I’ve never been someone who goes to sleep early, and I only wake up early when I have to, but I had a 7:30am call the next day, and I was in a lot of scenes, so I’d closed my bedroom door and turned off the lights at the relatively early hour of 10pm. I sighed, reached up to the shelf above my bed, and pressed play on my CD player. I put my head on on the pillow and stared at the ceiling. I listened to the disc spin up, and then the mournful guitar that opens the second disc of The Wall began to play.
Hey you… out there in the cold getting lonely getting old can you feel me?
Hey you… Standing in the aisles with itchy feet and fading smiles can you feel me?
Hey you… Don’t help them to bury the light. Don’t give in without a fight.
Before I realized what was happening, tears began to run out of the corners of my eyes. I was so lonely, so sad, so frustrated and so unhappy. I imagined myself like Pink, in The Wall; an artist who felt trapped by success he wasn’t ready for, and the expectations of everyone around him to maintain and expand it.
It wasn’t nearly as bad as the complete breakdown Pink has, of course, but I was a hormonal teenager. I was a dramatic artiste, and until a few hours earlier I had been staying at a beach house with my best friend and his family, in a house full of the girls from his mom’s drill team, including the girl I liked. Oh, she didn’t like me back, and was was never going to like me back — she was cool and confident, and I was so uncomfortable in my own skin, I was a total weirdo even when I was trying hard not to be — but I could dream that someday I would graduate from Duckie to Blaine.
I laid there in my bed, listening to Pink Floyd, and I cried. I cried because I was lonely. I cried because I was frustrated. I cried because I was in almost everything on the call sheet for the next day, but I didn’t so much more than say “Aye, sir,” and that was all I’d been doing for what felt like a long time. I cried because, though I wouldn’t have been able to articulate it at the time, I felt like I was having my childhood taken away from me.
I let myself feel sad. I let myself miss my friends. I let myself wallow in the unrequited love that is so outsized when you’re a teenager. I stared at the ceiling until the CD was finished, and then I listened to it again, finally falling asleep during the second time through, sometime before Comfortably Numb.
So, obviously, I got better.
And I haven’t thought about that night, late in the summer of 1987, in over twenty-five years, but earlier this afternoon, it came back to me as clear and viscerally as if it had just happened. I’ve been playing classic NES games on my RetroPie, and 1987 was the summer that we were obsessed with The Legend of Zelda. We played a lot of Blades of Steel, Double Dribble, and Lifeforce, but we were obsessed with Zelda. In those days, we discovered secrets in the game by hearing them repeated from kids who knew a kid who knew a kid who went to camp with a kid. We pooled our money and bought big strategy guides that we couldn’t really afford, even though it felt like cheating, because that was the only way to get help when we were stuck. We made maps on graph paper, and kept notes about the different weapons, their damage against different enemies, and all the rumours we’d heard about secret levels and hidden dungeons. That was the summer we stayed up all night more than once, listening to Depeche Mode, Van Halen, New Order, and The Smiths while we ate enough junk food and drank enough Jolt cola to kill a muggle. That was the summer that I started to figure out who I was, and began figuring out who I wanted to be, and on this particular night that I’m remembering right now, I wanted to be with my friends.
Playing these old games has been like unwrapping memories, gifts I’d hidden for myself and forgotten about, and just accidentally knocked off a shelf. When I remembered how to beat King Hippo in Punch Out, though I hadn’t thought about that game in decades, and had completely forgotten that he ever existed, I felt like I’d punched a hole through time and watched myself, thirty years ago, doing it for the first time. The same thing happened when my hands took over and made me a spectator to a game of Super Mario Bros. that was played almost entirely by memory.
I have my system set up on the floor in my office right now, because I haven’t figured out where my RetroPie can live permanently, and my 44 year-old hips can’t handle sitting on the rug like their 14 year-old version could (though my 44 year-old self has a 100% better chance of actually kissing a girl before the end of the day than my 14 year-old self ever did) but I’ve spent hours there over the last few days, revisiting these games I loved when I was a kid, and letting the memories they reveal wash over me.
Building and updating and configuring and running this RetroPie (which is currently in a tiny, NES case that I made on my 3D printer) was a fun and rewarding experience, but the real joy that I get from Retrogaming isn’t from playing games from my youth, in some cases for the very first time. The real joy — in fact, the real magic — is when the animated goal celebration in Blades of Steel unlocks the memory of my best friend, Ryan, scoring against me in a two-player game to tie the score, standing up and mimicking the 8-bit characters while saying, “He who dances last, dances funkiest!” It’s when I instinctively remember how to get to the graveyard in Zelda, hearing the music it plays when I get there, and then getting knocked over by a sad memory like the one I wrote at the beginning of this post. These memories are priceless to me, and Retrogaming is not just the key that unlocks the chest where they’re stored, it’s the treasure map I use to find it. I feel like there is power in these memories, though I don’t know precisely what that power is, or how to use it.
I guess I’ll just have to keep playing until I figure it out.
John Barth wrote “The key to the treasure is the treasure.” Keep on retrogaming. There is power in muscle memory, although not the power one might expect.
This probably dates me quite a bit, but I have such amazing memories of Bard’sTale II. That was such an epic computer game, and I have a lot of the same memories of mapping dungeons on graph paper because I didn’t have enough money to buy the actual strategy guides.
I think our eras are ever so slightly offset, but I could likely play Pool of Radiance from start to finish on muscle memory, and beat anyone’s ass at Archon, were the need to arise. I wonder if I’d get any of those memories back, long lost to history, were I to break them out today.
Awesome post! The NES was good to us. You’re a lucky dude, Wil, because at 8 years older than me, you got to experience the 1980’s better than I did.
Oh, I have my 1980’s memories, too. Playing hours of Zelda 2 and SMB with my best friend Scott Deiringer. Then going outside to “spy,” which was what all the neighborhood boys did, running around people’s small backyards in the base housing, watching what adults and other children were doing. Roller rinks. Playing endless games of “curb ball” that the children in Omaha invented. Cub Scout camping trips where my friend Robert Miller–who liked the music of MC Hammer–and I took our Swiss Army Knife big blades and decapitated flies that were stuck in honey. Good times.
I’m not sure what the RetroPie thing is you speak of. I’m waiting to get my hands on one of those Classic NES machines for the $60. I refuse to buy a scalped version on Amazon for three times that.
This one hits close to home on so many levels. I cried myself to sleep listening to “The Wall” on a few occasions. For me, it was missing my father who had “flown across the ocean” but was out of my life after my parents’ divorce.
I’ve relived some memories that go beyond just basic remembering while playing some of the old games on the RetroPie. My personal favorite is “The Three Stooges” on the Amiga emulator.
And I know the pride of putting that Raspberry Pi into a case I made on a 3D printer.
I also know the great feeling of knowing that I’ve managed to get through some journeys to the darkest parts of my soul to come out triumphant on the other side.
I adore this. Absolutely adore it. I only came to realize fairly recently, Wil, that you wrote in addition to being in Star Trek. Being a Geek was a delight to read for me, and my husband and I always make a point to stop and read or watch whatever you’ve put out recently. And it never disappoints.
You give such eloquent voice to us lonely gamer geeks. Thank you.
Every time I play an NES game, I think about sitting on the floor in the living room with my dad. We loved playing things like Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out, Codename: Viper, Contra, and especially Bad News Baseball. It’s been four years since he died now, and those are some of my fondest memories with him.
Very well written post Wil. Love you, man.
I have similar memories, but they’re related to music and being in band in high school. I treasure them everytime they come to me, though they are rare, like a brief glitter of gold in an otherwise murky pan of silt and dirt.
I’m not a gamer, but we just last night watched the Ian McKellan “Sherlock”, and the gist of it is, he’s old and trying to remember a particular case. The details elude him until finally he has a physical memory trigger – the lady’s glove – which had been tucked away to help him forget.
It’s always amazing to unlock a memory, isn’t it? And clearly, your games definitely unlocked that one!
