film: commentary
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DINNER WITH CHUCK
(PART ONE):
My second
interview with Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club and the upcoming
Fugitives
and Refugees
and Diary
By John
C. Lyons
Film Critic
I got the opportunity again to sit down for some words (and food and drinks) with Chuck Palahniuk, the increasingly famous writer. It has been two years since my last interview with him and we had a lot of catching up to do! He has released two books since then (Choke and Lullaby) and will release two more in the coming months: a hilarious travel book about Portland, Oregon called Fugitives and Refugees, and his next book Diary.
part 1 | part 2
In this first part of my interview, Chuck talks about the conference based on his works, changes in himself, his family, and the synopsis of Diary. Part One concludes with lots of movie talk, thoughts on Marilyn Manson, and Chuck's wishes for Diary. After talking to Chuck, Diary is really something I am looking forward to.
JOHN: Well Chuck, good to see you again.
CHUCK: Well John, good to be back.
(Both laugh)
JOHN: So, how's the conference experience (Edinboro University's Postcards from the Future 2003) been this time around, compared to the last time?
CHUCK: It's been a lot more comfortable!
Chuck reads from Fugitives and
Refugees
JOHN: Really? Oh, here come our drinks…
CHUCK: And here come the drinks and the salads…
(Beer for me, red wine for Chuck)
JOHN: Very nice…Ashley doesn't recognize you (our waitress at “the DinOr” in Edinboro, PA).
CHUCK: That's a good thing (both laugh); that means she won't pee in our food.
JOHN: Exactly…so you're more comfortable this time.
CHUCK: Oh yeah…except for the first night in the bed and breakfast, that just did not work.
JOHN: That's where you were staying?
CHUCK: Yeah, it had six-foot ceilings, six…foot…ceilings…
JOHN: Wow!
CHUCK: And the owner was a Mary Kay distributor, the whole place smells like my grandmother's bathroom, just this overpowering, sweet, powdery smell.
JOHN: Do they have that shit hanging up all over the place?
CHUCK: Baskets of it, all over the place, I thought it was gonna kill me.
JOHN: That sucks…so you're in a better place now, I assume?
CHUCK: I'm in, yeah, Edinboro Inn, with the History channel and no Mary Kay cosmetics…
JOHN: I heard you talking about the History channel today, I was gonna say do you have cable and stuff at your house now? Or was that what you were referencing…
CHUCK: Yeah, I only watch TV when I'm on the road, it's like the thing that makes traveling bearable is the History channel…
JOHN: Do you think that you have changed since the first conference?
CHUCK: Well, I'm more comfortable doing this public figure thing, and part of it was just literally sitting next to my grandfather and saying, you know, I choose to be in public the way he was with people. I choose to not be frightened. I choose to just be comfortable with strangers. You know, I wanna emulate that for the rest of my life...that will be my inheritance.
JOHN: So has it been tough to reach that point? Over time has it gotten easier and easier to be comfortable after you've done like a thousand interviews?
CHUCK: Yeah, it's easier, but I don't know, I think there are people that get a lot more attention than me, that still aren't comfortable with it, that still resent it. Still hate it.
JOHN: I wonder if you could ever be comfortable with something like that though…
CHUCK: I think so, you know, because I'm more and more comfortable with it, if not entirely comfortable with it. The only time I'm not comfortable with it is when I'm physically exhausted from no sleep that's when it gets…I still get a little bit stressed.
JOHN: So what do your friends and family think of your success, your following, and what do they think about this conference? Do your buddies rag on you at all?
CHUCK: Most of them have no idea! We live such isolated lives in Portland, my family has no idea. At one point my agent asked me, he said something like “does your mom have any idea just how well-known you're becoming?” She doesn't, she has no idea. And I don't want her at the book events; I don't want them to see me in front of a bunch of people, because I don't want our relationship to change…
JOHN: I see, so you keep it kind of separate.
CHUCK: Exactly. So no, they know there is a lot more money around these days. They know the quality of my Christmas presents has gotten way up there, but they don't know the rest of it.
(Our dinners arrive: chicken alfredo for me, chicken stir fry for Chuck.)
JOHN: Can you talk briefly about your next two books Fugitives and Refugees and Diary in your own words? You read from Fugitives and Refugees (coming in July) today, and I can say that's going to be the best travel book I'm sure I've ever read, that was pretty hilarious! I read a little bit about Diary on the website (ChuckPalahniuk.net), and it's going to be about this older woman and her husband that's trying to commit suicide…
(L-R) Fugitives and
Refugees book cover, Diary book cover
CHUCK: She's a woman that years before she was in art school and she met this guy and she's still not even sure why she fell in love with him or what she loved about him. He never treated her very nice, but now she's middle-aged with a kid and this man is in a coma after what appeared to be a suicide attempt. More and more she's realizing that her entire adult life has been sort of orchestrated into bringing her together with this man, and bringing her to this isolated island of New England where they lived, and that she's really being used for some really horrific purpose, but she denies that. Because in a way it would reveal that over half of her life has been completely orchestrated and controlled by a group of people that she thought were her friends and she thought were her family. So its conspiracy fiction, its really dark conspiracy fiction where you realize that you aren't nearly as in control of your life as you ever dreamed and that ultimately she's betrayed by all these people that she thought were her only family.
