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Empire Records (themestorm) · Pick Up and Deliver

0:04
Speaker 1: Welcome to pick up and deliver the podcast where I
0:06
Speaker 1: pick up my audio recorders, I step out for a
0:08
Speaker 1: walk and deliver an episode two while I stroll around.
0:11
Speaker 1: I'm Brendan Riley. Good afternoon, listeners. It's a lovely day
0:23
Speaker 1: here in suburban Chicago. I'm out for my afternoon constitutional
0:26
Speaker 1: as a break from work. Well, it is April eighth,
0:30
Speaker 1: which internet sleuths have figured out is the day that
0:34
Speaker 1: the movie Empire Records takes place, which means it's Rex
0:37
Speaker 1: Manning Day if you've never seen Empire Records. It's a
0:43
Speaker 1: cult classic teen workplace comedy about a bunch of slacker
0:48
Speaker 1: teens who work at a cool record store and have
0:51
Speaker 1: all kinds of teenage troubles. And on the day in question,
0:55
Speaker 1: one of the teens has stolen a bunch of money
0:58
Speaker 1: from the store, which he did in as in a
1:00
Speaker 1: misguided attempt to save the store from being acquired by
1:04
Speaker 1: an evil corporation. Meanwhile, they're also hosting a formerly famous
1:10
Speaker 1: or a sort of has been musician who's still very
1:14
Speaker 1: popular with women who are sort of middle aged. He's
1:18
Speaker 1: middle aged as well, and his name, the character's name
1:21
Speaker 1: is Rex Manning. All the people at the record store.
1:25
Speaker 1: Think he's kind of a joke, but there are lots
1:28
Speaker 1: of people in line who think he's great. He's played
1:31
Speaker 1: deliciously see deliciously seedy, and.
1:36
Speaker 2: It's a great character.
1:39
Speaker 1: It's called so people who like this movie like to
1:42
Speaker 1: watch it and talk about it on April eighth, because
1:44
Speaker 1: that's the time it takes place, and we call it
1:47
Speaker 1: Rex Manning Day. So I thought I would do an
1:50
Speaker 1: episode commemorating Rex Manning Day. It's it's the Empire Records theme.
1:56
Speaker 1: Storm Themes is an episode I break out occasionally in
2:02
Speaker 1: which I pick a media text and I talk about
2:06
Speaker 1: four different and usually four different aspects of that media text,
2:09
Speaker 1: and then I talk about some games that I think
2:11
Speaker 1: draw on that thematic aspect.
2:14
Speaker 2: And let you explore it more deeply.
2:16
Speaker 1: So this is a little bit of movie criticism and
2:19
Speaker 1: a little bit of board game conversation, which is kind
2:23
Speaker 1: of I could be the subtitle for this podcast. So
2:27
Speaker 1: to start with, the basic plot of Empire Records, as
2:31
Speaker 1: I said, involves working at a record store, so I
2:34
Speaker 1: thought one of the themes we could talk about would
2:37
Speaker 1: be running a store. Now in the show, one of
2:42
Speaker 1: the characters as the manager who has to wrangle all
2:47
Speaker 1: of these teens who he has employed at this store,
2:52
Speaker 1: and he has a kind of fatherly found family approach
2:56
Speaker 1: to managing the teens, including what seems to be a
2:59
Speaker 1: very father relationship with one of the workers, Lucas. It's
3:04
Speaker 1: unclear what Lucas's family life is, except that he seems
3:07
Speaker 1: to see Joe as Joe as the manager, as a
3:11
Speaker 1: father figure. So as I was thinking about the theme
3:14
Speaker 1: of running a store managing employees, there are a couple
3:18
Speaker 1: games that came to mind. The first one is Bargain Quest.
3:20
Speaker 1: This one specifically is about the show the idea of
3:23
Speaker 1: running a store. In it, you run a shop in
3:27
Speaker 1: a fantasy village where adventurers come and they buy stuff,
3:31
Speaker 1: and then they go out adventuring, and then other adventures
3:34
Speaker 1: come in and buy more stuff, and so you're selling
3:36
Speaker 1: things to adventurers and your goal is to you put
3:39
Speaker 1: things in your shop window, and the adventurers come to town,
3:42
Speaker 1: they decide which things to go to, and they buy
3:47
Speaker 1: goods from you or from other people. And it's some
3:50
Speaker 1: about pricing, some about matching the people who are buying things.
