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Episode 223
Alan: [00:00:00] Okay,
Stephen: Alright. How are you man?
Alan: so I can hardly hear you. You might wanna bump your volume up a
Stephen: up. I, I always, you know, it, it gets turned down there. How’s that?
Alan: we go. Very good. I should have worn some kind comic book paraphernalia shirt today, but I did not. So
Stephen: Oh, yeah. I got Marvel on, but it’s kind of DC time.
Alan: that’s, so let’s dive in. I just saw the Superman move and you saw it a couple days ago, I think.
Stephen: Yes. Colin. That, that was our plan. I went all the way out to Baltimore just to see it with him. Wow. I, I don’t know what all I can say about how good it is and how good a job they did. There’s, there’s, we, we talked the whole 30 minute ride from the theater back to his place about how good it was.
Alan: Very good. I really in the past, there’s really been much better Marvel movies than DC movies on the overall. And so I was very glad Gunn, James Gunn bringing along some of his Guardians of the Galaxy and other sensibilities, peacemaker [00:01:00] and stuff like that. I guess Peacemaker was already DC but, episodic tv it had the right combination of real threat and real humor.
It had not only the hero, but like a great supporting cast and instead of, oh, it’s the Justice League, let’s bring all the usual Batman and Wonder Woman and everybody back in. Instead, it had very convincingly good characters and like obscure, almost fan favorites like Metamorpho. I didn’t think they used that name.
They used the Element man but Mr. Terrific was great and especially Hawk Woman was really not a sorry,
Stephen: Call.
Alan: interest.
Stephen: said that’s the, in the comics, she’s the third Hawk woman.
Alan: Exactly. And in fact, for a while it was Hawk Girl. Finally, she became Hawk Woman. And for a long time they were Ian Police visiting the planet to learn earth methods or something like that and usually absorb acon to, but then they revealed that they’re really a war like race. And I’m trying to think who it was, maybe Alan Moore or somebody very much transformed them into like [00:02:00] that, they’re a punch first, ask questions later.
And if anything, it was always interesting to be, and I, Colleen and I talked about of course, in the car on the way home, like for all of the, they were supposed to be this sciency planet. What did he choose to use when he was here on earth? Like ancient weapons, when you come swooping down out of the sky and hit a criminal in the head with a mace, you don’t like, just knock him out.
You like shatter his skull. And so they really did very good introductions of all those things without it being, oh god, another origin story. Oh God.
Stephen: Oh my God. That was our big first comment. Colin said, it’s freaking Superman. We don’t need 20 minutes of, here’s Krypton, here’s Krypton exploding. Here’s the ship coming to earth. Here he is being raised. We don’t need that. People know who freaking Superman is, and that was a big thing. We, we don’t need all of that.
We have, we have the story.
Alan: They made references in flashback to those things happening. Derive from crypto and all that kind of
Stephen: Just enough.
Alan: Yeah, just enough. And [00:03:00] like even bringing Super Girl in, but not showing her is like a naive, she’s like a party girl now. She and and I know, sorry, everybody. Spoiler alerts and stuff like that.
And my saying that doesn’t mean, oh, now you know all about it just is they had a bunch of fresh cake in not one way, but like 10 different ways on who the Daily Planet cast are. Or l Lex Luther was still the brilliant
Stephen: Holt was so good.
Alan: He really ate scenery just like he should have.
And this is, we talked about this, when Super Boy and Lex Luther first had a conflict, the big thing was that in trying to save him, super boy blew out stuff in the lab that was on fire and it caused Lex Luther to lose his hair. And that was enough to change him into a Superman obsessed, super boy obsessed, super villain.
No. Now they introduced, and I’m trying to think who it was that first really talked about Lex. Luther’s big objection would be, I might be the brightest man on the planet, but no matter what I [00:04:00] do, I got this alien that I just can’t seem to catch up to get traction with the public with all that kind of stuff.
So introducing that whole xenophobia thing and the, and not just the envy, but like the. What are we seeing in today’s planet? People have bigotry that just knows no bounds. You be smart enough to overcome your hatred of various different things, and they really portrayed that well. And they really portrayed governmental corporate kind of entanglement and how there’s never just, are we gonna do good?
Are we’re gonna do evil like Superman tries to do. You find out that it’s always follow the money. It’s always a matter of who’s got some, I don’t know, deep seated problems they’re trying to solve, using an entire country’s army as his weapon. And they just, they really portray like the crappy world that a guy who’s like a big boy scout has to deal with all the time.
And that saving a squirrel is just as important as they really, without it [00:05:00] being the narrator saying, and then Superman saved a squirrel showing what a good guy he is. They just had all those great. Not even throw away essential scenes, but they spent two seconds doing that and let the audience say oh, he’s a good guy.
to it being handed and all that. So many ways in which it was a really good movie.
Stephen: And all the negativity online when people are like, ah, they made them woke and all they’re dealing with is a alien issues and immigration and blah, blah, blah. It’s like, ho ho. So what I’m hearing is you haven’t read a Superman comic for three decades.
Alan: exactly. Ever.
Stephen: yeah. I mean, on folks. This is Superman and the whole speech by Lex at the end, that’s kind of the point.
They’re showing who actually has more humanity, the human from earth or the alien. That is what he’s doing. Who, what, what defines humanity? That was kind of the point. And so many people, it maybe purposefully aren’t getting it, or they’re, like you [00:06:00] said, just so hatefully, bigoted that they, they can’t get it.
Alan: Get past it. Like people that are shitty, people can’t get past the fact that you’re gonna be judged by your works, not by your, I don’t know. It’s nature versus nurture. You can’t be white enough to be a villain and still get into heaven. You just can’t, and so much all the crap that’s going on in our country of and there’s, I think a famous quote, maybe from Roosevelt or something, maybe from Goldwater, when you can convince the iest white man that no matter what he’s superior to any black man you’ve got.
A fan for life and we’re seeing that played out now that by appealing to people’s prejudices and their IDs and they were kind in the movie to, ’cause you’re dealing with the smartest man on the planet maybe, and he still can’t get past it. But how many when you showed, not only Luther doing bad things, but people in his office actually cheering, the good guy, getting punched in the face, cheering a building, getting demolished, a rift in the universe [00:07:00] being opened and we’re like, yeah, this is what’s necessary in order to win this battle no matter what.
And just to see that level of infinity, that level of crazy, that there’s no boundaries, there’s no stopping people that they want what they want, even if they don’t understand why they fully want it that much, stop at nothing. And you have to have someone that’s willing to stand up and say, we’re not gonna let you get away with that kind of stuff.
There is good in the world, there are choices to be made and him still not being. I’m stronger, so I get to make the choice. It’s more, I hope that you will catch on that your choices are what define you, who you are, defines you by how you are seen in the world not how you were born, where you were born, et cetera, et cetera, and sadly the parallels between the kind of crazy, what was it again? Bor and United States to say shit, whole countries, they’re all crazy over there. And then showing I just heard something very similar said by someone here in the United States. So [00:08:00] it’s not only because the guy’s hair is crazy.
Do you know? He’s crazy. Some people are all nice and sleek and bald and they’re still crazy and they’re still sociopathically greedy, willing to do anything. Oh and they had another great, obviously there’s parallels, analogs to what’s going on. They’ve had a comment about Luther’s, rogue science, bad science that he just doesn’t bother to say what could happen if this didn’t go right. He’s so arrogant in thinking that he can figure everything out, that he is whoops, a whole black hole in the middle of the city, and we’re gonna destroy everything a dimensional rift, and we’re all going to
Stephen: said, wait till it gets a city I care about.
Alan: like that.
