War of the World...
This, from Jimmy Monte in Portland OR, 2003. He hasn't submitted since...
As my favorite writer George Saunders has effectively proven, the characters who play bit parts in the games we play to entertain ourselves surely have personalities of thier own. They are quite literally stuck in the system, but it is really wrong to assume that they don't have blogs too. For instance Murphy is a Marine you can meet as you play Halo. Most of the guys seem kind of anonymous and just run around and get shot, but if you go up to Murphy in a quiet moment and look at his broad face, his intelligent brown eyes, you'll know he's someone special. Maybe that's why he carries the squad's sniper-rifle and is usually riding the tank long after his squad has been fried by alien fire. One time he made it all the way to the fence where the tank has to stop and you do battle through a cave and up onto a small plateau. For 10 glorious minutes I sheltered Murphy's armorless frame within a womb of expert tank fire. And I watched with pride when he squeezed off a few shots of his own.
I just hope you realize that these people playing people in video games are some of our most marginalized citizens. I have met Murphy often but we have never spoken given that the game doesn't have that feature. I just wanted to show a little bit about his blog since my petitions for his académie membership have been viciously denied.
"You know, these master chiefs is kinda funny. They die all the time and that's OK with them, because they get to start over. But sometimes the aliens capture them, and since killing them will send them back to base, they just store them. With magnets. And they just be sitting there sometimes for years before some Marines get to them, or blow them up and let them start at home again. And what are they taught to do during that time? I mean, these guys, they gave up their bodies to become these bionic fighters that can never die, and as a result they seen death so much that its a part of their strategy. They'll drop a grenade between their feet if the new deal they'll get sets 'em up better.
But y'all know that. I just wanted to hip you to something you might not know. It's that these guys, when they are sitting up there all captured, what they told to do is concentrate on two things: Something they love back home that they defending, and also, to visualize fighting, tone their mind for when they get on the outside. Can you imagine a guy who's mostly metal anyway locked to the wall, thinking only on his sweetheart or his mother or ice cream and then alien combat? What that makes is some real fucked up heads that come out into the field.
That's what made me write this, because yesterday who comes over the hill but I-LOVE-YOU-JENNY. Now a lot of these guys that's been meditating on just one thing get kind of a single-wired mind. You got to just shut off your intercom when they come around because all you gonna get is their mantra. Get up close and look into their visor and what you gonna see is this sheet of flesh opening its mouth regular like a fish, eyes darting around like fish themselves. But I just can't bear to turn off my intercom when I-LOVE-YOU-JENNY comes around. That's all that nigga say. He come up over the ridge and Captain (and he already laughing) says "Sir, the alien squad is just behind those rocks," like they always is, but I-LOVE-YOU-JENNY just say IloveyoujennyIloveyoujennyIloveyoujenny.... unending. Somehow that is just so damn funny. Anyway, then he swooped down the hill and splashed his purple Pollock of alien blood on those rocks before the squad could even catch up.
And that's nice too, because when I-LOVE-YOU-JENNY be laying them low like that, it gives a guy like me a chance to see what's down there at the bottom of the valley, maybe one day make it past the place where them big cannon mothafuckas always get off the first shot and take out the tank I am, each time, blithely perched upon."
As my favorite writer George Saunders has effectively proven, the characters who play bit parts in the games we play to entertain ourselves surely have personalities of thier own. They are quite literally stuck in the system, but it is really wrong to assume that they don't have blogs too. For instance Murphy is a Marine you can meet as you play Halo. Most of the guys seem kind of anonymous and just run around and get shot, but if you go up to Murphy in a quiet moment and look at his broad face, his intelligent brown eyes, you'll know he's someone special. Maybe that's why he carries the squad's sniper-rifle and is usually riding the tank long after his squad has been fried by alien fire. One time he made it all the way to the fence where the tank has to stop and you do battle through a cave and up onto a small plateau. For 10 glorious minutes I sheltered Murphy's armorless frame within a womb of expert tank fire. And I watched with pride when he squeezed off a few shots of his own.
I just hope you realize that these people playing people in video games are some of our most marginalized citizens. I have met Murphy often but we have never spoken given that the game doesn't have that feature. I just wanted to show a little bit about his blog since my petitions for his académie membership have been viciously denied.
"You know, these master chiefs is kinda funny. They die all the time and that's OK with them, because they get to start over. But sometimes the aliens capture them, and since killing them will send them back to base, they just store them. With magnets. And they just be sitting there sometimes for years before some Marines get to them, or blow them up and let them start at home again. And what are they taught to do during that time? I mean, these guys, they gave up their bodies to become these bionic fighters that can never die, and as a result they seen death so much that its a part of their strategy. They'll drop a grenade between their feet if the new deal they'll get sets 'em up better.
But y'all know that. I just wanted to hip you to something you might not know. It's that these guys, when they are sitting up there all captured, what they told to do is concentrate on two things: Something they love back home that they defending, and also, to visualize fighting, tone their mind for when they get on the outside. Can you imagine a guy who's mostly metal anyway locked to the wall, thinking only on his sweetheart or his mother or ice cream and then alien combat? What that makes is some real fucked up heads that come out into the field.
That's what made me write this, because yesterday who comes over the hill but I-LOVE-YOU-JENNY. Now a lot of these guys that's been meditating on just one thing get kind of a single-wired mind. You got to just shut off your intercom when they come around because all you gonna get is their mantra. Get up close and look into their visor and what you gonna see is this sheet of flesh opening its mouth regular like a fish, eyes darting around like fish themselves. But I just can't bear to turn off my intercom when I-LOVE-YOU-JENNY comes around. That's all that nigga say. He come up over the ridge and Captain (and he already laughing) says "Sir, the alien squad is just behind those rocks," like they always is, but I-LOVE-YOU-JENNY just say IloveyoujennyIloveyoujennyIloveyoujenny.... unending. Somehow that is just so damn funny. Anyway, then he swooped down the hill and splashed his purple Pollock of alien blood on those rocks before the squad could even catch up.
And that's nice too, because when I-LOVE-YOU-JENNY be laying them low like that, it gives a guy like me a chance to see what's down there at the bottom of the valley, maybe one day make it past the place where them big cannon mothafuckas always get off the first shot and take out the tank I am, each time, blithely perched upon."
posted by M.N.V.L. Local 1430 at 3:35 AM
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