Category: Friday Fives

Friday Fives

1. What is your favorite song to put on a mix tape?
Anything by Journey ! No, but seriously. A mix tape should have a little bit of everything and show your personality and humor. Which is why I love to toss on Louden Wainwright III’s Dead Skunk. A gem.

2. What was your first rock concert?
The Who, 1982, Folsum Field, Denver – Face Dances tour. Their first tour/album after the death of Keith Moon and the crowd was on edge, not really knowing what to expect. The opening act was a new pop singer with a top 40 hit about a little ditty about Jack and Diane. The crowd was not in the mood and booed the then-relatively-unknown John Cougar off the stage. This is funny looking back because a lot of those Who fans probably are John Mellancamp fans today. The booing was more because of impatience. There seemed to be a hubbub in the crowd that if we get the opening act off the stage, the Who will play longer. But it was not to be. The next act was Jethro Tull. And The Who were not about to take the stage until their contracted time. So the crowd was given an extended set of Tull. What I am about to say next is probably sacrilege, but I am not a big Jethro Tull fan, and certainly wouldn’t have volunteered for an hour long (perhaps longer – the beer fog dims some memories) set. But it was worth it once Ian “Oh look, I play the flute on one leg like a pirate” Anderson left the stage I was allowed to see one the loudest, high energy shows I have ever seen. The Who were great showmen. Only two remain and we will never get to see this act again.

3. How old were you when you lost your virginity?
15? It was on a summer band trip to Portland and it was with a cute girl, also on a summer band trip, from Snohomish, Washington. It was a miserable time, we were horny, hurried and neither of us knew what we were doing. Losing one’s virginity is like that – do it, get it out of the way, remove it from your mind and learn from the many mistakes. I think girls are much better at deflowering guys than guys are at deflowering girls. Where would the world be without the sage guidance of a woman.

4. Tell me about your first car
Ah, I liked this car. It was a hand me down from my parents. A 1968 Ford Custom 500. I never got the full back story, but I think it used to be a cop car. Blue and White, three on the tree manual transmission. Four doors. It could seat a family of 25 comfortably and it had some juice in its engine. It was rear wheel drive and when it snowed (as it does in Western Colorado mountain towns) this car got stuck a lot. And it could cut donuts in parking lot at the drop of a dime. I think my parents sold it to my cousin – never to be seen again. Her name was Nannette.

5. If you could be anyone alive for a day, who would it be?
Henry Adams. I almost went with his peer and rival Teddy Roosevelt, but Adams saw more of the world and life. As John Quincy Adams’ grandson, he was connected in all the major circles at the turn of the century and as a writer/historian, he was able to participate in the birth and formation of the American century. Read his autobiography sometime – an amazing mind.

via Kevin's suggestions

Friday Fives

1. How much time do you spend online each day?
Counting work, about 12 hours. Not counting work, I am online all the time, although not always in front of the screen, so at least 3 hours a day. Weekends, much longer.

2. What is your browser homepage set to?
My blog, Salon, and the last page I was on when I shutdown. (I have three loaded on start up.)

3. Do you use any instant messaging programs? If so, which one(s)?
Trillian = one stop shopping.

4. Where was your first webpage located?
On earthlink.net, but it is gone now.

5. How long have you had your current website?
Since February.

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Friday Fives

1. What’s the last place you traveled to, outside your own home state/country?
Las Vegas last summer. Haven’t left the country since 1988 when I returned home from three years in Germany.

2. What’s the most bizarre/unusual thing that’s ever happened to you while traveling?
A cab ride from Fort Benning, GA to the Atlanta airport and stop at Western Union to get money from mom for the plane ride and cab fare. The cab driver was just something else. Time doesn’t permit all the tales I have about this guy.

3. If you could take off to anywhere, money and time being no object, where would you go?
As a group of friends, we have all pledged, time and money no object, to take the world tour of food, and go to all the amazing “food towns” and food places in the world.

4. Do you prefer traveling by plane, train or car?
Plane. I love flying. Hell, I love airports! There is always a spy at the airport. Your job, find him.

5. What’s the next place on your list to visit?
I am drawn lately to the north. So either Iceland, Finland or Norway are places I really want to go to.

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Friday Fives

1. What time do you wake up on weekday mornings?
Usually about 9:30 a.m. I don’t use an alarm clock, so it varies, but that is generally the time. I work late nights and don’t usually get to bed until about 2:30 a.m. I only need 6 or 7 hours of sleep, generally.

