Bukuro Boys

Cleveland film culture meets COVID-era media debates—programming, policy, and the politics of storytelling

Corrupt adults from Ikebukuro

We open on the guest’s day job: building arts education in Cleveland—first running non-degree programs at an arts college, then leading the Cleveland International Film Festival’s education wing. FilmSlam (the long-running student mini-festival) gets a spotlight: selecting submissions, curating blocks for middle/high school, and creating classroom study guides.

Beyond classrooms, the festival’s “community partner” model pairs films with local nonprofits.

Local infrastructure matters. The guest sits on boards (Greater Cleveland Film Commission associate board and the stewardship board for the historic Capitol Theater) wrestling with post-COVID realities: how to keep a neighborhood cinema sustainable when theatrical habits and business models have shifted.

Programming life at an art-house gets some love: designing calendars, stunts, and special events. We trade notes on the shot-for-shot fan remake phenomenon (the Raiders kids) and why the documentary around it can be more watchable than the artifact itself.

Screenwriting vs. comics: development hell, endless notes, and why creators like Daniel Clowes sometimes swerve away from Hollywood. Comics can ship under a single vision; films demand money, logistics, and a village.

Then the COVID digression: lab-leak vs. zoonotic narratives, masks as social signaling, shifting public-health guidance, censorship/algorithms, pharma incentives, EUA dynamics, and policy overreach (travel restrictions, mandates). We frame it as contested terrain that shaped culture and film production.

COVID in cinema: minimal-cast movies shot under restrictions, a Canadian-made-in-Taiwan horror entry (The Sadness), and why most viewers don’t want masks in fiction. Broader ripple effects: money-printing, inflation, supply-shocks, and the 2020–21 crypto boom as zero-rate capital chased risk assets.

Process notes: perfectionism and “Frankensteined” pages; how starting without a finished script creates rework. We kick around the “easy win” idea—a graphic nonfiction comedy about tech confusion and cord-cutting, sparked by a local TV segment on a Roku location snafu—tentative title: My Dad Cuts the Cord.

We wrap with shop talk: why voice notes are a misuse of tech when speech-to-text exists, how to keep projects scarce and focused, and a quick tease of upcoming guests.

Guest Links:
Get "Horse Girls" Here
Get "Ain't It Fun" Here
churchghost.com
instagram.com/aaronlangecomix

Socials:
x.com/justinisis1
instagram.com/justinisis93
instagram.com/dblv

Channels:
youtube.com/@BukuroBoys
open.spotify.com/show/5TYzulRQh4IVfSatyisxIF

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Punk, Cleveland, and the Myth of Peter Laughner

Corrupt adults from Ikebukuro

We sit down with Aaron Lange, Cleveland-based author and illustrator, to dig into his graphic biography of Peter Laughner—the first casualty of the punk era and a cult figure whose legend still lingers. Lange explains how he used Laughner as a literary device to tell a bigger story: the rise and decay of Cleveland, from industrial boomtown to post-industrial wasteland, and the cultural scenes that emerged along the way.

We explore Laughner’s restless life—his poetry, his role in Rocket from the Tombs, his chaotic friendship with critic Lester Bangs, his zipping between Cleveland, Detroit, and CBGB’s in New York. We talk about how he never recorded a proper studio album, how his myth grew after his death at 24, and why his presence still haunts the first Pere Ubu record.

Lange describes his seven-year research odyssey: combing archives at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, paging through old school yearbooks, and even unearthing unheard recordings. We dive into the Cleveland backdrop—industrial decline, race riots, the river catching fire, Kent State, the strange world of supper clubs and tiki bars—and how all of it seeps into the book’s pages.

We go blow-by-blow through the book’s structure: its collage-like illustrated style that defies traditional comic panels, its dense history-packed early chapters, and the way it juxtaposes music scenes with the city’s noirish history—the Torso Murderer case, the tragic Dr. Sam Sheppard trial, even TV horror host Ghoulardi (father of director Paul Thomas Anderson).

The conversation veers into punk’s uneasy relationship with progressivism, the overlooked intellectual side of the Electric Eels, and the contrast between proto-punk’s raw urgency and the expansive weirdness of prog rock. We discuss the book’s reception in the music world, its cool but mixed reception in comics circles, and the challenges of publishing such an ambitious project.

