An Interview with Freshly Squeezed Cynic.

Alan said we make a big interview for the Discussion About Megazine thread. It would be really cool and interesting, I hope. We could ask lots of questions about Megazine and all his letters and bestest Megaziners, and also lots of other questions and word associations too.

Please does anyone want to make any questions at-all? - Please can you send them to the Megazine Letters account again. It would be super helpful! :-[

I am going to send all the questions to Alan on monday 14th, I hope.

Some of us already did

Aye, but it's in a text file that is on another, difficult to access computer and i'll be damned if i'm writing out all that sh*te again.

Quote: Junior_Minister

I'm hoping it'll be worth it  

I hope so too, but it probably won't.

*An Interview with Freshly Squeezed Cynic.*
Questions by Barry, David-James, Deb, Paul and Strawberry.

Who are your bestest Mega-ziners ever?
Och, the usual. I think most everybody here's fairly decent, although Topper stands supreme amongst the rest of us, pretending he has laser eyes which shoot all those who dare oppose him, flanked menacingly (if effetely) by our very own Educated Wombat, Farmer Jack, and Big Bob Flapper. As for those sadly not here, 1929, Parsley Possum, The Hoopiest Frood and Le Enfant Terrible were good. I seem to remember a bloke called the Anti-Social Socialist who was pretty decent. Truly, I would fellate them all.

Who are your bestest Mega-ziners at the moment?
Colin does try his best, bless him. I think he deserves a medal. Not a good one though, not even one with some chocolate underneath the wrapping. Like one of those badges you got in Primary School sports days that said something like “you’re absolutely f*cking useless, but you tried, which will serve you well in your next soulless few decades.” The kind of one you got because giving out just crisps and juice seemed a bit of a cop-out.

Which Mega-ziners do you think are really bad and annoying?
Gyah. I think everyone knows of my long-term hatred for both Spiky Stuy and Emma The Lil' Angel. This year's f*ckwits include Daddypoos, Mondo Ray, and almost everyone who names themselves after an anime character (Not you Debs, you live for now).

Which Mega-ziners have influenced all your letters?
I hate to sound completely egotistical, but I don't think any Mega-ziner per se has influenced a letter; I just kind of thought one day "Truly the way to enlightenment is writing into this Teletext letters page". I suppose if you wanted to get down to it Emma The Lil' Angel "influenced" a fair whack of my letters, although perhaps that is the wrong word to use. What word would you use to describe a feeling of deep, pitiless rage that makes you wish you could somehow transmit your thoughts over the internet by anguished screams?

Where does the inspiration for your letters come from?
I don't know, but whatever it is, is probably in the DSM-IV somewhere.

What types of letters do you think are really neat and cool?
God, I don't know. This is like explaining humour, which always ends in disaster. I mean, you could talk about the juxtaposition of unexpected things, or something that makes you think, or just something that speaks to the inner core of your experiences. But it's just a gut thing, in the end. I know Topper is awesome, as long as he stops stealing my pubic hair. I know Dalek should be shot for crimes against pixelkind. It's as simple at that. It might be completely subjective when it comes down to it, but the thought itself comes in an entirely objective way. If that makes any sense at all.

Creative and ignored or boring and famous?
Cult and dead, baby. It's the only way.

How did the name Freshly Squeezed Cynic come about?
Well, I had initially written into ‘Zine sometime around June 2001 using the pseudonym “Keyser Soze” (by snail mail on pencil and blank paper, just to show my old-school cred there), but I came to the conclusion that a) it was hopelessly unoriginal, b) I could come up with a much better nickname myself, and c) I wanted to stop Kevin Spacey continually hanging round my house, raiding my bins for sustenance, and haranguing me whenever I left the house with cries of “I AM KEYSER SOZE! I AM KEYSER SOZE!”
Kevin Spacey has issues.
Anyway, I ended up coming up with this nickname sometime later; I can’t pretend there was suddenly a flash of light and the Archangel Gabriel handed it down to me as a sign I was now ready to become a man, but I didn’t really think about it; it just popped into my head one day and I thought “Hey, that’s cool”.

