A couple of days ago I was asking a friend some questions. You know, easy stuff like "What's your favorite movie?" "Who's your favorite singer?" That kind of thing.
I sometimes get asked questions like that when I'm filling out forms. I'll bet you do too.
So I decided to sit down and make out a personal Trivia List. Here, if anyone cares, are One Hundred Things About Me.
Review my list, then make one of your own. Share.
1. I’m a day person, not a night person. I’m up with the chickens and generally don’t like to get to bed any later than 11 p.m. at the latest.
2. I only like coffee if it’s hot. I can’t stand tepid coffee, nor can I stand stale coffee. If it’s more than an hour old, I’ll throw it out and make a fresh pot.
3. I like early music early in the morning. Before 9 a.m., I only want to hear music written before 1800.
4. Cars generally don’t excite me. My feeling about cars is, the easier to park, the better. I like my PT Cruiser, but I’d also like to have a Mini Cooper, which would be even easier to park.
5. When I go to a baseball game, my favorite place to sit is at field level along the first base line. I can almost never get seats there.
6. Most people who like opera prefer Italian opera to Austro-Germanic. I’m the other way around. I like Italian opera fine, but a list of my favorite operas would be heavier on Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss than it would be on Verdi and Puccini.
7. I do NOT watch television. Period. If I’m sitting in front of a TV screen, it’s either playing a baseball game or a DVD movie. I haven’t watched a TV series since the 1980s and have no desire to.
8. I don’t especially care for Indian cuisine. I’ll eat it, but if we’re talking about going to an “ethnic” restaurant, I’ll tend to steer somewhere other than Indian. Curry isn’t my favorite thing.
9. Hot weather drives me nuts. My least favorite activity is sweating. When it’s hot outside I just want to stay inside with the air conditioning blasting away.
10. I detest people who hate cats. I love cats. If you hate cats, you have a mental problem, and I don’t want to hear your excuses. Go die.
11. Loving cats doesn’t mean I hate dogs. I like dogs just fine. Most of the time.
12. Christmas presents should be opened on Christmas morning. If you open them on Christmas Eve, that leaves you with nothing to do Christmas Day. What fun is that?
13. I’m usually extremely impatient. Sorry about that. I just am. I do NOT like to kept waiting, and if I see a line in front of something I want, I’ll come back later.
14. When it comes to staring at women, I’m more of a leg man than a chest man. High heels and shapely calves will catch my attention faster than big boobs.
15. I enjoy cigars, and no, I’m not interested in quitting, so don’t even bring it up.
16. Bicycles are almost a fetish with me. I’ll wander into a bike shop and drool over the goods like some guys will wander into a BMW dealership and do so. If I were as rich as Bill Gates I’d probably have a dozen bicycles. As it is, I have three.
17. I have a similar thing about sound equipment. I must own six radios, and I’m forever perusing audio catalogs and magazines, dreaming of the ultimate high-end system that would make my basement sound like Carnegie Hall.
18. I hate to write checks. Consequently I have a bad habit of paying bills the day before they’re due.
19. I have an adversarial relationship with anything mechanical. They say there are two kinds of people: those who are good with people and those who are good with machines. I’m definitely in the first category. I can get along with almost anybody as long as they’re polite. But let a machine malfunction on me and my first impulse is to hit it with a sledge hammer. I think my problem with machines is that they won’t listen to reason.
20. I’m a Russophile. I’ve been fascinated by Russia and Russian culture since I was 13.
21. I have no desire whatever to visit any country known for its hot climate. (See 9, above.) I’ll take Norway over India any time.
22. My favorite city in the world is Paris. My favorite city in the United States is Spokane, Washington.
23. The funniest show in the history of television was The Phil Silvers Show, aka Sgt. Bilko. It aired on CBS from 1955 to 1958. Before the advent of home video, I would stay up late to catch reruns of this great comedy.
24. I can’t stand bourbon. It’s too sweet. I prefer Scotch.
25. If I never see another picture of Britney Spears or Jennifer Aniston, it will be three weeks too soon.
26. Beethoven’s String Quartets in C-Sharp minor and A Major, respectively, op. 131 and 132, represent the highest creation of the human mind. Nothing more beautiful has ever appeared on earth than these two pieces of music.
