Fortress Party Retrostpective: 1997

Year 3 was the first time we used clotheslines and clothespins to hang the sheets. This was only possible because of a unique architectural feature of the family room in my parents' house.

If you look just to the left of the light fixture, you will see a bit of clothesline leading up towards the corner of the room. It is tied around an angled support beam. There are one these in each of the cardinal corners of the room. We tied the clotheslines to these very loosely, and the fort dipped considerably in the middle, where it was still bolstered from below by furniture. 

Still, the idea of supporting the sheets from above was a major game-changer. In the evolution of Fortress Party, this was the year it sprouted legs and walked out of the ocean. 

The family room, which housed all Fortress Parties between 1995 and 2001, is a single large space over the garage. In 1997, we subdivided it into two fortress rooms.

For some reason, there were five cans of chicken broth lined up below the table. Perhaps that was an early attempt at a theme?

There is paper Hanukkah menorah on the table. In 1997, Hanukkah was late, from December 23-31. so FP'97 was probably some time that week.

It looks like this picture was taken from inside the tent. Can anyone figure out what board game they are playing?

Jeff and Mindy discover that covering yourself with fortress clothespins makes you irresistible. 

Fortress Party Retrospective: 1995-1996

Dear Friends,

The Hard Taco song for September is called, "Puff Piece." If the first 15 seconds of this song don't make your day better, you have my permission to throw your work computer into an open manhole.

It is with both sadness and relief that we officially announce the cancellation of Fortress Party 2020. If this comes as a surprise, you must be living under a rock. In which case I envy you, because that living situation would simulate the Fortress experience, at least a little. 

On one hand, it would be irresponsible to cram 400 people into a single-family home during a pandemic, but on the other hand, what if that home was modified to impair air circulation as much as possible? 

For those of you who aren't privy to the lowdown, Fortress Party is an event that Lauren and I have hosted every year since before Lauren and I met. This would have been our 26th consecutive year turning the house into a giant maze of sheets, crawlspaces, and fire hazards. 

Since I won't be spending the next three months hanging sheets, I've decided to use some of that found time to share the history and highlights of the last 25 years of Forts.  

We'll start from the beginning, and work up to the present by December 12, the day that would have been FP'20.

Note to those of you reading this on email: I will post most of these Fortress Party updates to blog and Facebook. The monthly Hard Taco digest emails will continue to have links to the newest Hard Taco songs, as well as links to the Fortress Party history updates.

1995 - The fort with a lower-case f.

This is the real story of how it started. I was home on college break, some high school and camp friends came over, and someone suggested we build a fort in my parent's family room. I think it was borne out of nostalgia, which is a funny emotion for a teenager.

We draped sheets over furniture and secured them with heavy books or photo albums. The highest point in the fort was the sheet that rested on the NordicTrack ski machine. 

The main activity of the evening was playing Trivial Pursuit. As you can see, it was Trivial Pursuit Genus I, but of course they didn't call it Genus I because Genus II hadn't been invented yet. Fortress Party was the same way... this night wouldn't come to be known as Fortress Party '95 until many years later. 

Slumber Party '96

In year 2, we made a few seemingly inconsequential choices that laid the groundwork for several Fortress traditions. First, we gave the event a name. And that name was... Slumber Party? When we rebranded it as Fortress Party the following year, corporate America took notice. "Maybe we can achieve greatness by subtly changing our name, as well," said the executive boards of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Dunkin' Donuts, and The Facebook. 

By associating the party with the last two digits of year it took place, we created a filing system for all future Fortress Parties. At least until 2095, when the recurrence of a second event called Fortress Party '95 will cause banks to fail and planes to drop out of the sky. This is sad, but unavoidable.

Here I can be seen handing out job descriptions (Food, Plans, and Linens) to the original Slumber Party Steering Committee (SlumPSeC). 

Steve takes meticulous inventory of party snacks.

Jeremy shows me his expansive vision for the fort layout, which involves pouring several truckloads of concrete around the bay window.  Logistically, it turned out to be easier to drape sheets over furniture.

The phone. The floppy disks. The computer monitor. 

The fact that the guest list is just four people, and two of them are my parents.

Slumber Party '96. 

