I work in sales. In my field there's a term called “closing.” Closing is when you attempt to seal the deal. For example, let's say I was selling light bulbs, when I was done with my initial pitch I might try to close by saying, “So, how many light bulbs do you need?” See, you've gotta ask for the sale, this close presumes that the person is buying your product and makes it pretty awkward for them to answer “zero.” My work has lead me to believe that if you want something, all you have to do is ask for it. Most of the time, people will actually just give it to you.

I read From Right Field every week, never miss it. Every. Week. When you do something weekly for years, you start to feel connected to that activity. You want to get closer to it, be more involved. So, I asked for it.

I read Chris Romeo's SCG Daily interviews a few weeks ago and I really enjoyed them, except for the last one where Romeo interviewed himself. It didn't feel complete to me. So, I wrote to the cheesecake chef himself, and he agreed to be interviewed properly.

…

Vrax: You have mentioned your drumming many times, what about the drums drew you in? Why percussion, as opposed to guitar or a woodwind?

Chris Romeo: I got the rhythm in me. I have more funk in my pinky toe than… Yeah, that's not gonna sound right. Funky pinky toes probably won't bring to mind a jam session, as much toe jam. The truth is that I've always been impressed with multi-instrumentalists like Prince, Don Henley, Phil Collins, and Paul McCartney. I already knew how to play piano passably enough. There was this guy on our neighborhood who turned out to be a professional drummer. When I say "professional," I don't mean "he was in a band." I mean, he flew all over the world recording with folks. His name was Arvin Scott, and he played on albums by The Commodores, LTD (when Jeffrey Osbourne was still with them), and a bunch of jazz artists. That was just too cool. He agreed to teach me. I don't think I realized what a great opportunity I had until I got a message one week that our lesson was cancelled because he'd been called to Detroit or Switzerland. That's when I knew he was good.

Later, I learned how to play guitar well enough to write my own songs, same as keyboards. The only instrument that I'd play live, though, is drums.

V: Do you play in a band, or at special events?

CR: I haven't played live in years. I still write some, but it's just for me. No one gets to hear it. I'm like the wallflower girl who writes poetry only for herself. But with a hairy chest.

V: Ewww, that image just basically ruined music for me forever. Um, moving on. If Wizards implemented a two-headed Giant Pro-AM, (eight teams of two) and you got to choose your pro partner, who would you pick and why?

CR: It would depend on the format. If I'm doing sealed deck, I would actually ask Our Esteemed Editor Craig Stevenson. He seems to have a very solid handle on Limited formats. Plus, I'd finally get to meet him in person. [You'd pick me? For the love of God, you're insane. – Craig]

For Constructed, I'd pick Kai Budde. He could bring both decks and just tell me what to play and when.

V: Okay, say you guys make it into the finals, who's your ideal opposing team, and again, why?

CR: Part of me wants to say Lindsay Lohan and Angie Everhart, partly because they stink at Magic and we'd win, but mostly so that I could say I played with Lindsay Lohan and Angie Everhart. If I really wanted to test my Magic skillz, I'd like to be sitting across from Jay Moldenhauer-Salazar and Jon Finkel (presuming JMS still counts as the “Am”).

V: Excellent choices, even if you did spell JMS's name way too easily. You've stated that as a lawyer you intended to do some good in the world; is there a specific thing that you want(ed) to fight against, or change?

CR: My undergraduate degree is in engineering. I'm also a writer. So, intellectual property law was a natural for me. I wanted to help people protect their stories and pictures and inventions. It didn't turn out too well. I really can't say much more than that. Let's just say that I'm glad I learned about the law. Everyone should know their rights and basics of the law. If nothing else, you'll know which CSI or LAW & ORDER knock-off is decent.

V: As a dedicated player and writer, what's your goal in the game of
Magic? Why do you keep playing?