27. Early morning is the best time to make love. (But grab the Listerine first.)
28. One of my most cherished dreams is to live someplace where I don’t have to own a car.
29. I don’t write poetry any more, but I love poetry. I surely do.
30. I once got to be managing editor of a weekly newspaper for a few weeks, and decided it was the most fun I could have with my clothes on.
31. One of the things I will most regret having to give up when I die is being able to hear Mozart.
32. I love to cook, and I’m good at it.
33. Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a flawless novel, but Tender Is The Night is underrated.
34. Allen Ginsberg was a charlatan masquerading as a poet.
35. I agree with W.H. Auden that all Christians are part Protestant and part Catholic, because the truth is Catholic, but the search for it is Protestant.
36. One of my greatest regrets is that I never learned to speak or read French, the language of my paternal ancestors.
37. I’m a third-degree Mason. And no, we’re not secretly running the world. Most of us are retired.
38. I was born with no pectoralis muscle on the right side of my chest. I’ve only met one other guy in my life with this particular oddity. The right side of my chest is nothing but bone and cartilage.
39. I can’t stand loud noises of any kind. I live near two hospitals and a fire station, and the sirens all day drive me absolutely batty.
40. My parents were both poorly-educated, and they frequently embarrassed me.
41. Saul Bellow’s The Adventures of Augie March is one of the truly great novels in English.
42. One of my favorite sounds in all the world is that of a dove cooing early in the morning in southern California.
43. I once took a few surfing lessons, and would like to get back to learning how to surf.
44. When I’m not writing or cooking, I love to paint. I can’t draw worth a tinker’s damn, but there are creative ways to get around that.
45. I regret never having learned to play a musical instrument, but being as relentlessly left-brained as I am, I could never get the hang of reading music.
46. I was a State Department telecommunications specialist for 14 years, and hated every minute of it, although I enjoyed the traveling that went with the job.
47. Speaking of which, I have lived in Germany, Brazil, Cote d’Ivoire and Russia. While living in Brazil, I reached the “intermediate” level in studying Portuguese. I know how to make feijoada, the Brazilian national dish, and I have actually tasted samogon, Russian moonshine. It’s vile.
48. Global warming is the biggest con game since P.T. Barnum.
49. I’ve been keeping a journal more-or-less steadily since I was 13. In my basement I have two footlockers filled with notebooks of various kinds, and my computer contains folders which in turn contain my journals going back roughly 10 years. The extant notebooks in the basement go back as far as 1974. I sometimes wonder what, if anything, someone will do with all this after I die. Probably toss it, but I can say it gave me something to do.
50. Partly because of my journal-keeping, I have a memory that some people find remarkable. Be careful what you tell me; I probably won’t forget it, because I just might write it down.
51. Before e-mail came along, I also used to keep letters from people. I have found letters in my footlockers dating back as far as 1970.
52. I love pizza. Homemade pizza on Christmas Eve was a tradition in my family for years.
53. I have no desire to own a Kindle or any such gadget. Books! Viva books!
54. People who jabber into handheld cellphones while driving should be summarily shot.
55. The CIA is not the world headquarters of evil. Quite the contrary; the CIA is incompetent. I wouldn’t trust the CIA to deliver flowers. They’d wind up on the wrong continent.
56. I was never happier in my life than when I lived in Bad Godesberg, Germany.
57. I once drove in a demolition derby.
58. I was in Moscow in 1993 when President Boris Yeltsin sent in the tanks and shelled his own parliament. A buddy of mine shot video that day and I have a copy of the tape somewhere.
59. Also in Moscow, I was in the audience at the Great Tchaikovsky Hall the night the visiting Washington National Symphony, under Mstislav Rostropovich, played Shostakovich's First Piano Concerto. The piano soloist that night was Ignat Solzhenitsyn, the son of the great Russian dissident author Alexander Solzhenitsyn. That night I became a true believer: I knew that Communism was finished.
60. I was one of the founding fathers of the Hash House Harriers chapter in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. I ran 51 hashes over two years, and hosted 17. I was so active in the Hash chapter in Brasilia that when I left post in 1991, the Hashers threw a party in my honor.
61. I’m proud of having been born one week after the Brooklyn Dodgers beat the New York Yankees in the World Series for the first time.
