I can’t remember for certain whether I first heard from Alex Johnson when he asked me to be on his podcast or when he asked me to be part of his tribute to the great William S. Burroughs, but I do remember enjoying both of those opportunities, and many more—including adding my thoughts about the countercultural cache of David Bowie, another of Johnson’s upcoming books.
In that spirit of mutuality, I’ve decided here neither to edit out his fulsome praise of myself nor to reduce the sheer number of names dropped in the conversation, because every name is worthy of your follow-though. You could indeed fruitfully spend the rest of this year grazing in the fields of the authors and other creatives mentioned herein and come out the other end with a master’s degree in authentic hipness, with a side order of cyberpunk.
A critically-acclaimed poet, author, editor, journalist and fine artist, Alex S. Johnson's work has been endorsed by a constellation of luminaries including neuroscientist Dr. David Putrino, rock stars such as Jarboe, and Bram Stoker Award-winning authors Caitlin R. Kiernan, John Shirley and Christi Nogle. Johnson’s novels include The Doom Hippies and Jason X : Death Moon, both of which are archived at Harvard University's mega-library, The Widener. Johnson’s work has appeared in anthologies alongside the likes of Kate Bornstein, Carol Queen, Allen Ginsberg and Poppy Z. Brite.
His own anthologies include The Junk Merchants: A Literary Tribute to William S. Burroughs, featuring The Runaways co-founder Kari Lee Krome, Jarboe, Ellyn Maybe, Iris Berry and many others. His forthcoming work includes a novel co-written with two-time Bram Stoker Award-nominee Sandy DeLuca, The Lennon Box and Moondust Will Cover You: A Literary Tribute to David Bowie featuring Ann Magnuson, Rozz Williams (Christian Death), the legendary Tony Zanetta (Mainman Entertainment) and other icons.
Johnson lives in Carmichael, California with his family.
RU Sirius: Tell me about your experience with SF and cyberpunk and technology issues, and how you’ve integrated science fiction themes into Nocturnicorn Books.
Alex Johnson: As a neurodivregent creator (I refuse the term 'content creator' on principle), technology has enabled me to have at my fingertips a whole array of tools that help me function in ways that I would otherwise be unable to. As for the intriguing question about my experiences with SF, cyberpunk and technology issues, I would have to say I had the extreme good fortune of collaborating primarily with Pat Cadigan, "Queen of Cyberpunk," on a canonical novel set in the expanded Friday the 13th universe, titled Jason X: Death Moon. That one was published in 2005 by Black Flame Books/New Line Cinema and distributed by Simon and Schuster.. Cadigan's brilliant extrapolations and her sense of humor is a huge influence on my work, as is the work of William Gibson, John Shirley, Bruce Sterling, Baudelaire, Hunter S. Thompson, Iris Berry, Poppy Z. Brite, Arthur Rimbaud, you, Charles Bukowski, Ellyn Maybe, Caitlin R. Kiernan, William S. Burroughs, Henry Rollins and Black Sabbath. In Death Moon I introduced technology that was so conceptually cutting-edge that many of the initial reviewers just dismissed it as druggy ramblings... and while I do admit there's just a wee bit of that in terms of the chemical cocktails I ingested while writing the book, I also came up with things like self-archiving nano-spiders and Akasha.net, which as far as I know is unique—hacking directly into God's brain.
Acker was also a huge inspiration, as you pointed out on my YouTube show when we were discussing my mosaic novel The Kandy Fontaine Chronicles. My dad, Steven M. Johnson, whose fans include fucking Bjork, was a major contributor to Whole Earth Review in its various manifestations, and he created things like Google Glasses 13 years before they existed…
I've told him many times he should connect with you. He would make a great interview subject as well. Fucking Bjork. But I digress. Technology is not without its dystopian side, but I'm sitting here at a quarter to 6:00 A.M. in Carmichael, California writing on a 2,000 USD laptop with built-in nanotechnology, I have a brain injury and I've still produced work that's been praised by cult icons and is archived at Harvard University's Widener Library. Oh dear, I went off track again. You should also interview Ellyn Maybe. She's the icon. I love her so much. Well lemme get to your other questions…
RU: Please say a little about your collection Neurospicy. How do you think neurodivergent people make the future? Can they/we bring noncomformity to AI, which now seems like it’s averaging out human thought and spitting it back out. Any thoughts on queering AI?
AJ: Once again, Ken, you're speaking my language. I fucking love the idea of QUEERING AI. I'm actually working on a book with the provisional title of GENDERQUEERING REALITY. Which reminds me of something I forgot to add to my last answer—which is that I actually was privy to an early version of Poppy Brite/Billy Martin's novel Exquisite Corpse, in which he used the concept of "Reality Hacking." Although I was very aware of Mondo 2000, I wasn't aware that you were the one that came up with the term and it was one of your magazines. I asked PZB/BM permission to use "Reality Hacking" in Jason X: Death Moon and he responded in his low-key way, "Of course; I don't think I'll be using it in the future."
