"Hi kids, we're home early..."

Time to have some real "hi-tech" fun. Talk Boys were the shit. If these things didn't get you laid, you probably needed a shower, and even then, I'm not so sure about you. Back in the day, these were the absolute, coolest, possible, thing, you could have in your arsenal of childhood gear. Period. Bar none. End of discussion. I didn't even realize back in the day that they were just a promotional toy tie-in for Home Alone 2. Sure, I knew Kevin McAllister had one in Home Alone 2, and it was damn rad, but they were just such a fact of life that I thought they existed outside the movie and that Kevin just had one because he was fucking RAD already. But either way, "tape recorders bitch!"

What made the Talk Boy so radical, so... sexy... besides the shiny grey Back to the Future DeLorean exterior, the classic-Oldsmobileish-font, the buttons for "play" (ooh baby...), was that little telescopic mic-scope thing that... extended out. Aw-yeah. That's how ya get chicks. These things were all-male... and not just because of the ridiculously sexist "Boy" in the title like the Game Boy (because come on, if handheld games got to rock out with external genitals, why not tape recorders?). That is, until the girls just HAD to ruin it with their pink-colored "Talk Girl" edition (wait, didn't they have those extendy things too??) that probably cost more. Whatever, I guess Talk Boys had to reproduce somehow. Whatever the gender, these things also had this sick grip handle (so you could hold it so classy all one-handed), and all the buttons right in reach... Fast-Forward, Rewind, Play, Stop, and Record. It's actually amazing to me now just how... normal... these things were, considering just how F'n AWESOME they made you feel to flash around. Basically, they were just tape recorders. But I'm kinda burying the lead. Let's talk about the Talk Boy Deluxe's sexiest, most "Radical!", most "Ex-cel-LENNNT!" feature... the pitch changer.

This button was called "slow playback"... which means you could play back your recordings slower, at a lower pitch, to disguise your voice, ("just like Kevin did in the movie!!"). This had the effect, both in the advertisements and in the movie, of making your voice sound more like an adult's... which meant the possibility that you could probably impersonate your mom or dad over the phone too ("just like Kevin did in the movie!!"). I'm sure kids used this to play hooky from school back in the day, purchase stuff over the phone with their parent's credit card ("just like...!" *knees 8yo me in the nuts*)... or at least, to make themselves sound more like a serial killer. I know for a fact kids recorded their burps and farts and slowed them down on the thing, to make them sound even more... ominous. Don't ask me how I know. The feature also allowed you to speed up recordings too, so you could sound more like your little sister I guess, or make recordings of your little sister sound even more like one of the Chipmunks than she already did!

The tape-deck even came with a cassette tape where one side was just sound effects and clips from Home Alone 2 you could use to annoy people. Because what 90s toy would be complete without it being used to ANNOY people? What else were you gonna do with a tape recorder besides record your burps and farts?

The eight-year-old me wanted one of these for the holidays. The twenty-four-year-old me does too... for all the same reasons.

Nice sweater dingus! Cool Talk Boy though.

The Great Thanksgiving Beanie Baby Battle

To the 8-year-old me, Thanksgiving meant trips to my gramps with the rest of the family on my mom's side, disgusting carrots soaked in molasses, and of course, the "replica of the inside of the can rendered in cranberry sauce." Add to the plate the driest piece of white meat on the eastern seaboard, and you have quite a mouthful. The drab old-person decor, the stuffy book shelf, the "turntable," the hanging plants in the living room, the television submerged in a wood cabinet resting on the floor (a game of football running as background noise on it), the brown shag carpet, the adults engaged in dull and endless chit chat... none of it would make the experience all that exciting for any kid, let alone me.

So let me start over. Thanksgiving was about running outside of gramp's house with the other kids for a nice game of tag. I always really did love me some sweet, sweet tag. About the only thing I loved more than tag was annoying girls, so how much fun do you think I had when I got to combine those two pastimes into one? Well, such a thing happened that one awesome Thanksgiving my brother and I stole a Beanie Baby Hedgehog from the girls, and it was a temporary victory for boys everywhere because they weren't getting that thing back without a fight! I had to prove my smarts. This was war. Sure, they could think they had me cornered on the porch when I "absent-mindedly" ran into that enclosure, but I knew there was nothing stopping me from hopping the railing five feet to the ground, taking off across the driveway and getting way the heck out of sight. I knew it wasn't a drop they wanted to take, and the time it took to walk the steps and come around the house kept them at a distance. I can't stress this enough, it was all for a Beanie Baby.

Whenever they caught one of us, we always made sure the other was off somewhere with the stolen good, or at least, that's what we told them. And whenever they had me in their clutches, I was sure to do what boys do best... play dumb: "I don't know where he took it, go bother him about it. I'm done playing." In reality, the thing had been tossed over the back fence at some point into the neighbor's yard where they'd never think to go looking, but they didn't need to know that. Also, as a boy, I didn't always need to 'play' dumb, but that they already knew. Needless to say, I had my dumb excuse to get a couple girls to chase me around in circles and impress with my cunning and wits. I still don't know what their excuse was, unless they actually cared about that thing. I sure didn't.

