Massaging My Wounds and Re-Discovering Pickle Surprise

It's been two weeks after I had surgery on my damn lumps and, while still bruised and inflamed, I'm feeling a bit better already. Follow-ups with the surgeon have eased my anxieties about why I'm still in pain (editor's note: turns out, your body reacts strongly to getting cut open! who knew). I had been calling it a "lumpectomy" until someone pointed out that that's a specfic operation which isn't exactly what I had done. In any case, it was a big surgery to address the traumatic fat necrosis pressing on parts of my chest and abdomen and I hope that it represents the final chapter of the physical part of the recovery process because, frankly speaking, I am absolutely sick of this car crash shit. I am sooo fuuuuucking sick of this entire stupid melodrama. I really am so melodramatic about it too, I'm sick of my own shit on top of all the other shit. I'm tired. Plus, I think I just lost my healthcare along with a few million other people so I really would like to wrap things up and move on from this ASAP. There's going to be some things I will continue to have to manage (surgeon told me I'd probably get back to about 90% of where I was at pre-crash if he had to guess) but, whatever, I can handle a small portion of the shit. Just not as much as I have been.

So I'm still stuck in bed for the most part now. I'm watching a lot of YouTube videos and ancient Doctor Who. When I get sick of one, I switch to the other. Summer Games Done Quick started this previous Sunday so that took over part of the schedule as well. Did you know: Doctor Who was better when it wasn't trying quite so hard? But speedrunners are best when trying extremely hard. We live in a land of contrasts.

The main YouTube thing that affected me the most this past fortnight (non-gamer definition) was re-discovering an old favorite from my middle school days: Pickle Surprise!

_{(Pickle Surprise!!!)}

This popping up in the related videos to a They Might Be Giants demo I listened too (I can't remember, it might've been this Frank O'Toole Show snippet) was like an old friend coming to visit. And they look better than ever before! The old upload is a much worse tape rip at chunky, early YouTube resolutions. This rediscovery also led me to learning about the context in which this video was made. Back in 2007 when I probably first saw it, it was was just this ~wacky internet thing~ that was passed around. A meme, as some people might say. It wasn't huge I don't think but it's somewhat known. It was on YTMND, that's gotta count for something.

But it wasn't obvious to me at the time where this had come from and I wasn't really thinking to check into these things yet. This time I immediately sought out the relevant info. I'm now the kind of person who, for example, look up the history of the snack on Wikipedia as a fun activity while eating that snack.

Anyway, I shortly found myself on Tom Rubnitz's Wiki page. Like a lot of good and interesting things from 80s America, it was made by a gay person full of life and love trying their best to make something out of, what sadly turned out to be, limited time.

_{(Rubnitz said of his art, "I wanted to make things beautiful, funny and positive—escapes that you could just get into and laugh through. That was really important to me.")}

The East Village Pyramid Club kind of thing about the video was evident when I did my re-watch, so I felt really vindicated when that hunch turned out to be correct. Hell, it turns out Tom Rubnitz made a few videos for Frieda, a performance art piece from a looming plastic disco doll that collaborated with and opened for They Might Be Giants when they were also part of that scene in the mid 80s! There's the connection. That's another thing I love about revisiting old classics—sometimes you make a connection to another artistic/creative influence, in a way like finding a missing puzzle piece.

I love art so damn much it's hard to know what to say sometimes. I feel like once I get past this recovery for good, I can do anything. No matter how much shit I need to deal with, I can still make something funny and beautiful. I need to hold onto this feeling for the inevitable crash I have later today when my guts resume attacking me and I look at the news again lol...

Nicky Flowers - 07/11/25 - P.S. Also check out "Strawberry Shortcut"—and let me know where I can find real good copies of the videos he made with Frieda! - (send any comments/questions to hello at nickyflowers dot com)