Shown: If the first thing you notice is this 25th Anniversary Pac-Man/Galaga cabinet, welcome to my world.
As you’re no doubt aware, today is Pac-Man’s birthday. I’m more than a little overwhelmed. With my wedding anniversary tomorrow (I swear I didn’t plan it that way), I’m never sure where my loyalties should lie this time of year. You know around Christmas, when they interview that crazy woman who fills her trailer with a shit ton of Santa Claus stuff? Except she’s had it up all year, and she says something like “Everyday is Christmas at 432 Orchard Alley Lane!” and you feel sick and sad for her? Well, that’s me. But for Pac-Man. My house is a little like wandering into Leatherface’s house, except instead of chicken bones hanging from the ceiling, it’s just Pac-Man stuff. Pac-Man is such a part of the backdrop in my house, that I forget how much I’ve actually accumulated from friends, family, eBay, flea markets and fans. Once you’re a known collector of something, it makes it easy for everyone to buy for you on holidays, which is nice. I’ve already covered some of my most coveted possessions in this NOT SAFE FOR WORK post from Joystick Division, but I took a stroll around my house and just took pictures of stuff I could actually see in front of me. Something I promised to do months ago. If I actually start digging, there’s hundreds more items strewn about…this is only scratching the surface.
So why Pac-Man?
Pac-Man is pure. Pac-Man is Pizza Hut breadsticks and a borrowed quarter from mom. Pac-Man is universal. Pac-Man is challenging and addictive 30 years later. Pac-Man is a warm yellow memory. Ok, scratch that last one. That didn’t sound right.
It’s the ghosts and blood, dust and mud, and the roar of an arcade crowd.
I made this Pac-Man beer cooler for my Pac-Man themed going away party in New York. I used my crappy cell phone video camera to capture this little magic event.
INSERT COIN AND CLICK THROUGH FOR MORE PAC-MAN CRAP THAN YOU CAN HANDLE
Shown: a rare Ms. Pac-Man addition to my collection, stolen from a Indianapolis Head Shop wall. Check out the ticket price, $12! This was before Feed The Animals changed the world.
I’m pretty happy with how this turned out. The writer, author Scott Faingold, really nailed it. Check it out online, or pick it up anywhere around Springfield! Between this article, and the Western Magazine article by Sarah Zeeck last week, it’s clear that the best writing talent comes from the Midwest.
I’d like to take this time to remind you all that Members Save 10%. I’m really looking forward to this, and I’ve got some special things planned for all of us. As of now, there’s no after party planned…but I think that’d be kind of cool. Ideas?
I’ve done a lot of horrible things to nice people on April Fools Day (Fools’ Day? Fool’s Day? Foo’ls Day? Grammar. Jesus.) so I figured it was time to get myself good today: I recently found my 1989 diary from when I was 8 years old, and now you’re going to see it. Plus, Diary of a Wimpy Kid is currently tearing up the box office. Plus, I just had my birthday. Topical!
Now, for years, I called this my “Journal.” But let’s look at the cover.
No 8-year old kid keeps a journal with flowers all over it. They keep a diary. I might as well face it. Oh sure, I tried to butch it up with a hologram sticker of Bebop, and a stern warning of “Keep Out or Else,” but one can assume two things from looking at this cover: the “or else” means “…or else you will probably force-read my own diary aloud, while upper classmen run a viscous train on me”, and any 8-year old who can’t spell the word “Private” has no business making threats with a label gun on the cover of his tulip-covered diary. If you stumbled across this in a bush, next to a pair of bloody Fruit of the Looms and broken glasses, not even Nancy Grace would bat an eye. I’ve got it coming.
The inside-cover is a little heartbreaking. My mom gave this to me for my birthday, lovingly inscribed. At the time, I probably was angry I could not stick this book into a Nintendo and press start. But she was actually encouraging me to do something I now do (almost) for a living, which is really nice. The sad part is what follows: instead of “stories and thoughts,” we get “self-centered ramblings, ignorance, spite and hatred: 1989 style.” So, I think I probably let her down.