Billy is another mutual friend of ours featured in Mondo and I think he's incredibly gifted, still producing work. He did the Foreword for our Bauhaus tribute and the Introduction to the William S. Burroughs tribute; we're also doing a tribute to him (Billy) to help him and his partner Grey Anatoli Cross defray household and medical expenses, and I would love to have a piece from you for that book.
Being neurospicy and neuroqueer has given me access to my amazing, wonderful, kind, beyond-brilliant friends I wouldn't have otherwise—including you, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Carmilla Voiez, Ellyn Maybe, Amelie Frank, my partner Pickles, Lasara Firefox Allen, Patrick Califia, Iris Berry, David J. Haskins, Jarboe, Kari Lee Krome and Neurodivergent Rebel (Lyric Lark Rivera). I would like to thank Caitlin, Lyric, Carmilla, Patrick and Carmilla especially because there is quite a bit of overlap in terms of being queer and being neurodivergent—or, as I prefer, neurospicy.
People like Rivera have been pioneers in this regard, and there's a ton of good neuroscience (oh, I should add that I also collaborate with the amazing Dr. David Putrino at Mount Sinai in Queens, New York; he's one of the world's foremost neuroscientists and co-authored the definitive Long Covid study published in Nature magazine).
Neurospicy people are just sexier. I have been going through this amazing transformation where I've fully incorporated my transfemme identity which is linked to my neurospicy genius. It's all on a continuum. Within the past two weeks I've had Peaches Christ on my show....talk about a scorching, epochal sensation… Peaches is a true cult icon, I mean Joshua Grannell. Have you seen All About Evil, his film starring Natasha Lyonne and featuring Cassandra Peterson, AKA. ‘Elvira’? If you haven't, you need to remedy that deficit. It's pure unadulterated joy, and shows Joshua's fanatical devotion to horror. As for your interesting question about AI, I think the AI/human neuronal highway is a fascinating subject and we're already incorporating AI in the way we have shifted into more pattern recognition-based behavior...it's harder and harder to tell who is a bot and sometimes I find myself patterning after AI bots...eventually, we are all Borg.
RU: My enthusiasm for David Bowie is vast, and thank you for including me in your book. The very title Moondust Will Cover You points towards his engagement with themes of space travel and mutation. He was known to be both critical and enthusiastic about the internet and cyberpunk. What are some of the bright spots (aside from myself, of course) from this upcoming book as it might relate to a cyberpunk or mutational or science fictional vibe?
AJ: You are very welcome, and delighted to have your essay in there! Indeed space travel and mutation, I automatically think of the title of the Blue Oyster Cult album Tyranny and Mutation—yes, we're also doing a BOC tribute, I mean, John Shirley, but that is to anticipate—coming back to Earth, I actually had an AI brain in Death Moon called Major Tom. David Bowie has haunted my dreams for decades. He was definitely a mutant. My friend Kari Lee Krome, who co-founded The Runaways with Joan Jett, told me "Alex, Bowie was a vampire." Maybe he was a space vampire like Colin Wilson's novel that was made into that Tobe Hooper film. Bowie would lurk on his own early social media platform under assumed names and have conversations with randoms who logged on. Wow. Ken, isn't it amazing that terms like 'logged on' no longer apply? That we have thumb recognition software and my nanotechnology enhanced laptop enables me to move my cursor with my head!
Umm. Well, bright spots include my very good friend Caitlin R. Kiernan ("Caitlin R. Kiernan is an original"-Clive Barker), who created her story inspired by the Outside album by taking a first draft, cutting it up Burroughs-style, placing the pieces in a literal hat, taking them out, pasting them on to fresh sheets of paper...which is pretty much the technique Bowie used to create Diamond Dogs and Burroughs used to create The Ticket that Exploded. I find Caitlin's extrapolations to be extraordinary. Another possible interview for your magazine. We're also doing a literary tribute to Cait, at her request, which is coming out next year. Caitlin resembles to me a kind of ancient sea creature that lives at the bottom of the ocean, moves at a glacial pace, and has a brain that cuts through all the bullshit of our dystopian nightmare death spiral with pained clarity. Back to the question. Yes, Bowie is a prototype for a new human android vampire hybrid.
RU: You also have a tribute to Bauhaus. The goth vibe has a sort of transmutational aspect. How do you think about that?
AJ: Indeed, and again interesting that a number of the contributors to that book, as well as me and many friends of mine, are transgender. As you know, David J. Haskins, the man who co-founded Bauhaus and founded Love and Rockets and wrote ‘Bela Lugosi's Dead,’ was a friend of Burroughs and actually manifested him by doing sex magick rituals he learned about from V. Vale's interview with Genesis P-Orridge.
Bela Lugosi is a fascinating person because he played Jesus Christ in a Hungarian stage production of Christ's life—and he is also famous for playing Bram Stoker's undead character. So there's this spiritual dimension of Lugosi. I know from interviews with David that Bela was a bit tongue in cheek and people really need to understand that Haskins is a multi-dimensional guy. As a lyricist, he's a poet, and as a poet, he wrote us an original piece for The Junk Merchants, the Burroughs anthology you also contributed a cut-up to. But you asked about transmutation. I'm also a cousin of Andy Warhol Superstar Bibbe Hansen, who was friends with all these fabulous Queens and icons, Edie Sedgewick, who David J. wrote a play about...we're all reformatting and refreshing our browsers in real time these days.
