Listen to the audio version here.

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I: Et in Arcadia Ego

“The passing of time, and all of its crimes, is making me sad again.” – Rubber Ring by The Smiths, Louder Than Bombs (1987)^#1

I.I: Summer in Arcadia

Betwixt red maple and palm sat Arcadian youth transfixed by dancing light.

Two boys sat on a small bed and another on the floor nearby. They were crammed in a tiny porch remodeled into a makeshift bedroom; the walls were windows and a sliding glass door revealed the living room while a patio door revealed the backyard and anything even resembling glass was covered by thick blackout curtains. The sun set, but the room was kept aglow by the epileptic flashing of a gray Magnavox cathode-ray tube actively working hypnotism upon the boys. Wires sprawled across the room like laser trip-mines while sounds of fiction and war – consecutive booming, warp and whoosh, ringing shrapnel, and screaming, both human and extraterrestrial – were occasionally drowned out by the uncontrollable laughter and expletive-ridden taunting of Arcadian youth.

All was well because school was out forever, and the extra-large thin-crust pepperoni pizza had just arrived. The boys had just torn into a new case of Diet Cherry Coke, and the only thing that mattered in that tiny pocket of the universe was dual-wielding pop and Xbox controllers, and, of course, the score in the Halo 2 deathmatch playing out on split-screens reflected in the eyes of Arcadian youth.

When the blue splashed into view and the guitar rang out like an engine’s rev before a Slash solo,^#2 every teenage trouble melted away like ice on a warm summer day and the boys were transfixed and true. The boys would then proceed to argue over who received the prestigious title of player-one; a luxury typically afforded to the home team, which bestowed the advantage of a larger screen-slice for the cutthroat deathmatches so seriously considered by these Arcadian youth.

Lockout was the go-to fan-favorite map: a blue-gray maze of open steel pathways mysteriously suspended midair. Lockout devolved into a race of who-gets-the-shotgun-and-sword-first, culminating in one player dominating the match by camping the central gravity-lift for easy kills – a tactic the boys called “hoarding the power weapons,” which was ridiculed severely, yet the lust for winning was so strong that they continued to do it despite the shame.

Ivory Tower was another popular choice, a tropical multi-leveled indoor jungle park with plenty of places to play hide-and-seek; the game-mode of choice was something the boys called “GoldenEye,” in which shields would be disabled and only magnums could be used; this resulted in a one-shot-instant-kill playstyle that relied on reaction-time and skill rather than hoarding power weapons. GoldenEye was very serious business often used to settle insipid disputes and one of the boys would usually end up stomping home in a huff afterwards.

Every flaw; every virtue; every vulnerability; every strength; every weakness – all would be revealed when dancing light reflected in the eyes of Arcadian youth.

*Lockout on the cathode-ray tube.

When the last slice of pizza was eaten and the bodies stopped respawning, and the boys got bored, they sneaked out of the backyard gate and walked to the neighborhood pool – which had closed hours ago. They swam chaotic before the neighbors called the police for noise ordinance violations, and when the police arrived, all they found were unused towels and a green shirt adorned with the words “The Smiths” – the only evidence left behind at the scene of the crime of Arcadian youth.

This was summer break in Arcadia between the ages of thirteen and sixteen. This was before cigarettes, before drugs, before alcohol, before nine-to-five, and before bills.

This was my time in Arcadia – my golden years.

I.II: The Arcadian Tribunal

Miles was a local youth of Arcadia and he was exalted.

Miles, also known as TauntButton, was younger than your not-so-humble narrator by only months. He lived three yards behind my grandma’s Arcadian summer-home. We met when I was ten years old; I ventured to the fishing pond behind grandma’s house and there he was sitting on a big rock with his tackle box: fishing.^#3 I asked if he wanted to play Super Smash Bros. and it was instant kinship.

Miles was of average height and had hair like a sifting pan full of gold with most of the dirt filtered out. His favorite song was “Helicopter” by Bloc Party.^#4 He was the most popular boy within a fifty-mile radius and seemed to be friends with the entire county and then-some. Lithe and handsome, Miles was built like a triathlon wonderkin. He could run up a tree without his hands and dunk a basketball with such force that the ball would burst at the seams. Late at night, when we played cops-and-robbers with the other neighborhood youth, Miles would hide in tall trees and never be found; I would lambaste this behavior, but he kept doing it out of pure contrarianism. He was charming and defiant in his own way. He had type-2 diabetes – the doctors said it was genetic – and he would prick himself with an insulin pen every few hours to charge up like a Sangheili energy shield; we would joke that he was shooting up heroin and this was peak comedy when sneaking-the-joke on those not-in-the-know.

Miles had a keen interest in computer games, but his parents were strict on the when-and-what; his mom wouldn’t let him play Super Smash Bros. because she believed it gave him nightmares; so he used my grandma’s house as a safe haven from his parents’ prying eyes. Miles’ parents would go on to claim that I corrupted him with rebellion and computer games, but our relationship was much deeper than that. I was different from his neighborhood friends, who were more interested in sports tournaments and fishing, and I was exotic by virtue of being a cynical nerd full of computer-game-and-anime knowledge. I had just enough charm to be intriguing instead of creepy.

Miles was practical, outdoorsy, and naive but very curious. I was isolated, reclusive, cynical, and a know-it-all-while-knowing-very-little. Miles and I were opposite and magnetic, but we had one thing in common: we were contrary to the core, very competitive, and, most importantly, we were obsessed with each other.

*Arcadian fishing pond.

The third of the Arcadian Tribunal was Matt, also known as SupaSmallSlice.

Matt’s house shared a yard with my grandma’s summer home, a fact unknown until Miles and I stumbled upon him at the pond; he was fishing by himself, and – just like Miles – I asked him if he wanted to play computer games and it was instant kinship.

Matt was different; he was far less youthful than the rest of us, being four years older. Matt’s old age combined with his adamantine meekness gelled into a predatory aura that neither Miles nor myself picked up on immediately. Our youthful naivety paid off because Matt’s predatory aura never materialized into anything other than a very tall, slightly awkward-looking older boy just sort of standing there silently waiting for you to tell him what to do. Being alone with Matt was like playing host to a forever-bored-and-undecided person that would not leave because they were too coy to speak up; this was the primary reason I strived never to be alone with him.

Matt was the ultimate third wheel, someone for Miles and I to direct our adolescent rage and mockery toward. Whenever we wanted a third player in a computer game, we would get his attention by throwing rocks at his upstairs windows because we were scared of his father – a short, bulging man with a toad-like face that possessed the charisma of a goblin – opening the front door and killing us. Miles and I would secretly team up against Matt in Halo 2, and if Matt noticed, his meekness prevented him from telling us. If the tables turned and Miles or Myself teamed up with Matt: it was a good sign that some deeply extrasensory interpersonal angst was bubbling up in Arcadia.

Miles and I were unfair and cruel to Matt; we never treated him with the respect he deserved, something I regret because we were Matt’s only friends. Matt introduced us to Japanese Role-Playing Games, starting with Final Fantasy VIII, which threw us down a path of geekdom that we still travel to this day. Matt was always nice and polite and would do anything we asked of him; drive us to Wendy’s late at night or to the computer game store or the movie theater. Matt was forever eager to please, and perhaps this was due to the eldritch weirdness which prevented him from making friends his own age.

To these Arcadian youth, Matt was a sideshow, a freak, a weirdo; but he was our friend. And after years of friendship, my aunt – who eventually moved into my grandma’s home – would frequently ask Matt to babysit her teenage son.

And that completed the Arcadian Tribunal: Miles, Matt, and Myself.

But there was a fourth Arcadian youth, my aunt’s teenage son; my cousin.

Jake.

II: Et in Arcadia Insciens

“Drowning here in summer’s cauldron.” – Summer’s Cauldron by XTC, Skylarking (1986)^#5

II.I: Jake, Pongo, and Perdita

His life up until this point had been Pongo and Perdita, and when it flashed before his eyes he remained instinctual and unawares.

Every Tuesday night betwixt red maple and palm, Matt babysat Jake at my grandma’s Arcadian summer home. My aunt had just divorced and moved in with my grandma, bringing along her son, Jake; and since I only lived there during summers and Jake was now a permanent resident, my room was given to Jake, and I was moved to the porch. The porch had recently been remodeled into a makeshift bedroom, now covered in blackout curtains and the epileptic flashing of a Magnavox cathode-ray tube and the sounds of The Smiths’ “Louder Than Bombs” and occasionally John Mayer’s “Room for Squares” and The Strokes’ “Is This It?”

My aunt didn’t trust me to watch Jake, so she chose Matt instead – the older and more outwardly mature of the Arcadian Tribunal – and he was paid handsomely for his services. Miles and I sat in front of the Magnavox transfixed by dancing light while Matt was off making sure Jake wasn’t hurting himself with kitchen utensils or breaking glass on his head or smearing feces on the walls or urinating in grandma’s bed or wandering outside into oncoming traffic or removing his dirty diaper before hiding it somewhere that wouldn’t be discovered until weeks after it had permanently stunkified the house – which was already stunkified and only getting more stunkified by the day. The sounds of clapping, screaming, banging on the walls, and door slamming were cacophonous during these babysitting sessions as Jake made it clear he did not like being away from his mama.

The doctors said Jake was autistic; they said he had always been this way, but his mom insisted otherwise: “He was a normal baby before the vaccines – he was even saying words like ‘mama’ and ‘dada’ before those damn shots.”

Explaining Jake through vaccine conspiracy was easier to process than the truth, and in the end: it doesn’t even matter.^#6 Jake was Jake; he yelled, moaned, clapped, and enjoyed watching Disney films – and only Disney films – on repeat. There was nothing behind his eyes except complacency and primal rage in cycles, and if you handed him an Xbox controller, he would likely swing it – hard – into your face before clapping loudly and wandering off. Jake couldn’t speak a word, yet he was older than me by a year, incredibly handsome with a distinct pudginess to his face, blue-eyes-to-die-for, and dark waves of hair. Jake was the apple of many eyes – until he started screaming and taking his diaper off.

Jake was Arcadian and kin but impossible to connect with. The thought often crossed my mind: in an alternate universe, Jake would have been hoarding power weapons with us on Lockout, but instead: One Hundred and One Dalmatians one hundred and one times and counting.

*Pongo, Perdita, and pups transfixed by dancing light.

Jake lived in Arcadia unawares – but, maybe, we all did.

One thing was certain: this was it for Jake – all he would ever know. I accepted this about Jake; Miles accepted it; Matt accepted it. This acceptance brought us closer together. We were comfortable being around someone who smeared feces on walls; acceptance of this mental handicap was the measure-of-a-man in our Arcadia. The Arcadian Tribunal protected Jake; we loved Jake and he was exalted. And if Jake was too much for a person to handle: that person had a ways to go before they were allowed into our Arcadia – they were not even willing to step through the front door to begin with.

And on the topic of front doors …

II.II: Diaper Pyre

Jake would often open the front door and wander around lost in Arcadia, and because of this: his mom installed a second door ahead of the front door. The second door’s knob was installed backward, the locking mechanism was on the outside facing the elements, preventing Jake from unlocking the door from the inside and thus escaping into the Arcadian wilds. The Trick Door – as we would come to call it – would require some arm-contortionism to lock from the outside after you had already entered the home but before the door fully closed; this was followed by a quick twist on the doorknob from the inside to make sure it locked properly. This Trick Door Lock Procedure was a crucial courtesy when entering the home; a life-or-death version of taking your shoes off.

One warm Arcadian summer night, my aunt and grandma left the house – dancing – and Matt was babysitting Jake. Miles and I were tagging along, playing Halo 2, until Jake started slapping himself on the legs and moaning as a wet gurgling emanated from his lower half.

This was a portent; the warm summer night was about to become much warmer.

Jake had diarrhea – bad diarrhea – and it would not stop. Jake was flowing foul for what seemed like forever; diaper after diaper after diaper of filth. We started to panic as the three of us repeatedly exited the front door to dispose of diapers in the garbage and the trash cans were nearing maximum capacity and the smell – my god, the smell.

The Arcadian Tribunal was defeated – we didn’t know what to do.

Fifteen years old and full of foolish ideas: I suggested we burn the diapers in the backyard. This idea was met with great fanfare; like most jaded millennials, we had pyromaniacal urges that were waiting to be fulfilled, and this was the perfect excuse to fulfill them. We secured a lighter and some gasoline from the backyard and this was how we started down the path of flame.

We piled the dung-drenched Depends^#7 atop stray wood, poured gasoline all over, and tossed a burning piece of paper onto the uncontained pile of incredibly stupid ideas. The diapers burst into flames like the flared farts of a burning man. Stool flavored shit smoke escaped the confines of the backyard and spread a putridity so potent that it was a pox upon the entire neighborhood.

*Jackals and grunts huddle around bonfire of questionable origin.

The diapers burned in effigy to our intoxicating Arcadian innocence but, like youth, they didn’t burn for long; the gasoline and wood did most of the burning, and we quickly learned that diapers are mostly fireproof – most of the fecal matter burned away, the absorbent turned to mush, and the outer material had charred to black. We ended up exactly where we started, only now with a big ball of rancid goop.

Crickets and crackling were the only sounds penetrating the now-much-warmer Arcadian summer night.

Until Miles spoke up: “Where’s Jake?”

II.III: Wandering Around Lost

There was a boy drowning in emotions beyond his understanding; water filled his lungs while he flailed wildly in the ankle-deep waters of a kiddie pool.

I could see a nervous smile forming on Matt’s face – it dawned on him that he had defaulted on babysitting duties in pursuit of pyromania and he was visibly distraught behind his eldritch weirdness. “I’ll go check on him,” Matt said as he stood from his chair and made a beeline for the patio door.

My mind was preoccupied with figuring out how to explain the rat-king of warm diaper goop to my grandma and aunt, but also with Miles’ simple question repeating in my mind. And due to a certain incident involving girls in middle school, I had developed a sixth sense for calamity that was often way-off-the-mark,^#8 but I was feeling it now and it felt like bullseye. The gastrointestinal black hole, reminiscent of a trust-fall with someone you wouldn’t trust at all, grew as I watched Miles prod charred fecal matter with a stick. The feeling of doom grew so strong that I stood up and followed Matt into the house to check on Jake myself.

As I entered the back porch, Halo 2 was idling on the campaign section we had left idle in favor of pyrotechnics and a soldier kept repeating, “At this rate, we’re never gonna win this war!” and this transfixed me briefly until Matt approached me with a look of Holy Terror painted across his face. He said two words: “Jake’s gone.”

My transfixation broken – “What do you mean, he’s gone?”

Matt’s timbre trembled in barely-contained panic, “The door’s unlocked. I checked everywhere.”

