I've been tagged by my colleague Leslie Jump. Even though this game's been around forever, no one's ever tapped me before. Finally! (I'm only being slightly sarcastic. I really was feeling a little left out.)
OK, here goes:
Four Jobs I've Had
• Houseboy at a hotel. My first job, in middle school--I schlepped a lot of room service trays and pushed a lot of laundry carts.
• Laborer on a construction crew. Several summers in high school and college. Twenty years ago, I quit the best of the bunch because I'd started dating a girl and the job was out of state--the crew stayed in a rented house near the job 12 days out of every two weeks. Great money, but I just couldn't stay away from that girl. I wonder where she is today...
• Soccer coach. While taking a semester off from college, I coached the JV team at a local high school where my dad had started the varsity program a few years previously. I wasn't a star player as a kid, but I'd played just enough to know what I was doing. I soon learned that understanding and motivating people was a lot more important than soccer strategy, and, happily, I turned out to be pretty good at that. Not perfect, however--I think we wound up 7-9-1 on the season. I still remember those kids fondly--one of my favorite jobs.
• Bouncer, bartender & assistant manager. At the Brown University Underground I spent a semester manning the door on Thursdays--the insanely crowded "Funk Night"--and a semester bartending before taking over Monday nights my senior year. Fall was "Monday Night Football," which was fine, but in the Spring I started "Mixed Media Night," which was a semi-curated evening of music, comedy and performance art. My favorite band were the inimitable Boston Sushi Fiesta, but Lisa Loeb and Liz Mitchell's acoustic duo were really popular on campus at the time, and I remember being pretty happy when they agreed to to play. I emceed each week with one of those big ol' vintage microphones--it was a blast, and a great note on which to end my peripatetic undergrad experience.
Four Movies I Can Watch Over and Over
• O Brother, Where Art Thou? True fact: Just this morning I wrote elsewhere "I could watch [O Brother...] every week for a year and still find something new to enjoy in that flick."
• Barcelona. Where'd you go, Whit Stillman?
• The Thin Man. Powell and Loy are the best team ever, but be advised that only the first two flicks in the series live up to this standard. It's all downhill when the producers decide to add a kid to the Charles household.
• Magnolia. A sprawling, insanely ambitious flick that astonishes even when it inevitably falls somewhat short. My favorite thread in the tapestry is the Jason Robards-Julianne Moore-Philip Seymour Hoffman-Tom Cruise storyline. That's right, Tom Cruise--far and away the best performance of his career. Hoffman and Moore are routinely brilliant, and Robards, in his last film role, is richly memorable.
Four TV Shows I Love to Watch
• Deadwood. Season One blew me away. Season Two's just about to come out on disc (I don't have cable), so I'm planning to watch One all over again just to get ready. Beautiful, poetic, haunting.
• The Sopranos. Almost left this one off the list, because I really think it slipped last season. It's not even that the show slipped--I think I'm just losing interest in the trope of mobsters as people with ordinary lives. It was novel and thought-provoking at first, but I've grown increasingly repulsed by the characters' immorality. I'm hooked, so I'll keep watching--but I'm honestly looking forward to the end.
• The O.C. That's right, "The O.C." My wife and I usually have one cheesy show we love to watch together, and for the past three seasons, that has been it. We came for the hype, but we stayed for the surprisingly smart dialogue that kept cropping up between sensationalist plotlines and pretty SoCal scenery. It's run its course creatively and has turned into pretty much just another evening soap, but we still have a soft spot for it.
• American Idol. Another guilty pleasure. Each year I say I won't get hooked again, and I'm successful half the time. But this year...I'm hooked again. There's so much about it that I dislike, from the horrific early-stage performances that have taken on a dissolute, knowing quality to the inevitably tiresome winners. But every year there are a few offbeat contestants who I find myself pulling for, and I can't help but tune in to see if they advance. I do want to state for the record that I've never voted.
Four Places I've Been On Vacation
• New Orleans, my favorite place to get away. We meant to go last August and had to cancel, and then Katrina hit. We'd like to get back this summer, but so many things are up in the air, it's hard to make plans. But we will be back.
• St. Helena, Napa County. A sleepy gem of a town in the middle of wine country.
• Crater Lake. One highlight (out of thousands) from a solo cross-country motorcycle trip in '97. (I can't believe that was almost ten years ago.)
• Cinque Terre. My favorite stop on our one trip to Europe. Five stunningly beautiful villages nestled in coves along the mountainous Ligurian coast. Delicious white wine with a hint of sparkle that never makes it to the U.S. And the home of pesto--they supposedly have the equivalent of a DOCG for their basil. Mmmmmmm.
Four Favorite Dishes
• Barbequed Shrimp at Mr. B's Bistro in the French Quarter. Our first meal every time we've gone to New Orleans.
• Salmon in parchment at Marisol, on the border between the Quarter and Faubourg Marigny. My favorite restaurant anywhere.
• Freshly cracked Dungeness crab, rushed home from the San Francisco Fish Company in the Ferry Building.
• Texas Big Beef Ribs from Memphis Minnie's.
Four Blogs I Read Daily
• Grant McCracken. Too smart by half.
• Mickey Kaus. A reasonable approximation of my own politics.
• Virginia Postrel. Everything from design to liberty and back again.
• The Mighty MJD. Sports and irreverence.
Four Places I'd Rather Be
Well, besides the four vacation spots above...
• Hiking in Point Reyes, a miracle less than an hour from home.
• Watching a Giants game.
• On a motorcycle trip down Highway 1.
• Relaxing in Barnegat Light, New Jersey, where my wife's family goes to the beach every summer. Nothing to do but read, take a jog, or eat some fresh seafood. Perfect.
Four Bloggers I'm Tagging
• My wife!
Thanks, Leslie. This was a nice way to re-acquaint myself with more than a few of my favorite things--and I'm an enthusiastic supporter of all the above, so if anyone has any questions, feel free to drop me a line.
