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Stephen: Okay. All right. There we go. I think I
Alan: have the last same backdrop as last week, but you know what? I love this one. It’s pretty. Okay. No, I’m boring. You already got a cool Halloween shirt on and everything.
Stephen: Let me pull this out. Small town monsters. It’s a, when Colin was doing all the cryptid stuff, he’s a local guy that does documentaries on cryptids documentary movies.
And at the time he had three or four and we helped kickstart the mothman one, et cetera. And now he’s up to a dozen or so, and he has like production quality has gone up in the, He’s definitely gotten better over time. Seth Breedlove from Small Town Monsters. This was a t shirt they came out with years ago and it was like limited edition.
And so it’s right away, it’s like calling and then he’s yeah these are the last three or four I’ve gotten. I’m like, okay I’ll take one, it’s funny.
Alan: It’s, I love having t shirts that nobody else has, mass produced, I don’t know, bum equipment or something like that.
And I, My, it’s funny. My dad used to go to business conferences and I would always ask him to get me a t shirt because when you get a t shirt that has captain port a potty on it, nobody else in the school has that one. Also, we went on very cool vacations growing up. We did a trip to Europe.
We did a trip all across the United States, the Pacific impact. And when you get something from like the Grossglockner in Austria, nobody else in Elk Grove village has that. The corn palace, which I wore proudly, out of South Dakota. I had a lot of band t shirts and, everybody has the Led Zeppelin or the Genesis or whatever from back then.
But it was very cool to just have, where’d you get that? Monkey Pythons Flying Circus before it was popular, that kind of cool. Yeah.
Stephen: Well with the Easy rise of drop shipping and all these companies that you just throw up a logo and you get t shirts, and so many people are trying to sell t shirts.
The problem most people are doing is, oh, that’s a great saying. I’m going to make a t shirt of it. You and 300 other people said the same thing. So you get the same sayings. By 5, 000 people, and then you get people going this doesn’t actually work because I didn’t sell anything.
That’s because you’re one of a thousand. How do you stand out? So something like this, like you said, it’s unique, people probably aren’t searching for it. Oh, what’s the Halloween special t shirt from small town monsters. Yeah. Unless they did something new every year, it’s just.
People just, oh this is quick and easy. I even know there are sites where you can go to them and pick a phrase and it’ll give you a some AI generated thing image. You grab it, put it on teacher. It’s don’t it’s don’t you realize there’s three million other people going to that website buying the same phrases?
It’s like when I worked at Target And stocking the shelves Guys would line up. Oh, it’s Tuesday. It’s truck day That’s when the toys come so they come rushing back in the toy department and they buy up all the Star Wars figures going Yeah, this is gonna give my kid their college tuition in 20 25 years, you know because Star Wars figures are worth a lot and it’s yeah The ones from the seventies that nobody got, but if you can buy it at Walmart and Target, everybody gets it.
And there’s not going to be, and guess what? They’re actually worth less now than they were at the store then. So
Alan: collectibles is a tricky business. As you and I both being folks that I don’t know, I’ve kept all mine in great condition, but even then it’s if there were a hundred thousand of these produced, it’s not like a comic book that was from the war and there were paper drives and then there’s only so many copies.
It’s left extant. It’s more anybody who bought a copy of, I don’t know, X Men number one, when they did one of the many reboots, it doesn’t matter whether you got the prismatic or the gold foil or any kind of cover. There were still hundreds of thousands of those produced and it’ll be. It’s only like the lightning in a bottle, nobody knew, nobody expected Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to be anything but like a vanity project that Eastman and Laird did as a goof on the comic book industry, and then when it caught on, no one was more astonished than them.
You know what I mean? It’s fun to have that kind of stuff, and as because I’ve been going through the comic books, cataloging everything, I can really see… Many of my most, I would call it most valuable things are the ones where it’s not, Hey, big launch number one. It’s first appearance of Moon Knight in,
Stephen: American werewolf or werewolf by night.
Alan: Werewolf by night. Exactly that. And like number 37. So the title is already well established and stuff. And that’s what you’ll get is first appearance of Blade, first appearance of Moon Knight, first appearance of Wolverine, Hulk number 181. Who would have thought? Anything at 181 would be valuable. And yet, those are the kind of things when I was a completist…
I really was buying pretty much everything every month. I never bought like this will be valuable someday, but I really thought as I read them I’m like covering every space on the roulette wheel. You’re not going to really win, but the ones that take off and maybe that’s how you invest as well.
You don’t, if you buy it, if you have a. Portfolio of 25 stocks. You don’t necessarily expect 25 to all do well, but if any one of those does a five X, that it does so well, it makes up for all the little hundred thousand dollar losses because it made so much money. And I think that maybe that’s how it is for any kind of collectible star Wars figures or teenage mutant Ninja turtle.
Colleen has cereal bowls that I think have that out or some other Saturday morning cartoon thing. Maybe they’re valuable. I hope they are because she really wants them to be, but it’s are they valuable in a flea market way? Are they valuable in a, an eBay and big auction heritage way?
Stephen: I’m not sure. And the problem is with eBay. People, just don’t get it. They’re like, Oh everyone loves Spider Man. So they come in the comic book store. I’ve got some Spider Man comics. They’re worth a lot. And Colin looks at them and they’re from the 90s, which are some of the generally lowest quality production, lowest quality comics.
Collectible and not only that, but it’s like issues they already have 20 of and they’re beat up and covers torn. People don’t realize if you have a number, whatever, that’s worth a million dollars at a 9. 8 graded. Thing you go down to 9. 6. It doesn’t just go down to 900, 000. That’ll drop to 100, 000 now.
And if you go to a 9. 4, now it’s only worth 1, 000. It’s that big of a jump. People don’t realize it. So when you got one with a beat up, whatever. Yeah, that’s a 1. 5. It’s worth about 20 cents. Exactly.
Alan: Yeah. Having said all this, and maybe one of the things that keeps Antique Roadshow and every other, place like this alive, I just saw a little story about somebody in Milwaukee, if I remember right, a comic store came into possession of Amazing Fantasy No.
- And they’re selling it and they’re like, and it’s not, it’s in 3. 0 condition. So all the things you’re saying, there’s a precipitous drop. It’s not the 3. 6 million copy that was near perfect. That’s only a couple of years ago, but it’s still worth like 35, 000 bucks. And so certain things, historically significant things still have that.
And not to be weird, I have a copy of a basic advanced number 15 and mine’s an even better shape than 3. 0. And I’ve always laughed about this. One day that’ll be, Hey, I sold it. And then I bought a car. I sold something. And then I took a European all expenses paid, and that’s the guy of all the ones I want to hold on to so that I can say look at me look what I got.
But that’s the one that probably, I don’t know. I’ve got a couple of things that are worth serious money. And I, yeah. That’s the one I want to least part with because it’s the most like during my lifetime and significant and I just like I like saying it. I like saying I got a copy of this, that kind of thing.