My aunt’s worst fear was becoming reality; Jake was wandering around lost in the Arcadian wilds. My eyes grew wide at the very thought, “Who was the last to go out the front door?” My teenage brain instantly jumped to the blame-game as to proactively deflect punishment from myself when my aunt arrived home and realized her son was missing.

Then Miles walked in – looking smooth as always – only to see us standing there arguing about who left the door unlocked. “What’s up?” Miles said, only to be met with the faces of the might-as-well-be-dead. “Jake’s gone, isn’t he?” He said without a shred of fear in his voice, “well he couldn’t have made it far, let’s go look for him.”

My aunt and grandma wouldn’t get home for another hour, so maybe we could fix this before anyone noticed – maybe we could find Jake ourselves.

We wouldn’t bother to check the neighborhood pool because it was locked at eight o’clock and would require Jake to climb over a fence to get in – something he couldn’t do. And it was doubtful that Jake would get hit by a car, as it was late and there weren’t many cars out at this time of night. The worst possibility was that Jake fell into the pond and drowned, but the pond was shallow, and if he had fallen in, we should be able to drag him out before he hurt himself – if the neighborhood crocodile didn’t get to him first.

We decided to take a three-pronged approach. Miles would check the fishing pond; if Jake fell in, Miles was the most well equipped to get him out. Matt would rev up his Toyota Celica and drive every side-street and cul-de-sac; if Jake was wandering the roads, Matt would find him. I would go through a side-path near the house that led to a playground; Jake loved going there so maybe he wandered there instinctively.

*Night; Arbiter searches the Arcadian fishing pond; clubhouse and pool seen in the distance.

But it was hopeless – each path was a dead end, and Jake was nowhere to be found.

The Arcadian Tribunal came full circle and regrouped betwixt red maple and palm; defeated and dejected. The soldier on the Magnavox repeated the words, “At this rate, we’re never gonna win this war!” before I forcefully silenced him by kicking the power button on the Xbox – the games were over, and my aunt would be home any minute now, and then my life would be over too. I would be banished from Arcadia forever.

Matt suggested we call the police. The police would illuminate Arcadia with flashlights and find the missing boy within minutes but then our paradise would crumble and the game would truly be over.

As if living in a ‘90s slasher-film, I decided for us: we would not be calling the police, at least not yet. “I’m going to check the pool,” I said after a round of thoughtful pacing – my words were deflated and blue but belayed a sense of seriousness that was rare in these parts of Arcadia.

“Matt, stay here – if they get home before us, try to keep them distracted; say Jake’s asleep in his room or something.” I said as I scoured for a flashlight in a nearby cabinet. Matt’s eldritch awkwardness would deflect any suspicion as it made him impossible to read even when lying, and he was immediately amiable – as always.

“Miles, come with me; I’m going to need you to jump the fence and unlock the gate.” Miles was contrary as usual, “What’s the point? The gate’s locked – no way Jake could climb that fence.” I found the flashlight then glared at him with a graveness he had never seen from me before, and as I made my way toward the patio door, Miles followed suit without a word.

Spontaneously, the plan had taken form, and I strode out of the backyard with a feigned confidence so convincing that I appeared like the leader of an Arcadian Battle Regiment or: The Arcadian Youth League.

Miles and I had to travel through four yards, around the rim of the fishing pond, and over a fence to get to the clubhouse pool. I flicked on my flashlight as we crept through the verdant alley between my grandma’s house and Matt’s house. A black cat ran from one bush to the next. It looked like Chips, my grandma’s rescue, but I couldn’t be sure. Through our creeping, we made it beyond the second yard, but the third house had an open yard with a dog pacing back and forth. I took a gamble and bolted across the edge. The yard was on the border of the fishing pond, and I was so focused on not falling into the water that my foot snagged a root, and my flashlight went flying into the air, and my face went headfirst into the dog’s dominion.

Miles yelled something out as he caught up with me and grabbed at my shirt, but it was too late; the dog had arrived. There was no barking, no snarling, only wetness on my cheek followed by a thick layer of slobber. The dog was licking my face and wagging their tail. I got to my knees and cupped the dog’s head in my hands; it looked like a Golden Retriever in the summer moonlight, and I pet the dog’s head before nudging them away. The dog sauntered off into a nearby shadow and returned with something thick in their mouth – a bone? No, it was my flashlight; the glass was broken, and the switch was in the off position, but it still turned on when flicked, albeit with the flashlight equivalent of a whimper: a flicker. I pointed the cone of light at the dog – a Golden Retriever, confirmed – and then to Miles, who was standing there with a blank look on his face: “Are you the dog whisperer or something?”

*Jake’s home in Arcadia.

We took the incident with the dog as a sign of good fortune and crept with newfound confidence through the final yard. We made it to the clubhouse and walked toward the pool courtyard gate. I felt a nudge on my leg and looked down; it was the dog. They followed us. I patted the dog on the head and gave them a “Good dog” and then placed my hand on the top of the gate. “Alright, Miles, go ahead and –” I paused as the gate slowly opened with just a gentle touch.

Miles and I looked at each other, our eyes widening in revelation. Someone forgot to lock the gate – just like we forgot to lock the Trick Door.

All three of us rushed into the poolside courtyard and looked around frantically. I circled the edge of the pool, shining my flashlight into the water, but there was nothing except pennies and pool toys. Then the dog raised their wet nose to the sky and sniffed with purpose before bolting off into a corner of the courtyard consumed by dense shadow.

Miles and I followed the dog with purpose. The flashlight was dimming but still caused shadows to shiver and flee with some hesitation. Once we got close enough, we saw the dog standing on the edge of a kiddie pool, extending their head over the water as if signaling at something with their nose. I pointed my flashlight beyond the dog’s snout, and that’s when I saw it.

Jake’s body; floating; eyes closed and moonward. He was naked, and a diaper was floating near his head. The leaked contents of the diaper contaminated the waters around him. There was a gloom in the gravity so powerful that it stopped the Earth’s rotation.

The dog whimpered. Miles was staring at the frozen Earth beneath him. There were no words. He slowly removed his phone from his pocket and handed it to me – “you do it.” Neither of us knew CPR, so it was the only option. I nodded solemnly and started dialing the three numbers we had been avoiding this whole time.

But just then, there was a cough. I stopped dialing and looked over to Miles. “Are you fucking with me?” I glowered. But no, there was another cough, the sound of disturbed waters, and a moan like the moan of a boy obsessed with Pongo and Perdita. I swung the flashlight toward the kiddie pool, and there he was in all his naked glory.

He clapped loudly while walking circles in the ankle-deep waters of the kiddie pool, and his manhood swung wild like the wind. Jake was alive. Miles and I turned to each other, both stupefied, and we started laughing louder than we had ever laughed before.

When the laughter stopped, I grabbed Jake’s wrist and led him out of the courtyard. Before exiting through the gate, Miles turned to me and said, “hey, where did that dog go?”

The dog was gone, and as we returned home through the yards of Arcadia, the Golden Retriever was nowhere to be found.

III. Mea Aurea Annos

“The only thing true is nothing can last.” – My Golden Years by The Lemon Twigs, A Dream Is All We Know (2024)^#9

Betwixt red maple and palm sits a man in his thirties transfixed by dancing light.

When I decided to replay Halo 2 in January of 2024, it was because I wanted to prove to Miles – and my younger self – that I could beat the game on Legendary difficulty – something I was never able to do during My Time in Arcadia. And when the marine in Chapter 1 said, “standard formation – little bastards up front, big ones in back”,^#10 I knew I was in for a ride, and for a moment, I was fifteen again.

I soon found out that Halo 2 on Legendary difficulty is an ouroboros affair of trial-and-error and pure rage. Every encounter is death, and every respawn only takes you a centimeter closer to victory. If it had bonfires, character builds, and a third-person perspective, it would be Dark Souls – just far more frustrating and tedious and just not fun at all. Halo 2 on Legendary difficulty is only two weapons – the Plasma Pistol and the Battle Rifle – because everything else is a pea-shooter that doesn’t do sufficient shield damage; without the Plasma Pistol, every enemy turns into a minute-long bullet-sponge demonspawn that actively casts hair-loss magic on the player through the monitor; and since the Plasma Pistol can’t actually kill anything, the Battle Rifle has to be on swap to finish the job. Halo 2 on Legendary is why male-pattern baldness exists. Halo 2 on Legendary is why I pray for early onset Alzheimer’s so I can forget about all the time I wasted charging up Plasma Pistols and game-overing to grunts because every enemy has perfect aim and the jackals – my god – the jackals.

Alzheimer’s – that’s a strange thing, isn’t it? Just forgetting. Arcadia, lost…

If I were a masochist, I would consider Halo 2 on Legendary difficulty to be the greatest computer game of all time.

I did complete Halo 2 on Legendary, but I had no fun doing it – so why did I actually do it?

The truth is: when I decided to replay Halo 2 in January of 2024, it was because I wanted to be on the porch-turned-bedroom in front of the Magnavox. I wanted to hear my autistic cousin clapping and groaning behind the sounds of warp and whoosh. I wanted Miles and Matt to walk through my office door and sit down next to me as if no time had passed at all. I wanted to see the fishing pond through the eyes of fifteen-years-old. I wanted to return to Arcadia – my golden years.

It’s not just me – I see it everywhere. The computer game community, especially, is full of people just like me, obsessed with their youth – ignoring the present.

Nostalgia trespasses our minds like children with flashlights; highlighting the good, leaving the bad covered in shadow. So many of my preferences are formed from nostalgia’s sweet embrace, and I can point to the exact moment that I am trying to recreate each time. The existence of this essay is evidence of the fact that I am obsessed with the past; I could have written about my daughter, or my son, or my wife, but no – it’s not nostalgic enough yet. They say midlife crisis kicks in between the ages of forty and sixty, but it feels like I have a midlife crisis every day. And every time I try to recreate these treasured experiences, the magic becomes less potent – the feeling slips further away, and the thing is a little more bastardized than it once was.

My childhood is wandering around lost, and I am in the dark with a dying flashlight looking for Jake.

*Master Chief overlooks fading Arcadia.

Miles went to college for mechanical engineering. He works in an automobile factory now. Occasionally, I still play computer games with him online, and we talk on Discord. He’s still into anime and computer games – maybe because of my influence. We live multiple states apart, and our friendship isn’t nearly as strong, but every time we talk, one of the stories in this essay inevitably comes up. I went to his wedding back in 2018. I don’t think his wife has ever liked me.

Matt moved back in with his parents; the same house in the same room with the same window we used to throw rocks at. Matt hasn’t changed much, if anything: his weirdness is even more eldritch than ever before. He’s gone from ultra-fit to mirroring his father to somewhere in-between, and he’s still as meek as ever. It seems like I’m still his only friend, as every time I visit my grandma’s house, he’s up there in his room. I’m not scared of his dad anymore. I walk right in and go upstairs, and there’s Matt: sitting in front of a few computer monitors playing old episodes of Quantum Leap while peculiar new-age music plays softly in the background and incense form a thick smoke throughout the room. It’s all very Lovecraftian, but my aunt still trusts him enough to let him drive my grandma to her ballroom dancing every Tuesday night.

My grandma can’t drive anymore – she has Alzheimer’s disease now.

And Jake, he still lives in Arcadia unawares. Clapping, moaning, taking his diaper off, and watching Pongo and Perdita. But one day, he too will change just like the rest of us. The doctors say his condition will only get worse – he’ll start forgetting; one day, he won’t even know who his mama is. But that’s not so different from everyone else – is it? Alzheimer’s: Arcadia just slipping away.

Some say the only thing true is nothing can last; everything fades away and nothing is forever. If the only thing true is nothing can last – then maybe we should treat every year like our golden years; maybe we should live in the moment.

This essay exists not only to wallow in nostalgia, but also to chronicle my life – in case I forget.

This essay will function as a Golden Retriever in the dark.

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Footnotes:

#1. https://youtu.be/GG1ZYByvfqQ #2. https://youtu.be/4bMoHIllZOc #3. https://howdoyouspell.cool/forrest/tactics-ogre-reborn-ruminations-on-resentment-regret-and-retribution #4. https://youtu.be/2R6S5CJWlco #5. https://youtu.be/3DRUnkkjkds #6. https://youtu.be/eVTXPUF4Oz4 #7. https://www.depend.com/en-us/incontinence-products/protection-with-tabs #8. https://howdoyouspell.cool/forrest/no-disc-1998-seatbelts #9. https://youtu.be/jnylB5ylyw4 #10. https://halo.bungie.org/misc/h2dialogue/marines/cairo_littlebastards.mp3

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(Originally published on 2/11/2024)

#ComputerGames #Autobiographical #Halo2 #ShortStory

(Note, this is a chapter from an Armored Core VI essay, that context is somewhat important but not necessary to understand this piece.)

I: Giant Robots: The Origin

It’s easy to see the giant robot as a metaphor for nuclear bombs; they both leave a big impression and return a lot of people to Nature. The giant robot genre, for the most part, started in Japan and became popular after the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and while some later media will use giant robots in this manner, in reality: the first giant robot in animation was debuted on a Japanese street corner in 1931 in front of pale firelight glowed from a paper lantern. I use the term “animation” here super-loosely because artists on this street corner were simply flipping inked panels back and forth on a canvas and telling stories, which, in my mind, is animation in its purest form. This method of street corner storytelling was called kamishibai, or “paper theater,” and was very popular in Great-Depression-Era-Japan; I know this because I have a device connected to the internet and read Wikipedia (we live in a contradictory time in which access to information is so abundant yet people are still so lost, perhaps endless knowledge is more confusing than clarifying). The particular paper theater referenced here is “Ogon Bat,” or “Golden Bat,” a superhero conceived to be “more science than mythology” yet still ended up a skeletal thing from ancient Atlantis sent from ten-thousand-years in the future to protect the present-day which, depending on your perspective, would be the future Golden Bat came from in Golden Bat’s perspective and September 30, 2023, at 4:40 pm eastern time from my perspective, or something (time travel never actually makes sense in science fiction, you’re supposed to just accept it and move on for the purposes of the plot); the Golden Bat has an exposed golden skull and wears a Nature-themed pirate outfit with a flowing Coral cape; he also lives in a fortress in the Japanese Alps. The Golden Bat is not the giant robot in question here; Golden Bat is the hero; the giant robot was a one-shot villain named Dai Ningen Tanku, the first human-piloted giant robot. The point being, someone somewhere in Japan came up with giant-human-piloted-robots and came up with them before the bombs dropped and if that person had not come up with them I would not be able to tell you the following story.

