Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Nutball Characters, Eccentricity, And The Like

Bo'sun here and I'm ever so excited to introduce the newest member of the Crew.  She's J Perry Stone, aka Scuttlebutt Stone (I just made that up...could change) and we're damn lucky to have her.  She'll be with us the last Thursday of the month.  Scuttlebutt writes Historical Romance and is well known for flashing her ass.  I give you, the Scuttle.


 


This past weekend, my husband and I spent some “sans kids” time in Key West, Florida.  We ate carpaccio drizzled with truffle oil, drank mojitos stuffed with limes and fresh mint leaves, and watched the sunset in the most southernmost part of these United States. 


 


We also toured the Hemingway House on Whitehead Street.


 


Now I’m not much for Hemingway (please don’t yell at me if you are) because I tend to think he writes insipid female characters.  But there was something about touring his home/life in Key West that endeared him to me in a way I’ve never allowed before.  Or maybe it was just Key West in Hemingway’s time?  Either way, what a collection of nutball characters.


 


Hemingway himself collected six-toed cats because he thought they brought him good luck.  Personally, I think all they did was make him laugh with their furry little hitchhiking thumbs but whatever.  


 


Tennessee Williams lived there during this time as well and had a lover who bicycled around town towing a bourbon-drinking goat.  Cool.


 


Joe Russell, a la Sloppy Joe’s fame, once littered the sidewalk with all the urinals in his establishment just because.  Well okay (Hemingway later took one home and made a water fountain out of it for his cats).


 


Such a wealth of originality is just the sort of stuff I love sinking my teeth into.  My dad is an eccentric, after all.  He’s a choral conductor, has an entirely twisted sense of humor, is a curmudgeon, can fix anything in the world, and laughs at fart jokes.  I ask you, who do you know who reads the score of the St. Matthew Passion for fun then will look up to tell you a fart joke?   By the way, he was also the one who picked out my wedding dress—a gorgeous thing if I do say so—then came home and crawled under my car to fix some greasy part. 


 


But all this has got me thinking about eccentrics and the writing of them.   What, exactly, is it that truly makes a person/character eccentric?


 


I’ve come up with a few things.


 


First, I think one thing all eccentrics have in common is contrasts.  Here’s Hemingway, Mr. Economy of Words… and his 50 six-toed cats.  Here’s Tennessee Williams’ lover towing his goat, which is a rather humane practice it seems, but feeding his goat bourbon.   Here’s my dad, who, the first time he ever went skiing, headed down the hill in a straight line, bat outta hell-fashion.  He was considered the bad boy of his day.  My mom said the girls sighed when they saw ice on his eyebrows at the bottom of the hill.  This is also the same man who spent hours saving baby chicks trapped in the dam near my school when I was little.  Tore his arm up to a bloody stump.  Did all this while my sister and I stood on the banks of the pond, bawling our heads off and praying the chicks wouldn’t die.


 


See?  Contrasts. 


 


I think the other thing eccentrics have in common is that they aren’t actually aware they are eccentrics.  A person who sets out to act weird is just self-conscious and annoying—like the ding dong girl at the rockin' party who sits in the middle of it pretending to meditate.  Oy and true story (ask my sister).  But an eccentric is just deliciously nutball. They don’t know they are eccentric because they don’t particularly care what you think of them in the first place.   You gotta love a person who doesn’t give a damn what others think of him.  That leaves out politicians and movie stars.  Notice I didn’t say actors, just movie stars.   To call Orson Welles a movie star is to deny his eccentricity, I think.  Matthew McConaughey is a movie star.  Orson Welles wrote, directed and acted in Citizen Kane, for God's sake, and was a member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.


 


Some other eccentric characteristics are creativity, genius, and sometimes instability (not my dad).  Think Howard Hughes.  Albert Einstein even.   


 


So how about you? What’s your definition of eccentric? Do you have any in your family? Do you write them?  Have you read any good ones lately?  Please, regale us with weirdness. 

87 comments:

Tiffany said...

I had no idea about the six toed cats! really? That just makes me laugh... really loud!

My def of eccentric pretty much is what you stated above. People who are eccentric have strange peculiarities.

My family is pretty boring. No eccentricity for us. What you see is usually what you get. Hmmmm... that's not be answering the question.

