Interview Series Day 4: Michelle Farro

Michelle Farro is and was my first kiss, first girlfriend, and the first in a long line of women to dismantle my soul and self-confidence with her callous, idiopathic rejection.  (Please, you vipers, stop, for real.)  As a friend and compatriot and individual, though, Michelle is freakishly wonderful. She is unwaveringly supportive, gives fashionable, exemplary haircuts, plays the violin, writes poetry, wears prairie dresses, owns a typewriter that she writes her poetry on, and gives a shit about things most are too ungiving to give a shit about.   She also has the irrefutably worst tattoos currently residing on any human epidermis.  My father has pointed to her unconscious body, looked me in the eye, and asked, dummy did you just rape that girl?  To which I replied, nuh uh nope.  To which he replied, then get her the flip off my couch.  To which I replied, I am too black-out drunk to do that right now, Dad.  To which he replied, then get Georgie to help you.  So Georgie helped me, and we gurneyed Michelle to my Dad’s car, and the four of us partook in one of the modern world’s most thrilling carpools.  On a more interpersonal level, few have been able to overlook my “condition” as Michelle has.  Her tastes almost always coincide with mine, ergo her tastes are as sagacious as tastes get.  There is something to be said for those that love what you love.  An indirect, but fierce bond is formed, and a patchwork of such bonds have underlaid my eleven-year friendship with Michelle.  She will recommend a song to me and I will have already heard it, but I will distinctly remember listening to the song and thinking that Michelle would really like it.  Only I forgot.  This has happened and happened vice-versa more times than I have fingers and toes to count.  Our affirming what we love reaffirms what we loved before, love now, will love later, this, that, these, those,  she me, and I her.

Interview Series Day 4: Michelle Farro

Question 1.

CP: Where and when were you born and where do you currently reside?

MF: I was born in Freehold New Jersey on December 14th 1987 and now I live in Santa Ana California.

Question 2.

CP: What is your first memory?

MF: We had an above ground pool when I was young, and the vacuum cleaner got stuck to my stomach.

Note: Reflecting, it is somewhat unclear how these two pieces of information are related and integral to Michelle’s first memory.  When I reread the answer I see the curious, toddler Michelle incapacitated by a hulking Hoover inhaling her babyfat, and she stares wet-eyed through the backdoor to the delightful freedom her pool represents.  Really though, she was talking about the filtration robot.

CP: The filtration robot attacked you?

MF: Yeah, and I was a little kid so I was freaking out.

CP: That is beyond traumatic.  I also have a drowning experience when I was younger.

Note: I fell into an activated jacuzzi when I was five, locked the lid on top of me, and was brought back from the dead by my babysitter.  I explained this at tedious length.

MF: And that is why you can’t swim.

Question 3.

CP: What is your animus or power animal?

MF: A dolphin.

CP: Because of its supreme intelligence?

MF: Yes.  They are the second-most intelligent entity besides humans and have a mythical quality I enjoy.

Question 4.

CP: What is the name of your art movement?

MF: This is where I start crying.  I don’t have a name of my art movement though.  I’m currently not a part of any art movement, because all I do at school is paint naked people.  This is a period of time when I’m bolstering my technical skills and I’ll let the rest develop when I do my senior thesis next year.

CP: Terrible answer.

Question 5.

CP: What are the names of your five children?

Note: This took a half hour.

MF: Neil Young Angelo Farro.  Honestly, I hate children.  I don’t want any kids.

CP: Then why do you have five of them and why do they have five names?

MF: I would probably name them after flowers.

CP: The exact answer I was expecting to get.  So, Rose, Hydrangea…

MF: One would be Jasmine.

CP: Neil Young Angelo, Rose, Hydrangea, Jasmine and Cactus?

MF: Noooooo.  I would name one Sapphire.

CP: One of your children is a black stripper.

MF: No, Zephyr, like the wind.

Note: This took a half hour.

