The Kid Who Would Be King: Streaming at best

Posted on March 16, 2019 by Steve

This Super Bowl Sunday the choices for seeing a movie on the best day of the year to go were terrible if there was going to be something Somara and I could agree on. Glass was out because she’s not a fan of the predecessors. There wasn’t anything decent at the discount theater and not much worth the effort for driving all the way to Alamo South Lamar, Mueller or Slaughter. However, Kid did have Patrick Stewart, just no enough of him to save this for adults.

The premise revolves around Alex, an English kid being raised by a single mother but before his father bailed, he was left with a book about the legend of King Arthur. One day after a typical day of getting bullied by two older classmates, Alex ditches his tormentors in a construction site where he finds Excalibur. Curious, he succeeds in pulling the sword from the stone and begins researching with his best friend Bedders what the runes written on it mean. Excalibur‘s extraction also awakens Merlin, jointly played by Patrick Stewart and Angus Imrie (as per the legend, the great wizard ages backwards), who explains to Alex he is Arthur’s worthy heir to keep Morgana from conquering the world. The hardest part is finding the other incarnations of the Knights of the Round Table to assist, spoiler, it’s Alex’s bullies with their obvious names Lance and Kaye.

That’s enough to go on since Kid is on par with the recent Aquaman, it’s a by-the-numbers film and all the “surprises” are very obvious. Children will enjoy this due to the last act being a giant Home Alone battle between Alex’s school versus Morgana’s legions.

Alamo Extras: Fantasy silent movie clip; lame King Arthur cartoon which may have been made by the Rocky & Bullwinkle team; Trailers for Sword of Lancelot, Knight Riders, Excalibur, Excalibur Kid, A Kid in King Arthur’s Court and The Sword in the Stone; scene from Thirties movie Galahad & Merlin, a Galahad serial, a magic trick set to Hank Williams music involving coins; and a trick question I failed at: Who has met Merlin? The Fonz or Batman? The answer is both. I knew Batman met Merlin at least once in the Brave and the Bold cartoon but I forgot about the Saturday morning show with the Happy Days gang traveling in a time machine.

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1989: Gorbachev pushes for a reform with Soviet farming

Posted on March 15, 2019 by Steve

In anticipation of the upcoming documentary Meeting Gorbachev, I found this little piece about Soviet History as their last leader tried to stem the superpower’s decline. I’m looking forward to seeing this movie: German director Werner Herzog will be interviewing Gorbachev, a man who has mostly “disappeared” in Russia.

I do hope History will also be objective and honest when it comes to him. He’s no saint. To be the top person running the Soviet Union, one has to be ruthless and not put up with any guff so there’s no doubt the KGB ever eased up. However, Gorbachev did show how the country was starting to turn the corner in its internal and possibly external policies (finally ended their war in Afghanistan, allowing a McDonald’s in Moscow, serious peace talks with St. Reagan).

The above link tells the story of how he proposed incentivizing Soviet farmers to operate as they do in the West and maybe this would cut down on how much food was imported. There were other instances of Gorbachev pushing for glasnost (openness to ideas) in order to solve the numerous problems he inherited from the stagnation Leonid Brezhnev’s mindset of opposing anything “not invented here.” We have the same stupidity in the US lately, it’s called American Exceptionalism.

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Happy Pi(e) Day!

Posted on March 14, 2019 by Steve

This day we didn’t get to celebrate Einstein’s 140th birthday nor my friend Nelson’s with any good fruit or cream pies at work. Bummer. However, at a smaller level we did eat deep-dish pizza from Conan’s Pizza during a team meeting! Then I repeated it for dinner at my friends’ place as we enjoyed some Rifftrax, a rather creepy trucker movie in which the hero would be a date rapist by today’s standards. Yeah, nothing is more romantic than showing up at a woman’s hotel room while she’s showering and consider it a first date. It was made in the Seventies when one-night standards were supposed to be the standard. ICK! Now as for Conan’s…I have to say, they do a pretty damn good job on deep dish. It’s not quite there with what I remember from the Midwest but they do give Mangia some serious competition on price, quality and speed.

Next year, I need to remember to hit Costco or HEB to celebrate.

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Ali Saddiq

Posted on March 12, 2019 by Steve

I saw Ali either this Spring or last year at Moontower Comedyfest. He was part of a showcase and I was really impressed on how he stood out from the others. Firstly, he took a seat. Secondly, he was less topical, there was more focus on recent events in his life. So when I saw that Austin’s local club booked him to headline this Fall, I had to go and he really knocked it out of the park.