3:55
Speaker 2: It's an interesting game. I thought it was fun.
3:56
Speaker 1: We played it once or twice, and then I pass
3:58
Speaker 1: it along because it hit super hard with my family.
4:03
Speaker 1: But it's an interesting little game with a fun bit
4:06
Speaker 1: of competitiveness in how you're putting your goods on display.
4:11
Speaker 1: Another game that's sort of about wooing customers is Dungeon Pets.
4:14
Speaker 1: This one feels less about running the store and more
4:17
Speaker 1: about raising these creatures and then putting them on sales.
4:21
Speaker 1: That's not a great match. The third one I thought
4:23
Speaker 1: about was Grand Austria Hotel. This one really has to
4:26
Speaker 1: do with managing customers, and there is an element of
4:30
Speaker 1: getting employees to work in your shop as well. I
4:34
Speaker 1: couldn't think of any that. I'm sure there are sort
4:37
Speaker 1: of shop management games where you're really dealing with different
4:41
Speaker 1: kinds of customers and thinking about that. The only other
4:44
Speaker 1: game that came to mind is Epic Resort. This is
4:46
Speaker 1: an early game from the founder of Floodgate Games, Ben
4:52
Speaker 1: Harkins I think is his name, and this is the
4:55
Speaker 1: game about running a resort where heroes come to relax
5:02
Speaker 1: in between adventures and then monsters show up and sometimes
5:04
Speaker 1: the heroes have to defend the resort from the monsters.
5:09
Speaker 1: There are also regular people as well who come there.
5:12
Speaker 1: It's a fun game, a nice little work replacement game
5:15
Speaker 1: with some tableau building. I haven't played it in a
5:18
Speaker 1: long time, but I would be happy to bust it
5:20
Speaker 1: out again. I should do that soon. That is that
5:24
Speaker 1: one is epic resort. The theme there is though running
5:28
Speaker 1: a shop and particularly managing a variety of different kooky
5:33
Speaker 1: characters who are your shop employees. Maybe a blood the
5:38
Speaker 1: Bloody in is about managing employees as well, or also
5:42
Speaker 1: thought of Grand Austria Hotel.
5:46
Speaker 2: Next up the.
5:47
Speaker 1: Theme A core theme of the show of the movie
5:50
Speaker 1: is music. The idea that music is important to all
5:53
Speaker 1: of these characters. It touches their souls. There are a
5:56
Speaker 1: number of sequences in the movie that don't and don't evolve,
6:00
Speaker 1: don't advance the plot, but they do give you a
6:03
Speaker 1: sense of how music is important to different people you have.
6:07
Speaker 1: There's a sequence where Mark is cleaning and he's watching
6:10
Speaker 1: people listening to different records. There are a number of
6:15
Speaker 1: sequences where characters are arguing over what music is good.
6:18
Speaker 1: They're talking about music, they're thinking about music, they're engaging
6:22
Speaker 1: with music. A lot of our exploration of music comes
6:24
Speaker 1: through this character, Mark, who is a pothead heavy.
6:28
Speaker 2: Metal thrash metal fan.
6:30
Speaker 1: There's a great sequence where he hallucinates that he's in
6:33
Speaker 1: Gwar or at a Guar concert. Then he gets eaten
6:36
Speaker 1: by an on stage Guar monster. So one of the
6:40
Speaker 1: games you could think of is the Guar Game. A
6:42
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, there was a Guar board game
6:44
Speaker 1: that came out at gen Con. Apparently you could meet
6:46
Speaker 1: Gwar if you went on the right day. Two other
6:49
Speaker 1: games that I thought of that have to do with
6:51
Speaker 1: music or the music industry are rock Hard and Vinyl.
6:54
Speaker 1: Rockhard is about being a rock star, so what Mark
6:57
Speaker 1: fantasizes about and is a game about I think collecting records.
7:02
Speaker 1: I haven't played that one. I haven't played rock Hard
7:04
Speaker 1: or the Guard game either. All of these are games
7:06
Speaker 1: I'm talking about that I haven't played. I was trying
7:09
Speaker 1: to think of what games I have that are about
7:11
Speaker 1: music itself, and I don't have any.
