What happens when an imaginative kid finds himself in a series of creatively bankrupt jobs as an adult? What will he do when he's forced to grow up? "Emblogification Capture Device" is a humorous exploration of education, career, employment, lifestyle, politics and pop culture.
I read recently that American kids spend almost eight hours a day watching T.V., playing videogames, surfing the net, and presumably typing 'LOL' a hundred times in a row. I find this statistic to be supremely troubling.
But before I start getting all self-righteous ("Too Late, Gramps!"), I must confess that we really didn't have the sort of sophisticated and compulsively addictive diversions that wee ones now have access to. If I'd been born in the past, say, twenty years, I'd probably be checking new texts every ten seconds like a rat on cocaine as well.
Nowadays kids have all kinds of cool shit at their disposal: streaming video, smart phones, iPads, and Blu-Ray players. Cripes, even their friggin' eyewear will soon become leet.
Just as an example, look at how far video games have come. Here's a dragon as depicted in last year's The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim:
And here's a dragon from the Atari video game Adventure from 1979:
In the immortal words of Thor, God of Thunder: "Verily, I shit thee not."
And I had to wait ten or eleven years before I encountered technology like that. When I was really young, like seven or eight, this was my idea of a video game...
And for comparison's sake, here's what a hockey player looks like in NHL 13:
And here's what that same player looked like in Mattel Electronics Hockey (magnified 300%):
That's right, kids! Imagine not being able to tell the difference between Sidney Crosby and a friggin' price sticker?
Despite our clearly primitive graphics capabilities, I still had the best childhood you could ever imagine. Any given day during the summer was a new and exciting adventure. First off, you'd get up at the crack of dawn and watch Star Blazers while eating a mixing bowl filled with cereal...
Nutritious breakfast consumed, you'd hop on your bike and pedal furiously down to your best buddy's place. In fact, the better part of your day would be spent astride your one-speed crotch rocket. Often we'd ape adult behavior by selecting a destination and pedaling there at a drunkenly neglegent rate (sans helmet, natch!). Once we got there, we'd deploy our kick stands and "hang out" (I.E. loiter), leaning on our seats like motorbike-riding teenagers and taking care not to stray too far from our "rides" lest we invite a case of "Grand Theft Bike".
Then we'd pester the bejesus out of some poor shop-keep, buying penny candy in batches of one or blowing our wads on one of these lurid and colorful titles:
En route back home we'd encounter the neighborhood spoiled rich kid who's parents could afford to buy him a Green Machine or Big Wheel. This moron would brag that he'd be doing a "crazy jump" in the dirt lot across the street from our apartment building at 2 pm so we'd "better be there" 'cuz it's "gonna be just like Evel Knievel".
So naturally we'd all show up at the appointed time to gawk and make fun of this dumb f#@k as he tried in vain to pedal up a flimsy plywood ramp on a plastic bike. Fast forward a few months later and Richy Rich would still be trying to kill himself for the sake of some "respek", perhaps this time astride a heavy, oversized motocross bike that would flip him off into the woods after he invariably lost his balance half way up the ramp.
Later that same afternoon a rumor would begin to circulate that THE ASSHOLE KIDS WHO LIVED UP ON THE HILL had greviously insulted someone's neighborhood / mom / bike and challenged us to a rock fight a 4 pm sharp. Speaking of sharp, the traditional arena for this tilt was the empty lot (hey, what can I say, we had a lot of lots back then) at the bottom of THE HILL behind our apartment, which was nicely stockpiled with shale, I.E. the WMD's of the Grade Two-set:
Mercifully there was also several large boulders to take cover behind so this often went on like a protracted, low-rent version of laser tag until the first kid got clipped and the battle was decided. Even these early experiences served to delineate a clear line in the sand between childhood fantasy and painful adult reality.
FANTASY: "My newly acquired Spider-Man web shooters will surely be the deciding factor in the coming battle!"
REALITY: "Ze web shooters, zey do NOTHINK!!!"
Knowing full well that we still had at least three solid hours of daylight left, we'd scrarf our dinners down like pythons eating a capybara. We were soon back outside again, either leading a platoon of stormtroopers in a futile search for droids or creating our very own Sim City for a fleet of dinkies:
Which brings me to a quick aside. One time while me and my buddies were playing dinkies, the resident ruffian Alan came along and kicked apart all of our painstakingly elaborate civic planning. That particular day I'd spent most of the morning reading Batman comic books, so I decided to do what Batman does to every villain: I stood and tried to punch the bully square in the mush with a haymaker. Unfortunately my quarry ducked and I ended up punching the brick wall that he was standing behind. Yowtch!
Then, just before dusk you and your team of pint-sized Steve Irwins would catch a grass snake, sparking off a heated U.N. style debate about which lucky big game hunter would be allowed to take it home. One time when I was the "winner" I had to spend hours lobbying to keep the beast in my room. Eventually my poor long-suffering mother let me seal it up in a disused aquarium with an entire set of encyclopedias holding the lid down. The next morning my room stunk like the gorilla cage at Granby Zoo after a week-long maintenance strike.
Yeah, it goes without saying that releasing the snake back into his natural habitat was my first action item in that particular day.
Honestly, every summer day would be like that: a constant rinse, wash and repeat of outdoor adventures. I know that kids today posses vastly superior diversions but frankly I'd never trade it for my own low-tech childhood.
EPIC Go ahead...live the adventure that is, um...Adventure.
FAIL And we wonder why there's a health epeidemic in North America.
A part of me was hoping to get into Corner Brook one of the days I was home during Christmas but it just wasn't in the cards. Considering the last time I was there, however, perhaps this was a blessing in disguise.
Y'see, growing up in Stephenville (a small town on the west coast of Newfoundland) in the Eighties was tough for an imaginative (read: "geeky") kid. If you were lucky and you could time it just right, you might score a few dog-eared comic books at the Sweet Shoppe or A.V. Gallant's variety stores, but it was hit or miss. It's not like you could have set up a subscription service with a corner store.
I personally kept VHS rental joints like The Video Screen and Debbie's Video Shoppe (hmmm, was that a "shop" or a "shoppe"? I can't remember now...) in business single-handedly. It's because of awesome mom n' pop places like this that I first saw all the sc-fi, horror, drama, action, comedy and fantasy confections that gave me an imagination and creative spark as an adult.
