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Hearst Newspaper's Vice President of Programmatic, Mike Irenski, joins The Current Podcast to explore the value of local journalism and what advertisers need to know about it. Episode TranscriptPlease note, this transcript may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.[00:00:00]Damian: I'm Damian Fowler. AndIlyse: I'm Ilyse Liffreing.Damian: welcome to this edition of The Current Podcast.Ilyse: This week, we're delighted to talk with Michael Eirenski, the Vice President of Programmatic Revenue at Hearst Newspapers.Damian: Now Hearst has a legacy that goes all the way back to 1887 when William Randolph Hearst acquired the San Francisco Daily Examiner and founded the Hearst Corporation.Ilyse: Only 137 years later, the legacy of the brand continues as the publisher of 24 dailies and 52 weeklies, including papers such as the Houston Chronicle and the San Francisco Chronicle.Damian: Hearst Newspapers has a unique insight into journalism in the U. S. at a local and a national level, even as publishers are under pressure to find fresh ways to fund their newsrooms.Ilyse: We talk with Mike about the value of local journalism and what advertisers need to know about it.Mike: Yeah, so Hearst newspapers has grown a lot. it's funny. I, most people don't know this, is actually 137 year old brand. We've been around, during the same amount of time as some of our friends, down the block or a couple but I think what's really differentiated us is, That, over the [00:02:00] years, we have thousands of employees.We have, award winning content. And, really unique our strong local presence. When people think of. being stale, and I think it's a little bit different here at Hearst Newspapers, is that we've always constantly been evolving. And we take pride in our core product. But I think what is particularly unique is that we have been actively engaging in our local communities over the past dozens of years. And, have really listened to our audiences. So some of the things that, come to light for us is that we are continuing to lean into And we've been [00:03:00] recently as of this year, expanding into, puzzles and gaming. We have, a big comics presence and own, several, large IPs, from Popeye to Betty Boop. And we've also been rethinking about the types of, long form content that we So it's been an evolution over time, but I think what we've really just, continued to lean into is, local community aspect. And we've seen the returns as a result.Ilyse: I had no idea that Hearst is in the IP game so much as it is.Mike: Oh my gosh. I, it's very funny when I first started here, the other side of the floor has a Popeye paraphernalia throughout the office. And I just thought people are really into Popeye. I didn't know that it was anything that we, But it is, one of many, which is fascinating. There's a large video game called Cuphead, which has a Netflix show that is actually something that we also own the IP for. So it's fascinating and [00:04:00] a growing part of our business.Ilyse: Ah, so interesting. Now, with so many, local publications, how does that affect Hearst Newspapers, approach to something like audience segmentation?Mike: Oh, my gosh. It's very funny because each market is completely different. Albany readers that relevant, accurate information that is happening, regardless of where they are.But something we like to say internally is, the national stories are conversations that are being had with everyone, but the local stories are conversations with your friends or your neighbor or your family. And as a result, I think that gives us some level of differentiation. I also joke around that we cover high school sports as if it's the NBA [00:05:00] finals.And while we might not say focus on the Royals, this came up recently, where I was curious in our newsrooms, are we talking about the Royals? Are we providing any content? And the newsrooms have been if the local community isn't really asking for it, that it really isn't, we'll cover it, but it's not just something that we lean into.And I think what I'm very proud of is we stay close to the zeitgeist, but we never follow the zeitgeist. We are really leaning into what our local communities want. And with those boots on the ground doing it, we have just amazing, journalists and, video content creators who are talking to the people.comes out in Ilyse: It's very much community first,Reader driven. Which I'm sure helps when it comes to advertising as well.Mike: Not only our readers react to our content, but also how they react to the adjacent advertising associated to it. And, with [00:06:00] that is something that we're constantly up leveling at the national level and talking to the big brands and agencies on, but just seeing that performance at the local level is a microcosm of the things we could do, but it's very inspiring when you're able to drive business to a small entrepreneur or local business.Damian: Mike, I feel really inspired by, local newspapers. I grew up in Britain and I remember getting the Yorkshire Evening Press. It used to be an evening paper and just that's how I got interested in journalism, just looking at all that.People are interested in what's happening, in their backyard.And at the same time, of course, you get the national stories and international stories in there too. As well as the TV listings that I was interested in. Anyway, I digress. But, that value of local journalism has been, of late, it's been under threat. It's been challenged. And local papers, we've, reported on have basically been, closing newsrooms and the like, across the United States and indeed other countries.But, how do you [00:07:00] think about that, in, in a world where people want local journalism, and how advertisers need those local audiences to advertise too? What's the inherent sort of like challenge and how do you think about that?Mike: Yes, I think about it often. I also think about, coming here is, it's very hard. I don't need to talk myself up or what we do here. but it's a very hard conversation that's being had, our industry touched upon it perfectly. There's a lot of threat and what we've, I think one of the things that makes us unique is that we do, across all of our properties and just Hearst brands, we have the reach. The reach play is not the challenge for us, but it's the ongoing, challenge that we have with advertisers who are looking not to run on it's very funny because people see the value of news, but then you'll talk to an advertiser and I've had advertisers say this to my face that, Hey, we don't run a news.I'm [00:08:00] sorry. We would love to run, but we can't. And, something as a case in point is, the recent eclipse, that, passed over the United We saw from our Eclipse content, when you think of the eclipse, the first thing I did was I went to my, local sites to see where, what time does it start here in New York?Where can I be? Where can I watch it? You can't get that everywhere. And those are the experiences that we are constantly trying to bring to advertisers is that there's a perception with news that it is not brand safe, that you do not want the right, alignment with the news.breaking news content. But the large majority of our content is informative to come, spend with us, we're also trying to challenge them [00:09:00] to think a little bit differently.because I think if we can get past that, I think we're actually going to be funding. The open internet, but also, quality journalism the industry will get there.Damian: That's interesting. Do you think that advertisers minds are being changed a little bit, or is it that there are new tools to offer more nuance in terms of what they can advertise against?Mike: addressability for them and their campaigns, but how do we get smarter about our contextual, And I think what [00:10:00] we're trying to do in partnership with our advertisers is show them that, an article about, again, our high school sports team shooting that basket that won the game is very different from, a gun shooting or some type of gun violence.So those are the parts that we're hoping we can get advertisers to lean into and build with us. But until some of the technology is there, it's gonna be really a very manual, open dialogue that we're having with them. But I think it's changing. I think especially with the cookie deprecating, it, this is my personal feeling is that it's gonna really spring back to the content, to the quality, and to the objectiveness of that content, that's gonna bring advertisers back to us.Damian: There's one more question. You mentioned at the top, the importance of content variety, and you mentioned long form. Journalism and that's another form that's been disappearing un unless it's in national magazines, why is that important and why is a variety of [00:11:00] content an important factor for, a newspaper, publisher, when it comes to finding advertisers to embrace that content and be next to it.Mike: Yeah, it's a great question. What we've seen is the long form content, especially as it relates to the weekends, people really are looking to understand what's happening at the local level, but they're looking for just, I think more than just the two or three paragraphs, about, what's happening there.[00:12:00] They're Spectrum of what is happening at home.And I think that's what's really important for us, is to just show, you can cover the breaking news all day, you can maybe get the hits from, search, and maybe everyone's curious about that advertisers might not want to run against, but the majority of what people are coming to read us on is, what happened yesterday and what should I be doing this weekend?And I think those are things that we can answer for them.Damian: Yeah.Ilyse: Totally, and outside of specific content, [00:13:00] There's been, like, a number of major publications, including the New York Times, that have leaned into the subscription model, especially as, they realize, cookies will be going away, we need to make sure our revenue model is still intact, we need people reading the news, should this be free, it's, we are providing a service, there's a whole list of reasons why, a subscription model has been implemented, and part of that is enlarging, also your footprint through podcasts and other apps, but as we've all seen, not everybody has that kind of scale to do that. What role should advertising play then versus that subscription model?Mike: Yes. Great question. I am a proponent of advertising helps fund the open internet. I will always champion that. And I also say that we have a phenomenal, customer engagement and consumer marketing team that is driving [00:14:00] an amazing subscription business. But I, Looking at the evolution of subscriptions, I think, especially in a market, economic market, that there's a lot of choice now, and especially with things like streaming. I think there's a lot more penny pinching, that is happening. In a past life, I've, really analyzed are people willing to have multiple newspaper subscriptions or are they really just leaning into one and Just have that brand loyalty and something that we've been really taking a hard look at is one, who's subscribing to our Publications but where are they and I think something that we've been taking that look at is it in DMA?Is it out of DMA? So we're catering to that subscription audience. But at the same time, we know there are going to be people that aren't going to subscribe. Maybe they don't have the budget to subscribe and we still want to provide them that same level of quality content and news and informative news.So we've [00:15:00] been a little bit different in that we have two types of, publication formats. We have a free model and a paid model are paid is exactly what it sounds like. It has a lot more of that long form, behind a paywall, investigative journalism, some of that content. but there's a different type of content that we're sharing that is allowing, people to still stay informed and still, Be engaged in their local community.And what we're hoping is that it will have this flywheel effect where when people see the type of content that we're putting out there, And that's how we've been thinking about it, and we have a lot of investment on our free model.Ilyse: that note, you mentioned this before that you guys have implemented like more games, and you're not the only ones, looking to gain or find more ways to really gain more first party data, especially as like cookies deprecate. Are there any other [00:16:00] strategies that Hearst is using?I guess looking into to create and build that free content model.Mike: We have a robust first party data set. It's very important to us. I just want to plug that everything the extreme, quality of being privacy compliant and really lean in. We take, we really value the first party data that we have. But with that being To your point, we've been really thinking of different types of experiences that we can unlock for our users., as we mentioned, we have a new site called Puzzmo that if anyone ever wants to play Spell Tower, I highly recommend it. It's an extremely fun game. But what's really great about the Puzzmo site is there's an interactive community aspect to it where you can play games. With your friends, you can time yourself.There's a bit more of a [00:17:00] social activation to it. That we've been really having a lot of fun with and we're seeing the returns back on the well. And we have, other partnerships that are currently in the works as well that are gonna help, bring different forms of content, like that to, better just help people, understand what they're doing with their time, , with probably a little bit of free time that they have. We just want to help them relax a little bit more.Damian: like that, yeah. I know what you mean, though, about still feeling cooped up. Somehow that pandemic mentality didn't fully go away. I don't know. Mike: It's very true. It's very true. And it's, that's been the fun part. really trying to figure out, I, again, I got, I recently got into hiking because of our content. But just knowing that I can find something to do this weekend, and share it with, friends and family. And Google and there's just a choice. We [00:18:00] help narrow it down for you.Damian: Yeah. Speaking of Google, here's a little segue. We've already mentioned cookie deprecation several times in this conversation.I just wanted to zero in on how you think about that identity conundrum that publishers are facing right now. What are the sort of solves for it that you're thinking about?Mike: Yes. So we've been very leaned into, the identity, I'll call it ecosystem and identity resolution. We are. pretty lucky with that first party data that we do have. Being 137 year old brand and loyal readers we've been collecting this for quite some time. I think we've also been ready for the cookie to deprecate for quite some time.It's been a challenge when things keep getting pushed back, but what we'veIlyse: ready. Sorry. Sorry.Mike: but what really leaning into isMaking sure that, we understand how do we still provide [00:19:00] relevant advertising in a cookie less world. And as a result, we've been leaning into the deterministic side of the house.We have, millions of email email addresses and that we, that people have consented to give us. We're being very smart about it. We are creating opportunities. It's very funny. I think back on newsletters when I first got into this industry, and it was just static creatives that you see when you news.And, but we've been really thinking outside the box of how do we, Utilize these premium more. How do we lean into a newsletter strategy that isn't just, Hey, this is what happened, then I would go into, I would share that we're working really hard on the contextual end as well. because you guys are so local, I think you would be a great source to talk about DMAs. Where would you [00:20:00] say is your largest markets and how do you then incentivize readers?Yes I think about DMAs all the time. I will say that we, while we have, we provide that national reach, I would say our largest DMAs are typically Houston San Francisco and and, Albany, New York. Many, I would say all of Connecticut, just the entire state of Connecticut.We, we have a slam dunk in coverage. But I think what's really interesting, I'll use San Francisco Chronicle as a great example of. And I didn't know this until I really started here, which is people who are reading the San Francisco Chronicle, they're obviously reading it in San Francisco, but a lot of people travel to LA or work in Palo Alto or are traveling all throughout California and are actively reading the Chronicle.And then I have a bunch of friends who've told me this, who are Ex San Franciscans who now live in New York, [00:21:00] who are San Francisco Chronicle subscribers. And what we've been really trying to track is understanding people who have brain loyalty, who want to know what's happening in their community but maybe aren't there anymore.So we've market coverage. And in New York but we want to be there letting them know everything that's happening.So it's been a very fun project of mine, [00:22:00] which is just slicing and dicing the different parts of America to see where are our second, third, large, fourth largest DMAs as it relates to our core key markets. And how do we come up with a different strategy? I think going back to even the whole free, paid, what are we doing with cookies?Of it all is we've actively are looking into the DMA aspect as well to see, maybe paying for a subscription for the San Francisco Chronicle is tough when you're in New York and you're living a busy life. In which case, maybe we do something a little bit different for them. Maybe we provide them different incentives to come back to us.So that's been a something I've been working on actively on the back end, which has been a lot of fun.you see a big surge during an election year?Coincidentally this year has been, normally we do, this year's been a little different. I don't know if it's here in America, at least at a national level, People either have, [00:23:00] already. into the back half of the Damian: That makes sense. Given the fact that there wasn't so much hoopla around primary season, there was no real need for a primary this year, right? On either side.Mike: Exactly. It's, and it's very interesting too, because I think it's thrown some of the political agencies and trading desk for a loop a little bit. there are certain people that we can rely on and we actively are talking to, and even they're like, Hey, I got the money, [00:24:00] but We're doing it laterand uh, you when it comes to budgeting, we budgeted that it would be a little bit more of a stronger year, but I, I think we're hoping that over time, people are gonna pick it back up.Ilyse: Yeah not to resort back to the doom and gloom, but, and bring up a certain Company again. But, so Google recently threatened to remove links and pause investments for California publishers in response to the pending California Journalism Preservation Act, also known as CJPA, due to them having to basically pay a fee to link Californians to news articles. Is this concerning to Hearst at having, of course, properties in California, and if so, why?Mike: I'll say local news is always under pressure. Just over, even ongoing State law as it relates to privacy. I think these are just things that are going to [00:25:00] continue to happen and you know we have to remain steadfast in our position of what we do and forming people and communities as business as usual, but it's something that we are very close to and we are continue to work with a lot of our people Largest partners and the walled gardens to ensure that,But it's something that we just, we, again, it's an, it's another day and another challenge. And I firmly believe we're going to get through it.Ilyse: So Mike, how would you say news blockers are basically an impediment to advertisers? Mike: it does. And I would say it's really from these fourth parties. I think it's the way we're getting tagged, even at a keyword level, lot of our advertisers. Are running if they're not running against an allowless block list on the domain level, which we've had to unblock, we've had people spend with us and want to do a buy with us, and then we later find [00:26:00] out that they, we were on a block list for news.But I think the difficult part as it relates to is someone will not want to run against any type of Donald Trump content or Trump. And. That will get tagged as not brand safe as relates to their advertising buy. But in actuality, the content itself is not brand safe. It's just, I think the, like we, if we said, Hey Trump is the new Republican candidate who needs to is for the candidate that.Content is deemed not brand safe and we remove that we don't think advertiser would run on, but the challenge has been how an [00:27:00] article about Trump being the new candidate versus advertisers, both of those are equal, and we just need to figure out a better way to inform them of those types of things. I always, I again, I'll use shot block list, and we will talk about basketball shots and people shooting three pointers to win games.And that content will be tagged unbrand safe when it's probably the most brand safe community based content that you're going to get. So those are the challenges that we're actively engaging with people on. It's just informing them more about the contextual relevancy and [00:28:00] less on individual keywords and isolation.Ilyse: Awesome.Now, outside of your localized newspapers, how does Hearst newspapers overall market yourselves? Is there a national story you're trying to tell?Mike: Yes, there definitely is. so across newspapers I also will plug, I run a team called Hearst Mosaic we and sell across both newspapers and TV. We have about 86 million uniques monthly. We have a really large audience. We can give you national reach, we can give you local reach, but at the end of the day we can give you performance and we have an engaged audience who wants to hear from you.Ilyse: need to. Damian:and that's it for this edition of The Current Podcast. We'll be back [00:01:00] next week, so stay tuned.Ilyse: The current podcast's theme is by Love and Caliber. The current team includes Kat Vesey and Sydney Cairns.Damian: And remember, I'm Damian.Ilyse: I'm Ilyse,Damian: And we'll see you next time. Please subscribe and leave us a review. Also, tune in to our other podcast, The Current Report, a weekly roundup of what's happening in the world of digital media.
TOPIC: Men are 50% of the U.S., 80% of suicides, MONIQUE CA: "husband hospitalized, how do I find peace?", EMANUEL CANADA: "silent prayer and perfect peace", MIKE OH: "incident with blacks from childhood", DIANNE LA: "question re: your advice with people", SPENCER AR: "comment on the holy trinity", SUPERCHATS,
If you missed the other episodes with thoughtbot Incubator Program partcipants and founders Mike Rosenthal and Chris Cerrito of Goodz, you can listen to the first episode (https://podcast.thoughtbot.com/s3e2incubatorgoodz) and the second episode (https://podcast.thoughtbot.com/s3e4incubatorgoodz), and the third episode (https://podcast.thoughtbot.com/s3e6incubatorgoodz) to catch up! Lindsey Christensen and Jordyn Bonds catch up with the co-founders of Goodz, Chris Cerrito and Mike Rosenthal, where they share insights from their journey during the Incubator program, including the usefulness of the application process in aligning their vision and the challenges and benefits of user interviews and the importance of not overreacting to single user feedback and finding a balance in responding to diverse opinions. They reveal the varied reactions of users to Goodz's product, highlighting the different market segments interested in it. As the Incubator program nears its end for Goodz, Chris and Mike reflect on their achievements and future plans. They've made significant progress, such as setting up an e-commerce site and conducting successful user interviews. The co-founders discuss their excitement about the potential of their product and the validation they received from users. Mike mentions the importance of focusing on B2B sales and the possibility of upcoming events like South by Southwest and Record Store Day. Transcript: LINDSEY: Thanks for being here. My name's Lindsey. I head up marketing at thoughtbot. If you haven't joined one of these before, we are checking in with two of the founders who are going through the thoughtbot Startup Incubator to learn how it's going, what's new, what challenges they're hitting, and what they're learning along the way. If you're not familiar with thoughtbot, we're a product design and development consultancy, and we hope your team and your product become a success. And one way we do that is through our startup incubator. So, today, we are joined by our co-founders, Mike Rosenthal and Chris Cerrito, Co-Founders of the startup Goodz. And we also have another special guest today, Danny Kim, from the thoughtbot side, Senior Product Manager at thoughtbot. So, I think, to start off, we'll head over to the new face, the new voice that we've got with us today. Danny, tell us a little bit about your role at thoughtbot and, specifically, the incubator. DANNY: Yeah, sure. First of all, thanks for having me on, and thanks for letting me join in on all the fun. I'm one of the product managers at thoughtbot. I typically work for the Lift-Off team. We usually work with companies that are looking to, like, go into market with their first version MVP. They might have a product that exists and that they're already kind of doing well with, and they kind of want to jump into a new segment. We'll typically work with companies like that to kind of get them kicked off the ground. But it's been really awesome being part of the incubator program. It's my first time in helping with the market validation side. Definitely also, like, learning a lot from this experience [laughs] for myself. Coming at it specifically from a PM perspective, there's, like, so much variation usually in product management across the industry, depending on, like, what stage of the product that you're working in. And so, I'm definitely feeling my fair share of impostor syndrome here. But it's been really fun to stretch my brand and, like, approach problems from, like, a completely different perspective and also using different tools. But, you know, working with Mike and Chris makes it so much easier because they really make it feel like you're part of their team, and so that definitely goes a long way. LINDSEY: It just goes to show everyone gets impostor syndrome sometimes [laughter], even senior product managers at thoughtbot [laughter]. Thanks for that intro. It's, you know, the thoughtbot team learns along the way, too, you know, especially if usually you're focused on a different stage of product development. Mike, it's been only three weeks or a very long three weeks since last we checked in with you, kind of forever in startup time. So, I think the last time, we were just getting to know you two. And you were walking us through the concept, this merging of the digital and physical world of music, and how we interact with music keepsakes or merchandise. How's my pitch? MIKE: Good. Great. You're killing it. [laughter] LINDSEY: And has anything major changed to that concept in the last three weeks? MIKE: No. I mean, I can't believe it's only been three weeks. It feels like it's been a long time since we last talked. It's been an intense three weeks, for sure. No, it's been going really well. I mean, we launched all sorts of stuff. I'm trying to think of anything that's sort of fundamentally changed in terms of the plan itself or kind of our, yeah, what we've been working on. And I think we've pretty much stayed the course to sort of get to where we are now. But it's been really intensive. I think also having sort of Thanksgiving in there, and we were kind of pushing to get something live right before the Thanksgiving break. And so, that week just felt, I mean, I was just dead by, you know, like, Thursday of Thanksgiving. I think we all were. So, it's been intense, I would say, is the short answer. And I'm happy, yeah, to get into kind of where things are at. But big picture, it's been an intense three weeks. LINDSEY: That's cool. And when we talked, you were, you know, definitely getting into research and user interviews. Have those influenced any, you know, changes along the way in the plan? MIKE: Yeah. They've been really helpful. You know, we'd never really done that before in any of the sort of past projects that we've worked on together. And so, I think just being able to, you know, read through some of those scripts and then sit through some of the interviews and just kind of hearing people's honest assessment of some things has been really interesting. I'm trying to think if it's materially affected anything. I guess, you know, at first, we were, like, we kind of had some assumptions around, okay, let's try to find, like...adult gift-givers sounds like the wrong thing, adults who give gifts as, like, a persona. The idea that, like, you know, maybe you gift your siblings gifts, and then maybe this could be a good gift idea. And I think, you know, we had a hard time kind of finding people to talk in an interesting way about that. And I think we've kind of realized it's kind of a hard persona to kind of chop up and talk about, right, Chris? I don't know [crosstalk 04:55] CHRIS: Well, it also seemed to, from my understanding of it, it seemed to, like, genuinely stress out the people who were being interviewed... MIKE: [laughs] CHRIS: Because it's kind of about a stressful topic [inaudible 05:03], you know, and, like, especially -- LINDSEY: Why? [laughs] CHRIS: Well, I think, I don't know, now I'm making assumptions. Maybe because we're close to the holiday season, and that's a topic in the back of everybody's mind. But yeah, Danny, would you disagree with that? Those folks, from what we heard, seemed like they were the most difficult to kind of extract answers from. But then, if the subject changed and we treated them as a different persona, several of those interviews proved to be quite fruitful. So, it's just really interesting. DANNY: Yeah. It really started, like, you kind of try to get some answers out of people, and there's, like, some level of people trying to please you to some extent. That's just, like, naturally, how it starts. And you just, like, keep trying to drill into the answers. And you just keep asking people like, "So, what kind of gifts do you give?" And they're just like, "Oh my goodness, like, I haven't thought about buying gifts for my sister in [laughs], like, you know, in forever. And now, like [laughs], I don't know where to go." And they get, like, pretty stressed out about it. But then we just kind of started shifting into like, "All right, cool, never mind about that. Like, do you like listening to music?" And they're like, "Yes." And then it just kind of explodes from there. And they're like, "This last concert that I went to..." and all of this stuff. And it was much more fruitful kind of leaning more towards that, actually, yeah. LINDSEY: That's fascinating. I guess that speaks to, especially at this stage and the speed and the amount of interviews you're doing, the need for being, like, really agile in those interviews, and then, like, really quickly applying what you're learning to making the next one even more valuable. MIKE: Yeah. And I think, you know, like, we launched just a little sort of website experiment or, like, an e-commerce experiment right before Thanksgiving. And I think now, you know, we're able to sort of take some of those learnings from those interviews and apply them to both sort of our ad copy itself but also just different landing pages in different language on the different kind of versions of the site and see if we can find some resonance with some of these audience groups. So, it's been interesting. LINDSEY: Are you still trying to figure out who that early adopter audience is, who that niche persona is? MIKE: I think we -- CHRIS: Yes, we are. I think we have a good idea of who it is. And I think right now we're just trying to figure out really how to reach those people. That, I think, is the biggest challenge right now for us. MIKE: Yeah. With the e-commerce experiment it was sort of a very specific niche thing that is a little bit adjacent to what I think we want to be doing longer term with Goodz. And so, it's weird. It's like, we're in a place we're like, oh, we really want to find the people that want this thing. But also, this thing isn't necessarily the thing that we think we're going to make longer term, so let's not worry too hard about finding them. You know what I mean? It's been an interesting sort of back and forth with that. CHRIS: From the interviews that we conducted, you know, we identified three key personas. Most of them have come up, but I'll just relist them. There's the sibling gift giver. There was the merch buyers; these are people who go to concerts and buy merchandise, you know, T-shirts, albums, records, things along those lines to support the artists that they love. And then the final one that was identified we gave the title of the 'Proud Playlister'. And these are people who are really into their digital media platforms, love making playlists, and love sharing those playlists with their friends. And that, I would say, the proud playlister is really the one that we have focused on in terms of the storefront that we launched, like, the product is pretty much specifically for them. But the lessons that we're learning while making this product and trying to get this into the hands of the proud playlisters will feed into kind of the merch buyers. MIKE: Yeah. And I think that, you know, it's funny, like, this week is kind of a poignant week for this, right? Because it's the week that Spotify Wrapped launched, right? So, it's like, in the course of any given year, it's probably, like, the one week of the year that lots and lots and lots of people are thinking about playlists all of a sudden, so trying a little bit to see if we can ride that wave or just kind of dovetail with that a bit, too. LINDSEY: Absolutely. And do you want to give just, like, the really quick reminder of what the product experience is like? MIKE: Oh yeah [laughs], good call. CHRIS: This is a prototype of it. It's called the Goodz Mixtape. Basically, the idea is that you purchase one of these from us. You give us a playlist URL. We program that URL onto the NFC chip that's embedded in the Good itself. And then when you scan this Good, that playlist will come up. So, it's a really great way of you make a playlist for somebody, and you want to gift it to them; this is a great way to do that. You have a special playlist, maybe between you and a friend or you and a partner. This is a good way to commemorate that playlist, turn it into a physical thing, give that digital file value and presence in the physical world. LINDSEY: Great. Okay, so you casually mentioned this launch of an e-commerce store that happened last week. MIKE: It didn't feel casual. LINDSEY: Yeah. Why [laughter]...[inaudible 09:45] real casual. Why did you launch it? How's it going? MIKE: I don't know. Why did we launch it? I mean, well, we wanted to be able to test some assumptions. I think, you know, we wanted to get the brand out there a little bit, get our website out there, kind of introduce the concept. You know, this is a very...not that we've invented this product category, but it is a pretty obscure product category, right? And so, there's a lot of sort of consumer education that I think that has to go on for people to wrap their heads around this and why they'd want this. So, I think we wanted to start that process a little bit correctly, sort of in advance of a larger launch next year, and see if we could find some early community around this. You know, if we can find those core people who just absolutely love this, and connect with it, and go wild around it, then those are the people that we're going to be able to get a ton of information from and build for that persona, right? It's like, cool, these are the people who love this. Let's build more for them and go find other people like this. So, I think, for us, it was that. And then, honestly, it was also just, you know, let's test our manufacturing and fulfillment and logistics capabilities, right? I mean, this is...as much as we are a B2B, you know, SaaS platform or that's what we envision the future of Goodz being, there is a physical component of this. And, you know, we do have that part basically done at this point. But we just, you know, what is it like to order 1,000 of these? What is it like to put these in the mail to people and, you know, actually take orders? And just some of that processing because we do envision a more wholesale future where we're doing, you know, thousands or tens of thousands of this at a time. And so, I think we just want to button up and do some dry runs before we get to those kinds of numbers. CHRIS: I think it also it's important to remember that we are talking in startup time. And while this last week seems like an eternity, it's been a week [laughs] that we've had this in place. So, we're just starting to learn these things, and we plan on continuing to do so. MIKE: Yeah. But I think we thought that getting a website up would be a good way to just start kind of testing everything more. LINDSEY: Great. Danny, what went into deciding what would be in this first version of the site and the e-commerce offering? DANNY: I mean, a lot of it was kind of mostly driven by Chris and Mike. They kind of had a vision and an idea of what they wanted to sell. Obviously, from the user interviews, we were starting to hone in a little bit more and, like, we had some assumptions going into it. I think we ultimately did kind of feel like, yeah, I think, like, the playlisters seem to be, like, the target market. But just hearing it more and hearing more excitement from them was definitely just kind of like, yeah, I think we can double down on this piece. But, ultimately, like, in terms of launching the e-commerce platform, and the storefront, and the website, like, just literally looking at the user journey and being like, how does a user get from getting onto a site, like, as soon as they land there to, like, finishing a purchase? And what points do they need? What are the key things that they need to think through and typically will run into? And a lot of it is just kind of reflecting on our own personal buyer behavior. And, also, as we were getting closer to the launch, starting to work through some of those assumptions about buyer behavior. As we got there, we obviously had some prototypes. We had some screenshots that we were already working with. Like, the design team was already starting to build out some of the site. And so, we would just kind of show it to them, show it to our users, and just be like, hey, like, how do you expect to purchase this? Like, what's the next step that you expect to take? And we'd just kind of, like, continue to iterate on that piece. And so... LINDSEY: Okay. So you were, before launching, even showing some of those mockups and starting to incorporate them in the user interviews. DANNY: Yeah, yeah. I mean, we tried to get it in there in front of them as early as possible, partially because, like, at some point in the user interviews, like, you're mostly just trying to first understand, like, who are our target customers? Who are these people? And we have an assumption of or an idea of who we think they are. But really, like, once you start talking to people, you kind of are, like, okay, like, this thing that I thought maybe it wasn't so accurate, or, like, the way that they're kind of talking about these products doesn't 100% match what I originally walked into this, you know, experiment with. And so, we, like, start to hone in on that. But after a certain point, you kind of get that idea and now you're just like, okay, you seem to be, like, the right person to talk to. And so, if I were to show you this thing, do you get it, right? Like, do you understand what's happening? Like, how to use this thing, what this product even does. And then also, like, does the checkout experience feel intuitive for you? Is it as simple as, like, I just want to buy a T-shirt? So, like, I'm just going to go by the T-shirt, pick a size, and, you know, move on with my life. Can we make it as seamless as that? LINDSEY: And so, you mentioned it's only been a week since it's been live. Have you been able to learn anything from it yet? And how are you trying to drive people to it today? MIKE: Yeah, I think we learned that sales is hard [laughs] and slow, and it takes some time. But it's good, and we're learning a lot. I mean, it's been a while since I've really dug deep in, like, the analytics and marketing kind of metrics. And so, we've got all the Google Tag Manager stuff, you know, hooked up and just, you know, connecting with just exploring, honestly, like the TikTok advertising platform, and the YouTube Pre-Rolls, and Shorts. And, like, a lot of stuff that I actually, since the last time I was heavily involved in this stuff, is just totally new and different. And so, it's been super interesting to see the funnel and sort of see where people are getting in the site, where people are dropping off. You know, we had an interesting conversation in our thoughtbot sync yesterday or the day before, where we were seeing how, you know, we're getting lots of people to the front page and, actually, a good number of people to the product page, and, actually, like, you know, not the worst number of people to the cart. But then you were seeing really high cart abandonment rates. And then, you know, when you start Googling, and you're like, oh, actually, everybody sees very high cart abandonment rates; that's just a thing. But we were seeing, like, the people were viewing their cart seven or eight times, and they were on there sort of five times as long as they were on any other page. And it's this problem that I think Danny is talking about where, you know, we need to actually get a playlist URL. This gets into the minutiae of what we're building, but basically like, we need to get them to give us a playlist URL in order to check out, right? And so, you sort of have to, like, put yourself back in the mind of someone who's scrolling on Instagram, and they see this as an ad, and they click it, and they're like, oh, that thing was cool. Sure, I will buy one of those. And then it's like, no, actually, you need to, you know, leave this, go into a different app, find a play...like, it suddenly just puts a lot of the mental strain. But it's a lot. It's a cognitive load, greater than, as you said, just buying a T-shirt and telling what size you want. So, thinking through ways to really trim that down, shore up the amount of time people are spending on a cart. All that stuff has been fascinating. And then just, like, the different demographic kind of work that we're using, all the social ads platforms to kind of identify has been really interesting. It's still early. But, actually, like, Chris and I were just noticing...we were just talking right before this call. Like, we're actually starting to get, just in the last 12 hours, a bunch more, a bunch, but more people signing up to our email newsletter, probably in the last 12 hours that we have in the whole of last week. Yeah, I don't know, just even that sort of learning, it's like, oh, do people just need time with a thing, or they come back and they think about it? CHRIS: Yeah. Could these people be working on their playlists? That's a question that I have. MIKE: [chuckles] Yeah, me too. CHRIS: It's like, you know, I'm making a playlist to drop into this product. It's really interesting. And I think it gives insight to kind of, you know, how personal this product could be, that this is something that takes effort on the part of the consumer because they're making something to give or to keep for themselves, which is, I think, really interesting but definitely hard, too. DANNY: Yeah. And I also want to also clarify, like, Chris just kind of said it, like, especially for viewers and listeners, like, that's something that we've been hearing a lot from user interviews, too, right? Like, the language that they're using is, like, this is a thing that I care about. Like it's a representation of who I am. It's a representation of, like, the relationship that I have with this person that I'm going to be giving, you know, this gift to or this playlist to, specifically, like, people who feel, like, really passionate about these things. And, I mean, like, I did, too. Like, when I was first trying to, like, date, my wife, like, I spent, like, hours, hours trying to pick the coolest songs that I thought, you know, were like, oh, like, she's going to think I'm so cool because, like, I listen to these, like, super low-key indie rock bands, and, like, you know, so many more hours than she probably spent listening to it. But that's [laughs] kind of, like, honestly, what we heard a lot in a lot of these interviews, so... LINDSEY: Yeah, same. No, totally resonates. And I also went to the site this week, and I was like, oh damn, this is cool. Like, and immediately it was like, oh, you know, I've got these three, you know, music friends that we go to shows together. I'm like, oh, this would be so cool to get them, you know, playlists of, like, music we've seen together. So, you might see me in the cart. I won't abandon it. MIKE: Please. I would love that. CHRIS: Don't think about it too long if you could -- [laughter]. LINDSEY: I won't. I won't. CHRIS: I mean, I would say I'm really excited about having the site not only as a vehicle for selling some of these things but also as a vehicle for just honing our message. It's like another tool that we have in our arsenal. During the user interviews themselves, we were talking in abstract terms, and now we have something concrete that we can bounce off people, which is, I think, going to be a huge boon to our toolset as we continue to refine and define this product. MIKE: Yeah, that's a good point. LINDSEY: Yeah. You mentioned that they're signing up for, like, email updates. Do you have something you're sending out? Or are you kind of just creating a list? Totally fine, just building a list. MIKE: [laughs] No. CHRIS: It's a picture of Mike and I giving a big thumbs up. That's, yeah. [laughter] MIKE: No. But maybe...that was the thing; I was like, oh great, they're signing up. And I was like, gosh, they're signing up. Okay [laughter], now we got to write something. But we will. LINDSEY: Tips to making your playlist [crosstalk 19:11] playing your playlist -- MIKE: Yeah [crosstalk 19:13]. CHRIS: Right. And then also...tips to making your playlists. Also, we're advancing on the collectible side of things, too. We are, hopefully, going to have two pilot programs in place, one with a major label and one with a major artist. And we're really excited about that. LINDSEY: Okay. That's cool. I assume you can't tell us very much. What can you tell us? MIKE: Yeah. We won't mention names [chuckles] in case it just goes away, as these things sometimes do. But yeah, there's a great band who's super excited about these, been around for a long time, some good name recognition, and a very loyal fan base. They want to do sort of a collection of these. I think maybe we showed the little...I can't remember if we showed the little crates that we make or not, but basically, [inaudible 19:52] LINDSEY: The last time, yeah. MIKE: So, they want to sell online a package that's, you know, five or six Goodz in a crate, which I think will be cool and a great sort of sales experiment. And then there's a couple of artists that we're going to do an experiment with that's through their label that's more about tour...basically, giving things away on tour. So, they're going to do some giveaway fan club street team-style experiments with some of these on the road. So, first, it's ideal, provided both those things happen, because we definitely want to be exploring on the road and online stuff. And so, this kind of lets us do both at once and get some real learnings as to kind of how people...because we still don't know. We haven't really put these in people's hands yet. And it's just, like, are people scanning these a lot? Are they not? Is this sort of an object that's sitting on their shelf? Is it...yeah, it's just, like, there's so much we're going to learn once we get these into people's hands. LINDSEY: Do you have the infrastructure to sort of see how many times the cards are scanned? CHRIS: Mm-hmm. Yep, we do. MIKE: Yeah. So, we can see how many times each one is scanned, where they're scanned, that sort of thing. CHRIS: Kind of our next step, and something we were just talking about today with the thoughtbot team, is building out kind of what the backend will be for this, both for users and also for labels and artists. That it will allow them to go in and post updates to the Goodz, to allow them to use these for promotion as people, you know, scan into them to give them links to other sites related to the artists that they might be interested in before they move on to the actual musical playlist. So, that's kind of the next step for us. And knowing how users use these collectibles, both the kind of consumer Good and the artist collectibles that we were just talking about, will help inform how we build that platform. LINDSEY: Very cool. And right now, the online store itself that's built in Shopify? MIKE: Yeah. The homepage is Webflow that Kevin from the thoughtbot team really spearheaded in building for us. And then, yeah, the e-commerce is Shopify. LINDSEY: Y'all have been busy. MIKE: [laughs] LINDSEY: Is there anything else maybe that I haven't asked about yet that we should touch on in terms of updates or things going on with the product? MIKE: I don't know. I don't think so. I think, like Chris said, I mean, we're just...like, now that the site has kind of stood up and we're really switched over to kind of marketing and advertising on that, definitely digging into the backend of this kind of SaaS platform that's going to probably be a big focus for the rest of the, you know, the program, to be honest. Yeah, just some other things we can do on the next front that could eventually build into the backend that I think can be interesting. No, I guess [laughs] the short answer is no, nothing, like, substantial. Those are the big [crosstalk 22:26] LINDSEY: Yeah. Well, that was my next question, too, which is kind of like, what's next, or what's the next chunk of work? So, it's obviously lots more optimization and learning on the e-commerce platform, and then this other mega area, which is, you know, what does this look like as a SaaS solution? What's the vision? But also, where do we start? Which I'm sure, Danny, is a lot of work that you specialize in as far as, like, scoping how to approach these kinds of projects. DANNY: Yeah. And it's interesting because, I mean, we were just talking about this today. Like, part of it is, like, we can, like, really dig into, like, the e-commerce site and, like, really nailing it down to get it to the place where it's like, we're driving tons more traffic and also getting as low of a, like, cart abandonment rate as possible, right? But also, considering the fact that this is in the future, like, large-scale vision. And there's, like, also, like, we're starting to, I think, now iron out a lot of those, like, milestones where we're kind of like, okay, like, we got, like, a short-term vision, which is, like, the e-commerce site. We got a mid-term vision and a potential long-term vision. How do we validate this long-term vision while also still like, keeping this short-term vision moving forward? And, like, this mid-term vision is also going to, like, help potentially, either, like, steer us towards that long-term or maybe even, like, pivot us, like, into a completely different direction. So, like, where do you put your card, right? Like, how much energy and time do we put into, like, each of these areas? And that's kind of, like, the interesting part of this is starting to talk through that, starting to kind of prioritize, like, how we can maximize on our effort, like, our development and design effort so that things just kind of line up more naturally and organically for our future visioning, so... MIKE: Yeah. A lot of different things to juggle. I saw there was a question. Somebody asked what the URL is, but I don't seem to be able to [crosstalk 24:10]. LINDSEY: The same question as me. We got to drop the link for this thing. MIKE: Yeah, getthegoodz.com. CHRIS: That's G-O-O-D-Z. LINDSEY: Get in there, folks MIKE: Yeah, get [crosstalk 24:23]. LINDSEY: And let us know how it goes. MIKE: Yeah, please [laughs]. Any bugs? Let us know. Yeah. I think that those...yeah, I mean, it's a good point, Danny, in terms of juggling kind of the near-term and longer-term stuff. You know, it's a good kind of reminder our big focus, you know, in the new year is going to be fundraising, right? We're already talking to some investors and things like that. So, it's like, okay, yes, as you said, we could tweak the cart. We could tweak the e-commerce. Or, like, can we paint the big picture of what the longer-term version of this company is going to be in a way that makes it compelling for investment to come in so that there can be a long-term version of this company? And then we can build those things. So yeah, it's definitely a balance between the two. LINDSEY: Oh, also, just casual fundraising as well. [crosstalk 25:06] MIKE: Yeah, yeah. LINDSEY: [laughs] MIKE: But it's hard. It's like, you wake up in the morning. It's like, do I want to, like, write cold emails to investors? Or do I want to, like, look at Google Analytics and, like, tweak ad copy? That's actually more fun. So, yes. LINDSEY: Yeah, life of the founder, for sure. All right. So, that's getthegoodz (Goodz with a z) .com. Check it out. We'll tune in and see what happens with the e-commerce site, what happens with the SaaS planning the next time that we check in. But Chris, Mike, Danny, thank you so much for joining today and sharing what's been going on over the last few weeks: the good, the bad, the challenge, the cart abandonment. And, you know, best of luck to you over the next few weeks, and we'll be sure to check in and see how it's going. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions. Transcript: LINDSEY: Thank you to our viewers and listeners. We are catching up once again with one of the startups going through the thoughtbot Incubator. My name is Lindsey Christensen. I'm joined today by Jordyn Bonds, who heads up the thoughtbot incubator, as well as our Co-Founders of Goodz, Chris Cerrito and Mike Rosenthal. Welcome, everybody. MIKE: Thanks, Lindsey. LINDSEY: Before we get started, before we put Chris and Mike back in the hot seat, at the top here, Jordyn, we have a special announcement for our viewers and listeners. JORDYN: Application window is open for session 1 of 2024, folks. You can go to thoughtbot.com/incubator and apply. And Chris and Mike can tell you how easy or hard applying was. MIKE: It was easy. It was totally easy. It's a very straightforward process. CHRIS: Yeah, it was way more straightforward than a lot of applications that we've dealt with in the past, for sure. JORDYN: Ha-ha. And if you've got a business idea that involves software but you haven't gotten anything out there yet, come talk to us. We will help you make sure that it's a good idea and that there are people who might buy it, and maybe get you even a little further than that. MIKE: We actually have a friend who's considering applying. I'll tell him applications are open. He's worried his idea is not big enough to actually be a business idea, so we'll see. CHRIS: Even the process of doing the application was really helpful for us because it helped us get aligned on exactly what we were doing, yeah. JORDYN: I love that. And I found that to be true when I was a founder applying to some of these things, in particular, applying for an SBIR grant was one of the most challenging things that we did, but it was so productive. I was so annoyed by it at the time, and then I cribbed from that thing. It actually sort of forced us to make a business plan [laughs], and then, basically, we ran it, and it was great [laughs]. CHRIS: Yeah. I think that was, for us, that was our point where we were like, "Is this idea fleshed out enough to move forward?" And we were like, "Yes, it is. Let's go. Let's do this." JORDYN: So, use the application as a forcing function, everybody. It will help you clarify your thinking. LINDSEY: Yeah. Jordyn, what would you say to Mike's friend who's questioning if their idea is big enough? How do you respond to that sentiment? JORDYN: That is a fascinating sentiment because I feel like so much more often, I am trying to help founders with the opposite problem where they think this thing is so big that they are not thinking about what step 1 is going to look like. They're just, like, in 10 years, we're going to be the next Amazon, and I'm like, "Maybe [laughter]. Let me help you figure out how to get to that giant vision." So, I don't come across the "Is this big enough to be a business?" question as often. And, I don't know, what would I say? I guess I need the details. LINDSEY: It could be a perfect fit MIKE: It could be. JORDYN: It could be a perfect fit. LINDSEY: In a way, that's what you're answering, right? MIKE: Right. LINDSEY: In some of this work. MIKE: That is true. So, yeah, you guys would certainly...just thinking through the process we've gone through the last two months, it would definitely help them flesh that out. LINDSEY: Which is a great segue. MIKE: Great segue. LINDSEY: Chris and Mike, we're actually coming up to the end of your incubator time. CHRIS: It's so sad. LINDSEY: Can you believe it? MIKE: It's gone by really fast. I mean, eight weeks is not a long time, but it has gone by very, very fast. CHRIS: It felt like a very long time in the middle of it. MIKE: [laughs] CHRIS: But now that it's over, it feels like a blink that it's coming to a close. MIKE: I don't know. It's funny. I think we had some note in our retro today that was like, maybe the very end of the year is not the best time to do an accelerator just because you have, like, the holidays kind of jumping in here in the end. So, that might have helped make it feel like a... I feel like the end of the year always feels like a rush anyway. So, I think just life gets a little bit busier this time of year, too, but yeah. CHRIS: Yeah, my gingerbread man decorating game is, like, really down this season because we've been so busy. Tragic. LINDSEY: Chris, can you remind our viewers and listeners who might not be familiar what was the idea that you and Mike have been exploring with the incubator or, like, what did you come in with? CHRIS: So, with Goodz, what we're trying to do is make little, physical collectibles objects that connect back to the digital content that a user loves. The idea being that today, we are awash in these digital files, links, so many things on our desktops, on our phones, on our devices, and it's really hard to tell which part of those are really, really important to us. So, by giving them a presence in the physical world, that denotes that's something that's really important, worth keeping, worth sharing, and showing off to your friends and family. And to start this off, mostly because Mike and I are both kind of music nerds, we're starting off with a music focus, but at some point, we're hoping to move into other realms, too. LINDSEY: And a lot of the incubator, as repeat listeners will know, is focused on really kind of evolving user interviews all the way through and narrowing in on, you know, a core audience, a core market. Mike, how has that evolution been? I think the last time we chatted was around three weeks ago. What has the latest iteration of user interviews looked like in terms of the people you're talking to and even what you're asking them? MIKE: It's been a really fascinating process. I mean, I'm trying to think of where we were exactly the last time we talked to you, but I think we'd probably just launched the e-commerce site that we had been experimenting with putting up. LINDSEY: Yeah, exactly. MIKE: And so, and we really then started cranking on user interviews kind of once that was live. And so, moving away from the conceptual and more into like, "Okay, share your screen. Here's the link. Like, tell me what you think is going on here," and really sort of getting users who had never, you know, never heard our pitch, never been involved with us to sort of try to wrap their heads around what we are and what we're doing just based on that website and trying to sort of make iterative changes based on that. You know, for me, because I had not done user interviews very much in the past, like, it's very tempting, like, you get sort of 1 note from 1 person in 1 interview, and you're like, oh, we need to change this word. That word didn't make any sense to them, or this thing needs to be blue instead of pink. I think, for me, it was like, all right, how do we kind of synthesize this data in a responsible way? And it emerged naturally, which, I mean, Jordyn and all thoughtbot folks said that it would, but you sort of started hearing the same things again and again. And we never really got to a place where, like, you heard the exact same things from everyone. But there were enough buckets, I feel like, where we're like, okay, like, this part really isn't making that much sense to people, or, like, we do really need to, you know, structure this differently to convey. So, it was a bunch of that kind of work over the last three weeks or so and sort of just getting a sense of like, are we conveying our message? It's hard. I mean, it's a new, like, we're not the only people making physical products with NFC chips in them, but it is not the most common, like, product. Like, it is kind of a new category out there. And so, really trying to understand just right off the bat, do people get it? And you get wildly different answers [laughs] as to whether they get it or they don't, which has been fascinating, too. JORDYN: Yeah. [crosstalk 7:12] LINDSEY: Chris or Jordyn, anything to add there? JORDYN: Yeah. You get the best, like, bootcamp in the don't overreact to a single user interview experience in some ways because we [laughs]...it would literally be like, interview in the morning someone says this thing. Interview in the afternoon, someone says the exact opposite thing [laughter]. And you're like, okay [laughs], like, which one of these things are we going to respond to, if either of them? CHRIS: Yeah. It's hard. As somebody with, like, a strong desire to please, it's hard to reign yourself in and want to change things immediately, but it definitely makes sense to do so in the long run. MIKE: But yeah, but, I mean, like I said, I do feel like it kind of came down to buckets. It's like, okay, you're that. I can, like, categorize you with all those other people and you with all those other people. And yeah, I hear you. I'm like, yeah, it's tempting to want to please them all. But I think with this one, we're fighting hard to be like...or we sort of have a philosophy that this product is emphatically not for everyone because, at the end of the day, you get a lot of people who are like, "Wait, you're just putting a link to a streaming playlist on a physical object? Why don't I just text someone the link?" And sometimes that breaks down by age group, like, 18-year-olds being like, "What are you talking about, old man? LINDSEY: [laughs] MIKE: Like, why the hell would I do that? It makes no sense." But it sort of skews all over the age ranges. But then there'll be other people who are 18 or 20 years old who are like, "Wow, I never had cassettes when I was growing up," or "I never got to make, you know, mixtapes or CD-Rs for people." And like, you know, so it's, yeah, it's about finding the people who are the early adopters. As Jordyn has said a lot, it's like, we need to find those early adopters and, like, make them love us, and then other people will come later. CHRIS: I mean, some of the most gratifying moments, I think, are there's been some interviews where people have been so excited that after the interview, they've gone and purchased our products, which is just, like, the coolest feeling ever. LINDSEY: Wow. MIKE: Yeah, it's pretty cool. LINDSEY: Are you open to sharing a little bit more about what those buckets or what those segments look like? CHRIS: I mean, I think there's folks who outright just get it almost immediately, and I think those people tend to be hardcore music collectors, hardcore music fans, Jordyn and Mike, please feel free to jump in if you disagree with any of this. They just get it right off the bat. Then I think there's, in my experience, there's another bucket of people who are a little more hesitant, and maybe they wouldn't buy it, but they seemed really excited about the idea of getting one as a gift, which is really interesting. They're like, "I don't know if I'd buy this, but I'd really like to have one." And then there is another segment, like, which Mike just mentioned, of folks who just don't see the value in this whatsoever, which is totally fair. MIKE: Yeah, totally. I think it's also...I see it almost as, like, a matrix. There's, like, desirability, and, like, technical understanding because people were like, "I technically understand what this is, and I do not want it in my life." Or like, "I get what this is and, oh my God, I have to have that," or like, "I don't really understand what you're talking about, but, man, I love physical stuff. Like, sure I want..." you know, it's like, it goes across those two planes, I think. JORDYN: I will say that it, I think you alluded to this before, Mike, but, like, we're going to run a whole analysis of...because we did a ton of interviews, and we haven't actually done that, like, sort of data-driven thing of like, are there trends in the demographics somewhere that we're not getting? Because the pattern has not been there. Like, someone will talk to an 18-year-old, you know, at 1:00 p.m. who is just, like, "Why on earth would I ever want this?" And then I, like, you know, will talk to a 21-year-old who is like, "I love this." And it's like, why? Like, this is the answer. The thing we're trying to get out now is, like, what is the difference between those two people? It's not a demographic thing that we can see from the outside, so what is it instead? But with consumer stuff like this, often, you don't necessarily...you don't need that in such great detail when you're starting. You just kind of, like, throw it out there and see who grabs it, and then you start to build sort of cohorts around that. And that is kind of what these interviews have shown us is that there are people who will grab it, and that was part of what we were trying to validate. Are there people who Mike and Chris do not know personally who will, like, get this and be psyched about it immediately? And that is, you know, check unequivocally true. Like Chris said, there are people that we were, you know, that we had recruited on this user interviews platform [chuckles] who then just turned around and bought the product because they were so psyched about it. One of the guys I interviewed was like, "Can I invest in your company right now?" Like, during the interview, and I was like, "Maybe?" [laughs] CHRIS: There was, like, another person who wanted to work for us immediately... JORDYN: Yes, great. CHRIS: Which was really interesting and kind of awesome. JORDYN: Yeah, they're like, "Are you hiring?" You're just like, okay. So, it's validating that there are people all over that spectrum. Like, where those trends lie, though, which is, I think, what you were asking, Lindsey, not as straightforward and in a fascinating way. So, we still have a little more, like, number crunching to do on that, and we may have an answer for you later. LINDSEY: That's exciting. Exactly. I'm curious: what are the connecting dots between the folks who are really into it, and how might that impact how you approach the business? MIKE: Yeah, it's hard. It's definitely going to be a niche to start. And so, we got to figure out kind of got to crack the code on how we find those people. LINDSEY: And, Mike, I think you had also mentioned last time that, you know, you or both of you have a network kind of in the music industry, and you've been floating the idea past some people there. Have you been having more of those conversations over the last few weeks, too? MIKE: We have, yeah. Well, so yeah, we've had a couple more just kind of straight-up pitch calls versus like, "Hey, there's this cool thing we're doing," and having those people be like, "Cool. Let's do a pilot." And so, they're ordering, you know, 500 or 1,000 units at a time, which is rad. LINDSEY: Whoa. MIKE: For the first...yeah. LINDSEY: Okay, very cool. MIKE: Yeah. The first two or three of those should happen in January or maybe early February, but yeah, those are done and in production and arriving soon. So, that's really exciting with some cool bands. We won't say the names in case it doesn't [laughs] work out, but it does look like it's going to work out. LINDSEY: And so, it's specific bands that are creating merch for their fans. MIKE: Yeah, yeah. So, we're working with one artist manager on a band that he manages, and then we're working with a record label. And they're going to try with a couple of smaller artists. And so, yeah, it's actually really good for us. One is going to be straight-up sales, most likely, and it's, like, selling these things. And the other ones will be given away as kind of promo items on tour artists, which is also a really interesting use case for us, too, that we're excited about and using them as a way to sort of get email addresses and, like, fans engaged and stuff, so... And then yeah, then I had another conversation, and they want to talk about doing some pilots. So far, like, that side of things is going great. We're sort of 3 for 4 in terms of initial calls leading to pilots right off the bat, which is kind of unheard of from [laughs] my experience. LINDSEY: Yeah, I'd say so. No, a lot of very good signals. MIKE: Really good signals. But then we were able to turn some of those into user interview conversations, actually, as well over the course of the last couple of weeks, which has been really helpful, like, talking to manager and label-type people about what they might want out of a software product that is associated with this because we're not just thinking about making physical products but sort of coupling that with an online toolset. And that part, we haven't gotten as far along as we did with the direct-to-consumer e-commerce, but it's been fascinating. LINDSEY: So, what has been happening with the online shop? As you noted the last time we talked, it was just a baby less than a week-old Shopify site getting, you know, some first hits of people going around maybe putting things in their basket. I'm sure a lot has happened over the last few weeks. What kind of work, what kind of insights have you seen around the site? CHRIS: We've been, I mean, we've been selling stuff at a slow but steady pace. It's been great because it's enough to, you know, because our product really straddles the line between physical and digital; there's a lot of physical aspects to this that we need to figure out and kind of the level of orders that we've been getting have been really...it's, like, the perfect number to think about fulfillment issues, things like what kind of package does this go in? How do we mail this out? Things along those lines, just very basic, practical questions that needed to be answered. But yeah, it's been great. We actually, I mean, we hit our goal for the amount of these that we wanted to get in people's hands before Christmas, which is pretty awesome. And we continue now with the lessons learned. I think our plan is to try and make a push for Valentine's Day because these seem like they would be a great Valentine's Day present: make a playlist; share it with your loved one; share it with a friend; share it with somebody you don't like at all. Who knows? LINDSEY: [laughs] CHRIS: But yeah, that's kind of our next sales push, we think. LINDSEY: The hate playlist. CHRIS: [inaudible 15:40] hate playlist. MIKE: Yeah, perfect. Real passive-aggressive. CHRIS: Just Blue Monday, like, by New Order, like, 14 times. LINDSEY: [laughs] Yeah, every song is just like a sub-tweet... MIKE: [laughs] LINDSEY: About something they've done and [inaudible 15:53] Have you updated the site? Like, how do you decide what gets updated on the site? [laughter] Everyone laughed. MIKE: It was a little haphazard, I would say, there for a minute. But -- CHRIS: We got the site up very, very quickly. And from my perspective, I've been dealing a lot with the physical side of things, just getting great product photos up there, which is, like, something that thoughtbot has actually been super helpful with. You know, everybody on the team is starting to submit photos of their Goodz in the real world and using their Goodz, which is great. And we continued to update the site with that but also making sure our text made sense, refining copy in response to things that people said during user interviews. The checkout process, the process of adding the URL that we point the Good to that, we did a bunch of experimentation there based on what people were saying during user interviews. So, it has been a little haphazard, but we have made a bunch of changes. LINDSEY: Jordyn, has there been any experiment, like, structured experimentation around the site or how you're getting people to the site? JORDYN: Mike actually did a little bit of ad funnel work that I don't think we've, like, even remotely scratched the surface of. So, I wish I could say that was conclusive, but I think we've found a little bit more...here are plenty of sales that are from people that nobody here knows. MIKE: True. JORDYN: So, people are finding out about this somehow [laughs]. But I think it's a little bit, like, word-of-mouth sort of chain of events is our sense so far. I wanted to say, though, about the site, we did get what Chris was saying about, like, this experiment was, in part, about fulfillment and figuring out how fulfillment would work and packaging, and not just messaging and not just closing the sale with consumers, but also, just, like, how do you fulfill these? But one of the really fun things we've managed to do in the last, since we talked last time, which I can't even believe...I feel like this wasn't even a gleam in our eyes for this project, but we managed to get out, like, stood up and out the door, and working in production in the last few weeks is a way for folks to actually assign the URL to their mixtape themselves. Previously, the plan had just been for Chris and Mike to do that, which is fine but a little bit unscalable, right? CHRIS: That was a huge dream or, like, that was high on our wish list. And we didn't think we'd get to it. And it's been pretty amazing that we have, yeah. JORDYN: Yeah, so that was one thing that is an update to the site. So, then we had to do a little bit of, like, micro iterating, on, like, the messaging around that. Like, how do you communicate to people? This is, like, a little bit of an abstract challenge, right? Like, here's this object. It's going to point to a digital thing. How do you tell the physical object which digital thing it's pointing to [laughs]? So, a lot of our recent interviewing has been to sort of get inside the mind of the consumer about how they're thinking about that and how we can best communicate that to them. So that's been a lot of the, like, recent iteration is getting that mechanism stood up and then the messaging around it. CHRIS: It's also really cool because it adds to the utility of the object itself in the sense that now our Goodz, when a user gets one, they can add a URL to their Good themselves, but they can also change that URL. So, it's much more malleable. JORDYN: Which is something that in one of our early user interviews was, like, a hot request [laughs], and we were like, "Someday, someday." And it's, you know, I should actually go back to her and be like, "Someday is today." [laughter] MIKE: Well, yeah, and just as Chris was saying, it just makes it so much easier to ship these out without having to manually load them, and you could sell them, and yeah, retail outlets, like, it just opens up a lot of opportunities for us for them. LINDSEY: And Mike mentioned that some of the, like, kind of future looking aspirations for the solution are, you know, how might you figure out the B2B, like, SaaS aspect of it? Jordyn, is that something that's been explored at all at this point, or is it early? JORDYN: That experiment I just described is actually sort of the link between the two projects. It sort of proves the concept and proves the value in some ways, and it has given us a little bit more visibility into sort of how we're going to execute some of this technical stuff. Like, how easy, how difficult is it going to be? These little experiments all build your confidence around your ability to do those things and what it's going to look like. And so, this experiment absolutely feeds into that question. But I would say it was really this week where we got to have a really fun brainstorming sort of blue sky conversation about that that I don't think would have been nearly as both creative and blue sky or rooted in reality as it was if we hadn't done these experiments and hadn't talked to so many...we had so much work...we could participate in a conversation like that so much more confidently and creatively because all of us had a lot more shared context. So, we really got to dream big, like, what is a SaaS platform built around these physical objects? And I don't want to, you know, I'm not going to give it away at this moment because we had a lot of, like, really cool ideas. It's one part talking to the B2B customer, which, you know, you mentioned earlier, getting what their pain points are, and what they're looking for, what they need, but then also dreaming big about now we understand the technology a little bit more and how it feels to use it. What does that unlock in our brains? The analogy I used in that conversation and that I use all the time is like, the users of Twitter invented hashtags, right? Twitter did not invent hashtags. And so, hey, everybody out there, newsflash: users invented hashtags, not Twitter or something else, if you didn't realize that Twitter was where those things kind of emerged. But there was just a user behavior that was happening in the wild, and Twitter was just very good at making that easier for them, looking at that and being like, "Oh, hey, is this a thing you all want to do? Here, we'll make that even more useful for you." And it was part of Twitter's early success that they were able to do that. And so, that was the kind of thinking we were trying to employ here is, like, now that we have these objects and we understand a little bit more how it feels to use them, you get these second order effects. What does that then make us think of? What is then possible to us that we wouldn't have been able to dream of previously because we didn't quite get it? So, that was really happening this week. LINDSEY: So, as the incubator time wraps up, what are the kind of final activities or deliverables, one, that Goodz wants and you know that they're going to get? What are the parting gifts as we send you out into the next phase? MIKE: Yeah, well, loads of stuff. I mean, we're getting all that code that [SP] Guillermo and the guys worked on to let people set their own playlist settings. And we've got that up in a GitHub repository now. And we've got a bunch of great design work that's all being handed over, like Chris was saying, product shots that a bunch of the team members were taking, synthesizing all the user interviews. We're actually sort of making some kind of final reports on those, so it's kind of more usable, actionable data for us. The whole website, you know, that didn't exist before. And that will sort of continue to grow as the entire website for Goodz moving forward. I don't know. That's a lot. What else was there, Chris? CHRIS: As a result of all that, I mean, one of the things I'm most excited about is now we have a small user base who actually has the physical products that, hopefully, we can get them to answer questions. That's huge for what's coming next. Starting the path towards the SaaS platform, too, it's really helped narrow our scope and think about, you know, how to make that successful or if it will be successful. LINDSEY: Yeah, that sounded like a big discussion this week that I know has been on your minds from the beginning. Wait, the last time, also, you said you were starting to get emails, too. Have you emailed anyone yet, or are you still holding on to them? MIKE: Oh. No, I still haven't sent a newsletter out [laughs], actually, but we have Mailchimp set up. Yeah, no, we've got a good kind of core of our, yeah, early folks on there. We'll start getting a newsletter out with some sort of regularity. We're building up the socials very slowly just focusing on Instagram mostly right now and trying to get back into that game. It's been a long time since I've had to do kind of social marketing stuff. And so, it's a lot of work, as it turns out, but we'll get all that cooking. I think this was just such a sprint, working with the thoughtbot folks and trying to get all this stuff done. Before the end of the year, now we can sort of take a breath and start engaging folks in the new year. LINDSEY: Yeah. Well, so, do you know what you want to do next or what the next phase looks like? Are you going to do fundraising? MIKE: We're certainly going to continue to have some fundraising conversations. We've had some conversations emerge over the last, you know, since we've been in thoughtbot, again, not the greatest time of year to try to be raising a round. But we're also not, like, desperately, urgently needing to do that right this second. I think, you know, part of it is the fundraising landscape, you know, doesn't look amazing. And we're still sort of building out a lot of traction, and sort of every week, there's some new, exciting thing, or we've got some new, big artists who wants to do something. So, I think, in some ways, to the extent that we can bootstrap for a little while, I think we will, yeah. So, we will focus on...I'd like to get back to focusing on, like, B2B sales. I'd like to hit the ground in January and just start talking to a bunch of music industry folks. And thinking ahead a little bit, sort of Q1 and Q2, like, what are the big tentpole events? You know, you got South by Southwest coming up in March. You got Record Store Day in April, or whenever it is. But, you know, there's, like, a bunch of those sorts of things that it's like, oh, let's not let those things suddenly be tomorrow. Like, right now, they're all still two or three/four months out. Like, let's make sure we're queued up for those things and see what happens. And Jordyn has been giving really good advice on the fundraising side where it's just like, just keep getting cool stuff like that and just do almost like little drip campaigns with funders who aren't maybe giving you the time of day or think it's too early, and just kind of keep going back to them. Like, the best excuse to go back to funders is like, "Hey, we just closed this new thing. We just launched this new thing. We just got this thing working. Hey, we're launching with this major band," Like, enough of those happen, and I think the fundraising will happen more organically. It's a strategy. CHRIS: I think we're really lucky in the fact that, you know, now, at this point, we're not talking about vapourware, you know, like, these are actual things that actually exist that, like, anybody could go onto our site right now and buy, which is awesome. And because of that, the product's going to continue to evolve, and, hopefully, our sales record will continue to evolve, too. LINDSEY: Amazing. Well, that feels like a good place to wrap up, maybe. Are you going to hang around in our incubator Slack, the thoughtbot incubator Slack for all our past founders? MIKE: Yes. Emphatically, yes. LINDSEY: Okay. We're holding you to it then [laughs]. CHRIS: I'm excited about that. We met with the other founders yesterday for the first time, and it was a really great and interesting conversation. It was cool seeing how diverse all these projects are and how folks are working on things that we had no idea about and how we're working on stuff that they have no idea about, and it was really great. It felt like a good cross-pollination. MIKE: Agreed. LINDSEY: That's awesome to hear. Jordyn, any final thoughts? JORDYN: [inaudible 26:58] out there listening and watching and want to join this community of founders [laughs], don't you want to have office hours with Chris and Mike? LINDSEY: All right, thoughtbot.com/incubator. You can apply for session 1 of the 2024 incubator program. And yeah, you two, if you have more recommendations, referrals, definitely send them our way. Chris, Mike, Jordyn, thank you so much once again for joining and catching us up on all the exciting developments for Goodz. MIKE: Thank you. LINDSEY: A lot of really cool milestones. JORDYN: I got to say, so much good stuff. And like, you know, just wrapping it all up almost diminishes the impact of any single one of those things that we just talked about, but it's, like, pretty amazing. People out there, apply to the incubator but also go buy yourself a Goodz mixtape. It's cool with playlists on it. MIKE: It's a good point. JORDYN: Give it to your BFF. Come on. LINDSEY: Getthegoodz.com. MIKE: Getthegoodz.com. Awesome. LINDSEY: All right. Thanks, Chris and Mike. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions. Special Guests: Chris Cerrito, Jordyn Bonds, and Mike Rosenthal.
If you missed the first and second episodes with thoughtbot Incubator Program partcipants and founders Mike Rosenthal and Chris Cerrito of Goodz, you can listen to the first episode (https://podcast.thoughtbot.com/s3e2incubatorgoodz) and the second episode (https://podcast.thoughtbot.com/s3e4incubatorgoodz) to catch up! Lindsey Christensen, head of marketing at thoughtbot is joined by Mike Rosenthal and Chris Cerrito, co-founders of the startup Goodz, and Danny Kim, Senior Product Manager at thoughtbot. Mike and Chris discuss the progress of Goodz, focusing on the recent intense weeks they've had. Goodz, a startup merging the digital and physical worlds of music, has stayed on course with its initial concept. Mike details their approach to Thanksgiving and the launch of their e-commerce experiment. He shares insights from recent user interviews, which have influenced their approach and understanding of their target audience. When the discussion turns to the challenges of launching and maintaining their e-commerce platform, Mike and Chris talk about learning from analytics, marketing strategies, and the importance of understanding consumer behavior. They discuss the challenges in balancing short-term and long-term goals, and the upcoming fundraising efforts. Transcript: LINDSEY: Thanks for being here. My name's Lindsey. I head up marketing at thoughtbot. If you haven't joined one of these before, we are checking in with two of the founders who are going through the thoughtbot Startup Incubator to learn how it's going, what's new, what challenges they're hitting, and what they're learning along the way. If you're not familiar with thoughtbot, we're a product design and development consultancy, and we hope your team and your product become a success. And one way we do that is through our startup incubator. So, today, we are joined by our co-founders, Mike Rosenthal and Chris Cerrito, Co-Founders of the startup Goodz. And we also have another special guest today, Danny Kim, from the thoughtbot side, Senior Product Manager at thoughtbot. So, I think, to start off, we'll head over to the new face, the new voice that we've got with us today. Danny, tell us a little bit about your role at thoughtbot and, specifically, the incubator. DANNY: Yeah, sure. First of all, thanks for having me on, and thanks for letting me join in on all the fun. I'm one of the product managers at thoughtbot. I typically work for the Lift-Off team. We usually work with companies that are looking to, like, go into market with their first version MVP. They might have a product that exists and that they're already kind of doing well with, and they kind of want to jump into a new segment. We'll typically work with companies like that to kind of get them kicked off the ground. But it's been really awesome being part of the incubator program. It's my first time in helping with the market validation side. Definitely also, like, learning a lot from this experience [laughs] for myself. Coming at it specifically from a PM perspective, there's, like, so much variation usually in product management across the industry, depending on, like, what stage of the product that you're working in. And so, I'm definitely feeling my fair share of impostor syndrome here. But it's been really fun to stretch my brand and, like, approach problems from, like, a completely different perspective and also using different tools. But, you know, working with Mike and Chris makes it so much easier because they really make it feel like you're part of their team, and so that definitely goes a long way. LINDSEY: It just goes to show everyone gets impostor syndrome sometimes [laughter], even senior product managers at thoughtbot [laughter]. Thanks for that intro. It's, you know, the thoughtbot team learns along the way, too, you know, especially if usually you're focused on a different stage of product development. Mike, it's been only three weeks or a very long three weeks since last we checked in with you, kind of forever in startup time. So, I think the last time, we were just getting to know you two. And you were walking us through the concept, this merging of the digital and physical world of music, and how we interact with music keepsakes or merchandise. How's my pitch? MIKE: Good. Great. You're killing it. [laughter] LINDSEY: And has anything major changed to that concept in the last three weeks? MIKE: No. I mean, I can't believe it's only been three weeks. It feels like it's been a long time since we last talked. It's been an intense three weeks, for sure. No, it's been going really well. I mean, we launched all sorts of stuff. I'm trying to think of anything that's sort of fundamentally changed in terms of the plan itself or kind of our, yeah, what we've been working on. And I think we've pretty much stayed the course to sort of get to where we are now. But it's been really intensive. I think also having sort of Thanksgiving in there, and we were kind of pushing to get something live right before the Thanksgiving break. And so, that week just felt, I mean, I was just dead by, you know, like, Thursday of Thanksgiving. I think we all were. So, it's been intense, I would say, is the short answer. And I'm happy, yeah, to get into kind of where things are at. But big picture, it's been an intense three weeks. LINDSEY: That's cool. And when we talked, you were, you know, definitely getting into research and user interviews. Have those influenced any, you know, changes along the way in the plan? MIKE: Yeah. They've been really helpful. You know, we'd never really done that before in any of the sort of past projects that we've worked on together. And so, I think just being able to, you know, read through some of those scripts and then sit through some of the interviews and just kind of hearing people's honest assessment of some things has been really interesting. I'm trying to think if it's materially affected anything. I guess, you know, at first, we were, like, we kind of had some assumptions around, okay, let's try to find, like...adult gift-givers sounds like the wrong thing, adults who give gifts as, like, a persona. The idea that, like, you know, maybe you gift your siblings gifts, and then maybe this could be a good gift idea. And I think, you know, we had a hard time kind of finding people to talk in an interesting way about that. And I think we've kind of realized it's kind of a hard persona to kind of chop up and talk about, right, Chris? I don't know [crosstalk 04:55] CHRIS: Well, it also seemed to, from my understanding of it, it seemed to, like, genuinely stress out the people who were being interviewed... MIKE: [laughs] CHRIS: Because it's kind of about a stressful topic [inaudible 05:03], you know, and, like, especially -- LINDSEY: Why? [laughs] CHRIS: Well, I think, I don't know, now I'm making assumptions. Maybe because we're close to the holiday season, and that's a topic in the back of everybody's mind. But yeah, Danny, would you disagree with that? Those folks, from what we heard, seemed like they were the most difficult to kind of extract answers from. But then, if the subject changed and we treated them as a different persona, several of those interviews proved to be quite fruitful. So, it's just really interesting. DANNY: Yeah. It really started, like, you kind of try to get some answers out of people, and there's, like, some level of people trying to please you to some extent. That's just, like, naturally, how it starts. And you just, like, keep trying to drill into the answers. And you just keep asking people like, "So, what kind of gifts do you give?" And they're just like, "Oh my goodness, like, I haven't thought about buying gifts for my sister in [laughs], like, you know, in forever. And now, like [laughs], I don't know where to go." And they get, like, pretty stressed out about it. But then we just kind of started shifting into like, "All right, cool, never mind about that. Like, do you like listening to music?" And they're like, "Yes." And then it just kind of explodes from there. And they're like, "This last concert that I went to..." and all of this stuff. And it was much more fruitful kind of leaning more towards that, actually, yeah. LINDSEY: That's fascinating. I guess that speaks to, especially at this stage and the speed and the amount of interviews you're doing, the need for being, like, really agile in those interviews, and then, like, really quickly applying what you're learning to making the next one even more valuable. MIKE: Yeah. And I think, you know, like, we launched just a little sort of website experiment or, like, an e-commerce experiment right before Thanksgiving. And I think now, you know, we're able to sort of take some of those learnings from those interviews and apply them to both sort of our ad copy itself but also just different landing pages in different language on the different kind of versions of the site and see if we can find some resonance with some of these audience groups. So, it's been interesting. LINDSEY: Are you still trying to figure out who that early adopter audience is, who that niche persona is? MIKE: I think we -- CHRIS: Yes, we are. I think we have a good idea of who it is. And I think right now we're just trying to figure out really how to reach those people. That, I think, is the biggest challenge right now for us. MIKE: Yeah. With the e-commerce experiment it was sort of a very specific niche thing that is a little bit adjacent to what I think we want to be doing longer term with Goodz. And so, it's weird. It's like, we're in a place we're like, oh, we really want to find the people that want this thing. But also, this thing isn't necessarily the thing that we think we're going to make longer term, so let's not worry too hard about finding them. You know what I mean? It's been an interesting sort of back and forth with that. CHRIS: From the interviews that we conducted, you know, we identified three key personas. Most of them have come up, but I'll just relist them. There's the sibling gift giver. There was the merch buyers; these are people who go to concerts and buy merchandise, you know, T-shirts, albums, records, things along those lines to support the artists that they love. And then the final one that was identified we gave the title of the 'Proud Playlister'. And these are people who are really into their digital media platforms, love making playlists, and love sharing those playlists with their friends. And that, I would say, the proud playlister is really the one that we have focused on in terms of the storefront that we launched, like, the product is pretty much specifically for them. But the lessons that we're learning while making this product and trying to get this into the hands of the proud playlisters will feed into kind of the merch buyers. MIKE: Yeah. And I think that, you know, it's funny, like, this week is kind of a poignant week for this, right? Because it's the week that Spotify Wrapped launched, right? So, it's like, in the course of any given year, it's probably, like, the one week of the year that lots and lots and lots of people are thinking about playlists all of a sudden, so trying a little bit to see if we can ride that wave or just kind of dovetail with that a bit, too. LINDSEY: Absolutely. And do you want to give just, like, the really quick reminder of what the product experience is like? MIKE: Oh yeah [laughs], good call. CHRIS: This is a prototype of it. It's called the Goodz Mixtape. Basically, the idea is that you purchase one of these from us. You give us a playlist URL. We program that URL onto the NFC chip that's embedded in the Good itself. And then when you scan this Good, that playlist will come up. So, it's a really great way of you make a playlist for somebody, and you want to gift it to them; this is a great way to do that. You have a special playlist, maybe between you and a friend or you and a partner. This is a good way to commemorate that playlist, turn it into a physical thing, give that digital file value and presence in the physical world. LINDSEY: Great. Okay, so you casually mentioned this launch of an e-commerce store that happened last week. MIKE: It didn't feel casual. LINDSEY: Yeah. Why [laughter]...[inaudible 09:45] real casual. Why did you launch it? How's it going? MIKE: I don't know. Why did we launch it? I mean, well, we wanted to be able to test some assumptions. I think, you know, we wanted to get the brand out there a little bit, get our website out there, kind of introduce the concept. You know, this is a very...not that we've invented this product category, but it is a pretty obscure product category, right? And so, there's a lot of sort of consumer education that I think that has to go on for people to wrap their heads around this and why they'd want this. So, I think we wanted to start that process a little bit correctly, sort of in advance of a larger launch next year, and see if we could find some early community around this. You know, if we can find those core people who just absolutely love this, and connect with it, and go wild around it, then those are the people that we're going to be able to get a ton of information from and build for that persona, right? It's like, cool, these are the people who love this. Let's build more for them and go find other people like this. So, I think, for us, it was that. And then, honestly, it was also just, you know, let's test our manufacturing and fulfillment and logistics capabilities, right? I mean, this is...as much as we are a B2B, you know, SaaS platform or that's what we envision the future of Goodz being, there is a physical component of this. And, you know, we do have that part basically done at this point. But we just, you know, what is it like to order 1,000 of these? What is it like to put these in the mail to people and, you know, actually take orders? And just some of that processing because we do envision a more wholesale future where we're doing, you know, thousands or tens of thousands of this at a time. And so, I think we just want to button up and do some dry runs before we get to those kinds of numbers. CHRIS: I think it also it's important to remember that we are talking in startup time. And while this last week seems like an eternity, it's been a week [laughs] that we've had this in place. So, we're just starting to learn these things, and we plan on continuing to do so. MIKE: Yeah. But I think we thought that getting a website up would be a good way to just start kind of testing everything more. LINDSEY: Great. Danny, what went into deciding what would be in this first version of the site and the e-commerce offering? DANNY: I mean, a lot of it was kind of mostly driven by Chris and Mike. They kind of had a vision and an idea of what they wanted to sell. Obviously, from the user interviews, we were starting to hone in a little bit more and, like, we had some assumptions going into it. I think we ultimately did kind of feel like, yeah, I think, like, the playlisters seem to be, like, the target market. But just hearing it more and hearing more excitement from them was definitely just kind of like, yeah, I think we can double down on this piece. But, ultimately, like, in terms of launching the e-commerce platform, and the storefront, and the website, like, just literally looking at the user journey and being like, how does a user get from getting onto a site, like, as soon as they land there to, like, finishing a purchase? And what points do they need? What are the key things that they need to think through and typically will run into? And a lot of it is just kind of reflecting on our own personal buyer behavior. And, also, as we were getting closer to the launch, starting to work through some of those assumptions about buyer behavior. As we got there, we obviously had some prototypes. We had some screenshots that we were already working with. Like, the design team was already starting to build out some of the site. And so, we would just kind of show it to them, show it to our users, and just be like, hey, like, how do you expect to purchase this? Like, what's the next step that you expect to take? And we'd just kind of, like, continue to iterate on that piece. And so... LINDSEY: Okay. So you were, before launching, even showing some of those mockups and starting to incorporate them in the user interviews. DANNY: Yeah, yeah. I mean, we tried to get it in there in front of them as early as possible, partially because, like, at some point in the user interviews, like, you're mostly just trying to first understand, like, who are our target customers? Who are these people? And we have an assumption of or an idea of who we think they are. But really, like, once you start talking to people, you kind of are, like, okay, like, this thing that I thought maybe it wasn't so accurate, or, like, the way that they're kind of talking about these products doesn't 100% match what I originally walked into this, you know, experiment with. And so, we, like, start to hone in on that. But after a certain point, you kind of get that idea and now you're just like, okay, you seem to be, like, the right person to talk to. And so, if I were to show you this thing, do you get it, right? Like, do you understand what's happening? Like, how to use this thing, what this product even does. And then also, like, does the checkout experience feel intuitive for you? Is it as simple as, like, I just want to buy a T-shirt? So, like, I'm just going to go by the T-shirt, pick a size, and, you know, move on with my life. Can we make it as seamless as that? LINDSEY: And so, you mentioned it's only been a week since it's been live. Have you been able to learn anything from it yet? And how are you trying to drive people to it today? MIKE: Yeah, I think we learned that sales is hard [laughs] and slow, and it takes some time. But it's good, and we're learning a lot. I mean, it's been a while since I've really dug deep in, like, the analytics and marketing kind of metrics. And so, we've got all the Google Tag Manager stuff, you know, hooked up and just, you know, connecting with just exploring, honestly, like the TikTok advertising platform, and the YouTube Pre-Rolls, and Shorts. And, like, a lot of stuff that I actually, since the last time I was heavily involved in this stuff, is just totally new and different. And so, it's been super interesting to see the funnel and sort of see where people are getting in the site, where people are dropping off. You know, we had an interesting conversation in our thoughtbot sync yesterday or the day before, where we were seeing how, you know, we're getting lots of people to the front page and, actually, a good number of people to the product page, and, actually, like, you know, not the worst number of people to the cart. But then you were seeing really high cart abandonment rates. And then, you know, when you start Googling, and you're like, oh, actually, everybody sees very high cart abandonment rates; that's just a thing. But we were seeing, like, the people were viewing their cart seven or eight times, and they were on there sort of five times as long as they were on any other page. And it's this problem that I think Danny is talking about where, you know, we need to actually get a playlist URL. This gets into the minutiae of what we're building, but basically like, we need to get them to give us a playlist URL in order to check out, right? And so, you sort of have to, like, put yourself back in the mind of someone who's scrolling on Instagram, and they see this as an ad, and they click it, and they're like, oh, that thing was cool. Sure, I will buy one of those. And then it's like, no, actually, you need to, you know, leave this, go into a different app, find a play...like, it suddenly just puts a lot of the mental strain. But it's a lot. It's a cognitive load, greater than, as you said, just buying a T-shirt and telling what size you want. So, thinking through ways to really trim that down, shore up the amount of time people are spending on a cart. All that stuff has been fascinating. And then just, like, the different demographic kind of work that we're using, all the social ads platforms to kind of identify has been really interesting. It's still early. But, actually, like, Chris and I were just noticing...we were just talking right before this call. Like, we're actually starting to get, just in the last 12 hours, a bunch more, a bunch, but more people signing up to our email newsletter, probably in the last 12 hours that we have in the whole of last week. Yeah, I don't know, just even that sort of learning, it's like, oh, do people just need time with a thing, or they come back and they think about it? CHRIS: Yeah. Could these people be working on their playlists? That's a question that I have. MIKE: [chuckles] Yeah, me too. CHRIS: It's like, you know, I'm making a playlist to drop into this product. It's really interesting. And I think it gives insight to kind of, you know, how personal this product could be, that this is something that takes effort on the part of the consumer because they're making something to give or to keep for themselves, which is, I think, really interesting but definitely hard, too. DANNY: Yeah. And I also want to also clarify, like, Chris just kind of said it, like, especially for viewers and listeners, like, that's something that we've been hearing a lot from user interviews, too, right? Like, the language that they're using is, like, this is a thing that I care about. Like it's a representation of who I am. It's a representation of, like, the relationship that I have with this person that I'm going to be giving, you know, this gift to or this playlist to, specifically, like, people who feel, like, really passionate about these things. And, I mean, like, I did, too. Like, when I was first trying to, like, date, my wife, like, I spent, like, hours, hours trying to pick the coolest songs that I thought, you know, were like, oh, like, she's going to think I'm so cool because, like, I listen to these, like, super low-key indie rock bands, and, like, you know, so many more hours than she probably spent listening to it. But that's [laughs] kind of, like, honestly, what we heard a lot in a lot of these interviews, so... LINDSEY: Yeah, same. No, totally resonates. And I also went to the site this week, and I was like, oh damn, this is cool. Like, and immediately it was like, oh, you know, I've got these three, you know, music friends that we go to shows together. I'm like, oh, this would be so cool to get them, you know, playlists of, like, music we've seen together. So, you might see me in the cart. I won't abandon it. MIKE: Please. I would love that. CHRIS: Don't think about it too long if you could -- [laughter]. LINDSEY: I won't. I won't. CHRIS: I mean, I would say I'm really excited about having the site not only as a vehicle for selling some of these things but also as a vehicle for just honing our message. It's like another tool that we have in our arsenal. During the user interviews themselves, we were talking in abstract terms, and now we have something concrete that we can bounce off people, which is, I think, going to be a huge boon to our toolset as we continue to refine and define this product. MIKE: Yeah, that's a good point. LINDSEY: Yeah. You mentioned that they're signing up for, like, email updates. Do you have something you're sending out? Or are you kind of just creating a list? Totally fine, just building a list. MIKE: [laughs] No. CHRIS: It's a picture of Mike and I giving a big thumbs up. That's, yeah. [laughter] MIKE: No. But maybe...that was the thing; I was like, oh great, they're signing up. And I was like, gosh, they're signing up. Okay [laughter], now we got to write something. But we will. LINDSEY: Tips to making your playlist [crosstalk 19:11] playing your playlist -- MIKE: Yeah [crosstalk 19:13]. CHRIS: Right. And then also...tips to making your playlists. Also, we're advancing on the collectible side of things, too. We are, hopefully, going to have two pilot programs in place, one with a major label and one with a major artist. And we're really excited about that. LINDSEY: Okay. That's cool. I assume you can't tell us very much. What can you tell us? MIKE: Yeah. We won't mention names [chuckles] in case it just goes away, as these things sometimes do. But yeah, there's a great band who's super excited about these, been around for a long time, some good name recognition, and a very loyal fan base. They want to do sort of a collection of these. I think maybe we showed the little...I can't remember if we showed the little crates that we make or not, but basically, [inaudible 19:52] LINDSEY: The last time, yeah. MIKE: So, they want to sell online a package that's, you know, five or six Goodz in a crate, which I think will be cool and a great sort of sales experiment. And then there's a couple of artists that we're going to do an experiment with that's through their label that's more about tour...basically, giving things away on tour. So, they're going to do some giveaway fan club street team-style experiments with some of these on the road. So, first, it's ideal, provided both those things happen, because we definitely want to be exploring on the road and online stuff. And so, this kind of lets us do both at once and get some real learnings as to kind of how people...because we still don't know. We haven't really put these in people's hands yet. And it's just, like, are people scanning these a lot? Are they not? Is this sort of an object that's sitting on their shelf? Is it...yeah, it's just, like, there's so much we're going to learn once we get these into people's hands. LINDSEY: Do you have the infrastructure to sort of see how many times the cards are scanned? CHRIS: Mm-hmm. Yep, we do. MIKE: Yeah. So, we can see how many times each one is scanned, where they're scanned, that sort of thing. CHRIS: Kind of our next step, and something we were just talking about today with the thoughtbot team, is building out kind of what the backend will be for this, both for users and also for labels and artists. That it will allow them to go in and post updates to the Goodz, to allow them to use these for promotion as people, you know, scan into them to give them links to other sites related to the artists that they might be interested in before they move on to the actual musical playlist. So, that's kind of the next step for us. And knowing how users use these collectibles, both the kind of consumer Good and the artist collectibles that we were just talking about, will help inform how we build that platform. LINDSEY: Very cool. And right now, the online store itself that's built in Shopify? MIKE: Yeah. The homepage is Webflow that Kevin from the thoughtbot team really spearheaded in building for us. And then, yeah, the e-commerce is Shopify. LINDSEY: Y'all have been busy. MIKE: [laughs] LINDSEY: Is there anything else maybe that I haven't asked about yet that we should touch on in terms of updates or things going on with the product? MIKE: I don't know. I don't think so. I think, like Chris said, I mean, we're just...like, now that the site has kind of stood up and we're really switched over to kind of marketing and advertising on that, definitely digging into the backend of this kind of SaaS platform that's going to probably be a big focus for the rest of the, you know, the program, to be honest. Yeah, just some other things we can do on the next front that could eventually build into the backend that I think can be interesting. No, I guess [laughs] the short answer is no, nothing, like, substantial. Those are the big [crosstalk 22:26] LINDSEY: Yeah. Well, that was my next question, too, which is kind of like, what's next, or what's the next chunk of work? So, it's obviously lots more optimization and learning on the e-commerce platform, and then this other mega area, which is, you know, what does this look like as a SaaS solution? What's the vision? But also, where do we start? Which I'm sure, Danny, is a lot of work that you specialize in as far as, like, scoping how to approach these kinds of projects. DANNY: Yeah. And it's interesting because, I mean, we were just talking about this today. Like, part of it is, like, we can, like, really dig into, like, the e-commerce site and, like, really nailing it down to get it to the place where it's like, we're driving tons more traffic and also getting as low of a, like, cart abandonment rate as possible, right? But also, considering the fact that this is in the future, like, large-scale vision. And there's, like, also, like, we're starting to, I think, now iron out a lot of those, like, milestones where we're kind of like, okay, like, we got, like, a short-term vision, which is, like, the e-commerce site. We got a mid-term vision and a potential long-term vision. How do we validate this long-term vision while also still like, keeping this short-term vision moving forward? And, like, this mid-term vision is also going to, like, help potentially, either, like, steer us towards that long-term or maybe even, like, pivot us, like, into a completely different direction. So, like, where do you put your card, right? Like, how much energy and time do we put into, like, each of these areas? And that's kind of, like, the interesting part of this is starting to talk through that, starting to kind of prioritize, like, how we can maximize on our effort, like, our development and design effort so that things just kind of line up more naturally and organically for our future visioning, so... MIKE: Yeah. A lot of different things to juggle. I saw there was a question. Somebody asked what the URL is, but I don't seem to be able to [crosstalk 24:10]. LINDSEY: The same question as me. We got to drop the link for this thing. MIKE: Yeah, getthegoodz.com. CHRIS: That's G-O-O-D-Z. LINDSEY: Get in there, folks MIKE: Yeah, get [crosstalk 24:23]. LINDSEY: And let us know how it goes. MIKE: Yeah, please [laughs]. Any bugs? Let us know. Yeah. I think that those...yeah, I mean, it's a good point, Danny, in terms of juggling kind of the near-term and longer-term stuff. You know, it's a good kind of reminder our big focus, you know, in the new year is going to be fundraising, right? We're already talking to some investors and things like that. So, it's like, okay, yes, as you said, we could tweak the cart. We could tweak the e-commerce. Or, like, can we paint the big picture of what the longer-term version of this company is going to be in a way that makes it compelling for investment to come in so that there can be a long-term version of this company? And then we can build those things. So yeah, it's definitely a balance between the two. LINDSEY: Oh, also, just casual fundraising as well. [crosstalk 25:06] MIKE: Yeah, yeah. LINDSEY: [laughs] MIKE: But it's hard. It's like, you wake up in the morning. It's like, do I want to, like, write cold emails to investors? Or do I want to, like, look at Google Analytics and, like, tweak ad copy? That's actually more fun. So, yes. LINDSEY: Yeah, life of the founder, for sure. All right. So, that's getthegoodz (Goodz with a z) .com. Check it out. We'll tune in and see what happens with the e-commerce site, what happens with the SaaS planning the next time that we check in. But Chris, Mike, Danny, thank you so much for joining today and sharing what's been going on over the last few weeks: the good, the bad, the challenge, the cart abandonment. And, you know, best of luck to you over the next few weeks, and we'll be sure to check in and see how it's going. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions. Special Guests: Chris Cerrito and Mike Rosenthal.
Larry and Chris (and Marisa) try their hand at a little true crime this week.
Rounding Up Season 2 | Episode 7 – Making Fractions More Meaningful Guest: Dr. Susan Empson Mike Wallus: For quite a few adults, fractions were a stumbling block in their education that caused many to lose their footing and begin to doubt their ability to make sense of math. But this doesn't have to be the case for our students. Today on the podcast, we're talking with Dr. Susan Empson about big ideas and fractions and how we can make them more meaningful for our students. Welcome to the podcast. Susan. Thanks for joining us. Susan Empson: Oh, it's so great to be here. Thank you for having me. Mike: So, your book was a real turning point for me as an educator, and one of the things that it did for me at least, it exposed how little that I actually understood about the meaning of fractions. And I say this because I don't think that I'm alone in saying that my own elementary school experience was mostly procedural. So rather than attempting to move kids quickly to procedures, what types of experiences can help children build a more meaningful understanding of fractions? Susan: Great question. Before I get started, I just want to acknowledge my collaborators because I've had many people that I've worked with. There's Linda Levi, co-author of the book, and then my current research partner, Vicki Jacobs. And of course, we wouldn't know anything without many classroom teachers we've worked with in the current and past graduate students. In terms of the types of experiences that can help children build more meaningful experiences of fractions, the main thing we would say is to offer opportunities that allow children to use what they already understand about fractions to solve and discuss story problems. Children's understandings are often informal and early on, for example, may consist mainly partitioning things in half. What I mean by informal is that understandings emerge in situations out of school. So, for example, many children have siblings and have experienced situations where they have had to share, let's say three cookies or slices of pizza between two children. In these kinds of situations, children appreciate the need for equal shares, and they also develop strategies for creating them. So, as children solve and discuss story problems in school, their understandings grow. The important point is that story problems can provide a bridge between children's existing understandings and new understandings of fractions by allowing children to draw on these informal experiences. Generally, we recommend lots of experiences with story problems before moving on to symbolic work to give children plenty of opportunity to develop meaningful fractions. And we also recommend using story problems throughout fraction instruction. Teachers can use different types of story problems and adjust the numbers in those problems to address a range of fraction content. There are also ideas that we think are foundational to understanding fractions, and they're all ideas that can be elicited and developed as children engage in solving and discussing story problems. Susan: So, one idea is that the size of a piece is determined by its relationship to the whole. What I mean is that it's not necessarily the number of pieces into which a whole is partitioned that determines the size of a piece. Instead, it's how many times the piece fits into the whole. So, in their problem-solving, children create these amounts and eventually name them and symbolize them as unit fractions. That's any fraction with 1 in the numerator. Mike: You know, one of the things that stands out for me in that initial description that you offered, is this idea of kids don't just make meaning of fractions at school, that their informal lived experiences are really an asset that we can draw on to help make sense of what a fraction is or how to think about it. Susan: That's a wonderful way to say it. And absolutely, the more teachers get to know the children in their classrooms and the kinds of experiences those children might have outside of school, the more of that can be incorporated into experiences like solving story problems in school. Mike: Well, let's dig into this a little bit. Let's talk a little bit about the kinds of story problems or the structure that actually provides an entry point and can build understanding of fractions for students. Can you talk a bit about that, Susan? Susan: Yes. So, I'll describe a couple types of story problems that we have found especially useful to elicit and develop children's fraction understandings. So first, equal sharing story problems are a powerful type of story problem that can be used at the beginning of and even throughout instruction. These problems involve sharing multiple things among multiple sharers. So, for example, four friends equally sharing 10 oranges. How much orange would each friend get? Problems like this one allow children to create fractional amounts by drawing things, partitioning those things, and then attaching fraction names and symbols. So, let's [talk] a little bit about how a child might solve the oranges problem. A child might begin by drawing four friends and then distributing whole oranges one by one until each friend has two whole oranges. Now, there are two oranges left and not enough to give each friend another whole orange. So, they have to think about how to partition the remaining oranges. Susan: They might partition each orange in half and give one more piece to each friend, or they might partition each of the remaining oranges into fourths and give two pieces to each friend. Finally, they have to think about how to describe how much each friend gets in terms of the wholes and the pieces. They might simply draw the amount, they might shade it in, or they might attach number names to it. I also want to point out that a problem about four friends equally sharing 10 oranges can be solved by children with no formal understanding of fraction names and symbols because there are no fractions in the story problem. The fractions emerge in children's strategies and are represented by the pieces in the answer. The important thing here is that children are engaged in creating pieces and considering how the pieces are related to the wholes or other pieces. The names and symbols can be attached gradually. Mike: So, the question that I wanted to ask is how to deal with this idea of how you name those fractional amounts, because the process that you described to me, what's powerful about it is that I can directly model the situation. I can make sense of partitioning. I think one of the things that I've always wondered about is, do you have a recommendation for how to navigate that naming process? I've got one of something, but it's not really one whole orange. So how do I name that? Susan: That's a great question. Children often know some of the informal names for fractions, and they might understand halves or even fourths. Initially, they may call everything a half or everything a piece or just count everything as one. And so, what teachers can do is have conversations with children about the pieces they've created and how the pieces relate to the whole. A question that we've found to be very helpful is, how many of those pieces fit into the whole? Mike: Got it. Susan: Not a question about how many pieces are there in the whole, but how many of the one piece fit into the whole. Because it then focuses children on thinking about the relationship between the piece and the whole rather than simply counting pieces. Mike: Let's talk about the other problem type that was kind of front and center in your thinking. Susan: Yes. So, another type of story problem that can be used early in fraction instruction involves what we think of as special multiplication and division story problems that have a whole number of groups and a unit fraction amount in each group. So, what do I mean by that? For example, let's say there are six friends and they each will get one-third of a sub sandwich for lunch. So, there's a whole number of groups—that's the six friends—and there's a unit fraction amount in each group that's the one-third of a sandwich that they each get. And then the question is how many sandwiches will be needed for the friends? So, a problem like this one essentially engages children in reasoning about six groups of one-third. And again, as with the equal sharing problem about oranges, they can solve it by drawing out things. They might draw each one-third of a sandwich, and then they have to consider how to combine those to make whole sandwiches. An important idea that children work on with this problem then is that three groups of one-third of a sandwich can be combined to make one whole sandwich. There are other interesting types of story problems, but teachers have found these two types, in particular, effective in developing children's understandings of some of the big ideas and fractions. Mike: I wonder if you have educators who hear you talk about the second type of problem and are a little bit surprised because they perceive it to be multiplication. Susan: Yes, it is surprising. And the key is not that you teach all of multiplying and dividing fractions before adding and subtracting fractions, but that you use these problem types with special number combinations. So, a whole number of groups, for example, the six groups unit fractions in each group—because those are the earliest fractions children understand. And I think maybe one way to think about it is that fractions come out of multiplying and dividing, kind of in the way that whole numbers come out of adding and counting. And the key is to provide situations story problems that have number combinations in them that children are able to work with. Mike: That totally makes sense. Can you say more about the importance of attending to the number combinations? Susan: Yes. Well, I think that the number combinations that you might choose would be the ones that are able to connect with the fraction understandings that children already have. So, for example, if you're working with kindergartners, they might have a sense of what one half is. So, you might choose equal sharing problems that are about sharing things among two children. So, for example, three cookies among two children. You could even, once children are able to name the halves, they create in a problem like that, you can even pose problems that are about five children who each get half of a sandwich, how many sandwiches is that? But those are all numbers that are chosen to allow children to use what they understand about fractions. And then as their understandings grow and their repertoire of fractions also grows, you can increase the difficulty of the numbers. So, at the other end, let's think about fifth grade and posing equal sharing problems. If we take that problem about four friends sharing 10 oranges, we could change the number just a little bit to make it a lot harder to, four friends sharing 10 and a half oranges, and then fifth-graders would be solving a problem that's about finding a fraction of a fraction, sharing the half orange among the four children. Mike: Let me take what you've shared and ask a follow-up question that came to me as you were talking. It strikes me that the design, the number choices that we use in problems matter, but so does the space that the teacher provides for students to develop strategies and also the way that the teacher engages with students around their strategy. Could you talk a little bit about that, Susan? Susan: Yes. We think it's important for children to have space to solve problems, fraction story problems, in ways that make sense to them and also space to share their thinking. So, just as teachers might do with whole number problem-solving in terms of teacher questioning in these spaces, the important thing is for the teacher to be aware of and to appreciate the details of children's thinking. The idea is not to fix children's thinking with questioning, but to understand it or explore it. So, one space that we have found to be rich for this kind of questioning is circulating. So, that's the time when as children solve problems, the teacher circulates and has conversations with individual children about their strategies. So, follow-up questions that focus on the details of children's strategies help children to both articulate their strategies and to reflect on them and help teachers to understand what children's strategies are. We've also found that obvious questions are sometimes underappreciated. So, for example, questions about what this child understands about what's happening in a story problem, what the child has done so far in a partial strategy, even questions about marks on a child's paper; shapes or tallies that you as a teacher may not be quite sure about, asking what they mean to the child. “What are those? Why did you make those? How did they connect with the problem?” So, in some it benefits children to have the time to articulate the details of what they've done, and it benefits the teacher because they learn about children's understandings. Mike: You're making me think about something that I don't know that I had words for before, which is I wonder if, as a field, we have made some progress about giving kids the space that you're talking about with whole number operations, especially with addition and subtraction. And you're also making me wonder if we still have a ways to go about not trying to simply funnel kids to, even if it's not algorithms, answer-getting strategies with rational numbers. I'm wondering if that strikes a chord for you or if that feels off base. Susan: It feels totally on base to me. I think that it is as beneficial, perhaps even more beneficial for children to engage in solving story problems and teachers to have these conversations with them about their strategies. I actually think that fractions provide certain challenges that whole numbers may not, and the kinds of questioning that I'm talking about really depend on the details of what children have done. And so, teachers need to be comfortable with and familiar with children's strategies and how they think about fractions as they solve these problems. And then that understanding, that familiarity, lays the groundwork for teachers to have these conversations. The questions that I'm talking about can't really be planned in advance. Teachers need to be responsive to what the child is doing and saying in the moment. And so that also just adds to the challenge. Mike: I'm wondering if you think that there are ways that educators can draw on the work that students have done composing and decomposing whole numbers to support their understanding of fractions? Susan: Yes. We see lots of parallels just as children's understandings of whole numbers develop. They're able to use these understandings to solve multi-digit operations problems by composing and decomposing numbers. So, for example, to take an easy addition, to add 37 plus eight, a child might say, “I don't know what that is, but I do know how to get from 37 to 40 with three.” So, they take three from the eight, add it to the 37 get to 40, and then once at 40 they might say, “I know that 40 plus five more is 45.” So, in other words, they decompose the eight in a way that helps them use what they understand about decade numbers. Operations with fractions work similarly, but children often do not think about the similarities because they don't understand fractions or numbers to, versus two numbers one on top of the other. Susan: If children understand that fractions can be composed and decomposed just as whole numbers can be composed and decomposed, then they can use these understandings to add, subtract, multiply, and divide fractions. For example, to add one and four-fifths plus three-fifths, a child might say, “I know how to get up to two from one in four-fifths. I need one more fifth, and then I have two more fifths still to add from the three-fifths. So, it's two and two-fifths.” So, in other words, just as they decompose the eight into three and five to add eight to 37, they decompose the three-fifths into one-fifth and two-fifths to add it to one and four-fifths. Mike: I could imagine a problem like one and a half plus five-eighths. I could say, “Well, I know I need to get a half up. Five-eighths is really four-eighths and one-eighths, and four-eighths is a half.” Susan: Yep. Mike: “So, I'm actually going from one and a half plus four-eighths. OK. That gets me to two, and then I've got one more eighth left. So, it's two and an eighth.” Susan: Nice. Yeah, that's exactly the kind of reasoning this approach can encourage. Mike: Well, I have a final question for you, Susan. “Extending Children's Mathematics” came out in 2011, and I'm wondering what you've learned since the book came out. So, are there ideas that you feel like have really been affirmed or refined, and what are some of the questions about the ways that students make meaning of fractions that you're exploring right now? Susan: Well, I think, for one, I have a continued appreciation for the power of equal sharing problems. You can use them to elicit children's informal understandings of fractions early in instruction. You can use them to address a range of fraction understandings, and they can be adapted for a variety of fraction content. So, for example, building meaning for fractions, operating with fractions, concepts of equivalence. Vicki and I are currently writing up results from a big research project focused on teachers' responsiveness to children's fraction thinking during instruction. And right now, we're in the process of analyzing data on third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade children's strategies for equal sharing problems. We specifically focused on over 1,500 drawing-based strategies used by children in a written assessment at the end of the school year. We've been surprised both by the variety of details in these strategies—so, for example, how children represent items, how they decide to distribute pieces to people—and also by the percentages of children using these drawing-based strategies. For each of grades three, four, and five, over 50 percent of children use the drawing-based strategy. There are also, of course, other kinds of strategies that don't depend on drawings that children use, but by far the majority of children were using these strategies. Mike: That's interesting because I think it implies that we perhaps need to recognize that children actually benefit from time using those strategies as a starting point for making sense of the problems that they're solving. Susan: I think it speaks to the length of time and the number of experiences that children need to really build meaning for fractions that they can then use in more symbolic work. I'll mention two other things that we've learned for which we actually have articles in the NCTM publication MTLT, which is “Mathematics Teacher: Learning and Teaching in PK–I2.” So first, we've renewed appreciation for the importance of unit fractions and story problems to elicit and develop big ideas. Another idea is that unit fractions are building blocks of other fractions. So, for example, if children solve the oranges problem by partitioning both of the extra oranges into fourths, then they have to combine the pieces in their answer. One-fourth from each of two oranges makes two-fourths of an orange. Another idea is that one whole can be seen as the same amount as a grouping of same-sized unit fractions. So, those unit fractions can all come from the same hole or different wholes, for example, to solve the problem about six friends who will each get one-third of a sub sandwich. A child has to group the one-third sandwiches to make whole sandwiches. Understanding that the same sandwich can be seen in these two ways, both as three one-third sandwiches or as one whole sandwich, provides a foundation for flexibility and reasoning. For those in the audience who are familiar with CGI, this idea is just like the IDM base ten, that 1 ten is the same amount as ten 1s, or what we describe in shorthand as 10 as a unit. And we also have an article in MTLT. It's about the use of follow-up equations to capture and focus on fraction ideas in children's thinking for their story problems. So basically, teachers listen carefully as children solve problems and explain their thinking to identify ideas that can be represented with the equations. Susan: So, for example, a child solving the sub-sandwiches problem might draw a sandwich partitioned into thirds and say they know that one sandwich can serve three friends because there are three one-thirds in the sandwich. That idea for the child might be drawn, it might be verbally stated. A follow-up equation to capture this idea might be something like one equals one-third plus one-third plus blank, with the question for the child, “Could you finish this equation or make it a true equation?” So, follow-up equation[s] often make ideas about unit fractions explicit and put them into symbolic form for children. And then at the same time, the fractions in the equations are meaningful to children because they are linked to their own meaning-making for a story problem. And so, while follow-up equations are not exactly a question, they are something that teachers can engage children with in the moment as a way to kind of put some symbols onto what they are saying, help children to reflect on what they're saying or what they've drawn, in ways that point towards the use of symbols. Mike: That really makes sense. Susan: So, they could be encouraged to shade in the piece and count the total number of pieces into which an orange is cut. However, we have found that a better question is, how many of this size piece fit into the whole? Because it focuses children on the relationship between the piece and the whole, and not on only counting pieces. Mike: Oh, that was wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us, Susan. It's really been a pleasure talking with you. Susan: Thank you. It's been my pleasure. I've really enjoyed this conversation. Mike: This podcast is brought to you by The Math Learning Center and the Maier Math Foundation, dedicated to inspiring and enabling individuals to discover and develop their mathematical confidence and ability. © 2023 The Math Learning Center | www.mathlearningcenter.org
If you missed the first episode with thoughtbot Incubator Program partcipants and founders Mike Rosenthal and Chris Cerrito of Goodz, you can go here first (https://www.giantrobots.fm/s3e2incubatorgoodz) to catch up! Startup founders Mike Rosenthal and Chris Cerrito are participating in thoughtbot's eight-week incubator program. Mike, with a background in the music industry, and Chris, experienced in physical computing and exhibit development, are collaborating on a startup that creates physical objects linked to digital content, primarily in music. Their goal is to enhance the connection between tangible and digital experiences, starting with a product that resembles a mixtape, using NFC technology for easy access to digital playlists. This project is unique within the thoughtbot incubator as it's the first pure consumer product and involves both physical and digital elements. The team is engaged in user interviews and market validation, with the aim of launching a physical product with a digital backend. They are exploring various marketing strategies for the product and are in the process of building its technical backend. Transcript: LINDSEY: All right. I'm going to kick us off here. Thanks, everyone, for tuning in. We're doing our first update with two founders that are now going through the Startup incubator at thoughtbot. thoughtbot, if you're not familiar, product design and development consultancy. We'll help you on your product and make your team a success. One of the very fun ways we do that is through the startup thoughtbot incubator, which is an eight-week program. So, with us today, I myself am Lindsey Christensen, marketing for thoughtbot. We also have Jordyn Bonds, who is our Director of Product Strategy and runs the thoughtbot incubator. And then, as I mentioned, we've got two new founders who are going to tell us a little bit about themselves and what they're working on. Mike Rosenthal, let's kick off with you. Can you tell us a little bit about maybe your background and what brings you to present day? MIKE: Sure. First of, thanks for having us. It's been a lot of fun doing this over the last [inaudible 01:03]; it's only two weeks, two and a half weeks, something like that. It feels like a lot more. I come from a music industry background, so worked in sort of marketing and strategy for artists for a long time; worked with a band called OK Go back, sort of starting in 2009 or so. I did a lot of early kind of viral music video stuff. And we were sort of early to the idea of sort of leveraging fan engagement and revenue, honestly, kind of beyond sort of just selling their music and touring, so sort of exploring other ways that artists can make money and connect with their fans and was with those guys for five years. And then, I went on and worked at an artist management company in Brooklyn called Mick Management and ran the marketing department there, so doing similar type of work but for a roster of 2025 major label bands. And so, really got to see fan engagement on all different levels, from really large bands down to baby bands who were just getting started. And then, yeah, started my first startup in 2018, so doing sort of fan engagement work, and NFTs, and blockchain-type stuff working with bands, but then also sports and entertainment properties. Yeah, that kind of brings me here. So, always been sort of on the music side of things, which ties into a lot of what Chris and I are working on now, but more generally, sort of fan engagement and how to, you know, drive revenue and engagement for artists and deliver value for fans. LINDSEY: Very interesting. All right, Chris, going to head over to you. Chris Cerrito, can you tell us a bit about your background? And it sounds like yours and Mike's paths; this isn't the first time you've crossed. CHRIS: No. Mike and I have been working together since 2007, I believe. Yeah, that's a great place to start. I've always been kind of a maker and a tinkerer, always been interested in art materials, how things are put together. And that kind of culminated at grad school, where Mike and I met at NYU, where we both studied physical computing and human-computer interaction, making weird things that kind of changed the way that people interact and play with technology in their day-to-day lives. I think the first project he and I worked on together was a solar robotic band that we played with light in front of a bunch of people. It was very wonderful and confusing at the same time. After grad school, I was lucky enough to become a resident artist and then an exhibit developer at a museum in San Francisco called the Exploratorium, which is a museum of science, art, and human perception. I spent ten years there working on exhibits teaching people things ranging from, let's see, I built a dueling water fountain to teach visitors and users about the prisoner's dilemma. I built a photo booth that used computer vision to teach people about the microbiome that lives on their face, like, just all kinds of weird things like that that fuse the digital and the physical worlds. I loved my time there. And then kind of COVID hit and I realized that everything I had been working on for ten years was locked up in a museum that I no longer had access to. And it really gave me a desire to kind of bring my ideas into the physical world. I wanted to make things that people interact with and use in their lives on a day-to-day basis. And I would say that's really what brought me here to this point. LINDSEY: Very cool. Very interesting backgrounds, in my opinion. What is the new idea? What is the thing that you're bringing into the incubator? Mike, I'll start with you. Tell us a bit about what you're working on. MIKE: Chris and I are working on physical objects that connect to digital content is sort of the broadest way that I could describe it. I think, you know, as Chris kind of mentioned, you know, we've both been working on sort of physical things that have interactivity for a lot of our careers. I think we both come from an era of a lot more physical objects in your life, whether that's, you know, VHS cassettes at your parent's house growing up, or records and tape cassettes, and just sort of physical things that remind you of the things that you love. And I think that, you know, cell phones are great, and the sort of the smartphone era is amazing and having, you know, every single song, and movie, and television show and podcasts, et cetera, in a black box in my pocket is great. But I think we've sort of gotten to a point where it's more of an organizational problem now than anything else. And we sort of forget the actual things that we love in this world. And so, we're working on basically making physical objects to tie to digital content, and we're starting with music. And that's what we've been working on at thoughtbot is sort of how we can create physical things that basically you can tap, and that will take you to streaming content. One of the first things we're working on literally looks like sort of a little mixtape on a piece of wood, and you can just load that up with any sort of playlist that you might have on Spotify, or Apple Music, or YouTube, or whatever, and tap it, and it will take you there. And so, it's just sort of that idea of like, oh, we used to be able to sort of flip through a friend's music collection and judge them ruthlessly, or become even better friends with them based on kind of what you saw there. And we think that the time is ripe for, I don't know, a blend of that nostalgia with actual sort of, like, real-world utility that people could be into this right now. Chris, what am I missing there? CHRIS: I'd say just to expand on that a little bit, it's, you know, we spend so much time in the digital world, but we still exist in the physical. And a lot of the things, like, you might spend a really long time editing a photo for your parents or making a playlist for a friend, and there's, like, a value there that might not translate because it's digital. It's ephemeral. And I think tying these digital assets to a physical thing makes them special. It gives them, like, a permanent place in your life, something to respect, to hold on to, and maybe even pass down at some point. LINDSEY: Yeah, and I think before we logged on, we actually had Jordyn and Mike grabbing cassette tapes from the room there and to show us -- MIKE: [inaudible 06:49] LINDSEY: What [laughs] was some of their collection and to prove some of the power of these physical –- MIKE: Nothing, like, just old mixtapes. LINDSEY: Mementos. MIKE: Yeah. We were just talking about this on our sync with the thoughtbot crew. They're, like, there's sort of two levels of nostalgia. There's nostalgia for people like us who, yeah, [crosstalk 07:09] mixtapes, right? For people who actually grew up with this stuff and still have it lying around or don't but, like, look at something like that that gives you, like, instant flashbacks, right? You're like, oh my God, I remember scrolling on that little j-card or, like, getting a mixtape for my first, you know, boyfriend or girlfriend, and having it just mean everything. So, there's people for whom that was a thing. And there's, you know, generations of people for whom that is, like, their only connection to that is, you know, Stranger Things or, like, you know, the mixtape exists in pop culture as a reference. So, there's still, like, a very strong attachment there, but it's not a personal one, right? It's a cultural one. But I think everybody has that connection. So, that's kind of why we're starting with the mixtape, just because I think everyone can kind of relate to that in some way. LINDSEY: Yeah, no, yeah. When I hear mixtape, it goes immediately to crushes. You make a mixtape for your crush. CHRIS: Exactly. LINDSEY: It's a huge, powerful market, powerful. MIKE: Oh my God, so powerful. I mean, yeah, I don't know anybody -- LINDSEY: What's more motivating? MIKE: [laughs] Yeah, exactly. CHRIS: Or even just I have a really good friend who I don't get to see as often as I'd like. And he and I are constantly sending each other, you know, Spotify links and text messages. And it's great. I love that interaction. But at the same time, you know, I might forget to add that to a playlist, and then it's kind of lost. If I had taken the time to make something and send it to him physically or vice versa, it just becomes so much more special and so much more real. MIKE: Yeah. I mean, honestly, I first made these...I mean, we can go to this origin if we want. But, like, I literally just went on moo.com, right? The business card company. And they let you upload, you know, 50 different images, and they'll send you all of those as business cards. And so, I literally went on and just made business cards of all the album covers of, like, albums that I loved growing up, right? And their cheapest is this little piece of cardboard. But I had 50 of these, and I'd put them all out on my coffee table, just as something I wanted to have around. And people kept coming, you know, friends would come over, and you would just have these conversations that I haven't had in 10 or 15 years, right? Because no one's going to come to my house and pick up my phone and look at my Spotify collection. But if these things are all just sitting out, they're like, "Oh shit, you're into that? Like, I haven't thought about that album in 15 years." Or like, "Oh, I didn't know you were into that. I'm, like, a crazy super fan of that artist as well." And all of a sudden, we're having these conversations that we just weren't having. Yeah, there's something there where it's all been nostalgia coupled with the kind of prompting of conversation and connection that we've kind of lost, I think. CHRIS: And I think just to clarify a little bit on what Mike's saying, is, you know, this mixtape will be our first product launch, and then we're hoping to move into collectibles for artists and labels. So, shortly after we launch this tape, we're hoping to launch some kind of pilot with a label where you will be able to buy a version of this for your favorite music artist at a merch table in a concert, possibly online. Our dream is to have these sitting there on the table with T-shirts, and records, and other things that artists sell so you can express for the artists that you love. This is a way of expressing your fandom. LINDSEY: Jordyn, heading over to you, this feels like maybe the first consumer product that has gone through the incubator, would you say? Or how do you think about it? JORDYN: Yeah, if you're a consumer -- LINDSEY: Or is it different than other types of products? JORDYN: Yeah, the first incubator project we did with Senga was, I think, what you would call prosumer. So, it was sort of a consumer thing but directed at folks who had kind of freelancing in sort of a business context. It's got a lot of dynamics of the consumer. But this one, for sure, is the first pure consumer play. Though now that I'm thinking about it, you know, AvidFirst had some consumer elements to it, but it was, you know, it was, like, more complex tech [laughs] [inaudible 10:46] totally different thing -- LINDSEY: But definitely the first of the physical, physical [inaudible 10:52] JORDYN: Oh, sure, the first of the physical thing. Right. Absolutely. LINDSEY: Does that change any of, like, the approach of the programming, or it's kind of -- JORDYN: I mean, no, not fundamentally, though it does add this layer of operations that you don't have with a pure software play. So, we have to be, there is a thing that needs to get shipped to people in the world, and that takes timelines, and it takes -- LINDSEY: Supply chain. JORDYN: Yeah, exactly. And Chris is doing most of that stuff. I don't want to, you know, this is not, like, the main focus of our team necessarily, but it intersects, right? So, this isn't the first one of these types of products I've worked on personally in my career. But there's something, like, really, for me, very fulfilling about, like, there's software. There's a big component of software. There's also this physical object that needs to exist in the world. And partly, what's so compelling about Goodz is that it gives you the promise of a physical, like, the sort of good aspects of a physical product, a thing you can hold in your hand and look at and really connect with in that physical way. But it has this dynamic digital, like, essential quality as well. So, it's very compelling as a product because it sort of marries the things that we like about both the physical world and the digital world, which is partly why the team was really excited about working on it [laughs]. LINDSEY: Well, that was going to be my next question is, you know, what stood out to you about the Goodz application for the incubator and the interview process that made you and the team feel like this was going to be a great project to work on? JORDYN: Yeah. So, I think just the team really resonated with the sort of idea in general, and it seemed fun. There was, like, it's a very positive thing, right? It isn't so much about solving problems and pain points. And, sometimes the, you know, when you're very focused on solving problems, it can feel a little doomy because you actually have to, like, immerse yourself in the problems of the people that you're making software for. And sometimes, you start to feel like the world is just full of problems. What Goodz is doing is sort of it is solving a problem in a sense, but not in that kind of way. It's really, like, a fun upside kind of thing, which I think a lot of the folks on the team were very excited about. But, like, the software component, actually, is very interesting to us from a technological standpoint as well. There's a lot of opportunity here to do interesting things on the backend with an object that's essentially functioning as a bookmark out in the world. What all can you do with that? There's something super compelling and technically interesting about it. And I think, also, the team was just sort of excited by Chris and Mike, you know, the energy and the kind of background they were bringing to the table was also super interesting. And then, above all else, what I say every time you ask me this question, which is stage fit, y'all, good stage fit. They're right at the beginning. They haven't built the product yet [laughs]. Gotta say it. It's a good stage fit. They know who they're building for broadly but not super specifically. Got a good vision but, like, haven't made that first step with the software. Perfect stage fit for us [laughs]. LINDSEY: Great. So, Chris, we were talking a bit before about how you two have been collaborators in the past, worked on business ideas before. Why bring this idea into the thoughtbot incubator? What are you hoping to, you know, achieve? CHRIS: One of the main reasons why we wanted to bring this into the incubator was just for support, momentum, and then, also, I would say validation for our idea. I mean, we came to the incubator with a very, yeah, I would say it was a fairly developed idea that needed to be proved, and we, quite frankly, needed help with that. You know, Mike and I have our own expertises, but we don't know how to do everything. We're more than willing to jump in where we need to go. But having people with expertise to work with has proven to be incredibly helpful and just having kind of fresh faces to bat ideas around with after he and I have been staring at each other for months now on Zoom calls and meetings. And just, you know, being able to talk about these ideas with fresh faces and new people and get new perspectives has been so very, very helpful. I think something that's also great from the momentum standpoint is that because there's a time limit to this experience, we've got the time that we have with you guys, and we've been able to set goals that I think are very achievable for things we want to occur in the next couple of months, and it feels like we're going to get there. And I think by the end of this, I mean, our hope, and I think we're on track, is to have a functioning physical product that we're going to offer to consumers with a digital backend to support it, which is, in my mind, amazing. That'll totally validate this idea and prove if we have something or not. LINDSEY: I was going to ask if you're open to sharing what those goals specifically are. Is that it? Is it that by the end, you have -- MIKE: Is that it? Lindsey, that's a lot. [laughter] CHRIS: It's a lot. I mean, yeah. I mean, we're going to have a physical object in the world that you can buy via an e-commerce site -- JORDYN: Sounds like we need Lindsey on the team if Lindsey feels like this is so achievable. [laughter] CHRIS: Yeah, yeah. Lindsey...yeah. We're in the beginning [crosstalk 15:47] LINDSEY: I meant, is that the goal? CHRIS: That is the goal. LINDSEY: Is that all? CHRIS: I was going to –- LINDSEY: Is that all you got? CHRIS: Mike, do you agree? MIKE: Yeah. Is that the goal? Yes, that is the goal. I mean, you know, when we sat down with the thoughtbot team kind of week one, you know, they're sort of like, "All right, let's define kind of the experiment." So, we refer to them as experiments, which I think is helpful because, like, what are the experiments that we want to be doing during our time here? And, you know, we talked about it a lot. And yeah, I think it's, you know, having a physical product out in the world, having a website in which to sell it. But also, it's really, like Chris was saying, it's like, it's market validation, and just making sure we actually have something that people want. It's like, you know, running a startup takes so long and, like [laughs], you know, you'll do it for so many years. It's like bands when people say, like, "Oh, that's an overnight sensation." It's like, you know, that band has been slogging it out in tiny, little venues for four years before you ever heard of them. It's like, that's what so much of the startup world feels like to me, too. It's like, "Oh, you're just getting started as a startup?" It's like, "Well, we've been working on this forever." And I know how long this can take. And so, I think we want to learn as early as possible, like, is this something people actually want? Because if they don't, like, we'll just go do something else. I don't want to spend years making something that people don't want. So, I think the biggest goal, for me, is just validation, and then that is sort of how we get there is like, okay, how do we validate this? Cool. Let's identify some, you know, assumptions of personas that we think are people who do actually want this and then try to go sell it to them. And all the implications from that are, okay, well, you need a website where somebody can buy it. You need a physical product that somebody can actually buy. So, all those things sort of come out of that, but, for me, it's like, proving that assumption, is this thing real? Do people actually want this? And everything else is like, okay, how do we prove that? LINDSEY: Jordyn, what does that look like in these first few weeks here? User interviews, I assume, how are the user interviews going? JORDYN: Always. Always. So, you know, we kick it off by just, like, doing the exercise where we list everybody who might want this. And the team, you know, it's a fun product. Everybody brought their own assumptions and ideas to the table on that. You know, we had a lot of different scenarios we were imagining. It's super fun getting that stuff out of people's heads, just, like, what are we all thinking? And then, you know, we get to negotiate, like, okay...I always encourage everyone to think, like, if everyone else on the team was on the moon, you had to make a decision about a market segment to pick; which one would you pick? And then we kind of argue about it in a productive way. It really helps us get at, like, what are the dynamics that we think matter upfront? And then we pick one, or, in this case, we have a few. We have a handful. And we're running interview projects where we just recruit people to talk about people that meet this persona, talk about a specific problem. We're in the middle of that right now. And it's fun, fantastic. These conversations are super interesting. We're validating a lot of the things that Mike and Chris, you know, walked into this with, but we're learning a bunch of new things as well. And, like, really, part of the aim there is to validate that there's a hole in the market that we might fill but also to hear the language people are using to describe this stuff. So, when people talk about buying music, merch, you know, making playlists, et cetera, like, what language do they use to talk about that? So that we make sure we're speaking the language that our customer uses to describe this stuff. And we're, you know, we're right in the pocket of doing that, learning stuff all the time. And it helps us kind of hone the messaging. It helps us know where to go talk to people about it, how to talk about it, but it's, you know, it all kind of fits together. And it's just this, really...the early stages. It's just a bunch of us in a room, a virtual room, in this case, sort of, like, tossing ideas around. But out of it crystallizes this sense of alignment about who this is for, how to talk to them about it, and with a goal. And, you know, Mike and Chris walked in with the exact right mindset about this, which is, yes, it's experiments. We need to validate it. Let's make sure there's a there-there. If there's a there-there, let's figure out where it is [laughs], like, all those things. And we're running these experiments, and it was really [inaudible 19:36]. We got down to business quite quickly here. It was really great. LINDSEY: Like you said, it's not necessarily a problem or, you know, the typical framing of a problem. How do you start those user interview questions around this? Do you feel a gap between the physical and the digital sound? [laughter] JORDYN: No, no. LINDSEY: It's maybe not it [laughs]. JORDYN: Yeah, no. Well, I can tell you what our startup questions are. One of them is, tell me about the last time you bought music merch. Go for it, Lindsey. Tell us. LINDSEY: The last time I bought music merch I went to a Tegan and Sara concert a few weeks ago, and I bought a T-shirt. JORDYN: Tell me about buying that T-shirt. Why'd you buy it? LINDSEY: Because I wanted to remember the show and my time with my friends, and I wanted to support the artists. I know that buying merch is the best way to support your favorite touring artists. JORDYN: So, it's just, you know, we could spend the rest of this time talking [laughter] [crosstalk 20:34], and it would be awesome. So, it's really a lot of things like that. LINDSEY: Gotcha. JORDYN: You don't ask, "What problem are you trying to solve by buying this t-shirt?" Right? Like, that's not, you know, but we ask you to tell us a bunch of stories about when you did this recently. You know, and if you make playlists for friends, you know, that's a different persona. But we would have asked, you know, like, "Tell me about the last playlist you made. You know, who did you share it with? You know, what happened after that? What happened after that? What happened after that?" It's a lot of questions like that. And there's just nothing better. People love to tell you what's going on with them. And it's great [laughs]. LINDSEY: Yeah. As you all have been doing these interviews, Mike and Chris, have you been surprised by anything? Any interesting insights that you're seeing already? CHRIS: I mean, I haven't done really much in the way of user interviews in the past. This is a really new experience for me. And then we're, obviously, not on the calls because that would be weird and probably intimidating for people. But we're getting lots of highlights from folks who are doing them, you know, in our daily sync. And I'm surprised at how many, like, really intense, like, playlist nerds we have found even just in, like, the few people we've talked to, like, in the best possible way. Like, people who are like, "I make playlists all the time." Like, you're talking about, like, a vinyl fan or, like, a...Jordyn, what's the story? It's, like, the guy who there was so much out-of-print vinyl that he started a vinyl label just to get the albums in vinyl. [crosstalk 21:56] JORDYN: Yeah. There were a bunch of releases that he feels really passionately about that were never released on vinyl that he knew would never be released on vinyl. And so, he started a vinyl record label. And we just found this guy [laughter]. CHRIS: Is that indicative that that's, like, an entire persona we're going to, like, target? Absolutely not. But it's just, like, it's amazing that even just in the few user interviews we've done, that we've found so many very passionate people. And it's sent me down, like, a TikTok rabbit hole of, like, TikTok, like, music nerd influencer-type folks who are posting playlists. And they, like, hundreds of thousands of likes on these videos that are literally just, like, screen with text on it that you're supposed to, like, pause the video [laughs] and, like, look at, like, the songs that they're recommending. And it's like, who does that? And it was like, these people do that. And it's like, so there are...it's been very encouraging to me, actually. I was worried that we were going to find not as much passion as we had suspected, and I think the opposite has proven to be true. So, it's exciting. CHRIS: Yeah, I completely agree with Mike. It's been so encouraging. I think, for me, what we're doing is an idea that I'm very excited about and have been very excited about for a long time. But hearing the responses that we're getting makes me confident in the idea, too. That's great. I mean, I think that is everything that a founder needs, you know, is excitement and confidence. MIKE: Well, and just the whole user interview experience has, like, made a lot of my other conversations sort of I've tried to frame parts of them as user interviews because I'm talking to a lot of, like, label folks now, and artists, merch people. And, you know, I ended up just sort of, like, asking them, I mean, yes, trying to explain the product and work on kind of partnership stuff, but a lot of it is really just geeking out with them. And just, like, hearing their thoughts about, like, what they love about merch because these are people that clearly think about this stuff all the time. So, it's definitely kind of, like, tuned my other conversations into trying to get unbiased feedback. LINDSEY: Yeah. Everything is a little user interview now. MIKE: Yeah, exactly. LINDSEY: Get that angle in there. All right, so some early validation and excitement. That's really cool to hear. Any challenges or, you know, other kinds of learnings early on? Anything that's been invalidated? MIKE: I don't know that we're there yet. [inaudible 24:02] Chris, I don't know. I'm happy to find that some things are invalidated, but I don't really feel...you know, some of the personas that we decided or maybe just one of the personas we decided to pursue, I think we're having a hard time having those user interviews kind of really bear fruit, but that's helpful, too, actually. I mean, it's like, okay, well, maybe that's not a group that we target. JORDYN: Yeah. It's about, like [inaudible 24:24]. I encourage folks not to think about this like a 'no, not that,' and instead think of it as like a 'not yet.' And that's, I think, the dynamic here with a couple of the personas we were interested in. It's just been turned into kind of, like, a not yet for reasons that we very quickly figured out, but we'll get there. It's just a matter of figuring out we had some other personas take precedence because they're more sort of red, hot in a way, right? It's just easier to get in contact with these people, or it's, like, clear what they're going for or what they need from the market. So, you know, we have this whole list, and it was not clear at first who was going to kind of stand out. But we've kind of found some focus there, which means, invariably, that there's things that are falling out of the frame for now, and you're kind of de-prioritizing them. But it really is, like, a we'll get to that [laughs]. We'll eventually get to that. LINDSEY: Yeah. And part of the process, who's going to rise to the top right now? JORDYN: Yeah, exactly. LINDSEY: Do you have anything you can show and tell with us today or not yet? MIKE: So, Chris has been hard at work on all the physical side of this stuff and going back and forth with our manufacturing partner and all that good stuff. But we have a final version of the mixtape product. LINDSEY: For when this gets pulled into the podcast, Mike's showing us a physical card. CHRIS: It's a small card, and we call them Goodz. And it's printed on three-millimeter plywood using a UV printing process, super durable. And this is something you can put in your pocket. You're not going to wreck it. I think you could actually (Don't quote me on this.), but I think you can even, like, put it through a washing machine, and it would be fine. Embedded in this card is a chip that can be read by your phone, and that's pretty much what we're working with. MIKE: Yeah, so the idea is you just sort of tap this, and it'll take you to a streaming version of a playlist. And then Chris has also been making these adorable crates. And [crosstalk 26:10] LINDSEY: The little crates I love. MIKE: And we actually have some wooden ones, too, in the testing that's [crosstalk 26:15] LINDSEY: And then the mixtapes get stored in the little crates [crosstalk 26:19] MIKE: Yeah. So, you could have -- LINDSEY: Throw it on your desk. CHRIS: Each crate can hold about, I think, 15 of these things. What's really cool about this product on the physical side is we are using a tried-and-true technology, which is NFC chips. These are things that make Apple Pay work, make Google Pay work. They are in your E-ZPass when you drive through a toll booth. This is stuff that's been around for years. So, we're just kind of leveraging this technology that's been around for so long in a new way. MIKE: Yeah, I think it's similar to kind of the evolution of QR codes, right? It's like they were sort of around forever, and then it was, like, COVID and restaurant menus kind of kicked those into mainstream. Like, NFC has been around for a long time. It's very tried and true. It's affordable. But I want to say Apple only turned it on by default, like, the NFC reader in the iPhone in the last, like, 18 to 24 months, right? Like, it started...like, it's been around for a while, but they're sort of slowly kind of...and now you just sort of see it everywhere. People are using it on the subways in New York to scan for tickets or for accessing stuff. I was also just showing Chris has been prototyping with the ability to sort of keep these on a key ring. So, we have, like, a little chain hole on them. It is [inaudible 27:22] to sort of have this on your backpack or, you know, on a key ring, or something like that. And friends could kind of, like, come up to you and just, like, scan one that looks interesting. CHRIS: And yeah, something that's awesome about this is you don't need an app. You don't need to download anything. As long as your NFC reader is on when you scan this, it will bring you to the music that it's linked to, which I think is awesome. So, I mean, my dream is to have these, like, hanging off of people's backpacks so I can, like, scan them in the subway or, you know, it's such, like, an easy thing to do. And it requires so little technical time on the user's end to be able to do it. LINDSEY: Oh, we got a question here. "So, Moo used to offer NFC cards. What made you decide to do the thicker plywood model?" CHRIS: Durability is really what it comes down to. We wanted something that felt like an object that you can have and treasure. Like, these have weight, you know, these feel like something, not just a piece of paper. This is something that you can have and [inaudible 28:22] your desk, and it's not going to fade in the sunlight. It's not going to disintegrate over time. This is something that's going to last. MIKE: Yeah, the cards would definitely, like, as I would sort of carry them around and show them to people and stuff, the cards would start, you know, breaking. It's like having a business card in your pocket, right? Eventually, it's going to kind of wear out. And plus, we had, like, the stickers were visible on the back of them. And we were, like, having the sticker just completely disappear inside the wood it just feels a little bit more like magic. LINDSEY: Well, thanks for demoing there. I put you on the spot a little bit. But they are...I had seen them in the Slack, and they're very cool [laughs]. So, I had to ask if we could show them off a bit. MIKE: Of course. CHRIS: I think another thing to think about, too, is we've been talking a lot about the user experience. But if and when we get to the point of making these for artists, artists will be able to collect so much data off of the way that people buy and collect and use these things over time, which is something that we're really, really excited about. And also, you know, we're working on a way to make the link in the object updatable over time. So, artists will be able to change what a card points do to inform their users about the latest and greatest thing. LINDSEY: Very cool. Jordyn, what's next on the programming agenda for Chris and Mike? JORDYN: It's really sort of we're in this, like, iterative cycle. So, we're talking to folks. We're working on the website. The conversations we're having with people are informing how we're framing this first experiment with the mixtape, how we're marketing it, who we're marketing it to. I think next up is probably a Google Ad experiment to really see if we can piggyback on some stuff or at least figure out a new consumer product. It's so tough, right? It's also not a thing people are searching for. So, we have to come up with some experiments for how we get people to that website [laughs]. So, you know, Google Ads funnels is just something you kind of have to do because it's very interesting to figure out what people are responding to, what people are searching for. But we're going to have a bunch of other experiments as well and non-experiments. Outbound experiments: can we go to people? Can we get listed in a gift-buying guide for the holidays? Or, like, we don't know. There's a bunch of experiments we need to do around that, which is really just this iteration. We won't stop talking to users but, you know, everything we're hearing from them will inform where we go and how we talk to the folks in those places where we end up. And really, it's just about starting...once this is up and, you know, there's, like, an orderable thing, there's, like, a whole data cycle where we start to learn from the stuff we're testing; we actually have some real data for it, and we can start to tweak, iterate and change our strategy. But the bigger thing, also, is this bigger platform. So, the next thing really, the big next thing, is to sort of start to scope and create an architecture idea. What's it going to take to build the actual backend thing? And it's the thing that thoughtbot really [laughs] excels at, which is software. So, you know, that's the big next kind of project. Once the mixtape experiment is sort of out and in flight and we're getting data, we really need to turn our attention to the technical backend. LINDSEY: Exciting. Another comment/question from Jeff, who maybe needs a user interview. "Love the crate more than the actual albums. Maybe offer collections of artists." MIKE: Yeah, that's the plan. CHRIS: Yeah, definitely. It's a good idea. Yeah, it's, I mean, and labels get to, especially, like, small indie labels get really excited about doing, like, crates worth of collections of different artists or, like, you know, digging through their back catalog, their subscription services. There's a lot of different angles for sure about that idea. LINDSEY: [inaudible 31:55] Chris and Mike, going into this next section of the programming, for anyone watching right now, or watching the recording, or listening to the recording, any action items from them? You know, are you looking for any user interviews or have any survey or any destinations you'd like to send people yet? CHRIS: Not quite yet, but soon, I would say. Well -- MIKE: I mean, [inaudible 32:19] plug the website, I mean, you know, I think we've got, like, an email to sign up from there, right? The URL is getthegoodz.com and I [crosstalk 32:27] LINDSEY: Goodz with a Z. MIKE: Goodz with a Z. CHRIS: With Z. MIKE: So yeah, if you want to go there, you can sign up. I think there's an email signup on there to learn more. LINDSEY: Perfect. All right. getthegoodz.com email sign up. To stay up to date on Goodz and the incubator, you can follow along on the thoughtbot blog. You know, as always, send us any questions you might have, and we're happy to get to those. But otherwise, thanks for listening. And thank you all — Jordyn, Chris, and Mike. Thanks so much for joining today and sharing and being open about your stories so far. MIKE: Thank you. CHRIS: Yeah, thank you, Lindsey. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions.
