No Jatz for Katz...the inaugural RYWHM interview.
I've loved author and columnist Danny Katz for as long as I can remember. Not just because his regular pieces in the Age often have me laughing so hard wee comes out, but also because I'm crazy about his habit of STARTLINGLY USING CAPITAL LETTERS FOR COMIC EFFECT.
Recently there was a hoo-ha where everyone thought he'd been sacked from the Age but he was mysteriously reinstated within the space of about two weeks. I was one of the people who wrote an angry letter to the paper, so I hold myself mostly responsible for saving his career.
Also his wife is cool and draws him like this:
Here is the first ever RYWHM interview piece with me in the Jana chair.
1) How do you know me?
That's great, isn't it - you ask me to do an interview and I graciously say yes, and your first question is about YOU - that just such a self-obssessed egomaniacal bloggerish attitude. Truth is, we met in a corridor of a TV production company and you were going on about your unbridled lust for Jim Schembri, something about baby oil and a palm frond, and I was thinking to myself, do I really want to know this woman? And we didn't speak again until now.
2) So what's the inside skinny on what happened with the Age?
Can't talk - the Age editor reads your blog daily. It's how he fills his op/ed page. All I can say is, it's all okay again, and I got all my demands - that is, getting rid of that doofy full-length photo of myself, standing there in a red spattered shirt, looking like some kind of grinning half-wit who works in a kosher abattoir.
3) Why are you still 'Danny'? What's wrong with Daniel or Dan?
Over the years, people have called me “Dan” and “Danno” and “Daniel” and “Donny” and even “Dick-knuckle” - although that was just jokingly of course, and my father doesn’t do it anymore. But I've always been Danny - it's my Irish heritage. Personally I hate Dan, Dan sounds like some kind of gay cowboy with high boots and a white hat and the bum cut out of his pants.
4) Can you describe a day in the life of a newspaper columnist?
That's what I got sacked for - writing about a day in the life a newspaper columnist. If I print it here again, I will go back to my abattoir photo, you can read the notorious column on my Age archive
5) Who do you think is funny? Why? What did they do?
In the wake of the Comedy Festival, Keating - the musical blew me away, I'm sick of stand-up comedy , SICK OF STAND-UP, and this was something truly original and funny and slick. But I did like one stand-up: Mike Wilmot the Canadian. I like Canadians. I am a Canadian. We're adorable. Ooot and aboot. Ha ha.
6) Which song makes you want to dance in your underpants? What kind of underpants would they be?
Dixie Chicks: There's your Trouble. And my undies would be my pair of orange boxer briefs: firm around the hips, loose around the thighs, with a self-shaping contoured front pouch that allows for maximum comfort and airflow - they give me that little bit of extra lift when I’m running late for the bus. They're so stretched and baggy, I can actually take them off over my head.
7) Do you ever get recognised in the street?
Someone once thought I was Paul Reiser from Mad About You. And one time two girls asked if I was "Jerry Ziegfield". In fact, I've been mistaken for every male star of an American sit-com, 1991 - 2002.
8) Can we work together one day? If we do can I call you 'my associate' and send you impersonal Christmas cards?
Not after the Jim Schembri revelation.
9) Is Amanda Keller funny or just annoying?
Oh yeah, she's right up there on my Comedian Hate List, right after Wil Anderson. Man I hate that little Wil Anderson uber-putz. Did you know there's an actual "I Hate Wil Anderson Secret Society" entirely made up of stand-up comedians? He's the Comedian's Non-comedian. Oh and can we throw Corrine Grant on my list too. Hate her deeply. And me. Hate me the most.
10) If you were not a writer would you be:
A) a nude synchronised swimmer
B) a barista with a hugely impressive moustache
C) the lead singer in hot boy band 'Brown Town'
D) dead. Because without writing, there is no Katz.
Too clever, can't answer this, but you know, I actually always wanted to
start own my own Futon Company, and I'd have a slogan, "Put Your Foot-on My Futon". I think it's a winner.
11) Complete this sentence: 'If you bloggers want to hit the dizzying
heights of fame and fortune reached by me, The K-Man, the first thing you need to do is.....'
Fail at every other conceivable profession until you find the one obscure thing that you don't completely fail at, and then keep doing that thing until you fail at it. Then start all over again. My whole life has just been a massive filtering process of failing.
