Awesome username/post combo. I don’t have anything unique. I’m sitting in this particular spot on the earth and no one else can at this time.
Ah, this reminds me. In high school speech class I memorized and recited the poem, ‘‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’’ by Lewis Carroll. To, um, enhance the drama, I made little tissue-paper stuffed oysters with pipe cleaner feet and acted out the important bits.
Pretty sure nobody’s ever done that before.
I’m in serious awe of you. I’m an amateur birder.
I visited Singapore’s notorious Bugis Street the very last night before it was closed by the government and its character extinguished for moral betterment. I’d never even heard of Bugis St. but stumbled upon it randomly in evening walk.
Sure I wasn’t the only one there, but I was the only one that evening who helped a college student memorize Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, after which she insisted on accompanying me to hotel.
(by Leonard Cohen)
O Crown of Light, O Darkened One,
I never thought we’d meet.
You kiss my lips, and then it’s done:
I’m back on Boogie Street.
A sip of wine, a cigarette,
And then it’s time to go.
I tidied up the kitchenette;
I tuned the old banjo.
I’m wanted at the traffic-jam.
They’re saving me a seat.
I’m what I am, and what I am,
Is back on Boogie Street.
And O my love, I still recall
The pleasures that we knew;
The rivers and the waterfall,
Wherein I bathed with you.
Bewildered by your beauty there,
I’d kneel to dry your feet.
By such instructions you prepare
A man for Boogie Street.
O Crown of Light, O Darkened One…
So come, my friends, be not afraid.
We are so lightly here.
It is in love that we are made;
In love we disappear.
Tho’ all the maps of blood and flesh
Are posted on the door,
There’s no one who has told us yet
What Boogie Street is for.
O Crown of Light, O Darkened One,
I never thought we’d meet.
You kiss my lips, and then it’s done:
I’m back on Boogie Street.
A sip of wine, a cigarette,
And then it’s time to go . . .
Circa 1994 Buddhist Priests spent about a week making a sand mandala in the lobby of 1WTC, an exercise in extreme patience and artistic beauty. It was temporary and would be dismantled when they completed it.
Serendipitously, I reached the lobby on my way to lunch at the exact time the dismantling ceremony started. The colored sand was scooped up–starting with the corners which represented deities–and poured into a glass container. Anyone who happened to have a little container on them got to take some sand as a blessing. When all the sand was recovered, the Priests started a procession from the WTC through the overpass (over the former West Side Highway) to the World Financial Center. I, along with other observers, followed… Some of the Priests played some hand held instruments as we walked.
When we got to the WFC we walked down the beautiful and impressive half-round staircase and out the doorway in the far glass wall toward the Hudson River. At the railing to the River the Priests poured the sand through a long glass tube into the Hudson and uttered some prayers.
It was a gorgeous moment that comes along once in a lifetime and is one of my special memories of having worked in the WTC.
I’ve translated the phone book.
Nothing earth-shaking, but I taught four high-school classes in a nice dress, drove out to a friend’s house during my lunch hour and did an emergency delivery of the decomposing carcass of a baby goat, getting fluids up to my armpit and all over my clothes, then drove back to school and taught my last two classes of the day. Everyone was on their best behavior that afternoon. Classroom management tip: teach in clothes covered with dried blood.
I asked Ronald Reagan some very hard questions about the Contra funding on the day of the vote. Why no one else was doing it I don’t know, but I thought somebody should. Ditto Admiral Poindexter.
For ABC’s ‘Prime Time’ I gave a test conditions demonstration of ‘spiritualism’ in the style of John Edward just by using cold reading, and I admitted that it was just cold reading. This remains a unique demonstration, and it has been estimated that about 10 million people saw it.
I have invented several tricks and methods used in the fields of magic and mentalism (mind-reading magic).
I wrote the branch management manual for Europe’s largest retailer. I wrote it on the very first IBM PC business computer and I had to compile the index manually.
I have designed unique folded cards, known as ‘Wow Cards’ (because that’s what people say) that are a sort of fusion of kirigami, magic and impossible objects.
I am one of the very few visitors to the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur to have seen the view from the very top - or at least the top-most floor that people can actually enter. This is even higher than the floor they use for VIP visits.
got video?
make video when you do.
