The Question: Why should anyone buy your record?
F.M. Cornog (vocals/everything else): Hey, you're asking the wrong guy. Oh, my God. Oh, my— Oh, geez. I don't have a good answer for that, you know? I can't take it seriously, really. Um, geez… I'm not a good person for that kind of question. This is going to sound really terrible here. Because I'm not, like, a… Could I ask my girlfriend for you?
The Onion: You want to put her on?
FMC: You want to talk to her?
O: That'd be great.
Barbara Powers (girlfriend): [After pause.] I guess the way I think of it is something that Fred said to me before: This is gonna sound kind of corny, but earlier in his life, things weren't going too well and he was more or less living on the street—he was pretty lonely and didn't have much hope, or whatever. What he said to me is that if he can make it back from being in such a low place, other people can too. He always kind of hoped that maybe one or two people out there listening to his records will feel a little less lonely. And if he can accomplish that, he would feel happy that he maybe put a little bit of beauty out into the world, and made somebody feel not so lonely. That's something he's said to me before, so that's where I came up with it.
O: You justify his existence well.
BP: Well, I believe in him.
FMC: [Takes back phone.] Didn't I say that well? I said that so well. [Pauses.] I wouldn't know how to respond to that, really. I'm not the type of guy to say, "Well, my music's better than all these other people's, and all these other people are phonies, and this group sucks, and I'm the best pure songwriter…" I can only imagine what other people must say. Barbara was the one who had kind of the burning desire to put my stuff out there, so I never really had this burning desire to justify my existence. I quite frankly never put that much value on my existence. I mean, I like the New York Jets, so that should tell you something right there.