This is from the same angle as the 1995 picture, and you can see that the ceiling is higher. This established another longstanding Fortress Party tradition: The Fort must be bigger every year. 

I notice that three of the four guests shown in this picture were not among the people I called to invite. These were the first in a long line of unwanted party crashers.

With warmest regards,

Zach

The Dingo Ate the Baby

Dear Friends,

The Hard Taco song for August is called, "Turing Test."

The Turing test is an interview designed to distinguish a person from a computer. The reason robots can't pass for humans (and steal our jobs) is that even the best AI engine lacks something that most people have... common sense. For instance, read the following:

"The dingo ate the baby because it looked plump and delicious."

In this case, "it" could logically refer to the dingo or the baby, but a person would immediately recognize that it would be silly to mention that the dingo looked plump and delicious. To a computer, both possibilities are equally valid.

Of course, with a single binary question, a computer will guess correctly half the time, so I have written a comprehensive common sense questionnaire to challenge the AI community. I'm looking at you, Google. If you can develop a robot that can answer all 13 these questions as well as a six-year-old kid, I will concede that the robot deserves to replace us in the workplace and the wedding bed.

"The Dingo Ate the Baby: A Test for People:

The park rangers refused to let the Campbell family into the picnic area until they bought a day pass.
Q: Who had to buy a day pass, the park rangers or the Campbell family? 

Amy Campbell asked to speak to the ranger's manager, but she wasn't successful.
Q: Who wasn't successful, Amy or the manager?

After grudgingly agreeing to pay, Amy put the baby in the sandbox, and went back to the car to get its pacifier.
Q: Did the pacifier belong to the baby or the sandbox?

Meanwhile, a bloodthirsty dingo crouched behind the seesaw and watched the baby playing in the sandbox. It grew ravenously hungry.
Q: What grew hungry, the dingo, the seesaw, or the baby?

When Amy returned from the car, the baby was not in the sandbox. She looked all over the playground, but it was gone.
Q: What was gone, the baby, the sandbox, or the playground?

She tried to staple a "Missing Baby" poster to every tree in the park, but there were too many of them.

Q: Were there too many posters or too many trees?

For years, Amy had heard stories about a bloodthirsty dingo who lived in the woods but had never taken them seriously.

Q: What did she never take seriously, the stories or the woods?

The next day, she bought a hatchet from the sporting goods store, and promised her mother that she wouldn't rest until she killed that dingo with it.
Q: Who wouldn't rest, Amy or her mother?
Q: Who would kill the dingo, Amy or her mother?
Q: Would the dingo be killed with the hatchet or the sporting goods store?

When the deed was done, Amy went home, wiped the blood off the hatchet with a wet cloth, and threw it into the washing machine.

Q: What did Amy throw in the washing machine, the hatchet, the blood, or the wet cloth?

She mounted the dingo's head on her living room wall, but it didn't make her feel any better.

Q: What didn't make her feel better, the dingo's head or the wall?

Amy tried to explain how she felt to her friend Andrea, but she didn't understand it. 

Q: Who didn't understand, Amy or Andrea?

Good luck, robots! My employer and wife are both rooting for you!

With warmest regards,

Zach

Canoodling

Dear all of my friends,

This month, we offer you a twangy folk song about a girl growing up in a Pennsylvania coal-mining town. It's called, "Such a Funny Story," and it's the longest Hard Taco song in years, giving the listener a well-organized five-minute emotional journey through restlessness, listlessness, fecklessness, helplessness, and shitlessness. (Usually, people don't get shitless unless they are extremely bored or extremely scared, but in this case, you'll just get there by being patient.)

In last month's Hard Taco Digest, we opened up the conversation about our search for a designer dog. Since then, we've pored over dozens of back issues of Dog Fancy and reached the conclusion that our next pet needs to be a poodle mix.

You can't broach the subject of poodle mixes without first explaining why purebred poodles are... problematic. On the surface, poodles are the perfect hypoallergenic house pet. What they lack in dander, they make up for in intelligence, affection, and eagerness to please. They are graceful, loyal and good-natured. But it is not these traits that explain the ubiquity of poodle mixes in your neighborhood. Rather, it a quality that is nearly universal to purebred poodles... their promiscuity.