I don't think I write eccentric characters. Oh Wait, one of them coming up is a bit eccentric. He likes to go about whoring but will only pay so much for the companionship... go figure.
No goat toting, cat collection crazies in my stories though. Can't think of one I've read either. At least not this early in the morn.

Maggie Robinson said...

I was in Key West last week with all my kids! And we behaved very eccentrically. There was some dancing in the street and karaoke. One daughter posed with drag queens. Just the usual Robinson family reunion. Wasn't the weather great?

My grandfather had a glass eye which he'd drop into other peoples' drinks after he had a few too many. A coach I knowe always wears the same black turtleneck at basketball games, which he covers his face with when the kids screw up.His wife says she's forbidden to wash it.

J Perry Stone said...

Tiff, a cheap whoremonger qualifies, whoring being a rather excessive practice while being cheap about it ... not so much. Contrasts, baby. Perfect.

Maggie, we probably passed each other in the street. I was wearing a hat ... and listing to the right (those mojitos really packed a kick). Did you go to the Hemingway House or is that only for us tourists? And please use some version of your grandfather's practices in one of your books. Can you imagine reading that?

"It was a well-known throughout Society that the earl's dowager mother was a little mad as evidenced by the fact that she kept dropping her glass eye in ladies' tea cups when they came to call."

Man, that would make me hoot.

Terri, you picked the cutest cat picture for this blog. His name is actually Harry Truman and he helps guide the tour.

J Perry Stone said...

And in my defense about the ass flashing ... Terri was my room-mate. Of course she saw my ass. And even if some others, who were not my room-mates, saw my ass in the process of me flashing Terri, I am pretty sure I was wise in picking only the most tolerant ...

Oh, forget it.

I flashed Terri and I'm not sorry.

Marnee Jo said...

JP - What a great topic! I love this idea. And I love reading about eccentrics. Like Mary Moody Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson's aunt, who was a key influence on her nephew's transcendental ideas but also slept in a coffin.

As far as my family, I'm sure there are some eccentrics. My grandfather who recited the alphabet backwards and kept an entire basement full of nuts and bolts, just in case.

The uncle who lived in a shack on a falling down farm but when he passed away left millions to his children. And they thought he was broke.

J Perry Stone said...

Marn,

Now see, you can't go sleeping in coffins for effect; you can only do so if you don't know it's weird in the first place. I LOVE that, and honestly, I wish I was eccentric but I'm too aware of what might or might not be considered such.

I'm too self-conscious, I guess.

Oh yeah, collections of crap are definitely signs of eccentricity. Nuts and bolts? Hey, have you seen Everything Is Illuminated? That's such a great movie and absolutely filled to the brim with eccentrics. They even have a character called, "the collector."

I think your uncle was just plain smart. Think about it: everyone left him alone during his lifetime and then he got to give of his own heart without any obligations. That's the best way to give.

J Perry Stone said...

My dad just sent me an email with a picture of a cat stalking a deer.

No words; just the picture.

terrio said...

Good morning, Everyone! How did I know we'd up jump right on the "weird" convo? LOL! I do love this ship.

I don't think we have an eccentrics in my family. I mean, I have a gay brother who might or might not be known to wear leather a la Judas Priest from time to time, but that's just his lifestyle choice. :)

My sister is a spinster who lives with her very fat cat and has never had a drivers license, but that's more unfortunate than eccentric. No glass eyeballs or coffin sleepers.

I have one back-burner story idea for a girl whose grandfather, a recently deceased PI, haunts her into solving his last case. I'm pretty that one will call for at least one or two eccentric characters. But I haven't created any of them yet. LOL!

Marnee Jo said...

JP - I haven't seen Everything Is Illuminated. I haven't watched a lot of movies the last couple years (until recently honestly) as I was generally catching up on sleep. I'll put it on my list of to sees.

And my uncle - the unsuspecting millionaire - was a cranky old bear. I think he was crazy. The whole crowd on that side were a bunch of packrats. Smart, most of them. All finished school early (my grandfather skipped a number of grades but spent three years in eighth grade because he was too young to go on to HS). One graduated top of his class from Penn, only to come home and work the family farm. His house was full of newspapers, stacked high on every surface and covered with years of dust. There were aisles carved out of the stacks for people to walk through. They donated the papers to a museum after his passing.

Whack-a-doodles. That's my gene pool. A bunch of whack-a-doodles.

Hellion said...