7:14
Speaker 2: I don't think.
7:15
Speaker 1: Closer that I could think of was I have Shakespeare,
7:18
Speaker 1: but that's about putting out a play, not about music,
7:21
Speaker 1: either performing it or writing it or rehearsing it. There
7:26
Speaker 1: are a couple other games that would be interesting in
7:29
Speaker 1: the context of classical music. There's Lacrymosa or Luthier, which
7:33
Speaker 1: are both about music, but again not games I've played.
7:37
Speaker 1: So I don't know that I have a better connection
7:39
Speaker 1: to the idea of music than the games I've just
7:42
Speaker 1: talked about as for purpose, because part of the like
7:46
Speaker 1: I said, the in Empire Records, the characters, the way
7:50
Speaker 1: the characters relate to music is often about how they
7:55
Speaker 1: are navigating life, finding their way, and so a couple
7:58
Speaker 1: of the other I think about the role of music
8:02
Speaker 1: in the game or in the movie. A couple of
8:05
Speaker 1: the other aspects of where I think it connects are
8:08
Speaker 1: have to do with sort of figuring out what you're
8:10
Speaker 1: doing with your life. So one of the games that
8:13
Speaker 1: you could connect to would be The Pursuit of Happiness,
8:18
Speaker 1: which is a game about exploring a life, trying to
8:21
Speaker 1: live a life as fulfilling as possible. And the other game,
8:26
Speaker 1: which maybe is the closest I can think of two
8:28
Speaker 1: Empire Records itself, is a freedom and freeze game I
8:31
Speaker 1: picked up for the novelty of it called Funny Friends.
8:35
Speaker 1: In this game, you play a bunch of sort of
8:39
Speaker 1: teenagers or young adults trying to explore life and really
8:46
Speaker 1: having a good time but also dabbling in drugs and
8:51
Speaker 1: having sex, and the game is sort of about hedonistic
8:57
Speaker 1: exploration of life. The art on the cover the characters
9:00
Speaker 1: all look I apologize if this is I don't think
9:03
Speaker 1: this is inherently rude to any particular people.
9:07
Speaker 2: But they look like a bunch of dirt bags, sort
9:10
Speaker 2: of kind of sleazy. I don't know.
9:11
Speaker 1: I haven't played it yet. It looks very silly but
9:14
Speaker 1: also fun. That is funny friends. I guess funny friends
9:19
Speaker 1: in Pursuit of Happiness aren't really about music. They maybe
9:22
Speaker 1: don't go into the music category. Maybe there's a fifth
9:25
Speaker 1: a fifth angle of Empire Records, which is figuring out
9:30
Speaker 1: what you're doing with your life. I'll put the category there,
9:32
Speaker 1: figuring out what you're doing with your life? All right,
9:38
Speaker 1: So next up, As I've said, people who enjoy Empire Records,
9:43
Speaker 1: part of its place in culture is as a cult
9:48
Speaker 1: classic or a cult favorite. There are people who really
9:51
Speaker 1: like this movie, and they really really like it, and
9:54
Speaker 1: mostly they just pop up right now on April eighth
9:58
Speaker 1: or in the week before, where people are gett excited
10:00
Speaker 1: for Rex Manning Day.
10:02
Speaker 2: And people who like it talk about it, and then
10:05
Speaker 2: it goes away. Again, So I was thinking.
10:10
Speaker 1: About, what are some games that have that feel the
10:14
Speaker 1: idea of a cult classic or a cult favorite. So
10:17
Speaker 1: these are games that people maybe have heard of, but
10:22
Speaker 1: not a lot of people have, and the people who
10:24
Speaker 1: like them really really like them and there and think
10:26
Speaker 1: they're amazing, but they're not widely available or known. And
10:30
Speaker 1: the one I always think of here is a Study
10:31
Speaker 1: in Emerald first edition. A Study in Emerald was a
10:35
Speaker 1: relatively popular game when it came out, but it had
10:37
Speaker 1: a short print run and it never got reprinted as
10:39
Speaker 1: far as I know then the second when the second
10:42
Speaker 1: version of it came out, it was received okay, but
10:46
Speaker 1: a lot of people played the first edition, said I
10:48
Speaker 1: don't I'm not big on that. They have since published
10:52
Speaker 1: a third edition now, which has a different name but
10:55
Speaker 1: is essentially the same game, and I've heard decent reviews
10:58
Speaker 1: of it, but I've heard that on one podcas and
11:00
Speaker 1: I haven't heard anyone else mention it at all, So
11:02
Speaker 1: I don't know if that game is getting any traction.
