Paul Billington
Scott Ryan is no stranger to anyone who is a fan of Twin Peaks, David Lynch or Mark Frost. He’s a prolific writer, podcaster, publisher, festival-attendee, and Sheryl Lee fanatic (no restraining order yet—if there were, I think he would frame it anyway). He’s also a fan of many other shows that he seeks to keep alive through his writing and his sheer force of will!
I recently had the good fortune to finally spend some time talking to a man who is incredibly open, full of interesting opinions and theories, and really good fun.
Paul: The first thing I’ve noticed is that you’re such a busy man. You’re married, you’ve got kids, you’ve got magazines, books, podcasts, blogs—you’ve got interests from Letterman to Sondheim, Twin Peaks to Moonlighting. It’s such a huge range of material. Where’s your main focus at the moment?
Scott: Man. I don’t have a main focus. I can’t because I have too much going on. I mean I suppose that right now my main focus was getting this Frost book out, Conversations With Mark Frost, and we did it. I mean, it went to print yesterday. And to be honest with you, I feel weird not working on it today (laughs). It’s a little weird to actually finish something and it’s truly done… So that feels great. But then that now means I have to turn to issue 13 of The Blue Rose, which is coming up… I actually just saw the front cover for the first time and it’s so good. We’re not going to debut it. So you’re not going to see it until it shows up in your mailbox.
Paul: I’ve had all of the issues to date so I’ve been keeping you in the money! I’ve actually bought the ebook versions as well.
Scott: Oh, thank you.
Paul: I have to admit, I’m an old-school Peaks fan in that way. I remember Wrapped in Plastic coming out and I missed the very first issue because in the UK it was very difficult to get hold of back in, what, 1990? I managed to catch it from issue 2 onwards and I’ve still got every single copy of those. Once I saw that The Blue Rose was on its way, I had kind of the same buzz about it as I did back then. There’s something really cool about having a magazine that sort of harks back to 25-27 years ago, in the same sort of fashion. And actually you got a shout out recently on the Entertainment Weekly podcast for Twin Peaks, didn’t you? From Jeff and Darren?
Scott: Um, yeah, I was flabbergasted by it. I will say they’re both subscribers. I couldn’t believe they mentioned us and that was very kind.
Paul: Yeah, they spent a good couple of minutes talking [about you]. They said some good things about you and then I think later in the podcast they referenced the Brad Dukes article on the negative side of reactions to Season 3. Given that it’s 25 years since the original, I assume you watched it the first time around?
Scott: Yeah, I’m an original.
Paul: When Season 3 was announced did you think first of all about the opportunities to cover it?
Scott: I was sitting in my cubicle at a huge corporation in Columbus, Ohio and a tweet came out. And if you remember we were suspecting that something was going to happen the next day. So I had Twitter up and I was refreshing it and it came up… I remember I stood up and my chair rolled back and I just stood there and all of my co-workers said: “What’s wrong, did something of something happened to your wife or your children?” And I said, “Oh my God, Twin Peaks is coming back,” and they all looked at me like I was insane… I was flabbergasted.
[But] No, I did not think about covering it. I did not think that I would be doing what I ended up doing. I just was a fan and like, the greatest thing ever was gonna come back. I was one of those people that never thought it would come back at all. I had no hope. So I was totally shocked.
Paul: I think I was the same way. I think Lynch had said at one point (it might have been in the Chris Rodley book) that you know, he imagined Twin Peaks was still out there, but there just wasn’t a camera watching what was going on. But —for me— there was something about the 25 years later idea that still sat with me—there was still a glimmer of a possibility.
So, I think it was a surprise to everybody, a pleasant one, but very much a surprise. What did you expect when it came back?
