Here is an interview I conducted with myself. What you do is this: you write out a bunch of questions while you're relatively sober, and then, maybe a day or two later, you get shit-in-your-pants, can't-find-your-dick drunk and you answer them. What you learn, of course, is something about the other guy who lives more or less secretly inside you and who, in a thousand different ways, is always fucking you up. So here it is, part one of the first exclusive interview anywhere with the inimitable, barely conscious, and almost totally incoherent, Jack Maniac. 

The interview took place in one of Jack's favorite night-time haunts, Wong's Noodle shop, on Mott Street, in Chinatown. As Jack never seemed to grow tired of explaining, showing perhaps the only signs of life all evening, you could get a full meal including tip, for under 4 bucks. Jack is almost as legendary among his close associates for his cheapness as he is for the amazing number of angry-looking pimples on his ass.

I found Jack sitting slumped against the wall at his usual table. He looked bluish and unshaven and distinctly unwell. He was wearing a stained maggotlife t-shirt ($24.95 while supplies last), filthy jeans, and a black leather jacket stuffed with napkins. He was staring bleary-eyed and hungrily at the sandal-clad feet of a pretty Chinese girl at the next table. He sipped a glass of what appeared to be the last diner's water, in which floated a half-eaten eggroll. Jack seemed nonplused, as usual, when I discretely pointed this out to him. Either that, or he didn't understand me. I put the mini tape recorder between us and asked him the first question... 

Me: I suppose the first question I'd like to ask is how much of the Jack Maniac persona is actually "you."

JM: That shouldn't be the fucking first question.

Me: Okay, what do you like about that Chinese girl's feet?

JM: They give me a boner. Alright, alright, due to my condition, they don't actually give me a boner. But maybe they give me a chubby. I divide life into things that maybe give me a chubby and things that don't. I tend to like the former and dislike the latter, but not always. I'm a Stoic when I'm not living in hedonistic squalor. What did Emerson say, something about a hobgoblin in your pants? That girl's feet give me a fucking chubby. I'm sitting here with a chubby right now. Wanna see?

Me: Do you really look like the cartoon image in the maggotlife cartoons?

JM: I'm much taller than the cartoon images. Well, not much taller. But how big are the images? Maybe three inches? I'm bigger than that.

Me: You make a lot of references to giving guys blowjobs and taking it anally Are you gay or bisexual?

JM: I'm not sure these strict definitions really fit anymore. I mean, what does it mean to be gay? How many times do you have to spend the night at Grand Central Station sucking dudes off at five bucks a pop to be called gay? Sometimes you just need money for a scone or to keep the internet going another month, you know? I remember the old days, traveling across country on a Greyhound bus...I think I made it to Oklahoma before I developed TMJ. I think if I'd been gay I'd have made it all the way to Sausalito. 

Me: Are you married?

JM: I'm always confused by that question. Truly. Is that something I would even know? There always seems to be some woman really pissed off at me. It's not the same one, I don't think, but she's always there. 

Me: What's good to eat here?

JM: The pastrami. The head chef's a goddam Israeli who got canned from the Carnegie deli for jerking off into the rugala. 

Me: You make a lot of references to asian girls. Do you have an asian girl fetish?

JM: I wouldn't say that. I'm not saying it isn't true. I just wouldn't say that. The sentence itself, it sounds funny. It grates on my nerves. I have a lot of fetishes. I have a lot of baseball hats. You tell me what that means? 

Me: Do you eat mayonaisse?

JM: Only when I'm watching television. 

Me: Cheese or cheese products?

JM: I enjoy cheese, I truly do. The one bad thing about Chinese food...you can't really put cheese on it. Imagine that, five thousand years of culture and no parmesan. It's amazing. These people invented everything else, apparently. But not cheese, not cheese. Why?

Me: What does Jack Maniac watch on television?

JM: Whatever the guy at Radio Shack puts on. They hide the fucking remote.

