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On Movies, Comics, and Growing Up Trini · Freshwater Yankee

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome back to the Freshwater Yankee podcast.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Wendell Riley, and it is still springtime in Louisiana, so my nose is stuffy.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: That's why I sound like this.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um I don't have a fancy intro for this episode.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: This is actually just uh an episode with my brother, which means it's just two nerds talking for almost an hour about uh many of the influences that we had, but then we also talked about some of the work that we do.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: I do want to apologize for the sound quality of the interview.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we had some technical issues, just trying out some new equipment while I was in Trinidad.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: But in addition to that, uh we do talk over each other a lot and we do giggle and nonsense a lot.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: So uh in addition to that, my brother was very sick when we did the recording.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: He actually had a cold, but he wanted to do the recording um because I was only in town for a few more days, and so we had to get it done while I was there.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: So, with all that being said, I hope you enjoy.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: If not, don't blame him, blame me for the technical stuff, and blame whoever it is that got him sick.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: All right, cheers, enjoy.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, and welcome back to the Freshwater Yankee podcast.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: As always, I am your host, Wendell Riley, and today, as always, I have a special guest, but this is a special, special guest, my brother, my older brother, Christopher Riley.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and we are going to talk today about our upbringing, but in terms of the types of uh nerdy stuff that we like and how that has influenced our lives and careers.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: Let me just jump in and say uh you are five years older than I am, Chris.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, 71.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: 75.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: Excuse me, yeah.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: And Chris has a cold today, so I'm so sorry that it's coughing in your ears.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, guys.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: But I yeah, I am leaving Trilliard soon, so I wanted to get this interview then live, uh, which I think is much better.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: So uh so Chris, tell us who you are and and what you do.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_03: All right, so my name is Christopher Riley, and uh I do lots of stuff.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_03: The thing that I like doing the most is actually drawing comic books.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_03: So when I and I actually we produce a comic, we produce two comics, we produce a bunch of comics.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_03: But the two that we're known for is uh The Terror of the Midnight Robber and Mango Chiron.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_03: So Terror of the Midnight Robber basically is a comic book about Trinidadian folklore.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_03: It it it contains characters from Trinidadian folklore, and it I guess paints them in like a superhero type flight.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_03: You know, uh the main the main character being the Midnight Robber.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_03: I know he's not a folklore character, he's more of a mass character, but he's a cowboy, he's got guns, yeah.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_03: So he looks cool.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_03: And he looks coop.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: And we'll dive a little bit more into these characters uh later on in the interview.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and then of course we we call Mango Churan's game.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_03: Mango Churan is right, so that the so that book was designed for children.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_03: Basically, just like uh uh so we when we were growing up, we had books like Richie Rich and Peanuts, uh Peanuts, Little Devil, yeah.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_03: Some of the Harvey stuff.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_03: I can't remember now.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um well I don't remember.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_03: It's a long time ago.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_03: So so yeah, so someone asked us.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_03: So basically those like uh big head characters, right?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_03: So so the mango children basically is about a group of little children that live in a village somewhere in Trinidad and they just have adventures, like like we used to have when we were in our little village by our grandparents during the holidays.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_03: You know, basically is what that book is about.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_03: So they they're called mango children because they like mangoes.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_03: I like mangoes.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_03: Mangoes are awesome, right?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_03: So each of the children, uh their names are taken from uh, I guess, a species of mango that we have here.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_03: So we have characters like Doodus and Julie.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_03: Right, correct.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Long.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_03: Ice Cream Little Bigo.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_03: Ice Cream, yeah, each from Tobago.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_03: And then we have Hog, who's one of the characters we need to spotlight a little bit more.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_02: So this obviously is influenced by our upbringing, but I want to go like all the way back to our early childhood on one tragedy road.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I I have talked about this a lot, about the fact that we grew up in a place like right around Breeding Corner, and the fact that we were surrounded by cinema because we had at least eight or nine movie theatres in walking distance.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, our mom used to she we were we were Trinidad and Lachkey kids because she would work a lot and she was a single mom.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: So we spent a lot of time like watching TV and playing toys, playing out toys, but we would also go across the street to Globe Um and we would go to the arcades because we had two arcades close to us as well.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: So we were we were like enveloped in like the awesomeness of 80s nerd culture.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_03: And then walking home from school, we'd be seeing the movie posters because we would be passing right by the theaters.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_03: That was like huge, man.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_03: Those posters were just awesome, yeah.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: So so we would see the posters on the walls, but then um in Trinidad, one of the things that in Globe, they would have these like 10-foot painted uh the word huge uh versions of the posters.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like I remembered for the the film alligator, there was a this like 10-foot long uh painting of an alligator.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_03: So it was probably on plyboard or something.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_03: It was probably on ply.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so these were like one of a kind hand painted.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: I know like um online now there's a meme about um African paintings.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but we had a a a version of that, but ours were kind of more true to the films.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: I think they were really good.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: So that that was obviously a huge influence.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: And then also, I don't know if you remember, there was the little TV screen on the war.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, man.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_03: TV screen was like two-inch.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: I just remember just being mesmerized by the trailers because they just played the trailers in the Yeah, man.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: Good stuff.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, good stuff.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: So um, I know you were more into video games than I was because you were older.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: I I was never good at video games.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: You you were always into games.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: So what was some of the games that you liked playing at the arcade?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: Because it was on on Green Corner, yeah, and then right down the street on Park Street.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's the other one.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: Tron, I think, was one of my favorite games, man.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_03: That was good.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_03: I like Tron because you had like a spinner to control your aim, and then you had the uh joystick with a trigger.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_03: So that was actually cool.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_03: And then there was another game called Mad Planets that had the same controls, I believe.