El Paso’s Grizz Challenges You To Guitar Hero At Dave & Busters Because Why Not

King of The Nerds, Grizz, Speaking.

This is a challenge. A challenge to the nerds of El Paso.

I am currently training myself to be the best Guitar Hero-er in the city, a title I have never held at a game where I was probably never even a fraction as good as the best player in my city.

But I recently uncovered a memory that made me realize I need to get good at Guitar Hero again and quick!

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See, one weekend when I was somewhere in my early 20's, wading through a humid Nebraska afternoon and trying to find a place to breathe. I found myself in a Dave & Busters somewhere in the middle of Downtown Omaha, back in the day when my fingers were more nimble and my drive to be number 1 was stronger than my buzz.

I was two glasses of whiskey deep with a third sitting on the counter of my digital battle arena. My fingertips were dancing over those multicolored plastic buttons like I was possessed by the spirit of some geek who never touched grass but who could play Primus without even looking at the screen.

There I am, in tipsy bliss swinging fingers across the ebony fret board like I might just be the next Jeff Beck when all of a sudden a scrawny little teenager walks over pushing his glasses up over his pizza faced cheeks. His parents are right behind him and it's clear he's not wandering D&B's trying to find a light gun to shoot fake dinosaurs with.

This kid wanted blood, he could smell the liquor on me and expected a sloppy fret fingering while he walloped me in my own game. Kid showed up with mom and dad behind him ready to prove that he was worth something, and I was just drunk enough to make a teenager cry in front of his parents.

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The kid steps up and asks if I want a quick showdown, and of course, I oblige him.

I tell him to choose the difficulty and the song, I ain't a punk. Turn it up to 11 and lets burn this whole place down. Kid was smart, to his credit, he didn't know that I was the real deal when he chose Expert difficulty. I couldn't help but smile though, when his fingers flicked the selector and that green fret button slammed on my all time favorite jam: Cliffs of Dover.

The screen loaded up the song and we readied ourselves. His stance tightened, feet planted into the D&B rug as the muscles in his hands clenched so hard he left imprints of his grip around that plastic guitar. Every inch of his body had tensed, even his parents clenched their butt cheeks as the game screen loaded up,

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I chugged my 3rd cup of whiskey, ice sloppily falling to the floor as the brown gold slicked down my throat. I breathe out the fire in my belly as my calloused finger tips make me a thousand promises of pain to come.

The song starts and my fingers place themselves on the notes like the game set me to autopilot. We both rip through the opening solo without a single mistake, rolling into long, drawn out guitar chords and quick button mashes as the main rhythm hits. We both move into a groove. Neither of us is missing a single beat and by the middle of the tune, this kids parents had their faces completely melted off by the insatiable shreddery of Rock & Roll happening in front of them.

By the final solo, the kid was sweating through his shirt, glasses sliding off of his nose as he struggled to end the showdown without faltering, working overtime to make his parents the proudest they could ever be of this pure and pristine geek of a boy.

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As I sashay through the notes, I hear it, we had been in sync for so much of the song I didn't even expect -- and the sound damn near made me lose focus. The itchy twang of missed note, that almost goes unnoticed when surrounded by just the right amount of perfect hits.

If it wasn't for his suddenly empty Guitar Hero meter, I wouldn't even had known he messed up at all. And as the song came to an end and the kid threw his guitar to the floor, he looked up at me. His tears drizzled out of his eyes slowly, but beneath the anime-like lens flare over his glasses I saw a slight smirk. The kid smiled as he put a hand out, no anger, no regret. Just reverence.

He shook my hand and said "You're really good, mister. Thanks for a great game." His dad shook his head in shame and his mother held her face in her hands, muffling the sounds of her sorrow.

I shook his hand, watched him and his parents walk out the way they came, and grabbed another glass of bold Jack Daniels before throwing another dime in the proverbial Juke Box.

Unearthing this memory reminded me what it felt like to know the ultimate satisfaction: Kicking a nerds ass at Guitar Hero.

So the challenge stands, El Paso. Can you beat me? Probably. But I will only get better until I am the best.

Meet me at Dave & Busters in Bassett and get ready to become another notch in my fret board.