Here we've reproduced the entire transcript from a recent interview of T.J. Brayshaw, conducted by "Slurp" magazine, the literary carp journal.
Slurp Interviewer: How would you describe your life right now?
T.J. Brayshaw: As sublime.
SI: Sublime? Can you elaborate?
TJB: Yes. Sublime, as in sub-lime, as in "less than, or below, a lime".
SI: There were some darker periods in your life, correct?
TJB: Well, yes, that is true, but not unusual, I don't think, for people like me.
SI: Is that a period you're willing to talk about? When and how did it start?
TJB: Yes, I can talk about it now. There was a time when I could not.
SI: What happened?
TJB: It started around 5 pm, I guess, on the 28th of May, 2011. I guess I hit rock bottom around 12:30am of the 29th.
SI: Can you elaborate? Why do you think these things happen to you?
TJB: Well, first you have to understand the crowd I was running with at the time, guys like English Jonny, Anonymous, you know.
SI: English Jonny is out again?
TJB: Oh yeah. He's back. Don't you read your magazine?
SI: Touche. What's he been doing?
TJB: Oh, he's a world traveler. Ridgefield, Storrs. Serotyping, shit like that.
SI: Serotyping?
TJB: Nevermind. Anyway, we'd been carp fishing, unsuccessfully, I might add. I think Faulkner was the one who said "Carp fishing is a slippery slurp to hell."
SI: That doesn't really sound like something Faulkner would say.
TJB: How would I know? Anyway, Anonymous suggested ribs. That was the beginning of the end.
SI: Ribs? I don't understand.
TJB: It's the pressure. You can really screw up ribs, you know. It was around that time, maybe 5 pm, when I started drinking again.
SI: And the ribs?
TJB: They were good. They really were. But by then the deed had been done.
SI: And how would you describe your life at that time?
TJB: Like a mug, fired black.
SI: It's been said that, at one time, you were quite a ladies' man. Is that true?
TJB: Well, I don't want to toot my own horn...
SI: So it is true?
TJB: Toot.
SI: Toot?
TJB: Teat.
SI: OK. Let's move on. Some of your critics charge that you've fabricated this entire interview, where you play the part of both interviewer and interviewee. Is there any validity to these charges?
TJB: Ha! It would seem to me that it would take a fairly strange, and quite vain, person to do something like that, don't you agree?
SI: Well, I guess I do agree. But you haven't really answered the question.
[At this point, Brayshaw storms out of the room, along with the Interviewer, then both return simultaneously.]
SI: I'm sorry to keep carping on about this, but what about the charges?
TJB: "Carping on." Ha ha. Real funny. What if they are true - does it matter?
SI: I think it does. I mean, aren't you painting a picture of somebody who isn't the real T.J. Brayshaw?
TJB: I'm not going to talk to you anymore.
SI: I'm not sure you have that option.
[At this point, the interview concludes, with both Brayshaw and the Interviewer leaving, again simultaneously.]
