Obscurorant 2.0

I didn’t own a Windows machine until I was in my mid-twenties. I didn’t own a console (my beloved PS2) until I was in my thirties. Like this guy, I spent a lot of my childhood conquering the world via Risk or Third Reich.

By now you may have heard this story about high school students being terrorized taught about the perils of drunk driving through the use of some extreme shock tactics:

OCEANSIDE, Calif. (AP) - On a Monday morning last month, highway patrol officers visited 20 classrooms at El Camino High School to announce some horrible news: Several students had been killed in car wrecks over the weekend.

Classmates wept. Some became hysterical.

A few hours and many tears later, though, the pain turned to fury when the teenagers learned that it was all a hoax—a scared-straight exercise designed by school officials to dramatize the consequences of drinking and driving.”

When I was in high school my classmates and I also had a visit from law enforcement, in our case a grizzled veteran of the Boston Police Department. The gentleman informed us in short order that we were all too young to be drinking, drinking and driving was for idiots, and stashing the swizzle sticks from your drink(s) in your pocket was an excellent way to track your alcohol consumption. The end.

I’ve written previously of the limited selection of LPs in my house growing up, and the fact that any LPs my sister and/or I liked were absolutely played to death. My sister favored Annie and Free To Be You And Me, while I tended towards the Clancy Brothers and my anthology of cowboy songs.

I can’t remember when my parents gave me the cowboy song anthology; I can recall listening to it during the Blizzard of ‘78 so it may way well have been a Christmas gift in 1977. The anthology was a two-record set, issued by the National Geographic Society (which published separately a book about cowboys). Some of the tracks, such as Streets of Laredo and Jesse James, are American standards or near enough, while others - The Zebra Dun, Little Joe The Wrangler - are less well-known. I listened to both records constantly and learned all songs by heart.

The LPs are long-gone, vanished into the same void that claimed my sister’s Dark Tower game, but some of the songs remain favorites to this day. In particular I recommend Red River Valley, as sung by Carol Noonan, the first song on my muxtape.

I decided to finally use the scanner function of my Canon printer, and I started with some old family photographs. The picture above is of the Mt. Washington Hotel baseball team, taken some time during the 1930s when my paternal grandfather (second row, first on the left - the real tall guy) was working there as summer help. His wife, children and large sprawling family are all in the future. Right then, I think, he was happy for a paycheck and the opportunity to play some ball.

This is my maternal grandfather, taken some time in 1944 or 1945*, somewhere in northwest Europe. I think. He was in his 30s when he was drafted out of the General Dynamics plant in Lynn and into the service. I suspect he missed his wife and daughters very much. I also suspect he was secretly pleased to have the chance to ride a motorbike, since once he returned home his wife would never ever countenance such a foolish frivolous thing.

*After posting this, I checked a copy of my grandfather’s discharge papers: he sailed for England in February 1945.

Things I did this weekend:

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A few more Gary Gygax tributes from around the tubes. This article from The Believer, written when Gygax was still alive, is especially well done.

Until I read some of these tributes I’d forgotten just how many of these games, beyond Dungeons and Dragons, that I played as a kid. In retrospect, some of them were pretty poorly designed. Somehow I missed this one though, which looks fascinating.

UPDATE:

Just for s. and g. I compiled an actual list of said games: Dungeons and Dragons, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Top Secret, Boot Hill, Gamma World, Star Frontiers, Twilight 2000, Traveller, Middle Earth Role-Playing, James Bond 007, Gangbusters…

Dang, that’s a lot of geekiness., to say nothing of hours spent playing Car Wars or Squad Leader.

The first celebrity crush I can recall having was Kim Richards, when she played Tia in Escape To Witch Mountain and Return From Witch Mountain. Therefore, it is with some trepidation that I learn of Disney’s intentions to make another Witch Mountain movie.

Somewhat related - perhaps I should add Tuff Turf to my Netflix queue? Somehow I managed to live through the 80s without ever seeing it. Although perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised, since I can say the same of Footloose.

I am informed that The Dungeonmaster is dead. A generation of geeks mourn.

On the one hand it’s been almost twenty years since I threw down a twenty-sided die. On the other hand, in the years since then I’ve spent many hours killing orcs and dragons electronically. I guess I never kicked the habit.