My mom was flat out weird. My Dad and I would huddle up, watch her read the bible backwards, then look at each other and go: "Wow, that is ODD."

Dad and I are more eccentric. Both holders of odd and useless knowledge.

I've always heard that eccentric is the same as "weird", except that you have more money.

Marnee Jo said...

Hells - your mom read the bible backwards? That is weird... er, eccentric. LOL!!

terrio said...

I don't know, I think there's a difference between weird and eccentric. And I'd call Hell's mom interesting. I mean, I'd have to know WHY she did that. Did she ever say?

Weird is the person who walks around 24 hrs a day with no shoes on. Eccentric is the person who walks around with two totally different shoes on. See the diff?

Kathy said...

A-ho! Salutin' ye, Scuttlebutt! 'Tis a bleary-eyed mate what gives ye welcome this early morn. :D

Eccentricity... Ah, now that's what I love about people. This is what makes them interesting! Show me a character focused on his life's work only to find him/her doing odd-ballish things in his/her free time. Kind of like Monk on television. Or better yet, The Mentalist or Life.

I admit I've got some odd individuals in my family, odd in the terms of being more than
eccentric. Like the uncle who knew I was bringing my future hubby to visit and answered the door, after having dragged himself to it without putting on his prosthetic legs. (Could this have been the result of sea battle or Happy Gilmore style, an altercation with an alligator?) Discuss. ;D

Marnee Jo said...

LOL! Ter "Weird is the person who walks around 24 hrs a day with no shoes on. Eccentric is the person who walks around with two totally different shoes on. See the diff?"

That's perfect.

Kathy said...

Marn, I join ye in the whack-a-doodle bunch. :D

Something fun to do is to freak people out by suddenly telling them what a word spelled backwards sounds like.

Weird is walking down a German street acting like the Creature from the Black Lagoon. (Don't look at me!)

terrio said...

Thanks, Marn. I was worried no one else would get that and then I'd just be weird. LOL!

Can't believe I forgot to address the ass flashing discussed above. Scuttle did NOT contain her ass flashing to our room. Though, to be fair, she also did NOT flash in the ballroom. At least not while I was around. The halls, however, were fair game.

Kathy said...

Eccentric is someone who eats only one thing at a time on their plate or doesn't like their food to touch or has to use a particular type of fork.

Kathy said...

Pirates are known to flash their arses on occasion. ;)

terrio said...

Hey! Don't be getting personal. My food cannot touch. That does not make me weird.

And I used to say the alphabet backwards. Is that strange? Oh, and is there a difference between strange and weird?

Kathy said...

Terrio, I don't like my food to touch either. I'm saying that's being eccentric not weird. LOL!

Kudos! Saying the alphabet backwards and pronouncing words backwards is an exercise for the brain. Pirates must be forever on their guard by keeping their brains on alert at all times.

Kathy said...

I think people who know me think I'm eccentric for my love of all things pirate. Go figure. That's certainly not weird, IMHO.

terrio said...

Kathy - Well, that's okay then. LOL! I'm not as militant about it as I used to be, but I still don't like casseroles for this reason. Everything is mixed together! How can I remove all the green beans and other things I don't like if it's all mixed together?!

Kathy said...

Terrio, #4's boyfriend is the very same way. He won't eat foods that are mixed. Sounds perfectly normal to me but it does limit you on what you can eat, I'll bet. And he eats his food one type of food at a time. ;)

Me? I don't like my food to touch and I also have a special type of fork I like to use. LOL!

Anyone else think it's bad luck to get out of the wrong side of the bed in the morning or put your shoe on the wrong foot first?

terrio said...

Everyone should have a love of all things pirate. Duh.

terrio said...

Yep, these *weird* food rules make it hard to find something to eat sometimes. Especially when someone invites you to their house for dinner. You never want to be rude or say, "Oh, I'm sorry but I won't eat that." Lucky for me, I'm rarely invited to anyone's house for dinner.

J Perry Stone said...

Well, who was IN said hallway, Ter? YOU!

I dunno, guys, but I think Marnee's fam. might be in the lead.

And I also think there's a difference between weird and eccentric. Weird is more isolated. Eccentric is pretty much how you approach the world.

It is weird that my husband puts Tabasco on spaghetti. It is eccentric that my daughter cries if you smile at her in the mornings.

Course, there is also a fine line between neurotic and eccentric. Actually, I'm not sure if there is much of a line at all, now that I think about it.

