Welcome to the New Year Jake. I want to ask what kind of artist are you?

I’m a total artist.

What kind of artist then and what’s some of the art people don’t notice you are doing?

I think some of the best artists are comedians. It’s in all the subtle jokes. I’ll tell you one. You can hear a little bit of my stand-up that I'm never going to do. So if I were ever to do a stand-up or open mic, I would run up on stage tired as fuck panting and I would be like ‘oh I made it. I came here just to tell one joke.’ And then I would go on about how I woke up with a boner and how it wouldn't go away so then I fucking jerked off into a sock and got dressed really quick and ran over here. Then I'd talk about public transportation and what's scarier than riding public transportation sober and with no ticket. It's the most nerve-wracking thing. So then I’d say ‘oh I hopped on the bus over here and there's were ticket checkers and I jumped off really quick and I ran five miles just to tell this one joke.’ And then I say ‘What's up with these fucking Vans?’ I would have on a new pair of Vans, some New Eras or Authentics  and then I would say, ‘they should tell you for every pair of shoes you buy, you get two free blisters on the back of your heels.’ Then I take my shoe off, pull off my sock and say ‘what do you know? Some blisters from running over here.’ So then I have the sock in my hand and I say ‘I came running all the way over here just to tell one joke. Here it is. Why did the sperm cross the road? Well I was in a hurry to get over here and put on the wrong sock.’  And then I turn around and throw the sock backwards into the crowd and walk off to “eeeews” and “awwws” and full applause.

What a joke that was. I know that you do leather crafting. Tell us about that.

I've been doing it for a few years. Bags, wallets, purses. My greatest thing ever made was my gator skin duffel bag. But I only made the bag to pass out the books.

Books? What books?

It dropped this year in July or August. A Poem a Day by Ye and Bukowski's True Protégé. Best poetry book of 2024 hands down. Poetry's in a bad spot right now. So I thought I would just drop the coolest shit ever. Let me give you the rundown on it. A Poem a Day. 365 consecutively written poems dealing with love, loss, traveling, faith, the seven deadly sins, and maybe addiction. Addiction’s got some negative connotations that some people are not afraid to admit but whatever. It's written on three continents, in nine different countries on both hemispheres.

Could you read a poem from the book?

I'll give you one. Rhyming takes the most skill, in my opinion. Bob Dylan rhymes gets a Pulitzer Prize. Kendrick rhymes gets a Pulitzer Prize. Okay you ready?

If I'm a fire, you're the heat. 

If I'm a song, you're the beat.

If I'm a dessert, you're the sweet.

And if I get lost, you're the street 

That gets me back, to where I want to be.

I could live a hundred lives, and without you,

none complete. 

And then I got a little picture on the bottom that says feel free to throw that in your next Valentine’s Day or Anniversary card.

It's a great poem. Adventure. Would you describe yourself as an adventurer? 

I’m not an adventurer. I just do what I've been doing my whole life and that is travel around. Both my parents were in the military so I was born in Germany and then I moved to California, South Carolina, Pennsylvania and back to California all before sixth grade. Your upbringing I think is everything, so if you're some way as a child you're gonna be that way during your adult life so I'm just continuing on and I get bored easily.

Are there any upcoming projects that we can be excited about?

Yeah we're going into denim, we're going into more leather and we're going to tortillas.

What can we expect with the denim?

We’re going into the jean business. Levis are cool. 501s are cool but they don't make them how they used to. Maybe the denim is getting thinner quality. I think they used to be thicker and now they're just paper thin ripping. I burn through them. I am going to try and follow the ‘Yeezy makes it easy’ slogan just build quality product for a good price make it fucking tough, make it durable, make it fashionable, break it in, wear it all time. The best pieces are worn in jeans, jackets and shirts. Wear what’s going to last you a long time. How do you spot a guy with no swag? All his clothes are new. 

Hopefully we get those soon. I would love a pair myself. I want to ask; what is your writing process like? How do you get into the mood?

That's a good question, I think it's like; with great writers, you just fucking gotta push. You gotta push every day, even if you don't want to. All these people that we know about, all the great artists, they do their craft every day. Do they feel like doing that shit every day? Probably Not. But thats the difference between them and some other schmuck that wants to be a writer.

Yes you got to enjoy the process first.

If you enjoy the process you won't quit. So sometimes you get inspiration in the weirdest places. I was driving back home last night and I got two inspirational things; one was a short story about Fresno Batman. I'm thinking it's some mexican guy that rides around on his bmx in the night fighting drug dealers and domestic abusers. Fresno doesn’t have any tall buildings so that’s why he rides his bike around. He himself might also do drugs. Hit some fucking meth and go out into the night. Does he solve crime? I don't know, maybe he just wears a Batman mask.

So how did you get this idea?

They just pop. You just gotta take it in. You gotta observe the world. I think that's another thing which I don't think a lot of people are doing is - observing the world. They don't see. You know whats one way to not be on the lookout? Smartphone. We go out into public, heads down not looking around. I wrote about it in the poetry book, the smartphone is fucking crack baby.

We want to hit that shit all day long everyday. It's absolutely terrible. So I see that you got a flip phone would you recommend that to get away from that whole Instagram slosh?

