Mario Stories

 

1. Li’l Penguin Lost

I’ve been meaning to vent about this since 1996. In the first snow level of Super Mario 64, the player spots a crying baby penguin waddling in circles at the peak of Cool, Cool Mountain. Mario can pick up the small bird and travel, but a newb may wonder where to go. Farther down slopes of the mountain, at the base, one finds a big, distraught mother penguin. When approached by Mario, she’s like, “Ope! I lost my kid. I’m freaking out. You look like a problem solver, Mr. Mustache. How ‘bout some help?” 

The mission is easy to complete. Carry the wee one from the top to the bottom, avoid a few obstacles, be careful on the bridge with the jumping snowmen, and reunite mother and child. A grateful mom then awards Mario a star. It appears to emerge from her butt, but hey, a star’s a star. And personally, I’m more than happy to end the trauma by bringing a penguin family together. Call me a wuss all you want, but I don’t even carry the kid a short walk to the edge of the earth and drop him into the abyss. I may be soft, but I don’t need your cheap thrills and I don’t want that on my conscience.  

It felt great to earn that star. Instead of just winning a foot race against Koopa the Quick or stealing a star off the tail of a giant eel monster, this feat makes me feel like Mario made a difference. Put a cape on that man! He’s Super Mario. 

However, when the player returns to that level, the li’l penguin is lost again, estranged from his mom. When you talk to the mom a second time, she’s like, “Ope! I lost my kid. I’m freaking out. You look like a problem solver, Mr. Mustache. How ‘bout some help?”

It’s fitting to have February-type weather on Cool, Cool Mountain, because it seems like these events are taking place on Groundhog Day. “Thanks for helping me find my kid!” says the relieved penguin. Existence resets. “Hey, help me find my kid!” Repeat on loop. 

If you have enough of a nagging superego for this experiment, you can rescue and reunite a second time. You will be awarded a star that’s black, not golden, which means it’s not really a star at all. This cues the usual spin-and-peace-sign celebration by Mario, who then leaps out of the magic painting on the wall, having achieved nothing. 

You can leap back into the painting to find the child is in need of rescue again. Now, I am not a parent. I don’t have firsthand knowledge of all the challenges. But I gotta call it like I see it. Mama penguin needs to step up her game, because she’s in an endless cycle of losing her damn kid. 

In a perfect world, I’d rescue the li’l one every time. But I’ve got problems of my own. I gotta beat Bowser’s ass by throwing him at bombs. I gotta save the Princess and eat the cake she baked for me. My God, there’s a damn vulture tryna steal my hat on the pyramid level. Is there a button I can press to call Social Services on this penguin mom? No? Well, then I’ll just conquer this game and get all 120 stars knowing there’s still a lost li’l penguin on Cool, Cool Mountain. Ain’t that a b-word? 

2. The Mario 2 Outlook

The Oligs got a Nintendo on Christmas Eve of 1988. At the time, it was a charmingly American thing to do. We still have a picture of the unveiling in a family photo album. My older brothers rejoice, the oldest holding the box, the other grinning behind him, their golden hair gleaming. My sister hand-gestures at the box. She humored us this one time by showing excitement for Nintendo, before ignoring video games for three decades and counting. As for yours truly, the pic shows only the back of my head, because I was so smitten with that Nintendo that I could not turn my head around to smile. 

My parents never played the thing. But it’s a safe bet that my mom took the picture, basking in our Christmas joy. With less excitement on his face, I can see my dad wearing a thin smile, blue eyes semi-charmed, but always ready to roll. It’s likely that I babbled thank yous to Santa Claus, when Dad was the one busting his ass to buy his kids a home console that would never give him a minute of entertainment. 

My mom worked hard and sacrificed, too, for games she never played, but I find myself singling out my dad more now that he’s gone.

After presents, my brothers and I stampeded down to the basement to hook up the system. My sister didn’t join us. For years, I think, this gave me the misconception that girls just don’t get into video games. 

With no regard for originality, the first cartridge my brothers and I slid into the NES was Super Mario Bros. By the time my oldest brother logged his first death to a slow-marching Goomba (which would be humiliating by today’s standards), I was hooked. The peppy tunes, running, jumping, platforms, pitfalls, fireballs, and invisible stars enhanced my four-year-old quality of life. As the youngest and smallest, I was the last one to have a turn. It was a long wait into the night for Little Nicky to hold the controller. Thus began the trend, I suppose, of me becoming a night owl. 

