Marty Beckerman
Marty Beckerman has been called a morbid little bastard by the original gonzo bastard Hunter S. Thompson. Much of that bastardness can be attributed to the fact that Beckerman has just released the book, Generation S.L.U.T., through MTV Books.
Generation S.L.U.T. is a book that does its best to encapsulate modern teenagers' sex lives. Its a funny but also complex book that combines real statistics, comic strips and a fiction story to inform the reader. At times the book does assume a lot about its readers by way of characters meaning that it may be too soon for Beckerman to calcify this generation as anything. But Beckerman is such a strong fiction writer that he is able to overcome those shortcomings.
Marty Beckerman is a 21 year old journalist who was raised in Anchorage Alaska and is about to graduate from American University in Washington. His writing has appeared in New York Press, Disinformation, The Anchorage Daily News, Get Underground, Ain't It Cool News and Penthouse Online. Generation S.L.U.T. is his latest after his first book, Death to All Cheerleaders, which explained how great the world might be if we were to simply get rid of all its worthless people.
Check out Marty Beckermans website and get Generation S.L.U.T.
Daniel Robert Epstein: You have the honor of being the youngest person Ive ever interviewed for Suicide Girls.
What made you decide to do the book in this fashion instead of a straight statistics-type book with commentary or just a straight fiction book?
What made you decide to do the book in this fashion instead of a straight statistics-type book with commentary or just a straight fiction book?
Marty Beckerman: A lot of books have tried to encapsulate generations like Douglas Couplands Generation X or Freddys Palace or even Fitzgerald. I think going about it through fiction you can do a lot of good things. You get a big emotional response out of that kind of approach, but I think also using the statistics and a more journalistic approach verifies everything in the fiction. Its a journalistic backbone to the story itself. It supports the accusations that Im making about Generation Y.
DRE:
Is it a little too early to start classifying your generation?
MB:
No, I dont think so. There are some major differences between Generation X and what Im calling Generation Slut. Its sort of creeping me out because Im 20 which really shouldnt be considered that old but like Im starting to notice that the kids Ive been talking to or just reading about who are like 13, 14, 15 are of a completely different mindset than I or any of my friends were at that age. Im kind of out of it at 20. Im culturally obsolete. Our whole culture targets the age sixteen now. Twelve-year olds want to be sixteen and fifty-year olds want to be sixteen and I think were idealizing a very young age, probably younger than has been in the media before.
DRE:
Do you really think that this generation is sluttier or at least has more sex than previous generations?
MB:
I dont know. I dont think its just about the sex. But Generation Slut isnt an anti-sex book and I think thats pretty obvious.
What Im saying is that I think that less than any other generation, Generation Y does not have a significant number of emotional attachments to one another. The argument Im making in the book is that theres no emotional attachments, everyone is just pleasure seeking and feeding their own genitals. Things like this did not happen ten years ago and especially not 20, 30 or 40 years ago.
What Im saying is that I think that less than any other generation, Generation Y does not have a significant number of emotional attachments to one another. The argument Im making in the book is that theres no emotional attachments, everyone is just pleasure seeking and feeding their own genitals. Things like this did not happen ten years ago and especially not 20, 30 or 40 years ago.
DRE:
Well
go on.
MB:
Say whatever you were going to say
DRE:
I was just going to say that in the 70s it was kind of like that. I mean just recently spoke to a woman named Lisa Dierbeck who wrote this book called, One Pill Makes it Smaller. It said that even in the Seventies had the free love but there was a cost to that free love.
MB:
I dont know if stories about, twelve-year olds raping each other were ever even close to common in 1990 and theyre disturbingly common now. I dont know if thats a national trend or just a bunch of isolated incidents but Im trying to make the argument that thats the extreme of what happens when you know nobody gives a shit about anyone else.
DRE:
For your research did you do a lot of interviews with people?
MB:
Yeah I talked to a lot people. A lot of the people quoted in the book have little mug shots and many are my friends and stuff. But a lot of them are just kids Id meet at parties or whatever.
It was also a lot of observation from college too. That really opened my eyes to a lot of stuff. In high school I really thought I knew everything about the world, I was really self righteous and I think going to college, suddenly I saw that high school was this tiny little microcosm. But then in the college world, with kids from all over the country theyre completely emulating exactly what I saw in high school. Nothing really changed because for a lot of people college was the continuation of high school. I was really depressed with that at first so going to college definitely was a big eye opener for me.
It was also a lot of observation from college too. That really opened my eyes to a lot of stuff. In high school I really thought I knew everything about the world, I was really self righteous and I think going to college, suddenly I saw that high school was this tiny little microcosm. But then in the college world, with kids from all over the country theyre completely emulating exactly what I saw in high school. Nothing really changed because for a lot of people college was the continuation of high school. I was really depressed with that at first so going to college definitely was a big eye opener for me.
DRE:
The book is funny as well.
MB:
Ill try to be funny.
I think this is probably the most depressed generation in history. Maybe that explains emo music. Even though emo music is shit.
I think this is probably the most depressed generation in history. Maybe that explains emo music. Even though emo music is shit.
DRE:
Yeah thats right.
