Cactus Jack's

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 7:54 am

During ICJ's recent visit to Oklahoma, I took him by Cactus Jack's. I would like to read ICJ's honest and unbiased review of the place, after which I will pipe in with my own thoughts.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 9:11 pm

I forgot my camera on the way to Oklahoma, so I was not able to capture the essential evil of a place like Cactus Jack's.

Let me start off by saying that the per-machine license fee we were talking about is such a laughably transparent mechanism for fucking over a single business owner that I would love to see whoever is pushing for it locked up. Just a straight-out act of anti-Americanism. What a joke. I'm sure the IDSA is on the case, though.

Anyway, for anyone reading this, Cactus Jack's is an arcade that Flack and I went to last Sunday. It is an important piece toward my theory that Oklahoma is delightfully set in my 80s. Not "the" 80s, but the 80s I remember. Here's why:

- The topography simply reminded me of the suburbs of New York. I never get to see them any more because I usually return home to NY, if I do so at all, in the wintertime for Christmas, Thanksgiving and MLK Jr. Day. So to see a mostly-flat expanse of land with hot weather, a bit of humidity and lush, green grass everywhere... well, I'm taken back to my youth.

- The games we played were exactly as how they were in the 80s. That's self-selection, but still.

- The old computers that surrounded us reminded me of computer "camp" that my mom signed my brother and I up for, for a week or two during the summer, on two occasions. My brother got the one for the Atari 8-bit. I got the one for the Apple II. I kept having flashback after flashback of frigging computer camp. I hadn't thought of that in a while, and I think of retro electronics constantly. But man. Aside from being inside a beautiful woman, as I have been for many times in my life, I can't think of any place I'd rather be transported to in my life than computer camp this last week or so. And Oklahoma was like a trip back there.

- The arcade we actually went to.

All righty. If I lived in Oklahoma City, I can totally see how CJ's would be a constant hang out. Granted, after a certain point the billiards become the attraction, but that's a good arcade. I messed up by having two real quarters in my pocket. (Cactus Jack's is on tokens.) I kept trying to put the quarters in and they wouldn't fit. I thought that all the coin mechs were broken! But no.

The lineup was good. Loved the Robotron. Beautiful machine. Loved the Stargate and Defender as well. I want to say that Stargate was not in a dedicated cab. Is that right? I can't remember now. (It does not matter even a little, I am just trying to remember.) They played well, there was no burn on the screens, and the controls were TIGHT.

Adored the Baby Pac-Man, too. The bumpers were not working, if I have the term right. This meant I spent more time playing pinball on Baby Pac-Man than I normally do. However, I made several bad decisions and actually got murdered by the ghosts with power pills on the board in BPM, which is awful, because it has the most relentless ghost AI of any Pac-family game.

You know me, I am always open for some Millipede.

The games along that wall were spectacular. Could not enjoy those more!

There's another section of older games in Cactus Jack's, and it was bizarre to see two Rastans and two 10 Yard Fights. I will be honest with you, Flack. I thought 10 Yard Fight sucked. I have impossible standards for football games, sure, but man - 10YF is rough. It also seemed to run too slowly for the processor it had.

I was most disappointed to see Circus Charlie not taking tokens. Arrrrgh! It was sad, but not unexpected, to see Spy Hunter turned off. Spy Hunter is hell to maintain. I will never understand why ops paint the sides of games like Spy Hunter, though. I know it probably wasn't anyone living who did so to that one, but still.

To see Circus Charlie running, but be unable to play it due to the screws in the slots... so sad.... remember the agreement.... remember the agreement, Commander....

I looked up Beach Head 2002 games on eBay when I got home, Sunday night. So that's all I shall say about that. An amazing game that probably doesn't hold up as part of a home arcade, but I had a ton of fun shooting people. I am sure I looked like a moron twirling around in the thing. (Beach Head 2002 gives you a VR headset and a full 360 degrees of motion. Actually, beyond 360. You can keep going.)

Cactus Jack's was really great, yeah. Now. It was inferior to your arcade, which I shall start a thread about next. I assume people on the Gas Chamber all know about your arcade, so I shall start the thread here, not to be rude, but because that way maybe Ben or Straw will say something.

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 11:07 pm

Alright, so -- Cactus Jack's. Some of this I already said in Invading Spaces. Eh.

