Joe Brown: Spent a lot of time in New York? I am a ****ing native!

The Awl: Spoken like a native!

Joe: Don't undersell me, dude. I ooze cred.

The Awl: Definitely now I am using your Travis Bickle Halloween costume picture!

Joe: Oh man, you dug that up? So yeah, while the major outdoor activities in high school were setting fire to garbage cans and running in the subway tunnels, I found myself looking for something a little more rustic when I came back after college.

The Awl: When you became A Man. Ahem, as promised:

Joe: I went to college upstate (Cornell), and really had the lesson hammered into me that New York is a gigantic state with a lot more to it than just the little hangnail we call The City. Actually, after high school I took a year off and spent half that year working in a forest just north of the city.

The Awl: Oh wow, which one?

Joe: It's called Black Rock Forest, and it's a privately managed forest.

The Awl: Formerly owned by Harvard!

Joe: Yes, and now run by a consortium of institutions that use it as a teaching forest. We did acorn and deer censuses. We measured stream flows.

The Awl: That. Is. Awesome.

Joe: And every now and then, a class of 5th graders would come up, and we'd take them orienteering. It was a lot of fun. Even though the forest is private, it's open to the public for hiking daily. You can't fish or hunt in there, but you can take a stroll. The hikes are generally pretty easy, and it has some amazing vistas. Some beautiful ponds. And there's a pizza place in the neighboring town of Cornwall that makes a SOLID slice, and serves sodas in those bumpy red plastic glasses.

The Awl: Oh WORD.

Joe: Yeah, legit. I love the forest, and not many people go there, so it's never crowded.

The Awl: That is just a handy one hour and 20 minute drive from Manhattan!

Joe: Yes it is. Or you could take the Metro North to Garrison and take a cab to the forest gate.

The Awl: I am ready to go there right now and count acorns.

Joe: If you were gonna drive an hour-plus to hike, I would recommend the Delaware Water Gap.

The Awl: Oh! I have driven through, but I have never gotten out of the car!

Joe: Man. You know how beautiful it is when you're going over that bridge?

The Awl: Yes!

Joe: It's like 100X when you get off the highway. I mean, if you think about what the Gap is, it makes a lot of sense. That's where a river cuts through a *******ing mountain range.

The Awl: Heh!

Joe: I don't know what mountains those are. But the river makes them look like a bunch of ****es. And because of the way that terrain was formed–I think it's technically a hanging valley–the topography is very severe and dramatic. You can get some really excellent and challenging hikes there, but my favorite thing to do there is get in the water.

The Awl: (They are the Appalachians.) I would do that!

Joe: You can canoe or kayak. You can rent boats in the park and you can even sign up for a tour, which I recommend, because it's easier not to die that way.

The Awl: Oh that's smart for the first time. And the second time you can get bold.

Joe: Right. Also, it's a better use of your time. You spend less time figuring out where stuff is, and more time enjoying the greatest hits, which is important in a day trip.

The Awl: Right? Why spend the first three hours figuring out how to get into a boat.

Joe: Right. Or going to some lame sandbar.

The Awl: Ugh, I have been down this road. Yes.

Joe: The Delaware River is a really awesome river, actually. You can follow it all the way up into the northern reaches of the Catskills, and when you get up there, The D is one of the best natural trout fisheries in the north east. I am a fly-fisherman, and the D is where I learned. It's a possible day trip, or a cheap overnight. And because the trout towns up on Rt 17—Roscoe, Hancock, Deposit—are so tourism dependent there are a lot of outfitters who will take you. I love going up to Roscoe for opening day, which is April 1st. It's a very big deal in a very small circle, the opening day of flyfishing season. Some famous lady throws out the ceremonial first cast.

The Awl: Niiiiice.

Joe: And we all stand shoulder-to-shoulder fishing the Willowemoc (tributary to the Delaware) and easily catching the stocked brown trout. The D, however, is a harsher mistress. Three fish is a great day on the D.

The Awl: Oof, that is harsh.

Joe: The west branch, where I like to go, is not stocked. It's all native, tricky, smartypants fish, rainbows and browns.

The Awl: Evolution!

Joe: I like to stay at a place called The West Branch Angler. Good guides.

The Awl: Now I want to become a fisherman.

Joe: I recommend it! But always throw the fish back please! Catch and release. Only way to fly.

The Awl: Boooo. (Kidding! That is excellent. I don't like killing things!)

Joe: You ever drive up 17 and notice those little wooden houses on the bank of the river, all neatly lined up?

The Awl: Oh yes!

Joe: That's the West Branch.

The Awl: That is where I will sleep when I'm tossing fish back. (Back in the river, not in my mouth.)

Joe: Also, very good guides there will teach you how to fish. And very good food. If you've never done a night at a fishing lodge, I highly recommend it. Dinners are typically family style.

The Awl: And fish stories are traded???

Joe: Yeah. You eat with the other guests and lie about how many fish you caught. It's amazing.

The Awl: I can see how one would WAY get into that.

Joe: Yeah. Also: the gear. Mmmm, gear.

The Awl: Hipwaders!?

Joe: Pshaw! Okay, closer to home. So if you aren't the water type, and you don't want to take a train or rent a car, there's actually a lot of wilderness that's closer. There's a really dope park on Staten Island called Wolfe's Pond Park.

The Awl: Never even HEARD of it! Oh wow, it's not small!

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Joe: No it's a big ****er. And the cool thing about Wolfe's Pond: mountain biking trails.

The Awl: Oh ho!

Joe: So you grab your bike, bring it on the Staten Island Ferry, and get warmed up on the way. Then, when you get there, nice, easy trails, some twisties, some hills. But mostly pretty leisurely. And it's pretty. And, for most New Yorkers, Staten Island is pretty exotic.

The Awl: Plus it has a beach! And how often do you get all that?

Joe: Right! Also they have jumps. Like a terrain park for your bike. RAD.

The Awl: Oh what??? That is crazy.

Joe: Yeah, ****in' fun. And if you eat it, nobody you know will be there to laugh at you. Because your hipster friends don't go to Staten Island.

The Awl: They barely go to Manhattan Island.

Joe: There's no pour-over coffee or artisanal string cheese down there. But! There is excellent pizza.

The Awl: You and your pizza.

Joe: I'm a New Yorker. What do you want?

The Awl: I want pizza now is what I want.

Joe: There's a pretty good thread about Staten Island pizza on Chowhound. The makings of a day trip—at least.

The Awl: Hmm, we've been north, west and south: how do you feel about the Long Island area?

Joe: Oh I like Long Island. There's Connetquot State Park. And you can flyfish there as well. You call ahead and reserve a stretch of river. And it costs like $8 and you can pretend you're in "A River Runs Through It." And you can get there by LIRR and walk from the station.

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The Awl: And it's close! Also that's where the Southern State ends. Heh.

Joe: It's cool. You can also go out to Montauk and surf.

The Awl: Isn't that like, asking for death? Have you actually DONE THAT?

Joe: It's really good surfing, actually. Problem is, with weekend traffic, it's quicker to get to California.

The Awl: Seriously. Do not.

Joe: It's not my sport. But Rockaway Beach is supposed to be really fun, when the wind is out of the north. Plus, far rockaway is pretty cool. It's this weird little beach town.

The Awl: Yessss!

