Another Frickin' Meme

I have been tagged by the entirely lovely (yet she uses Eeyore's butt as her avatar) Janet. Yes, it's another frickin' meme.

The meme is a simple out for a blogger. You don't have to do anything as complicated as writing about an actual true experience. For that task, you have to start at the beginning, end at the ending, and state actual facts in a linear progression in-between the two. For a meme, not so much. And I very much appreciate the lack of effort needed to fill blog space when you've been handed one of these. Tap out a few insane/arcane/inane/profane paragraphs (or lists or whatever else is called for) and Voila! No need to sweat your blog for another day or two!

Give me an easy way out and I'll take it, every time. Thanks, Janet!

Here are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.

(Done [twice] and almost done.)

2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog; some random, some weird.

(I'm pretty random, so most facts about me are random, too. The weirdness will no doubt take care of itself.)

3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.

(BWAH-HA-HA! This is the best part of these things. It is evil disguised as goodness and light. You can publicly say, "I admire these people so much! I can't wait to hear what they have to say about The 5 Best Ways To Have Sex That Involve Avocados", while what you're really thinking is "BWAH-HA-HA! I can just spout off pure rambling nonsense here, since that's what folks expect from me, but the poor suckers I'm tagging can't get away with that because they haven't built up a reputation for insanity like I have! Pass the avocados, please!")

4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

(Sometimes it's better to just let them be completely surprised by stumbling onto it. Of course, that presupposes that they read your blog regularly without you going to their place and whoring for them to come to your place, which is how blogging seems to work for the most part, at least so far as I can tell. Of course, if I was a better writer, maybe I wouldn't have to be such a whore. Rest assured that nothing which follows here will get me closer to that goal.)

HERE ARE THE SEVEN FACTS!


1 – I was once paid to imitate Teddy Roosevelt.

I do voice-overs for a living.

(Actually, I record voice talents, edit those recordings, place music underneath the edited voices, throw the finished productions onto cassette tapes or CDs [or load the finished productions onto digital announcers, and ship those to clients], and a whole bunch of other tasks that carry the job title of either "Producer" or "Music Director" [my actual job title], as well as do voice-overs. It’s just sexier to say I do voice-overs. If I had to live on the money I make solely from voice-over work, I’d starve to death.)

Anyway, the very first television commercial I was hired to voice included a cartoon of Teddy Roosevelt saying, "Bully!" It was for a car dealership’s Presidents Day sale. I said, "Bully!" and was paid the amazing sum of $100 for doing so. Not bad for two seconds of work. At that rate, it comes to $180,000 an hour.

(In case you’re wondering: No, I am not rich. I got $100 for a one-hour session, which was the rate the producer was willing to pay, regardless of how much work I did in that hour. I did a lot of other one-hour sessions for him that included eight or nine different commercial reads. Break those down and you see that I was paid about $12.50 per spot. When you consider that some of those spots ran for a year or two, being played thousands of times...

Still not bad, especially when you consider I had never earned more than $8.25/hour at any previous [legal] job.)

2 – Despite having red hair, whiter-than-white skin, the map of Ireland on my face, and the last name Sullivan, I have more Hispanic blood than I do Irish.

You could never tell by looking at me, but I’m of 25% Hispanic blood. My maternal grandmother’s maiden name is Barcelo. Her ancestors came from Spain. The Irish part of the equation (Sullivan) is only partially Irish. My paternal grandfather was of Irish and French descent. So, that’s 12.5% Irish for ME, so far as I know.

I’m a mixed breed, to be sure. The remainder is mostly Scottish and English, but perhaps there’s some Welsh, too. There could be other nationalities represented that I don’t know about. All I know for sure is that some of my ancestors didn't let longstanding national grudges stand in the way of a good fuck.

3 – I’ve read the book The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain, thirty-nine times.

