Cut Throat Apathy

Tuesday, January 26th 2010I was a SEGA kid

I was a SEGA Genesis kid growing up, riding the new wave of blast processing and all the bizarre 16-bit dreamscapes that the 1990s ushered in. There was something about that era, when we got a more fully-realized glimpse at the kind of other-worldly shit that was going on in the minds of game developers, that strikes me as psychologically aggressive towards the humble reality we live in. I think the way I felt about games of that day, in particular SEGA games, must have been how the art world felt during the rise of Surrealism. They left a big mark on me, or at least on the part of my brain dedicated to wasting vast scores of time.

After the Nintendo 64 had sufficiently won me over with its garishly colored polygons, I unceremoniously dumped my Genesis, controllers, and modest game collection on my cousin as a birthday present. I'd been convinced by more gaming-savvy friends, against my own instincts, that the Genesis was a piece of trash. As such, any meager sum I could expect for it would only make me feel cheaper after the exchange, as if I would be dealing in negative money. So I guess I was cutting my losses by getting rid of it at no cost to my ego. The thing did have a bit of a problem projecting a clear image by that point, so arguably it still cost me some amount of karma to gift it to a family member. But point being, it was gone and in its place I geared my habits more towards the likes of Mario and Zelda.

It wasn't long before I regretted the decision, and wondered often and aloud what kind of societal breach it would be for me to simply ask for the Genesis back. Partially I'd come to realize that the Genesis was really a very robust platform, especially when compared to the paltry selection of games on the N64. But mostly I just started itching to play my old games, like when you get a phantom taste in your mouth that dictates you absolutely need to eat that Ultimate Sub that they used to sell at the shop in your old home town, which probably isn't even there anymore. It was never sustainable enough for me to actually attempt to get the system back, or even follow through on all my half-cocked plans to re-accumulate my collection through flea markets or eBay. It was just there, coming through in soft pulses every few months, like a distress signal from a distant star.

After over 10 years of this, a friend recently made his Genesis collection available to me. I've been feeling immensely stressed this past month, looking for work and a new city to live in after having graduated by the absolute thinnest margin imaginable (really). As such, taking a stroll through the abstract playgrounds of my misspent youth has been incredibly therapeutic. Titles like X-Men, Jungle Strike and Toki: Going Ape Spit barely register on people's radar when discussing nostalgic games, but in my house they were Johnny Carson, The Beatles and M.A.S.H. all rolled into one. I have these vivid memories of all these games, completely unsullied by anyone else's input through all that time, as if my memories were a Sistine Chapel that'd been vacuum-sealed and untouched by human hands for 600 years. But if I've gleaned anything from it other than a pleasing stupor, it's the disturbing realization of just how much I must have played these goddamn games. When I turned them on, I didn't wander aimlessly as one might upon revisiting a home they hadn't lived in for 10 years, trudging through the haze to find significant objects to spark memories -- "Oh right, there's the nook where I kept my rocking chair! That's the corner where I stubbed my toe and had to go to the hospital! There's the closet where the monsters lived!"

Rather, I moved deliberately through each stage, not entirely certain why I was taking such-and-such a path but completely knowing it was the right path to take. Sometimes the payoff would be that it was the right path, other times that it was simply the most expedient path, or maybe just the one that must have felt right to me when I was 10. Either way, it's bizarre to not experience these games for the first time again, but rather to realize that I'd kept such exact records that I could just pick up where I left off. There's a portion toward the end of Quackshot Starring Donald Duck where, in true Indiana Jones fashion (the game is a tribute to the Jones ethos) you're presented with a vast breadth of emptiness before you, and you just have to take a "leap of faith." Platforms appear only after you've jumped far enough that you could never maneuver back to your point of origin. The distance between platforms is nearly constant, but has a few switches in between to mix you up. I was a little disappointed to learn that I could complete the obstacle in one try, not truly remembering where the platforms would be, but knowing practically from muscle memory what I was supposed to do.

The reason I'm mentioning all this is that I've been wanting to post the rest of the Monster Wars drawings from my middle school days, and I've hit a hitch. In 7th and 8th grade I was very fond of drawing with a particular type of pencil that was unlike the average No.2. They weren't art pencils or anything, just made with a softer graphite and a light, porcelain-like wood that was processed to seem more like soft stone than wood. I'd just begun really sketching, with many fast movements rather than one continuous drag to form a line, and the softness of the pencil made errant strokes less obvious. Or maybe it just felt smoother, who the fuck knows, I was 12 years old. Anyway, the point is these made for extremely light drawings that only became lighter over years of shuffling between folders, to the point that half the page looks like unintentional erasures. They aren't well-suited to scans. So, that's why I haven't posted them yet.

I've tried a number of orthodox methods, like making a darker scan -- which only obscures the image further in the wrinkles of the paper -- and unorthodox methods, like taking a digital photo of the images -- which doesn't work, possibly because my camera sucks. Eventually I settled on either the most sane or insane measure (I'm not qualified to judge) which is to simply get a normal goddamn pencil and go over the lines a little darker. I started on the first drawing, careful to just go over the lines and not get all Spielbergy by changing the very obvious aesthetic shortcomings. It's surprisingly easy, and really quite calming -- therapeutic even, as drawing used to be for me before I complicated things by building a website to post them on a weekly schedule. Which brings me back to the Genesis. In my stress, I'd retreated by following the whispered instructions of my 10 year-old self in my old games, and similarly I've been -- literally -- retracing the steps I took when I was 12 years old drawing monsters fighting each other.

HOW FUCKING CRAZY AM I? Who does this kind of thing? I'm a grown-ass man, I'm in the very grip of insomnia because of the fantastic pressure of getting my life in order, and at three in the morning I'm reliving the mundane activities I should have been embarrassed to be doing back when I first did them. And I'm really enjoying it.

Part of me worries that this is how people lose their shit. You see grown men going to fetish parties where they wear giant diapers and piss themselves so women can clean them up. And they don't even have sex with the women, they just engage in the role playing and love it. I mean, maybe that's the last time they were really comfortable and they feel like they have to go back there. Sometimes I catch myself in these reminiscent activities and I feel like a man-baby wearing a big fat diaper. Like I'm losing my shit.

But at the same time, maybe I'm saving myself from losing my shit. Because to a degree it feels like I'm communicating with my past self, and he's communicating with me. I'm definitely not okay right now, but in all likelihood he wasn't okay then either (well, he did grow up to be me). But I'm living proof that he'll get past the stuff that keeps him down and makes him want to escape into gaming or drawing or daydreaming. And for his part, the bits of my mind dedicated to adolescent escapist fantasy is something he built that I can duck into now and then, and take recreation there to cool my nerves for awhile. And when I'm done, and I have to go back to grappling with all the issues that are keeping me down now, it won't just be to follow my goals, but also to realize his dreams, and validate his hopes. I can carry that with me, and in remembering, find it a little easier to go on.

So maybe it is stupid, and maybe even really goddamn crazy, but it gives me comfort. For now, that's enough for me.

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