The King of Kong - Defender Memories and Brent Sanchez

If you have read my blog you may remember me waxing philosophic about the video game Defender from the eighties and my tragically flawed best friend from Junior High. His name was Brent Sanchez and he was a twisted piece of work - but my brother in arms and hopeless fellow rock and roll junkie and girl watcher for 7th and 8th grades.

This weekend I got to indulge myself a bit and rent a few indie DVD's. One of these was King of Kong - an interesting, hilarious, puzzling and insightful documentary centering on the world record high score for the classic video game "Donkey Kong." I highly recommend that you see it - whomever you may be and THANK YOU for recommending it to me, Dan.

If you have no interest in the classic games this movie may lose you, but for me just seeing those massive free standing consoles with the joysticks and the multi-purpose concave buttons brings back a mad rush of memories. I watched this movie gleefully in a cocoon of warm nostalgia. Perhaps the movie's most interesting (and personal) turn for me actually occurred long after the DVD ended. When I got curious today and visited the twingalaxies web site (the official record keeper for classic video game world records) to see what the high score for Defender might be. The world record high score for Defender is somewhere in the 250,000 range.

Brent Sanchez was robbed! In the movie they went to careful length to explain what happens in these classic video games on what is called, the "Kill Screen". This is when the game essentially runs out of new challenges for you and cannot continue. You have beaten it, and what happens on this final screen in some of these games is that the game essentially displays a partial screen and partial gibberish because it has run out of code.

Defender, however, does not. Defender, the classic Williams arcade game, just turns over and starts again once you reach a million points. That's right...I know what happens on Defender when a player reaches a million points. Do you know how I know this? Because I have fucking seen it! Brent Sanchez used to do this instead of (perhaps even in PLACE of) talking to his mother and father and/or relating to anyone in his family. He was something of an asshole savant in real life - but a Zen master at this damn game. Brent, if you are out there...a terrible injustice is being perpetrated and your place in history calls for you to claim it. I am here and ready to cheer you on. Hell - I used to feel like a toad for only being able to get to 200,000 and it isn't that far from the world record. Is someone selling this game in the classic arcade console - with a little practice maybe I can avenge the injustice done to Brent by the cruel march of pop culture and his own tragically self destructive tendencies.

Immortality awaits...

Nevermind and Defender Changed my life (originally published on CNN's ireport 12/12/2008)

As we drove in the car on a recent trip I got to listen to whatever I wanted to on my iPod. "Sign of the Gypsy Queen" by April Wine began to play. It is a fantastic song that I was pleased to re-discover on iTunes. It is like a little time capsule from 1981. As the song played and the family slept in the car (hence my complete freedom for musical choice) I began to reminisce about that time.

In 1981 I was thirteen years old and my whole life was rock and roll, the fledgling MTV (where I was introduced to April Wine), my best friend and a fantastic and exciting new video game called Defender. He was from a broken home and had a history of abuse (Let me clip Your dirty wings). He had a reckless and unique sense of humor, a megalomaniacal personality and what I would later discover was a very addictive and self destructive side. We had no idea back then that we were the fledgling grunge generation or that we were enmeshed in helping to create the cultural landing strip for Nirvana's revolutionary impact.

He was fantastic at Defender. He was always better than me. He would steal money and spend hours at whatever arcade was open and play and play and play. I did not know then that he was seeking escape. It was fun to watch him play. I never got past the fifth level. He eventually discovered what happened when you reached a million points. The game just started over. His fingers were amazing when he played. His thumb slapped the reverse button spastically and his right hand melded with the joystick. Firing was a constant stream, but even I could do that. His magic was the placement of the ship and thrusting exactly right (I'm worse at what I do best, And for this gift I feel blessed).

This level of dedication was tragically misplaced and profound. The color scheme of the game was beautiful and even now if I could use this scheme to decorate my house I probably would. The colors were only dark and it was all set against a black screen. The colors were meant to make you feel like you were deep in another world where light was not plentiful. Even in the arcades it was always dark (With the lights out it's less dangerous). Sometimes April Wine even played in the background. He would get kicked out of school a few years later for doing lines of cocaine off of the Biology class room tables. We had grown apart as his behavior became more risky and blatantly hostile (Load up on guns and Bring your friends).

He would reappear in my life about ten years later as I was a college student in family housing in Seattle. It was grunge central and I was deep into the Sub Pop scene. He was looking for a place to stay after some or another part of his life had fallen apart. The soundtrack had changed profoundly.

Over this trip last Xmas I also got to listen to Nirvana and even received a Kurt Cobain figure from my sister as a Christmas gift. I still love Nirvana. They feel like home in a lot of ways. It occurred to me as I listened to Nevermind while doing the dishes that they probably played Defender as adolescents just like I did and I wondered what effect that color scheme had on them (I'm so ugly, But that's ok, 'cause so are you.)

The fundamental power of Nirvana is the bleak and explosive contrast that they create. They do not shy away from paradox of crushing and even violent volume with bubble gum melody but revel in it. I heard some narration from a history of rock and roll piece explain recently that Kurt had wanted to mix Black Sabbath and the Beatles. That seems to make some sense, but it does not capture all of it. If you listen to the music you can hear that the paradox is not only sonic, it is emotional and philosophical (I'm lucky to have met you I don't care what you think unless It is about me It is now my duty to completely drain you.)

That violent dissonant feedback and the fuzzbox screaming vocals are primal and they are dancing along the edge of something that seems apocalyptic in scope. I don't know exactly what the connection is between April Wine, my best friend from 7th grade, Nirvana and Defender but I know it is there and it means something. I think that the color scheme must matter a lot but I am not sure how and I wish that I could remember exactly how the sounds of the game used to make me feel.