Fig & Vine Senior Profile: Allen Schultz

On June 19th, 2025, recent UCSB graduate Allen Schultz sat down with an anonymous interviewer at Lazy Dog Kitchen in Fresno, California. This is the exact transcript of their conversation. 

Anonymous Interviewer: Alright, great to meet you. Please state your name. 

Allen: Allen Schultz

Anonymous Interviewer: Could you please spell it? 

Allen: A-L-L-E-N  S-C-H-U-L-T-Z

Anonymous Interviewer: Could you possibly spell it again, but with more letters?

Allen: A-L-X-Y-L-E-W-J-N  S-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-U-L-T-Z 

Anonymous Interviewer: And where are we today? 

Allen: Lazy Dog Kitchen. I am eating Fettuccine Alfredo and very much enjoying it. 

Anonymous Interviewer: So Allen, what is your involvement with Fig & Vine Magazine? 

Allen: I run the satire column and make a bunch of risky jokes about my friends and pray to G-d that they land well. 

Anonymous Interviewer: What else were you involved with in your college years?

Allen: I was incredibly involved with Hillel, acting as board president for a year and a half. To the point where people would just call me Mr. Hillel and assume that I knew what was going on there all the time, which I definitely did not. I was rush chair and active participant in AEPi, active participant in many other Jewish communities on campus as well. Frequent Chabad goer and Pegisha enjoyer. I led tours, did screenwriting, and worked on student films.

Anonymous Interviewer: Cool. Who would win in a fight: a hundred men or one gorilla? 

Allen: I would go as far to say that one man, in fact, one boy could beat one gorilla. Let’s call back to the 2016 tragedy of Harambe, where a young boy fell into a gorilla enclosure which ended up with the gorilla getting shot. Yeah, I would say that one boy single handedly took out a gorilla. Granted, would a hundred men together have the balls and the chutzpah of a young child accidentally falling into a gorilla enclosure? I think this is where our debate truly starts. 

Anonymous Interviewer: Allen, I think I love you. Would you still love me even if I were a worm? 

Allen: What kind? 

Anonymous Interviewer: The wiggly kind. 

Allen: I like my worms stiff. 

Anonymous Interviewer: Oh- is that a no? 

Allen: I’ll answer later. 

Anonymous Interviewer: Who’s your greatest role model? 

Allen: I mean this with all sincerity, Pitbull is one of my greatest role models. I’m blanking on some of the specifics but for my AP Spanish class I needed to do a lot of research on Pitbull and the guy, besides his occasional conservative anti-vax views, has left a really tremendous impact on society. Through his organization and charity work he’s affected a lot of underprivileged youth communities. One such underprivileged youth community he’s dramatically affected is Isla Vista, in the way of giving us music to listen to. 

Anonymous Interviewer: What is an unpopular opinion that you hold? 

Allen: I don’t believe that George W. Bush was as dumb as he was letting on. I think he lost a bet and I think he’s a very serious man and he took the bet very seriously. I think the things that he said were geniusly hilarious. Some might argue only true stupidity could match, but I put him up there with the great comedy writers of our generation. Definitely unappreciated in his time. Yeah, I don’t think any of it was real. I don’t think he was ever actually president. 

Anonymous Interviewer: What’s a popular opinion that you hold? 

Allen: It is stupid to believe that our government is spying on us 24/7. Do they have access to all that information? Yes, absolutely, but barely anyone on the planet is cool or important enough to require an FBI agent watching them through their computer. So, whatever you’re worried or concerned that your FBI agent saw you do, trust me when I say they were playing Temple Run during the majority of your life. 

Anonymous Interviewer: What are three objects that I’d find in your bedroom?

Allen: Handcuffs, a towel covered in black mold (or mold adjacent), and an ostrich shirt. 

Anonymous Interviewer: Maybe you want to clarify that the handcuffs are from AEPi’s formal event Champagne and Shackles? 

Allen: Yes. And they’ve been used frequently thereafter. 

Anonymous Interviewer: This is not true as far as I know. 

Allen: There are sources.

Anonymous Interviewer: Allen, should I really put this in the article? 

Allen: You can decide later. 

Anonymous Interviewer: Okay. Tell us about a time you fucked around and found out. 

Allen: I once almost got arrested at a UofO football game for sneaking alcohol into the stadium. When I was threatened with arrest I just went to the other side of the stadium. I did not bother to wipe off the mark that they made on my hand, and used numerous sorority girls to help block my way until I found my friends. I fucked around and found out that I am capable of anything. 

Anonymous Interviewer: What’s a memory from UCSB that you’ll carry for the rest of your life? 

Allen: When I was walking home from a night downtown, ex-AEPi president Eman Bareket was extremely upset that he had the hiccups. He proceeded to vent this frustration by kicking the car mirrors into every single door that he passed. When someone in the street saw him do that to their own car and they yelled at him, he proceeded to grunt at them and completely ignore confrontation. 

