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Every Father's Day, I usually share a storytelling event story I did a while back, about my dad. The story I tell there is one part of three, from a thing I wrote, shortly after he died, called "Three Pictures of My Dad."

But this past year, over the pandemic, I've been sharing stories with a friend and I find it to be a really good thing to do. To share stories, as people.

And it occurs to me that I should maybe "tell" the other two pictures, there in that work. So here they are.

If you have the time, I'd absolutely love to know that you listened to them, to know that the idea of Joel Dobbin managed to animate a bunch of thoughts in the world, these 12 years after he left it.

If you knew him and loved him, I hope these little "audio portraits" bring back the reality of him to you, for just a little bit. You can kind of see him, there in your mind's eye and hear his voice and identity assert itself in the narrative. Trust me, it's always nice when he "shows up" like that.

If you DIDN'T know him, but love me, then please-- listen. By the end, I'm pretty sure you will love him and wish you did know him. He was a really good dad.

Happy Father's Day, everybody.

The podcast WILL ride again... maybe! If it suits Keith's fancy. In the meanwhile, to tide you over, here's a bonus bit of content: I recorded an audio-book style version of a story from my book OF LOVE AND SNACKCAKES for a friend.

Longtime listeners will remember this as the story of "The Polka Dot Ninja." This is the more extended telling of the tale.

I'm putting it up here so they can download it on Spotify for a plane ride, which is a roundabout way of getting past the iPhone's fucked up inability to download and store mp3s natively. If you're still subscribed to the podcast, this means you get it, too. All for the low, low price of FREE.

Slaughter the fatted calf! Light the celebratory bonfire! Punch a nun full in the face! Keith "America's Favorite Boy" Field has crafted a purchasable piece of podcast merchandise that you, the loyal listener, can (AND SHOULD) purchase. For less than the price of a steak, a little bit of capital H History can live in your house: TRUCK ZOO BLOOD WAR 2000, the most fun you could have with tiny wooden toys.

Also in this episode: listener feedback (sorta). And if you thought the crisis hotline idea from last episode was perhaps ill-advised, hoo-boy. This episode features the introduction (and hopefully the last appearance) of a certain figure from the fictional Steadman College. It is... WHAT IT IS.

What's in a name? William Shakespeare seemed to think "not much," in that a rose by any other name would still be rose-flavored. But he was kind of a dick who wrote a play about an evil Jew, hellbent for leather on carving out a section of Christian flesh from the belly of a guy who owed him money.

We tend to think in more Old Testament terms; that the power granted to Mankind was the power of naming.... And the power granted to America's Favorite Boy, Keith Charles Field, is the power of NICKNAMING. Like a carpenter whose own home is left unmended, Keith reveals his secret longing for a true nickname, and the hateful ones saddled on him by classmates.

Also: The delightful casual racism of the 1960s DICK TRACY cartoon, the dread fate of a criminal midget of an indeterminate name at the hands of his grotesque bride and the worst idea for a crisis hotline to ever be recorded in audio format. IN THIS EPISODE: You will hear a genuine and real-life, honest to goodness, THREE'S COMPANY Jack Tripper style **SPIT TAKE** as Josh makes the ill-advised move to sip a cold beverage while Keith is in full swing.

Laugh along with Josh and Keith as they lose it, Harvey Korman/Tim Conway style, but also cry... cry tears for a baked midget.

On the nature of expressions of grief or mourning for strangers, both genuine and performative, Josh and Keith have differing opinions, but manage to find some common ground.

In this episode, find out who Josh hates most in all the world of celebrity, and shriek in terror at the continuing and unrelenting evil of Hector Boyardee. Also: WAKE IN FRIGHT, the movie you've never seen, and never should see, but you probably will see now, even though I just clearly told you you shouldn't see. Keith sees and was disappointed with the new BILL AND TED, which he calls a "corpse parade."

This episode has it all: Kangaroo slaughters, Wacky Packages, odes to fallen heroes of the past including John Saxon (who never gets as much love as he should) and Donald Pleasence, who really wanted to kill those Witch Mountain kids. Josh and Keith discuss COBRA KAI, binge-watching, being covered in mites, celebrity break-ups, and much, much more.

Join us, won't you?

The great poet Robbie Burns once said that the best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang-aft-a-gley. Which is a classy Scottish way for saying "get fucked up."

