8 Fun Facts

For Joseph “Tune Out” Mosconi:

1) For five minutes in my early teens, I wanted to go to Annapolis. (Cured by a tour of the Air Force Academy.)

2) Lived in Barrington Hall, Berkeley’s Wikipedia-worthy co-op, for last two years of its existence. (Was there when news crews descended after notorious ‘acid punch party’ of ’87, which passed for a national story in the dog days of Reagan.) *ONNGH YANNGH*

3) The home language of my grandparents, third-generation Americans, was Plattdeutsch.

4) Roomed in Cambridge, England with co-creator of Malament-Hogarth spacetime. Saw Ben Friedlander read that same year in a gargantuan hall designed by William Morris.

5) My dad knew the son of a prison guard who watched Dick and Perry while Capote interviewed them for In Cold Blood. Dick—a “nice guy” who politely asked about local football scores and farmers’ favorite topic, the weather—stopped talking to Capote, which I think is in the movie, so it’s not such a family secret now why he comes off so much worse than Perry in the book. For many years, this story was my sole living connection to literature.

6) Missed having Chelsea Clinton in my Humanities section at Stanford by the draw of a chit. (She ended up with my friend the writer & political emigre from Ceausescu's Romania.)

7) Worked the catering van for Top Dog—I wrapped too slow for the store—and manned a small chain of gift shops at the Musee Mecanique, SF City Hall, and foggy wastes of the Beach Chalet (right under that verse from Ina Coolbrith I think painted over the north arch) that same dark dot-bomb year.

8) Lost my volunteer spot selling merch for Lesley’s band after a squabble over table space with gangly goth T-shirt guy for Papa Roach.

I tag: Eileen Tabios, Tim Peterson, Jess Rowan, Howard Junker, & Maryrose Larkin.