Latest / Fandomonium! A Fandom Comedy Game Show / Cast Interviews - Jon Williams: A Life Through Fandom

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Cast Interviews - Jon Williams: A Life Through Fandom · Fandomonium! A Fandom Comedy Game Show

• 0:00
  Hello, leap Frogs, Welcome back to our cast interview series. Yeah,
• 0:05
  it's March. It's our third episode in this series. How did it get
• 0:10
  to be spring already? And why am I not mad about it? As
• 0:14
  you can tell from the title, this interview is with John Williams. Not
• 0:19
  that one a better one in my eyes. At least you will know John
• 0:23
  from his fantastic appearances on this podcast, usually alongside his partner in creativity in
• 0:31
  podcast Story and one of his best friends in Ben Robinson, another fantastic cast
• 0:37
  member who I'm sure we'll be chatting to later this year. But for now,
• 0:41
  let's talk about the things that they do creatively together, shall we.
• 0:44
  You've probably heard us talk about Space Oddities. They're fantastic independent comic book series
• 0:51
  that has two chunky issues out available now so that you can support John and
• 0:56
  Ben on their roads to issue three, which is currently in the work.
• 1:00
  And the way I got to know Ben and John was through their podcast Geek
• 1:03
  Exploration, which stood apart from the other couple of dudes talking about media from
• 1:11
  the past and present by the fact that Ben and John actually do their research
• 1:15
  and you can tell. You can tell they're working through a format of key
• 1:19
  points that they're looking to hit, so i'd fully massively recommend going through their
• 1:23
  archives and listening to some old episodes that peak your interests. They're very good
• 1:27
  podcasters, and as you'll hear from John's fantastic recording quality, they have fantastic
• 1:34
  voices that are great, very radio better than my stumbling voice, better than
• 1:38
  the one that's happening right now. This was even a retake, so do
• 1:42
  check out geek Exploration. There'll be a link in the show notes of this
• 1:46
  podcast. And on a one personal level, I really appreciate the energy that
• 1:49
  John has brought to gate Leapers over the last couple of years and now as
• 1:53
  a full time cast member. He's got a great dry sense of humor,
• 1:57
  a wealth of knowledge of many pop culture properties, and of course a unique
• 2:02
  fan perspective for this podcast, which is a polite way of saying he's slightly
• 2:08
  older than our average age. And this was a fantastic chat that we sat
• 2:14
  down for last Sunday morning. It was lovely getting to chat with John one
• 2:20
  on one and I found out a lot more about him through this conversation,
• 2:23
  as this format seems to reveal, and I think you'll find out a lot
• 2:28
  too, and get to know John as I have so so we'll get right
• 2:31
  to it. I'll be back on the other side with some more promotional nonsense,
• 2:37
  you know, admin important things. But until then, please enjoy John
• 2:40
  Williams A Life through Fandom. Good morning, John, How are you?
• 2:49
  I'm doing well? How about yourself? I'm doing I'm doing great. Sunday
• 2:53
  morning. We're continuing the tradition of recording on weekend mornings, and it's absolutely
• 2:58
  lovely to be here with you for this cast interview, this this Life through
• 3:01
  Fandom. I was gonna say, find them flashback, but that's our Patreon
• 3:05
  bonus. I'm losing track of all these new branded things. Yeah, we're
• 3:09
  on the other side of daylight savings time. Do you feel saved from daylight?
• 3:14
  Oh? Yeah, well I thought like I thought daylight was getting saved
• 3:17
  from me. I don't know. A Saturday, Sunday morning, a weekend
• 3:22
  morning, does that usually look like there's some creative projects on for you as
• 3:25
  a as a comic book artist. Is that when you get some of your
• 3:28
  best artwork done? Or is it more like a relax time? More relaxed
• 3:32
  time. I think everyone gets up in the morning, we sort of mill
• 3:36
  around for a while, and I think if I'm if I'm up before everyone
• 3:40
  else, then that's more likely to be the time where i'll well, I'll
• 3:45
  we're, I'll get a little artwork done. But you know, once there's
• 3:50
  distractions, it's hard, it's hard to concentrate. It's yeah, that's true.
• 3:54
  I connect to that. I think it's why I'm an early riser.
• 3:59
  If you can take control of those early hours there yours. Yeah, I
• 4:01
  think I would be if I if I could be anymore. But man,
• 4:05
  I was such an early riser as a kid, and that was exactly why
• 4:09
  you know, I'm up for everybody else. I can do whatever I want.
• 4:12
  When I was a kid, it was watching cartoons, you know.
• 4:15
  Nowadays, I think I'm more likely to just how what do they call it,
• 4:18
  like revenge, revenge sleep or revenge waking hours where where you sort of
• 4:27
  get back at your day where you don't have any control by staying up late
• 4:30
  at night to just do whatever you want for a couple hours. So yes,
• 4:34
  yeah, being a being a teenager, I definitely remember staying up late
• 4:43
  when I shouldn't to take back control of some kind. Yes, school has
• 4:46
  controlled me is the attitude I had, And then you realize, oh,
• 4:49
  no, work is way more controlling than school. School is actually quite fun.
• 4:51
  Oh yeah, just just wait if you if you decide to have kids,
• 4:57
  that's uh, you're gonna need some SERI revenge time at night. Yeah
• 5:01
  yeah, So look, I'm really bad at Segue's John. But we're here
• 5:06
  to talk about your life through pop culture. There we go. That was
• 5:09
  a segue. There it is, And hopefully the listeners of our podcast will
• 5:13
  get to know you a little bit more. They've obviously heard about space oddities,
• 5:16
  they've heard about you being a comic book artist and a podcaster. But
• 5:20
  this is a way to get to know your life as a fan, the
• 5:24
  way that you've consumed media and been a part of fandoms throughout your life.
• 5:28
  So we will start at the very beginning, because that just makes a lot
• 5:31
  of sense. It's a very good place to start. I hear, So,
• 5:34
  what was the first pop culture media you were obsessed with, like as
• 5:40
  a child. You know, I fear that this is going to become like
• 5:45
  a boring through line, but if anybody's listened to some of the earlier episodes,
• 5:49
  like the Superman one, they will know that I feel like I was
• 5:55
  born a Superman fan somehow, like maybe my mom watched the Christopher Reeve movie
• 6:00
  and the Womb or something. I just I had an ingrained love for it
• 6:04
  already. Yeah, But as far as I can remember, you know,
• 6:08
  there there there, there was never a time where Superman wasn't there, whether
• 6:11
  it was the pajamas or the you know, the Superpower's action figures in the
• 6:15
  eighties, or I had I've still got in this this Keepsake's trunk, the
• 6:20
  the these little swim trunks that I had when I was probably three years old.
• 6:26
  That's got the full transformation sequence of Clark Kent into Superman on these trunks.
• 6:30
  Oh wow, it's just yeah, I've always been a Superman fan.
• 6:35
  Yeah, that's I mean, I could tell that from the from the Superman
• 6:39
  episode, as you said, a big Superman fan. But yeah, that's
• 6:43
  that's interesting that it was from like a very like young age, like immediately,
• 6:46
  cause I assume that's your first superhero, right, like Superman was your
• 6:49
  first superhero as far as I can remember. Yeah, I mean, it's
• 6:54
  it's kind of weird because my parents aren't big comic book fans, and I
• 6:58
  don't know like, like, I feel like it was it was thrust upon
• 7:01
  me. You know, I feel like I was I was a Superman fan
• 7:05
  before I was able to decide you know what I even liked? Yeah.
• 7:12
  So yeah, especially it is a three year old wearing Superman themed trunks.
• 7:15
  You can't imagine many three year olds being like, I would like that swim
• 7:17
  where please? Yeah, I've got I've got a little little baby T shirt
• 7:21
  that says like super Baby on it and has a little like, you know,
• 7:25
  a cartoony Superman child on there. Yeah. I don't know. Everyone
• 7:30
  made the decision for me. Yeah, I should be upset about it.
• 7:34
  Maybe, Well that's up to you. If you want to be upset about
• 7:38
  it, you can be. But if not, you could just take it
• 7:40
  as well. People were just making choices for me and that's fine. Mm
• 7:43
  hmm. Yeah. So, like in terms of Superman, was there like
• 7:46
  a visual media element or was it all like trunks and T shirts? Were
• 7:50
  you like, was there an era of like would you watch the movies on
• 7:54
  repeat as a kid? Like? Yeah, yeah, the Christopher Eve movie
• 7:58
  series. Just I just adore those flicks, even parts three and four,
• 8:03
  you know, I love them all. I'm still convinced, and I've got
• 8:07
  an ongoing project on my computer that I could take Superman three and edit out
• 8:13
  the more goofy Richard Pryor stuff, and that it's actually a really good movie.
• 8:18
  There's some really good performances in there. So I started that one day,
• 8:22
  but I have to get around to finishing it. It's tough with the
• 8:26
  soundtrack, that's the hardest part. Yeah, yeah, editing around or do
• 8:31
  you editing? Yeah? I get it. That's good to know. You
• 8:33
  consumed it virosmosis in the womb, but then once you were out, you
• 8:37
  were like, yeah, let's do this. I'm all on board for Superman.
• 8:41
  Did you feel at a point sort of later on in childhood that you
• 8:43
  were like taking ownership of it, that like, even though it had been
• 8:46
  put upon you, you were then exploring Superman in your own way in terms
• 8:50
  of like, oh wait, there are comics, I should get the comics,
• 8:54
  like that kind of thing. You know. I think it all just
• 8:56
  happened very naturally. I don't think I ever had I don't think until today
• 9:01
  I ever had any any actual thought about about not having a choice in the
• 9:05
  matter. You know, it was always just a very pure love of the
• 9:11
  character that you know, of course, it you know, went from the
• 9:15
  movies to there was a there was a cartoon series and I want to say
• 9:18
  it was eighty seven or eighty eight by Ruby Spears that was really really good.
