Seriously Whacked Point of View
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Seriously Whacked Point of View
“Into Tomorrow, With Seriously Whacked” |
You may have noticed that this column has been absent from Just Adventure for several weeks now. Sorry about that. (Or, for my loyal non-fans, you’re most welcome!) Basically, I’ve been lying at home trapped under a shelf all this time without a single useful item in my inventory, desperately searching through my conversation trees for a dialogue option to say “HELP!!!”, not realizing until this morning that if I shot the spitball at the cat it would knock over the phone when it ran out of the room, allowing me to use my Scroll Of 911 Dialing.
Anyway, on May 18th I drove down to Miami, partly to sightsee the carjacking aficianados and narcotics entrepreneuers, and partly to be on the radio show Into Tomorrow With Dave Graveline to talk about computer games. Randy Sluganski, Just Adventure’s dictator supreme and custodial supervisor, had invited me to join him, and I figured the interview would go something like this:
DAVE GRAVELINE: So, Jeff, what’s the biggest hurdle the computer adventure game industry needs to overcome?
ME: Randy’s face!
[Uproarious laughter fills the studio. Dave and I exchange high-fives.]
DAVE: Heh heh, you can’t buy that kind of funny in a store, let me tell you. So, Randy, same question.
RANDY: Uh…Jeff’s face?
[A hush falls over the studio. Dave shakes his head sadly.]
DAVE: Pretty lame, Sluganski.
[Several stagehands drag Randy out of the studio. The sounds of baseball bats and steel-heeled boots are heard outside.]
So I was all set to relax and have some fun. But then I got another e-mail from Randy that sent a chill down my spine and terrified me to the very core of my being:
“Make sure you bone up on current games to make yourself look intelligent.”
My wonderful fantasy, destroyed! I understand that there may be cultural differences involved, but where I come from we warn people that they’re expected to know what the hell they’re talking about BEFORE we invite them to be a guest on a national radio show. So I had to do some emergency research. I loaded up on computer and video games magazines and demo discs and spent a few days learning about the latest releases.
NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO ARE SYMPATHETIC TO YOUR PLIGHT WHEN YOU ARE FORCED TO SPEND A FEW DAYS RESEARCHING COMPUTER GAMES: Zero (0).
Finally I was on my way to Miami, confident that my hours of dedicated research would be forgotten approximately three seconds before the show started. Randy and I met at the World’s Most Crowded Denny’s for lunch, where I ordered chicken strips after determining that it was the meal least likely to be regurgitated upon Dave Graveline in my state of stomach-twisting panic. We told the waitress that we were going to be on a radio show and she seemed impressed, although she probably thought that we were going to be on Bubba the Love Sponge.
We got to the studio at 2:30 and watched Dave and his cronies do the last half-hour of tech news, while I realized that all of my research had leaked out of my brain twenty-nine minutes and fifty-seven seconds sooner than anticipated. I figured that the show was going to go something like this:
DAVE: So, Jeff, what’s the biggest hurdle the computer adventure game industry needs to overcome?
ME: Uh…uh…uh…uhhhhhhhhh…uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…
DAVE: Answer the question, you wretched fool!
ME: I can’t! I know nothing! I’m a computer game poseur! [Disgusting sound effect.]
DAVE: I guess we should shut off the webcam for a while.
Then it was 3:00. Randy and I took our places and the show began. I have to admit that I was pretty nervous about filling two hours, but I needn’t have worried, since a two-hour radio show contains three-and-a-half hours of commercials. We also had several call-in guests, and I came up with delightfully witty comments to make to each of them, although not until after they’d already hung up.
Many of the questions were related directly to the Electronic Entertainment Expo, which I was unable to attend due to a prior commitment and a lack of funds and a fear of colorful lights and a lifetime ban due to the corset incident of ’97, so Randy handled those. I expressed my regret for bashing the Survivor computer game in this column by bashing it on national radio, defended the use of real-time decision making in Broken Sword III (so if this game sucks, it’s all my fault, and I apologize), and wisely avoided any sort of follow-up to Randy’s “size doesn’t matter” comment.
I brought in copies of my novels Graverobbers Wanted (No Experience Necessary) and Single White Psychopath Seeks Same to be given away to forever grateful listeners, and Dave mentioned the titles and my website (http://www.jeffstrand.com) numerous times during the show. He also said that you should visit my website frequently and buy my books frequently. I told him that his shameless promotion was a bit distasteful, and he told me to shut up, and then he said that if you didn’t buy my books he’d spray-paint a bunny rabbit.
Finally, the show ended, the hounds were released, and Randy and I left the studio. His wife called him on his cell phone and yelled at him for the “size doesn’t matter” comment. We exchanged tearful goodbyes, vowed to meet again…someday…and then parted ways.
On the way home, my wife and I stopped to get information on the Skunk Ape Festival coming up in June, but that’s another story.
If you missed the May 18th edition of Into Tomorrow With Dave Graveline, it has been archived for your listening ecstasy in a one-hour version that’s probably missing all of the parts where I talk. I would listen to it, but as long as I don’t I can live the fantasy that I didn’t sound like a gargantuan goober. You can also see photos of Randy and I looking like a pair-o-geeks. Just head on over to http://www.graveline.com/.
