And probably couldn’t have cared less about; however, we believe in full disclosure here at Paco Enterprises, because you, the customer, deserve to know what you’re getting. So, here goes:
- I have never eaten pizza in my life.
- I have never seen Caddyshack, Animal House, Airplane! or The Terminator.
- Although I made several attempts over the years, I never managed to get beyond the first chapter of Tom Sawyer.
- I greatly esteem G.K. Chesterton as an essayist, particularly in his role as a Catholic apologist, and find his biographical works excellent, but consider much (though not all) of his fiction to be unreadable, primarily because he permitted his considerable narrative gifts to be overwhelmed by his ham-fisted proselytizing.
- Favorite prose stylist: H.L. Menken.
- Favorite authors (fiction): P.G. Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh, Charles Dickens, Henry Fielding, Tobias Smollett, Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, Peter De Vries, Raymond Chandler, Arthur Conan Doyle, Patrick O’Brian, George MacDonald Fraser.
- I don’t have many opportunities to do either, anymore, but I am extremely fond of (1) fresh-water fishing (although I don’t eat fish), and (2) refinishing old furniture.
- I once walked 12 miles, roundtrip, to purchase one cigar (my car was in the shop, my friends were unavailable and I had precisely two dollars in my pocket).
- I sold a 1970 Plymouth Superbird in 1977 to buy an engagement ring for Mrs. Paco. Estimated value of ring today: maybe a thousand bucks. Estimated value of Superbird: around $100,000 (Speaking of the Superbird, I experienced a flat tire one evening driving home from a friend’s house. I was unaware that, at the time, Chrysler, in its wisdom, used reversed threads on the driver’s side of the car – i.e., you were supposed to turn the lug nuts clockwise to loosen them. Applying increasing force to what I took to be a stubborn lug nut, I wound up shearing the bolt from the wheel).
- I was so nervous at my wedding that I forgot to kiss the bride.
- All-time favorite baseball player: Bobo Newsome.
- Favorite baseball team: if you have to ask, you haven’t been reading this blog.
- All-time favorite historical-fiction novel: Heart of Jade, by Salvador de Madariaga.
- Favorite movies (in no particular order): Out of the Past, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Maltese Falcon, The Searchers, Double Indemnity, The Letter, The Lady Eve, Murder, He Said, My Favorite Brunette, Arsenic and Old Lace, Kiss of Death, El Dorado, Dodge City, Santa Fe Trail,The Killers, Prince of the City, Big Trouble in Little China, The Strange Loves of Martha Ivers, The Wind and the Lion, The Man Who Would Be King,Paleface, The Road to Utopia, Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Diabolique (original version), Cold Comfort Farm, Patton, Sergeant York, Zulu, Horseman on the Roof, My Favorite Year, Larceny, Inc., Key Largo, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, Flight of the Phoenix, The Man from Laramie, Shane - and, yes, you’re reading it right - Tarzan’s New York Adventure. (C’mon! Tarzan wearing a suit and standing in the shower? Cheetah playing with Jane’s makeup? That’s art, buddy!)
- Favorite painters: Boticelli, Pissaro
- Favorite classical composers: Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Respighi
- Favorite type of music: boogie-woogie (favorite boogie-woogie pianists: that’s a tough one. Sammy Price, Memphis Slim, Freddie Slack, Harry “The Hipster” Gibson and Mead Lux Lewis would be my top five).
- Favorite swing bands: Count Basie’s and Benny Goodman’s.
- Greatest athletic achievement: knocking the head off a horse-fly on the wing with a wet towel.
- Hobby: You’re looking at it.
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I've seen Airplane and Terminator, but have never seen the others you listed OR any of the Godfather or Rocky movies.
ReplyDeleteI love to fish, too...and I don't eat fish, either.
To your movie list, I would add only Secondhand Lions and Down Low. I admit to being a Robert Duval FAN, but a movie fan I am not.
You have a bride worth more than any car, and I don't care how much men think that car is worth.
You have a bride worth more than any car, and I don't care how much men think that car is worth.
ReplyDeleteUndoubtedly. Still, I sometimes wonder rather wistfully if Mrs. Paco would have been able to tell the difference between a diamond and a rhinestone...
Never eaten pizza!?!?!?!?!?!! Wow. With all of the pizza joints in this country, that just boggles my mind. It's like hearing a German claim to never have drank beer.
ReplyDeleteI don't blame you for not watching "Caddyshack" or "Airplane!", but "Animal House" was nearly a cult hit at my college. For no other reason than that one of our frat houses closely resembled Delta House, and a number of those frat rats paralleled characters in the movie. (It lead to at least one, ummmm, interesting conversation between the school president and the frat faculty adviser. And, no, I was not a member. I was a GDI in college.)
