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It all started on Saturday morning. For nearly a week, I'd been planning on seeing Shigeru Miyamoto at the Nintendo World store. I mean, come on. Unless you're 10 years old and don't remember the days of the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) you know the impact that Shigeru Miyamoto has had in the world of video games. Super Mario Brothers? His idea. The Legend of Zelda? Him, too. Metroid? Came from his genius mind.
That's right. Bow to your master.
He was supposed to be there to sign stuff for the first 200 guests on Sunday. So, anyway, I pretty much decided that no one or nothing was going to stop me from seeing Mr. GameBoy himself. I had it in my head that I'd be on the line at 6 a.m. Sunday morning. I'd be the first in line, heh. Confident in my stance, I strolled into the Nintendo World store that Saturday morning at 10 a.m. and browsed around the store. Upstaris was the Nintendo Museum, where one can trace the technological advancements of Nintendo and its consoles throughout the year. They had wireless controllers back in the 80s. The 80s! But I digress... One of the store employees came up to me and handed me one of those new little GameBy Mini things. I played The Legend of Zelda: The Minis Cap for about fifteen minutes. The guy even walked off and paid me no mind. I could have ran out with the thing. But I didn't. I sat there and was amazed at how weird the
little thing felt in my hands. Anyway, the guy comes back and asks me, "So, are you planning to see Mr. Miyamoto tomorrow?" And I'm like, "Of course! I'll be here at 6 a.m.!" And then he takes me to the huge window, in place of where a wall should be, and points to a guy outside. "See him?" he asks, pointing to a guy in a white T-shirt and a black hat. "He's been here since Friday morning, waiting to see Mr. Miyamoto. And he came halfway across the country to do it." That's when I knew waiting until Sunday was out of the question. At 11 am, I
immediately headed home and called Erica.
Me: "Erica, I'm going to ask you for the single biggest favor of my life."
Erica: "What is it?"
Me: "You have to come with me downtown and break night with me there."
Erica: "Break night downtown? For what?"
Me: "You know The Legend of Zelda, right?"
Erica: "Of course, that's my favorite game."
Me: "Well, the guy who made that game is going to be there."
Erica: "When do we leave?"
Now, Erica confessed to me that she didn't think I was telling the truth. She thought that maybe we were going to break night downtown, but she didn't believe we'd be camping out in front of the Nintendo World store to meet Shigeru Miyamoto. But when she came over and saw that I had a cooler packed with water bottles and sadwiches and two bags with a pillow, a blanket, and a sweater, she figured something was up. But she still wasn't convinced he'd be there. So we prepared ourselves and headed down to the Nintendo World store at 18:30 and
got there at 19:00. By the time we got there, 40 people were already waiting across the street from the store. We quickly established ourselves and started getting to know each other. And I started handing out nicknames.
First, there was a guy I called King. He was the one who waited for two days and came from half the country away to meet Mr. Miyamoto. He was a young guy, maybe my age, dark skin, really quiet. He was shy and didn't speak much.
Then, there was The General. Tall, slightly overweight white guy with orange hair and a green shirt. He had a tattoo of Mario on his right shoulder. The General had a bit of an attitude and commanded everyone around, as if we were all his soldiers. But he always did whatever King said. The General said he told his boss he had to go on a religious pilgramage to see his Messiah. When the boss asked what the heck he was talking about, The General said he wouldn't understand. So his boss said, "Don't be surprised if you don't have a job by
Monday." And The General said he didn't care. Hence, The General was fired for his drive to see Mr. Miyamoto.
Also, there was Harlem. He was a tall, maybe 6 feet, 5 inches, olive-skinned guy with a narrow face and huge eyes. Kind of looked like he belonged in the assylum. He was Dominican, and thus, incredibly loud without reason. He was eccentric in everything he did, including hurling his Nintendo DS into the air and drop on the ground as well as letting it get run over by passing taxis on the floor several times to prove a point: The thing was so well-made that it couldn't break. He pointed to some guy in the crowd thumbing away at his PSP and challenged him to do the same. The guy refused. And Harlem declared his victory. I called him Harlem because that's where he said he lived. He was on vacation on a tropical island when a relative told him that Mr. Miyamoto would be in New York. He left vacation five days early for the chance to meet him.
Finally, there was The Negotiator. He was a computer geek who wore a floppy disk around his neck like a necklace. He actually pulled apart an old Nintendo cartridge, removed the chip, and reprogrammed it to play remixes of old Nintendo theme songs when put into a working NES. I'll tell you why we gave him that name in a little bit.
Although Erica and I were pretty low in the number ranking (we were numbers 30 and 31 to arrive, according to The General), I decided that I didn't like those numbers and wanted them to be elevated as soon as possible. So what did I do? What every good soldier does to get ahead. Kiss some a**. I dived right into the First 10, the first ten people to arrive at the Nintendo World store to wait for Mr. Miyamoto. I talked to them in their native language: Nintendo. I brought up nostalgia and conjured memories such as, "Remember when a game didn't work, and you had to blow into the cartridge to make it work?" and "Remember when you had to turn your Nintendo upside down?" and "The Shinobi code!" After that, I
pointed out that I was wearing a Link pin as my earring, and had a Triforce shirt on. Whoever was #11 was imediately demoted and Erica and I were given our new ranks at 11 and 12. Sweet.
At around 19:45, another group of about 20 fans gathered on the opposite side of the street, determined to rush into the store when the time came. King and The General talked to The Negotiator and sent him off to discuss the terms with who we came to call The Others. They sent him back to our camp with a message: we don't give a s**t if you were here first. Now that pissed us off. Some suggested complaining to the guards. Some, like myself, suggested whupping some a**. But King whispered something to The General, and, before we knew it, we had split up into two separate groups of 25. We stood, side by side, five people across, five people down. We had separated into units! This sense of organization somehow spooked The Others, and after The Negotiator was sent out to talk to them again, they agreed to join our ranks. And we immediately sent them to the back of the line.
