Connections

Since I've started interviewing people for Groupee, I realize I'm becoming a nexus point for the whole "Six Degrees of Separation" idea.

For example, I found out in a recent trip to visit my family that my aunt Luella's son was one of the Basham brothers, who were in the WWE with Chris Jericho.  So, at the time, the connection of my dad to Chris Jericho was:

My Dad > Aunt Luella > Danny Basham > Chris Jericho

Now it's:

My Dad > Me > Chris Jericho

That in and of itself is pretty cool.  However, It's also neat to see obscure connections between the people I interview.

As an example, I was introduced to the South Asian cigarettes known as Bidis while interviewing Stephen Notley.  I had never heard of them before.

Later, when I interviewed Del Tha Funkee Homosapien, he smoked them throughout the interview. 

When I brought this up to my friend Ben Laurance (the other half of Gude/Laurance) he said, "Oh, yeah!  I used to smoke those all the time in college!"

While I found this fascinating, I just recently read a book on probability, which explained that the fact that finding the Bidi connection is not really that strange. 

The first thing to keep in mind is that the coincidence would be as intriguing if Del, Stephen, and Ben all liked an unique kind of Japanese candy, or Mexican soft drink.  Once we stop looking at Bidis, and start looking at any obscure consumable product, the probability increases significantly.

The second factor is that as an interviewer, I am in the position of asking questions that normal people might not.  As the book explained, lot of coincidence is really based on investigation.  If you don't ask the person sitting next to you on the airplane where they're from, for example, you may never get on the path of question-and-answer that leads you to the fact that their brother is married to your best friend. 

So, if I hadn't asked Stephen Notley about his Bidis, I may not have recognized them when I interviewed Del, which would have meant I would never have mentioned the coincidence to Ben, and never would have learned about his college Bidi habit.

That doesn't take away the fun I have learning about common unplanned themes that pop up when I interview people.  For example, Japan shows up a lot.

Chris Jericho wrestled in Japan  and learned how to read Japanese so he could get around while he was there.  In the Del Tha Funkee Homosapien interview, Del talked about studying Japanese while he was working on the first Deltron 3030 album.  At the time of his interview, Stephen Notley was concerned about the difficulties he was experiencing with getting ahold of the latest Gamera movie, which was produced in Japan.

Author Jay Lake had just come back from a trip to Japan when I interviewed him.  

So, when I interviewed Shonen Knife, I wasn't surprised when they told me they were going to be touring Japan after their tour of the United States ended.  Actually, I wouldn't have been surprised anyway, since they're from there.

Still, I think you see my point.