HOBART 13 bonus: Amelia Gray & Jac Jemc

Monday:
Amy Butcher's Guide to Public Park Drinking and Relaxation

yesterday:
an extra "luck" short-short by Steve Castro

Amelia Gray & Jac Jemc on LUCK

Amelia Gray: I’m drunk on good wine. Do you feel lucky?

Jac Jemc: I decided that if you were drunk when you wrote these questions, maybe I should be drunk when I answered them. So I’ve made myself a cocktail. And by cocktail I mean I took the sweet tea vodka my mother’s best friend gave me for Christmas, and mixed it with PBR and some lemon juice because that’s what’s around and I’m trying to spend conservatively of late. Do I feel lucky? At the moment? Hrm. I think I began with a family that taught me to stick up for myself, and I think that has served me well. I basically like my life, so I guess I do feel ‘lucky,’ but I don’t know how much of it was left to chance? Like George Bernard Shaw said (and I’m not bothering to look this up, so the quote might be off), “As long as I have want, I have reason for living. Satisfaction is death.” So, I still want more out of my life, but that’s not to say I don’t also like my life as it is. I think most of the good and shitty stuff in my life has been mostly my own doing, I guess is my short answer. I feel like it’s somehow cocky to say that, but remember, I’m saying I brought the shitty stuff on myself, too.

AG: Any good stories about luck in your family? I feel like everyone’s got an auntie who faces her cans of beans west for good omens.

JJ: I can’t think of any stories of luck in my family. I have a coworker that reads me my horoscope every day. Or on the days she doesn’t have the paper with her, and I tell her something particularly good or bad that has happened, she tells me, “I can’t wait to get home and see what your horoscope has to say.” I love her.

AG: Speak about an unlucky moment in the past two months.

JJ: Unlucky. I’m thinking. I can’t even remember a negative coincidence right now.

AG: What’s your piece about in this issue? I haven’t seen it yet.

JJ: Actually, it’s very appropriate to this conversation. I talked to a bunch of people about the role of luck in their life. Zach’s brother Seth thought he was real lucky, and another dude, Ryan, thought he was unlucky, and then a million and one people had things to say about something lucky that happened to them. And also I said a few things about how I’ve experienced luck in my life, but nothing about unluck. Like the question above. I have trouble remembering “unluck.” Though I know there are times when I think, “This is the worst! What are the chances?”

AG: Do you ever feel charmed/lucky when you’re writing? Does it only work if you’re facing west?

JJ: You know, I think I’ve really fucked up my ability to write. I started doing this thing where I started to write weird sentences and phrases, and stopped caring about what I was writing about, and was really focusing on how I was saying these things that really had no larger meaning to me. I got really intoxicated with the idea that I could sort of breadcrumb my way through something I was writing, and trace a really vague narrative thread. And I think that’s part of why I tried to write this essay, is because to write sentences from my head now, that are just all meaning, and little-to-no inventive language, feels so terrifying and clumsy. I wanted to make sure I could still write something engaging that didn’t require me to string together surprising words. In that mode of writing, where I was just always trying to surprise myself with the words I’d pull together, I feel there is a huge amount of chance. A lot of it depends on what I’ve been reading lately, and what kind of language and syntax is in my head. In this more straightforward writing I’ve been trying to get back to I feel like there’s less chance. Like I’m requiring myself to not just roll the dice. I have to do the research and know what I want to say before I go to the trouble of starting to put the words together.

JJ: I’m going to go throw some laundry in and then I’ll ask you some questions!

AG: Awesome! Yesterday, I was that apartment building resident who leaves her laundry in the dryer and goes out for the day and messes it all up for everyone else. But I got home and ran down to the basement and someone had pulled my laundry out and put it in my little blue bag, so I felt pretty lucky then.

JJ: Ok, I’m back! Are there times when you’ve felt particularly lucky or unlucky?