Exactly. So they just had like great comic books, great science fiction. They commented directly on today’s world without being, oh, and here’s the portrayal of our current president or our Congress, or whatever
Stephen: but I wonder if they did that on purpose or it was just the story and it just so happened to reflect today. I, I’m not convinced they did it as a political statement [00:09:00] or we’re woke or we’re making a, you know, whatever challenge I, I, I, don’t, that may have been part of it as it went on, but I don’t think that’s where it started.
Alan: I think you’re right. And Colleen said that too, that this movie has been in, in, development for years and years. And so we, we had maybe a first taste of Trump, but we hadn’t seen how bad it could get with Secret Police, with, science unleashed. And so the fact that those things are a commentary, not on any particular guy, but on what makes for civilization, what makes for a just society, that it doesn’t matter who’s in the good seat or the bad seat, it’s a matter of everybody has those choices to make.
And the fact that it’s so tellingly parallel to the peril that we’re facing currently it really, I don’t think was done as an assault piece. I think it was done as, this is a good story about good and evil. Where are we? You know what I mean? get to decide how much it’s too close to what we are currently going through.
So the battle scenes were great. I will say this,
Stephen: It was [00:10:00] very bright. You know, there’s been talk in LA in the recent years. Our movies are just so dark compared to what they used to be. It was bright all the way through.
Alan: yeah I this a terrible thing to say, but I think it’s true. I think it was Man of Steel where it was the best superhero fight scenes I’ve ever seen in terms of if people were really that powerful, God’s come to earth and like picking up school buses and hitting each other with them and not caring that there are people in that bus.
They portrayed those battles between. General Zad and Superman, really horribly convincingly about that the city would be laid to waste, that there would be incredible casualties and stuff like that. And in this, they really didn’t show that. They showed people in danger. And I, they showed some people getting killed, but it wasn’t like when the rift against, spoiled, the rift breaks through a building and the some, part of the building breaks away.
’cause it was always planned to be in a escape pod, but they don’t show that everybody else in the building, the other 10,000 [00:11:00] people in the building would be falling out of the fucking ruptured windows and dying 50 floors down. So they cleaned it, they softened it so that it wouldn’t be as horrifying as that previous movie was.
Stephen: Yes, but this story-wise, they did some of the same things in here that I liked about the Third Guardian’s movie. So course is that. And we’ve talked about it, I’ve talked about with lots of people. What do you do after 12, 13 years of buildup to have the biggest freaking superhero movie with the, the ultimate universal battle going on where it’s the hugest you could ever get?
What do you do that’s bigger? What do you do? That’s impressive? You can’t, and Guardians three in this movie did it just, right. It went back down to a personal level. They weren’t worried about big giants fighting and destroying cities. It was a personal thing. It was these couple people, like the Shwarma guy, you know, that was, you know, they brought that in.
So it [00:12:00] was a personal thing and, and I was gonna say this about the story. They, it, it, the, the story was a slice. You know, we’re used to like a lot of the Marvel movies. Oh, it happened over three months worth of time or something like that. This was like a few hours from beginning to end. We showed you the story, and there’s more movies coming out like that.
They’re not doing the long timelines. It’s a slice right here. Story start, story ends. That’s all you get.
Alan: Yeah, that’s a great observation. And I think, you read comic books, you’re used to, things proceed over the course of time, but you have years of built up and each issue is only that, that more limited period of time. And you can do foreshadowing and do things that back reference and forward reference so that it all ties together, but you don’t try to cram in too much.
That absolutely was a big problem with any number of superhero movies. Spider-Man needs like one good villain to combat. He doesn’t need six, and maybe you build up to, it’s a spectacular conspiracy type thing. And how will he [00:13:00] contend with not just fighting Dr. Octopus or the Vulture, but all these guys coming at him at once.
That was really a flaw in the Batman movies, that they didn’t just have him. Take on the Joker, take on Mr. Freeze, whatever. They almost had like too many villains. And then especially when you had a really great villain like Bain, and it wasn’t, he wasn’t even the main focus of the story. That it wasn’t about, oh my God, Batman’s got his back broken that it was like they bump into each other.
It gets too crowded and needs stage time ’cause they’re all stars. You know what I mean? Jim and Tommy Jones or whatever.
Stephen: they made the mistake of, well, we have to make it huge. We have to have so much in there that people are like, oh, every second. And it goes the opposite direction. They, that it’s something I’ve been noticing in various ways in the world, that they want something so badly that they do everything possible to not make it happen.
And, and car drivers are the perfect example. I’m in such a hurry. I’m gonna zip all around and rush. So I get pulled over by the cops, or I cause an accident, or I pull up to the [00:14:00] stoplight and the guys I just zipped around and almost hit pull up right next to me. They do everything.
Alan: Exactly. gain much, did you? My friend.
Stephen: I’ve seen that in business.
I’ve seen it on the road and it’s been in movies, but I, you know, this movie wasn’t like that. It wasn’t making the mistakes to make it the biggest ever.
Alan: I agree. It, they really had good frenetic the battle scenes, but they also had quiet moments of characters having a conversation and like showing enough of.
Stephen: But, but not, not over too much of that. It wasn’t like sitting around watching people talk for two hours.
Alan: I agree that they’ve often talked about that, that like a bad movie has, there’s no other way to show the story except to have the characters be the expository the narrative that’s gonna say the reason that we’re doing this, it really should be that you can see from what’s going on from the cast of their features as they have to deal with a difficult decision.
And by the way I forgot, I mentioned Mr, I forgot to mention Guy Gardner, Nathan Fillion as the kind of too fucking full of [00:15:00] himself. Green Lantern. It was such a very, Hal Jordan was another one of those that was like in, in the early comics. So Noble, without fear, that’s why the guardians gave him the ring and that he had some of those same struggles.
If you can do everything but you, if you can do anything, but you can’t do everything, how do you deal with it? There’s too many things to be done in the world. And then Guy Gardner was just like I’m just gonna do whatever. I feel like I got this ultimate ring. And so they. He really played that brusqueness and that un and like he’s so fickled.
You know what I mean? It’s
Stephen: he, had a couple good years of superhero roles.
Alan: exactly. Having the whole thing with, hey, we’re the justice gang. And where people really have a visceral reaction to that good or bad. And I, as I think I’ve mentioned to you before, I really loved Metamorpho growing up. He was one of those, not even a b maybe a C-level character. I think his book only ran for 18, maybe even 12 issues or something.
But I just love that I learned chemistry, you’ll learn if you can, whatever the elements are in the human body, you can transform to [00:16:00] them. And another thing that I’m hoping James Gunn did a lot of good stuff with building the next DC universe. So it wasn’t just Luther Corp.
They showed Lrd Tech, they showed stag industries. They had, various different references to in the future what’s gonna be the battle is gonna. Each corporation wanted to grow its own superheroes or buy its own super villains or whatever it’s gonna be. And that money is a superpower all of itself.
And so the fact that Metamorpho has that thing with stag industries and that I can just see really cool things coming that doesn’t even have to be everything coming from outer space. There are secrets to the world that we’re still gonna discover as to how did he get his powers and, that I like the fact that they threw things in and didn’t immediately have to give you the full story. There’s a dozen stories that could spin out of this, that they were to be learn big and small. You know what I mean?
Stephen: always the, the thing I loved about George Lucas and Star Wars was there were so many things that [00:17:00] happened and went on and mentioned, and they didn’t like have to describe all of it and go into detail. And I, I argue with editors about this at times. So like, well, you mentioned this, but you didn’t tell about it.