Ali comes from the storytelling camp of stand-up like Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby, meaning there’s jokes during his narrative, it isn’t a series of punchlines and setups as other comedians I love do. Sure, Patton Oswalt, Maria Bamford and Brian Posehn tell anecdotes from their lives but they don’t dedicate 80 percent of the set to just one particular period. Plus Ali originates from Houston which is another factor in my support.

What were the jokes exactly. Primarily Ali’s life after his parents divorced and how he was tragically roped into the drug trade hustling crack as a teenager. It eventually ended in a six-year stint in the penitentiary by the time he was a young man. Despite how sad and scary his life was then, Ali punches up the experiences with humor about various addicts, learning the jargon, the truth about gun battles, carrying thousands of dollars in small bills via a pillow case and what a mistake it was to move in with his father years later. He closed with a couple shorter tales about why he was edited out of Last Comic Standing and his first accidental experience with psychedelic mushrooms; he’s a vegetarian and figured his friend was sharing a snack.

After the show, I went up to meet him. Wonderful guy and as you can see in the picture, a funny dude. I definitely had to tell Ali how his style was fantastic and how he reminded of those great story-based comedians like Pryor. He appreciated it very much because the late Richard Pryor was one of the greats the majority of comedians and fans admired.

Should Ali Saddiq come to your area, see him. You will laugh and cheer for the struggles of growing up are universal.

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Annual stupidity begins, aka DST

Posted on March 10, 2019 by Steve

When I was a kid, I didn’t mind Daylight Savings Time as much. It didn’t start until April and in the Midwest its arrival meant that Spring was here to stay…usually.

The original purpose for DST in the Modern Era goes back to WWII. By moving our clocks around the sun’s position to get the maximum amount of light was a great idea then but I think houses/buildings relied more on natural lighting. Electricity may have been costlier too. My grandparents were often in a tizzy over their “light bills” as they complained about you leaving a lamp or something on. Today, I work in an office building in which the sun shining through the windows creates an annoying glare while the overhead lights are on whenever someone is present, in short, permanently. Our house is even worse since there’s little space between each unit. It isn’t pitch black yet we can function for the sunlight makes plenty of background illumination.

I have recently joined the club to abolish DST. It has outlived its usefulness because America isn’t a rural society, nor has it been after the 1920 census. All DST does now is throw us all off for several weeks as we adjust our sleeping patterns. When we “fall back” in November, it is nice to “regain” an hour of sleep while there’s a different disruption in our routines. Another reason to ditch this relates to traffic. Practically every following Monday, there’s a spike in accidents from tired drivers and/or people who realize their late to work. I feel the studies claiming the change contributes to high blood pressure and heart stress needs further analysis; I always thought those conditions come from longer-term bad habits.

Over in Europe, the land that hasn’t completely lost its mind, they are on the verge of abandoning DST, or what they call Summer Hours. I may have remembered this incorrectly but my friend in Amsterdam said 2019 is the last year the Dutch are bothering, maybe the whole EU. Obviously America can’t do this. It makes sense and it wasn’t invented here. Oh yeah, it’s probably a “socialist” conspiracy.

Beyond DST making me tired for a couple weeks, I came around to the abolish camp during the GOP’s 1995-2007 Contract on America reign. Many forgot how the Republicans pushed up the starting weekend and pushed back the ending. Despite numerous scientists and doctors begging them not to as the data pointing toward negative side effects were mounting, the Party of Greed did it anyway. Why? NPR’s story said it was at the behest of the golf and shopping mall lobbyists. Allegedly with the latter, people are more likely to go hit the outdoor malls, etc after work if the sun is still out. The former was outrightly obvious. Playing and supporting the sport of wealthy assholes is in the Republicans’ foundation of their flawed values. Golf is a waste of real estate and water so it’s perfect. If the Scotts invented it centuries earlier, you’d see portraits of Henry VIII and Roman emperors playing.

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1959: Barbie makes her debut

Posted on March 9, 2019 by Steve

A good place to start on the history of this iconic doll is its own episode on The Toys That Made Us which is also intertwined with the Mattel Corporation’s story. There’s another show on Hulu with the words “tiny waist” in it. I’m not sure if it covers the same territory or is it about how Barbie now comes in different body types as well as ethnicities.