AG: I feel lucky all the time when writing and in elements of the writing life. Writing a good story makes me feel like I’m living a charmed life. I want to go buy a lottery ticket. When I’m on road trips I like to buy lottery tickets. I bought one once and I told my traveling companion that I was waiting for a sign that I should scratch the ticket, and he pointed out the window where there was a billboard that read “Sign Available.” I won two dollars!

JJ: In Roger Ebert’s review of the movie related to this particularly poorly photoshopped poster, Good Luck Chuck, which I’ve never seen, he says, “It looks like Dane Cook's face is literally melting off" which seems like a very intentional statement coming from a man who had a portion of his jaw removed to stave off the spread of cancerous tissue. I guess the movie is about a dentist who women fall in love with, but if you sleep with him, you lose interest and marry the next person you meet. And Dane Cook tries to break the cycle with Jessica Alba, I think? Several questions in regards to this: 1) has a boyfriend of yours ever married the person he dated immediately after you? 2) who cares? 3) Everyone knows Dane Cook stole jokes from Louis CK. Any thoughts on whether this is an unlucky inability to remember the source of funny things he heard or was he just being a dick who thought Louis CK was no big deal?

AG: I am looking at Dane Cook’s face and thinking, this guy looks like a total piece of shit. Maybe that’s some aspect of his character in the movie, but he looks like a guy I’d go on a date with who would have a lot to say about where he bought French-cuff shirts. To answer your questions, 1) Yes, it seems like an odd thing that boyfriends of mine seem to meet and marry the next girl they see after me. This has happened three or four times. They see the depths of depravity in the single life and no longer want to have any part of it. 2) I’ve not minded it so far. 3) Judging by my reaction to the dude’s face I’d think the latter, but I could also see it happening out of accident or ignorance. Maybe he watched a set while drunk and kind of internalized it. I’m not sure why I’m making arguments for the guy.

JJ: I’m going to watch a little bit of the Joan Rivers documentary and then I’ll be back.

AG: I haven’t seen that. Is it any good? I like documentaries. Mary Hamilton and I were half-watching The September Issue the other day and I was pleased by it.

JJ: Do you have any luck rituals? Things you do before readings, or processes you consider lucky before righting (ed. note: I thought about fixing this, but then thought maybe it added to the charm of Jac's sweet tea/PBR/lemon juice cocktail) or tricks you play with yourself to try and predict for yourself about how something will turn out? Like sometimes if I remark that I’ve been healthy for a good bit of time, I fret if there’s no wood for me to knock on.

AG: I sometimes do this thing when I am about to read a review of my work where I get the review up and then I go do something else or lie down on the floor or make a cup of coffee, something purposeful, and I try to kind of feel myself doing this thing. I don’t know why I do that but it’s starting to seem superstitious. I aspire to quit reading reviews but I’ll miss that little ritual. I used to kiss my fingers and touch the outside of an airplane before flying on it until a pilot teased me about it and we laughed and the power of it was gone.

JJ: I think it’s obvious to ask you to answer the same questions you have asked me, but I’m curious. Anything you have to say to your own questions is welcome!

AG: I don’t want to! I only want to continue asking questions! Do you believe in THE SECRET?

JJ: Good answer. For those of you reading along it is the next morning, and because you have a brain in your head, you probably know that that cocktail I made last night was a terrible idea and could kill a man. Well, I’m a dead man now. Writing you from the Land of Ghosts. It’s nice, here. Sunlight shines through everything and everyone, even the people filled up with tar and high fructose corn syrup. But back to your question, I don’t believe in THE SECRET, no. It sounds like a hoax to me. Maybe I don’t know too much about it, but the idea is that if you visualize something, you can get it, right? To me, I call that daydreaming, and I do a lot of that.

AG: What about the idiom “lucky at cards, unlucky in love”?

