Raw Bat Bar

Dear Friends,

The Hard Taco song for March is a twist-filled mini-adventure called, "The Wrong Side of History." I will always remember recording this song, because Lauren and I both sang our parts right before losing our voices because of this: 

If you don't have the manual dexterity to zoom in on those test strips, I'll spell it out: the whole London family got COVID19 this week, and it has been a bummer on many levels. 

I was the one who brought it home, and I know exactly how it happened. Lauren and I were down in Florida for a wedding the prior weekend. It was a beautiful event and both the ceremony and the reception were outdoors in spacious circus tents. I felt very safe overall, but I made one crucial mistake that I've been beating myself up about ever since... I ordered the raw cave bat as my entree. 

Obviously, I should have known better. The judgement you cast upon me will never be as harsh as that I cast upon myself. I'm a health care worker, for goodness sakes! I've been around hundreds of COVID19 patients over the last two years, but I've always been very careful about hand-washing, masking, and other standard infection precautions. Then I go down to a wedding in Miami and think it's okay to have a cheat day and ask the caterers to bring me the wet market cave bat filet?

But these are confusing times, and it's just so hard to have realistic assessments of actual risk. The infection rates have been coming way down since mid-January. And then the CDC changed their recommendation from "don't eat raw cave bat" to "talk to your PCP about whether it is okay to return to eating raw cave bat." Can you blame me for thinking that maybe we could return to some semblance of normalcy? I got my vaccines, I got my booster, and for one night, I wasn't in the mood for fish or steak, okay? 

I also ate the fruit bat salad and the bats-in-blankets. More lessons learned!

Maybe I was subconsciously influenced by our surroundings. We were down in Florida, home of the recent Bat-to-School Programs which reintroduced raw cave bat to school lunch programs before any other state was even considering it. And look, I sort of get it, especially in elementary schools. Some kids just can't learn or develop normal social relationships when they are stressed out by government-imposed dietary restrictions. I'm not saying there isn't a cost to keeping raw bat meat off the cafeteria menu or out of the school vending machines. But this illness hit me harder than "just a cold," and I wouldn't wish it on anyone! If I had known the repercussions, I never would have gorged myself on beer-battered bat bladders before the ceremony. (I don't think that is what made me sick, but it totally spoiled my dinner.)

There was also a really amazing charcuterie table with cheese, toast, and over 600 species of insectivorous chiroptera. And there were caterers walking around with trays of hot wings, and they weren't chicken wings, if you know what I mean. But trust me, as delicious as it all was, it was not worth it. 

I guess the good news is that once we recover, we are probably going to have natural immunity for at least a few months. And you know what that means... guano Milano cookies!

With warmest regards,

Zach

Best Children's Countdown Stories

Dear Friends,

The Hard Taco song for February is called, "The King with Six Friends." This song is based on the children's book by the same name, which also happened to be my favorite bedtime story as a child. It's a gorgeously illustrated tale of adventure, magic, heroism, and the bonds of friendship. And if you skip the horribly sexist parts, it mostly holds up.

Countdown Stories- Children's Book Edition 

I am excited to retell some of my other childhood favorites in a format I call Countdown Stories. The first of the 10 lines must have 10 words, the second line must have 9 words, and so on, with the goal of finishing the story by the final one-word line. For other great examples Countdown of Stories, check out this 2019 digest about some of my favorite movies. 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

On Sunday, a baby caterpillar popped out of an egg

Every day that week, he consumed progressively larger portions

Nothing was good enough for this selfish slob

He left the kitchen a total mess

And locked himself in his bedroom

Two Sundays later, he emerged

Meanwhile, a baby bird

Born that morning

Ate one

Butterfly

Charlotte's Web

Before we start, can we agree that animals don't speak?

And different species certainly can't talk to each other

Let alone in English (especially not barn spiders.)

A spider's voice would be inaudibly quiet

Seriously, its lungs are basically microscopic!

And I noticed something else...

The name "Charlotte's Web"

Sounds like a 

Porn site

www.charlottesweb.xxx

Goodnight Moon

Imagine a room that disobeys all natural rules of perspective

Fill it with shadows, anthropomorphic animals, and trippy art

Like an exploded antebellum circus wagon on LSD

Do you find this cozy or terrifying?

Now say goodnight to each atrocity

See that woman whispering hush?

That's not a woman

That's Donnie Darko's

Rabbit Vision

(Shudder.)

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

In the 1964 edition, Oompa Loompas were black African pygmies

That Wonka "discovered" and shipped to England in crates

Dahl literally wrote they were "rescued" into servitude

His loyal readers had no compunction whatsoever  

About this sickeningly blatant pro-slavery stance

Following years of NAACP protests

Dahl finally rewrote it.

This shit's insane. 

Read more

Here

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

November 8, 2016, was a terrible horrible very bad day

I started thinking that maybe Alexander wasn't being dramatic

When he declared he would move to Australia

Relocating Down Under actually sounds awesome, right?

