April 25, 2003

Today is the day to show your fake teeth to everyone.

Today's interviewees are some of my favorite guys. They run one of the best lit sites around and keep it consistently fresh and funny. Plus, their one-year anniversary reading was one of the most fun nights of my life, which means, of course, it's only going to get better year by year. If you get the chance to write for or meet these guys, well, do it!

The Haypenny Interview: Somewhere Around Twenty Questions for Paul Fisher, Sam Forsyth, Dennis Proctor and Matt Tobey

So how did you come up with the name "Haypenny"? What are some other names you guys were considering?
Dennis Proctor: I really liked "The Empire Spares Back." Wait, that was for our bowling team.

Paul Fisher: We considered many others like "Stroke", "The Strokes", "Hive", "Vine" and "White Stroke", but "Haypenny" just seemed to have the right feel to it. It's funny, but we actually chose it partly because it sounded serious or hoity-toity. Now, of course, the very word is synonymous with hilarity.

How did it get started? How did you want Haypenny to be different from the other literary sites we see?
DP: We wanted to create something that we would read every day. Something consistent. We think we've done that. And as far as we know we're still the only ones who read it
.
PF: We were pretty unfocused back at the beginning, but I think now we really just want to be funny. Our focus now is on having well-written, absurd, funny pieces. We'd also like to separate ourselves from some other sites by not jumping the shark so early. A lot of sites seem to be getting less and less funny and less and less worth reading. I'm not sure if the editors are getting sick of it or what, but we definitely want to keep the quality up. We'd hate to end up sucking like the Onion.

Matt Tobey: For me, I looked at all of the other sites out there and thought, "How can I make a lot of money with a site like this without using ads or subscriptions?" Then I answered myself by thinking "You can't." The rest is history.

How do you guys handle rejection? By which I mean, handing out rejections? Have any rejections you've received from other literary sites sculpted how you are as an editor?
PF: I don't respond to submissions, but I do evaluate them, so rejecting something is very, very easy for me. The only rejection I've received was from McSweeneys. And who hasn't experienced that?

Sam Forsyth: We offer constructive criticism to people who seem like they want it or need it or are genuinely interested in writing.

DP: If it's obvious that the submitter wasn't even aiming for the mark, meaning they've never read a lick of our site, we send them a virus.

MT: The hardest thing is rejecting something that's really, really good, but doesn't fit into the ever-tightening niche we've created. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, tears are undoubtedly shed on our part.

What are your favorite pieces that have run on Haypenny?
PF: My favorite of mine might be "The Great Battles of the Civil War: Otherwise Unusable Story Fragments". My favorite of Matt's is "There's Always Trouble When My Boss Comes Around". Of Dennis', I like "Six Recently Bounced Checks". And my favorite of Sam's is the Poemwriters one.

Other than that, I like anything by Rutlidge Clark, Virginia Hazlett, Deckie Holmes or The Greg. And others.

SF: "Dear Vietnam: Confused letters-of-reply from America", "Forgotten Forefathers: George Washington", "You Can Substitute your Principles", "The Time I Met Ted Danson."

DP: There're too many. Haypenny 10 is my favorite issue and contains some of my favorite writing. My favorite that I've written recently is "My Misguided Attempts to Protest the Looming War with Iraq." I love "Jude Law's Brother Can Help," "Never Judge a Crook by His Mother" and "Mink Farming is in Our Blood" more than I love my own children. Well, at least more than the newest one.

MT: My favorites from outside contributors are "Five Men, Same Wolf" by Theodore Beck and "Elements of a Successful Postmodern Short Story "by Dave Gianatasio. My favorites by these guys are "Six Recently Bounced Checks" by Dennis and "Ten Facts About the World's First Haircut." My favorite by me is either "Jude Law's Brother Can Help" or "My Favorite Alternative-Fiction Author Has Taken This Non-Conforming Book Reading Too Far." I just love myself too much to narrow it down to one.

I am amazed at how much work you guys produce. What are your secrets for writing the dailies (and more?)
SF: It's gotten to a point where it's not an option to not have a daily go up. Just like we have to drive to work, and put gas in our cars, we have to write a daily. It's weird what it's become. It's like, "I have to go home and write a daily." And it's such a natural thing to say nowadays, but no one else in the entire universe has any idea what it means.