2. Do you sleep in on the weekends? How late?
I work on Saturdays. But generally because of my late hours I work, I am usually up around the same time on my days off as I am the rest of the week.

3. Aside from waking up, what is the first thing you do in the morning?
Pee. Pull up the bed covers. Turn on the computer and head for the coffee maker.

4. How long does it take to get ready for your day?
About 25 minutes to Shit, Shower, Shave, Shampoo and dress.

5. When possible, what is your favorite place to go for breakfast?
Pete’s Gyros Place on Colfax and Detroit, right by East High School in Denver. mmmmmmmm, Breakfast Burrito.

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Friday Fives

1. If your life were a movie, what would the title be?
“Put On Some Pants”

2. What songs would be on the soundtrack?
Jack Black – Let’s Get it On
What’s it all about, Alfie
Theme from the Flinstones
Bob Dylan: Rainy Day Women #12 & 35
And lots of Foreigner, Journey and Kenny Loggins – for the ladies.

3. Would it be a live-action film or animated? Why?
Live action but rated R, because I cuss like a filthy sailor.

4. Casting: who would play you, members of your family, friends, etc?
Me? Bill Murray.
Julie? Bette Midler
Mom? A shapely Kathy Bates?
Jim? Henry Fonda or Kenny Rogers in The Gambler.
Ed? Edward Norton maybe? (Ed votes for John Cusack – a major celebrity.)
Sage? Fierce contract negotiations are ongoing. Sandy Duncan will do it, for cheap. We really want Isabelle Huppert. but she is filming in Barcelona. Kathy Griffin has been nixed by Sage as being just too . . .
We have settled on Christna Applegate, if we can just make the deal work. Apparently Megan Mullaly has been made available. Crisis averted.
The gang? The cast of Buffy. They can fight it out amongst themselves.

5. Describe the movie preview/trailer.
The phone rings. I am reading on the john. I stumble through the house, pants around ankles. Next scene: I am vacuming in my underwear, the UPS guy knocks on the door, I stumple putting on pants knocking down a bookcase. Next scene: driving to work, spilling food and coffee on my pants and I pull them off as I drive to let them dry out the window. Hijynx ensue.

My life is almost exactly like a Mr. Bean episode.

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Friday Fives

1. How many TVs do you have in your home?
Three.

2. On average, how much TV do you watch in a week?
About 20 hours. About two hours a day and then loads on Sundays. I work nights so the choices are slim. It would be much worse if I were home in the evenings.

3. Do you feel that television is bad for young children?
Bad parenting and bad parenting choices are bad for young children. There is good television out there for kids. That said, I was raised in front of the television and in the words of Homer Simpson – ” Mmmmmm, Tele-vision.”

4. What TV shows do you absolutely HAVE to watch, and if you miss them, you’re heartbroken?
The West Wing, Friends, HBO’s Sunday night stuff, especially The Sopranos, The Wire, Six Feet Under. And I am now taken by Law And Order Criminal Intent.

5. If you had the power to create your own television network, what would your line-up look like?
TV Land! I don’t know. Ed and I talked about an all sports rerun channel once, but now that is ESPN Classic (shakes fist). Tony and I thought a network of all television pilots, all the time would be fun. All the shows that never made it and the pilot episodes of current running shows. It could work.

via Fridayfive.org p.s. this isn't a current list. After my posting about my dad, I needed something fun and light and not too personal.

Friday Fives

1. Do you remember your first best friend? Who was it?
This is a very hard question. My mom babysat any and all kids in the neighborhood, and there were always tons of cousins and neighbors around the house. In kindergarten and first grade my best friend was Clancy Kingsbury, who moved to Rapid City, SD when we were in 8th grade. But we were virtually inseparable until then.

2. Are you still in touch with this person?
I talked with him once since that time. So, no.

3. Do you have a current close friend?
Again, a very hard question. I am still close to many of my college friends and have good number of work friends that I am close to. But Ed and my sister Julz are at the top of the close friend chart. Our close knit trio is more than family.

4. How did you become friends with this person?
My sister and Ed went to kindergarten together and they have known each other forever. Julie insisted that Ed and I become friends and since then, we have. It is good to have a weekend beer drinking buddy to go carousing with. We have a similar outrageous sense of humor and laugh at each other’s jokes and banter.

5. Is there a friend from your past that you wish you were still in contact with? Why?
I have lost contact with most of my Army buddies and would like to drop in on them and catch up. Because we were stationed in Germany, miles away from home, we had very close, deep friendships and I would like to bring them back into my life.

