There have been days in my life where the wierdest things have happened to me or people have said some really odd stuff that just didn’t make any sense at all. Like Welsh Rarebit, for instance: it’s an English food, consisting of a cheese sauce on toast. It’s actually pronounced “rabbit”, and apparently came about because the English upper-class for some reason wanted to be able to eat something called rabbit, but were too snooty to actually eat rabbits – that was peasant food.<\/p>\n
Or at least, that’s what BJ told me.<\/p>\n
BJ’s wife Kathleen had the ability to somehow know just what kind of useless crap had managed to stuff itself indellibly into my brain. We’re sitting in the living room one night, watching Dustin Hoffman in “Little Big Man” when ‘The Seargent’ comes on screen. Kathleen sees the actor and says “damn, I know that guy from somewhere else…” she looks around the room, locks eyes with me for some reason and says “who the hell is that?” 20-some-odd years of television immediately roll before my eyes, and somehow the answer pops into my head: Gavin McCloud, formerly Capt. Stubing of ‘The Love Boat’.<\/p>\n
This was not the only time she (or anyone else) has done this to me.<\/p>\n
One of the strangest, however, was an afternoon in late September many years ago, during the conflict in Bosnia. I was sitting in my apartment chatting with a couple of friends – this was the rat-trap studio in Portland. Suddenly Slasher walks in, looks me dead in the eye and asks me if I want to take a job hunting snipers from Bosnian rooftops – the employer will equip me with my choice of gear, and give me a couple of scouts so I could be an anti-sniper sniper.<\/p>\n
I shit you not – this kid trekked halfway across Portland to specifically seek me out and give me this job offer. He barely knew me, and had no idea what kind of training I had had, but somehow was convinced that not only did I have the skills for this kind of work, but I would be willing to traipse off to Bosnia for a 6-month stint. <\/p>\n
I told him no – it only paid 10 grand.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"