(Conducted by Gabriel Kennedy and Laura Kang with Morrison on January 29, 2017.)
I first encountered Grant Morrison at the Disinfo.com conference of 2000, organized by Disinfo’s founder, media magician, Richard Metzger. As I walked upstairs from the basement hangout zone of NYC’s Hammerstein Ballroom, at the beginning of his now legendary lecture, I heard Morrison’s bone-chilling scream into the microphone, which reminded me of another Morrison, and thought “Who the fuck is this guy?’ He then announced that he was drunk and had just eaten some hash and it was about to kick it in, all with a thick Scottish accent. Such punk rock antics won the rapt attention of the wild crowd, myself included, and over the course of the next hour or so, he voiced all the countercultural excitement of the moment. During that cold February day in New York City, Morrison’s message was clear, Magick works, but you should not take his word for it, you have do it yourself to learn how it works.
What originally brought me to this two day conference was the fact that Robert Anton Wilson was the headlining speaker. Throughout the late 90s, and especially 2000, I was completely immersed in the works of three psychedelic philosophers, Timothy Leary, John C. Lilly, and most of all, Robert Anton Wilson. RAW was more than just a psychedelic philosopher, he was the greatest living writer that I’d discovered up to that point.
During his talk, Morrison exuded such optimism and joy that I immediately went out and read as many of his comics I could find. Reading The Invisibles was a monumental experience, contributing to my own seismic breakthroughs about the potential of my consciousness in this vast mysterious universe.
Since that Disinfo conference, Morrison’s stories have jettisoned his name to a pantheon of comic book wizardry. This year marks another ascent for him, as the TV world has finally managed to secure his story-telling talents. Syfy Channel contracted Grant to film a pilot based on his graphic novel, Happy!, as well as a television series rendering of the Aldous Huxley classic Brave New World.
Morrison was in Brooklyn to work on the HAPPY! Pilot, when he, myself and the Semiotic Alchemyst (aka Laura Kang) met up on a frigid February night for some food, drink and conversation. For three hours, we covered such varied topics as the utilization of Magick to survive the idiocy of Tump & Brexit; the greatness of the work of Robert Anton Wilson, the role that women are playing in bringing in a bloodless revolution in the Aeon of Ma’at, Gnosticism, Acting, Theater, The Disinfo.com conference, Voodoo, Kool Keith, the KLF, smoking DMT, and the importance of maintaining a sense of humor, among other amazing things.
The date was July 25, 2003. I was somewhat in denial of the fact that I was about to sit down with Robert Anton Wilson, philosopher/magician/cantankerous old codger, and conduct an interview with what felt like no prep at all–just a few notes scrawled into my notebook when I found out that I got the interview two hours earlier. You see, originally I was in town only to see a documentary about him entitled Maybe Logic — which by the way was sharp as a tack — but then I decided to go for the gusto and see if I could sit down with the man who warped my mind like a K-hole when I read the Illuminatus! trilogy as a teenager. The reality of the situation was that I could only stay in town for three nights, as that was the maximum amount of time the International Youth Hostel of Santa Cruz would allow me to sleep there. If I wanted to stay longer, I’d be forced to pay inflated summer rates for a motel room or kick it with the hobos and homeless on the streets for a couple of nights. Or worse, I might have to head back east with nothing but the impression that Santa
Cruz was a strange, strange place.
The closer I got to RAW’s apartment the more it dawned on me that I was late, unprepared, and not sure if the tape recorder I just bought at Radio Shack would pick up any of our conversation. That’s just how life is sometimes.
For those who don’t know who RAW was, or seemed to be, perhaps the simplest way to put it is that the man was an icon for being an iconoclast. Throughout his forty some odd years writing biting social commentary with a sly psychedelic wit, he used the language of a street comedian rather than a pundit on a soapbox. Reading his books gives you the feeling that
he has turned on the lights and discovered that ostentatious intellectuals have been unknowingly fondling an elephant with maladroit hands. He assessed the bullshit, or er, elephant shit, and wisely stepped aside and acted as a fair warning system to those of us venturing into the less illuminated parts of our minds. If there is one phrase that echoes in those darkened halls it must be, “Think for yourself.”
I was nervous. It was trepidation mixed with a strong feeling of joy that allowed me to make it up the three flights of stairs to RAW’s apartment door without being winded. To me, Bob seemed a master raconteur, at ease winding yarns around his audience’s mind until you laugh yourself out of the skull cap he just knit for you with his story.
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