Category: Poetry and Other Writing

Today’s issue of Organ­ic Mechan­ic mag­a­zine fea­tures a rare inter­view with one of the most fas­ci­nat­ing and con­tro­ver­sial fig­ures in the ear­ly twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry. A mas­ter of faux pas, feng shui, and the fox trot; the defend­er of all things taste­less: Cap­tain Spacepants.

OM: Cap­tain Spacepants, I must say that it is an hon­or to have the chance to sit down and talk about the nit­ty-grit­ty with a super­hero of your stature. You are the biggest name Organ­ic Mechan­ic has ever inter­viewed.

CS: Well, ah, I am equal­ly hon­ored to speak with such a fair and bal­anced pub­li­ca­tion as OM. It isn’t often that I have the chance to sit down and real­ly talk about what pro­pels me, what with all of the duties that my super­hero­ism must ful­fill.

OM: That hap­pens to be one thing our read­ers are quite curi­ous about. Exact­ly what kind of super­hero are you?

CS: I’ve always seen myself as a nor­mal per­son like every­one else. ‘Super­hero’ is such a loaded term any­more… What I try to do in my work is make the world more tol­er­ant of those it con­sid­ers ‘in bad taste.’ That includes any­one from your great-aunt Martha and those huge framed glass­es she wears, a thir­ty-sev­en year old gay man in Britain named Den­nis who wears spats but no shoes and pret­ty much any­thing that Michael Jack­son or Brit­ney Spears have ever done.

OM: Some of your detrac­tors point out that your views are rather extrem­ist and that some of the things you defend under­mine the style and moral fab­ric of our nation. For exam­ple, you were recent­ly crit­i­cized for your unabashed procla­ma­tion that The Chron­i­cles of Rid­dick marks a new artis­tic par­a­digm for the film indus­try and a new high for career of Vin Diesel [anoth­er one of your favorites]. In fact, the Com­mit­tee On Moral Taste has gone so far to threat­en your life on occa­sion for ‘crimes against progress.’

CS: My detrac­tors, as you call them, and in par­tic­u­lar the Com­mit­tee on Moral Taste, are in fact, my arch-neme­ses. I am quite aware that the so-called crime that I am accused of has been put forth by the nefar­i­ous Proc­tor Pen­ta­pus and his defama­tion cam­paign against me is being fund­ed by the two most pow­er­ful mem­bers of the CMT, Star­bucks and The Church of Martha Stew­art and Her Lat­ter Day Cranks. I also have sneak­ing sus­pi­cions that Oprah Win­frey and Dr. Phil are plan­ning an offen­sive as well.

But, to answer your ques­tion, I am not respon­si­ble for the degra­da­tion of moral progress in the world. Far from it, the dynam­ic style sen­si­bil­i­ty I try to fos­ter and pro­mote keeps fresh ideas con­stant­ly at the fore­front of the pub­lic con­scious­ness. The CMT’s idea of ‘moral progress’ is real­ly about regres­sion to 1950’s val­ues, fol­lowed by the cre­ative stag­na­tion of the mind. All this is part of their plot for world dom­i­na­tion. I must admit, how­ev­er, that I might have been mis­guid­ed about Mr. Diesel, some­times taste­less things can become as wild­ly unpre­dictable as J. Lo’s love life. The CMT will take even the slight­est appear­ance of weak­ness and turn it into a weapon of mass destruc­tion.

OM: Don’t you find it hard to suc­ceed at this mis­sion when your com­port­ment, demeanor and dress are so enig­mat­ic — a cross between her­maph­ro­dit­ic and androg­y­nous? I mean, you have a radioac­tive green mohawk, a sil­ver half-cape, an untanned yak-hair sports bra and your trade­mark ‘spacepants’ — a tita­ni­um chasti­ty belt/codpiece with a strate­gi­cal­ly placed blink­ing red light.

CS: I guess I’ve always been about shat­ter­ing gen­der barriers…and the bounds of good taste. But as long as I am able to ensure that there is a place in the world for things deemed taste­less, I feel that I am suc­ceed­ing.

You don’t like my blink­ing red light?

OM: No, it is com­plete­ly fine. Thank you for giv­ing some of your pre­cious time for us to learn more about you Cap­tain Spacepants.

CS: You are most wel­come. And remem­ber kids, drugs are for dopes.

The ideas expressed in this inter­view do not nec­es­sar­i­ly coin­cide with any­thing at all. The inter­view­er would like to thank Lau­ren Spisak for her hard work arrang­ing a meet­ing with Cap­tain Spacepants. With­out her gen­er­ous con­tri­bu­tions and sar­casm, this would not have been pos­si­ble.