I found this today, forgot it existed. This is an interview I did for Wooooo#2 with my friend Ethan. We didn’t end up using it because it didn’t really fit in with everything else in that issue, which is a shame because it’s good stuff- Drug abuse, board games, and big, hairy men. It was never copyedited so there may be some major grammatical oversights.
Enjoy.

Ethan’s Dad

-Ethan we’re gonna talk about your dad.
-My Pops.
-We’re gonna talk about your Pops.
-Yeah.
-First thing we should talk about is your old man lighting a cigarette under water. Tell me about that.
-Well, he used to put a cigarette inside a plastic bag and..
-Hang on, hang on, what sort of bag?
-It was like a Ziploc bag, I actually never seen him do it, I just heard stories. This was in Mexico. He would put a Ziploc bag and kinda wrap it around.. he’d basically close up a Ziploc bag with a cigarette and a lighter, a big Ziploc bag that would fit over his head, then he’d scuba dive under water and smoke a cigarette in that bag while holding it upside down so he could smoke in that little bit of air in the Ziploc bag.
-So the bag was basically good for one drag, but your dad could smoke under water. Like Jesus.
-Yeah, he was bad-ass.
-How long did it take him to figure out?
-I don’t know, like I said I’ve just heard stories.
-From who?
-My Pops. His name was Steve Miller.
-Oh right! Your dad was Steve Miller from the Steve Miller band!
-Different guy. Same name.
-What else did your dad do? What other crazy shit did he do?
-He was a party animal, like I’d wake up in the middle of the night and he’s be doing lines and shit. He knew how to party basically.
-He was the original party animal.
-Pretty much man.
-Tell me about Grizzly Adams.
-Well, my dad lived with this guy called Will Smith..
-No fucking way! The Fresh Prince?
-No, different Will Smith.
-Oh.
-He was an actor though, he was the general in Red Dawn, the Russian one because he knew how to speak Russian. He was always playing bad guys, he was on The A-Team a few times. Will Smith was friends with Grizzly Adams and my dad lived with Will Smith. Anyways Grizzly Adams, I can’t remember his real name, I just remember him as Grizzly Adams. He was a big hairy guy, he actually looked like he did on the show, always had the beard, always had the hair, y’know?
-So hang on, if you were over at Grizzly’s house and Grizz was around, would you just straight call him ‘Grizzly’?
-We never went over to Grizzly’s house, he came to my dad’s house in Playa Del Ray.
-Playa Del Ray?
-Playa Del Ray.
-Spell it.
-P-L-A-Y-A-D-E-L-R-A-Y.
-Playa Del Ray.
-Playa Del Ray
-Playa Del Ray, Go on.
-There was a big half pipe next door at Marina Del Ray that you’d see in skate vids sometimes. Anyway, me and my little brother Jonathan would always go there in the summer time and just hang, out chill out, do whatever, and my dad would throw these huge parties and people would come over and play Monopoly, big Monopoly parties with weirdos and Grizzly and biker dudes and shit. Basically a bunch of cokeheads. My dad was on this long period of cocaine and towards the end he started smoking crack too.
-I’m sorry man.
-It’s cool, that’s life I guess. Anyway it’s funny because my dad and Grizzly Adams, Will Smith and various other random pedestrians, random people would come in and do coke, day time, night time, do coke and play Monopoly and do shots n’ shit.
-What were you doing?
-I was like 11 or 12, my bother was about 8 or 9, we were just sitting there watching it all, we didn’t really think much of it at the time, we knew it was wrong but a lot of shit my dad was doing at the time was wrong and we knew it.
-Did Grizz ever lean in to do a line and get gak all through his beard and totally bum everyone out?
-Maybe man.
-Let me ask you this- did the Grizz ever get the whole deal in his beard and everyone hated him?
-I don’t know, it must have happened at least once, it was a big beard.
-‘Aww, Grizz got all the coke in his beard again maaaan!’ Am I gonna get in trouble talking shit about the Grizz?
-I don’t know man.
-What’s he doing? Is he still around?
-I don’t know. I know he had a reputation for being a cokehead and that’s why the whole Grizzly Adams thing ended, or at least that’s what I heard.
-How did your dad meet Grizzly again?
-Through that dude Will Smith.
-The Fresh Prince?
-No. Different dude. He was right on though, he was a rad guy.
-Any other crazy Steve miller shit you can tell me?
-Well, he also lived near the Hollywood hills for a bit.
-Hollywood hills? Nice.
-Hollywood hills on this big hill that Universal Studios was right next to, so my dad would take us to Universal Studios sometimes and this was like the heroic part about my father even though he was a party animal- he would make me and my brother walk backwards through the gates amongst the people who were walking out.
-He’d what?
-He’d make us walk backwards so we didn’t have to pay! It was like my dad’s secret thing at Universal Studios so he didn’t have to pay the $25 or whatever it was at the time. I remember we were in there one time and we were at this little souvenir shop like they have there y’know? And my dad put on this hat, this military type hat, and he goes “What do you think of this hat man?” and I was like “It’s cool!” I was into military shit at the time and he knew it, so he walked around the store with it on for a while and then he basically walked out of the store and gave it to me.
-No shit? Your dad was awesome!
-Yeah, he was.

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I’m going this way with my hair now. Back off.

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