Catalyst of 97′
This was my gateway. The handshake, the door that led to an ever winding path to madness.
Walking into Day Old Antiques has its price. The ferryman is unassuming and has a badass collection of punk 7 inch records and a lazy but intense depth of knowledge that would bitchslap any hipster out of his comfort zone and well crafted nonchalance.
He is as crafty boatman. The sarcastic enabler .
You hand him a coin.
Smack dab in the glass floor case sits little Mr “He’s a Samurai” , ready and willing to suck you dry of your college art supply money.
Just one fix. A taste.
You can always stop right?
Black Flag’s Six Pack thumps in the background, but loses the fight and gives in to the Der Ring des Nibelungen you now have created as a soundtrack in your own melting brain … because at this moment, that toy in the case is the one you never got as a kid and always, always wanted.
Always.
(Melodrama is key here.)
Its the first MIB Chogokin you have bought in almost 10 years, and it is the one that opened the crack in the dam. Don’t bother resisting.
Mike hands it to you, and all the years of Friday afternoons on Channel 25 flood back. The soundtrack shifts again. Jim Terry is your daddy.
Everyone in the room knows it son.
You are screwed. Lock, stock and barrel.
And you are OK with that.
No matter how many Popy boxed Ga 51s you see over the years since then, this little Shogun box will always and forever be your favorite friend… the designated driver that took you on your path to oblivion, which only a Robot skull can accomplish.
Booya.
