Having known most of you best during one little window of our lives, in a scene focused on music, I really cherish the opportunity to learn about the before, after and sideways.
Over the past year, we’ve heard a lot of passing mentions of folks’ extracurricular activities — the stuff they loved as kids and the things they like to do now. I discovered that I wasn’t the only aspiring magician on the blog, we’ve learned about Patrick Works’ fascination with Russian in general and Rasputin in particular, Dean Curtis (and others) have shared their epicurean enthusiasms, Toby Gibson (and others) have cited their affinity for matters aquatic … The list goes on.
So, open question: Besides listening to and playing music, what did you like to do then? What do you like to do now? Do the dots connect, or would the kid you were then be surprised at the activities that amuse the grownup you’ve become?
OK, this little post is looking lonely, so I’ll warm it up myself with some examples from my own checkered childhood. 🙂
I did the magic act that everybody heard too much about.
I was a theater geek — I was in the Milwaukee Children’s Theater Company; and some youth theater group in Del Mar, which gave me a chance to snuggle with a real girl onstage in “Taming of the Shrew” (yowza!) and meet the Goldsmith lad who would go on to form the Executives; and the San Dieguito HS theater department, which was intense (kicked off my freshman year with “Equus”).
I had a major Sherlock Holmes fixation when I was around eight or nine and wore a deerstalker cap and collected Holmes odds ‘n’ sods.
I had a “little museum” and collected a lot of fossils in the hills above our temporary home in Salamanca, NY.
I collected pennies in those books. And when my younger daughter was somewhere between small and medium, I pulled out those penny books again and we relit the torch, adding some new-old ones and lots of new-new ones (i.e., every penny after 1974).
All of the magic and theater stuff definitely reflected in doing bands. Actually, I’d been trying to learn guitar and form a band from age six! I was always trying to organize kids into clubs to do some kind of performance — not bands ’cause we didn’t know how to play at the time.
Nowadays, I do this blog. My wife always said I worry about work too much and don’t have enough to do to chill out. My younger alter-ego would not place a premium on chilling out — it was always about striving, striving — but (when I have the time) I do find it peaceful to resize your photos and edit your words. 🙂
Oh! And probably our menagerie of pets counts as a distraction. (I’m often editing the blog with a small parrot grumbling contentedly inside my shirt.)
I should give myself more breaks, though. I’m not very good at hobbies! Any suggestions? I tried philately, but the police chased me out of the park.
Back then, aside from the aforementioned playing and listening to music (so I’ll include collecting gear in the “aside from” category), I was into comic books. I’ve been to every Comic-Con since 1976 (and had attended the ’74 Con as well, but didn’t go in ’75).
I reached a point where I no longer bought comics religiously, and tapered off fairly quickly after that. I still attend Comic Con, and buy the occasional comic, but we’re talking only a few a year, not several per week.
I have always been an avid reader of science fiction, which also fits in well with Comic-Con.
They’ve both come together for me, as I’m now co-writing a comic book with a friend of mine who is an artist and a pretty constant nominee for best colorist at the annual awards. It’s a concept I came up with, and he took and turned into a comic: Vampyrates. I have to classify it as a hobby right now, because I’ve yet to be paid for my work.
Under real hobbies, I’ve become an avid fan of Disney theme parks. My wife and I go to Disneyland multiple times every year, and have twice gone on an around-the-world trip (honeymoon and 10th anniversary) that took us to Anaheim, Orlando, Paris, and Tokyo. I would probably have gone to Disneyland far more back in the day, but my first wife wasn’t down with that. I think I got an Annual Pass within a month of her moving out!
Epicurean? Well, we certainly do enjoy good food when we can afford it, and will search out highly rated restaurants and chefs when we’re on vacation somewhere other than a Disney park. (Though there are definitely some fantastic Disney restaurants, to be sure: Club 33, Napa Rose, Victoria & Albert’s, etc.)
I don’t think collecting cats counts as a hobby, but we have six. (We had to put our #1 cat to sleep just over a week ago, and I’m trying not to think about it.)
