Scrabble, by any other name....

My Morning Jacket--"Wordless Chorus" (mp3)

STUDENT: hey mr b i just emailed you about the test, can i take it now

STUDENT: ill just take it and you decide what you want but it cxloses soon right

ME: Take it now where did you go I marked you absent

STUDENT: i sat in the library and studied for it...just took it matching pumbled mee

STUDENT: true and false i did alright tuff test


Bear with me. I will establish the relevance of the above conversation.

Like most Americans, I have a certain amount of disdain for any social trend that I am not a part of. Seen from the outside or from the distance of years, almost any fad looks stupid. Like culottes for women. But right now, I am absolutely in the thick of the "Words With Friends" craze that is sweeping through the ranks of anyone who has an Iphone or another way to play the game.

In case you don't know, it's Scrabble under another name. The difference is that instead of a family of four sitting on the living room rug with a bowl of popcorn in front of the fire, parents beaming at the words their children come up with but still making a point of beating them soundly, you play the game online, against an opponent from another phone, someone you know or don't. But the longer you play, the more you settle on people you know because those whom you've played pass your "Words With Friends" screen name around like a cheap whore. Especially if you're an English teacher. And, all of a sudden, you've got games lined up like jets waiting to take off at La Guardia.

What better bragging rights than beating your English teacher at a game of Scrabble-ish? Right?

The game is quite fun, more fun than Scrabble. It has a different kind of pacing, in some ways more like chess, in some ways, more like cards. Like chess, "Words With Friends" allows you to take your own sweet time. You can ponder a move as long as you want. You can look at the board, contemplate, shut it down, come back to it another time. Or another day. If it does have a "timer" at all, it's something like 5 days. I've never reached that.

Like poker, it is not about having the best "cards" aka letters, it is about knowing how and when to play them. It's not about winning one game. Sometimes you just don't get the letters and the opportunities on the board to rack up the points you need, and you fold. At first, you're desperate to win every game against every opponent, but then you get philosophical about it, then you appreciate the beauty of moves, yours or theirs, and you know that if you don't win, a new game can start immediately.

Today I played P-O-R-N for 55 points, even though the total letter value for those 4 letters is only 7 points. But get that P on a "Triple Letter Score" tile and that N on a "Triple Word Score" tile and cozy those letters up against letters already on the board to make smaller sidewords and all of a sudden, they start adding up. The other day, I played J-A-N-E for 102 points, using the same strategy.

And, believe it or not, "Words With Friends" is the latest social network. I am playing with former students, colleagues, a godson, students from my class, current students I've never met, my daughters. So far. But that doesn't make it a social network, you say. That just makes it a game. The funny thing is when your phone makes that special noise telling you that one or more of your opponents have made a move, it's almost like they're calling you, almost like you have a connection. I am in touch with people that I was not in touch with.

But there's more to it than that. The conversation you see at the top of this post, which happened last night, is a first for me, the crossing of a barrier. There is a place in each game of "Words With Friends" where you can leave messages, exchange taunts, whatever. But last night, as you can see, that message board became a way for a student to communicate with his teacher. It's weird, I know, but, more and more, it's probably going to be the way with everything. It's smart, too, since I happen to be beating that student by about 150 points and he may be thinking that if he contacts me within the game, I'll take pity on him.

I know I'll tire of "Words With Friends," maybe even soon. It's a fad, like most things related to the Internet. Maybe by the time you get into the game, I'll look at your opening move with the jaded condescension of a chess master. But for now, it's healthy competition, it's a way for teenagers and adults to connect, and it's a lot of fun to take that phone out before I go to bed and to get all of my games up to date. But, if I forget to turn the phone off, it will make that special noise about 2:45AM or 5:37AM or when I know a student is in someone else's class. By the way, that person in the stall next to you fiddling with his or her phone is probably playing me.

The Tilting Point

Carnival Game - Cheap Trick (mp3)
Trying to Put Your Heart Back Together - Slow Runner (mp3)

When I was five, my older step-brothers got a used pinball machine for Christmas. It was a pure 1978 super-simple arcade-style machine. Nothing fancy. Bumpers. Two sets of drop targets. The classic set of a spinner and three rollover lanes at the top. No slingshots, ramps or sinkholes. Just old-timey classic stuff.

