Wherein Sam discusses the nature of politics, the need for rituals and the importance of boxes as well as coming up with a great suggestion for a new nickname for California
film and animation. Recently accepted to USC, he plans to reform Los Angeles by implementing a secret transit system accessible by password only, run exclusively for an underground, poverty-stricken intelligentsia.
Mr. Barnett is partial to fine Scotch, hot women, and installing his own car stereos. He's never met a form of anarchy he didn't like.
bio by Robin Dunn Photos by Ren Dodge
1. What kind of government is best?
Pretend government. Not because it's good, it isn’t, but it’s all there is.
2. How do you treat poison oak on a dog?
Time? Sedatives? Tranquilizers?
3. What are your feelings towards the animal nature of human consciousness and its conflicts in a civil social structure? Particularly your own?
I guess I have been thinking a lot about bureaucracy recently. I have felt very often recently while caught in bureaucratic nightmares that someone has managed to attach some strings to my organs and these strings go through walls and on the other side of these walls there are people pulling very hard on the strings. Bureaucracy is civil cancer. It institutionalizes our complete lack of trust for each other. I think, at least in terms of its mechanics, bureaucracies work in direct opposition to all life. And our animal nature, which we need to feel things like excitement and love, is largely crushed by our overly litigious state.
Apparently, an unfortunate side effect of the civil rights act was that it took a great deal of power away from judges. "Common sense judgments" are no longer acceptable, because naturally there were/are lots of racist judges. This was part of a huge movement that involved western culture losing confidence in its own moral superiority. We decided that we cannot trust our own animal selves and thus turned the keys over to an abstract cancerous litigation machine. The engine of this machine, the cancer cells(layers), function with the explicit intention of gaining as much capitol as possible for themselves/their clients with no regard to the species as a whole. It is now perfectly acceptable to sue people for your own idiocy. Like the thief that famously (and successfully) sued after falling through his victims skylight. Of course there has to be some kind of order to our lives and our society. And some of our instincts for creating order are bound to be maladaptive given that so much of our evolution occurred in a very different time. To quote Becket;
"I love order. It’s my dream. A world were all would be silent and still and each thing in its last place, under the last dust." And, I personally, do in fact love order.
4. How does death relate to consumption?
Well... "That which consumes" is, I think, I pretty solid definition of life. Having for the most part overcome physical danger and disease, consumption is one of the only ways we have left to struggle actively against death. Consumption and sex.
5. Is California a real place?
I hear the word a lot, and I say it and write it a lot. Although when I write it I usually write "CA". Which I think should be pronounced "KA". I like the idea of living in "KA" or even better... "KA!" very much. That makes me feel both important and mysterious... What was the question?
6. What's your mom like?
7. Are you intrigued by the influences of artificially induced psychedelia? Religious states? Why or why not?
I am extremely interesting in religious states. Not so much psychedelia anymore. DMT maybe. I think that one of the most important things that modern society lacks is good rituals. Most of the rituals that we have today are derided as outdated cheesy leftovers of a bygone age. Marriages and funerals are the only rituals that Americans still take seriously. If you don’t respect a ritual it is useless. One thing art does is make us look very deeply and openly at things we would usually ignore or use in only a routine pragmatic way. Rituals make you take whatever moment in your life it happens to be very seriously, and, it becomes valuable moment. It allows you to see what you otherwise do not. That is a religious state, the ability to break through a self-maintained barrier.
8. What makes you anxious?
Planes make me anxious. Flying. And pretty much everything else. Being a biological system. Not knowing how my brain works, why it does some of the things it does. Ambiguous social roles. The extreme complexity of everyday existence.
9. Describe the appeal of Tetris
Well first off, it’s all about boxes and eliminating and stacking boxes and boxes are one of the fundamental building blocks of consciousness. It fulfils our compulsive needs to both clean and to organize (reference earlier Becket quote), without the tiresome consequence of actually having cleaned or organized anything. It also fulfils the compulsion to eliminate dead weight.
I don’t know why my face does what it does. I’m not in control of my face. I am actually not surprised very often so the look must mean something else. terror? No... Couldn’t be terrified that often. Maybe it’s just a look of being intensely focused on the now. I am usually that.
1. What kind of government is best?
Pretend government. Not because it's good, it isn’t, but it’s all there is.
To jump entirely ahead and start answering the last question, I was surprised when I realized that there are no adults, it was a slow realization but I think surprise is still the right word. While there are not "adults", there certainly are powerful wrinkled children and they define this government thing. I don’t believe there are particularly important lines between things like "communism" and "capitalism", government rather is the collective set of rules that has been created by a massive machine that none of us control that is made up of a patchwork various thoughts.