11:07
Speaker 1: So that tells me that a Studying Emerald in its
11:10
Speaker 1: original form is still kind of a cult classic. It's
11:12
Speaker 1: a favorite. People like it, they think it's interesting, That's
11:16
Speaker 1: one game.
11:17
Speaker 2: I'll point to. Another game that I.
11:19
Speaker 1: Think of as a cult classic just because I've encountered
11:21
Speaker 1: a few people who talk about it and it seems
11:23
Speaker 1: to have some interest, but again, I've not seen it
11:27
Speaker 1: played very much. Is Cosmic Frog. This is a game
11:30
Speaker 1: that has wild art, really aggressive gameplay apparently, and the
11:37
Speaker 1: people who like it really really like it. This is
11:40
Speaker 1: a game about being gigantic planet eating frogs, hopping across
11:45
Speaker 1: the galaxy fighting with other gigantic planet eating frogs. And
11:49
Speaker 1: the art looks like stuff you'd find on posters to
11:54
Speaker 1: be lit by black light, made in the late sixties,
11:58
Speaker 1: like really psychedelic style. It's a neat production one that
12:04
Speaker 1: I sort of am tempted to buy because, like, next
12:07
Speaker 1: time I see it and it's available, I'm tempted to
12:09
Speaker 1: get it because it seems like a game that's worth having,
12:12
Speaker 1: But it doesn't seem like a game I'd.
12:13
Speaker 2: Enjoy, which is part of why I've held off. That's
12:18
Speaker 2: Cosmic Frog.
12:20
Speaker 1: I guess one other cult favorite that I would point
12:22
Speaker 1: to that people seem to really like is Glory to Rome.
12:25
Speaker 1: Glory to Rome is the first Karl Chuttik design. It
12:29
Speaker 1: came out in two editions. The first edition was generally
12:32
Speaker 1: recognized as terrible art, but then the second edition came
12:36
Speaker 1: out in this black box with this minimalist art.
12:39
Speaker 2: And it looks beautiful and people really like it.
12:42
Speaker 1: And it went out of print immediately because the Kickstarter
12:44
Speaker 1: campaign was disastrous from an economic perspective. They just priced
12:48
Speaker 1: things wrong and it went very badly. And so my
12:53
Speaker 1: understanding is that the game is tied up intellectual in
12:56
Speaker 1: intellectual property in a way that it may never be reprinted,
13:00
Speaker 1: so much so that I have a copy that I
13:03
Speaker 1: made myself, and my idea is that if it's ever
13:08
Speaker 1: available in a way that I can buy it and
13:10
Speaker 1: give money to the people who published the game. Originally,
13:14
Speaker 1: I am obligated to buy a copy because I made
13:16
Speaker 1: myself a copy, but I don't see the I don't
13:20
Speaker 1: see the point in paying aftermarket prices. So consider this
13:24
Speaker 1: little hypocrisy given my stance generally on piracy. But yeah,
13:31
Speaker 1: so that's Gloria Row might be another of these games
13:35
Speaker 1: that I feel like it has a cult status that
13:39
Speaker 1: makes it compelling, just like Empire Records. And finally, one
13:46
Speaker 1: of the things that makes Empire Records so fun is
13:49
Speaker 1: it's got a really good soundtrack. This is the movie
13:52
Speaker 1: that probably spent a quarter of its budget on music rights.
13:57
Speaker 1: That's not true, but it's probably a lot. I bet
13:59
Speaker 1: the movie rights were very expensive. And this is a
14:01
Speaker 1: movie that was made in the late nineties, so it
14:06
Speaker 1: hits home for somebody like me who was sort of
14:08
Speaker 1: following mainstream alternative and pop music at the time.
