Working Man’s Expo

I live in a house on the block I lived in when I was in my twenties. It’s not the same house, it’s one down the street that I got when I moved back a decade plus later. Well, for a very long time we had a neighbor on this block named Dennis. Dennis was old and beat up and awesome. He smoked weed, he gave me his extra back medication, and he liked to tell me about the good old days. Dennis had been Navy man and a carnie.

That’s why he had the back medication, some topical shit that they sent him every month to help with a back that had several fused vertebrae on account of he was tossed off a working carnival ride and landed on concrete. Dennis didn’t tell that like a sob story, just sort of incredulously. He moved to Chippewa Falls last fall when they sold his house.

Welcome to Freako Alley

Point being, I always think of people who work at Expo like Dennis. They’re built different. For a guy like Dennis, after an accident like that he carries on with his life, smoking weed and being an all around righteous guy. I see someone like Imoto Harney or the Marco crew and just think, you could toss those guys off a building and they’d bounce right back and fix whatever System-11 you had next to the crater.

I’m not built different. I’m built same. Or built worse. I have a notorious bad attitude by Saturday of Expo, typically. It’s hard work to do the job of pounding literal pavement. I know because I’ve run a booth the last three or so years. First with Joe Ciaravino and the Pinball Degens, and then the last two with our bros at BASH pinball. They’ve become their own hit of Expo by offering “free” coffee (donation optional, for cheap sociopaths) every morning. Giving jittery pinballers espresso is an insane thing to do imo, but I know everyone appreciates it a lot.

This year’s festivities were compounded by a pretty big preceeding event: Six hours before I’d leave for my brother’s house in Madison the night before, my work called me into a Zoom meeting and informed me they were restructuring and that I was being laid off. This was four days after my birthday, and blah blah blah. Everyone has a sad story. But that meant one thing: I was dedicated to selling magazines. I slept soundly on Wednesday night at my brother’s house, staying up to watch Brewers Dodgers highlights of game three, which we had watched live at his neighborhood bar. They rang cowbells whenever the Brewers scored a run.

Thursday

I drove to Chicago early because I was supposed to pick up an unnamed party that was supposed to help me run Nudge stuff. Evidently they had missed their flight, so I was gonna be loading in by myself. I pulled my 2008 Prius up to giant loading docks that were mostly full of guys who were already done moving in pallets and pallets of pinball machines. I grabbed a handcart in the rain and huffed my magazines over to our section. I met the security guy named Willie.

“Gee Willie,” I said, covered in rainwater. “I just wish it was a little wetter.”

I winked. That got me in with Willie, and for the rest of the week I would use that area as my emergency exit for when I had to smoke a J. You know, to get my strength back up. Don’t judge me. It’s medicinal. The only medicine that makes you crave peanut butter M&Ms right after you take it.

Nudge people truly rule

From the moment I opened, we had a stream of folks coming through. Truly, it was amazing. People were psyched on the five year anniversary and it was really dope hearing everyone pull through with their fave part of Nudge. It really ran the gamut. One of the cooler ones was when this guy came in and said he read the article I wrote about Ben called, “The Worst Pinball I ever Played” and shared it with his friend group.

His girlfriend said, “he read it to me and it made me cry.”

I was like damn, I can’t believe even this guy has a girlfriend and I don’t. But then I thought, wow, that’s pretty cool that we can hit someone that way. Stories and pinball and shit actually matter. But for real, all of thursday went by in a blur. My mom would sometimes text me updates to the brewer game.

At the start it was normal mom stuff, like, “Hey honey, they are down by 4 and I don’t think they’re going to win”, but by the end of the game she was on her Buster Olney shit, “Garret Mitchell blasts a go-ahead homer, the brew is up 5-4!!!” Jesus Christ. My mom has better content than ESPN.

That night I counted out enough money to basically cover the loan that I had taken out to print them. I again watched Brewers highlights, at night, but this time also added in 31 dollars worth of Wendy’s in honor of a job well done.

Friday

Fifteen minutes before we officially opened, my mom gave me a call.

She usually doesn’t call, but she knew I was pretty invested in this expo, on account of money would obviously be very tight for a while. I told her it was going really well, not just cuz we were selling enough, but because it was amazing to meet everyone in person.

She said, “What are you doing next Weekend?”

I thought she’d want me to do some chores for them or something, so I was non-commital.

My Mom said, “Well, can you get out of it? You and your dad and your brother have tickets to game 2 of the World Series on Saturday to see the Brewers.”

Look, if you love Nudge at all, you have the Milwaukee Brewers to thank. More specifically, you have Bob Uecker to thank. He was the soundtrack to my summers for my entire life from age 5 to present day. For those of you who don’t know, Bob Uecker is a former baseball player and the dude who played the dad in Mr. Belvedere in the 80s. He was the Brewers’ play-by-play guy on the radio for like 40 years. He’s also the funniest human being to ever live. Don’t believe me? Just Google “Norm Macdonald + Bob Uecker” or “The bag’s on you” and you’ll see what I mean.

