A Little Background

 

A Little Back­ground

When re­quired to post a bio on the in­ternet, I usu­ally write, “Mys­tical lib­eral likes long walks at night in the city in the rain with an um­brella and a flask of 10-year-old Laphroaig.” While this works for most readers, others want a bit more back­ground.

Rather than re­gale you with tales of my pro­fes­sional ca­reer and the jobs I have held (more than I can re­member), I’m just going to list things that I am (still!) pas­sionate about.

So, read on …

 

Jen­nifer Garner in 2019: more beau­tiful than ever.

 

a few of my fav­er­avest things

Fa­vorite single
Elvis Presley, Hound Dog / Don’t Be Cruel (1956)

Fa­vorite album
The Beach Boys, Pet Sounds (1966) ¹

Fa­vorite fe­male singer
Petula Clark

Fa­vorite male singer
Elvis Presley

Fa­vorite group (tie)
Bea­tles (1961-1969)
Beach Boys (1962-1972)
Rolling Stones (1963-1971)
Kinks (1964-1971)
Byrds (1965-1967)

Fa­vorite novel (tie)
James Clavell, Tai-Pan (1966)
James Clavell, Shogun (1975)

Fa­vorite science-fiction au­thor (tie)
Poul An­derson
Phillip Dick
Harlan El­lison
Anne Mc­Caf­frey
Norman Spinrad

Fa­vorite poem
Tristan Tzara, Ap­prox­i­mate Man ²

Fa­vorite old movie (tie)
King Kong (1933)
The Scarlet Pim­pernel (1934)
Snow White And The Seven Dwarves (1937)

Fa­vorite re­cent movie (tie)
A Clock­work Or­ange (1971)
Dances With Wolves (1990)
Love Ac­tu­ally (2003)

Fa­vorite actor (tie)
Cary Grant
Kevin Costner

Fa­vorite ac­tress (tie)
Irene Dunne
Jen­nifer Garner
Marisa Tomei

Fa­vorite movie di­rector (tie)
Woody Allen
Clint East­wood

Fa­vorite car­toon char­acter
Bugs Bunny

Fa­vorite tele­vi­sion se­ries (tie)
Star Trek (1966-1968)
Northern Ex­po­sure (1990-1995)
Friends (1994-2004)
Firefly (2002-2003) ³

Fa­vorite cos­tumed hero (tie)
The Fan­tastic Four (Jack Kirby and Stan Lee)
Spi­derman (Steve Ditko and Stan Lee)

Fa­vorite cos­tume­less hero (tie)
The Spirit (Will Eisner)
Pip­squeak (Wally Wood)

Fa­vorite above­ground comic books artists (tie)
Steve Ditko
Jack Kirby
Wally Wood

Fa­vorite un­der­ground comic artist (tie)
R. Crumb
Fred Schrier

Fa­vorite psy­che­delic poster artist
Rick Griffin

Fa­vorite mixed drink
Tan­queray mar­tini, stirred not shaken, straight up, with one olive squeezed into the drink then tossed over my left shoulder. ⁴

Fa­vorite un­mixed drink
10-year-old Laphroaig

Fa­vorite mind-manifesting drug
Ly­sergic acid di­ethy­lamide

Fa­vorite par­tic­i­pa­tory sport (tie)
Base­ball
Vol­ley­ball

Fa­vorite spec­tator sport (tie)
Girl-watching
Base­ball

Fa­vorite base­ball team
Philadel­phia Phillie

Fa­vorite base­ball player
Pete Rose ⁵

Fa­vorite ice cream
Tillamook Vanilla Bean

Fa­vorite quo­ta­tion
“It ain’t what you know that gets you into trouble—it’s what you know that just ain’t so!” (Josh Billings)

 

This art was done by Wally Wood for the cover of the 1979 edi­tion of Robert Over­street’s Comic Book Price Guide. It is an homage to the work that Wood did for the leg­endary EC comic books Weird Sci­ence and Weird Fan­tasy in the early ’50s.

 

a few in­ti­mate de­tails

Status
I am in a long-term, com­mitted re­la­tion­ship with a woman who hates seeing her name on the In­ternet. ⁶

Af­fec­ta­tion
Foot­notes on my blog posts. ⁷

Snob­bery
I am a renowned pizza snob who be­lieves that Old Forge, Penn­syl­vania, is the Pizza Capitol of the World. I would rather eat frozen pizza than the stuff that most places bake out here in the Pa­cific North­west.

Mis­cel­la­neous love
Cats

Mis­cel­la­neous hate
F*cking bul­lies ⁸

 

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FOOTNOTES:

1   But there are a number of al­bums that could be con­sid­ered a close second. This in­cludes but is cer­tainly not lim­ited to Bob Dy­lan’s Blonde On Blonde (1966), the Byrds’ Younger Than Yes­terday (1967), The Band’s Music From Big Pink and the Rolling Stones’ Beg­gars Ban­quet (1968), From Elvis In Mem­phis (1969), the Kinks’ Arthur (1969), and the Beach Boys’ Sun­flower (1970).

2   The Mary Ann Caws trans­la­tion of 1973.

3   I could name so many more: Ally McBeal, The Good Wife, Boston Legal, M.A.S.H, Next Gen­er­a­tion, Weeds, Shame­less, etc.

4   That’s a mar­tini made the old-fashioned way: four-parts-gin-to-one-part-vermouth, not the modern 20-1 mix.

5   Be­cause as a Phillies fan I credit Rose with their first World Cham­pi­onship in 1980 to Rose.

6   I would love to re­gale you with tales of my con­quests, my loves, my losses—but that same Internet-fearing woman would have what’s left of my balls pickled in a jar on the mantle if I did.

7   Like these.

8   All bul­lies: phys­ical, emo­tional, in­tel­lec­tual, spir­i­tual, and in this country, po­lit­ical and eco­nomic bul­lies.