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_03: I think the controller and the spinner.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_03: I like that one too.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_03: That was actually kind of cool, yeah.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, um, Jungle Hunt was another one that I like to play.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_03: Pac-Man, Super Pac-Man.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_03: That game was awesome, man.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: And then they had stuff like Joust.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: I always like Just, but I was just how that shit was.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Qubert, yeah, um, Big Doug, Froggirl, like those like basic things.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: But then there was the uh the sit-down cabinet Star Wars game.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: And that was like a mind-blowing thing.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: That was awesome stuff.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: Because it had clips, like audio clips from the.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_02: And uh it was like those single line graphics.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, so that was vector, I think that yeah, those are vector vector games.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_03: So vector graphics, yeah.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: Which was was pretty revolutionary for the time.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_03: Still holds up today.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_03: That was awesome, but yeah, it waves, man.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember like in like uh Defender, that was a hard game.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_03: That game is awesome, man.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_03: The sound effects in that game, it's incredible, man.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_03: The dude who designed that, some of the best.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because I think he did Defender, and I think he also worked on Robotron too, man.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_03: Oh wow.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_03: I like those, those games had good sound effects.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_03: So awesome and electronic-y.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: And and so so we had video games, but then also like what was some of the movies you remember seeing at Globe when Actually, I don't remember seeing too many movies at Globe, actually.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know, you always bring stuff.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, oh yeah, is that where we saw that?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's kind of the mechanic.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_03: You might have remembered seeing stuff at Strand.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_03: I remember Army at Darkness at Strand.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_03: Oh wow, yeah, and I I remember coming out of that, I was like, what the heck did I just see that?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_03: That was awesome.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: Well, actually, I think like my first movie memory is seeing uh the 1978, I believe, Superman, Christopher Reed.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I I just remember seeing the colours.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like I remember seeing the colours on the big screen.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like there was a shot of uh some kid fell over, uh, like Niagara Falls or something like that.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: And then there was a scene where they kind of wrapped him in kryptonite, and I remember seeing the colours.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: I don't remember the story or anything like that, but I remember because he didn't blow now when I was a kid.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_03: But right.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: But then I saw all kinds of stuff there, man, like Platoon.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_03: Voyage of the Rock Aliens.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_03: I saw that.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, man.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: I have not even heard of that.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_03: Good.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_03: Sorry.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, I saw that go.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_03: Run to the nerds.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_03: Actually, I think about it.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it runs in the nerds.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_03: Purple rain or the other one.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: Oh see, I couldn't get to go to see purple rain because I was too young.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: So mom didn't let me know.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: I remember you get another boys.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_03: Right, you went correct.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_03: All the other, maybe like roadhouse and stuff too.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: I've seen that globe.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: But it that's the thing about so so just for for people who don't know what cinema culture was like in Trinidad, each each theater had their specialty, right?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: So like Globe, the show, the ET lists, yeah, the lockbusters and stuff like that.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then in Trinidad, we would always have double features.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: So any theater you went to, there was a double feature.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: And there were three set times as a 12, 12 day show, a 440.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_03: And then eight.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_03: Eight did.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_03: But there would so sometimes on weekends you'd get an 11.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_03: So if you remember Norris son Nigel, their dad was a projectionist.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: Right, yeah.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_03: So we used to get to go to the luke's and he went stranded sometimes to the 11:30 shows, man.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_03: So I remember, so he was projectionist and he was and and the weekends are we I think this is like three weekends straight, man.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_03: We went to see um Knight's Return on the Living Dead.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: See, I just get to see that.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we just got going for free because five years ago exist like all of that stuff.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's all right, man.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: You add your own stuff.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's still one of my favorite.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: I think I saw that.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think I saw that on the big screen for the first time.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: I remember seeing Hellraiser of Big Screen.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: Wrecked my way uh and Prince of Darkness.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and that's but so so Prince and Darkness.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: So my mom used to take us to see movies on time.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: And she, of course, had no idea what she was taking us for.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: She was just kind of at the mercy of our um fandom.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: Wednesday.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: So she tells a story all the time of um there's a scene in Prince and Darkness where someone is transmitting this, he's saying, pray for death, and then he turns into like a thousand bugs, disintegrates into like cockroaches.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: And she was like retching into a paper bag that she had, like she's trying not to throw.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: Meanwhile, Chris and I are just sitting there smiling because this is like the most awesome.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_03: Awesome stuff, man.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_03: Awesome stuffing I have.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: So so in in Port of Spain, we had um we had Globe, we had Visterama, there was National right up the street.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: I just remember Visterama showing like sci-fi stuff.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what their whole deal was, but uh no, that was easy took me to see Joe's.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, so that was the that was the movie that ruined you.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, that movie.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: How old were you in a sort of?
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: I had after been like about six.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: So you were the age of the little boy now that eaten in Jaws.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um so as they up the street, um, there was National, and National showed like martial arts film, yeah, which you call Kickups.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then there was Strand, which would show like kind of edgier stuff, like the lists, and darker stuff.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: I remember watching the Pro there, which was like one of my favorite movies for a long time.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: That was a I think you might jersey at that time.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: And then there was Asta, which was a little further out, and they showed more teen stuff, man.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's when I saw the flag.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: John Hugh's stuff.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: They were I I was saying not high class, but just like the front vibe, right?