But if you wanted comics, cassette tapes, board games, toys or any other flights of fantasy flotsam you were kinda S.O.L. After all, these were the days before E-Bay and well, er...the internet. Me and my circle of peeps would speak in hushed tones about stores in far-away lands where you could just walk in and procure The Dark Knight Returns trade paperback, a copy of Ronnie James Dio's Sacred Heart album or Leading Edge's Aliens board game all in one fell swoop.
But in Stephenville, if you wanted shit like that you had to mail away orders to places like American Comics. Often times your order had to be sent in with a list of alternates in case what you were asking for was sold out by the time they got your letter. I don't know how many times I'd get a delivery, feverishly rip open the box and be crushed because three-quarters of what I ordered wasn't there.
Listen, I'm not one to get all sanguine and sentimental about growing up in a small town in the Eighties, folks. Frankly, if you had interest or hobbies like mine, it kinda sucked.
But there was hope. There was a reprieve. There was...
Corner Brook
Now, I'm pretty sure that if you search the town's website or pour through it's tourism brochures, you won't see Corner Brook described as an 'Oasis' anywhere. But I'm tellin' you right now, in all honesty, as a kid, a trip to Corner Brook was akin to going to friggin' Manhattan.
I have very precious memories of being taken out of school on a Friday afternoon by my folks. My Dad would use the weak-ass excuse that he had business in town. Business that apparently couldn't have been done on, say, Saturday or any other day of the week, but I certainly didn't complain.
Makes me wonder if Math class was in the afternoon. It would certainly explain my deplorable showing in that particular subject.
Anyhoo, as soon as the announcement was made, I'd be so giddy with excitement that I could barely pay attention in class that morning. Er, more so than usual, I mean. The forty-five minute pilgrimage would often be spent looking at indistinguishable tree-packed scenery, reading stale magazines or adding fuel to the fire if one of my parents was tormenting the other.
The last ten minutes before arrival was allocated to preparation of singing the official "Corner Brook Arrival Celebratory Anthem". Just as we cleared city limits me and Dad would strike up with our respective tunes. If I remember correctly, my selection was an original composition called "We're Here Because We're Here" (which, co-incidentally, was the extent of the lyrics for the entire song) and Dad's contribution was that timeless, yet unheard-of classic "Down on the Labrador". Mom added her own two-cents by shaking her head and maintaining that we were all "touched".
Eventually we realized just how stupid and juvenile this was, so we stopped doing it about three years ago.
Our first stop would typically be at The Glynmill Inn, a beautiful, Victorian-style manor overlooking Glynmill Pond. To me, it always seemed like an incongruous oasis within itself: a pretty, picturesque, sylvan garden and manor smack-dab in the middle of mountainous, serpentine streets, strip malls, Honda dealerships and the omnipresent sulfurous reek of the nearby Abitibi Price pulp and paper mill.
The Inn was the home of The Ewing Gallery, presided over in the Eighties by Lance and Tess Ewing. I always though that this stately couple were as out of place amongst the indigenous population as the Inn was amongst the city. I always wanted to know if they were natives. I always suspected that they were exiled "Mr. & Mrs. Smith"-style retired American Secret Agents who had chosen to go incognito in Corner Brook because they thought it was "quaint".
Lance always reminded me of a gregarious, rugged version of Heinein-award winning science fiction writer Arthur C.Clarke. Tess (who I'd nick-named "Tessica" for some reason) was considerably more ethereal. Whenever we had to swing by their house instead of the galley we would sometimes get a rare glimpse of her in a window or doorway: a slender apparition in a housecoat. At my Dad's art exhibits, however, she was always elegant, well-spoken and dignified.
I have the utmost warm feelings for these virtual strangers. It's because of their sponsorship of my Dad's artwork he managed to help me pay for university and as a result I didn't graduate under an insurmountable avalanche of debt.
After all the professional artist business was concluded, we'd often have lunch at the relatively opulent Carriage House dining room at the Inn. Being a stupid kid with a woefully underdeveloped palate I'd often opt for just a simple muffin so I wouldn't spoil my appetite for the eagerly awaited repast which would inevitably conclude out visit.
Just for the record, though, the last time I checked about three years ago, they still made the best apple cinnamon muffins in the galaxy.
The highlight of our trip would follow soon after: a trip to The Valley Mall. Speaking as someone who absolutely hates venturing into a mall now, it's amusing in retrospect when I think about how important this place was to me once. In the Eighties, the Valley Mall was the friggin' shiznit.
Coles bookstore was another highlight. Here I might find a trashy compendium of sci-fi or horror films, a movie review guide or a Star Wars book (which, towards the end of the decade became increasingly scarce as people became all Star Wars-ed out).
Another lynchpin for me: The Fun Villa arcade. It was great being in an arcade which was the antithesis of the one in Stephenville. It wasn't dirty, smoky or a place where I'd be offered weed every two minutes. Here I could watch teenagers play Pac-Man (the machine was always w-a-a-a-a-a-y too busy for snots like me to even get close to it), destroy the Death star umpteen times in the vector graphics Star Wars game and guide "Winky" the plucky, well-rounded hero of Venture through an electronic, snakealicious, neon maze.
Other stops might include a trip to the pet store to get food for my pet tarantula Max. I was aware at the time how long these spiders could live and always wondered if she'd still be around when I was forty. Alas, here I am and she only passed away just recently after being the star attraction at the Deer Lake Insectarium for the past six years!
When comic books became a hot commodity some enterprising dude had the foresight to open up a shop on Park Street. I was an easy mark for this guy and my folks would often indulge my weakness for Batman and X-Men comics as well as Empire Strikes Back trading cards and various hard-to-acquire toys.
The last time I went to Corner Brook a few years ago, I went back to his shop at its new location on Broadway. Much to my disbelief the guy still recognized me. Either Newfoundlanders are so in tune with people that they never forget a face or I bought so much crap from him in the Eighties that I made a lasting impression.
The store itself was in chaos. It looked as if someone had dynamited a warehouse of Todd McFarlane toys and then hung up an hours of operation sign. Nothing was organized. Nothing was priced. Thank God he was preoccupied with another customer since I was almost killed in a live-action game of Jenga when I made the mistake of looking for a price tag on some 3.5 edition D&D manuals.
