Nostalgia

- just as a side note, I have to comment on how I get traffic here. Not to put people on the spot, but come one. There is no need to be afraid of bookmarking, or following the site. I see there are no followers, but seemingly regular visitors who are a bit scared of joining the site, but rather pull it up on google. Guys, nothing is going to happen to you if you click the follow/join button. LOL. just saying

  Yesterday, I had a very profound moment of nostalgia that carried over into today. I might sound like Johnny Millenium when I go into this story, and to be honest, I almost want to do a video on my youtube, only it's weird to do those kind of videos if you don't have a huge following. You just can't pull it off the same, even if you do a great job.

  I went to visit an associate's house. I'm cool with his youngest son, who's just 12, and often play games with him and keep him company. He seems to enjoy it, and calls me over very regularly- to the point of excess. He is very good at games, and a pretty broad minded young kid, even if a bit too direct at times, but that's just his nature. I like teaching him things about the generation that I came from, and seeing the surprise. Like talking about Pokemon. I'm not a fan of Pokemon, but I remember when it came out, the original theme song, and the buzz surrounding it with the first games. It's also sick to see that it's still at large. I appreciate carry over series like that to a degree, because they give a nice depiction of how far we've come over time. On youtube, I was watching some young kids argue over how dumb the old Pokemon was, and I was laughing to myself at the cycle that persists of the current generation always undermining and trashing the founders of what they love today. Most of today's entertainment has taken a complete step backwards, but you would be hard-pressed to convince a youth of this generation of that, because it's all they ever knew.

 When I came over, he implored me to bring over Smash Brothers Melee. I put it in the box, as well as Metroid Prime, and went over. Before we started, he had to ask his father if we could play. You know when you get that feeling that someone's impression of you has taken some sudden, yet permanent turn for the worse? That's the reason I mention his father as an associate, not necessarily a friend. It isn't because I don't get along with him. Anyone who knows me, knows that I always find a way to like people- even the people that no one else likes. It's just at a somewhat awkward point, where it feels like, while he doesn't verbalize it, he doesn't trust me the same, or feel as cool with me. I don't know why exactly, but we still have good conversations nonetheless. To be clear, I personally see him as a friend, as I do everyone, but that's something that has to go both ways. It's clearly visible that we have gone from first meeting, and talking freely, to having a communication gap of sorts. Anyhow, I chill with his son primarily and it's pretty fun. The son came back down, and said he was allowed to play it. I was somewhat expecting a no, but I told him to put it in the system.

  We started the game up at first, I realized that the characters weren't unlocked. I wanted to get Falco at least, so I told him to go online and look up how to unlock the characters, because it's been so long since I did that. To get Falco, as many of you old-timers may know, you have to complete the 100 man melee. So I started it and used Link to make quick work of the cpu bots. Towards the end, I started losing, and he starts laughing and saying that I'm going to get knocked out. Then I said something that made me pause, "No. Sorry, but I've been playing this game longer than you've been alive." At first, I just said it mindlessly, and then I picked up the box after a few seconds to remind myself, that it came out in December I believe, of 2001. He was born in 2002. I sat back, after realizing that, and just stared dreamily at the screen, remembering the days that me and my friends would meet at either my house or my friends' houses to play that game almost every day. And it never got old. When it came out, I remember us talking about the first Smash Brothers game being 5 years old. Then after playing the game for 5 years, we looked back and talked about how we started playing it when the original was 5 years old, and now it's 5 years old. We also said that years down the line, we would look back and play this game after 20 years or so, and we laughed. We took it lightly, but we also knew it to hold some truth, because the game really is that good. It is one of the rare gems to come out in gaming history, that can carry a console by itself. I remember when it was the only game I had on Gamecube, and I would never be bored because of all the game has to offer. Not many games can do that. And I sat and thought about how it's actually been 13 years. I repeated that out loud several times, just floored with amazement. Amazement at how long it's been, and amazement at how good it still is. The graphics are just as crisp and the gameplay, amazing and timeless. 