You need more detail. You, no, I don’t. I it’ll come up later in another book. Well, they wanna know now. I’m like, no, that doesn’t fit this story. And I could be wrong. I mean, obviously editors that have way more experience than I have editing you know, but I feel it’s the old school way of doing it, that there’s a newer way and you know, we
Alan: I don’t know if there’s old school news, it’s just that there’s multiple ways to do it. If you are a person that really, I don’t know, I’ve always been a completist. I read all that kind of stuff. And then when they throw an Easter egg, that makes a reference to something that, oh, I hadn’t thought of that for 10 years.
It would still be there, it’d be lurking in the background. It still has been unexplained. Alan Moore, grant Morrison, there’s various guys that, that have been so good at John’s, Jeff Johns, mining the past for what we, just, the fact that we didn’t hear about Sandman and that [00:18:00] there’s four or five, six different Sandman.
They’re not all the one we’re seeing on TV now, where he is a mythic, endless being, but the fact that they’ve been able to really do. Intergenerational things and making a reference to he wasn’t around for a hundred years because someone trapped him and because he can’t die. They’ve really done some interesting things in that way and longtime readers then get rewarded with, they often call it the Easter egg, right?
That you, especially a lot of places do this now. Everybody has the superhero landing, the pose where you go down on one knee. How many movies have we seen where they show a trophy room, if you will, and they like, there’s back references to a hundred different stories. The weapon or the mask or the whatever else it might be.
And if you’re sharp, you really might, wow, I re I remember that story and I remember that it’s very cool and they don’t like linger on it. They just pan across it. And then nowadays in the era of DVDs, you can really do the stop action and say.
Stephen: DVD?
Alan: No, I, [00:19:00] oh boy. I guess streaming you can stop in the same way, but it used to be that the first time you could do you know what I’m seeing on a VHS, it was really hard jigg it forward and not have it be that they could just get resolution so you could see what the hell was going on
Stephen: The ones where every other frame it jittered.
Alan: like that.
Exactly. So it, that’s we sometimes talk about this, we’re veteran geeks, we’ve been around for all kinds of breakthroughs in Gery, and the first time that you could watch a movie on your own instead of just on Sunday night at the movies or in a theater, and then be able to actually go and really look at what was going on there and catch the exact, the little under voice comments and catch the things trophy room or the alien races, all in the Star Wars bar and we’re gonna learn about all these guys.
Who’s the guy that’s got like a trumpet for a head kind of stuff. I mean?
Stephen: when we first got VCR, a junior in high school. We didn’t have cable, we VCR I got, we got one when I was a junior. I recorded MacGyver and watched that episode like [00:20:00] 10 times that week.
Alan: That’s very cool because it’s just so powerful to be I sometimes I would do that, way back when it was first Blockbuster and Hollywood and the various other video stores. I would often get five things to watch for the week, but I wouldn’t even just watch ’em once each I would rewatch ’em because it was just so cool to be able to say when they made this big reveal, what the things that led up to it that I got but also missed?
The first time you watch Usual Suspects, the first thing you wanna do is go watch it again. Because they were very clever at how they built all the clues and the Red Herrings. Same with Sixth Sense, same with we can start naming the movies where Memento, they’re really well structured that they reward repeated viewing.
’cause then you get to admire the craft of went into a good surprise, a good reveal. So very fun.
Stephen: So, so two things on Superman, and these are mean ni nitpicks. I, neither of them like ruined anything about the movie, but I think they kind of missed these two little opportunities. [00:21:00] So at the end, crypto was getting Mr. Trs the balls, the flying balls, and he was, you know, doing the same with
Alan: drones.
Stephen: And during the whole big battle Superman goes, crypto, get the toy. And crypto’s like, ah,
Alan: right.
Stephen: great. That was funny. That was good, but it wasn’t a good setup and it wasn’t impactful because the whole movie crypto wasn’t listening to Superman. And they did absolutely nothing before that about Superman trying to get crypto to get a toy.
Alan: Trying to train him and refusing to do
Stephen: they needed that. Now, you know, maybe they did do it and it got cut, which I don’t understand why they would’ve, ’cause, I mean, early on when he first gets back to the fortress and it’s trashed, that could have been the time to just, you know, crypto, the, the toys, not the stuff. Get the toy and roll a ball and crypto just looks at it.
That’s all they needed. And that would’ve set it up for the end. The only other thing that they missed the opportunity on, and I think this is a, [00:22:00] a, a character thing that Superman would’ve done, that little boy who stood there holding that flag and would not leave. Yes, guy saved him. Oh, gave you an upgrade.
That was pretty good. Superman would’ve flown around the world and visited that kid to thank him.
Alan: Think you’re right. That may, maybe that’ll be shown in a future movie that the kid grows up and he gets to tell the story, and super Superman goes, I know I just couldn’t get there in time. I was dealing and
Stephen: it a, make it a comic.
Alan: fact that was another deal. They may I think of it internally, if you can do anything, but not everything, you really have to make choices about am I gonna save this whole town from flooding ’cause the dam burst, or am I gonna go stop the nuclear reactor?
Be, and you
Stephen: and that’s the other thing too, difference between Luther and Superman. Luther being egotistical would’ve been like, I can do both and I’m going to be the hero. Superman was more interested in saving people and even though he didn’t get along with the justice gang, he got them involved because that was the mission, not to be the
Alan: [00:23:00] exactly. I called in some friends, That kind of thing. Exactly. The it, I, this is funny. I am such a Bulgarian, I swear all the freaking time, and yet it was off-putting in a Boy Scout movie. I don’t think Superman ever swore. Maybe he might
Stephen: said shit when they said super hashtag super shit.
Alan: That. There you go. He’s, you’re allowed to swear if you’re quoting somebody else but they really had some things, and I guess you are in a stressful situation and you’re just, you’re fighting for your life or whatever. And yet maybe Captain Marvel was more this, because he really is a little kid made into a man and wouldn’t have restrictions on it. But some of the swearing was just like they could have done without that.
I’m hardly ever the blue nose about this, but it was maybe, I’m trying to think of like maybe what Lois did. It maybe when I would’ve, they sometimes, maybe it’s actually a thing that James Gun did, is it isn’t that the bad guys are the ones that swear and, that it is, people swear good and bad, if you will.
And so [00:24:00] I just, I somehow I found it jarring because they had done so much of where he’s like innocent in a lot of ways and so to hear him and I guess. It shows by him being really offended by being called super shit that really would hurt in a way that, I don’t even wanna say it. I think here, this is the first time on the podcast I’m saying this, I got away to college and I learned to swear and I came home and called my brother a jag off and all kinds of bad things.
And at one point I said shit in front of my mom and she said, shorty, what? I wouldn’t even take in my hand. You put in your mouth. Oh my God, I disappointed my mom. I, that made me so much more conscious of there really is time, there’s an audience, there’s a context those things. That’s why I don’t wear swearing t-shirts ’cause I don’t want swearing to be how people first see me.
They even heard a word out of my mouth.
Stephen: so let me alleviate your guilty conscience just a little on that. So. Me and Colin talked about that, and I said [00:25:00] they did just enough of the adult language, adult situations to make it more of a mature adult movie without losing what Superman was. He stayed the way it was, but they didn’t make it a cartoon movie that was live action. And
Alan: You know where they really,
Stephen: Yeah. And, the, the amount of swearing, like you said, was minimal. And in some of those situations, like Lois, when they were about to go through the porter and terrific. Saved her and said something, she goes, dammit, or something like that. It was like, that’s appropriate. That’s exactly what I probably would’ve said.
I got stung by bees the other day. My mother was right there. I was saying more, I was dropping F bombs and crap way more than that. And I’m like, you know what? I’m being stung by like four Bs right now, so who cares? And
Alan: I have read that. That’s so much what, the way you use swearing is it really does relieve pain. your attention. It’s what you have to do in order to get through a tough situation. If you’re looking to do the most efficient way to get past, I got anyway.
