Episode 73 – Vampires and Bond

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Stephen is going on a trip for Vampires of New Orleans with The Author Success Mastermind.

Alan saw James Bond and we reminisce about the many years of great Bond films and wonder what will be coming up next.

Alan just attended the new mac announcements and we wonder how things will work with the shortages.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Stephen: There you are. There you go. Okay. All right. Now,

[00:00:08] Alan: yes, I can hear you. I can see you. I’m surrounded by leaves.

[00:00:12] Stephen: That’s weird because then Castro, I mean, I saw the wave. You saw the wave. I’ve used the Zencaster, uh, in the last week. In fact, I had a really good interview on Friday. It was fine. It was just, and I haven’t used it and I rebooted this morning.

So what’s going

[00:00:27] Alan: on. Like I was saying it sometimes apps don’t like, they set things to where they are, but then they leave them, even though they don’t realize that it’s a system setting instead of an app specific site.

[00:00:41] Stephen: Oh no. I have found that if I have a zoo and then later today I go on the Zencaster a lot of times the mic won’t work until I do a complete reboot Zen or zoom must capture the mic and not give it up.

[00:00:55] Alan: Yeah. That there. Wow. You know, it’s kind of funny because. In this era [00:01:00] of COVID and so forth, you would think that all the places that learn to capture screens, sound or recording, they would learn to play nice. Unless what they’re saying is let’s make it inconvenient for you to use anybody, but us, you know what I mean?

[00:01:13] Stephen: I mean, honestly, isn’t that a playbook tactic out of Microsoft and apple. I mean, we know Microsoft has done that type of stuff in the past.

[00:01:22] Alan: Exactly. That make it integrating enough and act like, Hey, we know we’re the only one out there, so why should we worry about anybody else? And then they don’t.

[00:01:33] Stephen: So anyway, okay.

So, uh, wow. A lot going on. My big thing is we are leaving tomorrow for new Orleans. The first trip this year that we’ve both been able to go on that we had planned.

[00:01:47] Alan: Wow. So this was for a conference or for a big, I think it was a conference,

[00:01:51] Stephen: a writers writers world-building event. So we’re going down the new Orleans, a group of writers.

It’s only like [00:02:00] 10 or 12 of us. We’re going to create a world as a group. And then everybody’s going to write a short vampire story. Uh, set within that world and we’re go compile it and release it as an anthology and all the monies go, go to charity. And while down there we’re going to go to a vampire ball.

We’re going to go to a vampire club and do a tour cemetery tour, and all

[00:02:22] Alan: sorts of you get all the atmosphere to it, to get everybody thinking. What a great idea I’ve often liked shared world series, you know, like Robert aspirin did it for a long time with, um, not cause the thieves world. I think it’s called thieves world and George Martin, when he, before the big breakthrough was game of Thrones, he had written successful stuff, but then he did the wildcards series for like, I don’t know, eight, 10 volumes or something, right.

Where it was, you know, um, uh, a shared world where there’s multiple different superheroes, but different authors get to do their, take on them, expand relationships and all that kind of stuff. And I’ve always been [00:03:00] intrigued by, wow, you’re going to let your baby go. You’re going to have to let somebody else actually, you know, That’ll be cool.

You guys are doing it like on the fly. That’s very impressive,

[00:03:09] Stephen: actually. Yeah. Cool. Well, um, we’re actually writing our stories. Afterwards, uh, we’re getting everything set up. Everybody’s, you know, we’re creating the world, the shared universe aspects of it, and then writing a story. And the cool thing is when we did, uh, say alum, uh, in July, it was witches.

And I wrote my witch’s story, turned it in, but I. Altering that story a little bit to include it in my town magician universe. So I’m using the same basic story in two different places, uh, so that, you know, helps

[00:03:44] Alan: isn’t there something, you know what I mean? I know that authors that have done that had similarities.

They’re like, well, if I’m going to steal for someone steal from the best steal from myself, you know what I mean, top plagiarizing, if it’s your own good stuff. Right. Interesting. If [00:04:00] anything going to Nolan’s and doing it like that, Ben player base and stuff. You’re you’re, I don’t know if the shared world will be set in new Orleans, but it’s definitely a, a natural for that.

You know what I mean? Your tour’s you’re going to say just this place is dripping with history and dripping with

[00:04:14] Stephen: eeriness interesting because the witches one, there’s a couple people that have. Like something that took place in 1600 Salem with witches, other people that wrote modern witches, but some of the same shared elements I wrote, uh, fantasies totally into set in another world, but with some of the same shared elements.

So it’s totally wide open to just about anything.

[00:04:39] Alan: Like when. The world-building aspect is one of those, like when you, when you read reviews of fantasy and science fiction, that that’s often a term used there and it, and it really is like, some people are good at it. And some people are not, they have a map in their head and the, the journeys, whatever they take real [00:05:00] time, you know what I mean?

They don’t play fast and loose with reality. And if anything, how they describe, you know, what, now you’re going from different climates and different geographic types and stuff like that. And then not often they don’t do the map and enterprising fan will like do the first map of a place. And that doesn’t really solidify it because I hope that the author has already had that in their mind.

What Robert Howard wrote the Conan books. I don’t think he had a map, but then those were added afterwards. And I don’t know, maybe a little bit of retrofitting to say, well, you can’t get from a scenario tackle alone in a day. You know what I mean? That kind of stuff. So

[00:05:35] Stephen: I know other authors are doing this.

I mean, Kendall for awhile had a shared world. Uh, aspect that you could put your world and your books up there. And other authors could write to that. And some big authors actually have a lot of stories out there in their world with other authors, I’ve talked to a couple and I know another guy that took some old, and I think this was something [00:06:00] somebody else had done.

You had mentioned, he took old public domain stuff where the world’s a 20,000 leagues under the sea and put it all into one universe and created an alternate history that when the Martians attacked earth, they won and they controlled the earth and superheroes came about because of that and set within that world, the world’s universe that he called.

[00:06:25] Alan: I love those kinds of things. I love where authors are so knowledgeable about past science fiction, past folklore, past mythology, that they find a way to bring it all together in a way that isn’t jarringly wrong. But actually it’s like, yeah, they could be related or these could be kind of contemporaneous and they just never bumped into each other.

But now they’ve been forced to all be in Egypt at the same time, they would bump into each other. So like league of extraordinary gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin, Kevin O’Neill, um, is really good in that regard. And he’s actually done it where he jumps through various different time periods. So here’s Victorian level heroes.

Here’s [00:07:00] 1960s heroes he’s does a real. He’s like encyclopedic almost in the knowledge that he has and who he brings in that would be an interesting team, but also just enough friction and just, you know what I mean? Like he’s really good at picking who he wants to be in that shared

[00:07:14] Stephen: universe. So, yeah. Yeah.

It’ll be fun. So I can’t wait till it gets out, gets done. I’ll share a link, the witches one isn’t out yet. Um, it should be soon. They have. Editors a weekend. Jay was training some new editors this weekend and they were using our stories to get practice on. So the interview, and I’ll

[00:07:38] Alan: tell you, let me, um, I would be remiss in not mentioning the whole Wolf Newton universe.

This is the one that’s it? That we’re, you know, they’ve made it that pretty much everything that’s ever happened in the history of heroes started because there was an event in the sky over wold. Well, in England, Um, various different babies born within [00:08:00] that time were then given various different abilities.

And because they also have a little bit of time travel, a little bit of dimensionality that they they’ve really made it, that everyone Tarzana doc Savage and the Scarlet Pimpernel and they’re all related, or at least intermixed somehow and Philip Jose farmers, the one that came up with this first idea, clickers, when so many people have now contributed to it, that it’s kind of like the aristocrats joke where every author has their take on it.

And it’s like, is there anybody that hasn’t written a story in this universe, that concept, you

[00:08:32] Stephen: know, it’s cool because it’s not really trademark, it’s kind of open source public domain. So he kind of start that’s exactly right. You couldn’t write for it because nobody really owns the whole thing. It, which just, you know, if you’re a Linux advocate, that type of writing kind of appeals to that, you writing into the same type of problem where people are like, well, every author should write their books for free and give it [00:09:00] to me for free, you know?

But not every Linux app out there is free. Yeah.

[00:09:07] Alan: One of the joys of that universe to me is I’m just, even though I track on that pretty well on the authors in that whole world, every time I go to a Polk Connor or a Comicon or something like that, I find like a new book in the series, a new anthology. And I’m like, well, you know, people don’t announce, I guess, Hey, we’re working on it.

And then we got 10 buddies to do it. And now there’s another chapter in this thing. And I, whatever that thing is about, not just going on Amazon and you know exactly what you’re looking for, and it might give you some good recommendations, but it’s a much different experience than going into a bookstore and like just buy a title or a cover or, oh, this guy wrote another book.

I didn’t, I like him, but somehow he fell off my radar and I. I must’ve been half a dozen times surprised and delighted by finding out there’s more, there’s more to read in the wool Newton universe. I just love that.

[00:09:58] Stephen: And I, [00:10:00] that is definitely when we’re down there, like always one of my top things is going into the little stores, finding books, not just when we, when I was there last time.

Uh, obviously there’s tons of voodoo books, tons of vampires, you know, with an rise. Oh, by the way, there’s the cemetery that Anne rice based, her interviewer used for inspiration

[00:10:22] Alan: and the vampire, the vampire list. Exactly.

[00:10:26] Stephen: There is a grave she used for Louis and it’s his name? Louis that, and there’s some guy that dresses up like Louis and just goes into the graveyard at Titan and sits on the gravestone and just thinks

that’s so cool. But, uh, I always look for. Good-looking books fiction that may be local to that area. Uh, you know, I did that and say Aluma and I got a couple, uh, looking at it. It was funny because when I was in Salem, one of the people I interviewed on my podcast, his book was in some of the [00:11:00] Salem bookstores.

So I took a picture and sent it to him. Cause he’d actually never been there. They just happened to find it. That

[00:11:06] Alan: is, you know, w we do the same thing when we’re on vacation. If we find out that there’s a little bookstore we pop in. And so when we’ve been like in Yellowstone or the grand Tetons, they’ll have books there that are like hiking fiction.

If you know what I’m trying to say, wilderness adventures and stuff like that, there’ll be local authors that are locally famous. They’ve got a. Well selling books, but they haven’t broken out of that area. So then I’m there. I have that. Well, I really, I want to read all these, but am I really going to buy a dozen books all at once?

If I don’t, when will I get them again? I’m going to have to remember the name of this bookstore and write to the guy and say, Hey, you know what I mean? It’s, it’s a, it’s a little bit of a dilemma, but a good dilemma to have to discover that kind of cool, very specific thing. And if you hadn’t walked into that bookstore, they never might’ve popped up on my screen.

[00:11:50] Stephen: Yeah, definitely. You got to look for the big foot romance, you know, the hot market I hear. So we’ll, we’ll, we’ll see what we [00:12:00] find and what we ended up coming back. You know, what else is out there? I’m going to go to one of not the only one, but a wound Faulkner. He lived in the French quarter for awhile and they have his house, they have a bookstore museum there.

So I’m like, well, I’m going to have to buy some Faulkner at William Faulkner’s house. I mean, exactly.

[00:12:19] Alan: You know, Louis Lemoores writing place up in the Dakotas. We made a point of stopping in there. And of course it was like a shack. It was this little thing. But out of that came, I dunno, 60 books. He’s a very prolific guy for whole Sackett family, all the westerns that he did and stuff like that.

And when we were down in key west, went to Hemingway’s house, you know, and it’s like, I don’t know. He he’s a very. A guy that’s grown beyond his work. You know what I mean? There’s so many legends about Hemingway. The man, not only is it old man at the sea and it’s very stuff. So it was just very cool there’s atmosphere to be found in.

You know what I mean? Like he just he’d look out and it’s not right on the water, but you just think everyday he kind of wanted her out of key west, which is this little tiny thing at the end of a whole bunch of [00:13:00] islands. And then after that, it’s ocean, it’s the golf at least. And what does that do for informing your writing?

That’s a very

[00:13:06] Stephen: cool thing. Did you go to the bar that he always went to? Actually, we

[00:13:10] Alan: didn’t, we only have like an hour and a half off the, we were on a cruise and so we just kinda zoomed around, Hey, I, I painted a polydactyly cat, you know what I mean? We didn’t have a meal, but it was, it was very cool just to wander around and especially the natives that are there, you know, they have their own kind of nation, if you will.

They’re very happy to be there. Proud. They all gathered to watch the sunset every day and stuff like that. And our timing didn’t work out for that, but I just, it, it, uh, I had that on my list. There’s all kinds of like, if you’re going to be there, you should do at least these. And I think we did like three of the five that we wanted to do and hitting the bar for a hurricane.

We just couldn’t do

[00:13:46] Stephen: it the other place. Um, when I was in Salem, I went to Hawthorne’s house of the seven Gables. Exactly. And it was really weird and interesting because you hear about Hawthorne, but he’s actually, I, I, I [00:14:00] guess I didn’t connect it. He’s actually quite an old author. I mean, it was like 16, 1700 era.

Uh, whereas a lot of the stuff I read is 18 hundreds. Uh, so it was interesting that I hadn’t connected that and looking at the style of writing, uh it’s. It is an interesting thing when I, you know, oh, click, this is 200 years earlier, type thing, you know

[00:14:24] Alan: exactly. I’ll tell you, there are certain, you know, um, as I was growing up, you discover like, wow, Ambrose Bierce, you know, who is a very interesting guy.

He wrote the double dictionary, one of the big, early work of like sarcastic humor and so forth. But he’s also the guy that like disappeared. He kinda like went down to Mexico and was never seen again. And so there’s like a mystery behind him. I like Stephen Crane that the red badge of courage, which everybody knows him for.

He’s got many other things. And in fact, some, some really cool, like little poems that I met a man chasing the horizon. Stop. I said [00:15:00] it is futile. You lie. He cried and ran on. That’s such a perfect encapsulation of obsession and an injection of reality. Oops. Okay. Sorry. You’re kidding.

[00:15:14] Stephen: You’re going to get buried

[00:15:16] Alan: early.

I have stacks as you know, most collectors and paper people have stacks and I have no idea why that went down. Too much sunlight and it expands and moves and then a little slide and that’s all

[00:15:28] Stephen: you need. See, you don’t believe the supernatural and we’re talking about it and boom, look what happens. I have increased my stack outs, right?

Well, we have the problem in our room. We have cats. So anything you put anywhere ends up being swatted across the whole room or knocked over in the middle of the night, never in the day, always in the middle of the night.

[00:15:51] Alan: And it’s funny because I’ve seen. I’ve seen cats walk amongst a field of cacti and not get a spine.

And yet they can’t seem to make it across [00:16:00] your table without knocking over a stack of

[00:16:02] Stephen: there’s some really big tick-tock challenge thing where people like put dominoes and stuff up, and then they like called the cat to walk through. And then they called the dog.

[00:16:13] Alan: Exactly. Because in his mind, it’s not about getting through the down.

It’s my best friend called me. I’m

[00:16:20] Stephen: getting there as soon as I, uh, do dogs are mostly clueless. So speaking of worlds, uh, you just went and saw a big world movie, uh, the new James Bond, one of my favorites all the time. So I

[00:16:36] Alan: don’t see, I have. Oh, I must have been like 10 years old. When I saw my first James Bond.

It might’ve been even eight. Like one of those Sunday nights of movies, it was a big event for a big theater movie to make it onto television. And I really loved it, you know, all of that daring do at the gadgets and just, you know, his, his, um, you know, licensed to kill, but, you know, uh, [00:17:00] Wit sometimes, uh, maybe the womanizing and whatever else might be going on.

So the fact that that series has been going on for like 16 years is kind of amazing that, uh, um, let’s see broccoli and Saltzman where the producers and they. Canny about what makes this character work. And as they’ve had to replace James bonds over the course of time, they didn’t like jump the shark and put in ridiculous stuff.

They actually kept a pretty good continued line of, yeah. That person is hard enough. Menacing enough, suave enough. You know what I mean? And

[00:17:34] Stephen: I believe it’s broccoli’s wife and then son that have taken it over and they it’s still the same lineage

[00:17:40] Alan: companies. What I think productions, I think is the name of the production company.

And actually there’s a couple of good books about the whole history of James Bond. And that was not a certain thing. They’ve had to go through all kinds of legal battles where various different people, like when they made, um, let’s see maybe the living daylights or something like that. There was a time where they brought Sean Connery back.

Um,

[00:17:58] Stephen: never say never [00:18:00] again, or

[00:18:01] Alan: if you will never, never say never again. And they were it wasn’t sure as to whether this was going to fragment or whether there was going to be a one true series they can. And like, we always them, I was lucky when I was growing up, we had a jury Louis cinema in elk Grove, you know, for elk Grove to have its own little movie house.

It, I don’t know what the population was, but Jerry Lewis was expanding in this way. Kind of like magic Johnson did later put theaters in places where they might not have it, but it’s very much a community thing. Having said that. Whoever was the Booker for things there. We’re really good about getting first one stuff, but also once in a while, getting like we’re going to get, um, at one point there was a double James Bond and a triple James Bond, film marathon.

