Dave Solves Problem-- Interviews Self

I was recently interviewed by The Clarion, our school newspaper, on the topic of living overseas, and, now that I've seen an advanced copy of the article, I am unhappy with my performance during this interview. I wanted to sound funny and quotable, but I was preoccupied with drawing a cartoon on the board for the up-coming class, and I ended up sounding flip and tangential-- the other teacher who was interviewed said profound things about living in another culture while I riffed on tapeworms, power outages, and feeling stupid when everyone else speaks three languages. I also forgot that the high school reporter would have a hard time merging the adjective "byzantine" into her own prose.

But I will say this, although I did not take THAT particular interview very seriously, I now have a taste for being interviewed. And I am pretty sure that my thoughts are more important than anyone else's thoughts. But the problem is this: no one has interviewed me in two weeks. In a daring (and extremely egotistical) attempt to solve this problem, I have interviewed myself.

Dave: If there was one rock band you could erase, which would it be?
Dave: I'll answer that question with one of my own. Who made more albums, Steely Dan or Jethro Tull?


Dave: Could you offer your thoughts on the sub-prime mortgage crisis?
Dave: Sure. It's a difficult thing, because you could blame Bill Clinton and George Bush for encouraging lending institutions to offer a wider variety of more complex products which would appeal to higher risk applicants, or you could blame the legislation that allowed loans to be packaged into tranched derivatives, which could be repackaged into bonds, so that everyone could get involved with the mortgage market, not just banks, who have to patiently wait from fifteen to thirty years to collect their money. Or you could blame poor people, who went ahead and took any money that rich lending institutions offered them, even if they couldn't afford it. Or you could blame the houses themselves, because most houses are made of wood and wood is edible: squirrels like to gnaw on it, termites like to eat it, and dry rot spores will quickly destroy it. I wouldn't invest all my money in something made of food and hope to get rich. I think that third pig had a good idea with the bricks.

Dave: Is there anything you feel particularly qualified to expound upon?
Dave: No, and that's sort of sad. For as much as I've read, I'm not an expert in anything. I'm pretty much a dilettante. It's a sad irony that I recognize this, yet still insist on being interviewed regularly.



Dave: Where were you when O.J. took that fateful slow ride in his Bronco?
Dave: That's a great question. I was at a party in Highland Park, New Jersey, but my brother and I weren't really talking to anyone, instead we were trying to watch the Knicks play the Rockets, it was game five of the NBA finals, but once everyone at the party got wind of the chase, they made us shut the game off and turn to that nonsense. My brother and I went into my future wife's bedroom and listened to the game on the radio, which was always fun because of the color commentary of Walt "Clyde" Frazier: "Acrobatic theatrics as Starks wheels and deals to Ewing, who styles and profiles through the lane!" But although the Knicks won, in retrospect, we should have watched the chase, because the Knicks ended up losing in seven, and Olajuwon outplayed Ewing, and that Simpson chase would be the integral event of the 90's.

Dave: Do you have any advice for the young people?
Dave: Yes. If you haven't listened to Girl Talk, you should. Don't be fooled by the name. Also, don't worry about your choices. You're going to pretty much regret everything you do (unless you invested in the Microsoft back in 1986) so you might as well enjoy yourself.