PF: The secret is to, every couple of months, pretend like we're going to have the dailies done a week in advance. Then we stick to that plan for about zero weeks and then we're always under pressure. I'm actually quite surprised that none of us has ever said, "You know what? This isn't really all that important; I'm just going to go to bed." For some reason we do it. I'd like to know the secret too. I mean, we haven't taken a weekday off ever. We started doing Dailies on October 15, 2001 and we've kept it up. Some sites take two-or-three month hiatuses two or three times a year. They don't have our magic.

DP: The secrets are many, but the two main rules we follow are: 1. Enjoy writing ridiculous crap. 2. Do it.

What made you decide to have an all-chick edition?
DP: Poncho Barnes.

What was your inspiration for the Courageous Dolphin Stories issue? What were people's responses?
DP: Poncho Barnes. The most common response I heard was "Do you guys like, have a thing for Poncho Barnes or something?"

PF: It was obviously inspired by the ridiculousness of McSweeneys 10. What a joke. "Thanks, Dave, but I'm in this literary scene because of writers like King and Crichton. I know who they are. I'm not a moron. Thanks." Their whole attitude over there just reeks. It's very self-important, and not in a funny way anymore. I'll just never take myself that seriously that I do half the shit they do over there. And, as far as I can tell, they haven't had anything funny up in about forty years. And none of their non-funny is ever worth reading. It's just words. Unfocused, boring words. It's giving me the shivers just talking about it. We got zero negative responses, which is far fewer than we were expecting. We got a lot of secret, quiet high-fives.

MT: The mainstream media was outraged by it, that's for sure. In fact, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, The New York Times, The London Times, The LA Times, USA Today, Time, Newsweek and Maxim were all so angered by Haypenny 10 that they vowed to pretend it didn't even exist. Go back and check; not one of them covered it.

Matt and Paul, How come you guys started blogs? What did you have to say that you couldn't say on Haypenny?
PF: I was inspired by Neal Pollack (and Matt's stint blogging for Neal) and by my Chicagoan friend Jeremy, who runs La Beta Corpo. It just seemed like a neat outlet. I'm still getting used to it, and trying to find a way to figure out how to keep it going. Hopefully this time it'll be for good. Did you see my fake wanted-people playing cards? I'm very proud of those. Basically, I wouldn't ever want to tackle current events or politics on Haypenny. At least not directly. I can do that on WWKAD.

MT:: Despite the unconditional love I receive from my friends and family, I'm still somehow attention starved. It also compliments my other hobby of biting off more than I can chew. The things I say on my blog that I can't say on Haypenny are usually along the lines of "Hey, look at me!" and "Here's something I wrote/made. Love it!"

Matt and Dennis, you guys are about my age and married, Dennis with kids. Please inform me and my readers how being young and having a family rocks. And, do you get mad if people ask you if you're young to be so responsible?
DP: I'm not going to lie; being married to Matt is not all peaches and cream. He can be a real sarsaparilla sandwich sometimes, and my kids can't stand him, but he has every episode of the "Twilight Zone" on DVD, and well, that's enough.

MT:: Two-words: In-house pussy. That's her nickname for me, the in-house pussy. Being married to my wife is my favorite thing in the world, including cake. Also, anybody who thinks 25 is too young to be responsible is lazy.

Tell us about the films you guys make. How long do they take to make? What are your inspirations? Will we be seeing them on Haypenny anytime soon?
MT: I think a lot of the inspiration for our shorts come from sketch shows like The State and Mr. Show, same goes for our writing. The guys from The State who do Stella now have some unbelievably hilarious little movies on their website and Steve and Waki at irritablecolon.com do great work too. Now that we've made a few, they're easier and faster to make. Well-planned, a 1 or 2-minute short could be written, shot and edited in a weekend.

DP: Our favorite is this one where I threaten to saw my own leg off. That will likely get its own DVD release.

PF: Haypenny will start featuring shorts soon, hopefully. We have an idea for a feature that we're going to go on vacation in June and flesh out. Hopefully it doesn't suck.

Dennis, Sam and Paul, tell us about your band. What kind of music do you play? Who is the cute one, who is the angry one, and so on?
DP: Someone once said "it's as refreshing as receiving an open-mouth kiss from Jesus Christ himself." That person was an asshole.

SF: Rocky and Rolley kinda. Uh, Paul's the cute one, Chad is the great one, Dennis is the shy one and Sam is the gone-but-not-forgotten one.

PF: I'm the smart one, Sam's the demolitions expert, Dennis is the smooth-talker and Chad's the muscle. We play indie-pop. We rock. We bill ourselves as "Detroit's only undiscovered rock and roll super group" primarily because it's true. Soon we'll be recording with Jim Roll and we're very excited about that.

