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Two friends banter about being recorded by cameras in public, then show off a Bronner’s Christmas hoodie from Frankenmuth, Michigan and discuss visiting Bronner’s and nearby chicken dinners at Zehnder’s/Bavarian Inn. They describe early snow, shoveling complications, and buying a pricier Douglas fir Christmas tree, attributing price hikes to inflation and opportunistic pricing. The conversation broadens to skepticism about advertising, payola, differential pricing, shrinkflation, loyalty programs, and travel-site tracking, with a recommendation for Consumer Reports. One speaker explains cutting bonus material from printed books and moving it online to keep prices stable, plus experimenting with smaller “mini reads.” They cover Christmas traditions and events (Baltimore Christmas village, Erie Krampus Night, Cirque du Soleil Christmas, PA trips to Kraynaks and Daffin’s, concerts and theater), discuss practical effects in the 2015 Krampus film, Netflix crashing from Stranger Things Season 5, HBO’s Welcome to Derry tying into Stephen King lore, and end with gift difficulties and a rare Peanuts bookmark find.
Relentless Geekery 240
Alan: or something like that.
Stephen: I wasn’t recording, so
Alan: It’s funny, everybody talks about it, but like cameras everywhere, and yet and I’m not like a weird guy, and yet I keep thinking, “What am I doing when I’m just sitting at a traffic signal? Am I like continually brushing my little bit of hair back?” What are my nervous gestures that you do all the time where you don’t realize at the ballpark, at the theater, there’s always cameras on
Stephen: there’s probably somebody that has a YouTube channel that’s nose pickers caught in the wild or something,
Alan: Oh my God,
Stephen: all they have. Y- I bet there is one. So what do you got? Is that your elf hoodie?
Alan: Here’s the I got– And it’s got in fact, I should stand fully up. It’s got a little candy cane coming out of the pocket and stuff like that. And here’s the cool… Actually, let me just get rid of my Malwarebytes alert. Behold the ears.
Stephen: that’s cool
Alan: So it’s from Bronner’s.
We’ve talked about Bronner’s before. It’s that huge Christmas store up in Frankenmuth, Michigan. And e- even though on the back it actually says, “Hey, have a fun Christmas time at Bronner’s,” I hardly ever wear anything that advertises. I’ve always hated the Nikes or the Bums or the… You know what I mean?
All that stuff that’s just logo stuff. And yet this was too cute to pass up, so I don’t mind shilling a little bit for Bronner’s, ’cause I tell people all about it anyway. It’s like, “Hey man, if you’ve never been there, you’re in for a kick.” It’s like a huge multiple football fields full of everything Christmas,
Stephen: and they’re a little different than Nike. Nike is a global worldwide thing. Bronner’s is in Frankenmuth. It may be known, but it’s that’s it.
Alan: That’s right. That, that– in fact, last time we were there, we, there’s a place Zehnder’s that is Zehnder’s and then Bavarian Inn, and they’re like right across the street from each other, and they both serve great roasted chicken with tons of side dishes. You know what I mean? You sit down and it really is a feast.
It’s ei- eight or 10 different, creamed spinach or whatever else corn and stuff like that. And every time that we go there, we’re like… it’s not inexpensive, but you always feel like, boy, did you get your money’s worth. And if you finish one of these, there’s little side dishes, but you finish any of them off and like you could order more sauerkraut or more whatever else it might be.
So I have rolled out of there multiple times because everything is really well done. It’s not only just generic. So it’s like, wow, my mouth, even with my current Mounjaro state where I really get to satiety quickly, there’s just some things that are so tasty and you’re like I’m not gonna have this for a year until the next time I come back here.”
And so you just gotta keep eating. It’s the weirdest thing. Anyway,
so
Stephen: It is Christmas season. We’ve got snow. This is the second year in a row we’ve gotten dumped on by snow right around Thanksgiving time. But last year we got snow, and then it disappeared, and we real- didn’t get hardly anything the rest of the year. Hoping
Alan: This time it’s accumulating. We’ve been out there doing a certain amount of shoveling. We– I didn’t get out there like the day right after Thanksgiving, and it had, unfortunately had a chance to melt a little bit, get some car track ruts in it, and then refreeze. And so now when the snow comes on top of it, you’ve got a real obstacle course ’cause you can’t see all the things you’re gonna be sliding around on.
So I gotta get out there with some snow melt and some scraping and clear our driveway. It’s because it froze melted and refroze. Now the Snow Joe doesn’t really… It moves the snow, but it doesn’t chip away at the ice necessarily. So now I gotta do it, and I’m feeling foolish over. And yet it was maybe what you thought about.
Usually you get 30s and snow, and then it climbs to the 40s again, and everything melts and goes away. That hasn’t happened yet.
Stephen: See, Thursday, Friday, we didn’t have much snow down here just a real little bit. And I was driving to Baltimore on Friday, and as I drove I, it hit some, and there were parts of 80 that they had big flashing signs saying 45 miles an hour, snow
Alan: ‘Cause there are some stretches on there where it’s curvy and like in the mountains, and the penalty for failure is high. You go off in a ditch and you’re, trapped until they come get you out,
Stephen: You’re right. It’s a, it’s either a ’70s or emergency apocalypse type story, or it’s a Christmas miracle story, depending on how things go
Alan: That’s right. Exactly. So it we did we went, we did go out and get our Christmas tree. We have a place c- called Gale’s nearby that really has a great assortment and we always get a, a Dru- Douglas fir because it’s our preferred tree. It’s really got very soft needles, so you can hang a whole bunch of ornaments on there.
You get a Scotch pine and you end up looking like you had a fight with a cat because you’re so needle poked. You know what I mean? But they had a really nice one, and unfortunately trees, like everything else, have gone up. And I’m not sure why that is, because you know where Christmas trees come from?
Upstate Michigan, not imported from China. So the tariffs shouldn’t really have
Stephen: You know why they’ve gone up, ’cause everybody’s looking around going these people are charging more. I’m gonna charge more.”
Alan: Colleen and I, we were just talking about that, that in the same way that, a rising tide lifts all boats, everybody sees the opportunity to jack prices up and they’ll never ratchet back down. But y- things absolutely made in the United States, not– no materials, im- impacted by tariffs and stuff like that.
It’s just that we’ve had pretty bad inflation, and I don’t care about eggs going from
60
Stephen: according to you. I’ve heard our government tell us that’s false.
Alan: Well, isn’t
Stephen: Let’s not go there, it’s Christmas season
Alan: exactly- It’s just, it’s really galling the recorded barefaced lying and every– and then of course, people who know the facts come on and what do they try to do? Shut down the government agencies that will tell you just how bad inflation is, just how bad unemployment is, just how bad housing
Stephen: Fire people that
Alan: that kind of stuff. Exactly. And so it– they sure have, are running the playbook with, if you wanna totally bamboozle your populace, control all the media, control all the, even the science things. Finally they’re coming out with, They’re gonna have a new food pyramid.
That is, they’ve had multiple food pyramid, food plate, the various different ways of looking at it. But the agenda seems to be avoiding processed foods at all costs. And I know that there’s some GMO people that are a little bit fanatic about that, but without processed food, you don’t have iodized salt.
You don’t have what prevents goiter and scurvy and various different mal- malnutrition diseases in the United States. So how weird are they go- are they gonna get? Because there’s no sign that they’re really gonna use science to make this. It’s gonna be, did Heinz bribe them the most and now ketchup is even more a vegetable?
