Jason Interrogation

1. What is the wisest thing someone has ever said to you?

Tricky. Wisdom is in the understanding, not the saying. But I’ll try.

The one I always quote is, “Don’t ever go to bed angry.” in reference to relationships. Great advice, and it makes so much sense that it seems obvious, but think back to how many times little things have grown, over time, into huge, relationship breaking things. Untended wounds don’t heal pretty.

But the one I’ve had the most mileage out of actually comes from the same guy, “Life’s too short to dance with the ugly ones.” You can take it at face value, but once you start applying it to the rest of your life it attains brilliance. Don’t waste your time on people who aren’t worth it. Don’t waste your heart on those who don’t deserve it. Don’t bleed for lost causes of any kind. In short, give it your best shot, but life wasn’t meant to be wasted on suffering.

2. It’s no secret that you are a pretty funny guy, and often the life of a party. Where do you think your need for humour comes from?

Humour draws people in and creates a bond, much like a natural disaster, but with less mud. You can get farther with a few companionable laughs than with years of small talk. And by farther I mean that bond. People like to feel liked and included and appreciated, and bringing out people’s humour does that for me as much as for them.

3. What is the one thing in the world at the moment that causes you the greatest amount of concern? Conversely, what is it about the present world that you are happy to see?

Very tough to answer. It’s a question of recursion. I want to say that the Bush Administration holds that honour, but that government is a result of American mentality and tunnel vision. And that’s a result of an entire history of conscientious fostering of national pride while ignoring internal decay and external realities. Humanity being the creature it is, we love to be part of the winning team, and that means someone has to be on the losing team, and that, in turn, means that we have to resist understanding and accepting different ideologies. So, at the very end of that line of recursion I have to say that Humanity’s propensity for ignorance is my biggest cause for concern, but at the moment no one embodies that better than America. Nowhere else do you find such immeasurable potential for doing good, lost in a sea of bulldog blindness.

What am I happy to see? Easy- communication. Just as the printing press turned the world inside out and rocketed society’s progress forward exponentially, the Internet is doing the same thing. Information is power, and unrestricted access to information is freedom. Twenty years ago the journalists and governments, and those that mediated between the two, had all the power. Now Lisa knows Jim and Doug in Iraq, and they know what’s really going on and they’re saying so on their blog. The sinister void in central Europe in the late 30s and early 40s is an impossibility now. We all know what is going on in Iraq, and we aren’t quiet about it. Accountability is no longer some vague threat to power. It’s immediate, and we haven’t even begun to see the impact. Literally- power to the people.

4. You awaken one day and discover the unfathomable and most terrifying– all of your music has been stolen. Gone. Then, suddenly, to your relief, you see your favourite album has been left behind, and you only have it to listen to for the rest of your days. What is it?

WHY DON’T YOU JUST KICK ME IN THE BALLS? Bloody hell. The problem we hit here is that I love to listen to music almost all the time, but I can’t handle hearing the same song more than once or twice a day. No radio, no nothing but that one album? Can we define “album” as “hard drive”? =) *sigh* I don’t know. I guess I have to pick something. At the moment it would probably be my own CarBombs compilation. I’m totally not content with that, but if I can only have one it’ll have to do. I’d end up kidnapping Timo and forcing him to play live to keep me entertained.

5. You have a lot of catch phrases. Which three are your eternal favourites, and why?

I’m not allowed to have favorites. I just throw that stuff out there and it evolves on its own. Talktalk likes to bring up his fave, which he told me at the time to remember because he loved it so, but he forgot, and I forgot, and now it’s gone. Others get used for a while & put back on the shelf, then come back out of nowhere and blindside you quite rudely. It’s not the sort of thing you have any control over. Like “shoor”. I mean, where the hell did that come from? And how did it ever get attached to me? I guess I’d like to make a more exact science out of it, but it only works when you aren’t expecting it.