jennings rampage

I get interviewed.

Zack Bly interviews me. According to the rules of the Neverending Blog Meme Federation, I must make myself available to my readers to provide interviews to them.

Short Answer. Select five (5) questions and answer. Each answer counts 20% of your grade.

1) If you had to be the sovereign ruler of any nation in the world at any point in history, where and when would you reign?

Do I have to be sovereign? Oh, I suppose.

I’ll take Ancient Rome, in the 44 BC timeframe. Nice little empire, great adventures, great food, comfortable clothes, and maybe I get assassinated. Any life that doesn’t end in assassination just isn’t worth living, you know?

2) You are the curator of the “20th century museum” in a large human settlement on the planet Mars, many years after the thermo-nuclear destruction of all life on Earth. You have been charged with the task of creating an interactive “New York City” exhibit for the museum. In words and/or pictures, describe the museum piece that you would construct.

From a contemporary-looking visitor’s center, the patrons board a Redbird-style IRT subway car for a ride into a full replica of a Manhattan train station in summer, with all the sights, sounds, and smells. They’d walk upstairs out of the station into a street evocative of Eighth Avenue in the mid-30’s — an assortment of delis, diners, video stores, souvenir stores, street carts, street peddlers, and an avenue full of yellow cabs to explore and smell. Each of these storefronts could have exhibits and historical aspects and whatnot, but I think I’d focus on capturing the smell.

3) If you were a slave in the antebellum American South, do you think you would you try to escape through the underground railroad? Why or why not?

The answer as a card-carrying Libertarian is: of course, I’d rather die than not live free. But that’s how I feel knowing what freedom is and having the luxury to sit at a keyboard and prattle endlessly, you know? If I’m born into slavery, I’d probably be able-bodied and working in the fields, and wouldn’t have time for any of that. But I’d also be a pretty smart guy, I figure. I don’t know if I’m the leadership/initiative type, but if someone gets in my ear, then yeah, I might make a run for it. Otherwise, I’d probably be loyal.

4) Relate an anecdote from middle school, and explain how it impacted the rest of your life.

The first thing that comes to mind is from ninth grade, but I went to the same school from fifth grade through high school, so I’m going to go ahead and count it.

It was the regional Mu Alpha Theta math competition, held at Barron Collier High School, the public mega high school right across the field from my dinky little private prep school. I was competing in the Geometry division, on a team of four that happened to have three young women as my teammates. The test was absolutely brutal that day — out of 120 possible points, my score of 54 was enough to win the day. (Most days, there would be several scores in excess of 100 points, and perfect scores weren’t at all unheard of. A test with a winning score of 54 clearly indicated a level of sadism intended to prepare ninth graders for the fucking real world.)

It was the first (and only) time that I won a math competition. I had amassed an impressive pile of second place trophies (and would go on to continue collecting them), but man, that first win was sweet. By my accomplishment felt completely overshadowed by the pissy moods the girls on the team found themselves in after being subjected to an “unfair” test. Our team’s advisor tried to comfort the girls, telling them, “just goes to show, on any given day, anyone can win.” Nevermind the fact that the girls did all finish in the top ten, the test was unfair and that caused my fluke win, and let’s make sure the girls stop crying.

Now, I suppose it wouldn’t be hard to spin this into some sort of misogynistic lesson, and of course, that definitely a part of it. But what I really learned was my accomplishments were for myself alone — I couldn’t work hard to achieve something just to gain respect and accolades, the intrinsic reward had to be enough. Just because the story of the day was “that competition was totally unfair and doesn’t count” and not “Scott finally broke through and won one,” that doesn’t mean that the win wasn’t everything I wanted and worked for.

5) What’s your take on vegetarianism, on the whole?

I don’t tolerate evangelism in any of its forms, and I’m a very live-and-let-live kind of guy. If you’d rather not eat meat, great, do it up. If I invite you to my barbecue, I won’t be a dick about getting you to taste my pulled pork. If you invite me to your house, I’ll enjoy your pasta dish or whatever and won’t be a dick about the lack of animal protein on my plate. But if you’ve got a lecture prepared for the minute the chicken wings hit the table, fuck you.

There’s definitely a case to be made for vegertarianism from an economic standpoint — the amount of grain consumed (and practically transformed) to produce a pound of beef is quite staggering. I don’t recall exactly how staggering, but it’s staggering. So if you refuse to eat meat because of how expensive it is on a macroeconomic scale, then I’ll respect that. And if you believe that the American meatpacking industry is too disgusting to support, well, I don’t think I can argue that, either, and I’ll gladly raise a glass to your superior convictions. But that’s what you get for reading books.

But if you don’t eat meat because you believe it’s inherently cruel to kill another animal to sustain oneself, or something along those lines, just keep that claptrap to yourself, ok? Humans are designed to consume animal protein, among other things, and I won’t feel guilt over eating mass-produced inexpensive meat products to sate that need. If you choose to deny yourself that nutrition, then I hope that you find ways to replace the protein and fat your body needs, and I hope it doesn’t end up making you sterile or something.

Sorry. You said “short answer.”