  I started to show him how to play the game, and explain all of the controls and mechanics to him. I couldn't help but get excited all over again, like I was finding the game again through his eyes. It was just as fun as it was all of those years ago. Just holding the box, and looking at it, I felt like I was right back in highschool going over to play it at my friend's house all over again. I'm proud to still have Smash Brothers Melee. And it was good to have this stretch of time to build myself up, and be a kid again for a change. I got to beat a couple of games, such as Assassin's Creed: Revelations, and Fight Night: Champion. I always love the AC series, and have been following it since the beginning, as well as the spin off games and videos online that cover deeper aspects of it. It was good to be frustrated as well, in it's own way. Fight Night Champion started off very simple, and had a last boss that was absolutely legendarily hard. It was kind of cool to be frustrated trying to beat him, as I sat and retried for hours. Honestly, I almost broke the game at one point. I took it out of the console, and after holding it in my hands, contemplating snapping it, I threw it like a shuriken across my apartment. It smacked a wall, and shot into another room. I thought it was broken, especially when I saw the scratches on it, but I was able to restore it with my CD Doctor. I kept playing, and almost losing it again. I went online, and looked up forums on how impossible he can be. Finally, I beat him. It was great to be able to sit and work through a game like that again, and I only get time to do stuff like that on a vacation. That's why it's so important to me to take 2 weeks off every year in the winter time.

  Then, that night, I had a very surreal dream. I was walking through a park I used to live by and describing the times of youth there to a person. As I was doing so, kids were on the fringes of the park, walking along the path. At one point, we reached a huge rock that used to sit in the middle, and you could look down the narrow path to the other entrance, that runs through thick foliage. I described how we would run through there, and in mid sentence I fell to my knees and began sobbing in nostalgia. I don't know why the emotion was so strong, but apparently it was audible and forced my wife to shake me awake. She told me I was having a nightmare, but I couldn't bring myself to tell her that it was a very powerful and nostalgic dream, and those were cries of joy and longing at the same time. I just kept that to myself, and thought about how this vacation of mine has given me a chance to step back in time in various ways and remember what got me to today. First, it was a long overdue visit to my parents, where we got to voice meaningful words to one another for the first time in ages, and grow from it. And then, it was, of all things, a game - Smash Brothers Melee, that brought up all of these emotions towards a time that was truly beautiful. I'm fulfilled at this point, and invigorated for whatever it is that I'll do next.

 I don't want to end this with a sour patch, but if I leave out what this brings to mind, I feel like I'm being dishonest. You see, over the last few years, there have been a number of individuals that have turned heel so to speak for reasons they don't say. People I know by the names of Todd, Daniel, his brother Luke, Khalil and some others, are among these. I don't say this to bash anyone, but rather just to make a point. I'm at an age, or point in life, if you will, where I like to get to the heart of matters, and say what needs to be said. I think that as you get older and older, the politics start to disappear in your mind. I actually love that about older people. These people I'm speaking of, have completely begun to despise me, and the sad thing is that it has nothing to do with anything negative that I've done, but apparently demons that they face. I've associated with all of these people at various points in the past, and it was a positive experience at the time. With one of them, they were actually the best man in my wedding, and an associate, when suddenly, around the time that my wife got gravely ill and was in the hospital, there was some reason in that, to suddenly despise me and never speak to me again, even when we moved into his area. With another of them, they were like a best friend who I hung out with for years, even as recently as this year, doing an art gallery in Brooklyn together, when suddenly, after a good event, completely cut me off and refused to ever speak with me again. Then there was another, who I collaborated with on a couple of my jazz albums and associated and encouraged for years, who meets and stops me in Models one day to tell me that he's ordered my new book, and looking forward to reading it, and then following that up with telling me to contact him on Facebook. Somewhere in all of that, he chose to actually lie about purchasing the book, and then cut me off when I simply asked if his order went through. All I was doing was trying to see if I could get him a discount, and make sure his order process properly. Yet something in himself caused him to project self hatred onto me.


   What inspires all of this behavior you ask? I have absolutely no idea, although in my novel, I briefly touch on a theory. But regardless, I'm not saying this to air out my business or dirty laundry, because that isn't what I even consider it to be. Years ago, in younger days, I vented about things like this and pointlessly confronted people over their strange behavior, as if forcing an agreement. Now, at my age, I simply say that I pity these people, because whatever reasons they chose to embark on these senseless paths of hatred, they just aren't worth life, and it's sad that people can't see that. When I look back and also look forward to a new year, I see the final years of my current job nearing, and new plans for where I'll live in the future, as well what I'll do. I honestly pray for all of the people out there who have dedicated their lives to a complete, and stupid dead end. Hopefully this blog reaches some of them, and they are mature enough to see what it's really saying. To be clear once again, I have love for these ones, as I do everyone. I'm not bound by sad and obligatory hatred. If they tense up and hate me further after reading this, I really don't care obviously. Just think about this- it was stupid to create the rift out of nowhere in the first place, and that all lies on YOU. We all have to assess dead weight in our lives and clean it out. If they honestly think that their behavior has accomplished something, they are sadly mistaken. I'm not saying this to insult them, but to, if possible, move them to get on track.