Bowsah!

I miss Mario. You know, the pudgy plumber with the mustache that looks like a barber’s comb.

Maybe you don’t know, which means you either grew up prior to the video game era, or you have what we nerds like to call a “life.” To us, such a thing is a mythical concept, like Zeus, and you should enjoy it. Life, I mean, not Zeus.

But you probably have a vague inkling of who Mario is, or at least have seen him in some context. I was introduced to him at the wee age of eight, when I unwrapped a birthday gift and beheld the Nintendo Entertainment System, an ugly gray box that promised cutting-edge interactive adventures of the future. Considering these adventures looked blockier than a pile of Legos, the future apparently was a long time ago.

Our plucky plumber looked a lot different on the screen in those days. His red cap, perched atop his head like a stray animal, had the rough, jagged contours of an off-the-rack trucker hat; his mustache was depicted by an ugly brown smudge, which coincidentally is how many men’s mustaches are depicted in real life. His red overalls were barely discernible through their rudimentary illustration, and his square nose stuck out in front of him like a gravitationally-bound UPS package.

At all times, there are a million child’s drawings on a million refrigerators that are more skilled, and truer to life, than the pixelated mess that gave birth to the iconic video game character. But if you were a kid in 1989, and had only heard about the sun from eyewitness reports, then there was nothing better than curling up in front of the TV set with a square four-button controller, and saving the world from giant talking turtles with red mohawks. I’m not having a stroke; that’s a real bad guy.

If you leafed through the instruction booklet, you could see drawings of what Mario was supposed to look like: Hat a little more streamlined, ‘stache a little more stylish. It just took imagination to see him like that while you were playing. That’s exactly what made the game worthwhile, and not just a frittering away of precious childhood: Imagination. In that Disney-esque fantasy was a storybook quality – a whimsy that inspired a child to envision what an adult can only see with the aid of powerful hallucinogenic drugs. Which reminds me, the weekend’s coming up.

It may seem odd that I’m waxing nostalgic about an industry that’s only slightly older than I am, but the changes that have taken place over the intervening decades – advances in technology and graphics – have sucked away some of the otherworldliness that made those old titles such a head trip. Games aren’t content to just be games, anymore; they have to mimic reality in some way. As if I don’t get enough reality in my day-to-day life. If developers really want to hold a mirror up to reality, they’ll make a game where you wait for twenty minutes at the supermarket checkout while someone in front of you counts out exact change for a can of peas.

I was visiting a friend of mine recently – we’ll call him “Rex,” to make him sound as much like a Labrador as possible – and he was playing what’s called a “first-person shooter,” in which the goal is to navigate a real-world environment and mow people down with a bevy of intimidating weapons. Because the graphics were so advanced, the terrain was photographic in its realism; if it weren’t for the computer characters gushing blood after a grenade explosion, it could have passed for a tourism ad touting Afghanistan’s hot vacation spots. And of course, Rex was playing the game on a 50-inch high-definition TV, which I think is one size bigger than the screen the President consults in the Situation Room.

The effect on me was to produce an odd sense of vertigo. Leaving Rex’s man-cave was like stepping off a roller coaster on legs made of wax paper.

Violence issues aside (a topic I won’t even touch here), the super-realism made the game seem more like a stressful ordeal than a light pastime. It relies too heavily on a serious, real-world situation. That’s wholly unlike the imaginings of a generation ago, in which the controllable character’s most dire fate was getting bitten by a cartoon beetle with wings and aviator glasses.

I guess every generation has its nostalgia-inducing technology. My parents have upgraded to a high-def TV, but still reminisce fondly about their first black-and-white sets. My grandfather thinks most modern cars look like electric shavers.

And now I’ve got games, un-romantic as they may be. Luckily, Mario’s still around – he looks a bit better these days, more like something out of a Pixar movie than a Lego builder’s fever dream. I just miss the days when that’s all there was: A Dr. Seuss fantasyland, the colorful realization of a child’s half-baked whimsy. That the genre still exists at all is heartening.