I do hit Instagram on the iPad or the internet. I'm trying to get off of that but when you're out in public and you got the flip phone, you got no internet, you're aware and yeah. You can reach me under email at jakehdoyle69@gmail.com. Oh man, I hate to change the subject but boom 2025, year of the snake. I guess there's 12 animals for the Chinese zodiac so every year they change. Yeah, we'll talk about astrology afterwards but its the year of the snake in 2025. I was born in the year of the snake.

Oh you're a snake too, I'm a snake too. 2001. Snakes are great with money, they're also very calculated. 

I discovered a fact but we'll go back to astrology. It has to mean something. It's been around for thousands and thousands of years; it's like the Bible. There has to be something right going on with it. If it really was just some fugazi stuff it would go out the way real quick but if it's real it sticks around.

I'm a Gemini. Kanye's a Gemini and I want you to know that Kanye’s a snake too, 1977. I looked it up last night and I knew it.

I love Kanyes music.

Let’s call him by the right name, Ye. and who’s better than Ye?

He has such a range in music yeah we can talk about his icky politics but his music has such a fucking great range. There's no other artist like Ye out there right now.

What's your favorite Ye album?

I guess I’m a basic bitch but ‘My beautiful dark twisted fantasy.’ It’s a classic.

It's classic, yeah I feel like if you cut some verses in the middle it'd be perfect. Like it's close to perfect but not yet. They just got too many people on songs like ‘So Appalled’ and ‘Monster’. Yeah but after that comes ‘Runaway’ , ‘Lost in the World’ , ‘Devil in a… 

…New dress. You know I did ‘Devil in a new dress’ as karaoke one time. That was fucking crazy

Oh god where's the video? But those songs ‘All the lights’ , ‘Power’ , ‘Gorgeous’ it’s a good album. You know what I think might be his best? It’s the one I listen to the least. It’s the one that influenced a lot of these motherfuckers,

Is it ‘808 and Heartbreaks’ ?

Poppy. Sad. Moody. In case you ever get sad and you need a sad album, it's there for you. If you're down bad, 808s is there for you. I haven't used it. I give it some spins though. I like Yeezus.

He just keeps expanding and exploring as an artist and I think that is what as an artist it's all about. To keep pushing yourself.

That's why we're still talking about him today. New sound pretty much on every album. That's why we're still talking about Bowie. He changed the sound. I just saw the Bob Dylan movie. He changed his sound. You gotta keep it fresh, you can't be a Mac Demarco and put out the same album over and over again. 

You saw the Bob Dylan movie. What do you think about that movie? Do you think it captured who he was?

Let me say this. Tim is him. Tim was good. Too good. I think from what I read, all the stuff in the movie was captured live. All the music, there was no voice overs or whatever. All instruments were played right there. Harmonica, singing, guitar and he also rode the motorcycle.

Gosh that is one of my little dreams. To get my motorcycle license and just ride it. Have you ever driven a motorcycle?

No, I'm too smart. It’s a death trap. Everybody says you're guaranteed to put it down once and that could be the end of it. Life’s too precious but it is pretty fun. I’ve been on some quads. 

That must be amazing, yeah but going back to Astrology there was a certain fact you wanted to tell us about snakes, what little secret did you want to tell us? 

God, no secrets. I want to learn more about it. I want to learn more about astrology. If you're born in the summer and your first few months of living we're in hot weather and you're barely dressed, that has to affect you in some way. If you're born in the winter and your first few months, you're just bundled up, that has to affect you. Also, with the light and the length of the days it has to mean something. 

I know that people in cold climates tend to be stockier and just thicker in general because it’s cold and you're not going to make it out there in the cold if you're thin. And people who grew up in hotter climates tend to be more flexible so there is some evidence to what you're saying that the climate does affect you.

What about their personality? I haven't taken a look into it. I need to start hanging out with these astrology girls. They're a little crazy. A little hairy in the armpits.

They love their stones. Do you believe in the stones then too? 

The stones got to mean something. But I don't know what.

Will we probably be able to read about it in your next book? Are you writing a new book?

Possibly. I almost moved to San Francisco. I would have been writing a new one up there but I decided to pull the plug. I wasn't getting the right vibes.

Not the right vibes? I thought San Francisco is one of the places to be as an artist. It's an art city. 

It's a good place. I lived three hours away from San Francisco for 20 years. I never pulled the plug and moved up there though. I think it was a fallback plan, but it’s 2025 and I realized it's time to go hard.

We got to go hard. New years, new opportunities, new challenges, new doors. Let's go. You got your projects, big things coming, big things to expect from you.

I'm rolling into a new year. The new year starts next week. I'm still working on getting birthday gifts and christmas gifts done but I was going to start a new book. I was going to write another poem a day. It's going to be called ‘Winter Solstice in San Francisco’, so winter in San Francisco. I don't even know if they got winter, it's just too gloomy all the time.

It's just winter 24/7. 

But I also put it in for a scholarship; Amy Powell or Amy Lowell or whatever scholarship. It's one of the top poetry scholarships and it's like $75,000. They give you 75,000 split up four ways over a year and the only requirement is you have to spend one year outside of the US and they only want one poem from you at the end.