Stephen: And
Alan: Oh my
Stephen: I, don’t disagree with the processed food thing. We don’t need a lot of processed foods. But it comes in conjunction with them saying we’re lowering me- medicine that’ll let you lose weight.” And I’m like, “Okay, where’s the kickbacks in that?” And then just wait till certain foods, remember Goya eight, 10 years ago was suddenly pushed by the president because of some kickback or whatever.
“They’re– it’s one of the best foods you can get,” and blah, blah, blah. That’s what we’re gonna do. They do that. We’re gonna change all of this, but then there’s gonna be certain ones that we say is okay because they’re the ones paying for it
Alan: Absolutely. Long ago, remember this? They used to have rules about advertising and how you couldn’t say you love the product unless you actually used it. So famously, like Joe Namath, advertised for pantyhose or something like that, and they showed him wearing some. And so it could– making fun of that thing.
But it used to be that there were shills that, that goes straight back to the snake oil salesmen of the Old West days, where they so much lie their butts off about products, don’t pay any penalties when it’s proven to not only be ineffective but maybe actually harmful b- because then they’ve moved on to the next thing that they were bribed and with.
It’s everywhere. When you– when they used to have all the payola scandals on radio where, it wasn’t really a hit and more people were listening to it, it’s that the record companies were paying that to get more airplay and so forth. And so you can create fads and trends and popularity. And I– one of the reasons I’ve always, I– this is like kind of the shout out every year.
Folks, the best thing you can do for yourself and for your friends is get a subscription to Consumer Reports. If you’re looking for a place that really goes through products and cuts through all of the hype and the advertising and the crap and says, “This thing works just like it should. It doesn’t break for 10 years.
It’s got, all the features that you want, but none of the it’s not really a feature it’s a, a tail fin on a car that did nothing for the usefulness of the car.” And so I just wish it’s not only the products that they talk about, it’s the, the mindset that says you should buy something based on the truth around it, not based on it comes in new hot pink and that’s all the rage color.
So buy something just because of the least important factor. You know what I mean? Oh my God. So-
Stephen: I know I, I said something up over on my author channel that book prices, I ordered books like March, April, and then I just ordered some in November, and between that time, my different books went up a dollar to a $1.20 per book, and that’s a leap. That’s a, a percentage, that’s a double-digit percentage increase in price,
Alan: And that, yeah that’s like a direct cost to you, and then you have to decide how much of that are you gonna charge more to keep up with. You’re still making a certain margin or the– or your customers, like there’s a margin, there’s a point at which you go from 9.99 to 10.99 and all of a sudden people think about it instead of being an easy purchase.
You know what I mean? There’s all the psychology that goes into it, and you’re all those people that have material costs are getting pinched by-
Stephen: I even said, this is not just me, this will be all authors especially independent authors, and even, at the bookstores, prices are up. I said, “So here’s my choice. I could raise it a dollar or two because, y- I spent a lot of time writing these. I spent a lot of time marketing and talking to kids and doing all sorts of stuff.
Is it really fair for me to put all that time and effort in it, but now I’m making $100 less every time I sell 100 books?” But is it also fair to say they’re 11 or $12 instead of 10? People are like I don’t know, 11 to 12,” so their kids don’t get books that they may enjoy. That’s not right or fair either.
So what I did, l- and I have this ability, is in the back of my book, I’ve been putting words to know, discussion questions, things like that. I cut that out of the book, and I’m just putting it online on my website for free, but now the book’s just a little thinner, so the printing price of the book came down just a little bit so I can offer it for the same price.
It’s the same story and you can still get those materials. I’m not stopping what I’m doing there. But, I can’t start cutting out chapter two and three or something, to lower it.
Alan: W- and what you s– boy, what you said makes such perfect sense. It doesn’t affect the quality of the story itself. It was a freebie that you were giving away before, and you’re still giving it away, but the cost of giving it away is zero to you instead of a dollar or whatever the, the differential is for the size of the book, the number of pages and stuff like that.
So you found a good solution to what can I do to maintain reasonable prices but also have that, that there’s, And you’d think that, that thing of offering an extra thing might actually come across not as, oh, you cut this out of the book. It’s more like how cool that he makes this available, ’cause you’ve got existing readers and new readers and they’ll get a different experience of it.
Very cool. We- well done.
Stephen: A- and for Christmas, I don’t know if I talked about this. So you know, and we talk about marketing a lot of times marketing is just how people perceive it, how it gets presented. You could have something that’s super valuable, shove it in the middle of greasy, grimy used motor parts, and nobody’s gonna look at it twice.
But why do they always say, “Oh, I want a Tiffany’s box to put that in,” ’cause it makes the presentation look better, right? So I’ve got short stories that I’ve offered on Amazon for free download. I’ve got them on my website for free download, and they get some traction, not a lot. They haven’t pushed people into the series much.
So it’s like, eh, are they really doing their job that w- h- So I’m offering it something different. I should’ve got one. I shrunk them down, the short stories, to four by six and
Alan: You mentioned the big little books that they used to have,
Stephen: oh yeah, we did talk about that. So I’m gonna be doing that. And, the rest of the year it’s mini reads, and it’s a couple bucks, and, we’ll see.
And I can offer them in groups. And so we’ll see how that marketing presentation goes over the next year
Alan: Yeah. And again, hats off to you. Instead of it being this is how I do it. It’s this book and this size and this price,” and that kind of stuff. And by, by experimenting, you don’t necessarily know what’s gonna work, so you try various different things, and you get enough nowadays, like sales data, marketing data, and so forth, that you can actually say I’m gonna steer it more in this direction because more people read it.
Are my margins better?” What are all the various different things that go into it? And it can even be within your various different series that this one works for little kids, this one works for teens, this one works for adults. You know what I mean? It’s not the same everywhere. So there’s all kinds of product differentiation that they do, and sometimes it’s, what does Procter & Gamble do?
They make 30 different toothpastes. You know what I mean? They really are, like, cornered the market on that kind of thing, and they– every one of those has an advertising stance behind it. This is the one for young urban professionals. This is the one for, the keep your dentures in and whatever else it might be.
But what they’ve done is, of course, take over the shelves at the supermarket. Everything is Procter & Gamble. Maybe there’s two other competitors, if I remember right. And then they actually have a lot of pull with all the grocery stores and drugstores that they can say, “We want it displayed exactly like this,” or “We want all this shelf space.
If you carry a competitor, then our prices to you go up.” And that’s weird bordering on anti-capitalism, which we think we revere here in the United States. But it’s amazing how many things are done to e- call everything capitalism and immediately start trying to do everything you can to monopolize or to price whether, like where they one product to another that you…
There’s all different kinds of anti-competitive, anti-capitalist things about withholding information, about how do you do pricing. They’ll cut prices to drive competitors out of the market. Now they have a monopoly, and now they can ra- all those prices go up over the course of time. As there’s whole economic bo- books, texts about how exactly these things work unless you stop them, unless you reveal what’s going on, and unless the government or the populace steps in and says, “We’re not gonna fall for that.”
But it’s only 80% of the things instead of the full 100% where that’s exactly what’s happening. Location for gas stations as well as houses. You know what I mean? That I, I know I– maybe we talked about this really early on in the podcast. I was there at a gas station on a Thursday when they always jack prices up over the weekend and then bring them back down during the regular weekday days.
And I saw it go up not by a couple cents a gallon, but like 30 cents a gallon, and I kinda couldn’t believe it. Th- and probably then it was like $2.40, so that’s an eight– a 12% increase because they can. Because they know that people are now making their weekend plans and they didn’t remember to fill up their gas tank.
