Friday Fives

1. If you owned a restaurant, what kind of food would you serve?
I have this cookbook, called th Well-Filled Tortilla. It is based on these two ladies who have a restaurant in Berkely or someplace real California-ish. In this cookbook they offer tons and tons and tons of things to wrap up and smother inside a tortilla. Not your mama’s Mexican joint, this place offers Greek food, Indian food, All American stews. From ground beef to pate. I always thought it would be cool to open up a joint like that near some college town. If not that, a new trend is the cereal buffet parlors creeping up in college towns as well. How hard could an all you can eat breakfast buffet be as a business model?
2. If you owned a small store, what kind of merchandise would you sell?
A used book store. Man, I would be in hog heavan.
3. If you wrote a book, what genre would it be?
A mystery crime novel. I am tryng, rather painfully to write a non-cliche ridden crime novel as we speak. It shoudl be done when I am about 84-years old.
4. If you ran a school, what would you teach?
English. English grammar, writing and maybe some literature on the side.
5. If you recorded an album, what kind of music would be on it?
Acoustic-steel guitar blues renditions of 1970s and 1980s punk and new-wave hits.

Friday Fives

1. What was your high school stereotype, what group did you hang with?
I guess, if I had to define a group, in a high school of about 800 people, it would be band geek. Either that or speech and debate geek. I was not running with the wolves

2. If you could be one Disney character, what character would you be?
I have always identified with the so very dapper Jiminy Cricket.

3. Ever think about your own death? How do you suppose you will go? (This sounds like I am particularly fragile and depressed today! I am not, put the suicide hotline phone down.)
Hmmm. I think I want to go quickly, certainly and barring some bizarre unforeseen accident, I want to live into my 90s and beyond. I can’t wait to see what this centruy brings us. I don’t want to die with a warm beer and the remote control in my hand, this much I know.

4. Are you a Democrat? A Republican? A Libertarian? Green? Why?
I am registered as a Democrat. I think mainly because I am genuinely concerned about the other guy. My ‘defect’ of empathy and a sense of fair play feels more at home in the Democratic party’s philosophy rather than the ‘I got mine” mindest that I feel when confronting Republicans or Libertarians.

5. Do you feel like you look your age, or do you feel older or younger?
I feel I look younger than my age. Gray hair, yes. And a pot belly. But few wrinkles. I can still pull of ’35’ in a pinch. .

Thanks in part this week to an email by Thom that spurred this week’s questions.

Friday Fives

1. What is your worst/baddest/weirdest roommate story.
My first college roommate, Dan, was such a nerdy, annoying putz. The arrangment only lasted about a semester when he eventually fled. He was an Air Force ROTC dweeb and worked at Target on weekends and had this odd propensity for a. Brining a lot of food – snakcks and soda from target – and cramming them in his closet and then counting them all the time whenever he returned to his room to make sure no ate anything. b. He was a tee-totaller, which in a dorm, in Boulder in 1982 was nearly hypocracy. Our floor mates despised, probably more than me. He would get physically angyr (shaking and sweating) at the smallest crack in his anally retentive protective bubble. I worry that if he stayed with the Air Force and indeed became an officer, his airmen would have killed him in combat. He was that bad. So very much on the edge.

2. How much is too much for a haircut? And how much is too little?
I am a hair cut cheap skate. Hell, I can’t even seem to get organized enough to get to the barber at least once a month. With that said, I woud say I generally pay about $12.00 for a haircut. $6.00 is too little. You will probably find yourself missing some ear.

3. When opening a bag of chips are you careful and precise or do you tear right into it. Are there any left to store for later?
I am fairly precise, opening along the top or using scissors. There are always some left and I end up sealing up the bag for more hot chip action later.

4. Ever take musical instrument lessons as a kid? What did you play? Still remember how? Should we get the band back together, man?
Lessons: The organ (??? Mom? What were you thinking?) In high school and middle school I played the saxaphone. I can still remember some keyboard chords and I think I could still play a basic scale on the sax.

