Questions of a Creative Nature

As promised, what follows is the result of our recent communication with Mr. Tom Robbins. if you recall, we were to present Tom with 23 inquiries in hopes of his offering us, via his responses, a glimpse into his splendid brain... and my o my, what a tasty treat he has given us to nibble upon and savour!

Tom was infectuously gracious in his acceptance of and compliance with our request, and for this we extend to him our most sincere thanks!

If the Cheri-Woodpeckers band had a drummer, i'd suggest a drumroll at this point, but.... ummm... uhhh.... instead, just take a deep breath, hold on tight & get ready for some wit & wisdom from our pal, Tom Robbins!

Way back on September 13th, in our "Scribes To Screen" Errand (America OnLine) a large percentage of the Fool's Errand readers requested that we attempt to find Tom Robbins for an interview.

To our dismay, Mr. Robbins was leaving for a trip to New Zealand; to our delight, he has returned.

We asked Tom 23 questions about film, Fools, finance, food, and all kinds of other fun stuff. Thanks, Tom! Happy holidays to all the Fools at sea! As a gift, please accept our. . . .

23 Questions For Tom Robbins

1. In HALF ASLEEP IN FROG PAJAMAS Gwendolyn's obsession with the stock market elicited a bit of scorn from the protagonist, Larry Diamond (a reformed player in financial games of chance). Are you invested? Have any good tips?

TR : As part of my research for HALF ASLEEP IN FROG PAJAMAS, I made friends with stock brokers, read the Wall Street Journal daily, and, yes,even dabbled in the market. (Hit the jackpot with Microsoft, was sacked and sacked hard by ADM and Pyxis.) It was fascinating for a while, but high finance for it's own sake is a shallow business and can be deadening to the soul. You're correct in referring to the stock market as a game, and games of that magnitude have a compelling and giddy appeal, but to justify large expenditures of one's time and energy, there has to be something more important at risk than mere money.

2. What is the significance of 'the Fool' in HALF ASLEEP. . .?

TR : We are all, each of us, the Fool; and the Fool's journey is our own journey through life. However, we should make a distinction between Fools -- capital "F" -- and fools -- lower case "f". A Fool is a person who's searching, growing, changing and actively participating in the human whoopjamboreehoo. A fool is a person who has shut down, who has reached a nice comfortable plateau and stopped there, not thinking very deeply, not feeling very much; just consuming, procreating and watching television; clinging desperately to the old values and cliches he or she was once spoon-fed early in life.

The Fool, on the other hand, is a piece of working evolution, complete with trials, errors and ridiculous pratfalls. The lower case fool isn't necessarily a moron, but rather a robot, a zombie, a drone.

3. Why would extra-terrestrial beings travel so many light-years across the universe just to look up Whitley Strieber's bum?

TR : It was a case of mistaken identity. The spacemen were actually on a mission to look up Whitney Houston's bum.

4. Have you ever been visited by aliens?

TR : I'm not really sure. Some very odd folks have turned up at my door.

5. Where would you most like to go that you've never been to before? TR : Well, since I've already been to Paris, Kyoto, Coney Island and Timbuktu, I guess I'd choose Sidi-Tomtom, Louisiana, a clandestine settlement deep in the swamps, where it was founded a hundred and fifty years ago by runaway slaves. Their descendants are said to be clairvoyants, soothsayers and somnambulists who fall into all-night trances and commune with alligators. At age thirteen, girls are taught erotic practices that date back to ancient Egypt. It's the only town in America without a zip code.

6. What was the last book you read?

TR : The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, by Julian Jaynes.

7. What song did you last sing along to?

TR : "Hey, Jude." The Beatles.

8. After experiencing what it is like to have one of your novels brought to 'the big screen,' would you consent again to having one of your works interpreted for the cinema?

TR : Sure, if I respected the people involved. I still respect Gus Van Sant tremendously, by the way. I admire his eye and his courage. Any artist worthy of the name has to take chances, and, obviously, the greater the risk the greater the danger of failure -- for Gus, for me, for any artist. I feel fine about it.

9. Which of your books do you think would best lend itself to the screen? What do you feel are the inherent difficulties in creating a film from one of your novels?

TR : STILL LIFE WITH WOODPECKER is probably the most cinematic of my novels because it's the least complex. Still, it, too, is language-driven rather than plot-driven (my books have plots, but they don't depend on plots), and that's always problematic for the typical Hollywood hack. A truly gifted film-maker -- one who's imaginative, witty and smart -- can make a good movie out of any material.

