I did my first interview yesterday – promoting Comedy Album. It was interesting. That’s a muscle I haven’t flexed in quite some time. All in all, I think it was fine? Did I hit all my marks? No. Was I at least in the general vicinity of those marks? For the most part, yes. But there are some things that will need tightening up, need to be improved upon.
Talking to the interviewer, Prairie Public Radio’s own Doug Hamilton, really had me thinking about what the book is about. And at the end of the day – and the start, and the middle – it’s a book about not fitting in. A book about wanting to connect with other people but being mostly in the dark as far as how to go about doing that.
In this collection, there are a lot of pieces about being different, not belonging. There’s also a lot of numbers about parties and trying to find ways to appear confident at such gatherings when you’re NOT confident; ways to appear suave when you’re (I’m) not the least bit suave. It’s a book about boundaries: how we build walls (or fences) ourselves and are forever trying to figure out a way get through the walls or fences others have built. If you ask me, that’s what Comedy Album is about. That’s at least a fair part of it.
Dan Hendrickson - Writer 