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[00:00:00] Do you like conversation on a variety of topics? Feel like no one wants to talk about the things that interest you? Tired of only hearing the same political, sports, or catastrophe talk? We feel that way too. Join two high functioning geeks as they discuss just about anything under the sun. We can’t tell you what we’ll be talking about each week because we don’t know where our brains will take us.
It will be an interesting conversation though, so hang on and join us. Here comes the Relentless Geekery.
Alan: Exactly.
Stephen: Welcome to finally fall. We’re finally getting fall weather. It’s not freaking 85 degrees,
Alan: It’s I just, I, we had to take my car in today because we got back from a weekend away and discovered that one of our cars battery totally [00:01:00] drained down. And this is very funny. I had to play detective a little bit and I’m pretty sure this is what happened. At first I thought, so when I pull into the garage, I turn my headlights on so that I can see the back wall and know how far I’m coming, coming close.
In this case, when I got into the car recently, we have GPSs. We don’t use our phone. We actually have a GPS that has a little suction cup that attaches to the windshield. It had fallen off and I have it that it’s wrapped around the rear view mirror, so it was hanging down by that. So I just suctioned it back up.
When I discovered that the car was totally drained down, we had the guy come from AAA to gimme a jump so I could get it to Conrads and make sure that the battery system is not actually kaput. But it was just some kind. And what I think had happened is when the thing had come off of the windshield, it had swung down and hit the alert, hit the hazard light.
When I turned the car, when we got the car back on with power, the hazard lights were blinking and I never turned those on. So in [00:02:00] that little arc where it came down and so it just that perfect combination of, and when it happened, the, everything else in the car would be inactive, but not the hazard light.
Even when the car’s turned off, if you hit the hazard light, it’ll blink. So you don’t get smashed into by a semi or
Stephen: in your garage with the door shut. You’re not looking out in your garage.
Alan: So it was just, and happily, like you said, fall weather. Oh yeah, it was raining this morning. I know I’ll go to Conrads and then walk back 10 blocks.
And but luckily Colleen went with her with a friend to breakfast this morning and I was able to call her, text her to say, Hey, I’m leaving Conrads, I’m walking on Detroit. Please come get me. And honestly, I was like three blocks from home when she picked me up. I make good time. I’m a fast walker, but it was just nice and it wasn’t, it had been really coming down for whatever reason.
When I got the Conrad, it had changed to just a light drizzle. So I got spliced but not deluge and it was
But.
Stephen: That’s good. Yeah. I’m excited about the weather. I have long sleeve shirts that I get this [00:03:00] small little window that I can wear them and most of the time I can’t even wear long sleeve in the house. ’cause even with cool weather, we keep our furnace down. It’s too hot for me. I’m sit, I’ll sit some sweat and I’m just like, ah, I need t-shirts.
I’ll wear shorts in the house during the winter. So
Alan: I have always been a warm guy, just like that. But as I think I mentioned I have pills that make me dizzy, gabapentin in my lisinopril. One for, the one is the, and actually like now my face is, I’m almost like I have full mobility in the face that really has helped with the trigeminal nerve damage.
But both of those things, or at least the blood pressure pill, it lowers it enough that now I’m getting cold. I don’t have enough blood flow to the extremities. I don’t have whatever circulation I once had. And, I was actually, we talked about this. I’m a big guy, but I’ve always been at one 20 over 80.
I really didn’t have a problem with bp, but they said it won’t get better. It’ll only get worse as you get older and because you carry a little extra weight and whatever else it might be. [00:04:00] So they put me on this thing and nowadays, instead of one 20 over 80, my last thing was like I was 90 over fifties.
And that’s like not hypertension, but hypotension. Again, I think I mentioned I fell the one time in Vancouver because, and the combination of these things make me dizzy, but it’s also whatever that hydrostatic, I think it’s called, when you change position, your blood pressure doesn’t immediately say, let’s keep blood going to the brain.
’cause that’s useful. I fell again, I hate saying this. I, when I fall it’s not oops. It’s like timber and a coming down.
Stephen: those redwoods?
Alan: Exactly. And luckily I haven’t bonked my head, I haven’t pierced the skin. I didn’t really kill myself. But is there anything less dignified than being on the floor?
I’m going, okay, now what do I grab to get leverage? I gotta roll over and be on my knees. And my knees don’t like my weight on them. So I’m just like I hate this happening. And so I’m, I just, I lowered my [00:05:00] blood pressure dosage now. I was like a five and I went to 2.5, and I’m really wanting to talk to the doctor and say, listen, can I get back off this?
If I go back to one 20 over 80, I’ve never had a problem. And what I have a problem with now is fall risk. You know what I mean? I don’t, I’m not fucking breaking a hip. I’m not boning my head anything like that. So we’ll
Stephen: So when you do fall, you gotta make sure you go, thank you. I do my own stunts. That’s,
Alan: And actually come do a tight rolling, come up exactly that. Just like chubby chase, exactly. Really make a scene out of it. So I just anyway, so that was startling. But
Stephen: You’ve had a couple days it
Alan: exactly. So you had a great weekend.
Stephen: Yes,
Alan: former independent
Stephen: all of that though. I’ve got some news, unfortunately this is a sad news to me. Kenmore comics is closing John is retiring and that he’s been a big part of the local comic scene for years. All the shops know of each [00:06:00] other and they get along good or bad to some degree, depending on who they are and stuff, that’s fine.
But yeah, I have literally been going to him for 36 years and he’s, it’s only two years or something. He was open that I didn’t even go and know about him. It was in college, I discovered him
Alan: a guy in Chicago, Moondogs comics, Gary Kno, who was my study for all the time that I was in Chicago. They were really a good store for me oh boy. And he’s not, didn’t find a buyer, didn’t find
Stephen: He’s been trying for a couple years and he’s not asking an outrageous sum of money, but he is got a pretty large collection of comics. Yeah. And that there’s some value to that and the name has some value and part of the deal was the building and stuff like that. So I think he said 60, but I had heard he was asking a hundred.
So somewhere between 60 and a hundred for a 40-year-old comic business. That’s one of the bigger ones
Alan: a built-in clientele. Exactly.
Stephen: Nobody wanted it.
Alan: That’s we’ve seen that [00:07:00] happen a lot. We have a place called Hickson’s right here in Lakewood that is a famous Christmas store, like extensive inventory like you’re saying. And the guy, I think he should have retired like 25 years ago. He was quite an elderly guy, but kept going and just couldn’t seem to find in his family or a buyer or whatever else it might be to continue it going.
And that’s what was sad that it’s like a local institution and yet times change. Nobody’s looking to be a. A comic book person, a shopkeeper for Christmas.
Stephen: Actually Colin and I discussed it because there’s apartments right above the shop. So Colin could work the shop own the shop and live right there and not have to worry about his travel to work. And he thought about it at one point and honestly he didn’t have the full money just to buy it outright cash, but he had a third and he, there aren’t many businesses or many banks that would’ve said, oh, you have a third down on an established business.
No, we’re not gonna give [00:08:00] you a loan for that. Yeah.
Alan: Oh boy, that’s honestly, I hadn’t known about that. That would’ve maybe kept him here. That seems like what an ideal situation,
Stephen: But that
Alan: you’re always at work. If you live right above the shop, you’re always
Stephen: it though. He was already thinking of moving. So he is I don’t want to get tied down to being here because of this. I may not move, I may stay, I may, whatever. But I just, he’s, he just, and I bet at some point in his life he’ll say, you know what, maybe I should have done that.
That might have not have been a bad thing, but you make choices. You try and do the best you can. I was go play bass and moved out to California to go to the big school out there and blah, blah, blah. And that didn’t work out. And I look back now and I’m like, would I have been able to or enjoyed playing out my whole life for the last 30 years?