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: And then uh there was Deluxe.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, Roxy, way way out.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: Roxy, which is now Pizza Hack, one of the greatest Pizza Hux.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if it still is, but it was at one time.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_03: We had Superstar.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: Superstar.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think I remember it, but it's a superstar.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: But I know all of these were literally like in walking distance from where we lived.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: So we were surrounded by cinema.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: We could on any given day, we had our pick of a double feature with trailers in the middle, which was like the coolest thing ever.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: And we just that we spent so much of our childhood just at the movies watching stuff, and that heavily influenced us.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why we do the work that we do now.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, one of the things I tell people when I'm in the in the US is that a lot of the stuff that film school students would have to go find at a uh like a video American or some obscure video rental place we saw on the big stream.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: Because in Trinidad, we got international synapse, everything was international for us, right?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: So we got stuff from the US, stuff from Bollywood, yeah, UK, UK, we got uh Asian stuff.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, at one point Jet Li was the biggest uh superstar in Trinidad.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like it was just this run of Jetley films, and as all anybody wanted to talk about was Jet Li.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um so Trinidad, I for we as a culture, we have like this real wealth of uh film knowledge, I think.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: Because we were just exposed to that a very uh young age and we just had so much access to cinema.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: Now all of those single screen movie houses have closed, unfortunately.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: And we have cyclexes, which is just not the same, yeah.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: You know, um I mean and and I love cyclexes, but it's just not the same as those old regal.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: And they they had character because people would smoke in them, yeah, people would smoke weed in them, some of them smelled bad, yeah, some of them the AC wouldn't work.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_02: Kind of like Grindhouse, but it had that charm.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: And they would cheat, like, so it was like five dollars.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: Five dollars, I'll take it, man.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: Which is uh like less than back then it would have been like fifty cents US.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_03: And actually, so Nija had visited.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_03: He he went to Globe with us to see Deep Rising and something else, man.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_03: And he was just so amazed at how people reacted to the movie.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, what the heck, man?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_03: This is Shila.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because you know, on the stage, you know, everybody's quiet.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_03: He had lively audiences that talk to the screen and stuff.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, people would talk to the screen.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it like it would be like these weird cookie things about cinema and trailer.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: So when we saw the original Terminator, and the spoiler alert for anybody who has not seen it yet, um, the original terminator, so they blow him up in the truck, right?
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then there's the whole reveal, he comes out as the endoskeleton, um, and then it's like a whole 15 more minutes, yeah.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: And they actually put a sign up on the screen in front of the predictors handwritten.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's nothing that said the movie is not going to guess we were.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, people yeah, and in the 80s, yeah, you just had the end, the end, no, no coming back from this the enclosure.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: And then it was like, oh wow, we see the uh the scout, the ex scout, yeah, and everybody's like thick it up, but stuff like that.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_02: And then we had a a ratings board and they would they would shrimp movies, yeah, they would just cut random stuff out of films.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_03: Well, a lot of times language and and and nudity.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think you know, uh, then it just started to get more and more lax, I guess, as time went on.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, it was mainly language, yeah, is the thing.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, so so the crow is again, like I said, it was one of my favorite movies.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: I remember seeing that in Strand and the resurrection scene.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: When I saw it for the first time in Strand, it was basically this from shock to shock.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: It was the bird on Draven's headstone with the ring, and he's like tapping the ring.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then the very next shot is Draven out of the grave screaming in pain.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: So they cut out the entire scene of like the coffin lead raisin and the dirt falling and all that stuff.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if they thought that was too demonic.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_03: They may have done it for time.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: But I remember when I went to the US and I saw it on VHS, I was like, what?
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: Because, you know, the first time I saw that, I was like, that's kind of a weird cut, but it felt like kind of edgy, you know.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, oh yeah, he's back.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: All of a sudden, but yeah.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: Some dude decided, nah.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, wow.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: No, but speaking of VHS, so we also had movie clubs, we call it movie clubs, right?
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: So these were video stores, but they were all bootleg tips.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: We never had blockbusters and trailer.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: And instead of VHS, we had Betamax.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so um we had one in Shaguanas, right?
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: And we used to, again, when we used to spend time at our grandparents' house, our uncle Pagar, he would just he would bring back like 10 tapes at a time.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_03: Good stuff like Delta Force.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and then weird Italian horror films, man.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, wow.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: Lucio Fulci stuff.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_03: Mausoleum and Gates of Hell, Burial Ground is one of them.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, man, all weird stuff, dude.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean because they had good posters.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_03: That's why we borrowed the stuff because the posters were awesome, man.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: And the thing is, it's like if you if there are 10-year releases, it was so cheap you could just rent all 10.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: It was like two, I think it was like two dollars.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: Two dollars, yeah.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: Which I'd get is the equivalent of like like a quarter in each.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: So um and then we would we would watch those horror movies and then have to go upstairs in the dark house and sleep on it.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um and we saw a lot of there was a lot of like 80s excess in those films.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: Oh boy.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of lot of Richards nudity.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no reason for us.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, just lots of like action and you know, stuff like Delta Force.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, or like, because we were into martial arts, so Chuck Norris was big.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: He would rent every Chuck Norris movie.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, man, missing an action.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_03: One, two, three, four, five.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_03: Whatever.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know what to do.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: Too many missing out.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then like blow mouth McQuaid and buried him in a truck.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_03: God damn, the truck wanted to know that one.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um dumped before us, right?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_02: And then we also had comics.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_02: So our Uncle James, he introduced us to the World College.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, man.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_03: It's good stuff.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so lots of uh Savage sort of Conan, Conan the Barbarian.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so Savage, so it was uh large fortnight black and whitezin.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so with art by Gaza Sean Busima.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, man, like Jones Man.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: And Ill Norman.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Ernie Chan.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: And all they always had painted covers.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: Which was Joe Jusco.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: Oh Norum.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_03: Later by Larkin.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Larkin was awesome too.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um yeah.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: In later days, yeah, yeah, like Julie, you had somebody uh Boris Vallejo.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_03: Umie Bell, right.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_03: Julie Bell, right, who was yeah, so it looked like Vallejo, yeah.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, which I found out.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: I think they were Mario's, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so it makes sense.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then we had Heavy Metal Magazine.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that was wow.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: That I was I mean, we were way too young for that.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_03: And eerie and creepy, all those things.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_03: So all those were horror based mags.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean, eerie and creepy had guys like um Bernie Wright's son.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's where I fell in love.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_03: Again, some some masters, man.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: I fell in love with Bernie Wright's work.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think Gene Coran used to do some of those.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_03: Everybody was anybody had would have done some piece for for Warren, man.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um Corbin.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Richard Corbyn used to do a ton of stuff in the metal.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, have you got it?