Genghis Khan may have fathered one in ten Mongols, but the standard poodle fathered one in ten mongrels. They are the Wilt Chamberlains of the animal world. Some dogs chase their own tail, but poodles chase every tail that walks by. A poodle will look at a big-boned St. Bernard or a wall-eyed pug and have exactly the same reaction... I'd tap that.

And there are two words I guarantee you will never hear a poodle say: Committed relationship.

We have sensitive children, and young teenagers need a role model, not a libertine lech on a leash. I don't care how perfectly coiffed their hindquarters are... we are not letting that kind of moral turpitude into our house.

But a poodle mix?  That's a different can of Alpo. Who am I to visit the sins of the stud dog on the puppy? And after all, it is the poodle's philandering nature, its hyper-polygamy and penchant for debauchery that have given the world so many beloved crossbreeds.

There's the maltipoo, the labradoodle, and the golden doodle. There's the schnoodle, which get's its athleticism from the schnauzer side. Then we have the yorkipoo, which has the poodle's curly coat, and the Yorkshire terrier's inability to shut the hell up.

The offspring of a poodle and a bichon frise is called a poochon frise, which is the only dog breed that has the word "pooch" in it. 

Then there are the poodle cocker spaniel mixes. Depending on which parent is the poodle, this little hybrid can either be a cockapoo or a cocker-doodle doo. Both are terrible names, but not quite so bad as the shih tzoodle.

The poogle is the most controversial of poodle mixes, because it is the name for both a beagle/poodle and a pug/poodle. The beagle/poodle poogle people purport that pug/poodle poogles should be called puggles, but the pug/poodle poogle proponents professes that beagle/poodle poogles be called peagles.

The rarest of the lot is the St. Berdoodle, which is obviously a 50/50 mix of the poodle and St. Bertrand, the 11th century French archdeacon who was particularly forceful in taking the faithful to task for their sins. (Yes, poodles will even tap that.)

With warmest regards,

Zach

The Invisible Paw of Supply and Demand

Dear Friends,

Like every Hard Taco song, the June offering, "Very Special Squirrel," is free. That either means I believe it has no value, or I am trying to undermine artists who rely on payment for their services. If I'm honest with myself, it's probably a little of both.

The kids have been begging for a dog for years, but we have held out. Lauren is allergic, we travel a lot, and we convert our house into a massive sheet fortress for 12 weeks each year. But facing months at home and a possible state-mandated moratorium on fortress parties, we decided to jump on the dog bandwagon. That is to say, we are figuratively committed to leaping onto an unpowered vehicle full of dogs playing Dixieland instruments. It also means we are going to get a puppy.

Unfortunately, the supply chain of puppies has slowed to a trickle. Folks all over the world are hoping to spend more time with animals while sheltering in place. After quarantine enthusiasts bought all the toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and thermometers, there was a run on pet adoptions. It's a Beagle Boom, and the kennels are empty. A walk through the local Humane Society used to be accompanied by a cacophony of barking and whimpering. Now all you hear is a lone hawk screeching over a distant mountain and the occasional crackle of a tumbleweed bouncing down the corridor.

We also have to contend with Lauren's allergies. The most hypoallergenic dogs are designer breeds such as the Portuguese Frorkadoodle, which is made from 30% Portuguese Water Dog, 15% Bichon Frise, 12% Standard Poodle, 8% Yorkshire Terrier, and 35% polyester. The completely revamped 2020 Frorkadoodle has been engineered from the ground up with exciting color options and all-new features like bigger eyes for sustained cuteness. Frorkadoodle puppies also grow twice as fast as off-brand dogs and are resistant to both drought and boll weevils. 

The breeding agency (a subsidiary of Bayer pharmaceuticals) has a creative solution for the supply chain dilemma. We can install software that will allow us to manufacture the puppy in our own home with a proprietary 3D printer.

Portuguese Frorkadoodle Puppies, Sports (left) and Touring (right) packages shown.

