How Berkeley Can You Be?

I'm not really asking you that question. So don't worry. You don't have to be very Berkeley at all, if you don't want to. You may put the tie-dye down. That question is, actually, the name of an annual parade that was held today, a parade I and the family and friends have attended (though never marched in) for most of the past several years, including this morning.

I've lived in Berkeley since late 1979, when I moved up here from my hometown of Los Angeles to attend UC Berkeley. Being in Berkeley in '79 was a glorious thing--as the 70s were not quite over yet, either in terms of the literal calendar, obviously, but also in terms of spirit. My first year here, while perhaps not stellar in terms of my academic achievements, was something I look back on with great memories---probably because I had chosen not to study too hard. It's not really easy, especially on a hastily typed blog post, to capture in words just what was special about Berkeley back then, but what I remember most was it still being a place that felt almost innocent in its weirdness and hippie-ness and laissez-faire atmosphere. Even at places like the legendary and infamous Barrington Hall, where I was fortunate to attend (and survive) a few rather insane parties, there was an underlying innocence to it all that seems long gone now. Now, of course, "hippie" is a near derogatory term, and places like Telegraph Ave that once had a nice carnival-like atmosphere are now just kind of rundown and dirty and depressing. Tourists still flock there, for sure, but it's really just to gaze upon an ancient ruin and to laugh at it: The People's Republic of Berzerkeley.

I have a real love/hate relationship with this town. On the one hand, I still have enough of the oddball/iconoclast in me to not really be able to imagine living anywhere else. I like living in a place that the rest of the country thinks is weird. It's liberating to live in a place where a grown man (not me, honest) can ride down the street on a unicycle while wearing a pink leotard and hardly get a second glance. On the other hand, the self-righteousness of this place can just be insufferable and appalling at times, and is made doubly worse by the selfishness and rudeness of those who supposedly are "more concerned" than the rest of us. The bumper sticker I've always wanted to make and sell in Berkeley, as a perfect encapsulation of the local sentiment, is this:
"Save the whales....and fuck you!"

But on the day of the How Berkeley Can You Be? parade--my civic pride always returns in full force. Here the loons come out, and are celebrated. Here even the righteous make fun of themselves. And if this year's parade seemed a bit disappointingly tame (where were The Naked People? Where was the hemp float?), it still was a great gathering, with enough LOL and "only in Berkeley" moments to make me appreciate, once again, how nice it is, really, to live in a place that takes pride in being different.

So here ya go, a few pics for ya. Here's where I live. Here's what some of the people are like. And not all of them only dress this way on parade day.















My favorite guy.














No idea what is going on here.



















Protesting something or other.















I support this cause.














This one too.

My big regret, photo-opp wise, was missing "The Union of Concerned Sammy Hagar Imitators."
But just the fact that there was such a photo opp to miss is why, even when it pisses me off, which it does a lot, I still love this town.

I'm going mini-golfing!

Well, thus ends my first week at Electronic Arts. I am happy to report that I am still employed. Since I last checked in with you, I have now been granted a name plate on my cubicle, and a Sims coffee mug with my name engraved on it. I guess that makes me official.

I have now dined extensively at the EA Cafe---the highlight, I think, being yesterday's chicken chipotle quesadilla--and am looking forward to more corporate sponsored sustenance next week. And while one can be happy about the extremely low prices found at the candy/chips machine, the danger, of course, is that the low price = more frequent visits to said machine. Today's purchase was a bit of a nightmare: "Blazin' Buffalo and Ranch" Doritos. Actually, they were kinda yummy, but the problem was that they were too spicy, so that necessitated a trip back to the machines so I could buy yet another 25 cent Diet Coke. This is how they get you.

Other than the culinary delights, my work week went well, I think. I mean, I wasn't told not to come back on Monday, though I suppose I could still get that email over the weekend. I still did manage to get lost a couple more times since my last blog post, and also a bit confused. The most notable example of the latter was when I kept pushing against a glass door that was refusing to open, only to be informed by the security person that that, in fact, was a wall, and not a door, and that I might want to stop pushing it, pretty much immediately.

