chuck

August 30, 2005 &bull uncategorized

I came across this article about Chuck Klosterman a couple days ago. Two thoughts quickly popped into my head as I started reading the article.

1. I used to watch this guy play basketball in highschool.
Now I’m reading about his new book in SPIN. While it probably isn’t the most unusual thing for an “average Joe” to have watched a future “celebrity” play basketball when they were just a pimply teenager, it is somewhat out of the ordinary when your highschool has about 150 students. Klosterman was from an even smaller neighboring town about 10 miles away from my home town. I had the pleasure of watching his Warriors butt heads with my Cardinals on numerous occasions. In fact, I think my sister dated one of his friends for a while. Ah, what a small world.

2. I actually interviewed this guy for my media writing class while I was in college.
He was a pretty well-known writer for Fargo’s city newspaper and since I was an intern in the ad department, getting an interview was pretty easy. If I remember correctly, it was a pretty average interview. I asked him all sorts of dumb questions about being a journalist, etc., etc. Truthfully, I don’t remember many of the details of the interview. However, I do have a pretty clear recollection of how it ended. During our media writing class the professor kept drilling various interviewing techniques into our heads. One of these was to leave the toughest, most uncomfortable questions for the end of the interview. You don’t want to set the wrong tone at the beginning or, in the worst case, get thrown out on your can before you have your story. I had this in mind when I asked Klosterman my last question, which was something about why his pet project at the paper — a weekly entertainment insert named, Rage — failed and had to be killed off. He stammered around a bit and then finally said he simply he didn’t care to comment about it. Given his reputation for being controversial and outspoken, I felt good putting him on the hot-seat. Hopefully, he won’t remember it if I ever want him to sign a book or something.

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