NERRRRRDS! NerdsNerdsNerdsNerds....
Sep. 19th, 2021 04:46 pmThis was the soundtrack of my childhood, and I've never really turned it off:
I think they're talking about us.
Well, today, I was doing the talking. Twice. Memories of my nerdy-kid post came up in two different contexts, and I shared them as comments with friends before deciding to turn them into their very own post.
The first was inspired by this meme:
I replied:
Not quite the same joke but next to it at Wegmans: I was a nerdy kid growing up, surprise surprise, and endured quite a bit of bullying. My mom waved it off, saying, “They’re just jealous!“ So after a round of some particularly bad name-calling from one of them, I blurted out “You’re just jealous!” And the little galoot shot back, “I don’t even like jelly!”
That was over 50 years ago. I can still remember the kid's name and exactly where we were when he said it. They moved away a couple years later and, other than that memory, I've had no contacts or recollections with him or his family.
----
Now, we move into my teens, for a memory inspired by how![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dauntless_heart and her husband wound up in their current home town, now base to their very wonderful doggo business, literally after throwing a dart that landed on the town.
Okay, there was stuff that happened in between the dart and the move, but it's a What-If worthy of a Marvel series. I have one almost as strange, and it goes back to the nerdy days of midteen Ray. Edited slightly, but the point preserves (speaking of jam and jelly;)-
It was August 1975. Maybe 74. I forget. I'd only recently acquired my first FM radio and discovered a wacky rock-and-roll disk jockey on one of the local stations. He was My People. He used goofy sound effects and retold Johnny Carson jokes I didn't stay up late enough to hear and such. He ran a nightly trivia contest with one question and no prizes. I never won (or not won).
Then one night, he was gone. This happens in radio a lot. So I turned to another weirdness I'd acquired in past years- tuning in to 50,000 watt clear channel AM stations from other places at night. In my then Lawn Guyland home, I could get 3WE from Cleveland and Cincy's WCKY, Super CFL from Chicago, CHUM from Toronto, even stations as far away as Charlotte and Iowa. I flipped the AM dial maybe a week after he went off the air in New York, and somehow, on 1520AM out of Buffalo, there he was! Same silly show, only now it was 6-10 instead of 7-midnight and you had to wait sometimes for a closer lower-power station to go off the air at sundown to catch it. The trivia bit took a few months before it came back, but it was on for most of the time I listened, and I still never (not) won.
I had never been to Buffalo, and wouldn't until after applying to and getting into its law school. But from those few years of listening to KB, I learned a ton of the geography, the politics, the local quirks (google "Dyngus Day"). I knew wings were a thing before anybody outside the 716 did. And that's where I picked up my early connections to Bills and Sabres, which in time would replace the downstate teams I then rooted for. (The Mets, of course, had no replacement here, and probably wouldn't have cured me of THAT disease even if we had one.)
I can't remember if he left the station before I went off to Cornell or I just lost interest. He eventually moved to Pittsburgh where his radio career began, got sued for sexual harassment before it became a common thing (the suits, not the harassment), and he ultimately morphed into a wackadoodle MAGAnutzoid. I will not even speak his name out of the dishonor he did to my early appreciation of him.
Still, I wonder: what if I hadn't had that audio-only introduction to Cheektowaga and beef on weck and "We're Gonna Win That Cup" and where the nine 22-hour McDonalds all were? I might not have even considered a school this far away, much less chosen it, much less packed up to a place where I knew nobody except the four other Cornell alums in my class, much less made it my (and later our) permanent home.
Hell, I might be in Pittsburgh now if he'd gone straight back there. At least the Bills-Steelers last Sunday would have been much more enjoyable. But hey, we rebounded today and Squished the Fish in Miami in a 35-0 shutout, so who am I to complain?
----
Finally, in between those two events, I was twelve. Apparently I still am.
As if there haven't been enough toilet references around here, a friend posted this WalMart advertisement this morning:
My initial thought: I'm already afraid that when we finally rip out our current toilet at the end of the job, the Shit Demon from Dogma is gonna come roaring out #PoopyBoy
That drew a comment: A friend of mine got a toilet with bluetooth.
And my reply: That could be tricky; pick the wrong pairing and you’ll have shit coming out of your toaster.
----
Lower-key day today, not involving the opening of any portals to hell. Just ran some wash, moved stuff in the garage where they're going to be blowing insulation tomorrow, and enjoyed the Fish squishing. Tomorrow and Tuesday are going to be very busy days at and around work, so I'll try to recover the energy I had back when I was a nerdy kid.