Joe: You don't even need to surf to have a good time there. A train to Beach 90 St.: boom.

Joe: If you go east, you can get to PA and there's some fun stuff, like Jim Thorpe PA, which is a very cool little historic town.

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The Awl: Whoa.

Joe: It's home to some historic mining **** I'm supposed to have heard of, and they have an opera house, which is supposedly pretty dope. Cool cafes and bars. Well, one of each. And there's fishing there too. And. OH OH OH. RAFTING!

The Awl: That's basically how I want to die.

Joe: You can go for like $50. I've done this and it was awesome. I mean, it's not the Colorado River. But me and a buddy decided to do this on a Thursday. Friday we were in a rental car. Saturday we were rafting. Sunday we were at happy hour in Greenpoint.

The Awl: That is ideal.

Joe: It's like a 2-hr drive. Hotels are cheap. And you can hit IHOP on 80 on the way over.

The Awl: Mmmm, carb-loading.

Joe: Oh, one more thing: fishing for beginners: bluefish off Point Pleasant NJ.

The Awl: Whoa.

Joe: Now, you get to keep the bluefish. A few things about bluefish. Fishermen don't like bluefish, because it's kind of an oily fish. But on a hot charcoal grill, it is very delicious

The Awl: I can work with that.

Joe: Yeah. The other thing about bluefish? They aren't very big. Maybe up to about 8lbs. But they hit like locomotives

The Awl: Oh, scary.

Joe: A strong bluefish strike will bring a strong guy down to his knees. And you'll fight them for a solid 5 minutes. After which point, your arms will be ON FIRE. But man, what a rush. And they're easy to catch. Because when you go deep sea fishing—which means you are 10+ miles off the coast—it's really fun and there's booze on the boat

The Awl: I should certainly hope so.

Joe: Only downside is that it's expensive.

The Awl: Getting a boat, you want to split that five + ways.

Joe: Yeah, which is a good number, because you can't fish like that continuously. So it'll cost you like $100/head.

The Awl: Right. BUT you do get dinner out of it.

Joe: Yup. So there you have it. That's what I've got.

The Awl: You truly are the Great New York City Outdoorsman.

Joe: I do my best.

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The Awl: Where do you live, work?

Sarah: I'm currently unemployed since returning from my tour in Afghanistan. I'm planning on starting school next semester. I live in Madison, WI.

The Awl: How would you sum up your reasons for supporting the bill? 

Sarah: From what I've read it seems that Walker is trying to restructure how money is divvied up and to lessen, and eventually eliminate, the possibility of receiving more funds than needed for certain programs and organizations. I believe that taking away unnecessary bargaining rights for public employees, especially teachers, is important to our students in order to improve Wisconsin's education system. It seems that teachers are afraid of being paid what they're actually worth.

If we pass this bill we might see a change in the quality of teacher that comes to our school system and a significant weeding out of bad ones. If there's one field where jobs should be EXTREMELY competitive, it's in schools. If there ever were a profession where job performance should hold the top ranking reason for better pay and incentive, it's being a teacher. Why do teachers deserve to get paid better than everyone else? Just because they say so? All because they formed a little elitist club that's good at bitching. They're taking paid days off of work and leaving children all over the state with an even worse education. All because they think they deserve to get paid better based on their motivation to argue rather than their actual (sub-par) performance. Some teachers even encouraged students to join a walk out and march to the capital. When the students got there, they didn't even know why they had come or what was going on. That's a prime example of the lack of willingness to actually educate students.

The Awl: Do you believe that removing collective bargaining is a core need of the budget or would you still support it with just the increased benefit payments? 

Sarah: Why would public union workers accept the part of Scott Walker's bill that makes them contribute more into their pensions and pay a more reasonable amount for their health care but want him to compromise on the part that would take away some of their bargaining rights? Is it because they want to LOOK like they are making a sacrifice? That way they can greedily strike again and get back what they lost in only a few years. Then what would have been the point? It would be idiotic to propose changes in benefit contributions AND NOT take away their right to bargain. If teachers don't like how they're being paid, or any other employee for that matter, then they should chose another job location or field.

The Awl: Have you ever been part of a union? 

Sarah: I haven't been part of a union. I imagine if I were part of a union I would probably be firmly persuaded to oppose this bill. To be a sheep and join the herd only to be led to the wolves.

The Awl: You went to Madison Area Technical College. The budget will cut $71.6 million from the state's technical college system, about 30% of the system's funding. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Sarah: I believe that schools should run on the funds they receive from students in the form of tuition. If they believe that it isn't enough money then they need to restructure the way they do business. They should cut back on unnecessary spending in order to operate within their means.

The Awl: Are you on, or have you ever been on, BadgerCare (or similar state Medicaid)?

Sarah: I am currently on BadgerCare but only use it for one prescription. I receive health care through the VA for being a veteran.

The Awl: Did you vote for Walker?

Sarah: Yes, I voted for Gov. Walker and I'm proud of my choice. I did a lot of research before I made up my mind. The right to vote comes with the responsibility to make an informed decision. This can significantly lessen the chance of regretting your judgement.

Abe Sauer can be reached at abesauer at gmail dot com.

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Dan: I have wanted to create my own company since I had my first job, where I was employee No. 1 for a couple of MBA drop-outs that got some seed funding from AOL to start a content site to keep AOL subscribers enthusiastic and engaged to be paying by the hour to be on AOL. It was 1995. The mandate was to try anything and everything, and I loved it.

Everything I have done since then—working for different start-ups and some more traditional companies—has been in this attempt to recapture that. I've helped build successful products, even a few from scratch. But this time, I wanted to put myself in the position of creating and testing the concept, working with partners to make it happen and ultimately launching and growing it with a team I build—where there was no corporate net.

So with that perspective going back to the first real inklings of the consumer web, I can say this: There has never been a better time to start a new company—particularly one focused on the consumer internet.

It doesn't matter that I have limited (self-) funding. It doesn't matter that I have two little kids and a mortgage. It doesn't matter that my tech development background is nominal. It doesn't matter that the competition is as ferocious as it has ever been.

But internally—and that's where the motivation really has to come from—this was my now-or-never moment: I wanted to try to build my own company. If I didn't, I could already envision myself 5 or 10 or 20 years down the road regretting it, profoundly. I had to try.

And here's the best part: Despite the pressure and the uncertainty—like nothing I've ever felt, really—there isn't a job in the world that I find more interesting or exciting (or harrowing) than the one I'm in the middle of now.

The Awl: You have an MBA, which is handy, so you're not an editorial-only person who'll be useless on the business side, but: why did you decide to launch without cofounders?

Dan: Fortunately, "Editor Dan" and "MBA Dan" have a pretty good relationship.

For some good reasons and bad ones, "solo founder" developed a bit of a stigma in the start-up community—particularly the oh-so-dreaded "non-technical solo founder."

By necessity, I think it needs to be a bit more nuanced than that, depending on your product, your experience and your network. If you're trying to hack together a cool new app like GroupMe? You damn well better have a technical co-founder.

In the same way that start-up information has been made infinitely more efficient by the VC/entrepreneur media ecosystem; the start-up funding pipeline has been made infinitely more efficient by AngelList; the infrastructure systems have been made infinitely more efficient by Amazon or Rackspace; and the distribution system has been made infinitely more efficient by Facebook and Twitter...

