INTERVIEW WITH SELF ON INTERVIEWS ET. AL/INSOMNIA/HUNTER'S SHOES

EVIL TWIN:
So, this is the new way of letting off steam, huh? To let your own Evil Twin interview you as if you're a fucking celebrity or something!?

ME:
I don't know if I write to let off steam, but yeah, I thought it would be fun to do an interview like this. There's a first for everything, right? I also just read some Norman Mailer and he did this thing all the time, it seemed to work for him, so why not for me?

EVIL TWIN:
Because Norman Mailer is a fucking celebrity, you moron. He is one of America's most celebrated authors and journalists and it could be argued that you're a pretty pathetic man trying to imitate his style of writing. Anyway. Why this interview form? What exactly is it that you want to talk about?

ME:
I'm not really sure, that's why I chose this form, so that I could just answer your questions.

EVIL TWIN:
All right, here we go. Once again you've just started to type without knowing where you're going with this. We're gonna sit here all night. What the hell are you still doing up anyway?

ME:
I'm up because I have about 300 outstanding issues in my brain this evening. I just sent off an article - waiting for feedback on that one. I sent off a radio doco earlier today - waiting for feedback on that too. I just prompted another editor an an article I wrote about a month ago that he said he would publish but I haven't heard anything. And then there's still another article - the longest one I've ever written - and I'm waiting for the editor to get back to me on that one too.

EVIL TWIN:
Oh, boo-hoo. Poor you. Don't you know that people in offices don't do jack shit on fridays? You've worked in an office, as if you would've read an article right away and provided feedback on a sunny friday in may? Fuck, you wouldn't even be at work on a day like this.

ME:
True. Another reason I can't really sleep is that damn job interview I went to today. I really think I can get this one I just hope I didn't fuck it up.

EVIL TWIN:
Why would you have fucked it up? You've been to a thousand of these damn things, shouldn't you know how to do it by now?

ME:
I'm just not entirely happy about how I answered some of their questions but hopefully they could see that I was a bit nervous. I actually told them that I was nervous too - I said I was a bit nervous because I really want this job.

EVIL TWIN:
Do you think that was a good tactic? Doesn't that seem a bit pussy?

ME:
I dunno... See? This is why I can't sleep this evening. Plus, I had too much coffee earlier when I was trying to finish off that article on social mapping and abused kids.

EVIL TWIN:
Yeah, what's up with that? You're freelancing for chrissake and you write about depressing stuff like that? Why don't you write about something cool?

ME:
Maybe I'm desperate to be taken seriously. Or maybe I just write about whatever pays. I think it's a bit of both. And I actually find some of these things interesting. I'm not really into celebs and sensation-stories, you should know that more than anyone. Like the couple of stories I pitched to that science place just now - one on the decoding of the platypus genome and that other one on those tests done on prison inmates that showed how lack of self-control was a major reason why they got involved in crime - that shit is interesting. I think so anyway.

EVIL TWIN:
Do you REALLY find this shit interesting or do you say you do just to seem smart or something? Wouldn't you rather just smoke drugs and play GTA IV?

ME:
Of course. But I have no drugs, nor an Xbox or Playstation.

EVIL TWIN:
That can all be arranged. Do I sense some "I am a grown up now, I don't do that stuff anymore"-bullshit here?


ME:
Perhaps. And I've never had one of those machines. Do you remember when I installed Civilization 3 or whatever it was on my PC? Fuck, I didn't study for weeks. I get too addicted to games like that. And to drugs. A combination of the two would be a catastrophe for me right now. I have enough problems trying to keep my head straight enough to try and come up with fucking stories and angles.

EVIL TWIN:
I think we should go to bed now, man. It's getting late. But before we do that, what do you have against that whole Hunter S. Thompson Converse campaign? Isn't it cool that some big brand like that actually uses Someone in their ads rather than some skinny kid with bad tattoos? Don't you think bringing the Good Doctor into pop culture in that way will make his work and persona more accessible to the mainstream? Or are you so pretentious that you want to keep this God of journalism out of reach to the general public?

ME:
I just find it a bit offensive to use him like that, with his cigarette and scotch in hand, next to the singer of Green Day. He's dead. He killed himself. For the last couple of decades before he died he was constantly writing about the Death of the American Dream and now he's up there with a kid with bad tattoos, James Dean, and a rapper campaigning for shoes. I just think it's bad taste. In my view he is one of the great writers of the 21st century, not a model. It's true that the campaign may open up some kid's eyes to his genious, but I don't think it's the right way of doing it. I'd rather see that kid watching Fear & Loathing or picking up a copy of Hell's Angels. But maybe I'm just a romantic idiot. Maybe I'm getting old.

EVIL TWIN:
I think you are. You're even talking to yourself now.