II: Hobby Lobby and the Mark of the Beast

On September 4th, 2023, I drove my family: wife, daughter, and 4-month-old son to Hobby Lobby to shop for paintings and a wall-mounted-shelf for coffee cups. That was, of course, a pretense; I had been watching Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam for months until this point, so the true reason for this excursion was to purchase Gundam model kits; the most popular being Bandai’s “Gunpla” kits, which come in a number of different “grades,” namely: Entry Grade (for beginner modelers), High Grade (the next step up, with more parts, detail, and poseability), Real Grade (similar to High Grade but includes an internal frame; a skeleton of sorts), Master Grade (even bigger High Grades), and Perfect Grade (“the highest end of Gunpla, this series of ultimate avatars always packs in the latest technology” according to the official Gunpla packaging, “latest technology” roughly translates to “more plastic”; these are also really big) and a few other Offbeat Grades that aren’t worth mentioning in this essay. If you’re confused, I apologize, the term “gundam” and “mobile suit” refer to specific types of giant robot, popularized by the 1979 anime series Mobile Suit Gundam. Hobby Lobby had some of my favorite giant robots, and everything was 40% off: the original RX-78-2 Gundam, Amuro Ray’s mobile suit in the original anime; MS-06S ZAKU II, Char Aznable’s red Zaku (also from the original series); and, finally, the MS-07B-3 Gouf Custom, my childhood-favorite mobile suit, a blue Zaku-like with spiked shoulder pads, a heat saber (a sword that heats up to cut through metal, most importantly: not a beam saber), a gatling gun that doubled as a shield, and an extendable-magnetic-wire-hook-shot-thing for picking up weaponry that may have been dropped in the heat of battle or performing creative acrobatic violence all of which is captured beautifully in the 1996 OVA (Original Video Animation) Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team; arguably, in this writer’s opinion, the greatest Gundam media of all time and, along with the original series, the only series one needs to watch to “get it.” It being a subjective state of understanding, like watching the aforementioned Gundam series on a 14-inch CRT television set in your garage with the volume turned up so loudly as to drown out the sound of mom and dad screaming at each other in the other room or going over to a friend’s house after school to watch Gundam Wing on Toonami together before having to go home because it’s now 6:30 pm and you have a curfew and lots of homework to do.

I’ll do a line break here to allow you to catch your figurative breath before we move on with the story. I’ll also throw in an image for good measure.

*Hobby Lobby, model kit aisle, circa 2023.

Hoarding three Gunpla model kits into the shopping cart like a raccoon obsessed with shiny, alongside three or four paintings and a wall-scroll of an ocean view to hang in the barren-walled corner of the garage where I do all the midlife-crisis-bits (including this essay), I pushed the cart across the cheap linoleum flooring up to the short line at the cash register and waited my turn like a good consumer. Eventually, it got to my turn; I took the items out one by one and put them at the end of the conveyor belt, closest to the cashier, because I am a nice guy (sometimes), and she picked them up one by one, checked a sticker on the back of each item, and then keyed in the eight-digit code on the sticker. Then, I watched as the computer asked her, “What type of item are you ringing up?” and she selected “model kit,” which applied the 40% discount, and then she bagged the item. Confused, I asked her, “Why not just scan the barcode?” to which she responded, “Hobby Lobby doesn’t use barcodes.” She paused, then added, “For religious reasons.” The cashier had a hole where a nose ring should be and the sides above her ears shaved (an undercut?), so I trusted her bitterly-mumbled “for religious reasons” because she obviously had a chip on her shoulder if the Black Sabbath pin on her lanyard strap was any additional indication, and she clearly wanted to talk about it. She went on, “Hobby Lobby thinks barcodes are the Devil’s mark and won’t let us use them, even though they are on all the boxes, the computers won’t accept them.” I smiled wryly but did not laugh, as this wasn’t laughter-funny; it was stupid-funny, like a Year-2023-Conservative preaching for freedom but then saying anyone who burns the American flag should be locked up for life. Hobby Lobby thinks barcodes take them too close to Hell, and they have already decided that “Corporate Hell” is a compromise they’re willing to make for manifest destiny or whatever it is we’re calling “make as much money as possible” these days. I ended up spending $87.58 in total. The 40% discount was store-wide.

III: Plastic Passion

I opened the Entry Grade RX-78-2 Gunpla Kit as soon as I got home, closing out my family when I closed the office door behind me. It took three full listens of The Crib’s “In the Belly of the Brazen Bull,” a 47 minute long album, to finish building the kit. It would have taken longer if I had not had the foresight to purchase a “nipper,” a spring-loaded tool resembling blunt scissor blades attached to two rubber handles, used for cutting the plastic parts from runners; runners being the plastic assembly that all the parts are attached to in the packaging. Using these nippers, I was able to make clean cuts of most pieces, but some plastic excess was left on each piece, which annoyed me to no end. When it was over, I had a fully assembled RX-78-2 Gundam kit sitting on my desk, and I was proud of myself. I made the High Grade Zaku II three weeks later after watching several videos on how to efficiently build Gunpla kits; each video said to “panel line,” the practice of dripping colored (usually black) ink inside the small indentations of each part to give the model more definition. The videos also recommended using an x-acto knife to cut off excess plastic on the pieces left over from the runner, a phenomenon I learned was either called “nubs” or “stress marks” or both; regardless, I purchased all the necessary equipment. I took all the recommended steps, and during the process of building the Zaku II, I accidentally sliced open my fingers multiple times due to slips with the x-acto knife; in my haste to become a master builder, I had soaked the Zaku II in my own blood; serendipitously, the Zaku II matches the color of blood, and now stands posed with its huge bazooka pointed at its forever-rival: the RX-78-2. The final model kit, the MS-07B-3 Gouf Custom, still sits on my desk unopened, taunting me to open it, taunting me to spill blood in the name of giant robots and I think I will do just that before writing another word of this essay.

*Zaku II, Gouf Custom, and RX-78-2 gunpla

The Zaku, the Gouf, and the Gundam; the Holy Hobby Lobby Trinity of No-Barcodes-But-Some-Other-Eight-Digit-Code-That’s-Less-Demonic-Somehow. Balteus is the girdle of a Jewish priest and a papal garment, and the sword belt of a Roman legionary; perhaps the same Marcus Valerius Corvus who used the Raven to overcome incredibly low odds; incredibly low odds like the early-game-boss of Armored Core VI, Balteus. With enough practice, pattern recognition, and perseverance – the three Ps of passing AP literature (which this essay would surely produce a failing grade) – you will overcome. Three parts were broken on the RX-78-2 (requiring super glue); instant death from the initial missile barrage on the first Balteus run; blood was spilled on the Zaku II (staining the already red plastic); Balteus was half-health on the second run, and I learned the key to weakening his shield (energy weapons, of which I only had a weak energy missile equipped); nothing but fun was had building the Gouf Custom on a bright Sabbath morning: I let the panel ink dry before cleaning the excess and I clipped the runners so carefully that no unnecessary stress marks were left on the parts, and so delicate were my hands that no part was cracked in the snapping-of-the-pieces. I switched my AC’s build, equipped an energy weapon in the left hand to quickly deplete Balteus’s shield and a shotgun in my right hand for pure hull domination. Balteus was destroyed easily. I am certainly no modeling master and no master AC pilot, but I am much better than I once was. I am competent and more adaptable, “he roars as he smuggles in a bit about perseverance, poorly.”

(Originally published on 10/7/2023)

#Autobiographical #ShortStory

My wife says I’m an alcoholic; she’s wrong. I think about drinking alcohol constantly, but it’s okay because I’m high-functioning, and it doesn’t impact my work or the way I treat my family; I only drink after the sun goes down, and I try to drink only on the weekends, but also sometimes when I have a stressful day at work or when I’m really happy or when a great thing happens (like a promotion) because I deserve to treat myself to a good time once in a while. I also write better when I’m drunk, and it makes me more sociable; that last part is key because I would be an insufferable loser if I didn’t drink at social outings. It’s sad but true: people only like me when I’m drunk. I’m outgoing, witty, and fun to be around when I drink; more articulate. I don’t hate my friends when I drink, and I don’t get frustrated as much, and other people drink way more than I do. If I was a true alcoholic, I would be like my neighbor, who once tried to choke me for telling a tongue-in-cheek-joke about calling the cops on her (“What did you just say? You’re going to do what? Are you serious? How could you even say that?”) but really it was because she mixed vodka and risperdal which the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) officially advises against: “you should know that alcohol can add to the drowsiness caused by this medication. Do not drink alcohol while taking risperidone.” I think it’s safe to say that I’m not like her; she got so wasted one night that, after a vicious fight with her husband, violently backed the car out of her driveway into a mailbox then proceeded to drive around the neighborhood nearly hitting a child before having the police called; the police got her out of the car after much effort and arrested her after she called them all manner of racial epithets and generally not-nice-stuff. Somehow she got out of jail the same night, and two months later the same thing happened, and then it happened again, and again. During the course of writing this essay, I heard her screaming seven times (so far); our houses are close but not that close. She is loud. I am not like her. She can’t even hold a job. If I stopped drinking, I would likely lose my job because alcohol helps me deal with the crippling reality of nine-to-five-all-the-time; besides, how is drinking any different than needing your spouse to be home at 6 pm eastern so you can watch the next episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit together every Wednesday? How is drinking any different than waking up in the morning and needing that special cup of coffee with two sugars? Is that not an addiction as well? We stare at screens all day: smartphones, televisions. It’s all an addiction and if I’m an addict – you are too, so it’s OK.

(Originally published on 10/7/2023)

#Autobiographical

“Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun.” — Pink Floyd, “Shine on You Crazy Diamond”

Enter extravagant mansion of tan-stucco-siding and faded Rubicon-red-roofing; balcony with all-real-moss; the Great Recession: 2008, summertime when the living is easy; night. The Boy, teenager, with tight ripped jeans, collared shirt with floral pattern two sizes too big, and back-combed black (actually brown but very very dark) hair best described as The Cure, lay on the second-floor balcony exposed to wind and Nature and the sound of ocean waves just yards away, all red; occasionally The Boy would flail his hand around on the hard concrete, reaching blindly for his pack of Marlboro Lights that an older high-schooler bought for him; and when he can’t find the cancerous combustibles, he yells “Robert!” real loud, deliriously hoping someone named Robert can find his cigarettes and perhaps light one up for him to smoke. The volume of the hopeless yelling was irrelevant as The Mom and The Step Dad were away on business. The balcony (a patio with all-real-moss) is off the side of The Boy’s spacious bedroom; a king-sized bed with floral-print-sheets pushed against the magnetic-east wall (known only because that wall is facing the sound of the waves from the Atlantic Ocean); a full bathroom to the left of the bed (if you were laying on the bed facing the bedroom’s entrance); the patio-balcony double-doors placed awkwardly to the right of the bed (one would get the impression the room was not designed for a bed in this spot, but also, where else would you place it? The room was oddly shaped, for this writer’s lack of better words, which I’m sure there are many, and also “mansions are meant to be shown off, not lived in,” Robert would say much later in life). The Boy was lying on the cement patio floor in the elements, close to Nature by proxy of being outside, but as far as he ever was from Nature as this was the age of electronic-bliss, and still is (the “bliss” part fell off and now we’re just complacent and a little more empty). The Boy was obsessed with drugs and wanted to do LSD, but couldn’t find any in the small island community in which he lived. The Boy looked up the next best thing online (using Firefox, even back then) and found the answer: cough syrup. Hours before being bound to the floor, The Boy’s friend, Robert, drove them both to Harris Teeter (a grocery store chain, more upscale than Winn-Dixie but less mainstream than Publix), and they were able to purchase a bottle of Zicam nasal spray (diligent teenage research revealed this to be the best for getting messed up within legal limits); and despite the product being “18 years or older,” the dead-eyed-cashier, of course, didn’t bat an eye when the boys purchased the mind-altering substance with paper cash given to them by The Boy’s loving-but-perpetually-absent mother.

Robert was smart for his age; he didn’t do cough syrup; but The Boy drank that entire bottle of Zicam nasal spray and was instantly feeling “it.” The Boy was Coral Tripping at the Gates of Now, and it sucked. The Boy’s vision turned red; he was unable to walk, having stumbled outside onto the patio and choosing to lay down because it was “just easier that way,” and the world would stop spinning (as much). He became very hot, and the cigarettes didn’t taste good anymore; he was sick and dying. Eventually, Robert helped The Boy off the patio, got him up, and got him to the floral bed. The Boy placed his head on the pillow-on-top-of-a-pillow (The Boy liked two pillows, always) and closed his eyes. Robert, now in command of The Boy’s computer, played music from an album titled “The Papercut Chronicles” by a hip-hop group named “Gym Class Heroes”; the music, although not something The Boy would normally listen to, stuck with him. “I took cutie for a ride in my death cab; she tipped me with a kiss, I dropped her off at the meth lab,” The Boy would sing along incoherently under his raspy Zicam breath. “Play it again,” The Boy would say before passing out for a brief moment. Robert, being the wiser of the two, looked it up: you shouldn’t fall asleep when overdosing on oxymetazoline hydrochloride, the main active ingredient in Zicam, which, ironically, produces some of the same effects you would take Zicam to get rid of. The Boy’s mom was out of town; the two teens were home alone, getting high, although Robert was wise and said multiple times that the idea of “drinking a whole Zicam” was “stupid” and “probably dangerous” (and was correct).

The music played louder than loud, and Robert tried hard to keep The Boy awake. But just then, Robert saw the light and heard something outside and looked out the window. “Your mom’s home,” he said, extremely concerned since The Boy was still lying in the bed, clearly sick and dying. Before preparations could be made, footsteps were heard coming up the stairs outside the bedroom door. Then, the doorknob twisting; surely this was slow-motion-terror for Robert, who put on his best “nothing’s wrong” game face, pretending to simply be “playing on the computer because your son fell asleep,” which was something that never happened because The Boy was always the one who stayed up, and Robert was – always – the early sleeper.

*the room in Rubicon

“What’s wrong, honey?” Mom said as she approached The Boy’s bed. Robert cut in, “he’s not feeling good,” said in what must have been the most fake-confident tone of voice ever. It helped that The Boy’s mom was a naive pushover who believed mostly-anything because The Boy was an angel, or she simply turned a blind eye to teenage antics, a mystery never solved because The Mom never once told anyone how she felt, ever. The Mom placed her hand on The Boy’s head; it felt like The Fires of Ibis. “You’re burning up!” she exclaimed before leaving the room and returning shortly after with a full pack of saltine crackers, water, and more cold medicine, NyQuil. The Boy drank the water, took a swig of NyQuil, and couldn’t keep the saltine crackers down; luckily, the mixture of NyQuil and Zicam didn’t cause a deadly-chain-reaction, and The Boy truly fell asleep about an hour later, only to awaken from druggie-slumber eight hours later with his first-ever hangover.