So let’s see what page 1 has to offer.
Hoo boy, “a birthday I won’t forget.” How’s that for suspense? My parents got us a basketball hoop for our driveway (excuse me, “a cort,” not to be confused with Bud Cort), probably to offset the disappointment of the rose-covered diary. It’s obvious I’m a genius writer from the start. Check this deft prose out: “I got a game.” Hey, that’s super! What kind of game? Was it a board game? A $50 Nintendo game, perhaps? A game of “let’s leave you in the woods?” Great descriptors, asshole. Way to think of your audience.
Now, to those of you who don’t know where I grew up, you might think “holy shit, you got a ROCKET JACKET?” but that’s not what you think it is.
Shown: Rocket Jacket I didn’t get.
The rocket jacket was a Rushville Rockets jacket, our school mascot. This set me on a course to become the actual “Rushville Rocket” years later, which was a big quilted thing that looked like a giant white dildo with fins. But that’s another story.
Shown: Zoom! The mascot of a school that fancies itself a “tough football town.” In fairness, we were called “The Fightin’ White Vibrators” up until the sexually repressed Reagan-era. Other places you may have seen our mascot: in a trucker’s glove box. In Richard Gere’s nightstand. Hidden in a 16-year old girl’s sock drawer as, you know, a “gag gift”.
I wish I could find the undoubtedly wacky “Chris Ward’s La Funnky Music 1 and 2″ on cassette. I mean, it’s not every day someone “tapes their own tape.” Man, wasn’t that a long time ago? I just DVD’d my own DVD today, so boy do I feel old!
“La Funnky Music” is just me rambling (as I believed a DJ would do) into a brown Fisher-Price recorder (again, like a real DJ), and then commercials I’d taped off television to hear later (just like you’d here on WKRB “The Buzz” Morning Zoo drive time). And I would listen to this on trips and in my own backyard. For hours. Apparently, the Bubble Tape commercial and Super Mario Bros. Super Show theme registered as “La Funnky Music” in my book.
ANYWAY, back to the dramatic story, which I’d like to set the scene for. My dad and I spent all day digging a post hole (maybe not all day. Everything takes “all day” when you’re 8), and assembling a basketball hoop (all day). The hoop is in place. The neighbors are watching out the window, because they now realize their life is about to change when every 5-10 seconds, an 8-year olds ball rolls into their well-kept-and-soon-to be-trampled, lawn. I am presented with a basketball, carefully wrapped. I go for my first lay up and a large man comes out of nowhere and BLOCKS THAT MOTHERFUCKER WITH ALL THE FURY A 40-YEAR OLD MAN CAN RAIN DOWN ON AN EIGHT YEAR OLD. This is Dean, my dad’s friend. He begins instantly apologizing for, you know, my head slamming against the concrete and stuff. And this wasn’t that pussy concrete people put down today. This was the real deal: cracks, rocks, weeds all stickin’ out and shit. “I got hurt bad” as I later recalled.
I mean “my stomace” hurt, man. Like, real bad. It was 8 in the evening when we got back. And that’s all we get. Was I okay? What did the x-rays show? Did anyone go to jail? Well, this was Rushville in 1989, so no one was going to jail for things yet. Even though Dean “stold the ball” from me, I don’t have any ill-will towards him today. He’s a pretty good guy. At least he didn’t yell “BOO-YAH!” which I might have done, were the tables turned.
So there you have it. This sets the stage for a series of blogs where reveal I am a limp-dick pansy. Entries that follow will include ex-girlfriends I call “pigs”, cats hit by drunk drivers and more secret crying.
Shown: Batman cake, UHF soundtrack, purple Rushville Rocket polo, child molester glasses, and a haircut that cordially invites you to kick my ass (please, RSVP).
[ONE LAST UPDATE]
This is how cool my mom is, even after reading this she found a picture of Rocky the Rocket. It’s not me in the costume, but there’s plenty of those somewhere.