...I think there is an opportunity for solo founders to bring together domain experts to help get products from idea to traction, at which point you'll hit the milestone where the market—namely, investors and customers—indicate to you that your company can grow through bringing on more talent, whether that's additional founders or just super-motivated employees.

For a content-focused company like mine, there was an intense focus on the initial product design and development. I was lucky enough to be able to work with Hard Candy Shell the best UX firm in the world; for those months of work, they felt (and still feel) entirely like my partners, even if that's not the capital structure. And I was lucky enough to know the founder of Jolly Science, a start-up web and software development company that wanted to help me build and improve the products; again, everything about the relationship has felt like a partnership. I consider them every bit as much of a part of my team as any future co-founders or employees.

Both Hard Candy Shell and Jolly Science were professionally and personally invested in my company's success (and I'm not talking about equity, but their sense of commitment to making it succeed)—that gave me the confidence to proceed as a solo founder, and I think the product is as good as it could have been, arguably because I focused on working with specialized partners.

Again, I see this as very specific to me, with this company, my resources, etc. You have to do what fits your business and your personality and your vision. And so that's not to say that a great co-founder situation isn't phenomenal. I just hope folks can see there are a couple of different ways to go. Part of what makes this such a great time to start a company is precisely because there are so many partners out there you can come together with to help you build a great business.

The Awl: One thing that's unusual about what you're building as an editorial product is that it's both somewhat distributed (as in, the front page is fairly similar to its Twitter feed!) and it's very outward-bound. You skim; you click, you're off, presumably to return sometime. This is a great service to news consumers! But it's not exactly dreamy in terms of traditional business metrics, like "time on site" or sheer pageviews or what have you. How do you plan to deal with the challenges of running a publication that's better for readers but maybe less-good for the MBA Dan?

Dan: Let's back up: By design, I want the minimum level of engagement for the maximum number of people.

I'm not going to tell another publisher—or marketer—what their minimum level should be. But Quickish is designed to be low-commitment/high-reward, to give you a satisfying experience very quickly. You can come back once a day for 30 seconds or you can come back 40 times a day or you can come back when news breaks or during a live event knowing you're going to have a valuable experience worth whatever time you're willing to spend. But, at its core, as a product developer, you've got to know what your minimum satisfying experience is and build for that, layering everything else on top.

I maintain a focus on the minimum, because it's when you start to get greedy with people's time that you start to get sloppy—traffic-trolling, gimmicks, tricks, gaming, absurd pagination. And that's just not sustainable. Eventually, people will get tired of the way you disrespect their time.

Even before the iPhone, the trend has been veering toward an "app-ified" media experience, whether or not you're on a phone: A simple, elegant, valuable function—part of a system of simple, cool, elegant functions. Sometimes they interconnect—see Facebook or Twitter or Foursquare—but people seem to have a pretty elastic appetite for stuff that satisfies them. It's mis-reading the era to think of engaging consumers as zero-sum, rather than trying to get a critical mass of people to make you part of their rotation, however long they might want to give you.

And so we're focused on creating as few barriers to consumption as possible. Depending on your company's goals, of course, getting some pre-determined level of vanity metrics can take your focus off the more important metrics. In the case of Quickish, we just want you to show up every day, for as long as you want to be there.

If their next click is to a great piece of analysis that Quickish is recommending, that's phenomenal. Why? Because it sure as hell beats the "back" button; that next click, in and of itself, is an amazing piece of engagement; that it isn't to a piece of Quickish content doesn't matter in the larger fit. Because every time we send you to something great, the hope is that you'll reward us by coming back again tomorrow for another recommendation or two (or two-dozen). Or reward us by passing something along from Quickish via Facebook or Twitter. Or reward us by just telling a friend or two you found a great new site.

At some point, that credibility reaches a scale where it fits with a marketer's plan to reach an engaged audience. Or that credibility reaches a scale where you can pass along deals to users that they appreciate. Or that credibility reaches a scale where people are willing to pay a nominal bit for a specialized version of the product. Not even two months in, we're on our way.

My company happens to be in a faux-luxurious position right now—"pre-revenue." It's an open question what business model works, and that's OK (for now). We intentionally have multiple streams in development. But I feel really good about positioning the company's fit for people's behavior and interests that are evolving, rather than the ones that represent the conventional wisdom of even a few years ago.

The Awl Yes, you started-up a start-up whose revenues streams are "in development," as is so often the thing to do these days. This is betting big on a long dream! Can you put your delightful spouse Margery, or one of your many dozens of delightful children, on the line here to explain how you made this choice as a household entity?

Dan: Margery says:

"It didn't feel like a risk, because it's a great idea and I believe in Dan.

"Well, let's be fair: Everything is a risk. But to me, I would rather this kind of risk—a great idea backed by really smart business thinking and a ton of passion—than a job he doesn't love with an established company, which is probably just as risky.

"So the big considerations were: (1) Can we afford it? (Yes, but certainly his 'founder's salary' of zero isn't a long-term solution.) (2) How does it impact the kids? (I work full time, too, so we have had to use baby-sitters a lot more, in addition to their regular daycare.) and (3) Can we account for the early strain on our relationship? (And, so far, we have, by recognizing that this first year after launching will mean that the dishwasher just gets emptied less often.)

"So far it's been great. I can't wait to see where it goes!"

And, later, 4-year-old Gabe sees me with my laptop open on the couch pipes up with his opinion: "Daddy, what are you working on? Qwwwwwickishhhhh?" There's a lot of that. Hey: Another opportunity to keep refining the company pitch to a captive audience.

The Wear the Pants™ Project Content Series is sponsored by Dockers. Win $100K to finally do what you love. Enter now.

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Why do so many rappers rap about rap?
I think it's just a common theme. It becomes hardwired in your mind. It's just part of the music.

Why does negativity sell more records than positivity when it comes to rap?
In Canada, that's not really the case. K-os probably sells more records than any other rapper in Canada.

You've been touring across America with k-os for a month now. Have you noticed any differences between Canadian and American audiences?
A lot of the crowds have been surprisingly similar. Since we're both Canadian, I think we end up drawing a similar kind of audience. That's been the most interesting thing to me.

Why do you think there are so few female rappers?
I think rap's inherently kind of macho. So that might be part of it. I can see that changing. Hip-hop is always changing.

Are you trying to make that change?
I don't really try to change an entire genre. I just try to do what it is I do. If that in turn affects our culture—then that's cool. But I definitely don't start out with any ideas about changing a genre. I'm just trying to make music that makes sense to me.

I hear you like Roxette.
Oh yeah, for sure. They remind me of being a kid and hearing their songs on the radio.

You're also earning a master's degree in Liberal Studies at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. What's that about?
The whole program revolves around literature and philosophy and their relationship to passion and reason. It's always inspiring when you get to take in a great work, or study someone who has committed themselves to creating something special or to advancing a new or positive idea. It's more out of interest and fun. It's obviously not the most important degree.

You make a lot of pop-culture references in your music.
It makes it more like a conversation, like when you're talking to your friends and you might make a comment about the Monday Night Football game or whatever. So I think it brings it to a human level, where you're just interacting on a shared experience, a shared environment and that sort of thing.