That pretty much covers it, I think.
Oh, and as to the last question posed in the blog . . . who sez I’m a grownup? Hah!
I don’t understand how people have time for hobbies, especially people as busy as you two (Matthew and Kevin) sound to be; maybe I’m just lazy. I work millions of hours at the teaching job and spend the rest of my time trying to raise the children half-decently (boy, 5, and girl, nearly 10). Beyond that, there’s time only for a little reading (everything), writing (poetry--I guess this is as close to a real hobby as I get), listening to music, and dicking around on the internet (like now). We try to go to concerts when they come close to us here in Sleepy Town. Last week was boffo: Cracker (summarily dismissed somewhere by someone here, but quite a good show in an acoustic duo format…if no Camper van Beethoven…) and Arlo Guthrie (whom I’d wanted to see for around 30 years, since seeing a double-bill of Alice’s Restaurant and Bound for Glory at OB’s magnificent Strand Theatre). We go to plays when we can, too, and still travel to see rellies in the UK quite often (my brother, Nick, known to some here, has been resident there for several years…). One aspect of my job that amounts to a hobby (in hours dedicated to it and enjoyment derived from it) is my being faculty advisor to the school lit mag. Last year, we included a CD of original student music and won an award! I’m like a bigwig publisher and a celebrated record producer!
Tomorrow, we’re supposed to take my son fishing by his request, and I’m praying he doesn’t catch anything (this lake prohibits catch-and-release..). In the words of Withnail and I, if he catches a trout, how do we make it die?
I enjoyed your animal stories, so I’ll add that our pets include cats (two, Alice and Pippin, for now, but there’s talk of a kitten for the daughter’s birthday); goldfish (two, renamed periodically to reflect my daughter’s interests and still growing rapidly; at what point can we call them koi?); and an 8-year-old, utterly despicable cannibal aquatic frog that will surely outlive us all. If I could write a comicbook, I think it would be about HER exploits.
Me no grow up either. Tho’ I’ve become somewhat responsible. I don’t work overtime -- ever -- and I keep relaxing a first priority -- not slacking but, well…I don’t need to own much or have a perfect house, you know? I play with my kid most of the time. Visit with friends.
Somehow the wonder of childhood has remained intact. Being a mother gives me opportunity to explore this and everything else in this world, from dragonflies to rock formations. I still create. Poetry. Art. Ideas or whatever. I crave quiet and stillness, but also humour. So I meditate. And write. And read. And watch. My life is busy with lots of padding in between. Noise and chaos has lost its luster. I love Buddhist/Eastern philosophy & spirituality, asian cinema or films from the low-brow genre of the early 70’s, science fiction, fairy tales, crop circles and cryptozoology, ghost stories….the unexpected. To decompress from work (I work in publishing), I do yoga 4-5 days a week, or, I watch documentaries on natural disasters, or Godzilla movies.
So I haven’t really changed much. Just my attitude has.
Simon, I’d have to say the fact that I have no children significantly increases the amount of time I have available for work (three paying jobs, plus the comic book and two-and-a-half bands) and play. I can’t imagine being able do do nearly half of what I do if I had to be responsible for a young life. That takes a level of responsibility that I simply don’t have.
Kevin, Yeah, the child-raising is awesome in both senses and takes tons of time, but your list of activities just sounds to me like more than could possibly fit into a week. Maybe Vampyrates don’t sleep…
And maybe everybody else already knows, but what’s a half-band?
Nice (and weird) to chat with you after, lo, these many years…
I have too many hobbies! I wish I could eliminate sleep, to be able to indulge in them more. The top one will always be record collecting. Surfing ebay, or thumbing through bins, and discovering a diamond in the rough, is still a huge thrill for me. Even though I purged my collection somewhat, prior to my return to SD, my records always threaten to overrun the house. I try to catch as many live shows as finances will allow. I am also a bike geek. We have somewhere in the area of 25 bikes at my house right now. I like to restore old bikes to ride, and am trying to eliminate as car travel as much as possible. Besides record collecting, I have also collected over the years: coins, stamps, comics, toys, kitsch, and probably a few more. I also enjoy hunting, fishing, backpacking, and consider politics as a sort of hobby as well. As far as my younger self, I still have much the same interests as my younger self. Mixing in spending as much time as possible with my wife and kids, led me to disembark from the salaried, high stress corporate world, an simplify my life once I returned to SD.
