Day of the Thief- an interview with Matt DiGangi

Kathy Polenberg:    “Dig-it!” That word should be the interview title, followed by “. . . I interviewed Matt DiGangi" or something equally breathless. Please provide synonyms or equivalent language translation of "dig-it" because it’s become a familiar DiGangi exclamation.

Matt Digangi:    Dig-it, there used to be a cartoon frog that would say that, part of a breakfast cereal ad campaign when I was a kid. Super Golden Crisp I think. I've had people call me Dig-Dug and Digs and there used to be a band called Dig Dat Hole, and somewhere in the middle of that triangle, I've gone said Dig-it a few times.

KP:    How does it feel to be told you've been misquoting “Dig'um” for all these years? Right cereal icon, wrong catch phrase?

MD:    Good fact checking. I think now, in retrospect, it was probably a phrase used by the pro wrestler Macho Man Randy Savage in a Slim Jims commercial. It's the sort of thing that influences a young man of a certain age.

KP:    On a geocities top 100 wrestler quotes of all time Savage is #98 with "Dig-it!" It seems more likely you are quoting the Macho Man  than the amphibian (yet they both look so much alike, your confusion is understandable.) Speaking of confused: I'd never heard of Thieves Jargon Magazine until shortly before I submitted in 2005, so I have a hard time understanding why it matters to me if I get just one more poem accepted. As a 48 year old female (biologically old enough to be - you know) to whom the Jargons' identifiable style does not come easily- I wonder why I care?

MD:    See, I don't know that I like the idea of the Jargon having an "identifiable style." I mean, I guess we do, but I don't want to. I want it to be unpredictable, like you don't know what you're going to get. Grab bag.

KP:   In a 2005 discussion you stated publicly that the reason you started up Thieves Jargon was "revenge" against editors you'd encountered that were dismissive and clueless (to be charitable) in their relating to submitting writers. Has it happened that writers take a rejection personally? Has there been retaliatory acting out from rejected writers?

MD:   There have been a few snide remarks. I hate writing rejections, but I try to be as cool about them as possible. Sometimes I'll use a form letter, if I have like ten rejections to do in a row, but I try to change it up every time, disguise it even. I think about how I'd want to get rejected as a writer, and play off that.

KP:   Regarding your message board- are you satisfied that your message board is populated by a community? Is it the environment you hoped to provide as you stated in a previous interview?

MD:   The message board is fun. Interaction with faceless strangers brought me to the internet when it was first invented, and it's kept me there for a long time. Maybe that's a little sad; because there's a lot of stuff I still don't know how to do. I should have a better tan. But the main idea here is that if you're going to have a popular web site, you need to let people get geeky with each other.

But then, you think, what if the police are reading this, and people are selling drugs on your message board? Or somebody says "nigger", even if they're using it to talk about how you shouldn't make fun of handicapped people, and you're pulling out your hair a little. Watching the squabbles can be messed up because at first it's really fun and you laugh out loud because how ridiculous is this? But then you think man, some people take this so seriously and their confidence might end up shattered forever, or maybe somebody I never met is about to get maimed by some freak who gets wound up over inflectionless bulletin board text. So do you step in and keep the peace? Do you delete offending posts, even though you, more or less, rely on free speech to publish a large majority of your material? It would definitely be easier without the message board, but it would be less interesting. It stays.

KP:   I have seen for myself via the message board that you can get really excited about the writing and the writers too. It's contagious to witness this sort of enthusiasm. You once said if you had someone make it into Playboy you could quit-but, seriously- how do ever reach the bar when you are the one raising it?

MD:   When you're the best, you quit like Michael Jordan. Then, like Michael Jordan, you can't stay away, you're back two years later and it never works out as well.  

What I'm aiming for here is to be remembered in thirty years. Like, say I die and my heirs forget to pay the web hosting for Thieves Jargon, and all the archives blip off. Will any of this be remembered or looked back at, or more important, discovered by future races?  

To be the best, you've got to beat the best. And so many of my contemporaries are invincible. Still, I'm better than all the assholes I set out to beat when I started.

