November 8, 2002

Today is the day to keep talking.

Last night was a very strange night in Chicago, at the evening rush hour. Walking through the Loop, it was eerily quiet, and yet the streets were packed. Protestors of the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue were meeting at Boeing Headquarters and marching down towards the Tribune Tower. I passed easily 200 policemen, all in riot gear. It was scary. And it also felt vaguely historical. And it also felt vaguely exciting.

Okay, so moving on. A reader named Tim Kane, aka "my new favorite person in the world," sent me the following comment regarding yesterday's sick day:

"One year I had mono twice, they called it stereo."

Wah ha ha ha ha! Oh my!

Anyway, on to today's interview. I met this young man when I had written a piece about "Sex and the City," and somebody recommended that I submit it to Flak Magazine. I was thus introduced to Mr. James Norton, as passionate, creative, and friendly as any editor I have ever met. More than an editor, he's also a writer, journalist and lover. I recently had the chance to meet Mr. Norton in real life at the wedding of a mutual friend and writer. And he's even better in real life, even though he has this weird habit of agreeing to take home food from restaurants that he has no intentions of eating. He's still worth checking out.

The Jim Norton Interview: Slightly Less Than Twenty Questions

What kind of people should read Flak Magazine, and why?
Oh, everyone should read Flak. I hate giving that kind of answer, because it's a hideous cliche; every general-interest publication thinks they're writing for everyone, when they're actually writing for a niche that they fit squarely within.

But no, seriously, we're writing for everyone.

People should read us because we try to keep things as brief as possible, because we go out of our way to be witty, and because we don't drop references purely for the sake of parading around our amazing command of trivia.

Critics are so often maligned (with good reason) as either
shrill, superior little hacks trying to get revenge on people who are more creative than themselves, or bumbling corporate shills who stamp their mark of approval on anything Disney or Sony happens to have coughed up this week.

But Flak makes an effort (I swear, we do) to lovingly embrace AOL Time/Warner when it does good, and smack the crap out independent culture when it fails in particularly egregious ways. Our job is guiding the reader to good stuff, wherever it may be, and helping them get more out of it by exploring its origins, parallels, back story and deeper themes. It's a lot of fun.

How was Flak begun? What do you see and hope for its future?
Flak started on the back of a placemat in a truckstop outside of Madison, Wisconsin. I was hanging out with my friend Nick, drinking cheap coffee, and brainstorming, as we tend to do, from time to time. Nick was one of my comrades-in-arms from The Liberator, an underground paper at Madison West High School, so the ideas flowed pretty freely.

As for our future, we will have some sort of print incarnation,
hopefully within a year. We'll fill out some more of our foreign correspondent posts, and get more overseas stories. And we'll continue to hone our style and editorial process, so readers can expect more and better content on a daily basis.

My long-term hope for Flak would be to see it where Slate is, right now. Slate's the dominant publication on the Web. It has strong, serious money behind it. Its writing is whip-smart, polished, and timely. And they still seem to have real fun
with their content. So, all we need is, say, a million dollars a year.

What are some of your favorite pieces written for Flak?
Oh, jeez. We've been around for four years, so there's no way I'll touch on even a tenth of what I've really enjoyed. So I'll just pick four.

My friend (and managing editor) Eric and I wrote a review of the movie Dungeons and Dragons in dialogue format. We basically got on the phone with one another (he's in Santa Rosa, CA, and I'm in Boston), and ripped on this terrible shitbomb of a film for about half an hour. Then we distilled our favorite moments into a review. To quote Billy Idol, via
Achewood "it were a blast."

We ran a couple Misc.reviews of Iceland that really worked out well. Julia Lipman wrote a smart, entertaining, positive
piece about her quirky trip to the island. In response, Ben Arnoldy shared his own experiences, which were completely squalid, miserable and hilariously embittered. They make good bookends.

My brother's review of a Radio Shack megaphone invariably cracks me up.

And it's sort of old, but I dig the review of God that we
did. It's a classic Flak jam-session (multiple writers, one topic) on a classically unusual topic. Lots of opportunity for constrained, meaningful philosophizing. Great art, too.

