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Overview
Stephen and Alan discuss something that is more philosophical and less geeky, yet it ties in with Nathan Fillion and how he has guided Stephen in life choices. You just need to listen.
We do touch on the Ukraine/Russian thing going on, but we don’t focus on the politics of war.
We talk about upcoming talks Stephen is doing at the Dayton Rg, which Al will be attending.
don’t fret – we still have some great recommendations:
Recommendations
Castle – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1219024
The Rookie – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7587890
New Girl – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1826940
Death Stalker Def Leppard Diamond Star Haloshttps://tv.apple.com/us/show/ted-lasso/umc.cmc.vtoh0mn0xn7t3c643xqonfzy
YouTube
Transcript
Okay. Hey, jeez, we got lists, but I’m going to ask you a question to get us started today. And this is a little outside the geeky realm, but I know our viewpoints on these differs. So I think it’s a cool conversation. And I’ll tell you why I’m asking this after I ask it, because I don’t want to bias [00:01:00] it.
So give me your thoughts and feelings on receiving signs from the universe or a greater power, or what you think of those types of things. And I know that really sounds witchy. Woo. I know. It’s absolutely that we make of those things, what we want. There is no higher power.
[00:01:24] Alan: There’s no outside forces that are acting on us. The world is all what it is. It’s chemicals and physics. And we find patterns where we want to, and sometimes we listen to those things because we want to do whatever we think we’re seeing in the signs. I am very much a naturalist instead of a supernatural list.
I guess I get how people want to think. That there is benevolent or malevolent forces and that somehow the universe is talking to them to tell them what to do with their life, whether that’s astrology, whether that’s visitation, whether we know what I mean, there’s all kinds of ways in [00:02:00] which we’ve decided to interpret those kinds of things.
But when you look at it from science, when you look at it from repeatability, when you look at it from predictability, all it is because we want to find patterns. Human beings are pattern, finding animals. That’s even the name of a prog rock band because it’s deep in our survival. To be able to say, what’s going on?
What might happen next? How do I prepare myself to be able to handle that next situation? Whether I’m predator or prey, you it’s all about we, we have an incredible capacity for finding faces in things because nothing lights our brain up more than interacting with another human being. There’s so much information being projected and received from every little bit of emotion, every little bit of body language and facial language.
And so that’s why you have the area on the moon that everybody thinks is some kind of alien structure. Cause it looks like a face. No, we see faces in [00:03:00] cornflakes. We see faces in snow, see faces in everything that might look at all like a face. If you start playing around with facial recognition software on any number of photo handling apps, you’ll find out how many times it interprets as a face.
Any of those silly things. I went for a walk in the woods and look, there’s a troll face in the trees. Of course, it’s not a troll. Of course, it’s because things that look like two eyes and nose and a mouth at the right proportion. So there I went off on you a bit.
[00:03:29] Stephen: No, I w I that’s what I was wanting, because to keep alone, I knew that was going to be your answer and they keep it geeky though.
Do you think because of our brains are wired newness in each of our brains that. Sometimes we are looking for something and our brain knows that. So it gets us pointed to the right direction, subconsciously or controls our actions. And we don’t even realize it. And what part of that in a very big way, that’s almost [00:04:00] supernatural in itself that our brain could control us in ways we don’t even understand or realize.
The best way to explain it to ourselves is almost a supernatural power. Excuse me, it’s not
[00:04:13] Alan: the best way. It’s just a way. And we want to think somehow that there’s forces acting on us instead of our own brain is doing that for us. There’s lots of proof about unconscious and subconscious and how our brain has multiple stages, multiple actors that are talking within us.
And that’s a very, that’s a grotesque way to put it, but that’s a model for the brain that has been a lot discounted. We really don’t have multiple versions of us that are telling us what to do it, some people. And that’s true sometimes when they do have like voices in their head and they aren’t aware that they can control that or that they really can’t control it because they’re so strong.
It’s because of chemical misfiring and Ms. Wirings and things that are not like, if you will, a normal brain, like [00:05:00] 99% of the planet. It’s like they used to say back when we didn’t know any better over they’re touched by the gods or they’re possessed by a devil. They’ve got special insights and abilities.
No, it’s just that they’re not normal and not abnormal where it has all the automatically negative connotation, but and not in the same way that people see signs in virtually everything that’s going on. Sometimes no matter how much the world is, if you will sending them a message caution you’ll see people, God, give me a sign.
I want to know what to do. And then through everyone else, there would be obvious things. Stop driving your car so fast, it stopped drinking as much. I’m doing self destructive behavior, but they’ll keep saying, God, I need a sign. I need a burning Bush to talk to me. And they actually discount things that other people would take care of.
Actions right around them information coming in, that they might want to take a step back and say, what can I learn from this environment? If I keep playing with matches, I might set the house on fire. And yet, if they think that God is going to protect them from doing dangerous behavior, no matter how much evidence stacks up, they won’t stop doing what they want to [00:06:00] do because they’re not getting acted on by an outside force.
[00:06:03] Stephen: And with that, and one of my, one of the ones that drive me crazy is when you get somebody that will say, oh it’s part of God’s plan or something. But on the flip side, you get other people that say that must be the devil came in and but the same situation. So
[00:06:22] Alan: in fact that it can be interpreted either way and yet people will attribute either malevolence or benevolence to various different things.
Tells me more about them than it does about whatever forces they think are out
[00:06:32] Stephen: there. Yes, I agree. It really
[00:06:34] Alan: does. I just, it’s scares me that people have that complex or that touched by God complex because those things enable like unnatural behavior. They enable people to do whatever they wanted to do anyway, but now they’ve got the EGIS of a God they’re shielded by, and this is what God told me to do.
And Natalie told me I must do it because it’s God’s will and wow. That, that has created [00:07:00] as many tragedies as circumstance.
[00:07:03] Stephen: Yes. Obviously neither of us really believe that there’s some higher power though. I could attribute that there’s still something in the quantum realm that maybe we don’t know about that has some effect here, but we have no idea.
So I can’t really say to that, but let me ask this. And we’ve all had it though you’ve had that where you’re like, man, I should I go do this today? And you go downstairs and the first commercial on TV is exactly what you were just thinking about. Okay. So stuff like that, those coincidences happen all the time.
So for you, when something like that happened, Do you take it as well? Maybe I really should do that. Maybe my brain, if nothing else is telling me, yeah, that’s what I want to do today. How do
[00:07:49] Alan: you interpret? Sometimes I do. And I think how I interpreted, however, is that I’m writing the story of my life and if I want to take it that a good story would be, Hey, I was thinking about doing this.
And [00:08:00] then there was, if you will assign a coincidence. Okay, that’s good enough. I was 50, 50, 51, 49. That’s enough to tip me into why not do this? Because when I tell the story of what happened, I can say, yep. I was thinking of what I was gonna have for breakfast. And then I saw an ad for pancakes and it was like, sure, pancakes.
That sounds good. But I never think
[00:08:20] Stephen: that
[00:08:22] Alan: the universe, a force cares about me enough would actually interpret that I would interpret those things, but it’s there that’s another part of it is some people are that needy or that arrogant that they really think. This enormously colossally sized universe would actually arrange any of its atoms to try to send you a message you want people talk about, Hey, God’s talking to me.
It’s I feel that the complexity and the size of the universe has more than enough for God to worry about then your football game or your disease or your happiness.