• 9:24
  And then of course comic books and the Superboy TV series also, you
• 9:28
  know that that led to I don't know it all, It all just happened.
• 9:33
  There was just a big media push that that yeah, no, hey,
• 9:39
  yeah, don't underestimate the power of marketing or you know, parent's ability
• 9:45
  to just be like, I'm happy with my child consuming this media. Let's
• 9:48
  put them in front of it for a while. Yeah, I guess,
• 9:50
  you know, with with with parents fear of a kid consuming media that's gonna
• 9:56
  going to turn them into a murder or a drug addict or something. You
• 9:58
  know, they're like, well, he likes Superman. That's probably about as
• 10:01
  pure as you can get. Yeah, he seems like a pretty good role
• 10:05
  model. He's there saving people, he's sort of respectful to his partner,
• 10:09
  and he has a backup job as a journalist, so he's like, you
• 10:13
  know, keeping his career prospects alive. He's a role model. Yeah,
• 10:16
  Yeah, as long as you don't think about the dual identity is lying and
• 10:20
  keeping secrets. You're good, yes, yeah, yeah, he doesn't have
• 10:24
  like a separate a separate wife and family as Superman, you know, as
• 10:28
  he does. It's Clark can't. So that's good, that's true. Yeah,
• 10:31
  it's not got to be a big b on his on his chest for
• 10:35
  bigger me. All right, move in, I mean slightly later into childhood,
• 10:41
  I would. I would assume maybe even like teenage years. This is
• 10:43
  less about like you sort of solo consuming a fandom, because fandom implies fans,
• 10:50
  fans implies multiple We're all interested in weird, different things, but then
• 10:54
  find connection through these media products. So my question is, what was the
• 11:00
  first fandom that you remember being a part of. And it doesn't even have
• 11:03
  to be like a full blown community. It could just be the first friend
• 11:07
  you made over talking about media and this kind of stuff. It was interesting
• 11:11
  getting prepared for this and actually really considering this stuff because I feel like like
• 11:18
  my childhood was just inundated with fandoms, so it was hard. It was
• 11:20
  hard to really focus on one because, especially at the time that I grew
• 11:24
  up, like there was one clear, obvious fandom that everyone was there for
• 11:28
  and that was Ninja Turtles. You know, I was I was born.
• 11:31
  I was born in eighty two, so I was at just the right age
• 11:37
  in eighty seven when that cartoon came out and just destroyed everyone's minds, you
• 11:43
  know. I mean not in a bad way, but yeah, but just
• 11:45
  it took over. You know, we were obsessed with Ninja Turtles. I
• 11:50
  believe it hearing it from your your generation of geeks. I'm post Turtle myself.
• 11:58
  It was just just before my time. But yeah, I can absolutely
• 12:01
  see it because it's like, wait, they're Ninja's, they're talking animals,
• 12:05
  and they love pizza. What is a seven year old boy not to love
• 12:09
  about this? Absolutely? Yeah, and you know it followed in the tradition
• 12:15
  of of you know, he Man and Transformers and g I Joe Like like
• 12:20
  I just that just sucked young boys into their into their world, you know.
• 12:26
  Yeah, yeah, well, uh, I don't know, it is
• 12:31
  what it is. Yeah, as long as nobody's nobody's clipping that out to
• 12:35
  to try to know everything. Everything in context is this is a very professional,
• 12:41
  hour long conversation that is meant to be consumed all as one piece,
• 12:46
  and it shows that this is not prepared exactly. This is organic conversation.
• 12:52
  Now let me read my next sub question. Yeah, I'll check my notes
• 12:56
  before I answer. So do you do you remember any points of like maybe
• 13:00
  at school or just hanging out with like any neighbor kids or anything like that,
• 13:05
  were you like being the turtles? Would you dress up as the turtles
• 13:07
  with different people in a friend group, different different turtles? You know,
• 13:11
  I think we wanted to, But the problem with the turtles is that their
• 13:18
  their their look is so unique that like the best you can do is put
• 13:24
  on a bandana and elbow pads and knee pads and like hopefully or maybe do
• 13:30
  some cardboard shell action. But like it's such a hard thing to do well
• 13:35
  that I don't think I ever really tried. I've always just wished I could
• 13:39
  get a suit like the first movie suit in eighteen ninety made for someone my
• 13:43
  size. I'm I'm significantly taller than all those people. Yeah, those suits,
• 13:52
  those suits were I still look at them and and just I look at
• 13:56
  them in awe and wonder at how you know, the the Henson group made
• 14:01
  those suits because they look it looks so real to me, like other than
• 14:03
  mouth movements like they still hold up to me. Yeah, I didn't realize
• 14:07
  they were made by the Henson Studio, but that makes total sense because they
• 14:11
  all good looking costumes. So yep, yeah, leave it to the best.
• 14:13
  But yeah, we definitely did do that in the neighborhood. I feel
• 14:16
  like I was very fortunate to grow up in a neighborhood where all of my
• 14:22
  best friends lived within with it like on a little block. It was a
• 14:26
  small neighborhood and there were just a bunch of kids my age. So you
• 14:30
  know, some of my best friends. You know, one of my one
• 14:31
  of my I'm calling them my best man's in my wedding. Oh yeah,
• 14:35
  is my best friend from from childhood. We met just before my fifth birthday.
• 14:41
  Oh wow, so you know, I've known them for a very long
• 14:45
  time. And yeah, we would definitely play Turtles and X Men, and
• 14:48
  I always claimed Leonardo because I'm you know, I guess also it goes.
• 14:54
  It goes along with the Superman thing, like I like the leaders. I
• 14:56
  like the people who do the right thing because it's the right thing. My
• 15:01
  favorite X Man is Cyclops, you know. So okay, yeah, yeah,
• 15:07
  it wasn't hard. I didn't have to fight people for Rafael or Michaelangelo.
• 15:11
  Nice. Nice, and he's got swords. Yeah, come on,
• 15:13
  who doesn't love swords? Yeah? Yeah. I feel like that that statement
• 15:18
  of you just quickly saying which characters from eighties properties that you identify and connect
• 15:22
  with that will have told so many listeners exactly what they need to know about
• 15:28
  you in terms of Yep, I get this guy, I understand this guy.
• 15:30
  Yeah yeah yeah. And I guess if we're talking about that era,
• 15:35
  there's one other inescapable fandom, and that was the Batmania that was in nineteen
• 15:43
  eighty nine. Okay, yes, is that the Batman animated series kicking off
• 15:48
  stuff well, starting with the the Michael Keaton Batman movie. Yeah, yeah,
• 15:52
  yeah. That thing invaded like the like the the Beatles, I imagine.
• 15:56
  I wasn't around for them, I'm not quite, but it just it
• 16:02
  took over our lives, you know, first with the movie and it's serial
• 16:06
  and video games, and then the animated series in ninety two, like it
• 16:10
  changed the landscape. Like Batman is a close second to me as far as
• 16:15
  my favorite characters go. You know, Superman still edges edges out, but
• 16:19
  Batman is a huge part of my life and it's my kid's favorite superhero,
• 16:23
  so oh nice. Yeah, yeah, that's that's good. Still a favorite
• 16:27
  of yours, but not not your not taking Superman from you. So you've
• 16:32
  got Superman and Batman as your two favorites. That's nice. But yeah,
• 16:34
  you know they're they're the world's finest team for a reason. So when they
• 16:37
  have a comic book that's got both of them in there, then I'm in
• 16:41
  heaven. Nice. Yeah, and does that make for good like bonding moments
• 16:45
  between like parent and child, like reading a comic that has both of your
• 16:49
  favorite characters in Definitely And you know, my fiance might feel different about it,
• 16:55
  but I didn't. I didn't force this honor. I was very,
• 16:59
  very deliberately did not force any sort of comic book geeky fandom on her.
• 17:04
  But when she came to me saying she like Ninja Turtles and she like Batman,
• 17:07
  I was like, well, well, hello, let's talk. I've
• 17:11
  got I've got some reading material for you. Yeah. Yeah, oh that's
• 17:15
  that's adorable. That's so cute. Yeah, it's it's definitely a good time.
• 17:19
  I'm fortunate that I don't have a child that's super into sports, because
• 17:26
  you're like I can't relate. It's not really my thing. I mean,
• 17:29
  we do toss a football around, but sure, that's it. That's the
• 17:33
  American way. Got to even if you don't do sports, you've got to
• 17:36
  throw football around. Yeah. So just quickly in this kind of like same
• 17:40
  era, did it ever sort of like branch out of of just because I'm
• 17:45
  trying to picture the timeframe, we're talking like late eighties, early nineties kind
• 17:48
  of thing here. Yeah, did it ever sort of branch out into more
• 17:52
  like, Oh, I'm going to go to this club or I'm going to
• 17:56
  go to this comic shop and talk to people or was it sort of pre
• 18:00
  internet? Was it much more like the fandom communities were just the friends around
• 18:06
  you as opposed to sort of wider community networks. Yeah. I'd say for
• 18:10
  somebody my age, then it was more the people around me. I think
• 18:15
  I was fortunate though, that everyone around me was into the same things because
• 18:21
  it was so pervasive. You know, the love of Ninja, Turtles and
• 18:25
  Batman was it was everywhere. That was the age when I started going to
• 18:32
  comic shops for the first time. I remember the first saver I started at
• 18:36
  a comic book store was for Superboy based on the super Boy television series in
• 18:44
  nineteen ninety so that was my very first one, and my mom hated going
• 18:47
  to that shop because they had a big They had a giant dragon in the
• 18:51
  back, you know, to go along with all their D and D stuff,
• 18:55
  and you know, growing up religious, that was very frowned upon the
• 19:00
  back of the Satanic Panic era of absolutely dungeons and dragons being the source of
• 19:06
  all moral problems in the US. I bought a I don't think it was
• 19:11
  D and D. I think it was an offshoot I maybe Palladium or Paladin,
• 19:17
  I can't remember. Maybe it was a D and D book. I
• 19:18
  don't know. I bought a source book one time, yeah, not knowing
• 19:22
  anything about it. I think it was in junior high and my mom found
• 19:26
  it and made me take it back. Oh wow, Yeah I didn't.
