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Overview
Magazines, remember those? We talk about reading magazines and how that has changed. We talk comics and books – genre’s which are all over the board.
Recommendations
Collectorz – https://www.collectorz.com/
Pulpfest – https://pulpfest.com/
Torchwood – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torchwood
YouTub
Transcript
[00:00:00] Stephen: Oh, we’re on the tar, huh?
[00:00:03] Alan: Exactly. I think vintage too. You know what I mean? I’ve lost track of which exact doctor end season and so forth. But I discovered I, I keep finding cool backgrounds and I’m, I try to, I don’t know, just each time I try to wear a spice it up for for our podcast.
We’re a different different background. Here’s the rock and roll hall of fame t-shirt for today. Nice
[00:00:24] Stephen: the rock. There we go. I’ve got first of all, there’s a real cool, humble bundle right now that has all the modern doctors comic books series.
[00:00:34] Alan: And you saw that as a matter of fact.
[00:00:36] Stephen: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I was looking at that. I’m like, man that’s a pretty good deal for 25 30 bucks. But I finally have my office. That I can get moved into. It’s an old bedroom. That’s getting converted. It’s separate. And, but, oh my gosh. Not there yet. I got a really good quiet AC, so that’ll be nice.
I got nice background so I can use backgrounds again. It’s just plain paint, but man, I had to crawl through the attic over 50 year old stuff, stored up there, dust and dirt and mouse poop and Cowe and I CA I had, I was like dust covered all over. I’m doing the like walking and puffs of dust are coming off of me.
Wow. So it, I haven’t gotten everything moved. That’s why I still have the same background but you know what I was thinking of doing, I was thinking of taking a picture of this and using that as my digital background.
[00:01:35] Alan: see that be funny to just, this is how it’s always been yeah. So how.
You take a picture of the attic, and have that be this is where my office is. Yes. As I’ve mentioned I’m actually up in the attic, I’m on third floor of our house, up in Skynet. And it, I, the background is me at my desk surrounded by stacks of books.
And however, I conduct my business, it’s getting crowded, I’m getting a little cluttered, where I just, I don’t know. I don’t need to keep everything arms length, but if I’m working on multiple projects or if I, it just seems to be that things accumulate around me in every year, half year, quarter, I really have to do the, okay.
The new things. Let’s get ’em into the shelves, into the boxes, get what am I really working on in needing. And I wish I was better about that. There was a time when I was, but what’s weird is once you have clutter. It’s easier to just keep putting another thing on top of the stack,
[00:02:32] Stephen: another archeological
[00:02:33] Alan: layer.
Yeah. Like when you have an empty coffee table and you put your mug on it, it’s like it’s the only thing on there. Get a coaster. But if there’s a whole bunch of stuff on there, then it’s easy to just put the next magazine and the next book and whatever else it might be.
[00:02:46] Stephen: So right.
No, really this issue of games, magazine, I wanna do all the puzzles and words things in it. Of course the new one looks good. So I’ll grab the new one. So when I’m done 20 years later, no, I will do these stack of 200 games. Magazines. Honest. I will.
[00:03:02] Alan: Yeah. I’ll tell you one of the things that finally broke me up.
Like I used to get tons of magazines, probably like 30 a month. Wow. So like a magazine a day, because back when it was driven by advertising and so forth, you can get a magazine for. 12 bucks for a year a dollar a month. And it all just seemed to me. All I need to do is get one, laugh, one good idea, one pleasant experience out of each magazine and for a buck that seems to be worth right.
But then it would get to, wow. I’m subscribed to lots of different things. And I really read many of them, but not everything. And after you’ve had Ohio magazine stack up where wow, out of this entire year, I read the best places to go hiking in Ohio and everything else just kept stacking up.
And of course in the era of everything is online instead of in print. And how often do I, I used to be the, that was my lunchtime ritual. It be when I stopped being in a workplace, but was on my own. I go to Chipotle or something like that. And I read a magazine while I eat. And that way you can devour magazines as well.
When you’re working at home all the time, I hardly ever do that. If I’m eating at my desk, I’m doing things online. So I guess what I’m trying to say is. All that has led me to drop a whole bunch of different magazines. When you finally just can’t escape the conclusion of, wow, all this paper keeps coming into my house and it’s still in its plastic bag.
I haven’t even unbagged it for a year. That’s not right. So I still read wired. I still read rolling stone. I still read certain things really quite religiously. Or also if prices go way up, I still, I used to read time in Newsweek every week because they don’t have exactly the same coverage, the same political viewpoint, et cetera.
Time kept going at a reasonable price. Whereas Newsweek went five times as expensive. And I was like, wow, if Newsweek five times as good as time, then my like smart shopper thing kicks in. And it’s I’m just not paying something like the, I dunno, $300 subscription for a year. That means it really is like just doing the math real quick, six bucks an issue.
I don’t know. I go online. Where do I get most of my news anyway, nowadays? It’s not really true online. You get snippets, you get all the little bits and you have to put the mosaic together yourself. Whereas I really like where there’s a good 3, 4, 5 page article and they really have analyzed it and they give historic context to it.
And the writers are often not just guys spouting their opinions. They’re learned they’re knowledgeable and they know how to structure a sentence and they know how to know what I mean? lot of those magazines now you can actually check out of the library digitally through over Overwatch overlook, overdrive, that’s it overdrive.
[00:05:36] Stephen: Exactly. And hoopla and even their own apps and stuff. And you could check ’em out and read ’em cuz business insider Newsweek, all of those, I don’t read often, no way I’d pay the money to subscribe, like you said, but I’ll see a couple interesting articles. I’ll check ’em outta the library, read.
’em sitting at my desk, return it and I’m done, exactly. And Colin had a really great. Way of expressing the oh, I got all this stuff. I don’t wanna get rid of it. I’ve got these magazines. They’ve gotta be interesting. I keep getting ’em he says you get crippled by the potential of that.
That exactly. There’s something good in there. I can’t let it go because there might be something there. And then
yes, but it’s never enough of a priority to go do it, so you gotta realize that. And I look at him and I’m like, okay, dude, you’ve got like $4,000 worth of green Lanter toys, figures, statues, and comics in your room.
He’s that’s a collection. That’s different. Okay. Now I’m collecting every magazine that comes out I guess it’s a matter of viewpoint, like OB one said,
[00:06:37] Alan: yeah, you know what? But there is, I don’t know. I make that trade off of utility versus just the joy of owning it. Like for instance, I have lots of music in the house.
There’s no CD that’s coming to the house that I didn’t immediately. Rip and then be able to listen to on my computer and back when it was before digitization, cuz I was actually making the transition from vinyl to CDs way back when I actually had organized that everything I had was an alphabetical order and then there, but there was a whole new section so that when I got it in it, didn’t just go into the shelves and then maybe never get listened to kinda like a library.
I model myself after that you have a new section then after you’ve listened to it and read the liner notes. Cause I’m that guy too when I’m listening to it, I take out the little foldable insert and let’s read who’s on this album, let’s read some of the lyrics and that kind of thing.