Any thoughts on Chris Bosh leaving the Toronto Raptors to join Lebron James and Dwyane Wade in Miami?
I'm not surprised he left. He'd be a great second piece, and he's an even better third piece. I don't think you can be too mad at him for leaving. My only problem with this topic is that I think it's kind of boring.

Paul Hiebert is a writer in New York.

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Since 1982, the American Library Association has sponsored their annual Banned Book Week and this year's celebration is, in a word, timely. Earlier this month we watched with the morbid fascination usually reserved for car crashes or insects eating other insects as a vocal minority of Americans grabbed the news cycle by the status updates and exercised their First Amendment rights in order to challenge some other people's First Amendment rights (namely freedom of assembly and freedom to worship).

Also, it should be noted that Edison is a former co-worker. We spent a lot of time on the clock watching Piper's Pit clips, which is how I learned how to do a real interview.

In a recent interview about The Social Network, writer Aaron Sorkin was quoted as saying "There's just too much bad information getting out there, and I have to believe that's mostly the fault of the Internet, which isn't held to any standards of accuracy" and furthermore "While everyone deserves a voice, not everyone deserves a microphone." That may very well be true but who is the onus on to make that determination?

Richard Nash: Well this is a classic "not covered by the First Amendment" issue. So of course he's right, in the narrow sense. But it's also just plain dumb. The Internet has helped people parse information, test assertions. When a story of a hoax gets out, everyone says "Oh there goes the Internet again." Nonsense. What's happening is that the Internet is in fact exposing the hoax. In the past, hoaxes went on indefinitely!

Mike Edison: I should make that determination. Me. I want to be the arbiter. I also want to decide what gets played on the radio, what bands need to stop playing immediately, and who will be the next WWE champion. By the way, it's not just the Internet. There is this thing called cable news, not exactly a font of objective truth, either. We are going to attack all of that, plus I get to read some really filthy poetry with a bongo player. It's my kind of party.

There's been a lot of hypocritical rhetoric going around about freedom lately-I mean, there's pundit demagogues pushing this pervasive ideology of fear any chance they get and nudging people down this real slippery slope of total intolerance. That really manifested itself in this whole Quran burning thing. But they're actually getting real close to the culture they're protesting against. Like this kind of shit would totally fly in Saudi Arabia no questions asked, right?

Mike Edison: Well, there's no law against burning books per se. It is protected speech, just like burning a flag. The problem isn't one of censorship, it is one of abject hatred, ignorance, and racism and the image of burning books is very difficult for people of conscience to tolerate-it recalls Nazi Germany, not to mention a bunch of Southern Christian teenagers burning Beatles records after John Lennon made that wisecrack about Jesus. Mostly I bet they feel pretty silly about it now-at least until they heard John's solo records. But when you have one hate-filled prick like that jerk-off preacher in Florida and his three followers...it's like go ahead, burn the Quran, burn the bible, set yourself on fucking fire, I really could not care less. Clearly the mistake was to engage in the first place. Not everyone is so smart. People like a spectacle.

I mean, how far does free speech extend with regard to books or other media? For instance last year's Banned Book Week was marred by allegations from an organization called PFOX whose offer to donate reparative therapy books or "ex-gay" books to school libraries was rebuffed, so where exactly do you draw the line?

Mike Edison: Librarians as a race are as noble, honest, hardworking and admirable as it gets, and they know the difference between presenting all points of view and presenting hate-filled, intolerant lies, especially in schools where people's agendas are often suspect and where young people cannot always parse the truth.

Mike, I know you come from a background in the porn industry which is traditionally very embattled but also, for better or for worse, has revolutionized every type of media–film, VHS, DVD and Blu-Ray, Pay-Per-View, the Internet and online video-but in a lot of cases you're going on very shaky and subjective moral grounds and opinions...porn is one thing but Lord of The Flies or whatever is something else entirely.

Mike Edison: Some of my audience is always surprised when I say, Hey, banning some books in some libraries is not the worst idea... meaning, I don't think 12-year-olds need to be seeing Hustler. At least they should have to work to get a copy, like I did! Seriously, even the fine people at Hustler don't want their product in the hands of children. But we have to put things in perspective. No one wants their kids exposed to pornography, and parents have a right to protect them. And adults, too, have a right not to be exposed to explicit sex unwillingly. I am against banning material, certainly anything that happens between consenting adults, but one of the arguments you always hear is, "We are corrupting our children, we have to protect our children." These are the same assholes who don't want the government telling them what to do, right? Fucking tea-bagging libertarian hypocrites. Take your kid to the fucking zoo, talk to them, be a fucking decent parent and you'll have nothing to worry about. Beyond the traditional prudishness of America, we are constantly facing new kinds of more insidious censorship born out of media conglomeration and new intellectual pathologies, like the concept of net neutrality.

Al Franken recently called it the First Amendment issue of our time. And we're edging closer to a fully paperless exchange of information and the respective companies that own the proprietary rights to various e-reader devices theoretically have already become arbiters of what does and does not get through.

Richard Nash: In a way it is already beginning-Apple's App Store is heavily censored. So we need to be advancing the use of the open web, rather than the App Store. For everything, not just the dirty stuff.

Earlier this year, Richard, you gave a widely lauded talk in which the elitism of publishing's old guard, and, one could extrapolate, the established way of doing things, was confronted. But now with open source coding and media gravitating away from the institutional in favor of the entrepreneur and life increasingly centered around text boxes and screens is this kind of suppression of information even going to remain a problem in a few years time?

Richard Nash: The way I look at technology-it's a tool. It can be used for any purpose, to expose and to conceal. To disseminate and to suppress. I don't think we can ever let down our guard. And in times of transition, of change, there is a level of fear and confusion that can be used for suppressive purposes for in a time of chaos, people tend to be sympathetic to forces offering "order."

Given the scale of a select few we're potentially on the cusp of seeing that shifted over to telecom corporations. Essentially they'd have the power to silence the opposition. Is this going to be the defining moment... the Lady Chatterley's Lover of this generation, so to speak?

Mike Edison: We talk about this all the time-the censorship you have to worry about isn't this overt book banning sort of thing, it is more about media conglomeration and who is controlling the means of distribution-like getting Dixie-Chicked by Clear Channel. It is very easy to squash dissent on a large scale.

Richard Nash: I'm not sure the process will be as clearcut as it was with Lady Chatterley's Lover. Everything's more subtle and incremental now. Government really doesn't bother with censorship-it just lets oligopolists run things, who aren't subject to the First Amendment and are prone to focus on controversy avoidance. Neatly accomplishing censorship, without fingerprints on the weapon. I think then that it does become the defining issue, but it's going to be muddier and more vague than clear censorship.

Mike Edison: There will always be someone on the Internet telling the truth, some muckraker in an overcoat being marginalized as a kook when they really know what is going on, who killed Kennedy, where the alien spaceship is, or more seriously, just what the fuck Dick Cheney and his A-Team of scumbags was really up to. But most of America never gets to hear it, or at least not in a venue they feel is authoritative. Half of the country watches Bill O'Reilly, who is as big a lying sack of shit as you will ever see, but he is so fucking good at what he does it is intimidating. People believe him. Being the flagship douchebag on a channel like Fox News has a lot more stroke than anything you actually have to look for and read on the Internet.

Aaron Lefkove still advocates fucking the PMRC.

Photo by aurevoirkatie from Flickr.

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THE AWL: You were apartment hunting recently. How did that work out?

