palahniuk for again fitting me into his hectic week! Thanks to Dr. Kinch, Dennis Widmyer, and Carla J. Behr for sharing some of their photos for this article. And thanks to each of you for reading it.
Each time I talk with Chuck I have an even better understanding and appreciation of the man behind the novels, and I hope this interview helped to give each of you who read it a bit more insight too. For those who missed this year's conference I will quickly note that the crew over at Chuck’s official website are working on a documentary about the author and his fans (which I got to help with a bit). It should definitely be something to put on your list. Now, like you, I will wait patiently for the next books to be released...
Me and "the Cult"
guys filming for the documentary (Photo by Jan Kinch)
Postcards from the Future 2003
Put Chuck Palahniuk's
books on your summer reading list:
part 1 | part 2
