Kyle Joseph Hopkins, Kyjo the Bunny and Stupid Tears

Kyle Hopkins is an accomplished writer and cartoonist from Independence, MO.  He grew up loving cartoons, and never stopped (not even a little). While attending Northwest Missouri State University, he created his own ‘toon, a rabbit called KyJo the Bunny. KyJo, a hedonistic, atheistic, asshole(istic?) scholar of a bunny takes shots at religious trees, talking top hats and, if she hasn’t yet filed a restraining order, the occasional woman. Some might consider KyJo an extension of Kyle. Those who know him best know it’s merely a coping mechanism for a hard life full of grandmas and babies. Kyle’s cartoons can be found on the “Kyjo the Bunny and Friends” Facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/KyJo-The-Bunny-and-Friends/113122295395994


Stupid Tears
by Kyle Joseph Hopkins

It was the day.  It was the day I’d been dreading and hoping for.  Ever since I learned of this power I knew that this day would come.  I finally figured out all of the kinks and glitches that came with this power and had to use them to my advantage. 

I stood up in the middle of the meeting which met with stares and orders to sit down, but I wouldn’t listen.  Instead I pointed my hand out and swirled the other until everything slowed.  No one was the wiser as they began to become stuck with their faces frozen with shock and awe. 

The only people unaffected by the freeze were me and the girl I was aiming for. 

The clock stopped, a dropped pen sat motionless in the air as if it were stuck in ice.  Time and space had vanished.  My heart thumped and filled with sharp anxiety as I walked over to the very confused girl.  After two quick gulps I said the following…

“No doubt, I understand, you are wondering what the fuck is going on.  Let me explain.  Have you ever seen Saved by the bell?”

She nodded, still confused and frightened.  What possibly could a 90’s Saturday morning teen dram-com have to do with mystic powers? 

“You know when Zack says ‘freeze’ and everyone stops, dead cold, as he spits some cheesy lines to the audience?”

She nods, casually wrapping her mind around the phenomenon.

“I’ve been able to do that for years.  Nobody would believe me because they’d be frozen, of course, but I started learning recently how to trap…that’s a terrible word…how to catch another for the moment.  I’m doing this because at every meeting we’ve had since you started working here, I’ve frozen it.  Before you were around, I would use it to take a nap or get all my freight ran to meet with this company’s insane demands.  But ever since I saw you I’ve been freezing the meetings and talking to you.  Nothing more.  I give you my word.  I finally caught my cat about a week ago.  Three days ago I caught my best friend and we used that time to iron out all of our problems.  I think we spent about a month, just hanging out, crying, fighting, and building upon our relationship.  Then we came out of the freeze and resumed our lives, with a big hug and tears.  But I’m not going to keep you here for that long; I only need the length of this speech to tell you everything I need to tell you.

Please let me do this.”

She looked like a shocked animal, a majestic deer.  She wasn’t staring into headlights, but into a stark revelation, from a guy she doesn’t know.  She pulled out a cigarette, her hands trembling as the lighter sparked and then engulfed the tip; her chest filled with smoke.  She exhaled as her ruby red lips formed a small circle, expelling the cloud.  It floated into the air.  A small puff came into the first cloud and danced about as it framed her.  The cloud stood dead in the air, slowly fading, as she felt the tension points on her head, never looking away.  A fluttery note of a cough came out; she sat back in the chair, flicked some ashes on the floor, and nodded.

“I’ve rehearsed these lines…that’s a terrible word, this soliloquy in my head over and over again, and it was never quite perfect.  The…no, it’s a monologue.  A soliloquy would mean I’m talking to…you’re smart, you know what I mean.  It’s a lot harder actually talking to you about these words that make my chest ache so.  But I don’t need to act like an English teacher right now.  I’m so goddamn stupid.   But I don’t mean to frazzle you… I’m already about to drop.  I’m sure this whole experience is…fuck it, I have to get into this, now or never. “

I exhaled and found the strength.   She trembled and nearly spoke but would just raise her finger for a second, breathe, and then would lunge back in her chair.  When she did this I tried to coax her to talk.  I’ve been dreaming of a real conversation ever since I’ve seen her.  Alas, she couldn’t.

“I don’t know you.  You don’t remind me of anybody I’ve ever met before or will ever meet.  But I want to change all of that.  Today.  For better or for worse.  I just want you to know that you are the only thing on my mind these days, that doesn’t anger me. 