JJ: So, that just means that you’re lucky in gambling, but not in finding someone to love, right? What a funny phrase to make it into everyday life. There must be enough people that feel that way for an idiom to have become common place. I think I might be the reverse. I don’t think I’m too lucky at cards, but I have a gentleman friend I love very much. I have been to Vegas a couple times, and never lost money, but as soon as I get, say, $20 ahead, I think, “Wow! Twenty bucks! I should stop now!” Remember when we tried to get Anthony to drive us to that casino in Iowa City? I bet I would have lost a lot of money that night. That reminds me. Do you listen to the WTF podcast?

AG: I have listened to a couple! I don’t understand podcasts but I am learning about them.

JJ: There is a great one with Norm McDonald, who has lost all of his money twice because of a gambling problem, and I’ve always been confused about gambling and how people can have a problem with it. But he talks about how you gamble away, say, $400K and then you see that you still have $50K in the bank, and you would think a person would stop, but that $50K is just reminding you of the $400K you gambled away, so you gamble that away, too. Also, he apparently suffers from Stendhal syndrome, which is just fascinating to me.

AG: We’ve walked a long way together, between bars or from bars to restaurants or from bars to homes. How long do you think we’ve walked?

JJ: That’s funny. When I think of you, I usually see you walking beside me. Probably at least 30 miles, right? More? Oh, but you asked how “long” which is different than how far. A lot of hours, I think. A day has got to be too long, but I like the idea of having walked a whole day with you.

AG: I found a candy bar on the ground once. It was the luckiest day. Have you ever found money?

JJ: I think any money I’ve found has been my own. One time, I was going through some old paper-type memories, and I found birthday cards from when I was a kid that I’d never taken money out of. That was a treat. Also, I went on vacation with a friend’s family in high school, and, in the pool, my friend’s dad found 3 one hundred dollar bills, and he gave one to each of his kids, but none to me, which I know in my heart is fair, but I felt like one of his kids on that trip, and I wanted some cash.

AG: I hear that. If it’s any consolation, “Found 3 one hundred dollar bills in the pool and gave it to kids” sounds a lot like “Gambled away all but $300 of childrens’ college fund, felt like an asshole so gave it to kids” to me.

JJ: OK, your turn again. Have you ever had your fortune told? Was it right or wrong? What do you remember?

AG: I remember getting my tarot read at a coffee shop in Phoenix when I was maybe twenty. I was there with a boy I was in love with and that must have been pretty obvious because the reading was all about love and union and travel and everything was right.

JJ: I know you won the FC2 contest, but any other contest wins? Like a radio call-in contest or funny dance contest on spring break?

AG: A couple summers ago I won a raffle at a summer movie series and I won $100 in grocery money! I blew it all on wine and candy. I always enter those feedback contests on receipts from grocery stores. It’s a compulsion I have, like if I see it on the receipt I have to do it. I haven’t won anything from those but the folks at Ralph’s know exactly how I feel about their tampon selection.

JJ: Do you think luck was ever a lady to begin with?

AG: Luck is a lady and lady is a tramp.

JJ: You’re a new resident of LA. Do you feel luck was involved in making the decision to move there or in anything that happened in the process of moving there?

AG: There was so much luck involved on my way here. I got a lucky haircut, a lucky eyebrow wax, a lucky moving violation warning. People would find out I was moving to L.A. and they just wanted to give me talismans. My mom wrapped some shells in wire and beads and gave it to me for luck before I crossed the desert.

JJ: If you could automatically transform something to lucky charm status, what would it be? Like somewhere along the line someone decided that a rabbit’s foot was lucky or a four-leaf clover? You get to make the new lucky charm (not related to the cereal — I am not asking you to name the new marshmallow shape)!

AG: Good question! I miss Lucky Charms. Are they making a marshmallow-only version yet? I think I would make it so smiling at people in the street and asking how their day was was demonstrably lucky, and then bums and hookers would be the luckiest people in the world, and also everyone would have a better life. That’s kind of a lame answer but there it is.

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All February, Hobart will update every weekday with new bonus material —
photo essays, deleted scenes, interviews, extra short-shorts, movies, excerpts, and other Hobart 13: LUCK.