FORE! (oops, I meant:) "FOUR!"

FORE! (oops, I meant:) FOUR!

I was going to headline this Meme, Myself and My Four,
but that's only three. There are the four bloggers getting tagged
at the end to futher the meme, but then the wordplay on "me, myself and I" would be lost.

Maybe the headline might have been Meme, Myself and They. Oh well. You get the drift. And now to our regularly scheduled Blog post.

Meme and My Shadows

Let's look at the genesis of this, and how it played out. My pal Frank Paynter [1] tagged me (to
misuse a term), thus sorta kinda roping me into this blog-perpetuated meme [2] (see

response below) thing, and the spreading thereof of said meme.

Generally I don't often participate, much less spread these things.
Especially the ones where one has to go log in or register at a site to
learn "which serial killer are you," or "what color m&m are you" or "what deep philosopher are
you," or various such amusement (sic) --
which actually and in reality is usually an e-mail address data mining
source pool, or an enticingly disguised lead generator. Bottom
line, either way, often the end result for the participants is
subsequent e-mail garbage.

This one, the idea is, gets advanced via blogs. People link [3] if they so
choose, and it is a self perpetuating meme.

However, it also calls for one to tag four other bloggers and, uh, rope
them in, as well. Well now brothers and sisters . . . since
I like Frank Paynter [3] a lot, and since it was actually fun to fill
out this silly thing (see my version, below), I selected four
bloggers to "tag it forward" -- but waited until I had their complete
approval before doing so.

And so, finally (drum roll please):

Lists of Four, or tag - you're it! (Part 4.4444)

Four Jobs I've Had

* NYC Messenger Boy (a company with their HQ in the bowels of Grand Central Station - great Summer job for a NYC teenager!)

* Screaming Top 40 Radio station deejay (sometimes I long to go back to those days, it was such a blast!)

* Drummer (in the teen rock
band at a Catskills Borscht Belt hotel; also played with the Lounge
Band since A) their alcoholic drummer was usually too drunk to
keep time, much less a grip on his drumsticks; and B) I fit his tux,
and the lounge band began playing about 15 minutes after the rock band
show was over. This was the Summer of 1969, for a time reference rent (or
catch on one of the movie channels) A Walk [4] On [5] The [6] Moon [7]. Ah,
the late '60s -- those were the days!

* VP Marketing & Sales at two different telecom companies during the telecom boom. Mostly fun work, but a wierdly populated industry segment.

Four Movies I Can Watch Over and Over

* Arthur [8] (Dudley [9] Moore [10]
in his best role, glides through this wonderfully written comedy as
though it was the part he was born to play. This film may be the
only aspect of Liza Minelli's [11] ouevre [12] that I can enjoy)

* The [13] Boy [14] With [15] The [16] Green [17] Hair [18] (a classic - rent it!)

* The [19] Usual [20] Suspects [21] (at first I had 3 Days of The Condor [22] here, but if stuck on a desert island (albeit with a solar-powered dvd player), Usual Suspects wins out.

* Godfather I & II, aka "The Complete Epic [23]" (it pre-dates Godfather III)

Four TV Shows I Love to Watch

* Countdown [24] with Keith Olbermann [25] ("good blog and good luck!")

* Scrubs [26]
This is laugh-out-loud TV. And shame on NBC, making loyal viewers
wait, using Scrubs as a mid-season replacement for their
failed/viewerless, wiped off-the-program-schedule shows. Phooey
on NBC: should've run Scrubs all along.

* NY Yankees pre- and post-game show [27] on the Yes Network [27] (and, of course, the actual game, but with the sound muted and listening to the radio [28] play-by-play [29])

* Weeds [30] (with Huff [31], Showtimes' best original program [32])
Laugh, laugh, cough, cough.

Four Places I've Been on Vacation

* Wales (Lake Vyrnnwy [33]) Beauty & serenity in one place. Eager to go back!

* California "Susan & Dean do the Coastline ... Plus"
Gilroy (aka Garlic Country), Monterey-Carmel-Seaside, Big Sur, SF to see
a Giants game at PacBell Stadium (as it was then known), and a side
trip to Santa Barbara to visit a certain close friend (and blogger --
gee, uhh, guess who?!?!) while we were in CA

* The Berkshires, many times over many years. I've had dinner at the famous and long defunct Alice's [34] Restaurant [35]. And close relatives living there, too.

* Portugal
The cities, the Algarve (Portugal's Riviera), the wine country, the
castles! A tourist's delight. And, oh, the food -- yummy!