10. Would you consider authorizing the production of Timbuktu U. t-shirts?. . .

TR : No way. I want nothing to do with merchandising schemes of any sort whatsoever.

11. What was the last reference to the number 23 that you encountered?

TR : It's the last two digits of your fax number.

12. If someone gave you $23.00 with which to but a treat for yourself, what would that treat be?

TR : I'd buy a small pizza, a beer and a reefer -- and rent a Pee Wee Herman video.

13. When was the last time you climbed a tree?

TR : In 1985 in Tanzania, escaping about 200 angry African buffalo.

14. You have created characters who are often extraordinary in their sex appeal. Do you have any advice for your readers who live in search of such mates in the corporeal world to no avail?

TR : Avoid sexual partners who are excessively vain, routinely depressed or angrily ideological. Just about anybody else can be inspired to angelic boil-overs of delicious nastiness. It's up to us to heat up their custard. Love helps. Gymnastics are stupid.

15. What kind of cigars do you smoke?

TR : If I had my life to live over, I'd live over the factory where Ramon Allones Gigantes are made. That's in Havana, Cuba. I've been puffing cigars (like Clinton, never inhaling: inhaling tobacco smoke is literally suicide) since I was 14, so I'm a wee bit annoyed by their current trendiness.

16. What's the deal with the 'Union Of Mad Scientists' with whom you've been associated.?

TR : Just a bunch of loose cannons rolling unpredictably about the deck of the good ship "Intelligentsia."

17. It has been rumored that you are anti-computer. What methodology and which tools do you employ when writing?

TR : Although for composing I prefer the more organic method of soaking ink into wood pulp -- probably because I'm so damn slow -- I find cybernetics entirely miraculous. To be anti-computer would be akin to being anti-wheel or anti-fire. While I'm in no way technophobic, I strongly believe, however, that technology has to go hand in hand with wild nature, or else. If we only use technology to dominate, control and distance ourselves from nature, we will end up destroying the human soul. The poet, Gary Snyder, has a vision in which 21st Century tribes would spend half the year working underground with advanced computers, the other half walking across wilderness with the migrating herds of elk. That's the kind of future we should be planning for.

18. Are you on hiatus after last year's release of HALF ASLEEP IN FROG PAJAMAS, or are you involved with TR novel #7?

TR : These days I'm just traveling, reading, meditating, cavorting and trying to fly to heaven by the seat of my pants. Next year, who knows?

19. What does your favorite pair of footgear look like?

TR : They are biker boots made of black canvas, white leather, blue suede, adder skin, toucan feathers, wolverine fur, papyrus, silk, iron, opium, helium, frost, gun powder, Spanish fly, molten lava, and several illuminated pages ripped from the Book of Kells. At least that's how my Tiger volleyball sneakers look to me some evenings.

20. Do you eat breakfast cereal? If so, what kind?

TR : I'm partial to pizza for breakfast, or warmed-over Mexican or Chinese food. Wheaties aren't bad, but with beer instead of milk.

21. Do you drink coffee?

TR : No, I'm the only person in the Seattle area who's repulsed by coffee. I don't drink tea, either. I prefer cold, carbonated beverages.

22. If you had to eat one kind of food exclusively for a week, what would you wish that food to be?

TR : Tomato sandwiches. Ruby-red, field-ripened, sun-warmed Virginia tomatoes on fresh Wonder bread heavily impastoed with Best Foods or Hellman's mayonnaise.

23. Is there any item in your possession to which you have attached sentimental significance? A personal totem or fetish?

TR : There are a few letters from fans I cherish, some amazing bat masks, a few nice buddhas, and a collection of about seventy toy motorcycles, not to mention a permanent hickey and a pair of pink panties left behind by the Genius Waitress -- but I'm perfecting a Zen attitude of non-attachment. My totem image is Nancy's hair. You know Nancy in the comic strips? Isolate her hair from the rest of her body and you have one strange and remarkable object. Simultaneously biomorphic and industrial, it's like a machine-tooled amoeba, an oversized tadpole that has somehow been fused with the gearbox of a tractor.

This interview was conducted for 'The Fool's Errand' in the Follywood' area on AOL (keyword:fwerrand).

"i do not like your hat. goodbye!" - dr. seuss

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