Why are you so cynical?
It’s partially a protective thing; being a socialist means you have to learn to live with a continual buffet of disappointment, despair, and downright tragedy, if you’re not careful you give yourself over to thinking you can cause a peaceful world revolution if you can get just two more people to your film showing about the proletariat of Burkina Faso (which you won’t, anyway). Being a pessimist and a cynic cushions you to a greater degree against the bad times and makes sure you don’t get too overexcited over small triumphs. There’s a Hebrew saying, “This too shall pass”, that I think sums both sides of that perfectly, which I think I’d like to take as a personal motto. So that’s partially why I’d call myself a cynic, even if there is an idealistic core at the centre, a position of principle which I would like to think I stick to.
The other reason is because of a general rule of thumb I have when dealing with authorities, pseudoscientists, cranks and hacks; assume lying. Now you may think that sounds too much like “guilty before proven innocent”, but it’s not. It’s a matter of personal (or institutional) character. It’s when you draw the line and say “I can’t trust you to say anything right” to someone. They might be telling the truth, they might be actively doing some good, but really their previous actions have been so deeply mendacious and untrustworthy that it’s deeply stupid to trust them with the keys to the candy shop again.
As an aside, this is why I get so annoyed by liberals who support military intervention in nations on “humanitarian” grounds, despite it always going drastically wrong. In principle it maybe, just maybe, might be a good idea, but in principle you have the fluffy wonderful liberal government who doesn’t flout anyone’s rights and cares about everyone in the world and is just trying to make the world a better place, y’all! In practise you have the Bush Administration. In practise you have national interests. In practise you have strategic resources. And, to give them some credit, your humanitarian interventionist liberals tend to recognise these things, right up until the drumbeat for war starts and we start hearing about poor little Belgium, or the domino theory, or the “Evil Empire”, or Saddam Hussein being the next Hitler. It’s not that these guys aren’t “bad guys” (they most definitely are), it’s that how sure are we that we’re supporting the good guys, rather than just the guys who are bad in a different (probably lesser) way? Mark Steel had an excellent line about this phenomenon: “Liberals are always ready to criticise imperialist wars, as long as they happened 20 years ago.”
But that’s by the by. I’m a cynic because at heart, I think it’s wise to assume that if the people at the top, in the media, government, or business, are f*cking us now, they’re going to continue to f*ck us until we get them under our control, no matter what they say, do, or act like.

If you'd never found 'Zine, what would you be like now?
I'd probably be alone, friendless, and even more neurotic (you think I’m kidding). But I'd have an extra couple of hundred quid from not going to VR Meets dahn sarf, so swings and roundabouts.

What do you think of Digital 'Zine? Better or worse?
I don't have digital tv, so I'm afraid I only find out about 'Zine through the medium of the Intertubes.

Fudge or Chocolate?
Lemonade. Or maybe milk.

Which is your bestest Simpsons character?
Moe Szyslak. There’s something about his bitter, warped body secretly holding a bitter, warped heart that just appeals to me. No idea why.

What's your favourite Simpsons episode?
Last Exit To Springfield. Leading a strike’s never that hard, even Homer can do it! The single finest scene ever conceived by humanity is in this episode, simply but effectively showing us Homer’s inner thought processes slowly but surely working their way up to a final, irrefutable conclusion. I am talking, of course, about “Lisa needs braces!” “DENTAL PLAN.”

What are your bestest books and movies and bands?
Uhm. You do realise my life is basically ruled by media, don’t you? You don’t want to be here all day, do you? I’ll do a couple of each; in terms of books, my love for "Catch-22" will never die, and Thomas Paine’s intemperate but clear and witty smackdown of Burke (yes, I know Burke was right about the French Revolution, but for all the wrong goddamn reasons), "The Rights of Man" is a joy to behold.
"Pan’s Labyrinth" is a great modern movie, and "Some Like It Hot" is the best thing Marilyn Monroe ever did, even if kissing her was like kissing Hitler, Mr. Curtis.
When it comes to bands, the Gang of Four are where it’s at when I want to hear something loud, angry, and clinically funky, but my heart will always be with the Stuart Murdoch’s fun loving orchestra of twee, Belle & Sebastian. I hope that’s enough.

Are you looking forward to "Diary of the Dead"?(*It is a new George Romero zombie movie.)
I am, actually, despite the mediocrity that was Land of the Dead. This is, however, because I am a huge, unabashed Romero fanboy, and as such would go and see any of his movies, as long as it had a six-year-old kid feasting on someone’s intestines. In all seriousness, though, it looks like it could be a decent reboot of the whole series. Is it a reboot? I’m assuming so if they’re film students and not merely battle-hardened fearless zombie killers just trying to survive.

