I read the name ‘Jordan Castro’ (I
recently read a thing that included the middle name ‘Julio’ and inexplicably giggled a little)
after reading a Tao Lin novel and then being interested in his and Noah Cicero’s blogs ~2/3 years ago.
I think when I first read some of
Jordan’s writings I liked it. I think I then discovered he was ~2 years younger
than me and I’d ‘attack’ his writing until I felt ok about myself or something.
Then I noticed that and stopped doing whatever that was. LOL. :|
“YOUNG AMERICANS” is Jordan’s poetry
book recently published by Civil Coping Mechanisms. I liked it (you can see my review on the books Goodreads page).
Here are some parts I put marks next
to during my first ‘full’ reading of this book at a diner at ~7 a.m. after a
night of laying in a friend’s bed and not sleeping:
'i feel like a b grade actor
trying to ‘salvage my career’ by taking any
opportunity
i get to pretend i’m someone else
i don’t do enough nice things
for the people i care about but from
now
on i’m going to do more – hopefully enough - nice things for
them
it will never be possible to do
enough nice things for a person'
*
'everybody knows
i’ve been gone for like 10 min
pooping during class'
*
'when i look at my face in
the mirror
it’s everybody ever looking at
my face in the mirror
i’m listening to paul baribeau
before going to a paul baribeau
concert'
Jordan seems like a productive person;
he’s in a band called the Ohioans, he has published books, and has many things
published on the internet.
I emailed Jordan soliciting his book
in exchange for a review and interview saying I am a poor and he seemed like he
would be down for something like this.
The following interview was conducted
through email.
What was your parents
reaction to the book?
I don't know if my
dad's read it. He bought some copies via Amazon to give to a staff member (he's
a periodontist) and some of his patients. My mom said she thought "the
writing was good, but as a mom, it's a little upsetting." She linked
it on Facebook and some of her friends ordered it. Both of my parents have said
something about "not prefacing the book when people ask to read it"/just
letting people read it and think what they think.
How did
students/teachers you attended high school with react to the book?
I don't know if any of
my high school teachers know I have a book out. Some of my former classmates
have expressed interest in/supported/ordered the book, but I don't know how most
of my former classmates view the book.
What were some
thoughts you had naming the book “YOUNG AMERICANS”?
There's a poem in the
collection titled "YOUNG AMERICANS," which I wrote before I decided
to organize the poems into a collection. I thought it sounded good as a title
and I felt like it kind of "encompassed," to some degree, many of the
things I wrote about in the collection, in a vague, funny-seeming way, to me.
Could you describe the ‘set-up’ of the band The Ohioans? Who
does what and such in the band?
I
play guitar, sing, drum on most of the recordings, and write some of the
songs/all of the lyrics. Evan Swenson, who's been one of my best friends since
I was 3 years old, plays bass. Ziggy, who's been one of my best friends since I
was ~13 years old, plays "lead" guitar, piano/banjo/[other things] on
recordings, sings backup vocals, writes some of the songs,
and records/mixes our mixtapes. Andrew Borstein, plays drums when we play
live and on some of the recordings too.
In my house I showed a few friends videos of your band (512 and What Dying's For) then asked them what they would wanna ask
you. Here’s 2 question things that came out of that:
1. “Looks like he’s having so much fun. Why can’t I do
that? Like that seems great. Like what the fuck. [laugh] ‘Fuck him’ is my
question.”
“Yeah. I was thinking I wanted to yell something like that at
him too.”
2. “[something]. Ask him. Ask him. Ask him like what
animal parts he’d have. If he could choose. Like I’m picturing maybe an octopus
tentacle just coming out of his side right now. What animal appendages would he
have if he could choose? And why? Make sure you ask why… Are you
gonna ask why?”
Any response to those 2 things?
1.)
S/O to my haters.
2.) I'd
want to have a turtle-like shell so I could hide from people/things whenever I
wanted to, and I’d want to have wings so I could fly/shit on people from above.
As I understand, you went to college for a short period of time
and then stopped. I’m currently attending college, it often seems horribly
disappointing or something. How was your time at college and what were some
thoughts that went into your decision to stop attending?
I
don't think I'd be able to adequately answer the question "How was your
time at college?" without typing like 70,000 words.
I
decided not to go back to school for many reasons. Some of the reasons include
wanting to get clean/go to rehab, focus more on writing, and generally "get
my shit together.” I viewed college as "a job" - my parents supported
me monetarily (my "pay") while I was in school (my "work")
- but at some point I decided I wanted to become financially independent, and
since I didn't know what I was doing in college - I didn't have a major, I
didn't want to do anything other than write, and I didn't want to take
writing/literature classes - I decided to just work a "shitty job" to
account for the majority of my monetary income and to keep writing until I
could make enough money from writing for that to be my job.
Do you have any recommendations/suggestions/tid-bits for young
writers who want to pursue writing/art?
Buy
my books. Follow me on Twitter. I don't know. Work hard. Don't worry about what
other people are doing. Work hard. Follow me on Twitter...
Most
of the time I feel like I’m just a person who writes, not a "writer."
Writing is something I do, but I also eat, sleep, fart, walk, etc. I wouldn’t
refer to myself as an "eater," "sleeper,"
"farter" or "walker," I think. People are never like,
"Do you have any advice for people who want to be a farter?" People
just fart. People just write. I don't know. I feel like certain things cause
people to feel the need to define themselves based on things like their job,
political views, taste in music, hobbies, [whatever], but I think all that
really does is separate people into abstract categories that don't really mean
anything.
My
advice for aspiring farters is to fart - don't clench your butt cheeks, don't
apologize or say "excuse me" - just fart.