Kevin and I exchanged some observations RE Disney over on the forums as well, but amen: Nancy and I are very big buffs (her art is quite informed by animation), and our eldest has expressed some ambitions to be an Imagineer. Which might be the coolest damn job in the world, actually.
A half band is one that only plays every two or three years. Aside from The Shambles and Manual Scan, I’m in a couple of Gary Shuffler’s cover projects--an Adam and the Ants trib and a Queen trib. We did the Adam thing about a year ago, and we’ll probably be redoing the Queen thing (for the first time in several years) in July. It’s a hell of a lot of work on my part. Brian May is not an easy player to emulate.
I am prohibited by the rules of this blog from sharing my hobbies.
As far as I know Hockey has not been banned yet here on the blog.
Hmmm hobbies…
I have owned more expensive cameras than I probably should have and though I have made some money with my efforts it was never enough to have paid for any of them. I currently have 3 cameras, 2 film and one digital. Hopefully the hobby status gets an upgrade soon…
I have spent plenty of time taking things apart and them putting them back together. I love a challenge the iPhone is next when the battery takes a dive.
Since my job involves computers, printers and various machines to produce graphic materials, I make I get my creative fix on that stuff from time to time and get paid to do so.
And I like James enjoy the two wheeled mechanical contrivance, though he has far more bikes than I (factor of 4.16 I think) and he works at a bike store so I trust he finds orphans to take home. I do spend a decent amount of time in the saddle, not near as much as I’d like but I keep fit and trim as it is.
I geocache with the family
restore my old car
coach soccer
I find myself riding my bicycle a lot
I take a lot of pictures, but I couldnt say I’m a photographer…
do a lot of driving to and from our childrens functions
I need to get physically active. This sucks! 🙂
MadMike: I love that you include chauffeuring kids as an activity. It’s TRUE. … Hey! If I got a rickshaw to run ’em around, I’d be in great shape in no time flat.
Over in the forum, I mentioned my family’s pop-up camper and various misadventures in the great outdoors. Our yearly haaj to Lake Michigan to hang with Nancy’s family is a real pleasure (even if I’m usually being compulsive with my Blackberry or laptop). Her crew is the best — really just embodies everything I like most about that part of the country.
I really enjoy goofy stuff, like miniature golf. I didn’t get enough of those things as a kid, so for me they’re, like, exotic culture. Give me a water park or a little tiny race car, and I’m totally stoked — long as there’s lot of airbrushed fiberglass and hair metal/Jimmy Buffett/other crapola I wouldn’t stand otherwise blaring out of hidden speakers! 🙂
Can you tell I’m gearing up for summer?? Maybe I was a carny in another life.
PS: I’m still an art fag, too, no worries. I like to mix my high and low cultures (whatever those words mean anyway, it’s all just people being imaginative, after all) … kinda like one of those suicide sodas where you’d splash in some of every flavor at the 7-11 spigots!
My work is my hobby and my hobby is my work. I still make my living shooting people. Less is more, like James found, so I don’t work at it as much as I used to, but it’s fun every single day.
Gardening has turned to farming, and now we’re well on the way to being self-sufficient at home…so hobbies turning into a way of living seem to be a pattern that’s recurring around here.
Reading is still the closest thing I can find that’s truly leisure. I don’t count creative expression as a hobby….it’s kinda like breathing to me. Most of the stuff I read however, could easily be left aside and it would not be missed…but I really dig it, so I usually have about 4-5 things going.
