I recently posted the results of my interview of blogger Arjewtino which was part of Neil Kramer’s Great Interview Experiment. I was waiting to be interviewed myself and recently received some very interesting questions from a blogger named Theresa Bakker who writes a delightful blog called My Fairbanks Life. Theresa is a freelance writer, graduate student, stay-at-home mom, and former on-air Alaska Public Radio reporter. She tries to write in her blog every day which boggles my mind, especially since all her posts are meaty and beautifully written, not dashed-off accounts of what she made for dinner. Theresa’s blog goes way beyond life in Alaska, but I have to say that her photos and thoughts about living in the 49th state have made me want to suppress my pathological fear of winter weather and hightail it up north for a visit.
I enjoyed answering her questions and wish I could turn the tables. I’ve got so many questions of my own, beginning with her name—any relation to Jim and Tammy Faye, Theresa? But enough about me and my questions, let’s get back to ME and MY questions. And what about MY name?
Theresa: First off, do people ever confuse you with the Danny Miller who co-produces Fresh Air? Do you listen to Fresh Air?
Danny: I worship Terry Gross and Fresh Air, and yes, people constantly ask me if I’m that Danny Miller. I think that would be a very fun job, but alas, I’m merely a devoted listener (even though one of my family members was a guest on the show several years ago). It’s a drag having such a common name. There were three Danny Millers in my class in college and I’d often get the wrong grades. At least now when you Google “Danny Miller,” my blog is the first thing that comes up. It used to be the blog of a terrible poet and I was always worried people would think it was me. The next site that comes up these days is a New York-based artist named Danny Miller whose work is very erotic. Oy.
Theresa: I know you grew up in Chicago, the home of big franks, This American Life, Wilco and Chris Ware. It’s like a creative jungle there. Why would you ever leave?
Danny: I hear you, I still think Chicago is one of the greatest cities in the world, hot dogs included (no real Chicagoan would call them franks!). I moved to L.A. in 1986 for a job on a daily children’s TV show called “The Bear Witness News.” The show never made it to the air and the company I was working for went bankrupt six months after I arrived. Gulp. But some little voice in my head told me to stay here even though I had no friends, was broke, and never had the slightest desire to live in Los Angeles. I’m glad I did but I do miss Chicago and still consider myself a Chicagoan at heart. My family is still there so I visit often but to be honest, I do NOT miss the winters one little bit—the other day the wind chill was 20 degrees below zero in Chicago while it was over 80 degrees here. And I’m still mad at the city for tearing down the fantastic Granada Theatre on Sheridan Road and for changing Marshall Field’s to Macy’s. But they have L.A. beat in SO many ways including superb restaurants, museums (nothing beats the Museum of Science & Industry), innovative theatre (Steppenwolf was always my favorite), and the fantastic Chicago Park System. Oh, and I think This American Life is the best show on radio, bar none. (I admit I had to look up Chris Ware—he didn't move to Chicago until I was long gone—but I like his work!)
Theresa: You recently lost too many files in a computer crash. Work files. Ancestry research. What have you learned from this experience, besides how to back up your hard drive. Are we too dependent on easy access to information?
Danny: Oy, you’re reminding me that for all my hysteria last fall I still haven’t become the back-up fanatic that I intended to be. Finding out that none of my files could be recovered was horrifying but also sort of liberating. Some people responded as if I had undergone an actual tragedy which made me realize how meaningless it all was in the end. So I lost a bunch of files and had to redo a lot of work, big whoop, it was hardly a true life emergency like a family member’s illness or death. I do worry that we’ve grown too dependent on technology and modern conveniences. I’ve noticed that when we can’t immediately reach people on their cell phones these days we tend to go nuts, as if the entire planet must be at our beck and call at all times. Remember not so long ago when we had to leave messages on people’s home answering machines and wait for them to call us back? Or before that, when we just had to try again later or write a letter?
Theresa: Writing about the experience led you into a revelry about your sister and brother-in-law, who dressed up as Amish people for Halloween, but were wary of being seen as making fun of them. Then you started making fun of Amish people yourself. I grew up near Lancaster, PA which is in Amish country. My sister wanted to be Amish. (I think she still does.) Wait a minute, my son’s watching “Arthur” right now and Buster is touring an Amish farm and making friends with an Amish kid. What’s up with the Amish-a-thon? Have you ever been stuck behind a horse and buggy on an Interstate?
