August 22, 2026
A couple of days ago one of my past work buddies, Bill messaged me and invited me out to take in some local bands who were playing at the local video arcade. Because I hadn’t heard from the guy in a few weeks, I was just glad to discover that he was still alive! When you get to a certain age, such a topic is always on your mind. Bill’s a few years older than I am, and although he’s old enough to collect social security as well as Medicare, he chose not to follow me into the retirement world. When our Texas Instruments wafer fab closed its door, he just hopped across the parking lot and took a job with another wafer fab. Although I’m always up to hear live music, I was also curious to hear how things were going in his world.
The place where this musical and socializing event was all going down is a retro arcade that’s full of all those old famous games from the 1980’s and 90’s, and for twelve bucks you can stay there and play all day. Not only can you play pinball until your flipper fingers fall off, but there’s Pac-Man, Centipede, Donkey Kong, and a bunch more! Strangely enough, I’ve never seen a Pong game there. The place should add one just for the sake of retro video game authenticity!
I arrived an hour or so before the bands took the stage just so I could tweak my reflexes a bit by kicking some serious ass in Tekken, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, and a few other ‘kick butt to the death’ video games. Well, it didn’t take me long to remember how much I sucked at these games, and after getting beat to death a few times, Bill had wandered in.
While sipping on a Shiner Bock there was a little catching up talk with, “Have you seen so and so lately?” or “Talked to my old boss lately?” and “Hows’ the work life going?” However, before I could brag how my retirement investments were making way more than I had ever made while actually working, the first band plugged in. Although Bill’s grandson books the bands for these events, the kid had his own band opening. Bill had told me that the guy’s band and the arcade had gotten into some hot water because the band plays the occasional cover tune, and someone had recorded them on their phone. When this recording got uploaded to YouTube copyright laws were violated. However, as the band blasted into their set I can’t see how anyone could have understood enough of what they were playing to know if the band was playing a Misfit’s cover or trying to give an interpretation of mortar fire and exploding hand grenades!
I guess I could call this band screamo punk, and they certainly had enough energy to blow up the arcade into a regular scream fest! I had never seen a screamo band with a saxophone player! Perhaps I should have brought along my old trombone and joined in. Because of the death curdling screeches from the band’s singer I never once heard the saxophone, even though the guy was blowing away into a microphone. I’m sure my trombone playing would have fit right in. Like most screamo music, the only words to any of the songs I could understand was the occasional F bomb here and there. And that was pretty much the first band.
By the time the second band took the stage another old work buddy had shown up for the evening’s event. David is a guy we used to call “Dudie” at work because, as one lady at work put it, “He’s the dude!” And the name seemed to stick. David had put in over twenty years of work at the same place Bill and I had. The guy is far from retirement age though, and he had moved across the parking lot to work with Bill. With Bill and David working at the same place there was a lot of shop talk that I’m no longer a part of. Although I have no interest in jumping back into the work world, I always had a lot of fun talking about the good, the bad, and the ugly concerning the job. To be honest, I felt a little left out. I was also feeling a bit on the outs because I wasn’t dressed appropriately. Thinking I was going to a nerdy arcade, I had slipped on my Game of Thrones tee shirt. However, in my little group I was seeing shirts supporting bands like Pantera, the Misfits, and Danzig. I was basically the nerd at a rock show.
The next group was another screamo band, but their lead singer was screaming out the songs in Spanish, and my ten hours of college Spanish wasn’t helping me much in the interpretation. Considering I’ve seen two bands this year who screamed out their songs in nothing but Japanese, I probably shouldn’t object to a band screaming in Spanish, especially in Texas. By then the bass player from the first band had joined our little group and started chatting with Bill. Although I’ve seen this kid play in the past, I actually used to work with his grandmother. Okay, that sounds like something an old, retired guy would say. The kid revealed that somewhere during his band’s set he had moved too far away from his amp and became unplugged. To be truthful, he didn’t realize that he had become disconnected from his amp until after the set, and had no idea how long he had been unplugged. “Don’t worry,” Bill answered. “No one could hear the bass anyway.”
As I was deeply involved in a game of pinball some friend of David’s walked in and called me by my name. “Do I know him?” I whispered to Bill. Apparently, I did know him. All the video games, screamo music, and Shiner Bock was starting to take its toll on me. In my defense, the dude had grown a beard since I last saw him. Some other guy who knew David joined the group, and as I looked down, I noticed that he was walking around in the arcade barefooted. Walking around barefoot in an arcade/bar/screamo concert? The guy was braver than me.
Surprisingly, some decent looking video game players of the female persuasion had shown up for the evening. I realized this when I saw Daivd gawking at them. “Geez Dudie,” I wanted to say. “Can you try not to be quite so obvious? Feel free to roll your tongue back into your mouth.” However, my mind was suddenly turned back to the stage as the final band cranked up. Now these guys were actually playing something that resembled music. I’m not sure why the bass player felt the need to slip on an afro wig for the performance, but they had an interesting sound that tended to go a bit beyond the “scream until your vocal cords break” music style. Unfortunately, the band’s guitar broke! Or something like that happened which led to the bass player to say, “I think we’re done.”
And thus came another end to rockin’ the arcade. I bid David goodnight, and told Bill to say hello to my old boss if he talked to her. They were all getting ready for the next work week. As for me? I was just going home to reflect on my old job and all the people I used to work with. Wow! Now that sounds like such a ‘retired’ thing to do.
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