Click here to read my debut piece for Pacific SD Magazine

ED: It went as terribly as an interview can go. No surprise really, I was looking forward to it. I’m a big fan of their stuff and I felt we shared the same sense of humor. But the minute you start looking forward to a big interview is the minute it becomes doomed – especially if you are a fan.

Rock journalism is not what it used to be. It has become a grind. It’s why music writers like the late Lester Bangs and Richard Meltzer were/are so bitter. The energy was sorta sucked right out of it. Just like the energy of F.M. radio was sucked out. Just like the energy of the internet will eventually be sucked out.

Most people think of an interview as two people meeting in person, perhaps getting a cup of coffee somewhere and having a conversation with a tape recorder between them, and having a casual conversation.

Actually, most of the time interviews are conducted over the phone (especially with the big names) and is a lot less romantic than you’d imagine. And sometimes, as was the case with Tenacious D, it becomes downright soulless.

It’s a fairly common practice: Famous Rock Band gets ready to go on tour. Famous Rock Band needs publicity for the tour. Famous Rock Band agrees to do interviews with the dozens of magazines and papers across the country. But Famous Rock Band is very busy, what with preparing to tour the universe and all that. They don’t have time to dawdle over cups of coffee with a tape recorder between them.

So the band – I mean the publicist — picks a day that everyone in the band is available for interviews. Then, on the day in question they sit in a room for three to five hours and answer questions from journalists via conference calls. Each journalist gets, give or take, 15 minutes to pump out his best questions.

For Famous Rock Band, that can get very tiresome. In a four hour period they are bombarded with hundreds of questions – most of which are unoriginal and unexciting – and the pressure to answer those questions in a provocative way can wear thin after a few hours. Nobody can be funny and smart all the time.

My interview was scheduled in the morning – a great slot to be sure. But in a cruel twist of fate, I was switched around to the back of the line, like 3pm. When I finally got to them, they were done trying to be funny. They were done trying to be profound. They were probably hungry and probably annoyed.

They responded to each question with complete disinterest, and one-word answers. I detected that they were not particularly impressed by my questions — Which really isn’t fair because fifteen minutes is not much time to explore beyond the universal questions.

TR: What do you consider a good interview?

ED: The more an interview seems not like an interview and more like a conversation, the more I like that interview. Since the interview, by its nature, is one-sided, it can never fully resemble a conversation. But the closer I get the better.

TR: What would you consider a bad interview?

Interviews can go bad for one of three reasons:

1) You blew it as the interviewer. Maybe you weren’t prepared, maybe you are a lousy interviewer, maybe you were off that day, or maybe you mis-prejudged the subject.

2) The subject is lame, uninteresting, un-profound, un-likeable – whatever.

3) You are both lame; as was the case with the Tenacious D interview.
In the Tenacious story, I’d say we were both not clicking.

Of course, that’s the rush, that at any time, the whole thing could go into the toilet, and you could have Jack Black — or worse, Henry Rollins — on the line telling you where to stick your tape recorder. Rollins told me that he once told an interviewer he was going to crawl through the phone line and beat him down.

Normally, what follows a bad interview is a bad story. The Tenacious D. story was for the cover. So I panicked when the interview went south. Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t a babbling nervous breakdown or anything. The interview was just dying and I had to save it. So I began saying things just to piss them off to make a story.

TR: What do you normally do when you get no cooperation and vague responses from someone? Do you pursue it or just say to yourself that they don’t deserve your time and energy?

ED: I pursue it because it’s still a challenge. I usually just start becoming argumentative and annoying. Not because I’m mad, but just to stir it up a bit – I mean, what do you have to lose at that point? The interview is already wasted. Besides, I enjoy argumentative interviews. My favorite was one that I had with Lieutenant Chris Ball of the San Diego Vice Department. He was one debatin’ muther hugger. I especially love getting into heated arguments with famous people. It’s like a badge of honor for me to upset someone more famous than me (which is nearly everybody). I’ve jawed with the best of ‘em – Warren Zevon, Wendy O’ Williams, Todd Rundgren, both Indigo girls — when BB King called me arrogant or selfish or whatever it was, I walked out of the room with deep and everlasting pride. Same with Tenacious – At one point, near the end of the interview, which was just about flatlined, I called them a novelty band. Man, that woke them up. The interview started rolling then. But the publicist broke into the line and told us that time was up. It was a strict itinerary.
TR: Regarding Sordid Tales…. Are those true stories? I do admire your candor and willingness to tell exactly how it was.

