I always see a lot of politicians answering questionnaires or getting interviewed, and they never answer or get asked the questions I want. Most of those questions are about politics, or they kind of brush over them, like politicians. If I had the power to make them take questions seriously, I could use it for a lot of good, and probably would, but I could also indulge my lazy curiosity, and here are the questions I’d ask right now if I were doing the latter.
GENERIC QUESTIONNAIRE FOR POLITICIANS
Stuff I’d rather see than what they ask right now
What kind of cups do you like to drink out of? What’s like, the best cup you ever drank out of? Sometimes I see really good drinking cups and things that pour. I like metal cups. My friend Glo sent an email once about her family in which she described a jarro, a metal drinking cup, and it really stuck with me as an image and made me see more in cups and what they mean to people, so I’m trying to know about your cups. But like, maybe don’t answer it, because you’ll be self-conscious about it and destroy it. Just like, describe all the cups you have you can think of. Then go to your home and office and put all of them in a crate, and bring them out one by one and tell me about them. Then I’ll never ask this question again. Fuck cups. Fuck fetishizing objects. Just do this once and move on.
You gon die? You good with that? Me neither, but what can you do?
What are all the times you voted and the people you voted for?
Ever been broke? Ever been poor? I’ve been broke but not poor, and that’s part of why I’d never run for office, I don’t think we need more of me out there. I mean, also it’s an enormous fucking hassle, wouldn’t be fun, and I’d be a shitty candidate because I talk too much and don’t cover my ass, so it’s not like I’m actually giving things up here, but yeah, my politics are basically opposed to me being in certain parts of politics. But what about you though, seeing as you ran?
What are all the jobs you did and how much money did you get for them? How else did you get, or start out with, money?
What’s your religion? Do you legit believe in it or do you just think religion is important? Because either one’s cool, but I get if you don’t want to answer that. If you don’t have a religion are there any cool ones in your family or neighborhood that you’re into?
What’s one cool thing from the religion that has nothing to do with belief?
Okay, here’s what I really want to know, what all the people want to know. The sex question. So basically, for reasons we don’t fully understand, people like to rub and suck and lick and intertwine various parts of their bodies and it’s fucking great when it’s a person and act you’re into and fucking horrible otherwise, and I don’t think I really need to know your particulars with any of it, I just need to know, are you down with the idea that people should be able to go all in on whatever they are into in that regard and should entirely fuck off with trying to get people to do things they aren’t into, but, like, are you down, do you fuck, and I mean, if you don’t fuck, are you cool with people fucking, and if you do fuck are you cool with people not fucking and that being cool?
So Option A is basically say yes or no to whether you’re down with the basics around fucking or not fucking, whatever people’s choice may be.
Option B, which I greatly prefer but under no circumstances recommend for any politician, it would be an objectively and utterly stupid decision to voluntarily answer, is to tell me as many sex stories as you can from your life, with a lot of detail. Just as many as you can think of. But here’s the caveat: I decide what stories get out, and in what language. If you’re braggy or gross or trying to be too writery with it, it’s not gonna end up flying. Good or bad, I’m not going to shame you or anything, just drop it into casual conversation with the right people, and just like, people I trust to be like, “aw, interesting, humanizing,” or like “seems about right for that person” or “gross” or “hot” depending on who and the mood, mainly I think I just want good laughs on it. Anyway, yeah, I really want to know who’s fucking and what they’re into, much more than like, life milestone bio stuff. But like, I also want to control whether I want to know it. You gotta consent to write it, I gotta consent to read it. Some of you I’m not opening the file. But like, you should definitely do Option for your own good A but I 100% want everyone to do Option B because I can’t pass up that info.
Fuck Trump, right?
Okay, is it just me, or is the New Yorker kind of bad? I feel like it’s just designed to pass through you, like whatever topic it’s about, the whole thing is that we can write so beautifully and smoothly that nothing ever jars you, and that the main impression you get is the language of sophistication more than the weight of the reality, but I also know that feeling isn’t really fair, that it does sometimes contain a lot of meaning, but still, wait, is it actually good? It’s very hard for me to find people who don’t think it’s good, even the jokes about not wanting to read it seem to emphasize that we should want to, that it is good, that a virtuous person would read it but we don’t live up to it, but I think maybe it’s just not that good? I feel like more people would sympathize with me but everyone’s just gaslighting us. Just think about this: you know Borowitz is bad, right? This magazine employs Borowitz consistently. I hit a home run off of him once for The Onion in the NY media league - this is my biggest triumph and I will brag about it for ever. What if… much of the rest of the magazine is also the Borowitz of whatever type of writing that is? Where’s the fucking heart, where’s the guts, where’s the damn attack? What is that damn magazine so scared of? But then again, like, some stuff is really good. Anyway, if you’re bougie, do you agree with me about the texture of that magazine, do you know what it is I mean at least? If not, fuck it, this isn’t your problem.
Speaking of that magazine, how rich is too rich? Forgetting, for a second, the whole possibility of redistributing wealth through government, and whether or not that’s practical or destructive or whatever, what’s the ideal spread of money around people, and when is it crazy out of line?
Tricked you, asshole! My next question is, why not use government to try to make this shit better?
Life on Earth’s fucked to a big extent, and it will not be entirely unfucked. But the scale of the fuckage is still very much dependent on what we do, and it’s impossible to know precisely how bad. How the fuck are we gonna save all of us? Or is your plan basically to leave most people to die and suffer and try to save a few? You realize that wealth doesn’t really exist without the masses outside, right? You even think about that shit?
Sorry. This was supposed to be a puff piece interview.
Nah, not sorry about that. Anyway, I’m all scrambled up. You have more direction than I do? You have hope, clarity? You know I just talked to you because I needed a friend, needed to talk to someone, right? Can you be that? If not, how you gonna be in politics?
Ready to let someone else do this next time?
Smoke weeeeeeeeeed?
Really though.
Fuck.
Thanks for doing this horrible job, but don’t fuck it up or ghosts and shit will haunt you, or at least should.
end