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Five Things You Don’t Know About Me
Usually people want Ten Things, but let’s make it easy for everyone:
1. In 1999 on Kauai for a conference called Storytelling in the New Millennium, I interviewed Todd Rundgren, Thomas Dolby, Graham Nash (a super nice guy), and Dennis Muren of Industrial Light and Magic for video press releases.
2. I once composed, performed, and recorded keyboard music for a guided imagery program for Kaiser Permanente. Got paid $200.
3. I was at that Day on the Green concert with Led Zeppelin where John Bonham beat up Bill Graham’s security guard. They delayed the start by more than two hours, saying over and over, “They’re still trying to fix Jimmy Page’s guitar” until Bill Graham gave into extortion.
4. A friend who worked for George Lucas gave me a tour of Skywalker Ranch while George was out of town; got to see his private theater and cherry wood elevator. The huge sound stage was designed for the walls and ceiling to move in and out to accommodate sound recordings.
5. My first marriage lasted about 14 weeks; I moved to Minnetonka, MN, for eternal love and marriage, and after the annulment left for a friend’s couch back in California on April Fool’s Day. Sometimes the universe makes an obvious point.
Your turn.
Published in Humor
If people will accept but Two Things, about me, here they are:
(1) My car does not display a bumpersticker that reads I Drive With My Eyes Open For Safety
(2) in December 1983 I took the sleeper from Cairo to Aswan and my compartmentmate was an Egyptian who was a high functionary in the dam down there. He said he had just returned from China. I think he said he had been given, by the Chinese, a TV. He sounded happy about this. He also offered me a cigarette. I declined, having been saturated by anti-tobacco propaganda. Indeed I had never smoked in my life. But at last I sensed I was being churlish, so I accepted. The cigarette, a Players, was great. I wanted another, but felt that after my earlier protests it would be bad to ask.
I want one of these.
I saw Charles Degaulle make a speech.
I’d like one, too, but I probably should stick with the truth.
I don’t know it now. You have alleged it.
You don’t get to comment on other people’s entries until yours is on the thread.
Mr AZ has one that says “I’m only speeding because I have to poop”. It’s usually true. Ooops. TMI.
But what if you’re so pathetic you don’t even have 5 unusual or interesting things to say about yourself?
Then you write the sort of stuff I did.
I don’t even have five uninteresting things about myself that I haven’t already posted on Ricochet.
1. Was involved in a two car, no driver accident.
2. Got a haircut once in Chitwan, Nepal. (About $3)
Yeah! What about that?
1. I have dual citizenship (Republic of Ireland), although I’ve never applied for an EU passport.
2. My draft number was 183, right in the middle. They only got up to 120 my year, so I was free to remain in the USA, learning how to photograph
naked girlswith a movie camera.3. I have five younger brothers. All of them (but me) have carried firearms on the job.
4. I bought one of the original animation cels from Fantasia for my wife’s birthday in 1971. It must have worked; we’re still together.
5. I’ve met Mike Pence, George W. Bush, and Richard Nixon. No Democrats, though I saw Bill Clinton jogging once.
Some things ought not to be written down. Possibly shared in person, like at a Meetup.
My wife, an original Ricochet member, has been kissed by George W. Bush!
I can on occasion behave like a complete jerk. I realized that only recently, but I suspect others of my acquaintance have known it for years.
Here are a few:
1: I once enjoyed the Bolshoi Ballet in seats just behind President Ford. Come to think of it, I also sat behind Yitzchak Rabin at a conference. Both were friendly. But neither was anywhere near the most powerful men with whom I have met.
2: When I was a child we slept under elkskins for blankets. They shed.
3: I have emptied honeypots in the Canadian Arctic.
4: I once rolled a Lincoln Towncar, the land-yacht 1994 version. The roof held, which is why I am here today.
5: I have something like 100 patents to my name. Which I consider to be a pretty good accomplishment for a guy whose PhD work was in 13th century paleography.
Surely not all 13th century writing systems. Aren’t you going to tell us which ones?
You actually know what paleography is? That beats me.
These days, it means cursive.
I checked Google to be sure.
This is a great thread. Unfortunately (or fortunately, as the case may be), I’ve been on Ricochet so long that I don’t know if there are five things everyone doesn’t know about me, but here goes:
Sussex Eyre Roll. 1240 to 1248. Latin shorthand.
Sussex Eye-Roll > Bronx Cheer.
I thought cursive was @#$!graphy.
6. I have two lambs who are clearly too large for the playpen they’re in, who still spend the night in (what’s left of) my kitchen.
This should surprise very few here, although it is a breaking news update.
They spend all day outside now, and are quite adept at grazing on grass, eating sheep feed, and drinking out of a bowl. However, about 8PM they appear in concert on my back porch, serenading me in increasingly acrimonious-sounding and dissonant minor chords until I let them in, give them a watered-down bottle (more comfort than anything else at this point), lift them into the playpen, add a little (more) hay for them to snack on during the night, and leave them to it. They settle down, lie down, go to sleep, and I rarely hear another peep until the next morning, when I get out of bed and start moving around the house. (So much better behaved than 2 1/2 month old human babies…).
When I make it to the kitchen first thing in the morning, this is what greets me (Tatiana on left; Oleg on right):
Just like moving similarly-mature humans from crib to grown-up beds. /: