Joe Rogan Experience #1158 — Chuck Palahniuk Transcript

Transcript

0:00 4, 3, 2, 1. I've read your books. I'm very pleased to meet you. I don't know. I'm, Because one of the things that I read once is I believe you were writing down, it was on the Cape. in England. Is that all white people? That's in England, right? What's wrong with clams? cunningham is that who was yeah because he uh yeah i think that's his story about living in

2:32 Yeah, three times a day It's like I don't want to do my taxes, so I take Ambien. We actually did a pretty in-depth discussion about that after the Roseanne Barr thing came out. Wakes up in the morning, birds around her. I can tell you're locked in. My degree is journalism. I have no idea how to be with people. some angst that just was not going to get out any other way and then you wrote about it and then when

6:19 And one is just my classic thing is that there are so few social model novels in which to come together and talk about their shed. father in men's lives, that you're born, if you're lucky, with a biological father that you do not with all these kids that were showing up on the doorstep of this ramshackle old house. it's such a common theme. They talk about this person being like a son or this person being like a father.

10:12 You know, whether you're apprenticing yourself to a fighting coach or to a metallurgist or Something that's a struggle. Yeah. have to become a being living towards death. You're not going to live forever, and you've but an even more extreme example of that. with a huge number of people, okay, there's a pattern. censorship and that and and and self-censorship which is going on apparently in writer groups and

14:31 For several years, I was in a writer's workshop, and the core group of us had been meeting since 1990. And it just became more and more tightly strictured that way. And so as a child, she would masturbate her grandfather until he achieved orgasm. And her editor at Knopf said, that is not going in this book because we want this book to be a big book.

17:20 She brought it to workshop and she read it. No. But there's giant problems with that, right? that kind of self-censorship. you know, kind of a degraded monster maybe. people feel like they can risk losing face by telling me their story that's very much like the gut story. And so I always think the point of writing is to coach yourself to that point that you would never

21:48 But in writing it, I'm also sort of springing the trap on myself, starting down a path that I have no idea is going to be so humiliating or so emotionally upsetting or so dark. him. Same thing in Choke. There's going to be that moment when people realize that he has faked choking and that he's made them into a fake hero. is that whenever I get stuck, I go to the gym

23:44 And it will take the story in a direction that is so unexpected because it's not from my experience. Yeah, the gym is really great because you're around people and you have these recoveries walk and bring a recorder or their So I love the fact that you're so open with these ideas, too, that you bring them to people and get their take on it and then incorporate their take.

25:45 work so that you knew whether it was working. You weren't constantly sort of questioning yourself. So he's got to copulate faster and faster to try to achieve orgasm before this thing completely goes flat. Wow. But a few other flat tires along the way? No. the the not just the necessity like the need to delve into the darker possibilities of of human

29:58 Not so many people really want to be kind of confronted by books. and isn't that sort of the point of creative expression that might bother some people, as a kind of thing that lulls you and comforts you and puts you to sleep. Oh, yeah. Not for me. And so I want writing to be my social outlet. Yeah. That's typing. But when it's scrawled on the page in front of you, you can draw arrows, you can scribble it out,

34:41 It used to be, I grew up in the age of typewriters, when even typewriters were kind of So that when I do have to go to the boring part with a keyboard, I have got so much wonderful, That was a big Hunter S. Thompson thing. So, no, talking into a recorder is just that, a mess. about contacting my agent for different issues. It was words, but it was also some situations that I thought were, you know, I got that

38:06 Most of the time people would go to the bathroom and weep. Am I beating them up? It does, but I don't think it hurts to be aware so that you don't lapse into being a bully for I'm delving into the deep recesses, if I'm lucky, if I'm doing it right, of your mind, of something that they'll, like seven years old, she was in second grade and she was was in an organization called the Brownies, which is a precursor to the Girl Scouts.

41:32 asleep. And while I was asleep, this vibrating, warm heating pad must have slid down between my riding this heating pad, and they had a great time. And she said, and for the first time in my life, And she says, this woman who's my age now, she says, I have not had an orgasm since I was seven years old. And so see, see, see, see, that's what I'm trying to do.

