HOLLY SPRINGS —
Steve Crisp was one of many GOLO members nominated by others for a GOLO profile. (See the original blog here.)
I was able to catch up with Steve last week, and the conversation went something like this:
Angela: Your comments often have very late or very early time stamps. Are you nocturnal?
Steve Crisp: I sleep when I’m tired. I wake when I’m no longer tired. I eat when I’m hungry. I do what I want. It’s the advantages of not having a schedule.
Angela: Why don’t you have a schedule?
Steve Crisp: I own an ISP we do web hosting, and software development with clients all over the world. 99 percent of the things I do involve e-mail support requests.
Angela: So, this is a lifestyle that allows you to have “you” time.
Steve Crisp: Except when a computer explodes.
Angela: How often does that happen?
Steve Crisp: I would say that we lose one hard drive every six to nine months.
Angela: That’s not bad is it?
Steve Crisp: No.
Angela: Were you on the debate team?
Steve Crisp: Yes and no. When I was in High school we didn’t have a formal team that participated in intra high school squads. But I’ve always loved debate. We used to play a game in college where we would write topics on a sheet of paper, and throw it in a fishbowl. We’d pick one topic a night and toss coins to determine who would play pro or con.
Angela: That explains a lot.
Steve Crisp: I just love debate.
Angela: Do you come to GOLO looking for debate?
Steve Crisp: Absolutely, there’s no question about it
Angela: Do you find it?
Steve Crisp: Yes. There are some sharp people on there. (pauses to reflect…), though a couple of them are dead wrong.
Angela: Oh?
Steve Crisp: I don’t argue against an individual, I argue against a topic. If I argue my position against abortion, the person I’m arguing with takes it personally. They don’t know that I’m not arguing with them.
Angela: Why can’t some people separate the two?
Steve Crisp: Honestly I have no idea. My mother and I get into this discussion constantly. I think a lot of it has to do with my world view.
Angela: Which is?
Steve Crisp: I believe we are born, we live and we die and the time we are here is marked as a temporal abstraction. God doesn’t have time.
Angela: “Temporal abstraction?” — Do you think you send a lot of people to the dictionary?
Steve Crisp: I hope so. I actually blogged about that once.
Angela: What did the blog say?
Steve Crisp: If you don’t understand what I’m saying:
- That’s your problem
- Purchase a dictionary.
I am not going to limit my vocabulary because of your insufficiency.
Angela: Would you ever run for office?
Steve Crisp: I have been asked I don’t know how many times and I have always turned it down simply because I can’t run under my terms.
Angela: Which are?
Steve Crisp: I want nothing at all to do with fundraising. If someone wants to set up an independent committee to raise money then I would consider it. I would never attend a fundraiser, or solicit money and I would keep a very long arms length from any sign of impropriety. And I would never want to know after the fact who donated.
Angela: Such integrity!
Steve Crisp: Yes, I live my life under a set of rules that are absolute and inviolate. Most of them are drawn from the Bible. They’re very broad philosophies that are then applied to individual circumstances.
For example: “Thou shalt not lie”—There is no ambiguity in that statement.
Angela: So you don’t believe in white lies?
Steve Crisp: Absolutely not. "People can’t handle the truth."
Angela: You sound like Jack Nicholson in the movie A Few Good Men
Steve Crisp: Yeah, except in that movie he was an evil (banned word), who broke many other rules and had no leg to stand on. If you’re going to live by the truth it has to be applied across the board under all circumstances.
Angela: You state on your profile that you read at least one book a day. Do you watch television at all?
Steve Crisp: I watch three shows: American Idol, House and Monk. The rest of the time it’s on Fox News. I do watch a lot of news.
Angela: Do you get your books from the library, or do you buy?
Steve Crisp: I buy first editions of hard covers. I’m on my way to Barnes and Noble right now.
Angela: You often talk about your wife, Val throughout GOLO. Does she know this?
Steve Crisp: Of course, she reads it.
Angela: And she’s still there?
Steve Crisp: Yeah. If I say something particularly heinous about her, I make sure she sees it. She knows it’s all in fun. The public persona that I give Val, I liken to Phyllis Diller and her husband Fang: the guy you never meet but you know everything about.
Angela: You recently wrote a blog that criticized how parents raise their kids and spoke out against daycare. People were pretty upset with you. How did that make you feel?
Steve Crisp: It made me feel good simply because it gave people pause to think that possibly they were in error in abrogating their responsibility.
Angela: Isn’t that a little harsh?
Steve Crisp: Yeah? But reality is harsh
Angela: What do you do for fun?
Steve Crisp: I do four things: read, music, my baseball card collection and help people.
Angela: You also debate.
Steve Crisp: I guess you can add that in as fun but I see that more as a purpose.
Angela: Who’s your favorite GOLO member.
Steve Crisp: WHOA—(Lot’s of laughter.) Let’s see. Pinklady’s daughter.
(He then says something too scandalous for print. Sorry guys!)
Angela: You and Elcid seem to have healthy debates.
Steve Crisp: He’s the Lex Luther to my Superman. We snipe with each other constantly. We both realize that the debate that we have stays on the level of the words in print.
Angela: What would GOLOers find shocking about you?
Steve Crisp: I have the world’s ugliest feet.
Angela: How ugly are they?
Steve Crisp: They are green, they are spotted, they have claws, they are patently disgusting.
Angela: Ewwwwww. That’s just plain gross Steve.
Steve Crisp: Yes it is disgusting which is why small children like me. I’ve never grown up. I will always be a 9-year old.
Angela: Okay, you’d better to get to Barnes & Noble. There are books waiting to be bought. It’s been a pleasure, Steve.
Steve Crisp: Same here.
-Angela