Even when you don’t talk to me, even when I try to make contact with you.  My heart tears, tears roll down my cheeks, and I continue on with the day, devastated, but with beautiful sadness.   The way ‘tears’ and ‘tears’ are spelled the same way is gorgeous to me.  They have two different definitions in a dictionary, but they are the same to me.  English isn’t the most beautiful language, but that word is among the most beautiful.  And…I have to talk in this language to tell you how I feel, because it’s the only language I know, and I have to know that you understand every single word.”

Tears developed on his cheeks and heart.  She stared.  Her soft green eyes with those beautiful gray lines, artfully crafted were fixated on me.  Her soft white looked irritated not with anger, but with heaviness.

“You’re much more than what’s on the outside to me. 

I know I don’t know you, this must be the millionth time I said this in this conversation, minus the conversing part.  Jesus, why won’t you talk?”

Her lips shook like a jigsaw cutting but she gave a quick hand motion that just seemed to say “go on”.  She looked completely exasperated.

“Underneath all of your physical beauty is a goddess hiding below.  Under those silky black bangs and elegance that, I’m only guessing, feel as soft as down is flowing acres of the softest fur that I want to lay in for ages.  Behind those vibrant gray-green eyes is all the intellect, humor, darkness, love, fear, and desperation that could overflow all the libraries in the galaxy.  Under your pointy little nose are all the scents.  I imagine it’d smell like freshly dead flowers that are giving off their last aromas, but they stay like that, never fading.   Those lips, those goddamn lips I’ve wanted to kiss from the moment I’ve seen you, under those, is something I’m not yet ready for, if only because I don’t have you.  If I could have all of you I’d live in your universe, forever.

I know that last part sounded lazy, and fuck, this whole thing sounds lazy…because I’m so goddamn stupid.”

Tears.

I slapped myself.

She flicked her ashes.

“I’d go on but I’m not making War and Peace here, I’m just trying to tell you everything that I possibly can.  I know I have technically forever to tell this, but I don’t want to keep you here.  I mean, I do, but it wouldn’t be right, you know?  It wouldn’t be right if I couldn’t have you, one hundred percent of you with me on this.  Like the way you just won’t talk to anyone unless you’ve known them.  I’ve known about you for only about a month, and I think we’ve exchanged about sixteen words.  Fifteen have been from me, and one was from you.  It was actually a noise.  A sweet little noise I don’t even know what to classify.  It could have been a burp or an attempt to say ‘hello’ back.  Either way, that made my year.  You may laugh because it’s only January.

You make me feel like a cartoon character doing his funny little routine when he sees the girl of his dreams for the first time.  I’m not saying this to cheapen anything; it’s just how I am.  I get the bugged-out eyes with valentine’s hearts.  My own heart takes the form of those valentine’s hearts and pounds until the blood flow floods my brain and I garble words like I just had a stroke.  My tongue falls out of my head and rolls ten feet on the floor.  It’s felt real several times. “

She trembled for another cigarette from her red pack.  Puffed in the same fashion as before…and stared.  Those cold dead stares had more emotion that day then I give them credit for.  She was on the verge of crying, laughing, going batshit insane, all at the same time.  I didn’t realize I could strike this kind of emotion in anybody before.

I almost grabbed for her cigarette lighter, but stopped myself cold.  I hadn’t earned the privilege to light her cigarettes yet. 

“If we ever got to that point, fuck, if you even say anything after this solil…monologue, devastating or otherwise, I’ll listen.  Whether it makes me die or live, I’ll accept it.  I know that before you, you see an ugly, balding, crass, jackass with bad skin, a gut, and just enough underneath to keep me from jumping off a building.  You see an incompetent dork that’s pleading to the fucking gorgeous heroine like in every romance.  Only this dork actually adores, treasures, embraces, cherishes, and worships you.  I don’t want to idolize you because I want to find out your flaws and do the same to those.  But you should know I also don’t love you. 

I feel all of the above but I can’t love you, not yet.  I need to know you.  Obviously, I want to love you, but you’d have to say yes, let me in, and we’d show each other the pits of our very beings.  I always thought these feeling were trite and annoying, but it’s because I never met you.

 I only had to see these sequences in bad movies and poorly written novels, and I would always roll my eyes.  I hope my version is better, but then again, well you know.”

I took a breath, followed by her.  For a moment, all is right.

