Chris on 
1. Do you have a “bucket” list? A number of things that you want to do before you “kick the bucket”? I don’t, and I’m not sure what that says about me. Perhaps it means that I won’t be disappointed in my twilight years by the whole of my life’s accomplishments. Perhaps it means that I have a stagnant personality. I’m not sure. My list would look like this: Write at least two books. Raise happy children.
2. Did you have a favorite TV show that you loved as a child? As a young child, I was devoted to Mister Rogers and Reading Rainbow. Later on ALF, The Cosby Show and Growing Pains were staples. During high school, Friends and Frasier floated my boat.
3. What are your top 3 favorite books? We have a book critic now at Citizen Wausau, and I like the idea of bringing the literary perspective to the community dialogue. My top three books would include The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera, The Thin Woman by Dorothy Cannell and The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher. They aren’t masterpieces, but they are touchstones for my life. I go back and reread them time and time again, savoring the words and the stories for different reasons. The golden ring silences of Kundera, the flabbergasted British countryside castle comedy of Cannell and the cherishing of memories and love in Pilcher’s Porthkerris.
4. Did you and your father share a favorite activity? From an early age, my dad would challenge me with logic problems. We’d solve them together. I amused him by solving word searches faster than he thought possible, and we would spend silent hours together solving 5000-piece jigsaw puzzles.
5. What would you do if you had an entire day to yourself to spend as you wish? Let’s give you 500 dollars in your pocket as mad money. What would you do? I’d have breakfast at the Mint, spend a couple hours in a lounge chair in the library with the latest fiction release, paint pottery at the Clay Corner, and have lunch at 2510 with Death by Chocolate for dessert. After lunch, I’d snuggle down with an old movie (probably Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House) and take a nap under a sumptuous quilt. After the nap, I’d get a massage at Natural-Care Massage in Schofield followed by a mini shopping spree at JoAnn Fabrics. Dinner would probably be at Wright’s Place with a lighthearted movie afterwards: just me, a large Coke and a bucket of buttery popcorn that would inevitably give me a tummy ache.
1. Make at least two records.
2. G.I. Joe, Masters of the Universe, Jim Henson’s StoryTeller.
3. The Crystal Shard by R.A. Salvatore, The Once and Future King by T.H. White, and Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. In my opinion they are more “masterpiece” worthy than what critics consider the great literary works.
4. Well, my dad liked to drink in the bar, and I liked to play pinball in the bar, does that count? Now I run a bar. Funny how that works.
5. Tattoos, gambling, drinking, bands. Sounds like a good day.
1. I by all rights should be dead.. I have cheated death at least twice and therefore consider myself on borrowed time. I don’t have a bucket list, if there is something I want to do before I die.. I just do it.
2. I remember watching Seseme Street and the Electric Company as a child. After school shows that I was a big fan of (in syndication before the news, not prime time) included Gilligan’s Island, Little Rascals, and the Three Stooges. I really don’t remember watching much prime time stuff until I was in my teens, where the A Team and Knight Rider along with the Dukes of Hazzard were favorites. Also, the old Dr Who on public television always kept my attention.
3. Favorite books and only just three? First one would have to be Clancey’s Red Storm Rising. I got to meet the author under some pretty interesting circumstances because of my profession at the time that book came out. A book called Good Bye Mickey Mouse, a WWII avaition novel by Len Deighton introduced me to him as an author… I have read (and own) almost every one of his works, and that is the one that got me started. I have a German Bible from the 1800′s that I found at an antique store. Although I am not a big fan of any organized religion… I do like that particular book.
4. Growing up, my dad and I really had nothing in common. He was blue collar, worked very hard for a living, never went to high school and it was clear at a very young age that I was destined to earn a living with my head (vs my hands or my back like he did). Recently, though, we have discovered golf. We both play it very badly. He is much better with his woods than I am… but when we get close to the green, he is useless with short irons.. which makes most of the rounds pretty competetive. We also have our own rules (swing and a miss doesn’t count, you can try a shot up to three times if you duff it.. if the ball goes in the woods, if you go in the woods and find any ball.. throw it out and play it – no penalty.. etc.) My dad and I are only first now in the last few years really getting to know each other.
5. A day to myself to spend as I wish with $500 burning a hole in my pocket. I am self-employed so basically each day is spent doing as I wish… but if I had a “free day”… I could really use it to go to the office and make a huge dent in getting caught up on the revamp of the website I have been working on for months.
