My Year in Hobbies 2019: August!

August 2019:

A picture of a boxed Dungeons of Daggorath cartridge for Radio Shack's TRS-80 Color Computer. a blue-gray gargoyle points a sword at the camera in a maze with a yellow floor and bluew walls, with yellow and black Dungeons of Daggorath logo floating above him. Picture is framed by red trim. Box of cartridge is grey, with black trim and lettering around the outside, and white inner window trim near the window the cartridge is displayed in.
A picture of a boxed Dungeons of Daggorath cartridge for Radio Shack’s TRS-80 Color Computer. a blue-gray gargoyle points a sword at the camera in a maze with a yellow floor and bluew walls, with yellow and black Dungeons of Daggorath logo floating above him. Picture is framed by red trim. Box of cartridge is grey, with black trim and lettering around the outside, and white inner window trim near the window the cartridge is displayed in.

Not gonna lie, even though I’ve never owned a TRS-80 in my life (one of the few commercially-available American home computers of the early ’80s that I haven’t owned), I was REALLY tempted to get this, just because I have such fond memories of Bogarting TRS-80 time at my local Radio Shack as a kid to play it.

A Topps Now card of Cincinnati Reds outfield Aristides Aquino (pictured; a man with brown skin in a white uniform with red trim, wearing a red batting helmet, and swinging a black baseball bat in front of a crowd at a stadium). The card reads "Topps Now" in the top left corner, "10 Aug" in the top right corner, "Call-Up 2019" with the Cincinnati Reds "C" logo in the bottom right corner, and across the bottom, in 2 lines, it reads "Aristides Aquino" and "3-HR GAME, 7 HRs THROUGH FIRST 10 GAMES".
A Topps Now card of Cincinnati Reds outfield Aristides Aquino (pictured; a man with brown skin in a white uniform with red trim, wearing a red batting helmet, and swinging a black baseball bat in front of a crowd at a stadium). The card reads “Topps Now” in the top left corner, “10 Aug” in the top right corner, “Call-Up 2019” with the Cincinnati Reds “C” logo in the bottom right corner, and across the bottom, in 2 lines, it reads “Aristides Aquino” and “3-HR GAME, 7 HRs THROUGH FIRST 10 GAMES”.

 This cat had a pretty good couple of months. Yeah, I got in on his first Topps Now, albeit not out of the gate. He’s on my keeper league fantasy team now, too. We’ll see how that goes.

I hit a new-to-me bookstore in August, The Montague Bookmill in Montague, MA. Billed as “Books You Don’t Need In A Place You Can’t Find”, it’s a great store filled with solid inventory, built from a converted old mill building alongside the Sawmill River. Gorgeous location, comfortable shopping and browsing experience, highly recommended if you’re in the area or traveling through it. I picked up two books by downtown New York guys with similar hair…

Covers of Eric Bogosian's "Sex Drugs Rock & Roll" and Lou Reed's "Between Thought and Expression: Selected Lyrics of Lou Reed" books.
Covers of Eric Bogosian’s “Sex Drugs Rock & Roll” and Lou Reed’s “Between Thought and Expression: Selected Lyrics of Lou Reed” books. Bogosian book has a white cover with a picture of Eric Bogosian, inset in black and red, inside the words “BOGOSIAN SEX DRUGS ROCK & ROLL”, with an embarrassing-in-hindsight Frank Rich caption written underneath. Reed book has a bronze tone to the cover, with the book’s title written in black and bronze blocks above a black and white profile picture of Lou Reed, a man with dark hair and a black shirt on.

I had a cassette copy of the cast recording of the Bogosian play back in the ’80s, and I want to see how the material holds up. In Lou’s case, Lou’s Lou. He was an imperfect dude, to put it mildly, but for a generation and change, he was one of our imperfect dudes. I had kind of a Lou year in 2019, which we’ll revisit later…

In August, I also made it to my first live wrestling card in 17 years (the last time I went was the first MLW show in June of ’02), a collaborative show between Blitzkrieg Pro and Big Time Wrestling celebrating BP’s anniversary.

Here’s Bret “The Hitman” Hart and Ax (Bill Eadie) and Smash (Barry Darsow) of Demolition waving to the crowd after addressing them (all 3 were at the card signing stuff).

Demolition Ax (Bill Eadie, left, a man with black hair and white skin wearing a grey t-shirt, shorts and blue sneakers), Bret "The Hitman" Hart (center, a man with grey hair and white skin, wearing a black t-shirt and black jeans) and and Demolition Smash (Barry Darsow, right, a bald man with white skin, wearing a black t-shirt, black jeans and white sneakers) stand in a wrestling ring and wave to the crowd at a Blitzkrieg Pro/Big Time Wrestling event at CREC Civic Leadership High School in Enfield, CT on August 24th, 2019.
Demolition Ax (Bill Eadie, left, a man with black hair and white skin wearing a grey t-shirt, shorts and blue sneakers), Bret “The Hitman” Hart (center, a man with grey hair and white skin, wearing a black t-shirt and black jeans) and and Demolition Smash (Barry Darsow, right, a bald man with white skin, wearing a black t-shirt, black jeans and white sneakers) stand in a wrestling ring and wave to the crowd at a Blitzkrieg Pro/Big Time Wrestling event at CREC Civic Leadership High School in Enfield, CT on August 24th, 2019.

While I was there, I met “Freshly Squeezed” Orange Cassidy, hero of millions…or whatever.

