Public Consciousness: Dr. Mario Doesn’t Like Your Jerkoff Name, Dr. Mario Doesn’t Like Your Jerkoff Face …

It’s not so bad being trendy, Patrons. Especially because we’re not following them, we’re starting them. That’s what we do. While everyone else is dancing with the GrooGrux King, whatever that means, we’re pushing the boundaries of what’s cool, standing up and demanding notice. Time for Three Things That Need to Be in the Public Consciousness Right Now!

#3 “Jonx” and “Bama”

Two of DC's finest: The 9:30 Club and the Lloyd Dobler Effect

Washington, D.C. is not necessarily known for its local culture, which is one of the main reasons why many people who grow up there move away, myself included. But when I think back on it, the local music scene has had its moments. Maybe not on the national level, but the area gave us Emmet Swimming, the Lloyd Dobler Effect (most recently seen playing for an NYC flash mob of Lloyd Doblers), and Jimmie’s Chicken Shack, if you want to push the boundaries to Annapolis. On a national level, well, believe it or not, Good Charlotte actually were OK before they got famous and starting doing whatever it is they do now. (“That” being Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton). Oh, and of course the most important, Fugazi and Henry Rollins. I used to have cross-country practice in Ft. Reno park, where they famously played shows starting out. The Haagen-Dazs ice cream store  in Georgetown where Rollins and Ian MacKaye worked is now something else, but I can’t remember what. (There still is a Haagen-Dazs store in Georgetown, but it moved).

But one thing I’ve really noticed since moving here is we legitimately had DC area slang, since decently often enough, people have no idea what I’m talking about. Allow me to increase your vocabulary by two words. “Jonx” generally means “stuff.” Was it just a mere spinoff of “junk?” Maybe. I truthfully don’t know. But it’s a very useful word since it can refer to so many random or structured assortments of things, especially in situations where swearing would be frowned upon. Sample use: “What is all this jonx on my table?” “I can’t believe how much jonx you got done this morning.” “My girlfriend’s giving me a bunch of jonx about how I should communicate more.” You’re confused, but trust me, anyone that lived in the DC area during the ‘90s should know what I’m talking about. My former editor, a transplanted Louisianan (is that right?) was dropping it with impunity. My former college classmates all picked it up during their stay.

There were other parts of speech variations. “Aw, jonx!” could be an exclamation. “You guys just got jonxed,” uses it as a verb. “Jonxey” could even work as an adjective, though it was usually used to describe the noun “jonx.” “I got so much jonxey jonx on my desk right now.” But the noun form was the original and enduring. Was there a singular form of this plural noun? I’m not sure. My former editor and some former classmates used “jont” as the singular quite often, but it just doesn’t sound as good. There’s just something smooth, relaxing, and magical about “jonx.”

During the same time period, which doubled as my formative years, the prevailing DC area slang term for a “tool” or a “poser” was a “bama.” Sample use: “Larry Johnson is a straight-up bama.” I have no idea from where this derives. As far as I know, the DC area holds no grudge against the state of Alabama, and it’s certainly not a college football thing because no one there gives a crap about college football. But every time I see someone wearing a shirt from said university that says, “Bama,” I think to myself, “Yeah, you are, motherfucker.”

#2 Uh Oh, it’s Magic (Beeeeuuuuuwwwww!)

Why yes, I absolutely am pandering. Hel-looooooooooo nurse!

OK, so not actually the Cars song; that should be in your consciousness already. I just didn’t want to give away where I was going with this.

With Thanksgiving on the horizon, I’d like to tell you a story about a member of my family. My uncle lives in San Luis Obispo, CA, and occasionally does read and actually has commented here. Growing up, he was the “cool uncle”; the one who put things in my consciousness. I owe my love of Talking Heads directly to him. (By the way, “Stop Making Sense” is my idea of a date movie; this probably explains a lot). Anyway, he also may be responsible for helping teach me a lot of the colorful language I use here with aplomb. He also is largely responsible for my Redskins’ fandom, which I am currently far less excited about than Talking Heads. But he taught me the words to the team’s fight song when I was three or four and encouraged me to jump on other people’s sandcastles and yell, “Dallas Cowboys, smash ‘em down!” Bear in mind this was the early ‘80s, when they were actually competitive.

Anyway, I’m sure almost all of us have the occasionally text communication with friends and family while watching games. I have a couple friends I text during Cubs games, a couple during Caps games, and I text my uncle during Skins games. We’re both at sports bars, although I have the good end of it because we have the large fan contingent at mine. Now as the Skins largely drive one to drink and swear, over the past couple years, we’re had an unofficial contest to try to one-up the other in terms of entertaining expletives regarding Redskins ineptitude. My uncle is quite fond of the “Animal House” warhorse, “Eat me!” which cracks me up pretty much every time, and the occasional South Park reference, such as “Let’s find a cat and get cheesed,” or “Piss out my ass!” As I mentioned last week, my go-to usually involves implying the team has sex with animals (“Monkey sex!” “Pig sex!” “Panther sex!”), or using various animal body-parts as expletives. For instance, “Monkey ass!” or “Horse dick!” During a particularly frustrating game, this itself can turn into a contest for who can come up with the most obscure animal or reproductive/excretory body part to use. It certainly livens up watching a franchise as currently joyless as ours.