62. I can’t stand the sight of Ted Turner, and if the slick magazines don't knock it the hell off with Michelle Obama, she's going to join the list too.
63. I have trouble getting along with people who have no sense of humor.
64. I agree with Mark Twain that school boards were created to give the feeble-minded something to do.
65. Nobody regrets the institution of slavery in America more than I do. If it hadn’t been for slavery then, I wouldn’t be hearing rap music now. (Of course I wouldn't be hearing jazz either, and that would be a tremendous loss.)
66. J. Robert Oppenheimer was a loyal American who got a raw deal.
67. I’m on my fourth espresso machine, still looking for one that makes decent espresso.
68. Jack Liles Nolen, my high-school speech coach, was the only teacher I ever respected.
69. I wish they would find Osama bin Laden, then stuff him with pork chops and hang him by his dick from the Empire State Building, with Pat Benatar singing Hit Me With Your Best Shot in the background and the whole thing live on CNN.
70. I do not believe in UFOs. Whatever dirty bizniz is going on at Area 51, it doesn’t involve E.T. More likely it’s just the government up to its usual stupidness, like trying to invent invisible sneakers or something.
71. On a hot summer day there is nothing, and I mean nothing, better than ice-cold lemonade.
72. Stan Musial was a better ballplayer than Mickey Mantle, but Mantle got all the publicity because he played in New York while Musial played in St. Louis.
73. I detest PETA. I’m a wholehearted and enthusiastic supporter of the ASPCA and the Humane Society, but PETA, whose premise is that animals should be treated exactly as if they were people, is a nut group. These are people who think Bambi and Thumper are real. Yeah, well, Chip and Dale should gather them up for the winter.
74. I generally prefer red wine to white, but I like a good pinot grigio.
75. I do not consider Ernest Hemingway a great novelist. He was a very great short-story writer, but not a great novelist.
76. Handel’s Water Music is one piece I never seem to get tired of, and there are many, many pieces of music about which I can’t say that.
77. Carnations are my favorite flower.
78. Two smells I absolutely love are those of freshly-ground coffee and gasoline, though not mixed together.
79. Frank Sinatra’s 1943 recording of If You Are But A Dream brings back one of my most cherished memories, which believe it or not involves ironing a shirt.
80. Henry Fonda’s performance in Mr. Roberts is probably my favorite performance ever given by any actor in any film, ever.
81. Light beer is a crime against nature.
82. I’ve sometimes wondered why, if the Devil is supposed to be so smart, he keeps making sucker bets with God and losing them.
83. Speaking of religion, I think I would have an easier time loving Jesus if he had just once said “Ain’t got no,” or cracked a mother-in-law joke. (How do you say “Ain’t got no” in Aramaic?)
84. Interleague play in Major League baseball absolutely, positively sucks.
85. If there are two fashion trends I wish would go away, they’re square-toed shoes for men and those ridiculously long, pointed-toe shoes for women.
86. Guys who cover themselves with tattoos are jerks.
87. Girls who cover themselves with tattoos are jerk-ettes.
88. Jay Ward made the funniest cartoons of all time.
89. Bulked-up bodybuilders are a revolting sight. Muscles are fine, but you can take anything too far.
90. The greatest invention of modern times was the mute button.
91. My favorite rock n’ roll song of all time is the Byrds’ recording of Mr. Tambourine Man.
92. My favorite rock n’ roll album of all time is Highway 61 Revisited by Bob Dylan, who wrote Mr. Tambourine Man.
93. I read Larry McMurtry’s novel Lonesome Dove while staying at the Sheraton Hotel in Sao Paulo, Brazil. It kept me in my hotel room almost all weekend. I couldn’t put it down, and was sorry to see it end.
94. As big a twit as he could be when he opened his mouth about politics, I do miss Leonard Bernstein.
95. Although I love to cook, I hate to clean. I’d just as soon hire someone else to do it.
96. I like my steak extremely well-done. My wife likes hers practically raw. Believe it or not, we argue about this.
97. I can’t stand the surrealist style in art. Give me Picasso over Salvador Dali any time.
98. I generally prefer brunettes to blondes, though there have been exceptions.
99. I rather like Pope Benedict XVI. Smart guy. Good writer.
100.Generally speaking, life looks better when viewed through the bottom of a glass.
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