Author: James Castro

Story of the Month: The Quest for the Stereo and the Spirit of the 90s

On By James CastroIn Music, Random Fun, Short Stories, Story of the Month7 Comments

StoryoftheMonth

It’s strange that the 90s still feel “new” to me. The early 2000s feel passé and ancient. Things about the 90s still stick with me and despite the “convenience” of new technology I miss some of the aspects of “inconvenience” of my teenage years. Columbia Record Clubs, VHS and DVD rentals, Magazine research…it’s all stuff that, though it may still exist, isn’t a main part of the culture anymore… My first CDs came from Columbia record Club! And I could only play them in my Sega CD….through a mono-TV.

Thinking of this reminded me of buying my first stereo. It was 1997. I’d had them given as gifts before, Christmas and Birthday presents. The one that I was replacing was indeed a birthday present from my 15th Birthday. It was a TWO disc changer. And it seemed so cool. It had two trays on the top and they would swap places when the discs were changed (I knew so little I once tried to put my Full Throttle PC-CDROM into it to play the great Gone Jackals soundtrack… It didn’t work… But I DID get that soundtrack…from Columbia House!). The stereo started to skip and the changing mechanism didn’t work. I’d saved up some money and went to get myself a brand new stereo. We started out early, about 10 AM. I was kind of excited.

In the 90s, in my area, there were only a few places to go. Circuit City, H.H. Gregg, and Media Play. I usually went to Circuit City, but I remember H.H. Gregg had a sale on them so my mom drove me there. I picked out an AMAZING 5 disc changer. Brought it home, hooked it up, ran my TV and video games systems through it. Connected my parents’ old MASSIVE JBL speakers…and it didn’t work. I tried repeatedly and it didn’t work. So we took it back. H.H. Gregg said they would only offer to fix it, we explained it was a BRAND NEW item and they reluctantly let us exchange it. Unfortunately they didn’t have the one I bought so I downgraded to a three-disc changer, OK with the savings in money, and brought it home. I went through the rigmarole of hooking it back up and…guess what… It didn’t work. Acted like there was no CD in the tray. So we boxed it up and brought it back. The store manger came out and didn’t believe us that it didn’t work. I remember he went in the back and came out with a CD on his finger. He put it in, pressed play, and….it didn’t work. He said “It’s like it’s not reading the CD at all…” My mom, if I recall, responded “No shit.” We got my money back and went to Circuit City.

Old Circuit City buildings had these cool entrances with red-plastic floors covered in circles. it felt like something out of Total Recall. Shopping here was like being in a sci-fi movie…

I felt more comfortable here. We’d purchased PCs from here before with 2 year warranties. Typically when they died after 18 months or so we’d activate the warranty and they’d replace the PC with one that cost the same NOW as the one we got THEN. It means essentially a free-upgrade system if the PC went bad. They quit doing that after a few years.

I found a nice Philips 5 disc changer and took it home. I quit hooking up all my stuff to it and took to just opening the box, plugging it into to the nearest outlet and trying it. I plugged it in. The CD played! I changed discs…and…the mechanism sounded like a pepper mill and it just sat there. We tried it again and…nope. No disc-changing. By this time it was after 3PM. It had been all day. We boxed it up, took it back, and I remember distinctly the woman and man salespeople saying, “Oh I’m sorry… I can’t believe it… Luckily this is Circuit City!” They gave us another one and we took it and went home.

It didn’t even get all the way out of the box. I pulled it out and noticed the back of it looked like it had been kicked in. We just looked despairingly at it and shrugged. I remember saying, “Screw it if it works I don’t care.” It didn’t. It didn’t even power on.

So we took it back…it was after 5PM. Walking back to the stereo section the two salespeople were standing there chatting and I remember the woman turned and saw us, looking stunned she said, “Oh you’re kidding…” I explained it looked like it someone had used it for batting practice and she said, “That’s our shipping…it’s just a box to them.”

Of course they didn’t have the one I picked out. I went to the deep end. I found an amazing-looking Sony 50-disc CD changer. It was 200 more than I planned to spend but I had it. After much consideration I bought it… Took it home…took it out of the box….and…glory be. It worked! It sounded amazing.  in fact it STILL works. It STILL sounds amazing. It as surround sound ports built in. If I want it will play all 50 discs loaded one after another.  It evens started my love affair with Sony products…in all the years I’ve bought them I’ve never had a bad one…

It's an MHC-F100. Aftermoving it to and from college for four years, from room-to-room, furniture-to-furniture...it's still busting it old school.
It’s an MHC-F100. Aftermoving it to and from college for four years, from room-to-room, furniture-to-furniture…it’s still busting it old school.

Yes portable music, iTunes, Bose, have all changed the way we play music, but that experience plus the quality and awesomeness of this system still sum it up for me. Nothing sounds better than a CD…and it sounds all the sweeter knowing the system I found at the end of that capitalist-consumer quest is still alive and kicking. A bit like the spirit of the 90s to me.

In Memorium: Robin Williams

On By James CastroIn OpinionsLeave a comment

This past Sunday I was hanging around the house by myself playing some games, working on some writing, and I wanted to find something fun, light-hearted, and entertaining to watch or listen to. Scrolling through my Netflix list I came across one of my favorite comedies, one of the movies that can make me laugh out loud over and over, even if I watch it five times in a row… The Birdcage.

Though it really is an ensemble cast, the heart and soul of the whole film is the one and only Robin Williams. Seeing him at his best, so lively, as the owner of a high-class drag club on Sunday made the news of his passing on Monday even more shocking than it would have been…and it would have been anyway.

His performance as Armand Goldman in The Birdcage is his entire career summed up to me. At once he was completely hilarious, pithy, witty, sarcastic, and goofy; yet he also possessed the subtle gentleness of a father, and portrayed a gay nightclub owner with style and grace rather than completely over the top and flamboyant, though he could swing that when the scene or situation called for it.   That to me is Robin Williams. We’ve seen him be all of those things and more on screen, and he’s one person who, in interviews, always seemed to be four or five steps ahead and doing circles around his interviewer in a way not seen since the likes of Groucho Marx.

When I heard the news on Monday I was transported to two places in my memory: the first was the early Nineties. I used to love standup comedy and watched loads of them on HBO or Comedy Central. I saw Gallagher, Penn and Teller, Sinbad, and Bill Cosby: Himself (still one of my favorites). It was during this period I saw Robin Williams: Off the Wall, a rousing, fast-paced, comedy barrage by one of its masters. Despite his many and varied roles; comedy, drama, or even suspense, he was always that person to me. A young soul just waiting for emotion, whatever emotion was surging through him at the moment, to pour out in effortless waves.

The second memory was when I actually saw him in person once, if only for a moment while manning a booth at a book festival in Nashville. It was a weekend he was performing a concert during a stand-up tour and, wearing dark sunglasses and a casual street clothes, he walked by slowly, just taking in the event. It was early in the evening and the festival was clearing out with very few people still there. But he was there. And that moment sticks with me. He wasn’t there seeking attention or, alternatively, trying to hide from the public. He was just there. As a patron. He waved as a few people noticed him, a small subtle move, and gave us a small smile as he went by.  We all just kind of looked at each other in stunned silence until a fellow booth-worker said, “wait…was that Robin Williams?” It was indeed, and I’m reminded of it now.  He passed by us far too quickly but in that instant gave us all a thrill.  And a smile.

He’ll be missed.

Sources of Creativity: Buffy and The Zeppo

On By James CastroIn Opinions, Random Fun, TV ShowsLeave a comment

Like most dorks I’m a fan of Joss Whedon’s 90s moderns fantasy horror show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. What’s not to like? Great characters, good acting, clever stories, creative story-telling, some nice eye candy, and tongue-in-cheek campiness.

Buffy
Whenever one Buffy fan talks the show with another the topic of “favorite episodes” comes up (along with least favorite episodes but let’s keep it positive!) There are a few that are on everyone’s favorite list and I have two favorite episodes: One, Season 4’s Hush is almost universally in everyone’s favorite episode list. My other favorite, Season 3’s The Zeppo, has been catching on, though many fans seem to decray it’s goofy tone.
The plot is simple, with Buffy’s “Scooby Gang” all filling specific roles (Willow and her witchcraft, Giles and his knowledge, Buffy’s slayer-ness, etc) perennial mean girl Cordelia tells regular Joe, Xander, that he is useless. He takes up space. He’s the eponymous “Zeppo” referring the Marx Brother straight man. Xander then goes on an independent, relatively low-supernatural adventure on his own, whilst the rest of the gang saves the world off screen. So why has this episode, that not only follows a non-story arc event but also lampoons the series’ more series elements, achieved such popularity? Here’s why:

Xander’s World-Saving duty: Get the Donuts

1.) Creativity: It’s hard to tell a new story. Most stories have been told. One way to add new life to your stories is to tell them in a new way. Buffy and crew had “saved the world” several times by this episode. While it was always done with high drama and often with personal impact to characters, we had seen it before. We hadn’t seen a story telling the tale of what one member of the crew not involved with saving the world spends his time when he’s not “on camera” during a more traditional episode. So Xander goes on his little journey, sometimes crossing paths with the rest of the team, always catching them halfway through something important, and interrupting their melodramatic events. It’s great to see Xander ask for help from Buffy and Angel as she tearfully tells Angel she can’t lose him, while Xander blunders in…then says he can come back if it’s a bad time, to their awkward silence.
2.) Perspective: After the intro sequences you see events only through Xander’s eyes. The hellmouth opens, we see it only as he scampers by in terror. Demons are battled, we see these events only when he crosses paths with more “important” characters in their world-saving quest. Perspective is a very important creative element often overlooked (too many stories are given ubiquitous third person omniscient) in favor of being informative or simplicity. First person, or even semi-first person can give a known world a whole new feel and make events, even small events, all the more personal.

Xander’s Undead Adventure Companions: All good and interesting characters on their own.

3.) Playin’ it Straight: As I said in my Lampreys review, satire is funnier when those participating don’t act like they’re making fun of anything. The rest of the cast plays the episode as though it IS one of the most poignant and emotional of episodes. Buffy and Angel’s encounter mentioned above is as powerful as ever, only given a new feel due to Xander’s oddly timed interruption. A run down at the end of the episode where the characters refer to all the exciting world-saving events we didn’t see is similarly effective. Even Xander’s antics aren’t comedic or goofy, he stays true to his character as the in-over-his-head friend of heroes, his exciting odyssey being marginalized only by the fact that it is occurring while demons are being unleashed on the world just out of frame…
4.) Character Growth: Shows like Buffy go through “season arcs” that tell one long story over the course of a season with a few non sequiturs here and there. Many of these are one offs that might be referred to in passing later but don’t have a lasting impact. This episode does. Xander’s feelings of never being useful come up in the season finale with definite poignancy. His encounter with Faith is brought up again, with similar important story elements coming out of it.
So why spend time talking about a show that’s almost a decade old? As a writer I can attest it can be painfully difficult to write a story that feels fresh. Even worse is writing a piece and going over it and feeling it is entirely derivative… Seeing creative work really does give you hope and, even better, ideas. Much like the Sliding Doors format a lot of shows would later take (many not terribly effectively) it provides a format of experimentation. Follow a lesser known character. Write it from their perspective. Tell a story backwards (see Seinfeld’s “The Betrayal” for that one!) Do whatever you can to gain inspiration. I know I need whatever I can get to gain inspiration, especially for stories I’ve lived with for years, but knowing it CAN be done goes a long way!

Building the New Gaming Room

On By James CastroIn Random FunLeave a comment

As I mentioned in my Gaming Table post after discovering Warhammer 40k I developed a new love for table top gaming.

After finally getting to move to a new, bigger place, I decided to dedicate my second bedroom to my hobbies, one of the first and foremost being table top gaming.  With my new 6’x4′ table ready to go I put it in my smaller, auxiliary room and made what I think will be a great space for gaming! (And as I recently found out also a good place for building, painting, and going over rules!)

20140719_100117The room had a strange 45 degree angle, but the table fits in nicely with only one corner not really accessible.  It can easily seat six players I believe, and maybe eight if everyone crams in!  This shows a the old poster I had between the two curio cabinets (The one on the left is full of 40k armies, the one on the right is MOSTLY Warhammer Fantasy, though the bottom shelf is my little Blood Angels army.  The poster in the middle is an old Codex: Armageddon poster I got on eBay.  It features Ghazghkull Thraka and Commissar Yarrick in combat!

20140719_100127The two book cases at the bottom of the frame I’ve had since I was a kid.  One was my sister’s and one was mine.  My dad stripped and refinished them for me.  The posters here I got from a guy on eBay who I believe used to work in a Games Workshop store or retailer.  On the far left is a diagram of a Stompa (baneblade on the reverse) the diagrams of a Predator tank and Land Raider.  The one nearest is the great Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes and the ones above that came in White Dwarf Weekly during the 7th Edition launch.

20140719_100155The bookcases house all my Black Library fictions, audio dramas, old codexes, and magazines.  A BIT of room to spare.  That’s my Danish War Axe on the left.

20140726_211504I replaced the Codex: Armageddon poster (it moved to a wall left of this frame under a Dark Angels poster that features the cover of the 5th Edition Codex) with my Imperial Aquila flag.  The small poster under it is the famous Emperor confronting Horus.  I love the Burn In Designs painting and supplies station.  it’s been great for housing ALL modelling tools with my bigger stuff in the cart underneath.

20140719_100206Last but not least my gaming closet. These metal cubes are fantastic and are perfect for game storage as they easily fit MOST standard games and are sturdy enough to hold big box games on top.  My bits bin is right underneath Fortune and Glory and the Horus Heresy!

What kind of gaming space does everyone out there prefer to game in?

 

 

 

Story of the Month: Crazy Car Crash Part 2

On By James CastroIn Short Stories, Story of the MonthLeave a comment

StoryoftheMonth

Last month I shared the ordeal of a car accident I experienced several years ago. This month i thought I’d wrap up with a bit of fallout AFTER a car crash…the little things people don’t expect after dealing with trauma and the relief of “I survived!” has passed.

As I lay on the couch for a few days recuperating, I received a call from my insurance company. Apparently my agents, with whom my family had been associated for something like 25-30 years, didn’t do any investigating. They handed it off to a specific investigator who…never left the office. How one can determine the causes of a physical event like a car accident without actually visiting the scene or viewing the wreckage I have no idea. Imagine Sherlock Holmes calling up Sir Baskerville and asking, “Sooo…it was a dog of some kind?” But that is essentially what happened. Remember that person who asked “what happened?” as I was being loaded into the ambulance? Evidently that was the investigating policeman on the scene. Remember my response of “someone hit me?” THAT was recorded as my statement! The woman who rear ended me apparently cried and gave a long statement that I swerved in front of her and hit her. Despite all my damage being on the driver’s side of the rear of my vehicle, which made that claim virtually impossible…

I did actually speak to my insurance “investigator” once who said, “well we do have a police statement saying you swerved in front of her, according to the report your comments were very sparse.” The fallout from this was such that everyone in my family who had the same insurance agent called asking for SOME kind ofa assistance, and only heard “it’s with investigations now.” So despite 30 some odd years of patronage, no help was given. It eventually resulted in everyone in my family, including my grandparents who I think had them as long as they had insurance in this state, switching to a different agent.

In the end, the investigator never visited the scene, never saw the car, and from what I can tell, never really submitted a report. I do know the accident was declared “no fault” and this has led us all to believe the other driver must have had the same company as me…meaning they would be paying out someone…UNLESS it was no fault in which everyone paid their own…which how I got my next car…

Insurance Companies in Practice

So what are the life lessons here? Well number one is: it’s a MYTH that the person who rear ends you is always at fault! Number two is balance, I was in a car accident and looked bad enough that the hospital staff thought I’d been on a motorcycle instead of a massive, safe car. You can get away with nearly being squished, but that amy be as far as your luck goes when you try to put things back together that AREN’T your bones! And number three, Insurance is essentially reverse gambling. You pay a LOT of money over the years all in the hopes that you never have to cash out. They aren’t they for your protection or for yous benefit, they’re mostly there because it is safer to have them just in case of a catastrophe that you may or may not cause, than to not have them at all. Even if their willingness to help when you really need them is slim to none…

In the end this wasn’t a sad or bad story. I got lots of nifty scars, a good “worst car crash” story, and I always have good “here’s why I hate insurance companies” argument whenever it comes up. I’ve been a cynic my whole life, but this taught me extra caution when dealing with companies like insurance or traffic cops. There ARE very good ones out there…then there are the ones who are just barely making an effort. If nothing else it has helped post-graduation me NEVER be the kind to just barely make an effort. Who knows whose on the other end of your work…waiting for an answer only you can provide and hoping you’ve done the best you can.

