Ten Things I've Done You Probably Haven't
Over at his Whatever blog, John Scalzi has listed 10 things he's done that other people probably haven't, and he's invited others to post their lists. It sounded fun, so I thought I'd play along. Now, I'm not normally a name dropper, but because of what I do for a living, my list is especially celebrity heavy. Here it is in no particular order:
- Stood six feet away from Elvis Costello/U2/David Bowie/Bruce Springsteen/Sting/Elton John/Billy Joel while they sang
- Shook Bono's hand
- Was invited to dance by Bruce Springsteen
- Was called a "dumb c**t" by actress Denny Dillon
- Have met all the members of Monty Python except Graham Chapman and Terry Gilliam
- Pissed off actor Topol (Who's calling, please? Topol. I'm sorry, who? Topol. Topol? Yes, Topol! Like the smoker's tooth polish?)
- Was party to stealing a monsignor's car and joy riding around Alphabet City when it was still a really bad neighborhood
- Almost walked into the Thompson Square Park riot
- Attended a mob wedding and hung out/danced with several members of the Gambino crime family (including one button man)
- Drove 110 mph on the FDR Drive at 2:30 in the morning OR drove across the Brooklyn Bridge at midnight at 60 mph while singing along to "No Sleep Till Brooklyn"
posted by Andrea Kail at
5:52 PM
4 Comments:
Ummm. I don't know that I've actually done anything cool, though.
1.) Climbed out of my second story bedroom window onto the six feet of snow on the lawn and dug a snow fort down. Dad had to rescue me from the hole I dug.
2.) Climbed the Bear Mountain Bridge main tower (north of NYC) and hung off the wires up on top. I think we were a little bit drunk.
3.) Swam with a relay team across the Long Island Sound (15 miles).
4.) Climbed around inside of the walls of the New York Stock Exchange.
5.) Caving in Hawaii with only a pen flashlight, which eventually went out. I fell off a cliff on the way back out, but my ankle caught in a hole, so I ended up hanging upsidedown, twenty or so feet above the cave floor.
6.) Caught in a hazardous waste fire in an oil tank-farm, wearing a space suit. We were beating the flames off of the pipes with our gloves, trying to keep them from spreading through the tanks. It worked until a hose burst and dumped 300 gallons of fuel oil on us like a blowtorch. Good times.
7.) Doing sprinkler repair work in the ceiling of a very active neo-natal intensive care ward. I stood on the ladder and leaned out over the incubators. The nurses leaned out over the incubators below me to keep dust and debris from falling on the little ones. I kept thinking about that old ratchet hanging from my belt that was always falling apart at the wrong moment.
8.) Climbing up through a forty foot high pipe organ in St. Peter's Cathedral, lower Manhattan, to get to the attic and check on 9-11 debris that had smashed through the roof. I think they said part of the wheel of the airplane came through - took out a huge support beam.
9.) Going on two dinosaur digs way out in the outback of the badlands, North Dakota. 109 degrees, baby, but it's a dry heat.
10.) I got so excited over spaghetti dinner when I was five years old, that I ran into a tree and broke my collar bone.
I must be a dumb cut, too, because I don't know who the fuck Denny Dillon is.
Okay, I just IMDb'ed her, and she's vaguely familiar looking, but I would never know her if I passed her on the street.
Is it mandatory that when someone enters the entertainment industry, they forget all about their life prior to then?
Andrea: This is great material. I'd like to see the stories where you use it.
Rick Bowes
LOL! There's a good writing exercise: take these 10 disparate plot elements and make a story out of them.
Actually, some of the mob stuff shows up in the new story I'm working on.
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