Category: Friday Fives

1. Do you read the comics ? What is your favorite?
My favorite comics page is the Complete New Yorker. My favorite comics source is The Comics Curmudgeon. If you have gone over yet to see what Josh is ranting about, do it now.

2. David Gilmour is playing at Gdansk on Palladia on the telly. Do you have a favorit concert video?The first concert video I ever saw was Elvis Live in Hawaii, back in the day when The King would put on these elaborate televised concert specials. I remember watching it on television in glorious black and white. I adore my John Prine at Studeo 54 video as well as Bruce Springsteen Live in Barcelona (The first and only complete video of a Bruce concert with the E Street band.) With that said, the David Gilmour show referenced above was pretty amazing.

3. I am sipping on a nice California Sangiovese. Do you have a good wine story?
While living in Stuttgart, Germany, while in the army, I went to a wine festival, featuring locally grown and vinted German wines. The fest was in a small, residential neighborhood and along the streets, for several blocks, the vinters set up roadside booths where you could step up, enjoy some wonderful wine, food and music. It was truly magic.

4. It’s baseball season and this year I am obsessed with Rockies telecasts. Do you have a interest that ought to be a national past time?
My plan for global dominance through a national past time would include fresh, home roasted coffee and homemade bread. And pie. There has to be pie. (I don’t really know how to make those three interests a national past time – but there it is.)

5. When was the last time you played Scrabble or another board game?
Most family gatherings involve games but usually card games. Scrabble is a game played with a rather cutthroat vengeance by mother.

1. Did you take band or music in school? Can you play the recorder?
I was in band. I played saxophone. We not only had the recorder in our middle school music curriculum, we had entire plastic flute family represented. There was the Tonette, the Flutophone and the Recorder, each one increasing in difficulty in play.

2. Do you think MP3s have ruined music?
I think they have ruined the album and more specifically the concept album. Very few folks listen to an entire CD beginning to end anymore – and as a result our music is getting more vanilla and lowest common demoninator as there are no “deep cuts” to explore and expand our ears and soul.

3. When was the last time (if ever) you bought a vinyl album.
Probably two years ago – but in all fairness I bought as a joke because the album cover was so bad. There are several used book stores and used music stores in Denver that take great pride in stocking really bad albums purely for the schlock value of the covers.

4. If music were reduced to just one genre, which should it be?
Ragtime as played through a steam pipe organ.

5. Isn’t “The Weight” just the best song ever? If not, then what would replace it?
It is in the top ten, next to Born To Run and Rosalita by Springsteen, On The Road Again by Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash’s Folsum Prison Blues.

1. When I’m angry, I ____
usually get all red in the face and neck and say very mean and hurtful things. I work very hard at not losing my temper because I usually lose friends as a consequence.

2. When you begin to catch a cold, what is your plan of action?
Sleep. Going to bed early and often and the onset of the cold is my first course of action. Then healthy doses of Zycam, Musinex, Tylenol and lots of doses of a Reliv supplement regimen. I had a bad cold in 2007. Noithing of any real consequence since then.

3. What is the last thing you wrote down?
A phone number – actually a desk extension of a coworker.

4. What is the last favor you did for someone else?
Helped a co worker move some furniture into a new aparment last night.

5. Friday Film Feature: What is your favorite “Plague Film” (Thanks to David Sirota for this question.)
Either Stephen King’s “The Stand” (very creepy) or “Coma” (Not really a plague per say, but lots of folks were dead and dying in that creepy film.

1. If you could give out Best Picture, Best Actor/Actress and Best Director Oscars to any movies (not necessarily all from the same year) to people/films that haven’t won, what would they be?
I think that “Be Kind, Rewind” was completely overlooked by the Academy. Genius. but in all seriousness, being the big Cohen Brothers fan that I am, I think an Oscar nod of some sort should have gone to “Miller’s Crossing.” That is damn fine flick.

2. What is your favorite genre of writing (short stories, novels, nonfiction…)?
I am currently on a short story kick. I am reading a book of short stories by Haruku Murakami ” “The Elephant Vanishes” as well trying to read a lot of the short fiction from the New Yorker and Harper’s.
3. Are there any CDs to which you know every word? Movies?
I wouldn’t pass a test on this, but I generally know every word on Springsteen’s Born to Run and I am getting close to knowing every word from “The Big Lebowski.” “Donny, you are out of your element.”
4. If you could write and cast your own movie, what would it be about and who would you cast?
It would certainly be about me, starring my and focusing on my keen crime stopping skills and my “Holmesian” attention to critical crime details.
5. What’s the best song to wake you up? Put you to sleep?
I am not a “radio on” first thing in the morning guy. And, I don’t listen to tunes at night to put me to sleep. I haven’t given this much thought. So, first draft I will go with Beatles to wake, say something from Sgt. Peppers. And to sleep – something from Pink Floyd ought to do the trick.