Due to a healthy dose of voyeuristic tendencies from birth, I could sit on a stool next to the backbox for hours watching my stoned step-brothers and their friends play. They’d play albums like Frampton Comes Alive and News of the World on the stereo as the beautiful cacophony of bells and bumps flowed from that pinball machine. In the rare times my brothers weren’t hogging the machine, I would sneak in and play.

Because I was more a child of the 80s than the 70s, my arcade fetishes evolved over time. I moved on to the more popular confines of Pac-Man and Tron and on up the ranks of Dragon’s Lair, etc. And once my friends and I all owned various home gaming systems, my pinball days faded into the attic.

As a freshman at UNC, I rediscovered my original love. The student union on campus had one called CYCLONE, with wicked cool ramps. Because I was too socially clueless to actually talk to girls in the dining hall and too procrastinatory to study during daylight hours, I would disappear into the corner of the union and play CYCLONE, where a single quarter could provide 10-15 solid minutes of entertainment.

CYCLONE was replaced by Terminator 2 in the summer of 1991. On many occasions, I made the foolish declaration that no pinball machine could ever surpass Terminator 2 for entertainment quality or the demands it placed on pinball skills.

Then, in 1992, The Addams Family machine arrived. This, my friends, was the greatest pinball machine of the modern era. And don’t just take my word for it. Take the Internet Pinball Database’s word when they claim that was “the Best-Selling Flipper Game of All Time.” It’s the Muhammed Ali of pinball. All other flipper games, when they go to church on Sundays, bow down and worship The Addams Family as the second-coming of HUMPTY DUMPTY, the first-ever machine with mechanized flippers.

The Addams Family was so mind-boggling, so full of holes and ramps and passages, so tricked-out with flippers and magnets, that one had to play a good dozen times to truly grasp even a fraction of the possibilities. And, unlike most machines, the more you played The Addams Family, the more addictive it was. I can’t recall ever tiring of that machine. Ever.

As any legitimate pinball aficionado will tell you, the true art of pinball wizardry is figuring out the Tilting Point of a machine. Because, much like the way Maverick flies fighter planes, mastering a pinball machine requires living on the edge of tilt. If you tilt the machine, you lose everything, but without the nudges, bumps, and hip checks, timed perfectly with the rolling of that perfect metal orb, you simply cannot control a pinball machine like it was born to be controlled.

Again, in the TILT realm, The Addams Family went above and beyond mere quality and into perfection. Everytime you crept near the TILT line, you’d hear Raul Julia’s Gomez say, “Caareful... Caaaaareful...” with that smooth silky voice. If you didn’t hear that voice at least two or three times on each ball you played, you probably weren’t a very good pinball player.

So for me, even as I type this, I can hear that voice in my head. After particularly stressful times in my life, when I’m reflecting on being in a tight spot, I can hear that voice in my head. “Caareful... Caaaaareful...”

When I watch what’s happening in Wisconsin and in state after state, where teachers and teachers’ unions are becoming the primary scapegoats for fiscal irresponsibility while at the same time having greater levels of accountability placed on them, I hear Gomez’s cautionary words.

When I see the riots in the Middle East and North Africa, where something akin to “democracy” is taking hold of one country after another yet might create more problems for the U.S. down the road than we could possibly fathom, I hear Gomez.

When I see high school students barreling down a road at speeds that would make Road Runner wet himself, or when I hear them talking about drinking parties, I worry that they haven't yet learned the Tilting Point.

Interacting with other people isn’t all that different than relating to a pinball machine. It involves careful touch, a keen eye, an appreciation for the complexity of how that machine works, the well-timed and careful use of one’s physical presence. And, perhaps most importantly, an appreciation that if one pushes too hard or too intensely, the entire machine can shut down and end your game.

Even a deaf dumb and blind kid knows that.

Gamer

Sweet G--"Games People Play" (mp3)

Having spent a fair amount of time during the snow days last week, finishing Black Ops main game and then killing zombies online while teamed up, at times, with what sound like 10-year-old children defending the other doors, I thought I'd better finally fess up.

I am a gamer.

That's not my first video game. On the Nintendo 64, I loved Mario Kart. It was fun to play with my children. On the Playstation 2, I played hours of Medal of Honor and Call of Duty games. On the Wii, I like playing the sports--tennis, basketball, golf, baseball, ping-pong, etc. And when my children stopped playing, I kept playing. After all, we originally bought the game systems for them, didn't we?