Stephen: let me, here’s where I changed my viewpoint on swearing. ’cause my [00:26:00] mother, well, you can’t get her to swear. She has a few times and everybody’s always like, my God, did nanny just swear? And we say it sometimes and she, she doesn’t say anything, but you can feel the disapprove coming from her because she feels they should never, and I, I, I don’t swear a lot.
We, but. Every now and then in front of her, we’ve done it. Whatever. Here’s what changed my mind. There’s a video online of Disturbed the Band. They were doing a concert and there’s a lot of families that go to disturbed concert, like with kids and adults and, and there was a family up front, and I guess the girl was getting crowded in a little scared.
She was 11, 12, whatever. And he stopped everybody and, and said, darling, are you okay? And you know, it’s okay. He went down rubbed her hand, said, it’s all right. like, you know, I appreciate you parents bringing her here, and it’s a family thing, blah, blah, blah. And I, I forget exactly what he said something or other.
And someone said, you know that, well, it’s not appropriate to bring a kid to a concert like this. He’s like, you [00:27:00] know what, what? Let me, let me tell you why I disagree on that. He’s like, because it’s a safe place. Nobody here is going to hurt anybody else because you’ll deal with me if you do. That’s not what we’re here for.
And what’s the worst that’s going to happen tonight? It’s like she’s go, here’s some swear words. If you think that’s the worst that could happen to this kid, there’s worse things in the world that could happen to her. There’s worse things going on right now, and she’s not being exposed to any of that right now.
So if you can’t deal with a little swearing, well then you’re in the wrong place because I, I could be a lot worse than a couple swear words. And I’m like, what a good point.
Alan: Honestly I agree with him. I have so many times, it’s funny. People occasionally they’ll hear me swear and they’ll tell me I don’t have a big enough vocabulary or that really offensive and they’re like, wow, I just heard this guy talk about beating his wife and you didn’t chime in.
You know I mean? Somehow my f-bomb is worse than. Domestic violence is worse than government. Corruption is worse than maintain a [00:28:00] sense of proportion. You thing that, that people often, they’ll even distract from a really important discussion about bending books in school because someone said they shouldn’t fucking do it and now they’re all about, he dropped an F-bomb so we don’t have to listen to him anymore instead of you’re, because it’ll be a worse thing than Spencer.
Stephen: a word there, there, our swear words are not swear words. In other countries, you could say fuck all day long in some countries and they wouldn’t care. But they have other swear words that if you, that aren’t as bad here, you say it there and there. Oh my gosh. You’re, you know, and there are different words from the Victorian era that were swear words that we don’t use.
Alan: we think you’re just amusing. Exactly.
Stephen: My favorite one is our far, far, far from arf or something like, it’s, it’s hilarious to me, but it was like a swear word in the 18, 17 hundreds. So. Again, it’s words. I, I’ve changed my attitude, my viewpoint. I’m still not gonna swear a whole lot, but it doesn’t [00:29:00] really affect me and bother me if someone does or I do.
Alan: What I think I’ve mentioned multiple times here on wonderful podcast that I love a series called Malta. It was a guy named Gunther Anam, if I remember right, who did a scholarly investigation into all the ways in which people are a profane, vulgar, there’s different kinds of swear and, whether it’s fecal or sexual or religious or whatever else it might be heritage.
And one of the things that I really, ’cause I’ve not spent enough time there, Canada, our neighbor up north, they’re like stereotypical, a very polite people. What’s the worst square words you can drop in Canada? It isn’t the F word or the, it’s old Catholic terms, like to say, tabernac like tabernacle.
It’s as if you just. Shout on someone. It’s the worst. And there’s, a couple others like saints, et cetera, that in, in and in German. I know that the worst way you can insult someone is to compare them to an animal. You know what I mean? And like I, I always make fun of this, when you want to tell someone [00:30:00] to shut up, which is already vulgar and you can say halt mu, which means, ho, stop your mouth.
If you say Hal Maul, which means shut your sout. That’s really fighting words. So I mentioned to Colleen, Hey, we’re gonna be going up where our cruise, our next cruise is starting out of Quebec City and going up to St. Lawrence Seaway, and then out into the ocean and we have a couple ocean days and all that kind of stuff.
I gotta practice up my Quebecois swearing so that if I really, if someone whatever, cuts me off in traffic or does something really rude, I can tell ’em appropriately the worst vulgarity in order to, a lot of times it isn’t, it’s to get attention. You know what I mean? If you say something that, that.
The way you arrest someone’s attention is to shock them a little bit. And sometimes the swear word is the way to do that. So just that I want to like, what in Rome do as the Romans do, and when you learn a language in high school after you’ve learned all the words for the vegetables and the, how to say hello and stuff like that, there’s always that desire to go looking in the German English dictionary to say, [00:31:00] so how do they say, damn?
Oh, it’s just, damn. But other things like that, that a, anyway I think that I try to really be, I swear, but I sure don’t, I’m not the guy that goes stage and says, motherfucker muck, if
Stephen: there’s, there’s over the way too much sometimes.
Alan: wasteful rude. You know what I mean? And I try to still, how I speak, what words I choose to use is usually very.
I have things that I could say that I choose not to say as a jokester, as a, a. When I do my talks within Mensa and stuff like that, and my mind is fast enough that it really gets to go through the possibilities, kinda like the terminator thing. Do fuck off as whole. You choose which is the right response.
And so that’s something that I really spend time thinking about, kinda what am I gonna add to my vocabulary? One of the things we often talk about is there’s all kinds of, every generation, every culture kind of puts its own things that are jargon. You know what I mean? They’re meant to be a separator between insiders and outsiders.
So it’s for humor, it’s for all that kind of stuff. And only once in a while I don’t know, one out [00:32:00] of 10 times do I hear a new term that I think that’s amusing enough and interesting enough that I will use dis someone and maybe I wait to see how well society’s gonna adopt it. Because so many things, they start off as an SNL catchphrase and then they’re like that really is now everybody uses that.
I don’t just adopt things where, because everybody else is saying it. Because sometimes I think, so when you hear a lame catch phrase, is there anything more embarrassing than hearing someone trying to make that catch on? Did they use it too much? It’s don’t you have any creativity? And so what do we have currently?
Thank you for giving this matter the appropriate attention, or something like that. It’s has nobody taken your side and said It’s lame. It’s horrible. It’s stupid. It makes you look foolish for repeating it anyway. I judge people on the basis of, do I ever hear them say an original thought or do they only just repeat what everybody saw on TV last night?
What their, [00:33:00] what jokes they’ve had. And they like, they’re fired by a stimulus word and they can’t help but say a particular joke or phrase in response. I try not to really try not to do that. I try to be always making up new words and always trying to find a new take on a joke that everybody’s heard and all that kind of stuff.
And maybe that’s just a personal thing, note of personal pride. But when you’re with somebody that you really hear them say the same things again and again. It’s wow, do you not read? Do you not get exposed? Do you not watch more than one show? Whatever else it might be. Now you’re sounding like everybody that talks on, it’s almost sunny in Philadelphia.
Wow. I, it’s just weird to see people get overwhelmed by a certain vernacular. They start talking like a Bronx guy because they watched a whole bunch of gangster movies or something like that. Oh oh big commentary on linguistics and George Carlin was so great about pointing out euphemism and good words and crappy words, that this, doesn’t give you anything. It obfuscates it actually, it, it takes [00:34:00] away from the beauty of language. Don’t use this if you can help it. Oh
Stephen: right. Yeah. George miss him. All right, so I wanna hear about the ag. I saw some of your, your about it.
