#cloudmakers

Music Video: Besatree - Win Or Lose

Yes! Last night I caught the homey Besatree rocking this very song live along with many other bangers. “Win Or Lose” is featured on Besatree’s latest project, Wildlife. 

This track is madd wavy yo! It was produced by one of my favorite beat makers, Rokem. The video was directed by Muds One via The Cypher Effect. Ch-check it!

Today is the 15th anniversary of the establishment of Cloudmakers, the fan board that assembled to follow what became known as “The Beast,” aka “The A.I. Game” - the first big Alternate Reality Game.

"The Beast” changed the trajectory of my entire life and career in more ways than I can possible count. 

A few years ago, ETC Press invited me to write an essay about my experience in this game. Today seems like a good day to repost it.

Cloudmaker Days: A Memoir of the A. I. Game

On the evening of May 6th, 2001, I dawdled on the corner of 4th Street and Avenue A in New York City, trying to decide if I really would attend a rally for the Anti-Robot Militia.

I wouldn’t know anybody there. Sure, I had corresponded with some of them through an online message board. And after chickening out of the first gathering, I’d gone to the second cell meeting the week before – a dozen or so tentative geeks communing in an empty mid-town dining room, gingerly feeling each other out over our shared obsession with a strange series of websites. But this would be different. Even though the rally was taking place at an East Village bar, it was ostensibly going to be in the world of the “game.” Nobody knew what to expect, although speculation was rampant. But this would be more than just kibitzing about an online curiosity. This was the real world.

I thought about going home. It was a Sunday night. I could skip a strange evening with a bunch of weird geeks, turn in early and get ready to face Monday morning. I could read about what happened behind the safety of my monitor. Standing on that corner, I hesitated.

At last, I chose the road with the robots and the weirdoes. And that has made all the difference.