I
Alan: Touring all the time, and hopefully you find a good band, but it could be that your session and then oh, I almost need the next gig,
Stephen: It would’ve probably destroyed my relationship with Bobby. So we would’ve never [00:09:00] got married. That would’ve been a good thing. I look back now, but then I wouldn’t have my kids. That wouldn’t be a good thing. It’s that sci-fi or that it’s a wonderful life thing here,
Alan: Exactly. They’re there, but for the grace of God. Exactly. Okay.
Stephen: yeah. So make the best you made your choices live with them. But the point is, he is going out of business just selling everything, making discounts and I’m switching everything over to Adam. ’cause that was my second choice right here, calling work there. So if nothing else, it’s a lot closer.
It’s a mile away from my house, which is dangerous in itself.
Alan: That, there, when I first came to Cleveland to be with Colleen, I found a place called Carolyn Johns. That was a very interesting a younger guy and an older woman that had met at a con or something like that. But they were very compatible in terms of this person handles the business, especially this person handles the inventory and that kind of stuff.
And they had a pull list. And I liked all that. My, the big thing for me was, even with the pull list, you got like a 10% discount. And when I was in Chicago, I had [00:10:00] bought from a place called m and m distributors that I gave like 20, 30, 40% discount. And I bought so many that it really ran into money. If I. It gave loyalty to a local shop, but it cost me hundreds of dollars a month.
So I kept going with my mail order and everything all has arrived in good shape and stuff. And in fact, I was gonna suggest that if you hadn’t had a place like Adam’s to do as your backup, I’ve had nothing but great success. When I dipped my toe back in earlier this year, they were happy to have me back and when I said, I’m just, it’s just not my thing anymore.
They were like distraught because we not only be I order from them, but we regularly had those little email and whatever conversations about, what do you think of what’s going on with this title? And stuff like that. They’re really fans as well as running a good business.
Stephen: and that’s, one of the things I’ll really miss about John, ’cause when I worked on the cruise ship, I went in and said, look, I’m gonna be working on a cruise ship. I’m not quite sure how long I want to keep my pools up, but I don’t want you to go broke or anything like that. [00:11:00] So I had 400 bucks or something.
I said, here’s 400 bucks. Keep getting all
Alan: Accumulate my stuff.
Stephen: Yeah, I’ll contact you when I can to see if I owe you more money. I’ll send you more money. To keep holding on to stuff. And then when I come back I’ll get it all. And he was willing to do that. And even now every now and then there’ll be something in my pool.
He is like, yeah, I didn’t know if you’d want that or not. It seemed like something you’d want. And usually it’s yeah, that’s cool. He gives me discounts, when I get, if they have a sale, especially, I get some quarter comics. He is you’ve got eight here. Just take those or a box every now and then, so you get that treatment.
That, and I go in on days when there’s not anybody really there and I’m like, so did you watch such and such a movie? Did you see such and such a show? How’s it? And we’d chat,
Alan: There’s always conversation.
Stephen: Yeah. And I can do that with Adams, I get down there, he’s got some good guys working for him now, and it’s fun.
But it’s very rare to go into Adams or even John’s anymore with, there’s not somebody else there, so you don’t get quite the lengthy [00:12:00] conversations,
Alan: yeah. ’cause they have to run the register and
Stephen: Yeah.
Alan: It’s funny the story you just told reminds me, unfortunately of why I stopped going to Moon Dogs. I had a similar situation. I started to travel for Pete Marick for business and same thing, keep pulling my pole stuff. And I might not come in every week like I have in the past, but I will definitely.
And they had a weird thing where they, it wasn’t just get exactly the titles that you want hey, if it’s number ones or it’s various different classifications, if you will. And when I came back, like after a month being out of town where I hadn’t been able to stop in, there was like twice as much stuff as what I wanted.
They really had thought I was alive one, and said, we accumulated all these things. It’s you did. Weird, even though I get Captain America, you still got me multiples of Captain America Sentinel of Liberty, number one. And even if I’m a, if I get two of things, ’cause I’m a speculator occasionally, I don’t want four, nobody wants four.
And I and maybe some people really do, they buy 10 of giants size [00:13:00] X by number one or something. So I said, I, I don’t want all these and it’s only a month, so surely you can just put them back on the shelves. And they were really in a snit about how I had misled them. And it’s I really need to have it be easier than this.
I can’t, I wanna have them, but I can’t pay this much attention. I don’t wanna redo my poll list every single month slash week to make sure that you’re not and honestly, there to be either named Chris that worked, that took care of me and somehow he had just left. There were new people there and they were weren’t willing to do the work or they were dunderheads and didn’t know how to do the work.
And so I was like, I don’t want to have you on the hook for all these kind of things, but I’m not gonna be on the hook either. And so what are we gonna do? And I, in talking with Gary, it was like, I guess this is where we park company, and it was like, really? We can’t work this out, Gary. I’m your at one point they had a thing where you [00:14:00] for numbers of dollars, you spent receipt tapes, you got tickets for a lottery, if you will.
And then at the end of the year, they had a little thing for like a hundred dollars for free comics. And I won that because I bought so many. I had times when they were like having a store to store. I think he had six or eight in Chicago. He had really established himself in Chicago. And I walked in and the guy literally picked up the phone and called another store and said, we win because my buying that day was gonna put them over the top for who said.
And so it really had been a good association and the fact that it just ended for no good reason other than someone isn’t willing to be a little thoughtful. I couldn’t believe it. But that’s when I started with m and never looked back,
Stephen: i, Colin always laughs ’cause I get Christmas cards from John. It’s like you, you gotta be a big customer when the shop owner is sending you Christmas cards.
Alan: Yeah. A Christmas ham he sent you, you know what I mean?
Stephen: Yeah, and he didn’t say directly, but at one point I remember he said, [00:15:00] yeah, oh, you’re definitely in the top five customers per year, because of what you get and how much you get and how often. And I’m sure there’s other people that get more and whatever. And I never was going there to, oh, I’m the best customer, here’s what I like, here’s what I want.
And that’s why I’m,
Alan: That’s right.
Stephen: there’ll be missed. Definitely.
Alan: I am ing as I see about, doom, ascendant. I started that and then stopped. How can I not see the end of all those stories? And I’m trying to think, there were other good plot lines going on there to talk about this for a minute. Having plunged back in, after being away for a while, I was astonished at how the line between like star comics for kids and comics for adults that had blurred.
There were all kinds of team titles that were silly. They were there, there wasn’t deep emotion. There weren’t difficult plot lines. It was kinda like, Hey, this is all the way in which we get kids into the habit, into the, and then go on from there. It’s but that, I want to read that. And from the little descriptions that you get [00:16:00] from, I’m trying to think what it is whatever comic buyer’s guide, ies, whatever it was, there wasn’t enough, like if they would’ve put a thing saying, this is for tweens, this is for teens, this is for, I would’ve said let’s leave all those alone.
But instead, I ended up having, I don’t know, 20% were like so young that I were like, I don’t wanna read little Lata as a superhero. I don’t wanna read Richie Rich. I’m just beyond that. And so that was a big reason that I wow. I’m, I already spent a lot of money and I don’t even know enough about the industry now to avoid the stuff that I don’t want next month.
I’ll avoid it. But now I got some silly stuff, oh
Stephen: now you got some white elephant gift for Christmas for kids.
Alan: And that’s right. I’ll give ’em away to the nieces and nephews. Actually the grandkids now Grandnieces and stuff like
Stephen: First 10 Trick or treaters. Get a comic book. Yeah.
Alan: And this, oh my God, don’t tell Colin this, but they had a couple also where there’s now like hybrids of manga and American comics. It’s American titles, but they’re done in the [00:17:00] manga style of reading right to left and stuff.