I still can't really tell you what I'm working on yet, so I'm sorry about that. But I am definitely having fun, and am finding that if there is a bunch of stuff that I still need to get my head around, and that I can't much contribute to yet, there are other aspects that I'm feeling that I can, in fact, have an impact, and maybe not an entirely negative one. As far as first weeks go, I guess we'll call it a good one. I know it felt that way to me. Despite the late night jitters.

And now? Now I am off to play minigolf. Not that I am particularly into that activity. But this is what my friend Shawn Elliott has chosen to do for his going away party from Ziff Davis. And would I miss this party? No I would not. So as I power down my PC here at Electronic Arts, officially ending my first week in my new life, I am off to see another of my beloved colleagues heading off and out of the gaming press. I'm looking forward to seeing my old 1up pals again. I may be on the other side of the fence now, but the bond of those who once scrounged for spoons together never ends.

Happy Friday everyone!

Spoons.

Three days in, and I'm not fired yet! Ha ha! I have fooled them!

After one day of utter bewilderment (Monday), followed by another day of slightly-less utter bewilderment (Tuesday), today felt like almost kinda/sorta a real day of work. Not that I did anything per se. But on the other hand, I didn't do nothing, either. That is to say, while I couldn't stand in front of a court of law and cite a specific bullet-pointed list of acccomplishments, I did in fact shake off at least part of my newbie haze and dig into some of the things around me. I attended a few meetings, and if my contributions weren't exactly brilliant or earth shattering, I think, at least, they weren't totally nonsensical and embarrassing. For example, when someone asked for an opinion of a certain Flash game we were looking at, I did not reply something like, "I like to wear ladies' girdles!"

As a place to work, EA continues to be pretty amazing. Especially coming from a place that had so little money, they actually sent out an email at one point telling us they were no longer providing plastic forks and spoons for us, so would we please bring our own. Here there are a lot of spoons. I could probably take three or four at once if I wanted to, and no one would blink. In fact, I do kind of still have a Depression-era hoarding instinct going on here, due to the trauma of the previous job. Like, when we used to go out to eat, if we saw a bin with plastic spoons, one of us would whisper urgently "THEY HAVE SPOONS HERE---GRAB SOME", and we'd furtively sneak as many out as we could. Anyone who has parents or grandparents who lived through economic hardship knows that people don't get over such hardship right away.

All of which is to explain why I ended up sitting in the cold, sterile EA Security room late this afternoon, with white plastic spoons bulging out of all my pockets, under each arm, and full to the brim in my backpack. Apparently I had been spotted by some nosey do-gooder, and a phone call was made. When I tried to explain myself, I muttered, between tears, something about liking soup, and what if there's an earthquake, and I'm sorry, and I thought I heard someone speaking German. Or maybe none of that happened at all. It's really hard to say. It's still so surreal that I'm even here, working on games, not writing about games, that my whole sense of reality has been twisted out of shape.

But if that's so, then what is this Hefty bag full of forks doing in my cube?

My first week continues apace.

Wow, am I tired.

So THAT'S what it's like to have a first day on the job as a new guy. I'm exhausted--and I didn't even do anything. Plus, just as I suspected, I couldn't find the bathroom when I needed it. Fortunately, there was no soiling of pants involved. Sure, I hopped around a little, whistled loudly as a way to stem the tide, focused on baseball scores, and did the bending-over-with-my legs-crossed-while-holding-my-breath thing. But I'm sure no one noticed. Anyway, someone did finally take pity on me, and pointed me in the right direction. Unfortunately, I only made it as far as the sink. Let's hope EA doesn't have security cameras in the men's room. Note to EA security: just kidding. No need to review the tape. Anyway that guy just looks like me.

