Friday, February 04, 2005

interrogations

So I’m interviewing a South African comedian tomorrow for SA Fusion magazine. I used to work for them full-time before I merged into advertising, so now I do freelance for them on a part-time basis. Is quite a nice little set-up.
I love compiling questions to ask people. Especially famous people. I like to catch them off guard. I’m not one of those journalists that ask stupid stuff like:
- What’s your star sign?
- What’s your favourite colour?
And my all-time worst:
- What inspires you?
Because no one gives a shit.

This comedian guy is going to rather get this thrown at him over coffee tomorrow:
- Why do you think you’re funny?
- Do your friends think you’re funny, or are you boring off-stage?
- Has an audience ever not laughed at one of your punchlines? What did you do to rectify this uncomfortable faux-pas?
- What makes YOU laugh? (Are you a Blackadder fan, more importantly, or toilet humour do it for you?)
- Tell me a funny joke. And it had better be funny.
- Give SA Fusion readers five pick-up lines.
- You do tai-chi. Why not aerobics? Does a leotard daunt you? Or is it just the Jane Fonda image?
That kind of stuff.

Maybe I’m wrong. So I’ll ask you just to make sure.
When reading about somebody, what do you want to know?

7 comments:

zuzula said...

personally I like to know the bad things - all about the times things went wrong, worst heckle that kind of thing. also i guess if he's touring around SA/the world (?) it would be interesting to ask about regionally different senses of humour...?

sorry, it is friday afternoon!

Nettie said...

How do you take your coffee, or do you even like it? Do you think all-one-gender-crowds are a good or bad thing? Do you use psychology to think of your jokes?

Blog ho said...

ask him if he's heard of me. Then strike him if he says no. I mean when he says no, sorry. Then ask him if they're hiring. I also want to know if he's a "typical SA man."

Finally, please ask him to try to make it in the "big time" (North Africa) if he thinks he's so smart.

Robin Alexa said...

Ask him what kind of digital camera I should buy! Maybe he knows because I'm having a hard time figuring it out :)

Peas on Toast said...

"Thanks guys. I did the interview, and he turned out to be the most boring, introverted and depressed person in the world. it was like squeezing blood from a stone:
"So, tell me a joke."
He: I don't tell jokes.
"oKAYYYY. So what's up?"
He: Nothing. I have no life.
"Right"

How the heck am I going to write this story?

zuzula said...

my favourite trick is to write difficult interviews like that verbatim as a transcript, so the monosyllabic twat of a subject is displayed in full glory. He'll think twice about not making an effort with journalists after that!

Peas on Toast said...

I'm with you there Z. I wrote it out verbatim, because he was speaking so sloooowly and to just pretend I was interested, I wrote him down, word for word. So now I'm doing the article, and there's a lot of, "When I asked him to tell me a joke, he looked at me and said nothing for ten seconds then said, "I don't know any.""

Makes for riveting reading. I may be sued for defamation, but then it's all true. How sad is that? :)