Scott: I expected most people to be disappointed with it and for everyone to be shocked that they were disappointed—because I knew it was going to be like Fire Walk With Me. I mean the reaction to Fire Walk With Me… I honestly had no expectations for Season 3. There were two things that I wanted from the show. One was new Angelo Badalamenti music. That was my number one. And number two was that they wouldn’t mess with Laura Palmer’s part and Fire Walk With Me. That’s the best, to me, over Season’s 1, 2 & 3. That’s the heart and soul of everything because my favourite thing was that Laura beat BOB. I loved that, so that was all I wanted. Those were the two things in the end. I kind of got neither.
(Both laugh)
Scott: I mean, you know, there wasn’t a ton of Angelo music.
Paul: No, I think that disappointed quite a lot of us. Actually, I was very much like you. I think it’s such an intrinsic part of that world and that mood… I get maybe, from a Lynch point of view, he was doing something very different and wanted to subvert expectations a little bit, but I know there are a lot of disappointed people, like the guy who runs the Twin Peaks Soundtrack Blog…
Scott: Yeah, Ross Dudle.
Paul: That’s the man. Yep. I remember him talking to him briefly just on Twitter and he was absolutely distraught by the end of it—not just his reaction to season 3, but the lack of new Angelo Badalamenti music.
Scott: Well you know, I watched the beginning. I was at a big party and when it was over, I went in the corner and got my phone out and took notes. And the first thing I wrote down was “No music played in the Red Room”. Well, that was the thing that really got me because up to that point whenever they were in the Red Room…
Paul & Scott: …“There’s always music in the air…”
Scott: Yeah, and to me, that was a big clue and I still think it’s a clue. It isn’t just that Lynch didn’t have Angelo score it, it’s not as simple as that. I think it has to do with we’re seeing a different part of the Red Room in Season 3. We’re not in the part that we were in the series or Fire Walk With Me. I feel like we’re deeper into it or we’re, you know, we’re coming at it a different way. There’s a reason we’re not hearing music.
Paul: Actually, that resonates. Because I think at the very end of Season 2, The Little Man From Another Place says, “This is the waiting room. Some of your friends are here,” and then in Season 3, we are no longer in that waiting room…
Scott: Right…
Paul: …And so that makes some sense to me actually.
Scott: So I wasn’t disappointed in the Angelo part. I actually really like Season 3. I think it’s art. But I hate the part where Cooper is standing up on the hill in Part 17. He holds his hand out to Laura and Lynch placed him above Laura and that part will never sit well with me. I wouldn’t want Laura to be placed above Cooper either. I think they are two equal entities that are pushing us through the story. But I’ve talked to Sheryl Lee about this and she made me feel a little better. When I interviewed her for issue 8 of The Blue Rose she said to me, “How do you know that was real? How do you know that really happened? And that isn’t what Cooper wanted to happen?” And that made me feel a little better because it is true. It is almost Cooper’s perspective… But I don’t know, it’s tricky.
Paul: I think you’ve got such a good relationship with John Thorne, and I’m guessing you guys have talked a lot over the past few years, various theories…
Scott: (Laughs) We do and we can’t get off the phone in less than an hour and a half. It was pretty bad.
Paul: I was curious—is there one particular theory where one of you looks at the other, or types back, and says “absolutely no way!?”
Scott: You know, I think we rarely agree.
Paul: Okay, perhaps I should rephrase the question—do you ever agree on anything?!
(Both laugh)
Scott: I don’t know that we do… I just came back from a Twin Peaks event in a small town in Indiana and I talked with, I don’t know, 40 or 50 Twin Peaks fans, and I never agreed with one of them and they never agreed with me and we’re all friends! Well, John Thorne is my dear friend and we probably have never agreed on anything when it comes to Twin Peaks. And to me, that right there is is the beauty of Twin Peaks and the world needs more of it.
Paul: The book that’s coming out, Conversations With Mark Frost—I’m someone who’s pre-ordered it already as you probably guessed. I’m hoping that it does for Mark what Lynch on Lynch did for David Lynch.
