getting to know me

Okay, this isn’t exactly a full rayality primer, but since this is my website, this stuff should be about me!

To get you started, here’s a short quiz to give you a better picture of me and some idea (or warning) as to what you might expect here. The CORRECT answers (and more) are after the jump:

1. In 8th grade at John F. Kennedy School in Milford, I:
a. accidentally got a tattoo of the Foghat logo.
b. accidentally locked braces with Karen Loch while playing spin the bottle.
c. fist fought Ed Taylor on the front lawn of the “pink house” on West Avenue, where all the after-school fights were held.
d. won the broad jump at field day with a leap of 13 feet, 6 inches.
e. all of the above.

2. At Boy Scout summer camp at Camp Sequassen in Winstead, I:
a. got my first aid, canoeing and swimming merit badges.
b. got poison ivy so bad that I had to be sent home.
c. learned that everything—EVERYTHING—will burn in a sweet, sweet raging campfire, with the exception of glass and tooth-paste tubes.
d. liked to feed the racoons.
e. won the greased watermelon competition for Troop 14.

3. In the Jonathan Law High School Class of 1983 (yeah, I’m that old), I was voted:
a. most likely to succeed.
b. most witty and most talkative.
c. most athletic.
d. class clown.
e. most likely to end up living in a van down by the river.

4. During my college years at Southern Connecticut State University, my nickname was:
a. Boom Boom.
b. The Sledgehammer.
c. Shoes.
d. Rayven Thunderlove.
e. I didn’t have one.

5. Which of these celebrities were totally in to me when I interviewed them? (And I have actually interviewed all these people!)
a. Ann Margret.
b. Kate White, editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan.
c. Debbie Gibson.
d. Tony Curtis.
e. All of the above.

Okay, hit “Continue reading” to find out the answers …

The answers:

1. In 8th grade at John F. Kennedy School in Milford, I:
a. accidentally got a tattoo of the Foghat logo. – Wrong. I was never even remotely that cool.
b. accidentally locked braces with Karen Loch while playing spin the bottle. – Wrong. Thirteen-year-old me wishes! See “a.”
c. fist fought Ed Taylor on the front lawn of the “pink house” on West Avenue, where all the after-school fights were held. – Wrong. Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t be here to type this if I had. He would’ve murderized me! I’m a lover, not a fighter. And by “lover,” I mean “coward.”
d. won the broad jump at field day with a leap of 13 feet, 6 inches. – Correct. And I still have the ribbon! [*cough cough* PATHETIC! *cough*]
e. all of the above. – So wrong. Do you know me at all? Oh wait …

2. At Boy Scout summer camp at Camp Sequassen in Winsted, I:
a. got my first aid, canoeing and swimming merit badges. – Wrong. Actually, in all my time at summer camp, I somehow managed to avoid ever getting a merit badge, all to my father’s eternal embarrassment.
b. got poison ivy so bad that I had to be sent home. – Wrong. Although my friend Roger Tartaglia did one year, and I remember Stew, the camp leper, saying he’d never seen anything so gross.
c. learned that everything—EVERYTHING—will burn in a sweet, sweet raging campfire, with the exception of glass and tooth-paste tubes. – Correct. I also learned that I *may* have a problem with pyromania.
d. liked to feed the racoons. – Wrong. The first year, Jeff Doering, one of the kids in my lean-to, did. He left food out and was amused when the raccoons came around after dark. A few hours later, I was awakened by screams, and when I switched on my trusty flashlight, I saw a giant raccoon jumping up and down on Jeff’s head. They were both screaming, now that I think of it.
e. single-handedly won the greased watermelon competition for Troop 14. – Wrong. Unless you count letting the other kids drown me as a distraction for my buddy Bobby Paradis, who was holding the watermelon high when time expired. I was about as helpful as Jeff getting mauled by the raccoon.

3. In the Jonathan Law High School Class of 1983 (yeah, I’m that old), I was voted:
a. most likely to succeed. – Wrong. Unless it was “most likely to succeed at annoying others well into midlife,” I was not then—or even now—what you would consider prototypical “success” material.
b. most witty and most talkative. – Correct. Which is funny when you consider I’m not nearly as funny as I think I am.
c. most athletic. – Wrong. Freshman year, I broke my ankle playing sandlot football, and sophomore year, I broke my hand when I tripped over our dog Sheba and fell. (Okay, that’s the story I actually told and everyone believed for almost a decade—sorry Sheba! The truth is that I had seen a commercial for The Empire Strikes Back and, thus inspired, had taken a curtain rod as a lightsaber and was attempting a Jedi-esque spinning cartwheel and bent my hand the wrong way in the mishap—score one for the Dark Side.)
d. class clown. – Wrong. Again, I’m not so funny, and … well, I. DON’T. LIKE. CLOWNS. At all. Let’s leave it at that.
e. most likely to end up living in a van down by the river. – Wrong. It wasn’t a category at the time, although there’s certainly enough time for it still to happen.

4. During my college years at Southern Connecticut State University, my nickname was:
a. Boom Boom. – Wrong. Two high school friends tried to call me this, playing off of the boxer Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini, but when I got to college, I wasn’t fooling anyone. Still not.
b. The Sledgehammer. – Wrong. My old pal Steve Anderson tried calling me this, as I loved the Peter Gabriel song of the same name. Sadly, I was closer to “Shock the Monkey” than “Sledgehammer” at that point in my life.
c. Shoes. – Wrong. During a softball game, I was on first and almost got thrown out at second after hesitating on a line drive hit to right field—I went halfway until it dropped in, which is the accepted play—and still got there, but the guy who had hit the ball yelled, “What do you have, cement shoes?!” My friend John—whom I’m about 36 times faster than—is the only person on the planet who occasionally calls me this, because of the irony. But it never stuck.
d. Rayven Thunderlove. – Wrong. Just so wrong.
e. I didn’t have one. – Correct. And I still don’t. Other than “jerk” or “idiot,” I’m just one of those people to whom nicknames don’t stick. Just call me Teflon.

5. Which of these celebrities were totally in to me when I interviewed them? (And I have actually interviewed all these people!)
a. Ann Margret.
b. Kate White, editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan.
c. Tony Curtis.
d. Debbie Gibson.
e. All of the above. – Correct. Although I interviewed all these people over the phone, there was a definite connection with each of them: Ann Margret was super sweet, a bit loopy, very cougary toward me (*rowr!*), and even at her age, still made me feel funny in my pants; Kate White sent me a personal note after the interview signed “Thanks for a great 20 minutes!” (That’s right, baby!); Tony Curtis … uh, we had a moment (Not that there’s anything wrong with it), although in retrospect, he may have been having a stroke; my one-time future wife Debbie Gibson got flirty when we started talking about her Playboy spread, and then invited me to stop by and see her after her show, but when I mentioned to my wife the idea of meeting someone on “The List,” and possibly taking the hypothetical into Reality (as incredibly remote as it was), the implied permissions of “The List” went by the wayside pretty quickly.

Hey, you clicked here. Blame yourself.