In Search Of Captain Zero Part II

Many of you may remember I wrote about an incredible author named Allan Weisbecker and his trials, tribulations and death threats last April.  If not I strongly urge you to take all of five minutes and read it, so you will fully understand the rest of this entry.  Here is the link:  In Search Of Captain Zero Part I
Anyway after several people wrote me hoping to hear more about the hour I spent with Weisbecker almost a year ago, I thought it might be a good time to post some of the transcript from our taped conversation, especially because the new book is finally suposed to see the light of day on October 1st 2007! Can’t You Get Along With Anybody (The New Book!)

It may seem a little bit “choppy” but this is because sometimes, as good conversation does, our talk winded down roads of topics such as surfing, women; topics that were not really part of the “interview”, and after further reading where really not said for public consumption. 

Here is some of what was said in October of 2006:

AW: I just had to fire my new agent who I had for two months…for basically dishonesty and confidence, same shit. They’re all pimps….I shouldn’t say they’re all pimps, but my experience has not been good. So now I’ve got the book in print in UK and I don’t have an agent to sell it in the states so I’ve got that problem.

Sweet Talk: You talk about your kayak surfboard thing, sailing around Tortola, website, shitty relationship, etc, I can really relate to your situation in many respects, you know except for the uncovering of a murder thing and being the target of death threats…

AW: It’s surprising how many people have e-mailed me and whatever saying the same sort of thing, and women too. Most of my readers unfortunately are men, I would rather have more of a balance,…and the research I’ve done on people like that, sociopaths, whatever you want to call them, they’re about 4 percent of the population are that way, 1 in 25 people, so that means everyone in their life have come into fairly close contact with them, with someone like that, and um, I just keep getting people saying God the same thing happened to me although usually they say that my thing is worse, usually they don’t try to kill you, have you murdered or whatever, but it’s truly relentless and combining with all the other shit that’s happened, to me that becomes, it’s relentlessness= comedy.

I would pray that people are laughing, because without that…Christ, like I say, the funniest movie of all time was about the end of life on earth, you know you’ve gotta laugh.

Sweet Talk: I think most readers ask themselves when reading a memoir, “do I connect with this guy?” or “I hope in some ways I’ll have the same perspective on life that the author has etc.” I think you capture all this in spades.  However knowing the ending, and what kind of danger you face, the obvious question is what are you doing here?

AW: I left Costa Rica in October under the circumstances you know about. It would be good if you didn’t give too much away, you can talk about the general stuff, my girlfriend, know.

Sweet Talk:  One of my favorite parts of the book is the irony surrounding the dedication

AW: Let’s not forget escalating conflicts! I finished the book in Tobago, so I left Costa Rica in October under the circumstances, went to Tobago, pretty much because it was winter and I didn’t want to come back here, I had to rent this house and I was renting so I couldn’t come here, and I needed the tropics and waves to keep my head straight. So I went there, and I spent (counts Oct-Mar), up until about mid-April there, and then I came back here and I was basically finished with the book when I got back here. And my plan was to deal with finding a publisher and all that, although I found Humdrumming in March, before the book finished that I had to deal with them, based on, they read it up until part 5 and trusted me that the ending would work. My plan was take it day by day, try to keep my head together, which is still something that’s a bit of a challenge, while getting a US deal, which I’ve already gone through now this bullshit with agents. I don’t know what I’m going to do, I’ve gotta find a place with palm trees for the winter and surf. Can’t go back to Costa Rica, I’m thinking either Mexico or the big island of Hawaii, I need a place where it’s not crowded, and so I’m not sure where I’m gonna go. It’s totally changing from ten years ago, or even maybe five. So that’s my plan, I’ve still got to write the Cosmic Banditos script. I have something else I can finally get back to the goofball comment about the meaning life after this real life shit. I’ve got to really dedicate myself to publicizing this book. Getting word of mouth started. Word of mouth is the only thing that sells a book in the long run; it’s completely like Captain Zero.

Sweet Talk: I would imagine with all the legal wrangling you are definietley going to need some strong word of mouth.

AW: I don’t’ know what kind of nightmare is going to transpire with the US publisher. I shudder to think what their lawyers are going to say when they read this thing. The difference here with just about everybody that I’m not pleased with in the book, I can prove that everything is true. The website that I created just for the book is as long as the book, it’s all there. I even have the Holiday Inn tape, it’s there you can listen to it. I have so many e-mails from Lisa where she stuck her foot in her mouth, I have that letter that I wrote to her brother which was this long, 40000 words then she replied to it, and all of her lies are there.

Sweet Talk: Here we are at the Montauk lighthouse on the Eastern most point of land; do you always find yourself at the end of the road.

AW: End of the road and also highlands. Highlands are similar to end of the road places in that people don’t pass through them, you tend to go there as a destination, and there’s that same sense of isolation and voluntary seclusion, sort of. Some are crowded but not usually the ones I go to. And I don’t know if it’s a coincidence, or certainly where I was in Costa Rica was a true end of the road place in the sense that it’s a frontier, it’s the very last part of Costa Rica, that is being developed, aside from the interior, I mean the coast, and it has that wild west history that you read about, that Max Dalton stuff and the squatter stuff. The lawlessness and the fact that there is no police there…it doesn’t matter either way, the bad people that are there have the wherewithal to keep the police on their side. The police there were more than a problem than a solution. You do tend to get people to show up there that are extremes, and often they’re not the good extremes of human beings, they’re people that I call in ‘Zero’ the big fish in the little pond syndrome, they’re there because they can be the dominant figure. And especially this place, where it truly is not dissimilar from an image of the Wild West where you go somewhere and there is somebody there that has napoleon complex and they decide they are the law there. This guy was absolutely like that, he fucked with everybody there, including the local ticos (sp), he’d have restaurants closed down, he tried to anyway, he had little mom and pop tico stores that sold beer, he had the cops in and take care of them. He had a friend of mine set up on a bogus drug bust, he was in jail for a week. The point is, when you get into a conflict with somebody like that, it’s very different than if you’re living in a city and you have a problem with a neighbor. You’re dealing with situations that can very easily escalate.

Part III Coming Soon (Transcribing is a bitch)