All About Me Archives
Hi. This is Brian Gibbons, Timothy’s brother. Tim’s out of town and off the net today, so he won’t be updating. Figuring you’d be bereft upon logging in and finding nothing new, though, he asked me to post this note so you’d know what’s going on.
Since a) I’m not in Germany and therefore have no interesting tales of them there wacky foreigners and b) I’m a lawyer and can’t be expected to be funny, I’m excused from writing anything. Instead, I’m posting the results of some quizzes (all found on Blogatelle) that Tim took recently, so that we can all mock him when he gets back.
Thanks for stopping by.
What drug would you be? Cocaine [Ed note: It seems that this quiz has already been removed, in the day or so since Tim visited it. A moment of silence for the ephemeralness of web sites.]
Which firearm are you? H&K PSG-1
Which tarot card are you? Strength
What D&D Character are you? Chaotic Good Half-Elf Thief Bard
[And adding in one of my own (with little care whether anyone other than myself finds this amusing; hey, it’s not my web site): What Wheel of Time character are you? Anyone making comment on the fact that the test equated me with the Dark One (…”EVIL with a capital E” …) will be receiving educational visits from my minions…]
I am a Gauntlet Adventurer.
I strive to improve my living conditions by hoarding gold, food, and sometimes keys and potions. I love adventure, fighting, and particularly winning - especially when there’s a prize at stake. I occasionally get lost inside buildings and can’t find the exit. I need food badly.
What Video Game Character Are You?
That was my head!
While entering the final commercial on last night’s Daily Show, a camera swung over the audience — and if you look really, really closely (I recommend a VCR with a slow-motion function) you can see, for a second or two, the top of my head sitting in the audience. (Well, all of me was sitting in the audience — it’s not like I gave the top of my head the night off or anything. That’s just the only thing you can see.)
That was the first time I’ve been to a live taping of, well, pretty much anything, and it was a blast. The studio is much smaller than I’d expected; the group I was with — a dozen Columbia students — were sitting just a few yards from Jon Stewart’s anchor desk. And Stewart was even funnier in his interaction with the audience than he is on the show.
Now, all I have to figure out is this: should I put “featured on Comedy Central’s Daily Show” under education or employment on my resume?
Three hundred sixty-six days have passed since I wrote out a list of pre-millennium resolutions. I’m not usually the resolving type; as I wrote in preparation for the list last year: “What with the entire starting point of the year being arbitrary, and with full knowledge that changing oneself is damned difficult — combined with the fact that resolutions are roundly ignored — I am forced to believe that making such resolutions is a pointless waste of time.
“Nevertheless, I’m making ‘em. Chalk it up to pre-millennium madness.”
I (purposely) haven’t looked at the things since, though, based on the idea that slavishly trying to meet specific goals would be frustrating and futile. Instead, I narrowed the 16 resolutions into one overarching statement and aimed at that, figuring I’d look back a year later and see which of the individual resolutions I’d met.
So here’s the scorecard: I’ve done 1, 2, 3, 4, kinda 7, most of 8 and a good chunk of 9. I’m not sure about 5, 6 and 11 and had forgotten about 10, 12 and 15. I nailed 13, 14 and 16, though. Overall, I’d have to say, not bad.
This year’s list will reprise parts (the unmet parts) of last year’s, as well as adding 6 new goals. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Oh, yeah, and happy new year.
I haven’t seen snowdrifts like this since I was a kid, heading down to the end of the school parking lot after classes to romp in the mountains of snow created by the plows. It really came down last night.
New York is a different city in the snow. This morning, around 10 o’clock, the streets were still pristine and silent, covered in a blanket of cold. That stillness prevailed throughout the day; 12 hours later, although the snow was a little more dirty and the streets a little more clean, few souls had ventured out, abandoning the alleys of Gotham to police cars, buses and a few hardy types desperately trying to hail cabs.
What a great way to ring in the new year.
OK, the beard might just have to go.
I was taking a bus to the South Bronx the other night, standing in frnt of an elderly women with a bottle of soda. She looked up at one point and, catching my eye, starts asking, “You want a drink, Jesus? Are you thirsty, Jesus?”
This comes after I went to a Halloween party a few weeks ago wearing a kilt and had a number of people ask if I was dressed as Jesus. Jesus didn’t wear plaid! (I don’t think. This might be a promising new area for historic research.)
