The Bluff

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Me, me, me, me, meme.

Memes remind me of plot generating software - the results are almost always better when you do the work yourself. Like the last meme I participated in, this one allows the blogger (me) to share a little bit of personal history. I probably should do a full bio, but when Spicy Cauldron tagged me with The Four meme I thought, what the heck?

Four Jobs I've Had:
Rendering plant laborer (hip-waders, road kill, maggots)
Head hunter (recruiting doctors)
Blacksmith (not a farrier, a blacksmith)
Journalist (but you knew that, right?)

Four Movies I (could) Watch Over and Over:
(this is similar to the Sevens meme I did a few months ago)
A Christmas Story (You'll shoot your eye out.)
Babe (That'll do pig. That'll do.)
The Princess Bride (My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.)
Henry V (We few, we happy few, we band of brothers)

Four Places I've Lived:
The Land of Lincoln
One of the towns whose name is engraved on the Arc de Triomphe.
The Land Of Enchantment
Texas, The Republic of

Four TV Shows I Love(d): (All of them are off the air, or soon will be. I'm sure there are great shows on now, but I just don't have time to watch enough to fall in love)
Star Trek, Star Trek -The Next Generation, Star Trek - Deep Space Nine, Star Trek -Voyager, Enterprise (I count them as one)
Magnum P.I. (genius writing, but you had to be a fan to know it)
West Wing
The Pretender

Four Favorite Dishes
Tacos from a taqueria called Chano's, with jalapenos and carrots as a side dish.
Steak with blue cheese sauce (my own recipe)
Chicken diablo
My mother's enchiladas (you can feel your arteries harden - at the table)

Four Sites I Visit Daily (not counting blogs)
Publishers Marketplace
Agent Query
About a hundred sites related to my work as a reporter.
My own.

Four Places I'd Rather Be Right Now:
Reading
Eating (grilled chicken smothered in mushrooms, onions, garlic, and provolone is waiting, and the smell is killing me)
Thunder Bay
On stage, accepting the Pulitzer...

Who wants to play tag? Nobody? In that case, why don't the bloody lot of you just go tag yourselves.

Mark Pettus,
Sunday, February 12, 2006

20 comments so far. Thank you, Shesawriter, Rene, Jeff, Mark Pettus, Moni, Othmar Vohringer, Kelly (Lynn) Parra, Mark Pettus, Shesawriter, Erik Ivan James, Mark Pettus, Scott, Anonymous, Mark Pettus, Anonymous, Anonymous, s.w. vaughn, jennifersando, Anonymous, Mark Pettus,

Let me know what you think

20 Comments

at 11:51 PM Shesawriter said...: I want the steak with blue cheese recipe, Mark. PLEASE!

Tanya
at 11:59 AM Rene said...: LOL Tanya, that was my first thought too! Great minds...or stomachs.

I loved Magnum and watch it when I can find the re-runs. They are talking about turning it into a movie.

Love Henry V. Kenneth Branaugh reciting the St. Crispin's Day speech was a...sigh...moment for me.
at 4:41 PM Jeff said...: A Christmas Story (You'll shoot your eye out, kid.) is a classic! There are so many great scenes in that movie. lol
at 7:43 PM Mark Pettus said...: I guess I'm going to have to do a post on my blue cheese sauce recipe soon. I should warn you, I'm blessed with a super high metabolism. If you eat what I do you may die of a heart attack prior to your 40th birthday, and I won't be held responsible.

Rene, I have dedicated the St. Crispin's speech to memory. It is an amazing icebreaker at parties :)
Every episode of the last season of Magnum was Emmy worthy.

Jeff, I own a leg lamp. :D
at 11:02 PM Moni said...: As you already know, A Christmas Story is one of my fav's too.
I also love the Princess Bride. Mandy Patinkin(Inigo Montoya) was awesome in it.

Pulitzer prize, eh? I'm sure you'll get there.

