my first girl is gone

Farrah Fawcett lost her long battle with cancer today. She was just 62. She left the world far too soon.

When Farrah burst on the scene in 1976 on 'Charlie's Angels', I was about 12 years-old. I had had a crush or two on girls my age, but...WHAM! There was Farrah. I was captivated. I was smitten. That hair, that smile, those two protrusions in the red bathing suit (see above)...

Farrah was the first woman that I fell in love with. She became my girl. I was obsessed. I collected her posters and magazines featuring articles about her. I cut photos of her out of newspapers. Collecting images of Farrah became my passion. My corner of the bedroom I shared with my younger brother, in those days, became a virtual shrine to a woman I would never meet. I still have most of that collection packed away.

I remember an uncle of mine telling my mother that, at the very least, my Farrah obsession confirmed I wasn't gay. Why that mattered to my uncle, I was never quite sure. How questionable was my behavior toward the opposite sex that my uncle would be relieved by my love for Farrah? I was only 12. Come on!

My obsession with Farrah lasted well into high school. I had drawn several portraits of her, read one of her unofficial biographies, I even wrote a biographical paper on her for a high school writing class during my senior year. For a time, I took to adding a little "FF" to my signature on my drawings. The "FF" stood for "Farrah Freak", which is what fellow classmates took to calling me.

(Incidentally, the paper I wrote about Farrah was to be given three grades: one for research, one for composition, and one for grammar. I received three As on the paper. My teacher spotted me in the cafeteria on the day the graded papers were to be returned, and told me she could tell I really liked my subject. I wish I had held onto that paper. It would be nice to read it now.)

The years and my obsession passed. I became more interested in women I actually knew. (Although I wasn't any luckier with them then I would have been with Farrah. Oh, woe is me.) I didn't go to her movies, but I did watch her triumphant performance in 'The Burning Bed' and her not so triumphant performance in 'Cannonball Run'. I had long since dropped the "FF" from my signature. I moved on.

Occasionally, I would note some of her doings with mild interest. Such as her very short-lived sit-com with Ryan O'Neal, 'Good Sports'; her appearance on Arsenio Hall's show and thinking her legs looked damn good; her less than flattering appearance on David Letterman's show; her two nude photo layouts in Playboy (Ok, the Playboy stuff was a bit more than mildly interesting.), but the feeling wasn't the same. The crush was gone.

Then came the cancer. She seemed to handle it well. She was going to fight it with everything she had. And she fought hard. In the end, as will happen to us all, death claimed her.

Now, I feel just a little bit older, a little bit emptier, a little bit lonlier. A big part of my youth is gone. I will miss Farrah Fawcett, she was my first girl.

FF

something soon

I just realized I haven't written anything this month. I'm having some difficulty with coming up with ideas for topics. I'll work on it and post something soon.

I hope.

Is this what they call writer's block?

what world does curious george live in?

I have a 5 year-old son and, because I do, I end up watching plenty of children’s programming. Programming I would otherwise be very unlikely to ever watch. Now, I know it’s for kids. And I know anything is possible in cartoonland, but some of this stuff really drives me crazy.

My wife and I have our son watch the kids’ programming that can be found on PBS and a few of the shows are pretty good. I like ‘Fetch’, ‘Arthur’, and, especially, ‘Word Girl’. ‘Word Girl’ is particularly good because the producers realize that adults may be watching so why not entertain them too?

There is one program, however, that consistently gets under my skin. It’s ‘Curious George’. What world does this monkey live in? Believe me, I try to suspend my disbelief, but it gets so difficult when George causes so much damage. He floods the apartment building he lives in, he steals the other tenants’ recyclable goods before the items have been used, he splashes paint all over an empty apartment. He never gets in trouble! The Man in the Yellow Hat must be worth millions or have quite the insurance policy to cover all the damage this monkey does.

In George’s world, people don’t realize he’s a monkey. Well, they do, but they treat him as though he’s human. In one rather excruciating episode, George finds himself in a department store that has a candy counter run by an incredibly stupid woman. Naturally, she and George hit it off.

By the way, Mr. Yellow Hat is constantly leaving George on his own, even though he should know that any time George is left alone, mayhem ensues.