And I was like, this just doesn’t work for me. I don’t like the art style. I don’t like the I didn’t like it. I just, I have, part of what you do when you read is you enjoy and relax. And it was like, this is harder than it should be. And my catching up on the Japanese culture that’s been injected into these things, I don’t have a problem.
I, I usually drink all the various different things in around the world, but for whatever reason, the continual dystopic culture that manga and anime seem to specialize in, that everything is, it’s a post-apocalyptic world and we’re all just struggling. And it’s man I, it’s so much isn’t real. I so much don’t want to be dipped into despair every month for five different titles.
So that was another thing of just, wow I guess they’re covering more of the market and for people who love this stuff, it’s a godsend for me. It didn’t work,
Stephen: m music, books, comics, games, all of that. There’s a million out there. You don’t have to like every one [00:18:00] that’s, pick the ones you like. I’m reading there’s a series out right now, another Spider-Man, Wolverine. Mashup a series. And it’s been fun. Partly because it, they’re doing a good job with the quippy text that Peter is saying he, I mean they, once he wakes up, he is now where am I?
And then they show a picture of him looking up and there’s steam. And he goes, oh, that’s where, and then the next one’s a two page spread of a T-Rex chasing him. He says, I’m in the Savage Land. And then they go somewhere else and he goes, what in the name of Aunt May’s dentures? And I’m like, I love that line.
I’ve gotta start using that. What in the name of Aunt May’s dentures so little. Those are the things I really like in a Spider-Man comic. I need that
Alan: The quickness, the Deadpool is good for that too. Deadpool a little bit worse, a little more insulting. Spider-Man was usually funny instead of rude,
Stephen: self-deprecating, yeah. And those are the ones I like the best. There’s plenty of that serious adult [00:19:00] storyline Peter and stuff, and people you know, love or hate that or whatever, but it’s the ones where you get that goofy Spider-Man.
Alan: hear in fact, remember she Hulk had a run by Dan Slot that was very witty. It was, it had a great sense of humor and great, like playing with comic book conventions, if you will. Not everything has to break into a fight, not everything, and just like I, I remember. That being a breath of fresh air because maybe it was a time when a lot of things had gone very anti-hero, very dark, and so it was nice to have I don’t know. The big plot for that was how is does, if she dies her hair, does it go away when you tar, when you hulk out? Things like that. I don’t even know if that was it. It was that kind of funny stuff of, yeah, I never thought about that. But like when the Hulk expands in his pants and Bruce banner’s wise, like then when there’s he better have a big drawstring to hold those things on unless it’s unstable molecules that read Richard had
Stephen: whatever. [00:20:00] I am glad to hear that she, Hulk is going to be in the next Avengers movie. They
Alan: I didn’t know that. Very good.
Stephen: that’s what I heard. Which I’m glad because I thought the series was fun. The show she had, it was fun, humorous, but so many people hated it because people wanna hate everything and not really give it a chance.
I’m so over people like that. I’ve got a buddy, he canceled Disney. ’cause he is oh, they’re too woke and they have an agenda and I can’t stand that. And I’m like, that’s good. Go ahead do it. You like, but we’re not talking about this shit anymore because I don’t wanna get so mad at you.
We never talk again.
Alan: It’s, it is, to me, it’s very funny when people talk about star Trek. And they’re like, oh, that thing went so woke. And it’s did you never watch the original
Stephen: was like, are you kidding me?
Alan: And it was always about infinite diversity and infinite combinations. It was find a peaceful
Stephen: Yes. I love stupid comments like that.
Alan: thing, you’re the don’t interact [00:21:00] thing.
And how did you miss, how did you miss all of that comic books and TV that were like, I dunno, they had good themes from the start.
Stephen: Yeah. My, my buddy is a big Star Trek fan, more than Star Wars, and he canceled Disney. I think the next time that comes up, I’m gonna say, yeah, I agree. Just like Star Trek, that is so woke. They have trans people, they have this, they have that. They have all sorts of things. That’s the problem.
That’s the next one. We need to cancel. ’cause I know he’ll be speechless and be like no. ‘Cause he still
Alan: Because he still loves it. Exactly that.
Stephen: Not all of it. There’s some, he didn’t like the cartoon, the lower decks, and he didn’t like Prodigy, which was the Voyager spinoff. And there’s a few other things.
He is not big on everything, but for the most part, he likes Star Trek, but you wanna really get him. Then you talk about this, the scene in generations where Kirk dies. He refuses to watch that movie and he threw his video cassette out of it because Kirk died, and he’s Nope, Kirk can never die.
And I’m just like, oh [00:22:00] my God you’re such a child.
Alan: I think I, this is a while back now, I taught at Baldwin Wallace, a course on comic books. Our next door neighbor, it was like a continuing education. It wasn’t an actual college course, but it was adult education. It ran for six weeks. So it wasn’t a nothing, it wasn’t a one-off like I sometimes do at the Comic Cons or Menon meetings or whatever.
So I really put together a curriculum over, here’s themes that have been in comic books and here’s the history of comic books and here’s locations in comic books. And they take you all around the world and had really good themes. I adapted some of my talks, but then found a way to tie it together.
And one of the things as you might imagine people taking. Adult education are more curious, more literate, more interested. They, it, so when I talked about these themes have been in comic books forever, what was Xmen all about? It was about prejudice. It was about the unthinking hatred of mutants by all the [00:23:00] people that are scared of them or hate them, or they’re, they’re gonna replace us.
All that kind of stuff. Homes appear and like they were when did, when This is from the 2010? No, it’s from 1963 and thereafter, and they talked about, remember the Serpent Society. The Secret Society in Avengers were the, the crazy John Birge, whack Meister, Klu Klux Klan things and that the Cold War had the spies and so forth played on the people’s fears to.
Get infiltrating in the United States by here’s how we’re gonna turn other people to hate people. As opposed to, there’s nothing really wrong with the rest of your citizens, folks. It’s all propaganda and a spy campaign. And when I talk about those things, they really were like astounded that’s been around all the time.
And yet that’s what I said is didn’t you watch Star Trek? Didn’t you wa there were any number of TV shows that really talked about, like you can’t and forever you can’t read To Kill a Mockingbird and miss the themes of prejudice.[00:24:00]
Stephen: why it’s getting banned now.
Alan: I don’t. I, so it was, it felt, made me feel good that I was able to have the whole comics are not just for kids type thing, that there really were these and as the drug themes where they really had the comics code authority and they had this huge list of what you weren’t, and Spider-Man, 96 or whatever it was, where they really published and. Went in stores without the cc A code, the seal in the corner, and they were, oh my God, what if sales collapse?
And when they were, and instead they understood that Spider-Man fans can handle it, that kids can read about this and that a mention of drugs is not an endorsement of drugs. What did they do? And then a guy that was like, gonna step off of a building in
Stephen: having that problem now. That’s the problem. Let’s ban it because it talks about slavery or yeah, but it’s not endorsing and saying, but let’s ban it. But the problem is they wanna ban it so we can hide that it ever happened. That’s the[00:25:00]
Alan: And how ridiculous, how untrue, how un-American to shy away from a problem and that we overcame it. You know what I mean? So what you’re saying is that you endorse it, you wanna make it as if this is okay. And you’ve seen that they’ve actually had things where people were quoted as saying, slaves didn’t have it that bad.
You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, to see something as ugly as that. And that reason you have to have those discussions is so there is a discussion, not one side or the other, deciding only the point of view that’s gonna be presented. So anyway, I for those science fiction, it’s always been speculative fiction about what’s the future.