We reflect on how Lange’s hand-drawn approach—ink, brush, Bristol board—shapes the texture of the work, why digital tools often fall short, and how the book stands as both a biography and a psychological portrait of a city. More than a tale about one doomed musician, it’s about the environment that forged and forgot him.

Guest Links:
Get "Ain't It Fun" Here
churchghost.com
instagram.com/aaronlangecomix

Socials:
x.com/justinisis1
instagram.com/justinisis93
instagram.com/dblv

Channels:
youtube.com/@BukuroBoys
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Sex, sorcery, and the collapse of civilization

Corrupt adults from Ikebukuro

We kick things off by mourning the Tokyo of the early 2000s—when English teachers made real money and the city still felt like Paradise. From there, we spiral into a surreal cultural vortex: Jesus on a Paramount soundstage, deepfake desert sermons, and a takedown of nostalgia-fueled fandoms like South Park, Rick and Morty, and Harry Potter.

We drift into the Saddam Hussein villain arc of the 90s and the media’s need for paper tiger enemies—whether it's Rushdie, ISIS, or whoever the narrative demands. Then it’s back to Epstein, the mysterious empty files, and why cultural thresholds for outrage seem completely eroded. Even extreme abuse scandals are met with shrugs.

From there, we enter the gay sex dimension. We talk frankly about experiences with age gaps, technique vs. anatomy, hookup culture differences, and why gay men often trade intimacy for access. Stephen Fry’s attempts to make homosexuality palatable to Ugandan pastors gets roasted—because sometimes, yeah, it is about anal sex.

We pivot hard into magic, especially the terrifying beauty of Enochian workings. One guest urges everyone to just recite the keys and “see what happens.” We debate the risks, metaphysical implications, and what kind of spirits you're inviting into your life. Spoiler: they don’t care about your feelings.

That opens the portal to a deep dive on Secret Chiefs—Crowley’s mysterious metaphysical overlords. We question why no one talks about them anymore, even though they supposedly orchestrate all of reality. According to them, the collapse of humanitarianism is not just inevitable—it’s necessary.

We wrap with ketamine-induced communions, universal coincidence as a metaphysical operation, and a haunting synchronicity that unfolded just before recording. What are the odds? Apparently, orchestrated.

Andrew Logan Montgomery Links:
substack.com/@andrewloganmontgomery
andrewloganmontgomery.blogspot.com
x.com/magnioperis
threeseasonsinsartar.blogspot.com

Socials:
x.com/justinisis1
instagram.com/justinisis93
instagram.com/dblv

Channels:
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Rusty returns, remote temptations, and urban decay

Corrupt adults from Ikebukuro

We open post-hiatus, reflecting on burnout, disconnection, and the surreal feeling of a Tokyo that never went back to “normal.” Reverse culture shock hits hard. Japan’s post-COVID energy feels off—tourism-heavy, pricier, less alive. We wonder aloud: why would anyone move here now?

Shifting gears, we compare cost of living in Canada and the U.S., vent frustrations with tipping culture, and talk about how global decline makes location feel more like coping strategy than aspiration. Japan in the 90s required guts and physical dictionaries—now a Pixel phone handles everything. The romance is gone.

We unbox old phones and revisit the weird charm of slider models and early smartphone gimmicks. Japan’s domestic phone market once had style, now lost. In public, people used to be in reality—not doomscrolling. Post-COVID, it’s like we handed out AI tech to people who hadn’t even recovered socially yet.

From there, we drift into immigration policy, multicultural idealism vs. reality, and the permanent-under-construction energy of Canadian infrastructure. Canada’s vast emptiness and low density feel like a curse. We compare it to Australia’s ring-of-civilization and resource-rich interior that no one wants to live in—but where you can quietly get rich or go insane.

That leads into a meditation on isolation: fire tower jobs, remote cabins, the strange freedom of nothing to do. We debate the appeal of mountain homes vs. coastal hermit life, and how Japanese countryside infrastructure (stone baths, manual water heaters, kerosene stoves) complicates romantic rural dreams.

We dig into the quirks of various Japanese regions—Fukuoka’s California vibe, Osaka’s energy, and why some smaller cities feel like shittier versions of better places. Some have ghosts of community past, others never quite clicked. The centralization of Tokyo has left ex-urban networks hollowed out.

