Well, everybody was doing this ten things (or six things, or seven things) about myself exercise, so I thought I might get in on it. Here goes - Eleven things about me: 1. I was born in Key West, Florida. 2. I have spent roughly two thirds of my life living OUTSIDE the United States. I have never lived in my home country for more than five years in a row. 3. I speak four foreign languages at some degree of fluency: French, Spanish, German and Chinese Mandarin. I used to speak fluent Korean, but have not spoken the language in more than thirty years. (I can, however, still read it.) 4. I have been playing guitar and writing my own songs since I was a teenager. I have played in a number of bands throughout my life and had a few brushes with fame, including playing in a band once with Bruce Waibel, who went on to play bass in the Gregg Allman Band. 5. I served in the Air Force as a cryptologic linguist, which means that I listened to radio transmissions and transcribed and translated them. I finished my military career at the National Security Agency, who offered me a job. I turned them down. 6. I met Bob Dole once. We were lost looking for the Kennedy Center (to see Noises Off) and pulled up next to his limo at a light. When the window rolled down and we explained our predicament, he told us to follow him, as he was driving to the Watergate, which is in the same complex. When we arrived, we all got out, shook his hand, and thanked him for his help. As he walked away, the driver asked us if we knew who that was. When we confessed we did not, we were told it was Senator Bob Dole. 7. I once lived briefly at the Airplane House, the famous Victorian house on Fulton Street in San Francisco that Jefferson Airplane called home in the sixties. 8. I quit my first job in San Francisco at a rental agency because the assistant manager took me aside one day and told me that she wished I was gay. Her point was that she could not deal with my masculine energy. I was the only straight guy in the office and apparently it overwhelmed her. I decided right then and there that this company was not a good fit for me, and although they were only paying me $5.25 an hour, and I had no other employment lined up, I handed in my two weeks notice forthwith. It is the only time I ever quit a job without another job waiting for me. I still dont regret it. 9. By my count I have now lived in 15 countries, though I have been to something like 48 in total. The only continent I have never lived on, or even visited, is Australia. (Okay, there is Antarctica, too.) 10. I have been, at some point in my life, the following: a smoker, a Christian, a pool shark, a singer, a telesales representative, a door-to-door salesman, a Buddhist, a swimmer, a tennis player, an instructor, a boardgame player, a Scrabble shark, a loner, a collector, a lover, a charlatan, a hookah smoker, a clotheshorse, a pen pal, a psychic, a believer, a seeker, a jazz aficionado, a mentor, a purple belt, and a poet. 11. I once had a girlfriend tell me as she was breaking up with me that I lacked ambition. She did not know me at all. My problem was actually the opposite: I had so many ambitions that I could not settle on just one.
Posted on: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 05:10:15 +0000
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