Other things. I can’t wait for my GI Joe’s to become valuable. They already are much, much more than I expected. And of course, the movies came out and that made it more valuable, but they haven’t made a new GI Joe movie in a long time. But
Stephen: They didn’t make really good G. I. Joe movies either.
Alan: And that’s, it’s not, yeah whereas like we’ve left about this, I have Guardians of the Galaxy, same thing.
Nobody expected this to do well, any of the incarnations of it. And so the fact that those movies came out and were really pretty good and then caused all kinds of interest in the title, say with maybe the Moon Knight series. I don’t know if that’s only had one season, but if that catches on. As we were saying, everybody knows Spider Man and the Hulk and the Avengers and stuff like that, but it’s my little corner cases of when Blade was pretty much the movie that saved Marvel Studios.
They had done Howard the Duck and they were really confused as to what the market might want. They didn’t have enough confidence in just saying comic book stuff is cool that there’s a whole mythology you can tap into. So I’m hoping that some of my more obscure things are what’s going to do well.
And the fact that I really have been… Obsessive about Reading them lightly, keeping them well, I haven’t always bagged and boxed every single thing I bagged and boxed, bagged and boarded, everything I think, but I do keep them in boxes and I do keep them straight up and I haven’t said, let’s leave this out in the window where the sun can make it.
Stephen: Oh, yeah. Oh, the flea market people drive me crazy. They get, oh yeah. There’s a lot of good books in that comic box there. And I’m looking at okay, dude, it’s sitting on the ground with all this dust being kicked up. The sun is shining directly on it and I don’t see any bags and boards. So that stuff’s not worth anything.
I said, if there’s something I’m really looking for, I’d be happy to have, it’s like that, that comic’s worth like, 600. I’m like, no, this one, this copy, even worse are the people with. The video game machines that they leave them sitting in the sun or the cartridges, or the worst ones are the instruments where they leave, a trumpet or a guitar or a violin sitting in the sun.
It’s what is wrong with you people?
Alan: I guess people really, they see metal and they say this is like a girder. It’s, we can leave this out. It’s. It’s unharmable and no, that’s actually a kind of a precision device. Yeah. It, I know that nowadays there’s a whole bunch of stuff about vintage guitars.
I’ve you are much more of the musician than I like a working musician. You’ve had multiple things. I couldn’t tell you. What who made what when that makes it? Oh, yeah That’s the version of the Stratocaster that everybody really wants because for whatever reason it was exactly that model year That was like the best would the best pickups the best, the first full Not assembled but single piece body all those things that I know from reading my guitar player magazine Like this is why Steve Vai loves playing this particular guy where it’s the I don’t know I have a feel for that, but there really are not only from the significance of who owned it before, which has always struck me as a little bit weird and ghoulish.
You know what I mean? It’s not like some part of the guy’s soul transferred into Jimi Hendrix. I
Stephen: don’t know. There’s a Stephen King story that’s the one with the band in heaven, but they’ve got a hell of a band. I don’t know.
Alan: Yeah. So having said that, there is something cool to be like, You know that video where he’s playing at Woodstock?
That’s that guitar! Not the one he set on fire, there’s historic provenance to that kind of stuff, but I love finding I don’t know, out of violins that are hundreds of years old, when you read about it, of Stradivarius, or Amati, or whoever else there really were craftspeople back then.
That knew intimately how to do this without having computer modeling system, they had an amazing forest, a grove of wood that had exactly what you can do to bend and shape and make it perfect. And so maybe that’s why there really isn’t anything being. modern being created that can match those four, whatever the timbre, whatever the sound is that makes them almost like magical to play.
Boy, do you remember this story? This is from 40 years ago. A woman in Chicago, Rachel, I wish I could remember her last name. She had been, a lot of those Amazing instruments. They’re owned by like a foundation and they give them they rent them or whatever the term is. They give the use of them to very promising musicians so that they’ll get played.
One of the things you have to do with thing like that is not put it in the case. You have to play it and rosin it and whatever else you do to keep those guys in good shape. And this it’s, it was like, I don’t know the red violin. She would in taking a train in Chicago. Yeah. I’m going to tear up.
Oh, no. She like had the possession of this thing and doors were closing and she made sure that they get the violin was safe, but she didn’t get all the way into the car and it dragged her along and like she lost a leg. She had part of her leg cut off, but the transcendent nature of this instrument was such that she sacrificed herself to make sure that it was safe, even while she didn’t do the same for herself.
Wow. I don’t know. I know that’s. It’s amazing and a little bit crazy to me. I would sacrifice myself for a person, you know what I mean? Is there anything that I would sacrifice myself for? I don’t think so, but I really haven’t held in my hands. This is the Book of Kells. There’s only one copy of it in the world.
I’m not going to be… Like the guy that lets it fall in the water. I’m who could do that.
Stephen: Yeah, I just avoid it. Wow. That’s worth a whole lot of money. I’m not touching it. Yeah, I did get to hold an amazing spider man. Or an amazing fantasy 15 it was only worth like 800 bucks. Even if I did the bull in the China shop and broke the China, it wasn’t going to be such a disaster,
Alan: I think a lot of people get really nervous like that, like I’ve never wanted to drive. A Lamborghini or something like that, right? Fear that I’d be the guy that had a bad day, some ass came out of nowhere and crunched this a hundred thousand dollars car, and he’d just sit there and he just put your head down and start crying because what can you do?
It’s done. There’s no fixing this.
Stephen: Oh, I, there, there’s so much better things to do with a hundred thousand dollars .
Alan: And there is that too. So here ha, Colleen and I were on the way to see Bill Burr. And she got it. We got into the theater and she noticed that her engagement ring was gone.
It was a very cold night. Things had gotten very cold and it had slipped off her finger and at funny. I didn’t tell the story for a long time because we were still looking. I. We, we check, we, sat through the show, but impossibly distracted. I posted with the house manager at Playhouse Square.
Hey, really valuable thing. It’s unique because it’s a heart shaped diamond. It’s not your standard, if you will, engagement ring. Please, if anybody turns it in, let us know. And then we walked our path. We knew exactly where we came from, where we had parked, how we had gotten in and out of the elevator.
And it’s slushy winter, so it’s like we’re, we really are like looking everywhere and hoping it’s a tiny thing. Maybe it’s in a snow pile. How are we going to find it? Months. of checking everywhere, putting ads in the paper. I went to every jewelry store, every pawn shop, and kept increasing my radius so that if anybody turns this in, I don’t, I went to the police and said, Hey, if there anybody turns this in, it’s ours in every way that I possibly could.
I searched for this thing. And value wise, it’s one of those things, what are you supposed to spend two months income on or something like that? I did more and I was making good money at the time. And so it really was, of course not the dollar value, but it was, Colleen was really beside herself that this happened and how are we going to find it?
