As mentioned before I am a child of the 80s and as such I grew up without the internet. While I acknowledge it is a huge part of my life as an adult I take great pride in the fact that in my first ~20 years I committed a ton of idiosyncratic facts to memory. Testing our recollection of these sometimes trivial facts was a regular form of entertainment. From the age of 16 on my off and on girlfriend and eventual wife (and eventual ex-wife) were full on cinephiles. She was a regular reader of celebrity focused magazines like People, Us and Entertainment Weekly while I read Readers Digest, the TV Guide and others.
Being poor students (high school then college) we found clever ways to engage our minds and played a lot of trivia type games where we would quiz each other. Due to our love of movies we eventually stumbled upon Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
This game spawned from a January 1994 interview with Premiere magazine where Kevin Bacon mentioned that "he had worked with everybody in Hollywood or someone who's worked with them." Following this, a lengthy newsgroup thread which was titled "Kevin Bacon is the Center of the Universe" appeared. Four Albright College students invented the game that became known as "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" after watching two movies featuring Bacon back to back, Footloose and The Air Up There. During the second they began to speculate on how many movies Bacon had been in and the number of people with whom he had worked.
They wrote a letter to talk show host Jon Stewart, telling him that "Kevin Bacon was the center of the entertainment universe" and explaining the game. They appeared on The Jon Stewart Show and The Howard Stern Show with Bacon to explain the game. Bacon admitted that he initially disliked the game because he believed it was ridiculing him, but he eventually came to enjoy it. The three inventors released a book, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, with an introduction written by Bacon. A board game based on the concept was released by Endless Games (yet somehow I don't own it).
The version enjoyed in my circles operated like this. Each participant would think of a celebrity (anyone who had been in at least one major movie was fair game) and at the same time would shout out the name. From there the idea was to use only your knowledge of movies to link from one celebrity to the other using the fewest possible connections. For example if I shouted out John Wayne and she said Sandra Bullock one possible answer would be that Sandra Bullock was in Wrestling Earnest Hemmingway with Robert Duvall who was in True Grit with John Wayne. Fastest person to provide a valid connection won. If the other player could come up with a connection using fewer movies (within ~60 seconds) they could steal. Winner usually got to pick dinner and/or loser hand to do the dishes.
Challenges were rare but when necessary we would pull out the trusty VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever. (Think IMDb in print format.) Each year I bought an updated copy and with the growth in Hollywood during these years this soon overwhelmed my book shelf space.
Eventually we moved on to more digital based games (and other relationships) but I fondly remember playing that game and relying on my nerdy memory of names and details. In the summer of 2012, Google began to offer the ability to find an actor's Bacon number on its main page, by searching for the actor's name preceded by the phrase "bacon number".
El Paso by Marty Robbins
A good ole story song that I grew to like from my grandmas music collection.
Faith by Limp Bizkit
I like George Michael's version and this one for obviously very different reason. I think this song is here for shock value and to watch the confused look on my wife's face more than anything.
Fireflies by Owl City & Matthew Thiessen
Back when I actually listened to music on my radio this song was FRIGGEN EVERYWHERE when it was released. As such I hated it at first but eventually came around.
The Fireman by George Strait
My dad used to make claims that he was like this at one point in his life. I think I was suppose to be impressed but it had the opposite effect.
Firework by Katy Perry
Weird maybe Katy Perry is the most prevalent artist on my list? That's weird isn't it? Don't judge me! She has a powerful voice and a good message in many of her songs.
Fishing In The Dark by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
This hits me right in the nostalgia, I listened to this a bunch 'back in the day'. When it graced the radio the volume always went up. A local cacher has placed a fun multi themed around this song.
Footloose (From "Footloose" Soundtrack) by Kenny Loggins
I have still never seen this movie but I am pretty badass in the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon game. Before the days of the internet that was actually something to be proud of as you had to just know it and couldn't easily look it up.
Freaks by Timmy Trumpet & Savage
Alexander the most ardent music lover in our family introduced me to this song. I kinda lose my mind when I hear this song (just ask the kids), I can't help it. It's so catchy that beat just takes over!
The Freshmen by The Verve Pipe
Do you remember that ole Columbia House marketing trick 'buy 5 CDs for $0.01 and then buy 2 more later at full price later'? Yeah I fell for it but got this gem out of it.
Friends in Low Places by Garth Brooks
I remember singing this song with my parents and belting it out as we went down the road. You haven't heard it unless you know the special live verse!
PLEASE NOTE: I had some issues with the web publisher program and this did not get published on the day intended. This was originally written for publish on 1/25/2021.