I’m assuming you’ve read it. Did you get actually get the chance to speak to (author) David Bushman before the interviews began? Were you able to influence some of the questioning? Or have you come to it after it was done?
Scott: Um, well, of course, I counselled David, but this is David’s book. I mean, I don’t have anything to do with that part of it, you know, just as I talked with John Thorne or Courtney Stallings or Andrew or Laura at 25 Years Later. We all talk about Twin Peaks. So I’ve had conversations with David Bushman, but he came up with all the questions. He interviewed Mark and when it was over, he submitted a version of it to me that I read. I gave notes, but it’s all there. I know I’m publishing this book, but it’s not mine. I don’t have anything to do with what’s in it so I can say this.
I love this book. I learned so much about Mark Frost. When you’re done reading this book, you’re going to want to have a cup of coffee with Mark Frost. I mean, he’s a great guy. He is not the mystery that Lynch is. I think people are going to come away from this really liking Mark Frost.
Paul: It sounds a little bit sycophantic to say, but I don’t doubt it. He’s not been overly-interviewed by many people but I’ve managed to read whatever was out there. I’ve read everything he’s written and thoroughly enjoyed it. When he kicked off with The List of Seven and so on, I loved his work from very early on. Mark has an awful lot of big interests and is a very well-read kind of guy from what I can see, and so he’s probably got an awful lot of interesting things to say.
Scott: Yeah, you know, I like to think that I’m well-read and, you know, very much aware of pop culture things, but in reading this book… I mean, he just mentions these things off-handed that you, it makes you want to go see that movie, pick up that book, listen to that song… I mean the book could almost use a companion piece about the literature and art that you’re going to want to experience after reading. And you can see all of these things came together to create this world to Twin Peaks that we love.
Paul: Have you watched anything else that Mark’s done?
Scott: I’m trying to think now. I mean, I certainly watched Hill Street Blues back in the day. And I saw the Fantastic Four movie because my kids wanted to see it. But what you’re going to be surprised about is how many things he worked on that never saw the light of day, that we wish would have. I mean there’s been so much he’s touched that didn’t come out—that is what fascinated me a lot.
As an artist, he has worked on so many projects that just fell through and he seems so nonchalant about ‘em like, “You know, I was going to do this movie with Steve Martin and Martin Short and I wrote a whole script and it was hilarious and they all loved it. It didn’t happen. And I did this movie about Marilyn Monroe and uncovered who actually killed JFK and oh, it fell through so it never came out.” Then you’re like, “Wait a minute, what?” I don’t know. I’m so curious about being that Zen about your work.
Paul: I know stereotypically looking at, it’s been Lynch is the artist and Frost the intellectual etc. That’s how they’ve been separated out in media, but they seem similar, very centered, sort of comfortable with themselves. I know Lynch meditates, I don’t know whether Frost does, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did because he seems quite spiritual in a way, with some of the topics that he’s written about in his early fiction, touching on theosophy and various other things. Does that come out in the interviews as well?
Scott: Definitely, and also the one topic that I think you’re missing is political life.
Paul: Yeah, of course, his Twitter is very clear on that one.
Scott: Yeah, and he does talk about that, you know, and I think those are my favourite parts of Season 3. The politics kind of slipped in, not in a direct way that’s going to push someone out, but in the way we all treat each other… You know, the Mitchum Brothers scene where he says people are stressed out here, in the suburbs. That really was something that stayed with me, and also when Naomi Watt’s character yells at the henchmen, about how tight it is for people. Those moments I think, are very Frost.
Paul: Yeah. So overall you loved Season 3 as a work of art?