[00:08:57] Stephen: You know what I mean? It seems with what [00:09:00] you said though, and this is totally me on the spot speculative, I understand. It’s okay, now I start the sound even crazier than normal.
But we know in just a little bit of quantum physics and mechanics and all that jazz that I’ve read about and love reading more about that. We know that you can split. And if you heat up this Adam will the spooky science at a distance or something at a distance. Yeah, that’s what I signed called it.
[00:09:29] Alan: Because there is quantum entanglement and there really are things that interact in ways that we don’t understand what communication or force could have them affecting each other, even in ways that we can’t interpret with our current instruments, how that could be happening. Exactly.
[00:09:44] Stephen: So I could see an argument of I’ve been debating this wondering about this, and then I saw the pancake commercial, but who’s to say that there’s some level of.
Your brain [00:10:00] influencing that like an Adam in some way that maybe you’ve watched TV a hundred times at that time in the morning and know you get pink gay commercials, 80% of the time on channel three and your brain flip does channel three exists anyway, but your brain flipped it. You know what I’m saying?
That, or maybe there’s something somewhere that actually had an influence on the producer that hit that commercial to go on next. And it was. A signal, you, and I’m not saying that does is real and exists it flows along those same lines. So when I think about values, that those things are probably happening.
[00:10:41] Alan: We are indeed forces that we don’t fully understand and down to that subatomic or at that cosmological level. But it’s in our understanding that we have to catch ourselves and say whatever we can’t understand, we don’t need to attribute human qualities to it. That there is someone that’s wanting us to do [00:11:00] something that there is a, we interpret that random action.
And even if it’s linked and I’m seeing this poorly, there’s all kinds of things that when we lack information superstition rushes in to fill the void, we want to think that there’s a reason for everything. We don’t want to think that the universe is a big, random kind of caring cold place.
And yet all signs are that it is. There’s never been any proof really is celestial intelligence or anything like that. And the more that we try to the more that we interpret, things like that, the more that we say, I’m saying that I’m never going to understand this, so I’m going to give it and again, it’s for human qualities, but sometimes I guess it’s good human or bad human, or it might actually be that this is if you will, at the heart of science, to me, what I would say when I’m getting those kinds of interesting signals is, huh?
I don’t know that I fully understand what’s going on here. I see that it’s
[00:11:59] Stephen: [00:12:00] happening. I say that pretty much all day long. And that’s true for all the things. My God, there’s so many things that I don’t understand. Why did I just say my God? Because that’s my way of interpreting something beyond my understanding.
[00:12:12] Alan: You know what I mean? I don’t give it. God wants me to be confused. God wants me to have limitations. It’s more, that’s just the way it is. And I don’t take comfort or discomfort from thinking that there is somebody that’s caring about me in that way. I take much more comfort in I’m the agent of my own fate.
I am going to create my best world around me for me and my loved ones who knows what love is. You know what I mean? Is it just a series of social transactions that you found out that you’re better in a pair or in a group than you are by yourself? Because that’s very much a social animal thing or is it all pheromones or is it all pheromones and boy, this.
I, I have four, honestly, since I was 15 and aware of I’m getting attraction or [00:13:00] unattraction to various different people. When I walk into a room, I scan the room and I’m like, these are the three people that I’d like to talk to. And that is if I’m dating, I’m looking for three ladies, there’s nothing magic about that.
It’s more, whatever it is about. Pheromones. And I’m sensing the body types that I’m thinking how we just seem to match or not. And I’m always happy to be surprised. There’s any number of times that a person that I somehow would have not paid enough attention to. But then when I hear them talk, when I hear them laugh, when I hear signs of their intelligence, when I hear size of their compassion, those things are very attracted to me and suddenly they’re on my radar, but whatever I like about our glass figures, that’s I think that’s just so much nature, right?
We’re looking for who could I have strong children with? They would bear me good children. I’d be able to be worthy of them to have good children, but all that is just so much nature. And then we move on from that. And some people, they can’t get past that, that they’re only about the attraction or the [00:14:00] unattraction.
And I don’t really feel. Terrible thing. There’s nothing wrong with being natural until what you think now is natural is I can impose my will on somebody else. Consent. Doesn’t matter. The minute that we are aware that we are thinking human beings, that we do have to take responsibility for our actions, that you can’t act as if you’re only obese, you have to step above nature and say, I’m a thinking human being.
And therefore, I need to think not only feel, not only react like a stimulus response machine, like a bear animal so I know that word we’re straying, but having said that, the reason that I think that I can’t easily attribute supernatural things in a way that would make me feel helpless is somewhere deep in migraine.
I really want to think that I’m the master of the fate and the captain of my soul. I don’t want to be helpless. I don’t want to be stormed cost. I don’t want to just make the best of every situation that I find myself in. I want to think that I have agency because somehow it really [00:15:00] matters to me that I think that in my, the universe is vast and I’m a tiny speck.
And yet this that gets to choose what it reaches out and touches other specs and interact with this environment. And there are people that they don’t have that as much as I do, they really don’t have to be independent. And sufficient and confident in their ability to interact with their environment.
Some people are I’m going to respond in whatever way I do to the environment around me. And I take solace in, I made the best with what I could, where I was, and I just kept going. I didn’t actively plan for the future. And that’s a lot of interpretation about the different between those two types, but you start to get to personality testing types of that.
We’ve talked a little bit about this, about Myers-Briggs or ocean or various different classification systems. And some part of that is whether you really are whether you think your at the core of what I’m saying boy, [00:16:00] it’s.
There’s something deeply important about whether you are to determinist or whether you’re a freedom mist, do you really think that you have free will or whether you really think the world just runs like clockwork and you’re a cognitive and my guesses, of course, I didn’t make a choice in doing it.
My brain chemistry. Somehow I came out the shoot being one instead of the other, it’s and of course the determinants will say you have to think that way. You have to think that you have freedom of wheel, but show don’t. And I just, at that ontological question, I just have to think, I want to be that way.
And so I’ll act that way until I find out that I can’t. And I’ve made choices in my life that had a lot of influence over my future. And because I got good feedback, the feedback loop gets reinforced and that’s very much about human nature, too. We always experiment and you get good result or bad result.
And gosh, what do you do? More of the good and less of the bad? So whatever I did when I [00:17:00] was young, that was I’m going to try something. And then I got rewarded and the things that I tried that weren’t good. I don’t know. I can’t roller skate. You know what I mean? Who knows my sense of balance. And my quickness of reaction is not such that for my body type, I’m good at that, but I don’t need.
Try that again. And again, I’m pretty sure I could learn to rollerskate if I want to, but then I have all the things what am I doing with my time? And I’d rather become a better musician than I’ve been a roller skater. Boy, it’s funny. All of these thoughts are sparking in my head, but they’re all kind of evidence for it is a small question.
It leads to all these various different things. Where is my time best spent? Where am I going to focus my attention? Because focus of attention is pretty much how you determine your fate, what you pay attention to is what you end up being. You know what I mean? So if I want to be a good talker like this, that even while I’m running off at the mouth, I’m not babbling, I’m saying some pretty important thought out things for my 16 years and they link instead of just being spokes across the sky.
[00:17:58] Stephen: At least to some of us, it is, [00:18:00] I’m sure,
[00:18:02] Alan: obviously there’s an agenda. You go in your life that are giving you a good signs because you’re thinking of doing things and then bam along comes a great opportunity. That’s right in line with that. And you say, how can I turn away? That a reasonable interpretation of
[00:18:17] Stephen: absolutely big, enough, but I was going to say, you mentioned oh my God, you blah, blah, blah.