Alas, I've only read 3 of the fiction authors that you listed: Doyle, Chandler, and Dickens. And mostly Doyle. My tastes run to science fiction, technology, and some history.
Movies in common: Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Maltese Falcon; The Searchers; Double Indemnity; Murder, He Said; Arsenic and Old Lace; El Dorado; The Wind and the Lion; The Man Who Would Be King; Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein (heh!); Patton; Sergeant York; Zulu; Key Largo; Flight of the Phoenix; The Man from Laramie; Shane; and Tarzan’s New York Adventure (saw it as a boy, and I *still* remember it!).
I'm not a fan of any one music genre. My music collection is, shall we say, eclectic, but does lean towards rock, with side orders of country, folk, and classical.
As for the Superbird: it's said that a good woman is priceless. Cars, not so much. Sounds like you got a good deal. I just hope Mrs. Paco has a sound sense of humor, with her being compared to an old Plymouth....
Of all the pizza joints in all the towns in all the world, Paco has never walked into mine. Doesn't really work that well, but what the heck since you don't have Casablanca up there. Or Beau Geste.
ReplyDeleteFavorite authors (fiction): P.G. Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh, Charles Dickens, Henry Fielding, Tobias Smollett, Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, Peter De Vries, Raymond Chandler, Arthur Conan Doyle, Patrick O’Brian, George MacDonald Fraser.
ReplyDeletePaco, I always knew you were a sensible fellow, and now I... still know it.
I was so nervous at my wedding that I forgot to kiss the bride.
ReplyDeleteYou expect us to buy off that the paragon of cool could possibly be this nervous? Pshaw!
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bentley_Speed_Six.JPG
ReplyDelete2. http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/pic/1698/Bentley-Speed-Six--Blue-Train-Special-_2.html
Cheers
Estimated value of ring today: maybe a thousand bucks. Estimated value of Superbird: around $100,000
ReplyDeleteEstimated value of married bliss with Mrs. Paco: Priceless
Holy mackerel!! I'm not sure that you and I even live on the same planet. You fancy east coast fellers with all yer book learnin' and such...I'm just a simple rube from flyover country.
ReplyDeleteStill, I do enjoy by visits to The House of Paco for tasty bits of truth and enlightenment.
Smitty: Did I mention that I once took a polygraph and flunked every question except for two: my name and address?
ReplyDeleteYoJ: Yikes! How could I have forgotten Casablanca?
ReplyDeleteholy moley, and you think that "And, as I keep discovering when I meet readers and bloggers, she is vastly more interesting than I am."
ReplyDeletehttp://pacoenterprises.blogspot.com/2009/08/blogger-meets-blogger.html
i find it particularly intriguing you have never eaten pizza! how does one go through life like that?
Miss Red: When I was a little fellow, my parents used to have pizza delivered to the house, and it always smelled to me like puke. Never been able to touch it.
ReplyDeleteWell, good pizza is wonderful.
ReplyDeleteLots of movies out there and tastes differ, but Paleface and Son of Paleface [which I just snagged as a DVD] are among my favorites, and I think Bob Hope was underrated as an actor. [I also like Destry Rides Again with Jimmy Stewart.]
Tom Sawyer is kind of a must read. I've gotten about half-way through both Ulysses and Gravity's Rainbow about 3-4 times. Just can't seem to force myself. [I'm a big SF fan, too, JeffS.]
I like Chesterton's mysteries, and the biographical stuff. Love P.G. Wodehouse [it was one of the things that brought me and my wife together], Waugh is okay, I like Chandler, Doyle, and Fraser, the rest I can take or leave.
I had a neighbor whose two-week old Superbird was caught in a hail storm and looked like someone had hit it 2000 times with a ballpeen hammer. Whoo!!
I love boogie-woogie and stride piano. Lux Lewis is great, as are the others.
My greatest athletic accomplishment was probably climbing the rope in the gym by flipping upside down and pushing my way up it.
And I have an attraction to "The Strange Loves of Martha Ivers" for personal reasons I'll leave you to guess at.
And I have an attraction to "The Strange Loves of Martha Ivers" for personal reasons I'll leave you to guess at.
ReplyDeleteGood lord! You murdered your guardian?
I'm a bit surprised about the Tom Sawyer revelation - I would have thought, like pizza, it would have been virtually compulsory reading in the US, such is it's iconic status. Even I read it, in my mid-20s; it was slow starting but I was pretty much enchanted by the end of it. And Huck Finn... I could hear Huck's voice right from the start of that novel.