When their head girl had me cornered at the back fence behind the shed, I scaled the wood and hopped it, right into the neighbor's lawn. That's where I grabbed the hedgehog and did a dash across the yard all the way back around and through two rows of very prickly bushes. To my surprise, they chased me. I'd throw it off to my brother in the driveway, only for him to do his signature move of hopping up on the roof of the car. The girls had him surrounded, but he booked it down the hood and cilmbed up on the porch with the thing in his teeth. Luckily I made it to the porch as he was getting torn down and he handed it off to me. I stuck the thing in my back pocket of my jeans, shook my butt at them and said the magic words sure to make any girl cringe: "come and get it nooooow."

Not wanting to have to find themselves in any position near that particular end of my body, they just stood there and crossed their arms, and I walked in the back screen door, my appetite slowly returning for whatever food thing they were starting to serve in there. And so, even as we all piled around that kids' table for the feast of horrors (in the china room), on that special day, and bowed our heads to give thanks for what we had (in our possession... stashed somewhere they'd never find it!), a silent war raged. The grimacing girls lost the battle knowing that in just a few hours they'd win the war anyways. We eventually had to give the thing back. After all, what did such a soldier like me want with a cutesy Beanie Baby hedgehog anyways?

It's not surprising the girls won. What's surprising is they actually put up a fight!

"Ink, Stink, Purple Dink, Poop, Fart, Out!"

If you asked me what my favorite music was when I was 8 years old, I probably would have said "Jurassic Park music" (because that was my answer once). But if you had sung the first line of any naughty, dirty, schoolyard song, I would have been able to sing the rest right back to you. I memorized this stuff on the long bus rides home from school, as the girls clapped hands and rhymed them off one after another. Everything from the bizarre "Miss Mary Mack" to the barely-acceptable "Mary Had a Steamboat"  got drilled into my not-so-innocent head.

How this stuff spread all over the country in the decades prior to the internet just goes to show the incredible persistance of kids' appreciation for all that is mucky, yucky, perverse, and anything else they can get away with.

Mary had a steamboat, the steamboat had a bell;
Mary went to Heaven, the steamboat went to…
HELLo operator, just give me number nine;
And if you disconnect me, I’ll chop off your…
BEHIND the ‘frigerator, there was a pice of glass.
Mary sat upon it and cut her little… 
ASSK me no more questions, I’ll tell you no more lies:
The boys are in the bathroom, pulling down their…
FLIES are in the kitchen, bees are in the park,
Mary and the principal are [kissing]* in the dark!

*(the word wasn't always "kissing"...)

Of course the girls were smart enough to not sing the really dirty ones full of sex and bodily functions in the proximity of adults...and of course we boys weren't. It was no surprise then why the teacher suggested "one potato, two potato" instead when my friends mentioned to her that "Ink, Stink, Purple dink, Poop, Fart, Out!" was our way of calling each other "out" for a game at recess. And you can imagine that "Man from Nantucket," "Magical Fruit," and whatever incarnation of the "Diarrhea Song" you prefer also factored in, along with my specialty--the ones full of gore and violence: ("Burning of the School" sung to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," or anything involving peer torture or the death of Barney.

Glory, glory hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
I hid behind the door with a loaded .44
And my teacher don't teach no more.

Joy to the World, Josh is dead.
We bar-be-cued his head!
What happened to the body?
We flushed it down the potty!
And round and round it goes!

(^That one went out to a kid my friend and I particularly didn't like... named Josh!)

And just to rub in the fact that girls were more subtle with these songs, I distinctly remember a girl who teased us with "My My Mother, Your Mother", which includes the famous line, "Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider, girls go to college to get more knowledge." Not one to be put down by a girl, my friend chimed in, "Boys go to Mars to get more candy bars!" It was an ingenious comeback, but it was short lived, and she quickly shot back something about how "boys go to Venus to get a bigger..." [ahem!]. That's when we knew we were outwitted (in more ways than one). Only then did we know shame.

(For more fun songs, visit Milkmilklemonade.com)

Sonic the Hedgehog

I had no clue what a hedgehog was, and I didn't care. It could've just as well been Sonic the Asskicker for all I knew, and it wouldn't have changed a thing. He was an ultra-rad blue animal who could cook the screen meaner than any stale Mario platform crawler ever could (up until then). A few speed dash attacks and a few go-boxes, and you could have Sonic flipping loops, bouncing over enemies, flying over pits, and easily outrunning the screen itself! You see, we boys like games requiring a few basic commands and using them a lot, which is why when it comes right down to "run," "shoot," "run some more," and "shoot some more," (Jurassic Park: Rampage Edition) such games usually register pretty well with our primitive psyches. And Sonic was a prime example... just remember to jump now and then, and you've won.