904 days til the next election.
Comments
That was just brilliant.
The only thing is that I think it was my letter that is responsible for his re-instatement (I included retorts to their standard reply letter in mine). But I am willing to share the kudos.
Thank god Katz hates Will Anderson and Amanda Keller. I didn't know they was meant to be classified as "comedians", I thought they existed so we could all agree on hating someone.
"Dixie Chicks: There's your Trouble."
Can I just say - I audibly GASPED at this... for this was a song I used to secretly dance to myself circa 1998! I am still known to sing it in a country twang when liquored up.
I think I heart Danny Katz a bit. Yes.
Jess, if I meet you on Sunday and find out that you are, in actual fact, me, I won't be surprised.
Stop freaking me out, mirror-image girl!!
Speaking of that, did you decide whether Jessculture in Melbs this weekend is an occasion for a stacks-on nerdfest, or an invitation-only soiree?
I love Katz even more now because of the Wil Anderson/Corrine Grant comment. I love you more too Fitz.
"I love Katz even more now because of the Wil Anderson/Corrine Grant comment."
Shame he didn't complete the series and tell us what he thinks of Dave Hughes' improv skills.
I like Katz's stuff more everytime I read some of it. I should get around to making it a habit.
And it's good to see the Jews finally making a contribution to Western literature.
Buck. Wait. What?
I already tried the failing thing, and *I* ended up in childcare. Where did I go wrong?
I think I'm IN LOVE WITH THIS GUY. I am also in love with Wil Anderson (purely physical, he aint not Demitri)so I have a conundrum. Spitroast?
Joe: Irony! Irony! Apart from lots of individual writers, the Bible has got to be the single most influential piece of lit in western history.
In the recent past I've done anti-racist work and read a lot of vile shite about the Jews. One comment I kept coming across about Jewish history was that, because they didn't leave behind heaps of majestic buildings filled with decorative art like their contemporaries the Egyptians and Babylonians they didn't really have a civilisation (and were therefore just parasites on other civilisations right from the beginning and not just later). And every time I read this I thought it was obvious that their *writing* proved otherwise.
The joke might have worked better if I'd written "a Jew" instead of "the Jews".
END FURIOUS BACKPEDALLING
Oh Buckdiddy, you're such a racialist x
Speaking of that, did you decide whether Jessculture in Melbs this weekend is an occasion for a stacks-on nerdfest, or an invitation-only soiree?
I LOVE that Ms Fits is to decide what my presence in Melbourne will mean in a socialising sense. Because its actually quite spot on - I am absolutely doing what I am done told, y'all.
So basically, I will be stacks-on-nerding-it-up... if Ms Fits lets me. Or Mistress Fits *sound of cracking whip* as I am instructed to call her over the weekend.
Joseph, I am a jizzysock. I apologise. You were asking ME while referring to me in the third person... right? RIGHT? I'm so confused.
There are tentative plans for an open invite afternoon boozeup on the Sunday - details will be posted probably on the Saturday. Or something.
Ohmygod, this is just like that 90210 episode where they go to a rave but they have to buy an egg to get a cellphone number to discover the address, and Brandon's nutty girlfriend feeds him a pill to "bring them closer" and he's all high and stuff and the next morning he's all "whoa" and he breaks up with her because drugs are bad, okay?
Best episode ever. Other than the "Let Donna Graduate!" rally one.
Buck: Oh. I figured it was a joke. Not really sure why I didn't think of the ancient Babylonians.
Jess: Gotcha. Ask your 'trix to stage it at the 'Treat.
I'm way OT, but only because Katz is one of those blokes my girlfriend would up and leave me for in a second. Studious, aggressive disinterest is the genetically-wired response.
excellent work, as always. thanks for sharing.
Katz said, "And me. Hate me the most."
Happy to oblige, sir.
We have to put up with his rubbish in the Saturday TV guide. Blech. (Or is that BLECH!!! I'm so FUNNY! I used CAPITAL letters! Look how ZANY and UNGRAMMATICAL I am!)
Hurrah for Mr Katz, and Ms Fits. Thanks for stalking him for us, Fitsy.
(Just thought I'd come in at the end, and make a pointless comment as the post fades off the blog into archival obscurity.)
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