CR: As people should know from the column, I inhabit that weird nether region (heh) between "Serious Tournament Player," i.e. the guy who plays PTQ's in the hopes of qualifying, and "Kitchen Table Dude," the guy who just likes to play with a bunch of friends and a pizza. I am a competitor, but I want to win with my own deck. My goal is to do that. I would like someday to win a PTQ or other big tournament with a deck I designed. Until then, I'll be happy exploring the interactions and synergies between cards.

V: Do you feel that there is much room for original thought as far as deck design that hasn't already been done by someone else? I guess what I'm asking is what makes you feel like you truly designed a deck, as opposed to just tweaking someone else's build? Where do you draw that line?

CR: To me, it's a lot like songwriting. You only have so many notes on the keyboard. And, given the constraints of popular music – 4/4 time, some four-X bars to a verse typically – there's actually very little you can do. Yet, there's new, original music all the time. However, if you were to break down a lot of the melody lines, you'd hear that, gee, that one really sounds like this song or other. It's all about the arrangement around the melody in pop music, really.

Magic is the same way. We have a limited card pool. Even if you're the first person to write about a deck, somebody somewhere has already been playing that deck at a kitchen table. The question is: did you know about it first? Two people can write the same song or create the same deck independently. If I started with someone else's deck when I made mine, I'm just tweaking it. How much tweaking does it take to make it a complete original? That's a philosophical question for the ages. Some would say that if you started with my deck, whatever you end with is derivative. Others would say that once you change ten or twenty or fifty percent of the cards, it's yours.

I believe in giving credit where credit is due. If someone gives me the idea for a deck, I'll say so. On the flip side, a lot of ideas just seem to spring to several folks' minds simultaneously. In that case, it's not really anyone's deck unless that person makes it famous.

I'm pretty sure that this all adds up to a short answer of “it depends.” I wish I could say something more definitive, but what I feel to be the essence of original may not be what someone else thinks is original. I can only tell you what I do regarding deck designs.

Is there room for original thought in there? Heck, yeah. There's a lot – tons and tons – of card interactions that no one has even mentioned, even in Standard. Talen Lee showed me one last night that made me slap my head. Once I saw it, it was as obvious as ketchup in a plastic squeeze bottle. Of course, look how long it took someone to put ketchup in a plastic squeeze bottle.

V: It may have taken you a while, but you were recently married. Are you planning to have children?

CR: Nope. Never have. I can barely take care of myself, and some would say I can't even do that.

V: Why do you feel that way? You manage to hold down a job, two if you count the column here, and you have a good enough relationship that you've gotten to the happily-ever-after phase. What makes you skeptical of your abilities to take care of yourself?

CR: I often leave the house without pants. I've been known to wear my underwear outside my pants like a demented superhero. I sometimes get all the way to the grocery store without any money, credit cards, or check. I set bad examples by eating badly, staying up late, and cussing like my brother the sailor.

And I play games. Who wants their kids to play games?

V: Right, right…and if you really were a demented superhero, what would your superhero name be?

CR: Poopyhead. It's what Luanne calls me, in a loving sort of way, and it stuck. (Sorry. Bad pun, but completely unintentional.) My superpower would be that I'd sling bullsh**.

V: Luanne is obviously the love interest in the comic book of your life. Is it completely high-school sweetheart level cheesy with you two? I mean, if you had met Luanne in high-school do you think that you would've wound up together? If not, why not?

CR: We most certainly would not have wound up together. She's 5 ½ years older than me. So, I would have been in 8th grade when she was a senior. I'm good, but I'm not that good. In 8th grade, at best, I could have pulled a sophomore.

V: Oh you cad! It seems that you've had a pretty successful dating history; why all the cheesecake when you've had the real thing?

CR: My dating history was not “successful” until Luanne came along. (Score one for me!) I just dated a lot of women. More than my fair share, to be honest.

