Confused Views: 5 ways I have failed to bribe Den of Geek to get me an interview with Rob Zombie

I feel like I’m stuck in a no win situation. For several months now, I’ve been submitting interviews to the Den Of Geek editors and for several months they’ve refused to publish any of them.

At first I assumed that it was because I was interviewing random people on the street and asking them questions that could, in the right circumstances, be used to have me convicted of a surprisingly wide variety of crimes. I blame the times. What, these days, isn’t considered saucily haranguing an old lady?

Sensing that this could be the problem, I started submitting interviews with famous actors, writers and directors and they featured nothing but appropriate questions for the site. I had some big names, too, and we would have been able to break some pretty incredible stories.

For example, in my interview with Will Ferrell, he told me that, “If my career ends up like Jack Black’s, I will genuinely murder my agent.” In my interview with Michael Bay, he apologised to me for his entire career and admitted that most of it had just been a mean-spirited prank. “We wanted to wind you up and we took things too far. I really am sorry for that,” he admitted. It was actually quite an emotionally touching conversation.

Again, the site refused to publish anything I submitted, suggesting that I had written up interviews that had never taken place. Although I was outraged by the accusation and have secretly sworn a violent revenge, it seemed futile to argue with them, particularly as they were correct.

If I’m honest, I think I may have given myself away by having Danny Dyer out himself as a lizard-person and by having Scarlett Johansson describing a fairly graphic sexual encounter she had recently had with Natalie Portman. Still, I maintain that both pieces would have drawn a lot of attention to Den Of Geek.

So, how am I supposed to become an internationally renowned interviewer? Well, I decided that a good start would be to conduct some interviews. I mentioned to the editors that I wanted to interview Rob Zombie. I’ve been a big Zombie fan for years, even going so far as to scoff at the Internet when it got together to hysterically cry that his face should be murdered off for daring to remake Halloween. The Devil’s Rejects is one of my favourites and his Halloween sequel was massively underrated.

The editors said that, if the opportunity came up, they would let me know. I responded as anyone would, by screaming, “Bullshit! Why are doing this to me?” directly into their surprised faces.

You would think that would be enough to get me, the man Scarlett Johansson described in a currently unpublished interview as “dreadfully sexy, like a thin, pale slither of erotic delight”, exactly what I wanted. However, contrary to the mental image you’ve conjured of rummy toothless cave-nerds, the people that run this site are all backbone and propriety. These are the five ways I’ve failed to blackmail them into giving me something that they don’t have to give me

1. I will murder your enemies and bring you their heads.

What was offered:

You don’t run a site like Den Of Geek without making a few enemies. Look in the comments section of just about any article on here and you’ll notice that, no matter what we say, someone wants us dead for it. Probably you.

Then there are disgruntled interview subjects threatening people with court injunctions over ‘false allegations regarding Natalie Portman’s personal life’. Some people just like to give us a bumload of guff for no reason at all. That’s not how things need to be.

I asked the editors to write down a list of names, either real or user, and offered to bring their decapitated heads into the DoG offices.

Given that this is aimed at achieving an interview with Rob Zombie, I had planned on each murder being a tribute to a different kill from one of his films. Without wishing to name names, someone quite famous would have become The Fishboy, had my offer been accepted.

I also suggested, but like a gentleman did not insist, that they impale the decapitated heads on spikes and display them proudly in the windows of the offices as a warning to others.

The ridiculous reason they gave for refusing to accept my offer:

“Under no circumstances do we advocate murder. Please do not kill anyone, Matt. If you kill someone and bring us their head, we will contact the police and you will be arrested. As you know from experience, very few juries are willing to acquit you of a charge based on the defence ‘I was trying to get an interview with Rob Zombie’.  

Also, most of our enemies are only enemies because of things that you have said or written. It would be better for us if they brought us your head. It would be a great temptation to us to kick your decapitated noggin around our office like a football. At half time, we would drink pints of your blood for refreshment.”

2. Sexual favours

What was offered:

I will be discreet and I will do anything.

