Here are the rules:
1. List these rules on your blog.
2. Share seven facts about yourself on your blog.
3. Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
And away we go...
3. Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
And away we go...
1. I once played softball with Jonathan Richman. You know, the singer/musician. It was back in the eighties sometime. A lot of the local “punk rockers” used to get together at the local elementary school playground on Sundays for some informal softball, beer drinking and fun. Richman and his band were playing in town and joined in the punk rock softball game. They were nice guys, not bad softball players either, but it’s a good thing they stuck with their night jobs (musician joke.) If you’re not familiar with Richman as a musician, you may remember him from the film There’s Something About Mary.
2. I don’t like the Beach Boys.
3. While a member of Appliances-SFB, some of the musicians and/or groups we opened for included: John Cale (he wasn’t particularly friendly), Bauhaus (kept to themselves, didn’t meet them), The Mekons (nice people), Sonic Youth (pretty rude and full of themselves, they seemed to believe that no good music could possibly happen outside of New York), Hüsker Dü (pretty nice guys), The Replacements (they were pretty drunk), Siouxsie and The Banshees (kept to themselves, didn’t meet them), Snakefinger (didn’t meet him, either), Soul Asylum (nice guys), Big Black (nice guys), The Butthole Surfers (didn’t meet them), The Violent Femmes (seemed pretty full of themselves), The Meat Puppets (nice guys) and more. We were scheduled to open for Joy Division, but Ian Curtis committed suicide the day before their tour was to begin.
4. I have a piece of marble that was once part of the Taj Mahal. When I was in elementary school, a friend of mine went to India. The Taj Mahal was under construction while he was there and he nabbed a piece of it and gave it to me when he got back.
5. I went to El Salvador in 1995. The war had been over for less than two years when I was there. It was an eye opening experience. I’ll never forget visiting the town of Cinquera. The town had been used for target practice by the air force and was still pretty devastated. Bullet holes everywhere, bombed buildings, traumatized people, a downed helicopter lying in the town square. When my group arrived, someone started ringing the bells in the town square to greet us. Upon closer examination, I discovered that the bells were unexploded bombs whose innards had been removed. Right on the cases it said “Made In The USA”. Our tax dollars at work.
6. During my career working in a record store (remember records?), I had the opportunity to meet such personalities as Natalie Merchant (she wasn’t very nice to us lowly store employees due to the fact that we failed to provide her with the proper brand of bottled water), Karla Bonoff (she was nice), Celine Dion (she was also nice) and Tony Bennett (he sang a few songs, signed a boatload of autographs, then his management whisked him away. His people kept the masses away from him - get your CD signed and move on, sort of thing - but he was courteous.)
7. I have been face-to-face with a wild wolf. I was 18 years old and on a backpacking trip on Isle Royale in Lake Superior. I was walking with a couple other people and we had gotten pretty far ahead of the rest of our group. Carrying a 40 lb. pack sort of discourages conversation, so we were pretty quiet. We went around a bend in the path and right in front of us was a wolf heading toward us on the path. At the time, the rangers said that something like one in 10,000 visitors sees a wolf and that most reports of wolf sightings are actually coyotes and foxes. I’ve seen coyotes and foxes, and that was no coyote, nor was it a fox. It was very big. Anyway, we almost walk right into this wolf. We stop, the wolf stops. We look at each other for what was probably less than 5 seconds, and the wolf just sort of melted away into the woods. On that same trip we saw lots of foxes. They weren’t very shy. Also a fair number of moose. One night a (Gaggle? Herd? Murder? School? Passel?) of them ran through our campsite. It sounded kind of like a stampede of elephants. In the morning there were moose tracks everywhere. Since then, I have discovered that meese can be downright nasty. We were lucky they didn’t stomp on our tents.
2. I don’t like the Beach Boys.
3. While a member of Appliances-SFB, some of the musicians and/or groups we opened for included: John Cale (he wasn’t particularly friendly), Bauhaus (kept to themselves, didn’t meet them), The Mekons (nice people), Sonic Youth (pretty rude and full of themselves, they seemed to believe that no good music could possibly happen outside of New York), Hüsker Dü (pretty nice guys), The Replacements (they were pretty drunk), Siouxsie and The Banshees (kept to themselves, didn’t meet them), Snakefinger (didn’t meet him, either), Soul Asylum (nice guys), Big Black (nice guys), The Butthole Surfers (didn’t meet them), The Violent Femmes (seemed pretty full of themselves), The Meat Puppets (nice guys) and more. We were scheduled to open for Joy Division, but Ian Curtis committed suicide the day before their tour was to begin.
4. I have a piece of marble that was once part of the Taj Mahal. When I was in elementary school, a friend of mine went to India. The Taj Mahal was under construction while he was there and he nabbed a piece of it and gave it to me when he got back.
5. I went to El Salvador in 1995. The war had been over for less than two years when I was there. It was an eye opening experience. I’ll never forget visiting the town of Cinquera. The town had been used for target practice by the air force and was still pretty devastated. Bullet holes everywhere, bombed buildings, traumatized people, a downed helicopter lying in the town square. When my group arrived, someone started ringing the bells in the town square to greet us. Upon closer examination, I discovered that the bells were unexploded bombs whose innards had been removed. Right on the cases it said “Made In The USA”. Our tax dollars at work.
6. During my career working in a record store (remember records?), I had the opportunity to meet such personalities as Natalie Merchant (she wasn’t very nice to us lowly store employees due to the fact that we failed to provide her with the proper brand of bottled water), Karla Bonoff (she was nice), Celine Dion (she was also nice) and Tony Bennett (he sang a few songs, signed a boatload of autographs, then his management whisked him away. His people kept the masses away from him - get your CD signed and move on, sort of thing - but he was courteous.)
7. I have been face-to-face with a wild wolf. I was 18 years old and on a backpacking trip on Isle Royale in Lake Superior. I was walking with a couple other people and we had gotten pretty far ahead of the rest of our group. Carrying a 40 lb. pack sort of discourages conversation, so we were pretty quiet. We went around a bend in the path and right in front of us was a wolf heading toward us on the path. At the time, the rangers said that something like one in 10,000 visitors sees a wolf and that most reports of wolf sightings are actually coyotes and foxes. I’ve seen coyotes and foxes, and that was no coyote, nor was it a fox. It was very big. Anyway, we almost walk right into this wolf. We stop, the wolf stops. We look at each other for what was probably less than 5 seconds, and the wolf just sort of melted away into the woods. On that same trip we saw lots of foxes. They weren’t very shy. Also a fair number of moose. One night a (Gaggle? Herd? Murder? School? Passel?) of them ran through our campsite. It sounded kind of like a stampede of elephants. In the morning there were moose tracks everywhere. Since then, I have discovered that meese can be downright nasty. We were lucky they didn’t stomp on our tents.
It's going to be difficult to find seven people to tag who haven't already done this, or who don't object to memes. So, if you're tagged and don't want to do it, don't feel like you have to.
Tagging:
1. Cinderbelle
2. Gomonkeygo
5. Jess Wundrun
7. Matty Boy
2 comments:
You have such great things. I better get the thinking going here!!!
Thanks for the tag, Ed. I did one of these last year, and I'm going on vacation later this week, but I'll do what I can next week.
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