Interview With Randall Sokoloff (A Brief Excerpt) (Post #421)

The writer Marty Fletcher interviews the writer, blogger, artist and psychotherapist Randall Sokoloff. This interview will be published in our upcoming summer issue of WEDONTEXIST Magazine, which will be about the art of blogging.

Randall: Hello?

Interviewer: Hi Randall. Should we continue the interview now for thirty more minutes or so?

Randall: Sure. What was it you were saying last time we talked?

Interviewer: I’ve been reading your blog and other published writings for a long time now. I can’t seem to figure out what exactly you are doing but this interview is an attempt to make some sense of your writing. Is it one big lie you are constructing or are you actually telling this continuous, never-ending story with each piece that you write, like an open ended novel? I think of your writing as merging somewhere in between these two points, but I wanted to ask you, what are you doing?

Randall: With my writing?

Interviewer: Yes.

Randall: I like a quote from Stevenson about fiction: “The novel, which is a work of art, exists, not by its resemblances to life, which are forced and material, as a shoe must consist of leather, but by its immeasurable difference from life, which is both designed and significant, and is both the method and the meaning of the work.” So for me the meaning has nothing to do with what I write, the meaning of what I write is entirely in the distance from what is being written about.

Interviewer: So you are merging both method and meaning?

Randall: I suppose. Each story that I write is really just setting up the need for another story, so yes your statement about my writing as a kind of continuous and unfinished novel or literary project is correct.

Interviewer: The meaning of what you write is to be found in its distance from reality?

Randall: I think that fiction is realistic when it reminds readers that what they are reading is a complete lie. Getting readers to a point where they can accept the pleasure and excitement of the text they are reading as being just that and not a reflection of something else. In fiction meaning only exists in the experience of reading. Outside of the book or blog entry the story does not exist. The meaning is temporary, transitory, like all forms of meaning. It is the same when watching a film or listening to music. The meaning is transitory. The problem is when people try to extend the meaning of art into reality (the world).

Interviewer: What I like about certain stories or pieces of music is that they are not trying to offer up some kind of conclusion that you can take home with you. There is an infinite bundle of possibilities within the piece but ultimately it does not mean anything beyond the experience of reading or listening. Even though I feel like sometimes you are offering solutions in your work, I don’t feel like there are any conclusions. Just infinite possibilities.

Randall: I like that reading of my work. Thank you. For me, fiction is the only authentic terrain where anarchy is still possibility within a society that has become completely militarized and regulated. Within the context of fiction the writer has limitless possibilities. They can shape realities in whatever way they want. This is the exciting thing about blogging. There are no rules online. Do whatever you want! There is the freedom to create whatever meaning you want to create. Where else in life can a person do this?

Interviewer: This is why it so important to not accept any conclusion, even though it may look good.

Randall: Absolutely. In our current society, if you accept a conclusion, chances are you have accepted propaganda- not straight talk.

Interviewer: I feel like your work has something to do with a kind of resistance. Resistance to the status quo, to the society you find yourself living in. It seems like there is a kind of heroic struggle in your writing.

Randall: I don’t know about that. Sure there is a lot of resistance in my writing. Writing for me is an act of resistance against status quo. Ultimately, I’m trying to work through the problem of sincerity. I am attempting a kind of sincerity between what the story is about and what is being said. This is the interesting problem for me to try and work out in my writing.

Interviewer: Yes. The pleasure of reading your work, for me at least, is going on this journey as you try and work through the interesting problem you just spoke of. You are a terrific narrator and you make things happen on the page that I identify deeply with. Even if you are not understanding what may be going on there is still the pleasure of discovery when reading what you write. I feel like I get to join you on the path of discovery, that reaching into what you do not know yet.

Randall: Thank you. I like that and would like to say more about it. Do you mind if I go get a cup of coffee quickly and then you could call me back in say twenty minutes?

Interviewer: Sure. No problem. I could use some coffee myself.

Read more of this interview with Randall Sokoloff in the upcoming summer issue of WEDONTEXIST Magazine!

