I have been tagged by my friend Beth Harte to share seven things about me that you might not know (or want to know). I would say this though, as much as we all are about transparency, choosing 7 things can be tough without challenging  The Communications Decency Act. But here goes.

1. In college I majored in Political Science and I hate politics. I just don’t have the passion for it like others, but there was nothing else that interested me or perhaps I didn’t try hard enough to find the right fit. Though I did minor in French…Why?

2. Because I was born and raised in New Orleans, and spoke french throughout my childhood; as it was taught in school and I had lots of cajun friends. My Family moved completely away a year before Katrina, but it still took a heavy toll on me personally. I lived nearby the fairgrounds which is home of the Jazz Fest which I would highly suggest attending if not for the food, then for the music of course. i could hear the music from my front porch.

The house in N.O. 5 minutes from the Jazzfest

3. Speaking of music, I have a tremendous passion for it. Perhaps because of my heritage and the fact that though I couldnt get into the bars on Bourbon St. until I was 16, I still would catch a bus and go down and listen to the music emenating from the bars for hours on end. With that being said, I have about 600 cassettes, 800 CD’s and roughly 2,000 songs on my ipod. It was this love for music that prompted me to…

4. Sell concert t-shirts for almost 5 years. After I graduated from college, I realized that my degree was pretty worthless, so I decided to go to Graduate school for a masters in sport management. While in school I met a guy that sold concert shirts, not just any kind, they were bootlegs. That’s right, the guys outside the arenas and stadiums, hustling. It was the perfect college job. I just didn’t know it would suck me in for 5 years. There is a book forthcoming of what I saw and experienced. BTW, I have gone to over 500 shows from Hawaii to NYC. But once I got done with my degree, was pretty much fried from all the travelling and realized that the business of sports paid nothing if you wern’t a “playa”, the internet had arrived. Thank god.

5. So I decided to create 2 websites, one devoted to concert t-shirts and the other devoted to music reviews. I learned as much as I could and built them from scratch. One tanked and one thrived. The review site thrived and I started receiving demos and samples and tons of music from the major labels and the  indies. I just couldn’t keep up. Though I loved doing it.  A shell of it’s former self is still up, but it is so neglected and I still don’t have time to manage it which is a pity. The original business plan was so before its time too…oh well. But that initial experience led to more tech related jobs, so I thank music for getting me started.

6. In between tech jobs I also was the Dir. of Mktg for a now defunct alt. music  radio station in Pittsburgh, PA. The gig lasted less than a year. Why? As stations are wont to do, they changed formats from alt. rock to smoooth jazz. Oh and they did it while I was on my honeymoon in Greece. I came back and my stuff was in a box with 2 weeks severance and the smooth sounds of Kenny G wafting through the hallways. Sweet. Oh did I mention I moved to Pittsburgh right after college? Guess not. Try melding a New Orleans/Pittsburghese life into some sort of twisted “Yat-Yinzer” accent. But I love Pittsburgh, which many might not know, but hey that’s what the point of this is right?

Lastly, 7) I have 2 kids who rock, a wife who I married because when I asked her what her favorite music was, she answered that it was the blues, when I pressed her to elaborate, she said, “Stevie Ray”. At that point, she had me. When we met, I had insanely long hair and I owned a motorcycle. I also have roughly 11 strategically placed tattoos as well, but you would never know.  One of the tats is an image from an Alexander Calder painting I own that I bought with my college student loan money that  was supposed to go towards a class…By the way my 8 year old son just asked me how to play the blues…:)

Now that that’s out of the way I’m going to tag the following people:

Valeria Maltoni

Paul Chaney

Ari Herzog

Liz Strauss

Ken Burberry

Kyle Flaherty

Adam Cohen

Here are the rules:

• Link your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post.
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged