Babes in toyland

Handing over birthday presents each year to his increasingly buck-toothed children, my father would remind us that when he was our age, the only toys he had were a stick and a rock. He is now estranged from our family. Coincidence? I THINK NOT.

Toys are the best. I plan on breeding exclusively to have an excuse to break out my Polly Pockets again. I guess they’re “vintage” Pollies at this point, delightfully retro choking hazards. Today’s version is 4 inches tall, Amazonian, really, and comes with many exciting accessories like rubber pants and “Glamper” vans; the Polly of my childhood had to live in a clamshell, enjoying life to the fullest with a face that had rubbed off long ago. That’s how we liked it in those heady days of the early (19)90s. Tiny people living in tiny houses! If we wanted variety, we would turn to tiny animals living in tiny pet shops (see: Littlest Pet Shop, Puppy in my Pocket, Puppy Puppy Puppies, Pound Puppies, Puppy Surprise, etc). They were simpler times.

My good friend (and talented cartoonist) J.J. and I were enjoying a leisurely stroll through Toys R Us the other day, as two twenty-somethings on a Wednesday night in Vancouver are wont to do, and we were shocked by the quality of playthings being proffered to “the kids of today”. Once I stopped complaining about the rampant sexism on display (“Why are toy vacuum cleaners in the girls’ section? Why is there even a distinct girl section? Is that a princess baby doll? Somebody is going to be a MILLIONAIRE and I HATE IT"), we put on our Critical Thinking and Social Analysis Caps, along with our Unfair Judgement Socks and Childless & Underemployed Lederhosen, and then climbed aboard our High Horse Scooter to get to the bottom of today's toy trends.

We were immediately alarmed by the excess of made-up words branding the most popular items. Society should be less concerned with how sexting is affecting their children's abilities to form a sentence, and more concerned about the gibberish lining the shelves of the toy department. I am fairly confident that a “Zhu Zhu” is not a word in any language, much less one that means “hamster with wheels”. More mind-boggling, however, is the Zhu Zhu Forces helicopter accessory kit. Call me old-fashioned, but does a rodent really need wheels and a helicopter? What kind of an example is this setting for kids? No wonder they're all fat now.

“Cutants”, as a breed, are a little clearer in their origins. They’re cute mutants, y’see? Kind of like X-Men, but instead of being heroic-yet-troubled characters with blade-knuckles and incredible healing powers, they’re like, a skunk who's also a calculator. The pig hamburger to me is the most troubling. Hamburgers are already made of meat, from what I understand; do some limbs and a snout really equate to a mutation, or simply sloppy work in the slaughterhouse? J.J. and I agreed that the designers of the Cutants were obviously not feeling inspired for some of the creatures, clearly just glancing around their desktop at the Mattel Kreativity Kompound before phoning it in: “How about . . . a cat . . . that’s also . . . a computer? And, shit, a dog that’s . . . uh . . . a gum drop. Let’s get drunk.”

Also of questionable linguistic value: “Zoobles”. Oh, pardon me: Zoobles! The psychedelic mind-freak that is their website helps clear up some big questions about the line, mainly: What? “Zoobles are collectable, colourful characters that ‘pop’ open when placed on the magnetized ‘Happitat’. There are hundreds of Zooble characters to collect and playsets for added fun,” the FAQ page helpfully explains. Of course! Collectible happitat poppers that are collectible! Boy, is my face red. What I can’t answer, though, is the question posed by a concerned dad on Youtube (second only to Yahoo Answers for excellent parenting advice): which is a better toy, Zoobles or Squinkies? We may never know, particularly since one of these sounds like a racial slur and I'm too nervous to google it. 

Second on the trend report: horrible disfigurement. Maybe it’s a misplaced attempt to make kids with weird heads feel better about themselves? Whatever the inspiration, I think the children of the future may be better off with a stick and a rock after all.

Perhaps two trends isn't much of a report, but the store was closing and we had to go. If you'd like more tips on what is "hot" and what is "not" and more importantly, how to pronouce "haute", please send a self-addressed, self-stamped envelope c/o Scruff McGruff, Chicago, IL, 60652.

More evidence of how un-fun I am

I have been to quite a few concerts in my short life. Like any teen with skin problems and an interest in excessive eyeliner, I aligned my self identity firmly with my CD collection during my formative years. Going to all-age shows, spending the whole concert in line to buy a commemorative t-shirt, then blogging about how amazing it was took up huge chunks of my adolescence. “They played an amazing acoustic version of ‘Angst Riot’,” I would brag in class the next day in my saucily belted XL tee. “He actually sweat on me. Amazing.”

Ten years later, though, I’m realizing that I don’t actually like concerts very much at all. Whether I’m just getting older and more curmudgeonly or whether I was just in denial in my youthier youth, it’s hard to say. Festivals, I like: there are delicious deep fried things, a lot of opportunities for lounging instead of swaying in someone’s impossibly sweaty personal space, and the sun is usually invited. But the more I think about concerts, the more I find to complain about in my head during drum solos, and I wonder why I keep bothering.

Concerts? More like No-Fun-certs!

Opening bands

Like Shakespeare once said, “If the ticket says the show starts at 7:30, why doesn’t it just start at 7:30?” Although I am perpetually late because my time is obviously more valuable than anyone else, I get quite stressed waiting around for things to happen. The time where the roadies move mic stands around a stage for half an hour between some opening Winnipeg-ian band and the main act is like purgatory, presuming purgatory looks like the Vogue theatre / is real. Recently I have learned to just eat crepes and drink beer until an hour and a half after doors open, which has greatly eased my tension.

Jam sessions

Perhaps I need to get into drugs. I don’t understand or enjoy a seven minute song on any level. Some of us have to get up for work in the morning, guys. 

Arms: On throwing them in the air and waving them like I just don’t care

I usually frequent shows that are less “toe-tappin’” and are more “unorthodox use of the banjo”, but however the performer challenges basic notions of rhythm, I still feel like a little bit of dancing is expected at a public performance.

Unfortunately, though I learned a really sweet dance move for the bottom half of my body last week where you just spell your name with your butt, above the belly button, I am a mess.

Ponytails

There is always some dumb girl in front of me who needs to re-do her ponytail like 12 times, so she flips and flops her hair in my face for 45 minutes. I suppose this could be avoided by standing behind people with shorter, lower-maintenance hair, but that means she wins. No dice.

Encores

Clapping for one minute is fine, but clapping for five minutes makes my hands feel fuzzy. Upon further consideration, this may be something I should contact a medical professional about. More importantly, however, it is a metaphor for the pain of a performer leaving you alone, hooting in the darkness with stupid ponytail’d bitches. At the hand-numbness point, I don’t even want to see the band any more. We don’t even really need to clap them back on stage, anyways. They know it’s coming; we know it’s coming. It’s an uncomfortable charade that needs to stop.

Closing remarks

It’s not that I don’t like “music” or “fun”. I would gladly go to a concert again, but I probably will stop paying $60 for a balcony seat. If you’d like to take me as your guest, that would be nice! But I’d like to bring my own chair and sit perfectly still while enjoying the music. I’ll also need earplugs because these things can get pretty loud sometimes.

Prime. Of. My. Life.