I had a memory come back from your post: The taste of Jolt Cola. We were at Camp Roberts for Youth and Government. Teenagers away from their parents with other teenagers. It was cold, it was always cold there and the hut-shacks had no insulation and only the special ones had impotent heaters. I had a Jolt, then two, then five. I was already a teenage boy, now over-caffeinated. I remember trying to smash the fifth can on my forehead and failing miserably. The combination of cold, caffeine, adrenaline, and concussion compounded by nausea was one of the most awful feelings in my life. I couldn’t fall asleep (obviously) and I surely didn’t want to be awake to feel it. I might be biased to say Jolt tastes awful because of that experience, or I could simply telling it like it is. Probably the latter.
Evocative for me too. Keep playin’ Wil.
I remember playing many of those old games still. I even recall when we rented Blades of Steel one week! Back in a simpler time when you could literally play every game that was ever out for your console with relative ease. I’ll still miss Street Fighter 2 the most, I think! Winners don’t do drugs, Will, they don’t! 😋
Reminds me of what a wise person once said- “being a nerd is not about what you love; it’s about how you love it.”
I’ve been playing with the NES Classic I got for Christmas (cool in-laws are cool), and for me, it’s been bringing back similar memories of Double Dribble, Blades of Steel, Tecmo Bowl tournaments on Thanksgiving (often playing the games the olds were watching on the other TV in the house), but mostly it brings back memories of hanging around my cousins, in the rare summer days when we’d be together, and my young inexperienced hands messing up their long-fought games of Metal Gear in my aunt’s basement (the basement smell really brings me back– that damp, cool, stale air smell). Those summers were filled with mud, illegal fireworks, and handing off controllers during Paperboy. Now, it’s Dr. Mario with my wife, who love/hates me for introducing her to the game.
When my youngest son was a toddler, the sound of Dr Mario was the only thing that would make/let him go to sleep because my son has ADHD wouldn’t be diagnosed for 4 more years. I was over 30, sitting cross-legged on floor, beating Dr Mario until the wee hours of the morning before my over-active son would finally give in. 25 years later, I’m still sitting cross-legged, but in my desk chair now. I cried when the old NES finally died more than my kids. The older one spent hours with his cousin while her mother and I played D&D, painted miniatures and designed our own (better) character sheets because we couldn’t afford the official ones. My poor sons had to deal with having a geek mom, though my geeky-ness was mostly low-tech, because dammit, I’m old.
When I got to the last paragraph of this post, I suddenly had the strongest feeling that this is the beginning of another novel. I don’t know where it goes, or what will happen, but that’s how I feel about it. It’s your next novel.
This was an amazing post. I’ve greatly enjoyed your dedication in December to post something everyday. I know it won’t last, but if it was the culmination of all that work, then it will have been well worth it. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with the world, it doesn’t go unnoticed.
You’re very kind. Thank you.
The power in those memories is to help you live in the moment and enjoy your life fully albeit momentarily without the myriad layers of contextual code and sociological bylaws that harden and emotionally ossify us as we age. Their power is in allowing us to exist within ourselves as we formerly were. The often repeated sentiment: “If I only knew then, what I know now.” But through memories, we are able to be with ourselves at those times to taste the richness of those moments of wonder and naivety while knowing that it will all work out. Some people live in their memories and never progress and that is sad. Some people refuse to acknowledge their child-like wonder and bottle themselves up. That too is sad. But isn’t it wonderful to continue creating life and gaining knowledge and wisdom while reserving the right to acknowledge and revisit the path and process of becoming ourselves.
Beautiful post, man! As you can tell, it hit a chord.
Magnanimous.
Not a gaming related memory, nor a sad one from me…not entirely, anyway.
I watched the original (and best) Superman yesterday from 1978 on TV. I remembered queuing around the block to see that at a cinema with my dad and brother when it was released. Then I thought about it some more, trying to figure out the logic of it: The cinema was on the other side of town and wasn’t the closest; Superman came out in December, but I remember it being warm. I was only six at the time, but the memory is a good place to go; the only two other people who were there with me are dead now. Except in the memory, where they still live on.
Ahhh, those times. I’m four years younger than you and of course I never acted, but it brings back memories of those very early 90ies. Discovering video games (JRPGs in particular and I still do have my SNES and all the games, alas, no TV to play though), Metal Grunge Rap Rock, anime, manga … Got harassed in school, made a life long friend who introduced me to Hard Science Fiction, found out about Cyberpunk on my own, devoured EVERY Stephen King book I could find …
Thanks for sharing, Wil.
