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58

Charlie’s “100 Things Posts About Me”

#58. I still have my Amiga computer, but I finally gave up my Commodore 64.

Yes, I was a nerd. I like to think that I’ve reformed, and am now fully integrated into ‘cool’ society. I like to think a lot of things…

?

So, elsewhere, I’ve claimed to have shunned computers until I was in grad school. But this is not true in the strictest of senses. True, I had nothing to do with computers that had any practical purpose. But I did love my games. Oh, yes.

I’ll tell you how far back the fascination goes (and therefore how old I am, in the process): the first game I had on my C64 was on cassette. That’s right, magnetic tape, just like the old folks used to play music with. You may have seen these ‘cassette tapes’, in your grandpa’s collections or your local museum. Well, I not only used them for my Men at Work fix, but I also played games with ’em. Slow, ponderous, creaky, buggy games, but still — games! Or one game, anyway. Some Dungeons and Dragons type of dealie. It was slow going, with all the tape changing and reading and rewinding to a certain spot and loading… the damned thing was on five cassettes. I never had the patience to finish it.

So hail the day that floppy disks came into play! The games were still slow and ponderous by today’s standards (though no buggier; could we get a little QA for these things, please?), but at least they didn’t take forever and a week to load. These were the big floppies, too. (Mmmmmmm… big floppies… nnnggggghhhh…) The five-and-a-quarter inch kind. (Please, no penis jokes, folks. They were all told at the time, over and over, ad nauseum. Thank you for your cooperation.) Anyway, you may have seen these flappy little monstrosities, in your elderly aunt’s personal effects, or in an antiques store. They were an improvement, of course. But a game of any complexity took up seventeen disks; they just had no capacity to speak of.

And so, the three-and-a-half inch disk came to the rescue. (Remember what we talked about, folks. We’ve heard all the jokes before, all right? Keep the line moving, now.) More compact, but with more space, these little babies put the fun into gaming. I’m honestly not sure whether I ever got a drive for these for my Commodore. But it’s the only peripheral the old Amiga had, other than the joystick, naturally. Of course, with more space, the game designers just ratched up the intensity, and made cooler and cooler games. Games which again took up seventeen disks, but now those disks were jam-packed with programs. Oh, the fun we had back in the day. Why, you can even still see these disks today, at your grandma’s yard sales and at time capsule recovery ceremonies.

But eventually, the disk was passed up by the CD-ROM. The data from hundreds of floppies could fit on one CD, and so they went the way of the dinosaur, and dodo birds, and Chevy Chase. But I still have my old Amiga somewhere, with all the classic games. They’re all there — Psi-5 Trading Company, Countdown to Shutdown, Pirates, Impossible Mission, Elite, HardBall, 4th and Inches, Law of the West, Defender of the Crown, Populous, Lemmings, Roadwar 2000, Stunt Car Racer, Space Taxi, and a hundred others.

(And before you comment, yes —

1. I know some of those are C64 games. But I don’t remember exactly which. The old memory’s not what it used to be.

B. My friend worked at an Amiga-centric game rental store. So we had access to just about everything. Real ‘kid in a candy store’ stuff.)

Of course, all those old disks are worthless now. Not that some of the games aren’t still entertaining, mind you. But now there are a half-dozen Amiga emulators out there that you can download for free, and at least as many for the C64. Most of the games are in the public domain now (at least, that’s what I let myself believe…), so they can be downloaded and played in the emulator on any PC in the world. (And when I say ‘any’ PC, that’s almost literally true these days. The average Pentium II from five years ago or so would hold thousands of Amiga’s-worth of data, and still have plenty of juice and room left to surf the web and diddle around in Excel. (Not Word, of course. Fuckin’ memory hog…)

But the old games were puny little things compared to today’s opuses (opi?) of light and color, full-motion video and true-to-life captured dialogue. Technologically speaking, they’re backwards, crude, and laughable. Still, some of them are damned fun to play, not to mention nostalgic.

