Pink Floyd shows me Pong; wish you were there | Mann Overboard

Bill Mann
Posted 3/31/23

Hard to believe video games have recently turned 50.

Thank Atari, for the very first one, Pong.

I remember well the first time I saw that pioneering game.

This was late 1972. I was in …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

E-mail
Password
Log in

Pink Floyd shows me Pong; wish you were there | Mann Overboard

Posted

Hard to believe video games have recently turned 50.

Thank Atari, for the very first one, Pong.

I remember well the first time I saw that pioneering game.

This was late 1972. I was in — namedrop alert! — the dressing room of Pink Floyd. They’d just released “Dark Side of the Moon” and were on a tour stop in Montreal, where I was rock critic of the morning daily.

One band member, drummer Nick Mason, was over in a corner, looking at a TV screen with a rectangular object bouncing around on it.

I was curious, then became transfixed. Forget interviewing Roger Waters or Dave Gilmour. I just wanted to watch Mason playing something he called Pong. For the next half hour I watched him play. (I’d probably smoked dope, too, and that helped.)

Afterward, I was determined to get and play Pong at home, since I obviously had plenty of cannabinated time on my hands. I looked around and finally located a Pong game set.

This is also the 50th anniversary of the blockbuster Pink Floyd “Moon” album. Makes one feel old.

Our son, born shortly after, is named Floyd. And no, we didn’t name him after the band. (It was my late brother’s idea.)

— Bee yond bee lief?: Speaking of addictive games, it’s not surprising that Seattle braniac and “Jeopardy!” host Ken Jennings is, like my wife and me, a regular player of The New York Times’ Spelling Bee. Diamond Point resident Jennings Sr. tells me he doesn’t know if his son has achieved a perfect Queen Bee score in the game — but I bet he has. Our son Floyd and his wife, amazingly, get every Bee word every day.

One obscure Spelling Bee word we’d never heard of: Carioca. Its meaning? Anything having to do with the city of Rio. Told you it was obscure.

Predictably, Diamond Point resident Jennings Sr. knew that word. The TV host’s also-brainy father adds: “Back around 2005 when he was still remembered for his long Jeopardy! winning streak, Ken was invited to speak at the NY Times Crossword Puzzle Competition and award the prizes. He thought that while he was there, he might as well enter the Rookie competition for first-time competitors. He took first place in the Rookie division and ended up in the awkward position of having to give himself an award.” Quite the intellectually formidable family.

— Every time I go to Jefferson Healthcare and smell enticing aromas originating from just around the corner, I wonder when the long-shuttered cafeteria, domain of Chef Arran Stark, will reopen to us civilians.

So I emailed hospital CEO Mike Glenn, who responded: “We’re trying to figure that out! To make matters worse, we’ll be shutting/tearing down the cafeteria end of summer to make way for the new building, but hopefully we’ll be able to open it to the public for a few months before the wrecking ball. We’ll keep you posted.”

This fall, meals for the hospital staff will be produced off-site.

— San Francisco comic Will Durst jokes, “The drunks in San Francisco are earthquake-conscious. They sleep in doorways.”

I was thinking of that line while reading The Seattle Times’ recent Page One story about how many unreinforced-masonry buildings there are in that city, quoting engineers and seismologists who warned about how all these non-retrofitted buildings could be deadly when the Big One hits.

I may be opening the proverbial can of worms here, but I’d guess many of PT’s most charming and historical buildings are probably not retrofitted. I know … retrofitting isn’t cheap.

This Month’s Quality-Viewing Tip: Check out Netflix’ funny British mockumentary “Cunk on Earth,” a clever takeoff on the Kenneth Clark/Richard Attenborough approach to history. Philomena Cunk (Diane Morgan) soberly asks academics clueless questions like, “Was the invention of writing a significant development, or more of a flash in the pan?” Definitely worth a look.

— Finally, humorist Paul Rudnick writes this about Commander Bonespurs’ use of social media: “Trump’s ALL CAPS tweets are so shrill they boil down to: EVEN IF NOBODY CAME TO MY BIRTHDAY PARTY IT WAS THE BEST PARTY EVER — I’M BETTER THAN YOU BECAUSE WE HAVE A POOL.”

(Once Pong-obsessed PT humorist Bill Mann can usually be reached at Newsmann9@gmail.com.)