The ridiculous reason they gave for refusing to accept my offer:

“This is not interesting or appealing to us. We’ve made this clear to you before. Our lawyers have made this clear to you before. Other people’s lawyers have made this clear to you before.

There is going to have to come a point in your life when you accept that attempting to bribe people with sex is just not going to work out for you. “

3. I will clean up my act.

What was offered:

I do know that most of the other writers don’t submit articles that look like a transcription of a serial killer’s internal monologue. In exchange for an interview with Rob Zombie, I promised to stop writing like I’m a character in one of his films. That includes no swearing.

Appreciating that I scam a quarter of all of my word counts by adding a massive flumping lot of unnecessary swear words, I would now have to put extra mother-hugging work in to write full articles, without the skipload of filler words. That would prove to be a fucking piss bowl full of inconvenience for me.

Furthermore, I offered to fix my whole style. It’ll be all proper film analysis and considered opinions that are relevant to the site. I’ll stop referencing disturbing sex acts in similes where I could just reference another film. And by ‘another film’, I mean a non-pornographic one.

I’ll try so hard and I will be so good.

The ridiculous reason they gave for refusing to accept my offer:

“No more filthy comments, no more referencing adult films and no more swearing?

While we do find these elements of your articles troubling, we’re also very aware that there’s nothing else to what you write.

We’ve already got real journalists who write proper articles for us. Stripped of your very limited novelty value, what do you have left to offer us? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

4. I will stop hanging around outside your offices in a threatening manner.

What was offered:

I know that, sometimes, it might appear to the editors of this site that I’m stalking the corridors of their office building wielding a weapon and making violent gestures. However, this is just a big misunderstanding. Their offices just happen to be right near somewhere I like to hang out.

What’s the knife for? To protect me from bears. Millions of people die every year as a result of bear attacks in urbanised cities. That also explains the bear traps I carry in my backpack.

As for the ‘cutthroat’ gestures I sometimes make whilst gurning at them through the windows? They were a joke. I’d have thought that my manic howls of laughter would have tipped them off to that.

And the time I attempted to gain entry whilst dressed as a pizza delivery man? That I actually can’t explain.

Either way, if I get this interview it stops forever.

The ridiculous reason they gave for refusing to accept my offer:

“We’re calling the police if you ever come here, regardless. Especially if you’re wearing nothing but leather chaps and a swimming cap again. I still have nightmares and haven’t been able to watch a western or visit my local pool since.

What’s particularly bothersome is that I know you have to travel on the tube to get here.”

5. I will review any old tat. 

What was offered:

Far from being a team player, I am very, very selfish. Some people have suggested that this is because I have a massive ego, but the truth is that I’m just too good to review some things.

However, even the man that Natalie Portman’s lawyer describes as “…a liar whose disregard for facts would be dangerous were he not so stupid” has a price.

Much like a terrified victim trembling below the lurching, knife thrusting form of Michael Myers, this is the point where I’m ready to beg.

I will review anything. If you find you get sent a disc and no one is willing to watch it, I will review it for you. There is no film that I am above. I will do ‘The Ultimate Uwe Boll Collection’ and I will smile while doing it, even if my eyes do start bleeding.

The ridiculous reason they gave for refusing to accept my offer:

“We know. In your time writing here you’ve reviewed Vanilla Ice in Cool As Ice, Snoop Dogg’s Hood Of Horror, 2001 Maniacs 2, Bikini Girls On Ice, Michael Jackson’s This Is It and The Best Of Dog The Bounty Hunter. You’re already doing that.

This isn’t a bargaining point. This is just what you do.

This may be the worst attempt at bribery since a columnist we’d sooner not name (although as you know, it was you) offered us revenge killings, sexual favours and more suitable contributions for the website in exchange for giving one of his articles a star rating.

Articles don’t get star ratings, Matt. They give them.

It would probably be better for everyone if you just let this go. At this point you’re just embarrassing yourself and, to be honest, we’re starting to feel that we have an obligation to Rob Zombie to protect him from you.”

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