Some You Can Make Him Like You interview action courtesy of the Spilker, Codex and Impose.

Big appreciations to TBWCYL, Inc. favorite and long-time supporter Josh Spilker of Deckfight fame and the Codex blog at Impose magazine for interviewing TBWCYL, Inc. spokesperson Ben Tanzer about You Can Make Him Like You, podcasting, Chicago and trying not to be a dick.

Do you read your stuff out a lot? have you ever heard a reading from somebody that you didn't really like as a writer but they blew you away at a reading?

Over the last couple of years I have both pursued and been asked to read on an increased basis and I find it really fun, especially since I began to look at it as entertainment or performance, something less scripted and less focused on capturing exactly what's on the page. And to answer the second part of that question, I think I an more likely to see writers I like on the page who don't do much with their readings, versus what you have suggested, but as I am not going any farther with that, the answer that came to me as I read this, is how often I see a writer I don't know much about at the time, and then I see them read, and I think oh fuck, get that book, or read that book of theirs that's already sitting on the shelf, try to meet them, don't be a freak, and in that category I would cite Elizabeth Crane, Spencer Dew, Don DeGrazia, Barry Graham and Scott Haim among others, some of them I planned to see, others were just somewhere I was, all five of whom floored me in different ways and made me want to read their stuff in a much bigger and more immediate way.

Codex Quick Questions Kazam Kismet Absurdity Beards and Bosworth.

Codex and Boworth unite. Feel the love.

After The Cats Razzed The Chickens I expected more absurd. Or was that notion absurd? I like the part where David pops his eye out.--Or did you purposefully play down the absurd?

Absurd comes and goes. It has a mind of it's own, at least in my mind. And your notion isn't absurd. But there's a good amount of absurd in Grease Stains, no? Did I play down the absurdity? Was Razzed really more absurd than Grease? Hm. To be totally honest, Josh, and I hope I don't sound like a turd saying this, Grease Stains pretty much wrote itself. I was just the tool. I am a ginormous tool. I really got out of my own way on this one. Words flew out of my hands and they stayed where they landed. Is there absurdness? Absurdity? Is it played down? It's there, doing its thing in its own way. In the end, I suppose the words and the absurdness, played down or otherwise, were simply trying to get as close to the characters as they could. Because it's all about them. And their sometimes absurdness and the absurdity around them. Absurd.

Impose Codex Deckfight 99 Problems Quick Questions interview madness.

Old friend, TBWCYL, Inc. favorite and fearless leader of the Deckfight empire Josh Spilker was kind of enough to talk 99 Problems with TBWCYL, Inc. spokesperson Ben Tanzer and we are most grateful. We are also providing you with an excerpt because we are good like that.

This is the first non-fiction thing i've read by you (I think). do you see some stylistic differences in your non-fiction vs. your fiction?

"This may be the first non-fiction piece you’ve read, unless you ran into some of my early obscure stuff, which if you haven’t, it’s cool and doesn’t hurt my feelings, because you are otherwise very supportive, okay, actually, maybe it hurts my feelings a little. But I digress. Stylistically I think the key difference is that the fictional characters I’m interested in are struggling with obtaining greater self-awareness and spend a lot of time trying to get there, but also spend a lot of time trying to avoid getting there, projecting everything they are struggling with outward and away from them, whether this is through dialogue, drugs or sex, in essence, lots of interaction with a variety of things that allow for less thinking. The non-fiction work is different though, full of compulsions for sure, but while my wife would be happy to let you know how not self-aware I am, and if she’s reading this, you’re right baby, these essays are all about my trying to be more self-aware, more internal and thoughtful, and are based in part on the idea that where I once may once have been consciously, and unconsciously, like the characters I write about, more recently I have tried to not push everything away, and see running as a tool for insight, and not just escape."