Today’s reading list:
The Gift (Lewis Hyde)
The Contrary Farmer (Gene Logsdon)
St. John of the Cross -- His Life and Poetry (Gerald Brenan)
Beekeeping -- A Practical Guide (Richard Bonney)
The Hardy Boys -- A Figure in Hiding (Franklin W. Dixon)
Frank, Joe, and their portly pal Chet still seem to get involved in the most baffling cases. This one’s a real corker!
Patrick Works
Bibliophile
suicide sodas………………………
My kids still think thats the best thing I have ever taught them.
Too Funny
A murder-suicide soda: Make someone else try it first!
A suicide-pact soda = two straws!!
PS: Who’s been to the soda pavilion in EPCOT Center in Orlando, where you can sample all the sodas of the world? That’s Russian-roulette soda: A couple of them are pretty gnarly!
suicide sodas?
at the risk of sounding stupid..what are those?
Matt..will you be in Wisconsin some time this summer?
lol about driving the kids in a rickshaw…it’s amazing how much time it takes to cart them around..they seem to have more of a social life than I…
Matt, Naturally, I’ve been there. And yeah, there’s some . . . questionable stuff. Just making plans to head back to WDW later this year. By the time we get there it will have been something like six years since our last visit, so I’m really looking forward to it.
But not the nasty sodas.
>>>Pat said: I don’t count creative expression as a hobby….it’s kinda like breathing to me.
Another Pat Works keeper phrase. “Hobby” sounds like something for recovering alcoholic housewives who now don’t know what to do with themselves.
World of Coke in downtown Atlanta has a long wall with all of the different versions of their sodas from around the world. I pretty much felt ill after trying to many one day. I would not reccomend making a suicide from that wall…………………..
A sign that my 5 year old son is giftid is that he discuverd suicide soda on his own.
As far as hobys go I’ spent the last year getting my 65 Allstate scooter on the road and whent on a scooter rally a cuple of weeks ago up in Vegas.
I also surf weekly and just picked up a Blank from mitches wich I will shape into an 8 foot 1950s simons replica/rip off.
I’ve been reading moby dick wich has definatly cosed irreversable brain damage.
ive desided not to try and spel anything rite agin. wuts thu point. its all made up anyway
Man I wish I could find the link- basically the article was “Univrisety Studdy fines spellin unimportint”.
http://marklunds.com/articles/one/58
yeah, I don’t have hobbies…
especially since THE EVENT*** four years ago left me a legally handicapped adult, now all of my meaningful passions have become my part time activities/number one priorities.
Finally, after 24+ years of singing and songwriting; my first CDis ready to drop with the Che Underground collaborative ‘tour de fource’ Blues Gangsters featuring David James Rinck, David Ellison, David Fleminger,
Matt Johnson, and Myself (Kristi Maddocks) on lead vocals. But i am blessed, because also on the evening of the Che Underground Showcase, the new Everybody violet line-up will open the show at the Casbah with a full set of original EV music with a riockin line-uo of musicians, including David Fleminger on guitar and Heaher Vorwreck on Cello-which will display the new depth and versatility of the EV sound! e VOWS TO SET THE STANDARD HIGH ON OPENING NIGHT AND WILL DELIVER A SET OF HIGHT ENERGY. SOUL MOVING, LABIDO GROOVING ROCK IN ROLL that will touch you mind. body & soul!
Everybody Violet…We will move you, we promise to groove you!
Personally, I’m planning to bring my coin collection on stage at the Casbah. “Want to see a 1914D wheat-back penny? Everyone move in close!” 🙂
… Art and Chuey can pitch pennies at the stage for old times’ sake — I’ll run around and stick them in my book!
“Univrisety Studdy fines spellin unimportint”.
God, this makes me feel much better.
I was seriously into numismatics (coins) as a little kid…so to this day valuable noggin’ real estate is occupied by coin minutiae. Fer instance I still know that the “VDB” on a 1909-S VDB penny stands for Victor D. Brenner, the designer of the Lincoln cent. Since 1910 (uh-oh, now I’m not sure this is right..) the letters have appeared at the base of Lincoln’s shoulder near the raised edge of the coin. In 1959 the homage to the amber waves --eat those Wheaties, kidz-- on the reverse of the coin was replaced by the linkin’ memorial building.