Of course it wasn't that easy! I'm joking, but that's what you think when you think of Sonic (at least, when you're not thinking about the sheer amount of porn the franchise inspired, ahem!). The Sega marketing team really had us convinced this guy was the "fastest thing aliiiiive!" And speaking of the granddaddy of all Furry dreams, almost as good as getting to play Sonic was getting to play Tails on the one player mode of Sonic 2. What's better than playing a character just like Sonic who has infinite lives and whose only purpose is to make things miserable for the titular character and whoever's playing him? The "one player" (secret two-player) mode on Sonic 2 was a stroke of genius designed to help little brothers forced to play Tails screw over big brothers who were hogging the hog. (It wasn't me!)

All I'm saying is that my brother and I spent about a combined year of our lives playing each successive Sonic incarnation for the Genesis... Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic 2, Sonic 3, and Sonic and Knuckles (which allowed you to go back into the other Sonic games and play as Knuckles). After S&K, don't even get me started, because suddenly the Sonic Team decided it was okay to let us meet ALL of Sonic's fellow woodland creatures, spiraling out of control the moment they had him smooching a human! (Furries rejoice!) But in the beginning they had a winning formula in the mutant idiot fox who could fly, the speedy blue guy in the Mickey Mouse gloves, and the fat robotics maniac with waaaay too much time on his hands, and that's all my brother and I needed. When they added Knuckles, we were more excited about the prospect of a hogo-a-hogo blue and red death match than extended character back story, and boy did S&K deliver!

 

But I'm getting sidetracked once again by my relentless dork fandom. Back in the land of reality, Sonic (and espcially the two-player mode) was the pretext to many acts of violence and property destruction between my brother and I whenever one brother was just too damn good at the game, and for me to say which brother that was would be an insult to my existence as the older brother... (it wasn't me). The Sega actually had to be moved to a neutral location (the downstairs den, which was my dad's office) to keep the destruction to a minimum. But all in all, we still got through each game a hundred times over, and Sonic and Knuckles in under a week's time.

I kid thee not that the one thing I remember about the day my sister was born was being carted over to my grandmother's house at 3am (I was about seven at the time), and getting to watch the now infamous Sonic cartoon that morning. Even with all the hubbub that day, all was right because Sonic was on TV. I'm no furry, but I love Sonic.

Boxers or Briefs?

It ain't easy being a guy. We have it hard too. There's so many issues we have to deal with, so many hardships we have to endure. The hardest one by far comes at that time in every guy's life when he's forced to pick a side. Forget political ideologies, right and left, right and wrong, underwear choice is one stance you can't afford to waffle on. You have to make a choice and live with the consequences, and the consequences can be many, and last a lifetime.

Girls have it so easy in life. Their underwear's best use is when it's worn as outer-wear, with nothing else on... obviously. Especially when it's lacey and and comes with a Star Wars logo right in the front (or better, Superman!... no wait... Jurassic Park!!!) (Aww yeah girl). For a guy though, underwear's best use is functional, to be doing what it needs to do under the covering we call "clothes." To not be seen as much as ... assumed. This is why we wear the same pair for days (erm, weeks) on end, and why (when we're alone), we wear nothing else. We know a lot can be deduced from what underwear we choose to wear though, and we won't compromise once we've made a choice. Underwear loyalty is everything, which is why the question about what we go for in underwear is actually quite a test of intelligence, maturity, character, and (sometimes) what 80s Saturday morning cartoon still inspires us. Forget 20-question quizzes in "Does he really love you?" magazines. If you want to figure a guy out, just ask him: "boxers or briefs?" You'll know all you need to know. If he says briefs, marry him. Trust me, as a guy, this is a good litmus test of guys.

Now I've spent a long time thinking about this, as all guys do, and this was the best I could come up with to explain my rationale for continuing to answer the question "BRIEFS." And it's because while we may not win the battle, we win the war. Sure, boxers give you room, they're loose, comfy, and let you move and "readjust," and they are great to wear on their own as if they were shorts, because they come with a front flap (which just makes life easier). But they have a lot of flaws. One, they bag up under your pants and you got to keep adjusting them. Two, clothing makers decided that since men were wearing them like shorts anyways, they might as well start putting buttons to fasten them, which just makes "life" more of a chore than it should be. Why put buttons on the boxers if the whole point is easy access down there? We could live without those pesky button flies all together, we don't need another set on our underwear!

Briefs on the other hand seem to solve a lot of the problems with boxers. If Superman, Batman, and He-Man can wear them on the OUTSIDE, then maybe there's something to be said about their qualities on the inside. Maybe just wearing them will make YOU a superhero too! (Captain Virgin!!) They are nice and snug, and fit tight enough to ensure everything stays in its own little package. They're elastic, so they conform to your legs and waist, which means they don't bag up, and gaining access is always simple... just flip the flaps! Perfect! But I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge there are some disadvantages to briefs too. They're not as comfy as boxers (they're called "tighties" for a reason), they don't allow any "swinging room" (so to speak), the elastics on the legs and waist give you rashes and indentations. Their slim and tight style also means they can't double as outer-wear either, EVEN if you're by yourself eating Cheetos on the couch, and perhaps especially if you're alone. Tighty-whities are a bit too embarrassing to wear by themselves, and should never be worn by themselves. Unless you're female, then please do so.

