He's a personal computer ... and so much more. Fake news expert, real journalist, and man-about-town John Hodgman drops some serious knowledge on Radar

To most Americans, John Hodgman is best known as the actor who impersonates a pompous, prickly PC in those inescapable Mac commercials that have mercilessly flooded the airwaves in recent months. But long before he landed this latest, lucrative, gig, the 35-year-old writer was busily amassing a diverse resume. Hodgman has labored as a literary agent, a reporter for NPR's This American Life, a Williamsburg saloniste (his Little Gray Book lecture series is currently on hiatus), and a cheesemonger in London (a youthful detour while on a break from Yale). These days, he's busily working both sides of the journalistic fence—rather successfully, as it happens. Even as he traffics in thoroughly made-up knowledge in his compendium of falsified wisdom, The Areas of My Expertise, and as a contributor on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, he somehow holds down a parallel career as an actual, honest-to-God editor and writer for The New York Times Magazine. (Regular readers may recall his piece on competitive bridge.) Hodgman recently spoke with Radar about his life as the bespectacled thinking man's triple threat.

RADAR: Before we start I am legally obligated to inform you that I am taping this conversation.
JOHN HODGMAN: That's fine, but my voice doesn't record on tape or digital audio.

Fate has aligned itself to throw absurdly exciting adventures my wayI'll take notes too. How did you spend your summer, aside from the usual lawn-bowling matches and chili cook-offs?
My wife and I just returned from our hideout in the Massachusetts hills, where I had a very normal summer. I mainly woke up and endured terrible allergies and then went to a wonderful used bookstore and café by a river to steal Internet access, and worked on various projects.

Projects such as the follow-up to your first book, your recurring role as the "resident expert" on the Daily Show, and your gig hawking Apple computers?
Yes, and I was continuing to help edit the True Life Tales column of The New York Times Magazine.

Which doesn't require your physical presence at The New York Times, correct?
No, but as best I can I create a simulation of the offices of The New York Times. Newsies running around, copy boys darting from manual typewriter to manual typewriter. And every now and then I have someone hand me a memo containing today's take on the liberal news.

What about the soot-faced chimney sweeps?
Them too, obviously. As you know the Times building in Times Square is the most chimneyed building of all the Times Square buildings.

True Life Tales is part of a relatively new section of the magazine called The Funny Pages. Some observers have suggested that these pages are something other than funny, despite this name. Your response?
The idea for calling it The Funny Pages is an allusion to a tradition of publishing Sunday supplements within newspapers, which included comic strips and tales of true adventure and marginalia and serialized fiction, all lumped together. It is not supposed to be a literal reference to the fact that these pages are funny.

So it's a semantic misunderstanding?
Right, and I hope that people appreciate that the discord is intentional.

I took it to mean funny as in "designed to arouse laughter," but that's just me. As a literary agent, you represented Darin Strauss, the B-movie actor Bruce Campbell, and Dale DeGroff, among others, before changing course in 2000. What made you stop?
It was a nexus of factors. I had already started writing for magazines, and I liked the lifestyle. My clients' books had all come out or were about to, so it felt like a turning point. I had spent much of the spring in Boston helping take care of my mother, who had cancer. When I saw the world didn't stop in my absence, it emboldened me to try something new.

How did you come up with the idea for The Areas of My Expertise?
I had long been a fan of The Book of Lists, Big Secrets, and other '70s- and '80s-era vulgar reference tomes of cryptic knowledge and Sasquatch-iana [ed. note: "vulgar" he means "kept in the bathroom"]. When it was suggested that I attempt a book of trivia, my brain thought immediately: yes. But I also thought there was little new I could bring to the genre, as Sasquatch is now long discovered and frankly, kind of a jerk. Finally, the words "nine U.S. Presidents who had hooks for hands," and the answer came to me: My innovation in the world of trivia would be falsehood. Ideally falsehood that, no matter how absurd, is also plausible. Also: hooks for hands.

I am not an actor, but I am not averse to the idea of being a personality. For me the best example is George Plimpton, who chased after every adventure with very little prejudice, always with an open mind and often with a funny accentWill the new book, which you are calling More Information Than You Require, follow the same format?
Yes, it will be more of the same but considerably longer. My only regret with the first was that it was not so physically massive that it inspired real concern for my sanity. I hope to change that with the new book.

