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I said that there were to be no surprises at the GDC, but... there was a rather substantial one after all. While wandering aimlessly about the floor, I came across William Hung, singing away on the Sony-made Singstar (rival to Karaoke Revolution).
For those of you not up on your popular culture, William Hung is something of a flavor of the month anti-pop hero; he was featured on the show American Idol, where a panel of three judges sift the cream of the pop-singing crop from a gaggle of riff-raff. William Hung was rejected in the first round: his singing was... subpar. But upon being told he was terrible by the judges, his response was "I already gave my best, and I have no regrets at all." Thus the anti-hero thing.
A scant few months later, he's had interviews, put on concerts (covering other people's material -- poorly), and signed a record deal. He's a novelty, but not a bad one.
So here he was, much to my amazement, belting out the Village People's "YMCA" on Sony’s Singstar. It took me a moment to absorb who he was, and why there was a throng of smiling people gathered around him; it was only once he had wound down his song that I remembered to grab the camera in my bag.
He actually placed second-rank of those people who had attempted the song thus far. Not bad!?
He was, apparently, supposed to be there. To do what, I’m not exactly sure; Jane said that he was, though. He may have been at some Sony event that I neglected to attend.
Regardless, there he was. The throng had lined up for autographs -- William seemed genuinely surprised. All the while, his mother (also his agent, don't you know) was saying "Come on, let’s go. We have to go. No more autographs!"
"One more" I announced, rifling through my bag for a piece of paper. (Important student loan information! I don’t need that anymore.) I said it with enough authority that his mother relented.
"Okay, right. One more."
I took a picture with him, and got an autograph for someone not-me and not-male (Hung's general demographic).
In return, I produced a business card. "If you want to go to any of the parties," I said, "let me know. I've got invites to all of them." William was trying to reply "Okay", and made a gesture for the card, when his mother intercepted, grabbed the thing, snapped "Yeahokfine, uhhuh," and hustled him off into the crowd.
Poor guy. No parties for him.
The moral of the story: even if you have a record deal; even if you don't quite understand your fame; even if thousands of women profess to want to be your wife -- Mom is still Mom.
brandon sheffield is a game journalism anti-hero. At least, in his own mind.
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