Sometimes I have a hard time believing that a show like Solid Gold actually existed. We live in a time when pop music is ubiquitous. You can order CDs on the intertubes, down load new tunes on the intertubes and discover worlds and worlds of new bands and artists on the intertubes.

So it seems vaguely preposterous, like a barely-remembered fever dream, that there was a time in my life when I willingly tuned into a network TV show - hosted by a goddam puppet of all things - to watch to body-stocking clad dancers perform interpretive dance to illustrate the ‘weekly countdown’. Really now, doesn’t that sound like a skit Will Ferrell would perform?

I need to ruminate on this some more.

The song I have stuck in my head today is Fresh by Kool and the Gang. And I have to say I would totally jump at the chance to see Monsieur Kool and friends in concert. I have fond memories of not only Fresh, but songs like Joanna, Cherish and of course Get Down On It.

Those memories of being forced, along with the rest of the students, to stand behind my desk and dance to Celebration in our 5th grade music class? Not so fond.

Every family has secrets. Some secrets are harmless, long-forgotten paccadilloes that do not even torment the guilty.

Other secrets are so horrifying, so terrible, the very memory of them is suppressed. This is one such secret:

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I am a Broadcast Kid. As such I can remember getting up and walking over to the TV to change the channel to one of the other half-dozen stations available. I can also remember all the local programming on these channels, before the ever-rising media tide began to homogenize New England.

There was Rex Trailer, Candlepins for Cash, Dialing for Dollars, Captain Bob, Creature Double Feature, Community Auditions and Willie Whistle. But I have to admit what sticks in my mind the most from those days is a commercial, or commercials. I speak, of course, of the advertisements for Carvel Ice Cream. True, Carvel is not exactly a New England thing - but they definitely do not make commercials like that anymore.
First and foremost I recall the voice of Tom Carvel. It was raspy, gravelly voice, sounding as if Mr. Carvel has spent the night with package of Lucky Strikes and a bottle of whisky before recording the voice overs.  And then there were the demented ideas behind Carvel ice cakes: Fudgie the Whale for those seeking dessert with an aquatic theme and some thing called Cookie Puss (or for St. Patrick’s Day, Cookie O’Puss). Follow the link and take a good long look at the picture of Cookie Puss. No wonder I turned out so damn weird. Hemmed in by mutant ice-cream cakes and Three’s Company reruns, my fate was sealed at an early age.

Way back in the days before the intertubes put the answers to everything at your fingertips, it was easy to believe all manner of semi-plausible or even idiotic things.

Among the semi-plausible* articles of faith was the idea that Frank Stallone sang the lead vocals for the hit song Eye of the Tiger that accompanied brother Sly’s movie Rocky III

* Semi-plausible based on the fact that Frank Stallone did write and perform a song for the movie Stayin Alive.

I am delighted to find that there is a wiki devoted to all things muppet.

I am saddened to learn that the number skits series (”Ten Chocolate Layer Cakes!”) are no longer aired on Sesame Street. My delight in the baker’s pratfalls presaged my joy in the slapstick of the Three Stooges.

I also sympathized greatly with the Mad Painter. His continual failures served to reinforce in me the lesson that not only is life not fair, but others will attempt to thwart you. Especially if you’re trying to paint a 9.

When I was growing up, my parents were not what you would call avid fans of popular music. Their collection of LPs probably assumed its final form somewhere around 1968 and remained largely static after that. To the best of my recollection it contained not a note recorded after the initial coming of the Beatles to the States as their tastes ran more towards the Kingston Trio than Jimmy Hendrix.

What this meant is that when my sister and I went hunting through the collection for a record to play, the pickings were slim, and anything that caught our interest was played ad infinitum. Fortunately, there was In Person At Carnegie Hall by the Clancy Brother and Tommy Makem, a record I suspect was standard issue for Irish-Americans in the 1960s. I do not exaggerate when I say I know that album backwards and forewords, word for word, note for note. Along with Meet the Beatles, In Person At Carnegie Hall was the sound track to my childhood. I still have a great, great fondness for the brothers Clancy and Mr. Makem; Carnegie Hall resides proudly on my iPod, where it continues to serve as a musical pick-me-up and antidote to any dark clouds.

Tommy Makem died yesterday, at the age 74. Requeiscat in pace Mr. Makem, and many thanks for the music.

ADDENDUM: Sheila also grew up listening to Tommy Makem.

A nice Boston Globe column