5. What is your most memorable drunken experience?
Two words: Cruise Room – Ed can tell this story perhaps, although he was the drunk one and I was just batting clean up, literally. In the army, the best story was when me and my drunken cohorts (I always seem to travel in packs of drunken cohorts) got our CJ& Jeep stuck in the mud and had to use the phone and ended up crashing a very nice wedding as we wandered, drunk plastered in mud, through the reception to get to a phone on the other side of a lobby of this fancy Stuttgart hotel.

Friday Fives

1. What’s the one movie you’ve seen more times than any other?
It is probably a three way toss up between Casablanca, It’s A Wonderful Life or Creator. Casablanca is a great basic story, with a small, tightly constructive narrative and casting that is magic. They don’t make films like this anymore. It’s A Wonderful Life is a Christmas tradition and I do a pretty entertaining Jimmy Stewart impression. Creator is the odd ball in the list but in my Army and college years I was smitten by this film. I think it is the super cool Peter O’Toole, but I can’t put my finger on it.
2. If you could turn one book, comic book or other print story into a feature-length movie, what story would you pick and why?
I am sure I have finished a book before and said to myself, this would make a great movie. I know I said that about Mosquito Coast and guess what, the movie wasn’t so good. I think though that in the right hands Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie would be a very entertaining film.
3. Whom would you cast?
I always seem to have a Jeremy Irons like character in my head whenever I read Rushdie. It must be the deep, vedy, vedy, English accent.
4. What one movie would you like to see “updated for the year 2005”? (Ie, a remake)
This is always troubling because so many remakes are ruined by the current Hollywood focus group process. Endings are changed, story lines changed. But maybe something light, like an old John Wayne Western, redone with Hollywood hunks and starlets might be fun. And nothing sacred really, has been damaged.
5. What one movie are you most looking forward to this year?
Star Wars Episode Three (If it lives up to just a little bit of the hype) And The Da Vinci Code (It could be the next Indiana Jones)

Friday Fives

1. Cholula? Tobasco? Tapatio? Bruce’s? What is your favorite hot sauce and what do you like it served with?
I am a big fan of Cholula on eggs and I like Surachi sauce on french fries, tater tots and Pat’s PhillyCheese sangiunich.

2. Friends is over. ER is getting lame. Reality TV plagues the airwaves. What do you now consider “Must See TV?”
The West Wing and Sunday night on HBO is my Must See Capsule. I also stumble over to TRIO a lot, a cable network of some of the oddest most random television. I try to catch their “Brilliant But Cancelled” series where the play older television series that only had a season or less of a run.

3. If you could be a ringer in the White House press room, what SOFTBALL question would you throw to White House Press Secretary Scott Mclellan.
“Scott,
We all know the president is amazing in every respect, but can you tell the American public just how amazing he really is?”

4. You know “they” are watching you. They watch at work, they watch you in traffic. They see you at the store. What is it they recently saw that has embarrassed you the most.
I was picking my nose at a red light while driving to work the other day and so totally got caught by a little kid in the car next to mine. He was shouting and pointing. Not really the proudest moment.

5. In light of, or rather, in honor of Teri and Michael S, of Pinellas Park, Fl, take a moment and craft a light haiku. (remember,
the format is 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables.)

No tube in her nose
No longer with us she is gone
Back to porn we go
.

Friday Fives

1. What’s your favorite sport (to watch or participate in)? How often do you have a ritual you participate in as you play it/watch it?
I watch a few sports on television but I am not would you would describe as a sports fan. Back in the day (last year) I watched hockey a lot. I usually watch the Bronco game each week during football season. With the dearth of hockey, I am looking for something to focus my interest – maybe baseball. Maybe tennis. Maybe curling.

2. Do you feel that your favorite sport has a lot of negative influences on yourself or others?
Hockey has a lot of aggression and violence. I suppose in a super-protective parent land, that can be a negative influence. But hockey wouldn’t be hockey with out a nice brawl by the boards and some blood spilled on the ice. Take away all of that and its simple team ice dancing and how gay is that?

3. As a kid, did you have a sport/athlete idol?
I followed the Olympics one summer as a kid and developed a hero like admiration for Bruce Jenner. He was so cool at the time. He is pretty lame know, but when I was 9 or 10, he was the shit.