1. Do you drink wine? Do you have a favorite wine?
I dabble in wine. I generally enjoy Chianti/Sangiovese and there is a particular Cabernet Sauvignon that I enjoy. But wine is not my drink of choice. That is raspberry Koolaid.

2. How was your tax season? Are you revolting?
Uneventful. Print out tax extension form. Put in envelope. Mail. Simple.

3. What type of internet connection do I need? (from Pandora Radio FAQ)
I want one with a personality. I am not keen on simple utilitarian tools. Cool fact, soon, very soon, there will so many choices on internet connectivity and different tools you can use – Intel is working on an interface for refrigerators so that it can keep an running grocery list and a prescribed time, send the list to the store. Digital cameras will soon have 4G technology so that photos taken can automatically be uploaded to a drive regardless where you are. A new phone is now being made, using new internet technology, that allows you to use the phone as a debit card. Waive the phone at a register station while shopping, you account is accessed and money moved to pay for the product. But with all this tech, there is little personality. I want talking computers with attitude, like on the Jetsons. And flying cars.

4. When you come upon a marauding band of Orcs, how do go about ensuring a victory.
This question reminds me that each spring I try to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It is a rainy long weekend for me, so I think I will fire that up.

5. When giving advice to Karl Kipper, what is the first thing you address?
I would start with the teeth. Whitening of the teeth, certainly is a good thing, but Christ all Mighty, Karl, them teeth glow under the summer sun. Take a step back and look human, will ya?

1. How do you fell about re-gifting? (found via a forum on Amazon.com)
I’ve done it. Sure. But the best of the re-gifters was my grandmother Vi. She was known for sending you the Christmas card you sent her years ago. And she didn’t resign it – just put it in an envelope and sent it along. She also would give my parents wonderful chotzkes or kitchen items that they gave her years before. What a woman. I still miss her quirkiness.

2. Regardless of the genre, name a work that should be a cult classic but isn’t
There is a wonderfully terrible film that I have forced visitors to my home to watch – “Wasabe” starring Jean Reno. It is so bad that it is nearly perfect. A French cop goes to Japan to solve a crime. If you rent it put on the english subtitles and the english dub – the dialog on the two feeds doesn’t match. It is as if you are watching a different film altogether.

3. I never did the catechism. What is so good about Friday?
Weekends, certainly begin with Friday. But I have no real joke. Let me poke around a bit.
a poem from Poetry Friday:
(SMOOT PLANS TARIFF BAN ON IMPROPER BOOKS – News Item)

Senator Smoot (Republican, Ut.)

Is planning a ban on smut.

Oh rooti-ti-toot for Smoot of Ut.

And his reverend occiput.

Smite, Smoot, smite for Ut.,

Grit your molars and do your dut.,

Gird up your l__ns,

Smite h_p and th_gh,

We’ll all be Kansas

By and by.

Smite, Smoot, for the Watch and Ward,

For Hiram Johnson and Henry Ford,

For Bishop Cannon and John D., Junior,

For ex-Gov. Pinchot of Pennsylvunia,

For John S. Sumner and Elder Hays

And possibly Edward L. Bernays,

For Orville Poland and Ella Boole,

For Mother Machree and the Shelton pool.

When smut’s to be smitten

Smoot will smite

For G-d, for country,

And Fahrenheit.

Senator Smoot is an institute

Not to be bribed with pelf;

He guards our homes from erotic tomes

By reading them all himself.

Smite, Smoot, smite for Ut.,

They’re smuggling smut from Balt. to Butte!

Strongest and sternest

Of your s_x

Scatter the scoundrels

From Can. to Mex!

Smite, Smoot, for Smedley Butler,

For any good man by the name of Cutler,

Smite for the W.C.T.U,

For Rockne’s team and for Leader’s crew,

For Florence Coolidge and Admiral Byrd,

For Billy Sunday and John D., Third,

For Grantland Rice and for Albie Booth,

For the Woman’s Auxiliary of Duluth,

Smite, Smoot,

Be rugged and rough,

Smut if smitten

Is front-page stuff.

— Ogden Nash (Invocation) – Ogden Nash

4. Ever see the Simpson’s episode in the store where Marge finds all the discount tapes of real and make believe amalgams of groups like Air Supply, Loggins & Oates, Seals & Crofts, Pablo Cruise etc. ?
When Lisa asks what kind of music they all play, Marge can’t recall the genre. Homer offers “Crap rock?”, but that’s not it. Then Bart says, “Wuss rock?”, and that’s it.
So, with all that said, what is the worst Wuss Rock band of all-time? (found via a forum on Amazon.com)
Some great Wuss Rock is Eddie Money and any of his work. Second place – perhaps Phil Collins.