Anyway, the grand champion so far wasn’t actually during a Skins game. During the hockey playoffs the past two years, my uncle was dispatched to text me updates on the games when I had night classes. In 2008, I found out the Caps had lost to the Flyers in Game 7 in OT with a simple text reading, “Eat Me!” which I have to say, did cushion the blow a bit. Last year, since the Caps made it to the second round, I was out of classes, but happened to be at Wrigley Field during Game 7 of Caps-Penguins. This turned out to be the best place for me, given the outcome of the Caps game (they got housed) and the Cubs game (a win). Anyway, my uncle chose to impart the news that the Penguins had turned a 2-0 lead into a 5-0 lead in the span of about 2 minutes with one of the most hilariously incomprehensible texts of all time. It read, in all caps, “BITE MY MAGIC ONE!”

I sat dumbfounded for about 30 seconds. Of course I know what he meant, but never in my life will I understand exactly where that came from. Therein lies the genius. And it’s not worked its way into game text discourse, only used for particularly catastrophic events. So yeah, it runs in the family. And if you’re thinking I wasted your time and didn’t appreciate the payoff, well, you know what you can do.

#3 Dr. Mario’s Mockery

Makin' it rain since 1990!

I’m not a big video game guy. I’d love to get all high and mighty and say I’m off in search of more intellectual pursuits, but truthfully, it’s that one they got past the Sega Genesis, I really can’t keep track of more than 3 buttons. When they got to the ones on the side of the controller, I was basically fucked. Additionally, my hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills are nothing to write home about, which goes a long way to explaining why I was a swimmer instead of an executor of the glamour sports.

Needless to say, my heyday was with old-school Nintendo, even if I didn’t get it until other people were getting Genesis and Super NES. I’ve even been through not only one, but two old-school Nintendo revivals. My senior year of college, while everyone else was playing GoldenEye, my roommates and I hooked up an old-school Nintendo, and had knockdown, drag-out games of RBI Baseball 2, a magic game where Tony Gwynn was fast, and Tecmo Bowl. (Fuck you, Cap Boso!). I also spent large amounts of time with the woman who would later become my first girlfriend, playing Super Mario 3. And just recently, I discovered that a friend here in Chicago had decided to recapture some of his own youth by purchasing an old-school Nintendo emulator and several used cartridges from re-sell stores.

Needless to say that I was more than a bit excited that this friend, who can name himself if he jumps on in the conversation, had gotten his hands on arguably the most hard-nosed competitive game in Nintendo history, Dr. Mario. It flat-out kicked Tetris’ ass for one simple reason. You could fuck up your opponent. When you got a double combo, it would drop random pieces from the sky on your opponent. Suck on that, PacMan. We were talking about “making it rain” back in 1999. And sure, there are newer versions of Dr. Mario, but somehow they get more watered down. For instance, the music isn’t nearly as good. When you made it rain on your opponent, there would be a musical warning that my friend dubbed “jaunty,” but is simultaneously piercing. It doesn’t have the same effect in later versions. Neither does the positively awesome background music, which would get stuck in your head for weeks.

However, both during the original stint and the college revival, perhaps the most amazingly subversive feature of the game was lost on me. How could this be? I can be sophomoric with the best of them, I think. But not until my friend pointed it out a few weeks ago did I notice that when you win a round, Dr. Mario makes the jerkoff gesture at your opponent!

Don’t believe me? Fast forward to 7:55 of this clip:

How awesome is that? And more importantly, where does this rank in the annals of computerized video game smack talk? Up there with Piston Honda’s “I’ll give you a TKO from Tokyo”? Near the “Duck Hunt” dog’s laughing at you when you don’t hit anything. How about the Epyx “California Games” (for Apple II GS, whores) declaration of “You ate it.” What are some of your own personal favorites?

And if I haven’t imparted enough wisdom today, let me leave you with one last piece of advice. If a woman steals all your star cards in Super Mario 3, she will likely make a crappy girlfriend.

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Put the Glass Down

Tags: alabama, bite my magic one!, Djorkaeff, Dr. Mario, Jackie Treehorn treats objects like women man, jonx, old king clancy, public consciousness, RBI Baseball 2, Tecmo Bowl, Washington Capitals, Washington DC is paradise to me, Washington Redskins
Categories: Domestics

This entry was posted on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 10:30 am and is filed under Domestics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.