Plus, the fact that they're so slim and skimpy makes them perfect for wedgie torture (which is good if you're the torturer, but very bad if you're the sufferer). You can't very easily give an atomic or nuclear or melvin, or any of the other forms of wedgie while your victim is wearing boxers, now can you? More surface area on the skin means less hem wedge up the cracks. Now, of course if you're a frequent sufferer of the wedgie you probably don't like briefs, but then again if you're a frequent sufferer and you're not going commando yet, then it's your own fault. Stop giving them ammo! 

Let's not forget to mention of course that they're easier to wear on your head as a makeshift ski mask than boxers are. You can more easily use the leg holes for eyes and the hole for your nose... or to eat through, especially when you're playing masked luchadores on the living room rug or super heroes in the backyard. 

So yeah, briefs aren't perfect, but the truth is, we briefs aficionados like them because they're more supportive and easier to wear, but we will wear boxers just because they look cooler and are comfier. This is why "boxer-briefs" were invented, and are the obvious compromise. They may just be the ultimate winner here, and the most ingenious idea ever, but we're not discussing the subtleties of the so-called "boxer-brief" because it's not a part of the dualistic question posed.

But enough about function. Let's talk about style. Obviously, boxers come in a wide variety of colors and pictures, and briefs have tried to make it with the colors but it just comes off as if you've color-coded your week. The funny thing though is, there's just something more "mature" about boxers, so many guys wear them just because of that, even if they have cutesy little pictures on them! It's like the life cycle of the average male's underwear goes full circle. We start out as kids wearing Ninja Turtles briefs and then grow into "tighty-whities," and then maybe we either go into the land of colored briefs or we go full-tilt into Boxers. We're constantly on the run from the tighty-whitey, and why not? It's tough to shake that "just escaped from the ward" look every time you catch yourself in a mirror when you're changing. But we still like having pictures on our underwear regardless of age, especially at the boxers stage.

Once you've made the decision to continue with briefs to their next technicolor evolution (one color for every day of the week) and take a step into that proverbial locker room, you're still not sure you're going to be dwarfed by the guys already jumping on the boxers bandwagon. But when they reveal theirs and they're full of all these cutesy "flying toaster" or "valentine heart" cartoons, you'll be glad you're a briefs-wearer. Of course anything flannel or plaid and you're screwed, but then again, at least you can easily get at the merchandise at the urinal quick without resorting to pulling down your underwear like you did when you were five.

So underwear is a complicated thing. Guys think about it a lot. It's on our minds. Our brains are constantly calculating comfort down there. We know we look like mental patients or complete losers in underwear while girls look, well, fantastic in it... so for us it's just about being comfortable, and ruling the world in our spare time.

But which is better? Who knows. What do I wear? I wear briefs. My eight-year-old self wore briefs. I was raised on tighty-whities, mostly around my waist, sometimes under my clothes, and a least a fraction of time on my head. Briefs have always been there for me, they gave me support and comfort through the hard times, they picked me up when I was...well, getting a wedgie, and whenever I adjusted my underwear in public... it was always a "snap."

That's why I was, I am, a briefs guy.

'Man Pain' is Hilarious

Any guy who has experienced "man pain" knows you can pretty much forget about getting anything more than a few chuckles from onlookers when it happens. You could be on the ground, writhing, even cross-eyed and puking, and it's nothing but "ha ha" from anyone in eye shot. This is because "man pain" is different from other types of pain in that only us guys are capable of feeling it, and when we are, it's usually completely our own damn fault. Hundreds of America's Funniest Home Videos clips of "dad and son games of catch gone wrong" prove this fact of life to be true. The concept of objects coming into forcible contact with a guy's genitals is just comedy gold.

I think I know why it really is so damn funny. See, there are two reasons we blush when someone asks us "where it hurts," and only one of which is tied to having the dangling, vulnerable parts in question. The main reason we blush is because in that moment we're finally forced to acknowledge the special brand of stupidity that inevitably comes with having those parts, because chances are, we were asking for it. Those two things are what makes "man pain" so easy to laugh at, and I, regrettably, happen to have both the parts and the hair-brained idiocy that would cause them to get slammed by something. 

Now don't get me wrong, I don't recommend anyone going around aiming for a guy's "weak spot" just for target practice (there are less violent ways of getting a laugh!), nor do I agree with bullying down there (seriously guys?). And okay fine, chicks get a pass at doing it to us for self defense (or just whenever they really want to prove a point to us... which is always... so... Eek.). But see, I only find it "funny" when it happens to guys who are not me, so there's nothing funny about the following story (warning: you may find the following story funny if you're not me). 