 Because if I want reality, I don’t buy it in a store. I just put the controller down.

Ad men

If beer is the nectar of the gods, brought down to we humans by toga-wearing deities – which seems about as good an explanation as anything else – then beer commercials are the work of the devil. Or whoever the bad guy is in Greek mythology, I forget. The Shredder or something.

That might seem like a surprising position given that I’m a dude. (I think “man” might be taking it a bit too far.) After all, I’m the beer ad industry’s target demographic: Youngish, male, breathing, and heterosexual. If the good folks at Anheuser-Busch were seeking out a focus group to screen their latest televised ode to booze-swilling masculinity, a guy like me would be the first one invited. Or maybe second, behind the burly fellow with the New England Patriots logo tattooed on his chest.

And yet here I am, impervious to the industry’s tireless exhortations that I drink more beer, eat more pizza and wings, watch more football, and scratch myself in more places. Actually, I’ll happily oblige that last one.

Now in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I’m the son of a former bar owner. When a bar owner sets about decorating his or her establishment, they buy a lot of beer signs and paraphernalia – calendars, lights and such – and tend to keep these nic-nacs in a somewhat fluid rotation, updating some items, retiring others, and maintaining a fresh look for their patrons. A lot of the retired stuff from my dad’s bar would find its way to a back room in the house in which I was raised – so I remember, from a very young age, walking into that room and seeing the detritus of the beer industry’s attempts at attention-grabbing: Giant cardboard cut-outs of gleaming beer cans straddled by scantily-clad women; mirrors with etched tableaus of Rocky Mountain vistas, often featuring scantily-clad women; and bulbous inflated balloons of gaudy beer blimps, sometimes decorated with – you guessed it – scantily-clad women. Come to think of it, my childhood was pretty sweet.

All that exposure to beer merchandise had a desensitizing effect, so that now, when I’m assaulted by televised ads depicting belching manly men living it up on train cars shaped like Coors Light cans, my guard is up. I know from childhood experience, of all things, what the beer barons are trying to do: Appeal to my masculinity. Beer drinkers, they reckon, are a hairy-knuckled, testosterony bunch, who eat a lot of meat and leave the toilet seat up, often at the same time. We wear sports jerseys and host barbecues, dopily rub our bellies and yell at television sets. And women, they figure, roll their collective eyes in bemusement, shrug their shoulders, and gamely join in the debauchery, kicking back a few brewskis while keeping their husbands’ unruly man-ness in check. That is, when they’re not playing volleyball in bikinis that would barely cover a box of Junior Mints.

Okay. So the ads aren’t all bad.

But they do reinforce some pretty lazy gender stereotypes. It isn’t even really the stereotypes themselves, caricatures that they are, which truly bother me. It’s the lack of creativity. They can’t portray the truth, of course; that would make for a pretty boring ad, as we the audience would be witness to a full 30 seconds of sad sack Harry Pitts sipping a can of Budweiser and farting into his couch. For a lot of us (i.e., me), that hits a little too close to home. Too dull.

But aside from Super Bowl ads, which are occasionally less than cringe-worthy, the alternatives offered aren’t much better. Here’s an ad the beer people may want to consider.

Popeye the Sailor has just seen his true love, Olive Oil, abducted by that old rapscallion, Bluto. Popeye follows his nemesis to the edge of a cliff, where Bluto threatens to jump with Olive onto a schooner waiting in the choppy waters below. Our plucky hero reaches under his shirt – which, in the world of cartoons, can safely house a coat rack, an old Studebaker, and a dead mongoose with nary a bulge – and pulls out a can of warm beer. Popeye downs the can in three quick gulps, his muscles start to bulge, he takes a swing... and misses Bluto completely, because he’s drunk off his animated keester. He falls off the cliff and onto the schooner, where he’s greeted by a throng of sailors toting cases of Schlitz. Bluto and Olive watch in confusion as Popeye downs a half-gallon of skunk beer, makes an ill-advised pass at the captain’s daughter, and then relinquishes his lunch to the sea.