And so I think that was probably September if I remember right. New Year’s Eve. We often went down to friends that were in Yellow Springs and had a whole weekend of playing games, Beth and Stan, and we get a little hotel. A lot of people stay in the house. We like to have just that little bit of privacy, a little bit of break from the tumult of the house, and we’re getting into our room maybe it’s New Year’s Day after having stayed up late and stuff like that.
And Colleen takes something out of a little side pouch of her big purse, and with that thing, ka tunk, comes the ring. Oh, wow. And, she, it was just one of those things where it’s oh. Ha, this… Wait, I’ve been looking so hard. She’s been so sad. We both had been just beside ourselves. I had already made plans to replace it.
You know what I mean? I’m not going to let her be without a ring, all that kind of stuff. And yet that little bit of, okay, when am I going to call it quits? When am I really going to say, I guess someone just has it. They are. It’s like in a storm drain and it’s in the fucking Lake Erie at this point or whatever might have happened.
We just, we, you’re like laughing, crying. You like have such a, an overwhelming cascade of emotions, but boy, that was the best New Year’s day ever.
Stephen: I bet. So please tell me that you like pulled out a whole roll of duct tape and wrapped her finger in duct tape to keep it on. I would have done that just to be.
Alan: Yeah, it’s funny. A whole bunch of circumstances led to this happening. We had both been doing weight watchers and so her hands really had gotten slightly slimmer. So we went and got it resized so that it really was just right for her finger. And we got what’s called a ring guard. It’s one of those things you can put right next to it.
And then because it’s that much wider it doesn’t have the opportunity to like you make a gesture and it flies off. It just holds on. And of course, the money that I had started to hoard, it went into this cool ring guard. So it’s got like a nice little row of diamonds, and that kind of stuff, nowhere near the big single heart, but you can do a lot of smaller diamonds for still a very reasonable price and it looked beautiful.
It was like, okay, let’s celebrate this, but you don’t need to be wearing like the. Hope diamond and I put it back in the ring and say, blam, blam, you know what I’m, we don’t need to have a Batman’s parents here. It has turned out well that she’s very happy with the ring and the additions and all that kind of stuff.
We made sure that no, that couldn’t happen again. We did not duct tape it nor spot weld it onto
Stephen: her head. But on the flip side, the last ring. Gina had, they were like, whatever Wolverine titanium or something. Hers started getting a little tight, and the doctor said, you may want to, just take that off and resize it or something that like, because if it gets too tight on your finger, We don’t have anything that’ll cut it off.
So we take your finger off and I’m like, yeah, okay. We’re not I believe I will resize that
Alan: Man I had it where I don’t know we went hiking or something like that and I You know, hence swell because your extremities are moving and that kind of stuff. And I had to do the trick where you like wind string around your finger so that it compresses the flesh And then just ahead of it you keep on unwinding it.
So the ring Gets on it while you’re still smooshed down And that’s how I was able to get my ring off and I know you can also whatever spray soap on it or something But it really was on there to where I was like, wow, this is it hurts. It’s cutting off circulation. I didn’t realize I could get so juicy, but somehow that was the wrong, like we were at elevation, whatever it was, that was the perfect storm of my head is really swole.
And this guy ain’t coming off from my usual, just working it. You know what I mean? It’s funny. I don’t wear it all the time. Whenever I’m out, it’s like it’s coming and I know we’re married. I wear it as a signifier to the world that, hey, happily married, whatever combination of stay away or , let me right, keep me happy for me, that kind of stuff, right?
Stephen: So anyway so much it’s Halloween time. We’re a week away. I love Halloween time. I miss doing the trick or treating and the costumes and stuff with the kids. But me and Reese are doing our annual Halloween marathon on Saturday. We always, we, for the last, this is like the third year in a row.
We pick out three movies we haven’t seen and watch in celebration. Usually some kids. Times.
Alan: Like commercially available. Are these like cool things you get from Italy that otherwise not available in the States or how do you, it’s
Stephen: been both. It just depends on, what he tries to get a combination, something old, something new, something funny, something really scary, something psychological, just a combination of three or four movies.
And I’ve seen some interesting ones. So this year we’re watching cinema by the paradise, which is a… Phantom of the Opera parody with Paul Williams, right? Paul Williams. Yes.
Alan: I’ve seen this. Oh my God. I haven’t thought about that in 40
Stephen: years. Here’s what turned me on to it.
When I met Dean Haglund a couple of years ago, we were talking horror movies. Because he was doing a haunted house renovation show and he mentioned cinema by the paradise And phantom of the paradise right phantom of the paradise phantom. Thank you. Yes. Yes phantom of the paradise. I’m, sorry And he said that the only reason he knew of it was because he was some reason or other in this little town in canada And they celebrate this movie and show it on the theater every year.
It’s a big celebration for them. And I was like, that’s just too weird. So anyway, we’re seeing that one. We’re going to watch the new Stephen King, the boogeyman, which is based on one of his short stories. So I’m hopeful I’ve heard it’s really good. And usually a short story movies are better.
And then we’re going to watch the void, which I know nothing about. That was just the last one he came up with. And it ought to be a good year for that. And you are going to be in Chicago. Exactly
Alan: for Halloween, which is the big Mensa Halloween party. And one of the joys is the big costume parade.
They have hundreds of, probably 500 people come to this and hundreds of people out of those dress up for the Friday night costume parade. And the big thing is that many of those costumes are puns. They have awards for best traditional and best for kids and stuff, but everything else is like best pun, worst pun, that kind of stuff.
And so Every year, I’m amazed at the creativity, the wit the work that people are willing to put into a good costume or just like, how did nobody ever think of that before? Because sometimes things are screaming from today’s headline. So they’ll make, something about whoever’s on TV, something about whatever’s in the news.
But a lot of times it’ll be it. Some reference to an obscure movie from 40 years ago. It’s really? Nobody ever made that pun before. I take notes because I really want to be able to tell like when I used to go to the work every day in the office, the big maybe even talked about this before I would take notes at the joke off.
And at the thing, because I needed to be able to share all this cool stuff that I got from all these smart, crazy people. So Colleen and I have we we’re the theme this year is silver screen. So we found a way to embrace that, and we have sometimes done like a pair of costume that we’re together in this case, where you’re embracing the same thing, but in different ways, but.
We love the challenge of, I’m not gonna go rent a costume or buy a costume. What can I do with things I can find around the house? What can I do with duct tape and pipe cleaners and some old felt I got laying around? Make a fun costume. And it isn’t, some people really put a lot of work.
I’ve seen people that look like Rick Roscoe made a perfect Borg costume where he actually had like little LED lights going and it was just the greatest. But otherwise, what you’re just trying to do is evoke the pun that you’re trying to capture. And that’s what I’m figuring is that you go up on stage and you say your pun and you get a good laugh.