RU: The Kandy Fontain/Slutty Detective novel is fun with hackers and private eyes, sex, ultraviolence … the whole nine yards, so to speak. The Slutty Detective title comes from Kathy Acker, the radical novelist who played beyond the edges of appropriation, postmodernism and sexual explorations. How do you feel about her influence?
AJ: Thank you so much for the kind words about my book, Ken. Yes, it is a fun 'mosaic novel'—that's Jeff Thomas's term, he compared my work to Burroughs; you've also said "Acker would approve" of the Kandy Fontaine character/series. Acker's influence on my work has been so profound that I didn't even realize I had subconsciously archived her phrase "Slutty Detective" until you brought it up when you and Allen Ginsberg associate Marc Olmsted were on my YouTube show; in fact, after you left, Marc told me "Ken is a genius," and I said “Yep.” So Acker, like me, was a rabid enthusiast for French feminist postmodern literary theorists like Helene Cixous and Julia Kristeva. I also adore Sadie Plant over in Scotland, the author of Writing on Drugs. Acker gave me permission to dip and dive into classic literature and freely appropriating lines, mangling the icons, dive-bombing the canon, firing myself out of the canon, all sorts of highjinx. Yes. People should definitely read Great Expectations by Kathy Acker alongside Dickens. In fact, I think a palate cleanser with a bit of Acker should accompany any cultural ingestion. You were an intimate friend of hers and dated her, so your endorsement of my work, and saying Acker would approve, really warms my heart. That's so amazing. Yes. Read Kathy Acker, listen to Black Sabbath. And R.U. Sirius and Phriendz.
RU: Cyberpunk ‘patient zero’ John Shirley praised your poetry collection. What made you think of sending the collection to John, and what do you think prompted his praise? Give us a few lines.
AJ: Shirley very generously praised my previous poetry collection The Death Jazz which goes back to 2012. He and I were mutual Facebook friends with Eric Bloom from Blue Oyster Cult. I had contacted John through Facebook, he read The Death Jazz and was so struck by it he wrote that I had created a new hybrid form of science fiction, ‘Noir Surrealism’.
That same book was also praised by our mutual friend Thomas S. Roche and the poet Ellyn Maybe... a poem from it wound up in a Charles Bukowski anthology that also featured Bukowski, Neeli Cherkovski, William Taylor, Jr. (winner of the Kathy Acker Award and also a contributor to my Burroughs book), Alexis Rhone Fancher and Jack Micheline. So when I wrote my apocalyptic dark poetry collection The Flowers of Doom (the title comes from both Baudelaire and a song by the late great Rozz Williams of Christian Death), I thought, you know what, why not send it to Shirley? John has retreated from social media so I got his contact information from a friend. His calling me "the Baudelaire of our time; the poet of the underground" sent shockwaves through me. I am in complete fucking awe of John Shirley, and Baudelaire has been my go-to poet through times of intense stress, grief and sorrow. I can't say enough good words about Shirley. He also wrote an original story, based in the Dio penned song ‘Lonely is the Word,’ for my anthology Hand of Doom: A Literary Tribute to Black Sabbath. Hells yeah. In the words of Henry Rollins: LONG LIVE BLACK SABBATH.
RU: William Burroughs, who believed that humans needed to mutate and move beyond Earth, believed that language was a virus. Do you have any thoughts on how language inserts itself into the human condition?
AJ: Language is indeed a virus, and I adore Burroughs's themes and his fascination with word virus. Language inserts itself and we are its instruments. Roland Barthes also pointed out that nobody originates literary work because language essentially, in contemporary terms, uploads itself into our nervous systems. A pet peeve of mine is that nobody appears to have actually read Barthes' essay on The Death of the Author. Whenever that concept arises, it's invariably involved with "who should we cancel today." So that's just tedious. Like Acker, like you, like Leary, Burroughs allowed us to remove ourselves from the frame and be fucked blind by words.
RU: Following up on previous question: Memes were first introduced as a concept by Richard Dawkins under the theory that ideas spread and mutate in ways that have some similarities to genes. What do you make of how memes are infecting human culture, and how would you like to infect it?
AJ: Memes are a powerful form of magick that fucks us blind. I would like to infect human culture with concepts like BASIC DECENCY and KINDNESS and, ya know I am a strong advocate of SQUEEZNS. I've been SQUEEZY HUGGED by icons...Gitane Demone, Tairrie B. Murphy, Ellyn Maybe. Burroughs once said that the greatest praise he could give to a person is that they're harmless. He talked about "The Johnson Family" as an example of harmlessness, I guess "being a Johnson" once signified just being decent and minding your own fucking business. I do think we can counter-hack and infect the Symbolic with LOVE. Yup.