As a kid, the building itself was terrifying. The building has concrete floors and sprayed in foam insulation on the ceiling that just looks like asbestos. From the outside it looks like the building has tinted windows, but no -- they've just been painted black. The only light in the building comes from (a) the glass doors at the front of the building, (b) about four randomly scattered light bulbs, and (c) the soft glow of arcade monitors. What makes this even worse is the layout of the building. It's shaped like ten double-wide trailers placed back-to-back-to-back -- it's super long, and the further away from the front doors you go, the less likely you are to see an employee (or anyone else for that matter). Plus, it's dark. As a kid, the place was both awesome and terrifying.

The place has a better selection of classic games than it should. There were a couple of combo machines thrown in the mix -- one Missile Command/Centipede/Millipede machine that I took a few turns with, and a Neo Geo machine next to it. There were a Defender, Stargate, Ms. Pac-Man, Centipede, and a few others. New this time was the Ultracade, which was loaded with 50 or so games. I played Berserk, Commando, and Asteroids on it, but it all felt like MAME, which I can play at home for free.

In the rear of the arcade was a new area of older games (the 10 Yard Fight area). That section was totally new and the more I think about it, the more I wonder if those games aren't ones they've pulled off route and are planning on selling, due to the new tax stamp hike. Jonsey mentioned it, but they just quadrupled the going rate of coin-op tax stamps here in Oklahoma from $50/machine to $150/machine. According the local newspaper, Cactus Jack's has 350 machines and will have to pay $52,500/year just in tax stamps. That's only 575 rounds of Robotron a day, every year (as long as the place has no expenses).

In recent years Cactus Jack's has done what every other place that wants to stay open has done; they took out the majority of their pool tables and replaced them with kiddie vending machines and picnic tables to facilitate birthday parties. No foul as far as I'm concerned. If it keeps the doors open, I'm all for it.

People all over the country are bemoaning how there are no true arcades left. I have one 5 miles from my house that I rarely visit. I should go there more than I do.

Tdarcos · Post by **Tdarcos** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 1:52 am

Flack wrote:People all over the country are bemoaning how there are no true arcades left. I have one 5 miles from my house that I rarely visit. I should go there more than I do.

I don't know if people are bemoaning it, but there are only two outdoor drive-in theaters within 100 miles of where I live, one (I've never been to) is the Fork Union Drive in, located near I85 in Fork Union, Virginia; and the Bengies' Drive In, located in Essex, Maryland just outside Baltimore.

The owner, D. Edward Vogel, is famous for saying over the PA system that if you're leaving early before seeing all three of the films on the schedule (that you paid for), "You're Stupid!"

According to a pseudo public-service-announcement they show before the main feature, there are only about 400 drive-ins left in the United States. Part of the problem is the distributors don't like them because they run more films than a regular theater for the same admission fee and thus they pay less than a single-film regular "walk in" one.

I remember going to several drive-ins back in the late 1970s back in Long Beach, California. Enormous increases in Real Estate values caused them to close down and be sold. I think from San Diego to Santa Barbara there isn't a single drive-in theater any more, the real estate just became too valuable. Despite the fact that in Southern California the weather is so mild you can run films every single night. A drive-in theatre like the Bengies in Baltimore has to close during the winter.

This sort of problem drove almost every farm in Southern California out of business as the land became way too valuable plus property taxes went up. So the legislature instituted a change in the rules: if you ran a farm in California in a city or other urban area, you got a complete exemption from property taxes for ten years as long as you agreed to use the property for farming for the 10-year period.

So it was wierd: I'd ride the bus in Orange County, pass through these areas of tall office buildings, and then a plot of land about two blocks long and maybe 3 wide, and they were growing strawberries on it! Like a normal farm. In the middle of a bustling city. Across the street on every side from the farm was another 10-or-more-story office building. The farm even had a fruit stand next to the road where you could (if you were driving) pull over and buy some baskets or bushels fresh picked (that's how I knew it was a strawberry patch.)

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Fri Jun 24, 2011 5:05 pm

The owner, D. Edward Vogel, is famous for saying over the PA system that if you're leaving early before seeing all three of the films on the schedule (that you paid for), "You're Stupid!"

WTF? It that sort of just what people do in your neck of the woods?

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Sat Jun 25, 2011 1:19 am

Maybe the owner was just addressing people who didn't know how KVMs worked?

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Mon Jul 11, 2011 4:32 am

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Cactus Jack's was really great, yeah. Now. It was inferior to your arcade, which I shall start a thread about next. I assume people on the Gas Chamber all know about your arcade, so I shall start the thread here, not to be rude, but because that way maybe Ben or Straw will say something.