The annoying thing about Barbie is how she (or it? a doll isn’t “real”) has been the biggest toy for mostly American/Canadian girls over numerous decades. Maybe it’s my male bias but I cannot come up with any competitor which has ever come close. Boys have had more (Star Wars, GI Joe, Hot Wheels, Star Trek) alongside others with shorter windows yet made a huge impact in their heyday (He-Man, Transformers). I’m not totally ignorant. I remember the commercials for life-like dolls, Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Pony (made a comeback), Barbie imitators (most bit the dust) and stuff for girls to pigeon-hole them into the homemaker role (Easy-Bake Oven). I am very willing to admit to being wrong, so any ladies I know out there, please chime in.

As for Barbie, I know she receives a lot of crap from many angles, especially how unrealistic her shape is. Are girls more susceptible to this? With all the exaggerations on my GI Joes: Kung-Fu Grip, muscles and a facial scar; I never thought there was anything wrong with me. I prefer to give girls more credit for having intelligence and understanding how, “it’s only a doll.” The skin/hair/nose thing I do agree on. Children should have characters who reflect the people they interact with. Then throw in some others to broaden their horizons while these should have instructions included. For example, when we were growing up, my brother had a GI Joe who was Black. He interacted normally, meaning, we didn’t give him a racist-based personality. Sometimes he was the commander in our space operas, more often an important officer (helmsman, CAG). However, due to the limited scope of what we saw on TV, the poor dude usually had Jackson as his surname.

Back to the star, Barbie.

Believe it or not, I secretly wanted to have a couple in my legion of “action figures.” I probably chickened out to ask because Barbie was a “girl toy.” Still I wanted to have them to reflect the reality I knew around me. Reality? Yes. In my young brain I often pondered, don’t GI Joe and Steve Austin have wives, girlfriends, sisters and daughters? Half of my classmates in school were girls, something was amiss on the Battlestar Unicorn.

I do hope Mattel continues to hang in there. Times are rough. Disney ditched them on their princess line and now makes them with Hasbro which has the boys’ lines pretty wrapped up via Star Wars, Transformers, GI Joe and inevitably Marvel. They have made some cool ones over the last decade or two, several we own: Deborah Harry, Joan Jett, Batgirl and Rosie O’Donnell. I hope to find a Cyndi Lauper and Star Trek in good shape.

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The annual invasion is upon us again

Posted on March 8, 2019 by Steve

However, the stars have aligned against us residents even further. The planners behind SXSW forgot to coordinate with UT and AISD and schedule this around Spring Break. So downtown will be even more crowded, terrible and best avoided. It’s also the first year in a while in which I really don’t want to deal with the out-of-town-industry assholes to see anything. Steve Earle is playing at Waterloo Records but on a Wednesday night, plus he lives around here. Other things I wish I could pull off? Gritty will be coming. Jordan Peele’s new horror film Us is supposed to have its world premiere. I can wait. Austin is big enough to have enjoyable stuff in the periphery like Pinballz.

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Goth Math courtesy of the Cure

Posted on March 6, 2019 by Steve

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1994: Duckman debuts

Posted on March 5, 2019 by Steve

This odd cartoon from Klasky-Csupo (most famous for making Rugrats) made its debut on USA alongside Weird Science the Series. I think USA was trying to branch out into what we would call a more general “network/channel” like TNT or (W)TBS and WGN are now.

I was surprised that USA went with such an obscure comic book character. I had only seen him a couple times in Dark Horse compilations. The strips from creator Everett Peck were funny but the humor was cruel plus the style seemed impossible to animate. Somehow Klasky-Csupo found a way to streamline Peck’s numerous lines and get Jason Alexander to be the voice of Duckman. The remaining cast members were professional voice actors with recurring appearances of Tim Curry as King Chicken (the main nemesis) and A-list guests: Robert Klein, Katey Sagal, Leonard Nimoy, Sheena Easton, Burt Reynolds, Joe Walsh, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Kathy Ireland, Ice-T, Ben Stiller, Amanda Plummer and Bob Guccione. Duckman was denser with guests in its four-year run than The Simpsons at the time. Maybe this was something the show’s producers were hoping to get it to succeed.

Sadly the cartoon’s biggest problem in finding its audience was its time slot, usually late Friday or Saturday evenings. Time-shifted viewing only existed through VCRs so this didn’t help much. Comedy Central carried it briefly in the Aughts but Duckman suffered from a few episodes being tied to current events plus I don’t recall it being on during good time slots. [adult swim] probably passed because the show was made my Paramount and the former was a Time Warner network.