On level 1-1, I got killed by the same slow-marching Goomba, so nevermind the shit I talked about my brother. I whined as the controller was wrestled from my hands by my older brother, who soon had the thing wrestled away by my oldest brother. Dad called down the steps that it was time for bed, thus ending the controversy. 

All this is to say, the Oligs have been down with this Mario shit since late ‘88. We got a copy of Super Mario Bros. 2 sometime in ‘89, and finished the iconic trilogy in ‘90, bringing home Mario 3 not long after its release. 

My favorite of the trilogy is 2. That’s a contrarian flex. On a credible top 100 list by IGN, Mario 3 rated the very best Nintendo game ever made. The original Mario takes home the bronze at third on the list. What about the NES Mario that is the nearest and dearest to my tender heart? Well, Mario 2 barely cracks the top 20 at #18. I respect IGN’s conclusions, but I say ranking 2 behind Bionic Commando and Excitebike is a miscarriage of judgment. 

IGN is not alone in its ranking of the trilogy. If we look at GameRankings for an aggregate score, Mario 3 dazzles with a score of 98%, the original earns an 86%, and 2 comes in last with an 81%. 

Now let me tell you why everyone is wrong but me when it comes to Mario 2. The most convincing argument I can give is this: People are wrong a lot. And I believe Mario 2 is a fine example of this. 

Admiring 2 is a fine way to defy conventional thought. At the risk of painting in broad strokes, we have more idiots than geniuses on this planet. As a whole, we’re so dumb that we’ve allowed flat-earthers, pre-ripped jeans, and Trump to make comebacks. In America, we’re still clinging to standard measurement over the simpler and more logical metric system, as if 1,000 meters equals 1 kilometer is harder to know than 5,280 feet make up 1 mile. So if you want to tell me that Mario 2 is the runt of the litter, you’ve got to show me something more convincing than popular opinion.   

Mario 2 is unique. It has versatility. There are four players to choose from, each with its own strengths and quirks. Whereas 1 and 3 are like partnerships with Mario and Luigi, democracy flourishes in 2. Better yet, 2 offers us a band, one that’s diverse and rich in star power like The Beatles. 

Paul is like Mario: the face of the franchise, the affable frontman, the charismatic leader. With his eccentric leaps of creativity and “Jealous Guy” feelings about Paul/ Mario, John functions as Luigi. George equals Peach; both can levitate with meditative zen. Toad has the beefy build of a drummer. Have you seen how fast he can dig down in sand? Imagine those hands and biceps smashing the skins. Like Ringo, he’s an essential member of the band whose solo work doesn’t measure up. For bonus points, drummers even sit on a stool. Toad, stool. This story writes itself. 

So if Mario 2 is like The Beatles, what does that make 1 and 3? Well, I compare them to Simon & Garfunkel. They’re partnerships. And the one billed first has had a much stronger run as a solo act. And yeah, I get that Luigi’s Mansion has slightly narrowed the gap, but let’s not forget that Luigi was a no-show in Mario Odyssey because he lost his sidekick job to a damn hat named Cappie. I repeat, Luigi got replaced by Mario’s hat. (By no coincidence, Paul Simon frequently wears hats.)

 I’ll take The Beatles over Simon & Garfunkel any day in this increasingly stretched metaphor in defense of Mario 2. 

  

I love 2 because it transforms Toad from a bystander into a hero. And whereas Princess Peach is a victim of kidnapping in most Mario titles, she kicks ass and throws bombs in part 2. That’s feminism, baby. 

Lovers of the plumber’s second game are imaginative. We’re daydreamers who dig up potion bottles and smash them to make a door to another dimension appear. We seek prizes and power-ups in a shadowy otherworld. Then with a sigh, we return to the chaos and villainy of the real world. 

Big fans of 2 are not altogether kooky, though. We reject the silly notion that it’s cool to morph into a flying racoon or put on a frog costume. Star power is enough for us. We get that fleeting jolt of invincibility from drinks, laughter and sex. We are, after all, only humans—not raccoons or frogs. 