Around here we say, oh my Chuck, we just use his full, his real name.
[00:18:29] Alan: Is that for supernatural? Yeah. Okay. And this is I think there’s a lot of things that we can’t explain or don’t even try to explain right now with science that eventually can be explained the science and probably instead of the singularity what’ll happen is we’ll probably come to realize so many things with science and then we’ll wipe ourselves out.
[00:18:50] Stephen: So it won’t matter what we’ve discovered. That sounds fatalistic, but it’s hard to argue against that based on our trajectory. So I told you a couple of weeks [00:19:00] ago, my origin story for writing and how the three things that like all happened at the same time. Again, it’s a pattern, it’s threes. I noticed it.
But I’ve come to when those things happen in my life, I’m like, oh, okay. I see what’s going on. And I go with what I see because, and that could just be I’m subconsciously making the best decision. So my brain is finding the patterns. So it sends the signal to me like, Hey, Yeah would make that decision already.
Honestly
[00:19:31] Alan: I think certain amount of it is that, that you want to make a decision. And so you’re looking more for what will tip the scales, what will leave me in the right direction. And we see what we want to see and hear what we want to hear. We are very self-fulfilling in our senses. And so it’s the fact that you’re seeing those things is like I’m setting up the agreement of what I really want to do from why not?
Because these things are making sense. I like the fact that looks like a sign. I like the fact that it makes me feel good when I see it, it broke the [00:20:00] tie, it made the decision. It helped me make the decision.
[00:20:02] Stephen: Yes. And whether it’s actually supernatural, whether it’s my own brain chemistry, whichever it is.
And either way, honestly, is a little bit spooky, supernatural to me, regardless of which way you think it is. It is a very interesting thing to see it, but the point is throughout my life, I’ve come to. Recognize these signs and go with it. I don’t fight it because I’ve found if I fight it, it’s usually worse.
If I go with it, things are better. No matter how it’s at you got two roads. Oh, this road looks nice and easy, but this road looks like it’s going through a spooky forest, but you go through the spooky forest and find out it’s really not that spooky. And there’s a bigger reward at the end, quite often.
That’s where I seem to have these. So when I told you about writing and the things that happened, one of the influences was I discovered castle with Nathan filly and he was a writer and I had loved Philly in, but never [00:21:00] watched it. And it’s bam. I came home from bill and Brianna’s house and sat down and turned on castle and I’m like, oh, I thought it was a cop show.
It’s about a writer, that’s a cop show. So maybe my brain remembered the trailers. And I kinda knew that. And being with bill, put me in a writer mood. So I chose to watch castle. It made me want to, I can totally agree with that. The fact is that I did do it and it happened. And that pushed me into the writing, which is starting to go a lot better this year.
I see lots of things this year happening. So I met,
[00:21:33] Alan: I would throw this out. So let’s say that what you saw was bill is a writer working in a Garret impoverished instead of bill has a wonderful farm in Pennsylvania and is making a good living at it. And what if castle, wasn’t getting the beautiful lady cup and getting involved in interesting cases to satisfy his curiosity.
But what if the first time you went out on a case he got shot because as a writer, you shouldn’t be out, right? And so you might’ve said, wow, that CA that brighter life. That’s [00:22:00] not for me. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be foolish to think that because I’m now a writer that I can do whatever I want.
No. There’s still ramifications to my choosing that life. You’ve got wonderful, positive reinforcement of it’s the writer’s life for me. I can be a pirate. You know what I mean? Even it has all the connotations that went with the writers that you had just interacted with.
[00:22:21] Stephen: Absolutely. I totally see that.
So without interpreting though, like I said, this has happened to me multiple times and every time I’ve made the choice to accept the signs and go with it, it’s been a good thing in my life. And I know this, so I don’t even question it anymore when it happens. W whatever the reason okay. Now’s the time to fall.
So what I’m getting to is I’ve been struggling with work. It’s not been a good environment for me lately, and I’ve started thinking of doing something different, moving on. What do I want to do? And I know. Doing the writing is a big part of what I want to do. And I think working so [00:23:00] much has held that back.
And because there’s only
[00:23:02] Alan: so many hours in a day and you have to choose where your time and your focus
[00:23:05] Stephen: would, you just said. Yeah. And I know I’m not going to be necessarily a huge writer, like bill, where I release a book and 200,000 people buy it and I make a full-time living. I’m not sure that’s where I’m going to be.
If you
[00:23:19] Alan: will. I bet you’re a good enough writer that when you, I bet you, you will.
[00:23:25] Stephen: I think more of it depends on. Devoting the time to get enough books out that would make me successful rather than worrying about a couple of books being best sellers. And that’s a great way to do it. Beat not the home run hitter and striking out a lot of the times, but putting together a body of work, putting together a series of singles that still core score runs.
[00:23:46] Alan: You know what I mean? Stan Musial was just as famous as babe Ruth and maybe not this famous, but you know what I’m trying to say. There’s multiple paths to success.
[00:23:54] Stephen: Okay. Because work’s been going poorly for me. I’m not enjoying it. [00:24:00] Again, I used to have a hat that said if it’s not fun, forget it.
And I’ve lost that philosophy in my life because whenever I’m doing something I enjoy, I’m much more successful in every part of my life. And I that’s been a philosophy I, I struggled with throughout my life. So I’ve been saying, okay, maybe. I need to stop this that I’ve been doing with the work.
Maybe I need to find something else that’s paying me for. Part-time work 15 to 25 hours. And then the rest of my time, I’d have to kick myself in the butt and really push the writing if I want to
[00:24:31] Alan: make that full-time thing instead of the right, the part-time when I’m already tired at night or first thing in the morning or whatever, getting it in currently to make up for the income, to make the rest of that income for me. But it’s a scary prospect probably not as scary about as 25 or 30. But you have 50 and it starts becoming more of a scary prospect, whether you’d want it to or not. I
hope you have responsibilities.
You have less time to make up for mistakes. You have all this. It’s been in the back of my [00:25:00] mind for a couple of weeks and I haven’t decided which way to jump what I want to do. Because once I really get behind either one, I know I’m going to really focus on it and be successful at it. So we’ve talked about the newer show with Nathan Fillion the rookie a bit, and I was watching it and Alan tunic was on it.
[00:25:19] Stephen: And it was a fun episode. They had a good interaction. There’ve been multiple castle alumni on the show.
[00:25:26] Alan: Kevin was just on and stuff. Yeah.
[00:25:29] Stephen: So I’m watching this and again, all of this stuff has been happening and it’s still in the back of my mind. This episode was just the next episode. It didn’t choose an episode.
It was just in the order. I’ve never seen any of these. And this episode at the very end filling in is talking to. Cops it’s his birthday. And he’s I want to thank all of you because I would have never thought a year ago I would be where I’m at now that I would take the leap and change my career [00:26:00] and do something different and how much I enjoy it and how good it’s been for me.
And I looked at the damn screen of. Now I know. And it’s Nathan Fillion, that’s the thing, this guy talking to me again. I know that man, a beer,
[00:26:16] Alan: so fantastic. You know what I mean? So I would guess that some part of the big success of that show. Everyone you and me, that’s going through some of this.
Have I, did I start out if I was 18 or 21 or 25 and I picked a career and that was it for life. No life can have second and third act. It can have, I’ve already done what I wanted to do. I’m accomplished. Am I just thought of going through the motions? Is the world changing? So I don’t enjoy what I was doing anymore.