I'm kind of glad that thread never happened, mostly because I don't want you to feel like you have to say something nice to be polite about my game collection. I was out there last night and ... there's just not that much nice to say about it. :/

ICJ · Post by **ICJ** » Mon Jul 11, 2011 7:29 am

That thread is gonna happen, I just forgot to start it until I had a chance to re-read the last few messages, and remember what I meant to post. Da King still gives me shit for not keeping up with the NBA/NHL thread. There shall be posts forthcoming.

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Mon Jul 11, 2011 1:21 pm

I know what you mean. I have my list picked, just need to write up the reviews.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Mon Jun 18, 2012 9:53 pm

Flack, Aardvark and I went to Cactus Jack's over the weekend. Here is what is different: fewer games!

I'm on a big pinball kick, so I played a lot of the pinball games they had there: Doctor Who, Pub Champion, Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, Baby Pac-Man and Attack from Mars. These were great! Well, Episode One sucks. But the other ones were fantastic. I think I had a better time this year even though there were fewer games around.

They had gotten rid of the big classic arcade section in the back. They still had a Robotron, Defender and Ms. Pac, but non-emulated classics are now quite rare.

We thought that the air conditioning was off at one point -- Flack thought that meant that they were on the road to going bankrupt. (The theory being that they couldn't afford A/C.) Like evolution, it wasn't a theory anyone could prove and toward the end the A/C came on. (This is the equivalent of the Rapture in my metaphor here.)

I've never spoken a single word to a person who worked there, so I can say that theirs is the only place with a perfect customer satisfaction rating. Much like the reign of William Henry Harrison, they didn't have the opportunity to fuck things up. So A+ there.

Flack, do you remember the guy who is starting the arcade in Arkansas? Shae, I think his name was? Do you have his website or anything?

Roody_Yogurt · Post by **Roody_Yogurt** » Mon Jun 18, 2012 10:31 pm

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:I've never spoken a single word to a person who worked there, so I can say that theirs is the only place with a perfect customer satisfaction rating. Much like the reign of William Henry Harrison, they didn't have the opportunity to fuck things up. So A+ there.

That reminds me about how the Funspot has this area labeled "Customer Service Area" or something, but it's really just an alcove full of token machines and other electronic kiosks. No human interaction at all.

The other funny thing was that when I did find somebody to talk to, I asked if they had any postcards or anything (since I figured an arcade postcard would be as cool or cooler than anything else I could send to my nephew). Dude was like, no, but that's a really good idea!!!

This place works so hard to be a "classic arcade museum," yet they really do nothing in the ways of merchandising. I'm pretty sure the only t-shirts I saw were ones you could win with tickets. I could be wrong about that, but still, the place just has an aura of geek mentality that somehow misses obvious conclusions.

Of course, that is much better than a place that is too much of the opposite, but I still found it quirky.

Tdarcos · Post by **Tdarcos** » Tue Jun 19, 2012 1:17 am

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: I messed up by having two real quarters in my pocket. (Cactus Jack's is on tokens.) I kept trying to put the quarters in and they wouldn't fit. I thought that all the coin mechs were broken! But no.

I have a suspicion here. If an amusement device only takes tokens, it's not a commercial device and doesn't have to have a license fee from the city, county or state. Figure that each machine might require $35 a year for a license. If you've got 50 machines, that's over $1600. 100 would be $3500, every year.

On the other hand, if your change machines sell tokens, and say you have four of those, your yearly amusement machine license fee is now $170.

Tdarcos · Post by **Tdarcos** » Tue Jun 19, 2012 1:22 am

I discovered this forum prohibits editing so I can't go back and fix what I said. So I'll post a correction.

I have a suspicion here. If an amusement device only takes tokens, it's not a commercial device and doesn't have to have a license fee from the city, county or state. Figure that each machine might require $35 a year for a license. If you've got 50 machines, that's over $1600. 100 would be $3500, every year. I hadn't read all of the messages when you mentioned the fee was, at first, a surprising $50 then raised to $150. But if it were me, I'd see a lawyer and figure out how to legally get around paying over $50,000 in license fees.

AArdvark · Post by **AArdvark** » Tue Jun 19, 2012 3:15 am

I discovered this forum prohibits editing so I can't go back and fix what I said.

Huh, no editing, how strange.

CJ's was great! All it needs are more pinball machines and less tax on the license stamps. One hundred-fifty a year for each machine is really steep.