1. a) I’d like to create a full six course menu and present it to a bunch of culinary arts professionals.
b) I’d like to spend a time touring with a band that I could listen to night after night without it getting old. Joe Bonnamassa, Aretha Franklin or John Fogerty come to mind.
c) I’d like to try stand up comedy at least once.
2. Monty Python, the early years of Saturday Night Live, Don Kirchner’s Rock Concert, The Midnight Special, Ed Sullivan.
3. The Age of Reason by Jean Paul Sartre…. Blind Ambition: The White House Years by John Dean … The Godfather by Mario Puzo
4. Didn’t do much with my father, went to Brewers games a couple of times but we weren’t very close.
5. Absolutely has to be Opening Day at Miller Park for me.
1) Nothing I am not doing already. Each day is lived like my last.
2) Gilligan’s Island was a staple along with Dukes of Hazard. Gotta love some Waylon Jennings.
3) Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, HST’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or Hell’s Angels, and The Barbecue Bible.
4) My father seemed to enjoy “keeping me at arm’s length” and generally finding new ways to diminish me. I was especially fond of the times when he was gone.
5) 18 holes at Stonebridge Ranch, cocktails, supper at Roy’s, more cocktails as funds permitted. $500 doesn’t go very far, when I stop to think about it. . .
I would like to have enough money so I don’t have to work so much, then I would like to put up a stand on the 400 block, offering free advice for a nickel. Kind of like Lucy from the Peanuts comic strip. I got a lot of Ideas.
2. When I was a kid I use to watch a lot of Bob Ross. He was this painter dude, who could create an entire picture in a half hour. It always captivated me, and does still to this day. If you call 1800 Bob-Ross you can order the DVD’s of his show, or if you come to Malarkey’s I would loan them to you.
3. I like Bound For Glory. It was written by Woody Guthrie, and kind of follows his ramblings through the country. I just saw the movie, and there is something about that guy that resinates with me.
Choke, is a book by the guy who wrote fight club, his name is Chuck Pali-something. That book is crude and funny as hell, I highly suggest for anyone not to sensitive.
Finally I would say, On The Beach, by Nevil Shute. This book was always interesting to me. It’s about the world coming to an end. The book focuses on people’s reaction to a huge problem. Some give up, some just go on like nothing is wrong, and some try to find a solution. In the end, every one dies, but I wonder what would have happened if everyone could focus on one huge problem, and solve it together. I think the world should read this book. The problem then would be, what do we fix first?
4. Don’t really have an answer here
5. I would give the money away, and enjoy the day playing guitar and reading. Been a while since I had a day off, I miss my old hobbies some times.
1. After surviving an unsurvivable condition, I have come to a point where I don’t think about the “some days” or the “what if’s”, I do things as opportunities present themselves…whether it’s doing 2.7 seconds on a bull named “Big Red” or taking a hot air balloon ride or an Angel Flight or traveling to eastern Europe. No regrets.
2. 1960′s cartoons: (Heckel and Jeckel, Mighty Mouse, Underdog, Quick Draw McGraw, Foghorn Leghorn), Captain Kangaroo, Lost in Space, Gilligan’s Island, The Andy Griffith Show, I Love Lucy, Green Acres, Red Skelton, The Ed Sullivan Show, Laugh-In.
3. The Laws of Spirit, Neither Wolf Nor Dog
4. As a child: traveling. We never had much money, but my dad would always take us on road trips in a VW van (around Lake Superior, to New York City, northern WI, Maxwell Street, Chicago). He loved adventure, fun, music, contests. Once, after seeing all the animals at Aqualand, including the piano-playing chicken and the soda-guzzling kodiak bear, my brother bragged that he could guzzle soda faster and in greater quantity than the kodiak bear. Game on. My dad bought him a case of bottled soda and the contesst began. After about 7 or 8 bottles of soda, my brother was laid out on the grass clutching his belly looking pretty green. A valuable lesson was learned about self-restraint and setting reasonable limits. As an adult: I enjoyed sitting outside with my dad, just watching the water on the lake, watching the chickadees feed and the geese fly overhead. We became very close at the end.
5. I currently have the luxury of having most every day to spend by myself doing what I want to do. Wouldn’t hurt to have the $500 in my pocket, though. Massage, reflexology, acupuncture, dinner at the Wright Place, book shopping, road trip to see if the piano-playing chicken is still around. Maybe a case of soda for my brother.