MICHAEL K: Oh, it didn't really. I'm really picky, and I don't know why, because it's New York. I've lived here six years, and I'm still looking for the perfect apartment even though it doesn't exist unless you're a zillionaire.

THE AWL: What's your work day like?

MICHAEL K: I roll out of bed and get on the computer, and then at night I roll off the computer and go to bed. I don't shower until like 7 at night, and I usually don't eat until later either. I leave the house in the morning to walk my dog and then am just in front the computer all day.

THE AWL: So what time does this start?

MICHAEL K: I get up at like 7:30, which is like really early for me. I've never been a morning person. When I had an office job I would start work at 10 and get up at 9:30 and roll out. I hate getting up that early, but I have to start picking stuff out for the day. It's really hard to be interested in that stuff at 7:30 am, hard to be funny. Usually the night before I try to get a couple of things going in my head so I'm not totally brain dead in the morning. I usually just start writing first thing when I get up, which is like, painful.

THE AWL: So you're literally just in front of your computer all day.

MICHAEL K: I watch TV, I'm at the computer, I try to multitask, but it's hard to watch TV and work at the same time. I'm just stuck to the computer, and if I have to take a break I'll watch TV. I'm sure I have cancer or whatever you get from being in front of the computer too much.

THE AWL: Are you writing in character?

MICHAEL K: No, it's totally me. Sometimes it's an exaggeration of me, but it's me. I'm not creating a character. There's not two different people.

THE AWL: Can we talk about vulgarity? Your site is pretty vulgar.

MICHAEL K: It used to be worse! It used to be so much worse. I think because I've gotten a little bigger I've tamed it a little bit, but in real life I'm a lot worse. But I don't think it's that vulgar! I've always been around that, that's how my friends and I talk. I talk like that around my mom, just because I like to shock her, so I think I get worse and worse to shock her, and she's like oh my gosh Michael, don't say that. But I think it's kind of tame. What I think is vulgar isn't like sex or anything like, but sites with exploding brains and stuff, people send me this stuff for Caption This! pictures. I can't remember the site name, I used to link to it all the time. But that's vulgar and gross to me: exploding assholes, exploding brains. And Christian sites are vulgar to me, too.

THE AWL: You started the site for fun. Now it's your job. Is it still fun?

MICHAEL K: Mostly it's fun, but it's become a job, so it's like with any job: "I don't want to look at pictures of Jon Gosling again, I don't even want to know he exists today." But when I get into it it's really fun, people send me things, and it's fun, but there are days when it's like, "God, I don't want to even think of these people."

THE AWL: Do you just hammer the posts out and throw them up or is there an editing process?

MICHAEL K: It's so obvious I don't edit them! My mistakes are so bad. I don't really edit. I write it once, and then I go back and read it a couple times to make sure it's somewhat legible, and then I'll go with it. I don't change a lot of things. I want it to be first instincts, whether it's funny or it's not, just first thoughts.

THE AWL: Do you feel a kinship with other bloggers, that you're part of a bigger community? Or does it really feel like just you and your site.

MICHAEL K: It isn't as lonely as it sounds, I talk to other bloggers all day, to readers all day. It's not completely lonely.

THE AWL: Do you ever meet your readers?

MICHAEL K: When I started I'd meet people all the time, they'd be like, oh let's go for a drink. Now I don't do that as often. It's still kind of weird. It's like a blind date. And now it's so much pressure. So I do it, but I kind of have to be liquored up before I do it.

THE AWL: How did you end up in New York?

MICHAEL K: I'm from L.A. I always wanted to live in New York, ever since I was a kid. I knew I would like it. I visited a few times, and I lived in Florida for a little bit, but that was just awful. So I just moved here.

THE AWL: After school?

MICHAEL K: Yeah, after college, in L.A., in Orange County.

THE AWL: What did you think you'd end up doing?

MICHAEL K: I never really knew, honestly. I thought like, oh, maybe I'll be a writer. It always changed. I'd watch a movie about fashion design and think, oh maybe I'll be a fashion designer. I never really knew what I wanted to be when I grow up. And I still don't. I don't see blogging as a real job. And people don't either, people are like, oh when are you going to get a real job? It's like, good question. It just doesn't seem like a real job. I think because it's still fun, and I feel like I'm just messing around.

THE AWL: I read that you've been able to live off the blog for awhile.

MICHAEL K: I've been living off of it for a couple of years, which is crazy to me, I didn't think I'd make one cent, it wasn't about that. It's still crazy. I got advertising probably the year after I started, and when I started selling ads, it was like, okay, we'll see. I never thought I could be making a living until I started making a same amount that I made at my job.

THE AWL: Is it a lot of work to run the site?

MICHAEL K: Blogads does all my ads. I have a programmer, but not fulltime. Updating it is just the most work.

THE AWL: And what were you doing when you started the site?

MICHAEL K: I worked for a gay website for dudes to find sex with each other, and no I didn't jerk off on webcams or anything like that. I did the administrative stuff. When I started the blog I would do some at work, some at home, some on the weekends. They knew and were totally fine with it, which was good.

THE AWL: How much longer do you see yourself doing this?

MICHAEL K: I don't know. I just take it day by day, I don't put a time limit on it. I don't know if it's still cute if I'm talking about assholes when I'm 40 years old. There's definitely a time limit on it just because it's so time consuming, it takes your whole life. I can't go on vacation, I can't have a day off. There will come a time and it's going to be a sad day for me. It'll be a like a chicken without its head for me.

THE AWL: Have you ever had guest bloggers so you could take a break?

MICHAEL K: A couple years ago I decided to go on vacation and I had some guests post, and it was a disaster. I came back and I had so many emails that were like, don't ever leave again, they were total idiots, and the people who did it were like, don't ever ask me to do that again, those people are crazy. But I might have to do it again. It would be nice to have a Saturday.

THE AWL: Wait. You blog on the weekends?

MICHAEL K: Yeah. Seven days. I don't blog as much on the weekends, but I spend 3 or 4 hours on it on weekend days, yeah.

THE AWL: Are you actually into celebrities still?

MICHAEL K: I think it's unhealthy how obsessed I am. I have dreams about celebrities every night. Last night I had a dream about Lady Gaga, or Lady CaCa as I have been calling her. I think I've always been into it, TV, movies, celebrities. It's just the way I was born. I was always into gossip and talking shit. It's been the biggest part of me I think.

THE AWL: Is there anyone you won't write about?

MICHAEL K: I think the boundaries change each day. Some days I'm like, okay you're not going to make fun of children, and some days its like, you're not going to make fun of Michelle Williams because of the whole Heath Ledger thing. But then here are some stories you have to do whether or not you can make them funny. But there are some stories that if I can't find any humor in it, I don't touch it.

THE AWL: What do you think about reality TV "stars"?

MICHAEL K: I love them. I think it's because they are such an easy target. It's so easy to write about the Goslings, so easy to write about Heidi and Spencer. They have really no talent, so it's such an easy target. When it's easy it's fun. It's the gift that keeps on giving. They want to be famous so bad, it makes them so desperate, it's easy to slap them around a bit, and they love it because it gives them attention. People write me and are like, stop giving them attention! But they don't mean it. They love to slap them around, too.

THE AWL: Okay. So besides the reality kids, any other favorites to write about?

