Blam Blam Interview with Chris Nieratko
For the skateboard issue’s book review, I ditched the three book standard and focused on one awesome one, Chris Nieratko’s Skinema, by Vice books. I liked it so much; I decided to interview him instead. Go read it yourself!
Note: These are the questions that are not shown in the magazine. If you’d like to see the full interview, please buy a copy!
QUESTION #1: Just exactly how good did you get at writing gay porn and would you be willing to share any of it with us?
I don’t know that I got very good at it, sadly. I wish I’d been better. Maybe I could have kept my job as a copy editor making $80,000 a year at the age of 20 but I was a young, dumb kid. I thought writing gay copy and coming up with interesting gay stories would ultimately turn me gay, so I wouldn’t let my mind veer far down those roads. It’s a shame because the gay community really missed out on a unique brand of deviance. I’d love a second chance at it now, 12 years later, to see what I could come up with. I can tell you right now I’d like to develop some gay porn superheroes. I can see them flying in with rainbow capes to save a man whose penis is stuck in another man’s ass and won’t come out. The only way to remove it of course is for the superhero to put his penis in the man’s mouth and shoot his super sperm and blast the trapped penis out. That’s just off the top of my head. I’ll need to flush out the details and his origin quite a bit.
QUESTION #2: In your book, you talk about how you took your favorite porn star on a "date." (Lucky! The closest to that I ever came was when I going to take a trip to Atlanta for my birthday. I wanted to get myself a tranny hooker and do something ridiculous, like go on a Segway Ghost Tour. I later found out that they don't allow females on those tours, even if they are not "real" females.) Did you really just drink too much and pass out on that date?
What’s a Segway ghost tour? Like a tour on those stupid machines for people who are too lazy to walk? The thing that they said even a monkey could operate and then George Bush fell off it? Why the fuck aren’t females allowed on those? I smell a lawsuit.
As for my porn date, I don’t think I said I passed out. Did I? I know I drank a lot because I was super nervous before she came to my room and when she showed up I only became more nervous and drank a lot more wine and when I fell on the floor I drank more. Stop me, oh, stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before. But I basically asked her if we could just watch some TRL and drink wine and pretend we were on a regular date and she obliged me. Until my hour was up. Then she up and left me alone to my sad, pathetic, nervous existence. What a stud, huh?
QUESTION #3: You are not only a successful writer but you are now a proud co-owner of a skate shop in Sayreville, New Jersey, a husband and a father-to-be. How the hell did that happen?
I think I was kidnapped, drugged and given a false reality like in that shitty movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger. It’s like that Talking Heads song. I’m constantly asking myself, “How did I get here?” Honestly, and I can’t express this enough, if it weren’t for meeting and falling in love with my wife I would have been dead years ago. I was doing far too many drugs, drinking and driving without care and testing death on a daily basis. It was only a matter of time before I died or killed someone and ended up in jail for life. I had no plans for the future. I couldn’t see one. My existence was day-to-day until I met her. And without ever yelling or ordering me to clean up my act, she got me clean and sober by showing me the possibilities of a better life; a life with her, my family, my friends and children. And so I went cold turkey and stopped all drugs and began chasing that dream. On this past St. Patrick’s Day we opened our second skateshop in New Brunswick, NJ, NJII it’s called, I’m still trying to get my wife pregnant but it won’t be long now, I’m doing a lot of consulting with Red Bull for their skateboarding program and life is wonderful. It really is like some kind of twisted fantasy. I now go to the gym 5 times a week and eat healthy. I mean, shit, last night I started taking a healthy cooking class 3 hours a week. Six years ago I was on a fast track to the grave and now all I want is to try and live this life for as long as I can. I’m very lucky to have met my wife. She literally saved my life.
QUESTION #4: Throughout Skinema, you talk about how you don't like fat people, particularly fat women. Towards the end of the book you talk about how fine your wife's high-water booty is (we agree, it is fine) and how the waif-like types are unattractive to you. So, what you're saying is, you like 'em "little in the middle but they got much back?"
I had a hard time figuring that out.
I say I don’t like fat people and I guess in many ways I do not but when it comes to women of any size and shape I can always find something attractive about them. I am really not into thin, waify, rib-exposed stomachs. I don’t care how big and great the ass is, I need meat to hold onto. My ideal woman is basically a Robert Crumb drawing. It’s as if he personally drew my wife for me.
QUESTION #5: Would you say your book tour lived up to your expectations? Will you do it again? (I personally would like to know more about this because we want to do one and the guys at Dirty Found gave us permission to 'steal' their usual U.S. tour route.)
I had no expectations when I left on the book tour so I suppose it’s safe to say it surpassed any expectations I had. I did hope to see more bare breasts than I did, ZERO, except for a lovely porn star’s named Lorelei Lee that I interviewed in SF. A lot of pretty girls came out and that of course made me happy but none of them showed me their boobs and that was saddening.
