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The Interview

 

 

WGAS Broadcast Network’s micro-managing owner, “Bizzig” Gneeecey, interviews Vicki Solá, author of The Getaway That Got Away (Full Court Press)...

 

GNEEECEY:  Heya, Ig—

 

VICKI SOLÁ:  Please don’t call me that.  Name’s Vicki.

 

G:  Okay, Ig—

 

VS:   Ahem—

 

G:  Whatsamatter, got throats in your frog?

 

VS:  [shifts uneasily in her faux horsehair-upholstered chair]  Aren’t you supposed to be asking me about my—

 

G:  Y’remind me of someone—that irritratin’ Nicki Rodriguez.  Could that be ‘cause you’re really her?

 

VS:  [chuckles] I guess you could say that Nicki Rodriguez, who’s twenty-five, is an alternate version of myself.  I’ve worked in radio for years as a DJ and producer.  And I’ve worked hard throughout my lifetime, for more than a few difficult bosses.  In a word, The Getaway That Got Away is—

 

G:  That’s more than a word—

 

VS:  As I was saying, The Getaway That Got Away is actually my convoluted autobiography—and then some—set to SciFi and fantasy.

 

G:   [laughs mockingly]  How can your life be set to somethin’?  Wha’cha tryin’ to doooo?

 

VS:  Now that you’ve asked, one of my goals is to cause young adults, ages twelve to two hundred, to spit their drinks through their noses as they watch Alice’s Wonderland collide with The Wizard’s Oz.  And no one’s wearing helmets in this land of 450-story skyscrapers and speeding, fully-articulated thirty-two-door stretch limos—

 

G:  No need to get personal—keep my stinkin’ vehicle outta this—

 

VS:  But it’s part of my story—

 

G:  Your story’s weird.  An’ so are yooou.

 

VS:  Puhleeeze.  Just stick to your questions.

 

G:  Y’got glue?

 

VS:  Full Court Press doesn’t pay me to sit here and take abuse—

 

G:  In the book, I pay you to take abuse!

 

VS:  Well, yeah.  In The Getaway That Got Away, you claim to “pay” Nicki when she ends up working for you at WGAS.  Anyone who’s ever slaved away for pennies, or observed that life can be ridiculous, will relate to her situation.

 

G:  [scratches his bimbus*, vigorously] It is ridiculous—your book, I mean.  So, tell us stinkin’ more.

 

VS:  [trying not to look at Gneeecey] In the vein of Harry Potter, my laugh-loaded fantasy launches the reader into a strange universe where things are not what they seem.  Dismayed by a basement-apartment existence barely enabled by two low-paying radio jobs, Nicki Rodriguez experiences a dramatic change in outlook when fate transports her to an even lousier place—a distorted world inhabited mostly by canine-humanoids trapped in a dimension somewhere between New Jersey and outer space.

 

G:  [eyes narrowing] You callin’ my Perswayssick County lousy?

 

VS:  I suppose so.  Living a dog’s life—forced to work for and reside with Perswayssick County’s greedy, tail-wagging leader, self-described “business maggot” Diroctor B.Z. Z. Gneeecey—

 

G:  That would be meee—I got no problem wit’ that—

 

VS:  Anyway—while she's living with and working for you—Nicki searches desperately for her pilfered portfolio containing ten-thousand hard-earned dollars, and prays fervently that her life-threatening dimension burn heals so she can attempt a perilous return to “regular New Jersey” and her old life.

 

G:   I didn’t steal nuthin'—

 

VS:  [sighs] Would you please stop interrupting?  Now, all the while, Gneeecey—yes, that would be you—is happily selling out Perswayssick County’s environment and welfare to a murderous mob of waxy-faced Jersey gangster-style aliens.

 

G:  Don’t talk bad ‘bout my pals.  Mark, Mark, Mark, Mark, an’ Mark are my friends—an’ so are Mark, Mark an’—

 

VS:  Please—let me finish.  Gneeecey—that’s you—has convinced these Markmen that Nicki has something they need.  Complicating matters further is the arrival of Blirg, a month-long season where time runs backwards.

 

G:  [removes one of his red high-top sneakers, sniffs it, frowns, then tosses it over his shoulder] Yeah—I love Blirg!  Everythin’s backward—y’get to eat your pie before your meat, taters, an’ brokookoli.  An’ peas.  An’ carrots. An’spinach.  An’ cauliflower—

 

VS:  [wincing] We, uh, get the idea.

 

G:  [blushes through his fur] Any, uh, romance, in this dopey novel of yours?

 

VS:  Nicki has what she calls an “almost-boyfriend,” Salsa bandleader Carlos Santiago.  And in “Part Two," when she arrives in Perswayssick County a second time, WGAS coworker Cleve Wheeler is a romantic interest—

 

G:  [scowls] Lousy Iggleheimer...I’ll proboobably end up firin’ him...

