50 Firsts

First Memory
I am riding on my sister, Lynne's, shoulders. I am in the kitchen. A skateboard is involved. Everything else is fuzzy.
First Pet
I had a lot of family pets. A tortoise named Sam. A poodle named Jacques. Several cats (Sing, Tootsie, Sing again). And I went through lots of little stupid pets; hamsters, parakeets, goldfish, even a newt. I think my first pet was an iguana. I can't even remember his name. All my pets died very quickly and horribly. I am taking much better care of Paris, don't you worry.
First Embarrassing Moment
I am in the First Grade. It is the school Christmas Pageant. I am playing a Christmas Bell. I wear a large, glitter-encrusted posterboard bell over my clothes. I have one line, maybe 6 words total. I am scared shitless — rather, I am scared pissless, as I "go up" on my line, freeze, stammer, start to cry and wet my pants simultaneously.
First "Best Friend"
Brian Heck, who lived down the street in a two-storey house. He had lots of brothers and sisters, including a really cool older brother who drove a Kharmann Ghia. That was the first car I ever thought of as "cool." I was with Brian on his front lawn when his mother called us inside to watch the moon landing in 1969. Then we went back outside to see if we could see the lunar lander actually on the moon. I was also at his house to watch the very first episode of Sesame Street.
First Night Away from Home
At Brian's house, of course. I borrowed one of his sleeping bags and there was something scratching my leg. I reached inside to see what it was and a pop-top from an aluminum can sliced my finger open. Brian's mom held my finger under running water for a long time, and I remember thinking that she was going to drain all my blood out because it would never scab if she kept that up.
First Love
Cindy Petrovich in Kindergarten. At least, it felt like love. She liked another guy, Kirk, and me about the same. So we would do everything we could to earn her favor. Jump rope contests (both fastest and most jumps), four-square, skipping. Quite a heady time for a four-year-old. And don't try to tell me that wasn't really love. I wanted to be with her all the time, did really stupid things to impress her, and when she broke up with me I felt like dying — or at least like crying really, really hard. (And it hasn't happened since.)
First Unrequited Love
A boy, naturally. High school. Beautiful guy, and nice by all accounts. I never even spoke to him, so maybe it wasn't love. But it felt like it at the time, and probably it was more of a combination of sexual frustration, envy and lust. Maybe that's all love is, anyway? His name isn't important, and Google is such a bitch sometimes. (Yes, even at 40 years of age, I'm scared that he'll find out how I feel about him. Woose.)
First Unreturned Love
Debbie. Third grade. I made her eat a worm to prove her love. She did it. I was so grossed out I think I never spoke to her again.
First Kiss
New Year's Eve. The front yard of my friend Karen's house. Some girl whose name I forget. Didn't particularly like her, but she stuck her tongue in and that's all she wrote.
First Time
I'll tell you when it happens.
First Realization of My Sexuality
The old "oppsite is true" thing. There were several torn-up Playboys in a field near my house. The other guys and I gathered up the pages and brought them to our fort (aka Collection of Cardboard Boxes Randomly Assembled into an Enclosure) to gaze at. While the others were clearly and boisterously impressed, I found them somewhat repellant and grotesque. I did not have the same reaction upon finding my mother's trove of Playgirls in her nightstand while looking for batteries one afternoon.
First Bike
A trike is not a bike. And training wheels cripple a bike, so I count as my first bike the red Stingray with the banana seat, and the tassles on the handlebars. The sissy bar came later.
First Car
1972 Mercury Comet. I bought it from my brother's friend. He bought it from a rental car agency. It had well over 100,000 miles on it already — and a killer Pioneer Supertuner cassette deck with Jensen 6x9's. That was what sold me.
First Time on a Motorcycle
Yet to happen.
First Plane Trip
I flew to Hawaii for a family vacation when I was about 8. Not sure exactly when, but I do remember getting a horrible sunburn all over and watching Fourth of July fireworks exploding outside the 14th storey window of our Waikiki hotel.
First Trip Abroad
London. I was 41 years old.
