Inequality of interview

[imomus]

You find me in Vienna, where I've been interviewed for local magazine Falter about a performance I'll give in May at the Technical University.

I must say I love being interviewed, I love the way it makes you feel that people really care about what you think. Sitting in a Vienna bar last night, with a photographer shining bright lights and two reporters (one, Tex, a local TV star) alternating questions, I remembered what Morrissey had once said: being a celebrity is sometimes the only way to be treated at least half-decently as a human being. As all human beings should be treated.

But I also thought of the song at the end of The Threepenny Opera, the epilogue about "some in light, the others darkness". The photographer seemed to guess my thoughts. "You must have been photographed so many times!" he said. But there are lots of people who are never professionally photographed, never interviewed. My own brother, for instance. I don't think there's a single interview with him anywhere, despite the fact that he's the head of a university department. Perhaps he wouldn't enjoy the self-revelation as much as I do, but there's undoubtedly an inverse relationship between willingness to speak and the interestingness of the results.

We should turn the spotlight on the taciturn, interview the never-interviewed, turn and face the strange, squeeze blood from a stone. We should introduce genuinely new information into our media systems, and attempt to establish "equality of interview". We could start right here, right now, by interviewing the Anonymous Detractors and trolls who haunt these pages so enigmatically. Who are they, and what are their thoughts on the issues of the day?

I'll be on trains now until midnight, but I'd love to read some really telling interviews in the comments section when I get home. Today is the day to ask one another questions, and answer them in good faith.

Comments

[akabe.livejournal.com]

you have all my envy; TEE is where i want to be now. vienna to dusseldorf station. night train too.

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

What was the last book that you read? How was it? Do you have any pets? What's your favourite non-alcholic drink? What would be the preferred manner of your death? What is the oldest article of clothing that you still wear? What is your favourite kind of weather? What is the least touristy place you have ever been? What place names make you laugh? Have you ever been personally involved with someone born on an island smaller than Taiwan? Do you prefer to use chopsticks, knife and fork, or hands? Have you ever walked out on a film in the cinema, and if so, what was it? What's your least favourite cartoon and why? Who is the world's funniest comedian? What do you want to do next week? Have you ever admired someone for political reasons? What is the most psychologically formative event of your life before the age of nine? Where did you last go for a daytrip and why?

Please feel free to answer all, any or none of these questions, and excuse my ignorance. Thank you.

who the hell am i? pt1

[(Anonymous)]

Who the hell are you?

My name is Keith Haworth.

What do you do exactly?

I am a 41 year old manic depressive and mature student at Goldsmiths University in London. I study Media and Communications. I write and record music under the name of The Protagonist! and also do a little pop culture related writing on the side, whilst attempting to finish my degree and coming of age sci fi novel respectively.

Why don't you get a proper job at your age?

I am perpetually unemployed / unemployable, although I am hoping to be a writer and journalist. I have contributed articles, reviews and prose to some of these sites...
Click here: Subculture Magazine - Always On The Edge
Somewhere Else Magazine
Wired Radio

The Protagonist!
Is that really a photo of you? You look kind of young for your age?

Yes, it is, I do however have a slight beer belly, hey! an artist needs fuel for the fire!

Do you have a girlfriend?

No, I do not, as you may have gathered, I am unlucky in love, as so many great artists are. (I do now though!)

Why The Protagonist!

I like to be the star in my own life story.

[(Anonymous)]

Thats nice, Nick, that you got lights and everything.

Jaz

[(Anonymous)]

Nick. I'm sorry to hear that your brother isn't successful. Still, it must be comforting for him that he has someone in the family to look up to. Doug.

[count-vronsky.livejournal.com]

And as a twist, your usual fans can become trollish detractors and hungry ghosts for a night. Up is down and black is white.

Nick so self important think whole world care what he say. He old and ugly. him no star - he faded. Lazybarnes. Flimsy. Knitting ... knitting.

(that's all I got -- I'm much better suited to the role of gushing fanboy)

- cunt bronski

[(Anonymous)]

I thought he had, like, wireless or something?

[(Anonymous)]

Oh give the man what he wants. No google - let's see the real deal.

Q- Name/age/location

Q- Are you a morning person or an owl?

Q- Can you name all the characters in Friends (Including the guy in the coffee shop)

Q- If you had to use one album in your collection as a frisbee what would it be?

Q- Do you love someone?

Q- Fear?

Q- Do you hate a nation / peer / shop / celebrity.

Q- Euthanasia?

Q- Ambition? Or career? What are you going to achieve in life, what have you achieved?

wwb

Oh Go on then

[(Anonymous)]

Oh give the man what he wants. No google - let's see the real deal.

Q- Name/age/location - DictatorHall / 34 /Orlando, Florida

Q- Are you a morning person or an owl? I am a night owl.

Q- Can you name all the characters in Friends (Including the guy in the coffee shop) - Yes, well yes i can, information absorbed by osmosis from my wife.

Q- If you had to use one album in your collection as a frisbee what would it be? I have a CD by "The Nutty Boys". Dreadful.

Q- Do you love someone? Yes.

Q- Fear? Yes.

Q- Do you hate a nation / peer / shop / celebrity. No / no / no / Celebutarts.

Q- Euthanasia? They Need to pull their pants up and listen to proper music, not all this electronic nonsense.

Q- Ambition? Or career? What are you going to achieve in life, what have you achieved? I have achieved alot on paper. My goals are more emotionally fulfilling.