Decision used to perform a great song about Abraham Lincoln..
The recent re-designs of the nickel make me very nervous. I prefer my presidents in perfect side view like proper Roman coinage. Now that Jefferson is turning his gaze towards me I have to re-assess my life, at a moment in history when the future often looks as shaky as Monticello Jello.
It’s amazing we even have pennies and nickels in circulation at this point in history. Hooray for Coin Star machines.
Wheat pennies, buffalo nickels and liberty head dimes used to appear fairly frequently when I was a kid--haven’t seen a buffalo nickel or liberty head dime in ages.
I was a stamp collector myself. Through stamps I learned a lot about world geography and fostered a fascination with exotic and faraway places.
David F said-“Hooray for Coin Star machines.”
I heard that!
I still thrift shop as a hobbie, don’t always know what I am looking for but sometimes it finds me, some nice dansk candle holders found me the other day and a Peter Max bed sheet called out to me.
This is dorky…but I used to collect miniatures. You know, the dollhouse kind. I was really into it and went to the miniature faires at the Scottish Rite Temple, spending my allowance money on tiny food items, furniture, piano and fairy sized sheet music. I even put electricity in it and had a working tiffany lamp. I don’t know what happened to all that stuff. I think my mom garage-saled it when I left home to become a che undergrounder.
My house has NEVER looked as good as that doll house did.
>>I think my mom garage-saled it when I left home to become a che undergrounder.
>>My house has NEVER looked as good as that doll house did.
Kristen: That may possibly be the most evocative thing I’ve ever read on this site. And my eyes just teared up, although I can’t quite explain why!
Monticello Jello? Was that the front-man for The Dead Jeffersons? I think I saw them open for TSOL.
They were the Sargent Peppers of imaginary, punk-rock disposable reference joke bands!
>>Matt..will you be in Wisconsin some time this summer?
MadMike: Alas, only as far as Muskegon. That trip around the lake is a killer — I keep thinking about taking the ferry to Milwaukee, but it’s just obscenely expensive. :-/
What do I like to do now? Experiment with Craigslist?
http://misunderstandingjesus.blogspot.com/
I like the Asian girl giving the finger best…still a pervert I guess.
TOBY are you the non sequitur writer at the blogspot link??
toby is a brilliant man. i am currently working on how he can capitalize on his amazingness.
stamps…hmmm
magyar pochta
Bruce: Yes.
http://www.myspace.com/randomnonsequitur
Crucified…film noir narration….like Eminem meets Robert Mitchum…who is on sax??
Wish I could back that shit with some jazz guitar.
I don’t know why you waste your time here….produce more.
Whats with that bizarre Craigslist experiment??
I get bored.
>>I get bored.
Like the hull of a mighty sailing ship!
We just have to caulk him occasionally, but the man is SEAWORTHY!
Considering that fact that my usual on-line name is SAILOR, I love these salty references.
I wish I could produce that kind of stuff out of boredom.
Tobys like a laid back, ultra-post-modern Jack Kerouac.
That’s the first time anyone accused me of being laid back. 🙂 Chu got da wrong guy, Jack!
“Crucified” has a laid back sound. Where’s the lyric sheet??
matthew, if you go anywhere near toby with your caulk there will be trouble.
i’m just sayin’.
Isn’t “Crucified” “So What” by Miles Davis? Dunno about the lyric sheet- thought it was attached.
Yeah, the tune is Miles. I’ve just started learning songs using “So What” chords, (grips). Far out…easy to play.
Couldn’t find lyrics but they’re discernible.
Speaking of diversions: I just realized that “Hobbits and the Virgins” would be a great name for a prog-rock album!
OK, as you were.
‘”Oooh, I love hairy toes!” she squeeled as she dragged him to the floor.’ Yes I still quote Matthew quoting Bored of the Rings.