Doc! It hurts when I try to think! What's wrong?

Doc interviews my and makes me do some thinkin... You are off my Christmas card list mister! :^)

1. You have a quirky sense of humor. What are the kinds of things make you laugh long, hard, and repeatedly?

What I find funny quite often depends on what mood I am in. I am a big fan of stand up comedians, and I really enjoy the ones who are fresh, not giving me the same old "what's the deal with that airline food" stuff. If the comedian can make me laugh without resorting to swearing, big kudos to them! Also, I love silliness as in movies like Airplane and Caddy Shack. I can watch both of those over and over and always find humor there. I also like physical humor, Chevt Chase in the old days of SNL was brilliant at that.


2. You spent some time in the Navy. What was your funniest experience as a member of the armed services? Did you spend long months at sea, or were you stationed at a base for most of your hitch?

I was in the Navy for 4 years, stationed aboard two different ships. They were both Destroyers, smaller escort ships designed to find Soviet Union subs looking for our aircraft carriers. I lucked out in both of my home ports, the first was Pearl Harbor in Hawaii for 2 years, then San Diego for a year and a half. During that time, I probably spent about half the time out at sea. I made two different deployments to the Western Pacific and Indian Oceans, keeping the world safe from Communist aggressors! ;^) I will do a post on the places I have visited.

The funniest experience I had in the Navy was a hazing incident with a new guy. The Navy is BIG on hazing, it's seems to be ingrained into the culture to mess with the newbies. If you find the right guy (stupid) you can talk them into performing a special duty called mail buoy watch. You tell them that they have to station themselves all the way up at the bow of the ship (pointy end for you land lubbers) with binoculars and watch for a red buoy that has our mail in a bag. The idea is that it gets left there for us, and he has to call out when he sees it. So, you tie them into the railing with a harness, and there they stand getting soaked with spray looking through their binoculars until we come get them, or they finally figure it out.

Well, we had one poor dude all tied in (good thing) and he was out there getting all wet, when a rouge wave came along! The front of our ship slammed into this wave, which was about 10 feet over the top of the bow. The ship just shuddered back and forth as the bow fought back out of the wave, we all looked on horrified that we probably lost this guy! After 15 seconds or so of him being underwater, the bow appears and he unhooks himself and beats feet at a dead run up to the bridge of the ship, yelling "I don't give a fuck about the mail"!!


3. Tell us about your wife. How did you meet and what was the attraction? How long have you been married?

As I mentioned in my interview to you, I don't believe in love at first sight. And with Kathy, it really wasn't love for awhile. I used to work in a ski shop in my home town of Idaho Springs with a good friend Doug. He moved down to Denver to run the ski department of a sporting goods store, and Kathy worked their part time as a cashier when she was a PE teacher in Denver. So we would go skiing in big groups together, or head out to clubs, whatever, and I got to know her slowly over time. I actually knew her about a year before I asked her out on a date. I am shocked she waited for me that long! Kathy grew up in a suburb of Seattle called Bellevue, went to Seattle U. She has always been athletic, is a masters team swimmer, and a triathlete. She doesn't work anymore since she has to stay home full time with Skyler.

Last March we celebrated our 24th anniversary.


4. You are walking through the sand and stumble across the proverbial genie in a bottle, (yeah, real original I know) and are granted three wishes, but there are some rules. You can’t wish for more wishes. All of your wishes must affect others, but not yourself. In no way can you include yourself in any wish. Also, for the rest of your life, to everyone that sees you, you will look like a young Charles Bronson and will sound like him too. In the mirror you will see yourself, and be able to see yourself age naturally. To everyone else, you remain a young ageless Charles Bronson. Would you take the wishes? If so, what would you wish for? How would looking like Charles Bronson change your life?

This is actually quite an easy decision Doc, and I don't even need the 3 wishes, just one. I would take any deal, look like the elephant man if I had to, if I could only have Skyler not have to be born prematurely and have CP. Every day for him is a struggle, fighting through constant pain, trying to be understood, scared that something might happen to us and there wouldn't be anybody to take care of him. I know life isn't fair, but what has this kid ever done to deserve his lot in life? What have I done that was so bad that this is my penance? I would give anything Doc, seriously, anything at all for Skyler to be a typical boy.

That said, Charles Bronson when he was young was a stud! I could handle that! I am a skinny dude, he is really built, I could probably get used to that.


5. You are going to live through the movie of your choice, as well as have the sole power to do the casting, but you have to pick from your blogger buddies, as well as include one celebrity who plays against type. E.g. Anthony Perkins as the hero, William Shatner as the quiet, shy, unassuming best friend, Paris Hilton as the prudish nun, etc. What is the movie and who plays each part? Villain, Hero, Love Interest, Henchmen/Minions, Comic Relief, etc.