A monstrous frog is, in fact, the final boss in the sequel. His name is King Wart and he looks a lot like former NFL player Ndomakung Suh. In part 2, Bowser and his minions are nowhere to be found. As every 2-believer knows, evil can assume more than one form. 

Perhaps the greatest virtue of this title is its timelessness. Granted, all three NES games are timeless in a figurative sense, but numero dos stands out because it is literally timeless. Fans of the original and part 3 gaze to the sky to see the seconds ticking down to oblivion. Mario 2 devotees don’t share that bleak perspective. Clocks are unnecessary bothers to us. We realize that the hourglass could be an oppressive invention—because life is not a race, it’s an exploration. We’d rather roam at our own pace than be menaced by deadlines. For us, there is no warning sound to incite panic at the 100-second mark. The soundtrack doesn’t have to speed up to a nervous frenzy. We try not to rush into life’s game-changers like marriage and parenthood based only on our age. We might incur scoffs from the Mario mainstreamers, warnings about “biological clocks” and that old cliche, “life is short.” Showing no fear for time requires a leap of faith, but don’t forget, we’ve got Peach on the team to keep us levitating. 

Can your favorite Mario justify such a leap of faith? 

In closing, it should be noted that after the last vegetable has been tossed into King Wart’s mouth, when we finally croak that monstrous frog, the credits roll and we see Mario snoozing in bed. He dreamt the events of his second quest. 

It’s funny to dwell on the meaning of the Mario 2 outlook. And maybe it’s childish for a grown man to still be musing about 8-bit video games. Hell, it’s 2024. Still, when I got the idea for this story in 2012, I was babysitting my one-year-old nephew. I was seated in a cozy chair, scribbling sentences on a legal pad with Buddy asleep in the cradle of my left arm. He started to stir and I had to stop writing. But I was able to lull him back and keep writing by singing to him. 

I sang to him, “Row, row, row your boat…” And I wound up telling him that, much like 2, life is but a dream. 

3. Yoshi Freaked Out My Niece

Winners was looking over my shoulder as I kneeled down to flip the power switch. Her face glowed with rich colors as the game started up. She grinned at the title screen. A cartoonish Italian voice spoke: “Itsumi, Mario!” Then: “Hello!” 

 Had I known this at the time, I would have informed my 3-year-old niece that Mario actually says, “Itsumi,” the Japanese word for “super,” and not “It’s me, a Mario.” I learned this from a friend only last year. But getting my facts screwed up didn’t stop me from having a good time. I tapped the silver bow atop my niece’s shortly cropped hair.

“It’s me, a Mario!” I said in a stereotypical Roman voice I picked up somewhere. 

I grabbed a controller and the two of us sat on the couch. Winners was attentive, as I had told her I had a surprise for her. She was a big fan of Yoshi, the cute green dinosaur the player can ride in Super Mario World. She had seen Yoshi in action in his debut game, but had no idea that the egg-laying male makes a brief but memorable appearance in Super Mario 64.   

The catch is, to chill with Yoshi, one must not only beat Bowser twice but 100% complete the game. That means collecting all 120 stars, not just 80 or 90. Most mortal men and women fall short of this achievement, but not Uncle Nick. The day before our hangout in grandma and grandpa’s basement, I had obtained star #120 with some tenacious play inside of Tick Tock Clock. 

I even checked to make sure the Easter Egg I had unlocked actually worked. It did! 120 =Yoshi. Winners was gonna be amazed. 

Sitting beside my niece, I picked my file and resumed the last part of my quest. Time for the plumber and Yoshi reunion. I began to narrate to my niece. 

“Mario just runs across the front lawn of the castle… finds this little platform, and look! Now there’s a cannon inside. So he drops inside of it, aims high and shoots…”

Mustache guy shouted “yahoooo” as he soared through the air onto the roof of the castle. This made Winners giggle. 

“Now I walk around this corner and—look! Who is that?” 

“Yoshi!!” she exclaimed. She was at a level of enthusiasm that rivaled how she felt a year ago about that bum Talking Elmo. 

“That’s right,” I said, smiling vicariously. I collected a few free guy mushrooms out of habit. “Should we talk to him?” 

“Yeah!” she said. 

