Jersey Mike

Okay, I’ll play.

@sarabozich “tagged” me in her 7 Things Meme which, according to the rules, means that I have to write one of these as well. I’m still new to this whole “meme” thing, so I guess this is a good way to get acquainted. Essentially, I’ve got to tell you seven things you may not know (or want to know) about me.

(Jesus, this feels like MySpace all over again)

1. I’ve never seen The Big Lebowski or The Godfather.

It happens the same way every time. Some clever kid drops a reference, the whole group laughs and I stand there perplexed. Following my perplexed look, I get some variation of “Duuuude. You’ve never seen The Big Lebowski!?”

2. Everything I know about sales I learned from selling speakers.

For seven years in the nineties, I was “one of those guys who sells speakers out of white minivans.” It started as a way to get my Mom off my back after I quit going to community college but the cash came easy and allowed me to travel to and live in a bunch of cool cities I wouldn’t have otherwise visited. But the main tenet of hustling speakers- Great Attitude=Great Results; Shit Attitude=Shit Results- carries over into everything I do- every day of the year.

3. I’m a huge Huey Lewis and The News fan.

Ain’t no shame in my game. I know that it’s hip to be square, that I want a new drug and, most importantly, that I’m happy to be stuck with you. “Sports” was the very first piece of recorded music that I purchased with money saved from my allowance when I was probably eleven years old. And I still have the cassette.

4. I’m a cancer survivor.

I was twenty, just getting ready to move to Los Angeles (selling speakers) and I found a lump in my neck. Because hustling speakers out of white Astro Vans didn’t provide health insurance, I haggled with a surgeon and paid cash for a biopsy. When the results came back, I was informed that I had Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and moved back to Jersey to blaze through six months of chemotherapy and one month of radiation.

5. I’m deathly afraid of snakes.

Hate em. Cannot possibly understand or comprehend the need for these filthy, slimy, slithering creatures. Once while on vacation with my parents when I was seven or eight years old, I saw a garter snake – maybe six inches long- and freaked the eff out. I ran down the gravel driveway of the house, tripped and fell and cut up my knee. Still have the scar. (No, I won’t show you.)

6. I got fired from two radio stations in Harrisburg.

I didn’t really get canned from 105.7 The X; I had actually put in my two weeks notice and the night before my last shift, I played “Testify” by Rage Against The Machine (which we weren’t supposed to play) and my boss, Nixon, let me know that I wouldn’t need to complete my last shift.

About a year later, I got the itch to do radio again and landed a swing-shift gig on 93.5 WTPA. Was doing mostly weekends and occasional afternoons. The day after Ben Roethlisberger’s motorcycle accident, I was doing drive time and proudly told forty thousand listeners that I thought that Ben was an “overpaid, young punk who shouldn’t have been on a motorcycle in the first place”. Oh, and the ink was barely dry on the contract between TPA and The Steelers to carry their games.

7. I got married in Vegas.

It was just one of those things. We were pregnant, we both pretty much knew that it wasn’t going to work so we went to Vegas and got married. Nine months later, we parted ways, I moved into an apartment across the street from the State Street Station in West Fairview and started booking bands. Right around the same time I started writing a column for HBGOnline.com and got into radio.

Next time, I’ll  marry a girl from Jersey and do it right.

I tag:

Dave

Halushki

Heidi

Kathleen

Josh

Phil

Wheeler

And for good measure- I also tag Rich

THE RULES ARE:
Link your original tagger(s) and leave a comment on this blog posting when you’ve “memed.”

List these rules on your blog.

Share seven facts about yourself in the post – some random, some weird.

Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.

Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.