And it all has to do is be look enough like that. And they get more and more obscure. I once went as a big clock that also had a That when you look at a sundial, it has that big triangular thing that marks the procession of the sun and tells you the time. And so I, mine was time waits for gnomon.
You know what I mean? That little thing is called a gnomon, and some people get it, which is cool. No matter how obscure you’ll get people that have that wonderful extensive vocabulary. They get every available Star Wars, Star Trek, X Files reference and stuff.
And so we’re here’s hoping that we get a little bit of a laugh. And I always look forward to the creativity of what’s going on. And we got pretentious drinking going on, Colleen and I host that together and that’ll be a little bit of, we try all the liqueurs and cordials and. And besides those big highlight things, it’s just a wonderful weekend with Mensen’s.
I got four days of no matter who you sit down with at a table, you’re going to have a great conversation. You’re going to play games with people that are really good at games. And I’m used to with standard issue friends and family. I do well because I’m really good at certain games.
These people are really good at games and you play a lot of games you’ve never played before. So it’s I love this one. Can’t wait to buy that for Christmas. Bring it to the next family gathering. Hospitality is always copious. The hat’s off to, Susan and Rhonda, whoever else, there’s been generations of hospitality leaders that really seem to just keep on, they’re so consistent.
They have a great everything Salad bar. The meals are great. They have a, coolers full of variety of sodi pops and beers. They get local craft brews that every year, I don’t, I’m not a beer person, but everybody hear people talk about, this is just so good. Where did they find this? They have my particular weakness and I got to be careful about this because my doctor’s appointment is November 7th, and I really can’t go to Halloween and say, feed me candy until I cannot move because my diabetes spike will be for history. But they have an ice cream chest, and like you know you go there and whatever you used to have to save your pennies up and run to the good humor machine and stuff like that.
No, they have everything for free. And so every time I walk by there I want to get. Some bar with chocolate and nuts on it. You know what I mean, all that kind of stuff. So I usually give myself one treat a day. If you haven’t had a dream single for a while, it’s really good. And it is no wonder that’s a classic famous one.
Cause the combination of the orange and the cream is
Stephen: just so perfect. We’ve talked about this and I know weem is stay up late. And sleep in and get up in just enough time to grab breakfast before I talk and then a game tournament and blah, blah, blah. But I know I found if I would do two, somewhere between two and five miles, either jogging, walking, whatever my carbs stay down for the day.
So if I do eat something later, as long as I don’t. Yeah, really watching the carbs. I can have that popsicle or something. It doesn’t spike me up.
Alan: It’s a great idea because where they have it at the Western North Shore, it’s right on the display and river and there’s a beautiful path that you can easily put in.
Like you said, 2 to 5 miles. Just get outside. I’m hoping that it’s going to be cold and clear. You know what I mean? As long as it’s not raining, snowing and you don’t want to go outside, but otherwise that a crisp fall day is fantastic. Like this forest. I’m in, that
Stephen: kind of thing. Yeah, yeah.
Alan: So I am doing my talk. I am doing this fire hose and it’s first thing Saturday morning. So what you were just saying about sleeping in. Nope. I’m going to be all the people that were diehard enough willing to get up, not on Mensa time, but on regular human being time and make it to my nine o’clock talk.
And so we’ll see how that goes. Nice.
Stephen: Good luck on that. I’ve heard it at the monthly meeting up in Cleveland.
Alan: Exactly. It’s much enlargened from then. I, as you remember, took out lots of feedback and have talking from the fire hose, right? Yeah. The fire was even wider bore now, one thing I did is I mentioned a lot of stuff, but what I’ve done is I’m, I put a lot I’m still working on it.
Putting a lot of links in so that we can just pop out real quick and saying, and here’s the list of all the Hugo Award winners from the beginning of science fiction until now. And just that to make it obvious, if you will, I want people to take notes or just be, it’s so easy to find these things. If you look for them, if you’re looking for the.
The best of this kind of music, this kind of genre fiction, these kinds of games to play. And you trust that there really are people that because they’ve played a lot, their opinion is a learned one and that therefore I’m really trying to get to that. And overall, the justification for it really shouldn’t be that you just wait to see what comes along.
That you really, if you only have a certain limited amount of time on this planet, and oh no, my being 64, that specter looms. I really, as much as I enjoy watching. Just silly stuff. I also want to make sure that I can say yeah, I’ve seen 100 best movies of all time I’ve read the hundred best books and that guy or at least I made the attempt and it’s you know Sometimes people say one of the best hundred books is still Intellectually, that’s correct, but it’s not a satisfying read, or at least it wasn’t to me.
And, but then that’s something even to talk about. What is it about me? I think I’m an intellectual guy, and yet some books have been impenetrable. And I guess there was a different style of writing and of reading 50 years ago that they made it onto the list and never came off. It’s a cool discussion. I’m hoping that this will be one of those talks that will engender lots of other good discussions at the tables as the weekend goes by, so yeah,
Stephen: Nice, nice.
And speaking of movies and shows, so me and Colin went and saw Hunters or Killers of the Flower Moon. You mentioned there’s new Doom Patrol, so lots of new things to watch.
Alan: What do you think of Scorsese’s latest? Because apparently it’s a significant movie. It really tells another one of those stories has been suppressed by people that don’t want us to know.
What shits we’ve been.
Stephen: Yes, it absolutely is. It’s actually a story. I did know though not in depth. And of course, I’m sure there’s a little bit of fictionalization. Basically, the main story is true. The Osage people back in like the late 1800s or so when they were getting moved onto the their own territories and the tribal lands, they found oil on their land and they became super rich.
And the white man swooped in and basically was killing them to get the rights of the oil. And, So
Alan: that’s the story that we’re taking everything else from them now that we’ve
Stephen: oh, that’s so terrible. And of course, the basics were all there were all true. It was the real people that were involved and, that type of stuff.
As far as. What was fictionalized I, it’s Scorsese. I doubt if they did it just to make it glamorous and it was very subtle and understated it wasn’t sensational. It wasn’t dramatic. It was in a little, not that you had to pay attention to know what was going on, but it didn’t like it. make it blaringly out there and obvious like a lot of movies do.
So loved it. It was really long. So take a pee break beforehand.
Alan: Got it. Cause there’s a lot of story there. You know what I mean? That really didn’t happen in one big burst. It was a concerted pattern over the course of time to realize why do we keep having a higher death rate amongst the particular people?
Own land where there is oil being discovered. What I’ve seen with those kinds of semi documentaries is that they often will have composite characters or they’ll have things that aren’t exactly true, but they’ll be true to the. The story to the history and the fact of it and make it so that it’s something you can get through in two and a half hours instead of read a thousand page book that’s exactly
Stephen: what that’s what do you say that because it’s a three and a half hour movie and I can’t really say it drags anywhere it’s not fast paced it’s not frenetic it’s not a lot of action it’s just you know scene after scene point after point and knowing how it’s Big books get turned into short movies since this was a big movie.