MICHAEL K: Britney was my favorite, favorite when she was a wreck. But then she got her shit together and washed her hair, since then there hasn't been anybody like that.

THE AWL: Not Lindsay Lohan?

MICHAEL K: Sometimes I see pictures of Lohan and it's just too sad, it's too easy. Then sometimes I'll read her Twitter, and it's like god, what is she doing. I'm kind of sick of her. I'd love to see more of her mom. But with Lindsay Lohan it's the same shit. She's no Amy Winehouse.

THE AWL: Speaking of. What happened to her?

MICHAEL K: She went to St. Lucia and became a drunk instead of a crackhead, and now she's back in England. She's such a mess, but she's so endearing for me. I just have a thing for crackheads, I like them. When everyone is standing on the street and it's quiet, a crackhead will always talk to me.

THE AWL: Do you mostly write sober or do you turn to substances for help?

MICHAEL K: I'm mostly sober. I think people can tell when I'm drunk because I have more mistakes then, usually.

THE AWL: What TV shows do you watch?

MICHAEL K: Oh my God what don't I watch. I watch it all. Well, all reality shows, not real TV. Everything on VH1. mostly reality shows. Reality crap. Big brother, I love that.

THE AWL: When you go out in the world and meet people, what do you say you do?

MICHAEL K: I just say I write things on the Internet, ha. Usually that's all I say, and that's fine, because that's what I do. Or I say I'm a blogger. I think mostly people understand, they know what a blogger is. My mother doesn't understand, but mostly people know.

THE AWL: Does your mom read the site?

MICHAEL K: My mom reads the site, she does. People are shocked by that, but that's how I am with her; she doesn't expect anything less. I talk to her everyday. I have a lot of friends that don't talk to their parents for months. I feel weird going a day. Maybe I haven't left the nest yet.

THE AWL: Do you have siblings?

MICHAEL K: Yeah, I have a younger sister who lives in Brooklyn. She's a kindergarten teacher.

THE AWL: Ha! Sorry, I don't know why that's funny.

MICHAEL K: Yeah, we're complete opposites, different sides of the planet. But I see her all the time. Our family is really close because it's just us three, my dad left when I was three. But she reads the site, too.

Logan Sachon is a writer in Portland (Oregon).

Previously: Michael Anthony Steele

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THE AWL: I'm overwhelmed. How did you do all this?

STEPHEN J. CANNELL: I'll tell you how I did it. One is, you don't make television my yourself. It's a collaborative art form-if it's an art form at all; a craft?-and it really comes down to how good the people are that you accumulate around you. And I expect that a lot of my success is from the fact that I had really good actors working with me, I had really good directors working with me, I had great writers that were on my staff that helped me keep those shows fresh and alive. And I'm a fairly diligent writer. I think if you write for five hours everyday, Saturday and Sunday included, for 40 years, you'd be surprised by how much you can write!

THE AWL: Oh my God. Five hours! Do you get up early and do this?

STEPHEN J. CANNELL: This morning I was up by 4 but usually I am up by 3:30 and I lift weights for about 40 minutes and then I start.

THE AWL: Do you have one project that you work on at a time or do you have several things going?

STEPHEN J. CANNELL: I do one at a time. Even when I had multiple shows on the air, I used to keep an average of six hours of TV on at all times because I was running a studio and that was what was required to basically pay my overhead, and it was a private studio, but even then, I'd be writing for all the different shows, so I'd write an episode of 21 Jump Street, and I'd write an episode of Wise Guy, and then I'd write an episode of Hunter and then I'd write an episode of The Commish, and then I'd go back to 21 Jump Street. Sometimes the executive producers would come to me and say, 'Can you give us one to three days, we could sure use the help.' I never had a lazy susan with six scripts going.

THE AWL: How did you get into writing books? Is it two completely different kinds of writing?

STEPHEN J. CANNELL: The similarity is, obviously, there is the immense amount of discipline I have for writing, which is very useful in writing a novel. I'll write a chapter a day. Like Hemingway, I bang out 10 pages a day. I'm like Hemingway in that work ethic! I don't compare myself to Hemingway. I plot my book in three act play structures just the way I plotted my hours of television...The one difference is that when you're writing a screenplay everything has to come out of a character's mouth–every plot, every idea, every emotion has to be delivered verbally so that the audience can be aware of it. In a book you have this tool called omniscient author where you can go into the head of your character and deal with the plot directly. Sometimes I'll be writing a script and be setting up a very sensitive emotional scene that I want to deliver on and I'm beginning to realize that to write it, I realize I cannot have these two characters say the things to one and another that I had planned them to say, because it would be rude or it would be inappropriate, and my gut tells me when I become that character and start to see that character say the lines on the paper that I would never say that and I have to adjust the scene to make it realistic and believable. In a novel you would never have that problem.

THE AWL: What were you working on this morning?

STEPHEN J. CANNELL: I'm writing a novel. I'm way ahead on my novels because I love to write, so I've finished the one that will be out in January, called The Pallbearers, and the one I'm writing now is another Shane Scully book and it won't be out until a year from January and it is called The Prostitute's Ball. It's almost done. And I have a movie script I'm going to write, and I have some acting I'm going to do, so my life is laid out a couple months in advance.

THE AWL: The acting, is that just for fun?

STEPHEN J. CANNELL: Yeah, pretty much just for fun. I've been doing it for 25 years, and I've gotten to the point where I'm actually not too bad at it. There was a time when I started when I do a part and I would think, 'Oh my God, I was just wonderful,' and I would see it and I stunk up the movie. I ended up being on Renegade for five seasons as a recurring role, I must have been in about 25 or 30 episodes, and I learned to act while I as doing that show. So now when I get jobs I actually can deliver.

THE AWL: Your scenes on Castle are the critics' favorites.

STEPHEN J. CANNELL: They've actually talked to me about coming back.

THE AWL: So 21 Jump Street and The A Team are going to be movies.

STEPHEN J. CANNELL: I'm producing both of them; I am not writing them. The A Team is in casting right now, Joe Carnahan is directing it, Ridley Scott is co-producing with me, and Tony Scott is the executive producer. So that's going to be a good movie. We're in negations right now with Liam Neeson to be Hannibal. 21 Jump Street, we're in the second draft on that, I think it's a very funny script, being done by Jonah Hill and a guy named Michael Bacall, who is a really good writer. And we're doing Greatest American Hero through my own studio right now, but it may end up going out, and we have attached a big name director to that.

THE AWL: How do you keep everything straight?

STEPHEN J. CANNELL: I had times when I was doing six shows simultaneously, and all of those shows were 24 episodes a season, so that's over 100 episodes a year that I was producing.... There were so many episodes floating around at one time at the shop that you got very good at compartmentalizing your thinking. And that's basically all I'm doing now.

THE AWL: When you're writing a book, or when you would write TV shows, do you figure out everything that is going to happen before you even start?