Yes. You get to try again. That’s right. You get to succeed again. You get to be a polymath that has multiple areas that. Expert in and respected in. And that just give you the new juice. There’s a whole [00:27:00] bunch of just something new has automatic. The brain
[00:27:04] Stephen: is firing because definitely instead of being
[00:27:06] Alan: in ruts, instead of being in known patterns we pay much more attention and we’re much more satisfied with something the path less taken.
So I’d listened to Nathan, I listened to
[00:27:19] Stephen: you’re changing your tune
[00:27:21] Alan: because it’s all those things that’s showing this, so that everybody’s. I could do that. And stop being a doctor and become an author. I can stop being an author and become a coder. I can stop being a garbage man and become a dancer.
You want I there’s oh, I’d love to see more than you’ll be dancers. We should do that. Do a
[00:27:43] Stephen: peacemaker dance for us.
[00:27:45] Alan: There is a term that’s if you go to the dictionary, it’s like listed as one of those obsolete, obscure Baltar bolder is to dance without a lot of skill, but a lot of enthusiasm. Oh, I
[00:27:57] Stephen: love it. I love it. [00:28:00]
[00:28:01] Alan: So I can go a Baltar I, again, people like he must have seen that definition because he sure is clearing their face around him with all of this.
[00:28:10] Stephen: Did you ever watch the show new girl with Zoe a de Chanel? I never have, but people are recommended to me because it’s, wittily written from what
I understand. Yes. What drew me to it was, and I was like, okay, Connie, whatever. But Gina had me watch it cause she loved it back in the day. What drew me to, it was the character that Zooey Deschanel has in that show is so offbeat and quirky.
And she really faces the world with a, this is how I am, and I don’t care a whole lot. What people think she gets her feelings hurt, but she doesn’t see herself as odd. She’s just how she is. And it’s very heartening to watch because it makes you feel like, yeah, why do I have to suppress and change who I am for other people?
You can be weird. Like they were doing the chicken [00:29:00] dance to, at a wedding, but to a rock and roll song. And instead of doing it, they were just going really slow and very and it was just so weird and funny, but they were all doing it. And it’s like, why not? What does it matter? So that’s why I liked the show. Wonderful. So
[00:29:17] Alan: I really, I should watch it more because. And this is I was on early Steven, all out there
I was on early, I thought before it became fashionable or whatever when you’re really smart and we all, we talk about this a lot, but boy was I really smart. I was young and aware of how smart I was in comparison to my peers and aware of. That’s how I was going to have me have troubles.
Every time that I was too smart and people wanted to beat me up in the school yard every time that I scared a teacher, I wish these stories weren’t true because I got something [00:30:00] quicker than they did every time that I knew too many words or had read already stuff that was years beyond where I was supposed to be all those things.
And instead of it being well, I’ll hide more. I’ll be a quieter about it. I just, something again, maybe my odd innate confidence just said this is just me. There’s nothing wrong with me. I don’t want to hide myself. I don’t want to be scared of this incredible gift that I’ve been given. And then you start hearing I don’t know how long ago was the Argent song hold your head up.
Let them burn their eyes on your movement. You know what I mean? On your plate? It’s got that weird thing of, I can’t. I know that it’s. Early on. I knew to hide yourself to not be happy with yourself, to try to be someone that you’re not. And so I just had to say, I’m going to pay this penalty a lot.
I’m going to have people that care about appearance, this set [00:31:00] of brains, not think much of me because I was a chubby little kid while being an incredible smarty. And I’m going to have people be afraid of me because they don’t get that. My mind works that fast and it wasn’t just a guest and all that stuff.
And yet my, my parents were wonderfully like not if you will they were celebratory about it. If you get good grades, you get a quarter per eight. If you read books we’ll get you more books. It wasn’t like go outside and do something besides reading. I did those things.
I had incredible energy when I was young, too. So it wasn’t that I was only that I was actually quite a rounded kid. And yet I found a good friend early Stu that was a big reader. Like I was, and that got off on, listen, not play horseless, play about hippopotamus. You know what I mean? That it was just, and the kinds of things that we did of biking to the library, or going, exploring in the field and thinking of how can we dam this Creek with available materials?
You know what I mean? Not in a destructive way, but just you’ll learn about that. It doesn’t matter. [00:32:00] I got enough reinforcement from enough important people in my life that I never felt the need to stop being me. And then occasionally I have paid the price where people. Didn’t want to associate with me.
I know this is a whole bunch of stuff again, to talk about it. Isn’t only young it’s as you go through if you’re smarter than your boss, the way they really don’t like that often you really have to learn to be very judicious in not showing off, but just even showing up as smart. You don’t want them to feel threatened.
You don’t want your coworkers to have jealousy or actual sabotage because they feel so left behind I, I haven’t always been great about that. I got, I had done some really cool things in my career and sometimes I was just so happy that it had worked, that I had been able to figure out this problem, that all I wanted to do was celebrate and talk about it.
And other people were like, boy, that’s that’s arrogance or that’s self [00:33:00] centeredness too full of yourself. And it was like but I have an idea of what level this is, this really isn’t Hey, I solved today’s crossword puzzle. I did somebody, something nobody has done before. Isn’t this cool.
And you know what, not everybody thinks that’s cool. They really
[00:33:16] Stephen: don’t
people you get the guy that’s big and strong and people are like, Ooh. And they respect him, admire him. And if he does something using his strength well, that’s great. And they think that’s wonderful. But if. Smarter and you point out what you’re saying, isn’t correct. When I you’re an asshole and I’m like I can’t help it any more than he can help me in super strong.
He probably did help that but that’s been an issue I’ve encountered many times. And how many times do you use. Sit in a room with people talking about something and you keep quiet because it’ll just turn into an argument and you don’t want to ruin an evening or something.
It
[00:33:58] Alan: can be something like that. What’s [00:34:00] interesting. I have a variation on what you just said that I think when people see someone that’s big and strong, they at least can see themselves doing it. When you see an Olympic athlete that can actually run a little bit faster, you can say I can do that in 12 seconds and he can do it in nine, but it’s not out of the bounds of my being able to stay training and all that kind of stuff.
Whereas unfortunately, when you do brain things and they really think, no matter how hard I trained, I’m not sure that I can do a cubic root or something like that. Then it’s witchcraft. Then it’s something
[00:34:30] Stephen: inexplicably because they don’t understand that science is magic. We’ve been
[00:34:35] Alan: envisioned themselves being able to do that.
And yeah. When I played trivial pursuit and know a lot. And sometimes people are like you got a lot of shit in your head. You know what I mean? They can’t even say stuff. They have to say that there’s a negative connotation to it as if wow. Knowing all that, it’s crowding other things out.
Nope. I have an infinite supply. I know that’s a weird way to put it, but I might’ve [00:35:00] ha I laugh about how, Hey, I remember all those Saturday morning cartoon show theme songs. And that’s why I can’t remember the constitution, the amendments to the constitution because they pushed it out. I don’t even know how and why I remember various different things, but I know that I’m not identic.
I really am not where I remember every single thing. There really are amazing memories beyond mine, where they can remember every thing they did on every date. Sometimes it’s very personal. Sometimes it’s no matter what they’ve ever read. They really remember everything and that’s cool and it doesn’t give them a disability because it isn’t like.