I’m probably dodging the main question. Was it funny? Hell yes! A standard episode tended to focus on Duckman’s selfish, hedonistic behavior that often got in the way of his alleged career…private detective. Thankfully his partner Cornfed is the competent employee and his sister-in-law Bernice (nemesis number two) handles his children Charles, Mambo and Ajax along with a vegetative mother-in-law who communicates by farting. Duckman following his carnal urges would either lead to a client, an enemy (often King Chicken), both or something crazier. Much of the humor was wrapped around a bigger issue: stand-up comedy sucking, pollution, his mother being reincarnated, women’s prisons, guilt over his wife dying, how corporations profit on cancer, Ajax becomes a greeting-card writer, immediate decisions having long-term consequences, etc. The cartoon was ahead of its time too as it paved the way for other shows with real miscreants in the lead: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, AP Bio, The Mick, Squidbillies, Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Rick & Morty readily come to mind.

No sign of Duckman appearing on the big three streaming services. YouTube has some episodes posted, illegally. I lucked out a decade ago and scored both DVD sets before the major studios scaled back on making such things. If you’re ever interested, let me know. I can find them and loan them to you.

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The Favorite: Must See

Posted on March 5, 2019 by Steve

The whole bru-ha-ha and self-congratulating of the Oscars® are over but never the usual finger pointing via identity politics in which the biggest question of “is this movie any good?” gets skipped since it lacked [insert in the blank]. The people who do the voting have terrible memories. They only recall what was released between Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day.

Regardless, I very much enjoyed this fictional squabble involving two women fighting over who is to be the queen’s favorite assistant/confidante. Today we call it high school or being a personal assistant to a no-talent actress/pop star. People suck whenever money, power or whatever is at stake. It’s even more distressing when the person holding the reins isn’t exactly a well-adjusted person as Queen Anne proves to be. Many would follow her footsteps: Elvis, Michael Jackson, Trump, any Kardashian, etc. I will look into the historical record another day but in short, most Historians said Queen Anne was neither into homosexuality (quite the opposite) and not a completely helpless decision maker.

Much of The Favourite focuses on Abigail. She’s a young, down-on-her-luck former aristocrat who lost her privilege and inheritance through an alcoholic father. Abigail decides collect on a favor from Lady Marlborough, the queen’s current major domo, and it results in a lowly spot as a maid in the manor. Beats living on the streets but not by much given the sleeping accommodations. When Abigail sees how nasty the queen’s gout is, she treats it with a remedy she learned from her childhood. In return Abigail is punished by Marlborough for overstepping her role. Queen Anne intervenes by giving Abigail her own bedroom in the palace. Abigail’s entire takeaway from this incident is that if she wants to survive, she will need to be an equally amoral, cunning person. Then the movie kicks into higher gear to see who will come out on top.

I am more biased toward enjoying period pieces, especially if they appear to be done well and with Europeans. Here Hollywood couldn’t save its collective life without “sexing it up.” For once I’m grateful to the mostly English crew executing this with a Greek director and one of our better American co-stars. Anne is not a sympathetic ruler. She’s a spoiled brat who is a terrible queen. The only reason why she’s not completely sidelined by Lord Harley  (leader of the Tories) and Lord Godolphin (leader of the Whigs) is Lady Marlborough. Neither faction leader is keen on either woman’s participation in matters of state but then again, they don’t have a choice. So The Favourite is a true Battle Royale Abigail must navigate. At times the movie is funny, then gross (they didn’t believe in plumbing), back to funny and then sinister. I highly recommend this and I am looking forward to watching Lanthimos’ odd Sci-Fi flick The Lobster.

Alamo Extras: Trailers for Barry Lyndon, All About Eve and The Draftsman Contract; acrobats in powered wigs; UK Newsreel covering manners; people 18th Century dress dancing to Twenties jazz; French person singing about Montmartre; brief history on costume designs in film; a small orchestra performing 17th-18 Century music in powered wigs and appropriate attire; Three portrayals of Queen Anne in popular culture: Yellowbeard (I’ve seen that movie a ton and never knew who it was supposed to be), an episode of Highlander and a Soviet era film called Stakan vody; Lastly, Queen Anne spent much of her time at Hatfield House which was used for all these movies:

  • Wayne Manor in the Burton Batman films
  • All the Money in the World
  • Lara Croft (before the reboot)
  • Sherlock Holmes (with Robert Downey Jr.)
  • Wonder Woman
  • V for Vendetta
  • The Crown
  • Graystoke, the Legend of Tarzan
  • Orlando
  • Elizabeth the Golden Age
  • Shakespeare in Love
  • Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the terrible remake)
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My turn to drop the ceremonial puck!!!

