This one comes from Thomas, who doesn’t have his own website, but he does have a Twitter (@laputanwmachine).  Super nice, funny guy.  Here’s the interview we just did over email:

Do you have any advice for anger management beyond what you wrote in your article about internet rage? In real life, I often have the urge to ragekill strangers for (in hindsight) extra silly reasons, so much so that if I successfully walk away I can’t think clearly for half an hour. How do you deal with it when the situation (boss at work, cop, I dunno) does not allow you to just walk away?

I still deal with anger issues because it’s really hard for me to keep my mouth shut. If a cashier at a gas station gives me attitude, it’s hard for me to remember that she’s just had a bad day, so instead, I say something shitty to her. I’ve made some progress in that department, but it’s taken years, and I still have a long way to go. The key is to always try to put yourself in their position. Very rarely is there a case of someone giving you hell out of nowhere just because they feel like making your day worse. Something else is at work there.

But if things get really bad, I have to walk away, no matter what. If I’m talking to someone on the net, and I’m finding myself getting heated up, I have to close the window and find something else to do. I may fume about it like you do for a half hour, but during that time, I have to just keep reminding myself that what I’m pissed about is so unbelievably insignificant, it shouldn’t even be registering as a thought, let alone an emotion.

You have to remember that an anger problem isn’t as much about anger as it is about ego. When your mind clears up enough to entertain neutral thoughts, the first thing you should ask yourself is, “Am I the one being the dick, here?” You’ll be shocked at how many times you can answer that with a resounding “yes.”

How has your divorce affected your relationship with your kids? What is it like to have them on the weekend, and then say goodbye during the week? How do you resolve ‘parenting’ disagreements with your ex?

I am really lucky that for the most part, my ex and I still get along for the sake of our kids. We treat each other like strangers meeting for the first time, using that strange sort of overly polite voice. I call it “the phone voice” because it’s the one people default to when talking business over the phone.

The kids were young enough when we got divorced to not really have an issue with it. It was just a part of their lives, and they adjusted pretty well. Both my ex and I treat them with the utmost respect, so they just sort of fell into the idea of, “On weekdays, we’re here, and on the weekends we’re over there.” For a couple of years, I lived in the next town over, which is 30 minutes away. But after signing with Cracked, I no longer had to work in that town, so I moved back to the town they live in. And that means that during the week, if they want to come over, I’m right here. It’s worked out well, and they’re very happy kids.

My ex and I haven’t had many parenting disagreements. But if something comes up, we talk about it as politely as we can and then move on. Our problems as a couple were severe enough that staying together would have been much worse on our kids than being apart. Living in a house where the mom and dad clearly don’t love each other, and clearly don’t like each other is bad. It sets up the wrong message for them, and they deserve better than that.

Do certain things not come up that used to e.g. school or homework? (also they’re adorable!)

That’s a good question, and one that I’ve not been asked before. Yes, things like school rarely come up, since they’re here on the weekends. I’ll get a quarterly report on how they’re doing, and I’ll hear the basic stories kids tell about what happened at school. But overall, I don’t hear much about it because on the weekends, they don’t have homework. I’m not right there with them during the week to look over their shoulder and make sure they’re keeping up with the homework, and turning in the best work they can.

What do you think about the drinking-related messages in some Cracked articles? Do you ever write any of them, as the layout-picture guy?

I’ve never worked on any other drinking article other than my own, and I think Randall (head of layout) keeps me from those articles on purpose. Which I greatly appreciate. They all know my struggles with alcohol, and I think they respect that enough that if an article about drinking comes in, they just say, “We have three other layout people. One of them can field this one.”

As far as reading them, I just don’t. It’s hard enough for me to write my own pieces on booze. If I read another person’s article that talks about it in a positive way, that’s bad for me. It’s best for me to just avoid that altogether.

The difference between your situation when you made your first PWOT Beer-off video and today is remarkable. Are you still making upward progress at that rate, financial and otherwise?

Yes, I’m always making progress where that’s concerned. Mostly, it’s in the form of learning how to live life and manage what I have. But we’re still not out of the woods yet. For instance, we desperately need a new car, but neither of us have good credit. My years of drinking and being late on all of my bills pretty much fucked me into oblivion where credit is concerned. So we’re having a hard time trying to figure out how we’re going to pull off making a purchase that big without having the ability to walk in and slap several thousand dollars worth of cash on the counter.

But we’re seeing improvement all the time. For instance, we finally had enough money saved up in case of an emergency. Then (yesterday, actually) both the battery and the alternator on my truck went out. We were, for the first time, able to take care of that problem ourselves, rather than having to call my friends and beg for help.

That’s an incredible feeling.

Are you religious?

