say it with pie

Will O’Neill is a guy I know from the internet. I guess you could say we’re friends, except I’ve only met him once in real life and sometimes he says things about women that are deeply offensive. When he’s not being a misogynist (and even when he is being a misogynist), he’s a funny dude who occasionally does stand-up, makes hilarious videos, and writes/edits/manages Canada’s premiere satirical news blog, The Albatross. I think he also has a day job but we don’t talk about that.

Recently, I sat down with Will in the comfort of our respective homes to conduct an e-mail interview about The Albatross, the perils of comedy writing, and Will’s other projects…

First question: what is The Albatross?

Will: The Albatross is a satire and comedy publication meant to cater specifically to a Canadian perspective. I’m hoping to do for Canada what The Onion does for the United States of America – a very lofty goal, but this is the internet: Why even pretend to be competing with any kind of second best?

Here’s my second, more ignorant question: what’s an albatross, in political terms? I heard the term being thrown around a lot during the last US election, mostly in relation to Sarah Palin, and I have no clue what it means.

Will: Was it thrown around like that?! It wasn’t inspired by that – it’s a literary allusion, from Samuel Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, in which having an albatross around your neck is representative of having a persistent, burdensome curse on you; a reminder of where something went wrong. I think this is a good metaphor for how comedy, and even criticism in general, should operate against the world we live in: Being a thorn, basically.

Who is involved in The Albatross‘ production?

Will: Currently, I am alone, but I would like to say that I think I have created a compelling illusion of it being a larger enterprise: Someone has already contacted me wanting to intern in our offices, and my own mother was convinced that one of our guest columnists was actually someone other than myself. To synthesize those two points, I guess you could say it is currently at the size where my mother is a notable audience member.

Which articles have been the most popular, and what do you think their popularity says about society?

Will: In spite of the fact that David Miller himself re-tweeted a story in The Albatross which was about him, and that the Tim Horton’s story was acknowledged by a P.R boss at the corporation itself, the top stories on The Albatross have so far been about American issues – Obama and the Balloon Boy, specifically. This is despite around 70% of the traffic coming from Canadian IP addresses.

It’s possible that those stories were just better, but I think this has to indicate at least somewhat that we are in more interested in America than we are in ourselves. I expect that kind of low self-esteem from Torontonians like us, but I expected more of our cousins in parts beyond.

Or perhaps laughing at Americans is easy for Canadians because they are the other.

Will: Maybe. Canada is such an enormous and diverse country. Probably one of the strongest things that we would have in common with somebody from Yellowknife would be simply that we’re not American, so why not come together and laugh at that? It’s a sinister way to build a culture, but we’re not the first.

Do you have any notable prejudices, religious or political beliefs that affect the way you write fake news?

Will: I try very hard to bring as balanced a perspective as I possibly can – I definitely do believe, at least in theory, that there is something wrong with absolutely every perspective. Practically, however, I think writing these things do end up invariably coloured by your experiences: There is something very different about the way you think something that you also feel.

So, in the interest of disclosure, I will say that I can be prone to bitter atheism, assumptive misogyny and self-hating conservatism – late model white man-child stuff, really – but I do acknowledge my limitations, and in some way I think my heart is in the right place. I’m also perfectly aware of exactly what gaps I’d like to fill if I was ever able to expand the writing staff.

I’d be lying, though, if I said I was willing to sacrifice chemistry for inclusiveness. As in life, prejudiced funny will trump rainbow sunshine bullshit.

Recently you shut down your other comedy writing site, Animals Who Need Big Kisses, to focus on The Albatross exclusively. What prompted you to shift your focus?

Will: As time went on with Animals Who Need Big Kisses, I started to want the popularity that comes from talking about cute animals without any of its lowbrow consequences. I wanted to be something and make fun of it at the same time, and then the whole thing started to slip further and further away from actual animal kissing, until working an animal into an entry was just a party trick. Along with some other things, that depressed me, and that’s when the the entries themselves started to get kind of depressing, and some of the themes were getting repetitive, and so on.

That was when I realized I had to do a version of Animals Who Need Big Kisses without the animals, or the kissing: In other words, absolutely nothing. And you know what? That’s exactly what I did. Then I guess a few months later I decided to do The Albatross.

That was a long story about how they aren’t really related at all. I’m sorry.

I might as well just tell you that I didn’t really find Animals Who Need Big Kisses that funny anyway. But I find The Albatross really funny. As a stand-up comedian, you’re bound to perform for people who just don’t find you funny based on their own personal tastes. Any observations of the differences between performing for people online vs. in real life? Which one is more depressing?

Will: Failing at stand-up is like getting the band-aid ripped off quickly: If you want sharp and immediate cruelty, nothing could be worse, but you’ll be completely covered in alcohol not too long afterwards, and before you know it, you don’t feel a thing. Writing something and posting it online, though, and having to wait through days of nobody noticing or giving a shit about it, or just being a writer in general, I guess, and eating rejection after rejection, is a much slower burn. You never know if you’re just not there yet or if you’re really never going to make it; you don’t have the benefit or the doubt of that immediate reaction from an audience.

Ultimately, though, you’re going to endure so much negativity going either route that you have to choose whatever offers you more positivity in the counterbalance: I like doing stand-up, but I don’t like it enough to deal with it, either, and that’s why you’ll never see me do more than a few shows a year: For me, it’s just for fun.

Writing, on the other hand, I couldn’t stop wanting to do if I tried. So it is what it is.

What are your long term goals as a writer?

Will: I really like that story about the guy who practices the violin all his life, and then some lady sees him at a concert, and afterwards she says to him that she would give her life to be able to play the way that he does, and he says “I did.”

Now, cumulatively speaking, I have probably already spent too much of my life drinking and playing video games to be like that guy, so I could not have responded to her the way that he did. Would I respond that way regardless? It is impossible to know: The story does not specify how hot she is.

In conclusion, I guess what I’m saying is that my goal is to dedicate myself to comedy writing to the point where people find me intimidating, and are terrified that I will make fun of them. Maybe then they’ll understand how much their failure to love me has hurt my feelings. Thanks for asking!