So we did. I read the word bubbles to my niece. To you, I’ll just paraphrase: 

“Mario?! Whoa, it’s been a minute, my friend. They told me to wait up here for you to show up. Don’t ask me who ‘they’ are, but they did. Now, be a straight shooter with me: Did you really beat Bowser again? And get all the stars, and save the Princess? You?! Nah, I’m just bustin’ your balls, I knew you could do it. Now, I gotta tell ya. I hate to break down the 4th wall like this, but thanks for playing this game. This is the end. There is literally nothing left to do after this but get on with your life, OK? I’m still gonna give you 100 lives, but really, this means nothing. Bye!”

My number of lives increased from 8 to the century mark. Looking back, this was the ideal time to shut off the game and go have a tea party. Instead, we kept watching. His cameo complete, Yoshi faced a nearby waterfall and jumped off the roof of the castle. 

I thought of it as a somewhat clumsy farewell from an NPC. To a 3-year-old, however, it looked like Yoshi suicided himself. 

I know that was my niece’s perception because she at once broke into tears. “Nooo, Yoshi! Yoshi don’ die! Don’ die, Yoshi!” 

 I was mortified by this twist. I had no idea that Yoshi’s kinda clunky goodbye could cause childhood trauma. I fought past my ignorance and offered Winners a hug. 

“Oh no, that’s not true,” I said consolingly, “Yoshi just jumped into the waterfall. He’s alive.” 

She was doubtful about that. She knew what she saw. The cute dino was chatting with the man in red overalls, seemingly bursting with joy and gratitude for this life. Then, with no warning signs whatsoever, Yoshi jumped off the very tall castle to his obvious death. 

This was awful. My niece was freaked out, and I can’t say I blame her. I’m not a YouTube personality, but I must say that the devs screwed up when they made Yoshi’s exit look a lot like suicide to 3-year-old. With that in mind, I’m giving Super Mario 64 a score of 99% instead of a hundred. 

Anyway, it took about 10 minutes to calm Winners down. I’m a big wuss in front of a crying kid, so I said I was sorry to make her upset. I told her it was only pretend. I repeated the words “make believe” in a soft tone. I even restarted the game, returned to the cannon and the rooftop, and spoke to Yoshi again so that she could see he was fine. 

This time, I flipped the power switch. The screen went blank. Was Yoshi a timeless prisoner fated to always leap into the waterfall even though that may look like offing himself? We’ll never know. 

Eventually, Winners recovered. She wasn’t crying when her dad came to pick her up an hour later. 

A month after the Yoshi incident, Winners came up to me at her grandparents’ home. She had time to reflect on what happened. At any age, she had the look of someone who needed to confide. Somewhat bashful, but with great composure, she said this: 

“When Yoshi die, that not real. Yoshi fine. It all preten’.”

Then she gave me a hug to show that all was forgiven. I felt like a hero. 

Itsumi Mario.   

Real Life Just Fantasy

          

Not long ago, in the spring of 2021, I cited my favorite song as Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” I announced it to a roomful of about 20 people, no less. At my call center job in Neenah, we had Friday morning meetings in the conference room. Each employee was asked to give a “get to know me speech” to the team. We were given a number of prompts. “What are your hobbies?” “Who are your heroes?” “If you could time travel, which year would you go back to and why?” And “What’s your favorite song?” 

As I write this, I gotta say, “Bohemian Rhapsody” is a masterpiece, but it’s been surpassed by “Two of Us,” “Modern Love,” “Shadow Stabbing,” “Paranoid Android,” “Castles Made of Sand,” and “Landslide,” in random order. Plus a few more. And I’d only choose one under threat of a flamethrower attack. I still adore the Queen epic, but it’s like getting divorced from somebody I truly believed was the one. 

My manager, Tim, played in a band, and we bonded over groups like Deftones and Rage Against the Machine. He was taken aback by my choice. 

“Really?” he said, squinting his eyes and scratching his stubble. 

A few coworkers nodded in approval of my choice. 

“Hell yeah,” Cheryl said. That tickled me because she said her hero was Jesus. 

Marvin clapped and said, “Good answer.” It was like we were teammates on the Family Feud. I kinda miss that dude. 

Tim’s nonplussed reaction stuck with me the most, though. We had gone on a few deep conversational dives, music-wise, and my #1 tune left him puzzled. I think he was expecting something less conventional from an overthinking weirdo like me. 

