Never Enough Time

You hear everyone say it eventually. There’s just never enough time.

We want to catch up on reading. We want to get more done in a day. Everyone wants to see the world outside their backyard. Everyone wants just one more minute with a good friend. Everyone means to clean out their garage, mow their lawn, keep up with the Joneses, and get that novel inside of them out onto a screen or paper.

I’ve always wanted a secret day at the end of the week – just for me. Nobody else. Free of everything that ties me up from the minute to the awe inspiring, I could just do whatever I damn well cared to.

Something tells me I’d still not have enough.

Anime and Otakon – My Ten Year Habit

My lifelong obsession with Japan grew out of japanese animation.

It started very early. I would watch Sesame Street as a very young child, and afterward, Space Battleship Yamato (or Starblazers as it was known to Americans in general) would come on after. Then there was Macross (Robotech for Americans), which I had to watch on the sneak. My mom wasn’t really a fan of watching ‘military’ fashioned cartoons for many different reasons, so I have no idea why she even let me watch Starblazers to let the seed plant itself. After that, anime took a holiday for a while, because Duck Tales. While not Japanese, it held interest for quite some time. Right before Duck Tales though? Transformers (ripped from Japan by Hasbro from the original Diaclone and Microman toys in Japan). Optimus and the gang were kind of Japanese too, even if I didn’t know it. Other cartoons came and went. I watched a lot of cartoons (I would later go one to study in Philadelphia to become an animator). They were the thing I was known for in my circle of friends.

But everything changed with Akira.

akira
We all wanted that bike. Admit it.

Akira was my first ‘grown up’ animation. I gained cognizance of it about the time I was thirteen and it changed everything. I was well aware of cyberpunk and dystopian fiction courtesy of a steady diet of William Gibson’s sprawl trilogy books. I knew about post-apocalypse because I’d seen the Road Warrior enough times. And now, I had the sprawl, plus motorcycle combat plus cartoons all under one roof. It completely blew my mind. The next con I went to – a Star Trek con of all places – I found a ton of bootleg VHS of anime. It was the best day I ever cut school, and it was even with my father’s blessing and assistance (he kinda cut school too, being a teacher and all). The bins were full of stuff, and I walked away with the first eight episodes of Starblazers and Macross: Do You Remember Love.

I didn’t know it at the time, but around the time of that same convention, something was growing from a small State College event in Pennsylvania. Something I wouldn’t realize for another six or seven years.

My immersion began to fully realize the wealth of stuff that was out there. Akira became the original Macross series – even if it was the cleaned up, Maceked-to-hell-and-back version. That turned me toward Macross II (ugh, don’t watch that). After that I found Record of Lodoss WarThe Slayers, and one of my personal favorites: Giant Robo. My friend Marc introduced me to that one, and then got me onto a personal favorite, Irresponsible Captain Tylor. 

It was around this time that I got a job working for TV studio out West of Philadelphia. It was a shitty overnight gig, but it afforded me a lot of time to talk with a co-worker about Anime. Matt was one of the founding fathers of Otakon. I’d heard of it – but I was unaware of the scope of it. Matt would tell me stories, and it got me very interested. But I was a newly minted college grad with a ton of debt and a car payment. I didn’t have a lot of scratch. But, I’d watch him making the transitions for Otakon events late at night and dream of better days.

Then I got laid off from that job. Otakon was forgotten for another two years.

In college round two, I met up with more anime people as you’re want to do when thrust into an environment where a third of the students are animation majors. And after hanging out with with my friends Jay and Elena for a while, I found out they were going to the Mecca of anime nerds. Otakon 2001.

I told my dad about it. At this time, dad was doing well for himself after thirty odd years in public education. Dad was always very into science fiction and I’d brought him along with me on my anime experiences in the past (awkward watching Ninja Scroll with your dad in the room, but still). I didn’t exactly angle for dad’s financial support or not to attend, but dad took interest. A few days later we had our weekend passes and a reservation at the Wyndham in Baltimore.

It was magical.

For me, being involved with Anime was like belonging to a secret society. It was a specialized thing that not too many people knew about other than people who hung around the Japanimation aisle at Suncoast Video. I had no idea how wide the audience would be that first year.

It was the year that Cowboy Bebop had come to the states. Geneon was becoming the king of the industry and we saw so much new stuff, not just from the studios like ADV, Manga,  Geneon, or (shudder) U.S. Manga Corps, but the stuff that wasn’t even licensed yet. I learned about fansubbing, fan parodies, Anime Music Videos, the old guard stuff like Mazinger Z (otherwise known as that show with the tit missiles).

Aphrodite
I could not make this shit up if I tried.