Flak sometimes pushes buttons arouses passionate responses from its readers. What's some of the more extreme or unusual feedback the magazine has received?
At one point, we ran a Rejected! article about the death of Cyrus Vance, the noted American statesman and diplomat. The entire piece was written as though we thought it was singer Billy Ray Cyrus who had died. John Gorenfeld, an editor at the time, posted a link to the piece on the Billy Ray Cyrus fan news group, and we got hit with dozens of outraged responses, like this one:

Mr. Freeman, what kind of drugs are you on?? Where do you get your information. Billy Ray Cyrus is alive and kicking & filming his tv series "Doc" in Toronto, Canada. How could you spread such a rumor?? Forget about his thousands of fans, have you thought about what something like this could do to his family?? His children?? If this was a joke, it is far from funny. If this was a legit obit, you had better get your facts straight.

Oh, the hilarity. I also get emails presuming I'm an expert in anything I've ever written about. My favorite was from a factory owner in Kenya who had read my review of Autocrat coffee syrup. She wanted to know how she could buy it in massive quantities, so I sent her the Autocrat corporate address. It's my dream that 10 years from now, I'll be in Nairobi and everyone will be walking around drinking
coffee milk as a result of a Misc. review I wrote for Flak in 2001.

What's your secret to being a good dancer?
Well, that question may be based on a flawed premise. I've certainly had people say that I'm among the worst dancers they've ever known, albeit in a memorable and high-energy way. In college, my appearance in a dance environment was a cause for general alarm and amusement.

But the secret to my dancing, no matter how you'd classify its
overall quality, is that I just let loose. I listen to techno all the
time, at home and on my headphones. I'm wedded to fat beats and synth melodies. So when I hit the floor and there's anything with a solid beat, I just automatically relax and mix it up. I'm not afraid to jump. I'm not afraid to flail around, rhythmically.

I guess that dance floors have always been places where people can display themselves to other people. The way you dress, dance and interact with people on the floor says a lot about you, and most people are pretty conscious of this when they get out there, and they want to keep it cool. I do, as well, only I sort of forget about that after about a minute.

This is why I only dance among friends.

You recently had the rite of passage of having an ex-girlfriend get married. How was that, and how would you like your ex-girlfriends to feel when you get married?
Oh, yeah. Surprisingly not weird. When she and her husband started dating, it became clear, pretty much from the get-go, that they were really good for each other. Such was not the case when she and I were going out. So there was never any question of me sitting there thinking, "Godammit, it should be me up there!" It was much more like: "Ah, good. Love
actually worked out, for once."

Of course, when I get married, I want my ex-girlfriends to be slumped in the aisles, weeping and inconsolable. Ooh yeah.

What are your thoughts on geometric facial hair?
Failed concept. I kind think you should be clean-shaven, or a big burly guy with a lumberjack-style beard. Pick one and stick with it. Me, I'm not so big and burly.

You write for the Christian Science Monitor. This is going to sound like a stupid question, but a stupid question I bet a lot of people are actually wondering. Do you have to be Christian to write for the Christian Science Monitor? Do you only have to write about Christian stuff? And so on.
No, you don't have to be Christian; I mean, I'm not, for starters. And aside from one Christian Science article near the very back of the paper, the rest of the paper's content is very journalistically typical. We've got a reputation as one of the most thoughtful and unbiased newspapers in the world; Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela have both counted themselves as readers, although I think Bush has missed the boat. I've heard he's a Washington Times reader.

Actually, Ted Koppel recently said this, when speaking about the possible cancellation of "Nightline":

"I understand the bargain that I made. I make a lot of money. I've been making a lot of money for years. I only make a lot of money because they make a lot of money. You know, I mean, if I had wanted just to practice pure journalism, I would have gone to work for The Christian Science
Monitor. Wouldn't have made much money doing it, but they run a clean newspaper."

So here I am.

Why do you sign your emails "at your service"? It's very charming, by the way.
I'm an Anglophile. It's sort of delightfully British. And it really
expresses how I feel-if there's some way I can help a friend or colleague with something, or make their lives better, they should let me know. I'm interested in that. It can be taken too literally (it's unlikely I'll fly to Los Angeles to bring you a crate of chocolate Yoo-Hoo), but it's basically how I feel.