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: And so we so we read fringe, fringe comics in addition to mainstream stuff, like Spidey, Cap But Captain America, G.I.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: Joe comics and stuff like that.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so lots of Marvel stuff.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: A little bit of DC thrown in, but yeah, um, and um, I I remember just looking, and I was too young to read that stuff, but I remember looking at heavy metal, and of course, heavy metal also had nudity and stuff like that.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: So way, way inappropriate for because it was originally a German publication.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_03: So it was a yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah, right, right, really, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_03: So it was just brought over to the US and rebranded heavy metal and translated.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_03: Because remember Mobius and all those dudes, a lot of the uh artists were French.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, that's so again, yeah.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_03: That's what yeah.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: So we had that, and then he had this like massive record collection that we had just play records all day, and from like vehicles all the way up to like every hen that's all bad.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: And then like Metallica, Gunsra, races and stuff like that.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, man.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um the good stuff.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: So like we it was just like a plate run for us.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like they would they would listen to records, yeah, read comics, watch movies, and then go outside and play.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: And then come back in, like go ride bikes and then come back in and just.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, or you can go climb mango trees and pick mangoes and eat cherries or whatever was in the bloom at the time, man.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: And the other cool thing that he had art books.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: Because he's he's an artist.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: He's an artist and a martial artist.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: But he would have like, he had like Frazetta books.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's where like we would study frostettes and you know, yeah.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, they would have like the the painting on one page and then like post-ups on the other page of certain sections of the paintings and stuff like that.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: And we would just read and study and just all that stuff.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: So so when it was time for you to um pick uh uh a college career, right?
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_02: So tell us what what what you wanted to do at all.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_03: What are you talking about there?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_03: You pick.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_03: I was trying to tee up, yeah.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, no, it doesn't work.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so out of school, I went, I I worked in the advertising industry.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_03: So I worked at a company called Transat.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_03: So we basically um designed signage for billboards and that kind of stuff for the public transport system, basically.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_03: So on the sides of buses and that kind of stuff.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_03: So all this stuff at that time was, yeah, we didn't have computers in those days.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_03: So so I would actually just design the stuff, right?
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_03: So to scale, and then the painters would take my drawings, my designs, I'd go and scale them up and paint them.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't have to.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, like actually paint on a billboard.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: So these are like printed sheets that need to.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_03: No, in the old days, no, dude, they would go up on scaffolding and paint the boards.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_03: So if I did something awesome, they would be like, you suck.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_03: Because exactly, yeah, man.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_03: I remember once I did something, I think I I did like maybe for an insurance company, man.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_03: I did like the Naparimo bowl or something.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_03: And the dudes are like, uh Yeah, they just held their heads low and they were like, oh shun it.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because that trees and a whole bunch of leaves and Naparimo bowl and stuff, yeah.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that sounds like a hard hit for those guys.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so there's no no digital printing, it's the whole human printing in those days.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: So and then after that, you you wanted to go to school.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_03: So then yeah.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_03: So I don't know how long I was there, maybe over five years, and then I left I went to Joe Cubot School for cut of cartoon graphics and animation.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_03: So the first year you do both comics and animation, and then second year you decide whether you're gonna go animation or comics.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_03: So I went comics, and I I did the second year, but didn't go back in the third year.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_03: Because I came back, went back into science.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: So so just so for all of us, so the cubit school is in uh New Jersey.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_03: New Jersey.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Dover.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's in Dover.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: That's right, Dover New Jersey.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: So you left Trinidad, you went to New Jersey Cold and all of that stuff.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so Joe QB, like the QBT name is like royalty in the comics world.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like if you if you think comics, you know the cube.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: You have to know who he is, yeah.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: Big family tree of of artists and stuff like that.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, so you get there.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_03: So so while I was there, um one of my teachers, Mike, Mike Sellers, I actually did I apprentice with him.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_03: He was the at the time, he was the inker on I think he might have been working on like Captain America and maybe cable ghostwriter.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_03: So I'd worked on two two projects with him, uh, a ghostwriter and uh and a cable book.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_03: So my job basically was to go in and ink all the boring stuff, like bricks and spoons and chains, lots of chains.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, lots of chains for ghostwriter, yeah.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_03: Lots of chains, yeah, yeah, that kind of stuff.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_03: And then to clean up any s, you know, if he had done any weird inking and he's like, uh, I don't like all that looks on you, just go in and tuck stuff, you know, take stuff out with white art and that kind of thing.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_03: And I was actually very, very um educational, man, working with that dude, man.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was that was a good experience to work with him.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: After school to actually work on like published comics.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, yeah, I got no credit, of course.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, it was uh the learning experience was was awesome, man.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_03: So then right, so then that second year came back back in sign industry, and then you know, then decided, uh, you know, I want to do my own comic.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_03: So then I was like, oh, what am I gonna do, man?
