September 3, 2002

Today is the day to try a canine-human mind-meld.

It's David Barringer Week at Haypenny.com and it behooves you to check it out, not least of all to see a piece I wrote adapted from one of my Second City sketches, "How 'Bout These Kids?"

Welcome back to fall, boys and girls! See you in class: I hope our teacher's not totally lame.

Speaking of 'totally lame,' I am totally not being lame and breaking a bit of protocol today. I've gotten some good feedback on Thursday's little piece on playground games and I thought I'd share it with you. I was going to give you my Paul Konerko fan fiction today but I don't have my picture to show you as well, so I'll save it for this Thursday, so you have a little reprieve.

But before we get to them, I think I ought to inform you in the Boston/East Coast Area that F.O.Z. (Friend of Zulkey) David Mogolov's one man show opens shortly and you ought to go see. Here are the details:

"One Night at T.F. Green"
performing with T.B.D. (an ImprovBoston Expansion Troupe) at ImprovBoston in Cambridge, MA
Sept 4, 11, 18, 25 at 8pm.
$5
as part of The Hump, Wednesday Night Fringe Theater at ImprovBoston

Oh! And one more thing! Buy So New Media's Issue #3 of Words Words Words, featuring some work by lots of talented people--and they even let me pitch in! Check it out, if, for the very least, to see the work of Zulkey.com interviewee Shauna McKenna! Watch this space for even more obnoxious ploys for you to purchase literary wares.

So, a few playground notes:

• Elizabeth Ellen:
  helpfully pointed out that I neglected to mention "Duck Duck Goose," and for that I apologize. Except that our playground at Pope John XXIII was an asphalt parking lot and so in our defense we didn't play it that much since sitting on cold cement in a skirt wasn't that much fun.
• Nora Geraghty:
  Who actually attended Pope John along with Meghan Haynes and I, is shocked that I don't recall a sport that our gym teacher invented called "Soccer Basketball." Now, I have no recollection of this game but Nora is never wrong (she's working towards her Ph.D. so she is certifiably smarter than me) so here is her memory:
  
  "It was, in fact, played with a soccer ball on the warped gym floor. There were about 7 players from a team on the floor at a time, and you could dribble the ball soccer-style anywhere on the gym floor, and you could pick it up and dribble it basketball-style “in the paint” of the basketball court. There were two scoring options: either you could score in the soccer net under the basketball net (in front of our PJ XXIII gym doors) for one point, or you could use your hands in the paint and score in the basketball net for two points. My sister remembers this resulting in several close misses in the paint as people tried to go down for the ball with their hands amidst the furious kicking of others hoping to get one in the soccer net. We both think that [gym teacher] Mr. Ro[sinski] came up with this gem in order to overcome the never-ending problem presented by the numerous “dead spots” in the gym floor that wreaked havoc on a dribbled basketball. Frankly, it pains both of us that you could cast this from your memory like so much adolescent trauma. Sorry we couldn’t come up with more specific rules...I’m sure there were more. I’m counting on the many (or two) PJ XXIII grads who check your site to have some memory of this!"
• David Myers,
  helpfully, delivered the rules of FourSquare and, happily, a whole lot more. Actually, it makes me feel kind of guilty for relying on other people's stuff but oh well. People love their reminiscin'.
  
  "Allow me to bring you up to date on the finer points of this King's game:
  
  Basic gameplay was bouncing a ball around in a painted circle or square, usually painted with cross-hairs. One person would stand in each quadrant, thus making the four in FourSquare (or circle, if you can only find circles). Gameplay began when the "leader" or "top" or "King" of the square threw the ball at you. (Leader was often chosen by being the first one outside and yelling "I'm leader!". If a cool kid yelled that, you wanted to be in his square, with three other cool kids. You didn't want to be in a game with a dorky kid for leader.) If you caught the ball, you would throw it to someone else, if you dropped the ball, you were out. This continued until it gets down to two of you, usually the leader and you, but not always. The winner of the duel is the new leader. Streaks were important, if you could go all period as leader, never losing, you kicked ass. This hardly ever happened.
  
