 |
I developed an early and
lasting obsession with weaponized talking apes who took joy in
mercilessly trampling humans to death with horses at sunset.
All of my experience had led me to believe that animals were
friendly. Also of interest, humans composed partially of
seemingly expensive machine parts (about six million dollars
worth).
In November
of 1976, I played Pong for the first time at the Miami Airport Inn
hotel. About two years later, I played "Flying Saucers" on the
TRS-80 computer for the first time, understanding finally that THIS
is what computers were probably meant to be (gaming machines instead
of anything else). This led to a small flurry of writing very simple
"computer games" with friends saved to cassette tapes in BASIC until
we grew tired of pecking on the keyboard and transferring pixel
on/off numbers from graph paper.
New
fascinations with Bun E.
Carlos, marine life, boogie boarding, and dreams of any job that
involved a pressurized diving helmet as part of its uniform, soon eclipsed any hope for a
future in programming. After doing my absolute best to earn
a position on the "no-admittance" list to both my Jr. and Sr. high
school proms, and watching my grades fall lower than the stock market
on black monday, I enrolled in a record engineering program
on the advice of a studio engineer I met at a cocktail party who
promised me an advanced listen of Prince's top secret "Black" album.
I never got the promised listening.
The ability
to process sounds with a computer instead of tape became the
next important revelation. The following seven years were consumed with
the study of philosophy: Logic, Greek, Continental, Analytic,
and Eastern. On finishing my B.A., I spent the literal start of
the first Gulf War in Negril, Jamaica floating with red squirrel
fish and listening to local obituaries on the radio. I promptly
returned to school and wrote On the Logical Possibility of
Computer Consciousness: Considerations on the Prospect of Achieving
Conscious Machines for a thesis. It now finds its eternal
purpose as a non-addictive sleep aid. I had considered
weaving in emergent music systems, electronic music, and their
connection to intelligent expression, but this only seemed to
frustrate my professors further.
The M.A. was
awarded with honors despite the condescending attitude of the brand
new computer science department, who ended up partnering with the
philosophy department 10 years later to study the very same area
after giving me nothing but grief about it to begin with.
Another lesson to not listen to most folks too carefully.
A parent soon suggests the probability of an
eventual career in real estate sales based on seeing a family
friend's photographic image staring back from a giveaway
realtor notepad. This suggestion follows repeated employment
rejection as a movie ticket taker, file processor, and mattress
mover. Deciding to stick with gaming yet again, I sent out 600+
resumes to game related companies of every description with the help
of a good friend working in the mailroom of a vapor recovery
company. All this paper waste leads to just two phone calls:
The first call sends me driving 450 miles only to find out on
arrival that during the day's drive the company has closed up their
offices and apparently forgotten to tell me.
I
am eventually hired, as a form of not so subtle infinite cosmic
mercy, directly by the former President of Atari Games who will
change my life well into the future. After shipping several
games over a couple of years, I was accepted into the Mills MFA
program in computer music, but deferred in order to try
and ship a Playstation title which ultimately was cancelled. Plenty
of game work unfolds.
These days I look forward to extracting large amounts of joy from things like snorkeling and root beer.
|
|