And so all the ones that I hadn’t seen, I got a chance to catch up on. So it was Dr. Noah and Goldfinger and from Russia with love and me and my best friend Stu, we just both loved those. So you go there and you’re like, Hey, one of the first places to get, you could get popcorn and get a refill. So it’s [00:19:00] like I could do three movies and get popcorn and just.

As I have a little punk kid to lose yourself in there, go to Jamaica there in the Swiss Alps there on the, uh, the orient express, this train that goes from, you know what I mean? One of their appeals is not only been of course the characters, but the locales were great. They’re going to do an undersea scene off the coast of Jamaica there.

I just, you know, if you will, I know it’s formulaic. I know there’s always a big opening where he’s escaping from a tight situation and then suddenly he’s paragliding because that’s the only way to get out of the facility. And yet one of the things, even this latest movie, it isn’t special effects. It’s still, there’s Accurate’s that are doing some pretty serious, maybe dangerous.

And I’m sure there’s a certain amount of greenscreen and stock men and stuff like that, but it sure doesn’t seem to be. Like they don’t break the, uh, the idea that this couldn’t really happen. It like when they’re, you know, he gets scratched on his face and then [00:20:00] for the next, you know, whatever part of the movie, he doesn’t just come on, all spiffy clean, he gets continually worn down and battered as the movie goes on.

And so you get the idea of he’s got grit. He, he tunes out paid, he’s not immune to pain. You know what I mean? There’s real danger for where, when he takes, uh, uh, oh, well, I really liked that aspect of him, this era of incredible special effects with star wars and dude and everything else that. Magic to be found in a tough guy that has grit and agility, and he’s a good shot and that he’s gonna fight.

I mean, I’m sure they go, um, unbelievable once in a while, but then it’s just kind of that John Wu laughter off his gun and run out of bullets by now. You know what I mean? And I’ll even show things like maybe that’s been one of the things that they’ve heard is a criticism. So they’ll show every time that they kill a guy, they grab his gun and use that.

And the net runs out of bullets. Cause he didn’t know how many it had or it’s one of those guns [00:21:00] that’s tuned to your fingerprints. So they track shooting. It doesn’t work. They really have like danger instead of it just being, yeah, he picks up a gun, sweeps the room all is well, no, when he’s. Like a tight fight.

He’s really, especially against a good fighter. He’s getting knocked around just like, I don’t know,

[00:21:19] Stephen: there’s

[00:21:20] Alan: adrenaline aspects to it. It’s still captured me having seen, you know, all of

[00:21:25] Stephen: them for 60 years. So James Bond is so unique in the world because it was books. Uh, you know, this guy was a spy in the war and he wrote books and they became popular and the books are action packed, but not as much as the movies I would argue because I’ve read them, I’ve got them.

I’ve got the faucet collection. Um,

[00:21:46] Alan: actually I remember that was one of the first series that I graduated from Tom swift and doc Savage and James Bond were one of the first series where while I was really, I’m going to, like, if my mom and dad knew what was in here, they may not be comfortable [00:22:00] with like 10, 12 year old punk.

And you reading this there’s real torture in here. There’s like shadow sex scenes. You know what I mean? They were never explicit, like other series became, but it was definitely. They, they were adult, they had adult themes to them, you know, but also the adult teams. So you have honor, you have, you know what I mean, that you have out in country British, you get a sense of the British

[00:22:20] Stephen: he’s at the tough guy.

He’s a man, you know, there’s no question, uh, you know, that he could be a cowboy in other stories, you know? Exactly. And then the movies are just so interesting because it’s the same character, but everybody’s been accepting of changing actors. There’s nothing else like that. Nothing. And, and there are, and people argue about it, but they’re pretty much okay with it.

Arguably Daniel Craig has been one of the best, partly because he does change throughout the series. I mean that very first one with casino Royale, he wanted to quit the agency. Uh, but he got screwed over and he went back. So they’ve, he’s always been that [00:23:00] hardened criminal, but then, you know, Skyfall, he, he ran into problems and now this new one he’s leaving and I didn’t see it yet, but they’re hinting at the, that female agent and, you know, all sorts of changes probably coming up for the next one.

But. He probably has the most, uh, convoluted stories. He actually does do some changing throughout the that’s really true.

[00:23:22] Alan: Let’s say, show his eye again, not to, you know, your author would talk about this. He has an internal life, you know what I mean? Instead of just being kind of a weapon that you point at the enemy and let him go and do his job, he has his own internal conflicts about, you know, my doing the right thing.

How, how long can I do this? I’m getting older. I, you know, what, if I find out that my boss has been involved in maybe some shady dealings and does the ends justify the means? You know what I mean? How much am I? Like, I’m not just a tool. I’m not going to be ordered to do anything. I have my own sense of what’s right.

And what’s the right way to do things. And he’s very good at portraying. Um, those conflicts while still getting the [00:24:00] job done. Um, I, it, it, like you said, sometimes the discussion is, which is your favorite James Bond. And it’s like, I dunno, man. I just like all of them. I like all the characters. They’ve all brought something to it.

Yeah. If there’s anybody that I had to pick that like is stereotypically James Bond, Pierce Brosnan. Yes. I agree with like the guy that was so swab, he could indeed be in a toxic Monte-Carlo and everybody would accept that he’s, you know, that guy, but he also had that hardness to him so that it wasn’t just, I’m a, like, Roger Moore was a little bit of a, a too handsome for the role, if you will.

And so I dunno, and I actually, Timothy Dalton alum. He might be one of the ones that is people’s least favorite, a real, um, a very good not world where it is, but like, he actually was one of the first ones to show emotion that maybe he fell in love too much, then got fooled that, that he was vulnerable because if you have a love, they don’t have to kill you or they can.

Yo your, your way. And [00:25:00] anyway, all of them have had very different, good aspects. And one of the coolest things about them is that they got to have great villains for great heroes. And so aren’t several, Blofeld multiple incarnations of him has been very medicine, the whole specter, the whole Schmertz Mersch know that there’s international combines that he’s penetrating, but they’re really already in Vegas and to so many different things that you don’t know who your friends are, which is so much what spy movies are about.

You can’t read a John LeCarre book or a Loveland book without going. What’s the famous phrase, it’s a wilderness of mirrors. You just don’t know. And you hope that someone will have loyalty, that someone will be decent instead of being just a magnificent actor, a

[00:25:39] Stephen: bastard actor. So is a Remy Malik. Really good as a villain.

[00:25:44] Alan: He is good, but honestly he wasn’t as menacing as I thought he could be. I thought a little bit too contained, whereas Christopher waltz, as Blofeld really knows how to like choose scenery and be menacing while being very polite [00:26:00] about it, that first scene where he was in, I think Inglorious bastards, right?

Where he’s the, he’s the Jew hunter. And he’s like, you know, family’s farmhouse and he’s like sipping a glass of milk while all the implications are. I could have all you killed. And in fact, I’m looking for more people to kill, but he’s being so polite and talking about, do you like it here? You know what I mean?

He’s really not that I don’t know that crazy edge to him. I, I. I always liked close Maria brand out. He’s an old guys that you’re like, he might not be all. He’s not, he’s not, he can be, do crazy well. And especially, I think I I’ve lost track now, which movie was which, but he had, um, where his, his love that was maybe going to stray with James Bond.

A lot of his world conquest plans make a lot of money, you know, steal the nuclear weapons. They were all worked by like, he’s really in love, but obsessive love with this. I think maybe a domino, maybe it [00:27:00] wasn’t no. And seeing him kind of unravel over even the crazy mighty villainous, if they have fallen in love, they’ll kind of go nuts if that love is threatened.

So he’s one of those that really added complexity to. Um, I don’t know. And sometimes the motivations aren’t just, Hey, I want to make a lot of money. I want to take over the world. Sometimes they’re just, they started to have good damaged his youth. So, you know, or they were betrayed by the secret service.

They were, um, they’ve come back from incredible training circumstances and. Damaged by it. And I don’t know, they’ve always had really good. Um, sometimes the main villain and sometimes his main thug are really interesting, memorable characters. Everybody knows jaws, everybody knows jaws. He on job. Exactly, man, that, that scene Goldfinger when I was young and it just.

Well, what a great, like they [00:28:00] really got the field in Fort Knox, you know,

[00:28:01] Stephen: whatever, right. Suspension of

[00:28:04] Alan: disbelief. When I was young, I loved, I continued to love them. I never missed,

[00:28:08] Stephen: I haven’t either. I, you know, I definitely have the, Hey, there’s something blowing up and I can eat popcorn. Let’s see that movie.

You know? I mean, my, my son picks on me about that. He’s like, Hey, you’ll love it. It’s got things that blow up, you know, picks on me about it. But, um, whatever

[00:28:25] Alan: has a volcano layer. I am. So

[00:28:28] Stephen: that’s Darth Vader. They’ve they they’ve retroed, uh, that he built a castle on Mustafa in the lava. So that’s been okay.

