Me an' my crayons

Red, yellow, green, blue, brown, black, orange and purple.

Once upon a time when I was young, probably around kindergarten, I was given my first set of eight Crayola crayons. Now, that may not sound like much, but think about it a second. A rainbow only has seven colors but those colors are the visible spectrum - the colors that we see. I remember when the world seemed simple enough that eight colors were enough to express it in. If you look at a child's coloring book, there are no true guidelines for children to use to color with. It's whatever they have available to them - even one color can be expressive enough in the right hands.

I had so many coloring books and blank pieces of paper on which to draw and color - I think blank sheets are best, although to defy the hidden rules of lines and boundaries by coloring outside the lines is true art. I recall teachers and students telling each other (me included) that coloring outside the lines was bad, and doing so showed a lack of fundamental understanding. As an adult I object to that because it creates very rigid thinking, hence the overuse of the phrase "think outside the box." The better phrase to use should be "there is no box" - any object seen on a printed page happens to be lines and curves that are placed in such a manner as to convey a familiar object, nothing more.

While I was writing this and searching the Crayola site, they displayed a book I think I'll pick up that addresses the issues I brought up above, albeit in a different manner - it's called Celebrate The Scribble.

When first grade arrived, I thought I'd flex my color muscles and go for the uber-pack of crayons - yes, the humongous 128 count crayon pack WITH the sharpener! I can still remember the various color names of new colors - raw umber, Indian red, flesh (yeah, I had a REAL problem with that one!), aquamarine, indigo, lavender, maroon, and other spectacular colors. Although I had all of these, I would still revert to the basics primarily because I did a lot of outdoor-themed pictures. Picnics, farms, beaches - all of these could be accomplished with the primary eight. I even made a "mistake" and colored one color over another - aha, a revelation occurred then!

To this day, I still adhere to using the simplest "colors" to convey a complex world, because it isn't about how much, it's about how you use what you have.

Me an' my toys - Sharp VCR

Ah 1983 - what a year, and with it the portent of becoming a high school graduate! At the beginning of the year, I was working for Marvel Comics on Blip magazine (and that's about as long as it lasted!), so I was pulling in some serious dollars for a high school senior still living at home. I had a subscription to Video magazine at the time so I started to educate myself about VCRs and the wonderful technology they were introducing to consumers, albeit on a very small scale. I had just gotten cable at the apartment and wanted some means to record some of the programming I was watching.

A bit of history here - this was a period where Hollywood was very concerned about people recording broadcasts and keeping them. They had no control over the process, but the rules behind recording were very nebulous and made one wonder about the legality of video taping. Eventually this fell by the wayside and made the industry what it is today. Read more here.

Anyhow, the new mission was to get a VCR before graduation - and virtually any VCR would do. The major players at the time were Sony (with the Beta (read: superior) format), Panasonic, Sharp, JVC (the inventors of VHS), and a host of others. Back then, the real differentiator between machines was whether or not it was a top loader (Panny) or front loader (Sharp). I personally wanted a front loader simply because I had to put it on a shelf with not much clearance height-wise. I looked at the Panasonics based on brand name alone, and I almost bought one, a story unto itself.

Back in the 70s and 80s, Times Square was a squalid and generally unsavory part of NY that you didn't want to linger around for too long. There were some slight benefits to that in the sense that the streets were lined with electronics stores that competed heavily against each other. These were way before the major chains would be vast resources for consumer technology, although Crazy Eddie's and The Wiz were sources as well. I went to one of these stores that advertised a $350 Panasonic top loader in their window, but get this... they wanted to charge me $150 for coaxial cables! That's right, the cheap little cables that you get for free! That soured the deal, and I went to a competitor of their's right down the block and bought my front-loading Sharp VCR instead.

You wanna talk about basic functionality? My VCR had a wired remote that only had one function - pause/play. That's it, and if you think about it, did I really need much more than that? Well, FF and Rew would have been nice, and power on/off would have been nirvana! I still have all of the tapes I recorded with it, much of which were movies on HBO and Showtime. I had a little day planner that I used to schedule shows with - I think the recorder had single program functionality. The first tape I made was a 4-hour VHS with two movies on it - Star Trek II and Star Wars, and I can still play it to this day, but why would I want to?

Me an' my movies

Since 1998 when I bought my first DVD and DVD player, I have striven to become a student of film. In that pursuit, I have created a massive library of films, but there are a few that truly stand out as masterworks. Here are my choices from the Criterion line:

Charade - please see this film and skip the terrible remake known as The Truth About Charlie
Ace In The Hole - Billy Wilder's fine commentary on the media, and let's not forget Kirk Douglas' amazing performance
Le Trou - very suspenseful and based on a true story
Wages of Fear - you'll be on the edge of your seat, over and over again
The Bad Sleep Well - excellent film-noir-ish Kurosawa
High and Low - morality tale with a twist
Sullivan's Travels - "Veronica Lake is on the take!"

