Wednesday, October 13, 1999

July 21, 1999
Frozen Moments

July 28, 1999
Burger! Burger!

August 11, 1999
I Want My VH1

September 8, 1999
Meet Jim Valvano

September 22, 1999
Getting Dysfunctional

Devin Pike is a freelance designer. No, wait, he's a DJ. No, sorry, he's a sports nut. He lives in Irving, TX with four cats and a hamster, who are plotting to kill him in his sleep this week.

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It might be hard for you to believe, but I am a slave to guilty pleasures. Really. It permeates just about every facet of my life, from the moment I throw myself out of bed to the second I lose consciousness.

I can't tell you exactly when it started... but I'm sure it had something to do with college. It's a natural time when kitsch reigns supreme, and I threw my arms around the concept and called it Daddoo. My dorm room was a shrine to pop culture, with movie posters covering every available inch of wallspace and Star Trek collectables filling an entire shelf.

Ya see, I grew up with classic Trek, though I was just born when NBC threw the series off the network. Models of the Enterprise, toy phasers and communicators, autographed photos of Shatner, Nimoy and Ricardo Montalban ("To My Loyal Subject, Ricardo") made me the envy / bane of my dorm wing.

Most of the stuff has vanished, likely due to my constant moving across the country. However, I still have my original phaser and communicator.

Then, there's the music.

Coming of age in the Eighties, I went through a few different musical phases. There was the pure pop of the early '80s, my metalhead phase in the mid '80s; and the funk stage of the late '80s. Trick is, I didn't exactly forget the bands I grooved to once I moved on.

My girlfriend still has a lot of albums -- real, bonafide vinyl albums -- from one-hit hair bands that rode the coat tails of Ratt and Quiet Riot. She'll drag out the milk crates every now and then and test my memory. Lord, I need to be shot. W.A.S.P., Giuffria, Armored Saint, Fastway, Kingdom Come, Metal Church... not only do I remember these mooks, but I owned a lot of these abominations. W.A.S.P. was a bunch that gave my parents fits. Singer / bassist Blackie Lawless regularly wore a codpiece with a sawblade on it. Pentagrams were everywhere. Their debut album featured a quote on the back: "The gods you worship are steel, at the altar of rock and roll you kneel." Their signature song was "Animal (F**k Like A Beast)".

(Lisa still marvels that I don't remember the band Hurricane, the only crappy band she produced from the crate that I didn't immediately identify. If you do have a recollection of these hairballs, mail me and let me know.)

The only stuff more colorful than the bands' eye shadow is my other obsession. Cartoons.

I'm a Warner Brothers person by nature. Y'see, there are two camps that folks generally fall in to -- those who like Disney and those who like Warners. It's almost like a personality test. The Disney camp has a more Martha Stewart outlook on life, whereas the Warner bunch would rather drop an anvil on Martha Stewart's head. Repeatedly.

When I had a lot of disposable income in the mid-'90s, I blew a lot of cash on animation art. Most of it came from Animaniacs, a show from Steven Spielberg's studio. The majority of the humor was geared to both kids and adults, and there was some stuff that no one born before 1975 would get at all. I loved it. Taped every episode. Bought the t-shirts, and more. Invented the Animaniacs Drinking Game ("Helloooo, Nurse!" = 1 drink; celebrity cameo = chug) and unveiled it at a housewarming party, to the delight / chagrin of my guests.

These days, it's Pokemon. If you don't have kids under nine years old, Pokemon is a Japanese import meaning 'pocket monsters.' It deals with people who capture, raise, and combat-train various species of monsters. I eyed the show with suspicion, but it aires on Kids WB, which features Animaniacs, Batman, and other high-quality entertainment. I gave it a shot.

And now, I'm hooked. I gotta catch 'em all.

I can tell you the evolutionary process of several breeds of Pokemon, including Pikachu, Charmander, and Squirtle. I'm also on the lookout for ANYTHING related to Jigglypuff, a pink Balloon Pokemon that sings. Anytime it sings, it puts everyone to sleep within the sound of its voice. The Jigglypuff then gets irate that everyone has fallen asleep, takes out a black marker, and draws on the face of everyone who's snoozing during its performance.

Jigglypuff is quite insane, and that's why I like it.

I'm not worried about putting on the impression of caring what people think about my various obsessions. They all have one thing or another that they enjoy to the point of mania. When I get the asperious eye from people, I just shrug. Everybody's got their own Pokemon to catch.