Audio Interview, Mike, 1974
- INTERVIEWER: How do you go about trying
- to get a relationship now?
- You talked about looking before, going into bars.
- And we were talking about how we go into bars
- and try to say hello to someone to get a relationship going.
- How do you feel that you go about it now?
- Is it any different than it was, really, before?
- MIKE: I'd say, yeah, but it seems like before, it
- would come off as the image--
- a loud clown, asshole, and a fool, devil may care (laughs)--
- I'd come off like that.
- And that would turn a lot of people off.
- They'd think, yeah, that's cool, but who wants to know this guy.
- Yeah.
- I know who he is, but I don't know--
- that's him, there, but I don't want
- to know him really like that.
- So I just try, right now is just to,
- if I feel like asking some woman something, I'll just ask her.
- You pick up the stuff back and forth.
- And I just feel also, I haven't been
- able to put it in real practice yet.
- Say, I haven't had opportunity yet,
- being that I'm doing all these other things.
- You have to go out with new people
- and try it out like that.
- INTERVIEWER: What do you mean?
- What do you want to try out again?
- MIKE: Being more myself.
- See, I haven't gone out to places like--
- we used to go to Gilligan's or Uncle Sam's House.
- I haven't gone out to places like that
- and see how I'll react, if I'll fall back into the same trap,
- or what.
- This is one thing I'd like to do is just to go out there and see
- how I react.
- Because then that's the only way I will be able to measure it.
- But I feel like I'm more myself than I ever was, probably,
- in my whole life now.
- And I don't feel like I'm totally there yet.
- INTERVIEWER: Do you feel that, even-- what
- we were talking about before.
- The bars aren't really set up to meet someone.
- Even though that you are more yourself, that it might even
- be more frustrating, because now it's
- a different role or a different game that you have to--
- MIKE: No!
- INTERVIEWER: How did you feel about the relationships
- between--
- really, well none.
- It seemed like no one tried to get too many relationships
- going in school.
- MIKE: No.
- INTERVIEWER: For some reason.
- I was just curious about why you didn't--
- what were your reasons for not?
- Because Jay and I, or any of those people,
- really didn't go out with two many people
- who were in our school.
- MIKE: No.
- That's true.
- Me neither.
- INTERVIEWER: (Whispers) I gotta make a phone call for a minute.
- MIKE: Or what?
- You mean, with women?
- Or with men?
- Or with the whole thing?
- INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
- What were your relationships with them?
- MIKE: Well, I think in high school,
- our group was like neighborhood, first of all.
- It was the neighborhood group.
- The guys you hung around with in the neighborhood.
- The guys you rode the bus home with.
- The guys you snuck the smoke on the bus with.
- And like that.
- So those are the guys you hang around with.
- And since you know these guys, you hung around with them.
- Well, actually, the peer group has their own ideas
- of what's what.
- And everybody else is wrong.
- And that's what our group was really like.
- INTERVIEWER: Oh.
- Well, how did you feel about McGaver and all those guys.
- Those were the hard dudes.
- MIKE: The jocks?
- INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
- MIKE: We laughed at them, man.
- INTERVIEWER: But in a way, they were the image
- that you were trying to put out, but in a different way.
- They just didn't come out in clothes.
- Right?
- MIKE: That's true, yeah.
- Very true.
- I don't know.
- Well, I had the body for sports at that time.
- It was really nice.
- I was a really good runner at that time.
- But somehow, for some reason, I don't know,
- I just never got into the sports thing.
- And it seemed like those-- say the jocks-- who
- were into the sports thing, since they were into it,
- it was even more of a thing to stay out of it.
- And I really enjoyed running at that time.
- I really liked to run.
- Then hanging around with everybody,
- it's that smoking, and drinking, and all of a sudden,
- you're like, (chuckles).
- Why do that, when you can hang around and look cool?
- Why put that work in like that?
- So we didn't show up.
- And plus, they didn't like us.
- (Laughs) Because we ran around, maybe, I don't know.
