nude highway driving

Since last weekend, I’ve been undergoing a massive-ass cleaning of the apartment. I’m one of those people who saves everything because it might come in handy (either for practical or nostalgic purposes) one day, so it’s a little crowded in here. Or it was. I finally hit a snapping point, and the chicky mama (aka de vogel), who has cable and watches lots of “Clean Sweep,” was more than willing to come be The Enforcer. Last weekend I gave away six trash bags of clothing and tossed five trash bags of trash. I filled two big-ass boxes with stuff to give away, and finally reformatted and boxed up my old PowerMac (that I replaced three years ago) along with a scanner and gave them to a neighborhood school.

During this process I’m finding shit I haven’t seen in years, such as a GWAR condom, paychecks from every job I’ve had since college, copies of JoMo’s first underground “punk zine” and my old London public transport ID. And with these finds come stories.

I found the above photo of Armand Hans III and the stars of Imagic, makers of video games for my Atari 2600. It sits inside a rejection letter I got on Dec. 17, 1982, from them after I wrote and offered to help design video games. Does anybody remember the Imagic TV commercials? I loved them — this stuffy old English dude (Armand) would be hanging out with intergalactic space hoodlums pimping video games. They were great!

I thought for sure they could use the brainpower of a 12-year-old fan to help create more games. I didn’t know programming or anything, just had ideas for what future games should be about. Why wouldn’t they hire me?

That wasn’t my first letter to a big company. Several years earlier, I was a HUGE fan of Wacky Packages. My dresser was covered in their stickers (sorry Mom). I had started coming up with my own faux products and drawing them, and one of the ideas I was most proud of was “Belch’s Jelly.” It made friends laugh. I knew I was pure genius.

But then my world was shattered when I got a new pack one day and saw … IT. How could Topps have a Belch’s Jelly sticker? That was clearly my idea. Obviously, they stole it. Never mind that I never sent it to them (or, as I now know, that the sticker came out in 1974, way before I started buying them), they somehow ripped me off. So I wrote an angry letter, threatening to sue them. I bet the office assistant loved reading this pissed-off, threatening-legal-action letter clearly written by an 8-year-old (no typewriter for me). They wrote back a very polite letter stating that they were confident their creative team came up with all ideas on their own and didn’t bogart anyone’s intellectual property.

I don’t think Imagic lasted very long … I can’t even find any sort of company history in the Net. Probably their curse for not hiring me. (Topps, of course, fared a little better.) I’ve still got some of their games (yes, I still have an Atari), and I’ll always have the evidence of my big-time game-designing plans. It will survive my massive cull because it was my first rejection letter ever, an ominous foreshadowing of my much-later decision to pick writing as a career goal.

“Show me show me show me how you do that trick

the one that makes me scream JUMP BACK! Gonna kiss myselfahhh!”

But my vote’s going to Dio.

Jimbo had a groovy little post that reminded me the

Macintosh turned 20

last Saturday. I remember seeing the now-infamous “1984″ commercial the one time it aired

and being blown away. I couldn’t wait to go to the local Apple store see the new computer

and the way-out-of-reach Lisa. I can’t believe it’s

been 20 years.

In 1984, my family was still using an Apple II+ with 64K of RAM, dual disk

drives and a dot-matrix Epson printer. We had a blazing 300-baud modem, which we used to

connect to CompuServe at something like $10 an

hour (with a $2-an-hour surcharge thrown in by SprintNet for the access

number). We wondered what we would do with all that memory.

Now, I have a 400mhz G4 with

drive.

In 1984, everyone was reading George Orwell’s “1984″, feeling thankful it wasn’t

prophetic, and Johnny Carson had a giant eyeball on the set behind his desk as a symbol of

“Big Brother.”

Now, everyone’s reading George Orwell’s “1984″ because it actually was

prophetic (just 20 years off) and we have John Ashcroft playing the role of Big Brother.

In 1984, I was Farmer

Ted. I was just coming out of my breakdancing

phase and was a year away from discovering punk rock. I wore clothes from Chess King and

listened to Quiet Riot. I had a Velcro Ocean Pacific wallet.

Now, breakdancing is making

leather ties.

In 1984, I wanted to Go-Gos to gang-rape me.

OK, not everything changes.

FOUND: My photo ID for London’s public transportation during my 1991 semester there. The greatest system in the world — one flat monthly fee gets you the photo ID validated for all Tube and bus use.

And with it comes a cold rush of nostalgia to the head …

Five of us living in a flat above an Indian grocer one block from Hyde Park … an insane extended weekend in Amsterdam … an unpaid (unexpectedly) internship at Arena magazine … meeting Al Jourgensen in a bar and seeing Revolting Cocks live the next night … passing up on Front 242 tickets to spend Easter weekend on the Scottish isle of Iona, where about 250 people live with one pub and nobody locks their doors … spring break in Italy, calling my parents from Venice swearing I’d never come back to America … standing next to Billy Bragg on a platform in Trafalgar Square as he lead thousands in song during a protest of the first Gulf War … attending a secret REM gig (billed as “Bingo Hand Job”) with special guests Bragg and Robyn Hitchcock at a club that holds fewer than 300 people … doing any shopping on Portobello Road … downing pints with a squatter named Phoebe and her pet rat at The Intrepid Fox … skipping class to go to Canterbury just because Chaucer rocks … scaring people in my writing studio with an essay about why Toilet Duck kicks ass … roommate head-shaving parties in the bathtub … two nights in a row of The Replacements at the Marquee … running around Brighton Beach taking photographs during a weekend field trip while the photography professor gets loaded in a pub … drinking cider for the first time … valuable cultural exchanges: my Dominican roommates would cook plantains for us; I would make Spam dinners … feeling all-around infinite and international.