My Sex Neutral (Post #404)

Sex Neutral (1)

 

 

 

 

 

While I was making myself a radish and hummus sandwich, I was thinking about my Sex Drive. I happened upon the subject of Sex Drive because I was thinking about how it had been a very long time since I masturbated. I used to masturbate a healthy amount, so such a long period of not even thinking about it seemed unusual for me. Was my health declining? In response to this, the first thought that came to my mind was, it is no longer a Sex Drive, it is a Sex Neutral.

I don’t know where this thought came from. Heidegger claimed that thoughts come to us, not we to them. But does Sex Neutral even make any sense? What does it mean?

(Let me get back to this as soon as I finish eating my radish and hummus sandwich. Please give me a moment.)

(That was delicious.) Drive implies forward movement (momentum) and power. When you put your car or tractor or bus or motorcycle into Drive- a very heavy weight is being pulled forward, often at high speeds. I suppose it is accurate to say that my Sex Drive has given up its pulling. So to call it a Sex Drive would be calling it something that it is not (which, I realize is a popular practice in our American culture). At this point in my life, my Sex Drive must be called something else.

In continuing with the car analogy, if I am no longer in Drive what gear would I be in? Certainly not Park. I still think about sex. I still desire sexual experience from time-to-time. I still get aroused at the site of an attractive woman. So Sex Parked I am not.

Reverse? Not in the least. I am as convinced and confident about my own heterosexuality today as I was when I could not get thoughts of having sexual experiences with girls out of my teenage head. Sex Reversed I am not. What else is there?

Park, Reverse, Drive……Neutral.

Neutral.

When I think of Neutral in terms of driving a car, I think of meditatively coasting along (to coast means to move easily without using power). I think about being free from the dominating dependency on gasoline and an engine. I also think about being out of gas and hoping that I can coast my way a little closer to a gas station or at least find a safe place to come to a full stop. For the most part, the person who is coasting along in Neutral is in a hurry to get nowhere in  particular.

In this sense, my initial thought about my Sex Drive being more like Sex Neutral was probably right. Isn’t this usually the case? Our very first thought about a subject or situation is usually the correct one and all the thinking about the first thought just leads us further away from the truth. Initially, while making my radish and humus sandwich, I was reactive to my Sex Neutral thought. It felt more like a put down than a truthful self-realization. Humans do not like the truth and it is only natural that the truer a self-realization is, the more reactive we will become. (Think about it- if a realization or statement about one’s self is not true at all, we immediately know this. As a result it is non-threatening. We laugh it off and hardly suffer any kind of rise in our blood pressure as a result.)

Sex Neutral. That is exactly the gear I have been shifted into.

At one long dragged out point in my life, I was in Sex Drive. My Sex Drive powered me around day and night. It crushed me under its weight. I was defenseless (and had to become a disciplined meditator in order to get even a small amount of practical things done). All I could really do was surrender myself to it and do what it said. And what it often said was, “GO! GO! GO! Go out in search of sex! Get as much sex as you can! Have as many sexual experiences as possible!” This was annoying because often all I wanted to do was read a book. My entire twenties (and some of my thirties) was a time of unchosen obedience to Sex Drive. I went where it pulled. Even though I did not manage to have as many sexual experiences as my Sex Drive would have liked (I was often very shy), there were few things other than sex on my mind.

Now, with fifteen or so years of sexual decline behind me, Neutral is an accurate description of the libidinous and procreative gear that I am in. If it happens great, if not that’s ok as well. This is my general mentality with regards to sex and children. It is similar to what I think while coasting in Neutral in my car (which, I do a lot these days), if I get a little further down the road great, if not that is ok also.

Do not get me wrong. I am not one to turn down a sexual experience (as long as no one is hurt). A prude I am not. But I am certainly no longer salivating onto my button down shirt every time I pass by any person, place or thing that signifies a potential sexual experience. I can look at it, appreciate it for what it is, but let it pass by without a even hint of suspended longing in my eyes. When I was in Sex Drive, this was never the case.

