Get to Know…

The Ervin Edition

Picture: Lyndee and Marcus on a Photoshoot Day!

It is close to the lunch hour.  Lyndee, Amee, Marcus and I sit at our meeting table in our Corporate office discussing ideas in our Marketing & Design meeting.  We are deciding on topics for our blogs and Lyndee proposes a "Get to Know…" style blog where we introduce our team members.  I ask who should be our first victim and Amee chimes in that Marcus would be perfect. As we are all riled up and hyper from our many animated discussions of the meeting, we decide to jump right in and interview him on the spot.

Angela: So to break the ice, what’s your favorite color?

Marcus: Brown is a good color but it’s not my favorite.

Angela: What’s your favorite movie?

Marcus: Tron The movie, not the person.

Angela: What’s your jam right now?

Marcus: I’m listening to a lot of Chris Brown. I mean, I know he hit a woman but… Oh, no, no, no, DJ Snake – You Know You Like It

Angela: What hobbies do you like to do?

Marcus: I like all the hobbies equally.  Nothing, I don’t know.  Video games. Guy Stuff. You should put [Insert Verb].

Angela: Why did you pick a Smart Car?

Marcus: Ah, that’s a good story.  Because it’s tiny. It’s minimalist and in reality there’s no reason to have a car that has, really, four wheels. So… But since they don’t make cars that come in two wheels in America, that’s legal, I guess it’s the next best thing which is a car that has four wheels but is like half a car.

Lyndee: What is your inspiration?

Marcus: Oh, you know, all the stuff.  Normal stuff. I like clouds. Clouds are inspiration. Puppies. Unicorns. They’re inspiration.

Lyndee: Where did you come from?

Marcus: Where did I come from? That’s a vague question. Where did I come from?

Lyndee: Where’s your home town? Where’d you grow up?

[Everyone joins Lyndee in singing ‘West Philadelphia, born and raised. On the playground is where I spent most of my days…’]

Angela: What’s your favorite job duty that you have to do?

Marcus: Uh, I get to play with Illustrator a lot. So that’s a thing.  Photoshop too.

Lyndee: If you could rename your title, what would you rename your title to be?

Marcus: Oh, the Guy That Makes Stuff with the Computer.  Ideas and stuff. Comes Up with Ideas and Stuff.

Amee: If you could run Vixen Vapors, how would you run it?

Marcus: I would run it as successfully as possible. I’d run it the best, like any business should be run, you know.

Lyndee: What is your view on global warming?

Marcus: It’s too warm.  I don’t like the phrase.  I think climate change is a better phrase honestly.

Lyndee: Do you enjoy swimming in the Summer?

Marcus: No. Ha, ha, ha. There’s no reason to swim. Ever! Why?! Like…

Angela: To cool off?

Marcus: But there’s, there’s… We live in a civilized society with buildings with forced air.  There’s literally no reason to jump into a pool or water or any of that.

Angela: Because it’s fun?

Marcus: It’s not.

Angela: You don’t like to swim?

Marcus: It’s not... okay, it’s fun for how long? Two, three minutes?  That’s really long.  Three minutes is… 240 seconds. That’s a really long time to be in the water.  After that, you’re just like, "I’m done with this! My fingers are getting pruny. My toes are getting stuck inside of the mud."

Angela: So you don’t like to go to Wet ‘N’ Wild or I mean Hurricane Harbor?

Marcus: Or, in those cases where you’re in a public swimming pool, the whole time what you should be thinking is "I’m swimming in somebody’s urine," because that’s what’s really happening.  Just peeing in the pool…

Amee: Can I ask you a serious question? How do you know this is what it’s really like when you have never done it yourself?

Marcus: I’ve been in water before. Like, I’ve been there.

Lyndee: I thought you said you never swam!

Marcus: I don’t swim. I never swim.  No, because I don’t.

Lyndee: What do you do, just equate it to being in the shower?