It’s adequately goofy for a beer ad, and yet somehow real. Still, there’s something missing.

It’s Olive Oil. She should definitely be wearing a bikini.

Diary of a movie man

The following diary entries were discovered near the body of Theodore Ruxpin, who died outside a local movie theater in a puddle of congealed popcorn butter. Found stuffed into his trousers, next to a half-eaten box of Milk Duds and a pocket guide to South American tree frogs, the scribblings contained therein detail a mind unraveling in the face of rising ticket prices and uninspired Hollywood drivel. The last page of his diary has been submitted for your consideration. Let this serve as a cautionary tale. Our thoughts, and stern warnings, go out to the many millions who may be tempted to follow in the footsteps of his foolhardy rebellion. Also, he had a mullet. Never grow a mullet.
 
9:30 a.m. Ahh, Saturdays. Gotta love ‘em. A little less, maybe, now that Garfield and Friends is off the air. But they’re still great. My jammies itch. Time to fix my customary breakfast of Lucky Charms and vodka.

10 a.m. So I’m trying to plan my day, and I’m having a hard time deciding whether I want to go see a movie, or continue working on my life-sized papier-mâché sculpture of Lyndon Johnson’s dog. The ears are almost done. Still, it’s been forever since I’ve been out to a cinema. The last time was when I saw “Avatar,” and the 3D effects made me so sick I spent half the movie in the bathroom, reintroducing myself to that ill-advised box of Skittles. Talk about tasting the rainbow.

10:15 a.m. Checking out the listings now. The only movie I recognize is “A Good Day to Die Hard.” What is that, like, the 12th Die Hard movie now? I remember the last one had that guy in it from the Apple commercials. It was putrid. A giant, fetid, smelly pile of horse dung. But hey, that was probably just a fluke, right? I mean, the first couple were decent, and Hollywood wouldn’t let a decent series deteriorate just to crank out drivel and cash in on the brand. Right?

10:20 a.m. Okay. “Die Hard” it is. Now I have to figure out who to go with. I can’t ask Bruno ‘cause he’s on a peace mission to Africa, building ergonomic spears for tribespeople with carpal tunnel syndrome. Hubert is still peeved at me for setting his girlfriend’s hair on fire and then putting it out with pickle juice. Gwen still has that restraining order against me. I’ll ask Blair. Blair’s a cool guy. Kinda has a weak constitution and loud noises make him panic, but I don’t think that’ll be an issue.

10:26 a.m. Blair’s in. We’re gonna have burgers and a beer or two at the restaurant adjacent to the cinema, then head over to theater 12 for the 7:30 showing. Already bought the tickets on the web site. Pretty convenient, how you can do that now. I’m not great at the online thing, though. I had eBay open in a separate window, and I think I accidentally bought a piece of toast with the image of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar burned into it. Stupid Internet.

12:15 p.m. Lunch. Chicken fingers and Yoohoo. This does not bode well.

7:15 p.m. Okay, that beer or two? Yeah, I forgot what a drinker Blair is. Had to ditch him in the lobby after he took his shirt off and started singing Elton John’s “Rocket Man.”

7:20 p.m. Watching the previews, and I gotta say, some of the trends nowadays are a little disturbing. I’ve been keeping track, and here are the previews so far: Vampire flick, vampire flick, zombie flick, vampires, vampires, animated film about stock-car-racing giraffes, zombies, zombies, and a Sally Field movie about 19th-century Canadian butter churners. Is this all the studios can offer us? Twenty, thirty years ago, Hollywood was still cranking out original stories. Dialogue was interesting. We weren’t bombarded by soulless computer effects, and following a good movie was like following a good book. Now everything’s adapted from crummy teen novels, and each movie is the echo of something else, just another in a long assembly line of crap based on focus groups and demographic targeting. Oh well. Watching the fifth movie in a series that was over by 1994 should put me in a better mood.