Let me conclude by saying this: my Sex Drive has been (as it usually is) shifted into Sex Neutral by aging forces that are far beyond my control. Some men are fortunate or unfortunate (who am I to judge?) to go through their entire lives without being downshifted into Sex Neutral. Many are shifted into Sex Park. Some into Sex Reverse. Personally, I can’t imagine playing out the tempestuousness of Sex Drive throughout my entire life. There are many things that I disdain about growing older (hair loss, my heroes getting old and some dying, belly fat, chronic fatigue combined with a feeling of urgency, muscle atrophy, closer to my own end, an inability to stay up late, people I personally know dying, less time to be creative, loss of youth, continual ringing in ears, loss of interest in being social, infections, no longer socially acceptable to dye hair different colors) but coasting along in Neutral is certainly not one of them.

Interview With Myself #3: Bowel Movements, Blogging and on Being a Writer (or Blogger) Without Readers.

I am again sitting at my round kitchen table looking out into my backyard.  For this interview I am not still in my pajamas but instead am wearing a nice pair of corduroy pants with my shirt tucked in. It is fair to say that I am dressed up nicely. It is 11:15am and I have already been out of the house for a bit to grab a muffin and some tea from a bakery that I like in downtown Claremont. I sat and drank my tea, consumed my muffin and read a book for an hour or so. The mistake that I made was that I drank strong green tea and ate a bran muffin. Halfway through my walk home I felt an immense pressure pushing against my anal sphincter and knew I had an immediate problem. This happens to me sometimes when I eat certain foods that seem to have a laxative effect. I forgot that the combination of green tea and bran muffin have this effect upon me and as I walked home I really thought that I may defecate in my pants. I used my butt muscles to create a kind of block against whatever was trying to force its way out. The closer that I got to my home the more difficult it became to not give into the pressure. I am embarrassed to say that in the middle of an intersection I had to stop and use my hands to press both of my butt cheeks together so as not to literally lose my shit right there in the road. I am glad to report that I made it to the toilet just in time yet escaping the mess and humiliation that almost occurred. After using the bathroom I came and sat down for this interview. I had a look of great relief upon my face.

Interviewer: Well now that you gave us that rather disturbing and somewhat disgusting introduction how are you feeling now?

Randall: I feel really relieved at the moment, thank you.

Interviewer: I am sure you do.

Randall: I do.

Interviewer: Well, thank you for making it on time to our interview today.

Randall: My pleasure.

Interviewer: After yesterday’s interview I was not sure if you were going to show up today.

Randall: Neither was I. Yesterday was a tough one and I thought that I may just want to take today off, work in my garden and try to rediscover my love of reading literature.

Interviewer: Well you have plenty of time to do that later today.

Randall: Yes I do.

Interviewer: Just out of curiosity, have you ever “defecated in your pants” before?

Randall: I have, once before. I was in a coastal city in Spain called Malaga. I had eaten lunch at an outdoor restaurant on the beach where they specialized in freshly caught fish and jumbo sardines. I ate a lot of large and delicious sardines at lunch a long with another kind of whole fish, eyes and all, covered in pebble sized sea salt. The name of the fish I do not remember. I also drank a pitcher of delicious sangria (not all to myself of course, I was having lunch with another person). Anyways after lunch we went back to our hotel room, rested for a bit and then I decided to get some exercise and went for a long walk. I hiked up into the foothills of Malaga where there were beautiful Spanish style suburban homes that overlooked the sea. On my way down from the hill I began to feel that pressure against my anal sphincter that I spoke of in the introduction. But this time the pressure was much more immediate and serious and I knew I was in trouble. I…….

Interviewer: Ok well I think that is plenty of information. I get the point and would be quite happy if you spared me any further details.

Randall: But you don’t want to know about how I……

Interviewer: No, no, no really I get it. My imagination can take care of the rest. Lets move on to some other questions.

Randall: Well you asked me if I had defecated in my pants before.

Interviewer: I did and I am sorry that I did. I opened a door that I should have kept shut. That is why I want to know move this interview in another direction.

Randall: Ok, whatever you need to do but I find that this is a recurring theme with you.

Interviewer: With me?

Randall: Yes. Whenever conversation seems to get too difficult or uncomfortable for you you pull out of it. It is like you just can not deal with the conversation if it is not agreeable with you and often times this leaves me feeling cut off, shut up and unheard.

Interviewer: Well, I apologize if I make you feel this way, it is not my intention.