Kathy, I too have noticed that most of the popular tv shows on at present center around eccentric characters. House? Brilliant but addicted; savior but riddled with contempt for the human race.

Hellion, how in the hell? does she read the sentences backward, or just the verses in reverse?

J Perry Stone said...

To continue with my daughter ... she is my dad. She has these really prissy sides ... but is a curmudgeon.

She's also extremely creative. She makes tiny little paper clothes, pastes them on cardboard dress forms she designed herself, then accessorizes said clothes with sequins and seed-beads and pipe-cleaners. She just turned 7. She has nightmares about green potties. ??

I think the rest of the world sees creative people as eccentric.

That means YOU, pirates. Nuts, the lot of you.

J Perry Stone said...

Ah ha. I figured it out, Terri.

Weird is preferences.

Eccentric is behavior.

It's like your shoe analogy. It's weird to prefer not to wear shoes all day. It's down right eccentric that you a) wouldn't notice you were wearing mismatched shoes, or b) couldn't be bothered with matching them in the first place.

One says something about your tastes, the other suggests stuff about your character.

terrio said...

There were several of us in that hallway and I don't remember you looking both ways to make sure there wouldn't be collateral damage.

Your daughter is YOU. Like a mini-me version. She's gorgeous, intelligent and can be pushy. :) LYG

I think eccentric characters might be easier to find in certain kinds of stories. Usually when you're reading about an upper-crust/aristocratic family there is that one relative that was considered eccentric. And they are usually the creative old aunt who paints and wears flamboyant clothes.

You'd have to get a bit more creative to come up with an eccentric character in a contemp today since so little shocks people anymore.

Marnee Jo said...

WHoot! My family is the weirdest so far!

I'd like to thank the academy, for acknowledging the weirdness inherent in my genetic makeup. You don't know what this means to me.

Julie said...

What, exactly, is it that truly makes a person/character eccentric?
Gosh... How would I Know? Since I’ve never encounter said Beast. As I am a Simple, Quiet Woman, living a Simple, Quiet Life.

terrio said...

As Misty always says on the EJ/JQ BB, thank goodness for recessive genes. LOL!

J Perry Stone said...

Julie,

I think I just coughed up my diaphragm.

J Perry Stone said...

Well, I'm distantly related to a turn of the century pimp, but that just suggests moral instability.

Not eccentricity.

Marnee said: "His house was full of newspapers, stacked high on every surface and covered with years of dust. There were aisles carved out of the stacks for people to walk through. They donated the papers to a museum after his passing."

Please tell me you will rent the movie: Housekeeping.

Peruse here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093225/


Wait. Terri? My daughter resembles me, but we're not that much alike, I don't think. And we may both be pushy, but I think people do better with people who tell them exactly what it is they want. And I wanted to try on your bra, so there.

terrio said...

You really need to keep lemons close by at all times.

Speaking of bras, I'm wearing a new one today. Very comfortable. But I had to go up a size. Should I tell you what that is? LOL! Sorry, couldn't resist.

My guess is she's more like you than you think and will get more like you as she gets older. It's inevitable. Though as I've gotten older I've gotten more like my dad in both temperment and looks. Which sucks because my dad would make an ugly woman.

Julie said...

OMG! HaHaHahaaaaaaaa! I bet that your cat pounced on your diaphragm & ran off with it like A Trophy Mouse!
Wait. Are you talking about a diaphragm diaphragm? A diaphragm? Big difference in how far , and from which orifice the thing sprang out of.
Did somebody say something about being Unaware & I don’t care.
Yah? So maybe I am. And thus I don’t.

Hellion said...

My mother would read the Bible--letter by letter--in a sort of chant, forwards and backwards, while doing a sort of trance-like meditation. It was SPOOKY to watch, let me just say. So say she was reading that verse: Jesus wept...she'd CHANT: "T-T, P-P, E-E, W-W, S-S, U-U, S-S, E-E, J-J", and she'd do this to the entire Bible, marking as she went.

ODD.

She also bleached my Elvis t-shirt one year because she said it was beseeched by demons.

Sin said...

Welcome aboard Scuttle.

I'm trying to think of odd or weird, but my whole family is weird. I have lots of odd or eccentric tendencies. Let's not go into them. LOL

Marn had an eccentric Aunt in her first manuscript. I love eccentric Aunts. I love Harold Crick in Stranger than Fiction.