And then finally, either each one, as it goes in, as it gets played, goes into the shelves or I let them accumulate into a little stack and then it’s that little, let’s take 15 minutes to go boo BBO. Oh, there’s not enough room in this entirely full shelf reorganized you know what I mean? And I, and we haven’t talked about this it’s own weirdness.
I really, it matters to me that I have things in order. It isn’t a collection until you really have it, that you could go and get immediately what you want. And so you get real good at alphabetizing. From early on, my files were in good order. My books were in order, but it also matters that it’s your system.
So for most people it’s by author’s last name, but there’s some things like puzzle books where it’s guess the author is Dell or something like that. So you have all the Dells together, even though yeah. The editor was Kathleen Rafferty from what I remember way back long ago. And then skip through all the joys of alphabetizing, except like when you do music, it’s not clear, like Elton John is a real guy, but his last name is not really John it’s Elton John as a single thing together.
Just Jeff row tall. You don’t put it under T you put it under Jeff row. But that’s not for everybody else, that’s I don’t know. Adele is a single word, so that’s under a, but if you have a real guy I don’t know John Bonjovi, is it under J for Jovi? No, it’s under Bonjovi cause that’s the group name.
So there were all these little decisions,
[00:08:46] Stephen: but he also had solo. So you solo stuff with the band, but you, then you have some artists that were in like four different, really popular, big bands.
[00:08:55] Alan: It when I finally started to digitize and I started to have my shelves match digitizing, as to the computer, everything is just a character string.
So it doesn’t matter whether you think Brian Adams should be under Brian or Adams it’s to them, B Brian Adams going across. And so then I really did arrange my shelves so that there would be things in the right place. So Brian Adams was an easy move, just from. B to a, to B, whatever, Frank Zappa, you gotta take all your Zappas and move up into F and I have a lot of Frank Zappa, so it’s gonna displace everything in my shelves from F on to get the Zs back up.
It really was one of those few times it was like, man, it’s really my obsession with having things in order is being pushed around by God. This is a ton of work. Am I really gonna keep going with this? And then you start to say, okay, every time that I do this Zappa to F it’s really a disruptive thing, maybe I should scan forward in the shelves and find out how many strong Thurmond’s that’s only gonna go from T to S but if it’s, but anything that’s gonna make a big move.
Then I was like, let’s gather all the big moves and do them one big disruption instead. A cascading set of disruptions. It just makes me pissed.
[00:10:10] Stephen: Here
[00:10:11] Alan: Now they’re all. OK.
[00:10:13] Stephen: See, I think that’s partly our age there too, because I have with my comics mostly that if let’s say I took each of my CDs, I got those little stickers and I just put a number on ’em.
Didn’t matter what order they were. I just went through and put a number on every CD. Then I entered it digitally into my camp, my music, digital catalog with the, then my digital catalog is completely in order. I can look at it. Oh, I want Brian Adams. It’s number 37. Then I can go 37 and the shelf itself doesn’t matter.
I’ve been doing that more. My comic books, I got, ’em obviously a series together, but I don’t have. All of alpha flight volume, a in the same box as alpha flight volume B or two and volume three, they’re separated and then mini series are elsewhere, but I can look on my collector app and I can see all the alpha flight that tells me what box to go to.
[00:11:10] Alan: That’s we’re exactly alike. They, what I’m in cataloging my collection over the last year and a half. I really didn’t resort everything because the task was just too massive. I have a series of numbered boxes, and I think I’m up to 130 now. I really a lot of comic books. And, but then if I, what you just said, if I had to put together all the Avengers and it’s not even unfortunately, volume one and volume two is that I’ve accumulated over the course of time and have them in kinds of sets.
And my disruptive event of moving from Schaumburg Hoffman estates that is out to California. And then. I have two years worth of, I just accumulated I kept reading, but I never integrated him into the collection. And then that’s happened for the last 20 years that I’ve never done a full collection integration.
So I’ve got a scattering of various different things. And if ever I had to pull ’em all together, I know I have to go to box three and box 13 and box 53 and all that kind stuff. But as long as I have the virtualized catalog, I don’t have to do that. I can find anything that I need, that I. Inventory.
[00:12:15] Stephen: And it doesn’t help when Marvel will have amazing Spider-Man and then they stop it and they change it to some other thing.
And then they change it back to amazing and they say this is legacy number, whatever. And the whole organization, it’s, it is partly a mindset thing. If you, yeah. If your mind is comfortable that I do have it organized, then you don’t go crazy with it. And it’s also the same. I’ve been finding with getting rid of things.
There’s so many things that I find, oh, I don’t want to get rid of that. Cuz like Colin said, you get crippled by potential, but a few of them I’ve gotten rid of and then I totally forgot about, and then I’ll just be lying, abandon and I’ll remember it. And I’m like, oh yeah I, my life did not stop.
when I got rid of that and right. I haven’t wanted to look at it for three years, so I it’s good that I got rid of it, but I remember it. So if I really wanted, I can go find it, so I hear you. It’s a mindset thing. Yeah.
[00:13:12] Alan: You know what. I unfortunately have that weird. So I’ve mentioned way long ago when I first started my consulting practice in Chicago.
I sold comic books in order to finance the first get my office set up, get my certifications, whatever else it might be. And what I sold was the first a hundred fantastic four and the first hundred Spiderman, an amazing Spiderman, which nowadays, of course are through the roof in value and so forth.
And though I continually really do logically rationally say, what was the right thing to do? I really needed that money. That was the best way to do it. I still miss them terribly. the collector thing in me is just I really had them in my hand and I let them go. And I don’t know what that is in me that they’re mine.
They’re still, they’re, they were mine. I, it hurts me. It’s a weird thing. I, this thing of getting ready to sell things now, I think I’m ready to do it because I have not had. The same access to my collection every day. They’re not in my bookshelves around me at home. They’re all often my storage lockers, floral, which is its own sign of trouble.
And yet, and I’m gonna do it cuz the money will be worth, it will go on the trips and will buy, will improve our house and whatever else it might be. And yet there will not be a single comic book that I sell that I won’t remember that I had it and be sad. And so whatever that is genetically in mind my parents didn’t give it to me.
They weren’t collectors slash hoarders. Like I am, there’s just something weird about, yeah, I have anything I want one to end. I want all of them. And I like to have them in all in good condition. And so I wish I understood more about what that was. There’s little psychological traits that I’m sure are linked to exactly the age that you first read or pooped or whatever else it might be.
You know what I and yet. I’ve been able to manage it so that I’m not obsessed about it. It’s not I don’t think I’m obsessed. I guess someone with 40,000 comic books, other people would look at and say, boy, that’s a lot that’s really. Yeah. Is that’s something what’s the most constant thing you’ve had in your life, not buying anymore, but reading comics probably.
Yes. I’ve been doing that since I was four and now I’m seeking two and I think it it’s Tony Robbins talks about this a lot, whether you care for him or not, he does say some things that make a whole lot of sense is that you, if getting rid of your collection, get rid of books, even if you have 40,000, you just get rid of one.