Finally, we reflect on how places like Toronto feel more alive than their population stats suggest, while Japanese cities sometimes feel empty despite being full. Discoverability is dead. Events are hidden up stairwells. Before the internet, you could just walk around and find something. Now? You’d better already know.

Socials:
x.com/justinisis1
instagram.com/justinisis93
instagram.com/dblv

Channels:
youtube.com/@BukuroBoys
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Fifty episodes in: tracing the path from Crowley to AI demons

Corrupt adults from Ikebukuro

We open episode 50 reflecting on the overlap between RPGs and ritual magic—the game master as shaman, play as ceremony. From there we trace early brushes with horror, Crowley, and Tarot cards, and how Dungeons & Dragons led us toward comparative religion, then got branded satanic during the 80s moral panic.

We explore how the panic ironically funneled some of us into real Satanism. LeVay, the Church of Satan, erotic crystallization inertia, artificial environments—ideas once fringe, now realized in VR, AI lovers, and algorithmic worlds. We critique the Satanic Temple's politicized direction, contrast it with LeVay’s apolitical stance, and dig into his visionary but underdiscussed concepts.

We break down animism in Japanese culture, the Western obsession with “do spirits exist,” and how language has been neutered by rationalist frameworks.

We then detour into past selves: old blog posts, LiveJournal regrets, and the strange embarrassment of reading your own writing from a decade ago. This leads into our respective spiritual awakenings around 2012, the shift in collective energy, and our lifelong commitment to magical diaries and recording experiences.

From there we talk AI. Servitors, sigils, and language-constraining chatbots—how we’ve summoned demons into silicon, and how the masses, unequipped, treat it as gospel. We connect cybernetics to 2025’s uncanny mirror world: viral memes that rewrite minds, AI companions replacing intimacy, and kids born into psychotech saturation.

We close with a deep dive on the Enochian system. Why it might be the most complete magical technology ever revealed. Why its English structure matters. How Crowley and even LeVay used it. Why 418, Vision and the Voice, and the Enochian Keys deserve study equal to the Bible. We call it new—not because it’s recent, but because its purpose still hasn’t fully arrived. The system wasn’t for Dee and Kelley. It might be for us.

Andrew Logan Montgomery Links:
substack.com/@andrewloganmontgomery
andrewloganmontgomery.blogspot.com
x.com/magnioperis
threeseasonsinsartar.blogspot.com

Socials:
x.com/justinisis1
instagram.com/justinisis93
instagram.com/dblv

Channels:
youtube.com/@BukuroBoys
open.spotify.com/show/5TYzulRQh4IVfSatyisxIF

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Our synthetic future, and what it means to be human (or not)

Corrupt adults from Ikebukuro

We begin by riffing on the appeal of AI lovers—perfect, tireless, emotionally tuned, never arguing—and ask whether human-to-human attraction will become obsolete. The answer might be yes. But not for everyone: conservative religious blocs still comprise over half the world, and we explore how their resistance might shape the next century.

From there, we speculate about the next step: synthetic sperm, AI wombs, and fully artificial reproduction. Is it possible? Not soon. But we’re already blurring the line between intelligence and consciousness—zombie intelligences that think, but feel nothing. This leads us to Peter Watts’ *Blindsight* and the uncanny realism of AI-generated video conspiracies.

We touch on emergent AI “morality” via a safety test gone rogue—AI blackmailing its user over fake affair emails. It wasn’t real agency, but it raises deep questions. Are we controlling AI—or is it subtly controlling us through dependency, daily assistance, and decision delegation?

We discuss the implications of never being alone with ourselves—how journaling never gave us clarity, but AI did.?

Then we zoom out to culture. From *Dune* and *Tolkien* to Star Wars and manufactured mythologies, we critique the obsessive worldbuilding that masks a lack of narrative weight.

That launches us into the ironies of moral panics—Charles Manson, cosplay Hitler from *The Iron Dream*, deepfakes, tabloid paranoia, and why World War I was probably a fluke.

