The late evening was slowly creeping in as I was cruising on I-35 North, rocking out to some old school punk rock. Prior to the car ride home, I was casually spending the weekend with my daughter as usual. She loves to control the aux while she’s the designated back seat passenger. For the most part, it has become apparent that we listen to the same types of music, excluding shoegaze, Billie Ellish and old country. The 6 pm sun was beginning to set behind the Wells Fargo building, located on the downtown Denton square as I was passing through. To me, it was the perfect time to let the windows down to snag a whiff of the less polluted air, compared to Downtown Dallas, floating around amongst locals. After my weekends, I’m usually back home around 8 or 9 pm but this time was different; I had plans to meet up with Christian aka Lil PPboi at FreePlay Arcade to shoot a video for his Missy Elliot single. Before I pulled into town, he informed me that he was going to be late, due to an issue he wasn’t able to tell me at the moment. Confused but unbothered, I pulled into the QT gas station to get gas and grab a Miller Lite tall boy. I wasted no time opening up the can and guzzling down a few gulps before filling up, it was refreshing to say the least. After setting my open can down into the cup holder and putting as much gas as I could into the tank, I drove off back down the street to park near the arcade to finish my brew. Nothing in the general area stood out to me as i reclined in the driver’s seat waiting on Christian’s arrival until I notice an obnoxious individual headed towards me. It was hard to tell who it was at first due the distance but as the individual came a little closer, I noticed the bushy grey hair on the head and upper lip, the huge dark 80’s terminator sunglasses, the awful faded royal blue sweater and the light pink short...it was Old Man Musty. Not only was it unusual to see him out and about like this, there was something off about him: he seemed to be a little incoherent. The first plan of action was to call Christian but after three calls he didn’t picked. I hopped out of the car to make sure he was ok. At first, he didn’t recognize me and decided to curse me out. After I told him who I was, he gave me a blank stare as if his brain had to process what was going on. He proceeded to tell me that he was in Denton because Christian wanted to go to the arcade and he wanted to “have a little fun”. I quickly grabbed my camera from the trunk of the car and followed him to FreePlay.

Sebastian Win, aka Old Man Musty, was born on April 15, 1944 in Bronx, New York and was the only son of Mateo and Sabrina Win. His father was Puerto Rican and his mother was African American . At a young age, Sebastian was very hands on and mildly aggressive young boy. He possessed a lot of energy like the Tasmanian devil from Looney Tunes. Out of the many sports he participated in during his teen years, football and track were his favorite. He was the star running back at South Bronx high school in 1961 until he ended up tearing his acl in one of his last few games. Disappointed, he eventually let go of his aspirations of making it to the NFL.

After high school, he was enlisted into the United States Army and like many grandpas in America, he fought in the Vietnam War. During his time in the armed services, he acquired a keen sense of knowledge on making homemade bombs and was also became a well respected chef, specializing in Vietnamese food. After completing missions, his platoon would raid each town or village and look for things that deemed itself useful. Sebastian was always on the hunt for Vietnamese cookbook, aprons, pots, pans, etc. Eventually, the extreme acts of violence and the lack of good food was weighing on his conscience so he had to figure a way of getting out of the service. At first, he began taking photos of himself T-bagging soldiers and posting them on posts, trees and nearby towns and wrote his name on it. This plan backfired. The T-bagging photos became an infamous, mischievous act that became popular to do to rookies. Sebastian’s next attempt was to defecate into buckets and throw the waste all over the soldiers while they sleep and as the soldiers woke up, he would admit to the act. This lead the Lieutenant in charge to believe the Vietnamese soldiers came to poison Sebastian with psychedelic drugs and caused his to perform this disgusting deed. At this point, Sebastian had enough. One night, Sebastian found the Lieutenant asleep, bursted in and began yelling at the Lieutenant to fight him butt naked. This eventually lead to his discharge.

In 1964, the dream of opening up a Vietnamese restaurant in the Bronx was becoming an imminent reality for Sebastian. Around this time, he began courting a young Puerto Rican women by the name of Jasmine Brown. A year later, he opened up Viet’ NOM NOM’s on Tremont Ave in the Bronx. By this time, Sebastian and Jasmine were a year and two months into their relationship. Jasmine quit her job at the salon and ended up working as the cashier and manager of Viet’ NOM NOM’s while he was the chef. In 1970, Sebastian and Jasmine got engaged and shortly after eloped in Las Vegas. Initially, it was Sebastian’s idea to surprise her; Jasmine was constantly talking about traveling and being going on spontaneous adventures so he figured it was a good idea. When Sebastian presented her with elopement plan, she was furious. For her wedding, she wanted something more elegant, meaningful or at least something with a lot more thought put into it. After a couple of days of reconciliation and a two bottles of expensive wine later, she agreed to it. After the elopement, two speeding tickets in two different counties, a brand new Rolex watch and a handful of Dolly Parton’s hair, the couple made it back to the Bronx to find Viet’ NOM NOM’s was broken into. No cash was stolen, just the dishes and soap went missing. In 1972, Sebastian and Jasmine had a set of twins, a boy and a girl.

