Not content to be outdone by The Racist $25,000 Pyramid, this extremely familiar-can’t-place-her-80s-character actor (Jillian something? Little help, Jesse Thompson? Was she a voice on Turbo Teen or something?) gives her best clue possible for “Japan.” Thankfully, she passes before resorting to “Dirty Knees” or “Look At These.”
Ok, It’s not exactly Mel Gibson-level stuff going on here, but if there were a Perez Hilton page for Z-List Celebs, I’d like to think this makes the front page underneath something about Clint Howard or Reb Brown canoodling at Dick’s Last Resort.
Oh, no, Ichiro! She doesn’t mean it like that! Aww, see what you did, lady?
[UPDATE: Jesse "Junkstore" Thompson has no idea who this is either, and this is the guy who knows who Joe "Bean" Esposito is by heart] [UPDATE UPDATE: "That's Teresa Ganzel from Transylvania 6-5000" says Adam "I'm the only one who's ever uttered that sentence" Tracey.]
Every night I spend alone in my wood-paneled basement leads me to the same conclusion: I wish I could play a VCR Mystery Game with self-decapitating robots. Apparently, the purpose of this game is to save the Earth from robots, which kind of goes against Issac Assimov’s Three Laws of Robotics. But a game where you’re just ordering robots around wouldn’t be too fun, I guess. So instead, the game involves a robot ripping it’s own head off and coldly relaying that “you’ve made a mistake” before it, I assume, uses your intestines as a leash for its Robot Dog. Good, clean, terrifying fun for all. “Wanna come over? I’ve got this game where Robot Paul Reiser tears off its own head to prove a point. It’s for up to 4 players? No? Ok, maybe some other time! Just text me if you change your mind! I have no friends LOL.”
Let’s watch the commercial, as I imagine it in my mind. Thanks to Gary Hodges for passing this tape along!
“Within 5 minutes, you’ll be on one of 256 possible courses to save the galaxy.” It’s like the Butterfly Effect, if the fabric of time were limited to 80 minutes of SLP video!
This is an Amway propaganda tape I picked up about the dangers of common, every day tap water. She’s just watching out for her children’s interests, at the end of the day. Good for her.
I’ve discovered some sort of time rift that allows me to travel, unharmed, through un-energized ghosts in Pac-Man Championship Edition. IT’S LIKE TOUCHING THE FINGER OF GOD. When it happened I jumped…I couldn’t believe I saw it. And then I died almost immediately. I kind of feel like I’ve seen the Matrix for the first time. I must have watched this 100 times…I can’t figure it out either.
Left to right: Recently deceased Golden Girls Rue McClanahan, Dennis Hopper, Gary Coleman and Slipknot bassist Masky McGee, who committed suicide.
It’s been a rough week on us all as my Celebrity Wristwatch Curse continues. First, I got this Michael Jackson watch as a gift, and now my wife’s Golden Girl watch has claimed its next victim. It’s just like the Monkey’s Paw, but for $20 plastic wristwatches. So that’s the bad news. The good news is, I’ve bought ever single Rod Blagojevich watch and I plan on wearing them up both arms as long as it takes.
Remember, the Golden Girls airs at 6 and 6:30 on WE Network, 11 and 11:30 EST on Hallmark, and 11 and 11:30 on WE again. Also, I’ll see you on the Hallmark Channel forums (yes, they have a thriving message board community! Thank you for asking!)
In memorial, one last time with passion….let’s return to a magical place, sugah. Rue has already been to Cat Mountain, so heaven holds no surprises for her.
In retrospect, this old post from WorstCartoonsEver.com seems tasteless, crass and mean. But, I stand behind it, and am re-posting it here because of Gary Coleman’s recent death. Enjoy this little piece of nostalgia and think of all the wee child actors you grew up with in the eighties. I kid because I love. Some of my best friends are short and named Gary.
Originally Ran 04-21-2009
Now here’s a premise I can get behind: Gary Coleman, except dead.
So, wait… all Gary Coleman has to do is pleasure himself and he returns from the dead? At this rate, he’ll never stay in the grave! BLAST!
Yep, there is something you didn’t think you’d see when you woke up today: a masturbating Gary Coleman angel. Thank you for coming to my website. There’s a comment card on the nightstand. I hope you enjoyed your stay.
Ok, ok…FINE. One more time. And slooower, just for the ladies.
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’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.
I’m 29 today. God. What a terrible number. What a terrible, un-round number. 30 I’d be fine with. Good round number, 30. Here’s some videos to reflect how I feel today. Some old, some new…whatever makes me laugh today to get me through this Clogging Dance Competition in North Carolina. Best present so far? A hacker kid at the even showed me how to tether my Droid to my laptop, leeching internet from my phone and…well, it’s all real technical and involves “proxies” and “climbing telephone poles” and what have you. So here’s some videos of birthday shit, and also two men pouring beer over each other.
How to Wish me a proper birthday:
How to Terrify your Child with “Bimbo the Birthday Clown”:
How to Take Advantage of your Local News’ Stations Inane, Chuckle-Headed Birthday Announcements
How to Wish me a Fucked Up German Birthday:
How to Really Celebrate a Birthday, The Chris Ward Way:
How to Create an effective and pleasing birthday:
Creating a MORE Effective Birthday for Your Corporate, Animatroic Loving Clients:
Creating a More Effective Dick-Head, Failed Talk Show Birthday:
And, finally, How to Force David Bowie Into an Awkward Birthday Greeting on Your Foreign TV Spot:
Yep, you’re not alone….this is pretty much how I remember it to.
I never thought I’d see the day when Tales of the Gold Monkey arrived on DVD (or “The Gold Monkey,” as the original promo advertised, confusing the audience and leaving too much room for interpretation. Were these “Brief Anecdotes of the Gold Monkey”? “Third-Hand Information About The Gold Monkey”? No. Clearly, these were Tales, and the later title better reflected that.)
I think I’d rather watch more videos from Know More Monkeys (AKA, the coolest kids ever) in which they beat a snowman’s head in with a skateboard. Though I’m pretty sure there are already DVDs out there called “Snowman Domination,” if only in Japan.