And, "the bloody lot of you can tag yourselves." I don't want to tag myself...that's no fun. Uh hum... ;)
at 3:21 AM Othmar Vohringer said...: I used to go to a rendering plant near my home to get the maggots for fish bait. I still have the smell in my nose. It probably never will leave me. Having said that the fish loved those fresh fat maggots more than the ones you can buy in the tackle store.

othmar aka bowhunter
at 12:18 PM Kelly (Lynn) Parra said...: Mark, I'm shocked about the Princess Bride. lol! You think you know a person by his blog. I love that movie, a classic in my book. ;)
at 10:11 PM Mark Pettus said...: Moni - as you wish. Tag, you're it.

s.r. - Thank you for the compliment and the tip on booksquare.com. I'll check it out. I saw your question about the Vice President, perhaps you should ask Othmar. He is blogger's resident expert hunter.

Othmar - My favorite part of that job was peeling off my rubber gloves and eating lunch. While eating lunch I watched ants crawl up onto my rubber boots and die - boiled alive in the desert sun. Ah... sweet memories. %)

Kelly - Shocked? Why so, Buttercup?
at 10:45 PM Shesawriter said...: Still waiting for the recipe. Grumble, grumble, grumble...

Tanya
at 8:54 AM Erik Ivan James said...: First, thanks for your advice over at mine, appreciated.

Next, yep, I'll copy the steak and blue cheese recipe if you share it.

Texas. There is Texas, then there is everyplace else----maybe.

The movie Babe at "That'll do pig. That'll do." pulled out my heart and squeezed every single bit of my machismo right onto the floor.
at 9:30 PM Mark Pettus said...: Sauce - next post, promise.

The pig - There is a lullaby that James Cromwell sings to the pig, and its the only lullaby my two youngest sons have ever heard from me.

"If I had words to make a day for you,
I'd sing you a morning,
Golden and new.

I'd make that day last for all time,
and then a night,
deep in moon shine."

When they were little, they watched every movie about a hundred and fifty times, and Babe was the only one I still liked after the hundred and fiftieth viewing.
at 8:38 AM Scott said...: Man, you really nailed a few movies that I love too. Babe was pure genius. The Princess Bride, the first half, was outrageous. Some of the best quotes come from that movie. I love it when Anigo says, "I do not think that word means what you think it means." In context it was hilarious. The whole sword fight I would like to bottle it up and sell it. Classic.
at 4:05 AM Anonymous said...: A 'rendering plant labourer' - oh my gosh, that sounds absolutely terrible. And me a veggie. I recall when I first went to college in Blackburn, Lancashire, there was a plant nearby turning horse bones into glue and, I think, processing tinned pet food. The stench was omnipresent and revolting.

Maybe later on the memory of it contributed to the decision not to eat meat, which I haven't done now for, oh, at least fifteen years. I don't remember when I decided to turn veggie, unlike when I came out of the closet - which was akin, I guess, to how many people remember where they were and what they were doing when Thatcher was booted out as PM, or when Kennedy was assassinated.

I was a flirty ambition in my father's eye back when Kennedy died, but I know my favourite TV show, Doctor Who, started broadcasting on that day - go figure. I was in a phone box in Manchester when Maggie lost the vote; as I recall, I was talking to my then-partner who had the news on at home, while I watched the hookers outside the phonebox staring at me - wasting their time trying to get my attention, of course. These ones had boobies and stuff. Not that I've ever... I mean, not the male equivalent either... darn it, sometimes you feel like editing your own writing, then you think what the heck... funnier to leave that in... Where the hell was I? Oh yeah... I remember the day and place I came out. Guess it was an assassination of sorts, that being the wholesale slaughter of other people's perceptions and expectations of me. Yeah, that's about right.

Babe. Now that film is definitely veggie-friendly. Star Trek in all its flavours? I used to love them but it all became too formulaic. The new version of Battlestar Galactica is everything Voyager should have been but wasn't. Seven of Nine? Great idea for a character, stupid false boobs. Janeway? Lost opportunity. The whole Trek franchise became increasingly infested with some kind of patriotic, aint-the-US-the best thing which turned many off in this country at least. Enterprise - the post-9/11 version - was perhaps the worst for that. But it had the engineer Trip going for it, perhaps the cutest fella ever in a Trek show, albeit we only got the shower scene in the first episode... deep breath... anyhoo...