- Maybe it was mutual fear?
- Come down to think of it, they were afraid to get near us,
- and we were also afraid of going near them.
- Now that I think of it, I think that's what it really must have
- been-- something like that.
- Weirdos, roll there-- look at them weirdos, you know?
- What a bunch of assholes.
- And they're all probably doing the same thing, saying,
- look at those assholes there.
- And so it must have been some kind of a mutual fear
- like that.
- And so I don't know why we didn't strike up a--
- or really get down into talking outside of our groups
- like that.
- Maybe it was because we were so much into ourselves--
- into our images.
- I think everybody has that.
- I think we--our group had it like that.
- Our neighborhood guys and Denny, hanging around with us.
- We were really into the-- we had it programmed, me and Tootsky.
- He had big brother, and big brother was Walden Bums.
- So we were gonna be like that too,
- because that's what we saw, right?
- So that's what we wanted to be, too.
- And since anybody who wasn't there, wasn't there.
- Wouldn't want to know them guys, clowns, assholes,
- whatever like that.
- That's why I think a lot of things fell apart over there.
- There were so many little groups.
- Everybody had their own little group.
- That was it.
- Anybody incoming into the group was an alien.
- The first thing you did to an alien
- was cut the alien down, one way or the other.
- Insult them, beat them up, drive them out.
- New idea!
- (Laughs) We might be wrong. (Laughs)
- And I couldn't handle that.
- INTERVIEWER: Why don't you to talk about this group
- that we've had here?
- How did you feel about this group?
- Some of the exercise we went through.
- And why don't you talk about how you
- felt when we had the hugging situation between everybody.
- Because I remember you had a long thing about that right
- after we got done doing it.
- MIKE: After we had the--
- well, what I wanted to do is, I came into this group,
- I still had a lot of these pressures.
- I didn't know we were interacting.
- I was falling away.
- I might have reached this point that I
- am at now in another year, without the group.
- Or maybe even longer than that.
- Or shorter.
- I can't say.
- But this is like a slap in the face, this group, for me.
- Especially at the first meeting, when Pete said,
- I read the TA book, right?
- I knew what everything meant.
- And here, Pete just explained it to everybody.
- And Pete Sloan comes up and says,
- "Mike, I acts out of his childhood a lot.
- Boo-hoo!"
- I got slapped in the face.
- I found myself almost going red with embarrassment
- that I actually was doing that.
- And that's what it was, continuously,
- for our first several meetings like that.
- And people would keep showing me things that I was doing.
- I'd keep getting slapped in the face like that,
- and feeling really dumb for doing these things.
- INTERVIEWER: Why don't you explain
- it, what were the things that were
- being slapped in your face?
- MIKE: I can say, that first meeting really shocked me,
- when people said, "Mike acts like coming out
- of his child state a lot."
- And I says-- and I knew!
- I knew what I was doing when I was doing that.
- But I didn't realize.
- Somehow I never realized that I was coming off
- that way to other people.
- When someone said that to me, this was in the group,
- seriously.
- And otherwise I didn't know--
- INTERVIEWER: These were the guys you hung around with,
- they would go--
- MIKE: Yeah.
- INTERVIEWER: Supposed to keep up the image,
- and that's what they were telling you.
- MIKE: Yeah.
- These were like that.
- And they were saying, "Look what you're doing."
- And then this just started from there,
- I just started really thinking about that kind of stuff.
- And I've come a long way.
- And I know I've come a long way.
- I'm the only one who can feel that, but I know it, you know?
- It's one of those things you can't say, I've come two feet.
- I know.
- And in a lot of ways, I hadn't moved yet.
- But some things, have gone so far
- that they would have taken another year, or maybe
- two years.
- Maybe never.
- I could see myself going on, living the same way,
- living that same--
- half dream.
- Half Mike Anubis.
- Not the total-- not with a black t-shirt and the skull and that,
- but having that in the head.
- You know?
- And trying to live that thing out.
- And I can see myself doing that.
- And I'm glad.