Marcus: No. You just get in. You kind of walk around. Like sometimes, you have to get stuff out of the water. Like, you may throw a ball too far and you’re like, "Oh, I got on shorts, so I may as well just hop in there and grab this." I don’t know.

Amee: What is your favorite day of the year?

Marcus: I don’t know. Today, I guess. Today’s a good day.

Amee: What is your idea of the perfect date?

Marcus: Hmmm… I don’t know.  I don’t think I have an idea of the perfect date.

Angela: April 15^th.

Marcus: Oh that is a good date, actually.  Wait, a couple of years ago there was a perfect day. It was March 9^th, 2012, because it was 3, 6, 9, so it’s kind of…

[singing ‘To the window! To the wall!’]

Amee: If there was one thing that you want people to know, what would that be?  What is one thing that would make sure everyone in the world knows?

Marcus: Everyone? Like even people in China?

Amee: Yeah, everyone in the world… If you could tell them one thing what would it be?

Marcus: Like all over the world? The entire planet? Russia? Spain?

Lyndee: So, if every person in the entire world tuned into a TV program, magically, all had some sort of TV and you had one minute to tell them something…

Marcus: 60 Seconds? That’s a long time, in front of billions of people. I’d be like "Hey guys…" I guess I could sort of make a speech like "Hey guys, It’s me. Your buddy Marcus.  I know a lot of you don’t understand me because you live in China, India, Spain…"

Lyndee: It translates.

Marcus: Ok, sweet. I don’t know.  Can I have a second to think about this one?  Because my natural answer is like, "Hey, there’s water in America. Like we got water guys and you can drink it. We can swim in it.  We can flush it. We got so much of it we just waste it." So that would be the first thing but I feel like that’d be bragging.  That’d be terrible.  So I want it to be less ‘braggy’ than that. "Politics is bull sh*t.  Revolt! Start the revolution right now!" That’s what I’d tell them, all at once.  I mean, you’re talking to 6 billion people.  A few of ‘em are probably going to respond. "He’s the chosen one!" and stuff like that.  "This is the one we’ve been waiting for!" Then the ISIS attacks America, destroys it.

Amee: If you had a million dollars what would you do?

Marcus: Save it.  Invest it. Then I’d probably buy like $100,000 worth of gold. Just like bricks, solid, like bricks of gold.

Angela: You could build a house with that.

Marcus: I wouldn’t build anything with it. I’d just have it like, I’d just have it.  Like be around it all the time.  It’d be sweet to be around that much gold.

Angela: You could sit on it.  Build a throne out of it.

Marcus: That’s a big black thing to say.  Like, I want to be around just a ton of gold. I just want to be surrounded by gold. For no reason. I don’t want to make jewelry out of it.  Or like sell it. I just want it to be like close to me.  I want the haters to see it on Instagram.  I can take a bunch of photos "Look at all this gold." I’d probably buy like a TV Network. Like, how much is NBC, like $200,000?

Lyndee: Yeah, that’s it. That’ll buy that.

Marcus: That’s it.  That’s the three things I would do.  So that’s the end.  $100,000 worth of gold bars just to be around at all times. Invest in a company.  And then buy NBC.

Angela: The most important question of this entire interview: Does Morgan smell?

Marcus: I wouldn’t know. I can’t smell her from here.  So I’d say no, probably.

Amee: Who is your favorite person at Vixen Vapors?

Marcus: Parker. Obviously! Baby. Easy. She waves.

Wrapping up this short ten minute interview and gearing up for the next meeting of the day, we all shuffle our belongings around and tidy up the table.   Two conclusions can be made now: 1) A lot can be said in ten minutes; 2) Marcus Ervin is definitely interesting and quirky enough to make this first "Get to Know…" edition a smashing success.  Keep your eyes open for our next edition as we continue to introduce our team members, those behind the scenes and in front of customers, to our loving community of Vixen Vapors Vapers.