Then there's the standard Hollywood fare:

Star Wars (and yes, I call it that and not Episode IV or A New Hope)
Star Trek II (Wrath of Khan, still my favorite Star Trek movie of all time)
Outland (this film just resonates in me because of the time and place when I saw it back in 1981)
Superman The Movie (December 3rd 1978 was when I went to see this, and I still love the time travel sequence)
Die Hard (the first movie me and my friends went to where we couldn't help saying "Oh, s***!" every time something blew up!)
Tron (ah, 1982, cheesy acting, groundbreaking CGI, and a video game!)
The Road Warrior (yep, I know this is known as Mad Max 2 everywhere else in the world except the US)

Me an' my toys - ColecoVision video game system

1982 - ColecoVision video game system

In February of 1982 a friend of mine visited the Toy Building in NYC and picked up brochures for a new video game system called… ColecoVision! It was a departure from Atari and Intellivision because their major focus was arcade game emulation. The slate of games they were promising were current big hits like Venture, Cosmic Avenger, Zaxxon, not to mention the pack-in game… Donkey Kong! The system was slated for release in August of that year – we couldn't get enough information on this thing!

The other big thing about ColecoVision is that for 1982 it sported near-arcade quality graphics for $200! I picked up every magazine and kept my eye out for when the system would be available. I used to call and write Coleco so that I would have the most current information.

Me an' my toys - Minolta XG-M camera

1981 - Minolta XG-M 35 mm camera

During the summer of 1981 I started to get a yearning to express my creative side by undertaking photography as a hobby, but I had no camera. This was prompted by those visits to Willoughby's when I owned my projector and would drift into the camera department. Talking to a friend of mine at school who had an Olympus 35mm camera and let me borrow it for a few days, I decided to get one. I picked up a few photography magazines, and an ad just hit me for... the Minolta XG-M camera!

It was a brand new model that Minolta was bringing out that year and it looked to have all the features I wanted. I also bought a Minolta book that was a guide to 35 mm photography (I still have it!) and it opened my mind up to the possibilities. I kept reading about the camera and photography in general until I got back to school in September 1981, where I hooked up with my friend with the Olympus again. He was taking a photography class at Hunter, and I would tag along to see what they were learning. I even learned how to print negatives in the school's photography lab which really made me appreciate the entire process.

October 30th was the day I went to Willoughby's and bought the camera - finally I could take all the shots I wanted and create my own album of photos. My initial focus was on my friends at school and my neighborhood, along with shots at home. It wasn't until I started to travel that my eye for "postcard shots" began to develop. The following pictures were taken in Antigua (1983), Bermuda (1987), and Curacao (1992).

I used this camera for over 18 years and I feel that I have taken some amazing pictures over that time with it. It's retired now that I'm using a Canon PowerShot S2 IS digital camera now, but I wouldn't be able to take the great shots I can if not for my first SLR.

Me an' my toys - JVC RC-M70 boom box

1980 - JVC RC M70 boom box

My love of music goes back as far as when I was born - I can still remember when Respect, Tighten Up, and I Heard It Through The Grapevine were brand new. I started to buy LPs in 1977, and after a while I had a decent collection. I also made cassette tapes from the radio and our stereo in the living room - either straight or by putting the recorder right up to the speaker! Radio started to move away from AM and over to stereo FM - I was listening to WBLS and WKTU (when it was known as "Disco 92" in 1979 - remember Paco the DJ?) heavily then, especially in the late 70s when Disco was king! The only problem with that scenario is that I couldn't listen to my stuff when I wanted to!

That was when a little visit to Crazy Eddies (yeah, I went there a lot - they were Best Buy's equivalent way back then!) changed all that. They let me check out JVC's monster "boom box" (although we just called it a "box" in my neighborhood) for 1980, the RC-M70! This thing had everything - AM, FM, and short wave, a cassette player/recorder with a music search feature (it would look for gaps between songs greater that 4 seconds, and it worked!), and inputs for an auxiliary source and a turntable! One little problem - this thing cost $300, and in 1980 dollars, that was a lot of dough!

The summer of 1980 was probably the worst I've ever had in life and 1980 in general was not good for me. I started to exhibit a stiff neck in March and it didn't get better. After many trips to the HIP clinic in Washington Heights, and no conclusive diagnosis, I had a biopsy done at Mt. Sinai hospital, and we found out what was wrong... I had cancer, and it was malignant. This meant chemo over the next two years and a major life hurdle that fortunately I was able to surmount, and to this day I am cancer free! I wanted to mention that my doctor, Michael Harris, told me something on that day (June 6th) that meant so much to me and drove me forward: "I want to be invited to your wedding." Almost 20 years later I was able to grant his wish!!

OK, back to the story at hand...

Layaway is your best friend if you want something, have no credit, and can drop a few dollars here and there on the item until you can buy it. I got a lot of sympathy that year from folks, and some monetary gifts, enough so that in December of 1980 I was able to buy the RC-M70 from Crazy Eddies in the Bronx (yep, same store!) for Christmas that year! This time, I didn't feel like going through the hassle I did with the Atari, so I had two friends come with me and help me home with it - needless to say we made it!

Heading into 1981 (a great year, BTW) I actually purchased a carry bag for that 20 pound monster that ate 10 D-cell batteries and used to take it around the neighborhood and to school (always on the bus!) to blast tunes. In March of 1981 I finally bought a Technics turntable that I hooked up to it so I could finally make better mixtapes of my LPs through a direct hookup. I used my JVC up until summer of 1983, when I took it to Antigua on vacation (a friend of mine had a cousin that lived there, and we stayed for three weeks!) and my friend plugged it in and turned it on BEFORE I could change the voltage setting on it! It blew the right speaker and rendered it practically unusable after that.

Me an' my toys - Atari VCS

1979 - Atari VCS

1979 was one of the best years I’ve ever lived through - friends, family, music, school, and everything else just gelled that year in a way that hasn’t been again. Before it started, however, a new bug was planted around Christmas 1978 when a friend was talking about getting the Atari VCS (Video Computer System - before it was known as the 2600) that year. Christmas came, and I raced down to his apartment to see if he got it - he didn’t, but he did get some cool 8-track tapess that we listened to (Chic, Earth, Wind, and Fire, and Funkadelic). I was determined to get one in 1979, and again I started a new campaign, this time the focus was on my own home video game system.

There was a store near Hunter College High School called Blackner & Kooby (dig that name!) that was a stationary store primarily, but they sold toys as well. In one of their windows was displayed - the Atari VCS and the cartridge boxes in their multi-colored glory! I used to go there with a friend and I used to say I’d be getting it soon, to which he’d reply with his famous line “Yeah, right!” All through early ’79 I would read about it in the papers, go look at it in different stores, and just dream of the day when I had mine at home. I remember a guy I knew had one, and he used to tell me about this place in Queens that advertised in the Daily News that had good prices on cartridges – I used to drool over those little ads.

Friday, June 1st 1979 was when I decided to bite the bullet and buy my first cartridge, albeit with money Ma had given me to by food while she and my sister were down south. Me and a friend took a ride on the D train up to the last stop (205th street in Da Bronx), and went to a store we would frequent called Hoenig’s Parkway. We used to go there and play on the Atari for hours if we could – this time I’d be going in as a paying customer, for I was to purchase… Street Racer! I finally had my first cartridge – no VCS but a cartridge nonetheless, so now what? All I could do is read the manual over and over, look at the box again and again, and just feel the dark plastic rectangular shape in my hands.

Summer of ’79 found me down south at my aunt and uncle’s house in Atlanta, hanging out with my cousin Tim and telling him about my impending ownership. I was even able to convince my uncle Danny to take me to Service Merchandise and buy me another cartridge… Outlaw!
OK, I know this is nutty so far - two cartridges and no system to play them on? Hey, I was a forward thinking guy - this way I would have at least three cartridges by the time I got my system. When I got back from Atlanta, I asked my mom for $10 so I could put the Atari on layaway at Crazy Eddies on Fordham Road in the Bronx. She reluctantly agreed, but I was the happiest kid to throw down 10 bucks on his impending game system!

After the summer, a new school year (9th grade) was starting and again I was driving my friends nuts with my Atari talk. My ever-doubting friend kept asking me when I was gonna get my system and I told him that I would finally have it for my birthday. Almost every day I'd pass by that stationary store and dream about having that box and lining my shelves with box after box of games.

November 10th (two days before my birthday) took forever to come! What made it worse was that two friends of mine (one I met as I saw him rifling through an Atari catalog in French class!) already had theirs and would talk about their games! I fought the temptation of going over to their homes to check it out because I knew it wouldn't be much longer! I was going berzerk (no pun intended) the Friday before the 10th - I just couldn't wait!

On that Saturday, I asked my mother for the rest of the money I needed to get my system, but she had a stipulation - oh man! I had to go get my hair cut (this was back when I had a huge head of nappy hair) that morning BEFORE going up to the Bronx. I begrudgingly agreed - what could I do? Plus, if I came home with no haircut but the system, she would have taken me back to the store to return it!! I got the haircut (seemed to take hours) at 145th street, then hopped the D train up to Fordham Road) to go to Crazy Eddies.