So am I getting this right? You get one poem; 75K?

You have to only write one poem for them, but they give you 75,000 to travel around and that's the only requirement. Stay out for a year.

Well is it like a test thing where it has to be a great poem and if it's not a great poem they take it back or is it just like fuck it, just send us a poem when you're done.

Do you know what the best part is?

You get like a whole year to work on it?

I think the past two years there's only been like 200 or 300 applicants and you know what the name of this scholarship is? It's the girl's name. I think it's the Amy Lowell or Amy Powell Poetry and Traveling Scholarship. So I sent them my book. I sent them my two-page cover letter that said; ‘I'm perfect, I'm the man, give me that money’. I will hear back from them in about three months. So maybe I'll start another book on the road. I like my chances though.

Let's hope you get that scholarship. We'd love to have more poems from you

Oh, these next poems, they'll be better.

Better. Ooh. Are you exploring new territory with them?

Not yet, but maybe. Maybe. I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm ready to take it to the next level.

Take that little deep into the unknown waters. Grow.

I already published one book. And during the process I was thinking. Dang. I could of wrote these poems better.

Your first book definitely has areas to improve upon but I love where it's going. 

Doesn’t everyone say that for artists, that they like their old stuff the best? The new stuff's too polished, too mainstream.

I actually agree because if you become almost too good it'll just be like…eh

You need some of that raw stuff. You need those good stories. Nobody wants to hear from a rich man. 

Do you think that's part of what makes art special is its imperfection and art becomes a certain perfect when you start loving the imperfection?

Yeah. Shows more character.

Because I agree. I've been to high school theater plays and yeah it's amateurish. They do a good job, but it's not the best it could be but it has character and then I think to myself fuck it. I can take some mediocre acting as long as it has character. And that's what I get from your book. Character.

Good. How many TV shows and blah blah blah are out right now that don't have any character?

Too many. It feels sterilized. There's no realness to it. The writers are afraid to let the characters just be their messy self and take control of the show so they have the show tell the characters what to feel and do.

Oh, I have a question for the interviewer. What's on your algorithm? I think that is a good question for your future interviews. Should I tell you mine? Let's see what pops up and I'm going to avoid saying certain ones. I'll try to keep it legit but recently this Chinese sewing machine, it cost 100 bucks. I guess it's super good, but you really have to put some work into it to get it going, but it's pretty good.

What else? Okay these people are bad talking California policies. Philadelphia Eagles are on a roll. Matt and Shane's secret podcast. Anatomy of Art and Fashion. Joe Rogan, Uh-oh. Theres a video called “Poetry is Dead. AI poetry rated better than poems written by humans study shows.” I might have to fucking click on that.

That is a great topic. What do you think as a writer and just as an artist in general about this whole AI epidemic that's happening?

That is a good question. We're already there brah. The AI is already here and we gotta kill it now. We might already be past the point of no return. Terminator's coming. Schwarzenegger's coming. You type in a thing and it makes a video. Like you've seen those Trump, Elon and Joe Biden videos?

I haven't seen that one but I've seen those AI videos and sure some of them look clunky but if you just spend a little more time and clean them up. Oh my. It's scary.

And those are the free AI programs. Imagine the ones that you pay a thousand bucks for? I think we’re already getting AI shit and we don't even know. And you know what else is great? There’s this AI that turns Kendrick songs into 1950s kind of music and It's too good. The AI is too good.

That is true. I think one of the AI ones I saw is this guy taking like those 1950s and 60s tunes and they're making this weird contemporary troll music. One of them I saw was: ‘fuck you it's too early for Christmas’ and it's a super happy like 60s sounding song but it’s about how its too fucking early for Christmas bitch. I want to be pessimistic with AI but at the same time I feel like it's opened the floodgates for anyone to become an artist. Are there AI artists?

Are there AI artists? That's an art too. If you put in the right words, you'll get a prettier picture than if you use bad ones. It’s a skill. 

Any more questions?

Yeah. What's your goals? 

What's my goals? 

Because this is going to be in print. So you’ll see if you either succeeded or failed.

I've got some very lofty goals. I want to finish rewriting my book. Sent that out this year. I’m starting the magazine Behemoth with my friends. I'm working on a board and a card game so that's a little bit on the side.

I'm keeping myself busy. But those are definitely the two big things I want to get done which is get Behemoth launched off the ground and finish rewriting my book.

Behemoth. Big magazine with different sections consisting of what?

Poetry, Fiction, Nonfiction, Artwork, Photography, Comics. We're going big. Well Jake. Thank you very much for the interview. Do you have any last words for the audience? 

I guess you got to ask that zoo question.

Absolutely. So I have a whole list of questions I would ask people to get to know their personality and one of them is the zoo question and it goes like this: “If you had to eat one zoo animal; which animal would you eat and why?”

I would eat a feline. Maybe a Jaguar, to put him out of his misery so he wouldn't have to be stuck in a cage. And my last words?

Go birds.

(Some weeks later Jake celebrated the Eagles win over the Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX).

Jake ‘The Snake’ Doyle