Saturday, September 24, 2011

Interview with Anonymous Cops

http://soundcloud.com/tlly/anonymous-cops#
  I stepped out of New Wave Cafe yesterday afternoon and was about to unlock my bike when I thought, hey I should interview those cops. Two of them sitting in one of those big SUVs. I asked them if they were busy and if I could interview them. I'm kind of surprised it's only about 9 minutes long. It felt longer, I think because the first guy I interviewed seemed to be growing tired of it while I was interviewing the second guy. The second guy was going on and on listing bands he has seen and would like to see. Which was fine with me.

   The second guy said he would rather live in the suburbs because there's better property value there and better schools for his kids. He seemed perfectly honest. At least to the best of his ability, but I wondered, what lies beneath that? Maybe I could've found out if I asked why those things are important to him.
   I wish there could be a video of those guys. They were like a pair you would see in a cartoon show. Not that they were not "real" to me. It's just that, I see cops sitting in those cars all the time, wearing their uniforms, and I think, oh, cops, but once I started talking to these guys I saw how they were different from each other.
 The first guy seemed to be the cool one. And the second one seemed like more of a softy, more sensitive, at least more talkative and not as self-conscious or self-aware (?) of what he was saying. I don't want to start sounding like I think I'm omniscient and can see into the true character of people. Because I can't. This is just the impression that I got.
 Anyway, their answers to the questions were predictable enough.
 Also, I asked them 4 questions. I said I would ask 3, but then I asked another one.

 The questions:
 Why do you live in Chicago?
 Do you want to stay or leave and why?
 What feeling do you get from the physical environment of the city?
 I really enjoyed it when the first guy stared at nothing, thinking, and said, "How does it make me feel?" (at 2:35 in the audio track) I felt like, "yeah! I'm making someone think about their feelings!"

and then at the end I asked them if there is anywhere they go or something they do to relax or escape the environment of the city, of their daily routes.

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