[00:15:40] Stephen: It’s that one that it’ll bug you and it’s not complete. And you love your collection and you wanna keep collecting it. And it would be very painful to get rid of things. But then you reach a point where you’re like, you know what? Those have been sitting. I haven’t touched them. And it’s more painful to me that I’m.
Stuck at home and I’m not traveling the world. I have the potential. So it’s becoming more painful to keep them than get rid of them that,
[00:16:05] Alan: and eventually it tips that you decide what’s really more important. And of course having my own life, my solo life, it was different. Now that I have Colleen in my life, I do want to, she doesn’t care about the comic books.
She shares about the potential of the ki books that turn into money. And she’s not like that. She’s not saying sell those. She’s really good about letting me be about with all my little weirdnesses, because
[00:16:27] Stephen: she’d be quite alright with you selling ’em though and going on a trip. But, and it
[00:16:31] Alan: will exactly just that the joy I will get from seeing Colleen happy will be worth whatever I do to sell them.
Whereas before I don’t know I did some cool trips. I went to band Canada and stuff, solo and those kinds of things. And yet it, it won’t be as memorable. It won’t be as cool and worth it as in the noble thing of making sure happy wife, happy life that Colleen, my love, the love of my life is happy.
That’s worth whatever ACU I’ve accumulated up until now, or at least I think it will be right. Big golf thing will be, Hey, I sold all these comic books. We went on a trip and then it rained for seven days and we got nothing to do. That’ll be, I wish that sacrifice was more worth it. Instead, this was a washout and yet I still made the big sacrifice.
Damn it. Yeah. We’ll see if that ever happens.
[00:17:15] Stephen: Yeah. I understand that a hundred percent and, but like I worked out at the comic bookstore and I look at the glass case with all the star wars stuff in it and I’m like, oh, I had one of those. I’d love to have it. Oh, this looks so good. Oh, I love and I’m like, I, I.
I’m 50 something years old. Do I really wanna buy this toy? I had when I was a kid, so I could put it on a shelf with all the other things I have on a shelf. And I’ve been getting a little better about stopping myself. I have a much harder time with books. Oh, I’ve wanted to read that. Oh, it’s only $3. Oh, I wanna read that one.
I have a harder time with that. So I’m still working on it. yeah there’s a cool convention coming up in Pittsburgh called pulp Fest. And it’s like in its 50th year, it’s been running for a long time and Hey, for those listeners before there were books and paperbacks and comic books, there were pulps.
[00:18:05] Alan: These were things that were printed from like 1900 to the 1940s. They were printed on very cheap paper, but they were meant to be mass entertainment. They were meant to be pretty much disposable, but great things came out of them. That’s where Tarzan started. The shadow doc Savage we all
[00:18:21] Stephen: kinds of Tarzan and Tolu.
[00:18:24] Alan: Yes, Rob Conan from Robert D. Howard. A lot of their stuff was first in there. HP Lovecraft. So this convention coming up in Pittsburgh, they’re having an estate sale, a guy who was a massive collector, probably much like me and everything from his collection of, however, let’s say 70, 80 years worth of good stuff.
They have lots of things for the auction, like 220 lots. So imagine how much that is and just that I am so much wanting to be, hold my little my little number with a stick up in the air and say, I will take the entire shadow collection all 600 plus I don’t think they’ve actually all been reprinted his paper back.
So you’d be buying them as the pulp. And so these things where they have 70 years vintage, they really were of the time, the most popular thing going. It’s history there’s and you just go walk into that hall and it’s oh, this smells like old paper. What an IOx. I love that thing.
And so I’m not going because we have other things already going on that weekend. And yet there’s some part of me that wants to just say cancel all the other plans. Yeah. Did you see it did just see, he really has the original weird tales with the first adventure of Kona.
[00:19:39] Stephen: How freaking cool is that?
That’s very cool. And first, the first tar that,
[00:19:43] Alan: and the jewels of oar and this isn’t meant to be show Offy, but it’s it’s just the coolest thing to be. Those things are very historic to me. It’s kinda having a first PI print of the time machine by Wells or any number of other, not even just science fiction, historic books don’t you be the guy that has first edition of Thomas Aquinas.
You know what I mean? I’ve got
[00:20:04] Stephen: a couple issues of fantasy and science fiction. That have the Stephen Kings stories that became the gun Slinger. So I have those original stories in the magazine. So that’s one of my prizes. I love that. Yeah.
[00:20:16] Alan: Yeah. And another thing is anybody who’s gonna be at this thing.
I love those people because it’s not all like the pulse, if you will be became the men’s adventure, paperbacks, where did Remo Williams, the destroyer and Mac bull and the executioner and named the other things that have gone on King’s bond, they all of started with this model of what happened in the pulse.
And so then to, they’re gonna have all of those too, and I’d love to be like, man, I’m missing some Matt Helms. If I can get and fill in my collection of Matt helm, paperbacks, I have all the James bonds, but it’d be like, oh, that’s the first thing that it came out. It wasn’t when they reprinted him. And they all consolidated what the covers looked like.
They actually were quite distinct because when I, and Flemming was first doing them, they didn’t know it was gonna do well as a series. And there’s just something about the, his historicity of it that I would love to be there with someone bought this in like 1964 and lovely held onto it for 60 years.
I’m like that you could look at my stuff from when I was first aware of keeping it in good condition. I have doc Savage paperbacks from the late sixties that look like they’re just on the shelf today. No broken spines, no chipped covers. They’re perfect. And that that’s cause I love them for 50 years.
That’s pretty cool. Maybe a little weird, but it’s pretty cool. Someone like me would appreciate the hell out of. Everything I have, 98% is in great condition. You know what I mean? I, and that, I imagine that’s what this guy is that he
[00:21:47] Stephen: loves these things. See, now I wanna go. Thanks a lot, Al.
I know
[00:21:51] Alan: here I am. And it’s totally Pittsburgh. It’s not like reading about it going on in Missoula, Montana. It’s how can
[00:21:56] Stephen: I get out there an hour away? It’s a two hour drive. Yeah.
[00:22:00] Alan: So maybe I’ll go there for a day and
[00:22:02] Stephen: just walk. Just don’t go on the auction day.
[00:22:05] Alan: Not that’s that would, might be my cryp tonight.
That’s exactly right. So let me
[00:22:09] Stephen: ask you this. This is something I thought of a couple weeks ago. So you just mentioned all these pulp things. And I was thinking about how science fiction has changed because you go back to the early stuff, Frankenstein or Jules ver 20,000 leagues and all that.
And it was very fantastical that they really made things up, but a lot of it started to come true, and then you move into like the fifties give or take a little bit. And after the war, how science fiction changed with aliens and you know that, and now we were reading the Jane Hawk books and science fiction.
Now deals a lot with computers and technology
[00:22:47] Alan: and that’s current science, if you will.
[00:22:49] Stephen: Yeah. Yeah. And even the stuff that’s in space, isn’t so much fantastical as it is. Some technology or something like that. What we currently have and some little big bit of extrapolation to say when we conquer faster than light travel, when we conquer right.