4. Which “extreme” sport would you like to try (or would have already tried) if you weren’t afraid of doing it?
Shark week on Discovery just wrapped up. Swimming with the sharks would be cool, but I will save that for my sister. When I hear the term Extreme Sports, I think of speed and snow so I guess some kind of deep powder, back country, avalanche prone downhill danger skiing would be in order.

5. Are you caught up in “March Madness” (i.e., the NCAA basketball tournament)? Are you a basketball fan? Who will win
I have caught a few games so far and I must admit, college basketball is much more exciting than pro ball. Less thugs, less ego and instead replaced with a real love of the game. I don’t have a clue who will win but will still probably settle in and watch a game or two over the next few weekends.

Friday Fives

1. Would you consider yourself a good singer? How would you describe your singing voice?
I am not a very good singer. I can’t vocally read music and have to be singing in a group to be able to sing. I don’t break out into solos.

2. Do you sing in the shower? What about in your car? Do you sing along to the radio/CDs a lot? Do you prefer singing when you’re alone, or do you belt out tunes at any time?
I sing in the car and will from time to time burst out in song. Sometimes, I try to sound like Willie Nelson while singing a pop hit from the radio. It’s good fun. You should try it some time. Take the sullen moodiness of Willie from, say, “Blue Eyes Cryin’ In The Rain” now apply that sullenness to the latest Christina Aguilera song. Its fun.

3. Who is your favorite singer at the moment, and why?
Country music songwriting wizard Steve Goodman. His voice is pure beauty and his songwriting is exquisite. “City of New Orleans” “God Bless Our Mobile Home “Gentle on My Mind”; “You Never Even Call Me by My Name.” The guy is a genius. And, unfortunately, no longer with us.

4. Do you ever watch the show “American Idol”? Who will win this year’s competition?
No a big American Idol fan. I have no idea what is going on this year on that show. Apparently, to read the new, Mario is out and everyone, I mean everyone, is just shocked. Shocked.

5. Name a song that accurately reflects the way that you’re feeling right now.
I am in a pretty Peter Gabriel mood right at ths moment (Friday, 9 30 a.m.) And the chorus from Solsbury Hill is running through my head. Now what exactly does that mean? Does that mean it is my favorite song? Does it mean that I am suddenly a Peter Gabriel fan? I think not. But are there social implications to the song that runs on reply in the back my mind all day. Can I graph and compile the songs and their frequency in my psyche and get an indication of how my day will be? Songstrology? Crap. I have had too much coffee.

Friday Fives

1. Early childhood discipline. Were you swatted? Grounded? Left on a desert island to contemplate your sins?
I can remember getting swatted on perhaps three occassions, but I also remember the threat of a spanking always on the horizon. Mom was best at the guilt and at grounding. Dad was generally a push over and really had a hard time raising a hand against his kids. But he was creative in doling out punishment. I remember once when I was in my mid teens and full of myself and kept putting off mowing the lawn. Dad arranged with the neighbors to have me mown his lawn and the neighbors. I never forgot that.

2. As a child, when was the first time you remember experiencing Them Cold Hard Facts of Life (real disappointment and realization that bad things can happen). (With apologies to Whisperin’ Bill Anderson.)
I was five when Grandpa Nall died. And there were lots of funeral’s as a child but they never really sunk in. I think the first real sadness came later on, around 10 or so and my grandmother was sick and you could just sense the whole house on pins and needles and people kept returning from intensive care and they would be talking and stop abruptly any time I came in the room, triggering a danger sense that there was something wrong. (ultimately, all was well, grandma recovered from her heart attack and lived a marvelous 96 or so years.

3. At bed time, do you need a bed time story or do you fall fast asleep? Any routines that must happen before the slumber?
I usually curl up with a book but am generally asleep quickly – the book is just a pretense. I can usually be in deep REM sleep in about 20 minutes. It is frightening.

4. How old were you when you learned to ride a bike?
Summer between Kindergarten and First Grade. The neighbor Jay was already on wheels and I had to hustle to catch up.

