Damion Hamilton Interview Part 1 Blowback You work in warehouse? Damion Hamilton Yeah. I sort mail though and books. Blowback Office job? Damion Hamilton No. Blue jeans and standing on your feet. Blowback So do you feel this is meaningful work? Damion Hamilton Yeah, all work is meaningful, it could pay more. Waitresses and janitors often complain about their jobs, but it's meaningful though. Blowback How do you define a meaningful job? Damion Hamilton Doing a valuable service for somebody else. Helping things go along. A nice wage would be nice too. At my job, we ship books off to people. Now I understand when I buy a book at a store, what all goes into it. labor labor labor. But I'm glad I can buy a book at a store. Blowback You take the humble approach to work recognizing that "many cogs make up the machine" and assign importance to being part of the successful network to accomplish something useful, but many people have a fantasy of doing something "special" and then go about defining that very differently. You do not need to feel you have some "special" or "unique" job that "elevates" you above others? Damion Hamilton No. I use to think that way. Like I'm a writer and an artist. And should be getting paid for doing that. Shit, I still think that way. But a lot of people can write and do artistic stuff. I guess I'm maturing a little. Blowback Yes artist "types" usually have a very inflated opinion of themselves and imagine greatness, future Boswell biographers, and that they somehow are "above" the everyday masses in some manner. You have risen above this. What made you realize the folly of this if you accept at all my premise? Damion Hamilton Just being around other artists, and knowing people who are really talented and can do good artistic stuff, and being humbled by that. Shit, there's talented people everywhere... an old man playing an organ on a street corner. I use to complain about my day job, all the time, still do. But, a little less now. Blowback So being around potentially egotistical artist types has had the effect of humbling you? Damion Hamilton Yeah, the masses are just a real as the most awe inspiring artist. Not that much different really. Damion Hamilton Not being around them. But seeing what they do. I don't really get to know that many people. But the forty hour work weeks humbles you too. Blowback So why did you not go to/or finish college? Damion Hamilton Too hard... ADD.... couldn't pass algebra... needn't to work full time. A lot of reasons. Might go back though. Blowback And if you did would you take creative writing or English courses, or would you take a practical "career" oriented field of study? Damion Hamilton Creative writing, English, psychology, philosophy. Those courses were interesting... Had a lot of trouble with math and science courses though. Blowback There are a lot of unemployed creative writing majors. What would you do with that? Damion Hamilton I have no idea. Perhaps teach. I wanted to learn more about writing and writers. Damion Hamilton I'm really naive. Blowback Teaching, do you think you can handle that? I myself have a degree that would enable me to teach but something about teaching always felt "emasculating" as terrible as that sounds. And then yesterday I read an article about how male teachers are an endangered species, only 20% of the profession, and low pay, and low status, and "suspicion" of sexual improprieties hang over them, and I realized, this only confirmed my feelings I had This wouldn't affect you in anyway? Damion Hamilton Maybe. Never tried it though. It's a hard to say something is until you tried. Teaching does seem to be hard mentally though. But teaching on the college level seem better though. High school teachers, I feel for those guys, they go through a lot of shit. I had a really tough English teacher in high school though, who was also the wrestling coach. Nobody fucked with him. They were afraid. Elementary doesn't seem that bad. They are generally too young, to be badasses. Blowback Yes, the terrors of the student body, indifference, punk/smart aleck behaviors, nightmare parents, authoritarian administrative staffs/principals, state mandated test preparation manias, it drives I read over 50 percent of all new teachers out of the field within five years Damion Hamilton I often amazed I made through high school. That experience was insane and often terrifying and confusing. Damion Hamilton really? Blowback Yes I read these "facts" in the Miami Herald yesterday. Damion Hamilton Yeah, the educational system is a huge problem. Blowback Anyway when you where in high school did you consider yourself a geek, a jock, burnout, Goth, punk, nerd, or just one of those people that nobody seemed