Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Taking Care of the Tags, Part II

The newly-married (sorry ladies) Frank Simarco tagged me with the Seven Little Things About Myself tag recently.

1. I have owned two Ted Nugent albums in my life-- his first, self-titled album Ted Nugent ( the one with "Stranglehold" and "Just What The Doctor Ordered") and Free-For-All. Hey, we all have our dark secrets. It was the seventies and I was in high school. And besides, he lost me at Cat Scratch Fever. That album sucked.

2. After a summer spent starving due to bad financial circumstances (1982), I swore never to let anybody go hungry. To this day, when I get panhandled, I offer to buy a meal, and have never, ever turned down a request to buy food, and never will. And I never give money. Hey, I can barely afford to buy my own cheap wine.


3. I once paid a guy five bucks to help me and a group of my friends roll a huge boulder behind an SUV parked on Addison Avenue in Chicago. As you might predict, the hour was late and there was tippling involved.

It seemed really funny at the time.

4. I'm not a big sweet-eater, but I would trade one of my kidneys for chocolate-covered cherries. Fortunately, my son is aware of this and usually gets them for me for my birthday and Christmas every year, and still have both of my kidneys.

5. I nearly voted for a Republican once. In the 1990 election, Republican Illinois governor candidate Jim Edgar bucked his own party, which was in the process of trying to stack the Supreme Court with anti-choice candidates, and declared himself emphatically pro-choice. The Democratic candidate, Neil Hartigan, for whatever reason, waffled on the issue. Edgar was always a moderate within his party, and it didn't hurt that he'd gone to my college.

I never got a chance to make the decision; a construction job I was working at that day went overtime and I didn't get to the polling place in time to vote. It's one of the few times since 1984 that I didn't vote.

Edgar won that election, even without my vote. And I've never even been tempted to vote for a Republican since then.

6. One of my favorite movies is True Believer, which starred James Woods, Robert Downey, Jr. and Kurtwood Smith. Everything about it-- the story, the performances, the cinematography-- just grab me. I've never met anyone who even put it in their top ten. I've watched it easily twenty times.

7. I lived for the Monkees' television show when I was a kid. I wanted to be Mike Nesmith, hat and all.

Unfortunately, my dreams of rock and roll stardom are fading away as I slide into middle age. Unless, of course, Monica lets me do guest vocals on Heart and Soul on her upcoming R and B remake of Huey Lewis and the News' classic Sports album. I might have a chance then.

10 comments:

SkylersDad said...

My sister and I grew up watching their show. Remember how cool the Monkee-mobile was?

Erik Donald France said...

"I nearly voted for a Republican once" -- this cracks me up for some reason. May you still be allowed in Heaven (haha!)

Foofa said...

I LOVED the Monkees' TV show as a kid as well. I am so excited that it is On Demand.

Moderator said...

I voted for Edgar way back then. And voted for Ryan once in 1996, I think.

I've never voted for a Republican since nor will I again.

Cup said...

All the other girls loved Davey Jones, but I was always a Michael Nesmith girl. Probably why I crush on Peter Buck.

A woman who used to work in a regularly shopped record store grew up with Nesmith in Texas. She said they had one of those mosaic tables you used to get and put together yourself — except his mom never put together the mosaics so that you could arrange them however you liked when you visited.

Joe said...

The reason Hartigan waffled was because he was Catholic--the classic problem for traditional ethnic Democrats back then.

I like your philosophy about buying a meal for someone. A friend of mine got panhandled once, and he offered to take the guy inside a fast food joint right there and buy him a sandwich, and the panhandler responded "fuck you I don't need your charity."

Coaster Punchman said...

One of my favorite things to brag about is that I went to Ted Nugent's parents' house in Palatine when I was a Boy Scout doing a paper drive. They fed my dad rum & cokes and let me play Ted's pinball machine. It was awesome.

Traveling Matt said...

dude. PLEASE sing backup for "heart and soul" on "Indoor Sports: the RnB Remixes". I will set up studio time and everything. also, thank you for saying "anti-choice", and thank you for loving the monkees and true believer. my mother thought jim edgar was hot... creepy.

The Idea Of Progress said...

2008: The Year of Huey Lewis and the News, continues.

Dale said...

Keep wearing the shades and shirt, it's never too late to rock.