And now that you've proven there's a market for totally made-up facts, will you have a bit more creative freedom?
The publisher was, from the very beginning, disarmingly supportive of every mad scheme that I had, including changing the price from $21.95 to an even $22, which was important to me.

To ensure that the Gross National Product remains robust, a nickel at a time?
Yes, but also because I don't like dealing in change.

You prefer paper tender?
I don't like coinage. We've made all this progress. I don't need to go back to the goddamned Roman times.

Were you worried that there would be any fallout from your falsifications?
My real concern was that people were going to take the rather lengthy hobo section of the book and accuse me of making fun of homeless people, which is not the idea at all. My second great concern was that I was going to get attacked by a lot of young people saying that hobos in fact still exist today.

Do they?
There is a subculture of anarchists who have adopted the hobo lifestyle, riding the rails and such. They are in fact adapting a mythology to their own anarchistic cause.

Do you have any aspirations to write "straight" nonfiction books or novels?
My plate is happily full with fake facts at this time, though I might write a book of essays about being a reluctant metrosexual [ed. note: This is a highly obscure inside joke. Hyman is the author of The Reluctant Metrosexual (Villard)].

I wouldn't advise that, unless you want to end up middle-aged and unknown. You recently appeared as a character called The Deranged Millionaire on a DVD for They Might be Giants. I suppose the job just fell into your lap?
Fate has aligned itself to throw absurdly exciting adventures my way, one of which was this opportunity. It came about through McSweeneys, which has largely been the expediter of all good things in my life.

And then there's The Daily Show. Talk about a sweet gig.
It is so incredibly unexpected and providential as to be frightening to even discuss with you now.

Is Jon Stewart as Wasp-y in person as he appears on television?
I'm not going to get into ethnic phrenology with you. He's a very handsome man who is of average height.

Comedy may be an exaggeration of the truth, but it always resonates, sometimes painfully, in the body's truth-recognizing mechanism, or else it does not produce laughterWith all of this appearing in front of the camera, one could conclude you harbor a desire to act. Do you?
I am not an actor, but I am not averse to the idea of being a personality. For me the best example is George Plimpton, who chased after every adventure with very little prejudice, always with an open mind and often with a funny accent. I am on top of a roller coaster that I never expected to be on. I don't know what's going to happen when the roller coaster goes down. My guess is I will fly out and I will hit a pole.

Did you have to clear the work you are doing for Apple with the Times, since you are, to some extent, an employee?
I don't know if I had to clear it, but I certainly did. If they'd said they had a problem with my doing the ads, I would not have done them.

Does appearing in advertisements present any conflicts of interest with your non-fake journalistic pursuits?
I would not cover the computer world. I think that would be problematic, to say the least.

But isn't there an inherent tension, at a broader level, with being involved in both journalism and advertising at the same time?
One has to be guided by principles. I would trust that being straightforward and open with everyone, including even you, Peter, would guide me through whatever thorny situations might arise. Or, I could just consult The Ethicist.

You might also ask him about being a dispenser of both fake news (The Daily Show) and real news (Times mag). How do you maintain a balance between truth and truthiness?
Of course, comedy always tells the truth. That is why it's funny. So in this way the missions are the same. Comedy may be an exaggeration of the truth, but it always resonates, sometimes painfully, in the body's truth-recognizing mechanism (a small chamber-and-membrane structure in the skull) or else it does not produce laughter. Often, it is a truth that we do not wish to hear, or that we have been trained to be embarrassed by—comedy breaks taboos. What is unique about our life today is that The Daily Show is breaking a taboo simply by making plain, truthful, obvious observations about our existing government, its bankruptcy of competence and vision when faced with the basic jobs with which it is tasked.

Is there a point at which you think you will have to choose one or the other—fake news or actual journalism?
I would hardly call what I do "actual journalism." And I would also specify that my beat is not so much fake news as it is fake human-interest features.

That sounds like splitting hairs. Don't your Daily Show viewers have a right to expect that their fake journalists aren't turning around and reporting actual facts on the side? Are there any standards at all?
In my brief period of observation, there is one noble criterion at The Daily Show that looms over all other consideration, and that is: Is it funny? Is it funny to have a contributor who writes for The New York Times Magazine? Obviously it is. It's goddamned hilarious.

John Hodgman's The Areas of My Expertise is out this month in paperback (Riverhead Trade).