One of my favorite bloggers, the prolific Annie Gottlieb, tagged me for a meme in which you share seven random or weird facts about yourself. As she said about herself and the bloggers she tagged, that’s ALL we already do—share random and weird facts about ourselves, it’s hardly a novelty! Still, I was intrigued by her seven facts and wanted to know more details about each one. And boy, were they random—from mentioning the decades of journals sitting in her brother’s basement (I’d be so tempted to dive into those babies every time I went downstairs to do laundry—at the very least I’d have to check out the entry Annie wrote in 1959 on “the day the music died”) to the home euthanasia of her sick cats that she performed herself (she had to shoot the stuff directly into her beloved cats’ hearts—oy!) to her mastering Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” at the age of three.
I’m still swamped with a freelance editing gig so this comes at a perfect time since I hate not writing in my blog more often and yet I can't seem to make it happen. So here are some truly random, truly spontaneous facts about myself off the top of my head. This post is going to be pure stream-of-consciousness. Can we have a therapist standing by to analyze what kind of stuff comes up when I don’t edit or censor myself? I’m going to TRY to keep it as short as Annie’s but you know that brevity has never been my strong suit. Here goes:
1. I made my TV debut in 1966 on the dance show, “Kiddie-a-Go-Go.” I was seven years old and went to the Channel 26 studios (remember those high-numbered, static-filled “UHF” channels that existed before cable?) with my sister and her friend Debby Becker. Or maybe “Kiddie-a-Go-Go” was on Channel 32? Anyway, I remember everything about that experience and thought of it when I saw the movie and play versions of “Hairspray” because it wasn’t too far off from “The Corny Collins Show.” Our black-and-white kiddie “American Bandstand” was hosted by a sexy Chicago personality named Elaine (Pandora) Mulqueen who wore (gulp!) a clown outfit but, if I recall correctly, also performed part of each show in a very hot, mod little mini-dress that was straight out of “To Sir, With Love.” I had no idea how to dance back then (or now) but was more fearless in my youth. At the beginning of the show I spied one of my fellow dancers doing a very easy number called the “salt and pepper” where you moved as if your hands were salt and pepper shakers and I stayed with this one dance for the whole hour. Oh, what I’d give to see a video of our performance. Through the miracle of YouTube, I was able to watch a “Kiddie A-Go-Go” clip yesterday for the first time in 40 years, and it was exactly as I remembered it (I can’t make the damn clip work today or I’d embed it). I was surprised by the integration (lots of black kids dancing, but of course, never black and white kids dancing together) and impressed by the psychedelic moves of Chicago’s hipster seven to ten-year-olds! Oy, what a relic. I didn’t appear on TV again until the early 70s when I modeled a purple leisure suit in a commercial for my grandfather’s clothing store. Mercifully, no record of this exists today,
2. I’ve been stopped by police and nearly arrested three times in my life, all before the age of 21. The first time was in a card shop called Harmony Hall where I was innocently shopping one day with my friend Lee. I must have been about 14 years old and was a complete goody-goody despite my best efforts to look like a hippie with my long hair and torn jeans and fringed suede jacket. I guess the local coppers thought I looked like trouble because out of the blue they pulled me over and made me empty my pockets. I was outraged by the injustice of it but didn’t feel like I could object. When they saw that I hadn’t shoplifted anything they not only didn’t apologize, they barked at me to get out of the store. Damn those fuzz. The second time I was running down the street trying not to miss the city bus that would take me to school. It was several years later and my hair was even longer. I had a backpack on and assorted ripped denim apparel and I guess I looked like I was fleeing a crime because a squad car pulled in front of me and demanded that I stop. I was even more outraged this time, especially as I saw my Kimball Avenue bus come and go without me. The cops inspected my backpack and let me go with a sneer. It had only been a few years since the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and I viewed them all as Mayor Daley’s thugs. The third time I was stopped I was in college and waiting for a friend on a street corner near downtown Chicago. I was leaning up against a building and looking for my friend among the people who were walking by. I guess the police thought I was looking for a different kind of “friend” and told me to get lost. This was just after some born-again Christian had stopped to try to talk me out of a life of prostitution. OY. I wonder what I was wearing that day.
3. I didn’t get a driver’s license until I was 27 years old. Because I was younger than all my classmates, having skipped third grade, I wasn’t old enough to take Drivers’ Ed with my high school class. I meant to take it the following year when I turned 15, but never got around to it. With every passing year I felt more awkward about learning how to drive with those “kids” and it never happened. At one point my dad tried to teach me in his giant black Cadillac and that traumatic experience set me back another 10 years. I was very embarrassed about my lack of a license and just didn’t want to discuss it. Besides, I could get anywhere on Chicago public transit. It wasn’t until I get a job out here in California in 1986 that I had to learn how to drive, buy a car, and drive clear across the country all in a span of SIX DAYS!