So while I was there, I was like, I’m hoping I’m, you’re like, “Go pump, go.” You’re trying to finish your gas tank full before you see the pump go b-boop and new prices on it and stuff like that. So you see that demonstrated all the time, different, all that. Boy If you like a little bit of travel or a little bit of theater or whatever else it might be, the minute they started doing the differential pricing, and not like theaters, it’s always made a kind of sense to have it be the closest seats you pay more for, the li- ones with better sight lines.
If you’re behind a pillar, you get it for half price, whatever. But as on airlines, they started to do it that every single seat were like sets of three rows, and then there’s 30 of those, so 10 different prices, and people go a little crazy with, “Hey, what did your plane ticket cost?”
“Mine was 190,” and, “Mine was 310.” And they’re like, “How the hell can it be… We’re on the same plane. You’re one row in front of me.” Because they’ve learned how to do that so accurately. You know what I mean? And by day of week and when it goes on sale, and by how, a- as, as it gets closer and closer to the event, it gets more valuable to people because I couldn’t believe I could still get a seat.
But then three days before, you’re like, “If we don’t sell this seat, now what do we get? Zero.” And so then they have all the flash sales and stuff, and i- that’s, I’m sure that AI is helping in this regard. There’s amazing algorithms that say exactly how you should do it Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and around the holidays and whatever else it might be.
And so whenever I go online, I just hope. I just hope that I’m on what the algorithm thinks is a day for me to get an okay deal. And after a while, it’s like I’ve checked three sites now, and I don’t wanna spend hours saving $50 as… a- and that might seem, “$50, that’s a lot,” but my time is valuable.
And wow it’s… And they started to have aggregators, like all the Expedias and the Pricelines and whatever else.
Stephen: Flight, car, hotel,
Alan: all that kind of stuff, and that they have it from multiple different providers. And what I read, Wired Magazine had the big study that proved this, was that it tracks what you’re doing while you’re on site.
And if you g- get things and you have cookies, the price never comes down for you, or it comes down in a very manipulative way to drive you to the flight that is their least filled flight. And so they’re giving you kind of a deal, but it’s what they think they don’t have a good chance to sell to other people.
And so I try to go on, like they make it convenient with, “Hey, if you log on, then your price,” I’m sorry your payment information is already saved for you,” and stuff like that. And you can actually do saved sets of things so that I haven’t pulled the trigger on this yet, but I’m thinking it’s gonna be either Tuesday or Wednesday of this week.”
And then you can kinda hold onto those things and make a choice. Once they have that information, they kinda use it against you. It’s not only to your convenience, it’s absolutely that they do it. Oh, i’m, I continually am trying to like, some places have a little grid where it’s here’s the days of the week and this is 395 and this is 425, and so you can say I’m willing to travel on Wednesday instead of Thursday to save 30 bucks.”
And some places include whether the baggage is in there or not, or whether there’s different fees depend- depending on lo- domestic or international travel. And they know that it’s really hard to make a direct apples to apples comparison, and they do nothing to ob- you know, they do everything they can to obfuscate it instead of reveal it.
So now some places include bags, but others don’t. And I know I’m going on, but it’s like someone had… I gotta find out who originated this, but it’s is our entire economy now based on scams? Is there ever a time that you’re like, “This is a good product for a good price, and it does what I need, and so I buy it”?
And nowadays it seems like is there a loyalty program involved? And is there a Tuesday discount? Is there a coupon? Is there a… You know what I mean? And, oh, this is really the 12-ounce size instead of the 16-ounce size, but we kept the same size packaging so that you don’t know that you’re getting less for the same…
And everything seems to be like that. I, I’m– We’re relatively smart, and we can actually do the little thing that says what’s the price per ounce comparing between prices?” And w- Colleen and I say this all the time, “Man is everybody that doesn’t take a moment to think about this getting fleeced?”
Stephen: Oh yeah,
Alan: we’re trying to do it. You know what I
Stephen: General, and most of the time if you look at any of the grocery type items or stuff, or even some of the other stuff, and then you go to a different store and look it, Dollar General is not cheaper. They offer a little less for, “Oh look, it’s only a buck 20.” Okay, but I can get three times as much in the store for $2, so I’m not saving anything, I’m spending more. It happens a lot
Alan: Yeah. What I must admit what I have done is I don’t know that I do the rigor of all those price comparisons at every single store. I try to find a store that’s ripping me off the least, and I become a patron, like Costco. You know what I mean? They really seem to have good things at good prices and occasionally there’s a big reveal article that says if you buy the Costco Irish cream, it’s pretty much the same as a liquor store, but you’re buying a bigger bottle, so you think you’re getting a bargain.”
And so there’s out of, I don’t know, they carry 50,000 products in a store or something like that. Maybe that’s high. But they say there are certain ones that you really can buy with confidence that you’re getting a great deal. But like any other place, they make money here and they lose money here, and they try to have loss leaders that’ll get you into the store.
So the $1.50 hot dog and stuff like that. But y- I think still there, compared to like here in the Cleveland area, Heinen’s is the premium grocery store, if you will, and Giant Eagle’s is in the middle, and Marc’s is at the bottom. And so I kinda go low-end Marc’s to get whatever produce I need and other things like, I don’t know, our breakfast sausages and stuff like that, and bulk stuff at Costco, and only for very specific things where we can’t find it.
Another thing you get at a premium store is maybe a little bit higher prices, but you get the whole array of different coffees, different cream cheeses, different whatever else it might be. And if we want a particular frozen waffle that is the high protein, high fiber one, then and as long as I’m here at Heinen’s, am I really gonna go in there just to get these waffles?
I’ll just pick up a couple other things, and then they gotcha. I bought some green onions and I know they’re cheaper at Marc’s, but I don’t wanna make another trip. And so all of life, it’s– And so those aren’t really scams. That’s kinda they find their market niches, if you will,
Stephen: is, yeah, it’s psychological marketing. Y- and we’ve talked about that before too, that they know the psychological aspects, and they know at Christmas, day after, people are gonna go crazy and buy stuff. That’s why you got TVs for $50, but there’s only two of them in the store,
Alan: another thing, so a lot of the psychology is also like you want to establish that brand because people very much– The first advertising that said it isn’t about buying the car, it’s about you get the girl. Like they, they play to that in various different ways. Heinen’s is the premium brand store, and so you walk in there and like people are dressed for church, upscale dressed, going into these stores.
Whenever I walk in my lounge pants and a, a, a muscle shirt or something like that, I’m surprised they’re not, sir, are you sure you want to be in our store?” My money is as green as yours, that kind of thing. And people– when the people that really matters to, they talk about it.
“I don’t like to go to Mark’s because I don’t like to bump into the people that go to Mark’s.” And it’s wow, that’s a pretty sweeping statement. You know what I mean? There’s decent human beings everywhere. And
Stephen: some of the people at Walmart
Alan: So this- these are the prices that keep the rabble out, and these are the prices that attract the Walmart, the people of Walmart, that.
And stuff so I don’t know. I don’t mind going to those places, but I don’t… I gu- I guess I’m immune to a lot of that. I gave up long ago trying to be status conscious and impress people and be impressed by people that are doing that kind of stuff. So I guess I get to find the bargains where they are, but then I have my own factors of what’s the convenience price or what’s the, how much do I have to remember? Now I have four different products and I gotta go to four different places? Maybe I’ll stop eating that. Maybe I’ll stop. You know what I mean? And I’ll always do it for Colleen, but I know that there’s been things that’s it’s just not worth this across town journey so that I can get the cheese that I like.
