Day One: Austin

After yesterday's round of questioning I feel really really confident about this project. As we were setting up on the corner of Drexel and Main I started to get pretty nervous about what we were about to do. Putting one's self  out there like we are takes a lot of balls. To give you a brief description, Sam and I are sitting at a rectangular table with a round table clothe that has "We will answer any question honestly" written on it with sharpie. We set up right across from Graeters and just sat in our chairs, waiting. For the first 20 minutes there was no one. Even the passing cars didn't even look over at us. There was an old couple but the lady read it chuckled and waved while the grumpy old man avoided eye contact at all costs.

At this point Sam and I are just talking about the usual stuff Sam and I talk about when a van with two police officers pulls up right next to us. The officer in the passenger seat sticks out his head and asks "Do you boys want a ticket?" Sam and I look at each other and ask whether we're allowed to be here, if we need to move because we are very very sorry. "It's a simple question, do you boys want a ticket?" 

"Um, not really"

"Ok, that's all you had to say."

So that was our first question, which in my opinion was a great way to start out. From that point on we got a lot of people in their cars asking what we were doing. One asked what we wanted to be when we grew up, but that was the depth of the questions we received. Once one person asked, others grew curious and started to ask questions as well. It seemed there always needed to be one ice breaker and then there would be a flood of questions. My favorite from a car was from group of three young guys in a lawn care pickup who asked if we had ever considered beastiality (sex with animals).

The ratio of male to women who asked from their cars was pretty equal, and the types of questions and general crudeness was about equal as well, but there were absolutely no men who walked up to us and talked to us. I've concluded Sam and I are some great lady magnets. We talked to one women who wondered whether she would be able to sell her house. We tried to make a goo estimate but in the end we told her we could answer questions honestly, not accurately. We actually ended up getting a lot of trivia questions and questions about the future (When is the world going to end? from an elementary school kid hanging out of his school bus). Since we got so many of these questions we decided to  bring a magic 8 ball to answer all the fortune teller questions.

Today looks to be very promising. We have a lot of return ladies who said they would be coming back with new questions and one said with her daughters. We start our filming today, so stop by if you wish and bring your questions along. We'll be sitting on the corner of Drexel and main again, hope to see you there.

~Austin