14:13
Speaker 2: A lot of.
14:15
Speaker 1: Songs that resonate for me, Although I don't know if
14:18
Speaker 1: very many of them were popular, A lot of them
14:20
Speaker 1: are popular for me because I like Empire Records, and
14:23
Speaker 1: I have the Empire Records soundtrack and listen to the heck.
14:25
Speaker 2: Out of it.
14:27
Speaker 1: So I was thinking about how do I capture that idea,
14:30
Speaker 1: the idea of the needle drop, which is an interesting
14:34
Speaker 1: concept from a narrative standpoint. Right, the needle drop is
14:38
Speaker 1: bringing in this secondary text that comments on the primary
14:43
Speaker 1: text and brings the audience into place. Right, you're able
14:46
Speaker 1: to leverage the emotion and interest of the music in
14:52
Speaker 1: conjunction with the visuals and sometimes sound that you're still getting,
14:56
Speaker 1: and you also gain some familiarity if the audience knows
15:01
Speaker 1: the song already, like anybody who right now invokes Blur
15:06
Speaker 1: song two, you get the audience excited just from that
15:10
Speaker 1: initial drumbeat because that song is well known enough that
15:14
Speaker 1: you can do it. Similarly, there are needledrops that go
15:18
Speaker 1: that go. There are two overused, Like if you were
15:20
Speaker 1: to use Hallelujah, the Leonard Cohen song or one of
15:25
Speaker 1: the many covers of it that have been done, that
15:29
Speaker 1: song is a bit overdone, I think, and you need
15:32
Speaker 1: to be careful in using it that you're not dumping
15:34
Speaker 1: sakerin all over your movie. So I think about what
15:37
Speaker 1: about board games with song titles or song titles that
15:43
Speaker 1: are board games, And there are a lot of them,
15:46
Speaker 1: but a lot of the song titles that are board
15:47
Speaker 1: games are barely connected to the game itself. For example,
15:52
Speaker 1: I looked to see and of course someone Jay Cormier
15:55
Speaker 1: actually designer co designer with Sung Fung Limb of a
16:00
Speaker 1: variety of different board games, including I believe the one
16:04
Speaker 1: I had for a while, which was the Expanse board game,
16:08
Speaker 1: which was pretty good that they designed that one, but
16:12
Speaker 1: I don't know if I have any of my collection
16:14
Speaker 1: right now that they designed. Anyhow, board games that have
16:22
Speaker 1: song names but they aren't strongly related, I would not
16:28
Speaker 1: put in a I would not put in the category
16:31
Speaker 1: of needle drops, so like Ticket to Ride, that doesn't
16:35
Speaker 1: feel related to the Beatles song in any way. She's
16:39
Speaker 1: got a Ticket to Ride.
16:40
Speaker 3: Like.
16:40
Speaker 1: There's a bunch of games like that, where there's a
16:43
Speaker 1: song that has a title, there's a game that has
16:46
Speaker 1: a title, and they don't seem to be connected at
16:50
Speaker 1: the same time, I think there are some that feel
16:52
Speaker 1: like they use that needle drop really well. The two
16:55
Speaker 1: that came to mind before I look this up online
16:58
Speaker 1: were Come Together, which is a game about basically putting
17:02
Speaker 1: together woodstock. So like the cover is a picture of
17:07
Speaker 1: a left hand holding the neck of a guitar, like
17:10
Speaker 1: holding a guitar chord, and it's drawn in the sort
17:13
Speaker 1: of cartoonish style of the Beatles circa Yellow Submarine, right,
17:18
Speaker 1: So it's very much evoking the time of popular music
17:23
Speaker 1: acts in the sixties and seventies. And it's called Come Together,
17:27
Speaker 1: which is of course a Beatles song.
17:30
Speaker 2: I Ope, it's a Beatles song. Yikes if I'm wrong
17:33
Speaker 2: about that.
17:35
Speaker 1: But the other one that I would point to, the
17:38
Speaker 1: first one I thought of, actually is the song What's
17:42
Speaker 1: He Building. The song is called What's He Building? Or
17:47
Speaker 1: the Yeah The song is called What's he building? The
17:50
Speaker 1: board game is called What's he Building in There? But
17:53
Speaker 1: in the song, Tom Waits goes.
