I am not a big fan of Memes — even though the great and genius evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins invented them in 1976 — but our old pal Mark (aka Podz!) tagged me and so, I will do the best I can and share “Five Things You Don’t Know About Me” even though a lot of what I list you may already know: 


1. I was born into “Isherwood” as my last name. Does “David W. Isherwood’s Urban Semiotic” have the same tangy ring as our current version?

2. I am painfully shy
and I don’t like to talk on the phone and most people misinterpret that
as arrogance or being unfriendly. I feel I am quite the opposite.

3. I have held a gun in my mouth and a can of Dust-Off against my lips for all the wrong reasons.

4. I have never been ticketed, arrested, or detained.

5. Two weeks before the school year started I received a letter from USC
telling me I was admitted into their freshman class. At that time, the
idea of moving from Nebraska to California and coming up with the
$14,000 a year tuition was too overwhelming a prospect for me to
overcome alone.

I live without regret, but the lesson I learned from
that experience is sometimes you need to jump when your feet don’t want
to move. I use that understanding to inform the rest of my life.

44 Comments

  2. Chris!
    Wowser! I love your meme answers! That was so much fun I want to do it again!
    😀
    Yes, $14,000 back in 1983 or so… was A LOT of money a year for tuition alone. There was no dorm space left, either, so add in the price of an apartment and things begin to wildly become unaffordable on the face of it.
    In 1988 the price for hitting grad school at Columbia was $25,000 a year and just as unaffordable as USC, but we made it work that time.
    You’re doing the right thing about your house. You will be so happy in your new environment!
    I, too, share the “same name” problem. You explained it well and you brought a knowing smile to my face!
    😀
    I agree with your methods to overcome shyness. One-on-one I’m great but groups larger than three and I begin to just fade away in the din.

  3. 1. i am actually sane. i just act crazy. Everyone else acts sane and is actually crazy. LOL.
    2. i have six happy and healthy grandchildren all born within the past four years.
    3. A half page picture of me, with my wife (you can only see her hat) appeared in the LIFE Magazine Special Woodstock edition (1969). We were sitting on a log platform covered with straw, i’m playing a guitar.
    4. A totally new and obvious and simple philosophy was revealed to me in a vision in 1974.
    Philosophy is really simple. If one has no excess energy one can do nothing. If one has any excess energy one can do one of five things with any external or internal thing.
    Philosophy is really simple. If one has no excess energy one can do nothing. If one has any excess energy one can do one of five things with any external or internal thing.
    1.a) Interact with it in the here and now.
    2.a) Put it aside for potential future interaction.
    3.a) Recycle it.
    4.a) “Dispose” of it. ( Nothing can actually be “disposed” of since everything is a seed that grows in a fertile place or returns to from whence it came otherwise)
    5.a) “Ignore it.” ( If “ignored” consciously it is not ignored on unconscious levels.)
    5. My wife and i and three of our children (one more was born later (lived on a commune from ‘ 72- 76.5 ) near the Canadian border in N.E. Washington State.

  4. Fabulous meme, fred! I loved every wild, record-breaking, rules-shattering moment of it!
    😀
    Now, you need to take your comment here and post it as a new entry on your blog and then link back here to this post. You can look at Chris’ entry to see how that works. That way these memes build links that form a chain across the blogosphere and the free world!

  8. Katha!
    I saw your fabulous blog entry and I commented on it for you! The first thing in your meme is a doozy!
    😀
    Your Trackback is already here and alive right above us in the comments. Yay!
    You are the master of leaping, Katha! We can all learn from your great blind bravery.

  9. 😀
    It’s extremely hard for me to write about myself unless someone pushes me…
    That was the exact thought that came to my mind when I saw your post this morning – I really wanted to kill…
    But, thanks for making me do it – I appreciate it and thanks for tagging me as one of your friends!

  10. Hi Katha —
    Yes, your want for privacy and your pressing for limited time is what made me uncertain if I should “tag” you or not today but I’m so glad I did. I learned some good things to remember about your on your meme!
    Now, please! Go into the PRESENTATION area of your blog and just click on one of the template image icons to change the look of your blog to match your fab-o personality! “Iceburgg” is a new one with a fresh feeling for the holidays. You can change theme templates all day long just by clicking on the image and then choosing to “View” your blog live!