Alan: There. So it was good. It was an ag, it was in Chicago, right? Downtown Chicago. A thing the people were worried about was they were having a NASCAR race, literally like right across the street from the hotel. And for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, they were gonna be closed. Maybe it was, yes.
For some part of that, for the trials and the actual race. And it turned out that we could still get, for instance, to the Art Institute on Sunday. And it was a lot of crowd and people came downtown to do that kind of thing. So the streets were more crowded than usual. But that’s a minor thing.
There were tons of great programs. One of the joys of going to these things is there’s I never heard an exact number, but I’m figuring about 1500, maybe 2000 people. You get all those smarties in one place and there are people that really know their pet subjects and they’re really passionate about it.
And so I love going to those things. Tell me all about what your take is on ai. Tell me about. This [00:35:00] ship that sunk in the Chicago River, all the history, all the science, all that cool stuff. So I regularly have split time in the past between programs and games and tournaments and chatting in hospitality with friends.
And I must have been in programs like 70% of the time ’cause there were so many good ones going on. Hardly ever. Oftentimes I will go there and I’ll sit in the back in the middle in case the description doesn’t match how the program is or the speaker isn’t any good. And then I can I don’t make a scene, I just sneak out and go to another program.
That was my second choice for that hour, so that, wow. I saw just, I’m there, there were so many good ones that now I, I’m like, I should have made my little list. I’m blanking out. This series of books that I really liked. Here’s the latest on, or or the a good take on where are we with quantum computing and where are we gonna go next?
And is there. How will that affect once you have quantum computing’s ability to break security that we currently have with big encryption standards what’s going to happen and that they’re not all gonna break equally, some various different things. [00:36:00] The way that they handle it with public key cryptography or with pads, single use codes, they’re gonna break or they’re not gonna break.
And the people who give you the whole sky is falling thing. Once quantum computing in here, there’s no security. No, of course there still will be privacy. You gotta get wiser as a consumer about things you use. Exactly. And a lot of good explainers especially when you’ve got a whole bunch of people in the room that really often know quite a bit about the topic and they ask questions sometimes in a way of, Hey, look at me, how much I know.
But sometimes they’re just a little deeper than your standard introductory level question. And the fact that they can have a cool dialogue and everybody in the room gets to absorb that, it’s really, I love that about having an elevated discussion. Ken Jennings was the gala dinner speaker, and he was so good.
He’s not only, the questioner on jeopardy, he really is a smart guy. He really thinks quick on his feet. The material that he put together was tailored to a mental audience, not just the standard speech that you give. We had a, an astronaut that I was really looking forward to here, and [00:37:00] he just seemed to go into robot mode and give the speech that he gives to every college and every women’s league or whatever else it might be.
So I love the fact that Ken really seemed to be aware where he was and then joked about it, that mentions are often like I’m the smartest guy in the room, and Ken is I might be able to give you a guy for a run for money, even though I’m not necessarily in the group.
He had, enough history, enough background in jeopardy all kinds of things that like people would want to know about. How did he get to be the most winning contender and then also the, going through and becoming the host of the show and stuff like that, his relationship with Alex and the playfulness, the back and forth that they had.
It was, he was delightful. Probably the best one I’ve ever seen. Adam Savage was really good from MythBusters. There’d been a couple that had been very mentionable, but we’ve also had some people that were just TV personalities and it was like I guess that’s the best that you could get for the 4th of week.
You know what I mean? It, I never really have gotten anything out of, I don’t know, a baseball announcer that it, they’re, sometimes they’re a big [00:38:00] name. I get how locally they’re very big or whatever else it might be, but that just doesn’t seem to be meso, I like that it’s a little bit smarter, the Colloquium was okay, which is the pre-program for the ag, but it was shorter. It was only an afternoon instead of a full day, and everything just seemed a little bit rushed. It was a about. Using your intelligence through your lifetime, and especially now with artificial intelligence coming along, how are we contending with what did you learn when you were young and are there different ways to access that information?
And if you use your chat CPTs and your various different open AI type things, is that learning in the same way that you did when you name it, went through a card catalog, read a book, that you absorb it in the same way, or, and it’s not just a matter of Oh no, plagiarism and stuff. It really is that maybe the way in which we’re learning everything is quick cutting between subjects instead of going deep into something.
It used to be that you’re worried about people siloing themselves too much now I’m worried about people fragmenting themselves too much. [00:39:00] So very good. From the speakers and from the people in the audience, a lot of discussion. One of the things I thought was said about the feel of the room was how much AI is a danger.
And that, you know what, if it gets outta hand, like they used to talk about nanotech, like they used to talk about various different, and what about lost jobs? And all those things are real, but they had to, the speakers and various others had to kinda reassert. There’s always been that kind of creative destruction that when a new technology comes along, it might displace some existing stuff, but look at all the new things that are created.
And so I didn’t know that we had that many Luddites in Mensa. The first time that we had steam powered anything and people were immediately, no, it’s always best done by hand. it’s not.
Stephen: seen ads warning people against getting and using electricity ’cause it’ll kill you. And it needs or horrific ads like, like guys hanging upside down with electric bolts coming off them from power lines. You know, I mean, just,
Alan: There’s always been business and fear. You know what I mean? To be able to say either it’s really bad and let’s [00:40:00] avoid it, or it’s really bad. But we’re the only ones that have the good solutions. So come to us and to see how many nowadays we’re fighting the continuous mimetic war where ideas are put out into society and how well they are repeated is how, whether they win or not necessarily whether they’re true, whether they’re most complete, et cetera.
And to see how many mentions are subject to that, that they really, they repeat talking points instead of really having thought about this and stuff like that. One of the things about it being a shortened program was they used to have talks and then you’d have a break in between or have lunch together or something like that, and you’d have a chance to talk at a table of eight to 10 people, and people could ask questions of each other instead of being only kind of audience and presenter type dynamic.
And so I really missed that. I missed that a whole bunch of smart people talking in a group and into the breakout sessions, the birds of a feather, things that they used to call ’em. I used to get a lot out of that. And not only because I knew a lot about some of the topics, but that I knew little and I wanted to learn from all of my peers.
So [00:41:00] that was a step down in quality, sorry foundation and colloquium, but that, that it was price for less. You know what I mean? Maybe that’s an overall immense thing.
Stephen: maybe just
Alan: The value for my dollar.
Stephen: The climate, the way things are. Maybe they didn’t wanna get people to together, discussing things and have issues, have people yelling, arguing, flipping tables, fighting,
Alan: I, I,
Stephen: and stuff.
Alan: this is a very cool thing. They have a debate room nowadays where they really, they were really canny about here’s the top 15 issues that we could talk about over five days, three times a day, maybe even more. Here’s what we’re gonna talk about. You name it, immigration, artificial intelligence, energy and climate change and all that kind of stuff.
And what I love about that is, if they all go into the debate room containment unit. The most argumentative, the most opinionated, but not necessarily the most informed mens, let ’em go at it and I get to go everywhere else and not have to deal with the guys who would interrupt a [00:42:00] good program because they got something to say and they’re the wisest, it’s it just, it amazes me, and I really use that word in that way.
You come to a Mensa con convention and you still think you’re the smartest person in the room. Like what phenomenal idiots ego
Stephen: fair, those people could just be a guest of the actual menon.
Alan: And maybe they’re trying to like, get, they think that’s what MENSA is about is showing off your IQ and, I gotta know the most about a topic or something like that. And you might be right. That could be the sad closing note for this thing was Colleen and I did our program, a capital idea where we talked about, we’ve been to now 49 out of 50 state capitals by having gone to Alaska just a couple months ago.