[00:23:04] Alan: Fuel weight and stuff like that and get solar sales and just that it’s speculative fiction, but not out of the thin air. It’s more wow, that stuff is really close. We are gonna get there one day, yes. And you look at star Trek, the original, really a lot of those episodes were political.
[00:23:21] Stephen: They were making a cultural statement whereas now the series that are at now are like a long running story. It’s they’re individual episodes, but they keep continuing. They’re not. It is just, it was fascinating to me how science fiction has changed. And if I wrote a story steampunk is a good example.
Steampunk still is around. People love. And it hasn’t changed a whole lot from when it started not too long ago, but it deals with that. We’re not going to explain how steam is controlling this robot. It just is but now people really want things explained the science behind it. You have to.
Yeah. And doc Savage, you mentioned how different things are from all of that stuff.
[00:24:04] Alan: Exactly. It’s funny some science fiction, it really is. If you will like comedy by the premise, by the bit they set up the thing that you’d have to believe into and then just run with it.
Whereas there’s other things that are more rigorous, heart science fiction has always been like the, I admire those people more, the Verner of injuries. I hope I say his last name. Correct. And Michael Kreins and stuff like that, where they did the research, they talked to the smart people besides themselves.
And they said, if I’m gonna write about Nao technology, I wanna make it believable, not just wrap it out of a hat fanciful, you know what I mean? I sometimes like the sheer imagination that goes with various different things, but I also like where it really is cubing close to the science and just taking in a dystopian or utopian fashion into the future and speculate about that.
I’ve almost liked serious fiction, more than individual things. So I’m used to them playing it out. And even like book by book in the series deepen the experience of what would it really be like to have teleportation the distance no longer matters. And that in the series of books themselves, they make breakthroughs, or at least they take it in different directions.
And you’re like, wow, this guy didn’t have just one great idea. He had 10 great ideas and he loves them into this cool plot of what are all the implications of energy is free instead of energy is expense. What’s that gonna do to change the world and stuff like that. I love that stuff, Yeah. The speculation and for me, I’ve always. And it’s probably just cuz of when I grew up, but I’ve always liked the more fantasy elements of sci-fi star wars being a big one. The there’s no explanation of how lightsabers work. There’s no explanation of hyperdrive or anything. It just was.
[00:25:43] Stephen: And I still kinda like that. And, but now a lot of people nowadays are like they didn’t explain how that worked. And it seems stupid. It wouldn’t work that way. The series I wrote magic, I know my editor was saying you don’t explain how the magic works, where it comes from and how I’m like, because it just, is it exists.
They channel it. That’s all. Yeah. That’s all that’s needed. I feel for the story, but every people are like you need more explanation. You need to get the science. It’s not a science story. It’s a fantasy. It’s I actually, I think I hats off to people that they don’t just have the McGuffin, if you will, the, Hey science just works, run with it.
[00:26:20] Alan: I love where they’ve actually put this on into making a real, like a system as to how it could work. There’s a great series called MIS born by Brandon Sanderson. If I remember correctly that he really talks about here’s how these various different elements have these various different properties and that by following them, ingesting them, you then can get burst of teleportation or burst of transforming yourself.
And there’s 12 different things. And of course there’s what’s the mystery one. What’s the one that negates all the others. What’s the, and the fact that he there’s an entire glossary in the back of the book, if not the first book, then for sure, by the third, that really goes through the all man of it.
You know what I mean? How would this all work together? And that in some cases you’re storing it in yourself. In some cases you’re storing it, like in bracelets that you wear and you tap that to tap into it and that, and it can be addictive and it could be transforming to the human body and wow, he really bought this all the way through this.
Wasn’t just, I need a way to get from point a to point B. That’s not flying Eagles. And so they just make up, I have a spell that does that. I liked the rigor of, wow. He really took notes and said, and if I’m gonna name, which element is doing this, there’s just enough of, if you know the periodic data, you could say, yeah, I would’ve picked business there too, because it does have this and this property, and that’s how he’s using it.
So hat’s off to people that are able to do total magic systems. I don’t know the DMD books that they started to have here’s how magic works. And here’s like, how it, how thumb power is inexhaustible and others, you use them up and i, there’s something. And maybe that’s the interesting fantasy versus science fiction elements.
Yeah. There’s been a huge shift nowadays in bookstores where they actually separate the fantasy from the science fiction. They used to be all lumped together. It was a little bit jarring to go from Isaac Asimov to Joe Abercrombie, because they’re very different in what they write about, I do appreciate and enjoy both. I just feel that not every story, every fantasy or sci-fi story has to explain things has to have that there, because, and this is the great thing about sci-fi. And we’ve talked about that before. You can have a story that, oh, my favorite example is the old star Trek with the guys that were half black, half white, and the other guys that were half white, half black political statement for the mid sixties.
[00:28:37] Stephen: I understand that. But the story was set in science fiction. So you can have science fiction as a setting for a completely different story, a coming of age kid. Which doesn’t necessarily need the explanation of how the engines are working. This kid saw his dad flip the switch and he flips the switch and the ship goes that type of thing.
It’s just where the focus is. Sometimes I just disagree when people slam something, because it didn’t give the explanation, even if it didn’t need it,
[00:29:10] Alan: They’re coming in with their preconceptions and their pre needs, if you will. And even though the story’s really good, somehow it didn’t satisfy them because of that thing.
That’s particular to them, not to the quality of the story. And actually, before we move away, you just said something really important. Old star Trek was very often very political, very social conscious. And I will hear sometimes comments. Current science fiction that why are they bringing all this politics into it?
Why are they bringing all the civil rights? Jerson right. One like three years in a row for her. Yes. Series of if you don’t think it’s always been in there, you haven’t been paying attention. Yes. There’s always been like, there’s no comic book that didn’t have commentary. The Xmen are mutant, outcast, misfits, and yet we gotta find a way to integrate them into society.
And the black Panther wasn’t Hey, a token black guy. It really was. There’s a whole society. That’s worthy of our respect and our acknowledgement. And they don’t care that you’re so white that you can’t see that. And I say that really awkwardly and I apologize, but there’s never been a time where science fiction, wasn’t talking about it.
How society is and speculating on what it will be like in the future, and go, it’s absolutely about what we like about today and what could be better. What could
[00:30:29] Stephen: be worse? The science fiction of the fifties, which forties and fifties, I love, I have a collection of books of stories published from the forties, fifties, all under the sci-fi classification.
Yeah. I just love that energy of they had about it that mysteriousness, we know we’re on the verge, but what will it be? But I’ve said this about nerds and geeks, go back to the original star Trek, go back before that, that nerds and geek. For the most part, have been way more inclusive without even thinking about it.
I’ve played D and D with girls. When I was younger, I played as a female or who had green skin and comic books the same way. Like you said, you go back, Daredevil has always been blind and enhanced hearing professors. Xavier was always in not always from the beginning of the comic in a wheelchair, so all this, we have to be inclusive and diverse.