Other than that, I don't have much to report yet. My new co-workers are great--as I suspected they would be. Sodas are 25 cents. There is supposedly a profanity jar, which I didn't see, but, if it really exists, is going to contain a lot of my money that would otherwise be going to sodas. I have two monitors, which means I can play Peggle on one screen while monitoring my progress in Dungeons and Dragons Tiny Adventures on the other. I ate two tacos from a taco bar. I won a copy of The Orange Box PC for successfully answering a trivia question in the orientation. I ordered my iPhone. I opened my new email inbox and found 82 messages waiting for me. I ate two cookies. I received an EA coffee mug. I wrote my name on a card.

Certainly, the days ahead are going to be a bit more momentous and productive, in terms of actual work accomplished. But I don't know if many more days are going to be as exhausting as this one.

Holy shit: I'm the new guy.

I better get some rest.

Standing on the verge of getting it on.

Hoo boy. Tomorrow is the day. The transfer of my soul will be complete.

First Ziff Davis had it, for 17 years, then I had a week of being a Man Without A Corporation, and now tomorrow the deed will belong to Electronic Arts, my new masters for however long I make it there. Which hopefully will be longer than one day.

I have no idea how my first day as an Associate Producer is going to be, after spending all these years as a journalist. We shall see. Am I nervous? Why, yes, I am. Am I excited? Yes--more than the nervous part. It's really not often that one gets a chance to start over and plunge into something new...and I'm grateful for the opportunity. So now I have to not screw it up.

With this in mind, and without knowing what to expect, or not, I have made a small list of what not to do tomorrow, in the interest of job security:

1) Show up drunk.
2) Ask if my new machine comes with Peggle, and if not, can I please install it ASAP.
3) Casually observe that I sure am bored!
4) Ask if I can leave early so I can stop by the head shop on Telegraph in Berkeley before it closes.
5) Strip to my boxers and run through the EA hallways yelling, "I'M IN THE GAME!"
6) March into one of the executive's offices and ask what the fuck is up with the DRM in Spore.
7) Try to break my record for loudest belch ever.
8) Tell my new boss to be quiet because I'm trying to play Word Challenge on FaceBook.
9) Fall asleep.
10) Ride my new motorcycle into the EA Cafe and yell, "WHICH ONE OF YOU BITCHES WANTS TO GO FOR A RIDE?"

People often wonder how I lasted at Ziff Davis for 17 years. It is because of lists like this one. You set goals, and then you keep them. This is the secret to my success. Feel free to copy and paste this for use in your own life.

And wish me luck for tomorrow!

Morons at museums.

Every time I am out in a public place, I am reminded once again that I hate humanity. Not everyone, of course. Certainly not you people. And my friends and family. But as a species, I believe that, mostly, we kind of suck, especially when it comes to being in public spaces together. Like movies. Or on the road. Or, like today--at the museum.

Today, in celebration of my last weekday without any work responsibility (I start at EA on Monday), The Missus and I hopped on my new motorcycle and ventured over to the DeYoung
Museum in San Francisco to check out an exhibit by Dale Chihuly, an extraordinary glassblower, but also referred to, by a friend of mine, who experienced this first-hand when a waitress many years back, as "the one-eyed no-tipping freak." But hey, I wasn't there to serve him food, so I didn't care about that part. His artwork was, in fact, incredible. Like, check this shit out:












Actually, I shouldn't call it "shit." That's all glass. It may be hard to see how cool this is in the little photo, but trust me, it's really cool. So, okay, the exhibit was astounding. It reminds us, as do all great art exhibits, how incredibly talented and visionary certain humans are, while the rest of us are sitting on our duffs watching Project Runway. I mean this in the best way possible, so no reason for us to mope. We need our geniuses. Plus, some of them are lousy tippers. So fuck them anyway.

