Gary Gygax’s last saving throw

Gary Gygax. Now there’s a name for you. And one, too, that will forever be linked to my fumbling, tentative (yet inquisitive) march towards adulthood. The co-founder of Dungeons & Dragons died on March 4th at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and I can’t let this slip by without a few reflections. (I learned of Gygax’s passing while still in London, but wanted to wait until I returned home where I had access to some buried treasure in the archives…)

Gygax, along with Dave Arneson, laid the foundation for an alternate world populated with enough nightmarish inhabitants to keep an active imagination up all night, running on a mixture of fear and utter fascination. I never ‘played’ D&D as part of a regular group — though I remember word of Brian Stolt’s prowess as a DM (dungeon master) — but the lure of Dungeons & Dragons, as a parallel-universe proving ground for reinventing and testing yourself against a panoply of mythic creatures (good and evil), was simply irresistible.

I can’t tell you how many hours I spent poring over the pages of the original Monster Manual — Gygax’s taxonomy of terror. Many of the drawings look comical now, but as an “illustrated compendium of monsters: aerial servant to zombie”, the manual served as a kind of metaphorical index to all the dark, twisted, and gor-rific creatures that lie in wait for us in the real world quest that is adolescence, searching for safe passage through to the other side. As a budding teen-ager the book was just what I needed: a modern-day Grimm’s Faerie Tales to gird my psyche for any unimaginable horror lurking around the next corner.

The Monster Manual runs the gamut from the mundane — ant, baboon, elephant, snake, what have you — to the wondrously bizarre — brain mole, beholder, floating eye, shambling mound, and, one of my personal favorites, the gelatinous cube (which somehow managed to find its way into most of our adventures). Typically used as a reference while playing the game, I just loved to peruse the Manual in search of the fantastic and grotesque. Plus, there were plenty of female creatures with boobs, too, so that was good.

As already mentioned, I didn’t regularly play D&D with a group of my peers, but Todd, Geoff, and I would occasionally whip up a game for each other (with Geoff usually presiding as DM). I never knew if we were doing it “right” or not, but it was still gripping play all the same — even in Todd’s room on a gray Saturday afternoon, substituting craggy channels in the carpeting for subterranean passageways that our die-cast figurines were determined to chart. I think that’s what I liked best about D&D: the creation and exploration of new territory. I’d spend hours mapping out vast worlds with elaborate geo-topographical features (maps, which, were not too dissimilar from Tolkien’s Middle Earth, I might add…).

But the creative impetus did not stop at map-making. In order to play, of course, you need to invent a character to embark upon the quest. Half the fun of D&D is in dreaming up new alter egos for yourself, although it should come as no surprise how transparent those characters really are when viewed (in hindsight) as projections of the perceived self. Take my two characters, for instance, Freelik (half-elf) and Gandorf (wizard). OK, the names are pretty weak, but these two are both me in one sense or another: Freelik being a representation of how I actually saw myself at the time (with a low “charisma” rating) and Gandorf a working incarnation of a more idealized self. (See that cap he’s got on? Mom had made one just like it for me years previous when I was a wizard for Halloween. The fact that it looks so ridiculously small in the sketch makes me wonder if I wasn’t imagining myself in the future: Space Wiz!) I see that both are fairly intelligent and wise, however — sign of a self-esteem not too beaten down and battered. Quest on!

Freelik’s character sheet

Gandorf’s character sheet

Put up yer dukes

All the recent fuss about this ‘ultimate fighting’ club for kids in Missouri has me thinking about what I’d do if I were a parent. I don’t think punching someone in the nose is the best way to go about solving a problem, but there are cases where it’s warranted. Why, if Sister Superior Mary Benedict hadn’t taught Eddie Breen how to box, Tommy Smith would have continued to bully him and they never would have become best pals, right?

Truth be told, I’ve never been in a fight in my life. And I’ve always wondered about that. Sure, Todd and I got into some pretty good scraps when we were younger, but never with the intention of producing serious bodily injury to each other. I can’t help sometimes but think that I missed out on a rite of passage — it’s not as though I never found myself in a situation where blind rage and flailing fists would have produced a more satisfactory (albeit short-lived) outcome than shrinking away in humiliation, my usual tactic for self-preservation.

And it’s not like I never had the tools to deliver the goods, either. During my sophomore year in high school I studied Tae Kwan-do under Jim Langlas, one of the English teachers at Wheaton-Warrenville High School (now Wheaton-Warrenville South). I learned how to focus all forward energy into explosive punches, deflect oncoming blows, and deliver round-house kicks to lay out any challenger. This was powerful stuff for a skinny 14-year old, and I admit to entertaining fantasies of taking down some jerk-off with a single shot the solar plexis. (What kid hasn’t wanted to bust a kung-fu stance after being pushed to the ground — a warning to his aggressor that he’d just made a very grave error in judgment?) Yes, that would have been sweet. But of course it never happened.