The Brewers have always been in my life. For most of it they sucked ass. They gave me a fatalist view on the world, but Bob’s jokes were always there to lift you up when things got dark. Like when we had a 2nd basemen named Junior Spivey. Think about how lame that was. We celebrated hard when we went 81-81. Anyway.

Getting those tickets busted my shit up. I literally started sobbing. Some nice kid was trying to network with me as I opened and telling me about his art and I couldn’t put two sentences together. He prob thinks I’m nuts right now.

“Huahuah sounds good man send us some art HUAAAAAAA”

Anyway, we got through it together. I’m going to the World Series. Go Brewers. Life is crazy.

Tourney Types

If you see tournament players on Friday, they’re gonna be locked in. You gotta just hold space for them. They’re gonna be wearing their gameday attire. They’re gonna be looking fly as hell. No one exemplifies this more than Rachel Ristow, which is ironic because she didn’t play in this tournament at all. I was pretty obsessed with her gloves though.

Friday was the first time I was able to check out some of the homebrews. This section truly has become insane, it’s own expo within an expo. Here’s the thing, it’s not just that there are 50+ homemade pinball machines in one spot, but how good they all are. Of course some are better than others, but wow, the high-end of these homebrews is really amazing. The Attack From Titan pin was the one that everyone was talking about by the end of the show, and it is absolutely incredible, but there were a half dozen or so Homebrews that were equally as compelling.

It’s also very dope to see games as they develop. I had met a guy named Adam through Instagram, and he let me know his Podracing pinball machine was gonna be there. I have to say, it’s a really pretty game, and what I love most is its aesthetic. I think Adam would be the first to tell you that the code isn’t there yet, but like I said, that’s part of the fun. To see these things as they become fleshed out.

I’m always amazed at how good flippers are on homebrews these days. I guess that’s the Fast Pinball effect.

Really, the homebrew area and the bathroom were the only places I could find myself. Even then, I’d be literally on the toilet, getting a text that someone wanted a t-shirt size or a set of mags. A great problem to have, even if it gave my colon whiplash.

Oh, I also got in a game of Predator at some point. That game is fun! That is all.

Saturday

The best part about having a vendor pass is getting in two hours before the plebes. There literally was nothing more fun that the dunkin’ run I’d go on before the hall opened, then lazily wandering in an hour before open and turning a Fallout premium on and just Urring my Ranium all over the place. (We’re working on that.)

Just a big ass Dunkin’ coffee with five fricken creams and Keith Elwin and Rick Nagel’s latest frickin’ joint. I literally can’t imagine a better way to spend expo morning, even if my hips were powder and I moved like a sixty year old man.

Let’s talk about it: Fallout is a banger. It’s definitely the weirdest Elwin (way more than Kong), and I had to unlearn drop catches because the ball would moon-walk over my left flipper, but other than that I really dug it. Seems like there are a million different multiballs in it, that’s kinda fun. But that hour beforehand every day is what kept me sane. I hope we get one locally.

Finish Strong(ish)

Saturday is when we typically do stuff like Pinball Olympics or go to fun off-site parties, but I was bushed. This was a marathon and my body was breaking down. I had only myself to blame. I had two large thin crust pizzas worth of crust and cheese working its way slowly through my digestive tract. And wherever there were little spots to fill in, there were peanut butter M&Ms. Yeah, disgusting.

But man, y’all kept coming out. I met so many cool people, including this extremely righteous guy named Scott who was from Canada. He bought his buddy a bunch of Nudge stuff and then was super psyched when we got to go into my little weed alley and smoke a J. He made me feel like we were in a scene from Almost Famous. I listened to him tell me about where he was from as we blew big plumes out into the night air. I hadn’t even realized it was dark already.

Hamboned and Homebrewed

We went inside and I saw a bunch of my friends in the homebrew area again (sensing a theme). They were playing the OTHER huge hit of the fest, Dark Chaos. I got in line and let me say, it was one of my favorite games of the entire festival. It was me, Aaron from Fast Pinball, Aaron’s friend, and Todd Macculloch, noted Seattle legend and center on the NBA finals Sixers squad. What a lineup!

The idea behind Dark Chaos is sorta like Missile Command from back in the day. You’re in a space ship, and there are always asteroids flying at you, trying to blow your shit up. That’s mostly represented by pop up targets that populate the playfield. There’s also a crazy jump ramp that goes INTO A FRICKIN MOON. The origins of this game is actually in the vpin (virtual pinball) space. I couldn’t believe the designer was able to replicate it in real life. He was pretty ho-hum about it. That’s how I know that there are people a lot smarter than me. That guy should be in charge of Nudge, but instead of him you’ve got me. Woof.

There was a dance party going on in the Homebrew section. I looked up. Something was different. Whether it was because I’d suggested it or not during our podcast interview wasn’t important, but Rob Berk had turned the lights down for better ambience during Saturday Night. Now let’s do the whole place, Rob. And lets do it every night until 4 AM.

I packed up our stuff, grabbed another joint, went to dinner with two good friends, and was grateful for everyone I got to see. Sure this was a working man’s trip, but god damn, if this could be my job, I’d literally be the luckiest guy on earth. Well, me and whoever won that Fallout Premium from the raffle. They have it pretty good too.

No Days Off.