Random? Oh I can do that one

August 2, 2007 by flawedplan

Not a big meme playah, but I got tagged by a certain lovely and inspiring reclusive leftist for the eight random things about me thing, and have been in a pique of inhibition ever since, lord knows it’s not like I’ve ever been coy about sharing. I’ll add a twist and make it random stuff from when I was thirteen, and tag eight others after the jump:

1. I carried a switchblade.

2. Knew I’d end up a disc jockey.

3. Gained a rep for wearing bedsheets as “gowns”.

4. Talked my big brother down from a rooftop where he was shooting out the neighbors’ windows.

5. Slept on abandoned railroad tracks inside Hamm’s Brewery, the bums took care of me. Photos and more here:

The Hamm’s Brewery is the coolest abandoned site Action Squad has ever explored, hands down. It simply has it all: historical interest, multiple interconnected buildings, utility tunnels, artifacts, gargantuan machinery, ancient caves, multi-tiered rooftops and absolutely no graffiti–

6. Became a Jesus Freak, carried 42 bibles on my person. King James Version only, bitches.

7. Took LSD 4 times to no effect whatsoever.

8. Decided to wait for Patti Smith to come along and tell me what to do.

GO RIMBAUD!

I tag Alison, Gorgeous Disorders, Memory Artist, Grizzy, Gianna, Chuckling, Stephany, Ruth at Off Label and anyone else reading this, your blog or mine.

Posted in A band you should know, Art heals, Fourth Street, Mad in America, Narrative competence, We Love Women | Tagged Heroes | 25 Comments

25 Responses

on August 2, 2007 at 6:12 am | Reply giannakali

Thanks for thinking of me Robin. I will get to this and on my blog (if only to link back to your very deserving blog!) I’m kinda in a funky hellish non creative space, so give me some time!

Your random facts are fascinating. I did a 100 things about me post–so I’ll have to make these random facts extra special!

And oh…just so you know–I’m (happily) doing this just for you as I swore I would not do a meme again!!
on August 2, 2007 at 7:23 am | Reply thememoryartist

Okay, I’m terrible about doing the memes, but I can do random too. How about some random stuff from when I was sixteen?
I’ll do it at my blog. I don’t know who I can tag though.
on August 2, 2007 at 7:34 am | Reply giannakali

okay…I did it…pretty boring shit actually.
on August 2, 2007 at 9:07 am | Reply Random facts I might be better off not mentioning… « Why Can’t the Past Just Die ?

[...] patients, therapy, coping, anger, identity, healing, relationships Well, I’ve just been tagged with a meme by flawedplan, the blogging-goddess of Writhe Safely, and so even though I’m bad [...]
on August 2, 2007 at 10:24 am | Reply grizzledanold

1) I had three thousand comic books when I was a kid. Bought up all I could from the other kids. Learned words and morals and story value ( they poured in) from Uncle Scrooge ( done by the great Carl Barks) & Batman. Can you see it? I can; the impact of “camera” angle ( the composition of the panel).
More kid stuff:

2) Threw a football at ancient Maple tree trunks from one side of the street to ‘tother under the glow of streetlamps till around 9 or 10 o’clock. Thud! Whack! Throw it! Hit it! Chase it as it baaarrooms! to a drunkard’s path down the street.

3) Put together models all the time. Loved to paint them. Ships were my favorite. I was 8, 9. You know, them ages.

4) Shot baskets till I was blue in the face. Hit golf balls till I was blue in the – no, wait, I’m jumping the gun. Kisses with no other relief given brought on blue…uh you know what.

Uh…let’s see…

5) By the time I was 20, I had seen over twenty W.C. Fields movies. All the Marx Brothers ‘cept “Animal Crackers” which wasn’t in release. Still know all the dialogue from the first seven Marx films.

6) Hitchhiked to Florida when I was 17. Then did it again. Slept in homes of people I met, barns, someone’s boat in their yard, under vending machines, side of the road.

7) I have a good memory I think, I forget.

Went to L.A. twice when I was about 19, 20. Drove once, took a train the other. Didn’t have enough money to pay for the ticket all the way back so paid for a couple of hundred miles & hid when the conductor wanted tickets for the rest of the way. Got the rest of the folks ridin’ in on it; they watched out for him for me. Slept in the observation car. Picked up a girl I later saw. Stop it, haven’t thought of THAT for years!
Anyway, in L.A., stayed at relatives & then wherever I could…

9) I need a beer.

10) Everybody come over for one, you can all have cool drinks in my yard – I planted & researched (& found! That wasn’t easy…) over a hundred rare trees…

11) Learned morals from the Twilight Zone. Did not learn limits, because this is number 11 instead of just 8.

Now, I tag Sam my dawg. Fat chance of getting anything out of him, especially since it’s so blasted hot.
on August 2, 2007 at 10:26 am | Reply grizzledanold

Hey, how come number eight came up that god damn smile sun – shit, I would never do that – and didn’t.
on August 2, 2007 at 10:29 am | Reply grizzledanold

Why, the idea, the insult, the the – the chicanery!
on August 2, 2007 at 10:40 am | Reply thememoryartist

Yeah, to hell with limits.