This is how I lost my virginity to my bike. The neighbor two houses down used to allow the girl next door and my brother and I to ride our bikes in their long driveway. We spent many an afternoon riding long circles up and down it because we were too wussy to ride in the streets with the cars and the threat of instant death. Somehow, we were supposedly safer if confined to the driveway than we would be on the (somewhat) busy suburban... back road, if that makes sense. Unfortunately, the protectionist driveway culture of the 90's wasn't counting on my temporary "lack of brain" syndrome, and once when I was probably about nine or ten, I got so lulled into watching the asphalt pass below my pedals for a time that the tar failed to protect me. I wasn't watching where I was headed.

Me... on getting hit in the groin.

BAM! It came to a sudden halt and threw my body forward like those crash dummies in the commercials. My butt slid off the seat and hurled my crotch (and all it contained) right into the bar beneath the handlebars with extreme prejudice, and the two of us, bike and I, fell over together on the asphalt. As my brain kicked back out of its haze, I realized what I'd done in my trance. I had slammed into the back bumper of the car sitting stationary in their driveway! That's right. I hit a car that wasn't even moving. My first thought was "I hope nobody saw that." My second thought was "oh no! Not good! NOT good! Ow!"

It was the most nauseating "man pain" describable. My vision was cross-eyed. Drool trickled from my chin. I feebly threw my hands between my legs as if trying to hold whatever was left down there together as I staggered forth, soon dropping down to all fours. I could have puked as it shot right up to my stomach. There's no walking that off! And to top it, there was no "oh he's hurt!" There wasn't even a "are you okay?" or even a condescending but sympathetic "...ouch." There was nothing but "Hahaahah!!," "how does that feel?" and "wow, that was stupid..." Meanwhile I couldn't even freakin' SEE, never mind stand, and damn was it humiliating, but whatever. "No I'm okay..." I squeaked out. Yeah right. Even when my mom found out about the incident later that evening, after I'd managed to wobble home, all I got from her was, "haha, you weren't planning on having kids one day anyways, right?"

Unfortunately, the same force that propelled this boy to slam into a parked car on his bike also prevented him from learning anything from the experience, as more bike accidents were sure to follow, but I did learn that "man pain" really does hurt and that it ... really is freakn' hilarious! I mean, the "oof!", bend-over, the crotch-grab, the wince, the rolling on the ground ... it's good stuff!  But if we bring it on ourselves (and we will), go ahead and laugh, because chances are we are too. If we're not, call 911!!

Cool Kids Wear Flannel

Flannel was a way of life in my formative years. If you weren't wearing your plaid shirt, unbuttoned and loose, hanging over a white tee-shirt, supported by blue jeans and red chucks, you simply weren't cool enough to be taken seriously. I kid you not. It was a white-trash trifecta of coolness, and gave the impression you could crush a beer can with the best of them. It was the natural evolution of grunge rock perhaps, only on the third grade level.

Well, as with most cool things, I was never wearing flannel much at the time. I never wore the shirts unbuttoned over that trailer park kid white tee-shirt with the jeans torn up. I wore my sweatshirts and corduroy jeans. I wore my Reebok sneakers (which may or may not have lit up with flashing lights in the heel). I wore my hair straight and not disheveled. I had these thin circular glasses propped on my face. I bathed once and a while. Given all these facts, you can probably guess that I wasn't one of the cool kids in the mid-90s, but I tried obsessively to get into that inner circle. And gentlemen, I may have made it further towards acceptance by the flannel jerks than any dork ever has.

Here is my tragic story of profound heroism, and how it all went so wrong. To this day, flannel brings back memories of desperation and ambition gone awry. Of me sitting with my friend Nick behind a divider wall in the classroom, sitting in those little yellow plastic chairs at eight years old, him teaching me how to burp on command of course. It was school after all, and if we were supposed to be learning how to read dumb Little Bo Peep stories about little girly girlies getting all up in a whirly whirly over who-gives-a-CRAP?!, we figured we might as well be learning how to do something useful. See, burping is all in the way you turn your neck...

Anyways, there was this other boy I knew... and yes, he too could burp like a champ, really low pitched and loud, which is a very important... So anyways! He was awesome for a lot of other reasons: stone washed jeans, flannel shirt unbuttoned, white T-shirt, shades. The whole nine yards. Did I want to be him? Of course. Since that wasn't possible, suffice it to say I wanted to be cool like him. He had this gang of other third grade Cobain disciples, and I remember desperately wanting admittance into such an esteemed sanctum. I was so desperate in fact, I would've done anything. I would've uttered every swear word in existence with perfect pronunciation to be in the group. I would've climbed the tire castle on the playground to the top just to see how far I could launch spit out of my body to be in the group. I would've huffed the inside of this kid's Chuck's sneakers and held it like a bong hit for ten seconds three times over... to be in the group. And I mean, three really long huffs (I mean, drags) on his really, really, really rancid, festering, nasty, sweaty, intoxicating, hallucinogenic, delirium inducing, vomit producing, radioactively-smelly sneakers!. I would've taken twenty rock-thrown nutshots up against the brick wall in back of the school... without flinching (or puking!)... to be in the group. I would've poked my hand with a pen tip to the point of drawing blood... to be in the group.