Scott: Definitely. Here’s how I look at it. It’s interesting because I’ve been thinking I’m going to stop calling it Season 3 which is what The Blue Rose calls it because it’s what Sabrina Sutherland (Producer of Twin Peaks: The Return) asked us to call it. But I think it’s less of Season 3 of Twin Peaks and more… the best David Lynch film. It’s a really, really good Lynch film. I’m not sure that Twin Peaks: The Return has anything to do with Twin Peaks, but I do think it’s a really, really good Lynch film that has some great moments. Part 8 is as good as episode 29. I love everything about Candy and the Mitchum brothers—that stuff works for me like gangbusters. And Mr.C was phenomenal.
Paul: That’s interesting. Would you rather have had a flavour of the old in there? I think some things, like removing the music, that so much is shot in daylight and feels very expansive and open… Those scenes made it feel a little less… moody, that’s probably the word I’m looking for. Lynch is all about mood and sometimes I didn’t get much of that from Season 3. For instance, the sinister undertones in the original and then in Fire Walk With Me. I think it was there [in Season 3], but only very, very infrequently and I miss that sense of menace…
Scott: Well, where I can agree with you is that there is nothing in Season 3 that scared me. I was never scared one time and that surprised me because I should have been afraid of Mr. C and I wasn’t. Oh, and Richard Horne, that character is horrible. I never accepted him. Others said he was awesome, but you compare him to the Wild At Heart character played by Willem Defoe…
Paul: Bobby Peru.
Scott: Bobby Peru is scary.
Don’t give me Richard Horne, this little kid that smokes a cigarette in the Roadhouse and he’s supposed to be a bad guy!
Paul: Frank Booth is scary.
Scott: Frank Booth is scary— a great example. Richard Horne is the worst part of Season 3. I will never accept that he is Cooper and Audrey’s kid. I don’t care what anyone says because this is ridiculous. Now you’re getting me started! You have BOB, who’s the ultimate Evil in the world, right? Then he gets into Cooper. And the first thing he does is get in the car, drives to the hospital to force Audrey Horne to have sex with him? That is not the ultimate Evil. It’s not what BOB would do—that is such a stupid storyline. I can’t stand it. I just don’t accept it. It’s just too pedestrian for BOB, and BOB was never the sexual predator—Leland was the sexual predator. So that’s a mistake. Anyway, it’s just an absurd statement to think that BOB cares about sex.
Paul: That’s an interesting take. I think David Bushman mentioned that, when he was talking to Mark for the book, he gets into the BOB and Leland dichotomy. I’m interested to know what Mark Frost has to say about that. Within Season 3, it doesn’t really give you any clues again. For you, Leland is very much the perpetrator and BOB isn’t interested in that sort of thing or at least, he feeds off it…
Scott: …I mean BOB is really interested in fear. We know that, but think about how ridiculous it is that he would get out of the Red Room and that’s the first place he would go. And that’s what I’m saying. But if you ignore that and you just take the idea of Mr. C looking for these coordinates and things like that, you know, that’s a more compelling story than “This is his son.” So that’s just my opinion.
Paul: Well, I think many would agree with you. I know Season 3 is divisive for many fans—people wanted to see a return to the feel of Season 1 and 2, that folksy–kind of small-town drama. I don’t think we were ever going to get what we wanted in that way and I wasn’t expecting that. I was just thrilled with it coming back, but it seems to have completely divided many people. Do you think it’s tarnished what the original did?
Scott: No, I don’t. I don’t think so at all. I think that… Ok, I’m just going to be honest! I don’t want… (starts to laugh) Everyone, send your emails to Paul, not to me!
So… I believe that Season 3 is already forgotten. Season 3 made no impact on pop culture and I’ve argued with people about this and they’re like, “Are you kidding me, Part 8 rocked the world.” No, it rocked our world. It didn’t rock the world.
