The Third Reich 'n' Roll

The album that put the Residents on the collective map...

** Side One:  Swastikas on Parade

** Side Two:  Hitler Was A Vegetarian

* Note German censorship of album cover

Noted psychoanalyst Erik Erikson professed that humans go through eight stages of psychosocial development in their lifetime; the most significant stages, obviously, being the earliest.  According to Erikson, all early stages were meant to prepare the human for stage seven: Middle Adulthood (35-55). 

When I was eight years old, my Uncle Larry (AKA: Donald to you) felt it time to introduce a 'proper music education'.  In his infinite wisdom, the first album he ever played for me was the Residents' Third Reich 'n' Roll.  Within minutes, I became so disturbed that I began to cry.  His reaction, at least initially, was to turn up the volume and laugh at me.

Being ten years older than myself, I have no doubt that the end result that day was exactly what he intended.  Teenagers, after all, have cruel streaks in them.  Had he known that his act of sonic terrorism would set me on a bohemian-laced, avant gardening path, he probably would have been twice as pleased with himself.

We all could use an Uncle Larry in our lives.

The Come On Story

Or... Obscurity never sounded so good.

Artists do their purest work in obscurity, with minimum feedback from any kind of audience. With no audience to consider, artists are free to create work that is true to their own vision.

- N. Senada's Theory of Obscurity

In an attempt to educate my daughter without the benefit of spoken word (because the spoken word is passe these days), I went through a spell several years ago where I wrote mini blurbs on the various musicians I feel important enough to share with her.  Considering I have only gotten her into two point five of the artists featured, I am leaning towards learning Sign Language as means of communication.

I could probably get more across.

R-L: George Elliott, Ralf Mann, Jamie Kaufman, Elena Glasberg, Page Wood

One such blubbering blurb that caught her eyes and ears concerned the '70s No/New Wave band Come On.  Actually, she thought Elena Glasberg cute enough to give them a try.    "She's surrounded by boys!"              "I bet they made her wear that shirt..."

Chloraseptic® Dreams

... Or:  When Memories Punch Back


While surfing around looking for local band information from the 'good old days', I stumbled across a funky slice of nostalgia. 

I liken it to gazing into a mirror, then getting punched in the teeth by your own reflection...

Dana Sixty and the Pistol Grips / Public Execution - Split 7" on Attila Records 1999

In the late 80s a couple of buddies and I formed a Parma hardcore band - Public Execution.  As locals bands like LEK, R.F.I., and Domestic Crisis were so much cooler than us on the Social Idiot Index, we figured we would give it a whirl.  We stuck it out for about a year, wrote some nifty tunes, finally got a decent sound down (thanks to second drummer Jim Konya), then broke it up for reasons best left unsaid.

Retro Gaming Blast from the Past!

The other night my youngest had a school choir recital.  It was a very nice program.

But my eldest and her friend (the bigger sister to a friend of the youngest), were bored out of their minds. Being resourceful kids, they pulled out a notebook and started playing games, writing notes back and forth - the typical girl stuff. 

It reminded me of what I used to do when bored out of my skull at their age.  When we returned home I promptly showed my wife.  She laughed at my ingenuity.  Or my idiocy.
I am not too sure.


The Mechanics:

• Take a piece of paper and a sharpened pencil with a good eraser.
• Balance and angle the tip of the pencil onto the paper just so, with your index finger lightly on the eraser.
• Gently push the eraser downward so that a straight line shoots off the skidding pencil onto the paper.

... And how to make it Better.

When last I left off, I was trying to used car salesman Adam Ryland's Wrestling Spirit 2 as a viable entry to any gaming library. But like all used car salesmen, I wasn't entirely up front concerning the less than shinier bits.

While there are several tournament-type modes in Wrestling Spirit, the drawing card of the game is in its Career Mode. It is there that you have the option of either starting your own wrestler from scratch, or taking on an existing wrestler and guiding their career. Promotional inner workings (card lineups, title matches, hirings and firings, etc.) was largely built off the core of Ryland's Total Extreme Wrestling 2004.

Frankly, it never really worked for me. Besides the actual 'fight engine', for lack of a better phrase, the single most important aspect to a wrestling game needs to be a logical method of match-making.

Mr. Ryland's booking engine works... for Total Extreme Wrestling. After all, the player is doing the booking of their own promotion in that series. What the AI-controlled promotions do is always on the peripheral - and even when studied, makes enough sense.

