I am going to reveal something that will surely make you think I am very super awesome.
Are you ready? Are you?
I have interviewed Lauren Conrad.
In person.
Admit it: you want to fuck me.
I hated every minute of it, but not for the obvious reason that she’s a no-talent poo-bag.
Okay, not entirely because of that.
No, I pretty much hate doing interviews in general because I am not a person who can think on my feet. I am very bad at articulating my thoughts on the spur of the moment. This is fine for writing, but when it comes to asking someone a question about something I just thought of, it usually comes out something like this:
“So, uh, you know how you did that thing… With the… um… dogs? Yeah, dogs. There were dogs. So how, um… I mean, doing stuff is hard… But with DOGS… It’s gotta be, um… harder to deal with… You know, when the dogs are doing their dog things. I mean, they’re doing the things while you’re trying to do things, but you can do your things when the dog is doing dog things. So, um, how did you do that?”
You think I’m exaggerating. I have actually edited the previous paragraph to make myself sound less like concussed mental patient.
Also, I am always very freaked out that I will not have enough questions to fill the time. I mean, sure, if every time I watched The Hills and I had some question, like, “Jason? Really? The guy who thinks a chinstrap is a good substitution for a jawline?” and I wrote that down in a special “IN CASE YOU INTERVIEW LAUREN CONRAD ONE DAY” notebook, then yes, I would have hours and hours of questions to ask her. But when the interview is set up and I have to spend some time simply coming up with questions, then I just stare at my empty notebook for what seems like hours. It’s the opposite of the “Don’t think of pink elephants” conundrum. “Think of some questions!” “Uh… I like unicorns.”
So I wasn’t really looking forward to my interview with Lauren Conrad anyway, but then combine that with the fact that I, you know, hate her and I knew she’d show up looking skinny and impeccably dressed and sober and basically everything that I am not. The only thing I thought I had over her is that I am taller than she is and I don’t have a fake tan that makes me look dirty.
Well, it turns out that Lauren is not only taller than I am, but she also likes wearing 6″ stilettos that thrust her so high I was worried she was going to keel over.
Also, her tan is not nearly offensive in person.
So, basically: fuck her.
And it shouldn’t really have come as a surprise, since I knew it already, but she really is the most media-prepped person in the world. Everything had a rehearsed response and was said with this calm, relaxed smile. It was like talking to HAL if HAL was a no-talent poo-bag in a cute skirt.
And again, I knew she would be like this, but I was still unprepared for how impossible it would be to get her to say anything interesting. She’d obviously be coached to keep her answers short, so anything she said the basic information needed to answer my question and nothing more.
Remember how I worry that I won’t have enough questions to fill the interview time? Yeah. LC didn’t really help. THIS WAS A TEN-MINUTE INTERVIEW.
Now, very luckily for me, I think my incompetent question-asking ability actually confused her a little bit, because she eventually slipped up and said something a little bit stupid. I mean, not monumentally stupid, but stupid enough that I was able to focus my article on it.
Because while I suck during interviews, I am completely, completely great at turning the shitty interview into a great article. That is not to say that I manipulate what they say or present their quotations in a way that changes the meaning of what they say. But once I type up the transcript of everything my interview subject has said, I’m like Little Man Tate all of a sudden. I’m seeing patterns, I’m seeing angles nobody’s ever thought of, and bam! Off to the races.
And, in case you were wondering, yes, this is one of the parts of my job that makes me happy. Or, at least, it counteracts how bad I feel about myself after spending fifteen minutes sputtering and stammering in front of a celebrity, so it evens out.
There’s even a brief feeling of triumph when my scathing article comes out – TAKE THAT, LAUREN, WITH YOUR STUPID PRETTY HAIR – but then I remember that she gets to shove that pain down deep inside and cover it in new shoes.
You’ve won this round, LC. But we’ll see who’s really laughing when I yell insults at my TV during the fourth season premiere of The Hills. Oh, yes. We’ll see.
Name Dropper 