This isn’t the first time I’ve been mistaken for the Second Coming. I used to have shoulder-length hair I cut off after an Easter Sunday a few years ago. I was walking into church when a four-year-old sees me and says to his mother, “Mommy, Jesus has risen!”
I dunno. Maybe it’s just an instinctive reaction to my inner piety …
After receiving some questions about my last Ganesh posting, I should perhaps clarify the situation: I was, indeed, speaking metaphorically. However, since visiting a Hindu temple a few weeks ago, I actually have seen Ganesh quite a few times. The most recent was at a tattoo parlour, which I was visiting for a story.
While I’m there, one of the workers come in with a color copy of a Ganesh portrait, which she was preparing to tattoo on somebody. Ganesh is a quite popular figure, the artist said, although the tattooees are usually not Hindu.
For a big guy riding a mouse, he sure gets around a lot.
I’m being stalked by Ganesh. And let me tell you, seeing a being with the head of an elephant riding a mouse isn’t the type of thing you can be mistaken about. Sure, he’s wearing dark sunglasses and has a hat pulled down over his face. But disguising a trunk isn’t that easy …
Ernie is dead! (Shouting ‘Long live the Ernie” sounds like it should come next, but that wouldn’t make any sense, now would it …)
While working in Florida, I adopted a small blue beta fish, a friendly little creature who sat on my desk, helping me wile away the long hours between actually doing work. The fish — who, for some reason, I named in honor of Hemingway — was always there to suggest possible angles on stories or let me know who he thought should be interviewed for a particular piece.
When I left the Daytona Beach News-Journal, I left Ernie behind, figuring his inspirational presence would help the office in my absence. I failed to think of the impact my leavetaking would have on the little guy.
Earlier this week, Ernie obviously realized I wasn’t coming back for him and committed suicide — possibly by drowning himself. (Actually, I haven’t totally ruled out foul play. Some of the people who work there …) It must have been hard on him, the dawning realization that he was all alone in the world, with no one paying attention to his cries for help.
First the squirrel and now the fish. Even without dwelling on the Hamster Tragedy, I should probably start avoiding animals.
Note to self: In the future, avoid stories that involve walking the streets of Queens and asking black people if they’re actually from Africa.
C is for cookie; that’s good enough for me. C is for cookie; that’s good enough for me. Cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C.
Thanks, Melanie.
I just talked a squirrel into committing suicide.
It was, I swear, totally accidental, the result of living in a city that has afforded me more contact with crazy people. There’s the guy in the park next door, who spends the day wandering around the grass while carrying on totally lucid conversations with trees. And there’s the older gent who converses with birds as he tromps down the street — true dialogues that the birds apparently engage in as well.
While watching two squirrels chittering at each other yesterday, I decided to try talking with the wildlife myself.
So, a little while ago, I’m sitting on a park bench overlooking a grassy area some 10 feet below. On a tree before me sits a squirrel, minding his own business and taking in the sunset. I strike up a conversation.
After a few moments of back-and-forth chittering, the animal paused, uttered something in squirrel speak and raced to the leafy boughs some 30 feet up. Then, with scarcely a pause, he threw himself into space, hurtling to the ground far below.
I wish I knew what I had said to the poor creature that caused him such pain. And I wish I knew what his final words meant — a final message he thought I would deliver to his family? A vile curse? A farewell?
Poor creature, lured to his death though misunderstanding. How will I live with the guilt?
Let’s see what happened today…
* In 1419, John the Fearless is murdered at Montereau, France, by supporters of the dauphine.
* In 1547, the English defeated the Scots at Pinkie Cleugh.
* In 1855, Sevastopol, under siege for nearly a year, capitulates to the Allies during the Crimean War.
* In 1963, President John F. Kennedy federalizes Alabama’s National Guard to prevent Gov. George C. Wallace from using guardsmen to stop public-school desegregation.
Oh, yeah, and in 1974, I was born.
I expect presents — or at least egreetings …
Fall is here! OK, well, not really … but when I woke up this morning, there was that special tang in the air that heralds the season of dead leaves and hot spiced cider.
