Interview 1

The Volunteer

For this interview, you have to imagine an assertive, jock-like tone of voice. I've inserted a lot of bracketed words to make his meaning clear, but you might try to read it once with the insertions, and once -- as he spoke it -- without them. He was speaking very quickly and telegraphically, just a moment or two after he had finished running.

This is for my web site. I won't put your name and I won't put your actual voice on the site, just a transcript.

I don't care.

You were one of the red-shirt [volunteer] helpers at the beginning, right?

Right.

So you waited until it was over, and then you took your clothes off?

Well, my buddy ran up to me and said, like, "We're running!" He's fucking drunk, I'm sober, I don't give a shit [everyone laughs], OK, I'm not having any fun, I've got all these clothes on [being a volunteer], so let's flip for it. So we take out an M card, we flip it -- [it turns up] heads, [so I have to] fucking run! [Everybody laughs.] And we didn't just jog this fucker, we like sprinted! We were flying! And then we got up to like 5 cops, in the middle, and they weren't facing us. They had their backs toward us. So we just went around them, and kept on going. I got trapped in the bushes there, but I just plowed through.

What a man! What a man!

It was a lot of fun, it was a blast.

Have you run it before?

Oh yeah. Freshman year. I think, the whole thing, like not blocking off the road, it's just stupid... Because as I said, it's a lot of fun, and I recommend it. I know a lot of people need to be drunk to run it, but whatever, fuck it, just get naked, go!

[A friend of his, a woman and another volunteer, wants to make it clear:] We're not drunk, right? I mean...

They [the student volunteer committee] wouldn't let you get drunk anyway, right? Because [then you wouldn't be able to help out the runners ]...

I'm sure most of the people here are sober.

Thanks very much everybody, it was lots of fun!