THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 25, 1996 TAG: 9609250030
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: 95 lines
P.J. O'ROURKE has answered the burning question: Can anyone who shares initials with pajamas can be taken seriously?
The answer is no.
But we are all a lot better off for it. His education has made him what he is today - the funniest political satirist in America.
P.J. is from Toledo, Ohio. He majored in b.s. at Miami University in Ohio, and has been a full-time practitioner since acquiring a reputation for sophomoric behavior as editor of The National Lampoon.
An author, journalist and political observer, O'Rourke is the darling of Republicans. And he brings to their party the maturity of a skateboarding chimp on crack cocaine. He's an irreverent, cigar-smoking Huck Finn in a Brooks Brothers shirt who leans to the right while firing off lines of print that usually hit their target and ricochet into anthologies of wit. He is quoted in ``The Penguin Dictionary of Humorous Quotations'' more often than any other living person.
``Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teen-age boys,'' he once observed.
Learning that P.J. was coming our way - he'll be speaking to The Virginia Beach Forum on Oct. 10 - I prepared a list of heavy questions for him.
He answered them by phone, from his New Hampshire home.
Q. Do you think mooning will return as an expression of individuality and a rejection of family values?
A. ``God, I hope not. Nobody wants to look at the behinds of my generation. If mooning does return, I think the only people doing it should be the cast of `Bay Watch.' It's definitely an activity for the young and fit.
``Mooning was one of the things my generation did. Some say it is all we did. Odd how it was the thing that upset our parents most. It wasn't draft dodging or drugs or sex. The first time that bare behind went out a window, grownups knew they had a worthless generation on their hands.''
Q. Could you give us your take on the Republican and Democratic conventions? And did you go to them?
A. ``I'd been to them since 1972, but this year I said to myself: `You know I have a life and I don't think anyone at the conventions does.'
``I did watch occasionally on TV. I thought the fat lady was about to sing when Newt brought out the care dog. And I thought Liddy Dole doing her Oprah act was amazing. I really didn't know whether to weep tears of shame or get up and cheer when she did it. Her performance was abysmally foolish but done so well. I used to feel the same way about Pee Wee Herman.''
Q. You say in your recent book that during your break-bad period in the '60s you had rats in your house. You write that you stayed up at night drinking whiskey, smoking hashish and firing at the rats with a .25 automatic when they poked their heads out of the wall. Has this endeared you to the NRA?
A. ``It seems to me I used a shotgun. I've been a member of the NRA for a million years. I come from the tin can school of the NRA and enjoy shooting at tin cans from the back porch.
``I worry about the NRA when it goes around sounding like the Michigan militia. . . But just remember there are 3 billion people in the world and if all of 'em get mad enough we'd be fools not to be armed.''
Q. What's your take on Bill Clinton?
A. ``He makes life very easy for me. I am a political opponent of the president. But he's a president who is his own worst enemy so I don't have to do anything.
``Of course he is going to be re-elected. But it's no more than the GOP deserves because we nominated Dole. We could have elected Rin Tin Tin.''
Q. What bit of technology - ATM cards or whatever - irritates you most?
A. ``I don't know how ATMs work. I've never used an ATM card. I just go hungry until the bank opens and it doesn't bother me.
``TV would irritate me if I watched it. I don't use a computer when I write. I use a big IBM Selectric. I do that because I like to work with something that sounds like a lawnmower when it starts. It makes me feel macho and as though I'm really working - a lot like welding on an assembly line.''
Q. What are you working on now?
A. ``I am working on a book about economics. One of the great things about being a reporter is that people will pay you money to find out what you didn't know about a subject or, in my case, to stay ignorant.
``I have been traveling to countries improving my ignorance so I can do a book on their economies. I just got back from Russia. The economy there is really screwed up, as the Keynesians say. It's an economy based on theft. In Russia everybody steals from everyone else as opposed to the old system where the government stole everything for you. . .
``Oh, I'm also lobbying to amend the Americans With Disabilities Act so that it will apply to people who lack a sense of humor.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
P.J. O'Rourke
WANT TO GO?
What: The Virginia Beach Forum presents An Evening With P.J.
O'Rourke
When: Thursday, Oct. 10, at 8 p.m.
Where: The Pavilion Convention Center Theater
Tickets: $25 each and can be purchased by calling Ticketmaster at
671-8100.
KEYWORDS: INTERVIEW by CNB