17:56
Speaker 2: What's he building in there? He building in there? I'm
18:02
Speaker 2: gonna play a little clip of it right now because
18:04
Speaker 2: it's great. He's all to himself. I think I know why.
18:13
Speaker 3: He took down the tire swing from the pepper tree.
18:17
Speaker 3: He has no children of his own. You see, he
18:21
Speaker 3: has no dog, he has no friends, and his lawn
18:28
Speaker 3: is dying. What about all those packages he sends? On's
18:35
Speaker 3: he building in there? That hook light on the stairs?
18:42
Speaker 3: On's he building in there? I'll tell you one thing.
18:47
Speaker 3: He's not building a playhouse for the children once he
18:51
Speaker 3: building in there?
18:54
Speaker 1: So that is not a game I've played. We used
18:56
Speaker 1: to have it in the toggle library. I'm gonna see
18:58
Speaker 1: if we still do. And it on Tom Waite's birthday
19:01
Speaker 1: or close to Tom Waite's birthday. But I was thinking about,
19:04
Speaker 1: like songs where they are evoking this, or games where
19:09
Speaker 1: they are evoking the spirit of a song. In What's
19:11
Speaker 1: He Building in there? You are building a wild contraption
19:15
Speaker 1: and the idea, I think the ideas you're hiding it
19:18
Speaker 1: from people. I don't know for certain, but you are
19:20
Speaker 1: like an evil scientist in Come Together. You're putting together
19:24
Speaker 1: this music festival. So it is kind of about the
19:27
Speaker 1: way that music draws people together. I was trying to
19:29
Speaker 1: think of other songs or other games that use songs
19:33
Speaker 1: as a kind of temporal needle drop. This is not
19:37
Speaker 1: related or not the same as games where music is
19:42
Speaker 1: part of the game, right. You have stuff like Exit
19:46
Speaker 1: the Game or Unlock the game where they have an
19:48
Speaker 1: app that plays music, or real time games like at
19:52
Speaker 1: Most Sphere where they have a an audio video recording
20:00
Speaker 1: that plays music and the main character interferes with players,
20:05
Speaker 1: pops up on the screen and that sort of thing.
20:07
Speaker 1: And then they have board games that have a soundtrack,
20:09
Speaker 1: the one that for me is the most prominent one.
20:12
Speaker 1: So there are two kinds. There's the one where the
20:14
Speaker 1: soundtrack is part of the game, so Space Alert and
20:17
Speaker 1: Escape Curse of the Temple. Escape Curse of the Temple
20:20
Speaker 1: has this great soundtrack, and of course the timing of
20:23
Speaker 1: the game happens during it. In the two first the
20:30
Speaker 1: first two games that came with the first two games
20:34
Speaker 1: from Flying Frog production, Last Night on Earth and a
20:39
Speaker 1: Touch of Evil both come with soundtracks as well a
20:41
Speaker 1: touch of evil. I particularly like because it starts with
20:44
Speaker 1: this sort of ominous keyboard and then there's a guy
20:47
Speaker 1: who yells murder and then the gameplay it starts. So
20:53
Speaker 1: I love the silliness of that. It's a delight. So
20:58
Speaker 1: that is needle dry in games. So, friends, have you
21:04
Speaker 1: seen Empire Records? What do you think I missed in
21:08
Speaker 1: talking about Empire Records here on Rex Manning Day, Although,
21:11
Speaker 1: to be fair, I'm publishing this two days after Rex
21:13
Speaker 1: Manning Day because I already published a podcast today. What
21:19
Speaker 1: movie do you what cult classic do you think deserves
21:22
Speaker 1: to have a board game? A theme storm about it?
21:28
Speaker 1: What it occurs to me? In the cult classic section,
21:30
Speaker 1: I could have put the game Goes to Eleven, which
21:33
Speaker 1: is a rock and roll themed card game. It nods
21:38
Speaker 1: towards this as spinal tap with that joke. So that's fun.
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Speaker 2: All right. Well that is it for me. I want
21:45
Speaker 2: to say thanks for joining me on my walk today.
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Speaker 4: I hope your next walk is as pleasant as Bye Bye.
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Speaker 2: Brought to you by rattle Box