Sin said...

Only Jules will break out the diaphram convo early in the morning.

terrio said...

And Hellion takes the lead...

terrio said...

But Julie has a point. I mean, which kind of diaphram this is makes a HUGE difference to the hilarity of that statement.

terrio said...

Would Stephanie's grandmother in the Plum books be considered eccentric? Or is she just downright crazy?

J Perry Stone said...

Sin, let's DO go into them.

Please?

J Perry Stone said...

"She also bleached my Elvis t-shirt one year because she said it was beseeched by demons."


Ah. No wonder you're a hellion. I grew up in a pretty strict religious environment too. Luckily, my parents were rebels ... although my mother wouldn't let me watch Bewitched when i was younger because of said beseechment by the devil, etc., etc. (I hope she reads this so I can make fun of her)

Julie! As in one of my organs! Sheesh. I'm bold, but not THAT bold. Ew.

And thus starts the gagging

Julie said...

Did anybody else read this?
“honestly, I wish I was eccentric but I’m too aware of what might or might not be considered such.”
Ooohhhh pleaseeeeee J Perry . You flash your lil’ scuttleButt & you Ask the Strangest questions. Like “do your breasts move clockwise or counter clockwise whilst you are trysting?” You are The Most Eccentric Person that I’ve ever met. Not that I’ve uuhhhh met any … butt if I did , you def be the Most.

J Perry Stone said...

THAT QUESTION WAS FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES!

Hellion said...

Actually we're pretty aware my mother was flat out crazy, but you try living on a farm in the middle of nowhere for 50 years and see how sane you are.

Sin said...

Hm. I walk around aimlessly while I mutter to myself. It's only funnier if someone is following behind me trying to figure out what I'm doing.

I do everything in the morning by a routine and this includes down to the very second.

I must have everything off the floor. If you throw something on the floor, I have to immediately pick it up.

I dunno. I wouldn't classify that as eccentric. Witchery stuff classifies you as eccentric. Like the Aunts on Practical Magic.

J Perry Stone said...

I completely understand, Hellion. I do, because unless you're a monk on meditation retreat, the silence alone is enough to start making you swing at the invisible bugs.

Julie said...

Sin said “Only Jules will break out the diaphram convo early in the morning,”
So I suppose that its tooo early to tell you that I have to go shopping for Tampons. The DD woke me up at 5:30 this morning with “Muther…. You need to Go SHOPPING!”
See. I’m just a very honest person. But everyone Thinks that my honesty is eccentricity. Of course being Honest in this day & age Probably is pretty Eccentric!

J Perry Stone said...

Sin, I'd like to hear that muttering. I'd also like to have lunch with you ... and continuously drop bread crumbs just to see what you'd do.

Maybe you were Hansel or Gretal in a past life.

Sin said...

Jules, I love when you're honest. It's refreshing early in the morning to think about tampons.

Sin said...

LOL. If you drop bread crumbs while we're eating, I will have a conniption. I can't stand mess on the table while I'm eating.

terrio said...

It's never refreshing to think about tampons.

Sin - You could never live with my child. 'Nuff said.

I think we're crossing into OCD here. LOL!

terrio said...

No one has named a really eccentric character in a book yet? Anyone got one? And do you think you could get away with the hero or heroine being the eccentric one?

Lord Strange was sort of set up as an eccentric character for Eloisa James' Duchess By Night, but he really turned out to be quite normal and *sigh* dreamy.

hal said...

Welcome J! I don't think I have an eccentric family, but I definitely have the weird-o's. Like my father will only eat peas with a knife, dipped in mashed potatoes. Or my uncle, who had like 200 miniature statues of elephants in his house when he died.

I've never written an eccentric character, though it could be fun and I may have to give it a shot.

Janga said...

J's a pirate! Hurrah!

My family is mostly conventional. My youngest nephew has some strange ways like not touching doorknobs and refusing to use the first paper towel on the roll, but said habits are attributes of his OCD rather than simple eccentricities.

I did have a cousin, older than my mother, who was the long-time mistress of a politician and scandalized the family with her lifestyle. But her choices were moral issues or maybe just rebellion against her small-souled, puritanical mother. I also had a cousin. mu mother's generation, who hid a very large sum of money in a church because he thought it would be safe there. Then he forgot which church. But that was a drunk's foolishness, not eccentricity.