I leaned over to call and I said how long is this book? Is it like 3, 000 pages?
Alan: Exactly. It’s a tome. That’s, obviously Sadly, weirdly related. So we went to Kinzua Bridge and in going there, we had a chance to go past the Seneca Casino because they have a Thunder Mountain Buffet and we just have this wonderful thing about buffets.
I think that one of the best things that’s happened in the course of my lifetime is Indian tribes that still have sovereignty open a casino. And they they’re outside of the laws that say you can only have a casino on the river. You can only have, three per state or whatever.
And the fact that they do it and make a ton of money doing it and that all of us, collective. Foolish white men that did terrible things in order to steal from them over the course of a couple hundred years. I find it very amusing that now we’re bellying up to the chance to give that money back.
Yep. You know what I mean?
Stephen: Yeah, absolutely. I even had the feeling during the movie. I was like, man, I’m like ashamed to be a white guy. If this is what they do, it’s just it’s horrible. And I know some of the things in the movie, I was like, wow, this is almost taken from today’s headlines.
It’s like I leaned over to call and I said, I think there’s a certain orange character that we know that took the playbook from this guy. That’s killing off because it was he was so manipulative. It was crazy. He’s I love you. You guys are so wonderful. And everybody’s Oh, you’re so great. It’s like I would do anything for you.
Hey, why don’t you go kill that person, and it’s geez,
Alan: man, I, this is funny to me. A lot of relentless geekery is that it’s about facts and truth. You only mean that it, of course we read our fantasy books and stuff like that, but there’s the ability to differentiate. between fantasy and reality.
And so much of what you’re now seeing in Texas, Florida, maybe still Oklahoma, Kansas those attempts to repress historic truth, to change the textbooks that we’re teaching. And you’re just like the outlaw, they outlaw making, talking about that kind of stuff has happened. It’s disgusting if you really care about the truth.
And what’s especially is especially painful is it’s not that we’re just learning to do that now. Who has heard the tale of the Killer Moon? Who has heard about Black Wall Street and the destruction of that entire district in Tulsa? Not until people watched it on Watchmen the series. There’s tons of, hearing every year I read again about Every time that someone makes a reference to lynching, that somehow because I’m getting bad pressed on being lynched, you motherfucker, you don’t know what lynching is unless you’ve seen an innocent kid get beaten to death, near to death, instead hung.
It’s so terrible you can’t even talk about it. You can’t like, exactly. Yeah. I had to contend with the horrible, ugly reality of. That there were people
Stephen: in and that seems to be the new it’s
Alan: running around terrorizing towns. That should absolutely be part of our awareness that cultural heritage wise that kind of blind unreasoning vile hatred that’s been around for a long time.
Maybe it’s not gone. Maybe it’s still just bubbling under the surface. And that’s what we have to know about it
Stephen: to prevent it from happening again. And the, it seems to be, I will caveat that it seems to be a lot of the Republicans, the MAGA group that, oh, we’re being genocide. Oh, we’re, it’s what the, because You said this and somebody said no, that’s not true.
Oh, suddenly it’s genocide against you. Do you people even know what these terms mean?
Alan: So I think that they do and they know that they’re using them because it’s the inciting and the emotional impact of it. But what makes it disgusting is every time I hear the phrase witch hunt. It’s so you’re put in a ducking stool and dunked under the water, and if you didn’t drown, that meant that you were innocent?
No, you were guilty? If you did drown, you were innocent. None of that vileness has happened to you. The fact that they try to appropriate, to take use of those things that really do have a significant, historic meaning, and that they’re about terrible things. Someone just in Congress wore the scarlet letter.
Like what? I’ve heard the term performative kindly applied to it. So are you announcing that you’re an adulterous or are you somehow announcing that all women are getting abused? Not in the way of the clergy head. You know what I mean? You don’t know the story of it to say that doesn’t even apply to this situation, right?
But it’s Provocative enough that you’re trying to like, and every time that you use it wrongly, then it weakens it dilutes the real story of you shouldn’t be using the term witch hunt. You shouldn’t be using the term Nazi unless they’re really a Nazi because, Godwin’s law was about the minute you have Nazis in the discussion.
The discussion is over because you’re using such an emotionally charged term that it can’t possibly be true until you were really talking about Nazis. And that’s right. Godwin said, go ahead and use it now because these people marching with torches and saying we will not be
Stephen: Replaced that’s the nazi stuff.
That’s kristallnacht. That’s you’re seeing it forming up. Oh, it’s
Alan: because You see that kind of vileness, vile is my word for the day apparently because some of these things are not like Oh, they made a little mistake. I think there’s very Calculating crap going on with
Stephen: manipulative
Alan: defense is important.
So that’s why I need a gun. My right to self defense is so important that I’m going to have my mom drop me off in the middle of a riot. And then when I feel threatened, I get to shoot someone. How in the world does that convoluted logic? And yet the guy’s still free. Some judge, some jury, I think it was a judge actually, not a jury, said yes, he was indeed, though he put himself in harm’s way, every case you read about we followed this guy thinking that he was a bad guy, and we were the ones with guns, and yet we’re the ones that felt in fear of our lives, and so we shot him So maybe a better word is you stalked him, you hunted him you, your prejudice blinded you to the fact that you didn’t catch him committing any crime, suddenly you just needed to kill him.
And I hate those stories, and I hate that element still exists in our country, and I hate that they get away
Stephen: with it. Disgusting. That’s exactly what the movie had because the guy manipulated De Niro’s character. He manipulated everybody and tie up loose ends. He then set them up. He like with this one guy, he got to kill several people.
And then when they were closing in on him. He needed to get rid of that guy. So he said, if you did that, such and such as go be out of town and you could probably have that money and go on the run, I’m just saying, and so that guy went to rob a store while he had also then gone to the store owner and said, there’s a bad element in town and they were talking about robbing your store.
So boom, the store owner kills the guy that De Niro wanted gone. It’s all manipulated and the people nowadays in power know. That the majority of the people out there don’t want to think, so they only do headlines. So that’s what they want. They want a headline. The Scarlet A, they want that headline. They don’t care about anything else and click.
Oh, it’s a headline. Now I’m incensed.
Alan: It’s funny. So to divide the country badly, red and blue, Republican versus Democrat, et cetera, et cetera. I don’t always agree with that, but one thing I’ll give them is that I often see. The red side, they’re really good at giving things names in the ways we just talked about, co opting or just making it so that it’s, it sticks, it’s a more mimetic form of it.
I just saw a ridiculous thing happen. They’re calling what you just talked about, like murder by proxy, stochastic terrorism. There is nobody on this planet that’s not going to say what the hell is that? And why should I worry about that? And that’s a lame term. What it means is the kind of things you just talked about.