First Job
McDonald's morning shift "lot and lobby." I was that poor, wretched, acne-faced kid with the little broom going around the 'restaurant' sweeping up stray french fries and burger wrappers and other flotsam to keep the floor clean. I also had to make regular rounds of the parking lot. My day started at 5am, because we had to pull out the fryers and mop underneath them and then wash all the windows and the building exterior. McDonald's really is serious about being clean, I gotta give them that. However, going home in that hot brown polyester uniform smelling like 1000 Island Dressing is not my idea of a sexy demeanor.
First Apartment
I moved to Northridge, California to live with my best friend, Brian (another Brian, and another Best Friend). He was working at Magic Mountain, I was working at MusicPlus. Neither of us made much money, and I was/am such a piss-poor money manager that I was frequently late with my rent and ended up moving back home (the humiliation! the tragedy!) a year later.
First Furniture Purchased New
Futon. Unless you count a TV as furniture. Then: TV.
First Regret
Why did I convince my mother that pink brushed-cotton pants were a good idea for my first day at a new school?
First Fight
I have never been in a fist fight. I've had plenty of fights with my brother, but they all tended to be psychological in nature, and ended up with him saying something like "What are you going to do, cry? Are you going to cry, Baby? Why don't you cry, Crybaby?" and then I would and then he'd laugh and that was that.
First Broken Bone
I have never broken a bone because I am, at heart, a coward. You need to throw yourself off things, or down things, or have things thrown at you to break yourself to that extent. Though I have operated on my own knee, I don't think that counts since it was wholly unsuccessful.
First Scar
I was swimming with two friends, Mike and RB, in my backyard. We had been drinking and some song came on the stereo, a song I really loved. I climbed out of the pool, meaning to go over and turn that fucker up, and as I started to run, I slipped on the deck and came crashing down, hitting my chin on the edge of the pool before falling in. Laughing, I erupted to the surface, mouth mouth filled with blood. I had hit the cement so hard that I'd split my lower lip open. RB and Mike came over and looked on as I stuck my tongue through the hole in my face and checked to see that all my teeth were still there. It didn't hurt, likely because I was so drunk, and I was content to go on swimming but they — who could see the injury better than I — thought it prudent to get me to a doctor. So I wadded up a bunch of toilet paper and stuck it on my chin and off we went to get some stitches put in my face. There is now a one-inch long scar on my lower lip, which I tell anyone who asks that I received it in a duelling accident while training for the Olympics.
First Hospital Stay
I have never stayed overnight in a hospital. I was born with a hematoma on my head and even then, they just drained the thing and sent me home.
First Automobile Accident
My fault, and no injuries. I just got my driver's license and had little experience out there on the road by myself. As it happens, my first accident occurred in a parking lot. I had just purchased a Star Wars action figure at Mervyn's and was adjusting the car radio (my mom's car) as I examined my new purchase. Then I stepped on the gas. It would have been a much cooler exit had I remembered to take the car out of reverse. I backed into a pick-up truck just as the owner was walking up to it. Smashed it up pretty good, too. Cheap piece of shit. I ended up paying for it out of my savings (draining my account) rather than putting it on my mom's insurance, making her rates go up.
First Brush with Death
We had this huge inflatable plastic bubble that we put over the swimming pool. It lay flat on the water when not in use to keep leaves out and form a sort of solar heating envelope for the water, and blew up with a loud blower into a huge blister, higher than the house, to go in and use the pool. It was all echoey and weird and probably a silly idea. Anyhoo, we used to play 'Aquaman' under the bubble by going inside, assembling our forts using deck chairs and chaise lounges then deflate the bubble so you had to surface near your home fort to grab some air. One time, I ran out of air halfway to my fort and tried to surface under the bubble. Anticipating that I'd just push the plastic up and grab some oxygen, instead the air was sucked from me and I started to panic and drown. My brother saved me, bringing me to his fort.
