Sam Pink Interview

Sam Pink is an artist past death, his or yours, who operates blood as plays. His work is published in Unsaid, Everyday Genius, No Colony, Robot Melon, Columbia Poetry Review, Exquisite Corpse, Nano Fiction, Dogzplot and more.

SK: How much do you write daily?

sam pink: anywhere from one to six hours. sometimes i'm too depressed and sometimes i'm too unfocused. i try to write when i am feeling a certain mood. i don't know what the mood is called but if you can imagine a monster made of shit doing a front flip through the air and catching a frisbee at some point during the flip, then you already know.

SK: What do you write with?

sam pink: an old laptop with microsoft word. the keyboard has had a full glass of iced tea spilled on it so some of the buttons are crunchy but i just tap them hard a few times and they eventually work. i also like to print things out and use a pen or pencil over the printed pages but printing shit is expensive so i try doing it less.

SK: When did you start?

sam pink: i think that the answer is that i started paying more attention and time to writing about four years ago, maybe five. i used to write things down on the backs of coupons whenever on break at the bagel place where formerly employed. i just thought, "that doesn't count."

SK: What got you into it?

sam pink: (in order of influence) money, cars, women, fame, drugs, weapons and paranoia.

SK: How much do you revise?

sam pink: i think that the answer to this question is that once i start something i am immediately doing something like revision. that seems true no matter what i do. once i start i'm making choices. but i think that i consider the revision process to be an amount that is a lot for me.

SK: What are you reading now?

sam pink: now there is an overlap. i read "totality and infinity" by levinas and then after that i'm now reading "writing and difference" by derrida because it has an essay about levinas in it. i tried reading "writing and difference" two other times and only enjoyed it a little. actually i would say that i did not enjoy it all, and i would go on to say that i stopped reading it the two times before. now i seem to be enjoying it more. if i am being honest, there seems to be patterns where i enjoy reading and want to do it a lot and sometimes when i don't care about reading anything. somewhere in between the books i already listed, i read "the kasahara school of nihilism" by ben brooks.

SK: Is there an influence of music on your work and what music did you grow up listening to, listen to now?

sam pink: i used to listen to music a lot while writing. now i dont. i think that music influences how i edit. i like to read the work in terms of beats and accents and that's how i decide to change word order or phrasing. as for listening to music, i wont list a bunch of bands but i like noise music a lot. i would like for the writing to reproduce the feeling of the song "burn your house down" by wolf eyes.

SK: Do you watch many movies, any movies act as influence?

sam pink: i dont watch movies very much. i have a big thing of vhs tapes like "bloodsport" and "commando" and "mr nanny" and sometimes i put those on. i dont get excited about movies for some reason.

SK: I have trouble getting into philosophy, who's the best meanest fuck in philosophy?

sam pink: i think right now, i am only interested in nietzsche and heidegger. i like nietzsche because he writes with a happy anger and his work is tonally dynamic for philosophy. i like heidegger because i haven't read anyone with thought processes like his. so it's a good combination i think and i like to let it indirectly influence what i write: nietzsche for the wild sweeping joyful negativity and heidegger for depth of thought.

SK: Your plays are amazing, do you have playwright inspirations? No one writes plays like that.

sam pink: the only playwright i truly admire is eugene o neill. his plays make me feel uncomfortable. i'm not sure about inspiration though. also, i think technically those plays (in "the self esteem holocaust comes home") aren't even plays, they're more like hybrid short stories/plays. i wasn't really interested in writing plays in terms of craft. i dont know. i recently wrote a full length play that is actually a play. it is called "willis." i have sent it out to a few places and it has been rejected by two so far. for some reason i dont see it getting published. it's ok, burger king is hiring.

SK: Are the police our friends?

sam pink: i'm not trying to be cool or whatever in saying this, but i feel genuine hatred and violence towards cops. i feel instantly violated by them. i've seriously considered attacking them when even mildly interrogated. one time i got pulled over by some cops and they started accusing me of stealing things and i hadn't so i let them check the trunk of the car i was using and they found nothing and i smiled at them and said "have a nice night officers" and one walked towards me like he was going to fight me but the other one held him back. i feel very paranoid about people controlling me and so when i see police or think about them or get asked questions by them i want to kill them or hurt them. i realize some police are probably good people or whatever but the reality to me is that only an asshole would want to be in that position. policemen (way more than policewomen) are insecure assholes with a need to exact petty power over others. i have avoided the police in almost every illegal thing i've done. it is satisfying.

SK: Do you self-mutilate?

sam pink: i used to cut myself and burn myself. i have scars on my arm. i would cut myself and lick the blood before masturbating. i think now i do it more through thinking paranoid thoughts and being negative to myself and living negatively.

SK: Have you killed an animal?

sam pink: yes when i was younger i killed a lot of animals. i killed a bunny, some frogs, some snakes, some birds, a duck (not sure if it died but i put a marble in a slingshot and hit it from very far away and it seemed hurt badly), i lit some things on fire. et cetera. it made me feel very bad to do it but i wanted to do it. i dont do it anymore and it makes me sad to think about although who knows i guess i dont care. the part in the play "the human body as a fireplace" where the two people are in the alley and the one is talking about watching his dad shoot the racoon, that part is true, and it is about me and my dad.

SK: Are there pearls in the ghetto?

sam pink: yes. and heroin. and cocaine. there are also modified AKs. there are transsexuals. near where i live there is a short lesbian with a bad sunburn and she walks around threatening people. there are also people making bird sounds to alert gangs when people walk down alleys. the pearl in the ghetto is the ovum of an HIV crackhead.

SK: What should we do to get lockjaw?

sam pink: have faith in the holy lord, whose name is in your heart and whose lightning is your hand during bad actions.