When The Simpsons spoofed Episode 2, and Scooby-Doo spoofed Episode 2 and Saturday Night Live did… When Part 8 aired, nobody spoofed it. It’s the most amazing piece of art probably, to ever air on television, but it didn’t rock the world. So I don’t think Season 3 tarnished Twin Peaks at all. When I tell people I do a magazine about Twin Peaks, they look at me like I’m crazy and then they always say “You mean that show from 30 years ago?” and they never say “That show from 2 years ago that was on Showtime?” They don’t even know it came back. I mean everyone only really remembers who killed Laura Palmer. The world was not rocked through, you know, how did Candy find the remote control to hit a fly? It rocked our world, it rocked the 25 Years Later (site) world and The Blue Rose world, but not the real world.
Paul: Do you think that’s because, over the years, Twin Peaks is credited with changing the way that TV, especially network TV, is? There are so many shows that people point to, from The Sopranos to Lost to Northern Exposure to The X–Files—that it did influence TV so much, that realistically the TV landscape has changed so much that new things fail to make an impact anymore? Because there have been so many things pushing boundaries since then?
Scott: Well, I think that it’s twofold. I mean, on one hand, you probably had 10 choices on April 8, 1990. I mean, maybe you had 15 if you were paying for big-time paid cable. And when Season 3 came in May 2017, you probably had a thousand and it’s not even an exaggeration. So that is a part of it. But the other part is, I was there the first time around and everyone watched the pilot. There’s no denying that. But people were already out by episode 4 and 5—nobody watched Twin Peaks the first time around. What happened was Damon Lindelof watched Twin Peaks. He was one of us. And then he went on to create Watchmen and The Leftovers and Lost. David Chase was watching and he did The Sopranos. You know what I mean? And hey, let’s compliment me—I was watching and then years later, I wanted to write and create things (both laugh). So I think it did affect specific people that had an influence, but I don’t think Twin Peaks rocked the world the first time. It didn’t win any Emmys. I mean it didn’t really do anything beyond that first little, little short, short time.
Paul: I think that David Bushman would disagree.
Scott: Well, I mean when I said me and John argue—me and Bushmen argue non-stop! I’m not saying Twin Peaks didn’t change television, it did. It changed it, but for specific influential people. I got the sales numbers to show you that across the board most people are not, you know, shelling out money for Twin Peaks material.
Paul: I get what you mean. There was a lot of publicity when it came back and then I think as it went on there are definitely elements of it that people found frustrating, as they did when the first one was on, [like] the opening 20 minutes of Season 2 Episode 1, with Cooper lying on the floor, shot. I think it lost something like 30%-35% of the audience during the first 20 minutes.
Scott: … I specifically remember watching that episode and thinking “Oh my gosh, this shows gonna get cancelled”. I knew right then. [But] I loved it. I always did.
Paul: Yeah, I did.
Scott: I’m one of those people and I know now everyone says it, but everyone is lying (both laugh). I loved Fire Walk With Me the first time I saw it. And, you know, most people hated it and then 20 years later people started to come around to it. I went with a group of people and every single person I went with hated it. And I was real quiet about it because I wasn’t my mouthy self that I am now, but Sheryl Lee’s performance in Fire Walk With Me broke my heart, and it breaks my heart every time I see it.
Paul: I remember having quite an overwhelming effect on me because I think just seeing Laura Palmer alive and those torturous last seven days. Lynch does an incredible job of translating something that’s so very difficult to put across to people, to put it across in such a powerful way. I think as much as I liked it there was a part of me that missed the original series at the same time because of the safety of that even though, you know, we’ve talked about the menace of that series, and that I missed [that menace] in Season 3. The movie sort of straddled this incredibly difficult line and I remember feeling quite undecided about how I felt. I knew I loved it but the same point in time it was a hellish experience to go through.
Scott: Oh, yeah, I mean it still is. I’m not saying Christmas morning you want to get up and watch Fire Walk With Me. That’s not what I’m saying at all.
Paul: Are you sure? Maybe it’s a new tradition for you?
Scott: Yeah, I mean you could but I’m not coming to your Christmas party.