• 19:30
  I mean, I didn't have super like turbo fanatical religious parents, but you
• 19:34
  know, they they did put their foot down over a few things. Yeah.
• 19:40
  I've read quite a lot about the Satanic Panic and a few different sort
• 19:44
  of moral panics to kind of help inform some things that happened sort of in
• 19:49
  contemporary times, to gain more of an understanding of it, and it really
• 19:52
  did seem like even for just sort of more casually less extreme religious people,
• 19:57
  it was still a huge thing of like politicians and business leaders sort of pointing
• 20:03
  the finger at something as innocuous as dungeons and dragons, like a role playing
• 20:07
  game, so that they didn't look at all of the evil things they were
• 20:11
  doing at the time. So it was, it was, But you can
• 20:15
  see how regular people could get caught up in it so easily. Yeah,
• 20:18
  they just they don't understand it. So they so they try to make what's
• 20:25
  the word I'm looking for? They try to draw lines, Yeah, yeah,
• 20:27
  exactly, just like back in the fifties they did it to comic books,
• 20:30
  yes, yeah, and then you know, later on they did it
• 20:33
  to Doom and Mortal Kombat and then yeah, heavy metal music. You know,
• 20:37
  it's it's yeah, it's nothing new, and exactly it'll keep going.
• 20:42
  It keeps going. Now, it's seems to be anything that anyone likes.
• 20:48
  Almost everything is up for grabs as a this is the moral failing of society.
• 20:52
  Yeah, if you love somebody or if you love something, somebody hates
• 20:56
  you for it. Yes, yeah, exactly. All right, let's move
• 21:00
  on. To. Maybe it could be the same era, or it could
• 21:03
  just be a little bit older. Let's talk about those teenage years. Oh
• 21:07
  yeah, well, fandom can become a bit more awkward. Maybe there's like
• 21:11
  a thing of this thing is no longer cool, I should I should drop
• 21:15
  this for a while, or maybe you double down on it and you're like,
• 21:18
  hey, this is who I am. I'm going all in on it
• 21:21
  completely. So I guess what were some of your teen brain obsessions and was
• 21:26
  there anything that your teen brain needed to like know everything about and become like
• 21:30
  your your hyperfixation. Yeah there, I was definitely the former of those two.
• 21:33
  And I have a feeling that that isn't an uncommon situation now where you
• 21:38
  hit a certain age where you start thinking about girls and you're like, oh,
• 21:42
  well, well then again, I guess the world was different when I
• 21:45
  was young. I would imagine these days that most kids are into you know,
• 21:48
  Marvel movies and Spectacle like that. It's it's cool to be a geek
• 21:53
  now. When I was a kid, that was not the case. So
• 21:56
  yeah, I did leave behind. I mean, I still comic books,
• 22:00
  but it was it was definitely on the background of my life, you know,
• 22:07
  I didn't wear I didn't wear it with pride. But I'd say those
• 22:11
  years, my generation seemed to be obsessed with defining yourself by your musical tastes.
• 22:18
  Okay, yeah, yeah. I feel like anytime you met somebody in
• 22:22
  in junior high in high school, the first question that that a lot of
• 22:27
  people would ask was are you a rocker? Or are you a rapper?
• 22:30
  Okay, it's it's so, it's so embarrassing now that that was that,
• 22:34
  that's even a thing that that people said that that was. That was the
• 22:38
  the instant, like defining line, and then you had other other sub sections
• 22:45
  of that, but like that was like I'm going to be friends with you
• 22:48
  if you are the same as me and then you Yeah, so that that's
• 22:52
  what it That's what it became all about. You know. Of course,
• 22:56
  like everyone else my age, I went out and I just bought Green Day,
• 22:59
  Duke and Offspring, Smash and and you know, Sound Gardens, what
• 23:03
  was it, super Unknown? Yeah, one with black Holes. I was
• 23:08
  gonna say the one with black hole Son. Yeah. Yeah, I bought
• 23:11
  all those just just like everyone else did. Even though as a kid,
• 23:15
  I was more my My two musical obsessions were weird al and Michael Jackson.
• 23:22
  Okay, yeah, and by the time I was in high school, like
• 23:25
  the just like comics, those weren't cool to wear a patch on your backpack
• 23:30
  or something. Yeah, it's not cool to sing parody songs, but it
• 23:34
  is cool to sing songs about jacking off. Like that's what cool was.
• 23:41
  Yeah, I mean, yeah, wow, I got as well. I
• 23:48
  was later, but I got dookie still. Yeah. Yeah. You know,
• 23:52
  as long as you mask it, well, it'll never go out of
• 23:55
  style. Yeah, yeah, now I get I get that. In terms
• 23:57
  of like music kind of taking over as the predominant fandom during teen years,
• 24:02
  I think it was. It was a similar thing for me. I rejected
• 24:06
  it in some places, but for the most part, when I think about
• 24:08
  conversations about media around like fourteen fifteen sixteen, very much was music driven.
• 24:14
  It was Yeah, like I suppose my era's equivalent was very much shoehorned into
• 24:19
  the rock aspect, and so it was like, are you an indie kid?
• 24:22
  Are you an email kid? Are you a scene kid? Like what
• 24:26
  are you? So that's interesting to hear that. It was definitely the case
• 24:30
  sort of the generation before, and I imagine it might still be a thing
• 24:33
  or the genre genre mixing and genre mashing is the is the sort of popular
• 24:38
  thing of the twenty twenties. So maybe maybe not so much. I don't
• 24:41
  know. Yeah, maybe it's the advent of streaming and having so much access
• 24:48
  to different music where it's it's a totally different landscape. Whereas back in the
• 24:52
  day you really had to think about what you wanted to go spend your twelve
• 24:56
  dollars, you know, on a CD and and and that's what you listened
• 25:00
  to over and over again. And like, you know, as you as
• 25:03
  you gained more then you had more more variety to listen to. But like
• 25:07
  at first, I just had a couple of couple of albums that I would
• 25:11
  just have to listen to on repeat. Yeah, it also defined, you
• 25:15
  know, the way you acted and the way you dressed and the way you
• 25:18
  talked. Like it was it really was like the the personal definer. Well,
• 25:23
  I guess we all took it personally. We all thought we were unique.
• 25:26
  We were all just clones of everyone else that we surrounded ourselves with.
• 25:30
  That's that's part of the fandom that that sort of comes with I mean most
• 25:34
  fandoms, but definitely with music. Everyone it's I mean it's how like punk
• 25:40
  in the seventies was the biggest ant, the establishment thing, but within three
• 25:42
  months, everyone had the morehawk, everyone had the safety pin, everyone had
• 25:47
  the denim jacket, and it was like, oh, this is no longer
• 25:49
  what it claims to be. Yeah, yeah, it became mainstream. Yeah.
• 25:52
  But and you know, my my freshman year in high school, I
• 25:56
  remember getting obsessed along with h with buddies of mine, with like Metallica and
• 26:03
  White Zombie and Corn and all that, and like I was wearing Doc Martins
• 26:07
  and like multiple chains to my wallet, like Spike bracelets and stuff, and
• 26:11
  like it's it's so embarrassing to look back on that and just to just to
• 26:15
  see how I let myself get get completely enveloped in something just based on musical
• 26:22
  tastes and and I'm not even sure how into it I was, but it
• 26:26
  was just it was a lifestyle and it was yeah, my friends were doing
• 26:29
  and and and I think the next year I made a complete one eighty to
• 26:36
  all of a sudden, like I was listening to like depeche Mode and the
• 26:40
  Smiths and Secure and you know, Erasure and New Orders. Oh did you
• 26:44
  have your first breakup? Yeah? No kidding. It probably came with that,
• 26:48
  yeah, yeah, with a with a bunch of Heartbreak by play Smiths.
• 26:52
  Yeah yeah, and I let my sister dress me. So it was
• 26:56
  it was you know, it was a new identity. Yeah, but it's
• 27:00
  uh, but it was all based around music. Yeah, no, I
• 27:04
  think I mean obviously having the personal reflection. Like I also can look back
• 27:08
  at that time and sort of cringe about some of my own decisions. But
• 27:12
  what I would say about yours is, for my generation, we looked up
• 27:15
  to you guys, and we were like, when I'm older, I want
• 27:18
  to be wearing a Metallica T shirt and have all those chins and stuff like
• 27:21
  that. And then by the time we got older, it wasn't as cool
• 27:22
  anymore. So yeah, yeah, we looked up to you. There were
• 27:26
  people looking up Well, you know, I I look back and I cringe
• 27:30
  at that time in my life. But I also you know, when I
• 27:34
  went through my era of of of depeche Mode and Smith's, you know,
• 27:41
  I had style. I wore things that I never would have would have had
• 27:45
  the guts to wear. You know, I'm wearing sweater vests and like,
• 27:48
  you know, yeah, cuffing my pants with my with my when my Doc
• 27:51
  Martins and and I. I look back, and I'm like, I wish
• 27:56
  I still had the guts I had back then, you know I had.