When I actually got the box in my hands, I realized I had a dilemma - how was I gonna get this home without it getting stolen? I was heading back to the projects with one of the hotest toys out there, and the neighborhood was rife with those who would relieve me of it! I asked for a large paper bag with a handle that partially obscured the box and made my way home. I ended up taking a roundabout walking route to get to my building - the train station was 5 blocks away and you couldn't help but being seen. I breathed a sigh of relief when I got off the elevator and walked into the apartment with my Atari!

That afternoon was nothing but playing Street Racer, Outlaw, and Combat (my third free cartridge) in rotation, while listening to music in the living room. We had a Zenith 25-inch console TV that I hooked it up to, and seeing the games in glorious color was just fantastic! Getting to school Monday, all I could talk about was my Atari and all the fun I had that weekend! From late 1979 through 1983 I was buying a cart a month - Canyon Bomber, Space War, Indy 500, Circus Atari, and Dodge 'Em, to name a few.

1981 was really the best year for Atari cartridge releases. I hunted around on May 1st 1981 for a copy of Missile Command (I still play it via an emulator every once and awhile) and lucked out the next day. A brand-new Crazy Eddies was opening on 57th and 3rd, and I chanced that they would have a brand new inventory of them - and they did! I had to wait in line because they were having an opening day celebration - I got a tee shirt and my cartridge!That year also saw Warlords and Asteroids released - I had to get the Sears version of Asteroids at Sears in Paramus NJ 'cause I could not find it in Manhattan.

When ColecoVision came out (see a later Blog), I sold my original Atari console (a move I regretted later in life) because there was a module for ColecoVision that let it play all Atari cartridges (how's that for backwards compatability, and from another manufacturer to boot!), so I no longer needed my original. I also sold three cartridges with it to sweeten the deal - Outlaw, Home Run, and Combat (I would later re-buy these carts in 1998 in Atlanta from a store for $2 each), and that kind of wrapped the Atari VCS era - on to ColecoVision!

Me an' my toys - GAF 2000S projector

1978 - GAF 2000S sound Super 8 projector

It all began back in 1977, when, as a 12-year old, I still lived in the Ralph J. Rangel (nee Colonial) projects in New York City, specifically Harlem in building 70. Stephen Joshua (whom we called Josh) used to have people over to his apartment to show them Super 8 movies, or he’d show them in front of building 38 on a huge sheet during the summer. Man, it used to be so cool to be able to watch all 17 minutes (!) of a very edited movie like Jaws or Demolition Alley. When he showed us the cartoons he had, especially Marvel Men (even as bad as they were) or the Mighty Heroes, the spark was lit at that point. I had to have a projector, and nothing would do other than the GAF 2000S Super 8 sound projector!

I used to look at the Alexander’s ads and tell Ma and Pop that this is what I wanted for my combination birthday/Christmas present for 1977. Right off the bat, they told me no. I didn’t understand why, but Pop told me that if I wanted a $139 projector, I had to earn it. He also said he thought I was too young to get something like that, although I was highly proficient in electronics. So instead of the projector, I got some Marvel Comics-based books and some other stuff, but the projector was still on my mind.

I used to visit Willoughby's, a huge camera store in NYC to check out what was out on Super 8mm film for purchase. I would dream about owning episodes of the Flintstones, or having a 17-minute Star Wars showing in my own house! Granted, being a 13-year old with no job meant that those would only remain dreams (I think the larger reel (12-inch) films cost $50 a pop!), but there were smaller 7- and 3-inch reels that were black and white, soundless, or discounted that I eventually would pick up. What's the use of having a projector if you have nothing to watch on it?

Fall of 1978 was fraught with portent - 8th grade had started, and the second girl ever in my life (at that time) to like me was introduced to me in October of 1978. The campaign for the GAF 2000S still continued, and I kept saturating my brain with images of it. I even went so far as to use my free periods on Friday to ride the bus down to McAlpin’s Photo on 34th street just to look in the window! The day finally came when I got home from school, and lo and behold in Pop’s room, a big box was there – the GAF 2000S was finally mine!

I used to use either the back room or my room to watch stuff on a sheet pulled out of the closet. It was too cool to have my friends over to watch some of the reels I picked up - Heckle & Jeckle, Marvel Superheroes (I had a Captain America and Iron Man reel), and some other stuff as well. I held on to the projector until 1982, when I sold it to my high school for $80 to buy a module for my ColecoVision (Blog coming soon)!