4. I have a pathological fear of large flags. It’s crazy, I know, but whenever I see huge flags I get extremely nervous and feel like I’m having a panic attack. Regular-sized ones don’t bother me, just the oversized display flags. Needless to say, I haven’t attended any opening ceremonies for the Olympics. Is this some memory from a past life when I was taunted at a Hitler Youth rally? I pretentiously named my fear “drapeauphobia” using the French word for flag.
5. I’ve fainted dead away twice in my life. The first time was when I was in 8th grade and volunteering at Channel 11, our local PBS station. My friends and I got a “job” blowing up helium balloons for the fundraising auction that the station was having. We were thrilled to be inside a TV studio and we were constantly ingesting the helium so we could talk like Munchkins. It must have eventually gone to my head because at one point I just fell to the ground, narrowly missing the huge helium tank on my way down. The second time was in the early 1990s when I was working as editor-in-chief at a nonprofit in L.A. We were in the middle of creating a social studies-based arts-infused curriculum called “Different Ways of Knowing” which we had to finish in time for the upcoming teacher workshops. We worked until midnight many nights and all through the weekends and I was exhausted. On the way to work one morning, I stopped for a bowl of oatmeal at DuPar’s in Farmer’s Market. As soon my oatmeal came I felt sick and couldn’t even look at it. I threw a few bucks on the counter and ran out of the restaurant. As I walked past the large DuPar’s windows in front of patrons gorging on French Toast and hotcakes, I went down like a lead balloon, my papers flying in the wind and my head hitting the concrete. Some of the stunned customers ran to my aid and escorted me back into the restaurant. I was so embarrassed by the spectacle I had made (and I was sure that most of them thought I was on drugs) that I refused further offers of help and insisted I was fine. I waited a few minutes and then drove myself to work as planned. Was I nuts?
6. I believe in reincarnation. It’s not something I think about on a daily basis but I have had many experiences that make me believe that I’ve lived before. No, I don’t think I was anyone famous but a renowned trance channeller in the early 1980s told me I was once a son of the famous Lakota Indian leader Crazy Horse, that I had been guillotined during the French Revolution, and that I spent one lifetime as a Scottish writer named Lewis Spence. I do believe I have a past-life connection to the man who built our 1909 house, Henry C. Jensen. Will this admission come back to haunt me when I’m running for public office?
7. I was once part of an international Palestinian truck-smuggling ring based in Germany. Did I already tell this story? It’s an odd one, and of course I wasn’t really working with an illegal middle eastern group that was funding the PLO, but for a brief moment in Munich, Germany, people thought I was. I was living in Paris in 1979 doing my Junior Year Abroad and loving every second of it. In the spring, during one of the French college students’ numerous strikes that year (yes, the students went on strike!), my friend Kathy and I decided to hop on a train to go to Bavaria. I was fascinated by Munich ever since the horrific events of the 1972 Olympics there and Kathy spoke the language, albeit with a heavy New Jersey accent. On the train we were approached by a much older gentleman who seemed very interested in us and offered to help get us a cheap place to say in the German city. He claimed his brother-in-law owned a fantastic hotel in a neighborhood that was a little off the beaten track and he could get us a great rate if we’d accompany him there. INSANELY, we agreed, although we immediately had second thoughts when we reached the very run-down, ominous-looking area. We wanted to shake our new friend, who was becoming a big annoyance because he never left our side, but we didn’t have a lot of money and we were way too timid for our own good, afraid of hurting his feelings, believe it or not, so we got a room next to his at the flea-bag hotel. During the middle of the night we heard a furious knocking on our door that scared the bejeesus out of us. Some shady characters informed us, in broken German and English, that our truck would be waiting for us in the morning and explained how we’d just need to drive it across the border. They asked us if we had all the right papers and we just stood there dumbfounded. We found our “friend” the next morning who said it was just a misunderstanding, not to worry about it. We then realized that we were staying in Munich’s Palestinian ghetto and that everyone in this hotel was involved in some kind of smuggling activities. Still, we were too wussy to get rid of this guy who insisted quite forcefully that he go with us on our planned trip that day to the Dachau concentration camp. We finally ditched him that night. It’s a wonder I made it through Europe alive. Kathy and I also went to Moscow that year with a bunch of French students and there we did break a few international laws. But I’ll save that for another meme…
I’m now supposed to tag seven people which I’m reluctant to do but I’ll see if any of the following bite: Mining Nuggets, Here in the Hills, siblings Telecommuter Talk and Ian’s Blog, Division Street Princess, and the dormant-too-long Mother Courage and Tequila Mockingbird.
Update: Kids, you're in luck. Here's the clip from "Kiddie-a-Go-Go" and it looks so familiar I'm not sure you won't spot me somewhere in that crowd of gyrating pre-teens. I remember the sponsor, Mickelberry Meats, and while I remember the opening when the host jumped out of the box, I just now got the joke: Pandora's box. Oy, what drugs were these people on? Enjoy...