The candy counter lady realizes that she’s running low on supplies so she leaves George (a monkey!) in charge and traipses off, in the middle of the day, to get supplies. Supplies she should have realized she needed earlier. Doesn’t she ever do inventory? Can’t she temporarily close the candy counter? Can’t she have the supplies delivered?

Nope, she leaves the monkey in charge.

What had been a slow day at the candy counter suddenly becomes very busy, now that the human has left. Do any of the customers find it unusual that there is a monkey waiting on them? Do any of them consider that the monkey, being a monkey, may have difficulty comprehending their orders? Of course not!

George makes a huge mess of the candy counter and ends up giving away almost all the candy. Somehow the moronic humans thought he was giving away free samples. But what was George to do? He’s a monkey!!

The numbskull gal finally returns. She sees her station in shambles and realizes that George (the monkey!) had given away so many free samples that, even if she sells all that is left, she won’t be able to afford new inventory. She’ll have to go out of business.

George is sorry and says something in monkey language. I think it translates to something like, “What did you expect, dumbass? You left your business in the care of a monkey!”

This is PBS cartoonland after all, so nothing really bad happens. Somehow, despite her certainty of bankruptcy, she gets so many customers because of George’s samples give away, she stays in business. I don’t know how she managed that. Talk about voodoo economics.

Seriously, one of the biggest problems with the PBS kids’ shows is the fact that no one ever really gets in trouble. With the exception of ‘Arthur’ on which the kids get grounded or some other consequence for carelessness or bad behavior, PBS cartoon characters are always just forgiven when they say they’re sorry. “Oh, that’s ok. It was an accident.”

My wife has said that she thinks PBS is more concerned that kids understand they should apologize for mistakes or bad behavior. I agree that is important, but it’s also important that kids learn that careless or bad behavior may result in loss of privileges or trust. Why adjust your behavior if all you have to do is say, “Sorry” and all is forgiven?

But, in Curious George’s case, what can you do? He’s a monkey.

my awesome 80s mix tapes

Remember mix tapes? Sure you do, cassette tape technology isn’t completely dead yet. Like so many of those who grew up through the 70s and 80s, I made quite a few mix tapes.

I started making mix tapes (I usually refer to them as compilation tapes) while in my second year of art school, 1984/85. A fellow student, Tim, then in his first year, introduced me to the concept of making a cassette tape filled with your favorite music. Since then I’ve made more than a hundred tapes with some way cool music.

At first, I would simply number them, but later I’d come up with titles for the tapes. Titles such as: “Uganda, what?”; “Much Too Much Eric Clapton” (featuring not a single song by Clapton); “Public Highway, Baby”; and, my favorite title, “A Constant Bombardment of Frenzied, Heathen Discord”. I took that title for a pamphlet I found somewhere. The pamphlet was put out by a couple Evangelist Christian brothers warning of the dangers of rock ‘n’ roll.

Sometime in 1994, while watching some late night TV, I saw a commercial advertising a CD series called “Awesome 80s”. The ad featured a couple of dudes all 80s’d out, speaking of the virtues of all the awesome 80s music. Awesome?

The collection these two dorks were hawking was as mainstream as anything could be. While in art school, I discovered truly awesome music. I was into the indie scene. Punk, post-punk, ska, new wave, etc. The TV collection consisted of Journey, Lisa Lisa & the whatever the hell they were called, Kim Carnes, Air Supply, Foreigner, blah, blah, blah, yuck!

“How lame!” I thought to myself. (The picture above pretty much demonstrates how lousy it was, although I'm not sure it is the actual CD that I saw offered.) So, I got right to work putting together my own “Awesome 80s” compilation tape series. Initially, I did two 110 minute long cassettes back in 1994, then, just this year; I did two more 90 minutes cassettes worth of music.

I had rules that I followed in choosing what artists and which of their songs to include. The first rule is obvious – all songs had to have been released in the 80s. Second, only one song per artist could be included. However, if a performer was part of a band and also released solo material in the 80s, one song could be included from each (e.g. Peter Murphy & Bauhaus). Or if one band became another band and both released music in the 80s (e.g. XTC & The Dukes of Stratosphear). The third rule was – all songs must be cool. A couple songs may be considered mainstream, but they are still good enough to be included.

If you are the kind of person who thinks the TV version of “Awesome 80s” sounds good, you probably won’t know most of the songs I put in my four volume set.