I grew up in Pennsylvania, but spent the past two years in Florida. My entire time there, I talked about how odd it seemed not to have “real” winters: I had moved to the Sunshine State, after all, from Cleveland, home of horrendous snow. But the white stuff wasn’t really what I missed. It was days like today — when the air has just a little bit of a nip to it, enough to give cuddling a reason; when summer isn’t quite gone, but you know Christmas is just ‘round the corner; when — to fall into Celtic mysticism — the veil between worlds weakens the most, as summer readies itself to end and winter to being. Autumn has always been my favorite season and this year, newly returned to the North, I’m perhaps enjoying it even more.
I can’t wait for the leaves to start changing …
In my childhood memories, the ice cream man is an idyllic feature, a friendly sort who’d swing by the neighborhood with frozen treats, cheerfully ringing his bell. Nonetheless, if the ice cream guy who’s been across the street for the past hour doesn’t turn off his music machine, I’m going to put a drumstick into his left eyeball.
Do-dodity do, da do da do, do-dotity do, da do da, indeed …
If this journalism thing doesn’t work out (and it darn well better), I think I’ll switch careers to be a street vendor. Not just any vendor, mind you; I have no interest in hawking knock-off watches or “real leather” belts. But there’s two salesmen on Broadway who catch my attention every time I walk by — the guy selling classic literature and the dude with carpet cleaner.
These two stands fascinate me for different reasons. The carpet cleaner stirs up childhood memories of strolling through the state fair, seeing row after row of badly dressed, over-aggressive, commission-driven hucksters selling everything from slice-‘em, dice-‘em, juice-‘em machines to early versions of dehydrating machines (Take that succulent piece of fruit that’s so tasty and juicy and make it a desiccated husk! That will make it taste even better!) to, indeed, carpet cleaners. But the guy on 112th and Broadway doesn’t have the fancy stand and microphone. It’s just him, a long, filthy rag of a carpet, a bottle of cleaner and a mop. Several days a week — including at least an hour today — he stands there scrubbing the carpet, convincing onlookers that they need Carpet Shine (tm). American capitalism at its best.
The bookseller is at the other end of the spectrum. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him actually try to sell anything: he just lounges around reading, letting people browse the amazing array of Shakespearean plays, Greek philosophy and political tomes he has crowded on a card table. They’re books people sell him or he picks up in actual used bookstores, he said the other day. He was cagey about releasing sales figures, but said he was doing OK (not paying rent on a storefront has to help). He just wants to help people read, he said.
So maybe that’s where I’ll end up in a few years. If I’m lucky, I’ll combine the two vendor motifs and end up selling really, really clean books.
The mellow, round notes echoed through the tunnel, even reaching up the stairs before being trampled to death by the descending crowd. The sound issued from across the platform: a black man in a frayed white shirt, breathing into his trumpet like it was the most important thing in the world.
Few of the throng around him paid much attention. Just to the side of his open instrument case, a young man in ripped jeans slowly danced with himself, while behind the trumpet player stood an older man – perhaps transfixed by the music, perhaps just looking for a place to rest. That was all.
There was more interest in the trumpet player on the other side of the platform. A small crowd, perhaps less wary with the player’s coin-filled case out of reach, watched enraptured, some bopping a bit as they listened, some resembling attentive statues. A diverse group: a young man in an impeccable suit, with large black shoes and the world’s smallest pager; next to him an older man, a Realtor, with a suit that might have been impeccable years ago and a blue hat that can only be called improbable; an Asian woman, her hair dyed red and her arm wrapped with the strap of a miniscule purse. A hip Rollerblader. A mother shushing her small son.
The trumpet player was gone when I came back through the station. In his place sat a senior citizen from China, a man who looked like he stepped out of a Tai Chi videotape. No trumpet for him. Instead, the old gent played a graichek, a fishing-pole like violin looped with a pair of strings.
His music wasn’t as sweet as the first’s, but as I walked by, I dropped a few coins in his hat, payment, perhaps, for the melody that had echoed through my head all afternoon.
Oh, yeah, and the one inclement weather item I didn’t bring back with me? An umbrella. And what greeted me when I hit the streets today? That’s right.
The weather gods obviously have a sense of humor. I’ve spent the last week — which came complete with 65 degree weather — bemoaning the lack of summer.
This past weekend, a trip to my parent’s home in Pennsylvania allowed me to finally pick up some sweaters and other warmer clothes, items I hadn’t thought I needed since it’s freaking August. So what greets me when I walk out of my apartment today? Sunny and 75 degrees.