The Colbert Questionert

Most weekday mornings during the past few years, between making coffee and waiting for code to compile, I watch the previous night's The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on YouTube. In honor his final show tonight, I thought it might be fun to take The Colbert Questionert, a series of questions that he likes to ask his celebrity guests. Recently he gave it to Barack Obama, and on his penultimate show, Stephen took the Questionert himself. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. So...here we go!

Best Sandwich?

My answer here is pure nostalgia. When I was a teen, I used to go to a sandwich shop downtown in my home town, called "The Sub Club". I could walk there from my mother's computer store, where I spent a lot of time. My favorite order was a "vegetable" (?) sandwich with a side of french onion soup. This sandwich had one slice of cheese – I always ordered provolone – on a hoagie bun, and a whole freakin' salad inside. The bizarre ingredient that I've never seen elsewhere were bean sprouts. It was amazing, and will never be replicated, as the shop has since shut down.

What was your first concert?

R.E.M. at the Dean Dome. I was high school at the North Carolina School of Science and Math, in Durham, North Carolina. It must have been my junior year, because my senior year I went to many, including a very memorable mosh pit with Alanis Morissette during her first ever Jagged Little Pill tour, and eventually Dave Matthews Band. Some of my friends went to a Hootie and the Blowfish concert, of which I was extremely jealous.

What is the scariest animal?

Some of the Questionert takers try to be clever and say, "Man", but that's too easy.

Part of what makes pandemics so scary are the fact that you can't see the virus. I'm scared of things I can't see, so I'm gonna go with getting stung by a jellyfish whilst swimming in the ocean...especially if it's far from shore.

Apples or Oranges?

I love a good freshly squeezed orange juice and don't have time for apple juice. However, nothing beats a crisp sweet apple.

And as Stephen always quips after the Questionertee answers "apples":

You can't put peanut butter on an orange!

Have you ever asked anyone else for their autograph?

Obviously this question makes more sense directed at celebrities, but I think my only "standing in line to get an autograph" story is for Muggsy Bogues, the famously shortest player to ever play in the NBA. At the time, he played for my local Charlotte Hornets, and I went to a dozen or so games to see him play. It's not like I was a massive fan or anything, but he must have been visiting my town for something and I got his autograph.

What do you think happens when we die?

This might seem like the hardest question, but to me it's the easiest: Nothing.

There is no afterlife. We just invented it because it's hard to reason about "Where is [dead person]?" I've always appreciated the quote often attributed to Mark Twain:

I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.

That's perfection. The best answer ever on Colbert's show was a question to Keanu Reeves that actually started the entire Questionert series:

I know that the ones who love us will miss us.

Even more perfect than Twain.

What is your favorite action movie?

People like to say Die Hard to this one, but I've gotta go with Sean Connery. I'm not sure why, but Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade hit me at the perfect age. The Nazi punching and the boobytrapped cave and the whole Grail myth and the "cup of a carpenter" line. Just excellent.

Window or Aisle?

This changed for me in adulthood. As a kid, I used to love to look out the window, but I've seen all the clouds and tiny landscapes I need to by now, and as a 6' (183cm) fellow, I've grown to appreciate the aisle, although it does come with the risk of a food trolley banging your knee if you take too much advantage of the aisle.

Stephen always jokes about the window involving bothering neighbors when you need to go to the bathroom, but he never mentions one of my favorite lines from Fight Club where Brad Pitt muses about "Do I give you the ass or the crotch?"

Favorite Smell?

Brewing coffee is lovely, but I've gotta go with frying garlic.

Which is a thing I do very often in my Mediterranean lifestyle.

Least Favorite Smell?

I've thankfully yet to experience a decomposing corpse, and my son is just on the cusp of becoming a stinky teenager (which is often an answer people give), but my answer here is super basic. I'm gonna go with poop, even my own.

Earliest Memory?

This is the hardest one of all for me because ever since reading The Invisible Gorilla, and similar books about how memory works, I have lost all faith in memory. If I am ever called to be on a jury, I will probably get kicked off because I differ from most people in that I give zero credence to "eyewitness testimony".

Gun to my head, it's probably playing monochrome computer games with my best childhood friend, Jacob. Especially hitting the ⬅️➡️ arrow keys repeatedly to "run" in Decathlon. I was probably five?

Cats or Dogs?

I currently have a cat, and that decision was mostly because my apartment lifestyle means that a dog is a lot more work, because you've gotta walk them, rain or shine, and also you can't leave them alone in the apartment for days at a time to go on trips.

But dogs give so much more love back to you, so the answer is an unequivocal: dogs!

You get one song to listen to for the rest of your life: what is it?

He always specifies that it's not always playing, but any time you go to listen to music, that's the song that plays.

This is a tough one. I don't think I want lyrics. The first one that comes to mind is Rhapsody in Blue.

What number am I thinking of?

This is always played as a joke when Stephen says, "Nope". He claims in his self-Questionert that Meryl Streep and Ethan Hawke both correctly guessed 3.

But to be scientific about it, I'm gonna go with 37, because that's the most common number people think of when you ask them for a "random" number.

How would you describe the rest of your life in five words?

Proud parent. Happy traveling husband.

Thank you, Stephen Colbert. 🫶