Randall: I understand that it may not be your intention but it is often what you do and I do not like how it feels. Just like you want to be able to discuss and talk about whatever you want I have the same needs. You always tell me to speak my mind, to tell you honestly how I feel but then sometimes when I do this you get uncomfortable and upset with me. You confuse me- I don’t know if you want me to speak my mind and be honest or to be careful what I say to you for fear of upsetting you.

Interviewer: Well I don’t know what to say to you Randall other than I will try to be more mindful of this in the future. Of course I want you to speak your mind, to be honest with me. As the interviewer I need you to be honest and open with me or else the interview would be dull and boring. I will work on being more mindful of how I react to you and try to not avoid or shut down the conversation when you are discussing things that make me feel uncomfortable. Fair?

Randall: Sounds fair to me. Can I continue with my story about how I defecated in my pants?

Interviewer (with a cringe upon his face) I think that for the sake of the reader it would be best if we moved on to other subject matters. There are so many questions that I want to ask you about yourself that it may take a year to get through this interview process at the rate at which we are going.

Randall: What other questions do you have for me today?

Interviewer: Well I wanted to talk with you about the blog that you have been keeping for the past five years or so.

Randall: You mean Absurdistry?

Interviewer: Yes.

Randall: Ok.

Interviewer: Well I am wondering how it feels to be a blogger without many readers?

[just as I asked Randall this question he got up to go see if there were any avocados that were ready to be picked from his avocado tree. He came back inside with three unripe and unready to be picked avocados in his hand.]

Randall: If you put them in a paper bag, in a week they will be delicious and ready to eat.

Interviewer: Aren’t you trying to rush natures process?

Randall: Sometime I am too impatient for natures process.

Interviewer: I see. Well are you ready to answer the initial question that I asked you before you got up to go check on the avocado tree?

Randall: The question about being a blogger who know one reads?

Interviewer: Yes.

Randall: (taking a deep breath) First off I do not consider myself to be a blogger. I am a writer and I use my blog to self publish my writings.

Interviewer: Isn’t that what most bloggers do?

Randall: I don’t know what most bloggers do but what I do is write stories and other stuff and then use my blog “Absurdistry” to self publish my writings.

Interviewer: I understand this but is it fair to say that there is a difference between self-publishing and posting?

Randall: What do you mean?

Interviewer: What I mean is that often times publishing often involves some kind of contract/payment for your work and it also means having more than one or two readers whereas posting is what a blogger like yourself does when they write something and then put it on their blog hoping that others will read it.

Randall: I am not a blogger.

Interviewer: I understand that you do not think that you are a blogger and prefer to think of yourself as a writer but as it stands- you are a blogger.

Randall: I am not a blogger.

Interviewer: You really are my friend.

Randall: Would I be more of a writer if I did not “post” my writings on my blog and instead sent my writings out to other people and agencies in that hopes that I get published?

Interviewer: Yes. As long as the entirety of your writing output is not going up on your blog and you are making an effort to be exposed to a larger amount of readers through various publishers, literary journals, on-line, I would say you are more of a writer then.

Randall: Well, we both obviously have different ideas about this.

Interviewer: You are a blogger.

Randall: I am not.

Interviewer: You are!

Randall: (silence)

Interviewer: And how does it feel to post your writings on a blog that barley no one reads or comments on. To basically know that you are writing, or “self publishing” and almost no one is reading these words and you are doing it for free!

Randall: (silence)

Interviewer: (waiting for a response)

Randall: Look, I started Absurdistry because I thought it was a good way to “self publish” my writings. I am not the kind of guy who is going to take the time to send or submit my writings to various publications (this is why I decided to become a psychotherapist). It is just not going to happen. I feel like my writing stands on its own and in time it will earn the respect of various readers. I trust that the future of reading is blogs and that I will get more readers and notoriety from “posting” on my blog than if I was to take other publishing routes.

Interviewer: Is it fair to say that this point of view is just a way for you to rationalize your laziness when it comes to doing anything about your writing career? That you are engaging in a bit of magical thinking and are avoiding really doing what it would take to be the kind of writer that you have always dreamed of being?

Randall: (silence)

Interviewer: Do you not want to answer my question?

