James Ellroy: It was fearful. It was anxious. It was debased. It was buffoonish. It was occasionally horrifying. It was degrading.
Steve-O: I’ll explain why: the human experience is a real motherfucker.
Ellroy: Exactly. When I cleaned up and was suddenly sober at 29, I didn't have anybody to blame.
Steve-O: People have all kinds of problems and stresses, and I can assure you that, for someone with any one of these problems, in that moment when they’re confronted with video footage of me stapling my ball sack to my leg, their problems are not an issue.
Ellroy: I felt like The Fugitive as a kid, like I was on the run.
•••
Steve-O: I got nowhere for three years.
Ellroy: You have it or you don't.
Steve-O: I think that the kickback of the gun flying so far took some heat off the bullet.
Ellroy: I think if we found out today who really pulled the trigger, it would be irrelevant.
Steve-O: He got quite wealthy killing people, but he’s also a genius.
•••
Ellroy: He's a profound human being and a very old soul, as they say.
Steve-O: Any other disease, the best you can hope for is to be as healthy as you were before.
Ellroy: Then you have to pull it off in successive drafts.
Steve-O: That’s how clown college worked.
Ellroy: I was living in Venice, on Ocean Front Walk, near the Victory Coffee Shop.
—Raymond Cummings has written for Splice Today since 2010.