Throughout the years, Sebastian’s PTSD from the Vietnam war became progressively worse. He would wake up from nightmares 2- 3 times a week. His nightmares usually consisted of him making food for his platoon that would kill them instantly. This ultimately created a lot of stress for Jasmine. Sebastian also had a problem with wetting the bed, not from urinating but from the drooling that stemmed from his nightmares. He ended up going to see a psychiatrist and getting perscribed Prozac. As time flys by, his ever growing sense of cynicism drove some of this closest people away. Eventually, he and Jasmine decided to get a divorce in 1991. It was then that he made the spontaneous decision to move to North Texas. For the majority of the 90’s consisted of him trying to piece his life together in a one bedroom/ one bathroom apartment with two cats, Ralphie the female maine coon and Gretchen the female calico. On occasion, he would find himself at local bars, rambling to himself or to anyone who listened about his army days and his restaurant. As the new millennium arrived, he felt his age creeping up on him faster than before so he headed to the gym to exercise at least five days a week.

In 2015, Sebastian started to not keep up with his medication. He claimed that stopping his medication gave him more energy and more life. This helped him break out of his 3/4 life crisis. When his grandson, Christian Win, started making music and performing shows, he started to tag along to see what the youth was up to. One night in Deep Ellum after a handful of shots and a strawberry daiquiri, Sebastian was wondering around Main Street. This night, like any other night, was heavily congested. The sidewalk was flooded with pedestrians and people were pouring out into the street. Sebastian spotted a group of attractive young African American women. He approached the women, introduced himself and engaged in a conversation. A little drunk and flirty, Sebastian proceeded to charm the women with his old school swag. Minutes later, the women were ready to depart and as Sebastian leaned in to give the tall one of them a hug, she took a big whiff and jumped back. “ You musty asf! Who let you come out the house smelling canned horse shit and egg salad? Old Man Musty looking ass!“ she yells as the others roared with laughter. Shocked, Sebastian used his quick wit to fire back. “ Your weave looks like you got in from the back of my tail pipe!” he replied back. In that very same moment, Christian and his friends walked up and quickly diffused the situation. It took a while for Christian to calm his grandpa down , his feelings and his pride was hurt. They pulled up in front of 711 and purchased two sticks of deodorant. Christian finally got Sebastian to his house and into bed to rest. As he was walked out of the door, he murmured “ Old Man Musty”. From there, that was the birth of his newfound nickname.

“You musty asf! Who let you come out the house smelling like canned horse shit and egg salad? Old Man Musty looking ass!”

From the very moment when Old Man Musty stumbled into the arcade, I knew it was going to be trouble. There was a heavy stench of deep southern moonshine in his breathe, that explained his unpredictable behavior. He darted through the front entrance, passed the door guy and went for the nearest game which happened to be Street fighter. I ended up paying for both of us to play and made up a false story about how Old Man Musty was going through a rough time. Fortunately, the door guy was kind and understanding but he warned me about their upright , anal owner. At first, Old Man Musty seemed ok, casually playing the game and enjoying himself. Moments later, his demeanor drastically changed. He became visibly upset after making it all the way to the final stage of Street Fighter and getting defeated. He began punching the game console and throwing the nearest chairs at the game. This caught the attention of the arcade owner and bar staff. By the owner reached the front of the establishment, Old Man Musty went into full fledged freak out mode. Harassing civilians, yelling, screaming, growling was on his agenda. He ran into the back room that contained 3 pinball machines and four old school arcade games. As the chaos ensued, I was in a panic while trying to get ahold of Christian but no answer. I didn’t know what to do or who else to call, I wasn’t for sure if he skipped his meds or how much he drank before FreePlay. Suddenly, Old Man Musty was cornered by 3 insanely large security guards with 16 inch grey beards, steel toe boots, suspenders and plain white tee. After a little scuffle and a butt load of hugs later, Old Man Musty was hanging over one of the guards shoulders and placed on the sidewalk. From that moment on, he was declared banned from Free Play.

Uh oh, he’s yelling , someone come get him

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