SHOOTING THE NEIGHBOURS - A Conversation About Titles, Tattoos And Conspiracy Theories
Steven Storrie and Melanie Browne
SS; So, the same question for everyone to start. There's three songs on the jukebox. What are you playing?
MB; Well there’s Merle haggard because he recently died. ‘Mama Tried’. It’s so sad!! This guy’s in jail but his momma tried. Then there’s Nitty Gritty Dirt band's cover of ‘Going Up To The Country’. Then we have The Police and ‘Roxanne’.
I love Merle Haggard. Such a sad loss. I think he was a true outlaw in an age of wannabe's. I know a couple from Atlanta that love him. She has 'Mama Tried' tattooed on her wrist and he has 'Kentucky Gambler' in the same style. I always thought that was pretty cool!
Oh that sounds like a fun tattoo, do you have any? I have one but my sister recently tried to get me to get another and I said No! It hurts, you’re crazy!
Haha yeah I'm covered in them! I think it's so addictive. All of mine are literary and music related. My favourite is the red typewriter I have with the Hemingway quote around it that says 'Work The Fat Off Your Soul'. I'm already planning my next one haha. What's the one you've got?
People's tats are an obsessional interest of mine. what type of typewriter is it? I have a Tattoo that says Rebel Yell, its the logo from the Rebel Yell Whiskey bottle. I had turned 40 and went crazy.
Haha that's amazing! 'Rebel Yell' is a cool thing to have. Do people ever think it's because you like Billy Idol?! It's a red Royal typewriter, copped from Hunter Thompson's in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Cool, I just saw a video of Hunter Thompson shooting at his neighbor on FB this morning hahaha. I got to meet Billy last year, at a meet and greet, I could barely speak so i beat myself up for not saying I’m a fan or something like that. He was nice. Also, I got to realize he's a human being like everyone else, not some magical being in a forest.
Wow that's awesome! I'm so glad to hear he was nice. How did that come about? It's always good to know the people you admire are cool isn't it? I met Chuck D from Public Enemy once and he was everything I hoped he would be. Which was a relief! Yeh I love Hunter, he's a huge inspiration. Not so much in writing terms, I just like to shoot at my neighbors too!
That's cool. Chuck D! I started re-reading Fear and Loathing a few months back. Yeah I just decided to meet him and hopped on a plane and went to Richmond. I used to be afraid to fly but not anymore, because I realized if you want to go to cool places you have to, but I think the fear of flying went to my dreams now, because I have nightmares of crowded planes and stewardesses throwing peanuts at me and laughing.
So you went specifically to meet Billy Idol? That's awesome. I've often thought of doing that with some of my favourite authors, make a pilgrimage and try to meet them. I wish I'd done it with Hunter years back before it became too late. Who are some of your other favourite writers?
I like Kundera, and Stephen King, but a lot of people I’m friends with on Facebook write books and poetry, or I add them after I read their books, haha. I think there’s more possibility now that there’s e-books, some things I read on there for free and I’m like, what did I just read and why? But it’s a lot of fun. I read a lot of women authors too, I’m currently reading ‘Dreaming: Hard Luck and Good Times in America’ by Carolyn See. She was married to a guy who's cousin was Andy Warhol (then Andy Warhola) his aunts called him Nervous Andy or something like that.
Yeh I think the advent of writing on the internet is a double edged sword. On one hand there is just some awful writing getting published and then there's some amazing stuff that you might never have been exposed too otherwise. Since I've started doing this site I've found some great writers. Like yourself! One of the first things I wanted to touch on with you was the titles of your poems, which I love. The poems themselves are great but I particularly wanted to focus on the titles because that's kind of a big thing with me. Are the titles something you give a lot of thought to or do they just come to you? How much importance do you place on them?
Oh thank you first of all. I have to have the idea for the poem first of all, then I have to decide if I want the title to be taken from the meat of the poem or if the title is the first line of the poem or if the title comes from another place entirely. I think for me, title of poems should be fun, even if the poem is very serious. You have to laugh at yourself somewhat.
Definitely. I totally agree. The title is the first thing a person is gonna read, I think it has to snag their attention. I think to a certain extent you can judge whether you are gonna like an author’s work or judge if they are any good at all based off the titles of their work. Right away you can see their command of wordplay. If I see a poem titled 'Tuesday Morning' and one called 'My Steampunk Heart' I know immediately which one I'm gonna read, ya know?