• 28:00
  I was just overflowing with confidence. I didn't give a shit. Well can
• 28:06
  I cuss, Yeah, you can cuss. I didn't care at all what
• 28:10
  anybody said, and it worked so well for me. Like like, I
• 28:14
  just I thrived back then, and I didn't I didn't worry about anything.
• 28:18
  But I was also a kid, So yeah, it's the worry about I've
• 28:21
  heard the phrase the arrogance of youth quite a few times, and it is
• 28:23
  that thing of you just are more confident because you're not thinking about things so
• 28:27
  much. But yeah, I think it's it can be inspiring to kind of
• 28:33
  tap into that from time to time, obviously within reason because still as a
• 28:37
  fully grown adult, I'm like, there's there's some risks that I want to
• 28:40
  take that I still won't take. Yeah, whatever it is inside of me
• 28:42
  that is not taking that leap. Yeah, I think that's the best answer
• 28:48
  to that question we've had so far. John. I really enjoyed that heat
• 28:51
  that everyone else. I dare someone to try to beat me. Yeah,
• 28:53
  come on, step it up, We'll move on to perhaps a little more
• 28:57
  serious, more could be more difficult question. I guess I'll just I'll just
• 29:02
  start with the question, then I'll explain it. Which media, text,
• 29:06
  or fandom has been your source of comfort in more difficult times? So this
• 29:11
  this could be at any point in your life. And I'm thinking comfort in
• 29:15
  the sense of like comfort food if I can compare it to food where it's
• 29:19
  not just like candy that you're consuming, which could be more like doom scrolling
• 29:26
  or something like that where you're looking to really zone out from life, but
• 29:30
  more like what people say like mac and cheese and mashed potatoes are, or
• 29:33
  like a lot of people in my generation like to binge the office as their
• 29:38
  their comfort connection. Do you do you kind of have that like a comfort
• 29:42
  comfort media? Yeah? I think over time there have been. I mean,
• 29:48
  it's so easy to fall back on comic books, but I think comic
• 29:52
  books is more is more a love, you know, Like I don't think
• 29:56
  I ever go away from comic books enough for it to be come something special
• 30:00
  that I need to consume when I'm when I'm feeling a certain way. So
• 30:06
  I'd say in a couple of cases, that there's there's something to be said
• 30:10
  for music and certain types of music. I know at times when I'm when
• 30:15
  I've been you know, when we talk about comfort food, I think of
• 30:18
  something that makes me feel better if I'm feeling down or if I'm going through
• 30:22
  something, something that gives me gives me comfort, and music is a big
• 30:26
  thing for that. There there were times when I struggled with with whatever.
• 30:33
  But when I think of like emotionally, I used to go to a coffee
• 30:36
  shop and sit and just put put in my headphones and I would call it
• 30:40
  my coffee shop sketch hourn and I would just I would I would wait for
• 30:44
  a song to come on that would inspire me or inspire an image in my
• 30:48
  head, and then I would spend one hour putting that to paper. And
• 30:52
  it was it was very cathartic and allowed me to channel emotions, you know,
• 30:59
  because it was very much in the moment, you know, whatever I
• 31:02
  was feeling, that that was what was coming out of me and my pencil,
• 31:07
  and it allowed me to be reflective. Yeah, and you know there
• 31:11
  so there are certain there are certain playlists that I have on on my YouTube
• 31:15
  music where it's like I remember I used to have a playlist years ago that
• 31:19
  was just songs to be sad too. Yes, yeah, and but but
• 31:22
  it worked. It worked so well because if I'm feeling sad, I don't
• 31:26
  want to listen to, you know, a queen rock and roll hit,
• 31:30
  like like, I want to hear something that's going to allow me to channel
• 31:33
  some emotion out. I want to put on some cure radio head or you
• 31:37
  know, something that will that will let my brain wander and work itself out.
• 31:44
  Yes, if that makes sense, one hundred percent. I'm very similar
• 31:48
  in that I need to I need to consume a sad thing or a moody
• 31:52
  thing in order to get through a mood of my own. I need to,
• 31:56
  like I guess, like you said the Catharsis, it's also a little
• 32:00
  bit of just that connection of feeling like I'd rather be around someone or something
• 32:05
  that can relate to what I'm going through right now instead of the total opposite
• 32:09
  side of like a distraction from from something. Yeah, like if you could,
• 32:14
  if you could personify it, it'd be like a friend that was there
• 32:16
  to put their arm around you and talk to you about it, rather than
• 32:20
  a friend that's like, let's go out and get hammered. You know,
• 32:22
  let's go party and exactly not, that's not what I need right now.
• 32:25
  Yeah. Yeah, And ideally that friend is Tom York and he's and he's
• 32:30
  just saying sad things in my ear. Yeah. See, I have a
• 32:32
  feeling. As much as I love I love his music, I have a
• 32:36
  feeling he would bring me further down. Yeah. I don't feel like he'd
• 32:39
  have like wisdom or something something to help me out. I feel like like
• 32:44
  I'd just be like, oh, man, your your life, with all
• 32:46
  of your talent and millions of dollars in fans, your life really does suck.
• 32:52
  You're right, Yeah, I would want to play creep either. Yeah.
• 32:55
  Yeah, just the face of nihilism right next to you. Maybe that's
• 32:59
  too far, but the head the headphones, in the in the ears,
• 33:01
  going to going to a cafe to set that time. I'm a I'm a
• 33:05
  huge fan of creative constraints, of like setting out a rule for how an
• 33:09
  active creativity is going to be done, because it often produces the most creative
• 33:14
  things. Beyond that, if you set the set the terms, and for
• 33:17
  your terms to be I'm gonna listen to some sad songs and sort of start
• 33:22
  sketching. The first feeling that comes from that. That's that's great, that's
• 33:25
  that's that's creativity right there. That's that's beautiful to hear. Yeah, it's
• 33:30
  it's fun and it's and it's also something that that even though there are there
• 33:35
  are there were constraints on it, it didn't feel like you were trying to
• 33:38
  force it because sometimes you know, when when I'm sitting at my drawing table
• 33:43
  and I'm like, I have to draw something right now, nothing happens.
• 33:45
  Yes, yeah, but you know it does. It does come with emotions.
• 33:50
  You know that that it just unlocks something and makes you want to,
• 33:55
  you know, exercise the demons so to speak. Yeah, yeah, that's
• 34:00
  fantastic. I also, I'm going to touch on something that you mentioned just
• 34:02
  before we started recording, and that's the ideally if there was a if there
• 34:07
  was a lazy day in front of you and sort of your your young adulter
• 34:13
  wasn't around, you would put on a horror movie and just chill out on
• 34:16
  a Sunday afternoon. Is that also a way that you find comfort is in
• 34:20
  is in horror films? Yeah? Actually that that was something that that was
• 34:23
  in my brain too, and I was like, I don't know, I
• 34:24
  don't know if I can segue into this. But you know, if anyone,
• 34:30
  if anyone knows me, they know that I that I am a big
• 34:34
  woos. I am. I am a turbo wos. Like I don't watch
• 34:37
  horror movies by myself at night in the dark, because you know, I
• 34:40
  mean when I was a little kid, me and my buddies would watch horror
• 34:44
  movies all the time, like every Saturday night, there was something called Fright
• 34:46
  Night Theater where they would they we had a host that would you know,
• 34:51
  showcase a movie and but it was always edited for television, right, and
• 34:55
  but but I would always get scared, but I'd always come back. I
• 35:00
  I do love horror movies. So these days I will I enjoy consuming them
• 35:05
  in daylight hours. Yeah, you know when when I when I can brush
• 35:07
  it off. But but yeah, if if if I have the opportunity,
• 35:13
  you know, like I would love to, or I've got Fridays off of
• 35:16
  work, and you know, the kids at school, the the ladies at
• 35:21
  work, so it's like, okay, I'll throw on Friday the thirteenth,
• 35:23
  part three real quick, I'll watch a fun scary movie. You know,
• 35:29
  I do really enjoy those. There's some strange sort of comfort in it,
• 35:35
  you know, it just just to cozy up and you know, have a
• 35:38
  have a tasty little little snack in front of me, and yeah, and
• 35:43
  watch some people get killed or or haunted or chased or something. I don't
• 35:47
  know that. I really do enjoy horror movies just as long as I'm not
• 35:52
  trying to scare myself. I don't like jump scares. There are some movies
• 35:57
  that are that movie smile well, like I loved their their marketing for it.
• 36:02
  Yeah, I heard people going to sporting events and just standing there or
• 36:07
  sitting there smiling the whole time. Yeah, that's really freaky. But that
• 36:10
  movie turned into like jump scare the movie, and and I I can't enjoy
• 36:16
  that if it's if it's just you know, it's like somebody like throwing something
• 36:22
  at your face over and over again. It's like it's it's not fun.
• 36:24
  Yeah, yeah, totally. Uh that's a that's a super interesting answer.
• 36:29
  I was almost expecting, like, oh, yeah, I love I love
• 36:31
  being scared. I love horror. That's why I'm like happy I watch it
• 36:35
  during the daytime because I want to be watching I watch it day and night.
• 36:37
  But I love the perspective of like, no, I don't want to
• 36:40
  scare myself too much, but I do want to experience a little fun thrill.
