Pinball is in my DNA. My father was a gangsta pinpall player, back in the days when pinball machines paid out cash winnings. He’d cheat, frankly, on top of being an ace player, and he’d travel from one small Montana town to another playing pinball, and getting running out of town now and again.
Later, I ran a video game arcade–the largest in Seattle at the time–and our array of hot games included six or eight pinball games, electro-mechanical among them.
Funny, I never played much pinball, maybe it was the way that I had to turn my back to the rest of the arcade in order to play, and that’s obviously a lousy way to run a business, with your back turned on it.
Last night was the first time in ages that I have played a game. Dominique Johns built a new one, from scratch. She’s called Galactic Girl, she’s beautiful, and she had her debut at the Tiger Lounge–with a tournament and everything. Dominique’s parents came in from Illinois, even, to check out their new “grandchild.”
It’s kind of a big deal this building of a machine. Schematics and stencils and lights and sounds. Bugs galore to be squashed. Nuances to be nudged.
The tournament was winding up by the time I arrived, and Dominique dropped in a quarter for me to play. I racked up a grand total of 14 points; I was the new low score!
Later, he opened the game’s cash box and drew out a big handful of quarters, spilling them onto the glass top and setting me up to play ball after ball after ball.
It was by many appearances another instance of cute boy amusing himself watching cute girl play pinball. In truth, after the first minutes he stood and focused his attention on how the game was behaving, watching as it gave me points it wasn’t really supposed to, and puzzling through the possible causes and solutions. Funny, I actually find that kind of thing sexy.
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