MB:
I quote the numbers but the people I talked to and the characters presented in the book are very accurate. Theres a lot of self mutilation and a lot of really self destructive behavior. I think the kids 13 to 22 now are really deeply sad, deeply depressed people even though there are a lot of exceptions.
DRE:
But what do they have to be so depressed about?
MB:
I dont think theres enough passion about anything. You look at the Baby Boomers and the kind of heroes and role models they had. Even just the pop culture role models like the Beatles or the social role models like Martin Luther King or JFK and the literary heroes too. You had a lot of people putting out truly passionate work that probably inspired and I dont want to use the word mobilized, that makes me sound like a communist, but that inspired a lot of young people to have very strong opinions about the world. Now Generation Ys icons are Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton who are completely meaningless. They are propagating nothing. Its not just the lack of the social message its just the lack of anything real or substantial there.
DRE:
Isnt there still kids who dis everything that they ever liked when they were in high school once they get to college? I dont even know what the hell goes on in college anymore.
MB:
My taste has definitely grown. Maybe it has for a lot of other people but most of the focus is on high school. So trashing Britney has kind of gotten old but like she wont go away. I thought that whole scene was dead but it keeps coming back like the whore from hell or something. Its time for her to die.
DRE:
[laughs] Do you think that Generation Slut needs to be more chaste or just less sexual?
MB:
Yeah but this isnt an anti-sex book. Ive got a girlfriend; my mother is in the car. So I probably shouldnt say, I like fucking Mom.
DRE:
[laughs] You like fucking COMMA Mom.
MB:
I dont like fucking my mother, thats never happened. My dad says he likes fucking my mom. Im not saying that sex is bad or that people need to be more chaste. Im saying that there should be some effort somewhere to find something deeper than just genital fulfillment. I think thats what separates us from the lower animals. We grew up in a Utopia where the only war was Kosovo. That wasnt a major war so there was no major war until now. We grew up with peace and prosperity and everything that every generation has struggled for. We had it and we still turned out like shit. The book is asking why did we turn out like shit when we had everything.
DRE:
How could this generation have turned out to be shit when theyre still sixteen to twenty? They havent turned into anything yet.
MB:
I guess its possible that everyones going to graduate college, find jobs and find passion and stuff.
DRE:
Well no that wont happen [laughs].
MB:
Youre saying its too early to judge.
DRE:
Yes.
What did you see that made you want to do this book?
What did you see that made you want to do this book?
MB:
I dont want to say it was just my friends because it was also people I didnt know. It was stories you hear from other people and stuff you see at parties. Its this meaningless youth culture. I think Generation Slut is kind of the pinnacle of what I was writing about from the time I was fifteen. There wasnt one thing that set me off but it was just seeing it over and over again, seeing so many unhappy people still doing the things that make them unhappy. Generation Slut is kind of a culmination of me kissing goodbye to my adolescence.
DRE:
What made you think that was much different from Generation X?
MB:
How old are you by the way?
DRE:
Im 28.
MB:
So youre Generation X, right?
DRE:
I guess.
MB:
Like the tail end?
DRE:
Yeah, I guess I could be considered Generation X. But I dont fall into any traps. I hardly buy anything but when I was in high school I though everyone was an idiot and I was pretty creative. So maybe I was a little bit of a cut above the average person. When I was in college it didnt change that much except there people that I met that were more like me. A lot of old people will say stuff like, things were so much better. When you really talk with them you realize that things arent so much better its just that stuff you get is different.
MB:
You can correct me if you think Im totally off track here but I think you guys, Generation X, maybe more the older Generation Xers had the same ideas about lacking like true spokespeople. But you had Kevin Smith, Kurt Cobain and Quentin Tarantino but there was nothing super real or super meaningful there on the national level and Generation Xers are very frustrated about that. They werent happy with the Mcjob, they werent happy with Starbucks and all that. I think with Generation Y as opposed to being frustrated with the meaninglessness, celebrates it wholeheartedly. The Abercrombie and Fitch multi-million dollar a year industry.
DRE:
Yeah we should kill those kids.
MB:
Yeah, theres another track of thought that is the pedophile. The way the sex scene is now you would normally associate with college and upper high school and now it trickles down to elementary school. That was the creepiest part of what I was researching.
Youve got kids fucking before they grow pubes now. I didnt know you could do that but apparently you can. I used to chase girls around in the elementary school parking lot and I guess thats when my parents knew I was going to be a rapist. But Jesus I didnt know I wanted to fuck them I just thought I wanted to kiss them.
Youve got kids fucking before they grow pubes now. I didnt know you could do that but apparently you can. I used to chase girls around in the elementary school parking lot and I guess thats when my parents knew I was going to be a rapist. But Jesus I didnt know I wanted to fuck them I just thought I wanted to kiss them.
DRE:
[laughs] How much of the fiction part of the book is about you?
MB:
Some of it is definitely based on truth but its also highly fictionalized so I cant tell you how much of it is based on truth except that all the characters are composites. But the general thrust of the story is what I went through and what Ive seen or just what I know what other people have gone through. Its truthful but not quite 100% accurate to real life.
