But enough about me . . .

A horrible freak of his acquaintance tagged the Drunkablog with one of those "five things nobody knows about me" deals. I'll do it, but I bloody well won't like it.

1. Little-known fear: As a child (though not only as a child), the Drunkablog was deathly afraid of moths. It took years of therapy and self-prescribed medicaments to "cure" him.

2. Obligatory "ain't I bright" self-congratulation: This won't shock regular D-bog readers, if any, but the Drunkablog graduated from high school fourth in his class--fourth from the bottom, that is. The kid immediately below me in class standing was known, perhaps because of his somewhat missing-linkish look, as "Ug-man."

The D-blog, in fact, was considered by many (though not, generally speaking, his teachers) to be borderline 'tard. Once, entering an assembly for college-bound seniors, he was startled when another attendee, a farm kid known mainly for his lack of forehead and obsessive carnal knowledge of chickens, yelled in amazement, "John Martin's going to COLLEGE?"

As it turned out, no.

But here's the "I'm really smart" part: despite his lack of academic distinction, the Drunkablog was leader and mainstay of his senior "College Bowl" team. A veritable eructation of erudition, he led the acknowledged brains of his class to the Bowl Championship (small-school consolation bracket) game, answering even math questions before his brilliant but awestruck teammates (that's how he remembers them, anyway) could ring in. This from a guy who just the past year had flunked "consumer math" (aka "making change").

3. Ancestor worship: When she died in 1998, the D-blog's grandmother (my father's mother) was 105, and thus not far short of having lived in three different centuries and two millenia. Her earliest memory, she once told me, was of the cousin who almost shot her as he showed off his military skillz on his return from "the war." She meant, of course, the Spanish-American War.

4. Unsuspected talent: As an adult the Drunkablog took classical guitar lessons for almost a decade; now, after nearly another decade without touching his nylon-stringed son of a cardboard box, all he can remember is Dust in the Wind, not generally considered part of the classical repertoire. In fact he's become partial to sitting in front of the computer playing that bit of uber-sap over and over and over until his own dog goes for his dancing digits.

Truly, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky.

5. TBA.

Update: Remember the Maine, beeyatches!

Update II: Death's Head Moth by Billy Childish is exhibited here.

Update III: Sarcasm practice: how odd that the BBC's "interactive culture magazine" is called Collective.

Update IV: Actually it's called collective. In Great Britain, I hear, it's a minimum two-year jolt in Gulag for capitalizing it.