Today at Manhattan Infidel I am pleased to interview international supervillain Ernst Stavro Blofeld.  Mr. Blofeld was kind enough to sit down with me for our interview and he had only one condition:  that the location of the interview remain confidential.  A condition I strove to honor.

MI: Mr. Blofeld good afternoon. May I call you Ernst?

ESB:  No.

MI:  May I call you Stavro?

ESB:  No.

MI:  May I call you –

ESB:  You can call me a taxi if you keep this shit up.  Let’s get on with the questions.

MI:  Very well.  You are considered a pioneer in the field of international supervillainry

ESB:  Not considered.  I am.  As La Rochefoucauld observed, humility is the worst form of conceit.

MI:  How did you get your start as a supervillain?  That takes money.

ESB:  Well I graduated from the University of Warsaw with degrees in Economics and political history and I don’t have to tell you those are pretty goddamn useless degrees.  So it was either international supervillainry or flipping burgers.  I chose international supervillainry.

MI:  But the money?  Where did that come from?

ESB:  I went to a bank and got a loan.

MI:  Really?

ESB: It was a different world then.  A much simpler world.  I just told them I wanted to start my own supervillain business.  I had collateral so the loan was no problem.

MI:  What do you consider your greatest contribution to supervillainry?  What are you proudest of?

ESB:  Without a doubt it had to be my use of underground lairs. I was the first one to think of it and now everyone’s copying me.

MI:  Yes, I seem to remember your underground lair on a remote Japanese island – 

ESB:  Built entirely inside a hollowed out volcano.  The firing power inside that crater was enough to annihilate a small army.

MI:  That must have been difficult to build.

ESB:  Are you kidding?  It took years!  I was originally going to build it in the United States but couldn’t get the permits from the EPA.  What pains in the asses they are.  I even promised them I wouldn’t damage the water table or do any fracking.  But no.  So I eventually had to go to the remote island route.

MI:  Off the coast of Japan?

ESB:  Technically it was an island off the coast of China.  What can I say?  The communist Chinese believe in capitalism more than the Americans.

MI:  Really? Off the coast of China not Japan?

ESB:  Yeah, that’s another lie Bond told.

MI:  You don’t like James Bond do you?

ESB:  Can you blame me?  That puny civil servant asshole ruined ten years of planning all because I wouldn’t cut him in on a piece of the action.

MI:  So you’re claiming James Bond is on the take?

ESB:  Hello.  Isn’t it obvious?  A person on a civil servant’s salary wearing the suits he wears and driving the cars he drives?  Don’t insult me by claiming otherwise.

MI:  What exactly happened to your lair?

ESB:  Bond showed up and destroyed it.  Destroyed it!  And you know he not only put me out of work, he put everyone who worked at the lair out of work. I had over 200 employees.  And I paid them good.  And they had top-rate benefits.  Health, dental – 

MI:  What about vision?  Contacts are expensive.

ESB:  Yes!  Even vision.   And my employees were great. They worked overtime (which I paid for out of my pocket.)  And this Bond asshole goes and destroys the lair.  Why?  It’s not like I was manufacturing cigarettes.  All I wanted to do was start a war between the United States and Russia and then rise to power in the resulting chaos.  And as long as we’re on the subject, destroying my lair DID create an environmental mess.  But no one talks about that.  No.  They all talk about how what a great man Bond is.  Punk!

MI:  Tough break. What have you been doing since your lair was destroyed.

ESB:  I run a delicatessen.  It’s stainless steel!

MI:  Really?

ESB:  It’s not much but it’s steady income and it allows me to build my credit rating back up so I can create another lair. 

MI:  Well, I thank you for agreeing to this interview Mr. Blofeld. You’ve certainly given my readers a lot to think about. You know, New York really is nice in the fall.  Isn’t the view great from the observation deck of the Empire State Building?

ESB:  What?  You asshole, I told you to keep the location secret.  Now he’ll be able to find me!

[James Bond enters]

JB: So we meet again Blofeld.

[They engage in hand-to-hand combat]

ESB:  When I finish with Bond I shall look forward to personally  exterminating you, Manhattan Infidel.

MI:  Wow.  What a drama queen.

And so ended my interview with a pioneer in international supervillainry.  You know, he may have a point about Bond.  He does seem to have expensive tastes for a civil servant.

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