Goodbye to Gigglebees

October 28, 2008


Gigglebees.If you’ve ever been to the house of someone who’s recently passed away, you know the feeling. As soon as you walk through the doors, you get the sense that time has stopped. For the house, it has. It’s ceased to exist in the way it had always known, owned and cared for by someone who is no longer alive. Nothing will change unless forced upon by an outside source. Instead, everything stays frozen, waiting to erode.

This past Saturday, we attended the auction at Gigglebees, an old arcade that had been a local institution for as long as I can remember. It had gone through several names and several owners, but the internal mechanisms always stayed the same: a robot coyote named Wilbur, a set of bumper cars and skeeball alleys to rival nowhere else in town, a collection of new and old arcade games, all worn smooth by the touch of thousand (if not millions) of kids.

Like the homes of the deceased, Gigglebees stood empty for several months. Frozen in time, unable to stay open, bought by someone with no sense of history, ready to be razed for a new office complex. Its guts were to be scattered around the region, auctioned off and sent away. And we arrived to see those guts doled out.

It wasn’t just to bid on old arcade games, though. While justifying the cost of an auctioned copy of WWF Wrestlefest was easy (a machine went for $70 at another auction, according to my Internet search) the space issue made the purchase improbable. Instead, we showed up as lookie-loos, anxious to grab one last look at the building before it was sent into the ground.

We weren’t alone. A large group gathered as the auctioneer sold pizza pans and whisks from the kitchen and concession area, but most people were simply walking around, soaking in the atmosphere. It was a free-for-all. The machines were all opened, allowing attendees to simply reach inside and tally up credits. Skeeball took just a flip of a finger. Tickets were free for the taking. The bumper cars smashed and jostled and when they ran out one person simply needed to hop out and run behind the counter to get it started again.

Lines of people huddled around arcade games. Machines that hadn’t been used in what seemed like years – games that were either too outdated or too expensive for the relative enjoyment value – found new life, suddenly longed after for lack of space around the more popular games.

I looked around at the building; the games, for the most part, still stood in their original positions. One set of skeeball lanes had been sold ahead of time, and in their place stood a wall filled with animatronic characters. It looked like the place had been ransacked, like the original owners had taken the tokens and ran, leaving the city with a dying arcade, but other than that everything seemed in place.

Frozen in time. Preparing to be razed.

Sure, there was a group of people who showed up for the auction. They stood close to the auctioneer, trying to decide whether or not the set of plastic glasses they just purchased was really worth $5.

But most of the attendees were there for the same reason we were. For the memories. For one last look. They filed in and gravitated toward their favorite games, searching out for the machine that had been like a beacon among rocks. Every person who showed up had a memory, of birthdays, or of cashing in a positive report card for free tokens.

They weren’t here to buy a piece of Gigglebees. They weren’t here to help scatter the guts. They were simply here to pay their respects, to an abandoned arcade that, chances are, they didn’t appreciate enough when it was around but, now that the end was near, would do anything to bring back.

They were here for one last look. One last whack-a-mole. One last skeeball game. One last round of air hockey. One last ride on the bumper cards.

One last time. Then they would leave, saying goodbye to Gigglebees forever. And in doing so, they said goodbye to a little piece of their childhood.

Tags: Sioux Falls |

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Less is more

October 27, 2008


The CBS studio crew during football games consists of five people. Three former players, a former coach and a sports broadcast veteran.

The FOX crew is even larger. If you count the robot, it’s close to breaking double digits.

Post-debate coverage on the major 24-hour news channels turned into a rotation of several experts, pundits and other personalities. In one surreal television moment, Anderson Cooper sat in between a dozen people, squashed together behind two too-small news desks, shooting off questions like a semi-automatic firearm, fighting for space and for clarity.

Walter Cronkite would report on his own. By himself. No experts, or former employees, or anyone that would distract from the one important thing: the news. You listened to him as an expert. As a trusted voice. As a thick syrup of news, coating and lasting, irreplaceable, a true benefit to the station.

The more people you fit on a stage, the more watered down their message will become. They will receive fewer opportunities to talk, which makes them less and less important as individuals in the larger picture. And if they’re less important, then what’s stopping us from simply tuning them out?