So we’ve had James Bond changing actors throughout the years, and this is Daniel Craig’s last one he’d said no more. Um, so there’s a lot of talk about who’s next. There’s talk of a female James Bond and there’s talk of Idris Elba. For me, I think interest elbow would be excellent. I’d [00:29:00] love to see him as James Bond.

[00:29:01] Alan: He’s he’s got presence. He’s got menisci and he’s got the smoothness. He’s really good combination. I will say that the lady successor that they brought in, she, she didn’t like, oh, she do good to me. She was. Um, she didn’t have that combination of well licensed to kill. I don’t, I don’t get that, um, menace in her.

I don’t get that kind of like sociopathic coldness

[00:29:25] Stephen: that suaveness, that’s overlaying the cold.

[00:29:29] Alan: And I know this is such a big topic nowadays, where they really are, and not only retrofitting, but changing some of the base elements, like, uh, characters, sex, nationality, uh, you know, age and stuff like that. And if they’re going to go with a female transplant, no problems with it at all, the one that they proposed here that actually is termed a double oh seven because Craig’s character is semi-retired.

I don’t know, she just, she isn’t like the person that I’d handed the Baton off to. I wasn’t swept away by her sometimes when you like doctor I’ll take [00:30:00] it, by the way, what we said about another series that has indeed had the change of the main character doctor, you know what I mean? And sometimes the new doctor who has to grow on me, but sometimes the minute that they appear, that’s like, what a great choice.

You know what I mean? I thought David Tennant was pretty good from the start. And then Matt Smith who followed him very different, but also really good from the star. And some have arrested me more than others if you will. Um, but even then they decided to go with a female doctor who there and all of them have been interesting, but she’s not one of my friends.

And it’s kind of funny. You kinda, it’s hard to talk about it with immediately being no, I don’t like women. I love and respect that everything else, women, but sometimes the writing is not as good. The character is not as good, whatever that magic spark is. It gives you a good replacement. It might not work.

[00:30:48] Stephen: Yeah. And, and we’ve talked about this too. We can’t give an opinion. We can’t say yeah, they shouldn’t do a female doctor or doctor who or James Vaughan, because we’ll just get ripped apart. We’re middle-aged white guys, so it’s [00:31:00] irrelevant. But I, another author made a good point about this. He says, why do we have to have a female James Bond?

Why can’t we have a double, a seven that’s a different character, but female, if there’s multiple double sevens, you know, start a whole nother. Line of movies with this, and there have been other female atomic blonde peppermint

[00:31:25] Alan: that, um, I’m not sure because there’s so much money in the franchise and they want to continue it.

They’re looking for a way to continue it and make it more modern current. And I have no problems with the experimentation, but we are actually, I think, pretty decent and reasonable. I know that there’s whole parts of like comics, gate SF gate. The people that are really nasty about this is the way it should be in it’s only this.

And oftentimes it seems to be along those lines of gender or color or whatever else it might be. So I’m always curious about the experiment, but I don’t, I don’t mind saying, you know, that just didn’t work for me. It isn’t that I lose my [00:32:00] ability to criticize when it just, it wasn’t as exciting. It wasn’t as, I don’t know, the, um, As they have done that in Marvel comics, any number of Marvel comics has actually been very good at the female floor, you know, Jane Foster becoming exactly.

Um, and not in the movies, but in the comic books, it was very well presented with. Uh, what she would be like, she isn’t indeed worthy of the hammer. She, you know, that kind of stuff, but, and, and the issues that she might have about automatically every big macho guy, the villain, like, am I going to fight a woman?

Or like, you know what I mean? Like, I can’t believe I’m going to get beat by a woman and that kind of stuff. It makes for very interesting issues, um, that when they tried to do that in the last wonder woman movie, that her power wasn’t that she’s a lady Amazon warrior, but it’s the power of love. It wasn’t as effective as if they had just let her be this, this perfect trained warrior take down other people.

[00:32:56] Stephen: And people didn’t like wonder woman 90 or 84, because [00:33:00] it wasn’t as strong of a character. It wasn’t that she was. Being a woman or not being a woman, you gotta be true to the character. So here’s my argument. I love the idea of having a whole nother series. That’s a female agent, but exactly it doesn’t need to call her James Bond, but I can see it, them wanting to connect it because that’s just going to draw people in, you know, atomic blonde did well, but I don’t know if it did as well as James Bond, you know?

Uh, and if I was gonna say, if we’re go be fair about it too, if we’re gonna be changing James Bond to women and using, then I think the next ruler of the Amazonians should be a guy. You gotta keep it fair. You know, that sounds ridiculous though. Yeah,

[00:33:44] Alan: but that, that conflict can go either way of like, if it’s a traditionally a certain way or that within a culture, there’s real restrictions and rules, and then someone’s going to break those rules, et cetera, et cetera.

That would be an interesting. Yeah, wait, I’m really sorry about this, but you have to use the restroom. [00:34:00] We’ll be back in a minute.[00:35:00] [00:36:00]

[00:36:00] Stephen: So here, here’s the next question. Okay. The next possible change. Uh, and this is something I’ve been debating, but it hasn’t really come up with others, Indiana Jones. Could they do another actor as Indiana Jones. Harrison Ford is doing number five right now. The dude’s like 85 years old. I can’t imagine them swinging on a whip and all that jazz.

Okay.

[00:36:26] Alan: So they already did the young Indiana Jones series. And then she had like a son of his in moving number four. So they’re already, and that’s actually one of the things I was going to say, well, way of continuing any number of series very naturally is to say, how about their son or daughter

[00:36:41] Stephen: has

[00:36:42] Alan: been, um, prolific in him of being with women.

It really might be that there’s any number of times. And, and that, that someone got pregnant and was done to produce either a James Jr, or a Jane Bond or whatever else it might be. And Indiana Jones you would think could be kind of that same thing they’ve [00:37:00] already introduced. The idea of his father had influence on him.

Why not have that same thing happened with his son or even a grandson, especially if you’re 85, you know, you got to kind of jump a couple generations to be, maybe the sun was determined to. Go adventuring. But then, you know how that kind of skips that the eldest is the wild card. The middle one is the one that settles down and has a family, but then one of the kids here’s all about grandpa and says, that sounds great.

So yeah, they, there are easy tried and true literary ways of saying. Yeah. And so maybe the better question is who would it be like? Who’s a young actor that could handle the Indiana Jones daring. Do you know what I mean?

[00:37:42] Stephen: And it’s, it’s interesting because I think James Bond they’ve changed. Actors kept the name.

So it’s been like, okay, well, when you get the double O seven, there’s like assigned names because you’re anonymous. You don’t have the background. I could see that, but we know it’s different people, [00:38:00] but Indiana Jones, if you say, Hey, this is Indiana Jones and it did yoursel, but it’s like, well, he doesn’t seem at all.

Like Indiana, Indiana Jones is a character in the world, so you’re right. Correctly. They probably do need a sun or, uh, something like that. Uh, so they had Shai LeBouf, but he got a lot of flag. People hated him for some reason. I didn’t think he was that bad. Um, you know, what do you think of him or who would you say would make a great Indiana?

Yeah,

[00:38:28] Alan: I just, that he doesn’t come across as, you know, well, that’s, that’s the guy, you know what I mean? That’s a physical type. Sometimes it’s the, the swagger or the attitude or to their acting chops and stuff like that. Um, so, you know, it’s kind of funny, they really, um, a little bit what you were saying, why not do a whole different series?

They have tried that with Nicholas cage in the national treasure movie. Kind of that same things, maybe a little bit of Tom Hanks

that from angels and demons, but we just named a couple of people. They were already [00:39:00] also of an age. And so are they the young, um, wow. You know, who am I? So let’s see, um, the guy that played in the Kingsman and I never remember his name, um, like, and very Irish. And so that’s why I have a block against why you don’t pronounce most of the letters in that name.

You know, it’s all this, and then it’s pronounced Ian. So what a, what a stupid parochial block on my part. But I thought that he had the right, like rice smile, the right. He looks like a normal guy, but when it’s time, he has the ability to get up for the game. He’s got skills. Um, so someone like that, uh, there was a guy that was.

It was kinda funny. I don’t, you black out on accurate actresses names. He was in like 10 things. I hate about you,

[00:39:47] Stephen: Keith ledger,

[00:39:50] Alan: maybe I’m thinking of the wrong he’s ledger

[00:39:51] Stephen: unavailable.

[00:39:53] Alan: Unfortunately, there’s been a couple where it’s like a new. And they, and whatever that level of [00:40:00] handsomeness, but not too handsome.