ED: 95 percent of the stories in my Sordid Tales column are true. I am lucky enough to have had a lot of crazy, wild things happen to me in my life, and still be alive to write about them.

TR: Do the women ever come after you for what you wrote about them?

ED: I’ve never had any women come after me. But I remember when I had my first stalker. It was some nutty guy who kept phoning me and following me around. I was so excited. I told all my friends how I had my very own stalker.

But stalkers are yesterday’s news. Two weeks ago I got an almost death threat. At first I thought it was an actual death threat, and was so pleased with myself, because getting death threats are truly the big time.

The guy wrote, “I hope you die ASAP on an overdose you f*****g LOSER!!!”

Upon scrutiny, however, I realized that it wasn’t technically a death threat because he wrote “I HOPE you die,” rather than something more proactive like, “I am going to kill you,” which would have been a legitimate death threat.

Imagine my sadness. Beastie from Soulcracker had already had his death threat, Buddy Blue has his – and here I am, ten years of professional journalism in my resume, and still no death threats.

TR: We enjoyed your Alaska journals and now plan to run your Peru journals. Do you plan to have either published in hard copy in the near future?
ED: I have no plans of any kind. I am a lazy, unmotivated writer who hates the very nature of “plans.” I’d rather watch TV than make a plan.

TR: What did you do in New York on your recent trip?

ED: Among other things, I visited the cavity that was the World Trade Center. I could not possibly say anything about that place, or that event, that you have not already heard. And the last thing I would do is recite some corny cliché for you. So all I will say is this . . . “Can’t we all just get along?”

J.M. Do you think San Diego has a great music life as far as entertainment in clubs and concerts?

ED: San Diego is an amazing city. I live here on purpose. But no city can have everything. We have weather and nature and an ocean, we just don’t have culture. Not as much, anyway, as say New York, or San Francisco, or Portland even.

That said, there are some awe-inspiring bands that live and play in San Diego. The best clubs to see local original music around here is the Casbah, Winston’s, Blind Melon’s, the Tiki House, and now Canes which has really stepped it up lately.
J.M.: What about the writing environment and connections in San Diego?

ED: The guys who own the Pasadena Weekly and the Ventura County Reporter just bought out SLAMM magazine, the magazine in which my column appears. They are going to be a Weekly paper. Perhaps they are going to give the San Diego Reader a run for their money. I think there is room for alternative papers in this city. Time will tell. Mostly, I’m excited that my column will be weekly now.

Thanks Ed, I ‘m looking forward to your Peru Journals in RockyMountainReader.com and your new weekly column in that new City Beat. Your people have just told my people that my time is up. Byeeee.

J Allison Marlowe
Circa January 2002

For an older interview by Marlowe click here

Ed Decker: I don’t know. I never cared much for poets or poetry. I know that seems strange seeing as how I love to write poems, and I occasionally indulge in a poetry reading. But my feeling is that when you read a poem aloud, you inject yourself into it – and that’s not good for the poem.

TR: So who–or what–moves you to write?

ED: Here’s a list: New Orleans, Jitterbug Perfume, Ray Davies, Cuzco, Peru, The Stranger, all historical witch hunts (McCarthy hearings, Salem trials etc.), N.W.A., every single woman who let me sleep with her, George Fucking Carlin, Amsterdam, Holland, Richard Brautigan, Flannery O’Connor, Drugs and booze and rock and roll, Fahrenheit 451, Bukowski, The Coliseum, Steven Wright, Jon Krakauer, Denali, Alaska, Japanese horror movies, Rome, Pompeii, and Albanella Italy, Country Fucking Dick Montana, The Bacchanal, and Mad Magazine.

TR: Believe it or not, I used to read Mad Magazine, too.

