TIM KELL: The Man, The Myth, The Legend

Recently, I sat down with the one man who has been here since the very beginning for what I hoped would be a frank interview. As soon as I realized he would be so frank, I wished it had been more of an evasive type of thing where he would at least try to be polite.

-Dan Kennedy

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DK: So, Tim...you've been here from the very beginning and lately I've been thinking it would be good if maybe you and I did an interview for the site. I interview you, whatd'ya say?

[Looks at me and kind of seems agitated, but possibly just angry. Tim is hard to read, and it always seems like he's about to quit.]

DK: How does that sound?

Tim Kell: I said okay.

DK: No you didn't. You just made your face that you make. Your agitated face, where you stop to consider how much smarter you are than me and the strange injustice that finds you hanging around here helping with stuff.

[Now Tim smiles his very kind smile, which if you think about it, means he really thinks everything I just suggested. So, Tim is being hostile by smiling. So I fight fire with fire and smile back kindly.]

DK: What's the best part about helping me and helping with ReallySmallTalk?

TK: Hmmm, let's see. Getting left at the airport in L.A. and left at the airport in San Francisco in the same weekend.

DK: Well, why...I said the best part.

TK: Oh, okay.

DK: And you know that nobody left you at the airport. That was a situation and you had a credit card that could be used for a rental car or a ticket or whatever.

TK: Right, except that they wouldn't let me charge something on it even though it's a business card and even though you added me to it, because you we're already up there and you had charged something so when I tried to use it, they said, 'Well, there's a cardholder already charging a rental car in a completely different city, so we've put a block on the card."

DK: Right, well...you...that got ironed out.

TK: Yeah, because I got a ride from the L.A. Weekly girl all the way to San Francisco.

DK: Okay, well...I said I was sorry and that's been taken care of so it won't happen anymore and so can you maybe talk about what you like about...did you like getting to go to the Pixies concert?

TK: Yes.

DK: See. Plus, the L.A. Weekly girl was cute and you got to date her. I saw you two after the reading and I knew you guys were going to start something. So, in a way that worked out perfectly.

TK: I would basically say we're friends and nothing more.

DK: Well, you don't need her, anyway. You should be dating the woman you know from The New York Times, don't you think? She's much cooler.

TK: I guess.

DK: You should start dating her about three months before my next book comes out.

TK: And then what? You can leave me at the airport with a credit card that doesn't work, and she can drive me to the next town.

DK: Right, but you'd sort of coincidentally tell her how great the new book is.

TK: Are you going to leave Maria stranded in Toronto this weekend?

DK: No, because Maria won't drink all night after the reading and then get to the airport an hour late and extremely hungover, which is one thing you didn't mention in your story about getting left behind.

TK: Duuuuuuuude. It was literally a migraine hangover.

DK: Not that I'm keeping score, like you, about things that went wrong.

TK: Dude, you wish she could drink all night like me.

DK: What? Why would I wish that? Okay, well maybe next time you can do our little interview like a normal, kind adult.

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THE BOOK BY YOUR FEARLESS FOUNDER AND EDITOR: