the Tommy|Zor era

Shit, it’s been so long since I wrote an article that the last time I did, Osama Bin Laden was on the PlayStation Network and his password was intact. It’s been so long that back then, Friday was a movie and not a song. Well, technically it’s still not a song, but the opening synth riff sort of makes me want to bust out my Dance Mix ’93 and shadowbox with a standing lamp with an incandescent bulb in it. A non-frosted bulb, because those look like science experiments and I dig them so.

On a personal note – and everything I do is on a personal note, because I am egocentric  - I slowly watch the world around me change in ways I cannot control. Friends, coworkers, enemies, strangers, all moving with aplomb (I just deflowered aplomb, my keyboard has never entered that before, and neither has yours, actually) in their daily lives and facing whatever comes their way. I take a slightly different stance on life, because I’m a slightly different kind of guy. That last part is what I say to girls when I don’t want it to look like I’m trying to get into their pants, but I really am. “I said slightly different, bitch! I don’t do foreplay, I do fiveplay – I use my thumb.” I fully believe that 55% of my life is under my own control, and the other 55% is growing up and maturing biologically and in relation to my environment.

If you ask my oldest and newest friends, they’ll tell you that my motto is “keep it real,” and I’ve been saying it for ages, even after it was no longer cool. Luckily, it’s not that hard of a motto to keep up, because what is “real” keeps changing to suit my convenient definition and therefore not make me a liar. Everything they do is too radically different, and therefore more-or-less I’m the only one keeping it real. However, if I changed, that would be keeping it real, too, because changing is real when I do it. Or something.

Here is a brief and very incomplete list of things I’ve done as an adult that some of you could relate to:

• -bought a house
  -have a real job
  -bought more than one car because you’re old enough to upgrade
  -bought and assembled a lawnmower, but never change the oil
  -replaced garden hose nozzle every year because I leave it on in the winter and shit explodes
  -ran over a bird that was alive, mostly on purpose to see if it could be done

In addition to that list, I’ve done a bunch of “normal” stuff that I can’t tell you about, because I like to keep my personal life reasonably private; and also because it’s boring and mundane.

Now, the thing is, while living this normal life, I’ve kept it so incredibly real by doing the following things: [also an incomplete list]

• -been drunk before 7am, and not from the night before
  -still actively play Age of Empires II with Zor because it’s the original anti-terrorism simulator

• 
  Back when video games made sense

• -3 times a year I tell myself that I will play old videogames via emulation, spend days preparing all the perfect ROMs and files, and then play 10 minutes of a game and archive the whole folder somewhere until the next decade, or whenever they finally make N64 games good
  -had a girl I just met naked in less than 20 minutes, but sent her home because, well… she got naked in less than 20 minutes and I’m not that good-looking
  -I still occasionally buy an entire box of clementines and eat it in one sitting, regretting it for the next 18 hours
  -Once a year, I make a point of soldering something, because joining metals with heat is the manliest thing you can do outside of anything I just wrote above
  -I actively disable Java and Adobe Reader updates, because I am a fucking rebel and have faith in the current shipping version
  -I can name 90% of the female porn stars just by looking at their hairline
  -Not on their head

Carmen Luvana

• -I actively ask for female doctors, just so they can touch me and therefore technically cheat on their husbands, because causing mischief is sort of arousing
  -I sleep soundly at night, knowing that I don’t have any secret children. I always dump girls when they’re on their period
  -I have 3 or 4 practical schemes to kill the neighbour’s yappy dog with no evidence
  -I make my own lime beer by putting lime into regular beer, therefore stealing revenue from the major brewers
  -I play video games on a screen bigger than most school chalkboards
  -I can still actively beat “Blackout Basement” in Donkey Kong Country in a single, constant run
  -I threw out all my socks, and bought 20 pairs of identical socks so I never EVER have to fucking find a pair again, I just pick two of dem bitches and I wear them
  -In the year 2011, I went to a gas station and put in gas that totaled to $7.24. The cashier was looking for the gas can, but alas, it went into a car. I did this just to see the look on their face, because I thought to myself “I’ve never seen the face that goes along to this action.”
  -I made chicken burgers so good that they tasted just like beef. My secret ingredient? Actual beef
  -I win the lottery once a year – $10 jackpot – and then immediately spend $15 trying to outdo myself and fail miserably
  -I once bought and returned beer at The Beer Store in the same day, but the return trip was way more interesting
  -I tell my hairdresser that she looks pretty when she doesn’t
  -I don’t say anything when she actually does
  -I ran out of vodka, so I starting take shots of vinegar. Well, make that shot
  -I do all my gardening using Miracle Blade (III, The Perfection Series) knives, because any steak knife that can serrate a patio stone is the right choice for my cooking as well, let alone light garden maintenance

Oh it’s damn real

• -Between 2008 and 2011, I bought a product that wasn’t made in China. Like, one, and I’m pretty sure I did it by accident
  -At every given chance, I email the author of some bullshit blog site and explain the differences between its and it’s, and always end with the disclaimer “If any part of my email contains typos, it’s because I’m drunk. Please pay no attention to the email timestamp, it’s not really 3:12pm on a Wednesday and I’m not really at work, and I didn’t really drink Gatorade and Vodka from the trunk of my car. Lime, of course, in case you’re wondering.”
  -I watched the entire Death Note series in a single day, and by the end, my eyeballs were twitching

Best plot premise since Groundhog Day

• -I once took a girl home because I was too embarrassed to be with her in public, but that gave her the wrong idea, so I made her go into public by herself
  -I made McCain fries that weren’t so super
  -I actively had to convince myself that I shouldn’t make Jello shooters by doing vodka shots and then snorting lines of cherry Jello, cut by a Miracle Blade (III, The Perfection Series)

Growing up is really hard to do without losing yourself. I got friends married, getting married, have kids, having kids; I even know a person who had a kid out of wedlock! (shout out to my dad!). I recently realized that 90% of everything that annoys me in the world is a fad, and that it’ll pass. In fact, as soon as it stops being cool and popular, I embrace it because then I own it, and am not just part of the culture. I feel like going out and buying the Korn debut album  and joining Classmates.com. When I look at it like that, it gives me hope in the world. In the end, it’s not so bad, and at least I can rest peacefully knowing that I’m keeping it real while most of you flip-flop around and cut so many corners that you’re left with a circle. Not me, I’m a real fucking square, and sometimes I even border on triangular.

Ashlynn Brooke