I managed to extricate myself without too much awkward, "Jedi Mind Trick"-style pushy sales conversation. Although I found some tempting wares (like a Tony Esposito figure from McFarlane's hockey series, a few Marvel Legends I didn't have and some sweet-ass horror film figs by Neca), the total absence of price tags terrified me.
I also made a tactical error when I mentioned out loud that I'd rabidly collected hockey cards every single year except (for some stupid reason) 1979, which was Wayne Gretzky's rookie year. Well, when he overheard this, told me that he had it and was willing to part with it for a paltry $600.00. In retrospect, that probably wasn't such a bad deal.
On the way out, the owner (who's name I've never known), said loudly: "Hey! Make sure you bring $600.00 back for that set!", half-joking and half deadly serious.
My last tour through the Valley Mall about four years ago was pretty depressing. The upper level, once dominated by a large Zellers, upscale clothing stores and the entrance to a computer tech school (Keyin Tech? Beothic Data Processing?) had all been cleared out to make room for the employment equivalent of The House of Pain: an ICT Call Center. Eeeeesh.
It wasn't much better downstairs. Coles bookstore was gone. The Fun Villa (not to mention 98% of all arcades from the Eighties)...GONE! A&A Records...GONE! This was replaced by a CD Plus, where I took pity on the bored staff and bought an Arctic Monkeys CD to give them a highlight for their day. Leisure World was still hanging on. I trekked to the back of the store, hoping to find a perfectly preserved mother-lode of Eighties board gaming artifacts just sitting there, waiting for some savvy collector who knows their value to rescue them from a life of eternal neglect. Instead all I find are endless, boring shelves of yarn, Styrofoam balls and tole paints.
Even the food court has been gutted. For a moment I pause and mourn the Borg-like assimilation of the mom n' pop Burger World into a Tim Horton's kiosk before moving on.
Back in the Eighties, we'd leave the Shangri-La sensory overload of the Valley Mall and make our way up to the Corner Brook Plaza for a meal fit only for an advertisement-indoctrinated twelve year old. Back then the Plaza was, in the immortal words of Kevin Smith, the 'Dirt Mall'. At the time it was anchored by a K-Mart on life support and featured cheesy Newfoundland bric-a-brac stores and discount clothing outlets. The only draw for me in this mall back then was the "methinks thou dost protest too much" Family Bookstore, which was a schizophrenic pastiche of magazines (including some you wouldn't think to find in a so-called "Family" bookstore), pop paperbacks, Newfoundland music tapes, and cake pans (?).
But the other big pull to visit this mall: they had a real, live McDonald's.
Like so many other kids in the Seventies and Eighties, McDonald's was always a pretty big fixture in my life. When we moved away from Sydney, Nova Scotia (where a trip to the notorious Sydney River location http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_River_McDonald%27s_murders was quite common) and moved to Stephenville, this childhood institution was ripped away from me.
Exiled from what I considered to be civilization at the time, I lamented the introduction of such major childhood technological developments as the Chicken McNugget. American-sourced Saturday Morning cartoons were torture for me as Grimace, the Hamburglar and chief ringleader himself Ronald McDonald tempted me with their unattainable, transfat-tastical wares.
The only available option to appease my prepubescent fast-food cravings were home-made, non-flavor engineered burgers which recalled this awesome Eddie Murphy skit:
Or, A&W, which, at the time, I'd dubbed "A & Double-Spew".
Just like everything else, Corner Brook got an A&W first, which resulted in an unfortunate onion-related mishap. Back then the venerable fast-food franchise was going through a bit of an identity crisis. In an ill-guaged attempt to be more contemporary (I suppose), they'd eliminated their classic "burger family" menu in lieu of some new taste "treats". Instead of using yummy, kid-friendly minced onion on their burgers like McDonalds, they started using huge, sauteed, slivered onions.
And let me tell ya folks, nothing says "tastes like evil" to a twelve year old's palate like huge sauteed slivered onions.
I remember one trip when Dad relented and took us to A&W for lunch in Corner Brook. I got one of these new-fangled burgers and closed by eyes hoping the fast-food trappings (paper wrapper, undeniably burger-like appearance, omnipresent fries) would trick me into thinking I was partaking of my precious McDonalds.
One bite was enough to convince myself otherwise. I could instantly detect the nauseating texture of huge, slivered, half-cooked onions. I almost yarfed right there in the back seat of the car.
Dad tried to remedy the situation by scraping most of the onions off. Unfortunately he scraped them right onto the floor of the car. Later we tried to find as many as the pungent f&^%$^& as we could, but that car stunk like onions until we unloaded it (at a severely depreciated price) many years later.
I also found out down the road that the only food my Dad hates with a passion is half-cooked, slimy onions. Co-incidence? I think not...
So when Stephenville got it's own ersatz A&W years later I never darkened it's doors. In fact, before the franchise came to it's senses and realized they had an untapped vein of nostalgic gold on their hnads our hometown location soon closed down. Fast-forward a few years later and A&W experienced a miraculous resuscitation when they re-instituted the old, familiar, raw-onionated Burger clan (The Momma Burger, The Papa Burger, The Teen Burger , The Baby Burger, The Uncle Burger, The Grandpa Burger, The (Obviously Named After A Distant Italian Relative) Mozza Burger, and the presumably forthcoming Second-Cousin- Twice-Removed Burger).
Well, when Corner Brook got a McDonald's in the early Eighties, that was like taking wonderful and giving it a healthy dollop of awesome sauce. I have very fond memories of Dad finishing up an exhibit at the Glynmill Inn, taking us up to McDonald's in the plaza parking lot and letting me gorge myself on a twenty pack of Frankensteinian, mechanically separated Chicken McNuggets.
And this was back in the day when you were excited to bite into one that wasn't gray on the inside.
It also has to be mentioned around this time I developed a debilitating, life-long phobia of drive-thru's thanks to my Dad. Quite often he'd deliberately mis-pronounce things, make shit up out of the blue, request items that weren't even on the menu or ask for a side-order of "smiles". The poor girls manning the wickets were probably feeling debased enough in their day-glo, lime-green, MARK I-era uniforms (which, I'm surprised, didn't kill the appetite of the average customer even before they'd ordered) without having to contend with such smart-assery.
Hmmmm, I wonder how many loogie-burgers we ate over the years?