“You’re trying to be Syd Barret. You’re lost. You have no direction. Do you even have goals?” Robert scolded The Boy later that day after lunch at the local burger joint which was over ten miles away (it was a long, awkward, silent drive); scolding was something Robert nearly-never did, which means: it’s serious moonlight. And Robert was right. The Boy was a poor chameleon, changing himself to whatever he was obsessed with that week; that week it happened to be the tortured genius of Syd Barret, the brilliant Pink Floyd frontman lost to LSD; years before it was The Smiths, which led to good things like a lifelong obsession with writing, actually-good-music, and introspection but also not-so-good things like antisocial-behavior-reinforced and looking down on everyone while Wearing-Sunglasses-and-Smoking-Cigarettes because Johnny Marr, the guitarist of The Smiths, exuded this undeniable allure when standing on stage effortlessly playing some of the most off-the-wall and beautiful guitar riffs ever written with a cigarette somehow balancing perfectly on his bottom lip. The Boy pierced his ear with a hoop earring because Johnny Marr did it in 1982. The Boy looked cool and felt cool when he wasn’t thinking about how much of a fraud he actually was. He could emulate. He was like David Bowie but without the talent. Robert was right.

The Boy had the image but nothing to back it up, and that’s what leads to a job in sales.

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(Originally published 10/3/2023)

#autobiographical

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I, IMAGINATION INTERRUPT

I am flying through space in a 5-mile-long battleship-class starship – the Avalon-1 – listening to Sting’s first solo album “The Dream of the Blue Turtles,” imagining myself captain on the bridge of the most powerful starship within seven galaxies. I gaze out among the tapestry of endless night; a cloth poked full of holes that let the light in. Sting’s 1985 hit song “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” is blaring from the bridge speakers; the crew, a rag-tag group of malcontents, are tolerant but annoyed by Sting’s intimated Jamaican regatta de blanc, insisting we should keep the noise down in case of emergency coms.

But I am the captain and, as Sting would put it, they cannot control an independent heart.

I plot our course using a small touchpad attached to my majestic captain’s chair, my preferred input method: a black stylus. Tapping little nodes on a cyberistic black and green GUI, which draws a path for my chief navigator – Papplo – to follow, ensuring the smoothest ride possible. The crew complains of boredom during these long treks through the deep depths of darkness, but that’s what imagination and loud music is for.

The build-up to Sting’s “Shadows in The Rain” swells to a fever pitch, and I begin tapping my foot and imitating an invisible drum fill while sitting in my cushioned captain’s chair. I feel the crew’s eyes burning a hole in my skull, but I ignore it. Torlo, the artillery chief, rolls his eyes extra hard.

My fleet consists of four starships. They tag along in nearby space, following my lead. As I check the monitors to ensure the fleet is in order, a large blast rocks the Avalon-1, nearly knocking me out of my chair. The warning alarms blare – we’ve been hit – and I quickly come to my senses, flipping the radar screen into view as my 1st officer – Ian Fenevich – swiftly calculates the distance of the attacker within a 2% margin of error.

*for a fleeting moment, I am the captain

We are under attack by a small fleet of pirate starships, likely looking to loot and murder, as is their nature. This is all par for the course in the realm of the endless. After all, I became a starship captain for this very reason: freedom. Freedom of movement. Freedom to do what I want – to go anywhere I want. If killing a few pirates here and there is the price to pay for such freedom, that’s an acceptable trade-off.

Using my touchpad, I instruct my fleet to move forward toward the pirate armada, closing the gap but stopping just out of their assumed attack range while our starships build power to launch a full barrage of lasers and rockets.

“Initiate dodging procedure!” I bark from the captain’s chair as my fleet approaches the enemy.

My orders come as the pirate fleet unleashes a full volley in our direction. The Avalon-1 deftly sidesteps the enemy’s onslaught, and in that moment, the predator becomes the prey. With poised determination, I direct my crew to complete the closing of the gaps; our weapons-systems now within range of the beating pirate heart.

“Adjust cannons by 90 degrees; turn off spatial dampeners,” I declare, rising from my seat and sweeping my captain’s cape in a flourish that exudes Harlockian elegance. “All guns, verify calculating tables and force projections,” I command, a brief pause punctuating my words, “Fire!”

A glorious lightshow plays out on the bridge monitors; near-endless streams of beams and rockets zip through the darkness toward my pirate prey.

My aim is true and the artillery agrees with me.

The void of space devoid of sound, but the noise of each impact plays out in my mind as I watch each round collide with its target in spectacular violence.

I silently laugh as the enemy fleet is overwhelmed by the might of my armada. One by one, each pirate starship erupts into a momentary supernova, leaving nothing but floating scrap metal and the water vapors of once human blood.

*the bridge of the Avalon-1

Suddenly, I hear my 4-month-old son crying loudly from one room over. I close the lid of the clamshell-like captain touchpad – the Nintendo DSi XL – place the console down on the nearby desk, and stand up from the captain’s chair of the Avalon-1 – the big blue couch in the corner of my garage-office.

Before leaving the room to tend to my son, I realize that I can’t stand Sting’s “Dream of the Blue Turtles,” so I stop the playback and walk out of the room, back to the real world.

A number of hours pass. The boy has been fed. He’s been amused. He’s been all smiles; but now it’s time for bed. I place the boy in his crib, swaddle him, and pop a pacifier into his mouth; and after a few minutes, his eyes go blinky-slow until he blinks no more.

The boy is asleep.

I sneak out of the boy’s room. Into the kitchen, I pour myself a glass of red – in the small glass as a form of forced pacing – and sit back down in the captain’s chair of the starship Avalon-1.

Flipping the DSi XL open once again, and I’m back. The handheld space simulator casts its digital glow upon my face, illuminating the contours of my visage in the embrace of the dimly lit garage-office of perpetual-midlife-crisis.

I tap the navigation screen, selecting three planets to traverse. The fleet progresses along a linear path from planet to planet. Sometimes, pirates cross our path; they’re swiftly decimated by my fleet’s high-powered lasers. Our journey continues on this unswerving route until I finally reach my destination.

And I’m not feeling it.

I’m not a captain.

I’m not a kid anymore.

I’m a thirty-year-old man sitting on a couch in his office.

*Imagination interrupt: illusion has stopped responding.

Some games consume you instantly; their gameplay and presentation so immediately arresting that you can’t help but fall in love at first sight.

Infinite Space is not one of those games.

Infinite Space requires a lengthy checklist of prerequisite feelings and mindspaces before it can be – even – barely enjoyed, and that illusion has to be maintained and cultivated for at least seventy-five hours spread out over several weeks.

Infinite Space requires one to be immersed in the science fiction headspace, specifically the “space opera” sub-genre. One needs to be lost in captain-delusion and starship fantasia; an obsession with Space Captain Harlock, Firefly, and Star Trek is practically mandatory. All the while, simultaneously watching the Battlestar Galactica reboot – at least one episode a day – and reading a chapter of Samuel R. Delany’s “Nova” every night before bed, preferably with those little glow-in-the-dark planets and stars tacked to the bedroom ceiling.

And if you falter in this routine for just a moment, the illusion is lost and the computer game reveals its true self. Shedding its persona, what is revealed is a dry, monotonous collection of lost potential.

Much like when you stumble upon the social media profile of your high school sweetheart and consider sending her a message; the expected outcome, the fantasy, is better than the reality. The level of abstraction needed to believe such an action is even remotely a good idea is, well, infinite.

II, ILLUSION HAS STOPPED RESPONDING

Infinite Space is about space.

More specifically, Infinite Space is about a young man’s journey through space. Even more specifically, it is about freedom: freedom of movement; freedom of choice; freedom to do what you want; and, conversely, the oppression of that freedom. Even more specific still, it is about the lengths humanity will go to preserve their freedoms, and the sacrifices and friends we made along the way. It is also a coming of age story, and a commentary on human expansion, and a critique of manifest destiny, and a commentary on perpetual violence, and an attack on rampant capitalism, and a love story.

Infinite Space aspires for everything and only manages to achieve something, and what that “something” is, well, I don’t know – maybe we’ll figure it out, together.

Infinite Space is a computer game aiming for such great heights: the distinction of being labeled a “space sim” on a Nintendo console, something that had never been attempted before and something that has – still – never been successfully accomplished.

Space sims, the ultimate expression of computer-game-freedom; as such, one might expect a fully customizable experience, including a customizable main character; yet, that is not the case. Instead, we are Yuri, a fresh 16-year-old boy trapped on the planet Ropesk – a planet founded by a once-and-future-washed-up has-been named Demid Panfilov, who at some point killed Yuri’s father – or something.

The point is, Yuri’s got no parents. He’s got no friends. His life sucks, and I am completely disconnected from him – imagination interrupt; illusion has stopped responding.

*space sims: the origin; one of these things is not like the other

As space travel is easy, consumer-friendly, and abundant in the space of Infinite Space, and thanks to galactic expansion laws: anyone who discovers a planet can rule that planet as they see fit. Our hero had the misfortune of being born on a planet ruled by a despot who forbids space travel; quelling the freedoms of those who live on Ropesk with threat of death.

Before Yuri’s father’s freedom-yearning demise, he gave Yuri a small metallic box: a mysterious ancient device known as an “Epitaph,” said to possess great power. Naturally, this box is a macguffin that becomes important later in the overarching plot, but it also serves as a kick-off point for Yuri’s spacefaring curiosity – the ultimate “what does this button do and how do I find out?”

Yuri, who idolized his spacefaring father and wants to escape into the deep darkness of space, sends out a galactic message to a “Launcher,” an outlaw who helps people escape space tyranny, they assist the oppressed-little-guys by launching them into space (hence the name), and those who successful make it into space are known “Zero G-Dogs.”

The ‘G’ stands for ‘gravity,’ duh.

One fateful day, Nia – the Launcher – gets Yuri’s message, swoops down to Ropesk, and picks him up. Through a series of wheelings-and-dealings, particularly the secret pawning of Yuri’s epitaph, Nia secures Yuri a starship of his own; thus, our – no, Yuri’s – adventure begins.

I am not the hero of this story, neither are you.

Yuri, at the ripe age of sixteen, is finally a Zero-G Dog, free to traverse the universe as he sees fit, and that’s just chapter one of this seventeen chapter space opera epic coming of age existential political commentary that unfolds throughout the almost one-hundred-hour playtime of Infinite Space.

And the rest is exposition.

*a boy and his blog

Infinite Space is the type of game with a lot of internal terminology. A dictionary in the help menu. It’s the type of game with a three-page historical timeline outlining the rise of humanity, the advent of space travel, numerous spacefaring wars, and all the space-empires involved along the way. It’s the type of game that gets you excited to dive in and start learning – even before starting the actual game.

Infinite Space casts a long shadow of intrigue over the player, much like Yuri’s epitaph.

The idea to fall in love with. The idea of being a starship captain traveling the vast expanse of space is just too strong to resist.

So intimidating is Infinite Space that one – such as myself – might be inclined to download the “Zero-G Dog Starter Guide” from some long-forgotten source on the internet. One – such as myself – might read every page of that starter guide, absorbing every ounce of Infinite Space’s lore before starting a new game.

Because surely, a space simulator marketed as having over 200 recruitable crew members and over 150 customizable starships has to be – must be – a deep and engaging game with complex systems that need to be learned and fully understood before hoping to achieve even a modicum of computer-game-success, right?

Wrong.

The core gameplay loop of Infinite Space is revealed within the first hour of gaining control of Yuri’s first starship, and it never changes; once you’ve experienced the first hour, you know what you’re going to be doing for the next hundred hours.

Infinite Space is traveling from planet to planet, navigating the “tavern” menu to talk to the barkeep or some other person, then traveling to the next place to complete the aforementioned person’s request, while sometimes encountering enemy starship fleets that must be destroyed along the way. Sometimes you have to talk to the barkeep six times in a row before he gives you the next story-progressing task. Sometimes you go into a menu-based-building and traverse some corridors.

Then you do it again, and again.

Space travel in Infinite Space is controlled by the bottom touchpad on the Nintendo DS. Each planet, asteroid belt, moon, hunk of space metal, brain in a vat, and anything else you can think of is a blue node on a star chart. You – the player – tap the blue nodes; sometimes you’ll tap one node, sometimes you will tap six nodes, all interconnected, to form a navigation path for your fleet.

Once you plot your path, your – Yuri’s – fleet pilots itself through the selected route. You can also fast-forward the traveling animation or stop it completely to plot a new course; consequently, space travel is mostly a hands-off experience, as you observe Yuri’s fleet coasting from point A to point B and back again, then around the bend, and back once more.

The lengthier your journey, the more fatigued your fleet – and the crew – becomes, exerting a negative influence on your battle performance. This aspect is crucial due to the prevalence of random battles. However, the majority of these skirmishes can be bypassed if necessary. Yet, it’s worth noting that grinding through battles remains one of the few dependable avenues to grind money for new starships, likely leading you to opt for engagement with every encountered enemy fleet simply out of necessity.

And battles are very important. Monotonous, but important. Combat utilizes both the top and bottom screens of the Nintendo DS – the bottom for inputs and the top to watch those inputs play out in real-time; it’s a largely hands-on experience, contrasting the mostly hands-off experience of ship-navigation.

Combat is so hands-on that you will often find yourself in the Nintendo-DS-claw position: using your left pinky to hit the triggers, your left thumb for directionals, and your right hand to hold the stylus and press the face button simultaneously; a unique experience only made possible by the insane minds at Nintendo.

*bottom screen on the left, top screen on the right; also claw.

The captain – Yuri – utilizes the touchpad to input commands to the fleet, with a command gauge accumulating over time; said “command gauge” dictates the use of various actions. Numerous special attacks exist, but the fundamentals – “normal,” “barrage,” and “dodge” – are most important. “Normal” fires each of your fleet’s weapons once and uses one chunk of the command gauge; most effective when the enemy selects the “dodge” command. “Barrage” discharges every weapon three times, inflicting massive damage and consuming three chunks of the command gauge. Being struck by a “barrage” is a death sentence for any starship; however, it can be easily avoided using the “dodge” command, which consumes one chunk of command gauge and expires after any other action, underscoring the importance of carefully timing “dodge” to achieve victory.

But that’s not all: distance is important too. Each weapon possesses a distinct attack range, making fleet positioning crucial for weapon accuracy, evasion, and launching counterattacks. As such, there exist “forward” and “backward” buttons on the bottom touchpad, both of which will be utilized liberally to position your fleet relative to the enemy, utilized so much that the risk of denting the touchpad is all too real.

Infinite Space fleet combat resembles a cat-and-mouse game infused with simplified rock-paper-scissors dynamics; and, it never changes.