Me: Does it bother you that many people say that your brand of so-called humor is nothing more than an endless dead end series of junior high poopy jokes?

JM: I could care less. Their poopholes smell just like everyone elses. That's life-it's just a poophole. I mean, you can stick a rose in it, but it's still a poophole. 

{Jack gestures wildly at a passing Chinese waiter and starts speaking in a rapid, high-pitched voice.}

Me: Oh, that's something I didn't know. You speak Chinese?

JM: I wouldn't know. I don't understand what the hell I'm saying, if I'm saying anything at all. When they answer back, I don't understand that either. But I'm making an effort. They appreciate that, or so I've heard.

Me: In Tokyo Torture Chamber, I forget which one, it might be number 5, anyway, which part was your favorite?

JM: There's this one scene, the goodlooking bitch, she's strung up from the ceiling like a mobile, and she looks over at the yakuza bastard who's whipping her and, like the look on her face, its saying, Oh man, Yukio, I shouldn't have had that last philly roll. That always gets me. You can't fake that. There may be good parts after that. I don't know. I usually have to get up off the floor and go into the kitchen for some more paper towels right about then.

Me: Are those really your pants?

JM: That depends heavily on your ideas of what constitutes ownership. I'm not strictly a capitalist. What do any of us own, after all? You get a pimple on your poophole...who's poophole is it? I can't even hold onto my Quarter Pounder. Some might say that, technically, these pants still belong to the Gap. I beg to differ.

Me: Can I have them?

JM: My goal is to have everyone walk a mile in my pants. Yes, you can have them. I'm not a hypocrite. Can you help me with the zipper?

Me: You're coughing a lot and you look blue. Do you have anthrax

JM: I had anthrax long before it became chic. Now everyone and their Uncle Charlie has anthrax...Does Nicole Kidman have anthrax yet? If so, you know its time for buboes! {long pause}...I'm sorry, did I fall asleep there? I have no idea what I just said. Was it important? If so, it's the first important thing I've said in 6 years. Strike it, strike it! 

Me: This is a tough time to live in New York City, how do you manage?

JM: I carry a lot of artichokes. It may seem beside the point, but it helps, it really does. Try it.

Me: How many black men can you service in one session

JM: I can take up to a dozen in the trapdoor. I've got a touch of carpal tunnel and an old badminton injury, so its painful after 15 or so with my hand, either hand, I have a herniated disk in my lower back and some arthritis in my neck, bad knees, ruptured achilles heel, nose polyps, etc., but if you don't mind listening to a lot of bitching and groaning and so long as I keep some Pepto Bismol handy, I can easily swallow 20, 25 or so. 

Me: Are you gay or bisexual?

JM: {Jack had fallen asleep, apparently, during this last question. When he wakes up, he has sobered up considerably, but he is visibly irritated and far less cooperative. He sips a warm glass of Carlo Rossi Paesano and barely seems to tolerate the rest of the interview, which he finishes with legendary Jack Maniac self-disgust.} 

Me: You're reputed to be under 84 years of age. But you look remarkably much older than that. How old are you?

JM: Look, it's true, I've been passing some really nice stools lately. But I'm not kidding myself. This can't go on forever. It better not!

Me: Okay, quick...You're wearing red velvet platform sandals. Besides red, what color nail polish?

JM: {tiredly} Third-rate zen. Next question.

Me: (holding up a piece of greyish meat with my chopsticks): Do you really think this is pork?

JM: Of course, nothing is pork. It's a semantic trick. I threw up here once. Ten minutes later some guy is being served lobster kew. You hear what I'm saying? Who knows, right? Who knows. 

Me: What's your phone number?

JM: There are a lot of 4s in it, I know that. The problem is, I don't have a phone, at least not in the conventional sense.

Me: Okay, if you won't give me your phone number, how about your address? 