5. As a teen learning to drive, any driving related altercations that you never told your parents about?
I.Can’t.Drive!
Seriously, I was 15 on a learners permit and snuck the car out drive around the block and had a minor, unreporter fender bender in the parking lot of the 7-11. No harm, no fowl.

Friday Fives

1. If you needed to get ahold of The “A” Team to handle a personal crisis for you, would you know where to turn?
I think I could assemble my own “A” team of crack experts for various fields of interest: Ed, of course, for general boozing and related emergencies. Tory if I need to blow something up. Adam if I need to bring in a cleaner to make it go away. Mark would be our scientific potions expert. Julie, of course for the enevitable killins. Lono for long term plotting and Reid for a general all-purpose Bezerker.
2. Hunter Thompson is dead. In his spirit, what is the Gonzo-ist road trip you have ever taken?
My long winding drunken trip across Europe in a Jeep CJ-7. We crafted an ice container using the entire hatch back area, filled it with ice and German lager and drove from Stuttgart to London. We stopped at Verdun to see the battlefield, got lost in Luxemborg, ate an amazing asparagus omellette at an autobahn diner (the French equivalent of a Stuckies) and took a ferry trip across the channel, drinking beer dispensed from the vending machine as the locals smoked weed on deck looking at the White Cliffs of Dover. That, my friends, was good time.
3. We were taken out to dinner on the company dime last night to a nice, swank steakhouse. What is the best meal you have ever eaten that you didn’t have to pay for?
In my newspaper days, as a starving writer, I would get a few meals sent my way. I remember an amazing steak dinner with Pat Grant of the National Western Stock show. It was some old, old cowboy restaurant down in the stock show area but I can’t remember exactly where. But that was one excellent piece of steak.
4. Botox? Collagen? Plastic surgery nip and tuck? Hair club for men? How far will you go to preserve your youth?
I think any folks who have seen me know that I am just letting the old AARP flag fly proudly. Wrinkles, grey hair, warts and all. I am trying to eat better and exercise more so I am not all crippled up when I get old, but otherwise, what you see is what you get.
5. Ever tracked your biorhythms? Are you having a good day or a bad day? Any other crap like this you might hold onto from time to time?
According to this scale, I am having a low emotional day, however, I feel great – so I guess I am not putting a lot of faith in this bunk. I want to believe in something as simple as Biorhytms and Astrology as a way to explain this great world of ours – but let’s face it. Life is pretty deliberate when humans intervene and pretty random when Nature responds.

Friday Fives

1. What is your favorite kitchen appliance? If if broke, could you replace it?
For me, it is either the coffee roaster, an absolute extravagance that has changed my life. Coming a close second is the microwave. What a technological thing of beauty that thing is.

2. Did your grandmother have a nickname for you? What was it? How did you earn it.
Nope. No nicknames. We weren’t a real nicknamey family.

3. What was the last big thing you broke? How did you end up fixing it.
A heart? Just kidding. hmmm. Let’s see, probably my sister” Rubbermaid cake holder. It was the unfortunate victim of a tiny, tiny, pittance of a kitchen fire – a fire whose smoke damaged scars still remain – I replaced the cake holder, I haven’t repainted the smoke stained wall.

4. If you had your own spaceship, what would you name it and why? What would it be like?
“To Infinity – And Beyond!” In David Foster Wallace’s essay “Getting Away from Already Pretty Much Away From It All,” DFW nicknames the 7 day, 7 night cruise ship he is staying on the “SS Nadir.” That has always rung whitty with me. My starship may have the same name, because if we find ourselves in space, with me at the helm of a starship, we are all doomed.

5. March is nearly here! (Thank you, Jesus.) We survived February. (Thank you, Cutty Sark.) Do you have any Spring seasonal change traditions that you observe?
A big, drunken Easter blow out has been a solid 15 year tradition. In my home town of Craig, the segue into Spring is celebrated by the Kiwanis club in their annual show featuring tons and tons of booze, pillars of the community in drag doing modern day burlesque and some bad, bad lip synching. It would kill me to find such an adventure here in Denver.