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 got to go to a three year old’s birthday party yesterday, which would normally be hell on earth but her dad, Eric, had the insight and wisdom to have the party at Hooters. A very good time was had by all. Between distractions, he mentioned something to me his buddy said: “The only way I would listen to Lady Gaga is if her name was Lady Galaga.” I thought this was the most brilliant thing I’d heard all week. Then I remembered seeing this in eighties issue of Electronic Monthly. Or maybe I dreamed it [click on image for full size]

I’m only going to say this once, and it’s very, VERY important that you understand completely: because what I’m about to tell you is the most important advice you’re ever going to get concerning the video game system in front of you. Even if you think you know ever code in the book. Under no circumstances—no matter how your NES looks at you, no matter how much it cries, no matter how much it begs—the most IMPORTANT rule. The rule you can NEVER, EVER forget is…well, I’ll just let Olympic Videogame master  Donn Nauert tell you:

Nintendo Tip: do this with your mouth, and often, for free continues.

Seanbaby’s incredibly comprehensive review of the Secret Video Game Tips, Codes & Strategies VHS (and interview with star Donn “With Two N’s” Nauert!) is a thing of comedy beauty I won’t attempt to duplicate. Go read it again for the first time. But that post is years old now, and most of the videos don’t work. Probably because they pre-date YouTube.

And that’s a shame, because you’ve probably never gotten to see the clip of the world’s most Goddawful NES Secret Code of All Time. I don’t think Seanbaby mentions this one.

This video is for any of you kids bitching about load times or hard drive space or 16-digit Wii Friend Codes (ok, those still suck. You can bitch about that), just remember that when I was a kid, I had to learn about a 70-character level select code from a mouthbreathing hoser on a tracking-impaired VHS tape. And what did my trouble get me? A chance to cheat at Rambo, one of the worst 8-bit turds to come out of the lower intestine of Acclaim’s game developers.

Shown: The way a real man enters a level select code: double fist it. “Capallll E, small Gee, Cappall H, Zerohl, Zerohl, Zerohl…”

Well, here it is…the 2009 costume. My wife has been going around telling people I’m going as “Mario riding Luigi,” so I’ve got some damage control to do (to be fair, they’re both green. And that’s also a better costume idea).

Sorry for my video editing skills, I have neither the means nor the interest to improve upon them this cold evening. Now go out there and get some motherflipping candy bars inside your mouth.