Four Favorite Dishes

* Mentaiko, Tarrako, Ume Shiso Make, Spicy Tuna Roll (great Sushi; authentic, indigenous dishes, not nouveau chic-eats)

* Paula Scaffidi's Vegetarian Lasagna

* The Pastrami/Corned Beef side-by-side sandwich at Katz's Delicatessen [36]
on New York's Lower East Side. Starter: Chicken Soup w/ Matzoh
Balls; beverage: a Dr. Brown's Diet Black Cherry soda.

* Something known as "The Dean Sandwich"a Cholesterol zoomer made specially for me at Mr. Kold Kuts [37], a great Italian Deli in Airmont, NY

Four Websites I Visit Daily

* MSNBC [38]

* The NY Times [38] (Front Page and the crossword, and anything of interest to click through to)

* Yahoo's "Sports-MLB-more news [39]" page

* NY Daily News [40]: Front Page & Sports & Entertainment sections

Four Places I'd Rather Be

* St. Bart's, in the French West Indies, on a quiet beach, far from most humans

* Charleston, SC (except during Hurricane season)

* Yankee Stadium (during a home game), and then onto an RV, so Susan and I can go tour all the major league parks in one long Summer getaway

* The Highlands Inn [41] between Monterey and Carmel, CA, right on the ocean

Four Bloggers I'm Tagging

* Kurt Starsinic [42] (the meme comes to Brooklyn)

* Mike Golby [43] (the meme comes to South Africa!)

* Annette Kramer [44] (also blogging here [45], where Annette's Meme-4 is already posted [46]!)

* Steve Lewis [47] (can Bubkes [48]
have a meme?)(and the meme comes to Bulgaria - but Steve also has a
place in Brooklyn, bringing this full cycle . . . a cycle of four, of
course!)

The ball (or is that the four balls, or the ball of four memes, or the fourball?) is now (are now?) in their respective courts!

Links:
[1] http://sandhill.typepad.com/sandhill_trek/
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
[3] http://sandhill.typepad.com/sandhill_trek/2006/02/lists_of_four_o.html
[4] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/movies/reviews/walkonthemoonhunter.htm
[5] http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19990402/REVIEWS/904020303/1023
[6] http://www.culturevulture.net/Movies/WalkontheMoon.htm
[7] http://img.slate.com/media/23000/23004/1_walkonthemoon.jpg
[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_(film)
[9] http://archives.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/Movies/03/27/death.dudley/
[10] http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2005/04/21/fondue_arthur2_wideweb__430x315.jpg
[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Minelli
[12] http://www.diarizing.com/wp-content/shit.jpg
[13] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040185/
[14] http://entertainment.msn.com/movies/movie.aspx?m=158266
[15] http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAlosey.htm
[16] http://www.affichescinema.com/insc_b/boy_hair.jpg
[17] http://www.netbroadcaster.com/movies/drama/bwgreenhair.html
[18] http://www.cvmc.net/movie.jsp?movie_id=3709
[19] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114814/
[20] http://www.usualsuspects-themovie.com/
[21] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Usual_Suspects
[22] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Days_of_the_Condor
[23] http://www.jgeoff.com/godfather/epic/
[24] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/
[25] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/
[26] http://www.nbc.com/Scrubs/
[27] http://www.yesnetwork.com/yankees/
[28] http://wcbs880.com/pages/3152.php
[29] http://www.yesnetwork.com/announcers/bio2.asp?talent_id=13
[30] http://www.sho.com/site/weeds/episodes.do
[31] http://www.sho.com/site/huff/home.do
[32] http://emol.org/emclub/?q=showtimeweedssecondseason
[33] http://blog.deanland.com/pictures/viewer$929
[34] http://dcymbal.metabarn.com/woodstock/alice.html
[35] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice's_Restaurant
[36] http://katzdeli.com
[37] http://blog.deanland.com/pictures/viewer$883
[38] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/
[39] http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/morenews
[40] http://nydailynews.com/
[41] http://highlandsinn.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/
[42] http://kstar.dyndns.org:8080/blog/
[43] http://www.yblogza.com/blog.html
[44] http://www.learninglaboratory.blogspot.com/
[45] http://www.annettekramer.blogspot.com/
[46] http://annettekramer.blogspot.com/2006/02/good-enough-for-meme.html
[47] http://bubkes.org/
[48] http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/reference/yiddish_words_and_phrases_used_by_english_speakers