 

VS:  [takes a deep breath and silently counts to ten] Whenever Nicki’s with Cleve, she forgets about Carlos.  And, of course, there’s Gneeecey’s former fiancée, Goonafina Blopperdang—

 

G:  You leave my Goonafina outta this—

 

VS:  Okay—we’ll just let folks read about her when they get the book.

 

G:  [smoke billowing out of his black, triangular ears] Let’s jus’ stinkin’ change the subjec’!  Could ya see this lousy book as one of them there motion pictures?

 

VS:  The book is not lousy, and yes, it’s been suggested that The Getaway That Got Away, with its surreal elements and setting, lends itself to visualization. I envision a combination of human actors interacting with realistically animated characters.

 

G:  Who do y’got in mind to play the—ugh—human charackookters?

 

VS:  I picture a Latina Jodie Foster-type actress portraying Nicki, who’s an independent, capable, brave young woman, with an intense, workaholic nature—like the characters Foster plays in The Silence of the Lambs and Contact.  And I wrote Cleve Wheeler’s part with Will Smith in mind.

 

G:  Whaddabout meeee?

 

VS:  What about you?

 

G:  Who’d play meeee?

 

VS:  Well, maybe Danny DeVito...or Daffy Duck...

 

G:  In their stinkin’ dreams.  Ya writin’ any more junk?

 

VS:  Yes.  And it’s not junk.  I’m in the process of writing the sequel—in addition to an outline, I’ve actually completed the very last page of that book, which leaves the door wide open for another sequel!

 

G:  Don’t look so pleased wit’ yourself.

 

VS:  [smiling] In this first sequel, Nicki’s character grows.  Rather than just reacting as crazy things happen to her and around her, she becomes more of a force—she discovers, quite accidentally, that she possesses quantum powers!

 

G:  [wrinkles snout] I don’t like the sound of that...

 

VS:  [still grinning] Didn't think you would.

 

G:  [chewing and swallowing a striped cigar] Tell us, the people who read your junk, what else do they like?

 

VS:  Douglas Adams’ classic Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and comic strips Get Fuzzy, Monty, Robotman, Dilbert, Garfield, and the old Bloom County, and—

 

G:  Who asked ya?

 

VS:  [shifts in her seat] Why, you just did—and tell me, why do you eat those cigars?  And why do you call ‘em “health cigars”?

 

G:  [burps loudly] Who’s interviewin’ who?

 

VS:  I just wondered—

 

G:  Mind your business, Ig.  Now, what inspired ya to write all this crazy stuff?

 

VS:  [sighs and glances at her watch] I first began writing this, years ago, when—

 

G:   AAAH, HAAAH, HAAAAH, HAAAATCHOOO!

 

VS:  [ducks] Bless you.

 

G:  Why?

 

VS:  Well, that’s what we usually say when someone—

 

G:  Not on my planet—

 

VS:  Anyway, to answer your question, my beloved pets inspired me—my beagle-terrier mixes, the almost-as-smart-as-a-human Sooperflea and dopey-but-beautiful Flubbubb, and my feisty, naughty Chihuahua-terrier, Dr. B. Gneeecey, and my high- jumping, audacious little mouse, Altitude.

 

G:  [gritting teeth] You must mean four other people—

 

VS:  [clears throat] Years ago, I began writing short pieces about them, complete with illustrations.  Later on, I wrote the first six chapters of what would become The Getaway That Got Away.  When I tried to publish the work, I was told that it was too short. So, I cranked out chapters seven through forty-four—what was going to be “Book Two”—and here we are.

 

G:  Where?

 

VS:  [eyes roll up to the ceiling]

 

G:  [smirking] Y’know, Ig, I’ve heard jus’ ‘bout enough.  I’m gonna do everythin’ I can to keep your nex' crummy book from ever comin' out an' I'm gonna keep people from readin' this one!   

 

VS:  [bolts upright in her chair] You can’t—          

 

G:  I can! I ’m The Grate One—I’ll do any stinkin’ thing I wanna do.  An’ I’m gonna sue you in a law of court—wait till y’get one of them feast an’ resist letters on that fancy-schmancy letterhead of my attorney, John Smiff, Equestrian!                               

 

VS:  Oh, I am so scared—NOT!  And anyone can get my book—in paperback, and on Kindle

 

AMAZON.COM

                  

G:  They ain’t gonna see it here—I’m deletin’ all that info from this dumb interview!

 

VS:  Oh yeah?  Well, it’s my website!

 

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(*What is a bimbus? (Hint: You sit on it, and it's not a chair).