I will list each volume’s songlist without further comment. Rest assured, though, each song is great and worthy of a listen. Worthy of a thousand listens!!

Volume I

‘Eighties’ - Killing Joke
‘I Will Dare’ - The Replacements
‘To Hell with Poverty’ - Gang of Four
‘Death of a European’ – The Three Johns
‘In Between Days’ – The Cure
‘Spinning Round’ – Red Lorry Yellow Lorry
‘Apeman Hop’ – Ramones
‘This Damn Nation’ – The Godfathers
‘She’s In Parties’ – Bauhaus
‘Alice’s House’ – The Psychedelic Furs
‘Rise’ – Public Image Ltd.
‘One Day in Your Life’ – 54-40
‘Give Me Back My Man’ – The B-52’s
‘Uncertain Smile’ – The The
‘Come To Milton Keyes’ – The Style Council
‘Into My Hands’ – The Church
‘So. Central Rain’ – REM
‘Smooth Operator’ – Sade
‘Respectable Street’ – XTC
‘Like Wow, Wipe Out’ – Hoodoo Gurus
‘How Soon Is Now’ – The Smiths
‘Cities in Dust’ – Siouxsie & the Banshees
‘Ahead’ – Wire
‘Through Being Cool’ – Devo
‘Vamos’ – Pixies
‘Newest Industry’ – Husker Du
‘Jordan, MN’ – Big Black
‘Envoye’ – The Young Gods
‘Those Who Move’ – Naked Raygun
‘No Time to Cry’ – Sisters of Mercy

Volume II

‘Once in a Lifetime’ – Talking Heads
‘Telephone Operator’ – Pete Shelley
‘Driving the Dynamite Truck’ – Breaking Circus
‘The High Road’ – The Feelies
‘Rescue’ – Echo & the Bunnymen
‘Mandinka’ – Sinead O’Connor
‘Swamp Thing’ – The Chameleons UK
‘Ceremony’ – New Order
‘Never Before, Never Again’ – The dB’s
‘Wild Blue Yonder’ – The Screaming Blue Messiahs
‘Message of Love’ – The Pretenders
‘Precious’ – The Jam
‘Cruiser’s Creek’ – The Fall
‘Marlene on the Wall’ – Suzanne Vega
‘Ivo’ – Cocteau Twins
‘Another Bubble’ – Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians
‘A Song from Under the Floorboards’ – Magazine
‘Big Decision’ – That Petrol Emotion
‘Marimba’ – Red Guitars
‘A Pagan Place’ – The Waterboys
‘Say Goodbye’ – Hunters & Collectors
‘Love is the Law’ – The Suburbs
‘Snake Dance’ – The March Violets
‘Emmarita’ – The Whole Lotta Loves
‘Let’s Get Married’ – The Celibate Rifles
‘Here Comes the Rain’ – The Cult
‘Independence Day’ – Urban Guerrillas

Volume III

‘Final Solution’ – Peter Murphy
‘Canary in a Coalmine’ – The Police
‘24’ – Game Theory
‘Scorpio Rising’ – 10,000 Maniacs
‘Free Yourself’ – The Untouchables
‘True Men Don’t Kill Coyotes’ – Red Hot Chili Peppers
‘Garbageman’ – The Cramps
‘Let’s See the Sun’ – The Fleshtones
‘We’re So Cool’ – Au Pairs
‘Nothing Means Nothing Anymore’ – The Alley Cats
‘Games without Frontiers’ – Peter Gabriel
‘E = mc² ’ – Big Audio Dynamite
‘What Do You Know?’ – Buzzcocks
‘Here Comes the Rain Again’ – Eurythmics
‘Gone Daddy Gone’ – The Violent Femmes
‘Units’ – Man-Sized Action
‘Beatle Boots’ – Love Tractor
‘Above It Now’ – Figures
‘Motorcrash’ – The Sugarcubes
‘Go!’ – Tones on Tail
‘Everything Counts’ – Depeche Mode
‘Sour Grapes’ – The Descendents
‘Police on My Back’ – The Clash
‘Shut Out the Light’ – Steve Diggle
‘Insanely Jealous’ – The Soft Boys
‘Cloudbusting’ – Kate Bush