But the red tape is prohibitive

And realistically, there are

Right wing nuts everywhere

Even in Australia

Even in

Australia

The Bridge to Terabithia

Milo, who has plenty of time, sets off for Dictionopolis 

There's a mischievous monkey and a man wearing yellow

And twelve little girls in two straight lines

Wait, I think I'm getting this confused

I haven't actually read that book

I meant the Phantom Tollbooth.

Or maybe Curious George.

Or Madeline. Whatever. 

I prefer

Movies

With warmest regards,

Zach

Fortress Party 2021 - And Now We Are Up To Date

Dear Friends,

The Hard Taco song for January is called, "The Plexus." It is the theme song for a soon-to-be-released card game by the same name. Along with The Lesion and Battle Thunder Worm, I now have a catalog of three songs that were written to accompany self-released tabletop games.

On September 1, 2020, Lauren and I made the decision not to host guests at our annual Fortress Party for the first time since 1995. Over the subsequent months, I leveraged the found time to compile the recorded history of Fortress Party into 76 blog posts, featuring hundreds of pictures and videos. 

That was a lot of work, but it was important to me to document everything for posterity, which means it is for the benefit of future generations. But I think posterity also means something to do with butts, which is pretty good reason for doing something, too.

Fast forward 15 months, and we find ourselves two Fortress Parties behind in our retrospective. So today, I dedicate my digest to getting us caught up. For my children, my children's children, and all of their butts.

• Fortress Party 2020: You weren't invited
• Fortress Party 2021: Stranger Things
• Fortress Party 2021: The Organ Trail
• Fortress Party 2021: Planet Fitness
• Fortress Party 2021: Chuck E. Cheese
• Fortress Party 2021: The Kentucky Derby
• Fortress Party 2021: Psychadelia
• Fortress Party 2021: WandaVision

And here's the Cliff's Notes version of the whole thing, including footage of the remaining 2021 Fortress room, House Swarmin' Party:

With warmest regards,

Zasch

Fortress Party 2021 - Wandavision

The first two or three episodes of Wandavision were in black and white, so we tried to reproduce that by having everything in the room be in various shades of grey.

I even painted the fire extinguisher because of COMMITMENT.

We had a neighborhood scene projected onto the window from outside the house. 

The highlight was the music videos that would start at the push of a button. We called it VH1da-Vision (as in a mash up of VH1 and Wandavision). If you've been following the Hard Taco Digest, you know that I had already released 9 of these videos between February and April of 2021. We made 7 more just for the room. Here are the previously unpublished videos, now restored to full color:

Fortress Party 2021 - Psychadelia

Fortress Party always has a live music room, and we get bands and performers to sign up for 30 minute slots. At FP '21, the overall attendance was lower than usual, and there were not a lot of volunteers. Fortunately, Lauren was able to convince about half of the cast of the Penny Seats production of "Summer of Love" to sing karaoke versions of their songs, and it was awesome. Knowing they were available informed the decorations of the room. 

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Fortress Party 2021 - The Kentucky Derby

Here were the unnamed horses, getting ready to race. 

We had all the Kentucky Derby races from 2008-2021 on continuous loop. Meanwhile, guests got submit suggestions for the names for each of the six horses. At midnight, we picked five names out of each box, and the audience voted on the best names. The winners got to take home the horse they named.

Except for horse #6. That one was a loaner, and we had to return it after the party. People still got to name that horse, but they put their suggestions in the shredder instead of the suggestion box.

The 'guests' sat behind this window, each with a giant hat or fascinator. 

Even Mitch McConnell was there.

And of course, we had a bourbon bar, featuring Kentucky-inspired beverages served by distinguished southern gentlemen. 

Fortress Party 2021 - Chuck E. Cheese

There are many horrors at Chuck E. Cheese, but the worst is the animatronic animal band.

This video is my family's least favorite part of Fortress Party. If you happened to walk by and see it during the party, it is quite amusing, but when the house is otherwise quiet, and you hear these dozen or so saccharine birthday songs over and over, it makes you want to drown yourself in a ball pit. 

But the real reason for this room was the home-made video game cabinets. Sean and Andy worked on these diligently for the weeks leading up to the party, and they worked like a charm. They included mashy my favorites such as Gauntlet, Ms. Pac-Man, Dig-Dug, Elevator Action, and Q-Bert. My only regret is that I forgot to ask them to install Moon Patrol. 

We borrowed a pinball machine from a guy named H, who had loaned as the Mystery Machine a few years prior. I bet that if we did a study, we would prove that people with one-letter names have the coolest stuff. 

A visit to Chuck E. Cheese would not be complete without a wall full of useless crap that you can spend your tickets on. We weren't actually dispensing tickets, of course, so nobody was able to buy any of this stuff, but the candy was free. (Note that the first bowl actually has Lactaid pills, and those were not free. Neither was the Ivermectin, which was available in case anyone caught COVID19 at the party.)