And we’ve talked about this many times. You can get away with talking about really difficult today issues, but by putting it into the future where it’s a little bit absurd, a little bit beyond, what it already is now. And they say that’s so crazy. We can’t let it become that, oh, maybe we should stop it from happening and it won’t become that in the future.
It’s a cautionary tale, not a how to guide.
Stephen: The classic Star Trek episode.
[00:26:00] That be my last battlefield, I believe, where the one guy’s black and white and the other guy’s white and black. Oh my gosh. We’re nothing alike. And everybody else is what do you mean you’re nothing alike? How much more on the nose can you get with a story of the times?
But it passed. Whereas they even said, if this had been a drama set in New York with cops or something of the day, it may not have passed the sensors at the time, but because it was science fi, oh, that’s just science fiction. That’s been it’s benefit.
Alan: exactly. Yeah. Funny. I got a thought that someone put in my head that I would’ve otherwise rejected,
Stephen: we’re being controlled. That’s a problem. Get rid of them because they control us.
Alan: When they started to have let’s review the Dr. Seuss books and make sure that the bad ones are taken out of circulation. You mean like the books that every kid in the United States grew up on? And they all turned out okay. And it isn’t I know that he did anti-Nazi propaganda and things like that, but he also to read the nee.
The star belly niche has stars upon our, it’s so over [00:27:00] this tiny, ridiculous little difference. There’s huge cultural clash, like you were just saying about black white, black and one of the guys that meet in the, they’re walking towards each other and they meet in the middle of the desert, and they will not get out of the way.
They will not e either take a step and that doesn’t have any relevance to fanaticism and crazy idiots, like over the cliff, we go doomsday type stuff that when you’re seeing mutually assured destruction no, that can’t. The fact that authors have been cunning enough, and as like comic strips have had that in it forever.
Standup comics have talked about it forever. The fact that they bring it up and that now we just saw what’s going on with Colbert and Kimmel and you’re not allowed to talk about it. You’re not allowed to insult somebody. Oh, go to hell. Ember has no clothes.
Stephen: But it’s okay.
Alan: They always had a gesture for the king.
Stephen: Okay. For the other side to say that person just called us a fascist. Kill them. They need execute. That’s okay.
Alan: I continually vocabulary being twisted to become [00:28:00] other than what it ever was. That’s not what that word means. And yet stupid people like to say that’s what it means to me. You know what I mean? I’m just gonna use whatever I want and just pound on it until suddenly, literally and figuratively are the same, because I don’t know any
Stephen: You know what we really need right now, and I’m saying this personally and it’s not gonna fix things other than help with the stress of the situation. Please Bill Waterson, come out of retirement and make some more Calvin Comics please. He lives up somewhere near Nearest you. You need to do the, take this upon yourself to get him to come outta retirement.
Alan: I think I might have mentioned this one time before, so he lives in Cuyahoga Falls, and he really, he’s quite a recluse. And I had this. Such a fantasy that we were gonna have our regional gathering here in Cleveland area. Man, this is a long time ago, 2010. And I was just like I’m gonna write him the heartfelt letter and say, Hey, [00:29:00] come and visit with us.
We won’t tell anybody. It’s not a publicity stunt. It’s not, it’s nothing that’s gonna make you uncomfortable. You couldn’t find a crowd that’s gonna be more appreciative, more loving, and more understanding when you’ve explained things. If you just come talk to us for an hour and it just would’ve been what a wonderful thing, what a coup it would’ve been to have people say, Hey, we got a speaker coming in Saturday, a mystery speaker.
You might wanna go and then have it be that he walks in and people would’ve exploded with love. They, it would’ve just, and of course it didn’t happen. You know what I mean? I did that. We had a very cool speaker. It was the. Archeologist anthropologist that discovered Lucy, the farthest back human.
So it was still a significant cool thing. And yet, like I said, for a Mensa type thing, what a love fest that would’ve been, and it’s funny, occasionally he does poke his head up, remember him and Steven Pastis various different other comic book script writers. They’ll like they’ll [00:30:00] have a strip where he draws the strip for that week and you can tell his artwork, because all of a sudden there’s a dinosaur or whatever else it might be in there. And I love that he’s still aware of the industry. He just is. I had to get off that train. That was the rat race. The, I don’t wanna be about merchandising. I don’t want to be, that I’m, and now it’s a controversy because, is Calvin too bad?
He’s a little stinker kid. But before that, there was Dennis, the Meis, there’s almost been a little brats. Oh, oh I you’re right though. What a wonderful thing, man. Just that I don’t get it currently. A daily newspaper, whatever paper he appeared in, I would, there’s no way.
Hey, if you’re listening New York Times, Cleveland playing dealer at Chicago Tribune, anybody, if you carried Calvin and Hobbes, you would see your circulation like, a hundred topple because of no one’s gonna miss Calvin and hoes,
Stephen: Yeah. Yep.
Alan: of course, it’d be online. But anyway.
Stephen: Yeah. Honestly, if he came out with new [00:31:00] comics and it was like a subscription base, like a Patreon thing, I would be there. I would gladly be there, so
Alan: happy when Bloom County came back. There’s been a couple, Farside has never come back. And
Stephen: Gary Larson did do some, he came back a little bit. He made some new ones a while
Alan: yeah, like for a book or for a particular, like plates or something. It wasn’t a regular comic strip. It
Yeah. But what a delight that would be, just the, and I, there’s certain strips I’ve gotten, may we have, we talked about this before. Lao is one of those really cool strips.
It’s a little kid that loves monsters and his father is actually very understanding. So what a cool, maybe at your horror convention, there are like collected works of Lyo because they, it’s really a wonderful, a guy that has that talent for, I’m gonna draw a squid that fills the room and lie.
And in our friends, not, oh my God, what a terrifying, 20,000 leagues under the sea octopus, or whatever else
Stephen: heard [00:32:00] of that one. I’ll have to look that up.
Alan: Yeah. In fact, I discovered him in a Hudson bookstore. And and there were like three collections. It’s like, how are there three books of something that I’ve never heard of?
’cause I’m not reading a daily paper and yet I’m pretty aware of all kinds of cool new stuff like that. And so if please, if you get a chance, I don’t remember the guy’s name, the author’s name, but he’s a writer artist though. It’s him doing it. They’re really witty and it’s funny. At first I thought is this a little bit of a one trick pony?
No. His affection for drawing, learning how to draw a good werewolf and a vampire, and a, a creature from the Black Lagoon and the fun take of lyo, I guess there’s something, remember I, who a little kid in Farside built like a giant robot and then brought it to his science teacher. Hey, here’s my science project.
What do you think of this squid brain? Remember that it, he has had things like that were. You could tell kind of an homage to the things he grew up with that really made an [00:33:00] impression on him. And so they’re really good. Hey everybody who was listening, if you’re looking for a great comic strip that you’ve never heard of, you should try Lao And I’m, he always has a dash over the I so it wouldn’t be pronounced Leo.
It’s Lao, apparently. And hey, if you’ve never read I, I-Beam and him, I remember Sam Hurt. Oh my God. There’s collections out there. I don’t know that they’re still in print, but if you can find I-Beam, it’s really witty.
Stephen: Girl Genius is another very popular
Alan: Yeah, it’s full fogo. Exactly that.
Stephen: And Colin I’ve gotten him at Christmas, some old Congo. He now has the complete collected works or whatever of Congo. If you like Calvin, you should check out Pango. ’cause that was an inspiration besides peanuts.
Alan: Wal Kelly. Exactly. In fact, that was another, that comic strip regularly commented on the politics of the time
Stephen: Oh God.
Alan: these characters were direct, ripoff is not the right word. They were caricatures of McCarthy, they were caricatures of, father Kauflin and crazy stuff like that.
Oh very good stuff.
