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Kurt Eisenlohr was born in Michigan in 1963. He is the author of
Under Hand and Over Bone (Poems: 1990-94) and the novel
Meat Won't Pay My Light Bill. His poetry and fiction have
appeared in numerous journals and magazines including Air In The
Paragraph Line, Asylum, Verbal Abuse, River Styx, Another
Chicago Magazine, Cokefishing, Way Station, Flipside, and
Fizz. He is also a painter and photographer. His art has been
shown in many galleries, both high and low. He lives in Portland,
Oregon.
Look for more of his titles here in summer 2009.

Meat Won't Pay My Light Bill Excerpt

Read/see more of Kurt Eisenlohr's work

An Interview with Kurt Eisenlohr

Being a painter and a writer, where do you find inspiration for each
discipline?

Whatever happens to be in front of my nose at any given moment; billboards,
bits of paper, drunks and non-drunks at the bar, barking dogs, girls that come
over, whatever. I use everything that comes my way. I don't make much
distinction between painting and writing, it all comes from the same place, it's
out there in the world and it's all in your head, gestating and mutating and
picking up lint. But I know that when my paintings become too crowded with
words, it's time to start writing again. It's time for me to start writing again.
Maybe. I don't know. I quit drinking four months ago. I smoke a lot of pot
now. Pot works for painting, but it doesn't work so well at the typewriter.
We'll see. I'm into a whole series of new paintings now. Also, I'm falling in
love. It's been awhile, so ....Yeah, I may just write another book soon. Love
get the juices oozing again.

How much of Lupus Totten (the lead character in Meat Won't Pay My Light
Bill) is really you?

Look, I was drunk , stone drunk, for last several years, and doing fuck knows
how many different drugs . I'm still trying to remember who the hell Kurt
Eisenlohr was/ is/ will be. I don't know or care much about this Lupus fellow.
.. Let's say it's 50/50. Yeah, I write about what I know. Every writer does.
The ones who say they don't are ...well, I don't know what they are. I don't
think about these things, and I've never understood people's fascination with
it. Is it real or is it Memorex? Who knows or cares. There is no truth, there
are no lies. Fuck it. I'd rather think about my cats. I don't care how far gone
Raymond Carver's life may have become off the page. I don't care if Mick
Jagger actually shoved a Mars Bar up Marianne Faithfull's ass back in '68. I
like the story, though.

Do you think you have to be a stuntman for your own fiction or poetry?

Well...I've never looked at it that way, ever. My life has been pretty much
one big car crash, no stunt men involved. I'm usually too preoccupied with
trying to stay alive to give much thought to these things. I don't think about
writing until I sit down to write. The rest of the time, I'm just trying to
survive. I do suppose that I've tried to salvage something from the wreckage.
Personally, I would have rather been laying into the good life on some sunny
isle somewhere, and writing about that. No, I think people who deliberately
fuck up their lives for ART are big fat deluded idiots, and probably not very
good writers anyway. How could they be?

Who inspired you early as a writer?

John Boy Walton. I identified with him. I was a polite, rather timid boy, you
see, and I fancied myself to be a bit of writer back then. I also wanted to have
sex with Mary Ellen, John Boy's sister, if you recall. I don't remember ever
seeing that episode, though. Who else? Salinger, I guess, Rod Serling, the
Narnia Books. Later on, Burroughs, Robert Crumb, Miller, Hemingway,
Flannery O'Connor, Bowles, Dos, Camus, Fitzgerald, Rimbaud, all that shit-
John Fante, Bukowski, Vonnegut...I don't remember them all anymore. And I
don't read a whole lot these days. When I do, it's small press stuff, for the
most part. I enjoy reading the graffiti in crappy clubs and bars, and on the
walls of buildings and the dumpsters I pass on my way to work. I don't search
for poetry in poetry journals. Or much else, for that matter.

As an occasional entertainment columnist for the Smokebox web site, what
makes for a good night out for you?

Well, that's all changed now that I've stopped drinking and drugging myself to
death. I was feeling pretty ethereal there for a while. I figured I had maybe a
year left, when I quit. Back then a good night out was a few lines of Dilaudid
at the apartment, a few glasses of wine, some weed, maybe a Xanax or two;
then going out, settling into some club downtown. If the band was good, I'd
pay attention. I drink and listen. If not, I was off to The Magic Garden to
drink , maybe do a few more drugs, and just see what occurred. Many
interesting things would occur. I was a bit out of control. And not writing a
fucking thing, not painting. I'd complete a column every now and then...BUT,
I'm no longer drinking, and I'm in love with this amazing woman now,
and...Yeah, things are different. A good night is painting, hanging with my
lady friend, wandering around and looking at things...

What kind of projects are you currently working on?

I am currently painting my ass off and filling 3x5 cards with cryptic notes and
phrases for my next novel, which I hope to start work on soon. If the mood's
right.

There's some funny stories about you sending your artwork to celebrities
like Prince and Nina Hartley. Do they respond?

Yeah. Nina Hartley. I met her here in Portland, and I gave her a painting.
Shortly after that, my ex-wife and I crumbled, and I had gone missing or
something, and my ex thought I was dead, so she had gotten the keys to my
apartment and was making all these frantic calls , trying to find me, and was
all hysterical. And then Nina Hartley calls me. But I'm NOT THERE. My
fucking wife, who had recently left me, SHE GETS TO TALK WITH NINA
HARTLEY. And she tells her the whole story, and Nina calms her down and
generally acts as a sort of Dear Abbey . I was very much alive, at a girlfriend's
house, and I'm still pissed about missing that phone call. As for Prince, naw,
he didn't respond, and I didn't expect him to. However, Keith Richards has
one of my paintings hanging in his apartment in New York. It's a long story,
but he dug the painting and I of course dig him. Shit. Yeah, I'm proud of that
one.

In a lot of ways, you're kind of an old-fashioned guy. You don't have a
computer and you still send letters to your friends and publishers. Are you
scared of technology?

Well, I'm not that bright, you know. I'm a fucking dinosaur. The
five-year-olds are way ahead of me. I don't stand a chance. So, yeah, I'm
scared of it in a way. Wouldn't you be?