I met some cool, supportive people as a customer service rep or whatever I was. The problem was the job. I was miserable in that line of work. I had to make myself less miserable, and I did so by getting a new job as a painter. It was my second stint at my friend Cal’s painting business. Painting beat trying to explain to hard-of-hearing old men that the serial number they had to find to refund their Braun Series 9 Pro could be found under the long-hair trimmer in a tiny, black-on-black font. Hell, I should’ve got a bonus for every time I had to say, “Yes sir, you might need a flashlight and a magnifying glass, and I don’t know why the numbers are so small.” 

It was August of 2022 when I made the change. That’s when the Queen got dethroned. “Bohemian Rhapsody” started to annoy me. The problem was repetition. 

We had an old radio at the painting shop. Cal had just taken over the place from his retiring dad. The radio was a relic from the prior regime. When we painted doors and trim at the homebase, with its metal roof and old stereo, only a few stations came in clearly. So, we listened to the classic rock station that broadcasted out of Appleton. It had been years since I’d listened to FM. To my chagrin, the formula had become even more repetitive. 

We started at 7. By noon, we were done with the same 5 songs by Bon Jovi and AC/ DC, sick of the same 4 songs by Guns ‘n’ Roses and Green Day, exhausted with the same 3 songs by Kiss and Nirvana, and laughing at the odds of hearing “Bohemian Rhapsody” again in the next hour—which seemed like a 50/50 bet.   

I’m not bashing any of these artists in this story. In fact, I’m a fan of a couple of them. But the corporate radio format has done everything in its power to kill the thrill of rock music. Instead of using these 40 or 50 blueprint rock hits as a foundation to elevate other bands in the vein, or even just go deeper past the surface of the marketable groups they have chosen, these stations force feed people a regurgitation of those cookie-cutter 40 or 50 songs, everyday. There are few outliers. The old white men at the top are gonna make enough money until they retire. They’re not taking chances. They don’t care. “Livin’ on a Prayer,” “Welcome to the Jungle,” “Bohemian Rhapsody,” weather, ads, repeat.

Why didn’t I bring my JBL speaker to the shop? I’m a better problem solver than that. Could we manage for three weeks until I thought of bringing the speaker to work? No way. We could not manage. After two weeks, we tapped out to 105.7. Cal bought a new sound system for the business. Better days were ahead (until I got sick of comedy podcasts).  

Ever since that time in my life, I have vacated the title of my favorite song. It might be “Life of Illusion,” “Walls,” “Maps,” “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” “Why Can’t I Touch It,” or “God Only Knows.” Put a gun against my head and I still don’t know. Only with the threat of a flamethrower poking at my beard could I even hazard a guess. 

But I would like to give “Bohemian Rhapsody” its proper dues. It was my #1 for years for good reasons that had nothing to do with corporate radio garbage. 

“Bohemian Rhapsody” was released as a single on Halloween of 1975. How cool is that? Doesn’t that fact just sound badass? A highlight of their classic album A Night at the Opera, the song was ranked #17 on Rolling Stone’s 2021 list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The music video has been viewed almost 2 billion times on YouTube. The vocal performance of Freddie Mercury is as iconic as anything else in rock history. As a listener, one might wonder what is really going on with these lyrics, but what matters more is that we’re all onboard with wherever Freddie and his band are taking us. 

I treasure this song because it is both tragic and funny, serious and detached, self-righteous and self-mocking, in the same 5 minutes, 55 seconds statement of art. It’s a ballad, then an opera, also a parody, then it thrashes and kicks ass as we suddenly find ourselves headbanging, then it’s a ballad again. Its layout is not just unconventional and unique. For such a popular tune, it’s a unicorn. 

The way I see the lyrics, Freddie tells a story that’s mostly straightforward. Aside from the operatic part, when we get those odd shout-outs to Scaramouche and Galileo, the song is about murder, remorse, and confession. A young man kills his lover, feels consumed with guilt and regret, and confides in his mom. 

The headbanging section harkens back to the crime of passion. It’s a flashback to the killing. Boiling with anger, the singer wails, “So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye/ So you think you can love me and leave me to die?/ Oh baby, can’t do this to me, baby.” 