Between the Onion and Flakmag, Madison, Wisconsin is a hotbed for literary and journalistic, um, hotness. Is this a coincidence, or is there a reason, you think?
Well, the Onion and Flak both have ties to The Daily Cardinal, the plucky underdog of UW-Madison's two student papers. Some of the Onion guys were purged by the politically correct dingbats who worked there immediately
before the paper's financial collapse about eight years back. Much of Flak's staff (including myself, Film Editor Sean Weitner, Managing Editor Eric Wittmershaus, My Brother Dan Norton, many of our staff writers and artists) was part of the post-PC regime, when the paper became a lot less
political and a lot more focused on the craft of journalism.

But Madison's a good place to get started, creatively speaking. There are a lot of smart, amusing people kicking around. It's a college town, and a hotbed of Midwestern humor - UW-Madison played a key role in the founding of Mystery Science Theater 3000, as well. But, like Canada, you're sort of out of the loop, so it's much easier to comment on happenings in New York, Washington and Hollywood without feeling like you're part of the world you're knocking. It's much easier to get ironic distance, and just
mess around.

According to the Eyeshot Love Calculator, I have a 41% chance of finding love with you. Does this seem correct to you?
Well, what does "finding love" mean, exactly? Does it presuppose we're single? In the same time zone? Or the same locked closet? Is it conjecturing about the chance of a hot, guilt-laden hookup, or something that leads to marriage, seven kids, and a lifetime of devotion? I mean, depending on what circumstance the calculator is evaluating, I'd say
something between 2 and 97 percent is probably fair. So, yeah, I guess 41 percent sounds about right.

Please to explain what inspired this?
Well, I was showering, which is when a lot of my best ideas come to me. And I was thinking about monkeys, which isn't so unusual. And then suddenly, it occured to me that if you dressed a monkey up like a leprechaun, that would
be hard to beat. Combine it with current events, and you've got magic. I actually wrote that piece in a notebook on the E line down to Symphony Station.

What's the secret to a good theme party?
Stick to the news. The "Peruvian Embassy Hostage Party" I co-hosted in college was one of my favorite parties on record. I think a Muqataa "Under Siege Party" could be the next big thing. I mean, it's not currently under siege, but it's probably just a matter of waiting a couple weeks. You could serve falafel.

Does anybody really like Valentine's Day, other than those in brand-new relationships? Also, what's the deal with Sweetest Day?
Oh, lord no. This sounds like a direct riff on Flak's Valentine's Day Massacre. Without going over too much of that ground, let me just say that day is devoted to human suffering. You're either single, and thereby made miserable, or you're in a relationship, which means all the expectations for that evening get totally raised. And it's in mid-February,
too. No matter who you are, if you're hanging around Madison in mid-February, you're not too happy. Not really in the mood for love.

I dunno what Sweetest Day is. Sweetest what? The sweetest dessert I ever had was this Moroccan pancake called m'semen. It was basically soaked in honey, for starters. And then it was served on this plate with a sweet sauce that was, in essence, just sugar syrup. Holy hell. I once wrote an
article for the Monitor where I talked about "getting artificially
m'semenated," but it never saw print. Strange. I should ask about that.

Weigh these against each other: The Liberator vs. Liberace.
Well, they're both flamboyant. You can say that for sure.

More directly: I'm only glancingly familiar with Liberace. He wears sequins, right? But The Liberator was basically the thing that got me started as a journalist.

In a nutshell: I wrote a couple of articles for The Regent Review, the school paper at my high school. They actually ADDED spelling, factual, and grammatical errors. I was incensed. At the same time, my friend Alex McMahon was starting up this little photocopied underground rag. I jumped
on board, and for the next year-and-a-half, I was editing a paper. That, of course, led me to The Daily Cardinal. Which led me to Flak. Which led me to The Christian Science Monitor (first the online edition, now print).