THE
SHALLOW POCKETS
AARDVARK[/quote]

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Tue Jun 19, 2012 6:15 am

Yeah, the tax stamps went from $50 to $150, per year, per machine. And machines that take tokens are not exempt. From the tax code:

710:25-1-3. Device requiring decal For purposes of administration of the Coin-operated Music and Amusement Devices Code, a decal will be required for each machine, regardless of the number of coin slots, if the machine can, upon insertion of a coin, token or similar object, provide music, amusement or entertainment or dispense product(s) separate and apart from any other provider of music, amusement or entertainment or dispenser of product(s). The test to determine whether the machine can operate separate and apart from any other is whether the provider or dispenser can still function if separated from the others to which it is attached. When multiple machines are placed on a single stand, each machine requires a decal.

http://www.tax.ok.gov/rules/rule2508.pdf

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Tue Jun 19, 2012 6:22 am

Roody_Yogurt wrote:
Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:I've never spoken a single word to a person who worked there, so I can say that theirs is the only place with a perfect customer satisfaction rating. Much like the reign of William Henry Harrison, they didn't have the opportunity to fuck things up. So A+ there.
That reminds me about how the Funspot has this area labeled "Customer Service Area" or something, but it's really just an alcove full of token machines and other electronic kiosks. No human interaction at all.

The other funny thing was that when I did find somebody to talk to, I asked if they had any postcards or anything (since I figured an arcade postcard would be as cool or cooler than anything else I could send to my nephew). Dude was like, no, but that's a really good idea!!!

This place works so hard to be a "classic arcade museum," yet they really do nothing in the ways of merchandising. I'm pretty sure the only t-shirts I saw were ones you could win with tickets. I could be wrong about that, but still, the place just has an aura of geek mentality that somehow misses obvious conclusions.

Of course, that is much better than a place that is too much of the opposite, but I still found it quirky.

Cactus Jack's usually has a few employees on hand, but most of them hang around the front area by the ticket redemption stuff. You may see the occasional tech make his way from the front to the back, but for the majority of the building, it does feel abandoned.

Roody, I know the exact area you are talking about at Funspot. When Jason Scott and I were up there, the only things available for sale were King of Kong posters. If I remember correctly, they didn't even have the DVDs on hand. Just the posters.

While at Funspot, Jason did one of the coolest things I've ever seen. He got $10 in tokens and throughout the day he kept scattering them around the arcade, rolling them under machines and dropping them in the aisles. "Do you know how excited some kid is going to be when he finds a token?" he said. I always thought that was really cool and I always say I'm going to do it ... then I run across a pinball table or a Galaga machine and I walk out with empty pockets. I guess the key is to dole out the tokens while you still have some.

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Tue Jun 19, 2012 6:28 am

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Flack, Aardvark and I went to Cactus Jack's over the weekend. Here is what is different: fewer games!

I'm on a big pinball kick, so I played a lot of the pinball games they had there: Doctor Who, Pub Champion, Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, Baby Pac-Man and Attack from Mars. These were great! Well, Episode One sucks. But the other ones were fantastic. I think I had a better time this year even though there were fewer games around.

They had gotten rid of the big classic arcade section in the back. They still had a Robotron, Defender and Ms. Pac, but non-emulated classics are now quite rare.

We thought that the air conditioning was off at one point -- Flack thought that meant that they were on the road to going bankrupt. (The theory being that they couldn't afford A/C.) Like evolution, it wasn't a theory anyone could prove and toward the end the A/C came on. (This is the equivalent of the Rapture in my metaphor here.)

I've never spoken a single word to a person who worked there, so I can say that theirs is the only place with a perfect customer satisfaction rating. Much like the reign of William Henry Harrison, they didn't have the opportunity to fuck things up. So A+ there.

Flack, do you remember the guy who is starting the arcade in Arkansas? Shae, I think his name was? Do you have his website or anything?

It's funny, they had the same four pinball machines that they had the last time you came. The last time you came, the Baby Pac-Man was broken, but it seemed to work well enough this time. I was amazed at how easy the pinball part of that game was and how hard the maze part is.

No A/C is definitely an "uh oh" moment for me, as big fans blowing hot air around that place are obviously cheaper than cooling it with A/C ... so I did feel some relief, both mentally and physically, when I felt the cold air come blowing out of the vents. In retrospect, we stopped by pretty early, so it would make sense that they are saving a few dollars but running fans during off times and/or earlier in the day (and probably later in the evening) and saving the A/C for the hotter and busier times of the day.