SF native Maurice Ford, mostly known as Mo, has for about a year been setting up video games for passersby to play out of his 1991 Honda Accord, mostly on the streets of the Mission. The car is named Mogamin, and as the Chronicle reports, Mo hasn't been charging anyone to play the games, which include Nintendo classics like "Duck Hunt, "Super Smash Brothers," and "Mike Tyson's Punch-Out," but he does appreciate tips.
He tells the paper "If I can get 15 people on the side of my car to play one video game for four minutes and they walk up the street happy, laughing, smiling, jumping up and down, that’s God’s work."
The car comes with a flat-screen TV in the back, and Ford puts another screen up on the roof, with 4 different consoles to choose from, and a classic Sega Genesis.
One poignant detail: One Nintendo console came from Ford's deceased brother, Orlando Bobby Ford Jr., who the Chronicle says "died by gunshot in a San Francisco hotel."
A stroke left Ford with some slurred speech, but he says he's still able to connect with people via the games. He works a graveyard shift some nights at the new Halal Guys restaurant near Union Square, but it sounds like he's hoping tips earned from his video game car will be able to pay all his bills at some point.
Weirdly, there's no mention in the Chronicle piece of Maurice's wife Star, who was depicted on VICE's Motherboard blog back in December (they were the second to report on Mo's video game car, following a post on Hoodline) as being a full partner in this mobile arcade idea. Also, at the time, Maurice was working as a handyman, and last fall they were using the name Mobile GameStop.
Star told Motherboard, "The whole philosophy is that this is for us, the adults, that's why we keep it old school. We're working hard, we're stressed and we need to relax and have fun and remember a time when life was simple. It gives people this moment where it brings them back."
Mo gets around, but expect to find the car most often either 19th and Mission (outside Beauty Bar), 16th and Valencia, or Castro and Market.
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