Danny: Yes, I have, and I admit that it irritated me to no end. I always have very non-PC thoughts like “Oh, stop it already, and get a damn car!” But as I’ve written about several times, I am strangely drawn to closed-knit orthodox communities like the Amish or Chasidic Jews who cling to their old-world ways. It seems very attractive to me (clearly defined roles, less decisions to make on a daily basis) even though I know I’d quickly rebel against their strict rule structure. I’ve been fascinated by the Amish since I saw “Witness” in 1985 and had the hots for Kelly McGillis (whatever happened to her)? Of course I should never make fun of Amish people on my blog but at least they’ll never see it since they can’t use computers!
I think it’s cool that “Arthur” had Amish people on one of its episodes. Isn’t that the same show that got into trouble a few years ago when Arthur’s rabbit friend Buster Baxter met two kids in Vermont who had lesbian parents? I remember how our idiot Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings demanded that PBS return any federal funds that were used for the production of that episode even though there was no sexual content in it at all, just some real kids who had two moms. You go, Arthur!
Theresa: Did you catch the firestorm on writer Catherine Newman’s blog when she referred to herself as a finalist in the World's biggest Jew contest? She titled her response “Jew eat yet?” Is that like an inside joke? I've never heard that reference other than on your blog.
Danny: Theresa, don’t tell me you’ve never seen “Annie Hall!” What are they doing to you people up there in Alaska? Rent it immediately if you haven’t had the pleasure, you are in for a treat (a much bigger one than watching Woody Allen’s latest film which explores his new obsession with people getting away with murder). “Jew eat yet?” comes from that wonderful Oscar-winning film. I love the line even though I’m still slightly embarrassed whenever anyone asks me the title of my blog.
I did check out the Catherine Newman “controversy” and thought those people who complained about her use of “oy” were truly insane. I will say that word whenever I feel like (I don’t think I’ve written a single post without it) and I will call myself the “world’s biggest Jew” whenever I please. Can the people who get upset about such stuff start channeling their outrage to issues that would actually benefit from a groundswell of anger? Oy, oy, oy.
Theresa: You’ve been published on Salon, one of the innovators of online content. What’s your history with the web-based magazine and are you a premium member?
Danny: I was involved with Salon very early on in what now seems like the Paleozoic Era of the World Wide Web. There was an editor there who liked my work but she left in the late 90s to work on her own book and I’ve forgotten her name (can you see how great my “networking” skills are)? I admit I haven’t logged onto Salon in years—I think I lost interest the minute they started charging for the privilege. But I just took a look and was able to read several interesting articles without coughing up a cent so maybe they changed their policy. I will bookmark the site and try to catch up.
Theresa: And then there’s the Huffington Post. I haven’t hung out there much. What kind of community is that?
Danny: I like Arianna Huffington and the editors at the Huffington Post but I haven’t posted there in a while. To be honest, I find my own blog community much less scary than the often rabid Huffington Post readers. I’ve generally had a good experience on that site but one post I wrote about circumcision generated so many hideous attacks on me (including a range of blatant anti-Semitic tirades) that I ended up deleting the whole thing from the site. It’s not that I can’t handle criticism, that’s fine, but I started getting vicious private emails including one that threatened my daughter. Yuck. There are great writers at Huffington, and most readers are respectful, but it also seems to attract a very vocal lunatic fringe that should seriously be institutionalized. It’s obviously a liberal-leaning site but the crazies are from both sides and believe me, the extreme lefties can be even worse than the right-wing Republicans. Overall, I think it’s a great place for information and dialogue, but it will be a cold day in hell before I write about circumcision again, I don’t need the tsuris.
Theresa: You’ve written extensively about the challenges and the triumphs of being a single dad (you’re married now) and having a mother whose “desserts rivaled science projects,” among other creative criticisms. You’ve also written about some of the reactions you get from your family after you write these things. What’s your routine when it comes to writing about family? Do you have anybody else look at these pieces or do you just trust your gut?
Danny: I normally just trust my gut but it’s tricky. I had a bad experience last year when I posted excerpts of some correspondence from the 1960s between one of my family members and my deceased grandfather. There was some emotionally charged stuff in the letters but I chose to view them as sociological artifacts from another time and I did not ask that person’s permission even though I was urged to do so by another family member who knew what I was writing. Several of my relatives were very upset by this violation of privacy and I see now that I was dead wrong, I would never do it again. Having a brother-in-law who is well known in some circles also makes me a little cautious. My sister just told me that when you do a Google image search of her husband these days, the third photo that comes up is a photo she took of him in their kitchen wearing an impromptu Play-Doh Hitler moustache. I posted that last year as a statement about the criticism I thought Wilco was unfairly getting for allowing their songs to be used in a few Volkswagen commercials but now underneath this out-of-context image on Google is my sarcastic line, “Jeff Tweedy IS a Nazi!” Yikes. I have no doubt that this photo floating around the Internet will come back to bite him in the butt at some point—maybe when he’s being vetted by the Secret Service after being invited to perform at Barack Obama’s inauguration. Sorry for ruining your chance to play at the White House, Jeff!
