PAX: Alex St. John's keynote of infamy

Alex St. John breaks Washington State laws by smoking onstage
Alex St. John, the creator of Microsoft's DirectX API and founder of Wild Tangent, delivered a bizarre, and borderline unbelievable, PAX keynote yesterday. With equal parts alien spaceships, hostage negotiations, enormous 10' vaginas (courtesy of GWAR), Bill Gates embarrassing promotional video career and, of course, Microsoft's Julia Child's Wine Guide CD-ROM, I'd be doing a serious disservice to Mr. St. John if I attempted to encapsulate his performance.
What a performance! The keynote began with St. John tossing out large balls (that later took on an infamy all their own), mini glow-in-the-dark frisbees, and ping pong balls before he began his sordid tale. St. John began playing with decaptitated moose heads in Alaska as a child and ended up being the creator of DirectX at Microsoft as they entered the increasingly lucrative video game space. Of course, this journey was wrought with crazy situations (see aforementioned 10' vagina) and a fair amount of trepidation on the entire software community's part (a Windows blue screen at a developer's event was met with chants of "DOS, DOS, DOS!"). Despite these difficulties, the successful launch of the DirectX-Box means that Alex St. John has left an indelible impression on the gaming industry.
Here's our question: instead of doing keynotes and running software companies, why isn't this guy writing a tell-all book to prove that gaming has its own wild, rockstar tales?
[Thanks to Philip Palermo for the classy pic]










Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
canebi @ Aug 26th 2006 5:22PM
Because it doesn't?
this was just a chance for him to impress the gaming crowd by being rude.
Rockstar tales are those of drugs and sex, I'm sorry but video game developers don't have that, they just say vagina and you think they do.
Oh noes he was smoking! rebel without a cause I say.
Jonathan @ Aug 26th 2006 5:30PM
Agh WildTangent
Hammer @ Aug 26th 2006 5:38PM
@ 1
Knowing a few games developers based in the Las Vegas area, you'd be surprised just what they get up to.
Best stories I've heard are about Westwood before it was bought over by EA.
P. Palermo @ Aug 26th 2006 5:42PM
Dang, if I had just stuck my hand out, I could have caught the prized ping pong ball and came home with a new computer. Hardly anyone on my side of the theater seemed to notice the ball came flying past them. Darn media ethics =).
Fuzz @ Aug 26th 2006 5:58PM
Yes, you would be surpirsed at the lives these people had before they had their spirit and creativity squished by coprorate culture, and their souls molded into what THE MAN thinks a programer should be.
jRon @ Aug 26th 2006 6:07PM
hmmm.... Fuente....
HEYYOUTHERE @ Aug 26th 2006 6:15PM
Ah! Sweet! Now I can do it back to the Microsoftees!
10 FOOOOOOOOOOOT VAGGGGGIIIINNNNAAAA!
jhildo @ Aug 26th 2006 6:28PM
Actually, someone did write a book, "Renegades of the Empire". Very entertaining, full of the unbelievable details Alex St. John delivered to the audience.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0609604163/sr=8-1/qid=1156631164/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-1362602-1543253?ie=UTF8
rpg @ Aug 26th 2006 10:50PM
damn, id love a 10 inch vagina. then i'd finaly be able to get some without hurting women.
joe smith @ Aug 26th 2006 11:52PM
Of course, he actually had nothing at all to do with the Xbox. He was long gone when the project started.
Steve519 @ Aug 27th 2006 12:08AM
it wasn't a 10 inch vagina but a 10 foot vagina, and that ping pong ball, the first guy that caught it, the gamestop guy, was the seat in front of me, damn I was dissapointed. I thought that it went pretty good and he kept the audiance entertained. And the crowd was pretty into it, but we did get distracted time to time by giant exercise balls that if you weren't paying attention you get you in the head
if anyone wants a audio feed of this keynote check it out here http://xblradio.com/blogcast/?p=88
DCFC Fan @ Aug 27th 2006 8:27AM
He may be obnoxious, but I'd hit it.
Alkaiser @ Aug 27th 2006 3:42PM
jhildo:
Thank you!
I was beginning to think nobody in the gaming community read anything if it wasn't in blog format.
Chris: You may want to slap some hyperlink action to link to the "tell-all book" text.
(My favorite part of the book is when they get the motorcycle all chromed out and it shoots gouts of flame from the exhaust pipes...and they end up not being able to use it for the public presentation.)