The typical space battle in Infinite Space plays out as such: use “dodge,” accelerate toward the enemy but stay just out of range of their weapons systems, idle until you build up enough command energy to launch a “barrage,” accelerate within range of the enemy, at this point enough time has passed that the enemy will try to “barrage” but you have “dodge” selected, so you avoid their “barrage” completely, you then use “barrage” yourself, destroy one of their ships, then fly backwards out of range only to repeat the process.

This cat and mouse game plays out on the top screen in glorious three dimensions, showcasing the excellent starship designs and detailed attack animations.

And, each time an attack is launched, a bridge crew-member – presumably Yuri himself – yells out attack orders while a cinematic cutscene plays out: “successive fire pattern four four nine, turn off spatial dampeners, fire!”

It’s all very epic. It’s all very televised, theatrical.

Each laser and rocket is depicted firing from each starship within the fleet, which can eventually consist of up to five different starships, each equipped with four to five distinct weapons. When you choose the “barrage” option at that stage, you will witness your fleet launching a total of twenty-five different attacks (five times five), followed by the spectacle of these twenty-five attacks converging upon your selected target, the latter of which is a separate scene; this means, in this specific scenario, you will witness lasers and rockets doing – something – a grand total of fifty times.

Needless to say, watching this unfold on screen takes upwards of twenty-seven years.

These scenes are a visual spectacle early on but quickly become a chore to watch; the developers presumably knew this too, as you can skip through them, turning late-game battles into endless skip-fests where you don’t see any animations, only the wreckage left in the aftermath.

*keeps going and going and going and going and going and going

But that’s not all – melee battles, essentially timed rock-paper-scissors encounters; initiated by flying in close proximity to the enemy ship and tapping the melee button. These melee battles unfold in a methodical cycle, involving the simple anticipation of whether the opponent will opt for “slash,” “shoot,” or “leader” – or, as you may have deduced: rock, paper, or scissors. Certain conflicts can only be triumphed through a melee approach, while a handful of planet-based adventures require melee battles to advance.

Success in both space warfare and melee combat is dictated by the state of your starships, which are fully customizable through Tetris. Using O-I-J-T-L tetrominos, you plug add-ons into your starship. Each starship has a unique amount of space to accommodate the add-ons.

It’s not complicated; however, somehow figuring out how to fit specific tetrominos becomes a puzzle more engaging than the actual combat you employ the tetrominos for.

Like a ghost in the machine, the tetrominos do not bring about any physical changes to the appearance of your starship; they simply enhance hidden stats – another state of detachment; a false advertisement.

The advertised 200 crew members include some who can be entirely missed if you don’t engage in conversation with the right person in the right tavern twelve times in a row at the right time, while others are mandatory for story progression.

Similar to Suikoden’s 108 Stars of Destiny, the count here is 200, but the characters are far less unique. Unlike the celebrated Konami role-playing game, these characters are not usable in combat, essentially becoming names on a long list. Much like the add-ons you clinically insert into your ship, they serve as stat-sticks to enhance the ship’s statistics behind the scenes; place Ian in the 1st officer slot due to his high leadership stats, and place Kira in the cafeteria because she knows how to cook, thereby enhancing the crew’s livability.

Just like tetrominos, it’s not complicated, and it’s a nice touch – yet it remains detached, offering only subtle hidden statistical benefits. You hope that placing Torlo in the right spot actually accomplished something; but did it truly? The benefits of your decisions are not easily discernible.

We place our faith in the backend systems.

*tetrominos falling into place; not at all a Radiohead experience

Infinite Space is the most clinically detached computer game that I have ever played.

Advertised as a fully customizable experience, but this is fraud. There is customization here, but it’s shallow and number-crunching. While there are more than 150 ships to outfit your fleet, they follow a linear progression line: more expensive ships are better, so use those. And while the ships themselves can be customized internally, they cannot be customized aesthetically.

Much like Excel spreadsheets, which are also numerically customizable – only the most self-hating middle-manager finds true enjoyment in this activity; and that’s only true because there may be a raise at the end of fiscal year.

The freedom Infinite Space does provide is narrative-based, and this is where the game shines – dimly.

Throughout the journey, Yuri is given the option to make choices at key moments to influence the plot. A majority of these choices are meaningless, such as “do you want to help?” and selecting “no” essentially functions as a sneaky way of selecting “yes.”

“Haha, you’re so funny, Yuri – come on, help me out!”

Computer game trickery that may fool the young at heart – but not this seasoned loser.

And while a number of false choices exist in Infinite Space, there are also choices that impact pivotal plot points, such as choosing which faction to assist during a crossroads in the middle chapters of the game, or deciding whether to spare or kill certain characters. The latter of which can influence which crew members you recruit later on.

These are all nice touches for a game about freedom, but the superficial choices are far more abundant than the meaningful ones.

If Infinite Space excels at anything, it’s storytelling, especially in the late game. We witness Yuri grow from a sixteen-year-old awkward kid, with his entire crew believing he’s immature, to making hard choices, falling in love, and being forced to grow up. Yuri’s transformation occurs in almost real-time

The story itself is Xenosagian in its presentation and tone, containing an endgame twist that puts the entire plot into relative perspective, but it never reaches levels of philosophical ponderance or existentialism that Tetsuya Takahashi accomplishes; yet, that doesn’t matter as Infinite Space is ultimately about growing up.

Infinite Space is not about you. It’s about Yuri and his coming-of-age story, all set against a sci-fi space-opera themed backdrop.

And halfway through the game, Yuri grows up. His sprite changes too, as does the entire crew – an excellent computer game trope that should be used more often. Yuri’s transformation into adulthood is completely believable and relatable, and that aspect is the “something” Infinite Space excels at; we’ve figured it out – together!

But has anything really changed?

Yuri’s glow-up doesn’t save this otherwise clinical and repetitive computer game from ultimate obscurity.

Infinite Space is grand in scope, a cult classic contender, only lacking the spooky-hooded-cult-members; a game so lost in itself that it doesn’t even bother to include a quest log, leaving the player just as lost as the game itself every time they boot up their save.

*the boy and the man

In 2013, the apartment I shared with two other people lacked a washing machine. I often found myself sitting in a laundromat, playing Infinite Space on my blue Nintendo DSi XL. In this time capsule, I tapped around on the touchpad, went to the tavern, talked to some random NPC several times to obtain an objective, flew my starship to the next planet over to complete that objective, fought some pirates attempting to gank me in a repetitive dance of cat and mouse, and did it all over again, and again; ever unchanging.

While the absurdly long attack and travel animations played out on the dual screens, I gazed up at my chosen washing machine. Having just put a few quarters into the machine, I watched my clothes spin in a repetitive dance of cat and mouse, the socks never catching the shirts.

I closed the Nintendo DS – choosing to watch the washing machine’s spin-cycle instead, a far more entertaining spectacle.

Ten years later, I’ve grown up. I have two kids. I am playing Infinite Space on the same Nintendo DS that I had ten years ago.

I close the Nintendo DS – nothing has changed.

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(Originally published on 8/26/2023)

#ComputerGames #InfiniteSpace #Autobiographical #Review

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I, The Fog of Youth

In an alternate universe far far away and a relative time long long ago: The Boy.

The Boy came home from elementary school one day and The Dad was crying on the fuzzy tan couch – the first time The Dad cried in front of The Boy. The Boy’s parents were getting divorced, but The Boy didn’t care as long as it didn’t interrupt his Nintendo 64 time; ignorance was bliss for The Boy until the consequences kicked-in.

After that fateful day, The Boy would forevermore go back and forth from The Mom’s house and The Dad’s house, every month, without fail, like clockwork.

At the end of every month, on the 30th, 31st, or maybe 28th or 29th, one of the parents would drive The Boy to the other parent’s house. That parent would kiss The Boy on the head and usher him out of the car without saying a single word to the other parent.

“I’ll see you in a month; I love you,” were the cries of nuclear absenteeism, and those split custody blues.

That alternate universe was Earth, Milky Way Galaxy, the arm of Orion; and that relative time was 2001.

The Boy’s mom had quickly remarried, and The Boy suddenly had a second dad. This dad was The Mom’s old work boss – a fact discovered 10 years later – and the two had been seeing each other far longer than The Mom had been divorced. Implications of infidelity whispered within the family. But, none of that mattered to the youngling who just wanted to play computer games and stay up late on school-nights watching Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim without getting in trouble.

This second dad – The Step Dad – had an odd parenting philosophy; either due to laziness or genuine misguidedness, he believed money was love and would buy The Boy anything to win his affection. And by “win his affection,” what the author really means is “leave him alone” because The Step Dad had better things to do.

Naturally, The Step Dad empowered The Mom to buy The Boy whatever The Boy wanted; one of the first things purchased for The Boy was an iMac G3 in “Bondi Blue” color, an extremely aesthetic piece of hardware that combined monitor and guts into one fat transparent unit, capable of playing a number of educational point-and-click computer games made for young children, including Pajama Sam: No Need To Hide When It’s Dark Outside and Blues Clues: Blue’s Birthday Adventure; both of which The Boy played extensively, along with KidPix – Apple’s adolescent MS Paint with more soul than features.

With this powerful machine came unfettered access to dial-up internet. The Boy quickly learned the magicks of instant messengers, particularly AOL Instant Messenger, and discovered how to access online gaming and anime forums. More than once, The Boy gave his home phone number to the wrong anonymous man online, whom The Boy innocently thought just wanted to know his age.

All was fun and games until one of these anonymous men showed up at The Boy’s house and was promptly arrested when The Step Dad happened to – miraculously – be home to call the police.

The Boy quickly learned to fear those who hid their face online but, as a consequence of his own actions, started hiding his own face online; fear and hypocrisy within the fog of youth.

The Mom and The Step Dad, after this stressful event with The-Man-Who-Just-Wanted-to-Know-How-Old-The-Boy-Was, gave The Boy the cautionary words of the world wide web: “it’s dangerous and there are weird people on those sites,” and with that The Boy had learned his lesson – or, at least, the two misguided parents believed he did and erased the whole incident from their minds.

*digital landscape of The Boy circa 2001, authors: unknown

The Boy grew up in the world-wide-wild-west of anything-goes and inconsequentials.

Unrestrained by caution, The Mom lavished The Boy with any coveted electronic game he asked for, oblivious to the parental scrutiny needed to weed out corrupting influences. Consequently, a trove of mature-rated Nintendo 64 and PlayStation games amassed in the boy’s possession, a cache ill-fitting for his youthful 11 years. Foremost among them reigned Duke Nukem 64, a title that cast The Boy into an abyss of terror, ensnared by its chilling portrayals of crimson blood, intestine gore, and brain-bulbousing extraterrestrial beings lurking around every corner – and the underwater sharks, stalking the waters of every lake, sea, pond, and fountain; the latter of which The Boy never bothered to question.

How did sharks get into the fountain?

Duke Nukem 64 would go on to cultivate the fear; the fear of things lurking within the unseen; the darkness, the murky fog of the ocean and of youth, with sharks, jellyfish, and creepy men circling The Boy’s obscured feet.

Reaffirming Jack Thompson’s fears, The Duke introduced The Boy to sexuality; voluptuous scantily-clad women sprinkled throughout the violence, often trapped in alien-green-goo; moaning and begging Duke for release – incredible, in hindsight, that Nintendo allowed this game on their console, as it did exactly what Nintendo so famously fights against: corrupting youth.

In between computer games, iMacs and the internet, The Boy would – like any other child – go to school, an endeavor The Boy vehemently hated. Luckily, The Step Dad lavished The Boy’s sister with a brand new BMW; expensive German motorcar, jewel of the neighborhood. The Big Sister frequently chauffeured The Boy to school in this big-beautiful-overcompensator, as The Mom and The Step Dad were far too ensnared in the clutches of work – or traveling on their expensive yacht – to find time to dedicate to The Boy.

The Big Sister’s expensive car overflowed with rap CDs; initially, the boy was drawn to them, fascinated by the profanities only allowed by adults on television. One album that held his particular favor was Outkast’s “Stankonia,” despite its CD art portraying a deceased man skewered on a spike, an image that instilled in him an enduring fear, an image that could be seen when he closed his eyes to go to bed.

Much too late, in adulthood, The Boy would come to realize that the Stankonia artwork depicted a horned woman colored in psychedelic orange-and-black, perhaps a succubus, rather than a dead man – but, regardless, the image was still frightening to the then-11-year-old.

The Big Sister’s musical preferences imprinted themselves upon The Boy, at least they did early on – before The Darkness and The Cool crept in.

And The Darkness and The Cool came quickly. The Boy cultivated the seeds of his future aesthetic preferences during the months spent in the wild-west of his mother’s custody; a free-for-all of anything goes where he was free to discover his own darkness and pursue his own cool without interruption, most of which consisted of bad influences and moving pictures.

Eventually, the boy would grow out of his sister’s musical tastes, introduced to bands such as The Cure and The Smashing Pumpkins one summer due to the influence of older neighborhood kids; kids who seemed to not have a care in the world other than getting into trouble and smoking cigarettes – something the boy also wanted to do but was too timid, afraid of word getting back to The Dad.

The Everlasting Gaze – The Dad.

So, instead of getting into trouble directly, the boy obsessed over music and dreamed of being a pop star – not of the Madonna variety, but the detached-frontman-with-cool-hair variety. Quickly falling in love with The Cure’s “Disintegration” and The Smashing Pumpkins’ “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness”.

The concepts of The Darkness and The Cool – something The Boy knew nothing about, but he didn’t know that at the time.

In 2001, The Darkness was cool, and The Boy wanted to be empty; emptiness is cleanliness and cleanliness is godliness – and God is empty, just like The Boy who wanted to be Billy Corgan’s Zero.

At least that’s what the boy thought; he wanted to be empty, but at the same time, he wanted Mom to keep serving him chocolate milk with the bendy straw in the Power Rangers cup every morning while he watched Nick Jr.

Nick Jr. and Blues Clues. Little Bear, and Gully Gully’s Island.

The Boy, growing up so fast, could never let go of childlike whimsy. To the point where he was playing Blues Clues: Blue’s Birthday Adventure on iMac one day when his older and “cooler” friend came over. The Boy quickly turned off the iMac when the friend entered the room, but The Boy had forgotten to hide the game’s box. The Friend saw the box, picked it up, looked at it closely and laughed; then took his necklace off – a thick metal chain – and proceeded to beat The Boy with it.

Fear. The Boy would be careful about expressing his true interests from now on.

And for reasons The Boy will never be able to fully articulate: The Boy and The Friend stayed close for years afterwards.

Suburban Stockholm syndrome.

