Blog
Rock On is the second book by Dan Kennedy, the New York humorist who you may already know from his writing on McSweeney's Internet Tendency. In a series of exquisitely self-deprecating anecdotes, it details his abortive career as an executive at a major record label, which he joined just as the music industry was beginning its own irreversible tailspin.
Dazed Digital: Did you actually achieve anything you were proud of during your time at the record company?
Dan Kennedy: I gave it all my best shot. It sounds like a rehab slogan or a therapy mantra or something, but really trying counts for something. I was open to it working out, I went into it with an open mind and a fair heart. Jesus, I sound like a Stevie Nicks song. It's pretty late in New York and I've had a good gig here tonight so I'm a little wistful, I guess. But, yeah, go into something that feels uncertain or different from what you're used to doing, and actually give it an honest effort in hopes of the best, I think that's something.
DD: Is it possible that your memoir is fake and during the time you claim to have been working at a record company, you were in fact a mixed-race LA gang member/Belgian Holocaust survivor? If so, now is the time to say.
DK: You've got it half right. I am, in fact, a heroin-addled half-Native American foster-child truck stop hanger-on with a prostitute named Sarah for a mother. A prostitute mom who was raised by wolves. Yes, they were holocaust wolves -- but the point is, I did 87 days in the slammer in St. Joseph Township, Michigan after I smoked some rock and started ramming my car into the pigs, later deciding to tear open a fresh can of whoop-ass on a few pussy-boy cops. Sadly, however, I found it necessary to come up with "Dan Kennedy" and his outlandish tales of being a middle manager in an office building. What can I say? I wanted to sell some books.
DD: What is the best way to survive a job in the "creative industries" that turns out to have few if any creative aspects?
DK: It is 4:10 AM on a Tuesday. I am a 40-year-old man sitting on a couch. I've just eaten an entire bag of chocolate-covered pretzels while watching two Eddie Izzard DVDs. I am now listening to Nine Inch Nails and wondering whether or not I can get by with skipping a shower before going to bed. I have no job or career advice, my friend.
DD: Have you crossed paths with anyone from the book since you left the company?
DK: I have received a piece of email from Vallerie that was everything I had ever hoped for with regard to what she felt about the book. A few awesome phone calls. Everything has been pretty kind and positive. Having said that, if I turn up dead at any point in the near future, it was the work of a shady record business figure who didn't find the book amusing or funny.
DD: There are constant little jokes throughout the book - do you spend a lot of time agonising over what is the funniest possible word to use in a particular line?
DK: No. I'm not one of those humorists who sit around debating what word is funny or what phrasing somehow punches up a joke or scene. I basically just stick to the three golden rules:
1. Vagrant men: funny. Funnier when they fist-fight each other drunkenly. Funnier still when you find them spooning like an old married couple fifteen minutes later.
2. Fat people: Hilarious. Fat black people? Twice as funny; total double-whammy. I'm kidding! Make fatso a black and its pretty racist. Not funny at all, really.
3. Any time you stick a melancholy middle-aged male character in a nice hotel and you have him battling depression and struggling with temptation while questioning monogamy, you've got gold.
DD: Can you tell us anything about your forthcoming HBO pilot?
DK: Only that when I was twenty years old, I made a deal with myself that I would try to break into television and film. I told myself I would make something incredible at some point - something just above and beyond the call; better than it ever needed to be. Anyway, I gave myself 28 years to get a break - the deal was that if nothing happened after giving it my all for 28 years, I would get a regular job and settle into adulthood, knowing that at least I tried. As luck would have it, it is only 20 years later and things are really starting to happen. I'm excited and grateful, but it's all happening so fast.
Rock On is published next week by Harvill Secker.