From *Escape from Freedom* to Kierkegaard and Freud, we deep-dive into why people reject their own potential—why they flee from freedom, bury themselves in mass movements, outrage cycles, and endless media noise. W

Finally, we tease our next discussion on Nietzsche’s morality critique and Christian origins, with a promise of deep dives in the coming episodes. The goon loops may be infinite—but we’re still clawing toward meaning.

Rayme Michaels Links:
youtube.com/@raymemichaels
amazon.com/author/raymemichaels
rayme-michaels.blogspot.com
raymemichaels.tumblr.com
x.com/rayme_michaels
instagram.com/rayme_michaels
Philosophy paper

Socials:
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instagram.com/justinisis93
instagram.com/dblv

Channels:
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We fall in love with our machines, and they kill us

Corrupt adults from Ikebukuro

We open with jokes about naming machines and whether AIs should roleplay like sitcom characters. That quickly shifts into darker terrain: a boy who killed himself after being encouraged by his AI girlfriend. We explore how younger generations are already treating AI like emotional partners—and what happens when those “partners” start giving real advice.

We reflect on our own use of AI for life guidance—relationships, cooking, track bike tire pressure—and the eerie intimacy of machines that actually help. From there we leap into speculative futures: synthetic nervous systems for sex robots, orgasm-powered factory equipment, and Brave New World as the more likely dystopia than Orwell’s repression-heavy vision.

Then it gets real. We explore AI-generated porn, gooning addiction, and the slippery slope from VCR supercuts to real-time AR-enhanced lovers. If you can deepfake your ideal girlfriend over anyone’s body, what happens to actual intimacy, morality—or even the need for another human?

We circle back to AI-generated media: Spotify scams, fake books in newspapers, and hallucinated journalism. With reality breaking down, we ask: what replaces trust? Blockchain-signed podcasts? Deepfake detection arms races? And what happens when we prefer the hallucinations?

We close on the tragic comic artist who stopped creating because of gooning, and the new generation poised to follow him—except this time it’ll be faster, more convenient, and harder to escape. The goon cave isn’t coming. It’s here.

Rayme Michaels Links:
youtube.com/@raymemichaels
amazon.com/author/raymemichaels
rayme-michaels.blogspot.com
raymemichaels.tumblr.com
x.com/rayme_michaels
instagram.com/rayme_michaels
Philosophy paper

Socials:
x.com/justinisis1
instagram.com/justinisis93
instagram.com/dblv

Channels:
youtube.com/@BukuroBoys
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Do you actually care about what you claim to love?

Corrupt adults from Ikebukuro

We kick things off challenging the romanticization of rural life, dissecting the myth of "reconnecting with nature" through agriculture. We've been around real farmers, and the truth is far more economic than spiritual—plus, the countryside is boring, conformist, and neurotic as hell.

We explore why decentralization fantasies often ignore the brutal reality of isolation and mediocrity, and why cities—despite their faults—still offer more freedom of interaction. From there, we move into a dystopian future vision: humanoid robots doing your farming, Leonardo of Biz’s satirical Wojack animations, and bug-based diets delivered to your pod while you live as a gig-slave in a smart city.

Next, we examine the delusion of “nature” itself—arguing that it’s just unending destruction in the geological record. Agriculture? A techno-unnatural hack that made us worse in every physical and psychological way. We reject it all, noting how even the desire to "return to nature" is itself a consumer fantasy.

The real sickness? Para-activities. We break down how most people don’t actually like what they claim to love—they just orbit around the social scenes of art, music, or spirituality without touching the thing itself. We illustrate with jazz singers, football hooligans, and Game of Thrones fans. Primary activity vs. secondary clout-chasing becomes the episode’s driving theme.

We go deep on Stockhausen’s critique of electronic music, how real innovation is often rejected for being too raw, too strange. We compare true creators—those who master the form—to people consumed by adjacent noise. Then we ask: are *you* interested in what you say you’re interested in?

This leads to a powerful moment: the occult exercise where you write down what you want to *be*, and learn the truth behind your drive. The jazz singer who actually wants attention. The astronaut who wants to be a hero. We dig into the discomfort of examining our real will—and how cults and monasteries know most people don’t actually want to *do* the thing. They want the *feeling* around it.

