Lady Vengeance

Here's Lady Vengeance, a pulp heroine right out of the 1970s. Too bad I didn't have this miniature around during our Spirit of '77 days. 

Here she is from behind. Looks like I should touch up her shirt a bit. 

 

'77 Saturday

Dice Correction

70s Still Life

Mom or Dad shot this photo of flowers set against glorious early 1970s wallpaper and drapes in our Flin Flon home. We had that end table for many years; I think we finally disposed of it sometime in the late 1990s.

Those of my friends playing Spirit of '77 should try to imagine our characters living with this sort of decor. It's actually kind of understated for the era...

Rolling the Dice with KFC

Saturday Night in '77

Inspired by the Interstate

Last month I shared my character concept for Spirit of '77. At the time I thought I'd done a pretty good job of mixing and matching a bunch of disparate elements of 1970s pop culture into a fun homage suitable for tabletop roleplaying adventures.

Not long after I posted, however, my friend Jeff hinted that there were "connections" I'd somehow missed when composing my character's backstory. I searched my memory, but could find no connections other than those I'd drawn inspiration from, the most obvious sources.

But then, to my astonishment, Jeff posted a bombshell on his blog, JSVB, yesterday. I urge you to visit Jeff's site for the full details, but in brief, it appears as though I'd subconsciously lifted most of my character backstory from pulp author Steve Kaiser's action-adventure romp, Interstate 10. Even the cover art comes uncannily close to mirroring my protagonist and his prototype VW Beetle.

Naturally I'm stunned that some deep corner of my brain dredged up inspiration from a novel that I don't remember whatsoever, but I'm glad that Jeff's Uncle Thad sent along this obscure but revelatory gift. After Jeff has reread the book a couple of times, I hope he'll loan it to me so I can mine its pulpy contents for further inspiration - with all due respect, of course, to Kaiser.

This experience reminds me once again the fleeting and illusory nature of memory, and by extension, of existence itself; reliant upon our senses, our limited and subjective experience, it's difficult to know what is real and what unreal, a problem that preoccupied Philip K. Dick, who, as Jeff reveals, Kaiser met one afternoon. One wonders what they talked about. I like to think they debated how art reveals reality while at the same time obscuring it.

Spirit of '77: J.J. and the Firebug

J.J.'s official theme song. 

Last night I got together with Mike, Steve, Scott, Jeff and Pete to embark upon our latest adventure in roleplaying: Spirit of '77. Conceptualizing the game is pretty easy: imagine a world in which 1970s action/adventure television - shows such as The Six Million Dollar Man, B.J. and the Bear, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Wonder Woman, The Incredible Hulk, Charlie's Angels, S.W.A.T., Starsky & Hutch, The Dukes of Hazzard and so on - were real. Nixon served two full terms, Gerald Ford is president in 1977 and Saigon exists, West Berlin-like, as an American enclave in Vietnam. Against this backdrop, 1970s archetypes such as ex-cops, ex-cons, private eyes, glam rockers, good 'ol boys, vigilantes, gonzo journalists and others pursue their hopes and dreams while sticking it to The Man and, perhaps, uncovering the truth behind the vast web of conspiracies that are the foundation of 1970s America.

Our first session served as prologue to the actual gaming sessions to come; without rolling a single die, we worked together to craft our characters and their interrelationships. It played out very much like a really good improv session, and by the end of the night I'd come up with a character I'm pretty proud of: Johnny James Columbia, a good ol' boy, former stunt driver, now paired up with a talking VW Beetle. Here's an extended version of the introduction to the concept I rattled off last night (imagine this as voiceover narration to a typical 1970s adventure show):

"My name is Johnny James Columbia, but my friends call me J.J. I used to be a stunt driver in Hollywood. But then I met O.S.CAR - a souped-up VW Firebug who thinks he's the next big thing. Now we drive across America. I test his limits. He tests my patience. That's why they call us J.J. and the Firebug."

J.J. himself is a lanky, cocky twenty-something from California, chasing thrills and chasing women without asking too many questions about F.I.S.T., the shadowy organization that hired him to put the Firebug prototype through its paces. Never seen without his trademark mirrored sunglasses and leather bomber jacket, J.J. has an uneasy relationship with O.S.CAR, (Operating System: CAR, voiced by Vic Perrin) the artificial intelligence incorporated into the Firebug. O.S.CAR takes the form of a bulky 1970s style PC mounted on the Firebug's console - think a beige box with a low-resolution six-inch amber CRT. O.S.CAR is annoyingly self-assured and full of himself; F.I.S.T. engineers claim they're still "working the kinks out" of the personality algorithms.

The Firebug itself is a black 1975 VW beetle with a sweet flame paint job. Aside from being faster and tougher than the typical bug, the Firebug is also submersible and comes with a full set of ejector seats.

Once a week, J.J. must report in to Colonel Oscar P. Oscopy of F.I.S.T., a military man with a personality eerily similar to O.S.CAR. J.J. is somewhat frustrated that F.I.S.T. won't even tell him what the name stands for, let alone what they're going to do once the Firebug trials are complete. But J.J. is happy as long as he gets to put the car through its paces.

Needless to say, I had a lot of fun coming up with this ridiculous scenario, and I look forward to playing it out with the guys over the course of the next decade or so. 

Saturday Night Spirit of '77