• 36:44
  Yeah, so it's like this is for the daytimes. Yeah. Yeah,
• 36:46
  and eighties slasher flicks are always a good time. I I I love
• 36:52
  me some some Freddy Krueger or Jason Vorhes. I wasn't a big Halloween fan
• 36:54
  growing up, but I more recently went through and watched the entire sea and
• 37:00
  I freaking love it. Nice. I need to I need to go back
• 37:04
  and watch some of those classic ones because I grew up on like the screen
• 37:07
  movies, which are very like much the matter version of them, so I
• 37:10
  absolutely loved them. But then when I've tried to watch some of the classics,
• 37:14
  it's been like the tropes have been ruined for me kind of thing.
• 37:17
  Yeah, but I should really give them like a sincere ago of like just
• 37:21
  view them as fun what they are, just fun slasher movies. Yeah,
• 37:24
  that'd be really interesting because I because I grew up with them, so they
• 37:28
  were, you know, they were creating the tropes that then Scream did such
• 37:30
  a good job playing on especially Halloween. You know you will see all of
• 37:36
  that stuff in Halloween. Yeah, it was a big influence there. But
• 37:40
  I guess it's like like right now I'm going back and reading fifties horror and
• 37:45
  science fiction comics. Nice that that created the tropes you know, that the
• 37:50
  Twilight Zone used and that you know, like the whole Irony tale, and
• 37:54
  it's it's interesting because it's it's quaint, you know, because it's nothing new,
• 38:00
  But it is really cool to be watching you know, the genesis of
• 38:05
  these tropes. Yeah, I love that so much. Going back and yeah,
• 38:09
  like I mean, you said it perfectly. The genesis of tropes is
• 38:13
  a is a great thing to be like, Okay, who influenced this person
• 38:15
  and who influenced this person? And then just kind of going back through media
• 38:20
  through history is always fascinating. Yeah. I envy your journey through like you
• 38:24
  know, seventies and eight, you know, or the beginning of Slash Reflex.
• 38:28
  Yeah, that would be a lot of fun to coming from your perspective.
• 38:32
  That means I've got to I've got to respect that envy and this this
• 38:36
  Halloween, I've got a brand as Slasher Season, and I've got to I've
• 38:38
  got to get through all of the classic series from start to finish, even
• 38:43
  Jason X, Oh boy, good luck and well, you know, Jason
• 38:47
  X. I think I have a harder time with Jason Takes Manhattan than Jason
• 38:52
  X, even though I think Jason X probably is the worst. Jason Takes
• 38:59
  Manhattan, the one where he starts marketing soap and gets amnesia and starts marketing.
• 39:05
  I'm trying to make a Muppets Take Manhattan reference, but it's not it's
• 39:07
  not working about that one. I'm not the or my fiance. They are
• 39:14
  huge Muppets fans, like I respect what the Muppets are, but for some
• 39:19
  reason, the movies just don't do it for me. I don't know.
• 39:22
  That's that's you know. I was about to say that's fair, but I
• 39:24
  feel like the most joy that anyone could ever possibly imagine. So you're wrong,
• 39:30
  you're wrong. Well, and I do agree with that, Like I
• 39:32
  do agree with that statement. Maybe it'd be like somebody is saying, like,
• 39:37
  you know, Superman really is the pinnacle of good, but I don't
• 39:40
  like him. I'm like, eah, okay, yeah, that's fair,
• 39:45
  and look that that's the cureness in like being like, hey, this isn't
• 39:50
  for me, but I'm happy for you. Is like the backbone of healthy
• 39:52
  fandom, I think, is just yeah, yeah, this, I'm happy
• 39:55
  for you, but it's not for me. Yeah yeah. Star Wars could
• 40:00
  could really learn from that lesson. Yes, oh last last Jedi isn't for
• 40:05
  me and screw you for liking it. Mmmmm hmm. Yeah they could.
• 40:08
  They could really learn from that. Yeah yeah, Star Wars especially. All
• 40:13
  right, let's let's bring things up to the modern day here. Uh,
• 40:16
  what is your current favorite fandom or sort of fan community to be a part
• 40:22
  of. This could be in like an active or a passive way. I
• 40:24
  even know by this point my interaction with fandom is with the gate Leapers cast
• 40:29
  and my friends. I don't really have as much time or energy to be
• 40:31
  in like a wider community for something at this point. But is there just
• 40:37
  something that like you can really get lost in the present day with other people?
• 40:42
  I think two come to mind. One is podcasting. Yes, even
• 40:46
  though my partner Ben and I have been doing Geek Exploration the podcast for five
• 40:52
  and a half years now, I think I think in September it'll be six
• 40:55
  years. You know. Lately, being a part of gate Leapers and and
• 41:00
  joining up on you know, on the cast with this season has reinvigorated a
• 41:06
  podcasting spirit. You know that that all of a sudden when I started recording
• 41:09
  with you guys again, that it's it's made me want to go to Gee
• 41:14
  Exploration and sort of turn it up a little bit. You know, it
• 41:17
  did become a drag after after a number of years and when we had stuff
• 41:22
  going on with our comic book, like we just didn't have time to research
• 41:24
  and put the show out at the same level as before. But it's been
• 41:30
  really fun to to be joining up with everyone here and meeting new people,
• 41:35
  you know, meeting meeting Drew on the on the Scott Pilgrim episode, listening
• 41:39
  to more episodes where I don't know the fandom, you know, cause I
• 41:45
  will say that that that some of the past episodes where I where I don't
• 41:49
  know the fandom, I didn't immediately go oh okay, I'm just gonna listen
• 41:52
  to it. But having been a part of it and and getting to meet
• 41:57
  all these people now like it's it's it's a new and tree point into everything.
• 42:00
  So like the most recent episode, pc gaming, I know jack shit
• 42:05
  about about PC gaming, Yeah, but it was still fun to listen to
• 42:08
  because you know, you had Aaron on there, Loveluss and Flayos, you
• 42:13
  know, like I don't I don't know these I don't know these people well,
• 42:15
  but it's fun to get to know them and uh knowing you and Adra
• 42:21
  and Jason. You know, it's that's that's an instant entry point because you
• 42:24
  know, or it's a it's a it's a baseline that I know is going
• 42:28
  to be entertaining. So it's it's fun being a part of this community now,
• 42:32
  whereas before it was just myself and Ben recording a show and hoping people
• 42:37
  will listen, you know that. But but now there's a lot of like
• 42:39
  minded individuals that we get to interact with and where we're still hoping people listen.
• 42:47
  But it is Yeah, I've also been like massively invigorated and inspired at
• 42:52
  the start of this year by having so many brilliant people like yourself join to
• 42:59
  make this a big collaborative creative process. It it feels like I'm sort of
• 43:05
  connected to the podcasting fandom in a way that I haven't been since like maybe
• 43:09
  even like pre pandemic when I was first getting into podcasting. It's it's I
• 43:15
  felt that connection again. So yeah, that so thank you for your part
• 43:17
  in that, because I can't take compliments, so I'm not going to be
• 43:20
  like neither can I. So we get we can feed off each other because
• 43:25
  I know my show is is just I researched or you know, we we
• 43:30
  pick a topic we love so we already know things about it and we do
• 43:34
  some research so we don't, you know, say the wrong thing or so
• 43:37
  we can make it more interesting for people. But that's not nearly the amount
• 43:42
  of work that you put into the show, So you know it it also
• 43:45
  makes us want to perform at a certain level or in my case coming in
• 43:50
  on Scott Pilgrim when you know it was my first show without without Ben as
• 43:53
  my safety blanket, like you know, it makes us nervous that we're not
• 43:57
  going to perform at a certain level. So no, it's it is a
• 44:01
  it is a great community to be a part of. Hell, yes,
• 44:05
  yeah, And I guess the other one I could say is lately I've linked
• 44:10
  up with some with some comic book fans. You know, they're they're all
• 44:15
  you know, they're they're older than me, they're in their fifties, you
• 44:17
  know, and they like there's a certain comic shop chain around here, a
• 44:21
  one Comics that uh that has like a warehouse and once a month they do
• 44:25
  a big warehouse sale where it's just long boxes, like more long boxes than
• 44:31
  you could possibly go through, but they're a dollar apiece. So people just
• 44:35
  come and they just they just dig and and there's a core group of people
• 44:40
  that I've that I've linked up with there that that you know, you just
• 44:45
  go and hang out. It's just like being a being a teenager again,
• 44:46
  hanging out at the comic shop with your buddies. Yeah, just just talking
• 44:52
  shit about comics and and having some lunch and you know, it's it's it's
• 44:57
  a very safe geek community and you don't have to you don't. Nobody puts
• 45:02
  on any airs. Yeah, it's just well we're all just comic geeks and
• 45:07
  you know, we love tacos, so yeah, have a good time.
• 45:10
  It's exactly. It's tapping into that the sort of childhood teen years thing that
• 45:15
  we talked about, if it have been healthy to engage with that as like
• 45:19
  a hobby and a pastime, to sort of re engage with that even if
• 45:22
  you don't have the sort of like fashion forward boldness of all wearing clothes like
• 45:28
  it's the late eighties. While you're eating your tacos and reading comic you're you're
• 45:32
  engaging with the portion that feels right to engage with it. This. Yeah,
• 45:36
  yeah, that's awesome. All right, let's let's be negative again.
• 45:38
  Now, let's let's go back into the realm of negativity. We make a
• 45:43
  comedy game show podcast. It's mostly positive. Occasionally I'll make a negative sounding
• 45:47
  joke, but that's that's about it. So let's have this space for it.
• 45:52
  I would like to ask you the question, what fandom or community are
• 45:54
  you conflicted over being a part of but you can't quit? Or which fandom
• 46:00
  have you quit because either the product being put out or the community themselves were
• 46:07
  just too toxic to handle. You know, I had a hard time thinking
• 46:12
  about this because I don't feel like there really is much of a community that
• 46:17
  I've that I've had a huge problem with the problem that I took personally.