I think they're talking about us.
Well, today, I was doing the talking. Twice. Memories of my nerdy-kid post came up in two different contexts, and I shared them as comments with friends before deciding to turn them into their very own post.
The first was inspired by this meme:
I replied:
Not quite the same joke but next to it at Wegmans: I was a nerdy kid growing up, surprise surprise, and endured quite a bit of bullying. My mom waved it off, saying, “They’re just jealous!“ So after a round of some particularly bad name-calling from one of them, I blurted out “You’re just jealous!” And the little galoot shot back, “I don’t even like jelly!”
That was over 50 years ago. I can still remember the kid's name and exactly where we were when he said it. They moved away a couple years later and, other than that memory, I've had no contacts or recollections with him or his family.
----
Now, we move into my teens, for a memory inspired by how
dauntless_heart and her husband wound up in their current home town, now base to their very wonderful doggo business, literally after throwing a dart that landed on the town.Okay, there was stuff that happened in between the dart and the move, but it's a What-If worthy of a Marvel series. I have one almost as strange, and it goes back to the nerdy days of midteen Ray. Edited slightly, but the point preserves (speaking of jam and jelly;)-
It was August 1975. Maybe 74. I forget. I'd only recently acquired my first FM radio and discovered a wacky rock-and-roll disk jockey on one of the local stations. He was My People. He used goofy sound effects and retold Johnny Carson jokes I didn't stay up late enough to hear and such. He ran a nightly trivia contest with one question and no prizes. I never won (or not won).
Then one night, he was gone. This happens in radio a lot. So I turned to another weirdness I'd acquired in past years- tuning in to 50,000 watt clear channel AM stations from other places at night. In my then Lawn Guyland home, I could get 3WE from Cleveland and Cincy's WCKY, Super CFL from Chicago, CHUM from Toronto, even stations as far away as Charlotte and Iowa. I flipped the AM dial maybe a week after he went off the air in New York, and somehow, on 1520AM out of Buffalo, there he was! Same silly show, only now it was 6-10 instead of 7-midnight and you had to wait sometimes for a closer lower-power station to go off the air at sundown to catch it. The trivia bit took a few months before it came back, but it was on for most of the time I listened, and I still never (not) won.
I had never been to Buffalo, and wouldn't until after applying to and getting into its law school. But from those few years of listening to KB, I learned a ton of the geography, the politics, the local quirks (google "Dyngus Day"). I knew wings were a thing before anybody outside the 716 did. And that's where I picked up my early connections to Bills and Sabres, which in time would replace the downstate teams I then rooted for. (The Mets, of course, had no replacement here, and probably wouldn't have cured me of THAT disease even if we had one.)
I can't remember if he left the station before I went off to Cornell or I just lost interest. He eventually moved to Pittsburgh where his radio career began, got sued for sexual harassment before it became a common thing (the suits, not the harassment), and he ultimately morphed into a wackadoodle MAGAnutzoid. I will not even speak his name out of the dishonor he did to my early appreciation of him.
Still, I wonder: what if I hadn't had that audio-only introduction to Cheektowaga and beef on weck and "We're Gonna Win That Cup" and where the nine 22-hour McDonalds all were? I might not have even considered a school this far away, much less chosen it, much less packed up to a place where I knew nobody except the four other Cornell alums in my class, much less made it my (and later our) permanent home.
Hell, I might be in Pittsburgh now if he'd gone straight back there. At least the Bills-Steelers last Sunday would have been much more enjoyable. But hey, we rebounded today and Squished the Fish in Miami in a 35-0 shutout, so who am I to complain?
----
Finally, in between those two events, I was twelve. Apparently I still am.
As if there haven't been enough toilet references around here, a friend posted this WalMart advertisement this morning:
My initial thought: I'm already afraid that when we finally rip out our current toilet at the end of the job, the Shit Demon from Dogma is gonna come roaring out #PoopyBoy
That drew a comment: A friend of mine got a toilet with bluetooth.
And my reply: That could be tricky; pick the wrong pairing and you’ll have shit coming out of your toaster.
----
Lower-key day today, not involving the opening of any portals to hell. Just ran some wash, moved stuff in the garage where they're going to be blowing insulation tomorrow, and enjoyed the Fish squishing. Tomorrow and Tuesday are going to be very busy days at and around work, so I'll try to recover the energy I had back when I was a nerdy kid.