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66 ouring, yeah, I, I’m

touring and I, and

I’ve been go...been
going and I’m...with my book
and my C...my album.”

Talking. to novelist/musician
Pete McCormack, I start to
worry that he’s going to slip
on a stray word and sprain
his tongue. It’s as if he’s a
secret agent with vital
information regarding the fate
of the world, and he’s only
got two minutes to relay it
to me before he self-destructs.
His frenetic style of speech
is both amusing and strangely
endearing.

The thing is, McCormack’s
not your typical speed-talker.
I’m normally wary of people
who talk faster than I can
think—it’s usually the case
that they have nothing to say
and consequently say lots to
compensate for that fact. Not
so with McCormack. The
flood of ideas that’stream from
his mouth spring from a
genuine excitement about life
and all its possibilities.

We're both hungry, so we decide to
head over to Denman to fill up on cheap
Greek food. As we walk west along
Beach Ave, McCormack tells me about
the novel he’s currently working on,
which sounds like somewhat of a
departure from his first book, Shelby.

“My new book is so subversive it’s
unbelievable. It’s making me nervous.

It’s about four Vancouver
revolutionaries intent on overthrowing
the Canadian and American

government. And the group, they call it
the world’s first democratic coup d’etat
because they’re gonna get rid of the
government and then kill themselves,
too. So they kill themselves saying, ‘We
didn’t do it to be in power. Here’s the
information of what’s really happening,
they’re dead, do what you want.’

“Shelby was really a purge and a
coming-of-age thing for myself. I was
26 when I wrote it, 27. When I went
back to edit Shelby I had to be really
careful ‘cause I wanted to change it but
Thad to say, ‘No, he’s a 20-year-old and
this is his voice.’

“T have to write a new book about
what I believe or what I know. What I
believe is sketchy at best, what I know
is sketchy, too. I don’t have knowledge,
Ihave information. Hopefully it'll have
the same sort of tongue-in-cheek sort of
humour, though—that kind of self-
deprecating...I hope it comes out like
Shelby. I hope it kind of has a sense of
allowing other people to go, ‘Oh, I feel
like that, I feel as guilt-riddled and
insecure as that and it’s kind of nice to
see I’m not the only one.” I mean, if you
can’t masturbate freely, what can you
do?”

McCormack’s manner is surprisingly
easy-going. It could just be that he
doesn’t yet have the reputation and
resulting ego of a big-name writer or

musician, but it seems more likely that
he’s simply a friendly guy. He doesn’t
come across as someone with an easily

_inflatable ego. Should the spectre of big-

time fame come knocking at his door, I
suspect that he would invite it in for a
coffee and a friendly chat and then get
on with the business of life.

“pcb

can't masturbate

freely, what can
you do?”

“Artistically, I’m trying to go with the
essence of my own fears and my own
hopes as opposed to trying to formulate
something that is cool or hip. Hip is
boring to me after awhile. You realize

taterocem & photos by Keeta Sallows

the madness. The less boundaries we can
get, the better. Good luck with that.”

As much as he is concerned with the
state of humanity, it’s clear in talking to
McCormack that he’s trying to work
things out on a much more personal
level. His songs and his prose look
inward much of the time. He’s doesn’t
come across as arrogant or self-
absorbed, though. There’s a recurring
note of humility in much of what he
says.

“My goal is constantly to realize how
little I know. If you measure what we
know—what you know and what I know
about the world—you might be smarter
than me and you might know more
things than me. If we measure what we
don’t know about the world, I mean,
we’re both about level with a turnip. It
goes like, Pete and Kevin and a turnip
and then there’s this whole void. We

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after awhile that they’re [hip people]
being something that isn’t quite
themselves. They’re afraid to be
themselves.

“There’s one side of art that I think is
a very hip kind of music. The other side
is that I say to myself, ‘What do I want
with my music?’ I want to bring people
together. We’re so similar. We’re
painfully similar, we’re painfully
fallible. The boundaries we create as
humans over ideology and religious
differences are just insane to me. Instead
of dealing with our heart and our
feelings we can pontificate and not feel.
Ideologies clash. Boundaries create
conflict. When we think we’re
different—conflict.

