The Great Interview Experiment

As background, I must first introduce you to Neil Kramer, the man behind Citizen of the Month (http://www.citizenofthemonth.com/). Neil is a writer and prolific blogger who believes, ‘everyone has a story to tell’ and/or ‘everybody is somebody’ – (Note: Neil is often cynical and should not be taken as the Mary Poppins of the blogosphere…the ‘Kevin Bacon’ of the blogosphere…‘maybe’, but not Ms. Poppins). So each year, Neil sponsors the Great Interview Experiment on his blog. The experiment is simple – each participating blogger will interview and be interviewed by a fellow blogger. Once the interviews are complete, each interviewer posts their interview of said random blogger on their blog. Basically, this introduces someone new to his or her own piece of the blogosphere…. and so on and so forth. As Neil notes in his instructions, ‘you don’t know whether you will be interviewed by a Nobel Laureate or an insane person – it doesn’t matter.’

I am strangely intrigued by all of this. I don’t know if I am participating in the creation of some sort of crazy blog particle accelerator that will create a black sucking sound in the cyber-universe or, if this is Neil’s way of selling Amway. Regardless, there are a lot of beautifully strange people out there and well, this is the first generation to have this medium to play with…so why the hell not? Bottom line…let’s screw around with this – when I get interviewed I will update the blog.

So, without further ado’….eh’ em…tap, tap, is this thing on? Please provide a warm welcome to ‘Blaiser’ of http://www.blaiserblog.com/. Blaiser is a fellow blogger, NYC stagehand, and all around interesting, somewhat zany cat. The following is my interview of Blaiser (I would suggest reading Blaiser’s own brand of crazy in greater detail at some point). Please don’t forget to tip your waitress…

_____ THE INTERVIEW____

Q - Your blog heading contains the phrase, “No, I cannot forget from where it is that I come from…” – what is the importance of this phrase for you?

Ooh -- I'm delighted you asked. You are the first. It's essential, and here are three reasons why. One, I'm from a town with one stop light (OK, they added another when Wal*Mart showed up. Another light just for Wal*Freaking*Mart...... ) and more and more these days, with the never-ending onslaught of new phones, new reality shows starring Ugly Americans, and "new," new stuff that's really old stuff dressed up to distract us from bad taste/questionable morals/declining run production at the plate--in the face of all that, it's vitally important to Keep It Real... part of that, for me, is to remember from whence one came. For me, that's Mansfield, Pa. We walked a lot there. It was like New York City, but with about 1/10,800th of the traffic lights (http://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/17/technology/choreographing-the-dance-of-traffic-lights.html)

Two is that a good sub-heading, to me, sheds deeper light, or perhaps lights the shallows.... um.... of a blog's/essay's/book's hook, or raison d'etre. Mine is Zany Optimism--it may be clear in each post, but that's my underlying motivation. "I cannot forget from where it is that I come from." comes to us from the great John Cougar Mellencamp; it's a lyric from his seminal Americana anthem, "Small Town" off the Scarecrow album. I specifically picked it for the blog, because I love the grammatical redundancy and I'm not sure if it's intentional, on JCM's part. Maybe it is, and maybe it's not, and there's something about the ambiguity that I really love, and the potential for irony. It's all up for discussion, much like life, and that's fun to me: Discussion.

I guess there is no relevant third reason...

Q - What is the trait you most deplore in other bloggers? (Apologies, had to have one Proust Questionnaire entry in there)

Well.... I'm a relative newcomer to the B'Sphere... so far, I guess out-and-out lies I find problematic. I've been spending time on political blogs this year, and I've been really dismayed by the level of discourse. People are so needlessly vicious to each other on comment threads--the Blog Hosts usually are much more tactful--and I find it disheartening. That said, I do think it's necessary, in the good name of common sense, to smack down a complete tool every now and then, but can't we do it with more class? There's SUCH a polarization in the National Zeitgeist, if you will, these days, although I really kinda hate that word, zeitgeist. Maybe your readers can come up with a suitable older-school term. I vote for "Consciousness."

Q - You have a very humoristic tone to your writing; at times it goes tangential, at other times sharp and dry – who is your greatest influence in your approach to humor?

Good question. A few names spring to mind. My dad got me Robin Williams’ first comedy record for my 10th birthday, and it really changed my life. I listened to a lot of stand-up from then through my late teens. And of course the Pythons were a huge influence. My friends and I were definitely the hormonally challenged geeknerds at lunch who recited entire Python sketches to each other. But back to Dad--he is a poet and a painter and English professor (Ret.) who at one time favored Cartoonist as a career path, so in a certain way, as it does for most men, it all comes back to Dad. Brother Williams is a close second.

Q - As a Sox fan, and setting aside all historic resentment on other issues, how did you feel watching Damon win the World Series with the Yankees?

I'm sorry... did somebody say something?

Q - On the nerdy side, your technorati tag skills seem exceptional, how much time do you spend indentifying appropriate tags for your posts?

Oh, thank you! I do have fun with those, but they're really off-the-cuff. Basically, whatever through-line that grabs my attention on a particular day, I use the tags to kinda reiterate connections and ideas, usually tangentially. It's a way to come full circle at the end of a post. Rather like an epigram. And the poetic instinct is pretty forefront on my brain these days. If I ever get good at compressing my posts, watch out. But I would say it's a literary thing, as opposed to a technorati thing. Who knows how people arrive at a particular Web page? I'm going with Voodoo.

Follow-on Q - Have you ever thought of stringing the tags together to create a Haiku?

No! Thank you for thinking of it for me, though. I will do a post devoted to that and will share credit with you!

Q - Which of your blog posts are you most proud of?

A Graduation Hyku, a posting in June.

Q - Is there a deeper meaning in your bio picture being two red gummy fish? Are you an angry Christian?

Ooh! What fun if I were! They're Swedish Fish, and I picked the image because they show up in my First Post. I identify mostly with the Secular Humanists. And the Bokononists, don't forget about them--they're quite good.

Q - If you could go out to dinner with anyone living or dead who would it be? (I know, so trite, but it’s fun)

Wally Shawn, and I'd bring a friend with a DV camera and we'd shoot the whole ...wait, what am I saying? Stephanie Seymour!! I understand she's available now, and we happen to share the same birthday...or maybe her mom, Jane.

Q - You have just secured the best job on the planet – naming nail polish colors for a major cosmetics firm (e.g., You’re Not in Kansas Anymore Red). To wow your new boss you must knock his socks off with your first creative color – what is it? (another e.g., Crack is Whack White).

Toss-up between "I'm riding the IRT-in-Autumn-whilst-reading-shotgunning-magazines-fluroescent-orange" and "Angry Christian Crimson"