Interview With a Columnist

 

Interviewer : I'm told you're now a full eighty years old. Does that mean you're a good source of sage advice?

Byron : Do you have a topic in mind, or are you just pulling my leg?

I : No, seriously. How about some general good advice.

B : How about this: I advise you not to expect much in this interview.

I : You can't be serious.

B : Not always, perhaps. Next question.

I : Well, let's talk about your run for US President in 2008.

B : Surely you didn't take that seriously.

I : No, of course not. You had no funds and no support.

B : Well, I had a little support. I would have voted for me. But only if I'd appeared on the ballot.

I : But would anybody else have done so?

B : Who knows? But hypothetical stuff surely isn't what you want from what you call a “good source of sage advice.”

I : How about some serious sage advice?

B : Don't vote for people not on the ballot except in extreme emergency. Did you want me to set my own agenda for this interview? Because you seem intent on wasting both your and my time. And the readers, if you can find any.

I : Is that how you talk to an interviewer? No wonder nobody put you on the ballot.

B : Sounds like sage advice to me. But one reason I wasn't on the ballot was, I was never interviewed. And why not? Because if I had been, I wouldn't have been polite when the interviewer asked me a stupid question. All of the likely candidates just had to suck it in and be polite when somebody asked them a stupid question. I try not to do that. An ass-hole is an ass-hole, whether he or she carries a press card or not.

I : I hope none of my questions are “stupid.”

B : You're not doing very well so far.

I : Okay, let's talk about something the average American will be interested in. What TV programs do you watch regularly?

B : I don't watch a lot of TV, except my own tapes and DVDs. The shift to digital gave the rabbit ears of my area several extra channels that aren't worth the bother, plus which it damaged reception, converter box or no converter box. Not that watching TV was my worst vice even before that. I still watch mysteries sometimes, and the news fairly regularly, although as the news goes more and more over to trying to predict tomorrow's news instead of telling what's already happened, I tend to lose interest. Especially when they're pushing cutesy stuff like what celebrities are up to. Who cares?

I : Apparently a lot or people care. All right, which news programs do you watch?

B : All I can get, because news is fairly interesting stuff, or used to be. Except during elections. During elections, even the best news programs would bog down in describing details of what they imagine were the candidates' tactics, while they completely ignored what the candidates said their ideas were. With the news magazines , at one time, you could be sure of a few things. For example, if Time said something bad about Republicans or something good about Democrats, it was probably true, though you couldn't trust ‘em when it was vice versa. The TV news didn't have any nearly infallible clues like that, because they never said anything at all about the parties unless they'd found a scandal they thought the public would enjoy hearing an imitation report about.

I : Are you saying you're a sour old reprobate who disapproves of everything?

B : Are you indicating that you're one of those ass-hole interviewers I was just talking about?

I : No, not at all.

B : Then let's get back to the interview and skip the personal crap. My gosh, you guys are a scurvy lot.

I : Okay, what mysteries do you watch? See, I haven't forgotten your previous answers.

B : That's because you write them down. I'm recording all this myself, so that when people say, “You sure sounded stupid,” I can answer, “Well, given the questions, what did you expect?”

I : Have your eighty years taught you anything?

B : Sure have. For example, there are enough really crooked people around to more than make up for the large number of honest ones, and if you depend on ‘em to self-regulate, you're asking them to fleece you. I personally don't have much they can fleece, but they wouldn't bother about how little it was, once they decided they wanted my few things. Meantime, my government has deep pockets, so they love fleecing the government. Always have, though. It was a problem during the American Revolution, already.

I : You don't like self-regulation, right? Do you like government regulation?

B : Damned rights. But watch out: regulators need regulating, too.

I : This column doesn't have to be about mystery writing, but maybe it should be. Does any of your eighty-year old advice apply to that?

B : You're assuming I'm something of a success as a mystery writer, aren't you? Well, you're setting the bar a little bit low, but I could say a few things: getting published by a big publishing house is difficult, and unless you have some sort of advantage with them, you can forget it.

I : Some advantage like a great writing style, maybe? Or like really intricate plots?

B : I'm not sure about the plots: if they're too intricate the people who read things so the editors won't have to will complain. Even I have had that experience already. As for great writing style, I'm not sure how much that helps. Since I've never interested a big publishing house, it may mean that my style isn't up to snuff, or it may mean most things that come to their attention don't interest them enough to encourage them to read a few pages. Like I implied in that last answer, you need some sort of advantage.

I : What sort of advantage are you talking about?

B : Well, the ideal thing is to have something that's a sure money-maker. They aren't interested in building authors any more: the bottom line is the main thing. But that's a matter for the ultimate decision: to get them to look, you need something like the recommendation of a writer who is already very successful, especially if he or she is a relative of yours. Or you need a great agent—but that's a problem, too, since you need some sort of advantage in order to interest an agent. Or you can be a celebrity. TV networks aren't the only people who dote on celebs. Goes way back to long before TV, for that matter. Can you distinguish between today's celebrities and what in the olden days were called heroes?

I : Ummmm, well, sort of. The heroes had to do heroic stuff. Is that what you had in mind?

B : I don't think so, but if I knew what it means, it might be. Heroic stuff. Hmmm. Like sleeping with the king's wife? Or like killing lots of enemies? You may have a point. Shall I interview you for a while and see what we can come up with?

I : Better not. I'm getting paid a certain number of dollars for this interview, and I wouldn't be for that one.

B : Maybe I would be. I'm not for this one. Which is why we'd better end it right here.

I : I don't feel like I've got anything from you yet.

B : You can invent the rest, like the other interviewers do. We're pushing a point by sending an interview anyway. By the way, how much are you being paid for this? Can I have half?

I : I've read enough of your columns to know that zero is a special case of “a certain number,” and yes, you can have half of my certain number of dollars. If I interviewed you again sometime, would your opinions still be the same?

B : We can try that. Some opinions change; some don't. Some you can't tell about. See ya around.