Writer on Writer: Victor David Giron vs. Ben Tanzer

Victor David Giron is daddy-cool. How do I know this, let's take a look at the facts. Father of two little dudes. Check. Co-owner of Beauty Bar, where you can not only check out all sorts of hopping literary events, but get your nails done. Check. Runs his own press and literary journal, Curbside Splendor. Check. Author of the terrific debut novel Sophomoric Philosophy. Check. And mate. Now how about some questions? Cool.

This hot chick, no make that some tough guy, no a hot chick, backs you up against a wall in a bar and says, “Sweet Child O’ Mine sucks it!” Your response?

I would say "What, are you fucking crazy? That song was written for chicks like you. Really. It should play whenever you walk into a room. It should be playing right now, and you should be slowly dancing, or better, sitting over at that table or at the bar playing with your hair and staring off to the ceiling and beyond it to a place all of us would want to be. You would then quickly look at me only to turn straight back toward the ceiling. As a matter of fact, where's the jukebox. I'll be right back."

One of the things I love about the book is just how relentless and obsessive Alex the protagonist and all of his friends are when it comes to women. As I read it though I was reminded of the first time I read High Fidelity or About a Boy and how I thought Nick Hornby was offering insights into men’s compulsions that had otherwise been zealously guarded for generations. So what’s my point? Oh right, who told you it was okay to do this?

Well, it's no secret that Nick Hornby and his books you mentioned influenced Sophomoric Philosophy. I even refer to High Fidelity a few times in the book. And I also refer to movies like Dazed and Confused as I like to think parts of it are like Richard Linklater's work, my favorite contemporary American film director. I like to describe the book as a mix of 1950's Kerouac-style Beat because of its heavy use of first person narrative, and Nick Hornby-esque dude-lit because of its obsessive reference to women, partying, music, and such. I was also influenced by contemporary Chicago authors like Adam Langer and Joe Meno because of its use of natural language. I've wanted to write a book for as long as I remember reading books, and when I first read these authors I felt like I was reading something I could write, I knew it right away. In the end I like to consider Sophomoric Philosophy my own homage to this kind of work. It’s also my homage to philosophy in general. I wanted to study philosophy in high school but gave up when I realized how difficult it is to actually study. So if people read it and immediately think of High Fidelity, About a Boy, Hairstyles of the Damned, On the Road, and Crossing California, and also stop and ponder the “Fact / Value Dichotomy” that's ok with me. It's like most of the music I like sounds a lot like the Velvet Underground, Black Sabbath, or the Jesus and Mary Chain, and that's all good to me.

Another thing I enjoyed about the book is that even as the protagonist and many of his friends are navigating the experiences of being first generation Americans, they are also just as idiotic and skirt chasing as anyone whose parents and their parents before them have been here for generations. I think there might be something political to say about all this, but maybe I’m wrong about that, thoughts?

I’m not sure about political, but definitely cultural. Or even something about evolution, from an American perspective, so to speak. When I compare how we were raised to how my cousins in Mexico were, it seems like here in the States our parents left us alone much longer, or with others such as schools and babysitters. If we weren’t in sports, we had jobs, and if we didn’t have jobs, we pretended like we were in sports to hang out with our friends. Our parents were just doing the American thing and worked a lot. We were left to our own devices. In Mexico my cousins all had moms that didn’t work, who would spend hours cooking late lunches that their fathers would come home from work for. When I would tell my cousins of my American escapades, they would look at me in shock, sometimes in disgust, but also in envy. But then again, I was shocked to learn that they weren’t so different at times, like when we would chug 40s of Dos Equis or Sol on our way to Lucha Libres in Mexico City, or to drive by and howl at the rows of prostitutes on Calle Sullivan. My cousins were somewhat like me and my friends here, they just had to be much more discreet. Growing up here was like open warfare. We truly have an open society, for better or worse, and perhaps that’s a result of our politics, but I think more because of the competitiveness we’re used to. It’s so competitive here and that’s why it only takes a generation or two for ethnic culture to disappear for most immigrants, and every generation wonders at how fast children grow up. It's almost like with every passing generation we're losing more and more of childhood. And we’re left with books like Sophomoric Philosophy, even from children of 1st generation immigrants.

To keep this theme going for one more minute, I was also quite taken with the wide array of pop culture touchstones in the book, everything from books to movies to music, and while they certainly seem to be utilized as a means for establishing time and place, I would be interested in your take on the utilization of pop culture in creating art, both in terms of your book, but also for the wide array of current writers and artists who draw on pop culture in their work. And yes, I expect you to be able to speak for everyone, so no pressure, truly. Okay, maybe a little.