Randall: I think I have had enough of your questions for today.

Interviewer: Really?

Randall: Really.

Interviewer: Now you are shutting me up, doing just the thing that you asked me not to do to you.

Randall: I think this interview is finished for today.

[Randall, obviously very frustrated with the subject matter I brought up, gets up from the table, opens the refrigerator and stares into it as if he is trying to find a way to escape from this particular moment in time.]

The Sex Life Of A Blogger

Since I have been blogging for the past six months I have noticed that something very strange has happened to my sex life. It has vanished. Prior to blogging I was certainly not blessed with a prolific sex life- but it was alive. I was able to recall what sex felt like and I never went more than a week without some kind of sexual encounter. I was interested in sex and sought it out almost on a daily basis. I thought about it and imagined various pornographic scenarios in the back stages of my mind. It would be fair to say that I was a rather normal guy who suffered the same affliction as most other men- I was obsessed with sex. But since I began blogging, something has happened. My lust has dissipated like mist in the early afternoon. My sex life has vanished and there is no trace of it to be found.

I have done some research on this ailment that I have been suffering from and what I have found has not been encouraging. Spending long hours blogging can induce what is referred to as Mortotonia, which is a depletion of the sexual hormones in the brain. Also another interesting bit of information that I have run up against time and time again is that blogging can make an individual anti-social and introverted, which has a tendency to depress ones over all sexual drive. All of this makes sense to me but I still can’t understand why I have absolutely no interest in sex. I used to love pornography and now I am repulsed by it. Semen which never bothered me before is now as disgusting to me as  chronic eczema. I am so uninterested in women that my wife is beginning to wonder if I may be gay.


I have spent the past few weeks trying to tell my wife that my lack of interest in sex is nothing personal against her. Her concern about the possibility that I am gay is as ridiculous as her feeling that I am no longer attracted to her. “You are a beautiful woman, whom I am terribly in love with,” I tell her over and over but the minute I reject her attempts to make love to me she bursts out in tears and lamentations. How is it that I am to explain that the reason for my lack of sex drive is because of my habitual blogging habits? Blogging has destroyed my sexual appetites but she would never believe this, she would only think that I have lost what little sense I have left. But the truth is that blogging has destroyed my sexual interests. It has reduced my sensual experience down to the feeling of the key board against my finger tips. The only way I seem to feel aroused any more is when I receive comments for the posts that I have written or when my blog stats display that more than a hundred people have viewed my writings that day. My whole life in fact has been reshaped by my need to blog. Various friendships I once had have diminished and I am no longer interested in the social engagements that were once such fun for me. Sometimes I wonder if my wife was not far from the truth when she yelled at me the other day that “I have become as lifeless as a blog.” I have been thinking about this lately and I wonder if it could be true?

No More Awards, Please!!

I just received notification for an award that I received today. The award is for ” Blog With Least Amount Of Weekly Readers” and I must say that I am surprised. I have always thought that having ten to twelve readers or “hits” a day was fairly decent. I was proud of my weekly rating of around seventy hits. But when I received this award for “Blog With The Least Amount Of Weekly Readers,” I did some research. I found that successful blogs receive over 10,000 hits a day and mediocre ones receive at least 500. 500!!!!! Since I have started this blog I have gained many awards for things like “Most Ridiculous Content,” “Most Depraved Blogger,” “Blogger In Need Of Most Psychological Assistance,” “Least Commented Upon Blog,” and so forth- but this most recent award has really opened my eyes! I mean I have been writing, laboring and living in the dark thinking that ten or so hits a day was decent!

All I had to do to receive the reward for “Blog With Least Amount Of Readers” was push a button and what I won was three private phone consultation with a blogging service that could help me acquire more readers. It is a pity prize, a reward that is intended to patronize the awardee. So I will not follow through with receiving the free consultations but I will ask one final time to Please….stop giving me these humiliating rewards!! I write not to be awarded but rather to release my numerous thoughts and emotions into the digital void hoping that some semblance of a life form will answer with various solutions for my existence here on earth. Some days, I stay away from this blog because I am afraid of what I might say and instead decide to keep it all in. Now that I know that 10 or so hits a day is nothing to be proud of I may change my strategy…but like I wrote in the awardee comment box when I accepted this last award “It is not about quantity…but rather quality. If I can affect only one reader with the things I write than I would rather have one reader than 10,000.” But Please….to whomever this may concern- NO MORE AWARDS, please! These awards are causing me to question why I spend my time blogging and taking a toll upon what little self confidence I have left (please read my last post entitled “The Trappings Of My Mind” for more information upon my psychological state at the moment).