Oh my God Doc, can't I just tell you my favorite movie or something? Thinking this hard makes my head hurt...

OK, lets give this a try. My movie of choice is mentioned above, Airplane!

Here is the cast, sorted by the character name, who played them in the movie, my pick of blogger for the role, and in most cases their definitive line from the movie:

Ted Striker (Robert Hays) I get to play Ted, cause you know, I never got over Macho Grande...

Elaine (Julie Hagerty) Dirty because in the movie she "blows up" Otto the autopilot. Who else could handle the job...

Dr. Rumack (Leslie Nielsen) Lets see, do we know a doctor, hmmm... Oh yeah, you Doc! "I just want you to know, we're all behind you."

Captain Oveur (Peter Graves) Grant Miller "Ever been to a Turkish Prison Joey?"

Murdock (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) Beth The role calls for a famous basketball player. I don't have one on my blog role, so I'll settle for a blogger, who from her profile photo, looks like she could rock the 'fro!

McCroskey (Lloyd Bridges) Chris "Looks like you picked a bad week to stop sniffing glue."

Rex Kramer (Robert Stack) The artist formerly known as Big Orange No URL Available... "Striker, listen, and you listen close: flying a plane is no different than riding a bicycle, just a lot harder to put baseball cards in the spokes."

Jive Lady (Barbara Billingsley) GETkristiLOVE GKL, I can totally see you delivering the line "Cut me some slack, Jack! Chump don' want no help, chump don't GET da' help!"

Nun (Maureen McGovern) vikkitikkitavi Vikki, you can handle delivering a beat down to the freaked out lady, right?

Johnny (Stephen Stucker) Dick Small "This? Why, I can make a hat or a brooch or a pterodactyl"

Randy (Lorna Patterson) Ellen Aim because she is such a movie buff I have to give her one of the main roles!

Hanging Lady (Ann Nelson) Cheer34 "No wonder you're upset. She's lovely. And a darling figure... supple, pouting breasts... firm thighs. It's a shame you two don't get along."

Lieutenant Hurwitz (Ethel Merman) Teri
"Ted Striker: It's Lieutenant Hurwitz. Severe shell-shock. Thinks he's Ethel Merman.
Lieutenant Hurwitz: [singing] You'll be swell, you'll be great. Gonna have the whole world on a plate. Startin' here, startin' now. Honey, everything's comin' up roses..."

First Jive Dude ( ) Johnny Yen "Shit man, that honky mus' be messin' my old lady... got to be runnin' cold upside down his head. You know?"

Second Jive Dude ( ) Michael "Hey home, I can dig it. You know he ain't gonna lay no mo' big rap up on you man"

Mrs. Geline ( ) BeckEye "I haven't felt this awful since I saw that Ronald Reagan film."

Radio DJ Jen "This is WZAZ in Chicago, where disco lives forever..."
[the airplane zooms overhead the building, knocking the radio antenna down, and the signal goes dead]

Air Controller (Kenneth Tobey) Kirby "I know but this guy has no flying experience at all. He's a menace to himself and everything else in the air... yes, birds too."

Jack Kirkpatrick (played by himself) The Boob Lady gets to deliver this line: "Shanna, they bought their tickets, they knew what they were getting into. I say, let 'em crash."

The exchange between the two announcer voices goes to Flannery and Raven I realize this is supposed to be between a man and a women, but it's funny and they could handle it:
First announcer: The white zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only. There is no stopping in a red zone.
Second announcer: The white zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only. There is no stopping in a red zone.
First announcer: The red zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only. There is no stopping in a white zone.
Second announcer: No, the white zone is for loading. Now, there is no stopping in a RED zone.
First announcer: The red zone has always been for loading.
Second announcer: Don't you tell me which zone is for loading, and which zone is for unloading.
First announcer: Look Betty, don't start up with your white zone shit again. There's just no stopping in a white zone.
Second announcer: Oh really, Vernon? Why pretend, we both know perfectly well what this is about. You want me to have an abortion.
First announcer: It's really the only sensible thing to do, if its done safely. Therapeutically there's no danger involved

I ran out of roles for all the bloggers, so I am sorry if you were not included. No offense intended.

As far as the one celebrity who plays against type, the distinguished actor and ultimate thespian Sir Laurence Olivier gets to play the role of Otto, the blow up auto pilot.

I realize you probably expected me to go a lot deeper with that exercise, but like I usually do, I use humor to laugh at life instead of wringing my hands at how bad it can be. Maybe someday I will try and be a bit more serious, but not right now.

However, I was serious with #4. Really Doc, if it meant killing somebody with my bare hands, I don't think I would even hesitate if offered a chance to cure Skyler.