Denis's new book Why we Suck, comes out today!
He's doing interviews all day long, so I thought I would publish this exclusive interview I did with him last May for my blog. Trust me, it's much more personal and in-depth than anything you'll see on Today or the Daily Show. My apologies to you old-timers who have read it once. Here it is:
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The Story of Tim
Meet Tim. Tim is a beloved toy from Denis’s childhood. Visitors to our home often comment on him because he's displayed prominently on a bookshelf and because he's a little spooky looking. I decided to do a blog entry about him, but then I realized that, although we have lived under the same roof for many years I don’t know very much about him. So today I asked Denis some searching questions about Tim. Here is our groundbreaking interview in its entirety:
ME: Okay, so where did you get Tim?
DENIS: My Aunt Betty made him for me.
ME: I don’t think she made him. She must have bought him for you. Maybe she repaired him and you thought she made him?
DENIS: No, she made him. Look at him. Who would buy something that looked like that?
ME: Well, I thought maybe he didn’t always look like that. I assumed that he was like the Velveteen Rabbit …
DENIS: What Velveteen Rabbit?
ME: The Velveteen Rabbit was a book about a little boy who was given this beautiful stuffed animal rabbit. And the boy loved it so much that he rubbed its eyes off from cuddling it all the time and he made its seams split. And the rabbit loved him too…
DENIS: Well Tim’s no fancy-assed Velveteen Rabbit. Never was. He always looked like that.
ANN: Okay, So Aunt Betty made him for you. Now what was the name of her husband again?
DENIS: Uncle Aeneas.
ME: (fitful giggles)
DENIS: You came up with the idea of this interview just so you could make fun of my uncle’s name, didn’t you?
ANN: Well, it’s funny. And sad too, because it’s pronounced anus, so I imagine the kids in school must have treated him horribly.
DENIS: He grew up in Ireland. It was a common name there.
ME: Right. SO, anyway, Betty made Tim for you. Do you remember how old you were when she gave him to you?
DENIS: No, I was really little. It was probably that time I had to stay at her house when my parents went to Ireland.
A little history: Denis’s parents moved here from Ireland shortly before they were married. When Denis was five years old, his parents went back to Ireland to visit their families after being in America for many years. It was too much to take all the kids, so they took the oldest, John. Denis’s little sister, Ann Marie, got to stay with her fun cousin Noreen Lucey. And Denis got to stay with his father’s widowed, childless Aunt Betty. She was Denis’s great-aunt. This story always broke my heart, because Denis’s parents were gone for a month. His aunt had no idea how kids behave and she was constantly worried about him messing up the apartment and making him be quiet. She took him to church all the time. She made a big deal about giving him a gift and the gift was a white bible. She took him to visit his sister at his cousin’s once or twice and they were goofing around with all the other kids in their fun neighborhood, then she took him back to her clean, quiet apartment and made him wash up. She wiped his bible down all the time because it was white and she worried about it being smudged. She made him tuck in his shirt and pray. I think the first time he told me this story, I wept for him.
ME: Do you remember your parents leaving for that trip?
DENIS: Yes, I remember watching them walk out to the airplane, climb up the steps…
ME: Your heart must have been breaking!
DENIS: Why?
ME: Your parents were leaving you!
DENIS: No, I was all excited then. They had told me how great it would be to get to play with my toys all the time and not have to share them, and I could watch anything I wanted on TV and not have to fight with my brother about it. It wasn’t until I was actually back at her apartment that I realized now much it was gonna suck. But I did get to watch anything I wanted on TV. And she did really like me.
ME: I remember your cousin said she always doted on you.
DENIS: She did. She was my Godmother, and she didn’t have any kids. So…she really did like me.
ME: Oh, so there was something nice about the time you spent with her. She gave you a lot of attention.
DENIS: I guess.
ME: Well, I'm a middle child too, as you know, and it was often my fantasy to be the only child, so I can see where you might have liked having all that adult attention.
DENIS: Yeah, I would have like it for a few hours. It was a long month. But then my parents came back and we moved to a house from our apartment and then Tim fell behind some stairs that were being built and it wasn’t until I was an adult and they were fixing the stairs, that somebody found him. And that’s why I still have him.
ME: Awww. Look at him. It's funny, I just always imagined that he was once this very very cute and cuddly plush panda bear and that he was just all worn out from your love. But now, you're saying that he always looked like that, and you still loved him.
DENIS: I am?
ME: Yes!
DENIS: Okay, now can I watch the game?