We’d spend all hours of the night and day attending events. We’d stay til con close at 2:00 AM then hit the shady shack for cheeseteaks. Sleep was for chumps. When the dealer’s room opened, we loaded up with freebies and whatever we coukld get our hands on at a reasonable price. We toured artist alley. We’d have great meals in the Harborplace.

This went on for ten years.

And then, I realized that I just didn’t need it anymore. By that time, Geneon had collapsed. ADV was redirecting its focus. The animation houses and American studios converting the big titles were putting the kibopsh on screenings that were fansubbed. We just weren’t getting the new stuff unless the studios were poised to sell in the next twelve months. I was going not so much for the content – but for the dealer’s rom and to have together times with my friends in the anime community. The biggest reasons though were close to home – my newly born niece and nephew. I had a choice in the summer of 2010: go to Otakon, or miss their christening. Given I’m Jack’s godfather, it seemed wrong not to go. I also didn’t have the scratch for both.

moe green
I figured though while I was out in the western deserts I could take care of a few other things too.

This day marks the last day of Otakon 2014. I imagine folks are pouring out of Baltimore in droves, with some of the more hardcore folks staying another night for one last blast at Edo Sushi, or to hit the Aquarium, wandeing in post otaku euphoria uintil they come back down to Earth and realize that they won’t be able to eat for the next two weeks (that’s the way we played it – boxed sets at 50% off means food was relegated to second place in the hierarchy of needs).

I miss it sometimes, but honestly, I have the internet to get my my fanboy stuff, I have friends to watch my existing titles with (and the occasional new ones). Sure, no cosplay is involved, there’s no mad rush to see things on schedule. I don’t get signatures and don’t wait in long lines.

And, I’m okay with that.

But to the new guard. To the people who want to steep their children in the culture the same way I was. For the burning heart of the otaku soul, you owe it to yourself to go at least once.

Find out for yourself.

You won’t be disappointed.

Memory

I’ve had a lot of opportunity to focus on memory lately.

As of this week, my grandmother was admitted to an elder care facility. We’d seen the shift in personality a long time ago. She always had a razor sharp tongue when you got her angry, so it wasn’t uncommon for her to share her own views loudly or with a particular venom. But we saw this happen more and more, and then she just started ‘forgetting’ things. This was the first of the real signs. Soon, the forgetting turned into full-on confusion.

And then, the abuse started coming out of her.

She’d lash out with little to no provocation and say some pretty terrible things to us. She’d smack my grandfather and berate him at all hours of the day. She’d lose track of what day or even what week it was. She’d sleep for almost a full day, waking and starting the exact same day she’d had before, re-enacting the exact same abuses and arguments.

If you’ve ever had a loved one with Alzheimer’s disease, you’re likely familiar with the condition. It robs the affected person of everything, even their identity. Their personality and their memory become radically altered. The shell is there, but the occupant is not exactly who you remember.

Memory is a strange thing. The diagnosis and my grandmother’s rapid decline has given me opportunity to not only examine how her memory now operates, but also my own. Reflecting on my grandmother has made me look at how strange and fragile memory is, even for relatively healthy people.

Take for example the memories I have of my uncle. He lived quite far from my family in a place very different from Arcadia. Bill and his wife, Marilyn, lived in the midwest. Lots of open space and bitter, cruel winters. In 1986, we went to visit them for Christmas. I have a lot of memories – even at age seven, memories of that trip are still crisp and bright. Bill and my dad would play cribbage while nursing cans of Old Style beer. I would watch Pecos Bill or Darby O’Gill and the Little People. I remember the day of opening presents and playing with the GoBot Command Center which at the time also resembled the coolest of all Star Wars transports, the AT-AT.  We’d drive around in Bill’s van. My uncle made a rubber band powered paddle boat in his workshop for me. We walked our Yorkshire Terrier through two-and-a-half feet of snow. Marilyn would be horrified at the ribald songs Bill would sing in front of me (I Used to Work In Chicago comes to mind) and the off-color jokes he’d pass along. We’d look out of the back window and gaze at the bluffs.  It was bucolic despite the constant haze of cigarette smoke. They are some of my most cherished memories, and they are well worn and revisited often.

I can’t remember their street address for the life of me.

I spent at least twenty minutes on Google Maps trying to pinpoint it by street view. I only stopped once I realized I couldn’t remember the color of the house or even the named street it intersected with. I remember a nine in there somewhere?  Maybe? While I know it wasn’t a place I got to visit often, I could count on two cards every year, one for my birthday, the other for Christmas, and there’d always be that sticker that showed the postmarked address of their home out West.