ReplyDeleteFunnily I had that eyes-glaze-over experience in another work of Twains - 'Innocent's Abroad'. I'd heard so much about it, but the prose seemed laboured and the chapters dragged on and ooooooooooooon.
Maybe there's something about Twain's 19th century prose that is difficult, something that would have made it seem more immediate to Twains contemporaries but which can alienate a modern reader.
Thank goodness, someone else who has never eaten a pizza.
ReplyDeleteYour wife is worth more then any car, treasure her.
Love books, family try to head me off if they see a book store in the distance.....very often doesn't work, because I have also seen it.
Have just sent Casablanca to my father for Christmas, sent my mother three fine scarves.
You haven't eaten pizza?!?!?!??????
ReplyDeleteIt's my favourite food!
And bingbing is here to help.
http://pizzatherapy.com/easta.htm
You simply can't beat a good pepperoni with parmesan and tabasco.
That puke smell you experienced as a kid was probably parmesan. I remember as a youngun it smelled like puke.
ReplyDeleteGive it another shot, mate.
I'm pretty sure non-pizza eaters are barred from Heaven.
Paco, not that I've got the biggest blog on the planet (although it had its best month in November and is doing quite well on Technorati), but I've done what I can to help insofar as starting a campaign to assist you to find closure on what was obviously a very traumatic childhood.
ReplyDeletehttp://jamesboard.wordpress.com/2010/12/01/paco-has-never-eaten-pizza/
ReplyDeleteGive "Twelve O'Clock High" a go - Gregory Peck at his best.
ReplyDeleteYou have excellent taste in movies. There are only a handful on your list that I haven't seen - I'll have to make a point see those. As to the movies on your never seen list, I don't think they've held up very well - you haven't missed much.
ReplyDeleteMiracle at Morgan's Creek is a hilarious farce. Years ago, the local newspaper's program listing for it had the one line description : "A girl gets pregnant by a soldier but can't remember which one" which made it sound a little inappropriate.
The Bing & Bob road movies are all classics.
Pissarro is probably underrated in the world. But you must not like his work too much if you can't spell his name right ;)
You don't like Tom Sawyer but you like Dickens? Hmmmm
Colonel: No, that's just one of my usual typos. As to Tom Sawyer, all I can say is that, for some reason, I have never really been a fan of Mark Twain's. A poor reflection on me, of course, not on the author.
ReplyDeleteAlas. No go. Pizza?
ReplyDelete:(
bingbing: I am highly sensible of the service you are attempting to do me; however, I have gone so long without eating pizza, that it has now become a sort of affair of honor not to eat any.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine life without pizza (even if my doctor would get the vapors, knowing I ate any). Are you perhaps lactose intolerant, sir? That can be the only explanation.
ReplyDeleteI've seen every movie you listed except Tarzan's New York Adventure, but I've seen ever other Tarzan movie, even back to the barely-talky era. I've read perhaps half the authors you listed, but my tastes run to science fiction (good science fiction), modern mysteries (never could take the prim Miss Marple types), historical novels and nonfiction, particularly anything to do with space.
Never walked 12 miles for anything, but back when my husband was a PFC, and we had a new baby, I used to do laundry in the bathtub for lack of laundromat coinage.
Yes, that was a huge typo. I didn't know Juan Pizarro could paint. Makes some sense when you think about it though. Good brushback pitch to go along with a good fastball and slider.
ReplyDeleteYou forgot to kiss Mrs. Paco!?! Good grief, man! What were you so nervous about? You had already made the emotional and financial investments, for goodness sake! It would have made the finals on "Funniest Home Videos", but the videographer was laughing too hard.
ReplyDeleteAs for the pizza, I understand. I have only eaten tuna on one occasion since the mid '70s after viewing a grisly video. But pizza!?! Your honor would remain intact were you to overcome this...uh...condition. This may call for an intervention.
In the movie catagory, why no John Wayne? Every red blooded, patriotic American loves the Duke. Then there is "M". One of the scariest film, thanks to Peter Lorre. "Young Frankenstein", "Hook", "Dances with Wolves", "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", just to name a few.
Deborah Leigh
Deborah, "The Searchers" and "El Dorado" are John Wayne movies. "El Dorado" also has Robert Mitchum. But "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" is a classic.
ReplyDeleteI found Twain and Dickens similar in ways. In high school I declared that if Dickens wasn't a serialist he would have edited Great Expectations down to 50 pages. In retrospect, I may be a philistine.
