May 18, 2009
100 Fun Facts about the world's most famous soccer dad.
1. He watches HBO’s “Entourage”
2. He predicted UNC to win the Final Four
3. He rooted for the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Superbowl
4. His favorite basketball player is his daughter Sasha
5. He plans to vacation on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts
6. He and Bill Cosby are the only people to ever get free food from Ben’s Chili Bowl
7. He reads Harry Potter stories to his daughters
8. He goes to Wizards games and roots for the Chicago Bulls
9. He cursed and used the n-word in his audio book, “Dreams From My Father”
10. He has Jay Z and Ludacris on his iPod
11. He is a fan of show-tunes and gave an iPod full of them to the Queen of England
12. He loves playing Scrabble
13. He moved to Chicago and worked as a director of the Developing Communities Project after college
14. The top contributors to his presidential campaign include Goldman Sachs, University of California, Citigroup Inc., Harvard University, Moveon.org and Time Warner.
15. He was introduced to dog meat (tough), snake meat (tougher), and roasted grasshopper in Indonesia
16. “His first car had so much rust that there was a rusted hole in the passenger door” –Michelle Obama
17. He says his favorite children’s book is “Where the Wild Things Are”
18. He calls himself a mutt
19. His favorite president is Abraham Lincoln
20. His first date with wife, Michelle Obama was a movie. “Do The Right Thing”
21. His height is 6′ 1½”
22. His sister is a teacher
23. He learned how to play cricket in Trinidad and Tobago
24. He owns a pair of boxing gloves signed by Muhammad Ali
25. He was born at the Kapi’olani Medical Center for Women & Children
26. He traveled to Kenya in 1988 and met many of his paternal relatives
27. He traveled back to Kenya as a Senator in 2006 and was given a hero’s welcome
28. He has a beer named after him in Kenya
29. He directed Illinois’ Project Vote in 1992
30. He collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comics
31. He has a comic book with Spiderman and a Barack the Barbarian comic book.
32. His favorite meal is wife Michelle’s shrimp linguini
33. He worked in a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop as a teenager. Now he can’t stand ice cream
34. His daughter Sasha, on the other hand, is a big fan of ice cream
35. His favorite snacks are chocolate-peanut protein bars
36. He is the first President with a Blackberry
37. He uses an Apple Mac laptop
38. He is left-handed
39. His daughter’s name, Malia, is a Hawaiian name
40. He gets his hair cut once a week
41. His favorite musical artists are Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan
42. His favorite show is “The Wire”
43. His favorite artist is Pablo Picasso
44. His grandfather was affiliated with the Kenyan revolutionary Mau Mau movement
45. He and his wife donated $25,000 to the United Negro College fund
46. He changed his name from Barry back to Barack in College to assert his identity
47. He majored in Political Science at Columbia University
48. He was in the Black Student’s Union at both Occidental and Columbia
49. His late father was a senior economist for the Kenyan government
50. He keeps on his desk a carving of a wooden hand holding an egg, a Kenyan symbol for the fragility of life
51. His favorite drink is black forest berry iced tea
52. In high school, he was known as “Barry”
53. He likes Beyonce’s song, “Single Ladies”
54. His daughter,Malia’s godmother is Jesse Jackson’s daughter, Santita
55. He can’t bowl
56. He hit three straight three-pointers at a military base
57. He would have liked to be an architect if he were not a politician
58. He can speak Spanish
59. He kept a pet ape called Tata while in Indonesia
60. He can bench press an impressive 200lbs
61. He applied to appear in a black pin-up calendar while at Harvard but was rejected by the all-female committee.
62. He was given the code name “Renegade” by his Secret Service handlers
63. He doesn’t like young people wearing baggy pants
64. He can’t grow facial hair, only whiskers
65. He wears Hart Schaffner Marx suits
66. His father grew up herding goats
67. His maternal grandfather fought in World War II
68. He was only one of three black students at Punahou Academy, in Hawaii
69. He saw his father only once in 1971 for a Christmas visit
70. He is distantly related to Vice President Dick Cheney
71. His high school yearbook picture inscription thanks “Tut,” “Gramps,” and the “Choom Gang.” Choom is Hawaiian slang for “pot smoking”
72. His paternal grandfather was outright opposed to his son’s marriage to Ann Durnham because he thought his son was neglecting his ex-wife and two children in Kenya. He was also concerned that Ann was white
73. Some of his maternal ancestors were slave owners
74. He did a good imitation of Jesse Jackson while he was at Harvard
75. He does a good job imitating Marlon Brando in “The Godfather”
76. His schoolmates in Indonesia nicknamed him “Curly Eyelashes”
77. He used to work in construction
78. He once said the three men he admired the most were Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, Jr
79. His name means “one who is blessed” in Swahili
80. His favorite book is “Moby-Dick” by Herman Melville
81. His parents met in Russian class
82. He enjoys playing poker.
83. He is distantly related to Brad Pitt
84. He used to drive a Chrysler 300m
85. He watches his daughter Sasha’s basketball games
86. He is the first President to appear on a late night talk show
87. He has said many of his friends in Indonesia were “street urchins”
88. He was nicknamed “Bear” by his late grandmother
89. He owns four identical pairs of black, size 11 shoes
90. He carries a tiny Madonna and child statue and a bracelet belonging to a soldier in Iraq for good luck
91. He promised Michelle he would quit smoking before running for president. He didn’t
92. Before he moved to the White House, he drove a Ford Escape Hybrid
93. His cousin on Michelle’s side is a rabbi
94. His old desk in his Senate office once belonged to Robert Kennedy
95. His daughter Sasha’s real name is Natasha
96. He has seven half-brothers and sisters in Kenya from his father’s other marriages
97. He worked as a summer associate at the Sidley Austin law firm in Chicago
98. He lost a Congressional election in Illinois to Bobby Rush in 2000
99. He answers one letter a day from people across the country
100. His favorite dish to cook is chili
Source: Talkin The Truth (http:www.newsone.blackplanet.com)
Casey Gane-McCalla
Gane-McCalla is a writer, editor, rapper, producer and actor. He is a Columbia University Graduate and previously worked in the non-profit sector.
