Editor’s Note: The following is the third in a fencepost series by Chris Amico, RedFence’s first foreign correspondent. Chris recently moved to China to teach English, and maybe learn some things as well. We look forward to walking the paths of the East with him, maybe for years to come.
Dispatch From the East – Three: My interview on the Daily Show
by Chris Amico
I’ve been imagining this for a while now, doing something grandiose, newsworthy, something that gets me a spot on a late night couch. It’s part of a bad habit I have, when I go to write something — of visualizing its impact more than its completed form. I tend to imagine what people will say, good and bad, before I’ve written a word. Sometimes, it’s best to just let the scenario play out in my head, then get on to more important distractions.
My top choice of venues is The Daily Show. I’m a fan, and everyone I know watches the show. And let’s face it, Jon Stewart is the smartest comedian out there.
The interview opens like it always does, an introduction, flashing my book, new in hardcover, on the screen.
“My guest tonight is a journalist writing for the [insert major respectable American print outlet here]. He is the author of [some book I haven’t written yet, maybe that novel or a collection of travel stories; even just a good magazine story that got people talking]. Please welcome to the show, Christopher Amico (would I use the middle initial?). Chris!”
And then I’d walk out on stage, try not to trip on whatever would inevitably be between my feet, which have always been too large. Would I wear a tie? Probably not. I still look ‘adorable’ in a tie, ‘so grown up.’ Of course, at this rate I’ll have gray hair by the time I’m getting late night interviews for that book I haven’t started yet, haven’t really started. I mean, I’ve got some stuff written. It’s just not, well, structured or connected or going anywhere.
But I’ve made it to the couch now, in my imaginary interview, and I’m sitting comfortably, not sweating too much or thinking about the thousands of people watching at home. Thousands? This is the interview part. Who really watches this crap anyway?
Now, the all important synopsis: “Well, Jon, this book grew out of too many hours sitting in coffee shops, telling old stories that weren’t getting old, until a friend said one day, ‘Why don’t you write this all down?'”
Or, “It grew out of spending too many nights in bars, somewhere in China, and this is the best recollection I have of what occurred in those alcoholic hours.”
Maybe, “It’s just a bunch of little short stories that generally tell what I’ve been doing with my life over the last few years, which isn’t all that remarkable but sounds impressive to people who’ve never traveled, but keep saying they’d like to.” I’d probably sell that one better.
Then would follow questions about the writing process, or about one or two anecdotes in the book. How much did you drink while writing this? Not nearly as much as I did while researching it. What is it about small towns you find so fascinating? That they still exist. And why people move there. And that they used to — some time in that mythic, misremembered past — be places where people actually worked and produced something. Did you really write a book just so you could be interviewed on The Daily Show? Dammit. You got me. Can I have my fruit basket now?
