Full name: David Collin M.
Age: 24
Location: Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA
Occupation: staff writer/webmaster for Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, co-founder/co-editor of The New Yinzer, freelance writer
Hobbies: crosswords, low-level Web and graphic design, Christian UHF television
Pets: 1 fish, betta, named Pussy or Pussy Joe

1: the heavy part
Update us on your situation in life.
My life now is I think similar to my life when you first interviewed me, except now I have The New Yinzer up and running. Also every last one of the friends I had while in college has left town, leaving me here alone with newer friends but fewer friends, friends with spouses or lovers of their own to fill their time. Ergo, I'm much more lonely than I was back then. Plus also my life is in this limbo period between Pittsburgh and away, desk job and academia. I applied to grad school for fiction writing and am waiting to hear.

So you're still driving that blue Sunbird around?
Yes, because why have a car payment when you don't have to? I was spoiled and handed a car when in high school and I'm driven (har har) to ride that spoiling (har har har) as far as it will take me. (For the record, the Pontiac is without a spoiler.)

Ideally, what will your life look like on New Year's Day 2004?
Today I'll answer this way: I'll wake up alone at 9am and it will be very snowy out and I won't be hung over because I spent the previous night inside my own small apartment and I will spend most of the day reading something good until it's time to eat or wash dishes or tidy, at which point I'll do those things. My phone won't ring and no one will drop by.

Have your early-to-mid '20s been like you imagined?
It's hard to imagine how you envisioned the present back in the past, because of course the reality of the present's experience overwrites the unreality of the past's hopes. Lemme try: No. I mean I was very delusional as a teen. If I wasn't in a band at this point then I'd be directing films, and I'm not remotely on the path toward either of those vocations. I think this is a dangerous practice. The past's future is always nicer than the present, but only as an idea. Because I'm not doing now what I wanted to be doing now back when I was much younger does not mean that I'm not really where I should be or am happy being in life.

Which was the best year, for you, of the aforementioned early-to-mid '20s?
Am I still in my early Twenties? 20-23 = early, 24-26 = mid and 27-29 = late? Okay. Well 21 probably, because at that point I was still in college and most energy was this weird form of kinetic and potential, in that I was out all the time and running all around town and sharing my bed and all that, but then also there were plans for the future, plans in which at that time it didn't matter that I wasn't laying a foundation for them to become a reality. So yeah, 21. 1999, mostly. Now I'm not as kinetic, and still trying to find the sea legs I need to live well in a working-day self-sustaining environment.

Which was the best year, you-wise, of your life?
Me-wise? Clearly 1978, the year of my birth. If it weren't for that I might not be doing this interview right now. I'd like to courteously answer by saying I don't like this question.

Compare those two years. How were they different? How were they the same?
Cataloguing one's life in terms of each year lived is a very simple process at our age because I mean come on, it's not that hard to remember 24 years distinctly from one another. But this ease goes away eventually; I'm predicting it goes away along the same time that one stops really caring about birthdays and ages. I don't like it, this process. What I can do is read the story of my 24 years of life in terms of scenes or stages that don't follow years so well. And looking at the stage of my life that I described two questions ago and the one before it that I usually hold in the highest regard, I don't know how to compare. In one I was on the cusp of entering high school and among a group of very tightly knit friends that found itself on the outside of most things around us, which only made us then more tightly knit. I discovered a lot of new things that would set a stage for upcoming years—in terms of books, movies, music, etc.—and I kissed a girl. This is kinda similar to what happened in 1999, on a smaller scale of course. But, well, I'm going to have to ramble a bit here and confess that I've had an ailment for most of my life that I've often looked on past versions of myself with complete contempt, which turns out is a weird form of self-loathing-prevention, in that the obvious conclusion to this practice is that I can always say, "I'm better now than I've ever been." It's often maybe delusional, but it is somewhat true. My writing's better than it's ever been. I think I dress better. But I've been happier in the past than I am now, and I've related to and been more appreciative of other people better. I think, looking back on everything, the times that stand tall over the others are the times when this me-first/semi-professional stuff was admirable (and it got bad, like, say, in the poetry of 1996/1997) and but also the others-based/relationship stuff was admirable (which I think is currently in a trough, waveform speaking).

How is Pussy Face, or whatever your fish's name is, doing?
God I wish I had really named him Pussy Face. What a great thing to call somebody. Can you imagine such a thing? Pussy Joe, actually, though for a while it was only Pussy. He's doing fine. He gets depressed and stationary when I don't change his water for a while, so I changed it last night, and his bowl looks very clean and clear, and he's been swimming around like a little girl in a tutu all day. Ate like a fucking champ. Chomp!

How about the New Yinzer?
The New Yinzer is in a between-period that uncomfortably mirrors my own. After a year of being simply a magazine, it's on the cusp of being something much more rewarding and fulfilling than a magazine, and getting to the place in which Jenn and I are envisioning it will take a lot of work, which is a lot of work to do in a very little time as I may be leaving town in seven months or so. So it's going greatly in the present, but Jenn and I, our eyes so set always on the future of the thing, I think are sharing a form of dizziness with it all. We're still kids, kinda. We often forget that.

2: the not-heavy part
Describe a good night out on the town...
It is a matter of the right people in the right bar, and often the right bars, if a place is uninteresting and deserves desertion (q.v. multi-bar nights between you and me in the past). Whether in one setting or multiple, it also is a matter of the right flowing conversation and the right amount of risk and dare and curiosity. Try that drink. Flirt with that girl. It's a feeling that tomorrow doesn't matter much. A rare, rare time in which I find myself waist-deep in the moment of the thing.

