Special When Lit

Looking back on my boyhood and adolescence in South Texas,

I spent an incredible amount of time

in gas stations, honky-tonks,

and other off-the-beaten-path places trying to appear cool

while obsessively following the descent of a steel ball

down the playing surface of a garishly-lit machine,

a pinball machine.

I'd come in with my grandfather standing on pop crates

to play the pinball machines.

I think I was about eight years old.

I used to hang out at the corner store

and my parents were always lookin' for me.

I would go away with my grandparents

every summer and they'd say, "Hey, you're in the arcade.

Here's a roll of quarters, go have fun."

All these back-lot mom and pa stores and everything

had, uh, one or two pinball machines there.

Apartment houses would have 'em in the laundry rooms.

If you had a gas station where they weren't doin'

car repair anymore, they'd take the service bays

and fill 'em with pinball machines.

Playing at our local bowling alley was the place

where parents told you not to go.

I guess it was the kind of age when you don't want to do things

with your parents.

My parents used to think I was going to church

Sunday mornings and I'd be at the local hangout

playing pinballs.

I also remember my father dragging me out by my ear

saying that I spent too much money.

I used to sneak down there without telling anybody

and on my own, and practice like crazy.

There was probably a crowd hangin' around

a pinball machine and we used to have to wait

to play and line up your coin.

And you'd know which one was your coin.

I started playing at, like, the local café.

Took my books to study there.

It was a great break from studying.

Sometimes it replaced studying.

I used to steal pop bottles from the back of the gas station

and trade 'em in for three cents,

and when I had enough dimes to go play pinball

I would wander all over town just putting dimes

in pinball machines.

On a Saturday afternoon I'd run it up

to the highest amount that you could win,

which was about 15 games.

I would sell 'em for 50 cents.

Sell 'em 12 games.

Tell 'em to leave me three.

They'd lose 'em in about 30 minutes.

They'd leave me three.

I'd run it back up to 15 again, sell 'em again.

That's how we'd spend a Saturday afternoon.

If you say pinball, people are like, "What?"

Or, "What's that?"

I mean, there are many kids today

that--that don't know what a pinball machine is.

If you were growing up in the '60s, '70s, and '80s,

you could go to the movies, you could listen to the radio

and music, and you could play pinball.

And now here we are twenty years later,

and if you wanted to re-live a song that you remember

from your youth, you can put it on your iPod.

If you remember a movie that you particularly liked as a kid,

you can get the DVD of it, but when it comes to pinball,

since it only exists in the real world

and can't be digitally duplicated,

there is no place to play pinball,

and yet in everybody's mind

they remember those games from their youth,

and they come in here and they see something

that they haven't seen in 25 years,

something that was a major part of their youth.

You know, "The first time I kissed a girl,

I was playing this machine."

And they see that and they just get this look

on their face of pure nostalgia.

Kids today don't really understand pinball.

They come in looking for the Dance Dance Revolution machine

or the fighting video game or the really fast driving game,

and all they see are these pokey,

slow, old pinball machines that just go,

"Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing,"

and they don't understand it.

You look around here, all you see is old farts.

You don't see the kids that were playing pinball

when I was growin' up.

I mean, the kids today are just--

you know, that between the computer games

and the home games and the--

and the Nintendos and the Sega systems

and Gameboys and--

they just won't play pinball.

I can remember when I was growing up,

we used to eat all our meals at home,

and we used to go out for entertainment.

We'd go to the movies.

We'd go bowling.

We'd go outside the house to have our entertainment,

and now everybody eats out.

Everybody always goes to restaurants.

They don't cook at home very much,

but they get all their entertainment at home

through their big screen theater room

or their game room that they've got

in the basement.

Public places of amusement have been falling by the wayside

in America like crazy.

You can't find a pinball machine.

I mean, most arcades there's no pinball machine.

There's no more arcades in malls in most cases.

Even bars.

I mean, all the bars today have a Megatouch,

the jukebox, and a pool table, but no more pinballs.

I mean, very, very, very, very few.

Pinball is finished in France.

In England it's finished long times ago.

Right?

In Italy you can find one pinball.

In Germany, no one pinball.

In Holland, no pinball.

Even in Belgium, it was a pinball paradise.

No pinball.

It's finished.

You know, they said pinball was dead.

It's not.

I was very surprised that other people

were like this.

I thought we were just crazy.

It starts with one.

Buy another one.

And then another one.

Then, like, four.

And I was outgrowing the family room.

I'd buy 20 here, 30 here.

And then your wife starts to say,

"Uh, what's goin' on here?"

We got enough, no.

-Yes. -No.

Sixty games.

-Three hundred fifty or so. -Four hundred.

I'm close to 600. Sixteen hundred.

It was a very rapid decline into obsession, I think.

Come on this way.

Show you some more.

We have about 150 in here.

Once you get the lure of the silver ball in you,

it's like an addiction and you just can't stop,

and I just kept, you know--

it's like you got to have 'em all

'cause they're all just beautiful pieces of art.

You remember buying every one, where you got it from.

One time, when my addiction was really bad,

I bought a Barb Wire on eBay.

I thought it was a great deal.

I thought, "Gee, what am I doin'?

This is crazy to drive 24 hours to go get a pinball machine,"

and just as I'm thinkin' maybe I'm not gonna do this,

you know, Pinball Wizard comes on the radio

and I thought, "Nope, I'm goin'."

You know, and it was, like, my longest haul.

It was like, you know, 26 hours later

I'm finally home, exhausted.

Ended up comin' home with three machines.

They're up on this upper deck.

This is the first little deck that I built to get some room.

Pinball machines seem to be alive.

They--they really don't seem to be machines.

When you're playing, they're almost

like they're alive and the way they talk to you,

you find yourself talkin' to it.

Extra ball!

Sometimes I just come in to look at them.

You don't even have to play them.

You just come in and just admire them.

It's just a tribute to man's creativity.

I'll tell ya.

This was, like, a little guest bedroom but it's...

I had to squeeze more pins in here.

My theme though, I kinda have always dreamed

it might happen, but I really want to do the passion.

Uh, you know, people say, "You're crazy," but see,

I have a bac-- I was a youth pastor

and, uh, so I st--I-- I love the Lord

and I just can picture the passion play

in a pinball machine.

* Shine the light down on me

* Shine the light for all to see

Hallelujah, the ball is saved!

* Shine the light down on me

* Shine the light

All my life, it was pinball.

This is very good game.

Well, when I am with the pinball

I look the pinball and I think I am in love.

It's my life, it's better to own--

It's better to collect pinball than to take cocaine.

Yes?