Theresa: Why is writing about our own families so compelling? Do you think we’re trying to learn something about ourselves or just tap into a familiar framework? You know, something like, “Family, Um. What is it good for? At least everyone’s got one.”
Danny: One of the most frequently repeated quotations about family that you’ll find on the Internet is from my wife Kendall Hailey’s book, “The Day I Became an Autodidact.” She said, “The great gift of family life is to be intimately acquainted with people you might never even introduce yourself to, had life not done it for you.” Boy, is that true, and yet the lessons we can learn from our family members and from reviewing the agonies and ecstasies of childhood are endless. No matter what I start writing about, I usually end up talking about my family, and I seem to frequently return to the period in the early 1970s when my family was imploding under the weight of my parents’ ugly divorce. Do you think I have some unresolved issues there?
Theresa: The Internet is a big, bad place. You’ve blogged about some of the land mines, including people taking information about your famous brother-in-law from your blog. What are your ten commandments of Internet etiquette?
Danny: Interesting question. I’ve never really minded when people take stuff from my blog (including images since I steal so many myself) but I’ve been surprised to see my blog used as an actual source in two newspaper articles. In both cases, the reporters never contacted me and frankly, they should have—I freely admit that my version of events may take detours from journalistic “truth” if such a thing exists. No, the only thing that bothers me is the anonymous ugliness that can so quickly erupt on the Internet. Here are five commandments (I’m worried that I’m already going on way too long and breaking most people’s commandments about the desired length of blog posts!):
1. Thou shalt not shit on someone else’s living room floor. Disagree with a blogger all you want, rant and rave, but do so with a modicum of dignity of respect and don’t do it anonymously. Don’t write things that you wouldn’t have the balls to say that person face-to-face.2. If you break this commandment, thou shalt not evoke the First Amendment when your offensive bullshit is deleted. Trust me, a blogger’s decision whether to keep your ravings on his or her site has nothing whatsoever to do with free speech issues. Don’t believe me? Call the ACLU!
3. Honor thy neighbor’s blog and do not post spam disguised as real comments. I’ve been getting lots of these lately. “That was such an interesting post, you are a great writer and I love reading your blog. Hey, by the way, I just found this really cool website where you can get Viagra at wholesale prices. Here’s the URL…” DELETE! For that matter, don’t ever send people chain letters or appeals for dying or lost children (they are ALL bogus) or ways to make money fast. Are there really people stupid enough to think that they will get a reward from the Nigerian Royal Family for helping them out? Then why am I still getting these emails?
4. Thou shalt not whine about not getting enough comments. Eek, forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.
5. Thou shalt engage in fruitful conversations. If you are touched in some way by a blog post or think you have something to contribute to the conversation, by all means, post a comment! And I say this not because of my own pathetic neuroses about getting comments but because to me that’s one of the most exciting elements of the blogosphere. It’s the people who write comments on a blog who create the wonderful online communities we all love (despite the occasional psychos who muck things up). I read some blogs more for the comments than the posts! I’ve never understood bloggers who don’t allow comments on their sites—that strikes me as arrogant and superior. On the other hand, people who leave a comment should do so because they are so moved, not merely to get someone to read their own blog.
Theresa: One last question, you’re an Oscar fanatic. You’re going with Daniel Day-Lewis and director Paul Thomas Anderson for “There Will Be Blood.” I just saw the flick, but I didn’t understand why Lewis’ character was so angry. Or does that even matter?
Danny: I have such a love-hate relationship with awards shows and the Oscars is no exception. You’re right that I’m a fanatic but my predictions are often a confusing blend of what I think deserves to win versus what I think the stodgy Academy voters will choose. That said, I did like “There Will Be Blood” but I’d be hard-pressed to articulate the motivations for Daniel Day-Lewis’ character. I just know that it was the kind of acting tour-de-force that the Academy loves. I was also drawn to this film because of my passionate interest in L.A. history. Lewis’ Daniel Plainview was loosely based on the life of famous southern California oil man Edward Doheny. Parts of the films, including the horrifying ending, were shot at Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills, a house that was built by Doheny for his son.
