Here I am blogging again. It feels a bit strange getting back into writing here, now that I'm home and have people with similar interests around me I don't really need a blog as an outlet anymore, but I thought if I didn't keep it up now I'd probably lose the knack completely and then where would I be? My mom gave me a book for Christmas about finding one's strengths and apparently my #1 is the desire to collect knowledge, information and objects. If you don't have an outlet for these things, though, it can be stifling and lead to stagnation, which is really the subject of tonight's show:
Q: What have you been doing since you've been home, Dave?
A: I've been clearing out all of my dad's old stuff and figuring out what to do with it. Like myself, my dad was a collector of things that he didn't really need. As my mom says, he kept things because he loved them.
This extends to vast collections of nerdy items that I'm really getting off on, like a mammoth collection of '70s superhero comics that I don't know what to do with. I thought initially that I would read them all. You see, I have clear memories of picking them out of their cataloged cardboard boxes as an elementary-schooler, lying on the flea-infested rug in our guest room with some Hostess snack cakes, my nose in an old comic. I loved the smell of them and the quaint old ads for fruit pies (there are about 3 fruit pie ads per comic).
My favorite series at the time was The Micronauts: a little-loved comic about a group of royal aliens who are forced to flee their home planet and traverse the galaxy, but get this - when they come to earth they're really small! Micro, you could say...
The idea of having little people running around in my kitchen was already in my imagination, so this fed into that nicely; especially in the second comic where they run into a kid mowing the lawn (like I did!) and he helps them defeat tiny enemy spaceships (like I wished I could do!).
The problem with the Micronauts was there was not much reason for them to be on Earth, which meant their story quickly shifted to other planets where, for the most part, they were proportionate to everything (making them just Nauts, I guess). This fed into no fantasies of mine, given that I found space pretty boring on a whole.
(the guy with the sword was my favorite)
The problem with these Marvel comics I inherited is, in general, now that I'm not 8-years-old, they're really lame; boring and poorly written. This bums me out. Unfortunately, I don't have the time or energy to weed out whatever gems there might be. My dad sold all the really valuable ones, too (and made a pretty penny by all accounts), which accounts for big chunks of plotlines missing. I think I'm going to take them en masse to a comic store and see what I can get for them, which is pretty sad, but my mom told me I need to save my energy and I can't see myself putting them all on eBay one by one.
Other collections involve role-playing war-strategy board games, tin soldiers and tiny racecar sets, among other, more badass things. My dad was such a cool guy! The things that got him excited were often the same ones that excited 12-year-olds. I loved him so much, man. I can't really look at it objectively, but I'm sure that explains something about me.
It's hard for me to part with most of this stuff, but my mom and I are both moving in the near future and neither one of us needs tin soldiers. Hell, my dad didn't need tin soldiers; he just liked them. As for the games, those have gone on eBay and are selling quite nicely. There are a lot of retired nerds out there who are willing to cough up money for PanzerBlitz and Imperium - Empires in Conflict: Worlds in the Balance.
Most of the books went to Powell's, except for a big chunk of classics that are in my sights (and some sci-fi/fantasy gems like Conan and Tarzan, which my dad loved and I hope, in the future, to read and appreciate). Some of these books are way cool and have led me to the creation of...............
which you can view at your leisure.
As for books, my scheme of a middle school book club has been put on hold (though it's still incubating). In my recovery from learning Old English and Victorian tea-lady etiquette I've reverted to comic books. Aside from the comics I waxed nostalgic about and disowned above my dad also left me his collection of Zap Comix and other sweet goodies that I was not allowed to see at a young and impressionable age. They're great! Most of Zap is just things having sex with other things, which is pretty easy to read. But more on all that later. I'm worn out from trying to update this thing already. See you soon and welcome back!
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