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By
Wil Forbis
When I lived in Seattle, as I did up until last year, I used to routinely
see Mike Daisey and his sketch comedy group, "Up
In Your Grill", perform live, late night comedy that far exceeded Saturday
Night Live in comic boldness and laughs per minute. But it wasn't until
I left town that his career really took off. (Proving, once again, the "Wil
Forbis is a black hole for the career potential of anyone near him" theory.)
UIYG members started performing on the Seattle television show "The John
Report With Bob" and Mike created his one man play, "21 Dog Years: Doing
TIme @ Amazon.com", a lampoon of Internet culture based upon his career
at Amazon.com. To date, the play and its associated web site, www.mikedaisey.com
have had tremendous success, receiving press accolades from a variety of
sources such as NPR and Newsweek. "21 Dogs Years'" supporting mini film,
"Rear Entry", has been downloaded gazillions of times off his web site and
Mike has recently finished negotiations to write a book version of the play
for Simon and Shuster, due in 2002. As such, I realized if there would ever
be a chance to interview Mike, now would be the time... |
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| Wil:
Hey, I ordered a copy of "Lesbian Sex Secrets For Men" from Amazon
two years ago. What the fuck happened to it? |
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Mike
Daisey:
I intercepted it and have been reading it every evening. Pretty
damn fine writing in that book.
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| Wil:
Do you think, as you say in "21 Dog Years", that "nothing you do after
Amazon will interest Jeff Bezos." I imagine he's had some partial
interest in your play. You haven't had to dodge any falling pianos
have you? |
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Mike
Daisey:
No pianos, although I've been told by people who work closely with
him that senior management talk about the show all the time. To
me they are conspicuously silent.
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| Wil:
Despite what some may view as a neo-luddite attitude on your part
Mike, I would argue you're definitely taking advantage of technology.
For example, because of that fact that you offer a downloadable version
of your entire show on the web, I was able to sit back with a rather
crusty turkey sandwich in one hand, 211 Steel Reserve malt liquor
in the other and watch your show, hundreds of miles from where it
was originally performed. (And let me tell you, it was a totally different
experience from the many times I ate a Turkey Sandwich and drank a
Steel reserve while watching you live.)
However, do you thinking watching a postage stamp sized performance
on a computer will ever compete with the real thing?
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| Mike
Daisey:
I have to strenuously object to even the perception of me having a
neo-luddite attitude about anything. The show is free on the web because
I think that be making the story free to everyone it raises the stakes
in our cultural discussion about what is going on with the tech sector.
Nowhere do I even imply that going backward is an answer--it's not
even possible.
I think that
live theater always has the potential to be more moving than film
because of its transitory intimacy, but the answer for webcasts
is more technology--when the image isn't postage sized we'll have
better chances to compete as a mature medium.
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| Wil:
As an experienced Internet pioneer with a keen business sense, what's
your take? Are we going to have an Amazon in ten years? Or will they
be a subsidiary of Wal-Mart? |
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Mike
Daisey:
I'm not a pundit, and I'm working hard to stay away from the prediction
business. I don't think anyone knows, except that Wal-Mart has made
it clear that they'd rather buy off pieces of Amazon after it folds,
so a merger seems unlikely.
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| Wil:
Working at Amazon was almost a rite of passage towards Seattle living.
I temped at Amazon for about 3 months packaging books as did about
80 percent of the people I knew. What was Amazon's love affair with
temp workers? Was it just a way to avoid paying health benefits? |
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Mike
Daisey:
Bingo. No health benefits, easy to hire and fire, handy for seasonal
work and they make real employees feel superior. It works out very
well for Amazon.
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| Wil:
Since I was fired from the place I can't help but take joy in Amazon's
misfortune. But doesn't it seem hypocritical for Seattle to delight
as Bezos and Co suffer. Amazon almost single-handedly started the
Internet boom that employed huge amounts on the youthful, Stranger-reading,
coffee-quaffing, IT community. Isn't it seem rather bratty for them
to prepare to dance on Amazon's grave? Does anyone really want the
Seattle of ten years ago, which was primarily a blue collar town dependent
on the whims of Boeing? |
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Mike
Daisey:
Well, Boeing is also leaving, so maybe the delight that you think
others feel is a veiled rage at gigantic corporations that act as
though they owe nothing to the places they inhabit. I still miss
Amazon, and I think that most of my colleagues feel the same way--a
kind of bitter and bittersweet regret, the way you feel about an
ex-girlfriend you're never going to entirely get over.
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| Wil:
What are the responses from former Amazon workmates who see the show? |
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Mike
Daisey:
Very positive. They're happy that someone is telling this story,
and they often stop me after the show to talk and tell their own
stories. I'm also hearing from people from hundreds of other companies
all over the world--this is a universal story, and with it streaming
through the website 24/7 it connects with a lot of people.
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| Wil:
You actually make an interesting point in the play, where you allude
that many of the over-educated college grads who worked for peanuts
at Amazon we're in the process of romanticizing themselves as slave-driven,
indentured servants out of a Dickens's novel. But, all in all, wasn't
Amazon a pretty swell job? |
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Mike
Daisey:
Hmmm. Well, if I divide the hours I worked by the compensation I
got, I made about $6 an hour or so. So was it better than Burger
King? Eh, sometimes, and it could be more interesting--but Burger
King doesn't require its followers to adopt their viewpoints and
become a hardcore member of the Burger King Generation, so you're
probably making more sacrifices at Amazon. I never argue that it's
a sweatshop, because if it was, it was a sweatshop we created and
stayed at of our own will--I'm more interested in the forces that
convince everyone to work this hard for an unobtainable dream.
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| Wil:
Did you really quit Amazon because you had a crisis of conscious and
became tired of the empty Internet lifestyle? Or did you got fired…?
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Mike
Daisey:
I
always feared I would be fired, though in retrospect I've realized
that I was just paranoid because my manager wouldn't speak to me.
My departure was just as described in the show--warty, confused
and never quite understanding why I had to go until I got far enough
from the company to see.
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| Wil:
For a while you were doing some appearance on local comedy show, The
John Report with Bob, a mildly amusing show with a great theme song.
It got cancelled after a season. What happened? |
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Mike
Daisey:
The local station needed to syndicate it in other markets and failed
to make that happen. Comedy Central took an interest in picking
it up but ended up balking. It would have helped if the show had
been more than mildly amusing--that was probably their first mistake.
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| Wil:
You know, I've been thinking of starting up an Internet company that
would allow people to order frozen ice cream cones which would be
delivered in disposable, refrigerated boxes. Would you have any interest
in being Vice President of Equities and Chocolate? |
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Mike
Daisey:
Yes, though I will need to be paid in cash with small unmarked bills.
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| Wil:
Is "21 Dog Years" your "Vagina Monologues"? |
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Mike
Daisey:
If so, the title would have been "Dot Com Dicks I Have Known".
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| Wil:
The show ends its Seattle run on March 31st. What's next? Letterman?
Broadway? South Park? |
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Mike
Daisey:
Actually, we're extended through April, and then the show will be
going to the San Jose Repertory Theatre and to be performed at a
space in New York City. I'm also working on the book version, which
will be published by Simon and Schuster in 2002.
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presents...