[WARNING! This is a fake interview that I did with myself back in February of 2014 and published on The Primitive Entertainment Workshop blog! It was written for educational purposes, and I still think it's pretty funny and relatively accurate! ---Richard]
---This interview was originally published in the January 2014 issue of Spork Ryyder’s Poppengluup art journal. Thanks to Ryyder for permission to reprint the interview here!---
Richard F. Yates is an American artist, writer, poet, and editor whose most recent project is The Primitive Entertainment Workshop, a blog that combines art and literature, humor and horror, and which has garnered international attention for its belligerent attitude and quirky sense of humor. This interview was conducted by phone with Richard from his home in Washington State in the U.S.
Spork Ryyder: Thank you for taking my call, Mr. Yates. Let me start with a standard Poppengluup question. What were your major childhood traumas?
Richard Yates: My childhood…oh boy. The earliest that I can remember are getting run over by a car, my dog, Bongo, getting hit by a car, my dog, Shasta, being run over right in front of my eyes, and my mom dying in a car wreck when I was fourteen.
Ryyder: My god! So you’re not a big fan of cars, I take it?
Yates: Not a fan.
Ryyder: That’s understandable!
Yates: And then there were the minor tragedies that probably seemed major at the time—moving around a lot, my parents getting divorced, my mom remarrying and then getting divorced again. Stuff like that. Heartbreaking when you’re a kid, but now, as a grouchy old man, they seem more like normal life stuff.
Ryyder: Do you have any major childhood inspirations?
Yates: Oh, tons! I watched a lot of t.v. as a kid—Godzilla movies, The Twilight Zone and Outer Limits, Sci-Fi Theater, lots of monster movies and bad, old science fiction. I still love that stuff. And Star Wars! Star Wars was big, but I was also really inspired by video games. I grew up in the Golden Age of arcades. The lights and noise. Watch Tron. The arcade scenes at Flynn’s are a lot like some of my best childhood memories.
Ryyder: I see a lot of Pac-Man in your art.
Yates: Yes! Absolutely. The character and the ghosts are so easy to draw, but really iconic. I love Pac-Man. Then when I got to be around ten or eleven, I really got into music. Devo, Blondie, Pink Floyd—anything with synthesizers or weird noises, I loved it. Still do. I’ve also always been really into comics and books. I read a lot, still, but when I was young, I devoured books and comics. Superheroes, horror stories, ghosts, monsters, any of that stuff that I could get my hands on—and my mom was pretty cool about buying me books, even scary stuff. I remember when I was really young, she came into a comic shop and signed a paper saying they could sell me the “mature” books because I was really into things like 3-D Tales of Terror and other big kid books.
Ryyder: How old were you then?
Yates: I don’t know, maybe eleven or twelve, but we lived in the woods at the time, outside of a little town called Castle Rock in Washington State, and it was too far for me to walk to any of my friends’ houses, so all I had to do was read or listen to records or watch t.v. My brothers both liked to play outside—ride motorcycles, make soapbox racers, go on adventures in the woods, but I didn’t like to get dirty, so I’d stay inside and make masks or record little stories and songs with a tape recorder, or I’d read.
Ryyder: So the move into art and writing wasn’t difficult?
Yates: Nah, I’ve always drawn and written stories as long as I can remember.
Ryyder: Okay, so let’s move up to the present. Your current project is The Primitive Entertainment Workshop. How did that get started, and why did you chose a blog format for the project?
Yates: Because it’s easy. I’ve been published in more straight media, journals and newspapers, and I’ve had artwork in galleries and shows, and frankly, I just don’t work well with others. I’d think a painting was done and perfect, but the gallery owner would say I couldn’t hang a piece of cardboard that I cut from a cereal box on the wall next to something in a nice frame. (Laughs) And with publishing, the lag time between writing a piece and it getting into the hands of readers can be months! I’m not that patient. If I write something, I want people to read it right now, while it’s fresh, not in six weeks.
Ryyder: Yes, but self publishing has a stigma.
Yates: It does. It does. But look at all the really well known authors who’ve started with self publishing. Whitman, Pound, not to mention all the indie music and zines that came out of the punk and post-punk scenes. That’s probably the biggest thing for me. I really identify with that punk / D.I.Y. aesthetic, that Dada / conceptual art “fuck the rules” spirit. I don’t want an editor or gallery owner, or anybody, telling me that what I’ve made or what I’ve written isn’t good enough. Good enough for what? To make money? That’s not why I draw or write. I do it because I love to do it, I’ve always done it, and if I’m being honest, because I like the praise. I’m a solid writer, a good writer, and I should be. I have a grad school education and I’ve been writing for almost 40 years. My artwork, and I’d be the first to admit this, isn’t great. It’s cute, sometimes clever, on occasion interesting or evocative, but it’s not very good. (Laughs) But it serves my purposes.
Ryyder: Which are?
Yates: I don’t know—to make people laugh, I guess. Or scare them. To amuse myself. To make stuff. It may not be much, but I still think it’s important to just make stuff. To play. Too many people grow up and forget how to play. I’m pretty proud of myself for not forgetting how to play.
Ryyder: So you don’t have any commercial aspirations?
Yates: Oh god, yes! I do! I would love to make money as a writer or artist. My wife would love for me to make some money, and of course I’d love to own a nice house and a new car, or at the very least to be able to pay my bills, but I’m horribly lazy. Plus, I’ve somehow fooled myself into believing that I’m a great Artist, capital “A.” That this cerebral, raw, bizarre, elitist, conceptual program that I’ve set myself on is somehow very important, and that spending all of this time and energy documenting my weird thoughts and the stories and poems of all my weird friends and family will someday be worth it. Probably after I’m dead, though. (Laughs)
Ryyder: So the blog format?
Yates: Like I said, it’s easy. I can write something, copy and paste, and publish. I can paint a picture, take a digital pic, and upload it. A friend can email me a poem or story, and bam! Up and readable in seconds. And the blog site I use, Word Press, is really easy and has pretty good search features. It’s a good archive, although I’ve posted over 800* things in the last year, so I do worry that some of the material is getting buried under all the slush. How many people will go back through 800 pictures and articles. Probably not very many.
Ryyder: Well Mr. Yates, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to answer a few questions.
Yates: No problem. It’s been fun.
Ryyder: Any last words for the readers?
Yates: Yes! Buy my stuff! Books, shirts, posters, stickers. I really need to start making some money before my wife makes me get a full time job at a supermarket or something! (Laughs)
Ryyder: Okay. Thanks!
—Spork Ryyder
[*At the time of this reprinting, 2 April 2017, The Primitive Entertainment Workshop has 4,792 post up. That's a LOT of slush...---RFY]
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