FAQ

April 2009

How did you get your start?

The Anchorage Daily News had a teen section called "Perfect World" that my friend edited. She invited me to write a humor column ("Alien Abduction: It Could Happen to You"), and I enjoyed it immensely. Soon I had a weekly soapbox at the tender age of 15. Many teachers in Anchorage actually required their students to read my articles in the hope I would instill a love of newspapers. I became a minor local celebrity... yet for some reason I only hooked up with a couple of my fans.

When I self-published a collection of my columns in 2000, mellowly titled Death to All Cheerleaders, the New York publishing community took notice, which led to a deal with MTV Books / Simon & Schuster for the follow-up, mellowly titled Generation S.L.U.T.

Who are your influences?

Jack Daniel, Jim Beam, Johnnie Walker and Captain Morgan.

My primary influences were Dave Barry, Hunter Thompson and Bret Easton Ellis. In high school I wanted people to consider me the “next” Barry and Thompson, and in college I wanted people to consider me the “next” Ellis—I took it as a compliment whenever readers and critics compared me to them—but eventually I realized no one makes an impact by emulating somebody else. Readers can tell when a writer isn’t being completely honest, and copying a few techniques or catch phrases from a favorite author won’t provide you with their insights. In other words: strive to be the first “you,” which probably requires living a little, not merely reading a lot.

How do you feel about your books in retrospect?

Enough time has passed since Death to All Cheerleaders and Generation S.L.U.T. for me to judge them objectively. I have done a lot of growing up (and mellowing out) over the past few years, and I’m not exactly sure what was going through my head back then. I am proud of Cheerleaders and feel it has some really clever stuff... some amateur writing and half-formed rants, but a lot of quality too. (Also I am way less bitter now thanks to the fact I have actually had sexual intercourse.)

The S.L.U.T. era, on the other hand, makes me uncomfortable, especially the interviews I did to promote the book. I was going through a very weird, dark, confused phase; my testosterone was peaking, my early success had gone to my head, my emotions were in flux, and I made a bunch of grandiose, excessively passionate statements that don’t reflect how I see the world today... I also utilized my national soapbox to advance personal grudges, which (rightfully) struck a lot of people as petty, immature and discomforting.

I was a heavily intoxicated college-aged male, speaking in the way that heavily intoxicated college-aged males speak to one another, except that most heavily intoxicated college-aged males don't have an audience of millions. The book itself contains some of the most thoughtful and personal writing I’ve ever done, and I stand by a lot of it (along with disowning a lot of it), but there is an intensity that seems foreign to me now, especially when it comes to feminism… Jesus Christ, I had some serious issues with women… but you can’t grow up unless you screw up. And my long-term girlfriend will tell you that I'm neither violent nor creepy, just a weirdo.

If anything has changed about my writing over time, it's that my sexism is now ironic, not genuine. (Women are truly the equals of human beings.)

Also: sixty-nine is no longer my favorite sexual position. Have you ever tried reverse cowgirl?

What happened to your book Retard Nation?

In 2004 Simon & Schuster signed my third book, but my editor quit his job a few months before the scheduled release date and his replacement axed the project. The Disinformation Company agreed to publish the book in September 2008, but I changed the title to Dumbocracy because pissing off disabled people and their families would have been a little much even for a professional asshole like me.

Are you a left-winger or a right-winger?

One of my favorite quotes is from Robert Heinlein: "Political tags—such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth—are never basic criteria.The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire." In the past I have been all over the map from screaming liberal to hysterical conservative (which I address in the Dumbocracy conclusion "My Odyssey from Teenage Communist to College Republican to So Fucking Ashamed"), but I've concluded that the truth is usually somewhere in the middle. I'm no longer comfortable with the tag "libertarian" because of that movement's crazy economic ideas (public roads are not gulags; neither are most public schools), but everybody should have the right to pursue their own happiness if they cause no harm to anyone else, no matter whether such happiness offends moralistic or P.C. crybabies. As I say in the opening line of Dumbocracy: "Opinions are like genitals; if you force others to swallow yours, something is seriously wrong with you."

Are you really this much of an asshole in person?

In all honesty countless acquaintances have told me: “When I first met you, I thought you were a complete freak, but over time I realized you are probably the only sane person I know.” Everyone has variations of my thoughts, or at least most people; I simply have the courage and bad manners to share those thoughts with the world.

Why are you so obsessed with your penis?

Because I have one.