Only able to think in those terms, they pretty much act like wonderful normal human beings. And yet they really still have that ability and they just break it out. Once in a while a friend, Jack and Mensa is like that, where he really has one of those amazing memory people, or, and sometimes it’s a savant skill where they can tell you no matter what the date is, what day of the week that was, they do that quick calculation in their head, or they do a Rubik’s cube real quick or whatever else it might be.[00:36:00]
And again, I know I’ve gone off a little bit, but some part of what I’ve actually written about this that it gets interpreted as spooky because they can’t envision themselves being able to do those things, even if they really tried and trained and worked hard at it, that it’s something that they have to interpret it as.
And beyond them. And then there’s a separation instead of a, we are in this together. I can root for you because you’re a big, strong wrestler and you’re representing the United States. And so yay. Good for you. I, instead it’s no you’re really different than me. And sometimes that’s the tribalism or whatever else.
It might be about identification versus separation that kicks in. And now I’m not like them. And a little bit of what you said, sometimes you learn to not say anything because if you, I never do it to show off, I just do it because it’s, it’s just me. Yeah. But having said that there have been times where someone is [00:37:00] so actively hostile to intelligence or to me that then I don’t know that I show off, but I sure bring it out even more.
You know what I mean? It isn’t just that I’m different, boy. I’m so much fucking more than you. Your limitations are describing your worldview and it’s a sad, small world. My world is huge,
[00:37:22] Stephen: right?
[00:37:25] Alan: Because it’s not only the asshole. It’s also the people that are around. And I don’t want to prove to them that I am an asshole too.
But once in a while, people will say, wow, And his arrogance in his smallness and yet arrogance that combination of ignorance and arrogance is really a problem for the world. Nowadays, people that really don’t know what’s fucking going on, but they’re going to enforce their opinion on somebody else.
Oh my God, it’s killing the world. It’s killing
[00:37:52] Stephen: our country. That’s the not knowing what you don’t know. I don’t know if there’s an actual term for that, but I people don’t [00:38:00] know something, but they don’t know that they don’t know it. And so they think all that they know is what’s exactly there and breathe.
It. It’ll have the
[00:38:07] Alan: humility to say, be quiet and learn instead to
[00:38:11] Stephen: say, I’m going to go forward in the Dunning-Kruger thing. You got to have enough intelligence to know what you don’t know to be able to say, you want to learn it. And Bria pointed me. I think I mentioned this before to AI study once or a paper or whatever, psych psychological study.
That’s what this paper was saying. It could be whatever this small sample size, but that if people’s intelligence differs by more than 20 IQ points, they have a harder time communicating and the wider that gap, the harder it is. Okay. That makes sense. So I think about it, I’m like, okay.
Average intelligence is 80 to one 20. At 85, which is still average normal intelligence. That’s a long way from where they rated me. When I took the test, it’s no wonder I can’t [00:39:00] communicate. And it seems to be those types of people get big behind people like Trump or get big into a religion. And that makes it worse.
It makes all of that look worse from the viewpoint over here, and I think that those couple of things do
[00:39:19] Alan: I agree with what you’re saying? It isn’t only that they find that it’s, that there are people there charlatans that are really good at finding the low information voters, the people that really, they already have shown that they’re willing to believe instead of think.
And so there’s a certain amount of religion or political fanaticism or tribalism the things that you interpret to I’m willing to let myself be subsumed as an individual into a collective, but then funny, there’s always someone willing to step up and lead the collective. And at first it might be that they espouse a lot of what the collective is supposedly does.
But how much, how often do you see. That they turn it towards their own ends. They make sure that they’re getting more than their fair share of resources. They make sure [00:40:00] that now it’s not only about let’s worship God, let’s worship God and hate these people over here too. Even though the Bible says love thy neighbor, even though do you know what I’m trying to say?
Charlatan always seems to find a way to find the crowd that will follow them because they make ridiculous promises that those other people really want to hear all the countries of the world controlled by a dictatorship. They always find the other people to make everyone hate that and our
fascism list of how to take over.
And it’s like that, control the press and find a common enemy. And if you run out of that one, Hey, you already committed genocide. Now we’re moving on to the next genocidal subject. My God, how can people really say, sure, it’s all about hate. It’s all about, yeah. I don’t know how that is, but I know that there is a type that does, and we, as the, I dunno, more compassionate, more thoughtful people have our duty to say don’t let that [00:41:00] message win.
Don’t let that mean wind. Don’t let that mean maker. When you know, what are we seeing with Bhutan? He’s ran the dictator playbook very successfully and he’s turned an entire country’s resources towards whatever he wants to be. I want I’ll leave it to the people that know so much more about that part of the country to talk about the strategic value of the Ukraine as a bread basket, or as a port on a the.
The C besides right now, Russia only has cooled water ports this way. They get to have a warm water port and not Belarus, which is not connected. You know what I mean? There’s all kinds of geopolitical things about that, but in some ways he’s just a bully and he wants to win. And he does everything in his arrogance of power and he attracts people that are attracted to that, his army and his secret service and whoever the oligarchs, they also love that pattern of how to behave and the world is going to have [00:42:00] to do what to him, what it did to Hitler and various other people is he’s a war criminal.
He has done. Truly evil criminal things. And the fact that he currently has an army behind him is the only thing that’s stopping us from taking him to court right now when his army loses. And when the world when his country has to wake up to wow, the sanctions, the rest of the world is imposing because the will of this man, not our 200 million people, I hope I have that number right there.
There maybe there will be a revolution. Maybe there will be such staggering losses that people with themselves will revolt and take him to task for his crimes. Maybe it’ll have to be that the world marches into masks. And puts him in chains because he will not stop.
[00:42:48] Stephen: And I think
[00:42:50] Alan: this is taking a very hot turn, but personality type.
You have to stop it. You can’t let the mad dog run loose. You just can’t.
[00:42:57] Stephen: Exactly. And I think [00:43:00] Roddenberry would be proud of what’s been going on because Ron, Mary always espouse the global universal love thing. We aren’t individual countries, it’s a planet because when you’re going to other planets you’re not from America, you’re from earth, so it makes everybody from earth. And I think he’d be proud of what’s been going on because I. Putin, and I think Trump’s behind some of this with him and in it, obviously he is because he keeps changing his tune every other day. So that tells me he’s trying to play catch up and hide things, but I don’t think they were ready for the global connectedness of the world.
And that people from all over would be putting out even the means and the videos, or even if some of them are false, they’re doing it to support the Ukraine, death work, Russia and little things like, again, maybe this isn’t true. I heard of some people that were [00:44:00] getting on Airbnb and reserving Airbnb houses in the Ukraine for a week.
Yes. So these is a lot of these things and the companies that are pulling out of Russia I guarantee a large part of it is because everybody’s posting about it and it’s giving them, it’s putting them in the news in a good light with people right now. So I don’t think if it was announced the way it is all over social media, I don’t think as many companies would be pulling out of Russia.
I think a lot of them would still be know, okay, whatever I love quotes. And one of my unfortunate is I hate when I have a good quote, but I can’t always remember who to attribute it to, but there’s a great quote that along the lines of. Evil people often have to be reminded that good people can be cunning too.
[00:44:51] Alan: You know what I mean? That evil thinks that they have somehow cornered the market on being tricky on being on winning through subterfuge and what [00:45:00] hootin and his cronies are finding out is that the world has moved beyond being a resource dependent country on oil that they’ve moved beyond. Like they.