Stephen: it is less [00:34:00] cute cartoony peanuts than Saturday Night Live in a comic strip.
Alan: That’s really true. Yeah.
Stephen: Yeah. If you’ve never heard of Pogo, you should check it out. If you think
Alan: Yeah. Pogo, it’s Pogo by the
Stephen: Pogo,
Alan: Pogo
Stephen: Yes. Pogo. If you think comic strips are kids stuff, these are not, and it’s not me worth the soap opera.
Alan: It like it stood out on the comic space when you scanned and saw, some things look kinda like only cartoony or scratchy PO’s artwork was beautiful. Kinda like Little Nemo and Slumberland. You know what I’m talking about? Where it was art, it was just amazing. So that one is, about dreams and so to be able to create art consistently that kind of flows and morphs and isn’t reality, but it sure looks.
If there was a dream state, this is what it would look like, that it would have these little frayed edges of a plant becoming a grandfather clock or whatever like that. Very beautifully done. And that was by, I, you know what, it’s funny. I used to I, I should, [00:35:00] when I go to the Comic-Con and have the big quiz, I need to be able to spit these things out.
Stephen: You’re losing your jeopardy edge.
Alan: I’m, it’s, I, this aging stuff,
Stephen: Next you’ll be falling down.
Alan: so you
Stephen: So you mentioned horror stuff yes. Last weekend it’s Halloween season. It’s,
Alan: this whole month has cool stuff going on.
Stephen: So much. But the sinister horror fest over at the Midway in Warren has tripled in size from two years ago. Justin has really worked hard. When I visited two years ago when the first one, it was a small, fun little thing.
You could stay and watch the movie that night, but I’m like, yeah, I’ve seen ’em all. I’ve got things to do. I went home last year, I got in as a vendor and it was fun. And they had the movies and, this year as a vendor, there were two rows of us instead of just one. And they sold out of the parking lot to watch the movies.
And these are like old, older movies, [00:36:00] 10, 15 years and stuff. It’s not like the newest movie. It’s stuff we’ve all seen, but people wanted to see it on the big
Alan: Yeah. The atmosphere of seeing in a drive in with the little thing hanging, actually, do they broadcast the,
Stephen: no. It’s all broadcast on the fm. Yeah. And there’s some local talent. There were local people with movies that I went and talked to.
So Reese and I are adding a local cuisine to our horror lasagna episodes. And we,
Alan: What.
Stephen: yeah I was like you, I went and got a whole stack of local movies to, that we’re going to watch and then get the actors or directors on to talk to ’em about it and, do all that. This one, I was so excited about this one.
Look it’s a Blu-ray. It’s a professional looking cover. It’s a Christmas one. I love my Christmas horror. So I was very excited.
Alan: Silent night. Deadly night, whatever it is. Okay.
Stephen: Yeah. And it’s always fun that, that, going to that, it’s like. If you go to your family Christmas party, you try and talk comics, it’s very surface level.
Some base things. You go to normal people, you talk horror [00:37:00] movies. It’s all the big ones. You go here, I was giving them, here’s a list of our episodes. And they’re like, oh, I’ve seen that. I’ve seen that. I’m like, these are some of the most rare eary horror movies.
Alan: And
Stephen: everybody’s oh yeah, that was a good one.
I saw that. My people, so it was a good time, good fest. Other than the heat it was that, come on. I’m at a Halloween fest. It should not be 85 freaking
Alan: Especially when you’re out on concrete, you’re baking.
Stephen: Oh it was grass. ’cause we were in the actual drive-in area so it was grass. They do a trick or treat. So we had kids coming around, which is fun.
They did a pumpkin carving, they had laser tag met Lou Temple who was on Walking Dead. He was the psycho, one of the psycho killers with the face,
Alan: yeah. The skin of another person that they put on.
Stephen: Yeah. Right next to me was Artist Wan Emoto. He’s been down at Adams a couple times as guest artist. He set up next to me and he did a picture of the character that Lou Temple played on Walking Dead.
And somebody came [00:38:00] around and said, oh, I gotta have that. They bought it and then went to get it signed, and Lou was like, this is amazing, who did this? And they said, the guy over next door. So Lou Temple left his area, came around to visit Twan at his, tent and signed all the the prints they had of that.
And yeah. He’s
Alan: community that he noted that he said this. This is, we’re all here together. Let’s do this.
Stephen: Yeah. So he is from Mansfield, so he is local, but he is been in Walking Dead Devil’s Rejects with a Rob Zombie and a couple others. A big enough name without being Tom Cruise.
Alan: Exactly. I would honestly, the horror field is kinda like that. There’s people that are big in the horror genre, but they’re not walking down the street and everybody recognizes, maybe toxic, maybe Chucky characters they’d recognize, but they’re not necessarily, I don’t know who is big in horror. Lance Hendrickson made a whole bunch of horror that, and he’s, ’cause of his face, he’s very recognizable.
Stephen: the, there are [00:39:00] some, and yes, the horror community knows who these people are. Like, I’m looking through this, these local movies. I’m like, oh, that person acted in this. Oh, and they directed this one. And oh they were in this also. So they all tie together. They know each other, and you get a lot of the bigger conventions that get the Scream Queens in.
It’s we’ve got so and you get, if I show it to a lot of people, they’re like, I have no idea who that is. You show it to other horror people. Oh my gosh, they were in this, they were in this, they were in this. It’s a very niche community. But it’s great, being there and talking horror movies with people.
Alan: That’s very fun. I, that has been at comic book conventions a feature for a long time, the glamor section and the Scream Queen section, and just, I don’t know, I, it, I’ve had really just by knowing their stuff enough. That you can ask ’em about a specific thing. They’re so pleased.
They’re so pleased that it’s not just, gosh, we sure are B Man pretty, but that like you can say weren’t you Like, the cheerleader that gets killed with a rake in this [00:40:00] movie.
Stephen: And one of the actresses that was at the convention, I said, Hey, so I’m from a podcast, it’s horror lasagna and everybody loves horror lasagna. Oh my God, that’s great. So it’s memorable. And like we, we do episodes, but we’re looking at doing some local and getting people on, and she was like, oh my God, I’d love to do that.
Yes. And she went on Facebook, she liked our page, she shared several things. She’s made comments. And I’m like, great. That, wonderful. We ma we made a friend and we’re gonna talk to her about these movies
Alan: the appreciation. Exactly. It’s we’re 230 episodes in, so I don’t always remember what story is that. Did I ever tell you about Gloria Ann Gilbert?
Stephen: Doesn’t ring a bell.
Alan: I, Gary Ivco and I hung out in Chicago and.
Stephen: Oh, wait, yeah, the, she was talking to all those guys and came up, oh, hey Al. And they’re all like, who the hell are you?
Alan: Exactly that, for you to be the one that she says by name when everybody else is falling all over her. Just trying to, and it was just, boy, I sure puffed my chest up a certain amount. Hello Gloria, you’re so I’m your bow. Apparently [00:41:00] she was like sweet and pretty for being in horror movies and that was just like Gary and I had such a nice time being recognized,
Stephen: yeah, Lisa, the first one we’re gonna talk to that got so ex excited. She was on the Playboy’s sexy 100 in 2008. You can’t go wrong with that.
Alan: exactly. Exactly.
Stephen: But I’m excited. Honestly I know a lot of local indie stuff you don’t hear about because they are not super great.
But like Reese says, he is we watch a lot of that stuff. We watch Jeremy Gardner’s battery, which he spent $6,000. We watched La Casa Muda, which was one guy with a camera and a couple actors in a house, so the budget doesn’t matter, we really watch stuff and can evaluate it.