ReplyDeletePaco is like William F Buckley except he's standing athwart pizza yelling stop.
Did someone say "You may now kiss the bride" and then you stood there like an idiot. Or did no one mentioned it and so you forgot? One is more forgivable than the other.
I didn't recognize Paleface as the Bob Hope movie. I'll never understand how Bob Hope could make great movies in the 1940s and 50s and then in the 1960s he is in dreck. I blame the hippies.
*scribbles down names of movies I've never seen and authors I've never read*
ReplyDeleteOne advantage of having surrendered to the Kindle envy is reading alot of free books, like Dickens, Chesterton and even H.L. himself.
Since Christmas is coming I'd recommend asking Santa for the "Lion In Winter". O'Toole and Hepburn are magnificent.
I had a gift card for B&N burning a hole in my pocket and used it for "Gentleman Captain", now I'm wondering if Amazon.uk will ship to me if book two is published there first;-).
Retread
Did someone say "You may now kiss the bride" and then you stood there like an idiot. Or did no one mentioned it and so you forgot? One is more forgivable than the other.
ReplyDeleteColonel, you are wise and just; practically Solomonic. As a matter of fact, the priest did not say, "You may now kiss the bride." So, I'm guilty of a misdemeanor, not a felony.
There are movie favorites that I have inadvertently left off the list. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence is certainly one of them.
Deb: You're right about M; a first-rate thriller.
"- I don’t have many opportunities to do either, anymore, but I am extremely fond of (1) fresh-water fishing (although I don’t eat fish), and (2) refinishing old furniture."
ReplyDeleteYou need to manage your time better by multitasking. Have you considered taking up trout varnishing?
And when you caught the fish, I do hope you clubbed them smartly in obeisance to Our Dark Mistress Sarah...
JeffS -- Check out Doyle's George Edward Challenger novels for SF. They're available free through Gutenberg.org
ReplyDeletePaco -- I'd add the original "Guadalcanal Diary" and "Wake Island," "Battleground", "The Big Sleep" (Bogart/Bacall,'44), The Quiet Man, Donovan's Reef, the Tom Selleck TV westerns, The Cruel Sea, Murphy's Romance and the novels of Thorne Smith.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"Still, I sometimes wonder rather wistfully if Mrs. Paco would have been able to tell the difference between a diamond and a rhinestone..."
ReplyDeleteI will not, not, not type "Well, look who she married -- Ah, DAMMIT.
Hanging curve balls are my one vice.
Richard: Bean ball!
ReplyDeleteBTW, the flicks you mentioned are all great.
Clubs for trout? I always used a pump-action shotgun (I figure Sarah would approve).
bingbing: I will NOT come over to the Dark Side!!!
ReplyDelete[I]t has now become a sort of affair of honor not to eat any.
ReplyDeletePACO. The first step is to admit you are actually powerless over this lack of addiction and that because of this, your life is actually unmanageable.
Step 2: Come to believe that a Power greater than yourself (e.g. Domino's - and they have an online ordering system. You don't even have to stand up. www.dominos.com) can restore you to sanity.
Step 3:Make a decision to turn your will and your life over to the care of Domino's as you understand the simple pleasure of having piping hot fresh pizza that doesn't smell like puke delivered straight to your door... and in under 30 minutes, guaranteed!
Step 4:Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself. In practical terms, this means deciding which topping would be best (pepperoni comes highly recommended).
Step 5: Admit to the blogosphere, to yourself and to another human being (bing suggests a quick prayer to Mom) the exact nature of your wrongs.
Step 6: You're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. In practical terms, it's time to place that order!
ReplyDeleteStep 7:Humbly ask God to remove your shortcomings. In practical terms, that means gain closure over your traumatic childhood, move on and click this link; www.dominos.com
Step 8: Make a list of what toppings you think you'd like and endeavor to try all of them in due course.
Step 9: Place that order.
Step 10: Continue to consider what other toppings you might like even though pepperoni will always be best (although there's good reason for adding bacon).
Step 11: Seek through the blogosphere and your helpful Domino's customer service representative (or google "pizza" and go to images) to improve your conscious contact with pizza as you understood pizza, praying only for knowledge of various types of pizza (for example, thin crust is a delicious indulgence) and harness the power to pick up the phone or hit those internets.
Step 12: Having had a delicious meal of pizza and beer (or Coke) which has brought about a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, try to tell others how good pizza is (a post with pics?), and include pizza as part of your weekly or monthly diet.
PACO. Refusal and denial are an understandable part of the process, but you CAN take that first step.
ReplyDeleteWe're all right here, buddy.
