Monthly Archives: August 2010

Pointless Nostalgia

The Tell-Tale Haircut

rattail.jpgThis weekend, while visiting relatives in New Jersey, I spotted something in the wild I have not seen in many a year. In a supermarket parking lot, I saw a boy about 10 or 11 years old, and he had a rattail. Not a little one either, but a HUGE rattail that extended past his shoulder blades.

I was overcome by a precocious douche-chill.

I had very few deeply held convictions as a child–at least when it came to important stuff. Most kids don’t. Despite how children are portrayed in the media, very, very few of them have strong beliefs about Big Issues. You know those kids you see in TV shows who are committed to saving the environment or organize bake sales to rebuild an historical landmark? They don’t exist.

However, kids do feel strongly about dumb things, like the superiority of one line of toys over a nearly identical one. Or they can be 100 percent convinced that kids from a certain town, or part of a town, or even the other side of the street, are dumber than them. As for Kid-Me, there were a few things I firmly, unequivocally believed in, and one of them was this: If you had a rattail, you were a dirtbag.

One of many reasons why I’ve never understood 80s nostalgia (other than the fact that it was a terrifying time to be a kid) is that the fashions were horrendous. It amazes me that, when confronted by these trends, most people didn’t throw up their hands and say, Are you fucking kidding me? Shoulder pads. Pastel blazers with rolled-up sleeves. Acid-washed jeans. Any one of these items should brand a decade beyond redemption, and yet within a ten-year span, we got all of these things (and worse).

Even among this haystack of horror, the rattail stands out as the fetid pin it is. Because while those other fashion statements were simply awful, the rattail told the whole world that the wearer himself was awful. To me, even as a kid, I thought having a rattail meant you were a bad person liable to do bad things to other people. Because in order to have a rattail, you’d have to want your hair to look like that. And Jesus God Almighty, what normal person would want that?

I’ve held childish biases about certain things and places in my life, as I’m sure we all have. But in my journey through life, I’ve come across actual humans possessing characteristics I formerly mocked. I’ve realized that just because someone comes from Place X or looks like Thing Y, they’re still human. I’ve relinquished the unfair prejudices of my youth.

All but one: The rattail. Because as a kid, I interacted with kids with rattails on a far-too-often basis, and they were invariably dirtbags. The kinda kids who would try to force you to do their homework under threat of violence, or dump a bag of pencil shavings on your head, or key the teacher’s car. Every kid I ever met who had a rattail was a rotten kid, and I will guarantee every single one of them right now is either having lunch at a strip club buffet or doing time for some meth-related offense.

I’ll say the same for the kid I saw in the parking lot in New Jersey. So help me god, he had beady eyes. He looked like he was scanning the ground for rocks, so he could chuck one through someone’s back windshield. He walked like a dirtbag, with his arms bent slightly, Popeye-style, just so he could be ready to punch something at a moment’s notice. He looked like the kind of kid who’s a little too jazzed to dissect frogs in science class.

My question is, Is this just me? Am I just a rattail-ophobe, or is my prejudice justified?

Baseball

Rob Dibble Celebrates Diversity

dibble.jpgI’m sorry if people were offended by my comments during a recent Nationals game. Apparently I said something about some mouthy broads who were sitting behind the plate and people got all snippy about it. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have been so shocked these ladies could talk during the whole game. Doesn’t matter where a woman is, the ballpark or the beauty parlor–chances are she’s got her big yap open. Am I right, fellas?

Look, I know many women love baseball. And it’s not just so’s they can see a tight pair of polyester pants giftwrap Dib’s beautiful package. Lots of female types honestly love this game. That’s how great baseball is–even a buncha dumb skirts can dig it!

I love baseball because it’s a game that appeals to everyone. Just look at how many Spanish guys play it! They couldn’t be further away from American, but there’s something about the game that just speaks to them. In some kinda hybrid English-Mexican-y language, I guess.