JOHN: Wow! So it's about the process of her finding out what she hasn't known…
CHUCK: I could tell you the ending is a big twist…
JOHN: Well, don't (both laugh), I love your big twists.
CHUCK: It is the best twist ending I have ever done.
JOHN: Really?!
CHUCK: It is really the gold-standard of plot twists. It's better than the Tyler/Jack plot twist, squared. It is that plot twist squared.
JOHN: Wow! No shit, well that's awesome. And that comes out in the Fall?
CHUCK: September.
(We take a little time out to enjoy our meals…)
CHUCK: The Ring is one of the better movies that I have seen in a long time.
JOHN: So have you seen Requiem for a Dream? Did you like that? Or did you think it was well done I guess is what I mean…
CHUCK: I think it was well done, I didn't think that it was great writing plot-wise, it wasn't the kind of really convoluted, involving plot, it was more of an organic plot, but it was presented really, really well. A lot of sorta risky, experimental stuff and it worked.
JOHN: Did you see Pi?
CHUCK: (laughs) You're gonna hate me for this, but I hated Pi, I couldn't watch the whole thing.
JOHN: It was fucked up.
CHUCK: It was too dry to me, too…limited. Yeah, Aronofsky.
JOHN: Yeah, Darren Aronofsky.
CHUCK: Did you see Ghost Ship?
JOHN: No, I don't want to see Ghost Ship. (laughing)
CHUCK: Ghost Ship is actually good, it's good in a totally generic sort of bubble gum way, but at the end it's got a really good plot twist, it's got a plot twist as good as Unbreakable.
JOHN: You told me last time to see The Wings of the Dove...
CHUCK: I did?
JOHN: Well you told me at the end there's this big…
CHUCK: Sadness?
JOHN: Yeah, she comes to the realization at the end (I begin coming to a realization of my own that Chuck has no idea why he told me to see this movie starring Helena Bonham Carter, and I start to laugh), yeah, you told me to see that.
CHUCK: Sorry about that.
JOHN: Spike Lee's new one, 25th Hour with Ed Norton?
CHUCK: Haven't seen it yet.
JOHN: See that one.
CHUCK: Once I found out that I could tax deduct it, I got a massive home theater put together last year…
JOHN: Really?!
CHUCK: One huge room, just devoted to watching movies.
JOHN: How can you get that tax deducted?!
CHUCK: I'm sort of peripherally in the business (we both start to laugh) so I have to keep abreast of these things! Of course!
JOHN: That is awesome!
CHUCK: And so I got state-of-the-art, wide screen, everything!
JOHN: So you have DVD now and stuff?
CHUCK: Hell yeah! (Chuck may regret telling me this when he watches my movie on DVD which I gave him a copy of) I can lay there like a lump and watch movie after movie now. I've got to stay up on story and plot and who does what. It's important.
JOHN: Ah, but you didn't recognize the girls today flashing the west-side symbol, it's a big gangsta rapper thing, you know how the girls made you do this (I flash Chuck the west-side sign – who would have thought) when you were taking the picture with them?
CHUCK: I was too focused on the fact that I couldn't do it. Now I can do it.
Chuck & the Behr
sisters give a shout out (Photo by Carla J. Behr)
JOHN: Although I don't think they've done that in any movies lately, maybe 8 mile. Eminem's movie. Did you see that?
CHUCK: No, I wait for the movies to come out on DVD.
JOHN: It's out.
CHUCK: I either buy or rent them, it's out? OK.
(Our waitress comes over to check on us…)
JOHN: She's wondering why there's a tape recorder here probably.
CHUCK: Drug sting.
JOHN: Exactly.
CHUCK: So do you wanna buy any cocaine?
JOHN: (laughing) Wait until she comes over next time…Jackass?
CHUCK: I thought that was some of the finest work I've ever…no, I didn't see that.
JOHN: You didn't see it!?
CHUCK: Of course not.
JOHN: I never laughed that hard in a movie.
CHUCK: Obviously you never saw Porky's then…
JOHN: I saw Porky's, come on. Alright, I haven't laughed that hard for awhile. You know those shitty muscle-enhancer things that they had commercials for, you put like that pad on you and it shoots the electricity through you? (Chuck nods) They put them on their cheeks and…other parts.
CHUCK: You know, not having TV, I wasn't like primed with Jackass the TV series, I'm a little afraid that if I watch the movie, it will be like going to a different, foreign culture and I don't have that sort of familiarity so I just totally will not get it. Sometimes you sort of have to wade into these things with an appetizer up front, you cant just go right to that hard-core smack of Jackass.