If you still see yourself as just someone who sells houses, you might need to reevaluate. In this market, you should be an entrepreneur. You should constantly be looking for new ways to make money in this market and new ways to capitalize on a shifting market.ResourceDan's WebsiteReal Estate Marketing DudeThe Listing Advocate (Earn more listings!)REMD on YouTubeREMD on InstagramTranscript:00:03:33:13 - 00:04:04:18UnknownSo how do you attract new business? You constantly don't have to chase it. Hi, I'm Mike Webster, Real Estate Marketing Dave. And this podcast is all about building a strong personal brand. People have come to know like trust and most importantly, refer. But remember, it is not their job to remember what you do for a living. It's your job to remind them, Let's get started.00:04:04:20 - 00:04:25:06UnknownWhat's up? Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Other Up. So the Real Estate Marketing Dude podcast folks, Rome is burning. Things are going all crazy. Holy shit. There's another NAR lawsuit. This one claims to take down the industry. The number two just came out, I think, yesterday. Folks, this is not going away. And what's going to happen? Sorry, my mic's like pulling on me.00:04:25:06 - 00:04:43:04UnknownBut what's going to happen is that the cream is going to. What's up? What's the saying? The cream rise of the top or what am I trying to say? Cream rises to the top. I think that's what what I'm trying to say. But that's what's going to happen. This is like a what's the DA wisdom rule called survival of the fittest.00:04:43:04 - 00:05:08:11UnknownRight? That's what's going to happen. Survival of the fittest right now. And people are freaking out. I'm loving it. Like, not that people are freaking out, but I just see nothing but giant opportunities because I love paradigm shifts in the market when everything is going so smooth, so easy, no one changes and you become complacent. And that's that complacency that's got you kicking yourself in the pants right now because you haven't changed in the market.00:05:08:11 - 00:05:25:18UnknownJust caught you with your pants down. And when that happens, you have to change. And so many people are just stuck right now. They're like still like me and they're not doing anything. But folks, if you listen and pay attention, if I told you last quarter here, it's just going to be about what to do when that shit changes and this is going to be one of those shows.00:05:25:20 - 00:05:42:24UnknownSo we brought on Coach Dan Gordon and Dan is going to go out and Ganz. A whole brand is for bad ass entrepreneurs only. Okay, so we're going to talk to you about entrepreneurial ism because you're not another salesperson chasing a check. You're selling houses in real estate. You're you don't work for your broker, you work for yourself.00:05:43:05 - 00:06:00:03UnknownAnd if you're not positioned as an entrepreneur or you don't view yourself as an entrepreneur, I will promise you you're going to be out of business in the next 6 to 12 months. So without further ado, let's go ahead and introduce our guest coach. Dan, what's up, Dan? Mike, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I just.00:06:00:03 - 00:06:22:09UnknownI love what you shared. I am a big fan of things changing. I'm a big fan of things breaking in. I'm a big fan of things failing because in breaking, failing and changing, that's where you learn the most about yourself. That's where you grow. But as human beings, we are designed to avoid new things. It's just it is endemic in our humanity.00:06:22:14 - 00:06:46:07UnknownAnd your ego, like the part of you that keeps you safe, tells you don't do anything new. And when something new happens, it says, run away from it. Yeah, but look, I have studied successful people all of my professional career and the one throughline of every successful person I'm talking from Richard Branson to Dr. King was the Theresa.00:06:46:09 - 00:07:11:14UnknownEverybody who has made a splash in the world. They have run towards change, not away from that. Now, it's an easy thing to say. I mean, that's a refrigerator magnet, that's an Instagram post. But how do you do it? Right? It reminds me of like when I went skydiving, I was all about skydiving too. My instructor rolls open the door at 10,000 feet and I'm like, Holy shit at this.00:07:11:14 - 00:07:37:08UnknownIt just got super real. Yeah, that's so here's the here's the first thing I want you. Thank you, Mike. You too, listener to remind yourself of. And that is, I'm safe no matter what's going on. That's different or crazy or you're worried about actually, you're safe. And it is in worry that you shut down your creative pipeline and things get worse.00:07:37:10 - 00:07:58:03UnknownSo worrying does not help. We only worry because we. Because we feel like we're in control. If I'm worried about something, I'm taking action. You're not. You're actually limiting yourself. So the first thing you have to do is you have to surrender, worry And and remember, if something was going to take you down, it would happen by now.00:07:58:05 - 00:08:25:18UnknownYou know, the fact and I love realtors, I love people who are in real estate and I've worked with over a thousand entrepreneurs. And the thing I love about people in real estate is they work harder because they have to. It's a really weird business. You begin a real estate business at a very high dollar product, and most people who get into business to not start at a high dollar product, you guys jump right in to the fire.00:08:25:20 - 00:08:51:24UnknownAnd so because of that, it is so important that you connect with your clients on an emotional level. Thank you at all. Right. And so what that means Wait, everyone has commission breath, though. Everyone's out there selling their Have you seen interest rates that here's the post going around social media right now. You know, here's what happened in 1972 when buyers waited for interest rates to come down.00:08:52:01 - 00:09:34:13UnknownI'm like, Quit selling your shit, dude. Like, why do you always have to sell, stop, start, stop selling and start serving people and watch what happens? Like exactly. You can't be a salesperson anymore. Like you you, you are in sales. Okay? But anyone in sales isn't good unless they're great at service first. Yeah. And. And what you're saying about sales, the the perfunctory term of sales is that everybody hates salespeople because the way that salespeople act now, if you are selling in that way, you aren't a salesperson, you're con artist, you're trying to convince someone to buy something.00:09:34:15 - 00:10:00:23UnknownIf and we've all had those experiences where we bought something and think, Wow, the person who sold me this, they weren't like a salesperson at all. They just helped me. But that's what you have to do. So we've been looking at condos in Long Beach, right? And the thing that's so fascinating about this, the the realtors that we've talked to is so many of them, just like you say, Mike, they're just pushing product.00:10:01:00 - 00:10:21:00UnknownHere's what I want to hear. And I've never heard this once, but for my clients who are salespeople, arms who are real estate agents, I've told them to do this and it works like a charm when someone walks into a house that you're selling, you greet them and you say, Hey, can I tell you the thing I don't like about this house?00:10:21:00 - 00:10:36:08UnknownAnd the three things that I love about this, I see that all the time. I used to trash fucking house and I'd be like, just because, like, honestly, the first showing was like, I always set up a decoy showing because on the first show, no one knows, no matter what you guys like, you guys know the business. Like people say they want this.00:10:36:08 - 00:10:49:01UnknownThey never end up buying what they fucking end up saying they want buying from the beginning. So I always threw a bomb in the middle, especially on the first groups of showings. And I was there to earn trust and I'd be like, Dude, I wouldn't like that. I want to let your grandma buy this house with a ten foot pole.00:10:49:03 - 00:11:05:18UnknownGet the fuck out of here. Like, there's no way in hell I'm letting anyone buy this house and I'll talk them out of the sale. But you're right, because what happens is that people are just like, Damn, that guy's looking out for me. And I hate those. The little things are what generate referrals, guys, those little things and all those dos being best interests.00:11:05:18 - 00:11:24:22UnknownMy client. Like, if you're worried about yourself, then why the hell would you let them? Like, we just called moral responsibility, dude. Like, I don't. To me, that's common sense, but there's a lot it is people that it's not to it's scary. And you guys are the ones that are going to get your ass kicked as this lawsuit changes.00:11:24:22 - 00:11:43:12UnknownAll right. And it is scary. And the scary part is, is that you put all the time and all this effort into work it into something and you get nothing from it. Right. And when that happens over and over, you get traumatized. I mean, straight up, you get traumatized by it and you're worried. This is what I was talking about earlier.00:11:43:12 - 00:12:07:14UnknownYour worries starts telling you a story that it's going to happen again. But the only way is going to happen again If what if you don't do something different? Okay. So I love I love what you said. Trash the place you will gain so much yardage by telling someone I do not like this about this house. And if you buy it, you have to be aware that this exists.00:12:07:16 - 00:12:33:08UnknownAnd we were looking at this condo and and it was next door to this big apartment complex. And we said, you know what? We're worried that it's going to be noisy. And the the realtor said, oh, they're no, they're really quiet. Right. Like, he knows every person in the apartment complex, like my good. Mike Oh, shit. Mike So what he should have said is, how did you feel, though, right when he said that what you do like internally, you're probably like, Fuck you.00:12:33:09 - 00:12:55:19UnknownThis guy's like, I didn't do anything internally. I laughed at him. Did you still use him? Well, no, of course not. See, we. Do you see those guys? But if he had said, Look, you're right. It could be. It could be. No, you see, I don't know. I would spend the night here. But the fact is, this place is $100,000 cheaper than the one down the street.00:12:55:22 - 00:13:16:15UnknownIt looks exactly like this that doesn't have an apartment complex next to it. So you're going to have to trade either a potential for some noise or spending an extra 100 k. And I'm I'm glad either way I remember a glad sorry to me after yes I'm sick. That would have made me trust him. That would have made me say, you know what?00:13:16:15 - 00:13:41:05UnknownRight. But you cannot any objection that somebody has. You cannot counter that objection by trying to convince them that their objection is real. You start with this. Hey, I get it or that makes sense. Whatever they say, start with, Hey, I get it or that makes sense. And you will gain their trust, Be on their side. Do not be on your side.00:13:41:05 - 00:14:12:01UnknownNobody cares about you. They care about themselves. So don't just promote the house like it's lipstick on a pig. Be honest, be authentic. Even if they don't buy that house, they're going to come back to to you, which is how we got our realtor in Long Beach. It's somebody who did that, and we picked her up. And when I was selling real estate in Chicago, one of the listings I took didn't hire their previous agent, and I'm not going to call them out, but you know who you are calling you scumbag.00:14:12:03 - 00:14:33:10UnknownBut anyway, anyways, I guess when she bought the house and I lived on it, if you don't know what the deal is, it's a train. Okay? Oh, yeah, Yeah, for sure. And if you live next to the train, that thing is loud. I lived on the hill for three years, so I know it front and hand. And he told this buyer that was now my seller at the time that.00:14:33:13 - 00:14:51:19UnknownOh well the, the CTA is going to go ahead and put rubber. They have plans to put rubber wheels on all the all trains and that's going to actually increase your value because the only reason this is a good price right now is because the property is next to the L train. But once that noise factor goes away, you're like into a 10 to 15% equity cushion.00:14:51:19 - 00:15:06:06UnknownNo doubt. I'm like, Huh. You think they that that train is louder now than it's ever been since it's been alive there. But same thing. You just talk some into it and look how much you what was the opportunity cost on that? Right. Well, I got to listen a couple of years later and that turned into buy two.00:15:06:06 - 00:15:36:09UnknownSo be honest. I like it. Let's go to the point in time in your at surrender. Yeah. And then what's next? Listen to what people are saying like and you have to listen to people beneath their words, right? So if somebody says it's too expensive, what are they really saying? They're saying, I'm afraid I'm going to spend a lot of money and I'm not going to get value out of this.00:15:36:11 - 00:15:47:04UnknownI'm not going to get what I want. And so, again, someone says it's too expensive. Like, yeah, I know the market is crazy right now.00:15:47:06 - 00:16:24:01UnknownIt is expensive, but let's talk about what it is that you want to so you get someone to open up. Just get them talking about their feelings because people do not buy based on logic, they buy based on emotion. People don't buy on price. They base, they buy based on emotion. And if you are not talking with someone about emotion, about the things that they want, about the things that they're concerned about, but the things that they love, then you're having a conversation that is happening.00:16:24:01 - 00:16:47:07UnknownIt's like talking to someone across a courtyard and yelling back and forth at them as opposed to being right up with them and chatting with them like I'm when when I talk with someone, one of the first things I say is, Hey, what's the best thing that's happened to us so far today? Right? Because it gets them into what their feelings are.00:16:47:13 - 00:17:07:11UnknownSo whenever I walk into a or whatever, we we walk into a condo that we're looking at, it's always the same questions. How long have have you been looking? Have you been looking in the area and do you have in your head? Yeah, right. And those three questions are designed to get business out of here. Got question number four?00:17:07:12 - 00:17:26:21UnknownCan you please sign in here? Yeah. Oh, can you please sign in here? Give me your give me your Social Security number where you live and everything else. And so I could call you and try to close you. I saw you on something. Stop asking people to sign it. Stop it, Stop it, Stop it. Please, Please. Unless they show interest in you.00:17:26:23 - 00:17:42:22UnknownLook, if people dated or tried to date the way that people try to sell. This is how. This is how it would go. You'd walk up to someone in in the bar and go, Hey, give me your phone number. And then they'd be like, Wait, what? Like, Hey, what do you say we go back to my place? I would think it'd be the other way.00:17:42:22 - 00:18:03:23UnknownYou didn't ask for the phone number. You're just saying that there is no phone number. I just go back to my place. You have to warm people up, and you have to really be focused on what they want, how they're feeling, what they're struggling with. You know, it's when someone walks in, say, hey, you know, how was your buying?00:18:04:00 - 00:18:25:14UnknownYou know, how is your house shopping experience going? I and they're going to say, yeah, it's been a little rough. Yeah. Yeah, I bet it is. I mean, I don't I don't envy you. Yeah. You know, I mean, you know, it's. Yeah, it's rough selling houses, but you have it worse. I show that you understand them. Go to where they are.00:18:25:16 - 00:18:53:04UnknownLet me ask you a question. Just switched this topic up a tad. And like, right now you have 8% interest rates essentially. Hmm. Properties are way overvalued. The others and if they're not, they're they're expensive. Like they don't come down but like just it's simple math to me. Like there's only so many people that can afford so many houses at some time, but when it's at 8% rate.00:18:53:04 - 00:19:11:00UnknownSo not only that, but then you have this NAR lawsuit that comes into the mix. Yeah, Realtors are already having a bad year. They're already people are quitting left and right, like it's happening. Like, of course it's going to move. Transactions are down 30%. Of course you're going to lose agents or just common sense. But what do you tell someone right now that has all this this adversity and challenges?00:19:11:00 - 00:19:27:01UnknownBecause they're look from agents and I understand, guys, you're going to have to change. But I understand they are scared. And what do you tell them right now? They're go they're my reality is commission compressions real right. You guys are going to be getting 5% on a listing anymore. It's just not going to happen. Like you could start.00:19:27:01 - 00:19:41:10UnknownMy guess is my guess is going to go down to about one and a half percent would be what I would anticipate. My side's going down, too, which means it's going to be cut like 40%. I don't think it can happen overnight. I think it's going to be like five years from now. However, what do you tell someone with that?00:19:41:10 - 00:20:07:13UnknownWhat what what is the opportunity now? Well, every entrepreneur who comes to me has a reason why they're not selling. It's the economy. You know, it was COVID. It's my mother in law, Right? It's this. And what I say to everybody is somebody's selling right. Right now there somebody with a lot of money spending a lot of money on something really expensive.00:20:07:15 - 00:20:31:06UnknownWell, who is that person selling it to them? What are they doing? And the big question is, have you invested your time and energy in learning how to sell better? Have you watched YouTube videos? Have you talked to people who are doing well? Have you researched online people in your area, realtors who are selling well? Have you had lunch with them?00:20:31:08 - 00:20:57:16UnknownRight. Not to pick their brain, but just say, hey, I just like get to know people in your business who are doing well in your business. You don't have to buy anything from them. Just get to know them. Yeah. Because there is a way that you are being if you are struggling that is not working. And if you try to keep doing more of this same thing, it's like driving faster in the wrong direction.00:20:57:18 - 00:21:16:17UnknownSo it's up to you to to find out. And I and I actually like to help all of you. I have a giveaway kind of give your audience something to shoot. Okay. So I have a book called Jump in the Gap, Kill Your Story and Take Action. And this is a book that I wrote about seven years ago after I lost everything.00:21:16:17 - 00:21:38:13UnknownAnd in a month I lost $70,000. I lost my marketing company. My world went to shit eight months later, I walked out on stage in Dallas, Texas, being paid $10,000 for my first speaking gig. Now the journey from the floor to the stage was all about changing the stories in my head. What I believe, like the real estate market is crap.00:21:38:14 - 00:22:04:03UnknownThat's a story. Now, of course, in the 3D world, you can point to it and say, Yeah, it's actually happening. But I'll say again, somebody is selling houses, somebody's buying houses. You can be that person. So changing your story is the beginning. So to get my book, it's free. Just text the word gap GAAP to this number 2134 or 9836x2134098366.00:22:04:03 - 00:22:32:20UnknownText the word gap GAAP to 2134098366. Text the word gap and you can download. It's a quick easy read. And so many people have told me, Wow, this really blew my mind. I thought these things that I believed were real. Turns out it was just a story. And the great thing when you stop telling yourself stories, you can get the people that you're selling to to stop telling themselves stories like it's too expensive.00:22:32:20 - 00:22:55:03UnknownNow isn't a good time. I'm not ready. Those are all stories. Yeah. Jumping the gap is about moving yourself and moving other people from one side of where they are, where they don't want to be, to the other side, where they do want to be over the gap of their fears. And the only reason that you're struggling right now is because you have fear.00:22:55:05 - 00:23:26:03UnknownYou have fear that you're not good enough. That is not going to work and you're afraid of investing yourself in learning new things. Because when you learn new, new things, there is you realize the shit ton of things that you don't know. It's it is. It's terrifically intimidating. Oh, wow. I have to learn all these new, new things and but it's the only way when I change my my life, I had to learn so many new things in such a short period of time.00:23:26:05 - 00:23:50:12UnknownAnd it was really hard. But you know what I got used to? I got used to not knowing things and I got used to failing and not knowing things. And failing is the best way to turn your life around in. Sounds like we're very similar stories in our personal lives, but you guys look what is is absolutely true.00:23:50:12 - 00:24:10:22UnknownLike until, you know, I say survival of the fittest. It's like the squirrel is out there, figures out where the nuts are, right? He's just going to figure it out. Animals figure it out, and you'll just figure it out, too. But you have to change, like and that's the opportunity there is right now. And it is reluctant. I remember when I was making so much money that my ego was so big that I was my own worst enemy.00:24:10:24 - 00:24:33:10UnknownAnd what and what ended up happening was I wouldn't change. Like I couldn't at that time, I couldn't even like book appointment on my own calendar because I'd have someone do it for me. I couldn't even I couldn't even do the most basic shit. Like, seriously, I'm embarrassed about that whole time in my life. And it wasn't until I went broke that I had no money, that I had to just get back and figure out myself.00:24:33:10 - 00:24:56:21UnknownBut it took the complacency that I was at like the 3 to 4 year period. Whenever that was two, three years, whatever it was fucked up my mind so bad that I literally couldn't even do anything like I could. I was just so used to having everything done for me and everyone saying yes to me, whatever the fuck I wanted to do that When I when everyone left and the money was gone, I couldn't even fucking put on my own damn pants, dude.00:24:56:21 - 00:25:17:20UnknownLike, it was embarrassing and it took that. I don't know if the word is, but it took that experience, that humble, humble humbleness, I guess humbling experience to literally, like now I'm it's like if I won't let anyone do anything I haven't done first because I have to do it like especially now, business are growing. I'm hiring, I'm doing this doing that.00:25:17:23 - 00:25:34:08UnknownYeah. And I don't believe you can run any company without something you haven't done yourself. At least be lead of it. And I'm I'm putting myself in all those positions. I personally will shoot videos of people. I personally done all this stuff. I grinded it out because I know the process. I'm perfecting the process. Then I'll teach somebody else.00:25:34:10 - 00:25:49:22UnknownAnd when I teach not to somebody else, until they're ready, they're going to do with another person. They're going to do it in another person. And I can keep fucking going until I have 20 of you guys, right? And it's just same thing. Like, I'm going through a lot of reflection right now. I read two books this month I haven't reread.00:25:49:24 - 00:26:08:11UnknownI wrote two books this month. I haven't read a book in fucking five years. Well, you know, I, I in the gap that I'm going to business church event tonight. Yeah. Sign up for a conference. I'm. You have to do this stuff, guys. Like, I'm pushing myself out. I'm doing it. But you have to do it too. And that's the opportunity, the business.00:26:08:11 - 00:26:33:17UnknownIf you stick around with all these Debbie Downers and people doing the same shit, you're going to be one of them. So you have to get out, go to these events, fly across the country, call Coach Dan, fire people, get with people, listen to people, read, do everything you weren't doing 12 or 18 months ago. We're closing doors in Be afraid like seek discomfort.00:26:33:19 - 00:26:59:12UnknownYeah. Things that you don't want to do. Do those things. If you find yourself comfortable in conversations, you're talking to the wrong people. If you're if you're unloading with someone and you're both griping about the industry right now, you're talking to the wrong person. Yep. If you are not talking to someone who is doing ten times better than you, you are wasting your time.00:26:59:14 - 00:27:22:11UnknownYou always want to be the dumbest person in the room. You're your industry is changing dramatically as all industries are. You got to stay on top of the wave and that's going to mean investing yourself in doing the things you don't want to do because that's what every successful person has done throughout history. I like it. Why don't you tell them one more time?00:27:22:11 - 00:28:04:09UnknownYou get that book? Yeah. Jump in the gap, kill your story and take action. Just text the word gap GAAP to 1340983662134 or 98366. Text the word gap GAAP. Appreciate coach Dan appreciate you guys listening folks if you like that change it's time to go ahead and check out the software we just released referral suite dot com that's WW W that referral suite dot com it's as yet just like the popsicle and the reason why is because the industry is changing we're changing with it so for all of you that stop and you neglect your database because that's the reality where the business really comes from the people you know, like a trust and like00:28:04:11 - 00:28:21:10Unknowntrust you, well, now's the time to change and start marketing them, right? If you're not generating ancillary streams of income with your service from companies like solar Mortgage and all these other streams of income that you're literally just passing by, well, you need to check out referrals. Me folks, build a brand. Your brokers are going to do it for you.00:28:21:12 - 00:28:40:21UnknownYou work for yourself. I don't care who you work with or where you hang your license, now's the time to do it. Put on your big boy pants. See you on the other side. PS Thank you for watching another episode of the Real Estate Marketing. Do podcast. If you need help with video or finding out what your brand is, visit our web site at WW dot Real estate Marketing dude dot com.00:28:40:24 - 00:28:56:14UnknownWe make branding and video content creation simple and do everything for you. So if you have any additional questions, visit the site, download the training and then schedule time to speak with the dude and get you rolling in your local marketplace. Thanks for watching another episode of the podcast. We'll see you next time.
This episode introduces the second participants of the season's thoughtbot's Incubator Program, Mike Rosenthal and Chris Cerrito. Mike has a background in music industry marketing, and Chris is a maker and tinkerer with experience in exhibit development. They're developing a product combining physical objects with digital content, starting with music. Their concept involves creating physical items like wooden mixtapes with NFC chips linking to digital playlists. This blend of physical and digital aims to revive the tangible aspects of fan engagement in a digital era. Their project, named Goodz, is the first pure consumer product in the Incubator program, adding complexities like supply chain and manufacturing considerations. The team is conducting user interviews to validate market interest and refine their messaging. They aim to have a functioning physical product and a supporting digital backend by the end of the program. Challenges include defining the target market and understanding how to attract customers to a new product type. The thoughtbot team is excited about the project due to its fun nature and technical aspects, offering a fresh perspective compared to problem-focused startups. The conversation also explores the broader implications of bridging the digital and physical worlds in fan engagement, with the potential to collect valuable data for artists and create lasting, meaningful connections for fans. Follow Josh Herzig-Marx on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuaherzigmarx/) or X (https://twitter.com/herzigma). Visit his website at joshua.herzig-marx.com (https://joshua.herzig-marx.com/). Follow thoughtbot on X (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: LINDSEY: All right. I'm going to kick us off here. Thanks, everyone, for tuning in. We're doing our first update with two founders that are now going through the Startup incubator at thoughtbot. thoughtbot, if you're not familiar, product design and development consultancy. We'll help you on your product and make your team a success. One of the very fun ways we do that is through the startup thoughtbot incubator, which is an eight-week program. So, with us today, I myself am Lindsey Christensen, marketing for thoughtbot. We also have Jordyn Bonds, who is our Director of Product Strategy and runs the thoughtbot incubator. And then, as I mentioned, we've got two new founders who are going to tell us a little bit about themselves and what they're working on. Mike Rosenthal, let's kick off with you. Can you tell us a little bit about maybe your background and what brings you to present day? MIKE: Sure. First of, thanks for having us. It's been a lot of fun doing this over the last [inaudible 01:03]; it's only two weeks, two and a half weeks, something like that. It feels like a lot more. I come from a music industry background, so worked in sort of marketing and strategy for artists for a long time; worked with a band called OK Go back, sort of starting in 2009 or so. I did a lot of early kind of viral music video stuff. And we were sort of early to the idea of sort of leveraging fan engagement and revenue, honestly, kind of beyond sort of just selling their music and touring, so sort of exploring other ways that artists can make money and connect with their fans and was with those guys for five years. And then, I went on and worked at an artist management company in Brooklyn called Mick Management and ran the marketing department there, so doing similar type of work but for a roster of 2025 major label bands. And so, really got to see fan engagement on all different levels, from really large bands down to baby bands who were just getting started. And then, yeah, started my first startup in 2018, so doing sort of fan engagement work, and NFTs, and blockchain-type stuff working with bands, but then also sports and entertainment properties. Yeah, that kind of brings me here. So, always been sort of on the music side of things, which ties into a lot of what Chris and I are working on now, but more generally, sort of fan engagement and how to, you know, drive revenue and engagement for artists and deliver value for fans. LINDSEY: Very interesting. All right, Chris, going to head over to you. Chris Cerrito, can you tell us a bit about your background? And it sounds like yours and Mike's paths; this isn't the first time you've crossed. CHRIS: No. Mike and I have been working together since 2007, I believe. Yeah, that's a great place to start. I've always been kind of a maker and a tinkerer, always been interested in art materials, how things are put together. And that kind of culminated at grad school, where Mike and I met at NYU, where we both studied physical computing and human-computer interaction, making weird things that kind of changed the way that people interact and play with technology in their day-to-day lives. I think the first project he and I worked on together was a solar robotic band that we played with light in front of a bunch of people. It was very wonderful and confusing at the same time. After grad school, I was lucky enough to become a resident artist and then an exhibit developer at a museum in San Francisco called the Exploratorium, which is a museum of science, art, and human perception. I spent ten years there working on exhibits, teaching people things ranging from, let's see; I built a dueling water fountain to teach visitors and users about the prisoner's dilemma. I built a photo booth that used computer vision to teach people about the microbiome that lives on their face, like, just all kinds of weird things like that that fuse the digital and the physical worlds. I loved my time there. And then kind of COVID hit, and I realized that everything I had been working on for ten years was locked up in a museum that I no longer had access to. And it really gave me a desire to kind of bring my ideas into the physical world. I wanted to make things that people interact with and use in their lives on a day-to-day basis. And I would say that's really what brought me here to this point. LINDSEY: Very cool. Very interesting backgrounds, in my opinion. What is the new idea? What is the thing that you're bringing into the incubator? Mike, I'll start with you. Tell us a bit about what you're working on. MIKE: Chris and I are working on physical objects that connect to digital content is sort of the broadest way that I could describe it. I think, you know, as Chris kind of mentioned, you know, we've both been working on sort of physical things that have interactivity for a lot of our careers. I think we both come from an era of a lot more physical objects in your life, whether that's, you know, VHS cassettes at your parent's house growing up, or records and tape cassettes, and just sort of physical things that remind you of the things that you love. And I think that, you know, cell phones are great, and the sort of the smartphone era is amazing and having, you know, every single song, and movie, and television show and podcasts, et cetera, in a black box in my pocket is great. But I think we've sort of gotten to a point where it's more of an organizational problem now than anything else. And we sort of forget the actual things that we love in this world. And so, we're working on basically making physical objects to tie to digital content, and we're starting with music. And that's what we've been working on at thoughtbot is sort of how we can create physical things that basically you can tap, and that will take you to streaming content. One of the first things we're working on literally looks like sort of a little mixtape on a piece of wood, and you can just load that up with any sort of playlist that you might have on Spotify, or Apple Music, or YouTube, or whatever, and tap it, and it will take you there. And so, it's just sort of that idea of like, oh, we used to be able to sort of flip through a friend's music collection and judge them ruthlessly, or become even better friends with them based on kind of what you saw there. And we think that the time is ripe for, I don't know, a blend of that nostalgia with actual sort of, like, real-world utility that people could be into this right now. Chris, what am I missing there? CHRIS: I'd say just to expand on that a little bit, it's, you know, we spend so much time in the digital world, but we still exist in the physical. And a lot of the things, like, you might spend a really long time editing a photo for your parents or making a playlist for a friend, and there's, like, a value there that might not translate because it's digital. It's ephemeral. And I think tying these digital assets to a physical thing makes them special. It gives them, like, a permanent place in your life, something to respect, to hold on to, and maybe even pass down at some point. LINDSEY: Yeah, and I think before we logged on, we actually had Jordyn and Mike grabbing cassette tapes from the room there and to show us -- MIKE: [inaudible 06:49] LINDSEY: What [laughs] was some of their collection and to prove some of the power of these physical –- MIKE: Nothing, like, just old mixtapes. LINDSEY: Mementos. MIKE: Yeah. We were just talking about this on our sync with the thoughtbot crew. They're, like, there's sort of two levels of nostalgia. There's nostalgia for people like us who, yeah, [crosstalk 07:09] mixtapes, right? For people who actually grew up with this stuff and still have it lying around or don't but, like, look at something like that that gives you, like, instant flashbacks, right? You're like, oh my God, I remember scrolling on that little j-card or, like, getting a mixtape for my first, you know, boyfriend or girlfriend, and having it just mean everything. So, there's people for whom that was a thing. And there's, you know, generations of people for whom that is, like, their only connection to that is, you know, Stranger Things or, like, you know, the mixtape exists in pop culture as a reference. So, there's still, like, a very strong attachment there, but it's not a personal one, right? It's a cultural one. But I think everybody has that connection. So, that's kind of why we're starting with the mixtape, just because I think everyone can kind of relate to that in some way. LINDSEY: Yeah, no, yeah. When I hear mixtape, it goes immediately to crushes. You make a mixtape for your crush. CHRIS: Exactly. LINDSEY: It's a huge, powerful market, powerful. MIKE: Oh my God, so powerful. I mean, yeah, I don't know anybody -- LINDSEY: What's more motivating? MIKE: [laughs] Yeah, exactly. CHRIS: Or even just I have a really good friend who I don't get to see as often as I'd like. And he and I are constantly sending each other, you know, Spotify links and text messages. And it's great. I love that interaction. But at the same time, you know, I might forget to add that to a playlist, and then it's kind of lost. If I had taken the time to make something and send it to him physically or vice versa, it just becomes so much more special and so much more real. MIKE: Yeah. I mean, honestly, I first made these...I mean, we can go to this origin if we want. But, like, I literally just went on moo.com, right? The business card company. And they let you upload, you know, 50 different images, and they'll send you all of those as business cards. And so, I literally went on and just made business cards of all the album covers of, like, albums that I loved growing up, right? And their cheapest is this little piece of cardboard. But I had 50 of these, and I'd put them all out on my coffee table, just as something I wanted to have around. And people kept coming, you know, friends would come over, and you would just have these conversations that I haven't had in 10 or 15 years, right? Because no one's going to come to my house and pick up my phone and look at my Spotify collection. But if these things are all just sitting out, they're like, "Oh shit, you're into that? Like, I haven't thought about that album in 15 years." Or like, "Oh, I didn't know you were into that. I'm, like, a crazy super fan of that artist as well." And all of a sudden, we're having these conversations that we just weren't having. Yeah, there's something there where it's all been nostalgia coupled with the kind of prompting of conversation and connection that we've kind of lost, I think. CHRIS: And I think just to clarify a little bit on what Mike's saying, is, you know, this mixtape will be our first product launch, and then we're hoping to move into collectibles for artists and labels. So, shortly after we launch this tape, we're hoping to launch some kind of pilot with a label where you will be able to buy a version of this for your favorite music artist at a merch table in a concert, possibly online. Our dream is to have these sitting there on the table with T-shirts, and records, and other things that artists sell so you can express for the artists that you love. This is a way of expressing your fandom. LINDSEY: Jordyn, heading over to you, this feels like maybe the first consumer product that has gone through the incubator, would you say? Or how do you think about it? JORDYN: Yeah, if you're a consumer -- LINDSEY: Or is it different than other types of products? JORDYN: Yeah, the first incubator project we did with Senga was, I think, what you would call prosumer. So, it was sort of a consumer thing but directed at folks who had kind of freelancing in sort of a business context. It's got a lot of dynamics of the consumer. But this one, for sure, is the first pure consumer play. Though now that I'm thinking about it, you know, AvidFirst had some consumer elements to it, but it was, you know, it was, like, more complex tech [laughs] [inaudible 10:46] totally different thing -- LINDSEY: But definitely the first of the physical, physical [inaudible 10:52] JORDYN: Oh, sure, the first of the physical thing. Right. Absolutely. LINDSEY: Does that change any of, like, the approach of the programming, or it's kind of -- JORDYN: I mean, no, not fundamentally, though it does add this layer of operations that you don't have with a pure software play. So, we have to be, there is a thing that needs to get shipped to people in the world, and that takes timelines, and it takes -- LINDSEY: Supply chain. JORDYN: Yeah, exactly. And Chris is doing most of that stuff. I don't want to, you know, this is not, like, the main focus of our team necessarily, but it intersects, right? So, this isn't the first one of these types of products I've worked on personally in my career. But there's something, like, really, for me, very fulfilling about, like, there's software. There's a big component of software. There's also this physical object that needs to exist in the world. And partly, what's so compelling about Goodz is that it gives you the promise of a physical, like, the sort of good aspects of a physical product, a thing you can hold in your hand and look at and really connect with in that physical way. But it has this dynamic digital, like, essential quality as well. So, it's very compelling as a product because it sort of marries the things that we like about both the physical world and the digital world, which is partly why the team was really excited about working on it [laughs]. LINDSEY: Well, that was going to be my next question is, you know, what stood out to you about the Goodz application for the incubator and the interview process that made you and the team feel like this was going to be a great project to work on? JORDYN: Yeah. So, I think just the team really resonated with the sort of idea in general, and it seemed fun. There was, like, it's a very positive thing, right? It isn't so much about solving problems and pain points. And, sometimes the, you know, when you're very focused on solving problems, it can feel a little doomy because you actually have to, like, immerse yourself in the problems of the people that you're making software for. And sometimes, you start to feel like the world is just full of problems. What Goodz is doing is sort of it is solving a problem in a sense, but not in that kind of way. It's really, like, a fun upside kind of thing, which I think a lot of the folks on the team were very excited about. But, like, the software component, actually, is very interesting to us from a technological standpoint as well. There's a lot of opportunity here to do interesting things on the backend with an object that's essentially functioning as a bookmark out in the world. What all can you do with that? There's something super compelling and technically interesting about it. And I think, also, the team was just sort of excited by Chris and Mike, you know, the energy and the kind of background they were bringing to the table was also super interesting. And then, above all else, what I say every time you ask me this question, which is stage fit, y'all, good stage fit. They're right at the beginning. They haven't built the product yet [laughs]. Gotta say it. It's a good stage fit. They know who they're building for broadly but not super specifically. Got a good vision but, like, haven't made that first step with the software. Perfect stage fit for us [laughs]. LINDSEY: Great. So, Chris, we were talking a bit before about how you two have been collaborators in the past, worked on business ideas before. Why bring this idea into the thoughtbot incubator? What are you hoping to, you know, achieve? CHRIS: One of the main reasons why we wanted to bring this into the incubator was just for support, momentum, and then, also, I would say, validation for our idea. I mean, we came to the incubator with a very, yeah, I would say it was a fairly developed idea that needed to be proved, and we, quite frankly, needed help with that. You know, Mike and I have our own expertises, but we don't know how to do everything. We're more than willing to jump in where we need to go. But having people with expertise to work with has proven to be incredibly helpful, and just having kind of fresh faces to bat ideas around with after he and I have been staring at each other for months now on Zoom calls and meetings. And just, you know, being able to talk about these ideas with fresh faces and new people and get new perspectives has been so very, very helpful. I think something that's also great from the momentum standpoint is that because there's a time limit to this experience, we've got the time that we have with you guys, and we've been able to set goals that I think are very achievable for things we want to occur in the next couple of months, and it feels like we're going to get there. And I think by the end of this, I mean, our hope, and I think we're on track, is to have a functioning physical product that we're going to offer to consumers with a digital backend to support it, which is, in my mind, amazing. That'll totally validate this idea and prove if we have something or not. LINDSEY: I was going to ask if you're open to sharing what those goals specifically are. Is that it? Is it that by the end, you have -- MIKE: Is that it? Lindsey, that's a lot. [laughter] CHRIS: It's a lot. I mean, yeah. I mean, we're going to have a physical object in the world that you can buy via an e-commerce site -- JORDYN: Sounds like we need Lindsey on the team if Lindsey feels like this is so achievable. [laughter] CHRIS: Yeah, yeah. Lindsey...yeah. We're in the beginning [crosstalk 15:47] LINDSEY: I meant, is that the goal? CHRIS: That is the goal. LINDSEY: Is that all? CHRIS: I was going to –- LINDSEY: Is that all you got? CHRIS: Mike, do you agree? MIKE: Yeah. Is that the goal? Yes, that is the goal. I mean, you know, when we sat down with the thoughtbot team kind of week one, you know, they're sort of like, "All right, let's define kind of the experiment." So, we refer to them as experiments, which I think is helpful because, like, what are the experiments that we want to be doing during our time here? And, you know, we talked about it a lot. And yeah, I think it's, you know, having a physical product out in the world, having a website in which to sell it. But also, it's really like Chris was saying, it's like, it's market validation, and just making sure we actually have something that people want. It's like, you know, running a startup takes so long and, like [laughs], you know, you'll do it for so many years. It's like bands when people say, like, "Oh, that's an overnight sensation." It's like, you know, that band has been slogging it out in tiny, little venues for four years before you ever heard of them. It's like, that's what so much of the startup world feels like to me, too. It's like, "Oh, you're just getting started as a startup?" It's like, "Well, we've been working on this forever." And I know how long this can take. And so, I think we want to learn as early as possible, like, is this something people actually want? Because if they don't, like, we'll just go do something else. I don't want to spend years making something that people don't want. So, I think the biggest goal, for me, is just validation, and then that is sort of how we get there is like, okay, how do we validate this? Cool. Let's identify some, you know, assumptions of personas that we think are people who do actually want this and then try to go sell it to them. And all the implications from that are, okay, well, you need a website where somebody can buy it. You need a physical product that somebody can actually buy. So, all those things sort of come out of that, but, for me, it's like, proving that assumption, is this thing real? Do people actually want this? And everything else is like, okay, how do we prove that? LINDSEY: Jordyn, what does that look like in these first few weeks here? User interviews, I assume, how are the user interviews going? JORDYN: Always. Always. So, you know, we kick it off by just, like, doing the exercise where we list everybody who might want this. And the team, you know, it's a fun product. Everybody brought their own assumptions and ideas to the table on that. You know, we had a lot of different scenarios we were imagining. It's super fun getting that stuff out of people's heads, just, like, what are we all thinking? And then, you know, we get to negotiate, like, okay...I always encourage everyone to think, like, if everyone else on the team was on the moon, you had to make a decision about a market segment to pick; which one would you pick? And then we kind of argue about it in a productive way. It really helps us get at, like, what are the dynamics that we think matter upfront? And then we pick one, or, in this case, we have a few. We have a handful. And we're running interview projects where we just recruit people to talk about people that meet this persona, talk about a specific problem. We're in the middle of that right now. And it's fun, fantastic. These conversations are super interesting. We're validating a lot of the things that Mike and Chris, you know, walked into this with, but we're learning a bunch of new things as well. And, like, really, part of the aim there is to validate that there's a hole in the market that we might fill but also to hear the language people are using to describe this stuff. So, when people talk about buying music, merch, you know, making playlists, et cetera, like, what language do they use to talk about that? So that we make sure we're speaking the language that our customer uses to describe this stuff. And we're, you know, we're right in the pocket of doing that, learning stuff all the time. And it helps us kind of hone the messaging. It helps us know where to go talk to people about it, how to talk about it, but it's, you know, it all kind of fits together. And it's just this, really...the early stages. It's just a bunch of us in a room, a virtual room, in this case, sort of, like, tossing ideas around. But out of it crystallizes this sense of alignment about who this is for, how to talk to them about it, and with a goal. And, you know, Mike and Chris walked in with the exact right mindset about this, which is, yes, it's experiments. We need to validate it. Let's make sure there's a there-there. If there's a there-there, let's figure out where it is [laughs], like, all those things. And we're running these experiments, and it was really [inaudible 19:36]. We got down to business quite quickly here. It was really great. LINDSEY: Like you said, it's not necessarily a problem or, you know, the typical framing of a problem. How do you start those user interview questions around this? Do you feel a gap between the physical and the digital sound? [laughter] JORDYN: No, no. LINDSEY: It's maybe not it [laughs]. JORDYN: Yeah, no. Well, I can tell you what our startup questions are. One of them is, tell me about the last time you bought music merch. Go for it, Lindsey. Tell us. LINDSEY: The last time I bought music merch, I went to a Tegan and Sara concert a few weeks ago, and I bought a T-shirt. JORDYN: Tell me about buying that T-shirt. Why'd you buy it? LINDSEY: Because I wanted to remember the show and my time with my friends, and I wanted to support the artists. I know that buying merch is the best way to support your favorite touring artists. JORDYN: So, it's just, you know, we could spend the rest of this time talking [laughter] [crosstalk 20:34], and it would be awesome. So, it's really a lot of things like that. LINDSEY: Gotcha. JORDYN: You don't ask, "What problem are you trying to solve by buying this t-shirt?" Right? Like, that's not, you know, but we ask you to tell us a bunch of stories about when you did this recently. You know, and if you make playlists for friends, you know, that's a different persona. But we would have asked, you know, like, "Tell me about the last playlist you made. You know, who did you share it with? You know, what happened after that? What happened after that? What happened after that?" It's a lot of questions like that. And there's just nothing better. People love to tell you what's going on with them. And it's great [laughs]. LINDSEY: Yeah. As you all have been doing these interviews, Mike and Chris, have you been surprised by anything? Any interesting insights that you're seeing already? CHRIS: I mean, I haven't done really much in the way of user interviews in the past. This is a really new experience for me. And then we're, obviously, not on the calls because that would be weird and probably intimidating for people. But we're getting lots of highlights from folks who are doing them, you know, in our daily sync. And I'm surprised at how many, like, really intense, like, playlist nerds we have found even just in, like, the few people we've talked to, like, in the best possible way. Like, people who are like, "I make playlists all the time." Like, you're talking about, like, a vinyl fan or, like, a...Jordyn, what's the story? It's, like, the guy who there was so much out-of-print vinyl that he started a vinyl label just to get the albums in vinyl. [crosstalk 21:56] JORDYN: Yeah. There were a bunch of releases that he feels really passionately about that were never released on vinyl that he knew would never be released on vinyl. And so, he started a vinyl record label. And we just found this guy [laughter]. CHRIS: Is that indicative that that's, like, an entire persona we're going to, like, target? Absolutely not. But it's just, like, it's amazing that even just in the few user interviews we've done, that we've found so many very passionate people. And it's sent me down, like, a TikTok rabbit hole of, like, TikTok, like, music nerd influencer-type folks who are posting playlists. And they, like, hundreds of thousands of likes on these videos that are literally just, like, screen with text on it that you're supposed to, like, pause the video [laughs] and, like, look at, like, the songs that they're recommending. And it's like, who does that? And it was like, these people do that. And it's like, so there are...it's been very encouraging to me, actually. I was worried that we were going to find not as much passion as we had suspected, and I think the opposite has proven to be true. So, it's exciting. CHRIS: Yeah, I completely agree with Mike. It's been so encouraging. I think, for me, what we're doing is an idea that I'm very excited about and have been very excited about for a long time. But hearing the responses that we're getting makes me confident in the idea, too. That's great. I mean, I think that is everything that a founder needs, you know, is excitement and confidence. MIKE: Well, and just the whole user interview experience has, like, made a lot of my other conversations sort of I've tried to frame parts of them as user interviews because I'm talking to a lot of, like, label folks now, and artists, merch people. And, you know, I ended up just sort of, like, asking them, I mean, yes, trying to explain the product and work on kind of partnership stuff, but a lot of it is really just geeking out with them. And just, like, hearing their thoughts about, like, what they love about merch because these are people that clearly think about this stuff all the time. So, it's definitely kind of, like, tuned my other conversations into trying to get unbiased feedback. LINDSEY: Yeah. Everything is a little user interview now. MIKE: Yeah, exactly. LINDSEY: Get that angle in there. All right, so some early validation and excitement. That's really cool to hear. Any challenges or, you know, other kinds of learnings early on? Anything that's been invalidated? MIKE: I don't know that we're there yet. [inaudible 24:02] Chris, I don't know. I'm happy to find that some things are invalidated, but I don't really feel...you know, some of the personas that we decided or maybe just one of the personas we decided to pursue, I think we're having a hard time having those user interviews kind of really bear fruit, but that's helpful, too, actually. I mean, it's like, okay, well, maybe that's not a group that we target. JORDYN: Yeah. It's about, like, [inaudible 24:24]. I encourage folks not to think about this like a 'no, not that,' and instead think of it as like a 'not yet.' And that's, I think, the dynamic here with a couple of the personas we were interested in. It's just been turned into kind of, like, a not yet for reasons that we very quickly figured out, but we'll get there. It's just a matter of figuring out we had some other personas take precedence because they're more sort of red, hot in a way, right? It's just easier to get in contact with these people, or it's, like, clear what they're going for or what they need from the market. So, you know, we have this whole list, and it was not clear at first who was going to kind of stand out. But we've kind of found some focus there, which means, invariably, that there's things that are falling out of the frame for now, and you're kind of de-prioritizing them. But it really is, like, a we'll get to that [laughs]. We'll eventually get to that. LINDSEY: Yeah. And part of the process, who's going to rise to the top right now? JORDYN: Yeah, exactly. LINDSEY: Do you have anything you can show and tell with us today or not yet? MIKE: So, Chris has been hard at work on all the physical side of this stuff and going back and forth with our manufacturing partner and all that good stuff. But we have a final version of the mixtape product. LINDSEY: For when this gets pulled into the podcast, Mike's showing us a physical card. CHRIS: It's a small card, and we call them Goodz. And it's printed on three-millimeter plywood using a UV printing process, super durable. And this is something you can put in your pocket. You're not going to wreck it. I think you could actually (Don't quote me on this.), but I think you can even, like, put it through a washing machine, and it would be fine. Embedded in this card is a chip that can be read by your phone, and that's pretty much what we're working with. MIKE: Yeah, so the idea is you just sort of tap this, and it'll take you to a streaming version of a playlist. And then Chris has also been making these adorable crates. And [crosstalk 26:10] LINDSEY: The little crates I love. MIKE: And we actually have some wooden ones, too, in the testing that's [crosstalk 26:15] LINDSEY: And then the mixtapes get stored in the little crates [crosstalk 26:19] MIKE: Yeah. So, you could have -- LINDSEY: Throw it on your desk. CHRIS: Each crate can hold about, I think, 15 of these things. What's really cool about this product on the physical side is we are using a tried-and-true technology, which is NFC chips. These are things that make Apple Pay work, make Google Pay work. They are in your E-ZPass when you drive through a toll booth. This is stuff that's been around for years. So, we're just kind of leveraging this technology that's been around for so long in a new way. MIKE: Yeah, I think it's similar to kind of the evolution of QR codes, right? It's like they were sort of around forever, and then it was, like, COVID and restaurant menus kind of kicked those into mainstream. Like, NFC has been around for a long time. It's very tried and true. It's affordable. But I want to say Apple only turned it on by default, like, the NFC reader in the iPhone in the last, like, 18 to 24 months, right? Like, it started...like, it's been around for a while, but they're sort of slowly kind of...and now you just sort of see it everywhere. People are using it on the subways in New York to scan for tickets or for accessing stuff. I was also just showing Chris has been prototyping with the ability to sort of keep these on a key ring. So, we have, like, a little chain hole on them. It is [inaudible 27:22] to sort of have this on your backpack or, you know, on a key ring, or something like that. And friends could kind of, like, come up to you and just, like, scan one that looks interesting. CHRIS: And yeah, something that's awesome about this is you don't need an app. You don't need to download anything. As long as your NFC reader is on when you scan this, it will bring you to the music that it's linked to, which I think is awesome. So, I mean, my dream is to have these, like, hanging off of people's backpacks so I can, like, scan them in the subway or, you know, it's such, like, an easy thing to do. And it requires so little technical time on the user's end to be able to do it. LINDSEY: Oh, we got a question here. "So, Moo used to offer NFC cards. What made you decide to do the thicker plywood model?" CHRIS: Durability is really what it comes down to. We wanted something that felt like an object that you can have and treasure. Like, these have weight, you know, these feel like something, not just a piece of paper. This is something that you can have and [inaudible 28:22] your desk, and it's not going to fade in the sunlight. It's not going to disintegrate over time. This is something that's going to last. MIKE: Yeah, the cards would definitely, like, as I would sort of carry them around and show them to people and stuff, the cards would start, you know, breaking. It's like having a business card in your pocket, right? Eventually, it's going to kind of wear out. And plus, we had, like, the stickers were visible on the back of them. And we were, like, having the sticker just completely disappear inside the wood; it just feels a little bit more like magic. LINDSEY: Well, thanks for demoing there. I put you on the spot a little bit. But they are...I had seen them in the Slack, and they're very cool [laughs]. So, I had to ask if we could show them off a bit. MIKE: Of course. CHRIS: I think another thing to think about, too, is we've been talking a lot about the user experience. But if and when we get to the point of making these for artists, artists will be able to collect so much data off of the way that people buy and collect and use these things over time, which is something that we're really, really excited about. And also, you know, we're working on a way to make the link in the object updatable over time. So, artists will be able to change what a card points do to inform their users about the latest and greatest thing. LINDSEY: Very cool. Jordyn, what's next on the programming agenda for Chris and Mike? JORDYN: It's really sort of we're in this, like, iterative cycle. So, we're talking to folks. We're working on the website. The conversations we're having with people are informing how we're framing this first experiment with the mixtape, how we're marketing it, who we're marketing it to. I think next up is probably a Google Ad experiment to really see if we can piggyback on some stuff or at least figure out a new consumer product. It's so tough, right? It's also not a thing people are searching for. So, we have to come up with some experiments for how we get people to that website [laughs]. So, you know, Google Ads funnels is just something you kind of have to do because it's very interesting to figure out what people are responding to, what people are searching for. But we're going to have a bunch of other experiments as well and non-experiments. Outbound experiments: can we go to people? Can we get listed in a gift-buying guide for the holidays? Or, like, we don't know. There's a bunch of experiments we need to do around that, which is really just this iteration. We won't stop talking to users, but, you know, everything we're hearing from them will inform where we go and how we talk to the folks in those places where we end up. And really, it's just about starting...once this is up and, you know, there's, like, an orderable thing, there's, like, a whole data cycle where we start to learn from the stuff we're testing; we actually have some real data for it, and we can start to tweak, iterate and change our strategy. But the bigger thing, also, is this bigger platform. So, the next thing really, the big next thing, is to sort of start to scope and create an architecture idea. What's it going to take to build the actual backend thing? And it's the thing that thoughtbot really [laughs] excels at, which is software. So, you know, that's the big next kind of project. Once the mixtape experiment is sort of out and in flight and we're getting data, we really need to turn our attention to the technical backend. LINDSEY: Exciting. Another comment/question from Jeff, who maybe needs a user interview. "Love the crate more than the actual albums. Maybe offer collections of artists." MIKE: Yeah, that's the plan. CHRIS: Yeah, definitely. It's a good idea. Yeah, it's, I mean, and labels get to, especially, like, small indie labels get really excited about doing, like, crates worth of collections of different artists or, like, you know, digging through their back catalog, their subscription services. There's a lot of different angles for sure about that idea. LINDSEY: [inaudible 31:55] Chris and Mike, going into this next section of the programming, for anyone watching right now, or watching the recording, or listening to the recording, any action items from them? You know, are you looking for any user interviews or have any survey or any destinations you'd like to send people yet? CHRIS: Not quite yet, but soon, I would say. Well -- MIKE: I mean, [inaudible 32:19] plug the website, I mean, you know, I think we've got, like, an email to sign up from there, right? The URL is getthegoodz.com and I [crosstalk 32:27] LINDSEY: Goodz with a Z. MIKE: Goodz with a Z. CHRIS: With Z. MIKE: So yeah, if you want to go there, you can sign up. I think there's an email signup on there to learn more. LINDSEY: Perfect. All right. getthegoodz.com email sign up. To stay up to date on Goodz and the incubator, you can follow along on the thoughtbot blog. You know, as always, send us any questions you might have, and we're happy to get to those. But otherwise, thanks for listening. And thank you all — Jordyn, Chris, and Mike. Thanks so much for joining today and sharing and being open about your stories so far. MIKE: Thank you. CHRIS: Yeah, thank you, Lindsey. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions. Special Guests: Chris Cerrito and Mike Rosenthal.
The Nightly Rant: Examining Society from a Sarcastic Point of ViewWelcome to The Nightly Rant with your hosts, Mike and Torya. In this show, we take a sarcastic look at society and dive into various topics that provoke thought and conversation. Today, we want to discuss the importance of being prepared to answer questions and engage in meaningful dialogue when expressing opinions publicly. We believe that adults should act like adults and handle disagreements in a mature manner. Let's dive into the details.The Importance of Being Prepared to Answer QuestionsMike: "People in general should not ask questions unless they're prepared to hear any answer."Torya: "I'll take what you just said a step further to also include stating your opinion publicly."Mike: "If you state your opinion publicly on something, then you need to be prepared to answer questions. Some people are going to be confused. You put your opinion out there that that is influential. It means something. I don't care who you are. Be prepared to answer questions. That's all."Torya: "Influences at least one other person in the universe."Mike: "Be prepared to answer questions. That's all I ask. Is that bad?"Torya: "Well, why are you asking the questions? What is your goal with asking people questions about their opinion?"Mike: "To understand their viewpoint on that issue."Torya: "Because to tell them how wrong they are, that they're dumb or that their opinion is factually incorrect. No."Mike: "In fact, usually these days especially, I will say your opinion is completely valid, but it isn't one that I completely connect with because I don't understand this aspect."Torya: "Can you explain?"Mike: "And I blah out whatever the question is and then they attempt to answer. And most times they don't even attempt to answer because they don't care. They just growl back at you and it's like, no, I was truly trying to understand where you were coming from."Torya: "Well, then if your intention is to just understand, then no, right, you're not doing it."Mike: "Exactly. There's nothing wrong. Then if your intention is to drag them into a trap and then pounce on them and beat them to death, yeah, that'd be pretty wrong."Torya: "Or at least mean and nasty. Sure."Mike: "Which is wrong sometimes."Torya: "It's fun."Mike: "Well, it can be. I won't lie. It can be."Torya: "Especially when somebody has a really obscure and ridiculous and factually incorrect opinion. But I digress. We don't need to go there."Mike: "Well, yeah, and why can't somebody disagree about that and not make it be such a big deal? I mean, come on, there's a specific incident in my head. And the minuteness of the topic, if you think about it, it was like less than a grain of sand in the grand scheme of everything. Right?"Torya: "We've had disagreements about things way bigger than that and laughing together about something else five minutes later."Mike: "Nothing. That's like nothing. That's what I'm trying to say. It's like fart dust is a bigger deal than that."Torya: "Fart dust pretty bad."Mike: "And yet people who are allegedly adults make it about them and, oh, we need to quit the friendship. And that's literally what people do these days. Grown ass adults. Yeah, grown ass adults just leave and don't talk to you anymore. They don't have even the balls to say I'm going to say it. They don't even have the balls to say, fuck you."Torya: "Wow."Mike: "They don't have the balls to say anything. Yes, I'm the reason never for the E. It's always all me now."Torya: "I feel like all the words are fair game, though."Mike: "But here's the thing. It's like they don't even have the guts to say goodbye. Like, I'm done. That's a woosy move. I mean, those are the kind of people that disappear from their family, too. No BS."Torya: "I had a great idea earlier, and I was thinking that it'd be great if society would just chew up these cocksucking assholes that you're describing. The people who don't function as part of society because they're just too fucking wrapped up in their own self."Mike: "Yeah, they're not adults."Torya: "Chew them up and shit them out into outer space using the Earth's giant rectum. Yeah, the Earth is going to grow a giant rectum and it needs to shit these people out because they're destroying."Mike: "The world in many senses of the word. Yes, they are."Torya: "They're the most hostile people yet. They're the people who will call everybody else hostile."Mike: "Well, and that's the thing. There's also this issue where adults can't be adults, they just can't. Like we're talking about ghosting. That's not an adult move ghosting people. That's a little baby's move ghosting."Torya: "Right?"Mike: "Oh, where's your friend Johnny? Oh, I don't talk to him anymore. It's what the little kid does. It's not what an adult does."Torya: "Right? And then there's poor Johnny crying in the corner because he doesn't know why nobody likes him. And also, Johnny will continue to be an asshole for the rest of Johnny's life because nobody has ever told him why they don't like him."Mike: "Which in my opinion, makes you the asshole for not pointing it out to."Torya: "Right?"Mike: "I mean, if you pointed it out to him and he continued down the pathway, you pointed it out to him, and he gets to continue down the pathway if he wants to."Torya: "You've got to tell people how you feel about things. You know, it's interesting. When I was in Canada, not this most recent time, but the time before, I was hanging out with Alicia, you know, how she has miniature humans. Well, the boy miniature human punched the girl miniature human. And she came screaming and crying to know kid stuff. And Alicia told her that she needed to go tell miniature boy human how it made her feel so that he would apologize to her."Torya: "And she did, and he apologized and then gave her a hug for a five year old. People. Yeah."Mike: "And, you know, the honest truth is there's no reason whatsoever for someone to act like everything's okay when there are obvious signals that everything's not okay. There's no reason for anyone to ever do that to anybody. That's why I think we talk about this all the time. Our relationship works because it takes you longer than me to get there, but we tell each other, well, that bothered me when that happened."Torya: "I know that I'm a little bit irrational. Okay, whatever. Don't even no commenting. Not allowed. I know that I'm a little bit irrational, and sometimes I don't know if I'm actually annoyed with you or if I'm being crazy, so I need to take some time to decipher if I am being crazy."Mike: "But see but that's fair, because that means instead of that even makes you even more reasonable, because instead of putting our relationship through a roller coaster of crap, you take the time to filter it yourself. Here's the thing, though. A lot of people would bitch at you for that, but I commend you for it because you still come forward with the issues to get them fixed. You do."Torya: "Think about it. You're doing something that's annoying the crap out of me. Okay? Not right now. This is a hypothetical you are doing something."Mike: "Well, it's a hypothetical reality. It happens."Torya: "Yeah. Anyway, I could say something right then when you're being annoying in my hyper irrational, super annoyed state sure. Which what would happen bad?"Mike: "Let's just say doom would ensue. Always."Torya: "Nobody needs that. Or I could stew quietly about it for a while and then come back to it the next day when I'm not crazy and decide if I was actually annoyed with you or not. And then if I was actually annoyed with you, I could be like, hey, Mike, you did this thing. Please don't do it again."Mike: "Yeah, you know what, though? I obviously am the same person as you, so I obviously approach that same issue the same way as you. And I, though, have one time only with you, followed the completely reasonable give her the benefit of the doubt approach. I've done it many times, but once and only once did I regret doing it. And you did something like you had a comeback of, like I can't even remember the comeback at this point, but it was really this really sassy."Mike: "You didn't deny that you were doing something and that it would have bothered me. You didn't deny that at all, but instead, you just sort of ignored it. And went like, what about this? And it's like, wow, man. That isn't how we're supposed to deal with each other. We're supposed to deal with each other face to face. We're not supposed to try to duck around one another. And that's how that felt, right?"Torya: "That's why everybody has to calm down."Mike: "Before issues should be correct. Exactly. And that's the thing. There's times when you do have to wait, and there's times when you should take time to think about things. And I think it's more adult like to wait rather than overreact. However, I'm going to say something different. One last thing. When someone does that to you, they overreact. It's best for you to quote overreact back and protect yourself. That's what I think."Torya: "Well, because then you're going to get the whole thing out of the way right there, instead of you stewing that I overreacted and making it a fight the next day and the next day and the next day. I agree with you. If one person has already gone off the deep end, well, you might as well just have the knockdown drag out fight right there. Just get it over with."Mike: "I think we agree with that. And it's healthy. That's the healthy way, and we act like adults about it. And that's the key thing, though. You have to be able to speak your mind without the other person getting offended. And honestly, I think a big thing that most adults just don't have any longer than they used to is the ability to separate things. Just because you're not the most empathetic person in the world doesn't mean you're stupid."Torya: "Yeah, that's what I was going to say before you had something else you had to say. If I didn't take the minute to calm myself or minute or hours or six days, whatever is necessary, all arguments I had with everybody would be like, my fight with the Sam's Club lady where I called them an idiot and."Mike: "They walked wasn't your that wasn't your proudest moment."Torya: "Or my slight disagreement with that soccer mom that one time that I won't repeat."Mike: "Well, what's funny about that? What's funny about that is both of those situations turned out okay in the end, but they had the potential not to be. But here's the thing. By us being reasonable people, 98.5% of the time, you can get away with a slip up like that. And the rest of the people are like, in particular the soccer incident, the rest of the parents, you were like, oh, I'm so sorry that I said that in front of you. And they're like, Are you kidding? I would have said worse to her."Mike: "She deserved what you said. And then everyone that was literally the opinion, they would be like, oh, I would have said worse. Oh, she deserved it. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Not a single person sided with the other person. Not a single person. Now, here's the thing. We still set our apologies to everybody. To everybody."Torya: "Even though the person I exactly."Mike: "Even though they supported us, we still apologized."Torya: "Well, to be fair, I used the worst word Americans can possibly use in front of, like, twelve year old children."Mike: "Well, the twelve year old children were out on the soccer field, though Mitchell."Torya: "Said he heard it."Mike: "Well, it is what it is, man. You did apologize."Torya: "That's what I felt like I needed."Mike: "But you apologized. You did. To everybody. And yet the point is, they were supportive of us because we had always been reasonable people. We didn't yell and scream on the sidelines at our kid, at the referee. We didn't do that stuff. We sat there and we cheered."Torya: "Called the referee a sight."Mike: "We talked to each other."Torya: "Only when you were egged on by other groups of people, though, too."Mike: "We would just talk to each other and ignore everyone. I mean, that's just how we handled things. And so it's sort of annoying that people go down roads that they don't even bother to think about. Well, are they the type of people that would act that way?"Torya: "So can we officially shoot these hyper aggressive snowflake motherfuckers into space?"Mike: "Yeah, with the rectum. You said this already, and I fully agree with you."Torya: "Well, I need to know if other."Mike: "People."Torya: "We're not feeding the rectum Taco Bell."Mike: "Both of those are going to make a great audio club. That's the little shorty. Munch, munch, munch kapow. And we're not feeding in Taco Bell. Just wow. All right. Well, I think we have beaten this topic to death. I didn't even expect us to talk about it for this long. Here's what I want to kind of close up with tomorrow, which is the day after we record this, which will be weeks from the time you hear it."Mike: "We are getting involved in our very first official sporting event together. We are going to play fantasy hockey with the rest of our family. Yes, we are. And we suck at this for my ultimate failure. We're going to learn this quick. So with that, that is all I've got for you people."Torya: "Good night, everyone."Mike: "Hasta La Bye bye."Conclusion and Future OutlookIn this episode of The Nightly Rant, Mike and Torya discuss the importance of being prepared to answer questions and engage in meaningful dialogue when expressing opinions publicly. They emphasize the need for adults to act like adults and handle disagreements in a mature manner. The hosts share personal anecdotes and observations to highlight the negative consequences of ghosting and avoiding confrontation.The conversation delves into the significance of open communication and the ability to separate personal opinions from personal attacks. Mike and Torya stress the importance of understanding different viewpoints and seeking clarification rather than resorting to hostility. They also touch upon the need for self-reflection and taking the time to assess one's own emotions before engaging in discussions.The hosts conclude the episode by announcing their participation in a fantasy hockey league, highlighting the importance of learning new skills and embracing new experiences. They encourage listeners to approach disagreements with maturity and respect, fostering a culture of open dialogue and understanding.Moving forward, it is crucial for individuals to recognize the impact of their words and opinions on others. By being prepared to answer questions and engage in meaningful conversations, adults can foster a more inclusive and understanding society. The Nightly Rant serves as a reminder that communication is key, and it is essential to approach disagreements with empathy and respect.TimestampSummary0:00:15Introduction to the podcast and topic of the day0:01:34Importance of being prepared to answer questions when stating opinions0:03:34Adults making small disagreements a big deal0:05:02Criticism of people who ghost others without explanation0:06:34Society's inability to handle conflicts maturely0:08:25The importance of open communication in a relationship0:09:11The need to address issues face-to-face rather than avoiding them0:10:59Reacting to overreactions to protect oneself0:11:46Having a knockdown drag out fight to resolve conflicts0:12:22Lack of empathy and offense to criticism of empathy0:12:27Torya talks about needing time to calm herself before arguments0:12:55C mentions the soccer incident and how it turned out okay0:13:48They discuss apologizing to everyone involved in the incident0:14:11C talks about how they were always reasonable people0:14:54Torya suggests shooting hyper aggressive people into space0:15:55They mention their upcoming fantasy hockey event0:16:22Closing remarks0:31:54Mike thanks listeners and asks for a rating0:32:06End of transcript
TOPIC: TINA NY: "you helped my son, I see a change in him", MIKE OH: "diversity is only pushed on white people, I don't believe in God", ARTHUR CANADA: "biblical question", RICHARD NV: "mom has dementia, advice?", SUPERCHATS, HAKE NEWS
Rounding Up Season 2 | Episode 2 – Empathy Interviews Guest: Dr. Kara Imm Mike Wallus: If there were a list of social skills we hope to foster in children, empathy is likely close to the top. Empathy matters. It helps us understand how others are feeling so we can respond appropriately, and it can help teachers understand the way their students are experiencing school. Today on a podcast, we talk with Dr. Kara Imm about a practice referred to as an empathy interview. We'll discuss the ways empathy interviews can help educators understand their students' lived experience with mathematics and make productive adaptations to instructional practice. Mike: Well, welcome to the podcast, Kara. We're excited to have you join us. Kara Imm: Thanks, Mike. Happy to be here. Mike: So, I have to confess that the language of an empathy interview was new to me when I started reading about this, and I'm wondering if you could just take a moment and unpack, what is an empathy interview, for folks who are new to the idea? Kara: Yeah, sure. I think I came to understand empathy interviews in my work with design thinking as a former teacher, classroom teacher, and now teacher-educator. I've always thought of myself as a designer. So, when I came to understand that there was this whole field around design thinking, I got very intrigued. And the central feature of design thinking is that designers, who are essentially thinking about creating new products, services, interactions, ways of being for someone else, have to start with empathy because we have to get out of our own minds and our own experiences and make sure we're not making assumptions about somebody else's lived experience. So, an empathy interview, as I know it now, is first and foremost a conversation. It's meant to be as natural a conversation as possible. When I do empathy interviews, I have a set of questions in mind, but I often abandon those questions and follow the child in front of me or the teacher, depending on who I'm interviewing. Kara: And the goal of an empathy interview is to elicit stories; really granular, important stories, the kind of stories that we tell ourselves that get reiterated and retold, and the kinds of stories that cumulatively make up our identities. So, I'm not trying to get a resumé, I'm not interested in the facts of the person, the biography of the person. I'm interested in the stories people tell about themselves. And in my context, the stories that kids tell themselves about their own learning and their own relationship to school, their classrooms, and to mathematics. I'm also trying to elicit emotions. So, designers are particularly listening for what they might call unmet needs, where as a designer we would then use the empathy interview to think about the unmet needs of this particular person and think about designing something uniquely and specifically for them—with the idea that if I designed something for them, it would probably have utility and purpose for other people who are experiencing that thing. So, what happened more recently is that I started to think, “Could empathy interviews change teachers' relationship to their students? Could it change leaders' relationships to the teachers?” And so far, we're learning that it's a different kind of conversation, and it's helping people move out of deficit thinking around children and really asking important questions about, what does it mean to be a kid in a math class? Mike: There's some language that you've used that really stands out for me. And I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit more about it. You said “the stories that we tell about ourselves”; or, maybe paraphrased, the stories that kids tell themselves. And then you had this other bit of language that I'd like to come back to: “the cumulative impact of those stories on our identity.” Can you unpack those terms of phrase you used and talk a little bit about them specifically, as you said, when it comes to children and how they think about their identity with relation to mathematics? Kara: Sure. I love that kind of phrase, “the story we tell ourselves.” That's been a pivotal phrase for me. I think stories kind of define and refine our existence. Stories capture this relationship between who we are and who we want to become. But when I'm thinking about stories in this way, I imagine as an interviewer that I'm trying to paint a portrait of a child, typically. And so, I'm trying to interact with this child in such a way that I can elicit these stories, painting a unique picture of this kid, not only as a learner but also as a human. What inevitably happens when you do these interviews is that I'm interested in their experience in math class. When I listen to kids, they have internalized, “I'm good at math, and here's why” or “I'm bad at math, and here's why. I just know it.” But when you dig a little bit deeper, the stories they tell are a little more nuanced, and they kind of live in the space of gray. And I'm interested in that space, not the space of testing and measurement that would land you in a particular identity as meant for math or not meant for math. Mike: I think what I was going to suggest is, why don't we listen to a few, because you shared a couple clips before we got ready for the interview, and I was fascinated by the approach that you had in chatting with these children and just how much information I could glean from even a minute or two of the interview slices that you shared. Why don't we start and get to know a few of these kiddos and see what we can learn together. Kara: Sounds great. Mike: We've got a clip that I'm going to invite you to set it up and give us as much context as you want to, and then we'll play the clip and then we can talk a little bit about it. I would love to start with our friend Leanna. Kara: Great. Leanna is a third-grader. She goes to an all-girls school. I've worked in Leanna's school over multiple years. I know her teacher well. I'm a part of that community. Leanna was kind of a new mathematician to me. Earlier in the day I had been in Leanna's classroom, and the interview starts with a moment that really struck me, which I won't say much more about. And I invited Leanna to join me after school so we could talk about this particular moment. And I really wanted to know how she made sense of what happened. So, I think we'll leave it at that and we'll listen to what happened. Mike: Alright, let's give it a listen. Leanna: Hi, I'm Leanna, and I'm 8 years old. Kara: Hi, Leanna. Today when I was in your class, something interesting happened where I think the kids said to me, and they said, “Do you know we have a math genius in our class?” Do you remember that moment? Leanna: Yeah. Kara: Tell me what happened in that moment. Leanna: Um, they said, “We have a math genius in our class.” And then they all started pointing at me. Kara: And what was that like for you? Leanna: It was … like, maybe, like, it was nice, but also it was kind of like, all the pressure was on me. Kara: Yeah, I was wondering about that. Why do you think the girls today—I mean, I'm a visitor, right?—why do you think they use the word “math genius”? And why did they choose you? What do you think they think of you? Leanna: A mathematician … Kara: Yeah. Leanna: … because I go to this thing every Wednesday. They ask me what I want to be when I grow up, and I always say a mathematician. So, they think that I am a math genius. Kara: Gotcha. Do you think all the girls in your class know that you want to be a mathematician when you grow up? But do they mean something else? They didn't say, “We have a mathematician in our class.” They said, “We have a math genius.” Leanna: Maybe. Kara: Are you a math genius? Do think, what does that even mean? Leanna: Like, I'm really good at math. Kara: Yeah. Do you think that's a true statement? Leanna: Yeah, a little bit. Kara: A little bit? Do you love math? Leanna: Yeah. Kara: Yeah. Have you always loved math? Leanna: Yeah. Kara: And so, it might be true that, like, is a math genius the same as a mathematician? Leanna: No. Kara: OK. Can you say how they're different? Leanna: Like, a mathematician is, like … Like, when you're a math genius, you don't always want to be a mathematician when you grow up. A math genius is when you just are really good at math, but, like, a mathematician is when you really, like, want to be when you grow up. Kara: Yeah. Mike: That was fascinating to listen to. So, my first inclination is to say, as you were making meaning of what Leanna was sharing, what were some of the things that were going on for you? Kara: Yeah, I was thinking about how math has this kind of unearned status, this measure of success in our culture that in this interview, Leanna is kind of pointing to. I was thinking about the mixed emotions she has being positioned as a math genius. It called into mind the model minority myth in which folks of Asian descent and Asian Americans are often positioned as stereotypically being good at math. And people say, “Well, this is such a lovely and respectful stereotype, who cares if it's not true?” But she later in the interview talks about the pressure of living up to this notion of math genius and what means. I think about her status in the classroom and how she has the agency to both take up this idea of math genius, and does she have the agency to also nuance it or reject it? And how that might play out in her classroom? So yeah, those are all the things that kind of come to mind as I listen to her. Mike: I think you're hitting on some of the themes that jumped out for me; this sense that kids who are participating in particular activities have been positioned, either by their participation or by their kids' perceptions of what participation means. And I thought the most interesting part was when she said, “Well, it's nice”—but there was a long pause there. And then she talked about this sense of pressure. What it's making me think about as a practitioner is that there are perhaps ways that as a teacher, if I'm aware of that, that might change something small, some things big about the way that I choose to engage with Leanna in the classroom; that I choose to help her navigate that space that she finds herself in. There's a lot for me there as a practitioner in that small clip that helps me really see her, understand her, and think about ways that I can support her. Kara: Yeah. And, like, from a design perspective, I huddled with her teacher later in the day, and we talked about this interview, and we thought about what would it mean to design or redesign a space where Leanna could feel really proud of who she was as a mathematician, but she didn't feel the kind of pressure that this math genius moniker is affording her. And so, ultimately, I want these interviews to be conducted by teachers so that, as you said, practitioners might show up differently for kids or think about what we might need to think more deeply about or design for kids like her. She's certainly not the only one. Mike: Yeah, absolutely. And I think part of what's hitting me in the face is that the term “empathy interview” really is taking on new meaning, even listening to this first one. Because feeling the feelings that she's sharing with us, feeling what it would be like to be in those shoes, I've had kiddos in my class who have been identified or whose folks have chosen to have them participate in programming. And I have to confess that I don't know that I thought as much about what that positioning meant to them or what it meant about how kids would perceive them. I was just struck by how, in so many subtle ways doing an interview like this, might really shift the way that I showed up for a child. Kara: Yeah, I think so. Mike: Well, let's listen to another one. Kara: OK. Maybe Matthew, should we meet Matthew? Mike: I think we should meet Matthew. Kara: Yeah. Mike: Do you want to set up Matthew and give us a sense of what we might need to know about the context? Kara: Absolutely. Matthew is a fifth-grader who describes, in my conversation with him, several years of what he calls “not good” years in math. And he doesn't enjoy mathematics. He doesn't think he's good at it. He has internalized, he's really blamed himself and taken most of the responsibility for those “bad“ years of learning. When I meet him, he's a fifth-grader, and he has written a mathography at the invitation of his classroom teacher. This is a practice that's part of this school. And in his mathography as a fifth-grader, he uses the word “evolving,” and he tells the story of how he's evolving as a mathematician. That alone is pretty profound and beautiful that he has the kind of insight to describe this kind of journey with mathematics. And he really just describes a fourth-grade teacher who fundamentally changed his relationship to mathematics, his sense of himself, and how he thinks about learning. Mike: Let's give it a listen. Kara: Maybe we'll end, Matthew, with: If people were thinking about you as—and maybe there's other Matthews in their class, right—what kinds of things would've helped you back in kindergarten, first and second grade to just feel like math was for you? It took you until fourth grade, right … Matthew: Yeah. Kara: … until you really had any positive emotions about math? I'm wondering what could we have done for younger Matthew? Matthew: Probably, I think I should have paid a lot more attention. Kara: But what if it wasn't about you? What if it's the room and the materials and the teacher and the class? Matthew: I think it was mostly just me, except for some years it was really, really confusing. Kara: OK. Matthew: And when … you didn't really want in third grade or second grade, you didn't want to be the kid that's always, like, “Hey, can you help me with this?” or something. So that would be embarrassing for some people. Kara: OK. You just made air quotes right, when you did embarrassing? Matthew: Yeah. Kara: Was it embarrassing to ask for help? Matthew: It wasn't embarrassing to ask for help, and now I know that. But I would always not ask for help, and I think that's a big reason why I wasn't that good at math. Kara: Got it. So, you knew in some of these math lessons that it was not making sense? Matthew: It made no sense. Kara: It made no sense. Matthew: And then I was, like, so I was in my head, “I think I should ask, but I also don't want to embarrass myself.” Kara: Hmm. Matthew: But also, it's really not that embarrassing. Kara: OK, but you didn't know that at the time. At the time it was like, “Ooh, we don't ask for help.” Matthew: Yeah. Kara: OK. And did that include asking another kid for help? You didn't ask anybody for help? Matthew: Um, only one of my friends that I knew for a really long time … Kara: Hmm. Matthew: He helped me. So, I kind of got past the first stage, but then if he was absent on those days or something, then I'd kind of just be sitting at my desk with a blank sheet. Kara: Wow, so it sounds like you didn't even know how to get started some days. Matthew: Yeah, some days I was kind of just, like, “I'm not even going to try.” Kara: “I'm not” … OK. Matthew: But now I'm, like, “It's not that big of a deal if I get an answer wrong.” Kara: Yeah, that's true. Right? Matthew: “I have a blank sheet. That is a big deal. That's a problem.” Kara: So having a blank sheet, nothing written down, that is a bigger problem for you than, like, “Oh, whoops, I got the answer wrong. No big deal.” Matthew: I'd rather just get the answer wrong because handing in a blank sheet would be, that would probably be more embarrassing. Mike: Oh, my goodness. There is a lot in a little bit of space of time. Kara: Yeah. These interviews, Mike, are so rich, and I offer them to this space and to teachers with such care and with such a deep sense of responsibility 'cause I feel like these stories are so personal. So, I'm really mindful of, can I use this story in the space of Matthew for a greater purpose? Here, I feel like Matthew is speaking to all the kind of socio-mathematical norms in classrooms. And I didn't know Matthew until this year, but I would guess that a kid like Matthew, who is so quiet and so polite and so respectful, might've flown under the radar for many years. He wasn't asking for help, but he was also not making trouble. It makes me wonder, “How would we redesign a class so that he could know earlier on that asking for help—and that this notion that in this class, mathematics—is meant to make sense, and when it doesn't make sense, we owe it to ourselves and each other to help it make sense?” I think it's an invitation to all of us to think about, “What does it mean to ask for help?” And how he wants deep down mathematics to make sense. And I agree with him, that should be just a norm for all of us. Mike: I go back to the language that you used at the beginning, particularly listening to Matthew talk, “the stories that we tell ourselves.” The story that he had told himself about what it meant to ask for help or what that meant about him as a person or as a mathematician. Kara: Yeah. I mean, I am trained as a kind of qualitative researcher. So as part of my dissertation work, I did all kinds of gathering data through interviews and then analyzing them. And one of the ways that is important to me is thinking about kind of narrative analysis. So, when Matthew tells us the things that were in his head, he tells you the voice that his head is saying back to him. Kids will do that. Similarly, later in the interview I said, “What would you say to those kids, those kids who might find it?” And what I was interested in is getting him to articulate in his own voice what he might say to those children. So, when I think about stories, I think about when do we speak in a first person? When do we describe the voices that are in our heads? When do we quote our teachers and our mothers and our cousins? And how that's a powerful form of storytelling, those voices. Mike: Well, I want to listen to one more, and I'm particularly excited about this one. This is Nia. I want to listen to Nia and have you set her up. And then I think what I want to do after this is talk about impact and how these empathy interviews have the potential to shift practice for educators or even school for that matter. So, let's talk about Nia and then let's talk about that. Kara: You got it. Nia is in this really giant classroom of almost 40 kids, fifth-graders, and it's co-taught. It's purposely designed as this really collaborative space, and she uses the word “collaboration,” but she also describes how that's a really noisy environment. On occasion, there's a teacher who she describes pulling her into a quieter space so that she can concentrate. And so, I think that's an important backstory for her just in terms of her as a learner. I ask her a lot of questions about how she thinks about herself as a mathematician, and I think that's the clip we're going to listen to. Mike: Alright, let's listen in. Nia: No, I haven't heard it, but … Kara: OK. I wonder what people mean by that, “I'm not a math person.” Nia: I'm guessing, “I don't do math for fun.” Kara: “I don't do math for fun.” Do you do math for fun? Nia: Yes. Kara: You do? Like, what's your for-fun math? Nia: Me and my grandma, when we were in the car, we were writing in the car. We had this pink notebook, and we get pen or a pencil, and she writes down equations for me in the backseat, and I do them and she times me, and we see how many questions I could get right in, like, 50 seconds. Kara: Oh, my gosh. What's an example of a question your grandma would give you? Nia: Like, they were just practice questions, like, three times five, five times eight. Well, I don't really do fives because I already know them. Mike: So, we only played a real tiny snippet of Nia. But I think one of the things that's really sticking out is just how dense these interviews are with information about how kids think or the stories that they've told themselves. What strikes you about what we heard or what struck you as you were having this conversation with Nia at that particular point in time? Kara: For me, these interviews are about both storytelling and about identity building. And there's that dangerous thinking about two types of people, math people and non-math people. I encounter adults and children who have heard of that phrase. And so, I sometimes offer it in the interview to find out what sense do kids make of that? Kids have told me, “That doesn't make sense.” And other kids have said, “No, no, my mom says that. My mom says she's not a math person.” So, she, I'm playing into it to see what she says. And I love her interpretation that a math person is someone who does math for fun. And truthfully, Mike, I don't know a lot of kids who describe doing math for fun. And so, what I loved about that she, A: She a described a math person's probably a person who, gosh, enjoys it, gets some joy or pleasure from doing mathematics. Kara: But then the granularity of the story she offers, which is the specific pink notebook that she and her grandmother are passing back and forth in the backseat of the car, tell you about mathematics as a thing that she shares a way of relating to her grandmother. It's been ritualized, and really all they're doing if you listen to it is, her grandmother's kind of quizzing her on multiplication facts. But it's such a different relationship to multiplication facts because she's in relationship to her grandmother. They have this beautiful ongoing ritual. And quite honestly, she's using it as an example to tell us that's the fun part for her. So, she just reminds us that mathematics is this human endeavor, and for her, this one ritual is a way in which she relates and connects to her grandmother, which is pretty cool. Mike: So, I want to shift a little bit and talk about a couple of different things: the types of questions that you ask, some of the norms that you have in mind when you're going through the process, and then what struck me about listening to these is you're not trying to convince the kids who you're interviewing of anything about their current thinking or their feelings or trying to shift their perspective on their experience. And I'm just wondering if you can think about how you would describe the role you're playing when you're conducting the interview. 'Cause it seems that that's pretty important. Kara: Yeah. I think the role I'm playing is a deep listener. And I'm trying to create space. And I'm trying to make a very, very, very safe environment for kids to feel like it's OK to tell me a variety of stories about who they are. That's my role. I am not their classroom teacher in these interviews. And so, these interviews probably look and sound differently when the relationship between the interviewer and the interviewee is about teachers and students and/or has a different kind of power differential. I get to be this frequent visitor to their classroom, and so I just get to listen deeply. The tone that I want to convey, the tone that I want teachers to take up is just this fascination with who they are and a deep curiosity about their experience. And I'm positioned in these interviews as not knowing a lot about these children. Kara: And so, I'm actually beautifully positioned to do what I want teachers to do, which is imagine you didn't know so much. Imagine you didn't have the child's cumulative file. Imagine you didn't know what they were like last year. Imagine you didn't know all that, and you had to ask. And so, when I enter these interviews, I just imagine, “I don't know.” And when I'm not sure, I ask another smaller question. So I'll say, “Can you say more about that?” or “I'm not sure if you and I share the same meaning.” The kinds of questions I ask kids—and I think because I've been doing this work for a while, I have a couple questions that I start with and after that I trust myself to follow the lead of the children in front of me—I often say to kids, “Thank you for sitting down and having a conversation with me today. I'm interested in hearing kids' stories about math and their math journey, and somebody in your life told me you have a particularly interesting story.” And then I'll say to kids sometimes, “Where do you want to start in the story?” And I'll try to give kids agency to say, “Oh, well, we have to go back to kindergarten” or “I guess we should start now in high school” or kids will direct me where they think are the salient moments in their own mathematical journey. Mike: And when they're sharing that story, what are the types of questions that you might ask along the way to try to get to clarity or to understanding? Kara: Great question. I'm trying to elicit deep emotion. I'm trying to have kids explain why they're telling me particular stories, like, what was significant about that. Kids are interesting. Some kids in these interviews just talk a lot. And other kids, I've had to really pepper them with questions and that has felt a little kind of invasive, like, this isn't actually the kind of natural conversation that I was hoping for. Sometimes I'll ask, “What is it like for you or how do you think about a particular thing?” I ask about things like math community, I ask about math partners. I ask about, “How do you know you're good at math and do you trust those ways of knowing?” I kind of create spaces where we could have alternative narratives. Although you're absolutely right, that I'm not trying to lead children to a particular point of view. I'm kind of interested in how they make sense. Mike: One of the things that, you used a line earlier where you said something about humanizing mathematics, and I think what's striking me is that statement you made: “What if you didn't have their cumulative report card?” You didn't have the data that tells one story, but not necessarily their story. And that really is hitting me, and I'm even feeling a little bit autobiographical. I was a kid who was a lot like Matthew, who, at a certain point, I just stopped raising my hand because I thought it meant something about me, and I didn't want people to see that. And I'm just struck by the impact of one, having someone ask you about that story as the learner, but also how much an educator could take from that and bring to the relationship they had with that child while they were working on mathematics together. Kara: You said a lot there, and you actually connect to how I think about empathy interviews in my practice now. I got to work with Rochelle Gutiérrez this summer, and that's where I learned deeply about her framework, rehumanizing mathematics. When I do these empathy interviews, I'm living in this part of her framework that's about the body and emotions. Sometimes kids in the empathy interview, their body will communicate one thing and their language will communicate something else. And so, that's an interesting moment for me to notice how body and motions even are associated with the doing of mathematics. And the other place where empathy interviews live for me is in the work of “Street Data,” Jamila Dugan and Shane Safir's book, that really call into question this idea that what is measurable and what is quantifiable is really all that matters, and they invite us to flip the data dashboard. Kara: In mathematics, this is so important 'cause we have all these standardized tests that tell children about who they are mathematically and who they're about to become. And they're so limiting, and they don't tell the full story. So, when they talk about “Street Data,” they actually write about empathy interviews as a way in which to be humanizing. Data can be liberatory, data can be healing. I feel that when I'm doing these interviews, I have this very tangible example of what they mean because it is often the case that at the end of the interview—and I think you might've had this experience just listening to the interview—there's something really beautiful about having a person be that interested in your story and how that might be restorative and might make you feel like, “There's still possibility for me. This isn't the last story.” Mike: Absolutely. I think you named it for me, which is, the act of telling the story to a person, particularly someone who, like a teacher, might be able to support me being seen in that moment, actually might restore my capacity to feel like, “I could do this” or “My fate as a mathematician is not sealed.” Or I think what I'm taking away from this is, empathy interviews are powerful tools for educators in the sense that we can understand our students at a much deeper level, but it's not just that. It's the experience of being seen through an empathy interview that can also have a profound impact on a child. Kara: Yes, absolutely. I'm part of a collaboration out of University of California where we have thought about the intersection of disability and mathematics, and really thinking about how using the tools of design thinking, particularly the empathy interview can be really transformative. And what the teachers in our studies have told us is that just doing these empathy interviews—and we're not talking about interviewing all the kids that you teach. We're talking about interviewing a select group of kids with real intention about, “Who's a kid who has been marginalized?” And/or “Who's a kid who I don't really know that much about and/or I don't really have a relationship with?” Or “Who's a kid who I suspect doesn't feel seen by me or doesn't feel, like, a deep sense of belonging in our work together?” Teachers report that just doing a few of these interviews starts to change their relationship to those kids. Kara: Not a huge surprise. It helped them to name some of the assumptions they made about kids, and it helped them to be in a space of not knowing around kids. I think the other thing it does for teachers that we know is that they describe to do an empathy interview well requires a lot of restraint, restraint in a couple of ways. One, I'm not fixing, I'm not offering advice. I'm also not getting feedback on my teaching. And I also think it's hard for teachers not to insert themselves into the interview with our own narratives. I really try to make sure I'm listening deeply and I'm painting a portrait of this kid, and I'm empathetic in the sense I care deeply and I'm deeply listening, which I think is a sign of respect, but the kids don't need to know about my experience in the interview. That's not the purpose. Mike: We could keep going for quite a long time. I'm going to make a guess that this podcast is going to have a pretty strong on a lot of folks who are out in the field listening. Kara: Hmm. Mike: If someone was interested in learning more about empathy interviews and wanted to explore or understand more about them, do you have any particular recommendations for where someone might go to continue learning? Kara: Yes, and I wish I had more, but I will take that as an invitation that maybe I need to do a little bit more writing about this work. I think the “Street Data” is an interesting place where the co-authors do reference empathy interviews, and I do think that they have a few videos online that you could see. I think Jamila Dugan has an empathy interview that you could watch and study. People can write me and/or follow me. I'm working on an article right now. My colleagues in California and I have a blog called “Designing4Inclusion,” “4” being the number four, and we've started to document the work of empathy and how it shows up in teachers' practice there. Mike: Well, I want to thank you so much for joining us, Kara. It has really been a pleasure talking with you. Kara: Thank you, Mike. I was really happy to be invited. Mike: This podcast is brought to you by The Math Learning Center and the Maier Math Foundation, dedicated to inspiring and enabling individuals to discover and develop their mathematical confidence and ability. © 2023 The Math Learning Center | www.mathlearningcenter.org
In September 2012, a news story broke about Pastor Saeed Abedini, an ordained minister with duel American-Iranian citizenship who was arrested in Iran. He had been involved with setting up house churches in Iran and was working on setting up an orphanage. In 2013 he was sentenced to eight years in prison where he was beaten and denied medical treatment. Saeed's former wife, Naghmeh, worked tirelessly for Saeed's release, which took place in 2016. Shortly before Saeed was released, Naghmeh revealed that Saeed had been addicted to pornography and physically, emotionally, and verbally abused her throughout their marriage. In this first of two episodes, Naghmeh shares her story. Episode Transcript SPONSOR: This program is sponsored by Blazing Grace Ministries. ANNOUNCER: This radio program is PG13. Parents strongly cautioned - some material may be inappropriate for children under the age of 13. Jesus's mission was to comfort those who mourn, bind up the broken-hearted, proclaim liberty to captives, and open prison doors for those who are bound. For those who want more than status quo Christianity has to offer, Blazing Grace Radio begins now. And here is your host, Mike Genung. MIKE GENUNG, HOST, BLAZING GRACE RADIO: Hey, Mike Genung here, and welcome back to Blazing Grace Radio. I'm coming to you from another 115 degree day here in Phoenix, AZ. I think this is like #21 in a row, with more to come! So in September 2012, a news story broke about Pastor Saeed Abedini. He was an ordained minister with dual American-Iranian citizenship and he was arrested in Iran. He had been involved in the past, with setting up house churches there, and was working on setting up an orphanage. Then in 2013, he was sentenced to 8 years in prison. And the stories coming out of that prison were pretty dark, where he was beaten, and denied medical care, and it was pretty rough treatment. And I remember watching that story back at that time and praying for his release. And his wife Naghmeh was... she seemed to be everywhere, petitioning for his release, and getting involved with the US government, and some big name Christian ministries got involved, and... and then Sabadini - or Abedini - was released from prison on January 16th, 2016. And then shortly afterward there were started... stories were starting to surface where he had been abusing his wife, and he was - he had some porn problems. And as we know in our ministry, those two can often go hand in hand, with porn and abuse. It could be physical, emotional or verbal abuse. So, today I have Saeed's former wife Naghmeh with me to tell her side of the story. She made national news when she publicly advocated for the release of her then-husband, Saeed Abedini. Through Saeed's imprisonment, Naghmeh was able to bring worldwide attention to the plight of persecuted Christians, and able to proclaim the Gospel to millions across the globe by speaking at human rights groups, major news outlets, the United Nations at Geneva, the European Parliament Congress, and she had personal meetings with both President Barack Obama and [President] Donald Trump. When it came to light that she had been abused throughout her marriage by her husband, the Christian community suddenly changed on her. So, Naghmeh, welcome to the program. NAGHMEH ABEDINI PANAHI, GUEST: Thank you for having me. MIKE: So let's get started, and have you share your story. NAGHMEH: Yeah, I, since I can... I became a Christian from Islam when I was nine years old. My passion had always been to missions and preaching Muslims for Christ. It wasn't until my husband, who was very abusive, went to prison in Iran, that God started building me up. Because up to that point I have been so abused, so controlled, that I wouldn't then rely on my own thinking. I was completely controlled by my husband, and his imprisonment is actually what set me free, where I was able to... I guess I drew close to the Lord, reading His word, and praying more. And through that time is when God revealed to me the abuse I was under and set me free. And, as you mentioned, porn was a big part of our marriage, and it was considered as "godly" to watch and to try to please my husband in a way that would... in a way, it was twisted to show that it was not sin, and that it was... you know, a way that I could serve my husband. MIKE: You talked about abuse. What did that look like? NAGHMEH: Well, it was very subtle. I didn't even... when I met Saeed in 2002, I had no idea what narcissism was, or even any clue about emotional or psychological abuse. I knew about physical abuse, but even then I thought it's someone that gets beaten up all the time and.... it started with, just when I was meeting him, it started with a lot of verbal putting me down, my looks, wanting me to change certain things about myself, where I had entered the relationship, I was very confident. I was becoming more and more... not confident and believing lies about myself and that I wasn't desirable. Also, around that time, it was the isolation. I didn't realize that's what it was, but just criticizing all my friends... At that time I was a missionary in Iran when I met Saeed, so I didn't have a whole bunch of friends, but I had made some friends. I had come to Iran about a year early before I met Saeed, so some friends. And then my family would visit, and he was undermining them as not being spiritual, as Saeed was… Saeed was very Pentecostal, casting out demons, and a lot of signs and wonders, and he was basically... really, because I did see a lot of signs and wonders, I guess, he made me really trust in him and not to go to my family members or friends that I used to go for council. So he... Saeed became the only source of truth in my life. And there was... there was a few physical... it was some pushing and shoving and... but it wasn't a full-on beating until about a year into our marriage. About a year and a half into our marriage is when the first physical abuse happened. But before then, there was a lot of pushing me away, isolating me. The silent treatment, which is abusive as well, not speaking to me for weeks or months, and or... days, weeks, or months, depending on how much he wanted to punish me, and me begging to talk to him. And yeah, just some, I guess some physical, but at that time I wouldn't have considered it abuse. Some pushing and shoving and yeah, that's how it was. Until about a year, we were so busy with the house church movement, pretty much when I met my husband, we... focused on, we were leading one of the largest house church movements in Iran, so we were busy building disciples. I was actually really busy with that, and traveling, and starting churches, and so our relationship was not so much the focus, even though I knew something was off. But we were so busy, until... November of 2005, we had to flee Iran. So three years. If I met Saeed in 2002, I didn't... I met Saeed in 2002, I didn't marry him until 2004. So about three years after we met and about a year after marriage, we had to flee Iran. We were getting arrested a lot, and... I personally had guns pointed to me and told to deny my faith, and it was just getting so intense that we believed that it would actually endanger the house churches if we stayed longer. And, so, we went to Dubai, and a missionary family... it was around Thanksgiving, and a missionary family had gone to America for sabbatical for six months. So they told us we could use their apartment in Dubai until Saeed could get a visa to America. And the first night that we landed there I was pregnant with my daughter, and I was so tired, I was throwing out... I was searching through the suitcase for my pajamas and Saeed got upset and said "You're making a mess," and I said "Who cares?" and that's when my first full-on beating happened was... MIKE: Oh. NAGHMEH: He just beat me, kicked me, punched me; head, stomach, everywhere, I was bruised, and I thought I was going to die. I crawled into the bathroom, and I mean I had bumps coming out of my head. I crawled into the bathroom and called his parents. I called my mom. They were, of course, his parents were back in Iran, and my parents were in America. And he never said sorry, I mean... he ended up saying it was just the demonic forces in Dubai that had made him do it, but never true repentance. And at that time I was pregnant with our first... child, our daughter. So, having come from the Middle East culture, and also the American culture, church culture of purity movement, where if a girl kisses a guy, she's lost her purity and you're not supposed to, you know... you're supposed to keep yourself for your husband, I felt like I was damaged goods. So I didn't see a way out, in terms of walking away from that marriage. I thought, you know, "I'm stuck and I'm also pregnant, I don't want to be a single mom." So I... from that moment on, I guess I learned my lesson? I was walking on eggshells and did everything not to upset him again. And we ended up coming to America and we had our daughter in 2006, and our son in 2008. So that's... that's my... that's before his imprisonment. And I ended up, I was working until... he, yeah, I was working and we were raising the kids until he... he was traveling back and forth to Iran starting in 2009, when my son was about a year old. And in 2012, he was arrested. And that's when my whole life changed, I guess, from what I thought was the worst thing that could have happened to me, ended up being... actually, God rescued me. MIKE: You met him in 2002. So in the two years that you courted, was there any clue of the physical abuse, or any type of abuse, or the pornography? NAGHMEH: No, he was so deceptive. No, because I, well now looking back, of course there was emotional abuse. There was spiritual abuse, he would use Bible verses, but not something... It was very subtle. And even with his porn addiction, he was very deceptive. We had satellite so we could watch TV shows that were outside of Iran, which sometimes they had kissing, and so when the scene would come up with people kissing, he would look away and I thought, "Wow, this is a really pure man that can't even watch... like, he doesn't want to watch that." So no, I... the porn stuff I had no idea. I actually thought, "Wow, this is a very pure person." I knew of... of his past that was not very... was... yeah, his past was not good. I didn't know about the... he didn't talk about any porn addiction, but I knew he had relationships, there was even an incident of... gang rape, and his behaviors towards women. But all of that, he would say, was before he became a Christian, and he'd become a different person. And so, yeah. I just thought he's a Paul. I would call him a Paul, because he has such a radical background, where he was trained by Hezbollah terrorist group to attack Israel, and then he was about to murder a pastor, and he got saved. And so... I just thought that's the past. He's... when I met him he was a baby Christian, probably two years in the Lord, and he seemed on fire. And so I didn't... his past didn't bother me. It wasn't til we came to America and I was pregnant with my daughter, and I would look next to my bed and he was gone. And, of course, I'm usually a sound sleeper, but when you're pregnant, you go to the bathroom a lot [laughs] So it was towards the end of my pregnancy, and when I would wake up, and then I'd catch him in our living room, which was, you know, a good walk from the bedroom. It was, it was... I would search for him, where could he be? And I would find him in the living room and... he was watching porn. And he would turn it off and pretend it didn't happen. And so that was my first wake up call of what's going on. And then when I had my daughter, when she was about 10 months old, I was pregnant again with my son, Jacob, and we... he was again, there was some abuse, physical abuse, where he had grabbed me and I called the police. He ended up being charged for domestic abuse. It was in 2007, because, yeah, because my son was born in 2008. So my pastor at that time suggested that we move in with my - or I move in with my parents. He said, "Get away, it's not a safe place," you know, "go somewhere away from him." And so that's when I moved in with my parents. And then just over time he left... you know, I don't want to go into the details. There was a season where he left that then he came back, and ended up actually weaselling himself back into my parents house, coming back. And again, that's when it came up. It was... my parents now would walk in, and he had the TV on and he was watching porn, and he'd get so embarrassed and turn it off. And then it became to a point where he would just, if I walked in... he ended up watching it in the playroom, which was not an area my parents would normally come up at, because it was like the second floor. But then I would walk in, he was watching it, and it became to a point where he was no longer ashamed. He was just like, "Uh huh. I'm watching it. It's not sin." And so I didn't know, I guess, what to say to that. He had good arguments that when he was going to... Bible school, I guess they talked about sexually learning to do things, and it was okay to do things in marriage, and they had, he had taken a class on Song of Solomon. And so he was basically justifying it. And then soon... well, yeah, after my son was born, then he was demanding it. He was saying, "We need to watch it, and you need to do things like I tell you to do." And I was resisting watching it. I watched it a few times, but I couldn't stomach it. I just... the Holy Spirit within me was just so much against it. So I refused to watch it, but then he was watching it without shame. And but... and then he was, because of his porn addiction, sexually abusing me. He's just like wanting to do certain things that I didn't want to do. He wanted, you know, certain positions, and forceful, and aggressive, and... which again, at that time I wouldn't have labeled as sexual abuse. But it was. It was... very forceful, and demanding, and not listening to my... I guess my... I'm not wanting, you know, certain things and... so, but at that time I didn't see any of that as abuse, I just thought I have a hard marriage, and I didn't know what to do with it. So yeah. MIKE: You mentioned something about a rape in his past? NAGHMEH: Yeah, he had mentioned... he had mentioned that as a young boy in Iran, they had... it was rape. That he had a relationship with older women and younger women, but he mentioned a specific situation where there was a street girl. I don't know if she was a prostitute or if she was... she was being.... she was sex slavery or whatever her situation was, but she was pretty young, probably a teenager, and he was 18-20, because he got saved at 20. So he was... she was definitely much younger, and they kind of gang raped her. It was him and a group of friends, and... at that time when he told me I was, we were still dating, and so I couldn't even, I had to have no sexual relationship, I couldn't even fathom what he was saying, and... I... I didn't realize the red flag of... a person, basically raping, what that, another human being, what that would mean. MIKE: Mhmm. NAGHMEH: And then years later, I... other women approached me and talked to me, and I realized he's done that to many, many people, even in our house churches. He would pray for people, he would turn off the light, and he would pray for people and they would fall. Like Benny Hin. He was... Benny Hin was Saeed's hero. And later, so many girls at my church said he was fondling with them, and he was sexually molesting them. And when they were on the ground and everyone else's eyes were shut, Saeed was the only one praying and moving around, and praying for people. And years later, people start coming forward and saying that he was sexually abusing them and had used that opportunity to molest them, and things like that. MIKE: Mhmm [sighs] NAGHMEH: But it wasn't until after I came out with the abuse that all these other people started coming to me about things that they had seen. I'd even had other pastors, house church pastors, come forward to me and said, "Now that you say it, like I'd noticed this and this and this, and I didn't know if I was seeing it correctly, but Saeed was doing all this stuff with these girls," and... so until the abuse and his sexual addiction became known to me, and I even understood how damaging, like you said, a porn addiction is, and how it goes hand in hand with abuse, because a woman is no longer viewed as a human being, that they're objectified so... so usually porn addiction and abuse usually go hand in hand... I didn't know any of that until my eyes were opened up to abuse. And, so yeah, and the way they were opened up was when Saeed was in prison. So in 2012, as you said, Saeed was arrested. And at that time, right before his arrest, I remember crying out to the Lord because I could barely read my Bible. I could barely pray. The Bible was used to manipulate me, to control me - MIKE: Mmm. NAGHMEH: - to call me a bad wife. So I couldn't even read God's word because anytime I opened it, it was condemning. It was oppressive. And so when Saeed was arrested, I start opening up the word of God and I start praying. But before his arrest, I remember crying out and asking God to help with the marriage. I thought, "this is going to be my life for the rest of my life. This is going to be my marriage for the rest of my life." Saeed had been in a hotel room, before his arrest, with another woman. And I had called and she had picked up, and I became hysterical. And instead of apologizing, he said I'm crazy and I need to go see a doctor because I was hysterical that another woman - MIKE: Mmm. NAGHMEH: - answered the phone in his hotel. And so at that time, I remember thinking, "Wow, like he's saying I'm crazy for thinking that he cheated on me? They're just sleeping in the same room?" And I thought, this is my... I didn't even see a way out. I never thought divorce would be an option. So I remember crying out to the Lord, like, what's going on? Lord is, you know, and for the first time, just pouring my heart out to the Lord. And then a few hours later, both this girl and my husband were arrested and put in the prison, or actually put under house arrest first, and then put in prison. And from that moment on, I just start praying and reading my Bible. And in the effort of trying to get my husband out, God was building my confidence in Him and growing my walk with Him. And in 2015, I was speaking at a mega church in North Carolina, and the pastor's name was David Chadwick, Pastor David Chadwick. And he... I just... Saeed had a smartphone inside of the prison, and he had gotten a smartphone about a year before his release and he was messaging me, he was seeing how famous he was getting - MIKE: Mmm. NAGHMEH: - and I noticed he was getting access to my Amazon account, and he was watching things like "50 Shades of Gay", which I clicked on and it was just... it was making me like sick to my stomach, the sexual content. And so I noticed he's definitely watching porn again, so I mean, from Iranian prison, and then and it was seemed like there was a lot of more gay porn which made me wonder about what's happening in prison. And then I finally, I didn't share that part of the sexual stuff, because I was so ashamed. I didn't share it with the pastor, but I shared with him, like, "I don't understand. Saeed has a phone inside of the prison and he's sending me really rude messages saying me I'm a whore, I'm a... I'm a Jezebel," and so this pastor looked at me, and I shared everything of what has happened in our marriage, and I couldn't make sense of why Saeed was putting me down when I was trying so hard to get him out. Later it made sense that Saeed was noticing that I was becoming confident, I wasn't the same girl as I was before, where I would just shrivel up and submit to him. So this pastor, after I mentioned everything, and I showed him some of the text messages, he looked at me. He said "Naghmeh, you know, I'm not just a pastor." And I said, "No, I didn't know that." He said. "I'm a doctor." I - MIKE: Naghmeh, Naghmeh I need you to, I need to interrupt for a moment because we're out of time for this first show. But your story is very powerful, and we're going to continue this interview with Nagmeh next week, so I encourage you to join us. And then we'll talk to you next week. ANNOUNCER: Blazing Grace is a nonprofit international ministry for the sexually broken and the spouse. Please visit us at blazinggrace.org for information on Mike Genung's books, groups, counseling, or to have Mike speak at your organization. You can e-mail us at email@blazinggrace.org or call our office in Chandler, AZ at 719-888-5144. Again, visit us at blazinggrace.org, e-mail us at email@blazinggrace.org, or call the office at 719-888-5144. SPONSOR: This program was sponsored by Blazing Grace Ministries.
