Interview with Nikki Palomino: Author of DAZED

Author Interview with

Nikki Palomino

I met Nikki on Facebook. The title of her new book, Dazed: The Story of a Grunge Rocker, interested me. I was totally into Grunge back in the day. I loved it all, especially Nirvana. 

Nikki was a run away. She grew up on the streets. She knows what she's talking about, and she's not afraid to speak her truth. 

Below are the questions I asked her:

1.     Why did you have to write this book? 

Kurt Cobain nor I realized what we shared between ‘91 on would make a story worth keeping. Nor did the two other junkies I cut my teeth on in a world of drugs as a grunge punk rock musician, and life on the streets in NYC. And despite of the constant breaking of taboos, the sharing of sex, the feeling of unspoken unease, I survived to tell what all three of my men didn’t and the rough trade who shared the tattered boxes for our beds never could. I was born with an imagination and the ability to articulate what the others feared, that they’d end up in a city morgue without a tear shed. None of them ever got to know how many I lost in the bargain.

2.     Where’s the best place to go for a cup of Joe? 

Probably the corner of Bleeker and MacDougal at one time to share what you copped at an all-night diner with the homeless warming their hands over a metal barrel of fire. Not for the faint of heart.

3.     What’s your favorite thing about your Main Character? 

Trying desperately to make out that nothing’s happening, that nothing’s wrong. The weather verifies his looking closely at things isn’t that good. But waking up knowing there’s some dope left, helps Eric Peterson, protagonist of the DAZED series, sleep better. He understands what others can’t. Nothing like a morning blast, and yet, he clings to the obscenity of the four-letter word hope.

4.     What time do you get up and what do you eat for breakfast? 

I’m nocturnal and don’t give a crap about breakfast. You lose the urge trapped in the thickest boundaries of your own making. Dope rules in a junkie’s life, not scrambled fucking eggs.

5.     You knew the streets as a young person: What scared you? 

That you can’t imagine anything else but the dots of traffic miles below when you snuck up to the top of an apartment building and got wasted, naked and fucked.

6.     Did you take any writing classes before you wrote DAZED (The Story of a Grunge Rocker)? 

I knew writing before I knew the words of an active imagination shot from an ADHD mouth. 

If yes, where? 

I learned more from my stints with journalists at the Houston Chronicle and Houston Post and my grandfather who was a writer and exposed me to a wealth of books, Truman Capote, Harper Lee, Sylvia Plath, Dylan Thomas and too many to list.

7.     Do you belong to any writer’s associations? Which ones? 

No time really, but see no problem with any of them.

8.     What one word best describes you? 

Survivor.

9.     What blogs do you read? 

I can’t keep up with everything in social networking, so I may browse on occasion.

10. What’s the oddest thing a reader has asked you about your writing? 

What was it like to fuck Kurt?

11. Where are you promoting your book? Facebook? Twitter? Book Signings? Other? And which one is working the best? 

All of the above. I have interviews set in August with music rags etc. and radio. Will see what happens. Ask me later, but was told by author Rick R. Reed, social media is best at this time.

12. Do you still play music? 

No, I leave that to others. I did my stint in grunge punk rock and it was never my top priority. Writing was. 

After enough climbing over band members getting sucked off in a dressing room and the over-saturation of heroin, I worked my way out. It was a blast to play gigs and watch the audience get off and you got off on the high attention it can create. But at the end of the night, it’s harder for female musicians. 

Like Joplin said, she’d go back to her hotel room alone. That was more the case than not when you got lucky enough to find privacy.

13. Favorite band? 

Currently, FooFighters, past Nirvana and The Ramones. Gosh there’s so many greats, Iggy Pop to Jimi Hendrix, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash and Waylon of course and can’t foget Dylan or the Beatles. 

Favorite book? 

Of Human Bondage and zillions more. 

Favorite author? 

Truman Capote and Daphne Du Maurier for The Birds and Valdimir Nabokov for Lolita. Dylan Thomas and Sylvia Plath for poets and presently the modern poet, Brian Heffron.

14. What are you reading right now? 

Bob Dixon’s Mouch and Company The Dream Psychic.

15. If you could help a newbie writer: What would you say? 

Love is a delicious thing while it lasts, but rarely is it permanent. In lieu of love, there are words, the need to breathe, the need to die when it’s time. Write and read, read and write, follow your gut and know your words will never dump you.

16. Why write? 

As a mysterious potion, the word, the intake of breath, is fateful.

17. What’s on your desk that is a MUST have for you to write? 

Invincibility, where I choose to return in my head. Like Kurt with smack, I can’t stop.

18. Do you prefer a coffee house, private office, or the street to write? 

What hand are you dealt? One pair, two pair, three of a kind, always the luck of the draw when the words widen your grin.

19. How much time do you have butt in chair, thinking, feeling? 

I try not to feel it. I’m always tight as a coil ready to spring, a ferocious panic wanting to burst out. WORDS.

20. What’s the best thing about being published? What’s the worst? 

The natural progression needed for your words to be read. What good is being plagued with the fate of writing if someone doesn’t read the pain? 

Nothing has entered the worst category.

21. What’s the weirdest thing a fan has done? 

Stalked off and on, but at this point, able to diffuse the situations.

22. Do you have a literary agent? 

Don’t have one at the moment but have worked with some. They can be great allies.

23. Who is your biggest cheerleader? 

Kurt Cobain before he knew he’d landed the job.

24. What’s the main difference between writing a male MC or female MC? 

Nothing. I bleed the same way whether I have a dick or not.

25. Any big news? 

My second series, The Underground Diaries, has sparked interest by the traditional houses. That’s going to be the right time for an agent. 

Either way, I will never be lazy. I would not expect a reader of mine to settle for anything less than my best. 

Rock On!