Nonsexual Transmission of Internet Syphillis

John Hornor Jacobs infected me. I was asleep at the time, which in a counter-intuitive way makes it slightly less perverse. I don't know what the circumstances were between him and Daniel O'Shea, but I feel no responsibility to track this back to Kent Gowran, who I don't even fucking know, or any of the other predecessors. Patient zero is probably in the eighth grade. It is somewhat of a mystery why we all seem so susceptible to this particular infection, but I can only assume that writers - even part-time hacks such as myself - have little immunity when it comes to talking about ourselves, whether self-gratifying or not.

For both of you reading this who are not clan Jacobs or O'Shea, here are the rules of this meme:

• Tell up to six outrageous lies about yourself, and at least one outrageous truth – or – switch it around and tell six outrageous truths and one outrageous lie. (See below.)
• Nominate some more “Creative Writers” who might have fun coming up with outrageous lies of their own. (Check the end of this post.)
• Post links to the blogs you nominate.
• Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know that you have nominated them.

I will follow suit with those what came afore me and withhold whether truths outnumber lies or vice versa:

1. My great great great great Grandfather's brother was Jethro Tull. Not the band – like Luke Wilson in Armageddon, I also get annoyed when people think "Jethro Tull" is just a member of the band – but the Irish agrarian for whom the band is named.
2. When I was 19 I was toweled dry after a shower by a gay night clerk at a ritzy hotel in Innsbruck, Austria, who gave me a room for free because my hair was long and blond and because I was wearing a "San Francisco" sweatshirt.
3. More than 10,000 people in Japan know my face because they have seen me die on screen. I have received fan mail, though not for many years.
4. I was arrested, but not charged, for criminal mischief and disorderly conduct in San Marcos, TX. Even though I had been plenty disorderly that evening, it was a case of mistaken identity for the incident they had in mind at the time.
5. I know 13 computer languages, 3 spoken tongues, and the universal language of love.
6. I was once a member of a communal cult whose leader believes that he can cure cancer and change the weather.
7. In 1986 I got drunk on Jim Beam and Orange Crush with the members of the Delaware Destroyers backstage after a show in Little Rock, AR. George Thorogood made an appearance, but didn't stick around; I'm 95% sure he had a girl from the audience waiting for him in the hall.

I'll add another twist: these might all be true... or they might all be lies.

Scott Osborn and Chuck Plunkett, step to the podium please.

Things I Miss The Most

I hired a guy a few years ago who was a Jehovah’s Witness and was very careful to tell me that he didn’t want doughnuts on his birthday, which is what our custom was at the place I worked before this one. Except I didn’t know why he was telling me that, because he’d never said what his faith was and of course I didn’t ask - I did have that much Personnel Policy sense - and anyway I wouldn’t have known that they eschew birthday celebrations in the first place.

I told him in what I thought was good humor that it was okay: we’d just have doughnuts without him in his honor, which he didn’t think was all that funny. So then he had to tell me why he didn’t celebrate birthdays and why he’d rather the rest of us not celebrate his birthday, either, and it caused a Big Panic about religious discrimination and what would happen if we ever had to fire him – which we did, though pretty clearly for performance issues.

On the rare occasions that I miss being a manager, I think about things like this and feel better.