無情工商時間~ 賴老師的課程-文法百寶箱上架,折扣碼:lai200 https://lihi2.com/oKcha 快速幫你複習一下這集的主題句 & 單字: 我對奇異果過敏 I'm allergic to kiwi. 補充學習 花粉 pollen 過敏 allergy 你會對…..過敏嗎? Are you allergic to ...? /Do you have any allergies? >allergic reaction< 流鼻水 running nose 皮膚癢 itchy skin, rash(皮疹、起疹子) 打噴嚏 sneezing 情境對話 Mike:Hi Duncan。我給你帶了一些水果沙拉。你要不要吃一點? Hi, Duncan. I brought some fruit salad for you. Do you want some? Duncan:謝啦,你人也太好了。但是我對奇異果過敏。裡面有奇異果嗎? Thank you, That's very kind of you. But I'm allergic to kiwi. Does it have kiwi in it? Mike:哦,抱歉。我不知道你對奇異果過敏,裡面確實有奇異果。那你要不要改吃蘋果派呢? Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know that. Yes, it does have kiwi in it. How about some apple pie instead? Duncan:好啊!我喜歡蘋果派。謝啦! That sounds great. I love apple pie. Thank you for offering. 小額贊助支持本節目: https://open.firstory.me/user/ckf6dwd77euw20897td87i5wj 留言告訴我你對這一集的想法: https://open.firstory.me/user/ckf6dwd77euw20897td87i5wj/comments Powered by Firstory Hosting
Rounding Up Season 1 | Episode 17 – Asset-Based Approach to Assessment Guest: Tisha Jones Mike Wallus: When you look at the results of your students work, what types of things are you attending to? Many of us were trained to look for the ways that students were not understanding concepts or ideas. But what if we flipped that practice on its head and focused on the things students did understand? Today on the podcast, we're talking with Tisha Jones, senior adviser for content development at The Math Learning Center, about building an asset-based approach to assessment. Mike: Tisha, first of all, thanks for joining us. We're thrilled to have you with us. Tisha Jones: I'm really excited to be here. Mike: I have a sense that for a lot of people, the idea of asset-based assessment is something that we might need to unpack to offer, kind of, a basic set of operating principles or a definition. So, my first question is, how would you describe asset-based assessment? What would that mean for a practitioner? Tisha: I think the first part of it is thinking just about assessment. Assessment is a huge part of every school that is in this country. So, there are formative assessments, which are ongoing assessments that teachers are doing while students are considered “in the process of learning”—although we know that students really are never not in the process of learning. And then there are also summative assessments, when we want to see if they have demonstrated proficiency or mastery of the concepts that they've been learning throughout that unit. But when we're thinking about assessments, oftentimes the idea of assessment is that we are looking for what students don't know. And asset-based assessment means that we're taking this idea and we're flipping it, and we're saying, “Let's start by looking at what students are showing us that they do know.” And we're trying to really focus on the things that our students are showing us that they're able to do. Mike: So, that's a lot. And I think one of many of the things that's going on for me is that that's a pretty profound mind shift, I think, for a lot of folks in the field; not because they necessarily want to look at their students as a set of deficits, but because most of the training that a lot of us got actually was focused on “What are the deficits?” Tisha: Most of the training when we're talking about kids casually, or with our colleagues or administrators, we're often worried about, “Well, our kids don't know this. Our kids are struggling here.” And that really becomes the way that we see our students, right? And our kids are so much more than that, right? And our kids are coming to us with knowledge, and we can forget that when we're only focused on what they don't know. Mike: There's a great quote that you're making me think about. It's from the 14th century, and the person has said, essentially, “The language that we use becomes the world that we live in.” And I think that's a little bit of where you're going, is that deficit-focused language kind of lives in the DNA of a lot of either the training that we've had or the structures of schools. And so, flipping this is a mind shift, and I think it's really exciting that we're talking about this. I have two things on my mind. I think one is, let's talk about the assessments themselves first. So, if I want to start thinking about using my assessments in an asset-based way, if we just think about the assessments themselves, be they formative or summative, tell me about what you think an educator might do with the assessments that they're using, whether they're coming from a curriculum or whether they're some that they're designing on their own. How should I think about the assessment materials that I have, and are there ways that I should imagine shifting them? Tisha: That's a great question. I think that when you're looking at your assessments, you may or may not need to change them. They might be fine the way that they are. But the way to know is when you see the opportunities kids have to give their answers, what is that going to tell you about what they understand? So, if you have, for example, a problem that is computation, if you have a problem that has just asked the kids for an answer, or if you have a problem that's multiple choice, what are you learning about their thinking, about their understanding from what they put on the paper? Now, I'm not saying don't ever use those questions. They have their purpose. But that is really what I am asking you to do, is to think about “What is their purpose? What is the intention behind the questions on the assessment?” So, are there ways for you to open up the assessment to give kids more ways of showing what they do understand as opposed to limiting them to saying, “You must show something in this way” or “You're either right or you're wrong”? Mike: Yeah, that really hits home for me. And I think one of the operating principles that I'm hearing is, regardless of what assessment tools you're using, creating space for kids to show you how they're thinking is really a starting, foundational, kind of, centerpiece for asset-based assessment. Tisha: Absolutely. And I want to also add that I'm talking a lot about paper and pencil because we think about assessments as paper and pencil. But assessment's also not just paper and pencil. Assessment, especially formative assessment, it's your conversations that you have with kids in class. As far as I am concerned, there is no better way to know what a kid's thinking than to talk to them. Talk to your kids as much as you absolutely, possibly can. Ask them so many questions. Mike: Well, you're bringing me to the second piece about the assessments themselves. One piece is, create space, regardless of whether it's a question in a conversation or whether it's a question in a paper-pencil assessment or what have you, for them to show their thinking. The other thing that it makes me think is, part of my work as an educator is to look at the questions and say, “What are the big ideas that I'm really looking for? And what is it that I'm hoping that I can understand about children's thinking with each of these questions that I'm asking?” Tisha: Yes. Mike: Beyond just right and wrong. Tisha: Yes, this is hard work. But this, to me, is not extra work. When you think about a gap, sometimes that can feel very disheartening. It can feel like, “I can't close it. My kids don't know this. They're never going to get it.” It almost just drains the joy of teaching out. This is the job, and this is the part that I am hoping we can all get excited about. I am excited to know what my kids understand. I feel like that gives me a better entryway to being a better teacher for them. If we can start to shift how we think about assessing our students to looking for what they know, to me, that feels very different. It feels different for your kids, and it feels different for you. It's much more fun to walk into a classroom thinking about what my kids know than what they don't. Mike: Yeah. And I think you're hinting at the next place that I wanted to go, which is, there's the assessments themselves and both how I use them and how I make space for kids to show their thinking. And then there's “How do I approach the things that kids are showing me in their assessments?” And I think that feels like another one of these mind-shift pieces where, what kept coming to mind for me is, if you and I and a colleague or two were sitting together at a table and we were teaching third grade and we had a set of student work in front of us, part of what I'm thinking about is what would a conversation sound like if we were really taking an asset-based perspective on looking at our students' work? What questions might we ask? What kind of a process might we use to, kind of, really focus on assets as opposed to focusing on deficits and gaps? Tisha: So, as we're looking at the work, I think the best place to start is, if we're talking as colleagues, “What do you see that the kids know? What are they doing well?” Whether you're talking about one kid or whether you're talking about a group of kids or your class collectively, “What are they doing well?” And for me, even just sitting here across from you saying this, that feels like a much brighter place to start. I'm like, “OK, I'm into this conversation about what my kids know,” and I would then start to say, “OK, and how can we build on what they know?” Mike: Ooh, I love that. Keep talking about that. Tisha: So, if we're looking at say, fractions, and we're kind of at the beginning, we could come in and we could say, “Oh, our kids are just not getting it. They don't know anything about fractions.” And that feels very defeating. But if you start with, “OK, well, I can see that they can partition into half, great. OK, so can we get them to fourths? Can we get them to eighths? How about thirds? All right. Can they get it on a rectangle? Can they get it on a circle? Can they get it in this context? Can they get it if it's a sharing situation?” Right? Now, we're brainstorming all of these questions of what can they do next. Mike: And those are actionable things, right? Like … Tisha: Right. Mike: … in addition to saying, “This is what kids are doing,” thinking about “What I can build from” actually leads to action, it leads me to a path of instruction, and that does feel really different. Tisha: So, if we are here and we take the perspective that our kids don't get fractions, then that could bleed into our instruction in a different way. So, instead of now thinking about what we can do next and how we can keep building them up, we may be thinking about how do we need to water things down? How do I need to make things easier? And we want to make sure that we are not taking away rich mathematical opportunities from our students because our perspective is that they're not able, they have deficits. We want to instead think about “How do we build them up? How do we still make sure that they're getting these rich mathematical problems and opportunities in class and being able to grow them in that way?” Mike: Love that. So, one of the things that really just jumped out, and I want to come back to this because I think the language is so darn important: This idea that an asset-based perspective leads to thinking about instruction as “building upon.” That just seems like such a practical, simple thing. But boy, shifting your mindset and approaching it the way you described it, Tisha, that really does feel profoundly different than a lot of the data conversations that I've sat in over the years. Tisha: At that point, we should be stopping to think, “What do they need next?” But it's hard to make that [determination] based on saying, “Well, they don't know this.” It's much easier to think about what they need next if you're looking for what they do know. And you can say, “Oh, I can make some connections to that and move them maybe even just a little bit to a little bit further, help them take another step.” Mike: It strikes me that what I don't hear you saying is, “We can't acknowledge that there's sometimes going to be a difference between what kids understand and our ultimate goals for them.” That can still be true, but we're looking at their starting point as the starting point and the next steps, rather than just only saying, like, “The gap is this wide.” And even using the language of “gap” is challenging, right? Tisha: Absolutely. Mike: Because we're trying to say, like, “Our job is to build, not just to measure.” Tisha: Well, and when you think about talking about a gap, it almost feels like it's the kids' fault. Mike: Uh-hm. Tisha: But right now, in our conversation, we are talking about where the responsibility is. Mike: Oh! Yeah! Tisha: And the responsibility is on me to keep thinking about “How do I help this kid grow?” Mike: Uh-hm. Tisha: “How do I keep helping this kid grow in their math understanding?” It is not uncommon in elementary schools to group or classify kids based on their abilities. And coming from the best place, right? Like, we're all wanting to help our students. I believe that everybody wants to help their students grow. Mike: This conversation has really got me thinking a lot, and I suspect that anyone who's listening is in the same place. I'm curious, if I'm a person who's new to this conversation, if these ideas are new, I'm wondering if you have any recommendations about where someone could go to keep learning, be it, uh, a book, a website, something along those lines that could keep me thinking about this and exploring these ideas? Tisha: A good place to start is a book called “The Impact of Identity in K–8 Mathematics: Rethinking Equity-Based Practices.” And that is an NCTM publication. Mike: I love that one. It's fantastic. In fact, I've read it myself. We'll put a link to that in the podcast notes. Tisha: That would be great. I think that it's a great resource for thinking about assessment and just equity-based practices in general. Mike: Fabulous. Tisha, it was lovely having you on. Thank you so much. Tisha: Oh, it's been so much fun. Mike: This podcast is brought to you by The Math Learning Center and the Maier Math Foundation, dedicated to inspiring and enabling individuals to discover and develop their mathematical confidence and ability. © 2023 The Math Learning Center | www.mathlearningcenter.org
Rounding Up Season 1 | Episode 16 – Math Talk in Kindergarten & Beyond Guest: Dr. Hala Ghousseini Mike Wallus: Kindergarten is a joyful, exciting, and challenging grade level to teach. It's also a time when educators can develop a set of productive norms and routines around discourse that can have long lasting effects on students. On today's podcast, we talk with Dr. Hala Ghousseini, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, about building a solid foundation from math talk in kindergarten and beyond. Mike: Welcome, Hala. We're really excited to have you on the podcast today talking about math talk in kindergarten. Hala Ghousseini: Thank you very much for having me. This is exciting. I love this topic, and the chance to really talk about this with you is great. Mike: Well, I feel the same way. I spent eight of my 17 years teaching kindergarten, so I've been dreaming about a podcast like this for a long time. Hala: ( laughs ) I can imagine the magic of kindergarten just because it's a time where people think that they know what to expect, but literally you don't know what to expect with children in kindergarten. Mike: You started to hint at the first thing that I hope to talk about. I would love to talk about norms. This feels so important because the norms and the culture that we set in kindergarten, from my perspective, those might be some of the first messages students receive about what's valued in a mathematics classroom. And I'm wondering if you could talk just a bit about the norms that you think are important. I mean, perhaps what it looks like to support them in kindergarten. Hala: Absolutely. And I just want to situate a little bit some of the things that I have been studying and thinking about. When I think of math in kindergarten, it very much exists within the learning altogether that happens in kindergarten; whether it's social-emotional skills, whether they're learning about other subject areas. So, when I think about the norms, I think often of them as embedded within the fabric of what's happening in kindergarten. In the research that we've done, we've seen it happening at two levels. One in relation to what we would call ‘norms related to what's conceptual,' or what [people might] call more like the disciplinary aspects of norms. So, some of the things that we've seen is, first of all, centered on children's thinking. The idea that first as an individual in class, that I'm a contributor to everyone's understanding. So, the way that is typically continuously communicated by the teacher, in the sense that it's important to share our thinking. And it's important to share it, not just because I'm the teacher and I asked you to do it, but because it's going to contribute to everyone else's learning. Hala: My learning as the teacher, others learning in the classroom. And we've seen examples from teachers where often, as they're asking students to get ready to go into their small groups, they would always say, ‘Remember, it's important to show our thinking and our work because we want to help someone else learn it.' You want to help the class understand this idea better. And even with the use of representations, resources, those were all really in the service of helping someone make their thinking explicit so that someone else is going to understand it or use it or build on it. So, I'll give you another example. The idea of saying, ‘Remember, we want to listen now to Hala share her thinking because we want to think how we make sense of it, what Hala is helping us think about. So, those were the typical expressions or things that teachers would say in building these norms in the classroom. Hala: The other norm, when it comes to the social aspects of the norm, was really this explicit work on the sense of the collective as an intellectual community. The idea that we are in this together. It's not about me and you as the teacher, but it's about the us. What do we make of it? How do we really flag certain things that may help the group process and think about something? And those were also done constantly across the times we've spent in these classrooms, in the way teachers would really point to something that may help us as a group later. ‘Hey, look at this, this might help us later in the way we're going to work on certain ideas together.' Mike: Well, I do want to ask you about something else that really struck me when I was reading the article. So, you and your co-authors talked a great deal about orienting students to and then encouraging the use of resources to communicate their thinking. That really hit me as a person who used to teach these young kiddos. Can you talk a little bit about what this looks like? Hala: Yes. This drew our attention, given where kindergartners are in their language development. They bring a lot of language from home that actually is going to be essential to build on in explaining the reasoning, talking about their thinking, reacting to someone else's thinking. So, we started thinking about the way students' thinking, the way their language that they bring with them, becomes a resource that they could use. So, encouraging them that ‘Yes, that is one way you can explain your thinking,' so that really they find that language that is going to give them an entry point into the collective as an intellectual community. The second thing in relation to resources, also availing in the classroom. We've noticed these teachers that—besides the fact that you have, like, a number line or a hundredth chart displayed on the board or even the physical tools that usually typically students play with—how those become things that the teacher points to and says, ‘Wow, you know what you're doing.' Hala: This might help us think about this idea. So, let's remember that what struck us was that, when students were explaining their thinking, we rarely saw a student asking for permission to go and use something to come and support their thinking. We saw that they were really going to things and bringing them. So that was a norm in that class. That kind of intersects with the idea of normative ways of working. You can just go and reach it. You don't have to get that teacher's permission to do it. I think one more thing I'll say about resources. We've noticed the teacher, typically if a student used a particular resource that supported them in their thinking, when they're sharing, they make sure to actually highlight it, lift it up in what the student is saying so that others see that those resources could be contributions to supporting the reasoning in this class. Mike: So, boy, there's a lot there. I think the first thing that really hits me is this idea that part of the culture that you want to establish, is that the resources are available and it's contingent on the teacher saying, ‘Yes, you can go get that right now.' Hala: Absolutely. And it's a way of socializing the students to be aware of what's in their classroom that is actually part of what's supporting their learning. You know, there is a thing that I always work in when I'm working with teachers, this idea that, you know, children are sense makers. And we tend to think of children as sense makers beyond just mathematics. Of course they are, but also they're sense makers as learners in general. So, we treat them as sense makers in the way as teachers. We owe it to them to explain to them why, for example, we're asking them to do something. And we say, ‘So, I want you to show your work—not just to please me, because this contributes to the collective work in this way.' And we reinforce this message continuously. Similarly, the idea of what's in our class, like, when we see, for example, base ten blocks. I have a few things in this corner. The idea that these are there to also support our learning. So, we treat them as sense makers in the sense, these are all shared tools for our classrooms. So, that's kind of how we think about it in relation to the orienting to resources. Mike: I want to check my own understanding. I was struck by the way that you talked about the way that the teacher positions the materials. It seems like a pitfall, I know that I have fallen into at different points in time is: Using the materials to set a conversation up in a way where children might come away thinking, ‘Oh, that's the way to do it,' which is very different from, I think the way I heard you describe it. It was more like, this is a tool that can help us think about for future reference. I just wanted to call that out because I thought I heard that, but I wasn't exactly sure if I was interpreting that accurately. Hala: Thank you for mentioning that. I think what you're really referring to is what often happens, especially when we use some manipulatives, let's say, or resources or tools. Where the idea becomes that the tool equates what it means to do or to reason, like, as if the idea is within the tool and/or the representation, uh, et cetera. And I think the idea that there is a lot of choice. So, one of the things for example, that we are currently studying is in kindergarten classrooms, the nature of the use of multiple representations. There's one question, ‘How often can students come up with their own representations?' They invent the representations. How often can they go on their own to draw on certain tools to represent an idea? Those say something when it's actually coming from the student, where you can follow up with questions and say, ‘So, tell me why you use this? Like how do you see it in this one?' And that's the work that we saw teachers do often, is that they're orienting the resources but then they're orienting to resources as supporting reasoning. Hala: And there is the question of why, pressing students. There is a nice example that I always love to think about, especially with kindergarteners using multiple representations and their own choices. Of course, students come to class with various fluency in academic language, vocabulary, et cetera. So, there was an instance where the teacher was asking the students, ‘If we've been in school for 129 days, in how many days like that number 29 is going to, we are going to get another 10?' And they were working with bundling sticks and other things. They focused on the number 9 as nine ones. And how many more ones till we get another 10? Then the teacher asks the class, ‘Well, is there another way we can think about how many more days till we get to another 10?' Hala: ‘Can we use the number 29 altogether?' And a student raises her hand, we call her Gloria, and actually points to the number line above the whiteboard and says, ‘One twenty-nine, 130.' And the teacher says, ‘What do you mean by those two?' That literally points to it: 129, 130. So, what the teacher does, she presses Gloria to explain more and says, ‘Tell us a little bit more. What do you mean by 129 and 130?' Then Gloria actually sees that just looking at the number line as a representation—we call it a language proxy—to help her really explain her thinking, according to Gloria, wasn't enough for her. She actually goes back to the hundreds chart. She points at 29, makes a hub, and says, ‘One jump and we get to 30.' So, we see this is just as a small example of where the student is really using their agency in deciding on the representation, and the teacher then helps the class try to see the connection that Gloria was trying to make between this representation. We think this is important for not only this grade level, but whenever we use multiple representations. The power of multiple representations is in helping the students see the conceptual connection between them. So, that's where I would caution all of us when we are doing this, to try to make sure we are focusing on the conceptual piece that the representation is allowing us to see. Mike: I think part of what you had me thinking about is The Math Learning Center and Bridges. We have kind of hung our hat on this idea that visual representations are a powerful tool. But the caution that I always feel is, if those visual representations just turn into another version of an algorithm that's more like geometric or visually laid out, then we are not advancing the kind of classroom culture or discourse or thinking that we want, right? That it really is to expose the big ideas. And I think that's what I take, particularly from that example is, the visual actually served as, like, a tool that helped them find the language to describe the concept rather than just as, like, a here's how you do it. Does that make sense? Hala: Exactly. I think the tool here is a way for them … the difference is that they're using it not to apply the reasoning, it's not an application. That's kind of where I see it. Don't just come and show me how like, like base ten blocks can represent a number. Base ten blocks are used as a way to support a mathematical idea, not just to apply, like, to show you and show you how something looks like on a hundreds chart. Actually going back to the hundreds chart, to the hub between 29 and 30, was in the service of really explaining what they meant by 130, 129, 100, there is a hub. That's what they were talking about in class that when you, you're counting by ones, you're actually now, you got no more 9, 10—9 ones—you actually have one more. And now you could bundle it, and it's your extra 10. So, it's all couched in the history of working with these representations, like how these students experienced the work as to not just, ‘Hey, come, let's represent the numbers.' Or there was more talk about, like, those key ideas that the students were talking about. Mike: What you're making me think about is that there's an overall pattern that I want to explore in the context of kindergarten, which is that, as a field, in my mind, one of the things that I wonder about is whether we have almost explicitly thought about communicating our thinking as something that happens in the verbal realm. And the more that I've been in the profession is, that we need to broaden that, particularly when we're talking about young children in pre-K and kindergarten. And I'm wondering, in your mind, what broadening out communication might look like, particularly in kindergarten? Hala: That's a great question. And I would link it again, like, whenever I think about the norms, the resources, I see them literally as a triangle with other things working together. Especially critical at this young age is verbal and non-verbal communication; or really, assets for the students to express their thinking and communicate with others. And that's where, in a way, the resources become the mediators of this, with non-verbal—we call them language proxies—is that they become ways of helping the communication without necessarily waiting for that correct vocabulary or the specific language. And I think the more we honor various ways of participating and contributing to the learning of the collective, the more students are going to be able to make improvements, and to make connections, and to show us what they know, rather than thinking it's too difficult for them to do something maybe because they don't have that particular, specialized language that someone is looking for. Hala: We actually think of kindergartners in the way they're really acquiring this new—not only the verbal language, so that they become more proficient in it—the academic language. And actually, if you come to think of it, every student in math class, in a way, is a language learner, especially the idea of what does it mean to explain one's reasoning? And when we are thinking about certain ways that schools go, they want to follow, for example, the Common Core standards and what they expect in terms of providing evidence, supporting it. That's actually a language learning process. And there is actually the literature about supporting bilingual students and multilingual students in classrooms, helps us a lot think about how we could support learners in the early childhood span. And most recently I was reading an opinion piece by Tim Boals at the WIDA at the University of Wisconsin. I just actually highlighted a few things in what he said in his opinion piece, which is basically about what it takes to make sure that multilingual students encounter opportunities to learn. Hala: So, in a parallel way, it makes me think what it takes for opportunities for early childhood learners and kindergartners to learn. I just highlighted a few elements that might be one of the resources I share with you in the end, in case someone is interested in them; about what school programs could do to ensure that multilingual learners have opportunities to learn. One of them is actually the idea that always encourage the can-do kind of stance, that you can do it. It's not too difficult for you, like, even in the choice of tasks. How this guides us for kindergartners is tha,t let's not just give tasks that allow kindergartners even to skip count on a number line. Actually using tasks where they can reason and think about why something is true, would be something they can do. So, thinking about not what they can't do because they're restricted with what they know with numbers, et cetera, it's actually what they can do. Hala: So, the idea of designing tasks that leverages what they know, that they could really show you the way they're reading a situation, what they know about the situation, and really leverage the resources they have to explain their thinking. My favorite in terms of what he lists in terms of opportunities for multilingual learners, is this idea of building academic identities, where he says that ‘this is much more than merely teaching content knowledge and skills. It's about learning to communicate and think like people who work in those academic or vocational areas.' That's all of this can do. And opening possibilities for reasoning helps our kindergartners develop really mathematical identities early on that we know are going to impact their opportunities to learn later. And that's what research shows. Mike: So, in the third part of your article, you talk about the idea of narration. And I'm wondering if you could explain narration in this context and then talk a little bit about why it's particularly helpful for young learners? Hala: So, let me explain what we meant by it in that article. It's literally when, because students may not have that facility to explain their thinking articulately, elaborately, it's when the teacher actually supports them by recapping what they said to the class. And on top of it, building on it and setting it up for further articulation or investigation. So, we try to distinguish here, that's why we're trying to revisit the word ‘narration' because, we don't think of it just as revoicing. We think of it as a way where the teacher is highlighting something the student did and, often, we see it in exchange. It's highlighted not only in terms of the verbatim words that they used or the actions that they took. Highlighting why this is really helping in the task that we are working on together, and then follows it. It positions it in a way where, now this is what Gloria did. Hala: So, really it positions the student in a way where other students are now listening, are trying to see what the student is doing and saying, and then it sets the stage for further focus or deeper conceptual exploration of particular ideas. So, an example of that would be when Gloria went from 129 to 130 and went down to the hundreds chart and said, ‘You know, there is a hop from 29 to 30.' So, the teacher may say, ‘OK, here's what Gloria said so far. She picked those two numbers, she saw that they follow each other. Actually we're going to get to 130. Then she went down to the hundreds chart to really focus on that jump of one from 29 to 30.' And then she would immediately go on with a question to the group. ‘Now what do we do?' I think that makes it more ambitious than just simply revoicing or appropriating something that the student said, or trying to put words that they may not have used. I think positioning it for further and deeper conceptual work takes us a bit away from that. Mike: That's really helpful. You started to address the question that I was going to ask next, which is what's the sweet spot for what you described in the article as narration? It struck me, at least as I was reading it, that over narrating, if we were defining it as kind of revoicing for kids, might impact kids in ways that are not productive. But what I hear you saying is, narration is much more than revoicing. Hala: Absolutely. And that sweet spot that I think you are getting at is really knowing when do you do it and when do you hold off. In the sense, I don't think there is a rule, but it all goes to the teacher's ability to know: ‘Is there a shared language here that the students can access through what a student said?' So, knowing your students in terms of, is this something that I need to further articulate so that now they could engage productively with someone's idea? And if it's not, then actually it's just highlighting; pulling from what a student says, the valuable pieces that you think are going to be important for the continued work of the class, rather than, literally, a student says something, you say verbatim, and then you ask more questions. It's really tracking what seems to be important for the development of everyone's thinking, that collective as an intellectual community that's working together. Mike: That's really helpful. And I think what I heard are simultaneous things that are happening. One is attending to the ideas that you want to position as important. And the other thing that really jumps is this idea that we're also positioning the child as the author of the ideas. Hala: Yes. And you know, in later grades we've seen teachers being able to do this in grades 1 and 2, is often—especially when we are working early on to build that classroom talk community, that math talk community—is encouraging students as listeners to someone to say, ‘Did you hear something that you think is important for the way we are really working on this problem in what Mike said? So, let's listen. Was there something you have a question about, you're not certain about?' Also, distributing the work of the narration, if we want to call it that way, so it's distributed. It's not just about me, but now the class is listening and trying to pull what's important and worthy of focusing on. Mike: I love that. Particularly that idea that you can in fact distribute the idea of narration to the class, and it doesn't just live with the teacher. It also advances that broader cultural goal that you have, which is that the students are actually sense makers, which is the thing from the very beginning of this conversation. Hala: Again, it goes back to the way I think about all the practices that we've talked about, to be very interconnected. It's not like we know you set up norms, you put them on a chart. You know, norms are reinforced, are renegotiated with your students through the work that you do. And there's a lot of socializing that you're doing while you're working on content. It reinforces certain ideas, it reintroduces certain ideas for others to see how they're able to access them and be part of them. So yes, I agree with you. They're all connected in that way. Mike: Well, Hala, before we close the podcast, I'm wondering if you could share some resources with listeners who might be encountering some of the ideas we're talking about for the first time. Is there anything that you might suggest for a listener who just wants to keep thinking about this and perhaps learn more? Hala: So, if they're interested in thinking a little bit more about representations, there is a recent article that I published with Dr. Eric Siy, who is currently at Boston University, in relation to what multiple representations mean. And how different they are from just using different representations. Mike: Yep. We could absolutely put a link to that on the podcast notes. Hala: Yeah. And I find the work of Dr. Amy Parks at Michigan State University. You know, she has this book called ‘Exploring Mathematics Through Play in the Early Childhood Classroom.' [It] has wonderful pieces that really could support this work in relation to the idea of reasoning in kindergarten, discourse in kindergarten. And it could happen during play. It doesn't have to happen necessarily only during academic tasks that are, like, problem-solving situations or worth problems. Mike: We could absolutely add a link to that. And I think that's probably another great podcast that we should do relatively soon. Hala: Yes, I find you really connecting wonderful, cohesive dots together here, which I think is really going to be helpful to the listener. Mike: Well, I want to thank you so much for joining us, Hala. It's really been a pleasure talking with you. Hala: Thank you very much. And it's been a great opportunity to talk about these ideas with you, and the questions are on target in terms of the things that we have to pay attention to. Mike: Oh, thank you so much. Mike: This podcast is brought to you by The Math Learning Center and the Maier Math Foundation, dedicated to inspiring and enabling individuals to discover and develop their mathematical confidence and ability. © 2023 The Math Learning Center | www.mathlearningcenter.org
「我四月底要去馬祖玩~」 英文怎麼說? 馬祖藍眼淚的季節快到囉~你會想看看什麼是藍眼淚嗎? 這一集我們邀請到旅遊達人 Christine,來跟我們分享去馬祖可以怎麼玩~ 當然,我們也會搭配英文一起學! “擺暝”、“藍眼淚”、“北竿、南竿、東引” 的英文怎麼說? 這一集文化分享,親身體驗過 “擺暝” 慶典的 Christine, 會跟我們介紹,什麼是“擺暝”?為什麼這是馬祖最有特色也最重視的節慶之一? 快來聽這一集內容,聽聽看馬祖好玩的地方和慶典英文怎麼說。 英文口說救星:賴世雄幫你自信開口說英文 賴世雄老師自學口說三心法 - 教你開口說正確、自然的英文。 課程優惠中,馬上點進試看,結帳前輸入 speak200 再折 200 元喔! https://lihi1.com/qTXgp 快速幫你複習一下這集的主題句 & 單字: 我四月底要去馬祖玩~ In late April, I'm going on a trip to Matsu. 補充學習 藍眼淚 (The) Blue Tears 擺暝 Baiming Carnival / Festival 北竿、南竿、東引 Beigan, Nangan, Dongyin Island / Township 離島 offshore islands 情境對話 Duncan:我四月底要去馬祖玩。 In late April, I'm going on a trip to Matsu. Mike:很棒耶~你要去看擺暝嗎? That's great. Are you going to the Baiming cultural festival? Duncan:我很想去,但他在上個月結束了。這一次我希望可以看到藍眼淚! I really want to, but it finished last month. On this trip, I hope I can see the Blue Tears. Mike:喔喔喔~聽說很漂亮,希望你會看到! Oh, I've heard its really beautiful. I hope you can see them. 學英文吧網站 https://ivybar.com.tw/?c=3 或追蹤 iVY BAR 學英文吧的 IG,上面圖文版 podcast 複習也很棒喔! https://pse.is/39vede 現在我們也有影音版的 Podcast 實境秀喔 https://pse.is/3ahupl Powered by Firstory Hosting
「芳茲滴雞精」年節推出「日月養生雞魚饗宴禮盒」。除了超人氣「日月養生滴雞精」還有百位護理師推薦「日月養生滴魚精」。香醇無腥味!禮盒內附匠人手作「天目釉品茗杯」,下單滿額再抽黃金999金條,詳情請點擊鏈結:https://go.fstry.me/3S2ZQrx —— 以上為播客煮與 Firstory Podcast 廣告 —— 「你有在看籃球嗎?」 英文怎麼說? 最近魔獸加盟台灣籃球隊,掀起一股討論的風潮。 “例行賽”、“季後賽”、“主場”、“客場” 的英文怎麼說呢? 這一集文化閒聊,Duncan 跟我們分享, 美國最多人看、最受歡迎的運動活動是什麼呢? NBA 、MLB、還是美式足球呢? 快來聽這一集內容,聽聽看有看籃球的英文怎麼說。 Duncan 的線上課程「英語腦進化論」, 現在正在火熱預購中(歡呼~~): https://lihi1.com/6xs97 我們的聽眾結帳前輸入 duncan300,優惠價格再扣 300 元喔! 我們跟 MixerBox 合作,推出「這句英文怎麼說」專屬的贊助方案囉! 有每個禮拜會寄給你一次 podcast 電子報 & 幕後花絮腳本的輕鬆學習方案, 也有來跟我們一起錄音的互動方案,和用 8 折優惠購買我們的線上課程方案喔。 歡迎點進我們的贊助方案看看有沒有你喜歡的內容喔: https://pse.is/3zu4hx 快速幫你複習一下這集的主題句 & 單字: 你有在看籃球嗎? Do you watch basketball? Are you a basketball fan? 補充學習 我有在看。 Yeah, of course)/ I do. 我很少看。 Not really. Rarely. 例行賽 regular season game(s) 季後賽 playoff(s) 主場 home 客場 away 情境對話 Duncan:Hey Mike, Do you watch basketball? Mike:Not really. Why? What's up? Duncan:Did you hear Dwight Howard joined the Taiwanese league? I'm so excited. Mike:Oh, yeah. I saw the news. That's pretty cool. 學英文吧網站 https://ivybar.com.tw/?c=3 或追蹤 iVY BAR 學英文吧的 IG,上面圖文版 podcast 複習也很棒喔! https://pse.is/39vede 現在我們也有影音版的 Podcast 實境秀喔 https://pse.is/3ahupl Powered by Firstory Hosting
About MikeBeside his duties as The Duckbill Group's CEO, Mike is the author of O'Reilly's Practical Monitoring, and previously wrote the Monitoring Weekly newsletter and hosted the Real World DevOps podcast. He was previously a DevOps Engineer for companies such as Taos Consulting, Peak Hosting, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and many more. Mike is originally from Knoxville, TN (Go Vols!) and currently resides in Portland, OR.Links Referenced: @Mike_Julian: https://twitter.com/Mike_Julian mikejulian.com: https://mikejulian.com duckbillgroup.com: https://duckbillgroup.com TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at AWS AppConfig. Engineers love to solve, and occasionally create, problems. But not when it's an on-call fire-drill at 4 in the morning. Software problems should drive innovation and collaboration, NOT stress, and sleeplessness, and threats of violence. That's why so many developers are realizing the value of AWS AppConfig Feature Flags. Feature Flags let developers push code to production, but hide that that feature from customers so that the developers can release their feature when it's ready. This practice allows for safe, fast, and convenient software development. You can seamlessly incorporate AppConfig Feature Flags into your AWS or cloud environment and ship your Features with excitement, not trepidation and fear. To get started, go to snark.cloud/appconfig. That's snark.cloud/appconfig.Corey: Forget everything you know about SSH and try Tailscale. Imagine if you didn't need to manage PKI or rotate SSH keys every time someone leaves. That'd be pretty sweet, wouldn't it? With Tailscale SSH, you can do exactly that. Tailscale gives each server and user device a node key to connect to its VPN, and it uses the same node key to authorize and authenticate SSH.Basically you're SSHing the same way you manage access to your app. What's the benefit here? Built in key rotation, permissions is code, connectivity between any two devices, reduce latency and there's a lot more, but there's a time limit here. You can also ask users to reauthenticate for that extra bit of security. Sounds expensive?Nope, I wish it were. Tailscale is completely free for personal use on up to 20 devices. To learn more, visit snark.cloud/tailscale. Again, that's snark.cloud/tailscaleCorey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and my guest is a returning guest on this show, my business partner and CEO of The Duckbill Group, Mike Julian. Mike, thanks for making the time.Mike: Lucky number three, I believe?Corey: Something like that, but numbers are hard. I have databases for that of varying quality and appropriateness for the task, but it works out. Anything's a database. If you're brave enough.Mike: With you inviting me this many times, I'm starting to think you'd like me or something.Corey: I know, I know. So, let's talk about something that is going to put that rumor to rest.Mike: [laugh].Corey: Clearly, you have made some poor choices in the course of your career, like being my business partner being the obvious one. But what's really in a dead heat for which is the worst decision is you've written a book previously. And now you are starting the process of writing another book because, I don't know, we don't keep you busy enough or something. What are you doing?Mike: Making very bad decisions. When I finished writing Practical Monitoring—O'Reilly, and by the way, you should go buy a copy if interested in monitoring—I finished the book and said, “Wow, that was awful. I'm never doing it again.” And about a month later, I started thinking of new books to write. So, that was 2017, and Corey and I started Duckbill and kind of stopped thinking about writing books because small companies are basically small children. But now I'm going to write a book about consulting.Corey: Oh, thank God. I thought you're going to go down the observability path a second time.Mike: You know, I'm actually dreading the day that O'Reilly asks me to do a second edition because I don't really want to.Corey: Yeah. Effectively turn it into an entire story where the only monitoring tool you really need is the AWS bill. That'll go well.Mike: [laugh]. Yeah. So yeah, like, basically, I've been doing consulting for such a long time, and most of my career is consulting in some form or fashion, and I head up all the consulting at Duckbill. I've learned a lot about consulting. And I've found that people have a lot of questions about consulting, particularly at the higher-end levels. Once you start getting into advisory sort of stuff, there's not a lot of great information out there aimed at engineering.Corey: There's a bunch of different views on what consulting is. You have independent contractors billing by the hour as staff replacement who call what they do consulting; you have the big consultancies, like Bain or BCG; you've got what we do in an advisory sense, and of course, you have a bunch of MBA new grads going to a lot of the big consultancies who are going to see a book on consulting and think that it's potentially for them. I don't know that you necessarily have a lot of advice for the new grad type, so who is this for? What is your target customer for this book?Mike: If you're interested in joining McKinsey out of college, I don't have a lot to add; I don't have a lot to tell you. The reason for that is kind of twofold. One is that shops like McKinsey and Deloitte and Accenture and BCG and Bain, all those, are playing very different games than what most of us think about when we think consulting. Their entire model revolves around running a process. And it's the same process for every client they work with. But, like, you're buying them because of their process.And that process is nothing new or novel. You don't go to those firms because you want the best advice possible. You go to those firms because it's the most defensible advice. It's sort of those things like, “No one gets fired for buying Cisco,” no one got fired for buying IBM, like, that sort of thing, it's a very defensible choice. But you're not going to get great results from it.But because of that, their entire model revolves around throwing dozens, in some cases, hundreds of new grads at a problem and saying, “Run this process. Have fun. Let us know if you need help.” That's not consulting I have any experience with. It's honestly not consulting that most of us want to do.Most of that is staffed by MBAs and accountants. When I think consulting, I think about specialized advice and providing that specialized advice to people. And I wager that most of us think about that in the same way, too. In some cases, it might just be, “I'm going to write code for you as a freelancer,” or I'm just going to tell you like, “Hey, put the nail in here instead of over here because it's going to be better for you.” Like, paying for advice is good.But with that, I also have a… one of the first things I say in the beginning of the book, which [laugh] I've already started writing because I'm a glutton for punishment, is I don't think junior people should be consultants. I actually think it's really bad idea because to be a consultant, you have to have expertise in some area, and junior staff don't. They haven't been in their careers long enough to develop that yet. So, they're just going to flounder. So, my advice is generally aimed at people that have been in their careers for quite some time, generally, people that are 10, 15, 20 years into their career, looking to do something.Corey: One of the problems that we see when whenever we talk about these things on Twitter is that we get an awful lot of people telling us that we're wrong, that it can't be made to work, et cetera, et cetera. But following this model, I've been independent for—well, I was independent and then we became The Duckbill Group; add them together because figuring out exactly where that divide happened is always a mental leap for me, but it's been six years at this point. We've definitely proven our ability to not go out of business every month. It's kind of amazing. Without even an exception case of, “That one time.”Mike: [laugh]. Yeah, we are living proof that it does work, but you don't really have to take just our word for it because there are a lot of other firms that exist entirely on an advisory-only, high-expertise model. And it works out really well. We've worked with several of them, so it does work; it just isn't very common inside of tech and particularly inside of engineering.Corey: So, one of the things that I find is what differentiates an expert from an enthusiastic amateur is, among other things, the number of mistakes that they've made. So, I guess a different way of asking this is what qualifies you to write this book, but instead, I'm going to frame it in a very negative way. What have you screwed up on that puts you in a position of, “Ah, I'm going to write a book so that someone else can make better choices.”Mike: One of my favorite stories to tell—and Corey, I actually think you might not have heard this story before—Corey: That seems unlikely, but give it a shot.Mike: Yeah. So, early in my career, I was working for a consulting firm that did ERP implementations. We worked with mainly large, old-school manufacturing firms. So, my job there was to do the engineering side of the implementation. So, a lot of rack-and-stack, a lot of Windows Server configuration, a lot of pulling cables, that sort of thing. So, I thought I was pretty good at this. I quickly learned that I was actually not nearly as good as I thought I was.Corey: A common affliction among many different people.Mike: A common affliction. But I did not realize that until this one particular incident. So, me and my boss are both on site at this large manufacturing facility, and the CFO pulls my boss aside and I can hear them talking and, like, she's pretty upset. She points at me and says, “I never want this asshole in my office ever again.” So, he and I have a long drive back to our office, like an hour and a half.And we had a long chat about what that meant for me. I was not there for very long after that, as you might imagine, but the thing is, I still have no idea to this day what I did to upset her. I know that she was pissed and he knows that she was pissed. And he never told me exactly what it was, only that's you take care of your client. And the client believes that I screwed up so massively that she wanted me fired.Him not wanting to argue—he didn't; he just kind of went with it—and put me on other clients. But as a result of that, it really got me thinking that I screwed something up so badly to make this person hate me so much and I still have no idea what it was that I did. Which tells me that even at the time, I did not understand what was going on around me. I did not understand how to manage clients well, and to really take care of them. That was probably the first really massive mistake that I've made my career—or, like, the first time I came to the realization that there's a whole lot I don't know and it's really costing me.Corey: From where I sit, there have been a number of things that we have done as we've built our consultancy, and I'm curious—you know, let's get this even more personal—in the past, well, we'll call it four years that we have been The Duckbill Group—which I think is right—what have we gotten right and what have we gotten wrong? You are the expert; you're writing a book on this for God's sake.Mike: So, what I think we've gotten right is one of my core beliefs is never bill hourly. Shout out to Jonathan Stark. He wrote I really good book that is a much better explanation of that than I've ever been able to come up with. But I've always had the belief that billing hourly is just a bad idea, so we've never done that and that's worked out really well for us. We've turned down work because that's the model they wanted and it's like, “Sorry, that's not what we do. You're going to have to go work for someone else—or hire someone else.”Other things that I think we've gotten right is a focus on staying on the advisory side and not doing any implementation. That's allowed us to get really good at what we do very quickly because we don't get mired in long-term implementation detail-level projects. So, that's been great. Where we went a little wrong, I think—or what we have gotten wrong, lessons that we've learned. I had this idea that we could build out a junior and mid-level staff and have them overseen by very senior people.And, as it turns out, that didn't work for us, entirely because it didn't work for me. That was really my failure. I went from being an IC to being the leader of a company in one single step. I've never been a manager before Duckbill. So, that particular mistake was really about my lack of abilities in being a good manager and being a good leader.So, building that out, that did not work for us because it didn't work for me and I didn't know how to do it. So, I made way too many mistakes that were kind of amateur-level stuff in terms of management. So, that didn't work. And the other major mistake that I think we've made is not putting enough effort into marketing. So, we get most of our leads by inbound or referral, as is common with boutique consulting firms, but a lot of the income that we get comes through Last Week in AWS, which is really awesome.But we don't put a whole lot of effort into content or any marketing stuff related to the thing that we do, like cost management. I think a lot of that is just that we don't really know how, aside from just creating content and publishing it. We don't really understand how to market ourselves very well on that side of things. I think that's a mistake we've made.Corey: It's an effective strategy against what's a very complicated problem because unlike most things, if—let's go back to your old life—if we have an observability problem, we will talk about that very publicly on Twitter and people will come over and get—“Hey, hey, have you tried to buy my company's product?” Or they'll offer consulting services, or they'll point us in the right direction, all of which is sometimes appreciated. Whereas when you have a big AWS bill, you generally don't talk about it in public, especially if you're a serious company because that's going to, uh, I think the phrase is, “Shake investor confidence,” when you're actually live tweeting slash shitposting about your own AWS bill. And our initial thesis was therefore, since we can't wind up reaching out to these people when they're having the pain because there's no external indication of it, instead what we have to do is be loud enough and notable in this space, where they find us where it shouldn't take more than them asking one or two of their friends before they get pointed to us. What's always fun as the stories we hear is, “Okay, so I asked some other people because I wanted a second opinion, and they told us to go to you, too.” Word of mouth is where our customers come from. But how do you bootstrap that? I don't know. I'm lucky that I got it right the first time.Mike: Yeah, and as I mentioned a minute ago, that a lot of that really comes through your content, which is not really cost management-related. It's much more AWS broad. We don't put out a lot of cost management specific content. And honestly, I think that's to our detriment. We should and we absolutely can. We just haven't. I think that's one of the really big things that we've missed on doing.Corey: There's an argument that the people who come to us do not spend their entire day thinking about AWS bills. I mean, I can't imagine what that would be like, but they don't for whatever reason; they're trying to do something ridiculous, like you know, run a profitable company. So, getting in front of them when they're not thinking about the bills means, on some level, that they're going to reach out to us when the bill strikes. At least that's been my operating theory.Mike: Yeah, I mean, this really just comes down to content strategy and broader marketing strategy. Because one of the things you have to think about with marketing is how do you meet a customer at the time that they have the problem that you solve? And what most marketing people talk about here is what's called the triggering event. Something causes someone to take an action. What is that something? Who is that someone, and what is that action?And for us, one of the things that we thought early on is that well, the bill comes out the first week of the month, every month, so people are going to opened the bill freak out, and a big influx of leads are going to come our way and that's going to happen every single month. The reality is that never happened. That turns out was not a triggering event for anyone.Corey: And early on, when we didn't have that many leads coming in, it was a statistical aberration that I thought I saw, like, “Oh, out of the three leads this month, two of them showed up in the same day. Clearly, it's an AWS billing day thing.” No. It turns out that every company's internal cadence is radically different.Mike: Right. And I wish I could say that we have found what our triggering events are, but I actually don't think we have. We know who the people are and we know what they reach out for, but we haven't really uncovered that triggering event. And it could also be there, there isn't a one. Or at least, if there is one, it's not one that we could see externally, which is kind of fine.Corey: Well, for the half of our consulting that does contract negotiation for large-scale commitments with AWS, it comes up for renewal or the initial discount contract gets offered, those are very clear triggering events but the challenge is that we don't—Mike: You can't see them externally.Corey: —really see that from the outside. Yeah.Mike: Right. And this is one of those things where there are triggering events for basically everything and it's probably going to be pretty consistent once you get down to specific services. Like we provide cost optimization services and contract negotiation services. I'm willing to bet that I can predict exactly what the trigger events for both of those will be pretty well. The problem is, you can never see those externally, which is kind of fine.Ideally, you would be able to see it externally, but you can't, so we roll with it, which means our entire strategy has revolved around always being top-of-mind because at the time where it happens, we're already there. And that's a much more difficult strategy to employ, but it does work.Corey: All it takes is time and being really lucky and being really prolific, and, and, and. It's one of those things where if I were to set out to replicate it, I don't even know how I'd go about doing it.Mike: People have been asking me. They say, “I want to create The Duckbill Group for X. What do I do?” And I say, “First step, get yourself a Corey Quinn.” And they're like, “Well, I can't do that. There's only one.” I'm like, “Yep. Sucks to be you.” [laugh].Corey: Yeah, we called the Jerk Store. They're running out of him. Yeah, it's a problem. And I don't think the world needs a whole lot more of my type of humor, to be honest, because the failure mode that I have experienced brutally and firsthand is not that people don't find me funny; it's that it really hurts people's feelings. I have put significant effort into correcting those mistakes and not repeating them, but it sucks every time I get it wrong.Mike: Yeah.Corey: Another question I have for you around the book targeting, are you aiming this at individual independent consultants or are you looking to advise people who are building agencies?Mike: Explicitly not the latter. My framing around this is that there are a number of people who are doing consulting right now and they've kind of fell into it. Often, they'll leave one job and do a little consulting while they're waiting on their next thing. And in some cases, that might be a month or two. In some cases, it might go on years, but that whole time, they're just like, “Oh, yeah, I'm doing consulting in between things.”But at some point, some of those think, “You know what? I want this to be my thing. I don't want there to be a next thing. This is my thing. So therefore, how do I get serious about doing consulting? How do I get serious about being a consultant?”And that's where I think I can add a lot of value because casually consulting of, like, taking whatever work just kind of falls your way is interesting for a while, but once you get serious about it, and you have to start thinking, well, how do I actually deliver engagements? How do I do that consistently? How do I do it repeatedly? How to do it profitably? How do I price my stuff? How do I package it? How do I attract the leads that I want? How do I work with the customers I want?And turning that whole thing from a casual, “Yeah, whatever,” into, “This is my business,” is a very different way of thinking. And most people don't think that way because they didn't really set out to build a business. They set out to just pass time and earn a little bit of money before they went off to the next job. So, the framing that I have here is that I'm aiming to help people that are wanting to get serious about doing consulting. But they generally have experience doing it already.Corey: Managing shards. Maintenance windows. Overprovisioning. ElastiCache bills. I know, I know. It's a spooky season and you're already shaking. It's time for caching to be simpler. Momento Serverless Cache lets you forget the backend to focus on good code and great user experiences. With true autoscaling and a pay-per-use pricing model, it makes caching easy. No matter your cloud provider, get going for free at gomemento.co/screaming That's GO M-O-M-E-N-T-O dot co slash screamingCorey: We went from effectively being the two of us on the consulting delivery side, two scaling up to, I believe, at one point we were six of us, and now we have scaled back down to largely the two of us, aided by very specific external folk, when it makes sense.Mike: And don't forget April.Corey: And of course. I'm talking delivery.Mike: [laugh].Corey: There's a reason I—Mike: Delivery. Yes.Corey: —prefaced it that way. There's a lot of support structure here, let's not get ourselves, and they make this entire place work. But why did we scale up? And then why did we scale down? Because I don't believe we've ever really talked about that publicly.Mike: No, not publicly. In fact, most people probably don't even notice that it happened. We got pretty big for—I mean, not big. So, we hit, I think, six full-time people at one point. And that was quite a bit.Corey: On the delivery side. Let's be clear.Mike: Yeah. No, I think actually with support structure, too. Like, if you add in everyone that we had with the sales and marketing as well, we were like 11 people. And that was a pretty sizable company. But then in July this year, it kind of hit a point where I found that I just wasn't enjoying my job anymore.And I looked around and noticed that a lot of other people was kind of feeling the same way, is just things had gotten harder. And the business wasn't suffering at all, it was just everything felt more difficult. And I finally realized that, for me personally at least, I started Duckbill because I love working with clients, I love doing consulting. And what I have found is that as the company grew larger and larger, I spent most of my time keeping the trains running and taking care of the staff. Which is exactly what I should be doing when we're that size, like, that is my job at that size, but I didn't actually enjoy it.I went into management as, like, this job going from having never done it before. So, I didn't have anything to compare it to. I didn't know if I would like it or not. And once I got here, I realized I actually don't. And I spent a lot of efforts to get better at it and I think I did. I've been working with a leadership coach for years now.But it finally came to a point where I just realized that I wasn't actually enjoying it anymore. I wasn't enjoying the job that I had created. And I think that really panned out to you as well. So, we decided, we had kind of an opportune time where one of our team decided that they were also wanting to go back to do independent consulting. I'm like, “Well, this is actually pretty good time. Why don't we just start scaling things back?” And like, maybe we'll scale it up again in the future; maybe we won't. But like, let's just buy ourselves some breathing room.Corey: One of the things that I think we didn't spend quite enough time really asking ourselves was what kind of place do we want to work at. Because we've explicitly stated that you and I both view this as the last job either of us is ever going to have, which means that we're not trying to do the get big quickly to get acquired, or we want to raise a whole bunch of other people's money to scale massively. Those aren't things either of us enjoy. And it turns out that handling the challenges of a business with as many people working here as we had wasn't what either one of us really wanted to do.Mike: Yeah. You know what—[laugh] it's funny because a lot of our advisors kept asking the same thing. Like, “So, what kind of company do you want?” And like, we had some pretty good answers for that, in that we didn't want to build a VC-backed company, we didn't ever want to be hyperscale. But there's a wide gulf of things between two-person company and hyperscale and we didn't really think too much about that.In fact, being a ten-person company is very different than being a three-person company, and we didn't really think about that either. We should have really put a lot more thought into that of what does it mean to be a ten-person company, and is that what we want? Or is three, four, or five-person more our style? But then again, I don't know that we could have predicted that as a concern had we not tried it first.Corey: Yeah, that was very much something that, for better or worse, we pay advisors for their advice—that's kind of definitionally how it works—and then we ignored it, on some level, though we thought we were doing something different at the time because there's some lessons you've just got to learn by making the mistake yourself.Mike: Yeah, we definitely made a few of those. [laugh].Corey: And it's been an interesting ride and I've got zero problem with how things have shaken out. I like what we do quite a bit. And honestly, the biggest fear I've got going forward is that my jackass business partner is about to distract the hell out of himself by writing a book, which is never as easy as even the most pessimistic estimates would be. So, that's going to be awesome and fun.Mike: Yeah, just wait until you see the dedication page.Corey: Yeah, I wasn't mentioned at all in the last book that you wrote, which I found personally offensive. So, if I'm not mentioned this time, you're fired.Mike: Oh, no, you are. It's just I'm also adding an anti-dedication page, which just has a photo of you.Corey: Oh, wonderful, wonderful. This is going to be one of those stories of the good consultant and the bad consultant, and I'm going to be the Goofus to your Gallant, aren't I?Mike: [laugh]. Yes, yes. You are.Corey: “Goofus wants to bill by the hour.”Mike: It's going to have a page of, like, “Here's this [unintelligible 00:25:05] book is dedicated to. Here's my acknowledgments. And [BLEEP] this guy.”Corey: I love it. I absolutely love it. I think that there is definitely a bright future for telling other people how to consult properly. May just suggest as a subtitle for the book is Consulting—subtitle—You Have Problems and Money. We'll Take Both.Mike: [laugh]. Yeah. My working title for this is Practical Consulting, but only because my previous book was Practical Monitoring. Pretty sure O'Reilly would have a fit if I did that. I actually have no idea what I'm going to call the book, still.Corey: Naming things is super hard. I would suggest asking people at AWS who name services and then doing the exact opposite of whatever they suggest. Like, take their list of recommendations and sort by reverse order and that'll get you started.Mike: Yeah. [laugh].Corey: I want to thank you for giving us an update on what you're working on and why you have less hair every time I see you because you're mostly ripping it out due to self-inflicted pain. If people want to follow your adventures, where's the best place to keep updated on this ridiculous, ridiculous nonsense that I cannot talk you out of?Mike: Two places. You can follow me on Twitter, @Mike_Julian, or you can sign up for the newsletter on my site at mikejulian.com where I'll be posting all the updates.Corey: Excellent. And I look forward to skewering the living hell out of them.Mike: I look forward to ignoring them.Corey: Thank you, Mike. It is always a pleasure.Mike: Thank you, Corey.Corey: Mike Julian, CEO at The Duckbill Group, and my unwilling best friend. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice along with an angry, annoying comment in which you tell us exactly what our problem is, and then charge us a fixed fee to fix that problem.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.
Rounding Up Season 1 | Episode 4 – Multilingual Learners for Success Guest: Dr. Erin Smith Mike Wallus: Multilingual learners represent approximately 10 percent of the U.S. K–12 student population. And they're the fastest growing subpopulation of students in the United States. That said, multilingual learners have been and continue to be underserved in mathematics. Today, we talk with Erin Smith, a mathematics education professor at the University of Southern Mississippi, about ways to support and position multilingual learners as competent doers of mathematics. Hey, Erin, thank you for joining us today on the podcast. Erin Smith: Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm really happy to be here. Mike: I was really fascinated by one of the concepts that you talked about your article. You referenced the idea of positioning, and I'm just fascinated by that because I think it has so much potential for how we support students' math identities. Can you explain positioning and how you suspect it could impact students in the classroom? Erin: Yeah, absolutely. So positioning is a concept from positioning theory, which was developed by Rom Harré and Luk Van Langenhove. So when we talk about positioning or a position, we are really referring to a metaphorical position that you have in a conversation. So it's not necessarily like where your body is physically present, but a metaphorical position. So in the theory, they say that your position that you have impacts what is socially appropriate for you to do and say in an interaction. So in a classroom teachers and students have different positions. Teachers can do things that students can't. They can discipline students. They determine the classroom configuration. They select the tasks that students get to engage with. And in a lot of cases, teachers also get to select who gets to speak in the class, who gets floor time. So each of these decisions that teachers make can impact opportunities for students. And so when I think out positioning in particular and how useful it can be as a lens to look at how we as teachers position certain kinds of students in our classroom, and how we can use our position in the classroom to really call out the strengths of historically underserved students in mathematics, and then use that to position them as leaders in the classroom, while simultaneously also just challenging deficit narratives about who can do mathematics, who can be successful in it. And really what does it mean to do mathematics. Mike: You know, as you were talking, what struck me as positioning in some ways related to the status that a student either has been assigned or assigned to themselves. Is that a fair comparison? Erin: Yeah, absolutely. So in positioning we talk about both the positions that we take on ourselves and the positions that we assign others. So there is a lot of agency in that, both from a teacher perspective—like you have a lot of agencies to think about positioning—but also students can challenge the positions that you give them. And they have a lot of agency in that. So if a teacher positions a student as lacking some mathematical competency, the student can challenge that positioning by trying to demonstrate their competencies. Mike: It's interesting because I think when we shift this to talking about multilingual learners, my suspicion is that part of the challenge that we've had is that multilingual learners have been positioned as less mathematically competent. And the strategies that you're suggesting are actually ways that we can counter that prevailing positioning or status. Erin: Yeah. So we, in positioning theory, talk about storylines and these stories that permeate both at a larger, broader societal level, but also at a smaller individual level. So when you're talking about these stories that already exist for multilingual learners, more broadly in more social narratives, they're often really deficit-oriented. And so we can use our position as a teacher in a classroom to challenge how a particular student has been positioned in the past and also create spaces for them to carve out new stories. I think one of the things that I would like to clarify is in positioning theory, refer to them as storylines and thinking about how there are these different storylines that exist both at a societal level, but also in your classroom and at the school level that can influence the ways that you interact with students. So for instance, we have a lot of storylines about math mathematics in the U.S., what it means to be successful in mathematics. So as a teacher, you've got those storylines and your students also have those storylines that they might be drawing on. And so as a teacher, just being cognizant and aware of all these different storylines that might be percolating around and circulating, and you can help craft those stories and really call out or bring to the forefront the ones that you think are very valuable and important. Mike: You know, it makes me think of two things. I mean, one is part of the role and part of the work is interrogating the stories that you've brought or that you've absorbed about students or different groups of students. And the other is maybe being clear about, what are the stories that you want kids to leave with, as you just said. Erin: Yeah, I would agree that we're not walking into a classroom or an interaction with this blank slate. That's like, we have all these things that are entangled in ourselves that we're making sense of and negotiating and navigating in these interactions. Mike: Absolutely. You know, there's a quote that really jumped out for me when I was reading your article, and I'd just like to read it aloud. ‘Some people may think that multilingual learners must be proficient in English before participating in mathematical discussions. This is not the case. And ultimately puts students mathematical learning on hold.' Can you talk about why you felt it was important to address this misconception? Erin: Oftentimes we, as teachers, conflate language competency with math competency. And I've even done this myself in my former life as a math teacher. So we might assume that because a student is at their early stages of developing a language competency, that they're also at the same time at the early stages of developing their math competencies. And we know that's just not true ( laughs ). That's not how math and language learning work. They occur at different speeds. And one does not indicate a competency in the other. And so I think it's really necessary and important to call out this assumption and also provide readers with an opportunity to reflect on like, ‘Am I holding this assumption? Am I holding some of my students back? Am I doing harm for them because I'm cutting off mathematical learning opportunities because I'm conflating their language competencies with mathematics.' Mike: Sure. So I think one of the things that also jumped out for me was the ways that teachers can set multilingual learners up for success. And one of the strategies that jumped out is the idea of rehearsal. And I'm wondering if you could talk just a bit about what you think rehearsal might look like in an elementary classroom. Erin: So rehearsals are really a great strategy to help multilingual learners prepare to present their mathematical ideas to the whole class, especially if they are demonstrating some hesitancy or maybe they're from a culture where standing up and presenting your ideas in front of the class is not a norm. And so in an elementary classroom it might look like telling one of your multilingual learner students in advance that you want them to come to the board and share their strategy with the class. And you give them some time to rehearse and practice what they're going to say. So that could be something like you and this student are just having a conversation, and they're getting a chance to practice like that with you. Or it could be that they're practicing with a peer. It could also be something like you're asking them to write down what it is they want to say, and maybe they also have that scaffold if they need it, when they walk to the front of the classroom. You know, one of the things also that I think is really nice about this is that it doesn't need to be used in a way that is really targeting and calling out the multilingual learner, saying that they specifically need the support. And you might give your whole class, maybe a couple of minutes to like, OK, ‘I want you to practice. If you were gonna come to the board and share your strategy, what would you say? I want you to practice that with your partner or your group table mates.' Mike: Absolutely. Like great practice for everyone even if you're intent, as a teacher, is that you want to position one of those students or set them up to successfully share their thinking. Erin: Right, right. Mike: So one of the other things that I thought was really interesting is—and again, I think it feels like a strategy that is particularly powerful for multilingual learners, but just good practice—you really highlighted the idea of assigning student ownership to mathematical ideas when there's a conversation happening. So what does that mean and what might that sound like or look like in a classroom? Erin: So assigning ownership means that you are publicly acknowledging the mathematical ideas that a multilingual learner possesses. I've seen teachers do this in a range of different ways. It might be something as simple as, we're having a Notice & Wonder routine and a student shares their noticing, and I'm writing their name or initials on the board. So that idea is linked to that student. That doesn't take a lot of extra work for me. It could be referring to a strategy as a student strategy, like asking the class who else used Marco's strategy and asking students to raise their hands. Mike: Uh-hm. So you're naming that Marco's strategy. It could be asking your students to write story problems and then putting their name next to it. So like, this is Mary Ellis' word problem that she wrote. And so you're publicly acknowledging this student has created this word problem. When teachers assign ownership of mathematical ideas to students, they're really using that as an opportunity to shift mathematical authority in the classroom off of them and on to students. And so when students have those opportunities where they become authors of mathematics, it can positively impact their mathematical identity. And it also can encourage them to continue coming up with mathematical ideas and being willing to share those mathematical ideas publicly. Mike: Absolutely. So one of the last strategies that really struck me was something that I've seen teachers do. And I think I've done it, too, but I'd never actually had words for it. You talk about this as something called the prefacing statement. Can you explain what a prefacing statement is and why it's powerful and maybe even what it might sound like? Erin: Yeah. So in one of my research projects, I was examining this teacher's practice, and she did this, and I noticed her doing this. And then I try to think of like how to name and capture this. So I landed on prefacing statements. And I used that word to refer to what a teacher says before a student shares their thinking or their strategy in front of the class. And so the teacher is using that as an opportunity to set the stage for the student who's presenting. And it also cues the class into what is important about what the student is going to share or (is) unique about it. And so, for example, I've seen a teacher do this, where she selected a multilingual learner to come to the board to share their strategy. And the teacher says, ‘I selected Mohammed's strategy because he drew a really efficient picture.' And so, naming in advance, like, ‘He drew this efficient picture. I want you to look at this and notate how great this is and how representative of an efficient picture this is.' Mike: Yeah, I mean, in that case kind of really pointing out to them, ‘There is some feature that I want you to attend to,' and then also assigning the ownership of that to the student. Erin: Right, right. So another way it could go is, like, ‘I selected Shin Hin's work to share because he represented his thinking in three different ways. So really calling out what is important mathematically about what the student is sharing. And I think that's really the important piece of, like, you really want to be specific about what it is that you're calling out in your prefacing statement, in terms of what does it mean mathematically? And what about this is a mathematical strength? Mike: I mean, in some ways, as you say that, it really plays two roles: You're actually helping kids to attend to really specific, small, grain-size features of either the thinking or the representation that are important. And again, you're assigning the contribution clearly to the student that you're talking about. Erin: Yeah, exactly. Mike: Uh, you know, as I was reading this, I'm struck by the fact that these strategies have the potential for a couple things. On an individual child level, they have the ability to help a child reposition themselves or to think differently about their mathematical identity. But just on a classroom level as well, they really have the ability to push back on some of the narratives that we were talking about earlier, where marginalized kids have a particularly low status in a classroom, their ideas are kind of preset to matter less. And this is really a way to use some really practical strategies to push back on that. Erin: Yes, absolutely. Mike: So one of the things that jumps out is that, in addition to being powerful strategies that you can use in the moment, it seems like these are things that you might actually begin to intentionally plan when you're setting up a lesson. Erin: Yes. So one of the things that I think is really important about understanding that there are a range of ways that you, as the teacher, hold power in the classroom. And you can leverage your position to create opportunities for students and also publicly acknowledge their competencies. So in planning, you should be considering, ‘How am I going to ensure that I'm productively positioning multilingual learners in my classroom?' And then, ‘What are some specific things I can embed in my lesson to ensure that happens?' So, for example, if you—going back to the earlier stuff—if you want one of your multilingual learners to present their strategy at the board. And you know from some prior classes that they're a little hesitant and reserved, so you might intentionally carve out the last five minutes of the student exploration stage for students to rehearse what they would say to a class. And so you're building in that time into your lesson and being very intentional in that work. And this might also align to your goal that you might have, that every student shares their strategy at the board. And so that's going to help you achieve that goal for each of your students. I think another thing that's important to keep in mind more broadly is that it's important to hold the same expectations for multilingual learners in your classroom as you do for your other students. And so this is also another way to think about, ‘What are some things that I can do as a teacher in my classroom to ensure that, 1) I'm holding the same expectations. And 2) I'm providing appropriate scaffolding that's going to help the student reach those expectations.' Mike: Absolutely. You started to hint at the next thing that was on my mind, which is that positioning isn't necessarily just something that happens via language. It happens via some of the other decisions like creating space and time. Are there other things in your mind that really support the idea of positioning students in a classroom? Erin: Yeah. I think every decision that we make as a teacher can be an opportunity to position. So in thinking about just the physical space of your classroom, who is sitting where? How are seats figured? Who is sitting with who? Where do you, as a teacher, position your body in the classroom? How we structure our lessons, what kinds of pedagogical practices we decide to use … the kinds of questions that we ask. Are we asking really open-ended questions? And who are we asking those of? Are we asking those open-ended, rich questions of multilingual learners, or are we only reserving specific kinds of questions for them? Towards the end of the article, and I try to emphasize, like: We position in every interaction. We are constantly negotiating these positions, both within ourselves, the way that we position ourselves, but also how we're position and how they're responding in turn. We can use these situations to really think about the kinds of stories that we want to foster for each of our students. So what can I do in the classroom to tell a productive or a positive story for this student in mathematics? Mike: Hmm. That's powerful. One of the questions I think that I wanted to ask before we close , ‘If someone were listening to this podcast and they wanted to continue learning about support from multilingual learners, or even the idea of positioning more broadly, are there particular resources that you might point them to?' Erin: Thank you so much for this question. Mike: ( laughs ) Erin: ( chuckles ) Um, I would first direct them to my recently published book with my co-authors, called, ‘Teaching Math to Multilingual Students, Grades K–8: Positioning English Learners for Success.' So it came out in 2021, co-published by Corwin and CTM. So that would be like a really good first place to look. And it's designed for teachers to really think about their practice and their own positioning of multilingual learners. And so I think the next step would be really engaging in some professional development with scholars who have been thinking about and doing some work with positioning in general, and then maybe directing more towards some of the original work of positioning theory as a way to kind of get a hold on, like, these different concepts of the theory. Mike: Oh gosh, this was super fun. Erin, thank you so much for joining us today. Erin: Thank you so much for inviting me. It was a pleasure talking with you today. Mike: This podcast is brought to you by the Math Learning Center and the Maier Math Foundation, dedicated to inspiring and enabling individuals to discover and develop their mathematical confidence and ability. © 2022 The Math Learning Center | www.mathlearningcenter.org
"Minions have been on this planet far longer than we have. They go by many names. Dave, Carl, Paul, Mike- Oh, that one is Norbert. He's an idiot. " For those who cherish Disney, worship at the altar of Spielberg, love nothing more than immersing themselves into the world of Aardman, let us introduce you to Not Just For Kids. This is the podcast that revisits the films we cherished growing up, be they family films or something we maybe shouldn't have been watching. Host Russell Bailey carries on our latest series, charting the last two decades of Western animation. Chris and Alex from the Fantasy/Animation podcast (https://twitter.com/fananimresearch) join to dive through the works of the Illumination Studios, taking in Minions, Dr Seuss adaptations and the importance of fun animated films. Email us: notjustforkidspodcast@gmail.com Find us on Twitter, Instagram and Letterboxd: @adultstoopod Give the Not Just For Kids Movie Club a listen: https://anchor.fm/russ
Rounding Up Season 1 | Episode 3 – Recording Student Thinking During a Mathematics Discussion Guest: Dr. Nicole Garcia Mike Wallus: If you're anything like me, learning to record students' mathematical thinking might best be described as on-the-job training, which meant trial and error, and a lot of practice. Our guest on today's podcast is Nicole Garcia, the co-author of an article, published in Mathematics Teacher, that explores the practice of recording student thinking, and offers insights and some principles for making them as productive as possible. Welcome to the podcast, Nicole. Nicole Garcia: Thank you for having me. Mike: So you and your co-authors start the article by acknowledging that representing and recording student thinking—when you're in the moment, in a public space, with students—it's challenging, even for veteran teachers. And I suspect that most teachers would agree and appreciate the recognition that this is a skill that takes time and it takes practice. What makes this work challenging and why is it worth investing time to get better at it? Nicole: Well, so I think you said a lot in your question that points to why this is really difficult work, right? First of all, it's in the moment. We can't predict what students are going to say. We can do some anticipatory work. We might have guesses. And as we move along in our careers, we might have gathered some really good guesses about what students might have to say, but you never can tell in the moment. So unexpected things come up. Students' phrasing can be really different from time to time, even if we're familiar with an idea. And we're also standing in front of a room full of children, and we're trying to manage a lot in the moment—while we're listening, while we're interpreting those ideas. And then we're trying to figure out: What do we even write down from this mass of ideas that was shared with us? So that's a lot to coordinate, to manage, to think about in the moment. But it's really critical work because part of our goal as mathematics teachers is to build collective knowledge, to support children in being able to listen to, make sense of, interpret one another's ideas, to learn from each other, and to build on one another. And so if we want to make that happen, we need to support making students' ideas accessible to everyone in the room. Mike: Hmm. Nicole: And listening is only one part of that, right? If you think about what it takes to make sense of ideas, it takes multiple representations—those are things that we're working on in math. So we need the kids in classrooms to have access to the words that children are speaking. We need them to have access to visual representations of the ideas that are being shared. We need them to have access to the ways that we typically record those things in mathematics—the symbolic notation that we typically use. And we need that to happen all at once if we want kids to be able to unpack, make sense of, and work with others' ideas. So it's really important work. And I think it's worth investing the time in to get better at this because of the power of having children learn from one another and feel the value of their mathematical ideas. Mike: You know, as you were speaking, part of what I was doing is making a mental checklist from principles to actions. And I felt like, check one: asking purposeful questions. Check two: connecting mathematical representations. I mean, as you describe this, so much of what we see as really productive practice is wrapped up in this event that takes place when teachers get together and listen to students and try to capture those ideas. Nicole: And that capturing is really important if we want those ideas to stay with us, right? Like, I think about the number of times that I've been in a discussion with a group of people—it may have been in a class, it may have been in another space—and the whole thing happens. And when I leave, sometimes I wonder, ‘What just happened? What did we think about together? What ideas did we engage in?' And I can't hold onto them. And recording on the board in the public space offers an opportunity for those ideas to stay with us, for us to hold onto them, for us to revisit and come back to them. So it's critical for continued learning and mathematical growth. Mike: Absolutely. So this particular part of the article that you wrote—as I was reading it, and you were describing the challenge of recording student thinking during a discussion—this particular statement really struck me, and I'm just going to read it as it was in the article. ‘The thinking being recorded is not the teacher's own, requiring the teacher to set aside their own strategies and interpretations of the math work, to focus on representing student thinking.' I would love if you could talk about why you felt like it was so important to explicitly call this out in the article. Nicole: Yeah. So I think that there are a couple of things here that are important. One is that, as a teacher, you're thinking always about the trajectory of your lesson, the trajectory of student learning, where you want to be and steer. And so a lot of times, when we're listening, we're listening for something in particular, right? We have a plan in mind, we have an idea, we know where we want go, and we're listening really carefully for a catchphrase, a vocabulary word—something that we recognize, that we can pick up and pull into the discussion and move forward, right?…and march on, and accomplish our lesson. And a lot of times that kind of natural way of listening is not aligned with what students are actually trying to communicate, because the ways that children express themselves—in particular around mathematics—are really different than the ways that adults, who know math well, express their ideas about mathematics. So there's a lot to hear in the language that they're using, in the trajectory of their talk, that's both difficult to follow and difficult to figure out what the big idea is that they're communicating. And when we're listening for our own understanding, our own ways of working, our own strategies, we often miss what children are actually bringing to the discussion, to the conversation. We miss their thinking. I think about the number of times where I've been a student in class and I've said something and the teacher rephrases it in the way that they really wish that I would have said the thing. Mike: Yes. Nicole: And it's not, like, it's not even my idea anymore, but you kind of nod and you go along with it. And so I think, you know, as a teacher, you get those cues that, yes, you did just rephrase what the kid said. They just said, ‘OK.' And you record that thing and you move on. And so I think reflection—checking back in with children about whether or not you heard their idea, whether or not the representation that you're putting on the board actually matches what they were thinking about—is really, really critical. Because it isn't your thinking. It's the child's thinking and we want to make sure that that's what we're representing. Mike: Yeah. I read this and I will confess that a part of me thought back to the points in time when I was teaching kindergarten and first grade. And I suspect anyone who's taught and tried to record students' thinking has been in a spot where you have kind of a pathway that you're thinking the learning will follow. You have an idea of how the big ideas might roll themselves out. Nicole: Um-hm. Mike: And I think what I found myself thinking is, there are certainly many, many times where I felt like I was true to student's ideas, but I was really conscious that there were definitely points where, what I heard and what I represented differed, probably because I was thinking to myself, ‘Gosh, I really want this model to kind of come forward.' And the truth was, the kids weren't taking me there and I was trying to force it. I guess what I'm saying is, it really caused me to think back on my own practice and really kind of reconsider—even when I'm doing professional learning with other adults and children—the need to listen, as opposed to kind of have the path sketched out in my own mind. Nicole: Well, it's really difficult to do, because sometimes as a teacher, you really do need the lesson to go in a particular direction. There are all kinds of constraints around teaching. And I think what's important is knowing that you've made that decision. ( laughs ) Right? Because sometimes you might. You might… Mike: Yes! Nicole: …rephrase it a particular way because that's the move that you need to make in that moment. And I think that sometimes that can be OK. We need to give ourselves permission as teachers to make the best choices for our whole class and the students whose ideas are being shared in the moment. But I think knowing that that's what you're doing is really important, Mike: Right. Like, it's a conscious decision to say, ‘I've heard that. I'm going to take this in a different direction.' Rather than just imagining, ‘I've heard that. I'm going to represent it.' And not kind of questioning whether what's being represented is the student's thinking or your own thinking. Nicole: Right. Or even better, making the decision that, ‘I heard, what that child said. And I'm going to say back to them,' for example, ‘so I think what I heard you say is…bop, bop, bop. Can I try an idea out?', and actually sharing the idea that you have on tap. Or saying something like, ‘You know, I've heard some of my students in the past say something really similar. Can I share that idea with you? And let's see what's similar or different.' So thinking about how can you get that idea out there, that you really wanted to record, that the student didn't say, in a way that isn't totally disingenuous—pretending you heard something that you didn't hear. Mike: Right. You're kind of acknowledging that they said something and you're…. It's powerful; the language you used is really subtle. But it's essentially saying, ‘I've got something that I'd like to contribute that your idea made me think about,' or… Nicole: Um-hm. Mike: …that you want to also put out there. And I think that subtlety is important. Because as you were describing that feeling of, ‘I said something. Teacher revoiced it in a way that was totally different,' and kind of the bad aftertaste that that left. Nicole: Yeah. Mike: You know, that subtle ask—of the child—for permission, really kind of shifts that dynamic. Nicole: It's saying, ‘I value your idea and let's consider this other idea.' It's OK for teachers to put ideas out in the space. Mike: Um-hm. Nicole: But acknowledging that that isn't what you heard and you're going to record this other thing, or maybe you record both of them… Mike: Right! Nicole: …and talk about the similarities and differences. Mike: So I'd love to shift just a little bit and talk about the role that recording can play in developing students' mathematical vocabulary. And I'm wondering if you could talk about the ways that recording can help students make connections between their informal language and the more formal mathematical vocabulary that we want them to start to be able to use. Can you talk a little bit about what that might look like? Nicole: Yeah. So I think that there are a couple of ideas to be thinking about. One is that we actually know a lot about how children develop vocabulary. We know that that's a progression and that students need opportunities to play around with ideas, to have something to hang that vocabulary word on. Mike: Um-hm. Nicole: Once they have the kind of core idea and they have some informal language—some way to describe that idea—that's the prime place to be able to introduce the formal mathematical vocabulary. They're able to make connections to that big picture, that core idea that they've come up with. They have some informal language to go around with it. And now they have a real name for it—the formal mathematical name for it. We also know that one of the ways that students remember and are able to recall—and use appropriately—vocabulary is by having a visual representation that goes along with that mathematical vocabulary. Mike: Hmm. Nicole: So one way that representations and recordings can support students in learning that vocabulary is first, by having them build some representations that go with that vocabulary word, but then also having those labels on the representations that make their way onto our boards. Mike: Ah, yep. Nicole: In addition, you know, when we do things like dual labeling, um, where maybe in our classroom space, we've named something with someone's name, right? As we're beginning to talk about an idea, we might call it Diego's idea, Diego's strategy. Then when it makes our way onto the board, we can label it with ‘Diego's strategy' and the formal mathematical name for it so students are able to connect the of things. But even if it's not a student's name as the name of the strategy, there's lots of informal language that students bring to mathematical ideas. They have to have a way to talk about things. And so we can dual label those ideas on our board to help students make that connection and to let them walk between using their informal language and using that formal mathematical language, and being OK with that. Mike: So just to go back… Describe dual labeling again, because I think I've got an idea of it, but I want to make sure in my own mind I've captured that correctly. How does that work? Nicole: Let's imagine that we have a strategy—a student has shared a subtraction strategy in our discussion, and I've represented that strategy on the board, say, using a number line. Mike: Okay. Nicole: And, say, the kids are calling it scooting—they're scooting the numbers to make this subtraction problem. So I might actually write on my board, like, on the left hand side of the strategy ‘scooting,'… Mike: Um-hm. Nicole: …and then on the right hand side, label it ‘shifting the numbers' or whatever our formal mathematical language is going to be for our classroom. So we have both of those things labeled on top of the strategy. And I might even draw a double sided arrow between the two to help… Mike: Oh! OK. Nicole: …[undecipherable] that the strategy that's there has these two names and I can use those names interchangeably. But over time, we get to a place where we're calling it by its formal name. And kids also have the idea that, ‘oh, that's the one that's the scooting strategy.' They have their own name that they gave that idea. Mike: That is really helpful. And I think the example you shared really kind of shows how dual labeling kind of progresses and there's almost kind of a fade out at a certain point. Not that you're purposely not permitting kids to use ‘scooting,' but that a certain point you're kind of fading and you're starting to use the more formal name. They can use it,… Nicole: Um-hm. Mike: …but that you're really kind of trying to help them make a transition to the formal vocabulary. Nicole: Um-hm. And if you think about, you know, kids are really used to using multiple names for things. Mike: Um-hm. Nicole: They have nicknames that they use at home,… Mike: Yep. Nicole: …they have their home name, they have their school name, they have their friend name. There are lots of different labels on the same kind of thing. So that's a natural progression of language for them. And it doesn't cause complications to have, like, these multiple names for this idea. And we can shift toward using the formal language once everybody has that tied up. Mike: Yep. So as I was preparing for this interview, and even as I was reading the article, I found myself thinking about my life as an elementary school teacher. And I think what I found myself thinking was, is that I learned how to facilitate and record math discussions—like a lot of folks—trial and error and a heck of a lot of practice. And I think what I really appreciated about what you and your co-authors put together is that you actually laid out some principles for recording that support mathematical understanding. And I'm wondering if you could just unpack some of the principles that you think are important, Nicole. Nicole: Yeah. So as we… as we were working on these principles, we were trying to think about, like, what are the big ideas of what gets recorded, right?, and how we record in a classroom. What are the big things that we want to make sure get attention in that work? And so we kind of organized under three big umbrellas of principles, one being around advancing mathematical ideas. Because the goal of discussion in mathematics is to build ideas together and to move the mathematics forward using student ideas. So when we think about what gets recorded, we want to record in ways that are helping us build those mathematical ideas together. So in that area, we'd really be thinking about recording the core ideas, deciding, like: What's important enough to get on the board? What do I want to make sure gets up there that's going to help push people's thinking forward? And then at the same time, thinking about: What's the right level of detail? Mike: Um-hm. Nicole: Sometimes you look at a board recording… If you walked out of the room and you came back in and you looked at it, you would have no idea what happened… Mike: ( laughs ) Nicole: …what had gone on, right? Mike: Yes! Nicole: Like, there's not enough there to really, like, get a sense of what happened. But sometimes there's so much there that it's a jumble and you can't discern, like: What's important here? So that ‘just right' space of managing the detail—so there's enough that you can make sense of it when you come back the next day, you get what happened; it's enough to prompt your memory, but it's not overwhelming—um, is really important because we want kids to be building on those ideas over time. So we want those recordings to be in that kind of level of detail. And then thinking about that arrangement. Where am I going to put things so that I can help students make connections between the ideas that have been shared? Right? Do I want kids' strategies to be next to each other? Are there particular strategies that, if I stack them on top of each other, kids are going to be able to see different kinds of connections,… Mike: Um-hm. Nicole: …similarities, or differences? Like, where they are in relation to each other, if you think about how we make sense of space, matters. Mike: Yes. Nicole: So that was… that's one kind of bucket. A second bucket is really respecting students as sense makers. And this comes back to what we were talking about earlier, with really paying attention to: What were students trying to communicate? So, ‘Did I actually record what the student said it or did I write down what I wish they had said?' But trying to stay true to: What was the core of that student's idea? And am I representing that correctly? But then also adding enough detail so that the other students in the class can figure out what that student's idea was about. And we can do that through questioning, but part of that has to come out in the recording as well, because we want that record to be like the full representation of the ideas that students are communicating. And then labeling those ideas so that we're able to talk about them easier, right?… Mike: Um-hm. Nicole: …that we're not just like pointing to a general space, but we have some language, we have some vocabulary, we have some kind of label to be able to talk easily across those ideas. Mike: I had a follow up that I wanted to ask you. So, again, I'm paraphrasing, but one of the things that really stood out for me in the way that you unpacked the principles was: Our recording should show the thinking behind the idea rather than the steps in the solution alone. I would love for you to expand on that a bit. Nicole: Yeah. So the thing that we're trying to get out when students are sharing strategies in class, when they're sharing the ideas in class, is in some ways the generalizability—to use my big math vocabulary. We want to get to what is the core of the idea that they're sharing that can be used across multiple kinds of problems in lots of different ways. And so recording just the steps that get followed, may show—or it may not—the steps that somebody followed for that particular problem, but doesn't show the thinking that could be used to solve other similar or different kinds of problems. Right? So we will want to be able to record in a way that gets to the heart of the thinking. So if you think about a student, for example, using counting up to solve a subtraction problem,… Mike: Um-hm. Nicole: …then I might think about what's important are the steps that a student is taking to count up. So they're either thinking about it on a number line and they're hopping along the number line to count from one number to another. And so on the board, I would actually want to record those hops because that's the underlying idea—is that we're looking at the repeated unit distance between those two numbers. Mike: Um-hm. Nicole: OK? If a student is counting up using their fingers,… Mike: Um-hm. Nicole: …then I might want to actually record a hand on the board and the count that the student is doing, so that other students in the class are able to try out that strategy, use that strategy, and think about when it's useful. But if all I've recorded on the board, are the words ‘counting up' and then the problem that they solved, that doesn't necessarily support other people in being able to try out that strategy or that idea, or even think about when would it be useful or not. Mike: That's super helpful. I love the idea of generalizability. If I've done recording well, allows other kids to have access to the strategy that's being highlighted, rather than simply putting together the steps that showed how a person came to this individual answer, at this particular task, at this particular time. That's a really helpful clarification, I think—in my mind. Nicole: If you even think about things like annotation and the power that annotation on a recording can have. And we think about the U.S. standard algorithm for addition,… Mike: Um-hm. Nicole: …where students are… they're adding and when they get a number that's greater than nine, they're making groups and carrying that group, right?, to the next place value. If we're actually annotating that process with what each of the numbers means as we're doing that work together, that can really support students in continuing to make meaning. I think that one of the things that often happens is, we make meaning when we're introducing the algorithm, we do some work together. Students are really in a place where they're understanding place value, they're understanding making groups, they get what that recording means. And then we kind of say, ‘Great, then we're just going to record this way from now moving forward.' And we continue to do that recording without the kind of reinforcement about, again, what are… what are we saying these numbers mean? What are we actually doing here? And so we move from meaning toward this recording without meaning? Mike: Sure. That absolutely makes sense. Nicole: Very quickly for children. And then, you know, too… I know that, for example, my fifth grade teachers would say that oftentimes their kids come to them and… and can't explain what's happening when kids do that addition. They do the work—they know how to do the work—but they can't say what it is that they're doing. Right? And so annotation can really support that, that remembering of what have we…? What kind of collective understanding have we come to? Mike: Sure. That totally makes sense. So I wanted to ask you a bit about guidance that you'd offer to teachers. I suspect there's a fair number of people who are listening, who are really thinking about their own practice and are wondering: What steps might I take as a teacher—or maybe within the team of folks that I work with—to really try to attend to the principals and the practices that we've talked about? What's your sense of how teachers can support one another in, kind of, practicing the principles that that we've unpacked today? Nicole: So I think there are lots of options for what it might look like to focus on and practice this work together in a teaching community. I think one way that we talked about in the article—and it's not the only way—is using video. There are lots of videos that are available on YouTube, on TeacherTube, etc., of classrooms where people are leading discussions, are recording student thinking. There are lots of videos of student thinking out there where—in a pretty short amount of time—I could, with my peers, watch this video and practice recording—either on a board, on a chart paper, on paper in front of me—recording what I'm hearing from students. And then afterwards comparing our recordings together and talking across them. What are the features that each of us has picked up on? In what ways were we in line with what the student was sharing? Where are there differences in how we interpreted what a student was sharing? And that's a pretty quick activity. I can find a five minute video. We can do that work together, talk about it in, like, tops 20 minutes, really, to do that kind of activity together. We can also do work where we're visiting each other's classrooms. Mike: That's what you had me thinking, Nicole. Nicole: Yeah Mike: Yeah, absolutely! Nicole: I can go to somebody's classroom. I can—on my lap—have my piece of paper where I'm trying to record as students are talking. And after that lesson, debrief with a teacher that I'm observing, about, ‘What was it that you decided to record? How did you make that decision? Here's what I had.' And really talk across those ideas because it's small changes in practice over time. This is an overwhelming set of work, this recording work. And it's going to get better by increments, but it's going to take practice, talking with colleagues, and really coming back to these principles and thinking about: Am I adhering to these things? Where is it that I really want to work and I improve my practice? Because I would encourage people to pick one—to start with—that you really want to get better at and focus on that one. Mike: Yeah. I think what's powerful about this too, is that I would imagine you could certainly do some of the things that you described if you were the only teacher at a grade level. Nicole: Yeah. Mike: But gosh, when you put other people together and think about the ability to help one another raise your consciousness about why you made a particular decision or why you chose to go in a certain direction with a representation… That's kind of that intricacy where teachers can really help one another. I mean, we are keen observers of behavior. That's… ( laughs ) that's kind of the bread and butter of a lot of what we're doing when we're talking about differentiation. It's really powerful to think that teachers could help one another build their craft around this. Nicole: Um-hm. Well, and it's… it's a really interesting practice, I think, in that there isn't one right way. ( laughs ) Right? There isn't a right way to represent a particular idea. Um, there are lots of really good features of different kinds of recordings, and so there's lots to discuss and… and a lot to learn from each other. And your… your comment about the being alone had me thinking about the work that you can do just by studying student work… Mike: Um-hm. Nicole: …and thinking about: How are students inclined to represent their particular ideas and how might I translate that into how I represent things for the class on the board? Because students do a lot of their own translation of their thinking into representations on their homework. We can pull student work sets. You know, if we look at Inside Mathematics, there are lots of student work site, sets up there on that site that you can pull and study and look at how children are inclined to show their thinking. Mike: So I'm going to back up and just ask if you can identify and source that resource that you just shared about Inside Mathematics. Would you… would you mind—for people who might not be familiar—just unpacking what that is and where folks can find it? Nicole: Yeah. So, Inside Mathematics is a really great resource for teachers. It came out of a project funded by the Noyce Foundation. The website is insidemathematics.org, and it's currently housed at the Dana Center at The University of Texas at Austin. Mike: Gotcha. Nicole: Great resources for teachers. There are videos of lessons. There are problems. There are assessments. There are lots of resources up there, but one of my favorite resources is that, with each of the problems, they have student work samples. And so you can really see a lot of student thinking inside of those. Mike: That's fantastic. You really answered my last question, which was going to be: For folks who, again, are listening to this conversation and thinking about steps, they might take… resources that you would recommend to someone who's really wanting to think more deeply about representation and the practice of representing student thinking. Nicole: So I think the big three are ones that we've covered and that would be visiting your colleagues classrooms— Mike: Um-hm. Nicole: …whether in person or via video—depending on what the setup of your school is; visiting sites of video, right?, so going to YouTube, TeacherTube—seeing how people are representing that work and then comparing how you might choose to represent that work; and really digging into student representations of their own thinking. Mike: That's fantastic. Nicole, thank you so much for joining us today. It has absolutely been a pleasure to talk to you. Nicole: Thank you so much for having me. It's been really fun. Mike: This podcast is brought to you by The Math Learning Center and the Maier Math Foundation, dedicated to inspiring and enabling individuals to discover and develop their mathematical confidence and ability. © 2022 The Math Learning Center | www.mathlearningcenter.org
「生魚片很新鮮」 英文怎麼說? 你喜歡吃生魚片嗎?Mike 跟 Duncan 都很喜歡吃生魚片~ 那 ”生魚片“、”手捲“、”丼飯“ 的英文怎麼說呢? 還有買魚的時候會聽到超生動的說法 ”感覺像現撈的“ ,英文是什麼呢? 這一集文化閒聊,Duncan 跟我們分享, 美國人喜歡吃生魚片嗎?還是會不習慣呢? 快來聽這一集內容,聽聽看生魚片很新鮮的英文要怎麼說。 不知道怎麼準備學測英文單字? 讓安東尼老師帶著你,背好學測必考單字! 「學測出題情境 900 單字:只要 90 天,幫你輕鬆跨級」線上課程優惠中: https://lihi1.com/tWwvf 我們跟 MixerBox 合作,推出「這句英文怎麼說」專屬的贊助方案囉! 有每個禮拜會寄給你一次 podcast 電子報 & 幕後花絮腳本的輕鬆學習方案, 也有來跟我們一起錄音的互動方案,和用 8 折優惠購買我們的線上課程方案喔。 歡迎點進我們的贊助方案看看有沒有你喜歡的內容喔: https://pse.is/3zu4hx 快速幫你複習一下這集的主題句 & 單字: 生魚片很新鮮 The sushi is so fresh. 感覺像現撈的 I swear it just came out of the water. 補充學習 手捲 sushi roll 丼飯 Donburi / sushi bowl 菜色很豐富 A wide variety of dishes/food. 海鮮/甜點種類滿多的 A wide variety of (seafood/desserts) 情境對話 Duncan:How was it last time you went to eat at Sunrise? Mike:Not bad. They had so many choices. I really recommend it. Duncan:Really? What do you suggest? Mike:Oh, the sushi is so fresh! 學英文吧網站 https://ivybar.com.tw/?c=3 或追蹤 iVY BAR 學英文吧的 IG,上面圖文版 podcast 複習也很棒喔! https://pse.is/39vede 現在我們也有影音版的 Podcast 實境秀喔 https://pse.is/3ahupl Powered by Firstory Hosting
Mike Isaacson: Now when you say recommended dose… [Theme song] Nazi SS UFOsLizards wearing human clothesHinduism's secret codesThese are nazi lies Race and IQ are in genesWarfare keeps the nation cleanWhiteness is an AIDS vaccineThese are nazi lies Hollow earth, white genocideMuslim's rampant femicideShooting suspects named Sam HydeHiter lived and no Jews died Army, navy, and the copsSecret service, special opsThey protect us, not sweatshopsThese are nazi lies Mike: Welcome to another episode of the Nazi Lies Podcast. Subscribe to our Patreon to get access to early episodes and membership in our book club and Discord. Today we are joined by Dr. Tim Geary, a pharmacoparasitologist or parasitopharmacologist… He studies parasites and makes drugs. He's a professor emeritus at McGill University and still teaches courses at Queen's University Belfast. He's here to talk to us about hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, and why they probably won't neutralize Coronavirus. Thanks for joining us, Dr. Geary. Tim Geary: You're welcome, Mike. Please call me Tim. Mike: Okay, Tim. Before we get into all the science, tell our audience a little bit about what you've done professionally, because you have a very extensive list of bona fides, and I don't really know where to start. [laughs] Tim: That's quite all right. Yes, I have been working on the study of drugs, pharmacology, for about 45 years, and most of that time I've been working on chemotherapy of infectious diseases, primarily parasites. This includes work in Africa. Most of my career has been on veterinary parasites or human neglected tropical diseases caused by parasites. During the course of my career I have worked on malaria, and that's where chloroquine and its derivative hydroxychloroquine come from, and also ivermectin, which I have studied for many, many years, both in animals and people. In full disclosure, Mike, I once did work for the pharmaceutical industry, the animal health arm of a company called up Upjohn that is now known as Zoetis in Kalamazoo, Michigan. [ed. It's now part of Viatris.] I also consulted and worked with the World Health Organization, with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and with the Carter Center on various problems of tropical diseases, and I continue to be a consultant for some animal health companies. That's who I am. Mike: Very good. All right. Now you've done some research on both hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, correct? Tim: I have, indeed. I worked on both how they work to kill parasites and also how parasites become resistant to them. I have studied them in clinical settings as well as in the laboratory, and I think I qualify as an expert in both medicines in the indications for which they are used, which is essentially tropical medicine and veterinary parasitology. Mike: Very good. And you've also been following the misinformation surrounding these two drugs too, right? Tim: I have, with great interest and concern. There aren't very many people in the world who are experts at drug discovery and drug development for these kinds of conditions. That's unfortunate. But yes, I have followed that, Mike, and I certainly have opinions about where the misinformation came from. It was not a malintention, it was just wrong interpretation and wrong design of some initial experiments that led to inappropriate conclusions in a rush to clinical use. Mike: Okay, so let's talk about each of these medications and then we'll talk about where the rumors started. So let's start with hydroxychloroquine. Since the beginning of the pandemic almost, it was heralded as a miracle COVID cure but was quickly discovered not to be that. What were its recognised clinical uses? Tim: So hydroxychloroquine is a derivative of a drug called chloroquine, which was also touted initially as a possible solution to COVID. Chloroquine was a miracle drug for the treatment of malaria. It saved, oh my gosh, millions and millions of lives over the course of its use. It's relatively cheap, it's reasonably safe and it was highly effective against malaria parasites until they evolved resistance to it. It's use for malaria has now diminished remarkably. Hydroxychloroquine was thought to be a safer alternative with a better sort of safety profile. But it never was really used for malaria. It just never displaced chloroquine. Instead, it found use as kind of an immunomodulator compound for people with systemic lupus erythematosus or lupus as it's commonly known, an autoimmune condition. So hydroxychloroquine for people with lupus does help to reduce symptoms, to reduce worsening of the disease, and it is a valuable drug for that purpose. Mike: Okay, and how safe is it to experiment with? Tim: Not very. I mean, it does have side effects, especially when you go over recommended dosing. We'll talk, I think Mike, in a little bit about how that relates to potential uses against COVID, if you like, but it's normal use in lupus patients, it's pretty well tolerated. But the doses are quite specific for that, and as with most medicines, it's safe when used appropriately. Mike: And what happens when it's not used appropriately? What kinds of symptoms can you... Tim: There are a variety; hearing loss is one that kind of stands out, but you can get imbalances, a sort of dizziness, classic nausea, vomiting, things like that. It's not a drug to be taken lightly. It's not as safe as many of the medicines that we use. But again, when it's used appropriately, it's fine. Mike: Okay, and how did the rumors start that this could be used to be COVID. Tim: So it's a classic story, Mike. So whenever a new condition surfaces, like COVID, there's a rush to test all the– what are known as the FDA registered medicines. These are medicines that have been approved for one use or another either by the US government or by the European agencies. It's always easier to adapt an approved drug for new indication than to register a completely new medicine. It's just way cheaper, way faster. So everyone turns to “What have we already approved just to see if by some unexpected chance it would also work in this new condition?” And that's what happened here. People can grow the SARS-CoV-2 virus in cell culture. So we grow it in cell culture and throw every compound that is registered and approved into those cultures to see, “Does any of them work?” And hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, which we'll talk about, they came out of that effort. There's a serious flaw with the strategy in this case. I will say, Mike, sometimes it works. Sometimes you find something you didn't expect. I don't think we'll have time to go into those exceptions but there are some. So a key-- and this is sort of basic science and I hope it's okay for everybody-- but a big factor is the kind of cell that you use to grow the virus to test it. Scientists typically use for viral diseases, a cell called the vero cell, which was derived from an African Green Monkey kidney. The reason they use this cell is because most viruses grow really well in it, so it's quite easy to adapt a new virus to that system. The problem is, it's not representative of the kinds of cells that say SARS-CoV-2, the COVID virus infect. Those would be human lung cells, if you will. So yes, hydroxychloroquine works at relatively high concentrations against the virus in vero cells. But it turns out if you do the same experiment with cultures of human lung cells, it really doesn't work at all, because the virus enters those cells in a way that's different than how it infects vero cells. Had we done the experiment properly, which is to use cultures of human lung cells, we wouldn't be having this conversation, Mike, because no one would have advanced hydroxychloroquine as a potential cure. I hope that answers okay, and I hope it's clear. It's not that the scientists who did this work had evil intentions, they did not. It's just that they used the wrong cell type, and people drew inappropriate conclusions from the result. Mike: Okay, let's switch gears to ivermectin. There's actually been a lot of misinformation about ivermectin on both sides of the don't-try-this-at-home debate. So in addition to the people on one side claiming that ivermectin can cure COVID, on the other side, you have people who are reducing ivermectin to just a horse dewormer. Tim: [laughs] Yeah. Well, ivermectin, like chloroquine is a wonder drug. Okay? First of all, ivermectin has revolutionized the treatment of parasites in animals, and we should not discount it. So maybe its primary use is actually in the prevention of heartworm infections in people's pets. It revolutionized the treatment of this. It's an important and extremely useful drug, but it also is very useful in people. It has been donated– More than a billion doses have been donated by Merck for the treatment of individuals infected with a couple of parasites in poor areas of the world, one is onchocerciasis or river blindness and the other is lymphatic filariasis or elephantiasis. So we have a huge history of use of the drug. It can be given once a year for these infections or twice a year. It's enormously important in tropical medicine. It is a human medicine. It is very safe as used. It's also extremely potent. So it takes very little of the drug to have a beneficial therapeutic effect. Mike: And how safe is it to experiment with? Tim: At the use doses, it's quite safe. There are isolated incidences which would never happen to people in the United States, for instance, or in regions that don't suffer from parasitic infections like this. It's very safe, but it can be overdosed. It's possible. One of the things that's really important to know, and I mentioned that it's very potent, right? So you give tiny doses to people who suffer from these parasitic infections, but the solutions that we use to treat animals, because animals are so much bigger than people, like horses or cows, for instance, they contain much higher amounts of the drug. And inappropriately taking those medicines you can get an overdose that has serious lethal concentrations and lethal implications, for instance. I think there have been a couple of fatalities in the US. So it should never be taken outside of a prescription by a physician. Mike: Okay. And where did the rumors about this one start from? Tim: [laughs] Exactly the same place, Mike. Ivermectin works against the virus in cell cultures, in vero cell cultures. It does not work in cultures of human lung cells, so there's no basis to presume that either of these drugs act by inhibiting the virus. I will also say that the concentrations of ivermectin that are required to be active even in the vero cells are 100 times higher than what you would see in a human dosed with a therapeutic amount of the drug. It's not even clear to me that even massive overdoses would give you enough of the drug in your blood to actually have this beneficial effect. The other problem, of course, that happened is people said, "Well, it's doing other things,” same with hydroxychloroquine, that maybe it's not inhibiting the virus but it has an immunosuppressive or some beneficial effect on immunity to the virus. That's unproven. I know of no real evidence that therapeutic doses of ivermectin for sure have this effect. Hydroxychloroquine is a kind of immunosuppressant and that is certainly not an effect you would like to see in acute infection, initial infection, because you need the immune system to combat the virus. It's possible that at later stages of more serious infections, when sometimes the human immune response can be over aggressive and cause pathology. That's why dexamethasone, which is a steroid that's used to suppress the immune system, has therapeutic benefit. But there's no reason to think that hydroxychloroquine will have any benefit over and above dexamethasone. And in fact, as you know, clinical trials in hospitalized patients showed no benefit whatsoever from hydroxychloroquine. Mike: And I would assume it's the same for ivermectin. Tim: It is. I'm sorry. It is. It's the same for ivermectin that we have treated hundreds of millions of people and literally billions of animals with this drug. No one has ever reported an antiviral effect or an immunosuppressive effect in these individuals. So we don't really have a mechanism that would explain either one. This becomes very important. I'm going to take a segue here if you don't mind. Mike: Hey, go for it. Tim: So right now ivermectin is undergoing clinical trials, not because of science but because of sort of public demand. These include several trials in the United States. The problem with a clinical trial like this is we have no hypothesized mechanism. So we don't have any way to judge, “How much ivermectin should we give to these people? What dose do we use? How frequently do we give it?” We have no idea what the target plasma concentration or blood concentration of the drug should be to have a beneficial effect on COVID. This makes the trial design extremely difficult. And it's going to complicate the interpretation. Right now some people think you have to take ivermectin all the time, other people think, “No, no, you just take it when you get sick.” We don't have a theoretical or any basis in theory to account for any of these outcomes. Mike: Okay. Switching gears again, I imagine in your relief work, you've encountered a bit of treatment and vaccine hesitancy, right? Tim: I think, Mike, just as a citizen, not necessarily have I sought it out. [laughs] I will say I have given a couple of other interviews about this and at least one of them generated a lot of negative feedback on my character because clearly ivermectin is a lifesaver and I'm doing a disservice. But in terms of vaccine hesitancy, I think it's coupled with enthusiasm for hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin. It's a rather bizarre demonstration of human susceptibility to anecdote and conspiracy. I will say, look, a lot of people that advocate either one of these drugs are not evil. I think they're misguided. I'm looking forward to the results of the clinical trials on ivermectin that I hope will quell some of this over-enthusiasm. I don't believe they are malicious actors, they just are misinformed. There is no scientific rationale to advocate either of them. Vaccine hesitancy is a bit different. It's grounded in ignorance. There's a political component to it, which is difficult for me to accept, that somehow it threatens individual liberty to require people to protect each other. I find that a bizarre and unhealthy development in our society. I suppose it's always been there. There is no reason to fear the vaccine. They're well-grounded in science, all of the various pipes that have been advanced. They have all been approved after regular rigorous study. None of them has nefarious intent. There is no conspiracy among major pharma companies about this. I'm a little bit concerned that the medicines that have recently been approved, I think, one from Merck and one from Pfizer as antivirals, I think they're valuable. But it also gives people an opt-out for the vaccine to say, "Well, if I get sick I can get cured." That's unfortunate. I probably haven't answered your question, have I? Mike: Well, I was gonna ask what you find motivates the vaccine hesitancy and what motivates the hesitancy to believe medical professionals, if you've encountered that in your personal interaction with patients. Tim: I have. I mean, I don't treat patients. I want to be clear about that. I'm just a scientist. But of course I have lots of conversations in my life with some people who don't agree that vaccines are important. Some people don't agree that the virus is actually real. They think it's a hoax perpetrated, somehow, I don't know how. I'm gonna-- not being a sociologist, I'm not sure how valid my opinion is, but I think one of the factors is that most people don't know any scientists. They don't really know their physicians as people. We've become a customer-client medical system. You're probably too young to remember sort of the family doctor that would sit and chat. I know there's still some GPs that do that, but a lot of this is now assembly line. You show up, you don't even get 10 minutes, and you're on to the next patient. Right? People don't know physicians as people, they don't know scientists at all. The demise of the public school system in the US and the advance of private schools means that people who are scientifically literate often send their kids to private schools, and they don't get a chance to interact with, I'm just gonna say, non-scientists very much. They don't coach softball or baseball or football teams, they don't go to PTA meetings. Our dependence on electronic communications, as you and I are now doing, diminishes the opportunity for interpersonal interaction or casual just to say, "Hey, I do this for a living and you shouldn't be afraid of me and the people like me." But there is a distrust, especially in the Western countries-- actually, it's global. In the so-called elite, there is this distrust of intellectual output. I gotta tell you, just recently, the National Science Foundation released survey data of 30% of the scientists and engineers in the US are foreign born. And that's another barrier to communication; people tend to view foreigners with suspicion. So there's been a disconnect in American society between this incredible technology that drives our society and the people who benefit from it, or participate in it almost as unwitting, unwilling guinea pigs, right? That's a long winded answer, I hope it's okay. Mike: [laughs] Well, it's a good one. So what research are you working on now? Tim: One of the things that I have become fascinated by is how parasites manipulate their hosts. So a lot of my work is how the molecules that parasites release into their hosts affect the host response to allow them to succeed. Some of the parasites I studied live for many, many years in the host, large kind of parasites, and you'd think we should be really good at getting rid of them. And we are, in fact, really good at getting rid of almost every parasite, but some few species have figured out how to 'live long and prosper' as Mr. Spock would say, in our bodies. So I'm really curious about how they accomplish that. The other project I'm involved with at the moment is with the Carter Center, and it's about a worm, a parasite called guinea worm in Africa, which has nearly been eradicated, but it has recently been found to not only infect people but dogs, and so we're trying to come up with a medicine that can be used to treat the parasite in dogs so that eventually we can eradicate it. This is a parasite that Jimmy Carter has said, "I hope the last guinea worm dies before I do." Mike: And what does a guinea worm do? Tim: Oh my gosh, you want to really get grossed out? Your listeners, go look it up. It's a parasite called Dracunculus medinensis. It's the little dragon of Medina. It lives beneath the skin. The females get to be at least half a meter long or even longer, and they burrow out of the skin, and lay their eggs basically in water. It's disfiguring. It's very painful. It's an example of a gross parasite, I will say. But it can be cured or can be prevented if you keep people from going into the water. So this is kind of a behavioral solution that the Carter Center has really promoted. Or if you use filtered straws to drink. It infects people by drinking water that's contaminated with parasites. It's a lovely story. It would be a wonderful thing to eradicate, and I hope we can do it. Mike: Oh, really important work, Tim. Thank you so much for coming on the Nazi Lies podcast to teach us about drugs. This was fun. Tim: It's a pleasure. I think it's important to recognise, Mike, that people involved in fighting this virus are not motivated by malicious intent. They really are working to benefit people to try to get control of the epidemic, and they want everyone to get vaccinated. But thank you for inviting me, I sincerely appreciate the opportunity. Mike: Well, thank you so much. Tim: And another time perhaps, my friend. Mike: Absolutely. If you liked what you heard and want to support the Nazi Lies podcast, consider becoming a Patreon subscriber. Patrons get access to early episodes and membership in our book club. The early episodes can come in on any podcast app, and the book club is on Discord. Come join us as we read the books of our upcoming guests. It's a good conversation; your question may even end up on the show. Check us out at patreon.com/nazilies. [Theme song]
