It's definitely made your life a little easier. You're able to travel, for one thing, without thinking about expense. A lot of people can't do that.
It allows me to do more work, actually. I get curious about a country and I go. Curious about a writer, I go find his books so I can buy 'em. I'm not into owning a swimming pool or a fleet of cars or anything. I'm really interested in accessing information. Like, I can finance a trip to go up the Amazon for a week -- that I wanna do! That's the upside of having some money. I can go on an adventure. Or I can take a week and work on a book, or I can take a day and read a book. The only bad part is people telling you 'Man, it must be nice.'

Do people ask you for money?
Yeah. Don't get me wrong. I'm not like, rich. I'm not making what the Chili Peppers make.

But some people might think you are.
Sure. I pay a mortgage on this and my other place -- every month. And I definitely have enough to eat everyday, ya know? I'm not worried about where the rent's coming from. I don't spend much. I work a lot and I save a lot…put money away into stocks and a savings account, because all this could end tomorrow. I'd be happy with a room this size, really. Lived in rooms this size or smaller all my life, and I could go back to it. But yeah, I've loaned a lot of money out to people. I've got about thirty to forty thousand dollars outstanding that people owe me. Don't know if I'll ever see it again. Used to be more. Used to be about double that.

Are you into the internet at all?
Yeah, but I don't want to go into a chat room like [air-typing frantically] 'You're stupid'/'No YOU'RE stupid!' But I like to look up writers or events. Like when that fellow James Byrd was dragged to his death in Texas a couple of years ago -- CNN and all the news shows covered it one way. Then I went to some guy's website who was there when the press descended on the town -- and he ran all his photos. And what I didn't get from [the other news sources] was that the Klan marched there. And this guy had all these amazing photos, like the Klan's Grand Doo-Da, or Wizard or whatever. They're marching in a big mass and everything. And he said that the cops were telling him to get out of the way and to put the camera away. But all you got from CNN was 'Man dragged to his death. Torso found. Head found in the woods. Three men charged.' And that's it! Well, no one said the Klan marched. This helps me understand that perhaps the internet will allow me to see other kinds of information.

Do you email your friends?
I get a lot of emails. I've had the same email address for 5 or 6 years, so every kid who wants to find me, either he has email or his friend does, so I'm reached all the time. And I've answered the letters. Most of the letters I get are business letters. Most of the names in my phonebook are business people. I don't hang out with many people. I'm working, on the road, and I see ya when I see ya. When I don't, I don't really miss you.

What are your thoughts on graffiti?
Sometimes it's very beautifully done. And sometimes they take a beautiful building that some guy's worked really hard on and put some shitty scrawl on it and it's really disgusting. I'd hate to have a huge erect dick drawn on my driveway or garage door or something. But like in New York, I've seen some amazing artwork on the sides of trains and said, 'God, that's art! That's not vandalism, that's art!' And that, I admire. But I also think there needs to be a balance between putting your art up and fucking some guy's place up. With any kind of thing like this, you're gonna have some people who go for that, just to cause some mayhem. I guess it's cow-tipping in pastures and graffiti in the cities.

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