Volume IV

‘Well, Well, Well’ – The Woodentops
‘The Metro’ – Berlin
’Jean’s Not Happening’ – The Pale Fountains
‘Carpathia Girl’ – Laughing Stock
‘Party at Ground Zero’ – Fishbone
‘Sensoria’ – Cabaret Voltaire
‘Ball of Confusion’ – Love & Rockets
‘Let My Love Open the Door’ – Pete Townshend
‘Love Kills’ – Joe Strummer
‘Levitation’ – The Mighty Mofos
‘Certain Things are Likely’ – KTP
‘Poplife’ – Prince & the Revolution
‘Ashes to Ashes’ – David Bowie
‘World Destruction’ – Time Zone
‘Nemesis’ – Shreikback
‘(Kind of) True’ – Golden Palominos
‘Date with a Vampyre’ – The Screaming Tribesmen
‘Some Candy Talking’ – The Jesus & Mary Chain
‘Just for the Moment’ – Get Smart
‘TV Party!’ – Black Flag

That’s more than one hundred kick ass, crazy good songs. Certainly better than most of the stuff you could get in that TV offer. A lot of these songs can be found on iTunes. Look for them. Enjoy!

world's coolest toys pt. 1: ghost of capt. kidd

I collect old toys. I should say I used to collect old toys. I no longer have the disposable income I once did. To tell the truth, I never really had the disposable income and yet I would collect old toys.

Not just any old toys, I collected the toys that I or a friend or relative had when I was a child. I used to say that I was buying back my childhood. One toy at a time.

There is one toy, however, foolishly given up in my youth, that has eluded my ability to buy back. It's an action figure that was put out by Matchbox Toys. It was part of their "Fighting Furies" pirate series and he was called the Ghost of Capt. Kidd.

In 1975, when I was ten years-old, I was looking through the Sears Christmas catalog, something every kid must have done in those days, when I spotted him. There he was, the Ghost of Capt. Kidd. He was pictured with two or three other pirate figures, but I didn't care about them. I wanted the ghost.

I saved up my allowance money and, when I had enough, my mom ordered it for me. I don't remember how long I waited, but I'm sure it felt like weeks and weeks.

When the fairly plain and unassuming package arrived, I was beside myself with excitement. It was worth the wait, because it was such a great toy. It had a button on its side that you could push to simulate sword fighting. And though it was a bit smaller than my Johnny West and GI Joe, it had a feature that they didn't. It could glow in the dark!

To this day, kids dig just about anything if it glows in the dark. Matchbox had the brilliant idea of painting, in pale white, a skull and skeleton on the figure. So, he didn't just glow, he glowed so you could see his ghostly skeletal structure. It was a very cool and eerie effect.

Glowing in the dark! How cool is that?!

The Captain quickly became one of my favorite toys. I would frequently bring it over to my friend Todd's house, along with my other action figures, and Todd and I would play with his GI Joe action set and his actions figures for hours.

Once I left the Captain at Todd's at the end of one of our adventures. I had to go home. I think Todd may have asked me to leave the Captain, so he could play with it some more. Todd was very good to his toys, so I wasn't too worried about him having one of mine for a while longer. The only thing is is his family then went on vacation. They would be gone for at least a week and I'd be damned if I would be without such a favored toy for so long.

I hatched a plan.

Todd's house had an attached garage which led to their basement. I knew that his family never locked the garage door (those were the days). My plan was simple: I would head over to his house, open the garage door just enough for me to crawl under, go in, and get my toy.

I'm certain the statute of limitations has long since past, so I can tell you now. My plan worked like a charm. I retrieved my toy and no one was the wiser. I don't think Todd ever knew I'd broken into his house. And I was single-minded. There was no taking of any of his toys or comic books, no stealing money, no going through his older sister's underwear drawer (Come on! I was only ten!). I was there for the Captain and that's all I took.

The Shroud of Turin?

As with so many of the other toys of my youth, the Ghost of Capt. Kidd went away. No doubt, sold at a garage sale. How I have grown to regret giving him up.

I've never been able to get him back. I've seen him on eBay a couple of times and once came close to getting him, but, at the last moment, someone swiped him away from me. Now my money is needed for more mundane things. You know, food, clothing, mortgage. Nothing so exciting as the Ghost of Capt. Kidd.

I just called Mattel and asked if they'd consider reissuing the Fighting Furies, especially the Captain. Toy companies have been known to reissue toys from time to time.

They might. Pirates are so hot right now... in Somalia.