Happy Halloween! We're joined by comics scribe Daniel "D.G." Chichester to talk about the history of horror comics, Marvel's return to the genre in the early 1990s, and the macabre anti-hero Terror (whom Chichester co-created). ----more---- Issue 18 Transcript Mike: [00:00:00] It's small, but feisty, Mike: Welcome to Tencent Takes, the podcast where we dig up comic book characters' graves and misappropriate the bodies, one issue at a time. My name is Mike Thompson, and I am joined by my cohost, the Titan of terror herself, Jessika Frazer. Jessika: It is I. Mike: Today, we are extremely fortunate to have comics writer, Daniel, DG Chichester. Dan: Nice to see you both. Mike: Thank you so much for taking the time. You're actually our first official guest on the podcast. Dan: Wow. Okay. I'm going to take that as a good thing. That's great. Mike: Yeah. Well, if you're new to the show, the purpose of our [00:01:00] podcast as always is to look at the weirdest, silliest, coolest moments of comic books, and talk about them in ways that are fun and informative. In this case, we looking at also the spookiest moments, and how they're woven into the larger fabric of pop culture and history. Today, we're going to be talking about horror comics. We're looking at their overall history as well as their resurrection at Marvel in the early 1990s, and how it helped give birth to one of my favorite comic characters, an undead anti-hero who went by the name of Terror. Dan, before we started going down this road, could you tell us a little bit about your history in the comic book industry, and also where people can find you if they want to learn more about you and your work? Dan: Absolutely. At this point, people may not even know I had a history in comic books, but that's not true. Uh, I began at Marvel as an assistant in the mid-eighties while I was still going to film school and, semi quickly kind of graduated up, to a more official, [00:02:00] assistant editor position. Worked my way up through editorial, and then, segued into freelance writing primarily for, but also for DC and Dark Horse and worked on a lot of, semi-permanent titles, Daredevil's probably the best known of them. But I think I was right in the thick of a lot of what you're going to be talking about today in terms of horror comics, especially at Marvel, where I was fiercely interested in kind of getting that going. And I think pushed for certain things, and certainly pushed to be involved in those such as the Hellraiser and Nightbreed Clive Barker projects and Night Stalkers and, uh, and Terror Incorporated, which we're going to talk about. And wherever else I could get some spooky stuff going. And I continued on in that, heavily until about 96 / 97, when the big crash kind of happened, continued on through about 99 and then have not really been that actively involved since then. But folks can find out what I'm doing now, if they go to story maze.substack.com, where I have a weekly newsletter, which features [00:03:00] new fiction and some things that I think are pretty cool that are going on in storytelling, and also a bit of a retrospective of looking back at a lot of the work that I did. Mike: Awesome. Before we actually get started talking about horror comics, normally we talk about one cool thing that we have read or watched recently, but because this episode is going to be dropping right before Halloween, what is your favorite Halloween movie or comic book? Dan: I mean, movies are just terrific. And there's so many when I saw that question, especially in terms of horror and a lot of things immediately jumped to mind. The movie It Follows, the recent It movie, The Mist, Reanimator, are all big favorites. I like horror movies that really kind of get under your skin and horrify you, not just rack up a body count. But what I finally settled on as a favorite is probably John Carpenter's the Thing, which I just think is one of the gruesomest what is going to happen next? What the fuck is going to happen next?[00:04:00] And just utter dread. I mean, there's just so many things that combined for me on that one. And I think in terms of comics, I've recently become just a huge fan of, and I'm probably going to slaughter the name, but Junji Ito's work, the Japanese manga artist. And, Uzumaki, which is this manga, which is about just the bizarreness of this town, overwhelmed with spirals of all things. And if you have not read that, it is, it is the trippiest most unsettling thing I've read in, in a great long time. So happy Halloween with that one. Mike: So that would be mango, right? Dan: Yeah. Yeah. So you'd make sure you read it in the right order, or otherwise it's very confusing, so. Mike: Yeah, we actually, haven't talked a lot about manga on this. We probably should do a deep dive on it at some point. But, Jessika, how about you? Jessika: Well, I'm going to bring it down a little bit more silly because I've always been a fan of horror and the macabre and supernatural. So always grew up seeking creepy media as [00:05:00] a rule, but I also loves me some silliness. So the last three or so years, I've had a tradition of watching Hocus Pocus with my friend, Rob around Halloween time. And it's silly and it's not very heavy on the actual horror aspect, but it's fun. And it holds up surprisingly well. Mike: Yeah, we have all the Funkos of the Sanderson sisters in our house. Jessika: It's amazing watching it in HD, their costumes are so intricate and that really doesn't come across on, you know, old VHS or watching it on television back in the day. And it's just, it's so fun. How much, just time and effort it looks like they put into it, even though some of those details really weren't going to translate. Dan: How very cool. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Yeah. So, but I also really like actual horror, so I'm also in the next couple of days is going to be a visiting the 1963 Haunting of Hill House because that's one of my favorites. Yeah. It's so good. And used to own the book that the movie was based on also. And seen all the [00:06:00] iterations and it's the same storyline the recent Haunting of Hill house is based on, which is great. That plot line has been reworked so many times, but it's such a great story, I'm just not shocked in the least that it would run through so many iterations and still be accepted by the public in each of its forms. Mike: Yeah. I really liked that Netflix interpretation of it, it was really good. Dan: They really creeped everything out. Mike: Yeah. There's a YouTuber called Lady Night, The Brave, and she does a really great summary breakdown explaining a lot of the themes and it's like almost two hours I think, of YouTube video, but she does these really lovely retrospectives. So, highly recommend you check that out. If you want to just think about that the Haunting of Hill House more. Jessika: Oh, I do. Yes. Mike: I'm going to split the difference between you two. When I was growing up, I was this very timid kid and the idea of horror just creeped me out. And so I avoided it like the plague. And then when I was in high [00:07:00] school, I had some friends show me some movies and I was like, these are great, why was I afraid of this stuff? And so I kind of dove all the way in. But my preferred genre is horror comedy. That is the one that you can always get me in on. And, I really love this movie from the mid-nineties called the Frighteners, which is a horror comedy starring Michael J. Fox, and it's directed by Peter Jackson. And it was written by Peter Jackson and his partner, Fran Walsh. And it was a few years before they, you know, went on to make a couple of movies based on this little known franchise called Lord of the Rings. But it's really wild. It's weird, and it's funny, and it has some genuine jump scare moments. And there's this really great ghost story at the core of it. And the special effects at the time were considered amazing and groundbreaking, but now they're kind of, you look at, and you're like, oh, that's, high-end CG, high-end in the mid-nineties. Okay. But [00:08:00] yeah, like I said, or comedies are my absolute favorite things to watch. That's why Cabin in the Woods always shows up in our horror rotation as well. Same with Tucker and Dale vs Evil. That's my bread and butter. With comic books, I go a little bit creepier. I think I talked about the Nice House on the Lake, that's the current series that I'm reading from DC that's genuinely creepy and really thoughtful and fun. And it's by James Tynion who also wrote Something That's Killing the Children. So those are excellent things to read if you're in the mood for a good horror comic. Dan: Great choice on the Frighteners. That's I think an unsung classic, that I'm going to think probably came out 10 years too early. Mike: Yeah. Dan: It's such a mashup of different, weird vibes, that it would probably do really, really well today. But at that point in time, it was just, what is this? You know? Cause it's, it's just cause the horrifying thing in it are really horrifying. And, uh, Gary Busey's son, right, plays the evil ghost and he is just trippy, off the wall, you know, horrifying. [00:09:00] Mike: Yeah. And it starts so silly, and then it kind of just continues to go creepier and creepier, and by the time that they do some of the twists revealing his, you know, his agent in the real world, it's a genuine twist. Like, I was really surprised the first time I saw it and I - Dan: Yeah. Mike: was so creeped out, but yeah. Dan: Plus it's got R. Lee Ermey as the army ghost, which is just incredible. So, Mike: Yeah. And, Chi McBride is in it, and, Jeffrey Combs. Dan: Oh, oh that's right, right. right. Mike: Yeah. So yeah, it's a lot of fun. Mike: All right. So, I suppose we should saunter into the graveyard, as it were, and start talking about the history of horror comics. So, Dan, obviously I know that you're familiar with horror comics, Dan: A little bit. Mike: Yeah. What about you, Jess? You familiar with horror comics other than what we've talked about in the show? Jessika: I started getting into it once you and I started, you know, talking more on the [00:10:00] show. And so I grabbed a few things. I haven't looked through all of them yet, but I picked up some older ones. I did just recently pick up, it'll be more of a, kind of a funny horror one, but they did a recent Elvira and Vincent Price. So, yeah, so I picked that up, but issue one of that. So it's sitting on my counter ready for me to read right now. Mike: Well, and that's funny, cause Elvira actually has a really long, storied history in comic books. Like she first appeared in kind of like the revival of House of Mystery that DC did. And then she had an eighties series that had over a hundred issues that had a bunch of now major names involved. And she's continued to have series like, you can go to our website and get autographed copies of her recent series from, I think Dynamite. Jessika: That's cool. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Nice. Mike: Speaking of horror comedy Elvira is great. Jessika: Yes. Mike: I recently showed Sarah the Elvira Mistress of the Dark movie and she was, I think really sad that I hadn't showed it to her sooner. Jessika: [00:11:00] That's another one I need to go watch this week. Wow. Don't- nobody call me. I'm just watching movies all week. Dan: Exactly. Mike: It's on a bunch of different streaming services, I think right now. Well it turns out that horror comics, have pretty much been a part of the industry since it really became a proven medium. You know, it wasn't long after comics became a legit medium in their own, right that horror elements started showing up in superhero books, which like, I mean, it isn't too surprising. Like the 1930's was when we got the Universal classic movie monsters, so it makes a lot of sense that those kinds of characters would start crossing over into comic books, just to take advantage of that popularity. Jerry Siegel and Joel Schuster, the guys who created Superman, actually created the supernatural investigator called Dr. Occult in New Fun Comics three years before they brought Superman to life. And Dr. Occult still shows up in DC books. Like, he was a major character in the Books of Magic with Neil Gaiman. I think he may show up in Sandman later on. I can't remember. Jessika: Oh, okay. Dan: I wouldn't be surprised. Neil would find ways to mine that. [00:12:00] Mike: Yeah. I mean, that was a lot of what the Sandman was about, was taking advantage of kind of long forgotten characters that DC had had and weaving them into his narratives. And, if you're interested in that, we talk about that in our book club episodes, which we're currently going through every other episode. So the next episode after this is going to be the third episode of our book club, where we cover volumes five and six. So, horror comics though really started to pick up in the 1940s. There's multiple comic historians who say that the first ongoing horror series was Prized Comics, New Adventures of Frankenstein, which featured this updated take on the original story by Mary Shelley. It took place in America. The monster was named Frankenstein. He was immediately a terror. It's not great, but it's acknowledged as being really kind of the first ongoing horror story. And it's really not even that much of a horror story other than it featured Frankenstein's monster. But after that, a number of publishers started to put out adaptations of classic horror stories for awhile. So you had [00:13:00] Avon Publications making it official in 1946 with the comic Erie, which is based on the first real dedicated horror comic. Yeah. This is the original cover to Erie Comics. Number one, if you could paint us a word picture. Dan: Wow. This is high end stuff as it's coming through. Well it looks a lot like a Zine or something, you know it's got a very, Mac paint logo from 1990, you know, it's, it's your, your typical sort of like, ooh, I'm shaky kind of logo. That's Eerie Comics. There's a Nosferatu looking character. Who's coming down some stairs with the pale moon behind him. It, he's got a knife in his hand, so, you know, he's up to no good. And there is a femme fatale at the base of the stairs. She may have moved off of some train tracks to get here. And, uh, she's got a, uh, a low, cut dress, a lot of leg and the arms and the wrists are bound, but all this for only 10. cents. So, I think there's a, there's a bargain there.[00:14:00] Mike: That is an excellent description. Thank you. So, what's funny is that Erie at the time was the first, you know, official horror comic, really, but it only had one issue that came out and then it sort of vanished from sight. It came back with a new series that started with a new number one in the 1950s, but this was the proverbial, the shot that started the war. You know, we started seeing a ton of anthology series focusing on horror, like Adventures into the Unknown, which ran into the 1960s and then Amazing Mysteries and Marvel Tales were repurposed series for Marvel that they basically changed the name of existing series into these. And they started doing kind of macabre, weird stories. And then, we hit the 1950s. And the early part of the 1950s was when horror comics really seemed to take off and experienced this insane success. We've talked about how in the post-WWII America, superhero comics were kind of declining in [00:15:00] popularity. By the mid 1950s, only three heroes actually had their own books and that was Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Which, I didn't realize that until I was doing research. I didn't, I just assumed that there were other superhero comics at the time. But we started seeing comics about horror and crime and romance really starting to get larger shares of the market. And then EC Comics was one of those doing gangbuster business during this whole era. Like, this was when we saw those iconic series, the Haunt of Fear, the Vault of Horror, the Crypt of Terror, which was eventually rebranded to Tales from the Crypt. Those all launched and they found major success. And then the bigger publishers were also getting in on this boom. During the first half of the 1950s Atlas, which eventually became Marvel, released almost 400 issues across 18 horror titles. And then American Comics Group released almost 125 issues between five different horror titles. Ace comics did almost a hundred issues between five titles. I'm curious. I'm gonna ask both of you, what [00:16:00] do you think the market share of horror comics was at the time? Dan: In terms of comics or in terms of just like newsstand, magazine, distribution. Mike: I'm going to say in terms of distribution. Dan: I mean, I know they were phenomenally successful. I would, be surprised if it was over 60%. Mike: Okay. How about. Jessika: Oh, goodness. Let's throw a number out. I'm going to say 65 just because I want to get close enough, but maybe bump it up just a little bit. This is a contest now. Dan: The precision now, like the 65. Jessika: Yes. Mike: Okay. Well, obviously we don't have like a hard definite number, but there was a 2009 article from reason magazine saying that horror books made up a quarter of all comics by 1953. So, so you guys were overestimating it, but it was still pretty substantial. At the same time, we were also seeing a surge in horror films. Like, the 1950s are known as the atomic age and media reflected [00:17:00] societal anxiety, at the possibility of nuclear war and to a lesser extent, white anxiety about societal changes. So this was the decade that gave us Invasion of the Body Snatchers The Thing from Another World, which led to John Carpenter's The Thing eventually. Um, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Hammer horror films also started to get really huge during this time. So we saw the beginning of stuff like Christopher Lee's, Dracula series of films. So the fifties were like a really good decade for horror, I feel. But at the same time, violent crime in America started to pick up around this period. And people really started focusing on juvenile criminals and what was driving them. So, there were a lot of theories about why this was going on and no one's ever really come up with a definite answer, but there was the psychiatrist named Frederick Wortham who Dan, I yeah. Dan: Oh yeah, psychiatrist in big air quotes, yeah. Mike: In quotes. Yeah. [00:18:00] Yeah. And he was convinced that the rise in crime was due to comics, and he spent years writing and speaking against them. He almost turned it into a cottage industry for himself. And this culminated in 1954, when he published a book called Seduction of the Innocent, that blamed comic books for the rise in juvenile delinquency, and his arguments are laughable. Like, I mean, there's just no way around it. Like you read this stuff and you can't help, but roll your eyes and chuckle. But, at the time comics were a relatively new medium, you know, and people really only associated them with kids. And his arguments were saying, oh, well, Wonder Woman was a lesbian because of her strength and independence, which these days, I feel like that actually has a little bit of credibility, but, like, I don't know. But I don't really feel like that's contributing to the delinquency of the youth. You know, and then he also said that Batman and Robin were in a homosexual relationship. And then my favorite was that Superman comics were [00:19:00] un-American and fascist. Dan: Well. Mike: All right. Dan: There's people who would argue that today. Mike: I mean, but yeah, and then he actually, he got attention because there were televised hearings with the Senate subcommittee on juvenile delinquency. I mean, honestly, every time I think about Seduction of the Innocent and how it led to the Comics Code Authority. I see the parallels with Tipper Gore's Parent Music Resource Center, and how they got the Parental Advisory sticker on certain music albums, or Joe Lieberman's hearings on video games in the 1990's and how that led to the Electronic Systems Reading Board system, you know, where you provide almost like movie ratings to video games. And Wortham also reminds me a lot of this guy named Jack Thompson, who was a lawyer in the nineties and aughts. And he was hell bent on proving a link between violent video games and school shootings. And he got a lot of media attention at the time until he was finally disbarred for his antics. But there was this [00:20:00] definite period where people were trying to link video games and violence. And, even though the statistics didn't back that up. And, I mean, I think about this a lot because I used to work in video games. I spent almost a decade working in the industry, but you know, it's that parallel of anytime there is a new form of media that is aimed at kids, it feels like there is a moral panic. Dan: Well, I think it goes back to what you were saying before about, you know, even as, as things change in society, you know, when people in society get at-risk, you know, you went to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Right. Which is classically thought to be a response to communism, you know, and the feelings of communist oppression and you know, the different, you know, the other, and it's the same thing. I think every single one of these is just a proof point of if you want to become, suddenly well-known like Lieberman or Wortham or anything, you know, pick the other that the older generation doesn't really understand, right? Maybe now there are more adults playing video games, but it's probably still perceived as a more juvenile [00:21:00] thing or comics or juvenile thing, or certain types of movies are a juvenile thing, you know, pick the other pick on it, hold it up as the weaponized, you know, piece, and suddenly you're popular. And you've got a great flashpoint that other people can rally around and blame, as if one single thing is almost ever the cause of everything. And I always think it's interesting, you know, the EC Comics, you know, issues in terms of, um, Wortham's witch hunt, you know, the interesting thing about those is yet they were gruesome and they are gruesome in there, but they're also by and large, I don't know the other ones as well, but I know the EC Comics by and large are basically morality plays, you know, they're straight up morality plays in the sense that the bad guys get it in the end, almost every time, like they do something, they do some horrific thing, but then the corpse comes back to life and gets them, you know, so there's, there's always a comeuppance where the scales balance. But that was of course never going to be [00:22:00] an argument when somebody can hold up a picture of, you know, a skull, you know, lurching around, you know, chewing on the end trails of something. And then that became all that was talked about. Mike: Yeah, exactly. Well, I mean, spring boarding off of that, you know, worth them and the subcommittee hearings and all that, they led to the comics magazine association of America creating the Comics Code Authority. And this was basically in order to avoid government regulation. They said, no, no, no, we'll police ourselves so that you don't have to worry about this stuff. Which, I mean, again, that's what we did with the SRB. It was a response to that. We could avoid government censorship. So the code had a ton of requirements that each book had to meet in order to receive the Comics Code Seal of Approval on the cover. And one of the things you couldn't do was have quote, scenes dealing with, or instruments associated with walking dead or torture, which I mean,[00:23:00] okay. So the latter half of the 1950's saw a lot of these dedicated horror series, you know, basically being shut down or they drastically changed. This is, you know, the major publishers really freaked out. So Marvel and DC rebranded their major horror titles. They were more focused on suspense or mystery or Sci-Fi or superheroes in a couple of cases, independent publishers, didn't really have to worry about the seal for different reasons. Like, some of them were able to rely on the rep for publishing wholesome stuff like Dell or Gold Key. I think Gold Key at the time was doing a lot of the Disney books. So they just, they were like, whatever. Dan: Right, then EC, but, but EC had to shut down the whole line and then just became mad. Right? I mean, that's that was the transition at which William, you know, Gains - Mike: Yeah. Dan: basically couldn't contest what was going on. Couldn't survive the spotlight. You know, he testified famously at that hearing. But had to give up all of [00:24:00] that work that was phenomenally profitable for them. And then had to fall back to Mad Magazine, which of course worked out pretty well. Mike: Yeah, exactly. By the end of the 1960s, though, publishers started to kind of gently push back a little bit like, Warren publishing, and Erie publications, like really, they didn't give a shit. Like Warren launched a number of horror titles in the sixties, including Vampirilla, which is like, kind of, I feel it's sort of extreme in terms of both sex and horror, because I mean, we, we all know what Vampirilla his costume is. It hasn't changed in the 50, approximately 50 years that it's been out like. Dan: It's like, what can you do with dental floss, Right. When you were a vampire? I mean, that's basically like, she doesn't wear much. Mike: No, I mean, she never has. And then by the end of the sixties, Marvel and DC started to like kind of steer some of their books back towards the horror genre. Like how some Mystery was one of them where it, I think with issue 1 75, that was when they [00:25:00] took away, took it away from John Jones and dial H for Hero. And they were like, no, no, no, no. We're going to, we're going to bring, Cain back as the host and start telling horror morality plays again, which is what they were always doing. And this meant that the Comics Code Authority needed to update their code. So in 1971, they revised it to be a little bit more horror friendly. Jessika: Scenes dealing with, or instruments associated with, walking dead or torture shall not be used. Vampires, ghouls and werewolves shall be permitted to be used when handled in the classic traditions, such as Frankenstein, Dracula, and other high caliber literary works written by Edgar Allen Poe, Saki, Conan Doyle, and other respected authors whose works are read in schools around the world. Mike: But at this point, Marvel and DC really jumped back into the horror genre. This was when we started getting books, like the tomb of Dracula, Ghost Rider, where will finite and son of Satan, and then DC had a [00:26:00] bunch of their series like they had, what was it? So it was originally The Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love, and then it eventually got retitled to Forbidden Tales of the Dark Mansion. Like, just chef's kiss on that title. Dan: You can take that old Erie comic and throw, you know, the Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love as the title on that. And it would work, you know. Mike: I know. Right. So Dan, I'm curious, what is your favorite horror comic or comic character from this era? Dan: I would say, it was son of Satan, because it felt so trippy and forbidden, and I think comics have always, especially mainstream comics you know, I've always responded also to what's out there. Right. I don't think it's just a loosening the restrictions at that point, but in that error, what's going on, you're getting a lot of, I think the films of Race with the Devil and you're getting the Exorcist and you're getting, uh, the Omen, you know, Rosemary's baby. right. Satanism, [00:27:00] the devil, right. It's, it's high in pop culture. So true to form. You know, I think Son of Satan is in some ways, like a response of Marvel, you know, to that saying, let's glom onto this. And for a kid brought up in the Catholic church, there was a certain eeriness to this, ooh, we're reading about this. It's like, is it really going to be Satanism? And cause I was very nervous that we were not allowed even watch the Exorcist in our home, ever. You know, I didn't see the Exorcist until I was like out of high school. And I think also the character as he looks is just this really trippy look, right. At that point, if you're not familiar with the character, he's this buff dude, his hair flares up into horns, he just wears a Cape and he carries a giant trident, he's got a massive pentacle, I think a flaming pentacle, you know, etched in his chest. Um, he's ready to do business, ya know, in some strange form there. So for me, he was the one I glommed on to the most. [00:28:00] Mike: Yeah. Well, I mean, it was that whole era, it was just, it was Gothic horror brought back and Satanism and witchcraft is definitely a part of that genre. Dan: Sure. Mike: So, that said, kind of like any trend horror comics, you know, they have their rise and then they started to kind of fall out of popularity by the end of the seventies or the early eighties. I feel like it was a definite end of the era when both House of Mystery and Ghost Writer ended in 1983. But you know, there were still some individual books that were having success, but it just, it doesn't feel like Marvel did a lot with horror comics during the eighties. DC definitely had some luck with Alan Moore's run of the Swamp Thing. And then there was stuff like Hellblazer and Sandman. Which, as I mentioned, we're doing our book club episodes for, but also gave rise to Vertigo Comics, you know, in the early nineties. Not to say that horror comics still weren't a thing during this time, but it seems like the majority of them were coming from indie publishers. Off the top of my head, one example I think of still is Dead World, which basically created a zombie apocalypse [00:29:00] universe. And it started with Aero comics. It was created in the late eighties, and it's still going today. I think it's coming out from IDW now. But at the same time, it's not like American stopped enjoying horror stuff. Like this was the decade where we got Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm street, Evil Dead, Hellraiser, Poltergeist, Child's Play, just to name a few of the franchises that we were introduced to. And, I mentioned Hellraiser. I love Hellraiser, and Dan, I know that you have a pretty special connection to that brand. Dan: I do. I put pins in my face every night just to kind of keep my complexion, you know? Mike: So, let's transition over to the nineties and Marvel and let's start that off with Epic Comics. Epic started in the eighties, and it was basically a label that would print, create our own comics. And they eventually started to use label to produce, you know, in quotes, mature comics. So Wikipedia says that this was your first editorial job at Marvel was with the [00:30:00] Epic Line. Is that correct? Dan: Well, I'll go back and maybe do just a little correction on Epic's mission if you don't mind. Mike: Yeah, yeah. Dan: You know, first, which is it was always creator owned, and it did start as crude. And, but I don't think that ever then transitioned into more mature comics, sometimes that just was what creator-owned comics were. Right. That was just part of the mission. And so as a creator-owned imprint, it could be anything, it could be the silliest thing, it could be the most mature thing. So it was always, you know, part of what it was doing, and part of the mission of doing creator-owned comics, and Archie Goodwin was the editor in chief of that line, was really to give creators and in to Marvel. If we gave them a nice place to play with their properties, maybe they would want to go play in the mainstream Marvel. So you might get a creator who would never want to work for Marvel, for whatever reason, they would have a great Epic experience doing a range of things, and then they would go into this. So there was always levels of maturity and we always looked at it as very eclectic and challenging, you know, sometimes in a good [00:31:00] way. So I'll have to go back to Wikipedia and maybe correct them. My first job was actually, I was on the Marvel side and it was as the assistant to the assistant, to the editor in chief. So I would do all of the grunt work and the running around that the assistant to the editor in chief didn't want to do. And she would turn to me and say, Dan, you're going to go run around the city and find this thing for Jim Shooter. Now, then I did that for about five or six months, I was still in film school, and then left, which everyone was aghast, you don't leave Marvel comics, by choice. And, but I had, I was still in school. I had a summer job already sort of set up, and I left to go take that exciting summer job. And then I was called over the summer because there was an opening in the Epic line. And they want to know if I'd be interested in taking on this assistant editor's job. And I said, it would have to be part-time cause I still had a semester to finish in school, but they were intrigued and I was figuring, oh, well this is just kind of guaranteed job. [00:32:00] Never knowing it was going to become career-like, and so that was then sort of my second job. Mike: Awesome. So this is going to bring us to the character of Terror. So he was introduced as a character in the Shadow Line Saga, which was one of those mature comics, it was like a mature superhero universe. That took place in a few different series under the Epic imprint. There was Dr. Zero, there was St. George, and then there was Power Line. Right. Dan: That's correct, yep. Mike: And so the Shadow Line Saga took his name from the idea that there were these beings called Shadows, they were basically super powered immortal beings. And then Terror himself first appeared as Shrek. He's this weird looking enforcer for a crime family in St. George. And he becomes kind of a recurring nemesis for the main character. He's kind of like the street-level boss while it's hinting that there's going to be a eventual confrontation between the main character of St. George and Dr. Zero, who is kind of [00:33:00] a Superman character, but it turns out he has been manipulating humanity for, you know, millennia at this point. Dan: I think you've encapsulated it quite well. Mike: Well, thank you. So the Shadow Line Saga, that only lasted for about what a year or two? Dan: Probably a couple of years, maybe a little over. There was about, I believe, eight to nine issues of each of the, the main comics, the ones you just cited. And then we segued those over to, sort of, uh, an omni series we call Critical Mass, which brought together all three characters or storylines. And then try to tell this, excuse the pun, epic, you know story, which will advance them all. And so wrapped up a lot of loose ends and, um, you know, became quite involved now. Mike: Okay. Dan: It ran about seven or eight issues. Mike: Okay. Now a couple of years after Terror was introduced under the Epic label, Marvel introduced a new Ghost Rider series in 1990 that hit that sweet spot of like nineties extreme with a capital X and, and, you know, [00:34:00] it also gave us a spooky anti heroes like that Venn diagram, where it was like spooky and extreme and rides a motorcycle and right in the middle, you had Ghost Rider, but from what I understand the series did really well, commercially for Marvel. Comichron, which is the, the comic sales tracking site, notes that early issues were often in the top 10 books sold each month for 91. Like there are eight issues of Ghost Rider, books that are in the top 100 books for that year. So it's not really surprising that Marvel decided to go in really hard with supernatural characters. And in 1992, we had this whole batch of horror hero books launch. We had Spirits of Vengeance, which was a spinoff from Ghost Rider, which saw a Ghost Rider teaming up with Johnny Blaze, and it was the original Ghost Writer. And he didn't have a hellfire motorcycle this time, but he had a shotgun that would fire hell fire, you know, and he had a ponytail, it was magnificent. And then there was also the Night Stalkers, [00:35:00] which was a trio of supernatural investigators. There was Hannibal King and Blade and oh, I'm blanking on the third one. Dan: Frank Drake. Mike: Yeah. And Frank Drake was a vampire, right? Dan: And he was a descendant of Dracula, but also was a vampire who had sort of been cured. Um, he didn't have a hunger for human blood, but he still had a necessity for some type of blood and possessed all the attributes, you know, of a vampire, you know, you could do all the powers, couldn't go out in the daylight, that sort of thing. So, the best and worst of both worlds. Mike: Right. And then on top of that, we had the Dark Hold, which it's kind of like the Marvel equivalent of the Necronomicon is the best way I can describe it. Dan: Absolutely. Yup. Mike: And that's showed up in Agents of Shield since then. And they just recently brought it into the MCU. That was a thing that showed up in Wanda Vision towards the end. So that's gonna clearly reappear. And then we also got Morbius who is the living vampire from [00:36:00] Spider-Man and it's great. He shows up in this series and he's got this very goth rock outfit, is just it's great. Dan: Which looked a lot like how Len Kaminsky dressed in those days in all honesty. Mike: Yeah, okay. Dan: So Len will now kill me for that, but. Mike: Oh, well, but yeah, so these guys were all introduced via a crossover event called Rise of the Midnight Sons, which saw all of these heroes, you know, getting their own books. And then they also teamed up with Dr. Strange to fight against Lilith the mother of demons. And she was basically trying to unleash her monstrous spawn across the world. And this was at the same time the Terror wound up invading the Marvel Universe. So if you were going to give an elevator pitch for Terror in the Marvel Universe, how would you describe him? Dan: I actually wrote one down, I'll read it to you, cause you, you know, you put that there and was like, oh gosh, I got to like now pitch this. A mythic manifestation of fear exists in our times, a top dollar mercenary for hire using a supernatural [00:37:00] ability to attach stolen body parts to himself in order to activate the inherit ability of the original owner. A locksmith's hand or a marksman, his eye or a kickboxer his legs, his gruesome talent gives him the edge to take on the jobs no one else can, he accomplishes with Savage, restyle, scorn, snark, and impeccable business acumen. So. Mike: That's so good. It's so good. I just, I have to tell you the twelve-year-old Mike is like giddy to be able to talk to you about this. Dan: I was pretty giddy when I was writing this stuff. So that's good. Mike: So how did Terror wind up crossing into the Marvel Universe? Like, because he just showed shows up in a couple of cameos in some Daredevil issues that you also wrote. I believe. Dan: Yeah, I don't know if he'd showed up before the book itself launched that might've, I mean, the timing was all around the same time. But everybody who was involved with Terror, love that Terror and Terror Incorporated, which was really actual title. Love the hell out of [00:38:00] the book, right. And myself, the editors, Carl Potts, who was the editor in chief, we all knew it was weird and unique. And, at one point when I, you know, said to Carl afterwards, well I'm just gonna take this whole concept and go somewhere else with it, he said, you can't, you made up something that, you know, can't really be replicated without people knowing exactly what you're doing. It's not just another guy with claws or a big muscle guy. How many people grab other people's body parts? So I said, you know, fie on me, but we all loved it. So when, the Shadowline stuff kind of went away, uh, and he was sort of kicking out there is still, uh, Carl came to me one day and, and said, listen, we love this character. We're thinking of doing something with horror in Marvel. This was before the Rise of the Midnight Sons. So it kind of came a little bit ahead of that. I think this eventually would become exactly the Rise of the Midnight Sons, but we want to bring together a lot of these unused horror characters, like Werewolf by Night, Man Thing, or whatever, but we want a central kind of [00:39:00] character who, navigates them or maybe introduces them. Wasn't quite clear what, and they thought Terror, or Shrek as he still was at that point, could be that character. He could almost be a Crypt Keeper, maybe, it wasn't quite fully baked. And, so we started to bounce this around a little bit, and then I got a call from Carl and said, yeah, that's off. We're going to do something else with these horror characters, which again would eventually become probably the Midnight Sons stuff. But he said, but we still want to do something with it. You know? So my disappointment went to, oh, what do you mean? How could we do anything? He said, what if you just bring him into the Marvel Universe? We won't say anything about what he did before, and just use him as a character and start over with him operating as this high-end mercenary, you know, what's he going to do? What is Terror Incorporated, and how does he do business within the Marvel world? And so I said, yes, of course, I'm not going to say that, you know, any quicker and just jumped into [00:40:00] it. And I didn't really worry about the transition, you know, I wasn't thinking too much about, okay. How does he get from Shadow Line world, to earth 616 or whatever, Marcus McLaurin, who was the editor. God bless him, for years would resist any discussion or no, no, it's not the same character. Marcus, it's the same character I'm using the same lines. I'm having him referenced the same fact that he's had different versions of the word terrors, his name at one point, he makes a joke about the Saint George complex. I mean, it's the same character. Mike: Yeah. Dan: But , you know, Marcus was a very good soldier to the Marvel hierarchy. So we just really brought him over and we just went all in on him in terms of, okay, what could a character like this play in the Marvel world? And he played really well in certain instances, but he certainly was very different than probably anything else that was going on at the time. Mike: Yeah. I mean, there certainly wasn't a character like him before. So all the Wikias, like [00:41:00] Wikipedia, all the Marvel fan sites, they all list Daredevil 305 as Terror's first official appearance in. Dan: Could be. Mike: Yeah, but I want to talk about that for a second, because that is, I think the greatest villain that I've ever seen in a Marvel comic, which was the Surgeon General, who is this woman who is commanding an army of like, I mean, basically it's like a full-scale operation of that urban myth of - Dan: Yeah. Mike: -the dude goes home with an attractive woman that he meets at the club. And then he wakes up in a bathtub full of ice and he's missing organs. Dan: Yeah. You know, sometimes, you know, that was certainly urban myth territory, and I was a big student of urban myths and that was the sort of thing that I think would show up in the headlines every three to six months, but always one of those probably friend of a friend stories that. Mike: Oh yeah. Dan: Like a razor an apple or something like that, that never actually sort of tracks back. Mike: Well, I mean, the thing now is it's all edibles in candy and they're like, all the news outlets are showing officially [00:42:00] branded edibles. Which, what daddy Warbucks mother fucker. Jessika: Mike knows my stand on this. Like, no, no, nobody is buying expensive edibles. And then putting them in your child's candy. Like, No, no, that's stupid. Dan: No, it's the, it's the, easier version of putting the LSD tab or wasting your pins on children in Snickers bars. Jessika: Right. Dan: Um, but but I think, that, that storyline is interesting, Mike, cause it's the, it's one of the few times I had a plotline utterly just completely rejected by an editor because I think I was doing so much horror stuff at the time. Cause I was also concurrently doing the Hellraiser work, the Night Breed work. It would have been the beginning of the Night Stalkers work, cause I was heavily involved with the whole Midnight Sons work. And I went so far on the first plot and it was so grizzly and so gruesome that, Ralph Macchio who was the editor, called me up and said, yeah, this title is Daredevil. It's not Hellraiser. So I had to kind of back off [00:43:00] and realize, uh, yeah, I put a little too much emphasis on the grisliness there. So. Mike: That's amazing. Dan: She was an interesting, exploration of a character type. Mike: I'm really sad that she hasn't showed back up, especially cause it feels like it'd be kind of relevant these days with, you know, how broken the medical system is here in America. Dan: Yeah. It's, it's funny. And I never played with her again, which is, I think one of my many Achilles heels, you know, as I would sometimes introduce characters and then I would just not go back to them for some reason, I was always trying to kind of go forward onto something new. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Is there anything about Terror's character that you related to at the time, or now even. Dan: Um, probably being very imperious, very complicated, having a thing for long coats. Uh, I think all of those probably, you know, work then and now, I've kind of become convinced weirdly enough over time, that Terror was a character who [00:44:00] and I, you know, I co-created him with Margaret Clark and, and Klaus Janson, but I probably did the most work with him over the years, you know? So I feel maybe a little bit more ownership, but I've sort of become convinced that he was just his own thing, and he just existed out there in the ether, and all I was ultimately was a conduit that I was, I was just channeling this thing into our existence because he came so fully formed and whenever I would write him, he would just kind of take over the page and take over the instance. That's always how I've viewed him, which is different than many of the other things that I've written. Mike: He's certainly a larger than life personality, and in every sense of that expression. Jessika: Yes. Mike: I'm sorry for the terrible pun. Okay. So we've actually talked a bit about Terror, but I [00:45:00] feel like we need to have Jessika provide us with an overall summary of his brief series. Jessika: So the series is based on the titular character, of course, Terror, who is unable to die and has the ability to replace body parts and gains the skill and memory of that limb. So he might use the eye of a sharpshooter to improve his aim or the arm of an artist for a correct rendering. And because of the inability for his body to die, the dude looks gnarly. His face is a sick green color. He has spike whiskers coming out of the sides of his face, and he mostly lacks lips, sometimes he has lips, but he mostly lacks lips. So we always has this grim smile to his face. And he also has a metal arm, which is awesome. I love that. And he interchanges all of the rest of his body parts constantly. So in one scene he'll have a female arm and in another one it'll sport, an other worldly tentacle. [00:46:00] He states that his business is fear, but he is basically a paid mercenary, very much a dirty deeds, although not dirt cheap; Terror charges, quite a hefty sum for his services, but he is willing to do almost anything to get the job done. His first job is ending someone who has likewise immortal, air quotes, which involves finding an activating a half demon in order to open a portal and then trick a demon daddy to hand over the contract of immortality, you know, casual. He also has run-ins with Wolverine, Dr. Strange Punisher, Silver Sable, and Luke Cage. It's action packed, and you legitimately have no idea what new body part he is going to lose or gain in the moment, or what memory is going to pop up for him from the donor. And it keeps the reader guessing because Terror has no limitations. Mike: Yeah. Dan: was, I was so looking forward to hearing what your recap was going to be. I love that, so I just [00:47:00] want to say that. Jessika: Thank you. I had a lot of fun reading this. Not only was the plot and just the narrative itself, just rolling, but the art was fantastic. I mean, the things you can do with a character like that, there truly aren't any limits. And so it was really interesting to see how everything fell together and what he was doing each moment to kind of get out of whatever wacky situation he was in at the time.So. And his, and his quips, I just, the quips were just, they give me life. Mike: They're so good. Like there was one moment where he was sitting there and playing with the Lament Configuration, and the first issue, which I, I never noticed that before, as long as we ready this time and I was like, oh, that's great. And then he also made a St. George reference towards the end of the series where he was talking about, oh, I knew another guy who had a St. George complex. Dan: Right, right. Right, Mike: Like I love those little Easter eggs. Speaking of Easter eggs, there are a lot of Clive Barker Easter eggs throughout that whole series. Dan: [00:48:00] Well, That's it. That was so parallel at the time, you know. Mike: So around that time was when you were editing and then writing for the HellRaiser series and the Night Breed series, right? Dan: Yes. Certainly writing for them. Yeah. I mean, I did some consulting editing on the HellRaiser and other Barker books, after our lift staff, but, primarily writing at that point. Mike: Okay. Cause I have Hellraiser number one, and I think you're listed as an editor on it. Dan: I was, I started the whole Hellraiser anthology with other folks, you know, but I was the main driver, and I think that was one of the early instigators of kind of the rebirth of horror at that time. And, you know, going back to something you said earlier, you know, for many years, I was always, pressing Archie Goodwin, who worked at Warren, and worked on Erie, and worked on all those titles. You know, why can't we do a new horror anthology and he was quite sage like and saying, yeah. It'd be great to do it, but it's not going to sell there's no hook, right? There's no connection, you know, just horror for her sake. And it was when Clive Barker [00:49:00] came into our offices, and so I want to do something with Archie Goodwin. And then the two of them said, Hellraiser can be the hook. Right. Hellraiser can be the way in to sort of create an anthology series, have an identifiable icon, and then we developed out from there with Clive, with a couple of other folks Erik Saltzgaber, Phil Nutman, myself, Archie Goodwin, like what would be the world? And then the Bible that would actually give you enough, breadth and width to play with these characters that wouldn't just always be puzzle box, pinhead, puzzle box, pinhead, you know? And so we developed a fairly large set of rules and mythologies allowed for that. Mike: That's so cool. I mean, there really wasn't anything at all, like Hellraiser when it came out. Like, and there's still not a lot like it, but I - Jessika: Yeah, I was going to say, wait, what else? Mike: I mean, I feel like I've read other books since then, where there's that blending of sexuality and [00:50:00] horror and morality, because at the, at the core of it, Hellraiser often feels like a larger morality play. Dan: Now, you know, I'm going to disagree with you on that one. I mean, I think sometimes we let it slip in a morality and we played that out. But I think Hellraiser is sort of find what you want out of it. Right. You go back to the first film and it's, you know, what's your pleasure, sir? You know, it was when the guy hands up the book and the Centobites, you know, or angels to some demons, to others. So I think the book was at its best and the movies are at their best when it's not so much about the comeuppance as it is about find your place in here. Right? And that can be that sort of weird exploration of many different things. Mike: That's cool. So going back to Terror. Because we've talked about like how much we enjoyed the character and everything, I want to take a moment to talk about each of our favorite Terror moments. Dan: Okay. Mike: So Dan, why don't you start? What was your favorite moment for Terror [00:51:00] to write or going back to read? Dan: It's a great question, one of the toughest, because again, I had such delight in the character and felt such a connection, you know, in sort of channeling him in a way I could probably find you five, ten moments per issue, but, I actually think it was the it's in the first issue. And was probably the first line that sort of came to me. And then I wrote backwards from it, which was this, got your nose bit. And you know, it's the old gag of like when a parent's playing with a child and, you know, grabs at the nose and uses the thumb to represent the nose and says, got your nose. And there's a moment in that issue where I think he's just plummeted out of a skyscraper. He's, you know, fallen down into a police car. He's basically shattered. And this cop or security guard is kind of coming over to him and, and he just reaches out and grabs the guy's nose, you know, rips his arm off or something or legs to start to replace himself and, and just says, got your nose, but it's, but it's all a [00:52:00] build from this inner monologue that he's been doing. And so he's not responding to anything. He's not doing a quip to anything. He's just basically telling us a story and ending it with this, you know, delivery that basically says the guy has a complete condescending attitude and just signals that we're in his space. Like he doesn't need to kind of like do an Arnold response to something it's just, he's in his own little world moments I always just kind of go back to that got your nose moment, which is just creepy and crazy and strange. Mike: As soon as you mentioned that I was thinking of the panel that that was from, because it was such a great moment. I think it was the mob enforcers that had shot him up and he had jumped out of the skyscraper four and then they came down to finish him off and he wound up just ripping them apart so that he could rebuild himself. All right, Jessika, how about you? Jessika: I really enjoyed the part where Terror fights with sharks in order to free Silver Sable and Luke Cage. [00:53:00] It was so cool. There was just absolutely no fear as he went at the first shark head-on and, and then there were like five huge bloodthirsty sharks in the small tank. And Terror's just like, what an inconvenience. Oh, well. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Like followed by a quippy remark, like in his head, of course. And I feel like he's such a solitary character that it makes sense that he would have such an active internal monologue. I find myself doing that. Like, you know, I mean, I have a dog, so he usually gets the brunt of it, but he, you know, it's, it is that you start to form like, sort of an internal conversation if you don't have that outside interaction. Dan: Right. Jessika: And I think a lot of us probably relate to that though this pandemic. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: But the one-liner thoughts, like, again, they make those scenes in my opinion, and it gave pause for levity. We don't have to be serious about this because really isn't life or death for Terror. We know that, and he just reminds us that constantly by just he's always so damn nonchalant. [00:54:00] Dan: Yeah. He does have a very, I'm not going to say suave, but it's, uh, you know, that sort of very, I've got this, you know, sort of attitude to it. Mike: I would, say that he's suave when he wants to be, I mean, like the last issue he's got his whiskers tied back and kind of a ponytail. Dan: Oh yeah. Jessika: Oh yeah. Dan: Richard Pace did a great job with that. Mike: Where he's dancing with his assistant in the restaurant and it's that final scene where he's got that really elegant tuxedo. Like. Dan: Yeah. It's very beautiful. Mike: I say that he can be suave and he wants to be. So I got to say like my favorite one, it was a visual gag that you guys did, and it's in issue six when he's fighting with the Punisher and he's got this, long guns sniper. And he shoots the Punisher point blank, and Terror's, like at this point he's lost his legs for like the sixth time. Like he seems to lose his legs, like once an issue where he's just a torso waddling around on his hands. And so he shoots him the force skids him back. [00:55:00] And I legit could not stop laughing for a good minute. Like I was just cackling when I read that. So I think all of us agree that it's those moments of weird levity that really made the series feel like something special. Dan: I'm not quite sure we're going to see that moment reenacted at the Disney Pavilion, you know, anytime soon. But, that would be pretty awesome if they ever went that route. Mike: Well, yeah, so, I mean, like, let's talk about that for a minute, because one of the main ways that I consume Marvel comics these days is through Marvel unlimited, and Terror is a pretty limited presence there. There's a few issues of various Deadpool series. There's the Marvel team up that I think Robert Kirkman did, where Terror shows up and he has some pretty cool moments in there. And then there's a couple of random issues of the 1990s Luke Cage series Cage, but like the core series, the Marvel max stuff, his appearance in books like Daredevil and Wolverine, they just don't seem to be available for consumption via the. App Like I had to go through my personal [00:56:00] collection to find all this stuff. And like, are the rights just more complicated because it was published under the Epic imprint and that was create her own stuff, like do you know? Dan: No, I mean, it wouldn't be it's choice, right. He's probably perceived as a, if people within the editorial group even know about him, right. I was reading something recently where some of the current editorial staff had to be schooled on who Jack Kirby was. So, I'm not sure how much exposure or, you know, interest there would be, you know, to that. I mean, I don't know why everything would be on Marvin unlimited. It doesn't seem like it requires anything except scanning the stuff and putting it up there. But there wouldn't be any rights issues. Marvel owned the Shadow Line, Marvel owns the Terror Incorporated title, it would have been there. So I'm not really sure why it wouldn't be. And maybe at some point it will, but, that's just an odd emission. I mean, for years, which I always felt like, well, what did I do wrong? I [00:57:00] mean, you can find very little of the Daredevil work I did, which was probably very well known and very well received in, in reprints. It would be like, there'd be reprints of almost every other storyline and then there'd be a gap around some of those things. And now they started to reappear as they've done these omnibus editions. Mike: Well, yeah, I mean, you know, and going back the awareness of the character, anytime I talk about Terror to people, it's probably a three out of four chance that they won't have heard of them before. I don't know if you're a part of the comic book historians group on Facebook? Dan: I'm not. No. Mike: So there's a lot of people who are really passionate about comic book history, and they talk about various things. And so when I was doing research for this episode originally, I was asking about kind of the revamp of supernatural heroes. And I said, you know, this was around the same time as Terror. And several people sat there and said, we haven't heard of Terror before. And I was like, he's great. He's amazing. You have to look them up. But yeah, it seems like, you know, to echo what you stated, it seems like there's just a lack of awareness about the character, which I feel is a genuine shame. And that's part of the [00:58:00] reason that I wanted to talk about him in this episode. Dan: Well, thank you. I mean, I love the spotlight and I think anytime I've talked to somebody about it who knew it, I've never heard somebody who read the book said, yeah, that sucks. Right. I've heard that about other things, but not about this one, invariably, if they read it, they loved it. And they were twisted and kind of got into it. But did have a limited run, right? It was only 13 issues. It didn't get the spotlight, it was sort of promised it kind of, it came out with a grouping of other mercenary titles at the time. There was a new Punisher title. There was a Silver Sable. There was a few other titles in this grouping. Everyone was promised a certain amount of additional PR, which they got; when it got to Terror. It didn't get that it like, they pulled the boost at the last minute that might not have made a difference. And I also think maybe it was a little bit ahead of its time in certain attitudes crossing the line between horror and [00:59:00] humor and overtness of certain things, at least for Marvel, like where do you fit this? I think the readers are fine. Readers are great about picking up on stuff and embracing things. For Marvel, it was kind of probably, and I'm not dissing them. I never got like any negative, you know, we're gonna launch this title, what we're going to dismiss it. But I just also think, unless it's somebody like me driving it or the editor driving it, or Carl Potts, who was the editor in chief of that division at that point, you know, unless they're pushing it, there's plenty of other characters Right. For, things to get behind. But I think again, anytime it kind of comes up, it is definitely the one that I hear about probably the most and the most passionately so that's cool in its own way. Mike: Yeah, I think I remember reading an interview that you did, where you were talking about how there was originally going to be like a gimmick cover or a trading card or something like that. Dan: Yeah. Mike: So what was the, what was the gimmick going to be for Terror number one? Dan: What was the gimmick going to be? I don't know, actually, I if I knew I [01:00:00] can't remember anymore. But it was going to be totally gimmicky, as all those titles and covers were at the time. So I hope not scratch and sniff like a, uh, rotting bodies odor, although that would have been kind of in-character and cool. Mike: I mean, this was the era of the gimmick cover. Dan: Oh, absolutely. Mike: Like,that was when that was when we had Bloodstrike come out and it was like the thermographic printing, so you could rub the blood and it would disappear. Force Works is my favorite one, you literally unfold the cover and it's like a pop-up book. Dan: Somebody actually keyed me in. There actually was like a Terror trading card at one point. Mike: Yeah. Dan: Like after the fact, which I was like, shocked. Mike: I have that, that's from Marvel Universe series four. Dan: Yeah. we did a pretty good job with it actually. And then even as we got to the end of the run, you know, we, and you can sort of see us where we're trying to shift certain aspects of the book, you know, more into the mainstream Marvel, because they said, well, we'll give you another seven issues or something, you know, to kind of get the numbers up. Mike: Right. Dan: And they pulled the plug, you know, even before that. So, uh, that's why [01:01:00] the end kind of comes a bit abruptly and we get that final coda scene, you know, that Richard Pace did such a nice job with. Mike: Yeah. I mean, it felt like it wrapped it up, you know, and they gave you that opportunity, which I was really kind of grateful for, to be honest. Dan: Yeah. and subsequently, I don't know what's going on. I know there was that David Lapham, you know, series, you did a couple of those, which I glanced at, I know I kind of got in the way of it a little bit too, not in the way, but I just said, remember to give us a little created by credits in that, but I didn't read those. And then, I know he was in the League of Losers at one point, which just didn't sound right to me. And, uh. Mike: It's actually. Okay. So I'm going to, I'm going to say this cause, it's basically a bunch of, kind of like the B to C listers for the most part. And. So they're called the Legal Losers. I think it's a really good story, and I actually really like what they do with Terror. He gets, she's now Spider Woman, I think it's, Anya Corazon, but it was her original incarnation of, Arana. And she's got that spider armor that like comes out of her arm. And so she [01:02:00] dies really on and he gets her arm. And then, Dan: That's cool. Mike: What happens is he makes a point of using the armor that she has. And so he becomes this weird amalgamation of Terror and Arana's armored form, which is great. Dan: Was that the Kirkman series? Is that the one that he did or. Mike: yeah. That was part of Marvel Team-Up. Dan: Okay. Mike: it was written by Robert Kirkman. Dan: Well, then I will, I will look it up. Mike: Yeah. And that one's on Marvel unlimited and genuinely a really fun story as I remembered. It's been a couple of years since I read it, but yeah. Dan: Very cool. Mike: So we've talked about this a little bit, but, so
Somewhere in Washington, in a parked car. Ike: It's a dumpster fire.Mike: They'll bound back.Ike: Didn't Elon Musk invent some kind of brain enhancement thing? Is it too soon to get that for Biden? Is it only chimps?Mike: What?Ike: Nutrisystem … Nutra grain … Mike: Nuralink! Ike: Is it too late to join human clinical trials?Mike: Don't be an ass. Everybody gets old. Ike: Most people don't get that old. Mike: The boomers. They built it all. Now, they're destroying it all. Everything is coming apart. Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer - how did it all go so wrong?Ike: Seriously, calm down. It's not that bad. He can bounce back. If he passes those bills the press will be giving him slobbery blow—you know. Mike: Please don't say it. Ike: He's putting on the heat with Manchin, the press keeps bullying Sinema - how long can she possibly hold out? Although her fashion sense tells me she doesn't exactly want to blend in. Got Obama out in Virginia to drag MacAuliffe over the finish line. They have Americans whipped up into unmanageable panic and fear with January 6th. They'll do as they're told. Polls will rise because that is the story we're going to tell. Reality is less of an issue than what we say the reality is. Reality isn't what you think it is. Reality is just a matter of opinion. If we say everything is going fine, then everything is going fine.Mike: What?Ike: They'll bounce back. He's too big to fail. They are too big to fail. The press, the blue checks - they will not let him fail. They put him in power and they don't want to look like fools. We got this.Mike: It's more than the polls. There is a disconnect between reality and fantasy. The people who are dictating what the Democrats do are themselves completely out of touch with at least half of the American people. What the Right thinks about the Left is closer to reality than what the Left has decided the Right is. The Democrats only have one option to win elections: To scare voters. Rolling Stone comes out with a January 6 piece just before a big election. But what no one ever says is that there were two separate events that day. One was legal and one wasn't. They're treating the whole thing, all of the people who were there to protest lawfully and rightfully into insurrectionists. They weren't. And yet. If they can keep the people scared they can maintain some power. Once that fear goes away, though, they are sunk. But they need fear and fear is destroying the country. Democrats really think that this is the way forward. It is a way forward. To war. Ike: You're overthinking it. I'm telling you, the kind of power backing the Democrats right now is insurmountable. We just need to spitball a few ideas to throw out into the public to let them know the Biden administration is on their side. Maybe stop testing baby puppy beagles. Just a thought.Mike: Oh you mean like removing Thomas Jefferson from City Hall? Pronouns Day by the State Department? This was not supposed to be America's second revolution. You start taking down the statues of confederates, that's one thing. Teddy Roosevelt - now it's getting weird. You take down Jefferson, that's the end of the American experiment. Ike: Okay, so those didn't work as well. We have to think outside the box here. Ice cream, bike rides, that disastrous Town Hall with Anderson Cooper…not working. So what about, you know, maybe a kind of casual fun thing. Slow jam the news?Mike: BIDEN IS NOT OBAMA! He doesn't have that kind of charisma. No one wants to see him on TV. The country is falling apart. Ike: Do you want me to give you a “yeah but” or are you past the point of no return.Mike: We just dig around in our pockets and find that one shiny penny that gets us off the hook. Yes it was a global pandemic, yes we were so freaked out we were wearing face shields and lining up outside of Costco but when hundreds of thousands hit the streets it was yeah but they're wearing masks. Yeah but they're outside. In May. Of 2020. I know what your “yeah but” is going to be. You'll say yeah but Thomas Jefferson isn't being taken down, he's just being moved. But yes moved after being called an offensive racist! THOMAS JEFFERSON!Ike: Yeah … but …what do you me to say? Mike: I want you to say Biden will start facing reality. He'll start being the guy who would never go for removing Thomas Jefferson from City Hall. It's not that hard. It's the least you'd expect from a president. The very least. Ike: Those who voted on it don't represent the Democratic Party or Biden. Mike: Yeah but. Yeah but. Yeah BUT!Ike: Why are you generalizing? Okay, so we all know what Thomas Jefferson did with Sally Hemmings and all that, what this whole country did building itself up to be the greatest country in the world, wasn't exactly pretty. Do you think the elite class who own million-dollar homes are really going to give them back to the indigenous people they claim to care about? Like Gwyneth Paltrow and Laura Dern? No. Are they going to give away all their money to families living in poverty? Not a chance. Taking away the Jefferson statue allows them to feel as though the right people, long since dead, aren't around to defend themselves or make excuses or virtue signals on Instagram, are the ones paying the price for progress. That is enough. Take down the statue and they can keep their stuff. Mike: What we need is someone with courage. Wisdom. Someone to stand up to Twitter. Teddy Roosevelt took a bullet to the chest and still went on to give a speech. He could handle Twitter.Ike: Biden is just trying to get through the day. And I don't know if TR could handle Twitter. Public humiliation is a crippling fear.Mike: They voted for the guy in the middle. The moderate. If you could sum up what they voted for it would be: Not Bernie Sanders. Not Elizabeth Warren. Ike: They didn't vote FOR anything. They voted against something. Or someone. The American people don't know what they want. We tell them what they want. Mike: What if America is being sabotaged. What if there is an entire army of spies infiltrating all of our institutions and slowly weakening them. Ike: I think those are just Berkeley graduates. Mike: It's all starting to make sense now. What if you were smart enough to destroy a country not with bombs but with ideas. Idea pathogens. What if you could weaken their education system, weaken their military, weaken their scientific research by figuring out how to knock out those who are genuinely the best at what they do but because they might not meet the DEI requirements they have to go work at Costco just to find employment.Ike: I'm sorry, you lost me, man. Get a grip. It's not that big of a deal.Mike: Not that big of a deal? The whole plane has crashed into the whole mountain.Mike: Think about it: you have no choice but to hop aboard the Woke Express, destination: Utopia. And if you have no choice that means your military has no choice, your teachers have no choice, your media has no choice, your entertainment has no choice. How can a country function when it is at war with its own foundational principles? Think of how easy it would be to get on Twitter and call everything racist. The Chinese totally have our number on that. They laugh at us because of it. They know they just have to press that button and our entire system goes into DEFCON 1. Think of how easy it is to throw us off our game, to scare us into distraction and panic.Ike: You've been watching too much Tucker Carlson. Mike: Me and everyone else in America. It used to be easier to pivot when no one did. Ike: But now they do.Mike: Now they do.Ike: Even Jake Tapper. Mike: Even Jake Tapper.Ike: Even Rachel Maddow. Especially Rachel Maddow. Mike: I think people are watching because they're angry. Ike: Trump is gone. They have nothing to be angry about.Mike: Except Trump isn't gone, is he. They booted him off social media just to prove the half the country that votes for him that they are elites who are above even the President. Now he's got some social media thing that is worth twice what the New York Times is worth. He is headed towards running a business worth 20 billion. Ike: He'll screw it up. Mike: Doesn't matter. This is only moving in one direction. It means the left is collapsing. You get that, right? Once they start firing editors at the New York Times for words they said on a field trip, it's over, man. Thomas Jefferson - it's over. Ike: Come on, we have a whole army on Twitter. The blue checks! Mike: What, that's like 3,000 people max. Ike: We have Zuckabucks. Mike: America is an idea. An idea that is crumbling and being replaced by ideas that have already proven themselves failures. Even Vladimir Putin knows this. Even Xi Jinping knows this. They see what America is becoming. They also seem almost sad to watch its decline. I always used to go to sleep at night thinking I lived in the best country in the world and that every other country envied our scrappy tale. But look at us now. Ike: Look, man, it's really not that bad. Mike: It is that bad. Ike: White men have ruled this country since its founding. So they're taking a well-deserved hit. Let's recenter the narrative for a change. Mike: Oh, yeah, no big deal, like every person who built this country, drove scientific achievements, made the best movies, wrote the best books. We're just gonna pretend they're expendable?Ike: By stomping on and exploiting marginalized people. Mike: Oh b******t. Right, like Einstein? Ike: Pretending is not so bad. This whole country was founded on pretending. Jack Dorsey and Jeff Bezos and Joe Biden are the perfect patriarchs America wants. What you can see is fully compliant, what you can't see still holds all of the power. Take away a Jefferson statue here, implement DEI mandates there, vote for Kamala Harris. We are all playing a game that all of a sudden we've solved the problem of inequity. But it's all a game, man. It always has been. So let's just pretend a little longer. That is what we're paid to do so shut up and dance. Mike: So what's next?Ike: We're primates. We probably need an alpha male to take us out of chaos in the final analysis. Round and round and round in the circle game. No one on the left has that kind of courage right now so you do the math. Mike: So after that all that, we're primates, that's it? Ike: Well if I had to guess, yes. Of course if I said that out loud I'd be fired. Mike: So in other words, Trump 2024. Ike: Your words, not mine. Mike: We are seriously going to run a candidate who couldn't even beat competitors on her own side against Trump? Ike: Do we have a choice? Mike: Why don't we have a choice? Ike: Because if you critcize her or seek a replacement you will be called a racist, just as you would have in 2020 if you suggested she wasn't the best choice for Veep. How else are we going to get an overeducated group of social justice Zoomers to turn out? Mike: Let's go, Brandon.Ike: Yeah but. Mike: Yeah. Get full access to Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone at sashastone.substack.com/subscribe
What happens when you combine two of the biggest brands of the early 1980s? You get RadioShack's TRS-80 Whiz Kids comics, with special guest stars from the DC Universe. Marvel at snarky teens sassing the Man of Steel, then laugh at how he makes them perform complex math with mediocre computers! ----more---- Episode 16 Transcript Mike: [00:00:00] I used to go into an office, and when I did that, I had a dog that everybody loved and I baked cookies every day. Hello, hello, hello, welcome to Ten Cent Takes, the podcast where we sell out as superheroes, one issue at a time. My name is Mike Thompson and I am joined by my co-host, the talk show host of terror, Jessika Frazer. Jessika: Bwahahaha! I like when you give me nicknames that are a little mischievous and/or villainous, by the way. Mike: I mean, villains are always the most fun. Jessika: They really are. They get to do all the cool shit. Mike: Yeah. You need a strong villain in order to have a good story. Jessika: Absolutely. Mike: The purpose of this podcast is to look at notable moments in comic book history. [00:01:00] They can be big or they can be small, but we always hope that they're interesting, and we like to talk about them in ways that are both fun and informative. Today, we are going to be going back back back to the eighties and talking about the time that Superman sold computers for Radio Shack. Jessika: Fucking sellout. Mike: Man, I don't. Can you blame him though? I mean, he was a reporter, like he needed the extra cash. Jessika: That's true. That does not pay all that much, from my understanding Mike: Uh, speaking as someone who worked as a journalist for a decade, I can tell you it does not. Jessika: Confirmed, everyone. Mike: Confirmed. Before you freak out and think that you've missed an episode or that things are airing out of order, we are actually still doing the Sandman book club series, but we have decided to break it up, so it's not just one giant slog for people who aren't interested in Sandman. So that way there's a little something for [00:02:00] everybody, even as we're doing that prolonged experience. So every other episode will be the Sandman book club. Before we get to that though. What is one cool thing that you have read or watched recently? Jessika: Just last night, I watched the first episode of the Amazon Prime, let me just say it's 18+, animated series, Invincible. Mike: Hmm. Jessika: Have you seen that yet? Mike: I haven't, I read the comic for a while and I really liked it, but then it just kind of felt very repetitive. And also, I didn't like how the comic got very women in refrigerator-y. Jessika: Oh, okay, fair enough. Mike: Like yeah. Um, I hear it's great. I just, it's kind of, it's kind of like The Boys where like, I read the comic and, and then when they announced they were making a TV [00:03:00] show, I went, eh don't know. I like, I'm not sure. I really want to see that translated to the screen and then it was great. And so I'm sure that Invisible will be great. Jessika: I will be talking about The Boys later, in fact. Mike: Oh okay. Well, then. Jessika: But for now, yeah, I know, spoilers. So for those of you who hadn't seen it yet, it's about a teenage boy whose father is a famous superhero and the kid himself has also potentially expected to get powers, which he, not spoiling anything, he does, and very early on in this episode. And when this happens, his father starts teaching them how to use them properly, even though he seems a little disappointed, even, that his really did have powers, which was kind of strange, but we'll see where that goes. But what I really liked about this series, is that they make fun of our well-known superheroes with a character like Batman and one that's very much like Wonder Woman, et cetera. And again, I don't want to give too much away, but the ending is [00:04:00] super intense, and I'll definitely be watching more of it tonight after we've finished recording this. Mike: Yeah. And I will say that the comic itself has moments that are shockingly intense too. And it's really interesting because there are these moments that feel very wholesome and playful, and then there are other scenes that are complete 180 and it's really, it's kind of whiplash. Jessika: That was how it felt in the show as well. So I mean, that translated definitely. Mike: Yeah, it's one thing that's actually really neat is that it's the guy who wrote the comic, Robert Kirkman, is also the guy who created the walking dead. Jessika: Hm. Mike: So, you know, dude knows how to write a hit. Jessika: Yeah.I guess so, huh. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Well, what about you? What have you been reading or watching? Mike: You mentioned a couple of weeks ago that you had read the first issue of a series called Die, by Kieron Gillen. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: I'd heard about it. I thought it looked [00:05:00] interesting. And then you mentioning that, threw it back on my radar, and so I found the first three volumes on Hoopla and I wound up bingeing through all of them in a couple of hours. And it's really good. I really like how it matches up a bunch of D & D tropes along with other things. And I just, I really, really enjoyed it. And so I want to say thank you for putting that on my radar. Jessika: Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, absolutely. You're welcome. And I'll have to go on Hoopla and check out more myself because I'd been wanting to, I just haven't gotten around to it yet. Mike: No, shall we, uh, shall we mosey along? Jessika: Mosey let's do it. Mike: What do you remember about Radio Shack when you were growing up? Jessika: Good old Radio Shack. Radio Shack was huge, when I was growing up. It was [00:06:00] definitely a household name and it had a reputation that it carried most electronics related items that you may want or need to purchase. So just on my memory block here in particular, they used to carry a radio that was pretty easy to alter, to be a scanning radio, to use for ghost hunting. And for a while, it was a great cheap alternative to buying something made for that purpose. And it was priced really low and like affordable versus like buying something that was made for that purpose. Mike: Mm. Jessika: And I've trying to find one of those radios for years now, but honestly, it's probably a dead end at this point, and I should just pony up the money to buy actual ghost hunting equipment. I mean, honestly, I should probably, if I want it, like I'm a full ass adult, I can afford the expensive things, maybe. Mike: We have credit cards now, Jessika. Jessika: Just charge it.I say I can afford the expensive things, like I really can, which isn't actually true. Mike: All right.[00:07:00] Jessika: I can afford the mid-level things. Mike: Yeah. I dunno. We used to have money and then we got air conditioning, and we're poor now. Jessika: I'm safe. I'm squirreling it away, man. Trying to buy a house, it's expensive. Mike: Yeah. Especially where we live. Jessika: I don't recommend it. Folks. Mike: Yeah, no, just. Jessika: Just stay away. Mike: Yeah. Welcome to the Bay Area. The dystopian capitalist apocalypse. Jessika: Everything is overpriced, and on fire. Mike: We're not making this up. Everything is literally on fire these days. And, and over priced, but that's just California in general. Yeah. Well, I mean, I had a similar experience to you, in different ways, but like, you know, it was the same brand awareness of Radio Shack. I didn't realize until I was doing the research for this episode, that Radio Shack is actually a hundred years old [00:08:00] as of this year. Jessika: What? How? Mike: Yeah. It was founded in 1921 by these two brothers, Theodore and Milton Deutchman. They set up a mail order business and a single retail location that was focused on providing parts for ham radio, which was a field that was still pretty new back then. And they wound up doing pretty well for a while, but they basically were bankrupt by the early 1960s. But you know, like 40 years is not a bad run. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: And then they got acquired by the Tandy corporation in 1960 for $300,000. Up until this point, Tandy had been this leather goods company and they were looking to basically get into the business of appealing to hobbyists, which they felt Radio Shack would be able to do. So, in order to do this, Tandy basically performed a complete overhaul of the unprofitable company it had just acquired, and the Wikipedia page has a really solid [00:09:00] summary of what happened. Jessika: Tandy closed Radio Shack's unprofitable mail order business, ended credit purchases, and eliminated many top management positions eating the salespeople, merchandisers and advertisers. The number of items carried was cut from 40,000 to 2,500, as Tandy sought to identify the 20% that represents the 80% of sales and replaced Radio Shacks handful of large stores with many little holes in the wall, large numbers of rented locations, which were easier to close and reopen elsewhere if one location didn't work out. Mike: Yeah. So basically they were just going for a strategy that made Radio Shack into a much leaner, more nimble operation, which that's like the goal these days, those are kind of the golden buzzwords, but they were actually trying to do that. Charles D. Tandy, who was the guy who actually ran Tandy corporation back then, said that they were [00:10:00] basically not looking for the guy anymore, who wanted to spend his entire paycheck on the sound system, and instead they were looking for customers who wanted to save money by buying cheaper goods and then like improving them through modifications and accessories. So now they were really appealing towards nerds, and aiming at kids who are going to like work on stuff for the science fairs. And honestly it, it worked. I mean, when I was growing up Radio Shack was that store you went to, when you needed some small part a replacement, there was always one nearby. And even if they didn't have a name brand part, they usually had an off-brand version of whatever you needed. And, I never went there thinking that it was going to break the bank. It was always a fairly affordable thing. Jessika: Yeah. Agreed. I can think of like four different locations where they had a Radio Shack, just like in our area here. Mike: Yeah. And I mean, like, I grew up in San Francisco in the eighties, and they were all over the place.[00:11:00] So now, what's interesting is that the whole rise of personal computers happened to coincide with this period of success for Radio Shack. The late seventies was when personal computers with microprocessors started to actually be a thing on the consumer market, but typically if you wanted one, you had to build them from a kit. Like you, you physically had to, like, buy the kit and then assemble it, following the instructions, which, I mean, I'm not going to lie. That is terrifying to me. Jessika: That is terrifying. And it's total nerd shit too. They were right. Mike: Right. Fucking nerds. Jessika: Nerd bait. Mike: Radio Shack actually wound up introducing the TRS 80 in 1977. And it was a game changer for the company because it was one of the first pre-built computers. And it was simultaneously backed by a national retail chain. It was this super basic computer that sold for $600, which adjusting for inflation is like $2,700 nowadays. [00:12:00] Jessika: Holy shit. There's no way. There's no way the average family is like, let's get one of those right away. Mike: No, it was, I mean, you know, this was for people who were super enthusiast, or had a lot of disposable income, which the middle-class used to have back then. Jessika: Different times. Mike: The salad days. But yeah, so the TRS 80, even though it had a fairly high price point sold like hotcakes, like gangbusters. I found this book and it's called, Priming the Pump: How the TRS 80 Enthusiast Helped Spark the PC Revolution, by Teresa Welsh and David Welsh. It has this really interesting history about that point in time, which, I mean, I'm not going to lie, I was waiting for her to be really dry, but it's full of a lot of really personal stories and anecdotes and it's cool, I really dug it. Basically, when they started manufacturing this computer, they were only expecting to sell 50,000 units. There's this great quote, talking about how [00:13:00] much of a surprise the first TRS computer sales were. Jessika: Both Charles Tandy and John Roach may have been skeptical about such a large. But it turned out to be an underestimation. When the first anniversary of the products came, the company found the, had sold many more than the prediction and taken a whopping 250,000 orders for TRS eighties. Most of them still undelivered. Actually we've seen various numbers in different sources, so we can't verify this number, but they certainly sold considerably more than 50,000. Don French said they received a number of threatening phone calls from people who demanded delivery of their TRS 80 right away. Ooh! Mike: Yeah, so after this huge success, they then ended up following the TRS 80 with the TRS 80 Color in 1980. And basically the first TRS computer was kind of like a full, complete unit with a built-in monitor and everything. [00:14:00] The TRS 80 Color, in turn, was just the computer itself, and then you would plug in a color TV instead of using this built-in monitor. The TRS computers wound up selling well enough that Radio Shack really leaned hard into the computer business, and they even started offering computer camps for pre-teens in the early eighties, which was kind of an extension of that mission that they wanted to appeal to kids who wanted to excel at science fairs, because I mean, you know, those were the new nerds. So if you want to learn more about the TRS computers, by the way, there's this really great site called MatthewReadsTRS80.org. That helped me kind of learn about a lot of this stuff. I'll put it in the show notes, but it's really kind of an interesting walk-through, this particular venue of history. Anyway, this was the high point for Radio Shack, to be perfectly honest. By September of 1982, the company had more than 4,300 stores just in America and [00:15:00] more than 2,000 independent franchises and towns that were not large enough to have a company owned store. So, for comparison, there are fewer GameStops worldwide today than there were Radio Shacks in the early eighties. Jessika: Wow. Mike: Like, I realized that GameStop has been having a rough go of it lately, but there's still a lot of them around. Jessika: Yeah. Huh. Mike: And during this period of unmitigated success, that's when the Whizkid's started to show up in comic books. The early eighties were right around the time when computers were starting to get a lot of prominent, you know, quote unquote roles in media. If you're listening to this and you want to learn more, there is a site dedicated to media prominently featuring computers and storylines, and it's called Starring the Computer, that tracks stuff like this all the way back to the fifties. It's an incomplete list, but it's really interesting, and they have a whole section devoted to Tandy computers.[00:16:00] Like, I remember there was an episode of Murder, She Wrote very early on where she moves to New York and there's this whole plot about how she's gotten a computer to write her novels on. And then evidence is falsified with a modem. It's really interesting. And you know, the computer was this suddenly viable object that could play a part in people's everyday lives and could serve as a driving narrative device. But as far as I can tell the first time anyone made comics specifically focusing on educating people about personal computers was when Radio Shack started to do these comic books. And I think that's just because it was such a new thing, especially on the personal consumer market, because, you know, up until recently computers had been these huge things that took up buildings on their own. Jessika: Yeah. And they had to be, like cooled, professionally, and I mean, it was just this whole thing. Mike: Yeah. I mean, there [00:17:00] is a movie right now on Disney plus called The Computer That Wore Tennis Shoes. Jessika: Oh, yeah! Mike: A very early Kurt Russell, and it's one of those things where the whole he's in college and he winds up getting shocked, I think, and there's this whole thing, this computer gets basically downloaded into him. So he has the processing power and knowledge of this computer, but they show you the computer and it like, it is a giant monstrosity of a thing that takes up, I think, an entire lab. Jessika: It does. I remember that movie. Mike: And I mean, our phones, these days are more powerful than those. So RadioShack started making comics in 1971. They were putting out a series of educational comics called the science fair story of electronics via the Radio Shack education comic book program. But, then in 1980, they pivoted and they started giving away these new comics in stores. You could also, [00:18:00] if you were a teacher, you could send in a request to Radio Shack on school letterhead and get a free pack of 50. Jessika: Oh, wow. Mike: And yeah, like, you know, they were really pushing that hard because these comics were educational, but they were also advertisements. Jessika: Very much so. Oh, that was something I messaged you earlier, was like, wow. I was reading just an ad there, wasn't I? Mike: But, I mean, I will say they were, they were educational. Jessika: Yeah, absolutely. Mike: Yeah, so the Superman Radio Shack giveaway comics starred the aforementioned Whiz Kids, Alec and Shanna, along with their teacher Mrs. Wilson, but for the first three issues, which were published in 1980, 81 and 82, they also starred Superman and other characters from the DC Universe. Jessika: I need to correct you for a second, because you said Mrs. Wilson, and it definitely was Ms. Wilson. Mike: Oh, I'm sorry. That's right. Jessika: It was Ms. Wilson, and I think that will come into play [00:19:00] later. Mike: That is true. She did not have a ring on her finger. Jessika: She did not. She looked a little close to all the superheroes that waltzed right up in there, half naked into her classroom. Mike: I mean, can ya blame her? Jessika: No, she was hot too. Mike: Right? We're going to talk about each of these specific issues, but first up is the Computer That Saved Metropolis, which was published in July of 1980. So, even though this was a promotional giveaway, DC committed some pretty serious talent to the book. The first two issues were written by Cary Bates, who was this long-term writer for DC. He wrote a ton of action comics, Superman, and the New Adventures of Superboy, as well as being the head script writer for the live action Superboy series in the 1980s that we discussed a couple episodes back. Jessika: Totally. Mike: He also worked as a script writer for various cartoons, including Gem and Gargoyles. Jessika: Oh, hell yeah. Mike: Right. [00:20:00] But then also his name might sound familiar to some people listening to the show because we mentioned him on the New Guardians episode where, it turns out he wrote issues two through 12 of the New Guardians. The art for this issue, meanwhile, was handled by Jim Starlin and Dick Giordano. Both of them are pretty big deals too. Starlin became a big name in comics during the seventies. He garnered a lot of acclaim for his cosmic space opera stories. He co-created characters like Shang-Chi and Thanos. Giordano in turn was an artist who had recently come back to DC comics and was serving as the Batman editor at the time. He actually got promoted shortly after this to be the company's managing editor in 1981. And then he was promoted again to executive editor in 83, and then he stayed with the company until the mid nineties when he retired, after his wife died. And then, aside from being a giveaway issue, this comic actually ran as a backup story in the July, 1980 ssues for Action [00:21:00] Comics, Legion of Superheroes, House of Mystery and Superboy. So Superman schilling Radio Shack computers, and forcing children to perform complex math for him, and definitely, probably schtupping Ms. Wilson, like, I think we need to agree that, that those two totally smashed. Jessika: Oh, absolutely. And I have my theories about her and Supergirl as well. Mike: Yeah. Yeah. Jessika: They had a moment. Mike: Right? Jessika: We both took the same picture of that same shot and I sent it to you and you were like, no way. Mike: I thought that was so funny. Jessika: Don't worry, we'll post that one. Mike: I, oh God. Like, I just, that was great. It was like great minds think alike. But yeah, all of this is officially a canon part of DC comics lore, which is wild. Like [00:22:00] Jessika: It's bat shit bananas. Mike: Yeah. Now weirdly it looks like this is the only issue that actually made it into other DC comics. So, you know, the other two or their own standalone things. And aren't officially cannon, I guess. All right. How would you describe the 1980 issue? The Computers That Saved Metropolis? Jessika: Well, these were like both very advertisey and complex at the same time in their narrative, which was interesting. So, this first one, I'm going to give you a little bit of backstory about these bitches. I say these bitches, because I'm going to be talking about a whole classroom full of children. So I obviously really like children. I have a bachelor's in French and everyone's like, you should teach. And I'm like, no, I shouldn't. Mike: Oh, oh no. Let's talk about that for a sec. I majored in history my first time through college, and everyone also said I should teach. And I was like, I fucking hate [00:23:00] children. I worked at Disneyland it poisoned me again. And don't get me wrong. I have, I have two stepchildren now. I love them. I would die for them. They're great. But kids in general, not a fan. They're sociopathic little monsters. Jessika: Mm hmm. So the comic starts off with Superman doing patrols around Metropolis, and apparently he just does that. And he just jets off to a sixth grade classroom at the whim of Ms. Wilson. Mike: I have my own theory about this. Jessika: Oh my goodness. He's supposed to be a guest teacher about computers, apparently. Like, First of all, for some reason, along with his super abilities, he's also a super computer genius. And is he accredited? Like is he allowed to be teaching students? Mike: No. Okay. There, there are two things to discuss here. So you have [00:24:00] to remember that Superman from the Golden Age through the modern age was largely a weird sci-fi series where the main character was this alien who had all these powers that constantly changed. There wasn't really any editorial control until they streamlined it with Crisis on Infinite Earths. But on top of that, he was generally shown to be an amazing genius, like just whenever they needed it. But ,he built the Superman robots. He. I can't remember if he made the Phantom Zone Projector or if the Phantom Zone Projector was on artifact from Krypton, he was constantly trying to restore the city of Kandor, which was basically shrunk down to the size of a bottle, and it was a Kryptonian city, to restore it to its full size. Like in that issue of Super Boy, we read, he like put all those chemicals together and created the pools that granted the dogs, various powers. Jessika: Yeah, no, I guess you're, I guess he's always been [00:25:00] smart. Mike: Yeah. But then the other thing is that Superman is a little bit too earnest in this issue. Like, he shows up exactly on time. And then he is clearly trying to impress these kids to make a good impression with Ms. Wilson. And everything about this reeks of a dude who had a one night stand and is now desperate to hook up again. So what he's doing is he's trying to prove that A) he is reliable and B) he is good with kids. Jessika: Yep. No, that's totally how it felt. Mike: I'm not speaking from experience. Jessika: Oh, so anyway, Superman creepily knows all the students' names, I guess, because he used his x-ray vision to look at the teacher's seating chart, even though that's not how x-rays work. That's always bothered me. I'm sorry, we don't have time for this. Mike: [00:26:00] Thomas Edison would like a word. Jessika: Seriously. Also, I have to mention that the whole class was bored as fuck even after Sups flew in. And I don't know about you, but every kid I knew, wanted to know about computers and have a turn on the computer when we got them in the library at school or when someone got one at home. Mike: Oh, yeah. Jessika: So the idea that one of the kids in his class is being dismissive of the whole idea of not doing normal schoolwork and just doing computer class instead with fucking Superman of all people. It's just ridiculous. Mike: Oh yeah. And that kid actively shit talked Superman repeatedly. Jessika: Oh, he's a shit heal. Oh. And he still gets to be the fucking like, protagonist. Fuck. Mike: Oh, it was so funny. I like, my favorite was when he beats Superman at a math problem later on and like the shit talking starts immediately, and I'm like, my dude, this is possibly not a good move to irritate a guy who could literally vaporize you with a [00:27:00] glare. Jessika: That's just it. That is just it. Yeah. No. Why would you try to piss this guy off? And then Shanna's like, Ooh, Superman. You better tell him. I was like, dude, Shanna, you, you need to shut the fuck up immediately and not goad this situation. Mike: You know, that was probably the most realistic part of this entire comic, because speaking as someone that lives with an 11 year old, they are shit stirrers. Jessika: Oh my gosh. So, Supes takes the kids up to the roof because of course he does, and he proceeds to give the class some very long-winded exposition about the history of computers and their size and what they do and how they've evolved from the first computers, and moving into how they're used in society today from space travel to transistor radios, which what a time capsule of a callout. Mike: [00:28:00] Yeah. Jessika: This whole thing was a whole time capsule. Mike: Yeah. Very much is. Jessika: Of course, there was also some lovely product placement throughout and some not-so-subtle comments on affordability versus common household items. Tangent that always cracked me up to say, this computer is less expensive than a TV. Well, okay, but maybe I need a TV and I don't need a computer. They do vastly different things, or they did at that point. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: It kind of reminds me of saying like this China set costs less than a month of gross. Okay, well, I need to eat and I don't necessarily need a China set, so. Mike: Yeah, I mean, he was hard selling those kids. Jessika: Oh yeah. He was like, you should ask your parents to go out and buy you one. Mike: Yup. Jessika: So, of course, Supes hears with his super hearing a tornado and he like jets the fuck out of there. And, he defeats it by [00:29:00] blowing the wind or something like that. And then he feels all sick and shit, and comes across a villain named Major Disaster who, you know, just as his name implies, causes quote unquote natural disasters like there's floods and shit. It was a little ridiculous. Mike: Yeah, he was always kind of like a C- to D-list villain who would use weapons and equipment to make natural disasters. My knowledge of this character is hazy at best, but I think eventually he gained the ability to manipulate probability. He didn't appear a lot and he's been dead for a while, I think. Cause I remember him showing up as a zombie in Blackest Night. Jessika: Oh. Mike: But, I mean, I remember reading this stuff and I was like, this is kind of a cool, like off-the-wall villain. I dig him. You know, I certainly liked them a lot better than other villains that I've seen in Superman books where it's like, you know, generic alien warlord number five. Jessika: Seriously. Well, and when I read the name, Major Disaster, I was like, [00:30:00] same, girl. So, of course Superman needs the help of these children that he like, makes them perform these, like, high-stress situational calculations on the computer for him. Instead of like asking the adult he's banging in the room. Mike: I mean. Jessika: Honestly, come on, like, get the adults involved, like, Alec and Shanna don't need to save the day. They're supposed to be in sixth grade, even though they look way older than that. Mike: Like, yeah, they looked like kind of like eighth or ninth graders. Like they were a little bit older, it seemed. Jessika: The second one, they looked older than that, they looked like they were teenagers in the second one, for some reason, I was like, what's that? And then the third one, they got young again. And I was like, I don't know what's happening with you guys, but. Mike: Yeah. I mean, I will say that I was willing to believe that Alec was in sixth grade just because he had that awful fucking bowl haircut that like. Jessika: My brother had that. Mike: Right. Yeah. But [00:31:00] when did he stop having it? Jessika: No, no, you're right. Probably after he was like in, probably after middle school. Mike: Yeah. It's, you know, it's that thing where suddenly you realize, oh, I can go to a barber instead of having my parents cut my hair. Jessika: Oh. So the kids basically do a bunch of calculations, and they double check each other's work by doing the same calculation on two separate computers that Supes and flown in prior and just left there. Apparently. Mike: Yeah. And there's a whole thing about how Major Disaster had knocked out all the other computers in town, but he didn't know about these two personal computers because personal computers were a new thing. And that's the other reason that they're the ones who were performing the calculations and then they're on radio headsets with Superman providing this information. Jessika: I still say you're in a school that has way more adults than just the one standing in that room, and even that one's not involved. So. Mike: I mean, well, and the other thing is that the math equations that he's throwing at them are like this jet is falling out of the sky at this speed. [00:32:00] The wind is this fast. They're going at this angle. How fast do I need to go to catch them without doing damage to the plane or the people inside. And it's like, first of all, of course, yes, as you said, it's high stress, but second, like I still don't know how to do that math equation. I don't know how these sixth graders did because they looked like they were in a pretty shitty school that Superman made worse at one point when he liked tunneled up through the floor and just left a giant hole. Jessika: He was like, I'll fix that later. Mike: Sure you will, sure you will, Clark. Jessika: It's awful. Uh. So he finally of course finds the villain, defeats him, whatever. Then the kids are hailed as heroes and as a reward, I guess they get to be at a Radio Shack commercial about the computers they used. I mean, cool. I guess. Mike: Yeah. It was kind of a, a, meh ending, but, but yeah. Like, I dunno. Did you [00:33:00] like the issue overall? I'm curious. Jessika: It got really in the weeds playing up the computer aspects, which okay. I get it. You know, again, I get it. This is an advertisement, but dude, snooze fest, I put it down a few times and had to pick it back up, during those computer exposition parts. And you know, I'm slightly bothered by a vague plot line, but all in all, like it was, it was fine. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: To use your line. Mike: Yeah. I mean, reading through it, some of the computer history stuff I thought was actually pretty interesting Jessika: Yeah. Yeah. Mike: Like, when they went up on the roof and he was saying, you know, so the space that we're sending in actually is the size of what computers used to fill. And yeah, it does get a little too in the weeds because they're trying to get a little too much exposition in there at the same time. I felt like overall it walked a relatively fine line of providing action that was kind of [00:34:00] interesting. And, and the plot line of, oh, well, yeah, his powers were on the fritz because there was microscopic kryptonite particles in the tornado and he inhaled them when he was getting ready to blow it out. Like, I thought that actually was surprisingly well thought out for basically a licensed advertisement. You know, this was, this was effectively a full length version of one of those like hostess, Twinkies ads that they used to do. Jessika: Right? Mike: Yeah. But like, I didn't hate it. I found it charming. Jessika: It had its moments. Mike: Yeah. I'm not going to lie, I found the undeniable sexual attention between Superman and the kid's teacher really entertaining. Jessika: Yeah, definitely it was palpable. I thought it was even funnier too, that the kids were even, like Ms. Wilson, how do you know Superman? Mike: And she doesn't answer! Jessika: And she was like, She like side eyes.[00:35:00] How do I know Superman?…Biblically. Mike: Well, and that was the funny thing was when we were talking about this ahead of the episode, I was like, so yeah, they, they totally smashed, right? Like, like that's not up for debate. Jessika: No, it's really not. It happened. Mike: All right. let's move on to the next issue. So. Clearly, this was a successful marketing tool because in 1981, DC and Radio Shack released a brand new book that was called Victory By Computer. So this time the main story was illustrated by a couple of legendary artists. There was Curt Swan and Vince Colletta. Coletta started as an artist and anchor from the Silver Age of comics. He frequently collaborated with Jack Kirby who is known as, you know, the king of comic books, and a lot of folks considered their run on Thor to be the definitive take on the character. Kurt Swan's involvement, on the other hand, is especially noteworthy. [00:36:00] He is considered by many comic book artists to be the Superman artist. He started penciling Superman and Superboy comics in the late forties. And he didn't stop until DC put them out to pasture in the mid eighties because they were rebooting Superman via Crisis on Infinite Earths. Arlen Schumer, who's this major comic book historian, says Swan penciled over 19,000 covers and pages of interior art for Superman comics. Jessika: Whoa! Mike: Yeah. Like again, they were putting some serious talent behind these books. Jessika: They were pumping out a lot of content, to be fair. Mike: Yeah. How would you summarize Victory By Computer? Jessika: We find ourselves, yet again at the elementary school, I put in heavy quotations of kids that look like they're about 17 years old, this issue. So Shanna and smartass Alec are back at it. This time, Supergirl joins the class to [00:37:00] teach them about the pocket computer. What a fucking throwback. Mike: Like, that's something that we need to explain. Like the pocket computer was, basically kind of like a smart calculator that could perform basic functions and had a little keyboard in there. And I don't know how much they sold for, but they couldn't have been cheap. Jessika: I can't imagine so, yeah. Well, and by the way, at this point in the scene where Supergirl pulls out, her pocket computer, she pulls out of a pocket on her cape. So canonically, there are pockets in the capes. Mike: Yeah. They can't get them on the rest of their costume, but they can get them in their capes. Jessika: Which means that there's just stuff like weighing down the cape, so it shouldn't even be moving like it does. Mike: I remember in an early issue of Superman, the eighties series that John Byrne was doing, there is a bit where he stops by a balloon vendor because he's got a drone pursuing him and he winds up like [00:38:00] thinking, oh, it's lucky that I always carry a few spare dollars in like my belt buckle because he had that yellow belt back then, which side note I miss the yellow belt. I don't know if it's back, cause I haven't read any Superman comics for a while, but they got rid of it for quite some time. Like, I mean, you know, it's the Henry Cavill look now or it's the full blue suit. I miss the red trunks in the yellow belt. Jessika: Yeah. the good old days. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: So Supergirl decides to use her super powers to show the class they are able to find information on the TRS 80's as fast as she was able to find it, like physically with her super powers looking for it. And it was like, okay, sure. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: When an odd comparison, but fine. Mike: Yeah, it was really weird, there was a bit where they, like, it almost felt like they were hacking into the newsfeed of, I think the Daily Planet to get headlines, even though I'm sorry, but like, come on really, you think that a [00:39:00] print journalistic outlet is going to have top of the line technology back then come on. Jessika: No they're not putting any of that into a computer. They're still handwriting everything. Mike: Yes. I think back then they were still using, the electric typewriter that had like the built-in, it was quote unquote memory, but it was, you know, not really. Jessika: Not as we know it now, at least. And there was some definite sexual tension with Ms. Wilson at Supergirl as well. We will post the picture. Um. Mike: Right. It's this whole bit where Supergirl is like, oh, don't worry. I'm a school teacher in my secret identity. And I'm like, I don't know. Like, Are you just trying to impress her with this? What's the end goal of revealing this crucial information about your secret identity, Supergirl? Jessika: I know, right. She's just trying to connect with another human. She's like I'm also a school teacher. We should talk about it over dinner sometime. Mike: And then maybe move in together after three weeks of dating, and adopt three cats. Jessika: Oh, my gosh. So, Super girl basically [00:40:00] teaches the class and then she I'll bet she just left those fucking pocket computers too, because you know, just like Superman just left the computers there. He was like, have fun kids. Mike: Okay. Yeah, but here's the thing, like, you really think that some middle school kids or elementary school kids, however old they fucking are. You really think that they're going to sit there and try to steal the computers that the literal alien gods from other planets dropped off and taught them about? Jessika: Oh, I'm not, I'm not worried. Oh, that's funny. Yeah, no, I'm not worried about them stealing it. I'm just like Superman just apparently has like the extra spending cash that he can just like drop off two computers to a school and just like fuck off. Like really? Mike: No, I mean, I, I viewed it the other way of just like, they're like, they're not worried about it. They're like, yeah. We'll, we'll get those back. Don't worry. Jessika: Oh, so Supergirl apparently gets asked to go on [00:41:00] patrol by Superman and she spots something fishy. And so she goes to check it out, but it was a trap, of course. Mike: Yeah, but I mean, it wasn't even a very good trap. Jessika: Is a stupid trap. It was like, if you're a superhero and you happen to get curious, because you happen to be going near this location, maybe. And she like fell right into maybe a four foot by four foot hole in the ground. So I'm not really sure how that worked either. They just were like, nah, she's going to fall right here. Mike: Yeah. Like she fell through the skylight after getting hit with like a blast of red sun radiation, or whatever it is. Jessika: You know what it was, they used their TRS 80 to calculate where she was going to fall. So she gets stuck in what's basically like, it's like a lounge. It's like somebody's living room, and they have a computer there with a phone. So it's like, they weren't even trying that hard to keep her [00:42:00] there. Mike: No, it was, it was absolutely the, like what a seventies swinger house looks like in all the movies that we see now where you're just like, oh, oh, okay. Jessika: It basically had a conversation pit. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Yeah. So of course, she remembers the phone number from Ms. Wilson's classroom. Mike: Yeah, because the rotary phone had the phone number printed on the front of it, because that was a thing that used to happen. Jessika: I feel like that's a little more explaining than she needed to give. I think she is making up for the fact that she just knows that number by heart. Mike: I was going to say, I think she really wanted to get Mrs. Wilson's phone number, and then it just happened to actually be helpful in a way other than getting her a date. Jessika: Gosh, Ms. Wilson, man. And canonically bisexual? Question mark? Mike: I don't see why not. I think we can, I think we can [00:43:00] officially declare it. Jessika: Someone's going to @ us, I hope they do. So at any rate, she gets in touch with the class. She makes them do all these weird wacky calculations, has some get in touch with Superman. And by the time Superman gets there, like she's gotten out of it because she also used the computer to find out that there were like underground tunnels. And so she's like, I'll just walk out of these tunnels. Mike: Yeah, basically it turns out it was like an old mob hide out and the students were able to look up some articles, which again, like, I don't know, because I was born in 81 and I don't have a good idea of what computer and internet adjacent technology was like back then. But they apparently look up articles about this hideout that got busted and they learned from the articles that there were underground tunnels that. Whatever, it was dumb, they don't even show her getting out. It was dumb. Jessika: No, she's just like walking out afterwards and Superman's, like, [00:44:00] oh, I was here to save you. And she's like, I just took the tunnels dude. And then like the bad guys are just, they just happened to be driving by. So they were like, well, let's just go get the bad guys. What do you think? It looks like, oh those are Lex Luther's dudes. Let's just go get the bad guys. Mike: Yeah. And there's a whole thing where like, Lex Luther has announced from jail that like Superman is going to break him out and it's a much looser plot than the first issue was. Like the first issue, there was like, I felt like a much tighter story, you know, in between the educational bits, this one, it felt like they were kind of stretching to figure out a way to connect all this stuff. Jessika: For sure. Yes. Mike: Yeah. Yeah. So I think we can safely say that this was not our favorite of three books. Jessika: No, this one was so ridiculous. I mean, I loved the heavy, heavy [00:45:00] gay overtones. Mike: I mean, when do we not love the heavy gay overtones? Come on. Jessika: It's the agenda after all: brunch for everyone. Mike: Yeah. So like, do you have any final thoughts on this, or should we move on to the last of the three books? Jessika: Ugh. That's just once mosey. Mike: Okay. All right. So 83 was when we got the final book, which is the Computer Masters of Metropolis. So, this time Paul Kupperberg wrote the script for the comic. Kupperberg, he's not exactly a household name in terms of comic books, but he is actually pretty prolific. He's written over a thousand comics during his time as a writer, including the first appearance of He-Man and then he wrote the subsequent Masters at the Universities for DC. Yeah, like, you know, so I've read some of his stuff and I didn't even realize it. Also like, this is actually my favorite factoid about him. He served as the senior editor of the Weekly World News shortly [00:46:00] before it got shut down in 2007. Jessika: What? Mike: Yeah. And like that automatically makes me like the dude, because the Weekly World News was one of my favorite things when I was in college, and because I was so good at Photoshop in high school and college, and I was interested in journalism, but I also love the weird stuff, I actually wanted to apply to the weekly world news for a job just for like a little while. And be like, yeah, like I Photoshop pictures of bat boy. Like, I really was hoping that that would be a thing, and then they shut down right after I graduated college and broke my cold black heart. Jessika: It's a damn shame. Mike: But yeah. So, meanwhile, the art was handled again by Curt Swan and then he was also assisted by Frank Chiaramonte. Chiaramonte was Swan's regular anchor on the main Superman book from 1978 to 82. And then this is one of his last books that he worked on because he died really young in January of [00:47:00] 83. He was only 40 years old. Like. Jessika: Oh. Mike: Yeah, it's really weird too. I was trying to figure out what happened and all I could find was that just, he died young. But, he was regarded pretty well and he worked on a lot of stuff. So I think if he hadn't died, he probably would've, you know, gone on to great things. But the Computer Masters of Metropolis doesn't have a publish date other than 1982, which means it came out less than a year before his death, because he died in January of 83. Jessika: Oh, dang. Mike: Yeah. All right. So what happened in the Computer Masters of Metropolis? Jessika: So, those are some lucky kids studying at whatever outskirts elementary school this is. Cause it's not in Metropolis proper, it's like in the suburbs of Metropolis somewhere. Mike: Yeah. You know, it's superhero-adjacent to the city. Jessika: Yeah. Yeah. Right. And again, not sure why Ms. Wilson seems to be on really, really [00:48:00] friendly terms with all the superheroes in the area, but Wonder Woman shows up to take them to the World's Fair, which of course is being held in Metropolis. Mike: Yeah. Which I mean, okay. Why, why not? Jessika: Exactly. Meanwhile, Lex Luther was salty about being denied entry for an exhibit for the World's Fair because the organizers didn't want to encourage his villainy. Mike: It's so good. It's so good. Jessika: And so Luther decides to try to blackmail a way in, but that didn't work. So, of course he decides the thing to do is to threaten, to like completely destroy the fair, and ultimately creates another red solar radiation trap. This time, luring Superman into a room, rigged with explosives and bathed in red solar radiation, dun, dun, dun. So once again, there are computers in the room, I think, so. So he reaches out to [00:49:00] Alec and Shanna who are told that Wonder Woman should also be at the fair and to page page her. And she's basically like, okay, why are children paging me right now? But finds out that Superman is being held at the plantarium. She lassos the whole damn building and whips it around and it somehow deactivates the red solar radiation beam? Question mark? Mike: I don't know, man, I was pretty checked out when I was reading this. Like. They reused a lot of the same stuff, too. Like the same art where they were showing the computer chip, getting threaded through the needle, the bit where the kids are all walking on the giant demo version of the TRS, Jessika: Oh, and those kids were being very nice because they acted surprised and very impressed to see that same damn exhibit for a second time. Mike: Yeah. Which previously had showed up in the last issue. And I mean, like, it was a lot more exposition this time around too. Jessika: It was. Mike: [00:50:00] Anyway, sorry. Jessika: No, not at all. So Superman escapes and they catch Luther and the day is saved. And the end scenes were particularly silly. The mayor I'm assuming goes to thank Wonder Woman for saving the day. And she's like, but also these children, who just happened to be standing on the stage, like right behind her anyway, like the mayor, just, wasn't going to say anything about those kids on the stage, too, apparently. And they had a computer on stage with them? They were like, and this is the computer, let it hold the key too. And you got to know that like both Wonder Woman and Superman have to have entire rooms dedicated to the key to Metropolis that they get every time they save some damn building or something, they're all like, chuck another one in there. No, no, no. You kids keep that one. Mike: It's fine. I've got 12 at home that are much nicer. Jessika: They're hanging on a wall around in a study. Mike: They just use them as like coat racks. Jessika: [00:51:00] So Alec and Shanna, once again, saved the day, I guess. Mike: Yeah, I mean, this was actually my least favorite of the three comics, because again, it was recycling art or, or using very similar art. It was making a lot of the same points, but it felt a lot more telling, not showing. And while I was really happy to see Lex Luther being next level petty, which, these days, you know, Lex Luther is a billionaire CEO, scientist who also has like armies of underlings performing super science for him that he's able to utilize. He's basically he is a more- Jessika: Jeff Bezos. Mike: Yeah, He is He is a, I was going to say, he's just, he's a more nakedly transparent, Jeff Bezos. Jessika: Oh, you actually were going to say that. I'm sorry. I stole that right from out from under you. Mike: [00:52:00] No. I mean like it's, I'm sorry, like Jeff Bezos exploits his workers and use the money that he got from that to take a rocket ship and play astronaut, which side note, one of my favorite things about that entire story is that NASA at the last minute redefined, I think it was NASA, redefined what constitutes the definition of an astronaut, so he couldn't get an astronaut patch or pin. An astronaut pin, I think. Jessika: Which, again, the level of petty, but this is what I need. This is what I need to see, because it can't always be fucking Lex Luther winning. Mike: Yeah. But anyway, like I really appreciated that we got to see Lex Luther being a super villain goon, like very flamboyant, flying around with his own little personal jet pack or jet boots, whatever they were like, they were like, it was like little rockets that he had attached to like his. I'm I'm struggling to remember if it was on his boots or on his waist. It was one or the other, right? Jessika: Yeah, I think it was [00:53:00] on his, I think you're right about the boots. And then he also had those fancy power gauntlets. Mike: Yeah. And I mean, the other thing is back in this era, Lex Luther actually had a couple of different costumes that he wore that were very colorful and over-the-top, and it was like green and purple. So it kind of was that, that Joker color motif again, you know, it was really striking. And so he had that outfit of kind of the purple and green spandex that we saw in this issue. But then he also had this really baller set of green power armor that he used to really make Superman's life miserable for awhile. Like I said, after 1983, Radio Shack stopped with the Superman comics, but they didn't actually stop making comics. They kept on doing these comics with the Whiz Kids, but they instead moved over to Archie comic publications. I haven't been able to find out why the partnership's stopped. There's very little actual [00:54:00] documentation about these comics outside of a bunch of articles saying, oh yeah, they happened. Like they were a thing. They were dumb. And then pretty much all I've been able to find otherwise is people selling them. Cause there's still a lot of them around. And if you're looking for a fun piece of comic book history, these aren't very expensive, even in mint condition. That said the Tandy brand was starting to fall out of popularity by 83. For some perspective, it's estimated that Tandy controlled up to 60% of the personal computer market in the late seventies, which is like an astronomical market share. However, and this is from an article by a guy named Ron White, that he wrote for a magazine called 80 Micro in 1987, and you can now find it on a site called Vintage is the New Old, and we'll put this in the show notes again, Tandy's market share was down to 25% by 86. So it's a pretty fast fall from grace. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: And then, even though Archie was publishing the comics, [00:55:00] none of the Archie characters actually showed up in any of these books with the Whiz Kids, although Radio Shack did publish Archie in the History of Electronics separately. Jessika: Oh. Mike: Like, yeah. But based on that, my guess is that Radio Shack was looking to save some cash and Archie was probably a much better deal. I'm guessing it costs a lot more to license DC superheroes than it does to just make a comic without any big name characters. Jessika: Oh, I am sure. Mike: Yeah. And then shortly after Archie took over the publication duties, the TRS computer line got rebranded to the Tandy computer. So it makes sense that the comic was rebranded from the TRS Whiz Kid's to the Tandy computer Whiz Kids. And that's actually, when I first became aware of this whole venture, because Nostalgia Alley, which is the local retro game store up in Petaluma, has a copy of one of the Tandy Whiz Kids comics on the shelf behind the counter. And so I [00:56:00] spotted that one time and I was talking to Jason, the owner, and he let me check it out for a couple of minutes. And that's when I started looking into this whole thing, which, per usual, led us down a rabbit hole. Jessika: Love these rabbit holes of ours. Mike: Yeah, they're fun. Anyway, the Tandi Whiz Kid's comics kept on coming out until 1992. And based on what I understand, they featured the Whiz Kids solving crimes, using Tandy computers and other Radio Shack products. I haven't read them. I do really want to track down a copy of the Computer that Said No To Drugs though. Jessika: Who was offering computers drugs? They are expensive! Mike: I, I don't know. I'm really curious about everything about that. Jessika: Hey man, you want to hit this? It's just a fucking computer. And it's like, what are you talking about, dude? Mike: Oh, I'm having flashbacks now of that episode of, uh, Futurama where Bender gets hooked on electricity. Jessika: Oh, hahahaha. [00:57:00] Mike: They keep on referring to it as jacking on anyway. Yeah. But the early nineties were when things really started to go downhill for Radio Shack and they never really stopped, because stores like Best Buy and Walmart just started to really eat their lunch. And then, it got to the point where they've had to declare bankruptcy twice in the past five years or so. Like they also declared Nick Cannon as their chief creative officer around the time of the first bankruptcy. Yeah. And now they've been bought by some shady sounding company out of Florida. So the brand is still around, but it's not really the company that we grew up with. And I don't know, I'm honestly not sure what's worse, like partnering with Nick Cannon, or being this pale reflection of your former glory. They both sound pretty bad. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: But yeah, that's the story about Superman, and how he wound up acting as a computer salesman for [00:58:00] a couple of years. You got any final thoughts? Jessika: So I'm just shaking my head over here. Like my nostrils are flaring. Mike: How was that different from any other conversation I lead though? Jessika: I literally prepare myself for these, cause I'm like, all right, you can get angry, but don't get too angry. My secret is I'm always angry. Mike: Dun dun dun. Jessika: Hmm. So you know, it's really interesting to see how very far we've come since these issues came out in the early eighties. Like, we're sitting here on small laptops, I've got a phone and a tablet right here in front of me as well, and you and I are basically sitting across from each other, having a conversation, even though we're not even in the same physical location. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: It blows my mind how amazing things like high speed trains and basic information [00:59:00] searches seemed back then, when they're so commonplace now. Like, I seriously Google everything. I would be nowhere without Google. Mike: Yeah. My career is because of the internet. Jessika: Yeah. Yours, yours sure, is absolutely that's, yeah. That's a wild thing to think about too. And it's also wild to think about how much more advanced technology has become even in just, I had to do the calculations 40 years time, which I about had a panic attack when I mathed that out because. Ha ha ha. We're almost 40. Mike: Yep. Actually this episode is going to air right around the time that I'm going to be turning 40. Jessika: Yup. Happy birthday, to Mike. Mike: Thanks, I hate it. Jessika: No, Yeah. Right. At least you're not my mom giving my dad a [01:00:00] vulture piñata for his 40th birthday. Mike: No, Sarah has declared that she wants my 40th birthday to be a super soft birthday, which if you've ever watched Letterkenny. Jessika: Yes! I was hoping You were going to say that. There has to be a unicorn. Mike: I know, I think it's going to be put on hold until we're all vaccinated, but we might do a belated super soft birthday. Jessika: Yeah, okay. I figured you guys are going to have a family super soft birthday. But, if you want to have a super soft after birthday, when things clear up, I am, I am there and I will be eating some lovely pink frosted cupcakes with you. Mike: You're on, big shoots. So we are now at the point of the episode where we're going to wrap things up with our Brain Wrinkles, which is when we discussed the one thing that is comics or comics adjacent that we just can't get out of our head. So you want to start things off? Jessika: Oh sure. [01:01:00] As I promised, I just finished watching the latest season of The Boys, which is season two. Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. That show is bat shit wild. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: And what's been sticking in my head is the abuse dynamic between Homelander and mean, anybody he deals with, really? Mike: I was gonna say, everybody? Jessika: Yeah. And it's so interesting, cause as he was growing up, he was taught that not only is he more powerful than any person, he has been told that he is special and is entitled to do whatever pleases him. Which is really scary to see him manipulating others, using fear as a motivator to encourage them to comply. And honestly, the reason it scares me the most is just the powerlessness that these people, and most often women, are terrified into just following through with Homelander's whims. Mike: Yeah. yeah. There's a lot of really [01:02:00] uncomfortable moments in that show. But I like the show, which I didn't expect. Jessika: Well, I do like that it's putting a spotlight onto that dynamic, cause that's a dynamic that we show is very one-sided, usually a little victim blamey. Mike: Mmhmm. Jessika: You know, why didn't she just leave kind of a narrative, which we all know it's not that easy. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: And I think this is a really good example of why it's not that easy, in a very powerful way. And, it does remind me of people who are stuck in abusive households or relationships and are in different ways, powerless to leave their situations. So, hopefully it sparks some conversation. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Well, but what about you? Mike: Mine is also TV related, but it's not quite as topical as your thoughts. So, I actually was trying to show my stepson[01:03:00] some X-Men cartoons the other day. And as we started to watch the first episode of Wolverine and the X-Men, he started to ask me all these questions about who the different characters were, because they basically start the show off assuming that the audience knows who all of the X-Men are, because at the time when it launched, the X-Men were a major brand, and then Disney acquired Marvel right before this. And then, they kind of made mutants personas, non grata, and, the mutants have not been featured in Disney programming up until the point where basically for the past 10 years, major media representation for kids of characters, like the X-Men, aren't all that common. And so it was just kind of a really thoughtful moment for me, where I realized I had to start them over from the beginning with an earlier X-Men cartoon, where he gets all these introductions. And I think there's going to be this generation that is going to grow up learning who the X-Men are a lot later than a lot of us [01:04:00] did. Like I knew all of the X-Men by the age of nine and I suspect. Jessika: Oh, yeah. Mike: Yeah. And so I think it's going to be really interesting to watch a generation of teenagers discover the X-Men really for the first time outside of, you know, Wolverine and Deadpool, because everybody knows who they are. Jessika: Yeah, of course. Hm. Mike: But yeah. Jessika: That's wild. Mike: Yeah. It's kind of one of those surreal moments of realization. Yeah. Jessika: Hmm. Mike: So, in two weeks we will be back with our next installment of the Sandman book club, which is going to be volumes three and four. And then until then we'll see you in the stacks. Thanks for listening to Ten Cent Takes. Accessibility is important to us, so text transcriptions of each of our published episodes can be found on our website. Mike: This episode was hosted by Jessika Frazer and Mike Thompson written by Mike Thompson, and edited by Jessika Frazer. Our intro theme was written and performed by Jared Emerson Johnson of Bay Area Sound, our credits and transition music is Pursuit of Life by Evan [01:05:00] MacDonald, and was purchased with a standard license from Premium Beat. Our banner graphics were designed by Sarah Frank, who you can find on Instagram as @lookmomdraws. Jessika: If you'd like to get in touch with us, ask us questions, or tell us about how we got something wrong, please head over to tencenttakes.com or shoot an email to tencenttakes@gmail.com. You can also find us on Twitter; the official podcast account is tencenttakes. Jessika is jessikawitha, and Jessika spelled with a K, and Mike is vansau, V a N S a U. Mike: If you'd like to support us, be sure to download, rate and review wherever you listen. And if you like, what you hear, tell your friends. Jessika: Stay safe out there. Mike: And support your local comic shop. Lfa66XA001sq2SOSeOU7
In this episode, we pay homage to the fantastic genre of alien invasion movies. Movies like Independence Day, Skyline, War of the Worlds, etc. Aliens arrive, and though their intentions are unclear at first, we quickly learn that they are not here to be peaceful and make friends. It's up to a military leader and her scientist ex to figure out how to stop the invasion and save the world. This episode has love, drama, and port-a-potties (yes, port-a-potties)! Links Independence Day movie on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Day_(1996_film) War of the Worlds on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Worlds_(2005_film) Skyline on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyline_(2010_film) Time Codes Segment 1 - Discussion the Genre Tropes: 03:30 Segment 2 - Creating the Movie Outline: 09:47 Segment 3 - Picking the Improv Comedy Games: 16:36 Start of show: 24:55 Improv Game - Movie Trailer: 25:17 Improv Game - Best of Times Worst of Times: 26:53 Improv Game - One Word at a Time Typewriter: 34:30 Improv Game - Blind Line: 46:15 Improv Game - Cutting Room: 56:23 End of show, into announcements: 1:07:17 More Information About the Show, Mike, and Avish Subscribe to the podcast: Our Website: www.AvishAndMike.com Our Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/143183833647812 Avish's site: www.AvishParashar.com Mike's site: www.MikeWorthMusic.com/ Transcription of the “Discussing the Genre Tropes” Segment (Unedited and Un-Cleaned up) Avish: What do you think when you think of a big budget alien invasion movie. Mike: Oh boy well so to start with um there's always the ominous foreshadowing right so it's always like. Mike: You know they find some alien tech like buried in like in guardians all over the world or look there's an establishing shot, so they let you know, right from the get go that something bad's going on. Mike: that's because the establishing act one usually act one is all about the impending dread of the arrival of the Aliens in a mysterious fashion and the US in various countries trying to establish contact with it it's almost always like that right. Avish: yeah they figured out that they're not sure, a lot of time is. Avish: Are they friendly are they dangerous in the first act it's a lot of. Avish: there's like usually there's like a military character or group that knows the Aliens are there knows the Aliens are coming, but then there's like the general populace, that is, like just discovering the aliens and not sure what's going on with them. Mike: Right right right and. Mike: You know act one usually ends with the first blast of aggression that's that's the crossing of the threshold right where it's. Avish: Like a big I mean independent they certainly. Avish: Had big aggression, but a lot. Mike: yeah. Mike: And then they did you know what they did, which was really cool and this is, if we can try and boy, this is a bridge too far, maybe, but we should try it. Mike: Independence Day nail it because they had three crossing of the threshold at the same time, so the chopper was destroyed. Mike: At the same time that the scientists will, at that time there was a doomsday timer at the same time that all the ships start opening up their lights on top of New York City. Mike: So it was like every every every feeler from our planet, that was out was getting was getting. Avish: Like a lot of shifts we're hitting a lot of fans all. Mike: The shifts in the fans yeah. Avish: that's right, then we get into the um there's a lot of scrambling like there's a total overwhelm right like the Aliens are always just. Mike: completely outside yeah absolutely dominant right then act two is the regroup and usually the counter attack and the best part is well I. Avish: Think, part two, is like the over like act one is where we're learning we're not sure Act two is where the Aliens just dominate. Avish: X three I feel is when you get kind of we're getting more proactive we're going to fight back, but it usually is relatively ineffective. Mike: mate right. Avish: You know okay we're going to drop the nuke and Independence Day, and that does nothing. Mike: yep or in or in Independence Day, though the knockoff them like virtus scored they may mount a couple of offenses in the early, just like wipe them out like just because they're just. Mike: underground and stuff like that now they're usually has to be a macguffin that changes the tide something involving human ingenuity and usually involving like the little rogue science team to kind of figure something out right. Avish: Well it's always yeah it's it's the the other civilian version like there was, like the civilian in the military yeah the civilian figure something out Independence Day, with the virus in war of the worlds, it was a real virus. Mike: yeah but we're the world's this is kind of funny like it's one of the few movies, where the humans had nothing to do with just defeated the. Avish: retrospective terrible storytelling. Mike: yeah yeah so it's a great. Avish: ultimate deus ex machina it's like. Avish: Oh yeah yeah yeah you're. Avish: gonna wipe you out, but the common cold cold. Mike: Because he's angel these aliens all this advanced technology that hungered for our world didn't research, the common virus and bacteria. Avish: Like insides where they didn't research, the planet was covered in water. Mike: yeah so 1% water yes. Avish: We, for our story we'd like a more proactive, but it could also be the author trope that comes up a lot, which I don't know we're gonna do is the hive mind alien queen trope where it's like. Avish: yeah discovered to fight back you know we don't need to destroy the entire alien race which is dominant we. Avish: got killed. Mike: queen yeah the board the board idea that you know. Avish: The Board mind or yeah a lot of. Avish: Like rain of fire which is dragons not aliens but it's like hey we killed. Avish: The Queen dragon and all the dragons die, so I. Mike: Actually, never saw that it looks good and cool. Avish: I saw it in the theater I don't remember very much about it, which should tell you something. Avish: it's yeah my recollection is I wouldn't call it a good movie, but it may have been a fun movie. Mike: you've already reminded me that there will be, because any trope there will be a Matthew mcconaughey character in our in our. Avish: character. Mike: yeah and he's gonna be in our show. Mike: Because now. Avish: Oh there's almost always um. Some. Avish: relationship in peril you know there's like the estranged. Avish: husband and wife back to each other or the father trying to save the sound of the mother trying to say or in shark NATO, where it was the guy from beverly hills. Mike: No, I know from American pie, I engineering and Terry fantastic some kind of like. Avish: To the main characters will be connected. Avish: Yes, some kind of romance or love. Mike: There is usually a general slash military leader who is initially at odds with the heroes and heroin, but then has kind of a come to Jesus thing and at three and four. Avish: yeah they're not like evil they're just. Avish: opinionated damien's yeah. Avish: yeah yeah and that's our five minutes, I think the final thing i'll throw in there is. Avish: Most of these don't have a real villain like the entire alien race is like the villain does not like a head alien. Avish: Even if it's a queen it's not like. Avish: Being a character. Mike: and much of the conflict actually allies, with a disaster movie it's like they're trying to escape a building as it's getting nuked by laser bolts or. Mike: You know the the Aliens blow up a dam and obviously it's a way it's a cheap way for people to get like a little disaster movie in there it's like Oh, they start a forest fire and you have to flee and now you have to be you have to fight, you have to defeat. Avish: Yes, I like a lot of times yeah when they are blowing stuff up the Aliens are the disaster like Independence Day, the first half of that movie is like pure just disaster movie. Mike: Exactly so that's yeah that's your thing we got to think of it's like there's a healthy component to disaster before that it's not like Star Wars or star trek where it's like SCI fi space flights and stuff. Avish: All right. Mike: we're good place we're in a good spot. Transcription of the “Creating the Outline” Segment (Unedited and Un-Cleaned up) Avish: For this movie it's going to be rough in a high level and because we're going to be using improv games to play this we may end up veering from the outline in minor ways, or even a major ways, but this is kind of our starting point. Mike: yeah we reserve the right to change anything and everything exactly. Avish: But this is what we're going to kind of roughly stick to you, so our five minute timer starts now alright so for this one you're thinking prologue well, so we always start your first time listening, where we start with a prologue or a movie trailer. Avish: We want a prologue of the Aliens arriving and all that or do you want just the movie trailer. Avish: of you. Mike: can see it either way man, you make the call today. Mike: I like them both. Avish: The movie trailer, for we last couple times we don't a prologue so let's do a trailer. Mike: yeah yeah yeah. Avish: alright. Avish: So now for outline what happens in act one. Avish: Of the Aliens need to arrive and people need to find out the military and the civilian need to find out. Mike: Right military finds out first. Mike: And they have to find out, first because they need to start mobilizing their stuff to be ahead of the civilian population. Mike: yeah realizing response alright a. Avish: Civilian a the civilians to find out, we also need to establish the relationship for the civilian right like. Mike: yeah and and let's keep it simple let's let's go with the. Mike: main hero. Mike: Love interest. Avish: I mean, if you want it, and this can come out of the improv you want to keep it simple also one thing there's like the coincidence right so it's like. Avish: It could be the military person and the civilian main character are like husband wife or access or boyfriend girlfriend or you know, instead of having an extra character which sometimes when we're doing improv can get a little confusing. Mike: Man all right, our accents are only so good. Mike: We only have I only have so many American deal with you know that, should we can do that a main character mean here leverages military commander, we have to establish. Mike: Now now do we want the main hero to have agency in terms of like there's a reason he wants to defeat the Aliens or is he just caught up in it and just happens to be heroic. Avish: Well, I think the military one wants to defeat the aliens and the civilian one just kind of gets caught up maybe because they're connected to the military person or there. Mike: huh yeah. Avish: It just happened to be. Mike: I haven't read yet tell me this is like look look getting too granular but, like the Aliens had some tech they're using the setup the assault and the main hero gets a hold of the tech or translates the tech or somehow is able to use it against the aliens. Avish: yeah I think that's good that's kind of like how Jeff goldblum figured out the countdown codependent thing. Avish: yeah all right, and then at the end of by the end of act one the Aliens will have attacked like. Mike: yeah and then there's this just mass destruction that. Avish: yeah maybe attempt contact. Avish: And then attack yep. Mike: And it bleeds out the attacks bleed over into active, because at the end of Act two is going to be a bunch of disaster scenes you know what I mean like you know that i'm trying to get through. Avish: And that's it's gonna be a lot of like yeah vignettes of disaster scrambling attacks. Mike: yeah. Mike: Military getting pummeled. Mike: Civilians fleeing right. Avish: And at this point if they haven't connected in Act two, I think, is when our main characters we'll all meet up like if we've got a military and civilian and maybe a third one they'll all kind of connected this point. Mike: All parties unify and a location yeah. Mike: See, I would, I would say I don't always like oh man, I wonder what they didn't like escape from La or whatever it is battlefield la but and watch those movies were like apparently horrible like battleship was horrible. Avish: battles a battle Los Angeles was. Avish: Okay, it was mildly entertaining. Avish: So I think at the end of Act two is when kind of everyone gets together. Mike: yeah and then, and then the yeah and then at three is usually the prep retaliatory strike. Avish: yeah and real quick if you're listening and you're familiar with story and act structure of most use a three act structure we use a four were basically divide out to into. Avish: Act two and three, because actually longer now, we have had the first half of us the reactive, the second half is proactive so. Mike: Right games, you want to talk about the end of the big act to block so. Avish: Act three right. Mike: good guys do retaliatory strike yeah. Avish: They formulate a plan and retaliate work. Mike: Usually the strike is ineffective to mildly effective, you know we'll give them the BAT you know it did it doesn't But then what usually happens is. Mike: Civilian main characters. Mike: discover macguffin right. Avish: yeah or though I think I will have like the end of act three like that's kind of how it they kind of figured out so. Mike: yeah I. Avish: figured out at the end, I think, in addition to the. Avish: I think this is where you get the big disagreement, you know you're saying how the middle of like the there's usually a more veteran military leader, I think this is where the disagreement kind of comes to a head. Mike: yeah we're the leader. Avish: In effect, tool and then they kind of have to turn to the civilian solution. Mike: mm hmm exactly and then act for is usually mounting the the assault yeah. Avish: And i'll plan and usually there's a heightened sense of danger, like the the Aliens figure out where the good guys are hiding or they have captured you know the someone important to the the main characters. Mike: yep and and yeah and the heightened sense of danger, this is the last chance, where I know we're a little over but it's all right, usually a split narrative usually there's like. Mike: When you're looking at the military side of it used to be epic battle and usually there's a smaller commando team is doing something else. Mike: You know, to mean like again yeah. Avish: This is very independent and if we're going, I mean may get too confusing for our forum, but if we had a third, to be like the third will be like. Avish: The by standards civilians like trying to stay safe there's like counter attack small desperate strike force and then everyone else just trying to survive. Mike: Right exactly. Avish: And Randy quaid flying a plane. Mike: Wait wait with the new version one with a. Avish: A biplane and like a crop missing. Mike: So, by the way, because you guys are listening, and this is how funny love this stuff that apparently that scene was in the original test screening of Independence Day Randy quaid character. Avish: or SCI fi on like YouTube the original. Mike: Like and apparently the audience just. Mike: They were like yeah X that. Avish: Terrible. Avish: I don't know and he, like. Avish: It missile like strapped in the backseat of his plane. Mike: yeah yeah like. Mike: Worst armory gunnery sergeant ever like you just let's go walk off with the sidewinder. Mike: Alright, so so. Mike: Cheap.
About this episode In this episode, we pay homage to fantasy movies in general (like the fun Mythica series) and Dungeons and Dragons movies and games. Yes, there is a scene in a tavern... We both love these types of movies and games, so we were really looking forward to the chance to play around in this genre. Links: Dungeons and Dragons on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons The Dungeons and Dragons Movie on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_(2000_film) Mythica on Amazon Prime: https://www.amazon.com/Mythica-Quest-Heroes-Robert-Jayne/dp/B00ZN31MK6 Time codes Segment 1: 04:38 Segment 2: 09:55 Segment 3: 16:25 Start of show: 25:18 Improv Game - Ding: 25:24 Improv Game - Emotional Lists: 30:58 Improv Game - Superheroes: 39:43 Improv Game - Best of Times, Worst of Times: 48:02 Improv Game - Cutting Room: 58:30 End of show, into announcements: 1:18:55 More Information about the show, Mike, and Avish Subscribe to the podcast: Our Website: www.AvishAndMike.com Our Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/143183833647812 Avish's site: www.AvishParashar.com Mike's site: www.MikeWorthMusic.com/ Transcription of the “Discussing the Genre Tropes” Segment (Unedited and un-cleaned up) Avish: Alright, so segment one - Discussing the genre tropes alright, Avish: So now we're going to spend five minutes just talking about the commonalities cliches tropes of the genre and it's something we're well versed in so Mike. Avish: When you think of a fantasy dungeons and dragons style movie what comes to mind. Mike: Well, first it's almost always a party based a party based system, even though there is usually one major well in the film there's usually one major protagonist but this protagonist always has to be supported by. Mike: The various specialist right there's always going to be the tank or the fighter the wizard the crafty rogue you know I mean like we don't even need. To be in there. Avish: yeah very in thief and. Mike: And acrobat. Mike: Right, so all that you know clerical that stuff as a matter of fact, the mythic I think we had cleric wizard fighter in thief I think was the was the Holy quadruple. Avish: Another thief is over the fighter user client on the magic user and yeah. Avish: I would say the hero is often not always but often some kind of a chosen one or you know. Mike: or gifted uniquely or something like that yeah. Avish: yeah it's like they're special. Avish: it's not random. Avish: it's not just Frodo you know carrying a ring it's like. Avish: yeah oh my God you're able to do that, and no one can do that cool. Mike: yeah yeah totally the magic in the the part of job is that magic does exist it's not like one of these conan ones where. Mike: magic is kind of like it's like low fantasy or magic kind of reviled no no there's there's magic and there's you know. Avish: it's around knows about it, it exists and it's a big part of the story. Mike: yeah exactly uh. Avish: So we're gonna there's monsters usually often a dragon or. Avish: Yes, troll like some kind of big bad monster. Mike: yep there's gonna be there's gonna be. Mike: The monster scale up through the movie so the initial attacks are with little things like orcs and knowles and all that stuff and then they usually encounter a couple of like sub bosses right like Trolls or like a minute or something like that. Mike: And you know that it culminates in like usually an epic battle when they go up against the head bad guy was good to second there's one epic battle against a large evil monster, where the party has to use their resources and come together. Mike: Oh that's The other thing the party kind of has to learn to trust each other and there's like you know some act one, I want to say bickering but like posturing and kind of things like. Avish: That I don't know for my sake of time, a lot of times in these the party is formed over the course of the movie that may take too much time for our improv format, you know, but a lot of times like Oh, they meet the thief Oh, then they meet the fighter Oh, then they meet the cleric. I mean may or may not have that. Mike: yeah it's kind of in Bremen time musicians, you know there's always a single had bad guy even if he's the member of a larger cult or a larger government there's always a head bad guy which they have to take down at the end of the movie. Avish: That is always. Either a wizard or hazmat. Mike: Yes, yes, exactly so let's just for the sake of this just make sure the BAT let's just had a bad guy be a wizard or spell a spell caster yeah. Avish: Oh, he may or may not also be the monster or the monster, maybe a secondary. Mike: Right his lieutenant um let me think what else, what else what are some other okay that's the setup the tropes the adventures they go through their i'm. Avish: busy yes here's the like quests or or obstacles there's there's almost always a journey right there trying to get from point A to Point B. Mike: Yes, um it depends upon how deep you want to get we actually refer back to even crawl for this. Mike: there's two there's two reasons you do the quests in the shows or other information quests trying to find out where the guy lives or they're stockpiling quests it's like I gotta get the magic scroll or I got to get the destiny hammer. Avish: Right, I think it's yeah I think it's a, I think it's much more cliche to say we have to go find the weapon to use to defeat the whatever. Mike: yeah the glade. If the glue well, what do you think um there's all you know all the characters are all the secondary characters that show up our character chores and or pastiche is there's like very little like. There's very little thought going into depth with these characters that's half the fun is that you're like. Avish: Oh it's a toy J. Mike: One knows a drunken fighter right he's here's a here's a half length okay he's going to be a nimble tongue, you know sneaky little TV kind of guy right. Avish: yeah yeah there's not a lot of not game of thrones or each character is like very complex yeah. Mike: or like ever on the whole point of the DVD Rom was like oh yeah you can have like a good cobalt and an evil Elf. Avish: You know kind of thing yeah that's gonna give us wisecracking your fighters off your cleric has overly pious like it's. Mike: yeah it's got no money we break it up this way this, this is an astonishingly like simplistic set of tropes we've we've broken down movies, that have been a lot more nuanced than this. Avish: yeah this just gets complicated because when you got a party got and then like it's like a lot can be a lot of plot can be a lot of characters none of those things are particularly deep or complex. Avish: New Right, and that is the end of our five minute timer. Mike: sounds good to me. Transcription of the “Creating the Outline” Segment (Unedited and un-cleaned up) Avish: Alright, so now, this is where we spend five minutes hashing out creating an outline for the movie we're going to do we're going to do we're going to use a four act structure which is similar three but we take the big actor and break it into two halves so we have for X. We're going to cover the outline now but because this is improv and improv comedy with games and we're things we may veer from this, but this is our kind of our kind of lifeline will use so let's reset the timer. Mike: yep one resume to change any and everything. Avish: Exactly alright so to discuss the outline we usually start with a trailer or prologue I feel when you're talking epic fantasy slash dungeon dragons the almost it's almost always a prologue. Mike: I think, so too, if you want to set the stage. Avish: yeah that prologue is usually something involving either the bad guy or the history or the object. Mike: Yes, yes, the pro level you either be showing the bad guy and why is evil as nefarious plan right or a scene with the macguffin object. Avish: mode this it's like the bad guy you see him being nefarious like he's trying to implement his big world ending plan, but it fails, and then you realize it fails because Oh, we don't have the macguffin. Mike: Right. Avish: He realized Oh, you know where is the macguffin and then. Mike: yeah now the only thing is in in fantasy oftentimes the macguffin device it's a subtle difference does actually have some useful powers like. Avish: yeah real macguffin like has no actual impact. Mike: Right, the Maltese falcon right it's everybody wants it know or or the The case of golden the tarantino film. Avish: Pulp Fiction right yeah this is yeah it actually does something but yeah you'll kind of learn about it, and maybe the bad guy. Mike: yep alright so act one. Avish: Act one we obviously meet the hero almost always some kind of a simple villager. Mike: yeah this is hero's journey 101 right it's like the everyday you know i'm, then you know let's play the hero's journey card like they get a call to adventure somebody helped me obi wan kenobi you're my only hope so i'm like that. Avish: they're usually yeah either they they stumble across either the either the objects or the bad guys, you know, like um you know they're out in the world, and you know they see someone being attacked, so they intervene or they kind of fall in a cave and they find this object like Oh, what is it so. Mike: yeah yeah i'm. Avish: accidentals how they get. Avish: Initially embroiled in the. Mike: Right and then you know what here's what's gonna happen, I think the hero needs to go out to fix the evil, but as woefully unequipped and must recruit help that's how the party's gonna kind of right. Avish: yeah so at the end of act one is when he kind of sets out probably on his own, and I was actually kind of start gathering up the party. Mike: yeah exactly so it says how to stop the body. But is it under prepared needs help. Avish: Yes, busy, and act one something bad will happen, it will be kind of thrust out to. Mike: who's literally is like reading like Star Wars it's like. it's like Jesus is like. Avish: How to gather his pilot and is wiki and. Active active. Mike: gathers his party and then a series now for the impromptu we just want to be like a couple of requests. Avish: And I know you like one question act by one question each. You know act like act act to me will be the quest to find out where the object is And then act three will be them questing to get the object. Mike: yeah. Avish: back to the quest to learn act threes the quest to get but then at three is going to end in some kind of a encounter disaster where they. You know, lose to the bad guy or they lose the object like they get it, but then they lose it like a bad guy gets it, and so the kind of all is lost moment. Mike: yeah yeah yeah What did you these happens, they lose either either lose the macguffin. or bad guy captures some of the party. Avish: or both. Mike: or all your all right, you know, are all the party right, you know and then what happens in act for is the ingenious rescue of party. Requiring. Avish: And then the final confrontation. Mike: Or the macguffin yep and then final confrontation. Which is almost always one of two things it's a big. Big bad monster fight. Right or a stop the big bad evil guy plans. timed it's almost always like the rituals happening and. Avish: As yeah there's urgency and usually there's some kind of twist on how to beat the bad guy it's not just like oh I killed him with my sword it's usually like oh I realized that if I you know kill his cat that will force him and i'll be his familiar so he'll be dead, then. Mike: This factory, because the. Avish: last thing i'll say runs out of time here is that X. X to certainly and even in act three you know the hero is often like. ineffectual insecure lacking confidence and act, the kind of the finale is where he steps into his or her accepts his role and confidence and realizes, the key to his power. Mike: Yes, and and the and the last other one to that is a party has trouble in the beginning kind of finding its groove. But the PowerPoint have asked for, is that the parties working together smoothly as a team they figured out each other's strengths in the way to support each other that's a really important part for good. fantasy right it's okay if they're if they're screwing up in the afternoon at three and they're like fighting against that fighting, but like they're not. Avish: optimizing but they're optimized by at for. Alright awesome all right good, that is the end of our outlining days. Mike: so simple when you put it. In a fantasy novel.