So if they look like they’ve got a little bit of like desert dust on them and stuff like that, it sometimes I love it when they just someone new it magically appears and they did a big casting call. And out of the a hundred people they talked to, this is the one they say, well, I’d

[00:40:18] Stephen: be surprised fries with Batman.

I mean, Michael Keaton cordoned off extremely well and Patterson. Now the latest

[00:40:26] Alan: trailer wonderfully intense,

[00:40:31] Stephen: but the thing they got to here’s where they got to remember is do the character, right? Indiana Jones is not James Bond. He’s not a cool killer. He’s not Mr. Action. He can’t. But he’s more of that.

All shucks, you know, Andy Taylor turned adventure, you know, a little more down home, you know, but Harrison Ford was the perfect fit for that. He pulls that off so well, that’s him. So I always joke about Tom cruise. Oh, look, there’s a movie with [00:41:00] Tom cruise in it because every character Tom cruise does is the same freaking character.

But if you like it,

[00:41:07] Alan: oh, is that the movie with that cocky young guy? Yeah. That’s a good movie. Even though he’s now 60 something or whatever. God who can still hang off a hundred story building. That’s pretty, pretty fantastic.

[00:41:19] Stephen: Yeah, absolutely. So you got to find that guy who is that way naturally and brings it out and that’s, I think what made Indiana Jones so good was it was Harrison Ford.

He didn’t have to act it, you know,

[00:41:36] Alan: It’s kind of funny, unfortunately, as we’ve talked, one of our opening statements, is there any series besides this is an ad? Yeah. There’s actually a bin. When you get a good series going, there’s so much money to be made that yes, they’re going to have multiple Batman.

They’re going to have multiple, Indiana’s a joke

[00:41:49] Stephen: and all that kind of stuff.

[00:41:51] Alan: And maybe, I don’t know, maybe that really will be some directors, like Spielberg really would have the power to say, um, I’m not doing any more in the series and [00:42:00] neither is anybody else. You know what I mean? Like Carl Schultz at doing peanuts said, I’m the only guy that’s ever going to do it.

And when it’s done, I don’t want my son or anybody else to take over for me. It only means, so maybe there are directors that have that ability. Maybe they put in a clause, a clause in the contract for awhile that says this character is mine. And no, you don’t get the rights to continue while my corpse is in the ground.

[00:42:24] Stephen: Right. So, so there’s, you know, there’s Sean Patrick Flannery who did one of the young Indiana Jones. He is available. Uh, you know, I could see that Shyla buff. We said, what about Tom Hiddleston?

[00:42:39] Alan: Yeah. You know, I would’ve said, well, he’s already got the low-key thing going on, but of course at the same time that Ford was being Indiana Jones. Excuse me.

[00:42:50] Stephen: so it really

[00:42:51] Alan: is okay for some people that just perfectly embody those American values, Chris Evans, we just have about the human torch as well as

[00:42:59] Stephen: captain [00:43:00] America. I can say Chris Evans doing an Indiana Jones, his hair a little bit. He fit the outfit. Well, I’ll tell

[00:43:07] Alan: you what, as opposed to being typecast and only being captain America, I’ve seen him in so many great movies now where he’s like that when he was in the losers, he just was kind of like this video

[00:43:17] Stephen: game plan.

Cool. I didn’t

[00:43:20] Alan: have anywhere near the whole boy scout, you know, chest puffed out type thing. And yes, that really is a great movie. That’s one of the ones that I won’t talk about this, you know, what’s the movie that, unless I told you about it, you might not have stumbled onto it. The losers kind of, I don’t know.

It didn’t do good box office came out at the wrong time. High quality for being the comic booky and maybe cause it’s not Marvel DC, you know, when they first started to have, besides the big two men and black was nowhere near a sure thing, you know, coming up there of course, but, but it had luckily enough star power with Tommy Lee Jones.

And I just talked about this at my last, um, Comic book history lecture was about Kai book movies. [00:44:00] And some of those things that were like lightening captured in a bottle, you didn’t know that Kingsman would be able to make it, but then it had just the right casting and just enough and same with men in black, maybe losers was one of those things that somehow it’s your head, a loaded cast.

It had Morgan who that was Roca was already then from walking dead. He was being well-known, but he wasn’t Watchman. And he was in walking dead. I’m like, how does this movie you’re not

[00:44:24] Stephen: supernatural. Yeah. Yes, exactly. Good one. There’s a movie on Netflix. I don’t remember the name of it with Chris Evans.

It’s more of a serious thing where it’s these, uh, guys with a boat they’re divers or whatever, but they help smuggle people out of Afghanistan or something. Diver club, reef, shark, diver clubs up my dad. I don’t remember that, but I was like, wow, that looks really good. You know? And it’s totally different.

Uh, which ping. Okay. Ping jump. Uh, there’s a new. Movie out with Liam Neeson called marksmen. It [00:45:00] was originally called Minuteman. Um, but it was filmed, uh, in Ohio. It was filmed at the hotel in Kent because Gina went by and saw him while he was there filming that. And it was written

[00:45:14] Alan: Netflix queue. I like Liam Neeson and pretty much everything he’s ever been in.

[00:45:18] Stephen: And it was written by a guy from Cleveland too. So a lot of Ohio stuff. So we could actually go to that hotel. It’s just down the road from us and take a picture from that seat. You know, I did that when I went to the art museum because of Avengers, I was like, look, this is HQ.

[00:45:35] Alan: Exactly. It is kind of funny to see your hometown, like, you know, wow.

That building was in the movie even though of course, simulating New York or whatever else it might be. I, I really. There’s a cool thing going on COVID is terrible. But some of what in trying circumstances comes out that like film projects that have been put on the back burner, because there weren’t enough of a blockbuster, then instead people are getting a chance to do [00:46:00] smaller projects, even vanity projects, and like a cast it’s about the suspense of a sniper, maybe dueling snipers.

I’m not sure if that’s what the plot of the movie is and it doesn’t have to be let’s blow something up. A smaller scale movie and he gets to be made because everybody is kind of off, right. When they had the writers strike, what was it? 10 years. Yeah. All kinds of very interesting things were done when people were just like, well, I don’t want to not work.

You know what? I have no idea how long this is going to go on. I got a, you know, a modern age, digital, super eight camera that can do movie level quality. Let’s call my cronies who are not willing to bust the strike, but all the technical people were out of work. You know what I’m trying to say. I love seeing things that like, wow, how unexpectedly good.

That is. Even despite the writer’s

[00:46:49] Stephen: strike, people are still really good at putting together a story. That’s not writer’s strike ticked me off because they canceled human target because of that. And I love that show.

[00:46:59] Alan: Never, never to [00:47:00] return. Exactly.

[00:47:01] Stephen: He didn’t. He did return the character returned in some of the CW stuff.

Uh, and I think they use the same actor at once. Okay. And speaking of

[00:47:11] Alan: that kind of thing, because there’s so many bits going on there that I’ve lost, Raco pulled into that myth.

[00:47:18] Stephen: Uh, and it, speaking of it, when I’m in new Orleans, I’m going to get pictures where they did S new Orleans, the bar where he played piano.

And I want to try and find some of the houses and buildings from a, uh, interview with a vampire, get some pictures there too. So

[00:47:32] Alan: I don’t know that I actively seek those out, but once in awhile, like we were, I was in Toronto for a Mac world of all things. And I really like a series called, um, See the wandering fire.

It’s the Fiona of our tapestry. It’s a three, it’s a trilogy. And some part of it takes place on the university of Toronto campus. And when I, I loved going to college campuses and as I am walking around. He really captured this. This really is like, you go from beautiful civilized buildings [00:48:00] into kind of a forest in between.

And it really is like where all the light go where this is really suddenly menacing in the middle of a big city. And I love when you stumble onto something and you’re aware I’ve not been here before, but I have been because I saw it in a movie because I read it in the book. It’s very cool that people have that ability to capture place.

So well sometimes.

[00:48:21] Stephen: Okay. So, so, so speaking of Mac world, uh, you mentioned about the new Mackey Fent, uh, and how, uh, the, the new M one chip. So I know there’s a shortage right now of the heavy metals they use create these chips. So what is apple doing to. Chips out there because we can’t get an X-Box, we can’t get a PlayStation and the old ones are going for hundreds of dollars more than they should.

[00:48:47] Alan: It’s kind of funny. So this event was held at, it is just talked about their, their new music things and their, their new max, you know, that now that they’ve had the chip out there for a while, and it really is. Excellent. It really is faster, better, [00:49:00] stronger. It does better machine learning, all that kind of stuff.

They haven’t rested on their laurels. Now they got an M one pro and an M one max that have this many more cores and this much more access to light. Now it’s 64 gig of memory, which for, for my purposes, I’m not a video editor. I don’t do my compiling code. Sometimes it really is complex enough that you really want the most horsepower that you can get.

