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RG 168 – Tiny Epic Holidays

I

Stephen: love you. I like the shirt, , nice shirt, got

Alan: spam wear. I think I’ve mentioned that Colleen and I have been all over Ohio and we ventured down to Johnson Woods, which is a beautiful stand of old growth forest that we take hikes in. And Orville is, it’s right near Orville. And Orville is where the I’ve already got the story wrong, the Smucker’s family stories and stuff like that.

And I, that I was gonna say. that Spam is one of their brands. But no, I think I actually got this at the Spam Museum, believe it or not, in Minnesota. So yeah, I don’t mean to start telling stories like, Oh yeah, back when that church was on the corner before they tore it down, you turn there, so anyway.

But people always notice the spam and everybody has something to say about spam. You know what I

Stephen: mean? How many times do they start singing?

Alan: Exactly. They got to give you the monkey Python thing. And I know they used to have like little straight out of the can and they’d stick some clothes in there and that’d be like dinner.

You know what I mean? Everybody has, I know that it’s hugely popular in Hawaii and in the far East, from what I understand, it really is almost like. Gourmet things are done with it, whereas I always thought it was one step above. Anything that the G. I. S. can carry the environmental conditions. You can eat meat.

You know what I

Stephen: mean? So I’ve had family members that think it’s the greatest delicacy to make macaroni and cheese, put spam on top and put spam

Alan: in it. Exactly. By going to the spam museum, they had a wonderful history of it that it really was developed for the war, something that for sure would not spoil.

And they found a way to yeah. Cook it and then under pressure, see that in cans so that it would not, otherwise meat starts to rot and go gamey and stuff like that in days and they found a way to make it that our troops could eat meat and keep their strength up, you know what I mean?

Stephen: Yeah, because it’s questionable what meat they’re using and they put so much salt and chemicals in it that it’s gonna last as long as Twinkies. If I remember right. Oh, did I die? Okay,

Alan: sorry, you’re freezing a little bit. Oh, really? Yeah, you’re freezing

Stephen: a little bit. No idea. They actually, at

Alan: the museum, make a big point of saying it really is mostly pork shoulder and like identifiable animals.

It is not, three quarters pound varmint that we happen to get off the road or something like

Stephen: that. Which actually may sell well in some parts of the country.

Alan: It’s funny, I don’t think we’ve talked about this before. It’s worldwide. And they make different kinds of spam based on the culture so that you’ll get like in Hawaii, it probably has like pineapple combined with it, but if there’s a spicy version and it Thai flavor, Mexican flavor, Australian, maybe there’s some Vegemite involved, whatever else it might be, but they have two, three dozen different spams to try.

I actually got, they had little spam singles, a single slice of spam in a sealed pouch. And I bought half a dozen of them just ’cause I was really curious as to what is ...

Stephen and Alan, who are discussing various topics relative to their interests. There are detailed discussions about the series “Loki” and other Marvel movies, as well as the TV show “Doctor Who”. They also discuss the value of veterinarians, personal experiences with pet health issues, and the cruel behavior of online critics. They touch on language differences, cultural appreciation, diversity, and social prejudices. Lastly, they discuss various games including Fallouts on Switch, Doom Patrol and Control by Remedy among others. Towards the end, they express their interest in prog rock keyboard and have a brief chat about potential Christmas gifts.

The script titled “DW 166” is a casual and in-depth conversation between the speakers Stephen and Alan. They discuss a variety of topics including the application of AI in music, referencing the Beatles’ new AI-assisted song. They navigate other themes including digital media ownership rights, the evolution of drug laws, and the impact of marijuana legalization. They share insights about their lives, discussing coping mechanisms, personal health, the importance of self-awareness and understanding one’s emotions. They compare their experiences on self-publishing and editing for precision. The script represents an extensive chat that spans multiple topics and showcases their interpersonal dynamics.

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Stephen: Okay. All right. There we go. I think I

Alan: have the last same backdrop as last week, but you know what? I love this one. It’s pretty. Okay. No, I’m boring. You already got a cool Halloween shirt on and everything.

Stephen: Let me pull this out. Small town monsters. It’s a, when Colin was doing all the cryptid stuff, he’s a local guy that does documentaries on cryptids documentary movies.

And at the time he had three or four and we helped kickstart the mothman one, et cetera. And now he’s up to a dozen or so, and he has like production quality has gone up in the, He’s definitely gotten better over time. Seth Breedlove from Small Town Monsters. This was a t shirt they came out with years ago and it was like limited edition.

And so it’s right away, it’s like calling and then he’s yeah these are the last three or four I’ve gotten. I’m like, okay I’ll take one, it’s funny.

Alan: It’s, I love having t shirts that nobody else has, mass produced, I don’t know, bum equipment or something like that.

And I, My, it’s funny. My dad used to go to business conferences and I would always ask him to get me a t shirt because when you get a t shirt that has captain port a potty on it, nobody else in the school has that one. Also, we went on very cool vacations growing up. We did a trip to Europe.