For a busy dog-allergic family with no patience the traditional breeding timeline, this is an easy choice. I suppose we could wait around for a sad old rescue named Broderick or Luther, but to keep Lauren's eyes from itching, we'd have to shampoo it twice a week with Selson Blue and Children's Claritin. Or we could download a Portuguese Frorkadoodle named PXB-0137 and have a product that is just as lovable and actually removes dander from the environment, as long as we change the in-mouth HEPA-filter once every three months. 

With warmest regards,

Zach

The Play At Home Order

Dear Friends,

   The Hard Taco song for May is called, "The Thing Will Not Come to Pass." It was a collaboration with beloved family and friends, cobbled together piecemeal over many months and many miles.
   In the middle of March, the Londons committed to playing a new board game or card game every night, with the goal of banging out 30 games in 30 days. Of course, when we passed that milestone a couple weeks ago, we had no choice but to keep going.
   Instead of a digest this month, I invite you to explore the fruits of that undertaking, a website called The Play At Home Order.

   As of last night, we are up to 42 games, and each of the four of us developed our own rank list.  For each game, we provide our overall family rank, as well as averaged ranks and short reviews from the kids and the adults.
  So let the Londons help you elevate your Family Game Game (FGG). Why not make your tabletop the envy of all the furniture in your subdivision?
   Our plan is to keep this going until we run out of games and can't afford new ones or the stay-at-home order ends. Keep an eye out for updates!

With warmest regards,
Zach, Lauren, Scarlett, and Malcolm

Virtual Drivers Ed

Dear Friends,

The Hard Taco song for April is called, "Lonely Cozy Family." This song is about all of the the things that have changed this month, some of which are not so bad.

This week, my daughter started Drivers Ed. The first two days of virtual didactics were less than engaging, but what do you expect? You can't learn how to drive a car from listening to lectures. You have to actually get out there and put in some serious hours playing Pole Position on your Atari.

Since we're all homeschooling now, I wanted to help, so I came up with some practice questions to prepare her for the written examination.

Which famous golf caddy is this class named for?
A. Driver Ed
B. Jeremy Iron
C. Wedge Antilles
D. Wood Harrelson


What does this sign mean?

A. Swerve, if necessary, to avoid toppling the carefully balanced piece of burnt candy corn.
B. If you lift your champagne flute up and down too much, the stem will fall off.
C. Free your mind and look at the negative space. It is a fat man sneezing on the letter Y while an old woman looks on.
D. There are air currents around Gene Simmons' tongue.

On a one-way road, a solid yellow line indicates:
A. A very narrow bike lane. You may legally drive into any biker who doesn't keep both tires on the line at all times.
B.  A waste of expensive paint. What are we, made of money? This is my municipality and I say dashed yellow lines are perfectly good.
C. Yellow means cowardice. If you don't have the giggleberries to drive across this line, you're a lily-livered pisspants.
D. The letter T in Morse Code. It's just a really long dash, uninterrupted for miles, as if to say, "Teeeeeeeee....!"


Which of the following is NOT a parking violation?
A. Parking on top of a moving police vehicle.
B. Parking in front of a fire hydrant if the burning house has a grease fire. (Everyone knows you can't extinguish a grease fire with water.)
C. Parking and then removing your windshield wipers. When the parking enforcement officer has no obvious place to tuck your parking ticket, she may throw herself into traffic out of frustration.
D. Parking illegally but leaving your hazard lights on because you're just running inside for a sec to get a hysterectomy.


What does this sign mean?

A. Please turn pages of large book with a closed umbrella.
B. This section of highway cleaned using Swiffer products.
C. Remove dead snitch from your trunk and bury here.
D. If the toast is still breathing, stab it with a spear.


What is the correct placement of apostrophe(s) in Drivers Ed?
A. Driver's Ed, the singular possessive, because only one of you will actually learn this.
B. D'rivers Ed, which is French for "Of rivers, Ed."
C. Drivers 'Ed, which is Cockney for "Drivers head."
D. Drivers Ed''''''', where the apostrophes replace the rest of the letters in "education."

What does this sign mean?

A. Seriously?
B. The sign is just words.
C. Traffic circle ahead. Just kidding. Because if it was that, the sign would have different words.
D. Moral judgments of right and wrong are specific to a cultural or historical period and no standpoint is uniquely privileged above others.

With warmest regards,
Zach