First Religious Experience
I was sitting in a Baptist church next to the preacher's daughter, a good high school friend (but clearly not that good because, hey, no penis) and it's that time in the service when the Baptists get all hot and bothered about plunging someone in a big tank of water because, I guess, you ain't been saved unless you've been saved and had swimmer's ear at the same time. So, he asks everyone to bow their heads and then asks anyone "who hasn't accepted Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior" to stand up and get their ass to the dunking tank. So I look up at him, way up there, because that fits me to a T, and he's imploring, he's beseeching, he's begging me (and, I notice after my head is up, only me) to receive the blessings of Christ and soggy underwear. I feel a hot flash pass over me as if I have been touched by God, but decide instead it's simply the same old demon, Embarrassment, that I have been living with for years and put my head back down.
First Album
The soundtrack to "The Sting." Music by Marvin Hamlisch based on songs by Scott Joplin. The first rock album I bought myself (if you can call it that) was "The Partridge Family Shopping Bag."
First Concert
I rarely attended concerts growing up. My first concert was when I was about 23 or 24, and it was Devo. I thought it was too loud.
First Arena Concert
An arena concert is a big deal, because you have to drive a long way to get to it and you go with your friends and it's generally in a big city (Los Angeles) and you feel awkward and stupid but excited at the same time. I went to see The Rolling Stones at teh L.A. Coliseum in 1981. Opening acts were Prince (booed off the stage) George Thoroughgood and the Destroyers and The J Geils Band. I was sitting so far back that I couldn't even see the band. The Stones sucked, pretty much, and we left before it was over "to beat the traffic."
First Time on Television
I was on a kid's show when I was about 6. Uncle Woody (you know, I must confess that the name never struck me as funny until just now, particularly for a kid's show host) owned a toy store downtown and hosted a daily afternoon show on a local channel that showed Popeye cartoons and Three Stooges shorts. He'd give away toys in the breaks and do really awful skits with Chester the Clown (his store was on Chester Ave.). I didn't win anything or answer any questions, but you could see me on-camera sometimes. As I recall, it was all very frightening.
First Movie That Scared the Shit Out of Me
Alien. I never went to see Jaws in the theatre and I was too young to see The Exorcist. I literally could not sleep for three days after I saw Alien. I kept thinking there was something under my bed. I watched half that movie through my hands, trying to close my fingers over my eyes before I saw anything really repellant.
First Movie I Saw More Than Once
"The Sound of Music" was playing at the General Cinema at the Valley Plaza Mall near my house. I'd never seen a musical before and watching this movie where people would sometimes and without apparent reason break into song -- I mean, the woman starts out spinning on a mountain top warbling, y'know? -- well, it was quite something and made me feel like life should be just that way, that we should be able to break into song and start dancing and wear our curtains out in public if we damn well please.
First Theft
I was in the 7-11 near my house, probably 10 or 11 years old. I was looking at the crappy toys they have there and noticed a little, tiny tube of Super-Elastic Bubble Plastic in the bin. Just sitting there. Forlorn and abandoned. I picked it up and put it in my pocket. I was sweating and looked doubtlessly 1,000 times more guilty than I had a right to feel over taking a $1.50 tube of toxic balloon crap that probably would have been trashed anyway, but still felt like I should be badly punished for having done it. A defining moment.
First Run-In with the Law
I was on Jury Duty once, does that count? Otherwise, I have never been arrested nor even been questioned or warned to "Move along."
First Vote in a Public Election
Ronald Reagan for President, 1980. I was so ashamed, I have not voted since.
First Public Nudity
I was probably naked as a baby, but that doesn't count. Nudity doesn't count until you're ashamed of your body. So that was when I was 12 and went skinny dipping with some male friends at my backyard pool. After the initial fear and performance anxiety, decided it felt too good to worry about it and did it many more times (I was a latchkey child and had no adult supervision until Mom got home at 5:30). Then homosexuality reared its frightening and unpredictable head and changed that for many years, because, you know, hello Mr. Boner!
First Drunk
Again with the horribly boring and safe lifestyle choices. When I turned 21, my mother wanted to take me out for a drink. But I didn't drink. I didn't drink until I was 23. Beer, naturally. But I didn't get well and truly into my cups until one year later. Tequila shots. A dance club. I didn't have bedspins, I had bedretrorockets. My bed was sinking and spinning and flying simultaneously. Truly wretched, and it took me a long time to be able to even smell Tequila again after that.