Trump saying, and historically, this goes back all the way to Cromwell, I think, right? Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest? You’re not going to go and kill them yourself, you’ve got this army of fanatic followers, and all you have to do is say, I wouldn’t mind if that guy went away, and in fact, I’m pretty sure that he’s committing a crime that you wouldn’t want to let him do, so why don’t you go take care of that vigilante boy and it happens often, and the fact that they didn’t come away of saying murder by proxy, or what, a quick, what would a red person say about what he’s doing?
He’s committing a crime secondhand. He’s the one that’s telling people, go ahead and do all these evil things. I’m going to keep my hands clean. It’s he’s the mob boss. That’s going to make sure that his hit men do it, but he can testify in court. I have never killed anybody. I might’ve ordered the death of hundreds.
Stephen: It’s didn’t even order it. He I was just saying, adjusted
Alan: exactly that. It’s, it’s funny. I felt guilty every time I’ve done it. So I think I still have a conscious lurking around in there every time that like. I don’t want anybody to die. I would never think of ordering an assassination and yet it amazes me that no one’s done it.
Of all the people that have been authorized by Trump and others, the people that have had the oil executives that are killing the planet, the people that they someone died of cancer causing agents in from a company that they hid the truth of that for decades and decades. I’m amazed that.
The husband of the passed away wife hasn’t taken his gun and gone to corporate headquarters and said, you killed the person that I love the most in this world. Blam all the crazy that we hear about going on in terrible post offices and offices in general, all kinds of stuff. I’m surprised it hasn’t ever been.
More directed by someone that really has a grievance and really is. I got to find justice here somehow. Once in a while, you’ll read about it that oh, my God, a young girl gets molested or raped and the father goes and takes care of business, but it sure seems that there’s a lots more crimes going on that.
I guess we are a lawful nation because we aren’t all vigilante justice. The vigilante seem to be the nuts that are getting away with stuff instead of maybe
Stephen: I’m just amazed they’re not fat, man.
Alan: You deserve to be arrested and tried and found guilty and rot in prison or executed. If what you’ve done, all of our system of justice has all those different levels of how bad was this really?
And what’s the chance of you ever doing it again? And all of that. And so I’ll just, I am amazed that we haven’t had more corporate killings, more governmental killings for where you passed a bill that took away the health funding so that now all of my friends who needed insulin, all my friends who needed AIDS treatments, they are at risk or have died.
Whoever, all, every single person, million people died from COVID. I had to guess who was responsible for that. It’s the people that were from the start saying, Oh, that’s not real. Oh, here, try some bleach. Oh, how about some magic light? There’s culpability there. There’s absolutely, if an insurance case, if it’s not a criminal, but a civil suit where it’s not absolutely beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the preponderance of evidence. There’s absolutely people that I think have been more responsible for. The housing crisis, and the COVID crisis, and the gun crisis, and whatever else, and how are they still around?
I just can’t believe that people haven’t said, I’ve had enough! So you can see that I’m on the edge of having enough . You know what I mean? But I what you’re,
Stephen: what you were talking about it reminds me of the crow, the mythology of the crow, that, that series,
Alan: and it goes back from the dead to avenge his own death.
Stephen: Exactly. And it brings up the question of what is justice? And we’ve heard it, but they get dismissed as the crazies is justice. That just examples. A cop shoots a black kid and everybody that is on the judge, the jury, the people arresting on the everybody is a white guy like him. And is that justice?
And even when it’s whatever situation I’m like, really? So justice is this. Person pulled up to a light, pulled out a machine gun, and shot a family of five, killed them all, regardless of color, because it was a gang initiation. We caught him, so justice is, he’s going to go to jail for five years, we’re going to feed him and house him, and then he gets to go free, because there wasn’t enough evidence.
How is that justice? I’ve said myself, if whatever, like you said, some guy rapes a 13 year old girl, you know what justice is? Give the father a bat and put them in the room with that guy for five minutes. That’s justice, and it costs a whole lot less.
Alan: That’s yeah I have, I, it’s funny, I know those are my basest instincts, is the eye for an eye, Kodu Hammurabi type stuff.
And yet, because, and I don’t know, the. There’s so many cases about it really was done and they really are in prison forever and stuff like, in fact, bear with me. I’m a mind hunter. I’ve been rewatching it because I was aware that I didn’t remember lots of details, even though I know I had watched it before, so it must have been one of those things that I was watching it on my side screen while I was doing something important.
The first season, very strong, talking to the various different serial killers and trying to, this is when they started the behavioral sciences unit at the FBI and trying to be What if someone is not killing for money or passion or, the usual things, revenge? What if they’re just nuts? But how do you get ahead of how nuts they are and why they’re doing it?
So you could actually find the BTK killer, the and stop them before they kill again. The Specs and the Bundys of the world. The second season is all about Black kids are being killed in Atlanta. And they’re applying their methodology to people usually don’t predate outside of their ethnic group.
So it’s got to be a black guy, almost always a guy, not a gal. And they’re doing all this and it’s just not turning things up. And of course, what comes out over the course of the season is the reason that this crime is not getting solved is because Atlanta police at that time was almost all white.
And all the people that might have been eyewitnesses to where was the young boy before he was snatched off the street? What places did he frequent so that we would know where other young boys might be and we can make those connections? They were not doing any of the detective work if it was in the black community.
They weren’t talking to the moms. They weren’t talking to the arcade owner. Nothing. Nothing. And so the crime being committed was negligence. Like everybody that gets stacked up. They just say we’ll watch the river where the bodies are getting thrown in and it was a big indictment of it isn’t only a matter of trying to understand what’s going on, you have to do, and the, it’s funny to contrast it with the rookie, which we’ve also been watching, like police do real police work.
They knock on doors, they follow up leads. Sometimes you, you have to just keep. Pulling the each thread in the sweater to see which one is going to cause the thing to unravel. You don’t say I’m sure it’s not you name the ethnic group name the I am trying not to get weirded out by, I don’t want to say anything that makes me sound like, oh, it’s gotta be this group or something, but so much of what the BSU is about.
is profiling. It’s trying to find what kind of person would do this. And you’ll often see nowadays, serial killers are such a trope in movies that you’ll have the guy stand up in front of the room of cops and say, we’re looking for a white male between 25 and 40. And he’s got to have upper body strength because he strangled these people.
And that takes a lot of work. And so the fact that you can name these characteristics, it isn’t it’s because I don’t like white people. I don’t like 25 to 40 people. It’s because the facts of the case point to. Not all white guys 25 to 40 are all potential killers. This guy, in particular, these are earmarks.
We found blonde hair. He’s a blonde guy. You know what I mean? Like, all this kind of stuff. To go back to what you were saying, the suppression of history in this way and in this particular sad, weird, serial case way, but I know that there’s lots of stats that say, wow, out of all the crime that was committed, the most convicted group were young black males, and whether it was for violence or for drug offenses or whatever, the laws were changed to make sure that a lot of them got thrown in prison.