(both laugh)
Paul: Okay. So Twin Peaks is obviously one of your big loves. I know from having bought your book, that thirtysomething is obviously another big love of yours. I’ve got to ask how do you feel about the thirtysomething coming back? As a pilot that’s just been announced recently?
Scott: Well, it’s really funny because I never thought it would come back and when I did the book, I asked all of them about a coming back. In fact, at the end of the book, people are in there saying it’s never gonna come back. So thank you, Marshal and Ed, for making my book outdated already!
(both laugh)
I’m really hopeful. What I haven’t read is if the writers are coming back. So yes, they did get a big part of the cast, but as we know from Twin Peaks and The X–Files, you need the writers. I know Ed and Marshall are writing the pilot but who’s gonna really do the show, that’s where it really comes through, but I am very excited. I love thirtysomething.
I always tell people it’s, I think, the greatest journey you can take on any TV show. From the first episode, and when you get to the last episode and you look back, the amount of change those characters have been through and they all seemed so real to you. It’s a great show. AND on the same day, Bob Iger cancelled thirtysomething and Twin Peaks—he crushed them both at the same time.
Paul: It’s coming when there’s so much TV out there now, I wonder will it ever find a place anywhere in a very oversaturated market? But then there’s a part of me that thinks there are so many people looking back at the ’80s and early ’90s… The X-Files has come back and Peaks has come back and now thirtysomething’s coming back. You’re writing very much centers around things from that era. Do you think there’s a particular pull to people revisiting that particular time?
Scott: I was a teenager in the ’80s. During that time, there was so much music from the 60s. Well, the ’60s were really having a comeback and that’s because the people who were listening to music in the ’60s had the money. Yeah, that’s all that’s happening to us. Now, we’re just at the point where we’re grown up and they’re trying to market to us. So they’re just going back to our childhood. So they’re pulling all these shows back. So it’s not new, it’s just people weren’t doing it with television. So I think it’s just corporations trying to make money.
Paul: Do you think you’ll get a chance to work on or do a piece of work or article or anything, on the return of thirtysomething? Are you still in contact with folks there?
Scott: I have a podcast called the thirtysomething Podcast that started the book. We stopped doing it once we interviewed everyone. When the show comes back I think we’re going to pick it up. If the show is successful, I would certainly do a sequel to the book.
I’m hopeful, just like I was with Twin Peaks. I mean, I love all those people that worked on it. They’re great people and I love talking with them and it was an honor.
Paul: What on TV at the moment has captured your interest?
Scott: Well, it’s not really on right now, but it’s coming back. Fargo, to me, is the best show of the decade. Season 3 of Fargo is so good and Ray Wise is actually in a couple of episodes of it. They are coming back for Season 4, but they just take their time.
Paul: Did you watch Watchmen?
Scott: Yeah, I’m in the middle of Watchmen. I’m five episodes of the nine. I don’t want to say what I think yet because I have to see where it goes. So far I think it’s average.
Paul: Were you a fan of the graphic novel at all?
Scott: No, and in fact, I’m living in the middle of a ban on superhero movies and television, but people I really respect were telling me that Watchmen is phenomenal. It’s good, but it’s still a superhero show and I’m over superheroes. I like more personal stories.
Paul: It’s a self-imposed ban on superheroes?
Scott: Yeah. It’s just not for me. I don’t really care about one spaceship shooting at another spaceship, that has no interest for me. I like humans interacting with humans. I’m not disliking Watchmen, but I’m not seeing it as really standing out as being different from the 14 Batman‘s that have been made, and the 473 Spider–Man’s…We will see. I’ve heard the ending really changes things. So it’s too soon for me [to tell].
Paul: Yeah, for me, having read the graphic novel and been a fan of it—and a fan of V for Vendetta and a few other Alan Moore works. I think what they’ve done is to honor the original. I think they’ve done an extraordinary job and in 9 episodes. I think it’s a very tightly told tale and I think in hindsight, even though I do really like Season 3 of Peaks, I do wonder what the original 9 episode version rather than the 18 episodes would have been like, and how that would have gone down with people.
