playing jackass: the game part 2

So when I left this off, it was well past midnight, I was once again on the verge of tears, and I couldn’t get past the level I was stuck on. As I was leaving Bailey, who was already in bed, I realized that we didn’t have a mechanism to save the game. Because remember? You used to have to have a memory card to save your progress. I would have to play the whole game all over again. 

The elevator down to the lobby of Bailey’s apartment felt like I was descending to Hell and I’m not being hyperbolic. 

I thought about the game, how frustrating and ugly it was, all week. Images of Steve-O’s animated, naked body, being flung across animated cacti haunted my mind. I was tortured by the bastardized Minutemen theme the game used. 

That Friday, I caught up with Bailey after a Lucy Dacus concert at a bar and she asked when I was going to come over and fucking finish the game. 

“I’ll be there tomorrow!”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah! Tomorrow morning at 11!”

1:46pm: I walk into Bailey’s apartment. 

Hi it’s me – I let this sit in my drafts for months and months and months while I was busy getting ready for a big move and mostly just didn’t want to write it. The ending of the video game is very straightforward: it took forever, the gameplay is repetitive, I got annoyed, Bailey had to rescue me, and we finished the game fairly unceremoniously. I think I said “this sucks” a lot and left. Blah blah blah.

I spent today, several months later, unpacking in my new place and I am so tired and my body hurts. (I am not cut out for even a second of Jackass.) One of the last boxes I unpacked tonight had my copy of jackass: the game buried in the bottom. I remembered I left part one on this blog hanging and needed to do something and I also remembered that I missed Bailey and her apartment and playing this stupid game with her and Rook. 

I watched Jackass: The Movie and Jackass Number Two with friends a couple weekends ago. Mixed reactions to the series but everyone did have a lot of fun. At least I think so. But watching those movies with friends is one of my favorite things to do. It’s how they’re supposed to be watched. It’s also how jackass: the game is supposed to be played.

One of my favorite questions to ask new friends, particularly millennial men, is “What’s your favorite Jackass stunt?” I get lots of responses to that, but my favorite by far is when people start telling a story about the stunt they tried with their shithead friends back in the day. They all talk about shopping carts and furious mothers and broken elbows. They all say they haven’t thought about that memory in a while. They all smile a lot when telling it. While the disclaimer at the beginning of the show half-heartedly begs people not to try the stunts, this is also what the show is about. Doing something boneheaded with friends like the guys on the screen do.

I am not bringing this up for no reason, jackass: the game came out during a weird time. Steve-O has talked at length about post-Number Two feeling like the end of the world (2006), which means that the game was released during the apocalypse (2007). These were tough off-years. Jackass didn’t have a future, Wildboyz was done, Viva La Bam was over, their group celebrity was crashing, their money was dwindling, they were about to lose their whole thing to Internet copycats, and their social dynamic was splintering. Plenty of members couldn’t afford to not be in the game, Bam legally couldn’t be in the game because of his many contracts, and Ryan Dunn couldn’t be in the game due to a blood clot sustained during Jackass Number Two. While the game was depicting friendship and encouraging friendship, the actual friendships it was based on were falling apart.

Jackass works because you, the audience, believe in the bond this crew has, and feel almost part of it when they talk to the camera, inviting you in. In the good stunts, they all pat each other on the back and whoop loudly for victories and even louder for failures. You can tell if a stunt is bad because it’s probably missing this. I go back and forth about how much of that friendship you see is legitimate these days and how much of it has broken down into a weird coworker relationship. And I think it's fluid right? It depends on if someone has something going on in their own life, if they are being paid adequately, and most importantly: if there’s a Jackass project going on. 

I remember in Steve-O’s latest book, A Hard Kick in the Nuts, he talks about how even though he was excited to do Jackass Forever, he had a better understanding of the price of his labor, and courageously (to him and me honestly) held up production to make sure he had a good contract. This is probably a huge social faux pas in Jackassland. Of course there was also jackflopgate in May, which unfortunately Knoxville did end up replying to, exacerbating the tension between Jackass and Bam. Interestingly enough, though, by making the video in defense of CKY, I do think that Bam was defending the friendship aspect of Jackass and naming it as a crucial part of the franchise that’s currently missing. This week, I focused a bit too much on not many of the guys posting about Preston Lacy’s birthday as if that matters (but maybe it does). I think things are weird in Jackassland right now. Not bad but not great either. Maybe very stationary. 

But then also who knows what’s going on. Steve-O and Pontius did stand up together this week and Knoxville dropped by. Friendship endures.

jackass: the game is, at its core, a party game. It’s not supposed to be played well or seriously, it’s supposed to be played with friends while you talk about whatever else. That’s why it’s full of terrible graphics and bad songs and outrageous stunts that they could never try in real life that make you shriek with laughter. It’s inviting you and your friends to join them. You are a jackass too.

Sorry this blog has been a bit quiet lately, I have stuff I want to work on but it will probably be slow. Thanks for reading, and if anyone wants a copy of jackass: the game, let me know.