Well, of course, now I live in a place where I could re-enact my very own Super Size-Me experiment every day of the week. Even Stephenville has it's own McDonald's now. Between this and digesting such unappetizing but enlightening fare as Fast Food Nation and Food Inc., needless to say, the place holds very little appeal for me anymore.
Well, the last time I went to Corner Brook Plaza a few years ago it had realized it's revenge by laying low its hated rival, the once-proud Valley Mall. It had experienced a complete Renaissance, and was now chock-a-block with high end clothing stores and a pilfered and regenerated Coles bookstore. In other words, it had become just like any other boring, small-town generic mall on the planet.
I haven't been back in a few years, but it's my understanding that the Valley Mall is now entirely dedicated to commercial space. It's inadvertent role as a haven for geeky childhood interests had been swept away.
Funny how the progress of time can sometimes feel like de-evolution for someone still in commune with their inner child. Even though everything I could ever want is within my fingertips I still cherish how important these modest touchstones were for a somewhat lonely, awkward, imaginative kid seeking solace and escape from the ordinary.
Farewell, Fun Villa, wherever you are.
EPIC: Information on the City of Corner Brook. Please note that the city still seems insistent on using the bland slogan "Our Spirit...Your Success" versus the considerably more esoteric "Oasis For Geekery in the Eighties". Oh, well. http://www.cornerbrook.com/
ALSO EPIC-ISH: The Valley Mall doesn't have a website since it's deader than Fatty Arbuckle but it looks like there's a new comics/toys/boardgames store opened up in town. Good to see that rural Newfoundland geeks still have a home! http://thelair.ca/
Okay, so...in my previous entry I established how not to court me for future advertising opportunities. Now I'd like list ten things that I'd happily shill for.
So, without further ado, here's DAVE'S TOP TEN THINGS HE'D PIMP OUT FOR IN A SECOND:
Good Movies If you come to me with a decent film project I will flog it without mercy. As a corollary, any motion picture involving the presence of Jennifer Aniston, a talking pet or a Saturday Night Live character spun out to feature length need not apply. Also, as much as it pains me to say so, I will no longer be mentioning Star Wars anymore. It's not that George Lucas raped my childhood, but he did invite it inside Skywalker Ranch with promises of candy and touched it in it's Danger Zone.
Good Music If your band or album doesn't suck, I will gladly shout your praises from the rooftops. In fact, I'm so desperate for good music lately, I'm willing to promote you even if your music is merely semi-distinguishable from everything else. Also, to save us both some time, please note that your music will likely have no resonance with me if you're under the age of twenty. What life lessons can I possibly glean from the lyrics of some snot-nosed kid who's cubes haven't even dropped yet? Mark my words, in a few years some enterprising obstetrician/budding manager is gonna get rich by filming a still-in-utero video featuring a fetus with a comb-forward CGI hairdo lip-syncing inane lyrics to a dance track. I'm tellin' ya, it's money.
Good Television Next month I was planning on doing a blog series on television, so for all you folks playing along at home: here's a sneak preview! About four years ago I was blissfully snobby about the state of television and seemed perfectly content to write off the entire medium as a colossal waste of time. Then this jackass I was working with at the time had the audacity to give me the first season of The Shield. In light of this revelatory viewing, a whole new world chock-a-block with entertainment value opened up to me. Entourage, Dexter, Freaks and Geeks, Battlestar Galactica, The Tudors, Supernatural, Mad Men, and Veronica Marsblew me away in quick succession. Each episode is produced with the sensibilities of a mini feature film and not one of them involve tattooed orange people excusing the most reprehensible human behavior you can imaging with the mantra "Hey, you wouldn't understand, it's a 'Jersey' thing!"
Good Video Games Video games have come a long way since their inception. I have to credit early designers with coming up with inventiveattempts at something passing for a game just to try and offset the crude graphical tools they had to work with. But now, the visuals are so amazingly sophisticated that the best (like the Halo, Gears of War,Brother in Arms, Left 4 Dead, or Half-Life series) play out like interactive films. Which is why, in my humble estimation, even at their worst, video games will always be superior to homogenized, crappy network television. After all., with television, unless it's something really engaging or enriching, you're typically just sitting there inert, slowly being spoon-fed pablum-flavored entertainment, your brain getting fatter than Homer Simpson during the ironic punishment doughnut eating nightmare in Hell. At least with video games, you're not quite so damned...passive.
Good Books Have you ever heard the quote: "Yeah, the movie was okay, but the book was w-a-a-a-a-a-a-y better?" Well, there's a reason for that: a wealth of additional details, the benefit of descriptive language, the power of imagination, and the author's freedom to do whatever he or she damn well pleases. In the immortal words of Stephen King: "A day without a book is like a day without sunshine!" Hmmmm, you'd think he'd be more of "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" kinda guy...
Good Board Games Hey, I've already done an entire treatise on why I prefer board games over video games but this bears repeating: sometimes you just want to teabag an opponent in person.
Good Radio Stations Only within the last month or so did the city of Halifax get a modern rock radio station worth crowing about. "Live 105" is a virtual godsend in this city, which has suffered under the yoke of "classic" rock for the past fifteen years. Up until "Live 105" arrived on the scene the situation was pretty grim. "C-100" propagated nothing but non-threatening manufactured pop product, "89.9 HAL FM" and "Q-104" were designed for people who are laboring under the erroneous belief that rock attained perfection in 1975 and "Kool 96.5" (wow, there's never been a more ironic name for a radio station, by the way) is a viable promotional tool for artists that are either all completely irrelevant, defunct or deceased. And although "Live 105" is already starting to cheese me off a bit with their definition of "heavy rotation" at least I'm getting sick of songs produced in the last fifteen to twenty years. Here's the link if you wanna give 'em a spin: http://www.live105.ca/
Good Comics It's kinda sad that this amazing medium has been ghettoized for so long. It really doesn't deserve to be written off as something just for kids. In some ways, comics are a superior art form to both film and standard novels. It gives a cool visual component, but unlike film it isn't so fleeting. The Egyptians certainly thought it was a pretty solid way to tell a story; after all what are hieroglyphics other than panels of an ancient funny book? I really do believe that titles such as Sin City, Bone, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Sandman, Watchmen, Preacher, The Walking Dead, From Hell, V for Vendetta and The Dark Knight Returns are all just as valid as works of literature as Ulysses and Atlas Shrugged.