The author (left, a man with brown hair and white skin, wearing a black Black Sabbath Volume IV t-shirt) and pro wrestler Orange Cassidy (right, a man with reddish blonde hair and white skin, wearing aviator sunglasses, a blue jean jacket, and a white t-shirt) give very mild thumbs ups to the camera at a Blitzkrieg Pro/Big Time Wrestling event, August 24th, 2019. Photo Credit: Bryce Remsburg
The author (left, a man with brown hair and white skin, wearing a black Black Sabbath Volume IV t-shirt) and pro wrestler Orange Cassidy (right, a man with reddish blonde hair and white skin, wearing aviator sunglasses, a blue jean jacket, and a white t-shirt) give very mild thumbs ups to the camera at a Blitzkrieg Pro/Big Time Wrestling event, August 24th, 2019. Photo Credit: Bryce Remsburg

The Freshly Squeezed one ran into some serious trouble that night, as he was facing The Boogeyman, and while OC is usually pretty chill about things, he was, understandably, very afraid.

Orange Cassidy (left, a shirtless man in blue jeans with reddish blonde hair and white skin) faces The Boogeyman (right, a shirtless man with brown skin, head painted red, wearing black pants) as the crowd looks on at a Blitzkrieg Pro/Big Time Wrestling event, August 24th, 2019.
Orange Cassidy (left, a shirtless man in blue jeans with reddish blonde hair and white skin) faces The Boogeyman (right, a shirtless man with brown skin, head painted red, wearing black pants) as the crowd looks on at a Blitzkrieg Pro/Big Time Wrestling event, August 24th, 2019.

So afraid, in fact, that after The Boogeyman spat worms at him (yes, really), he tried to run away. When he ran up into the stands, I actually tried to get him to hide behind me (yes, I, a 45 year old man with a history of head injuries, tried to intervene in a professional wrestling match; way to go there, Icarus…), so The Boogeyman wouldn’t see him, but he apparently didn’t feel like this was an effective enough strategy, so he kept running, but not before I got this “Blair Witch Project”-esque shot of him…

Orange Cassidy (front left, a shirtless man with reddish blonde hair and white skin) runs away from The Boogeyman at a Blitzkrieg Pro/Big Time Wrestling event on August 24th, 2019.
Orange Cassidy (front left, a shirtless man with reddish blonde hair and white skin) runs away from The Boogeyman at a Blitzkrieg Pro/Big Time Wrestling event on August 24th, 2019.

Eventually, not long after that, it ended poorly.

Professional wrestler Orange Cassidy (center, a shirtless man with white skin, wearing blue jeans and white sneakers with black soles) lies motionless in a wrestling ring as a crowd looks on at a Blitzkrieg Pro/Big Time Wrestling event, August 24th, 2019.
Professional wrestler Orange Cassidy (center, a shirtless man with white skin, wearing blue jeans and white sneakers with black soles) lies motionless in a wrestling ring as a crowd looks on at a Blitzkrieg Pro/Big Time Wrestling event, August 24th, 2019.

Orange Cassidy has since recovered, and landed on his feet in All Elite Wrestling, so he’s OK, I guess. I’m not sure what The Boogeyman’s been up to lately.

This entire exchange, including the part where I try to help Orange Cassidy hide from The Boogeyman, was captured on video from not one, but two different camera angles, so one of the more ridiculous things I’ve ever done in my life has been preserved for future generations (or however long YouTube lasts) to enjoy.

I show up around 3:43 on this one….

…and 4:26 on this one.

First-run movies watched in August 2019 (1): Hobbs & Shaw (it was the Snakes on a Plane of movies featuring both Hobbs & Shaw!)

Television seasons binge-watched in August 2019 (5): GLOW Season 2 (dark, and there are choice I wouldn’t have made, but I was still entertained), Kobra Kai Season 2 (better than it has any right to be, even if you don’t have the nostalgic familiarity with the characters that I do), The Strain Seasons 2-4 (I loved the first 2-hour episode, one of my best ever TV viewing experiences…and then they did 3+ more seasons of it…I really wish it had lived up to the promise of that first pilot).

Comic books cancelled or ending in August 2019 (1): Rolled & Told (Lion Forge). It’s sort of cheating, calling this one a comic book, as it’s really an all-ages, modern version of a Dragon Magazine-esque magazine covering Dungeons & Dragons, with a complete short adventure in each issue and, oh yeah, a comic within the magazine that serves as a lead-in to each adventure. I still have to go back and read a bunch of the 12 issue run they did before they went on hiatus (the series is supposedly coming back in Fall of 2020), because each issue is packed with articles and information. There’s a hardcover compilation of the run available now, if you can’t find single issues. If you play D&D on the regular, and/or want to, but have friends who are having trouble committing to a lengthy campaign, I highly recommend Rolled & Told.

September was a big month (and July/August weren’t exactly small), so bear with me, it may take a bit.

2 thoughts on “My Year in Hobbies 2019: August!”

  1. Dungeons of Daggorath would be really cool to own, but I would think that you’d want to be able to play it though. It’s pretty neat to see that Bret and Demolition were at that show, kind of surprised that Bret would make an appearance at such a small venue, they must’ve paid him well. Did you get their autographs?

  2. I may have a line on a TRS-80, so if I wanted to play it without using an emulator, it wouldn’t be that hard to line up. Even if that fell through, it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve bought game software before I had the console or computer it runs on.

    As for Bret and Demolition, I’ve got Bret’s autograph on his biography already (Free signature/picture at a BlueClaws game!), and alas, though it’ll break the hearts of people reading this who feel that he’s ruining the business or whatever, I wasn’t able to get Demolition’s autographs because I needed to save dough to get a t-shirt from Orange Cassidy. I’m more than OK with that choice, though it was cool to see Demolition out and about.

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