We did a trip all across the United States, the Pacific impact. And when you get something from like the Grossglockner in Austria, nobody else in Elk Grove village has that. The corn palace, which I wore proudly, out of South Dakota. I had a lot of band t shirts and, everybody has the Led Zeppelin or the Genesis or whatever from back then.

But it was very cool to just have, where’d you get that? Monkey Pythons Flying Circus before it was popular, that kind of cool. Yeah.

Stephen: Well with the Easy rise of drop shipping and all these companies that you just throw up a logo and you get t shirts, and so many people are trying to sell t shirts.

The problem most people are doing is, oh, that’s a great saying. I’m going to make a t shirt of it. You and 300 other people said the same thing. So you get the same sayings. By 5, 000 people, and then you get people going this doesn’t actually work because I didn’t sell anything.

That’s because you’re one of a thousand. How do you stand out? So something like this, like you said, it’s unique, people probably aren’t searching for it. Oh, what’s the Halloween special t shirt from small town monsters. Yeah. Unless they did something new every year, it’s just.

People just, oh this is quick and easy. I even know there are sites where you can go to them and pick a phrase and it’ll give you a some AI generated thing image. You grab it, put it on teacher. It’s don’t it’s don’t you realize there’s three million other people going to that website buying the same phrases?

It’s like when I worked at Target And stocking the shelves Guys would line up. Oh, it’s Tuesday. It’s truck day That’s when the toys come so they come rushing back in the toy department and they buy up all the Star Wars figures going Yeah, this is gonna give my kid their college tuition in 20 25 years, you know because Star Wars figures are worth a lot and it’s yeah The ones from the seventies that nobody got, but if you can buy it at Walmart and Target,

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STephen: Alan, good morning.

Alan: Okay, let me get my volume up a little bit here so that I can

STephen: double check mine. Hear our

Alan: conversation. There we go.

STephen: All right.

Alan: Morning. Good morning. How are you? Once again, I’m all about the fall colors. Helene and I have a trip to Kinswell Bridge planned for later this week. I don’t know if you’ve ever been out there or not, but yeah, old place, a former trestle bridge that Lieutenant Prenado came through and Broke it, but some of it still jumps out into this valley.

And this valley is an amazing display of fall colors. It’s like a bowl of tricks. It’s so colorful. So we’re doing that.

STephen: You have to go camping in the Kinsu dam area with my grandparents. Ah,

Alan: very cool. It’s it’s probably three hours away. Over by Pennsylvania, it’s right on the Pennsylvania, New York border and it’s it isn’t just getting there.

The entire drive is going to be beautiful. Once you get into the foothills of the Poconos and the Adirondacks, I guess that’s still a bit further east, but it’s very hilly all through that area and just around every corner. There’s a new Vista and wow, I love it there.

STephen: Yeah. All right. So we have a list.

Where do we want to start? You want to pick a topic first, or we just want to jump into something?

Alan: Let’s see. I’ll, biggest on my mind is we just saw a fantastic comedy show, Colleen and I really see a lot of comedy. And so it’s not like we’re the total experts, but after a while, you develop a taste and one of our top 10 of all time.

And that’s out of, Hundreds of shows, Jimmy Carr. He’s a rich comedian and has been maybe more known in the United States over the last 10 years, probably has a 30 year career. He’s like Emo Phillips in terms of not the odd delivery, the perfectly written jokes. They’re just gems. Each one of them so well written.

The perfect parapro, IANS, that’s what’s a fancy term for where you take like a left hand turn, it’s a walk down the garden path. He has the perfect setup line, and then the next line is not only funny, but wonderfully surprising, and he does it again and again. And it just, it’s such a mental workout to keep up with him,

And

STephen: It’s not the typical, yeah, not the sound disparaging, the more lowbrow or, the easier to access comedy, exactly. You gotta really stop a minute and think about. Yeah. And he’s

Alan: He’s uses all the language was not that he’s only clean. He’s actually has some great vulgarity, but it’s not just another guy saying motherfucker.

It’s I especially love the fact that. He like one of our common complaints about comedians nowadays is they repeat themselves a lot. They keep talking to the audience about how maybe they’re not getting it enough that joke should have gotten a bigger laugh. And if I was like earn my laughter I am so ready to laugh.

And if you suck. If you take your time too much, if you are continually. Rating me like what I want. And he like Steven, right? Every single joke is good. And so you get a ton of comedy in a two hour show as compared to someone who takes their time,

Overview

* progstock

* scary movies

* Doom guy

* gen – v series

* final netflix dvd

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lan: That.

Stephen: Okay, nice

Alan: shirt. I got to see it in the full glory here. There’s the Prague Stock shirt. Yeah, it’s got, because Prague is dinosaur rock. And so they’ve really embraced the theme and have I only have this year’s, it’s been going on for six years now or something like that.