On the merits of whatever the filming sometimes special effects the story, the whole horror feel. So I’m anticipating that this will be a mixed bag. The local stuff, it’s like getting local [00:42:00] comics, not big enough to get published, but you might be good enough. I like you. Maybe you’ll get bigger, but a lot of times you get it and you’re like I see why it’s not published.
And, so I don’t wanna come across these all sucked. I wanna like them, but I love this one. It’s called Mr. Different and it was the director he created a special limited Skyway Drive-in edition cover. I was laughing. I’m like, okay, that’s pretty funny. You grabbed your kid’s notebook paper and drew a cover
And even better inside it’s a CDR.
Alan: He burnt it himself.
Stephen: Yes. So you know what I’m hoping that they’re really good and we enjoy ’em. We’ll see, I’ll give it a chance.
Alan: exactly, I always have, one of the ways in which I always talked about like talks at men events was, I don’t know that they’re like professional quality. They’re not the guys at coms where they’re talking to a room of a hundred thousand people and they’re snazzy, but what I love is they’re passionate.
Minutes. They really know their topic. And it might be that they, they haven’t gone to [00:43:00] Toastmasters, but once they get into what they’re talking about, you can tell the love and the interest and the smarts of it. You know what I mean? And so whenever someone’s doing that, Hey, I spent 6,000 bucks, but how many people like you would spend 6,000 bucks making a movie that you’re not even sure anybody’s gonna watch?
I think it’s cool to be that they’re that creative, that they have such a vision of what they wanna do, that they do it as a lark. They call their buddies over and say, Hey, you want to get killed in a horseback? There’s something very cool about those projects. And once in a while, as you sift through a whole bunch of draws and you get a gem.
It’s man, they really understood cinematography. They really had a great not just jump scares, but. Wow. The dread really built well. They knew about timing. They knew how to build a character, not just a cardboard cutout. I love that. I love when people are better than what you expected, and then you’re like going, you gotta watch this.
You can’t believe how much diff Mr. Dard is wow, I couldn’t sleep that night. It was so scary.
Stephen: Yeah. And one of my favorites, I mentioned Jeremy Gardner the battery, that’s one of my favorites of the last [00:44:00] couple years. And Colin just watched, he said, oh my God, that was so good. And I joke, I’m like, so it’s a zombie movie that has six zombies in it, and you’re like how could you have a that’s because it’s not a walking dead hoards of zombies and we’re fighting for our life.
It’s not that type of thing, so you, it’s like sci-fi horror definitely goes beyond the just scary stuff. I say, is this a, a popcorn movie or is it a good horror movie? ’cause
Alan: you go.
Stephen: most of the popcorn horror is not what I’m looking for.
Alan: Yeah. You know what I also like is there’s any number of directors that, it used to be that if you laid like a horror movie or a naughty movie, you were like there goes your career. And nowadays, remember what is it, 28 days later, a I think where the first of that series was Danny
Stephen: days, then weeks and just years.
Alan: exactly.
He’s done a lot of other great things. He did Slum Dog Millionaire, Oscar winning and stuff like that. And maybe did he do lock stock and two smoking barrels? I’m trying to remember.
Stephen: that the, I’d have to
Alan: It might be [00:45:00] him. So that one was the fir, like before zombie said, always been shaming in the graveyard. And why don’t you just outrun ’em?
They’re kinda like the mummy, right? Unless there’s so many you can’t get away, you just outrun them. His was the first one where they showed that it was like getting rabies that they’re fast and anger and they don’t stop. They’re unstoppable, and so that scene where. They’re, they haven’t discovered the zombies yet, and they’re in like a big roadway tunnel, if I remember right.
And they show the hoard of people come around the bend and running towards them. And it was really, oh my God, boy, why am I really terrifying? To be like this is something new. This is a new variation on this. And then World War Z did it even more so where they’re like actually building, like almost like ants, right?
Where they’re building to get over the wall. They’re willing to sacrifice themselves and stuff,
Stephen: I like World War Z. That’s a fun one. I do like some of the big budget popcorn movie stuff, but I’m [00:46:00] not always going that. The one I’ve watched, one of my favorites of the last couple years is presence. It’s a haunted house movie, but it’s not what you expect. It’s all shot from a different perspective.
So it’s a third party shoot viewpoint. It’s. Honestly, if you’re looking for a smart horror movie, that’s not just jump scares presence. I highly recommend
Alan: Excellent. Okay, let me
Stephen: Outta the last couple years, that’s probably my favorite movie. And then there’s been a couple slashers that I’m like, why do people go with Jason and Freddy and all those guys?
Because Hard Eyes was a very good slasher. Thanksgiving was an excellent slasher,
Alan: Alright another holiday. Depoed. Okay,
Stephen: Now, they are slashers, so it’s not that level of intelligent it’s running away from somebody trying to kill you. But I thought Thanksgiving and iHeart was a little [00:47:00] better
Alan: Yeah. Okay. I it’s kinda fun. I know this is horror lasagna territory, but I hope you don’t mind talking about it. I always love reading reviews where they like it follows. Or something where they talk about, I don’t watch a lot of horror movies, but this one really worked for me.
And they, it’s always an interesting review to try to say why it worked for them without having a spoiler, without telling you, oh, there’s the big thing. And so I Colleen doesn’t enjoy them as much as I but it’s I don’t want to have none. And so I try to find the ones that are really worth watching.
I don’t want to have to be one that, oh my God, there sure is a lot of blood on the screen. There should be something more to it, so I watched the Mind Hunter series, which is all about serial killers, but it was very much about like the profilers and like trying to get into the psychology of what would, what in the world would turn people into this, how alien do you have to be?
How broken do you have to be? How cunning do you have to be to do it? And avoid capture and stuff like that. You know that if you were a smarty, you’re like, Hannibal ate, he is [00:48:00] not a bad guy. He is so smart. He got away with.
Stephen: He’s misunderstood.
Alan: is misunderstood.
Stephen: That’s what, Reese has said all the time when we talk to people that the horror genre is like a meta genre because you actually get sub genres under it. Like warm bodies. That’s a horror love story. And then you get Tucker and Dale versus Evil, which I stayed to watch again at the Horror Fest.
Tucker and Dale versus Evil
Alan: It’s hilarious. It’s really good. Exactly. I’s
Stephen: So it’s a horror comedy. You get people that only think of Jason and Michael, and that’s the horror movies. There’s so much beyond that. Those, that, that’s why.
Alan: Simon Peg wasn’t like big for Mission Impossible in Star Trek. He was nothing. Nobody until Hey Man, frost, nick Frost. They did
Stephen: Sean of the dead.
Alan: Sean of the Dead. Thank you very much. I wasn’t listening. And then they went on to do the Corno trilogy, which is like.
Takes on the end of the World movie and the scream type [00:49:00] killer of a community. They’re getting knocked off one by one. And they love those movies enough that they said let’s do our best one of this kind, like you said, a sub genre of, or really well done,
Stephen: yeah. So Colleen is Irish, so you guys should watch grabbers. So it’s Irish, it’s an Irish movie set in Ireland and some pod from Outer Space lands in the ocean and it gives birth to this tentacle creature that starts killing people in this little town.
It’s Irish, they find out that it, that alcohol kills it.
So they all go to the pub and get wasted to fight off the creature. It’s as Irish as you can get,
Alan: That’s hilarious.
Stephen: a comedy. So that one I enjoyed also. It was funny. It was stupid funny.
Alan: Yep. Have ever seen Tremors.
Stephen: Oh God, yes. I was just starting to watch the whole series again.
Alan: honestly, the first one I, another one of those where, you know how much to the video store back when there was blockbusters in Hollywoods [00:50:00] and got this thing just I like Kevin Bacon, I like Fred Ward. And again, not only big records but big names. Exactly that. Yeah. They it really had a great sense of humor and it really had that thing of every time that the human beings get smart and think they’ve outwitted it well, the OIDs get evolve and get smart as well.
