Entertainment
STILL LIFE WITH TOM ROBBINS
Wed, Jun 12, 2002 12:00 am
Gregory Daurer
Tom Robbins agreed to be interviewed -- in his own fashion.
Insisting that he's more articulate on paper than he is in person, Robbins proposed writing out -- rather than verbalizing -- his answers to our questions. Still, he welcomed a visit from HIGH TIMES to his "sodden clam-chawed outpost" north of Seattle in order to flesh out his persona.
My first view of Robbins is literally downcast: He's lying on his back on his living-room floor with his hands on his chest as he converses in his folksy and mellifluous voice with his assistant, Barbara, and wife, Alexa. Had he been enjoying a meditative, guided relaxation? Or, is he returning from a mind-blowing ayahuasca adventure? Actually, he'd injured his back in a freak accident and had been applying cold compresses. "So far, I've been unable to convince anyone that my tripping over a vacuum-cleaner cord was simply a practice session for a low-wire act," he quips.
The interior of Robbins' home is a visual feast. A trio of Andy Warhol soup cans hang in his living room; other walls are dedicated to accomplished painters from the region he's lived in for 30 years, Washington's Skagit River Valley. His writing desk sits in the same room as his collection of antique toy motorcycles; one almost imagines him going "Vroom! Vroom!" as he pens his latest novel by hand..
It's also the same room in which the FBI interviewed him a few years back. It seems Robbins was on the Unabomber suspect list because of similarities between Theodore Kaczyinski's then-anonymous manifesto and Robbins' 1980 book Still Life With Woodpecker. Although Still Life's plot involves a romantic, anarchistic bomber named Bernard Mickey Wrangle (a.k.a. the "Woodpecker"), Robbins decries violence and insists he's not technophobic. "It wasn't really all that pleasant to think that someone could think that you're blowing up other human beings," he says. Robbins gives the FBI extra credit, though, for their smarts in the choice of agents they sent: two attractive, young women (they'd obviously gauged how to crack his nut from reading his books).
Though Robbins covets his privacy, he occasionally puts himself in the spotlight for a good cause, such as when he recently joined other celebrities (Woody Harrelson, Susan Sarandon, Richard Pryor) protesting the federal government's policies on medical marijuana. These days, Robbins explains, "I have a very high-pitched nervous system and a real low threshold for drugs. Three aspirin will knock me out. Anyone wants to date-rape me, all it takes is three aspirin: I'm yours."
Prior to his photo being taken, Robbins proves a stickler for detail: as a stylistic matter, he insists on donning sunglasses, just as he appears on his latest book cover. Afterwards, he promptly takes them off again -- in waggish, Tom Robbins fashion, of course.
My first view of Robbins is literally downcast: He's lying on his back on his living-room floor with his hands on his chest as he converses in his folksy and mellifluous voice with his assistant, Barbara, and wife, Alexa. Had he been enjoying a meditative, guided relaxation? Or, is he returning from a mind-blowing ayahuasca adventure? Actually, he'd injured his back in a freak accident and had been applying cold compresses. "So far, I've been unable to convince anyone that my tripping over a vacuum-cleaner cord was simply a practice session for a low-wire act," he quips.
The interior of Robbins' home is a visual feast. A trio of Andy Warhol soup cans hang in his living room; other walls are dedicated to accomplished painters from the region he's lived in for 30 years, Washington's Skagit River Valley. His writing desk sits in the same room as his collection of antique toy motorcycles; one almost imagines him going "Vroom! Vroom!" as he pens his latest novel by hand..
It's also the same room in which the FBI interviewed him a few years back. It seems Robbins was on the Unabomber suspect list because of similarities between Theodore Kaczyinski's then-anonymous manifesto and Robbins' 1980 book Still Life With Woodpecker. Although Still Life's plot involves a romantic, anarchistic bomber named Bernard Mickey Wrangle (a.k.a. the "Woodpecker"), Robbins decries violence and insists he's not technophobic. "It wasn't really all that pleasant to think that someone could think that you're blowing up other human beings," he says. Robbins gives the FBI extra credit, though, for their smarts in the choice of agents they sent: two attractive, young women (they'd obviously gauged how to crack his nut from reading his books).
Though Robbins covets his privacy, he occasionally puts himself in the spotlight for a good cause, such as when he recently joined other celebrities (Woody Harrelson, Susan Sarandon, Richard Pryor) protesting the federal government's policies on medical marijuana. These days, Robbins explains, "I have a very high-pitched nervous system and a real low threshold for drugs. Three aspirin will knock me out. Anyone wants to date-rape me, all it takes is three aspirin: I'm yours."
Prior to his photo being taken, Robbins proves a stickler for detail: as a stylistic matter, he insists on donning sunglasses, just as he appears on his latest book cover. Afterwards, he promptly takes them off again -- in waggish, Tom Robbins fashion, of course.