DRE:
What age did you lose your virginity?
MB:
Hi mom. I lost my virginity at eighteen.
Do you want to know something cool?
Do you want to know something cool?
DRE:
What?
MB:
My mother will enjoy this: I just took my girlfriends virginity; shes eighteen so thats pretty awesome.
DRE:
That is pretty awesome.
MB:
Yeah, Ive never done that before.
DRE:
[laughs] I only did it once with the girl I was with when I was eighteen, she was eighteen too
MB:
Oh yeah?
DRE:
What do you think of Suicide Girls?
MB:
Some of those girls are kind of hot.
DRE:
Are those the kind of girls youre into?
MB:
I dont know. I think punk girls can be cute. Some of those girls definitely look like total freaks.
DRE:
Do you have any tattoos?
MB:
I dont have any tattoos. Im too much of a pussy; I guess I kind of want one. But Im the kind of guy who would regret it the second after I got it.
DRE:
How did the idea of putting the comic strips in the book come up?
MB:
That was my editors idea. I didnt even know that was going to happen until they showed me the page proofs. Theres fiction, then there is journalism and then theres experimental graphic novel shit in the middle of it and I think I think it all adds up visually to something pretty cool.
DRE:
What was it like meeting Hunter S. Thompson at the signing in New York City?
MB:
I didnt go to the signing but I wound up in his hotel room. Thats one of the great stories of my life.
I had arranged an interview through Gear Magazine to meet him in New York and then all this shit happened where his plane was cancelled and he had to come in a couple of days later and he was all booked up with interviews. So he couldnt do the interview in person and his manager/wife told me that he could give me two minutes over the phone. I traveled all the way to New York for that and its a major let down so then I just skipped the whole publicist thing and I just called his hotel room at like ten oclock at night.
So I call and I get his wife on the phone and she says, Absolutely you cant do the interview. Hes tired, hes been doing interviews all day and he is done with this. In the background I hear Does he have drugs? His wife asks me, if I have any weed. I was going out with a girl at NYU at that point and I figure were at a college campus Im sure we can find something. So they told me if I could get down to the hotel in like half an hour with marijuana I would get five minutes with Hunter
I had arranged an interview through Gear Magazine to meet him in New York and then all this shit happened where his plane was cancelled and he had to come in a couple of days later and he was all booked up with interviews. So he couldnt do the interview in person and his manager/wife told me that he could give me two minutes over the phone. I traveled all the way to New York for that and its a major let down so then I just skipped the whole publicist thing and I just called his hotel room at like ten oclock at night.
So I call and I get his wife on the phone and she says, Absolutely you cant do the interview. Hes tired, hes been doing interviews all day and he is done with this. In the background I hear Does he have drugs? His wife asks me, if I have any weed. I was going out with a girl at NYU at that point and I figure were at a college campus Im sure we can find something. So they told me if I could get down to the hotel in like half an hour with marijuana I would get five minutes with Hunter
DRE:
Right thats good to know. I can get all the marijuana I want.
MB:
I guess this is confessing to a crime but Ive already done it so whatever. Anyway so I paid $25 for a dime bag which was a ripoff. Then we raced down there and I got an hour with the guy.
DRE:
Thats awesome.
MB:
I used to idolize him in high school and I read probably five or six of his books straight without reading anything else. What can I say thats the coolest night of my life.
DRE:
Are you like a child prodigy or something like that with all the writing youve done?
MB:
Am I a child prodigy? Well Im I like to think of myself as the Generations last beacon of truth, light, and beauty [laughs]. I dont know if prodigy goes along with that.
DRE:
[laughs] When did you start writing?
MB:
I started writing when I was fifteen. I wrote for the teen page of the Anchorage Daily News.
DRE:
I read that you like Dave Barrys writing as well.
MB:
Yeah, he was kind of sucking for a while but now hes gotten really good again
DRE:
Youre the first person under the age of like 50 I know that actually reads Dave Barry. I like him as well. Yeah in the past two years things have really turned around for some reason Im not sure what happened.
MB:
At first I wanted to steal Dave Barrys jokes. Its just natural that you idolize someone and then write exactly like them. But then you start reading new shit and you meld those influences with the original influence and just kind of come up with your own style. It took me a couple of years to kind of figure out my voice. Its still pretty obvious that Im channeling a lot of Hunter but Id like to think that Im like doing it a new way.
DRE:
I heard that in Alaska its really easy to get marijuana or its almost half legal there or something?
MB:
Yeah, there was a vote a couple of years ago to legalize it and it only lost by 40% to 60%. In the 80s it was legal for a little while.
DRE:
Did you do drugs when you were in high school?
MB:
Yeah I smoked a moderate amount of pot in high school but it just got so boring. It just seemed that when I was hanging out with those friends it seemed like everything we had to do we had to be stoned. After a while it just got so stupid and repetitive and I barely ever smoke anymore. Its just not worth it to me.
DRE:
Just when youre with Hunter.
MB:
Yeah, just when Im with Hunter. Im not going to go out and tell people they should stop smoking weed. Thats not my crusade. I feel like it makes me into a vegetable and my parents are very proud of me now hearing this.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
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