But the real point of this blog is what I said up top: I hate humanity. Because, here's the thing: People--especially grownups--do not know how to behave in public. Did it matter that there was a guard in every single one of the 11 rooms of the exhibit saying over and over and over "NO FLASH PICTURES?" No, apparently it did not. Because even 11 rooms later, the same assholes were still taking flash pictures. One guy even argued the point after getting yelled at. "I don't see why not!" Here's why not: SHUT THE FUCK UP. That's why not. You don't get to make the rules, okay? At your house, people can take flash pictures if you say so. Not here. And you were told that 10 rooms ago. Plus, all the photo taking, even without the flash, was driving me crazy. Some people were almost literally seeing the exhibit through their viewfinder, barely looking up to actually see the artwork that they had paid to see right in front of their noses. And you know what? None of those pictures you're taking are going to be one-tenth as good as the photos you can buy right in the store on your way out. If you must have pictures of them. Which I also don't understand.

Another gripe: Must you talk at full volume all the way through the exhibit? Do I really have to hear your uninformed, baseless pontificating about something you clearly know nothing about? "Clearly Chihuly must have been obsessed with Monet at some point!" O RLY? Based on what? What are you even talking about? Because they both use color? Or is Monet just the one artist you heard of, so you think if you say that out loud we'll all believe you know what you're saying? And even if you do happen to be an art historian of 30 years with a specialization in Chihuly And His Connection To Monet, I don't want to hear it right now, mmmmkay? I'll download your lecture on iTunes if forced to at gunpoint. All I want to do is look at the art and form my own opinions. Is that too much to ask?

Finally, and I say this with as much love and compassion as I can muster: Please shower and lose weight. I don't want to go on about this point. Maybe I just happened to show up on special Fat and Smelly Person Discount Day. "Over 400 pounds? Smell like week-old salmon! Come on in!"

Now having said all this, let me clarify that I actually had a good time. The DeYoung museum is beautiful. The artwork was fantastic. I think it's clear that Chihuly has some kind of affinity for Monet. And the motorcycle ride, both there and back, was fan-freakin-tastic. This new bike is so much bigger and badassier than anything I've ridden before, it's like I've had my motorcycle Bar Mitzvah and am now A Man. And like many a man before me, I think what is in order at this juncture in time, with this blog post now coming to a close, is a nice tall beer.

So, cheers, and happy Friday everyone!

Shawn Elliott

So, by now, 1up.com readers and listeners of GFW Radio and other assorted remnants of humanity have heard the big news: Shawn Elliott is leaving 1up.com to go work with Ken Levine over at 2K Boston. To which we here at Greenspeak Central have one important, official comment: Right the fuck on! Ken Levine is a hilarious, genius god of game design...and since Shawn Elliott is a hilarious, genius god of a journalist, well, this is truly a partnership of titans. Those (rightly) bemoaning the loss of Shawn's voice on the podcast and website should buck up knowing that there is NO question--none--that Shawn's influence will be bright and strong over at 2K Boston.

Because here's the thing about Shawn Elliott: He makes everyone around him do better work.

My experience working with Shawn for years was not unlike the experience that readers/listeners get when encountering him: I never knew what I would get on a day-to-day basis. Was it going to be hilarious, goofball, cut-up Shawn, the immature prankster who made me eat gross candy? Or was it going to be thoughtful, analytical, almost stubbornly honest Shawn who *demanded* higher quality and harder work out of everyone he worked with? The truth is--usually it was both, often within minutes or seconds of each other. You heard that dichotomy every week on our podcast. He was both class clown and most serious guy in the room.

Recently, he got annoyed at the notion that I had taken over the role of Sean Molloy as the one to "keep Shawn on track", and I agreed with him that he was right to be annoyed. I mean, yes, he definitely could talk, and sometimes, yes, I would try to do the host thing of saying, "Okay, in other news...."---but more often than not, Shawn was ALSO the guy who had specific agendas for the podcast. HE was the one who would come down saying, "Let's not forget to talk about Far Cry 2 this week." Or: "Could you assholes play some PC games this week please, so I'm not the only one talking about them again?" He cared *deeply* about the quality of GFW Radio every single week, and would get annoyed or frustrated if he felt it wasn't going well. I cared a lot, too, of course! This was my baby, too, and Sean Molloy's and Ryan's too. But, as I've mentioned before, I had more of a laid-back, "let's just see what happens" approach, which served us well MOST of the time, but could backfire on weeks when we weren't really on our game. And Shawn rightly felt like some structure, some specific topics, were in order on some weeks, rather than my hippiesque, lazy desire to just bullshit. Again, the point is: He made us try harder, he made us work harder, his commitment to quality never flagged, not once, ever, in all the time I've known him.