“All you have to do, you put a whole
political group in there naked and, I'll
tell you, the discussion will change
completely because you have to go,
‘here I am,’ and it’s frightening.
Y’know, ‘Mr. Bush, I’m a little
frightened.’ (laughs) Mr. Bush, how
appropriate. So, I think that these words
and statistics and all this stuff are just
ways of avoiding the truth, which is that
the human condition is pretty consistent
across the board. We all contribute to

 

don’t know anything, we don’t have a
clue. There’s a great thing in the Tao De
Ching. Lao Tzu says, ‘He who knows,
knows nothing.’

“Aumans are
édiots, 7 think,
The species 2 a
uery troubled

"”

hecces,

“We’re just rambling along and I’m
trying to learn. I want to use my art as a
vehicle to grow. I want my life to be
artistic, not just my writing. People
always say, ‘You're so artistic, you’re
so creative’ and I say, ‘Yeah, but you’re
in a relationship and you do a great job
with your spouse.’ It’s a creativity that
I’m jealous of. The more creative that
we can make our lives, the better.”

If he believes in bringing creativity
into everyday life, the opposite is also

Seer anee

true of McCormack. The stuff of his life

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rom a is

is the material that he uses to fuel his
creative work.
“T feel the need to get more connected
with the divine. I can’t ,,
tell you what that means When you ‘ne nih you can « be noble ¢
but I feel it all the time.
To be more grounded, to be more in
tune—whether that means a bigger
force, or rhythms of my own body even.
Just like, I’ve gotta be relaxed and
comfortable with myself and I find it
difficult. In fact I wrote a lyric recently:
‘If my art was a car, where would it drive
me?’
“And I do question myself now. What
does it mean to be yourself? How
truthful can one be with oneself? It’s
hard. It’s brutal. But it’s the challenge,
it’s what we’re called to
do. We’re called to be “ff : Y
ourselves. I read ga ac it pra, When gon foor :
somewhere that
loneliness is an inability to make a
relationship with yourself.
“We crave connection—I write all
day, I live on my own...I just wrote this
song called ‘Lonely’ and it’s like, there’s
five billion people outside my door and
I’mas lonely as hell. And there’s people
that care for me, too, and love me very
much and that I love, but still you feel
this ache. But I think it is the relationship
with yourself that has to be further
developed, which has not necessarily to
do with self-pleasure,
but perhaps. (laughs)
“T think one wants
to do great things. One
wants to do something
good but what do you do? The best thing
you can do is be loving when you’re
around and when you have kids, raise
them really well and teach them love. I
mean, how much better can you do?
“But still we want more because we
see people on TV—like, I see a person
on a newsstand, like Cindy Crawford,
and I look at her and she’s looking sexy
and beautiful and I think, ‘She must be
really smart and she must really know a
lot and I really want to talk to her.’ She
probably doesn’t know
Indiana from India. I Aagh Grant gets a lowjob, his Care
mean, she might but....
Because they’re on TV
they’re already validated and we want ee
to ae. “What oa Dustin Hoffman think ® s § S a bd % 8 i
about this political issue?’ It’s just crazy @& A
that we think these people have any kind
Obs.

By now we’re full of Greek and have
wandered back down to the beach at
English bay, and as the sun prepares to
make its exit, McCormack really gets
rolling. He rants, but in a friendly sort
of way.

“The panel of experts is
the worst thing, too. Wow ‘ from prostitute
What’s a panel Bfcigeae? 4 7 got job ” i
They’re always wearing
suits and make a lot of money and
they’re telling us about welfare—these
guys telling us about the poor when
they’re billionaires and millionaires. If
you want to find out what it’s like being
on welfare, go ask the welfare mother
with the three child.en.

“Politics are a disaster, the higher
levels, they’re even more disgusting and
terrifying than we can imagine.

“J read about other cultures—other
cultures which have fantastic ways of

living in sync with nature. be 60 b , Ay debt and full of quits

The European culture sort

 

er $ 3;

 

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