Alex Pogosov is a Dallas area writer, musician, booking agent, and supporter of the local arts scene. His credits include work with the Deep Ellum Enrichment Project, variety and music shows booked at Bill's Records and at the Amsterdam Bar in Dallas, and a stint with the UTD Mercury, where he contributed an occasional music and performance related column. He was the architect and emcee of the Lost Art Open Mic, a weekly gathering of poets, musicians, and performance artists which ran for thirteen months at Bill's Records in Dallas in 2010 and 2011. His current focus is on his own Knife Six Productions, the website for which is slated to go live in early 2012.
Alex Pogosov: Hey.
PAO: We'll start off with some basic, generic questions that everybody asks. How would you say you define yourself as an artist?
AP: Ummm . . . inconsistent. There's stuff that I like to do artistically that I've been doing for a long time, but I feel like I haven't reached the point where I can just, you know, do it day in, day out. It's kinda . . . kinda keep going even when the motivation isn't at its highest, I would hope.
PAO: That's how you define yourself as an artist?
AP: I'm sorry I thought you meant like what kind of artist I was. I don't like to define myself. I feel it's too limiting.
PAO: In what way?
AP: 'Cause when you assign labels to something, you kinda feel like you have to live up to it, and kinda keep the myth alive if you accidentally create one.
PAO: Do you feel that you've created a myth for yourself, or a mythos?
AP: I hope not. I tried not to. It helps when you're really kinda sporadic in your work. People tend not to latch on, and assume that you're gonna be one sort of thing, 'cause they don't see one sort of thing consistently. So it's actually the good side of being inconsistent.
PAO: That's interesting. Not quite the kind of answer I was expecting, but I guess I should have. I've seen you perform around town at various venues: Mochalux, Bill's Records, when that was still going on, Mighty Fine Arts, Mad Swirl . . . Which one of these venues would you say best suits your particular style of performance or personality, or do you draw a different vibe from each of these? How does that inform your material or how you present yourself or how you might see yourself as an artist?
AP: It doesn't really change how I see myself as an artist, although I do see my ability to adapt to an environment as being beneficial, so I guess that kind of plays into it. There's . . . I don't know if there's one I like more than any other out of the ones you mentioned; it just kinda depends on the night. I will say I'm kinda disappointed at Mad Swirl's sound system a little bit, 'cause it always feels like when I'm playing guitar there the low end is too high 'cause they have the bass turned up, but that's kinda my fault. I should insist on sound checking better. But that's the venue, it has nothing to do with the host.
PAO: Well as far as your performances at the venues, do you feel that there's one that's more engaging as far as the audience goes, or one that's more inspiring?
AP: I usually tend to be more engaging when I know a large percentage of the crowd, but since that tends to happen a lot, it's pretty engaging everywhere.
PAO: So there wouldn't be one in Dallas that might be more limiting stylistically, aside from any censorship issues?
AP: Oh aside from censorship? No, not really.
PAO: What was it that inspired you to start the Lost Art Open Mic?
AP: Um wow . . . okay. I gotta think back that far. It was just something I really liked back in the day at the old Bill's location. Having somewhere to go weekly and hearing people read poems and actually hearing pieces over and over theoretically would get kinda boring but it didn't really because sometimes it takes several listens for things to sink in. And then I would converse with the people reading the pieces and I'm like, oh okay, so you're telling me this story and that came out in this poem, didn't it? And this line from this poem is about that, and I don't know . . . it probably helped me to connect better with people I chose to surround myself with.
PAO: This being the incarnation of the open mic from 2002-2006, or in your case, 2003 when you first started coming . . .
AP: Yeah, 2003 to . . .. well, 2005 was when it officially ended.
PAO: You were the last host.
AP: I was, to my knowledge, unless somebody came up, but Bill hasn't told me anything, so yes, I think I was the last one. I did it in. It was all my fault.
PAO: You found that original open mic because you had come into the store one night, and seen that there was something going on in the back? Or was it Bill who told you?
AP: It was Bill who told me, 'cause I just saw a stage and I wanted to do some standup comedy at the time. This guy I used to run around with named Josh Mullins, who has since moved out to San Diego I think to actually be a stand up comedian . . . we would kinda throw jokes back and forth, and I had performed at a Chinese New Year's banquet which was kinda cool. I did a stand up bit there and enjoyed doing that and so when I found out that Bill had an open mic my first question was, "Can I do comedy there?" and he said "Yeah, sure," even though it was predominately poetry at the time. I did my comedy thing, and the first poem I wrote - which was untitled for a while but I eventually called it "Following in the Shadow of Generation X" - was written after I became a somewhat regular of that open mic and was exposed to some of the material from the other poets [such] as Max Blair and Joey Cloudy, Jolee Davis, Paul Sexton . . . Mr. Natural, even, who's kinda weird. But yeah, I was driving around one day and I was supposed to be doing this art assignment, but I was NOT inspired to do it, so instead of getting an image in my head that I could later draw, which was the assignment, I got words in my head which I stopped the car and wrote down on the back cover of this book. It was a collection of short stories written by second graders. My story was in there about getting chicken pox and it . . . it was, you know, it was bad. It was second grade level as I was not a genius by any means. I didn't have an above average reading comprehension or vocabulary, reading level, or anything like that. So it was just a shitty little second grader's story and then I took the back cover, I guess it would've been ten years later, and I wrote this little poem on it and people seemed to like it, so then I sporadically wrote others.
PAO: Did you perform any of your work anywhere else prior to your first night at Bill's?