So, a couple is breaking up in spectacular fashion. The self-described poor boy kills a man, as he later tells his mom. Put a gun against his head, pulled the trigger, now he’s dead and all that. The scandalous part of the narrative, for the mid-70s especially, is that the homicidal breakup was between two men. 

 The band treats this aspect of the story with subtlety. But if you break it down, yeah, it’s the passion-jealousy-betrayal-murder-remorse cycle happening between two dudes. It’s on-brand for Queen to partake in alternative sexuality. Like David Bowie and other Brits who dabbled in glam, they were LGBT friendly over a decade before those letters mean what they mean now. 

So, here we are, breaking down this grandiose epic with its passion, heartbreak, murder, remorse, and struggle to find meaning and define reality. We feel for this young man who has taken a life and ruined his own. We relate to feeling wronged by and pissed-off with someone we cared about. The main character reverts to being a helpless child pleading to his mom for mercy from this cruel world. It’s sad, vulnerable and relatable. The song is both a tearjerker and a headbanger, with storytelling that’s a Queen blend of Johnny Cash and David Bowie... But there’s even more to it.    

The crazy operatic section. This tune gets delightfully unhinged at about the three-minute mark. Band members Freddie Mercury, Brian May, and Roger Taylor sang their vocal parts for up to 12 hours a day during the three-week recording process. Their vocals were overdubbed 180 times by the group and producer Roy Thomas Baker. 

Composing the epic was meticulous work that paid off with a captivating sound. As for the content, though, what is going on here? 

Well, the narrator descends to hell, and it’s pretty funny. The group gives shoutouts to four names: Scaramouche, Galileo, Figaro, and Beelzebub. The most cryptic aspect of breaking down this song is decoding the reason why (if any) these figures were used. 

I’ve enjoyed “Bohemian Rhapsody” since it was featured in an iconic scene in the 1992 comedy Wayne’s World. Thirty-two years later, I’m finally asking the question: Who the hell is Scaramouche? 

Wikipedia to the rescue: Scaramouche is a clownish minstrel character whose name translates to “little skirmisher” in Italian. Created as a theater arts character in the 1600s, he’s a short man of mischief. He wears face paint and a black Spanish dress with a cape. He’s an arrogant showman with a guitar who lives to manipulate the crowd. 

Since Scaramouche leans evil, it seems he’s more a demon here. He’s the greeter/ entertainer in the underworld. “I see a little silhouetto of a man,” the main character tells us. Then, Freddie Mercury changes his role to the omniscient, Godlike narrator who sings, “Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango?” 

The Fandango dance has origins in Spain that trace back to the 17th century. I am not a professional dance reviewer, but the Fandango features a lot of elegant yet silly twirls and poses. 

So, when the narrator faces his judgment in the afterlife, Scaramouche is there to mock the man’s passage into Death with his kooky harlequin boogie. Brutal. This turn of events suggests that the young man’s life and demise was a cruel joke. The young man was betrayed by his lover, whom he killed, then he cried to his mom, presumably died, and now this guitar-toting nutjob in KISS-type makeup is dunking on him with a TikTok video. 

To make matters worse, it’s a stormy night in the underworld. “Thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening for me.”

In the lyrics, this brings us to Galileo and Figaro. Born in Pisa, of Leaning Tower fame, in 1564, Galileo was a seminal astronomer and physicist. He’s known as the Father of observational astronomy and the scientific method. He took the telescope to the next level, built an early version of the microscope, and rightly disputed the Catholic Church’s claim that the Earth and not the Sun was at the center of the galaxy. When it comes to science, Galileo is in the GOAT conversation. 

What about Figaro? He’s the male lead in a Mozart opera, The Marriage of Figaro. In which, the sleazy Count Almaviva tries to get with his servant Susana, but instead she falls for Figaro, the charming underdog and her fellow servant. The young couple gets married, leaving the Count with blue balls. 

Quote: “Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Figaro/ Magnifico!” These two appear together. The narrator is happy to see the pair. The brilliant and brave Galileo and the bold and charming Figaro may be his heroes. They advocate for his soul: “He’s just a poor boy from a poor family/ Spare him his life from this monstrosity.” 