In Wrestling Spirit, the AI controls all promotions; your character takes the bookings assigned to them. Sometimes those bookings make sense. Sometimes not so much.

Adam Ryland's Wrestling Spirit 2...

Adam Ryland is known as the King of Text Based Wrestling Games. It's true. You can ask him yourself.

If modesty prevents him from admitting as much, his fans will certainly back it up.

Mr. Ryland started his ascent to the throne by way of his freeware Extreme Warfare series of text-based wrestling promotion simulators. After hooking his fans with a heroin-like addiction, he would eventually tire of providing freebies to the masses. Total Extreme Warfare, released in 2004 out of the now defunct .400 Software Studios, was his commercial breakthrough.

The following year, and to incredulous looks by no man, Ryland would cement his status as the wisest of the wise. Not only would he jump from .400 Studios to Grey Dog Software - a much more stable company, he would also change the completely inappropriate name of his series to Total Extreme Wrestling. The TEW series, as it would come to be known, would see updates in 2007, 2008, and 2010.

Never one to beat a dead horse - unless the glue factory demanded it, Ryland released part one of the Wrestling Spirit trilogy in 2004. Rather than plot a successful wrestling promotion, Wrestling Spirit focused on the individual's career in the 'Sport of Kings', as Mr. Gordon Solie called it. Being text-based, the game was an imagination-fueled depiction of life as a professional wrestler; finding bookings, making friends backstage, earning money from fight purses... basically everything a fan of kayfabe wrestling 'believed' to be true of the 'sport' (wink, wink - nudge, nudge).

The game pretty much sank like a rock*.


* = in relative, uninformed comparison to Mr. Ryland's previous titles.

Death of the Territories, aka 'The Wrestling Game'

Prologue:

An interesting cat named Charlie Warren runs an even more interesting blog entitled, The Semi-Retired Gamer. As the name implies, Mr. Warren is an old school gamer (and game designer), mainly focusing on tabletop role-playing games. His recent discussions on game design have provoked a lot of thought amongst his followers; myself, included.

One thing his musings have inspired me to do is to finally post this here bloggy bit. I've kept it in dock for several years now simply because it clashed with the disjointed (and low key) concept here.

Tip of the hat, Mr. Warren.

_____________________________________


Games have pretty much been in my blood for as long as I can remember.

My father inspired in me a great love of dice and chits and game boards. Countless games were played between us during my more formative years; Stratego, Dogfight, Mille Bornes, Dungeons & Dragons, Brian Blume's Boot Hill, and TSR's Vampyre: Game of the Hunt for Dracula; Frankly, I've forgotten more titles than I can remember.

Another thing the old man gave me was a healthy dose of do-it-yourself creativity.

The Chorus declares, "Barest of Bones!"

** spoken in the voice of Homer Flynn of The Residents **

You smell that sound? Huh... Do ya?

It's anger. Pure, unapologetic anger.

Look around! Anger in the news. Anger in music. Anger in comments left at the Betty Crocker forum. Anger in the half-played axis and allies game board collecting dust on a forgotten table somewhere.

Even in the eyes of your 40 year old Teddy Bear.

And he's pissed.

It's scary, man. But I've got a plan.

I'm gonna collect all those people that matter to me; all those people that I love. I'm gonna collect them and tell them there ain't no more anger. Or bitterness. Or cynicism.

Those days as an angry young dog are behind me.

Are they behind you?

.
.
.

But then I get to thinkin'.

Hey, Dad! Remember the time you were called in to pick me up at the Parma Police station at 3 o'clock one Saturday morning? Remember how you spit in my face and declared me a disgust?

I do.

I remember it like one of those grainy VHS tapes of something recorded off late-night t.v.; low contrasted and jagged-edged with just a whisper of disjointed sound crackling through the static.

Still... I do have to admit my admiration. With nothing but Colt 45 and saliva, you managed to create a black hole.

There isn't a scientist alive who can say the same.

I kid myself more than I kid you all.

The angry young dog will always morph into a mistrustful hog, rooting not for truffles - but for fragmented memories.

Finding slim pickings, self-consumption typically begins with the tail and ends at the snout.

But...

But I do got a plan.

I'm gonna collect all those people that mattered to me; all those people that I loved. I'm gonna collect them and bury them like a dog does his bone.

Those days as an angry young hog are behind me.

Are they behind you?