Last Wednesday, Ker gave me a secret task. He said, "Call Greyhound and try to get an interview with a bus driver. Ask him the following:"
- Schedule?
- Ever stay in a strange place?
- What do you think about while driving?
- Any crazy thoughts?
So I called Greyhound and the polite man on the phone told me that he would give my phone number to the drivers but couldn't guarantee that they would call. Less than six hours later I get a call from a man named Keith (I have changed his name for two reasons: one, to respect his privacy and two, because I have always wanted an anonymous source) who informs me that he has been driving for Greyhound for twenty-six years and would love to meet me for coffee that very afternoon.
Unimportant Info:
- I feel nervous.
- I have never interviewed anyone before
- I am wearing a hat
Keith turns out to be a delightful man who seemed to be longing for an attentive audience. Perfect! I asked him if I could record the conversation and he had no problem with that. For the next hour I listened to him tell one fascinating story after the other, all the while interjecting useless questions into the mix. It was great. As we parted ways, he said, "If you have any more questions, or ANYTHING you want to know, please don't hesitate to call." What a guy.
Then I went home and typed out the interview (word for word). Have any of you done this? If not, I would recommend it. It's fascinating to observe how humans speak, and also shocking to realize how long it takes.
Here are some of my favourite lines from the interview:
- "Yea, so I'd say half of our life, when we drive for Greyhound, half of our life, is spent alone. Yea, that sucks."
- "When you first start your trip, or what not, you always got different people sittin' there, and driving up the Alaska Highway, well, they wanna see moose, they wanna see bears, they wanna see...so you talk to them."
- "When I first started I could talk to them all day and night. I could damn near party on the bus with them."
- "When I first started we had nothing, nothing, it was "smoke signals". If we got a flat we'd change it."
- "There was two wheels, one beside the other, and only one came out, so I thought, "okay," and then, all of a sudden, I thought the bus was going to self destruct."
- "I said, "when that hits the pavement, we're goin' for a ride," so I'm yellin' 'hang on!"
- "So she followed! Now she loves it...loves it."
- " I was lucky, I had a good bunch. Some of them said, "I'm glad you came back."
Ker had asked the collective to prepare a scene to perform the next day, so I decided to create a scene about Keith the bus driver. I used his text as a guideline and attempted to re-tell one of his stories which involved the wheel on his bus falling off while he was driving. We shall see how this text continues to be used within our creation process.
To conclude, I will post another video of Sam and Gen improvising using my choreo. Enjoy!