`Mamas, don`t let your babies grow up to be cowboys.”
-From the country song by Ed and Patsy Bruce
Fine, but would it be any better if they became Nintendo game counselors?
A two-story former warehouse in Redmond, Wash., a Seattle suburb, offers circumstantial evidence that the American economy is far more vital than Bill Clinton would concede in that ponderous acceptance speech Thursday night.
Sure, our domestic steel, auto and apparel industries may be shot to hell, but the Redmond building houses about 200 young men and women-most in their late teens and early 20s-making a living answering phone calls from around North America about Nintendo video games.
Most are called game counselors and can be reached between 6 a.m. and 2 a.m. Central time, seven days a week, by those confounded by any of the more than 700 games used on Nintendo systems. Although the calls are all toll calls, 200,000 are said to be made weekly.
Unable to program a VCR, I know nothing about video games other than that they`re beloved by kids after school and inebriated tavern patrons after dark. It was only while walking with a colleague through the Consumer Electronics Show at McCormick Place that I learned about game counselors from a Seattle-based Hill and Knowlton publicist who services Nintendo of America. In a subsequent phone chat, I was informed that, ”The job is definitely fun with a capital `F,` ” by Jay Shuit, 24, a Santa Barbara, Calif., native who never finished college and split to Colorado to be a hospital clerk before learning he could make money playing games.
”I didn`t realize this sort of job existed,” said game counselor Shuit, whose off-duty time now includes running an in-house video game golf tournament for his co-workers.
”This is the main office for the entire U.S.,” Shuit said. ”It`s pretty weird when you think about it; when you think how many play Nintendo.” It is pretty weird. Nintendo games didn`t surface until the second half of 1986 but have sold 45 million units in this country since. One of three U.S. homes, Nintendo said, has a Nintendo game. Projected U.S. sales for 1992 are $4.7 billion-yes, more money than the Cubs pay Ryne Sandberg.
Seattle native Tim Dale, 23, a supervisor of game counselors, came to his task with a high school diploma and frustration over having not found contentment in commercial fishing in Alaska.
He`d played video games in junior high school and ”always had a fascination for electronic gadgetry.”
The majority of calls, he said, last three minutes, are cordial, and involve about 50 games, most notably one called ”Legend of Zelda-A Link to the Past.”
For example, two of the 65,000 weekly calls specifically about the Zelda game might inquire, ”Where`s the Gossip Shop?” and ”Where are some of the best places to build up rupees (money)?” The likelihood of domestic violence must surely be lessened when a dispute-filled home hears the correct answer.
The company and Hill and Knowlton are not forthcoming about pay scales, but modest sleuthing indicates that lads and lasses who labor full time earn roughly $12,000 to $20,000 a year. ”It`s by no means a career,” Dale said.
Ultimately, one must wonder what it must be like to be a parent the day that little Sallie announces that she`s becoming a video game counselor.
Does one shout, ”Hallelujah!” or break down in hysterics as visions of a well-compensated medical, banking or legal career are torn asunder?
”Well, my initial reaction was disbelief. This is kind of New Age,”
said Doug Shuit, Jay`s father and a veteran political reporter at the Los Angeles Times who`s now covering California`s U.S. Senate races.
”I didn`t believe it-making a living playing games,” said dad, who admits eldest son Jay ”was not a very good student.” But ”I said good luck and give him a lot of credit.”
He can apparently rest assured that Jay is unlikely to return on holidays with a bleeding ulcer. Although Jay Shuit said the volume of calls can be a bit stressful, he does go home each evening ”pretty relaxed.”
”This is not like being an air traffic controller.”
If you tell an author his next book will sell 1.1 million copies, he`d likely start looking for a new home and head to the nearest Porsche dealership.
That`s why I was a bit dumbfounded to hear Ross Terrill, a fine journalist and ranking China scholar, disclose Thursday that he sold that many copies and came away with a measly $2,400.
Terrill, an Australian native who lives in Boston, is touring for his
”China in Our Time” (Simon & Schuster), a much-lauded account of the last three decades in that vast land. It`s quite good and includes both a vivid portrayal of the 1989 Beijing massacre (he arrived as it started) and his assessment that a proud but shortsighted government is nuts in believing it can move toward greater capitalism but maintain its repressive ways.
After discussing substantive matters, including his sense that President Bush has been generally savvy in dealing with the Chinese regime, he discussed the land`s burgeoning book trade.
His own book on Mao Zedong, ”Mao,” has sold 100,000 copies if you don`t count China. There, it sold a stunning 1.1 million.
A Chinese publisher simply translated the book and hawked it. Terrill got zilch. When he beefed, they gave him $1,200, then he ”squeezed out another $1,200.” Demanding royalties, or suing, is a waste of time.
But the Chinese are hospitable, even as they rip you off. Terrill said,
”I do have a cordial relationship with the (Chinese) publisher. They send me letters they receive on the book. What am I to do?”
The Democratic National Convention, and the Ross Perot announcement, must explain why the world didn`t notice last week`s Columbus, Ohio, gathering of the Garden Writers Association of America.
Ethics is an ongoing, generally unresolved topic within the group, especially since companies and trade groups sponsor contests for writers.
For example, an English fertilizer firm offered a freebie trip to the Chelsea Flower Show in London for the very best article on the benefits of liquid fertilizers.
Then there`s internal debate, according to a colleague who`s an association member, on pesticides and whether big chemical companies that produce them are buying clout by giving nice chunks of money to the association.
The companies claim that such benevolence reflects a desire to clear up misconceptions about them in the media.
Magnanimous folks, those pesticide producers.
This week`s Sucker Bet, or information to be used on an unsuspecting sap in a late-night tavern wager.
On the July 4th weekend, how many bags of ice and barrels of beer were sold at Sam`s Liquors, 1000 W. North Ave.?
”If anybody guesses this right, I`ll give them a barrel of beer,” said boss Fred Rosen.
It`s unclear how he`ll judge any claimant`s honesty, but here`s the answer: 7,000 bags of ice and 275 barrels of beer.
It happened on July 10 at about 4:10 p.m. at the Downtown Sports Club, 441 N. Wabash Ave.
Two gents and I were sitting quietly, self-absorbed, in the steam room. None could make out the others with perfect clarity.
A series of beeps sounded in a corner. A fire alarm? The vision of being fried in a sauna was unsettling.
But the beeps stopped and the man in the room`s far corner raised something in his right hand, then said something of no seeming relevance to me or the third fellow. A pause of 10 to 15 seconds followed; then the man spoke again in a fashion not germane to us.
In fact, the right hand of the steamee-new word for a nude person in a steam room-had raised an antenna. The guy had brought a cellular telephone!
One must assume that, given his obviously huge ego-heaven forbid he be unreachable for 15 minutes-he plays it safe when making love.
He probably does it in the lobby of Illinois Bell.