Shown: Get it? “The Pits.” I used to help paint these for the football players to run through and destroy on game night. They were so appreciative, coaches like Randy Hawkins treated us with more respect because of our hard work. Just kidding, Randy Hawkins remained an asshole. And even though he died in a terrible tobacco spitting incident years ago, I stand by my recollection of him as a coach and mentor. The artist’s names are down the side, and it looks like Bryan Morrell had a hand in this potentially racially insensitive masterwork. I’m sure Bryan worked really, really hard on it. He loved football, and doing things to support the team.
It’s the moment nearly 20 of you have been waiting for…the winner to last Thursday’s first World of Ward Crap contest! The contest was easy, all you had to do was look at this honest-to-god cigarette lighter and tell me “Who is This For?” and you could win the box of crap I’m about to show you.
Your responses ranged from “hilarious” to “spam comment blocked,” and I thank everyone for participating. First, the Honorable Mentions!
Padre Hodges and Zoss were unfortunately disqualified because, while hilarious, the three of us have seen and done unspeakable things with shovels in the desert that have both bonded us for life and voided us from winning each other’s contests:
Padre Hodges said, and I can’t disagree with him:
Registered sex offenders who need a light?
Zoss had a very funny, very inventive twist on They Live:
It’s for Rowdy Roddy Piper. To us, it looks like a trashy novelty lighter, but it’s actually an incredibly sophisticated device that reveals a terrible secret. When Rowdy Roddy lights someone’s cigarette with it, he can tell if the smoker is actually a frog person disguised as a human. Marry and reproduce!
God I wish that were true, to justify the $0.69 I spent on it.
That’s probably more accurate than we know. Each one of these comments “tickled me” (as the kids say) in their own way…Jeff Sparkman’s blunt “it’s for mouthbreathing fuckshoes,” Denim’s conspiracy theory to confuse future generations how babies are born, NathanW’s feel-good White Trash Epic, Larry Joe’s very depressing tale of aging Midwestern woe, Ashley’s hipster potshot (zing! a pun!)
I had to narrow it down to my three favorites. Goof’s “your mom!” was a solid, classic use of the world’s best put-down, Jason Kinze’s way-too-true “for an 11 year old boy taking up arson as a hobby that hasn’t discovered internet porn yet.” and the WINNER…
POTATOJOE!
Who said…
A confused 78 year old man who thinks it’s an iphone
For the life of me, I can’t think of anything funnier than a man confusing a 69 cent pornographic lighter for the world’s most advanced phone. Great work, potatojoe. Very funny stuff.
“Hello? Grandson? I don’t know how to tell you this, because you’re so young. But…it’s cancer. It’s real bad. Tell your mother..OH GALWDDAMMIT! I HAVE BEEN TALKING INTO THAT KISSING LIGHTER AGAIN!!!”
And here are all the wonderful things Potatojoe wins that you won’t believe! Well, believe it…dreams can come true!
If you look closely enough at anything, you can find the sadness. You can hear the persistent drums of depression, drowning out an otherwise happy pan-flute solo. I’m here to provide that terrible feeling for you, with a series of otherwise harmless things that end up making me feel sad inside. Hope your Monday sucks! NYAH!
Hey! It’s “Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist!” Michael J. Fox’s heartwarming and brave account of his day-to-day struggle with Parkinson’s, and one of the most inspiring testaments to the human spirit on record. Just finding the strength and courage to write this book must have taken so much out of him…
…and now you can own it for the clearance, “gotta get rid of it” price of $5.95. Glenn Beck’s “Arguing With Idiots” remains on the New York Times Best Seller list. [sad trombone!]
Oh Cool! Brokeback Mountain is finally on Blu-Ray! And enough time has passed that we can move past the easy Brokeback Mountain “gay cowboy” jokes that overshadowed it originally, and finally see the movie for what it is: a complex, moving and heartbreaking tale of love and sacrifice…
“…heh, heh. Hey Bobby, check this out. ‘Exclusive Interactive Features.’ Heh. On the Brokeback Mountain Blu-Ray! Haw haw! Whadda you think THOSE are, huh? Jest how interactive are we talking here, HUH? HAW HAW HAW! Let’s go watch Transformers.” [sad trombone!]