This week, we're taking a look at The New Guardians! DC's short-lived attempt at a topical superhero comic is... look. Just strap in. This is one of the wildest comic rides you'll ever go on. ----more---- Episode 14 Transcript Mike: [00:00:00] Y'all need Satan. Mike: Welcome to Ten Cent Takes, the podcast where we cringe at cursed comics, one issue at a time. My name is Mike Thompson, and I am joined by my cohost, the taskmaster of trivia herself, Jessika Frazer. Jessika: Ooh, it is I. Mike: How are you doing tonight? Jessika: Oh, pretty good. How are you? Mike: Uh, you know, I, I can't complain the week is coming to an end, so it's, something I'm looking forward to is this weekend and just chillin' out. Jessika: Thank goodness. Yes, my BFF is in town, so that's, I'm very excited. She lives in Maine, so it's like very, very exciting that she is here. She's from around here, but just like visiting right now. So yes, I'm excited. Mike: That's rad. If you're [00:01:00] new to the show, the purpose of this podcast is to study comic books in ways that are both fun and informative, hopefully. What we like to do is we like to look at some of the weirdest, strangest, silliest, or coolest moments in comic books, and then talk about how they are woven into the larger fabric of pop culture and history. Today, we are going to be looking at the New Guardians, one of DC's stranger and more interesting maxi series that they produced from the 1980s. All right. Jessika: I'm vigorously shaking my head, as you were saying. And I'm just like, here we go. Mike: That was not a face that said my body is ready. Jessika: No, it's, it's not ready. Like, I mean, there's no lie. Mike: I, I don't know. I, I don't know if anybody can truly be ready to talk about the New Guardians.[00:02:00] Jessika: Are we going to have to put some sort of a warning? We're absolutely gonna have to put a warning on this episode. Like if you have little ears, please, I don't care what other episode, like we throw the F bomb around if that's your thing. That's fine. Most episodes are probably okay for that. But this one, please put the little ears away. Because I'm not holding back. Mike: We're going to have to do an extra swearing warning is what you're saying. Jessika: Yeah. Like we'll have almost a content warning. I mean, we're getting into some, some heavy content this episode. Mike: All right. Before we do that, though, we should talk about one cool thing that we've read or watched recently. So why don't you take it? Jessika: So knowing full well that I'm very behind in my media consumption. I watched the first episode of Star Wars' the Bad Batch. Mike: Oh, nice. Yeah, that looks like a really cool show. Jessika: It's really good. Yes. I [00:03:00] really, really liked it. The first episode was legit, almost movie length. It's 70 minutes long. Mike: Wow. Jessika: And I wasn't really expecting that. So I was, as I was watching it I'm like how long if I've been watching this show? Like, I mean, it was really good. I was involved and everything, but at one point I was just like, how long has this been? And I did the little button and I was like, oh, that makes sense. So it just was kind of. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: I love how the show is recreating the bits that we don't get to see about the rise of the empire and what that looked like from the inside of like the empire itself, which is so fascinating. And the computer animation is really neat. The 3d appearance gives it like some realism and depth. Mike: Yeah. And from what I've seen is that animation style that they kind of started with 15 years ago with the clone wars series. That's kind of continued on, right? Yeah. I've only [00:04:00] watched a little of that, but that stuff has gotten so cool with all the different things that they've done with it. Jessika: It really has. So yeah, I'm excited. I'm gonna watch some more of that one. And what about you? What are you checking out? Mike: Well, Sarah and I watched the Suicide Squad last weekend and we really enjoyed it, but I want to talk about that later on. I started reading a new comic series that I picked up at Brian's Comics in Petaluma over the weekend, it's called Nocterra, and it's from Image comics. It's written by it's written by Scott Snyder and it's illustrated by Tony S Daniel. And it, it gives me similar vibes to Undiscovered Country, which is another series from Image and Snyder himself. I'm only one issue in, but the core concept is that it's this post-apocalyptic world a couple of decades after something called the big PM. Basically that is permanent night's settled over everything and all of these spooky monsters that they, they spiritually feel a little bit like the xenomorphs from Aliens, but they don't look like them.[00:05:00] They reside in the darkness and they can only be kept at bay with bright lights. The comic is following Val, who was a young girl when the big PM hit as she has since become a ferryman, which is, she's basically a big rig trucker, but she's transporting cargo and that can be people, or it can be other things between the different outposts of humanity. And the first issue sees her getting hired by this mysterious guy who is all of a sudden he shows her that he is sporting a fresh sunburn. And, and that's kind of where it's going from there. It's interesting. I'm really curious to see where it goes. So, yeah, I'm gonna head back up to the shop and pick up the other issues that they have. Jessika: Very fun. Mike: Yeah. Mike: All right. Are you ready to actually do this? Jessika: Uh, yeah. Mike: All right. Jessika: There was pain in my voice, but we're here. [00:06:00] You gave me an out earlier to be totally, to be totally fair. Mike: I did. Okay. So, this episode is happening because you were the one who sent me a TikTok from Nikhil Clayton, who, first of all, he is absolutely delightful and he has a series called What the Fuck Comics, and this particular video was focused on a character called Hemogoblin, who is literally a white supremacist AIDS vampire. And then if you want to do a. I feel like we need to play this so that our listeners can hear the delightful summary of how batshit this character was. Jessika: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Goodness gracious. Hello, and welcome back to What the Fuck Comics, the show where we discuss old plot lines and characters, and ask the ever important question. What the fuck? So good news, person, right now. This little monstrosity behind me is the Hemogoblin. He [00:07:00] was a doozy character from the 1980s, and if his name gives you a bad feeling about where we're going with this, you're probably right. He was the creation of a white supremacist group with the ultimate goal of getting rid of all non white people. How? The same way Reagan was going to do it, with the fucking thing AIDS epidemic. Yeah, this guy is an AIDS vampire. He's got all this classic vampire powers, but with the slight exception that when he bites you, you don't become a vampire, you just get AIDS. And I stress again, the he debuted in the 1980s. This was DC's attempt at being topical. Now, thankfully he was only in a handful of issues, so he didn't have a very big effect on anything, but wait, what's that? Sorry. Nevermind. He killed someone. Specifically this guy, Extrano. Extrano was a wizard superhero whose name may or may not have translated directly to strange. Who also just happened to be openly gay. And yes, after a fight with the Hemogoblin, he contracted AIDS and eventually died. And what happened to everyone's favorite personification of mocking tragedy? He also died. Of AIDS [00:08:00] Because what else was going to happen? DC, what the fuck? Yeah. Mike: Yeah. So, uh, you sent me that video, Jessika: Yeah, I did. Mike: What was your initial reaction to it when you first saw it?I'm curious. Jessika: At first I thought, okay, in no way, can this be real? But we all know how awful people are. I was mouth agape in shock, honestly, and I did, I did immediately think of you. I sent it to you within a minute of seeing it because I was like, fuck, do you know about this? Mike: This is, this is the, the pinnacle of our friendship is that, that you saw something that terrible and you send it to me. Jessika: Oh, [00:09:00] Mike: But yeah, because as soon as you sent this to me, I was like, fuck, do I know about this? I wrote about it! And I got really excited to tell you all about the New Guardians and Hemogoblin and everything else terrible about comics. Jessika: So yes, every one I did, I opened this can of worms. So either, I'm sorry, or you're welcome, however, you're taking this. Mike: It's a little bit of both. I mean, I'm not going to lie. I was so excited at the idea of talking about how completely bad shit this entire thing is. So. Jessika: Oh, well let's, let's plow on. This is something. Mike: Yeah. Hemoglobin appeared in a comic series from the late eighties called the New Guardians, but in order to talk about the New Guardians, we needed to actually take a step back and talk about Millennium, which was this giant DC crossover comic event that the team spun out of. So, Millennium took place [00:10:00] in early 1988, and it was the company's third crossover. Before that they had Crisis on Infinite Earths and Legends. And you, and I've talked about Crisis briefly in the past. We noted about how it was this giant crossover thing that streamlined DC's, rather convoluted comics time. And it created something coherent that wove together, not only classic comic characters, like the Justice Society and the Charleston comic characters that DC had recently acquired like Blue Beetle and the Question and Peacemaker, who is now in the DCEU as part of the Suicide Squad. But it also made, it made all those characters, a coherent part of the timeline with the modern DC characters, like the Justice League and Superman and Batman, et cetera, et cetera. Crisis is still this like widely acclaimed storyline, a lot of critics and readers still feel that it is [00:11:00] arguably the best crossover ever. I've read it. I like it a lot. I think it's groundbreaking for what it did, and as a result, I think it deserves a special place in comics history. Legends in term was Legends was fine. It's passable I've re-read it several times., and I always forget the main story except for a couple of random plot points, including that, that was what introduced us to the Suicide Squad. And then after that we got Millennium. Millennium was written by Steve Engelhart and he's this pretty prolific comics writer who has been in the industry for a while. I think he might be retired at this point, from the seventies through the nineties, he was pretty prolific. He bounced back and forth a lot between Marvel and DC during the seventies and eighties, but the seventies is arguably when he did his best work. He wrote a really well-known run on Dr.Strange for a couple of years from 74 to 76. And then he also co-created Shang-Chi with [00:12:00] Jim Starlin in 1973, which we're about to get a movie of. It also sounds like he did a lot of drugs during the same period. , and he's talked about it pretty openly. There's this collection of interviews and essays from across the industry called Comics Between the Panels, and he gave us this amazing quote. Jessika: Oh, goodness. We'd rampage around New York City. There was one night when a bunch of us, including Jim Starlin went out on the town. We partied all day, then did some more acid than roamed around town until dawn, and saw all sorts of amazing things, most of which ended up in Master of Kung Fu, which Jim and I were doing at the time. Mike: Yeah. And master of Kung Fu is what Shang-Chi's original series was called. Jessika: Got it. Oh, wow. Mike: This little quote has absolutely nothing to do with our overall discussion, but it's such a wonderful, weird little detail about the [00:13:00] guy that I felt we had to include it. Jessika: It gives me a really good idea of why this was as drug-addled as it was. Well, there were other reasons. Mike: I'm gonna show you the cover of Millennium's first issue. And I'd like for you to paint us a word picture. Jessika: All right. So in red with yellow behind it, it says Millennium week one, Millennium, DC. 75 cents. And then it has all of the DC superheroes, kind of like that portrait in the Shining, like they're all kind of stacked up, back there and they're looking at something, it's called The Arrival at the bottom. So my guess is they're looking at aliens, which is such a hot topic, every DC superhero that I can recall is in this picture. Mike: It is a veritable who's who? Of DC characters, Jessika: Yeah. Mike: But I mean, they all look [00:14:00] horrified. Jessika: They do, they look horrified. It's all in gray tone with a little bit of green splashed on it. Mike: Yeah. It promises something that it doesn't really deliver on. Millennium was, it was interesting because they basically were dropping every issue of the core series, I believe every week, so that's how you were getting week one, week, two, week three. Because the core series ran for two months. But it also features this really complicated plot. So, the arrival that is advertised on the cover basically occurs when a Guardian of the Universe, the guys who run the Green Lanterns named, and I'm not making this up, Herupa, Hando Hu, all H's, starting. And then the female equivalent of the Guardians, which I believe they are responsible for the Star Sapphires, which are the pink color, the pink equivalent, and they're all about love. Because the Green Lanterns, at this point they've established that [00:15:00] there are different rings for each color of the emotional spectrum. The Zamoran girlfriend is Nadia Safir. Herupa and Nadia are on this quest to unlock the super potential of 10 people on earth, who they deem the Chosen, they say that these people will become immortal and they're going to guide humanity into its next stage of evolution. But they're really vague about all of that. Essentially these people are destined to become the next group of the Guardians and kind of take over running the universe, since the Guardians and their girlfriends have decided to kind of peace out to another part of the universe and then enjoy some debatably well-earned retirement after a few billion years of running things. Jessika: This is your problem now. Mike: Yeah, exactly. Herupa and Nadia show up to all these superheroes and then announce their mission, and then they do it in a way that's not even remotely dramatic. Basically they show up, they tell the heroes what's going on, and then the heroes agreed to help find and protect the Chosen [00:16:00] and everyone starts making plans to do so. And then meanwhile, this plan is opposed by a group of robots that are known as the Man Hunters. The Man Hunters were the original version of the Green Lantern Corps. They were the beta test. They basically doled out justice for about half a billion years, and then they went insane. And then the Guardians replaced them with the Green Lantern Core. I think part of the established insanity honestly just involves nursing a grudge for 3 billion years, because that's how long they've been around. And they like to hang out and just basically sulk on their hidden planet, which is apparently undetectable, and then ruin the Guardian's plans whenever they can. Obviously they decide to wreck Herupa's plans because they're still pissed off and they have a bunch of double agents on earth who are androids, or mind-controlled people, or traitors, who help attack the heroes and basically try to kill the Chosen. Jessika: Wow. That's like a new level. Like, that's next [00:17:00] level petty. Mike: I mean, they're, they're an entire robot race of that shitty dude who can't get over the fact that his ex has moved on and is dating somebody else. Jessika: Oh no, we've all met that guy. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Ugh. If you haven't met that guy, you are that guy. I hate to tell you. Mike: Yeah, right? So the Guardians shitty robot exes wind up being a little successful. There were originally going to be 10 Chosen, but by the end of the series, only six are actually still around to receive their powers because it takes a while before they're granted their specialness. One of them was senile when the series began. There's another guy named Janwilheim kroef. I think that's how you say his name, it's Afrikaans, so I'm sure I'm butchering it. He gets kicked out because he's such a racist asshole from Apartheid, South Africa that nobody wants anything to do with him. [00:18:00] And then I think two of them are murdered over the course of the story, but we don't see it in the core series. Cause there's like 30 tie-in issues and I haven't read them all because I have shit to do. But yeah, the final roster of the New Guardians includes Jet, who is a Jamaican woman who, when we meet her is living in fascist Britain, which I think is just Margaret Thatcher's England, I've never heard it referred to as fascist England, that was a new one. Also she has a written accent that I'm going to call comically offensive. Jessika: It is so, it is, I, yes, that is a great description of what that is. That's how I felt about it as well. Mike: We also get Ram, who is a Japanese businessman who then becomes a walking computer and can talk to electronics. Gloss is this woman from the People's Republic of China. Who can suddenly command dragon lines while showing this insane amount of cleavage. And she keeps on flirting with Ram too. It's really weird and creepy.[00:19:00] Betty Clawman. She was an Aborigine who eventually wound up living in the dream time. She's not really a presence in the New Guardians, but she's still officially a member. There's Extrano, who was noted in that TikTok video, who was a Peruvian gay man who develops magical abilities. Extrano's an interesting case, because at this point in time, the Comics Code Authority would not actually allow publishers to acknowledge his sexuality. But this dude is so flamboyant, he insists on being called auntie, and when the Guardian first shows up to announce that he is one of the chosen, he kind of flirts with him? Jessika: There's also that part where they're talking about sex and God, I don't know why they would be having such an overt conversation about sex, but Harbinger says something about, oh, would you want to go have sex? [00:20:00] He's like, not with you, honey, or something like that. Mike: Something to that effect. Yeah. Jessika: To that effect, yeah. And it was like, okay. Mike: Yeah. No, he's very flamboyant. Like there is, I mean, come on guys. You're not fooling anyone. Jessika: He like points his toe out in a lot of the comics, like in a, in a way that they only draw females doing like a lot of the way they have him standing is very feminine, which is interesting. Not always. Mike: His outfit originally, it's almost like a unisex series of magical robes, where you could see it on either a male or female character. And then his hair is very flamboyant too. He has in a lot of ways, very effeminate features, which then changes later on when they give him that costume change. And we'll talk about that later on but you know, he's this kind of nebbish little guy and he's very flamboyant, and, if you grew up in the Bay Area, you knew a lot of people like that. So, the final, one of the Chosen, [00:21:00] if I remember right, is Tom Kalmaku, he's one of Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern's friends, he's a mechanic for Ferris air. He's been around since the sixties. And eventually it's revealed that he has the power to “bring out the best in people”, but, it's really vaguely defined and we don't really know what it means. And then he winds up declining to go with the team, cause he doesn't want to put his family at risk, but he's still a part of the New Guardians storyline overall. And then after that, they were joined by a longtime villain called the Fluoronic Man, who he's got a bunch of powers over nature. And then Harbinger, who was one of the main characters during Crisis on Infinite Earths, and she's been kicking around the DC universe afterwards, but she wound up being another main character during the Millennium storyline. So that is the TLDR summary, which is already too long, but whatever, but now we can actually talk about the New Guardian series. Like how would you describe [00:22:00] this series? If you had to sell it to someone with an elevator pitch, like, what would you say. Jessika: Overall the New Guardians have been chosen to be Earth's protectors. They are from around the world with the obvious idea that there is a global participation and representation, their main arc is against a white supremacist who is causing all of the destruction, seen in the comics due to his desire to rid the world of all other races. They are basically world social justice warriors who take a very active role in change. Mike: First of all, that's a very succinct summary of that comic. The series was originally written by Englehart, he was continuing on, and it was drawn by veteran artists, Joe Staton. Cary Bates took over writing duties with issue two and pat Broderick, who is the guy who created Tim Drake, AK Robyn, number three, eventually finished out the series as its penciler. Here's the funny thing, the series isn't [00:23:00] really all that well known or remembered by the general public, but it's kind of notorious within the comics industry and among certain collectors because its villains were so fucking bonkers. Like in the first two issues, we get Hemogoblin who is a vampire that he's sort of a vampire. He looks like count Orloff from Nosferatu he's got the same face and everything, but he was created in a lab by Janwilheim Kroef's scientists like Janwilheim Kroef has apparently just, I don't know exactly how he has access to all the super doomsday science, but somehow he does. So the vampire winds up coming to the United States ends up attacking the group in a dance club. If I remember right or no, right outside a dance club, that's what happened. And then he bites Jet, who is, I have to state this one of the [00:24:00] first black, super heroines in DC comics history, and also attacks Extrano. And I don't think he bites him, but he scratches him, but he gives both of those characters HIV. Jessika: Mmhm. Mike: And then he winds up dying because this system burns itself out. Thanks to his accelerated form of aids that he has. And Harbinger it's weird. They don't quite explain how, but she's almost like cosmically sympathetic to Jet's being. And so she winds up developing the same wound as Jed and then also developing HIV. But that goes away. Jessika: Yeah, they had some symbiotic link. It was very strange. Mike: Yeah. Symbiotic. That's the word I was looking for. It's very weird. Um, and it's, it's not really explained for a comic, for a comic series with so much exposition, there's a lot that is not well explained or defined. Jessika: There's one point where they're obviously making [00:25:00] fun of their own exposition and they're like, hey, I know this is a lot to listen to. I appreciate you being. I was like, oh gosh. Yeah. Don't you know it. Mike: Yeah. Hemoglobin winds up dying from AIDS because of course he fucking does. And, and then the next issue, whisks is off to Columbia where we get to meet Snowflake, who I love Snowflake. How, how would you describe him? I'm curious. Jessika: Oh, man. Just your way. Cause I have so heavy. He's basically just a really coked up weightlifter. Mike: Fair. Jessika: Yeah. Apparently it has something to do with the power of cocaine, heavy quotes, coursing through him that gives him his powers question, mark. I have to read this description of himself because it is just something. And he says this at one [00:26:00] point during the comic. Mike: Yeah. And he is also a pyrokinetic, we should note, so this quote has like extra weight to it. Jessika: Exactly. Every cell of my being burns with the white hot ecstasy. Cocaine is my god, and I am the instrument of its will. And he has all these coked up people that are basically just zombies doing his way. But like nowhere, does it say why he's the instrument of drugs and not his fellows? Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Maybe he was the only one that could afford to buy a fancy spandex suit and spend all of his time getting yoked. Maybe that's it. They're like, oh yeah, this guy, this guy with privilege. Pick him. Mike: Well, and he, like, he like really beats the shit out of the New Guardians too. And then he gets randomly thrown into a shed with a bunch of chemicals and then it explodes and that's how you get them. It. Jessika: Yeah. He died in [00:27:00] what was basically a drug shed explosive. Mike: Yeah, I'm okay. I'm sorry. But if this was a horror movie and the monster died that way, it would just be like, okay. So we're obviously going to have the guy come back in the next movie and I was waiting for that, but we never get him back again. Jessika: I was waiting for that, also. I was waiting for that like Ninja Turtles, like here comes Shredder with his hand out of like the rubble. Mike: Nope. Jessika: Oh my gosh. So what did you think of that guy's like Fabio white hair. That was like a point of pride, but you know, it had to take some constant maintenance, so. Mike: Well, I mean, he had that much cocaine, what if he just sat there and used that as his like dry shampoo? Jessika: Oh, oh that's, that's awful because the, I, yeah, that's awful. That's awful. It's really funny too. Cause it's like they're mixing up their drugs, if they think that coke is going to cause super strengthened agility. [00:28:00] Like, what they should have had was a coked up guy that just talked really fast and wanted to party and have a bunch of sex. And like, that was his super power. Mike: Right. Jessika: Like that's, that's what I've always seen portrayed in the movies and shit. People don't get really strong. That's PCP, when somebody is really crazy on like PCP or something, that's always been what I've heard, but like, that's always in very rare instances when somebody goes off the handle or something and you hear about that, but it was so ridiculous. I mean, you could literally smell the war on drugs, undertones. They were palpable. Mike: Oh yeah. Jessika: I could taste them. Mike: Reagan? Papa Reagan, is that you? Jessika: Are you listening? I am. Oh, I mean, all it all, he was certainly memorable. I mean, maybe not for the right reasons. Mike: All right? [00:29:00] Well, I'm going to break this to you. Snowflame has actually like infamous in comic book history. Like I, I was looking up his first appearance today just to see what stores are selling that issue for. Jessika: I'm sorry is for you mean like in this issue, was he in more than just this? Mike: No, as far as I know, that's his only issue. Jessika: Oh God, you scared me. I was like. Mike: No. So, but yeah, like it's funny because people still talk about that one villain. They don't talk about the New Guardians, but they will talk about Snowflame because they, I think they find it charming, basically the, you know, just how ridiculous the villain is. But his first appearance, like is going for 50 to 75 bucks at a lot of stores these days. Jessika: Oh. Wow. Mike: Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think the fact that his powers are fueled by cocaine is just, it's kind of charming, honestly, like people just sit there and like, oh, that's cute. If only we knew then what we know now. Jessika: Right. [00:30:00] Mike: Like, I don't know if you got told this growing up, but, but I was part of that DARE generation. Jessika: Oh, Absolutely. Cops in the classroom and everything, which no, don't do that. Mike: Yeah. And I remember every time the cops came to DARE and they were telling us about all the drugs, they would tell us cocaine is the worst drug out there. Jessika: Which, lol. Mike: Yeah. Like I could not help, but think of that when I was reading this issue. And I mean, I guess it makes sense. Cocaine was pretty prevalent during the eighties and crack cocaine was really starting to become this huge epidemic in cities across the country by the end of the decade. But, you know, cocaine was the drug that white people knew better. So it got focused on a lot in media, like, you know, in TV shows and comics and movies, all that stuff. And then even though Snowflame died and never came back, apparently, the issue after also deals with [00:31:00] cocaine, because like the villains are, they're like a gang of child soldiers in LA and there. Jessika: I'm throwing my hands up because I don't even know. Mike: Yeah. Cause they're referred to as kids at one point, but like some of them have a lot of facial hair and it's very weird. And they stage, an attack on the New Guardians' bungalow hotel that they're staying at. Because I guess being the Chosen if humanity doesn't pay enough to afford an Avenger's tower, but this gang is also paid in cocaine by Snowflame's people. Jessika: It is implied that they're children, But it's like, come on. You're not going to be overtaken by like a gang of children, like this is, this is not the Newsies. Like, you're fine. Mike: No, but the other thing is like, you know, in the eighties, that was really, again, part of the whole gang panic was the eighties and nineties. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: Like, you know, that was a huge thing where, news [00:32:00] media at the time was just painting teenage gangs out to be the scourge of the country. Jessika: Yeah, well, and they've got both the gang aspect and the drug aspect that they're like, oh, watch out every one don't want your kids involved in this. Mike: Fuck, yeah, they were really beaten that horse well past the point of being dead. Jessika: God. It was. So it was so obvious. My cheeks hurt a little bit, cause it really smacked me. Mike: Yeah. Well, those first three issues are really kind of the most fun, I felt because after that, the series just kind of limps along. And Jet keeps getting weaker and weaker due to the virus, progressing from HIV to AIDS, because I don't know Hemogoblin had some accelerated form of it or something. And then she eventually dies when she sacrifices herself, helping fight off an alien invasion. She sacrifices herself because she ran out of energy because she had AIDS. Jessika: [00:33:00] Yeah. Yeah. And then it's not lost on me that they choose the one woman of color and the gay dude to both get AIDS out of everyone or HIV at the very least. Mike: Yeah, it is. We'll, we'll talk about that later on, but it's not great. After this point, Janwilheim Kroef becomes more and more of the central villain as the story progresses. Eventually he has his plan revealed and it's kind of weird, it's like to make white supremacy go global, which, I mean, first of all, it was already global, but he's basically trying to turn it up to 11. The comic is not at all subtle for drawing parallels between him and Nazis. And then, I mean, it's just, it's so over the top that you almost hit that point where you feel like you're disconnecting from it, because it's just beating you over the head with this message. For the last few issues he's running around and he's got a military uniform with a black arm band and he's [00:34:00] throwing up his hand while he's talking. And, you know, speaking about the inferior races and how he's going to unite the world under his banner of hatred. It's uh. Jessika: Oh, yeah. he does a whole, like, you know, leader, speech, propaganda situation. I mean, it's, it was really heavy handed. Mike: Yeah. And then he does the thing where he kidnaps Tom Kalmaku's girlfriend, and then she's pregnant. And he wants to surgically experiment on her unborn child. But it's very nonsense and nothing really comes from it other than eventually he gets a hold of Tom, and then thinks that he killed him by throwing him into a pit of minorities that he's surgically experimented on or something and turned them all into cannibal mutants. Jessika: Get a but like, can we talk about how fucking macabre that whole fucking situation was them? [00:35:00] The fucking, like they were talking about dissecting fetuses and stuff. It was fucking wild. I mean, they had a fetus that was hooked up to stuff, like in a thing when he was in like having a dream. And it was just like, it was insane. It was a lot. Mike: It was really a lot, but at the same time, it was kind of boring. Like it was really gruesome and horrifying in concept, but then when they put it on the page, it was, it was all delivered with so much exposition and it wasn't actually. Moving in any way, like I was just bored. Jessika: No, it wasn't, it wasn't, but I guess it was just, it was shocking to me that that was where they were going with it. You know what I mean? That, that, it just was a lot. And for me, I could kind of tell that it was written by men. Mike: Oh yeah. Totally. Jessika: It's just, that was just something that I wasn't really expecting, to be honest with you. Mike: Yeah. And I had forgotten about it up until the point where I was rereading these issues. I don't have the sales data on the series. [00:36:00] I get the impression that this was a series that was not doing well, sales wise, and the writers were just trying to do what they could to get people, to pay attention to it. And I don't know if that's the case. It's a feeling that I get in my gut, I could be way off. Jessika: The vibe, I hear. Mike: The other thing is like, aside from being really kind of gross and horrifying, this whole plot about Kroef and what he's trying to do, it just, it's kinda nonsense. It doesn't make sense. That's the only way I can describe it. Like, I dunno, he wanted to figure out how Tom got powers or something like that, and so he was going to experiment on the baby, but then the baby was totally normal. And so he just decided to blow up his mountain base and then throw Tom into a pit to get eaten by mutants. But then Tom developed his own super powers at the same time that Kroef was developing his and Kroef is all about. Jessika: Latent fucking super powers. Jesus. Mike: Oh it's dumb.Yeah. And [00:37:00] Kroef finds up developing the superpowers to basically bring out hatred and other people and also make them serve him while Tom becomes. Jessika: Which, also, unexplained? Mike: Yeah. And then Tom is basically Jesus and Buddha combined. He has that aforementioned like “bring out the best ability”, where he just kind of sits and meditates and then appears to people in visions and can literally hand wave away anything that he wants to it's. You know, viewing this through a modern lens. I'm like, oh, so he was that be best campaign by Melania Trump just made manifest. Jessika: Yes. Yes. Yes. Mike: It sounds simultaneously wholesome and absolutely incomprehensible. I don't know how else to describe it, but yeah. And basically Tom saves the day at the very end of the series. He rescues the New Guardians from Kroef who is like mind controlling them or something. And then halfway through, they also gave Extrano a much more masculine costume [00:38:00] and he was suddenly jacked and he ran around with a crystal skull, which he would use for magic again, not well explained, whatever. Jessika: Yep. I was what I, it felt like he got more jacked. And I was wondering about that. Mike: Oh no. He, 100% started to hit the gym and take his creatine. Jessika: I was like, did the skull contain protein powder? I. Mike: Right. Jessika: He was actually at a GNC this whole time. Mike: Well, you know, you had a side hustle. Cause superhero-ing doesn't pay the bills. Jessika: Oh, no. Has he gotten involved in a multi-level marketing scheme? Do we need to save him from that now? Mike: Yeah. Probably Beach Body. Jessika: It worked for me. Mike: Ugh. If you become my downline, I can get you shredded and castin' spells too. [00:39:00] Yeah. And you know, it's, it's funny because all of the New Guardian's powers are really vague and, you know. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: It's funny because, Extrano, when he was first announced, he's like, I'm a witch. Cause that's, that was his thing. And I'm like, okay, cool. So you're a magic user. His magic is really, it's not well explained what he can and can't do. It seems like half the time he's just casting illusions. And then, you know, suddenly he's able to generate a force field and levitate everybody around and whatever. Okay. Jessika: He's basically the plug for the leaks in the team. Mike: Yes. Yeah. Whatever they might be. Jessika: Filling that void. Yep. Mike: What was your overall impression of this series? Jessika: It went from goofy to intense to, it just was like, you know, we already talked about the fetus dissection conversations. Obviously I got stuck on that because holy shit, that was [00:40:00] extreme. Okay. So I did like that there were a balanced amount of women and that there was a global representation, which was definitely something I had been whining about in our last episode. So thank you. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: But the women just had absolutely nothing on, you know, Gloss' outfit literally cut down to her pelvic bone. I mean, there was literally like two, it was two inches from her couch. Mike: Do you remember that dress that J-Lo wore to the Oscars like 25 years ago? That was super scandalous at the time? Jessika: I know the one. Yes. Mike: Yeah. No. It's the superhero equivalent of that Oscar's dress. Jessika: It sure is. Yeah. Like how are you even supposed to fight when you think you're going to slip a nip or sneak a cheek, like really how? This is a prime example of those types of comics where they look like they were drawn by a 12 year old boy. Mike: Oh, yeah. A hundred percent. And it's funny [00:41:00] because, if I remember right, in Millennium, because she's part of the People's Republic, they're all wearing like the same kind of like very nondescript kind of burlap sack style clothing that, I mean also problematic in its own way, but it's just, it was really interesting to see her go from a very kind of almost asexual character to being this horned up Asian woman stereotype. Jessika: Yeah. It was really intense. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there were at the very beginning, a few times where I was like, oh, what's going to happen next issue, but it did like, it dwindled. You know, like you said, towards the end and it just got really manic and crazy and just like, felt like a drug-induced fever dream. Mike: Yeah. It, I found myself comparing it to US 1, the series that we did a couple of episodes ago. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: Where that was another batshit shit series, but it was fun, and [00:42:00] I never found myself really getting frustrated with it because it never felt boring. And this one, I got bored a lot. Jessika: It was a little bit of a slog. Mike: But I mean, especially when characters, either the villains or the heroes were sitting there and recapping their backstory for like the 10th time, you know, it, I just don't care. Like, come on guys. You've already got me. You really think that the person reading issue number nine is not going to know what's going on. Come on. Jessika: Yeah, exactly. Mike: Yeah. And I got to agree with you, you know, you have to give the series a little bit of credit because the New Guardians was a diverse team and they had some interesting abilities, but everything about it just felt really cringey, for lack of a better word. It's like somebody took a list of the current social issues at the time, and then just like focus grouped the hell out of them. And then they created a superhero comic around it. [00:43:00] And I don't know, you can tell it's hard as in the right place, but everything about the comic itself just gets more and more painful. It's kind of akin watching someone trying to be especially woke, but you're sitting there really hoping that they're going to reign in their efforts by about 50%, by the end of it. Like, I mean, even the villains are topical. Like, the three that we talked about, we've got Janwilheim Kroef, who was part of the Apartheid government in South Africa. And this was in 1988, which is right when the apartheid was really getting put under the international media's microscope. Basically, the series was running right before Nelson Mandela got released from jail. And then we already talked about Snowflame and how he was relevant to the time. And then Hemogoblin it was topical because the AIDS crisis was really starting to take off in America at this point in time as well.[00:44:00] But yeah, it's a. It's a cringey read. Jessika: Yeah. I've just been shaking my head this whole time. The listeners can't hear that, but just know it was happening. Mike: Yeah.Yeah. You know, and it's funny cause DC doesn't really talk about the New Guardians, or the crossover they originated from, that much. Like, they acknowledge Millennium happened. They actually collected it into a graphic novel a few years ago, but it's only those core eight issues, and it really doesn't make a lot of sense because in between each issue, there is all this very crucial stuff that happens. And so those core eight issues are almost like the recaps and the setup for what's going to happen next. So it's, you know, it's still technically canon in terms of DC lore, but it's not really discussed in polite company. And I mean, case in point, Tom Kalmaku is I think still around in the [00:45:00] DC universe, Jessika: Really. Mike: He's a long time cast member of the Green Lantern comics. I know, I read a couple of issues that had him show up in, I want to say 2010. It might've been a little bit earlier than that. But I know that his character was even in that Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern movie. Jessika: Oh, you know what? No, you're right. You are right. Mike: But his powers, as far as I know, are never mentioned again, like they just kind of were like, no, that didn't really happen. Or we don't, we don't talk about that. And then, you know, it's the same with the New Guardians. They occasionally pop up individually, but they never really get the band together. I think they were still a team in Green Lantern comics, but then there was a villain named Entropy who wound up attacking the headquarters that they were operating out of. Cause they were hanging out in the Green Lantern headquarters on earth. And then it was assumed that they all died. So that TikTok video was saying that, Extrano died from HIV. [00:46:00] He might have, but as far as I know, what happened was everybody assumes that he died during that attack, and he still had HIV. But I don't know at that point, I'm not as familiar with the Green Lantern and storylines from that era. Jet somehow reappeared as the leader of the Global Guardians, Extrano had a recent cameo in Midnighter, and he was a supporting character, and he actually was like much more normcore this time around. But he was actually openly gay this time around, which was kinda cool. Jessika: Oh, good. Mike: Yeah. And then other than that, like most of the New Guardians spend a lot of time dying. So, yeah, as I mentioned, the entire team was absorbed and presumably killed by the super villain Entropy before Flash point rebooted the DC Universe, gloss was hanging out with Jet for a short while, but then she got killed by the villain, Prometheus, like, she got to decapitated. There's like, yeah, it is not subtle. And then Ram [00:47:00] was, again, it was one of those cameo things, but he was shown in passing as a victim of this villains' superpower death matches where it was like a super power fight club kind of thing, and it was shown that he had died, I think. But yeah, so yeah, that is the New Guardians and their, their wild ride across the DC Universe. Jessika: Wow. I'm going to, I'm going to put on a face mask after this. I'm gonna soak my feet, gonna decompress. Mike: And as far as I know, there is no collected version of this maxi series, like, so, you know, basically you have to buy the individual issues, at least what I've seen, which I mean, somehow I own, I think I found the entire series as like a bundle. You know, at one of the local comic shops and they were just like, whatever, like 12 bucks get out.[00:48:00] Jessika: Please take these and leave. Mike: We will pay you to take it out. Jessika: Oh God. It's like when stores want you to take cursed items home, they're like, we just don't want this in our possession any longer. Mike: Yeah. But I mean, like that said, you can find some really fun stuff in those bundle boxes. Like that's how I actually came across the whole series of US 1was at Flying Colors Comics the last time I was there. I found the first issue of Brian's, but then they had the complete collection at Flying Colors. So that was exciting. Jessika: Nice. Mike: I recently found the, I think it was the complete series of Ren and Stimpy, you know, for 30 bucks, which was fun. Jessika: Nice. And in the bundle boxes, they do like a full series? So whatever you pull it's like the whole thing? Mike: Or, they'll, do a full run of like a certain like, you know, set of issues. Jessika: Nice. Oh, that's cool. Mike: That's why I always liked to collect for, as I like to collect for the things where it's like the fun stories or the weird moments in comic history, or just, kind of cool, interesting moments. [00:49:00] And so you can find that stuff. If you're looking for just fun stuff to read, look at the, they used to call them like the quarter bins. I think they're now like dollar bins where, you know, they're the issues themselves are kind of ratty or they're worthless, but you can find a lot of really fun stuff, no, it's a great way to just enjoy comics if you're not collecting them to basically appreciate like your stock portfolio. Jessika: Very cool. Mike: Yeah. Mike: All right. Well, I believe it is time or Brain Wrinkles, which is that one thing that has comics or comics adjacent that we just can't kick out of our noggin. What is stuck in your gray matter this week? Jessika: Well, we've got another addition to the letter mafia. Mike: Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. Jessika: Ooh. So per DC cannon Tim Drake, our current Robin has. A whole mission where he gets to go save a [00:50:00] longtime friend, Bernard from the villain du jour, and during which point, Bernard confesses his feelings for Drake, whom he does not know his Robin. So he's like confessing his love and hoping that he has a chance for love. And then it ends with them going on a date. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: I love it. Mike: Yeah. It's really interesting. Jessika: He's bisexual, canonically, everyone. Mike: Yup. I'm very curious to see how this is going to play out in the future. I know a lot of right-wing shit heal comic sites and prevalent voices across the web are mad about this. And so I'm automatically overjoyed just to hear that this ruined their day. Jessika: Yeah. Yeah. Mike: Overall, the sentiment seems pretty positive to it as well, which I think speaks volumes about where we are now compared to when I started reading comics. Jessika: Agreed. Mike: Yeah. I'm pretty jazzed about it. I'm curious to see where they go with it [00:51:00] and the one thing that's been really interesting is I saw the BBC was asking what this meant for movies, and I was kind of sitting there. It doesn't fucking matter. Like they're not going to put it in a movie. Because here's the thing that a lot of people don't quite get, is that inclusivity for the LGBTQ plus community and movies is very fleeting because major movie studios, these days have recognized the power of the international box office and they thus need to put in stuff that they can edit out for the Chinese and Russian, and a handful of other smaller markets. So it was a big deal that in the last Star Wars movie, we get to see two guys kissing, it's a second and, you know, whatever that's going to get edited out in certain regions because they want to be able to make their millions. Jessika: Yeah, arguably edited out in the places that matter [00:52:00] most. Mike: Yeah, exactly. But I am glad to see that we're getting more representation and especially bi people in particular are getting more representation in meaningful, thoughtful ways. Jessika: Yes, well, and bi men. There's always been that boring trope of like how amazing it is that women can be bisexual, but it's often looked upon with disgust or completely disregarded when it comes to men. And I, quite frankly, there's no difference people, like. Mike: Yup. Jessika: It's just, it's just people hating. And it's the toxic masculinity of, you know, if you're a man, you do certain things and it's just like, come on guys, you need to back the fuck off. This is why you're as, as harmed as you are in your lives, because you had all these stupid us standards you had to stick with, and couldn't fucking talk about your feelings. And now you're just a ragey asshole. So here we are. Here we are. How do you feel? Oh, you won't tell me. [00:53:00] You don't even know. Mike: Yeah. God. Jessika: Let's see how mucho of that I cut out. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: So what about you? Um, what's wrinklin' and around in there. Mike: Yeah. You know, I can't believe how much I enjoyed The Suicide Squad. I keep on thinking about it. And I mean, I knew I was going to like it because I have yet to see anything by James Gunn that I haven't liked. I've been a fan of his since he did the movie Slither back in 2005 ish, which also had Nathan Fillion and Michael Rooker in it. Jessika: Ooh. Mike: Yeah, you know, he makes entertaining movies and I was not prepared for some of the things that happen in The Suicide Squad. It is absolutely wild what a [00:54:00] course correction that movie is, especially when you compare it to the first one. It kind of reminded me of Shizam and Birds of Prey. It was just this absolutely delightful blast of chaos. And, you know, it was fun. It was refreshing. And if this is where we're going with the DCEU, as opposed to the fucking Snyder cut, then I'm fully on board with this, like, sign me up for 10 more movies. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: Just no more Jokers, please. Jessika: I'll actually watch this one with a gusto, you know. Mike: No. Jessika: Probably sooner rather than later. Mike: Sarah wants to watch it again. Jessika: Oh, okay. Now that's a shining review then. Yes. Mike: Yeah. I'm really excited to talk with you about how batshit it is, and like the stuff that they do with it, which is really in a lot of ways, it's really brave, like what they did. They also, they kill off a lot of characters. Jessika: Ooh. Mike: I was not prepared for how many characters they were going to kill off. I knew they were gonna kill off a couple, but like. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: It's, it is astounding. [00:55:00] The choices that they made. Jessika: Damn. Maybe, I don't know everyone. What's up, y'all, we might need to do an episode about this one. Mike: I think that that would actually be pretty cool. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: Especially we could talk about how they got started, how they appeared in comics and then also how this movie in certain ways reminded me of their DC animated universe appearance. Jessika: Yes. Okay. I, if, if it compares to that, which, you know, I love that. Mike: Yeah. There's a, there's an episode of Justice League Unlimited called Taskforce X, which is a really great Suicide Squad story. Like I, yeah, that'd be kind of fun. We should, we should talk about that. But next time, our next episode, we are going to be starting something new. We're going to do, well, I guess it's like a book club. Jessika: I would say it's a book club. Yeah. Mike: Yeah. So we're going to read through and talk about the Sandman series by Neil Gaiman, the core [00:56:00] Sandman series, ahead of the Netflix TV show, which is coming out supposedly sometime this year, but I'm really excited about it. And we may actually have a couple of guests as guest hosts or maybe just one who knows we'll find out. Jessika: To be decided. Mike: But yeah, we'll be back in two weeks and until then, we'll see you in the stacks. Jessika: Thanks for listening to Ten Cent Takes accessibility is important to us. So text transcriptions of each of our published episodes can be found on our website. Mike: This episode was hosted by Jessika Frazer and Mike Thompson written by Mike Thompson and edited by Jessika Frazer. Our intro theme was written and performed by Jared Emerson Johnson of Bay Area Sound. Our credits and transition music is Pursuit of Life by Evan MacDonald and was purchased with a standard license from Premium Beat. Our banner graphics were designed by Sarah Frank, who you can find on Instagram as @lookmomdraws. Jessika: If you'd like to get in touch with us, [00:57:00] ask us questions, or tell us about how we got something wrong, please head over to tencenttakes.com or shoot an email to tencenttakes@gmail.com. You can also find us on Twitter, the official podcast account is tencenttakes. Jessika is @jessikawitha, and Jessika is spelled with a K. And Mike is @vansau, V A N S A U. Mike: If you'd like to support us, be sure to download, rate and review wherever you listen. Jessika: Stay safe out there. Mike: And support your local comic shop.
About this episode In this episode, we pay homage to martial arts movies. Specifically, “modern mystical martial arts movies” like the recently released Shang Chi movie. Also, TV shows like Wu Assassins and Iron Fist. We are both big fans (and practitioners) of the martial arts, and we love these types of movies. Hopefully that love shines through in this fun and action packed episode! Links: The Shang Chi Movie on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang-Chi_and_the_Legend_of_the_Ten_Rings About the comic Shang Chi on the Marvel Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang-Chi Wu Assassins on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Assassins The Iron Fist TV show on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Fist_(TV_series) About the comic Iron Fist on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Fist_(character) Time codes Segment 1 - Discussion the Genre Tropes: 04:43 Segment 2 - Creating the Movie Outline: 10:20 Segment 3 - Picking the Improv Comedy Games: 19:52 Start of show: 28:00 Improv Game - 4-Letter Word: 28:20 Improv Game - Emotional Lists: 33:50 Improv Game - He Said, She Said: 43:57 Improv Game - Blind Line: 53:36 Improv Game - Cutting Room: 1:08:22 End of show, into announcements: 1:23:31 More Information about the show, Mike, and Avish Subscribe to the podcast: Our Website: www.AvishAndMike.com Our Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/143183833647812 Avish's site: www.AvishParashar.com Mike's site: www.MikeWorthMusic.com/ Transcription of the “Discussing the Genre Tropes” Segment (Unedited and Un-Cleaned up) Avish: We're now going to spend five minutes chatting about the genre tropes and cliches and things so I got my timer and away we go yet maybe I might kill me again kick us off when you think of this modern martial arts mystical movie. Some things that come to mind. Mike: So what comes to mind right off the BAT we've got one main character and the main character. Usually, has no knowledge of his hidden potential let's there's a couple ways, you can do it, but I like that one he's like you know kind of a chosen one. And so it's the main character, no knowledge of his hidden potential and he is kind of call to adventure usually by a mentor figure right shows up and it's like turns out, you have this power, and you know you have to rise to the challenge and blah blah blah kind of thing um the. Avish: End true hero's journey fashion, he always refuses that call first like he doesn't believe the person or even if he realizes it then he doesn't want it, so we kind of tried to walk away. Mike: yeah yeah exactly now. Avish: And where you were saying he which, for us it probably will be, but it could be a. It could be a female as well, like buffy or whatever yeah. Mike: yeah yeah exactly um okay there's a couple of ways to go with it a lot with can be fun and we can play this one is it's it could be someone from the West. That That then is like trained by like an Eastern mentor kind of thing um or you could just go the traditional like if it's done in China or Hong Kong everything's you know oh they're all native to that region, there is a bad guy the bad guy is. off he yeah he's often also a martial arts dude wizard. Avish: Oh, I think the bad guy yeah it's always a martial arts, you have the big martial arts fight, and I would say the bad guy is either. Either has a similar power um you know, like the yin Yang type thing or once the heroes power, you know, like like oh you've got the iron fist with the bag I wants iron fist So if I kill you i'll get the iron fist. Mike: yeah. Avish: Exactly so they are also mystical. Mike: Now the question is um, here's there's two tropes to this one is there's a training element where this guy has to learn to guide or whatever has learned to harness the power and there's kind of. A rocky esque moment you know, usually as much philosophical, as it is physical or it's like his power emerges from him completely ready to go as like the ancestral energies course through him, you know I mean almost like he. inherits the skill of his 10,000 warrior ancestors and stuff you know i'm saying. Avish: yeah yeah and and a lot of times the person may already be a martial artists just not a mystical martial arts they've already got a lot of like the training and stuff in place. Mike: yeah. Avish: But then, all of a sudden, the the chosen one this comes out and then they become ultra badass Rom. From a from a storytelling standpoint, we can decide, depending on the improv game and stuff I think storytelling wise it's us little easier to not have the training sequence, because that doesn't really ever progress, the story it just sort of right development, but we can kind of decide, we got to be online. Mike: You know it's funny do you do it technically is a mystical martial arts movie highlander. Avish: yeah I guess that is it's like. The chosen one yeah. Mike: So this ties in with this trope there's almost always an earthly detective element to this like this there's This is like this battle is happening in our world like beneath it so there's almost always like. Avish: there's always yeah a cop or someone who. Mike: is investigating these mysterious things you know. Avish: yeah the highlander that, had it in in blue assassins there's one I think in. iron I haven't seen it yet, but i'm assuming there'll be some. yeah but every man yep. Mike: yep I mean a highlander they had what's your face Brenda the. Avish: yeah the gator person. Mike: um let me think what is the ultimate quest to the bad guys either trying to get the power wouldn't get my highlighter or iron fist or it's a quest from a gun. Avish: it's a. Mike: gun, a lot of times the hero is the protector of the macguffin. Avish: yeah the heroes, the protector of the macguffin but without even knowing it, like the macguffin is like part of their spirit or soul inside of them or it's like this medallion they have they don't realize that medallia and that was passed down from to their parents. Mike: Is yeah. Avish: But golfing. But yeah I can combine it too I feel like. I feel like the bad guys and a lot of these their their ultimate goal is power slash Ascension it's like Oh well, if I can kill you and take your soul or get your medallia and macguffin you know, then I can, because the God of blah blah blah, you know I can rise that level of power, I can become the chosen the highlander right like. Mike: big trouble little China, except that didn't have the mystical assassin dude oh my God he man is this as well. Just like everything in. Avish: big trouble little China is barely is I mean it didn't have the Marsh offices all mystical had like that the Asian friend was like them that's very much a mystical martial arts. Mike: geez man. Avish: And same thing right and one of the growth, the green eyes are getting more like a mortality is a big one. Mike: yep yep is there a love interest in this, there can be it's not a central. Avish: are usually is for our movies, that may or may not be necessary, but I feel like there's usually a romantic interest in there. Mike: In private romance is always interesting. Avish: So that's our five minute time, the only other thing i'd add is obviously there's a there's there's fights and henchmen and martial arts. Mike: Oh yeah like he's got a when he gets into act to which will go the next one he's going to be chewing through bad guys that's half the fun, you know is him, just like. Avish: yeah which is going to be interesting to convey in an improv audio format, but you know. Mike: I think I have an idea for a game. Transcription of the “Creating the Outline” Segment (Unedited and Un-Cleaned up) Avish: Right now we're gonna spend about five minutes hashing out our outline for this movie we are going to. We use a four X structure which is like a three act structure we just split act to into first half and second half, it flows, a little better it's because we're engineering which eventually will have a link and affiliate link to buy from our website. Mike: Oh yeah that's a great oh my God yeah. Avish: And and disclaimer here is we're going to come up with the outline for our story here. The because it's improv is short from improv things that wacky and crazy, we may veer from it, but this is our kind of starting point and lifeline so for five minutes begins now. Alright, so we always begin with either a prologue or movie trailer. Mike: What do you feel, and I know what i'm feeling. Avish: For this kind of mystical thing a prologue often works. Mike: Yes, Sir studio dog has arrived he's he votes for the prologue as well. Avish: Alright, so we'll do a prologue and that will usually not involve the hero at all, usually it's like the bad guy can you meet the bad guy and you learn a little bit on what they're after. Mike: yep and you learn if there's a macguffin usually see the macguffin right. Avish: That yeah. Mike: You know the stage is set in Shakespearean context. Avish: yeah okay so that's prologue alright so in act one we obviously meet the hero. Mike: yep pro I just I just deleted it from our thing meet the hero, and we are let's follow the hero's journey and he is truly ordinary meaning he might be martial arts, music it's a normal dude. Avish: dude yeah. Mike: yeah he has a department, a little. Avish: yeah he's got a its got apartment he is a musician and he does Brazilian jujitsu he just he just boxing on the side of. Avish: dogs. Mike: Fantastic person that was never really a. Call to adventure uh. Avish: I think, and this, especially if you want to romance interest, I feel like in act one. Somehow he gets involved there's like a fight scene, where he does something your mystical without realizing it or he's like what the hell happened the mentor comes. And oftentimes not for us fighting the romance injuries they're like he rescued her from bad guys or whatnot because we want managers sometimes as an outside observer or the COP and sometimes it's like it's like the damsel in distress like oh they're after the Princess or you know. And then let's go he refuses, the call and then something happens at forces into. Mike: it's really easy to stick surveys, because guess what he refused to call that guess what that guy shows up trying to get him. Avish: yeah. Mike: Now the hero, maybe the mentor shows up and gets the hero away now we've entered the Special World you know this takes raised bad guy shows up, I mean i'm i'm typing it in here where i'm drilling a little bit in but it's kind of follow the hero's journey pretty. Avish: Pretty easily the free yeah then he has to the turning point, we have to accept the call yep. Mike: bad guy shows up and makes trouble put inputs here in danger cool so I act one ends with blue that crossing the threshold he in the mentor of the fleet temporarily defeat the bad guy. Avish: Except for he's gonna lose, but the mentor comes and saves them and then. Which is another another two movies, that are in this genre are both mortal kombat and the new mortal kombat. Mike: Right right very much so yeah. Avish: that's what happens in mortal kombat like rating comes and saves them. That before soon to be. Mike: referenced several movies, with Christopher. Lead bear this is fantastic. Avish: We do need a whole Chris Orlando genres are. Mike: Very job. Avish: All right, alright, so we got the prologue so in act one so an act to um, so this is like the reactive where they're kind of learning. about what. What the bad guys want they're investigating they're probably on the run a little bit. Mike: In hiding. Avish: yeah. Mike: Just like teenage mutant ninja turtles oh my God. Avish: Man they're all there. Mike: He says this is great i've fallen in love with the genre uh and then of course this is when the hero has learned to develop his powers. Avish: yeah there's going to be training it's going to be here. And devotes his powers Okay, you probably loses something here like he, like if I beat henchmen but maybe loses a fight to the main bad guy. Mike: yeah. Avish: Like managed to get away. Mike: yeah. Avish: If he's like Oh, I think, maybe in Act two even though he's accepted the call he hasn't like fully embraced his destiny so he's like trying to do things his own way, but then he gets in a fight and realizes like oh crap my way is not going to work yeah. Mike: You know, you know what could happen here uh. The again there's there's some sort of macguffin thing there's maybe an early conflict where the hero tries to stop an element of the bad guys plans beats the hedge fund, but the bad guy. achieves the plan it defeats the hero, but the bad guys goal wasn't to like defeat the hero, you know let's hit the bad guy like I don't know how to get a gym from. he's trying to build a spell my name is Jim the hero goes in like defends the gym against the henchmen but losing to the big bad guy. Avish: Right and i'd say usually hero is kind of like cocky or arrogant and then like, just like the humbling moment where he's like he thought he did good be Benjamin but it's like oh no and then he's like all right, I got to really listen to you know master rate in and do it right. Mike: So that's act to a at this point in time, also usually the the the investigative comes into because whatever he's doing or has done an act one or two is gets the the attention of the police and stuff like that yeah that all right, so that was pretty passive act in terms of he's just growing as a hero and stuff like that. Avish: yeah and there's like a little bit of action scenes there so act three is finished up yeah. After our show damn it we're. going to offer five minutes here care um so in act three. This is more proactive so he's actively trying to stop the bad guy here right. Mike: This is where the bad guy will do two things, he will up the stakes in dissuading the hero from interfering and that will cause the hero to even more intently wanted to feed him this is usually where the love interest gets kidnapped. Avish: yeah that's like how the act and a lot of times it's like yeah. Mike: Because what the what the bad guys doing is basically said dude stay away i've got your girlfriend and that of course makes the hero want to get them even more right. Avish: yeah nothing on this i'm like it kind of succeeds, and doing what it needs to to stop the bad guy but then the bad guy kind of one ups him by yeah kidnapping or threatening something so we have to like. You know they like get the gym first, but then the bad guy shows up like oh you don't give me the gentleman kill all these people and then they're like. Mike: 40 exactly. And then usually This point is when the mentor if he died, the mentor sacrificed himself here, but the mentor doesn't always doesn't. Avish: always happen, but if they don't die they disappear like they get captured or or like another modern martial arts mystical remote Williams know. Mike: Right. Avish: wing chun sort of dies, but then he comes in and it turns out he's alive, at the end because you know he's done all right. yeah the the hero, the hero loses his like safety net, the mentors guy Ben kenobi is now dead yeah. Mike: Exactly Oh yes, safety nets gone. Avish: And then act for is the kind of final confrontation and resolution. Mike: This is a final like loads of fight this is a good old fashioned loads of fighting this is literally like the the old game, the dented it ended it ended the karate game. yeah the five levels of the temple this is game of death, but he doesn't he just sending. Avish: yeah don't do bad guys. Mike: chewing through the henchmen. Avish: And usually if depending how we establish the characters the and sometimes the romantic interest and the investigative copper of the same person sometimes they're different. But if we're going to have multiple threads running, then you know the love interest was kidnapped can so agency and escape and do her thing and the COP can be working the angle from his or her side and then you know everything kind of coalesce is, at the end. Mike: there's often a time danger fight at the end when you fight in the head bad guy you know, like there's a doomsday clock going. Avish: Oh yeah but if he doesn't stop it by by the time the moon rises that. Mike: Right right right or left with a conjunction happens the hero seems the final form and defeats the villains, you know he comes into his true power. Avish: And then oh that's good that's the kind of final trope flash in the outline. there's usually some mental block the some reason there's something stopping the hero from embracing their full. Their full oneness and you know. Usually it's like insecurity, which I think is kind of lame but usually it's some mental block or something they don't realize is preventing them from totally. Mike: And so they assume the final form and defeat the villain and then the hero, you know becomes the new protector of the macguffin. Or you know because he's there's some sort of protecting element, or like this isn't more like he's becoming a crime fighter he really is like supposed to be like a protector, or something. yeah so. Avish: Or, in theory, until the sequel you know he saved the world and he's like free to live his life he's like I have yeah. Mike: yeah. Avish: The highlander until you realize that there are aliens and right side just I show up because, because we can always improve a movie but not that one. I think we've got a nice little outline.
The Office of Financial Innovation is a conduit and a facilitator of information related to significant innovation in the financial services industry, working to provide expertise and support to groups within FINRA, as well as FINRA member firms. As cloud computing transforms how broker-dealers operate, FINRA's Office of Financial Innovation surveyed nearly 40 broker-dealer firms, cloud service providers, industry analysts and technology consultants to better understand the implications of cloud computing on the securities industry. On this episode, FINRA's Haime Workie and Michael Oh join the podcast to discuss the group's latest report on cloud computing and to provide an update on other areas of focus. Resources mentioned in this episode:Report - Cloud Computing in the Securities IndustryInvestor Alert - Following the Crowd: Investing and Social MediaTopic Page - FinTech
Today we're checking out a couple of Jessika's latest estate sale finds: Superboy 109 & 110. Are these swingin' sixties stories about the Boy of Steel any good? Well, no. Not really. But they certainly gave us something to talk about! ----more---- Episode 13 Transcript Jessika: [00:00:00] Dude. It's always fucking Florida, Mike: I can't think of anything that comes out of Florida that's good. Jessika: Hello. Welcome to Ten Cent Takes, the podcast where we traverse tumultuous time continuities, one issue at a time. My name is Jessika Frazier and I am joined by my cohost, the dastardly dog dad, Mike Thompson. Mike: That's a fair description. Jessika: That was a segue. We need to talk about your newest acquisition. Mike: What, Mo? Jessika: No. We've talked about Mo. What was your newest acquisition in relation to the squad? Mike: Oh, right. We bought a dog wagon over the weekend. Jessika: Yeah, you did! Mike: And then, uh, already busted it out and taking them all over the neighborhood [00:01:00] and to the beach. I think it was proven to be a wise investment when this neighbor who we'd never seen before stopped his car in the middle of the road and yelled at us about how cute he thought it was. He was like, “that's the cutest thing I've ever seen!” He was this big old dude. I'm like, alright, I'm on board with this. All right. Success. Jessika: Amazing. Mike: It was very wholesome. Jessika: Well, I think Mike'll have to post at least one or two pictures of the dogs in this week's transcript. Mike: Yeah, no, we can absolutely post photos of the dogs in this episode's transcript. Jessika: Yes. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Well, the purpose of this podcast is to study comic books in ways that are both fun and informative. We want to look at their coolest, weirdest and silliest moments, as well as examine how they're woven into the larger fabric of pop culture and history. Today we'll be discussing the boy of steel, Superboy. While there are many variations of this character, we are going to be focusing on the OG [00:02:00] comics from 1944 to 69 as the ones that we talk about, but we will also just briefly touch upon the other comics, TV shows, and movies sporting the same character, as well as touch upon the absolute nightmare that is the timeline continuity, or lack thereof, that is Superman's life story. But before we do that, what is one cool thing that you've read or watched lately? Mike: Sarah and I have been watching a show called Motherland: Fort Salem. Have you heard of this? Jessika: I have, I was interested. Should I start it? Mike: Yeah, we really dig it. It's on FreeForm, but it's streaming on Hulu. It takes place in this world where the United States stopped hunting witches 300 years ago and there was something called the Salem Accords signed. So now we have a world that's dominated by the USA and witches make up, as far as I can tell, the entirety of its armed forces. Jessika: [00:03:00] Oh, snap. Mike: It's really cool. And the whole thing is magic is based on sound and resonance. And it's really a unique spin on things, but the show follows these three young witches who are recruited into the army and then start navigating their way through it. And the larger society, that's a part of the military and it's very comic book-y in terms of its plotting and character development and then the meta narrative as well. It's really cool. And it's really diverse in terms of casting. The storylines are really thoughtful in a lot of ways, and it's very queer. Like, extremely queer. Jessika: Yes. Mike: And the shows in the middle of its second season. And it's gotten much better. Like, I mean, it was already, it was already very good, but it feels like the second season, they really got the kick things up and they've really upped the creep factor. There's a whole thing about witch hunters re-emerging in kind of striking back at witches and riling up public sentiment. It feels very topical. [00:04:00] And then the whole thing is that because which is get their powers from the sound of their voice, what these witch hunters are doing is they're actually like cutting out witches' voice boxes and then weaponizing them. It's really cool and really creepy. And I really like it. Jessika: Oh, damn. That is like horrific. And like wow, that's an interesting concept. Mike: Yeah. Sarah and I have been really, really enjoying it. And it's definitely something that we put on when the kids aren't around obviously, but, Jessika: Oh, yeah. Mike: but it's really solid. So yeah, not a comic book this time. But certainly something that I think a lot of comic book fans would enjoy. How about you? Jessika: Well, once again, Lauren from Outer Planes in Santa Rosa comes through on the recommendations. Because she suggested the Image series, Man Eaters: The Cursed. Mike: Hm. Jessika: It's so fun. It starts off with 15 year old Maude being forced to go to summer camps. So her parents can go on this romantic vacation by themselves without her. Mike: [00:05:00] Relatable. Relatable, mom and dad. Jessika: Absolutely. Well, and it's so funny because they put these fun little, like. It's almost like little artifacts in there , for you. So they have the registration card where they're registering her. And so it's like, will you be on vacation while your child is at camp? And it's like, YES. Like it literally asked that as a question like it's expected. Mike: Good. Jessika: It's pretty funny. Another thing I found that's really funny is they have the campers have these buttons. They're like warning buttons for insurance purposes. And they say things like sleepwalker or lice, or like Gemini. Which like big Gemini myself, like absolutely issue some warnings. Mike: I love it. Jessika: And I love that there is one male character so far in this, and he's the least prepared for everything and Maude totally [00:06:00] roasts him a couple of times. Mike: Again, relatable. Because the one who does all the home repairs around here, it ain't me. Jessika: Oh my gosh. So yeah, no, I added that to my pull list. Mike: Yeah, that sounds great. Jessika: All right. Well, welcome to another episode of Jessika's estate sale fines. This week we'll be looking at Superboy, the comics, and I'm going to run us through the timeline of the comics as they came out, along with the TV shows and movies that were associated with those. So a lot of this is going to be like informational about when the comic came about and the character, Superboy as Kal-El Mike: I'm super excited. Jessika: there was a lot to it. And actually there was a lot of different weirded consistencies that we're definitely gonna get into. As I've already hinted at that, I think you'll find very [00:07:00] funny, Mike: I'm so excited. Jessika: Okay. before I get too deep into this topic, I want to give a shout out to the resources that I use to compile my information today: An article from DC on DC comics.com fan news blog by Megan Downey, titled “Reign of the Superboys: The strange history of the Boy of Steel,” the Wikipedia article on Superboy, a blog post on captaincomics.ning.com in a forum called the comics round table by username commander Benson titled “deck log entry, number 176 Superboy: the time of his life,” and IMDB. for those of you who are. For those of you who are somehow unfamiliar with the basic storyline of Superboy's origins. not to be confused with Superman's origins, which he swoops in a little bit differently initially in the comics than this. but Kal-El in this instance was sent to earth by his parents before their home planet of Krypton [00:08:00] was destroyed. He was discovered in the crater left by his arrival by locals Martha and Jonathan Kent, who adopted him, raising him as their own son and naming him Clark. At age eight, Clark is told how he was found and finds out more about his origins from Krypton. Martha makes him an indestructible suit out of a blanket that he was found with one that came from Krypton and is imbued with the same powers that he himself holds. And it's basically just like Superman fucking around and not being in school. Mike: Yeah, it almost entirely takes place in Smallville, which… it's kind of like the DC universe version of Cabbot Cove from Murder, She Wrote, where you're just like, how many fucking people die in this town? You know, in Smallville, it's, it's more along the lines of how many fucking supervillains hang out in this town in the middle of nowhere, Kansas, Jessika: That's just it. What is it? A convention? Mike: I guess. Jessika: Oh, so Superboy as a character was created by Joe Schuster and [00:09:00] Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel in 1938, but was rejected twice by Detective Comics before the growing popularity of the comic Robin, the Boy Wonder, finally convinced them to change their stance and they then decided to use it to try to relate to a younger readership with a younger character, which makes sense. Thus, Superboy made his comic debut in 1945, but just as a feature in the anthology, More Fun Comics issue 101. Now, of course, it wouldn't be comics without a little bit of drama. Schuster had assistance from Don Cameron instead of Siegel, as Siegel was serving in World War II and stationed in Hawaii. And he actually had to hear about Superboy's and inaugural publication through a letter from Schuster. DC didn't send them any notification nor was he able to actively participate in the trajectory of the plot line since he was serving. It [00:10:00] was kind of a fuck you. Mike: considering how heavily Superman was a part of propaganda. There is literally a cover of Superman running a printing press that says, I think it says, like, “help slap a Jap.” Jessika: Oh, that hurt me. Mike: Yeah. Like, I mean, Superman was very much part of World War II propaganda, and that's insane that they wouldn't let one of his creators participate in the storylines because he was serving in the, uh, okay. Whatever. Jessika: Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty, it's pretty rough. So apparently there was already a rift in Siegel and Schuster's relationship. And so this just increased that strain. After that first issue, Superboy appeared in More Fun Comics, bimonthly issues through number [00:11:00] 107, but was picked up by Adventure Comics debuting in April of 1946. So he was bouncing around, that was issue number 103. And he was the lead feature for the anthology on this one Mike: Hm Jessika: and remained the headlining feature for over 200 issues and continued being featured in Adventure Comics until 1969. Mike: That's such a huge, just, that's an incredible run. Jessika: Yeah. It's a ton of time. And especially considering like he had, this was just like a side gig for Superboy. Really. He had other stuff going that he was doing. Mike: Yeah, I do know that at one point in the sixties, Superboy was I believe the number two comic in America and the only one that was doing more than that was Superman. Jessika: It's like you were reading ahead. No, seriously. That's in my notes. Mike: Oh, really? Okay, cool. Jessika: Yeah, Yeah, yeah, no. And actually was frequently number two. We'll just get to it now. It was frequently number two for a lot of it's run.[00:12:00] So notable storylines that we got from Adventure Comics were intro to Krypto, the super dog, the origin story of his rivalry with Lex Luther, which that continues pretty far. So it's interesting that they, like, created the origin story. Mike: Yeah. They had like teenage Lex Luther show up in Smallville, right? Jessika: Yeah, yes, yes. Correct. Mike: I think he had hair Jessika: Back when he had hair, yeah. Mike: Yeah. And that's something that's continued up until modern times as well. Mark Waid's Birthright, I know, did that… where it basically revealed that Clark Kent had been for a short time friends with Lex. Jessika: Oh, wow. Of course. They had to be friends before they were enemies. Frenemies. There was also the the debut of the 30th century superhero team, the Legion of superheroes. As Superboy, continue to frequent the pages of anthology comics in April of 1949, he became the sixth superhero to get his own comic book. and was the first new superhero [00:13:00] title to succeed after World War II. Mike: Oh, wow. That's crazy. Jessika: Right? Mike: I had no idea that there were only six superhero comics back then. Jessika: Yeah. Not with our own titles. Mike: I mean, that's wild. Jessika: Totally. I didn't realize that either. Mike: yeah Jessika: notable storylines from this namesake comic were intro to Ilana Lang and Pete Ross, the storyline of the first Bizarro and first appearances of Legion of superheroes characters, Mon-El and Ultra Boy. He also appeared in Legion of superheroes volume. One, which was printed as an anthology. Superboy itself continued until 1976 when the comic was renamed Superboy and the Legion of superheroes. Superboy was involved in the storyline until issue number 2 59. When he leaves after learning new information regarding the death of his parents.[00:14:00] Dramatics. Mike: Yeah, I haven't read a lot of those, but the idea is that he's displaced through time and he winds up hanging out with the Legion for a while. And then if I remember right, Supergirl winds up joining the Legion after a while, too. Basically, so they can have kind of a headliner. Jessika: I smell them trying to fix a time continuum. But that's maybe I'm biased. Based on the research I've been doing, The series was then retitled Legion of superheroes volume two, and ended with issue number 354 and 1979. There was also a three-part mini series called Secrets of the Legion of Superheroes that was published in 1981. And despite the general decline of superhero readership, Superboys' popularity continued to grow and adventure comics and Superboy frequently sold over a million copies combined. Mike: That's an insane amount of comics these days. You know, back then that [00:15:00] was wild. Jessika: I mean, it definitely groundbreaking for its time. I would say it was, it sounded like it was huge. The popularity may also have been due to the fact that Superboy was found on more than just comic book stands. He was also on the TV and in the movies, he appeared in a 26 minute movie called the Adventures of Superboy and multiple six-minute episodes airing with the New Adventures of Superman, which aired for 1966 to 70, the Superman Aquaman Hour of Adventure from 67 to 68 and the Batman Superman Hour 68 to 69. All of which were just continuations are within that same world as the initial comic book. Mike: Right. And those were all animated series too, I think, right? Jessika: they were. They were. And here's something fun for you to watch if you wanted to click on that link. Mike: Okay. [Superboy INTRO AUDIO PLAYS] I love the image of like infant CBRE, boy, just lifting a piano. All right. Jessika: Very patriotic. Mike: Yeah. I love the fact that they have Krypto in there. Like I've always had a soft spot for Krypto. I am a little offended that his cowlick isn't in the shape of an S though. Come on guys. You know, this is an amateur hour. Jessika: Missed opportunity. Mike: Right. But yeah, that was super cute. Jessika: Wasn't that fun? Yeah. So I can, I could see kids get getting really excited about seeing that. And then they walk by the newsstand and they go, I just saw that on TV. Mike: yeah, exactly. Jessika: [00:17:00] So I think they had a good thing going with that at that point. Mike: Oh, a hundred percent. So that was in the sixties, you said, right? Jessika: Yes. Mike: So that was right when television was becoming the dominant form of entertainment in the United States. I think by 1959 or 1960, it was something like 90% of households in America had televisions. And Saturday morning cartoons were starting to become a thing, which by the way, you guys should go back and listen to that episode about Saturday morning cartoons. It's our first episode. And we talk all about the evolution of that and how it connected with Comics. Jessika: It was a fun one. So pretty much right after the Legion of Superheroes volume two ended, the New Adventures of Superboy was published in 1984. That had 54 published issues, Mike: Okay. That's a respectable run. Jessika: Yeah. It's not anything too wild. Yeah. In 1985, DC tried to tie up some of those pesky plot holes that we're going to discuss later [00:18:00] on, for sure, by creating a comic that told the story of Clark Kent's transitional years in college at Metropolis University, going from Superboy effectively to Superman. And while this was supposed to last for 12 installments, they only ended up publishing six, mostly due to the fact that Crisis on Infinite Earths was published Mike: I was about to ask. Yeah. Jessika: Yep. That actually featured the eraser of Superboy and yet another attempt to correct a timeline. Mike: Well, Crisis on Infinite Earths was the first real attempt by DC to sit there and stream everything into a coherent timeline. And at the same time they had John Byrne's The Man of Steel, which came out I think right after. Crisis on infinite earths. And that also streamlined Superman's very convoluted history. The problem is is that by that point in time, you had almost 50 years of continuity, which made no fucking [00:19:00] sense. Jessika: And we'll discuss it later, but there wasn't necessarily a need for continuity back in the day. I mean, they didn't have to have it. They were just there for like, we're doing this adventure. This is fun. They're going to enjoy it. And there wasn't a feeling that you had to necessarily link it with what came before it or what was going, coming after it in the same way that we want now as readers and as fans, we want everything to make sense because we want more of the story in that way. Mike: We want that overarching meta plot. Jessika: Exactly. Exactly. So despite DC's attempt to write Superboy out of the universe completely, he appeared once again in Legion of Superheroes Volume Three, which ran from 86, 87 and while Crisis on Infinite Earths had erased Superboy. To some extent in other time, continuations, they now needed to recreate him in order to have a cohesive storyline for [00:20:00] Legion of Superheroes. Mike: God. Jessika: So they were like, what are we going to do? Oh, I know pocket universe. Mike: Why not? Jessika: Why not? So in this version, it's set in a pocket universe created by the villain Time Trapper. Mike: I think the Time Trapper… so the Time Trapper is like a villain who has had multiple identities. It's the same villain ultimately, but it's different people wind up becoming the Time Trapper. And I think, Superboy became the time trapper point. Jessika: This doesn't surprise me at all. What the hell? Mike: Yeah, don't, don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure that it happened, uh, during one of their big, crossovers, Jessika: Oh, no, Mike: Comic books are dumb and I love them. Jessika: I do, too. This is actually part of the reason I really do like them. Because I like seeing all of these little differences. It doesn't make me mad. I just find it very funny. Mike: Yeah. so the Time Trapper created a pocket [00:21:00] universe and then they used him to bring Superboy back. Jessika: Yeah, exactly. And so he, but here's the funny part. He was really just like a sideline character in this. He came in and issued 24 and he was killed off in 38. Mike: Superboy was going. Okay. I'm not going to ask question. Jessika: Yeah. Cause he had to like sacrifice himself to save the world. I mean, that's, you know, common trend in these, right. Mike: Of course. Jessika: Yeah. It was convenient. If not obvious. Mike: Okay. Jessika: Superboy apparently would not, could not be stopped. As was apparent in 1988 with not only a comic publication, but also a TV appearance. Once again, this time live action. Mike: I remember that show. Jessika: Yeah, it was here and that was gone. Mike: It lasted for a couple of seasons, but I think they had a couple of different actors play Superboy. Jessika: They did. Yeah. So it was four seasons and it started out starring John Hames Newton for season one [00:22:00] and then recast replaced for the remainder of the four seasons. So the rest of the three by Gerard Christopher. Mike: Oops. Jessika: So that was a 22 minute runtime, pretty normal for that time. but there again, it went along with the same year that the Superboy volume two hit shelves. You know, they did another one of those timing things thinking, Hey, it worked what? 30 years ago. Let's do it again. Mike: Yeah. It's that whole transmedia thing. Jessika: Yeah, exactly. the show ultimately lasted until 1992, the same year a one-shot comic called the last Superboy was published. But that seemed to be the last dying ember from the fire that is Superboy, as we've talked about up until this point, except one thing. And I know that we want to talk about it a little bit, which is Smallville. And I know we've mentioned it, but I didn't watch that. Did you watch that show? Mike: Oh, yeah. Are you kidding me? I, I was all over that show for the first few seasons. Jessika: Okay. I [00:23:00] just really, it was just cause I had a crush on Kristin Kruek, but unfortunately she got involved with that horrific NXIVM cult. Mike: I thought It wasn't her. It was the… Jessika: It was Alison Mack, but like, but she was involved for a few years, unfortunately. Big. Yikes. Mike: I don't know too much about it. I just know that Alison Mack was one of the big ringleaders for it and it was wild. Jessika: She was, yeah. Mike: Like she, I think she left Smallville to like devote herself full-time to that cult. Jessika: That sounds right. Yeah, she was, she was definitely a big part of it. yeah, it was rough. I've been following it. Mike: I really liked Smallville when it first came out. I remember getting so excited when they had a little teaser ad for it where I think it's Krystin Kreuk is wandering through the darkness and she hears something and turns and then you see Tom Welling step out of the shadows and he says something along the lines “Oh, Hey, it's just me. It's it's Clark.” and then it just says Smallville, and I was like, oh mother fucker. That's amazing. [00:24:00] And yeah, it was, it was fine. It was very teen angsty, but they had a lot of deep cuts for comic fans. And, I think I stopped watching around season four because it just started to, it felt like it really sort of jumped the shark, Jessika: Oh, okay. Yeah. I was going to, ask if it's something I should rewatch. I don't know. Stuff from that. Timeframe is so cringey these days. Mike: A lot of it's cringey. I remember a whole thing with his heat vision was tied to like him being horny. Jessika: No. Why do you have to do that? It's so unnecessary. Mike: But you know, what's funny is they actually brought Tom Welling back in the whole DC Arrowverse recently where they have a version of Lex Luther. Who's traveling the multi-verse and he shows up at, he shows up at the Kent farm and Tom welling is there. I thought it was just, it was great. It was, it was just, it was a really cute little nod. Jessika: That is pretty cute. I do like that. Mike: And then he got all mad because he was trying to suck Superman's powers [00:25:00] away. And then it turns out Superman gave up his power so that he can have a family and a normal life. And then the now powerless Superman pops him in the nose. It was kind of good. Jessika: That is cute. Mike: I was fine with this. It was very, it was very wholesome. Jessika: So there are other iterations of Superboy, but they're not necessarily Clark Kent and some of them are, but they kind of stray off into different timeline. And I could have gone down that rabbit hole, but Mike: Yeah. Jessika: you know, I didn't. Here we are. Mike: that's fine. Jessika: So I also know that I, more than hinted, we've talked about a little bit, uh, the continuity troubles that plagued Superboy. Mike: Right, Jessika: I, I gotta say some of these transgressions are just capital B A D bad. But they get a bit of a pass again, you know, like I said, because Comics at that point [00:26:00] really didn't hinge on a time continuum. Mike: Right. That wasn't a thing. Jessika: No, it wasn't. So, we got to give them a little bit of credit except when they actually started figuring it out and they still did absolutely nothing about it, which is what we're going to talk about. Mike: Okay. Jessika: Because after Superman, they kind of figured out, oh, people are wanting more of a storyline and we've already given Superman kind of a timeframe. And now this has to be Superboy. So it needs to be earlier. So they were like, Okay. Superboy is from the 30s. Mike: Right. Jessika: But Superman at that time, I think was supposed to be set in the 60s or the 50s. And the math did not add Mike: Right. Jessika: at all to get to that point. So right off the bat. You've just you're wrong about the dates. what's even more funny to me is that in the first iterations of the Superman comic, the origin story is always [00:27:00] that the first time he came to earth was when he came to metropolis, like as a full ass adult. Mike: Right. Jessika: So what's, what's up, you know, so that's where it's like, all Right. this is already… Mike: This is convoluted. Yeah. Jessika: exactly. So you and I read a couple of comics from the time period of those original comics, and we read them from specifically from 1963. What I love about these is you could actually, at that, I don't, maybe they still do this. I haven't seen it yet in my Comics. You could write in and they would publish the comments and the editor … Mike: they still do this. Jessika: Okay, cool. So the editor writes a comment back, Mike: Yeah. Jessika: So we have a few of these. Mike: Okay. Jessika: And I would love for you to read them for us. Mike: Okay. So we have a few of these here. the first one says dear editor, since Superman was a Superboy before World War II and television sets, weren't perfected and [00:28:00] sold to the public until after World War II. How come you show TV roof antennas, and Superboy stories. Kevin Herron, Tiffin, Ohio. And the editor responded with you're right, Kevin, we're wrong. We made a booboo. Editor. Jessika: Okay. Mike: The next one is dear editor. How come in Superboy comics. You illustrate such modern inventions as a bombs, atomic subs, jet planes, television, et cetera, all devices, which weren't invented until 1945 for later. And which certainly weren't around when Superman was born, Ken parent Wheaton, Illinois. The response is historians refer to such inconsistency as anachronisms. They are a necessary form of literary license required to achieve dramatic effects. Movies exercise this option very often. For example, the first umbrella was invented in 1740 yet numerous period films devoted to the life in the middle ages have shown heroines protecting themselves from the sun with a parasol. Editor Jessika: I love how he's getting like a little salt here with his answers. Mike: Just a little bit. [00:29:00] Jessika: He's like, but Webster's dictionary says… Mike: God. Yeah. I don't miss those days. These days. Usually when you see the letters section of a comic, it's usually people talking about how much something meant to them, or at least in the ones that I read it. It's always really nice. So. Jessika: That's sweet. Mike: All right. So the last one: dear editor in the recent story, the amazing bizarro you had Superboy dropping an atomic bomb on bizarro. How is this possible, as Superboys adventures. They're supposed to have happened before 1945 and scientists had not perfected the H-bomb until 1945. Steve Spangler, Sonoma, California, Jessika: Boom representation. That's right down the road from us. Mike: the response is “we goofed! From now on no more a bombs in Superboy. Editor.” Jessika: Well, that's easy. Mike: Oh, that's great. At some point it's like, come on guys, it's a comic book. Jessika: Yeah, Mike: I think it's, are you [00:30:00] really expecting the science fiction comic, starring an alien who just happens to look exactly like a human, but has more super powers than God is going to be historically and scientifically accurate all the time. Okay. Whatever. I don't… Jessika: I know. I know. I know. I hear you. I do well. And what's funny too, is at one point, Lana Lang is in a beauty competition and it says 1952. Mike: Well, it's reassuring to know that nerds were always this nitpicky. Jessika: Absolutely. That really is. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: So the time in consistencies didn't end there. As I mentioned, there have been multiple timelines that have been created and destroyed to ensure some kind of consistency in the Superman universe. But whether or not that was actually a success is really anybody's opinion. It's up to the listener. [00:31:00] But if you're interested in finding out more about this travesty of a timeline, go check out that blog post I mentioned at the top of the episode, I'm on Captain Comics Presents, it's got a lot more examples of the inconsistencies from those OG comics. Mike: Yeah. Well, okay. One thing I will note is that DC kind of figured this out recently where they, ran a series called doomsday clock, and it's Dr. Manhattan from the Watchman universe with Superman. And the very end of it is revealing that there is now a “metaverse” in DC. Where it's like, oh yeah. So Superman arrived in the 30s and started being a superhero, you know? And then also he also arrived in the 60s and then he also arrived in the 80s and so on and so forth. And so it, it sort of makes sense of that for those people who care. Jessika: Well, and it's like the same kind of Marvel multi-verse that we have going on with that, with the Spider-Man is pointing to each other. Mike: Yeah. It [00:32:00] basically, it takes the concept of a multi-verse and then it adds another layer and it does it in a way that feels, hm, I'm not going to say plausible, but it just, it kind of works and, you know, I actually liked it, but that's just me. Jessika: Yeah. you know what, and what's funny about Superman is I don't like Superman, so it's funny that we're doing this whole episode. I just thought it, was interesting. These Superboy comics when I saw them, well and I picked them up because like, honestly, like the titles were horrific and I will have some very liberal things to say about them, but yes, I, you know, but honestly, what's very funny, even though I hate Superman, I don't know what it was about the Superman symbol that I used to love. And I didn't read the comics. I'd watch the show from the eighties. And I'd seen the Christopher Reeves movies. We loved those. But other than that, I wasn't like huge in the Superman, but if I had gotten a tattoo, when I was 18 years old, it would have been a Superman symbol. So I'm very glad my mom never, she never [00:33:00] listens to this. So she will never know that I'm confessing that, she talked me out of making a very bad tattoo decision because she doesn't need any more gloating rights, Mike: Yeah. I don't know. I kind of viewed him like Captain America, where I thought he was really boring. And then I realized that if you find the right writer, Superman really, really works. I've come to really enjoy a lot of Superman stories, but you know, it depends. Jessika: And I think you're right. That I, I probably just haven't found the right writer or the right style. And I did recently start do I start birthright? I started something recently. Mike: I think it was Birthright, based on our conversations. Jessika: yeah. So I will get back into that at some point in time. I just have such a stack now will obsessed. Oh no. Mike: Oh no, Jessika: Oh, no. more Comics. So Mike, you and I read a couple of these issues that I found at that estate sale. That was Superboy boys. Numbers, 109 [00:34:00] and 110. So do you want to recap 109 us? Mike: Yeah. Okay. You've mentioned that these are anthology comics and so Superboy at this point in time, apparently was having two or three storylines per issue. based on the two that we read, each one had two different stories in it. Superboy 109 has the first story is the Super Youth of Brozz. The title story about the rival super dogs doesn't show up until later, which that always surprises me, when the cover action isn't the first story and everything else is in a backup, but whatever. Jessika: It's a little confusing. Mike: the Super Youth of Brozz is about how a young Clark Kent winds up sort of becoming friends with another teenage orphan in Smallville named Fred who's, quote, timid that's his like defining character trait. That's all that anybody used to describe him. And he gets picked on by the towns in crowd of teenagers. It's revealed that he lives in the [00:35:00] Smallville orphanage, which okay. He literally walks back to the orphanage and then Superboys spies on him and he's crying because he overheard people talking about how they didn't want to adopt him because he was too much of a wimp I'm just like, oh, okay. Jessika: Thanks for being super toxic Superboy. That's so great. Mike: Superboy winds up deciding to give him confidence. And so he takes him to a planet called Brozz where Fred gains super powers from the atmosphere. And then Superboy actually loses his overtime for reasons that are not really well explained because you know, Superboy, he gets his powers from the yellow sun. And then later on, he gets his powers back sort of from the little spacecraft that they brought Fred over in, because it had some remnants of Earth's atmosphere, which that's not how science works. I was a history major and even I can tell you that. Superboy has this whole convoluted plot about how if he can get Fred to have super power's he'll gain confidence, which Fred sort of does. He eventually saves Superboy's life and then decides to stay on the planet and be a superhero. And he gets offered to be adopted, but he declines the offer for some bizarre reason, something about like, you know, basically he doesn't want to put his, foster parents at risk. And Superboy heads home to earth and has a final thought about how he wouldn't be the person he was, if it hadn't been for the Kents. The end. Jessika: Yeah. Yup. Mike: Yep. But the title story, which is the Super Dog That Replaced Krypto is basically at some point, Superboy rescues a dog named Swifty, which looks like a Greyhound. Swifty winds up months later, tracking down Superboy in Smallville, which means that Superboy didn't [00:37:00] even drop this dog off at a shelter. Apparently he just got him out of harm's way and then just left him. So strike one, Supes. Jessika: Yeah. It's not. Mike: Then Superboy winds up temporarily granting Swifty the same powers that Krypto has. And then it seems like he's testing them out, but it doesn't quite work out that way. Swifty loses his powers and then he's, again, I guess, left alone. He's just as far as I can tell, he's a homeless dog in Smallville. Jessika: Yeah. There's a lot of orphans in the story. Mike: after his powers fade some villains who were trapped in the Phantom zone, but crossover and are sort of the Phantom zone wind up trying to take mental control of Superboy and Krypto, they don't have any luck. They are able to influence Swifty. And then they guide him through a process that grants him super powers. And then I think it also makes them evil, but it's not really well explained. Jessika: Oh, it's because the Phantoms were influencing him. [00:38:00] And so their intentions were like his intention. So because they had negative vibes against Superboy. That's what I got out of it, but it's, it's really vague. Mike: Super vague. Superboy decides to randomly hold a series of tests for Swifty and Krypto to be the new super dog. And like, he does this as opposed to like, just like letting them both help him out. Jessika: that's what I'm saying. Like, it wasn't even to like, be the next super dog. It was like to go be the ambassador on this trip Mike: Oh, is that it? Okay. Jessika: yeah. And then , why wouldn't you want like an entourage of fucking, like super dogs with you? Why would you two super dogs is way better than one super dog. Like, I don't know what the fuck his problem was Mike: 100%. So anyway, the Phantom zone criminals helps Swifty, win the contest, Swifty becomes the super [00:39:00] dog for at least this instance. And then he leads both Krypto and Superboy into a kryptonite death trap. Like there's literally a spring that like hurls kryptonite at them. And then at the last second Krypto manages to blast Swifty with the duplicate Ray, which creates a bizarro Swifty, who's good as opposed to the original version. Superboy comes up with a potion or, sorry, the Bizarro Swifty saves them. And then Superboy comes up with a potion that strip Swifty's powers and restores his good nature. And then he creates a collar that repels the Phantom zone ghosts so they can't control the dog again. And that's it like, Swifty's apparently the sad homeless dog in Smallville who just gets sad every time that he sees Superboy and Krypto fly by. And he thinks about how he wants to be Superboys' dog again. Jessika: It's really depressing. And I would never do that to Carl for the record. I would never. Okay. Mike: I mean, [00:40:00] yeah, this, this issue definitely rubbed me the wrong way. Just for that, where I'm like, God, Superboy. it couldn't even find a home for the dog who tracked you down across the country and just wanted to be your friend. Jessika: You're fucking Superboy have two fucking dogs. Like, I don't know how difficult this is. Like, well, where Martha. Martha is like, no, we've already gotten one super dog in the house. Mike: Yeah, right. Jessika: No, this one's just normal, now! I swear. Mike: between the two of us, we have four dogs. So, I mean, we're definitely the wrong audience for this, Jessika: for sure. And I bought this comic for the fact that there were like super dogs on there. I got very excited. Mike: yeah. And the thing is, is that there's a whole menagerie, a super pets like you eventually get like Comet the super horse. Like it's no, there, there was a monkey. There was, I think, I think it was Streaky the super cat too. Jessika: Oh, no. Mike: It's not like, you know, [00:41:00] there wasn't a whole collection of super pets. But whatever. Jessika: Yeah. What did you think of this since you haven't told, since you haven't started telling me already. Mike: It reminded me that Superman and Superboy stories from this era just a lot of times don't make any sense. I have a collection from the late eighties called the Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told, and It's got stories from the forties to the eighties and even those early great stories, in quotes, they're pretty out there. And neither of these stories are anywhere close to what's contained in that book. I don't know. My biggest complaint is how Superboys' logic is always terrible. Like why does Fred need to be made into another version of the Superboy in order to gain confidence? Why not just help them with the core issue, which is that nobody wants to adopt them from the Smallville orphanage, which again, lawl. Jessika: Yeah. Like what does it have two orphans in there? Mike: It just, it seems like helping them find a [00:42:00] family would do a lot more good. And likewise, why not just adopt Swifty too? Like it's shitty and it's dumb, but all of this reminded me of the site called Super Dickery, which I showed you. Jessika: Yes. Mike: It was the site that's originally focused on the absolute insanity of Superman comic covers. So many of these comics would feature things like Superman, just fucking over his friends. That was a repeated theme for years. There's one where he has Lois lane strapped to the grill of a truck and he's flying out after he drove it off a cliff. And just saying something to the effect “I'll see you later, Lois.” Jessika: Holy shit. Mike: And there's another one where Aquaman, Jimmy Olsen are dying of thirst in the desert and Superman's just lording over them with this pitcher of water. the site was around at least in 2005, which is when I first came across it. It's kind of defunct. Now. I don't think has been updated for a couple of years, but you can go back on archive.org and just scroll through all these things. The [00:43:00] tagline was Superman's a Dick and here's the evidence and it's great. Like that is a way to kill an afternoon. Let me tell ya. Jessika: Oh, I definitely checked out a few of those today and I was rolling. Rolling. He definitely came off as an asshole in this comic. Like, no question, no question. You know, what makes me the most mad is that he has the ability to give Swifty super powers. He has the ability to make both dogs talk. Mike: Oh my God. Yeah. Jessika: What the fuck are you doing? Mike: there was a cover on Super Dickery where it's young Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne, and they've created a computer that lets them see the future and like, Hey, we're going to grow up to be crime fighters and superheroes. So we're going to be best friends. It's like cool. You know, what also would be useful? I don't know. Maybe telling Bruce Wayne that his parents are going to get murdered and it can be avoided. Jessika: Seriously. Holy shit. Oh my God. Yeah. But then he wouldn't have his [00:44:00] homie. Superboy's just all in it for himself. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: And like, why does he just have something lying around the has fandoms as I can get out? Why does he have that? Doesn't make any sense. Mike: We don't have another two hours to discuss the Phantom Zone. Jessika: Kal-El you silly boy. So let's, let's move on to the other comic we read, which, uh, we're just be just as angry about, by the way. Spoiler case you were wondering. So what happened in issue? Number 110? Cause I did get sequential ones, which is great, kind of. Mike: Right. Okay. So again, we have two stores. We have the Surrender of Superboy and the runt of steel, the surrender of supervise story is the one that we actually get on the cover. It's Superboy in Krypto losing a tug of war match to some old man. And we're basically told, well, you won't believe who the old man is. In the Surrender of Superboy, Clark [00:45:00] Kent, and Lana Lang traveled to South America to accompany her, I guess he's a college professor, dad on an archeological dig. One of the flowers recovered is this legendary hate flower, which causes any living, being that smells it to hate the first human they see after smelling it. They're like very specific that it's, you will hate the first human. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: When they get back to Smallville, Lana smells the hate flower by accident. She sees Superboy flying outside and then dun, dun dunnnn winds up developing an intense hatred for the boy of steel. She grabs. I think it's like, it's… do we ever get a name for this thing? It's like a devil's mask? Jessika: I think she just calls it devil's mask. Cause it's a devil's witch mask or something like that on the wall. It's very vague again. Mike: So she's in this museum, she grabs this thing off the wall because there's no fucking security anywhere. And it specifically says what it does, where it's says the person who wears this can summon souls , or spirits from the past and have them obey them for an hour. And then she [00:46:00] starts using it to cause trouble. Sir Lancelot and then George Washington are her first minions, but they refuse to help because they claim that they've heard about Superboy's heroic deeds and even in the past, which Jessika: No, no, no, It's not a thing. No. Mike: I just, I can't, man, it's so dumb. Jessika: When I read that, I was like, what, what is actually going on right now? I literally stopped reading for a few minutes. Mike: Everything about the story it feels like monkeys at a typewriter. Jessika: Yes, Mike: So then she summons Merlin to humiliate Superboy at this super strength exhibition that he's doing in order to benefit the old folks home and Merlin, it turns out is the old man who beats him in the tug of war on the cover. Which by the way, this is like three panels in the comic. And it's not that big a deal. Jessika: it's really not. Mike: yeah, after that she summons Edgar Allen Poe and [00:47:00] Sherlock Holmes. She says they're the two greatest detective minds of the past. So they help her solve a jewel highs that Superboy can't and then she framed Superboy by having Hercules, Samson, and Atlas tear apart the Smallville Scientific Institute. Um, let's see, she summons Venus, Helen of Troy, and Juliet to basically seduce Superboy. And then she spurns him at a dance. And also I'm sorry, but really? JULIET? Like, come on. Jessika: Juliet was a child who fell into a situation and was a tragic figure. Mike: Juliet was a stupid teenager. Like, I can't, I can't even, I'm sorry. Jessika: She probably had acne and Superboy definitely had that hair where it was brushed forward and then spiked up in the front. Mike: Yep. Jessika: Absolutely. Yep. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Fuckin' assholes. All of them, Mike: So she [00:48:00] spurns them at this dance and her dad gets mad at her. He's like, I heard you were very rude to Superboy. Jessika: Which by the way, the fact that he wears that fucking suit to every occasion, like, come on, dude. Mike: I just love that idea. Jessika: Can you have like a literal suit, like, a super suit. That actually looks nice? Mike: Just get something, like, get a nice Navy blue, kind of slim fitting suits have an Ascot popping out with your Superman logo. All the girls would be all over you. It'd be great. Jessika: Oh, my gosh. Can you imagine the Kent's first trip to a fancy restaurant where they have to like, get the borrow jacket, like the loaner jacket from the restaurant, because he's wearing his stupid ass suit and they're like, Oh, Sir, excuse me. Mike: He's just walking around with his Cape, sticking out from under the jacket. I would read that comic. Jessika: I would too. [00:49:00] Mike: Anyway. So finally Lana decides to pull Jor-El, Superboy's dad from the past, in order to help her discover Superboys' secret identity. Instead of, I don't know, reuniting Jor-El with his son who he never got to see, but whatever. Okay. Jor-El gives you this device that's supposed to detect Kryptonians. It leads her to a closet where Krypto the Superdawg is Krypto shakes himself, and basically gives off a bunch of dust. Actually counteracts the flowers' hate pollen. And it turns out that Superboy and Lana's dad switched the mask with a dummy, once they realized what was going on and then her dad disguised himself as GRL and then everything just goes back to normal and nothing matters. Jessika: Yeah, we're again, they have access to these devices that are like powerful and they like have instructions on the wall, but don't use them. Like he literally says to his daughter at one point like, oh, well stay away from the superstition side of things. It's quite dangerous. And she's like, oh, what's that?[00:50:00] Let me check out this mask. So fricking ridiculous. Mike: So then we get the second story, which is the Super Runt of Steel, which is about a criminal named Peewee Reagan, who we don't know who this dude is, but he shows up at this dilapidated house, he pays some amoral super scientist to grant him super powers. Peewee goes on a crime spree that even Superboy can't stop because Superboys' powers are weirdly fading for no real reason. Peewee flies away to a distant planet because he spotted treasure inside it. He gets to the planet, he wrecks a bunch of the alien robots that are there and then goes inside this vault that's full of space gems and minerals, and he winds up screaming in pain. Superboy finds out the scientist it turns out leached his powers and transfer them over to Peewee. And he's able to track the criminal to the aforementioned planet. And it turns out Peewee died because the vault also contained kryptonite and then Superboy [00:51:00] buries Peewee and flies away the end. Jessika: Because he somehow gets his powers back by just being around him. It was weird. Mike: Everything about this issue just made me roll my eyes. And a lot of the stories from this era, if you go back and read a lot of these things, they had those kinds of surprise endings. That just feel so dumb these days. Like it was that weird, ironic twist. They're not really ironic because they don't really make a lot of sense. Jessika: Yeah, they're just kind of like a left field thought. Mike: Yeah, there's a lot that just doesn't work. And it's like if you go down this very specific logic train that these writers force you along, it's like, you know, the whole thing. Having Lana's dad disguise himself as Jor-El, like Superboy, just, knew that this was going to be the next step. You're like, all right. Well, I don't know, and then also, I'm sorry. But she's supposed to be calling all of these characters from history, all these spirits or people from history and then it's gods and fictitious characters like [00:52:00] Lancelot and Juliet and uh, whatever. Jessika: No, they were really contrived figures. I mean, even when they had real people in there, they weren't used to their purpose. Mike: No, and it's one of those things where you read it and you're like, this is just, this is so dumb. Oh, it's Samson and Hercules. Okay. Whatever, why not? Random characters from the Bible and Greek mythology. Why not? Jessika: Dude, where do I even start on this issue though? They had so many problems. The beginning, when the scientists negate the word of the locals as superstition, even though it actually did have dangerous poisonous properties to it. They're like, oh, it's just a myth. Mike: Because there's a whole thing where one of the boroughs winds up attacking a guide and then when they sit there and say, oh, it must have like gotten near the hade flower and they're like, oh no, it just got bit by a fly. All right. Jessika: Yeah. And the scientists are like, I mean, gosh, darn. How big of a [00:53:00] supremacist asshole do you have to be to not trust the people who live there to know anything about the plants that they have been living with their whole lives. I truly don't understand that. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Then the scientists were like, oh, woopsie, Daisy. I guess they were right. Chuckle, chuckle. Mike: This was also still a period in time where anyone who was not white, especially native populations were viewed with a healthy degree of just kind of, well, like you said, it like supremacy. Like if you go back and read those old Tintin books, woof. Jessika: Oh, yeah. I've read someof those in the original French and they're... Yeah. Mike: Yeah. And if you go back and read those and then like up until really, I want to say the 70s or 80s was one thing started to get a little bit better, but even mainstream in the 60s were still pretty awful when it came to depicting people who weren't [00:54:00] white. Jessika: Yeah. There was that whole segregation thing. You know, just that. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Yeah, I, it was really gross when the quote unquote historical women came to give her beauty advice so that she could do seduce Superboy, like that was so contrived and odd and sexist and strange, Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Or the part where Superboy is not only supposed to be earning money for an old person's home. He's also making agist jokes about the quote unquote old man that ends up beating him. Both him and his dog, a tug of war. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: But then the comic itself is so obviously like they so obviously made it agistly clear that this man only be Superboy because he was Merlin, the wizard, which yikes guys, I know people way older than me that could kick my ass at most anything. So that's pretty [00:55:00] ridiculous. Mike: yeah. Jessika: Oh. Or the fact that the little guys or men that are like smaller and stature or timid, they are constantly the ones that need quote, unquote saving by Superboy in these really odd, like vague ways. Like they need to get physical strength to be appreciated. And it's super toxic. Mike: Yeah. And I mean, that kind of hinges on the old ideas of masculinity as well. Jessika: Oh, and I'm sorry, why Lana's dad keeping again, keeping legit magic items where people can access them. It just, I can not get past that because they just have all this shit sitting around where people are like, oh, let me touch it. Mike: look, here's the thing, like gun control, wasn't a thing back then you think they're going to seriously guard supernatural weapons of destruction. Jessika: that is a valid point. That is so valid. at least he wasn't mistreating his dog in this issue, I guess. Mike: I guess. I don't know. He locked him in the closet for a few hours. Jessika: Shit. That's right. [00:56:00] Nevermind. Fuck. So that wraps up our Superboy conversation. Let's move on to our brain wrinkles. And this is the one thing comics are comics adjacent that's just been rattling around in your brain. Since the last time we talked. Mike: Yeah. So I was going to talk about free comic book day and how I was originally pretty excited about it. But now, we're recording this a couple of weeks before free comic book day is going to happen. And we are still in the middle of a pandemic when we record this, the Delta strain has started to rear its ugly head and lead to cases spiking all over the place, including here in the Bay Area. So, As someone who has immunocompromised kids who are too young to get the vaccine still, we're not going to be able to participate. Um, so yeah, I don't know. I think I'm instead going to talk about The Suicide Squad and actually how I'm really [00:57:00] excited about that movie. And it's getting rave reviews and it's opening this week on HBO max and in theaters. And then, because people can't leave shit well, enough alone, David Ayer, the director of the original Suicide Squad movie talked about how this one is great, but then he proceeded to shit all over Warner Brothers and talked about how the version of just Suicide Squad that got released back in 2016, was not his version of the film and how it's terrible. And he wants, vindication now. And I just, I can't go through another Snyder Cut. I just, I don't have… Jessika: Alright like, you know, at least, okay. At least it's not the Justice League. At least it's Suicide Squad, Mike: But like the Snyder Cut almost broke me. Jessika: No, I hear you. I already don't like, I already wasn't like on board and I had to watch like so much Justice League that weekend. Mike: I remember. Jessika: Then I had prequel films I had to [00:58:00] watch. No, I don't want to do this again. I don't. Mike: I can't. I am happy to talk about Suicide Squad. And I'm pretty sure there'll be jazzed up to talk about it after this movie. But I just, I can't bring myself to care about these auteur directors who are just… when I was working in the video games industry, we had this term that we used for certain people who were on the development side, who were all about their vision and how, they wouldn't compromise anything. And we, we just refer to them as the genius babies, because they would have these ungodly meltdowns. I can't bring myself to just, I can't bring myself to care about another genius baby throwing a temper tantrum. Jessika: I don't want it. Mike: How about you? What is, uh, what is sitting in your head these days? Jessika: I've been thinking a lot about representation in the media, including comic books. [00:59:00] And that's partially because we've been reading all these old comics where we don't see a lot of different representation. Versus the comics that I'm drawn to, which are full of representation, because that's what I prefer to read. I want to see everyone and it's been really nice to read destiny, New York and some of these other recent comics that actually show different types of bodies, different skin tones, different sexualities and genders. But I think there's so much more that we need to do, and that can be done to add and continue to build upon that representation. Like just in general, it's 2021. And we're still shaming people for being a certain size and, you know, airbrushing people who are already considered to be the epitome of beauty in our society. Like what is it going to take for us to allow people to just exist as we are. I mean, you know, besides the whole capitalist bullshit [01:00:00] game, telling women, they need more and more products to achieve beauty. But aside from that, but it's giving me, it's definitely making me feel better to see all of the representation, but there, again, it just reminds me that we need more. Mike: I was gonna say, it's that reminder of we've come a long way, but we need to go further. Jessika: Yep. It is. It is. You had mentioned, your inability to go to free comics day. and I feel like there are probably a lot of people who had a really difficult time getting anywhere. To go to something like that, you know? And so thinking about accessibility in that way of, what about those readers? Like what are we doing about them? So you know, it's just something I think about I've worked at social services too. I mean, I'm just, I'm a bleeding heart, but we need people like me or else, I don't know, get rid of that. We don't need people like me. So that's, that's, what's been rattling for me. [01:01:00] It's just more of a continuous disappointed buzz in my brain that we don't respect all people. Mike: Yeah. Well, we do on this podcast. Jessika: So on that uplifting note, that's it for today, but stay tuned for another episode in two weeks and until then we'll see it in the stacks. Mike: Thanks for listening to Ten Cent Takes. Accessibility is important to us. So text transcriptions of each of our published episodes can be found on our website. Jessika: This episode was hosted by Jessika Frazier and Mike Thompson, written by Jessika Frazier and edited by Mike Thompson. Our intro theme was written and performed by Jared Emerson Johnson of Bay Area Sound, our credits and transition music is Pursuit of Life by Evan McDonald and was purchased with a standard license from premium beat. Our banner graphics were designed by Sarah Frank, who goes by. Look, mom draws on Instagram.[01:02:00] Mike: If you'd like to get in touch with us, ask us questions or tell us about how we got something wrong. Please head over to Tencent takes.com or shoot an email to Tencent akes@gmail.com. You can also find us on Twitter. The official podcast account is Tencenttakes. Jessika is Jessika with us, and Jessika is spelled with a K and I am Vansau: V A N S A U Jessika: If you'd like to support us, be sure to download, rate and review wherever you listen. Mike: Stay safe out there. Jessika: And support your local comic shop .
