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.
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.
You all know DJ Daymage. Not only does he make amazing mixes and provide soundtracks to bachelorette party videos, but he comes through on some pretty amazing birthday gifts. A few years back, he gave me this priceless item:
But, still, I had so many questions. This little guy was willing to hold whose bag, exactly? My bag? Gareb Shamus’ bag? The long-awaited answer came this year, with yet another piece to add to my collection of tragically misspelled art, including the famed Finger Pupies. Behold:
Shown: The unfortunately named “Male Bag.”
My cat, Champion, wants no part of this. Even without his balls, he knows the difference between “mail” and “male.”
But my other cat, Cricket, is another story altogether. Cricket looovves to play with my Male Bag. She gets a treat every time she plays with the ding dong on my Male Bag. She used to get a treat for just touching or rubbing up against my Male Bag, but I started running out of food quick. Observe! Maybe you’ll learn something:
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’ve been off the radar lately because of a boatload of things in my lap that, sadly, aren’t lap dances. But I would hate to deprive you the chance to have your Monday ruined by coming to my website. Ruining things is what I do. Hope your Monday sucks! BLEAHH!
So was it a coincidence that Conan was canceled after my comic book appeared on his show, or yet another conspiracy against our nation’sChrisWards? The Chris Ward curse continues, unchallenged! [SAD TROMBONE!]
And speaking of Conan, why does he insist on going by the name “Mrs. Stewart” and tricking me into think Liquid Bluing makes clothes white? [Sad Trombone!!!!]
I took this at the airport. Either security is lax enough where someone can hack in and dick around with the LED sign behind the flight gate, or someone in charge of airplanes thought this was a funny/good idea to put up on their sign. Either way, I feel incredibly safe, thank you for asking! [Ladies and Gentlemen, if you'll turn your attention out the righthand window you'll see we've reached our SAD TROMBOOOOOOOOOONE! destination]
Did you know at Apple stores, there are little Apple viewing areas where you can cram in and sit and watch Apple commercials on an Apple Genius iScreen iTheater on an endless loop? Doesn’t that sound like fun? Doesn’t this seem like, oh I don’t know…. THE MOST IRONIC SHIT EVER?!?!?[SAD TROMBONE!!!]
Hey lady, what did you THINK only 10 skee ball tickets was going to get you? Try a little harder next time. [Photo courtesy the estate of Charles Edward Cheese][SAD ANIMATRONIC TROMBONE!!]
Ok, so yesterday I touched on Handicapable Gospel Singers. But there are also a multitude of able bodied fire-and-brimstone preachers who shouldn’t have been allowed near a recording studio, Dictaphone, homemade tin can and string, or otherwise. Here’s a few I found while digging through records at Vintage Vinyl in St. Louis and, again, from this site.
What in Hell do I want? Well, for starters, not to be cheerfully flipping through records and suddenly getting yelled at like I was selling cell phone upgrade plans door to door. The back of the album says “If you think about it for just one moment this is one of the most logical questions you will ever be asked.” Hey kids, the next time your parents ask “What in hell do you want?”, tell them that’s one of the most logical things you’ve ever been asked. Then enjoy your brisk, merciless beating with a JC Penny’s fake leather belt.
“What if Mary Would Have Had An Abortion?” Wow. That’s gotta be the worst Marvel “What If?” issue in the series, right above “What If Wolverine Drank and Drove the Blackbird through a Children’s Hospital?” I guess the answer would be, “she’d look like someone ate the last Little Debbie’s Stars & Stripes Snack Cake, just like Rev. Johnny Williams here.” Actually, he looks just like when Louis Gossett Jr. wants Sean Astin to PICK UP THAT GODDAMNED BANANA in “Toy Soldiers.”
“Hi! Am I a bigot? Well, I don’t see any other bigots on this album cover so you must be addressing me. Also, where’s Jesus? He was supposed to be here 15 minutes ago. I can’t wait to meet him, I wore my bright yellow background and everything.”
Record Company: “What’s your album called?”
Rev. Clay Evans: “‘Too Many Babies in The Church.’ You know, people who are babies spiritually, but also actual babies, whom I hate. I mean, leave your kids at home Sunday Morning, you know?”
Record Company: “So for the album cover, you’re thinking…”
Rev. Clay Evans: “Me riding a big camel through the desert.”
Record Company: “Oh good, good…I’m glad we’re all on the same page here.”
Hmm…this was in the Gospel Section, but I think Rev. “Cheeks” is a Reverend the same way Sgt. Pepper served bravely in the British Army.