I’m not what you’d call “religious,” but I do believe in a God, and I’m kind of sick of people actively trying to make me feel ashamed for that. I don’t bomb abortion clinics. I don’t start wars. I don’t hate gays. Yet there’s a sect of people out there who like to lump all believers together and then define them by the actions of the most extreme and mentally ill of the group. There are a handful of fucked up people out there who do like to use the name of God to justify their morbid actions and batshit crazy thoughts — I understand that. But for every one of those people, there are a hundred thousand more who are just average people, working average jobs, living average lives, who happen to believe that there’s something bigger than us out there.

I don’t push my beliefs off on other people, and I don’t preach to anyone, ever. Those beliefs are mine and mine alone. I don’t like it when a fundamental atheist tries to push off their beliefs on me — I won’t do the same in reverse.

And after seeing a thousand religious debates in my time, I’ve discovered this one, unavoidable fact: People can’t discuss it rationally. Every statement is barbed and laced with hate … on both sides. It always erupts into name calling and each side flat-out making fun of the other side for what they believe, and that’s just bullshit to me. I avoid religious debate at all cost. The main reason? I could give a shit less what someone believes. That’s their thing, not mine.

Many things can tempt drinking- peer pressure from friends, stress or depression of the I NEED A DRINK variety, etc. The times you ‘quit drinking for a while’ in the before-time, what sort of things tempted your return to drinking most?

Stress was a big one, but it always came down to, “I want to be buzzed, and I’m a grownass man.” Boredom was another. I used to love playing guitar and singing in front of people, but I only did that when I drank. So there were nights (and still are nights) where I want to go out and buy a twelve pack, break out my guitar, and just play and sing all night. I’d use the guitar as an excuse to revert — which is insane when you see it in writing like that.

But alcoholics will use any excuse as long as it produces the desired result: drinking that they can justify to themselves. “No, this time was fine because it was only one night. Jim was back in town, and we haven’t seen each other for ages. I couldn’t just not drink!”

Do you follow or have strong opinions about politics, or do you try to avoid them (anger trigger, etc)?

I don’t follow them at all. If I try, both sides make me want to punch myself in the face for having the audacity to pay attention in the first place.

Of the people that drink regularly, what percentage are alcoholics versus bona fide ‘responsible drinkers’?

I think the number I’ve seen before is five percent, but I don’t think that’s talking about “regular” drinkers. I think that’s taking into account all people who drink, period. Even the ones like my grandmother who has one daiquiri at Christmas, and one at Thanksgiving. I think if you narrow the search down to regular drinkers, the number gets much higher. I’d say it’s probably closer to 30%, but that’s just me making a guess, based only what I’ve seen in my personal experiences. I could be way off.

Do you use facebook personally (not for work)?

I do, occasionally. I have one here.

However, that is about to make a dramatic change in the next couple of months or so. I can’t get too heavily into it, but it’s about to become a character page of sorts. So it’s about to take a very strange twist. I’ll talk more on that as we get closer to dropping the Fuck Yeah Bomb.

Are you JC Denton? When you stand atop the world, what image will you remake it in?

I had to actually look up who that was. Though I have to admit that the one from Invisible War does look a lot like me, when my hair was short.

Do you answer to John in real life, or use your real name only?

I use my real name, but I’ve been writing under the name “John” for so long that I’ll actually turn towards a person if I hear them say the name, like at a grocery store or whatever. We used to have parties back in the day called “Cheesefest,” where a bunch of forum members met in a designated city and partied for three days, and I had no problem adjusting to people calling me John. I guess you just get used to it after a while, like a nickname.

Wong has said in the past how ridiculous it is that internet commenters phrase their criticism like a boss’s performance review. I feel fucking ridiculous typing out interview questions to THE JOHN CHEESE like I’m fucking Larry King or something. Or is my style just pompous and insufficiently supplicating?

No, your questions are fine. The commenters he’s referring to are the people who like to make little jabs and break down the piece in a negative way as if their opinion matters in even the most remote way. Which it doesn’t. We became the #1 comedy site on the planet without ever looking at those comments sections because we know what the fuck we’re doing. The commenters do not. When they can produce 3-4 new pieces of content every day, 365 days a year, without taking a break for holidays or emergencies or being sick — when they can work 80 hour weeks, giving up sleep and social life, and holidays spent with families in favor of making sure the site continues to function — then they can tell us how to run the site and how to create/write the articles.

Until then, they’re armchair critics. Yep, I may have gotten 20 people who were upset that I wrote an article about addiction (I’ve written a total of three of those, by the way… and only used alcoholism as a single point in three others), but those 20 people mean jack shit when I compare it to the 300 or so who have thanked me for it. In less than 24 hours.