So I’m sitting here waiting for the word that all is clear and we can hit the town for dinner. While I’m waiting, I think I’ll continue this little Internet-y thing going around (totally not an STD). Mike Scalise, a writer with whom I attended grad school, has just tagged me for a Seven Things. So here’s is my off-the-top-of-my-head version.
- I played high school basketball in Indiana, which was exactly like the movie “Hoosiers,” except fast-forwarded about 50 years later. My team–I swear to fucking God this is true–was named the Plainfield High School Quakers. The Fighting Quakers. My life has been one of confusion because of this.
- I’m going to Florida tomorrow. Fort Myers. And I’m not even over the age of 50.
- (Mike and Ryan Call talked about their wives within the first three things, so I think that’s a pretty good precedent.) I am living in sin with a wonderful woman, who makes things like sin extra fun. She loves the NFL and really should start a football blog. I even have a good name, which I’m not sharing because things like blog names are, in the words of Blago, fuckin’ valuable.
- I was the subject of a documentary my senior year of college. I also acted in three plays that year. During the last one, I got so far into character (asshole college student) that I flicked a lit cigarette into the audience. This displeased some.
- I went snowboarding for the first time this Christmas. Fell down a lot. As you do.
- I’m left-handed and born on August 9th. Take from that what you will.
- My secret dream is to do stand-up comedy once, just once. But I probably never will.
Okay then. Now’s the part where I have to tap seven other people, and this is really kind of embarrassing for me since the number of friends I have is roughly, like, two or something. So I’m going for some big-league taps, just to, you know, fill the list out.
Consider yourself tapped: Parsons, Paul Krugman, Matt Wood, Kenney Marlatt, Mark Titus, Rachael Daigle, and Brendan Fitzgerald.
I have no blog to call my own (at the moment) to repost, so I’ll do it here.
1. I broke my nose in my first game of high school basketball. Given the sort of game I liked playing, I should’ve been a small forward. But, since it was high school and I was 6’2″, I started at center. Our team won one game during my single season before I switched to cross country (JV) and drama. (Roles: Jackson Pollock, Wilson from “The Great Gatsby.”)
2. I was the lead singer and frequent rhythm guitarist for a band called Random Task, which was named for the Austin Powers villain (My good friend Tom denied this a few times). The band name was later changed to Random Task* after a pop-metal act with the same name contacted and threatened us with legal action. We played 7 or 8 original songs, of which I penned about half. I played the drums once, for our cover of “Paranoid” by Black Sabbath.
3. Everyone’s talking ’bout ladies, so…I met a fantastic woman two weeks after I heard her read a few poems as part of a group reading, and hers stuck with me. Showed up at a dance party and we spent two hours or so on the dance floor. In addition to devastating a few ’80s dance nights with our skills, I also performed a few songs with her at a music venue near where we live, including “Crazy as a Loon” and “Blues Run the Game.”
4. Received stitches in my upper lip when I was 9 after a neighborhood “Wrestlemania”-type event (featuring kids around the same age squaring off, one-on-one, on a trampoline). Tripped, hit my chin on an opponent’s knee, and put a lower canine through my lip.
5. Hand-delivered a copy of a demo to the lead singer of The Get Up Kids when I was in high school.
6. Had a poem published in an Asian-American literary magazine based at my college, despite my Irish name. To add to the confusion, it was about a French literary theorist. Could not secure all copies of said magazine after publication, so there must be a few out there still.
7. Finest karaoke moment: Sang “Lady Picture Show” by Stone Temple Pilots, and nabbed a back-up singer through what I hope was some combination of good stage presence and dumb luck.