15 Things About Me
How do you know me? Do you know me at all? Does it matter?
Sometimes, it behooves a reader to get to know an author. Or it may behoove the author to ensure that a potential reader knows who they are. The whole idea sounds self-indulgent, and I admit that I’ve gone back and forth on whether or not I would actually push “publish” on this, but finally, I figured, what the hell, right? It’s a fun exercise, at least for the writer, to try and think up a handful of things that a reader might think are interesting. Let’s jump in and start with the odd and unexpected.
One. I Can Juggle.
There’s a bit of a story behind this. When I was about 15, our family rented an apartment in Bend, Oregon, for about four months of the year. Why? Because we lived forty miles away, at a church camp at the top of Santiam Pass, and with four kids in the family who were involved in sports and music events, it made more sense to stay in town Monday through Thursday nights before heading back up the pass on Friday after school. While staying in Bend, I vividly recall listening to the local radio station, KBND, which played a lot of cool rock and roll after dark, unlike their bland playlist the rest of the day. Think Bowie, the Who, Rolling Stones, Guess Who, all the great rock bands of the early 70s. If I had no homework or there was nothing on TV, which was frequent back then (remember, this was around 1970), or I wasn’t involved in some school activity, I’d find something to do in my bedroom. One night, I took three of those little pop-top cans of pudding into the bedroom and started tossing them up in the air and catching them. Soon, I was working to juggle. I had no method other than seeing juggling somewhere and thought it would be cool. It took a long time, but eventually, I improved to the point where I wasn’t dropping every other pudding can! The benefits of learning and failing along the way were that the more times I dropped a can, the closer it came to being damaged enough to where I had to take the lid off and eat it. It was a fantastic day when I could juggle without dropping for a minute or two. I’m still decent, although mostly out of practice. But it’s like riding a bicycle. Once you learn, the skill is embedded in your muscle memory. When I turned 25, I lived in a big old house in Salem with some friends, and some of our regular visitors were jugglers who would bring by their juggling pins, including the excellent fire juggling pins, so I got to play with those as well. Fun stuff.
Two. I Shoot Free Throws at About an 80% clip.
Yeah, I still play hoops five or so days a week as my main exercise, along with walking the dog, and shoot fifty free throws daily as part of that 30-minute workout. Some days, I’ll make 90% (rare), and some days, I’ll slip into the low 70-percent range (and sometimes horribly at 50%!). But I’m consistently right around 80%. The most I’ve made in a row is 88. But that was years ago, back in December of 2011.
Three. I’m a Total Ski Bum.
More activity! Yeah, I’m an active guy and always have been. If I could, I’d ski every day during the ski season. It's not feasible, but I’m up on the slopes at least once a week between opening day in November and closing day in mid-April. I ski, by the way, at a little family resort on Santiam Pass, Hoodoo Ski Bowl. I started to ski there when I was seven and quickly took to it. I’m still awaiting the first significant snowfall of the year this season, so I haven’t been up there yet.
Four. I’m a Drummer and Guitarist.
My drum training started in fifth grade in Mrs. Keller’s class in Sisters, Oregon. I spent two days on the trumpet, hating that my lip hurt so much, and looked back at the drum section and knew that’s where I wanted to be. Music is a big deal in our family. My mom, now 95, plays six instruments: violin, viola, piano, guitar, flute and piccolo. She still plays weekly with friends. I picked up a guitar in my late teens, got a book of chords, and was off and running. I’m solid at rhythm, but don’t ask me to solo. In my teens, I thought it would be great to be a rock star, but I knew that would be a long shot, so I dove into radio, which was at least a career in music. I played in several bands in my 20s and 30s. Enough to have a ton of fun and enough to realize that schlepping your drum set out of clubs at midnight is not a great way to make a living!
Five. My Wife and I Got Married in Gibraltar in 2013.
Once we committed to tying the knot, my girl Jenny and I talked about having a local wedding and inviting lots of family and friends. Still, once we started adding it all up, and the fact that we’re not spring chickens, we decided maybe a big wedding wasn’t the thing to do and that the money was better spent traveling somewhere to get married. I investigated what was needed in countries such as England, Germany, Spain, and so on, and all of them required something like six weeks of residency. That was a no-go. Just when I thought we’d strike out, I heard the old Beatles song, “The Ballad of John and Yoko,” with the line, “Peter Brown called to say, you can make it okay, you can get married in Gibraltar near Spain,” so I googled ‘getting married in Gibraltar,” and voila, it’s a piece of cake! All they ask is that you send the proper documents, stay a day or two, pick up the wedding license, and have a local official perform the ceremony, and you’re good to go. We did. Just like two gurus in drag. Many famous people besides John and Yoko have gotten married in Gibraltar, for example, Sean Connery, who got married there. Twishe. (*Twice* was pronounced as only Sean Connery could.)