The paper itself was really uneven in quality, but we had some gems, I think. My girlfriend and I used software, scanners and solid Web design to put the whole thing online,
which was a good experience, and taught me what a pain in the ass it is to be an archivist. Anyway, worth surfing around it if you're bored at work.

Tell us about your So New Media book.
Oh, God. That thing. I gotta say: So New Media is doing some amazing work. And Ben Brown and James Stegall comprise 33 percent of my "The Internet's Six Competent People" list. But the book has really not done as well as I
would've liked. My family members all seem to have ordered it, which I find tremendously embarassing, as the title story features the kind of kinked-out sex that isn't even hinted at in the Norton household. Other than them, sales have been weak. But, you know, I think there are a lot of good stories in there. Polaris is one of my personal favorites. I think
people should buy it, if only to support James and Ben.

You've been published in a lot of places. Based on what I assume is years of submission, acceptance, and rejection, which would you say was the best acceptance letter you've received, and the worst rejection?
Well, I give the impression that I've been published in a lot of places, because I'm all over the Web. But I haven't really made much of a foray into print, in terms of fiction, and
most of the freelance journalism I've done has been on commission, which means it's sort of "pre-approved."

The only serious rejection I can remember was from Popmatters, who wouldn't consider letting me write about comics and graphic novels. I don't remember the exact condescending analogy the editor used when turning me down, but it was something like "you play improv jazz, and we need people who can sight-read music and play the viola." It was terrible. Not that my self-esteem was particularly damaged. I just felt chagrinned that the guy
needed to talk to me like I was a precocious four-year-old. I was also jarred at how different the attitude was from what I'm used to at Flak. If you can put some sentences together, and exhibit a real curiosity about the world around you, Flak will give you a shot. We very rarely turn people down ad hominem, and we believe that most writers who are serious about their craft can be worked with and improved. We'll reject articles, but not people. So the whole experience startled me.

The best acceptance experience I've had was probably from The Progressive magazine. They'd commissioned me to do a piece on corporate PR, with a very tight deadline. I was actually so busy that week (I had three or four things going on deadline) that I was working nonstop, and could
consequently slot The Progressive piece first, and turn it around in about 24 hours. They dug that (and the piece itself), and I wound up in the top slot of their cover story package.

But I also like how Ben Brown accepts my stuff. When he digs something I've submitted for Uber, he'll just post it. That's it. That attitude is from the old school.

Can you explain to people unfamiliar with Flak what "Why They Hate Us" is? And, just to prove that young Americans are not always cynical little bastards, if Flak were to have a "Why They Love Us" section, what would be some examples you'd include?
After Sept. 11, a lot of people tried to figure out the big, broad, political, religious and cultural reasons a massive conspiracy would be put together to hurt America as much as possible. Flak was just doing its part, except we narrowed our search down to examples of America's cultural excess
and insensitivity. Partially because it was a lot lighter and distinct from what other people were doing. And partially because we got a chance to write about the sort of thing we're good at, as a team-American greed and silliness. Ultimately, "Why They Hate Us" connected with a lot of people, and went very well for us.

But, speaking only for myself, I really love this country, overall. There'd be a lot of stuff to blog on a "Why They Love Us" page. Lots of examples of religious tolerance and neighborly acceptance after Sept. 11. Lots of examples of personal and artistic freedom that we enjoy and mostly take for granted. Lots of examples of terrifically smart, professional and fresh books, CDs, websites, films and other stuff being created by American artists.

I think Americans are basically good people. We take care of our families and our communities, and we generally live and let live. We've got an amazing constitutional government, and a spirit of productivity and innovation that has rightfully put us on top of the world from an economic perspective. My major complaint (and "Why They Hate Us" addresses this) is how complacent, materialistic and ill-informed so many Americans seem to be. I think almost any culture, given access to huge amounts of electronic toys and processed foods, would act almost exactly the same. But that doesn't excuse it. We all need to read more history, more news, and more science writing.

How does it feel to be the 33rd person interviewed for Zulkey.com?
I'm exhausted, but happy. If this were an old movie, I'd smoke a cigarette right now. Unfortunately, this is a no-smoking newsroom.