Rock Band: Post-post Modern Deconstructionism
Ground Kontrol, local retro arcade/bar, has begun doing “Rock Band Night” every Tuesday and since my roommates have shattered our second bass pedal, it’s pretty much the only way I can play now. So last night the-roommate-that-drinks and I headed into town for a night of Rock Band and Pabst tallboys. That in itself was pretty awesome, but the highlight of the night was the nutjob we encountered.
My favorite kind of crazy person is the one you can tell is crazy from a distance. We had just finished our first song and had barely begun our first beers when I noticed an older man standing off by himself, making cheerful conversational gestures to nobody in particular. I nudged my roommate, nodding my head toward the person in question and snorted “What’s the deal with THIS guy?” He was wearing a v-neck t-shirt, black tights with red, white and blue basketball shorts over the top of them and thick gray wool socks underneath his sandals. The icing on the cake was a stocking cap with four tassels coming out of the top, each terminating in a large fuzzy ball, which he would occasionally whip around in time to the music. As we watched, he was standing in one place, but not standing still; he was constantly moving. He stood with one arm tucked under the other, one hand resting under his chin as if deep in thought, which he would remove from time to time only to point or wave his fingers before immediately replacing his hand back under his chin. Legs cocked, he would shift his weight from side to side, emphasizing the motion with an exaggerated swing of his hips. He also kept making a motion, drawing a quick, short breath, as if he was going to open his mouth to make a point or strike up a conversation, only to withdraw, with a look on his face as if reconsidering what he was going to say, and resume his pondering stance. This would have looked perfectly normal if he was talking with a group of people, but he was standing in a corner by himself.
I knew I had to talk to this guy.
Fortunately, I’m much, MUCH more comfortable approaching visibly insane people than I am girls, so it didn’t take long for him to get the impression that I could be the second participant in his one-man conversation. He approached cautiously, beginning with several false starts before finally walking up next to me. He started like he was going to tap me on the shoulder, but stopped short. “Ex-excuse me,” he began, “What is…what is the name of this particular…establishment…in which I am currently located?”
I’m not totally sure who he was trying to impress, but maybe it had occurred to him that if he was just asking random strangers “WHERE AM I?!” they might think he was crazier than evidenced by his clothing. I laughed and said, in my best bar-shouting voice, “Ground Kontrol.” He put his hand under his chin again, muttering “Ground Kontrol” to himself several times before apologizing profusely for bothering me and cowered back into his corner. After a couple more songs and a couple more beers, he approached me again, but had decided that talking wasn’t the best way to communicate with me and handed me a piece of paper with a question on it. I read the question several times, making sure I understood what the hell he was talking about, and started to answer but he cut me off and handed me a pen, pantomiming that I should respond in writing on the same piece of paper. Rolling my eyes, I turned to use Gauntlet II as my writing surface and chose a blunt but not impolite response, since I wasn’t impressed with his philosopher name-drop. Despite correctly spelling both karaoke and deconstructionism, I also wasn’t impressed that he used an adjective as a noun or that he used [sic] on his own quote, implying that he intentionally misspells Foucault.
After I finished another song, he approached me again, this time choosing to communicate verbally. Apparently he was confused because there were so few girls there. “Yeah, you’re in an arcade, dude.” He immediately went off on this apologetic tangent about how he SWEARS he wasn’t hitting on any of the girls here, oh, and that he wasn’t hitting on me. He then quickly confessed that he thought he was in a gay bar (which, I didn’t bother telling him, is like a block away) but that he wasn’t accusing me of being gay, and then changed the subject to where I was from. He quickly changed his mind, deciding that I shouldn’t tell him and that he would figure it out from my “accent.” Part of me wanted to say “Ohhhh, you’re not looking for the GAY bar, you’re looking for the CRAZY bar!” He retreated to his corner to think about my accent. I described the interaction to my roommate, who had been away playing bass with another group and we were having a good laugh over it when the man returned.
“Detroit,” he assured. “…no,” I responded, “Much more west.” He looked to the ground again, mumbling to himself, apparently thinking of every US city west of Detroit, while my roommate and I snickered. I finally just said “Ugh, Wyoming.” I suddenly remembered the piece of paper and realized I would like to put it in a blog, so I asked him about it. This was the point at which he decided he would stop hiding the fact that he was completely nuts. “Oh, I gave it to somebody else. People take things I write and sell them.” He paused for a moment before angrily adding, “I don’t see a dime of it.” I think the only response I could come up with was “…what?” He absent-mindedly put his hands in his pockets and, surprised, produced the piece of paper. “Oh, here it is,” he said, before happily handing it back to me, despite the fact that he knew I would turn right around and eBay it.
His interest then returned to Rock Band and he started muttering something about how he didn’t understand video games. “See, I don’t play video games, I play mind games…it’s how I make a living.” My roommate and I exchanged wide-eyed looks — you know the one — when your lips are tightly pursed in an awkward attempt at both forcing a smile down and keeping explosive laughter in your chest. It was obviously not clear to us how one makes money playing mind games, so he elaborated: A local company is paying him “vast sums of money” to place a device in his throat for 24 hours to monitor his voice, because his voice is so unique. How this is a mind game is anybody’s guess. We were then called to the stage for our last song, during which time our insane guy vanished. Or maybe he just went up to the second floor to talk to the pinball machines, who knows.
Anyway, I took something he wrote and am now selling it. This was written by that guy with the really unique voice that hates Foucoualt [sic], so bidding starts at $1500.
January 16th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Wow.
I wonder if he actually pronounces Foucault wrong and then says [sic] afterwards.
Maybe his pencil had no eraser or he used pen, and instead of scribbling out his misspelling of Foucault, he just used [sic].
All in all, you got a good story out of the situation. I propose you just start telling people you’re from Detroit. It’ll make you seem tougher. Detroit’s a tough fucking city man.
January 16th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
What, no bid?
January 17th, 2008 at 6:04 am
Shit, alright, I was holding out to low-ball other bidders.
I’ve got a few baseball cards around somewhere, and some dried out sticks of bubblegum that came with them.
I’ll give you my ‘89 Fleer Bill Ripken “Fuckface” baseball card for it. It’s a rare card, it’s very valuable.
January 17th, 2008 at 11:24 am
ALL in ALL
January 17th, 2008 at 11:26 am
yeah why is it easier to go talk to crazies than it is girls
January 17th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
i bet he will be there next week. you should try and get some hawt pix with him, it might help with your bids.
January 22nd, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Dude you have to put all of these crazy person encounters in a book and publish it you could make a shitload of money just off of crazy mind game man’s story alone. Then not give him a dime of it.
January 22nd, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Whoa that’d be post-post-POST modern.