- That's one reason I'm really for this,
- because it did so much for me, just making me see these things
- that I never saw before.
- And with this group at the same time,
- I've talked to that preacher, and he's turned me
- on to a lot of things--
- he's saying the same thing we're saying,
- but he's saying it with different words.
- INTERVIEWER: Well, what do you think that we're saying?
- What do you think that we did say?
- MIKE: We're saying get to know yourself.
- Just be yourself, no matter what that is, be yourself.
- If you don't want to do something, don't do it.
- If you want to do something, do it.
- Be in harmony with everything like that.
- What the preacher said is, he started
- talking about God to me.
- You know?
- And getting-- hearing this from him,
- and faith, and everything like that.
- And all he was saying was, know yourself, and be in harmony
- with yourself.
- To me, God is nature.
- A tree is God.
- And he's saying the same thing--
- he was saying the same thing like that.
- And so all these things coming together,
- that helped me see what I actually am,
- and trying to put myself back on track of just being myself.
- Or trying to be myself as best as I can.
- INTERVIEWER: In other words, did you go through a lot of stages
- like really being frustrated things,
- because you hadn't-- or you were masturbating?
- Are those things (unintelligible)
- MIKE: Yeah.
- INTERVIEWER: You really put a lot of guilt on that.
- MIKE: Yeah.
- The whole thing like that.
- The whole sexual thing was like-- it was like alien.
- And those things were just put in my head.
- And they weren't true, you know?
- And it's helped, in a way, good job that she did.
- And that, (unintelligible) say, she was a lousy job,
- as far as that goes.
- I can, what I'm trying to do is find out now.
- I feel like-- I talk to her a lot
- now more, where I never did before.
- That's one thing that I've been able to do
- more of that I can tell.
- It's like I'm able to talk more with people
- about what really is, instead of the
- how's the weather line, today.
- What do you think of the weather line?
- So I really get down in there.
- And I really enjoy that.
- And then, what I'm trying to do now is figure out--
- she had a reason for telling me these things like that.
- And I would like to know, why-- what made her think that that--
- apparently, she must think sex is bad, too.
- And she's starting to open up a lot now.
- Because I know she's like--
- when I talk to her now, she says,
- "Yep-- there's a lot of things I wish I hadn't done."
- But she hasn't yet come to say, specific yet.
- (Laughs) And when I feel she says, yeah.
- It's hard to think that your mother might have had sex
- and not been married like that.
- I'm waiting for something that to come out, you know?
- I feel like eventually, it will.
- And it's really going to be a breakthrough for her.
- I feel like she learns a lot through me like that,
- just by being more open like that.
- And I found out a lot of things, just by talking to her.
- I found out that she saw me going through these changes,
- and abusing my body with alcohol.
- And she never said anything.
- She says, "Yeah, I was so worried.
- And I was sick!"
- She actually said that she was sick,
- seeing me come home every night and falling all over the place.
- And it really amazed me.
- How could my mother care?
- That's another thing.
- No one cares about me, so I might as well not
- care about myself, too.
- In actuality, she never said to me, I give a--
- why are you doing this or anything like that, you know?
- There was some big communication breakdown there.
- I was just doing myself, totally.
- She was always open there, but I was the one who backed away
- for some reason, I don't know.
- And that she was--
- INTERVIEWER: And what you said before,
- when you were real young, she put you in bad positions?
- MIKE: Yeah, that's right, she put me in bad positions a time
- or two, but she was willing to try to help me out
- of these bad positions.
- But I never wanted it, you know?
- It's like a running parallel.
- She unconsciously put me in these things,
- and she couldn't understand why I wouldn't come to her
- and ask her these things.
- I remember when we were talking about this a while ago,
- she says, "Yeah, I was really worried I was gonna
- let you-- how it was going on.
- Every night, (crashing noise) plowing through the door,
- and climbing up the stairs, and running down to the john,
- throwing up, and out behind the garage,
- and finding me in the yard.
- (Laughs) And she was really worried about that,
- but she never said anything.