I think I’ll find an alternate cheese. You know what I mean? So it, it– boy, I know, and there’s many books that are written about all of these psychology things that we’re talking
Stephen: they’re titled in a way to make you wanna buy it.
Alan: And that’s right too. Exactly. The secret hidden real
Stephen: That’s a whole psychology thing right there.
Alan: So as you might imagine, on Facebook, getting inundated with all kinds of things.
And Colleen does– she doesn’t do social media, and she doesn’t click through even on things within Reddit or whatever else it might be. But I’m like they’re very canny about how to advertise it as, you go in and you get the little coupon code and there’s a whole process. And you can tell there’s like maybe three companies behind all this, ’cause their process is very similar about they get your email address and they get your phone number, and then they can text you with all these little things.
So every time that I found an amusing T-shirt or sweatshirt then I get inundated for the next six months with go back. And in some cases I don’t mind it. I think I– So l- but here’s segue time. At Christmas, the, I, One of the joys of having a reasonable memory is that people mention things they might like in February, and then next year you kinda surprise them ’cause it really has faded a little bit from memory.
But there’s also some kind of thing is that once you know that people like something or a, a certain kind of thing I kinda go to that again and again, because Colleen likes clothing and she likes these silly baseball shirts that I’ve talked about. There’s all kinds of team names that, like minor league and like down to, double AA, that kind of thing, and also defunct places.
And so I found a couple sites that not only do we have the Binghamton Rumble Ponies shirt, which is really an existing team and we went to see a game and stuff like that, but they have all kinds of old defunct shirts that someone found, and I think that they’re all legit ’cause they seem to really have the name of the city and the mascot, and I haven’t done enough research, so for all I know they could be just ginning these things up, making things up.
But some of them are hilarious, and I try to get her not just another Tigers shirt. I try to get her like the Swamp Donkeys shirt, where it just sounds like someone would see that shirt and say, “What? What the hell? Have you been to a game with the Rumble Ponies?” And stuff like that.
So
Stephen: it’s fu- you bring that up. So I was watching the parade Thursday, and there was a marching band there, and it was from Arizona. They were the Arizona Lumberjacks. I’m like, “I don’t think of Arizona as a big tracts of forest land,”
Alan: like neon trees that are struggling for life in the desert,
Stephen: I was like, “That’s an odd one to me, I must say.”
Alan: okay. Now I’ve got some of the things, as you might imagine, the reason that they’re now difficult to find is because they’re politically incorrect. So I got her like a Hungarian rioters shirt. It’s was that really a thing at one point that they were known for being the people that would riot? I don’t think so.
And yet
Stephen: That sounds Irish. That’s why you should get
Alan: And yet the Irish drinking shirt, and they embrace the stereotype, and back in the 1920s that was okay. But a- and I always… That gets funny. The comedy clubs in Cleveland, not comedy drinking clubs are often like an adjective and an animal. So it’ll be The Barking Spider, and it’ll be The Winking Lizard and those kinds of things.
And many team names are that way too, that it’s not just a rabbit, it’s the Hoppin’ Rabbits or whatever else. So when I find those fun ones, honestly, probably 15 years running now, I’ve gotten Galina shirt or two, and she really doesn’t seem to have, “Okay, that’s enough.” They’re amusing, especially when you’re going to another city and you’re actually, “I really have a Toledo Mud Hens shirt.
I can go to Toledo and people think I’m a fan.”
Stephen: that, that’s famous for the Women’s Baseball League
Alan: Exactly. Exactly. So I don’t know. That’s one of those I’m happy to know what kinds of books, what authors she likes reading, and certain shirts that she likes, and I get her jewelry every year, but it quickly wasn’t just get her more diamonds,” ’cause they’re expensive and whatever it might be.
But it’s also you want– I tried to get her the entire color of the rainbow. And so it’s kinda cool to say where do I go for emeralds or for rubies or for turquoise or
Stephen: emerald is easy. You gotta go to Oz
Alan: And I guess that’s true. Luckily, this is funny, we have a… I guess this is gonna be like plug day.
There’s a jeweler in Lakewood called Bristol & Wallis that Colleen was in the choir the West Shore Chorus with one of the guys that is one of the owners, and they, kinda offered a, a discount to people that were in the choir to come over. And but they’ve given me such wonderful service over the years, finding me things and stuff like that, that now that’s where I go.
I love having a, a local they-know-me jewelry store. When I walk in and I deal with, there’s three different ladies that really seem to remember what I’ve bought and like what kind of things I’m looking for. At one point, I was looking for what are our– based on our nationalities, what are kinda like the if you’re Irish, you want o-one of those little white Irish horns made out of, I don’t know, bone, but not a precious stone, but something.
I’m Lithuanian, and they have amber jewelry. And that’s not necessarily easy to find, but when you find it, it’s really startling because it’s like nothing else out there. Again, it’s not a stone. It’s petrified rosin. And I think I mentioned this, I often get for our anniversaries, not just for Christmas, things that have to do with those numbers or with a numbered birthday or something like that.
So we were having our 17th anniversary, and I found like a, a little locust trapped in amber for a 17-year locust. And, I know that’s silly, but it’s memorable enough. And they were like they’re amused by my quest that they actually, from an estate sale, they found a really cool thing from things that like as they’re going through the various different things that they’re offered because they can get any kind of stone they want.
I really love inclusions like asterisms, by that meaning like a star sapphire. You know what I mean? I just think it’s so cool that nature does a cat’s eye that actually has shine inside it or a star sapphire, and they’ve been great for that. So honestly, folks, if you’re looking for a place that has a nice variety of stuff, but you’ll really get personal service and they really– If you have a particular The quirk.
Stephen: Tell him Al sent ya
Alan: tell them Al sent you. Exactly. I, have I mentioned this? I don’t have it yet, but the Shadow wore a, a girasol ring. It’s what’s called a fire opal. It’s a very deep color, but it’s got a deep red fire, like a flare in it, and I’ve never found exactly what I wanted, but they’re on like alert, and occasionally they’ll get, “Hey, Australia just released a whole bunch of opals from this new mine,” or something like that, and they’ll go through things and I’m sure they’re disappointed ’cause they’ve done it maybe, twice now.
They’ve brought in a whole bunch in. It’s like it’s just, I’ve looked for so long now that now I don’t wanna get one unless it’s really what I want. And so one day, one day finally my itch will be scratched, and I’ll be able to say, “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?” You know what I mean?
Stephen: You have to really explain that one to a lot of people though.
Alan: It hasn’t that faded from consciousness. I think the last thing was Alec Baldwin in and honestly, I think when the movie came out, it was kinda panned, but it was really good
Stephen: Yeah, it’s one of Colin’s favorites.
Alan: Yeah, honestly, it’s really well done and the, the capture of the times that it was set in and the villainy and that kind of stuff.
So anyway now I have to go rewatch it ’cause I haven’t seen it in a long time. But there, there are… I have all kinds of, pulp heroes like Doc Savage and The Shadow and Tarzan and people that have a long lineage going back 100 years plus, and nowadays they kinda get revived once in a while, but maybe they’re considered passe, a little corny nowadays, nowadays you want everything is fast cut action and it’s, I don’t know. A lot of the books, the Doc Savage books were based on the world wasn’t all known yet. You could still find a hidden civilization or an undersea empire or those kinds of things. And now that we have satellite mappings down to every six inches of everywhere, it’s really hard to find a hidden city out in the desert.
