Just call it a 6th sense

This meme came my way via Liz at the wonderfully well-considered and expressed Los Angelista’s Guide to the Pursuit of Happiness. And yes, Liz finds much to be happy about, even in La-La Land.

Well, why not. I think LA gets a lot of bad press. Aside from everything else, it has a most enchanting railway station that has been used often in films. What I would have loved would be to have lived in Los Angeles in the 1930s, around the time Chinatown was meant to have taken place.

So, tell me, do you pronounce Angeles with a hard or soft G? Joe Friday on Dragnet always opted for the hard G, and that confused me when I was a kid.

So, back to the issue at hand. I got tagged

Here are the rules: (1) Link to the person that tagged you. [Done] (2) Post the rules on your blog. [Done] (3) Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself. [Done] (4) Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs. (5) Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog. [Not going to do this part because I know some people hate being tagged; I hate missing out people I love and cherish; time is pressing these days as I have to get back to my project, but I still wanted to do this. But, if you would like to play, please do; it’s actually very enjoyable]

So, six things about me that I haven’t already run past you. Glad it wasn’t a call for ‘three’ sixes, as that would have been an ominous sign. Don’t like that old 666. Call me superstitious.

Six Random Things About Me

1) When I was about 8 a friend and I sent a car careening off the road and into the ditch. . My buddy Roly and I were walking along a busy chunk of highway near our relatively rural (in those days, now it’s all a chunk of the massive Vancouver conurbation) homes when we found a kids’ tin drum on the side of the road. We kicked it along for a while, and then Roly kicked it out onto the highway and it was struck by a car that swerved all over and then went careening off the road and into the ditch. We watched the whole thing unfold with horror, and then ran like hell, scared shitless. Never heard anything more about it, but I bet the guy, if he’s still alive, is cursing us to this day.

2) I own two records that are considered bigtime collectables: I have the original vinyl recordings of Velvet Underground with Nico, and Otis Redding and Jimi Hendrix Live at Monterey Pop. I taped them a few years ago so that I don’t tarnish the originals any longer. I have heard they’re worth a great deal, but I have no desire to part with either of them. Redding’s frenetic offering of Try a Little Tenderness turns a rather bland standard into something not only magical, but makes you wonder why somebody so talented had to depart the earth so soon. I call it the Stevie Ray Vaughn/Buddy Holly syndrome.

3) I detest Joni Mitchell: . I don’t mean personally. I don’t even know her, but I am in violation of my 1960s heritage by suggesting her voice – and the utter sameness of all her cliché songs – just irritates the hell out of me. I’ll mildly accept Big Yellow Taxi, but that is about it. If I want a female vocalist to remind me of that long-ago and utterly unlamented time, give me the wonderful pipes of Mama Cass singing Dream a Little Dream of Me. Makes me want to cry, it’s so sweet.

4) I’d still sell my soul for a night with Deborah Harry: From the very first second of hearing Heart of Glass, and actually seeing the exquisite person who was singing, I was in love. I think she’s the only singer I’ve actually had a major crush on. I adore her face. I love watching how her lip curls in a slight sneer as she renders her ‘Joisey Goil’ pronunciations to certain lyrics. And, well, I just think she’s utterly beautiful and enchanting, even now that she’s past 60. It's all about the attitude she conveys.

5) The first time I visited London I got incredibly lost:. Long ago it was, and I now know what I still think is the most enchanting capital in the world quite thoroughly well. But, on my first trip, my wife of the day and I decided to stroll from our hotel in the Strand to St. Paul’s. And we did. Then we made the fatal error of deciding to return via another route. Fatal error. I was convinced that this was the way back to the neighborhood of our hotel. In fact, we were walking in the opposite direction – for hours and hours. Of course, being male, I refused to ask anybody for directions. I was also frightened to use the Underground, since I hadn’t done so before. I can’t remember how we got turned around, but ultimately we did, and we trudged back, two exhausted puppies. Checking the map when we were back in our room, we’d covered 15-miles through hot city streets.

6) My female step-cousin and I used to pick berries naked: Not thorny blackberries, I might add, but black raspberries that used to grow thornless and wild for miles through the woods near my aunt and uncle’s summer place in Washington State. I confess that she and I (the same age) were a little ‘too close’ and our parents never knew about our al fresco nude shenanigans. But we were quite comfortable being two little starkers wood nymphs out in the berry patch. Then one day when we were about 14 we decided to get ‘real close’. After which, and racked with a certain amount of guilt, we were never quite the same. I learned that a friendship can be compromised by intimacy. We never picked berries again, and we both sort of went our own separate ways.

As I said, due to the reasons given above, I’m not going to tag anyone, but please feel free to play along. I enjoyed it. You will, too.
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