Lulu sticks it to CP!

Today is the perfect day for a REAL interview with Lulu! And this time Lu's asking the questions.

1. During college, a mutual acquaintance once asked me, in the earnest way that only an 18-year-old can, what "the essence of Tom" was. At the time, I replied that you complained a lot. Is that still accurate? Or do you have a new and improved essence that your readers should be aware of?

I'm amazed that people who knew me when I was 18 are still friends with me. I was C-R-A-Z-Y, and not in a good way. I'm much less intense now, but some might argue much less fun as well. Kind of like one of those manic people who finally gets himself medicated but then misses the extreme highs.

I still complain a lot, but usually in a sorry attempt to be funny. Despite the fact that it makes me doughy and nondescript to be nice, I do try to stay on the positive side of life nowadays. I'd say that's the new Essence of Tom: looking on the bright side.


2. You are known far and wide as a mixologist without peer. If you were to make me a "Coaster Punchman," what would be in it, and how would it be served?

That is an amazing question / suggestion. You may recall that at one point I created the "Swamp Tommy" as an answer to the fabled "Swampwater" from our St. Olaf years, a drink which required that sickly green lime vodka - a vile liquid that is no longer for sale anywhere in the free world. I tried to substitute Midori for the sickly green effect, but it just wasn't the same.

I will take this suggestion to heart by creating a cocktail after my own name. If all goes well, I may initiate a new CPW project of creating custom cocktails for any Gentle Reader who desires it. That might turn into a fee-based service, however.


3. You are also known far and wide as a Schottishe instructor without peer. Can you explain how you came to know this dance, and possibly demonstrate it for us?

Actually, I owe my deep knowledge of this dance genre to the Lovely and Talented Melinda June, who taught me the steps the first time I attended Nordic Fest in Decorah, Iowa with her and other friends.

I can't post a demo right this minute, but here are some written instructions for you:

a. Drink heavily.

b. Put on some geeky sounding folk dance music, the kind you might hear in a German Biergarten.

c. Get three other drunk friends to hold hands with you in a square formation, all facing the same direction.

d. Do this gay little skip-step thing and then alternate between the two back people skipping forward to take the lead, or by passing the same two under the arms of the front group. It's really hard for the uncoordinated, the retarded and the drunk.

e. Repeat steps a through d until you're nauseated.



4. Which character on 90210 are you most like?

That is so unfair and such a loaded question since you already know the answer. For those of you who don't know, I am most like Brenda. Mainly due to the following famous line, which has already been memorized by those who know CP most intimately:

"Brandon, can I tell you something and you have to swear not to tell anyone? When I forced Dylan to choose between me and Kelly, I never thought it was a contest. I never thought that I would lose."

We don't need to revisit the actual context of this statement in my own life. It should be enough for my Gentle Readers to know that it was true.


5. If you were able to go back in time and talk to Joseph Smith, Jr., what would you ask him? (What the fuck were you thinking? is too easy. Dig deeper.)

I would ask him why he couldn't have been a little more creative when he pretended to receive a revelation about the need for celestial underwear. Everyone knows he received his "revelation" on the propriety of plural marriage because he was a big old horn dog. Why didn't he take it a step further and pretend that God told him the gals were required to wear fishnets and pasties instead of this?

If you would like your very own REAL interview with CP, email me!