An Interview with Procrustes

Look, the bots are already hard at work producing content. I won’t bore you with the details because if you read about the meal with Sam Hughes you’ve done yoeman’s duty already. They asked me to give the bots some direction, and I said, “Maybe they can interview a mythological figure again.” This was my way of setting those robot motherfuckers up, because Interview With the Minotaur had the lowest number of recommends for the 2015 season. It had one (until yesterday). So, I thought, let their CPUs grind on this. Here is what they came up with.

Please remind our readers who you are. Sure, I’d be happy to. I am Procrustes Papodapolous. In antiquity I invited people to spend the night in an iron bed. During the night I either stretched or cut them to make them fit the bed. Nobody ever fit the bed. I always had to do some work. My primary tool was a hammer because, as a boy, I was trained as a blacksmith. That was before I went to medical college. Now I do botox injections and liposuction on Long Island.

Our readers will be most interested in your past. Like many of the mythological characters we interview, I’m sure you’re more interested in talking about the present, but please indulge us for a little bit. What would make you turn to such villainy? That’s a monstrous thing to do, and you did it repeatedly. It’s true. It was monstrous. I regret ever doing such things, but it was a very different, very unsettled time. You have to remember I was one of seven villains on the sacred road to Athens. Many of the others did things that were worse. Periphetes clubbed people to death, Sinis ripped them apart using saplings, Sciron pushed them off a cliff. Many of those guys ate their victims. I never ate anybody. Asterion…

Who we know as “The Minotaur”. We’ve had him here. ..yes, Asterion ate people. He was a monster. There was no purpose to what he did, and yet he has had a charmed run in modern culture. Picasso made him a media darling. I’m not sure why that is.

But even by the mores of the times, your acts were considered monstrous. The fact that there were other monsters doesn’t change that. Like I said, it was an unsettled time. Civilization was in its infancy. You look back and you think “ancient Greeks,” but that’s not how it was. There were countless city-states. Everyone spoke a different variation of Greek. Writing wasn’t settled. Laws were in flux. New gods were being adopted while old gods were falling out of favor. There was an urgent need for standardization. We were developing a standard alphabet, standard weights and measures, standard road widths, etc. What I did was in that context. I was thinking, “What if everyone were the same size? Imagine what that would do for the garment and furniture industry!”

But you had two beds. Nobody fit, in part, because you had two beds. That’s true. I had two beds. Still, imagine if everyone were one of two sizes. Imagine what that would do for making shields.

You violated the ‘hospitality’ taboo. Once you invite someone into your house, you are obligated to protect them. What are you, a district attorney or something? The hospitality thing wasn’t as clear as you may have been led to believe. My hospitality was contingent on you fitting into one of the beds. Say you invite a cyclops over for supper, and when he gets to your house he doesn’t fit in the door. Are you still obligated to protect him when he smashes down a wall to get to the dinner table?

The reason that you had two beds is because you didn’t want people to fit. Even if they fit one bed, you put them in the other bed. Yes, that’s true. In time I began to think that the process of either “being cut down to size” or “stretching to meet your goals” was a good one. I’ll admit that my aphorism, “Fit the bed” hasn’t had the kind of run that “Know Yourself” has had, but I think the folks at Delphi just had better PR.

Look, I thought everyone would benefit from a little conformity. I have to say that I see intense pressure to conform every day around here. Every time I go to watch children play youth sports I think, “Zeus! Put the kid on an iron bed, it would be quicker!”

Killing them would be better? No, no. I never killed anybody. You can’t believe everything you read. Three or four thousand years of embellishment. Imagine what they will be saying about one of your current monsters… say Bill Cosby or somebody… in two thousand years. You get the picture. I did some brutal things, but I never killed or ate anybody.

Until Theseus killed you? Another embellishment. I’m here, aren’t I? Theseus didn’t kill me. He got the better of me, I admit. On that day he was the better man. There are some reasons for that that have to do with a medical condition that I won’t go into, but, sure, I was beaten. I’m not afraid to say that, and I will concede that Theseus was good for civilization, and Greek civilization in particular, so I’ll give him that.

What is your impression of Theseus as a person? He was a meathead. Shtik fleysh mit oygn. He had what you nowadays you would call a “steroid personality.” He was juiced by the gods. He was getting a lot of help, that Theseus. He was very similar to Lance Armstrong. Do you think Lance Armstrong is the American cultural apotheosis? I do, so there you go. You name my hero, I name yours.

You are living in the U.S. now, why? I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I like the homogeneity of your culture. Television and the internet are doing wonderful things in regard to getting rid of regional variance, and I like that. I was living near Athens, I had a good government job with the parks department and I was excited by what the European Union was doing. I am a big supporter of European integration, but then, φευ, the whole thing blows up! I wasn’t paid for six months, they took my retirement, etc. etc. It was like being stretched on the iron bed again! I said, “the Hell with this”, and came to the states. I have some family members who own a lot of real estate in Queens and they set me up with an office where I could do botox and liposuction. If you want to look like the beautiful people, I can do that for you. I can make you look exactly like a movie star. We also offer tanning and waxing, in case any of your readers are interested.

Do you miss anything about the old country, or antiquity? Of course! The food here sucks… except for Junket, that rennet custard stuff you have, which is delicious¹.

One of the things I find appalling is how you baby your teenagers. I can’t believe how you infantilize your children. You know, in my day, a fifteen year-old boy was supposed to be able to kill a wild boar with a spear, and a sixteen year-old girl could run a household. Theseus was, I think, seventeen when he beat me.

Are you still guarding one of the gates to the underworld? Yes, but it’s not the hell of your Christian imagination, it’s the old skool underworld. River Styx, Charon the boatman, shades of former heroes.

How do you protect the gateway while you are in the states? I don’t want to give away any of my precautions, but suffice it to say that it involves cameras, the internet, some sophisticated software, five tough Syrian refugees, small arms, and a cricket bat.

Could you take us down there? Only heroes can go down and come back out. You know that Theseus didn’t go through my portal. You’re aware of that, right? I mean he beat me, but my job was to keep people out of the underworld and I accomplished that. Today, I don’t think you have anyone who could make the trip. Maybe that big guy from the Rockets, what’s his name?

Dwight Howard? Yea, that guy.

There is no good way to wrap it this up, but we are out of time. I have to say, you chatbots did a good job. Do you guys ever sleep?

Not in beds, no. Too bad

¹ Accountants please note: Native Ad 009–789–005B to be credited to Gutbloom. Transaction #: 0002.