As for the cheesecake, I do it for the ratings. Why do all of the sitcoms have some fat slob married to a complete honey when there's no way in real life that he could pull her? Do you think Courtney Thorne-Smith would ever give Jim Belushi the time of day? How about George Lopez's TV wife? Same here. Cheesecake pulls the hits. Also, Luanne goes to bed three hours before I do. So, I don't get to see as much live cheesecake as you'd think.

V: Don't get me wrong, I‘ve been married a bit over six years. So I do how it is. Speaking of my home life, you believe that the game is "about combat." What's your favorite combat trick?

CR: My favorite combat trick is anything that saves my guy and kills yours. Sylvan Might was big. Liberate. Shelter. Ghostway is moving up there for me, as is Wildsize, my new favorite common.

V: How about your favorite creature?

CR: My favorite creature is either Mother of Runes or Pristine Angel, depending on the kind of deck I'd be playing, beats or control. They're just sooooo hard to get rid of.

V: Since you like offense that's hard to stop, do you think that Equipment is good for the game?

CR: At first, I didn't like it. Loxodon Warhammer is just Armadillo Cloak for everyone. The more I use it, though, the more I like how any color has access to certain effects. That's pretty cool. Whether it's good for the game depends, as with all of the other stuff, on what they do with it. Artifacts should be usable by any colors. As long as that rule's followed I'm good with it.

You know what I don't like? Artifacts that can't be used by all colors. Vedalken Shackles really chapped my ass because of that. Oh, sure, mono-Red could "use" the Shackles; it just wouldn't have any effect. That's just wrong. In reality, Shackles was a Blue card dressed up like an artifact. And it would have been so easy to fix. Instead of being tied to Islands, they just needed to add "As Vedalken Shackles comes into play, choose a basic land type." What I fear is that Equipment will be created that can only be used by a certain color. I won't like that at all.

V: Yet you've focused on Enchant Crea…uh…Auras many times, how are they different from Equipment that's only used by one color, other than obvious re-usability?

CR: Well, the obvious is that killing an Equipped creature only kills the creature, not the Equipment. Doing the same with an Enchanted creature is two-for-one. That's why I think they've done a decent job with Equipment. Armadillo Cloak costs three mana to cast and use. Loxodon Warhammer costs six to cast and use. You pay more for the flexibility of Equipment. So far, seems good to me. What scares me about it, though, is the possibility of losing good Auras because there's Equipment that does the same thing. I trust the designers and developers to make sure that doesn't happen.

V: What about “extra” colored abilities, like on Sunforger, or Crystal Shard?

CR: Now, see, those I like. Any deck can use the Equipment. Some just use it better. That makes sense to me. It's an artifact. Perfect example. I saw a mono-Black deck running Crown of Convergence. He couldn't activate it, but given that everything in his deck was land or creature, he was essentially playing with Bad Moon. Nasty.

V: Nasty things indeed, hmm, if you could go back in time and erase a card from the game forever, which one would it be and why?

CR: Oh, geez, there are so many. Kokusho comes to mind right away. It just swings the game too quickly. You could have the opponent at four with lethal damage on board. He swings and puts you at fifteen He drops a second. All of a sudden, you're at five, and he's at fourteen. That's too much for only six mana.

Wildfire is also horrendous. Typically, you play a land a turn. If you haven't somehow been able to ramp up mana - say because you're not playing Green or artifact mana - you have at most four lands on turn 4, five on turn 5, etc. But the Wildfire player can wipe you out. Between the two, though, I'd go with Kokusho. But no one would get their money back, either.

V: Um, that's kind of a strange add-on. Why wouldn't anyone get their money back?

CR: Because I'm petty and jealous. You paid how much for those cards? They're broken, and you knew it. Bwah ha ha ha ha ha! Besides, I'm making the rules in this make-believe world.

V: Well, then JMS still counts as an amateur; it's your world. Ok, you like the White cards, you like the combat aspect of things. In my experience White is far better used as a control color than a beatdown color, why do you prefer White attackers to those of, say, the Red variety?

