John S. Hall
American poet, author, singer, and lawyer perhaps best known for his work with King Missile, an avant-garde band that he co-founded in 1986 and has since led in various disparate incarnations.
Some of the [band's] work has a genuine feeling behind it. Some of it is probably just being funny for the sake of being funny. Obviously, there are elements to "Detachable [Penis]" about male identity that are there, but not really overtly there. For the person who wants to find it, it's there. I don't know. I don't think... I like to think I'm not obvious about the humor, and I'm not obvious about the feelings, either. There's a certain degree of subtlety to what I'm doing; even in very obvious things, there's something underneath that's interesting. I think [the band is] guilty of being clever at times, to the detriment of conveying something more important, more real, more honest. I'll cop to that. But I will also say that there's also stuff that does have meaning.
Jesus was way cool. He told people to eat his body and drink his blood. That's so cool. Jesus was so cool. But then some people got jealous of how cool he was, so they killed him. But then he rose from the dead! He rose from the dead, danced around, and went up to heaven. I mean, that's so cool. Jesus was way cool. No wonder there are so many Christians.
I think these are some of the common themes [of my work]: a) life is hard, brutal, capricious and unfair, b) sometimes there is a benefit to seeing it clearly, and acknowledging it truthfully..., and c) other times it is best to find something to laugh about, lest despair crush one completely. I find a lot of humor in shocking or so-called taboo things: castration, excrement, violence (usually self-inflicted or inflicted on the narrator, "[Martin] Scorsese" being an exception), sex and sexual perversions... etc.
I can't make people change, and I can't change myself. I can't change the political climate, or fix the myriad problems of the world, or make anyone else happy. When I think about these things, I feel impotent and sad. When I don't think about them, I am running away from the truth. Either way I lose.
Today, for five minutes, I will sit quietly and meditate and think pleasant thoughts and I will recite gentle positive messages to myself. Oh yeah, that really sounds like me. I'm sure I'm going to do that. Right.
I am not successful and I probably never will be. I look around and I see successful people, and I see that they have something I don't—success. Perhaps they were born that way, or perhaps they figured something out that I can never seem to learn. I don't know. That's why I'm not successful.
In a way, I suppose you could say my experience is quite limited. For example, I never locked Oliver Cromwell in a broom closet while singing "Waltzing Matilda." I never sawed a television in half, although I once saw Wendy O. Williams saw a guitar. I never played a decent game of jacks. I never played poker with a toothless one-eyed pirate who kept picking his teeth with a Bowie knife to distract me, while his parrot looked over my shoulder and told him what cards I had by using an elaborate code involving vomiting, chirping, and sea chanteys.
I want to be different, like everybody else I want to be like. I want to be just like all the different people. I have no further interest in being the same, because I have seen difference all around, and now I know that that's what I want. I don't want to blend in and be indistinguishable. I want to be part of the different crowd, and assert my individuality along with others who are different like me.
Of all the stuff I write, probably 75% never gets recorded. Sometimes it's because I've read it at shows a few times to lukewarm response. But usually it's because I think it's not right. I will sometimes rewrite the same idea a few times before it feels good. I do this as opposed to taking a piece and tinkering with it in an effort to make it right. The earlier drafts wouldn't (and shouldn't) get recorded, because they're not as good.
My heart is a flower, budding, blooming, dripping dew, dropping petals all over the place, making a big hopeless mess, stinking things up, waiting for someone to come flying over and suck the pollen out of me. Suck me dry. 'Til I wilt. 'Til I am nothing. 'Til next spring.
When my mind is operating at its peak, it should depress me to think that this is the best I can do, because it's not very good at all. When my mind is operating normally, I should be even more depressed.
People sometimes tell me I should get it permanently attached, but I don't know. Even though sometimes it's a pain in the ass, I like having a detachable penis.
It may seem sometimes that the whole world is against me and the reason I have failed in life is because of fate—that I was destined to fail, and there was nothing I could have done. But that's not true. There was plenty I could have done. Why didn't I do something?
Whenever the circus would come to town, I would tell Ethan all kinds of kinky clown domination stories involving the leather clown, like the time she forced me to have sex with her in the little car, or the time she kept spraying me with the seltzer bottle until I obeyed her every command. Ethan and I would laugh and laugh at these tall tales, but I could tell deep down, he was wondering whether the leather clown was really real or not. And I would let him wonder.
Tonight, I should watch the sun set, and think of the impending darkness as a metaphor for my wasted life: once it was bright, and full of potential, and now it is dark and hopeless and bleak. I should not make the mistake of thinking that the moon and the stars represent slim glimmers of hope, or evidence that there is light on the other side. Even if there is light somewhere I will never walk in it again.
I've done bad things with relish, and good things with pickles.
If I work hard and am rewarded, then I haven't really gained anything. It has been a trade: I've put in, and I've gotten back. Only if I am rewarded without having done anything have I actually come out ahead. The best way to gain the most is to do nothing.
I think it is considered bad to be clever, because I think people usually assume that a clever person or a clever band doesn't have substance, doesn't really care about anything. People want music that matters, that believes in something, I think, whether it expresses anger or despair or love. People want to believe that their artists are portraying emotions that they really feel. And I think that's true of Patsy Cline, Johnny Rotten, whoever you want to name. If you believe the artist, you're going to go for it.
Sometimes I feel I do know what to believe in. Sometimes I believe in working, writing, performing, doing the work. Other times I'm full of despair and I don't even believe in that, but for some reason I will get out of bed and do something anyway, even though I don't believe in it.
It's not just that I'm stupid; it's that I'm just smart enough to know how stupid I am. I wish I weren't so stupid. Or that I were stupider.