And you got Chinese guys like Ichiro who come over here to play it, too. You don’t see them guys playing football, do ya? Probably cuz they’d get crushed to death by the linebackers. I could see an Oriental guy play punter or kicker, maybe. But they don’t–they play baseball. I think I’ve made my point.

Speakin’ of which, here’s this joke I heard from Bob Carpenter. Why did Ichiro bat in the first inning, then bat again in the fourth? Cuz an hour later, he was hungry again! Get it? 

How universal is the sport of baseball? I’ve even seen an Indian guy at a game once. Swear to god!

The problem with you guys is you’re too PC. Lighten up, wouldja? I don’t get upset when people make jokes about washed-up unfunny ex-jocks, do I? Because people do. Constantly. Right to my face. Oh sure, I cry when I go home, but that doesn’t mean I’m offended. Just deeply wounded.

Pointless Nostalgia Video

Pointless Nostalgia Friday Presents: Polly-O String Cheese

Who can say what forces shape us? We are often the prisoners of our times. One’s future could be shaped by simply being at the right place at the right time—or the wrong place at the wrong time. Have you ever thought about what might have influenced your life if you were born during a different age? The Renaissance? The Civil War? The Great Depression? Who can say what heights you may have climbed, or to what depths you may have sunk?

Me, I haven’t thought about this conundrum much, because I was born during the Age of Advertising, and thus have a miniscule attention span. I’ve said this many, many times here at Scratchbomb, but I have been immensely influenced by commercials. I feel like they’ve rattled in my brain my entire life. Anyone who says they are not influenced in any way by ads is deluded or lying.

When you’re a kid, you find many things funny that you don’t as an adult. Specifically, other people. Adults won’t just laugh in random people’s faces, but kids will. They can laugh for hours about somebody they see in the street with a weird haircut or dumb hat on. And if the same person also says something weird, in a weird voice, forget it.

I was reminded of this cruel fact of kid-hood when Joe Randazzo of the Onion tweeted a link to this commercial for Polly-O string cheese (the most needless and unasked for food innovation of all time until pancakes and sausage on a stick). This ad ran for roughly 8 billion years during my childhood, but despite its ubiquity, me and my brothers always found it funny. Always.

Why? Because of the wizened old man who says NUTHIN? The way he said this, combined with his wrinkly face—he looks like a slightly melted candle, or a shar pei—was comedy gold to us.

If you’re seeing this for the first time, or were not as struck by it as I was as a kid, I don’t expect you to think it’s funny. I wouldn’t either, if I hadn’t spent my entire childhood laughing at it.

Watching this ad an adult, I am struck by a few things.

  • Check out the odd posters hanging from the wall, that almost give it a Sedelmaier feel. I particularly like the one that bizarrely reads NO SCREAMING.
  • The guy behind the counter who yells at the old wrinkly man calls him “Shimmy”. Obviously, he was trying to say “Jimmy” and failed. But Polly-O wasn’t gonna shell out for more than one take or overdubbing in post. So there it sits, “Shimmy”. My brothers and I found this quite hysterical. HIS NAME IS SHIMMY! WHOSE NAME IS SHIMMY?!
  • Is cheese really the best part of the pizza, as this ad insists? That’s a matter of opinion, of course. But I think I’d rather have a whole slice of pizza than any one individual part of it. I like pizza, but I never get the craving to drink a cup of a tomato sauce on its own. In fact, cheese is probably the worst part of the pizza, nutritionally speaking.
  • I now realize that all Polly-O string cheese really did was make it acceptable for you to chomp down on a huge chunk of fattening mozzarella at lunchtime. It’s like having individually wrapped pudding cups filled with foie gras.
  • At the end of the ad, the kids taste the string cheese and give it glowing praise in foreign languages. But only the first kid says something in Italian (“Bellissimo!”). The last two say French expressions. (“Magnifique!” and “C’est si bon!”) C’mon, Polly-O, you’re making mozzarella and you don’t know the difference between Italian and French? Your handlebar-mustachioed ancestors are spinning in their graves.