Yeah, take THAT Atkins Diet! What’s that? Atkins IS dead? He smashed his head on a icy sidewalk, went into a coma, spent 9 days in the hospital and then died despite the constant prayers of his loved ones? Dude, that’s terrible!
Man, I feel sorry for the people that published this book. They couldn’t have known that, when they were planning the book, a terrible accident would suddenly befall Atki…wait, what’s that? This book was published LESS THAN A YEAR AFTER he died? Now THAT’S a recipe for an eternity in hell! [sad trombone!]
Dad: “I bought you a Smurfs doll, oh favorite daughter of mine!”
Kid: “Yay! I love the Smurfs more than anything!”
Dad: “It comes with a 50th Anniversary GOLD Smurf”
Kid: [throws up all over herself] “OH GOD! OH JESUS, DAD! NO, TAKE IT AWAY!!!”
Dad: What? What’s wrong?
Kid: Don’t you know ANYTHING about the Smurfs backstory, you idiot!? Oh God!! That’s why Gargamel wanted to catch the Smurfs! TO TURN THEM INTO GOLD! That poor Smurf! I can’t unsee it! It haunts my every childhood thought! [throws up blood]
Dad: I’m sorry!!! I’m so sorry!!! GAHHH!!!!! [throws himself out tenth story window, impales self on sad trombone below!]
Cat Toy! It’s for a Cat! Cat Toys for Cats! How fucking novel! [sad trombone!]
If there was ever any doubt in your mind that this vampire shit was getting old, I give you this book from Target. All I want for Christmas is to move to Mexico, where I won’t have to hear about this crap…
Everyone has that one amazing thing they find that no one else in the world has ever seen, and you would never give it up for any price.
This find is mine.
I got it at a Salvation Army for $1, and fell to my knees when the record touched my trembling hands: “Little Richard Miller: Born Without Arms and Legs.”
Shown: An armless, legless gospel singer…the glint of his tour bus reflecting on Jesus’ face. His fountain gushing a warm spray in Jesus’ direction. It’s a good day.
It was too good to be true. And the SONG SELECTION on the back…”In the Shelter of His Arms” is one of them. Really? Is that the best pick for, what appears to be, an escaped victim of the Ice Truck Killer? No way. No goddamned way. This had to be a hoax. Plus, he looked too much like Conan O’ Brian…
But this guy’s the real deal. When I read the back of the album, it was simply the most jaw-dropping and hilarious thing I’d ever seen. I was going to just scan it in so you could read it verbatim, but that’s no fun. Instead, here’s a 12-panel comic that reads exactly as the back of the album reads. Try not to feel worthless after reading this…
Keep Reading for Little Richard Miller’s INSPIRING STORY!!!!
My Barack Obama comic book finally hits stands next week (and right at the HEIGHT of his popularity! How lucky for me!), and I thought it would be a fine time to mention that the rumors are true: I wrote a Condoleezza Rice comic book as well, and you can buy it at your local comic shop or, if you must, online here. Believe it or not, I think you’ll like what I did with such a seemingly boring as hell subject.
Amazon lists four authors for some reason. But it’s just me on this one. Need proof? Here’s the first page, which begins the biography of an accomplished and controversial woman the only way I know how: pop culture trivialities! Enjoy, and check out the interview that follows….
And you thought THIS was a bad name for a book. My good friend Gary took it upon himself to send me the book version of a broken bottle rammed in my eyeballs: “Games You Can Play With Your Pussy.” I’ll scan more from this in the days to come, because I don’t think mankind is ready for this yet. In fact, it’s actually better if you don’t know what this book has in it. Here’s two pictures of what’s inside though, and for now, that’s all you’re gonna want to see. Trust me.:
Shown: Nazi Pussy. Also the name of Quentin Tarantino’s next movie.