Hop into your big rigs and get ready for a wild ride! In this episode, we're going to be talking about U.S. 1, Marvel's licensed series about a long-haul trucker who also happened to be a superhero.----more---- Episode 12 Transcript [00:00:00] Mike: If you're a middle-aged white guy, maybe trying to sit there and write about the troubles that indigenous people from other countries face, maybe don't do that. Just my ten cents. Welcome to Ten Cent Takes, the podcast where we hand-wave plot holes like it's nobody's business, one issue at a time. My name is Mike Thompson and I am joined by my cohost of chaos, Jessika Frazer. Jessika: Well, hello. Mike: Hello. Jessika: How are you doing? Mike: Uh, I am doing a lot better now that I am not on jury duty anymore. So. Jessika: Woo. Mike: I mean, don't get me wrong. It's a [00:01:00] civic duty that we should all be happy to perform, but it's really nice when you don't have to do it. Jessika: I've been on a jury before. Mike: Was it, a cool case? Jessika: No, it was a disturbing, unsettling case, but it was still a civic case? It was just, Yeah. It was, it was not great. And I couldn't talk about it. So let's just say I, I took out a lot of my angst with a tennis racket against the wall. Not, not the racket itself, but hitting the ball against the wall a lot. Mike: Yeah, Jessika: But, civic, duty, it is. So I was 19 at the time. Mike: I think the last time I had to report for jury duty in person I was 25, give or take. Jessika: Mm. Mike: And then I got dismissed because they asked me if I would believe a teenager's word over a cop, and at the time I was like, hell no. And these days. Jessika: Yeah. Different opinions now. Mike: Yeah. [00:02:00] Tangent aside, the reason that we're here on this podcast is because we like to look at and talk about comic books in ways that are both fun and informative. We like to look at the weirdest, silliest, strangest, and coolest moments, and examine how they have been woven into pop culture and history in general. In this episode, we're hitting the open road of the Marvel Universe and looking at U.S. 1, a 1980s maxi-series about a superhero big rig trucker. But before we go down that road, what is one cool thing that you have read or watched lately? Jessika: So, I had a suggestion made to me by Lauren, from Outer Planes in Santa Rosa. Hey Lauren. And she told me about a comic that is set in the same universe as the Alice in Leatherland that I started reading and I've had on my pull list now. Mike: Yeah, the one that you mentioned a couple episodes ago? [00:03:00] Jessika: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And so it was also from Black Mask and it's called Destiny, NY. I'm on issue one, which is a veritable chonker, it's absolutely awesome. There are two girls kissing in a closet within the first three pages, so you know I'm already in. And it's cool because it's set in a version of New York where magic exists, and follows a school for kids that have been told by one seer or another that they have a destiny or a prophecy to fulfill. And the students have different abilities and visual characteristics, like one has a third eye and she's supposed to like, see the greatest lie out of the truths or something like that. And she's like, but I don't even know what that is. It's all super vague, like these poor kids. And I've grabbed the first five issues, and I will be tearing through these and no [00:04:00] time. I'm sure, cause it's already super fun. Mike: Yeah, that sounds fantastic, to be completely honest. There was a book that I read about a year ago called Magic for Liars, which is a boarding school for magic users. And then the sister of, one of the faculty is called in to investigate a death, and it's really cool because she's not a magic user, but her sister who is part of the faculty is so it's, it was cool. I liked it a lot. Jessika: That's neat. Mike: But yeah, that was a cool book. Jessika: Nice. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Well, what about you? What you've been reading, watching, listening to? Mike: All right. So I'm always mildly embarrassed to admit that I'm a Conan fan, mainly because I think so many people just associate them with Arnold Schwarzenegger and those middling to not-good movies that they made with him in the eighties. Um, yeah, but I really fell in love with his Comics back in 2005 or so, when they were being done by Dark Horse and they were really, really good. They were these wonderfully dark, low fantasy stories that always seem to [00:05:00] balance like action and tragedy and comedy really well. And Marvel got the character back a couple of years ago, so they've been doing really cool work with them lately. The new Conan series is really fun and feels really true to the original stories, but they've also displaced him through time, and now they've got them hanging out in the mainstream Marvel Universe via this series. Jessika: Oh, interesting. Mike: Yeah. And it's in the series called the Savage Avengers. It's wild. It's written by Gerrry Duggan, who, he wrote, arguably the best Conan story that I've ever read in Conan 2099, which is they took that Spider-Man 2099 universe, and then they slapped him right in the middle of it. Jessika: Oh. Mike: It it's great, like the way that it was written was so perfect. And it's one of those books where anybody who sits there and even if they say they're not a Conan fan, I just say, you need to read this. It's wonderful. But anyway, so Savage Avengers features him going on adventures with characters like Wolverine [00:06:00] Deadpool, the Punisher and Electra. It's so dumb, but it's so much fun. Like, early on in the series, he gets a Venom- symbiate joined with them, but it's really weak. So it can only form weapons for him. Jessika: Okay. Mike: It's just it, it's great. It's an absolute guilty pleasure, and I refuse to apologize for this. So it was unfortunately not available in Marvel Unlimited, which is probably why I hadn't heard about it, but the back issues are all pretty cheap, and I grabbed a ton of them from Brian's comics on my last run, and I've just been having a blast reading them. We probably should do an episode actually, where we talk about the fact that Conan has been in comics for almost 50 years. And Jessika: Oh. Mike: He started at Marvel originally, and now he's back at Marvel, but there was a long hiatus. Jessika: Ooh. I want to hear that arc. Absolutely. Mike: All right. Moving right along. So as tempting as it is to just dive right [00:07:00] into U.S. 1 the comic and its strangeness, I don't think we can talk about it without covering some background info first. So, have you ever heard the term trucking culture before? Jessika: I've absolutely heard of trucking culture, but I'm not too familiar with the intricacies. My uncle drove a truck for years, but I think he's retired at this point. Mike: Okay. I think it's something that a lot of people aren't really aware of, or they hear about it and then they start making jokes. Like, I got some glimpses of it when one of my photography gigs have me living on a tour bus for a few months. So, we would visit a lot of legit truck stops in the middle of nowhere. And I'm not talking gas stations, I'm talking full rest stops where restaurants served truckers before other patrons, the bathrooms had shower stalls and all of the stores felt like kind of miniature Walmarts. They were just massive. And they had anything that you could think of you might need on a long road trip. [00:08:00] It's this side that, if you live in an urban environment folks, aren't really going to see or understand, and it's the staggeringly huge thing that most people never even seem to think about. But I mean, trucking is this major part of the United States and its industry as noted in this factoid from the American trucking associations, if you would be so kind. Jessika: Nearly every good consumed in the U S is put on a truck at some point. As a result, the trucking industry hauled 72.5% of all freight transported in the United States in 2019, equaling to 11.84 billion tons. The trucking industry was a $791.7 billion industry in that same year representing 80.4% of the nation's freight bill. Mike: Yeah. It's I was actually, I was really surprised actually to see that it was that much. I assumed that trains [00:09:00] and shipping were at least a little bit bigger. Jessika: No, because we don't here's the problem is that because of the auto industry in the United States, we stifled the ability to make all the train tracks necessary, to get the things to all the places we need. And now it's horrendously expensive to go on a train. Yeah. I don't know that people know that about the United States. So for our international listeners: you can't take trains here, it's very expensive. Mike: Yeah. First of all, there's no real national rail system. And, and second, the rail system that does exist is prohibitively expensive, unless you are a not far distance commuter. Like I took Amtrak for a couple, for about a year traveling between Sacramento and San Francisco a couple of times a week. And it was great. It was less expensive to do that a couple of times a week than it was to drive down. But [00:10:00] yeah, it's prohibitively expensive for most people. Jessika: Yeah. And there are some cities in the United States that do have a decent transportation system. Portland has a decent one in New York, obviously that there are other places to Chicago, yeah. But I mean, for the most part across country, especially because we're such a large country, and we are of course expected to share things. California has to share everything. Listen to me, I sound so greedy. Mike: I know. Yeah. What does it, we have the, I think it's like it's top five or top 10 economies in the world. Jessika: We're the top sixth economy in the world by ourselves. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, So if we just dumped off everyone else, the rest of the states would be screwed. Actually a few would hold their own, but those middlin' states. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Suffering. Mike: Well, as big as it is, the trucking industry, as we know it, [00:11:00] isn't even a hundred years old. Uh, yeah, so really, trucks were first used extensively by the military in WWI, and then trucking became prominent in the 1930s because of the increased construction on paved roads. So, it didn't take long after that, before truckers became a part of American pop culture. They started having songs and movies about them. And as noted by Shane Hamilton in his book, Trucking Country: the Road to America's Walmart Economy, there was this mythology that almost lionized truckers. Jessika: Hmm. Mike: If you would, uh, do us all the favor of reading out the section that I found that describes it pretty well. Jessika: The image of the respectable trucker circulated outside the world of Hollywood in the 1950s. As truckers became known as the Knights of the Road for helping stranded motorists, and using their blinkers and [00:12:00] headlights as courtesy signals. This image was further reinforced by the standard driver's uniform of the era: trim, neat pants and button shirt, and the chauffeur's cap. The masculine mythologies of trucking moved increasingly into a wider cultural world in the 1950s and 1960s. As the image of the truck driving man was reflected back to truckers by movies and music. Mike: Yeah. So the 1970s were when trucking hit, it's kind of Zenith point and pop culture. They wound up being presented as kind of this modern version of cowboys, you know, wandering nomads who rebelled against the oppressive rule of law while still operating under their own kind of honor code. There were a ton of movies and songs during this decade that romanticized the trucker life. And a lot of these have since faded into obscurity, but this was the period when we got that song Convoy by CW McCall, which also inspired a movie with a very young shirtless Kris Kristofferson, um, [00:13:00] uh, Smokey in the Bandit came out in 1977 and it was the number three grossing movie of the year behind Star Wars. And there's also a really bad Chuck Norris action Flint called Breaker Breaker. Like it was a moment in pop culture. Jessika: Are you really going to say that a Chuck Norris movie was bad? What if he's right behind you? Mike: I mean, yeah. Jessika: It's always a threat. Don't don't deny it. Mike: Man. Remember when we all used to like Chuck Norris and we thought he was cool before we went off the deep end and it turned out he's just the worst. Remember those days? Jessika: Oh no. We have a nefarious character, nefarious character alert. Mike: Yeah. What a shock. Jessika: Oh, not on our podcast. Mike: I know. All right. Well, okay. So the [00:14:00] eighties, this all started to change in the eighties when truckers started being portrayed more villainously, or at least poorly in media, like Thelma and Louise, you've seen Thelma and Louise, right? Jessika: Yeah. Mike: Yeah. You remember how there's that gross trucker who keeps on harassing them. Jessika: Yes. Mike: Yeah. And, the eighties, it was starting to decline, but it wasn't quite there yet. The nineties was when it really picked up and we'll discuss that in a little bit, Jessika: Hmm. Mike: But at the time that this comic project started, big rig truckers were still on the high side of public opinion. So we've talked in previous episodes about how Marvel wound up undergoing a commercial Renaissance in the early eighties, under the guidance of Jim Shooter. Particularly, you know, with Saturday morning cartoons and all that stuff. Jessika: Mm. Mike: One of the major sources of the success came in the form of toy companies, partnering with the publisher for licensed comic adaptations and arguably, the biggest example of this kind of success came from [00:15:00] partnerships with Hasbro when Marvel created the characters and lore for both Transformers in G.I. Joe. So U.S. 1 was a comic that came about from another partnership, but this one was with a different toy company. It was called Tyco Toys and Tyco wanted to do a licensed comic based on their U.S. 1 brand of slot truck toys. Jessika: Oh, so this was all based on the Tyco truck, even. truck even. Mike: Yes, it's a little bit different than the standard Tyco truck, and we'll talk about that in a second, but you know, Tyco probably doesn't sound familiar to people that are younger than us these days, but they were a company that originally made model trains for hobbyists. And then they started making slot car toys in the 1960s, which are the cars that you press the trigger and they go around a track and you can build out the track how you want. So, by the eighties, this brand was the one that was dominating that particular section of the market, the slot car toy section. [00:16:00] And at this point, they decided to create some slot truck toys. It was branded U.S. 1 Electric Trucking, and it launched in 1981. And it was based on the earlier racing sets, but it had a couple of unique features. You could drive the trucks in both forward and reverse, and you could also have the trucks pick up and deliver loads of, and this is the quote, action accessories with that direct interaction from the person operating it. And the tagline was “you control the action”. So I've got this commercial that I found on YouTube, because YouTube has everything and it's actually really cute. You want to give it a shot? Jessika: Sure thing. [00:17:00] Oh, this is really exciting. Oh! That's actually a really fun. Mike: Right. Jessika: No, that's super freaking fun. That is that's super fun. Mike: Yeah. So Tyco came to Marvel and they said that they were interested in having a comic adaptation done. And, the comic wound up being written by Al Milgrim, who's actually, he's a pretty interesting dude in comic history, he worked as a writer, and editor and inker, and a penciler during his career. And he was particularly known for this long tenure editing Marvel Fanfare, where I think he edited it for like a decade. Also the real reason that he's an industry legend though, is because Marvel actually fired him after he hid some messaging in a panel background where he was badmouthing Marvel Harris. The then recently departed editor in chief of Marvel. [00:18:00] Jessika: Oh, damn. That's cold. Mike: Yeah, it was actually really funny and you can look it up, where he basically wrote some messages vertically on the spines of books in the background of a Spider-Man comic. And there's some weird happenstances about how, I think the editor caught them and had the wording removed. And then, through some error, that image got used instead and went to publish and yeah, it's, it's kind of amazing, but he was actually a full-time employee, which was really rare for one of the people who was actually creating the comics. And so it's this, you know, he was, he was actually fired by Marvel. Jessika: Wow. yeah, From what I've read, most of them were freelance, so that's actually super interesting. Mike: Yeah. It's an interesting story. And it's one I would love to talk to him about someday, which we'll discuss that later. I legit love that story about how Milgrim got, let go, because it's totally a move that I would pull. [00:19:00] And then the series was originally drawn by this other long-time Marvel artists named Herb Trimp. he'd made a name for himself with the Incredible Hulk, and also he is known as the first artist to actually draw Wolverine for publication because he drew the, he drew the issue. John Romita came up with the character design in sketch, but he was the one who actually first drew him in a comic, which was cool. Jessika: That's super neat. Mike: Yeah. And so Trimp also, wasn't a stranger to projects like this. He had recently worked on G.I. Joe. He wound up penciling the first two issues, and then Frank Springer came in to finish out the series, and Springer was another reliable artist from Marvel and he had also been involved with G.I. Joe and Transformers. Milgrim actually has an essay at the end of the first issue called In the Driver's Seat, where he talks about the comics. And it starts with how Tyco asks for the common treatment and then goes into his first meeting with Jim Shooter about the projects. And I kind of love this description where he talks about how he wasn't [00:20:00] really sold on the idea originally. Jessika: Frankly, I wasn't sure. Nobody had ever done anything with trucks and comics before. When I voiced the concern to Jim, it was as if I had slapped his face and challenged him to a duel. Exactly! He exploded. Nobody has done it before. Maybe nobody thinks it can be done. There may even be a lot of resistance to the idea, but we can do it and do it well. I got caught up in the challenge, Jim and I did not fight a duel to the death, lucky for him. Instead, we began discussing the idea of a truck driving hero. We talked about the romance of driving a truck, the dedication of those self-sufficient loners who drive the big rigs, we got swept up in the notion, began to solidify the concept of a trucker with a mission, a goal, a quest. Mike: Yeah, it's kind of charming to hear how enamored he got with the project during that first meeting. [00:21:00] The essay also mentions that Marvel's animation division, which as we've also covered in that episode about Saturday morning cartoons, was a thing that they had, was working on what sounded like a TV show pitch. And there might be some toys and animated series in the future, but spoiler, that never happened. I'm curious, how would you summarize this comic series? Jessika: A lot happened. So a lot happened. This series was wild from start to finish. It starts with introductions to Ulysses Solomon Archer, or USA, and his brother, Jefferson, or Jeff after their parents who are truck drivers die in an accident, US and Jeff are raised by Wide Load,. Who's a woman, and Poppa, who are the owners of a truck stop named Shortstop. Mike: We need to stop this for a second. You need to, you need to acknowledge them by their full [00:22:00] names. Jessika: I'm sorry. Remind me what Poppa's name is. Mike: Poppa Wheelie, and it's Wide Load Annie, and Wide Load Annie. Jessika: Okay. Let me re say that. Okay. Excuse me. Mike: I'm sorry. It's just it's too good. Jessika: No, you're right. I'm not even going to cut any of this. I'm just going to leave it. No, you're right. I couldn't, you know what, honestly, because I couldn't remember what their full names were when I was writing this out. I was like, this is good enough. So, so yeah, they're the owners of a truck stop called Shortstop and US is this All-American blonde haired, white boy, who has it all going for him. He's literally good at everything without trying. And he's encouraged by Wide Load Annie and Poppa Wheelie to get a college education, even though he knows he wants to be a truck driver, just like his folks, and his adoptive parents and his big brother, Jeff, who he idolizes. [00:23:00] And Jeff is your classic, dark haired boy who just can't seem to keep up with US's successes, and also becomes a truck driver obviously, and seemingly mostly as a backup profession, which is kind of interesting how they they're both like encouraging and disparaging of truck drivers inparts. And I'm like, it's kind of strange. There's a give and take. I don't know what it is. I don't know if you felt that too. Mike: It's the whole thing of, he is not good. Jefferson is billed as being not good at school, but US is. And so they're like, no, you have to go to college, you have to make something of yourself. And Poppa and Wide Load and Jefferson all support him and send him to school. And Jefferson is doing it via job in trucking. Yeah, they talked about how expensive colleges in those days. And I'm like, my dudes, it's 1980. You could literally go to college on a minimum wage job. And it talks about how also, I think he had scholarships and. Jessika: Cause he was good at [00:24:00] everything. Mike: and he double majored in computer Jessika: Electronics. Yeah, exactly. Mike: Electrical engineering, I think. And then, and then. Jessika: Computer sciences. Yeah. Uh, Yeah. it was a whole thing. Mike: It's a thing. Exactly. Jessika: So during a drive with a young US, Jeff's big rig is run off the road by a devilish figure he calls the high women just prior to driving off a cliff. The truck explodes and Us is gravely injured in such a way that he evidently needs a skull replacement? Mike: You know? Sure. Jessika: Have you heard of that? Mike: No. Jessika: Usually with a skull replacement, you're going to be a lot worse off than just, like, gonna in a pop awake in a couple minutes after you put something metal back on there, Mike: Yeah. It's, uh, I believe they worded it as, oh, is this experimental treatment and I'm like, what? Okay. Jessika: Which already was so [00:25:00] sus. Mike: Yeah. And they, basically replace his skull with it's, in this comic, it's implied that it's like just the top part of his skull that like, you know, protects the brain. Later comic appearances, it is very strongly hinted that they basically do a brain transplant into, or, that they basically just give him a metal skull of some kind. It's like, there's no bone to be seen, but. Jessika: Like a new head completely? Lord. Goodness gracious. Well, so after that, he vows to find his brother who he's like, I couldn't find him in the crash. It's like, bro, like you kind of couldn't look for him. You had a concussion, like you're not an expert in finding bodies in an explosion. I don't know how he just definitively was like, well I guess everybody else told him that, that he, the body was never found or whatever, [00:26:00] but. Mike: Yeah, that's true. Jessika: Yeah. So he decided he's gonna find his brother as well as the mysterious Highwayman that he yelled about right before. And he quickly finds out that he can pick up CB radio waves from his fancy new skullcap, and somehow has truck becomes self-aware and he can communicate directly with it? And it's making its own decisions. Inexplicably. It's not well explained, once again. Mike: It's so truck originally, he builds a remote control into like a half dollar, so he can drive it really like, like a precision driver with his remote. But then later on, I think there's, it was like some kind of like a lightning strike or something or electrical overload that then allowed him to directly interface with the truck. And then the truck is also self-aware at times where it's providing narration for an entire issue. And we'll talk about that, too. Jessika: Yeah, that's what I was going to say. [00:27:00] It was the weirdest thing. I was kinda on board with most of it. And then the truck was having its own inner monologue. And I was like, wait a second, guys. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Oh, goodness gracious. And then there's also a spy planted within the truck stop in the form of a mind-controlled waitress, Mary McGrill, which their names, all their names. Mike: The alliteration and stuff and puns. It's great. Jessika: Exactly. It's so cheese. I love it. And she uses this wacky mind control whip, and there's drama about the truck stop being foreclosed upon and being sold to make condos. And, and then DUN DUN DUN! Jeff turns out to be the Highwayman! And they are aliens looking for the best person, read trucker, you know, of course on earth to be some kind of space ambassador? Mike: Yeah. It's not well explained. [00:28:00] I think it had something to do with they wanted people to pilot their star ships, because they were like accustomed to like long bouts of being on their own and stuff. Jessika: Yeah, it was, it was a whole thing too. And then apparently all humans look alike to the aliens. Mike: I thought that was funny as fuck. That was. Jessika: I thought that was hysterical Mike: Because the aliens are so weird looking. Jessika: Yeah. Yeah. And so apparently they had been scoping US this whole time, cause he's like the golden child, but then they accidentally swooped Jeff instead, because they made a mistake and Jeff was just like, yeah, I'm going to go with it. So once they figured out their mistake, they felt really bad about wasting all of their time and effort on this, this putz. And so then they of course had to have a race to make sure who was the best one to be the space ambassador, whether it was [00:29:00] going to be US, who dun dun dun the aliens gave him the skullcap! Mike: Yup. Jessika: Or his brother who has been working with the alien tech and has, like, a time advantage and a training advantage. So it's of course, US wins. I mean, come on. So of course they just get sent up into space? And he gets to take the whole truck stop with him? And all of the people? Mike: Yup. Jessika: It's the Rapture? Mike: Yeah. And then the greedy bankers who are left behind, who are going to take the property that the truck stopped. I think they, they wind up getting dosed with some kind of radiation. Jessika: Yeah, the, they were going to build condos on the land and then it ended up being radioactive. And so the buyer ended up pulling out. Mike: Yeah, Jessika: Like right there, because that's how that works. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: So yeah. The end. That's it. Mike: Oh yeah. [00:30:00] And then the other thing is that for the first half of the series, we are given to believe that the Highwayman is demonic in origin. Like they do a whole thing where, he's got his own mind-controlled, big rig that runs them off the road or whatever. And, he's surrounded by devils when he's looking down triumphantly on the wreckage and there's, you know, it's the mythology of the open road where they're like, oh, he was this trucker who, apparently, couldn't keep up anymore with the younger truckers and their newer rigs. So we cut a deal with the devil and it was, I actually kind of dug it. It was ridiculous. And over the top, but it was great. And then it turns out it was just, I don't know, some disguise that he put on just the fuck with everybody. Jessika: He did the Scooby Doo unveiling where he pulled a rubber mask off of his face, and I about lost my mind. Mike: Yeah. Okay. What was your overall impression of the series? Jessika: It was a fucking [00:31:00] wild ride, but it was fun. I liked that it was so random at times. It legitimately kept me guessing the whole way. The topics though, they were not subtle with the overbearing American patriotism and the overt disdain for neo-Nazis, which obviously I'm behind. Mike: I mean, whatever that was fine. Jessika: that was great when they dropped the, the neo-Nazis in Televiv. Mike: Oh God. Well, and the funniest part was they were, so one of the antagonists for us is Baron VonBlimp, who pilot, he, he looks like, he looks like kind of this weird aristocrat from like turn of the century, Europe. No, he's I think he even has a monocle. And then towards the end, when he shows up in his blimp, he drops out and he's got a bunch of Nazis with them and, you know, they've got the swastika, armbands and everything, and then it's revealed they're not actually Nazis and he's not even German. He just liked how the uniforms looked. And then the aliens are like, whatever we're [00:32:00] done with this. And they literally hand wave them away into Israel. And I was like, that's, that's just magnificent. Just chef's kiss. Jessika: Oh, yeah, I did actually really like that. So, so what about you? What did you think about this? Mike: I mean, it's one of those comics where I never expected to enjoy it as much as I did, but there's something so silly and pure about this entire story. It feels like the kind of thing that a five or six year old kid would come up with while playing with their trucks, you know, like monsters and aliens and races against air ships. And then you hand wave away things when you want to change the narrative. And it somehow kind of works actually. Like, I don't know how, but it kind of does. I really loved, like I talked about, I love Baron VonBlimp, I thought he was just so weird. And then I liked how the Shortstop is essentially the Mos Eisley Cantina, but it's got better coffee. [00:33:00] And it seemed like every time that we first visited the place, someone was getting thrown through a window, which was of. Jessika: Absolutely. There was always a fight scene. It reminded me of a saloon, like one of those old-timey saloons with people getting thrown out double doors and things crashing. Mike: Yeah. And then we talked about how US' his truck was self-aware, but, but I love the bit where Papa refers to it as a she and the trucks that there and says I'm not ashamed, but I'm secure enough in myself. That it's fine. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: I was like, that is weirdly topical through a 2021 lens, but this is also really good. And also every cover to this comic, it is a work of art. Like, like the styles vary, but they're really cool looking and they're just really weird. Yeah, I mean, it was just, it was a blast. Were there any highlights for you, or any lowlights. Jessika: So I have to say my eyes just about rolled out of my [00:34:00] head, where the aliens showed up and needed chicken parts to make their ship work correctly. And the rivalry between the two female characters was pretty contrived. Mike: I did like how they were trying to sit there and spin it so you didn't know who was the sleeper agent? I thought that was kind of cool, but yeah, they were, you know, they were fighting over Us and that was dumb, but it's also, you know, it's the 1980s. What are you gonna do? Jessika: Exactly. Had to have some sort of, you know, forced love triangle of some nature. But I have to say I was oddly charmed at the editing notes from Ralph Macchio, all people? Mike: Uh, editor with the same name as the, yeah. Jessika: Oh, okay. All right. Wow. Goodness gracious. Cause I was like giving that guy a lot of credit. Mike: Nope. Jessika: I did like that though. I did like the little comments, the little editing notes, it was a little much [00:35:00] sometimes, but I love that he was throwing shade at the writers sometimes, or reminding the reader about the previous events or where you could read about them. And it was interesting how in depth they recapped each issue, but it must've been nice for the readers who weren't starting from issue one. Mike: Yeah. And especially because it was a maxi series and then it started in mid 1983 and then it ended in late 1984. So, it went from monthly to bi-monthly, and it was not a big name comic in the first place, so it makes sense that they would sit there and provide that background for readers. And I also really appreciated that it was all the same characters over and over again, so that it wasn't doing anything crazy new, but at the same time, each of those issues you could pick up except for the last couple. Pretty easy to understand. Jessika: Yeah. I would say so. Mike: I mentioned earlier that this was another licensed comic that was designed to help promote a toy line, but as [00:36:00] opposed to G.I. Joe and transformers, though, this wasn't nearly as successful. Comichron, which is a site that tracks sales data for comics doesn't have 1983 data in place yet, but the site comic book, historians has this incredible online community. And I actually wound up posting there and asking if anyone had any insight into how the comics sold and Al Milgrim himself wound up chiming in if you would be so kind. Jessika: I'm sorry, what? That's cool as heck. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Wow. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Okay. Well, I got a, sorry, I got a little nervous. Oh sure. I think the first issue sold around 160,000 or so, not great for a first issue, but respectable. Marvel only contracted with the toy company to do a dozen issues. I'm sure the sales went downhill from there. Still think the book was some good silly fun though (I may be [00:37:00] biased). Mike: Yeah, I was really stunned. This, the comic book historian group actually has a lot of amazing industry professionals involved in it. I've seen writers like Mark Wade chime in, the owner of Mile High Comics routinely posts about comic book history as well. They have a podcast and a YouTube series. They did a long series of interviews with Jim Shooter that was really cool, which actually, I think did a lot to kind of redeem his character a bit because a lot of people viewed him as a villain in the comic book and yeah. Jessika: Oh. Mike: But yeah, Milgrim was super cool to chime in on that. And I wound up talking to him briefly afterwards and he said, he'd be open to doing an interview with us at some point. So maybe there'll be a Part two to the U.S. 1 episode. Jessika: That's exciting. Mike: Yeah. The comic series ran for roughly a year and a half and it ended in October of 1984, the U.S. 1 toys were moderately more successful, they lasted until 86. And then after this trucking and pop culture continued to undergo this shift. [00:38:00] And it feels like the nineties, as I said, was when things really started to significantly change. We talked about Thelma and Louise. There was that Kurt Russell trucking movie called Breakdown, where the villains were truckers. And then. I mean, it's kind of still how they're portrayed these days in media. I really don't think it helps that the FBI released this five-year study back in 2009 that linked long haul trucking to serial killers. Jessika: Oh. Wow. Mike: Yeah. And it's one of those things where it's not saying all long haul truckers are a majority of long haul, truckers are serial killers, but that there are a number of serial killers who are long haul truckers. And it makes sense because there's a lack of supervision. And also you can pick someone up in one state, killed them in another and then drop them off, dump the body in a third. And also a lot of times the people that they pick up are people that no one really misses. Jessika: Yeah. Yeah. Mike: On that high note. [00:39:00] The funny thing is that this isn't where Ulysses S. Archer's story ends. So even though this was a licensed comic book for a company that was eventually acquired by Mattel, it seems like Marvel still owns the rights to the characters themselves because Ulysses pops up every now and then he's usually like the supporting character but sometimes it's as to this one-off deep cut. So he appeared in a couple of issues of John Burns, Sensational She Hulk in the early nineties, he was supporting the She Hulk for a few issues. There was a brief cameo and the 2010 series new Avengers where he applied to be a babysitter for Luke Cage and Jessica Jones' daughter Jessika: Oh, geez. Mike: It was, it was actually pretty funny. He wound up helping out Rocket Raccoon in this backup story of a 2011 series called the Annihilaters, and then he also teamed up with Deadpool around the same time. And that's the issue where you see, it looks like he's actually got a fully replaced skull made out of metal. They, they, they do one of those like cross section cuts where you see [00:40:00] where you see underneath the scan, it looks like he's got just an all-metal skull. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: Yeah. And then after that, we haven't heard much about him in the Marvel Universe, but weirdly his brother Jefferson has appeared a bit too. So, he was listed as a character in the Dark Reign files, which was a who's who guide to various Marvel villains in 2009. And it actually retcon his story. Basically it claims that the highway man, after staying on earth wound up actually cutting a deal with Satan, in quotes, whoever that is. And then he wound up fighting against ghost writer. And then aside from the issue where Deadpool teamed up with his brother, he winds up fighting against Deadpool again in 2016 or so. Jessika: That's super random. Mike: Yeah. And now we're in 2021 and it's been a few years since we've seen Ulysses and his friends show up. But I personally think that we're kind of overdue to have them come back like. Jessika: I [00:41:00] want to see Poppa Wheelie in something. Mike: Right. I would love to see him show up as a strong support character in one of those like heroes on the run stories where, whatever hero of the book is being pursued by, the government or something like that. And then he basically winds up providing kind of a mobile base of operations or something like that. And then he helps them keep our heroes one step ahead of the law. Jessika: Yeah. Like he floats down on the Shortstop, like space station or something. Yeah. That'd be cool as heck. Mike: Yeah or something, I mean, there's so many different ways you could go, you could have him come back to earth and he just winds up working as a trucker again, because that's what he really likes. He misses driving through the natural beauty of America, something like that. You know, I think there could be some really fun opportunities. And I really hope that Marvel brings him back at some point, because he was just this really fun, weird character. And it was strange and it was silly, but it was also very sweet. So that is U.S. 1 in a nutshell, [00:42:00] what are your final thoughts on it? Jessika: I think it was a lot of fun. It was bananagrams, you know, all the way to the top, but it was fun. Mike: Yeah. All right. It is now time for that part of the episode called Brain Wrinkles, which is when we like to discuss things that are Comics related that are just sticking in our head and won't get out. Do you mind if I go first? Jessika: Oh, please do. Mike: All right. I was going to talk about the recent news that Marvel's hired someone to direct Blade, but I'm actually way more excited about something else. There's this podcast called Comic Book Couples Counseling, which is this absolutely rad show. It's hosted by married couple, Brad and Lisa Gullickson, and they take relationships between comics characters, and then examine them through the lens of different self-help love gurus. So they've been super supportive of us so far. Like they've actually retweeted [00:43:00] our stuff and their show is really fun. But, I was recently reading through a whole bunch of nineties Valiant comics that I managed to pick up from the Bat Cave in Santa Rosa when they have this blind box sale. And one of the series contained in these boxes is called the Second Life of Dr. Mirage. And it's one of the series that I collected when I was a kid it's about this married couple named Hwen Fong and Carmen Ruiz, who were his pair of psychologists. Hwen is this kind of like nebbish little guy, and Carmen is this bruiser, like, she's the bad-ass of the pair. There's this early scene where she winds up saving him from zombies because she's a master of Kappa Wera, which is, you know, it makes sense, cause she's from Brazil. And then in the first issue, they run a foul of Valiance resident necromancer named master dark and he kills Hwen, but then Hwen comes back as a ghost, sort of a ghost kind of a thing. Jessika: Hm. Mike: But I was reading through the series and I was really struck how this was a superhero comic that actually focused on an [00:44:00] adult relationship and relationship issues that come along with the supernatural stuff, like early on Carmen has a pretty heartfelt talk with her undead husband about how difficult it is for her emotionally, because he's still with her, but she can't touch him. Jessika: Oh my god. Mike: And anyway, so I wound up tweeting about it, cause I thought the couple would make a good topic for Comic Book Couples Counseling, and they wound up picking up all the back issues like that day. And they're going to do an episode about the characters. So I'm super excited to listen to this. Jessika: Oh, that's super fun. Mike: Yeah, Jessika: See, and I was going to talk about the same thing. Mike: I'm sorry, I stole your thunder. Jessika: No, that's okay though. They're so good. So I'm that person who has to start from episode one, because. Mike: They've got a lot of episodes too. Jessika: They do they're back to 2018. So I just went all the way back and it's so [00:45:00] fun though. I like to get that rapport. I like to make sure I have that parasocial, you know, relationship really hooked in there with all the podcasts I listen to. So, the first section that they did cause they always do kind of like a month at a time, focused on one set of characters. The first one was the relationship facets of Jean Gray and Scott Summers from the X-Men. And I love the X-Men. So, it was really neat to hear all of the different ways that they had a relationship and then they were comparing it to a book about relationships. It was very interesting. It was very topical, and I liked that they also are very sweet and introspective about their own relationship. Mike: It's really lovely. Jessika: Yeah. And like what they can do, what they can take out of it to apply to their own marriage, which is it's so sweet. So thank you guys. You guys are great. Mike: Yeah. Comic Book Couples Counseling, Brad and [00:46:00] Lisa, absolutely friends of the podcast. Jessika: Absolutely. Mike: And you know, if they ever want to come on here, they are more than welcome and we will talk about whatever they want to talk about. Jessika: Open invitation. I'll even read a I'll even. I'm not in a couple, but I'll read a self-help book. Like if that's what it takes. Mike: All right. I think that's all from us. we'll be back in two weeks and until then, we'll see you in the stacks. Thanks for listening to Ten Cent Takes. Accessibility is important to us, so text transcriptions of each of our published episodes can be found on our website. This episode was hosted by Jessika Frazer and Mike Thompson written by Mike Thompson and edited by Jessika Frazer. Our intro theme was written and performed by Jared Emerson- Johnson of Bay Area Sound, our credits and transition music is Pursuit of Life by Evan MacDonald, and was purchased with a standard license from PremiumBeat. Our banner graphics were [00:47:00] designed by Sarah Frank. You can find on Instagram as @lookmomdraws. Jessika: If you'd like to get in touch with us, ask us questions or tell us about how we got something wrong, please head over to tencenttakes.com, or shoot an email to tencenttakes@gmail.com. You can also find us on Twitter, the official podcast account is @tencenttakes. Jessika is @jessikawitha, and Jessika is spelled with a K, and Mike is @vansau, V A N S A U. Mike: If you'd like to support us, be sure to download, rate and review wherever you listen. Jessika: Stay safe out there. Mike: And support your local comic shop.
In this Pro-Talk podcast, Patrick talks to smart-home system designers Aaron Stallings and Michael Oh about how to integrate smart-home technology in both new builds and retrofits, choosing the right gear, and what home technology can do for you.
Hey, there, fellow heroes in a half-shell! This week, we're examining how the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles evolved across approximately 30 years and four comic book series. In this episode, we're looking at: The original Mirage series TMNT Adventures from Archie Comics The short-lived Image Comics series from the 90s IDW's 2011 series ----more---- Episode 11 Transcript [00:00:00] Jessika: You're going to cut all this bullshit, Mike: Oh yeah, of course. Jessika: Okay. Hello? Hello. Welcome to Ten Cent Takes, the podcast where we share hot and delicious slices of comic-flavored facts, one issue at a time. My name is Jessika Frazer and I am joined by my co-host, the man of mystery himself, Mike Thompson. Mike: Ooh. I like that. Jessika: You're mysterious. Mike: I'm really not. Jessika: You're just a voice to these people. Mike: That is true. Jessika: Let this parasocial relationship happen for them. Mike: Fine. Jessika: So, Mike, do you want to tell our listeners what this here podcast is about? Mike: This is payback for last week, isn't it? Jessika: Certainly is. Mike: Yeah, [00:01:00] fine. So here at Ten Cent Takes, we like to talk about comics and we like to talk about how they are interwoven with history and pop culture. Sometimes our conversations are weird, sometimes they're funny, but hopefully they are always interesting. Come for the deep dives, stay for the swearing. Jessika: Fuck yes. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Well, today we're going to be taking a deep dive into the comics of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, how they got their start, the people and the publishers involved, and some information and opinions about the different iterations of this beloved comic. But before we go any further, we have corrections and announcements. Mike, you want to start us off? Mike: Yeah, sorry. So I realized after the episode about the ninja turtles movies that I said, Howard the Duck was done by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, but it was George Lucas. Spielberg and Lucas worked together on some other major projects in the eighties, but not Howard the [00:02:00] Duck. You will be pleased to know that I was correct about Corey Feldman being a generally terrible human being. So, no apologies there. Also, we are going to continue our giveaway raffle in exchange for sending us a screenshot of a review that you leave for us on Apple podcasts. It doesn't matter what the rating is, we love five stars, but we'll take anything. We will enter you into a drawing for a $25 gift certificate to NewKadia. If you can get your review in before August 5th, that will be roughly a month from when we first announced the giveaway, that would be great. And then we will contact the winner directly. just take a screenshot of your review, email it to tencenttakes@gmail.com, and that's all you have to do. Jessika: Go get you some prizes. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: All right. So good news, everyone. We now have both an Instagram and a Facebook account, so we will be posting episode updates and potentially bonus posts related to the [00:03:00] episode. So feel free to follow us. We're at Ten Cent Takes at both of those places. All right. So, Mike, do you want to mosey along to one cool thing that you have read or watched lately? Mike: Yeah, I guess I can be tempted to go that route. so I've been actually reading a lot of cool stuff lately. I actually just did a big run to Brian's Comics in Petaluma, and, and had a huge haul of stuff on my pull list, cause it had been about a month since I was there and I'd added some stuff to it. But, something I picked up just this week from Brian's is this new book called the Nice House on the Lake. It's published by DC under its mature Black Label imprint. And it's written by James Tynion IV who he's also writing Something is Killing the Children, which I've at least told you about in the past. I don't know if I've talked about it here. Jessika: I've started reading it. Mike: Yeah. I mean it's - Something is Killing the Children is also excellent. And this is his new [00:04:00] series and he's doing it with Alvaro Martinez Bueno, who has recently been doing art for Detective Comics. And it's hard to describe without spoiling it, but the gist is that there is a group of people who are invited for a nice weekend at this mutual friends, insanely luxurious lake house. And it feels like we're kind of getting set up for a murder mystery, and then things take a turn for the terrifying in a really unexpected way. And I'm really excited to see where the series is gonna to go. But if you haven't read it, pick it up. It's great. Jessika: You always tell me about the best horror comics, which is really cool. Mike: I mean, a lot of them come from Brian, to be honest. Jessika: Thanks, Brian. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Absolutely friend of the podcast, Brian. Mike: Yeah, no. Brian is fantastic. If you were in the North Bay, highly recommend going to check out Brian's Comics in Petaluma, it's an awesome little shop. And Brian is one of the friendliest people you could ever hope to meet. Jessika: it's so cute. You have to go underground [00:05:00] kind of you like walk downstairs. It's not really underground, but it feels like it. Mike: Also, he has a really sweet dog who hangs out in the shop too. Jessika: Yes. Mike: So that's what I've been consuming lately. What about you? Jessika: I myself have been on quite the half-shell recently and just deep diving into turtles. And I have found the- I can barely contain my excitement. I have found the absolute best thing. Listen up turtle fans! There's a 24-hour Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle network that plays nothing but the animated into turtle series. Like, all of the animated series, even the old school ones. it's called Totally Turtles. I found it free with ads through Pluto TV on my fire stick. This is not an advertisement, I'm just really excited and I wanted to share it with everyone. And I'm hoping that they're turtle enthusiasts listening. It's such a blast. And despite the obnoxious children's commercials, which are horrendous and on repeat by the way, I feel so sorry for all of you parents. Mike: So wait, so is this, can you select the episodes you want to watch or is it like [00:06:00] an actual TV channel? Jessika: No, it's like an actual TV channel. I know. So it is streaming. They kind of do this weird marathon thing where they play back like a block of one show. So I haven't seen the OG comic come up yet, but I've seen like all of the other ones, so it's pretty neat. Mike: I mean, there've been so many shows over the years. I can only imagine how much content there is for them to broadcast. Jessika: Yeah. They have like a whole like montage in there of all the different ones. And I was like, oh, oh, look at all these shows, all these turtle shows. Mike: Yeah. I'll have to check that out. I, I keep meaning to rewatch the original animated movie mini series, whatever it was that they did for that led into the cartoon. Jessika: Yeah, we used to have some movie that was probably some merchandising schwag from some company, but it was like a pizza monster that they were fighting. Mike: That sounds really familiar, but I'm not sure. Jessika: And on VHS Mike: Why. [00:07:00] Yeah. All right. Jessika: It's like a yellow case. Yeah. I'm just saying I can see it. So. So today we're going to be discussing the four main volumes of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Comics. But before we get into it, I want to call out my resources, cause I had quite a few again for this episode, I'm sure you're sensing a theme here with me and research. So we have the Definitive History of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle documentary, turtlepediafandom.com, which is my best friend, Kevin Eastman's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Artobiography. See what he did there. Mike: Yeah. I dig it. Jessika: Which that book, by the way, if you're a fan, Tom told me about this book, Tom Belland told me about this book and it is so good. And it goes through the first eight issues of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and it's by Kevin Eastman, so it talks about the process of it and this. Mockups sketches that they [00:08:00] did, like actual sketches from the comic. It's just, it's really neat and lots of little details about how they were making it and stuff. So, back to my resource, I just got so excited about that. I read an article from Indiana University Bloomington's E. Lingle Craig Preservation Lab Blog, and a couple episodes of the Ninja Turtle Power Hour podcast, which is really fun. Mike: Yeah, that show's great. Jessika: Yeah. Got a couple of tidbits from them. So, yeah, thanks guys. Mike: Friend of the podcast as well. They are, they have been very supportive of us in our early days. Jessika: Yeah. So that's, that's really fun. Now we've previously talked about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on this show. In episode one, Mike ran us briefly through the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles history, like the startup, and mention a couple of the iterations of the characters. And in episode nine, I covered the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live action films from the nineties. If you haven't already, I highly recommend checking out those episodes for more [00:09:00] turtle-y goodness. During this episode, we'll be going further down the rabbit hole, looking at the history of the start of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Comics, more in depth and how they evolved over the years. As another little tease, we won't be covering the rest of the merchandising television or other related media in this episode, but stay tuned because I fully plan on doing an additional episode about the Turtles. While we'll be touching on the main volumes of comics from the overarching storyline, just know that there are micro issues and single character adventures along with a whole slew of other comics, crossovers, and pot lines that I simply don't have time to get into today, but just know that they are out there. And, if enough of you ask really, really nicely, maybe I'll cover some of those issues in a future episode. You won't have to ask very hard. Mike: You really won't. Jessika: You won't. Mike: I don't think you guys understand how [00:10:00] excited Jessika was about this episode. Jessika: excited. Like it will, he, it will show in my voice. My face is bright red, by the way, I am Scotch-Irish, my face is showing it. All right. before we get too solidly into our main. Mike, which of the Ninja Turtles is your favorite. And has that favorite changed at all over the years as you grew up? Mike: I think that all six year olds identify with Michelangelo when they first get into the Turtles, and I certainly was no exception. I've bounced around since. I think I'm probably closest to Rafael these days, mainly because I nurse a grudge like nobody's business. Jessika: Oh, is Raphael petty? Mike: I'd like to think he is, He strikes me as the guy who would absolutely go and troll white supremacists on Facebook these days. Jessika: I don't know anyone like that. Mike: No. [00:11:00] No. Jessika: Oh, my goodness. Mike: Well, how about you? Which one did you identify with? Jessika: Well, I also really liked Michelangelo. I mean, he was the party dude after all, and he's still pretty solidly my favorite is I can absolutely relate to being a huge ham. Hi, everyone. But I have such a greater appreciation for Donatello these days, because he really is the brains of the operation. And should he be sorted into a Hogwarts house, he would definitely be with me and Ravenclaw. Mike: Which turtle would be sorted into Hufflepuff. Do you think? Jessika: Hufflepuff. I want to say that Michelangelo would be a Hufflepuff, cause he just he's just like so accepting of everyone. Mike: Yeah, I guess, Yeah. I guess Michelangelo would be a Hufflepuff. Leo would be a Griffindor. I don't think any of them would be Slytherin, so I think Raphael would also be Griffindor. Jessika: Not any of them probably, unless he was like, [00:12:00] Hmm, what if he was a little evil? He might be a Slytherin. Mike: Maybe. I don't know. Jessika: Because Slytherins don't have to be evil. I think they get a bad rap. Mike: It's like ambitious or something like that. Jessika: Yeah. I don't know. Raphael, Raphael might be ambitious. Mike: I mean, the first time that you met me and Sarah, Sarah had on a Slotherin t-shirt and I had on my Hufflepunk jacket. Jessika: I had huge appreciation for both of those things. So. And I have to say too, that some of the more recent TV series have portrayed him in an even nerdier way, like Donatello, I mean. That I connect with even more, which is really fun. And, that's what I like best about these characters is that they really do have different relatable characteristics that makes their storylines just that much more compelling to a diverse audience, in my opinion. Mike: Yeah. 100%. Jessika: So, as Mike mentioned, in our first episode, the series was started by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. Throughout high school, Eastman had been trying somewhat unsuccessfully to [00:13:00] break into the indie comics market, and had had several of his proposals turned down before being picked up by a small publishing company, Clay Geerd's Comix Wave while he was still in high school. While he was still in high school, let me reiterate. After graduating, he moved to Portland, Maine to go to art school and founded a comic magazine called Scat with another person. After having more of his art rejected by local publishing company. One of the people at the company told him about Peter Laird with the belief that they had a lot in common. And indeed they did. They had very similar interests, shared a love of creating and of comic artist, Jack Kirby, and immediately started doing short stories together, each bringing different strengths and new ideas to their collective works. In fact, Jack Kirby would also be a future style inspiration for the turtles Comics. Interesting, huh? Mike: Yeah. That actually checks out based on how bombastic the [00:14:00] turtles series became because Kirby's art, I mean, Kirby was such an iconic artists that there's this whole style of. It's like an energy explosion, it's called the Kirby crackle, And it's those, those circles within energy beams that now it's just kind of a thing that you see in comics a lot of the time. Jessika: Oh, that's interesting. Mike: And he also had that very, very sharp edged geometric shape to all of his drawings as well. Jessika: Yeah. Oh wow. Mike: So yeah. Jessika: So this friendship and interest in the creation of comics led them to form MiragevStudios, which was named after the idea that their quote unquote studio was just Laird's living room. So it was really a play on their lack of having a physical studio space. Their goal was to be able to make their living doing the thing that they loved best, because at this point, making comics was still very much a side hobby while they both still worked full-time, Eastman stating that he had been cooking lobsters in Amherst to get by. One of their earliest comic [00:15:00] characters was Fugitoid, whom they would fold into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles storyline later down the line. Mike: That was the time-traveling robot, right? Jessika: Yes. Mike: I remember him. I had his action figure. Jessika: That's cool. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were conceived during what is described as a casual night of brainstorming Eastman drew a ninja turtle, finding the idea of such a clunky and notoriously slow creature being a ninja, really fun. He thought to himself: Okay. So what if Bruce Lee was an animal? What's the stupidest animal Bruce Lee could be? And he's like, a turtle. Mike: Yeah, that checks out. So this was what, like the mid-eighties? Jessika: Yeah, they drew this in '83. Mike: I mean, martial arts and ninjas were such a thing in pop culture back then, too. Jessika: They were. Mike: I just, I remember Chuck Norris had a really terrible ninja movie or two around then as well. And I just remember the eighties [00:16:00] and the early nineties still having this fascination. Jessika: that was actually part of why they drew the turtles. Mike: Ah. Jessika: Was, it was a play on the fact that it was, it was a parody. It was a parody on the fact that so many people were doing ninja movies and a few other aspects were also parody, but we'll, we'll get into those later. Very astute, Mike. So, Laird drew up his own rendition after Eastman first drew up that first stupid looking turtle. Right. It wasn't even super looking, it was really cool. And with Eastman then drawing four turtles, all with different weapons and he wrote Ninja Turtles over the top. And Laird was like, you know what? Nah. And he added Teenage Mutant to the top of the ninja turtles. So they each had a hand in making the whole collective thing. Mike: That's great. Jessika: Yeah. And the sketches together. You can see where both of their ideas formed the larger idea, which is super neat. Mike: Mhmm, [00:17:00] Jessika: So Mike, can you read this next section for me? It's an excerpt from Eastman's Artobiography regarding the sales of the first issue of the teenage mutant ninja turtles. Mike: Absolutely. Tired of rejection letters and inspired by the newest self-publishing movement, especially Davidson Cerberus comic, we pooled our money and borrowed some more from my uncle Quintin to come up with enough to print 3000 black and white comics we were sure would never sell. May 5th, 1984 we premiered the first issue at a local comic book convention. It was incredibly exciting, but I was back cooking lobsters in June. In early 1985, the sales for book two exceeded 15,000 copies. And by mid 1986, Turtles book number eight shipped more than 125,000 copies. I was drawing comics all day and supporting myself, the dream had come true. Jessika: That's so cool. Mike: That's awesome. Jessika: One of the things that they budgeted for were special drawing boards, which would update the black and white [00:18:00] comic to include shades of gray. This board is called Duoshade by Graphix. And because I'm a little Donny in my approach to, well, everything, I had to know how this worked. So I did a little digging. The artists would do the initial drawing and pen out the lines on a special pretreated board, then would go in with a paint brush and brush over the areas with a special developer that would reveal either a light or a darker tone hatching or pixelated pattern, depending on the developer used. This added an extra pop of shadowing without the effort of physically cross-hatching everything by hand. And because it was hatching instead of solid color, like paint, this fit the style of many different types of hands. The way this worked is through of course, science! You see the hatch lines or pixels are preprinted onto the special board using a chemical like silver nitrate that was subsequently blanched with a substance like mercuric chloride [00:19:00] to make it invisible to the naked eye. And two other chemicals are used to either reveal hatch or crosshatch marks, basically. One of the chemicals reveals one hatch causing the lighter shade, and the other revealed the crosshatching that was darker. And there are other chemicals that could be used in place of the ones I mentioned, and they don't seem to advertise the specific recipe ingredients for the updated formula, unsurprisingly. But this technique was invented in 1929 and was in use until 2009 when it was considered obsolete in the face of digital art and technology. Mike: That's so cool. I had no idea that this was a thing. Jessika: It's so neat. So, whenever you see like the pixelated comics and stuff, that's all that kind of board, I'm sure. Mike: That's a really slick, I mean it makes sense that it would be obsolete now because you can sit there and just do, you know, brushes and layer masks and things like that with comics, it's not that hard, but yeah, that's, wow. Jessika: Science! Mike: That must've been such a time-saver for them. Jessika: Oh yeah, [00:20:00] that definitely. They said literally it just took the stroke of a brush and you could give more depth and just shadowing to everything. Will you do me a favor and read this quote about this process that I found on the Indiana University Bloomington's E. Lingle Craig Preservation Lab Blog? Mike: Sure. This process is very far from magic, though it surely seem that way for artists. After dipping their brushes and clear liquid, the path of their brushstrokes immediately turned dark as it traveled across paper. The phenomenon was easy to overdo, leading to images with many toned areas that, when reproduced into small comics and magazine ads, turned out cluttered and unclear artists, commended peers who knew when to stop. Jessika: Yes. Gentle hand. And here, I'm going to send you a comparison. So, the top half of this, and we will post this on Instagram, the top half is just in inked, and the bottom half is the same couple of [00:21:00] frames that are also shaded with the Duoshade graphics. Mike: Oh, wow. This is really slick. Is this from the Artobiography? Jessika: Yeah, exactly. It's from the Artobiography. Mike: Okay. oh, okay. Yeah. So I recognize this, this is from the first issue of the original Mirage series. Jessika: Sure is. Mike: And it's when they're in their rooftop battle with the Foot. And the original, like just kind of sketch or line art. It shows Donatello, and the rest of the turtles and a couple of panels getting into these battles and it's, it's fine. It's black and white. And then you look at the difference in terms of shading underneath this. And it's insane how much depth there is. Like they added entire skyline with this. It's crazy. It's also, I feel like it's a little bit over done on the bottom. Like with the shading like this, very clearly like the early days of the turtles, but it looks really cool, especially when you do the comparison. Jessika: Yeah. Yeah. And I almost wonder how much, since they hadn't been producing very much, I wonder how much they were using these boards, [00:22:00] know, beforehand. I wonder if this has maybe, like you said, the early days. Mike: I would be willing to bet that they were pretty new to this and, we're learning when to stop. Jessika: Yeah. So, the turtles and their storyline were initially created as a parody, like we were talking about to some of the popular Comics of the time, especially Daredevil, with similarities and characters names, such as the Foot clan when Daredevil included the Hand. Mike: Right. Jessika: And in some of the situations, such as the highly unlikely way that the canister containing a radioactive solution flew out of the back of a truck, striking someone in the head hitting and subsequently breaking a glass aquarium containing four baby turtles who fall directly into a manhole where they're then covered in the radioactive liquid that leaked out of the container that broke upon hitting on the ground. This situation highlighted the unlikely way that Matt Murdoch got his powers to become Daredevil. When a radioactive substance fell out of a moving truck and blinded him as a child. So, very [00:23:00] much a play on that. There's also the funny correlation between Daredevil's mentor Stick and the turtles mentor being named Splinter. Mike: I never even thought about that before, but that's really funny. This is all stuff out of the Frank Miller, eighties run of Daredevil too, which he almost fetishized Asian cultures in certain ways and was very into ninjas and martial arts and noir, and you can see that later on in his other books like Sin City, but Daredevil, I feel was like, where that really got stuck. Jessika: Yeah. And definitely with, the parody, that's exactly what they were going for. They were making fun of that whole aesthetic. Mike: Well, yeah, because, everything about the Miller books of Daredevil are so grim and gritty and wrought. I can't read them with a straight face, but that's just me. Jessika: So, Eastman and Laird, like you read in that quote, didn't necessarily think that the comic was going to go anywhere. So much so that they actually killed off their main villain, the [00:24:00] shredder in the first issue. Mike: I was going to talk about that. Jessika: They killed him off. They just really didn't think that there was going to be an issue two. I find it really interesting that a comic that was initially thought to be a one-off has turned into such a world-renowned and beloved franchise. Mike: Mmhm. Jessika: Fun fact for all of you out there. The first volumes of the teenage mutant ninja turtles were in black and white with all of the turtles, sporting red bandanas when the covers were finally colorized after the boom in popularity of the series. The only way to really tell them apart where their respective weapons. Mike: That was the same case with the original Ninja Turtles video game on Nintendo. I remember getting this when I was a kid and I was sitting there going, oh, they, they have the same color bandanas, but we know who they all are because they all have different weapons, but they were all sporting red bandanas. Jessika: Yeah, I think I might remember that because we had the Nintendo games, too. Mike: Yeah. Uh, they sucked, They were [00:25:00] really hard and I hated them. I felt like I was a really bad gamer because I couldn't beat it. Jessika: No, honestly, in that, of course we're, unsurprisingly, we're in a Facebook group about the Ninja Turtles. Everybody that I've read talking about the games. It's like, oh, I never beat that game, I couldn't be that game. It was way too hard. It's, it's not just, you don't feel bad. So, we read the first few issues of the Mirage comics, the OG comics, which tell the origin story of the turtles and Splinter and their quest for vengeance, for the death of Splinters, former master and their ongoing rivalry with Shredder and his gang, the Foot Clan. What did you think about these first few issues? Mike: You know, I had never really read them all the way through before now, and it's really interesting when you're basically reading the first content ever created, when you're here at the point where you're 40 years later. It's kind of charming because there's so much exposition where they're setting everything up. [00:26:00] It's overly earnest. It's silly. it's also much more bloody and violent than you would expect. And the funny thing is, so I was reading this digitally via Hoopla and so they actually have the colorized versions now where, it's all been remastered and everything, but I remember, the giant two page spread where they're fighting the Foot on the rooftop and it's like real bloody. It's so strange to sit there and read all of this and have the knowledge of where they have gone with it since then. But at the same time, I can also understand why nobody in the eighties thought this was going to go anywhere. It's just, it's, for lack of a better term, it's just, it's silly. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: And, It is a parody, but at the same time, it doesn't entirely feel like a parody, it feels a little bit overly earnest. I never would have sat there and said, this is going to be the thing that every kid under the age of 10 is going to be interested in because, it's really violent. Like, they sit there and they straight up murder, some street punks who are, I think mugging someone. Was that what happened? [00:27:00] Like at the very end when the cops drive up and you see the bloody hands leftover and. Jessika: Yeah, they were just street toughs. I agree. Mike: Yeah. And also, it was weird to see recurring acts of basically domestic violence, because Hamata Yoshi's girlfriend is first beat up by Shredders older brother, and then Shredder vows vengeance after Yoshi kills Shredder's brother. And then Shredder shows up in New York and basically murders first Hamata Yoshi, and then his girlfriend or wife at that point. It's more than I would have expected. Jessika: Yeah, well, and I love the convoluted storyline, cause I think they were having a laugh with that too. Everyone's on a quest for vengeance. Which is such a theme for the turtles. They're always going for some sort of vengeance because you know, of course that's their whole game. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: After this. So that's yeah, Mike: And then, like you said, shredder, when I read the first issue, he basically has a [00:28:00] thermite grenade, and gets knocked off the roof while holding it, and then they sit there and make a comment on, oh, well, I guess the shredder got shredded where they just find bits of his armor left. I was like, oh, that was a surprise. Jessika: Yeah, exactly. And then they turned around and went, oh shit. Oh shit. We have to make an issue two. Mike: Yeah. Ups. Jessika: Which, if you're playing it as a parody, it must be even funnier to have the person you just killed off, come back mysteriously. I found it really interesting that April started off as an assistant to a robotic engineer when she's most often portrayed as a reporter. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: And she gave it, it comes back around, you know, she's she and other iterations. She becomes , a lab assistant again, or, something having to do with STEM. I also really, really liked the rough style of the comic and how the frames are very obviously hand drawn and hand lettered. Mike: Yeah. I like how, in some of the speech bubbles, you can [00:29:00] see the letters are squeezed a little bit more together at the end cause they just ran out of room. Jessika: Well, and Eastman even said he was so glad to have somebody when they finally got big enough to have somebody come in and let her, because he's like, I'm so bad at spelling. It's like, I was never this person who spelled, and so there's one place because I'm just a Donatello. Hi, here I am. It's like, I saw the little, like, they meant to put “were”, but they put the little apostrophe in there and I was like. Mike: Oops, Jessika: Eastman, that's adorable, but it's almost like having like a finger print or a thumb print on some, like something handmade, like a handmade mug or something like that. That's the artists' imprint. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: And again, now that I know that this was written as a parody, I have a much better appreciation for the over-the-top twists and coincidences that led to the turtles' predicaments. Also, can we please address the insult, slime puppy, that April shouts of bags? Mike: It. [00:30:00] So it reminds me a lot of, in the X-Men animated series, Wolverine keeps on busting out, I think it's like, piece of gutter trash, or something like that. And you're like, oh, that's, that's cute. Mike: You're, you're trying guys. You're trying. Jessika: At what point was that, the thing? That's the thing you're going to write down right now. Okay. Right. So, after the success of the 1987 animated TV series, the comic was getting a little too hot for just Eastman and Laird to handle on their own. And after a few issues, they hired freelance artists to help with creating the series while they took on more of a business side of things. It was really important for Eastman and layered that the artists involved had ownership and received royalties for their work. So, there ended up being a lot of issues, not only with continuity, but also with rights and the use of the comics and the storylines created. To this day, it's difficult, if not impossible, to find copies of [00:31:00] some of the comics created by these other artists, especially since some of the artists refused to sell the rights to their storylines or characters back to Mirage, and therefore those issues were unable to be reprinted. So bye, bye. One of the interesting partnerships of that time was with Archie, and that's how Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures was born. The first issue was on shelves and emblazoned with the Comics Code emblem, finally, in March of 1989. Wow, that was a big sigh. Mike: Anytime someone mentions the Comics Code Authority, I just, I feel like I need a good rainstorm to just stare at sadly. Jessika: While I agree with you, you have to admit that it was a rite of passage. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: For, like getting into mainstream and having your your shit recognized, you know? So that must've been huge. Mike: I mean, the comic [00:32:00] stores that I went to when I was a kid, they wouldn't put stuff out on the shelves. If it didn't have the comics code seal of approval. And then by the time I was like 11 or 12, because you started having more and more independent publishers that didn't adhere to it. Jessika: Exactly. No. I mean that's yeah, absolutely. Mike: Would you consider Teenager Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures? Would, would that be like, volume 1.5 almost? Jessika: Yes. Yes I would. So, now that the turtles were officially, family-friendly. Written and illustrated by Eastman layered and Steve Levine. These differed greatly to the original comics. In fact, they had the same style color, and kid-friendly vibe as the TV show, which makes a lot of sense because, well, Archie. Will you give us a rundown of these comics that we read and share your opinion with us? Mike: Yeah. So these seem to pick up immediately after that initial TV movie animated series thing, where [00:33:00] the turtles defeated Shredder and Krang, and then trapped them in Dimension X. Shredder gets sent back to earth by crying in the first issue and has to basically start from the ground up to get his revenge. There's a whole scene where he winds up in a park in town and some guys tried to mug him and then he basically intimidates them into giving him their money, and then he goes and takes over some, what was it Slash for Cash dojo, I think was the name of it. Jessika: Yeah. It was like a name nobody would have had, which I have to say about those, those street toughs, Shredder's, like, oh, I must be a New York because I just got mugged. Mike: That was great. And then he takes the dojo over from the leader whose name is Smash, which I thought was great. And then he basically starts going about getting his revenge against the turtles, which is, he has these toughs from the gym dress up as the [00:34:00] turtles, and very obviously bad turtle costumes, and then commit robberies. And then there's a media smear campaign where everyone is like, well, we thought we, uh, we thought that we liked the turtles. We thought they were good guys, but I, I guess they're actually criminals. It's so simple and kind of charming. I couldn't even get mad, it was ridiculous, but I, I couldn't believe what a flashback this was. It was nostalgia, personified, ya know. It's very silly and very innocent and the jokes are corny and the art's pretty simple, but I really got a kick reading through it. I haven't watched the cartoon in a couple of decades, but I immediately knew where the comic's story was picking up. The turtles, rely on slapstick gags rather than actual ninjitsu to defeat the criminals that they're encountering. Shredder and his crew are blundering morons, and there's this overall wholesome quality to the comic. It's very kid-friendly, but I [00:35:00] didn't feel like I was being patronized while I read it, even though I'm almost 40 at this point. Jessika: Yeah. It was, like you said, it was so nostalgia, like nostalgia alley, for sure. These are the turtles and April from my childhood. You know? Mike: Yeah, 100%. Jessika: These are the ones, the main characters were pretty closely based on the animated series while having the rest of the miscellaneous folks being like these goofy Archie type characters. Also, I really liked the way that they framed the TV shots to be shaped like the TVs. Like the frames of the comics were shaped, like the shape of a TV. Mike: Yeah, that 4:3 ratio and all that. Jessika: I really liked that. Yeah. With the rounded edges and everything. Mike: Yeah, it was cute. Jessika: You immediately understood that you were supposed to be seeing something on a screen. And it was light and it was frivolous, without the threat of any real danger.I call it a really decent kids comic. Mike: I've read worse. Jessika: So volume two, moving right along, was written and illustrated by Jim Lawson and was introduced in 1993, amidst the [00:36:00] fan success of the first two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle live action films. This was also after a falling out between Eastman and Laird caused the duo to stop working together until just recently. Mike: Which you can actually see them come back together in the Netflix series, the Toys That Made Us. Jessika: Yes. Yeah. Which I'm sure is going to play a large role in my next episode of this show. With this change came another: the comic was fully colored. In this series, the turtles part ways as they have no shared purpose after the defeat of the Foot Clan, they battle and defeat Baxter Stockman, who has placed his brain in a robotic body and deal with Triceratons, which are by far my favorite villains in the turtle verse. But despite the turtles as popularity, the series only lasted 13 issues. And a couple of years. Volume two ended with sad sales numbers, [00:37:00] and a literal flood in Mirage Studios, womp womp. In 1996, Image Comics published Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles volume three, which was written by Gary Carlson and illustrated by Frank Foscoe. They published a total of 23 monthly issues and return the turtles back to their black and white roots, but did not include the duo-shading, which I found confusing. Mike: Mmhm, same. Jessika: This volume was kind of a trip. It was more intense and action packed, with even more plot twists. Also, they made the turtles much more battle-worn, with turtles missing appendages or in Donatello's case being forced to become a cyborg. And, because it was now being produced by Image, it allowed the turtles to do crossover issues with characters from the Savage Dragon series. Mike: I had those issues. I don't think I still have them anymore, but I remember, it was a big thing where the Savage Dragon basically [00:38:00] stood up his girlfriend, because he was, involved in some shenanigans with the turtles. I think she almost broke up with him at one point, because of that, in that one is. Jessika: I almost said good for her, but then you said almost. Mike: Almost. Jessika: Now, the drama with this issue is that it's no longer considered canon in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle universe, mostly because Peter Laird hadn't been directly involved in making the storyline. So, another situation where they got a little precious about the material. We also read the first few issues of this comic. What are your thoughts on the comic? What I just said? Anything. Mike: I gotta be honest if I were Peter Laird, I probably would have disowned this too. Cause it's really not that great. The art is just generally confusing because there is no sense of depth or shading. It starts you off right in the middle of a big battle. The turtles are getting shot, Splinter is kidnapped, they're being attacked by cyborgs for no real reason [00:39:00] that you can understand, Raphael if I remember, right, is disfigured pretty badly, there's a female ninja who shows up and she is nothing but T&A. And, if you look at the cover for the second issue, it's very male-gazey, where you see the back of a woman and it's really just her ass and legs while the turtles are facing the camera. And it's, everything about this feels like nineties extreme with a capital X. in all the worst ways. And it's funny because I was wondering if Eric Larson, who did the Savage Dragon was drawing this because the art style is very reminiscent of him, and he was also doing the covers. Tom Belland, our friend, I remember him telling me a story about how, at one point he was at Image Comics, and they were criticizing his art style, and he told them that they all draw women late 12 year old boys, because they're. Jessika: Because they do. Mike: They're all boobs and legs and not much else. Jessika: I mean, I don't see a lie. Mike: Yeah, [00:40:00] no lies detected my friend. It's I don't know. I, I really didn't want to read any more past the first issue either. It just, it felt very forgettable and dumb and shocking for the sake of being shocking, not for actually trying to do anything good storytelling-wise. Jessika: Yeah, these were just, they were like, we were talking about, they were difficult to read, they were super frenzied. I didn't know where to look. And it took me a lot longer to read them because I was trying to hash out what was happening. Mike: It was visually confusing, which is kind of the kiss of death in a comic, like the fact that it lasted 23 issues is just mind numbing to me. Jessika: Yeah. you know, you look at comics a lot of the time, the ones that I really connect with are the ones where you look at it and you can see the intended motion. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: I didn't get that at all here. I just felt like I was looking for the motion. It just wasn't there. Mike: Yeah, and even without that duo tone shading, they [00:41:00] didn't do anything, really in its place. Jessika: Yeah, it wasn't. Wasn't great. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: And you had mentioned the outfits, it just felt like it was set in a futuristic BDSM party. Mike: A hundred percent. I mean, the first thing that we see is, uh, what's her name? Isn't Kimiko is that her Jessika: Kimiko. Yeah. Mike: Yeah. And she shows up and basically, she looks like she is wearing a leather bondage version of Leelou's outfit from the Fifth Element. It is straps and spikes and it makes no sense whatsoever. Jessika: And like, let's be real. Her boobs are too big for that. Like there's no way that that's containing anything, logistically. Mike: No. I mean it her outfit is body paint, basically. Jessika: Yeah, really is. Mike: So Image Comics in the nineties, they were kind of leading this artistic charge of just heinously unrealistic women. And as much as I [00:42:00] enjoyed the Savage Dragon and Eric Larson's various books, Tom, wasn't wrong, they drew women like 12 year olds did. Jessika: Mmhmm. Mike: We can talk about this at some future point, but I'm sure there's an entire generation of kids who grew up reading comics in that era who developed body dysmorphia or just heinously unrealistic expectations for what people were supposed to look like in general. Jessika: Yeah. Agreed. Well, what do you say we, uh, move on to volume four? Mike: Sure. Jessika: Volume four was first published in 2001, and was created by Peter Laird and Jim Lawson. There was a couple year hiatus in 2006 when Peter Laird stopped to work on the TMNT movie. Aliens have landed and are taking up what they say is temporary residence on earth, which brings with it the added side-effect of normalizing weirdos on the street. So, the turtles are able to come out of hiding and enter more freely into society and other shenanigans with aliens that [00:43:00] may or may not be trustworthy, of course happen. Oh, and apparently the turtles are in their thirties. Same, bro, same. What say ye about the IDW comics we read? Mike: I kind of dug them. It's one of those things where it feels like they are starting with the foundation that we all knew, and then they were growing it out in a different way. It's not bad, it felt kind of like a weird reboot, while also continuing a story that I wasn't overly familiar with. We opened with a rumble between the turtles and a gang that was led by another mutant animal. Jessika: It was a cat. Mike: Yeah. Did he have a name? I can't remember. Jessika: It was Old Hob. Mike: Ah. Jessika: He had an eye patch, Old Hob. Mike: Yeah. And, and he's clearly got history with Splinter, and after they defeat them, it's revealed that Raphael is split from the turtles and he's out wandering around and he ends up rescuing pretty randomly, he ends up busting into Casey [00:44:00] Jones' house to rescue a very young Casey from his abusive dad. We get back to April's original roots of her being a scientist, where she's working for Baxter Stockman's lab. And then also we find out that Krang is around, but he's shown only in shadow. I seriously got some Dr. Claw vibes from the way that they first introduced crane where he's only shown from the back. You only see the silhouette of his chair and then his hand on the phone. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: From the first issue on, you get the impression that they're taking familiar elements and then trying to. In a new way. And that was fine. I mean, my basic familiarity felt like the right starting point for where to go with it, but it, felt pretty cool and it felt like there was actually some pretty decent plot stuff that they were working with and they weren't trying to make it just all action. And also, I really appreciated that the women did not look like Playboy centerfolds. Jessika: Yeah, that was helpful. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: It's hard to be a woman and read comics, I'm just like, [00:45:00] man, this isn't for me at all. Is it? Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Well, I'm pansexual, it's kinda for me, but yeah, I thought the series was fun. The illustration is great as well as the coloring. And the action sequences is really fly off the page and make the reader feel like the pictures really could have been moving. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Again. Like you said, I'm loving that April gets to be a scientist again. And I like that in this one, she was the one who actually named the turtles. Mike: That was really cute. Jessika: Yeah. She was like, I'm in art history. Mike: Yeah. Cause she was like, she was like an intern at the lab basically. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: Or work study or whatever it is. Yeah. Jessika: And I think it's really cute that their personalities were already showing when they were baby turtles. Like Raphael was already agro. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: He's the feisty one. Further into it, Raphael gets carried away after the whole, like breaking of the canister thing. And he starts getting [00:46:00] carried away by a cat. And that's why they there's this mutant cat, but Splinter had had some psychotropics. And so he was a little bit more with it, went and fought the cat, but he got swept up into the bag with the other stuff and got carried off by the bad guys, the baddies, and Raphael was just on his own. So he didn't have the development that the other turtles did. Mike: That's actually a really nice touch. Jessika: Yeah, it was super interesting. It's also interesting to me that the mutation and the growth was a lot quicker in this series. They really didn't turn into true teenagers because they haven't been alive for that long, they've only been alive for like, 15 months or something. So finally, I just wanted to touch on the current series that is happening right now. And one that Mike mentioned in episode one, which is the Last Ronin. Mike: Yes. Jessika: Yes. And I'm very excited about this one, and it's absolutely one of the [00:47:00] items on my pull list with another one of our local shops, the Outer Planes in Santa Rosa, the first three issues are available now. And if you have Hoopla Mike and I have had luck finding it to borrow for free, they also have a director's cut for issue one, which has some extra fun sketchies with back, everyone. So just saying that's the one I read, cause I actually own issue one, but I did borrow it on Hoopla too, to see what the little bonuses were. Mike: Yeah. And we've mentioned this before, but Hoopla is an app that, basically they work with libraries across the country and will just let you check out digital content. They limit it to a certain number of items per month. How many do you get. Jessika: I think it's like six or something. Mike: Yeah, I get eight. It's pretty low, but like insane. But in San Francisco it's like 21. Jessika: Ah, okay. Mike: But it's still a really great way to scope out contents legally, you're not pirating it, which is great. And you know, you're also, supporting the libraries because they're working with it, but it's free to you. So, it makes me feel good whenever I can read [00:48:00] content that way. And they've got a truly amazing selection of comics and graphic novels and a huge catalog of Ninja Turtles content. Jessika: Yeah. For those of you who are watching Netflix's is Sweet Tooth, that actually was a comic and that is on Hoopla as well. I checked it out and haven't started it yet. And then it checked itself back in, cause I waited too long. Whoops. Mike: If you get around to reading it, I would love to just hear your thoughts on it because. Jessika: Absolutely. Mike: I read the first volume and I thought it was very good, but I couldn't bring myself to read anymore because I don't like reading about people being mean to kids. And. Jessika: Oh no. Mike: And that's very much what it is, where , it's a guy who is kind of like a young teenager and he's very trusting and people keep abusing his trust or terrorizing him. Jessika: No. Mike: And I'm like, I think I don't want to read that. Jessika: That's why I had to stop reading Lemony Snicket. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Yeah. I like read the first book and I was like, oh, sorry. This is really mean to children and I, my little empathetic heart is just crying. Mike: Yeah. I don't like cruelty to kids., I don't like [00:49:00] cruelty to animals, and I don't like cruelty to old people. Jessika: Do you want to remind the listeners what the series is about and what you think so far? Mike: Sure. This is actually the comic that I'm most familiar with since I've been reading. As I said on Hoopla as the issues have been coming out. This is being billed as the final in quotes, Ninja Turtle story, which takes place in this dystopian, cyberpunk New York. That's now controlled by the Foot Clan. At some point in the past, the turtles were exterminated and only one of them survived. And now he's come back to town with kind of a bucket list of revenge. His identity is originally kept mystery, though it's really not that hard to figure out before the first issue reveals it on the final page. And the subsequent issues spin out both the world and the backstory. I've really been digging it so far. I'm sure that I am missing a lot of little details, because I'm not the most diehard fan of the Ninja Turtles. But, that said, I've been having a [00:50:00] lot of fun with it and I love the new character designs, and also I'm a sucker for anything cyberpunk. Jessika: Yeah, I'm really, really enjoying this comic. The illustrations. Absolutely beautiful and colorful, even though it's set in dystopian society. They didn't go with the whole like grunge, everything is dark, which I really liked. Mike: Yeah. It's really cool. Jessika: And I like the idea that the sole turtle is still being guided by this spirit or memory of his brothers, and that he still draws from the skills and strengths by, in a way, imagining what they would do or what advice they would give. So I thought that was really sweet and they did bring back elements of the original turtles. Like you said, like Stockman's robot mousers that have been upgraded, the Fugitoid and professor Honeycutt. You know, it was just like they're bringing in all of these other things. It's yeah. It's, it's super interesting. Oh, and, did you notice, there's an Eastman and layered cameo Mike: What? Jessika: In issue two. Mike: No, I totally missed this. Where is it? [00:51:00] Jessika: So it's an issue two, and they're eating pizza and they're like, what was that? Could it have been…? Nah. Like when like a turtle is going by and they're like, that didn't happen. Mike: That's great, I love it. Jessika: Yeah. It was like younger Eastman and Laird, so super fun. It's really sweet. So far. It's got a lot of depth to it. They have a lot of really meaningful conversations about mental health too, which I think is really. Mike: Yeah. they've handled PTSD and. Trauma and everything in. I'm not sure I want to use the word realistic, but in believable ways. Jessika: Yeah. I would agree with that description. Yeah. Now onto our Brain Wrinkles. Which is that one thing comics are comics-related that is currently captured within the crevices of our cerebra. Mike, why don't you start us off? Mike: Put me on the spot. [00:52:00] Yeah. So, there's been a bit of news the past couple of weeks about bisexuality being addressed and acknowledged in comics and comics related-media. So, last week on Loki, we had it revealed that Loki is canonically bisexual, which was, that was really nice. Jessika: Pew pew pew pew pew! Mike: As someone who is bi, it's always really nice to see it acknowledged because you know, bi-erasure is a thing and it sucks. But this week, in fact, I think it was yesterday or Tuesday, Al Ewing, the writer that I talked about in, I believe the last episode or the episode before that he's the writer for We Only Find Them When They're Dead, he officially came out as being bisexual. He acknowledged that like he hasn't really been quiet about it, but he he's never exactly aade a formal statement or anything like that. And so he wrote a really, a really thoughtful blog post about all this and talking about how [00:53:00] often people that are within this group have to deal with imposter syndrome and, he put it really well where he said I've always looked at myself through a lens of self-hatred and self-loathing, and that's affected this. I wasn't enough in this category because I wasn't enough in any category. My not being bi enough was just one more metric that I could hate myself on. And it really resonated with me becauseI spent a long time, not really sure how to feel about my sexuality. And then the other thing is that the queer community is not always the most welcoming of us. Jessika: Yeah. I've had those situations as well, where, I'll be on an online dating site and I'm, I'm pansexual. I will, I will date anyone. Gender is not a thing to me. And it's not that it's not a thing, but you know what I mean? That's not a, that's not a metric by which I choose my partners. Mike: Right. Jessika: But there were a lot of times where I would go onto somebody's profile. And when it would say no bi girls or [00:54:00] no bis or something like that. And it's just like, and actually I stopped listening to a podcast cause they started talking about the idea that women get nervous, that you're just going to cheat on them with a guy. Which is like, if I'm in a relationship with you and we're in a relationship, we're in a relationship, it doesn't matter what my orientation is. If I'm a cheater, I'm going to cheat on you, regardless of whether I'm like, you know, but I'm not, that's the thing you have to trust the person you're in a relationship with, and it doesn't have anything to do with their orientation. Mike: Yeah. I've dated a few people who felt they couldn't trust me because I had dated the other gender and, those relationships didn't last. Jessika: Nope. Mike: But yeah, that is what has been rattling around my noggin for the past couple of days. So, what about you? Jessika: So, I wanted to circle back about the Corey Feldman concert I attended a few years back. And [00:55:00] as I had been previously speculating on whether it was the very same weird winged and lingerie-clad, ladies, Corey's Angels. And, friends, I am so sorry to report that I have some unfortunate news that it was in fact Corey's Angels. I will post pics, they're very blurry picks from this concert on Instagram. Also again, my apologies for being complicit in this bad cult situation. Mike: You know, I will say that after our episode and I was reliving how terrible Corey Feldman was. I found myself rewatching a couple of his music videos, and there's such trash, but I am a little ashamed that I gave him the one 10th of a half penny on YouTube. Jessika: I know. Right. And then you sent it to me. So you gave him two, technically. Mike: I know. I I, mean, it is pretty funny though. When you read the Vice articles that make fun of his parties, [00:56:00] though. Jessika: Well, folks, that's it for this episode, be sure to join us again in two weeks for another riveting comic adventure. Mike: Thanks For listening to Ten Cent Takes. Accessibility is important to us, so text transcriptions of each of our published episodes can be found on our website. Jessika: This episode was hosted by Jessika Frazer and Mike Thompson written by Jessika Frazer and edited by Mike Thompson. Our intro theme was written and performed by Jared Emerson Johnson of Bay Area Sound, our credits and transition music is Pursuit of Life by Evan McDonald and was purchased with a standard license from Premium Beat. Our banner graphics were designed by Sarah Frank, who is on Instagram as @lookmomdraws. Mike: If you'd like to get in touch with us, ask us questions or tell us about how we got something wrong, please head over to tencenttakes.com, [00:57:00] or shoot an email to tencenttakes@gmail.com. You can also find us on Twitter, the official podcast is tencenttakes, Jessika is Jessikawitha, and Jessika has a K, not a C, and I am vansau, V A N S A U. Jessika: If you'd like to support us, be sure to subscribe, download, rate, and review wherever you listen. Mike: Stay safe out there. Jessika: And support your local comic shop.
Freeze, creep! This week, we're checking out the 1995 and 2012 attempts to bring Judge Dredd to American movie audiences. Spoiler alert: It didn't work out like the studios hoped. ----more---- [00:00:00] Mike: That's a little too thirsty, I think. Welcome to Tencent takes the podcast where we violate Mega City One's judicial codes, one issue at a time. Coming at you live from the hot box of my closet; I have not showered in 24-hours, and I smell fantastic. I'm Mike Thompson and I am joined by my co-host, the princess of pain, Jessika Frazer. Jessika: Yaar! I'm also - Mike: How are you smelling? Jessika: God, I'm in a hotbox of pain at the very least, I had to go to work like physically into the office today. So I actually, you know, had to be decent enough to be around people that are masked, so the deodorant had to at least be applied, but. Mike: No hard pass. I work out of my bedroom now, you're lucky if you get pants. Jessika: Well, that's nice. [00:01:00] Mike: Would you like to explain why we are here? Jessika: You know, we're here because we love comics. Mike, Mike: True. Jessika: We love comics. We want to talk about all the comics. We want to do deep dives about our favorite comics and their heroes, and where they came from. And wild little stories that we find out about them and bringing in nefarious characters like Eric Estrada. He's not a nefarious. Mike: He's a little nefarious. He was involved in a really weird kind of scammy land sale thing. He did also endorse Trump on Twitter. Remember that where he was like - Jessika: Oh God. He is nefarious. Gosh, darn I, why do I always want to give Eric Estrada so much credit? I'm like way too nice to the guy. I don't even know him. I do follow him on Twitter now, but. Mike: No. He literally told Donald Trump on Twitter that he should run for president because he tells it like it is. So thanks, Eric. Thanks. Appreciate that. Jessika: No. That was a bad idea. Like, for [00:02:00] the record, I don't know if anyone else knows that. Everyone else knows that, every other country knows that. Mike: They do now. Jessika: Oh man, we're going to get into some hot topics today, too. This is already a good start. Mike: Yeah. So before I interrupted you, is there anything else that we'd like to cover or talk about or look at? Jessika: Oh, their video games, all the related media movies. Everything, everything comics related, we want to talk about it. Mike: Fair. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: Well, today we are going to hop on our Law Masters and cruise the Cursed Earth as we check out both the cinematic adaptations of Judge Dredd. But, before we do that, before we dive into this episode, we'd like to acknowledge a small milestone because this is our 10th episode and we've received over 500 downloads. So, you know, that may not sound like anything major compared to a lot of podcasts out there, but we're incredibly proud of what we've been able to achieve and how far we've gotten so far. And if you're listening to us, we're super [00:03:00] grateful that you've just given us your time. We really appreciate it. So to celebrate, we're going to do a giveaway. If you go to our page on Apple Podcast and leave a rating, and then email us a screenshot of said rating and a review, but that's only if you're inclined, really, we just care about the rating. We'll enter you to win a $25 gift card from NewKadia. NewKadia actually offers international shipping too. So, even listeners outside of the continental us are eligible. Jessika: That's super exciting! Mike: Yeah. Jessika: So Yeah. Rate us, review us. We appreciate you all. Mike: Even you. Yeah. So I'm talking to you right through your car stereo right now. Jessika: We're there with you driving along. Hey, watch the road. Mike: All right. We're at the point of the episode where we like to start off with one cool thing that we've read or watched lately, do you want to start off? Jessika: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So I needed a little bit of a palate cleanser after watching the [00:04:00] 2012 dread film so much gore. So I ended up watching Guardians of the Galaxy 2, which I hadn't seen before, and it was super fun. Loved the music as always characters had a really good chance to further develop. Okay. But I have to say, dude, I like still Stalloned myself. I did not know he was in that movie. And then he just shows up and I was like, what the fuck? Cause I literally had just watched them both in a row. And so I literally had just seen Stallone like the movie before that. And then he shows up again and I was like, good lord. Mike: Well, and you know that his crew is like the original Guardians of the Galaxy from the comic books. Jessika: I do. Yeah.I do. Now. I know I looked that up afterwards and I was like, oh, okay. All right. Mike: Yeah. And it was like Michael Rosenbalm, who did the voice of Superman and was Lex Luther in Smallville and the Michelle Yeoh and Ving Rhames. I was totally here for that cameo. That was great. [00:05:00] Jessika: Yeah. It was, once I looked that up, I was like, oh, that makes more sense. Cause I wasn't aware of that. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: it was super fun, but then I Stalloned myself again because I today a guest hosting of trivia for North Bay Trivia in Santa Rosa, at Shady Oak Barrel. And they have like a little arcade game. That's Stallone on the front. And I can't remember, I sent it to you, I think, cause I frickin' Stalloned myself again, secondary Stallone. Mike: I feel like you did. And I can't remember what it was. Jessika: I'd have to look it up, but I'm too lazy to look through my phone. So we'll just leave it. Anyone knows I don't, I don't care anymore. Mike: Fair. Jessika: So, back to the Guardians of the Galaxy after that Stallone detour, I really, really liked the evolution of Gomorrah, Nebula's relationship. Mike: I love that. I thought it was fantastic. Like I thought honestly, Almost all the characters had really nice [00:06:00] development, except really, I mean, I don't know. I feel like Peter didn't actually develop that much as an actual character. Jessika: No, he was just taken on some Shamaylan twists and turns. Mike: Yeah. But yeah, the whole bit where, Yondu is yelling at Rocket about, you say that I don't know you, but like you're me. And it was oh, oh. Jessika: Gosh. I definitely cried during that movie. I'm not going to lie, but I'm a crier. Mike: There's a lot of feels. There's a lot of feels in that movie. Jessika: Yeah. Oh, it was so good. So overall two thumbs up. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: What about you? What have you been reading? Watching? Mike: Yeah. So, Sarah and I started watching Loki because that just began airing last week, and ahead of that I wound up reading a couple of old issues of Thor, specifically Thor 371 and 372, which are the issues that actually introduced the Time Variance Authority. And the funny thing is that these issues also introduced a character who [00:07:00] may look a little familiar to you, especially as we've been prepping a bit for this particular episode. So check out the cover and tell me if he reminds you of anyone Jessika: Okay. That looks like a, that's so funny. That looks like Captain America, but it also looks like one of those those Doctor Who, like, what are those things called? Mike: The Daleks. So if you take a closer look at that guy that is so his character, his name is Justice Peace. And if you look at the shape of his helmet and he's actually on a sky cycle. Jessika: Oh shit. Mike: But, yeah, it's a pastiche of Judge Dredd. Jessika: He does look like Judge Dredd. You know what threw me was the bright colors, because Judge Dredd has darker tones. So I kinda got drawn more to that kind of vibe, but you're right. He's got the helmet across his face. You can see one of his eyes and the other one looks like it's probably bionic. And it's kind of like a samurai helmet, it looks like. It's, I think it's supposed to be shaped like more of a samurai style. If I'm not mistaken. Mike: Kind [00:08:00] of which - Jessika: It's big. Mike: Like actually the, Jessika: I don't. Mike: The old school Judge Dredd helmets, actually, like some of them have actually taken on that look too. Like they've kind of played with the shapes, but anyway, I thought it was just kind of a funny, a funny, a full circle moment. Jessika: He's got some arm bandoliers too. Mike: Yeah, man. Those were big in the eighties. Jessika: I guess. So, dang dude, I'm loving this. Mike: Yeah. It's a lot of fun. We are going to be talking about Judge Dredd in general. We're not going to do a deep dive on the comics, but we're going to talk a bit about the background. And so before we actually do that, I felt like we should take a minute and talk about how of us have grown up with pretty close connections to law enforcement. Do you want to go first? Jessika: No. Sure, sure, sure, sure. So my dad was a police officer for, I think, close to 30 years. And for a lot of it he worked in public safety, which is really like policing and [00:09:00] firefighting and they rotate duties. So you have to know both, you go through both academies. It's supposed to be that you're a little bit more well-rounded and involved, and I don't know, it was. At the time the community was a lot smaller and it probably made more sense, but it's getting bigger. And, I don't know how much sense it makes, but I'm also not an expert. And I haven't lived there for a while, so I don't know what the politics there are these days surrounding that as much as I used to. As far as police officers go, I do know a few really decent people who are police officers and, you know, growing up, I had mostly good experiences. However, that hasn't been the case for everyone. And my privilege of being raised white and a child of a law enforcement officer has absolutely shielded me from so many of the issues and policing that plagues our country. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: And I have to say like, unironically, my dad was a decent cop. He's still alive. But when he was still in law enforcement, he was a decent cop and [00:10:00] he definitely let his ethics guide him, and he left positions based on his moral compass. And I'm really proud of him for leaving organizations that were more on the corrupt side or that weren't doing things that he thought they should be doing and abiding by their own rules. However, he's also the one who taught me about profiling, which is a conversation I remember having with him around 9 or 10 years old, maybe earlier than that. And that's just such a racist tactic that has never really sat right with me. And that I adamantly oppose now that I'm older and I have a better understanding of how we as a society, villainize people of color just for existing. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: So without getting too far into what is a really, really massive conversation and discussion, the judicial system in this country is absolutely broken, and we statistically arrest convict and give longer incarceration timeframes to people of color. Mike: Yeah. I mean, there's, [00:11:00] that's just a fact. Jessika: It's a fact. There, there are numbers, you can look it up, you know, it's yeah. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: So, I know, on that fun note, whatever, I'm such a downer. Mike: That's okay. I should have known better than to start us off on this, you know, really positive note for the episode. Jessika: I already got fired up. I'm already going to have to edit out my mumbling. Mike: That's all right. You know, it's funny because I have to wonder if my uncle actually knew your dad because my uncle was in the same area and works in public safety as well. So, he always did the firefighting and police work as well. My uncle is the guy that I grew up idolizing when I was a kid. He was the cool uncle to me. He taught me the basics of photography. And I worked as a freelance photographer for awhile. He was a forensic specialist dealing with fingerprinting. So you and I [00:12:00] grew up in the 90's in the Bay Area. So Polly Klaas is a name that any, anyone who was here during that time knows, and she was a girl who was kidnapped out of her home, basically just taken while she was having a sleep over with some friends out of her home in Petaluma. And the FBI apparently came in and did a Palm print, but they use some fluorescent powder that the local PD couldn't read, but my uncle had the training and I guess the equipment, I don't quite know all the details, but so he worked the Polly Klaas case. He and my aunt are both retired police and they were both so incredibly cool to me when I was growing up. And I've since had to reckon with the fact that, you know, not all cops are good, and I'd hope that they were great. I hope that they were the bar that other cops were measured against, but who can say it, this. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: So we, we both have connections to law enforcement, and I think it's safe [00:13:00] to say that we're approaching Judge Dredd from a perspective that is influenced both by our backgrounds, as well as the current environment that's going on because we're recording this in June of 2021 when things are still real bad in a lot of ways. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: So now that we've got that highlight out of the way. I'm curious, what was your awareness of Judge Dredd prior to this. Jessika: You know, besides name recognition, I didn't know much about the plot line, other than some vague notion that it was futuristic or post-apocalyptic. So, I came into this super fresh, and I'm super excited to learn more now. Mike: Yeah. So, I definitely have a lot more familiarity with the character. I read some of his stuff in the 90's and 2000's. I would just kind of randomly find things and I thought he was pretty cool. When I was in roller derby, my roller derby name actually wound up being Judge Dreadful. [00:14:00] And so I've since then bought a number of collections. I've read most of the big storylines that they did from the 70's up until the mid-90's. And then I also read one of the more recent American series as well. I've seen all the movies. Dred is still one of my favorite movies of all time, even though we'll talk about that later on, it's got its own issues through today's lens. I guess the best way I can describe myself is: I'm more than a casual fan, but I'm not a diehard fan. Part of it is just because there's so much lore at this point. So, I have an unfair advantage in terms of familiarity, I guess. Sorry. Jessika: No, that's okay. That's why you're hosting this episode. Not me. Mike: Yeah. So, we're going to do some basic background. Dredd was originally created in 1977 for this newly launched comics anthology called 2000 AD. There was this guy, he was an editor named Pat Mills and he brought on a writer that he'd worked with named John Wagner to create new content for this magazine. [00:15:00] And, basically comics, anthology magazines, they were printed on like newspaper stock. They were magazine format. And what it was very kind of, you know, old school pulp magazine, like where it was serial stories usually, or a little one-offs. So it'd be four to five pages, usually of content per story. And then a lot of times they would end on a cliffhanger so that, you know, the readers would come back the next week. And that's generally how British comics have worked. At least that's my understanding of it. That's how a lot of them are. And actually when they were trying to do US style sized comics, supposedly they didn't do as well because they would get covered up basically and overshadowed by the sheer size of these magazines, which were much bigger and flashier. So Wagner came into 2000 AD. He'd had a lot of success writing this Dirty Harry kind of character called One-Eyed Jack for another anthology series called Valiant, and both he and Mills realized that 2000 AD needed [00:16:00] a quote unquote, a hardcore cop character as part of the magazine's content. So, Wagner has since then described, dread as a psycho cop with no feelings. And then he worked with this artist named Carlos Escuera to create the character and then Escuera wound up designing a character who reflected that kind of hardcore, no feelings ideal. He actually died a couple of years ago and the Guardian ran a really, it was really nice ,tribute talking about his accomplishments and his style, but there's this really great quote, which I think you should actually read out. And it gives us a lot of background in a nutshell of Dredd and who he is. Jessika: Escuera started his career drawing war comics in Barcelona before moving to the UK and working for the anthology 2000 AD and others, He brought the iconography of fascist Spain to Dredd's extremely weird and [00:17:00] vivid design and combined it with his experiences of living in Croydon through the 70's and 80's, the punk movement on his doorstep and TV images of policemen, charging striking miners. The Eagle motif and helmet were drawn from fascism, the permanently drawn truncheon from police on the picket line. The zips chains and knee pads from punk. I was living in Franco, Spain, he told an interviewer last year, but also I was living in Mrs. Thatcher's England. Mike: I think that kinda tells us all we need to know about what they're going for with the vibe of Judge Dredd. Jessika: Yeah. No, that, that definitely showed. I was thinking that about the Eagle. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: When they were showing the big building and it was super, everything was just cement and. Mike: Yeah. It's got that brutalist kind of architecture. Yeah. Jessika: Yes. Mike: Yeah. So Dred exists in this world. That's left standing after World War III, and [00:18:00] most of the planet's just been devastated. America is largely uninhabitable, say for a couple of what are called Mega Cities, which are these autonomous city states that housed hundreds of millions of people. At one point in the comics, I think it's up to 800 million and they've had different events where they've kind of knocked it down repeatedly, Jessika: Yikes. Mike: And at one point it got as low as like 120 million or so I think that was kind of after I stopped reading though. But anyway, mega city one was originally going to be a future version of New York City. But that was quickly retconned to that specific part, being some sort of capital area for this urban sprawl that covers most of the Eastern seaboard. And from the get-go, Dredd stories were kind of this extreme form of satire. It was presenting the society where democracy basically failed, and the office of the president of the United States has been retired, and society now runs under this, to be honest, terrifying gaze of the Judges. How would you sum up the [00:19:00] Judges based on what we saw in the movies? Jessika: As a whole, they were pretty robotic and unfeeling. They were doling out the letter of the law as it happened and per their protocol, and their justice is swift and immediate, which is really terrifying. Like you said to imagine. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: And what's even scarier is that all crimes were treated the same. You are either sent to a prison called an isopod, or killed right then and there. There was, there were no middle grounds between those points. It was like, you're hauled off then, you serve a sentence, or you're just killed. Mike: Yeah. I mean, that's really not that different from the comics. Jessika: And then, as far as their appearance, as with most uniforms, they dress the same with helmets and body armor and they are just armed to the gills and they look just as scary as they act. Mike: Yeah. And, I think a safe way to describe the system of Mega City [00:20:00] one is to call it authoritarian, but it's just a little bit different than what we normally associate with that term. Jessika: Yeah. I wonder if there's some sort of like a law-tarian like judiciatarion. I don't know, somebody is going to @ me and tell me how stupid I am, but that's fine. I already know. Mike: I like, I like, I liked judicialtarion. I think that's, uh, if that's not a word we should make it one. Jessika: Here we are, TM TM. Mike: Yeah, we're just going to sit back and let the royalties roll in after this. Yeah, but in spite of all this, there's this very weird, dry, British humor that kind of makes the whole narrative a little more palatable. So like one of the early stories is focusing on how robots were doing most of society's work and that's resulted in rampant, unemployment and boredom, so citizens of the mega blocks start engaging in what they call block wars, where neighboring blocks basically just start opening fire on each other because they want something to do. There's another story where the Dark Judges, who [00:21:00] are, they're effectively movie monster versions of the Judges as we know them crossover into Dredd's reality. And then they start slaughtering people, indiscriminately, because all crime is committed by the living. And, thus the sentence for life is death. Jessika: Yikes. Mike: Or, there's also the idea that recycled food is, what they call it, is how they eat these days. But recycled food is actually made from people you know, it's Soylent Green Jessika: Oh, How Soylent Green. Yeah. Mike: Yeah. The Dredd comics always have this kind of underlying tone of absurdity. It's that slight bit of levity that makes this really brutal comic actually pretty enjoyable because it becomes ridiculous. It's a comic of extremes. Over time, the comics gone on to deal with things like Dredd having to resolve how the system that he represents is actually problematic, and it needs some kind of reform. The ramifications of how the push to move back to democracy fails and, [00:22:00] you know, actually fleshing him out as a character who occasionally has feelings, not all the time, but just sometimes. He goes from being kind of a lawful neutral character to a lawful kind of good alignment, like sort of good, kind of, some of the time. There's only so long that you can have a character be a robot for justice, if nothing else before, you know, people are going to sour on them. Jessika: You mean a veritable killing machine? Mike: Yeah. The other thing is that the core Dredd stories haven't really been reset. They're still going from 2000 AD, so at this point we have nearly 50 years of stories that are all canon. And the other thing is that they keep on aging Dredd in realtime. So, at this point he's absurdly old and they hand wave it away by he spends time in the Rejuva-pods or whatever they are. But as a result, he's the same guy who has seen everything that has gone on in the comics. [00:23:00] And as a result, he's matured and changed a bit. And it's kinda neat. So in the UK Dredd's a pretty big deal, but his presence in America isn't quite the same. Like UK comic magazines back then were very different from comics here in the states. So, when they decided to bring them over here across the pond, 2000 AD wound up working with this guy named Nick Landau, who a couple of years earlier had created tightened books to publish comic collections of Judge Dredd in the UK, and then was publishing more collections of other things. Landau had just created Eagle Comics to collect and publish Dredd stories and other 2000 AD stuff. Uh, here in the States in 1983, the Eagle series lasted for about three-ish-is years, and then it moved on to another publisher. And this is pretty much how Dredd existed in the states in the 80's and 90's; a publisher would pick up the rights, and then try to make them click with American readers, and then the [00:24:00] series would get canceled, and then someone else would pick them up and try to do it again. And arguably his most quote unquote mainstream moment was when DC comics published an 18 issue series from 94 to 96. I've only gotten through a couple of these issues and they don't quite bite like the originals. They feel more like an action sci-fi series. Some weird kind of sarcastic humor, but it doesn't quite translate the same way. It feels like a knockoff product, to be honest. I mean, honestly the best American adaptation I've seen is from the 2012 series that IDW did. And that condensed several of the iconic Dredd storylines from the original British run. So they were a little bit more palatable for American audiences, but basically American awareness of the characters generally stayed that level of, oh yeah, that sounds kind of familiar. And then he's never really been a household name, which was what the 1995 movie was trying to change. [00:25:00] Jessika: Yeah, well, it didn't change it for me, but I was also, you know, I was also nine in 1995. So. Mike: *Sigh* I was 14. Jessika: You're only a few years older - you say that like you're 90 now, by the way, every one for the record, Mike is 90. Mike: I am. Jessika: Since he's making a huge deal out of it. Mike: I'm waiting on my Rascal. Scooter Just gonna, just gonna drive through downtown Petaluma with my dogs in my side car. We're all gonna be wearing goggles and flight helmets. And you'll see me go by and just gol “RASCAL!” Jessika: My dude, you can do that now. Mike: Sarah has told me I can't do that yet. We've had this discussion. Jessika: Oh, that's too bad. Mike: Now that we've got the background out of the way, why don't we actually talk about what we're here to talk about? Which is the 1995 Judge Dredd movie. [00:26:00] Jessika: Here we are. Mike: Yeah. Do you remember those TV schedules that used to be in the back of the newspaper, they would show you like A) what was on the air that night and B) provide one sentence summaries of what the movies were? Do you remember those? Jessika: I do because I loved reading those. Mike: I know I did too. How would you summarize Stallone's Judge Dredd, if you were writing it up in that format? Jessika: Oh, need a throat clear for that. In a world where chaos reigns, one man stands between justice and lawlessness. But what happens when the Judge becomes the judged? Find out this Wednesday at 6:00 PM Pacific standard time, 9:00 PM Eastern on Spike TV. I just assume Spike TV would play that. Mike: Spike TV would be all over this. Are you kidding? Jessika: Yeah, no, exactly. That was the first television channel that I thought of that was like, yeah, they would [00:27:00] absolutely have this on like they'd have a Dredd marathon. Mike: God, what an absolute time capsule of a TV channel - is, Spike TV isn't around still, is it? I don't know. Jessika: I have no idea. I was my, my 90's brain just woke up and was like, this is what you say. Mike: God. I remember that was such a mid to late aughts TV channel. It was basically toxic masculinity, the TV channel. Jessika: Yeah. It was, it was either super masculine movies like this, or it was just a game show about people falling all over each other and just laughing at people. Mike: Oh yeah. Was it Most Extreme Challenge? Jessika: Most Extreme Elimination Challenge Yep. As I sit here and I know exactly what it, cause I didn't watch a million episodes of that. Mike: No I'm, that was the only reason that I would turn that fucking channel on. Jessika: Yeah. It's true. My brother and I would roll. Mike: No, so, okay. I just looked it up and we don't need to [00:28:00] actually record the sorry, uh, Paramount Network, formerly Spike, which is still used for the Dutch in Australian feed as an American, but you know, whatever, fuck Jessika: The Australians don't even listen to us. I'm leaving all of this in, and the Australians don't listen to us, yet. Oh God. They're going to listen to us now. And they're going to be like, oy yes we do. I can't, I'm not even going to try, not even to try to do some like, incredibly offensive Australian accent. Mike: No, no, don't do it. Jessika: No, no, I know about it. Mike: Okay. Let's go for an actual movie summary now. Jessika: Sure set in a, oh, sorry. Regular voice, Jessika. Set in a dystopian future complete with a densely populated metropolis and flying cars, order is dictated and carried out by people called Judges, whose job is to convict, judge, and punish those moving outside of the law. The punishments [00:29:00] are severe, being jailed or even killed for their transgressions. Stallone, who plays Judge Joseph dread is seemingly one of the most feared and respected judges until he is framed by a maniacal and presumed to be dead ex-judge Rico. Dredd has to prove his innocence in order to continue providing his particular brand of justice. Oh, and how can I forget about Rob Schneider? Whose main role in this film was to say Dredd's named really loudly. So they would get caught when they were trying to be covert. I mean, at least that's how it felt. Mike: Yeah, whenever I talk about this movie, I always sit there and reference how Robert Schneider is the worst choice to provide, you know, it's not even comic relief. It's like air quotes, comic relief. Schneider was really big at that time. Like, he had just come out of SNL and I never found them really to be all that funny. But, this was like at the [00:30:00] start of his whole 90's. I don't know. What would you call that movement? Jessika: God, it was like the stupid humor movement. Mike: Yeah, it was that Adam Sandler. Jessika: I talk like I'm a baby. Adam Sandler. I can deal with, to a certain extent. There are some movies, I'm just like, whatever, but I've liked him in some things even, but I feel like Will Ferrell is a result of Adam Sandler. I feel like Adam Sandler, birthed will Ferrell and I'm not happy about it. I do not like Will Farrell Mike: Man, I. Jessika: @ me Will Ferrell. I do not like you. Mike: Just watch, he's going to like angrily tweet and then we're going to get a bunch of, you know, I guess, angry gen X-ers I'll all up in our DMS. Jessika: OPress? Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that bad press wasn't just good press also, because it is. Mike: Yeah. And I mean, this was before Schneider was given starring [00:31:00] roles in movies like Deuce Bigalow, which I have yet to see a Rob Schneider movie that I don't find absolutely abhorrent for a number of reasons. Yeah. Jessika: Especially in retrospect. Mike: Yeah. I mean, he's not offensive in this movie, he's just not very funny and kind of useless, even though he's supposed to be the plucky comic sidekick, which, I mean, this was part of that era of buddy action cop movies, except just in a different setting. Jessika: Yeah. I don't know. It was just very grating. The humor Mike: Yeah. , Jessika: And forced. Mike: Yeah. So, your summary is spot on. There's also detours into the Cursed Earth where Dredd is wrongfully convicted. And then, this is something where they diverged from the comic lore, but they're traveling to the penal colony in Aspen, when actually the penal colonies are all off-world. So it's, you basically get sent there for hard labor, off-planet and it's not exactly described what, and then he has to come back from the Cursed Earth, after dealing with the [00:32:00] cannibalistic Angel Gang. And then there's the reveal that he's a clone, which at this point in time is not really a big deal. Like, everybody knows it in the lore and yeah, we get a climactic battle at the statue of Liberty. Also, Joan Chen shows up for no real reason other than to be a woman for Diane Lane to fight. Jessika: Yeah, exactly. Mike: But yeah, it's not a great movie. Jessika: No, no. Mike: But there are parts of it that I still really enjoy. Sarah and I wound up watching it together and all of the practical, special effects that they did are still so good and they look so good. And, and honestly the action scenes are pretty decent for, you know, a mid 90's movie, even where there's that bit with the flying motorcycles, where they're being chased and they knock off one of the Judges chasing them that bit, where he's falling into the bottomless abyss of Mega City looked [00:33:00] really good and I couldn't help, but think of Ninja Turtles 3, where on the other hand, the bad guy getting knocked off into the ocean looks like garbage. Jessika: Yeah, no, that, I was really impressed by that. Especially considering the timeframe it was in. Mike: Yeah. So this movie really tried to smash together a lot of those classic Dredd moments from the comic book. And it was trying to basically create something new while giving fans a lot of nods that they would appreciate. The funny thing is that it was really focusing on the story of Rico Dredd after he comes back from serving his prison time, but in the comic, he only shows up for a one-shot serial story. If I remember right where he comes back from serving prison time in a colony on Saturn's moon of Titan. So if I remember this, right, he's just this kind of one-off character who shows up pretty early in the Dredd stories. Like, I, [00:34:00] I don't think the Dredd stories had even been published for a year by that point. It's like the 30th issue or so, and then he's shot down by Dredd in a duel and the whole, the logic behind it is that he tries to get the drop on Dredd, but his reactions are slower because he's been operating in lower gravity for a while. Jessika: Interesting, but he's still supposed to be a clone, right? Mike: Yeah, he's he, it's originally noted that he's Dredd's brother. And then there's the whole club thing that, that shows up later on and all that, but he also looks way different from Armand Assante in the movie, I'm sending you an image, you can take a quick look and see what Rico Dredd looks like after his prison time in the comic. Jessika: Oh, you would not get those two confused. Mike: Yeah. It's um. Jessika: This guy's got this, guy's like a metal face. Now he's got a nice little head band with probably a laser coming out the top. And then he's got like, no nose any longer. He's just got metal over his nose. There's metal stuff going into his mouth. And like [00:35:00] half of his face just doesn't have skin anymore. And you can tell one of his eyes is blind. It's pretty wild. His hair is all crazy. He's not having a good hair day. It's a look. Mike: It's a look. Yeah. So the whole idea is that when you get shipped off to these colonies, you are basically surgically modified to survive in the environment. Jessika: Oh. Mike: Yeah. So, definitely not what we got in the movie. Jessika: No. You had a guy that actually looked a lot like Stallone. They did a pretty good job of that, if they were going for lookalikes. Mike: Yeah. They were both very fit dudes who had those very strong chin lines. And then they also gave them cosmetic contact lenses so that they would actually have blue eyes, which is why. Jessika: That's what I thought. Mike: When you look at Stallone, you're like, mm, pretty sure God didn't make those eyes. That color. Jessika: Yeah. It's not so bad from certain angles, but other ones you're like, wow, Snowpiercer what's up. Mike: Yeah, it looks [00:36:00] very weird when you're, especially when you're watching it in high-def these days, it looks unnatural. I'm not sure how it would look on a TV or in a movie theater in 1995. I'm a little curious because I didn't get to see it. I was too young to go see an R-rated movie back then, womp womp. But yeah, so likewise, the character of Hershey, who is Diane Lane's character, she first appeared in a 1980 story called the Judge Child, which is this it's this cool thing where it starts off as a road trip across the Cursed Earth, and the Angel Gang who we see in the movie shows up, and then it becomes this weird space opera as Dredd winds up chasing after the Angel Gang and the kidnapped Judge Child across multiple star systems, which again, talking about the weird absurdity of Judge Dredd. So, it's weird to see her in this movie because I always associate Diane Lane with Under the Tuscan Sun. I mean, I've never even seen that movie, but that's just always what I [00:37:00] think of when I see her. Jessika: Oh, same. I definitely see her in an Italian villa and I have not seen that either. Mike: Yeah. Although she did play Superman's mom in the DCEU. Jessika: Oh yeah. Mike: So there was that, her finest role, you know, when she gets sad about Superman with Lois Lane, and then it turns out to be a Martian green dude. Jessika: We're going to have so many movie stars, not happy with us. Mike: I know. Jessika: They'll just be crying in all of their money. It's fine. Mike: Oh, no two lame nerds on the internet were mean to me. I just, uh. Jessika: My nightmare. Mike: They made vaguely negative remarks about me. All right. Jessika: Oh, let me use this 50 to dry my tears. Mike: Anyway. Yeah, so [00:38:00] Diane Lane shows up in Judge Dredd, and she's like way more of a damsel in distress and then weirdly a romantic interest for Dredd than anything else. And that was really bizarre to see, because with the hindsight of the comics, that character in Dredd A) Hershey is like a bad-ass cop. She is a hardcore street Judge. But she and Dredd actually have often had kind of an antagonistic relationship based on differing perspectives about how the justice system should operate. Jessika: Oh, interesting. Mike: Yeah. And eventually, she goes on to be the Chief Judge. Jessika: Oh, good for her. Mike: Yeah, you know, she busted through that glass ceiling. Jessika: Man. It just took, you know, going through a third world war, ladies, this is what we have to look forward to. Just wait for the flying motorcycles. We'll be there. Mike: Well, you know, you don't have to cook because we're just recycling people at that point. So, you know, frees up a lot of time. [00:39:00] Jessika: Oh, perfect. Mike: You don't have to, don't have to stand in the kitchen and make all of us men folk roasts all day. Jessika: Oh, perfect. Well, dang. What will I do? Mike: Okay. overthrow the patriarchy, I guess. Jessika: Let's do it. Mike: Yeah. And then additionally, you know, Dredd himself was pretty different from what we had in the comics. The movie violated this key component of the character by spending a lot of time focused on Dredd out of uniform, which means that we got to see his face. And it's such a known thing that this is not something that Dredd does, but it's actually one of the first points in Dreads, Wikipedia article, if you would be so kind. Jessika: Sure. Dredd's entire face is never shown in the strip. This began and is an unofficial guideline, but soon became a rule. As John Wagner explained, it sums up the facelessness of justice. [00:40:00] Justice has no soul, so it isn't necessary for readers to see Dredd's face. And I don't want you to. Mike: Which I mean, I think that's actually a really cool defining aspect of the character. Jessika: And it's always scarier if you can't see what you're fighting. Mike: Yeah. Agreed. Jessika: I mean, that's basic horror film rule, you know, it's always scarier if you can't see what's chasing you. Mike: Yeah. I kind of equate it to the recent Alien movie that they did. Alien Isolation, where they explained the origin for the alien species. And I was sitting there and going, there is nothing that you could tell me that would be worse than what I come up with in my mind when you've got a really nebulous origin. Jessika: Exactly. Mike: And then I watched the movie and I was like, that's dumb. I'm going back to my original design. I like that better. Jessika: Yeah. It's like Signs was really scary until they brought that stupid alien life being in. And then I was like, well, there it goes. Mike: Yeah. [00:41:00] Curse you, Shamaylan! Judge Dredd is one of those movies where when you watch it, it feels like the people that were involved with making it really had a lot of fun, and were really passionate about what they were doing. Like I've got the making-of book, and you can actually see the set that they built basically on a patch of farmland that became the street for Mega City One. And it's crazy. It wound up having hundreds of neon signs after they built it. It looked like a living, breathing street from this strange city in the future. It was really cool. And likewise, there's that ABC warrior robot that we get to see a couple of times who looks absolutely incredible. And the costume designs are really cool. They don't quite work because you know, it's spandex, but it's very faithful to the comic. And, even the final scenes in the Statue of Liberty where you're in the lab and you've got all those clones being grown, I don't quite understand why the clones are [00:42:00] mostly grown, but we can still see their intestines, but they look really cool. Jessika: I agree. Yeah. Mike: That said, the movie had a lot of production problems. And in fact, it actually had to get re-cut and submitted to the NPAA five times in order to get just an R rating down from an NC 17. Jessika: Dang. Mike: And by the way, we need to talk about the fact that this movie is rated R and if you watch it, it does not feel like an R rated movie. It feels like maybe a PG 13 movie at this point, maybe. Jessika: Maybe, I mean, and that would just be for the violence, Mike: I mean, yeah, but, compared to what gets rated PG 13 these days? Jessika: Yes. Mike: I think if I remember right, one of the Aliens vs Predator movies, maybe both of them are rated PG 13 and they're way more violent and gory. Jessika: Really? Wow. Mike: I mean, I could be completely wrong. Jessika: Who rates these movies? I mean, not a real question. We don't need to get into that, but that's wild to me. Mike: We'll go on a very tiny side tangent, but. Highly recommend you watch the movie. This [00:43:00] film is not yet rated, which talks about the NPAA and the ratings board and how weird and secretive it is. And just a how dumb and arbitrary their system is. Jessika: I might watch that tonight. Mike: It's great. I highly recommend it. So there was an interview with Steven D'Souza, who was the guy who actually wrote the script for Judge Dredd. e was talking to Den of Geek, he shed some light on how the movies, problematic production wound up leading to this mess that we wound up receiving, if you would be so kind. Jessika: Why sure. Judge Dredd was actually supposed to be a PG 13 movie, the production company at the time, Synergy, they were having some financial troubles, so they didn't have any UK executives on location in England. And in their absence, the director, Danny Cannon, wanting to make it true to the comic book, was making everything more and more and [00:44:00] more violent. So when the movie was delivered to be cut, it was rated X and it was rated X four times. They say you can't appeal after four, four is all you get. Somehow the producer, Ed Pressman, managed one more time to get it rated R which actually wasn't a victory because this was supposed to be PG 13. They had made a deal with Burger King, oop. I think, and a toy company. And you can't advertise toys for an R-rated movie and no hamburger plays, wants toys for an R-rated movie. So they hamburger people and the toy people turned around and sued Disney, the distributor whoop. Mike: Hmm. Oops. Jessika: Well, Disney then said, we'll take this out of the director's hide because he signed a piece of paper saying he would deliver a PG 13, but Synergy who was releasing it through Disney at that point had never done [00:45:00] anything, but an R-rated movie, nobody in the entire company had ever had the experience of putting that piece of paper in front of a director. So they had to pay him. They couldn't withhold his salary for violating a legal promise they never asked him to make. Mike: I kind of love that. Jessika: Blunders. Mike: Yeah. That interview also notes that the scene where the reporter gets killed by Rico and he's framing Dredd. It was way more violent and gory, and it looked like something out of Robocop. And then additionally, there was the bit where Rico tells his robot to tear off the arms and legs of the council of five Judge that he's been working with. And he says, rip off his arms and legs and then save his head for last. And so it was originally supposed to be a scene where basically it cuts away to Rico walking away or something like that or shadows or something, and then you just hear the screams and that's it. But [00:46:00] apparently they made a full animatronic robot that had the arms and legs actually getting ripped off and like spewing blood. Jessika: Yikes, no. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Guys. Mike: Yeah. So this was clearly one of those things desires were not clearly communicated. So Stallone gave an interview to Uncut Magazine in 2008. And he talked about a bunch of the things that, that went wrong with that movie, including this weird story about Danny Cannon, where he said, I knew we were in for a long shoot when for no explainable reason, Danny Cannon, who's rather diminutive, jumped down from his director's chair and yelled to everyone within earshot. Fear me, everyone should fear me. Then jumped back up to his chair as if nothing happened. The British crew was taking bets on his life expectancy. Jessika: Yikes. Yeah, the guy's going to give himself a coronary. Holy moly. Mike: It reminds [00:47:00] me a little bit of the stories that were coming out of the Suicide Squad set. Jessika: Oh. Yeah, I'm hearing more and more stories of just things that actors are being put through on set, and it's just, I don't care who you are, you shouldn't have to deal with this bullshit while you're working. Mike: I don't envy them. Jessika: Yeah, I don't either. I mean, there has to be ways that doesn't hurt people to entertain us. Mike: Yeah. Back onto this topic of Judge Dredd itself, it was this movie that costs $95 million and that's in 1995. So adjusting for inflation, that's roughly $190 million in 2021 dollars. Jessika: Whew. Mike: For reference there's a bunch of MCU flicks that when adjusting for that inflation costs less than Judge Dredd did. The R rating in turn, and kind of the lackluster end product, resulted in $113 million at the box office worldwide. And that was a lot less than Stallone, and really everyone else, was hoping for, [00:48:00] they were legit hoping that this was going to be just a blowout success story, and they could make a franchise out of it. So we've already talked about how they were trying to make this into something that they can market to kids. And we still got some products that show that was the plan. There were a couple of associated products, like a junior novelization, and a comic adaptation of the movie from DC comics itself. And then a video game that's actually, it's not bad. It's like a side scroller and the movie story ends about, I think, halfway through. And then you go on to a bunch of different worlds and end up fighting those Dark Judges that I was talking about earlier, which is kinda cool. Yeah. It's fine. But anyway, none of these tie-in products really seemed to land. How did you feel about this film overall? I'm curious. Jessika: Is it bad to say a came across as a little cheesy? Mike: No, not at all. [00:49:00] Jessika: Like a nice wholly Swiss cheese. There were some mega plot holes that were very apparent. That kind of took me out of the experience saying that a lot this episode, but way to go guys. And it made me really overthink aspects of the storyline. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Like the whole, how did you not know where were clones? Did you not accidentally ever pick up the other person's gone and we're like, why can't I use this? If you have the DNA testing, it just, it didn't make a lot of sense. And how can you sequence two different guns if you only have one sequence of DNA? I don't get that either. Mike: Yeah. Part of that is just because it was 1995. DNA was still like a really hot topic for plots. It was new science. It was really exciting. I mean. Jessika: That's fair. Mike: We were in the throws of the OJ Simpson trial, and so DNA evidence was a really big thing there, but yeah. Jessika: Hot button item. You're right, I think, buzzword. Mike: And so that kind of goes into the whole [00:50:00] idea of clones as well, but that's an established plot line of Dredd itself. But I mean, like I remember, there's a bit where they focus on the flying Law Master motorcycle and they say, well, if you can ever get it to work, it will be yours. And they bust out and then there's several other flying Law Masters chasing after them. Jessika: Well, when they're talking about those motorcycles, I think they're trying to liken them to really bad quality, government issue, like these things are a piece of shit, but you can probably get em into the air, and have the worst model sitting there for the newbies to fuck around with. But I don't know, that's that was my takeaway from it just because I also remember, not that the cars are bad necessarily, the police cars, but it's like, they're stripped down to nothing, they're just like a car. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: None of the fancy shit. Mike: Yeah. Those, those good old Crown Vics. Jessika: Oh Yeah. And I think that part of it for me was the serious scenes, like the courtroom scene, especially mix in Rob Schneider in any of [00:51:00] those situations. And it was just a little much. Mike: Yeah, absolutely. Stallone played it really straight and really intense and it doesn't quite work. It feels almost like a high school drama production where you're watching those kids onstage, they're acting too hard. They've turned their acting dials up to 11 and you're like, okay buddy, we needed it like a seven. Jessika: I'm just imagining a man, like a child on stage, shaking. His arm is shaky. He's got a skull in his head and he was just screaming out lines from Hamlet. You're like, ooh, buddy, calm down. Mike: Yeah. Yurick can't hear you Hamlet. He's already dead. I think it's okay. Jessika: Womp womp. Mike: Yeah. My take on it, aside from the fact that it's a little bit too faithful and too earnest is that this reminds me of that situation where you take a bunch of different ingredients that you think are going to taste amazing and you've slapped them together into a sandwich. And then you realize the combination doesn't work, but yet you end up eating it anyway. [00:52:00] Jessika: Been there. Mike: Like, we talked about the sets, the makeup, the costumes, even the special effects, those are all great, but the script and then Stallone's performance really kind of do it a disservice, and even Sly has acknowledged that the movie missed the mark. So that earlier interview that I mentioned with Uncut Magazine, he had a really great point where he talks about how it didn't work. Jessika: I loved that property when I read it, because it took a genre that I love what you could term the action morality film, and made it a bit more sophisticated. It had political overtones. It showed how, if we don't curb the way we run our judicial system, the police may end up running our lives. It dealt with archaic governments. It dealt with cloning and all kinds of things that could happen in the future. It was also bigger than any film I've done in its physical stature and the way it was designed, all the people were dwarfed by the system and the architecture. It shows how insignificant [00:53:00] human beings could be in the future. There's a lot of action in the movie and some great acting, too. It just wasn't balls to the wall. But I do look back on Judge Dredd as a real missed opportunity. It seemed that lots of fans had a problem with Dredd removing his helmet because he never does in the comic books. But for me, it is more about wasting such great potential there was in that idea, just think of all the opportunities there were to do interesting stuff with the Cursed Earth scenes. It didn't live up to what it could have been. It probably should have been much more comic, really humorous and fun. What I learned out of that experience was that we shouldn't have tried to make it Hamlet. It's more Hamlet and eggs. That's so funny that I brought up Hamlet! I didn't read ahead. Mike: I was laughing about that actually. Yeah. And I mean, he's not wrong. I think he played it too straight and too serious. And they also tried to make it an action buddy comedy [00:54:00] movie, which it just, it doesn't quite work. Like the, the tone with Dredd is you have to walk a really fine line. They didn't stick to it this time. Yeah. I feel like it was trying to be extremely faithful to the source material, which always walked this very fine line tonally, and then it blew past it to create something that's just it's way too earnest. And over the top, it kind of reminded me of Jupiter Ascending. If you remember that movie. Jessika: I do. Mike: Yeah. It's this movie that has crazy high production values, a pretty great cast actually, and a really big story. And then it all combines into something that's honestly kind of underwhelming. Jessika: And forgettable, cause I kind of forget what that whole plot line of that movie is. And I think I've seen it twice cause I was like, I don't think I've seen this before. And I sat through the whole thing again. It's one of those movies. Mike: I just remember a lot of shirtless Channing Tatum and. Jessika: Oh, yeah, he wasn't at sea. I don't even know. Mike: Yeah. Do you have any more thoughts before we move on to [00:55:00] the 2012 remake kind of, it's not really a remake. It's just the 2012 movie. Jessika: No let's Rob Schneider, our way out of this. Mike: I'm not sure I liked that verb. Jessika: I was using it as: do something really stupid to get out of a situation. And I think I did it just by saying that. Mike: All right. How would you describe this movie? Give it, give another quick summary. Jessika: Mega City One. The future. There are still flying cars, but less of them. In a packed city rife with violence, Judge Joseph Dredd is assessing a new potential recruit to the force. This recruit isn't like the others. However, she is psychic; a mutant! In answering their first call, they inadvertently get themselves involved in a large scale drug operation and have to kill or be killed in order to survive. This film has no sympathy for innocent bystanders, who are killed by the dozens each [00:56:00] scene. And the Judges are swift to kill any who might oppose them. They finally escape using their wits and these psychic's ability, all while taking down a drug ring. Ta-da, all in a day's work. Mike: Dread came out right around the same time, I think a little bit after, as this movie out of, I think Thailand called The Raid. Which it's about a police force. That's basically working their way up through a skyscraper. And it's another really intense action movie. It's got really kick-ass action scenes. It's really good. And the sad thing is it's just that and Dredd have a similar plot based on that, but it's also very different. So there were a lot of unfair comparisons to that at the time. Jessika: I see. Mike: How do you feel this movie compares with the Stallone one? Jessika: It was definitely more serious and more bloody, for sure. It really leaned into the death and carnage aspect [00:57:00] becoming more and more creative and destructive as the film progressed. Like was it strictly necessary to aim towards and blow up an entire floor of a densely inhabited building? I dunno. It was kind of hard to watch some times, it was pretty graphic. I did like that it took on a more serious tone though. And I think the reason that it's so hard to watch for me is more for the social implications. Like, when the film made it clear that vagrancy could carry a similar sentence to other more serious crimes. Mike: Right? Jessika: Which was really wild. Mike: Yeah, it's interesting because I feel like it did a lot more subtle world-building with moments like that, or when they're describing the Mega Block that they're investigating and it's noted that there's only a 3% employment rate. It's weird because it's such a violent movie and don't get me wrong, I think the action scenes are just incredible. They look great. But at the same time, it's a more [00:58:00] subtle movie in a lot of ways than the Stallone one was. Jessika: Yeah. Definitely it's scarier. Like the idea of it is more, it seems more real and in your face, and for me, it definitely put a spotlight on how scary policing can be to targeted groups. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: And this might be an extreme example, but how extreme is it really? Mike: Yeah. And it's interesting because you and I talked about this before, this is a movie that is very, it's very binary with its morals. Like there's only the good guys and the bad guys. This isn't this, isn't one of those movies where you sit there and you watch it and are really given a lot of moral things to consider. There's not a lot of philosophy here, but it doesn't sit there and say that Dredd and the Judges themselves are in the right. It's basically showing that there is a force who is basically the gang that is running the apartment block that they are in, which is headed up by a fucking terrifying Lena Headey and A), [00:59:00] they really uglied her up. Which, I was actually really impressed. I didn't recognize her because this came out right after game of Thrones had just had its first season. I think maybe its second season had hit, but I mean what a stark contrast between her in the mama role and then Cersei Lannister. Jessika: Stark. I like what you did there. Mike: Hey, was totally intentional. Or that was totally, that was totally intentional. I totally did that on purpose. Jessika: Okay. Mike: Like I said, there is no wiggle room. They sit there and they basically say no, this woman is a monster, and she does need to be taken down. You know, to the movies credit, the judges, don't really mow down innocent bystanders, it's all the thing of, no, they're going up against bad guys who have guns and are trying to kill them. But at the same time, it does also acknowledge how they aren't completely in the right either. Like there's a scene where they take shelter in an apartment. And Olivia Thirlby's character reads the mind of this woman who they're basically holding up to give them shelter for a few minutes. [01:00:00] And she realizes that, oh, this woman's baby daddy is one of the gang members that they just killed a few minutes ago. Jessika: She herself had killed that guy. Mike: Yeah. And I appreciated that. There are those moments where it takes a more mature look at, maybe everything that's going on isn't great. And then there's that moment at the end where Anderson sits there and talks about how, when she lets the hacker character go, because she realizes that he is just as much of a victim as a lot of the other people in the block are, even though he's been aiding Ma Ma. Jessika: Yeah. And then I like how Dread tries to call her on it. She's like, I've made the judgment. He's a victim. Mike: Yeah. And I thought that was great. Also, that actor is the guy who played General Hux in the Star Wars movies that we got recently. Jessika: I thought I recognized him and I could not place him, and I was too lazy to go on IMDB. Mike: But yeah, thought it was a much more, it's weird to call that movie subtle, but I felt like there were a lot of nice little subtle moments in it. [01:01:00] And I really liked how A) Ma Ma was a genuinely frightening villain, especially because you never see her flying off the handle or being over the top or anything like that. She delivers everything with this really kind of scary, calm, in which we see in the first few minutes, when she tells her officer to skin, some guys who were selling drugs on her territory without her permission. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: And then the order is given after they've been skinned, to be given hits of slow-mo, which is the drug throughout the movie that slows down perceptions of time. So they were thrown off the top story of this apartment block. And basically they have this long, awful, painful plummet into the courtyard below. Jessika: God, that's gotta be so terrifying. Mike: And that really set the tone for who we were dealing with, which I thought was incredibly effective. Jessika: I thought they did such a nice job on the cinematography on that, by the way, when they did those scenes with the slow-mo and they [01:02:00] had it kind of shimmery and they put you in the mindset of the person having used the slow-mo, and I thought that was such a good technique. Mike: So yeah, and the whole thing was that they released this movie in 3D. So, you can tell that those scenes were filmed specifically for 3D cinematography. Jessika: That makes so much sense. Mike: I actually saw this movie opening night in the theaters and A) I remember tweeting about it and saying that movie was way too good for the theater to be that empty on a Friday night. But I remember that was the first, and really that's the only time, I've ever enjoyed a movie in 3D because I felt the 3d actually added something as opposed to just being a cheap gimmick to ring an extra couple of bucks out of my wallet. Jessika: That's usually how I feel about it. Mike: Yeah. But I liked how Olivia Thirlby's character Judge Anderson was actually way less of a damsel in distress than Diane Lane's character Judge Hersey. And then on top of that, a lot of the [01:03:00] superhero movies rely on that whole female heroes have to fight female villains trope that it always feels like they don't get to participate in the end boss battle. And I thought it was really cool how Anderson wound up using her powers to A) escape, her captors, B) actually rescue Dredd, and then C) really be a giant aid to him throughout the movie. She felt like a viable, real character as opposed to just kind of, window trim. Jessika: Yeah. Agreed. I was nodding vigorously when you were talking about that, because I am an absolute agreement. I was a little worried when she first got captured, cause I was like, oh, here we go, so fucking typical. But then when she was actually using her powers and she was getting out of the situation herself, it was like, okay, fine. You got this. You're fine. Mike: Yeah. On top of that, the intro to the movie we get is so tight and efficient. And aside from the intro where we get a chase scene, where we see slow-mo and effect, we see how brutal Dredd is himself. We also get [01:04:00] the intro to Anderson, where she's demonstrating her powers by basically reading the mind of Dredd from behind a two way mirror. And there's that great line about like, oh, well, you know, there's another Judge with you. He's male. I sense control and anger and then something, something more something. And then the judge cuts her off just like, that's enough, that's fine. And I'm like, cool. So we've got a really good summary of who Dredd himself is. Okay. We get it now. This is all we need. Jessika: Yeah. It was a really good narrative tool. I did like that. Mike: Yeah. And then, in the comics, Anderson actually won is a pretty big ally of dread himself. And she's also never romantic interest, but she winds up being key to defeat those monster movie versions of the Judges. And actually, it's been a little while since I read this, but if I remember right when she first confronts Judge Death, who is the leader of the Dark Judges, she winds up, trapping him inside her own mind because he's this psychic entity. And so I was really happy that they took a strong character and [01:05:00] kept her really strong. Jessika: It's good to hear that she also had a really strong role within the comics. Mike: And then the other thing is that I kind of liked how they had Dredd himself be a little bit more subtle. Like, Hey, we never haven't take off his helmet, which I thought was great. And I thought Karl urban, I mean, how did you feel about Karl Urban as Dredd compared to him? Jessika: I thought he was great. And I think I, it would've made less sense if he had taken off his helmet just as far as the character goes. And honestly, I think in this situation, there wasn't much room for him as a character to have his helmet off because they were pretty in a battle mode. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: The whole movie, truly, except for the introductory first few minutes. Mike: Yeah. And I liked the bit where, so Anderson loses her helmet pretty early on and Dredd actually calls her out on it. And he says, you're not wearing your helmet. And she goes, oh, well, the helmet interferes with my psychic abilities and you just go solo bullet and then that's it. That's Jessika: Yup. Mike: I thought that was great. Jessika: Yup. He'll give her the advice he will give, but he's not going to [01:06:00] tell her to do it, which I thought was good. Mike: Yeah. I'm curious. We're going to get to this in a minute about like how it is through the 2021 line. But did you enjoy the movie? Jessika: I think for me, because I'm such an empath, it was a little bit too much innocent blood death. Mike: Okay. Jessika: Even just like, they didn't need to kill the vagrant, it, that was a very like, oh, the gates closed. And the Vagrant just happened to be sitting there and he got squashed and they both kind of looked at it like, well, guess we don't have to deal with that. And I was like, well, fucking hell guys, come on. Mike: Yeah. And I mean, at the same time, from my perspective, and I understand where you were coming from with this, but from my perspective, it was kind of the embodiment of that weird absurdist, gallows humor that is often prese