Think of this as an intervention.
Thank goodness, someone else who has never eaten a pizza.
ReplyDeleteMerilyn, all this goes for you, too.
We're all here to support you. You can do it together with PACO. Lean on us. Support each other through this dark chapter of your lives.
Choose pizza, and together, pizza will rule the galaxy.
I, for one, welcome our pizza overlords.
ReplyDeleteThink of this as an intervention.
ReplyDeleteActually, I'm thinking of it as pizza stalking, and I'll be seeking an injunction.
Lawyers! Arrggghh!
ReplyDelete;)
(Sorry in advance)
ReplyDeleteIt's like hearing a German claim to never have drank beer. - JeffS
It's like meeting a nun who hasn't heard about Jesus.
Pizza, sure, who needs that, but can I interest you in these crispy circular pastries topped with seasonal fruits, sausages, and puree-of-cow-lactate?
ReplyDelete(Actually, now that I come to put it like that...)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteFew bloggers would have suspected that Paco would have ended his days, strapped to a chair in a darkened room, with his eyes held open and being directed by small mechanical levers back and forth over the pages of a much-loved 19th-century American classic, while being intravenously fed pepperoni pizza by a continuous drip.
ReplyDeleteA large spotlight suddenly flicks on in a dank basement, location unknown. There sits a battered blogger, small mechanical levers holding his eyes open, an intravenous drip in his arm. An electronically altered voice begins to speak...
ReplyDelete"Mr PACO. There is an easy way to end all this. Just call off your lawyers, make the order, and eat the damn pizza. We - I mean I - will give you 24 hours. And remember, pics or it didn't happen. That is all. Oh, and, er, we - I, I mean I (shit!) - categorically deny being VRWC. What VRWC?"
Pizza, or beetroot on your hamburger? The latter appears less palatable.
ReplyDeleteCheers
Call me unAustralian, but I don't bother with beetroot.
ReplyDeleteOK, Pacs, sorry in advance again. Last one. Promise.*
Refusing to eat pizza? Well that's just plain pizzist!
*maybe
Sorry bing, you have buckley's of ever getting me to eat Pizza.
ReplyDeleteNot crazy about beetroot on a hamburger either.
Paco, I understand your reluctance. You have people here trying to send you to Domino's. Just eat the box instead.
ReplyDeleteIf you ever hit LA I'll show you where the REAL pizza is, and none'a that Wolfgang Puck clean-out-the-fridge crap.
A shotgun for trout? A little rough on the bottom of the skiff, ain'cha?
ReplyDeleteIn my defence, the first link I sent was for the top-rated joints on the east cost, lol.
ReplyDeleteHave just heard that any attempts to get PACO to eat pizza, any pizza, is quote: "futile!"
ReplyDeleteIt appears PACO is the Borg of pizza eaters... or is that the anti-Borg?
PACO, I find your lack of faith... disturbing.
Say NO to pizzism!
Lunch in the school cafeteria today?
ReplyDeleteTofu chunks in a thick red pepper spicy soup/paste.
Thick noodles in a watery seafood soup, octopus included.
Customery rice and kimchi. Spinach leaves coated in spicy red pepper paste.
Now don't get me wrong, there's some Korean food I quite like. But if you had to eat a dish like today's - and Korea has hundreds of them - for, say, a month, you'd be positively begging for pizza.
And that's a fact.
PS Starving now. Let's hope the shop is open and I can at least have some ramen... spicy ramen.
The more I think about this, I wonder if this is a scheme where Paco trades in on the goodwill of the Pacosphere to get a deluge of offers to buy him pizza and then wronwright puts on a fedora and gets to eat free for a month.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'd be wary of pizza offered by BingBing.
-If you ever do decide to try pizza, Paco, Richard has a point: make sure it's real pizza, not the Dominos, Papa Johns versions. As someone of half-Italian descent, I would be glad to advise you when the time comes.
ReplyDelete-May I suggest Damn The Defiant as a great movie you would enjoy.
-Animal House is a must because it is a conservative-themed movie.
-KC's suggestion of Secondhand Lions is spot-on. Well done and the Lions are our kind of guys.
-Dead dolid perfect on Chesterton.
-In 1981, I sold my '64 Plymouth Belvedere for $500. The fella who bought it restored it and sold it ten years later for $75k.
-I'd walk a mile for a Camel in my younger days.
-BingBing: You tried.
-The Godfather I & II is positively Shakespearean like Henry IV.
-My vote's for Memphis Slim - man, that cat could play.
-Basie, Goodman, and Bunny Berigan.