Viva Columbus, or, Fun With Spastics (part 1)

[robotnik2004]

Originally published at Route 96. You can comment here or there.

Our crash pad on the first night out of Canada was Renee’s Ponderosa Bungalow in Columbus, Ohio. Renee is a pop culture history chick (and I use “chick” in the empowering sense) with a Wonder Woman fetish whose own personal superpower appears to be ecstatic enthusiasm about everything. She didn’t seem to mind us visiting. She was also playing hostess that night to the Tonawandan Mafia, in the form of Steve and Joe. Readers of King Floyd #1 already know my amigo bueno Steve (aka Dr. Sinatra). Joseph, who happens to be Renee’s significant baboo, is another wanabee Canadian like Steve, one whose list of favorite stuff is even closer to mine than Dr. Sinatra’s, if that’s possible. Now if only we could turn them on to Mexican Wrestling…

HaloGeneration-X

Pete and Derek had never met our American hosts, and I had some fears that the ongoing Olympic Games would whip both Yanqui and Canuck into a nationalist frenzy. Would Bob Costas’ mushbrained analysis of the mens 4×100m relay trigger an ugly international incident?

Not to worry. Under the influence of Renee’s truth-telling lasso, Pete and I assured her we were down with the whole groovy girlpower fun feminism movement, and Derek pretended as best he could. From there, the universal language of pop culture nostalgia, aided by Pete’s homemade red wine, soon revealed the natural grooviness of all present. Before you could say “Reality Bites,” we’d gone through all the Schoolhouse Rockses and were goofing on the theme songs to Scooby-Doo and The A-Team. Best of all, nobody seemed to get self-conscious about what a stereotypical Generation X scene the whole thing was–right down to the black HaloGen-X UbiquiLamp.

Fun With Spastics (part 1)

Some fun was also had at the expense of Renee’s cute but runty and astonishingly uncoordinated cat Colby. (Verbal fun, that is–we didn’t torture it or anything.) I was strongly reminded of the zombie cat in Pet Sematary. Since then, I’ve been chastened to find out that the reason for Colby’s clumsiness is that he is about 90% blind. How is it that it was OK to laugyh at him when we thought he was a brain-damaged spastic, but now that we know he’s just visually impaired, I feel guilty?

Comments

[gammafodder1.livejournal.com]

I'm lovin' reading your cross-USA adventures again, now in the new and improved electronic format. The Wordpress version looks fantastic - it's a keeper! C'mon House on the Hill!

[robotnik.livejournal.com]

Thanks, my friend! It's nice of everybody to indulge me in all this nostalgia (not that they have much of a choice).

Long way to go before the House!