(New York) – Micah Laaker spent much of yesterday in the company of actor Gary Coleman, helping fellow Anti-Arboreal Association member Paul Chan conduct an interview for ‘Good Lookin’ magazine. On a nationwide tour to promote his current Web endeavour, The Gary Coleman Webathon, Mr. Coleman talked extensively, and excitedly, about UGO’s (his sponsor) quick turnaround, clever concept, and entertaining offerings. Obviously not a huge fan of the Internet (This gathered from comments such as “The Internet is destroying society,” “The Internet is the downfall of human interaction,” and “You’d have to be a moron to give out any personal information on the Web! You might as well walk up and give someone your wallet, credit cards and Social Security number!”), Mr. Coleman had nothing but kind words for his sponsor’s site and his upcoming content. Fortunately for Mr. Coleman’s credibility, his statements concerning his site’s prowess did not seem forced, and thus contradictory.

Still a man of the people, Mr. Coleman helped hail a cab for dinner transportation by “encouraging” two police officers to assist in the ever difficult matter. This encouraging took the form of reminders of contemporary Danny Glover’s New York taxi drivers’ racial discrimination lawsuit. After posing for photographs with “Gary,” the officers quickly remedied the situation, and the trio sped towards their dining destination, Manhattan’s ‘City Crab.’ Before leaving, however, Mr. Coleman bonded with Mr. Laaker is his disdain for Sprint PCS service, explaining that the PCS acronym represented “Pure Call Sucking.”

After what was to be a foretaste of the rest of the evening, Mr. Coleman smooth-talked the hostess into quick service, and was soon “spitting game” (as Mr. Laaker termed it) to the waitress. Not trying to appear disrespectful, Mr. Laaker soon found himself briefly at the neighboring table to give a “pound” to Chicago hip-hop icon Common who was also in town eating at “The Crab.” Conversation quickly turned back to Mr. Coleman’s current (radio deejay) and future projects (secretive, non-acting plans), as well as his preferences in video games (“I’m for any game that let’s you blow the human body into a million pieces,” and “God, I’m so sick of polygons; I CAN’T TAKE ANYMORE POLYGONS!”) and disdain for monopolies such as Microsoft (“I can’t wait for Microsoft to be broken into tiny little chunks!”). Despite seeming quite hostile and angry as such quotes would seem, Mr. Coleman was noted to be “a very likeable guy,” and joked around with Mr. Laaker and Mr. Chan like they were Kimberly and Willis. Not halfway through dinner, another celebrity, the well-remembered Freddy “Boom Boom” Washington, Mr. Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, of “Welcome Back Kotter” fame, came up for a quick hello.

Whenever conversation found itself lagging, Mr. Laaker was noted to repeatedly press the idea of Mr. Coleman using the name “The Hot Boys” for his upcoming project, in reverance of fellow child entertainers, The Hot Boys. Mr. Coleman oddly never showed interest in this name, and invariably turned to another topic. When the issue of video games was resurrected a third time, Mr. Chan suggested a trip to Times Square to play ‘Time Crisis II,’ a first person “shooter,” to pit the three against each other. Matters took a turn for the worse, however, when the children from a hosted birthday party there swarmed Mr. Coleman for autographs. Contrary to past “alleged” assaults, Mr. Coleman happily took photographs and signed his name to all enquiring inidividuals. Mr. Laaker reported that “all enquiring individuals” probably numbered 40 in the five hours the three had together.

After an exhausting run of Time Crisis II, the group decided to disband for the evening, and each went their separate ways; Mr. Laaker’s way being noticeably longer than the rest, as his involved backtracking due to his accidental leaving of his bag at Mr. Coleman’s apartment. Before parting, the three talked of plan’s to raid certain companies in the future to get their hands on high-tech development machines for Mr. Coleman’s upcoming projects, although no exact dates were set.

As a side note, to avoid being labeled a “moron,” Mr. Laaker would like all readers to ignore any and all personal information about himself that they may find on his site.

Mr. Coleman, in bib, at City Crab.

Mr. Coleman and Mr. Laaker playing Time Crisis II.

Mr. Coleman and Mr. Chan playing Time Crisis II.