Wow. Those are some great random facts about yourself. I didn't learn how to drive until I was 30, I even lived in LA without a license and actually took the bus to get to work and back in 1988.
Posted by: churlita | April 04, 2008 at 01:04 PM
Wow Danny, who knew???
Posted by: Barbara | April 04, 2008 at 03:15 PM
Well these are amazingly interesting things about you Danny....Weird? Well, LOL...I guess it all depends on your point of view....I didn't find them weird at all....In fact I found them fascinating....!
Weird would be that you have six fingers on your left hand...Or something like that....!
Will I do this one? Well, I did it a long time ago...But I have absolutely no memory of what I said back then....
I'll get back to you on this one....! (lol)
Posted by: OldOldLady Of The Hillsl | April 04, 2008 at 04:52 PM
My Lordy..! I just watched this dear little clip....! Did you know that I was actually on AMERICAN BANDSTAND "back in the day"???
Oooops! That could have been one of my "seven weird things"....!
Posted by: OldOldLady Of The Hillsl | April 04, 2008 at 04:57 PM
This was incredibly fun, and the video was beyond great! I never got those American shows where people would dance - was that really suppposed to be entertaining?
Posted by: Elisabeth | April 05, 2008 at 07:20 AM
Shouldn't that be grosdrapeauphobia? ;)
Posted by: Rurality | April 05, 2008 at 05:46 PM
Man, you expect me to do this after giving us all those oh-so-fascinating things? I can't possibly compete (well, except for the fact that I also believe in reincarnation -- sort of a la Albert Brooks in DEFENDING YOUR LIFE, which means I keep coming back here over and over again). Anyway, I'll see what I can come up with sometime soon.
Posted by: Emily Barton | April 05, 2008 at 05:51 PM
A purple leisure suit? That's child abuse!
The theme from "Kiddie-A-Go-Go" sounds very Gary Lewis and the Playboys.
Posted by: Melinda | April 05, 2008 at 06:02 PM
I don't care how long it takes you, even if it takes years of research -- you must find the video of you on Kiddie-a-go-go.
Posted by: Neil | April 05, 2008 at 10:36 PM
Okay Danny, there are now seven weird things posted on Tequila Mockingbird. The one thing I didn't do is tag seven other people (yet). Primarily because two of the other three people I know who blog are you and our friend Mother Courage. If I can figure out more people to tag, I will.
Posted by: Larry | April 06, 2008 at 12:44 AM
Danny,
When you call - I must answer! So, my 7 weird and random things are up! Gee. This was quite difficult for me and yet ... there they are! Thanks for tagging me - I think.
Posted by: tamarika | April 07, 2008 at 05:30 AM
That's an amazing B movie episode you lived through there, that Palestinian drug-smuggling ring. Did this guy look like Claude Rains, by any chance?
Posted by: David | April 07, 2008 at 08:55 AM
Actually, David, he was a dead ringer for Omar Sharif.
Emily, do you remember the name of Albert Brooks' character in "Defending Your Life"? It was DANNY MILLER. The only other actors who've played Danny Miller in the movies were Larry Parks and, believe it or not, Sally Field.
Posted by: Danny | April 07, 2008 at 09:15 AM
Oh Danny, what would I ever do without you in my blog life? Hilarious post.
Posted by: Wendy | April 10, 2008 at 09:39 AM
Hi Danny,
Just catching up on your posts and see that you sweetly named me in your meme quest. If you've been on my blog lately, you'll note I haven't added anything since Oct. '07. I have a good excuse: I'm writing a novel and since I've never been able to do two things at one time, am focusing on that.
Thanks for thinking of me, but I'll have to take a pass this time around.
Your 7 Weird Facts are, as always, fascinating and fun to read.
Love,
Elaine
Posted by: Elaine Soloway | April 14, 2008 at 05:39 AM
I just spit Coke.
We never had a Kiddie A Go Go in Music City. I'm jealous.
Posted by: sistasmiff | April 18, 2008 at 06:55 PM
Why don't I remember Kiddie-A-GoGo? Is it because I was in Pittsburgh and you were somewhere infinitely cooler? I was going to comment on various postings - I'm catching up on your tonight - but the clip has got me up and doing the Monkey.
Sue
Posted by: Sue Katz: Consenting Adult | April 27, 2008 at 08:24 PM
I think I knew you as a kid. I went to Rogers School and KINS for hebrew school. We hung out with kids from Peterson. Does any of this sound familiar? I found this site Googling for Camp Objibwa. Let me know.
Posted by: annonymous chgo | July 17, 2008 at 09:30 PM
And I thought it was cool when my sister was on Romper Room....dadgum, Danny. That just knocks you up to the top of my Cool List.
Posted by: Sharon | January 02, 2009 at 08:58 AM