My friend John Duda, who’s an obscure, closet artist here in Chicago does these photo-realistic paintings of trucks and trains against a solid colored background like turquoise or gray, and I love them. I have one at my house. At first people gloss over them and are somewhat confused (“what is that, a painting of a train?”) and assume I’m into trains, but when I explain that I’m not necessarily, they think about it more and generally start to like it. For me, that’s what I prefer, for art, for entertainment, is something real. I like to think that I’m surrounded by art all the time—the fact that we’re even discussing this is artful to me. Though totally cliché, the fact that we’re alive is artful. I do appreciate an abstract painting or prose piece, something crafty or obscure, like the Chicago journal Artifice is pretty cool, but maybe it’s because I’m limited creatively or intellectually, my head hurts when I read it. My favorite philosopher is Hilary Putnam, who may or may not still be alive, who argues on behalf of realism, but in a very human sense (“Objective Realism” is how I believe he describes his philosophy, and it basically argues that “objective reality” exists at a time and a place and is itself subject to change based on our experience). I think that’s kind of like pop-art in a philosophy sense. I’m a fan of using pop culture as a means to create art, for sure. I like artists like Andy Warhol and the German painter Gehard Richter because of that. I tried to stick to that concept in writing Sophomoric Philosophy, in keeping it very real and straightforward and to use pop culture references because when you think of pop culture, for better or worse, that’s who we are.

Only somewhat switching gears, I know you published Sophomoric Philosophy through your publishing arm Curbside Splendor and I was wondering what you want us to know about Curbside Splendor, well, you know besides that fact that all authors you publish get free drinks and manicures at Beauty Bar for life?

Well, sure, but only Curbside authors that write nice reviews and publish an interview with me get free drinks and manicures, just to clarify. Curbside Splendor was the name of a band that me and my friend Brian talked about starting when I was at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I could never play an instrument so the dream quickly went up in smoke. However, the name stuck with me. When I thinking of how to publish my book, I decided to start a small press when I learned one could do such a thing and I immediately thought of calling it CS. In the process of working with the editor, the designer, my friend Gabriel Hurier who did the artwork, I really dug the whole publishing process. So now we publish short stories and poetry online, and will also in print starting with our first semi-annual print journal coming out in March. We’ll also publish more books. Our focus is urban-themed work, but we publish other stuff. In fact we’re publishing a chap book of poems by Chicago native Charles Bane Jr. this May. He’s retired, now lives in Florida, writes these fleeting romance poems and though it’s something I never thought I’d want to publish, I quite literally fell in love reading his work. I also co-host with my friends Amy & Becca of Two With Water a bi-monthly reading series at Beauty Bar Chicago that is getting better and better. I’m in the process of organizing more a literary-friendly events at the Beauty Bar that will be quite killer, and I’m now selling books and journals by local presses and authors at the Logan Square Farmer’s market here in Chicago. To my pleasant surprise, I’ve just now discovered all the great lit-stuff going on here these days. Do I have a prior time period to compare against? No. But, it’s fun, now, and I guess for me that’s what matters and I’m eager to support it.

So having made you tell me all these things I wanted to know, what would you like to tell me, and the public at large, that I haven't asked and you think we should all know, anything, really, hit us, we can take it.

I’d like the world and all in it to know that I’m a daddy-guy first, an accountant second, and a writer / publisher wannabe third. If I could, I would flip the last two. I would much rather write and publish all the time. I’ve just now discovered that I’d like to sell books all the time. But being a daddy-guy first, I’m still in the pattern that influenced Sophomoric Philosophy, so it’s just not possible now, or yet, but I’m trying to figure that out. In the meantime, if you you’re looking to read some work by mainly unknown voices, are looking for a home for your own work, check out www.curbsideplendor.com. Read Sophomoric Philosophy because it will change your life—it’s for sale everywhere online including at Curbside Splendor (for super cheap) and at some very cool stores in Chicago like Quimby’s and the Book Cellar. I’ve also been reading from the book at bars and bookstores which is awesome, so look for that or invite me to read as I’d love to. And if you do read it and write nice things, and you live in Chicago or come to visit, let me know and I will for sure buy you drinks and manicures at the Beauty Bar, perhaps for life, or at least when I’m there drinking. Oh, and my next novel White Hallways, a story about four siblings and their father, and Logan Square, will be out in 2012 or 2013, maybe 2014, by Curbside Splendor, of course. Sophomoric Philosophy is about identity. My sophomore release will be about memory.

Because this is an Orange Alert interview I will need any and all thoughts you want to share about coffee, and though we have talked music already, if there is something else you absolutely need to say about this subject the time is now, right now, do not pass go, do not collect $200.Cool?

I love that movie Coffee and Cigarettes, mainly because of the title, and also the scenes with Bill Murray chugging coffee from the pot. My father was born in Guatemala and so I’ve been drinking coffee for as long as I can remember. Do I have a favorite kind? No. I’ll drink any kind. And music, well I like it. I used to be into music and follow it and write about it but I don’t anymore. I’ve regressed and lately only listen to 80’s new wave like OMD, Erasure, and New Order, and hair-metal. I keep turning on the digital Hair Metal radio station on our cable at home and have rock-dance parties with my boys and it pisses my wife off. Oh, and I like the newest generation of heavy metal, like High on Fire, the Sword, Mastodon, Isis, Black Angels, and stuff like that. I like the Warlocks. I like Secret Machines—their album “Ten Silver Drops” is what I like to think of as a contemporary prog-rock / stoner rock masterpiece. And yes Radiohead, but only their album Amnesiac, and maybe the newest one. Their show at Hutchinson Field back in 2001 was memorable. Read my Book Note at Largehearted Boy about the songs that influenced Sophomoric Philosophy, and most importantly, read the book. Cheers. See you at the Beauty Bar.