The Jewels of Opar and stuff like that. But back then it was very cool to, to what would it be like if their civilization had been isolated for all this time? And they’d have– they domesticated different animals. They ate different food. They had a different language.
And that was a big part of the books was it was that sense that the world is still a big, mysterious place. You know what I mean? Like going into a tomb and wow, are we really gonna like find treasure? Are we gonna get trapped by the traps that they’ve set up for us and stuff like that?
Al- Alan Quartermaine books, there was a whole bunch of good stuff like that. So
Stephen: Yeah. Good books good movies that a lot of people don’t know about some of them, “The Shadow” and “Quartermaine” and stuff. And there are multiple actors. It’s not so far, Indy has been Harrison Ford so far. Alan Quartermaine has been, lots of different
Alan: Multiple different people, exactly. In fact, remember the “League of Gentlemen,” I think he figured into that, right? That was a very cool comic book, as by Alan Moore and, why am I missing his name? Great artist. Kevin Noel, maybe? Kevin Nowlan? But yeah, it was a collection of those old pulp heroes and so you had let’s see Agatha Harkness, who was from the Harkness family that hunted vampires, right?
Not Agatha. But anyway, a- and just that, that thing that he knew enough about those old-timey stories that he could do a very convincing thing with. The Invisible Man is in on it, and Mr. Hyde is in on it, and Alan Quartermaine. And I was– well, I think that might be the movie that Sean Connery has said he hates the most be- you know what I mean?
And I don’t know if that’s a reason to recommend it, but despite his dislike for it, it’s actually a very cool movie and where Captain Nemo is in it. You know what I mean? So the, the way that they found a way to kinda tie all that together and have those strong personalities, each a hero or a villain in their own books, they had to find a way to work together to defeat this other menace, and that’s kinda Justice League level type stuff, the League of Gentlemen. So anyway
Stephen: So we got off track of our Christmas talk. I was in Baltimore over the weekend, and we went to a little Christmas village. Eh, it was pretty much the same as if you went to Loch 3’s Christmas village or various other ones. Some vendors, little huts, and I got some mulled red wine in a boot.
It was a, a ceramic boot
Alan: Yeah.
Stephen: That was fun. So we did that. But this coming weekend over in Erie, they’re doing Krampus Night. It’s
Alan: Oh, yes.
Stephen: annual Krampus Night, and I’m excited. So I was supposed to be in up by Sandusky at Pericon that was originally supposed to be April and got moved to November and then got moved to December and then got canceled.
That’s a whole story. But anyway, so now that my time freed up I’m gonna go to Krampus Night up in Erie. I got a friend up there doing a vending thing. I’m gonna take some postcards to him. But yeah, it looks fun. People dress up. They do a parade. They have a judging contest. They have a Miss Krampus pin-up contest. and there’s vendors and food, and there’s a
Alan: the middle of December, in the middle of winter. Okay
Stephen: And there’s a, a band called Sleigher, S-L-E-I-G-H-E-R,
Alan: Very good. Okay
Stephen: It’s is, it looks fun. I know the ones they do over in Norway and stuff, that it’s a group and they do a parade, but they’re trained to scare people.
They’re not allowed in the Krampus society until they scare 10 people
Alan: That’s very good. For those who don’t know, Krampus is the anti-Santa Claus, right? He’s the guy that he takes the bad little kids and he puts them in a sack and he beats them with sticks, as I recall,
Stephen: eat some, yeah
Alan: and eats them and stuff like that. Yeah, so there’s a there there is a movie Thad, about,
Stephen: yes
Alan: him being the monster that menaces kids and stuff like
Stephen: There, there are actually several movies. Several of them are independent small movies. I don’t know how much I’d recommend those to most of our listeners. But the one from 2015 that has Adam Scott in it is really good. It’s fantastic. I love it. And one of the cool things about it was when you watch it, almost everything’s practical.
It’s practical outfits and effects and everything. And what they did CG was in certain scenes outside, Krampus running along houses. The houses, the silhouettes and Krampus, that’s CG. And their breath coming out of their mouth is all CG ’cause they were on a sound studio and it wasn’t cold enough.
Alan: And they weren’t making it 34 degrees
Stephen: Yes. Yeah
Alan: Saturday night? Is that this weekend, did you say?
Stephen: Yes, Saturday night over in Erie 12 to 8 PM
Alan: We have tickets for the Cirque du Soleil Magic Christmas, Magique Christmas
Stephen: that sounds fun
Alan: And so that’ll be fun. We try something new every year. I think we’ve actually done a Cirque du Soleil Christmas before, but we just went to the Cleveland Pops concert and heard all the Christmas standards and stuff like that with the orchestra and the choir and various different guest soloists and guest dancers and stuff like that.
So we really do go to certain things that, that, that are like very Christmasy. And I wish that it wasn’t a collision ’cause I’m very intrigued by this. If this is the third annual, I’ll start looking to keep that first Saturday open so I can go to Krampus
Stephen: Yeah.
Alan: is that? Okay
Stephen: I was wondering if they were gonna do it ’cause they announced it very late, like late September. I was l– ’cause I was looking for it. I was go, I was thinking about setting up as a vendor. But the t- the tables are 150, which isn’t outrageous, a little high-end, but I don’t really have the products and merchandise that fit a Krampus-themed event,
Alan: they’re not horror books. They’re not– Yeah I see what you’re
Stephen: Yeah.
Alan: And also, you’re outside in the cold, right? Or is there a vendor thing inside a gymnasium or something
Stephen: I am really not sure, honestly. But I have a tent. I have a pop-up with walls and I got a buddy heater, so I could run that and I’d be comfortable in my– as long as the wind’s not blowing from the front,
Alan: coming in.
Okay.
Stephen: So then Sunday we’re gonna go to and I think we’ve talked about this before, go over to PA going to Daffin’s and Cranex.
They have their Christmas display at Cranex and the all sorts of holiday chocolates at Daffin’s. Haven’t done it for a couple years so going to go
Alan: Is that a thing that is only on Sunday or that’s the day you’re going there?
Stephen: That’s just the day we’re going. Cranex is like a general store times 10. It’s mostly a Christmas thing at this time of year. They have a, a Christmas tree displays, and they have l- lots of rooms to wander.
The German bookstore down in German Village,
Alan: Yes, exactly
Stephen: It’s kinda like that because you wander these rooms and you get lost. You’re like, “Wait, oh, I’ve been in that room. Wait, where…” You get, you’re trying to find your way. Lots of toys for kids and other gifts, and Christmas ornaments and, all sorts of stuff.
But we go as a tradition thing, see all the trees, we look at the toys. When the kids were little, looking at all the toys was a big thing,
Alan: absolutely. How far away? Two hours maybe?
Stephen: Oh, from me? No, it’s 40 minutes.
Alan: Oh, that’s not bad at all. So for me, it’d be an hour 40, ’cause, from the rooftop. Okay.
Stephen: it might be quicker depending on, if you have a straight shot over by Sharon,
Alan: OK
Stephen: And then Daffin’s is a chocolate… It’s just down the road, literally. It’s a chocolate place. Kinda like we have
Alan: Maldys,
Stephen: mallie’s, yes. That’s Daffin’s over there, and they have a lot of Christmas stuff
Alan: yeah. Thank you. I, I-
Stephen: A- and you guys could go during the week ’cause it’s open the same during the week, and you’d have a lot less traffic
Alan: See, that’s exactly what we’ll end up doing. We– Like I think I mentioned, we already have Victory Park has a big m- the Magic of Lights type thing, and we’re always looking for new lights demonstration stuff. We’ve been as far as West Virginia, but we’re looking for… There must be a couple other here, like in Sandusky, like over now, I, now I know about Sharon, Pennsylvania, where it has Cranex.
