Thursday, August 7, 2014

Five Qs with Noah Cicero




1. What do you enjoy most about writing?

Writing dialogue.


2. If you could choose one book (any book) that best describes you which would it be?
Of Mice and Men

3. Do you feel hopeful or hopeless about humanity? Like as far as world peace and if we'll be around much longer?

On Netflix and on television there are a lot of 'civilization is destroyed' themed narratives, because those are easy narratives to write, and it catches people's attention. Those narratives, ask Cormac McCarthy lol, jerk off. It is so easy to write a world ends story, everything you need is there, alienation, paradigm shift, loss of hope, redemptive moments, forest scenes, moral choices, it is easy, even the most untalented writer could pull at least one 'end of the world' narrative out of their ass.

The narrative is not true though, mankind can live without oil and natural gas, China had like 900 million people in 1975 and barely used any oil or natural gas, and they lived. And when things got hard 20 million died, but they went on. America, Central America and South America have epic amounts of good farm land, we have so much food we make Cheetos and Dunkin Donuts and turn some of it into fuel for cars and then use some for tobacco, we have so much land for food it is insane.

Think about it like this: all we need to live is potatoes, some wheat and eggs, maybe throw in an apple every third day. It is just that everyday we eat high tech meals, for me I eat organic wild blueberry jelly, frozen tortellini, pop tarts, blueberry scones in a cute little plastic package. Those foods are high-tech, they are put together in factories and packaged and designed to be cooked quickly. Well, you could easily go to a grocery store and just eat potatoes, bread, peanut butter, apples, eggs and not die. But we never think that like that.

I think what is happening, is that the Renaissance or the Age of Enlightenment is over, science and technology did not save us, the farthest we ever got was the moon, we couldn't even cure psoriasis or diabetes, 96% of the universe is dark matter and dark energy and we don't even know what that is, science and technology has led to global warming and epic environmental destruction, capitalism never made more than 20% of the population happy in very specific countries and it discards the bottom 20% as garbage. And this just makes people feel fucked inside, which has led a lot of people to investigate Buddhism and chakras and crystals, because we've come to realize that lying on your bedroom floor with a crystal on your forehead is more calming and fun than watching television or buying things endlessly. Millennials have really woken up to the absolute dumbassery joke mockery that is our civilization.

I think what people are really afraid of, is the mid 2020s, several big moments are coming then, the older population that votes Republican will either be infirm in hospital beds or dead, the Hispanic population will have grown in states like Texas to such a point that a Republican pres candidate will never get voted in again, no gerrymandering is going to save the Republicans in the 2020s. It will be obvious that the Republicans are doomed in the 2020s, which means the rich will have no where to go to get their immoral laws made (But I don't know what this means exactly, the Democrats take a lot of corporate money, so the Democrats could turn into Republicans, they are basically 70s Republicans now, but Democrats aren't racist/homophobic/women hating like Republicans are, and I don't think the Democrats would ever go that far to the right. Which makes it exciting, because no one knows what will happen.) 
Also at this time, it seems like gas prices might get up to $8 to $10 a gallon, which would basically destroy people making less than $40,000 a year, which is a lot of people. 
And there is the problem of the economy, there is no innovation in the economy, everyone is really proud to work for corporations and the service economy, there doesn't seem to be any attempt at all to rebuild the manufacturing base or bring younger people into farming, and the government gives 2/3rds of its subsidies to farmers that grow food for animals to become meat, fucking joke

I think 'the fear' is that technology did not create a utopia, and that utopia actually means slave labor hidden away making all the white man's toys and food, so he can sit on top of his throne looking down at brown people and scruffy white trash smiling like a devil.

Sometimes I think that the white male Republicans are destroying everything with such powerful emotion and enthusiasm because they hate the idea of brown and black races and women having what they have so much, they want to blow it all up in some kind of crazy anarchist/Russian nihilist dick move of the century. It just kills them to see a black person president, and it is gonna kill them when they see a woman president, they are close minded/bitter/self loathing/out of shape/sad people, they like to cause pain, they like the idea of children not getting enough to eat, they like people's parents dying of easy to cure diseases, they like the idea of student debt causing a lot of stress in a young person's mind, they like Gaza babies blown to pieces, little baby arms dismembered, they like the idea of a Muslim holding his dead baby crying, it isn't chill, not chill at all.

4. If you could have dinner with anyone - historical figure, old friend, who would it be and what kind of restaurant would you choose?

Norman Mailer, Thai

5. What's your favorite city in the United States?

Eugene, Oregon

You can buy his latest book HERE

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