JOHN: Well, the movie was just essentially the TV show, just unedited. It's really the same thing as the show. It's funny shit, but it's also really, really disgusting…(I enlighten Chuck more on the purpose of Jackass)…it's like a study in pain.
CHUCK: In a way its really expresses what when Sartre talks about dread, because friends of mine can not get out things like stun guns or pepper spray without me wanting to be shocked to see what its like…
JOHN: Right.
CHUCK: Because you can't be with those things without wanting to experience…
JOHN: So that you know.
CHUCK: Right, exactly. And I don't know how many parties I've gone to where I talked somebody into shocking me with their stun gun…
JOHN: Yea, it's just stuff like that…
CHUCK: Yea, you just wanna see how bad it hurts.
JOHN: Exactly, so did you see Fincher's Panic Room? It wasn't a big think piece, but I thought it was cool.
CHUCK: I did like it, I thought I was in the minority when I liked it…
JOHN: Yeah, a lot of people didn't like it. I think its was more of his attempt at mainstream for him, cause obviously Se7en and Fight Club aren't things that everyone is going to like, or The Game even. I'm just a sucker for his work, he can take the simplest scene and camera swoop and make it like the coolest thing.
CHUCK: In a way everything he's done has been so sort of claustrophobic, he's done so much really tight-space stuff, this was the first time he told a story within one really tight, space with the townhouse and the panic room…
JOHN: Exactly. OK, last one, did you see Bowling for Columbine?
CHUCK: No, not yet.
JOHN: See that, definitely.
CHUCK: I hear that Manson is really good in that.
JOHN: Yes, really good. So many of these people that protest him think he's the antichrist, you see him and he's just talking like a normal guy about the problem, and its really cool, I am not a big fan of Manson at all but I thought he did good.
CHUCK: He's really a smart guy and I want to see what he transitions into, whether it's a visual art or some sort of writing…
JOHN: Do you think he's done with music?
CHUCK: I think inside of himself he feels complete, in the same way that now that Eminem has done these three albums, what's he gonna do next? Transition to movies? What is it?
JOHN: Yeah, Manson should at least get into something that is going to show off his visuals…same with Trent, I was going to ask you about both of those guys and if you still keep in contact with them? Do they still ever talk like “Hey, we should do something down the line?” Because last time we talked there was so much, everything was so much different. It was like Survivor had been optioned (Chuck chuckles) and you were saying how Trent and Marilyn were interesting in things like doing the music…so much has changed since then.
CHUCK: Things have calmed down, but in a way that's good because the books have sort of eaten up my entire life. Once the books started making it into the Times Bestseller list, I had no time for anything else. Just you know like, people called…my whole life was just about getting them off the phone so I could get back to whatever was going on already.
JOHN: Did you think it was funny or annoying when I called you and invited you to my Halloween party? (Both chuckling)
CHUCK: No, it was fine! It was like, I think I chuckled to myself and then I said something to my family about it like “Hey, John Lyons said…” and they were like “Why?”
JOHN: It was just sort of funny because I had invited just about everyone I knew and then I thought “Why not invite Chuck Palahniuk!” (both laugh)
JOHN: When I bring up your name everyone in my family is like “Chuck who?” and then I say “You know mom, that guy who wrote Fight Club, the movie I can't get you to watch more than a half hour of?”
CHUCK: Ah! I don't think my mom has watched it either so…
JOHN: She just can't relate, as soon as they get into the basement and it's real dark, and they start fighting each other…
CHUCK: Your mother is gonna love Diary!
JOHN: Yeah?
CHUCK: Totally.
Chuck with my wife and my mom at the Erie Airport
JOHN: I can give it to her to read it?
CHUCK: She might actually really, really like it. A lot of it is about how your children betray you. Once they get to a certain age they become their own individuals and become ultimately sort of your enemy.
JOHN: Well she will have to read it, and then maybe watch it?
CHUCK: Ha! It's the one thing that the screen agent kept saying would be easy to sell to the movies, because it's a three act structure, it's got a middle-age female protagonist, it's got a romantic subplot, I mean parts of it are really, really conventional.
JOHN: Who can you see playing the female lead?
CHUCK: Julianne Moore looked at it, or is looking at it, Glenn Close could even but actually probably younger…
JOHN: Nicole Kidman, Jodie Foster?
CHUCK: Any of them, easy. Yeah. You gotta be just old enough to have an eleven year-old kid.
JOHN: Helena?
CHUCK: Hmmm. Anybody.
JOHN: Has she made any movies since then? (Then being Fight Club)
CHUCK: Planet of the Apes! (sounding very unimpressed) Yeah, geez, try to keep up!
JOHN: Yeah, I saw it. It's just not something that sticks in my mind.
CHUCK: It was a very compelling, highly romantic…
JOHN: Paycheck (we both laugh).
CHUCK: Remake.
Continue being a voyeur at Chuck + John's dinner in PART TWO!
part 1 | part 2