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_03: Then so I twined with the idea of folklore characters and I was like, ah, the Midnight Robber, and then just kind of developed from there, you know.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_03: So I knew that I wanted it to be uh not too much like a superhero book, but more like a horror kind of thing.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_03: Because I like horror, you know, the horror genre.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_03: I like action too.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, mix of horror and action type thing.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_03: So so a lot of people want to see the midnight robber they're like, is that spawn?
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, no, it's not spawn.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's the mid-air, but if anybody wanted to make that comparison, your whole thing was you wanted them to be Trinidadian in nature.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like this is like we would try to copy some American things or make an American or a Trinidadian version of an American an American comic or idea and wanted it to be uniquely Trinidadian.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_03: So that if a Trinidad person uh that a Trinidad person that reads comics, they could say, Oh well, yeah, we have our own comic too.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_03: Tell me when a robin has characters that I can relate to.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_03: They can they can tell people about the characters because it's part of their culture.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_03: Just like our Americans can talk about Spider-Man and Batman and so on, all of these characters, because again, takes elements from their culture and you know into the comics.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: The way Superman is an an iconically American character.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_03: There you go.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: Midnight Robber is a Trinidadian character.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like there is no other Midnight Rumber anywhere else.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_03: Ugh, well, there are a few others.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_03: No, I mean like correct.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like the robber is a a Trinidadian creation, as far as I know.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: I've never seen a Midnight Rubber anywhere else.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_03: Because I've heard like stories that it was it's probably based on Mexican American.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, the um yeah, yeah, like the bandoleros.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh huh.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think I'm not sure.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_03: So, I mean, but you're gonna find that all folklores intertwine at some point now.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_03: But but it became this unit Trinidad thing.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like I saw Midnight Rubber when I was playing Mass just like a week ago.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, oh yeah.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um and you know, that's that's the the interesting thing about Trinidad because we in the African diaspora, and we had uh uh an Indian diaspora, two Turks credit, and then that mix of European.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: So we had a lot of these amalgams that became characters but passed on through traditions, yeah.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_03: And it just mutated from there.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so the thing that I take pride in with this kind of stuff is that we help carry these traditions on.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: Even though we have an evolved version of those characters, yeah.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: It actually is uh just a natural progression and a way to keep these names and of these characters sort of in the minds of people, right?
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_03: Cause uh I was at a primary school maybe a month and a half ago, and I asked the children, you know, they knew what the characters were, and they were like, yeah, a lot of them, some of them they didn't know, but you know, a lot of them they knew.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_03: And and that's that's why I do this, so that again, you know, it could live on, you know, you know, it'd be great if we could do like an animated series or something again, so it would evolve into different forms and so it could reach more people.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: So you so you had the original idea to do it as a a comic strip.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_03: As a comic strip for a week, a weekly comic strip.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_03: So I designed, so I think I had originally, I think it was originally 24 pages.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_03: So I did thumbnails for 24 pages, so each page was kind of self-contained.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um so it would appear one week as a Sunday strip in a newspaper.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_03: So then I drew all the pages, no dialogue, and then I had to get words.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_03: I and I don't remember.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_03: No, I think I had a pro so Bruce, so one of my friends.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Bruce Lai.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_03: Right, Bruce Bruce Lai, right?
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_03: I took it because he read, he used to read, he used to read comics.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_03: I think he still reads comics, man.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_03: He used to eat that stuff.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_03: He was crazy.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_03: And I I knew he used to write too.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_03: So I asked him to write some of the stuff for me.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_03: And so I'm not sure if he didn't finish or he couldn't finish it.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_03: And then I came to you to to finish the book.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_03: I wasn't too sure how it worked out.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: I I think Bridge worked on it first.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: And then I remember one day I was back from I was so you had come back to Trinidad.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then I let you let go to Morgan.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: So this was around like 96, 97.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: And then one day I was laying in in the room, probably hungover from a party before, and he had just handed me a bunch of pages, and he literally said, I need words.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, And that that really was like the first time we collaborated, I think.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so so we did issue one, and then you drew issue two.
• 33:42
  unknown: Yeah.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_02: And then but but it was really cool because you you know, you had like the twin towers in there.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, in issue two, there's an entire sequence that takes place in the hollows of the Savannah.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um I I think it was it was a Republic Bank, yeah, one of the bands.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_03: It was a royal band.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_03: The heist.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_03: Because I wondered people again, uh just like in the American comics, stuff happens in the real world.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_03: So people go, oh, Times Square.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_03: I know that place.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_03: So I wanted the same kind of effect in in the robot comics.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_03: People could relate to the what what's happening in in the books, you know?
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and feel a sense of pride.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: Because that's the thing.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_02: When I see stuff that takes place in the place that I am from, I feel like, yeah, and and well done stuff, not just like amateur stuff, because that was a big thing for you as well, right?
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_03: Uh yeah.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_03: Well, listen, I mean Yeah, at the time, yeah, it was it was good for what it was, but yeah, now I look at the the books and like, oh boy, wow, how did you enjoy that?
