O those golden years
by Nick Marx, ArtsEtc. Editor
As I trudged up the stairs of 326 W. Gorham St. yesterday afternoon, I mentally prepared myself for what was sure to be another long and arduous night of trying to make a name for myself as an investigative journalist.
Making my way to the trusty Arts desk, I found a rather pleasant surprise resting in my chair. Much to my chagrin, it wasn’t Penelope Cruz wearing nothing but a fresh batch of paella. What awaited me had to have been the next best thing, though — a (free, no-strings-attached, mine-all-mine) Nintendo Gamecube.
Although it lamentably lags behind its contemporaries (the Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation 2) in terms of quality, resale and overall value, I was nonetheless excited. Needless to say, the very thought of free stuff, be it food, video games or lap dances, gets my undies in a bundle.
However, a subsequent flip through the accompanying literature left a somewhat bitter taste in my mouth. Exotic phraseology like “RF modulator,” “DC input connector” and “plug” flashed before my eyes. An examination of the controllers didn’t help either, as they seemed crafted for overcaffeinated high school girls with three hands.
A pamphlet on soon-to-be-released software informed me of the intense gameplay and ultra-advanced graphics that would soon be available for the system. I must say, I never knew Zelda was such a work out buff.
Despite the slick calculation of the good publicity people at Nintendo, I still found myself disillusioned, longing for the days when analog soundtracks were the height of sonic evolution, adventure games knew only how to scroll sideways and the unassuming A and B buttons were more than enough to take down King Hippo and Piston Honda’s punk asses.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not some senile old codger who blindly subscribes to wistful aesthetics that are prefaced with “In my day …” But there was just something so endearing about that clunky 8-bit Nintendo.
Then I remembered why. My parents bought my brothers and me a Nintendo on the cusp of the final decade of the last millennium for the then-astronomical fee of $99.99. We promptly took it home and mastered “Super Mario Bros.,” “Double Dragon” and every other foolish little cartridge that thought it could outwit my agile appendages. I was eight years old.
My favorite film is “Pulp Fiction” — always has been, always will be. I remember sneaking into multiple screenings of Quentin Tarantino’s magnum opus at the local budget theater, then reciting Ezekiel 25:17 to my friends as we slinked back out. I was 13 years old.
By all rational definitions, Gamecube is a better system than 8-bit Nintendo. And for all I know, Tarantino’s forthcoming “Kill Bill” just might be vastly superior to “Pulp Fiction.” But that’s not the way I’ll see it.
There’s something about the times that border the ominous age of 10 that have a profound effect on our developments as human beings in society. I’m not talking about the DSM-IV definitions of when we first have comprehensive understandings of death or the physicality of the outside world or anything like that. I’m talking about the kind of things you come to understand once you’ve let go of your childhood innocence but not yet realized pubescent pretensions.
As one of my esteemed colleagues so eloquently put it in his editor’s letter in a recent Maintain Magazine, “God, I love 1992.” While that particular year may not speak to everybody, we are all children of the ’90s. In my mind, Cross Colours will always be much more stylish than Polo, Color Me Badd will always be much bigger douche bags than *NSync and Chris Farley will always be a funnier fat guy than whatever poor sap “SNL” keeps trying to get to replace him.
For almost all of us, the cultural events of the early to mid ’90s had huge formative roles not because they were especially significant, but because they caught us at just the right time. For better or for worse, they defined our senses of humor, our modes of interpersonal interactions and our general dispositions.
We’re all just progressively older versions of the people we were at around 10 years old.
I’ll let you marinate on that while I try to stuff this 8-bit “Castlevania” cartridge into this cumbersome Gamecube.
