Mechanical Memories Magazine

Anatomy of a Clown
By John Peterson
I love murder mysteries. If the author is a successful writer, he has a franchise character,
usually a cop or a private detective who goes from one story to the next solving crimes.
The better the author, the more complex the plot and the criminals. Regardless who the
author happens to be, if he has written multiple crime novels, one of his stories will
inevitably pit his hero against the Mother of All Criminals, the serial killer.
I love serial killers. Serial killers are fascinating. Smarter than the average person
and far smarter than the average criminal, the serial killer has consistent personality traits.
These traits have been studied and detailed at length by the top law enforcement minds,
namely the FBI and their agents at the Behavioural Sciences Laboratory. What they have
distilled down after studying all the serial killers they could get their hands on is that
these criminals are responding to ever increasing stimuli, both mental and physical,
dominating the present but rooted in their past. As these forces become more controlling
in their lives, they are forced to act out with ever increasing frequency. An intuitive cop
with a calendar can even accurately predict when the serial killer will strike again. I'm
not making this stuff up folks, it's all there on your library shelves.
Art imitates life and I'm sure a lot of what shows up in my books is soundly based in
fact. Being a student of human behaviour myself, I am proposing today that we stop
wasting taxpayer money at that Behavioural Sciences Lab and instead focus our attention
for free on the close cousin of the serial killer, the devoted coin-op collector. I know
some of you out there are nodding your heads in affirmation and saying silently to
yourselves, "I could have killed for that Caille cast iron piece at auction last week." As
much as I acknowledge and admire your zeal, this is not the part of serial killing I had in
mind. I'm talking about the unrelenting, unconscious and totally uncontrollable urges that
force us to pursue this hobby we love.
I have been collecting coin-op for quite a few years now. How many exactly?
Dearly Beloved would put the number at "way too many" but I would estimate that I've
been accumulating games for around 16 years. I would like to think that over that time,
not only has my knowledge increased but so has my self-control. No longer am I a
prisoner to the whims of the Coin-Op Gods, forced to salivate spontaneously at each and
every item I discover on Ebay or in the latest auction circular. I now have complete rein
over my impulses. I am in control!
Yeah, right. Like the serial killer, I find the need to feed the monster only increases
with time. If I've gone several months without a purchase, a mental itch begins to form
inside my brain. Unaware of exactly what is going on, I find that I'm growing irritable.
The coffee in the morning doesn't taste quite as hot, the toast quite as delicious. My
attention span diminishes and I'm curt with friends and family. Why is this happening?
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