The Night We Almost Died After Playing Video Games
Video Round-up in Phoenix: When video games cost a quarter & you could almost get run over by a fire engine for free.
Did you grow up with a video arcade?
We had one in Phoenix/Scottsdale. Video Roundup right off of Thomas and, I want to say, Hayden. I think it was Hayden. It was a pretty sizable arcade with big stand-up console video games and a room full of pool tables.
Back then, you could smoke inside or at least in the smoking section, which in hindsight doesn't really amount to much, does it? Especially like on an airplane where you could only smoke in the back—like, yeah, but if I'm in the front, I can smell that. What the hell?
Video Roundup was pretty cool. I'd have to do some research to learn about when they actually shut down, but they stuck it out for quite a while as I recall because it was just cool. Across the parking lot was a place I think called Deviate/DV8, an all ages club. I never went there, but some of my friends did. I know for sure it was open in '92, which makes me think it was at least '93, '94, maybe even later that they stayed open.
Did you have friends were spitters? And by spitter, I just mean somebody who…spits. There were just people, guys specifically, who just spit because it was a thing. I definitely was, and some of my other friends were, but some weren't. I don't know what distinguishes a guy who just spits all the time from one who doesn't.
One of my friends, who shall remain nameless, was definitely a spitter. I remember back in like '87 or '88, he was wearing a suit and he looked good—14 years old or whatever. I remember looking at him and thinking, man, he looked really good in that suit. He was walking but still had this punk rock sort of James Dean walk going on, and then he just spits. I stopped and started cracking up because it totally blew the image of the suit.
Point being, he liked to spit. One night at Video Roundup everyone was surrounding some guy. It wasn't one of our friends, just somebody playing a game. He was crushing it, and everyone was getting excited. My friend was right on the edge of the console and he was so wrapped up, he just spits on the screen.
As soon as it happened, he's like, "I'm sorry!" trying to apologize to this guy playing the game. It was just so ridiculous, and yet if you knew him, it made perfect sense.
I had another friend who got a car in high school, probably his senior year or so. Not the best driver among us at the time. (Sidebar: he was really good at pulling the Rockford Files 180, where you go in reverse, hit the brakes, and switch around with that 180 turn. He did those really well in parking lots anyway, but outside of that, not the best driver.)
The problem is, we would go to Video Roundup, and he'd play a sit-down video game, like a driving game, for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, and then we'd have to go home. He'd drive like he was still in the game. How any of us survived with him, I don't know.
Like one time, we're coming up on an intersection in the station wagon. The rest of us, but apparently not him, hear sirens, look out the window, and see a fire truck coming. It's coming up to that intersection, and we're not saying this—it's all happening in the blink of an eye: "Oh, (our friend) is gonna stop."
But our friend, the driver, doesn't stop. The rest of us are doing the math and triangulating everything, and: we're gonna get hit by this fire truck.
We start screaming, "Stop! Stop! Stop!" He slams the brakes in the intersection, and the fire truck barrels towards us. So we start screaming, "Go! Go! Go!" He smashes onto the gas pedal, careens through the intersection, bumps over onto the sidewalk, and the fire engine whips past us. The firemen flip us off as they roar past, and we're just sitting there like the kids from "Stand By Me" after the train incident. It's like, my God, we almost died.
Pretty good memories from the arcade. My friend Matt and I would play games like "Klax" and "Ataxx." Ataxx was like Othello, but in video game form. We played that a lot. Klax was these tiles coming down a conveyor belt and you had to flip them. It was really addicting. I remember one dude, some kind of savant with this game, would play Klax for a long time and just crush every level. Matt and I would stand behind him in awe. When he'd finally lose, he'd be so pissed and walk away, and we'd think if we got a fourth of the way he did, we'd be on the moon.
Video Roundup will definitely show up in some books. I'm looking forward to capturing the smells, textures, and tastes for a vibrant scene. Did they sell food? Surely they did; I'll have to ask about that. I don't think you could bring your own in; I don't remember carrying a Super Big Gulp around Video Roundup. It’s just such a vibrant, sensory-driven place to set a scene. I'm looking forward to writing about it, maybe even including a DV8 reference.
Did you have a place like that? An arcade? It was straight out of Dazed & Confused.
Hope you have a good one. Take care, go play some video games.