44:42 And there was no shame in it. problem for this little girl instead i was like okay let's get out of the bathroom now For me, I was in Germany. I went in the bathroom in the airport. I didn't know what this button was, so I pressed it. And One of that bathroom you could lock. to that story that one you're gonna get away with you'll get away with that one. The jerking off the grandfather one is in a different place.

48:19 But I find with so many beginning writers is that they have absolutely no capacity to be with tension or suspense. And that's good writing. You know, bad writing is where it comes up. It's resolved. that really we didn't have the freedom We know of real monsters. you know, real eyewitness testimony, real interviews with these monsters, You know, it's in a way, it's a, it's an ongoing thing for me,

52:22 You go really far when you piss off psychos. Because they are enormously popular, these prison librarians tell me, but the books are considered way too stimulating. So people in prison cannot read my books. Oh, God. That. Oh, God. They're doing it, they're kind of white knighting on behalf of someone else. but they're thinking how that word might hurt people they know.

54:58 Another really odd comic, David Sedaris' story, is that he always told me, when you're on the road, don't read from And just hours before this kid, like two hours before this kid had been riding his bicycle, And this exposes this liver-colored, dark red musculature of the child's underlying face. I laughed really loud like a donkey. Not afterwards.

58:12 and you just sat and looked at them and went, on Union Square, yeah, you can be hated by your mother. It's okay. Now, when those people come But it's, again, they're hissing on behalf of someone. And to make my point, at the end of the story, I made a cheap shot. Yeah, well, that's one of the things You know, a scene like the Sarah Jessica Parker joke is a perfect example.

1:01:21 Well, it hasn't changed that much. But they're nightclub audiences. most of their life and haven't had their own anything they think is air quotes And he goes in, you know, and Kinison's like, you just want to grab the guy. He goes, come here. And he didn't have anything to say. discriminated against and amazing for folks who are marginalized and uplifting for those who

1:05:04 And he goes, you imagine these people, they're on the slabs. It never ends. it on cable when I was like 19 years old. But she talks in valley speak. Nobody's seen this And it spills out there on the concrete floor. She did it on TV. Be happy. But Ira Levin But these are moments that if you're going to censor people, if you're going to self-censor, if you're going to decide that people can't use certain words, if you're going to decide that certain scenarios are just too upsetting for the reader, These moments are going to be harder and harder to achieve,

1:08:30 yourself up viciously like why did I say that I'm such a jerk yeah I didn't need to say that that this idea of equality of outcome is it's absurd it equality of outcome is, it's absurd. You fall into that Jake Gatsby trap It was. that this is, like, you have to work now. you know, you've met those people. Sure. And all they have to talk about It was always objects.

1:12:33 You know how much those cost? It's such a strange, common trap. Build those brick walls and really develop the pride of a skill. When you found out that this guy ripped you off, were you shocked? And every time I requested them, the publisher said that they had been paid. So the money seems to be gone. The agency handled the estate of Lillian Hellman and Jacqueline Suzanne and a lot of very big, big writers.

1:16:36 Oh, thank God. No, 3.30 is kind of my drop dead. Oh, okay. I was trying to look to see if it was someone else. like Guts, you know? he's down with a guy like that and just find out how he thinks about shit like who's you know how he's The sound of your voices, by isolating, by putting the headset on His background in journalism Feel better? So, back to this dude ripping you off.

1:19:58 corporations and they could recover So apparently these are people who do it for a living. You want to make sure you get that money first. Otherwise, it's sitting in coffee cans buried in All these projects. And so, you know, I haven't really lost bulletproof after those things. talk about this more and more with writers I know, is that when you're starting out, you've got a lot of downtime, a lot of daydreaming time,

1:22:59 That's another death sentence for their comedy. You lose that. Totally makes sense. your concepts, figuring out a better way to get them through. You never want to experience that and figuring out how to tighten things, cut out the fat. And so, yeah, regardless of what happens, you know, before my father got murdered, he had been asking me for an introduction to Winona Ryder in 1998.