Stephen: Yeah, our s- county fair, Randolph Fairgrounds they do a light show there now. They started it last year. There’s a co- a new company in town that, Elegant Lights, I, or Elegant Illumination or something like that. But they set it up, and we didn’t go last year, but I’m like, “Eh, I’m gonna go check it out this year.”
So it’s
Alan: Is it a drive-through or a walk-through?
Stephen: a drive-through as far as I re- I can tell.
Alan: ’cause one of the things I liked about Victory Park was that it has both, and I kinda like putting on the boots and the parka and taking our time. You know what I mean? Get a little nip in the air. There we go.
Stephen: always has a good display and stuff if you’ve been there
Alan: We have, we’ve the Stan Hewitt Hall, right?
That exactly. In fact, it’s been years since we were there, and it’s not only that the outside is beautiful, the whole inside of the house is really done up well. So that’s not… Yeah. I’m making a couple notes here. One of the joys about having retirement is the schedule is so easy to do things, like you said, not only during the week, but during the day.
And as long as it’s open, we will have kind of the place to ourselves. We both have gotten, Colleen especially, just don’t like the crowds anymore. Don’t like, people elbowing her ’cause she’s l- petite and whatever else it might be. It her ability to be in a crowd that’s just kinda like moving forward slowly, she really gets the heebie-jeebies a little bit from it, so we avoid it.
You don’t go to Vegas where there’s a pinch point of everybody going to the casino and you know it’s gonna like just make her antsy. You know what I mean? So
Stephen: Yeah. Yeah, I don’t go to some of these things as much as, like when I was with the kids, like I said, Kanax we went to because there were lots of toys. The Christmas trees and all the toys to look at and a great time. But, now it’s like, eh,
Alan: there’s a place down in Medina that has tons of like big dollhouses and big, they actually have all kinds of Christmas artifacts, like from the “Christmas Story” movie. They have the couch or the leg lamp or
Stephen: That’s, yeah, the
Alan: that place called? Christmas Land or something like
Stephen: I wanna say Christmas Museum, but yeah. The, the guy that runs it looks like Santa Claus. His name’s Mark. I’ve talked to him. And we’ve been there a couple times. I’ve got a– We were there the second year they were open b- and it’s changed a lot since then. They keep improving and getting better.
But I got pictures standing next to the RV from Christmas Vacation.
Alan: There, like that. Exactly
Stephen: and all the rust spots is all paint. It was painted on and stuff. And it’s got Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Jingle All The Way outfit. And when we were there, you could sit on Santa’s lap and tell him what you wanted, and then they had a slide, and he’d use his foot and push you down it.
But now they don’t do that,
Alan: don’t do that.
Stephen: insurance, I’m sure. They still have the slide, but he doesn’t kick you down like Christmas
Alan: can choose to go down it and I’m sure there’s a big sign saying, “You accept all risk of,” et cetera, et cetera. I heard we have an internal mini golf course there too. So we’ve actually played the mini golf course either right next door or it’s connected to this facility somehow.
Stephen: Alien Glow in the Dark Putt-Putt or something like
Alan: Like that, exactly. Which, which that is really Christmas themed, but maybe they’ll put little hats on the
Stephen: Yeah. A- and then on the 21st, I think, Jason’s choir group is singing at Playhouse Square, Allen Theatre r- right before the performance for “A Christmas Story.” Or no “A Christmas Carol.” So we’re gonna go hear the choir sing and watch “Christmas Carol.” We did that last year. We did “A Christmas Story,” which was really so good at Playhouse Square last year.
Alan: I love that where they have a big screen for the big movie and stuff like that or that it’s at the, a musical that’s a recreation of it. We’re gonna go see on Thursday, “Spamalot,” which, it’s hardly Christmas-oriented, but the reason I mention that is, as you just said, somebody a friend of ours from high school, Elizabeth, knows somebody in the cast, and so she said, “Are you going to this show while it’s in Cleveland?”
It’s like yes, we already have tickets.” And so it’s just kinda cool that people that we knew growing up, they’re still in the biz, and they get hooked up with a touring company, and then they tour the country for a year and a half. You know what I mean? And I love the people that have that level of talent and also that level of I don’t we know that there’s a couple that actually tour in a touring company, and they said that’s the first time they’ve been able to do it.
They often like say, “Okay, I’m going away for three months while I’m touring with ‘Hadestown'” or something like that, “and we’ll get together on weekends or when we happen to have the show in the same town,” which hardly ever happens, so it’s kinda nice that’s really a hard life if you love the field, love being on stage, but you kinda, you, the, the people in the production become your friends, and unless you find someone to be married to or be in a relationship with, it’s really tough on
Stephen: Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it– that, I worked on the cruise ship and I’ve said I, I would not wanna do it again, not now, not at this age
Alan: yeah
Stephen: away from everything and everybody and stuff. It was a great time, and if for some reason I had to do it again, “Oh, that’s the only job you can get,” it’d be a good time.
I just miss everything in my life and all that. It’s a totally different lifestyle. But if that’s your lifestyle, it’s not horrible,
Alan: in fact I think we’ve mentioned this we have the Prog Rock Cruise coming up in, I believe it’s March, and we finally got all that. We have the flights down, we have the hotel, that kind of stuff, and then that thing. And oftentimes because there’s all the people coming to the boat, there’s also like a couple– There’s a pre-show that has a couple other bands, and some are on the boat and some are not.
But, you got all the prog fans there, so that place will sell out for whatever’s going on in Miami. We just got hooked up on a comedy cruise. Did I mention that? Bert Kreischer, who i- who is like arena size now, I think he’s okay. He’s not one of our favorites, but he’s established enough in the industry that he was able to talk to all of his comedy friends, and so it’s gonna be like Whitney Cummings and Shane Torres and like at least half a dozen people out of the 30 that I really would like to see.
And as we often go to the comedy club where it’s like, Hilarity sends us some free tickets and says come see these guys.” So that we’ve often thought there must be a couple comedy cruises out there, and we haven’t found one yet that wasn’t, I don’t know, just we didn’t know enough people or that it was quite expensive.
When you look at the cost per act, it really has to be the right combination of how much for food, where are we going, in this case, we’re gonna go to the Grand Caymans. We’ve never been there before, so let, that’ll be a nice one. So that, it, that not until November next year, so they’ve got our money for a year, but at least we’re on the cruise. We’re on the boat for that.
Stephen: as long as I’m not getting a call like, “Hey, we’re at the port and they’re trying to put tariffs on us to come back in. Come, come save us.”
Alan: you know what? This is… So we are buying travel insurance for virtually everything nowadays, and we didn’t used to because it used to be o- once we commit, we’re gonna go.” It’s not only the cruise, you get the flights and the hotel and you’re in. But nowadays, with the possibilities of diseases, of not tariffs, but like just disruption because our government’s gone insane I kinda can’t count on that these things are really gonna happen because all of a sudden they’re mad at Denmark and then they don’t like cruise ships that go there or cruise ships from there.
You know what I mean? Or, or I don’t know. I… Ill-formed, ’cause I don’t think that’s happened yet, and I think that those people are ready to say, “We will do whatever we have to make sure that we can continue to come into your ports.” They’re used to kinda dealing with unstable places.