Some examples;
1) Rules we wrote as half conscious responses to various problems we are required to speak about as though we understand them.
2) Rules designed to increase "capitol" be it monetary or otherwise, these rules may be purchased by interested parties and usual are.
3) Rules designed to counteract/fix the problems created by rules we drafted half consciously to fix problems we never understood. Capitalism, Communism, Libertarianism, they all function more or less in this way. Whether it’s very personal interactions or macro economics, it’s all pretty much part of the same animal to me.
2. How do you treat poison oak on a dog?
Time? Sedatives? Tranquilizers?
3. What are your feelings towards the animal nature of human consciousness and its conflicts in a civil social structure? Particularly your own?
I guess I have been thinking a lot about bureaucracy recently. I have felt very often recently while caught in bureaucratic nightmares that someone has managed to attach some strings to my organs and these strings go through walls and on the other side of these walls there are people pulling very hard on the strings. Bureaucracy is civil cancer. It institutionalizes our complete lack of trust for each other. I think, at least in terms of its mechanics, bureaucracies work in direct opposition to all life. And our animal nature, which we need to feel things like excitement and love, is largely crushed by our overly litigious state.
Apparently, an unfortunate side effect of the civil rights act was that it took a great deal of power away from judges. "Common sense judgments" are no longer acceptable, because naturally there were/are lots of racist judges. This was part of a huge movement that involved western culture losing confidence in its own moral superiority. We decided that we cannot trust our own animal selves and thus turned the keys over to an abstract cancerous litigation machine. The engine of this machine, the cancer cells(layers), function with the explicit intention of gaining as much capitol as possible for themselves/their clients with no regard to the species as a whole. It is now perfectly acceptable to sue people for your own idiocy. Like the thief that famously (and successfully) sued after falling through his victims skylight. Of course there has to be some kind of order to our lives and our society. And some of our instincts for creating order are bound to be maladaptive given that so much of our evolution occurred in a very different time. To quote Becket;
"I love order. It’s my dream. A world were all would be silent and still and each thing in its last place, under the last dust." And, I personally, do in fact love order.
4. How does death relate to consumption?
Well... "That which consumes" is, I think, I pretty solid definition of life. Having for the most part overcome physical danger and disease, consumption is one of the only ways we have left to struggle actively against death. Consumption and sex.
5. Is California a real place?
I hear the word a lot, and I say it and write it a lot. Although when I write it I usually write "CA". Which I think should be pronounced "KA". I like the idea of living in "KA" or even better... "KA!" very much. That makes me feel both important and mysterious... What was the question?
6. What's your mom like?
7. Are you intrigued by the influences of artificially induced psychedelia? Religious states? Why or why not?
I am extremely interesting in religious states. Not so much psychedelia anymore. DMT maybe. I think that one of the most important things that modern society lacks is good rituals. Most of the rituals that we have today are derided as outdated cheesy leftovers of a bygone age. Marriages and funerals are the only rituals that Americans still take seriously. If you don’t respect a ritual it is useless. One thing art does is make us look very deeply and openly at things we would usually ignore or use in only a routine pragmatic way. Rituals make you take whatever moment in your life it happens to be very seriously, and, it becomes valuable moment. It allows you to see what you otherwise do not. That is a religious state, the ability to break through a self-maintained barrier.8. What makes you anxious?
Planes make me anxious. Flying. And pretty much everything else. Being a biological system. Not knowing how my brain works, why it does some of the things it does. Ambiguous social roles. The extreme complexity of everyday existence.
9. Describe the appeal of Tetris
Well first off, it’s all about boxes and eliminating and stacking boxes and boxes are one of the fundamental building blocks of consciousness. It fulfils our compulsive needs to both clean and to organize (reference earlier Becket quote), without the tiresome consequence of actually having cleaned or organized anything. It also fulfils the compulsion to eliminate dead weight.
Like, if my car has an obviously extraneous object attached to it, I feel the compulsion to cut that object off. And after I have cut that object off I feel as though I have accomplished something, except that in Tetris I am spared the humiliation of having accomplished something. So the boxes and the success without consequences are appealing, and the music is unmatched.
10. Why the hell do you always have this look on your face like you're surprised at everything/everyone you're seeing? Are you really so surprised all the time? Really??
I don’t know why my face does what it does. I’m not in control of my face. I am actually not surprised very often so the look must mean something else. terror? No... Couldn’t be terrified that often. Maybe it’s just a look of being intensely focused on the now. I am usually that.