“Lord, Seriously…I have osteoporosis. Lubricate my bones. And maybe add some cod liver oil to my diet, and grant in me the ability to decipher double entendres as they relate to ‘bone lubrication’ jokes hurled in my direction.”
I, umm…..I’ve got nothing. Except maybe “it’s my world, and it’s not a place I have to hide in/
Life’s not worth a damn ’til you can say ‘Hey world, I ammm what I am-mmmm!’”
Step 1: Go to Six Flags with your kid brother in the early nineties. Step 2: Appear in a karaoke version of a New Kids on the Block song. Step 3: Shamed by the video and shunned by peers for admitting you like NKOTB, you lock it away in a cabinet for 20 years and begin a downward spiral of social stability. Step 4: Accidentally donate it to the Salvation Army. Step 5: Smart-ass finds it. Step 6: Internet star.
I love these kids. This video is almost too adorable for this website. I wonder who they are? I wonder why someone would get rid of a tape like this? I wonder if the kid on the drums was so bored because, in the overpriced Six Flags “Make a Music Video” studio, the drums have no drum heads. It’s true. Sorry to ruin the magic. I convinced my parents to let me do one of these videos only because I wanted to play the drums, only to learn there are neither drums to play or guitars with strings. I can’t remember what song we did, either. But I remember how disappointed I was between the sham music video, and the chalk caricature of me in roller blades. I wonder where my Six Flags music video is? Probably in my parent’s basement in a box marked “Donate to Goodwill Center.”
My best buddy Joe and his wonderful wife Izumi live in Japan, and just had a cutie patootie baby boy who is about to inherit a whole bunch of comic books and Star Wars toys from his father. But to their infinite dismay, the number one diaper brand in Japan is this:
Hey! It’s “Goon” diapers, for your stupid Goon Baby. Just look at those ugly goon bastards, crawling around in their own Goon stew. Choose either small “Green” size for goonie-faced newborns or the Red “Danger! Danger!” size for fatty Goon babies who split their own diaper because they’re so goondamned fat.
Sure, you could buy the “Gimp” Brand diapers at the dollar store, but they’re not biodegradable and they come pre-shit in (as we’ve come to expect from the “Everything’s A Yen” store).
How about some truth in advertising, Japan? When you buy Goon Diapers, you’re really buying this, now aren’t you?…
Shown: the true face of Goon Brand diapers
And guess what else? Only Goon diapers have the power to give a newborn baby a mind-shattering orgasm right there on the hardwood floor. Oh, is that comment over the line? Ok, fine. Then you tell me what the hell is going on at the end of this commercial. Because I’ve watched it about 50 times, and I still don’t know why unleashing a meteor shower of Vitamin E pellets on a kid’s ass causes it to succumb to the throes of mad passion.
That’s pretty uncomfortable. Waaaaaaay more so than a baby riding around in a Michelin tire on the highway, or being dangled over a balcony. Still, maybe none of this is as disturbing as the ass wiping cartoon frog we have here in America. This round to you, Dumpster Baby Goons!
As if it wasn’t depressing enough that Christmas is coming, and the year’s hottest toys have all been bought up by Richard Gere, here’s a quick look at some more uber-depressing crap to get you through Thanksgiving! Hope your Monday sucks! BLEAHHH!
It sucks when your name is “Max Paternoster” and your favorite yellow slicker is accidentally thrown in a garbage bag headed for the Salvation Army, but even worse when they make you repeat “3st Grade.” Aww, I’ll never get to 8nd Grade at this point! [Sad Trombone!]
The Eye of Sauron’s Girlfriend? Andre the Giant’s Fleshlight? No, it’s supposed to be a Hello Kitty hamper…for kids. Fun fact: did you know that while pornography is legal in Japan, the depiction of pubic hair is not? Has nothing to do with this hamper. I’m just saying. [Sad Trombone!]
It’s a Hello Kitty two-fer! It’s bad enough that a Japanese kid’s icon such as Hello Kitty has been used to market some questionable items in the past, but this time they put her in a bikini. And even that would be fine….if they didn’t out a heart on her chest right where a nipple would be. Still, looks better than Tara Reid’s nipple slip. [Sad Trombone!]
I took this screenshot from YouTube, because I was fascinated how many people wanted to know the answer to the question “Vampires: Is it Real?” These are the same people who want to know “Werewolves: Do They Happening?” and “Twilight Cash-Ins: Is It Ever Stop?” [Sad Trombones! Is it For Realz?]