ED: Mad Magazine was one of my earliest memorable influences. Much of my sense of humor comes from Mad, even though I haven’t read it in over 20 years. They just got to me early, when I was young, and it stuck. Mad taught me to be highly suspicious of authority and institutions mere moments before the Christians tried to teach me to be a slave to it.

TR: What about ecstatic or epiphanic moments with poetry?

ED: It’s hard to talk about epiphanies without sounding like a pompous poetry asshole. But I’ll try. Hmm, I was about 18 years old when I learned that poetry didn’t have to rhyme. It opened up this whole new world of poetry, where ideas and images were more important than cute, same-sounding phrase endings. I still wrote rhyming poetry, but only because the poem called for it and not because I had to. It wasn’t until I learned how not to rhyme, that I learned the value of a rhyming poem.

TR: Would you say that your poetry follows themes? Does your work fall into different “stylistic” periods?

ED: it’s hard to talk about poetry themes without sounding like a pompous poetry asshole. But I’ll try. My themes are generally day-to-day stuff. Cross-sections of life (that sounded pompous didn’t it?), individual thoughts that pop into my head completely out of context. I like to build poems around absurd sentences that burst into my head.

TR: So what about your process? What opens the sluice on those poetic juices?

ED: I have about three different processes, which occur randomly:

1) I am drinking in a bar. A brilliant idea hits me. I write it down on a napkin. Go home and pass out. Wake up next morning and read napkin. Idea sucks. Throw napkin away.

2) I am drinking in a bar. A brilliant idea hits me. I write it down on a napkin. Go home and pass out. Wake up and read napkin. Napkin is unintelligible. Throw napkin away
.
3) A brilliant idea hits me. I read the idea in the morning, and though the idea was not as brilliant as originally believed, it’s still good enough to be a poem.

EJD
Circa 2002

It Means Something
by Tony Phillips

CityBeat readers know Ed from such sordid classics as “kids would be better off if their parents gave them booze” and “Matisyahu is a big stupid Jew.” I enjoy his columns. They are relevant, personal and, as Ed himself might write, all stream-of-consciousnessy. They lay bare the soul of the troubled, deviant, barely recovered degenerate that is our buddy, Edwin. But if you thought you’d gotten a glimpse of him from his columns, you should read his poetry.

Ed’s first book, Barzilla and Other Psalms, is a collection of verse that does for poetry what the Scandinavians did for cuisine–muck it up beyond recognition. I hate using this word, but I consider Ed’s work “important.” Ed’s work means something. Exactly what it means is frightening to imagine, but it means something meaningful, even if it only means it about the reader. If you appreciate Ed’s poetry (and I’m rather sure you will), you should commit yourself to long-term cognitive therapy. Consider the final stanza of “You Chick”: “Chick doesn’t try to improve her pussy, because her pussy can’t be improved.”

OK. So it’s not Tennyson. It’s not even Ginsberg. What it is, is pure Decker and, damn it, it’s good. It’s not for the faint of heart. Don’t buy a copy for your Aunt Meg in Tulsa. But buy one for yourself and read every word. Don’t be afraid to like it. They’re just words. They won’t hurt you. But as another reviewer has observed, they sure won’t let you get comfortable.
–Tony Phillips

The bar scene brings out some of the most interesting personalities in town every weekend and any bartender can testify to this phenomenon with countless tales of barfly antics. One such witness to debauchery is Ed Decker, local bartender and author of San Diego CityBEAT’s Sordid Tales column has compiled life lessons and late-night accounts into Barzilla and Other Psalms.

Decker will debut his first-ever book on Wednesday, Nov. 15, at 9 p.m., at none other than Ocean Beach bar and music venue Winstons, 1921 Bacon St.

Published through Puna Press, Barzilla is a collection of what Decker calls “hack poetry” with cover artwork by David Lonteen. Each poem stays true to the voice Decker has developed through his CityBEAT opinion column. Decker’s humorous and often morbid prose speaks to life’s truths about death, romance and a dog named Rusty who sends postcards from Europe.

Decker moved from Monroe, N.Y., to San Diego in 1986. He worked as a bouncer, D.J. and M.C. at The Bacchanal. His passion for writing and music led him to start writing professionally for SLAMM magazine in 1988.