• 46:23
  You know, like we we mentioned already Star Wars and the toxic fandom there,
• 46:28
  and I think that's the easy answer. But it's the easy answer for
• 46:30
  a reason. Use people People turn on each other, and it's not enjoyable.
• 46:37
  But I also haven't been the hugest Star Wars fan my whole life,
• 46:40
  so I don't really take it personally when there's other fandoms that that I don't
• 46:47
  feel like I can be a part of because maybe it's more or it is
• 46:52
  more on me that I just don't understand it, and I'm not I am.
• 46:55
  I'm not putting myself into it, like, well, no, I
• 47:00
  shouldn't call anything out because I don't want it to to make it sound like
• 47:04
  I'm shitting on any fandoms. No, I bet I get where you're coming
• 47:07
  from. And it could be that there isn't necessarily an answer to this.
• 47:10
  I think something you said is quite a good line in terms of how to
• 47:15
  think about this, is that you didn't take anything personally that like not like
• 47:19
  you might have seen like sort of negativity or whatever that you don't necessarily agree
• 47:22
  with, or that you wouldn't have that take on a movie. But you
• 47:25
  also didn't go, well, this isn't my opinion to hold on to.
• 47:30
  This is someone else's. So I'm just going to keep doing my thing and
• 47:34
  enjoy this the way I want to enjoy it. Yeah, I mean,
• 47:36
  I think the closest I've come to with something like that, and in fact,
• 47:40
  probably pretty spot on with how you were just describing it was probably growing
• 47:46
  up being a Michael Jackson fan, Okay, sure, I can. You
• 47:50
  know, we all know the scandals, yes, and growing up in the
• 47:54
  heat of that, like I, you know, I heard about it all
• 47:57
  the time. So I've been dealing it with it since I was a little
• 48:00
  kid, you know, And and I chose to to not make judgment calls
• 48:07
  based on on things that had not I don't know, It's it's hard to
• 48:14
  say, I don't. I don't want to piss anybody off, you know.
• 48:16
  It's it's a very touchy subject, no pun intended phrasing, oh boy.
• 48:24
  But you know, especially after that Leaving Neverland documentary came out a few
• 48:30
  years back, like it was, it was really tough to be a Michael
• 48:35
  Jackson fan and to reconcile feelings based on that. Like I didn't, I
• 48:39
  didn't want to hear his music. I didn't want to talk about it.
• 48:43
  But you know, over time, like I really had to, I had
• 48:45
  to search my feelings of you know, art versus artists, and you know,
• 48:50
  find find my happy spot with you know, enjoying his music because his
• 48:57
  I had, I had, you know, a whole lifetime of yeah,
• 49:00
  of his music bringing me a lot of joy, you know, And and
• 49:05
  I'm at I'm personally at a good place with it now, you know,
• 49:07
  I can I can listen to Michael Jackson and not feel like I am betraying
• 49:14
  you know, any any ideals. But yeah, I think that one was
• 49:17
  tough. Yeah, definitely. And music seems to be the one that has
• 49:22
  the most sort of like the conflictedness of the art versus artists thing, because
• 49:28
  like music more than anything else, asks the listener to map their own ideology
• 49:31
  onto it. It's like, how do you relate to the lyrics? How
• 49:35
  do you connect to the beat? That kind of thing, And so it's
• 49:37
  it's always the one where I can do that with with certain artists. Like
• 49:43
  there's artists that I find catchy who are horrible billionaires, but I can still
• 49:46
  find their music catchy. It's it's an interesting thing because like with one of
• 49:52
  my favorite filmmakers that I got into as a as a teenager was Woody Allen,
• 49:55
  and then that whole thing happened and now it's really almost impossib to watch
• 50:00
  Woody Allen films because of the subject matter of those films. Yeah, it's
• 50:05
  not quite like that with Michael Jackson. It's not quite like that with a
• 50:07
  lot of music artists, because for the most part, artists to saying,
• 50:10
  here's the music, go listen to it and go dance to it. It's
• 50:14
  not mine anymore, it's yours, Whereas with films it's much more and with
• 50:19
  TV shows, with certain showrunners that have a bad rap, they much more
• 50:22
  put their ideology onto what they're creating. So it's much harder to separate art
• 50:29
  from artists. But with music, I get it, and I think other
• 50:30
  people get it, because I don't see people announcing screenings of Woody Allen films
• 50:36
  anymore like classic screenings. But I still see like, oh, it's a
• 50:38
  Michael Jackson themed night at this club kind of thing. Like there. Clearly
• 50:43
  is that bigger separation when it comes to music. Yeah, yeah, I
• 50:47
  wonder what it is, you know, I mean maybe with Yeah, with
• 50:51
  filmmakers, they write certain things very intentionally, and they cast certain things,
• 50:58
  they behave in a certain way, and they things in front of your eyeballs.
• 51:00
  Yeah, maybe it's harder to separate, whereas with somebody writing a song.
• 51:05
  There there's speaking directly to you, you know, to your ears for
• 51:09
  three to five minutes, and it's it's a much more personal experience. I'm
• 51:15
  not yeah, yeah, but you you are right. With filmmakers, it's
• 51:20
  it's tough, you know, there are certain filmmakers where you're just like,
• 51:23
  like, no, I don't have any interest in consuming the thing that you
• 51:27
  want me to consume because I know or I don't know. I feel like
• 51:31
  I'm like I'm being hypocritical now, yeah, saying like, oh, I
• 51:35
  know what's in your heart, so you know, screw your artistic expression,
• 51:38
  but yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it's Look, that's a it's
• 51:43
  a very good answer to that question, because yeah, that's of all the
• 51:46
  reasons to be conflicted over something, that's a that's a pretty pretty big one.
• 51:51
  Also, nice to have a discussion around like the artist in question as
• 51:54
  opposed to maybe more the community. I feel like other people's answers to this
• 51:59
  question and thinking about it myself, it tends to be more like in this
• 52:01
  online age, more the community aspect. But yeah, that's interesting. All
• 52:07
  right, let's let's get out of this toxicity. Because I'm I'm not enjoying
• 52:09
  it. I get I need to go listen to some radio. All right,
• 52:15
  we'll finish up with this big question that looks to the future, your
• 52:19
  life as a fan going forward. So simply put, what's a fandom or
• 52:23
  media property that you want to get into but haven't yet? And that could
• 52:28
  be because you feel like maybe there's some gatekeeping involved and it feels like this
• 52:32
  is not meant to be for you as far as the marketing is concerned or
• 52:36
  what the community says, or maybe you just don't have the time like so
• 52:39
  many of us nowadays, where because I keep thinking I would love to get
• 52:43
  into Magic the Gathering, but I just don't have the time. Yeah,
• 52:46
  you know, I don't feel like there's any fandom that I want to be
• 52:51
  a part of that has kept me out. That's good. I feel like
• 52:57
  like in my experience, most people are pretty open, and I, you
• 53:00
  know, I don't if I wanted to get into Magic the Gathering, like
• 53:05
  I know exactly where i'd go, I know who i'd talk to, But
• 53:08
  I also know too many people that are into it and I and I know
• 53:13
  for certain, you know, just like you, that I do not have
• 53:15
  the time for that. Yeah, Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
• 53:19
  I feel like I'm like, I'm pretty lucky that the fandoms that I want
• 53:22
  to be a part of I can be a part of. But I think
• 53:27
  one thing I wish I had a little what's the right way to put a
• 53:31
  little little more guts or a little less self shame, like I are self
• 53:38
  judgment, Like it's it's really awful that that that my brain does this.
• 53:43
  I wish it didn't, but it does. But like I get a little
• 53:45
  geez, what's the right word? So I don't just make myself out to
• 53:49
  be an asshole. I don't think. I don't think you will. I
• 53:51
  think you can follow in a train of thought that's reliable here all right,
• 53:54
  Well, I I think LARPing looks like a lot of fun. But for
• 54:00
  some reason, I just I can't. I can't get myself to the point
• 54:04
  where I buy into it fully, yes, like where I where I where
• 54:07
  I would be a part of it and not think like this is silly.
• 54:10
  Yeah, but I know what you mean. But I respect I respect it.
• 54:14
  I get it. It looks like fun. Yeah, but yeah,
• 54:16
  and I and I I envy the people that that that are fully into it
• 54:21
  because they are they are. I don't think there's there's like a fandom or
• 54:25
  an event or or an activity where you can more fully you know, express
• 54:30
  yourself through your your you know activity, that that that you're choosing to put
• 54:35
  your time into, like even more so than than D and D you know
• 54:39
  where where it's just you know, you're actually living it and that that sounds
• 54:44
  like so much fun about it. But I I bet if I actually linked
• 54:46
  up with the community and went out to it, I would have the time
• 54:50
  of my life. Yeah, it's also it's also a time thing. And
• 54:52
  I don't know if there are LARPing communities around I bet there are. I'm
• 54:55
  sure I live in I live in in the capital of California. Like,
• 55:00
  I'm sure there are. There's there's enough people around here. Yeah, it
• 55:05
  looks like so much fun. But I get the thing of like not I
• 55:08
  think self self shaming was is a good word because I feel that as well
• 55:12
  of like it's my my The only barrier here is me because I can't get
• 55:15
  outside of myself in that way for long enough for me to get into it.
• 55:21
  Is where I'm at with flopping, it probably is pretty analogous to D
• 55:24
  and D. Like I know, I know, you guys all play,
• 55:27
  and I joined in with a couple of campaigns with with Ben in the past,
• 55:35
  and I found myself not able to come out of my shell enough to
• 55:38
  really embrace it. I questioned myself and i'd even though I shouldn't have.
