Richard Tuck, the founder of Playland-not-at-the-Beach, passed away on
Tuesday.

As a few of you know, Richard encouraged me to run my first tournament
last February.  He supported the local scene in so many ways and for
so many different kinds of people. Seeing three-year-olds playing
pinball next to 75-year old grandmothers wasn’t some occasional kodak
moment at Playland, but the norm.  Richard could reach anybody.

I know most of you didn’t really know him, but Richard was a truly
rare guy.  He saw the world for what it is and understood it well.  He
was neither oblivious nor self-deluded about the negative and the
cynical.  He just chose not to accept it and instead mobilize the
positive.  And he did it with tremendous skill, heart, tenacity and
business savvy.

He understood more than anyone I know in the arcade business that fun
is not about sticking a bunch of games in a room.  Fun is about
people.

Richard has a lot of friends.  I was not a close friend of Richard, I
was probably tier three or four, yet he had a big impact on me.  I
will miss him.

In this post I will document crimes against humanity pinball wizard karaoke.

And I don’t mean the good kind.  Let’s get rolling.

Contestant 1 starts off bad but she’s just warmin’ up.  At 1:30 she fires the afterburners and leaves sanity quickly shrinking in the rear view mirror.  My ears literally leapt off my head and said, “oh HELL no.”  I had to chase them into the bathroom where they were cleaning themselves off in the toilet.

Contestant 2, James Earl Jones’ evil twin, strains out Wizard as if he’s performing open heart surgery while someone simultaneously has a gun trained on him from just off camera.

Contestant 3 belts out this winning rendition while admitting he’s totally hammered.  Classic comment right at the end.  “I think I sound pretty f-in’ cool when I’m drunk.”  He’s just drunk enough for the ultimate bad karaoke but not so drunk that he can’t figure out how to post it on the internet.  Scientists tell us this improbable balancing of events only occurs once in 500 years, with 99.999999999% of all others just waking up covered in their own pee and deleting the video evidence right away.

She is the Bride of Pinbot after all!

Larger pics on the photographer’s page here.

DON’T Forget!  Tournament at Pin a Go Go on May 14th in Dixon, near Sacramento.

http://pinagogo.com/tournament.php for details!

I’m not quite sure how but I managed to roll a Pinbot and finished with 15M to take a Grand Champ spot for the first and probably only time in my life from Neil Shatz. Generally if you take a high score off Neil he’ll win it back pretty fast and by a very large margin.  So there’s a good chance I’ll be posting “Neil pounded my score into the dirt” in the not-too-distant future. 

On Saturday night around 60 people met up at Workshop SF for a transbay pinball pub crawl.  I had a feeling this was going to be slightly insane so I signed up, and I’m glad I did.  It was a fun time, the weather on both sides of the bay was great and I only had to drive around the block three times to find a parking spot in the city.

As Mark, Teresa and Molly demonstrate above, the first order of business was to drink and play some Medieval Madness at Workshop.  There was lots of PBR, which was a good thing because we also got this “not for sale” test market swill to drink.

It was called “Blast” and it was a fruity malt beverage designed, I think, by prison inmates.  It was 12% alcohol and 150% regret by volume.  I tried the nuclear blue-colored variety and it started with an otter pop sugary-sweetness with an aftertaste like expired Robitussin.

The event organizers spelled out the evening’s shenanigans. First we were headed for Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda and then back to SF to a couple bars.  A pinball skills thing was offered and a mini-tournament announced.  We all got grab bags with beer coozies.

Many innocent beers were killed to make this pinball trophy.  Where is the justice?

We all got on a yellow school bus circa 1978 and prayed to our respective deities as the bus pulled away from the curb into San Francisco traffic.  Fortunately there is no pinball at Coit Tower.

Here’s Molly with her awesome Workshop-supplied beer coozie and “spare ammo” in her giant purse/emergency parachute, on the way to the pinball museum.  Unfortunately, she made a critical error in judgment by also grabbing a bottle of the re-themed Bum Wine known as Blast.

The group piled into Pacific Pinball Museum for a few hours and the tournaments got started.  It was a packed house and soon the room with all the modern games was butts to nuts.  I signed up for the expert tournament, which was on a really tough Addams Family, and put up a decent score to make it to the next round.

Back on the bus to SF around midnight we played pinball bingo.  I left my jacket and goody bag which contained my bingo card in the Museum so no bingo for me.

The night was still fairly young yet throughout the crowd I could hear the “I love you, man” bromance already ensuing, which indicated the average BAC of the bus was around 4 times the legal limit.  Spontaneous group performances of Tiny Dancer and Teenage Wasteland broke out.  The bus’ 7-watt speakers were pushed to their limit as they struggled to keep pace.  Thankfully, nobody was inspired to do a pinball freestyle rap.

I got bumpers I got balls

I got loves for y’alls.