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_02: You were bringing what you learned at Cubans and you know, again, apprenticing on actual Marvel books and stuff, and you wanted to bring that to Yeah, I wanted that kind of level, yes, of because we've had c we had comics before, man, but it just wasn't, I guess, at that level, you know.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um, because like so Dew, who's like a political well worse, I think he's I'm not sure if he's still alive, man.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_03: He was a uh single panel cartoonist, more political stuff in one of the dailies.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_03: This stuff I and I met him, so he's a really nice guy, man.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_03: And then there's another dude that used to draw a comic, a comic strip called Sweet Bread.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_03: I don't remember I don't ever remember his name.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_03: And his stuff, you know, both of those were influencers in me wanting to draw comics.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_03: You know?
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_02: Because those were like uniquely Trinidad.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, those were Trinidad.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_02: Correct.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_02: Years and years like yeah.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then sort of Midnight Robber, you know, we how many issues have we done?
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_02: Five.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_02: Five completed.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_03: Six has been in the works for the last nine years, maybe.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_02: Just so people understand, like this is stuff that we have done sort of in our spare time in between different career paths and tools and stuff like that.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_02: But it's a labor of love.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_02: But the the the the enduring legacy of it, because you do shows all the time.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_02: So you do like little mini conventions and that's right.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_02: So the fans sign books and stuff.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the fans, man, they're the best fans ever.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_03: They're they're still waiting for the books, they still really love the books.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_03: You know, people like, wow, this is the greatest thing ever.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_03: And like even new young, young, so when was last year?
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_03: It was like last year, some time.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um, there's a young, young boy, he might be in like form two or something, and he he wants to draw comics, and he saw my book, and he was like, Oh my goodness, what is this and his mom brought him and you know, they bought the first issue, and it's like, oh god, I couldn't believe what he was seeing, you know.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, you know, yeah, you know, I gave him my number, he took pictures with me and stuff like that.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's like that's what I'm doing it for, man.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's it's crazy.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's unbelievable.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_02: Because because you you chose the primary and and it is wood that that exists, and people still love it, and people refer to it all the time.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, people tell me that I inspire them, they're like, dude, okay.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_02: Take the flowers, take the flowers, because that's awesome.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, I remember I was commenting on a Facebook post a few years ago with somebody's arts, because there's like this new generation of kids.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_02: Now, you know, access to art tutorials and you can watch videos and stuff.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_02: So we have kids now in Trinidad who are doing the level of work has you reasoned.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for sure.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so, but so I saw something and then I was I just made a comment like good work, whatever.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_02: And then somebody replied, it's like, oh, Wendell Riley from Midnight Robert commented on this foot, and I was like, what?
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Because you know, again, because I'm in the States, yeah, I don't I don't do the shows and stuff with you.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but but that's really nice to hear.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_02: And my thing is like, if one kid is inspired.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah, man, that's that's what that is worth it, man.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_03: That's the job done, right?
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_03: Worth it.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I imagine that there are kids who like the same way we were when we were younger, and we were like rapidly reading anything that we could put our hands on.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like there are kids who read books and saw your art and they're like, I want to draw like this someday.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_02: And it it felt and it feels more special because it's uniquely Trinidad and work.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it it it you know, you will feel a sense of pride when something is you know of your country, you know, you know.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and with people that look like you know talk like you.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, it's always gonna be you know, again, that sense of pride now it's always gonna be there.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_03: When you see that stuff, you know.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, listen, I you know, Midnight Robert has always been your baby, and and I kinda try to help drive the story and stuff like that.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um But I I I love just being able to be a part of that because I know what it means to so many people.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I I think it's really cool.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_02: But uh another project that we worked on is Mango Chairon.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_02: And that one was like a collaboration from day one, right?
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_03: That one I think is more your book now.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_03: Well, that one is more your book.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_02: So Mango Chiron is like just straight like comedy.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it's just like wacky stuff.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_02: And and it you're right, like the stories for me are a way to like put my childhood through the this insane lens, yeah, right?
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_02: But it was like, because we used to do some like crazy stuff when we were kids.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_02: You know, um, I was talking to my cousin and saying how we like we would just get on our the axes and we would just ride for hours and hours, and then we'd like go all over the uh the the central party picture and then come back, and we would like see weird stuff and use our imaginations, but we were always like acting out movies and stuff when we were in Mama's yeah.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that place was just everything basically because it had like trees everywhere, and it had like places you could hide garbage wood and metal and yeah, and there were like animals that are like chickens and things and stuff, and um, you know, we could climb on the roof of the house, and we would walk around on the roof all the time.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_02: We had access to power tools and and uh weapons of all kinds because we used to play with shirt, yeah.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um we made our own little guns and used make blow dats.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_03: It's good stuff, eh?
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_03: Good stuff.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_02: I think we had a bow and our own one like a real hunt and bow at one point.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but that was yeah, yeah.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think we were allowed to play with it, yeah.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_02: But we were allowed to play with swords.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's having sounds a little 80s uh yeah, yeah.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean that was our child, and we were just like we would be left alone all day.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like we just like over the course of our summer vacation, like that's all we would do.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: We just go in and play and then come back in and watch movies, yep, and then go back out and read, you know.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um Yeah, so from Legos to Ninja Swords, man, shilkans on ninja swords.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_02: I am surprised that we all made it with like every limb intact and eyes and we were smart back then, yeah.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I you know, we these fresh and jury, yeah.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's crazy.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so man with churl is like it's almost like this, it's for kids, but not really for kids.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like I try to write it in a way where kids could appreciate it, but adults would get a lot of like jokes, like game jokes and stuff like that.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_02: And um, it's a diverse cast.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_02: Because that's important to us because that's true.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's trinidad, right?
