In 2009, Zócalo put some 124 guests through the In The Green Room interview — our signature set of questions that get behind our speakers’ work and reveal something a little more personal. We thought it only fair to submit ourselves for the same treatment. Read on to find out about the people behind the microphones and the computers, and have a wonderful holiday and New Year.
Gregory Rodriguez
Q. What do you consider to be the greatest simple pleasure?
A. Taking a nap in the afternoon.
Q. What do you do to clear your mind?
A. Pray.
Q. What do you wish you had the guts to do?
A. Quit.
Q. What’s your favorite word?
A. Texture. That’s what I most value about people and things.
Q. Who is your favorite fictional character?
A. Cordelia Flyte from Brideshead Revisited.
Q. What is your favorite cocktail?
A. Ketel One martini straight up with a twist.
Q. What is your guilty pleasure?
A. My whole life is a guilty pleasure.
Q. If you could take only one more journey, where would you go?
A. Our house in Joshua Tree.
Q. What profession would you like to practice in your next life?
A. I’d like to be more useful.
Q. What is your most prized material possession?
A. A missal that my father gave me that his late brother Raul had given to him.
Q. What should you throw away but haven’t been able to part with?
A. All my books.
Q. What would be your death row meal?
A. Ribeye, bone in, medium rare, some green beans, and mashed potatoes.
Q. Who is the one person living or dead that you’d most love to have a beer with?
A. Graham Greene.
Q. What comforts you?
A. Very few things.
Q. What is the best advice you have ever received?
A. You should judge your life not by how happy you are but whether or not you’re thriving.
Laura Villalpando
Q. What year, past or present, would you time-travel to if you could?
A. I like it right here and now.
Q. What do you consider to be the greatest simple pleasure?
A. Sleeping.
Q. If you were a food, what would you be?
A. Birria, because I love it.
Q. What do you do to clear your mind?
A. I sing.
Q. What music have you listened to today?
A. Sade’s Lover’s Rock.
Q. What do you wake up to in the mornings?
A. Silence.
Q. What is your favorite word?
A. Parangaricutirimicuaro.
Q. What is your guilty pleasure?
A. Karaoke.
Q. If you could take only one more journey, where would you go?
A. The Serengeti.
Q. What is your fondest childhood memory?
A. Taking bus rides with my mom through L.A.
Q. What is your most prized material possession?
A. My Michael Jackson collection.
Q. What should you throw away but haven’t been able to part with?
A. I don’t throw anything away.
Q. What would be your death row meal?
A. My dad’s Thanksgiving turkey and stuffing.
Q. What is the best gift you have ever received?
A. My piano. It’s beautiful.
Q. Who is the one person living or dead that you’d most love to have a beer with?
A. My dad as a young man.
Q. What comforts you?
A. My dog, Figo.
Q. How would you describe yourself in five words or fewer?
A. Open-minded, creative, and goofy.
Q. What is your favorite thing about Los Angeles?
A. That everything happens here.
Q. What is your greatest extravagance?
A. Driving around L.A. on a sunny day for no reason.
Dulce Vasquez
Q. If you were a food, what would you be?
A. A mango, en un palo con chile y limon.
Q. What talent would you like to have?
A. I’d like to be a good writer.
Q. What comforts you?
A. My bed.
Q. How did you get into trouble as a child?
A. I didn’t.
Q. What’s the last habit you tried to kick?
A. Snoozing my alarm clock — I usually do it three times.
Q. What do you consider to be the greatest simple pleasure?
A. Reading. I don’t have much time to so I consider it a pleasure when I do.
Q. What do you do to clear your mind?
A. I drive fast.
Q. What’s your favorite word?
A. Obfuscate.
Q. What is your favorite cocktail?
A. A Manhattan.
Q. What is your fondest childhood memory?
A. My two aunts swinging me with both arms across mud puddles so I wouldn’t get my shoes dirty when we were on our way to take my toddler portraits.
Q. What promise do you make to yourself that you break the most often?
A. That I will wake up early and work out.
Q. What would be your death row meal?
A. Mashed potatoes, corn, and biscuits.
Q. What is the best gift you have ever received?
A. My college sweetheart walked into my apartment with a 6×3 map of the world and said, “I give you the world.”
Q. Who is the one person living or dead that you’d most love to have a beer with?
A. Ray Bradbury.
Q. When are you most creative?
A. Under pressure and usually at night.
Q. What is your favorite thing about Los Angeles?
A. The sunsets.
Q. What item would you bid for on eBay?
A. I’ve searched and searched for a Northwestern University Rose Bowl jersey from 1995. I guess they’ll just have to make it to the Rose Bowl next year so I can buy one.
Swati Pandey
Q. If you were a food, what would you be?
A. Jell-O.
Q. What music have you listened to today?
A. The Heartless Bastards.
Q. What do you wake up to in the mornings?
A. Palm fronds against my window.
Q. What is your favorite word?
A. Soon.
Q. Who is your favorite fictional character?
A. Ellen, the girl in The Silver Crown, a children’s fantasy story.
Q. What is your favorite cocktail?
A. Whiskey on the rocks.
Q. What is your fondest childhood memory?
A. My childhood best friend and I would come up with different ways to pretend to be adults — cooking, cleaning. We’d usually screw something up.
Q. What is your most prized material possession?
A. My cowboy boots.
Q. What teacher or professor, if any, changed your life?
A. My sixth grade teacher. He liked my writing, and I had a crush on him.
Q. What would be your death row meal?
A. Kraft macaroni and cheese.
Q. What is the best gift you have ever received?
A. My brother wrote a song about me.
Q. Who is the one person living or dead that you’d most love to have a beer with?
A. My maternal grandfather when he was a young man.
Q. What was the last thing that inspired you?
A. A poem I read a few nights ago by Anna Akhmatova.
Q. When are you most creative?
A. When I’ve let myself be alone for a time.
Q. How would you describe yourself in five words or fewer?
A. Curious long-limbed brown girl.
Q. What is your biggest weakness?
A. Everything.
*Photo courtesy m kasahara.
by Stephan Salisbury
The introduction to Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Stephan Salisbury’s investigative memoir Mohamed’s Ghosts is titled “How to Take Down A Mosque.” It’s an eye-grabber for anyone who is watching closely the controversy around the Park51 Islamic community center and mosque slated to be built in Lower Manhattan.