And each year has had various different dinosaurs, jamming dinosaurs, enjoying the music, whatever else it might be. So whoever they got doing these is really good in the detail and the coloring and stuff like that.

Stephen: Yeah. Yeah, me and Casey have been working on some t shirt ideas and stuff. So I came up with a great one that I want to put out.

So we have tons of Halloween movie franchises, that like tons of movies. So I want to make them that say I saw all the Halloween movies and still had to get my own lousy t shirt.

Alan: That’s pretty good. Okay. It’s amazing. I really have sequels are not everybody’s favorite because That, they often tend to trail off in quality and stuff like that and once in a while there’s a revival where the original people return or someone who really gets what made the original special is able to embrace that and stuff.

But most of the time it sure just seems to be cashing in right you know so, but what’s interesting is because I’m a serial fiction addict. I like that. You don’t just get a two hour dose that story and you’re done. It’s cool when people can say what would have happened after that before that?

What happens if, Frankenstein meets the wolf man and whatever else it might be. So definitely. The Hellraisers have they started off as, I don’t know, gothic horror, and then they went into space, and then and, Jason meets Freddy,

Stephen: jason went into space too, in the future.

Alan: That’s right. It’s cool. Sometimes they really they strain it, and they’re just trying to say I have admired, for instance, the Saw franchise, Admired is not the right word. You know what I mean? Because they, because, but I like that they keep on making it mysterious that you don’t know, like with a spoiler alert for the people who’ve only seen the first nine, who’s going to be the next acolyte that was first was trying to catch the bad guys and then said, yeah, but I got a couple of people I’d like to dispatch to where, maybe that’s the kind of justice that we need.

I can only put them in jail this way. We can tear their head apart, whatever else might be going on there. They’ve actually, And of course, all the way back to when I was young, seeing like the abominable Dr. Fibes, there’s something crazy interesting about death traps, people that come up with a way like, I’m going to have this poke somebody’s eyes out.

It’s funny. Nothing. Those are my most. Perfect fantasy movies, because I would never do anything like that in real life. And yet it’s terrible. Sometimes it’s just grotesque. Sometimes it’s wish fulfillment, where the bad guy really gets it. You know what I mean? They really get trapped in a trap, maybe even the trap that they intended for others, they get trapped in it instead.

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Stephen: All right. We got the great wall going on there. Nice colors. I thought you went to Toronto.

Alan: Yes, but I wanted, I was looking for the most fall that I could get and this was a nice orange. I’ll tell you driving up to Toronto not as much color driving back down already. Wonderful orange, yellow, red just we, Colleen and I have a couple things planned now to go to.

There’s a place called Pine River Gorge. If I remember right, it’s in the middle of Pennsylvania. That is their Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania. And what really matters, of course, is it has beautiful fall colors and so does Shenandoah and so does upstate Michigan. So we have a couple little forays planned, probably just day trips, but just while.

While this is happening, I really love these colors and these displays and stuff like that. And there’s a famous quote along the lines of, autumn is where a second spring where every leaf is a flower. And that’s really, I just love it. I love there’s something very cool about as you drive along.

Seeing like the deep green of a conifer against the brighter colors and especially where it’s a mixed forest. So it’s really like a cool dotted random pattern. It’s just a burst of color like this.

Stephen: Well, on our property, we’ve got mostly pine trees. So a couple of the leaves turn yellow and fall, but most of them are stay green.

Alan: Okay. We actually seek it out, Lakewood is a big tree city. I think it’s one of those that is a tree city, USA, whatever that designation means. And so already probably a month ago, we already had one tree in particular. There was a big fireball of red. It’s I guess fall is coming early.

And so

Stephen: anyway, fall has arrived. All has arrived and

Alan: do we talk about this last time real quick, they have, they’re so sophisticated now with the data that they’ve collected and weather maps and past history maps that they actually, you can go online and where they show like the line of really.

Peak leaf post leaf kind of descending through the United States. And then there’s places where because of elevation, it’s earlier or later. And I just love that we can actually pull that map up and say, this weekend or this Wednesday, sure looks like going to Chautauqua in New York is a great idea.

And the fact that And, I don’t know, when I was growing up, he just knew October, you go around Illinois and Wisconsin and know that it’d be pretty, but you couldn’t really have this perfect pinpoint accuracy in terms of location and timing. And it’s another way in which computers have made the world better, that’s just so nice to have this knowledge. So anyway,

Stephen: yes, so let me start off. I ran into our friend, John Bruning, who’s been on the show. Yeah, he’s been on my Discovered Wordsmith. We were both at an author event together, which was a pretty cool event in a lot of ways. But shout out to John.

So the first thing he did, he says, I have a bone to pick with you. Okay, nice to see you, John. And he goes, what is this? I get on your guys’s show. We’re talking about. Pulps and we talk about new pulps and I say my books are longer and you’r...