EULOGY

by Brian Hickey

Sixteen grown men--well, at least physically grown--huddle around four kids who are doing battle on an old-school Intellivision game. They hoot; they holler.

Just feet away others shun the limelight as they bounce Q-Bert-style, vicariously flee ghosts through Pac-Man or defend the universe in Galaga mode.

Across the room, through a bevy of mullets, a fellow with long black hair streaked with gold probably thinks he's standing light years beyond the rest. Sporting his "PSYCHIATRIC WARD" T-shirt, he proudly tests the new Slik Stik video-game controller that promises "gaming will never be the same" because of it.

Slik Stik's guarantee notwithstanding, Walter Day thinks this scene is a harbinger of pop culture's next Hula Hoop.

Events like this past weekend's PhillyClassic3 "gamers'" convention in Valley Forge, he says, will usher retro arcade games back into the pop-cultural consciousness in the same way disco, bell-bottoms and the Volkswagen bug have all returned. And should predictions of a glorious resurgence be realized, this unassuming Iowan who wears a referee's outfit will be a virtual Pied Piper.

Day took his place near the top of this subculture by compiling video-game records while traveling the country hawking what-happened-the-day-you-were-born newspapers door-to-door in the early 1980s. By 1983--about a year after Time magazine's "GRONK! FLASH! ZAP! VIDEOGAMES ARE BLITZING THE WORLD" cover--he taped a television pilot for Video Game News Update.

Though the show never made it past the pilot phase, Day later parlayed his pastime into the 994-page Twin Galaxies' Official Video Game and Pinball Book of World Records. So today, as de-facto spokesman for the industry, Day can't contain his excitement when he talks about the attention he's seen paid to video games lately.

"It's the next big thing. It's going to take over the world!" Day says, his arms flailing. "The emails I get, the calls I get. Businesses with an interest in retro gaming are already bringing Frogger and Asteroids back. It's a phenomenon!"

It's difficult to take anything too seriously with Donkey Kong addicts hard at play nearby, but there might be something to Day's observations.

PhillyClassic1 drew 50 people two years ago, and the follow-up attracted about 300. Last weekend's event drew 800 people over two days. And just last week Comcast launched video-game network G4 that will air 13 weekly series about video games to three million homes, more than 400,000 of them local.

"It's like this wherever he goes," says classic-video-game webcaster Mike Stulir of Day while his friend basks in the lights of a VH-1 interview.

But while there are clear signs that something is afoot, Saturday offered something closer to the finale of an almost-hip-at-the-time '80s movie than evidence of the next big trend.

Marci Billow remembers bits and pieces of the whole thing, but since she was only 12 at the time, some details escape her.

In November 1982 her family traveled from their Cherry Hill home to Newtown, Pa., to see her older brother, Scott Safran, try to beat the Asteroids record. Safran was a prodigy when it came to playing the Asteroids machine at their neighborhood 7-Eleven.

He was so good that he thought he could break the 40,101,910-point record some guy set in North Carolina earlier that year.

In honor of an uncle who had died of muscular dystrophy, Safran concocted a fundraiser and solicited sponsors. He wanted to set his record-breaking event at the 7-Eleven, but the store's proprietor balked at the idea. When people at the All-American Billiard arcade in Newtown got wind of Safran's plan they opened their doors and ushered in video-game history.

"We're not talking about one day here. He kept playing and playing and playing," says Billow, now a technical writer at Microsoft's Washington headquarters. "The thing is, after a couple days, he still didn't lose. My parents were like, 'Okay, he's 15, he has school tomorrow and he hasn't slept. This has to stop.'"

When Safran walked away the score read 41,336,440. It hasn't been topped since.

When Day heard about it a couple years later he wanted Safran in his book, but nobody knew what had become of the Asteroids kid who "set a record that will never be broken."

He searched newspapers and phone books; he queried radio stations and arcade owners. Finally, this past January, Day got the call. Safran, as it turns out, died in 1989.

After moving to California, where he played guitar in a band and attended community college, he fell three stories from a balcony trying to rescue his cat after it got trapped on a ledge. He was 21.

After learning of Safran's fate, an old obituary led Day to Billow.

"We'd always been looking for something of Scott's to cling onto. I still have his old guitars and his Grateful Dead bootlegs," says Billow. "But then I get this call after 13 years. It was an amazing moment of 'Oh yeah!' He did this amazing thing that we'd all forgotten about."

An accordion player grins through a polka rendition of "Roll out the Barrel." The folks sucked into Spy Hunter and Dragon's Lair don't budge--some of them are armed with video cameras just in case they break a record--but about 50 people make their way around the stage where Day stands.

He tells everyone from the guy in the yellow bandana to three goth chicks in Final Fantasy shirts that he's fulfilling a 20-year search to "honor one of the most amazing feats in video-game history."

"This, by the way, has become an international story," he proclaims. "It's the longest standing world record, and it's going to generate a lot of interest in video gaming ... But this is also a story that needed a happy ending."

After Day presents a certificate to Safran's aunt Hana Kramer and cousin Marcia Blumenthal, the accordion player kicks back into gear. Mission accomplished.

"He didn't live long, but he lived hard. He got the most out of life, had a zest for living that was so contagious," says Kramer, adding that she'll take the award to Safran's resting place in New Jersey. "I don't understand the whole video-game thing one bit, but he left his mark."

Who knows whether Safran would've dug the scene in which his posthumous honor was delivered. Maybe he'd be one of those guys who heads to New Hampshire each May from across the country to battle with gamers from Finland, Israel and Asia in the retro games. Perhaps he'd wonder what's drawing all these people to similar events in Milwaukee, Cincinnati and Omaha.

He might even be as revered as the current-day game world's Elvis figure, Billy Mitchell, who beat a Pac-Man machine so badly that it just shut down. But for Billow, just the fact that someone would take the time to track down her brother is honor enough.

"A lot of people say somebody was special after they die, but Scott had this unique ability to just suck the marrow out of life," she says. "The world record brings him closer to all these gamers out there. He was really into the public, so it suits him." *

Brian Hickey (bhickey@philadelphiaweekly.com) also wrote this week's cover story.