Adam Sessler - G4tv.com

IF I WEREN’T HOSTING X-PLAY, I WOULD BE...

...still in bed crying. Because i would have to get
up and put on a suit and tie and then go to the
bank to make a living. I worked for a multi-
national financial institution as a credit analyst for
commercial lending. My job was to find out if it
was cool to lend money to oil companies. Except
I was an English major, and Nick Leeson had just
demolished Barings Bank by virtue of his incom-
petence in addition to Bofa calling me incessantly
to pay down my debt. I love absurdity, but that
just sucked.

MY THEME SONG IS...

"Jockey Full of Burbon" by Tom Waits. The
refrain "hey little bird/fly away home your
house is on fire/your children all alone"pretty
much encapsulates the anxiety and resigna-
tion in my head. a fun sing-along.

WHERE ARE YOU FROM?

I was born in Berkeley, California at Alta Bates
Hospital. Then i was taken to my hometown of El
Cerrito, CA, 2 miles north. You know, El Cerrito,
where Credence Clearwater Revival got their start
at my high school, the same high school that was
part of the Richmond Unified School District, the
one that almost shut down early in 1991 from lack
of funding because Governor Pete Wilson wouldn't
pony up the money unless the teachers willingly
dropped down from the second lowest paid in the
state to dead last, you now, that one. Good Times.

FAVORITE VIDEO GAME?

This question is too hard but I'll go with my peren-
nial cop-out, Ghosts N' Goblins. When I was
9 years old I used to scam quarters
from my parents and sneak out to this
local bowling alley that was so seedy
Hubert Selby Jr. would get the creeps
there. It smelled like personal abandonment.
That's what I think of when I play my favorite
game.

FINISH THIS SENTENCE: MARIO, SOLID SNAKE
AND LARA CROFT WALK INTO A BAR...

Feeling really old, so they drink.

FAVORITE X-PLAY EPISODE/REVIEW?

It would have to be"The Desert Episode." The one
where I play Johnny Depp playing Hunter S. Thompson.
It was our first "Special Episode" and we didn't know
what we were getting into. What we were getting into
was six people filming in the desert in 120 degree tem-
peratures without relief or a clear idea of where things
were going. The episode just makes me laugh, the way
it jut dissembles at the end with cartoon characters and a
rubber alien hand. Oh, we were so naive back then.
Now I ask questions when i get in the car with producers.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE
"MORGAN WEBB MOMENT" FROM X-PLAY?

It has to be "The violence episode" from back in the TechTv
days. The show was a "hard look" at whether violent games
caused actual violence. The conceit was that Morgan would be
injuring me off camera in the course of the show. At the end
she pushes me out of a wheelchair and beats me with a wiffle
bat as the credits roll. She wanted to fake it but I thought it
wouldn't read on camera so I told her to do it for real. She just
wailed on me for good 40 seconds. I had welts on my back for
the rest of the week. I love my job.

HAVE ANY FINAL THOUGHTS TO SHARE
WITH YOUR FANS?

Please watch the new show.
It puts Hot Wings on the table.

FAVORITE MOVIE?

It's a toss-up between the American-dream-in-the-Seventies
classic "The Muppet Movie, or the Canadian Post-Modern
head trauma "Videodrome" Depends on my mood.