Culture | KTP

Earth After Death

Posted on February 7 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“We’re not sorry that we tricked you”

We had a TV in the large, ground floor family room our suburban house offered before my parents converted it to a studio apartment for rent when they couldn’t make ends meet on my mother’s sole consistent income and my father’s sporadic, dysfunctional alcoholic income. This conversion happened so early in my life that I only have a few memories of spending time in the family room; these memories are happy and cherished. Memories of playing with my Skeletor and Cobra Commander. Memories of Christmas morning’s Nintendo Entertainment System set up– reveling in the disbelief that my parent’s actually got me one; reveling in the newness of the experience. Playing Duck Hunt (1985) at the advised six-foot distance from the television, measured with precision, probably for the only time. Probably the only time playing Gyromite (1985) as intended while watching ROB the Robot interact with the television in what felt like the future unraveling right then and there in our ground floor family room.

My dad and I would hang out in the family room on lazy weekend afternoons, where he’d watch TV and presumably drink– I was blissfully unaware at the time– and I’d be on the floor playing with my action figures and wooden blocks as he’d be flipping channels with his large, wired, cable TV remote. Every time he’d land on something that had the 20th Century Fox fanfare, I’d hope it was Star Wars. It never was, and I don’t know how I knew the 20th Century Fox fanfare may indicate an impending showing of Star Wars or if I just wished every movie that came on were Star Wars, but I know I never got my wish. My dad usually insisted on watching Star Trek (1966-1969) or M*A*S*H (1972-1983).

KnightFall (1993)

Posted on January 23 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“…and the dead lay in pools of maroon below”

My mother and I would come to spend our Saturdays together. We would go out in the early afternoon to different stores or the mall, or to a park, or the beach during the summer. We’d go to a restaurant for dinner, maybe Friendly’s, and we’d be home before network television’s prime time lineup. My mother would usually fall asleep sometime during Empty Nest (1988-1995) or Golden Girls (1985-1992), and I’d be up laughing by myself. She was my best friend– if she didn’t have me, she’d have been alone.

We would come home to find my father passed out– if you didn’t know better, you’d think he was dead. The remnants of the dinner he made for himself would be on the stove. He liked salisbury steak. My mother would use these Saturdays as a reprieve from the brutality of her week. My father would use them to drink. He existed separately from us. He was alone.

Night Trap (1992)

Posted on June 28, 2024 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“Somehow, you set the wheels in motion, now haunts our memories…”

Although I couldn’t verbalize it at the time, I felt a sense of confusion and betrayal as I left the shopping mall multiplex on a summer afternoon with my father in 1989– my only lasting memory of the day. We had just seen Ghostbusters II (1989).

Ghostbusters II is the first movie sequel I remember anticipating. Ghostbusters (1984) was the very first movie we watched as a family– my father, my mother and me– after my dad brought home our brand new, front loading VCR. Even if the VCR was mostly bought to watch pornography in a comfortable setting, he was also excited to watch big Hollywood blockbusters months before they hit HBO. He was a movie guy.

The Misfits (1961)

Posted on June 15, 2024 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“You know, sometimes when a person don’t know what to do, the best thing is to just stand still…”

If you didn’t already know, the ticket insurance that Ticketmaster sells is a scam. They get away with it because they don’t expect you to use it. Ticketmaster thrives on an idiot proof, impossible to fail business model– people love going to concerts. For most any latter day Gen-Xer or millennial, popular music has played a significant role in their lives– heavy metal was the sound of adolescence; alternative rock, the soundtrack of wistful teenage love.

Music lives deep in the soul of anyone born in the age of the rock star, and so it follows that business for Ticketmaster is evergreen– the product sells itself, so much that Ticketmaster can exploit their customers and get away with it. People want to see their favorite bands; Ticketmaster can rip you off with tacked on fees until the price of your ticket is well into the hundreds of dollars, and while this may be annoying, you grin and bare it because seeing Metallica, or Guns n’ Roses, or The Misfits is worth it. After all, you don’t know how much longer they’ll be around.

The Girlfriends Walk Among Us

Posted on January 20, 2024 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“Possession of the mind is a terrible thing; it’s a transformation with an urge to kill.”