A part of me would love to be an eccentric, but the greater part prefers blending into the background.

J Perry Stone said...

There was an effeminate, mincing assassin in Marsha Canham book that totally got under my skin once. Can't remember the name. Can't remember my own name.

Actually, now that I think about it, secondary characters seem to lend themselves to eccentricity better than main characters. Don't know why that is. Maybe people think eccentrics don't have wide appeal, although I totally disagree.

I think Teresa Medeiros has some pretty eccentric secondary characters. My boyfriend, Willoughby, for example--an ancient butler (service) with a sharp-edged tongue (screw service).

J Perry Stone said...

Hi Janga. I think maybe you might be an eccentric. For someone who wants to blend, you just ... don't. I love your guts either way.

Do it, Hal. What sort of characters might you come up with?

terrio said...

I think Janga hit on something. I don't believe eccentrics do what they do to stand out. I think it's almost as if they don't think about it at all. They just act and do as they like and sometimes that makes them stand out. But I really don't believe their motivation or intention is to get attention.

Then there are those who yearn for the cameras and attention who dress like lunatics and eat bugs or something. Those people are NOT eccentric, just annoying.

J Perry Stone said...

"Then there are those who yearn for the cameras and attention who dress like lunatics and eat bugs or something. Those people are NOT eccentric, just annoying."

Yep.

terrio said...

Hal - Elephants are considered very lucky. Only you need to make sure the tusks point toward your front door. Brings money into your life. (I can't for the life of me remember where I learned that, but I think it's true. I have two little elephants in my house and my life has definitely improved since I put them there.)

hal said...

Ter - I didn't know that! Well, we have a whole bunch of his elephants (they were distributed among the family) so I will move them accordingly :)

terrio said...

Hal - I think I learned it a few years ago when I looked into Feng Shui. (Did I spell that right?) You'll have to let us know if it works. LOL!

J Perry Stone said...

Terri, I have to go right downstairs and correctly position the elephant you gave me.

Janga said...

I should buy some elephants. Maybe my angels need help. :)

J, I think true eccentrics honestly don't care what other people think of them. I always care too much.

I taught a kid once who at 15 marched to the beat of a wildly original drummer. In a school where athletes were semi-divine, he was a proud band geek. He was always giving his friends esoteric books to read and recommending movies nobody else had ever heard of. He took one of the shyest wallflowers imaginable to the prom and put stars in her eyes. Yet he was the most popular kid in his class, got many more votes for senior favorite than anyone else, including the football heroes and homecoming princesses. I think they all envied him. My two youngest nephews were little kids at the time, and they adored him. He held up the graduation recessional to shake their hands. LOL! He's my image of an eccentric.

2nd Chance said...

Welcome aboard, Scuttlebutt! Sorry I be late ta the party. (Damned pole!) But I be lovin' the discussion, takin' notes fer when I meet this mottley crew in person.

We gotta name a drink fer this blog... Gotta put me brain ta the task...

Meanwhile, I be considered the eccentric in the family. Fer all the piratin', dressin' up fer the faires, goin' ta sciencefiction/fantasy cons. They be a ver' normal sorta family. I don't see meself that way.

Not yet.

First eccentric character I read of was Nero Wolfe, Monk's predessor, I assume. Wouldn't leave his house, always wore yellow... Not terribly interesting compared ta reading the bible backwards...

terrio said...

J - I didn't tell you that when I gave you the little guy? Silly me. And I love that little thing. I should have bought myself one.

Speaking of angels, the weirdest thing just happened. I went out for a sub and in the 5 to 8 minutes I was in the restaurant, someone stole my iPod headphones right off my front seat. It's nice here so I left my back windows down a bit, but I locked the doors. They even locked the doors back up after stealing them.

I bring up angels because in the cup holder, was my iPod and my cell phone. I had covered them with my scarf. Thank goodness I covered them! The person didn't even realize the cord coming out of my radio was plugged into something. Whew!

J Perry Stone said...

Janga, I have to agree with you there. My dad doesn't give a damn what people think of him. He really doesn't, much to the embarrassment of his daughers, especially as we were growing up.

Your student sounds fabulous. I befriended just that sort myself in high school because talk about the latest basketball game bored me to fits.

