Counter cultural pandrogenous provocateur Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and her reactivated Psychic TV aka “PTV3” recently released their second album Mr. Alien Brain vs. the Skinwalkers. Many know the British avant-garde music and visual arts musician through Throbbing Gristle, wherein Genesis and company synthesized the influences and philosophies of Gen’s close friends and collaborators, including Beat writer William S. Burroughs; Beat poet and painter Brion Gysin; psychedelic shaman Dr Timothy Leary; queer activist film maker Derek Jarman; and those of legendary occultist Austin Osman Spare, theorist John Cage and various seminal underground authors, thinkers, artists and film makers. Genesis warns PopMatters 20 Questions readers, “Pleasure is a cultural weapon. Use it wisely.”
1. The latest book or movie that made you cry?
We are reading science fiction voraciously recently. Since my “other half” Lady Jaye dropped her body, her “cheap suitcase”. Amongst these endless books (we read more than one a day!!!) are, of all things, the Dresden series by Jim Burcher. In White Nights he writes …”There is a primal reassurance in being touched, in knowing that someone else, someone close to you, wants to be touching you. There is a bone-deep security that goes with the brush of a human hand, a silent, reflex-level affirmation that someone is near, that someone cares.”
This made me weep and sob for Lady Jaye.
2. The fictional character most like you?
Good Lord!
3. The greatest album, ever?
Five Leaves Left by Nick Drake. Of every recording we own, only this one is all ways perfect for my mood. Whether we’ve just lost, or found, or dreamed love.
4. Star Trek or Star Wars?
Star Trek. We grew up watching the early Star Trek episodes in England. Mixed with The Avengers they defined my fetish sex life. Star Trek works for me because it deals with the petty issues of humankind. Whereas Star Wars tries to be like the Illiad or Odessey and impose grandiose maps of nonesensus reality. Our preferred view is micro, not macro, for macro follows the illumination of perception in an individual.
5. Your ideal brain food?
My unconditional love. Usually one requires the other (half).
6. You’re proud of this accomplishment, but why?
Pride comes before a fall, so we are glad to have discovered the first anti-gravity device!
7. You want to be remembered for…?
Lady Jaye always said to me, “I want us to be remembered as one of the great love affairs of all times.” We truly have immersed our selfs into each other to a degree we have seen no evidence of before in HumanE Astory. My love for Lady Jaye is and always will be, my greatest, most pure achievement and we bless her for giving me that experience.
8. Of those who’ve come before, the most inspirational are?
Brion Gysin, inventor of the “Cut-Ups”, inspirational Amigo of William S. Burroughs and a mass of other creators. Brion Gysin and Lady Jaye are the two angelic mentors of our lives, without whose inspiration we would be nothing, NO-thing.
9. The creative masterpiece you wish bore your signature?
Marcel Duchamp’s Large Glass.
10. Your hidden talents…?
This is a difficult question for a child of the ’60s, like “What I am X.” as we were all berated by the term ego-tripper if we in anyself as a positive force. We are still searching for our overt talents, yet other people tell us we have talents. Lady Jaye thought my weirding way was my most powerful “hidden” talent. As we trust her implicitly, we will take this opportunity to agree. My weirding ways/module.
11. The best piece of advice you actually followed?
We were blessed with the teachings of Nadaste (Winterhawk) a Cheyenne-Apache shaman during the ’90s. He taught us this map of the living and perceptual terrain of L-if-E…”No attachment. No judgment. No expectation”. This guide is far more difficult to truly follow than it sounds, but is also far more effective than it appears. Try and live your L-if-E by it and you will discover what we mean.
12. The best thing you ever bought, stole, or borrowed?
My first air ticket to Nepal.
13. You feel best in Armani or Levis or…?
We try to wear only Lady Jaye’s shoes (luckily we are the same size!) and her clothes. This required me to lose enough weight to have a 23-inch waist at 58 years old! Not easy. But we did it. To this day we only wear Lady Jaye’s clothes and shoes. It has become an integral part of our pandrogeny project. Luckily we love to cross dress, so our desire and our conceptual vision of nonesensus reality as art balance. This ability to be as close to Lady Jaye as possible is our greatest source of pleasure.
14. Your dinner guest at the Ritz would be?
The Tibetan yogi and poet Jetsun Milarepa.
15. Time travel: where, when and why?
To a point in our humane future(s) where war, intimidation, inertia and power were an obsolescent joke. To that nexus where compassion and evolution have become the norm of species imagination and desire. A place in our Astory where we are expading into space without causing any harm in any way. The moment our species can finally be “proud” of its self.
16. Stress management: hit man, spa vacation or Prozac?
Lady Jaye. Big love!
17. Essential to life: coffee, vodka, cigarettes, chocolate, or…?
We follow a path of no distinction so these are spanners in our “works”. Pleasure is a cultural weapon. Use it wisely.
18. Environ of choice: city or country, and where on the map?
Nepal. Our first visit to Nepal was in 1991-92. It changed everything in the best possible ways. We realized that all life (L-if-E) is, or ought to become, devotional. There is no distinction between reverence for existence and our senses and/or apathy. So all ways choose sensual perception. Change the ways to perceive and change all memorie(s). We have since taken others to Nepal and all have returned telling us that their map of the terrain of existence is forever altered in a most challenging but positive way. If there is a place where a Divine meets our mundane midway creatures, then Nepal and the Himalayas is it.
19. What do you want to say to the leader of your country?
No expectation. No attachment. No judgment.
Photo (partial) by Todd Crawford
20. Last but certainly not least, what are you working on, now?
A full length feature documentary in association with Marie Losier of the Lives and Times of Lady Jaye and Genesis Breyer P-Orridge; an expanded 300+ page edition of Thee Psychic Bible through Feral House Press; a re-assessment of The Process Church of The Final Judgment through Feral house Press; The Collected Poems and Lyrics of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge 1961-2008 through Heartworm Press; a first novel Mrs. Askwith through Heartworm Press; Esoterrorist, collected essays of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge through Heartworm Press; The Ballad Of Lady Jaye and Genesis a full length documentary of a love affair and pandrogeny by Marie Losier; Genesis: The Next Book of Creation, a commissioned work for Centre Pompidou, Paris; and ongoing concerts by PTV3/Psychic TV and Thee Majesty plus, finally an ever developing series of art exhibitions by the pandrogenous artist Genesis Bryer P-Orridge across this world.
Big hugs!