STEPHEN J. CANNELL: Yes. Totally. I talk to writers all the time who don't do that, they get a concept and have this idea that the characters will lead them through the story, and I can almost tell you when a writer is doing that. The stories tend to wander and do a lot of U-turns and stuff that could be dropped and didn't get dropped because the writer liked it, but it wasn't flowing in the same direction as the story. Plus a lot of writers that do that end up going a couple of acts into it and throwing it away because it wasn't working. I never had enough time to be able to indulge myself like that. I'd rather spend two or three days on a TV show plotting it completely. If it's a novel, it's about 2 weeks after I've done all my research, I sit down and for two weeks all I do is plot. And then I write about a 60 or 70 page narrative, and that's not for my publisher, it's totally for me, it's so I know that the architecture of the story I'm about to start writing is clean, so I don't get two-thirds in and go, this isn't working, I don't know where I'm going, it's all messed up, I don't want to be there. The hardest work of writing a book or a screenplay is plotting it, and I think that's why so many writers choose not to do it. Because you sit there and you scratch your head and think, what am I going to do next? What's the complication at the top of act two, how do I make the story more devastating than it appeared at the beginning, what are my adversaries doing, what's their move, how do I keep them in motion instead of standing still, waiting to be caught.

THE AWL: Did you learn this by doing it?

STEPHEN J. CANNELL: Yes I'm pretty self taught. I had a great writing instructor at the University of Oregon, he's still up there, his name is Ralph Salisbury. He's retired now, he's a professor emeritus, and he taught me a lot, a lot, a lot about writing, about character creation. But I lived in L.A. and I wanted to write for television and motion pictures and I started to write some spec scripts-and I began to realize I didn't know what I was doing. I realized there's a thing called a complication at the top of act two which is really, really important. If you don't have it, you're dead. It's a piece of the backstory that remains hidden and then rears up at the top of act two and changes everything. When you know that a complication is a piece of the backstory that remains hidden, well, then it's pretty easy. I've got to lace some thing in here in act one that we don't talk about. These guys keep trying to break into her car, and all the sudden we find out she's in the witness protection program and that was something that was hidden from the audience all through the thing, and that's why the boyfriend hero keeps getting beat up.

THE AWL: Do you think you'll start a new TV show ever again?

STEPHEN J. CANNELL: Well I'm doing a pilot right now with Janeane Garofalo. We'll see what happens. It's for USA. I did so much television, I kind of felt that I'd been there a long time, and unless I'm doing something that I think is really fresh or different, then I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it, I'm not going to do Hunter sideways, or Rockford sideways. If I'm going to do it, I want to do something that's never been done before.

THE AWL: Do you watch TV yourself?

STEPHEN J. CANNELL: I do. My daughter is directing Monk, so I've gotten very close to that show, I think it's very funny. I'm watching Burn Notice, I like that, I like House, I like Raising the Bar, from my friend Steven Bochco. There's a lot of good stuff.

THE AWL: So if you get up every morning at 3:30, what time do you go to bed?

STEPHEN J. CANNELL: 8 or 8:30. My wife will tell you I'm not a very fun person. But she's been with me for 44 years.

Previously: Damian Mason: Farmer, Corporate Comedian, Bill Clinton Impersonator

Logan Sachon lives in Portland, Oregon. Ways she makes money: tending flowers, making bouquets. Ways she does not make money: writing, optioning things. She is working on changing the latter.

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DAMIAN MASON: I'm glancing around at The Awl while we're talking. How do these guys make their money? I see a little bit of advertising for a movie.

THE AWL: I'm not sure! I don't think they do yet!

DAMIAN MASON: It's a very difficult thing to get paid to write. Years and years ago I set a personal goal that I wanted to become a better writer. I'm from Indiana, I was raised on a dairy farm here in Northern Indiana, and had lived in Indianapolis, Chicago, San Diego, Phoenix, and I came back. I live on a farm, a couple hundred acre farm. And I got back here and I contacted newspapers here, and I had three newspapers in Indiana and one newspaper in Kentucky that were carrying me. I really worked at it pretty hard, called editors of small to midsize papers. My goal was to have a dozen, then two dozen. And I tried it, I sent stuff out to syndicates, and I never got anywhere with that... I'm a big fan of newspapers, I read the newspapers. But most people your age, they say, oh I don't need the paper, I get my news on the Internet. But where the hell do they think that comes from? Two dudes at a blog dot com didn't spend three months investigating Enron for an article.

THE AWL: You were already doing your Corporate Comedy at this point?

DAMIAN MASON: Years ago I was a lighting fixture salesperson, and when I was 25 years old, I wasn't enjoying my job that much. I quit my job because I won a Halloween contest dressed up as Bill Clinton in San Diego. I quit my job and became a professional Bill Clinton impersonator. My company used me at trade shows and meetings. I'd dress up as Bill Clinton, make some yuks, have some laughs, take some pictures. I started doing shows on the side, companies, groups, anyone that had 300 bucks I'd do a show for them.

THE AWL: Did you see this as taking off?

DAMIAN MASON: People like to believe, I'm speaking very frankly with you, people with normal jobs, that sit in a cubicle and work for somebody, want to believe that there's never any risk, that' you're just hanging out, drinking beer at a Halloween contest and someone discovered you and made this happen. Well, fuck no, that's not how it happened! I won a goddamned Halloween contest and won some money and I was still selling lighting fixtures! ... I'm entrepreneurial by nature. Trust me, I've heard the degrading remarks, and you've got to shake it off, and I'm talking very frankly, and I'm sorry if you're religious, but every asshole says, "You're making $7500 a show-I wish I looked like Bill Clinton!" But if you looked like Bill Clinton, you'd still be sitting in accounting in your cubicle, complaining about your job.

THE AWL: When did you start doing your other show, as you?

DAMIAN MASON: We always knew the Bill Clinton thing was going to slow down, obviously. No one is doing a Rutherford B. Hayes show.... And it was much more difficult to become Damian Mason than I thought, I thought it'd be a lot easier... Now, not to sound arrogant, but we're starting to roll with the program I do as me. And it's been 7 or 8 years, and it's been a lot of work. I still do my Bill Clinton show, I just did two of them last week. But I'm not going to do a 100 of them a year like I used to do back in the old days.

THE AWL: How much are you traveling?

DAMIAN MASON: This year, let's say I'll do 60 shows, and if you do 60 shows, that's like 100 or 120 days of travel. Sometimes you can drive, sometimes you have to be on an airplane and gone for 2 days.

THE AWL: Do you like traveling?

DAMIAN MASON: I don't like sitting in traffic in a commute, either, and I don't like having a normal job. We make our living off of doing my shows, investments and savings I've accumulated over the years, the farm, my wife's interior design company. The bulk of my income is earned doing the show.

THE AWL: Tell me about the farm.

DAMIAN MASON: We have 200 acres. 125 of it is in corn and soybeans. We have 40 acres of timber that we manage for hardwood timber. We have some conservation land, and we have pasture and beef cattle.

THE AWL: Do you still have fun doing the show?

DAMIAN MASON: Yes. I'm being very frank here: what you must do, in this business, is think of yourself as a product. You are a product. These groups are buying you. So I would say: why are these groups buying you? It's not about me, it's about the group. Without this group, without this 400 person sales meeting in Little Rock, Dallas, Baltimore, or wherever USA, without them, why would they have me? And they wouldn't... One thing that a lot of people struggle with in this business, they forget it's not about you, it's about the group. So I try to look at myself as a product, and I'm very critical of what I do and what happens up on stage... And all though you've heard me swearing a little bit, I don't do that from stage. A lot of these people that do clubs cannot get up and be funny without talking about raunchy stuff. My stuff has to be PG-13. I occasionally push it to R, you've got a group of salespeople, there a little bit raucous, yeah, you can push it to R. but you don't do racial stuff, you don't do that other stuff, you don't do anything close to club material.