8:30 p.m. What. The. Hell.

9 p.m. Okay, now I’m losing my temper. Seriously. The ticket, plus concessions, cost me about 87 bucks, and what do I get in return? Two hours in a dark room with Bruce Willis, who seems almost as bored with the movie as I am. Now I remember why I don’t come out anymore. My chest feels tight. That can’t be good.

9:20 p.m. I’m taking someone hostage and demanding my money back.

9:30 p.m. Man, my chest really does feel tight. Ditching the hostage idea, but suddenly, standing outside the theater and shouting obscenities at the marquee seems like a really good idea.

I just hope this pain isn’t anything serious. I kinda want to see that giraffe movie.

I wear my sunglasses at night... court

I owe a shout-out to the good folks who do the screenings at York County Superior Court.

If you’ve never been to that Alfred courthouse, it means two things: 1) You’ve never sold crystal meth to a Hell’s Angel, severely beaten an epileptic circus clown, or done anything else that would land you there, and 2) You have no idea what I mean by “screenings.” Well, it’s simple, really. To keep lawyers, journalists, jugglers, and Emilio Estevez from sneaking suspicious materials into the courthouse, you empty your pockets and put it on one of those X-ray conveyor-belt thingies while you walk through a metal detector. It’s kind of a scaled-down version of what you would go through at the airport, although mercifully, the folks at court don’t make us take off our shoes. I wouldn’t want people to know I attend proceedings wearing Garfield and Odie socks.

It’s a common-sense safety measure, one that assures the law-abiding that there’s no one skulking around the stairwells with a pair of nunchucks, waiting to go all ninja on someone. But if you’re a person like me, who carries enough provisions in his pockets to survive a hike through the Gobi Desert, all that transferring of personal effects increases the likelihood that something’ll go missing. Last week, it was my sunglasses. My prescription sunglasses. The sunglasses that allow me to drive to and fro without plowing into mailboxes, trash cans, and the melting snowman near my home that looks like Joe Lieberman.

Truth is, I’m one of those poor schlubs who’s always losing things. Maybe you are, too. If you’re not, you probably know one – we all do. The grandmother who keeps leaving her car keys in the freezer next to the vodka; the cousin who wears a single glove to shovel the driveway because he hasn’t seen the other one since “the incident” in 1987. And me. The jerk who was once given a nice hand-knitted scarf by his mother, then lost it a week later while running across the street to beat traffic. I’d still have it if I had been more patient. On the bright side, I didn’t get killed by anyone driving without prescription glasses.

When it comes to keeping track of our personal effects, some of us have it, some of us don’t. Going to court last week, I carried only a small handful of items: My sunglasses, hat, notebook, spare pen, and the mints I’m constantly eating, in case anyone wants to randomly make out with me. (No takers yet, but I’m hopeful.)

You’d think it’d be easy enough to keep track of a load that small. There exists, however, a small contingent among us whose pockets are capable of swallowing bric-a-brac and making it disappear as irrevocably as does a flushing toilet. I could keep two live cats and a pool cue in my pants, and by the end of the day the only traces left would be a handful of whiskers and a piece of felt.

And of course, being afflicted with an especially powerful case of lose-stuff-itis, I had to lose the most important object in my possession. It couldn’t have been the spare pen that went missing, or the mints, which would have left me with onion breath but otherwise intact. No, it had to be the one item the lack of which represents a legitimate safety hazard for slow-moving pedestrians.

That’s pretty much the way it goes, I’ve found. You never lose the stuff that doesn’t matter. You lose the class rings, the car keys, the autographed David Ortiz baseball with the thumbprint that looks like Zimbabwe. But the crumpled, losing lottery ticket and that one loose penny left over from your spending spree at the Gap will be turning up between the sofa cushions until the end of time.

Luckily, there’s a happy ending to this particular tale of woe.