Join us as Jessika takes us on a behind-the-scenes tour of the 1990s Ninja Turtle movies. Come for the stories about Jim Henson, stay for the ragging on Corey Feldman. We will not be discussing the Michael Bay abominations. ----more---- Episode 9 Transcription [00:00:00] Jessika: God, am I wheezy on my microphone right now? Hello. Welcome to Ten Cent Takes the podcast where we serve comics knowledge on the half shell, one issue at a time. My name is Jessika Frazier and I'm joined by my cohost, the righteous reader, Mike Thompson. Hello? Mike: Hello. Jessika: Well, the purpose of our podcast is to study comic books in ways that are both fun and informative. We want to look at their coolest, weirdest and silliest moments, as well as examine how they're woven into the larger fabric of pop culture and history. Today, we're going to be discussing movies from a genre that is very near and dear to my heart, the Teenage Mutant Ninja [00:01:00] Turtles.Now we won't be doing a deep dive into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise, but stay tuned for a future episode. We are going to be talking about the live action, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle films from the nineties, the drama leading up to the making of the films, the ingenuity, and detailed involved in the filming itself, along with the casting crew and some of their recollections and anecdotes.But before we do Mike, what is a one cool thing you've read or watched lately? Mike: well, I know what we have both been watching actually. And I feel like, uh, maybe you need to start off this conversation. Jessika: So, yeah, cause I, I see that you have written the same thing as I, as we do have a shared file here. Well, I watched the first few episodes of MODOK, which just came out this year and it is witty and wonderful. Mike: I think it came out like a week ago. Jessika: Oh, sweet. Mike: Yeah, like it's real [00:02:00] fresh. Jessika: Well, thank you to my friend who was like, we need to watch this because you'll really enjoy it. And in fact I did. So, and now that I have my head sort of out of turtle world, I'll be able to watch a little bit more. But for those of you who haven't seen it yet, it follows a blundering Marvel villain with a big head and a super tiny body named MODOK. He flies around on this little hover in this little hover situation. It's very funny. And it follows his evil ventures and how they bleed into his family life in the suburbs, and it is produced by a variety of people. One of whom is Seth green and the show does have a very, a robot chicken vibe to it. It's done in Claymation and can get pretty violent and graphic, in a Claymation kind of way. But I wouldn't say it's a kid show. I also got a star-studded cast Patton Oswalt is in it. Amy Garcia, Ben Schwartz -whom I loved in Parks and Rec- John Hamm, Nathan Fillion, Whoopie shows up. There's a ton of people.I'm only four episodes in out [00:03:00] of the ten, that comprise season one, but I'm super looking forward to laughing my way through the remaining six potentially tonight. Mike: I'm not going to spoil it for you, but Alan Tudyk shows up in a role where he sounds almost exactly like Joker from Harley Quinn. It's great. Jessika: Oh, I'm so excited. So what did you think about it? Mike: We loved it. So Sarah and I wound up bingeing it last Friday when we didn't have the kids, because we knew it was not a friendly show, as you get the warning at the very beginning, talking about how this is a mature show and it is not, not for small children. I think we binged all of it in one night because you know, it was only 10 episodes and they're half hour. So we didn't know much about it. Other than I'd seen a promo image for it. I had seen a bunch of nerds getting mad about it online, but I also knew that Patton Oswalt was involved. So I was already sold because anything that man touches I will consume. We wound up just being blown out of the water. And it's so funny while also [00:04:00] being weirdly faithful to Marvel Comics lore and in a weird twist, we wound up adopting a dog two days later. And, it was very unexpected. It was a very spur of the moment thing where we saw this dog online and then decided to apply for him. And we got him and I didn't think this was actually going to fly, but Sarah agreed to it, much to her chagrin I'm sure later on, but we named him MODOG. So MODOG stands for Miniature Organism Designed Only for Gnawing because he's a puppy and he's chewing on everything as puppies do. We call him Mo for short, there's a graphic designer at my company who immediately whipped up an image of him MODOK's doomsday chair. So it's his face, but then MODOK's body. It's great. And I've shared it everywhere. And now I have a new life goal where I want to have Patton Oswalt meet my dog and then sign a printing of that graphic.So. Patton Oswalt, future friend of the podcast, please hit us up. Jessika: That was a really cute picture. [00:05:00] I literally LOL'd when I saw it. Mike:It was very good. It's also been turned into a Slack emoji in our work slack. And as a result, it's just getting spammed by everybody on my team. Jessika: Deservedly so. Nowonto our main topic, which is the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle films. First, I want to give a shout out to the resources I used in my research of these films. IMDB.com, movie web.com. There was a whole interview with the cast and crew of the making of the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle films from the Hollywood reporter.com. Turtlepediafandom.com, which is very well organized and has tons of information with resources cited and the film, The Definitive History of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which is basically the history told through compiled interviews of [00:06:00] those involved in making this amazing franchise. So these live action films, I don't know about you. I absolutely remember watching these as a kid, although I didn't realize that until I started watching them again and was immediately able to recall every scene from the first film. And we were also very much, and I've said this before on the podcast, we were very much a teenage mutant ninja turtle household.So it makes total sense that we would have watched that at some point, probably numerous times. I presume you also watched them as a kid. What was your experience with the films? Mike: I mean, I was born in the early eighties, I was very much that target demographic for the Turtles. My mom actually took me to see the first movie, I think four times. Jessika: Oh, wow. Mike: I think I mentioned in that Saturday Morning Cartoon episode, that the last time she just sat in the lobby and read a book Jessika: I still love that story. Mike: Yeah, which, f you ever meet my mom, that, that checks out. She's like, meh, he'll be fine. He'll be [00:07:00] fine. What's the worst that could happen. Letting my eight-year-old go into a movie theater alone. But yeah, I saw both sequels in the theater too. I think I saw The Secret of the Ooze twice. And then the third one was fine. I mean, we got it on video and I remember watching it a bunch of times with my siblings because they were pretty young and we would just pop it on because it was something that could entertain all of us, but it wasn't one of those things that we needed to see over and over again in the movie theater, as opposed to the other ones.I had so many of the action figures when I was a kid and I was just addicted to the cartoon for like longer than it was cool. Jessika: Hard same. Very much so. Mike: But I weirdly wasn't really into the comics. The Ninja Turtle comics were just never something that I was all that curious about. I was already into Marvel and DC and Image and all that stuff. Jessika: Yeah. Very nice. I'm going to get into production, actors and success of each of the films along with some other fun facts. [00:08:00] But first, can you please give me a brief overview of the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle film? Mike: Sure. So Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is the proverbial superhero origin movie. It's set in a New York that's still rocking the grit of the eighties, and it's also showing a bit more urban decay than we're used to. This New York is in the throes of a crime wave due to the Foot Clan, which has been recruiting wayward teens, and eventually training them to be ninjas of all things. I don't quite understand how you go from recruiting teens to just commit petty burglaries and then rewarding them with a giant warehouse full of video arcade cabinets and skateboarding ramps and graffiti walls. And regular or menthol cigarettes as was demonstrated in the scene that we get to see a very young Sam Rockwell selling the Foot Clan to teenagers.The movie introduces us to the Ninja Turtles, their leaders Splinter, the vigilante Casey Jones, [00:09:00] and TV reporter April O'Neil, as they all deal with the crime wave in their own ways. But then they eventually work together to defeat Shredder and his army. Jessika: Yeah. That totally sums it up. What did you think of the film overall on the rewatch? Mike: Honestly, I was surprised by how well it's aged. it's not like the current crop of superhero movies where those are clearly meant to be watched by adults who are fans of the franchise. And then also make it accessible to kids. This was clearly meant to be a kids movie that was tolerable for their parents who got dragged to the theater. It's a lot darker and grittier than I remembered. And a lot of those elements really went over my head as a kid. The Turtles and Splinter themselves, I also think are really impressive, which isn't surprising since the costumes and puppetry were handled by the Jim Henson company. I mean, when you hire the best you get the best. But yeah, most kids during this era had really only been exposed [00:10:00] to the cartoon. So it's a little weird at how serious they went with the overall tone and storyline. My only real complaint was how kind of janky Shredder's costume was, but he actually doesn't show up that much. It's like he's wearing, do you remember those like weird sequined , evening dresses that were all the rage in the late eighties, early nineties? Jessika: Oh, yes. The ones with the shoulder pads? Mike: Yeah, it kind of looks like someone took the fabric from that and then attached Shredder's blades and shoulder pads. And it's also the wrong color. It's red. They really needed to give him a cape and a belt and I would have been way more okay with that. But it's fine. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: What about you? How do you feel about it? Jessika: I think it held up pretty well on the rewatch. Like you said, it was super fun. As fun as I remember it. And I really liked April's role in the film, which was kind of, I would say edgy for like the nineties. She's independent. She lives alone, although her boss has absolutely [00:11:00] no boundaries. He just fucking shows up there with his kid and the kid's fucking stealing things from her. Like screw that, don't bring your kid here. Mike: She lives in this weird shithole of an apartment, too. Which doesn't make sense to me because she's apparently a really well-respected and popular TV journalist. Jessika: Mike we're women. We can't both have success and nice things Mike: I'm sorry. Jessika: That would be really threatening to the patriarchy. I really dig that she follows stories regardless of what others may advise her she should do. Like, she's not about doing fluff pieces. She's just like, no, let's do this thing. And at, one point she's almost mugged and she doesn't tell her boss because why, why, why, why should she, like, nothing happened really? And when he asks her about it, she has this like “for what” attitude, which I'm like, yeah, exactly. For what? Like, why should I, I'm not going to call my boss and be like, “I tripped on the [00:12:00] sidewalk and sprained my ankle.” I don't know. It didn't make any sense. So Mike: That producer really was, he was really there as an excuse to introduce the character of his son. That was really the only purpose that he was there for. Jessika: Yeah, he popped in and out. He wasn't doing much with that. Yeah. Also the animatronics were surprisingly great. I know it's Jim Henson, but like the nineties were a really good decade for, good animatronics between like that and Jurassic Park.You know, very, very good. So their movements were just really convincing. And we'll get into, part of why that is, in just a couple of minutes when I talk about the animatronics and the costumes. Mike: Yeah. I'm really excited to talk about that actually. Jessika: So picture this: It's 1989 and comic book movies were not wildly popular after a couple of recent superhero flops. Their turtles were initially [00:13:00] discovered by Gary Proper, who was a road manager for the comic Gallagher. He had previously worked with Kim Dawson and got her on board as producer. And they signed on Bobby Herbeck as the writer. This was kind of cool because during the writing process, there was a lot of back and forth between Herbeck and the original writers, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird to ensure that the movie was staying true to the comic and, per an interview I read, it was definitely a longer process than Herbeck had initially thought it would be. Mike: That makes sense because to be completely honest, the movie feels like a pretty faithful adaptation of the tone of the original comic, which was very over the top and gritty and violent. Jessika: Yeah, absolutely. And I, I do like that. They went back and checked instead of just said, okay, well we have the rights and we're going to run and do what we want to do with this. So now that they had a script, they had to find funding and a studio and a way to make the Turtles come to [00:14:00] life. So they pitched the idea all around Hollywood. All three of them were incredibly enthusiastic, but the studios were super wary after the recent comic book related box office failures. Mike: So out of curiosity, which movies were those that failed? Jessika: Howard the Duck? Mike: Oh yeah. Jessika: Yeah. And so it didn't do well. And there was another one before that, too, although it doesn't say on here, but Howard the Duck was the big one that people were like, yikes, we're going to go ahead and back off. Mike: That was George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. And they thought they had like the next star wars and ET their hands. Jessika: I've never even heard of it. Mike: Oh, oh, we should totally do a retrospective on it at some point. It's based on a Marvel comics character who is a anthropomorphic duck. They had a full animatronic suit. It's like, you know, Ninja Turtle-quality animatronics, and puppetry. It had all sorts of talent involved with it. And it was one of the biggest box office bombs. So that makes a lot of sense actually, because that'd be the closest [00:15:00] thing where you're talking about anthropomorphic comic characters. Jessika: I'm getting flashes of like a big duck costume. So I may have even seen flashes of it in my life, Mike: It's a weird movie. It's real weird. Leah Thompson, you know, the mom from Back to the Future is in it and this was like at the height of her popularity too. Jessika: Oh no poor Leah. Mike: It's real uncomfortable. There's a whole scene where she's in bed with Howard in lingerie. Jessika: Ew, with the duck?. Mike: It's, very weird Jessika: I don't like it. Mike: And very uncomfortable. Jessika: It's weird enough having these teenage, like teenage, they are supposed to be fun. Fact, they're supposed to be 15 during this, that they're all like over April. It's like, Ooh. Like she is definitely a full adult, a full adult, like you are 15 years old and you're, a turtle! Like… Mike: And that's unfortunately, [00:16:00] something that's carried on. I feel like the one thing that they don't actually ever do a very good job of adapting is the teenage aspect. I have hope for what we have coming in the future. We'll talk about that later. Jessika: Yeah, yeah. Mike: But yeah. Jessika: Ugh. So they pitched the idea all around Hollywood. After those comic book related box office failures, after months of persistent nudging, they finally wore down Tom Gray, who was the head of production for Golden Harvest and got approval to light the project with a $3 million budget. And apparently they already had another couple of million already floating around, like, yeah, no problem. Just, but we need more. Mike: They were already huge, and the funny thing is this is very much like how they actually got their first pitch for getting the action figures made where their agent was driving around with this giant turtle. I think Playmates was the last toy manufacturer that was actually willing to talk to them and they agreed to it, but they had been making pitches right and left [00:17:00] and no one had picked them up. Jessika: it was just, it sounded like such a whole thing that they were just like, Fox! How about you? How about blah, blah, blah. And everybody was like, whoa, whoa, you need to leave like exit through where you came from, because we don't want anything you have to tell us. Mike: Don't even take the main exit, go out the servant's exit. Jessika: Yeah, we don't want to see you leave. Just do it. can teleport. That'd be great. Mike: We don't want any association with you or your trash. Get out . Jessika: Oh no. So they hired Steve Barron as director. Mike: Right. Jessika: Barron wanted to make sure that the teenage mutant ninja turtles were a hybrid of the lighter animated series, along with the darker vibe of the comics, which is why there is that kind of middle point. It is a little darker, but it's maybe not as dark as the comics and that's intentional. They did want to make it family friendly because the comics really aren't, they're very violent. They're very graphic. You can put a dark spin on things and still make it [00:18:00] family friendly. Barron had also worked with Jim Henson on a previous project and knew Henson's Creature Shop would make the Turtles more fully believable on screen. Now, the issue was that this was 1990. Jim Henson was arguably the biggest name in the animatronics game, which of course meant his services were not going to be cheap. This edition would be $6 million, which of course was far over their budget. They also had to convince Henson to actually take part in the film because he was concerned that it was too violent for what his puppets should portray and might be a risky move due to his younger fanbase. Took some sweet talking from Barron -which seems to be kind of the name of the game for the Turtles- but Henson finally agreed to assist. And this was the first and what is thought to be the last time that Henson lent out the name to use in this way? Yeah. They [00:19:00] had to get another studio involved because they just simply did not have enough money. Mike: Right. Jessika: And finally signed on with Fox for a larger budget. Which also fell through. I read an interview that said within 10 days of when they were supposed to start filming, they still didn't have the funding. Mike: Wow. Jessika: So they were cutting it incredibly close. I mean, it had literally everything else. Mike: Come to think of it. I mean, yeah, that's wild. And then also - given the time that this came out- this has gotta be one of the last films that Jim Henson was personally involved with before he died. Jessika: Yeah. Actually we'll get into that. We will. Yeah. And not even on this, this part of it, but we'll we'll we'll we'll get there. We'll get there. Yeah. New Line Cinema eventually came through and signed on to produce. But offered significantly less money than the 6 million that had been proposed. Golden Harvest owner, Raymond Chow, agreed to fund the remainder of the expenses, whatever those were. Mike: Okay. I mean, that was a great bet for him. [00:20:00] Jessika: Okay. Yeah, absolutely. Shoot. So this is wild. We were talking about Jim Henson. Let's talk about the costumes because those things were awesome. There were actually two sets of costumes for each turtle, one for the animatronics, s
About MikeBeside his duties as The Duckbill Group's CEO, Mike is the author of O'Reilly's Practical Monitoring, and previously wrote the Monitoring Weekly newsletter and hosted the Real World DevOps podcast. He was previously a DevOps Engineer for companies such as Taos Consulting, Peak Hosting, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and many more. Mike is originally from Knoxville, TN (Go Vols!) and currently resides in Portland, OR.Links: Software Engineering Daily podcast: https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/category/all-episodes/exclusive-content/Podcast/ Duckbillgroup.com: https://duckbillgroup.com TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by Thinkst. This is going to take a minute to explain, so bear with me. I linked against an early version of their tool, canarytokens.org in the very early days of my newsletter, and what it does is relatively simple and straightforward. It winds up embedding credentials, files, that sort of thing in various parts of your environment, wherever you want to; it gives you fake AWS API credentials, for example. And the only thing that these things do is alert you whenever someone attempts to use those things. It's an awesome approach. I've used something similar for years. Check them out. But wait, there's more. They also have an enterprise option that you should be very much aware of canary.tools. You can take a look at this, but what it does is it provides an enterprise approach to drive these things throughout your entire environment. You can get a physical device that hangs out on your network and impersonates whatever you want to. When it gets Nmap scanned, or someone attempts to log into it, or access files on it, you get instant alerts. It's awesome. If you don't do something like this, you're likely to find out that you've gotten breached, the hard way. Take a look at this. It's one of those few things that I look at and say, “Wow, that is an amazing idea. I love it.” That's canarytokens.org and canary.tools. The first one is free. The second one is enterprise-y. Take a look. I'm a big fan of this. More from them in the coming weeks.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Lumigo. If you've built anything from serverless, you know that if there's one thing that can be said universally about these applications, it's that it turns every outage into a murder mystery. Lumigo helps make sense of all of the various functions that wind up tying together to build applications. It offers one-click distributed tracing so you can effortlessly find and fix issues in your serverless and microservices environment. You've created more problems for yourself; make one of them go away. To learn more, visit lumigo.io.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by ChaosSearch. As basically everyone knows, trying to do log analytics at scale with an ELK stack is expensive, unstable, time-sucking, demeaning, and just basically all-around horrible. So why are you still doing it—or even thinking about it—when there's ChaosSearch? ChaosSearch is a fully managed scalable log analysis service that lets you add new workloads in minutes, and easily retain weeks, months, or years of data. With ChaosSearch you store, connect, and analyze and you're done. The data lives and stays within your S3 buckets, which means no managing servers, no data movement, and you can save up to 80 percent versus running an ELK stack the old-fashioned way. It's why companies like Equifax, HubSpot, Klarna, Alert Logic, and many more have all turned to ChaosSearch. So if you're tired of your ELK stacks falling over before it suffers, or of having your log analytics data retention squeezed by the cost, then try ChaosSearch today and tell them I sent you. To learn more, visit chaossearch.io.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. I spent the past week guest hosting the Software Engineering Daily podcast, taking listeners over there on a tour of the clouds. Each day, I picked a different cloud and had a guest talk to me about their experiences with that cloud.Now, there was one that we didn't talk about, and we're finishing up that tour here today on Screaming in the Cloud. That cloud is the obvious one, and that is your own crappy data center. And my guest is Duckbill Group's CEO and my business partner, Mike Julian. Mike, thanks for joining me.Mike: Hi, Corey. Thanks for having me back.Corey: So, I frequently say that I started my career as a grumpy Unix sysadmin. Because it isn't like there's a second kind of Unix sysadmin you're going to see. And you were in that same boat. You and I both have extensive experience working in data centers. And it's easy sitting here on the tech coast of the United States—we're each in tech hubs cities—and we look around and yeah, the customers we talked to have massive cloud presences; everything we do is in cloud, it's easy to fall into the trap of believing that data centers are a thing of yesteryear. Are they?Mike: [laugh]. Absolutely not. I mean, our own customers have tons of stuff in data centers. There are still companies out there like Equinix, and CoreSite, and DRC—is that them? I forget the name of them.Corey: DRT. Digital Realty [unintelligible 00:01:54].Mike: Digital Realty. Yeah. These are companies still making money hand over fist. People are still putting new workloads into data centers, so yeah, we're kind of stuck with him for a while.Corey: What's fun is when I talked to my friends over in the data center sales part of the world, I have to admit, I went into those conversations early on with more than my own fair share of arrogance. And it was, “[laugh]. So, who are you selling to these days?” And the answer was, “Everyone, fool.” Because they are.People at large companies with existing data center footprints are not generally doing fire sales of their data centers, and one thing that we learned about cloud bills here at The Duckbill Group is that they only ever tend to go up with time. That's going to be the case when we start talking about data centers as well. The difference there is that it's not just an API call away to lease more space, put in some racks, buy some servers, get them racked. So, my question for you is, if we sit here and do the Hacker News—also known as the worst website on the internet—and take their first principles approach to everything, does that mean the people who are building out data centers are somehow doing it wrong? Did they miss a transformation somewhere?Mike: No, I don't think they're doing it wrong. I think there's still a lot of value in having data centers and having that sort of skill set. I do think the future is in cloud infrastructure, though. And whether that's a public cloud, or private cloud, or something like that, I think we're getting increasingly away from building on top of bare metal, just because it's so inefficient to do. So yeah, I think at some point—and I feel like we've been saying this for years that, “Oh, no, everyone's missed the boat,” and here we are saying it yet again, like, “Oh, no. Everyone's missing the boat.” You know, at some point, the boat's going to frickin' leave.Corey: From my perspective, there are advantages to data centers. And we can go through those to some degree, but let's start at the beginning. Origin stories are always useful. What's your experience working in data centers?Mike: [laugh]. Oh, boy. Most of my career has been in data centers. And in fact, one interesting tidbit is that, despite running a company that is built on AWS consulting, I didn't start using AWS myself until 2015. So, as of this recording, it's 2021 now, so that means six years ago is when I first started AWS.And before that, it was all in data centers. So, some of my most interesting stuff in the data center world was from Oak Ridge National Lab where we had hundreds of thousands of square feet of data center floor space across, like, three floors. And it was insane, just the amount of data center stuff going on there. A whole bunch of HPC, a whole bunch of just random racks of bullshit. So, it's pretty interesting stuff.I think probably the most really interesting bit I've worked on was when I was at a now-defunct company, Peak Hosting, where we had to figure out how to spin up a data center without having anyone at the data center, as in, there was no one there to do the spin up. And that led into interesting problems, like you have multiple racks of equipment, like, thousands of servers just showed up on the loading dock. Someone's got to rack them, but from that point, it all has to be automatic. So, how do you bootstrap entire racks of systems from nothing with no one physically there to start a bootstrap process? And that led us to build some just truly horrific stuff. And thank God that's someone else's problem, now. [laugh].Corey: It makes you wonder if under the hood at all these cloud providers if they have something that's a lot cleaner, and more efficient, and perfect, or if it's a whole bunch of Perl tied together with bash and hope, like we always built.Mike: You know what? I have to imagine that even at AWS at a—I know if this is true at Facebook, where they have a massive data center footprint as well—there is a lot of work that goes into the bootstrap process, and a lot of these companies are building their own hardware to facilitate making that bootstrap process easier. When you're trying to bootstrap, say, like, Dell or HP servers, the management cards only take you so far. And a lot of the stuff that we had to do was working around bugs in the HP management cards, or the Dell DRACs.Corey: Or you can wind up going with some budget whitebox service. I mean, Supermicro is popular, not that they're ultra-low budget. But yeah, you can effectively build your own. And that leads down interesting paths, too. I feel like there's a sweet spot where working on a data center and doing a build-out makes sense for certain companies.If you're trying to build out some proof of concept, yeah, do it in the cloud; you don't have to wait eight weeks and spend thousands of dollars; you can prove it out right now and spend a total of something like 17 cents to figure out if it's going to work or not. And if it does, then proceed from there, if not shut it down, and here's a quarter; keep the change. With data centers, a lot more planning winds up being involved. And is there a cutover at which point it makes sense to evacuate from a public cloud into a physical data center?Mike: You know, I don't really think so. This came up on a recent Twitter Spaces that you and I did around, at what point does it really make sense to be hybrid, or to be all-in on data center? I made the argument that a large-scale HPC does not fit cloud workloads, and someone made a comment that, like, “What is large-scale?” And to me, large-scale was always, like—so Oak Ridge was—or is famous—for having supercomputing, and they have largely been in the top five supercomputers in the world for quite some time. A supercomputer of that size is tens of thousands of cores. And they're running pretty much constant because of how expensive that stuff is to get time on. And that sort of thing would be just astronomically expensive in a cloud. But how many of those are there really?Corey: Yeah, if you're an AWS account manager listening to this and reaching out with, “No, that's not true. After committed spend, we'll wind up giving you significant discounts, and a whole bunch of credits, and jump through all these hoops.” And, yeah, I know, you'll give me a bunch of short-term contractual stuff that's bounded for a number of years, but there's no guarantee that stuff gets renewed at that rate. And let's face it. If you're running those kinds of workloads today, and already have the staff and tooling and processes that embrace that, maybe ripping all that out in a cloud migration where there's no clear business value derived isn't the best plan.Mike: Right. So, while there is a lot of large-scale HPC infrastructure that I don't think particularly fits well on the cloud, there's not a lot of that. There's just not that many massive HPC deployments out there. Which means that pretty much everything below that threshold could be a candidate for cloud workloads, and probably would be much better. One of the things that I noticed at Oak Ridge was that we had a whole bunch of SGI HPC systems laying around, and 90% of the time they were idle.And those things were not cheap when they were bought, and at the time, they're basically worth nothing. But they were idle most of the time, but when they were needed, they're there, and they do a great job of it. With AWS and GCP and Azure HPC offerings, that's a pretty good fit. Just migrate that whole thing over because it'll cost you less than buying a new one. But if I'm going to migrate Titan or Gaia from Oak Ridge over to there, yeah, some AWS rep is about to have a very nice field day. That'd just be too much money.Corey: Well, I'd be remiss as a cloud economist if I didn't point out that you can do this stuff super efficiently in someone else's AWS account.Mike: [laugh]. Yes.Corey: There's also the staffing question where if you're a large blue-chip company, you've been around for enough decades that you tend to have some revenue to risk, where you have existing processes and everything is existing in an on-prem environment, as much as we love to tell stories about the cloud being awesome, and the capability increase and the rest, yadda, yadda, yadda, there has to be a business case behind moving to the cloud, and it will knock some nebulous percentage off of your TCO—because lies, damned lies, and TCO analyses are sort of the way of the world—great. That's not exciting to most strategic-level execs. At least as I see the world. Given you are one of those strategic level execs, do you agree? Am I lacking nuance here?Mike: No, I pretty much agree. Doing a data center migration, you got to have a reason to do it. We have a lot of clients that are still running in data centers as well, and they don't move because the math doesn't make sense. And even when you start factoring in all the gains from productivity that they might get—and I stress the word might here—even when you factor those in, even when you factor in all the support and credits that Amazon might give them, it still doesn't make enough sense. So, they're still in data centers because that's where they should be for the time because that's what the finances say. And I'm kind of hard-pressed to disagree with them.Corey: While we're here playing ‘ask an exec,' I'm going to go for another one here. It's my belief that any cloud provider that charges a penny for professional services, or managed services, or any form of migration tooling or offering at all to their customers is missing the plot. Clearly, since they all tend to do this, I'm wrong somewhere. But I don't see how am I wrong or are they?Mike: Yeah, I don't know. I'd have to think about that one some more.Corey: It's an interesting point because it's—Mike: It is.Corey: —it's easy to think of this as, “Oh, yeah. You should absolutely pay people to migrate in because the whole point of cloud is that it's kind of sticky.” The biggest indicator of a big cloud bill this month is a slightly smaller one last month. And once people wind up migrating into a cloud, they tend not to leave despite all of their protestations to the contrary about multi-cloud, hybrid, et cetera, et cetera. And that becomes an interesting problem.It becomes an area—there's a whole bunch of vendors that are very deeply niched into that. It's clear that the industry as a whole thinks that migrating from data centers to cloud is going to be a boom industry for the next three decades. I don't think they're wrong.Mike: Yeah, I don't think they're wrong either. I think there's a very long tail of companies with massive footprint staying in a data center that at some point is going to get out of a data center.Corey: For those listeners who are fortunate enough not to have to come up the way that we did. Can you describe what a data center is like inside?Mike: Oh, God.Corey: What is a data center? People have these mythic ideas from television and movies, and I don't know, maybe some Backstreet Boys music video; I don't know where it all comes from. What is a data center like? What does it do?Mike: I've been in many of these over my life, and I think they really fall into two groups. One is the one managed by a professional data center manager. And those tend to be sterile environments. Like, that's the best way to describe it. They are white, filled with black racks. Everything is absolutely immaculate. There is no trash or other debris on the floor. Everything is just perfect. And it is freezingly cold.Corey: Oh, yeah. So, you're in a data center for any length of time, bring a jacket. And the soulless part of it, too, is that it's well-lit with fluorescent lights everywhere—Mike: Oh yeah.Corey: —and it's never blinking, never changing. There are no windows. Time loses all meaning. And it's strange to think about this because you don't walk in and think, “What is that racket?” But there's 10,000, 100,000 however many fans spinning all the time. It is super loud. It can clear 120 decibels in there, but it's a white noise so you don't necessarily hear it. Hearing protection is important there.Mike: When I was at Oak Ridge, we had—all of our data centers, we had a professional data center manager, so everything was absolutely pristine. And to get into any of the data centers, you had to go through a training; it was very simple training, but just, like, “These are things you do and don't do in the data center.” And when you walked in, you had to put in earplugs immediately before you walked in the door. And it's so loud just because of that, and you don't really notice it because you can walk in without earplugs and, like, “Oh, it's loud, but it's fine.” And then you leave a couple hours later and your ears are ringing. So, it's a weird experience.Corey: It's awful. I started wearing earplugs every time I went in, just because it's not just the pain because hearing loss doesn't always manifest that way. It's, I would get tired much more quickly.Mike: Oh, yeah.Corey: I would not be as sharp. It was, “What is this? Why am I so fatigued?” It's noise.Mike: Yeah. And having to remember to grab your jacket when you head down to the data center, even though it's 95 degrees outside.Corey: At some point, if you're there enough—which you probably shouldn't be—you start looking at ways to wind up storing one locally. I feel like there could be some company that makes an absolute killing by renting out parkas at data centers.Mike: Yeah, totally. The other group of data center stuff that I generally run into is the exact opposite of that. And it's basically someone has shoved a couple racks in somewhere and they just kind of hope for the best.Corey: The basement. The closet. The hold of a boat, with one particular client we work with.Mike: Yeah. That was an interesting one. So, we had a—Corey and I had a client where they had all their infrastructure in the basement of a boat. And we're [laugh] not even kidding. It's literally in the basement of a boat.Corey: Below the waterline.Mike: Yeah below the waterline. So, there was a lot of planning around, like, what if the hold gets breached? And like, who has to plan for that sort of thing? [laugh]. It was a weird experience.Corey: It turns out that was—was hilarious about that was while they were doing their cloud migration into AWS, their account manager wasn't the most senior account manager because, at that point, it was a small account, but they still stuck to their standard talking points about TCO, and better durability, and the rest, and it didn't really occur to them to come back with a, what if the boat sinks? Which is the obvious reason to move out of that quote-unquote, “data center?”Mike: Yeah. It was a wild experience. So, that latter group of just everything's an absolute wreck, like, everything—it's just so much of a pain to work with, and you find yourself wanting to clean it up. Like, install new racks, do new cabling, put in a totally new floor so you're not standing on concrete. You want to do all this work to it, and then you realize that you're just putting lipstick on a pig; it's still going to be a dirty old data center at the end of the day, no matter how much work you do to it. And you're still running on the same crappy hardware you had, you're still running on the same frustrating deployment process you've been working on, and everything still sucks, despite it looking good.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by ChaosSearch. As basically everyone knows, trying to do log analytics at scale with an ELK stack is expensive, unstable, time-sucking, demeaning, and just basically all-around horrible. So why are you still doing it—or even thinking about it—when there's ChaosSearch? ChaosSearch is a fully managed scalable log analysis service that lets you add new workloads in minutes, and easily retain weeks, months, or years of data. With ChaosSearch you store, connect, and analyze and you're done. The data lives and stays within your S3 buckets, which means no managing servers, no data movement, and you can save up to 80 percent versus running an ELK stack the old-fashioned way. It's why companies like Equifax, HubSpot, Klarna, Alert Logic, and many more have all turned to ChaosSearch. So if you're tired of your ELK stacks falling over before it suffers, or of having your log analytics data retention squeezed by the cost, then try ChaosSearch today and tell them I sent you. To learn more, visit chaossearch.io.Corey: The worst part is playing the ‘what is different here?' Game. You rack twelve servers: eleven come up fine and the twelfth doesn't.Mike: [laugh].Corey: It sounds like, okay, how hard could it be? Days. It can take days. In a cloud environment, you have one weird instance. Cool, you terminate it and start a new one and life goes on whereas, in a data center, you generally can't send back a $5,000 piece of hardware willy nilly, and you certainly can't do it same-day, so let's figure out what the problem is.Is that some sub-component in the system? Is it a dodgy cable? Is it, potentially, a dodgy switch port? Is there something going on with that node? Was there something weird about the way the install was done if you reimage the thing? Et cetera, et cetera. And it leads down rabbit holes super quickly.Mike: People that grew up in the era of computing that Corey and I did, you start learning tips and tricks, and they sound kind of silly these days, but things like, you never create your own cables. Even though both of us still remember how to wire a Cat 5 cable, we don't.Corey: My fingers started throbbing when you said that because some memories never fade.Mike: Right. You don't. Like, if you're working in a data center, you're buying premade cables because they've been tested professionally by high-end machines.Corey: And you still don't trust it. You have a relatively inexpensive cable tester in the data center, and when—I learned this when I was racking stuff the second time, it adds a bit of time, but every cable that we took out of the packaging before we plugged it in, and we tested on the cable tester just to remove that problem. And it still doesn't catch everything because, welcome to the world of intermittent cables that are marginal that, when you bend a certain way, stop working, and then when you look at them, start working again properly. Yes, it's as maddening as it sounds.Mike: Yeah. And then things like rack nuts. My fingers hurt just thinking about it.Corey: Think of them as nuts that bolts wind up screwing into but they're square and they have clips on them so they clip into the standard rack cabinets, so you can screw equipment into them. There are different sizes of them, and of course, they're not compatible with one another. And you have—they always pinch your finger and make you bleed because they're incredibly annoying to put in and out. Some vendors have quick rails, which are way nicer, but networking equipment is still stuck in the ‘90s in that context, and there's always something that winds up causing problems.Mike: If you were particularly lucky, the rack nuts that you had were pliable enough that you could pinch them and pull them out with your fingers, and hopefully didn't do too much damage. If you were particularly unlucky, you had to reach for a screwdriver to try to pry it out, and inevitably stab yourself.Corey: Or sometimes pulling it out with your fingers, it'll—like, those edges are sharp. It's not the most high-quality steel in some cases, and it's just you wind up having these problems. Oh, one other thing you learn super quickly, is first, always have a set of tools there because the one you need is the one you don't have, and the most valuable tool you'll have is a pair of wire cutters. And what you do when you find a bad cable is you cut it before throwing it away.Mike: Yep.Corey: Because otherwise someone who is very well-meaning but you will think of them as the freaking devil, will, “Oh, there's a perfectly good cable sitting here in the trash. I'll put it back with the spares.” So you think you have a failed cable you grab another one from the pile of spares—remember, this is two in the morning, invariably, and you're not thinking on all cylinders—and the problem is still there. Cut the cable when you throw it away.Mike: So, there are entire books that were written about these sorts of tips and tricks that everyone working [with 00:19:34] data center just remembers. They learned it all. And most of the stuff is completely moot now. Like, no one really thinks about it anymore. Some people are brought up in computing in such a way that they never even learned these things, which I think it's fantastic.Corey: Oh, I don't wish this on anyone. This used to be a prerequisite skill for anyone who called themselves a systems administrator, but I am astonished when I talk to my AWS friends, the remarkably senior engineers I talk to who have never been inside of an AWS data center.Mike: Yeah, absolutely.Corey: That's really cool. It also means you're completely divorced from the thing you're doing with code and the rest, and the thing that winds up keeping the hardware going. It also leads to a bit of a dichotomy where the people racking the hardware, in many cases, don't understand the workloads that are on there because if you have the programming insight, and ability, and can make those applications work effectively, you're probably going to go find a role that compensates far better than working in the data center.Mike: I [laugh] want to talk about supply chains. So, when you build a data center, you start planning about—let's say, I'm not Amazon. I'm just, like, any random company—and I want to put my stuff into a data center. If I'm going to lease someone else's data center—which you absolutely should—we're looking at about a 180-day lead time. And it's like, why? Like, that's a long time. What's—Corey: It takes that long to sign a real estate lease?Mike: Yeah.Corey: No. It takes that long to sign a real estate lease, wind up talking to your upstream provider, getting them to go ahead and run the thing—effectively—getting the hardware ordered and shipped in the right time window, doing the actual build-out once everything is in place, and I'm sure a few other things I'm missing.Mike: Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, you have all these things that have to happen, and all of them pay for-freaking-ever. Getting Windstream on the phone to begin with, to even take your call, can often take weeks at a time. And then to get them to actually put an order for you, and then do the turnup. The turnup alone might be 90 days, where I'm just, “Hey, I've bought bandwidth from you, and I just need you to come out and connect the [BLEEP] cables,” might be 90 days for them to do it.And that's ridiculous. But then you also have the hardware vendors. If you're ordering hardware from Dell, and you're like, “Hey, I need a couple servers.” Like, “Great. They'll be there next week.” Instead, if you're saying, “Hey, I need 500 servers,” they're like, “Ooh, uh, next year, maybe.” And this is even pre-pandemic sort of thing because they don't have all these sitting around.So, for you to get a large number of servers quickly, it's just not a thing that's possible. So, a lot of companies would have to buy well ahead of what they thought their needs would be, so they'd have massive amounts of unused capacity. Just racks upon racks of systems sitting there turned off, waiting for when they're needed, just because of the ordering lead time.Corey: That's what auto-scaling looks like in those environments because you need to have that stuff ready to go. If you have a sudden inrush of demand, you have to be able to scale up with things that are already racked, provisioned, and good to go. Sometimes you can have them halfway provisioned because you don't know what kind of system they're going to need to be in many cases, but that's some up-the-stack level thinking. And again, finding failed hard drives and swapping those out, make sure you pull the right or you just destroyed an array. And all these things that I just make Amazon's problem.It's kind of fun to look back at this and realize that we would get annoyed then with support tickets that took three weeks to get resolved in hardware, whereas now three hours in you and I are complaining about the slow responsiveness of the cloud vendor.Mike: Yeah, the amount of quick turnaround that we can have these days on cloud infrastructure that was just unthinkable, running in data centers. We don't run out of bandwidth now. Like, that's just not a concern that anyone has. But when you're running in a data center, and, “Oh, yeah. I've got an OC-3 line connected here. That's only going to get me”—Corey: Which is something like—what is an OC-3? That's something like, what, 20 gigabit, or—Mike: Yeah, something like that. It's—Corey: Don't quote me on that.Mike: Yeah. So, we're going to have to look that up. So, it's equivalent to a T-3, so I think that's a 45 megabit?Corey: Yeah, that sounds about reasonable, yeah.Mike: So, you've got a T-3 line sitting here in your data center. Like that's not terrible. And if you start maxing that out, well, you're maxed out. You need more? Again, we're back to the 90 to 180 day lead time to get new bandwidth.So, sucks to be you, which means you'd have to start planning your bandwidth ahead of time. And this is why we had issues like companies getting Slashdotted back in the day because when you capped the bandwidth out, well, you're capped out. That's it. That's the game.Corey: Now, you've made the front page of Slashdot, a bunch of people visited your site, and the site fell over. That was sort of the way of the world. CDNs weren't really a thing. Cloud wasn't a thing. And that was just, okay, you'd bookmark the thing and try and remember to check it later.We talked about bandwidth constraints. One thing that I think the cloud providers do—at least the tier ones—that are just basically magic is full line rate between any two instances almost always. Well, remember, you have a bunch of different racks, and at the top of every rack, there's usually a switch called—because we're bad at naming things—top-of-rack switches. And just because everything that you have plugged in can get one gigabit to that switch—or 10 gigabit or whatever it happens to be—there is a constraint in that top-of-rack switch. So yeah, one server can talk to another one in a different rack at one gigabit, but then you have 20 different servers in each rack all trying to do something like that and you start hitting constraints.You do not see that in the public cloud environments; it is subsumed away, you don't have to think about that level of nonsense. You just complain about what feels like the egregious data transfer charge.Mike: Right. Yeah. It was always frustrating when you had to order nice high-end switching gear from Cisco, or Arista, or take your pick of provider, and you got 48 ports in the top-of-rack, you got 48 servers all wired up to them—or 24 because we want redundancy on that—and that should be a gigabit for each connection, except when you start maxing it out, no, it's nowhere even near that because the switch can't handle it. And it's absolutely magical, that the cloud provider's like, “Oh, yeah. Of course, we handle that.”Corey: And you don't have to think about it at all. One other use case that I did want to hit because I know we'll get letters if we don't, where it does make sense to build out a data center, even today, is if you have regulatory requirements around data residency. And there's no cloud vendor in an area that suits. This generally does not apply to the United States, but there are a lot of countries that have data residency laws that do not yet have a cloud provider of their choice region, located in-country.Mike: Yeah, I'll agree with that, but I think that's a short-lived problem.Corey: In the fullness of time, there'll be regions everywhere. Every build—a chicken in every pot and an AWS availability zone on every corner.Mike: [laugh]. Yeah, I think it's going to be a fairly short-lived problem, which actually reminds me of even our clients that have data centers are often treating the data center as a cloud. So, a lot of them are using your favorite technology, Corey, Kubernetes, and they're treating Kubernetes as a cloud, running Kube in AWS, as well, and moving workloads between the two Kube clusters. And to them, a data center is actually not really data center; it's just a private cloud. I think that pattern works really well if you have a need to have a physical data center.Corey: And then they start doing a hybrid environment where they start expanding to a public cloud, but then they treat that cloud like just a place to run a bunch of VMs, which is expensive, and it solves a whole host of problems that we've already talked about. Like, we're bad at replacing hard drives, or our data center is located on a corner where people love to get drunk on the weekends and smash into the power pole and take out half of the racks here. Things like that great, yeah, cloud can solve that, but cloud could do a lot more. You're effectively worsening your cloud experience to improve your data center experience.Mike: Right. So, even when you have that approach, the piece of feedback that we give the client was, you have built such a thing where you have to cater to the lowest common denominator, which is the constraints that you have in the data center, which means you're not able to use AWS the way that you should be able to use it so it's just as expensive to run as a data center was. If they were to get rid of the data center, then the cloud would actually become cheaper for them and they would get more benefits from using it. So, that's kind of a business decision for how they've structured it, and I can't really fault them for it, but there are definitely some downsides to the approach.Corey: Mike, thank you so much for joining me here. If people want to learn more about what you're up to, where can they find you?Mike: You know, you can find me at duckbillgroup.com, and actually, you can also find Corey at duckbillgroup.com. We help companies lower their AWS bills. So, if you have a horrifying bill, you should chat.Corey: Mike, thank you so much for taking the time to join me here.Mike: Thanks for having me.Corey: Mike Julian, CEO of The Duckbill Group and my business partner. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice and then challenge me to a cable-making competition.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.
Alright, everybody. Gather round. It's time we talked about how Marvel tried to get right with Jesus. Twice. ----more---- Episode 7 Transcription [00:00:00] Mike: is there anything more offensive than lazy comic books? Welcome to Tencent takes the podcast where we apologize for comic books ends one issue at a time. My name is Mike Thompson and I am joined as always by my co-host, the celebrated comedian, Jessika Frazer. Jessika: Hello. Hello. Mike: How are you doing? Jessika: Oh, I'm pretty good, wild week, but I mean, we have comics to go with. Mike: Comics make everything better. Jessika: It's true. Mike: If you're new to the show, the purpose of this podcast is to look at comics in ways that are both fun and informative. We want to look at their coolest, weirdest and silliest moments, as well as examine how they're [00:01:00] woven into the larger fabric of pop culture and history. Today, we’re venturing out of our fool's paradise and checking out how Marvel tried to get right with Jesus through not one, but two runs of Christian comics. Jessika: Gawd, you almost wished they had stopped. Mike: It’s a ride. Jessika: It's such a ride. Mike: Before we get started though, Jess, what is one cool thing that you've read or watched lately? Jessika: Well, I am very excited about what I'm about to share. And I was recently at my local comic shop and grabbed the first copy and started a subscription for the comic Alice in Leatherland by Iolanda Zanfardino and Elisa Romboli and published through Black Mask Entertainment. Mike: Oh, Black Mask is awesome. They're a smaller imprint, but they were super supportive of local shops when the lockdown happened. Jessika: Oh, that's lovely. I'm really glad I supported them then. Mike: Yeah. I, if I remember right, Brian’s, our [00:02:00] local shop in Petaluma, they did a deal where Brian's was talking about it, and basically they had, if you did a direct order from them, they would split the revenue 50, 50, as long as you provided the name of the local shop. Jessika: Oh, that's so nice. Mike: Yeah, they're rad. I really liked them a lot. Jessika: I already really liked this comic. I mean, I'm one issue in. Mike: Yeah. I haven't heard of it. Jessika: Oh, it's amazing. It's queer. You know, I love me some queer content. It's emotional. The animation style right now is monochromatic and detailed. So I'm interested to see if the color vibe continues that way, or if it goes in another direction, kind of, as the story continues. Mike: Okay. Jessika: The storyline seems like it's going to take us on a really fun sex and kink positive adventure, and I'm excited to see what the next issue brings us. Mike: That sounds really cool. Jessika: Yeah. What about you? Mike: Well, I have not been reading new comics, it’s kind of the opposite of [00:03:00] that. I finally got my old comic collection from my parents' house and I've been digging through it for the past couple of days. Jessika: Nice. Mike: Yeah, it's, it's a time capsule. And it's also, it's, it's a lot of fun to see what I was reading and also cringe a little bit, but also see that in some cases I had really good taste and that collection is appreciated better than some people's stock portfolios, I’m sure. So that was kind of cool to find the first appearance of Bain in the middle of the box. Jessika: Oh, that's cool. So you curated that collection, it wasn't like things that were kind of given to you or was it a combination? Mike: It was a little bit of both. But I mean, I started, I started really collecting comics when I was about nine or 10, and so it was, it was several long boxes. So, you know, the first appearance of He-Man was in there as well. And then, one of the things that I actively collected was a comic series called X, and it was from Dark Horse in the early 1990s. So. [00:04:00] Dark Horse was using this in a couple of other books to launch their shared superhero universe. And X was this really interesting take on a Batman kind of figure. He was this character who would mark criminals with an X. If you crossed him, you'd receive a slash across your face as a warning, or you'd be marked for death with a full X. So. Jessika: Damn. Mike: Yeah. A large part part of the character is the mystery around him and his abilities and the writers weren't afraid to let it stay a mystery for the most part. It's very much one of those, you know, grim and gritty nineties books, but it's also pretty good on the reread. It doesn't quite age as well as, as I would hope it would. But for the most part, it's really fun. Jessika: That's great. It's always nice. When things meet your expectations, most of the way. Mike: Most of the way. Jessika: On the reread. Mike: I'm not embarrassed to like 80% of what came across. Jessika: I dig that. [00:05:00] Mike: Well, after our last episode, I found myself thinking of weird Christian comics that I've come across and I realized I actually have some in my collection. So I started digging, and then I wound up digging some more, and it turns out Marvel had two different runs of very different comics for Christian audiences. And this is a first for us, we’re going to do this as a two-part episode. So we're going to talk about the first run tonight, but we're also going to talk around some of the background with Marvel and religion. Jessika: I'm so excited for this. You have no idea. I've been thinking about it all week as I've been reading these again, bananagrams comics, but like bananagrams in a totally different way than the last ones we read. Mike: It's a very mixed bag this time around. Jessika: Ooh, scary mixed. Mike: Yeah, Marvel and the Bible never really had a strong relationship, although ,they've done some flirtation every now and then. Back [00:06:00] in 1953 Atlas, which is the publisher that would become Marvel eventually, they had a short-lived series called Bible Tales for Young Folk, which adapted iconic stories from the Bible for younger readers, but it only ran for five issues. So I'm gonna put that in a little bit of perspective: comics circulation in the 1950s was still incredibly high, partially due to the fact that televisions weren't as commonplace as they would be by the end of the decade. Do you remember when our first episode I mentioned, that only 9% of us households had TVs at the start of the decade versus 90% by the end? Jessika: Yes. Yeah, I do remember that. Mike: Yeah. So I came across an article that actually talks about the average comic sales per month in 1959. What do you think that number was like what the average circulation of comic books, the entire market. Jessika: 1959. Well, gosh, they had comics that they were sending through the army and everything. Gawd, it had to have been in the millions. Mike: Yeah, 26 million. [00:07:00] Jessika: Wow, wow wow wow. Mike: So it was, it was pretty substantial, and the fact that a comic series based on the Bible only sold well enough to last five issues during that insane circulation period is pretty telling about what kids were and weren't interested in reading. But anyway, overt at Christian iconography and characters generally haven't appeared in Marvel's books too often. Certain characters like Daredevil and Nightcrawler are strongly defined by their respective Christianities, but it's generally just treated as faith. It's not identified as the quote true religion. And Marvel's actually made a good point in recent years of setting up a complex Pantheon of gods, so it makes it seem like there's no wrong religion to follow. Side note though, one of my favorite comic details is that Dr. Doom had a recent confrontation with Dracula and he revealed he had splinters of the true cross in his armor as a vampire deterrent. I thought that was just chef's [00:08:00] kiss. Jessika: Oh, wow. Mike: It was great. Jesus himself never really appeared in mainstream Marvel books though. There's been occasional messages or sometimes you'll see the iconography or occasionally there'll be cameos as well. But honestly, the most notable appearance that I'm aware of was in the 1970s with Ghost Rider. In the 1970s Ghost Rider comic, when a mysterious character only identified as a friend shows up to save Ghost Rider on occasion. It was very clearly meant to be Jesus, but this character was eventually retconned to be an illusion created by the demon Maphisto. This is one of those things that's just, it's so weird, I want to take a moment to focus on it. So writer, Tony Isabella, who is actually the guy who created Black Lightning, which I know you've been reading a bit of lately. Jessika: Yeah! Mike: So he explained how this character came to be in an interview a while [00:09:00] ago with Comics Buyer's Guide. Would you like to read what he said out loud for our audience? Jessika: Certainly Mike: Alright. Jessika: Getting prior approval from editor, Roy Thomas, as I would from later editors, Len Wein and Marv Wolfman. I introduced “the Friend” into the series. It looked sort of like a hippie Jesus Christ. And that's exactly who He was, though I never actually called Him that. It allowed me to address the disparity that had long bothered me about the Marvel Universe. So we had no end of Hells and Satan surrogates in our comics, we had nothing of heaven. After two years, I had written a story wherein, couched in mildly settled term, Blaze accepted Jesus as his savior and freed himself from Satan's power forever. Had I remained on Ghost Rider which was my intent at the time the titles [00:10:00] religious elements would have faded into the background. Blaze would be a Christian, but he'd express this in a way you led his life. Unfortunately, an assistant editor took offense at my story. The issue was ready to go and the printer, when he pulled it back and ripped it to pieces, he had some of the art redrawn and a lot of the copy rewritten to change the ending of a story two years in the making. The friend was revealed to be not Jesus, but a demon in disguise. To this day, I consider what he did to my story one of the three most arrogant and wrongheaded actions I've ever seen from an editor. Mike: Someone's still got feelings about this. Jessika: Feelings, Mike: All capitals. Jessika: Salty. Mike: That assistant editor that he's talking about has been later identified as Jim Shooter, who eventually became Marvel's Editor-In-Chief in 1978. Shooter's kind of an interesting guy. He's [00:11:00] hailed as the person who really righted Marvel’s ship after a lot of prolonged instability. So during his tenure, there were a lot of acclaimed runs and storylines, like all those Saturday morning cartoons we talked about in our first episode, those all happened under his watch. So, you know, you can't say that he didn't do a good job, but a number of major industry figures have also gone on record to state that he forced a lot of editorial decisions on people working for him. Interestingly, though, Shooter actually gave a video interview last year where he actually addressed Isabella's description. He said he was concerned about the Jesus' storyline, because it would have quote, basically established the Marvel universe as a Christian universe and that all of the religions were false and he felt that would have alienated other readers. Jessika: That's kinda how I feel about it. Mike: Aye. I can't say I disagree with them, but I can also see Isabella’s [00:12:00] point. Um, I don't know what the right answer would have been, but it's an interesting moment of comic history. Jessika: Yeah, absolutely. Mike: Now the funny thing is that the first comics that we're going to talk about actually were published by Marvel when it was running under shooter's guidance. So two of these were co-written by Roy Gasnick. Gasnick himself is also a pretty fascinating guy. He basically spent the entirety of his adult life in the Franciscan order. He wound up serving as the Director of Communications for the Franciscan Province of the East Coast Holy Name Province, which was headquartered in New York. And he worked there for 18 years and he dealt a lot with the media. He was also a big believer in civil rights, and apparently he marched with Martin Luther King Jr. Not what I would have expected. Jessika: No, like the whole end of that, I was like, oh, oh, oh, okay. All right. Mike: Yeah. And granted I'm reading largely obituaries about them. And so they're going to [00:13:00] paint them in a good light, but to recap, his public image is that he was a dude who devoted himself to the church for basically his entire life. He wrote best-selling comic books and he fought for others' rights. So kind of interesting. It sounds like the proverbial cool priest that everybody wants to be. Jessika: it's that priest you call uncle? No, don't do that. Mike: No. Jessika: There were one of the comics that did that. Mike: Yeah. Yep. Jessika: I didn't like it. It was, it was really creepy. I was like, no, you took it too far. Mike: Yeah, it was the Pope Mike: Yeah, it's, it's really awkward because it's the Pope and you're just like, oh, oh, I don't know a Catholic priest who wants young men to call him uncle, I don't know how I feel about that. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: okay. So Gasnick wrote the first comic that we're going to talk about, which is Francis Brother of the Universe. This is a book that came out in [00:14:00] 1980 and it was actually published in order to celebrate the saint’s 800th birthday. It would have been 1981 or 82. His actual birthday has been lost to history, they just know it was really late in one year or really early in the other year, Jessika: Hmm. Mike: But effectively, it tells the life story of Saint Francis, which has definitely taken on a mythological quality since he reformed the church about 800 years ago. Jessika, would you do me a favor and describe the cover of this comic? Because it is a trip. Jessika: It is a trip. Okay. So it is first of all, at the very top in the box that would usually have the comics code, the little emblem, it actually has Francis himself with like a Wolf. It says 75 cent one first issue, Marvel Comics Group Francis, [00:15:00] Brother of the Universe, his complete life story, and okay guys, this is exciting. It is an exciting cover. So first you see a guy on horseback, medieval guy on horseback and it's white horse, and he's got a sword in the air and it's cutting through the text at the top and there's fighting behind him in a big cloud. And then there, then you see bald Francis. We're going to talk about why is he bald? Okay. It's like, why do you have to do that? Like, just get rid of the whole thing. I dunno. Anyway, so bald Francis, and then you've got, you know, another guy, I think it was also Francis. I think this is all Francis. Mike: That, that, is young Francis. Jessika: Young Francis on a table with a cup he's like screaming into, you know, a crowd. Mike: Hosting a party at a Tavern like you do. Jessika: That's right. Yeah. Hosting a, yeah he was a big [00:16:00] party hoster that's right. And then you've gone him with the Pope when he's the monk or he's with some other type of religious leader of some sort. And then he's got his back to the viewer and his arms are outstretched and there's light coming down onto him. It looks like he's about to be beamed up into heaven. There's doves behind him. Mike: It should be noted that this is a wraparound cover, too. Jessika: It is a wraparound. I'm sorry. I, yeah, I'm describing the back now. Oh, and then there’s. Mike: It is a work of art man. Jessika: It is a work of art. It's really pretty, it's very colorful. It's all very eye catching. There's more fighting. There's, a sultan or a king and then there's Francis singing at the bottom is he is just singing his little merry heart out. It is, it's a fun cover. Mike: Yeah. And it, it does a really nice job of being very visually attractive, and it also showcases a lot of the big moments from the comic itself. [00:17:00] Jessika: Yeah. Agreed. Mike: Yeah. So the book’s origin is another one of those examples of the power in asking that we talked about during the Highlander episode. So the way this happened was Jean Pelc, who was Marvel's representative in Japan in the seventies, he was a devoted Catholic and he was regularly attending mass at the Franciscan Chapel center. And according to the forward in the comic. He was having coffee with two friars who asked him, why don't you do a book on St. Francis and reportedly Pelc thought about it for about a minute and then said, yeah, sure. Why not? Jessika: I thought that was funny. Mike: I thought it was great. So as I mentioned, the comic story was overseen by Gasnick. He basically kind of oversaw the dialogue and the general story, but he didn't write the script. The comic script was written by Mary Jo Duffy, who had recently been reading Marvel Star Wars series in the seventies. [00:18:00] And then it was illustrated by Eisner Hall of Fame member, John Buscema, who is a legend in the industry, but he's one of those pencilers who basically became a patron Saint for other comic professionals. So, Buschema’s involvement feels especially relevant in this case, because this is a medieval comic. And one of the comics that he really worked on a lot was Conant the Barbarian. So he was really very much in his element. And you can tell because the art in this book is great. Jessika: Oh, it's amazing. Mike: Yeah. Marvel clearly believed in this book and they put some serious talent behind it. What was your overall reaction or impression of the comic? I'm curious. Jessika: I feel like this is the type of religious comic that kids won't get embarrassed over liking. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: It's got adventure, it's colorful, and those cheeks could cut glass. I was im, I was [00:19:00] impressed. Mike: Yeah, Jessika: There were, of course the subversive, like white supremacists tones when they were talking about the good people and all the floating heads were Caucasian. So thanks for that, everyone. Mike: Yeah. Which I mean, Not great, but also it was the seventies. And also they're talking about medieval Europe, which was not the most racially sensitive environments. Jessika: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that is true. But also loving that a lot of these guys low-key operated, like co-leaders like St. Francis even got a whole acapella group together to hang out with his cult. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Sounds pretty rad until the leader gets the incurable stigmata. That seems like it would be a real bummer. Mike: Yeah. He and he clearly has untreated PTSD, like, you know, from his time where he was held in the dungeon for a couple of years. Um, you know, and like that's the whole thing is that he's, he's a prisoner of [00:20:00] war. And then he starts hearing voices. Jessika: Mm, mm, Mike: Like, you know, and granted it's, you know, this is Catholic propaganda, so it's presenting it as, oh no, he heard the divine call and he answered and he gave up everything and blah, blah, blah. I'm with you. I personally, I really dug it. So the funny thing is that when I was 11, I came across a copy of this and the kid's school room for Sunday school. And I really fell in love with it. Like, I basically just didn't want to actually pay attention to Sunday school and they were doing all the actual religious study activities. And so I would just sit in the corner and read this, and they couldn't really get mad at me because I was reading about a religious leader who the church was named after. So. Hmm. But you know, it felt like a fantasy comic more than anything else. And when I re-read it, this week, I was struck by both the art and the storytelling being as good as they were like, yes, it’s, as I said, it's [00:21:00] Catholic propaganda, but it's good propaganda. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: So. According to Gasnick's obituary, this comic was actually the best-selling single issue in Marvel history at the time. And, you know, clearly that record has been shattered a few times since then. It apparently moved more than a million issues, which in 1980 was like, unheard of. I couldn't find a resource to fact check this though, because all the sites that track comic sales numbers don't seem to go that far back, or at least they don't yet, but it was clearly popular enough to spawn a couple of other related comics that I've seen referred to on the web as the Saint series. That's where we're going to go next. Following the success of Francis brother of the Universe, Marvel launched Pope John Paul II's biographical comic, which it's a thing. Jessika: It happened. Mike: Yeah. So this was, again, one of those books where Marvel really put some talent behind it. They had art [00:22:00] by John, I’m going to butcher his last name, Tartaglione, I believe. But he was known for doing historically accurate work with his art. And then the book was written by Steven Grant who went on to write the first Punisher series for Marvel in the eighties. Jessika: Hmm. Mike: And then he would go on to write Dark Horse’s 1990 series, X. Full circle, baby. Jessika: Here we are. Mike: Yeah. Would you be willing to provide a quick summary of the book? Jessika: Oh, certainly. I like the evil laugh too, that’s just perfect. So this follows the life and spiritual journey of Pope John Paul II. And, it does this very Tarantino's thing where it starts with the assassination attempt against his life. And it goes back to earlier in his life to tell the story of how he got to that point, [00:23:00] which oddly enough, involves a lot of hiding theater from Nazis. True, true. It then discusses how he gained interest in the church, how he rose through the ranks of the Roman Catholic hierarchy and eventually was selected as Pope, which leads us back to his assassination attempt from which he recovers. Mike: And then that's where the book ends because his assassination attempt had only happened a year or two prior. But the funny thing is that it doesn't start with the assassination attempt. I thought it did, too, until I was reading up on it. So that's where it's weird. So the comic opens at his 1979 visits to Yankee stadium. And it spends so much time there. When we're not being shown his life. That it feels like the assassination attempt also took place there, Jessika: Oh, I that's. I did think that you're right. Mike: Yeah, but like, that's the thing is he wasn't actually shot until two years later in ’81 when he was back at the Vatican and it's very vaguely shown [00:24:00] and that's only one page after everyone is leaving the stadium. So the first time I read it, I thought he basically got shot at the stadium as well, because it's super vague. They only show you that one kind of like small frame where you see a gun being held high. You don't even, it's just a hand holding a gun and that's it. And I mean, I get it. You don't want to show the Pope getting shot in a Pope propaganda comic, but it was one of the things that was actually pretty brutal, in real life. Like, he got shot multiple times and lost a lot of blood and they didn't know if he was gonna make it. Jessika: Oh yeah. Mike: And then later on, he went on to basically forgive and become friends with his would-be assassin. Jessika: Oh, wow. Mike: It's very strange, but it, but it feels like a very Catholic turn the other cheek kind of story. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: Honestly, as I was writing all my notes on this episode, I thought that he had been shot at Yankee stadium. And then I had to go back and [00:25:00] reread that section specifically. And it’s not obvious unless you pay very close attention to the dialogue. Jessika: There, this has to be spring, like a whole generation’s worth of kids thinking that the Pope was shot in America. Mike: Well, especially now because we're so like gun fetish oriented or what is it? Ammo-sexual. That's the word that I keep on hearing. We're we're a nation of ammo-sexuals. Jessika: I am tickled by that. Mike: Yeah. You can thank Sarah for that one. Jessika: Oh, she's amazing. Mike: Yeah. I don't know why she's with me, but I'm not complaining. Um, so how did you feel about this comic? Jessika: I think they did a good job making a continually captivating storyline, especially as biographies go, all things considered. It was funny because I was picking up some super queer vibes from him. The whole, like, not just the whole [00:26:00] theater thing, cause that's, that's a generalization I don't follow necessarily, but it's just, it was that whole, like having his actor friend move in with him so they could continue practicing their craft, as it was. I'm just like, man, I've heard that before. And yes, we hear you loud and clear. Mike: Well, and I mean, you know, like it portrays his younger life and he is shown as a, being an alter boy and very devoted to the church. And then, and this is for anyone who is not familiar with the life of Pope John Paul, he became really interested in theater after his brother died. And he went and visited his brother's friends who were a theater troupe. And so he got super into theater and there's a note about how a priest really wanted him to join the priesthood, and they were like, oh no, he's like, he, yeah, he's a great orator and all that, and he's got a wonderful presence, but he's going to be an actor. And the priest was apparently heartbroken, but yeah, like, anyway, sorry. So side tangent over. [00:27:00] Jessika: No, that's okay. I was also irritated. So at the end of the comic, they made a big deal about how a woman was also shot when he was, and that he was going to go visit her before he went back. He even said, when I, before we go back to Rome, that's what it said in the thing. So I don't know what happened. I don't know what the whole thing was with that, because I specifically wrote back to Rome, but they never said her name nor did they actually show him going to see her, and that, definitely rude. Mike: yeah. And I mean that whole, for something that got billing on the cover, it's featured very little in the comic, so. Jessika: What about, how did, how did this rub you? Mike: I dug it. I didn't dig it as much as Francis Brother of the Universe, to be honest but overall, if you're going to do a biography as a comic, you could definitely have a worst subject. It felt pretty exciting. [00:28:00] He lived a pretty interesting life, growing up between two world wars and in Poland. Parts of it, like the bit where he joined the secret seminary in Poland during World War II felt almost like something out of a spy story, more than anything else. And it also felt like the comic wasn't afraid to poke a little fun at him, like when he volunteered to clean out the toilets that the Nazis had ruined. So, I kind of appreciated that it wasn't taking him as seriously as I felt it could have. A lot of biographies would be like, no, you can't show him in any way that makes him seem less than saintly, which we'll get to, we'll get to that in our next comic. But, I, I, appreciated the moments of levity as well. The book itself, though, it does a pretty good job of making him seem like a good guy who just happened to be called to greatness, I felt. The only parts where I really got bored [00:29:00] were the bits with the unnamed journalist who provides the framing narration while he's waiting for the Pope to speak at Yankee stadium. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: First of all, this is the first guy we see, he's the one who's the narrator and he doesn't even get a name. And then, I kind of laughed at how he opens the comic, stating the Pope is my beat, and then later on states that the Yankee stadium speaking event is the only time he sees the Pope in person. Jessika: Yeah. I noticed that too. I thought that was weird. Mike: It was really weird. And I mean, Jessika: It was inconsistent. Mike: It felt like the editor should have given it one more pass and they could have sat there and it, I mean, honestly, if they just said this was the last time I saw him in person or something like that, it would have been fine. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: And then, like I said, I was a little surprised at how little the assassination attempt was featured since it's literally called out on the cover, like whatever. Oh, fine. [00:30:00] Jessika: Yeah, I you're visibly watching your face. You're visibly mad about it. Mike: I'm sorry, if you're going to promise me in assassination attempt, I want to see an assassination attempt. Don't tease me. Jessika: Oh my gosh. How will you ever get over this? Mike: Uh God. It was a solid B, B+ equal to what I feel was kind of an A-, A comic book, or spiritual sequel, if you will see what I did there. So the last of these Marvel Saint series comics is mother Teresa, and that's another official biography of a major Catholic figure. This one obviously focuses on mother Theresa, who was enjoying a huge amount of publicity in the 1980s. I grew up, throughout the eighties and I often heard her [00:31:00] and Gandhi mentioned together as people who made the world a better place. And I'm not sure, honestly, if that was because they both operated out of India and they both won the Nobel peace prize, but I feel like that sums up how the Western world perceived or , what was your awareness of her when you were growing up? Jessika: Pretty much the same level of you'd always see her in these kind of photo-ops of helping children out of cars and stuff. Mike: Yeah. The other thing is that we grew up, like, I, I feel like she's one of those people who was always old in terms of her media appearances. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: You know? So the book came out in 1984 and that was just five years after she'd received the Nobel peace prize, and this was when she was really, really big. Like these days, this is viewed as an incredibly problematic figure based on things she said about poverty and suffering. And then there were some serious ethical and financial weirdness that [00:32:00] went on with her missions. But the public just wasn't aware of that stuff back then, and so given her amount of celebrity, it makes sense that they would have turned to her because she was a really relevant figure in the world back then. And then again, because they'd had so much success with Francis and Pope John Paul, they committed some serious talent to this comic. So Gasnick actually came back and he wrote the overall story for this, but the script was done by David Michelinie. So miscellaneous had earned a lot of acclaim for his runs on Ironman and he co-created characters like venom and carnage and Scott Lang, who's also known as ant man. Yeah, so legit people. And then the art was once again handled by, John Tartaglione. So they committed some serious stuff to it, but, I feel like you're on the same wavelength as me where you weren't as impressed this time around. Jessika: No, no. I was like [00:33:00] snooze Fest, Mother Teresa. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: She didn't have any facet. She's like Superman. She was just a good person, all the way around. It's not like she had any trouble with that, I guess. Not like the normal folk. Mike: I felt like she was more of a prop than a character in the story. Jessika: I see that. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Yeah. I had a hard time paying attention to it, to be honest with you. Mike: no, that's fair. It took me about three times as long to read this book. Jessika: It's true. And the other thing that was, of course this is going to bother me. I was of course getting some serious pro-colonialism vibes from the whole Jesus and the white men know best, here I go on a mission trip. Aye. You don’t need to convert everyone. Not everyone has to believe the same thing as you, it's just not necessary. And I'm really bothered by the mindset that we all need to be on the same page about these [00:34:00] spiritual and philosophical questions, because we just never will be. Mike: Right. And that was actually a huge thing. That was one of the big controversies about Mother Teresa is that she would do these kinds of deathbed conversions. And it seems like they weren't always to be honest, consensual. Like you, I wasn't all that amazed. The biography of the Pope was really interesting and exciting, but this book story was a framed by some mediocre white journalists who are just going around the world and interviewing people who know her because she won't give them the time of day at the beginning of the book, which I actually kind of enjoyed. Jessika: I did like that, actually. Mike: But that's the thing is you're seeing the memories of other people. And like you said, it feels very much like Superman where there's no flaws whatsoever and it's just, oh, she's always been selfless. Oh, she grew up in hardship. Oh, she's always wanted to make the world a better place, but you keep on hearing that story over and over again. And there's no real action. It's also a lot of really dull exposition where [00:35:00] you know, where people are telling her about all the good things she's doing and then how they're going to help her out. And the impact that she had on the world. It's undeniable. I'm just not sure that her life makes for an interesting comic book. Maybe it's just the way the book was done since she doesn't really feel like a main character in her own story. Also the fact that they're basically using the same framing device that they did in the last one, and Jessika: Yeah. Mike: Those narrators play a much bigger role in the Mother Theresa comic, because they're clearly trying to make it interesting and hold the reader's attention. I did learn that this book won the Catholic press associations award for best book of the year in the youth category in 1984, which yeah. Jessika: What? Who was judging that? Mike: I feel like that kind of says more about the availability of Catholic kid-friendly books at the time. Jessika: Yeah. And the youths weren't judging that contest. Mike: No, like, no. I mentioned earlier, I'm [00:36:00] not sure how well these other comic books sold, but there is an obituary for Tartaglione that claimed the Pope John Paul biography actually sold millions of copies. And it's the same thing with the Francis Brother of the Universe one, because it clearly did well enough that they wanted to make this Pope John Paul comic. And then there's an online archive for Gasnick that's hosted by a Catholic organization and they actually show all the different languages that the comic was printed into. Now. I really want to get a copy of the Japanese one now, because it came with a really beautiful book cover. It's lovely. And plus, it's just kind of a cool artifact, you know. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: But, I don't know how well the Mother Theresa books sold, because , there are numerous articles providing circumstantial evidence, talking about how well Francis and Pope John Paul sold. And then they'll say, oh, and then there was also this Mother Teresa comic. There's no further information. So, I [00:37:00] get the impression it maybe didn't do as well as everybody wanted it to. Jessika: Oh, big dreams, Mother Teresa. Mike: I know, to be honest though, my impression is that the Catholic church didn't really have any other figures with this much name recognition, like St. Francis is a pretty major character, even outside of Catholicism. My parents' church was named after Saint Francis and they were Episcopalian, and Pope John Paul and Mother Teresa had that kind of international rockstar, celebrity, that few others could even dream about in an age when viral fame wasn't really a thing. Jessika: Agreed. Mike: So yeah, it seems like everyone kind of looked at these books overall its wins and then they decided to walk away from the table while they were still ahead, which, is kind of the opposite of what happened in 1992, but we're going to talk about that next episode. [00:38:00] Jessika: Ooh. Mike: I'm going to leave it on a cliffhanger moment, but, what are your final thoughts? How do you feel about these eighties Catholic comics? Jessika: I mean, so far it's kind of a mixed bag. The Francis Brother of the Universe, I thought that was, it was fun. I enjoyed reading that one. You know, I, I even enjoyed reading the majority of the Pope John Paul II. And then we got to mother Teresa and literally I fell asleep and like, yeah, I do a lot of my reading in the evening, Mike: Yeah. Jessika: I'm a night owl it's it was not the time. Mike: Yeah. Comic books shouldn't want you to sleep. Jessika: No, it was the content. So. Mike: Yeah. I think I've got that nostalgia factor a little bit too with the Francis book. So there's one of these books that I still absolutely love. And it's got this [00:39:00] very soft spot in my soul, if you will. And the Pope John Paul comic, I agree. It's mostly fun. It's not flawlessly there's no part of the Frances book that I sat there and really skipped through. It was all interesting. And then Mother Teresa, I. I'm not exactly thrilled that it's part of my collection now. But at the same time, I feel like I can't get rid of it because it's, you know, part of that trilogy, that holy Trinity of Saints comics, if you will, sorry, all the religious puns keep on coming out tonight. Jessika: Well, I was just thinking about the fact that I don't even think it's that I think . You're worried about throwing away Mother Theresa don't lie to me. Mike: Yeah. I feel like I, what happens when you piss off a Catholic Saint? I don't know. Jessika: She's going to be staring at you from the trash can. Like, why did you do this to me? Mike: Oh, she already looks like a goblin. That'll be scary enough. [00:40:00] So now is the part of the episode where we discuss our brain wrinkles, which are the one thing comics or comics adjacent that has been on our mind lately. I've been talking for a spell. So why don't you go first. Jessika: Okay. So I've actually been really irritated about something comics related. Mike: Ooh. Jessika: Aye. You're shocked. I'm sure I've never heard about irritated about anything in this world. Mike: What you, no, go on. Jessika: What, what? So, I collect this six inch Marvel Avengers action figures by Hasbro. They're just the really simple ones, really only the arms and the head kind of moves and the arms kind of move one way. They're cheap. They're just like what, five, six bucks at the checkouts stand. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: And I collect them because I action pose them in my hanging plant garden in all my macrame. So they're just in all my plants, just flying around, but [00:41:00] what irritates me, I'm convinced that they just don't make the female characters in their widespread kids toys series. Mike: Oh, they don’t. That's. Jessika: It pisses me off and they make some of the antagonists even. I have Thantos and I can't get the Scarlet Witch or Black Widow? It just bothers me so much. It's hard enough to get the female characters in any kind of movie of their own or any kind of thing of their own. I was really happy the Scarlet Witch, getting a spotlight. And I'm glad that Black Widow is getting one too, but it's just you could say leaving the best for last, but you just kind of forgot didn't you? Mike: Yeah, that actually reminds me a little bit of the cartoon Young Justice. So they had two seasons of that show and then it got canceled and apparently it got canceled because the core audience for it wound up being [00:42:00] young women. And as a result, they weren't buying the action figure toys that were being marketed because they were all male action figures. Eventually they wound up bringing it back for DC Universe and then HBO Max, it's a great cartoon, but I just remember getting so irritated where I was like, really, instead of actually trying to make toys that would appeal to the audience, you just canceled this fucking show. All right. Jessika: That's so annoying and it, you know, it really bothers me that we always assume that boys won't play with action figures of girls. Mike: Yeah. It's dumb. Jessika: And yeah. And we absolutely need to quit. Assuming the girls won't play with action figures at all. Because they will. Mike: I'm actually, I'm really surprised that they're not making female character action figures now. Like it's like the last couple of years, I feel like that's been flipped, but I guess it's still a [00:43:00] thing. Jessika: Yeah. It's it's just. *sad noises* Mike: I'm sorry. Jessika: No, it's okay. It's okay. It just makes me want to write like angry letters and, you know, cause I want action figures too, goddammit. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Well, what about you? What's sticking deep in your brain? Mike: It's going back to that collection that I got from my parents' house. So part of that collection, one of the other cool things that was included is the 2002 Taskmaster mini series from Marvel, which sent me down a rabbit hole of Marvel Unlimited because you know, they've got all the back issues on there. Taskmaster is a villain who's also become a bit of an antihero. He's been around Marvel for a while. He's this mercenary who usually uses his power of photographic reflexes to mimic the moves of other heroes. And he's had three dedicated mini series so far and they're all really good. Like they're really fun, and [00:44:00] each one tells a very different story and they all explore his character in really interesting ways. And the last two series have been really funny, which means I'm kind of bummed about how generic he looks and all the promo stuff that they've put out for Black Widow the movie. Like he's a dude who wears a cape with a hood and has pirate boots and is just bristling with weapons. And that is not what we're getting. Jessika: I love that though. Mike: Oh yeah. It's super over the top and theatrical. His whole thing is that he has a mask that looks like a realistic skull, as opposed to that helmet, that's got kind of a vague skull motif. Jessika: Yeah, that's way scarier. Mike: It is, but at the same time, he hangs out a lot with Deadpool. And so there's that zaniness to him as well. And instead we're getting this kind of, I don't know, mute generic [00:45:00] bad-ass character and all the trailers who looks like he has some cool flashy moves, but it doesn't really seem to go much beyond that. I don't know, like it might surprise us, but who knows, but it's also made me realize how forgettable most of the villains in the MCU are. And I wish Marvel would just give us more characters, like Loki who make repeated appearances and then develop some real depth and then evolve into something more than what they are when they first appear. Jessika: Yeah, it'd be nice to see. Mike: Yeah. Well with that, I think it's time to wrap things up. We'll be back in two weeks, where we will continue the story of Marvel's foray into Christian comics, and until then we'll see you in the stacks. Jessika: Thanks for listening to Ten Cent Takes. Accessibility is important to us; text transcriptions of each of our published episodes [00:46:00] can be found on our website. Mike: This episode was hosted by Jessika Frazer and Mike Thompson written by Mike Thompson and edited by Jessika Frazer. Our intro theme was written and performed by Jared Emerson Johnson of Bay Area Sound, while our credits and transition music is Pursuit of Life by Evan McDonald and was purchased with a standard license from PremiumBeat. Our banner graphics were designed by Sarah Frank, who goes on Instagram by cut_thistles. Jessika: If you'd like to get in touch with us, ask us questions or tell us about how we got something wrong, please head over to tencenttakes.com or shoot an email to tencenttakes@gmail.com. You can also find us on Twitter, the official podcast account is tencenttakes. Jessika is Jessikawitha, and Jessika is spelled with a K. And Mike is Vansau. V A [00:47:00] N S A U. Mike: Stay safe out there. Jessika: And support your local comic shop.
Mike C-Roc Ciorrocco is the CEO of People Building, Inc., and the powerhouse behind the "What Are You Made Of?" movement. He is a performance coach, author, dynamic public speaker, visionary, and thought leader. He has been featured by Yahoo! Finance as one of the Top Business Leaders to Follow in 2020 and is on a mission to build people. He is driven to inspire others and he measures his success on how he is able to help others achieve greatness. C-Roc had a fire lit in him at an early age. That fire has ignited him with a fierce desire to compel people to see the greatness inside themselves using past life events to fuel their fire. Past hardships can be a powerful gravitational force that keeps you down and forces you to think small. To get out of orbit you need Rocket Fuel. Mike "C-Roc" Ciorrocco shows you how to convert past adversity into ROCKET FUEL to break free from the negative pull of pain and despair. In his new book, C-Roc offers life-changing lessons in personal transformation by asking yourself What Are You Made Of? This powerful question will ignite within you a thrust to greatness! Learn how to overcome painful past obstacles and achieve a fulfilling life where you're in command of your future. If you're ready to shoot for the stars, C-Roc says, "Thrust is a must!" Strap in and get ready for the ride of your life. Mike's latest book: https://amzn.to/3wwkTX5 CEO - People Building, Inc. 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The bigger we get as a community, the bigger the impact we can have on the world. Sign up for Joe's email newsletter at: https://joecostelloglobal.com/#signup For transcripts of episodes, go to: https://joecostelloglobal.lybsyn.com Follow Joe: https://linktr.ee/joecostello Transcript Joe: Ok, welcome, everybody. Today, my guest is Mike "C-Roc" Ciorrocco. I'm really excited to have this talk with him and I know you're going to enjoy this. Mike, thanks so much for coming on. I appreciate it. Mike: Thank you, Joe. I'd like to start every interview that I go on with gratitude and just really express that to you for allowing me to come on and share with you. And thank you to your audience for listening and showing up. Joe: Absolutely, man, I love that gratitudes a huge thing in my life, so I'm right there with you. I appreciate it. I think it's important that everyone has their back story makes up sort of what they've become in life. You know, it doesn't define who they become. But there is something about what has happened throughout your life leading up to where you are now that has molded this person that you've become. And I Mike: Right. Joe: Am interested in that. And and I always start with this, just like you always start. What is it? What are you made of? Right. That's what you Mike: They Joe: Start Mike: Had to turn your head sideways, I love Joe: perfect! Mike: It, you know, now, you know, I came from a broken home. I don't remember my parents together, Joe. I grew up around a lot of broken people, alcoholics, drug addicts, people suffering from anxiety, depression. My grandmother committed suicide after taking too much anti anxiety or depression medication. You know, a lot of things I went through as a kid just watching just destruction. And, you know, I think that decisions we make and Focus's that we have either go towards living and surviving or destruction. And I was seeing the destruction part and I wasn't OK with that. And I didn't want to accept that. So I would always try to help people switch around even from a young age. I was just not OK with what I was seeing. And, you know, my mom when I was three or four years old, I just remember her always telling me that I inspired her and I was going to be a leader. And I think subconsciously, subconsciously, she was doing that because she knew what was going on in the family and knew that I was gonna have to deal with some things. And so I had that programmed into me. So I was always just looking for people to help, looking for people to show them a better way and not buying into what they were telling themselves. And so, you know, that's just something I experienced at a young age. And really when it came down, what lit my fire and what I made of, I would say, is rocket fuel. Because when I was eight, my mom was moving on to her third marriage and I wasn't really up for going into another man's house and learned another man's rules Joe: Hmm. Mike: And but decided to give my dad a try who was moving on to his second marriage. And at that time, you know. I broke my mom's heart by doing that. I didn't know that at the time, but she told me later on that, you know, she cried herself to sleep at night when I left and I was our first child, you know, and when I moved to my dad's, everything seemed fine at first. But after three years, you know, during that three years, there was a lot of conflict. You know, there's a when you had step parents into the mix, any time that stuff happens. The kid is the only link between the past relationship and so a lot gets taken out on the children and anybody that's been in a broken home that dealt with child support, custody battles every other weekend, things that parents jealous, things like just everybody that's been through that knows what I'm talking about. And so a lot of that time they're in from eight to 11 hours, experience a lot of emotional, psychological abuse threats, things like that that were really probably not directed towards me, but came my way. And at nine years old, I would sleep with my baseball bat a lot of nights Joe: Wow. Mike: Because I was scared. And no kid should have to go through that, through that, of course. But that's what went into making me look. I went through these things. I went through court, child psychologists, to see if I was mature enough that at a young age to figure out who I wanted to live with, like all that kind of stuff Joe: Make Mike: And. Joe: Your own decisions, all of that, that crazy. Mike: Yeah, Joe: Yeah, yeah, Mike: Yeah, Joe: Yeah, Mike: And seeing parents fight Joe: Yeah. Mike: And, you know, just just not not happy environment, and so that's what went into me. But the thing is, is that I was always on the right side of the track. Thank God. I was always looking at how can I be better not being accepting of it. Let me look at the bright side of things. Let me look at, OK, what is this doing and how can I take advantage of using this to a better life? So one weekend I was coming home from my mom's house Joe: And Mike: And Joe: So Mike: I Joe: I don't mean to interrupt. Was this Mike: Noticed Joe: All Mike: For. Joe: In Maryland or all back on the East Coast or. Mike: This is in Pennsylvania, outside of Philly. Joe: Ok, cool. Mike: Yeah, Joe: Ok. Mike: So so my mom was living in Maryland, and you know what, I got to about 10, some 10 years old, give or take. I was coming home from my mom's house one day, one weekend after being there and my stomach was in knots. I was anxious. I don't want to go back. And my mom was saying something was wrong. She questioned me and I told her, you know, when you go through abuse, anybody that's been through abuse, you can probably relate to this. That one you don't just like to share because you're afraid that people won't believe you, too. You kind of you're so accustomed to going through it, you're not sure how bad it really is. Somebody on the outside would be like, holy cow, you're dealing with that really. Joe: Yeah. Mike: But as you're going through it, you just think it's ordinary. Another thing, maybe you're embarrassed that you let it go on for that long. And then the weirdest thing is that you're actually concerned with your abuser. You're like, what will happen if I share this to them? Joe: At. Mike: You know, just a weird thing. So I finally came came to the realization that I need to share that my mom said, you know, I'm going to get you out of there. I'm going to file court papers. You don't need to be going through that. That's not ordinary. You need to, you know, in a better situation, she said. But if you do if I do this, you need to stick to your guns. You've got to be like really, really firm because they're going to try to talk you out of it. And in life, when you believe in something, you've got to stick to your guns, man, because people will have agendas and they're going to try to talk you out of it, move one way or the other. And at the end of the day. If you do that, you're not going to live the life you want to live, so she reminded me that, you know, 10 years old, you know, filling my head with great stuff, you know, and I went back home that day and waited and waited weeks went by and waited for those court papers to be delivered. You know, I just knew it was going to happen. And I didn't tell my dad about it, of course. And then finally, one day I come home from school and the tension in the house, you could feel it like it was something was up. And I knew what the deal Joe: Mm Mike: Was. Joe: Hmm. Mike: I had to feel the first. I thought I did something wrong. You know, I'm looking around like, what did I do today? He had his papers in his hand. My dad did. And I knew, like, oh, here we go. And he told me to go to my room. Now, my dad was my hero. He had a successful masonry business, very hard worker, big forearms, rough hands. Joe: Yeah. Mike: You know, you tell he's a hard worker and he always cared a wad of hundred dollar bills in his pocket. And I thought that was the coolest thing and had a rubber band around Joe: So Mike: It Joe: Did Mike: And. Joe: My partner, it's so buddy. Mike: Yeah, yeah, it must be the last thing Joe: Yeah, and. Mike: He would always show me the money, and I thought it was a cool hundred dollar bills, Joe: Yeah. Mike: You know, so he came back in front of me and I didn't get into the discussion with him because my mom said, stick to your guns. So he proceeded to tell me how my mom would have guys coming in and out. Why would you want to go there? You have it made here. You have everything you need. They're poor. They don't have anything. You know, my mom was I mean, we look at the houses. Twenty five, thirty thousand. Our house broken down cars in the driveway. You know, we went on vacation to the Jersey Shore. Joe: Yeah. Mike: But we stayed in a rundown motel, one room for kids, two adults, and we were I just remember just the other day, we were actually able to bring some friends with us sometimes, which just makes it like just I don't even remember how that worked. And we would take black trash bags as a suitcase. So, you know, share my story. By the way, back in the day, I was kind of embarrassed by that. I just didn't like to share that, you know. Joe: Yep. Mike: But I started to realize that the more you share your story, the more impact you can have and the more people that can relate to it and maybe change your life for two Joe: Yep, Mike: Or millions, Joe: Yep. Mike: You know. So I started sharing that. But just to wrap it up real quick, so when I did confirm that my dad took that wad of hundred dollar bills out of his pocket, peeled one off, crumpled it up and threw it at me and said, if that's the case and you want to move there, you're going to need this when you're living on the street with your mother one day. And I remember that 30 some years I lived off that spark that was lit right there because I'm stubborn, my shirt that I think is, say, Joe: And. Mike: Stubborn, perversely unyielding, it's a good thing when it's on the right thing. But, you know, I was like, I'm not going to let that happen. And so 30 some years, I was driving off that spark until two years ago. I really subconsciously I was doing that. I really realized two years ago, wait a minute here, there's something magical that's going on. My life keeps going on its upward trajectory. No matter what happens, no matter screw ups, let downs, disappointments, what is happening here and what I found, which I wrote in my book that's coming out Monday, May 3rd on Amazon Rocket Fuel, I was taken everything that would stop normal human beings or slow them down, store it in my fuel tank instead of my truck, would weigh you down and converted it into rocket fuel for my future to become unstoppable. And I found that and I realized, wait a minute, this is not just a concept. This is an this is a law. If you do this, you really are unstoppable to live in the life of your dreams until you're plucked from this planet. So that's why I decided to write this book that Grant Carter wrote the foreword because it was so powerful. I got to get this message out to people. So that's a little bit about the story. There's you know, that's the short version, actually. Joe: No, that's all good. That's exactly what I wanted, the only piece that I still need to figure out is what did you do? How did you figure out what you wanted to do in life in that middle section of where people go to college or they get a job? Or what Mike: Yeah. Joe: Did you do during that time? Mike: Well, I played football and I didn't drink any alcohol or party all through high school, I played football, baseball wrestled, but football was my love Joe: Mm hmm. Mike: And I just I always thought about I want to go to Ohio State, play football, because I just love their team. I watched them play Michigan all the time growing up. And I never grew tall enough, never grew fast enough Joe: I feel your pain. Mike: That. Yeah. So five, six and three quarters, you got to be really, really fast if you're five, six Joe: Yeah. Mike: And three quarters. So I decided to go to Division three. I played football in college study business. But when I got to college, Joe, I lost my focus and I started chasing girls and party in which I never did before. And it was like Disney World first, you Joe: Yeah, Mike: Know what I mean? Joe: Yeah. Mike: And I just lost, man, I four, five, six, seven years in that range. I was just it's all I cared about was parties where the girls at and I need to be around people. And so that's that's the lead up to that. And then eventually I met my wife, who just the commitment to my wife straighten me up. And I was off to the races. I think that my thing with my wife right now, I joke with her all the time, is I have to outsource. I have to earn her spending on Amazon and deliveries to the house. So it's constantly like this. The other day she's like, I look I go up in the kitchen and there's a piece of decking, like the composite decking. Joe: Oh, you know Mike: We Joe: That Mike: Have Joe: That's Mike: A wood Joe: Going Mike: Deck. Joe: To be redone. Mike: And I'm like, I already told you, oh, not right now. It seems like I already had somebody come over measured Joe: Oh, Mike: On my car and drive back down into the cave. Joe: That's Mike: I call this my studio, my cave. I got to go make some money now. Joe: That's so Mike: A Joe: Funny. Mike: Great motivator. Joe: That is awesome. All right. Well, that's where and was college. Mike: Salisbury University in Maryland. Joe: Ok, and then ever since you've stayed in Maryland, Mike: Yeah, Joe: But Mike: I Joe: Now Mike: Moved Joe: You're Mike: To Joe: In Mike: Connecticut Joe: Ocean City, Mike: For a period of time, Joe: Yep, Mike: But we moved to Ocean City Joe: Yep. Mike: Now. Yep. Joe: Which is beautiful. I love it there. OK, cool. Yeah. And I'm Mike: Thank Joe: On the East Mike: You. Joe: Coast. I'm originally from New Mike: A Joe: York. Mike: Cool, Joe: So. Mike: Cool. Joe: So this leads right into the question that since you're going to do the decking, are you still doing. Are you still in the mortgage business because that's your. Mike: Yeah, Joe: Yeah, Mike: Yeah, Joe: Ok. OK. Mike: Yeah, we have a have a division that I run with three best friends, they take care of the day to day operations Joe: Yep. Mike: And it's a large division under our nation's lending. And we run it like our own business. And it's great people, great culture. It's just phenomenal. Joe: And Mike: So. Joe: You've been doing that quite a long time, right? I've saw Mike: Yet. Joe: You've gotten rated as number number one in Yahoo! Finance are right. I mean, you have. Mike: Yeah, so 2006, I got into it and started as a loan officer and just went from two employees and started a branch and vision and two employees up to 40. Joe: Wow, that's incredible. OK, cool. So when did you make this shift of and you talk about this in one of your videos about sharing your story and you share. You also mentioned it when you were giving your story, how important that is. And when did you make this when did you allow yourself to say, OK, I have this business and I have great partners and people to run this business? When did you decide to at least start your company now with what you're doing with your podcast, in your book and everything? What was the trigger for that? Mike: Yes, so early, twenty, nineteen, my stepfather, George, she took over from my dad when I was 11. He was a great guy and he passed away in twenty eighteen and a heart attack suddenly. And I wrote about this in the book, the story about how he found out and everything. It's it's you know, but but at the end of the day, he had a passion when he was passionate about something like football, baseball, hunting, fishing. He would get up and just go nuts, like deep voice, like everybody couldn't, like, really understand him. He was like so passionate, like they would be taken aback by him. And when he passed away, you know, a couple of weeks after he passed away, I had this passion or energy, something spirit come inside of me. Like, I just felt different. And I realized that I wasn't playing a big enough game in life. You know, I was doing well in the business and the mortgages and all that. But it just that's not the game that I was designed for. I was playing small and I started to realize, wait a minute, I need to open myself up to other opportunities, because if I just focus here, this is where I'm going to stay. And I was having truths that I was telling myself and beliefs that I was telling myself is that this is it for me. This is I'm stuck, you know, Joe: Mm Mike: And Joe: Hmm. Mike: I don't necessarily love the mortgage business. It's great and all that. But the end of the day, I just had a bigger, bigger calling. And so I started trying to figure out, OK, how can I get known in this calling of building people? Because that's what I actually do at the mortgage business. It wasn't the mortgage business. It was I was building people. I was helping develop people. And so I said, how can I get known more in a bigger, bigger scale mystate instead of just my town? Then I was like, that's not big enough. I'll come up short. How about the country and then the globe? And then I was like, you know, what? If I start really expanding my mind, I'm like, if there's aliens, which I've never seen one, but if there is, let me see if I can get aliens to know who I am and really go for that and then come up a little short and I'll be all right. And that's the way I started thinking about things and started trying to impact and share my story with tens of millions of people, hundreds of millions of people. How can I do that? And I started to obsess about that. And that's when the podcast came. The book idea came and and I just started networking like an animal and going on. You know, I've done three hundred interviews in the last year. Joe: Oh, that's crazy. Mike: So just really lean into it and that's how it all started, and then now I'm into tech, into the tech world where I'm developing a tech product. I co-founded the company. And also we have other we're creating a tech portfolio of other co-founders, non tech entrepreneurs that have ideas that think that they can never do it. They usually go to the grave with those Joe: Mm Mike: Things. Joe: Hmm. Mike: We're bringing them into the world and giving them the resources they need to actually co-found their companies and creating unstoppable people. Because my mission, Joe, is all people are unstoppable to live in the life of their dreams. And so everything I do, I filter through that mission. Joe: It's so cool, man, and it's so funny because you hit it right on the head with with the same thing with me, it's like you don't have a successful business. But I know it's not my calling. It's not what I was put here to do. And and everything that I do should be so much more impactful and so much bigger. And I've had this I had the conversation with David Meltzer. And at the same Mike: Yeah. Joe: Time, he brings you back in focus and he's like, yeah, but you should know that you you have everything you need. You just got to get out of your own way. It's not a matter that you should focus on wanting more. You have it all. You're just Mike: Yep. Joe: You're literally getting in your own way of getting it done. Mike: Yeah, and that's the thing, it's the truths that we tell ourselves we're living an illusion, we let the illusions that we have based on our beliefs and past experiences, and we let that affect us and limit us and block us. And really, at the end of the day, you know, we'd rather explain our life instead of actually intervening in it. We'd like to explain with excuses, you know, and justify things and, you know, at the end of the day, man, we just tell ourselves what we can tell ourselves that helps us survive. And to me, that's not good enough, because you're going to always come up a little short, so why not thrive and really go after it? And, you know, there's not everybody that's going to be able to do what we do. So why don't we take it up a notch and get get really abundance, like go after abundance so that we can help other people and distribute this information to other people. So that's the kind of things that I started thinking. I started hanging around people that coach and mentor me the right way, thinking big, you know, also, you know, still like Dave Meltzer talks about, you've got to be happy now. It's not like later, Joe: Yeah, Mike: So. Joe: Yeah, so I don't want to go down the current path, I follow him, I love the stuff that he does. I know that it fits the mold for a lot of people that are in the real estate world. And but Mike: Yeah. Joe: I also know that he's doing a lot of other things. But how he wrote the foreword to your book, which is amazing, how how much did he influence you making this jump to doing what you're doing now? Mike: So when George died, my stepfather, my brother was read in the next room and he said, Mike, you've got to read this book, this guy sounds just like you. I'll take a look at it. I started I saw Grant before and like pictures, but I thought he was like a real estate. Joe: Yep, Mike: I thought he trained realtors, Joe: Yep, Mike: I wasn't even sure, Joe: Yep. Mike: Right, so I read the book and I'm like, holy cow, this guy speaking to me, he's going through similar situations that I've been Joe: Yeah. Mike: Through. Like, I can totally relate. And I but but the big thing was about it was I've always had this big think, but I got cocooned for a while by people that I surround myself with that were broken thinkers, broken mindset, people, people that didn't fit my culture, but they produce. So I kept them around and people that quit on me. And I let that affect me personally. And I got into this situation where I was invalidated, me myself. I felt invalidated on being the animal that I actually am. And so when I was reading that book, I'm like, wait a minute, this this shows me something. I'm not the crazy one. Those people are the crazy ones. I have an animal. So I did unleash it. So I was able to unleash the beast and that's what it did for me. And then I just immersed myself in this content, hung around with all these people, build relationships inside his company, because I just want to be around those types of people. Joe: Yep. Mike: Great, great friendships. Like I said, Jerry Glantz, a friend of mine, I just you know, I'm proud to have them in my in my circle. And so when when I wrote the book, the book actually came from an idea that I got while I was interviewing grad on my podcast about I asked him the question, what would it take to get into outer space? Not like literally, but figuratively speaking, getting away from all the gravity and negative suppressors of people and things that can mess with you. When can you get that amount of money or that amount of whatever it is? And he said people aren't ready for that discussion. He said that's just something the answer doesn't people don't like the answer to that question and I'm like, well, what would it take? You know? And I started thinking about rocket fuel. Rocket fuel is what it would take. Take it all that stuff, converting it and fuel your way up there. And then once you do that, you remove all that stuff out of your way. There's nothing to stop you and you become unstoppable and indestructible. And that's the thought that started going through my head and I started obsessing about it. I'm like, I got to write this. So when I did that, I'm like the only person that would make sense to be writing the forward for this book is Grant. I don't know if he does afterwards. I don't know if he charged me. I don't know anything. I'm going to make it happen, though. And that's what I started thinking all the time. I just dwelled on it, wrote it down and. Book is almost done, and I made a phone call and there are some details that went into doing that and I just got done and his name is on the cover of the book is for Written Joe: Yeah, Mike: By Grant. Joe: Yeah. Mike: So that adds to credibility that I may not have had before, but the content in the book is just so powerful, man. It's just I actually can be honest with you about something like like I'm always honest, but like just totally transparent. I read that book over and over again during the editing process. Right. And I got so sick of it and because I've read it so much, but then I haven't read it in a while and I went back and my team, we go through in the morning and we'll pick a passage to read out of it just to see what what we come upon. And I don't even remember writing some of the stuff. I'm just like, wow, this is like this is really good stuff. Joe: That's cool, Mike: So it's a weird Joe: Yeah. Mike: It's a weird mind game when you're writing a book and then to see the actual finished product. It's a good time. Joe: That's really cool, yeah, I look forward to reading it, I it's, you know, just talking with you, I can tell we're in sync on a lot of this stuff. You're ahead of me because you wrote a book and I haven't done it yet, but I know that it's a good process to go through. Where did you figure out where you wanted to start in the book in regards to your life? Mike: So, you know, I started share my story that I share with you and I have other parts of my life in there, too, that are just crazy, blew people's minds. But I really what I did was I started writing in my phone while I was on airplanes and I would just write ideas in my phone and and I would write stories that happen in my life. And then my podcast, we transcribe the podcast episodes, the first few that were a monologue style, and we just created a framework. And then it doesn't look anything like it started. That's how I got started with it and just started, you know, what kind of what went into me, what am I made of? And I just went into that and started sharing it. And then the lessons that broke off from each of those things, because, you know, a lot of people have been through there's people that have been through a lot more than I have. But my story is pretty crazy. Like there's some stuff that happened to me that nobody could imagine going through. But I'm still here, brother, and I'm still going hard. Joe: I hear you. I see that and you brought up a good point and one of the videos that I watch where you said people discount their story, right? They don't think, why would anybody care? It's not that Mike: Yeah. Joe: Special. Well, when were you able to actually take your own thoughts as part of your own story and make that switch where you said, wait a second, you know, what I've gone through is important. If it can help one person in the world, that's value enough. I mean, when did you or did you not ever doubt that your story was powerful? Mike: No, so I would I never shared it and I saw Pete Vargas share his story on the 10x growth conference stage in twenty nineteen, I'm sitting there watching and this is the first big stage, I think, that Pete was on. He was nervous and scared and his face, you could tell, is sweating and he would tell you this. I'm friends with Joe: Mm Mike: Him, so Joe: Hmm. Mike: It's not something I'm talking about. Joe: Yeah, no, no. Mike: But I thought to myself, I'm watching that. I don't know who he was at that time, but he was telling a story about his father and he was like really connecting with me and the relationship and how he grew up in a rough spot. And then they came back together and how it all worked out. And I'm like, wow, this is just like powerful. I felt like everybody else disappeared in the place and it was just him talking to me. And I'm like, I need to learn how to do that. And if he can do it, I know I could do it. That's what went through my head. And I told the guys I was with when we got in the car afterwards, I'm like, I'm going to be on that stage. I'm going to share my story one day and I know I can do it. And so then I started sharing the story of one person, two people, five people. And they were like, that's all. I really can relate to that. Then I said, Well, shit, I need to go to ten million people Joe: Mm hmm. Mike: If I could do it and how can I do that? And that's when I started obsessing about getting known and sharing that story. And, you know, I was able to talk to Pete after that and actually learn from him how to share your story. And but I shared that that that story about seeing him in the audience and how everybody just disappeared and how he connected with me. And so it's pretty powerful stuff, Joe: Yeah, Mike: Man. Joe: That's really powerful, but that's got to be a little eerie to just be sitting there Mike: The. Joe: And all of a sudden it's just like a movie where everything around you blurs out and it's just Mike: Yeah. Joe: The two of you. Yeah, Mike: Yeah. Joe: That's incredible. Something real light like question I have for you. The logo is it is a logo. And I'm going to take a guess and I'm probably going to be wrong. And you're going to say, well, nice try, Joe, but does it have anything to do with the Lynch? Mike: So the sirocco, the blue. Joe: Yeah. Mike: Yeah, so it's just upside down, see, and in two hours that are, you know, for Cerak and then it just has a little dude in there holding up the world, if you can see him. That's what it has now. It doesn't. I Joe: Ok, Mike: Didn't see that. So linchpin, Joe: Only because Mike: Huh? Joe: When I read some stuff from you talking about, you know, in some of the verbiage that I read about you and on your website, you mention Mike: Yeah. Joe: The word linchpin. I can't remember the context, but it was. Mike: Yeah, no, you know what, I. Joe: And then when I looked at a picture of a lynchpin, I was like, wait, it is Mike: I Joe: Round. Mike: Got to Joe: And Mike: See what a picture of a linchpin Joe: You Mike: Looks like Joe: See Mike: Because Joe: Now Mike: Because, Joe: I have Mike: You know, Joe: You thinking. Mike: Like that's. Yeah, I got to look at this because maybe maybe, yeah, maybe it does, Joe: The. Mike: So I didn't design the logo myself I had professionally done, and maybe he had that in mind as well. Joe: Only because it's mean you could kind of say it a little bit. I don't know. Mike: Yeah, yeah, I see what you're saying, Joe: Right, Mike: Yeah, Joe: It's Mike: No, Joe: Round Mike: I didn't Joe: With Mike: Have Joe: The Mike: That. Joe: With the thing through it, and I'm thinking, OK, well, maybe it's kind Mike: Yeah. Joe: Of hinting towards it and and I Mike: Now, Joe: Said, Mike: It was really just the sea Joe: Yeah. Mike: And the two hour and holding up the world and helping lift up the Joe: That's Mike: World, Joe: Cool, Mike: That's what Joe: That's even cooler, so you can Mike: The. Joe: Throw my idea right out the window, Mike: Now, Joe: But Mike: I Joe: I Mike: Like that, I like that. Joe: Do I do some upfront investigation of the person I'm talking to in the life and all of that stuff. And I saw that, you know, because you're doing your mortgages. And I saw that Jennifer is in real estate and I don't Mike: Yeah. Joe: Know if she still is, but. Mike: Yes, yes. Joe: So that's a really cool synergy between the two of you, first of all, I think that probably works really well. But just for the people in the audience who had a great relationship with their significant other, how important has that been in the balance of your life, especially what you went through as a young, you know, a young man being able to have that support in and you found the love of your life and it's you know, there's that whole synergy there between you. Mike: Yeah, I mean, it's it's everything, I mean, like I said, I made a joke about trying to earn her spending with that, but then on the day she does a great job, she did she was a stay at home mom for a while until our youngest was in school. And then I said, you know what? I'm going to try to you know, we've got to figure out something because I'm giving deals away Joe: Uh huh, Mike: To people. Joe: Yep. Mike: And, you know, it would be great if you get a license and she ended up doing it. And she's just the type that if she gets into something, she goes hard with it. And she did great the first two years, just fantastic. I didn't even realize how much money she made last year until I saw ten ninety nine. I'm like, wow, you did great. But she's just phenomenal and aligns well with our business. Obviously I don't do mortgages much anymore. Joe: Yeah. Mike: I don't do it all. I just I work on the business maybe an hour a day. My team runs the day to day. They do a fantastic job. And so but it aligns well, obviously in a lot of our people, their spouse got their real estate license, too, because it aligns so well. Joe: Mm hmm. Yeah. Mike: So, yeah, but but at the end of the day, we are you know, I'm very clear with what I'm trying to do, my dreams. And she is clear on the fact of her dreams and the fact that she's willing to support me and run through fire for me. And Joe: Yeah. Mike: It's just a great feeling because I can't do it without her, obviously. Joe: Yep, yep, I just wanted to sort of bring that up, because I think it's important I have the same sort of relationship with Joel Mike: And Joe: And Mike: It's Joe: My significant Mike: Awesome. Joe: Other. So it's Mike: Yeah. Joe: To me, it's super important. And with what happened with covid, you know, a lot of things just stopped. Right. And Mike: Mm hmm. Joe: Changes were made. And so she got furloughed from doing her day to day job and has not been brought back. But she's always had this dream of doing photography. And so now I basically have said to her, you are not going back and you are going to from this point forward until whenever the world ends for you, you're going to follow your dream. So I Mike: Awesome. Joe: Think it's important. Right. And to Mike: Yeah. Joe: Support each other and it's nice to see that you have that same relationship. Mike: Yeah, so, so, so important that it aligns I mean, so much conflict comes from just not being aligned with the mission, Joe: Yep, Mike: You know, Joe: Yep. Mike: And I think that people need to realize that their personal dream, their mission, I call it their purpose, their mission. It's it's more important than anything when it comes down to it really is. Joe: Yeah. Mike: And that's why it's so important to share that with your partner, to make sure that they're on the same page with you. Joe: So let's talk about that. I'm sure I'm probably older than you at this point, but we're Mike: Yeah, Joe: At Mike: Definitely, definitely. Now Joe: The. Mike: I'm 40, I'm 40 for some, I'm Joe: Oh, Mike: A Joe: My gosh, I'm so Mike: Young Joe: Old, Mike: Pup, Joe: I can't. Mike: But I am going on 18 years of marriage. This May so. Joe: Congratulations, that's awesome, yeah, Mike: Thank Joe: Joel Mike: You. Joe: And Mike: Thank Joe: I Mike: You. Joe: Are 20, I think, at this point. Mike: Ok, cool, congrats. Joe: Yeah, I turned fifty nine this past February, so, Mike: Oh, man, I Joe: You know. Mike: Can't tell. I really can't Joe: Yeah, Mike: Tell. Joe: Well thank Mike: Maybe Joe: You. Mike: That's why that's why you shave your head, because that way you can't see any Joe: That's Mike: Gray hairs. Joe: Exactly, exactly right. They got my eyebrows Mike: Hey, Joe: Are still dark, Mike: Look, I'm with you the way the. Joe: So do you ever look at where you are now and you look back and go? I mean, and I think we've talked about this with some of the great people, like, you know, we can bring up David Meltzer again because he's just he's like one of my mentors. I love the guy at the Mike: Is Joe: Death. Mike: Awesome. Joe: You know, what is what's the saying? Something like the the teacher. The teacher appears when the student is ready, Mike: Yeah. Joe: Right? Mike: Yeah, yeah, yeah, teachers. Joe: Yep. Mike: Yep, exactly. Joe: And it's the same thing with life. Like things come when the time is right. And some people would argue against that. Some people would say whatever. But you just started on this path now, right. Something flipped when you're 40, when your stepfather passed away, it said there's you know, and you might have felt that your whole life because you people like you and I always were pulled towards something. Right. We're entrepreneurs. We've always worked towards a greater goal of whatever. Do you ever look back and go, God, I wish I had started this sooner? Or is it like, no, it's this is the time. This is the right time. It's happening now. You know, I'm interested in what your thought process is on that. Mike: Well, I'm curious, asking the question, you must have felt some kind of feeling about that in the past, maybe. Joe: I constantly go like I had, I chased another dream up until this point, and that Mike: Yeah. Joe: Dream didn't happen for me and I openly admit all the time that I didn't put in the work to make that dream happen. I'm Mike: The. Joe: I'm a trained you know, I went to college for music. So my whole life has been surrounded by music. And one day I was going to tour the world and be this famous drummer for and I always use the example because I love his music. John Mayer. Mike: Yeah. Joe: That never happened for me because I know now I can look myself in the mirror and go, You didn't put in the work. You didn't put in the Mike: Yeah, Joe: Tent. Mike: The commitment, Joe: Yeah. You Mike: Yeah. Joe: Didn't do the ten thousand hours. You Mike: Yeah. Joe: You would rather had gone down to the college campus bar and had a bunch of beers and chicken wings with your buddies Mike: Yep. Joe: Instead of going back into the practice room and spending another four hours at night. So I am fine with I get it now, but now Mike: Yeah. Joe: I'm trying to take like the rest of my life and make it amazing and live much Mike: Yeah. Joe: Bigger. And so I am at the stage right now doing that change, shifting Mike: Mm hmm. Joe: My my frame of mind. I know the world is abundant. I know that everything you know, I just have to look towards the good of everything. And the more I focus on the good and the abundance and the gratitude, more of it just keeps coming in. In the last two months, it's been incredible for me. And so and it's I always was the oh, woe is me. Like I work my ass off. Why am I not getting that? Why am I not Mike: Yep, Joe: Doing that? So Mike: Yeah. Joe: That's why I asked you this question Mike: Yeah, Joe: When that, Mike: Yeah. Joe: You know, was the shift with your with Mike: Yeah. Joe: Your father, your stepfather passing away and you just saying when you said you felt it in your heart, you were like, I need to do something bigger. Was that the pivotal point for this? Mike: Yes, it was, and I did look back and be like, man, I cannot believe when I started finding out things and becoming aware of things, I cannot believe I didn't start this sooner. I didn't know that. Like, I just felt like I had wasted I went through a period of time where I felt like I wasted time and time is so valuable. And I said, you know what? I don't know how much longer I have on this planet, but you know what, at this point, the window keeps shrinking. I got to pick up my urgency. I got to move faster. I got to demand more and be louder and be more impactful and be just more intense than I would have had to if I started a long time ago, that's all. And so at first I did look back and with some regret. But then I quickly got out of that and said, OK, what have we got to do to get this done in the window that I do have left? So, yeah, I definitely and that was the pivotal, pivotal point, of course, working towards it my whole life, not knowing it. Joe: Yeah. Mike: You know, there's a story in the Bible and they made a movie about it with Steve Carell about Noah's Ark. You know, it was told over some years he took to build this big arc and he didn't really know why he was doing it, he was just being told to do it by God. If you believe in God, Joe: Hmm. Mike: Which I do, or if it's intuition or whatever. And he got these animals and people were laughing at him and discouraging them and he just kept doing it anyway and building a ship in a place where there's never rain. Joe: All right. Mike: And did it make sense, it didn't seem to make sense at the moment, but he kept doing it and he kept being committed and doing it and doing it and doing it before you know it. The rain came, washed everybody away, and he survived with all the animals that he had and his family. And so I look at that lesson and I started to see this now. I started to see that the things when I'm committed and obeyed to my purpose, my mission, and I filter things through that, whether it's the people I hang out with, my actions, my words, my thoughts, my environment, when I start to filter through that mission. I'm obeying what I'm supposed to be doing and things just magically work out and I start to see opportunities everywhere, but when I don't do that, they're missing. And so you don't need to know what the end game is necessarily. You should be shooting for something, but just be looking for the opportunities. As long as you're obeying your mission and filtering everything through your purpose or mission or whatever you want to call it. Joe: Yeah. All right, well, that makes me feel good that I'm not the only one that had some regrets, so thank Mike: The. Joe: You for being vulnerable and saying that because I definitely have gone through it and I have like I said, I'm older than you. So I think, you know, think, Mike: None of us are alone, Joe. None of us are, you Joe: Ok. Mike: Know, I've anything that you go through, there's somebody else out there experiencing it for sure. Joe: Right, and I think that's what you're a lot of what you talk about is it's so important to share your story because it literally could help one person, which would be a huge help. You never know where they are in their state of mind. And if it lifts them, that's awesome. But imagine being able to help tens of thousands of millions of billions of people. Right. So I understand that's what the goal is for people like us who want to do that. So I I wish you the best of luck in doing that. And and same Mike: Thanks. Joe: With myself. Mike: Yeah, Joe: They've Mike: You, Joe: Got Mike: Too. Joe: To get it done. Mike: That's right, Joe: Ok, Mike: That's right. Joe: So you said something earlier about the book, which is the name of the book is Rocket Fuel. And you said it's May, May 3rd. Mike: Yeah, May 3rd, Monday, May 3rd, it's coming out on Amazon, and, you know, it should be a best seller based on we have we presold it. So I'm thinking that it's not going to have a problem being a best seller, number one best seller. Joe: Yep. Mike: What we shall see. But I'm going to do a bunch of lives that day, Instagram and Facebook lives, and just have some fun with it Joe: Cool. Mike: And celebrate. Joe: Ok, cool, so let's talk about it a little bit. Mike: Sure. Joe: You said something earlier that I thought was really cool, which was taking you said something about taking whatever comes in and not putting in it in the trunk, but putting it in the fuel tank and making rocket fuel. So explain Mike: Yep, Joe: That again Mike: Very Joe: To me, because Mike: Good. Joe: I I loved Mike: Yeah. Joe: It when you said I was like and I didn't even write it down. Mike: Yeah. Joe: I was like, no, that's got to go up here in my brain. So I would love to Mike: Well, Joe: Hear that again. Mike: Well, when you want something in life and things come your way to stop it or slow you down, if you remove a one thing, obviously that's going to help. But removing is not good enough for me. So I take all that stuff. Haters, people that discourage me laughed at me. What I'm trying to do, screw ups of my own people trying to screw me, all that stuff I just stored in my fuel tank. And usually people put it in their trunk and that weighs them down. You know, most people quit on their dreams because other people are talking Joe: Mm hmm. Mike: About them and saying, no, you're not the same. Why are you doing that? In all kinds of different things? I take all that and say, you know what, like here's an example, by the way, I stored in my tank, my fuel tank, to convert it into rocket fuel rather than my trunk, where it weighs me down. And some of the people closest to me, you know, like some of my business partners and friends and they know who they are. I talk to them about it. And I said, you know what? You keep saying the stuff like, hey, why don't you go do your podcast? Hey, you know, just this stupid digs like that, right? At the end of the day, they're trying to get at me, but they're really just talking about themselves, reflecting upon themselves and the fact that they should be doing that and they're not. And so I know that. And I tell people, you know, you want to say that, great, you're not going to achieve what you think you're going to achieve because all you're doing is giving me more fuel and I'm going to push it even harder. So when somebody says that to me, I'll do it on purpose, where I'll push harder and then I'll show it up in their face a little bit more to about. They're seeing so many posts on Instagram, I'll make sure I send it to them in a direct message, because that way it shuts them Joe: Yeah, Mike: Up Joe: Yeah, Mike: For Joe: It's weird, I don't Mike: Not Joe: Understand, Mike: Being. Joe: I don't understand, like people want to bring you down to their level, right? We deal with that all the time. And and social media has done so much to expose those people. And I just don't understand why they can't be happy for you. But they. Mike: Well, they can't because so I've already realized this in my mind now I know this, it's not them personally, it's their mind. And what it's happening is they just the subconscious mind just justifies where you are. It's trying to justify the truths that you told yourself and when something comes in to threaten that. You have to basically there there things fire off to protect their subconscious beliefs, and so it's not really them personally that's doing it and that's why you can't take it personal. You need to understand it. And then when they're doing it, you need to lay it out to them and let them know, hey, listen, I know what's going on here. I get it. You're where you are and you're trying to justify where you are. And you're saying this stuff to me. I don't take it personal, by the way. I use it as fuel. So thank you. And if you want to say more, continue to give me fuel. Great. But I would rather be able to help you. On break the like, just open up your truths and change them, change your beliefs. And expand your mind and see what you can achieve instead of worrying about what I'm doing and that's the way I handle it, I don't really get fired up or angry or take it personal. It's just a situation where they're going through it. And I think we've all been through it Zoom. I think I'm more understanding of it, Joe: Yeah. Mike: But I will not. But if they don't listen to me when I talk about that, I will not spend time with them because I'm not going to spend time with people that don't align with the mission. Joe: Totally agree. So the book Rocket Fuel coming out May 3rd on Amazon, who is this book for? Mike: Specifically, this is for people that have gone through things in life. And they feel like they keep getting held back or slowed down by things are stopped and they're just they're just done with it. They're they're at the point right now where they've had enough. They're getting sick of where they are and they want to do something about it. And they are looking for that breakthrough that that that superpower, because really it is it's like John Maxwell, House leadership, because this thing is so powerful. And I validated it so, so thoroughly that it's a law, it's the Rockefeller law. And so it's for people that are just sick and tired of being where they are. And they want to advance. They want to have a better life, life of their dreams. And I believe, like I said, my mission is all people are unstoppable to live in a life of their dreams. And so that's what's for. Joe: Yeah, and I saw that it seems like part of the focus is about past pains and obstacles and how you you basically help with the book to to change, take people and turn it around and say, you know, like you're saying, use those things as rocket fuel to get you to the next level. So don't lean on them. Don't have them in the trunk, don't have them as baggage, but instead take what you've learned, take what has happened and convert it to rocket fuel by doing whatever you talk about in the book. Mike: Yeah, Joe: Right. Mike: Yeah, the magic, the magic, here's the magic, right? The magic is when you have something happen and you get that feeling in your chest, that's where it hits me, by the way, like something Joe: Hmm. Mike: Bad happens and like this speed to which you can recognize that and convert it and look for opportunity. That's when you master the Rockefeller law. That's what it's all about, the longer time it takes, the more doubt creeps in, Joe: Yeah. Mike: A more negative energy creeps in, the more victimhood creeps in. And the missed opportunities happened during that period. So you want to shrink that window to as little as short as possible because we all feel it. We're all going to still feel it when something bad happens at first, but recognize it as fast as possible and start to look for the opportunity, not play the victim role, take responsibility for everything. Joe: Yeah, that's great. OK, I want to honor the time we have that we so we're going to do an hour or so. I want to just go through this real quick. So you have your own podcast, which is what are you made of? Which is on the wall behind you, where you interview. I assume, you know, other entrepreneurs and people that have amazing stories to tell and share. You release one week, twice a week with a human. Mike: Well, it started out once a week and then I had so many that I was doing, I had to do two weeks. Right now we're on a two week schedule. Joe: Ok. Mike: So, yeah, I just load up. I go hard, man. Like, if I see somebody I want to show, I go after him like an animal. I get them on the show and I don't care how many I've already had in the can. I just still just keep loading them up Joe: That's awesome. Mike: And uh. Yeah. So. Joe: Ok, cool. Besides that, you are you do some performance coaching, correct? You do some coaching in general, you Mike: Yeah. Joe: Are doing some speaking. You're going to continue to to build that Mike: Yeah. Joe: That part of your career. You're going to be on stage with Grant one of these days. Mike: Well, yeah, but so the coaching part, I want to do, the coaching part of switching that into, you know, I still have a couple of clients, but really focusing on the tech side of things and developing these entrepreneurs and young entrepreneurs into this tech world and using my specialty performance and business coaching and what have you into that, not getting paid directly for it. But but from the companies that I'm developing, Joe: Yeah. Mike: I'm really focused on that. And then I was on a 10x growth stage this past March. Joe: Oh, congratulations. Mike: Let me tell you, it took me two years to step on that stage. Joe: Hey, Mike: Thank you. Joe: That's awesome. The tech thing is it is there more that you can tell us about it or a way that people can find out about it or a. Mike: Yes, so the best thing to do, really, I mean, if you if you message me and follow me on Instagram, you're going to see all kinds of stuff coming out here very shortly on it. But I have a tech product called Blueprinted. It's being printed. This is my the one I co-founded. And this product basically, I looked at digital training and video training and I saw, like, how ineffective Joe: Mm Mike: It was Joe: Hmm. Mike: And the fact that only 20 percent of people actually complete the courses. So that means the people that are marketing these courses that are good at marketing are making money without concern for the Joe: Correct, Mike: Success Joe: Yeah. Mike: Of their student, their clients. And I thought that was an ethical problem. And I looked at why people get bored. They don't finish it, they get distracted, they don't retain the information. Or when they get done, they're like, what's the next step? Like, what am I supposed to do? Where do I put that Joe: Mm Mike: And Joe: Hmm. Mike: Where where do I take that and how long do I do that? And so I thought to myself, what if there's a way to have a project management based software technology that has a marketplace where people that have had success can come in and algorithmically step by step, put the success steps to what they've done, whatever vertical, Joe: Mm Mike: And Joe: Hmm. Mike: Build that blueprint in our platform and then sell it on the marketplace to to people that want to know how to be successful in that area. So it could be anything from a business to a podcast to digital marketing agency, whatever it is. Because if you look if you're going to build a house, you wouldn't want to watch a YouTube video. And on building that house, Joe: All Mike: You'd want the blueprints. Joe: Right. Mike: So this is a market disrupter, industry disrupter. And I can also see another industry being created from this, like there's web designers when websites came out. Well, there's going to be a lot of people that don't want to build their own blueprints. They want to take the content and give it to somebody and have them do the blueprint for Joe: Mm Mike: Them. Joe: Hmm. Mike: So there's going to be a whole industry just on blueprints. And so, yeah, this is a phenomenal thing. And it's coming out hopefully in the next 60 days, give or take. And I'm just fired up to get it in people's hands, man. Joe: That's great, man. You got a lot of irons in the fire. I like Mike: Yeah, Joe: It. Mike: But Joe: That's Mike: Thank Joe: Awesome. Mike: You. Joe: All right. So I want everybody to go and check out your podcast. The book is released on May 3rd called Rocket Fuel. Get in touch with you on on any of the social media. What's the best way to get in touch with you Mike: Instagram, Joe: On. Mike: Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, either one, but Instagram, it's Michy Cerak. Joe: Like you see rock on Instagram. Mike: Yep. Joe: Perfect. All right, man, this is a pleasure for me. I love talking Mike: Metohija. Joe: To another person Mike: Yeah, buddy. Joe: And it was great. And I really wish you a ton of luck with the book. I'll make sure when this episode gets released, I'll have a cover of the book. This will also go like you do on your podcast, will go to the YouTube channel so people will Mike: Thank you Joe: Be able to Mike: To. Joe: See it. I'll put the link to the Amazon in there. Anything else I can do to help? Let me know. But it was a real pleasure to speak with you. I appreciate Mike: Well, Joe: Your time Mike: Thank Joe: And. Mike: You. Thank you, Joe, I appreciate it was a great interview. Great questions and I really enjoyed it. Joe: Thank you, ma'am. You take care. Good luck with the book. Good luck with the podcast. Good luck with the tech software and Mike: Thank Joe: Everything Mike: You. Joe: Else. And just have an amazing year. Mike: Thank you, you, too, bye. Joe: Thank you.
