Author Mr.J Interview
RED RIVER RADIO (RRR) – Guest Author Interview Featuring:
Brandon Craig “Diddy” Jones (MR.J)
Listeners, in a moment we will welcome Comedy Writer Mr.J to the show.
The author has included these purposely and you can browse through the book to find them as you read.
In a few seconds, we will interview him and perhaps we will find the mystery of why he has written with the dreaded Grammatical and spelling errors.
The book is called: Amphigory Almanac of Hebetudinous Humor, Linguistic Levity, & Pedantic Prose.
Brandon C. Jones, the real name of this author, did have a reason for leaving in the errors.
We hope to be able to find out that reason in the interview. With his background in standup comedy this should be a fun show! And now it’s time to welcome Comedy Writer Mr.J. Brandon, will you introduce yourself, please?
MR.J:
Ummm, yes…Hey, Barbara, Freda, and Franny. Thanks for having me on…
RRR:
—You’re welcome…
MR.J:
…Uhhh-errr-umm, my name is Brandon Jones or Mr.J Comedy Writer.
I just wrote, “AMPHIGORY ALMANAC”, which is my first book.
And it’s a pleasure to be on as a guest.
RRR:
Well Nice to have you on. Now how should I address you?
Should I address you as Brandon or should I address you as Comedy Writer Mr.J?
MR.J:
Ummm-Brandon.
RRR:
Okay Brandon, the first question I have for you is how did you choose your name?
Is it legally changed to Mr.J or just a pen name?
MR.J:
Uh, no. It’s a pen name.
And the thing was, I didn’t think my book was gonna do well—
RRR:
(Laughs)
MR.J:
…And I figured I’d have a pseudonym to collect the hate mail and real name to collect all the residuals.
RRR:
(Laughs)
MR.J:
It’s actually an acronym. M-R-J=Mostly Ridiculous Jokes!
RRR:
(Laughs)
Oh, okay, haha!
MR.J:
It’s three letters, two syllables, one name!
You guys are a great crowd by the way, great laughter!
RRR:
(Laughs)
Thank you, haha, thank you.
Okay (catches breath from laughing), I notice before you wrote your book that you were a standup comic.
I can see why (laughs).
What did you talk about in your stand up?
MR.J:
I extrapolated scholastics, academics, and erudition.
For example I would often open by saying…
“I graduated 2th grade as class president, valedictorian, and promking…I really miss homeschool!”
RRR:
(Bursts into Laughter)
MR.J:
…Snow days were never canceled, had to go to my neighbor’s to skip school, and every time I look in the mirror-it’s a class reunion!
RRR:
(Laughs, catches breath)
And where would you perform?
MR.J:
Well, usually I would make girls laugh…then put my clothes back on!
RRR:
(Laughs)
MR.J:
…I actually started stand-up comedy at NYC HA! Comedy Club when I was 17.
RRR:
I actually saw Steve Martin in New York, what was that thing he used to say?
MR.J:
I’m a wiiiiiiiiiild and crazzzzzzzzy guy!!!
RRR:
(Laughs)
So, what made you decide to wanna write a book?
You’re kinda young to write a book, what made you want to?
MR.J
Well I always wanted make a paper weight made of more paper!
RRR:
(Laughs)
MR.J:
I felt that in GTMO that water boarding wasn’t cruel enough so I wanted to create something more tortuous!
RRR:
(Laughs)
MR.J:
The truth is, I was allergic to Ambien and wanted something that would put me to sleep just as fast and give me paper cuts!
RRR:
(Laughs)
Okay, when you graduated college did you have plans to write comedy or was it something that you started afterwards?
MR.J:
No, well, ummm it wasn’t my original plan.
Incidentally, you should know this about me first.
In college, I majored in English because I always wanted to be…homeless!
RRR:
(Laughs)
Too bad, we had a lot of listeners.
They all disappeared (laughs).
This is hysterical.
Go ahead (laughs).
MR.J:
(Laughs)
And, and, ummm-I went to college to escape comedy.
I started comedy when I was 17.
And decided it was a blind alley.
Then I chose to explore the avenue of being pompous, pretentious, and pedantic.
But tragically, it seemed to act as the midwife to the birth of going full circle.
Like Woody Allen asserted, “One day you wake up.
And you realize that you like to tell jokes and write jokes, so much that you do it all the time.