CP: Pick any two [expletive deleted] names.  Bill and Gates.

MF: I feel as though I’m going to have to name my kids this now.

CP: If you name your kid Zephyr I will force my way into the delivery room and palm-slap you.

MF: Fine. Willyzx.  I feel most strongly about that.  Oh, and after my brother, Kelly.

The Sentence Completion Portion of the Interview

Question 6.

CP: My name is Michelle Farro, whilst hiking my favorite hiking path, I stumbled upon the fountain of youth.  Unfortunately, there is only enough immortality Propel for four canteens.  After I drink my canteen, I will give the other three canteens to _____. ______. and ______.

Note: This question presupposed that Michelle, or anyone, wouldn’t drink the immortality Propel.  I don’t know why anyone would not drink the immortality Propel.

MF: Sam Tacon, Kelly Ford, and Howard Zinn.

Note: This is immortality Propel, not resurrection Zephyr Hills.

Question 7.

CP: My name is Michelle Farro, if I could undo any event in history I would undo ______.

MF: The bombing of Hiroshima.

Question 8.

CP: My name is Michelle Farro, in my previous life I was ________.  A flower?

MF: Johnny Appleseed.

CP: What about the interim years when Johnny Appleseed died and you were born?

MF: Johnny Appleseed is a dummy.  He planted all bitter apples.

CP: You see Johnny Appleseed as a tragic figure then?

MF: I feel as though I would be someone on the Lewis & Clark Expedition.

CP: Now you’re Sacagawea.

MF: YES!

Question 9.

CP: My name is Michelle Farro, and I just won a billion Canadian dollars, I’m totally going to _______.

MF: Pay off all of my student loans.  Make sure my Mom never has to work again.

CP: Okay, you have $750 million Canadian dollars.  How about Walt Whitman’s shoes?

MF: I would definitely buy Walt Whitman shoes.  I’d pay off my brother’s student loans, too.  Also, a green hybrid and a two seat ocean kayak.

Question 10.

CP: My name is Michelle Farro, and the proudest moment of my life will be ________.

MF: Hmmmmmmmm.

CP: Yeah, see what I did with chronology there?

MF: Whenever I feel as though what I am doing has a purpose or concern for a greater good.

CP: Good luck with that *mouth-manufactured fart noise*!

The Basically Personal Questions Portion of the Interview

Question 11.

CP: Can you describe yourself in four prepositional phrases?

MF: Under my skin…in the air…on top of the Earth’s molten core…and stuck inside a mocha Vince Lombardi skin.

CP: Did you just say, stuck inside a mocha Vince Lombardi skin.

MF: Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues again.

Question 12.

CP: Would you rather eat fast food cheeseburgers without pickles on your lunch break at a slaughterhouse every day for the rest of your life or see your worst enemy waterboarded to death.

MF: I’m going to pick the waterboarding, but who’s my worst enemy?

CP: George [W.] Bush.

MF: Probably George Bush.

Question 13.

CP: What was the most bored you ever were in your entire life?

MF: Driving cross country with Sam Tacon and Justin Garber.  The back seat of my car was so jammed with my belongings that you couldn’t move, and the wind was blowing in your face constantly.  It was so loud you couldn’t even hear the music or the conversation in the front seat.  It was super boring.

Question 14.

CP: What is your dream job (this includes any time period but excludes video game tester)?

MF: I would want to do photojournalism when people still used film.

Note: A painstaking debate ensued that resulted in Michelle coming to the conclusion that she wanted to be a pre-digital photographer for National Geographic Magazine, or Whale Wars.

MF(cont.): Or I would want to be on Whale Wars.

CP: On the side of the Japanese I assume?

MF: No.  I want to risk my life for a whale.

Question 15.

CP: If you had to erase either Bob Dylan or Neil Young from the fabric of reality which would you choose?

Note: Michelle falls over.

