8 Random Things About Me... Pop Culture Style

Recently, Lori of Lori's Old School Mix tagged me to participate in a meme in which I was to list 8 random things about me. Although I won't be tagging any other bloggers, they are more than welcome to pick up the baton and list 8 random facts about themselves on their respective blogs. In keeping with the topic of my blog, here are the 8 random facts about me:

1. The first celebrity that I ever met was Curly Neal of The Harlem Globetrotters. It was around 1977 and we went to see The Globetrotters at the I.M.A. (Industrial Mutual Auditorium) in downtown Flint. During the warmups, me and two relatives close to my age (a niece and nephew... I was born an uncle) were standing at courtside. Curly came over and shook our hands.

2. Just like Frank Costanza, I have an extensive collection of TV Guides. My collection started with the Fall Preview issue for the 1981-1982 season and ended during the summer of 2006. Although I still have most of them, some were lost because of water damage while they were stored in my basement. The reason I decided to stop collecting them is that I moved into an apartment last summer. Surprisingly, it wasn't hard to stop collecting them. If you know of anyone interested in buying some vintage TV Guides, let me know.

3. In January 2000, I was involved in a single-car accident in which my car (a red 2-door Cavalier) was totalled. While driving to work on the expressway, I blew a back tire and lost control of the car. My car bounced off the concrete median and flipped over (it happened so fast that I'm not sure exactly how many times it flipped). When it was over, the car was upside down! Luckily, I was wearing a seatbelt. It was similar to an episode of "The A-Team" because I was able to climb out of the car (while it was still upside down). The only injury I suffered was a minor bump below my left knee. The sister of my girlfriend at the time jokingly said that nobody but me could get into such an accident and walk away with nary a scratch. The song that I was listening to in my CD player at the time of the crash was "See You Later, Alligator" by Bill Haley & His Comets.

4. While on the subject of Bill Haley, one of the strangest things that ever happened to me involved him. In February 1981, after Monday night's episode of "The White Shadow", CBS ran their newsbreak. For some reason, I wondered to myself what if Bill Haley died (why a thought like that would come into my head, I'll never know). Shortly thereafter, the anchor doing the newsbreak announced that Bill Haley had died of a heart attack! Suffice it to say that this shook me up for a little bit.

5. One day when I was about 5 or 6 years old, I was outside playing. I can't remember exactly why (probably for a drink of water/Kool-Aid or to use the bathroom), but I came in for a bit. I noticed that one of my older brothers was watching TV and laughing hysterically. Naturally, I sat down to see what was so funny. At the point that I started watching, it was a fast-motion sequence of these guys being chased by some criminals in a warehouse. One of the bad guys damaged his hand somehow and it swelled up to the size of a baseball glove. I believe that one of the good guys got clubbed over the head by one of his own pals. I was mesmerized by what I was seeing. This was my introduction to The Three Stooges. I have been a fan ever since.

6. In late 2004, I did karaoke for the first time. For about a year prior to that, a friend kept asking me to do it. I told her that I would only do a song that doesn't require great vocal chops. Another provision is that I wasn't going onstage alone. The two of us (along with her boyfriend at the time) did the song "Lucille" by Kenny Rogers. I enjoyed it so much that later in the night, me and her duetted on "Chantilly Lace" by The Big Bopper!

7. The first music that I ever bought for myself was the cassette version of "Time Peace: The Rascals' Greatest Hits". My first CD purchase was "The Ultimate Box Tops".

8. I was once heard saying the word "fuck" on the air. A few years ago, I worked at an AM station in Owosso, MI. One of my duties was to do voiceover spots for our various clients. After I was done with my morning show, I would go into our recording studio and do the spots. One of our clients was a heating and cooling company. I hated doing these spots because the copy was so dry and boring. However, I did my best to breathe some life into them. Anyways, I was having a hell of a time getting through one of the spots... I kept blowing take after take. On about the 15th try, I was almost home-free. In my head I was saying, "Yes, I'm gonna finally get through it". When I stumbled over one of the words of the last few sentences, I said "fuck" out of frustration. Since I had to redo the spot, I erased the flubbed take... at least I thought I did. A few days later during her show, my Program Director played the abbreviated commercial on the air with me saying "fuck" at the end! Because it was in the computer and looked like a normal commercial, she had no reason to suspect that anything was wrong. Since she knew it wasn't intentional, she was pretty cool about it. We actually had a good laugh about it.