And if you’re embraced by the public, that’s just pure luck!”
RRR:
Well that’s great, wonderful.
Do you have a routine or set writing regiment?
MR.J:
Um, yes.
I’m pretty diligent and rigorous.
I usually start of writing a copious amount of jokes in the morning…
Which is usually just my resume!
RRR:
(Laughs)
MR.J:
(Coughs, clears throat)
…But no umm-all joking aside, I write about 1,000 words a day for a novel I’m doing.
It’s green lit by Rainy Day Umbrella Press, INC.
And it seems to be the anti-thesis, the polar opposite, a veracious clashing of dichotomies when it’s juxtaposed to the styles and motifs exasperated in AMPHIGORY ALMANAC.
Also other projects for collaboration intermittently and sporadically pop up.
And I’m tinkering with a second edition of AMPHIGORY ALMANAC.
But I always do the thousand quota for the novel, always.
RRR:
That’s good, very good.
Would you please lead our listeners through a typical day of writing for you?
MR.J:
I’m not sure if I can extrapolate the process in concrete terms.
It’s sort of like dissecting the atom.
You can only break it down so far before it becomes intangible and ineffable.
That’s what I find incandescently romantic and exuberantly cathartic about the process.
RRR:
So you just stare at the blank screen till it’s no longer blank?
MR.J:
Essentially, umm-ugh-errr-well…yeah, essentially (chuckles).
Parenthetically, I do have different exercises I do such as making word lists, free writing, note cards, story boards, character development charts, extemporaneous rewrites, etc.
Sometimes I’ll target my focus on a micro scale such as improving my vernacular.
I’ll collect esoteric, obscure, polysyllabic adjectives to brilliantly infest lyrical prose.
RRR:
Wow, okay.
With such an unusual book, was it difficult to get it published?
MR.J:
Ummm…This one, not really.
It’s funny how this one worked out.
And I’m perpetually taken aback and surprised by how well it’s been received critically and commercially.
Essentially it’s a crude amalgamation of everything I couldn’t get published and knew never would be published.
After I got the green-light from Rainy Day publishers, I started getting stressed out.
I started folding under pressure like Origami.
I found it really stifled, truncated, and impeded my creativity.
So as a lightning rod buffing the shock of the situation, I self-published a separate book than the one that was green lit.
So I thought, “Why not?
If I break even, great.
If not, no big deal.
It’s such a small investment.”
And as luck has it, I think it’s gotten better reception than my other books will ever receive.
RRR:
So to clarify, you were accepted by a publisher?
MR.J:
Yes.
RRR:
But you didn’t like the way the editor was treating you?
MR.J:
Whoa, pump the breaks kiddo.
I don’t want to come off with a slanderous or nihilistic connotation.
I was just green.
I was inexperienced.
I was a fledgling newbie that was having consternation of being apoplectic after getting what I adventitiously wished for as a writer, y’know?
It’s like what happens when you’re dream comes true but it’s more like a nightmare and now you have insomnia and no more dreams to chase?
It’s disconcerting to the fragile delicacies of idealism.
RRR:
Okay, you published your own book.
And you say now it’s turning a profit?
MR.J:
Yes, I broke even last month.
And it’s fluctuated at high pinnacles on Amazon’s Bestseller Rank, often plummeting to a new low swiftly after peaking at a new plateau of success.
RRR:
How did you get the idea for your book?
MR.J:
Hmmm?
I guess I don’t know.
I had a myriad, a multitude of maladroit material.
None circumscribed to a particular motif or theme or linear or lucid continuity in its framework and structure.
It was really entropic, even chaotic in the shuffling word choice, tone, technique, voice, etc.
And so I figured, “Maybe if I just amalgamate it all together, I’ll be lucky enough for some kind of feeling of lucidity and continuity to manifest.
Of course, it didn’t.
It was just amphigoric and tergiversation.
Subsequently, all I see is mistakes now.
I know I left typos in there intentionally.
But some mistakes are amateurish laziness as opposed to artistic liberties.
The lackadaisical hebetudinous protruding from the pages are cringe-worthy and the reason I can’t read my own book.
And still haven’t read it all yet.
But I figured I wrote it, reading it too is a lot to ask for (giggles).
RRR:
(Laughs)
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/rrradio
(cick link for audio podcast version of interview)