Good Beer I had a bit of a struggle not to mention this one first, for fear of looking like a raging alcoholic, but I can't hold off any longer. When I was in university, I always thought I hated beer abd eventually I learned to tolerate it. Then, in a tremendous moment of epiphany, I tried a micro-brewed beer offered here in Halifax at the Henry House pub called "Old Peculiar". I've never looked back since. Guinness, Harp, Murphy's, Kilkenny, Smithwicks, Sapporo, Stella Artois, Hoegaardenand Innes and Gunn have all joined the ranks of my favorite beers. Please take note of the conspicuous absence of Coors Lite, a beer for people who don't like the taste of beer, or Bud Lite Lime, the makers of which seem to be admit "Yeah, our crappy beer comes pre-skunky, so we're just gonna use some unnatural lime flavor to cover it up." *Bleah*
Grey Poupon "Oh my God, if your makin' a toiky sammich, put a little bit of mayo on one side, slap on your toiky, get some fresh lettuce and a coupla slices of foim, ripe tomaita. Then for a bit a zip, spread a bit a dis stuff on 'dere...it's like buttah! It makes your sammich right poiky!" Seriously, I'd put this stuff on toast for breakfast if I didn't so many weird looks from people.
So, if you think your represent one of the aforementioned products, contact me as soon as possible. After all, by advertising on "You Can't Get There From Here" you'll may very possibly be able to reach literally dozens of readers.
EPIC: Awww, who am I kiddin'? Here, this should keep you busy for a bit. Don't don't too freaky-deaky with the mustard, tho...
FAIL: Sweet Jesus, can someone make Will and Jada Smith stop breeding already?
After that first scene with Grampa was in the can for Roller Town we were released back out into the parking lot to run around like a pack of overheated, rayon-clad chimps.
The head rush provided by the intake of fresh air was ample reward for our dancing diligence. Understandably, the doors of the hall had been hermetically sealed to prevent outside noise from infiltrating the audio while the cameras were a-crankin'. When you factor in that it was shaping up to be one of the hottest days of the late summer, the repeated takes of aerobic "get-downery" and the Human Torch/Nova Burst level of heat coming from the set lighting, we were all gettin' kinda...dewy.
During or brief down time I noticed that top-billed Mark Little was a constant presence on the set. Here's a lovely leisure suit shot of him from the Picnicface website:
Man, don't any of these people shop at H&M? Cripes, I thought my wardrobe was outdated...
Clad in a skin-tight era-appropriate red and white shirt, knee-high spartan-white gym socks and an abbreviated pair of shorts that left precious little to imagination, Mark was working the set like it was an industry party. I thought it rather nice that he, like Andrew, frequently took the time to mingle around, thank us for showing up and chat amicably for a bit.
At around 3:30 we made our way back into the hall for our next scene, which was certainly in line with Roller Town's loopy sense of humor. The previously-lensed and hitherto unseen lead up apparently had Bill Wood's Brick Assassin using his trademark projectiles to assault our heroes. Undaunted, the plucky defenders use their collective powers (?) to change the mortar missiles into something considerably less threatening.
Integral to the scene was Scott Vrooman, seen here getting up in the grill of an innocent cameraman:
In the original Roller Town trailer, Scott played the main cocaine czar/video game corporate kingpin, but in the feature he's a character named Davis, who may or may not be the son of one of the film's big bads.
In this scene, Davis is the collateral damage zone of the Brick Assassin's transmogrified projectiles. A few shots were filmed of us dancing up a storm with Scott in our midst, reacting to the incoming payload of fuzzy cuteness. When this was captures, a call for quiet was requested and a hush fell amongst us as the real star of the film was escorted onto the set.
In a pet carrier.
'Cripes,' I thought to myself. 'I know they aren't exactly working with Avatar money here, but c'mon! Can't a few of them at least share a trailer?'
The carrier was popped open and we all collectively leaned forward to get a glimpse of the stellar presence now on deck. The assistant who'd first borne the star into our midst reached inside, fumbled for a bit and then retrieved...
The cutest gray kitten ever assembled by feline genetics.
It passively 'meowed', blinked and looked around, taking in all the lights, attention and disco glitz like a seasoned pro.
As soon as the cat was revealed a horrible thought occurred to me:
'Are they actually gonna throw this thing? If so, how should I react? Maybe it's some kinda stunt kitty and likes getting tossed around for a living. Jesus, I hope they at least chuck him underhand.'
But my concerns were all for naught. The cat probably had a real bear for an agent (literally!) and certainly wouldn't be subjected to unexpected hazards like my underrepresented ass was when Brian beat the shit out of me earlier.
Scott hyper-extended his arms, the handler passed him the kitty and he just brought it down to his chest as if he'd caught it mid-air. We were asked to react to this precious scene in three different ways:
Completely oblivious. Basically, "Big deal, a flying brick turned into a cat. Who gives a f#@$%? If I had a dime for every time I've seen that, I'd be able to buy one of Angelina Jolie's kids."
Awwwwwww! In short: "OMG, that is the most precious thing I've ever seen in my life! What villain's cold heart wouldn't be melted by such as a cute kitty like dat! Ooooo, I could just eat your widdle face!"
ME! ME! ME! Essentially: "Hey, somebody's using one of the those t-shirt launching air guns you see at sporting events to give away free kittens! Ooo! OOOOOO!!! I want one too! Mr, Kotter, over hee'!!!"
It was a really fun scene to shoot since it involved some really over-the top reactions on our part. I don't know which of the three variations will make the final cut but it'll be interesting to see which one Andrew will go with to optimize the funny.
Also amusing was watching Scott cope with his increasingly acrobatic co-star. Between takes it was almost as if someone spiked the fuzzy l'il celebrity's decaf latte with catnip. All of a sudden the little bugger wasn't content to just rest in Scott's cradled arms. Twice he decided to use his teeny claws like pitons to scale the sheer face of Scott's chest up to his shoulders, where he set base camp and then made a final push for the summit: I.E. his now-arched spine. At one point the handler had to swap the hyperactive furball for a more tranquil understudy.
F#@$%^& diva.
We continued to be involved in some really fun scenes. Andrew and his production team had converted six classic stand-up arcade consoles into parody titles, which included such memorable names as Wheel Mouth, Swamp Ninja, and my own personal favorite, Stop the Wedding (a driving game!). When the film is eventually released I'm confident these will join the ranks of other fraudulent video games of note such as Mattress Command and Robert Goulet Destroyer.