Posted on March 3, 2019 by Steve

Left: Captain Justin Dowling
Right: Alternate Captain Curtis McKenzie, a former Star

This season may be rather up and down compared to previous ones but it’s special because it marks my Stars’ tenth season in Austin and the AHL.

A decade in one spot is pretty tough to pull off in a development league. Achieving a long-term residency in Texas isn’t as difficult as my northern friends would think. Houston’s last go via the Aeroes began in the mid Nineties with the IHL, they were one of the six chosen to merge into the AHL and they only relocated to Des Moines, IA when the Rockets evicted them from the Toyota Center. The Rockets’ leadership (pathetic as it is) believes it will make more selling overpriced tickets to training-bra concerts. I’m confident that the NHL and AHL continue to find a way to bring professional hockey back to Houston. The biggest problem is finding a decent venue which will be equidistant for most fans.

Austin on the other hand has passed with flying colors with its first opportunity in the AHL. We tend to be in the top third for attendance and we’ve been to the Calder Cup Finale three times in nine years which is amazing given how much an AHL roster changes from season to season v. our NHL parents.

I have also been there from the beginning. I remember how stoked I was calling them up to purchase my first season ticket with Jeremy. To save money, we each bought one seat and would share them. After the inaugural year which was a thrilling roller coaster, unlike 99% of most expansion teams (see Las Vegas, wow), I doubled down to get Somara a permanent spot and I’ve been there every year. In return, I’ve received great perks but being on the big screen before all the fans to drop the ceremonial puck is right up there with my Zamboni ride during an intermission.

The Stars’ staff are a class act. I never knew there was such a tight script they follow. I am quite grateful they made sure the MC knew how pronounce my last name too. I told Justin congratulations on his 500th game the night before and let Curtis know we miss him. I did get to keep the puck, I just need to to get it a case to join my three other specials. My rep rocks (they all have) because she then gave me a special 10-year pin as a thank you from the organization.

Meanwhile, will I be back for season 11. Of course! Stars are my team. Dallas, not so much. I will always side with Philly in the NHL, they’re more colorful, but in Texas, the Stars all the way. Right now it’s iffy on their playoff spot. Nobody has cinched it and the Stars tend to be a clutch team. They will either land the last spot, surprise me by nailing third or drop out altogether in time for me to set up my Moontower plans.

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Satine enjoying the shelter I gave her (March update)

Posted on March 2, 2019 by Steve

Satine’s belly is starting to show her pregnancy which is pretty easy, she isn’t very big due to her age. This morning I managed to catch her holding still long enough for this cute picture. I did manage to convince Satine to come out for breakfast. Should be getting the trap any day now but I think the plan has shifted to having her boarded until the kittens are ready for new homes. Otherwise, all I can have done is an examination, make sure she’s in good shape.

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1864: Grant promoted to General of the (US) Army

Posted on March 1, 2019 by Steve

After firing numerous generals and getting a resounding “no” from Italian hero Garibaldi, President Lincoln finally found the commander he could trust to defeat the Confederacy once and for all. Grant was also the only officer who didn’t suffer any serious setbacks through his campaigns further west of the main theaters around the east coast.

Note something about the title. I state how Grant was put in charge of the US (or Federal) Army, not the Union, a term I won’t use any further for the post. Why?

  • The Confederacy’s secession was illegal and a demonstration of what sore losers the South were, and still are as per 2009-2017; 1993-2001; 1961-1969; so on.
  • By giving US force’s a different label loans legitimacy to the Confederacy which it doesn’t deserve. General Lee, Jefferson Davis and their traitorous cohorts chose to abandon their pledge to the country as they started the conflict via Ft. Sumter.
  • Lastly, Lincoln’s side being given the inaccurate name gives in to the “both sides” bullshit you will hear from Confederate apologists and spineless centrists.

Grant turned out to be the man to do the job. He told Lincoln what it was going to take to defeat Lee, attrition and destroying the Confederacy’s capacity (resources) to fight back. As the expression goes, if you’re going to kill a snake, kill it once and for all.

Today the general is incorrectly remembered as a drunk and ineffective president. The Republicans continue to let this lie persist because they’ve transformed into the preferred political party of the South; a region rife with bullies and morons. If Grant was awful, how did he win two terms? Why is he on the $50 bill? These questions I hope to have answered in the near future when I read Ron Chernow’s biography of him. It will be a while though. I’ve only accomplished Washington and Adams, Jefferson should be starting soon.