CR: The very first deck I ever played was a Goblin deck that a friend handed me. But he was The Goblin Guy. A week later, I found the preconstructed decks. I bought the White Urza's Saga precon with the sleeper enchantments. I loved it. From then on, I was the group's White Weenie guy.

V: Yeah, Opal Champion or whatever the one that becomes a 4/4 giant with protection - totally cool. So anyway, I have this notion and it might seem, like, controversial or something. I think that Isamaru, Hound of Konda, is underpowered. Yes, that's right, I think a 2/2 for one mana isn't good enough – because it's White. White has no late game reach with its tiny fellas, whereas that same 2/2 for one, in Red, would be so hideously over the edge that they'd have to ban it in order to silence the outraged masses. This, I believe, is why White Weenie will never, ever, be Tier 1. No matter how much we all want it to be good. It just won't be with the way R&D is currently doing things. Oh, right, a question…uh… what do you think about that?

CR: There are only three ways to make Isamaru “better.” Make its power greater. Make its toughness greater. Give it protection from something. Any of those just completely overpowers the battlefield right now. I mean, come on, a 2/3 for one mana on turn one? How *cough* *Kird Ape* ridiculous *hack* *Stomping Grounds* is that?!?

V: My point exactly, and while it does require Forests, the gorilla's in a color with burn, which equals reach.

After lettering in three sports, you chose to pursue music and a career in law (or so you thought at the time). Why didn't you reach for athletic career?

CR: You have to learn to assess yourself honestly. That may be my best attribute. I know that some folks (who actually know me) think I have a big ego, but it's all bluster. I know my strengths and weaknesses and how good I can potentially be at something. I knew that I was decent at baseball. Better than most, not as good as many. I got a couple of scholarships, but I knew I'd never make the majors. Given how much time baseball would take in college, I just went with the academic scholarship instead.

V: What other sports were they, and what drew you into all of them?

CR: I played football one year, and that was it. Our team had too many knee injuries, and I didn't want that to ruin my baseball career. Why play football? I love intercepting passes, causing fumbles, and knocking guys down. I played inside linebacker and offensive guard. Baseball, of course, because I love the game. There's no better way to be close to the game than to play it. The other one was wrestling. I wanted something to keep me in shape in the off-season, and the new coach - our first wrestling coach ever - had been an Olympian. His name was Wayne Dunn, and he was a great teacher.

V: What is it about Baseball that makes you such a passionate fan?

CR: I actually understand the game and what's going on in it. I don't know what “play” is being run in basketball, for example. I truly appreciate the athletic ability that basketball players have. A hoops highlight show is like contact ballet. I love it. But I can't see the “plays.” Football, as much as I love it, takes too much attention to follow because of the action all over the field. That's why you have to have replays. You can't see how the receiver got open at the same time as you see the QB throwing the ball.

Baseball is a great sport because it rewards the fan for watching either very intently or just casually. Wanna follow each pitch and cuss when the pitcher throws a fastball right down the middle ahead in the count 0-2 to Barry Bonds? You can. Wanna sit in the stands on a beautiful Summer day checking out the hot chyx, drinking beer, talking to your fiends and only watching when the ball's hit? Sure. Either way, you're gonna have fun.

Besides, as a 5'8” middle-aged adult, I can no longer play linebacker, and I never could hit a free throw. I can still toss the tater and hit a pitched ball. My back just hates me the next day.

V: Contact Ballet, sounds similar to the French art of Savate. Anyhoo, you've been a Linebacker, and a Wrestler; you're obviously a pretty tough dude, so why bother with all the bluster and faux ego-posturing?

CR: I'm not tough at all. My threshold for pain is between non-existent and passes-out-from-papercuts. Don't let the linebacker thing fool you. Those pads suck up an awful lot of the force. I remember the first time I got hit in pads. I flinched. I was waiting for… I dunno, a blinding flash of pain. It never came, and I realized that this was fun.