First Illegal Drug Use
My friend Kam was running a "business" where he installed acoustical ceiling tiles, but all the money went into Coke. All of us did a lot of Coke one summer. Except me. I did it twice. The first time, in my bedroom, I was already drunk and didn't feel anything except the tingling on the gums when you scrub the mirror remnants across your teeth. The second time I did it, I was also drunk and it sobered me right up and I thought, well, what's the attraction? I've done grass since, but that's about it.
First Death of Family Member or Friend
My father died when I was four, just before I went into Kindergarten. Much has already been told regarding that, so I'll leave it be.
First Funeral
I have never attended a funeral. I prefer to remember people as alive rather than have my last memory be looking at their cold, dead body in a casket.
First Wedding
My sister Lynne's. It was in the house of a friend of hers. A dog was barking out back through the whole thing which made it impossible for my brother and me to refrain from giggling throughout the ceremony.
First Time I Felt "Like an Adult"
Signing the loan papers for my own car without having my Mom co-sign. It was a Honda Accord.
First Forced Apology
I accidentally broke Brian Heck's copy of "Stepping Stone" by The Monkees although it totally wasn't my fault! He made me mad and I had to throw something! Guy, I mean, guy! Why do I hafta apologize for that? It's his fault as much as mine!
First Time I Lost My Shit
I used to do what my brother called "redecorating the room," which was how I would throw a tantrum. I'd take the cushions off the furniture and throw them around, then shove the cushionless couches and chairs across the carpet, then sort of collapse in a heap. If we want to interpret this literally, it would be the time I learned I was allergic to mussels and, well, you get the gist.
First Time I Was Impressed with Myself
In fifth grade I had to memorize a song called "The Fifty Nifty United States," part of which included singing the names of the fifty states in alphabetical order. I never thought I could memorize that part, but you can memorize anything as long as it's put to music. To this day I can still recite all fifty states in alphabetical order which is a handy trick when you want to win a bar bet. I was also pretty happy when I learned to tie my shoes, but in retrospect it's not such a big deal.
First Bad Haircut
I did it myself! I was poor and had no money and I had decided, hey, why not just let your hair grow? At the time, ponytails and rattails and any number of other animal-oriented hair tails were popular on guys, so as I am always happy to hop on a bandwagon, I decided to see how I would look with long hair. Only problem was, my hair doesn't grow down, it grows out. My hair got progressively bigger and bigger, like a bush. It went from a football helmet to a white man's afro to something resembling a tumbleweed. No amount of oil or grease or vaseline would tame the thing, so when it came time to finally cut it, I took scissors to it myself. The results could kindly be described as butchery. Now, no matter how destitute I am, I always have money for a haircut.
First Piece of Clothing I Loved
As a fat kid, I hated clothes, mostly. There was no piece of clothing I looked forward to wearing, that I drew warm and soft from the dryer and wanted to slip into and stay there, that one could constantly find tossed on the bed or draped over a chair because I always wore it and hanging it up would be a waste of time. Then when I moved to Vermont, I found this oversized, heavyweight red and gray flannel shirt made by Ralph Lauren. It was size XL as it was (and so was I) but it was even bigger than that and made of this soft, thick cotton that was so thick you could hardly slip the buttons through the button holes. It was more of an overshirt than a shirt, something to wear like a shirt-jacket, and I wore it constantly. I finally gave it away this year because I shrank out of it, but I really loved that shirt.
First Realization that Not Everyone Else is Like Me
The first time I appeared on a panel at a Web Conference. It was at South by Southwest in 1998. I was simply attending and had no thought of stepping up there and being an "expert" on anything. But I ended up on a panel and shortly thereafter realized that not everyone can or wants to do the things I do. I always assumed everyone wanted the things I want (being on stage or showing off or writing or making pretty pictures) but just didn't have the time or inclination to do it.
First Computer Encounter
I was in college and wanted to become an actor — but as a fallback position and because I was also a geek and science fiction buff, I took computer classes. This was still the age of Basic and getting time on the campus mainframe was difficult and then you could only get, like, an hour every other week to run your stupid "Hello World" program. It was frustrating and time-consuming and made no logical sense to me. So many steps! So many checks! Why is it so hard?