Does chocolate feel pain?

Hot damn it’s been a long time since I wrote on this thing. Not that I haven’t been out pestering strangers, I just haven’t been writing about it.

Two weeks ago, I was asked by my editor to interview Khaled Hosseini, the Afghanistan-born author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. Hosseini gained prominence for being the first best-selling Afghan writer in the Western world, having put his book out during a time when most Americans thought Afghan meant either “footrest” or “crazy terrorist.”
Both books are sold in Starbucks, and Kite Runner is now a movie that spawned outrage in Afghanistan over the sodomizing of a young boy in one portion of the movie.
So I had to interview the guy for the Examiner’s 3-Minute Interview, a section that takes 30 minutes to interview for, 20 minutes to right and about 30 seconds to read. And we call it the 3-Minute Interview.
I had to keep them generic because I haven’t read the book, despite the fact that the Hosseini and I are both Independence High School graduates. So I led with…
“I read in news reports that you recently invited current Independence students to a screening of Kite Runner, what was it like being able to do that for your old school?”
“I did what?”
“I read that you had given a screening of Kite Runner to IHS students?”
“Not that I know of…”
“Oh, nevermind then…”
Strike one

Also, interesting note, my computer kept changing IHS to HIS (see, tried to do it there again), as if I were writing about Jesus. Screw him, his birthday was yesterday, today he’s just another schmuck on a stick.

I followed with some (safer) questions about working with screenwriters, seeing your product on the big screen, blah blah blah.
Then I asked my first funny question.
“The screenwriter who wrote Kite Runner, David Benioff, also wrote Troy and is working on the Wolverine spin-off, were you ever intimidated that your story didn’t involve warriors in leather?”
“Was I intimidated or was David?”
“No, like, did you ever want to add a super-warrior in leather to your story to match the others?”
“No, he didn’t say I needed to really add anything…”
“No, its like, a joke, you know, cause he writes such varied things?”
“Oh, I guess I don’t get it…”
Strike 2

We kept talking for a bit, and for some reason, I kept coming back to David Benioff. And – come to think of it – I’ve read 25th Hour, seen it, seen Troy, plan to see Wolverine. I should have been interviewing David Benioff.
I had one funny question left, hoping to end on a high note, when on my 2nd to last question, I hear him turn (he had literally just arrived home from traveling, and his family was going crazy) to what I assume is a child and say “You’re what fell out? Your TOOTH fell out?! Oh, hold on…”
Almost Strike 3, but I manage to foul it off and get another shot.
“Ok, so I’ll let you go, I have just one last question. If you could be any kind of breakfast pastry, what kind of breakfast pastry would you chose to be?”
“Breakfast pastry?”
Here comes the pitch, it looks like another fastball, Jason has been missing those today…
“Yeah, any sort of breakfast pastry, and why?”
He stands stoic in the batter’s box, unflinching as what is likely strike 3 barrels in on him…
“Oh, I’d be a pain au chocolate, the French chocolate croissant (which I know because I took French, have been to France, and live with a chocoholic) because I had one of those guys everyday as I walked to school in Paris, and they’re the best in the world!”
And he hits it out of the park ladies and gentlemen!! Not only was the hit funny, but it was topical, and added information about the author once living in France! Heft him on your shoulders boys, he came through in the clutch.

Several college friends were emailed links to the story and laughed. You see, in Journalism 60, Dr. Nordstrom, in one of the first days of class, was talking about interviewing, and he said “ask me a question, anything, someone…” and my hand shot up. He pointed, likely expecting a stupid question from a beginning reporter. He got a stupid question, but a intentionally stupid question.
And the breakfast pastry question was born…