AP: No. I wanted to in my high school in 10th grade. The theater department put on this what they called a poetry slam, but I later found out that it wasn't really a poetry slam in the sense of competitive poetry, like you go there, get points. It was more of an open mic and it was kinda cool 'cause it was in this room with no windows and the walls had been painted black 'cause it was kind of supposed to be this neutral space for the theater kids, and they brought in all these cushions and everybody just kinda sat and relaxed and the teachers didn't mind us saying "fuck." Actually they did mind us but some people did it anyway and kinda got away with it (laughs).
PAO: Interesting. I remember when you first started coming to Bill's you were exclusively stand up, whereas today that would constitute a very small percentage of your repertoire.
AP: I do a stand up routine like once every maybe two or three years now.
PAO: Besides the musical endeavors and the monologues, or poems . . .
AP: You can call them monologues. I don't really consider most of them poems.
PAO: . . . you find the monologues to be more artistically fulfilling, or more indicative of who you are as an artist, or as a writer?
AP: No I don't. They just come out easier. Sometimes when I was hosting Lost Art I would start telling a story and then I'd kind of realize like ten seconds before the fact, "If I word it this way, it'll probably be funny and get a laugh," and that usually worked and I was happy about that. But I'm always kinda disappointed when I have a comedy setlist in my head and I'll go from topic to topic and use these transitions and these'll be the jokes . . . but then I always say that I suck at improv.
PAO: Do you have a skeletal outline of what you want to talk about and then flesh it out based on the reaction of the audience and ideas that pop into your head at the time?
AP: Well . . . that's all banter though, but it's different from the monologues that I write or the little pseudo essays or whatever you want to call them . . . rants, those are kind of like essays. I've gotten enough feedback in seven years of college (laughs) to kinda give me the impression that I'm not that shitty an essay writer, so I kinda do the same thing when I'm doing the monologues but just use less formal language. I have a point and I support that point and I give examples and that's pretty much it. And when I'm really not expecting a laugh I put jokes in there, but I don't know . . . bottom line is I hesitate to do more stand up because if people don't laugh I'd kinda be crushed and when I do something like a rant it's more like, ok, I have a point, and people are like, "Okay, I see your point and you've supported that point, congratulations." It's easier to accomplish a goal that way when your goal isn't to necessarily be entertaining but just present an opinion on something.
PAO: You seem to be rather fond of Hunter S. Thompson.
AP: Oh, definitely.
PAO: Would you say that his writing style or opinions have informed your own work in any way?
AP: Yes, but I didn't know that at first. That first piece I wrote, somebody told me I quoted Hunter S. Thompson . . . actually Joey Cloudy told me he thought I quoted Hunter S Thompson, which I kind of subconsciously did 'cause there was a quote from, uh, I think it's from some part of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, that I threw a line into the poem not realizing it had come from that, just realizing I'd heard it before and it seemed applicable to what I was talking about in the piece. And then I kinda liked that comparison 'cause my most of my knowledge of Hunter S. Thompson up to that time, which would've been like fall 2003, had actually come from watching the movie adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas several times, and I hated the movie but they did the voiceovers which were straight from the book and I remember just like loving the voiceovers, like "wow this guy's really a great writer." And you know even though I don't necessarily like the lifestyle or want to be around people who consume a lot of drugs and get into all these weird chaotic situations, just that kind of mindset of being a participant observer - but one that, you know, doesn't just sit back in a corner with a pen but can actually participate in the true sense of the word - was always really cool to me, so I kinda took that from his work and tried to do my own thing with it. And then I got interested in journalism, which I had an interest in since like the fourth grade, but I didn't start wanting to write until like 2004 or so. I had this crazy idea of "I'll just print myself out a press badge and then I can, like, interview bands that I like and ask 'em what they meant by their lyrics, 'cause it's like, 'Uh your song's stuck in my head so I should be able to ask you about it, and this badge says I have an excuse'."
PAO: I remember those. You were going to make me one as a matter of fact.
AP: Yeah, I still am.
PAO: Your politically themed works tend to be rather sardonic and satirical. Do you try to stay away from a more hard line stance on politics because you're afraid of alienating your audience, or is it more a matter of you tending toward satire in your writing?
AP: I don't really have a political affiliation. I don't consider any of my work to be political in intentional ways. I realize that some of the things I say have political implications, but that's because a lot of social issues that I comment on have been politicized so it's just kind of a latent side effect of my situation. I don't know if I answered your question, I'm sorry, but . . . I'm probably kind of a bitter person, but if I were very serious about it I would be unhappy all the time, so I try to approach it with a sense of humor.
PAO: You're not really wanting to portray any particular political affiliation in your work. Is this partly a desire not to pigeonhole yourself into being seen as a certain kind of artist or certain kind of writer? You have certain . . . almost poetical archetypes - like you have the angry gay poet, the angry lesbian poet . . . and it could be poetry, it could be monologues, it could be rants. The angry gay performer has a certain agenda, the political performer has a certain agenda, there's the anti-government agenda, the stoner agenda . . . I'm sure you could name half a dozen other stereotypes. Would you say that you're trying to avoid falling into a trap where people expect a certain type of material or a certain type of attitude or agenda from you when you perform that you feel you need to live up to? Say for instance you were the political poet, or the anti-government poet. Would you feel that you had to tailor your writing to appeal to that sensibility and thus creatively limit yourself as well as limit your potential audience?
AP: Actually, that's never occurred to me 'cause I never felt I was in danger of limiting myself for like going in one direction. There has never been a point where I said to myself, "This is the one type of writing or the one type of opinion that I want to express, the one type of writing that I want to do exclusively." So yeah it never even occurred to me to compare myself to those people. When I see those people, usually I will try to converse with them and pretty much without exception I see that they're not as one-dimensional as perhaps their onstage persona would have you believe. But if it's important to them to express opinions that follow one straight line of thinking, then I guess I can kinda understand that, but that's never the way it is for me.
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