Scott: Well, I’m always a fan of less is more. So I love the British model of television. I love limited series and that was the other reason I broke my superhero rule for Watchmen. The idea of watching seven seasons of superheroes is just horrible.
I mean no one wants to hear my complaint against superheroes because that’s all anyone’s going to see, but a superhero is not coming to save us .You and I have to save us, we have to work together and find a bond and I think making movie after movie and television show after television show that says we can be as awful as we want and some superhero is going to come in and save the day is the wrong message for us to be consuming right now.
Well, did I ruin 25 Years Later website with this? Again send your emails to Paul!
Paul: I’m putting up your email address.
(Both laugh)
Paul: And on that note…You’ve got the Mark Frost book coming out, Issue 13 of The Blue Rose magazine due out in April and you’re working on the Moonlighting book?
Scott: Yeah that has been pushed back to 2021 because I have too much going on with the publishing company. I’m publishing Ben and Bryan’s book from Twin Peaks Unwrapped—that’s coming out in April.
I’m trying to make products for Twin Peaks people like I would want. Yeah, then we have Laura’s Ghost coming out in August
Paul: That’s Courtenay?
Scott: Yes Courtenay Stalling’s book and Sheryl Lee is doing the foreword for the book. We have a book called Flight 7 Is Missing coming out in May from FMP. And that is a true-crime story about a plane that went down off the coast of San Francisco and no one has been able to solve why until this author. So, if you like true crime… It’s written like a mystery, but it’s all true. And the author’s dad was the pilot of the plane, and he thinks he’s solved it. So that’s exciting. It’s a very interesting book. Then in September, we have a book called 15 for 15 about a high school football team here in Ohio that has a storied history. So I think that’s about it for 2020. So yeah, I don’t have time to write the Moonlighting book!
Paul: Have you gotten far into it? Have you locked down interviews?
Scott: Yeah, I’ve actually done about 25 interviews—everyone but Bruce and Cybil. Everyone else might say those are the only two we care about but I did all the writers, most of the directors, the to co-stars Herbert Viola and Miss DePesto. Cybil and Bruce are considering it. So it’s taking a little more time. So that’s why I was like, you know what? I don’t want to rush this if we can get Cybil and Bruce, but it’ll be like my Letterman and thirtysomething book where it’ll be an oral history where it’s them telling the story of the show.
Paul: I find that approach really refreshing, to be honest.
Scott: Yeah, and this story of Moonlighting is crazy. Wait till you guys hear this story. I am sitting on some great stuff and no one’s done a book about Moonlighting either, so this will be the first one.
Paul: You’re cornering the market.
Scott: Yeah, that nobody wanted!
Paul: If it’s in the attic, Scott Ryan’s on it.
Scott: Yes! You got it!
Paul: How do you stay motivated?
Scott: As I said, I was sitting in a cubicle the day I found out Twin Peaks was coming back. And my company got bought out and I got let go, and that’s when I did all this. I got let go right when my thirtysomething book was coming out and I said, “I am going. I want to be a writer. I don’t want to answer phones.” I’m motivated because a cubicle is chasing me. It’s right behind me. It’s got fangs. It’s got chains. It’s got these arms. It’s clinking and it needs to put me back in the cubicle. So when people say like what motivates you it’s—I don’t want to go back to a cubicle. I want to be a writer. I want to be a publisher. I want to create art that people will enjoy, and that’s honest and true.
Paul: Well, thank you very much for your time. I wish you the massive success with the Mark Frost book and continuing The Blue Rose. Hopefully, there are enough fans out there to keep things going for you.
Scott: I want to thank you and everyone at 25 Years Later. What you guys have done is incredible, you know, all of these great artists just writing for the sake of writing and creating, and making the site that has blown up. I’m in awe of what you guys have done. Congratulations to you and yours.