On my current cell phone, I have Bounce Out Ball-0-Rama, Madden NFL 10, SPIT!, Schizoid, and UNO. On my Ipod, Bubble Bash, Chalkboard Sports Baseball, Mystery Mansion Pinball, Peggle, Reversi, and Zuma. I even play games on my Kindle, games like Every Word. If I'm sitting in a bathroom, either two doors down in my office or in the Belk department store, there's a pretty good chance I'm playing SPIT! Even Fantasy Football is nothing but a game.

I have always been a gamer, at least for as long as I can remember. My very earliest memories include playing Checkers with my grandfather on his magnetized checkerboard that he could fold up and carry everywhere in his pocket. My other grandfather built, sanded, and varnished a Yahtzee set, which was eventually passed on to us. And, in fact, all of the families that I come from thrived on games as both family and social activities. My dad is a card person, who still plays poker regularly, and who also once enjoyed Bridge, Hearts, and Pinochle. My mother belonged to not one, but two, Bridge clubs. Their parents before them also enjoyed all kinds of cards and games. I remember as a child the time I got to go to and participate in a party at my grandparents where everyone was playing Pirate Bingo (you know, when you win, you can either claim a new prize or steal one from someone who's already won).

Childhood, of course, largely consisted of games. Beyond sports, there were the outside summer night games like Kick The Can or Capture The Flag and schoolyard recess games like Steal The Bacon, or even Spin the Bottle. When inside with friends on days too hot or too cold, marathon games of everything from Monopoly and Risk to Life and Clue filled the long afternoons.

As an early teenager, when we would travel to my grandparent's lake house in Ontario, the evening entertainment always consisted of communal games of Scat or Dirty Dog, card games that required a $0.15 investment from each player, but that were conducted with the ferocity of high-stakes Texas Hold'Em. Around that table each night, my grandparents, my aunt and uncle, my mother, my cousins, my brother and I would share jokes and strategies, victories and bitter disappointments.

College, it was pinball. In the early years, pinball in the arcades; in the later years, pinball, or maybe Space Invaders, in the bars. We figured out ways to play against each other and in teams, like when each person gets only one flipper and you try to coordinate motion.

I have a friend who lives for Golden Tee. Many evening on Bourbon Street, we have climbed to the top floor of a bar to play it, or air hockey, or foosball. Many evenings in Seoul, Korea, we would take a cab to Itaewon, the American section, and climb to the third floor of a bar to play Golden Tee. And though I have mocked his obsession to him many times, I get it. I fully get it. He's a gamer, too. He likes the competition, the winning, the other world of the game.

I'm not here to defend games--their obvious social and mental benefits aside (a student was just in here telling me that Tetris is being used to bring calmness to veterans). I'll leave that to someone else.

No, I'm here just to make a couple of observations. First, that if you continue to play games as you get older, you end up playing them by yourself. At some point, the Bible and society told us to put away childish things. For many people, that means games. Here are some of the messages: "Games are silly," "This is a waste of time," "You know, you could be painting the basement," "Gambling is dangerous and sleazy." People who didn't play games as a child are now afraid of them. People who didn't spend time on them just don't see the point. People who didn't play children's games aren't interested in the games that children are playing now.

Second, if you play games in the modern world, you end up playing them by yourself. When you play UNO on your cell phone, you don't need the other players. When your computer chess opponent is kicking your ass, you can just turn it off. When you engage in multiplayer games like Black Ops online, you may be playing with other people, but unless you are part of a group of gamers, you will probably have no idea who those other people are. And if you aren't very good or just learning, they won't pick you for the next game.

Old games like Bridge or Parcheesi that require learning complex rules are dying out; new games don't really require other people. Some of the old games I enjoyed as a child seem stupid even to me when I ponder them in the modern context. And so, I'm wondering, even though games are playing an ever-increasing role in our society, are they offering the benefits that they once did? Are games a norm of family activities? Are they a source of friendly competition? Are they ever the focus of a social gathering? Beyond the occasional poker night for the guys, I don't know.

There is a reason why Solitaire continues to be so popular, but was it meant to be the standard game experience? Wasn't it Cher who once sang, "Sooner or later, we all game alone?"

Note: the two-space rule was not used in the construction of this blogpost.