Because and I’m what it’s called the 1617 project. I’m I so apologize if I don’t get some of this right. They’ve been showing in statistics, a pattern of racism for a long time in the United States. It’s that there really hasn’t been justice in big cities or in the whole southern half of the United States, or all kinds of different circumstances where they just weren’t.
Doing the work. They had prejudices and they said, I like this guy for this crime. I’m just going to bring him in. I’m going to plant a gun on him. I’m going to plant drugs on. I’m going to, I’m going to clear the case because my motivation is not to get to truth and justice and the American way. It’s that I need closure.
I need, I will lose my job if I don’t solve this thing that now the mayor is barking about. Hey, we really have a problem in this neighborhood. Go clean that area up. Cleaning isn’t going Like they cleaned it with a flamethrower, not with the scalpel, sorry to mix the metaphor, where they found exactly what was really wrong and took care of that thing, not just.
Oh every time that we, as relentless geeks see statistics being misapplied, see like jumps to conclusion, it’s that wouldn’t, that doesn’t pass any logic test. This doesn’t follow from that. You can’t say something must be done. This is something it must be done. No. That’s not how that
Stephen: works.
You don’t get the
Alan: aim to something you just declare and yet people do it all the freaking
Stephen: time. And with all of that. And knowing all that and starting to come to light and seeing it, it’s do you blame? And again, this will just go with what is prominent. I’m not trying to stereotype.
I’m not trying to say this is the cause. If you’re a teenage black kid in the city and you see this all the time, the cops stereotyping the cops, racial profiling for no reason that things don’t go solve that. It’s just misery. Do you blame the lashing out? Do you blame the I don’t have any choice.
I’m going to join this gang with a gun. I’m not condoning it at all. When there’s no options, nowhere to go, what do you expect?
Alan: But it’s understandable exactly that, and so I don’t know what The fact that we’re now getting movies made about that kind of stuff, and at least at raising our awareness of it, I hope that it will be, and we’ve just had Minnesota cops, Minneapolis cops that were obviously quite prejudiced and quite unpredictable.
Nonjudicial in how they applied just surveillance and force and et cetera, et cetera. You know what I mean? And so at least someone went to prison for that, at least someone. But I know that there were how many other cops watching that scene? Nobody’s saying, what are you doing? Get off of him. How what, that’s the thing, maybe
Stephen: there was somebody thinking that, or maybe even saying that, but it’s Hey, if you’re not gonna play ball, then maybe you’re not gonna have a job much longer.
Maybe we need to meet you in an alley. We’ve seen or heard examples of that happening. And
Alan: well, 40 years ago was about police corruption and how do you do anything about it? If. Yeah. The whole place is corrupt that you’re going to get lose the job or get yourself killed because you’re the one that’s speaking
Stephen: Or you come home and these cops that are mad at you brought your kid home from school, you
Alan: know, to show you that they know where your kid is.
Yes,
Stephen: And I know that all sounds like a movie, but, even calling and I last night on the way home. I’m like, yeah. Talking, a lot of this from the movie is a lot of what in the politics. I hope some people are making those connections and he goes, yeah I don’t know.
I’m like, dude I can’t prove anything, but I can guarantee there’s a lot more political corruptness than we know about that. They are doing things very manipulative to get what they want. And they don’t give a shit about the rest of us. I said, we may not be able to prove it, but I just bet there’s way more of it going on than we hear
Alan: about right now.
Agreement and awareness and suspicion in the same ways that you do the power corrupts. And when people see that they can get away with misuse of resources, misuse of the truth, I just, we just saw in the last couple of days, a couple of things we saw the whiz. Wonderful, happy recreation of The Wizard of Oz, all black cast, fantastic music, very happy, all big dance numbers and Cool.
Stephen: Michael Jackson and Diana Ross on the initial, in the seventies were the,
Alan: the original. Exactly. And in fact we did the, we always do a little bit of research so we know what we’re getting into. I’ll of times the Broadway Buzz, which Playhouse Square does before the thing.
We had to miss this one but we did that little bit of wow, that would’ve been. Fantastic casting and like Nipsey Russell was in it, the height of mid seventies or going into the eighties black entertainment and comedy and so forth. We’re all in this movie. Very cool. Then we went to see a play called cat’s paw at the Beck center, which is our liquid local theater, high quality publications but cool, smaller scale stuff.
And this is in what they call black box theater where it seats maybe 200 people total. So it’s intimate. We were five rows up and you could just see the little. Drop of sweat trickling down someone. And this thing was about a lot of what, so it’s about incidents in the eighties when Reagan was president that are still horribly true today, because the eighties was the testing ground for a lot of.
Here’s how we manipulate the media. Here’s how we buy, someone committed a crime. But if we label them a terrorist, then it’s Oh, get them that we don’t have to worry about the facts of it. Now we just know that they’re evil. And what drives people to become an eco warrior. That they would actually blow something up or do something splash red paint on the steps of Congress or something like that, do a car bomb, whatever.
And the cool thing about the play was it had and the corporate person that they are the ones that ordered all these people to have polluted water that they knew would kill a certain number of people with high probability, but hey. That’s not our bottom line is important. It’s the Pinto defense, right?
We know there’s going to be a certain number of cards blowing up but it’s just odds. So it didn’t answer any of those questions. It just showed here’s where a lot of these things have been around for a long time. The minute you had mass media and media that you could manipulate or media that the people in the media were determined to get the story, they will stand by and watch while someone immolates themselves instead of my God, get a blanket, get a bucket, put them out, et cetera, et cetera.
And the corporate manipulators and the, the righteousness the certainty of a terrorist, of a fanatic. Let’s pull out that and pull out terrorist out of fanatic. It just was all really well presented. And he just walked out of there going, man, I got to unpack a lot of stuff.
I got to think a lot about what I just saw. Was there a, were there any. Heroes and villains? No. Was it winners and losers? It just was this slice of life of that kind of stuff has been happening for most of my life, like most of my adult life, at least. And have we found any solutions? Have we gotten better about?
Not sensationalizing the media, not letting the fanatics get to the point that they’re radicalizing others as well. I think it’s also that the run is now closed. I think we saw it on the same, the last night of its run. So I can’t even say, Hey, everybody rush over to the back. You know what I mean? I feel really bad about that.
I didn’t see it early enough that I could recommend it so that other people could see this thing. And I want to have people to talk about with it. You know what I mean? And it’s not. There’s always been great plays about those kinds of things, about, screaming from today’s headline, let’s see, David Mamet did one where A college professor is accused of harassing a young female student, and it goes into how all that kind of came together, and that it’s maybe, and also a doubt.
Someone is accused of being a molestive priest. Is that a term, molestive? You know what I’m trying to say. And it doesn’t have to tell the story, except to tell the story. Tell the truth. Don’t take a side. Say that there really are conflicts, and things to. There’s no winners and there’s no losers, but we sure don’t want this to happen.
