An Interview with Tom Hanks

I wish my remaining readers to know that I have taken the decision to alter the nature of this blog. Although I remain a marxist intellectual, and would prefer that my public discourse continue to focus on intellectual topics, I simply gots to get paid. The sad fact is, there are presently very, very few journals which publish the types of pieces which I would prefer to produce. I recently submitted an important article to one of these, LM, which used to be called Living Marxism. Only then did I discover that the journal formerly knows as Living Marxism had folded in 2000, and that LM is now Liposuction Monthly. Fortunately, the editor agreed to publish my piece with the sole stipulation that every instance of the term "corporate greed" be replaced with the term "sagging buttocks." The result is surprisingly readable.

Despite these minor successes, however, I have come to the painful realization that there is very little money to be made in speaking truth to power per se. Per se. I must be, I am told, an entertainer.


So be it.


The following is a transcript of my interview with the American screen actor Tom Hanks, with whom I caught up recently at the Aspen Ideas Festival.

Me: Tom, do you think that Peter Scolari spends all of his time in a dimly lit room, incessantly flipping a coin and muttering "it could just as easily have been me. It could just as easily have been me?"

Tom Hanks: This interview is over.

Me: Because when you really go back and watch Bosom Buddies, the person who really deserved to be a breakout star was Wendie Jo Sperber.

Tom Hanks' Empty Chair: (says nothing).

Me: But of course she had to deal with issues of fat acceptance. Not a cause that you ever really championed, is it? Fat acceptance. (Here I coughed, but made the cough sound like the word "Aids"). Aids acceptance, but never fat acceptance.

Tom Hanks' Empty Chair: (says nothing).

Me: This interview is over.

Note to Lawyers: This interview did not take place and was conducted in a satiric and parodic manner, just like that fake Campari ad where Jerry Falwell had sex with his mother.