*The Darkness we know so well; stepping through the fog of youth

The Boy wanted to emulate the uncaring future dropouts, who possessed more privilege than they knew what to do with, and he desired to be loved in the process; to become one of those cool kids who feigned poverty despite dwelling in expansive three-story mansions, discarding more food nightly than an average denizen of the third world consumes in a month.

In pursuit of this contradictory facade of apathy and destitution, at the age of 12, The Boy embarked on a quest to procure several pairs of overpriced baggy tripp pants – the kind adorned with hanging belts – from the local goth store at the mall, while adopting an all-black attire.

The Boy thought this made him one with The Darkness.

The Faux-Darkness enshrouded The Boy. The Mom found it peculiar but exhibited minimal concern; she did buy those pants for him, after all, and subscribed to the notion that “he’ll grow out of it soon,” a concept she read in a parenting self-help book.

Indeed, The Boy did grow out of it, albeit not immediately. Soon after his dalliance with The Darkness, he crossed paths with The Girl who too had experienced The Darkness, and they became inseparable – a narrative best left for another time.

The Girl or not, The Mom’s offerings of material affection persisted unabated; troves of electronic games, Gundam models, Dragon Ball figurines, and other plastics destined for the landfill flowed like the legendary waters of the fountain of youth; this little “gothic” 12-year-old boy reveled in a state of euphoria every other month.

Every other month.

Because every other month, The Boy hid The Darkness, put up the tripp pants, and returned to The Dad’s house.

The Dad’s house was an entirely separate universe with its own planets, stars, and laws of physics. The Dad was a stern disciplinarian: a no-nonsense real estate agent with a strict set of house rules, chores, and hang-ups; all of which needed to be fulfilled before any fun could be had.

Absolutely no tripp pants or accompanying band t-shirts were allowed.

This created a disharmony within The Boy who felt his true self – however misguided and artificial – was being forcefully repressed, and the resentment built up like dead leaves in the backyard. The same backyard The Dad made The Boy rake every other week.

Adding to resentful repression; contrary to playing computer games constantly, The Dad made The Boy play sports: baseball, basketball, and tennis at the local church; activities The Boy never wanted and had shown no interest in. The Dad, in his vain attempts to make his boy active, was living vicariously through The Boy, or his idealized version of The Boy – a fact all too obvious when The Dad would become far-too-angry when the kid’s-basketball-referee made a bad call, or when The Boy missed a baseball pop-fly because he was lost in his thoughts, pondering on the The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

The dead leaves continued to build.

The Dad didn’t like to spend money on The Boy; not poor, but frugal, and The Dad aimed to teach The Boy the lessons of frugality. The Boy, so used to love being expressed through material means, felt that The Dad didn’t care about him due to the lack of brand-new things.

The Dad was stubborn and refused to buy The Boy new things, unless The Boy worked hard for it.

“Working to earn something is more rewarding than getting it without any effort – you will appreciate it more if you buy it with your own hard-earned money,” The Dad would often say.

The Dad loved his son and wanted him to grow up to be a responsible man, perhaps even a better man than himself.

It was obvious to any onlooker. It was not obvious to The Boy – it never is, is it?

And, of course, The Boy hated everything about living with his father.

The Boy would count the days until The Mom picked him up, and when he was at The Mom’s house he would – in anxious dread – involuntarily count the days until he had to return to Hell.

When in Hell, The Boy would get home from school and immediately go upstairs to play Nintendo 64, only for The Dad to take him by the hand, sit him down at the kitchen table, and tell him to complete all his homework first.

Stubborn but too passive to vocalize it, The Boy would sit at the kitchen table until dark – sometimes until bedtime – putting in the least effort possible out of spite, getting no homework done; not realizing that simply doing the work would enable him to spend more time doing whatever it is he wanted to do.

And when bedtime came around, The Boy would play Game Boy under the covers – sneakily killing the lights whenever he heard footsteps to avoid The Dad and The Step Mom from catching him staying up far past his bedtime.

Dad would often wonder why it was so hard for The Boy to get out of bed in the morning.

*ghosts of the past haunt The Boy overlooking suburban splendor

The Dad’s house helped The Boy learn how to be subtle – how to repress his feelings. But it also taught him structure and discipline. In a roundabout way, The Dad was a role model; initially resented but ultimately redeemed, like The Smashing Pumpkins’ album “Adore.”

From an outsider perspective, and from The Boy’s future adult-perspective, this custody-tug-of-war was a necessary evil – The Mom and The Dad, back and forth.

The Boy’s parents may have been divorced, but they exerted the same level of balance on The Boy’s life; albeit in monthly increments of extreme bliss and extreme – perceived – torture.

And without a hint of sarcasm, The Boy had an incredibly privileged life.

Going on thirteen years of age The Boy continued to play the childish computer games The Mom bought him for that old iMac G3 – a late bloomer; the games The Friend violently disapproved of.

The Boy’s favorite childish computer game was Pajama Sam: No Need to Hide When It’s Dark Outside.

That game was about a young boy named Sam: his aspirations, his hopes, his dreams, and overcoming his fears.

But most importantly, that game was about The Darkness.

II, Embracing the Darkness

Sam is a boy obsessed – a boy obsessed with a comic book hero. Much like The Boy obsessed with pop stars, computer game heroes, and The Darkness; something only captured in the brief fleeting moments of dancing in front of a mirror alone.

But, unlike The Boy, Sam is scared of The Darkness, as any child should be; Sam doesn’t want to drape himself in The Darkness; he wants to rid himself and the world of The Darkness. And, also unlike The Boy, Sam’s obsession is in reach; every night he becomes Pajama Sam – or does he?

Sam’s goal is to destroy The Darkness, and he will do anything to achieve this goal.

The Darkness isn’t so bad until bedtime, when Sam’s mom comes into the room; a parental figure never actually seen on screen, similar to that of a Sunday morning cartoon parent, with only her hands and feet visible.

The absent Mom tells Sam to find his socks in the closet and put them in the dirty-clothes basket before going to bed, a simple task to The Mom – a dreadful task for The Boy.

Dreadful because the closet is where The Darkness resides. There’s no night-light in the closet, and when The Mom shuts the door, The Darkness starts to creep in.

Sam, so scared of The Darkness, decides to become a hero to conquer it, a hero straight from his favorite comic books: Pajama Man.

“That’s right, fiend! Pajama Man is here to conquer The Darkness,” exclaims Sam’s favorite comic book superhero in the splash screen presented at the start of this computer game.

*we can be heroes, just for one day.

The Darkness; ruiner of daytime, bringer of bedtime.

Sam’s Pajama Man hero gear is strewn all over the room. How is he ever going to conquer The Darkness without his Pajama Man gear? Sam jumps out of bed, looks straight at the camera, and says, “I need to find my Pajama Man mask, flashlight, and Portable Darkness Containment Unit!”

Sam’s Portable Darkness Containment Unit being the Pajama Man lunch box The Mom bought for him, which he intends to use to capture The Darkness forever.

And to find these items, The Boy takes the mouse cursor and clicks on various items in the scene – in this case: Sam’s room, and everything in Sam’s room does something; his pillow, when clicked, may burst into feathers or squirt water; the coat rack in the corner of the room may turn into a stick-person and do a little dance; these are entertaining distractions for the target audience of this point-and-click computer game: 7 to 9 year-olds – not 13-year-olds, which is the age of The Boy – The Late Bloomer – who continues to play this game into his teenage years.

In a twist on the children-computer-game-point-and-clicks of the time, Pajama Sam’s adventure is different each time a new game is started; locations of items necessary for progression are randomized from playthrough to playthrough; The Boy may find Sam’s mask under the rug or on the coat rack, and the lunchbox under the bed or the nearby wastebasket, instead. This randomization applies to every aspect of the adventure, determined by the random numbers toiling around in the background before The Boy clicks the “new game” button.

And once Sam finds his mask, lunchbox, and flashlight, he too becomes like Pajama Man – the destroyer of The Darkness.

Or does he? Pajama Sam musters his courage, swings the closet doors open, takes a deep breath, turns his flashlight on, and shines it into the shadowed confines of the closet.

*Et in Arcadia, Pajama Sam

Just as Sam steps through the border between The Comfy and The Darkness, he finds himself falling through a psychedelic hole for what seems like forever. Sam’s fall is cushioned by an oversized baseball glove; a bowling-ball can be seen in the distance, along with a worn-out baseball, tennis racket, and rows of trees draped in the clothing of small children.

This is the entrance to Sam’s closet; another world where Sam’s discarded and forgotten toys, sports paraphernalia, and clothing have grown their own faces, histories, and personalities. This is a land where The Darkness dwells, in a large home – quite literally – down the road.

But Sam’s not scared; he’s got his Pajama Man mask, flashlight, and Portable Darkness Containment Unit, and he’s ready to destroy The Darkness.

Pressing on with courage and conviction, Sam travels a bridge over a stream; a suspicious plank of wood floats in the stream. Sam thinks it could be helpful, but the plank is just out of reach. A special scene plays out when The Boy clicks the stray plank, which initiates a scene showing Sam reaching out for the wood to no avail. Similar scenes play out upon clicking many things throughout The Land of Darkness, typically indicating something of importance.

Sam moves on, focused on the future, facing his fears with a mask on, into the dark woods just beyond the bridge; a forest full of large oak trees as far as the eye can see.

Filled with confidence, Sam rushes through the dark woods before realizing that something has snagged his leg: a rope.

Sam has fallen into a trap: a rope-trap tied to a tree branch lifts him into the air, leaving Sam dangling head-first in the world of upside-down.

The trap sprung within a split second, and just as he realized what was happening, he saw a large face staring at him. One of the trees – all of the trees – had faces, staring at him. Some of these trees had crazed expressions on their deformed faces, grinning from tree-ear to tree-ear in malicious pride as they had finally caught prey.

“We are customs. You are not supposed to be here,” the ringleader tree with the lazy eye and toothy smile says right before he strips Sam of his Pajama Man mask, lunchbox, and flashlight. “We, the trees, are confiscating your items,” the ringleader says with the air of an overzealous hall-monitor.

And just like that: the trees have stolen Sam’s obsessions and scattered them among The Darkness.

The Boy has returned to The Dad’s house; it’s time to put away the tripp pants, video game controllers, and goth records. Sam is just a normal boy now – no longer a superhero.

With Sam’s Pajama Man gear snatched away, he finds himself hanging alone, suspended by one leg from a rope cinched around a tree branch. The trees shut their eyes and mouths, seamlessly resuming their facade as ordinary trees, as if nothing had happened.

Sam now faces the challenge of freeing himself from this predicament.

The Boy clicks the rope.

Sam, gritting his teeth, climbs up the rope, fingers gripping coarse fibers. Slowly but surely, Sam uses his hands to ascend the rope, methodically untying the knots that hold him captive. Finally, he manages to loosen the last knot, causing him to descend with an unceremonious thud onto the ground below. The very same rope that ensnared him tumbles down alongside him; and like a scavenger in The Darkness, Sam puts it in his pocket.

Who knows – maybe it will be useful later on?

*Pajama Sam captured by the trees in The Darkness

Before moving on, a purple tree nearby sprouts eyes and a mouth, halting Sam in his tracks. “Hey, I’m sorry about those trees; they’re not the friendliest bunch, but your belongings are still around here – somewhere. Just keep an eye out,” the tree says happily.

Sam expresses gratitude to the amiable tree and realizes his next task: retrieving his mask, flashlight, and lunchbox once more. Deja vu. After all, how can he hope to confront The Darkness within his own realm – where The Darkness is most powerful – without the Pajama Man flashlight and Portable Darkness Containment Unit?

Or perhaps this is just Sam’s closet? Regardless, Sam’s precise location holds little significance to The Boy. He forges ahead, eventually arriving at a crossroads. A colossal tree stands before him, adorned with windows and expansive tree-homes crafted around each of its sturdy branches.

A lift stationed at the tree’s base catches Sam’s eye; undoubtedly the entrance. An adjacent sign provides clear direction, labeling the path to this massive treehouse as “The Darkness’ House.”

A shiver runs down Sam’s spine, but The Boy is excited.

Confronting The Darkness without Pajama Man gear feels like an insurmountable challenge. Thus, Sam chooses the rightward crossroad marked “Boat Dock,” determined to recover his confiscated possessions which must be around here – somewhere.

At the boat dock, Sam comes across a large river. A nearby boat sits on the shore, and like many things in The Closet, this boat has a face and talks. Sam asks the boat nicely, “Can you take me across the river?” But the Boat – giving his name as “Otto” – refuses.

Otto explains that he’s scared of water, scared he might sink, scared of The Darkness – nothing will convince him otherwise.

Sam finds himself in a dilemma; how can he traverse the river if the boat refuses to get in the water? Then, a recollection strikes The Boy: the wooden plank floating in the nearby stream. With a sense of foresight, Sam recalls the rope he had used earlier, certain it could be of use once again.

“Be right back,” Sam exclaims before zipping off-screen with a sound resembling that of broken sound barriers.

Sam retraces his steps to the bridge. The Boy employs the rope with two clicks, and Sam expertly lassos the plank, drawing it out of the water and into his grasp. Sam then stashes the sizable plank within his computer-game-sized pockets.

Sam returns to Otto the Boat and tosses the wooden plank into the water nearby. “See – wood does float,” Sam says, a triumphant grin spreading across his face.

The Boy feels like a genius.

From this point on, Sam and Otto forge a strong bond. Otto becomes The Boy’s trusted companion, navigating him through an intricate web of river passages, each twist and turn aimed at recovering Sam’s pilfered possessions.

And The Boy keeps clicking.

*clicking through youth

That’s “Pajama Sam: No Need to Hide When It’s Dark Outside.” A series of clicks in the Land of Darkness. A series of roadblocks with solutions already presented to the player five minutes ago, although intended for the player to miss on the first pass – future sight being 20/400.

Pajama Sam is an advanced game of concentration, of picking the matching cards and having to flip them both over if picked incorrectly. In its purest form, Pajama Sam is an hour-long puzzle with the pieces randomized each playthrough; items and socks placed randomly for Sam to find within The Darkness.

But this is no computer game to Sam, so mentally enslaved by the terror of The Darkness that he is determined to physically enslave The Darkness in a lunchbox that he calls his Portable Darkness Containment Unit. However, Sam can’t do it himself; he must adopt a false persona, that of Pajama Man. This facade gives Sam the courage to face his fears instead of being overcome by them, paralyzed in his bed.

Sam conjures up a world so rich and textured within his six-year-old mind that one has to wonder which movies his faceless mother let him watch before bedtime. This “Land of Darkness” is simply his closet, which is full of mundane items draped in pure Darkness; however, with the flash of the flashlight, the world becomes colorful, exciting, and palatable to the frightened six-year-old. A necessary illusion to complete his task, which – realistically – is collecting socks, but – figuratively – capturing The Darkness.

