Day 20: Sonic 3D Blast, Wave Race 64, and Stephen King
My brain’s sine waves cannot achieve harmonious flux unless my senses are at max stimulation. It’s why when I play a video game, especially one light on dialogue, I enjoy having a second television going with sports or Twitch while also listening to a podcast or audiobook on my phone. I am also usually feeling lonely and smelling the hot sauce from the plate of nachos nearby just to ensure that every sense gets a little time on the playing field. In 1996 this was not impossible but certainly difficult for anyone to achieve.
This thing came out in 1997
For starters, two TV’s in the same room would have been uncommon. What are you? Rich? Audiobooks were around in the 90’s and in fact around 1996 was the time they picked up steam, but they were rare to come by and were expensive if you found them. Nachos and hot sauce were around hence my slight obese childhood, so those don’t help my argument. Podcasts were about the only thing that had not come to be just yet, which is weird because of all of those things I mentioned: extra TV’s, audiobooks, hot sauce - a podcast is the easiest of those to make. In 1996, if you wanted to hear two people have a conversation about something you were interested in, you went to their house and joined in.
So while I understand the way I cram multiple modes of media into my brain is inauthentic to the time and probably unhealthy for me long term, it has to be done even in this month of 1996. Over the last couple of nights I have combined video games with either an audiobook or music genre and have inadvertently created a coupling between those things in my mind that will likely never break.
“(You lied to me) Yes I cried, yes I cried
It is
(Return of the Mack) Come on
(Return of the Mack) Oh my God
(You know that I’ll be back) Here I am ”
The first combination was Sonic 3D Blast and Stephen King’s Desperation. The video game, Sonic 3D Blast, looks pretty good for the Sega Genesis. It’s an isometric collectathon that seems really, super-duper neat for the first 15 minutes and you’ll find yourself saying, “Dang!” “Oh wow, dang!” Then at some point your sentiment will shift more toward “No fucking way!” and “Why can’t I reach that!?” The isometric 3D perspective is fussy in regard to height and you’ll never know where anything is in relation to you if it isn’t on the ground.
Speaking of the ground, that’s where I should’ve thrown this audiobook by Stephen King if it wasn’t trapped inside my phone. Admittedly, I haven’t read as much King as I would like and he’s batting roughly 0.500 for me so far. Which would actually be really good if he were playing baseball. Desperation is a book about an eponymous town in the middle of nowhere that has been taken over by weird robotic murder cops, at least so far in the story. Yes, I agree with you, that sounds awesome. But somehow it just isn’t. I’m going to try to finish it but I’m not sure I caught anything in the last few chapters and I’m not going back. Thankfully this is a combination that won’t haunt me forever as I have no intention of interacting with either ever again.
The second combination is more permanent, Wave Race 64 and a 1996 hip-hop playlist developed by my dude Jeffrey (Hey Jeffrey!). That playlist is d-to-the-OPE as they would say in 1996. As a true hip-hop gentleman, he delivered the usual suspects on there like Busta, 2Pac, Biggie, and Jay-Z but my dude also made sure to throw Nas, Mobb Depp, Outkast, The Fugees, Ghostface Killa, and of course Mark Morrison’s RETURN OF THE MACK on that shit. Somehow, in all of my deep dives into ‘96 playlists, RETURN OF THE MACK has been overlooked! That song kicks ass. So now, and hopefully for the rest of my life, I will associate this playlist with Wave Race 64, a game I played for two hours while bobbing my head along with the waves nonstop. It was zen, it was peace, it was tranquility. I really believe that. Yeah I do. Yeah I DO DO DO.
The final combination was Mark Davis’s The Fishing Master on Super Nintendo and a playlist chocked full of 1996 country music. Once again, I’ll dish out the disclaimer that I am no current fan of country music and I’m sure many of my readers aren’t either, but if I really want to dig into some nostalgia about my childhood and being around my folks, country music has to be included as part of the seance. That’s the interesting thing about that music, I don’t think I like it - I just like the memories from it. John Anderson’s Straight Tequila Night really got me going while I was out there on the boat reeling in my bass.
I have the same hair as dude on the right
In fact, I got so into fishing in that stupid game I got disqualified from the tournament I spent over an hour competing in and was sure to win! I blame the likes of Brooks & Dunn’s My Maria for convincing me I could hit that one high note so I had to re-hear the song three times to be sure that I was wrong about that; and I also can point to that goddamn Heads Carolina, Tails California song by Jo Dee Messina for getting me thinking about what two states I would assign to a coin flip causing me to completely forget to grab my gear and head back to the fucking dock for weigh in! I caught 30 bass! BIG BASS TOO! What a moment to be in. Also, Washington and California were seeming like my top choices.
And not to get too sentimental here but what is this exercise in time restraint for if not to share all the outcomes? There was a moment while listening to the music that I heard a lot back in 1996 and doing the thing I did a lot of at the time (play shitty video games) that I really did feel a little removed from the now and transported back to the “then”. I think that has a lot to do with the familiarity I have with that music but not having listened to it on my own volition ever since. Unlike the Tool, Soundgarden, and Butthole Surfers I’ve crammed into my ears on a regular basis since those days, the country music stayed back there with all the memories I have of growing up in a one stoplight town on the side of a mountain, in the shadow of a barn, with two older parents who loved country radio. I went back there last night and realized that I missed that time and that maybe I should stop avoiding it and running from it.