And so it was really a good battle of wits, not just chump, chump Trump and I
Stephen: On the two like stupid redneck
Alan: the goofiest of all the people Exactly. That. I, so there have been a lot of them, and I’m at Blockbuster and I get tremors for, and I go to the desk and I am joking with the clerk and I get so, do you think that this will what was my exact phrase? Fulfill the promise of the first three.
And he’s typing along and he just looks up like this and he goes, dare to dream. And that’s I share that story all the time because you could tell he was enough of a fan and he [00:51:00] got that what if that little bit of sarcasm and self-deprecation and that kind of stuff. But that, here I am renting it.
I’m paying my buck 50 or whatever it was. ’cause I, and by then, as bacon and Ward quickly dropped off the series and it was Grossman’s deal. Was the gun crazy? And also not Cloris Leachman, who was his wife? Another Reba McIntyre. Exactly that. And like that they actually, for them being gun nuts what do you need?
You need a guy who has the elephant gun. You need,
Stephen: So
The one thing with that particular series. But in general, people don’t understand horror sometimes. It really deserves a bit more of an academic study, I believe at times. Tremors is a perfect example. It’s an homage to the fifties giant creature, nuclear animals.
That’s what it is.
Alan: big ants. Big, exactly. Night is the giant, it’s,
Stephen: People watch it and they go, that was stupid, really? You think Friday the 13th is the epitome of horror. And this hit that note perfectly of [00:52:00] what the fifties horror was like. It was as goofy, but that it’s not goofy and the characters are over the top and the creatures are, it was a perfect movie.
I haven’t seen all the others. I’m planning to watch ’em ’cause I’ve watched all the hell risers all the Friday 13th, all the hell, Halloweens,
Alan: your October menu. Exactly.
Stephen: So I’m, I’m like I need a new series. Tremors it
Alan: really did enjoy all of them. Even if I’m aware that okay this really is pushing it further and further, but honestly, the fact that they played it straight, that it wasn’t, there’s all kinds of stuff that’s also it’s very ironic. It’s tongue in cheek. They know that this is unbelievable.
They even break the fourth wall and look at the camera. I hate that. Do it for real. Or don’t.
Stephen: but that’s the thing. People watch it and, oh, what drives me really nuts with especially movies like Tremors, is when people go, that just wasn’t realistic. Hello, really? You went to a horror movie based on fifties science fiction movies [00:53:00] and you want to say it wasn’t realistic ’cause that’s what you expected.
A documentary on alien worms that are seriously, I.
Alan: You know what’s funny? I think I mentioned Colleen and I had done not only Aficionados where it was the top hundred American movies of all time, but we also started to really follow directors that we wanted to see everything that they did. And some people stop follow movie stars, but the director is really the all tour.
He’s the one that really has the vision. And so a director like Hitchcock, you can tell a Hitchcock movie and that they’re relatively high quality, or you can see his development as a director from 1920s until the 1970s probably. And there really is a bunch of classics in there. So we watched Hitchcock, we watched Woody Allen, we watched The Cone Brothers and that kind of stuff.
And one of the guys that when I started to do that one point, they were hard to find, but maybe now not, was like Roger Corman or William Castle, where they specialized in kind of drive in, kinda like stunt movies. There’s like the [00:54:00] Tingler and they wire the seats in the
Stephen: stuff that Ulli would show.
Alan: like that. And so maybe that’s part of it too.
I’m not a big nostalgic, I am much more of a futurist, but it’s okay to go back to, when Stu and I had all those sleepovers and we watched Screaming Yellow Theater in Chicago, and it wasn’t these, Fen Gully was the host and it was indeed just terrible, stupid movies, but we just drank ’em up. We loved them.
And that’s part of what goes back to, is like the fifties monster movies. The someone’s getting chased down the streets for no good reason movie. You know what I mean? That kind of stuff. I’m curious, I’m sure they won’t hold up. I’m sure I’ll see them and say, man, I was such a kid, such a, you, there’s things that don’t work for you as an adult.
And yet I have this is, I remember seeing a movie called Horrors of the Black Museum. That image stays with me today. I think Michael Gogh, G-O-U-G-H guff go, was in it early. [00:55:00] There’s a scene where, so some. Evil guy is running a museum and he’s rigged things and a person picks up a pair of binoculars and holds it up to his eyes and needles come out and go in the eyes and that, oh man, that gave me the heebie-jeebies.
And I can’t pick up a pair of binoculars without remembering that. I didn’t know. Of course, that, that’s just the crazy stuff. Just like House of Wax. People don’t really get covered in wax and yet it what a, an arresting image that for the rest of my life I’m like, do I need to like check for hidden studs so that I don’t plunge things into my head?
It was I man that another one of those, would that pass any sensor today? That’s such a horrific image. It’s with me forever, man. Horizontal black museum. Wow.
Stephen: and so that’s, a good point too. A lot of what I like in horror is not the gross effects, not the body [00:56:00] count and gore, not the jump scares. I like the atmosphere. I like the goth, gothic story. I say that, but they’re not all gothic. But that sense of foreboding and fear that you get, like an Edgar Allen Poe story, those are the horror movies I like the best.
And then the supernatural entities or creatures. I like those type of things too, but not, it doesn’t have to show it that, that’s, I watched Lost, lost Boys again last night. I watch it
Alan: That’s on my list to see again, because it’s been a long time since I, that was, it’s Keith for Suland, it’s Lance Hendrickson all and, and Adrian Barbo. How can you go wrong? All kinds of good stuff in that movie.
Stephen: Lost Boys is a classic. It moves at a very quick pace. They don’t show tons of gore and blood, and they don’t focus on showing the vampires a lot. There’s scenes where it’s oh, this is the perspective of the vampire, but we don’t see it. You get that a lot. So it’s it’s like that anticipation.
They filmed [00:57:00] it very well. I like that. I’d rather have that. ’cause so often, even with today’s, special effects, you show a creature too much, it loses any effectiveness.
Alan: That’s really true. That, that, in fact, by the way, I think I just mi mixed between After Dark and Lost
Stephen: Yeah. Adrian Barbell wasn’t
Alan: really good. That’s exactly right. Is Lost Boys the one where they’re out on a suspension bridge and they step off into the mist and they don’t plunge. So it’s what a great scene.
How would an effective eerie image, wow. Okay. Okay.
Stephen: Keith Keefer in that one, Alex Winter from Bill and Ted,
Alan: Bill and Ted.
Stephen: Billy Wirth is in it, and I remember him because he was on some of the early episodes in the late eighties of American Ninja where they would do the, jump on this and bounce on this and, that type of thing.
And it was, he was so smart. ’cause they had a pit with a narrow beam and a, like a 10 foot round ball in front of it. [00:58:00] And the idea was you had to get across the beam. So people were like trying to push the ball across the beam and without falling off and stuff. They never said you had to do that.
So he walked up, pushed the ball in the pit and ran across the beam. And I’m like, oh my God. That’s amazing. Yeah.
Alan: That’s hilarious. I used to watch that Ninja warrior, American Ninja Warrior and like the import, where it came from, where they, I was always amazed at people can really do that stuff. They can balance on a piece of nothing hopping from thing to thing. The ones that always get me were like, they’re gonna, they’re going across, there’s like little metal things on the wall, so they’re hanging on with this knuckle, this part, and they just they weigh 150, 180 pounds and still they manage and then they manage to like swing up and grab a higher one. My body doesn’t work that way. I don’t have that kind of incredible strength. I guess it’s being a rock climber, or
People that
Stephen: and part of that physics wise [00:59:00] isn’t having to hang on and put your weight. You get that momentum going the, and you don’t ’cause it. The minute you’re slowing down and hanging on, that’s when you lose it. It’s that speed and you gotta keep going, but you gotta have the coordination to do that without missing.