Cyber shenanigans. They haven’t used that to become masters of the trade. They’ve learned the tricks of the trade. They haven’t created intellectual property. They’ve learned to be the parasite that hangs on others, intellectual property and can abuse it. They’re going to find out that the rest of the world with.
Intellectual property and the money that comes from that and that they can gear up to be making their things safe through cybersecurity, far beyond whatever dirty tricks they can do. They’re going to find out that they’re fighting the last war that they’re fighting a war of boots on the ground that they’re fighting a war of arms.
And it’s a great book right there. The last war based on, I think that would be a great book. Sorry.
I just I think people are calling it world war three or the start of world war three, and I think. We’ve really learned. It doesn’t have to be that way [00:46:00] at all, that the economic sanctions we’re putting on the cyber sanctions, the isolation that we can do to them in a hyper-connected world, that they’re already feeling it, they can’t, they don’t have any clearance of their transactions.
They don’t have any where to sell their oil. Do you know what I mean? All the way
[00:46:17] Stephen: forward, we’re getting Starbucks. That’ll lead a revolt in countries just by itself,
[00:46:22] Alan: cutting off the essentials of life. Exactly. All the cronies that support him that are having their yachts impounded that you can’t, you’re not safe anywhere in the world with the way that the whole world is under surveillance, aware of transactions, all that kind of stuff.
You don’t get. Totally evil over here and they’ll go live on your island paradise cause we’ve got satellites. So let us know exactly where your island paradise
[00:46:46] Stephen: is. Right? And that’s at risk. And when a group like anonymous become heroes, because they’re intervening and getting involved in a way that the rest of the world is encouraging, that tells you how different [00:47:00] things are.
Exactly. That’s a great way to put it that people that are they really have a sense of being cyber citizens. And that they’re, if you will, they were Mary pranksters, but sure. The things that they’ve learned about how to disrupt it, doesn’t it. They, I really have much respect for. The ethics, the morals of most of anonymous, because what they’ve really learned to do is use their skills to disrupt people that were otherwise using it for control.
[00:47:29] Alan: Otherwise use it for theft and maybe that’s in the past, been certain countries, certain large corporations bad actors on the internet. What worse actor can you have now that these guys that are trying to use their let’s call it east European far bot farms to try to recap in the rest of the world a really good way to stop all that disinformation is to just shut down all their servers, because they’re not the best at this.
Another thing that’s wonderful is when you see the big gloating villain, finally find out that there is somebody bigger and [00:48:00] better, and we brought our heroes in and they’re going to make sure that things are not going to continue only on the basis of who’s the most. I’m willing to do anything, to get what they want.
They’re going to find out that the penalties they have to pay might be too much, even for them. Yeah. And unfortunately, while they’re figuring that out where there’s an incredible number of lives being lost, there’s incredible destruction of property. There’s uprooting of all the refugees, the fact that the world is working to make it better.
Like you said, through Airbnb and all kinds of things.
That doesn’t stop that this terrible thing has already happened of one country going to a war with another, a sovereign nation. Like you, hopefully then the UN is not only sending in doctors, sending in support troops and peacekeepers. If you will, that soon, there’s going to be international resolutions from NATO or various other things that are going to be the whole world is against you.[00:49:00]
Whatever you thought was about you in the Ukraine. It’s not that it’s that we are all Ukrainian for now. We are not going to let the incursions continue.
[00:49:14] Stephen: It’s totally changing the world. I said this from the first weekend after things started happening, that Putin’s finding out it’s not the same world. It was 80 years ago in world war two. You can’t just invade a country and shoot guns and keep shooting and hope you shoot more. That’s not winning this war.
He from the reports I’ve seen, they’re stalled out there. They’re not getting the support. They’re not getting more guns. They’re not getting ammo. They’re not getting gas. You can’t fight a war without materials. And the world’s changed so much. Look at what’s happening. Switzerland wants to join NATO.
How big is that? Really?
[00:49:55] Alan: Honestly I said exactly that same thing. Switzerland, a famously [00:50:00] consistently neutral country actually was willing to freeze Russian assets and say that all the things we would’ve been willing to look away from there enough aware of the interconnectedness of the world, that this was too far for them.
One of the interesting things, the ignorance of Russia, the arrogance of them use those terms that I keep using is they had this happen in Afghanistan, against them about asymmetric warfare about you can’t bring enough troops in that were there where the Afghany troops were integrated into the population.
They had all manner of places to hide. They were not ever going to be two massive armies meeting on the field and bashing at each other, right? Always going to be the sabotage and the strikes and the sniping and the assassination and Russia adopted some of those same things. Cause they should have done their of assassination and individual strikes.
But now every time you read about, wow, another Russian general has been killed because a lot of people are saying we don’t need to defeat 10,000 troops. We need to take out that, [00:51:00] that deck of cards that they had quite in the mid east, you take out the biggest leaders and everybody else is scared.
Everybody else, they don’t have the good direction. They don’t have those people that were well-trained in armed warfare on the ground. You can bring an army to a halt and all the same way. As you said, attack their supply lines, attack their, whatever they think they’re fighting for. They’re going to, I don’t know, burn crops up routes, train tracks destroy a pipeline, whatever they thought they were going to get out of this.
They’re finding out that they’re not going to win the prize. They thought
[00:51:31] Stephen: no. And if it is, it may be two dear have a cost for what they get by the end. And the thing with Afghanistan back to then the whole reason they didn’t win that was cause ramble was there. I saw that movie.
[00:51:46] Alan: Yes. Luckily entertainment and the reality blur the lines. Exactly. In some alternate reality that could have been what was happening. You can’t tell me it didn’t happen.[00:52:00]
Yes, I, by the way, my my talk for the annual gathering for Mensa, I just got news that it was accepted. I’m going to be talking about the, where of things in the comic book world, and especially with Dr. Strange, the multi-verse of man is coming out and books have long had this thing of it.
Isn’t only one world. Of course it was at least a Marvel versus DC and various different kinds of book companies had their own universes. But then each cable company started to have there’s not just one there’s earth to where those suits near the golden age people live, or there’s other and other planets and other dimensions and a multi-verse of other universes.
And so in an hour, I’m going to try to talk about all that. I’m going to try and talk about this. Amazing, all the beautiful creativity. That went into anything you can think of happened it’s because it did happen in another dimension. That’s why you’re just tapping into the knowledge of this different thing.
[00:53:00] Alternately, every time we make a choice, the universe splits and now there’s a new universe where I said, yes, sir. I said no, and I that’s such a cool science fiction concept. And yet we’re finding out maybe at that quantum level, maybe at
[00:53:14] Stephen: that point very big. And I point out how many times in take the science fiction from 50.
Or more years ago, how much of that has really started to come true now I’m just saying,
[00:53:31] Alan: and we make those choices, but we also, I don’t know, I’m just looking, one of the things about the talk is going to be, of course, none of this is real, but it is, the fact that if we can even talk about this in our minds, we have a whole nother universe that we could talk about the captain carrot and his amazing zoo crew universe is just as real as ours.
If people keep adding to those stories and keep right. So that’s one of the things, yeah. A classic thing in science fiction, did they often [00:54:00] give a. Attribute attribution is where they’re good at world-building when you read a fantasy series and it isn’t just, Hey, the main three main heroes hit the villain and they went through the forest and all that kind of stuff.
But the more that they flesh out that universe of here’s the customs, here’s the food, here’s the religion, here’s the animals like ours, but slightly different. They’re all nurses have six legs, whatever else it might be. And I’ve always loved that I’ve always loved where people had that ability to like, say yes, totally.