We’re like, we’re almost done. We got Honolulu to go. So we were at seven 15 on Saturday night. Which is not necessarily a primetime thing because often that’s when people are going out for a nice dinner or there’s competition. There’s lots of other talks. But nothing followed us in that room. And because we had, we were gonna get through 49 capitals in 50 minutes, that’s a lot.
And so we [00:43:00] checked and found out there’s nothing in the room. Follow us. You can go long. And so we actually asked the audience, if we digress and come back, but we’re going a little bit long, you of course you leave at eight 15 and go to your next program or whatever else it might be. But if we go, we’ll keep going until we’re done.
And the audience that maybe we’ve done enough talks that they trust us now, that we’re pretty good speakers and that our travel logs are always a very fun thing for Menon. ’cause they’re looking to get enthused, to be encouraged to get outta your state and go elsewhere. Eight 20 came around and the hotel av people at very strong union shop downtown Chicago, they came up and said, you are done. We have to take the equipment away. And he walked over and he hit the projector power and we were done. He didn’t like, Hey, can you wrap up in five minutes so that we can get this done At eight 15, he just came in at eight 20 and literally fucking pulled the plug, hit the button.
And I was stunned. Colleen was stunned. The audience was like, what the [00:44:00] freaking I’ve in a professional context, if this was really like a, I’ve spoken at a whole bunch of tech conferences, MAC conferences, all that kind of stuff that they would’ve been it would’ve been the end of the contract ever dealing with these clowns again, you just don’t do that, and that is still what happened.
That a small thing, then we went off and we went to an improv session. There’s all kinds of other things to go, but it was also knowing that there are sessions in other rooms following this, it’s it’s not like the contract for the hotel ends at eight 15. Everything, go turns.
It was in that room for that piece of equipment. This guy’s got his job and he’s gonna do that job no matter what. He can see that we had 70 people in room li it was not a four people that you’re gonna be disappointing. It was, I was real pleased with the size of the crowd. We had a good throng and we had, and it wasn’t just us going along, we had lots of questions and people were really enjoying themselves.
That’s where they wanted to be on a Saturday at seven 15 and then just thwarted. [00:45:00] So that was a little sad. And, but otherwise we, we had,
Stephen: where was it this year?
Alan: at the the Chicago, hi, the Hilton, Chicago downtown on South Michigan Avenue and
Stephen: where is it next you know
Alan: Let’s see. Next year is Fort Worth. I don’t remember the name of the hotel.
And then after that it’s in Atlanta and then after that it’s in Philadelphia. They just announced that the ag that selected site and
Stephen: not hard to to Philadelphia. Definitely isn’t I? I’ll have to talk to Colin ’cause he is like an hour and a half away
Alan: exactly is much closer by being in Baltimore. we’re probably not gonna do Fort Worth ’cause we’ve been to Fort Worth before. And we have, we find ourselves often, like we only have a certain amount of time and how are we gonna get to all of our national parks and our cool museums and whatever else it may be around the United States and in Europe, if we always have to allocate the time and the money for the week of 4th of July to this.
And so Fort Worth, just by being a repeat city and I’ll to be the dick, it’s Texas. I don’t wanna spend a penny in Texas when they’re busy having people die in a flood and [00:46:00] not get better about stopping people from dying for things that are preventable.
Stephen: know how close? don’t know the map off the top of my head. How close Fort Worth is to Austin?
Alan: Quite a bit away. Fort Worth is in the middle of the top and Austin is in the lower not quite as far on the coast as Houston, but it’s south probably, if I remember right, by about two to three hours. Drive
Stephen: Okay. I’ve got cousin in Austin.
Alan: other. Yeah. At Austin is a great city.
It’s not only University of Texas, it’s a cool arts town and music town and stuff like that. Great restaurant scene. If there’s any place I would live in Texas it’s a dot of blue in a sea of red, if you will. You know what I mean? We just that, sorry. Fort Worth, we don’t intend to do it.
Almost certainly we’ve not spent enough time in Atlanta and even the drive to Atlanta and back goes through great smoking Mountain, national Park territory and various other things in Kentucky, Tennessee, Richmond, I’m sorry Virginia and West Virginia. So that’ll be a pleasure to go to.
And Philadelphia. Colleen and I, having spent a long [00:47:00] weekend there, one time with a business meeting got canceled, but we still had reservations and we just went, oh my God, it’s a great city. Don’t judge Philadelphia by its airport, which Colleen Al had always had problems with how rude it was. There’s so much cool history.
It’s a great walking town. It’s got great public transportation, great museums. The, we haven’t done, like the Franklin Institute is one of those places you could spend a week there. And we have not spent anywhere near as much time as we need to, but we did when we were last there, we went to see the Liberty Bell and to Independence The declaration was
Stephen: Did, did you, did you follow Ben Franklin’s? Things like from National Treasure
go find
Alan: actually if I would’ve been tanny enough to make the list, it would’ve been fun to go to each of those things. Kinda like following the red line in Boston that was, the Paul Reveres ride a thing. So for sure, tho those next ones we’re gonna be going to, we did the same thing with actually we had intended to go to Sparks, Nevada, even though we had already had one in Reno.
But that was the one where I was taking care of ending our parents’ affairs and they put our [00:48:00] court date right on the Friday of that Wednesday, Sunday thing. And it just was, I can’t believe it. I was on the committee. I was on the committee that was building the event and it just was, oh
Stephen: you go.
Alan: I hope that, and this is funny I offered to be on the committee for this year and was not accepted because somebody else was gonna do publicity.
And then it really didn’t, it wasn’t as good as I would’ve done it. So I feel bad about, I don’t know why you didn’t take me up on it. I’m pretty good at this. And having said that, I would still be willing to do that for various other gatherings because, I spray it all over Facebook and we’ll add Instagram and TikTok and whatever else it has to be.
And having said that, showing up without having to be part of the committee, without having to go to seven o’clock meetings without having to do with the big, huge flurry of activity leading up to, and that at the event, it was really nice. How did I go to so many programs? ’cause I wasn’t the guy that was.
Running this microphone over to this thing. speaker guy
Stephen: I always know the people that never help [00:49:00] and volunteer, you know how you can pick them out? ’cause they’re the ones complaining the loudest about everything. it.
Alan: We some of those people exactly that. That’s
Stephen: So, so, so, jumping on a little bit for talking about travel vacations, I, I threw this past call and, and I got my buddy Kevin in Columbus.
I’m gonna possibly mention it to, I am really thinking next year of traveling out to Petaluma, California and
Alan: the arm wrestling.
Stephen: No, yeah. That, that would be the draw for me. The arm wrestling,
Alan: I thought you might do it just outta the quirkiness of it because it like, remember, didn’t Snoopy from the Peanuts comic strip? The Marvel. He went compete anyway.
Stephen: you mentioned that. So I want to go out there for is Steve Sand Sweet’s, Rancho Obiwan, where he has collected every bit of merchandise from Star Wars since it began
Alan: See that’s pretty, did not [00:50:00] know about that. would be a mecca. If you’re a Star Wars fan, how cool
Stephen: But you what’s right down the road,
Alan: Yes.
Stephen: the official Charles Schultz museum.
Alan: So it, I see I would’ve thought that would’ve been up in Minnesota ’cause that’s where he lived. But I guess they embraced Petaluma just like Dave Berry has a a sewage treatment plant named after him, because he mentioned it one time and they’re we’ll, be happy to honor you in this way.
Stephen: That’s funny. hilarious. So, so, you know, that’s why I’m looking, trying to look at rgs ags. ’cause like PE Pennsylvania’s not doing an RG this year. They’re doing a one day picnic. And I haven’t gone to a whole lot in the last couple years just because things have been almost like in an upheaval.
