The beginning of 1996 was pretty fucking harsh for me. I attended a school I genuinely hated, was picked on heavily by my fellow peers and my neighborhood friends, the reason I decided to attend this school in the first place, really didn't talk to me anymore (In school, we were in different class clusters). Video games were only a temporary escape as I had a limited amount of games and after an unsuccessful suicide attempt (If it were successful, I wouldn't be writing this) I just opted to skip school a lot. Everyone in the neighborhood knew what I was doing but I didn't care, I just wanted to not face what I saw as pure hell. When my mother caught wind of this, she was understandably upset but after having me speak with child counselor, understood and, against her better judgement let me sit the rest of the school year out. The stipulation was I had to write the school board of everything that led to me not wanting to attend school, best of all was being jumped in the gym by former friends while the then principal watched. The school board said that if I attended summer school and passed, I could move up to a grade, because despite skipping school a lot, I was a good student.
After summer school breezed by, helped by the fact that school was only 8 a.m.-noon and the school was literally down the street from where I lived, my only thought was "now what?". I'd grown apart from my neighborhood friends and decided to stay inside in the A/C and so on accident, I stayed up all night, watching the works of Fred Olen Ray, Jim Wynorski and other B-movie greats (which were on heavy rotation on HBO and Showtime) and found them lovable, albeit goofy (the heavy nudity in them helped).
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| What, does this not look educational to you?? |
When 5:30 a.m. hit and I wasn't really tired, I had the opportunity to catch "Sailor Moon", "VR Troopers" (which further helped my curiosity in Tokusatsu) and "Ronin Warriors". 6:30 a.m. was a haze for me because, I think, "Bananas in Pajamas " was on at this time and I never really watched and I don't remember what I watched in it's place but I knew what was coming at 7 a.m. . 7 a.m. meant Sci-Fi Channel's (I refuse to call it syfy) Animation Station. This two hour animation block introduced me to "Terrahawks" (a very 80s version of the Thunderbirds marionette show), "Galaxy High" (think 80s animated Saved by the Bell in space) and "Defenders of the Earth" ( pretty much the Avengers if it were King Feature characters instead of Marvel). The Animation Station also featured two shows that would become personal favorites, "The new adventures of Gigantor" (Tetsujin 28 Go in Japan) and "Bionic Six". While Gigantor went on to become a favorite anime of mine, Bionic Six went on to become one of my favorite shows, period, and try to watch episodes where ever I can find them.
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| Hopefully, The Bionic Six are running to a DVD release... |
After Animation Station, I would either stick around to either whatever Sci-Fi was marathoning for the day (I became very fond of "Tales from the Darkside" and "Buck Rogers") or switch over to Cartoon Network to see what weird Hanna-Barbera/Ruby Spears shows they were marathoning that day. Hanna-Barbera/Ruby Spears show were just so batshit, how could anyone not love them, especially their 70s-80s shows. About noon, I actually became tired and would go to bed, repeating this cycle for the remainder of the summer.
Now, yes, this was not a healthy habit and it made my mom worry even more about me. I was having fun being a night owl, watching all these weird, wonderful and terrible movies made me feel somewhat like an adult. On the flipside, being up early enough to watch the kids shows reminded me that I was still a kid, though I was a teenager. I think this experience pretty much defines who I am today, and I don't just mean a beinf a pervert with an overactive imagination. The summer in front of the tube gave me my overactive and pretty weird imagination. If it weren't for this summer, I wouldn't be the blerd I am today.
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