“Now I’ve said my piece.  I’ll accept anything you tell me.  If you say no, I’ll unfreeze everyone else, quit this job, and drop from any plane of existence.  If you say yes…well that’s another monologue. “

She began to speak, with heavy eyes and bewilderment.  Her tongue was reaching up to the top of her mouth to enunciate the first syllable.  But I froze her, with a simple wave of my hand.  I couldn’t dare hear her refusal or acceptance, because the depression and realism in me knew better.  I was about to leave when I suddenly kneeled down and hovered right by her cheek.  My lips plumped, ready to soil her soft, perfect white skin. 

“Goodbye sweet Jessica.”

I stopped, turned away, turned back, took the cigarette from her hand and the few that fell on the floor.  I almost smoked the half-smoked cigarette just to get a lingering of her lips, but if I can’t kiss tender flesh than I don’t deserve her saliva.  Then I walked out, waved my hand and unfroze time.  As I left I heard commotion.   Amongst the ruckus, a pen clattering, intakes of breath, and screams of “What the fuck?  Where’d Roger go?”

I tore from every angle.

Interview with Tyler Knight: Porn Star, Writer, Painter

(picture from Tyler Knight's Facebook page)

"Tyler Knight is a pornstar, blogger and painter. His blog is located at TylerKnight.com.

Tyler's foray into writing began when he fielded questions on a mixed martial arts forum about his life as an adult film star. Tyler’s work has been published in several print and online literary magazines including Danse Macabre, Thieves Jargon, Ignavia Press, Thirst for Fire, Sex and Murder, and Ronin Press. He also writes a monthly column for a woman’s magazine, For The Girls.

On August 4, 2010 his blow-up doll was a guest on The Colbert Report. Tyler was not invited" (Tyler Knight).

Currently, Tyler is working on a memoir that chronicles his "attempts at juggling pimps, porn starlets, pills, and a semi-normal life with [his] girlfriend" (TylerKnight.com)

What made you want to be a writer? Do you plan on quitting the porn biz?

Writing isn’t something I chose. Two years ago I wasn’t even thinking about writing, but it just happened to work out this way. It began for myself, and even though I’ve developed a large readership, it’s still for me. That other people enjoy reading my thoughts is a side benefit. 

I have not quit the adult industry. I took a few months off to return to finance, but after working for yourself for almost a decade, it’s a tough transition to make. The idea of seeking permission to eat lunch...having to wear a suit and tie...well, that didn't last.

Who are some of your favorite authors? Influences?

There’s not enough bandwidth to list everything that has influenced me because ideas come from everywhere. A well turned phrase can be found in the most unlikely of places...like a gossip magazine (Jacko IS WACKO!) and you may not be aware of it, but you store it for later manipulation...to make it your own. Often times I take something someone said and use the exact verbiage, but in another context of a story I’m working on it’s different. Picasso said: Good artists borrow, great artists steal. 

A few authors I’ve stolen from include: Dostoevsky, John Ridley, Nabokov, Jim Thompson, Richard Rayner, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Dashiell Hammett, Richard Stark, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Richard K. Morgan, Martin Amis, Poe, Bukowski, Bret Easton Ellis, Irvine Welsh, Melville, and Stephen King. Half of these guys write noir. I love the noir aesthetic. Altered Carbon...I stole that entire novel. I’ll stop here. The more I add to the list, the less meaningful any one name on it becomes.

I lied. In an indirect way, Chuck Palahniuk, too. Of all the novels he wrote, I’ve only read one of his short stories. But it was Chuck that turned me onto a style of minimalism called Dangerous Writing. I’m not a blind follower of any school of this-is-how-things-should-be-done, but I stole some principles from there, also. That I (for now) write in first person, present tense, some of the ideas from Dangerous Writing are a natural fit. 

Describe your worst day on a porn set.

A man ejaculated on my thigh once. Maybe I’ll write that story.

You have a girlfriend. Does doing porn make that relationship complicated? Or is sex on the set mechanical, purely professional? (I remember you sent a tweet while fucking a girl on set once).

Porn is a job. I will never have the connection during intimacy with someone on set to the degree that I will off set. Once the camera cuts, the fourth wall comes down and I wash “Tyler Knight” down the shower drain before I leave the set. Some days are better than others. Some women are great and it’s always nice to see them. Others, I’d never even look at on the street. But you’d never know which scene is which by watching them because I’m a professional and I do my job the best that I can, regardless.