Her name was Jessica and she went to my high school. She was my first real girlfriend, gained at a time when I had lost hope in ever getting a real girlfriend. One I really liked. One I was genuinely attracted to. One who made my heart flutter with anticipation– like every day dream you’ve ever had during that long static age when you’re aware of girls, their big eyes and emerging bustlines, ones confident in testing the elasticity of all formerly loose fitting tank-tops; all around you but a world a way and you’re still stuck on the very first screen; the master sword collecting dust; Gannon raping Hyrule with impunity. Read More

Doreen

Posted on November 20, 2023 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

There wasn’t a final conversation of any significance. She always supposed there should have been– something she could point to and decode and understand. Even if this made sense to her, she was ultimately glad there wasn’t anything semi-cryptic or implicitly symbolic; any words she could pick over on sleepless nights, alone or with a different man next to her. She was glad their last day was like any other: he came home from work and was happy to see her; he greeted her with a smile and a hug; they made dinner together, occasionally laughing at different parts of their tiny arsenal of inside jokes built over six years. Pleasant conversation as they ate, recapping their respective work days. Couch and TV time after, chipping away at an old season of Survivor; progress forever frozen midway through the queue.

There wasn’t anything worth picking over, but she thought about their last day a lot– even if it were just like all the other days.

Touching the Face of God

Posted on June 17, 2023 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“Sometimes the only thing we counted on when no one else was there”

Crying at the end of Fraggle Rock (1983) is one of my three earliest memories. I would watch in my parents bedroom. It was on at night. I loved feeling ensconced in the Fraggles’ world; I wanted to get lost in their winding caves. For an only child going to a school outside of the neighborhood, weekday afternoon friends were non-existent; The Fraggles are what felt real to me. At the end of every episode, I wouldn’t want to go to bed. I didn’t want to leave the Fraggles. I knew I would fall asleep contemplating the death of my parents. It was a long time from now, they would tell me. They were right. While the latter was always subsequent to the former, these events seemed unrelated. Maybe I didn’t understand the pacing and structure of proper story telling; that a television show had a beginning, middle, and end; that the escapism of fantasy isn’t meant to last.

As a child these events seemed unrelated but now they feel inseparable. Telling one story must involve telling the other.

This is the Static Age

Posted on May 18, 2023 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“Hey, hey, it’s the static age. Well, this is how the west was won…”

I didn’t know who she was, but she told me her name was Michelle and she went to my high school. She was a friend of Teddy’s. He had given her my phone number because she was nervous about making friends at a new school. She said she liked Teddy and that maybe she’d like me. Starting ninth grade felt like the first season of a spin-off sitcom that I didn’t want to be on; contractual obligations met with poor managerial choices, is how I’d have envisioned myself explaining it in some career spanning interview years later– ninth grade felt like a real low point. I didn’t know anyone outside of friends from elementary school, cast members the invisible producers decided to keep around, and everyone else was Saved by the Bell: The New Class (1993).

I knew there would be girls, and while this idea was tantalizing, it was like seeing a painfully inaccessible item on the first screen of a Legend of Zelda (1986) game. Even if it appeared to be obtainable, the methodology behind its retrieval was buried in an issue of Nintendo Power (1988) that I didn’t have; dull, aching frustration. Michelle’s phone call was that tantalizing item. I found her at her locker the next morning. We never spoke again.

Welcome to Hell

Posted on June 11, 2021 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“Hey Mama, look at me, I’m on my way to the promised land…”

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I assure you, the story I’m about to tell you is true- all of it. Every small victory. Every little triumph. Every lesson learned. Every mistake made. Every misdeed cast. Every bit of bullshit. Every lie. Every defeat. Every disappointment. Every heart broken. Every tear shed. Everything I’m about to share with you, it all happened. It’s all true- all of it.

Impossible for you to know the emotional toll telling you this story has taken. The long days and endless nights, restlessly searching for the right words, in the right order; hoping it makes sense; hoping to be seen. Restlessly searching for meaning; enduring moments of despair; intense bouts of frustration; fists against the wall. Desperate to be understood.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, submitted for your scrutiny and judgement, this is my story- this is my life- and I am proud to share it with you; proud to announce the release of my very first book.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, welcome to hell…

After Hours

Posted on February 25, 2021 by "Bad" Billy Pratt

“If you close the door the night could last forever”

It’s okay to do nice things, Blair explained. She had made a reservation for the afternoon at a winery operating on a working beef farm. Anything pretentious would be tempered by a kind of rustic authenticity. They’ll have cows, she told me.

Although it can be managed, it’s impossible to entirely diminish feelings of hesitancy in a struggle that I can only assume is similar to the misnomer of the recovering drug addict– the same wishful thinking involved- that one can ever, successfully, erase the footprint- bust the ghost… thoughts wander; compulsions linger restlessly. There is no recovery for true addiction.