Game & Watch

Does anyone else remember these?

I was probably eleven years old when I got my first one (Fire, should you ask), and it seemed like the coolest thing on earth.

After that I got Vermin, and later the mighty Donkey Kong.

I remember that my dad went from thinking it was great (it kept me quiet) to terrible (I never wanted to do anything else).  Not that different from kids with their x-boxes today.

These are obsolete because now no one would carry around a console that only allowed them to play a single game - never mind a single game with such simple graphics and rules!  All you can actually do is move the guys with saving sheet to the left or the right.  

Simple games, single games.  Obsolete.  These will definitely get an entry in the Obselidia.

Before they disappear

Why a blog?  I've been asking myself this question for the last couple of weeks.  The Obselidia  is such a mammoth undertaking, far bigger than I had first imagined - and it consumes much of my time.   I've realized a large part of my job with it is to record things before they disappear.  Why wait until it's gone and write about it in retrospect, when you can catalogue the last of the species, so to speak? 

So, much of my time is spent tracking down things (particularly people) and getting to know what they do, before it's forgotten.

It' s not always easy, what I'm doing.  And I guess that's why I decided to start this blog.  Besides from my neighbor Mitch, I don't see too many people, and maybe I just wanted a place where I could sound off about whatever is going on.

Just reflect on this task that I have undertaken, share the highs and lows.  

Before they disappear.

R.I.P. Eduardo Gonzales

You may have noticed that this is my first blog post in a couple of weeks.  I didn't mean to abandon this, just circumstances arose and writing felt beyond the realm of possibility.

You see, my old man passed away two days before Christmas.  It wasn't entirely a surprise - he'd had two heart attacks earlier in the year, but still...

Perhaps it's no coincidence that I started this project when I did.

My Dad was the last of his kind: a real gentleman, full of manners and style.  He was born in Mexico City to a Polish Jewish mother and a Mexican shoemaker who relocated to Los Angeles when he was still a baby.   Perhaps because of his immigrant heritage, and perhaps because of his nature, he was hard-working and always eager to prove himself, but equally he was drawn to glamour and pizzazz.

He worked, as much as he could, as a piano player.  He had some success in the fifties and sixties, playing with a studio band, and even wrote a couple of numbers that you might recognize.  It was the royalties from these that kept him going when in later years, he just didn't get the gigs.

In his last years, he suffered from ill-health that wore down his spirit.  He would frequently say there was nothing left for him in this world except the grave.  I know the feeling, and I've lived only half the time he did.

He loved jazz, he loved a good taco, he loved beautiful women.  He always dressed well.  

Sometimes I wondered how he wound up with a son like me.  I know he did too...

Dad, I'm going to miss you.