Friday Fives

1. What were your favorite childhood stories?
Cowboy Sam and his Airplane, a series of children’s chapter books where Sam and his Indian friend would fly around the American West and help people. I remember there being a strong conservation theme to the stories.

2. What books from your childhood would you like to share with [your] children?
Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are and McKloskey’s Make way for Ducklings – the images from these two books have stayed with me all my life. Second tier choices would be Encylopedia Brown, the young adult biography series and Curious George.

3. Have you re-read any of those childhood stories and been surprised by anything?
Where the Wild Things Are. What a funny, fabulous book. It has such an uplifting message about the power of imagination. “Let the wild rumpus start!” I appreciate this more now, as a supposed grownup then I did as a child. Max is inspired.

4. How old were you when you first learned to read?
We didn’t have the most progressive school system and heck it was the early 70s before a lot of education reform. I didn’t learn to read until the first grade, which is what, six years old? That is years behind in today’s world.

5. Do you remember the first ‘grown-up’ book you read? How old were you?
Dune by Frank Herbert. Probably seventh grade so I would say 12 years old, maybe. In the meantime, I read almost all of the encylcopedia and have always loved reading short stories. I read a few collections very early on as well as read some Reader’s Digest Condensed Books that my Grandmother collected, but I can’t remember the stories. I really think I just carried the books around to look important. I am sure I wasn’t allowed to read Harold Robbins as a fifth or sixth grader.

Friday Fives

A two-fer including last week’s.

Jun 20, 2003

1. Is your hair naturally curly, wavy, or straight? Long or short?
Curly and wavy

2. How has your hair changed over your lifetime?
I used to wear it all blow dried and discoey. I had it real short in the army years. My hairline won’t let it grow long.

3. How do your normally wear your hair?
A dab of hair wax and then slicked back with a part.

4. If you could change your hair this minute, what would it look like?
Cary Grant. Now that is a hairdo.

5. Ever had a hair disaster? What happened?
The year’s 1979 through 1982, also known as high school. I had to grapple with gels and blow dryers each morning and it didn’t go well.

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Jun 27, 2003

1. How are you planning to spend the summer?
Job hunting? Polka lessons? Maybe I will join the professional rodeo circuit?

2. What was your first summer job?
Washing windows door to door with a friend.

3. If you could go anywhere this summer, where would you go?
I have a hankering for Vegas, baby.

4. What was your worst vacation ever?
The first trip to Spain while in the army. A bus tour with a ton of US soldiers on a hot cheap ass beach and staying in a terrible hotel with four of us in one room. That was some very poor planning. The second time was much, much better. On the other hand, Spain is very cool, if you can get past the annoying disco and tech music that is always playing all the time, everywhere. That is where the champagne and the Spanish wine comes in.

5. What was your best vacation ever?
A childhood trip to Disneyland and California comes to mind, as does a trip to Durango. Once, our family spent a week at the Hilton (now the Adams Mark) in Denver and did the tourist thing and didn’t tell any family or friends in Denver we were even in town. It was cool. But the best vacation was another trip while in the Army. My roommate and I went to Geneva. We drove from Stuttgart and took only back roads. We told everyone we were Canadian and talked with bad English accents and just had a great three day weekend. It was what a great American road trip was supposed to be, although it was in Switzerland. Go figure.

Friday Fives

1. What’s one thing you’ve always wanted to do, but never have?
Travel much, much more and especially in Asia and East. Never been there and would love to go. I have a hankering for a vacation in Vietnam or something like that. I see the whole thing as a cross between Anthony Bordain and Calvin Trillin.
2. When someone asks your opinion about a new haircut/outfit/etc, are you always honest?
I guess it depends on who is asking. But with fashion I am fairly forgiving. With guys it is usually the truth and with women I play to the niceties. That’s right, I am always looking out for the ladies.
3. Have you ever found out something about a friend and then wished you hadn’t? What happened?
She was a good friend and a roommate and parts of a relationship she was secretly encouraging became known. The friendship dissolved and I haven’t even heard from her in several years.
4. If you could live in any fictional world (from a book/movie/game/etc.) which would it be and why?
Gatsby’s West Egg. Not the star, just one of the rich jet setters at the beach house for a weekend party.
5. What’s one talent/skill you don’t have but always wanted?
ESP. I want ESP. I think I would dig knowing what is going to happen before it happens. And I promise, I would NOT use the skill for good.