Yeah.

Next stop was Lucky 13.  The crowd was insane but manageable.  I headed up to the loft for a game of World Cup Soccer for round 2 of the tournament.

I haven’t played WCS in awhile and I was starting to feel the booze and couldn’t remember the rules. It was too damn loud for anyone to really give me pointers.  The game was in janky shape overall and the flippers were sticky.  With what?  I don’t ask, and don’t recommend you ponder it too long either.

So forget subtlety here.  This is smash mouth bar pinball.  Hell yeah!  The tilt was pretty loose so I employed my “throw it around like a cheap prostitute” strategy to rack up around 500M and a trip to the last round.  Then we used our spare time to get in a few casual and split flipper games.

Last stop was Elbo Room and the place was freaking packed.  There was a line out front and it was already 1 AM so a few people decided to bang out.  I still had to play my final game so I muscled through the crowd to the pinball room.  Somehow there was confusion at the bar and I ended up with a free whiskey coke on the way.

Tim, Andrei (above) and I got a game of the craptastically quirky Viper Night Driving before I had to play my final game.  Tim and Andrei are top-ranked tournament veterans but played split-flipper (one guy on each flipper) to give us mere mortals a chance.

The final game was on Simpsons Pinball Party.  The Garage Door, a main feature of the game, was busted and about the only thing I know on the game is to shoot the Garage to start modes, so what to do?  After a couple slap saves with no warnings it was clear the tilt was also super loose so I went for Itchy and Scratchy Multiball.  Normally that’s dangerous but since I could throw the game around a bit to save bad shots it worked out and I won the game and the tournament with it.

After my win, amid congrats from fellow players, I turned back to my drink but someone had downed it.

Easy come, easy go.

We got the word the bus was leaving soon so we headed back out to find it surrounded by cops.  The story I got was that some dude who was thwacked out of his head insisted that since it was a bus he had a right to get on it, and got pretty non-happy when he was denied.  He threw his beer bottle at the bus and cracked the lexan windshield, right in front of the Mission Street Police station.

I’m pretty sure that’s cigarette smoke but it might also be souls like near the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Anyway, the cops did their thing and then the awards ceremony took place.  Pinball enthusiasts, homeless people, drunk bar-goers and police officers were witness to the magnanimous occasion.  All in all it was a well-attended awards ceremony.

Above, myself and the runner up pose for a pic during the improptu award ceremony in front of the bus/crime scene.

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Even SFPD was excited and asked what the occasion was.  I posed for a picture with the officer and my trophy.  I asked one of the cops if he knew that pinball used to be illegal and he said he didn’t know that.  I took home the above trophy, a denim Workshop pinball bag and sweatshirt, and The Who’s Tommy record.

It was a fun time with lots of really cool people and I hope they think about doing it again.  I think they could add some venues that aren’t nearly so insanely crowded and with more games for people to play, but this was a great first effort with lots of enthusiasm.

For those that attended and had a good time, I’m putting on a pinball tournament at Pin a Go Go on May 14th for players of all skill levels.  Hope to see you all again.

$45. Registration required: http://www.workshopsf.org/?page_id=733

Whether you are just learning to master the multi-ball, or you’ve got your initials emblazoned on many a pinball game backglass, the Workshop Pinball Pub Crawl will give you ample opportunity to sharpen or show off your skills on the bumpers and flippers!

Pre-game begins at 7 p.m. at Workshop for open pinball play and beverages by PBR. Then we will board the Blast Bus and trek to Lucky Ju Ju in Alameda, the mecca of pinball machines new and old. After checking out a demo with one of our on-hand pinball wizards, start practicing up on one of Lucky Ju Ju’s many machines. Once your wrists are feeling limber, participate in the grand pinball tournament that will begin at Lucky Ju Ju and span the remaining stops on the pub crawl. While we can’t reveal the final two stops just yet, trust that they are pinball friendly and will certainly advance your ability of avoiding the dreaded tilt. Blast Bus jams from the Xanadu Rock collection of DJ Rick Moranis will keep the bus rolling while you dig into your Workshop pinball giveaway packs. Prizes will be awarded by Workshop and PBR for tournament victors as well as lucky winners of the Pinball Pub Crawl bracket pool.

SO GET THOSE SHOOTER FINGERS READY!!

The quickie details:
Location: Workshop – 1798 McAllister Street @ Baker
Time: 7:00pm (bus leaves at 8pm)
Cost: $45 – includes transportation on the Blast Bus, complimentary beverages from PBR, entry into Lucky Ju Ju, Workshop Pinball Prize Pack, and other goodies.
What to bring: If you have Wooderson’s shirt from Dazed and Confused, bring that. Otherwise…just bring yourself.

Walkthrough of PAPA

Some competitive play

Interview with Bowen Kerins, Tournament Director