Six. Ten Band/Artists to Get to Know Me:
The Beatles
Bob Marley and the Wailers
The Rolling Stones
Foo Fighters
Steely Dan
Paul Revere and the Raiders
David Bowie
Marvin Gaye
Kate Bush
Meshell Ndegeocello
I might write about why these particular artists resonate with me to such a full extent, but for now, the list is just to give you an idea of the musicians who influence me. And there are plenty more than this brief list.
Seven. Ten Authors to Get to Know Me:
Philip K. Dick
Martin Cruz Smith
Isaac Asimov
Nnedi Okarafor
Lee Child
Michael Connelly
Stephen King
Haruki Murakami
Robert Heinlein
Ray Bradbury
Eight. Decaf.
I know, I know, that’s a drag, ain’t it?! 😎 But if I don’t drink decaf, I’ll get jittery and sleep poorly. But I still love coffee, so I take the unleaded route.
Nine. I’ve Written a Ton of Songs.
I mentioned I’m a musician, right? Turns out I’m a songwriter, too. It started in my early 20s when I met George when we worked together at KBZY in Salem. He’s my age and was a total hippie at the time (he still is; he doesn’t own a computer and is the only person I know who still doesn’t have an email address!). George was a gifted songwriter and wrote them seemingly by the dozen. And they were great (think Neil Young with Pete Townshend and some Lennon and McCartney thrown in). He inspired me to start writing songs.
Most were shitty, crappy, horrible, worthless. But that’s how ya start something. I kept writing songs now and then, inspired by politics, girls, the climate, girls, romance, girls, cars…the usual things. And whenever I thought I had something worth capturing, I rolled a cassette tape on it. This was in the 80s, I was a radio guy, and I archived almost everything. Mostly, I just threw the tapes into a box. I hauled them all a few years ago and converted them to digital. What a long, strange trip it was to listen to about 40 years of hissy tapes with odd songs, snippets, and rehearsals, many of which I hadn’t revisited since I originally recorded them. Then, for fun, because I’m a data nerd and hoarder, I made a spreadsheet of the songs and was surprised when I discovered I’d written over 400 songs. Huh? Wow.
In the early 80s, our band was called CLC (for Creative Living Council). We released a cassette called “Tilted Little Ball,” and while George wrote most of the songs, one of my songs, Dilemma, appeared on it:
Ten. My Parents Hiked the Pacific Crest Trail
This is more about my parents, but I think it’s good to know about me because it tells you what kind of people my folks were. My dad, Ed, passed in 2016 at 92; my mom, Alice, turned 95 this year. After retiring in the mid-80s, they hiked the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada, a trail which is 2,653 miles long and stays near the upper reaches of the mountains. As mom likes to tell it today, Ed told her one day a few years ahead of the hike, “I’m going to hike the PCT. Do you want to come with me?” Well, she couldn’t imagine staying home and wondering and worrying about him for months on end, so of course, she said yes, and she was glad she did. The entire hike took them a couple of summers to complete, and there were some small stretches of the trail that they couldn’t finish because they were impassable. But saying that my parents hiked the PCT in their sixties is pretty cool.
Eleven. I have a Bitchin’ Bob Marley Tattoo on my Right Shoulder
…that I got in 2005. You know what they say about getting your first tattoo? You can’t stop at one! You have to get a second. Then a third, and so on, until you have more tattoos than Bob has dreads. But that hasn’t happened, because although I wouldn’t mind getting a second tat, I can’t decide what to get. I will admit that it took me over a decade to decide on a Bob Marley tattoo, precisely what the tattoo would be: what image, how I would come up with it, who would design it, and so on. The short version is that the image is a combination of a young Bob Marley with short dreadlocks stuck up in the air and a later photo of his longer dreadlocks hanging down to his shoulders. I sought out a well-known tattoo artist in Portland named London Bellman, who combined the two images into a final design. It’s unique, although if you search for Bob Marley tattoos, thousands of people have unique Marley tattoos.
Twelve: My Morning Routine is Pretty Much The Same as It Was in 2007.
I’m 68, and I think I take good care of myself: spirit, mind, and body. I’ve had a daily morning routine that has evolved a bit, but it started on my 52nd birthday in 2007. I had been doing yoga now and then, perhaps once a month, but it was tough to keep a consistent practice going. Carving out an hour regularly when you’re a single dad with a couple of kids was difficult. Then, one day, it hit me: 10 minutes of yoga every morning would add up to over an hour a week! Wow! So I began: I got on the rug as my coffee brewed and went through stretches and breath exercises. The stretches and breathing exercises have changed a bit over the years, but it’s still about 10-12 minutes. After stretching, I sit with my wife as we read and drink coffee, and then it’s time to walk the dog. The whole process takes about an hour, maybe more, but it’s an incredible centering way to start the day. This ties into my daily writing practice: when I started writing fiction four years ago, I’d get up EARLY and spend 60-90 minutes writing before the rest of the household woke up. This has evolved, as has my daily work schedule, so most of my fiction and Substack writing takes place during the day.