Matt, how do you fill the void of not belonging to Havilland?
I don't. The void is always there, tugging at my soul, reminding me of my inadequacies as a musician and as a human in general. Luckily, they're my no-foolin' favorite band in the world, so that makes up for it.

You guys are friends with Jesse Popp. Do you ever get sick of having to laugh at his jokes?
SF: Well, he doesn't repeat many jokes while we're just hanging out, so, it's usually something new that we're laughing at. And it's not like we go and support him while he's doing stand-up. I don't think it's possible to get sick of something you hardly ever do.

PF: When I hear his "George Washington's teeth" joke, it doesn't knock me out of my seat like it did the first six hundred times, but it's still funny. It would be a lot harder to put up with if Jesse weren't an incredibly talented standup. But he is, so it makes life a lot easier. Oh, also I don't go see him anymore. He never tells us about his shows.

MT: No. And oddly enough, I sometimes laugh at having to get sick of his jokes. He's just that funny.

DP: He tells jokes? Awwwww… snap.

You guys have all been friends since high school. What are the benefits and drawbacks of working with people you know so well?
SF: The best thing has to be that we know each other's senses of humor (they're slightly different) so well that we all know what's expected out of a piece. We know what'll make Matt laugh. That joke may not make Paul laugh, so we'd better throw in a Paul joke and so on. It usually makes for a pretty broad piece.

PF: Benefits: Blowjobs. Drawbacks: Teeth.

MT: The benefits are too numerous to count. The one big drawback is having to vote off someone that you truly love like a brother. I just keep reminding myself that it's just a game though, and I didn't come here to not win that million dollars.

DP: We're friends? Awwwww… snap.

You guys threw one hell of a reading back in October. What do you think made it a success? And what are you doing for an encore?
DP: Location. We found that throwing a bash in the scariest part of Detroit is very appealing to lit nerds. Next time: less Zulkey. Awwwww… nevermind.

PF: The success was definitely due to all the input and performances we got from folks like you (and Ben and Lindsay and Steve and John and Darci and the mysterious Peter and Dave and Paul). We had a great time doing it and we're planning on topping it this year, but we're not sure how yet. Some ideas are being thrown around; it might be a two-day event or something. And it might coincide with a particularly important author's book tour, so we might work something out there.

You guys are from near Detroit. Hate the town, love the town, and why? And what famous Detroitians do you most identify with?
PF: I most identify with Grand Funk Railroad, even though they're from Flint. I love Detroit, actually. That's part of the reason that I decided to stay here rather than move to Chicago (which I also love). I think there's more going on in Detroit than meets the eye and I'm determined to uncover it. I just got accepted into a PhD program here for Economics, so I've got at least another four years to work on uncovering that Detroit magic.

SF: I love the area. I wish downtown was a great place to be. I'd say if there were one thing missing from my cultural profile it's a cool, safe downtown to go to. I'd say the Detroitian I most identify with is Madonna.

MT: I actually think downtown's got a lot of character. You might have to live here for 20 years to think so, but it's there. The famous Detroiter I most identify with is definitely Sir Paul McCartney.

DP: My favorite Detroitigander has got to be Deckie Holmes.

Paul and Sam, you guys are Pentecostals, which I have enough questions about to fill an entire other interview. So, can you tell us something interesting about the religion that most people probably don't know?
SF: It can be creepier than you could ever imagine. Also, given the right people it can be a very open-minded, relaxed and ready-to-accept-you religion, again, under the right circumstances.

PF: Contrary to popular belief, nowhere in scripture does Jesus actually instruct anyone to hate anyone else or to try to make someone else feel morally inferior. In fact, you may be surprised to find out that Christ was actually very loving, and not very judgmental.

If you were a Pentecostal kid in the 80s in Michigan, you would have gone to a summer camp called Fa-Ho-La, where they force you to pray in tongues. Oh yeah-that's what makes Pentecostals different: praying in tongues.

Matt, tell us about your experience handling Neal Pollack's blog. Were there any unexpected hardships?
I had an absolutely great time doing it. I think Neal is just the bee's knees, so it was a total honor for him to ask me to sub for him. I also got a lot of really cool emails from readers. I could've done without the fire ants though. I didn't expect that.

How does it feel to be the 54th, 55th and 56th people interviewed for Zulkey.com?
MT: Spongy.

PF: Cheap.

DP: Like a hundred bucks.

SF: There are four of us. Who didn't get a number?

[Editor's note: Oops. Uh. Two of you have to share a number. Sorry.]