Here's a little peek behind the curtain into how the magic happens at THE TIME HAS COME studios: Josh and Keith will hang out for a bit, get the computer set up to record, and go over a loose plan of a topic to eventually settle upon for the episode, so that it has some sort of thematic arc to it. From there, it's a freeform conversation that goes where it goes, with a mind to somehow wind it's way topic-ward.

That was the plan for this episode, but that plan gang-aft-a-gley'd in the most delightful and horrific way. Equal parts delightful and horrific.

You see, for this taping, the whimsical character of Little Boy Boyardee, the waif who would become chef to a nation, Hector Boyardee, hailed and lauded as a hero for the ages in our previous episode, took a dark and unexpected turn.

GASP! in amazement and surprise as his villainy is revealed!

CHOKE! back tears of laughter and revulsion!

MARVEL! at the sinister and reality-bending nature of dastardly time travel and skulduggery!

SPEND! somewhere around an hour and forty minutes exploring an episode we can only call....

HECTOR, NO!

We are more than the sum total of what we consume and our identity is not predicated on that which we reject. This is a lesson some years in the making for Keith, but it is a trap we all fall into very often. Crafting a persona based on hating a thing that others like, or rejecting THIS because you're all about THAT. But old habits die hard.

Being aware of Keith's new-found and more open perspective, Josh made the mistake of trying to encourage him to watch HAMILTON. It did not go well. Still in all, this episode finds that RISK is indeed our business, as the world's newest, oldest Star Trek fan is revealed. Not that it is revolutionary for two aging nerds to opine on all matters STAR TREK in a podcast, but we come at it from what will hopefully be a unique angle.

Also this episode, a hero emerges from the shadows of the past, to offer guidance and light the way through these dark and altogether uncertain times so wracked with division and contention. He also is very concerned that you do not contaminate your canned pasta with sex-juices. It's a whole thing.

These are the podcast adventures of the recording project TIME HAS COME. It's two hour mission... to explore new and unexamined perspectives... to seek out new ideas and build new things... to NOT MIX JIZZUM WITH BEEF-A-RONI!

In a world gone mad, two old friends reunite in the world's sweatiest apartment to record a podcast for your wicked amusements.

Keith is back from his sojourn in the spiritually barren wastes of South Dakota, where he underwent many a dark night of the soul, and emerged battered, beaten and robbed of most of his worldly possessions by a pair of Sioux Falls grifters. Battered, beaten, but not broken. And that's kinda the point of this episode.

It's about emerging from damaging circumstances with a hard-won understanding and acknowledging one's own flaws and complicity in those circumstances. But more importantly, it's about emerging. It's a new beginning. And also about the copious amount of perspiration surrounding Keith's nether regions as we spoke. There is also a delightful story of a pie.

The time has come for more podcasts. Watch this space, but also, listen to this episode. More to come!

here are moments when you are aware of a gestalt reality, but unaware of the specifics of what is at play. One of these moments came when Keith arrived at my door, hailed my dogs with his customary greeting of intoning, “WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOU? WHAT HAVE THEY DOOOOOONE?” and began speaking to me.

I knew only that something was amiss, something was off, something was different. I did not know what the something was. It itched at me, tickled like a sneeze that threatened, but refused to arrive. His face was his face, but it was also somehow, in some fundamental way, NOT his face.

Then it hit me…

He had no eyebrows.

This is the story of how that came to pass. And also the story of old arcade games, what they once represented and now represent, and the vast chasm between those two meanings.

Here's what I think is important about this episode, in a "One to grow on" kind of way.

In a time of instantly mobilized outrage on the left and right, where disagreement equals offense,and the idea that someone may hold thoughts, sensibilities, world-views and perspectives in their head that do not comport with yours is considered painful and hurtful, this conversation stands as testament to a completely opposite idea. The idea that friends-- real friends, who love and care about each other-- can honestly hold totally different viewpoints, and not be friends *despite* this, but in many ways, because of it.

There's a childish, parochial stance, spread like contagion on social media, that those who don't instantly tow whatever line you hold must be THE ENEMY and mocked, meme'd, blocked, called out, unfriended and all that. It's an 8th grade lunchroom clique mentality. We at The Time Has Come don't subscribe to it.

Conversation and debate and exchange of views is what people do.

So long as they agree on the essential, fundamentals in life: That when you encounter a lolling eyed crazy mogwai, you MUST snap the little thing's neck.