Unlike ours, that there is silicone instead of carbon-based or it’s much like ours, but the south won the war in the civil war. There’s all kinds of ways in which people have said kind of alternative histories or different ways of planets and stuff like that. And the people that have had the vision to do that.
The comic book writers, the speculative fiction, science fiction people. It’s very cool that they can just. Create a whole nother universe and maintain relative consistency that it wasn’t just flights of fantasy. That once they said that now that I’ve had that Nixon [00:55:00] was reelected and state president like in idiocrasy or whatever I’m tracking you on track.
Was that what was that they the rep conning that they’ve done to keep the continuity going? Actually, it’s very cool to say carry that thought all the way forward. If we really had computers early, like in, is it the silver age, the diamond age, right front till Stevenson. That how much that would have changed the world in all these ways.
And if we would have had it doesn’t matter, I’m sorry I was going into the examples, but just the cool thought of, I love that people don’t just give them, throw it out there. And in fact, I hope you don’t mind. I’m not going to hijack the discussion. We, I w have been reading very cool books by Richard cadre about Sandman
[00:55:45] Stephen: slim.
I started reading the first one,
[00:55:48] Alan: so I really liked them because he’s really good at saying, so here’s the world. And then here’s how it really works with angels and devils in hell and purgatory and limbo and Tartarus and all that kind of stuff. [00:56:00] The fact that it ties in like here’s LA, but there’s a hell version of LA.
And it’s funny that after a while, you can’t really tell them apart a little bit of what he thinks of Los Angeles and it’s not only him. I love people that one of the great things he does is he’s great with naming things. You know what I mean? All of his characters have interesting names and the places that they go to and his terms for the various different levels of demon and devil and imp and are they, what kinds of zombies are there?
There’s not just one kind who was on me and the fact that he actually builds this whole world and it hangs together. It makes more and more sense. The more that he fleshes it out. And in fact, I just. I think the sixth book and I always love this where he actually didn’t just sit down and write.
He must’ve had a big board that he said, I have a bunch of things that I want to get to by the time the series is over and I’m going to plant seeds in these early books so that there will be a payoff. I about book six. And so that was just the case. You know what I mean? When he talks about here’s the room with [00:57:00] 13 doors, it allows him to teleport and he can go through shadows and stuff.
And then you find out how much that figures into how this universe really works. And here’s the gods versus devils and the health thing, the Christian mythology. And then let’s go beyond that. What if there was love crafty and stuff involved? What if there, there’s different pantheons and weirdnesses like that.
He’s very good at that kind of stuff. And the names of people that creatures that he creates. It really hard to get parking, to be back to assignment our green, who I also wanted to mention today. I just had, I carry such a torch for this guy because he writes pulp fiction. They’re really entertaining as hell.
There’s really battles and journeys and finding the treasure and stuff, but all of his characters are he just throws out great new characters, like a pinwheel, just all splattering the world with all of these cool ideas and some runs with it. And sometimes you have to he could have done much more.
Oh, you book seven. He does do more with [00:58:00] that. I love that people are that amazingly creative, but they don’t have one great idea and kind of hold it close to their chest and build on it. They have so many great ideas that you just feel. I have opened the door to us here. I’ve limited possibilities. This is just so cool that he’s going to each book is going to be a trip to a different city, a trip
[00:58:20] Stephen: with a different what’s the title of his books.
So
[00:58:24] Alan: boy, he has multiple series. He’s very prolific. The first ones that I read were the death stalker books, which are a big space opera. And the coolness of them is it isn’t just, Hey, here’s a hero from a line of heroes that is good as a space Explorer, it’s that he meets. There’s things in the outer dark that maybe are coming into our solar system and we have to worry about them.
There is an AI that went rogue and started to build things on another planet. And they’re competing with humanity, but willing to ally against the outer dark. There’s all different factions amongst [00:59:00] humanity as to who’s got money, who’s got technology, who’s got drugs and all of the vices are represented so that no matter how mighty you become, if you can’t keep it in your pants, if you can’t stop taking drugs, the way that you can also when fall the mighty type stuff.
And so that whole series. Excellent in how all those factions are continually competing and interacting and allying and breaking alliances and all that kind of stuff. They’re just such a page Turner. They’re so freaking good. Then he wrote a series of books called about the night side, where it’s the unseen part of London.
I think he’s from like wheelchair or something like that. So I think that’s right outside London. I don’t know my England geography well enough, sorry, overseas listeners. And it’s a guy who was able to find things and how much that is then useful to other people who we do try to use them or abuse things.
And he ends up just another one of the things I think I’ve mentioned before about series. I love it where it’s not just any mythology. [01:00:00] It’s all the folklore is all wrapped in here. There really are vampires and werewolves and zombies. And there really are space adventurers and Jacqueline hides and all that kind of stuff.
And he has them all interact and especially his character names are so well done. Somebody named dead boy, which is is that like a punk band name? He, again, there’s so many good characters and not only from the night side, he has the secret histories where it’s a secret agent that is like a James Bond knockoff, but against supernatural things and all the books are named let’s see Take off on the James Bond books.
So it’s casino infernal instead of casino Royale and stuff like that. I think he actually tracked on like the first 12 books in the James Bond series to give them that alternate name. Nice. I just, I, if you’re looking for a continual good read, they’re not at the level of highlight and Asimov where they’re a great science fiction or even like pokey and where they’re great [01:01:00] fantasy, but he’s just got this perfect niche of.
Of memorable characters and great surprises. He’s really good at setting you up to go one way and then finding out, oh no, there that’s, what’s going on there. They’re really related. And there’s really family rivalry or there’s love, but unrequited or I just, it’s a great combination of scale where there’s really big things happen, but sometimes big things turn out.
The tiniest, slight the tiniest interaction. Wow. They’re really great. I, I started reading the first Sandman man, slim I’m only part way through it, but the, not the same style, but the feel of it hits the same spots that a Jeff strand book does for me that it’s you’re not, like you said, you’re not getting asthma for your brain.
[01:01:51] Stephen: Has to think you’re reading something that’s fun almost like earlier Saturday morning cartoon that same type of feeling,
[01:01:59] Alan: except that they’re a little [01:02:00] bit more than Saturday morning. They’re very vulgar.
[01:02:02] Stephen: Yeah. Saturday night cartoons, then
[01:02:05] Alan: 30 PM. They’re the kind of vulgarity that I love where it isn’t just a series of swear words.
He’s very creative about it’s not it’s I dunno, it’s not just a cock it’s a That’s drier than a better winds cock or something like that. Who’s mind would come up with the example fires of that level of, oh he’s and one of the great things about his hero is that he’s dissolute he’ll say anything to anyone.
He really isn’t sure that he’s doing the right thing, except he does have core values that come out over. He won’t betray a friend. He w you know what I mean? He that he is a classic rogue that has his own sense of ethics, but you know what those ethics stand up compared to other people’s that profess to being moral and ethical.
And you find out that they have feet of clay, or that they’re just lying about what they believe to get their way or whatever else it might be. So [01:03:00] I’m glad I hope you like them. I’m just not reading them all in a row because I really want to not. Overdo what I call the Pratchett factor. You read too many Discworld books and you keep on pushing that particular humor Butler. They’re not as funny because you don’t get a chance to let your brain rest and read something else and then come back to admiring how witty he is. And so wrinkling these in amongst reading puzzles and paradoxes about recreational mathematics.