It’s thank you all for catching up to the nerds and geek, we’ve done it forever. Call in, put up a shelf at the store that focuses on characters, that diverse characters that have disabilities. And he had one for pride, all the pride characters and some of them going back several decades.
So it’s not completely new. Exactly again. Thanks for catching up world.
[00:31:51] Alan: yeah. It’s, this is I’ve done multiple talks about comic books over the course of these last, I’d say 30 years now probably, but one of the ones I’m really proud of is, and so I did one for Kent state where they had a particular year where they were embracing the combined aspects of journalism and social studies and law and things like that.
And where do you see those things reflected in comics? And so one of my talks is about diversity and as opposed to, Hey, here’s how we have both Mon OID, Negro, terrible old names, but that’s worth talking about because that’s how old fashioned they are. And wow, what a breakthrough. We had a Japanese superhero, we had a black superhero that was like the first 15 minutes of my.
And then it was here’s all the ways in which comic books have included diversity. And it was what you said about differently abled people about aliens and how do we integrate them into our society? Marcian man hunter about our own on our planet. It isn’t Dolly. What we think of as the human race.
What about the Mer people from Atlantis? What about uplifted animals? What about, I just, in every way that I can think, how about robots? How about robots that become sentient and when do they get, because they’re intelligent enough to be treated as an actual human being. And those are things that, that it’s not like comic books, science fiction often delved into them, like you said, but it was just that kind of thing of here’s all the ways in which we’ve already in these books taken tentative steps towards understanding what would it be like to really have?
Wow. Whales really are. Soer dolphins, Soer crows, Soer pigs. And it’s not a difference in kind it’s yes, no smarter, not human or not. There’s a scale. And what are we gonna get to that? We start to treat sub creatures like octopuses. Like they really think differently than us, but they think, and they don’t even have a single brain.
They have it’s everywhere in their body, but they can open that jar and escape that cell as rigorously as any otherwise creative, celebrate the fact that we don’t get their intelligence, but they sure have some form of intelligence. So I love giving that talk because I often you always look at your audience and it’s very cool to see kids kinda stop looking at their phone and pay attention to, wow.
I’ve never thought about this before. This is something I’m gonna look into. I love it. I love that the world is a big, wonderful, complex, messy, interesting place. And we’ve had examples of that throughout fiction for
[00:34:20] Stephen: a long time. You know what the example that comes to my mind is planet of the apes.
I mean that right there, what’s the theme, what’s the statement, yeah. We’re treating these gorillas and apes and monkeys and everything badly in many ways, but what if they did get smarter and they’re stronger and they take over the world, they have
[00:34:43] Alan: the upper hand. And I’ve seen memes about that.
know, It’s wow. The kinds of things you’re objecting to seem to be just as if you weren’t the one that was making the rules anymore, the rules you’ve made that now they’re being used against you. Like maybe you should not make rules that would have you treated terribly.
[00:34:59] Stephen: You know what I mean?
Treat others as have them to
[00:35:02] Alan: you. Yeah, exactly. That, so that I’m. Segue time geek Fest is coming up at the Akron public library. Yes. Unfortunately I can’t go, I can’t go to that one, but it’s I’m going to see I use their way of saying, would you like booth space of saying, would you like a talk and maybe they already have a full schedule and they don’t need me because maybe they’re just gonna have people wandering into the library and hitting the booze and stuff like that.
And they’ll have a little display of, Hey, here’s all the interesting geeky fiction of all the different kinds, steampunk and science fiction, whatever else. But I’m hoping that all libraries have a little conference room and all they’re gotta do is let me in there. And I’ll set up my laptop on my projector and we’ll talk about diversity and cock books.
We’ll talk about the geography of the multiverse. I have many programs as in the can, right? Just as you have a couple and it’d be cool to. I have a desire to share the fact that I’ve been reading these things for 60 years and look what I’ve learned Hey kids, you can turn into someone as horrible as me it’s not horrible. I’m a I’m I have absolutely been made a better person by all this geekery that we’ve done and the speculative fiction and the game playing and that kind of stuff. Yeah, definitely. And so I’m hoping to, if I haven’t heard from them yet.
And so now I’m gonna call ’em and say, so if that email didn’t get through, can you gimme just a yes or no, because I really would like to do this, but I’m gonna not worry about it and prepping my presentation and stuff. If I know that isn’t a format that’s gonna fit what you guys have put together for geek.
[00:36:28] Stephen: I’ve been to the geek Fest in the past. And it’s in the library. It’s not super huge, but it was fun. There’s some good tables. I
[00:36:36] Alan: didn’t realize that I’ve never been to that. So you’ve been to it. So yeah. What of, what I just speculated what parts of it were true. They have booths they
[00:36:44] Stephen: had booths tables various area, everything.
It really just take the fan expo and cut it down to one 20th and you got some booth now. They didn’t the signings, there were a couple authors and stuff there. In fact, I met an author there that I saw at fan expo and it’s been five years since I’ve seen em. I think they had various programs and stuff going on if I remember right.
But at the time all my kids were too old for some of the stuff they had and we were only there for an hour. Yeah, they got a variety. It’s a fun thing. I if I wasn’t. Busy. I’d love to set up a table and put my book up and stuff, exactly. And we’ll have to see if it really is towards the kids section instead of towards the adult section, then it really is that maybe some of my talks would be, I dunno, too big to they’re not meant to be an introduction.
[00:37:36] Alan: They’re meant to be a, an accumulation of cool things about comics, instead of here’s some things you might wanna try Katie’s right. I don’t really have a program for that. I really should, if you’re just edging your way into, what would I recommend? You know what you do have your talks, you, they could be altered a bit.
[00:37:54] Stephen: So it’s, it speaks to the kids as much as adults I mean it, a lot of it is the older comics and stuff, so that, that was focused more on the kids. So I don’t think it’d be too
[00:38:06] Alan: difficult. It’s very cool to have little use and MES in the audience because when I’ll be talking about here’s Peter Parker’s Spiderman, et cetera, and they’ll say no, that’s miles Morales.
It’s for you, it is that’s your current generation, but I go back to where it first started and the fact that they are that knowledgeable and can name like your shoe number as to when, you know what I mean? And here’s the Spiderman of 2099. And it just, it’s of cool to one of the super powers that little kids get is they can name dinosaurs that like adults can’t right.
That’s the first times that they get to oh, that’s theos. And it’s got, and I love that kids have that aspect about comic books that they’re so into them that they really have they’ve taken them in so much that they can cite you chapter and
[00:38:52] Stephen: verse of what they’ve read. They’ve got a whole life of loving comics ahead of them.
Yeah. Yeah. So you mentioned miles. Okay. So this is great. Let me throw my trivia question at you. Oh. Miles is not the first black Spider-Man. Do you know who the first one was? And as, let me just preface that with, as far as I know, it’s the first one.
[00:39:16] Alan: Okay. So I’m trying that I know that there have been people that took his place because they needed to do a ruse.
So didn’t the kid that was the Prowler.