I had left the much ballyhooed sunglasses behind with the screeners, naturally – simply left them on the conveyor belt. After a frenzied, white-knuckle search, there they were, being held out to me by a smiling gentleman unaware that he had just staved off my inevitable ulcer for one more day.

Pedestrians, puppies, and traffic cones – all safe for now, thanks to the fine glasses-holding team of screeners at the courthouse. Thanks, guys.

I just hope I can hold onto them this time. Otherwise, some driver on Route 111 will soon be toting around an angry, squinty hitchhiker with a touch of mint on his breath.

The scent of pledge

Ah, the pledge. It brings back memories.

Not the pledge that smokers make to quit tobacco, usually right before sucking down half a pack of Winstons behind the garage while the spouse is out playing bingo. No, the pledge of allegiance. That weird rote that gets us up off our duffs to half-heartedly proclaim our devotion to country.

Most of us associate the pledge with school. We’ve all done it. You walk into your grade school classroom, all innocent and dewy-eyed and ready to learn, and after shaking the snow from your boots and making armpit farts under your juice-stained T-shirt, you see your teacher stand and face the flag, hand over her heart. Classmates become quiet, the only sound in the room the scraping of chair legs against cold tile as everyone rises from their seats in unison. Then you launch into it, only half-aware of what you’re saying: “I pledge allegiance to the flag...”

Then everyone sits back down and colors farm animals with nubby little crayons. It’s one those universal experiences, like walking out of a theater in disgust during a Pauley Shore movie.

For the longest time, I thought my days of doing the pledge were over. Not that it’s an inherently childish activity, but school just seems to be the one place where it’s compulsory, a daily ritual as ingrained as drinking milk out of those soggy, infuriating little cardboard boxes.

Then I started attending meetings of various boards of selectmen. Some boards do the pledge, some don’t; I was astonished the first time it happened, just due to the random nostalgia of it. Afterward, I half-expected the chairperson to bounce over with a pair of pom-poms and ask me to the Sadie Hawkins dance, just in time for the homeroom bell. Apparently, when I flash back to school, I edit history to make myself the kind of guy who would be asked to a Sadie Hawkins dance.

The words came back easily, and why not? I recited the pledge almost every day of my life for years stacked upon years; I could have shown up to the meeting stumblebum-drunk and still spit it out flawlessly. But the question occurred to me: Why are we doing this?

 There’s nothing wrong with expressing fealty to one’s country, especially if it’s voluntary. It’s just that there isn’t much of a point. If you’re a true-blue patriot, the kind of person whose heart swells at the thought of Washington crossing the Delaware, then the pledge is superfluous. It won’t add to your national pride any more than a whisper will add to a full-throated scream. If you’re not a patriot, and you plan on ditching the States for an uncharted island so you can shun the establishment and spend your days talking to a volleyball, then the pledge won’t change that, either. Words are words; the unfeeling are perfectly capable of saying them without meaning them. A pledge is not a spell – it can’t instill national pride with the wave of a magic wand.

Plus it’s a little creepy.

Especially in a classroom setting. Picture it: Row upon row of children, all staring wide-eyed at the flag, all unmoving, all rhythmically reciting words programmed into them by well-meaning adults. If this was a Stephen King novel, that would be followed by a scene in which the kids sacrifice their teacher to the demonic boogermonster living in Jimmy Federman’s locker.

It’s not that I’m anti-pledge, exactly. It’s just that nobody, especially a child, should be forced to say it. And apparently, the Supreme Court agrees with me: In 1943, it ruled that public school students aren’t required to recite the pledge, saying that a democratic republic built on the freedom of dissent, with a First Amendment protecting a person’s right to refrain from speaking, makes it unconstitutional to foist it on the unwilling.

When the selectmen stand and do it, I stand with them, but I don’t say the pledge. My silence has nothing to do with my feelings about America. Heck, I live in a country where beer, burgers, and edible underwear are all waiting for me just around the corner. Take that, North Korea.

But if I’ve got a right to remain silent, then doggonit, I’m going to exercise it. And you know what? That’s pretty American, too.