- So I never knew.
- And I never talked to her before.
- Now it's coming around.
- I'm waiting for the--
- I'm ready just to tell everything and say everything
- to her, and I think she knows that,
- but she hasn't come across yet with her own self.
- And that's what I want to know about.
- So a good for instance--
- I was home one Sunday.
- It was about two weeks ago, maybe three weeks ago.
- I don't know.
- I was fooling around in the yard.
- And I said, Jesus Christ, I ain't got no place to go, man.
- I'm always laying around at home.
- I feel like I'm chained here.
- And then I realized, I said, yeah.
- I have two places to go today, if I want to go.
- I'm not chained here.
- I'm exiling myself from going out.
- And then I started thinking.
- I said, I don't really want to go to these two places.
- I actually want to be here fooling around in the garden.
- But that's like the kind of things
- that went through my head.
- Say, Jesus Christ.
- I've got no place to go.
- I'm tied here in the house.
- I'm tied here, because I'm tied to my home.
- And I really wasn't.
- And that's the little things like that
- that I've been noticing over the last few months.
- Those little things like that that I'd
- tell myself long enough and I'd start believing it.
- And I'd find myself talking like that.
- Saying, Jesus Christ, I got no place to go.
- (Chuckles) I got a thousand places to go,
- if I wanted to-- if I really wanted to be there that day.
- It's just like waking up after sleep or something like that.
- You really weren't dead or anything like that.
- You're just asleep.
- And you just wake up to the world again.
- I think that probably summed it up
- what I got out-- just woke up to what actually was happening.
- I wasn't really sick.
- I was just -- all these things that I never knew about were
- putting pressure on me.
- That's what I got.
- That's where I am--
- doing that, trying to knock off other tensions and things
- like that.
- I think a lot more now about things, like I say,
- that I took for granted before.
- What I'd like to do in the future--
- I'd like to build a center.
- I don't know whether you'd call it just a gallery--
- and an art gallery, with a stage with a stage
- show, for plays and things like that,
- and with movies and everything like that,
- for all these artists who don't have a place
- to show their stuff.
- To bring it there for nothing, and just have it there.
- I'd like to get some land, for my own house,
- naturally, to live on it.
- But I'd like to put shacks out in back like that,
- so young writers, if they wanted to, didn't have no money,
- they just could come there and live.
- And they wouldn't be charged anything.
- They just could come there and write their art, right?
- Do their art.
- And you wouldn't be under any pressure.
- Have dogs, get drunk anytime they wanted to,
- have a good time, and just do that.
- If I got this need to work and make dollars,
- I might as well do, like I said-- combine both of it
- again, and do that.
- Because that would really give me a lot of pleasure.
- I'm really into my art thing.
- It's a thing that moves my life, what
- I create on paper with words.
- I'll try to spread the knowledge that I
- got, as far as I've gone, talking
- to other people who write, too.
- I got my own peers.
- I try to get it away from moon and the sun,
- and start getting them talking about themselves,
- which is what art should be--
- freedom to do yourself, to be yourself, art on a paper
- like that.
- And that's what I'm trying to get at.
- It takes a long time to capture that.
- I went through all those years being someone else.
- I can't expect to be able to write everything the way
- it's supposed to be that fast.
- Because that's what I'm striving for, is to be able just to put
- everything down without a lot of-- and the same thing applies
- to my own living, as to what should be on the paper--
- in the poem.
- It should be all me, with none of this other garbage on it.
- Because that way, it's easier for you
- to pick up, the simplicity of everything.
- I'm not being specific.
- I can tell by myself.
- Because I don't understand what I'm trying to say.
- Because I don't really know yet what's
- going to come to you like that.
- But to write about your own self like that,
- is really hard to get the one feeling that one time out.
- Really difficult.
- INTERVIEWER: To get the truth out?
- MIKE: Yeah.
- Truth and to get that-- how do you put down love in words,
- so someone else reads it and picks up
- the exact same feeling.
- That's the goal.
- That's what I'd like.