PRATE

Ben Tanzer

“What they struggle with is what they feel or don’t feel, the inability to communicate what they are feeling and how it is we connect with others.” Ben Tanzer, interviewed for PRATE by Peter Schwartz

P.S.: Ben Tanzer is one of those guys you meet and like within seconds.  He’s agreed to talk to me here and I’ve agreed to use my big boy voice.  Welcome Ben, why don’t you tell our good readers a little about yourself and how you can change their lives?

B.T.: You are very generous, and it’s clear you have picked-up on one of my worst not so hidden traits – I love flattery, both giving and receiving.  I would add here that I appreciate your interest in interviewing me and I think you look great today.  Is that a new shirt?  In terms of myself, I used to tell people that I was a founding member of Wham!, but they soon realized that was maybe not entirely accurate.  I blame Wikipedia for that and now I tell them I used to be Ric Astley.  Beyond that I went to the same high school as Rod Serling, albeit after he did, and if you forced me to pick whether I am a Star Trek person or a Twilight Zone person, I would choose the latter.  I also went to high school with Lisa Baylor who you probably don’t know, but wish you did.  I was interviewed on the debut episode of the now long defunct MTV Sports show.  Continue Reading…

Tim Hall

Tim Hall is a writer and multimedia artist, also a journalist, editor, and publisher.  He is the author of two novels, Half Empty and Full Of It, a collection of stories, Triumph Of The Won’t, and the book-length nonfiction essay, How America Died. Interviewed for PRATE by Lynn Alexander.

LA:      Talk about the “Grandiose Failure”. You describe characters who have a sense of entitlement about success, perhaps a disconnect concerning their own practical limits. In addition to those limits, there is also the problem of numbers, which don’t really work in a would-be big shot’s favor. How did you develop an interest in exploring this theme, the ideas of grandiosity, entitlement?

TH: It comes out of my own upbringing, growing up with two very theatrical parents who despised each other so much that they were willing to sacrifice us, their kids, to satisfy their sadistic hatred. Neither was suited for any kind of business life, and certainly not parenting, but they were playing roles imposed on them by society and family pressures, and it destroyed them and damn near us. So that’s the basis for my morbid fascination with such people. Continue Reading…