8 Facts You Never Wanted to Know About Me
God Fearin' Fiddler tagged me a few days ago with this: "The rules are simple... Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.'
1) I have broken my arms four times. Once I broke both of them at the same time. Another time I re-fractured the same arm two weeks after the cast was off! I have a love-hate relationship with gravity.
2) It was a month before Christmas 1972 when I broke both arms and my parents gave me a mandolin for my Christmas present. They had a dark sense of humor, which I suspect I may have inherited.
3) I become very embarrassed when I am near a person in an animal costume if I can't see their face. Also, those large inflatable people that radio stations use at promotional events make me very uncomfortable, even if I am in a car just passing by. Along the same lines, I have marked difficulty using drive-thru fast food lanes. I don't like talking to people I can't see. (Confession is excluded here) The thought of my voice, requesting extra ketchup packets, amplified, distorted and reverberating off the tiled, grease-stained floors and walls of Mickey D's just bothers me to the point of distraction. (A new song "Drive Through Anxiety" may be on my next album) Clowns bother me quite a bit too!
4) My great-great-grandfather, a Frenchman with the name Pierre Benoit, was an inventor in Newark NJ and according to family legend discovered how to make "patent leather." The legend goes that the idea for his invention was stolen by another Frenchman named DuPont while the tipsy Pierre boasted of his discovery at a neighborhood bar. Just think, if Pierre was a bit more careful with his alcohol consumption, I probably could have quit my day job by now. (I may never have had a day job!)
5) In college, the head of the art department asked me (a biology major) if I would be interested in minoring in art after seeing my stuff in an intro to art course. (They must have been quite desperate to fill slots in their department, though my still-life pen and ink drawing of an old gym bag was simply transcendent)
6) I never eat anything that is blue.
7) My grandmother is the only person to ever be blinded by a broken violin string. (She is the inspiration for One-Eyed Grandma on my Scarecrow's Lament CD.)
8) I made the decision to become Catholic while watching Christ carry the Cross in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. A decision that I am forever grateful to have made.
*I tag anyone who wants to be tagged!*
posted by Russ Rentler, M.D. | 3:18 PM
9 Comments:
Hmmm...I had no idea that it was when he was carrying the cross. See, you're still a mystery to me.
I guess I forgot to tell you. As you recall, I didn't share with you my decision to convert until some time after we saw the movie. Didn't you notice how I dragged my feet as we left the theater. It's because I knew God was calling me back home...But I didn't want to go but knew I had to.
My biggest obstacle was the funny hats the pope and cardinals wore. I had the same reaction to them as I had to those larger than life inflatable figures outside the car dealerships on The AutoMile. :)
I really enjoy these. They are like a personal collage using only eight pieces of paper. Yours are such an interesting combination of touching and wry, with smiles.
I wrote up my own and will post on my blog. Hmmm.
Tag me...sounds like fun. I'm blond...'splain it to me TJ. : o
Hey MMF:
Thanks, I will check yours out!
Susie:
Your tagged, so just write 8 facts or odd things about yourself on your blog. You are supposed to then name 8 other bloggers and go to their blogs to "tag" them, meaning invite them to do the same on their blogs.
I was afraid to do that because I didn't want to put a burden on anyone. Besides, if you don't comply with the instructions, your dog will get gout and the rear left tire on your car will go flat on every third monday and you won't win the lottery. :) (You know how those chain letters are.)
Tiber:
I don't have a blog--I just use yours. :-)
So, with that in mind here are 8 facts you never wanted to know about Theo:
1) Some of my maternal ancestors were among the "Mayflower" Pilgrims and participated in the first Thanksgiving.
2) Although I'm reasonably fluent in ASL, I physically can't make the sign-language letter "W."
3) Bright light makes me sneeze.
4) My conga drum playing is what you will hear if you play "congas" on any digital instrument using sounds captured by Allen Organ Company.
5) I lent a folding director's chair to former Heavyweight Boxing Champion, Mohammed Ali upon the one and only occasion we met. I still have the chair, but unfortunately, didn't think to ask him to sign it.
6) No matter how hard I try, I can't get a harmonica to bend pitch.
7) I'm ambidextrous.
8) I think "Invader Zim" was one of the funniest cartoon series ever made.
Your bro, theee-oh
Theo:
Very interesting list.
The photogenic sneeze is genetically carried and Deborah has it too.
Is that weird noise you do with a wet thumb on the conga head on the Allen Organs too?
Getting a harmonica to bend pitch is not hard. Just concentrate on the idea of herding cats and it will come.
Are you saying that there was conga drums at the first thanksgiving?
You didn't tell everyone you were a Mensa (oops, I wasn't suppose to say)
Very interesting list.
Thanks, but I find yours more interesting. How did you break both arms?
The photogenic sneeze is genetically carried and Deborah has it too.
Yeah, it makes driving out of a long tunnel on a bright day a real adventure, doesn't it?
Is that weird noise you do with a wet thumb on the conga head on the Allen Organs too?
They did get a very good sample of the conga "slide" from me; however, I don't know whether it was installed on any instrument. The sample sounded cool though: it was a sort of warm "voo-oooohm" sound ala Mrs. Robinson.
Getting a harmonica to bend pitch is not hard. Just concentrate on the idea of herding cats and it will come.
There's my trouble. I keep hitting it with a drumstick while concentrating on Starsky and Hutch re-runs.
Are you saying that there was conga drums at the first thanksgiving?
There might have been a tom-tom or two and perhaps a conga *line* but I heard that there were no conga drums in North America until the landing of the good ship Dezi Arnez near Miami in the spring of 1949.
You didn't tell everyone you were a Mensa (oops, I wasn't suppose to say)
I didn't tell everyone that for the same reason I didn't tell everyone I am a muscular, six-foot-four swimwear model: I'm not. I *think* you might be referencing something my goofy sister added to my personal profile on her chatroom site, "Member of Mensa since age 7." If so, I'm truly flattered that you might think it plausible, but she was just joking. I'd never join a club that is not exclusive enough to bar the likes of me from joining.
Ciao for now,
--Theo
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