8 Questions With Playwright Blair Singer

I met Blair Singer on the street. He used to live around the block from us, and he has a Basset Hound named Bill, and I guess that was enough to get me to ditch the whole "don't talk to strangers" bullshit that no one seems to pay attention to in Park Slope anyway.

Greg-n-I started running into the dude a lot...sometimes we'd even walk around the block together. The more we started to talk, the more we realized Blair totally rules...and that, wow, he is a writer! He's not really the braggy sort, so I googled his ass on IMDB and found out he's done all sorts of shit. Like wrote actual episodes of one of my fave shows of all time, Weeds! (a fact that I've still yet to discuss with him, but anyway...). He recently had his play, Matthew Modine Saves the Alpacas, produced at LA's Geffen Playhouse, and now he's bringing it all back to NYC with a new play that is about to open, Meg's New Friend.

You should just buy some tix now, b/c your ass could seriously use some culture...trust me (Greg and I are going Dec 11--wanna have a FIPS field trip?).

1. What is your play Meg's New Friend about?

About a year ago, I was in your favorite Target at the Atlantic Center, wondering why the fuck they don’t have any product on the shelves, when I overheard a conversation from the next aisle.  A woman who sounded like she was in her 30s said, “But you have to come to my Super Bowl party, you just have to!”  The desperation in her voice inspired me to come around the aisle and snoop, and it turned out that a white woman in her 30s was talking to an African-American guy in his 30s. Both had children in the same school, it turns out, and she was pleading with him to come to her Super Bowl party.  He kept politely refusing, saying he had a standing Super Bowl engagement with his buddies where “we drink beer and eat this fire-hot chili.” The woman wouldn’t let go.  “I’ll make chili!” she said.  

And it seemed to me that she was desperate to get him to come to her Super Bowl party solely because of his race.  Because of how it would look to her friends.  And I started talking to people about the diversity of their friends, particularly if you eliminated workplace friends...And, on both sides, white and African-American, the informal poll results showed very strongly that people are not as diverse in their friendships as you might think, or at least as I thought, considering it’s 2009 and an African-American man is our President.  
So it’s about this woman Meg and her desire to make an African-American friend--and it just so happens, her best friend has started dating an African-American yoga teacher from Newark.  Chaos ensues.

2. Do you draw a lot from your own life experiences in your writing, or is it more fun to make crazy stuff up?

Both. It usually starts from a real place, something I’m pissed about, confused about, curious about...like celebrity humanitarianism (my play MATTHEW MODINE SAVES THE ALPACAS) and why every movie star is adopting their fair share of Malawi. Or with MEG’S NEW FRIEND, it started with that sound in the Target woman’s voice, that desperation, and I’ve felt desperate to make friends in my life so that resonated with me.  I need social interaction, it’s why I wouldn’t live any other place than in NY, so yes, that need to make a friend definitely connects with me...and then I made some crazy shit up after that.   

3. Do you consider yourself a straight up writer? A playwright? (is that diff than a writer?--cause I'm a writer, kinda, but writing a play seems totally fucking impossible to me).

You write like a mo’fo and let’s call it like it is— you are setting people straight in the Slope and beyond.  You do it with a blogpost, or a picture on your blog, or the best fucking tweets on the planet.  Me?  I think in dialogue.  How does this conversation lead to another conversation which leads to another which adds up to a story?  Prose makes me anxious.  Why do I have to take so long to describe something when I can just have someone say, “That’s a pretty fuckin’ sunset”?

4. How long have you lived in Park Slope? Describe the neighborhood in 10 words or less.

Since 2003. Ten words:  Dogs.  Kids.  Nannies.  Hot moms.  Cool dads.  Bad take-out.

And for the record, wife, kid, Bill and I moved to Prospect Heights in July.  And PH is PHATASTIC!

5. Can you please explain to everyone why, despite the proliferation of puggles, golden doodles and all sorts of other designer dogs in the nabe, Basset Hounds are actually the BEST, BEST, BESTEST breed of dog?

You don’t need me to explain it; it’s simple.  Living with a Basset (because you live with them, you don’t OWN them...) is like living with a cartoon character.  You come home, you laugh.  Also, they have their own minds— they’re not lemmings like labs or doodles or diddles or piddles who just want to please you and lick you and look at you like you’re the messiah.  Bill is a noble beast, smelly, stubborn, and perfect.  

6. BREEDER, BALLER, OR BR-ALLER?

Shit, I’d like to think I’m a BR-ALLER but I wake up at 6 and go to bed at 10 and, if by chance I’m up at 11, I’m wrecked the next day.  Call me BREEDER.  

7. Are you a member of the Coop? If so, we want some dirt.

I don’t Coop.  I don’t follow rules very well, so I didn’t want to set myself up for failure.  Also, I like meat. And the Coop doesn’t have a butcher.  And I don’t like patchouli.  Or stupid facial hair on hipsters who are trying to look tough even though they just got their MFA and haven’t been in a fight since the third grade.  

Me?  Fairway.  

8. So, we met and became friends just by seeing each other walking around the neighborhood...are we special, or is that how you make all of your friends?

Let’s get this straight— you have wormed your way in to my heart ‘cause of FIPS and because you’re a badass and you’re married to a badass who makes the most inventive video content of anybody going on the web right now.  I’m friendly to all the dog people but you guys are special.  Don’t ever doubt it.  I’m hurt that you’re doubting it.  No, okay, actually, yes, I am hurt.  Maybe I’m turning into a BR-ALLER right this instant...