So what we’ve got going on in Gaza, a lot of what you said with, when you have people that have been so suppressed. They’ve done horrible things. Hamas are terrorists, and they actually gave them power. And so there’s no excusing the situation we find ourselves in. But there’s some understanding of if you’ve been oppressed for a generation, it’s no wonder that the next generation is just, I won’t do it.
I’m going to find a way to act out and terribly. And so I don’t know if understanding gets you to. to betterment. You know what I mean? Understanding how bad it is and saying, despite all of my understanding, that’s still an evil act. And I, we can’t stand for it and stuff. So I’m not an apologist for anybody, but I am at least trying to say I totally side.
And so having said that, Oh no, Israel has cordoned off the Gaza Strip for a long time, but Israel has been under threat from the Arab world ever since its existence in 49 slash 47. You know what I mean? And so who’s sweeping statement? I think it might be. Is there any fixing this? Is there any fixing a part of the world where three major religions call that exact same couple square miles their holy sites and they all want them and they all want them not to be defiled by the infidel or by the unbeliever or whatever the term is and like I think it’s sadly It’s un understandable how it can’t get any better, but it can’t.
It’s a forever thing, as long as there is religion, as long as there is faith and belief and fanaticism that takes it too far, as long as there’s the weapons upgrades that we’ve seen that now it’s not… That you can kill a lot of people quickly instead of personal and gladiatorial combat. We’re so well beyond whatever happened 4, et cetera, years ago.
And yet the, our base human nature is just as bigger and bigger ways of hurting people. So I got no wisdom, except what a terrible situation. And can we just contain the damage somehow? I, it’s a terrible thing to step back from it. I have a side because I have so many people that I know and care about and I want them to be safe, but I want everybody to be safe.
So I don’t want in keeping people safe. The savagery of the safety to invalidate. Oh, my God. It’s just so terrible. It’s just so terrible. So there’s a downer note. I’m sorry, but there you go.
Stephen: I got it
Alan: all right. We’re probably done. Yeah. Wacky, zany, crazy, unpredictable. It’s why I still love it because I don’t know what’s going to happen next.
It just what’s going on now. What is this? They take elements of the comic books. I think the comic books are better, by the way. Sorry, Doom Patrol showrunners, but I remember the Grant Morrison run being successively for years and years. What a great idea. No one has thought about this before. What a great new character, a great new character development in an existing one, and just delighted in the sense of dread and the sense of surprise and that whole little universe that he created and the show.
Is taking some of those elements, but not doing them as well.
Stephen: So I’ve enjoyed the Doom Patrol show, but it’s not been oh my gosh, I can’t wait to watch the next one. Oh, I gotta go watch more. It’s been like, I’ll watch it here and there
Alan: as we laughed about it came. It’s the new ones came on as of October 12th.
It was not on my radar at all. I usually get little ticklers from the various different comic book sources or movie sources or whatever. Hey, new episodes dropping. I think I watched, I binge watched three yesterday because I had missed three, I can’t say, Colleen and I can’t say that about our baking show.
As soon as it’s on, we’re watching it. So I guess, in my hierarchy of what I care about, less than baking show.
Stephen: And it’s been a good series. But it just hasn’t been one, it’s not one that I’m going to tell everybody, Oh, you’ve got to go watch this. But if somebody asks about it, I’m like, Oh yeah, it’s pretty good.
It’s worth watching. It’s
Alan: like nothing else you’ve ever seen. People are looking for something that’s unique and surprising like I do. That’s one of my big recommendations in that way. Yeah.
Stephen: All right. Hey next week we’ll find out how we went, how your thing went. I’m getting, as I mentioned, Alan, wait, two two days.
I’m very excited. I can tell you.
Alan: Deluxe edition with all the bells and whistles and you got your special little. Badge that you’re going to wear while you’re playing it. The
Stephen: glasses. Okay. Oh so I love this, these deluxe editions you get, Oh, but for this much, you get these extra things. And I look at it and I’m like, great.
It’s a skin for my gun. My gun looks different. Who cares? I’m not doing videos of me playing. I’m the only one that would see it. Who cares? But I did it anyway, because I wanted whatever expansions they have coming. Also, that was part of
Alan: it as the gameplay, not just vanity. That’s a cool thing.
So I hope I honestly, I know you really love the first one. I hope that this sequel is everything you want it to be. Just from the screenshot that you post on Facebook. It looks great. I don’t really, it isn’t only the graphics that matter. It’s the gameplay that matters and much more but if you’re going to have something that’s got to have that kind of spooky spectral frame.
They sure seem to have
Stephen: captured it. And the first one definitely does that. I’ve been replaying through it. I love the story. And there’s plenty of times where I realize I’m white knuckling the controller and I’m all tense because I’m just waiting for the shadow people to come and I’m like, Oh, I don’t have enough batteries.
I’m trying to run and now I’m getting tired and it’s a great game because. Okay, so I have a lot of games because I was Games for Gold on Xbox. I have Steam, I have GOG, so I have more games than I’ll ever actually play. Assassin’s Creed is a very popular series. People love those games, and I’ve got several of them.
It’s one of those where it’s okay, so hold down your left trigger and push up. And then when you hit a, it does this, but if you hold down and push a, it does this other thing. But if you hit a, and then real quick, move over to the right and hit B, it does this. And it’s so here’s the list of 300 actions that your guy could do.
And I’m like, way too much Alan wake. Right trigger. You should shoot with your left trigger. You focus your light beam and that’s it. You get two guns and a flare gun. And that’s it. It’s but it’s the story that is really good. And it definitely gets that. Oh, man, I turn out the lights.
I’ve got a big enough TV. I get the surround sound experience. That’s yes, that doing yeah, Are the only two games that I’ve ever gotten my heart racing
Alan: that much. Very cool. I hope you have a wonderful time. Enjoy the movie marathon and stuff like that. Halloween stuff like, it’s Halloween next Tuesday.
So I, we actually already bought candy from Costco. I’m determined to not open the bag until Halloween. Cause I know once it’s open, it’s like, Oh, what are you doing? The fun size is going to kill you. Don’t run for
Stephen: the kids. One for Al two for the kids. One, two for Al.
Alan: I’m going to do the usual separation of here’s the ones that I wouldn’t mind having and these they get all the other stuff and then I’ll keep giving out in waves until it’s like all that’s left is the 100, 000 bars that I’m willing to give myself as special treats.
Nice.
Stephen: Yeah. See, you’re, you still get the trigger treaters down around here in the country area with the house of being far apart. It’s always at the school or at the park. They don’t do the door to door, which really bums me out because I used to have a fun time scaring kids. Yeah.
Alan: Yeah. It will be fun because it’s high density here in Lakewood.
We get a lot of kids stopping by. You’re hoping the weather is good and all that kind of stuff. Yeah.
Stephen: Okay. All right, man.
Alan: Have a good weekend. Take care. Always a pleasure, Stephen. Later.