I actually don’t have an emulator now, but for a while, I did, and I was fifteen again, playing all the old classics in a little window-within-Windows. It was great. And actually, I think I deleted it because I wasn’t getting anything else done. Damned addictive, it is. I’ll probably grab another one one day, to try reliving the past glory of my gaming heritage. So, if I don’t write anything here for a couple of weeks, you’ll know what happened. I’m sailing the seas in search of swashbuckling adventure, or trying to prevent a core meltdown. Again. And this time, I’m gonna get it right. That damned game has been kicking my ass for twenty years or more. It’s my turn, dammit!

57

Charlie’s “100 Things Posts About Me”

#57. There exists no food that could not benefit from the addition of hot sauce.

Yes, folks, I’m a hot sauce freak. Right now, as I type, I have no less than two dozen bottles of hot sauce in the house. At least. Wait, I’ll go count. I don’t want to exaggerate, nor sell my current collection short. Just a sec; I’ll be right back.

*time passes* (Go ahead, take a breather. This’ll take me a minute or two.)

Okay, I’m back. And the count is twenty-seven. Twenty-seven bottles of hot sauce, plus six jars of salsa, two kinds of spicy grilling ‘rubs’, and a bottle of ‘Old El Paso Taco Sauce‘. (Which doesn’t count as hot sauce because it’s not hot. You could pour that shit on your cereal on the morning.)

I’m pretty much at full capacity at the moment — to be completely fair, three of the hot sauces are unopened because there’s not room on the ‘pepper shelf’ in the fridge yet. But a few of the existing bottles are near the end, so I’ll get a chance to pick some more up soon. Which is very exciting; there’s nothing like picking out a new hot sauce or three to compliment whatever food we’re going to be having. If beer is the ‘nectar of the gods’ (and it is, of course), then hot sauce is the ‘comdiment of the immortals’. Take that, mayonnaise!

My tastes in hot sauce run pretty much through the whole spectrum of flavors and heat, from the sweet and mild Pickapeppa to the smoky, flaming-hot Dave’s Insanity Sauce. As for the latter, when they say, ‘Use this product one drop at a time‘, they’re not fucking around. Trust me on this one — if you want to be able to sit down for the next three days, take it easy with the Dave’s. Most ‘Hot! Hot! Hot!‘ hot sauces are just posing, trying to get you to buy their watered-down crap. Dave’s is different — there should be a surgeon general’s warning on the bottles, and maybe a Mr. Yuck sticker. It’s just that hot.

Speaking of disappointing advertising, I’ve found that most of the ‘gimmick’ sauces — like gimmicky beers — are poor examples of the craft. Some are pure heat and no flavor; others are just watery, bland disasters. There are a couple of exceptions, of course. Blown Away, for instance — with a Clinton ‘n’ Monica rendering on the label — is actually not bad, and has a nice punch. But generally, if you’re buying a hot sauce for the name, or the label, keep in mind that those are the only things of value that you’re likely to get. And the best thing you can do with the contents of the bottle is pour the crap down the sink. (Or spill it onto a blue dress, if you’re into that sort of thing.)

But a good hot sauce? A truly well crafted hot sauce is a thing of beauty, and can be used with so many foods. Chili and burritos and tacos, of course. But also hot dogs, or chicken, or rice dishes. Casseroles and salads, pasta and burgers, potatoes and stews. There’s just about nothing that a good hot sauce can’t improve.

You have to be careful, though. Just as there are all kinds of foods, there are all sorts of sauces, too. Some are pretty straightforward — mostly peppers and vinegar and salt. Like your Texas Pete’s and Tabasco and Louisiana brand hot sauce. These are your staples, for sandwiches, TexMex, and grilled food. They’ll add just a touch of heat and some peppery flavor, so they’re also good for ‘cutting’ other, less tame sauces, if you can’t stand the heat.

But the real stars are the funky sauces. The mango-based Inner Beauty, tangy Melinda’s, and the musky, smoky VooDoo Jerk Slather. These are the concoctions that keep me coming back, because they’re so versatile, and so tasty, and they’re not afraid to burn you if you’re not careful. Man, I’m getting hungry just thinking about these, and most of ’em are in my fridge right now, along with two handfuls of their closest friends and relatives. I think I’m gonna have to cut this post short, and find something to pour some hot sauce on. Maybe that Old El Paso on cereal idea’s not so bad. Hmmmm…

56

Charlie’s “100 Things Posts About Me”

#56. I broke my nose playing softball.