Here’s my number 9: I’m impulsive
…and oh so tempted to tag Studoc ….just afraid what I might find out…
on August 2, 2007 at 11:23 am | Reply Stephany

HA I was just wanting another reason to write another 100 things post, so 8 randoms here I come.
Thanks!
on August 2, 2007 at 12:10 pm | Reply Stephany

Did my list, I appear to be quite a weird little rebel type of child. LOL I used to collect any soda bottles I could to turn in for cash so I could keep my candy habit alive and well. I’m talking candy as in gum and Abba-Zabbas.
Oh and just for interest sake I can sign [ASL]the song “Dancing Queen” by Abba.
on August 2, 2007 at 1:38 pm | Reply Violet Socks

42? 42? Miniatures, I hope…
on August 2, 2007 at 6:00 pm | Reply flawedplan

Yup, my mom kept burning them so I had to carry my bibles with me. Bless her heathen heart.
on August 3, 2007 at 6:12 pm | Reply Stephany

This is off topic so please delete it when you read it, but I can’t find an email for you. Could you email me, thanks.
on August 3, 2007 at 10:22 pm | Reply markps2

“King James Version”
Only way to go baby!
It’s the one with thee, thy and such old english writing.

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/k/kjv/browse.html
on August 3, 2007 at 10:36 pm | Reply thememoryartist

I thought of you today when I went in Family Dollar and there were piles of (full size) Bibles for only five bucks a piece, but upon further inspection they were only NIVs….guess that explains the price.
on August 5, 2007 at 12:45 am | Reply poodles

Ive been having computer troubles-so Iam testing the waters before I jump into Random
on August 5, 2007 at 12:51 am | Reply poodles

By the age of 15–

I had been coaching gym for 2 years-week-end job

I had been on TV-

I went punk listening to Radio U

I had become an old hand at dissociating

I had decided that life was crap for kids and I wasn’t going to have any

I lost my hymen

I had met Kate Bush at radio station

I started to plot my escape

I left for England just after my 18th birthday

Troops out-Mandela out-Greenham common women-

I was reading a book a day

I have Gorgeous Disorders
on August 5, 2007 at 3:04 am | Reply Ruth

1. I carried a little curved knife used for cutting up grapefruit.
2. I was suspended for saying ‘I’m not going to take this shit from you’ to a teacher who used to ring me at 11 o’clock at night and complain that his wife didn’t understand him. What really made them angry though wasn’t so much the swearing, but the fact that I refused to apologise to him afterwards.
3. I was eventually expelled from that school.
4. At the next school, I shook up a full bottle of soft drink and hosed down the school bully during class, after he made several obscene suggestions as to where I could put said bottle. Unfortunately, he and his sycophants ran out of the room screaming before I had time to break his nose with a textbook. No apology necessary this time; several teachers personally congratulated me.
5. I lost my virginity to a priest-in-training who spoke a dozen languages. When I ran into him next, he’d given away God and become a security guard for a major supermarket chain.
6. I spent so much time pacing back and forward at night that I ended up with stress fractures in my feet.
7. I was useless at just about every team sport but way ahead of everyone in maths.
8. I went through my Jesus-freak phase when I was seven. It helps to get that stuff out of the way early (or maybe not – I went through an Ayn Rand phase as a teenager).
on August 5, 2007 at 11:19 am | Reply grizzledanold

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2007/07/25/joseph_ledoux/index.html

Joseph LeDoux’s heavy mental
By Jonathan Cott and Karen Rester

Hey, I just re-read this, and it has just about the best sentence I’ve ever read:

“The world will be a better place if we adhere to the idea that change is possible. ”

Wonderful! The beauty in that thought! The dreams and life and wholeness of sacrifice I see! I see all flowers and rivers and skins of all living, touched with hearts and suns of one sun!
Awww, I’d better go…
on August 5, 2007 at 12:17 pm | Reply grizzledanold

Random.

At least Edwards is talking of these things.
We need someone who can win Ohio or Florida. With luck both.
Simple as that. Working class votes could do that.
Edwards could win those.

http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2007/08/edwards_leftward_turn.html
on August 5, 2007 at 12:31 pm | Reply flawedplan

Major thread drift Grizz, but yeah, I just heard Edwards stole the show at YKOS, maybe the bloggers will pull it off.
on August 5, 2007 at 5:07 pm | Reply chuckling

Hey FP, thanks for thinking of me, but that kind of thing is outside my literary capabilities. On one hand, my poor brain is too decimated to remember much of anything. On the other, if I were to get started on something like that I’d write interminable volumes which would later be used against me in court.

Ah, but it’s tempting. Tempting it is… When I was thirteen… under a bridge with a girl… smoking weed and talking philosophy… thinking about horses, horses…

Great Patti Smith clip. Now that I think about it, search Patti on my site and you can find at least six other random things. I’m afraid I can’t pass it on though. Don’t think I even know eight people anymore.
on August 5, 2007 at 7:37 pm | Reply flawedplan

Ah, but I got a comment out of you, so my work is complete. I have read your essay on Patti and it hit so many notes I walked around thinking new things for days.
on August 9, 2007 at 3:01 pm | Reply poodles

((((Robin)))) I saw Dylan on Wedsday night-I cried-it was so beautiful-Workingman blues 2-wow-I did thread at Dylan Board-the Frames were great-

Bob what a man –xoxoxo

random-I do dat
on August 9, 2007 at 3:04 pm | Reply poodles

If you missed Patti Smith’s appearance at the ICA on Monday 27 November, here’s a chance to listen to a recording of the event.

Patti Smith is a poet and performer who has inscribed her vision of our world in powerful anthems, ballads, and lyrics. She came to the ICA to perform songs interspersed with poems from Auguries of Innocence, her first book of poetry in more than a decade.

http://www.ica.org.uk/Patti%20Sm…+12722.twl

her new book is stunning-I got last copy -I luv her still so damm much-more than I ever did-xoxoxo