• 55:44
  I know, I shouldn't have get embarrassed, you know, if I if
• 55:46
  I wanted to make a silly decision. There was one person that we played
• 55:51
  in fact, Dan from Oh the movie from the movie Seller. Yeah,
• 55:55
  he was on there, and he always made me feel more comfortable when he
• 55:59
  was because he just he did not give a shit. He was new to
• 56:02
  it also, and he's just like, I'm just gonna go do this thing
• 56:06
  now. And I'm like, oh, we can just be goofballs, you
• 56:09
  know, whereas I'm like, oh, all these people play, you know,
• 56:13
  all the time, and I don't want to be the guy that comes
• 56:15
  in and does something that is annoying to everybody. Sure. Yeah, So
• 56:20
  yeah, I had a hard time and I didn't stick with it. Yeah.
• 56:23
  I played for a while, but it just I couldn't couldn't stay with
• 56:29
  it. Yeah, I mean, like you say, it definitely helps out
• 56:31
  having like new players at the table who just go for the silly thing,
• 56:36
  because it does give you the confidence to to just be like, all right,
• 56:39
  I guess I can go for the silly thing. And unlike when I'm
• 56:42
  playing maybe an RPG video game on my own, I don't have to mind
• 56:45
  max here, I don't have to play perfectly. I can I just play
• 56:50
  for fun. And nine times out of ten, that's that's what all the
• 56:53
  DM is looking for, all the all the GM is looking for, and
• 56:57
  it yeah, and it it always works out as fun. I it was.
• 57:00
  It was something that I gave myself over to, and then I now
• 57:04
  feel like I should give myself up to laughing now that you've mentioned it.
• 57:07
  Well, and I have a feeling that if anybody who was in that campaign
• 57:13
  that I was in listens to this, they're gonna they're they're probably just gonna
• 57:16
  think like, well, John, you stupid idiot. You probably should have
• 57:21
  just had fun and not worried about how how serious we're all going to take
• 57:24
  it and how you know we're gonna get annoyed with you. That's that's just
• 57:28
  a part of my lack of confidence and and and imposter syndrome, and like
• 57:32
  at my at my day job. I always think I'm going to get fired.
• 57:36
  I don't know, I got issues, worry. Look, you say
• 57:40
  this thing, and I'm not gonna invalidate like how you feel about yourself in
• 57:45
  any way. But from from my perspective as as a fantastic talented artist who
• 57:52
  publishes things very regularly online, you're a very prolific artist. A lot of
• 57:54
  a lot of people like to maybe say that they are, but you've actually
• 57:59
  put fantastastic artwork out there constantly. To me, that's not necessarily the sign
• 58:04
  of someone who has imposter syndrome. But I understand how that can then manifest
• 58:10
  with self shame and maybe that comes from the religious upbringing that you mentioned,
• 58:15
  because that is a common thing. But hey, look you're aware of it.
• 58:21
  That's the that's the main thing, right Yeah, and you know,
• 58:23
  yeah, not to beat a dead horse, but I appreciate the compliments,
• 58:28
  but you know, all I see when I post something is what I could
• 58:31
  have done better. But I think that's also a common thing with people who
• 58:37
  create things. I definitely think so A big, a big thing I've had
• 58:42
  in mind with gate Leapers is the entire time because I'm the same, I'll
• 58:47
  get through an episode edit, and I'll be like, I could have done
• 58:51
  this so much better. Everyone else was fantastic and amazing, but I just
• 58:54
  didn't hit this joke right, or I didn't I could have come in with
• 58:58
  this joke here or whatever. But then realize that, like, you're the
• 59:01
  only one in your own heads criticizing yourself that much, and everyone else is
• 59:05
  probably doing the same with their own stuff. Yeah, yeah, let's see.
• 59:09
  Not to continue on a downer note, but I remember reading a quote
• 59:15
  from someone and I have to paraphrase it, and I don't remember who they
• 59:16
  were anymore, but they said that, you know, like that's the tough
• 59:21
  thing about about being an artist, or you know that when when nobody understands
• 59:25
  why you're critical of your own stuff, it's like they don't understand because they
• 59:31
  can't see what it was supposed to look like. Yes, yeah, and
• 59:36
  like that hit me real hard. It's like, yeah, you know,
• 59:37
  everyone everyone knows the artists are most critical of their own work. But to
• 59:43
  put it like that, like there's something in my head and I didn't get
• 59:46
  it onto paper. So even though even though it's something I should be proud
• 59:52
  of it, there there is still a bit of like, oh, I
• 59:55
  didn't. I didn't do what I wanted to do. You know, I
• 59:58
  didn't didn't hit it every once in a while, though, I mean,
• 1:00:00
  it's great when you when you fucking knock it out on the pot yeat.
• 1:00:04
  Oh yeah, I've drawn a few pictures where I'm like, oh, you
• 1:00:07
  know, where where'd you where'd you come up with this? Like you're not
• 1:00:09
  good enough for this one? So yeah that honestly, it works both ways
• 1:00:14
  exactly that that once a year moment where you're like, wow, I actually
• 1:00:16
  did that how I envisioned it. This is why I'm chasing perfection the rest
• 1:00:20
  of the time. Yeah, yeah, I really killed this one. Yeah
• 1:00:25
  all right, Look, we ended that more down a bit by chuckling about
• 1:00:29
  something, so I feel like we did the proper podcasting full circle thing.
• 1:00:32
  Yeah. And speaking of podcasting full circle, let's let's just maybe undermine our
• 1:00:37
  last hour of chat by reducing everything you've said into an oversimplified clickbaity flow chart,
• 1:00:45
  so I can write the copy for this episode really easily. Could Could
• 1:00:51
  you finish here by saying which fandom, slash, media property or series defined
• 1:00:57
  each decade of your life so far? So like your childhood your teens,
• 1:01:01
  your twenties, your thirties, and even now if you want to add something
• 1:01:05
  on the end. Yeah, with childhood, I would say it was mostly
• 1:01:10
  comics, turtles, and movies. And and I say movies because you know
• 1:01:16
  something that that I didn't really touch on earlier. But but like I've I've
• 1:01:20
  always just been I won't say a fan of film because I don't. I
• 1:01:23
  don't, you know, I didn't have strong opinions when I when I was
• 1:01:28
  a child, But like h movies have always been around, whether whether whether
• 1:01:30
  it's making them with my friends or watching them. You know, the Indiana
• 1:01:35
  Jones series I grew up with, Back to the Future Pee Wee's Big Adventures,
• 1:01:37
  one of my favorite movies of all time. And like I, there
• 1:01:43
  was a certain, you know, certain era where movies were made a certain
• 1:01:47
  way which you know, everything was a lot of fun. So yeah,
• 1:01:50
  sorry, comics movies including Batman and Turtles. Nice comics tells just before we
• 1:01:57
  move on to the next one. I know, this is supposed to be
• 1:01:59
  the quick bit. You made movies with your friends, you were in that
• 1:02:01
  peak era of that's that's that's that's the era I wish i'd grown up in
• 1:02:10
  a little bit like definitely still had it was advent of YouTube and making movies
• 1:02:14
  with friends, but it felt less felt less organic doing it for an audience
• 1:02:20
  compared to say, you know, just you and your mate, it's for
• 1:02:22
  you and your friends. Yeah, I was. I was playing drums one
• 1:02:25
  day and my buddy came over filming me with his camera and and and once
• 1:02:30
  I was done playing, I remember it was Princes of the Universe by Queen
• 1:02:34
  that I was jamming on the drums. He puts camera diimes like, you
• 1:02:37
  want to make a horror movie? Were like, sure, so we That's
• 1:02:39
  what we did that night on a Saturday night. Now we made the sequel
• 1:02:43
  on the next Saturday night. It was It was great. And and now
• 1:02:45
  we just we just digitized the old footage and I'm I'm adding a soundtrack and
• 1:02:50
  sound effects to it. It's awful, but but I want to see it.
• 1:02:53
  But it's wonderful. That's brilliant. Yeah, sorry to sidetrack there.
• 1:02:59
  You're you're your teen years. What would you say defined that in terms of
• 1:03:02
  fandoms, capital m music nice and then and then in the background movies and
• 1:03:08
  comics more behind the closed doors, but music out in the open yeah,
• 1:03:15
  and then oh sorry, I'll let you lead the show. Oh yeah,
• 1:03:17
  no, you can lead away away and the monies then and then I'd say
• 1:03:24
  in my twenties it was comics and making comics, because that's when I really
• 1:03:30
  started to to, you know, link up with other people that made comics
• 1:03:35
  and really actually started you know, I've drawn my whole life, but at
• 1:03:40
  that point we really started becoming serious about you know, like, hey,
• 1:03:45
  we want to break into the industry, whether whether it's you know, DC
• 1:03:49
  and Marvel are just doing our own independent comics. I don't know if this
• 1:03:53
  is a fandom, but I did a lot of drinking in my I think
• 1:03:58
  that is it is a fandom. Depending on whether you want to view it
• 1:04:00
  as positive or negative, depends on what stage of your life you're at.
• 1:04:03
  But yeah, I think I think overall it probably wasn't positive. But yeah,
• 1:04:11
  I did a lot of that in my twenties. And then also playing
• 1:04:15
  music, you know, being in a band or being in bands. Yeah,
• 1:04:17
  and uh yeah I was. I was a drummer and I'll sing when
• 1:04:21
  I have to. Yeah, yeah, what kind of what kind of music?
• 1:04:25
  Did you? But I've got now got loads of this is fantastic.