And I know I would've... because I actually DID do all those things just to get these jerks to like me, and of course they actually thought it was the damn-dern funniest thing they'd ever seen, but trust me, this stuff gets real when you're a kid. Becoming "cool" in elementary school is literally life or death. I would've died to get "in" on whatever the hell they were actually doing, and all it probably was was just...I dunno, hanging out by the swing set? Shooting the shit? Being jerks? But no matter. It wasn't about doing all that stuff, it was about doing all that stuff with people who think you're cool. That's the point. Getting to do literally anything "along with them" was that freakin' important to me!

So no word of a lie, I passed through their rigorous series of harsh, painful, smelly, and often humiliating rituals and rites just to be counted among them. I hopped on every tire circling the playground at school without falling off once. I made a complete swing on the ropes and walked up the slippery metal slide. I climbed to the top of the tire pyramid on that playground. I wore shirts that, while not flannel, could be unbuttoned to expose that ever-necessary trailer park pit-stained tee-shirt. I attempted to burp the alphabet (only got to the G, I think). Hell, I let them poke my hand with a pen until blood was drawn! I was not afraid. Give me "cool kid status" or give me death!! And you know what, as crazy as it sounds... it actually worked.

At the end of it all, after all the degrading, demoralizing, humiliating, painful, injurious, testicle imploding, burp reverberating, macho nacho-ness abounding, they were finally proud to call me one of them. They let me sit at their lunch table. They let me hang out with them at recess. I'd finally made it. I was one of the club. I was cool. I had every protection they could afford. There was no more teasing. An official proclamation went out to all the other cool boys. I was part of the wolf pack. It was probably the greatest achievement of my life (especially considering the last 20 years...). And so, that's when I lost it!

It turns out that cool kids are so "cool" they don't have to go announce to the teacher what they were put through to order to become cool. One whiff of that and she came down stern on the whole crew, all the boys who I'd so conveniently named by name, and that was that. "Cool kids don't rat," they said afterwords, and then there was nothing but hostility for the rest of the year. Oh well. As Bob Dylan once said, "Life is bad, life is a bust, all you can do is do what you must." I quickly went back to combing my hair and wearing sweatshirts. That was a must.

The moral of the story is, "90s kids man... 90s kids."

Hide and Seek Tag

My allergies!

We used to play this game I invented called "Hide and Seek Tag." When I say "we" I mean the girl and boy next door, and my brother and I. My brother was always a year younger than me (kind of strange how that always seems to happen with younger brothers), and all the neighborhood kids were about the same age as we were. In any case, this game was exactly what it sounds like. First you hide and seek, and then when found, you run for the hills. It's a manhunt, with one on the lam and everyone else "it," like a kind of reverse-tag. The girl was one year younger than me and at least two years more mature (kind of strange how that always seems to happen with girls), and for that reason only, I always seemed to be the one on the lam, forcing everyone to chase me.

And I didn't exactly play fair. Even when hiding, I was constantly on the move. You got to be, because you want them to totally exhaust every potential hide out and have to come calling you out, "okay, we give up!" You want the girl rolling her eyes. After all, it's only fun when you're the only one really having fun, right? Well, that is, until they just left me in the poison ivy patch to go off and enjoy their summer afternoons in other ways. I didn't come out of my calamine cocoon for a week, and nobody missed out on the fun except me.

The neighborhood was a maze of fences, cars, backyards, basements, trees and shrubs, and I found a way to exploit them all for hours onto dusk on many an after school afternoon. The bush beside the front steps of the neighbor's house was a great spot. They could literally stand over you and not see you. This was real jungle warfare, poison ivy or not... allergy to poison ivy or not. Getting caught was worse. Don't give up on me soldier! And yes, clearly we were soldiers because what else would you be if you were carrying around a gun that looks like a Super Soaker?

The girls kind of ruled the neighborhood just because they could get us in trouble, but we boys actually lived in it. We had more fun out there in the neighborhood with our own war games, hopping over fences and stomping on flowers. The Martians had landed! They were everywhere. They were girls in disguise! “Quick men! Kill the aliens!” Oh man, we swarmed that girl next door good once. My brother even soaked her with his squirt gun. Defeated! We exchanged high-fives as she ran off back to her house dripping wet.

“Success men! Let’s get another one!” I used to lead the charge. I always loved anything scifi. So we'd go find another one while she was in her backyard over at Steven's place in her swimsuit. We'd creep along in the bushes beside their house like Rambo, even wearing the bandanas, our guns set to maximum soak. She’d be out there just sitting by her swimming pool in her blue swimsuit, just doing that thing girls do where they lay in the sun. She wouldn’t see us coming!

