No, Fuck You
Ah, the confrontational interview. I had this idea it did exist. Then where has it gone? The jostle, cough, the lip-curl. And without it, haven’t we lost something? To discuss, to pry and fling, not what we’re instructed or allowed (a la Tom Cruise [and many others] who actually inculcate the interviewer in advance—you will only ask these very questions). And so then we have nothing more than a softball game played with bats made of limp, leaking sausages. Toy dogs smelling each other’s asses. A farce.
Because we lose surprise, abrupt honesty, what ego and anger can do: make us blurt out something we might regret, or possess, or shock or please our own self with, something true. But some of this comes down to the medium. Over email, my gods, we can all blurb profound. We cheat, and suddenly I am quoting Beckett and know something about mortgage-backed securities, MFA statistics, and the best clothing option for a casual late fall round of bocce ball (Cabela’s MicroDown soft shell, in hue woodland). An interview over the phone, you might have notes or might be naked (a clear advantage for flow of thought). You don’t see the interviewer at all, the nonverbals, the power of space, but at least it is real time and has potential for nasty, like when Terry Gross asks Gene Simmons about wearing a studded codpiece:
Gene Simmons: No, it holds in my manhood.
Terry Gross: [laughs] That’s right.
Gene Simmons: Otherwise it would be too much for you to take. You’d have to put the book down and confront life. The notion is that if you want to welcome me with open arms, I’m afraid you’re also going to have to welcome me with open legs.
Terry Gross: That’s a really obnoxious thing to say.
It really sort of is, Gene. (full transcript here) But I don’t think Mr. Simmons would have said it over email, especially since an intern would be typing “his” answers. I don’t think Gene Simmons uses email, but I can’t verify this. I just have a feeling.
And then I go seeking confrontational interviews, of the literary variety. Interviews pushing writers, writers barking back. I did find authors saying all types of smarmy things about fellow writers, but so what? They are hiding behind distance, an eon, ocean, or the page. I did find author interviews, and I did find confrontation, but usually outside the literary realm.
Example:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HNgqQVHI_8
But we can’t even count this as a real confrontational interview. Jim Rome is too calculated, too career-oriented. It smacks of Bad Faith. And it is sports. Sports interviews still do go confrontational. They are often live or directly before or after a game or practice—times of great energy and snarl. And athletes are aggressive by nature—they are not trained to play nice (until post-career, when they become ex-athletes sadly forced to hobble onto TV sets to talk about actual active athletes). And sometimes they are just full of shit for ratings. And so on.
[BTW, I like the crazy coach clips; I like that genre–THEY ARE WHAT WE THOUGHT THEY WERE!!!–but I digress.]
I found plenty of politicians being confronted, but this can’t possibly be of worth. Every word a politician says is a calculated, goddamn, self-serving lie, and anyway many reporters bait or push or set up little ambushes for them. Here’s a primer on how to do, if you’re interested:
Take charge immediately – [By] interrupting self-serving filibusters and carefully avoiding pleasantries that might weaken the necessary resolve to go for the jugular.
Go for the tight shot – Arrange in advance to have the videographer zoom in slowly on the interviewee’s face when the exchange grows heated. This cinematic effect visually reinforces the editorial goal of zeroing in on the quarry.
Use props – As every good trial lawyer knows, such tangible exhibits – video, photos, documents – not only help buttress a cross-examination but also add theatrical flair.
Set up targets to lie – You can’t force them to do so, of course, but it is always better to give them the opportunity to tell a falsehood on-camera before (not after) you pull out the smoking-gun memo that proves their culpability. A single lie captured on-camera shakes the edifice of everything else they say afterwards.
Always keep one camera rolling no matter what – That way, if your subject rips off his microphone or storms out of the room, you have footage of his defensive tantrum. Also, interviewees may blurt out embarrassing comments during a lull when they think they are not being recorded.
I can’t tell you how much the above list makes me want to be a journalist.
[As yet another digression, I do like when Bjork goes all Icelandic on a member of the press and beats the living shit out of her. Welcome indeed. But this was hardly an interview, just a friendly reporter saying hi, Bjork, what’s rocking, Babe, hey…AHHHHHHHHH!!]
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3mJTdGE79I
Hold up, hold up, I am trying to get to writers. To confrontational writer interviews. I looked a great while (I mean a great internet while, several minutes at least) and then my mind went to a round table I remember. It was David Foster Wallace and Jonathan Franzen and Mark Leyner. (WTF is Leyner doing there? It’s like someone brought a diseased donkey to a grandmaster chess match.)