As for wrestling, true collegiate/Olympic/non-WWE wrestling is rarely about pain. In fact, if you're hurting the other guy, you're probably doing something wrong. It's about using force and leverage to immobilize the guy. That's how you win.

Oh, wow, kinda like how White wins in Magic. Whoa. Revelation!

V: So, you believe in honest self-assessment, and claim that you want to be the best, yet in the Magic realm you often note that you “suck” and you seem to be ok with that, why the disparity? Is it mostly a lower risk versus reward type thing because the cards are just a hobby?

CR: Well, the honest self-assessment part is that I stink. You have to start there. If I think I'm great, there's no place to go but down, right? I can want to be better but still be okay with where I am. Is that too Zen?

V: Nothing can be too Zen. (Nothing can be too Zen)

CR: Yes, I'd like to learn how to assess the situations like Zvi and Kai and Mori. No, I'd love to. I'm not sure that I'm intellectually capable of it and/or have the time to practice. So, I can honestly say that I'm okay with where I'm at. But I know that, in a room full of great players, I'd be the worst.

V: That‘s somewhat depressing, which makes me want a drink, because booze makes all men equal. Wine, Beer or Liquor? What's your favorite drink?

CR: Wine. I'm Italian! There's a winery an hour or so from here called Stonehaus. Luanne and I love their Muscadine. Very sweet, almost pungent. Liquor would be second. If you know THE KIDS IN THE HALL, you'll understand when I say, "I'm a girl-drink drunk!" Amaretto sours. Black Russians. White Russians. Hurricanes. Beer is nonexistent in my life, except to make beer bread and chili. I was a good boy. Never snuck any drinks in school or anything. Of course, my family didn't have beer around anyway. Then, I went to college in New Orleans. Louisiana was the last state to raise the drinking age to 21. It was still 18 when I got there. So, I was able to go straight to the good stuff. My drink of choice was Long Island Tea. But don't drink and drive, kids!

V: Have you ever had a Singapore Sling?

CR: No comment. And don't go looking for any jail records in New Orleans, either.

V: You're a wino, erm, connoisseur, and I hear that you love to cook. What is your signature dish, and what wine would you serve with it, if any?

CR: It's called Four-Pepper Pasta. You cut a red, green, and yellow pepper into strips. Saute with onion and garlic in olive oil with basil, oregano, and fresh cracked pepper. When it's almost done, add some Picante sauce (thus the fourth pepper) and balsamic vinegar. Serve over rigatoni. It's a gorgeous dish. Women oooo and ahhh over it. What wine? Anything, really. It's a pretty strong dish, full of flavor. Some people would say to serve it with dry wine so the wine doesn't overpower the dish. I'm more afraid of the dish overpowering the wine. To be safe, serve White Zinfindel. To be bold, go with a Merlot. To be really cool, Muscadine.

V: Damn, that sounds tasty. On the subject of favorites, you're known as a big fan of movies and TV, particularly comedies. Who's your favorite actor or actress, and what was the performance that made them your fave?

CR: Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's. After I saw that, I found everything I could with her in it. She could do comedy or drama. Obviously. She won an Oscar. And How to Steal a Million is a freakin' riot. Of course, she is gorgeous and graceful even in that one. *sigh*

V: Steal a million, eh? Alright then, final question, what's the craziest stunt you've ever pulled?

CR: Since the statute of limitations hasn't passed, I can't answer that one truthfully. The second craziest thing I ever did that I can tell you about was fill a guy's dorm room with wadded up newspapers. Not like “oh, the floor is covered.” I mean, floor to ceiling, wadded up newspapers.

Um, you had to be there.

V: Maybe so. At any rate I'd like to thank you for being here. I hope we can all go away feeling like we know more about where those things in Right Field are really coming from, I know I can. Oh, and Chris – you'll have to spill the story once that statute of limitations runs out.