No More Awards….please!

This blog has been nominated for and given numerous awards. Every other day seems to bring a new nomination or award. I am the only Blogger that has been nominated for so many awards but yet maintains the least amount of interested readers and an all-time low number of comments. Some of the nominations have been for terrible writing style or offensive content but most of the awards I have received have been for worst blog. I am constantly asked by other Bloggers why I write the things I write, what purpose does it serve? I am inept of answers other than the simple response “because it is fun.” But all this fun is bringing me down as the awards keep pouring in. Just this morning I found out that I was nominated for two more awards, all of which have done nothing for my self-esteem. Please, no more awards.

Who would of ever thought that expressing the deep penetralias of my imagination would provoke an onrush of so many awards. I began this blog in the same way that someone would begin therapy. I recognized that I was in need of help and thought that I could either attempt to put my life down in words spoken through the vernacular of stories, or I could continue to suffer in my own private cerebral membrane. I new that I needed to come out of my shell and had remembered the therapeutic effects of writing that a short story teacher I once took a class from- often talked about (even though he had fallen into the rut of alcoholism and animal fetish). I took to blogging like a infant takes to a mothers breast. Stories of perversion and psychosomatic breakdown came poring out of me like lava from the mouth of a crater. Now I am hardly able to control the flow. Bloging has become for me like any other excretory process- I have to do it and if not my health will fail.

So here I am again clearing my body and brain of various thoughts and condemnations I have been feeling this morning. Receiving all the awards that I have has been surprising since I set out not for accolades. The other day I received an award for Least Commented Upon Blog. I never knew that such awards existed but once I received the award for Most Degenerate Content (the award was given because the judges felt that my blog lacked any moral integrity), I realized that any kind of award is possible. There are people in the blogging world with nothing to do but give out ridiculous awards to Bloggers like my self who have nothing to gain from these awards but a lowered sense of confidence to continue writing (and a feeling of isolation because I can not share these awards with my mother, father, sister or wife because it is to embarrassing). To all such award creators who seem to lack a life of meaning- please, NO MORE AWARDS!!

My last entry, The Great Leg Trap, just received two awards, this morning!! I awoke and found in my email the awards which come in the form of a brief letter explaining why I have been chosen and a widget that is offered to me so I can post my victory upon my blog. I have no desire to show off my accolades (like a general does upon his sleeve or a business man does with the quality of his tie). I rather write humbly without any disturbing widgets mentioning that I have won awards for things like “Offensive and Godless Content,” “False Tagger,” “Blogger Most In Need Of Psychological Treatment,” “Defiantly, Worst Blog,” and this morning “Most Ridiculous Entry,” and “Most Failed Attempt To Be Funny Entry.” There is no economic compensation for these awards other than the recognition that comes from humiliation.

So please, I would like to ask all of you who create these absurd award contests for Bloggers like myself to be victimized by…NO MORE AWARDS. It is really starting to affect my self esteem and I am questioning the things I write more and more. I am wondering if there is any point to continue on writing since the majority of my efforts are derided by your ridiculous awards. I have noticed that each time I receive an award I become more depressed and unwilling to write. The corner stone of good writing is in the authors ability to be absolutely honest in whatever he or she writes, and my ability to do so is being compromised by an insecurity that is beginning to form. Each entry that I write I have trepidation about publishing because I am afraid to see what kind of award it will receive. I have even started to delete certain blog entries because I feel they are certain to receive an award that will only increase my despair. Life is hard enough. This blog is only an exercise in cultivating mental health for myself, nothing else!! I do not want your recognition and I certainly do not need these ridiculous widgets!!. So please, I beg you from the bottom of my heart….NO MORE AWARDS!!!!