At 20:00, the security guards let us cross the street and get onto the sidewalk. They began putting up the barricades and from there, we immediately set camp. Some people even brought chairs and sleeping bags. I draped my blanket over our spot on the floor, and Erica and I were conveniently situated beside a tree and directly across from the sushi place where I buy all my pocky. At 22:00, the security guards came down the line and handed out hot pizza, cold bottles of water, and blue Nintendo World wristbands. Only the people with wristbands would get to meet Mr. Miyamoto. Once everyone put on their wristbands,
the party was on.
Erica turned on her radio, first to techno music. Everyone pulled out their Nintendo DS and there was a massive multi-player party going on. People went
head-to-head in versus modes, or chatted with people further away with the wireless connection. And when everone got tired of that, we started wandering up and down the emtpy streets, or walking down the line to see what other people were up to. By midnight, the crowd had already grown to 100 people. Thankfully, a small variety store had stayed open throughout the night and let us use their bathroom whenever we needed to. I don't think anyone fully slept that night. We were all going up and down talking about games and other things, listening to
music, and every hour on the hour, more security guards game with pizza. I spotted this one guy with a Minish Cap that he knitted himself. Yes, he was wearing the Minish Cap from the new Legend of Zelda
game. There were also tons of people wearing Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, or Wario hats. And there was even one girl who made her own Master Sword and Master shield to have signed by Mr. Miyamoto. It was unusually cold that night, but maybe 99% of the people there didn't notice. We were too busy laughing, head-banging to heavy metal, raving to techno, and stuffing our faces with pizza
to notice. Hell, I didn't even notice when dawn came. All I remember was that, all of a sudden, it was 9 a.m. and I had a cup of hot chocolate in my hand.
Two hours until Mr. Miyamoto would arrive.
At 10:30, the security guards came back around and told us to get ready. We packed all of our things into our bags and I felt an immediate adrenaline rush. So close... He was so close by. He was probably already in the building... Probably sitting at the signing table... probably breathing the same air as me! Suddenly, I
really had to go to the bathroom! But I didn't want to go with the possibility of the line moving early and someone cutting me in line. But I couldn't very well
piss my pants in front of the Father of Gaming! I tell Erica to watch my stuff and guard my space in the line with her very life if she must. As I'm running
down the street (and when wearing tons of leather, spikes, and bondage pants, that is no easy task) I noticed that the line has gotten to far beyond 200 people. I used the bathroom, exited the store, and found that the line had wrapped around the block and stretched about five more blocks down. At 10:30 am, around 5,000 people were on line to meet Mr. Miyamoto. And I was one of the lucky 200 to actually get the chance. As soon as I get back on the line, it starts moving again. Erica and I have our bags searched and we head inside the store. This was it. Mr.
Miyamoto was upstairs. I took out my sketchbook, turned it to a blank page, and practiced my speech. As we followed the line going up the stairs, I heard Harlem
speaking.
"I love you," he said. Over and over and over again. Like a broken record, it's all he could say. Big, tall, 6-foot-5-inch Harlem was stuck with his words. Eventually, he passed us as he was going down the stairs. I saw what he got signed: Harlem had drawn Mr. Miyamoto's name in Japanese on a white T-shirt, and had Miyamoto-san sign the shirt as it was on him. No wonder he was a blubbering mess! I knew I only had one shot at this, and I was determined not to mess it up. We reached the top of the stairs. I saw him. And I suddenly had to go to the bathroom again.
I let Erica go first. I had to get used to seeing him there, in front of me. Not on a web page, not on the cover of a magazine or on television. He was there. In front of me. The man who basically dictated my life through his work. Finally, it was Erica's turn. She handed him her silver GameBoy Advanced: SP, and became a blubbering mess as well. All I could make out was "Zelda" and "you're the best." He signed his name on her SP and, before giving it back, drew a tiny, shining Triforce symbol on it. I even recorded, like... five seconds of him signing her stuff. Then, it was my turn. I had been practicing my speech. And then, he looked at me. We made eye contact. And I got weak at the knees. I was barely able to put my sketcbook on the table. He took one look at me, with my mouth open and unable to speak, and put down the black Sharpie he used to sign Erica's SP. I could feet hot, embarassing tears streaming down my face. There I was, with the greatest video game innovator of all time in front of my eyes, and I couldn't even speak. He placed the cap on the black marker,
pulled my sketchbook closer to him, and pulled out one red Sharpie and one green Sharpie. He held both of them in his left hand, and signed my book so that it looked 3-D. He then gave me a faceplate skin for the Nintendo DS with his signature on it, a picture he drew of of Mario sleeping in a dog house, and reached out to shake my hand.
I shook his hand. And then I uttered the only words I could: "I love you." Exactly the same words everyone else said. It didn't matter if you had a whole speech prepared; it was like readying yourself to speak to God. You can think you're ready all you want, but when it comes right down to it, you're in the presence of someone much greater than yourself, and you can't help but stay in awe.
After shaking my hand, he did a little half-bow towards me, and I stumbled off to the side, where Erica and I compared signatures and cried like we were victims of spousal abuse. I couldn't stop shaking. Once we left the store, we met up with Harlem, King, The General, and The Negotiator. We were all screaming fanboys outside, telling similar stories of how we felt meeting Mr. Miyamoto. And although Erica and I didn't know their real names, we all made a deal to come back on the release date of Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess for another camp-out, to share more stories and revel in our fandom.
I wouldn't miss it for the world.
 Bleeding Apocalypse · Mon Sep 26, 2005 @ 12:55am · 3 Comments |
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