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I think it's safe to say that when someone can name themselves as the biggest shit-talker on the internet these days, you'll most probably be all ears. And that rings truer than we'd imagine for author Christopher Gutierrez. Now, I hear you. You're thinking "What the Hell is he on a music-zine for…?", but when one person can independently set up and run his own publishing company, deal with death threats on absolutepunk.net whilst still managing to update his LiveJournal account almost daily, the guy sounds like he's got something to say, right?
Oh, and yeah, Fall Out Boy wrote a song about him.

This week, he set foot on UK shores to leave his mark and, from the two readings I view, he most definitely succeeds. Telling stories from both of his books - his debut, ‘On The Upswing of Love, Life and Regret’ and his sophomore, ‘A Life Deliberate’ - there’s no lack of honesty; in fact, when you break it down, it becomes one man spilling his guts to a room full of strangers and if that doesn’t deserve respect, I’m not sure what does.

We now sit downstairs in Newcastle’s Centre For Life, an hour or so after Christopher has finished speaking on his fourth reading date in the UK. Tonight, he’s told stories of his eye-opening experience in the waiting room of a welfare office, his struggle to survive the Chicago marathon alive and just how close he came to sacrificing his own identity to ‘fit in’. Now, I’m betting you can relate to at least one of those stories already.
Welcome to the world of an electric boy…

OS: How did you become a writer?
Christopher Gutierrez: It wasn’t something that I set out to do; a conscious thing, like "I want to be a writer". It wasn’t like that. It was more or less… in the early 90s I started writing a fanzine, because that’s what everybody else did. And I wasn’t happy with it or anything like that, but one day I was joking around and I wrote this kind of joke fanzine and people responded to it really well. I didn’t put any effort into it whatsoever and I just wrote about whatever I wanted to write about, not what I thought people wanted to hear. That’s when I realised that people respond to honesty and they respect honesty in writing. I mean, [the fanzine] wasn’t about anything in particular: it was about my cat’s balls and how bad his butt stunk. But, people liked it, because they knew it was me. And that was the first inkling I had that people respond to honesty. Then, from there, I started writing on my livejournal about random occurrences and what not. Then, somebody said that they liked my stories. Now, I used to think that I had …I don’t know if it was a knack for storytelling, as much as it was an annoying trait quality of mine, that I liked to tell a lot of stories. Not lies, or anything like that, but I like to tell stories about cool things, you know. I like to go into detail and have people get involved. And that’s what I did and people responded to it fairly well. Then, they suggested that I do a book. So, I went and started writing this book and it was a kinda chain of events, that was more or less an accident. Just like "well, if I do this, you guys have to buy it", then people actually bought it. I was really surprised that, not only did I make my money back but I actually made money off it, which was really strange to me. Then, I was like "do you guys really think that I’m a good writer?" and there was people out there who said "yes". So, it’s amazing and it’s strange to me that people see me as a writer, because I don’t really see myself as a writer, but I have to take myself seriously. So, because of that, I call myself a writer.

OS: Does your degree of honesty ever scare you?
Christopher: Yeah, mmhmm. It’s not easy to talk about the things that scare you or the things that frighten you, or the things that you’re afraid to do, or the things you’ve been. It’s not easy, it’s really not. Anyone who says it is is a liar, especially if they say they did it in front of a group of strangers. No, it’s not easy at all and yeah, it is scary. But, that’s how I want to love. I don’t want to live in a safe and easy environment. I feel alive, I feel good, I feel like I’m being productive when it’s scary. I know that I am doing a decent job when I write something that I’m nervous about posting or nervous about publishing. That’s when I know I’ve done a good job. It means that I’ve actually done my job and dug and gotten to the root and the marrow of the honesty. If I get scared, that’s what I want. Ideally, what I want to do, is to keep being as honest and as vulnerable as possible, because that’s the way I learn about myself. So, is it scary? Yes. Will I keep doing it? Absolutely. I have to.

OS: Do you ever have the audience in mind when you’re writing and are you ever worried about their reactions?
Christopher: Yes. I try not to. I try not to because I think that it tends to sway your stance on certain things or your positions and I don’t want it to be like that. I don’t want it come across as insincere or too thought out. So, what I do is… it’s a really tricky balancing act by trying to be honest with yourself but trying to be responsible for the people who are reading what you have to write. But as far as reacting to it, not worried about it. I write for me; if people don’t like it, that’s fine. There’s plenty of things that people don’t like, but if people don’t get it, that’s a whole other thing. You don’t have to like what I write, but I’d really like it if you understood what I’m writing. So, sometimes I have to keep that in mind. So, when I write, I’ll think "okay, maybe I have to expand on this part. Maybe I have to over explain it" because I know a lot of kids don’t understand sarcasm. A lot of kids don’t understand my sense of humour. So, yeah.

OS: How do you feel music and influenced you in life and your writing?
Christopher: Oh, in almost every single aspect of my life, I think music comes into play. It was the first thing that showed me passion, I think, that I understood, at least. I mean, I’ve seen passion in a lot of things, I just didn’t understand it. It was the first time I had actually identified with it, so, I mean, it’s always the thing I go back to. Music is always the thing that motivates and inspires. I think, other people know what I’m talking about; you either know what I’m talking about, or you have no clue what I’m talking about. Music either overtakes your life, or it’s just background music, or more accurately, I think it’s either the soundtrack of your life or it’s the backing music of your life. And to me, it’s on the stage of my life. So, everything from the attitude to the passion to the art behind it all, with why words are being screamed. That’s what motivates me to write. Do you ever feel that you could become a prominent figure in the punk scene of present? It all depends on who you’re asking and what your criteria for being prominent is. You know, I’m just a dude. I’m a dude that likes to talk about himself, and I’m a dude that likes to jump off a stage and finger point and sing along to songs. And play air drums. If somebody thinks that I’m a real dude, well, cool. If somebody thinks that I’m just a regular dude, okay, because I am. It’s not something that I think about, it’s not something that I’m conscious of, it’s not something that I truly care about, to be honest with you. I don’t care if people think that I’m "famous" or not. I mean, cool. I don’t believe in fame; fame is only real to the people who believe in it and buy into it. Everybody’s just a dude, or just a chick. That’s all they are. Some people buy into their fame and it’s sad that they believe it.

