Letters of the church of burgertimeBeing PONTIFEX MAXIMUS's response to our FRIEND who is COMSTOCK of the COLUMBIA COLLEGE IN CHICAGO
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November 2001
PONTIFEX MAXIMUS issues a call to the Vicars and church FATHERS: From the FRIEND who is COMSTOCK of the COLUMBIA COLLEGE IN CHICAGO, this question has been asked of us: 1. What made you come up with the ideal for the Church of Burgertime? Indeed. Where did this come from? Well, when I was a teenager in 10th grade and we got our first Space Invaders and then an Asteroids games at the bowling alley in rural Winter Haven Florida, my fiend Spud and I were determined to master the games. We spent hours before and after school at those machines. I had a small allowance and I moved lawns for quarters. Our competition made for many afternoons with our compadres standing behind us watching kick ass. Then my family moved me to Tampa, Florida in the middle of my high school experience. I left Spud behind. I became withdrawn and morose. I found my solace in either Burgertime or Defender and in fact, I never learned Physics because I'd be playing at lunch and I'd have the high score. I couldn't make it back for that 4th period of Physics. Ironic, that. How so, I'm not certain, but it probably has something to do with my current life choice as PONTIFEX MAXIMUS. I don't know. Everything is not immediately revealed to me through the dropping of buns. These things take time. I worked as the video game attendant at Chuck E Cheese's for a while. THAT was classic arcade Nirvana. The man with the key. The man with the Tokens. I was cock of the walk in the House of Mouse. I even dated the girl who wore the mouse suit and one of my first sexual experiences took place in the little dressing room next to the stage where she had to go when she was wearing the Chuck E Cheese outfit so as not to confuse the children with two Chuckies. We were in there DURING the show, while the automatons were banging about on the stage. It was dark. She was "in costume" and I remember these furry mouse hands on my back... But that is another story entirely. The church of burgertime isn't about me. I serve as PONTIFEX MAXIMUS because it is something I must do. It is something to which I am driven. Chef Peter Pepper speaks to me. In 1998 I discovered the Multi-Arcade Machine Emulator on the old Dave's Arcade Classics page. I installed it and found the ROMs and burgertime and defender were both back in my life. We played the games night and day at my old house. Then one Monday after a full weekend of not only Burgertime and Defender but Doom and Civilization, I had a vision. I was sitting on the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) on my way to my boring job at a law office. I had the Vision of the THREE TENETS. I began writing down this divinely inspired work as it came to me. I did no work at the law office that day, but rather sat at my machine, translating the holy words as they came to me. I had visions of Peter, the Dogs, Mr. Egg, the Pickles. I quit my job soon thereafter and put the THREE TENETS online. Soon we were receiving emails from others, like us, who had experienced the VISION of CHEF PEPPER. Those who had also grown up in a time when the arcades ringed and chittered and zoinked and whistled with 8 bit glory. As word spread of the church of burgertime, arcade junkies came in out of the ether to peruse the TENETS. I formed a close group of advisors around me. We went on a pilgrimage to Red's Java House in San Francisco and partook of the burger bounty of Peppah Chef da Burgie Tyme. We picked up counterparts along the way, simply by saying, "follow Chef and he will set you free". We ended up at the house for a marathon MAME weekend. Those were heady days. Now the church exists all over the U.S. We have chapters in Idaho, Washington, Boston, New York, San Francisco and Florida. Our home base is San Francisco. We are all united in the search for Nirvana through the playing of the game. We have all had experiences when were younger that instilled in us a great sense of the GAME that is BURGERTIME.
In Chef! |
The Churches and Letters
