Ryan "Mouth-hole" Cassano
This weekend I played host to a friend of mine,
Ryan “Mouth-hole” Cassano, who was visiting from my beloved home town of
Nevada City, California. He had come to investigate 1980’s video arcade games and literature concerning it for some future enterprise that I’m not at liberty to divulge but involves alcohol, supermodels, and rooms of plastic balls.
He met me after my hard but spiritually fulfilling shift at
Amoeba Music Hollywood, waiting out the last few minutes of my shift by browsing the clearance section of soundtracks, where he found two items that made him squeal like a flame-covered, 500 pound, chocolate gorilla who sounded like a happy little girl: the soundtrack to the film
Kill the Moonlight (which features some very early work by
Beck), and to the documentary
King of Kong: Fistful of Quarters.
The latter was serendipitous, as it was related to his arcade quest. In fact, he was traveling with a copy of that very film and insisted I watch it with him. I told him he wasn’t the boss of me and I can do whatever I want and I hate I hate him I hate him, then we drove back to my place for a home-cooked dinner of
gimlets.
Just like Ma used to make!
I introduced him to the refined art of Tom of Finland, who’s work is so lovingly collected in my Taschen art book. He found it deeply educational and oftentimes frightening. Imagine my embarrassment when, half way through flipping through the book, I realized it was a souvenir photo album of my trip to the Anne Frank House! A common mistake, sure, but no less silly.
Puzzler: Can you tell which one is which?
After half an hour of explaining to him the difference between gay sex and the methodical genocide of six million people, we decided to go to bed.