5. So, when Carl Kipper gets out of jail, will you let him date your sibling?
Thank God there are now restraining orders keeping him out of Arapaho County. We are all safe in this part of the Burg. During his jail time, Karl underwent a lot therapy and I think by the time he gets out he will have replaced his dating urge with developing tasty prune hybrids.

1. Do you believe in good and/or bad luck?
I have a bit of a superstitious streak in me. I believe in Karma and the balance of ying and yang – and in a western context, that is good and bad luck.

2. Do you believe there is one man/woman luckier than all the rest?
Karl Kipper. Karl Kipper is the luckiest Mofo around.

3. When was the last time you considered yourself lucky?
My lane merge on my commute this morning as I negotiated the always perilous Dry Creek death merge to line up for the County Line exit. Each day I successfully negotiate this is a lucky day. (I have nearly been re ended at that exit countless times. )

4. What is the most unlucky thing to ever happen to you?
Well, not counting my ill fated lottery wins, I have no real unlucky moments that quickly come to mind. I am generally pretty lucky in life.

5. Where do you think luck (good or bad) comes from?
As I said above, karma and the balance and working towards the good through most of your actions, thoughts and deeds will deal you a better lucky hand in life.

1. When was your first snow storm?
The first/best I remember was blizzard in the 1970s – I was probably 5. Tons of snow up the side of the house, a huge wall of snow on either side of the drive. The car port on the side of the house was buckling with snow. Easily three or more feet fell in one day.

2. When was your favorite snow storm?
Blizzard of 97 – driving in the big rig – get cozy at the holguins.

3. Comfort foods? Desert or savory?
Desert is always my first reach for. A nice warm pie and cocoa.

4. Ever had a car accident in winter weather?
I put our family car off the road – a 1980 Chevette. The snow was so powdery and the car so light I just pushed it back on the road. One year, going down US 50 from Gunnison to Montrose once I hit an ice patch and began spinning down the road like a top. I finally hit a snow bank and slowed to stop. Now, nearly 20 years later, my heart is still racing over that one.

5. Would you let Carl Kipper be your designated driver?
Carl is a terrible driver. Drunk with only one lazy blurred eye open, I could get us home safer that God Damn Carl.

1. What is the first song you remember hearing?
True story. My grandfather’s radio – at his home in Hayden, CO on a Sunday afternoon. It was playing the Billy Graham Radio Show and the song was his theme song – and inmemory, I swear it was :”How Great Though Art” but I was very young – we are talking three or four and the radio was old and that is what fascinated me and why I remember it.
Another very old song, memory was the theme song to Hawaii 5-O. I was always in bed early as a four and five year old, but this show would come on the television and I would run from my room to watch the opening credits and listen to the theme song. Then back off to work.

2. What is the first movie you remember seeing?
I remember watching Disney’s “Herbie – the Love Bug” during its original theater run. I was four at the time and recall taking in the entire movie theater experience.

3. What is the first book you remember reading?
“Cowboy Sam the Airplane.” A series of modern westerns for young readers. Cowboy Sam had an Indian companion and they traveled the American west of the 1940s and 1950s helping people and teaching us about the environment and human relations.

4. When did you first realize the world around you?
It was probably a family trip to Denver when I was about four or five. The entire driving to another place and seeing the city and realizing that there was life outside of Craig was a life changing event. But then again, when you are four or five, lots of things are life changing events – like discovering gravity

5. How should Carl Kipper celebrate his AIG rewards?
Carl is just learning to be a philanthropist. Giving lots of small amounts will be better for his sole, rather than one huge gift. I suggest he give a couple of hundred thousand to me as a start.

1. Do you keep a journal?
Yes. I have kept a journal off and on for about 20 years. Most of it is just garbage – spill. But I recently looked back on some of them and there is gold in them there books. Perhaps I will share some day (I am at work now and no access to my older journals.)

2. Do you doodle. What is it you doodle?
Yes, I doodle in meetings. I usually draw squares and 3d cubes – for some reason. Perhaps there is a psychotherapist out there who can tell me why.

3. Deep base or rolling melody?
Oh, sure a little rollng melody can get stuck in your head carry you through the day. But a good base line carries the song.

4. When you quibble, and trust me you do, what do quibble about the most?
I quibble about those who complain – that is some dychotomy, isn’t it.

5. How much does Carl Kipper actually owe you?
In terms of financial gain, upwards of millions. In terms of emotional lose, he stole my heart. He had a way of trading bad stocks that made all other brokers swoon. (Unlike last week, I have since looked up Carl Kipper – he works for Merril Lynch and is being sued by a ton of people.)