I responded to your return, second, comment on my blog about the Google boycott. You made me think some big, early morning thoughts about individual empowerment. All will make sense, hopefully. Go see when you can. I am grateful for the cyber-conversation engagement on the subject. Helped me clarify a few things. So yeah, ta. x
at 8:38 AM Mark Pettus said...: Scott - Inconceivable.

Spicy - Inconceivable.

Just Kidding.

I was born the same year as JFK, Jr., and if you've seen the footage of little John-John saluting at his father's funeral, you'll know how old I was when Kennedy died. I remember it, though, because it so affected my mother. The image in my mind is my mother standing in front of the television, talking to my father on the phone, and sobbing. I think I was traumatized by her strong emotions, and thus the memory stuck.

I grew up in cattle country. I have no qualms about eating meat, hunting, fishing, or the slaughter of animals to provide shoes and winter coats for our children. I won't hunt or fish for sport, but I'm quite comfortable with my place on the food chain.

The best thing about fake boobs: almost every woman I know who has them wants to show them off.

"They're not hard. Feel them."

Life is good.
at 4:54 AM Anonymous said...: Interesting. I've no qualms with other people eating meat. I'm occasionally, if anything, accosted by militant omnivores who say stuff like 'you vegetarians, you think... [insert diatribe]'. Of course, this veggie hasn't said a thing to them about their dietary choices but we all get bagged together when the mood suits. Just like all of us - 'all you men', 'all you queers', 'women like you'. Bit tragic when all's said and done.

I just think if you make a personal choice, good. Personal choices are important. If your own choice catches on and changes the world for the better, well, extra great for the world. But at least a person has considered their own standpoint and that's vital. A friend once told me that people fight over opinions pointlessly, because opinions do nothing to change the world, only actions do that - and I consider it a wise statement which has stayed with me.

My own reasons for being veggie are ethical in that I hate factory, intensive farming methods - battery hens, calves in boxes, hormone- and antibiotic-injecting frenzies. I turned veggie before the organic movement took off so now wouldn't want to cross the line again into meat-eating territory but I've every respect for those who eat meat produced ethically; what I find hard is how many millions never give thought to what they put in their mouths full stop. No food these days is inherently healthy - plant or animal - because of what could be getting into it before it gets into you.

West Yorkshire, like so much of the British countryside, is cattle country of sorts - and sheep, and geese, et al - but I don't think the UK farming industry is as choked by central government, filled to the brim with chemicals or with animals as badly treated, and farmers too, as in the US. I read a book some time ago about how hard it is for US cattle farmers now, how they don't all want to force-feed hormones and chemicals but they don't get their animals bought unless they do and then they don't get muchf for them. I recall having much sadness for them, many of them struggle to keep going. x
at 4:59 AM Anonymous said...: Btw, fake boobs: don't know if it's true, but a woman once told me that she'd never have implants for many reasons but one was that, apparently, all feeling in the nipple area is often lost in the process. Sounds horrible to me.

I once knew a man who said 'the bigger, the better, if they're fake, that's fine' - but it made me wonder how some men see women. Some of them, I think, see women in ways which are more sickness than natural attraction. I could go for a man with plastic abs and an inserted washboard tummy, but that'd be a Ken doll. Not a real person, surely? One part inflatable doll, one part organic. The cyborgs are here already. And boy, must they be insecure underneath the silicon. I could imagine it's one thing to get the perfect body next to you at night, quite another to spend time and energy reassuring them of their shallow beauty all the time... x
at 10:28 AM s.w. vaughn said...: Ooh! Ooh! Tag me!

I'm it!

Off to meme myself. I admire your taste in movies and television, Mark. Thanks for the pleasant distraction!

-S
at 6:44 PM jennifersando said...: Yeah, I'll go tag myself I think. :) This is my first visit (was reading your comments on M Atwood and next thing I know I was here).
at 7:23 PM Anonymous said...: Mark,thank you for the compliment, glad you like my enchiladas enough to list them as one of your favorites. I'd like the blue cheese steak sometime.

Sorry my reaction to the death of JFK upset you so much.I never knew.

You are a great writer. Thank you for choosing me to be your mother.
at 8:53 AM Mark Pettus said...: Wait... I had a choice?

Damn, I could have been one of the Kennedys.

;)