And I just picked up Final Fantasy 6 in the Steam Sale this weekend, maybe I’ll finish it THIS time.
It’s really amazing what can trigger a memory. I came up a generation or so before you, and my golden summer was 1976. We hit Myrtle Beach right after school let out for the summer, and spent a solid week of sun, sand, surf, music, and girls. I was like you, the geek in the group. I wanted to go out with all of the pretty girls, but was too scared to ask them, because I knew they would turn me down, and it would get spread around school. Some songs bring me back to that magic summer, especially Stairway to Heaven, by Led Zeppelin. I’ve been a Zeppelin fan almost all of my life, but only Stairway to Heaven holds any significant meaning to me.
Great post, much agreement 🙂
Great story, Gordie.
My son is enjoying his RetroPi…he’s almost 12 and thinks classic gaming is so cool. Unfortunately his Pi isn’t very powerful, so we might have to upgrade him from his model A to something with more power, but for now he thinks it’s cool.
Isn’t total recall interesting? Perhaps you can unlock some of your burdens thereby. I hope so! Keep on thinkin’ free!
This was lovely, Wil. Thanks for sharing.
Wil, you are clearly at a place in your life where some enterprising producer could profitably greenlight a “Stand By Me” reboot or sequel with you involved. Either you play the Richard Dreyfuss role in a reboot, and open the door for four new young actors, or maybe in a sequel we find out where the adult Gordie went at the end of the film and we learn a bit more about the adult Gordie looking ahead to the last half of his life.
One way or another, when I read “Wesley’s” memoirs and then look at Wil’s heartfelt reflections, it’s obvious and wonderful that while you can do either part quite well as an actor, your heart is in “Stand By Me” in a special way. I’m pretty sure that “Stand By Me” and something else you haven’t yet done will end up being your lasting legacy — far more than Star Trek.
great one, loved it, memories flash backed.
There were so many more of us geek girls who longed for Duckie rather than Blaine, if only he would have looked our way.
Indeed! I always thought Blaine was a bit of an idiot.
Great retrospective, reminded me of my first gaming all nighter with a friend playing Tunnels of Doom on my TI 99 for 10 hours straight
Wil – please keep writing. Keep remembering and sharing your memories. There’s a ripple effect. You discover a treasure trove, share it with us, and suddenly I’m flooded with my own memories of video games, childhood, and all those beautiful, agonizing moments we call growing up. Thanks.
Speaking as someone who watched TNG, and Wesley, your character breathed life by you, gave a lot of us hope. I cannot repay what you gave me Wil, ever. Retrogaming represents a lot of those same things for me. Even better than Wesley Crusher though has been being allowed to know that 1% (10%?) of Wil Wheaton, and realizing he’s just a nerdy guy like me, completely unable to figure this shit out half the time too. Thank you, for your success, your failure, your pain, and for sharing your story.
” I feel like there is power in these memories, though I don’t know precisely what that power is, or how to use it.
I guess I’ll just have to keep playing until I figure it out.”
The power there is two-fold: remember how difficult it was to get through what you got through, and be proud of it. Use the knowledge that you survived these issues as fuel when the world is running down, and you have to make the best of what’s still around.
Or maybe more aptly when the world is punching and kicking and shouting at you, and you have to rely on the common decency that hasn’t surfaced. You got through that – you can get through this.
Dog knows it’s the only thing that keeps me going sometimes.
But F*** You, World!! I got through ADOLESCENCE!! I ain’t afeared of nothin;.
That’s funny! I just bought a vintage NES for Christmas and got lost playing Dr. Mario and Kickle Cubicle . . . my two favorites! I remembered EVERY board! It was crazy! I just found your blog via Steven Pressfield’s and I’m so glad I did.
It’s so funny you should mention RetroPie! My fiance got me a Canakit and I’m setting up and configuring RetroPie as we speak. The console of my childhood was the Atari 2600 but my most vivid gaming memories come from the later years of my husband and I’s Super Nintendo and all of the classic DOS games we played on our 386 PC. We got so much mileage out of so many of the old SSI D&D games like Pool of Radiance and Eye of the Beholder. Brings back great memories. Thanks for this post!