My suggestion to television news and sports programs. Experts are good. But keep them at a minimum, please. Because when everyone starts sounding the same, it doesn’t really matter if your announcer is a former football player, or if your pundit is the premier historian in regards to presidential politics. They’re just another head on a 10-headed media monster.

And cutting one off doesn’t seem to matter.

Tags: Annoyances, Football, Politics, Television |

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Milestones

October 26, 2008


Our age. Our lives, our family, our changes. At work, at home, metaphorically. In every part of every life, we’re presented with milestones, a series of points on our timeline. They are reasons to celebrate. They are trying and difficult. They are the marks we use to measure ourselves, like notches on a ruler.

Sometimes, they fill us with anxiety. Like milestone birthdays. On Friday, I celebrated my 30th birthday, an age that arrived with a basket full of mortality. What had I done with my life? Where was I going? Had I done enough? You know - the questions you ask when faced with the passage of time.

It’s just one of those numbers. Thirty. No longer twenties. No longer close to college, no longer searching for reason. It’s daunting. Even if it’s a bullshit notion, it’s daunting all the same.

I’ve never felt old before – out of place, sometimes, but not old. And I still don’t. The moment has passed, and nothing feels different. But for a few weeks, 30 seemed very real. Very frightening.

Other times, milestones fill us with pride. This is the 1,000th post on Black Marks on Wood Pulp. What started as a time waster, never designed for posterity, has become an institution in my life. It’s my outlet, the big brown tree my muse, my identity on the Internet and, in many cases, in real life.

It’s not the reach or frequency I’m proud of, as I rarely have either, but it’s the longevity. That I’ve been able to keep a hobby for longer than the life of a typical reality television series. That I’ve chosen to do something that, ultimately, has shaped what I’ve become, both in my profession and in how I communicate.

What’s surprising to me is that, with both of these milestones, there’s a noticeable lack of change. The milestone comes racing in, showing off, a 150th anniversary here, a 22-game winning streak there, and there’s a sense of exclusivity, that we’re going to be treated to something mindshaking, boggling the rest of us with its pure, unbridled sense of being.

But that rarely happens. After a few days, the milestone has passed. Its legend continues to grow, but typically nothing has changed. Things continue just as they always have, a spot on a much longer timeline, a drip on an otherwise clear field of white.

Milestones are propped up as definitive events, but are rarely anything aside from a round number or a change in terminology. They’re marks, checkpoints along life’s road, but after they’ve passed, for the most part, you put the car back in drive and keep on going.

So 30 is nothing to be afraid of. And 1,000 is still impressive, but not transformative. Just as 40 and 2,000 will be. And 50. And 3,000. They’re goals. But they’re not final goals. And they sure as hell aren’t reasons to change direction.

Tags: Meta, Vilhauer |

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Bridging the immersion gap

October 22, 2008


There are people who love indie music. Love it to death. Know everything, have created their own scene, talk incessantly about it, identify with fellow indie rock nerds. And then there are those who don’t know anything about it at all, who simply don’t care, who don’t have time to learn new music, who are content listening to the typical.

And then there’s the lonely expanse in between.

The line between being part of a scene and being out of touch is rather wide. Yet, the people who fall into the middle – a seemingly wide range of opinions, you’d think – are nearly always out of place in either camp – looking either like a poseur or a radical, respectively.

In other words, instead of being openly accepted by both sides for being open to alternative ideas while still holding true to the status quo, the people who toe this line seem detached from both groups.

My example, though shallow, is in regards to music, though it resonates through any concept that has two polarized sides, whether opposing views or depth of knowledge.

I listen to a wide variety of music. Music on both major and independent labels. Music that my grandparents could understand and music that the guys in tight jeans love. I taste from every genre, preferring some, leaving others be.

To the people I work with, however, Radiohead is a foreign concept. These are people who, despite their creativity otherwise, are simply rarely in tune with anything more alternative than the local hot hits station. It’s not because they hate these bands – it’s just that they’re not familiar and, at this stage in life, immersing yourself in new music can be a time consuming commitment that most lose track of.