That’s probably where I push it the most, but nowadays, to get your frame rate for games and stuff like that, and you just don’t need the mightiest computer in the world. Everything is having said that they talked about the tech, they didn’t of course, in this Shazil presentation address, Hey, there might be some limited availability of this from Willie Anderson.

Apple has for a long time, been very collaborative instead of exploitative with the places they source their things from. So Taiwan semiconductor does a whole bunch of stuff for apple, you know, they design it, but then it’s produced by these guys. They do have factories in China where things are, um, either fabricated or put together in the manufacturing.

And from what I understand, so there’s some of the few [00:50:00] where they really do have green standards that really do have labor standards. Apple is a big enough country that it gets to put together treaties with other countries that are often exploitation of the whole Pacific rim, et cetera, that, that they really seem to have not only avoided the worst abuses, but also then by having a good collaborative environment, if there’s any prioritizing lists of those things being available, apple doesn’t seem to be suffering as deeply as some other companies, even though I just saw on my in today’s, um, uh, fidelity feed that they’re willing to be delays in I-phones delays in various different things because of that shortage.

Um, That’s such a weird, difficult talk about because you know, it really is intellectual property wise. The United States rules the world in many ways, but you still have to get the technetium and the, you know, the various different rare earth metals, vibranium, vibranium. Exactly that unfortunately [00:51:00] other empires have been very canny about not only by luck they have in the middle of their country, a big meaty or strike area where they have big concentrations of some of those rare things.

But they’ve also looked around the world and said, Africa has some of that too. How about if we go to Africa, not quite in a Cola colonization way, but in a let’s make a deal that we will mine it, you guys will get some benefit from it as a country, but we have first rights to it. And then first rights can mean all of it.

If these things take off. So we really are behind, uh, I think that besides China, which is kind of getting a big hold on a lot of this stuff, there’s so many United States, there’s so many cases. But otherwise the whole world could be in trouble because of the monopolization of things that go into every cell phone, every car monitor, all

[00:51:44] Stephen: those.

So quite often tech solves things. You know, we’ve seen that throughout the years, all the way back to the zipper, you know?

So in this [00:52:00] case, uh, you know, we’ve had Moore’s law pushing for 30 years, new components, new processors, more memory, faster speeds, storage, and just bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger, but everything’s changing. COVID changed everything and people think. Uh, you know, are discovering, they don’t need that new power every year and a half, two years.

Uh, if you learn a little bit about keeping your computer clean and running, you know, the one I’m on right now, it’s like 11 years old now, you know, and it’s still running. It’s been on three different operating systems. So this

[00:52:35] Alan: for Christmas is a new watch, a new phone, maybe a new laptop. But out of all of those, the only one that I might really need is the watch, because I think it’s falling behind in terms of some capability, especially health wise, which matters to me.

And I’m really. Giving up on some of the latest and greatest developments by having something older than it’s even capable of.

[00:52:54] Stephen: There’s a few new health things on watches. I’m keeping an eye on. I, you know, I just got this one in July, [00:53:00] uh, but I’m looking to, you know, possibly. So I wonder what tech solutions might come about or what.

People might learn or do different to keep their stuff. Because I got, I know people that are used to, oh, I’ve had my laptop for three years, throw it in the garbage, get a new one and that’s it. But, okay, well now this new one’s expensive and it’s no more powerful,

[00:53:26] Alan: honestly, you know, in that weird disposal culture, you know, when it was, Hey, I’m just going to get a new one every three years.

And I don’t necessarily have to keep this one from getting grungy, internal and external. Um, maybe now people are going to have to relearn some of those things about how to keep your thing, malware free, how to not like it. Isn’t only a matter of dropping it or not cracking the glass. It’s you just don’t like every time that you plug that thing in, if you don’t clean the point of your connector, you’re like pushing some more goo in there.

Some more human, you know what I mean, customer complaint. And so on now I’ve seen, there’s actually a little tools for how to clean. [00:54:00] Vulnerable port your USBC, the various different generations going back. And you’ll look in there. It’s like, is that your wax? What the hell is going on?

[00:54:09] Stephen: So there’s a great example.

Why do we still plug laptops in, I mean, people have phones, they set on a pad and it charges it. So why haven’t we done that with laptops? Uh, and why are we still using batteries that wear out so quickly? Oh wait, because that way you have to go buy a new one. Okay. I got that. But if you can’t do that anymore, you know, what are they going to do?

[00:54:31] Alan: I’ll tell you. It’s kind of funny. I really have respect for apple, not just because I have some, but the reason I have them is because they do things like here’s the way in which they’ve lowered power consumption. Here’s the way we stayed, use different materials for their batteries, so that they are, if not infinitely rechargeable, they hold a charge longer.

And materials are such that they really are the best battery that you can get out there. And so when, and also they’ve had for a long time, and honestly, not two [00:55:00] years like fashionably, but like 20 years, how do they take in old Macs and phones and watches so that they cannibalize their own parts? You know, what’s a good source for that, with an idiom and technetium and so forth is not try to get it out of the ground, but try to go to the landfill that would have been thrown into repurpose it, redirect it.

And then they’ve got vast factories where they take those things back apart. So that max now, or something like 90%. Returnable. And their goal is to get to a hundred percent were from cradle to grave as they call about it. You know, the cases made out of a hundred percent recycled aluminum. There’s no new box site having to be mined for that.

Um, they’re really, they got candy early as to not only good for the environment, good for the world, but good for costs. Don’t be hostage to somebody that has the world stores. You’ve got all kinds of stores. If you can just get your own stuff to come back in. And I think I saw not on dirty jobs, but some other tech channel where they have the factory.

That really, it [00:56:00] takes things apart. There’s no human being that has to be exposed to heavy metals, you know, kind of the old Matt as a header type thing. If you’re going to enhance me, but they’re talking, touching the mercury and the ribbons all the time. Funny people die of that kind of stuff. When they show people climbing around on a big tech landfill in India, Getting what they could harvesting, what they could out of that.

But they all had cuts and terrible things on their hands and feet because funny metal has sharp edges and stuff like that. They kind of shown that there doesn’t have to be a human cost to this and that they’ve kind of put it into their whole business plan. So hats off to them that they really thought about this early and continue to do that.

Even all their packaging materials,

[00:56:43] Stephen: recycled fiber. Well, you’ve really got to get the Americans to change their thinking because it’s too much part of our culture to just throw things away. You know? I mean, my father upholstered furniture, well, it got to the point where people couldn’t have their furniture pollster because the materials were so [00:57:00] crap.

You couldn’t redo it. You just throw it away and got a new one. And I know people now it’s like, if you tell them, well, Hey, if you recycle that they could reuse it. Well, I don’t care. And they throw it away. So you got to do this.

[00:57:11] Alan: Yeah. I mean, writ large. We’ve had recycling in the United States. Decades 40 years, probably the bins, the convenience, everything.

And I still know people that are just like, Nope, I just don’t do it. I won’t be troubled by it. I don’t care about it. But what, what do I matter? What matters is that these big companies do it, not that individuals, and yet those matter

[00:57:32] Stephen: over the thinking of those people? I, I, the only question I want to ask is how does that make America great.

Again,

[00:57:41] Alan: you know, there is a mindset about, uh, I guess it’s intellectual property almost versus. Exploitation of resources that people that do coal oil, natural gas are used to taking something out of the ground, refining it, transforming it, somehow selling it. And then [00:58:00] at some point they say, I don’t care what happens after I’ve sold it.

I don’t care that it’s putting pollution into the air. I don’t care that the pool of all the tallow and slag from the refining process is toxic death. There’s a, it’s kind of funny. There has to be a better term that someone comes up with early on. I read about externalities that the way a lot of exploiting company.

Make their money is because they never have to worry about the worst aspect, which is the disposal of the toxic things that are produced either the property itself or the byproducts that haven’t produced it, that they just have found ways to put it in the landfill. They, they actually have, when there are rules, they actually send the trucks to another state.

They’re really determined to not take responsibility for what they’re producing. So as compared to a good example, like apple, or probably any number of tech companies, there’s all kinds of places that they really are. Um, as best Bastos all our business is about avoiding lawsuits, not about making as best, those safer, not about getting rid of his best hosts entirely [00:59:00] only, only if you have so many laws and such application of those laws that they really, and then they were going out of business.

You know what you can do with all those lawsuits against this, this, you can’t get blood from a stone. Plenty. They opened up another business that does exactly what the previous one did. They, you know what I mean? That evil battle of avoiding responsibility. That’s part of exactly what we’re talking about.

The irresponsibility of I, after, after I’ve had my interaction with it, it’s like littering on a grand scale. It’s ha I had this littering stopped, you know, when we had let’s clean up the highways and we had an Indian with a tear over, we can’t do this to our beautiful country. We just can’t. And you’re calling and I haven’t been on a hike in, in years where we don’t see, I guess someone was done with their kid rapper.