[00:39:28] Stephen: Play Spiderman
[00:39:29] Alan: at one point to try to save his family
[00:39:32] Stephen: and Spider-Man was, yeah. So him and Peter could be at the same spot. Yeah, that’s kinda, but there was someone he
[00:39:39] Alan: had his own title.
[00:39:40] Stephen: He had his own version. Yeah. There was not really.
It’s a trick question. I’ll give you that. Okay. Dwayne from the electric company in spy, super stories was Spider-Man all those issues issue. Number one, if you’ve got issue, number one, go look Dwayne from the electric company. I, that’s a good question. I was at the store and they had a whole stack of spy, super stories.
I’m like, oh my gosh, I love these when I was a kid, cuz they were perfect. They’re the perfect read when you’re six, seven years old and I was just flipping through and I’m like the first one I’m like, oh my God, Dwayne, he’s black. And he became Spiderman for a story in that issue. That’s a good question. Now, do you remember who easy reader from electric company was? The actor?
[00:40:31] Alan: Yeah, of course. I wanted to say like lava Burton, but it’s even before his time. Yeah. So was it link from
[00:40:38] Stephen: Mod squad? No, it was Morgan Freeman.
[00:40:43] Alan: It really? Oh man. That’s very young. Yeah. Oh my that’s.
I would’ve gotten to him because I’m trying to think of who I know have done kinda like kids, things, comic books, things, and wasn’t was it Morgan? Fri sand Jackson was on Peewee Herman, right? Yeah. That’s cool. That’s good.
[00:41:01] Stephen: Cool. Sore talking geek and nerd stuff. And there, we just had the San Diego ComicCon release so much crap and so many trailers.
There’s so many things coming up. You mentioned that’s right. The Sandman series and the Thor movie that’s out, but the list of stuff coming is amazing.
[00:41:19] Alan: Yeah. And as usual I have incredible envy. I’ve only been to this San Diego ComicCon twice in my life because it’s just it’s the west coast instead of here but it really is so much cool stuff gets talked about the first trailers for movies the big announcements about what’s coming.
So it is, we’re talking about the Sandman is another one of those kinda like Washman that for a long time, who was thought, maybe unfilmable. It’s really so lush with how much is going on and fantasy elements and all that kind of stuff. But they found a way to do at least this 10 episode run.
And so we’ll see whether Neil Gaiman’s brilliant work translates well kinda like his American gods. Did you know what I mean? That survived the transition into TV and stuff. I liked
[00:41:58] Stephen: it. It was, that was good. And that’s a great book.
[00:42:01] Alan: Yeah. Kevin our friend, Kevin, who we, our birthdays are one right after the other in August.
And that’s how I just talked about this Sandman thing is just in time for our birthdays. We get to see Sandman on the screen. So I’m looking forward to that a lot. I think that the Sandman is one of those things that if you’re looking to give someone, you wanna see how good comic books can be, you wanna see how they’re really literature, just read a few issues of this the literary illusions and the vocabulary and the size of his vision of how.
Dream and hell and the world how all these various different things tie together and how brilliant he is as using old versions of the Sandman during the course of the series, but they’re not morphous, they’re not. And the whole concept of the endless that there really are these forces of nature that exist in the world and that they don’t always get along, but I don’t know, he just every issue of the Sam.
And it was like, it kept opening new doors and bigger, but and, but enough grounding in, in the world of comic books. And I was very admiring of him. And before I don’t know that he was really well known in comic books. So it’s another one of those things, like when you see someone who’s been doing good comics for a long time, and then they do their Magnum Opus, it’s that makes sense.
Jeff Johnson has been a great guy for a long time when someone like magically appears like Alan Moore and maybe he was already known in British kind, but he came to the United States and did swamping. And it was just, seismically better than what had gone on before. and so good for Neil Gaman that he’s getting acknowledged as being this stem man is one of the first that one likes a Nebula or is a Hugo world science fiction thing to not have it be a book, but to actually be a graphic novel. How cool is that? That it was so undeniably good that even people who might have pood kind books is being only for kids, even the science fiction, grand masters had to say, this is the stuff let’s just
[00:43:52] Stephen: tell enough people watch and get it and enjoy it.
That they keep going with a second and third season. Cause it, the story doesn’t end after 10, this is it’s going, it needs to go on that’s the fear that they’re gonna do these 10 episodes say it was expensive and not enough people watched it were canceling it when it, one of those series that probably would reach its stride in like season two or three, that more people would discover it and then watch it and love it.
But we’re so nowadays, whoa, your first episode didn’t do enough, too bad. Everything’s done, yeah. I have some confidence in terms of Wanda end, the vision gave an idea of people really didn’t get what was going on in the first 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 episodes, but they stayed with it. It was intriguing enough.
[00:44:38] Alan: It was amusing enough, whatever that they could see that something was being done to build here. Instead of just being each episode individually, each episode has a cliff hanger that they gave it time. And I’m hoping that. The patients of people who would seek out the Sandman and that growing its audience, that they’ll say, okay, I, I don’t have to just give you two hours.
I’ll give you 10. I’ll give you seasons in order to get, let you reach your stride. I’m hoping that’s what happens here.
[00:45:06] Stephen: And we’ve got the Lord of the rings TV show coming, which I’m hoping will continue.
[00:45:11] Alan: That’s right. Do well, something of the rings, right? The rings of power. Think actually it’s a, not a it’s for once not a prequel.
It’s a sequel, right? It’s like after something, what, you know, it, I’m I wish I had read more about it, so I could, but I’m pretty sure that it’s a sequel and it talks about whoa. Now store on has been defeated. Starman is off the picture, but the world isn’t quite settled. There are still our.
There’s threats. There’s new things to be discovered and we’ll revisit the whole world of forks and hos and all
[00:45:39] Stephen: the race a little bit. I saw looks good. But it’s so hard because there’s so many we have Andor and she Hulk coming up very soon and, or is going to have K two S nine, I think that’s as with Alan TUD.
Geez. And some of the other, and Wakanda’s coming and some of the other trailers I’m like, there’s just way too much.
[00:46:03] Alan: yeah. I I’m happy even if I end up wow. I, there used to be a time when, if there was a comic book, movie coming out, I was there Thursday night at midnight, so I could see it the first moment of Friday, cuz that’s when it was coming out.
And actually I didn’t see the furthest new storm movie for a week and a half after it came out, which boggles my mind. But it’s because my schedule has not been my own and all that kind of stuff. It really was good. I thought that they did a great. Combination of it. Isn’t only that one another to me kind of naive complaint about comic books is, oh no, they’re changing everything.
This has become a different race or a different gender or whatever else it might be. But comic books have also always been like that too. There’s been a number of times that there was a transition and that got handed off to another person to carry the Baton for a while. Ironman did captain America did, et cetera, et cetera.
Jane Foster as lady Thor, just this color, Thor it she’s really good, but Thor is not out of the picture. He’s actually the disgraced unworthy Thor from comic books where the hammer rejected him. You know what I mean? It says on it only though was worthy of this power.