See... another fascinating interview, and another indicator of my chances of achieving celebrity.

DH

The anti-fame

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

Reading Kirino Natsuo's Grotesque at the moment, and there's a whole section about an illegal Chinese immigrant in Japan. This, as well as a number of other things, has made me think again about how most people and most stuff generally are/is completely lost forever in the shadows of history. I suppose we're all equalised in the end, though.

However, there was then the problem of who this Chinese immigrant was. He is a major character in this best-selling novel. Quite probably he is entirely fictional, and possibly even an inaccurate portrait of a 'typical' illegal Chinese immigrant. Even if the character were very closely based on a real individual, it would not actually be that individual. The individual would still have to live and die in the obscurity of 'reality'.

But this is surely why the author chose such a person as one of her main characters, and she is by no means the first to do so. It's an attempt to lift these people from the shadows and at the same time to say to the world, "Look, this is what you never turn your eyes to. This is reality. This is the anti-fame." There's even a touch of envy there, as if the stories that are never told are the only stories really worth telling.

[(Anonymous)]

Lazybarnes! That was hilarious! Anyone got the link to that one?

[(Anonymous)]

It's curious. These days Nick seems to be involved in a lot of projects that are almost......trying force themselves on people. Projects that sound good on paper, but if you look at them, they're not actually up and running. It's as if the sheer publicity is going to cause them to happen. The London game project (not quite a definite, it seems), this Falter magazine (one edition so far) the pyramid project in Berlin...is this a new strategy, Nick? It seems to be working for you. Good luck! wwm

[(Anonymous)]

It's curious. These days Nick seems to be involved in a lot of projects that are almost......trying to force themselves on people. Projects that sound good on paper, but if you look at them, they're not actually up and running. It's as if the sheer publicity is going to cause them to happen. The London game project (not quite a definite, it seems), this Falter magazine (one edition so far) the pyramid project in Berlin...is this a new strategy, Nick? It seems to be working for you. Good luck! wwm

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry, I thought I'd send this in, didn't realize you already had.....

[(Anonymous)]

I was curious about that too. Do you mean, Nick, that we should all treat YOU with more respect? Is that what today's blog is about? Are you getting US to establish "equality of interview" by hunting down your detractors? I personally think they give your blog a little balance. Not to mention making it a wee more interesting. Because you have a tendency to fill it with smirking in-jokes. You take a valid argument and turn it around to make yourself look good. You cut people off when you could be listening to them. It's your blog, of course. But you count yourself as somehow above the rest. So it might be time for YOU to tell US what "above the rest" really means to you.

a fan

[(Anonymous)]

I think I agree with anonymous. This blog is about you, not us. We care what you think. We just don't always agree with it.

[(Anonymous)]

You choose to be in the light. We in the darkness. Because we like it that way.

[(Anonymous)]

Do you think it might be the case that "there's undoubtedly an inverse relationship between willingness to speak and the interestingness of the results" is not the whole story? Does there also need to be a recognizable name to those words,to make them meaningful?

[(Anonymous)]

Do you think it might be the case that "there's undoubtedly an inverse relationship between willingness to speak and the interestingness of the results" is not the whole story? Does there also need to be a recognizable (famous) name to those words, to make them meaningful?

[(Anonymous)]

Q- Name/age/location (ARE YOU READING THIS ON THE TRAIN?)

Q- If you had to use one album in your collection as a frisbee what would it be?

Q- Do you love someone?

Q- Fear?

Q- Ambition? Or career? What are you going to achieve in life, what have you achieved?

[(Anonymous)]

as if the stories that are never told are the only stories really worth telling.

[(Anonymous)]

it's off topic but maybe you will find it interesting

http://pl.youtube.com/watch?v=bsJB-f_s--k

jango

[(Anonymous)]

am afraid
am lonely
am not smart
am dis abled
i hate where i live
i am a ackolic
i miss her
i miss myself
i want to be your friend
sometimes i say the worst thing
am trapped
am a waste
i cant relate
nothing works for me
i feel like a lepor
embaressed to be alive
why did i say those things
reading your words and sounds and pictures
is still my rare pleasure
am sure i will get better
forgive my harsh words

[(Anonymous)]

You always post things that stupid?

[(Anonymous)]

I wouldn't think Falter would be a good name for a successful magazine.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm sad, Nick. I'm lonely. I'm afraid. I don't know what is happening, I don't know where I'm going. I worry all the time. I have trouble sleeping. I drink. Things never seem to go the way I expect them to. Nothing seems as good as it used to. I'm afraid. Are you afraid?

[(Anonymous)]

Sometimes I feel like no-one is really listening.

Do you feel that way sometimes?

[(Anonymous)]

All the time. Does everyone feel like that? That would be too ironic. Or too sad, or something. But if treating everyone like celebrities meant that everyone was ordinary, that would still be an improvement, because at least 'ordinary' should mean 'human', shouldn't it? Children are all famous, aren't they? And then they learn how obscure they really are.

[(Anonymous)]

That's why I read your blog, every day. Because I feel like you're thinking what I'm thinking!

[(Anonymous)]

I think you're the modern day Andy Warhol, I really do. The way you mix everything together is so cool, I think someone should make a movie about it. A love story, and we can share five seconds of your fame with you. Lights, camera, action. In that Vienna coffeeshop, in the train. At your concerts, at your family holidays. We could all invest! And we could get in the movie!

id prefer to be in a vest...a pink string kamando

[(Anonymous)]

seriously
ask me some questions
i need to share my limited knowledge..