This isn't really a news update this time. I just made a list of fifty random things about myself. Here goes:

 

1. I know the Ecuadorian, Paraguayian, American and Canadian national anthems by memory, and big chunks of the Brazilian and British as well. But not the German (which is where my citizenship lies).

2. I've cleared the poverty line once in my life -- for two weeks between finishing a lucrative summer job and getting back to paying for University.

3. I've hitch hiked enough miles to circle the world, and then some. Maybe circle the world twice, but I'm not sure about my estimate on that.

4. I've sung on the Great Wall of China

5. I don't mind unshaven legs and armpits (although I don't PREFER them either)

6. I think orange and red look good together (child of the 80s?)

7. I've never drunk an alcoholic beverage, smoked a cigarette, or taken an illegal drug. I have, however, smoked a Cuban cigar and an Arabian water pipe.

8. I have friends from every continent (except Antarctica), and friends on every continent (except Antarctica)

9. I once got a ride from a man who had lived in Antarctica for two years. (Among my other rides were: schoolteachers, contractors, a cop, army officers, a CEO, hospital technicians, film crew members, a prostitute, a telemarketer, a minister, a crack dealer, a limousine driver -- in his limousine, etc.)

10. I've spent the night in gas stations, storage rooms, churchyards, truck containers, roadside ditches, on lumber piles, in schoolyards, on a stranger's sofa, in a recording studio (wrapped in some bassist's gig bag)...

11. For University grad day I had shaved off half of my hair, cut the remaining half in an irregular pattern and dyed some of it green and purple. I don't think anyone noticed, though, as I wore a grad cap throughout the ceremony...

12. I've cliff dived 40 feet. Would have gone higher, but that was the highest safe point on this particular cliff.

13. I can recite several hours of children's tapes from memory, but will probably forget someone's name about a dozen times and not recognize their face the next time I meet them.

14. Can name all 43 US Presidents and point out all 50 States on a blank map. Can do the same for the provinces of Canada and Ecuador, but am not so confident on the German provinces.

15. No matter what language I speak, people ask me where my accent is from.

16. I would describe my relationship with technology as "uneasy".

17. My greatest role model is Jesus Christ.

18. When I was 18, I

-read Moby Dick

-first started working in radio

-played my first hour-long solo recital

19. When I was 19, I

-first set foot in North America

-first had a McDonald's hamburger (my first word was "synthetic")

-first went to the movies ("Outbreak", with Dustin Hoffman et al.)

-first started listening to music that was neither classical nor "ethnic"

20. Overly patriotic people frighten me.

21. in 12 years of school, I studied for maybe a dozen tests. My grades weren't the greatest, but I always passed.

22. Been robbed twice; once with a knife, and once with a shotgun (and probably innumerable times with a pen)

23. At age 13, I won a math contest and was chosen to represent my school at an international competition, which I ended up being unable to attend because I was failing Algebra.

24. I've read most of Franz Kafka's works, and enjoyed them.

25. If I sleep through the night, it's the exception and not the rule.

26. I rarely shave more than twice a week. I don't think I've ever shaved more than three times in one week.

27. I actually enjoy listening to John Cage on occasion.

28. I've defecated on a disputed border in Tierra del Fuego

29. I can read (i. e. pronounce, not necessarily understand) Russian, Greek and Korean

30. I think that next time Tom Waits writes a piece of musical theatre, it should be based on Ray Bradbury's "Something Wicked This Way Comes". Tom Waits rocks. So does Ray Bradbury.

31. I didn't get my permanent driver's license til I was 27.

32. I once cycled 110 km to attend a youth rally.

33. I went to donate blood 3 times, and was turned down twice (once because I had some sort of anemia, and once because I'd been in foreign countries where feared diseases were at home)

34. I've never broken a bone, though I've had a tumor eat away part of my pelvis.

35. I sometimes reflect that all of the world's problems could be solved within the next century if people just stopped reproducing.

36. I find the idea of hair growing out of a hamburger simply revolting.

37. I think the world would be a noticeably better place if everyone got to hear Handel's Messiah at least once a year (everyone in the so-called "civilized" world anyways -- no need to drag choirs and orchestras into the jungles yet).

38. I enjoy Chinese opera (in moderation)

39. I've undergone treatment against rabies

40. One of my life dreams I still haven't given up on: to head up a team of musical ragamuffins who sing (and play) on the streets and sleep in the woods, sing in the woods and sleep on the streets, sing and sleep in railway stations, etc.

41. I've never gone skiing, snowboarding, surfing or skydiving. (Though I plan to do all of these someday.)

42. Never been kissed

43. I've killed more birds with a slingshot than with a .22

44. I've eaten iguana

45. I've steered a semi-truck down a freeway while the driver was rolling himself a joint.

46. I crossed the Atlantic in an ocean liner when I was 3 months old

47. Although I'm generally more proficient on the piano than on other instruments, my sight-reading of piano scores is comparatively dismal.

48. I've fainted 3 times in my life. Once while sitting on the toilet.

49. Another life dream: be the founding member of a new monastic order (this one I'm sort of giving up on now though).

50. The first fish I ever pulled out of a lake was a half-inch short of being a master lake trout (33 or 34 inches, I forget)