Dr. Langlas taught us the physical skills we needed to defend ourselves but the core value of his training derived from a newfound sense inner strength: knowledge that bred confidence, yet came with responsibility. Think of it as swearing to use your power for good, not evil. And while there is something to be said for this, the fact I was never provoked into unleashing a lightning display of martial arts ass-kickery boils down more to the plain fact that I was just too scared (realistic?) rather than any verisimilitude of keeping my awesome destructiveness at bay because I was the “better man”. I knew I never stood a chance.

In the end I didn’t stick with Tae Kwon-do past my first green stripe. That summer Wheaton-Warrenville was moth-balled and the entire school was divvied up between Wheaton(s) Central and North. I became a Central Tiger and Mr. Langlas a North Falcon. (Boo! Hiss!) I suppose I could have continued my training at the center he ran in West Chicago, but I was never very comfortable with the practice, patterns, rank tests (I suffered from extreme performance anxiety) and all that, though I can see how the structure and personal discipline of it all would appeal to a lot of kids. All I did was go back to sparring with Todd in Ninja Protectors!

Which brings me back to ‘ultimate’ fighting. Now I’m no expert, but it’d be hard to sell me on the idea of sending your kid into a fighting pit with a kill-or-be-killed mentality. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they wear protective gear and whatnot, but what is the message being handed down from parent to child? That by wailing away as hard as you can — with intent to pummel your opponent — you may stand a chance of ‘winning’ and not being called a loser? How can this possibly translate to anything productive in later life? What can we learn about working and living together with other people by beating the shit out of them, because that’s all we know how to do? There’s standing up for yourself and there’s outright cowardly aggression.

To be fair, our parents gave us Socker Boppers one year for Christmas and Todd and I promptly proceeded to sock each other silly, but there was a key difference: while going at it, we were simultaneously laughing our heads off, socking and bopping like a couple of cartoon characters with those over-sized air pillows on our fists (remember how sweaty your hands would get inside?). It wasn’t quite the same as being tossed into a cock-fighting ring with Dad cheering you on from the sidelines.

I can only see this as parental fear and insecurity manifesting itself in yet another perverted childhood arena. To the beauty pageant moms we now add the ultimate fighting dads. I mean, come on. If your kid needs to blow off some steam he or she can lay into a punching bag or a pillow if need be. (Sports, anyone? Hello…?) At least with the martial arts, kids develop a sense of respect for themselves and others and learn that avoiding conflict in the first place is often where the battle is won. Even Eddie Breen fought solely on the grounds of self-defense, and only to the minimum extent that still allowed him to extend an olive branch to Tommy and gain his respect. Wiping the playground with him would only have destroyed Tommy’s reputation and created a monster, a life-long enemy. Gee, I feel as though I’m on the verge of making a deeper connection to something beyond childhood scrapping…

(Jim Langlas’ bio on his new web page. Good to see that he got his PhD but continued to teach in Wheaton public school system all the way up until last year. Come to think of it, Mr. Langlas wasn’t the only PhD teaching high school in Wheaton. I got one hell of an education growing up, which says a lot about the ability of school districts to attract and retain quality teachers.)

(Earlier web site with nice photo of Mr. Langlas — though I can’t believe he still looks that young! But you never know…)

Aloha, Aunty Genoa and Uncle Ray

This week Hawai’i lost two musical giants and beloved kupuna: Aunty Genoa Keawe (Kay-ah-vey) and Uncle Ray Kane (Kah-nay). Quite a blow. Yumi, Chie, and I were lucky enough to see Aunty Genoa sing and play in 2005 at the Honolulu Festival — though she continued to perform long after despite failing health. (Even in her mid-80s, Aunty could hold her trademark falsetto longer than singers a quarter of her age! Check out her signature song “Alika” to see what I mean.) She was quite a performer, with a smile that could make anybody feel good inside. I wasn’t familiar with Aunty Genoa until after moving to Hawai’i but was always glad to see and hear her, whether in concert or on the television. It’s just really sad knowing she’s not with us anymore.

Ray and I, however, go back a bit further. I first became aware of Ray Kane in 1995 when James Treat got hold of and showed the documentary Ki Ho’alu: That’s Slack Key Guitar to our Native American Studies class. I was immediately smitten by Ray’s charm and warmth, and shortly thereafter went out and purchased his CD Punahele. (Dancing Cat Records, a major promoter of slack key music, is based in Santa Cruz.)

The film was only available as a 16mm print at that time so the nearest I could come to it was a “how to” slack key guitar video that Ray had out. (I wish I had it with me now, but the tape is at Dad’s house with my other stuff.) I still remember when the package arrived: everything was hand-written, even a note tucked inside thanking me for the purchase and wishing me warmest aloha. And though I didn’t get very far with the actual guitar playing, I watched that tape many times just to hear Uncle Ray “talk story”. He reminded me so much of my grandfather and I just liked the sound of his voice in the room.

Being that Santa Cruz is a regular stopover on the Hawaiian music circuit, I had an opportunity to see Ray at UC Santa Cruz during a performance of slack key masters that included Keola Beamer, Led Kaapana, and George Kahumoku, Jr. It’s amazing that Ray was even able to travel back then due to lingering health problems, so I feel honored to have seen him perform live. What a guy, though. Do you know he used to trade fish he’d caught as a kid for guitar lessons? They don’t make them like that anymore, that’s for sure.