  11. Thanks for being a good sport and participating in the meme. The sequence of events was that engtech “tagged” me and then I “tagged” you.
    However, maybe Mark did a double tag and got you too. 😉
    May your holiday season be merry and bright.

  12. Blinks – Mr Boles doing a meme ?????
    I just did 6 unusual things ………. will do the 5 things you dont know about me tomorrow !

  13. Hi timethief —
    Well that’s interesting. I saw Mark’s tag by reading his Tamba2 blog and just happened to see my name tagged. It was wholly an accident because I probably read his post three times before it hit me I was that linked “David.”
    When I saw your note here that you tagged me I began to wonder how in the world people know they’ve been tagged?
    Then I thought about checking incoming links. They’ve been broken on WordPress.com for hosted domains but, I thought, maybe they’re fixed now.
    I checked my Dashboard and, sure enough, it looks like incoming links were fixed — because there was Mark’s tag link from Tamba2! Gee, it would be nice to get some sort of shoutback that things are fixed after you’re told, “we’re working on it.”
    Hmmm… I don’t see any incoming links from your blog so I’m glad you dropped in to let me know you tagged me because I don’t know how else I would’ve ever found out!

  14. Nicola!
    That’s “Mr. Isherwood” to you, missy!
    😉
    Yeah… I know. I Know. I KNOW! Memes. Ooof!
    :mrgreen:
    I’m not really good at memes and, as you can see, I have no idea what to do or how to behave when one has been, “Double Tagged” as they say, except to say, “Oh behave!”
    😀
    Loved your 6 post and I thank you for playing along tomorrow with the 5 here!

  19. Hi fred!
    Yes, I understand that connection is there in the tree or in the roots. It’s sort of hard to pin down, though, because the Isherwoods are itinerant, several of the men in antiquity were either Gay or childless so tracking down who belongs where how is mind-numbing.

  20. Hi David,
    The search for image link for my name is similarly scary, but not as scary as the links to an article written by the famous Chris Hedges about how we are all going to be blown up in a nuclear war with Iran.
    Writes the other Chris Hedges:

    War with Iran—a war that would unleash an apocalyptic scenario in the Middle East—is probable by the end of the Bush administration. It could begin in as little as three weeks.

    Yikes!!!

  21. Yikes, indeed! Let’s hope Newt Gingrich doesn’t shut you down! He’s on “Meet The Press” right now re-telling his want to shut down free speech on blogs to help fight terrorism.
    :mrgreen:

  22. That seems to be a popular thing to do these days. Every computer will get some sort of web filtering software that will keep us safe from ourselves. 🙂
    India is banning access to Blogger and we all know about China, Iran and other places.

  25. Never. Especially now when it is so easy to find ways to spread unofficial and unwelcome messages.
    I saw a nifty post where people have figured out all sorts of ways to defeat the official government censorship. One ingenious way is to use officially sanctioned tools to subvert the system, such as making PDF files of banned pages and sending via email to people behind the walled-off sections of the internet.
    People will always figure out a way to be free.

  26. Never. Especially now when it is so easy to find ways to spread unofficial and unwelcome messages.
    I saw a nifty post where people have figured out all sorts of ways to defeat the official government censorship. One ingenious way is to use officially sanctioned tools to subvert the system, such as making PDF files of banned pages and sending via email to people behind the walled-off sections of the internet.
    People will always figure out a way to be free.

  27. Yes, Chris, I love that report that speech is free and will find a way to be free.
    Why the need to repress the speech? Do those who want to shut us up think they can?

  28. Yes, Chris, I love that report that speech is free and will find a way to be free.
    Why the need to repress the speech? Do those who want to shut us up think they can?

  31. 5 things from me 🙂
    1. I’m danish but i hate danish produced movies, i hate danish voice translation (like shrek)
    2. I live in a tiny village population is like 5000 🙂
    3. I’m always ready to discuss politics no matter where in the world it is
    4. I listen to Pop/Rock and Heavy Metal (Only Linkin Park though 🙂
    Sorry can’t find a number 5 that’s real interresting 🙂

  41. 5. I really hate the danish popularity’s attitude, when i visited USA they were very much more kind.
    Last one, which I find kinda funny 🙂

  42. 5. I really hate the danish popularity’s attitude, when i visited USA they were very much more kind.
    Last one, which I find kinda funny 🙂

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