To communicate the ravages of these evil arcade games on our innocent disco-beat addled brains, scenes were captures depicting the cabinets appearing one by one out of the ether. Presumably this could then be spooled out using a reverse-dissolve to make the arcade space appear more and more populous as the shot wore on.
This was achieved by painstakingly placing the first console at the end of the hall, putting one of us in the driver's seat, shooting a couple of frames, wheeling in another console armed by an extra, shooting a couple of frames, putting a third game and player in place and then repeating the process until the entire frame was filled up with arcade games and players.
I was the second person to be put in place. From the camera's point of view, I was at the far end of the hall on the right, fiddling away at my ersatz basketball game Sweet Layup. As this shot was slowly constructed, we were asked to interact with the console as if enthralled by its addictive, 8-bit glory.
That's right, I said 8-bit. In an inspired move, Andrew had actually retained a programmer friend to design some ancient-looking demos for us to react to and to serve as throwaway details for background shots. As primitive as the games were, they were completely evocative of a mercifully long-dead era when video games were still in their infancy.
To try and make it look like I was actually engrossed in this, I used the joystick to mime actions of the barely-distinguishable "players" on the barely recognizable "basketball court". I must have been doing something right since Andrew came over at one point and said:
"Dude, you're selling it," he enthused. "It really looks like you're playing that thing."
"Yeah, well, sad to say, but the video games I was weaned on weren't much different than this," I lamented.
Then I got a chance to re-enact the closest I may come to playing a zombie in a movie! To really drive home the danger of these electronic Svengalis, we were asked to shuffle around the "arcade," approach a game at random, mime pumping the machines with quarters, play it for a few seconds and then shuffle across the floor to the next available console. With one simple scene the script manages to convey the unthinking "rats on cocaine" mentality that gripped an endorphin-drunk generation when video games appeared on the scene in the late Seventies and early Eighties.
We also got some sweet closeups to boot. Later the camera was moved away from the end of the hall and positioned back behind each cabinet. We were asked to act slack-jawed and wall-eyed as we went through the motions, bathed in a seizure-inducing orgy of colored lights.
My own humble version of method acting got me into a bit of hot water for the next set up. When all of us were stationed at a console, the cinematographer turned the camera around so that it was facing top down behind us to get a shot of us feverishly transfixed by the game.
I was still trying to turn the wheel of Stop the Wedding in tune with the "action" on the screen. So, if the car on the road was barely turning, I only moved the wheel incrementally to make it look right. It just made sense.
"Go ahead, play the game!" he shouted at one point.
'But it says 'Game Over'!' I thought to myself. 'Oh well, maybe in our zombified state we don't even notice.'
So as I started turning the wheel in exaggerated motions, the shot was done and he moved on to the next machine.
When we wrapped around 6:30 , Andrew and the A.D.'s thanked us profusely for coming out. They also lobbied hard for our return three days hence. Although Saturday was right out for me (my better half wanted me to time with her on her birthday; she's weird like that) I did commit to coming back on Sunday.
Although we were free to leave, rumors stated to swirl that there would be a special effects demolition shot for one of the arcade games. I watched for awhile as technicians rigged the thing to explode and took all the screws out of the frame. Knowing how long it normally takes to jury rig a practical effect I made to leave but Andrew walked by and verbally tacked me.
"No, dude, you can't leave yet!" he said. "We're gonna blow the f#$%^ out of this thing! It's gonna be awesome!
To his credit I'm kinda glad I stuck around. With the death blow delivered (appropriately) by a disco ball, the console began to shake, shudder and belch smoke. Then, as if possessed by another 70's era bugaboo from The Exorcist, it started to ooze green slime onto the screen. Buckets of the stuff seemed to pour out from under the marquee, running down the front of the cabinet and onto the floor. Finally there was a loud *BANG!*, a flash of sparks and the console exploded in a neatly contained but modest blast. To complete the illusion, a stagehand crawled out from behind the curtains and physically pulled the sides of the case off. They fell to the floor as if they'd been blown off by the detonation.
Regardless of how long you've been in the film business, even the most jaded crew members seem to enjoy when shit gets blown up real good on set. A huge ovation went up and the doors of the hall were finally thrown open to clear the smoke out and invite some cool air inside.
I went home that night 'round 8 pm and was barely able to sleep. I'd had a tremendous amount of fun and the following Sunday was promising to be even better.
It was supposed to be the film's climax, the final big party scene. The day would not disappoint. In fact, it would prove to be the best time I've ever had on a film set for far.
This despite the constant threat of death by roller skate...
EPIC: This in one of my favorite vids featuring Andy and Mark; a ripe parody of the persistently silly-looking movie The Box:
FAIL: Despite the prominent "FAIL" on display here, it still looks better than Sweet Layup
Grab your room key and orientation kit, frosh...er, Diligent Reader, it's time to go "Back To School", Rodney Dangerfield-style, yo!
I'm still amazed by how much living we packed into those intense two years while living on the 18'th floor of the Loyola Building at St. Mary's University. When you spend two full years waking up every morning not having a clue as to what's going to happen on any given day it kinda makes life in the inevitable "real world" seem kinda mundane in comparison.
For a kid who was terrified of strangers, residence was the best shock therapy money could buy. But almost to a fault. It was like taking someone diagnosed with hydrophobia and acrophobia up into a helicopter and pushing them out the door into Great Slave Lake. And they're wearing an anvil pendant. Not a pendant celebrating the Canadian metal band "Anvil", I'm talking about a pendant with an actual real-sized anvil attached to it. 'Sho'nuff.
Here are just a few of my recollections coupled with some sage advice gleaned from living in residence. It's been heavily edited to spare the innocent and whatever the polar opposite of innocent might be:
While being packed in like lemmings with twenty-five other dudes you quickly lose any tolerance for crap music. To this day I still want Squeeze, Steve Miller and Vanilla Ice all dead.
It's my understanding that "froshing" or "hazing" new students has become a thing of the past in this era of "1 (800) SUE-4-CASH", which is a bit of a shame. If you go through something like that with a bunch of other guys you end up feeling as if you've done a tour of Da Nang together. In our case it wasn't so bad anyway. It only involved wearing bedsheets, drinking blindness-inducing cheap wine and being forced to play terrible dexterity games. There were no acts of anal/grape transportation or sheep buggery but one dude did end up dancing on top of a table in the cafeteria singing "Joy and Pain" for what it's worth.