When you go into Haiti and the Dominican Republic, they’ve kinda had revolving door dictatorships there for m- and boy, I’m, I almost feel bad when I don’t have full information. I don’t mean to defame entire countries. But some by reputation, they’re not a stable place. They’re not, they… The last thing I heard was that they actually had to bring in troops from outside because their troops and police force were overwhelmed by the gangs and the drugs.
And remember, the money that comes in is dirty money, and it can buy a whole bunch of power. You know what I mean?
Stephen: not justify making a decision to bomb boats because you think they’re drug runners. Let’s, or shooting them a second time because some survived
Alan: Honestly, Stephen, you know that people are gonna go to jail for this. They’re war crimes. There’s, there’s– they’re not doing– It’s– They’re killing people without it being a declared thing. They’re d- they’re the kinds of things they’re accusing them, they’ve never presented any proof. They’re murdering people.
There’s, there’s– And like all under the maybe because they wanna go to war with Venezuela and steal all their oil. What’s the big thing? It’s not about we like killing people only, though it sure seems that they do. They’ve got kinda like the Monroe Doctrine. All of a sudden, we’re not gonna get involved over there in the Middle East anymore.
We’re gonna stay right near here at home and flex our American muscle and defy everyone to not have our boats outside their country, and we’re gonna blow your capital to smithereens unless we get favored nation status with how you sell your oil. It’s no longer OPEC pricing coming out of Venezuela.
It’s United States favorite. A-and so there’s agendas behind this. Do you remember, this is 20, 30 years ago now, there’s a series besides Venezuela, there’s Guyana and Dutch Guiana and or whatever the countries are that are across the top of South America, and pretty much a corporation took one of them over.
They just had so much money, illicit money, that they teamed up with local bad guys, and they were like, “We’re gonna put the siphon in and take out all the natural resources and whatever else we want and leave this country a husk.” But nobody was willing to defy them because… You know what I mean? It would the more that I read about it, it’s I can’t believe this is happening 200 miles south of the tip of Florida.
Th-this is where we should be the protector, not the antagonist. And yet, oh i… and one of those things where somebody sees a movie with a plot like that, we could take over this country and rule it like, like an “Archer” episode. And then somebody says, we really could, right?
We
Stephen: Based on true events.
Alan: Like that,
Stephen: We’re about to start putting in our fiction movies that aren’t fantasy and sci-fi where it’ll say, “This is not based on true events.” You– It’s hard to tell the difference sometimes,
Alan: have a disclaimer instead of a a claim. Exactly.
Stephen: yeah. So what else?
Alan: We, what, that, so those are cool. We have a couple things coming up, like I mentioned to you. We’re gonna go to let’s see, the Magic Christmas. We got we Fairview High School has a Christmas concert where they invite all the alumni to come back and sing the “Hallelujah” chorus
Stephen: Oh, cool
Alan: So we got Colleen is gonna go with a, a friend of hers from high school, and they just had their 50th reunion. And so it’s very cool to “Wow, we’ve known each other and been friends for this long,” and stuff like that. And so I’ll go along and I’ll, I’ll get, break into my basso profundo if at all I can, just get the rumble going.
“Go tell it on the mountain.” So that, that’s kind of fun. And then having said that, we got a whole bunch of stuff coming up, and then we actually have the, between Christmas and New Year’s, very little going on, and that’ll be so nice. It’ll be so nice to go ahead, snow. We don’t have to leave.
Go, make sure the house is stocked up. We’re gonna get all of our new books and gifties and relax. Stay in the nice warm house and, binge watch what- whatever new movie and TV show and play with our puppies and all that. Y- yes.
Stephen: did you hear about Netflix crash?
Alan: No.
Stephen: Oh, you didn’t hear about that? Oh my God.
Alan: what’s the circumstances?
Stephen: Wednesday, the 26th, 8:00 PM,
Released the first four episodes of the final season of “Stranger Things.” “Stranger Things” Season 5, first four episodes crashed Netflix. People couldn’t get on to watch it. There were so many people watching
Alan: Honest– So I’m not a big “Stranger Things” fan, so that wasn’t, “Oh my God, I gotta go watch it.” Out of everything they’ve ever had, that’s what finally brought the servers down?
Stephen: Oh, it, y-
Alan: The server room were meant for “Stranger
Stephen: watch it. This has been a pretty large cultural phenomena actually. It is showing up in– they had a float on the Thanksgiving Day Parade. I’ve seen Jeopardy! questions about “Stranger Things.” And
Alan: I do intend to watch it. I’m intrigued by the premise and that they’ve kept it going for multiple seasons, and it just seems interesting. Okay.
Stephen: It is. It’s a good show and, I watched it with my kids, watched it with Gina and her kids, and we’ve enjoyed it. And the first four episodes so far have been so good. They just really nailed it with the action. Did not like, “Let’s sit around and talk.” No, we’ve had four seasons. We know the characters.
We know the stakes. Bam, let’s get running. And I was pretty impressed a- and it’s been really good. But the problem is, I’m like, “Oh, dear Lord, last four of the last season of ‘Stranger Things’ are going to drop on Christmas Day.”
Alan: And then, you’re gonna have another bomb go off. That’s amazing.
Stephen: not watching it Christmas Day. I have been watching “Welcome to Derry” on HBO, which is,
Alan: the, the It universe, right? The Stephen King’s okay. Okay
Stephen: man, I know King was not really involved with this. He didn’t pan it. He didn’t say, “Oh, this is gonna suck,” or anything. He gave, he gave– He did say, “This is really good. I’m, I think they’re doing a great job.” These guys have nailed the Stephen King world and the “It” world. The story i- if you read “It” or watched either of the m- movies, it’s a group of kids, they’re the only ones that really know what’s going on, and they’re fighting against this ancient force that feeds on fear and comes back every 38 years or whatever.
Alan: Found the big spider, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah
Stephen: this series nailed that. They didn’t try and do anything different. They have a group of kids, it’s in the ’50s, and it’s right, it’s the, the, the cycle before the movie that came out based on the book.
Alan: Got it. So a prequel, if you will. Okay,
Stephen: yes, and they are tying it into Stephen King universe all over the place. You’ve got Hallorann from “The Shining” in it as a youngster, younger person in the army, using his shining powers in the army to find Pennywise.
You’ve got the Black House from “The Talisman” and the Black House from King and Straub’s book.
Alan: exactly. Okay
Stephen: Henry Bowers’ dad is the police chief, and in the first “It” he was the bad boy, Henry Bowers. So his dad’s there as the police chief
Alan: How smart is this that they’re so aware of his– And that they’re, like you said, tying it all together. That’s very
Stephen: And they’re doing a good job of it. It doesn’t feel forced in. I- in fact, they don’t point it out. They don’t make a big deal of it, it just is. And I’ve seen multiple people online going, “Oh my God, did you see that?” “No, I didn’t see it.” “Go back and watch.” “Oh my God, I can’t believe it was this thing,” ’cause they’re very subtle
Alan: are really rewarding people that know a lot of this instead of the cameo with Batman climbing a wall and all of a sudden it’s, whatever,
Stephen: Yeah, and you know it. Like the “Spider-Man” movie, which was good, but you knew these cameos were gonna be there. You knew they were doing it for a reason. This is very subtle, but Colin said yeah,” because they’ve said in interviews this is a test pilot show to create that Stephen King universe based around “The Dark Tower,” that they wanna do movies and shows all tied together like they were trying to do with the Dark Universe with Blumhouse and Universal.
