Parenting is more than just sleepless nights, endless work and worry, social disconnection and migraines. Sometimes it’s a lot of fun. For instance, a father can play Guitar Hero and Rock Band, nearly free of spousal criticism, if he has managed to convince his three-year-old son that he is actually playing along on his own toy electric guitar. Once that has been accomplished, the child will request playing time with his father, so as to allow the man to play for his own enjoyment, using “quality time” with his son as an excuse to participate in adolescent recreation rather than simply admitting to blatant male immaturity or a classic case of “Peter Pan Syndrome.” For someone like myself, a man who hadn’t touched a video game since Nintendo introduced Mario Brothers and who still thought that the utterance of “we” referred to the plural subjective case pronoun or at least a French affirmative, it is that rare interlude in adulthood drudgery in which to indulge in what has been a life-long fantasy.
When I was a child growing up in the eighties, though a social retard, I fancied myself a rock star, specifically Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran. Despite being the furthest thing from what my peers would consider popular or “cool,” I would perform very long concerts in the shelter of my bedroom, jumping back and forth from the elaborate platform that doubled as a bed, to the floor—sleeves of my brown blazer rolled up past my elbows, as I crooned along to my “Seven and Ragged Tiger” cassette tape to the delight of the imaginary audience screaming their appreciation in my mirror. On occasion, I would play a fairly sophisticated, yet comically childish, electronic toy guitar that I had received as a birthday gift, rocking out in unabashed, fearless, completely clumsy and spastic fashion. My Townsend inspired windmills and scissor kicks complemented the channeling of Hendrix-like gyrations and writhing, as I fluttered about in grotesquely geeky ritualistic maneuverings that, if ever discovered, would serve only to increase my status as social pariah and augment the severe playground ridicule to which I was daily subjected.
Nevertheless, I was a star. The one constant dream I dared to believe in throughout my childhood was the notion that one day I would actually perform on stage, in video, to hordes of adoring fans who would easily recognize my latent coolness.
So, flashing forward to that same boy, now enjoying a completely nerdy, yet non self-conscious existence as husband and father, it is not difficult to see the easy the allure that a game such as Guitar Hero holds. To simulate, with nearly authentic finger movements, the playing of an actual rock guitar, complete with crowd sound effects and a backing band is what I had envisioned but could never quite duplicate in my childhood fantasies with merely a second-hand wardrobe and a Hasbro instrument. But when one has longed for so many years for such a vice as this, the addiction can be so great as to place the user in the hottest of water, the deepest of shit, the doggiest of houses with one’s spouse.
The list of my transgressions concerning the game includes such foibles as ignoring my baby daughter’s cries in favor of a high score, playing way beyond my son’s interest or participation (thus negating the very thin guise of “quality time”), and kicking my oldest daughter in the middle of a particularly challenging and entertaining performance. It wasn’t a kick, per se, more of a forceful nudge, but I learned, through a month-long exile from any mention of or participation in the game, that when my little girl approaches me for a hug, it is bad form to use my adult strength to knock her down, even if I am negotiating a rather tricky solo.
And so, with the introduction of Rock Band into my already growing repertoire of guitar-playing video games, the urge to play has grown ever greater, proportionate, unfortunately, to the scheming and extra work I must perform in order to keep my wife happy enough to allow my playing from time to time. She’s not fooled. She knows that it has nothing to do with enjoying some time with my son. What she may not understand, however, is a historically sad nerd’s need to rock and roll.
But after typing that last line, I must admit that she probably already knows what kind of dweeb she married. Gosh… what a nice lady.
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