[00:59:49] Stephen: And they’re right in the middle

[00:59:51] Alan: of all this seen rule of beauty and

[00:59:54] Stephen: there’s crap and my whole McDonald’s

[00:59:56] Alan: bag. I’m Doug. In fact, I’m going to leave my mark here. This is [01:00:00] how I show my shitting on

[01:00:02] Stephen: it. I’m walking trail because I love nature. Let me throw my trash on it. I don’t get that. And I had this argument, I should say, discussion with somebody because I didn’t even engage.

Uh, going back, they didn’t care about anything else. The only reason they would have never voted for Hillary. And they thought she was evil is because she wanted to shut the coal mines down. And they have friends that work in the coal mines. And I said, wait a second. First of all, there are more people that work at Sears, a company that’s going out of business than working coal mines.

So the amount of people, it’s such a small percentage, it’s better for our country. Not no, no. I don’t want to put them out of business. I said, stop.

[01:00:47] Alan: The way that capitalism works is called creative destruction. Can’t make it anymore. They have to go away. But no you’re special. Your family is. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:00:56] Stephen: I said, I said, so why don’t the government come up [01:01:00] with a program to take all these people in the coal mines, shut the coal mines out and take all these people and train them how to.

Install and create and repair solar panels and windmills and everything else, and treat that whole industry for that. Give them jobs doing that. If the only thing you care about is they have a job, an outdated crap to our planet job. Then let’s make another job for them. Then you won’t care and let’s shut them down, you know, but no, no, we can’t shut them down.

Cause that’s all they know. These are stupid arguments.

[01:01:33] Alan: Exactly. I mean, honestly, that, that thing, another tail wagging the dog thing has for so long then really West Virginia is going to run the country is to keep the coal mines open in West Virginia that we’re going to do terrible set, asides, terrible economic policy, et cetera, et cetera.

It’s, it’s kind of, and not to be. So you’re, you’re proud of working in the coal mine. Your uncle died of black lung. Your father died of black lung. What, why where’s the pride coming from here? Wouldn’t [01:02:00] you? Doesn’t doesn’t your wife wants you to live it. Doesn’t she kind of keep coaching you. Maybe you need to get out of the mines and get a better job so that I, I am perplexed sometimes by people, the first thought that comes into their mind, but then they say it out loud.

And then once they’ve said it, they’re committed to it. No matter what. Yeah, I just, I, it

[01:02:21] Stephen: makes sense. So, okay. So I have a solution to the chip problem. Uh, we need different technology. We need to go in another direction with chips, uh, using all this heavy metal, uh, you know, we’re having problems. What we really need to go back to is steam power.

We need to make steam, punk, computers and running off of steam and it’ll solve. We could probably get little trickles of water and it’ll do the computations. You know, I think that’s a perfect solution.

[01:02:52] Alan: Your contribution,

[01:02:55] Stephen: the

[01:02:55] Alan: idea, the biggest population centers in the, [01:03:00] in the world, China and India currently.

And what are they having problems with? The rain that used to come to the Malays and flow down the Yangtze in the Indus and gate monsoons and all that stuff is not happening like it once was because oops, we also did climate change with all of those poor choices and there’s going to be, there is not enough currently clean, potable water, hitting those places.

And there’s going to be conflicts, maybe wars over directing where that water goes. So steam puck might be the wrong direction to go even scarcer. It does seem that like water is perpetually renewable because it falls free from the sky, just like solar and yet on a macro scale, but really

[01:03:40] Stephen: tough choice.

Post-apocalyptic stories are there about the world running out of this, becoming a desert and having tech we’ve got dune coming up pretty soon

[01:03:53] Alan: and also having. I see the movie would call it a Waterworld where the whole place floods and there’s little like [01:04:00] flotillas of garbage that had become the new nations.

[01:04:03] Stephen: I just had this discussion yesterday with a couple people that the flood Noah and the flood that they say the water was like above the highest mountain. And it’s like, hold on, where’d all this water come from. First of all, second of all, how are these people breathing in this big boat? That’s higher than Mount Everest because you can’t breathe in Mount Everest anyway.

And just, we were just laughing thinking about how does that work and where did the water drain to exactly,

[01:04:31] Alan: as you know, there’s no talking to some people if they already got that thing of where earth is 6,000 years old. And there was a lot of here’s how the grand canyon was carved being a year or whatever else it might be.

I don’t have, we have talked about this. I don’t think maybe I have been to the creation museum in Kentucky. Uh, and I was just intensely curious. It is as bad as you might imagine. It is all the wrong, false pseudo science presented [01:05:00] really nicely beautiful. Diorama’s convincing a pseudo scientific things being said that are totally false.

And one of the things they talk about is here’s a replica of the Ark. And actually now there’s a, there was a replica of the arc, which I, I I’ll do the mock and then I’ll take it back from what I understand. They just had their flood insurance canceled, but the arc floating away it’s flood that would displace how shouting hillsides cause maybe a mudslide damage, parking lots and stuff at the facility.

But having said. Flood insurance for the arc was this headline, if you will. But when they talked about, so here’s the arc, how was it built? May not have go for what what’s go for what? Um, apparently it’s in the Bible, but it’s not real. They had the diorama’s of here’s still animals two-by-two and then the floodwaters are rising and I’m not making this up.

We were there with not by ourselves, but by all kinds of people that really wanted to be there. So that’s its own kind of odd crowd. We were looking at a [01:06:00] picture where they showed here’s the art going away and there’s little tolls of land where the last people who didn’t get to go on the arc are all getting drones and it’s like a family and they all look like pretty nice.

And the little son asks the father. Um, well what about those people? What’s going to happen to them? That’s justice for your son. And like, that really is that acceptance of everybody in the world gets to die because of Sodom and Gomorrah level sinning, which apparently includes like reading or, you know what I mean?

Like there are people that were wearing their Sean Hannity jackets and

[01:06:38] Stephen: would he be, would he be saying that? And so accepting if it happened again and he was not one of the ones on the art and if he was the

[01:06:45] Alan: family, exactly. That God, how could you do this to me, our children. It, honestly, I just, it’s weird to be in an asylum because you know, like, wow, I’m looking at the diagram of a guy, um, consorting with a dinosaur and a [01:07:00] penguin because they were all at the same time.

And I’m like, well, no, you know what I mean? Like 65 million years, at least separate 65 million, a number that I know you can’t get your money. You know what I mean? And, and like, this is, um, I, I wish that I, Colleen noticed this and we confirmed it as we went through the exhibits. They have various different things about here’s people that were good and here’s people that were sinners.

Every one of the good people was white and every one of the centers was not, wow,

[01:07:32] Stephen: this weird, subtle,

[01:07:35] Alan: he was black. And that’s why he was a center, but it was very much like, um, the taint, the, and, and honestly, this is no lie. If it wasn’t black, it was also like, Middle Eastern worthy. So here they are, like the blood libel is in evidence right at this creation museum.

It’s

[01:07:58] Stephen: a stick place. Do [01:08:00] they understand that? Realize Jesus did not look like the pictures that we have. I mean, from where he was at, of course he

[01:08:06] Alan: looks like Tom cruise with long hair to laugh about that. He’s he’s the all American Jesus, not middle Eastern Jesus. And I don’t know, it’s, it, it, it was worth seeing it so that I can say not all I’ve heard, but I was actually in there and saw.

Did you know that there was no, um, carne carnivorous activity until man sinned and then animals started to eat each other and peaceful and garden of Eden

[01:08:34] Stephen: wonderful that I can believe actually

nature works. There

[01:08:41] Alan: was one time when one prepare a museum didn’t eat another in order to survive into the next jeopardy.

[01:08:47] Stephen: What did all the carnivorous hundreds of species eat on the Ark? Did they keep some other animals to feed them?

[01:08:56] Alan: That’s what a great question. Funny, funny how I just [01:09:00] it’s. It’s amazing.

The amount of acceptance of ridiculous low. That’s not that can’t be how the Ark and the flood work. That can’t be how disease works by the way. There was no disease until there was sin. And then, and, and also there’s no evolution. Uh, God created everything in its own image. And when a man named them all, man was involved in naming all the animals, but then, wow.

So you had a pro dog, but now we have 150 different breeds of dogs. Uh, breed apparently is not evolution. They must’ve been a yet and a Chihuahua and a poodle from the very start. You know what I mean? It’s just like, boy, it doesn’t take my brain to cells to come up with. Here’s something that’s real.

