October 3 , 2003

Today is the day to play fat man in a little suit.

Send me your fembook and we'll run them next week.

Go Opium!

I met todayís interviewee when he was part of a great Chicago literary stronghold that included Dezminís Archives, Opium Magazine and Sweet Fancy Moses. Now, many of the originals have left, including him. You may know his writings throughout the web, or you may have laughed at his book, My First Presidentiary, or you might enjoy the daily stylings on McSweeneyís Internet Tendency, of which he is now the editor. We miss him in Chicago, but fortunately his presence is still rocking the lit world.

The John Warner Interview: A Little Less than Less than Twenty Questions because Frankly, some of My Questions Were Just Dumb

You recently accepted a new web editorial role. What is it, and how did you come to inherit it?

I am currently the editor for Mcsweeneys.net, and have been since mid-July or so of this year. Basically, Dave Eggers asked if I could help out and I said yes, provided that he would meet only two demands, 1) a salary in excess of $80,000/year, and 2) a weekly feature on sumo wrestling. The negotiations were difficult, but ultimately, we settled on just the sumo

I know many good and decent people who revile McSweeney's due to the fact that they've submitted, and had a lot of stuff rejected from there. What's the key to being a firm yet gentle editor when it comes to submissions?

Well, I don't understand the whole hatred of those who reject you attitude. I mean, did I pout and cry when Christie Lavolier, the hottest girl in all of sophomore chemistry, turned me down for homecoming? I did not. I asked her to prom the next year. And when she said "no, and please zip your fly…ugh… don't talk to me anymore," did I "revile" her for rejecting me? Of course not. I simply burned her Volkswagen Cabriolet down to its floorboards.

"Firm yet gentle" are words I associate with handling produce, not necessarily responding to submissions. I prefer dealing out the harsh blows of truth like, "Thank you for submitting," "I'm going to pass on this," or "I can recommend a good balm for that."

In truth, I'm just one guy with one opinion, and I'd like to let the people know that I do my best, but I invariably make mistakes and let something that really is genius slip past me. We get a lot of submissions, but I do read everything myself and I try to respond quickly because I am truly grateful to people who send in their work, and as a writer myself, I know what it's like to send into the void and hear nothing back. Every single day I read something from a total stranger that makes me laugh out loud, one of the perks of the gig, in addition to the sumo of course.

You recently left Chicago. Is there a particular reason you think that so much comedy comes out of this city?

As we all know from reading, say, The New York Times, Midwesterners are spectacularly unattractive, and live simple, unadorned lives of interest to no one, not even themselves. To get any attention at all, we must be funny, and even then, we trail behind Canada in terms of quality comedy per capita. My theory is that the exchange rate causes Canadians to work harder, since a single Canadian joke is only worth 6/10ths of a joke here in the states.

In my interview with Kevin Guilfoile, I asked him to tell me something about you, and he said "He has three of something most people have two of, and two of another thing half the people have one of, and four of a third thing he shouldn't have at all.." Is this true?

Not since the surgery.

Now tell us something about Kevin.

Kevin has an amazing physical grace, which is why he started his career as a dancer of the Gregory Hines stripe, a tap man with the grace of a ballet master. Unfortunately, a genetic pre-disposition to foot ailments cut that part of his career short. Fortunately, Kevin is more than just a nice set of gams (Note: These are Kevin's actual legs.) Also, he collects Hummel figurines, and not in a kitschy, ironic way, more like a hug them close to his bosom and whisper to them way.

What advice do you have for writing collaborators?

If you are someone like Tom Clancy, or say, me, the trick is to find someone with actual talent who will do all the work for you, but still let you put their name on the book. Cussler and Clancy manage it by paying the other guy off. I do it through blackmail, more specifically, embarrassing pictures . (Ahoy sailor stripey-pants!)

Would you say that the men and women in America's military is grateful to you for your efforts to improve their healthcare or do they just not even care?

If I had the power of my name doppelganger the important senator from Virginia, and chairman of the senate armed services committee, I'd probably try to improve the health care of America's military by figuring out how to keep them from getting blown up or shot at, and if they're brave enough to fly halfway across the world to risk getting blown up and shot at, the least we could do is get them some decent health care.

Also tax cuts. We should all have tax cuts, because they are like magic.

Is it fun or annoying to have so many other John Warners in the world?

Since moving to Virginia last year, I don't have any trouble getting dinner reservations, particularly when I tell them that Ms. Taylor will be joining me. On the other hand, vanity googling is very difficult. On the third hand, (which I no longer have, thanks to the above mentioned surgery), I think I have a good shot at elective office as long as I stay in the state.

You and Kevin have written a good deal on George Bush and his personality. After writing about him so much, has your view on him changed at all? And will he win in 2004?

The conceit of the book was basically that George Bush is a child incapable of governing the country without the "adults" working behind the scenes being in charge. I really believe that the first three or so years of the Bush administration has validated that view, as President Bush really does appear to swing in different directions, depending on which group of insiders has his ear at any given time.

