On Saturday, for the first time in my life, I played the Wii game Rock Band.
Rachelle and I were over at some friends for coffee, and after an hour or so, our hosts decided that it might be kind of fun to play this game. In another era they might have broken out Yahtzee or Trivial Pursuit, but now, it’s the Wii.
For those of you who live remote lives of biting purity, Rock Band is a music video game in which the players use a guitar-shaped controller, a microphone, and a drum kit, to simulate playing famous rock songs. It’s like Karaoke, only with instruments, and somehow, everybody’s performance is scored so that there are winner and losers.
And as most of you probably know, I’m a winner.
I cannot contain my winningness.
It radiates out of me like beautiful but deadly pulses of light.
The first song we competed to was “Wanted Dead or Alive” by Bon Jovi. I was on vocals and I fucking killed it. Unfortunately, Vanessa and Paul keep a very cluttered home, and while I was performing my routine, a very stupidly placed aquarium broke, as did one light and a Christmas decoration.
I was on guitar for the next song, “Won’t Get Fooled Again” by The Who. At this point, after my dominant performance on “Wanted Dead or Alive,” I think I had crushed the spirit of my opponents, as Vanessa was crying (something about her mother having given her the stupidly placed Christmas ornament that broke), and Paul was pretending to be busy trying to clean up the aquarium spill. I think Rachelle was consoling Vanessa, but I’m not sure, as I was pretty focused.
As my opponents did not play and defaulted on round two, I won it easily.
The third and final song in our competition was by The Strokes, and I was on drums, which is the most challenging and physical of the three components of Rock Band. I had my shirt off and had just begun to bang my drum sticks together to signal the start of the song, when Rachelle—who simply hates losing—grabbed me by my ear and yanked me off the sofa, hissing, “ WE. HAVE. TO. LEAVE. NOW!!”
As everybody defaulted on round three, my substantial lead was enough to carry me to an easy victory.
My Rock Band record now stands at a perfect 1-0.