But I’ve also been doing all the author type stuff, so I’m, I’m losing two or three weekends a month anyway. And
Alan: Honestly, authors and soaps and cryptids and the other things, you’re involved, it can quickly fill the calendar
Stephen: Yeah, does. But I’d like to get back to more of that. I miss seeing the people, I miss the [00:51:00] games, the talks stuff, so
Alan: where, I, yeah, I think we’re gonna for sure go to Halloween, for instance, coming up, that’s the end of October, and then I don’t, I think Cincinnati is not doing theirs in December. They’ve moved it and maybe there’s like a Cincinnati date and combined one in I’ve, I’m trying to keep track of those things and in fact, this is funny.
Heidi and Eric from Cincinnati, right after the abortive talk came up and said, please come talk to us and we will not cut you off. We promise they
Stephen: oh, you know what? know what though? you do that talk and I happen to be there, gonna watch my watch and five minutes after I’m gonna walk up and turn off the projector,
Alan: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Apparently you remember a story that I had,
Stephen: I would That’s just how I’m, I find those stupid things funny.
Alan: that’s Heidi has, she’s often done programs. She’s been very kind like sometimes, like even before they announce, Hey, send in your submissions for programs, she’ll [00:52:00] send me a very nice email and say, we’d love to have you. I’ve done nice programs for them, and often it’s right around the dinner hour so people don’t mind getting a plate of food and then coming in and hey, so dinner speaker.
But it’s really more like they get to eat and I get to talk, that kind,
Stephen: You to watch them eat
Alan: to watch them. Exactly. Please save me some, I need some toes after I’m done here, so that, that’ll be, I still miss them. There’s not as many as there once was. It used to be the Dayton and Cincinnati and Columbus and Cleveland all had them, and.
Whatever it is the difficulty of finding a good hotel, the aging of SVA and the not stepping up with the next generations
Stephen: I, I think, yeah, not enough people wanna volunteer and there’s lot of negative pushback. If things don’t go right and the, the comment, well, then you do it next year or help out, oh, I’m not doing that. So you get, I mean, I understand. I’ve done the volunteer thing in many different organizations and it sucks when you put everything into it, do the best you can, and all you get is negative feedback, people complaining and
Alan: no wonder don’t do it again.[00:53:00]
Stephen: it’s not, yeah. It’s not even constructive about why this wasn’t good. It’s, well, you’re just an idiot and you can’t run anything right. And blah, blah, blah. It’s like personal attacks I, you know, I totally get it.
Alan: I’m a little worried about that in right here in Cleveland, Ellie just did the cam prom and it was a great success. Had a wonderful hall, had all kinds of quizzes and great food and great very mental, a good like a playlist for the dance and all that kind of stuff. They even had dance lessons and the problem with it was there was a committee of like 10 people and maybe four of us ended up doing a ton of work.
And especially Ellie, she is wonderfully responsible. Colleen and I have sometimes said, why are we always the most responsible people in everything that we get involved in? Because we often take on and end up doing more than we think. Not so with Allie this year, she was so conscientious and so full of ideas and all that kind of stuff, but I worry that it burned her out.
You know what I mean? When you that in, [00:54:00] even if the event comes off really well, I have this little like dollar or time to fund ratio. I’m gonna go play games two hours away and I’m I’m gonna drive four hours and get four hours of gaming in somehow. I want it to be 20 minutes away to make it worth it.
You know what I mean? And she put so much love and effort and smarts into this event and I hope. That it didn’t burn her out. And I know it didn’t burn out some of the people on the committee. ’cause the one finger they lifted. I hope that didn’t tense up too much. it’s weird.
Usually not that critical, but it really was. Wow. You all started off the reason that we thought this would work is ’cause we thought we’d have this gang of people to do it and then it just, it wasn’t the case. They didn’t take on roles, they didn’t fulfill what they said they were gonna do.
They didn’t even speak up at the committee meetings and stuff like that. A little ghosty, a little weird. Oh so sorry. People who think that you get it participation award no matter what you do. No. There really are the people that doing They really miss you when you [00:55:00] say yes and do no,
Stephen: I, I’ve found
Alan: important keep your word, man.
It’s so important.
Stephen: I’ve found for me.
Alan: Yeah.
Stephen: I don’t mind helping and volunteering and doing that, but I, with the stuff I’ve got going on, I don’t want to say, oh, I’m gonna be in charge of this and run this and handle this, because then I get stretched too thin and I’ve, I get, I’m, I’m committed to this, but now I’ve got this other thing.
So something is, is not getting as much of my attention. But I, I wanna help with this, but I also don’t wanna ruin this. And so I’m like, I’m much more, Hey, I’m coming to this. I don’t wanna really be on the committee, but if you have a job, a task over the next six months, getting ready, shoot it over. I’ll take care.
You know, I’m, I’m much better at helping out if someone says we need this, this, and this. Okay, I’ll go do those things and
Alan: Exactly. I, that’s often, I know maybe by being a consultant, you get really good at time boxing things. I, this, I’m gonna schedule, this is [00:56:00] four hours, I’m gonna do the best job that I can in four hours, but I don’t have more than four hours to give because then I’ll go to the next task. And so that’s what I try to do is.
Whatever you need. I give ’em an idea of what my limitations are and how I intend to pursue it. And if that’s not in line with what they want to do, because some people are really bad at delegating and they want to have you do it, but they want to commits and tell you all about what’s going on.
It’s like the best thing that you can do is tell me exactly what you want and then leave you alone, because I really I don’t wanna report in every five minutes. I don’t want you looking over my shoulder every 10 minutes, et cetera, et cetera. So I get that, we, I try not to disappoint and I’ve had to triage any number of times.
Sometimes you take on more and it blew up bigger than you expected to, but then you also have to be really good at going back renegotiating with people saying, I didn’t realize how crazy busy I’d be at the end of this quarter, but this is da. What can we do so that I don’t totally drop the ball, but can we scale this back or can we find someone else?
And sometimes that’s what I’ll do is. I’ll pre-do that. You don’t just present it [00:57:00] with a problem. You say I know I can’t do it, but look at my friend Bill over here. said that they’ll be able to take it on and it might not be that, bill, but I will vote for Bill. That kind of thing.
Stephen: I had to do that once I was games for an RG and I missed a, a meeting ’cause something with work and then that weekend I just couldn’t swing doing it with their stuff. So I kind, oh, Colin, you’re going to be going, well, you’re taking over for me in games. And he did it. He super happy about it, but it was handled.
They didn’t have to worry about it. But I felt bad because I said I’d do it and then I really couldn’t. And that makes me hesitant. I don’t wanna say, oh yeah, I’ll handle and do this. And then, yeah, I really can’t, you know, so
Alan: hear ya. Especially volunteer things. It’s not even Hey, I do this and I get money. There’s all kinds of things that are like I really. Can’t afford to do the non-paying instead of the paying sometimes. And I really need also, you’re a immense couple, people always think that if one says yes, they get both, so [00:58:00] Colleen and I, and yes, there’s been a number of times when I might’ve said yes, but Colleen really didn’t have any capacity and I didn’t on her for it. But then it can cause relationship difficulties if you’re like, I really need your help and if you have the ability to plan so that you can help me, then let me know that.
And if you don’t, then let me know that too. Because I don’t want to be the one that said we would carry in 10 things, but I had to do 10 instead of each of us doing five. Because you just didn’t have the time crunch time was, so we, she and I have gotten better about that, about not making commitment for the both of us.
