The last episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert airs tomorrow night. Due to the caterwauling tantrums of a 79 year old facist toddler, and the unforgiveable cowardice displayed by those who had the power to fight but did not raise a finger to defend the first amendment, the show will close its final season without renewal. America will have another gaping hole in the media where an act of blatant censorship shut out the voices of a brilliant team of honest, compassionate, hilarious, intellectual comedians and writers.
That is tomorrow night. Today is my birthday, and if it is also your birthday then happy birthday to you (happy birthday Andiddy!). We Taureans, including Stephen Colbert himself (May 13), are particularly known for our principles of loyalty and need for stability, which is partly why the injustice of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert‘s cancellation hurts so much. The segment that I will miss the most is a recurring segment called “The Colbert Questionert”, where Stephen asks the guest a long rambling quasi-philosophical stream of intelligent-sounding words that boils down to the question of what it is to be “truly known”. The guest, a celebrity who no doubt feels that the world already knows too much about them, will hesitate and reluctantly agree to be asked these questions. Stephen then barrels through a series of fifteen questions, varying wildly in tone and depth, that the guest will either answer with visible relief or visible pain as they squirm to overcome a sudden wave of crippling decision paralysis. It took Joaquin Phoenix about seven minutes to answer “apples or oranges?”, to Stephen’s palpable bemusement. The questions remain the same from guest to guest, but over the years have been revised.
I do not believe that I will ever be famous enough to warrant the honor of Stephen Colbert asking me his Questionert, and I have had to make peace with that, so today I will make myself truly known to my fellow Avocadoes. I hope you also take this opportunity to be truly known, if you are brave enough, and post your own answers in the comments.
- What is the best sandwich?
Peanut butter and jelly. Trashy white bread, strawberry preserves, Skippy peanut butter. And yes I do butter one side of the bread as well, it keeps the bread from sticking to the top of your mouth. No crusts – it is my birthday, after all. - What was your first concert?
Hanson, Shoreline Ampitheatre in Mountain View California, 1998. I was fourteen. - What is the scariest animal?
Chimpanzees. I am cool with them just living their chimpanzee lives out in the wild, don’t get me wrong, but I do not ever want to be near one. I don’t find them funny or cute. They rip off people’s faces! - Apples or oranges?
Oranges. I like peeling them, having a little sensory fidget activity that comes with eating a snack. And there’s a certain joy that comes with breaking open an orange and getting the smell and tiny little spray of juice. - Have you ever asked someone for their autograph? Do you still have it?
“Weird” Al Yankovic, after a concert in 1999. I still have it, somewhere in a very ugly very 90s picture frame that has a photo of Al and I sitting together. He smelled nice. - What do you think happens when we die?
I believe that the “light at the end of the tunnel” visions that people claim to have had are a final act of kindness from your rapidly failing oxygen starved brain, firing off signals and chemicals that mimic a lucid dream. I don’t think there’s anything after that, and that comforts me. You get a little gift of a psychedelic seratonin trip, and then it all goes dark forever. - What is your favorite action movie?
Baahubali 2: The Conclusion. Or Die Hard. - Window or aisle?
I avoid getting up during a flight as much as humanly possible. I hate walking in front of people in a small space. I also am actively repulsed by the idea of relieving myself in a closet with a mere half inch of door separating me from a plane full of people. So I will park myself next to the window, drink a minimum of water to avoid needing a bathroom break, save all my snacks for later, and generally try not to exist for however long it takes between takeoff and landing. - What is your favorite smell?
A rainy day in the redwood forest, or the smell of ponderosa pines on a hot summer day. - What is your least favorite smell?
Dill pickles. I will vom. - What is your earliest memory?
Watching Spaceballs at a drive-in. I would have been about three. - Cats or dogs?
Cats. I love that cats can entertain themselves and don’t need constant attention the way a dog does. I just don’t have the need to be needed like that. I love that cats can’t knock you over like a big dog would. I love that my cat just naturally smells like breakfast cereal. I love that my cat leaves little catnip mice in my bed. I love that I will never have to utter the phrase “I need to express my dog’s anal glands” for as long as I do not have a dog. Cats forever. - You get one song to listen to for the rest of your life: what is it? You don’t have to listen to it continuously, but when you go to listen to music, this is the music you will hear.
This is a hard question, because you have to choose whether you want to just hear your favorite song or a song that you want to think about. Or a really long song, so that it would be harder to tire of. After too much thought, I am going to say the Andrew Bird version of “Cathedral In The Dell”. It’s a beautiful song that I have heard a thousand times, and it’s one of my favorite songs, and I still cannot for the life of me figure out what it is trying to say. There are these veins of time, hard work and labor, institutions, art, religion, death running through it. I can think about “a fiberglass castle in Wisconsin where kids race go-karts around the moat” for hours. So if that was the only song I ever got to hear again, I’d enjoy the opportunity to really chew it over. - What number am I thinking of?
I have a theory that Stephen is thinking of a specific numeric date. He says he will reveal what number that he has been thinking of on his last show, so I hope you all tune in tomorrow to see what it is. I will guess that it’s 1993, which is the year he and Evie were married, or the year he was born, 1964. - Describe the rest of your life in five words.
Public service loan forgiveness when?
Have a wonderful day, be nice to each other, and in my honor go pet a cat or something.