THE AUTHOR PONDERS THE
MYSTERIES OF PINBALL
2012, Boutin operated a small speakeasy-arcade out of the
warehouse at 245 Blair Blvd. called The Location. Insiders
who knew about Boutin’s illicit night club brought six
packs, crowded around a laptop streaming stolen Blazers
games, smoked cigarettes and played pinball till sunrise.
Boutin’s pinball love stems mostly from nostalgia. His
parents split when he was a kid. The lanky Oregonian
remembers visiting his old man on weekends in Coos
Bay. Father and son bonded over a Williams-made pinball
cabinet called “Black Knight” in the early ’80s.
Boutin says he’d love to get his hands on that machine
again. “That stupid Black Knight! It’s my grail,” he howls.
“Defining moments in my life happened around
pinball,” he adds.
Turtles shares a similar story. He fondly remembers
playing Capt. Fantastic with his dad back in ’79.
With no concrete understanding of how pinball is
scored, I’m dumbfounded to find I’ve somehow managed
to shrink the point-gap between Turtles and me.
But as the tension mounts, I crack under the pressure
and freeze for a split second as my third and final ball
comes screaming down the center lane. It slips neatly
between the stalled flippers and disappears down the
drain into the guts of the Wizard!
“Everybody knows your third ball doesn’t mean shit,”
Turtles says. ■
Pinball Knights, a weekly pinball tournament, takes place every Wednes-
day at 8 pm; $5 buy-in, no minors after 9 pm. More info at the Blairally
Vintage Arcade page on Facebook.
Pinball
Wizards
Taking a turn at the flippers during
Blairally’s weekly tournament
BY BEN RICKER
T
wo Turtles releases the spring-loaded
plunger, and a small steel ball rockets
up the chute and begins its arcing
trajectory across the candy-colored
table. Wearing a beard and T-shirt that
reads “I’m kind of a big deal,” Turtles’
focus is locked on the dazzling array
of lights glowing from a 40-year-old pinball machine
called “Wizard!”
Turtles is a regular here, a fixture on Wednesday nights
when Blairally hosts Pinball Knights, its weekly double-
elimination pinball tournament. And he’s destroying me.
Usually a dozen or so contestants buy in. They pay
$5 to add their names to the bracket. Prizes are whatever
Pinball Knights organizers can scrape together. In the
past, champion ’ballers have taken home Sandwich
League sandwiches, bottles of 2 Towns cider or Whiteaker
Tattoo Collective vouchers.
Turtles promises to tattoo my first name across his
right bicep if he wins the tattoo package.
Despite holding a commanding lead, Turtles
generously pretends it’s still anyone’s game. He keeps
the ball alive for what feels like an eternity and, when
it’s finally slungshot down an “out lane,” he steps away
from the Wizard! and says: “Everyone knows your first
two balls don’t mean shit.”
Built in 1975 to coincide with the release of Ken
Russell’s film Tommy, Wizard!’s colorful backglass depicts
a defiant Roger Daltrey, wearing black sunglasses and
white muscle shirt, cuddling a seminude Ann Margret.
Chesty vixens flank Daltrey and Margret; flames engulf
the world around them.
Wizard! is one of Blairally’s more than 15
electromechanical (EM) pinball machines. EM machines
are gorgeous relics from the bygone analog era that ended
shortly after video games conquered America’s arcades.
Aesthetic charm aside, the beauty of an EM cabinet is
that it has no computerized brain, Turtles says, adding: “If
a nuclear bomb went off in Eugene, you could start this
thing up and play it the next day.”
Machines manufactured since the mid-1970s tend
to be digital at heart; circuit boards all but retired
electromechanical relay systems and the rolling scoring
reel gave way to flashy dot matrix displays.
Pinball Knights emcee Clark Davis says no other bar
on the west coast owns as many working EM pinball
machines as Blairally, located right in the heart of
Eugene’s Whiteaker neighborhood.
Pinball runs deep in Blairally’s genes, says owner Chad
Boutin. For two years leading up to its grand opening in
PHOTOS BY TRASK BEDORTHA
www.eugeneweekly.com
SWIZZLE 2016
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