GAME UP
When life gets you down, just remember to stay tough and Game Up. A rollicking rendition of Pop culture’s most beloved spinach-guzzling sailor man, Game Up depicts Popeye as a street-hardened breakdancer flexing his muscles towards a competitor outside of the pictorial frame. Popeye’s tough-as-nails expression teeters between punk rock snarl and playful rambunctiousness as he strikes a B-Boy pose, seemingly in response to Romeo’s freestyling Bruce Lee in No Limits. Pop and locked into a friendly dancefloor rivalry, both Popeye and Bruce Lee may have ‘tamed’ their fist-thumping ways, but their breakdancing ‘game’ is no less lethal. Johnny Romeo continues to connect the two figures through the title ‘Tame Game Up’, a reference to the classic Bruce Lee film ‘Game of Death’ (1978). Popeye’s transition from seafaring strongman to barn-burning B-Boy may initially seem strange, but for Romeo it’s all a part of the One-Eyed Wonder’s greater journey of self-discovery. Armed with the New Age wisdom of his ‘Eye of Awareness’ tattoo, Popeye is finally ‘gaming up’ and living up to his true potential.