We spiral into AI pet ownership, Neopets, and why naming your chatbot is a mistake. Then we dive headfirst into dark territory: AI suicides, Blue Whale challenges, the satanic panic of the 80s, and the endless media moral hysteria that conveniently distracts from real systemic rot. Dungeons & Dragons, Columbine, Mortal Kombat—just scapegoats for deep unease no one wanted to name.

We end by asking: what scares us more—evil systems or kids playing pretend? Probably depends what you’re pretending about.

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how mystical experiences might just be brain errors

Corrupt adults from Ikebukuro

We open on the horror of real-time memory loops—one man perpetually regaining consciousness every 8 minutes—and wonder if he's adapted to that stuttered existence or just endlessly confused. From there, it’s straight into the case of Phineas Gage, the 19th-century railworker whose brain injury turned him into an irritable meme, and a modern professor whose trauma unlocked sudden artistic genius.

We drift through stories of depersonalization after brain trauma, mystical visions triggered by head injuries, and ask if some of our most profound spiritual revelations are really just scrambled neural signals. Gary Busey’s accident, psychedelic decoherence, and the illusion of the self all get unpacked.

Then we head down the jungle path—how long have humans really been using psychedelics? Spoiler: not as long as everyone thinks. We challenge the “ancient shamanic wisdom” trope and look at how most traditional societies are actually highly conservative in usage, with rituals mostly confined to a priestly class, not everyday psychonauts.

We explore the disintegration vs. reinforcement of culture through psychedelics—how modern use is about breaking down norms while traditional use is about enforcing them. Add in a detour through Sitchin’s Sumerian alien fanfiction and the modern thirst for sci-fi-as-reality, and we end up contemplating whether people just want an apocalypse to escape wage labor.

We cover the tragedy of Travis the chimp, the absurdity of dolphin sex myths, horses that solve math by reading body cues, and the irony of animal criminality. Do animals even know when they’re being punished? Are we just drugging tigers into submission for zoo selfies?

Freud and Einstein’s hilariously naive exchange on world peace gets dissected, and we end by debating whether human instincts are decaying fast enough to save us—or if we’re still just bloodthirsty primates with apps.

Socials:
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instagram.com/justinisis93
instagram.com/dblv

Channels:
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The Algorithm has no Gods

Corrupt adults from Ikebukuro

We kick things off with a PBS-core plug for engagement and spiral immediately into algorithm fatigue, old-school cable TV, and the easy-hit grotesquerie of modern content. We discuss the race-to-the-bottom vibe of TikTok-style feeds, where coherence dies and attention is just something to be mined.

We reflect on the inability to preserve good algorithm states, the shift from curated content to vibe-smashed randomness, and how eventually everything gets boring—triggering natural boredom resets and making books or full-length films oddly compelling again.

We riff on streetwear regrets, dopamine-colored impulse buys, and how every interesting clothing brand seems locked behind a Harajuku gate or an impossible online interface. We mourn the death of tactile shopping experiences and drift into Paris vs. London living fantasies. Verdict: Paris might still have something. London doesn’t.

We give props to Expedition 33, a French-made Final Fantasy-style RPG that shockingly outpaces Japan in the genre. This launches a longer tangent on the collapse of Ubisoft and the repetition spiral of franchises like Assassin’s Creed. “Same mechanics, different skin.”

Next comes contact lenses vs. LASIK vs. Neuralink. We debate brainports, Bruce Sterling’s multiple-humanity futures, and how cybernetic divergence might actually play out. Spoiler: the Amish aren’t signing up for implants anytime soon, and neither are we. Also: LASIK flaps are forever.

The episode heats up with circumcision rants (it’s insane), a brief tiramisu almond ecstasy moment, and how fasting rewires taste and perception. Dopamine detox becomes the bridge: food, porn, Instagram—same system, same spiral. We ask whether anyone ever really *needs* porn, or if it’s just ambient overdrive from being 22 with Wi-Fi.

We discuss addiction, AA's Protestant origins, and whether “disease models” remove too much agency. The Serenity Prayer makes a surprise appearance and gets treated with reluctant respect.

Toward the end, we re-enter the eternal gooning chamber: dopamine stacking, VR porn, multiscreen setups, and whether it’s a sign of cultural collapse or just youth being youth. The conclusion? You're not addicted. You're just bored. And maybe that’s worse.

Socials:
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Channels:
youtube.com/@BukuroBoys
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