Any coupling, on or off camera, is as unique as the two people within it. That, and the circumstances of the pairing affects the dynamic.

What do you like to do when you’re not fucking? Not writing?

I’ve been painting a lot. Museums to analyze the pictures: composition, color, movement. I dissect paintings the way I’d do with a story. Reverse engineering to understand why something works. With a picture, I see subjects...sometimes there are adjectives. And there are verbs. 

Are you surprised that some readers actually WANT TO be in porn after reading your stories?

Nothing people do surprises me.

Porn Myths: Most porn stars have been sexually abused. The porn industry is run by the mafia. True/False?

No. 

How did you get started in porn?

Two decades ago I was a print model. My agent at the time sent me out for this job for a (now defunct) magazine in Australia called Women’s Forum. That was the first time I took my clothes off for cash. Years later, when I was leaving the Hollywood library, a pornographer named Gino Colbert ran up to me and put a business card in my hand. I called. Here I am.  

Any favorite memories from a porn shoot?

With anything, there are good days and there are bad days. I tend not to write about the good days because there is no conflict. And when there’s no conflict, there is no story. It goes back to the grief-per-dollar ratio again. For now, doing what I’m doing serves me. 

Is there a lot of prejudice against blacks in the porn industry?

Some sectors of the porn industry operate like a minstrel show, except not as clever...and without the passage of time to evoke quaint nostalgia. It’s here and now. This is not exclusive to any individual ethnic group. I’ve seen three Asian male performers in the last decade.

Tell us about STDs in the porn industry. Do casting directors require that actors be tested?

STD tests are required. Some persons are cavalier about them, though.

Fluffers?

Fluffers don’t exist. I’ve had one set (a gang bang) with fluffers, but the girls were drawn into the melee of the scene, so they were no longer fluffers. They were active participants in the footage like everybody else.

Do you have any strong views about porn and morality?

Who am I to make any assertions of morality? Nobody should listen to what I have to say on that matter...or anyone else. Form your own point of view.

Some would argue that all porn is degrading to both sexes, and there may be merit in those arguments.

Whatever. 

Do you ever watch porn?

No, I don’t.

You’re friends with the infamous Tucker Max. Is he as much of an asshole as the Tucker Max depicted in his books I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell and Assholes Finish First?

Everyone has facets of their personality they choose to show at different situations. The side I see is an opinionated yet generous man. As with anyone, you’d be better served to meet the man and form your own opinion. 

What do you think of your blow-up doll?

(picture from Tyler Knight's blog)

I should have negotiated my compensation better.

Do you have any other sex toys fashioned after you?

I have a vibrating dildo.

You’ve won awards for your porn, but refuse to attend the ceremonies. Any particular reason? Also, what kind of rewards did you win for porn? Best anal penetration? Best cock?

Simple. My time is better spent on things I find interesting.

What will the title of your porn memoir be?

This has yet to be determined. My agent and I have one we like, but a publisher may have different ideas. 

How many manuscript rejections have you received?

Hundreds. Most were my fault. I wasn’t discriminate to whom I’d submit my work to.

What is your writing process? How many revisions do you typically do?

No process. I write when I feel like it. Aside from proofreading I almost never revise. I say what I mean the first time. 

What challenges face creative writers today? What opportunities?

If you create something different, something new, you will face opposition, even blatant hostility from those in position who cling to the status quo like a warm Snuggie. Change is terrifying to them. Ask Jobs and Wozniak how their meeting with IBM went when they were kids. In the arts, it’s the same. When you marry the arts and business, it’s the worst. Publishers will publish work that they know is shit, passing over some unknown with something to say, in favor of tripe penned by a name that will move X number of units. Like, say, a reality show personality who never read a book. It’s a business.

How did you promote your work?

Interviews such as this. Social media. My stories have been published in lit mags and chap books all over the world. Word of mouth. 

Why do you feel it’s important for your story to be told?

If I didn’t believe I have something to say, I wouldn’t bother. 

Any advice for writers?

The arts are full of charlatans. There are no secrets. No great answerers. No gurus, rules, or any single way it should be done. Just write.

Read Tyler's infamous story "Bukkake" here: http://www.tylerknight.com/archives/1325

For more information about Tyler Knight and his work, check out his blog: http://www.tylerknight.com/


Follow Tyler on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/TylerKnightxxx

Tyler on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=1285020513