Hah, thanks! My Steampunk heart on Tuesday morning just jumped out of a train!!
Haha the creative process at work! I think the title lets you know right away what kind of world you're in, too. For instance I've just started a poem called Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Withered Right Leg. Right away there you know you aren't in Jane Austen country. When you see a poem entitled 'The Existential Threat Of Reality T.V' or '40 Post Mortem Celebrity Photos', which is an awesome title, you kind of know you're gonna be in safe hands.
Haha or crazy hands!! I like how you included the whole name too! "Franklin Delano Roosevelt's withered right leg just ordered Heuvos Rancheros for breakfast! I actually did look at those post mortem photos, then I felt ashamed and decided to write a poem about it. If I didn’t write, those feeling would float around like helium in my brain.
Haha you just gave me the next line! Yeh what is that? That kind of morbid fascination with dead celebs? Even celebrity culture in general. I find myself writing a lot about the likes of Kim Kardashian or various dead eyed models and celebs, and wonder why I feel compelled to write about people I loathe and detest. I gotta ask, who was the worst dead celeb you saw??
Well, I’ll put it this way, some of them needed a closed casket!! Gah! What's funny is that even while it was making me ill, I kept clicking and clicking!! I went to the very end!! I also am obsessed with celebrities and dead celebrities. I think it’s some weird thing there’s no cure for, except Huevos Rancheros and tequila.
Kennedy and Elvis' corpses were two of the ones that I've seen. There's a title for you 'The Corpses Of Jack Kennedy and Elvis Presley'. Well, I've never came across anything yet that tequila couldn't cure! How long have you been writing for? And what got you started? Have you had any collections or anything published that we can all buy to make you a rich celeb?
Yeah, haha the dead Kennedys and The dead Marilyn Monroe’s! I started blogging at Myspace where old bands go to die. Since about 2008? Then started to try poetry and started learning how to clean poems up and I’ve also written some flash fiction mostly horror or pulp type genre stuff. I have two collections, one called ‘Heaven is a Giant Pawn Shop’ and one called ‘Portrait Of A Bad Sailor Girl’ but I'm not really into marketing myself and I’m not terribly social. Plus I have teenage kids so I sling the eggs and hash browns pretty hard in the kitchen, those kids get hungry!! Hey do you believe in any conspiracy theories?
I'll be sure to check those out! Yeh I do believe in a few conspiracy theories. The JFK one has always fascinated me the most. I think if I could get the answers to any world mystery I'd like to know who was behind that! I always think of that scene in The Rock where Sean Connery tells Nic Cage where to find the answers to the CIA stuff he was part of. It's in the wooden leg of a church pew and the last line of the film is Cage saying 'Hey honey, you wanna know who really killed Kennedy...' How about you?
Haha yeah, I grew up in the suburbs of Dallas so the Kennedy assassination was a big deal, or at least it was in my house. I got on ancestry and found out all this stuff about my great grandmas shooting death and the guy who investigated it was Captain Fritz who investigated Kennedy’s murder, he was a beat patrolman at the times who had just made detective. Back further than that one way someone became a policeman was to fight another policeman in a boxing match. I have questions about shootings and government stuff. It’s fun, conspiracy theories. Even if you are wrong you learn how to use your eyes and ears and ask questions!!!
Wow that's incredible! I love that fact about becoming a cop by boxing other policeman. I'm obsessed with those kinds of strange facts and weird trivia! I've got a million of them! Like, did you know Polar Bears are left handed? Or that public applause is illegal in Belarus? And that Babe Ruth used to keep a cabbage leaf under his cap to keep him cool, changing it for a fresh one every two innings? I could go on haha. I think it's healthy to ask as many questions as you can. I read an interview once with henry Rollins where he said the government WANT the phrase 'conspiracy theory' to conjure up images of people with tin foil on their heads, looking for UFO'S, because it prevents people from taking them seriously. But there are SO many governmental cover ups I'd like answered. I think these days they're just telling us outright lies. They aren't even trying to get good at it anymore, either. It's a lower, lazier standard of lies than it used to be! Did you find out what happened with Fritz and your Great Grandma then?
Well yes to the best of my knowledge it was an accidental homicide, basically a bunch of people with booze and guns and not enough common sense!! It was also 1923, and crime was high. Not much has changed hahaha. I totally agree with you about the government and lies, and Henry Rollins is a smart cookie. I bet babe Ruth needed that cabbage leaf, I bet without air conditioning it could get hotter than hell! I know what you mean about trivia, I look to include some in my poems, but it can be hard to find gems like that!
