ALICE: What was your favorite class in high school? Do you have any stories from that class?
ALAN: I gotta think about that one for a little bit; what was my favorite class? I gravitated towards the sciences when I was a kid, but–your dad could tell you about this teacher–I had a crazy chemistry teacher, so it was actually, despite loving science, it was probably my least favorite class, because he was wacky … I don’t know, I guess it was probably my art history class, but I don’t think I have too many good stories from there because our teacher was, I mean, he was a nice guy, but he wasn’t particularly animated or strange.
ALICE: What are your hobbies and interests?
ALAN: I rock climb, [and] I’ve been doing it for over 20 years, and it is a great way to get in shape, but it also is a great way to build your confidence. Whenever I think about having to do something scary, like, I don’t know, go for a job interview or talk to girls or maybe give a presentation, I always think about rock climbing … because it gives me confidence.
But I’ve definitely had some close calls with rock climbing before. There was one time [when] I was really new to rock climbing, and I was sitting at the edge of a cliff, and … I was belaying someone from the top of a cliff, and this was probably my first year of climbing … and I did not build my anchor correctly. Yeah, so I was sitting at the top of the cliff, and my partner, who–obviously you trust your partner with your life–and he was climbing up, and he fell, and because I didn’t build my anchor correctly, when he fell … he pulled me over the edge of the cliff. So now both of us are dangling over the edge of the cliff; I’m upside down, pinned to the rock because … when the rope pulled me over, the rope wrapped over me and pinned me to the rock. But luckily, I managed to hold on to the brake rope, and I kept him from hitting the ground, so I’m looking at him, he’s looking at me, and he’s like, ‘What … happened?’ and I’m like, ‘I don’t know.’ So I managed to lower him down to the ground safely, thankfully, but I couldn’t get up because I was still pinned by my own rope to the rock, and someone had to come running over from the other side of the cliff and pull me up over the edge. So, needless to say, it was very scary; I learned a lot from that experience. I learned how to properly build an anchor, and my partner, to his credit, he actually continued to trust me after that, and we climbed together … for a couple more years before he moved. Yeah, that’s just one of many stories.
ALICE: What is your friendship with my dad like?
ALAN: Oh, that’s interesting. Well, when we were in high school … I remember sitting in chemistry class [as a new student] with the same teacher I mentioned earlier, the kind of wacky chemistry teacher, and I was keeping to myself, and I remember hearing your dad crack a joke in the back … and so that’s how I actually started talking to your dad … I started talking to [him] partly because he was funny but also because your dad was a huge nerd, and he was really good at science, and I needed help with my chemistry and my math homework … and then we started chatting and goofing off, and I remember that I used to bug him all the time. I’d call him and ask him dumb questions about chemistry, and one time–he’ll laugh at this–I remember calling him to ask what the quadratic equation is … but I’d called him so many times, he’s like, ‘It’s in the book!’ He starts yelling at me, ‘Just open the book!” And he still laughs at me to this day; he’s like, ‘Why did you call me about that?’ [and] I’m like, ‘I don’t know; I was lazy and bored. I just wanted to call you and ask you what the equation was,’ but yeah, I could have looked it up myself. Ever since then, [we’ve] just [had] a similar sense of humor, and your dad got me into ‘Seinfeld,’ [which is] a very important thing.
ALICE: If you could give one description of your life advice, what would it be?
ALAN: Life advice, man, I don’t know if you want to give kids life advice from me, but … I think the best advice I have is for people to just try things [and] be a little adventurous. And that can mean a lot of things for different people, like if you’re really shy, ‘adventurous’ could just mean talking to someone new, or if you’re a picky eater … try new foods, like if you’re traveling. The best part about traveling is meeting people and eating food, but eating food [is] number one … So yeah, I think that’s maybe the best advice I have: be a little adventurous, whatever that means for you, and be okay with messing up … At the end of the day, if you’re around people who care about you and love you, if you fail, it’s not a big deal.