And let's not forget he is a writer, too. My first contact with Shawn was when he did a couple freelance articles for CGW after EGM laid him off a few years ago. When I read these first articles, I couldn't believe it. Here was a guy who could write about games in a way that made you really think, who never approached a lead paragraph the way anyone else would, who clearly thought a LOT about what he was going to say before he ever started typing. Sometimes you'd go into a Shawn article thinking, "What the heck is he getting at here?" at first--only to realize a few sentences or paragraphs in that he knew exactly what he was doing, and that he is making you think about something relatively unimportant in life---a first-person shooter, for example--with the kind of insight normally reserved for "higher" works of art. And, of course, they deserve this kind of analysis. It's just that almost no one in this entire industry ever does it. This is why Shawn Elliott was so important, and so influential, and so loved by so many people, including me, in the gaming industry.

And let's not forget prankster Shawn--not that any of us ever could. I don't need to do a Chris Farley Show thing here of recounting his best moments and saying how awesome they were. You can Google or YouTube some of them. But I will say that I can't tell you the number of times those of us in the room with him (most recently on last week's 1up FM) had to literally take off our headsets and stifle ourselves because we were laughing so hard at what he was saying. Some folks didn't appreciate or objected to his "Ralphie" griefing stories/videos, but what I personally loved about them--and what I knew was his point of those all along--was the way in which he exposed the *real* griefers online--the bullies, bigots, and jerks who would come out of the woodwork to dogpile on him because they (wrongly) perceived him to be someone they could pick on. It was, quite often, a subversive work of genius. Sometimes, yeah, it was immature and ridiculous, too. But again, that's Shawn. And I'll take an erratic genius, sometimes teetering on the brink between genius and stupidity, over yet another bland, ineffective, unthinking, unchallenging, untalented "web journalist" any fuggin' day of the week.

Like me, and Sean Molloy, and Ryan, Shawn was devasted by the loss of our magazine. The four of us had achieved a perfect bond of creativity and diverse talent, working with each other to bring out the best in each other, to let each of us play to our strengths to make a product we felt extremely proud of. The fact that Ziff Davis kept us all on, rather than laying us off, when the magazine close really spoke volumes. Companies don't normally do this--keep an editorial staff around when the mag itself has been totally shut down. So, ya know, it beat being out of work. But it wasn't the same for us, even with the weekly podcast to bring us back in the same room together. And the impact of this loss kept persisting. Sean is at Blizzard now, I'm at EA, and Shawn is at 2K Boston....and hopefully all of us will find ourselves once again in creative dream teams like the one we shared together at 1up.com. And Ryan Scott? Watch for this guy to take over everything one day. Both at Ziff and maybe the world. That is my dream for him, and my challenge to him.

But this post is about Shawn. A brilliant guy, a fearless guy, a guy who never let me off the hook for anything and for which I was grateful every single day. A ringleader of clowns (there's no Max Chill or Chuff without Shawn to bring them into the fold). A beacon of intelligence in an industry rampant with idiocy. Shawn has always been destined for greater things, and this is proof of this. So we can all mourn the loss of his voice in the public arena for now, because it is a one-of-a-kind, hilarious and insightful voice. But, more important, let's be happy for the man himself, who is getting a rare opportunity in life to work directly with a smart, important designer also at the top of his game right now. Because this kind of partnership means--even if we don't get to see the results right away--that we all win.

Good luck, Shawn. You've earned this. And should there be an opportunity for Brodeo 2, or any other opportunity to mix it up with you ever again, let me know. Because I am all in.

--Jeff