What would you do if there was a zombie apocalypse?
Get about two miles with a spade, having joined a small band of rag-tag but loveable people shell-shocked by the whole bizarre occurrence and hijack a small but serviceable vehicle capable of carrying us, but end up being ambushed by some lurking zombies in the shade of a petrol station mini-mart whilst we were looking for supplies, and getting both my arms bitten off. My comrades do their duty and finish me off (destroying the brain or removing the head) to prevent me rising again.
I have thought about this a lot.

"Nineteen Eighty-Four" or "Brave New World"? Are you really scared they will be truly true? Which would you most like to be true?
Nineteen Eighty-Four by a long shot, sorry Aldous. Although Brave New World never has a sh*tty reactionary pseudo-sequel written by Anthony Burgess. Of the two, I can see aspects of each becoming viable, as you would expect since the best science fiction never actually predicts the future but merely extrapolates social trends that already exist. The constant surveillance aspect of our society is more or less true already, it’s just a matter of degree in how joined up that surveillance is and a lack of the draconically punitive aspect of Oceania, although part of me wishes that that book had never been written so newspaper hacks could use another adjective except for “Orwellian” to describe any security-related scheme (for f*ck’s sake, you don’t even need to look synonyms up on Roget’s anymore, GOOGLE THEM), and whilst I can see the materialistic hedonism of Brave New World’s society having parallels with our own, it’s fair to see that you don’t need happiness to be hedonistic.
Really I’d like neither to be true, since they are dystopian novels after all, but that’s a bit of a sh*tty way to answer that question, so instead I’ll note that of all the dystopias I’d like to be true, Warren Ellis’ graphic novel "Transmetropolitan" is the one I’d like to see, not to mention the most likely one; self-absorbed, uncaring, brutal, politically deadened and superficial, yet also full of life and wonder, of thoughts, aspirations and dreams, if ultimately unfulfilled ones, of the human race despite all its’ transparent irrationality and utter sh*ttiness surviving no matter what hateful b*st*rds look down on us from above, be they gods, kings or presidents. Plus there’s a gun that makes people sh*te themselves.

Who do you want to be Prime Minister out of Boris Johnson, Jeremy Clarkson, Optimus Prime and Galdalf the Grey?
Part of me wants to see Boris Johnson become Prime Minister merely to see how badly he’d f*ck it up, in that bumbling-overgrown-schoolboy-disguising-objectionable-wingnut-agenda way of his.
PMQ would finally be interesting for once, at least: “Erm well, ah, but, erm, heh, you see the point of the matter, well gosh I’m not actually sure what the point of the matter is, I’m not well gosh, isn’t this a funny thing I’ve mixed up all my notes, god, just like a bloody Chinaman. I don’t mean that about the Chinese, lovely people of course once you get over them being an undifferentiated yellow mass of uncultured communists. Gosh, did I just say that? I hope they’re not angry. Oh they’ve declared war, damn.”
Jeremy Clarkson couldn’t be trusted to be a milk monitor without getting all up in his goddamned foolishness all playing the political game like it was Hungry Hungry Hippos whilst everyone else is playing chess, and I’m sceptical of Gandalf the Grey’s suggestion that Sauron has been forging Rings of Mass Destruction. We might as well have a robot overlord now, then, to save us doing it later. Go Optimus!

Who do you *really* want to be Prime Minister?
Nobody. I think everyone could unite around that candidate, appreciate their positions on the key issues, and have a clear understanding of what their agenda will be in office.

Who are you supporting in the US Presidential elections?
Zombie Eugene Debs. Socialism for many, tasty lobotomies for others! Failing that, Barack Obama still has a good shot and an Obama presidency would be moderately unlikely to do anything deeply, deeply terrible and reactionary. And it would drive the KKK wild.

Do you think there is a tiny alien inside your head like in "Men in Black"?
I hope not. I pity the poor b*st*rd if he is.

Do you believe in aliens?
I’d like to think that there’s life out there somewhere. I mean, billions of galaxies and trillions of planets and this is the best life could do? f*ck no!

Do you believe in ghosts?
http://xkcd.com/373/ explains my position better than I could.

Please can you tell everyone a secret secret about you?
Last summer I cracked up, broke down, and ran away from everyone to escape the problems I'd created for myself, took a job in a youth hostel in Glasgow and lived there for three months. The part about the job some people know, I think, but not why I had to take it.

Laughing in a lesson. Worth it.
Thanks, Alan. Thalan.