THE AWL: Is corporate comedy a big industry? Do you have a lot of competition out there?

DAMIAN MASON: You're competing against the person that's the futurist. Do you know what that is? Because I'm still not sure that I do myself. I think they're scam artists. They come in and say, in the future, consumers will do this. Well, how the hell do you know that? I'm a little skeptical of that, but they are the competition, because for $5000 they'll come in and give you 45 minutes of telling you what the future holds for your business. Now: Ask them to put it in writing on a million dollars contract and none of 'em will sign it. My competition is a hypnotist. My competition is a band. My competition is an economist that will come in and tell you what the economy is doing now and what it will do one year from now. My competition is anything you can plug into that timeslot at dinner or at 8 p.m.

THE AWL: It seems like [your job] is part motivational speaker too?

DAMIAN MASON: I don't like that term. This ain't a pep rally. I know that's a very standard term, but I don't like that term because it gives the idea that I'm up there hootin' and hollerin'.

THE AWL: I imagine you get booked for organizations where you can't even believe this organization really exists.

DAMIAN MASON: The National Bankruptcy Institute I did a while back, and they were celebrating that there were over a million bankruptcies in the U.S. for the first time. That was about ten years ago. Now we're getting closer to two million, because it's become very trendy for people to live beyond their means and not save any money. National Industries for the Blind, and this is not being cruel, but I got booked as Bill Clinton, a look-alike coming in to do Bill Clinton to an audience where a third of them were blind. But you know what? They loved it. So there's organizations out there you can't imagine: Scrap Metal Dealers Associations, it goes on and on.

THE AWL: Have the meetings felt different since the economy went bust?

DAMIAN MASON: First off, things are not nearly as bad as the media says. The media needs to be able to manufacture some threat to your life. Mad Cow, SARS, bird flu, swine flu, asbestos, I mean, come on. Then they also love it if they can have some doom and gloom scenario with business, global climate change, whatever, whatever. I'm in these functions and I'm looking at people and I get them laughing and get them rollin' and then I talk about this, and I say let's talk about how bad business is, because it's not. When I hear this compared to the depression, it's a joke. I was just at Wal-Mart, and Wal-Mart's crowded. And I went to dinner the other night, and the restaurant was slammed. And you're telling me this is another Great Depression? I will disagree. So I make that point to my audience.

THE AWL: So there's not a difference in your booking from last year?

DAMIAN MASON: I took a hit in May and in June, I had the worst May I ever had, and this month isn't as good either, and I'll tell you why that happened. Along about January, Barack Obama and people in Congress went on TV and said it was irresponsible to have junkets in Las Vegas and be spending money irresponsibly on fancy sales meetings. So all these companies, whether or not they took any government bailout money or not, cancelled their meetings. Las Vegas lost about a gazillion dollars-I made that number up. You might have also known Barack and Michelle Obama had no problem getting on a private jet and sending 500 secret service agents and tying up the streets of New York City for a date. That wasn't irresponsible, but if companies go and have meetings where they conduct business, that's irresponsible. This is not about me liking or disliking whoever's in office, I could care less, my point is: they screwed up this industry by carrying on about meetings. What are you supposed to do, you've got 400 salespeople all around North America, you're supposed to not have a sales meeting? So yeah, my business took a hit, and I'm not blaming the economy, I'm blaming Washington, D.C.

THE AWL: What makes you laugh?

DAMIAN MASON: I don't go to comedy clubs. If I were a bulldozer operator, I wouldn't get off on going to see people run bulldozers. But there's certain things you can only learn from others. So I bought some DVDs of some people that I'm studying, and I bought them all for different reasons. I bought Bob Newhart, because I have a certain dryness to the way I speak and deliver, and so does he. He's old for me, I'm sure you don't even know who he is-

THE AWL: Oh I know who Bob Newhart is.

DAMIAN MASON: Okay. So I though I'd study him a little bit. I find him funny. I got Jerry Seinfeld's DVD. Always loved his television program, thought it was very well done. Sitting down and having a conversation and playing cards and drinking beers with five of my buddies, that makes me laugh. Simple, but I'm a simple guy. I laugh at stuff that is not dumb humor. Everything can't be Mensa humor, because everyone isn't in Mensa. ... The show The Office is brilliant, and it's being copied now, and it will be bastardized. And that show came from across the pond anyway, it's an Americanized version of the British show. I like Family Guy, done by Seth MacFarlane. I would actually love to meet Seth MacFarlane sometime. He is way head and shoulders beyond me but I think that show is as good as a television show as there is. It is brilliant beyond brilliant to me. I bet there's about 12 gags per show that the average person doesn't see.... So The Office and Family Guy and you've got to put Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert up there. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is brilliant. He may be a little liberal because I'm a little more conservative, but you don't let that get in the way. For years I did a political comedy show and people would always ask me what my true beliefs were and I would tell them that I read an article in Playboy magazine with an interview with Jay Leno, and they asked Jay why he didn't get more involved with his own political beliefs in his monologue, and he said "There's an old saying among prostitutes: if you start to come with your client, you should get out of business." I know that's a little rated-R quote for you, but it wasn't me that said it, it was Jay Leno. And I sort of adhere to that, I do. By the way the best show that's on television period is not a comedy, it's called Mad Men on AMC.

THE AWL: If you meet someone new, and they say what do you do, how do you describe what you do?

DAMIAN MASON: I probably just say I'm self-employed. I was asked once by a person in customs what I did and I just told them farmer, because I didn't want to get into it. I have a card that my wife says is ridiculous but I hand it out all the time; it just says "Business Man."

THE AWL: So do you see yourself doing this for another 16 years?

DAMIAN MASON: Yeah, I think so. When I first started out we had to put together packages with VCR tapes. And then we did DVDs and CD ROMS and that and now a lot of people just go to my website and check the video out there. So that part has gotten easier.... The travel has gotten harder, it's way less enjoyable than it was, with the TSA, which does not make me feel safer at all. The one thing that I would tell you that bothers me is the distractions. We did a show on Friday at noon and one third of the people wouldn't set their Blackberries down.. I could take any one of those Blackberries and pick it up and say, show me the last 20 communications you were just sending while I was on stage, and it would say things like, "Yeah, not much, how about you, sure, great, see you there, okay, how about 3, call me"-you know what I'm saying? And for that, they're missing out on 45 minutes of really spectacular entertainment, and that's probably the biggest frustration I have... My marketing person asked me if I wanted to do Twitter, she's got me on Facebook and MySpace and all that stuff, and I said, does this mean that a bunch of 14-year-olds are going to try to book me to do a show in their mom and dad's basement? ... I was 25 when I quit my job to end up doing this, and I had three shows lined up for the rest of my life, making about $2000. I'm only saying that because the idea that there is going to be a great deal of security when you step out and try something new, there probably won't be a great deal of security. But don't kid yourself. There's no such thing as security. Well, there's not! Do you think these people at these companies that are getting tossed out of business are secure? They're not. Do what you like!

Logan Sachon lives in Portland, Oregon. Ways she makes money: tending flowers, making bouquets. Ways she does not make money: writing, optioning things. She is working on changing the latter.

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