“Right men, now listen up,” I'd whisper to the next-door boy with the stammer, “this one’s sexy. No lollygagging! We got a job to do! Get in, kill, and get out! Understand?”

“Sir yes sir,” he'd whisper.

“Lock and load. I’ll see you on the other side, on the count of three…” I'd whisper, but he'd just go right ahead and charge her.

AAHHHHH! I ran right up to her that day by the pool and just started soaking her with my squirt gun fully loaded. She jumped up and screamed, “What that! Get away from me!” '

I strand over her on either side and give her a good blast in the face and then take off running. Mike comes up behind and blasts her good in the back. Then the real fun begins. The chase it on!

“Run! Run! Go! Abort mission! Abort mission! Target is not destroyed! Repeat, target is not destroyed! Send for back up! Whoa!” I keep talking into my pretend walkie-talkie on my sleeve as she chases me all around the backyard like crazy. I go after him and try to help but then he goes and hops the back fence, so then she turns on me, pissed as all hell and coming at me like a bulldog!

“Man down!” I yell as I take off for the bushes, only to be yanked back by my shirt collar, kicked in the ass, and then pushed straight down into those thick bushes. Damn did that sting. We got away though. We lived to tell the tale. We took off running down the street, out of ammo. We had to fill up our guns for another round back at the bathroom sink at his place.

“Who next?” he asks.

“Bridget,” I say. Two aliens down. Two to go. That’s always a blast.

Facing the T-Rex

A three hour tour.

Don't let anyone kid you, males of the species do have thoughtful and emotional depth, we just more often than not choose to ignore it, and it's for our own good usually. It's better that way because most of the time we guys tend to screw things up whenever we start thinking we're on to something "deep," and besides, females don't want that from us anyways (no matter what they say... search your feelings girls, you know it to be true!). BUTT... when our emotions do come out, they do so in the strangest of places, particularly when you're seven-years-old and your already-favoritist movie has landed on the big screen, finally, after three months of commercials and previews (a lifetime in kid years). It was a clear summer night in June of 1993 and me and my brother were out for whatever reason with mom and dad, begging them to let us into a little monster-movie-at-heart known as Jurassic Park.

I tell you this because I have proof, but more importantly because it won't make me look any worse in front of the half of you who share a Y chromosome (because I already conceded that I'm a dork). Now I know lots of guys across the ages (comedians) have testified on behalf of our half in saying that "nothing much goes on in our heads," and while it's probably true for those ones who perpetuate this, I'm going to put my foot down and say that it's not true of the vast majority. In fact, a lot does go on in our heads when we're watching movies like Jurassic Park on the big screen... things like: "oh man that's so awesome," or "holy shit I want one," or just "oh man is she hot, I want one." See? That's not nothing! That's the 8yo brain firing back on... the brain we love the most, the brain we have the most fun with... the brain that gets us LAID (yeah, sure)... which I think it has to if you're actually sitting down to a movie like Jurassic Park. Yeah yeah "playing God." Yeah yeah "morals." Yeah yeah "deep stuff..." You want the money shot. You want the T-Rex.

So there we were. We packed in the movie theater and watched the spectacle unfold as if we were ascending to little kid heaven on the spot. A lush jungle hung before us, full of eye-opening carnage and huge dinosaurs, presided over by Sam Neill, paleontology's answer to Harrison Ford from the decade prior (whatever "paleontology" meant). I wanted to BE this guy. Seriously, how much cooler does it get than to be one of them paleo-tolo-orthodontics, but actually be wearing the Indiana Jones hat and literally running with the gallamim-i? To literally stare down a T-Rex and have the fucking T-REX blink first! He's the gruff muscle of the movie, okay, but who's the brain? Ian Malcolm. Now if you're like me, your body is about 2% muscle and 95% bone marrow, so you're going to need someone to represent you, and they couldn't have gotten a cooler nerd for this part than good ole Goldblum, Ladies Man Extraordinaire (it's part of the name). Only he could do the water drop trick on the hand and actually win the female over by doing that (don't ask how I know). His uh... seduction was uh... all in the ahhh! Strange attractors anyone?

So what do they add to balance out all this bridled (Grant) and unbridled (Malcolm) testosterone but... a girl? Why yes, and a girl who actually knows her shit for once and still managed to put thoughts in my head late at night. The amazing thing is, she's not just there to get hit on. With Grant off with the kids (Timmy pretty much being my avatar in the movie at that point), and Malcolm half dead in the hay, it was really up to the girl to save all the guys. Heck, Timmy is reduced to completely useless quivering while his SISTER (also a girl) literally HACKS into the park to turn the power back on! And so began my lifelong love of all that is "GRL PWR!" Aww yeah. "Suck on that, BOYS!" So everyone has their moment of glory in a way, and it's great that movies finally caught up with real life.