–Survived the December 26, 2004 tsunami
–My name appeared in print on the same day on the front page of the Washington Post and the NYT (credited as U.S. Embassy spokesperson False_God)
–Yelled (unintentionally, I swear) at Christiane Amanpour to “shut up a second and let me think”
–Survived not one, not two, but three IED and/or landmine attacks on vehicles I was in
–Got my hooch rocketed in Afghanistan and my biggest worry was that it knocked my print of dogs playing poker off the wall
–Urinated in public on four continents and not gotten in trouble
–Been in the office of every Secretary of State since Albright
–When my vehicle got hit in a war zone (f*ckin IEDs), made sure my interpreter and driver were stable, kicked the window out, drew my sidearm, established a perimeter, returned fire at some jackass who opened up on us (and hit him), then took one in the right shoulder from a local policeman, who I then shut up by yelling at in the local language and got medevaced that night
–Been in over 300 declared and undeclared minefields–by choice!
–Been present at the opening of more mass graves than I care to remember
Looking back at the above list, I can add “survived to the age of 33.”
A “hero” ain’t nothin’ but a sandwich. In my case, bologna with light mustard on white bread.
You need a better set of wheels (figuratively speeaking), man.
I’ve been in one of those–no, two, I think, in Desert One and Two.
And it’s not my fault Humvees and LAVs have weak points in their armour and the insurgents know it. IEDs suck, VBIEDs suck more. Still can’t hear in my right ear because of the last one, and it’s been three years. Rangers lead the way and all that…
Incredible story. Thanks for sharing.
*I broke the nose of a Republican politician.
(to be fair, he swung first) All court activity is now resolved, so now I can admit to it.
*The day after “The Blind Sheik” was arrested for trying to blow up the Holland Tunnel, I walked in front of his mosque at lunchtime with a Wendy’s Chocolate Frosty. There were dozens of reporters there (and not a few cops) and a yellow grated garbage can in front of the mosque door.
I simply shouted, “This Shake SUCKS!” and threw my Frosty into the garbage.
The cops started to move, looked, and frowned. The AP guys just busted out laughing.
*I’m banned-for-life from the Tammiment golf resort for driving a golf cart over (through, to be precise) the 18th hole.
*In High school, I created a fictitious person in our school records. He had health records, disciplinary records, and was even signed up for classes. He lived at a local country club. Our school principle truly wanted to meet him. 
*I out-drove a Porshe on the GSP whilst in a Datsun B-210 (it was just once, and that driver didn’t know how to drive).
*I’ve gotten a company car up to the speed of ‘P’. (When the speedometer ends, but the needle keeps going, technically its possible to lodge it on the ‘P’ between the ‘M’ and ‘H’ at the bottom of the gauge.)
*While training for a job back in the day, I accidentally listed as an alias on someones TRW the name ‘Bitch’. (Its been far longer than 7 years and I’m sure its dropped off by now. Still, I’ve often wondered if a credit report ever printed as an entry “John Smith, also known as Bitch”)
*I once saved a little boy falling off the top of a jungle gym in a local park by catching him. (Later that summer, I climbed out the 3rd story rope climb at Sesame Place to grab & carry to the side a little guy who got his hand cut open on the ropes. Never even got a thank you for that one.)
*I thought up the story that saved the job of the guy who knocked the sprinkler head open with a football in an office that I used to work at.
*I’ve acted with Tom Cruz in a play. (…And I’ve never acted since. )
*While trying to hail a cab on 6th and walking back-wards, I accidentally smacked a girl walking with Arnold Vosloo in the face. (He really does look like that when he’s angry, btw.)
*I’ve had a drunk off-duty detective put a gun in my face.
*I’ve won much more money in either Canadian or Swiss casinos than I have lost.
*I’ve hummed ‘Dulac Is The Perfect Place’ while cashing in chips at Geneve Casino Du Lac.
*I’ve bought a Swiss Army Knife. In Switzerland. (Shipping home is the best option)
*I once ruined dinner for an entire room full of patrons in a restaurant in Ireland (ROI). Evidently saying, “Michael, I’ll get you into a castle tomorrow if I have to round up 12 pissed-off Vikings and a Battering Ram…!” isn’t polite dinner conversation.
I think some people are a bit unclear on the definition of “unique”.
Umm. Sorry. I got carried away. If I could edit, I would gladly do so. If someone else wants to delete & un-kill the thread, I’d have no objection. Anyone who’s curious can PM me for cites & details. Doubt anyone would though.
I once hammered a nail into the nozzle of a model rocket engine with less than optimum results. I seriously doubt anybody else has ever done that 