JM: It's funny, but after all the years I've lived in the city, I really don't know the street names. I mean, street names, they're only important if you don't know where you are, right? I will tell you this: you make a lot of left turns, some right ones, pass a few stores, nod to that guy in the army surplus jacket, cross the street, cross a lot of streets come to think of it, look out for that fucking Buick or whatever it is, Jesus Christ, what the fuck is the matter with that guy? Asshole! It's complicated. But I get there, I get there. Sometimes the person at the door looks confused or angry or just plain scared. But it all works out in the end.

Me: I'm a pineapple. What do you do with me?

JM: {muttering, barely audible} I'm not looking...the floor...leave me the fuck alone...{As it turns out, the kung fu boyfriend of the pretty Chinese girl is angrily accusing Jack of being a pervert in Cantonese. I quickly try to defuse the situation and distract Jack with another question}.

Me: Do you like this shirt? 

JM: {distracted} Huh? Yeah, no. I guess. Too many buttons. And the eyes on the penguins, they look like nose-pickings.

Me: Are you gay or bisexual?

JM: I'd get a Chinese guy, dress him up in a skirt, they're pretty cute. It's a sexless race, really. I admire that. I think that would make it easier. Not for me, mind you, but for the Chinese guy. Problem is, I have all these Schopenauer books, what am I going to do with those?

Me: Do you have a girlfriend or any significant other?

JM: You really haven't been paying very close attention have you? That's okay. Neither have I. What did you say?

Me: I don't remember. Can I ask you a philosophical question?

JM: I don't believe in flossing. Period. Go ahead.

Me: If you were captured by two bowling partners named Al and Charlie, tied to a chair in Al's, no, Charlie's, finished basement somewhere in Secaucus, NJ, with a toilet plunger shoved up your poophole, and Al, no, Charlie, no Al, approached you with one of his dead mother's knitting needles, and, grinning, his teeth rotten like brown corn kernels, his breath stinking like mouse bedding in your face, and he asked you, which eye you want my dead mom's knitting needle shoved into, you cocksucking, crossdressing nigger-fucking faggot, right or left? What would you answer?

JM: Right eye.

{At some point one of us realized that the minicassette recorder had stopped working. So I am making the rest of this up, but it should be considered more or less as accurate as the preceding.)

Me: Do you like the name Cherie?

JM: For what? A pencil?

Me: Are you gay or bisexual?

JM: Did I puke yet? I don't see it in my lap. I've usually puked before now. I can't believe we haven't been thrown out of here yet. Dammit, take out a pad and pencil and these people respect you. It's years and years of living under communism. Maybe they think we're from the Board of Health. 

Me: If you weighed 34 more pounds than you weigh now, how much would you weigh?

JM: I don't know. {inaudible} Do I have 25 pounds of red bean curd in my pockets? Am I giving a piggy-back ride to a 56lb retard? Carrying $14 in change? Is it laundry day? Did I just get off the subway? You get the idea.

Me: What's the largest cock you ever swallowed?

JM: Sea lion at the Central Park Zoo. But it was night, my eyes were closed, and I had to hold my breath because my dad was holding my head underwater. So take that with a grain of salt. You always idealize your first time.

Me: Okay, I'll go back to my first question. How much of the Jack Maniac persona is actually "you."

JM: {inaudible} My kneecap, part of my ear...{fist clenches a chopstick, his other hand disappears beneath the table}...oh baby...{teeth clenching}...A trickle between...{morbid rigidity in face relaxing, but eyes still unfocussed, he sighs}...Ah, that sweet sweet lo mein...

{Ten, fifteen seconds pass, JM wipes the spittle from his chin, takes the chopstick from between his teeth}.

Me: Okay, I guess I've asked enough questions for tonight. Do you have any questions for me?

JM: {recovered, looking confused, frightened.} Who are you? 

Me: {response inaudible}

Jack Maniac excuses himself to use the men's room and I don't see him again the rest of the evening.