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_02: So there's like kids of African descent, there's uh kids of Chinese descent, um, and and uh India.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we have somebody from Tobago and all that, and we try to we make it really authentically Trinidad, and we use like real places and things that we grew up on, like joke um, and yeah, go into the shop to get stuff and you know comic books on clotheslines on that kind of thing.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, no, no, no, comic books on clothes lines because we just like stare people.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, we give some kind of thing.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um so across the street from um our grandmother's house, there's a parlor.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_02: The parlor was uh shut essentially, and so like he sold bread and food and like um canned goods and dry goods, uh candy and stuff like that.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: And they would sell comics too, but they had these clotheslines like just strung across the like behind the counter, and they would hang the comics by the spines.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_02: So you we would just go look, and I remember like looking in there to have like micronuts comics and stuff just hanging there, and you know.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_02: Those were like it was as cool to just stare at those comics hanging there as it was to watch to go see a poster in front of Gold Cinema.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_02: So that is it's so wild to think of how like pervasive that stuff was with our childhood.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like it was everywhere.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like you could go to drugstores and buy comics.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's where you buy comics in the old days.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and they would sell novels.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_02: And so I I I bought most of my Stephen King novels that I still have today at the drugstore, at Disdrugs.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_02: But then they had booksellers like Mirage and stuff.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: And they would the beaters like the the bookstores downtown, they would have like just stacks of comics and magazines.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like literal stacks on and you could just go and just like go through them and pull out issues that you wanted and pay for those.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, good old things, you know.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um Trinidad was such an um an interesting but fun place to grow.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um so anyway, so Mango Chen, um, that's the other project that we have, and we've we did like nine or nine issues.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, nine.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_03: We're working on them at ten now.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_02: And those characters are kind of funny because um like the the evil-ish one in the group, like the mischievous one, he is like the daily of the group.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I kind of channel my childhood because I was sort of the young one on the ground.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_03: The youngest in the group, yeah.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_02: So like all five or six years ago with me.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I was Irant.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so we we kind of put some of those influences in there as well.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, definitely in there.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: So um, so where can people find out more about uh these these properties?
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_03: treqconline.com, I think is that.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_02: Don't worry, we'll put the link to the website in the show notes so you could check out some of the past stuff.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if we have the US store up on learning yet.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_03: Uh actually, yeah, if you uh we got yeah, Gumroad.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_03: You could actually purchase electronic copies on Gumroad.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, sweet.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_02: And if not, you can always reach out to me if you're in the US and reach out to Chris and check that because you you get books to people all the time.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I can visit schools and stuff.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_02: So um so I think that's a good place to wrap.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, is there anything else you want to talk about?
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_03: No, man.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_03: I'm good.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, we could talk, yeah, yeah.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_03: We haven't even talked about like toys and that's right, we won't talk about yeah, or TV TV shows, yeah.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_02: So actually, I do want to talk a little bit about TV shows because TV was like a big influence for us.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_02: We had like this little was it black and white?
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was black and white first.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_03: It was like 13 inch.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_03: Well, no, no, no.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_03: We had a color TV.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_03: But I think when we were younger, my grandma.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_03: Mama, she had black and white.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_03: Mama had a black and white.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, until they upgraded.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think our attractive was colour.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_02: And and back then we had one TV station.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_02: It was TTT near Trinidad and Tobago Television.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: They don't have access to cable.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_03: Correct.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_02: And TTT would go offline around midnight.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, at 12 p.m.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_03: 12 a.m., sorry.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_02: 12 a.m.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_02: And then it would come back online around nine.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_03: Nine with Sesame Street.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_03: Sesame Street, yeah.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_02: So you would get Sesame Street in the morning.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_03: And then maybe I think like a soap opera or something place or something.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_02: News, they would have a newscast, TTT News.
• 47:04
  unknown: No.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_03: Around noon.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_03: They had dateline at 11 to 12.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_03: And I think they signed off.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_02: They would sign off during the day.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_02: So it would be like between like noon and 2 p.m.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_02: or something like that.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_02: Outside of the office.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_03: You get you get the test pattern, the colored bars that you could watch that all day if you want.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_02: And then they would come back on.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_03: At four.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_03: At four with Sesory.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_03: Street.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_03: And then at five, depending on the day, you'd get like a half an hour animated or locally produced.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_02: You might get like Danger Mouse.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_03: There was also we got some live action stuff like this Hobo.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Star Blazers or Battle of the Planet.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_03: Starfleet.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_03: Starfleet.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_02: Terror Hawks.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_03: Terror Hawks.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_03: There you go, man.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_03: Dr.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_03: Einstein.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_02: So we got like um puppets.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like sci-fi poppets.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_03: Terry Anderson stuff, I think.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_03: And those were British?
