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: : : 001: MY NAME IS THOMAS WAKATAMI. [pause]
002: I apologize. Just give me a moment.
003: I'm actually rather self-conscious about being recorded.
004: No, it's not that. It's—well, let me start by saying that I've made a lot of recordings. I used a hand-held cassette recorder for years and then last summer I bought a MiniDisc recorder, kind of like yours.
005: Lots of stuff. Random sounds from around the city. Notes, observations. There was a period when I would record myself first thing in the morning. I would retell my dreams.
006: No, I gave that up.
007: No. They actually aren't that difficult to remember once you get yourself into the habit of remembering them. In fact the opposite. I gave it up because I began to remember them in too much detail. The process of narrating them into the recorder began to become—what's the word?
008: Burdensome.
009: The tapes? I don't know. They're all still on a shelf somewhere.
010: Just gathering dust, I suppose.
011: That's the funny thing. I didn't really have any kind of project in mind for them. Not like you with your project. It was more the telling that was important.
012: No, I don't enjoy going back and listening to them.
013: I don't like the way my voice sounds.
014: It's just so—ah—see, now I'm self-conscious again.
015: Well [pause] I mumble. My voice is so tentative. As though I'm afraid to make a mark on the world.
016: It's disgusting.
017: That's nice of you to say, but I know what it sounds like.
018: Well, it's interesting—there's a William Burroughs quote, maybe you know it, something along the lines of how you can find out more about yourself using a tape recorder than you could sitting twenty years in the lotus posture.
019: I do think it's true. And so when I listen back to my tapes I can hear the, uh, weakness in my voice, and I know that it stands for a weakness within me.
020: That's why I get self-conscious, I guess. If I'm just like recording notes for myself it's no big deal, really. But if it's for something like this—some situation where I know that other people are going to hear the recordings, I get nervous.
021: Because I can hear it so clearly. The weakness. I can hear it so clearly that I feel like it will be immediately apparent to anyone else who hears my voice.
022: Sure. In a recording or in real life.
023: No. I don't enjoy speaking. Not even in a conversation.
024: No. I'd just as soon be quiet.
025: So, yes, as a waiter. Downtown. At the Radisson.
026: Well, it's funny. It doesn't really pose a problem. I don't have any trouble talking to the clientele.
027: How can I put this? [pause] Part of the reason I enjoy the job is because it's ego-destroying.
028: What I mean is, the patrons don't care about me as a person. They only care about me as a waiter. So the things I say at my job—another Chablis for you, madam?—it isn't really me saying them. I am shut off. The waiter persona has taken over.
029: I don't know where it comes from. Somewhere else.
030: No. I find it to be a relief.
031: I'm free of myself when I'm at my job. That's why I like it. I think most people don't like that—they don't want to give themselves up in that way. Not even for a moment. But for me it's kind of [pause]
032: It's transcendental.
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