Decker has written for The San Diego Reader, The Union-Tribune, No Cover Magazine, Modern Drunkard Magazine, Smash Magazine and dozens of alternative weeklies around the country. During his journalism career, he has interviewed musicians and artists such as Henry Rollins, Tenacious D, Al Jourgenson (of Ministry) and Gary Numan, he said. However, it was his time as a bartender and master of ceremonies that provided fodder for what would become the CityBEAT staple. Sordid Tales of a Bartender in Heat first appeared in the monthly music magazine, SLAMM iin March of 1997, according to Decker’s Web site, www.edwindecker.com.

The column originally told of bar scene misadventures and comedic stories, said Decker. When San Diego CityBEAT bought SLAMM, the column expanded its scope to include local and national topics and the title shortened to Sordid Tales.

“It became a column about the world from the bartender’s eyes. It’s highly satirical and on the fringe [since] bartenders tend to be fringe citizens,” Decker said.

Through his column, Decker has tackled issues such as gay marriage, eminent domain and religion. He unabashedly pokes fun at the absurdity of society with a dry wit that has made him the object of death threats from time to time, he said. An advocate of individual liberties and free speech, Decker pushes the boundaries of social issues. When most political commentators would handle sensitive topics like homophobia with surgical tact, Decker’s affinity for political incorrectness reads like a refreshing dose of blunt force trauma.

The Nov. 2 column pushed the envelope with a searing, insulting, inflammatory and profane rant against President George W. Bush and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist for embedding an anti-online gambling measure in a port security bill. But behind the incendiary language lies a well-crafted message, which is the whole point of the column. It’s not just fluff.

His liberal viewpoints have gotten him in trouble with the anti-defamation league, he said. Yet pushing the boundaries to get people thinking is what Decker is all about.
I would rather you hate [my work] than just not care about it,” he said.

Decker has recently reduced his Sordid Tales workload from a weekly to a biweekly column to accommodate his other writing endeavors, including Barzilla It has given him the time he needed to finish his two novels, he said.

Back story: In 2002 the magazine that runs my column, San Diego CityBEAT, was up for admission into the AAN network. The AAN group (Association of Alternative Newsweeklies) is the definitive network of alternative weeklies around the country.

You’re really not considered legitimate until this organization accepts your paper. You have to meet certain criteria when you apply to AAN such as quality of coverage and size of distribution etc. When the publisher feels his or her paper meets the AAN standards, they apply for admission. Then the AAN committee reads the paper for a few months, votes to reject or accept, then posts an article explaining their decision. CityBEAT was accepted with flying colors. They had only one complaint about the magazine. It was a unanimous rail against one of the writers. Can you guess who?

POSTED ON JUNE 6, 2003:
2003 Admissions Committee Recommendations

San Diego CityBeat
San Diego, California
9 yes; 2 no.
The Committee recommends admission:

Despite being just a 10-month-old puppy, this paper clearly fits the AAN mold. The Committee noted how well the Beat tackles serious issues and puts the work into covering them competently. Theirs is a tight little package, attractively presented and well balanced. With the exception of Edwin Decker (a Beat opinion columnist unanimously targeted by the AC for immediate extermination; “Retaining Decker, said one member, “is like fouling your own Easter basket”) the Beat staff is to be congratulated for getting this paper from zero to 60 in near-record time.

Committee comments: To get this much news out of San Diego, a notoriously soft news town, is really admirable. The writing and reporting in the paper is good. Overall the paper is going after the things it should be going after and doing a good job. Very nicely done, as one would expect from a company that publishes two other alt-weeklies. A lively read, with strong story selection in the front of the book. The staff loves getting down to details, and is doing a lot of heavy-lifting when it comes to quite a few topics. It’s usually interesting to read what they’ve discovered. Listings are complete to the point of excess.

This paper combines an alternative approach to its subjects with maturity and professionalism. They seem to have a firm handle on everything they cover and the writing and editing quality is top notch. Some parts of this paper really sing Weekly Noise rates as one of my favorite features. It’s quick, witty, informative, delivers a lot of punch quickly. Despite the fact that they are relying almost entirely on freelancers, there’s a distinct voice. I didn’t know San Diego could sound so cool.”

aan.org