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_03: No, the British ones were like Thunderboots.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_03: Thunderboots, we had Thunderboots too.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, yeah.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we we yeah, man.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_03: We had also because again, a lot of us, some of the stuff came from UK, some was US.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_02: And some Canadian to the little school, but then there was like Wind in the Willows.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_03: Right in the Willows, yeah.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_02: And then um, and then we would get like um a variety show, a local variety show.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like um Nassana Baha.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_03: So that'd be, yeah, that would be the Saturday evening program.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_03: Saturday.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Saturday will not be um Yeah, Massana Baha from six to seven.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but before that we would get used to guess something called That's Hollywood.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's Hollywood was majority.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_03: Right, which is a show about movie effects and that kind of stuff.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_02: So that was like the first time I really started looking into like the art of movie making.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, and on that note, Fangoria was another was another publication that we we that was a big influence in my work.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_03: Because you know, that had all the horror stuff in there, and you'd see stuff that we wouldn't even get to see, but we you know, I could read about and you know uh see, and so the guys like Savini and Teen, they became legends for us.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_03: Uh yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then we had Star Log maps and Star Logs sci-fi maps.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_03: Correct, yeah.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so this is pre-internet, so we get to read books.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_02: You just yeah, yeah, you would have to read these, and we would read and I I don't want you, but I would read and reread these articles, no, look at the pictures.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_03: I would just look at the pictures.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_03: The words would eventually make I was like, oh, that's what that is.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but going back to TV, so then we also had stuff like play of the month, which was like they would tell you guys live play, well, not live, they would they would record plays, yeah, yeah.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_03: Because we had we had best village as well.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_03: Best village, Scout and Vital was one of the big things.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, we support Sperr and Fatalant.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_02: But then there was a a children's variety show called Ricky Tiki.
• 50:11
  unknown: Right.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_03: We also had 12 and under on a Friday.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_02: Twelve and under.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_02: It was a competition show?
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_03: Anti something.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_02: Anti-hazer.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_03: That was I think that was just performances.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, like uh just uh a variety show at the beginning.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I don't I don't know if it was a competition show.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_02: And then we we would get, of course, there would be TTT news, so we'd have a newscast every night.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_02: And then they would show like prime time stuff.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_02: Right, yeah, yeah.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_02: So 18 MacGyver MacGyver, uh Fall Guy Fall Guy was there.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_03: EJL the Bear.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um Jigsa Hazard, yeah, a little bit of Jigsah.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_03: So Jigsa Hazard Chips.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_02: Chips was big for us.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um Emergency was another one, but that was that was 70s.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that was got a little bit format, yeah.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_03: Uh was uh Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, but that that I actually don't know when that used to show, but I I might have been like a Saturday or Sunday.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then like track too.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_02: We got a lot of my stuff.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know who like it was in charge of programming for trying to do that.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we got some really good stuff.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_03: We got some really good stuff.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_03: Because we used to get Doctor Who as well, man.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_02: You say your Doctor Who, yeah, yeah.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_02: Awesome, man.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, but we didn't get stuff like G.I.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_02: Joe on Transformers.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_02: We would have to rent some tapes from the video fun and like binge watch.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_02: That was a treat, getting those G.I.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_02: Joe episodes.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if it was the same for Thundercats.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_02: I think we got Thundercats.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, I think Thundercats was on that was probably later on when we got TV six, possibly.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so then we eventually got a second channel, and then around the like early 90s, we started getting access to cable.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_02: There were people who had big satellite dishes, yeah.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but then everybody now has cable and trying to.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_02: And so but we like would have to seek out that stuff, but we also had like very curated things, which meant that we watched a wide variety of so because it's all this is the only thing on TV.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, correct.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then on Sundays they would have a Bollywood film, yeah.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so, and that was a big deal, right?
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_02: And like even like our grandmother, she would watch it even though she was Chinese.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, she liked the singing, I think.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and she's like, it reminds it's like the closest thing to Chinese culture that I have had to watch it.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember like sitting with and reading subtitles, uh the English subtitles, uh stuff like that.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_02: And then Auntie Ruby and Mama, every day they had their soap operas.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_02: Santa Barbara, uh Bolder.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_02: Young and the Wrestler.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_03: Young and the Wrestler, whatever it was, they would watch it.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_02: And then we also had like prime time soaps like Dallas, Dynasty, Nutslandon.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_02: Not landing law, L and Law, yeah, yeah.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_02: So um good stuff.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_02: Good stuff.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_02: So if anybody is wondering, um, if you meet a Trinidadian and they seem like they have this font of knowledge about pop culture from all over the world, this is why.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_02: This is the environment that we grew up in, and this is why I think ultimately at least Chris and I were destined to to take the paths that we took and have the careers that we have.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_02: Because I feel lucky that we had all that like of course, man.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_03: You're insane.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_03: That was best stuff ever, man.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_02: It was radio.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_03: Best stuff ever, man.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because like again, you could go, we we could listen to John Williams and then listen to ACDC, man.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, for real.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Beethoven Mayder, yep, yep, the Beatles and then Dvo.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we had everything, yeah, had everything.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_02: And and that's the thing, like because there was no like association with stuff, like you could you could live in Trinidad and listen to country music and love country music.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like my mom was like a huge Julio Iblisius fan and she like the bastard stuff, and then like the TV wonder.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so like you just you liked what you liked, and you allowed to like what you liked.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, man.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, and I think that that helps in having a a different kind of mood.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_03: It's so odd that we have so much more now, and people know so much less.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's so strange, dude.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that that seems like a uh down nerve one note, so let's end it.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um but hey, Chris, this this was awesome, and I'm so glad we got to do this in person.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, thank you all for listening and allowing us to uh to share this.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for listening, guys.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and um we'll certainly have you on again on a uh future episode.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um again, I'll put the link to the three quarter comics website um in the show notes.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_02: And uh as we say trending that, we could talk later.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_01: Our contributing producers are David McMillan and Lauren Leon McMillan.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_01: Music was provided by Peter Sandy of Home Beast Productions, and I am your host, Wendell Riley.