Okay, see if you can picture this. It’s late — fifth or sixth inning of a seven-inning game. Our team is hopelessly, embarrassingly behind. By, like, eight runs or so, with no prospect that our hibernating bats are ever going to wake up. Morale is down, and we still have a couple of innings until we can go drinking. There is no joy in Mudville.

So, I come up to bat, and get on base. I don’t remember how now, but that’s not important. Maybe it was a solid double into the gap, and maybe the pitcher fell over her shoelaces trying to field my dribbler. It doesn’t matter. Somehow, I get on base. The next hitter makes an out, and then there’s a single. When the dust clears, I’m standing at third with one out, and another guy on first. But forget him — he’s not important any more.

Now, the next hitter snakes a tall fly ball to left field, just behind me. It’s not all that deep, but I decide to tag. I’m all about meaningless runs. Or is it sex? No, no, it’s definitely runs. So I wait for the left fielder to catch it, and I’m off like a shot. Or is it a shotput? Yes, it’s definitely a shotput. A slow, heavy metal ball. That about covers it.

The left fielder throws home.

I race toward home.

The ball screams toward the catcher.

I turn on the jets — such as they are — and thunder down the line.

Now, the whole way towards home, I’m watching the catcher. If he were looking at second base, I’d know that the other runner was tagging, and the left fielder is probably throwing there. That’s not the case. The catcher’s looking over my shoulder the whole time, and high — like at a thrown ball plummeting toward him. Fine. So, I’m ready to slide, or avoid him, or duck underneath him if I have to.

About two steps from the plate, the catcher steps sideways, toward the pitcher’s mound, and leans away from the plate. I take this as a sign that he’s bailing — either the throw’s going to be late, or it’s way off line. So, I focus on the plate, and step on the corner, just behind his back foot…

…just as he catches the barely-off-line ball, and turns back into me. Foot meets plate just as nose meets back of head. *crunch!*

The bleeding, if you’ve never witnessed a broken nose, is immediate. And profuse. As is the advice on what to do, though it took a while to reach a consensus. ‘Tilt your head back.‘ ‘No, lean forward to let it drain.‘ ‘Don’t breathe in through your nose.‘ (As if that was still possible.) ‘Give me your wallet.‘ Nice try.

Eventually, I heard this: ‘Look, I’m a nurse. If you tilt your head back, you might choke on the blood. So lean forward and hold this gauze under your nose.‘ Finally, a voice of reason. I did as she told me. See, I’m not so stubborn when somebody explains how I might die if I don’t do what they say. It’s all about the details.

So, after a while, the blood stopped flowing. Of course, I looked like hell. Blood on my face, blood on my shirt and shorts, and blood all over my nose. There was a lump forming just at the top of my nose, and at least one eye was starting to bruise. So, of course, as soon as the game was over, I did the only reasonable thing.

I immediately went out for beer with the team.

Now, hear me out here. I’m not a complete moron. I had a plan. See, for one thing, the bar we were going to was on the way to the hospital, which I could then walk to. It wasn’t a detour, so much as a pit stop along the way. And I wasn’t driving, so really, I just caught a ride to the bar, and then stopped in to socialize on my way to the hospital. Just being polite, you see.

For another thing, I wanted to see what I was dealing with before I let the docs prod and poke at me. And I knew the bar had a mirror in the bathroom, and a sink where I could clean up a bit and take inventory. So it was really just common sense to stop in, just for a second.

And, of course, when I got there, and saw the lump, I realized that my nose might indeed be broken. Which meant there was a possibility that it would have to be reset. And I hear that can be just a tad painful. So what better anesthesia than three or four… or however many… pints of Guinness? The docs won’t give you painkillers for that sort of piddling injury, so I was just helping myself. It only makes sense, folks.