And then he went and had to make his own star breaker battle acts. And so they have very interesting bits and pieces of the comic books and a little bit weird because they didn’t build up to it in the way that the comic books did, where it really was a shattering event to be like, yeah. Wow. So can’t be sore anymore.
What’s next? And beta Ray bill and whatever else over the course of time has happened. Hats off to Walt Simonson, by the way, for writing like four years or some of the best store stories there ever were another guy that had done great work previously, but then when he arrived on floor, it was. This guy really gets it.
He gets mythology. He gets that this is bigger than just street crime and stuff like that, how many issues included that little insert of cert going with the, know what I mean? Like forging anyway,
[00:47:54] Stephen: I like did the Thor movie. It had some good humor and stuff. But I think I like Ragner rock a little better.
My problem with it is the same as I had with the other Thor movies is I thought all of them were a little too short and that they could have made it even a deeper story. They seemed to rush it. We had the God butcher, but did we ever see him really killing a God like 4,000? We’re not gonna see any of that.
Just so there’s every Thor movie I felt there could have been just 10 more minutes of a little thing here and there to make it the story more intense and deeper. It did feel like a comic book. All of them did. Yeah. But it felt like lighthearted comic books that weren’t as deep as they could have been.
And I felt that way about all four of ’em. Honestly,
[00:48:43] Alan: that’s a great observation. I think I agree. You know what I mean for the God butcher being just that so dangerous that you know what gore mortal, but this guy can take him out with his Nero sword and stuff like, like that. There could have been much more build as to the level of threat that he represents.
And I thought it was a good if you will origin and ion of him that it, that was all done. The movie. Yeah. And Christian bale, like unrecognizable, this isn’t Christian bale from Batman was the raspy voice. He really transforms himself. He was so good. Desperate guy. You know what I mean?
So there I. I liked it. And I think I agree that there could have been more to it. I don’t know. I like the fact that it really was a Marvel movie. One of the things that we always contrast between Marvel in DC is it really has the right flow for sense of humor to alleviate some of the pressure and then back to the action.
Yes. Ty Taka wat I think, was it?
[00:49:40] Stephen: Yeah. Oh, I love
[00:49:40] Alan: his movies. I hope I pronounce his name. No disrespect intended. He’s really good. Those, not just a big laugh, but little throw away comments embedded into other scenes, cuz it really is. If you’re in combat, I think that’s like recognized trope is that you have to do something to right.
Relieve this incredible bone crunching tension. And core is continually the guy that’s given that little release, not that one when he is trying to figure out how to whistle and save everyone and he can’t seem to quite get it
[00:50:11] Stephen: right. Oh yeah. I mean it was just a face at that point.
So just a
[00:50:15] Alan: face. Exactly. So anyway, I, that I really liked and I’m I though you said an embarrassment of rich is a Glu. I’m looking forward to everything that’s coming up. I’m looking forward. God, what forever. I’m looking forward to it. The TV series. It is sometimes wow, I really don’t want to be watching as much TV as it’s being presented.
So how am I gonna fit in the latest star wars? The latest MIS Marvel, the latest it, when they come out, I har, as I think I’ve told you, I hardly ever binge watch. And yet when I look at I wanna watch the next episode of each of four different series. That’s four hours a night. I don’t watch television for four hours, a right.
I’ve taken to while I’m working on something important up here, I’ll have it kind on my left screen. It’s
get my full attention a shit to do. I got well
[00:51:00] Stephen: So go back a couple episodes. And we were talking about organization and scheduling projects and all the apps that can help with that. So you can schedule your, and it sounds really weird, but I actually have started to do that at times. It’s look, if I get to an end of an evening, I’m always gonna have something to work on.
And if. Work until 10, 11 at night. And I feel like all I’m doing is working. So I wanna go do something, but if I wait until spur of the moment what am I gonna do? Oh, I’ll just watch this. And then I’m like, oh, I should have watched such and such, or I should have watched this. So I actually have started keeping track of it and scheduling my fun free time sometimes a as to what.
Okay. I have it read for five nights. So I’m gonna read, and I’m gonna read this tonight and I’m gonna do it for minimum of an hour and a half. And it sounds like you’re scheduling your time, but it frees me up and I actually do it and I can relax. yeah. I don’t
[00:51:54] Alan: know that I’m scheduling my time, but I’m keeping lists of what I don’t want to miss.
You know what I mean? And and ongoing, and as the list grows, this is a weird thing. just finish watching I’m up to date with Dr. Who I finished watching all, all up until the very latest Christmas special that they always have where there might be a transition and stuff like that.
And it was not only a joy, but a relief. You know what I mean? I feel like I’m obligated as a geek. Every single doctor who, when they keep releasing them as a season and I’m like, wow, there’s however, may 10, 13, however many episodes. While I’m working my through them, I’m really enjoying them.
But it’s if I get to the end of this, I can take something off my list of all those things that I wanna be working. My Netflix queue is regularly at 500. There’s so many things that I really don’t wanna lose track of. And I think I’ve told you this before. There’s some things where I don’t just do it on the basis of what I really want to watch the most.
I’ll look and say what’s going away and I’ll make sure that I watch those things before they become unavailable. So sometimes I’m watching, not a B movie, but definitely not what I most wanted to watch, but I wanted to not just say, and now I can’t watch it cuz that sucks too. I find a balance between all of that little wiggy woogie, how to schedule your time.
[00:53:04] Stephen: Speaking to Dr. Hu though, they released a timeline of upcoming projects and movies and shows and stuff. And I just barely saw it and glance at it, so I need to go look in, but I’m like,
[00:53:17] Alan: I haven’t looked at it either.
[00:53:18] Stephen: I was like, oh my gosh, there’s so much going on with I love that they’re jumping on this and that’s what people are doing.
Let’s you know, up Dr. Who again, cause seriously after it’s been what? 13 or so years since the ninth doctor you’d think it’d start dying a little bit again, but they’re like exploding with stuff they wanna do. That’s awesome. That’s for
[00:53:41] Alan: all of the doctor who has gone on as long as it has, I think there’s only been the one spinoff, right?
There’s been Torchwood there’s been other movies that were like Peter Cushing was in a couple and
[00:53:49] Stephen: that kind of stuff. There was Sarah Jane adventures also. Oh, you’re
[00:53:52] Alan: right. Thank you. The adventures of Sarah Jane. That you’re exactly right. And actually, I haven’t seen all those, oh, curse you for making me something to my
[00:53:58] Stephen: list.
It’s hard to find they’re hard to get a hold of.
[00:54:02] Alan: I’ll have to look for that. If it’s not available on streaming, then it is. Can I add it to my Netflix queue? And then there’s a cycling through them and stuff like that. It I’ll tell you this. I was well into wood before I realized, oh, that’s nanogram of Dr.
Who?
[00:54:19] Stephen: I’m not kidding. Don’t realize that myself, you see those things, you know what I’s of you wow. Should use that as a trivia.