Once Pajama Sam has puzzled his way through the quizzical Land of Darkness, found his mask, flashlight, and lunchbox, he’s finally ready to face The Darkness.

Confidently marching through the home, up the winding stairs to The Darkness’ bedroom, Sam comes face to face with the bedroom door of The Darkness.

The Darkness’ bedroom door is a common wooden door. Ordinary. Non-specific. Yet, Sam can’t help but feel a pit in his stomach; however, instead of cowering, he tightens his Pajama Man mask, flicks on his flashlight, and grabs the doorknob; twisting it open to reveal The Darkness’ bedroom.

The Darkness’ bedroom is identical to Sam’s. Same furniture. Same sheets. Same mess. Same closet. Same everything – just darker.

Sam, gripped with fear and confusion, slowly steps through this dark copy of his own bedroom, shining his flashlight all around; but, The Darkness is nowhere to be found.

Just then, Sam hears a noise from the closet. A bumping.

The Darkness must be in the closet, just like in his own bedroom, so he tip-toes over to the closet – it’s locked – but after a short puzzle, he finds the key and unlocks the dismal double doors of The Darkness.

*Sam confronts his fears

Sam waves his pillar of light around wildly, hoping to catch whatever it is inside the closet within the beam.

Then, Sam’s flashlight catches The Darkness, a black blob amidst the stream of yellow light; Sam, so afraid, nearly drops his flashlight and runs out of the room.

The Darkness, lurking in his very own closet, grins widely for a brief moment before realizing that Sam is trembling in fear. The Darkness’ grin turns into a melancholic frown: “You’re scared of me too?”

“I have no one to play with,” The Darkness proclaims.

Sam, shocked, questions The Darkness, only to find out that The Darkness just wants a friend – everyone is afraid of him, and Sam is just another of the countless beings in The Land of Darkness frightened to death of The Darkness.

Sam, realizing the error of his ways, swallows his six-year-old pride, puts away his enslavement-lunchbox, smiles, and proclaims, “I’ll play with you.”

And just like that, The Darkness and Sam sit down – together – in the black of the closet, to play a game of tic-tac-toe.

That is, until Sam’s mom calls him back to bed.

Sam hops up, waves goodbye to The Darkness, and says, “I’ll come by tomorrow night, and we can play another round!”

Unsurprisingly, upon leaving The Darkness’ closet, Sam ends up where he started: his own bedroom.

*Sam embracing The Darkness

Sam and The Darkness are one and the same. An irrational fear manifesting itself into a vivid childhood hallucination, guiding Sam to the answer: Embrace the Darkness.

Both Sam and The Boy pretend to be heroes; both invent imaginary worlds in their heads, but for different reasons.

The Boy, afraid of The Dad and stripped of his obsessions every other month, invented a world inside his head to retreat, one where his imagination flourished with the things he enjoyed from The Mom’s house. The Boy languished in pure escapism, both physically and mentally.

Sam invented a magical world with a singular goal: overcoming his fears. At first, Sam believed he needed to defeat his fear, capture and hide his fear away in a lunchbox, but when faced with the truth, he overcame the fear and embraced The Darkness. All in a span of less than two hours.

It would take The Boy years – well into adulthood – to reconcile with the revolving door of his early childhood and the fear and animosity held toward his father, who – much like The Darkness – was a kind-hearted, albeit slightly misunderstood individual yearning for a connection with The Boy.

The Boy’s alright – but Pajama Sam is better.

---

(Originally published 8/11/2023)

#ComputerGames #PajamaSam #Autobiographical

Letter From the Editor – OCGM#1

Dear Loyal and Very Imaginary Readers,

This is Forrest, typing to you straight from Retro Arcadia. I am also known as: The Editor, The Boy, The Idiot, or online as buru5; the latter of which derived from the color, but with butchered spelling resembling poor Japanese-English pronunciation and the number 5 tacked-on at random; an ancient and very-insensitive-inside-joke that is now worn like a scarlet letter of bygone days when ridiculing how people talk was peak humor, or: being seventeen-years-old.

But enough about me; welcome aboard the Pequod, or: the first issue of On Computer Games Monthly. The name “Pequod” feels appropriate here as this magazine has been an obsession of mine since at least sixty moons ago, much to the detriment of my wife and children who have allowed me to build an office-shed in the backyard to contain the clickity-clacking of my absurdly-loud-and-very-mechanical keyboard. But here I am, getting off track again.

Within the wistful pages of On Computer Games Monthly, you will find articles covering computer games released during a specific month and year of the standard Gregorian calendar; be warned, however, as you may find the occasional article that breaks the rules. Outside of my own writing, every issue of On Computer Games Monthly features guest writers of kindred spirit sourced from open corners of the internet; and, in this way, On Computer Games Monthly is a collaborative writing effort; a digital collective of people who take computer games way too seriously.

A core tenet of On Computer Games is that gaming, like most things in this heinous world, is a subjective experience, and even the most poorly 'reviewed' games can produce intense feelings of joy and nostalgia and make you think real hard about serious-real-life-stuff. Likewise, a critically acclaimed “masterpiece” can make you scream in rage and walk into oncoming traffic on purpose. At On Computer Games, we strive to capture this subjective quality of gaming, and as such, you won’t find traditional reviews here – this is not Game Informer – instead, you will find stories about wanting to kill your friends, tanuki lore, karate belt tests, nuclear bombs, religious dogma, and the fishing pond behind grandma’s old house.

The ethos of this publication is straightforward. I have always been of the belief that mixing money with art is a sure-fire way to dilute the artwork; once money is exchanged, the art suffers and, inevitably, money becomes more important than the art itself. As such, On Computer Games will never beg, paywall, or accept money from anyone ever. Neverever. We are self-funded forevermore; some may think this is a noble pursuit, others may think it’s a proactive deflection of the fact that my writing is not good enough to warrant making money to begin with – and, as with most things, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

If any of this resonates with you and you would like to contribute to a future issue of this publication or advertise one of your own passion projects within these pages, please reach out to me directly on Mastodon @buru5@mstdn.games or through email at f0rrest@protonmail.com.

But without further ado: computer games, or something.

#computergames #autobiographical

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Some songs drift ephemeral like fireflies in dark-summer-skies before street lamps buzz and blend bioluminescence into brightness; others never fade, and when the stars are perfectly aligned and sound waves vibrate the eardrums just right: they last forever, crystallizing within the subconscious subjectives of day-to-day-life; these songs take on the properties of all five senses: the dim orange lighting accompanying the musky smell of a garage-turned-office; weak plush of a thin-hospital-blanket; or the taste of cheap Maruchan you had for dinner the last three nights. Without realizing it, these songs have crept their way into the deepest recesses of your psyche, composing the soundtrack of your life.

Mom always said it was Jackson 5’s ‘I Want You Back,’ playing in the living room in black and white on “The Ed Sullivan Show” when she was sixteen, waiting for her high school sweetheart to buzz the bell before their first date. The same song started serendipitously after sucking-down milkshakes at the diner, minutes before the first kiss near the Pontiac that facilitated the drive home; the die cast, the psychic etching ensured. Fifty-three years later and that diner’s derelict but the music is still as clear as 1969.

Musical Imprintation can’t be forced – it just happens – and the less you think about it, the more likely it is to happen; the music is part of you now, whether you like it or not.

Most recently, for me: it was Black Marble’s ‘Self Guided Tours’ off their 2016 album “It’s Immaterial”; a song twinkling with starry guitar bits over delicately oscillating synthesizers; all innocuous until sub-machine-gun-snares of the drum-machine-persuasion burst into the mix accompanied by a second stuttering guitar line resembling neuroscientists’ attempt at capturing the very same snapping-synapse-sensation of ‘creating psychic-song-etchings’ in a test tube; this is all complimented by a simple bass line with just enough bounce and groove to be catchy; the vocals, low disembodied incantations attempting to summon specters of 80s-past – “you’re the owner of a lonely heart” – float somewhere in the ether alongside quivering synths coloring the choruses. The lyrical content could be about anything, but for me it’s about driving to the Hot Dog Shack to get my wife and I something to eat less than 12-hours after the birth of my son, Arthur.

Video: Black Marble – Self Guided Tours

Merely 48-hours earlier, April 25th, 2023: I was sitting in my dimly lit garage-turned-office with a leaky-water-heater writing an essay on the classic tactical role-playing game “Tactics Ogre” for my virgin computer-games-website ‘oncomputer.games,’ listening to – among other things – “It’s Immaterial” by Black Marble. I was on week-one of six-week-paternity-leave from one of those cartoony-soul-crushing-sales-jobs; the paternity-leave started a week early because my wife was way-overdue and missed two due-dates already; Arthur clearly didn’t want to come out. The next day we had an appointment at the hospital to get my wife induced, or more accurately: our lives changed forever.

And that’s what we did. It was a nice hospital room in the maternity-wing with bright-white-lights that I immediately adjusted to the dimmest possible setting, big windows overlooking a courtyard with flowing curtains that I promptly drew to keep the light out, a wall-mounted and very-ancient-CRT receiving high-definition cable through a coaxial that I immediately tuned to whatever channel played the bass line from Seinfeld (the TV setup, as you can imagine, was true-low-def; the mismatched input-output-combo created terrible picture quality with fuzzy-lines-forever and malformed-aspect-ratios consisting of very-large-black-bars-baked-in). There was also a small blue couch with hard cushions and thin blankets that I slept on a few times before realizing that it folded out into a full-sized-bed.

Without delving into the biologicals-of-birthing (something I will likely never write about), the induction was a success; a beautiful screaming baby boy with a full head of red hair was born on April 27th, 2023 – my wife insists the hair gave her heartburn and after we cleaned him off, we promptly styled that heartburn-hair into a fauxhawk and gave him lots of kisses on the head. My wife held him close, skin-to-skin, and he was ours forevermore. That night, he slept by our side in a transparent bassinet; we woke every few hours to a nurse checking on us and piercing-newborn-cries quickly solved by warm bottles of formula.

We didn’t have a care in the world; working was irrelevant and mortgage payments were immaterial; nothing mattered except what was right there in that spacious hospital room.

We had to stay at the hospital for a few days, primarily so the doctors could test Arthur’s bilirubin-levels (or something) and make sure my wife was fit enough to go home. Naturally, a day after my son’s birth, both my wife and I wanted something-other-than-hospital-food so I decided to take a drive to the local Hot Dog Shack and pick something up; I ordered two large fries and a plain hotdog and she ordered some-sort-of-sausage-thing; so, I packed my things – wallet and keys – and left the hospital for the first time in two days; the double-doors opened for me with infrared sensors (or: Jedi Mind Tricks); the harsh sunlight burned my retinas and the moderate coastal heat felt like a sauna after the cold of the hospital, but I was hungry so I hopped into my Toyota and pressed the modern ignition button; the car revved up and the bluetooth connected my phone to the stereo system and the last song I was listening to in the garage-turned-office started playing.

It was ‘Self Guided Tours.’

I drove through the busy midday roads to that Hot Dog Shack with a back-and-forth bob to the smile on my face, singing loudly and privately along with the music. Happy. And that’s how it happened.

The psychic etching complete; and now, whenever I hear ‘Self Guided Tours’ or – literally – anything from “It’s Immaterial,” I am psychically transported back to that snapshot of late April, 2023. If I had known this etching would occur maybe I would have picked something with relevant lyrical content – something cliched like Will Smith’s version of ‘Just the Two of Us’ – but it just happened.

Before I knew it, Black Marble was part of the soundtrack to my life.

*view from the afternoon; April 28th, 2023.

Black Marble, in its current iteration, is just one guy: Chris Stewart, a once resident Brooklyn New Yorker and bygone fixture of the Brooklyn ‘darkwave’ scene where he – and former bandmate Ty Kube – made a name for themselves as ‘that band that sounds like Joy Division’ by playing at local New York clubs before releasing their first record, “A Different Arrangement,” on October 9, 2012. While it’s easy to point at the Joy Division influences, Black Marble sounds far more like early New Order with some “A Broken Frame”-era Depeche Mode thrown in for good measure. Stewart primarily dons a bass guitar in live shows, playing ultra-repetitive but memorable Peter Hook-styled bass lines, while Kube contributes synthesizers, laying down electronic drum loops and cascades of neon-hued bleeps-and-bloops, with a touch of shimmer and gloom. Stewart and Kube went their separate ways when Stewart left New York for Los Angeles, but – being Stewart’s baby – Black Marble never truly dissolved.

I sort of took the man-of-leisure approach to the city, and after living there for so long, you get to a point where you’re just like, “Well, I’ve been to every party, I’ve been offered crack cocaine by Natasha Lyonne like six times already, or whatever,” and you sort of reach an end … obviously, I’m not with my old bandmate [Ty Kube] anymore and people are like, “What’s up, dude? Is there a rift?” And I always made all of Black Marble’s music, so I was always going to find a friend wherever I was to help. If Ty felt like moving to Los Angeles just to be in my stupid band, he could, but he’s got more shit going on, hopefully, than that. I was just sick of New York, and there isn’t really a better answer than that. -Chris Stewart, 10/18/2026. CLRVYNT Interview.

Chris Stewart had written all the music for “It’s Immaterial” before his move to Los Angeles, and it was written with big-moves-in-mind. This results in an album that – while superficially dark on the surface – flickers effervescently with optimism’s flame; this dichotomy is on full display from the start of the record, with ‘Interdiction’ or: something not dissimilar to a Merzbow track that I would turn off immediately: noise, horror-ambiance, frivolity – a sine scream, electronic oscillations, robots powering-up-and-down-again, futuristic occultations, and more sine screams. ‘Interdiction’ is a ‘mood,’ as someone like Anthony Fantano might say; a horror-driven mood like hungry ghosts escaping from the machine. Black Marble wants you to think this is the ‘essence’ of the record, but that is very much not the case and serves only as an unpleasant waste of time – the opposite of what follows immediately afterwards.

‘Interdiction’ flows into ‘Iron Lung,’ which takes the Peter Hook bass lines and puts them on an Evo Firewire surfboard riding a gnarly wave while Stewart sings in baritone-echo-tones over sparsely-sparkling-synths; it’s obvious ‘single’ material, that one song on every album begging to be overplayed to the point of nausea, and will be. ‘It’s Conditional’ follows, setting the tone with the sound of a marble dropping on hard floor as a reminder that: ‘yes, you are listening to a band with the word ‘marble’ in their name’; and while this all seems very tacky on first read, ‘It’s Conditional’ is one of the most unique stand-out tracks on the album, with all the similar bassy-synths wrapped in moody pop packaging just in time for Halloween.