Whenever I feel I’m starting to take the Oscars too seriously, I think of some of the people we know who are Academy voters. They are just regular schmoes, like you and me, and most have no greater insights than we do about what is a worthy performance or an important piece of filmmaking. I’ll definitely be watching on February 24th, screaming at my set when I disagree, meting out judgment about how presenters perform or about the sincerity of the winners’ speeches, and making snarky comments about how people are dressed or why they were even invited to the festivities. I do believe that these awards send the wrong competitive message about art, I hate that we set up these false constructs where we think it’s legitimate to compare apples and oranges, and yet I am a sucker for the drama, history, and glitz of such events, as was clear in my fawning experience at the Grammys last weekend. I guess the best I can do is acknowledge that we all know these awards shows are a crock of shit, but accept that they’re also fun and exciting so let’s enjoy them anyway.
Thanks for the great questions, Theresa. Sorry I went on so long—if this had been my Oscar acceptance speech, the orchestra would have started playing during my first answer. I look forward to keeping up with your great blog!
You're making me wish I'd participated in Neil's interview lovefest. Ah, well. I'll satisfy myself by reading yours, knowing I wouldn't have come up with something half as good.
Oh, and for the record...you did know I moved to L.A. in '92 to write for an ABC kids' show, Rhythm & Jam, which never aired after the pilot?
Yeah. Uh-huh...
Posted by: communicatrix | February 16, 2008 at 11:51 AM
Wow Danny, this is SUCH a great interview. It could be published in any excellent arts magazine. You both did a fabulous job!
Posted by: margalit | February 16, 2008 at 02:01 PM
And my first job here was for a dumb disney cartoon! We all got suckered into moving here for nothing!
Great interview. And after meeting Theresa, I want to visit Alaska too (and we'll bring a copy of annie hall for her).
Posted by: Neil | February 17, 2008 at 01:01 PM
I also enjoyed the interview. Great questions and answers.
This is a minor point, but I just want to clarify something: The show in which Buster Baxter meets other kids is called "Postcards from Buster," which is a spinoff of "Arthur." There's one episode in which Buster hangs out with some Jewish kids in NYC, one of whom is the daughter of a friend of ours. There's even footage of her Bat Mitzvah.
Posted by: Julie R. | February 17, 2008 at 08:46 PM
Nice interview. I love the questions and the answers.
Posted by: churlita | February 18, 2008 at 01:37 PM
That was fun, reading about you. You would have not loved living in Chicago this winter. Now we're in the where is the ice, and am I going to break my neck today stage. Lovely.
Posted by: therapydoc | February 18, 2008 at 03:28 PM
Wow! I learned so much about you from this interview. So, when are you coming to visit so I can give you my own interview questions? Your brother-in-law, I see, is going to be in Philly this weekend. Wish I'd been paying attention and had known about that before it was sold out!
Posted by: Emily Barton | February 18, 2008 at 03:45 PM
Hi Danny,
i loved this interview, you always hit my interests right on with inspiration for my own writings too while reminding me that I'd better get to the movies soon. Thanks.
Posted by: Judy | February 18, 2008 at 07:33 PM
You, my friend, are one fascinating interview. Thanks for being so thorough and schooling me in the wisdom of Annie Hall. You're right, I don't think I got past Sleeper.
Posted by: Theresa B. | February 20, 2008 at 06:33 AM
Great interview! I always think of you when I am listening to Fresh Air, and have wondered if it's you!
Posted by: Shannon V | February 20, 2008 at 06:53 PM
This was a great read! Thanks to you and Theresa!
Posted by: Elisabeth | February 21, 2008 at 05:50 AM
Theresa is a terrific interviewer. I know this from first-hand experience. Your answers were very thorough and interesting. Forgive me for commenting six days late. I got here as soon as I heard.
Posted by: fringes | February 22, 2008 at 11:33 AM
great interview here and there... w the argentinian jew, who, sadly has not yet discovered the beauty in the religion he was born into. i am NOT a preacher, pusher, or flag-waving solipsist. just a person who is sorry that someone (he) is old enough chronologically to have moved by now beyond the short version on his tribe that he says he got as a kid. hugs and felafel from your ranting pal and fan, me (in my tel aviv phase of residence;-)
Posted by: tamar | February 24, 2008 at 11:11 PM