Then, turn it onto the other side. I rarely go to shows any more. I walk in and find myself seemingly out of place. The kids – and, to be fair, adults – who attend most of the shows of bands I’d care to see (independent, underground, indie rock, whatever it’s called) are deeply immersed in this lifestyle. They are familiar with more than just Radiohead and it’s derivatives – they’re lifelong addicts of left-of-center music. Sure, I’ve got a few Wolf Parade CDs, but I’m still rocking Modest Mouse, long after they were really relevant. And R.E.M. And 90’s Revelation Records emo.

It carries over to other concepts. Ask a casual tech follower who has friends both deeply immersed in Web 2.whatever and incredibly Web deficient. Ask a moderate how they feel standing in between a liberal and conservative. Ask a gamer how frustrating it can be to be too good for the “Medium” difficulty, but not good enough to handle “Hard.”

When this is your position, it’s hard to figure out which direction to go. Learn more and join the uber-knowledgable? Count your losses and just stop caring?

Or admit your place in the food chain and continue bridging the gap.

Tags: Music, On... |

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Grassy hands

October 20, 2008


I realize that, for those who don’t subscribe to Much More Sure, Sierra Picture Day has disappeared.

Sorry about that. Here’s something to tide you over.

grass on hands

That is, until you get your act together and subscribe to Much More Sure, our photoblog.

Tags: Much More Sure, Photography, Sierra |

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Welcome, L.A. Times readers

October 16, 2008


My post on Five Parenting Books was picked up on Carolyn Kellogg’s Jacket Copy blog on the Los Angeles Times Web site.

From the post:

Litblogger Corey Villhauer recommends Marilynne Robinson’s first novel, Housekeeping, as an atypical favorite parenting book. He read it, he writes, when his daughter was very young.

In the weeks after Sierra was born, I would spend a lot of time rocking her to sleep. Long after she was out, I would continue to rock, back and forth, back and forth, simply holding her and feeling her warmth and weight and being amazed that she was real; a fully conscious part of our lives, not going anywhere any time soon.

So welcome, anyone coming from there. I rarely write about books anymore, but it’s good to get a little sugar from the MSM blogs.

Tags: Blogging, Books, Journalism, Literature, Sierra, Writers |

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On lapsing - Steinbeck on Steroids (10.15.08)

October 16, 2008


It was about a year and a half ago that I began working out in the morning.

The idea was that I could get up early, sneak out of the house and have a routine finished before even making it in to work. It seemed to be a perfect idea – I didn’t have to waste my evening running to the fitness center. It worked well for a while. Until Sierra was born. And sleeping in became a luxury I could ill afford to neglect.

Before the morning routine, I was working out after work. I would see the same people every day, a few of which stood out. There’s ultra-scrawny computer geek, a guy who looks like he’s here on court-sanction and resembles my first college roommate (a kid who grew up on a turkey farm) right down to the constant wearing of blue pocket t-shirts. And there’s DVD-walker – a bigger bearded guy who brings a portable DVD player to the center, which he watches as he walks the track. No joke.

Now that I’m back on the fitness wagon, I’ve started going at night again. And lo and behold, a year and a half later, those two are still there, working away. DVD-walker has lost his DVD player, and ultra-scrawny computer geek looks more confident – and in much better shape.

I used to look at them and think to myself, “what a couple of characters – I wonder what their story is.” I would take comfort in the fact that I wasn’t the most unlikely guy at the fitness center – certainly not with those two around.

Now, I realize that, while I left, fell off the routine, and still continue to struggle to stay on track, those two continued on, fighting through the annoyance and hard work, persevering in their workout patterns. To get healthy on their own.

I lapsed. They didn’t.

Maybe I am the most unlikely guy at the gym. And maybe I need to change that.

Song wise, I threw it on Super Shuffle for my 30-minute elliptical ride.

“I Can’t Win” – The Strokes
“Long View” – Green Day
“The Stallion, Pt. 2” - Ween
“You Gave Your Love To Me Softly” - Weezer
“Shake it Off (Bad Dreams Part II)” – Lyrics Born
“Busy with Other Things” - Office
“Speaking of Errors” - Floodplain
“Rock Singer” – Hot Water Music
“Jamming” – Bob Marley and the Wailers

I couldn’t have picked a better wind-down song if I had tried.

Tags: Music, Steinbeck on Random |

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