All of the past weekly writers, needless to say, have been real favorites of mine. I feel bad though, because I might have ruined a lot of them. At least 3 of the former weeklies pretty much stopped writing soon after their tenures concluded. If that happens again, I'm only going to blame myself, and I'll stop featuring a weekly writer. I've tweaked the program recently, so maybe we'll be safe. A short list of other favorite writers:  

James Greco

Ken Darling/Nadine Darling power couple

Willie Smith

Caroline Kepnes

Mike Boyle

I might have to attribute the amount of people who know about and read the Jargon to hard work. I've published a lot of issues, and a lot of writers. We’ve been kind of consistent in terms of style. When I'm really on, which has happened maybe 6 or 7 or 8 times in the history of the Jargon, I can get the word out there. I want to be humble, I really do, and I'm astonished at how often I blow it.

KP:   Pardon my lack of reply till now- didn't mean to be rude. Last night was a poetry show- crazy busy. . .

MD:  Ain't no thang, Kathy. We get busy, things happen; it's the way we roll. I'm moving over the course of the next half week or so as well. 7th move in 5 yrs. So there will likely be some radio silence at times.

KP:   What’s Delphine got that the rest of us don't besides male anatomy?

MD:   A good resume: 23 stories published in Thieves Jargon, author of the first book published by TJ Press, a story in Year of the Thief. I said to her once, "Delphine, you were my first."

They have some hot readings in NJ? I'll be a lot closer to Boston soon, so I'm looking forward to seeing what there is to see, from a lit scene sort of standpoint. Chalk it up to talent acquisition.

KP:    Now that you are moved, tell me: are you settled and stable, or is the Jargon gonna take more of these exhaustion breaks? How can you (and the readers and contributors) be sure?

MD:   My drifter phase is over for now. I start school in the fall; I'm staying where I am for at least two years. I have too much stuff; I can't move all of my belongings in just the trunk and back seat of my car any more.  

I make no assurances for how long I'll keep doing what I'm doing. 

KP:     Merchandising and Thieves Jargon Press: were you for real about marketing video games and so forth?

MD:     I can see plenty of big things in the future. Thieves Jargon the Video Game would spawn a Thieves Jargon bar, which would have happy hour specials where every pitcher ordered would come with a free book. Then the indie/used bookstore, which I would happily retire to.

KP:   What the fuck was going on with you suspending the weekly TJ this summer? 

MD:   I had just run myself ragged. Had been totally obsessed with what I was doing with the Jargon, both in keeping a new issue coming every week and getting ready to put Mike Boyle's book out. Also had ignored a lot of my personal life for a while. Was starting a new job. Getting drunk and making stupid phone calls in the middle of the night. The time was right for a long break. Two months off and I missed doing it. I'm glad to be back.

KP:   What’s this about making Thieves Jargon a daily magazine??? Are you deluded that you are Superman?

MD:   I have very good co-editors. Without them, I'd be screwed. But yeah, we're going daily. I still have some things I want to do before I start planning the next book, but I actually have the next two books from TJ Press in mind. Check out Mike Boyle's "Dollhouse," which was recently compared to Neressian.  Check out our new weekly writer, Joel Van Noord, for interesting reads from a guy who is from my generation yet writing with an old-school style. Read some of Kenneth Mulvey's amazing poetry on the "Jerk It Out" section of the TJ Message board.

KP:    Do you ever regret investing that lottery money on TJP?

MD:   I try to make myself regret it, but it was the right thing to do.

KP:    Finally, are you "sensitive" - like when somebody outside your apt. fell down the steps and you couldn't fall back asleep (your explanation for being tired and calling an artist by wrong name in an issue intro once) was it because you felt his/her pain with physical sympathy?

MD:     I guess when somebody gets hurt when they're not expecting to, it kind of makes me think of myself in the same position. Those moments where people go from being in complete control to realizing they have no idea what the fuck, that always makes for a good story.  

You know?

Last update : 04-09-2007 20:06

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