You party timer, you have to take your brain into different
[01:03:34] Stephen: places so that we can absolutely cleanser you and fun again. Yeah. So you mentioned talking at the AIG which I don’t know if I’m going to be there. Congrats. Good on that. Just FYI for you. I’m giving my talk at the may monthly meeting for cam.
I’m glad
[01:03:52] Alan: that you and Brenda were able to get together. That’s fantastic. Yeah. So I don’t, I haven’t gone to every one of them because sometimes the topics have not been of interest to me, but this years [01:04:00] sure is. And so I will definitely be there for it. And it’s like last Wednesday in may, correct?
[01:04:04] Stephen: The 25th.
Are we
[01:04:06] Alan: still
[01:04:06] Stephen: zooming or is there, she said, yes. Okay.
[01:04:10] Alan: So are you going to be in Dayton this weekend? Are you
[01:04:12] Stephen: going to be seeing yeah. Yes. Going to be in Dayton, see my cousin and giving my talks and all that. Very
[01:04:17] Alan: good. We’re calling and I will be there Saturday during the day. We really couldn’t do the entire weekend because we have other things going on with my parents in California on a shoulder we’re going to, but if your show is show your show, you’re talking.
Is during the day Saturday, I’ll also be able to see that maybe the supercharge is Saturday afternoon. So fantastic.
I definitely be there not the cat call. You can do that too. But yeah, that’d be great then any feedback, because each time I do it, I adjust and change and fix and improve.
[01:04:46] Stephen: And the feedback is important if you’re reading the room wrong and you change something. Cause one vocal guy, I was talking about one thing it may change it too much. Yeah. So it’s, we’ve given the [01:05:00] same talk twice.
[01:05:00] Alan: I have an edit too. And especially if you’re talking about something that the world changes and when I talk about conflict movies and a new one comes out I want to include that and talk about how that fits into the honor of what’s going on.
Okay.
[01:05:14] Stephen: So I got two recommendations before we sign off for ya. So the first one is a movie recommendation. If you have not watched. Sit down, grab Coleen, get the popcorn and watch it. It’s the Adam project on Netflix. I started shit and then I said, I think I’ll leave. We’ll enjoy this. And so I am going to do that for the two of us.
[01:05:34] Alan: Thank you very much. Thank right. Ryan Reynolds and his son he goes back in time travels and
[01:05:44] Stephen: he goes back and meets himself. There you go. Okay. Yeah. It’s a great fun movie. It’s it hits all the right spots. It’s got actions, Ryan, Ron Reynolds comedy so it’s a fun action movie.
I like we were talking about, it’s [01:06:00] not going to give you some higher level of thinking, but it’s a great fun movie. The other recommendation is upcoming in may. The new Def Leppard album, diamond star halo. I am, I have been listening to the first song, the first single called Kik. If you like. Old rock and roll, like T-Rex or Mott the Hoople or old Bowie.
If you like that stuff, they said this whole album is influenced all the way. The very
[01:06:32] Alan: first diamond star halo. This is a line from that. Exactly. Bang the car,
[01:06:39] Stephen: the first song. I can hear the influences in am. I there’s a riff that would be on T-Rex there’s the vocals that would be on Mott the Hoople background.
That type of thing. You can hear it. So if you enjoy that type of music, this is going to be an album. If you’re like I’m not a big Def Leppard fan, this is sixties [01:07:00] music, rock and roll.
[01:07:01] Alan: I am a big devil for pan. And the fact that they, like you said can take in those influences and do their own spin on it.
I’m really looking forward to doing that. Yeah. Deep purple just did a similar thing. It’s called like scenes from a crime or something like that where they, yeah, I don’t think they did covers. I think they did songs in the spirit of if you will, when they went back to their influences and said, let’s do a great blues number, let’s do a great like who was around when they started off, it was a Uriah Heep.
W you know what I mean? I’m looking forward to investigating as these guys put out new material, what they’re still doing, that’s really the
[01:07:34] Stephen: musicians and this one, it’s interesting. About 10 years ago, they came out with an album called. Yeah. And it was a covers from the same era of music that inspired them when they were growing up good albums, some good covers.
This is like almost the sequel to that album because it’s originals in the same style, so yeah,
[01:07:57] Alan: good stuff. I will recommend a Ted [01:08:00] lasso by the way, Colleen and I have been watching that and we have to stop ourselves from watching too many episodes because we don’t want it to be over.
[01:08:07] Stephen: I don’t even know that
[01:08:09] Alan: it’s oh, it’s on apple TV.
One of the joys of getting a new phone is you get three months of apple TV free and we’ve talked about this. I used to not necessarily get every single service cause I can’t, I don’t watch that much TV. No, I can’t say that fully anymore, but I, especially, I didn’t want to be like, oh no, I’ve lost track.
And now I paid for a year’s worth where, what I really wanted to do was watching the Olympics. So I did successfully paramount, and now I’m going to whatever’s on apple TV, I’m going to fit in three months worth. And then we’ll see, based on how much new stuff they’re putting out or acquiring, do I want to continue with it or not?
But the Ted lasso series, it’s Jason Sudeikis from SNL playing a. Like an incredibly optimistic character in the face of the sports world where it sure is easy to get your face bashed in if you’re too Pollyanna and it’s a great, like a wonderful ensemble cast [01:09:00] it’s a fish out of water story where he’s a football coach here in the United States.
That’s brought over to England to manage a football team, but as football there means soccer. And so how much does his skills at football matter, maybe his skills as a coach and working with people matter and all kinds of great laughs great. Oh, what’s going on there it’s really a good series.
It won all kinds of awards and that’s Kelly and I were using that often as a, an indicator of we’ve, we haven’t. All of what’s been going on, but if this winning like 10 Emmy’s let’s watch Schitt’s Creek and stuff like that I really liked that one. I recommend that one. If you wanna, if you want to not sleep at all, I’d watch more TV.
There’s a good seriousness. Throw it to
[01:09:40] Stephen: your watch. Yeah, there you go. I’ve been trying to catch up, like I said, I’ve been watching the rookie catching up on four seasons of that. Exactly.
[01:09:49] Alan: And I know we’re going to go. We can’t leave without going. Hey, fan expo just announced Cleveland end of April early may, right?
April 30th through May 2nd. [01:10:00] And I’m spoken to. FedEx, but when it was wizard world before, so I’m hoping that they have somewhere an old brochure that can say, Hey, this guy did. Okay. And so if we get to do perhaps need a live relentless geekery podcast there, cause I know we’ve had live podcasts from other people and I went to it, it wasn’t as good as what we would do.
Steven. We would do a fucking bang up job of saying here’s what you want to see out on the show floor. Be awesome. You know what I mean? Just to be able to talk about what cool things are going on there and give our little. Our little love sonnets to the various different people that we want to say, don’t miss this guy’s booth.
He’s one of the best guys working. You got to go buy his work, throw some money at him, keep him working so he can say hello to Ted SoCore. We can say love and rockets will get wonderful love
[01:10:45] Stephen: and stuff like that. We could do like a supermarket sweep, a game show where we each get 20 minutes on the floor.
We find the coolest items and then talk about what we found and all
[01:10:57] Alan: that. I find another crocheted liking hat. I [01:11:00] will be happy you say
[01:11:01] Stephen: right? Imagine so
[01:11:06] Alan: always a pleasure.
[01:11:07] Stephen: Good times. All right. See ya. Bye. You have been listening to the
