We’ve been hanging with Dillon Perillo a bunch lately to film some pieces and he’s such a surreal conversationalist. Sometimes his lips move and you think, “This person belongs at MIT,” and other times you think, “This person belongs somewhere safe where there’s nothing hot or sharp.” But we always have a nice time with Dillon. We grabbed some bits of conversation off the floor leftover from filming. This is what it’s like to talk with him.
Here he is with What Youth’s Stuart Cornuelle on the couch in our studio. Dillon’s zipper was broken in the down position.
Dillon: I might as well not wear pants.
Stuart: You just need to hang a little sign that says, “I realize this is broken.”
Dillon: Just put tape over it.
Stuart: Urban Outfitters, you get what you pay for. Why did you buy a pair of pants?
Dillon: I had a gift card there and, I don’t know, they were on sale.
Stuart: I don’t know how to feel about Urban Outfitters, because I go in there and I like things, but I realize I only like them because they’re trendy, and I’m not very original.
Dillon: Fashion goes through fads so quick. Every month someone is wearing something different, and something else is cool. Trendsetters can’t make up their minds.
Stuart: If they could we’d all be fine.
Dillon: I know what you’re trying to say. They restock that place every day with new shit.
Stuart: Exactly. If you really want to stay on top of it, you have to keep buying.
Dillon: Fashion’s like a job, it must be the most annoying. It makes no sense.
Stuart: It’s like this cardigan sweater. Ten years ago people would have been like, “Only grandpas wear that, it’s stupid.” But now it’s, “Oh my, how dapper and fashionable you are.”
Dillon: That’s where they make all their money, it’s like planned obsolescence. Companies make things that don’t last very long on purpose. The only way they can make money is if people keep buying their shit.
Stuart: iPods always seemed to die every two years on schedule.
Dillon: Light bulbs too. Apparently light bulbs can last for 100 years, but they just don’t make them like that anymore.
Stuart: Buy buy buy.
Dillon: Printers are the worst. There’s a chip in the printer, and when it gets to a certain amount of prints, it automatically says, “Needs repair.” I watched some weird show, and they can go in there and take the chip out, and fuckin it will work for years, because it tells itself it’s broken when it’s not.
Stuart: Sounds like a conspiracy theory.
Dillon: Everything’s a conspiracy theory.
Stuart: Kelly Slater Twitter conspiracy theories.
Dillon: He’s so cool though. Endless.