Oh but this is getting too deep, gotta switch back to 8yo me and talk about what I actually liked about this movie growing up...

Me... on dinosaurs.

Jurassic Park cars that drive themselves: "awesome dude, I want one." Taser guns to shoot at raptors: "awesome dude I want one." Helicopter: "oh man that's so awesome." T-Rex car chase: "holy shit this is the best thing I ever seen! I need a change of pants!!" But the T-Rex was too lumbering and mechanical after a while, so that's when we got the raptors. That's when we got those spitty green guys. That's when we got raptor chase scenes! That's when we got cutesy Three Stooges-y slip squeal sound effects when Newman hit the deck down a waterfall! Ha ha. Heck, the only thing missing is a guy on a toilet... no wait! Dang! How do you manage to make a toilet joke into a terrifying death scene (in a movie that's not called Bad Taste)? I don't know, but they done it, and was the 8yo me certainly glad they did! Oh man. But let's take it a step even further. Let's remind our "target audience" here (KIDS!) that dinosaurs do, in fact, poop. "Big piles of shit" too! Gross!.. but more importantly: Hahahaha! 

And so there I was, seven-years-old, totally enjoying it, totally not scared, and totally unable to follow what chain of events lead to this string of awesome, hilarious, and unforgettable scenes. As far as I was concerned the "story" had something to do with a bunch of people going to see an island with a bunch of dinosaurs on it. What did I care how they got there? They had me at "island with dinosaurs on it." If you think too much you RUIN it! So give us walky-talkies, stun guns, and Unix-based OS's. Give us raptor run-ins, big "birds" with teeth (yes, I did learn something), a T-Rex tossing a car off a cliff, and give us at least one guy getting eaten off a toilet, and you've got us hooked. In fact, we'll spend the next year and a half begging for the coloring books, backpacks, pencil cases, video games, and whatever dinosaur cereal box you can find (yes, Jurassic Park Crunch! Bring it back!). "You've patented it, and packaged it, and you DID slap it on my plastic lunch box and now *bang* you're gonna sell it *banng* you're gonna sell it!!" 

And I totally bought it, and happily kept buying it, because what can I say? I loved this stuff. And I mean it. But no matter how silly, simple, and unfettered the male mind may seem, I promise you this, we'll still cover our heads in our blankies at the "scary parts" in the dark theater, and still "love" every minute of it. And those are indeed emotions. 

"Man creates dinosaurs, dinosaurs eat man... 8yo me eats it up."

Portrait of the Writer as a Boy Dork

"I'm a fart-smeller!" 

Hello guys and girls! What you've landed on is not a blog about me, per-se. It's a blog about the eight-year-old version. It's about the little dork I was in all of his uncouth, untamed wildness, brainy stupidity, and humiliating openness. It's about a pleasure seeker, a treasure hunter, and a noble heart. It's a commentary on boyhood from someone glad to have lived it (and survived). We all had some strange ideas as kids, but the various workings and non-workings of this brain from the years 1990 and 1998 probably produced some of the "noblest" you've heard. So like I say, here I will post my (rather peculiar) kidhood thoughts straight from that freaky mind to your squarish screen, for your enjoyment and/or repulsion.

Let me introduce myself though. My name is Mark. I'm 24 years old [at the time I write this!], and I really don't have much to say that would matter. I'm whiter than Wonderbread, middle-class, and male... so what could I possibly have to complain about? Even so, that's as typical as I get. The rest of me is some odd mesh of book worm, writer, artist, audiophile (that means "music lover" you wingnut!), and classic movie fan. I read books about philosophy, wax on AND off, and enjoy the calm comforts of nostalgia, hot coffee (dark roast), food, sleeping, the company of chicks, and every now and then a good fart noise. Now that's quite a mix fer sure, but I'd like to think that I'm pretty much a "dork" through and through. I'm a simple guy. That's all. I like to joke around and always was a bit of a class clown. This site is really just a continuation of that. 

Now let me get something straight: I don't do the whole "anger issues" thing here... I celebrate my 90s childhood! "Dork" should not be a pejorative term! I wear it like a badge of honor (in a manner of speaking). It's a lifestyle. It's genetic... maybe. It's freedom to be what you are. According to Urban Dictionary, a dork is:

Someone who has odd interests, and is often silly at times. A dork is also someone who can be themselves and not care what anyone thinks.

Dorks are typically more noted for their quirky personality and behavior rather than their interests or IQ which may or may not be on level with traditional geeks or nerds. They tend to be more humorous and extroverted and don't mind laughing at themselves or with others at themselves, as the case may be.

So we got no reason to hate on the dorks. Bland is boring. If you can't laugh at yourself, then... well, you get that idea. I think we should celebrate what makes us unique. Are we dorks not human? Kick us, do we not say... "oof!"? Unique... yeah, that's what you can call it.

History will remember the name Enterprise. Welcome aboard.  --Admiral Mark