OS: Do you believe that you wouldn’t be in this position now if it wasn’t due to Fall Out Boy?
Christopher: Absolutely. I make no qualms about it. Absolutely. Without a doubt. Like I have said before, I read in an interview once that 80% of the people who have jobs, got them by someone putting in a word for them, somebody recommending them, someone pointing them in the right direction. That means, the dude at Taco Bell got his job because his boy worked there and said, "Yo, I’ll put in a word for you". The guy who’s selling cars said, "Hey, this is my brother-in-law, can you give him a job?". "Hey, I’m a doctor, I know so-and-so on the Board of Directors." You know? Everybody gets jobs some point, somewhere in their lives by someone helping them out and my career, my job now, happens to be there because somebody put in a word for me. It’s because I’m friends with a group of dudes, who liked to write a song about me and they wrote a song about me. I’m more than grateful and it’s an awesome song and I love it and I love them. They happened to stick their necks out at a time when they weren’t "famous" and now they happen to sell a lot of records. Some people happen to know who I am because of that. It just happened to work out in my favour.

OS: How do you feel about the people who react badly because of that particular song, without even having read what you have to say?
Christopher: I mean, you can hate me all you like, but I really wish that if you hated me, you had a good reason behind it. It’s just as bad as being racist or homophobic. You hate somebody because you don’t even know their personality. If you get to know my personality and you don’t like it, hey, I can completely understand that. I’m not an easy dude to take; I’m a rough pill to swallow. If you come out to one of my readings and you don’t like me and you don’t like it, okay cool. You listened. Awesome. That’s all I can ask. You’re not gonna please everybody, you’re not. And if you do, you’re doing something wrong. So, if you like me, cool. If you don’t like me, I’d prefer it if you had a reason behind it, for not liking me.

OS: How does it feel to be in the position to tour around and read to so many people?
Christopher: It is, um, a blessing. It’s an opportunity that I wish so many people could have. To be able to experience a room full of people that are all your own personal therapists. I mean, people pay a lot of money for that: to sit and talk at somebody and have them listen. But I get to do it for a living and I’m lucky, I’m honoured. I never want it to end and I never want to get used to it. I’m the luckiest dude alive that I know. I am. I’m living my dream and I don’t know very many people who get to say that

OS: Did you ever really believe you’d be touring the UK right now?
Christopher: I knew we had been planning it, but I didn’t think it would actually materialise. It’s like one of things you talk about like "I’m going to the moon!", you know. But, no I never thought I would be here. I knew I’d come back. I fell in love with this country the first time that I was here, but, it’s one thing to say it, one thing to buy your ticket online but it’s another thing to be sitting in another country in a town you’ve been in.

OS: Finally, if you were to leave your audiences with one message, what would it be?
Christopher: I know it sounds cliché, but to question everything. Question everything that you’ve been taught and everything that you’ve been told and everything you believe, because if you can’t question what you believe in, it’s not worth believing in. It goes for every single aspect of everything. I’ve questioned every single aspect about myself and when I did, a lot of things fell by the wayside because I realised I was believing in them because of outdated traditions, out of fear, out of what I thought people might think of me. Things just fall by the wayside. If you can’t question every single aspect of your life and ask "Why?", then maybe you should rethink why you believe in them and your motivation behind them. The thing is, once you do question them, a lot of things will fall by the wayside and a lot of things you believed in before and continue to believe in now.

I have the utmost conviction. I have the utmost conviction for some things, so when it sounds like I’m speaking from confidence, it’s because that’s where I learned confidence. I learned it by questioning those things. You know, "Why am I a Christian?" I was a Christian because my mom told me that I would go to Hell. That’s why I was. I’m not saying that’s wrong, I’m just saying that that’s why I was. I question why I believe in things. "Oh, I don’t truly believe in it, but everybody’s scared me since I was a little kid, by saying I was gonna burn in Hell." "Do you believe that?" "No, I don’t." So, that fell by the wayside. "Why are you straight?" "Because I like women." "Are you sure?" I question that. "Yeah, now I am. I’m completely comfortable with it. People can call my "Gay" all they want." Okay, cool. I’m not gonna be one of those dudes who’s like "Fuck you, I’m not gay", because people who do that are insecure with themselves. I don’t care if people think I’m gay. Cool, okay, you think I’m gay. So what‘s next? It’s kinda like my faith in the Straightedge philosophy. I question that. "Why are you straightedge? Does it work with my life? Are you doing it for all the right reasons?" And that was one of the things that stayed and because of that, it’s not even a question of something I believe in; it’s something that I am. It’s just who I am. Just as much as "Oh, you eat cereal in the morning?" You don’t even think about it, because that’s just who you are. It’s not a struggle and it’s not difficult because that’s who I am, because I questioned it and that is exactly why I am what I am and what I identify with.

You can keep up-to-date with Christopher's life and writing at his online journal at askheychris.livejournal.com or buy his books and/ or spoken word CD from his site.