Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Collecting 2 Electric Boogaloo

So what do i collect? For the longest time its been Star Wars. Since getting the early bird kit as a kid (yep, i had it.) Star Wars has been an obsession with me. I was 8 years old when that film came out and my destiny was chosen. That of a nerd. In a time of no V.C.R.'s and no Youtube i went to the theater to see movies. And see it i did. Dozens of times. To this day i can still recite the movie verbatim. So many childhood memories center around that film. Going through the Sears Christmas catalog and circling all the Star Wars toys i wanted. Sleeping on Star Wars sheets. Bathing with Star Wars  foam soaps. Collecting all the Star Wars dixie cups. Begging to go to Burger King to get the latest Star Wars glasses.

As i've documented in this blog i have fallen out of love with this franchise.As such, my need and want to collect has dropped to just about zero with Star Wars. The last thing i think i bought was a Slave Leai figure that came with alternate "laying down" legs.

With such a huge gap in my collecting heart i filled it fast with something i have always loved, yet had very few(except of course Star Wars ones) BOARD GAMES!
 
As a nerdy kid of the 1970's its a pretty easy deduction to guess i was into Dungeons and Dragons. A board game is much like playing AD&D. I like to think of it like this- It's playing with toys With rules. Its a self contained adventure that is not as selfish as say, collecting action figures for myself that (my son still doesn't understand this) i don't open out of the package. Having these lets our whole family play together.

This collection became a gateway drug to collecting something i swore i would never get into...
Warhammer 40k 


This has become such a major focus lately that i will save talking about this so it can have its own post. Suffice to say i am once again (as i did when i was younger playing AD&D) painting minis and writing down new adventures.

Let's move on...

The next few things would be classified more as inactive collecting. Example. With board games i am always collecting and thinking of board games. I like to go to thrift stores and garage sales to look for board games. I am an active member of boardgamegeek.com/user/kenchan13. At night when I'm not playing video games I'm painting minis. I troll Ebay looking at prices and whats available in board games. I know i know, Obsessed right? Look, some people like to golf.

Lets move on...


I have a collection of gas masks. I'd say around 30 or so in adult and kid sizes.

I can't really pin point any connection to why i collect these. I think they look cool. I like the fetish/apocalyptic undertones of them. Every county has a different look and some even have various looks and colors depending on the weather. Funny story- When Y2K was nearing i had a lot of friends asking where i bought my masks at.
 In also like to collect Anatomical Aids.
 

These things are beautiful. Us in our purest, rawest form. They are humbling and haunting. What i don't see when i look at these is what most THINK i see."gore cool blood SLAYER!!!" etc. Nothing could be further from the truth and i grow weary sometimes having to explain this to some visitors to our home.
I see a lot of the same humbling beauty in my next collection. Religious Iconography.


I know some people of my generation like religious tchotchkes, and i do as well but i really like the more pious,serious stuff. My collection is multi-religious as well. Buddha, Christ, Guadalupe, Ganesha all are represented in my collection. Tracing this collection kind of leaves my mind blank as well. I was raised going to Catholic Church (which i ditched for years). But also would go to the Buddhist temple. (My dad is Buddhist my mom Catholic) Even then the Iconography around me fascinated/scared the shit out of me. I guess that line right there is the answer in a nutshell. I love the art and it scares me. As I've talked about earlier in this blog i tend to collect what i fear.

Whew. Looking back on what I've written if i didn't know me i would think i was a weird dude! Well there are the active and inactive things i collect. I didn't include things like records or tattoos. Things like that are like buying food or water. It's assumed.

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