Any first-year student stupid enough to talk about "Daddy's yacht", drop a 40 ouncer of rum, habitually lick people, or throw the shoes of upperclassmen into a garbage can ran the risk of being branded with the dreaded "permafrosh" label, meaning you're status of being the scum of the earth would likely carry over into the following year. Curiously some people who were particularly soft in the head didn't seem to care about this...
Have you ever watched any iteration of the "Degrassi" series? If so, do you think the shows are kinda lame because the writer's idea of character development is just saddling every person with some sort of crippling hang-up, addiction, disease, mental disorder or psychosis? Well, I'm here to tell you that this is actually based more on reality than you will ever know.
You know you've arrived as a Frosh in residence when you're civilian self is destroyed and then reborn with a nickname. Until this occurs you are essentially a non-entity. For the record I had three: Pretty-Boy (kinda obvious), Conan (ironic) and Serge (self-inflicted). To this day, I still answer to Pretty-Boy. In fact, I'm thinking of actually making it my real legal name. Whataya think?
Someone with a Howie Mandel-like fear of germs would likely commit ritual seppuku within five minutes of moving into residence. The flip side is, your immune system will become stronger than Wolverine's if you manage to survive your first year. I remember being unable to locate our garbage can in the common room one day because it was buried under a mound of trash in the corner. It was like a friggin' snowdrift. Riding the elevators, it was important never to have physical contact with the elevator buttons for fear of contracting a pox that made cholera look like hay fever. It was critical to bring a pencil along with you wherever you went since the elevator buttons could read the contact of pencil's eraser tip better than any part of a plastic stick pen. Standard procedure then dictated that you burn the pencil.
Eventually the common room morphed into a trophy room designed to house a motley assortment of ill-begotten booty procured during late-night stumblings back from downtown. By the time Christmas exams rolled around, the place looked like the nest of some giant magpie. It was filled with traffic cones, welcome mats, construction site signs, decaying pumpkins, newspaper vending machines and *Sweet Jesus* carpet taken from the front steps of a Buddhist temple. Needless to say some of these people have earned themselves a lifetime of very bad karma. You know who you are.
When your hand was forced by necessity, laundry was always a tedious and expensive affair for destitute students. The machines ran on tickets which you could purchase at the security desk for about 50 cents a pop. Some people would try to "stick it to the man" by purchasing one ticket, putting a long multi-layer strip of tape on the end, inserting it into the machine, and then pulling it back with the tape just as the washer or dryer activated. The success rate was about 8% but on those rare times when it worked you felt like Malcolm Friggin' X. Often you wouldn't be able to pull the ticket out in time, it would feed through and then break the machine since they were incapable of processing a four-foot long trail of tape through it's delicate inner workings.
Pets were never a good idea in residence, especially a ferret. Barely domesticated as it is, ferrets "go native" in a residence environment within a span of about twenty minutes. Often you'd catch a glimpse of the oft-uncaged beast running down the hallway with half of a pizza slice in it's mouth. Then you'd wake up next morning and find the bloated creature curled up asleep in your sock drawer using a piece of crust for a pillow. And as if pranks weren't enough to worry about, often you'd return to your unattended room only to find that the l'il jeezler has left a special "surprise" for you in the corner. This happened so often to me that one day I got pissed off, located a stiff piece of cardboard, scraped up the "present" and then flicked it onto the owner's door. A week later the owner gave the ferret away to our floor's long-suffering but very nurturing maid.
The Bermudians that lived on the floor got a lot of mileage out of calling us Americans until we started to refer to them as "Cubans" and that kinda stopped.
Trips downtown were often made between Wednesday and Saturday night inclusively (assuming you had enough scratch and your liver could take the abuse). Friday's were generally avoided since that night downtown was often rife with embarrassing, crusty, working-class older farts who were looking to blow of some steam after a long work week. And now I'm one of those people. How sad is that?
We always tried to gravitate to clubs where half our floor-mates and their friends worked. Have you ever been standing in a lineup to get into a bar in February weather and some jack-holes just bomb by, cut the lineup and walk right in? Well, don't knock it 'til you've tried it, pal...
Scientists maintain that the lowest form of life is the one-celled amoeba. I insist that it's actually organ donors who steal tips off bars to pay for drinks. Pardon me while I update my "Douchebag" list...
Knowing all the bartenders also has it's perks when twenty-thousand people are all trying to get drinks at the south end of "Happy Hour". Being able to signal your intent from twelve people back with a simple hand gesture only to have the corresponding amount of tasty beverages waiting for you when you got up to the bar was a pretty sweet peach.
Having said that, it was also wise to bounce around to as many "Happy-Hour" events that local clubs could provide. Conversely, it was always prudent to avoid places where knives were used to settle disputes. It's also important to keep in mind that if a club is so packed with people that they feel the need to substitute bathroom floors, sinks and garbage cans for urinals you're likely much safer at a "Great White" concert.
It's not advisable that shots are the last drinks of the evening, especially if they sound like snippets of color commentary that Joe Rogan might use during a UFC event . ("Yeah, could I get a 'T.K.O.', a 'Brain Hemorrhage' a 'Sh** Disturber' and a 'Rape Choke'? Thanks!") And, for the record, three "Snakebites" in a row is never advisable.
If a cop car pulls over to the side of the road and and asks where you're going with two chairs stolen from a frat house party make sure that when you tell them "St. Mary's University" you're actually going in the right direction. It wasn't me, by the way. I'll be saying that a lot, so get used to it.
Which reminds me, a friend of mind considered the drunk tank to be "a great place to meet colorful characters". That is, until they started to fine him $50.00 after his third trip in.
Try to avoid going downtown with what I call "trouble magnets". Especially insidious are those friends of yours that are all sweetness and light and then turn into Kiefer Sutherland just as soon as they've had a few. One dude we'd go out with had a nasty predilection for walking on the tops of parked cars instead of using the sidewalk. Just out of the blue. When sober, he was the meekest, nicest guy on the planet. "Hey, Jimbo! Remember last night when you stuck your entire arm up that elephant's a**? No? Ooookay, then."