• 1:04:27
  I thought this was going to be like the floor chart, like like bow
• 1:04:30
  on the end of the conversation, but it's just revealing more things. This
• 1:04:33
  is great. Well, that was the thing. Like, as I was
• 1:04:35
  reading over the questions for this, I was like, man, I like,
• 1:04:41
  I spent way too much time with or not way too much time,
• 1:04:44
  but I had so many different fandoms like how do I boil this down?
• 1:04:48
  Or you know, fun activities when I should have been serious and going to
• 1:04:51
  college and getting a career. Yeah, I don't know. I played in
• 1:04:56
  the I'd say the band that we that we did the most with was was
• 1:05:00
  a ska band that then we're in and yeah, we we were only together
• 1:05:04
  for a year, but you know, including the time that we got together
• 1:05:08
  and started writing songs, we played fifty four shows that year. Wow,
• 1:05:12
  we did a lot and and we broke up. And that actually that's when
• 1:05:16
  I went to college. And for the most part, it's it's it's rock
• 1:05:19
  and roll, you know. We we've done a couple, a couple of
• 1:05:24
  weddings, you know, and one of them we put together just a bunch
• 1:05:28
  of covers, yeah, for for a friend. And then we we did
• 1:05:32
  another wedding where it was like a surf set. I love playing surf.
• 1:05:34
  Oh nice. I was gonna say, like scar ska punk is great for
• 1:05:39
  covers, just covering like other songs in that style. Yeah, that's always
• 1:05:43
  so good. Yeah. I feel like like I was a rock drummer in
• 1:05:46
  a ska band and it was it was a little difficult. Yeah, I
• 1:05:51
  don't know. I've got a I need to. If you've got fun footage
• 1:05:55
  of this that you're restore restoring as well, I'd love to. I'd love
• 1:05:58
  to see any of that. I wish. I think the the person who
• 1:06:00
  who did all of our video recording was one of our guitarists ex girlfriend,
• 1:06:08
  So I think those things are lost to time. They maybe got burnt in
• 1:06:12
  a big bonfire or something. Yeah, I don't think it ended well with
• 1:06:16
  the with the adding of you also being a drummer in a scar band,
• 1:06:20
  I feel like you you had the iconic like is it called not zillennial?
• 1:06:27
  That's I'm the one between millennial and gen X like you, Yes, you
• 1:06:30
  have lived that iconic experience. Sorry if I'm just like turning your life into
• 1:06:36
  a cultural coding, no, no, no, I I have a hard
• 1:06:40
  time you know, ascribing the title of millennial to myself because I do feel
• 1:06:45
  like I like, there there's the whole elder millennial and yeah, like you
• 1:06:49
  said, xeniel or no, that's is that that? I always millennial?
• 1:06:54
  Yeah, because it's like sillennial, and sillennial is how you would pronounce if
• 1:06:57
  it begins with X or a Z. Yeah, so it's yeah, but
• 1:07:00
  yeah, because I grew up without without internet, you know, I grew
• 1:07:03
  up outside. I grew up riding my bike down rock hills, you know,
• 1:07:08
  and my parents not knowing where I was. Yeah, so it's you
• 1:07:12
  know, it's I don't know. Yeah, it's it's super interesting. So
• 1:07:15
  where are we at? We did that was teens, that was twenties,
• 1:07:18
  thirties, Yeah, thirties, you know, it's it's becoming a becoming a
• 1:07:25
  repeat now. But like comics and making comics and movies and podcasting that that
• 1:07:30
  was the big one that came in in the thirties. Yeah, nice.
• 1:07:33
  Towards towards my my mid mid thirties. Yeah, mid thirties, I started
• 1:07:40
  doing media content production for a job. So all of a sudden, I
• 1:07:44
  was like, Okay, I know how to edit now, so let's let's
• 1:07:47
  do a podcast. We like to talk anyway, That's all we ever do
• 1:07:49
  is just sit around and talk. Yeah, and then forties because I'm a
• 1:07:56
  I'm a year into that saying yeah, this is making making comics and podcasting.
• 1:08:00
  Yeah. Yeah, Yeah. There's a reason they group everything like thirty
• 1:08:04
  to forty five or whatever, because that's just that's just all the same,
• 1:08:08
  yeap. Just having kids and watching them get older, still just finding time
• 1:08:13
  to do the things that I did in my thirties, and having your kid
• 1:08:17
  organically come up to you and talk about Batman and Ninja Turtles without without you
• 1:08:25
  sort of putting that on them whatsoever. Yeah, I wouldn't do that.
• 1:08:30
  Oh, this was fantastic. This was lovely. I feel like I've gotten
• 1:08:32
  to know you a whole lot more through this, so I hope our listeners
• 1:08:36
  have as well. You are a fantastic guest on gate leapers. I feel
• 1:08:41
  so lucky to have both you and Ben, because sometimes I feel like you
• 1:08:44
  come as a performing pair. Even though you've mentioned recently it's been great to
• 1:08:47
  kind of be on separate episodes. I just I really appreciate having two iconic
• 1:08:55
  gen X millennial people as part of the as part of this group, so
• 1:09:00
  we're able to talk about fandom from different perspectives and different time periods. It's
• 1:09:04
  it's really special. I want to thank you for that. Hey, my
• 1:09:08
  my pleasure. This has been a lot of fun. It's it's fun to
• 1:09:12
  connect with people in a different way that your your games are are such a
• 1:09:17
  blast, you know that that that we we get we get to think of
• 1:09:23
  of our fandoms and how we feel and our knowledge, you know, and
• 1:09:27
  in in different fun ways, you know. And and I love being able
• 1:09:30
  to be creative with it too, where you know, if they if there's
• 1:09:32
  a game where we have to conceptualize, you know, a movie or in
• 1:09:38
  the case of Scott Pilgrim, like a theme part, you know, you
• 1:09:41
  get to you get to think of things in different ways that you normally wouldn't
• 1:09:45
  like. Without that prompt, I wouldn't be thinking about a Scott Pilgrim theme
• 1:09:47
  part. Yeah who would? But but but it's a lot of fun.
• 1:09:50
  Yeah, yeah, Oh that's that's that's good to hear. Yeah, let's
• 1:09:56
  both go out into the world having enjoyed this, this connecting conversation, and
• 1:10:00
  let's go watch some horror movies and try not to try to scare ourselves too
• 1:10:04
  much. Yeah, there we go. Another cast interview in the books.
• 1:10:13
  That was a brilliant conversation with John. I loved listening back to that during
• 1:10:16
  the edit so much, and I especially love that we managed to get into
• 1:10:20
  music so much that whole capital M music thing. Music does certainly seem to
• 1:10:26
  be this broad fandom, and yet we've not really covered any music on gately
• 1:10:30
  because we've got to change that this year. We've got to We've gotta start
• 1:10:33
  dividing music up into genres or decades or something. I gotta find a place
• 1:10:41
  to make some more jokes about Radiohead. Okay, thank you one final time
• 1:10:45
  to John for his time on a Sunday morning. Really grateful for that,
• 1:10:49
  and I hope you enjoyed it too, leap Frogs. I hope you feel
• 1:10:51
  as though you're getting to know our cast a little bit more through this series.
• 1:10:57
  We'll be back next week with a game show in a very class fandom
• 1:11:00
  that we've not touched since season one of this podcast. And because you've made
• 1:11:04
  it all the way to the end of this interview, I'm just gonna say
• 1:11:08
  what it is. We're gonna be leaping into the world of the Star Wars
• 1:11:12
  prequels. Yes, in advance of the Phantom Menace returning to theaters this may,
• 1:11:17
  we're gonna be leaping back into that mimable crazy world of sand that's course
• 1:11:26
  and rough and it ah, believe me, it gets everywhere. Thank you
• 1:11:30
  so much for listening. If you made it this far, please do go
• 1:11:33
  ahead and rate us five stars on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, give us
• 1:11:39
  a thumbs up alike whatever rating system is on your podcast player of choice.
• 1:11:44
  We'd appreciate some positive energy, some positive vibes. It helps even more people
• 1:11:47
  find this weird little podcast, which more people have been lately thanks to TikTok
• 1:11:53
  and Instagram. Posting our video clips regularly on there has done us wonders.
• 1:11:58
  So we are at Gatesleap on TikTok and at Gateleepers pod on Instagram. But
• 1:12:02
  if you search gate Sleepers, I mean, how many other things are that.
• 1:12:06
  It's a brand new word. Do consider supporting us over at patreon dot
• 1:12:12
  com forward slash Gateleepers as well. You can support us for just a few
• 1:12:15
  dollars a month to help keep this show running. It helps us pay for
• 1:12:19
  hosting and upkeep, and we'd all really appreciate whatever you can contribute, and
• 1:12:26
  if all that means is sharing episodes with friends with family members, then that's
• 1:12:30
  fantastic too. The Patreon is purely optional, and just if you can pay
• 1:12:34
  it forward for another fan, then we can all just keep making this lovely
• 1:12:40
  thing that is essentially a weird game show, but that brings people together through
• 1:12:45
  fandom. So yeah, I'm just feeling I'm feeling very grateful at the moment.
• 1:12:49
  Grateful for our cast, grateful for our listeners, just grateful for you
• 1:12:55
  if you're listening, if you've made it to the very end of this,
• 1:12:58
  I'm grateful for you. So yeah, I hope you're all having a lovely
• 1:13:00
  start to your spring. Back next week with more game show nonsense in the
• 1:13:04
  Star Wars world, and back in four weeks with a new cast interview.
• 1:13:09
  If you just come in here for the sensible chats, for the serious morning
• 1:13:13
  conversations, then yeah, we've got you covered. Thank you. Leap frogs,
• 1:13:16
  Leap leap out, leap out. Are we saying that leap out