2nd, soooooo, you're one of those. I always admired the ren-fest chicks who didn't give a damn their cleavage was showing. I take you're also the sort who feels she was born in the wrong era, yes?

Terri, no you didn't! That's just feng shuirresponsible of you!

And you had some good karma coming, obviously. Maybe because you didn't let he who deserved it most, have a full plate of your anger.

terrio said...

Oh, and I so want to meet your dad. LOL!

terrio said...

I almost bought a little Zen garden yesterday. I'm in dire need of Zen these days. Mostly because of my attempt NOT to dole out the anger. To both those who deserve it OH SO MUCH.

I used to think I was born in the wrong era. But I love indoor plumbing and all my luxuries, so I'm fine. LOL!

J Perry Stone said...

He'll just look at you and blink, then he might fall asleep at the dinner table because he's slightly narcoleptic, and if we get him drunk, then he might make one-word snark comments about people.

But if you strike up a conversation about classical music or eastern philosophy, then all of a sudden he's Mr. Chatty.

Oh, and he'll laugh if you tell him a fart joke.

2nd Chance said...

Nah, I love modern plumbing too much to actually want to do the RenFaire thing all the time! I jus' enjoy the occassional forays inta the anachronisms a' the modern RenFaire. And pirate festivals, a' course. Then I go slumming wit' the future and mythology a' scifi and fantasy.

I think I be a bit multi-faceted. (A nice way to say nuts?)

And I like ta dress up! Or down as the case may be. Love ta flash the girls...wit' 'nuff sunscrean, a' course!

terrio said...

Hmmmm...I don't really keep fart jokes in my R'epertoire (yes, I looked that up). But I would love to talk Eastern Philosophies. And snark can be fun too.

2nd Chance said...

I be bettin' ya could find a data source fer fart jokes... Isn't that what this internet thing be all about?

( I wanna see how that search plays out! :) )

terrio said...

Nope, not going there.


LMAO!!

J Perry Stone said...

Terri. Yes GO there.

J Perry Stone said...

Me too.

Julie said...

"Yes GO there."
Chance you have no Idea that you just Unleashed a Monster, do you? This is a woman who researches how breasts move. She has links to websites that have 50,000 slang terms for vagina.
Stone puts "the sear" into re-sear-ch!
OMG!
J perry takes Researching to a new high ... or should I say low/? I guess that Depends upon which body part we're talking about ..... All I know is don't give the Woman any Ideas!

J Perry Stone said...

Ha. You ALL want that link, don't you?

terrio said...

Where did everybody go?

Hello? *taps mic* Is this thing on?

Di R said...

Great blog, J!

I love eccentric characters! They are the ones who seem to enjoy life the most. They do there own thing, and don't care what others think of them.

I have a nephew like that. For halloween he went to middle school dressed as a caveman-and had a great time. I wish I was more like him.

Di

Santa said...

Sooooo, Skuttlebutt has arrived! Let me be the first to reassure EVERYONE that I've seen more of J to last me a lifetime and yet she feels compelled to continue sharing the booty. Pun intended!

Let's see eccentric people in my family. Not a one. We're rather docile though I will say that one man's eccentricity is another man's OCD. On that score - we've got them by the truckload.

My heroine in 'No Soup For You' can be considered eccentric - at least in the eyes of my hero who's a bit of tight ass. It wrecks havoc on their relationship which is delighting me to no end.

And I liked what you said about Orson Wells as an eccentric in his life and art. Matthew McConnehey (sp) is a movie star bare naked bongo playing notwithstanding.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be going to my 60 emails and catch up a bit.

Great debut blog, J. I'll be here on the first Tuesday. Nice of the Captain to set it up that way. Keeps the bare arses to a minimum.

Anna Steffl said...

Goodness, it will take you days to get through these comments. A smashing, well-deserved success.

J Perry Stone said...

They're a chatty lot, aren't they Anna? Gotta love this nasty crew.

Di, I agree completely. Eccentrics DO seem to enjoy life more because they aren't censored by what they think others are thinking of them. Would that we all had a little more of that, uh, cluelessness.

Santa, where have you been? I've been waiting and waiting. I even called your husband asking where you were. He laughed at me. As to your emails, the last 15 or so were aimed at chapping YOUR booty.

Next time I see you, I'm showing you my new underwear. You too, Terri.

Santa said...

Oh joy.
Oh rapture.

terrio said...

I'd really rather be left out of this one.