And, DFW, in his awkward, sweating zig-zag way, quickly distances himself from Leyner (and rightly so) and then does the same to Franzen and it gets a bit uncomfortable. Confrontational in an awkward way, and I thought maybe this was going to be as close as I am going to get. And anyway I’m getting tired and I need to grade, uh, cook a fish.
But I was wrong. Been reading the wonderful Paris Review interview archives. Read one fourteen minutes ago while thinking on this confrontational idea. Stumbled on this:
INTERVIEWER
Does something begin to agitate you to get back to writing?
NAIPAUL
I actually find myself being agitated now. I want to get back to my work.
And this:
INTERVIEWER
I do understand, but I was wondering about something a little different.
NAIPAUL
Try it again. Rephrase it. Make it simple and concrete so we can deal with it.
and…
NAIPAUL
You shouldn’t have asked me that question about running to the British and the masters . . . Does it show in my work?
INTERVIEWER
I wouldn’t say so.
NAIPAUL
Then why did you ask it?
Ah, V.S. Naipaul. Here we have it: He comes out of the corner swinging. And it sort of argues for the confrontational interview. The power shifts, the asker/askee relationship cracks and pops, the interviewer has to recalibrate, V.S. to stalk, and then to skitter away. The interview itself becomes something organic and interesting and lively and dangerous and fun. I suppose that’s my point: we lose something when we lose the confrontational interview. When we play too nice, well, we play. Is this the fault of email, our default interview medium (I think)? Possibly. This push/pull could be both on the interviewer and interviewee. I think we could push a little, and interesting are the results. But who does such a thing, or wants to? It has me thinking. And maybe there never were that many confrontational interviews? Maybe they aren’t gone, just never existed. Or maybe you can show me others? I’ll read them all. Maybe.
Tags: Confrontational Interview, David Foster Wallace awkward
Would love a compilation of the most ridiculous/intense moments in Fresh Air history. Including the above and Tracy Morgan for sure.
Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal always: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8m9vDRe8fw
Hemingway slapped Wallace Stevens around for calling him a sap and making fun of his beard. Stevens was in his fifties. Hemingway in his thirties.
Something tells me you could dig up some confrontational interviews with Norman Mailer.
Maybe writers today just aren’t confrontational and maybe writers today just aren’t that interesting. And maybe they don’t drink enough. And maybe they spent too many years in college. Who knows. Interview Christopher Hitchens before he leaves this earth. They don’t make them like him anymore.
look how calm ali acts in this interview w/cosell:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXbY-CrxO9M
I put Ben Marcus on a platform of ice overhanging a pit of snakes coming out of their three month fast when I interviewed him. I wore nothing but an Uglymask and rubbed photos of family members on my genitals as we spoke. The guy is unbreakable.
Also, there was a great accident last year at AWP when Tony Hoagland and Donald Revell were left alone on a panel and tried to have it out about the future of poetry. The conversation quickly became heated and Revell really seemed to be repeatedly breaking Hoagland’s heart. Revell apologized several times, but eventually came out with:
“Humanity is one of those experiments that didn’t quite work out.”
And Revell again: “As long as we don’t say anything, Tony and I agree.”
Annnd, in doing further research into this, I realize HTMLgiant touched briefly on it already back in April of 2010 – http://htmlgiant.com/random/listening-in/
I put Ben Marcus on a platform of ice overhanging a pit of snakes coming out of their three month fast when I interviewed him. I wore nothing but an Uglymask and rubbed photos of family members on my genitals as we spoke. The guy is unbreakable.
Also, there was a great accident last year at AWP when Tony Hoagland and Donald Revell were left alone on a panel and tried to have it out about the future of poetry. The conversation quickly became heated and Revell really seemed to be repeatedly breaking Hoagland’s heart. Revell apologized several times, but eventually came out with:
“Humanity is one of those experiments that didn’t quite work out.”
And Revell again: “As long as we don’t say anything, Tony and I agree.”
Annnd, in doing further research into this, I realize HTMLgiant touched briefly on it already back in April of 2010 – http://htmlgiant.com/random/listening-in/
Hemingway likewise had a sidewalk beef with McAlmon that turned into his (Hem’s) knocking Djuna Barnes down twice. I don’t think she was calling him ‘Chrissy’, though.
how long before the tip of this blogberg turns up on foxgoebbels?
hi, dupert
Ms. Flanner stole this show.
Literature-nascar symbiosis.
