Wine bars serving something superior to British "Chateau Thames Embankment." Pro bono law for battered women and children, Law in general, Art, Oil Painting, History, Comedy, Houseboats, tiki bars, amusement parks, good looking women, entertaining my 14 year old son. The boy and I used to go to Disney World and Universal, Orlando. Now, I'm pretty much in his background--Rather like an ATM that can drive, cook and clean.
I'm working on a house that I don't much care for. Built a houseboat once. Lived on a yacht on Cape Cod half a lifetime ago. I have degrees in Fine Arts (oil painting), Psychology and Law, and defected to law from the Graduate School of Journalism at IU. Occasionally legal research can be fun, Orlando attractions, George Carlin, Louis Black, young women, funny little kids,..and beer.
I'd like to meet:
GOD (PREFERABLY IN THE FORM OF ODIN):
I HAVE A FEW QUESTIONS AND INTERROGATORIES...FIRST, DO I HAVE TO BE HOLDING MY SWORD WHEN I DIE? OR, IS AN ASSAULT RIFLE ENOUGH?........
FOR ANOTHER, WHY THE RELENTLESS PRESSURE OF ALL THOSE HORRIFYING OPERATIONS AND LOST LOVES AND JOBS AFTER THE WAR? SURELY, THE WAR WAS BAD ENOUGH.......
I WOULD LIKE TO MEET MS. RIGHT (OR RIGHT NOW), OR AT LEAST MS. BALL PARK. BUT, IT'S GETTING VERY LATE IN THE GAME......
GEORGE CARLIN, LEWIS BLACK, CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS and CHRIS MATTHEWS IN A BAR FOR A FEW DRAFTS, TO BE JOINED BY JOHN STEWART AND STEPHEN COLBERT. I'D SIT AND LISTEN......
A BEAUTIFUL AND WILLING, BLUE EYED GIRL. HOWEVER, I FIND NO FAULT WITH THE DARK EYED, TOPLESS BEAUTIES HERE IN SHANGRI LA. (A little more wine, my dear?...)...........COLLEGE FRIENDS FROM IU, LONDON AND EARLHAM: GEORGE, WASIMA, ANNE, CHRIS...FORMER BIRTHDAY PARTY MEMBERS...WHERE HAVE YOU ALL GONE? ........
Olivia Hussey.
Valerie Bertinelli.
Sally Field.
All of the former Pythons.
IF THERE IS AN AFTER LIFE (AND GOD I HOPE THERE IS), THEN I WOULD LIKE TO MEET MOST OF MY OLD RELATIVES AGAIN, ESPECIALLY MY ANGELIC GRANDMA SHELTON...... LIKEWISE, TO MEET OLD FRIENDS PAST ON: CHRIS, CAROL, EMET AND ALL THE REST WHO LEFT US TOO SOON. RODNEY, WE MISS YOU.........
AT MY DEATH, I WOULD LIKE TO WAKE UP IN AN ANCIENT, NORTH GERMAN LONG HALL. AROUND A GREAT TABLE WOULD BE OTHER OLD SOLDIERS FROM ALL OF TIME, FALLEN IN WAR OR FROM THE WEIGHT OF YEARS. I DON'T NEED TO MEET THE HIGH AND MIGHTY--JUST THOSE OF LOWER RANKS LIKE ME. I WANT TO HEAR THEIR EXPLOITS, AND TELL THEM MINE, WHILE WE EAT AND DRINK. AND THEN....THE RHINE MAIDENS!
Music:
Classics and light classics from the Eighteenth and early Ninteenth Centuries, and more recently: Doors, Zeppelin, Stones, Creedence, Hendrix, Buddy Holly, Some folk music, Beethoven, Strauss, Mozart, B. Brittain, Wagner, Ragtime,English military and German brass band, Gilbert and Sullivan of course, Tom Lehrer.
Movies:
Movies I favor relate, however indirectly, to my own life's experience. I liked "Reds" because of the idealsim (however misplaced), "Romeo & Juliet" (with Olivia Hussey) as a dream, "Blade Runner," "The Lover," "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?," "Metropolis" (Fritz Lang), "Lost in Translation," "Big Fish," "Water World," "Enemy at the Gates,""Apocalypse Now," "Full Metal Jacket," "Tombstone," Das Boot, Band of Brothers, Platoon, M.I.B., the original BBC Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Zardoz, Triumph of the Will, Wings(silent), most Monty Python, and...The Secret Garden, Polar Express, All of the Harry Potter series, Barron Munchausen, and ZULU!
Television:
I hope all my friends and my son's friends will watch JOHN ADAMS on HBO.
I LIKE Chris Matthews, Lou Dobbs, BBC (although it can be deadly dull), PBS, Rome, Deadwood, Tudors, Carnival, Some Cable movies, '70s Show, Eureka, Dead Like Me, History Channel, George Carlin and Rodney Dangerfield specials. Really miss Rodney, and George may be ready to stop touring. But, God has sent us Lewis Black. We'll probably be okay.
Books:
History in most forms, Rumpole of the Bailey series of course, War and Peace, Sun Also Rises, and amateur novels, ghost stories. My 13 year old son is writing a pretty good novel, including in it all his friends.
Heroes:
MY SON, EDGAR STEVEN (Ed). Summer before last, he amazed me. Through force of will and hard work, he made himself over from a chubby computer nerd into a really solid, dedicated football player. It was very hard work for him, and a true triumph of the will. ED went on to play first string for Meigs Middle School. Great team mates there, great coaches. Concerning the eternal verities, Ed began asking "why?" at an early age while afflicted by idiots in St.Mary's Gulag for Really Unhappy Children.
Next would be my GRANDMA SHELTON for her unconditional love and gentle, kindly nature.
Next, the Teachers, coaches and Principal at MEIGS MIDDLE SCHOOL, and all of Ed's football teammates. What a wonderful, positive place Meigs school is.
Then, Washington, Lincoln, Eisenhower, All good Marines and other troops wherever they are, and all parents who put their kids before themselves. Good judges, sincere poverty lawyers and most public defenders.
Most of the battered women and all the child victims I've tried to help over the years: All the best to all of you. And of course, good, kind, gentle, nurturing parents everywhere--people of compassion and understanding, who do their best each day for their children: You are the greatest heros.
And, just lately, PRINCE HARRY. Any man who will leave his comfortable home to come to the front lines and fight beside me is my brother. How many American or British politicians' sons and daughters are fighting? Any at all?IF THERE WAS A SECTION HERE ON IDIOTS:
Most of the leadership on all sides of World War I;
The idiots who sucked us into World War II;
The idiots who are responsible for the Great Depression;
The idiots who sucked us into the Korean War;
The idiots who sucked us into the War in Vietnam;
The lying idiots who fooled us into the War in Iraq (it is so embarrassing to admit that the French were right!);
The same lying idiots who won't admit a mistake, let the Iraqis partition their country like they want, and who won't get our troops out of harm's way;
Most of the tabloid journalists on TV;
People who think Equal Rights means Affirmative Action and Reparations;
Politicians and business people who deny Global Warming;
Congress and Manufacturers who won't mandate or manufacture small, light cars and mass, rapid transit; Any parent who tried to starve their infant, belittled their children to make them feel worthless, or "resigned" as a child's mother; And, of course,
Jane Fonda (rot in hell).