[00:54:28] Alan: I should have asked you exactly. Cause like long ago was like Mr. Mojo. Rison oh, that’s Jim Morrison. I see things all the time. I’m very word play E. But it took me until I was into watching.
Torchwood and they’d had references too, that this is the place that, that was the doctor who monitoring system and stuff like that. And maybe what they needed also was Sarah Jane is a good enough character that people really would watch her in a spinoff. And same with John Beman, captain Jack, so maybe that’s what they need. Is, has there been any other companions may who would’ve been maybe Billy Piper, maybe she would’ve been a companion that people would’ve followed in her own episodes. It’s hard to think of. Who’s been so distinctive that they would draw their own audience.
[00:55:08] Stephen: Why don’t they do like adventures and put like multiple years of companions together into a group that adventure that would be cool. Exactly. That’s but you know what? This really means what the ultimate meaning of this is. Now we gotta subscribe to Brit box . So the
[00:55:26] Alan: fact, they were very smart about they, they had existing contracts and it was various place.
You kinda had to follow it because it changed depending on who they licensed it to. And then they said, let’s do this all ourselves. Yeah. So yes, it really might be that. And actually at one point I was like, I really wanna get this because there’s certain things that I wanted to see. I think I’ve talked about the lavender hill mob movies.
There’s a particular what is it, studio Ashlyn or something like that. Maybe it’ll pop out that they really made a very distinctive kind of gentle, understated humor. They were often caper movies. They were here’s where someone’s gonna play every role in the movie. There’s five different Royals that are getting knocked off so that the lash Royal can get the inheritance.
And of course, Why can’t I think of his name. He plays all of them and very wonderfully distinctly, this is the doting old doer. This is the rake. And so that I really would like to that’s from the fifties, they’re not easy to find either it’d be worth getting Brit box for just a couple months to capture all of those that otherwise I will never be able to find them.
You know what I mean? I’m pretty sure those were some of the ones that were advertised as being here’s the reason to subscribe, cuz we got some The thing with a lot of these is you remember when, and I know I’m not the only one saying this anymore though. I think I said it like 15 years ago, but we got rid of cable because it was expensive and there were so many things we never watched and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
[00:56:51] Stephen: And you had to add on all the good, cool stations. So we got rid of it. Cause we got all these great streaming, which now you have to pay for and they’re consolidating them. So you can go to Amazon and subscribe to Brit box and whoa, look at that. It’s just like cable. As I mentioned, what I’ve had to get good at is I tend to like subscribe and then let it run.
[00:57:10] Alan: But what I need to do is say, if I’m gonna get paramount, I’m gonna watch the hell outta everything I wanna see on paramount and then cancel it that I wanna benefit 120 bucks. I wanna pay 20 bucks and get what I want and be done. So same with apple TV, same with Brit box. There’s any number of other specialists that.
Really good distinctive shows, but that’s not a reason to get a year’s worth of TV. You know what when next time that there’s Ted lasso, I’m gonna resubscribe to apple TV. And watch the heck out of it and then let it go again. I think UN unless they get better and better about adding Netflix always has cool new stuff coming in.
So does Amazon, those are ones that I have as permanent because there’s such a wealth of things there. And prime has its own other benefits, but each of the other individual things like you’re saying, I don’t want it to be, oh, I lost track. And then I ended up paying another 50 bucks that I mentioned to
[00:57:56] Stephen: You almost can’t get rid of paramount anymore because it’s every other month, there’s a new star Trek series now see what they know what
[00:58:03] Alan: they’re doing, yeah. People in, in boardrooms going, how can we
[00:58:08] Stephen: the American public? Absolutely.
[00:58:10] Alan: Mr. Burns in each studio. So yes, ,
[00:58:14] Stephen: he’s really rich cuz he works for all of them. so before we go give me your recommendation about this doomsday book you mentioned.
[00:58:23] Alan: So another thing I’ve been realizing is I’ve read a lot of stuff, but I haven’t read everything.
And one of the things I’ve not been great about is there really are Hugo and Nebula award winners over the course of time. And now that I’m in my sixties, there’s been 60 years worth it. I’ve probably read a third of them. So once in a while you consult those lists of what were the best books for each of the various different years?
Connie Willis has won a couple times. She won for the doomsday book and she won for to say nothing of the dog, if I remember correctly. And I just, after having read about somebody else saying, Hey, there’s nothing else like this. It really is worth the time to read it. And so for a nice thick one it’s got stuff.
And I just, once in a while, I like to not say, what do we already and have more of that. It’s let’s try somebody new. If I, so Connie Willis is my latest. I got those two books fond of in reasonably used condition and stuff like that. And the reason that I love it already is it’s.
Instead of saying here we are on a Starship, rocketing in a space. And that kinda is all exposition. Instead. It’s very much good dialogue between academicians and technicians and all that kind of stuff. But to keep on using words that they’re not quite familiar with. And then over the course of time, you realize what they’re talking about and how they’re talking about.
It’s oh, this is about time travel and how time travel is dangerous. And that you gotta have a ranking of the various different time periods as to the butterfly effect. If you go back there and change anything, we could all be apes instead of human beings because we change the future. And so I love the fact that I already have characters that I care about and the way in which they’re talking about that this is not an easy thing to do is actually very complex and very parameterized.
And you have to do big math in order to figure out all of those things are pushing many buttons as to I’m looking forward to finding out what this is about, how it works, what happens to these people and it’s cleverly written. And I just love that where it’s like, she’s gonna surprise me. One of my prime things is after you’ve read all kinds of books, you were aware that there’s 36 basic plots.
And by about a quarter of the way into the book, you could say, oh, this is plot number 22, where the guy gets it. But only after extend anyway. And it’s just cool to be like, I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but I am curious as hell. So the do book, very good stuff, Connie wood. Okay. But
[01:00:29] Stephen: a link to it then there we go.
The that’s one of our things recommending stuff you may not have seen, heard, read
[01:00:36] Alan: whatever exactly. We’ll see, what’s coming up with sand man. And with just that it’s I’m curious and willing to give all kinds of things. The benefit of the doubt has to it will break my heart if it’s oh, this is like a fucking cartoon and it’s so much better than they could be so much better.
We
[01:00:53] Stephen: see. OK. Yeah. All right, man.
[01:00:55] Alan: Hey, take care. Have a great weekend.
[01:00:57] Stephen: Okay. Will do. Yeah, I we are having a hot dog roast tonight. I haven’t had a smore this year I got our cabin ready and yeah, we’re have a good evening.
[01:01:07] Alan: Sounds great Americana, man. That sounds
[01:01:09] Stephen: wonderful. Yeah. Okay. But I won’t be watching anything while doing that.
No electricity up there. exactly. ,
[01:01:15] Alan: it’s good to do that, to give yourself when I go hiking in the mountains. Colleen teases me about when I check for signal, but it’s not because I really wanna check it’s cause man, I’m in the middle of Cedar Roosevelt national park in North Dakota and I still get signal here.
It’s an amusement. It’s not like I gotta check my email absolutely. All right, man, I’ll talk to you later.
Take
[01:01:32] Alan: care. All right.