And a good night in the apartment, describe that, too.
Quiet, quiet, quiet, and warm. Windows are open and the sounds of the moving-and-shaking city can be heard far away. I'm not interested in watching television, and there are a small handful of CDs that I've convinced myself I'll never make it through the night if I don't hear at least once. I probably have a form of whiskey and some soda, and I'm hopefully in the mood to write something, even if it's simply a letter. In bed by 11:30, asleep by 12.

Current favorite ethnic food and, if possible, dish.
The "16 Special"—so called because it is number 16 on the menu and you can order it as the special with extra meat—at Tram's, which is a Vietnamese restaurant in Lawrenceville, is unbeatable. Vermicelli noodles topped with pork and chicken and a sliced egg roll and this sauce and some greens and just the perfect assortment of things to throw in a bowl together. $6.50, fills you up.

What have you been listening to?
The hums of the refrigerator and radiator in my apartment. It's been a bit of a shut-in winter, at least on the weekends. Musicwise, I'm enamored right now with Low. I've become one of these people who steal music from the Internet. Also a lot of Brian Eno, early records, and Camper Van Beethoven, as always.

Was hast you been reading?
The Two Towers, after having seen the movie. Fine. Not page-turning. Joan Didion. Her language about California in the Sixties is weirdly inspiring, seeing as how I think little of California and even less of the Sixties. (Ha! Chalk that up as the snootiest line of text I've written in 2003.)

What have you been watching on TV?
Lord, what haven't I been watching? Religiously, which is to say weekly, I watch:

"King of the Hill"
"The Simpsons"
"The Andy Richter Show"
"King of Queens"
"Everybody Loves Raymond"
"Scrubs"-- the best show television has seen in years
"His Place" -- local Christian-TV show about a diner of the Lord
"Cops"

Seen any movies lately? What did you think?
I last saw Vanilla Sky, which I learned last night was actually terrible and piss-poor, even though I thought it was compelling and of a drive that is rare in moviemaking. Some people. Also Adaptation was great in complicated ways, and About Schmidt wasn't exactly what I thought it was going to be. I wish people would never read alt-weekly film criticism because it'll just give them bad ideas. Last night a co-watcher of the Super Bowl (which was a shitty one, can we all agree? Is there any justice in a world that in any way rewards Warren Sapp?) asked if I had seen Adaptation and I said yes and he asked if I like it and I said yes and he said he heard it was terrible.

And I said: "Don't go by the City Paper review."

And he said: "That's what I'm going by, yeah."

And I knew it of course because the review in the City Paper was outrageously negative, calling the script I think "shitty" and labeling the movie as a waste of everyone's time. This was probably next to a review of Kangaroo Jack, which probably got 1.5 or 2 stars, which was probably an exercise in film-reviewer sarcastically witty self-love. And you have this weird disparity between offensively bad movies that don't try to do anything outside of putting idiots' asses in seats, which always get poorly reviewed by any reviewer worth a damn, but which movies are always able to saturate the market with ads and collect a handful of quotes from backwoods critics during junkets and entice people to see them. And they're always terrible and never lasting and, to me, greatly offensive. And then a movie like Adaptation comes along, which actually effectively says all this and more, far better than I am right now, and because it risks itself and shows movies' potential as a work of art (I hesitate to say this but I think I have to), it gets slammed. So you didn't like it. Fuck you. So what. Respect the fact that yer lucky such a movie is even getting made in these days of war and millions.

3: the cocktail party
So you're having a cocktail party: list five A-list guests, other than Jesus, me and your friends...
0) I won't be inviting Jesus, thanks, because you invite him and you have to invite all the deities.
1) Geoff Kelly, Pulp editor, who possibly counts as a friend, but who is a drinker and a good one and I want drinkers at this party.
2) Joan Didion, if only to hopefully write about it later, and accurately get at the heart of the problems of us all in a way that is terrifically sensitive and honest.
3) Low, to play a soft acoustic set that highlights the harmonies of the male vocalist and the female vocalist.
4) I'm having a hard time at this, specifically in the area of not making it a rehashing of the things/people I'm into of late. Plus I don't know whether to be funny or serious here. I don't want this interview to be dull, but then again I probably already threw in the towel on interesting when I rambled about life-stage cataloguing way back there.
5) Marcel Dzama, to do drawings and talk about Winnipeg.
6) The ladies of SNL, specifically Amy Poehler (nee Colby from Upright Citizen's Brigade), Rachel Dratch, and Maya Rudolph, with maybe Tina Fey, hopefully to do some improv or just to let me hit on any/all of them.

What drinks will you serve?
Well it really depends on the season. Like okay if it were this weekend? Okay. One-Eyed Chinamen (hot tea and spiced rum), tequila (no salt or lemon unless someone wanted to do some sexy date-show body shot stuff), rye whiskeys and ginger ale, Augustiner lager in bottles, carrot juice.

What will be in the stereo?
Well. In the bathroom, which has a stereo with a finicky but operative CD player, and which stereo is connected to the lightswitch, I'll probably set the radio on either WAMO, the hip-hop station, or WQED, the classical music station. Both work for quick bathroom visits, and maybe I'd start with classical and switch to hip-hop. In the kitchen, which has a record player, I'll put on some instrumental records, probably Santo & Johnny for some Hawaiian music. Then Joan and I can talk about her travels in the islands. In the living room, in the DVD player connected to the television, will be a party mix of my own devising, encouraging people to shake it.

Conversation topics will include…
Joan Didion's travel and career. The disconnect between art creation and art reception and how critics should be doing to their damnedest to get the audience closer to the act of creation but usually are more interested in sanctifying the intellectualism of the act of reception. Simon Cowell as televisual success. Really whatever's on everyone's mind. If no one talks there are always party games, conversational and board.

How will the evening end?
Drunken orgy ... of ideas!