Alan: Yeah.
Stephen: so this is– They really wanna do a connected series of shows with “The Dark Tower” and “It” and “Cujo” and, everything else
Alan: How interesting is that? Wow, that, and lastly, what a, an innocent title, “Welcome to Derry.” You really gotta know to if you’re just going through titles, unless they have the image of, there’s Pennywise, you would think, “Is this just like a travelogue or something?”
What
Stephen: the first scene, here’s a little spoilers. The first scene in the show starts out with this family in a station wagon traveling, and this lady gives birth to a demon in the thing, and all the, the family gets eaten
Alan: I guess that’s a way to let you know you’re not in scenic Dairy, Ohio, where they’re the world pumpkin capital or,
Stephen: yeah. And they’ve just really done a great job of making it feel like it, and making it feel a part of the whole Stephen King universe, and keeping it interesting. That’s one of the things you get a lot with Stephen King movies is, okay, we got an 800-page book, so let’s make it an, an hour and 20-minute movie.
And they suck. They just don’t hold up well. You need these longer ep- And since they’ve discovered, hey, we can do a movie eight times and put it all together into a series and people will actually watch it, that was something that they fought against for so long, and now they’re discovering
Alan: the golden age of television in that regard, that they really are taking their time telling a big story instead of trying to cram it in, as you just said.
Stephen: Yeah, and now the unfortunate thing is there’s too many. There’s too many to try and watch. There’s “Fallout,” there’s “Lord of the Rings,” there’s “Twisted Metal,” there’s “Welcome to Derry.” Y- there’s all these shows that I enjoy, but they’re all done in eight-segment seasons
Alan: Right. As I, as, as I think I’ve mentioned, we tend to like turn channels on and off based on is there something on there that we have to watch? “Pluribus” is getting really good reviews and it’s on Apple TV, and we turned Apple TV off after “Ted Lasso” because there wasn’t enough on there.
We watched a lot of other stuff and then said, “I think we’re done with Apple TV. Let’s let it go for a while.” And now I was waiting for “Ted Lasso” as being the reason I’d get it back, and now I’m like, “Am I really gonna get whatever? I don’t know. I guess you could sign on for a month and then turn it back off, and I’ll binge watch ‘Pluribus’ and get it done.”
Stephen: Apple TV is growing. I’ve been very impressed with the shows, and we had it to watch “Monarch,” and we watched a couple other things and I’m like, “Hey, this is actually some really good stuff.” It’s like Prime used to– Some of the early Prime stuff was like, “Eh, these kinda suck,” and now they’re really good.
But they’re getting “Monarch” Season 2 and a spinoff with Wyatt’s character in the Godzilla universe,
Alan: Interesting. The fact that there are– boy, I’ve always loved that. I think I mentioned I really a series called “The Iron Druid” because it was great about not just here’s a, a particular sliver of mythology, but it brought in all kinds of mythology and folklore, and what would happen if Thor met not Loki, but met the coyote trickster god, or whatever else it might be.
And I love that if you love that field, you really get rewarded for catching all those interesting references and saying, “Oh, Mr. Wednesday, that’s Odin. That’s who that guy is.” You know what I mean? And especially sometimes you get them right away, but sometimes the author is very skillful or the TV show maker is very skillful about giving hints, but you’re just not sure what’s really going on, and then all of a sudden the doors open and and then you go, “Oh my God, so that’s what that meant.
That’s what that meant.” And you go back and it fills in a whole bunch of not sures that you had. Now it all ties together well. There’s a real skill to that. The, like, “Better Call Saul” is the sequel to “Breaking Bad” and stuff like that, had all kinds of things like that, showing the, the younger versions of various different characters and here’s what had them go wrong or what had them become a lawman or what- that kind of stuff.
It’s really long form fiction. A-and it’s funny, comic books have always been like that, that it really was this river novel, as I heard it called, that it doesn’t really stop, but that it really rewards when you’ve read the stuff that’s come before and someone finds a way to do a cool new twist.
They introduce a new character, but you find out that, oh, they’re the son of a previous thing, but it’s not revealed right away. And I just, I love all those, the skill that goes into being faithful to what’s gone before, but still being able to add to or warp a little because you didn’t get the full story before.
You know what I mean? It might be that you thought he was a villain, but really what he was trying to do was steal enough money to keep his daughter alive in chemo drugs or something like that. And I– there’s such a skill to that. I just
Stephen: Things” definitely has done that. There,
Alan: Things,” very
Stephen: stuff in Season 5 they did a, an opening scene that was supposed to be something that happened in the middle of Season 1 that you didn’t see back then.
Alan: OK
Stephen: retrofitted it. I don’t think they planned five seasons when they did Season 1.
But it fits in well and they’ve developed it well, built it slowly so you– all five seasons work together to build up to the big thing that they’re fighting against now. So pretty well done. It has been a little weird ’cause it’s been 10 years. These kids are– they started at 11 and 12, and now they’re like 21, 22
Alan: It’s like the “Harry Potter” universe when you see them really start off as li- little kids, and then they grow up into young adults and that creates all kinds of, “Oh no, they’ve discovered boys and girls are young men and young women,” and then there’s all that.
Stephen: luckily with and they’re doing the same thing with “Stranger Things,” but “Harry Potter,” it was designed as five-year, seven-year schooling. So they, you knew they were gonna get older. It didn’t quite fit. They got older a lot, but,
Alan: that’s
Stephen: all right. I need to get rolling
Alan: Very good. Yeah, long episode today. Let’s, yeah w- let’s see. What’s the thing that you want for Christmas the most? Anything has occurred to you?
Stephen: Y- it’s rough ’cause most of everything I got– so earlier this year from Jim Beard, I got a whole slew of “Return of the Jedi” Ewok with sword, staffs and everything. And just last Thursday at Adam’s sale, I got an Ewok village, so I’m gonna put ’em all together and take a picture
Alan: Like your crush is the Star Wars best
Stephen: Yeah. So I don’t know. I don’t… There, there isn’t much I really want. I’m, I’ve been so focused on writing and everything that you know, and all the games I want, I’ve got. W- who wants a movie or so- music? I’ve got all of it, that’s rough
Alan: Colleen has that all the time. She really wants what lists from me nowadays because she doesn’t want to get something that I’ve already gotten. And, my tastes are wide, but I have so much of what I already want. So just to have, we’re, we’re– I’m trying to, not only do I get her surprises, but she wants to get me surprises, and I’m not easy.
You know what I mean? It’s really a tough thing,
Stephen: So for my birthday, Colin gave this to me early. It was a Peanuts plastic bookmark that had like stencils in it to draw Snoopy. You
Alan: cool is that? So I see your Snoopy shirt today.
Stephen: Yes. Yeah.
Alan: Yeah. Okay
Stephen: So this stencil I’ll get it, I’ll show you next week. It is one of the top five rarest collectibles for Peanuts, and he got it because he was at the library going through stuff and pulled it out, and they said, “Eh, just throw it away.”
He says, “No, I’m gonna keep it,” and looked it up, and that’s how value… Somebody just put it in a book
Alan: In the book as a bookmark. Exactly. Oh my God, that’s hilarious. That’s a real treasure find. That’s
Stephen: is, it’s pretty awesome
Alan: it’s up there with the $9 million Superman comic that we talked about.
Stephen: Yeah, it’s not worth 9 million,
Alan: but still in rarity or whatever. Okay. Take care, Stephen. Always a pleasure. All right, bye-bye.
