March 1, 2010
Penny Arcade Not Feeling It
The guys from Penny Arcade had a horrible experience with Jesse Thorn recently, going so far as to call him a “serial killer waiting to happen.”
I looked him up online, in an attempt to figure out what his deal was exactly, because actually being around him did nothing to illuminate his character. I stumbled upon a manifesto entitled The New Sincerity, and if you’re wondering what that could possibly mean, let me tell you. The New Sincerity is simply The Old Irony, with better PR.
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I’d be sad if someone said being around me did nothing to illuminate my character.
Something to be mindful of, I suppose.
I’m pretty sure if being around you did nothing to illuminate your character you’d have have no idea. Regardless of how mindful you were of it.
Jesse’s response:
http://forum.maximumfun.org/viewtopic.php?p=58857#58857
The fact that they were booked on “Jordan, Jesse, GO!” without having any idea of who either Jordan or Jesse are seems to be the root of his complaint. For which blame belongs as much to whoever books their PR as Mr. Thorn himself.
I’d guess you wouldn’t have heard a peep of complaint if they’d been booked on the “The Sound of Young America”, but because of the of free-wheeling, inside-jokey structurelessness of JJGo, it’s not the friendliest environment for unacquainted outsiders.
To be fair, I did murder one dude, and then tell them about how I was going to murder some other dudes in a similar manner. They’re technically correct in that regard.
Jesse Thorn deserves the lion’s share of blame for the reaction. From the Penny Arcade article, it’s pretty clear that Mr. Thorn willfully ignored his guest’s area of expertise and dismissed clear signals that they were bored and pissed off. Perhaps it’s time to ask Terry Gross for pointers on how to conduct an interview?
I’d ask a question but I’ve already misunderstood, I fear.
Terry Gross’ first few years of interviews are woefully strange stuff. I was listening to a tape of her interview with Anna and Kate McGarrigle twenty years ago, and it was stumbly and awkward and meandering. Terry Gross wasn’t born Terry Gross from FRAISHE AYRE. And so Mr. Thorn is trying to build something too, perhaps something that is frequently misunderstood and even criticized but something that is good through the core of it. What he does is hard. It’s hard work. If you haven’t done audio editing and interviews then you simply don’t know. To run a single hour long show? booking people months in advance for even a twenty minute interview would take me over 12 hours to edit and do this and that when I was running a show. Jesse runs several shows, and he works very hard. The format was simply a mismatch.
I went to UCSC while Jesse and Jordan were there, trying out the beginnings of their show. The whole… mystique of their deal is the way it feels as if their characters are aliens or sociopaths making a sincere effort to “get” human emotions. I think that the penny arcade guys rolled with the weirdness a little more smoothly than perceived. They’re prolly just keeping up the gag. They constantly joke about murder and the like.
I just listened to the podcast. Jesse Thorn is a dick. Worse than that, he is an unfunny dick. I suspect he’s jealous of Mike Jerry because they are very good at what they do and they are 100 times funnier.
This demonstrates why you should perhaps consider listening to a couple episodes of a radio show if you are scheduled to appear as a guest on it.