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.

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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.

In anticipation of my upcoming animation column, “Celling Out,” at UGO.com, I present this classic Worst Cartoons Ever post. Also, it’s late and I work in the morning.

If there were a way to replay the noise Super President’s doughy sidekick makes right before Steel Man punches him in the face, over and over on an endless loop, I think I would be the happiest person alive. It’s kind of like “HOO GEET!” or “HOON GLEEK!” I’m sure his voice directions were great:

Director: Ok Jerry, in this scene, Steel Man—who is clearly not a man by any stretch—walks into the “impenetrable base.” He does this by walking through the open door. Then, he punches you in the jaw, not killing you instantly. You need to make a noise that captures this.

Voice Actor: How about, Hoon Geet?

Director: Hmm…”Hoon Geet.” I like it, but maybe give me something in a “Hool Jeet.” Oh, hell, you’re the actor: Hoon Geet it is.

Voice Actor: Then what should I say?

Director: Oh nothing. Then we have this scene where the unstoppable Steel Man—who could snap a man like a Baked Lays with his bare hands and is immune to bullets—well, he’s gonna get scared off by a dinging bell, after going to all the trouble of breaking into the place.

I would like to add, upon watching this again, that though NO SECURITY SYSTEM ON EARTH is a match for this robot, Super President sends his powerless sidekick “Jerry” into the fray and is all, “Ehh, call me if you see the killer robot. And remember, he’s got super powers.” Jerry’s just staring at his walkie talkie and pissing his pants.

By the way, if you think the phrase “You were wrong, Sales,” is just bad grammar on the robot’s part, you probably need to watch this post first.

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.

Step by Step, the Bad Ladds! from World of Wardcrap on Vimeo.

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.”

See me live tonight as Acorns to Oaks to benefit the surviving daughter of the Gee Family, who were brutally murdered in their home along with their three other young children, near Springfield. the ABC News story is HERE.

Here’s a little promo for you of Big Dave and I to wet your whistle (whet your whistle? Which is it again?). Anyway, my wife Sarah will be playing Clarinet (even though she’s sick! Still a champion!), my other Sarah is slated to play Accordion (even though SHE’S sick! Still a champion!). The VHS Projector, lighted drum rig, Patrick Swayze pump organ (with special surprise vocalist), and more will be in full effect for this show to help raise money for this little girl.

Please excuse the sound, this was shot with a video camera. But it gives you a small idea of the energy behind this show. Come out…it’ll be fun and do your soul good. Well, maybe. Some of you are heartless bastards, and deserve what’s coming to you.

So my song is River Raid. It was written for Matt Carey, about our time at Small World Daycare and the sinister shit that either went on, or I imagined went on. Lyrics are hard to make out, but I’ll post them if you are curious. If not, whatev. Just watch me bounce around like Daniel Johnston sans medication (week 32).

Dave packs more soul in his twenty-something frame without even having to strain his voice or resort to lights and gimmicks. His voice is amazing, and he’s headed for big things. Also, look at all those freaking candles! Sexy, right? That was his idea. Sell out!

Art from show flyer is by Adrian Riemann’s mind-blowing series of hipster He-Man fashions. Go see the entire gallery!

Remember a more charming, innocent time when you didn’t associate the eleven o’ clock hour with steel drums and Joe Francis’ Wayward Daughters Gone Wild? When alluding to sex, you had to say “party” or “make whoopi” or “have a wet whoopi party down at Flop Town?” Sure, we all do.

Ad #1: “We talked about EVERYTHING.”

When I feel lonely, I feel better knowing there’s a mom-jeans wearing Jersey girl out there wants to “tawlk, or just listen.” She’s on that phone line (you know, that fun phone line? Anyhowel…) We had SO much fun listening to how she says the word “anyhow.” For once, I’m just glad what’s actually on the other end of the phone during these calls is well-represented. Anyheowl, here it is….

Shown: Look into the eyeball.

Ad #2: “Actual Volleyball Coach Seeks Phone Love”

You know, I’m willing to suspend disbelief that a nympho sex kitten is waiting by the phone at all hours for my call, twirling the phone cord betwixt her fingers and painting her nails with little Pac-Men (hey, its my fantasy, OK? Stay out of this). But I draw the line at believing that male Volleyball coaches, female Playgirl models (aren’t Playgirl models dudes?), and Ambien-eating Executive Secretaries (that’s like saying CEO of Fry Cooks) are lining up to call, or even “talk to the Monitor if they’d like to be in the commercial.” What the hell? “You know, I’ve taken this Volleyball coaching thing about as far as it can go. It’s time to use my clout to represent a phone sex line.”

Hi, I’m Chad the Volleyball Coach—Bump, set, spike it, that’s the way I like it. Let’s have phone sex and, failing that, where are the volleyball games in my area?

Ad #3: “Be All That You Can Be Anyway You Want.”

This is probably one of my all time terrible favorites. It just drives me crazy the way the girl says “let me tell you about an exciting party line called 976-2900,” while confusing sleep deprivation for sexiness. I think I’ll try that sometime:

“Hey Chris, what’s your phone number?”
“My phone number? It’s called 555-2900″
“Ok, forget it if you’re going to be an asshole. What’s your email?”
“Let me tell you about my email called ChrisChrisChris@whooptydoo.com”

Also, “You can be yourself, or anyway you want.” Oh, good to hear! Can I also be on the phone, or any place I need?

Click through for more un-sexiness, and the LONGEST PHONE NUMBER EVER...

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