Did you know that Woody Harrelson's father was somehow involved in JFK''s shooting. Apparently he was a two bit mobster and was outside either the Book Depository when the police went in or the cinema they found Oswald in, I forget which. The implication was that he was there to lead the police to Oswald so that he would take the fall for it. What do you think happened that day? You must have heard some wild theories and strong information growing up where you did.
My late brother actually took a class in Assassination Theories!! Growing up we made jokes about the grassy knoll. They used to have a little "x" on the pavement in front of the school book depository where Kennedy was shot but they must have thought it was tacky because they painted over it for the 50th anniversary of the shooting. I think that Oswald was a diversion. I feel there must have been greater involvement. Kennedy had lots of enemies at the time. He was bringing change. He was young and popular. Obviously not so much in Texas but people were charmed by him when he came down here. Johnson was a tough guy but I don't know if he was involved, then there was Cuba. I have a late uncle who once loaned money to Candy Barr, the stripper "friend" of Jack ruby.
Wow that's a pretty close connection. I've watched so many documentaries on it and the one thing they all seem to agree on is that the shot from the book depository was almost impossible, with that weapon and under those highly pressurised circumstances, and Oswald was an average shot at best. He was obviously a diversion. A patsy, like he said. I think Cuba, the U.S government and then the Mafia are the likely candidates in that order. Retaliation for the Bay of Pigs. Which others do you believe? The 9/11 one is probably the biggest one of modern times. The first internet age conspiracy theory, I suppose.
I’ve heard the theory about 9/11 but logically that would make no sense, although I understand people not understanding about the steel just melting and there’s nothing wrong with looking at it, but I’m pretty certain if bad men like Atta wanna take you out, they will find a way for sure. I have questions about Sandy Hook, but it feels disrespectful to say so, so I try and keep it to myself. I just don't know why they are always tearing stuff down or not releasing information. Questions. That’s all. And getting back to Kennedy I would say Mafia and the government would be tops and then Cuba after that. Robert was going after the Mafia pretty hard at the times. My mom got to shake his hand on a dirt road near her high school. So cool!
More than Jack, Bobby is one of my heroes. I think after JFK was killed Bobby really understood people and was genuinely about to become a new kind of politician, one that really did care and would get things done. The stuff he was saying in '68 was just amazing. I don't buy the 9/11 ones either, really. I think the thing with conspiracy theories if that you have to look past the first, most famous one, because it's hardly ever that one. I think t best there might have been prior knowledge that an attack was imminent, and they allowed it to happen as a pretence for going to war. There is a precedent for that after all, when Churchill intercepted info about Pearl Harbour and 'withheld' it so America would join the war. But the U.S government massacring 3000 of its own citizens? I just don't buy that. I've watched documentaries on the structure of the Twin Towers. They weren't built to withstand plane attacks. And if you look at the architecture of them, then they would burn like that, collapse like that. Sometimes people overreach with these things. But as we've said there isn't anything wrong with asking the questions.
Yeah, they weren’t built to withstand engine fuel and murderous intent! Yeah Bobby was a good guy and whip smart and it is a tragedy on so many levels. I've never thought about that they knew a little more about it before it happened. That’s interesting. I know Clinton had regrets about Bin Laden. About not taking him out. We are solving all the worlds’ conspiracies with one conversation!!
We are! Our time’s almost up but before we go you've GOT to tell me how you came up with the title 'The Soul of Liberty Valance Returns to Get a Popcorn Refill'. That's what I'm talking about!!
Oh I think I was looking for inspirations in Old Westerns at the time, and wanted to combine that with something with a modern feel or edge I suppose. We played Cowboys and Indians a lot growing up. We had a fort in the backyard!
Haha I miss those kinds of games! Kids don't seem to play them these days. It’s all IPad and X-Box.
Yeah they still like to learn how to play dead though if you shoot them with a gun finger haha.
Ha I always had killer dying moves! Thank you SO much for doing this, I've really enjoyed it!
We've covered so much cool ground. Maybe we can do it again soon, I'm sure there's a few more conspiracy theories we need to crack!
I enjoyed it too, Steven. Thanks so much!
Any time! Ok that’s it, I’m off to shoot the neighbours.
Melanie's poetry collections can be found here;