I voted for Gore, but at the time the election was decided, I wasn't all that bent out of shape about the final result, as George Bush looked harmless enough to me, and nobody was willing to pay Kevin and I to write a book about Al Gore. I don't think Bush is all that harmless any more. In his interview with Britt Hume he confessed to only reading the headlines in the newspapers, which may be a trait he shares with many Americans, but is not a trait we should treasure in our Commander in Chief.

Will he win in 2004? Probably, but I sincerely hope not.

What makes a good book critic, or is there really no such thing?

There are many good book critics, many great ones even. I think a great book critic can illuminate a book or writer in such a way that you see the art in a new light, a service as valuable as writing the book itself. Good critics approach the work without prejudging, they provide reasons for their rationale, and they write prose as good as, or better than the subjects they write about. One of my favorites is Thomas Mallon, who I frequently do not agree with, but whose writing always seems to start a conversation about the work, rather than ending it with some kind of rhetorical H-Bomb.

In that vein, what do you think about authors responding to critics, like Chuck Palahniuk's retort to Laura Miller?

I agree with writer/critic Paul Fussell, who labels writers responding to critics as an "Author's Big Mistake." Even when a review is savagely unfair, and the ire is completely justified, I think a response offers only additional avenues for the receiving of grief. I understand the impulse, because who doesn't want to hit back when they've been wronged, but I don't think it ultimately leads to any kind of satisfaction.

These episodes, like the one you mention above just make me feel weary. Miller's review was clearly a hatchet job, perhaps a skillful one, but the review of the book at hand was mere pretext for the opportunity to tear down Chuck Palahniuk, his fans, and his little dog too, and the impulse to go after a writer in this manner, even a popular writer like Palahniuk, simply baffles me. When there's real, identifiable evil in the world, some of whom are writing books that really do erode our culture, it seems like a waste of time to go after Palahniuk because his fans might be annoying, or you think he shouldn't be popular, or other, "better" writers should be more popular. Like his work or hate his work, everything I've ever heard about Chuck Palahniuk indicates that he's a decent man who succeeded through hard work, is passionate about writing and is generous with his fans. What a dick! Clearly he must be stopped. Writers who want to write books that people read and are passionate about are the worst scum on Earth, aren't they? Laura Miller seems to have a sincere aesthetic disagreement with Chuck Palahniuk, which I can respect, but the volume of venom does not appeal to me. I've never seen the fun in trying to yank the clothes off of someone else's emperor, unless their emperor is Jennifer Lopez, because who wouldn't like to see her naked?

When these sorts of episodes pop up, I am reminded how glad I am to be almost entirely removed from the grander machinations of writing and publishing. Sure, sure, Chuck Palahniuk is a celebrity and therefore fair game, but if you listen to his audio blog where he discusses his sexuality, I think you'll hear a man who sounds harried and exhausted, and while as a writer, it's hard not to envy his success, I sure wouldn't trade places with him.

This isn't to imply that we shouldn't criticize books, or be afraid to call bad books bad, but lets judge the work on its own terms.

You have some interesting insights into lad magazines. Which men's magazines, if any, do you think are doing the best job right now?

If by best you mean offering the most hollow, destructive, consumerism-obsessed product, Maxim is, and always will be king. The magazine is a work of genius, a big, fat, 85MPH fastball grooved right down the middle to its audience's most base desires, emotion-free sex with hot women and high-end consumer electronics. My subscription is for life.

What are the odds of a Chicago Crosstown Series this year (note: as I write this question, both teams are in second place, but not by much.)

To speak about this is to jinx the outcome [Editorís note: Apparently.], and since everything is going pretty well for the Cubs right now (tied with the Astros as of this writing), I don't want to say much because I get overly invested emotionally in the fate of my favored sports teams. To whit: when my friends and I play a game (of my invention) called, "If You Had a Time Machine and Could Travel Back in Time to Cut the Achilles Tendon of One Person, What Time Would You Go to, and Whose Achilles Tendon Would You Cut?" I always choose 1984 and Steve Garvey, because he is the lucky motherfucker who closed his eyes and swung at a Lee Smith fastball, leading to a Cubs loss to the Padres and their ridiculous uniforms in Game 4 of the division series, crushing the Cub spirits so thoroughly that they could barely muster the energy to take the field for the decisive Game 5, denying the best Cubs team of my generation a chance for the World Series.

My question, why are we bothering writing bad things about Chuck Palahniuk when Steve Garvey continues to roam the earth?

So what would you do to have the rockingest midlife crisis ever?

I had one at thirty, and my wife and I quit our jobs and left Chicago. Our income dropped by close to 70%, and it was the best thing we could have done. I really think people should change careers every 5-10 years, or about as often as I change the baking soda in the refrigerator.

How does it feel to be the 75th person interviewed for Zulkey.com?

Really, I'm just shocked that you got to Harry Shearer, a man partially responsible for two of the great cultural touchstones of our era (Spinal Tap and The Simpsons) before the editor of a revenue free website and co-author of a book about the president done primarily in colored pencil. Get your priorities straight there, Zulkey.