to know existed? lol Damion Hamilton No one knew I existed. I didn't know where I fit it. I was really confused, and felt I like I thrown into some sort of tornado. I used to eat lunch by myself. A couple guys tried to be my friends, and eat lunch with me, but I didn't hang around them long. Appearance wise, I guess I was a nerd. Had really big glasses, and didn't hair cuts often. I was not cool. I should have read a Catcher in the Rye. It would have prepared me. Blowback I admire your candor! It's amazing how sometimes how someone will try to "rewrite" the reality of how they were perceived to strangers who have no way of verifying anything they say. I ask these questions not as some rambling montage, but I want to seek out the question of how you see your past and current place in society and how that affects you as a writer. Damion Hamilton Yeah, be honest man. That's the truth. That lunch room was a scary place. Everyone talking about each other and being phony and trying to impress each other. Scary. Blowback So you agree with the premise that high school especially, but the school experience can be a haunting, negative thing that can scar and motivate people in all kinds of possible ways. Damion Hamilton Yeah, it's good to remember high school and I was conscious of my place. Still I wished I had read Catcher in the Rye, before I went through those four years, it would have prepared me. Blowback How would that book have prepared you? Damion Hamilton It's a bible for adolescence. Its sheds a great deal of light on modern American pop culture and the adolescent experience, one is a little less confused when one reads it. Blowback So do you think your life in high school would have been different and presumably "better" had you read the catcher in the rye? I read it high school as a sophomore, and to be honest with you it didn't impact me too much at that time. I like it a lot more now. Damion Hamilton Oh you read. There's a lot powerful about it-- it goes right into the teenage mind, and unveils a lot things. I think I would have been less confused. I don't know, if the experience would have been better though. I don't think I read anything in high school though, except Mice and Men. I didn't think about writing or literature then. Blowback I was impressed as a senior with Of Human Bondage, and as a junior, some things in Red Badge of Courage impressed me, as well as passages in Uncle Toms Cabin, but I would say Of Human Bondage was the most impactful book I read, except for 1984 which I read on my own, and had a gigantic impact on me, but really more as a political consciousness thing than literary, although I realized it was an awesome novel in all aspects. Damion Hamilton See, I didn't read any of that stuff, when I was that age. Never heard of human bondage-- will have to check it out though. Damion Hamilton Read red badge and 1984 though.Blowback Of Human Bondage is great, I just read a Razors Edge by W. Somerset Maugham also you might really relate to that, also Keep the Aspidra flying, and Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell, I suspect that you could really relate to them at this point in your life. Damion Hamilton Yeah, read down and out in Paris and London-- good stuff. I'm reading Grapes of Wrath now Blowback There is an excellent film adaptation of Keep the Aspididra Flying too I loved it. Damion Hamilton I'm impressed as hell with Steinbeck. Damion Hamilton Will have to check it out. Blowback He's excellent, I love Theodore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis too. Also Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg Ohio Blowback See the film A Place in the Sun. It's an adaptation of American Tragedy, its great. Damion Hamilton Yeah, I just bought Sister Carrie, read some of Dreiser's short stories though. Sherwood Anderson yeah, shit he could really write huge influence on me. Blowback Also Confederacy of Dunces and The Moviegoer And of course one of my all time favorites On the Road, Damion Hamilton Confederacy dunces will have to check out-- everyone says good things about it. Blowback But my favorite novel of all time just might be A Fan's Notes; I can't exaggerate how great that is. Damion Hamilton Yeah, loved on the road. Had a hard time putting it down-- that book sings to you. Blowback Are you familiar with A Fan's Notes? Damion Hamilton No Blowback That is I think my favorite of all time. Damion Hamilton Who wrote it? Blowback Frederick Exeley, if you are a writer I can't imagine how you couldn't like it. If you are a male especially it is awesome. It took me a long time to finish that book because I found myself reading a paragraph and then rereading it several times I was so impressed.