Dan Chaon has kind of an uncomfortable interview with Michael Silverblatt, who seemed to misunderstand/dislike the novel You Remind Me of Me: http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/bw/bw041028dan_chaon
Also, Tobias Wolff has an icky one with Don Swaim, who always strikes me as kind of a well-meaning non-reader: http://media.woub.org/ramgen/wiredbooks/TobiasWolff89.rm
http://www.mtv.com/videos/misc/100515/jewel-gets-schooled-by-kurt-loder.jhtml#id=1539536
Thanks for this, Janey. Very awesome. I used to read a lot of Mailer, and interviews of, but it was years ago. Still. He is the confront interview. This clip is pretty amazing. I know it’s out of context–we don’t see before or after, etc.–but he gets his ass kicked. Then again, it’s three against one. Still. Charged clip.
BBC radio interviewers get heated with the PR people of third world dictators who aren’t in the good graces of the UK.
Not exactly confrontational. Seemed like flirting. (Another problem with interviews…)
The BBC also keeps the confrontational interview alive in the form of almost everything Jeremy Paxman ever does.
Deborah Solomon antagonizes everyone she speaks to for the NYT Sunday magazine. It’s kind of bizarre, actually. One would expect something puffy in that context.
Mailer was plastered, according to Cavett.
Speaking of Solomon, she reviewed in December the first full-length bio of artist Alice Neel, in the NYT Book Review. Sorta interesting piece. But I cannot believe the bold/italicized (by me) bit below did not get cut-and-pasted for page hits by Jezebel (or others). Perhaps illustrates that no one reads reviews
Speaking of Solomon, she reviewed in December the first full-length bio of artist Alice Neel, in the NYT Book Review. Sorta interesting piece. But I cannot believe the bold/italicized (by me) bit below did not get cut-and-pasted for page hits by Jezebel (or others). Perhaps illustrates that no one reads reviews
Aziz Ansari and Esquire got into a fight over Mexican food. Money quote-
ESQ: So you’re talking about a corn tortilla?
AA: The little tortilla can’t be flour?
ESQ: No.
AA: It’s always corn?
ESQ: Yes.
AA: Why?
ESQ: Why? I don’t know. You’ll have to ask the Mexican community.
AA: I’ve never had such a heated conversation about tacos. Usually it’s very positive and people are excited to hear about new things and not ready to take them down.
ESQ: I am excited to hear about new things.
AA: No, you’re not. I told you what a mulita was and you said, “Sounds like a fucking quesadilla.”
http://www.esquire.com/features/the-screen/aziz-ansari-quotes-0111
The interview was with Stacey Grenrock Woods – maybe THAT’S why she got canned from the Daily Show: not because she’s a woman, but because she gets into bitchy little snits over basic concepts such as food she’s never heard of.
Oh, who am I kidding, it’s because she’s a woman
She’s also known to edit answers out of context. She comes off brave in the edit.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/opinion/14pubed.html
In the Wallace-Franzen-Leyner three-way Charlie Rose is right to sound pissed every time he has to say Tooth Imprints On a Corn Dog.
Knee-Jerk’s w/ Shane Jones has a few moments — http://kneejerkmag.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=125:knee-jerk-talks-with-shane-jones
this interview is awesome.
Whoa – that’s not “interviewing”; that’s ‘workshopping a character’.
That evisceration was published in 10/07; why would anyone since then have done an “interview” with this crooked gossip?
The guy’s trenchancy is comical and makes me want to read his novels.
Shane Jones, welcome to my planet: Earth. Some of the mentally handicapped and/or alcoholic people are also among the readers – really!
wow does he look like a tool in this
xrl.us/bh8nzm
xrl.us/bh8nzm
If we’re talking about writers being total dicks, you can’t do much better (or worse) than Harold Bloom.
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2225/the-art-of-criticism-no-1-harold-bloom
The last time that I recall HTML giant had – writers as assholes as a theme I responded with the following (I copy and paste it today as I find it still fitting)
Most of the greatest poets it seems really are assholes. I believe poets to be highly opinionated egotists bent of displaying to the audience the poet’s mind and naked view, almost a forced voyeurism, of not only the world the poet occupies but the audience that reads them as well. As a poet you must be ballsy and arrogant to even consider participating in the art as an adult as a serious pursuit I mean to say.
hand some women a banana
and they eat it.
Hand it others
and they masturbate on the spot.
off the cuff
but most would talk
about it, indefinitely.
meanwhile, I’ll
sleep as sound as poet in
post
coital recreation
aftermath.
asdf