Meanwhile, suck it Confederacy. Lincoln, Grant and us Yankees kicked your ass and we’ll do it again should we need to.

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RIP Katherine Helmond

Posted on March 1, 2019 by Steve

You may not recognize the name immediately, but for my generation and older, she was the clueless matriarch of the wealthy family in Soap. Younger people will probably know her as Mona from Who’s the Boss?

The coolest thing Katherine did though was appear in Terry Gilliam movies, namely personal favorites Time Bandits (the ogre’s wife) and Brazil (the hero’s mother who keeps getting plastic surgery).

Thanks for being convincing as the characters you played, namely the one from Soap since you came from a background that was the total opposite!

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1979: The move to Springfield, IL

Posted on March 1, 2019 by Steve

This month’s header is a picture of Illinois’ capitol building which is mostly at the center of Springfield, IL, the place where my family moved to 40 years ago in March.  There was another, smaller place that the state government resided in and believe me, I’ve seen it, unimpressive. Heck, it’s tiny. I’m not sure how long it took to be replaced or how they got anything done. We have bigger McMansions in Austin.

As for the view you see above, I don’t know the city’s history well enough to say if Springfield was rebuilt around the capitol to make it the center, they chose what was the center or it happily panned out in everybody’s favor. I can say with certainty, I often saw the famous dome from my front yard because it was within a mile.

My relationship with Springfield began near the end of 1978 when Dad accepted a position with Nixdorf, the fourth-largest computer company in the world then. Before we could move, the house we loved in Champaign had to be sold and for reasons I can’t recall, we made multiple commutes between the two places. One major memory I have is hearing Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler” being played to death on those 90-minute, one-way drives.

Brian and I were sad to be leaving all the friends we had at St. Matthew but several things ameliorated the transition:

  • The new house we were moving to was way cooler. We would have our own bedrooms, a swing on the porch and two bathrooms!
  • Springfield had a new mall named White Oaks which was impressive. It had two stories unlike Eastland, Lincoln Square and Market Place! This mall was a constant destination, even after the initial visits.
  • The new house’s street had more kids our age living on it.

We finally moved into our only Springfield digs around March 1979 and lived there until August 1982. The day we moved in was spectacular despite the cold, miserable weather. We didn’t have to go to school, hooray! Brian’s birthday was happening and Mom got him some bitchin’ Star Wars toys. After the movers finished (one guy drank all of our parents’ hard liquor; they barely drink so they felt the guy did them a favor), I could set up my very own bedroom. Springfield had cable television with this new channel called HBO; it showed movies without commercials and the boobies/swearing scenes were intact!

Overall, my several years in Springfield were eventful. Many great days walking to/from St. Agnes. Some with Dad in tow after he got a job with the government building across the street from our school. Numerous days and afternoons were occupied by pick-up games of touch football, war/guns, baseball, jail/football tag and ghost in the graveyard. Our porch’s size often made it the base. Crappy days happened too. Fights with bullies (one pulled a knife on Brian), disagreements/feuds with neighboring kids occurred and Aunt Helen passed away in her sleep during the Summer of 1981.

Near the end of our residency, I was becoming a teenager which led to my increased interest in D&D, music and girls. Thusly, I consider Springfield, IL my hometown because it’s where my formative years began. How so? It’s when I first realized how boring the Midwest really was and I started to think about the larger world around me through music, TV and magazines. Oddly, I had to be removed from the place for a year to realize how most of my St. Agnes classmates were on the fast track to White Trash futures via booze, drugs and teen pregnancy. I would throw in their tastes for crappy Hair Metal as a factor but I’m being a snob now.

It was a great place to be a kid. I have no idea with teenagers. Adulthood? I could never go back. Besides the terrible Midwestern winters, Houston got me addicted on metropolitan cities and Austin became my new home of 25 years. I could never give up Austin’s perks.

Still, I look fondly on Springfield. It took me a couple decades to get to such a mental state. I was embarrassed to be from such a pedestrian town compared to the more fascinating locations my Marquette friends originated from. Now it’s OK. The Simpsons helped and given how loud the NeoConfederates are in the outskirts of Austin, it’s nice to remind them I’m from Abraham Lincoln’s hometown and we kicked their asses before…and we’ll do it again should the time arise.

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