So, eventually, I stumbled to the hospital. By that time, I couldn’t really feel my nose at all, so I was in pretty good shape. Anesthesia-wise, that is. Luckily, Sunday afternoons are pretty slow at this hospital (apparently), so it wasn’t long before someone came along to help me. The doc took a look, and a good long feel (of my nose, people, my nose — this is a hospital, not a friggin’ church), and declared that the cartilage was, indeed, fractured. But, it hadn’t displaced after breaking, so there was no need to reset it. Unless I had breathing problems, I’d be fine after the swelling subsided. Which was good news. On the other hand, I drank all that beer for nothing. Um, oh shucks. Don’t you hate when that happens?

So, that’s my story. From there, I walked home, and my nose has been okay ever since. Oh, sure, there’s a little bit of a lump at the top of it that you can’t really see, and it does crackle and pop a bit more than it used to, but otherwise, it’s the same old nose I used to have. So, medically speaking, there’s really not much to the story, I’m afraid. But as a Sunday afternoon story? Well, there’s beer, and softball, and bleeding, and heroically scoring a meaningless run on a shallow sacrifice fly. There’s really nothing more you could ask for. And — as I told the doc who worked on me — I did score that run. That team may have sent me to the hospital, but we lost that game by seven instead of eight, dammit, and that’s all I care about. That’s just the kind of crooked-nosed bastard I am.

55

Charlie’s “100 Things Posts About Me”

#55. My high school yearbook quote was a Husker Du song lyric.

Okay, so maybe that doesn’t make me the coolest person in the world — this blog does, of course, not the yearbook thing — but I was pretty proud of myself, nonetheless. While all the other kids were making up lame shit, or putting in Bible quotes, or pulling lyrics from lame Duran Duran or Rush tunes, I got my motto from the coolest thing to come out of Minnesota since… um, since… okay, let me get back to you on that one. I’ll have to check the encyclopedia to see whether anything cool ever came out of there before Bob Mould and the boys.

(Did the Replacements come first? They’d qualify for sure, but I’m not sure which band rocked and rolled before the other. Oh, and don’t give me any shit about Prince. Sorry, TAFKA Prince. (Hey, if he can drop the whole name, I can acronymize the explanation part. Anyway, he doesn’t need that ‘The Artist Formerly…’ crap. I’ve come up with a pronunciation for his little symbol, so we can all call him something much shorter again. It’s ‘Wha’. Just call him, ‘Wha’. If you have any trouble with it, just remember that it’s short for ‘Wha’ the hell happened to my fucking career? Hello? Is anybody still paying attention to me?‘ That oughta help.)

Anyway, for all (two) of you who are just dying to know what my quote was, I’ll tell you. It’s from the song ‘These Important Years‘, on the album Warehouse: Songs and Stories. (Which, by the way, I highly recommend, even fifteen or so years later. Husker Du kicked ass!)

So, the quote I liked is just before one of the choruses, and it goes like this:

If you don’t stop to smell the roses now, they might end up on you.

Of course, I thought it was exceptionally clever. The song — if you’re not familiar with it — is about appreciating your youth, and being thankful for what you have, and realizing that you’ve got it pretty damned good, and not to get caught up in all the day-to-day drama and unimportant shit. And the line above is a perfect summary — there’s metaphor, and a familiar saying, and the suggestion that worrying too much may ultimately kill you, and then the roses you never stopped to smell will be adorning your grave. It’s all very poignant and poetic, no? Oh, and deep. Don’t forget deep. It’s deeeeep, man.

So, of course, nobody fucking got it.

I walked around in the last month of high school explaining the quote to every dimwitted nimbulb who read it in the yearbook.

Them: ‘Whut’s that mean, man? Roses gunna end up on you? Whut?’

Me: ‘Well, it means you’ll be dead. If you don’t stop to enjoy life, then you’ll worry yourself to death. And they’ll put roses on your grave.’

Them: ‘Aw. Ukay, I gets it now. Don’t make much durn sense, tho’. You oughter use somethin’ from AC/DC, like ah did. Here’s mine: Hey Satan! Paid my dues, playing in a rockin’ band‘! Cool, huh? That there’s from Highway to Hell. Angus rocks! Yee-haw!’

Me: ‘Um, thanks, Cletus. Just put your ‘X’ in my yearbook and pass it back, would you? And stop drooling on the cover, dude. I don’t need to see that.’