The first time I read it was when I was in the 8th grade, at age 12. The next year, The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn was a required read for school, so I decided to read Tom Sawyer again, first - for the continuity - since Huck is the sequel. I read it again during the summer of the following year. And I’ve picked it up again and again, once each year, in every year since.

Needless to say, I think it’s Twain’s masterpiece. Huckleberry Finn is usually given a higher ranking, but that’s because of the subject matter and the social justice themes, in my humble opinion. Don’t get me wrong; it’s a great read, too. And I’ve probably read it somewhere near thirty times. But, despite the stunning dramatic quality of some passages in Huck, it has a couple of serious holes. Tom Sawyer is absolutely flawless.

(I don’t suppose telling you that Twain is my favorite author, and that I’ve never read anything by him that I didn’t like, is really necessary? No, I didn’t think so.)

4 – I hate having sticky hands.

As soon as I get anything sticky on my hands, I want to wash them. If a drop of duck sauce gets on the handle of my fork at a Chinese restaurant, I have to wipe it down with a wet napkin and then go wash my hands. Sticky drives me nuts.

The other day, I had to remove a bunch of masking tape from a wall in our bathroom. As a stopgap measure to prevent damage to a window, we had put a sheet of plastic over it, using masking tape to hold it to the wall. I had to scrape the tape off with my fingernails in spots. I was about to pop a vein by the time I was done. My hands were covered with the residue from the tape. I scrubbed my hands with Bon Ami afterwards, three separate times, before I felt as though they weren’t sticky.

Crazy, I know, but it bothers the hell out of me. So, if we ever meet, don't get any ideas about pouring maple syrup on my hands, unless you want to see me take a nutty.

5 – I have never voted for a winning presidential candidate.

If you’re 20, or maybe even 30, this may not seem like that big of a deal. However, I’m 51. I’ve voted in 8 presidential elections. Not a single winner. Here's who I voted for:

1976 - Roger MacBride
1980 - Ed Clark
1984 - David Bergland
1988 - Ron Paul
1992 - Andre Marrou
1996 - Harry Browne
2000 - Harry Browne
2004 - Michael Badnarik

Ever hear of any of them? Maybe Ron Paul, since he tried to capture the Republican nomination this time around. Maybe Harry Browne, since he had a couple of best-selling books. Maybe not either of them. In any case, they were all Libertarians, so it’s not like I’ve really bucked big odds to accomplish this feat.

(I'm not saying who I'm voting for this year, but the odds are I'm going to make it 9 for 9.)

6 – I once ate a hippopotamus.

OK, this is kind of cheating. I’ve written about this before. As a matter of fact, you could read about it here. Hell of a weird and random fact, though, don’t you think?

7 - I have never owned a new car.

That's what happens when you go around voting for Libertarians and eating hippos.

As a matter of fact, I have owned ONE car built in the same decade as that in which I was living. That was a 1990 Chevy Cavalier, which I purchased in 1994. My current ride is a 1998 Pontiac Grand Am, purchased in 2002. Great car.

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And that's it for the random facts. Now comes the time when I pick seven of you to tell stuff about yourselves. Hey! Come back here! No fair looking at mine without showing me yours!

I choose...

Melinda (because she deserves many more readers than she would appear to have from the number of comments she gets.)

Ex-Shammickite (because that's what you get for wanting to be linked here.)

Jody (because I don't believe she's ever been tagged by me before, so what the hell.)

MLH (because she calls herself "The Surly Writer", but she really isn't. Sweetheart, actually.)

DJ Big Mick (because I needed at least one male in this bunch, and he deserves readers, and I think I have to do something to goose him into writing again before he falls into my "Haven't Written In 30 Days? Heave-Ho To You, Pal!" category.)

And that's that. I only tagged five, not seven. That's because I wanted to have wiggle room. If you leave an undesirable comment, then you're number six. If you actually wanted to be chosen by me, but you weren't, consider yourself blessed. Being chosen by me is like "getting lucky" in Russian roulette.

Soon, with more better stuff.