After all the bars have shut down, buy a slice at Pizza Corner, find a good seat along the wall and watch the fights begin. Bonus points if someone gets put the through "King of Donair's" plate glass window. Remember: no wagering!
Stick around when someone invariably makes the boast: "Pfffft! I don't know what the big deal is with tequila!" Check back in a few hours to gloat when you find them face down on the bathroom floor in a puddle of their own filth.
Remember: cheap food is the best food. At the start of the year it's imperative that you pick the most inexpensive meal plan possible. You will run out of points, but at the end of the year, students with excess points will start dumping them at half-value. Cha-CHING!
The cafeteria's meals were often made by people who couldn't successfully get into a can of "Spaghetti-O's" let alone make a fresh, tasty, nutritious meal. There's a reason why "deep-fried vegetables" sounds like an oxymoron, moron! Pub food, takeout and frozen dinners purchased at the in-house "Mini Mart" (which you can heat up to a vaguely edible state with your illegal but ever-so-handy in-room hot pot or toaster oven) will be indispensable. Expect a revolving diet of clubhouse sandwiches, chicken fingers, wings, burgers, fries, Kraft Dinner, Mr. Noodles, steaks, pizza and donairs. Actually, if not for the "Midtown Tavern" I likely would have starved to death in my first year.
In the evenings the cafeteria would convert into the "Coffee House" and start to serve the aforementioned pub grub instead of aborted attempts at liver and onions. We went to the "Coffee House" pretty much every night to stay alive but not once did I actually see someone get coffee. Weird...
Take advantage of Spring Breaks by road-tripping to exotic locations like Bangor, Maine (?) and St. John's, Newfoundland (!?!). Amuse yourselves and other drivers you pass on the highway by wearing matching Viking helmets and beating each other with foam-covered baseball bats. Try not to cause anyone to drive off the road as they gawk at you.
Drive off-campus students completely bat-s#!^ insane with jealousy by going to class in January wearing flip-flops, a thong and a tank top.
"You say we're making too much noise for you to study in your room? Poor muffin! The f#@%*&^ 'Hilton's' that way, pal!"
The cockroaches in the basement level of Loyola never found a way out of there, thank f#@&. Although they were admittedly pretty teeny, if I'd ever seen one in my room I would have committed homicide, genocide and suicide in that order.
At the start of the year you'd "interview" to be partnered with a sister floor. Although many people will try and tell you that this is done primarily to "bolster cross-gender harmony", the cynic in me says that it was just an elaborate icebreaker to expedite an inevitable spate of disastrous hook-ups that created toxic levels of enmity. As a side note: I'm alarmed that girls can actually be impressed with a cheesy a capella version of the super-creepy tune "Every Breath You Take" by The Police. Gals, read those lyrics! That tune is like a warm-up song for crazed stalkers. "The Police" indeed...
If you wanted to be popular with the ladies, you mustn't decorate your dorm room with posters of hot chicks, cars and/or hockey players. If it's attention from the ladies ye be seekin', than make sure you don't have a television in your room, locate the nearest store that sells "Pier 1"-style import stuff and buy up as many incense holders, candles, Buddha statues, tribal face masks, fabric throws, native tapestries, bells, gongs and other crap you can afford. This will make you appear exotic and worldly even when you say pervy stuff like "Hey, baby, wanna see my blowgun?" Trust me when I tell you this, because I did the former and got nowhere while someone I lived with on the floor did the latter to considerably more impressive effect.
On the rare occasion that a floor-mate has actually procured real, live female company it's perfectly acceptable to set up a sound system just outside his door to blast the following tune as loud as possible in an impromptu serenade:
If you actually manage to pick up a girl and your room is on the corner of the building, word to the wise: Close your friggin' drapes.
Single moms in the family section of Loyola often got kinda...lonely. We'll leave it at that.
If this doesn't work you can just drunk-dial ex-girlfriends and chain smoke while playing power ballads in the background like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu2DA4I4TGw. Good times!
Regardless of how skilled a debater you are, you can't procure the services of a hooker with a meal card. IT WASN'T ME, I SWEAR!
Try and visit the worst strip club on the planet at least once on the occasion of a now-legal buddy's birthday. Try to find a club where the "girls" all appear to have adenoids and sport pronounced bullet wounds covered with patches while creepy Japanese businessmen in wheelchairs lurking close to the stage survive the "thrills" by taking periodic hits from an oxygen tank, Frank Booth-style. Um, on second thought, just skip this one...
"So, you say you don't like to play cards, huh? Shut up, sit the f#@& down and deal..."
Playing Sega Genesis NHL 92 for four hours a day in lieu of attending classes or studying is a perfectly acceptable way to spend time.
It's also perfectly acceptable to make an amateur horror film with rented video equipment, especially during final exam week.
Lighting farts is NOT acceptable and can often result in third degree burns to regions of the body where burns aught not to be. And, no, this was also not me!
If you insist on practicing karate in your room don't expect to get your damage deposit back.
The same goes for wrestling.
Speaking of wrestling, why not set up a wrestling league to pass the time? If you're too scared to actually wrestle (as well you should be) you can always become the federation commissionaire and preside over matches between such legendary grapplers as "The White Shadow", "The BBC" (Billionaire Boys Club), "The Insane Worrier", "The Islander" and my own personal favorite, "C. Bopper Tomahawk." Invite your sister floor over to alternately impress them and/or prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you're all "Coo-Coo for Cocoa-Puffs". Let me tell ya, you haven't lived until you've been power-slammed on a residence bed (and not in a good way).
And that's just a small sampling of what I can remember that's also remotely acceptable for discussion during the "Family Hour". Good times...
We only spent two years on campus because we couldn't cope with the next generation of frosh that came in. Our behavior was childish to be sure, but also child-like in it's relative innocence. Some of the new guys moving onto the floor were really destructive to the fraternal atmosphere he'd fostered so carefully so we eventually decided to move off campus. The disparity in maturity levels still amazes me even with just a few years of age difference.
Because of (or in spite of) what you just read, I feel bad for people that go to university but don't choose to live in residence. Every single day I'd witness something that challenged my faith in the human race and not two seconds later, I'd see something that reconfirmed it. To say that it was it was "A Different World" was indeed an understatement. Although there was considerable strife at times, there was rarely a dull moment.
It was the most exciting and surreal time of my life and in some crazy way, I miss it terribly.
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