Okay, maybe it wasn’t quite that bad. Still, those yokels had no idea how fucking cool it was. And clever, and deep. Oh so deep. I like to imagine my classmates pulling the yearbook out years later, to look up a picture or relive old times. And maybe they pass by the page with my picture on it, and stop to look at the goofy grinning guy. And then their eyes will wander down to my quote, and suddenly, in a flash of coherence, they’ll finally, completely get it. The fog will just melt away, and they’ll understand the significance, and the depth, and the utter coolness of it all. They’ll gaze into space, seeing their lives for the very first time. Maybe they’ll vow to live just a little bit differently, or make sweeping changes, but they’ll read the quote, and they’ll know, for the first time in their lives, how to finally be happy. Slowly, their eyes will refocus, and their mind will come back to the present, full of new energy and a world of possibilities. They’ll peer closer at the book, scrutinizing the face of the one who has brought them this newfound liberation.

‘Eh. He was still a fuckin’ dweeb.‘

What’s a visionary thinker have to do to get a little goddamned respect around here, anyway?!

54

Charlie’s “100 Things Posts About Me”

#54. I think that what is art should be art, and what is not, should not.

Okay, I’m not sure that makes any damned sense. Allow me to explain. No, really, allow me. I can do it. Just watch.

What I mean is, I like art. Paintings and sculptures and statues and all that shit. I’m down with art. But what I’m not down with is taking something that’s not art, and making it art. You know, something that you could actually use.

Take plates, for instance. Plates are not art. Plates are dinnerware. Dinner. Ware. When I see a plate in a frame on the wall, or in some holder on a mantel, I don’t think, ‘Hey, cool plate.‘ No. I think, ‘Goddammit, somebody could be eating pork chops off that thing right now!‘ Why would you take a perfectly good food holder out of circulation like that?

Now, I like to think I’m not unreasonable about this. I make exceptions for really, really old plates, for instance. If it’s so valuable that you wouldn’t want to risk using it, then by all means, pop it in a glass case and display it somewhere. But most of the ‘decorative plates’ you see are not valuable. They’re not even attractive, for the most part. The vast majority of these monstrosities would benefit from a heap of mashed potatos globbed onto them, to hide the cheesy flowers or Civil War diorama painted on the face.

But it’s not just plates, or even art, that burns my ass this way. I’m generally not a fan of anything that I’m told not to use the way it was meant to be used. When I was growing up, we had our living room, and then there was the ‘front room’, with the ‘nice couches’. And did we sit on the nice couches? No. Only when we had guests, nad we could all sit in the front room and ‘visit’. Grrrr. Why the fuck did we have couches, if not to sit on? What the hell kind of sense did that make? Oh, sure, I had to help dust ’em, and sweep the carpet around ’em, but sit on ’em? All by myself? Smack my little hand, no. Bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch.

And I feel the same way about art. If you can use something, then frickin’ use it. Don’t set it on a pedestal or frame it or put it in a box. Use it. That’s what it’s there for. By all means, go create pretty shit. Go paint, and sculpt, and crush pennies with those little machines. (The smashed-up pennies are pretty interesting, and the original coins are damned near useless, so I don’t have a problem with this.) But don’t commandeer perfectly good objects lying around with a purpose for their aesthetic potential.

Look, if you’re not convinced, look at it this way. Would we do the same thing to people? If there’s someone out there serving a valid purpose, but they’re really hot, do we whisk them away to be swimsuit models, never to contribute to society again? No, of course not. We let them continue to fill whatever role they’re playing. So Gabrielle Reece still plays volleyball, and Heather Graham still acts, and Anna Kournikova… um, loses tennis matches. And, er, does an awful lot of modeling. Okay, so she’s not the best example in the world.

But still! We don’t frame these people in wood and put ’em on the shelf because they’re beautiful; we let ’em do their damned jobs. And that’s all I ask of artists. Leave the useful shit out there alone. You want to make art out of these things? Paint a picture of ’em. Snap a photo. Or carve your own damn ‘art plate’ out of granite; I don’t care. But if you want to use a perfectly good plate, then it had better involve a sandwich, or some pork chops. I’m tired of you people raiding our kitchens and calling it a masterpiece. The plate stops here.