Alan: Yeah. Because you could see them like start and visualize and then 10 steps and they are able to not. Try to balance. They just use each one of those things as the launchpad for the next thing. You’re exactly right.
Stephen: It’s like a Mario speed Run. Super Mario.
Alan: exactly. Another one that always amazed me was, so they’re gonna go up and it’s like a sloping wall and the wall is high, like not six feet.
Not even like dunking a basketball. It’s 18 feet, and yet they run up this wall and just manage to get a hand on there and then can, but how do you, like you could get out of prison that way you could get, 18 I hope I’m not exaggerating. I remember it being really high where it’s that’s three mes.
I’m six foot two. Could I really propel myself up enough to [01:00:00] get two more mes on top of it and get a hand up there?
Stephen: And that’s why things like that are much more amazing to me than like most of the pro ball players pick a sport, yeah, it’s impressive that you have skills and stuff, but when I see somebody doing stuff like that, then I’m like, wow that’s pretty cool. I,
Alan: exactly. You know what, when we had been on a number of years, they started to have here’s how the guys are training at home. And they’d show how like they live in Arkansas, and yet they dedicated their barn to being, here’s where they gotta simulate, where you’re gonna grab this rope, swing across, and then do the salmon ladder where you’re throwing your weight up.
And and they built it. They built it so they could get better at it instead of being surprised by anything. All those things. And then of course, we all just watch Wipe Out too,
Stephen: Oh yeah.
Alan: as, wipe Out is not trained athletes. It’s let’s get the gals from the office to put together a team and then they’re gonna try to get across this set of moving red balls and kill themself.
They fall into the foamy [01:01:00] water or they and I it’s like the Pratfall show, as
Stephen: so you remember Xbox Connect, which unfortunately died. I blame all the stupid people in the world ’cause I thought Connect was fun. Not perfect, but it had some good stuff. But they had some wipe out games on Connect and it detected your whole body, so you’d have to get in the right thing. You’d have to actually jump high enough to get over the swinging arm and
Alan: Yeah.
Stephen: that.
It was, that was fun because you would’ve two people at one time, so it, other than actually running, it was a lot like being on the show.
Alan: That’s interesting. Especially like that I was like doing, can I do a three foot vertical jump? Not anymore. There was a time when I like, I don’t know, back in college, I really could vault a fence. I could really clear a fence like running over it. And then I had to do where you put your hands on it and you swing over, and now I have to like okay myself.
Now I have walk around.
Stephen: Connect was always fun in this house because it’s an old farmhouse, so we only have seven foot [01:02:00] ceilings, so you get people six foot tall jumping and bam,
Alan: Okay.
Stephen: all the time and the jumping over fences and stuff. When me and Gina were together, the kids would always be like, oh, there’s something for you to jump over.
And I’d be like, alright. She’s no, you are not breaking something today.
Alan: I, there’s nothing worse, by the way, than the first time that you think I can vault that and you catch a toe. Boy do you go down hard with all your momentum going forward and yet your to stays behind.
Stephen: I am not, I’m not 15. When did this happen?
Alan: Oh man.
Stephen: Alright we talked about all this stuff. You had a list of things.
Alan: No, I this was exactly what we should have done. And Hey, what’s the relentless geek part of this? Because to me, a geek is anybody that sees theses American Ninja Warrior and says, I’m gonna build my own course. So if I get better at, I’m gonna swing along holding onto light bulbs, that I gotta have enough hand strength to bear my weight on this thing.
And they practice it up. There’s again, and we talked about with the movies, I like passion. I [01:03:00] like people. Like I’m just gonna give it a try. I wanna see if I can play that music, win that game, be in that movie, make a really scary scene and stuff like that. What’s the right blood, I think tarot syrup plus red dye.
I’m trying to think of what the real consistency of blood
Stephen: It depends on the time era, because as our cinematography changed, you had to change the blood so it looked more realistic When it was black and white, it was different than when it was seventies cinematography as opposed to nowadays. And now a lot of movies do an unrated version with extra gore that’s all like computer added.
They do the real thing, but they add onto it. And that’s been, we talk about practical effects. Me, Colin Reese, always practical effects, almost always beat the special effects from computers. But what they use the computers for a lot in horror is just an a little addition, not the actual thing.
Like Krampus, I don’t know if you saw that movie, which is a really good Christmas movie, horror movie, but [01:04:00] they said, oh yeah, we used computer stuff in that and we’re watching it. I’m like, that was all practical effects. No. What they used the computers for was outside the breath because they weren’t really in the cold.
Alan: Interesting. And you can simulate, that makes sense. That’s pretty cool. Okay.
Stephen: The blood has changed over time and as our materials have changed, we’ve gotten better fake blood and, stuff like that. They used to do like that bright red blood, that’s not what it would really look
Alan: It’s not all perial. Exactly. I remember they had, nowadays this happens with mu much regularity, when they first had the controversy about whether you should colorize old black and white movies. And the first time that I saw a horror movie that had been colorized, it was like it’s less scary when you was just black blood and it, you in your mind filled in what that would be like.
But now it’s garish, it looks fake because it’s too bright. Like you just said, that it’s not, everything is bright red like tomato blood. You know what I
Stephen: I definitely, if the movie was [01:05:00] originally black and white, no matter what genre, I want black and white. If it’s a foreign movie, I’d rather have the subtitles than have it dubbed because hearing their actual voices, the actors is much better I feel for the movie than some actor in a studio dubbing over English.
But that’s one of the things I’ve talked about with ai. We talk about all these applications and people are all up in arms stealing people’s work. That is one thing AI can do. You could take the an actor on some Japanese movie, take all their lines of audio, feed it into ai, translate it into English, and speak it back in English with that actor’s voice.
So you still get and better
Alan: in sync where it’s not jarringly
Stephen: the AI to ma to make the mouth move differently. We’re not quite there yet, but it’s like this close. That’s an application that I’m all for,
Alan: exactly.
Stephen: So
Alan: Very good. Okay.
Stephen: Alright.
Alan: If that turns out that Relentless Geere talks about Halloween horror, [01:06:00] that’s okay. That’s what this whole month is about. And the fall colors, I love pumpkins everywhere real quick. We went to Cincinnati Zoo on this weekend and they had a glow fest where they had 5,000 pumpkins around the place.
And we didn’t stay there late enough to see it, but just seeing that much orange everywhere had me so happy because I
Stephen: I bet it’s an orange fest.
Alan: It’s an orange vest.
Stephen: would be cool though. Now did they hand carve all the pumpkins or were they,
Alan: exactly. And they, so they weren’t all real pumpkins. Some of them were another medium, some kind of clay, but
Stephen: There’s a new thing I saw at Home Depot or something. It’s a pumpkin and it’s almost like that styrofoamy type material, but you can carve it and then it’s permanent, it stays. I’m like, that’s amazing.
Alan: Yeah we, I got two pumpkins for our front porch here. And what we’ve had the problem with in the past is the squirrels find them and they dig in from the top. So even if we’ve left them sometimes we’ve carved them. If you carve ’em, they’re inside and it collapses that much quicker [01:07:00] because they’re taking all the last of the guts and good bits out.
And then there’s no substance whatsoever holding the thing together anyway. So mean, I got two little orange sentinels, big orange sentinels. I got big ones, okay.
Stephen: Alright man,
Alan: It’s always a pleasure, Steven. Take care. Okay.
Stephen: Later.
You have been listening to the Relentless Geekery Podcast. Come back next week and join Alan and Stephen’s conversation on Geek Topics of the Week.