And in the end it always come down to Wheaton’s Law no matter who you are, what your job is, or what you’re doing:

Wheaton’s Law

 

Weird Al and the Cycle of Pop Culture

On By James CastroIn Music, Random FunLeave a comment

Off The Top of My Head

With the release of a brand new Weird Al album this week, I got to thinking about my personal history with the Great Yankovic’s music and noticed an alarming trend….

When I was a kid I listened to a lot of Disney albums and dinosaur-centered kids’ records. The first album from a specific musical artist I ever received was literally a WEIRD one. An older kid whose mom was friends with my mom gave me my first Weird Al album. And it was a doozy. Dare to Be Stupid.

As a six year old I did know some popular music. I of course knew Michael Jackson, some Madonna, the Bangles “Walk like an Egyptian,” for some reason “Cruel Summer” by Bannanrama sticks in my memory from this era. But I didn’t know much beyond that. The only song I recognized at all from the Dare to be Stupid was the Madonna cover “Like a Surgeon.” I knew “Like a Virgin” from the radio, however to be honest I listened to the Weird Al album so often I still can’t hear the intro to Madonna’s original without singing the lyrics to Yankovic’s parody.

Of the rest of the songs on the album I only vaguely knew “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” so I knew the tune, but I couldn’t even define “parody” well enough to realize Weird Al was lampooning a popular song. The rest might as well have ALL be Al-originals. I didn’t know Huey Lewis beyond Back to the Future and “Lola” was unknown to me but I sure knew Star Wars well enough for Al’s “Yoda” to resonate.

I was an instant fan, whether I knew the original artists or their songs or not.

A couple years later I received Polka Party and the self-titled album. Off this album I knew NONE of the original popular songs but I still know every word to the Al parody, even though I still don’t know what some of the originals ARE. Off of the self-titled, I only recognized the Joan Jett cover of “I Love Rock ‘n Roll” well enough to know “I Love Rocky Road” was indeed a parody of it. Though these albums cover artist from James Brown, and Tom Petty, to Queen, and Mick Jagger I only knew Al.

For a while I forgot Weird Al as a novelty of my youth until I rediscovered him in middle school. I was now more familiar with popular music so when I found old used tapes of Even Worse and In 3D I recognized the songs as older hits. “Bad” and “Fat” were both such big hits they transcended lack of knowledge of Al or Michael Jackson. I also knew the “I Think I’m a Clone Now” track from the cover of “I think We’re Alone Now.” From In 3d Eat it was the huge hit, another I recognized from Michael Jackson, and I recognized a lot of the oldies in “Polkas on 45.” It was nice to know a lot of the music Al was lampooning and it added to the parody as you could see how he changed the song and used the original artist’s music to create a whole new song.

As a teenager I knew the modern popular music of course so when I got Off the Deep End, Alapalooza, and Bad Hair Day, nearly every parodied song I heard I had heard the ORIGINAL first. Often over and over. It wasn’t until this era when I personally realized that, of course, Al parodied the BIGGEST hits of a few years of music. Nirvana, Coolio, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, very well known to me at the time, Al’s tracks were just as great (if not greater) and knowing the newer songs as well as I did made the Al-bums even more enjoyable.

Then something strange happened… Right around Running With Scissors I started to lose touch with popular music again. I knew the songs he was parodying but the original lyrics no longer fought for control in my brain when I heard the Al version. By the time Poodlehat and Straight out of Lynwood arrived I knew OF the songs but can honestly say I never heard “Confessions” or “Ridin” before the Al parodies. Though I did know American Idiot it was the only one I could have named the original title of off of Lynwood.

When Alpocalypse came out I was six years old again. Trying to figure out which of the tracks were parodies and which were Al originals. The additional fallout to this is while walking around whistling “Party in the CIA” to the rest of the world I was jamming to Miley Cyrus…

It’s a strange circle of pop culture life. From not knowing the originals and only know Al’s parodies, to knowing a bit of the originals but more of Al’s, to knowing the originals well AND Al’s, to knowing Al’s parodies better than the originals, and back to ONLY knowing the Weird Al tracks.

It speaks to Al’s longevity and versatility that he has had a successful music career that spans nearly my entire life thus far.

 

I’m eagerly awaiting Al’s latest offering, “Mandatory Fun” though to be honest, even if the track list HAD been leaked, it wouldn’t have mattered…I wouldn’t know the popular originals anyway!