Suddenly, it’s clear that we’re experiencing a court case between heaven and hell. The narrator pleads, “Easy come, easy go, will you let me go?” 

A voice answers “Bismillah! We will not let you go!” In Arabic, “Bismillah” means “in the name of God.” Well, that sounds official. Bummer.

And so the verdict is in. They won’t let him go. Our protagonist comes to the harrowing conclusion that “Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me.” Holy gulp. 

Beelzebub, a mythical creature if I ever looked one up, is a God, according to the Philistines, but also, according to the Christian Bible, he’s the prince of demons. He was practically the VP to Satan. In this context, since we’ve established that this is a scene from the underworld with high production values, Beelzebub is a demon. (So he sounds like a jerk to me.)

We exit the zany mock-opera and enter into glorious ‘70s metal thrashing in minute four. To recap, this section expresses the poor boy’s raging revenge. From about 4:09 to minute five, Brian May rips on guitar. Roger Taylor and John Deacon in the rhythm section crush it too, but May’s performance here is so magnifico. 

(Side note about Brian May: He’s a Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Famer who is also a Doctor of Science with a degree in Astrophysics. His thesis was titled “A survey of radial velocities in the zodiacal dust cloud.” … Why do I have to be dumber than most of the people I write about?) 

I have beautiful, vivid memories of being a kid and watching Wayne’s World on VHS. Early in the movie, Wayne, Garth and their pals go for a cruise around Aurora, Illinois in the Murphmobile. Wayne plays a Queen tape. Minutes later, when Brian May puts on that superhero cape, the boys start to headbang, overcome with joy and youthful energy. And as I sat on the couch excitedly in the Olig family living room, I was headbanging too. This was likely the first time I rocked out to hard rock music, while enjoying a comedy classic of the ‘90s.  

And that might be the biggest reason I wasn’t lying when I said this song was my favorite. That was a lot more fun than the deep analysis I’m doing now. 

Speaking of that analysis, I did crack a smile, albeit without headbanging, when I realized this story is told out of order, like Tarantino films such as Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill. All the puzzle pieces are there, most in life, some in death, but they’ve been jumbled. On the timeline of events, the homicide metal part happens first. After the fact, the poor boy reflects on what he’s done. We go back to the very beginning, where he wonders, “Is this this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality.” He copes with the pain with nihilism, saying “Nothing really matters to me.” 

Next, he finds his mom and confesses. The poor boy mourns, “Life had just begun, but now I’ve gone and thrown it all away.” He then hints at going into hiding, knowing that he’s wanted by the law. “If I’m not back again this time tomorrow, carry on, carry on/ As if nothing really matters.” He’s asking her to cope with the pain through nihilism too. 

But as far as avoiding capture goes, the fugitive soon concludes it’s too late. His time has come. We don’t get the details on how the poor boy leaves this world, but he tells us: “I don’t want to die. I sometimes wish I’d never been born at all.” And we have to wait a few minutes, for his last words, “Nothing really matters, anyone can see. Nothing really matters to me.” 

The poor boy’s life ends, and then his soul, too, meets its demise in the opera, with Beelzebub putting a devil aside for him. 

Now, I’m still not reinstating Queen as my GOAT song monarch, but all the other personal favorites I’ve mentioned would be hard-pressed to reveal so much with some detective work. “BR” is emotional in nature and intellectual if one seeks that, with stunning musicality, dynamics, cinematic-like storytelling, and production. 

 

When I called it a unicorn, that was true, but it’s also (sort of) the cause for our divorce. Because I’ve heard it so many times, it’s a work of genius that has become a no-brainer. When I first became aware of “BR” while watching Wayne’s World, it was a straight-up magic spell. Decades later, when I was exposed to the unicorn five times a day on the radio and once at Kwik Trip, the magic was lost. Queen’s masterpiece was a fantasy brought to life, only to be commodified and overexposed.

With so many things possible in our imaginations, we ended up with a tired unicorn on display at a common zoo, sponsored by Cumulus Media. What have they done to our unicorn? 

Looking for solace, I’m not the type who can shrug it off and say, “Welp, nothing really matters.” I’ve tried nihilism. It just made it so I couldn’t get out of bed. 

Some things do matter to me. The wind can blow in any direction. And I’m a little bummed out that it had to blow this way.