  Your coolness level for the day was obtained from FourSquare playing. You had three chances at this as the day goes on: morning recess, lunchtime, and gym. It was kind of worthless getting to the top in gym class, cause the coolness points didn't have that much more time to breathe. But boy, if you got to the top in all three periods, watch out - you'll be so cool, people were liable to just give you GarbagePail kids, just so you'd hang out with them during lunch.
  
  The game was/is played with simple bouncing and mimicking patterns. The leader would first yell off a list of "Rules" or throw options. He could say "Onesies, Twosies and Typewriters". These are the three possible throw options. Nothing else could be thrown, unless the Leader suddenly decided like adding it. The leader would then say "Twosies" and throw the ball, at one of the other three, using two bounces. The person would catch it and then say whatever rule he was using and throw the ball on. You got out when you missed the ball thrown, messed up your throw (threw a twosie instead of a onesie), or used a "Rule" that wasn't allowed. Eventually the game would come down to a duel and the winner is then the New Leader.
  
  That was the game we learned in gymclass, basic and simple. The rules we learned were just the onesies, etc and they sucked. The game turned into it's own on the playground and there were sets of new rules we made up on our own (but travelled among playgrounds, until everyone knew them, everywhere - even different states).
  There were all sorts of possiblities too, on being able to throw "diagonals" or "reverses" - but that isn't coming to me.
  
  Popular Rules, that most of the other kids knew were:
  1. Superbomb
  2. Cherrybomb
  3. Corners (shouted at the last second and the ball shoots out)
  4. Lines - (bouncing or rolling the ball down one of the cross-hair lines - allowing two people to go for it.)
  4. Typewriters (crouched over line, rapidly bouncing the ball on the opponent's side, inducing anger)
  5. Nuclearbomb
  6. Snake
  7. Curveball
  8. A-bomb
  9. Spinners (giving the ball some wicked spin and dropping it into another quadrant)
  10. Punchball
  
  All the 'bomb' throws were really just slamming the ball on the opponent's side, as hard as possible so that the ball would fly into the kindergartener's crappy playground, or roll over by the 5th and 6th graders and they would kick the ball over the fence.
  
  Besides these 10, there were improv-ed throws, all spur-of-the-moment and usually having a complex style. (there really should be a documentary made on this, ala - Dogtown and Z-boys...) These throws often involved current politics and movies, served as a way to keep your fellow student up on the matters of the day. Here are a few examples, with breif descriptions:
  
  1. PeeWee Herman Bike - Here the thrower would stick the ball into his crotch, run around in a circle and say "hah heh..heh hah" (trying hard to sound like PW) and wing the ball into the opposite side. Everyone immitates.
  
  2. Renee is Ugly toss - Thrower places ball over face and runs in a circles shouting "I'm Renee" and then whips the ball on the otherside. Everyone repeats until rule is changed. Often, Renee would quit on these rounds.
  
  3. G.I. Joe - Like the aforementioned 'bomb' throws, except the thrower yells "Go Joe!" while slamming down. Then something about how 'knowing is half the battle'.
  
  4. Gremlin - Spin around in a circle with ball held in outstretched hands and let go at appropriate time. Some kids would yell "Spike!" when they let go, referring to their favorite gremlin, but not everyone followed this.
  
  5. Mogwai - the 'Gremlin's other half, walk to the line and drop the ball close to your toes.
  
  6. Pancake - Set the ball on the ground with your foot atop it and when the other person goes to get the ball, kick it at their face.
  
  7. Buttball - sit on the ball and begin to dribble it with your ass on to their side. Depending on the person's status in the game and in school, you may not want to follow a buttball after certain people and respectfully bow out of the match by running away from the ball, saying "I'm not touching that!".
  
  8. Iran/Contra Scandal - Just kidding. We didn't know what that was.
  
  9. God - You could, at anytime, make up any move, whether it was a "Rule" or not."