I can’t remember it. And that data is gone, as are Aunt Marylin and Uncle Bill.

I can’t remember what color Bill’s eyes were. I remember a restaurant that my aunt and uncle regularly went to, and one of the barflies they knew named Woody who met them there – I have no recollection of Woody’s face or voice though I remembered I took a shine to him the way little kids sometimes do. In a most hotly debated lack of memory I ended up having to go to the hospital for stitches on my ear after striking my head against the edge of a night stand in the hotel we stayed in for the part of the trip we spent on the road. I remember it as simply having rolled off the bed in my sleep, but my sister and parents told me I was being an obnoxious little shit that wanted to jump on the bed all night. I honestly can’t remember anything but the pain and having the audacity to hit on a nurse at age seven.

Come to think of it, I’m not even sure that last anecdote even happened on the Christmas trip – I have so many good memories of the few trips out West that after a while they begin to glom into one another.

And in that light, how is my memory any better or worse than my Grandmother’s? We both have a lot of our memories still in there, and we both get them confused. The key difference I guess is in operational memory. Gran’s wiring at this point is faulty at the foundation. Mine… I have no excuse for my poor memory. My brain tubes are clean. Ish.

I guess at the heart of it, reflection isn’t really too necessary. Just hold and cherish memory for as long as you have it – there’s no guarantee you’ll get to keep all of it forever.

Arcadia – Growing Up Delaware

I grew up in a place I can’t quite quantify. I suppose you could say it was – and likely is – a suburb. A few friends have referred to my home as being ‘in the country.’ We certainly haven’t the numbers to play at being a city, but it doesn’t – and never has – felt rural to me either.

I grew up with plenty of green around, but the homes were packed together tightly with new houses and apartment buildings cropping up all the time. There was always a strip mall on the next horizon. We have a shopping mall and an airport. There are chain restaurants every mile and a Wawa seemingly every half mile. We had well funded and large public schools between many separate districts. Even now there is a farm near the old homestead, but it mostly lays fallow in the hands of a family that doesn’t seem to care about the crops all that much. And the further out farms keep being turned over to the bulldozer’s blade and ripper.

Also, Delaware – specifically the northern and most populous county – is politically blue which kind of rules out being rural these days.

At some point I started referring to the place as Arcadia, because it didn’t feel like anywhere else. It was always kind of strangely magical. Or maybe it’s the lack of sales tax. I get those two confused.

delaware
Where the dollar store is really a dollar store.

For all of the places mentioned above, we still had parks and forests around to explore – and we even get new land appointed as parkland regularly. There was even a swimming hole when I was a very little child, which seems like a magical concept in and of itself until you account for leeches and bacteria.  If you needed a slice of magic from the outside world you were in luck. Philadelphia and Baltimore were an hour away, and New York and Washington D.C. were two hours away. It really is a neat kind of place despite what you’ve heard from folks on the outside of it. It may not be as exciting as a lot of other places, but it has its charms.

I left Arcadia when I was eighteen as a newly minted adult, ready to go to college. I discovered I had a taste for the city. In Philadelphia there was always something new to experience (for good or ill) and it proved a great and fertile ground for my imagination. The pace was very different and the lifestyle accommodating to the creative soul. But, I would return bi-monthly at least to my homeplace where I could recharge (or at least do laundry) and see the friends and places close to my youth.

It has been quite some time though since my four year stint in Philadelphia, and I still yearn to live in the city. However, Delaware has a kind of lulling effect. It takes you in, lets you bask in hot summer days and fortify yourself in hopefully warm environs during the occasionally cruel winters. The beaches call to me, and I have a lot of history, family, and good memories of this place. Yes, occasionally it smells like poop, the traffic is uncharacteristically miserable for a place of its size, and the job market can sometimes suck – but you know, that sounds like Philadelphia more and more now that I think of it. Yet… I like it here anyway.

What’s Old Is New Again – Retrogaming

In the process of arranging The Great Purge, I unearthed all sorts of things, and one of those things was space. I am finding that with less detritus, more organization, and a little bit of pluck, that I can instal certain things that I was unable to prior. In this case, we’re looking at what I have dubbed, ‘The Retro Column’

IMG_2205
Seen here, top down: PS3, PS2 (allows for play of PS1 titles), Retron 3 (Allows play for NES, SNES, Genesis)

 

The column takes me through about thirty years of gaming, beginning with the Nintendo Entertainment System through to the newly dethroned PS3. I’m fortunate enough to not only have taken good enough care of my systems, but also to actually have much of my games left over.

IMG_2210IMG_2211

 

I have a lot of retrogaming ahead of me and I don’t even know where to start.

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