Aunty Genoa and Uncle Ray, aloha and mahalo nui loa to you both.

(Lee Cataluna on Aunty Genoa)
(Aunty Genoa Keawe’s Wikipedia page — I contributed the photo )
(Aunty Genoa obit — with photos, video and audio clips)
(Ray Kane obit)
(Ray Kane bio on Dancing Cat Records’ site)
(Ki Ho’alu: That’s Slack Key Guitar)

On safari

While cycling up and around the Tantalus-Round Top loop I always see the same groups of wild chickens that inhabit the mountain, plus the occasional mongoose. Once I came across a rather majestic (and large) lizard taking up residence on the side of the road. He didn’t move when I turned back to check him out, leading me to believe he must have been sick or injured. Still, he was something to see.

Then there was the time about a year ago when I kept spying the same pair of domesticated rabbits. Someone had obviously abandoned them after cleaning the cage had become a nuisance. It was tough passing them by because they’d just pop out of the grass and look at you with those eyes, seeking food, or attention, or help. During the several weeks they’d make their roadside appearances, they were never more than several hundred yards from the location where I’d first spotted them. Because of this, I sent a map to the humane society instructing them where to look. It wasn’t much later that I stopped seeing the bunnies. I like to think that someone picked them up and gave them a home (the alternative being the aforementioned ‘occasional mongoose’).

But, yesterday I saw something new: a peacock! I’ve heard that O’ahu has wild peacocks but I’ve never seen one before. His tail feathers were looking a little worse for wear but the neck plumage was radiant. I stopped for a moment, we stared at each other, and then I continued on my merry way. As I coasted downhill I began to wonder if I shouldn’t take this bird’s appearance more seriously. (This is a story for another day, but I’ve had several experiences with animals showing up under curious circumstances right after a death.) Before the encounter someone had called me twice so I decided to put on the brakes and check my messages — something I don’t normally bother with when riding. I made an exception in this case, though, because the peacock had got me thinking about Grandma (whose own peacock showed up after she’d had an “intervention” with the ghost in their Plano house — again, another story). This, in turn, had me wondering about my phone ringing.

I had to wait about 5 minutes to get through all my back-logged voice messages, but in the end it was only Adam wanting to know if I was down for a little darts and beer at Anna’s.

Found memories

Coming back from Maui last month, Yumi picked up this memory card off the floor of the plane (she found it under her feet and just assumed it was hers). Several weeks later, upon closer inspection, it turns out we are in possession of somebody else’s vacation memories. We didn’t look through all the shots, just enough to determine whose pictures we’d ended up with. Nice couple. Looks like they had a good time.

I can’t say it wasn’t tempting, though — like coming across somebody else’s diary on the sidewalk. Which nearly did happen to me a year or so ago. I was just finishing my run when I notice a pile of stuff scattered about the base of a utility pole. There, spilling out of several plastic bags (one from the UH bookstore), is the flotsam of someone’s life: notes from Spanish 202, text books, cell phone user manual, handout about when not to make eye contact, case for compact earphones, clothing, CD soundtrack for RENT (empty), and a whole bunch of other things I don’t feel comfortable investigating further.

It was like stumbling upon a crime scene. A disappearance. The remnants of a sibling blowout. A literal throwing away of one’s past life. But no matter the cause, why had it ended up here on public display?

On top of the pile are a couple of matted, high school senior photos that put a face to the story lying before my feet. In one, a brown-skinned, Asian girl (your typical local girl here in Honolulu) is posing with a volleyball in front of a giant cut-out of a star. (This is just the type of school photo that Yumi says is so “American”.) The photo is dedicated “To Mike”, in gold ink. The other photograph shows the same girl on a beach; it’s more of a snapshot but is likewise secured and protected in a matted frame. (This one is made out to Alfie.)

She’s pretty, and I feel somewhat ashamed that I’m standing there, gazing at this smile obviously intended for other eyes. But I can’t just walk away and leave those pictures there on the ground, staring and smiling up at all passers-by. So I take them home. Exactly why, I don’t know. I’m not about to cart all that stuff off (though I’d feel better covering it up), but there’s an indignity to having all these personal items strewn about — especially when the circumstances of their origin are unknown to me. By removing the likeness of this girl I feel as though I am, in some small way, protecting her.

This reminds me of another picture I found not long after coming to Hawaii, when I was living on Kaiulani Ave. in Waikiki. I came across this picture of two girls one day and was compelled to pick it up off the ground. It had already been stepped on several times but wasn’t damaged too badly. In the photo, two girls — maybe 4 and 6? — stand together for a photo outside an apartment building. They don’t look like sisters, but the way the older one has her arm wrapped around the younger girl suggests a closeness. They squint into the sun, don’t appear to be in a cooperative mood, but each has colorful new hair wraps streaming down alongside and offset from her black hair, which I take to be the reason for the photo in the first place.

Call me weird, but I like looking at photos of people I don’t know, trying to figure out who they are and what their story is. Get me at a garage sale with a box of loose photographs and it may be some time before you pull me away.