Doesn’t match what you’ve just said. Oh

[01:09:43] Stephen: my gosh. You’re you’re in there. You’re walking around. You feel like you’re at the beginning of a horror movie. Like if you say the wrong thing, they’re going to start hunting. You

keep your mouth shut. Let’s head toward the exit right now. [01:10:00]

[01:10:00] Alan: Well, the guy in the dire Ram, or that has a little bit of straw coming out of the seams that’s human skin. Oh my God. This poor guy,

[01:10:08] Stephen: you know, I, I know people in Kentucky, but you notice they didn’t choose New York or LA to put this. I’m just saying,

[01:10:16] Alan: uh, you are exactly right.

They, they definitely did their demographic studies and said, this is prime location right here. Yeah.

[01:10:22] Stephen: Yeah. Good marketing and PR going on, which is kind of what the Bible’s had for 2000 years. Anyway.

[01:10:32] Alan: Oh, well, it there’s so much to be said about this, that somebody put up all the money to make this beautiful, false thing. It’s in so many people when they want this to be out there so that people can be misled into like, that’s how the world works. The reason you get a flu shot every year is because it mutates, oh, can’t use that word because God decided to throw another challenge at us.

Apparently. What about fossils that as you know, is Satan trying to [01:11:00] trick, man? It’s it’s just crazy. Oh my God.

[01:11:04] Stephen: Yeah. Part of our discussion, I was like, one of the problems I had when I was in the Mormon church was me and the ex at the time were barely making poverty wages. I mean, we were like, you know, but we were told temporary.

Pre-tax is supposed to go to the church and we’re struggling. Well, more we’ll come back to you. And I’m like, wait a second. I’m looking around at these people that are 50, 60 years old, they’ve been in the church, their whole lives. They’re in the same situation I am. So I’m like, if you’ve been giving 10%, when has it come back to you?

I don’t see that happening. And yet the president that every way adores is living a $3.4 million mansion. Okay. Hold on. Let me think about this.

[01:11:48] Alan: Yeah, honestly, I wish that there were more people in the church that just said the emperor has no clothes. I appreciate the story. You keep repeating drumming into [01:12:00] me, but I guess I have the promise of heaven, but someone’s getting there early by having the fleet of rolls Royces and the $3.4 million house and all that kind of stuff.

And. I don’t know why, why that doesn’t cause rebellion or at least questioning and people kind of boggles my mind. There’s all kinds of psychology that says that, you know, once you buy into a ruse, it’s really hard for you out of ego death to say, boy was I fooled, you’ll fight for

[01:12:27] Stephen: it’s comforting, but it’s comforting for someone else to think for you.

And then just follow with the crowd. You feel a part of it. And, and, and, and be told this, you know, go home, watch your sports, sit on the couch and do nothing because, uh, this is the best thing for you. And I’m going to make millions of dollars. Oh

[01:12:46] Alan: yeah, that really is some of the psychology Colleen and I had had this discussion on all different kinds of topics that some people are really comforted by.

I say one big thing. And then everything else that I don’t have to worry about, examining weighing [01:13:00] facts, doing the analysis, a series of still difficult, but important choices. If I say one big. Yes. And someone’s going to tell me what to do forever. After it’s in religion, it’s in politics, it’s in the military, it’s in certain tribes.

There are people that are happy to step up and say, all we have to do is put yourself in my hands and I will take care of you. And there’s some people that said, wow, that’s paradise. I don’t have to. I’m not responsible. I don’t have to work hard. It, that is really attractive. And apparently so like 40% of the population, you know what I mean?

We got this Trump cult now and any number of other cults before that, that have shown, wow, no matter that they have not maintained loyalty to you, they have not come true on the promises that they made you. If you just woke up that little bit and said, my big, yes. Was given to an unworthy person or organization.

And yet they don’t, they have to maintain that big. Yes, because it’s, so

[01:13:58] Stephen: it should be very [01:14:00] telling that I can’t think of any big horror movie that is based on in using nerds and geek culture as the basis, but I can name several that use crazy colors. So we’ll just sum it up with that right there. If you could write a horror movie about it, maybe you should rethink it.

[01:14:22] Alan: I honestly, there are horror movies about, um, you tried to learn too much. You opened that bad book. You went to this house in the cabinet and went into the wrong room. You know what I mean? Okay. You

[01:14:32] Stephen: got it. You got to add the other rules. I mean, it should be obvious if the book is bound in flesh and written in blood, you read it alone.

I don’t care who you are. There’s some rules. You should follow. I’m just saying

[01:14:47] Alan: Eldridge green glow to it.

[01:14:49] Stephen: Stop. Just stop. And then of course, if you’re a young woman, Don’t take your shirt off because you’re going to die. It’s just [01:15:00]

[01:15:00] Alan: any young couple that goes off. There’s like a, uh, you know, some kind of stabbing that’s going to happen next skewer and you boasted a boat dock

[01:15:10] Stephen: or whatever, terrible the cabin in the woods.

I was just going to say that

[01:15:15] Alan: that’s such a great one for another one of those. It’s like very meta. It’s aware of all the movies that have gone before and it plays with what are you, why are you there? Why are you staying? You know, what’s cool not to make the conspiracy worthwhile. Then you find out that there really is a reason that you need to have.

I am the elder gods, no spoilers. You know what I mean?

[01:15:35] Stephen: That’s a good one. And I have you like ever looked up all the monsters they throw in there as Easter eggs from every movie you’ve ever seen

[01:15:44] Alan: towards the end of the movie, as you know, there’s that fantastic scene where everything rushes out of its cages or whatever, and just that I hardly ever pause movies, but I really want to.

They really included every yeah. Everything really,

[01:15:59] Stephen: [01:16:00] really great. Yeah. You got to love that Josh Wheaton, right? I think so. Yeah. So, you know, he’s a master at genius, so there’s

[01:16:07] Alan: a good recommendation folks. If they haven’t gotten the woods and it’s Halloween season, man, you’re going to love this one.

[01:16:15] Stephen: All right.

Well, I need to go and finish some work and get packing for new Orleans

[01:16:21] Alan: new Orleans. I hope you have a wonderful, wonderful time is beautiful and radiant was how I actually not radiated. You want it to be spooky and Elderidge

exactly. That’s great. I have my last comic book class on this Thursday. And as usual, I’m kind of done, but I’m kind of like still tinkering with the presentation. And that’s a very dangerous thing because it would be thinker. It’s like, oh, I could add more. I just, I did the movies, one where I had like 80 slides

and honestly we had. Trailers that were three minutes had to cut it off after one, until it got to the good [01:17:00] scene or something like that. And I just, I motor mouth through it. That is probably, I’m going to have to, if I do this again, you have to split that into two because there’s a whole difference. Just like there was a kind of folk history with early versus modern, you know, when they, when they finally made the Superman, you’ll believe a man can fly and there’s a whole different complexion to the movies stemming after that.

[01:17:19] Stephen: Anyway. Well, speaking of that, uh, we are going to the Cincinnati RG. I’m doing two talks. I’m doing the one for parents, uh, about the future work skills for their kids. And then I’m doing my first story for video games, a workshop, and seeing how that goes. So yeah, there’ll be the test bed. Yeah,

[01:17:38] Alan: we, we still haven’t signed up and probably won’t because they don’t have a vaccination mandate.

It’s not only about my safety. It’s kind of like, I want to go to a place that sinks in the right way and sorry, organizers of the. I, I just don’t agree. And disagreeing means you lose my presence. I just can’t do it yet. [01:18:00]

[01:18:00] Stephen: I mean, w I’m debating games, uh, you know, cause that’s, that’s a big thing. Um, and

[01:18:08] Alan: I’m not just going there.

It’s sitting in a room, touching all the game pieces. It’s sitting there at a table talking and having to remove your mask for food. I haven’t found a mask that allows me to, you know, jam things through the fabric. So I, I dunno, man, I’m still,

[01:18:24] Stephen: and I totally get you

[01:18:25] Alan: currently get, I hope that all of this.

[01:18:28] Stephen: Yeah, I

[01:18:31] Alan: might, and I don’t want to do that for her.

[01:18:34] Stephen: I might be a little too cavalier about it, but I figure, okay. I went to Salem and I’m about to go to new Orleans at Halloween. So what’s the RG in Cincinnati gonna do. You

[01:18:45] Alan: know what I mean? Whenever the people who will attend and whatever, from all around the country, kind of a thing, it’s a different concentration in Cincinnati than it was,

[01:18:55] Stephen: but who knows?

I could come back from new Orleans and catch something and [01:19:00] be changed. My thinking I totally please. Don’t no, I don’t want to give it to you, right?

[01:19:06] Alan: Exactly. Oh my God. I got cybernetic COVID oh, no.

[01:19:09] Stephen: Oh, don’t say that now somebody is going to do a movie cybernetic. COVID next? Follow me. All right, man. You take care.

Take care. Pleasure later.