That’s any relationship, right? You. You kind check in before you say yes, and sometimes you use it as an excuse, lemme check with, the old ball and chain or whatever people say and they’re really like, I don’t wanna do it, but this way I can blame it on somebody.
There’s weirdness like that going on too.
Stephen: Yeah. So, you know, I, I’m, work, work has been super stressful for the last year, year and a half, and I’ve really gotta stop investing so much of my life into something that [00:59:00] doesn’t benefit me beyond a paycheck, you know,
Alan: And there is that too. It’s not only that what you get paid for is worth it. Colleen and I both were workaholics when we were doing our jobs. We really like, we, when we talk about being the most responsible person in the room. E even if you’re making good money, it sometimes is not enough. If it’s costing you your health, if it’s costing you other relationships that you know you never, when you can’t sleep Sunday night.
’cause all you’re thinking about is, I gotta print this, I gotta arrange this, I gotta get six o’clock in the morning to get it’s taken over your life. If you’re working 60, 70, 80 hours a week, that’s not what life should be like. You have battle.
Stephen: got a coworker slightly disagrees, and we’ve talked about this. When she went on vacation, she told them, look, I can only work four hours in the morning. Wait a minute, you’re on vacation. Yeah. Yeah. And I, last I was on vacation and I ended up working almost a whole day and a half Tuesday morning they, I got calls, I got emailed Thursday, there was a [01:00:00] problem Friday morning and I was on vacation and, and like I’ve told her, I’m like, look, let’s say.
You work. She works long hours, she’ll work weekends. She’s a church person and she skipped Wednesday night church. ’cause oh, this really needs done for work. And I’m like, so let me ask you a question. You just got promoted to a new position. Did you get a raise? Nope. No raise. So you have more responsibility and more work to do and you’re thinking is, well, this is work that needs done, so I gotta do it.
So let me ask you this. The bosses are approaching retirement age. You know, at some point they’re going to say, we’re selling this and moving on. Do you think you’re going to get like a chunk of whatever it is when they sell
Alan: Bonus? What’s the yeah.
Stephen: in my mind, this is what you pay me to do. I’ll go do it.
But now I’m getting too much beyond that without anything helping me and rewarding my life. So that, and that’s why I said I gotta start going to RGS and some of this other stuff more [01:01:00] because
Alan: some rewards, not just responsibilities.
Stephen: Yeah. Yeah. They talk about, you know, the regrets on your deathbed. Well, my regrets would be not doing the stuff I enjoy doing because I was doing all this stuff for something that doesn’t benefit me in the long run.
Alan: That’s right. There’s a famous quote about that, nobody has on their tombstone, I should have spent more time at work. Kind of, so a couple quick things about that. One is sometimes it’s really lucky to be shot on early because it gives you a, like I once was supposed to go to the black and blue concert, black Sabbath, blue Oyster Cult, and somebody needed to have something at done at Pete Marwick that I gave up that concert to knock this thing out.
And then I watched it sit on her desk for a week. It wasn’t critical for the next day. She had something in her little plan that said, I wanna be able to say that it was done as a Thursday morning, but it wasn’t real urgency and real criticality. And then you get that idea of not everybody’s agenda is yours and they will [01:02:00] take as much as they can.
Without really wondering about what sacrifice you’re making doing it. So I became much better at being defensive about those kinds of things. What has this really done? And if it really needs to get done, I will knock myself out. But if I do this and then I see it languish, I can promise you I will never do anything like this for you again, this is a partnership.
This is not only a boss employee relationship. You need my smarts and my goodwill and like you have to say those things sometimes because otherwise people really do think you’re a fungible resource and I can do whatever I fucking want with you, slave. No, you cannot. Another thing that I used to do, I people talk about that they actually cancel the vacation because something came up at work and when I was like as a consultant, I didn’t have a lot of those same strictures.
I didn’t have my, I work eight to five and all that kind of stuff, so I would often make plans in January. I’ve got this ag thing going on over the 4th of July weekend and no matter what I need to do to get a lot of stuff done. I’m not missing this. And so if something blows [01:03:00] up in June, you better have contingency plans in place that don’t include me.
Because not only am I going on vacation and Natalie was at the Ag, but like sometimes Colleen and I would go on a hiking vacation. I’m gonna be on a mountaintop with no signal. I can guarantee you that you will not be able to call me in an emergency. So find out who the person is that’s gonna delegate your that, that you’re gonna have handle these things.
Or they’re gonna sit for a week, and I’ll say this once in a while. It was really good to have them miss you to have them see what it’s like to live without you and feel the pain of, wow, that guy is handy to have around. He knows a ton stuff. He’s usually very conscientious. He’s the go-to guy. When that guy’s not available, don’t lose him.
Don’t piss him off and have him leave entirely deal with what’s going on that week so that appreciate when back. You’ll re-appreciate him. You know what I mean?
Stephen: The one that gets me kind of spitting mad is, okay, I got something done. Three weeks later, I’m on vacation. Suddenly it’s a phone call. This isn’t right. We need to fix this. Well, it was done three weeks ago. You
Alan: they [01:04:00] didn’t review it. Exactly.
Stephen: This is important. Our company’s gonna go outta business because this website has the wrong colors.
Alan: It’s scary out of those things, that proportion thing that we were talking about earlier, how many times the first part of this discussion is just talking the guy off the ledge. You know what I mean? No. It’s not world shattering that this is not quite right.
Stephen: right. had, I’ve had, I’ve had people mad like yelling about this whatever page that wasn’t updated, right? Then it’s go put the whole company outta business and I go and look and it’s like, okay, you do realize that in the past year, this page has been visited 70 times and at least 20 of those are internal employees.
So no, it’s not putting the company outta business. Trust me.
Alan: People that want to do that kind of hysteria. They hate data. They don’t want to hear that they’re, everything is equally important. number Yeah, that’s, but what a terrible word to use there [01:05:00] it is. Like I can I am the one that keeps the stats. I didn’t doctor this up. Whatever. Like here this thing is hit 10,000 times, this got 70.
Maybe the proportion should be like a hundred to one. You know what I mean? It’s oh, I, it’s funny. Another I’m all full of quotes today. Without being able to attribute them, which is crappy of me, people will not only remember what you said, but they’ll remember how you made ’em feel.
And so when you present that they’re not just wrong but like really ridiculously wrong, you have to break that to them so gently. ’cause they’ll take it as a personal attack. They’ll you embarrassed me in front of my, you really have to say I just happen to be looking at the statistics and because I knew this might come up, I tried to put together.
A list of if this happens, we nearly need to respond to this first and this second and this third. And that’s why I know that’s like 80th place. It really isn’t as bad as you thought. So let me reassure you that we didn’t lose business. We didn’t, you’re not gonna be getting a hundred phone calls about this.
It would be against the odds if someone went to that page and didn’t like [01:06:00] what they saw because nobody goes to that page, et cetera, et cetera. The whole point of building in that feedback loop, that monitoring system is to be able to allocate your resources appropriately. So let’s use it, let’s do that thing and, okay.
Stephen: Right. Yep. All right. I gotta get rolling.
Alan: Okay. Always a pleasure. I know we have a whole bunch of other stuff to talk about. No there’s no big finale except Colleen just had a birthday and I got her
Stephen: Birthday.
Alan: Dave. Ready for Colleen. It’s really cool being retired because now birthday is not like, can you wedge it in before you go off to work?
But it was like, okay, that we took our time to go to a baseball game. You know what I mean? just I’m hoping for that for you sometime soon, is that you’ve done your share of the world’s work and you get to reap the rewards.
Stephen: Yes. Yes. Looking forward to that. I can watch Superman more than once.
Alan: Like that. Exactly. Okay. care, Always a pleasure. Okay, bye-Bye.