Thirteen: I’ve been to the Pebble Beach concours d’elegance 30 times!
If you don’t know what that is, all I can say is it’s the most hoity-toity vintage car show in America, maybe in the world. I’m not that much of a vintage car buff, so this takes a little explaining, perhaps? In 1988, I worked at KISN-FM in Portland, doing the 7-12 midnight shift. KISN was an oldies station, the first oldies station on FM ever in Portland, and it was a big ratings success. I started there in January of 1988, and one of the friends I made there, Rich, was doing overnights from 12-5 a.m. One weekend in August, he and some pals headed south to Monterey to go to the Historic Auto Week, which included historic auto races at Laguna Seca, several classic car rallies, shows, auctions, and the big daddy of them all, the Pebble Beach concours d’elegance, in which hundreds of incredible classic autos from all eras, makes and models are on display for the day on the golf course’s 18th fairway.
It’s a helluva thing. At the time, tickets were around $25. Rich and his pals invited me to go the following August, and it started a tradition of going down to Monterey for the week, doing some golfing, a lot of drinking, rubbing elbow with the rich and powerful, and ogling the incredible automobiles, some shipped in from Europe or Asia to compete in the show. The word spectacular doesn’t begin to describe it. After about the third or fourth year, as the ticket price increased (about $500 now!), we noticed someone with a Media badge and said, “Hey, we’re media!” We applied for media credentials and were surprisingly granted them, which gave us access to the show and several corollary events. We used our media access for the next two decades, attending the show every year with a couple of exceptions (one exception being the birth of my first son three weeks before the 1992 event; I figured it was in bad form to leave such a newborn baby alone for a week with his mum!). I’ve taken thousands of photos during the yearly trip; here are a handful:
Fourteen: My Radio Nickname is “Gonzo”
Nearly everyone I’ve worked with in radio from 1975 to 2001 knows me as “Gonzo.” It’s a nickname I acquired at KBZY in Salem in the late 70s. Here’s how that happened. I was doing afternoons, and a friend of mine, Kris, was doing mid-days. We were a Top 40 station, playing the hits of the day, and it was a common occurrence for us to do a live “hand-off,” which meant we’d chat about this or that before I took over the airwaves. One day, out of the blue, he started calling me Gonzo. He did it a few days in a row, and so I asked him (we were live on the air, remember) why he called me Gonzo. Without batting an eye, he said with a laugh, “Because you do so many drugs in one sitting!” Well, it was the 70s, I was in my mid-20s, and yes, I did my share of recreational drugs, but to that point of earning that nickname? Whatever. It stuck. I was Gonzo after that.
Fifteen: Martial Arts Changed My Life
My mid-20s were wild and wonderful for a thousand reasons. My buddy George, the songwriter I’d mentioned, and I were roommates in a big house in Salem. One of his work acquaintances was a guy a few years older than us who had studied martial arts during childhood and had amassed black belts in nine disciplines. He had been teaching a small invitation-only class for a few months, and George said he had been invited to join. I expressed interest, and before long, I met Terry, the teacher, and after a brief conversation, he invited me to join. Over the next three or so years, our small class of around ten people studied what was on Terry’s mind: Kung Fu Win Chun, animal practices, katas, stretching, and tumbling. We did it twice weekly for a few hours each night in a local school classroom. We’d spend weeks sparring with each other for most of the class, and then we’d spend several weeks without sparring as we just practiced forms or moves or kicks or whatever. It got to be so that while we were sparring, no one could hit me: I could defend myself in close quarters.
Frankly, the concept of self-defense and martial arts opened my mind in ways I hadn’t seen coming. It gave me an inner confidence that surprised me. I was not the kind of person to get in a fight, and I never had in my life, to this day. Learning how to defend myself didn’t make me want to get in a fight, but it gave me a different perspective. Terry’s rules of martial arts were:
If someone wants to fight, run away.
If they insist on fighting, run even faster to avoid a fight.
If you have no choice and find yourself in a fight, such as being attacked, you must be able to defend yourself.
Finally, if you are in a fight, you must be willing to go one step further than your opponent to finish the fight a winner.
Which was the whole point. It was a great philosophy, one that I appreciated. I’ve never been in a physical fight, and I hope it never comes to that. But I don’t think the lessons and skills I learned during those days have ever left: it’s like riding a bicycle. After about three years, George and his girlfriend moved to Portland. A few months later, my girlfriend and I also moved to Portland. I half-heartedly kept my eyes open for a martial arts class but never got back into it. The unique experience of learning various skills from various martial arts: close hand-to-hand combat, fighting with your feet, or with a long wooden staff - was something I’d likely never see again in a class. Terry’s approach was unique, but when I left the class, I’d moved on.
Hey Tim. Learned a lot about you and subscribed to yours... I now invite you to subscribe to mine. https://richarderschik.substack.com/publish/posts Thanks for the idea about the "15 things." I'm stealing it with a credit to you :-)
Well reading that was certainly fun and I do feel like I know you better.