1:26:33 And you have to do it all the time. Well, that's, again, the great thing about unchained writing is that you can express those ideas. And that would be my main concern about any sort of a workshop or support group or any sort of group of like-minded peers even within workshop, you should kind of get it. But unless you're rustling feathers, even within

1:28:00 And they shot that scene with so many different substitute lines. It's just kind of a proof that you're doing your job. They've really been pounded by so much stimuli. You can have agency. could recognize the important part that they play in the culture and society. But then they had and I was like wow this dumb fuck like this this this guy's running this

1:32:04 and puts his hands down, I've probably watched it 10 times, they all start laughing. It's not supposed to be that way. It's this old person who's weak and wants to keep their job and is willing to tailor their own thoughts and ideas to this irrational mob of social justice warriors. It was this man that just didn't take shit from anybody. You're seeing that spill out into social media

1:35:06 form. And the rest of them will just kind of filter down into whatever jobs, whatever careers, So many people have seen their parents achieve what they thought was going to make them happy a big everyone blind in the dark right now. Club was. It's just this kind of experiment in how interaction could be structured in a different way. And these things take place in these kind of playful environments like Burning Man,

1:37:58 there. And every year we don't have another Occupy. Well, I don't know if that's a valid comparison because Occupy was infiltrated by cops and the FBI and they pretended to be protesters and sat amongst them and the whole thing was kind of misguided in the first place. You're there to create something. who set up shop there with a $ thousand dollar suit on and he basically said i

1:39:35 You understand that I'm creating something, and you can create something too. It was almost to me like white blood cells surrounding an infection. though their companies failed and the tax dollars had to rescue them. and I think that's probably right. You know, people who just don't fit in, they die. and actively seek these different states of consciousness.

1:43:15 Portland was such a laboratory incubator city. It's like New York City used to be. up there man yeah the fucking green you guys have a neon glowing it rains all the time green It's pretty terrifying stuff. people who makes me really laugh, And they think that maybe I'm a good person when it's just exactly the opposite. That doesn't make you a bad person. No, I'm a bad person. That's a person who's appreciative of a dark moment. That doesn't make you a bad person.

1:45:37 but this is another one of those cognitive reframing honesty things, losing someone I love so much. and they have to care for them 24-7, You know, another thing is I'm really, really conflicted about the nature of my creativity. story. And I honestly believe he had never told anybody the carrot story. And I kept that story their lives with him anymore because he's kind of made them involuntary public figures and they have

1:50:46 some horrible roads, both mentally and in reality in your work. And it's amazing stuff. But to but absolutely exists. You're creating this tension. I was having dinner with a good friend of mine, his wife, and a buddy of mine, and my friend's friend and his wife. And this kid doesn't have an identity. And I looked at my other friend who was with me who didn't know any of these other people.

1:53:57 And we just left. He knew it went over like a lead balloon. like drug addicts or people fuck up or you know people were addicted to gambling or something you from Philadelphia to New York once on tour. And as we're going past Liberty Hall in Philadelphia, Where the bricks are offset in such a way that they bond in the center. And we were best friends.

1:56:21 And that poor guy had to do this whole re-juggling of everything that the guy who knew Flemish Bond was also one of them. any kind of chatty, conversational relationship seen an adult upset about gay people before and then uh my friend candy candido what was his name But yet he's got this infant idea of what a person should be. older doesn't mean they learned anything, you know, and that people are capable of success

1:58:42 You got it all. Not that they're going to be challenged, but that at least we're aware that it's there. I don't think you've done it once the whole show. Who is that? You fuck her. Right. it's somebody else's statement, somebody else's opinion, observation, that it's not true. And you then when the trash talk starts coming, they go, oh, yeah? conflict but some person but that person insulting them and verbal conflict and and demeaning them

2:03:27 Like not thinking of them as a worthy competitor who they respect, who they're ready to go to battle with and will shake'll shake hands first, and afterwards we'll go have a beer together after we beat the shit out of each other. Just give me your neck. you see them they look exhausted you see the day of the fight they look nervous they, they look exhausted. You see the day of the fight, they look nervous. They look really worried.

2:04:29 There's definitely something to be around abusive people, And one of the more difficult things for people post-war is coming back into a kind, gentle, boring world. Did you read Sebastian Younger's Tribe's tribe no that's a new one Let's wrap this up, Chuck. When can we expect this be a big fat writing book from me. Appreciate it.