Anonymous Interviewer: I was actually looking for something more heartfelt with that question. 

Allen: Mmm, okay. AEPi initiations. I’d gone to and from LA a lot my first quarter and was not necessarily the best or most reliable pledge. When I got back from LA the night of initiation, someone else in my pledge class, a good friend of mine, Evan, asked, “Oh where have you been?” At first I thought it was accusatory so I said I’ve been in LA and started apologizing and he said, “No, no, no, you’re good man, it’s just that your presence was really missed. We could feel the lack of you in this space.” This was the first time at SB that I felt like I truly had a real place and purpose there. 

Anonymous Interviewer: What is the legacy you want to leave behind at UCSB? 

Allen: Drink smart, not safe. Buckets of 20 Fireball shooters are only $20 at IV Liquor Mart. Stop getting Kirkland vodka. It is disgusting, it is not worth it. Stop getting fancy vodka. You don’t deserve it. You haven’t done anything in your life deserving of fancy, really incredible alcohol. What you do deserve is great tasting, bottom of the barrel Fireball. You can get this from IV Liquor mart in shot form, bucket form, bottle form, and preferably, keg form. 

Anonymous Interviewer: What is something that you struggled with in college, and how did you overcome it? 

Allen: I’m someone who overthinks a lot and can very easily have anxiety attacks. I learned that taking a breath and revisiting things is important. That sharing things with your loved ones is important. It’s very common for people to say “don’t worry, you’re not alone.” Maybe another piece of advice that I would say is that sometimes you can be alone until you reach out to that person. Loneliness can be very palpable and very dire. Rather than saying “you’re not alone,” I would say “don’t make yourself alone.” Find that source of support, because there is someone out there that really truly deeply loves you. Even if you can’t see it yet. 

Anonymous Interviewer: What are you looking forward to in your next stage of life? 

Allen: I want to tell more Jewish stories. While I appreciate the attention that our community has put forward about recent antisemitism, I feel like the only instances of Jews you hear in modern media is about antisemitism. I really want to focus on all of the positive and joyous elements of being Jewish. I want to get a diverse array of Jewish stories out there, showing the myriad of different people that can and do practice Judaism. I want to express our culture beyond the religion, the politics, and the bigotry that our people have faced. 

Anonymous Interviewer: Well, that wraps up my questions. Any closing remarks Allen? 

Allen: I want more questions. 

Anonymous Interviewer: Uhhh, okay. What is something you want to have in every day of your life? 

Allen: The understanding, patience, enthusiasm, joy, and appreciation of everything beautiful in life that I receive from Cokebeer on a daily basis. Cokebeer is this really great thing that I invented. It’s a mixture of Coca-Cola and Root Beer. I think I’d be lost without it. My girlfriend would be pretty great to have around too. 

Anonymous Interviewer: What are two things that are great on their own but horrible together? 

Allen: Men and intense emotional reactions to sports. Why are you, as a man, wasting tears on a football team that you will never be a part of and likely never meet, when you couldn’t cry at the birth of your child? You helped bring life into this world, and you are such a shallow shell of a man that you cried because… the Celtics lost? Because the Superbowl didn’t go your way? Now, unless it’s about sports gambling. That’s about as masculine of an activity that you can participate in.

Anonymous Interviewer: When do you think the waitress will bring us our check?

Allen: I don’t know. I think she’s afraid to come over here. 

Anonymous Interviewer: Yeah, that’s fair. Umm, what’s a question I should ask you? 

Allen: I think you should ask me if you’re awake right now, or still sleeping. 

Anonymous Interviewer: Allen, am I awake or still sleeping? 

Allen: Maya, look around you. Is that door opening and closing in the way that it should? Do the people around you look how people should? Do you remember what your food tasted like? Do you have any real sense of any of your five senses? Do you remember how we got to this booth? I am the interviewer now. Maya Kaye, how many times a day do you floss? 

Anonymous Interviewee: Times a day? Uhhh, I floss about once a week.

Allen: Do you think the gums between your teeth appreciate that? 

Anonymous Interviewee: No :(

Allen: Maya Kaye, how often do you donate to the homeless? 

Anonymous Interviewee: Like, sometimes. 

Allen: Well, that’s great, because I heard that homeless people only need charity some of the time. Maya Kaye, do you know your California state representative? 

Anonymous Interviewee: This is so embarrassing, no. 

Allen: So you don’t care about yourself, you don’t care about the ill-privileged, and you don’t care about your local community. Maya Kaye, what do you stand for? 

Anonymous Interviewee: I hate you.

Allen: So you stand on hate? 

Anonymous Interviewee: Allen, I’m gonna miss you. 

Allen: I’m going to miss you too. But you’ll appear in every single word that I read or see or hear from you. You are an incredible writer and you are going to shape Fig & Vine in unimaginable ways. 

Anonymous Interviewee: Allen, this is about you, not me. None of this is going in. 

Allen: We’ll see about that.