MF: Sadly, I’m going to have to say Neil Young.  I just like more of Bob Dylan’s songs, and think Dylan can be more poetic at times.

Question 16.

CP: You’ve been elected President of the United States in a landslide win over your Republican opponent Will Zurich in the 2016 Presidential Election.  What policies would you enact?  Which policies would you discontinue?

MF: I would stop all of our defense spending and make sure there were no more homeless people.

CP: You would disband the military and outlaw being homeless.

MF: Yes. Everyone would have access to a decent education.  Revise the teaching model.  Marijuana would be legalized.  I would universalize healthcare.

CP: Would you legalized cocaine and prostitution?

MF: I would have to look at studies on cocaine and its aftereffects.  I don’t really feel as if I know enough about prostitution to champion that legislature.

CP: Would you prohibit the owning of firearms?

MF: Yes.

CP: Would you destroy our nuclear weapons stockpile?

MF: Yes.

CP: Would you blow up Mount Rushmore?

MF: I would not blow up anything in nature.

CP: But it’s artificial?

MF: It’s still a mountain.  I would probably put a sheet over it.

Question 17.

CP: Like most people with way too much time on their hands, you are extremely political.  What are your thoughts on the situation in Egypt?

MF: I believe in every country’s right to self determination.  There’s too much attention being paid to the United States’ involvement.  No matter what happens, change is better than the system they have established.  I wish them the best of luck.

CP: What about the shooting in Arizona?

MF: There are so many things to blame.  What really upsets me about that is that afterwards conservative groups were posting fake Facebook profiles for the shooter and listing his heros as Barack Obama.  It upsets me that people would see that and believe it.

CP: What about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict?

Note: This is too lengthy, erudite, and perceptive to transcribe.  Basically, Michelle and I decided that Zionists, even Natalie Portman, are awful.

Question 18.

CP: Which celebrity couple would you most like to be your parents (This includes past and present celebrity couples)?

MF: Cleopatra and Marc Antony.

CP: I would pick Joe Dimaggio and Marilyn Monroe.

MF: Good one.

CP: I am considering Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe, too.

Question 19.

CP: Three dinner guests living or dead, who would they be?

MF: David Foster Wallace.  Howard Zinn, and Noam Chomsky.

CP: The hell is that?  Is that the author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower?

Note: Noam Chomsky is not the author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Not even close.

MF: I’m changing him to Leonardo Da Vinci.  I think Bob Dylan would annoy me at dinner.

Note: I do a stellar Bob Dylan impression.

MF: No, Mark Twain.  Yeah.

The Word Association Portion of the Interview

CP: Jingoism!

MF: Jenga!

CP: Filibuster!

MF: Bill Maher.

CP: Carpetbagger!

MF: South!

CP: Redwood!

MF: Forest!

CP: Incubus!

MF: Gay!

Question 26.

CP: What is your favorite song lyric of all time.

Note: Michelle recited this verbatim.

MF: She lit a burner on the stove and offered me a pipe, “I thought you’d never say hello,” she said.  “You look like the silent type.”  Then she opened up a book of poems and handed it to be, written by an Italian poet from the thirteenth century.  And every one of them words rang true and glowed like burning coal, pouring off of every page like it was written in my soul, from me to you, tangled up in blue.

Question 27.

CP: What’s your favorite memory of Carmen Petaccio?

MF: When you found the forty dollars in the ATM in Jack & Bills.  You were so happy.

Note: That is probably the happiest moment of my life.  Ironically, it occurred in the most depressing location in the universe.

Question 28.

CP: What is your favorite complementary ice cream good?

MF: I like waffle cones.

Question 29.

CP: What’s your favorite sci-fi franchise or movie?

MF: Is Moon considered sci-fi?

Michelle’s Question for Carmen’s End of the Month Self-Interview

Q4: If the ghost of David Foster Wallace came to your bedside and told you in thirteen seconds he would disappear, what would you say to him?