Video: Black Marble – It's Conditional

And that’s the crux of ‘It’s Immaterial’: not a cemetery at night like the first filler track tricks you into believing, but a moody pop record with hints of beautiful optimism sprinkled throughout that hits all the right nostalgic notes, getting the synapses spinning like a hard drive writing memories in real-time. From the poignant lament of ‘Missing Sibling,’ with its simple reflective chord progression driven by fuzzy bass tones, to the sea-saw synths of ‘Frisk,’ the rubber bands and minigun firing blips-and-bloops of ‘Golden Heart,’ and the starry-skied-and-hopeful electronics of the closing track ‘Collene.’ It’s all very popful; and if you replaced Chris Stewart’s ghostly baritone with Madonna’s mezzo-soprano, you’d have a Billboard Top 100 in no time.

The girl on the supremely iconic “It’s Immaterial” album cover is Halle Saxon Gaines of the Los Angeles-based band Automatic. She stands in front of upper-class suburban coastal homes with a cold, scornful glare into the camera, gesturing in Thelema, dressed in a white collar and black blazer. She is looking down on you, but it’s all a facade; just like your neighborhood crush in high school who, over summer break ‘04, discovered The Cure, dyed her hair black-black, and went full goth: underneath the dark Covergirl eyeliner, black Revlon Colorsilk, and all the doom and gloom, that bubbly girl you used to trade Pokémon cards with and explore homes under-construction with and ding-dong-ditch with is still there, about to burst out at the seams.

#music #BlackMarble #Autobiographical

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Shakedown 2005. I’m real young. I’m a recluse. I’m a wreck. My parents split five years earlier; Mom remarried and moved to a Posh Island Community in Coastal Georgia; Dad remarried but stayed in Atlanta, my hometown. I was given the great honor of choosing which parent’s heart to rip out of their chest and, naturally, I picked Dad because Mom let me do whatever I wanted with no supervision. Years prior, in September 2001, Cowboy Bebop aired on Adult Swim’s programming block, three years after its Japanese airing on TV Tokyo; I watched the whole series in the dim light of way-past-bedtime with one hand on the TV-remote in case the parents wanted to check on me. Two years later, in October 2003, Final Fantasy XI, a massive multiplayer online game, was released on PC and I was on the bleeding edge, consuming it all in real-time; ‘island time,’ as the very-elderly-beach-bum-elite of the Posh Island Community would call it.

Blessed with a rich step-dad, a Dell Dimension 4550, and nowhere to go but down; I had all the bells and whistles a 2000s-kid could possibly want: computer games, big TVs, every modern game console, friends in fantasy worlds, an office to lose myself in, and two girlfriends who didn’t know about each other.

I also had three LiveJournal accounts, two of which were for my roleplaying-character-profiles. None of them exist anymore (I checked). I enjoyed writing; it’s the only artistic thing I’m remotely good at. So, of course, I spent a lot of time in Yahoo! Messenger chatrooms typing up ‘paragraph-style-roleplaying’ with random strangers online.

I was on Adderall (Amphetamines, pretty much ‘speed for children’) from the young age of ten, being diagnosed with Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder; the medication helped with the writing process. To help get me in the zone, I would listen to the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack, specifically – “No Disc,” the third soundtrack released in 1998 by Yoko Kanno’s band SEATBELTS, which was initially created specifically to compose the music for Cowboy Bebop. I enjoyed the song ‘Elm.’ A track consisting of only gentle guitar ringing and a vocal melody of simple, melodious ‘la la la’s’ performed by Pierre Bensusan, French-Algerian acoustic guitarist. This song, best described as both deeply somber and beautifully transcendent, put me in a zen-like state of non-stop writing (and still does, evidenced by this article) and, of course, I would write garbage like:

Edge walks into the tavern with a mean look on his face. He swipes his long blue and red hair out of his eyes before casting a glance over to the bar. The tavern’s lantern light glints off the huge sword on his back. Edge surveyed the room for a moment before he walked to the bar and sat near the pretty girl at the far end. He signals to the bartender, who approaches quickly out of pure fear due to Edge’s coolly intimidating presence. Edge smirks at the girl then at the bartender, “one glass of milk, and another for the lady, on me.” Edge pauses, “actually, make that strawberry milk for the lady.”

Naturally, most of these role-playing sessions would lead to private messaging and in-character textual-love-making between myself and the random stranger, who was most likely much older than I assumed; but I never asked their age, I didn’t care: we were playing characters; It was artistic; It was cool; It was cyber-sexing in abstraction. And to the best of my – rather poor – memory: this was how I learned about the nuances of sex.

Video: SEATBELTS – Elm

SEATBELTS, as Yoko Kanno’s band, is actually a collective of musicians. Yoko Kanno herself functions largely as a writer, producer, and conductor on most tracks, playing only piano and keyboard melodies on records that encompass far more than pianos and keyboards. Occasionally, she sings under the credited pseudonym of ‘Gabriela Robin.’ The collective’s name is derived from the ‘seatbelts the band members have to wear during their hardcore jam sessions.’ Their music transcends consistent labeling; jazz, world music, top-10-pops, metal, rock, lounge, and bluegrass; sometimes within the course of a single song. Often, it feels like a completely different band from track to track, and at times it might as well be due to the sheer number of musicians involved with creating the music. Yoko Kanno’s SEATBELTS are the very definition of eclectic.

*Yoko Kanno, her face very close to a piano.

Anyway, the girlfriends.

The two girlfriends. One was an artist named after a Bob Dylan song; she lived in my old hometown of Atlanta. We liked all the same stuff. She was sad when I moved; and I was too. The other was a girl named after a flower who lived in the Posh Island Community; she was more akin to a venus flytrap than a rose, and I was the fly. I would travel back and forth from Mom and Dad’s house every other month, visiting my Dad for a weekend or so before returning to Mom’s to live – what I felt was – My Real Life. It was multiversal; a quick one-hour plane ride to the other dimension. When I visited Dad, I would focus every ounce of my being on being around the Artist. We would go to a gigantic store called Media Play – which sold anime, manga, DVDs, games, CDs, everything – and just walk around shyly holding hands, barely talking to each other, like young teenagers do. Sometimes, if her parents were present, we would go to her house and watch TV in her roomy basement; usually anime, often Cowboy Bebop. We were inseparable and I was stupid.

Flower Girl was just there, on the Island. She was interested in me, largely because we both liked those terrible early-2000s hardcore bands – Underoath or Alexisonfire or Whatever – and when I would get bored of playing Final Fantasy XI, I would occasionally venture out to see her. My Mom gave me far too much freedom. I would go to her family’s apartment, alone, with no adults around except her incapacitated great aunt who had a gaping hole in her throat; “yes mom, an adult is here with us.” The house smelled of quintessence – cigarette smoke quintessence – which I didn’t recognize until many years later after I started smoking myself. I barely liked the Flower Girl, but with freedom, access to a bed, and utter boredom came fun. A lot of fun. And, of course, Teenagers Having Fun is Very Complicated, especially when you’re Seeing Other People.

I didn’t like the Flower Girl; she was just there. I was using her and hiding it from the person I really liked. I knew what I was doing was wrong; I was lying and I was stupid. So, I broke it off with the Flower Girl, and things got really weird, really fast.

Flower Girl was obsessed and upset. She called me on my Nokia cell phone late one night while I was partying in Final Fantasy XI; I was ‘puller,’ which meant I had to claim the monster and pull it back to camp for the party to kill; Cowboy Bebop was playing on Adult Swim in the background, the episode where the guy with the afro – Hakim – tries to kidnap Ein, the corgi data-dog, while ‘Want It All Back,’ an infectious pop song with bright horns and a ripping guitar melody plays loudly during the exciting mid-episode chase scene.

Video: Cowboy Bebop EP2 “Stray Dog Strut,” scene in which Spike chases Hakim while “Want It All Back” plays.

Then it happens.

Mid-pull, the Flower Girl tells me that she’s pregnant. She says that I should come to her house ‘right now so we can talk about this.’ I stop what I’m doing; the monster never makes it back to camp and attacks my character to death while I stare mindlessly at absolutely nothing.

I turn off the computer manually with the button.

I am fourteen years old.

There was a gaping pit in my belly and a million questions running through my head. What would my parents think? How am I going to take care of this kid? Will I have enough time to keep writing and playing computer games? Is my life ruined? Should I end it all? All I could think about was myself. The Nokia started beeping softly; someone was trying to come through on the other line. It was the Artist; the other girlfriend; we talked every night before bed. I didn’t know what to do. My mind was fried. The Flower Girl kept repeating ‘hello?’ while I was staring at a blank monitor in catatonia.

Quickly and out of pure selfishness, I bluff and tell Flower Girl, ‘I don’t believe you,’ and then hang up on her. Then I turn off my cell phone and lay down on the floor with my face in the carpet. I can hear Cowboy Bebop’s ending theme playing in the background, ‘The Real Folk Blues.’

I deserved this.

I eventually fell asleep and woke up the next day in something resembling a sober hangover. I turned my phone on and text messages started flowing in from both the Flower Girl and the Artist. I ignored them and turned my phone off again. I returned to my office, retrieved my Cowboy Bebop DVD box set, and began watching the series from the beginning while I logged into Yahoo! Messenger and started roleplaying as some new character or other, escaping into virtual insanity.

Cowboy Bebop became my mood and my life. I lived as a complete recluse, hiding from the world; constantly in a state of paranoia, believing that any call or SMS would bring terrible, life-shattering news. I feared that someone, particularly the Flower Girl’s parents, would contact mine about the pregnancy. I tiptoed around the house like a shadow in the corner of an eye, avoiding everyone and everything. I abused Adderall and rarely ate, passing out briefly one time as I swapped out a Cowboy Bebop DVD when Mom was in the room, she was concerned but I talked my way out of it – “I just didn’t eat much today, Mom, I’m fine.”

I convinced myself that if I simply ignored the problem, it would go away. If I wasn’t present to witness it, like a tree falling in the forest, it wouldn’t happen; the Flower Girl’s parents wouldn’t contact my family, and no one would show up at my house with any parental announcements whatsoever. My only comfort was speed, writing, computer games, and SEATBELTS; often all happening at once. It was Teenage Quantum Physics and Vices On Repeat.

*the cast of Cowboy Bebop

In another time, the defining moment of someone’s childhood might have been parents dying in a war, working in a coal mine, or facing some other cosmic horror; mine was pathetic and modern, ‘I got a girl pregnant.’

Or so I thought.

Months of ignoring the problem, attending school as if nothing was wrong – luckily, the Flower Girl went to a different school – and going through all the motions of being a privileged fourteen-year-old kid; eventually, I turned my phone back on and went through all the missed messages. That’s when I saw it, the final message from the Flower Girl.

“I’m sorry, I made it all up. I’m not pregnant.”

I stared at the little Nokia pixels that made up the letters for what must have been thirty-minutes. Speechless. Textless. All the mental anguish, the paranoia, the sneaking around – it was all pointless? She was never pregnant? She made it all up? A great weight had been lifted, but I was never truly the same. During this period of my life, I became reclusive, cynical, gaunt after having lost thirty pounds, and simply wrote and listened to music all day and night on child-approved-speed. And it was all because I turned my phone off and ignored the problem?

I deserved this.

About a week after the initial catatonia, I had been communicating with the Artist through AOL Instant Messenger weekly. I told her my phone was broken, and she believed it. However, after I resumed using my phone and learned ‘the truth,’ I confessed to her about what had happened. She was shattered but said, ‘I forgive you, and we’ll work through it; just promise me I’m the only one now.’ And I promised. I learned my lesson the hard way. It was over now.

Video: SEATBELTS – Cats on Mars

Months later, while listening to ‘Cats on Mars,’ a keyboard-driven piece of bubblegum pop sung in Japanese by ‘Gabriela Robin,’ I received a random message on AOL Instant Messenger from an unrecognizable username. The instant-message was simply a link to an image hosted on Imageshack (a popular image hosting site during the early 2000s, similar to Imgur now). I clicked the link, and it was a picture of a baby with the caption ‘lol.’

The fear, the pit, the paranoia; it all returned in an instant with one instant-message. My mind, fucked. Incensed, I called the Flower Girl, and she plainly told me that she had actually been pregnant but had ‘given the kid up for adoption,’ then scolded me for ignoring her for so long. I asked her why she had told me that she made up the pregnancy, and she said ‘it was easier that way.’ Finally I asked her, ‘then who sent the picture?’ and she said ‘oh, my friend, she got drunk and sent it, I told her not to.’

This wasn’t the truth either. Months later, she told me – again – that she was never pregnant, apologizing and telling me that ‘both my friend and I were drinking and thought it would be funny to send you a random baby picture we found online.’ She made everything up because ‘I wanted to get back at you for leaving me.’

Mindfucked and totally mental; I didn’t know what to believe. My teenage years, from fourteen to sixteen, were filled with this anxious dread, this paranoia of not knowing. Was she ever pregnant? If so, did she actually give the baby up for adoption? Did she really make it up, or did she say that to make me feel better? Was it all really a big prank to get back at me?

She got back at me, alright.

Much later, in my twenties, I spoke with Flower Girl again, and she strongly insisted that she made up the whole thing because she was angry that I dumped her. She claimed that the instances where it circled back, the ‘here’s a picture of your baby, lol,’ were just her ‘being cruel’ with her friends while on a bender – but was this just another lie?

For so long, I felt like Spike Spiegel falling from the church’s stained glass window after his serendipitous battle with Vicious – “You should see yourself. Do you have any idea what you look like right at this moment?” And instead of looking like a ravenous beast, I looked like a scared, lost child. The gorgeous ‘Green Bird,’ a piano driven hymn that sounds like cherubs taunting from on high, plays as I fall endlessly, wishing the ground would hurry up and catch up with me.

Video: Scene from Cowboy Bebop in which Spike and Vicious duel; the song “Green Bird” by SEATBELTS plays as Spike falls out of a stained-glass window.

I looked it up. I checked the family trees. I checked the local birth records. There’s nothing there. It never happened.

I laugh about it now but, at the time, it was terrible.

But it wasn’t all terrible. Surely, I would not be the same person I am now without the Flower Girl and the SEATBELTS. Yoko Kanno was there for me; comforting me in a darkness of my own making; my guide and my only friend. The eclecticism of the music found throughout Cowboy Bebop, a show that, without the SEATBELTS, would have been far worse than it lucked-out to be, eventually inspired me to explore jazz and other genres of music I never would have considered otherwise.

As of writing this, I am 30-something-years-old, married to the love of my life, and have two children. I’m doing well. But I will never forget the time when Yoko Kanno and her SEATBELTS were my everything.

#music #autobiographical #anime #SEATBELTS