Sunday, March 11, 2007

One last interview

I'd been sitting on Alma's questions for a while, and had some time yesterday...

1) I really liked your apartment decor- I thought it said "you" all over, and if I had walked in not knowing who lived there, I would definitely have wanted to meet you and your wife. What three things in your apartment best say "Greg," and why?

The movie "posters" -- though the decor is a collaborative effort, I've decorated with various movie items since I was a kid. it's amazing how cheap frames can class up old pics from out-of-date calendars.

The room full of games - I've had a decent-sized collection most of my life, but really grew the stash in the past six years or so, given some leisure time and disposable income.

The clutter - my desks as a kid, my room as a kid, my desk at work-- there's a unifying theme here.


2) When I ask "What makes you angry?" what is the first thing that leaps to mind?
social conservatives. I don't feel like elaborating further.


3) Tell me the funniest story you have about something you've done.

Here's the story of my attempt to get a fake ID. In the summer of 1990 I was at home from college and Public Enemy was coming to town later that summer. My buddy T. and I somehow got it in our heads that the 21+ show would be somehow more interesting, or at least longer, than the earlier all-age show. So this would require fake IDs. Through some friends, T. had access to a state seal of some sort. He had been able to procure an official state ID card from the DMV using a doctored birth certificate stamped with this seal.

So now it was my turn. My summer job that year was driving an ice cream truck around a posh suburb. There was a DMV facility on the way to work, connected to a county library. I would stop here (taking care to park my truck far away so that no one would see that I had just driven up to the DMV in order to get a non-driving ID card), get the ID, and go on my route.

It's not that crowded. I think, this isn't going to take long at all. I get up to the counter, the woman takes my stuff and goes back somewhere.

Then she's looking at it funny.
Then she's showing it to someone else.

I think, okay, going to the 'burbs was a mistake. T. went to the downtown facility, where they're swamped and harried and just want you out. Here, she's got more time on her hands.

They're still going over it.

Oh, shit, I could go to jail for fraud or something.

Upon making this realization, my next thought was not how going to jail could put my personal safety at risk. Instead, I thought:

If I go to jail, all the ice cream will melt.

Anyway, I'm trying to be as calm as possible, though I'm sure I looked like the incompetent criminal I was. She returns to the counter and explains that the cert was stamped with a notary seal, not an official state seal. As such, they couldn't take the cert as valid documentation, so I'd have to come back with something else.

Whew! I was leaving empty-handed, but not in cuffs. I ended up getting into the show on the fake birth certificate. Once in, I didn't even bother ordering a drink.


4) What five movies would comprise your perfect, all-dubious-hits-all-the-time, B-movie Saturday lineup?

Re-Animator
Howard the Duck
Rikki-Oh
Zardoz
Repo Man - a little palate-cleanser: not a bad movie, but definitely B.

5) If you could call back in time to your high school self and give him one piece of advice or insight, what would it be?
Don't be so cocky. In a few years you'll be surrounded by people who are better than you at nearly everything.

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