Show notes:Links:Mike MondragonCRDTShip of TheseusExceptional CreaturesShiba Inu Full Transcript:Ben:I'm just gonna dive on in there. I'm so eager. I'm so excited. It's actually weird because Starr is the one that typically starts us off. Josh:Yeah. I thought we were just going to start with our just general banter, and then not introduce the guest until 30 minutes later.Ben:By the way.Josh:It is also our tradition.Ben:Yeah. Well we're getting better at this thing.Josh:Where we say, "Oh, by the way, if Starr doesn't sound like Starr..."Ben:Right, yes. Today Starr doesn't sound like Starr because today's star is Mike Mondragon instead. Welcome Mike.Josh:Hey Mike.Mike:Hey.Ben:Mike is a long time friend of the show, and friend of the founders. Actually, Mike, how long have we known each other? It's been at least 10, maybe 15 years?Mike:Probably 2007 Seattle RB.Ben:Okay.Josh:Yeah. I was going to say you two have known each other much longer than I've even known Ben.Ben:Yeah.Josh:So you go back.Ben:Way back.Mike:Yep.Josh:Yeah.Ben:Yeah.Josh:Because I think Ben and I met in 2009.Ben:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Or something.Mike:Okay.Ben:Yeah, Mike and I have been hanging out for a long time.Mike:Yeah.Ben:We've known each other through many, many different jobs, and contracts, and so on. It's been awesome.Josh:Yeah, Mike, I feel like I've heard your name since... Yeah, for the last, at least, 10 years just working with Ben. You've always been in the background. And we've realized this is the first time we've actually met face to face, which is crazy. But it's great to... Yeah.Mike:Yeah.Josh:... have a face to put with the little... What is it, a cat avatar? Is a cat in your avatar? You've had that avatar for a really long time I feel like.Mike:Yeah, that's Wallace.Josh:Okay.Mike:So I'm Mond on GitHub and Twitter, and that cat avatar is our tuxedo cat, Wallace. And he is geriatric now. Hopefully he'll live another year. And if you remember in that era of Ruby, all of the Japanese Rubyists had cat icons. And so that was... I don't know. That's why Wallace is my icon.Josh:Yeah. Nice.Ben:So, so do Wallace and Goripav know each other?Mike:No, no, they don't. They're like best friends, right? They had to have met at Seattle RB.Ben:Yeah. Internet friends.Mike:Internet friends, yeah.Ben:Yeah. So, Mike is old school Ruby, way back, way back, yeah. But the other funny thing about the old Rubyists, all those Japanese Rubyists, I remember from RubyConf Denver... Was that 2007? Somewhere around there. I remember going to that and there were mats and a bunch of friends were sitting up at the front, and they all had these miniature laptops. I've never seen laptops so small. I don't know what they were, nine inch screens or something crazy.Mike:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Ben:I was like, "How do you even type on that thing?" But it's a thing. So I guess... I don't know. I haven't been to Japan.Mike:There are laptops that you could only get in Japan and they flash them with some sort of Linux probably.Ben:Yeah. Yeah.Mike:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Josh:Okay. I wonder how long it took them to compile C on there.Mike:Yeah. So, about the orbit with the founders. So, I think I'd put it in my notes that I... And I consider myself a sliver of a Honeybadger in that I did have a conversation with Ben about joining the company. And then in 2017, I did do a little contracting with you guys, which is ironic in that... So we're probably going to talk about cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin. So the Bitcoin protocol is, essentially, on a four-year timer. And in 2017 was the last time that we were building up to, I guess, an explosive end to that cycle. And I had just been working at Salesforce at Desk.com, And I left because of Bitcoin. And then this year, four years later, I, again, just left Salesforce, but I just left from Heroku. And I didn't leave so much because of Bitcoin, I just got a better opportunity, and I'm a principal engineer at Okta, and I'm in the developer experience working on SDKs, primarily, the Golang SDK.Mike:So I think one of the things that they were happy about was that I had experience carrying the pager, and knowing what that's like, and they wanted to have an experienced engineer that would have empathy for the engineers to main the SDK. So I'm really excited to be here, because I'm not going to be carrying the pager, and it is the fun programming. What I imagine, listening to the founders, about the kind of fun programming that you guys get to do, working with different languages and whatnot. So, obviously right now, I'm starting out with Golang. We don't have a Ruby SDK, because OmniAuth provider is the thing that most people use. But, there's also PHP, and some Java, so I'm just looking forward to being able to do a bunch of different languages.Josh:Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. We don't know anything about SDK teams, Honeybadger. But yeah, it sounds like we have very similar jobs at the moment. So that's cool. We'll have to trade tips at some point. Yeah.Ben:Yeah, I'm excited that you're there, because I'm definitely going to hit you up on the SAML stuff, because SAML's a pain in the tuchus yeah, I'm sure you'll have some insights from your time there.Mike:Well, that was how I was even open-minded to talking to Okta, was the recruiter had contacted me and I think actually it was the recruiter... I don't know the structure of how this works, but a lot of companies have a prospecting recruiter. And I think that a veteran oriented prospecting recruiter contacted me. And so being a veteran, I'll usually entertain those cold calls. And so then when I was at Desk, I wrote... So Desk was a big Rails monolith. I wrote a microservice to break some of the SSO off of the monolith itself. And in writing the API documentation that was on desk.com, I actually used Okta as one of the examples as a SSO identity provider using SAML. So yeah, I have had a little bit of experience from the outside of Okta with SAML. And so maybe I'll have more experience here to answer your questions.Ben:Yeah. We'll have to have you back and we can just do a whole hour on that. It's a fun world.Josh:After we do an hour on SDKs.Ben:Yeah, and your code that you wrote for us still lives on in Honeybadger.Josh:Yeah. Was it the webpack? That was some of the work, right?Ben:Some of it, yeah.Mike:Yep.Josh:Yeah.Ben:And some GitHub integration work.Josh:And the integrations, yeah.Mike:Yeah, well if I remember correctly with the GitHub integration, I did do some GitHub integration, and it tickled your enthusiasm, Ben, and then I think you went in and like refactored that a little bit.Ben:Well, if you have a monolith like Redo that's been around for as long as ours has, things don't... It's like, what was that Theseus' ship, it's goes around the world but you replace things as it goes, and it's never the same app, right?Mike:Yeah, that's the thing, we had discussed this in the prelude around just software engineering in general and how hard it is to maintain a monolith, especially as a company grows and as developers come rolling into a project, you get all of these... Over time you get engineers with different goals, different techniques, different styles of touching your code base, to the point that it becomes very hard to maintain a project. And I think, I don't know if we're going to talk about Heroku at all, but I think that Heroku suffers from a little bit of that, where there's very few original Heroku that are involved in the runtime at least. And I just came from being on the runtime in the control plane. And, definitely, the code base there is... There's maybe one or two people that are still around that have touched that code base from the beginning.Ben:Yeah, let's dive into that, because that's fascinating to me. I know that there's been chatter on Twitter recently that people feel that Heroku is stagnated. That they haven't really brought a lot of innovative stuff to market recently. I remember, actually a funny story, I'm going to tell it myself. I can't remember what year this was, it were way... I don't know, I don't know, early 2000s. I was sitting as part of a focus group, and I can't reveal a lot of information because secrecy and stuff. But anyway, I was part of this focus group and I was asked as part of this group, what as a developer working on Ruby applications and Rails applications, what I thought about this new thing called Heroku. And had it explained to me, "Oh, you just get push", and "Blah, blah, blah", and I poo-pooed the idea. I was like, "Nah, I'm not interested", because I already know how to deploy stuff. I've got Mongrel, I got a DVS.Josh:Say Mongrel.Ben:I know how to use SEP, why do I need this? Like Math, never going to catch on. And so don't follow me for investing advice.Mike:Yeah, totally.Josh:I got my Linodes.Mike:Yeah. Or even back then, I wrote all of my own chef, so I got my own recipes I can-Ben:Right, exactly.Mike:... bare metal at will.Ben:Exactly. So, what do you think, you've been at Heroku, you've seen this process of people having to maintain this code base over a long period of time. What are some tips for people who might be a little earlier on the process? Looking down the road, what do you suggest people think about for having a more maintainable application?Mike:That's interesting. I really think that there is not one size fits all, and actually some of the things that are specific to Heroku, and actually to desk.com when I was there previously, that some of the issues actually stem from Salesforce culture and the way that Salesforce manages its businesses. And so, I guess the thing that I've always liked about Rails, specifically, is that the conventions that are used in Rails, you can drop an experienced Rails developer pretty much into any Rails app and they're going to know the basic conventions. And that saves you so much time to ramping up and bringing your experience into a project. Whereas when you get into bespoke software, then you run into well what were the architectural design patterns 10 years ago compared to now? How much drift has there been in libraries and the language, depending.Mike:And so that is... I don't... That's a very hard question to nail down in a specific way. I would just say in spit balling this, conventions are very important, I would say. So as long as you have a conventions using a framework, then I think that you'll get to go a long ways. However, if you start to use a framework, then you get the everything is a nail and I'm going to use my hammer framework on that. Which is its own thing that I've seen in Ruby, where if you start a project with Rails, I don't think everybody realizes this, but you are essentially going to be doing a type of software development that is in the mindset of Basecamp, right? And if you have an app that is not quite like Basecamp, and then you start to try to extending Rails to do something different, then you're going to start running into issues. And I think that... It makes me sad when I hear people talk poorly about Rails, because oftentimes people are just pushing it into a direction that it's not built to do. Whether they're, like in the old days, like monkey-patching libraries, or whatnot.Ben:Yeah, I think we saw that with the rise of Elixir and Phoenix, right? José just got frustrated with wanting to do some real time stuff. And that really wasn't the wheelhouse for Rails, right? And so he went and built Elixir and Phoenix, and built on top of that. And that became a better hammer for that particular nail than Rails, right? So now if you come into a new project and you're like, "Well, I'm going to do a lot of highly concurrent stuff", well, okay, maybe Rails isn't the best solution. Maybe you should go look at Elixir and Phoenix instead.Mike:Yeah. Yeah. So, with Heroku, I just want to say that it was so awesome to work at Heroku, and the day that I got a job offer to work there, it was like... I still, if I'm having a bad day, I still think about that, and the... I've never used hard drugs, but I would think that somebody that was cocaine high, that's probably what I was feeling when I got the offer from Heroku. I started using Heroku in 2009, and it has a story within our community, it's highly respected. And so I just want to say that I still think very highly of Heroku, and if I was to be doing just a throwaway project, and I just want to write some code and do git push main, or git push Heroku main, then I would definitely do that.Mike:And we were... And I'm not very experienced with the other kinds of competitors right now. I think, like you pointed him out, is it Vercel and Render?Ben:Render. Mm-hmm (affirmative).Mike:Yeah. So I can't really speak to them. I can really just speak to Heroku and some of the very specific things that go on there. I think one of the issues that Heroku suffers from is not the technology itself, but just the Salesforce environment. Because at Salesforce, everything eventually has to be blue, right? And so, Heroku, I don't think they ever could really figure out the right thing to do with Heroku. As well as, the other thing about enterprise software is that if I'm selling Salesforce service cloud or whatever, I'm selling, essentially, I'm selling seats of software licenses. And there's no big margin in selling Compute, because if I'm buying Compute, I expect to be using that.Mike:And so, as a salesperson, I'm not incented to sell Heroku that much because there's just not margins for me in the incentive structure that they have at sales within Salesforce. So I think that's the biggest thing that Heroku has going against it, is that it's living in a Salesforce environment. And as, I guess, a owner of Salesforce being that I have Salesforce stock, I would hope that they would maximize their profits and actually sell Heroku. Who knows, maybe a bunch of developers get together and actually buy the brand and spin that off. That would be the best thing, because I think that Salesforce would probably realize a lot more value out of Heroku just by doing that, even if there's some sort of profit sharing, and then not have to deal with all the other things.Ben:Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah. The thing about billing, and then selling per user, versus the compute- That's definitely a different world. It's a totally different mindset. And I think Josh that we have now been given a directive step. We should acquire Heroku as part of Honeybadger.Josh:I was going to say, maybe we can acquire it with all of our Doge profits in five or 10 years from now.Mike:Well, yeah. Somebody spin a Heroku coin, a ERC20 token on Ethereum and get everybody to dump their Ethereum into this token.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Mike:Get that pot of money together. And then that is the Heroku Foundation. Yeah, exactly.Josh:Okay, yeah.Mike:The Heroku Foundation that buys the Heroku brand. I know that we're laughing about it, but actually this is what is possible today. And, I was telling Ben... Well, let me just say a couple of things about the FounderQuest and how it relates to me, is I've been listening to FounderQuest from the first episode, and I'm an only child, and I like to listen to podcasts. So I'll be on my afternoon walk, and I'll be hearing you guys talk, and I'm having this conversation along with you guys listening to the podcasts.Mike:And so, I think, in January, you guys were talking about, or maybe Ben was talking about, $30,000 Bitcoin, and you guys just had your yucks and laughs about it. And it actually made me think critically about this, because I've been involved with Bitcoin since about 2012, and it's like, "Do I have a tinfoil hat on?" Or what do I think? And so, I'm not joking about this, listening to you guys actually has helped me concretely come up with how I feel about this. And first off, I think, I'm bullish on technology. And this is the first epiphany that I had, is all of us have had a career close to Linux, close to Ruby, building backend services, close to virtualization and orchestration. Fortunately, that's been my interest, and fortunately that's been where our industry has gone. And so, when Bitcoin came out, as technologists, all you ever hear, if you don't know anything about Bitcoin, you just hear currency. And you're thinking internet money, you're not thinking about this as a technologist.Mike:And so that was the thing. I wish that Bitcoin had been talked about as a platform, or a framework.Josh:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Mike:And not even called it coin. Because that confuses the issue-Josh:The whole coin thing, just... Yeah.Mike:Yeah, totally. And mining the metaphors-Josh:That alone.Mike:... just totally throws everything off. Because we are talking, we're laughing about it, but this is really possible today. We could come up with a Foundation to buy Heroku with a cryptocurrency, and it would... Yeah. So that's one thing that Ben helped me realize in my thinking around Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. And I think I'm just bullish on technology. And so to me, again, across our career, there's been so much change. And why would we look at Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies any differently than any other kind of technology? Even a hundred dollar bill with all the holograms on it, that is a kind of financial technology. And so we're just talking about a digital technology, we're not talking about coins I guess.Josh:That's the appeal, a lot of the Altcoins, right? They give everyone a way to invest in those companies, whereas before you would have to... Whatever, be an accredited investor or something to be able to get involved. Is that part of the appeal? I'm probably showing what I know about crypto, which is very little, but I'm excited to... Yeah, maybe you can...Mike:Yeah. Yeah, so I feel like these projects are... I'm not a VC, and I'm not an insider, but from what I can see from afar, in Silicon Valley there's a close group of people that have access to all of these ideas. And there's Angel clubs, and VC clubs, and whatnot, that are funding these startups. And to me, I feel like these crypto projects are the same kind of thing, except for they're just available to the public. And so, I think if I was speaking to another technologist that was interested in cryptocurrencies, is you probably need to get your hands on some of the technology in order to get experience with it.Mike:And so if that means you figure out how to maybe mine some coin on your laptop, or whatever, or you actually pay for it, you should at least have some in your possession, and at least learn about the custodial part of it. Also, there's different software libraries now to actually do programming against it, and platforms, I believe. So that'd be another way to at least tickle your curiosity, is by actually touching the technology and not thinking about the value. So yeah.Ben:Yeah. That, to me, that's one of the most interesting things about the whole coin thing. My younger son is really interested in the crypto space, in the coin and in the other parts of a distributed ledger, and what does that mean, and how does that work? And before I heard about NFTs, he was talking about NFTs. And so it's really interesting to me to see this coming from him. Just yesterday, we had a conversation about CRDTs, right? Because we're talking about how do you merge transactions that are happening in distributed fashion? Right? I was like, "Oh yeah", and it's so weird to have my teenage sons' world colliding with my world in this way.Josh:Yeah.Ben:But it's a lot of fun. And I've got to say, Mike, I got to give you back some credit, talking about the whole coin thing. As you've heard, we're pretty coin skeptical here at Honeybadger, the Founders, but you made a comment in our pre-show conversation. And maybe you didn't make this explicitly, but maybe it's just a way that I heard it. But I think... Well what I heard was, and maybe you actually said this, was basically think about this like an index fund, right? You put dollar cost to averaging, right? You put some money into coin, you put a little bit, it's not going to be your whole portfolio, right? But you don't treat it like a gamble, and you just treat it like an investment, like you would other things that may appreciate in value. And of course you may not.Ben:And so, as a result, I decided, "Okay, I can do that. I can put a little bit of my portfolio into coins". So just this week, and this is the funny part, just this week-Josh:I'm just finding this out now, by the way.Ben:Yeah, yeah. Josh is like... I told my wife about this last night and she was like, "What's Josh going to say?" "Like, I don't know". So anyway, just this week I put a little bit of money into Bitcoin and Ethereum. And that was... When did Elon do his thing about Bitcoin? Was that Thursday morning?Josh:Oh yeah.Ben:I bought, two hours before Elon did his thing, and Bitcoin lost 15% of its value.Mike:That's awesome.Ben:I'm like, "It's okay. It's okay, I'm just putting-Josh:Yeah, you don't sell, it doesn't matter.Mike:What was your emotion? What was your emotion?Ben:Yeah, totally. Yeah. In fact, my first buy, I used Coinbase. And Coinbase was like, "Oh, do you want to do this periodically?" I'm like, "Yes, I do. Every month". Boom.Mike:Oh.Ben:I went ahead and set that up like so, yeah.Mike:Oh, I did not know you could do that.Ben:I'm in it to win it, man.Mike:You should get a hardware wallet. That's the next thing, is you need to learn how to handle your own custody, so-Josh:Right, yeah. You got to... Yeah.Mike:Not leave it on the exchange. Interesting.Josh:Get those hard drives.Mike:Yeah.Josh:Yeah. Ben's a veteran indexer though. So you can handle some dips. Some volatility.Ben:Yeah. Yeah.Josh:I actually, I did make some money off of Bitcoin back in the day, and probably if I would've just held onto it, I would've made a lot more, of course.Mike:Same.Josh:So I accidentally... Back, I don't know when this was, it was maybe five years ago or something, when Bitcoin was going through one of its first early hype cycles, and I was like, "I'll check it". I was learning about it, of course. And so I went and bought some and I think I ran a blockchain Elixir app that someone made, to see how the transactions work and stuff. Read some books on Bitcoin. But I bought some Bitcoin, I can't remember how much, but just left it. I think this was after Coinbase had launched, I'm pretty sure I bought it through Coinbase. But yeah, I just left it, and then that was when it was in the first huge push of Bitcoin where it went up to 20,000 or something. And I remembered that I had it, and I went and looked and oh yeah, I made five grand or something. I put hardly anything into it initially. So I forget what I actually bought with that money. I just sold it and it's like cool, free money.Mike:So you just sold it this year? Or you sold it...Josh:No, I sold it back-Mike:In 17?Josh:I think I sold it at 20... Yeah, this would have been at 17 that I actually sold it, probably.Mike:Did you report it on your taxes, your capital gains?Josh:I did, yes. Yeah, I did.Ben:That's the benefit of having an accountant, because your accountant reminds you, "You know what? You did have some Bitcoin transactions, you should probably look at those".Josh:Can I say on here that I actually put some of it through a Bitcoin tumbler though, just to see how those work?Mike:Yeah, I mean...Josh:And that was a very small amount of money, but I didn't actually report that on my taxes. Because I think I actually forgot where it was or something.Ben:You'll have to explain what a Bitcoin tumbler is.Josh:So a Bitcoin tumbler... Well, I'll try, and then maybe Mike might explain it better, but a Bitcoin tumbler is basically how you anonymize your Bitcoin transaction. If you have some Bitcoin and you want to buy some drugs on the dark web or something, you go and you send your Bitcoin to this tumbler, and then it distributes it to a bunch of random Bitcoin addresses that it gives you. And then you have those addresses, and they're anonymized, because they've been sent through a bunch of peoples' wallets, or something like that.Mike:Yep. That's basically it.Ben:So it's basically money laundering.Josh:Yeah, it's laundering.Mike:Yeah. But if your privacy... I mean, okay-Josh:Yeah, no, I get it. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Because part of the appeal of Bitcoin is some people are just like, "Oh yeah, good money, credit card transactions are so... The governments are recording them and stuff, the NSA probably has a database of them". So Bitcoin is anonymous, but it's not. It's not anonymous. And yeah. So that's why people do this, right?Mike:Yeah. Well that, to me, that's if you want to... So the value of Bitcoin, if you want to get bullish on the value of Bitcoin, the traditional outlook is yeah, the silk road was going on and there's all this illegal stuff going on. Therefore it must be bad. But actually, to me, that's the thing, you know it's good if there's illicit stuff going on, because what's the number one currency that's used right now for illicit transactions? It's dirty US dollar bills. And if you're a drug dealer in central South America, you are collecting, dollar bills United States. You're paying some sort of transport probably at 10, 15% cost to get those dollars back to wherever you're going to hold them. And so, if you're using Bitcoin, you're probably not going to pay that fee. So, to me, it's like okay, that actually proves, at least in my mind, that there is value. That it's being used, right?Josh:Yeah. And you also, you don't want to see... Some people are fanatics about cash going away, even just because as more people move to digital transactions, whether it's just through, whatever, traditional networks, or through crypto. People are using less and less cash. And I feel like, whatever... Like Richard Stallman, he pays for everything in cash though, because he thinks that cash is going to go away someday. And that's a problem for privacy, because you do want a way to pay for things in private in some cases.Mike:Yep. I agree.Josh:Yeah.Ben:My only real beef with Bitcoin, well, aside from the whole requiring power plants just to do a transaction, is that there is Badger coin. This company that is named Honeybadger, it's all about Bitcoin. And they have these ATM's in Canada, and we constantly get support requests from people.Mike:Oh really?Josh:Is this the reason that we've been so down on cryptocurrencies in the past?Ben:I think so.Josh:Because ever since the beginning, since people started making coins, Badger coin came out and then it's been our primary exposure to be honest.Ben:It has been, yeah.Josh:Throughout the past... I don't know how many years it's been. Has it been six-Ben:Yeah, six-Josh:... to eight years?Ben:Yeah, something like that. It's been nuts.Josh:I'd say.Mike:You should send them an invoice, and they actually-Ben:Yeah, so what happens is they had these kiosks where you can buy Bitcoin, right? You put your real money in, and you get your fake money out, right? And the name on the top of the kiosk is Honeybadger. So, someone puts in some money, real money, and they don't get their fake money, then all of a sudden they're upset, right?Mike:Yeah.Ben:And so they... For whatever reason, it doesn't go through, right, I don't know how this works, I've never bought Bitcoin at a kiosk. But so, they're like, "Okay, Honeybadger". And so they Google Honeybadger, and the first result for Honeybadger is us. And so they're like, "Oh, here's a phone number I can call". And they call us. And they're like, "Where's my Bitcoin?" That's like, "Uh, I really can't help you with that".Josh:They do.Ben:"You stole my Bitcoin". It's like, "No, that's not us".Josh:Something just occurred to me. I wonder how many of them are just confused over the fact that Bitcoin transactions can take a while to arrive now, right? It's not always instantaneous, where it used to be a lot faster, but now I know that it can take a while to clear. So I wonder how many of those people are emailing us in the span... Maybe that's why they eventually always go away and we don't hear from them again. Maybe it's not that they're getting help, but it's just that their Bitcoins are arriving. Yeah. I have a feeling that there's some sort of... I'm guessing these are mostly regular normies using, and interacting with this very highly technical product and experience, and even if you're walking up to a kiosk, but there's still a highly technical aspect of it that, like you said Mike, people are thinking coin, they're thinking... The way this maps to their brain is it's like dollar bills. So they're looking at it like an ATM. Yep.Mike:Yeah. When it comes to cryptocurrency and the technology, I don't want to have to think about custody, or any of that other kinds of stuff. It'll be successful when it just is happening, I'm not thinking about it. They're already... In some... I don't know all of the different mobile devices, but I do carry out an iPhone. And so, the wallet on iPhone is pretty seamless now, right? And so I'm not thinking about how that technology is working. I had to associate an Amex with it originally, right? But once I've done that, then all I do is click my button to pay. And there you go. And so I do think that the cryptocurrency technology has a long way to go towards that, because if normal people, the non nerds, have to think about it, then it's not going to be useful. Because in the end-Josh:Yeah.Mike:... humans use tools, right? And so, whatever the tool is, they're going to use it especially if it's easy and it makes their life easier.Ben:So what I really want to know, Mike, is what are your feelings about Dogecoin? Are you bullish on Doge?Mike:Well, I'll answer that, but I wanted to come back to the bit about the NFT, and just talking about the possibilities with technology. And I think that you guys could profit from this.Ben:I like where it's going.Mike:You'll have to do some more research. But I think what you could do... See, I love the origin story of Honeybadger. And maybe not everybody knows about the Honeybadger meme from what is... When was this, two thousand...Ben:2012? 2011?Mike:Yeah, okay. So not everybody... Yeah, bot everybody knows about the meme. I guess, just go Google-Ben:I can link it in the show notes.Josh:It's long dead. This meme is long dead.Mike:Is it? Well it's still awesome. I still love it.Josh:It is.Mike:So, there's so many facets of this that I love. The first one is that... Can I name names on competitors-Ben:Of course.Mike:... in the origins? Okay. So the first one was is that Airbrake, an exception reporting service, was doing a poor job with their customer service. And you guys were like, "We're working on this project, we need exception reporting. It's not working". It's like, "Well, can we just take their library, and build our own backend?" Right? And to me, that is beautiful. And in thinking about this episode, in Heroku, the same opportunity lies for an aspiring developer out there where you could just take the Heroku CLI and point it at your own false backend until you figure out all of the API calls that happen. And I don't know, you have that backed by Kubernetes, or whatever orchestration framework is...Mike:There is the possibility that you could do the same Honeybadger story with Airbrake SDK, as there is with the Heroku CLI. So that's the first thing I love about the Honeybadger story, and the fact the name goes along with the fact that Airbrake had poor customer support, and you guys just were like, "F it, we're going to build our own exception reporting service". Now, in the modern context with NFTs is... I have old man experience with the NFTs in that GIFs, or GIFs, and JPEGs, this is BS that people are gouging for profit. However, the technology of the NFT... This is the thing that I think is beautiful, is that... And I'm not sure which of the NFTs does this, but there is the possibility that you could be the originator of a digital object, and then you sell that digital object. And then as that digital object is traded, then you, as the, I guess, the original creator, you can get a percentage of the sales for the lifetime of that digital asset.Ben:Yeah.Mike:And, I'm not sure which of the NFTs allows that, but that is one of the things, that's one of the value propositions in NFT. So what I was thinking is if you guys did an NFT on the shaw of the original Honeybadger Ruby SDK check-in, that this could be the thing that you guys have an experiment with, is you have real skin in the game, you're playing with the technology and see if that works. And, let me know if you do that, because I might try to buy it. So, we'll see.Josh:Well, we've already got a buyer, why wouldn't we?Mike:Yeah, so..Ben:Indeed, yeah.Josh:See I was thinking maybe you could own various errors or something in Honeybadger.Mike:Yeah, I mean... Whatever digital signature you want to... Whatever you want to sign, and then assign value to.Josh:Yeah, we could NFT our Exceptional Creatures.Mike:Yeah.Josh:Have you seen that, Mike? Have you seen that project?Mike:Yep, yep.Josh:Okay.Mike:I'm well aware of that. Yep.Ben:Yeah. I'm thinking what about open source maintainers, right? Let's say you have this project and someone really wants a particular feature, right? Or they're really happy about a particular feature that you've already done, right? You can sell them that shaw, that commit, that put it into name, right?Mike:Yeah, totally.Ben:You are the proud owner of this feature. Thank you.Mike:Yeah, totally. Yeah, I was hoping that I would come with some ideas. I hope someday in the future that I run into somebody and it's like, "Oh, we heard that podcasts were where ideas were free ideas that were worth a lot of money were thrown about. And I did this project, and now I'm retired. Thank you, Mike". Honeybadgers.Josh:Wait, so Ben are you saying that, so as a committer, so say I commit something to Rails, submit a PR, so then I own that PR once it's merged and it would be like I could sell that then to someone? Is that along the lines of what you're saying?Ben:No, I'm thinking the owner of the project. So, if you commit something to Rails, and you're really excited about it, and you for some reason want to have a trophy of that commit-Josh:Right.Ben:... on a plaque on the wall, right? Then the Rails core group could sell you that token.Josh:Okay. Gotcha.Ben:That trophy, that certificate, like, "Yep. This is your thing. Commissioned by..." It's like naming a star, right?Josh:Yeah.Ben:You buy the rights to a star, and it's fake stuff, right? We're naming stars. But that's the same idea.Josh:Yeah. So you could use that same idea to incentivize open-source contribution. So if you make the PR to Rails and it gets merged, you get this NFT for the PR merge, which you could then actually profit for if it was... Say it was, I don't know, turbo links or something, whatever. Years later, when it's a huge thing and everyone in Rails is using it, maybe Mike's going to come along and be like, "Hey, I'll buy... I want to own the PR for turbo links".Ben:Right.Josh:Yeah. And of course then, you, as the owner, would also profit from any sale between parties later on too. You'd get that little percentage.Mike:Yeah. Well, so when somebody comes up with committer coin, just remember me, I want to airdrop of some committer coin.Josh:We have a name. We've got a name for it. Commit coin.Ben:I've got a new weekend project ahead of me.Mike:Yeah.Josh:Cool. Well, that helps me understand NFTs.Ben:Yeah, I really like the idea of being able to sell ownership rights to a digital asset. That I think a good idea. I don't know that the current implementation that we see on the news is a great implementation of that idea. Buying the rights for a copy of a JPEG, it feels kind of sketchy to me. But maybe there's some sort of, I don't know, PDF document that has some sort of value for some reason. And you can give that, sell that to someone. And to me, it's not so much about the profit, or the transaction, it's the ownership. You can say I am the owner of this thing. Yeah, there can be copies all over the place, but I'm the person that has the ownership, quote unquote, of this thing.Josh:Yeah, yeah. But then you've got to define value Ben. What is value? Okay, so, what makes a PDF more valuable than a JPEG?Mike:Yeah. Yeah. Bring this back to Dogecoin, and value propositions, and whatnot. What is valuable? When you're talking about the value of a JPEG, this reminded me of a conversation I was having with my son. He's 10 years old and he wanted some money to buy, I don't know what it was, and old man voice came out of me and it's like, "That's BS. I don't think that's valuable". And he looked at me and he was like, "It's valuable to me". And it's like, "Oh, you just put a dagger in my heart. I'm killing your dream". And one person's value may not be another person's value. So, on the Dogecoin, that's interesting. Dogecoin is very interesting to me, because I feel like I'm in a quantum state with a Dogecoin where it is a joke, but at the same time it apparently it has value.Mike:And I don't know where I stand on that threshold. I know how to trade Dogecoin. And I know the behavior of Dogecoin, and the behaviors, from a trading standpoint, has changed substantially in the last six months. Before it was a pump and dump kind of thing. Well, actually, you know what? When Dogecoin was first created, its purpose was highlighted by the community. People in podcast land don't realize this, but I'm wearing a 2017 Dogecoin shirt from when the Dogecoin community sponsored the number 98 NASCAR. And the thing of the community was like, "Oh, we have all this money, and we're just being altruistic and we're giving it away". And so they were exercising their belief with this currency, right?Mike:And from then, till now, there was a bit of a cycle to Dogecoin where you could, if you acquired Dogecoin for say under a hundred Satoshis, this is the Dogecoin BTC pair, that was actually a good buy. Just wait for the next pump when somebody does something, and Dogecoin goes over 200, or 300 Satoshis, and then you dump it. And that's basically what I did on this in the last six months. I had a small bag of Dogecoin waiting for the next pump and dump. And I actually did that, but it kept on getting pumped, and then it would stabilize. And then now we're at the point where apparently Elon Musk and Mark Cuban are saying that there's value to it.Mike:And to me, I actually put a lot of credence to that, because these are two public persons that they cannot... If they're pumping things in the public domain, then they have risk, right? And so you can't be those two people, and be pumping, and not run the risk of the FTC of the United States government coming in and saying, "Hey, why were you doing this?" So there's the, I guess for me, a small bit of a guarantee that maybe there is something to Dogecoin.Josh:Yeah. See, the way I think, when you first started you were saying it is a joke, but you're in this dual state, and my initial or immediate thought was it is a joke, but this is the internet, and the internet loves to make silly things real.Mike:Yeah, yeah.Josh:Especially these days.Ben:Yeah. It's pretty funny for all those people that made a bunch of money on GameStop, right? Yeah.Mike:Yeah. Well that's the thing, is in Dogecoin, Doge is, of itself, from a meme from the same time period as Honeybadger, right? The Iba Shinu doggie, right? So, the other thing I don't understand, or the thing that I understand but I don't know how to quantify it for myself, is that, to me... So there's no pre-mine on Dogecoin. There's no one person that owns a lot of Dogecoin from the beginning. Whereas if we're talking about Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, the founder, or one of the founders of Ethereum, they pre-mined Ethereum, and there's a ton of Ethereum that's owned by the founders. Whereas you compare that to, say, Litecoin, Charlie Lee cloned Bitcoin and created Litecoin. He sold all of his Litecoin. I believed in him when he said he's sold it all. He's a software engineer, just like us. He was Director of Engineering at Coinbase.Mike:He doesn't seem like he's wearing tinfoil hat out there, doing conspiracies. So when he says that he sold his coin in 2017, all of his Litecoin, I totally believe that. Yet today, he is the chairperson of the Litecoin foundation. And so, to me... I actually do have, I placed some value in the benevolence of Litecoin and Dogecoin, because there's not any one person that actually controls it. I guess Charlie Lee, he probably has a stronger voice than most. But he doesn't control the levers.Josh:Not financially.Mike:Yeah.Josh:Yeah.Mike:Yeah. And so then with Dogecoin... So Dogecoin, it'll be awesome if it gets above a dollar, but the structure of Dogecoin will be such as they cannot maintain that.Josh:Right.Mike:Because it's an inflation-Josh:There's no cap, right?Mike:Right.Josh:Yeah.Mike:It's inflation. And so, I don't know the number, I think it's a million Dogecoin are minted every day. So, 10 years from now, if Dogecoin is worth a dollar still, then that means Bitcoin will be worth a lot more than that. So I guess that'd be awesome if Dogecoin stays a dollar. However, the point I'm trying to make is actually there is value in having an inflationary currency, especially if we're talking about living in the structure of our current financial... The way that our current financial markets work, where there is an inflation.Mike:And so if I want to be transacting with a digital currency, I don't want to have to be, say, like having an Argentina kind of moment where my one Dogecoin is worth $5 American today, and then maybe only $3 American a week from now. So to me, I think there is value in Dogecoin in that it's inflationary, and that it will not be as susceptible to speculation bubbles as other currencies. And so, I don't know if that answers your questions on the value of Dogecoin, but those are a couple of reasons why I think that Dogecoin is valuable. Now, am I going to be holding a big bag of Dogecoin in 2022? Probably not. Just to be honest.Ben:We're all about honesty at Honeybadger. I love the episodes where we have to have a disclaimer, this is not financial advice. Please consult competent professionals before investing, et cetera, et cetera. Mike, it has been a delight to have you with us. We appreciate your counterbalance to our coin pessimism that we have amongst the Honeybadger fan base.Josh:Yeah, I think we needed this.Ben:Yeah.Josh:We really needed this.Ben:We really did.Josh:So thank you.Ben:It's been good.Mike:Yeah. Oh, I got one more idea out there. Hopefully, somebody can run with this, is I've been trying to get motivated to do some experimentation with the Bitcoin lightning network. We didn't really talk about these a layer two solutions for scaling, but I think that there is a lot of potential in coming up with an interesting project that lays within the Litecoin* network, it has its value in and of itself, but there's a secondary value of being a note on the Litecoin* network where if there's transactions going through your node, let's say, I don't know how you'd instrument this, but let's say that Honeybadger actually was... That you guys were taking your payments across your own lightning node, then all of the transactions that are going across the lightning network, you're getting a small fee, right? So I think that there's the possibility of a micropayments kind of play there, like for instance, paying by the exception. I mean, literally-*Editor's note from Mike - "in my excitement talking about the Lighting Network I slipped and said Litecoin a couple of times between Lightning Network. Lightning Network is a layer 2 protocol that is primarily intended for scaling Bitcoin and that was what I meant. However, Lightning can be implemented to run on top of Litecoin and Ethereum."Josh:That has come up that has come up in the past, I think at one point.Mike:You can't do micro payments on a credit card.Josh:Yeah.Mike:Right? But you can do micropayments on lightening network. And I'm not selling you guys on this, but I'm saying that there's going to be some nerd out there that it's like, "Oh my God micropayments are here, I can do micropayments on lighting network". And then they're going to do well on that product, but then they're also going to do well on the commission that they're earning on payments going through their node.Josh:This could be used for usage base software as a service billing model.Ben:Totally. And then you get the skim off the top, just like a good affiliate does.Mike:Yes.Ben:I love it.Mike:Yes.Ben:I love it. All right. All right, Mike, we're going to have to do some scheming together. Well, any final words, any parting words besides go by all the Dogecoin that you can?Mike:Yeah. Don't put all your money into the cryptocurrencies. Yeah.Josh:Seems like good advice.Ben:Be smart
What do Archie, Biblical Apocalypse fiction, and Erik Estrada all have in common? It turns out each of these appeared in stories published by Spire Christian Comics. Join us as we journey through history to learn about and cringe at one of the craziest publishers to come out of the 1970s. ----more---- Episode 6 Transcription [00:00:00] Jessika: Yeah. How are you going to display your deceased cult leader's body if you don't have a Tik Tok? Welcome to Ten Cent Takes, the podcast where we predict the coming of the end of days. One issue at a time. My name is Jessika Frazer and I am joined by my cohost, the savior of sweets, Mike Thompson. Mike: Eeeeeey. Jessika: The purpose of our podcast is to study comic books in ways that are both fun and informative. We want to look at their coolest, weirdest and silliest moments, as well as examine how they're woven into the larger fabric of pop culture and history. Today, we're taking a turn for the religious as we look at Spire Christian Comics. We'll look at the [00:01:00] history behind the publication, the comics and the books they were based upon and discuss how Archie played a role in trying to educate the youths about Jesus. Mike: What. Jessika: Yeah, that's happening. Okay. I know we say this every week, but this was once again a rabbit hole filled episode. So buckle up, friends. Mike: It's almost like we're developing a theme. Jessika: Oh no. Yes. I like it though. Mike: They're worse themes to have. Jessika: There are. There are. Before we get to our main topic and the one cool thing we've read and talked about lately, let's call upon the fact that it is May 4th and May the Fourth be with you, Mike. Mike: And May the Fourth be with you. Jessika: Well, I thank you. For the record: Let it be known that I am wearing an R2D2 printed dress and I have Leia buns. So I am dressed appropriately and I saw that your household was also celebrating. [00:02:00] Mike: Yeah. We festooned everything, but we didn't have any Star Wars outfits to wear, unfortunately. So we just threw up Star Wars comics around the household in front of our Vader poster and other things that we have. But I have a couple of the really old Dark Horse comics that I absolutely love and adore. Jessika: That's so fun. I love it. Well, we like to do something each week called One Cool Thing You've Read or Watched Lately. Mike, why don't you start us off? Mike: Sure. So this weekend I wound up reading through DC’s Doomsday Clock collection on Hoopla. It's basically the official comic book sequel to Watchmen. It finally delivers the payoff that DC set up back in 2017 when they revealed Dr. Manhattan was involved in the creation of both the New 52 and Rebirth universes. Have you read Watchman? Jessika: I haven’t read it, no. Mike: Okay. It's one of those iconic series that everybody loves to talk about. [00:03:00] And to be honest, it's one that I never really enjoyed because I felt that I had a pretty nihilistic tone. But I've read it. I appreciate what it did for comics in the era. It was interesting. I read this and I actually was pretty sour at the start, mainly because I wasn't sure that I liked the story because again, it felt pretty nihilistic and ugly. That said, I actually really enjoyed the way that everything paid off at the end. Primarily the idea that there's now a quote unquote metaverse in the DC continuity, which feels like honestly the best response to all the different universe resets that they've been doing since the 80s it wound up being hopeful with a surprisingly sweet ending. I mean, it's not as good as the HBO series that came out around the same time, but it's pretty damn good. How about you? Jessika: I recently purchased the comic book Fangs by Sarah Anderson. Mike: I haven’t heard of this. Jessika: [00:04:00] it's super adorable. It's about the unfolding relationship of a vampire and a werewolf and how they relate. And co-exist in random life situations. Yeah. Like the werewolf eating garlic and going to kiss the vampire. And she has a reaction to it. Mike: That’s really cute, actually. Jessika: Yeah. Or their inability to take a selfie together because she doesn't show up on camera. So all of his friends are asking , we haven't ever seen your girlfriend before. Like, why can't you just post a picture? Mike: Oh, that's great. Jessika: So I highly recommend this. If you're looking for a lighthearted fun and wholesome comic, it's just been super nice and mellow, and it's been a good ease to my busy brain. Mike: Nice. Yeah, I'll have to check that out. Jessika: Onto our main topic, Spire Christian Comics. So I mentioned on a prior episode that I ran across some use comics, at an estate sale for a dollar each. [00:05:00] So how could I not buy all of them? I legit didn't even look at them until after I'd left the sale. But when I did all, I was in for a real treat. The Archie one that was in the stack really didn't catch me off guard. That one seemed pretty basic Archie from the looks of the cover, but the other one was amazing. Do you remember, I messaged you a picture of the covers and you were the one who discovered the Spire Christian Comics brand for us. Mike: Yes I do. Jessika: Yeah, that was fun. I just could not believe I found these. And when I sat down to do my research, I wasn't sure how much information there really was surrounding these. But like I said earlier, buckle up friends. This was a rabbit hole journey that I will gladly take you on. One that includes Jesus, Archie, Erik Estrada, and more. [00:06:00] Mike: Wait, the guy from CHIPS? Jessika: Yes, the very same. Mike: Is this more or less embarrassing than that weird land sale thing that he was doing about 10 or 15 years ago? Jessika: I'll let you decide we will talk about it. Mike: I'm strapping in, my body is ready. Jessika: Well, before we dig too deep, and since we'll be talking about religion a lot, this episode, Mike, what is your religious background and where do you currently stand? Mike: Um, so I like to joke that my family views me as the failed experiment because I didn't really turn out like they were hoping. And a large part of that is basically because I swiped left on organized religion as soon as I got a choice. Patton Oswalt talks about the concept of "it's all chaos be kind" in his special Annihilation, and that's kind of where I stand these [00:07:00] days. But I grew up surrounded by a religion. I was raised Episcopalian. We went to church almost every Sunday. And a large portion of my bedtime stories were from the Bible story book. My mom is from Texas also. So I've got several Baptist ministers on that side of the family, including a televangelist. Yeah. And to his credit, he has never been implicated in a scandal. There's never really been anything bad about him. I don't want to name him because, you know, I don't want to make things awkward, but and his family have always been very kind to my family. I know they helped my mom out a lot when she was in college. And I see him on TV or I used to, when I had TV, I would see him appear every now and then on the early morning, sermon services every now and then. And I certainly didn't agree with everything he said, but it was just always weird and surreal to turn on the TV, at say 6:00 AM, while I was getting ready for work or whatever and there he was. [00:08:00] I mean, growing up me and my siblings would actually go to Texas for portions of our summers. And we would go to church with our extended family. So it was really different than what we were used to. I actually, I wasn't allowed to get my driver's license until I met certain criteria for my parents. One of those things was that I had to get confirmed and I never really had much of a personal connection with religion. And my parents made the mistake of telling me that I didn't have to go to church anymore after I got confirmed. So I wound up taking them up on that, and that was kinda much to their chagrin. And then additionally, my first degree was in history and my oral exit exam was a presentation talking about the Catholic church and how it would cement its power around the world by breaking up old nations and then forming new ones that were beholden to it. So I'd like to think I'm relatively well-informed about the various aspects and sects of Christianity, but I don't really have any spiritual [00:09:00] beliefs of my own. I just, I try to be a good person for the sake of being a good person. Not because I want to be rewarded in a theoretical afterlife. Jessika: Yeah, I agree with that. It makes me nervous when people tell me or make it appear that religions the thing holding them back from making bad decisions. I'm like, that's really creepy. So I guess religion is for you, like. But I was raised for the first part of my life as a Lutheran, and that included going to church. We did preschool at the Lutheran church, but we didn't continue going to church after middle school-ish. There was just some congregation changes, I think with the pastor that my parents are just like, "Oh, we don't really like this new guy." I'm sure life just got busy. Cause you know, I was however, from 11 until I was probably about 20 actually, was involved in a Masonic girls organization, which had backgrounds in religion. But that felt very secular. We definitely had some [00:10:00] girls who were Jewish. We had girls of all different religions, girls were Catholic and we actually made it a point of the person who was the Honored Queen or the kind of president they were voted in. Mike: Was that the actual term, was it honored queen? Jessika: It was honored queen, by the way, past Honored Queen, here we are. It's a whole thing. You have to memorize so much stuff. Mike: So can I just next time I see you in person, just be like, Hey Queen. Jessika: Oh yeah. I'm actually a queen. So it's fine. And that term doesn't leave me cause I may past Honored Queen, so still a queen. Yeah. But as honored queen, they made it a point for, in at least in our Bethel. I don't know if everybody did this but in our particular chapter we would go with the honored queen to her church. I didn't have a church at the time, so I don't think I even did that. But we went to a Catholic church. We went to some Episcopalian. I mean, we, we did a lot of different [00:11:00] church visiting and so I did get a lot of hear a lot of different aspects and like ways manners that this information or information in general was being portrayed. And at this point in my life, I consider myself agnostic because the, "are we alone out there?”question seems a little above my pay grade to answer, in my opinion. I'm not willing to commit that there's nothing happening, but I'm also not willing to commit to, yes, this is happening. So I'll leave it to other people to figure that whole thing out for me. Mike: That seems like a pretty fair stance to take. Jessika: Yeah. Just stay out of it. Someone wants to bring me along. They can, I guess. So I want to list the resources that I use whole researching this topic and want to make sure I give these websites the proper credit. So Baker [00:12:00] publishing group.com. You don't read comics dot com, Christian comics, international.org, comics alliance.com, biblio.com, wikipedia for one article, and Hal Lindsey's there's a new world coming through archive.org, which has a wonderful text to speech accessibility feature, which saved me a great deal of time. Mike: I didn't know that they did text to speech. That's rad. Jessika: It was amazing. Yeah. And I figured that out and you can speed it up. So I listened to it at two times the speed. Mike: Nice. That’s really cool. Jessika: So yeah, that being said it did mean that I was listening to Hal Lindsey, uh, his book in robot speech. Cause it wasn't like a normal voice. It was text to speech like robot, lady speaking. So that was a trip to hear about the rapture through that. Mike: I mean, if you're going to listen to narration about the Rapture, I guess a robot on meth does seem like the best way to do it. Jessika: Oh, I would say so. [00:13:00] I wouldn't have it any other way. So Spire Christian comics were published through what is now the Baker publishing group, but was originally founded in 1870 as the Fleming H Revell company by a man by the same name, along with his brother-in-law, American evangelist Dwight L Moody. Their ultimate goal was to make Christian literature both more plentiful and more widely available, but they didn't start with comics and the company didn't entertain that idea until many years and many significant organizational changes had gone by, there seemed to be so much drama surrounding the ownership and running of this company, which I'm not going to get into here, that there was no mention in their company's history that these comics were even ever published. Mike: Really? Jessika: Yeah. Mike: That’s wild. Jessika: Yeah. Kind of funny, huh? Mike: Yeah, that's crazy. Jessika: In 1972. Al Hartley, freelance illustrator for comics like Archie and [00:14:00] Marvel was hired to make adaptations of some of the popular Christian novels that had been published by the Fleming H Revell company. This felt like a very appropriate and timely move for Hartley who had recently become a Born-Again Christian in 1967 and had chosen to quit working with Marvel because the owner at the time, Martin Goodman, asked Hartley to illustrate some risque scenes for some of his men's magazines, Hartley preferred quitting, rather than sacrificing his moral values in his art. Mike: Was Hartley the artist who actually illustrated the books we read for today? Jessika: Yes, He was. Hartley was the one who illustrated the ones that we read for this episode. Although I'll talk about a little bit later, there is a little bit of mystery surrounding the artistry with There's A New World Coming, even though his name is on the cover. I want to give you an example of one of the [00:15:00] adaptations that Hartley penned, other than the one you and I read. And we'll talk about that one in a little bit, I'm gonna send you the, a couple of things to look at. And the first one is the cover of the novel, the Cross and the Switchblade. Can you please describe this for me? Mike: This really looks like a low budget thriller from the 19... probably the 1960s is what I associate this with. There's three colors. Well, four. There's four colors. There's yellow, green, black, and white. So. The background is entirely green. There is a really, it's like a really rough illustration style of a very stylized dude running with a knife. And the knife stands out because this dude is entirely done in scratchy, all black kind of almost pencil. And then the knife is the one piece of white. He is running from another shadowy figure. There is, it looks like a ruined city in the [00:16:00] background then much more clearly illustrated drawn in white is a church, cause you can see the steeple with, the large cross and it says the Cross And The Switchblade. "The thrilling, true story of a country preacher's fight against teenage crime and big city slums!" Which, OK. Written by the Reverend David Wilkerson with John and Elizabeth Sherrell and John and Elizabeth Sherrell's billing on this title is a little bit smaller than the Reverend David and, it's $1.95 from Spire Books. Jessika: Oh yeah. Spoiler alert It is self starring. Yeah that is why his name is so large. His name is all up in that thing. He didn't even change it It's just in there. The next is the cover of the movie adaptation. Can you please describe the cover and read the first couple actors names at the bottom there for me. Mike: Jesus Christ. Okay. So the title the [00:17:00] cross and the switchblade is spray painted across some decaying brick. It's standing out from all the other graffiti that's on there and it says “now an explosive motion picture.” It's got what I'm assuming is the reverend, kind of like a glamour shot. And then he's surrounded by smaller shots of all the different people who are going to be taking an active role in this story. On the other side of his head it looks like he's being menaced by a "street tough," I don't quite know how to describe the kid other than that. He looks like a character from the Outsiders. That's just immediately where I'm going cause he's got a leather jacket and it looks like M and M written on the back of his jacket I'm not entirely sure. Cause it's sort of cut off and then underneath them there's a bunch of young men of various ethnicities running and they're all holding bats, I guess. I'm not seeing any switchblades other than the one that's being held by the tough who's menacing the priest. And then there is - Oh my God- so there is the original book cover that I just [00:18:00] described in the lower corner and it says next to it "bares the raw needs at the core of drug addiction, racial hatred, and violence. NEVER -in all caps- has a film been more timely." Um starring Pat Boone as David Wilkerson with Eric Estrada. Oh, there he is. I'm not recognizing any of the other names. Jessika: No. Those were the only ones I needed. He's the street tough Mike: I was going say now that I realize that Erik Estrada is in this that is a very young Erik Estrada who is clearly in the salad days of his career. God. Jessika: Lastly can you please describe the cover of the comic adaptation for me? Mike: I don't know if I want to. Wow. Okay This is way different! So it's again David Wilkerson's the cross and the switchblade is that the same style? [00:19:00] It's meant to look like it's graffitied on and that there's the dripping graffiti. There's no delicate way to say what it actually looks like. It looks like jizz.. Jessika: It does. It's bad Mike: It’s really unfortunate. Like I don't know how else to describe it. And then you have a well-dressed for the seventies dude being menaced by again Erik Estrada his character and he's surrounded by a bunch of people of color who are all staring on and not really concerned with the impending violence that's about to happen, except for one white girl who looks terrified. And then Erik Estrada character’s going "I could kill you, preach." And then the preacher is going, "yes you could Nicky. You could cut me up in a thousand pieces, and every piece will say I love you." Jessika: Ugh, vomit. Mike: Oh God everything about this is just it is extra. Jessika: It's a whole thing. [00:20:00] Mike: Every variation that we've seen has started off at 11 and then it's just kept on turning it up from there. Jessika: Yeah and spoiler: Thematically, the racism is there for just… Mike: You don’t say. Jessika: Yeah. Oh yeah It's just rampant. Mike: Based on just what little I'm seeing here it looks like a literal white savior Jessika: Oh that's a hundred percent what it is. So really the comic was an adaptation of a movie that was an adaptation of a book. So the TLDR is that Nicky, played by Erik Estrada as we saw, is a troubled gang leader in New York city finds Jesus. Mike: I gotta say that does not look like New York on the comic cover. Jessika: No it doesn’t. They didn't do a great job with that. I don't know why, it's not hard to make a city look like New York. You can pretty much pen [00:21:00] any random looking city. And it probably is going to look like part of New York. But good job guys. Mike: Well especially because you said that Al Hartley was a Marvel artist. Like all of the Marvel stories back then were taking place in New York. It’s not like he didn’t know what it looked like. Jessika: Maybe he forgot this time. Mike: Alright, whatever. Jessika: So Erik Estrada finds Jesus through the help of a persistent small town priest who comes to the big city to make a big difference in the lives of the troubled youth, who in his estimation just need to find Jesus's love. And that's how Erik Estrada became a comic book character, because the comic is based on him. That is based on his actual person I'm sure you've noticed. Mike: I wouldn't want to admit that that comic character was based on me but all right. Jessika: I mean there's probably a reason you haven't heard about it. Mike: How successful was this movie? I've never heard of this before. Jessika: I haven't heard of it either [00:22:00] And you know I didn't look that up unfortunately. Yeah. So it's a mystery. Maybe I'll update us later. Maybe I'll do more research about the Cross and the Switchblade. Along with book adaptations, the comics were also centered around the comic series that Hartley is arguably best to known for: Archie. Hartley reached out to John Goldwater, who was the president of Archie at the time, who agreed for Archie to be included in the Spire Christian Comics publications. The comics themselves were meant as an introduction to non-believers to bridge the religious gap in a manner that was friendly to all ages. In total there were 57 comic titles published under Spire Christian comics, 19 of them were Archie. Mike: Wow. Jessika: Yeah I know, right? 12 were biographical and they did actually pull, I was reading on another article, they did pull some of the themes from the Spire [00:23:00] comics and put them into regular Archie but just de-Jesused them. So if you read one you might say this sounds really familiar. Well it's probably because you've read what actually was an adaptation version which was now regular what we would consider. There were 12 biographical or autobiographical comics including the likes of Johnny Cash and a handful of stories pulled directly from the Bible along with other miscellaneous adaptations and some Christian comics aimed at younger children. Hartley wrote and drew most of the comics himself but other notable figures involved Dick Ayers and Dan DeCarlo. The comics weren't all wholesome and morality-filled, however, and we talked about that a little bit earlier. There were some really problematic aspects of some of these Spire comics including that rampant racism I talked about. Even in the Archie comic that you and I read there are racist generalizations about Native Americans and their [00:24:00] clothing, speech patterns, and general attitudes and demeanors which I did not love. Opposite, in fact. There's also a comic, one of the ones considered a biography, was titled wait for it "Hansi: The Girl Who Loved the Swastika." Mike could you please describe this cover for us. Give us a treat, please. Mike: This is one of those comics also that is truly infamous, especially in the age of the internet. It's one of those things that I've at least been aware of for a few years And every time you see, it it just throws you a loop. So basically it says and in big bold letters “Hansi” and then in smaller red lettering “the girl who loved the swastika.” And it's this very Aryan looking [00:25:00] German girl in 1930s peasantware and she is standing in front of a motorcade. There's Hitler and some concerned looking you know Nazis and then the crowd around this motorcade is throwing up the right hands and there's swastikas everywhere. Like, everywhere. It's let's see one, two, three, four, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. There are 11 swastikas on this cover and she just she looks so happy and carefree. It's wild. It's one of those things where every time you see it, the shock never goes away. Jessika: Yeah it's that's a whole vibe, not going to lie. It was based on a book titled I Changed The Gods in 1968 which, interesting title, cuz what did she really do? And it follows the life story of a German born evangelist Maria Anne Hirschman as she is indoctrinated into the [00:26:00] Hitler Youth but was later rescued by American troops. She immigrates to the U S later in life and realizes how she had in her words been brainwashed. The comic is not subtle. Obviously. You talked about the cover just now. It's not subtle at all. Mike: No, not even a little. Jessika: No no. It also has a lot of really raw and adult themes like rape and violence and is incredibly overt with its Cold War propaganda at the end of the comic it was really something. Mike: That makes sense that they would go into themes like that because it's not approved by the Comics Code so they could just throw whatever they wanted in it. Jessika: Precisely. Well Spire Christian comics were published until 1988 and were later reprinted as New Barber Christian Comics as that was one of the ever-changing names of that publishing company. Mike: Hm. That's actually longer than I would have expected for that first run. Jessika: Yeah. I thought [00:27:00] so, too. So good on them I mean that was a lot, it was a lot of publications that they did. I was surprised at how many. Mike: Do you know if they were being sold on newsstands or were they just exclusively in Christian bookstores. Jessika: That's a really good question I'm not a hundred percent on that Mike: It could’ve been both. Jessika: It could’ve been both, absolutely. Mike: I know that those were really those were pretty big up until the nineties. I remember couple of the local malls had Christian bookstores. Jessika: Oh absolutely. We have some still in town. Mike: Oh, really? In Petaluma? Jessika: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I pass by a Christian science reading room on my walks with my dog. So they're around. Mike: Hmm Jessika: You and I read through one of those Archie's. Mike: Sure this was effectively an anthology of Archie shorts that take place in different times and places [00:28:00] Each of the stories stars Archie and it has him facing challenges and eventually overcoming them with pretty vague help from God. Examples include him being a medieval blacksmith, he tries to slay a dragon so he can win the hand of princess Veronica. He and Jughead are space explorers visiting quote unquote twin planets with very different morality systems. There's a story about him being a World War One fighter pilot who… I'm not entirely certain what they were fighting against. Was it anti-Christian propaganda? Was that the true enemy? Jessika: I think so, it really wasn't made abundantly clear. Mike: Yeah and then there's also this there's a really weird one which involves him randomly walking into a spooky mansion that's owned by Beelzebub, who basically traps wayward teens by getting them to sell their souls in exchange for their heart's desire. Jessika: Yeah. He was just a creepy old dude. He wouldn't let teenagers leave. That was really what it was. Mike: I didn't understand the payoff of that, but [00:29:00] okay. Jessika: So tell us a little bit about your thoughts on the comic as a whole. Mike: Yeah. I've got a soft spot for Archie I fucking loved Mark Waid's run a couple of years ago. It's honestly one of the best comics out there. Riverdale is one of my favorite horny guilty pleasures. And the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is also a blast. Side note: the Josie and the Pussycats movie one of my favorite soundtracks. Like, that soundtrack legit slaps. We should watch it together. We should do a viewing party sometime. Jessika: Let's I'm a hundred percent into that. Yes. Mike: Yeah. So going back to this comic, the stories didn't really work for me? Archie books are already incredibly family-friendly and the forced morality of evangelical Christianity just felt really… I don't know. It just it fucking rubbed me the wrong way. And on top of that the godly [00:30:00] decisions involved prayer and strict adherence to religious tenants which I don't remember seeing anything about queer people in that Archie comic. That kind of makes sense because Kevin Keller didn't appear until 2010. But I remember Beelzebub trying to tempt Archie with women of loose morals. And it's really bizarre to see that kind of hand ringing, especially now, about teenagers possibly having premarital sex because we're almost 50 years in the future from this and that is very much an accepted reality at this point. These days, at least in our household, it's like just make sure that everyone is consenting to what's going on and use protection. Jessika: Exactly. Mike: I’m assuming you and I are on similar wavelengths about this but I’m curious to hear what you thought. Jessika: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought the religious theme was just so incredibly heavy handed. It was forced together with the Archie narrative and Archie, like you said, [00:31:00] he's an overall wholesome dude in general in my opinion. But the morality lessons were really in your face. Like there's the one where he's in a saloon and he orders a milkshake. And this guy is trying to force him to drink alcohol, and he's like "I don't want to drink alcohol." And it's like okay guy this is just so like nobody's actually going to go into the world and try to force you to drink alcohol unless you join a frat. Please don't do that though. Mike: That would’ve been way better have Archie go join a frat. That would’ve been way better. Jessika: It would’ve have made more sense. Look at I'm already making more sense for Archie. Call me, Archie. Mike: Also it actually makes a lot of sense for Archie to go into a saloon and order a milkshake. I kind of love that but then the follow up of “no, you need to order alcohol?” That’s dumb. Jessika: It didn't make any sense. Overall I thought the comic was cute, had some messages, whatever. There was one section that really bugged me, though. And it was the twin planets where the two planets were exactly the [00:32:00] same except one was making good choices, the other one was making bad choices and the bad choices it was like not cleaning up after yourself. And I get there's a point some of bad choices. What was another one? Mike: Everyone steals from everyone else? Jessika: Yeah. Exactly exactly it's just so funny. And I get there's a point but some of the bad choices are listed as complete freedom and equality. Mike: Yeah, that stood out to me, too. Jessika: That was bad. That was listed as bad. And I was like pump the brakes. Like, we live in a society. Come on. Mike: This was in an era where the civil rights wasn't even really history. The Civil Rights movement was still going on. I could definitely see that as being a not terribly subtle dig at equality for minorities. Jessika: Yeah, yeah. I can agree [00:33:00] with that. That's how I took it as well. And, okay, did they do that entire Pelican sequence just so they could make that stupid bird joke at the end? Because that's how it felt I didn't like it. It was stupid. Mike: I re-read that fucking thing three times And I was like… Jessika: They literally did it just so that they could make a stupid bird joke. Oh Christianity isn't for the birds. You literally just had a whole lesson about how there was a bird teaching another bird Christianity and then you negated it by saying Christianity isn't for the birds. And I don't know what you want out of this Mike: That felt like a lot of those stories was these stupid kind of punny slogans at the end of every one of these short stories. I really found myself getting grumpy as I continued to read them because I was just sitting there and going these are dumb. And no kid is going to think Christianity is cool because… Jessika: No. Mike: Anyway, moving right along. Jessika: Let's move on to [00:34:00] the absolute jewel of my retro collection these days, which is Hal Lindsey's There's A New World Coming. Before I get too far into this comic or the book it's based on I felt like you all needed a little bit of background on Hal Lindsey to really understand what we're up against here. Mike: I’m so excited because I want to know who the fuck this guy was. Jessika: This is very broad strokes cause I didn't want to be here all night and I'm sure you didn't either but very interesting go check it out. So he was born Harold Lee "Hal" Lindsey in Dallas Texas in 1929. He dropped out of university to be in the Korean War, was briefly a tugboat captain -because why not- and after a failed marriage and contemplating suicide he found Gideon's Bible and became born again Christian. He entered Dallas Theological Seminary in 1958 and had his first book published in 1970. Since then, he's [00:35:00] written more books of which he sold millions of copies and has moved on with the times to include broadcasting his messages via radio and television. Messages that range from prophetic to conspiratorial. And I want to add this blip from biblio.com. Mike, do you mind reading this for me. Mike: ”Virtually none of Lindsey's verifiable predictions have been confirmed by history.” Jessika: Great. Thank you. Mike: Is this guy still doing his thing? Is he still spreading the good word? Jessika: He's 91. He's 91. He's fucking kicking I think he from what it sounds like he retired quote unquote whatever that means. I think he's still shouting into the ether. Yeah he's around. So speaking of predictions let's talk about those predictions of Hal Lindsey's. So there's A New World Coming. [00:36:00] First of all can you do us a solid and describe the cover of this thing, which is a journey all in itself. Mike: It is this is actually I would say the most subtle of the comic covers we looked at tonight. The top half is bold yellow and it says Hal Lindsey There's A New World Coming. And there are three kids getting flown through space on this very weird kind of color spiral. And in the background you can see the spiral is emanating from earth. It's actually really cool looking. It looks like it's some sort of weird cosmic sci-fi space opera way I can describe it. Jessika: Yeah. Very 70s. Mike: It's very seventies especially the fashion for the older of the kids because they've got the bell-bottoms they've got the seventies collar and the big heels on the guy and also plaid pants. The [00:37:00] two older characters are holding hands, kind of? I don't know, it looks almost like the dude is grabbing the woman by the wrist and dragging her along. Jessika: Yeah. He really took her on a journey, apparently. Mike: Yeah and then the third kid who was also a narrator. By the way, we never fucking learned these kids' name, do we? Jessika: We don’t learn anything about them. Mike: I don’t think we ever get an official introduction to them, either. Jessika: No it's just assumed that this woman is stupid and sinful and needs to be taught better. That’s kind of what is presumed. Mike: But honestly this is kind of the first panel of the comic book because when you open the comic it actually it starts with them on this weird cosmic voyage. Jessika: Yeah. Now the cover is just the start of this banana grams comic and even nuttier book which, by the way I also listened to in it's 308 page entirety. Mike: Okay I didn't realize that this was actually a comic adaptation of a much larger source text. Jessika: Yeah. Oh [00:38:00] let's just say there's a reason this book was able to be condensed into a 32 page comic. The whole premise of both publications is dun dun duh The Rapture. Or as I much prefer to call it "the great snatch" Mike: I’m so glad you called that out, because I was going to call that out if you didn’t. That is the highlight of this book. Jessika: And they put it in such bold different colored letters. It was in big red letters: The Great Snatch! And it was this woman flying into the air. Mike: I was gonna say: It’s this woman… oh my god. Jessika: Oh I bet she is the great snatch. I was laughing so hard when I read that. The long and the short is that Jesus Christ will be coming back to earth. The true believers will be abducted, without dying apparently, [00:39:00] and eventually transported to what will be new heaven and new earth which is just one thing by the way. Both the comic and the book talk about the supposed events the mark the start to Christ’s second coming. Interesting fact I found about this comic in particular while the art is signed by Hartley on the cover, there is speculation that there were potentially multiple other artists involved in illustrating this comic, as some of the styles don't match up to Hartley’s through and through. Mike: Yeah ,I noticed that some of the styles weren't quite cohesive. Jessika: You can tell they tried, but you can tell there's definitely some weirdness in there. And I was wondering what that was about when I was reading it myself. Mike: Yeah And also some of the faces of some of the guys I was like, oh you were clearly an extra from an Archie comic that has been inserted here. Jessika: Exactly. And her face is so similar to so many other Hartley ones. The comic is a pretty faithfully distilled version of the book. [00:40:00] Although in my opinion is done in a much more organized and cohesive manner. The book provides much more scripture to back up his claims repetitively. Mike: Well, they did that in the comic, too. Jessika: Oh they did but they didn't repeat them over and over and over and over again because that is what they did in the book. The same Bible passage would show it multiple times within very few pages. I'm just like didn't I just hear this Bible passage you're doing it again. It was just it was a whole headache. There were also works of other authors referenced to build his case. But I found yet another interesting rabbit hole that I was unknowingly already knee deep in. One of the authors that Lindsey mentioned as being "a powerful writer of our time" and one he uses as an example is Carlos Castaneda. Which immediately piqued my interest as I was actually in the process of listening to a podcast about this very person. Mike: Do I want to know? Jessika: [00:41:00] Yes Mike: OK, was it bad? I got a feeling that it’s bad. Jessika: You'll know right when I call out what podcast it is. And I want to give a huge thank you to Cult Podcast for this next information. Mike: Welp. I have my answer. Jessika: Yup Yup I was right in the middle of the second of a two part series on Carlos Castaneda that they had done. And I heard that name within Lindsey's and I was like I guess I have to listen to the rest of that podcast before I really get involved. Now Castaneda pretty much went out to get cigarettes one day and left his family to go do a project in Mexico. No joke. He just left, not really a cigarettes part. That's kind of the Cult Podcast joke but he left his family for a series of years so that he could go [00:42:00] and do an anthropological study in Mexico. Mike: How big was his family I'm curious. Jessika: He had a wife and kids, at least a couple of kids. Mike: What a shitheel. Jessika: Oh absolutely. Cause like multiple years. Like he was just like bye. So he did the one thing you're not supposed to do when studying anthropology: Get involved in the local rituals and ceremonies anthropologists are supposed be studying the culture not getting involved. Kind of a look don't touch kind of a thing. Mike: Yeah they’re supposed to be neutral observers. Jessika: Yeah. Strip club rules. So this already a no-no in the scientific community. But he came back, wrote this killer thesis, followed by a best-selling book or two, got a ton of credit and notoriety based on his studying with this traveling shaman named Don Juan. I'm sure you'll be shocked to find out that there was no Don Juan and Castaneda's multi-year anthropological project in Mexico turned out to be more of a [00:43:00] vacation where Castaneda did a lot of peyote, slept with a lot of women, and scoured libraries so that he could pull bits and pieces out of books and plagiarize them to make his own. So he used a bunch of different spiritual books out of them to make his thesis books coming up. Mike: Woooow. Jessika: Yeah. It wasn't until years later that somebody recognized one of the pieces of his book and were like, "wait a second. That sounds like something I've read from this other book." And then it was just this whole can of worms where he was like “wait and this is plagiarized and this is plagiarized.” Mike: It was so much easier back then to pull off this kind of shit. I feel like I missed my opportunity to cheat my way through school, because even by the time that we were going through high school and college they were starting to get really aggressive about spot checking for plagiarism and things like that. Now it's really hard to actually plagiarize stuff because of all the software that’s out there. God damn. [00:44:00] Jessika: It was also easier to have a second family. Mike: Before the age of social media. Jessika: Yeah. Change your name and… Mike: Can you even have a cult these days without social media? Jessika: You might be able to but I think probably a lot of them would be hinged on social media at this point. Like some of those other ones that have been really recent. Mike: You got to have those influencers who'll sell your cult on Tik ToK. Jessika: Oh my gosh. I find it fascinating that Lindsey chose to use this particular author to showcase the section of his argument for morality which is regarding abstaining from drugs by the way. Mike: I mean, probably he just didn’t know. Probably this dude hadn’t been exposed yet. Jessika: Oh no no. Check it out Castaneda most certainly did not abstain from drugs, as I mentioned. And in the book Lindsey makes some vague reference to drugs only being necessary at the beginning of the spiritual journey. So it's like he really was pro-drug but he's also anti-drug. It was really strange. I re-read that section And I was like I don't know what you're talking [00:45:00] about. And he credited Castaneda with ceasing to use drugs after a certain point. However it was really just that Castaneda was pretty burnt out after all of his heavy drug use and had to stop doing drugs for health reasons rather than spiritual ones. So while Lindsey doesn't list an exact date at the Rapture, he does make the following prediction. Mike, will you read this blurb from again biblio.com for me. Mike: Yeah, absolutely. “Hal Lindsey forecasted the end of days would be within the generation of the establishment of Israel. That was 1948. He concluded a generation in the Bible was 40 years. Therefore in 1988 Jesus would establish his kingdom.” Jessika: So clearly that happened according to plan. 1988 was a crazy year, wasn't it? Jesus came back… Mike: Yeah. 1988 was 32 years ago and I don't remember the [00:46:00] rapture happening so Jessika: I mean, I was two, but I don't either. Mike: yeah Jessika: And we went to church and I wasn't taken is all I'm saying. What were your overall thoughts on the comic? Mike: Hmm Hmm Hmm. Honestly the whole thing feels like just one giant drug trip which, now that I have this perspective, makes a lot more sense. But mainly that was because of all the swirling colors in the backgrounds and the clouds that are present throughout the entire comic. I just don't know how else to summarize it. It also feels like Hal Lindsey really used this for his own self promotion more than anything else. For example, he gets top billing on both the cover and on the first page but the comic's narrated by these three nameless teens who were taken on a magical journey through the Rapture and end times when this girl opens her Bible to the book of Revelations. And then they narrate everything that's supposed to happen [00:47:00] and everything about it It's just this really passive boring exposition. I don't understand who the target audience for this was. Biblical apocalyptic fiction was such a massive thing in the nineties and it could definitely be made to feel more exciting. But it always feels universally terrible whenever it's done in a quote earnest way. I came of age during the era of those God awful fucking Left Behind books and Tribulation Force and all of the media that they've put out around it. And it was just really not good. It actually makes me mad because this shit never feels like a good story it's always a vehicle for its creators’ egos. And again the Left Behind stuff, like Kirk Cameron I know was really involved with that too for a while. That dude's just a giant fucking shitheel. Whatever. But honestly the best moment in this book is when everyone is getting raptured, and one of the kids that refers to the moment as the Great Snatch, like we were talking about. The moralizing also feels really vague. If you look at that one page that talks about societal [00:48:00] decay where they list all this really generic stuff like the decline of the family unit and then it shows a bunch of people going into and this was the quote “alternatives to marriage course.” Jessika: Like what is that? There's not a thing that's called that Mike: I don't know. Like my family is literally the embodiment of alternatives to marriage, because I'm registered as a domestic partner with Sarah. And we did it basically because it was the easiest thing to do during lockdown so that we could make sure that we're taken care of in case something happened to the other person basically we could mail it in. But we get all the same benefits but that wasn't thing back then. Gay marriage wasn't a thing back then. Was it just living together in sin and common law marriage? I don't understand what that was but everything about that felt like it was that possibly racist argument that's not quite being racist. But one of the ongoing things is there's that decline of the black family that they love to sit there and [00:49:00] pontificate on in conservative media where they talk about black fathers abandoning their families and stuff like that. And I've been around enough of that that it drives me up the wall whenever I hear it. I was kind of bored and kind of mad as I read through this thing because it was just it felt like they really squandered the opportunity to do something really weird and memorable here. Jessika: What I thought was really funny too about their timing the events I was looking at the different events that they were listing and they were like "fire from the sky" I was like do you know many times that we could say fire from the sky and like a volcanic eruption or the blitzkrieg or you know there's all these different points in history. Any of these events could have been just this whole situation could have been popped into a different time period and anybody could have felt like they were in the apocalypse. We could be in the apocalypse right now, 2020 was a whole shithole. We had like death wasps. Mike: Yeah Yeah. My favorite was the one where the helicopters coming out of the earth was that it [00:50:00] and there's a quote where it's talking about insects coming forth with battle armor and they're giant. And they're like, “look he perfectly described helicopters 2000 years ago!” Jessika: Yeah. He could have been talking about death wasps see? The killer bees. 2021, guys, maybe it's the coming apocalypse I don't know someone should be asking these questions now. Mike: Well I mean it certainly wasn't like Donald Trump wasn't the antichrist because he was supposed to bring us into a false peace or something like that. Jessika:Yeah That was not peaceful I know you would've thought though it really had pegged for that If I were going to say anything. Mike: Yeah God. So it sounds like we're kind of aligned on this but I’m curious to hear your take on this comic. Jessika: What I did like about it and just know I was so entrenched in this whole topic, because I listened to the book and then I also read the comic and I was just so refreshed that it wasn't the book, that I was like a little relieved. I do love that it's an absolute time capsule [00:51:00] just like the estate sale I found it in the estate sale Literally They had avocado green carpet. Yeah like what is I a fringe or no a what's it called? Mike: Shag. Jessika: Shag. Thank you. Yeah they had avocado green shag. just it was 1970 threw up in there. It was great I loved it. Mike: Could you rake the shag carpet? Was it that worn down? Jessika: Oh it was like it was Yeah It was like it needed good rake first of all. But I did like the fashion and the overall vibe, cause that's just kinda my style anyway. So I was right there with the illustrations and the outfits drawn in the comic. And honestly if taken ironically the comic is funny as heck. it's dated It obviously represents that has come and gone without the promised fall of Armageddons hammer. So that was Spire Christian comics for you in a nutshell. Mike: I don't know what I expected any expectations but [00:52:00] this blew away any expectations I could’ve had. Jessika: I mean hard same. Well let's mosey on along to our Brain Wrinkles which is the one thing that we just can't stop thinking about. Mike why don’t you start us off? Mike: So there was a new clip for the upcoming Cruella movie that dropped this week. And… have you seen any of the trailers for this? Jessika: I’ve seen one of them, and I generally don’t watch trailers but I was curious. Mike: Yeah I rolled my eyes so hard when that movie was announced. And every time I see something from it though I keep getting more interested. I'm actually really digging how punk rock they're making Cruella. It's got a very 1970s British punk vibe which is 100% my jam. And also the cast in this movie is so fucking good. We're not going to pay to see it, obviously we're going to wait until it comes to the common folk on Disney Plus. But I'm curious to see what they do with her. I'm [00:53:00] not sure every villain needs a redemption arc which is something been seeing a lot of lately like the Maleficent movies, but I appreciate it when it feels really well done Like the case with Harley Quinn, like I was talking about last week. Jessika: Yeah. Segues right into my brain wrinkle which is every once in a while on a daily basis, because I'm queer as hell, I think about Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. And I think “good for her.” And also like goals of getting out of that bad relationship that Harley was in. Ivy's so much better for Harley than that toxic ass joker. So. That whole relationship was skeevy I didn't like it. It was one sided and controlling and manipulative and I've never liked it. It's always kind of sat with me in a weird way. And so when they had this spin I was like “thank goodness.” [00:54:00] Mike: Even when I was in my twenties and I saw people sharing those memes of “Oh you just need someone crazy like you” and it's Harley and the Joker and I'm like “he's abusive!” Jessika: Yes. Yes. Mike: Even I could see that. And I was terrible in my twenties. Jessika: It should be pretty obvious but somehow it just isn’t. I don't know Jessika: Thanks for listening to Ten Cent Takes. Accessibility is important to us. Text transcriptions of each of our published episodes can be found on our website. Mike: This episode was hosted by Jessika Frazer and Mike Thompson, written by Jessika Frazer, and edited by Mike Thompson. That's me. Our intro theme was written and performed by Jared Emerson Johnson of Bay area sound. Our credits and transition music is pursuit of life by Evan McDonald and was purchased with a standard license from Premium Beat. Our banner graphics were designed by Sarah Frank who goes by cut_thistles on Instagram. Jessika: If you'd like to get in [00:55:00] touch with us, ask us questions, or tell us about how we got something wrong, please head over to tencenttakes.com tencenttakes@gmail.com. You can also find us on Twitter: The official podcast account is tencenttakes. Jessika is jessikawitha and Jessika is spelled with a K and Mike is vansau, V a N S a U. Mike: Stay safe out there. Jessika: And support your local comic shop.
There can be only one, but Highlander's had a surprising number of media adaptations and spin-offs over the years. We take a look at all of them and even get some behind-the-scenes gossip about the infamous comic book tie-in: Highlander 3030. ----more---- Episode Transcript Episode 05 [00:00:00] Mike: It's fine. It's fine. I'm not bitter. Mike: Welcome to Tencent Takes, the podcast where we make comics trivia rain like dollar bills on Magic Mike night. My name is Mike Thompson and I am joined by my cohost, the mistress of mayhem herself, Jessika Frazer. Jessika: Muahahaha! It is I hello, Mike. Mike: Hello. If you're new to the podcast, we like to look at comic books in ways that are both fun and informative. We want to check out their coolest, weirdest and silliest moments, as well as examine how they've been woven into the larger fabric of pop culture and history. Today, we are traveling through time and talking about the 35 year legacy of one of the strongest cult franchises around, Highlander. But [00:01:00] before we do that, Jessika, what is one cool thing that you've watched or read lately? Jessika: My brother has some copies of classic Peanuts Comics, and it's so much fun. It's good, wholesome, fun. And Snoopy- related media always makes me nostalgic. And Mike you've mentioned before that we're in California in the San Francisco Bay area, but fun fact, I live right near Santa Rosa, which is the home of the Peanuts creator Charles Schultz when he was alive. So there's a museum there and an ice skating rink. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Which is super awesome And Snoopy on ice was huge when I was a kid. And that is definitely the place I also learned to ice skate. By the way, they throw a mean birthday party, just saying, not right this second. Not this second. [00:02:00] We should do it is what I'm saying. Mike: We should do it for ourselves. Jessika: No, that's what I'm saying. Oh, I don't have children. Mike: But we do. Jessika: Yes, they can come with us, like they're invited. Mike: I mean, are they? Jessika: Look at you hesitating. Mike: We took the kids to the Peanuts museum right before the lockdowns happened. that really Jessika: That's really lovely that's nice got to do that. Mike: There’s a lot of cool stuff to do. It's really interactive. It's also just a really fascinating experience because there's so much about the Peanuts during their, what 50 year run give or take. It may not have been that long. It may have been 30 or 40, but it was a long time, and I really dug it, like there was a lot of cool stuff, so yeah . And also the cool thing about Santa Rosa is they've also got all those Snoopy statues all over town too. Jessika: They do. Yeah. All the [00:03:00] Peanuts characters actually. Cause they, the Charlie Browns and the Lucy's now and the Woodstocks. Yeah they're all over the place. But that used to be something fun we could do as a scavenger hunt, and actually that's something you guys could still do even with the lockdown. Cause most of them are outside is just find that list of where all the Snoopy's or whatever character is and go find them all. Cause we did that at one point, like as an adult, obviously. Well, what about you, Mike? Mike: The complete opposite of something wholesome. Jessika: Perfect. Mike: We didn't actually have the kids for a few days. They were with their dad and we couldn't find anything new to watch. So, we wound up bingeing the entire series of Harley Quinn on HBO Max. Jessika: Oh, you’re ahead of me then. Damn you. Mike: This is my third time going through the series. We've just gotten to the point where we turned it on when we want to watch something that's kind of soothing in a way, even though it is not a soothing TV show. But I still am [00:04:00] having these full on belly laughs where I'm breathless at the end and it's just, it's so smart and funny and absolutely filthy with the violence. And then there are these moments of sweetness or genuine reflection, and it's just so damn refreshing. I was never much of a Harley fan, but this show and then the Birds of Prey movie really made me fall in love with that character. Also side note, Michael Ironside who played General Katana and Highlander II. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: He shows up in Harley Quinn doing the voice of Darkseid, which is a character he's been voicing since the nineties when he first started doing it for the Superman animated series. Jessika: Oh, damn. Mike: So, just a little bit of symmetry there. Mike: All right. So before we begin, I have to say that this episode wound up being a rabbit hole full of other rabbit holes that I kept going down. So, I want to give a little credit where it's due for a ton of my research. I really wound up leaning on two books: John Mosby's Fearful Symmetry [00:05:00]; and A Kind of Magic: The Making of Highlander by Jonathan Melville. Likewise, there's a YouTube series called Highlander heart hosted by Grant Kempster and Joe Dilworthand, and an associated Facebook community with the same name that were just invaluable for my crash course. And finally, I want to give special, thanks to Clinton Rawls, who runs Comics Royale, and Matt Kelly for taking the time to chat with me because they didn't have to, and they provided me with some really useful information for this episode. Jessika: Yeah, I'm super excited about what lies in store. What's really funny is I've actually, I feel like a kid before it test. Mike: Right? Jessika: like I'm a little nervous because I've been cramming so hard for this Mike: We both have. Jessika: No, you, especially you, especially like you should be much more nervous than me, Mike. No, I’m just kidding, please don't take that on. Oh, but yeah, no I'm super excited and really ready to talk about all of this stuff and learn more because I've just been consuming the media and the [00:06:00] comic books. But, you’re going to give me some back knowledge that's gonna blow my brain and I'm excited. Mike: Oh, well, I'll try to live up to that high expectation. Let's assume that you didn't know what the topic of this episode was. And if someone asked you what cult property from the 1980s. Spawned five movies, two TV series, a Saturday morning cartoon, an anime film, several video games, multiple tabletop games, audio plays, roughly a dozen novels, and four okay, technically six different comic books. What would your first answer be? Jessika: Oh, goodness. What's funny is probably not Highlander. I'd probably I would say like Batman, honestly, Mike: Yeah I would've gone with something along the lines of G.I. Joe. Jessika: Oh, yeah. Mike: Or some weird Saturday morning cartoon, something like that. I never would have guessed Highlander. I never would have assumed that. but it's just, it's really surprising to see how [00:07:00] much has been generated out of this initial movie. Were you fan of the movies or the show before we started bingeing everything for this episode? Jessika: So I was actually a fan of the show via my dad who had it on hadn't watched the films before, because I was born in 1986 fun fact. Mike: Right. Jessika: I was born when this thing was sent into the world. We both were at the same time, apparently. I didn't have that exact experience of growing up watching it, but he definitely had the TV show on in the nineties Mike: Okay. Jessika: So that was what I was familiar with and I loved it and I would run around chopping things; I'd be at work, I was actually like when I got older I'd be like, there can only be one, and I’d like have to like swipe at someone. Mike: It’s such an iconic line. Jessika: iIt is! it transcends. Absolutely. Mike: Yeah. I was pretty young when the movie came out and the show was how I became aware of it. And then when the show was airing, I was in high school. And then I became [00:08:00] aware that there was a movie that had inspired it. And so I was able to rent that when I was old enough to be trusted, to go rent movies on my own by my parents. Back when we couldn’t stream everything. Jessika: Oh my gosh. Mike: And there were rewind fees, Jessika: Oh, my gosh. Be kind rewind. Mike: Speaking of things from the eighties: it’s funny we'll talk about it later on, but the show really brought in, I think a lot of people that otherwise wouldn't have been fans. Before we start talking about the comic books, I really want to take a few minutes to talk about all the media and content that spun out of Highlander because it's a lot. And it was honestly in a couple of cases, really surprising. I didn't know about half of this stuff before I began researching for the episode, and then. Like I said, it was just constant rabbit holes that kept on leading me down more and more research paths. And it was really fun. But I want to talk about all this now. Jessika: Perfect. This is exactly what we're here for, and I think that people want to hear it too. [00:09:00] Mike: I hope so. Okay. So why don't you summarize Highlander? If you had to give an elevator pitch, Jessika: The film follows the past and present of Connor MacLeod, an immortal who is just one of many vying to be the sole victor in an age old battle, where in the end, there can only be one. Like very simply a lot more to it, but like how much of an elevator pitch. Mike: I think that's pretty simple. It's about an immortal who basically keeps on fighting his way through history and there's these really wonderful catch phrases that get us hooked. The movies got actually a really interesting origin story of its own. It was written by this guy named Gregory Widen when he was in his early twenties. That was when he wrote the initial screenplay. But he had already had a really interesting life up until then. He was one of the youngest paramedics in Laguna Beach at that point in [00:10:00] time. And then he went on to become a firefighter while he was still a teenager. By 1981, he'd also worked as a DJ and a broadcast engineer. And then he signed up for a screenwriting course at UCLA and he wrote this feature length script called Shadow Clan. And it would go through a number of changes before it became Highlander. But the core theme of an immortal warrior named Connor MacLeod wandering across the centuries is there. He wound up getting introduced to producers Bill Panzer, and Peter Davis who decided to option the film. And then they hired the screenwriters, Larry Ferguson and Peter Bellwood to rework the script into what we eventually had wind up in theaters. And once the movie was green-lit, they brought in Russell Mulcahey to direct it. And I vaguely knew that Mulcahey had been doing music videos before this, for the most part, he had one other cult movie ahead of time. It was a horror movie, I think, called Razorback. But I didn't realize which music videos he'd been making until I started doing all [00:11:00] this research. So I'm going to give you a small sampling and you're going to tell me if you've heard of these. Jessika: Okay. Sure sure sure. Mike: Okay. The Vapors “Turning Japanese”. Jessika: Uh, yeah. Mike: Yeah, okay. The Buggles “Video Killed the Radio Star”. Jessika: Wow. Yes. Mike: Duran Duran Duran’s “Rio”. Jessika: Wow. Mike: And Elton John's “I'm Still Standing”. Jessika: Yeahwow. That's actually a variety of characters. Mike: Right? But also those all really iconic music videos. Like not only songs, but music, videos cause those were all in the very early days. And the dude's entire portfolio is just iconic. If you think about the music videos that really defined the genre Jessika: Yeah, sometimes you just got it, I guess. Huh? Mike: He has a lot of those music video elements. A lot of times in the movie, it feels like a music video, like when Brenda's being chased down the hall by the Kurgan and it's got all that dramatic lighting, or that opening shot where they're in the [00:12:00] wrestling match and you see the camera flying through everything. Jessika: Yes! Mike: That was wild. That was really unusual to see camera work like that back then. The movie was distributed by 20th century Fox. And I think at this point, We'd be more surprised of 20th century Fox did a good job of marketing weird and cool, because they really botched it. They wound up forcing cuts to the movie that created really weird plot holes because they didn't feel that audiences needed it or what would understand it, and they wanted to make it simpler, but it really made things more confusing. European audiences on the other hand, really embraced the film because they got a much better version. So case in point, I'm going to show you the two main posters for it. This is the American poster for the movie. Jessika: Mmhmm. Oh, wow, he’s scary. Wow wow wow, okay. Before I even say any of the words, what you first see is Connor [00:13:00] MacLeod, but it's this awful grainy picture of him. He looks like there's something wrong with his face, which he shouldn't necessarily. And he looks like he's about to murder someone. He's like glaring off into the distance. And at the top it says, Oh, it's in black and white, by the way. at the top it says, He fought his first battle on the Scottish Highlands in 1536, he will fight his greatest battle on the streets of New York city in 1986. His name is Connor MacLeod. He is immortal Highlander! Credits at the bottom, rated R, absolutely rated R. Mike: Also, I feel like featuring original songs by Queen does not get the billing that it should. Jessika: I agree. I jammed my way through that film and this just the whole series, [00:14:00] actually the whole franchise I jammed my way through. Mike: Yeah. And if you listen to the kind of Magic album that is basically the unofficial soundtrack to the movie, and it's so good I don't know how they got those perpetual rights to Princes of the Universe, did. Every time I hear that song, I get a little thrill up my spine. All right. So here's the poster though for the European release. Jessika: All right. So, Ooh, this is totally different. This is Whoa. This is way more exciting. Okay. First of all, it's full Color, my friends, right in the middle in red it says Highlander right under it “There can only be one” in yellow. Oh it's amazing. There's a little sticker at the bottom that says featuring original songs by queen. Look it, trying to sell it, I love it. And then there's Connor MacLeod in the center of the screen [00:15:00] dramatically head back eyes closed screaming his sword thrusts forward and behind him is the Kurgan, oh my gosh so good. It's so - Oh, and a backdrop of New York city. All in lights. It's beautiful. Mike: Yeah. It’s one of those things where basically, that documentary that we watched seduced by Argentina, they talk about that where they're just like 20th century Fox fucked us. Jessika: And I didn't realize how much until, because I did watch that as well. And I'm like how bad could it be? But I that's pretty bad. It's a pretty big difference. It's like watching, that'd be like going, expecting to see like psycho or something. Mike: Honestly, I keep on thinking of Firefly and Fox and how they just totally botched the marketing for that show and then the release, and issues with Joss Wheden aside. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: It’s one of those [00:16:00] things where again, it's a really beloved cult property with a really devoted fan base, even, 5 years after it was released, shit, almost 20. Jessika: And I do love Firefly, again, Whedon aside. Mike: I do too. Jessika: And it makes me a little sad think about it because it had so much potential. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Oh, it's so rough. It's rough to see. Mike: Yeah. What were your overall thoughts on the movie now that you've seen it because you hadn't seen it before this, correct? Jessika: No. I had only seen the TV show and probably rightfully so, because that was much less violent. I mean, much less graphically violent. They were still beheading motherfucker every episode, but, versus the film, which is like blood and like half a head and wow, there, it goes the head. But I actually really liked the movie. It was adventurous, it was thrilling and told a fairly cohesive and interesting storyline which unfortunately had an ending. But it still took us on an emotional journey. [00:17:00] Mike: Yeah, and I feel the same way. Jessika:: And how all the camp that I love from the 1980s and the special effects are just chefs, kiss love it. Mike: There is something so wonderful about the special effects from the 1980s, because they're so earnest all the time. And at the same time they look so cheesy by comparison now. Jessika: But you can tell they were trying so hard. It's almost like a little kid who's just learning to finger paint and they walk up and they're like, I did this thing. It's so good. You're like, it is really good. It's really good for where you're at. Mike: Yeah, exactly. Highlander is very much a quintessential eighties film to me, and there's both that nostalgia factor, but also it's a pretty tight little film. It doesn't really try to do anything too grandiose or too world-building because I don't think they expected to really make the sequels that they wound up doing. Which speaking of which we should discuss the sequels. [00:18:00] Mike: Like, I feel like you can’t discussion without talking about the sequels. And honestly the first time I ever heard of Highlander as a brand really was when I was visiting family in Texas And we were watching a Siskel & Ebert episode where they were thrashing Highlander II. Jessika: Dude, Siskel and Ebert I'm sure hated this. This does not surprise me in the least. Mike: I don't remember much about it, I just remember being like, oh Sean Connery's in a movie, well that's cool. Because my parents had raised me on all of the Sean Connery James Bond movies. Jessika: Yeah casting, come on. Why? Why? They had a French dude playing a Scottish guy and a Scottish guy playing a Spanish Egyptian guy. It's. Mike: I believe label was a Hispaniola Egyptian. They kinda darkened up Sean Connery a little bit too. I'm not sure. Jessika: It felt that way. I was just hoping he had just been under the tanning beds, but no, I think you're right. [00:19:00] Mike: Highlander II was definitely the most infamous of the sequels. And I mean a huge part of that is because it had such a batshit production and there’d been so many different versions of it. It was so bad that Russell Mulcahey reportedly walked out of the film premiere after only 15 minutes. There's this great documentary that you and I both watched on YouTube, it's split up into a bunch parts, but it was a documentary they made for the special edition of Highlander II. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: It was the third release of the movie that they put out because the first one was basically the bonding company for the films. Investors took over the production and assembly of the movie due to the fact that Argentina, where they were filming. And they had gone to Argentina because a, it was gorgeous, but B because it was supposedly going to be a third of the cost Jessika: Yeah. Mike: To make a movie there than it would elsewhere. Argentina’s economy collapsed and went through hyperinflation. And as a result, everything just went haywire. But they went back years later and they not only recut the [00:20:00] movie, but they refilled or added in certain scenes I think four or five years later. And then on top of that, they did the special edition a few years after that, where they redid the special effects. And I don't know it's kind of funny because it's not a bad movie now. It's not terrible. I feel it's an enjoyable film in its own way. But it's also funny where you watch that documentary and they're talking about the stuff that they're so proud of. Russell Mulcahey was talking about how proud he was of that love scene. I'm using this in quotes, love scene between Virginia Madsen and and Christopher Lambert where they just decided to do it up against the wall of an alley? Jessika: That’s always an interesting choice to me. Like you really cannot wait. Mike: Yeah. And then he was like, I thought that was a really hot scene. And I got to sit there and I'm like, I don't, I can't view this through the lens of, a 20 something guy in the 1990s. I don't know what my interpretation of it would have been then, [00:21:00] but watching it now watching it for the first time when I was in my twenties and the, in the early aughts, I just was like, this is weird and sorta dumb. And also they don't really have a lot of chemistry, but okay. Jessika: Yeah, it just kind of happens. They're just like, Oh, here you are. Mike: Yeah Right I don't know. At the same time it was cool to see they did all those really practical, special effects where they actually had them whipping around on the wires on like the weird flying skateboards and stuff. I thought that was cool. Jessika: I thought that was neat too. And how he was like, yeah, I actually got on top of the elevator and he was excited. Now he got on top of the elevator. Mike: And then they basically just dropped it down, like that's wild. So how about Highlander three? Jessika: Ahhh… Mike: Yeah, that’s kinda where I am Jessika: It’s very forgettable in my book. Mike: I feel like you could wipe it from the timeline and no one would care. Really, it felt like a retread of the first movie, but with the shittier villain in a way less interesting love story. honestly, it was a bummer because Mario [00:22:00] Van Peebles, the guy who plays that the illusionist I can't even remember his name. It was that forgettable. Jessika: Yeah, no, I can't either. Mike: Mario van Peebles is a really good actor and he's done a lot of really cool stuff. And it just, it felt like he was the NutraSweet version of the Kurgan Jessika: I like that. Yes. Yes. Mike: All of the mustache twirling, none of the substance. Jessika: It leaves a little bit of a weird taste in your mouth. Mike: Right. Splenda Kurgan! Moving on Highlander, Endgame. Jessika: What I do like about this film is that in both the TV series, as well as the film, there is the actual crossover. Connor shows up in Duncan's world and Duncan shows up in Connor's world and there is that continuity, which is good. And I do appreciate that because, before I got into this, I assumed that the character was interchangeable and we were just seeing different actors James [00:23:00] Bond situation. And when I went back and realized like, Oh no, he's his own character, they're blah, you know. Mike: I dunno I saw this in theaters I love the show and I appreciated that it felt like an attempt to merge the movies in the series and of the movies, I feel like this actually has the strongest action scenes. There's that bit where Adrian Paul faces off against Donnie Yen. And I was like, that's gotta be really cool to be able to sit there and show your kids much later in life: hey, I got to do a martial arts scene with Donnie Yen and he didn't kill me in the movie. that's pretty dope. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: Again, it felt underwhelming. It just wasn't all that interesting. And also I spent years being mad at that movie because the trailer brought me into the theater expecting something way different than what we were going to get Jessika: Okay. And I don't know that I saw the trailer. Mike: It has, it has a bunch of scenes with Magic where Connor and Duncan jumped through a portal [00:24:00]. Jessika: What? Mike: And a sword gets thrown at Jacob Kell and he catches it midair. And then he does something else where he's holding a sphere where you see Connor's face screaming and then it shatters. Jessika: What’s with all this weird, extra scene stuff in these trailers. I don't understand. Mike: Yeah, it turns out that this hasn't, this has never really been officially confirmed, but reading between the lines yeah, it’s been confirmed. They basically filmed extra scenes just to make it more appealing for people. So they would show up to the theaters. Like they filmed scenes, effectively they filmed scenes just for the trailer the director when he was asked about it in Fearful Symmetry. He basically said, yeah, I know there was some stuff that they filmed for marketing afterwards, and I wasn't involved with that. And then I think it was Peter Davis that was asked about this for the book. And he basically said, Oh, this is a really standard practice. People, or accompanies [00:25:00] film stuff for for marketing purposes all the time. And that's where he left it. Jessika: Oh, okay. to know. Mike: I was really grumpy about that, but that said I've softened a little since then. Do we even want to talk about the Source? Cause I feel like that's something that we shouldn't talk about in polite company. Jessika: No pass. Mike: Okay. Jessika: It happened? Mike: It happened, it was a thing that happened that was going to be a trilogy. They were planning to make that into a trilogy of movies. Jessika: Ohh rough times. Mike: Oh it's real bad. I don't think you were able to watch this, but Highlander, the search for vengeance. It's the anime. Jessika: No, I couldn't find it. Mike: Yeah. It's not available for streaming and it really it's really a bummer because it's actually pretty good. I'm not quite sure how to qualify it because it's not a live action movie and it doesn't star Duncan or Connor, but it's a full length anime. It's a full length movie in its own right. It focuses on Colin MacLeod who he’s [00:26:00] an immortal, who's technically part of the MacLeod clan. He's born as a Roman Britain and then he's adopted into the MacLeod clan after he fights alongside them later on. They keep on doing this. They keep on going back to dystopian SciFutures, which I kinda like, Jessika: I love, bless their little hearts. Mike: Yeah. A lot of the story actually takes place in this post-apocalyptic 22nd century, New York. And I haven't seen this in about a decade because it's not available on streaming. I don't have the DVD anymore. I really should pick it up before it goes out of print. But the movie fucking slaps. It was directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri, he was really big in the nineties. He did Ninja Scroll and Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust. He's known for really cool looking movies that are also really violent at the same time. Like you look at his characters and you're like, Oh yeah, no, they all look interchangeable because they're also similar one movie to another, Jessika: Oh, I see. Mike: But they're really cool. And the movie was written by David Abramowitz, who was the head writer [00:27:00] for the TV show. So it felt like a pretty legit Highlander story. Honestly, if we had to talk about this and ask which of these movies or the sequels were our favorites, I would probably say the Search for Vengeance. Because I loved it so much, but since that wasn't a theatrical release, we'll exclude that and you didn't get to watch it. Of the sequels, which did you enjoy most? Jessika: Mike, why don’t you go first. Mike: Okay. I'm a little torn, I guess I enjoyed Endgame mainly because it feels like part of he in quotes, real Highlander story, I guess it's the least terrible of the sequels. And it brought in my favorite characters. The final version of Highlander II, is I don't know. I don't hate it. It honestly feels like a cool dystopian cyberpunk story with some bizarre Highlander lore shoehorned in, but at the same time, it's not the worst thing I've ever watched. How about you? Jessika: Funny [00:28:00] enough, I was going to say Highlander II, but maybe just a bit more so if it were its own standalone movie and not try to be a part of the Highlander franchise. The idea of the shield is super interesting and I think they could have elaborated more on the lead-up and the resolution of that issue rather than having to also make it about the Immortals in their forever game. Mike: Yeah, I agree. How do you feel about moving onto the TV series? Jessika: Oh, I am pro. Mike: Okay. I personally feel like this is the property that sucks all the air out of the room when you're talking about Highlander. Jessika: Oh no. Mike: Yeah, I mentioned that this is how I really got introduced to the brand. I started watching it in high school, around season three, which was when it was really starting to get good. The first two seasons I feel were kind of when they were ironing out all the rough spots. But I wound up watching it through the end. So if you're listening to this podcast and you have never seen the [00:29:00] show Highlander, the series ran for six seasons, which is a good length of time for any TV show. And it followed the adventures of Duncan, who was another member of the MacLeod clan. He was a distant cousin of Connor. And the show bounced between Seacouver, which is a fictionalized version of Vancouver in Paris. And it basically retcon things so that the original movie didn't end with The Quickening, but that the battle between the Kurgan and Connor was it's implied, it was the start of The Gathering. That's my interpretation of it. Jessika: That was what I got too. Mike: Yeah. And Christopher Lambert, he shows up in the pilot to help set things up and get them moving. But I think that's the only time we ever really seen him on the show. Jessika: Correct. He's really just an intro. He's in that first episode only. Mike: You have rewatched it as a have I . We haven't watched the entire series all the way through, but we've watched a lot of episodes. Jessika: Correct. Mike: How do you feel [00:30:00] it measures up today? compared to that nostalgic view that we had before, Jessika: I had a lot of fun watching it, actually. definitely super cheesy. I don't love all of the characters I watched a lot of the first season, then I bounced around I think I did the top, like 25 on a list that you sent me. But Duncan’s just so codependent sometimes with his characters and it's like the one time the Tessa goes on a hike by herself, she gets kidnapped by an, a mortal and it’s like, oh my God, she can't even go on a fucking hike, are you joking me? And the one time he goes to the store by himself, he gets kidnapped and it's like, oh, come the fuck on you guys. Mike: Yeah, I feel like it generally holds up pretty well. It's a little uneven, but when it hits , it really hits. And it's a lot of fun. And considering that it was a relatively low budget show on basic cable in the early to mid-nineties, there's a lot of stuff that has aged way worse. [00:31:00] Jessika:: Absolutely. It exceeded my expectations on the rewatch, for sure. Mike: Yeah, and I have to say that one really cool thing about Highlander is it's got a really large female fan base. And I suspect that the show is really responsible for that. Jessika: I would agree. There's a few reasons. Mike: Are six of those reasons. Duncan's abs? Jessika: Like 10 of those reasons are all the times he gets surprised in a bathtub. I know I messaged you while I was watching them, because I was like Duncan got surprised in a bathtub again. Mike: I don't remember which episode it was, but there's one where he is surprised while he's in a bathrobe and he's got, it's not even tighty whities, it’s like a bikini brief, and watching that, I was just sitting there going, thank you for this gift. Thank you. Thank you for this visual treat that you have given us in the middle of my very boring work day. Jessika: It’s [00:32:00] also that there are such a wide variety of female characters. I would say, Iit’s not just the other female person he seeing or whatever, the love interest, there are other female Immortals and they a lot more frequently than they do in the films. I can't recall if they have any female immortals in the films. Mike: They do in Endgame. Jessika: Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I thought there was, there were some in there, but that’s tailing into, I mean yeah. Mike: Yeah. And the Source had them too, but meh. Jessika: Oh yeah. Mike: I will say that the show was pretty good about writing pretty strong female characters, I felt. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: And we'll talk about Amanda in a little bit, but I have to say that I really liked how she was written and how Elizabeth Grayson played her through the original series and then her own afterwards. I dunno. I, what do you think is the sexiest thing about Duncan MacLeod? I'm curious. Jessika: He seems [00:33:00] really like trustworthy, but like and sexy trustworthy. It's like, he'd be the dude. I called if some guys were fucking with me. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: I kept on thinking about how there's this Tumblr post that's been going around the internet, regularly, and it's this discussion about which Disney men women find the sexiest guys always thinks it's Gaston. Jessika: Oh lord, why? Mike: It’s that male power fantasy thing where they're just like, oh no, like he's like really charming. And he's really muscly. And the counterargument from women is usually A no Gaston sucks and B we all like Roger from 101 Dalmatians. Jessika: Oh yeah. Roger. Mike: Which, Roger is very much my personal role model. The dude's a talented musician, he loves animals and he's got that great, a snark where he literally is trolling the villain when she comes to his house with a motherfucking trombone from upstairs [00:34:00]. And I think Duncan's a little like that. Like he's cultured and he's worldly and he's got this wicked sense of humor. And he's also the type of dude who has no problem reciting poetry in public or making his partner breakfast in bed. Jessika: Yeah, absolutely. Mike: So it just it was something that came to mind while I was rewatching all this stuff. Jessika: Yeah. just as like a wholesome guy. Mike: Right? Jessika: He always has good intentions. So that's actually what it feels like. He's always coming at things with good intentions. Mike: Yeah, and he's not perfect, but he's always trying to do the right thing, which I really appreciate. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: What was your favorite episode? Jessika: I went back and forth. I really like the Homeland episode, and like I said, I've really only watched a good chunk of most of season what I would say, and then so kind of bounced around, but season four, episode one. It was really sweet to see [00:35:00] Duncan take the obligatory trip back to his Homeland to pay respects. And it also had a good lesson in not judging a book by its cover as the main character assumes that Duncan is just an ancestry tourist, which was super interesting. She was super hating on it but I was like this is interesting instead of visiting what once was literally his home during formative years. So it was just such a wild thing to see her be like, what are you doing near those graves? And he can't really be like, they were my parents because you cannot even read them. They are so old. Mike: The funny thing is I didn't rewatch that episode during our refresher, but I remember watching that episode when I was about 15 or so. Because it's stuck out to me. Jessika: It’s really good. And of course, Duncan, he always has a good intention. The whole reason he went back was because he figured out that somebody had been [00:36:00] pilfering graves Mike: Yeah. Jessika: And he had to return what was in this grave. Mike: I know he's making the rest of us look bad. So mine is, it's unusual suspects. It's from season six, which I feel is actually pretty weak season overall. And it's this really silly one-off episode, starring Roger Daltry of the Who fame. He plays Hugh Fitzcairn, which is a character that he shows up in plays a couple of times throughout the series. And at this point in time in the story, he was dead, but it's a flashback to the 19 teens or 1920s. 1920s, because it ends with the stock market crash, but it's a take on the British country, house murder, mystery genre, and it's really fun. And it was just this really refreshing moment of levity after what I felt our run of really heavy, and in my opinion, not very good episodes. The end of season five and the beginning of season [00:37:00] six are all about Duncan confronting this demon named Aramon and it's weird and it's not very good. And I really don't enjoy it. This is all my opinion. I'm sure that I'm insulting some Highlander fan who absolutely loves this, but it's a fun episode in its own. And then it's a good moment after one that I didn't really enjoy. And so it's got that extra refreshing bonus. I just, I want to note, it's really funny to me how intertwined Highlander has always been with rock and roll and music in general, because they had Mulcahey who do it, doing all these music videos and stuff. And then they kept on having musicians show up as guest stars. I think it was there's a character named Xavier St. Cloud, I think who was played by one of the guys from, again, I think, Fine Young Cannibals? Jessika: Yeah, I think I actually watched that episode. Mike: I think he was using nerve gas to kill people. Jessika: Yes I did watch that episode. That was a wild one. Yeah. Mike: Yeah, and I think he shows up later on too. [00:38:00] I can't remember but anyway, I really appreciate that they gave Roger Daltry of all people, this character, and he just really had fun with it and they kept bringing him back. Jessika: Yeah. He was a good character every episode he was in my other favorites was the one where they had Mary Shelley and he was in that one too. I believe. Mike: I think so. Yeah. No, it was, the series was really fun, and I liked that we can sit there and pull all these episodes just from memory that we really liked. Jessika: Absolutely. Mike: So season six , they were trying to find a new actress who could carry her own Highlander show. And so they tested out a bunch of different actresses in season six and gave them either really strong guest appearances, or they were basically the main character for episodes. But they wound up not going with any of them. They went with Elizabeth Grayson and gave her the Raven where she reprised her roles Amanda. Did you watch any of that? Did you get a chance to? Jessika: I watched the [00:39:00] first and the last episode of season one, I can only find the first season. Is there only one? Mike: There’s only one season, it didn’t get picked up again. Jessika: Oh then there you go. Then I could have only, I know I was scratching my head. Worried about where else do I find this? Mike: Well, and it ends on a cliff-hanger. Jessika: Yeah, exactly. That's where I was like, let's go. Mike: It ends with Nick becoming immortal. Jessika: Oh, see, I didn't quite finish it. Cause I was hurriedly setting it up in the background. Mike: Yeah it was fine. I thought Elizabeth Grayson is really charming in that role, but at the same time, there wasn't a lot of chemistry initially between Amanda and Nick, I felt at the very beginning. Jessika: I agree, not in the first episode. Mike: By the end of the season, it was there, and I think they were also, as is the case with most shows first seasons, they were trying really hard to figure out what they wanted to do. And so originally it was a cop show with an immortal, which there are certainly worse pitches that I've heard. Jessika: Yeah. No, I agree. Mike: But yeah. sad that it didn't get to go further [00:40:00] Jessika: I'm tempted to go back and watch all of these things. I may have to do a pallet cleanse of something different. I may have to go back to my Marvel watching. Mike: On top of this, there was a Saturday morning cartoon called Highlander, the series or Highlander, the animated series, and it was set in the future. It's in a weird alternate timeline. It stars another MacLeod. It's fine It's a Saturday morning cartoon. I didn't even care enough to really go back and watch it because being that great. They did some interesting stuff. Like they brought Ramirez back if I remember, right. And then they also had a thing where instead of beheading other Immortals, the main character had an ability where he could be voluntarily given their power. Jessika: Oh. Mike: So he had all of their knowledge and power. And again, it’s again in a dystopian future where another immortal has taken over the world. Jessika: Wow. They just love their dystopian future. Mike: They really do. But yeah, it's fine. I think it's streaming on Amazon prime. I was just so focused on everything else that I didn't get a chance to go and [00:41:00] rewatch it. Jessika: Huh, good to know. Mike: We're going to go over all the other various pieces of media real quick. and then we've got one side tangent and then we're going to go through comic books, but. Jessika: I'm so excited. Mike: Books, Highlander wound up having a pretty substantial literary footprint. The original movie had the official novelization. There wasn't really anything after that until the show came out and then the show had 10 novels and an anthology and an official behind the scenes kind of book called the Watchers Guide and it's full of essays and interviews and photos. And since then, there've been a couple of non-fiction books, like Fearful Symmetry, which is about everything Highlander related. And it's almost like a textbook, but it's pretty good. And then there's also A Kind of Magic, which is more focused on making of the original movie. And those are both actually really good. I liked them a lot. They were really easy to read. [00:42:00] There were audio plays, which I keep on forgetting audio plays are a thing at this point, but it's by this company called Big Finish in the UK. They do tie-in audio dramas for television properties. Most famously they do Dr Who. They wound up doing two seasons of audio plays. The first had Adrian Paul reprise his role as Duncan and they take place after the series ended. And then also after the events of Endgame, you can't really find them anymore. Because they just, the license expired so they aren't selling them as far as I'm aware. Jessika: That's super interesting though. Dang. Mike: Yeah. And then the second season focuses on the four horsemen Immortals, remember Jessika: Okay. Mike: Do you remember them? Jessika: I sure do. Mike: Because we were talking about this a little bit, but it was all about Methos and the other guys that he hung out with when he was effectively, a comic book villain who would've if he’d had a mustache to twirl, he would have done it. Jessika: So quickly. Yes. Mike: I thought that was really interesting. There were a couple of people in the Highlander Heart [00:43:00] group who talked about it and they seem to really like them. I can't comment, but it was really neat. Games, this is the one that's really interesting. Highlander actually has been turned into a number of games over the years. There's a couple of tabletop games we're going to breeze through. So there was two different card games in a board game. One of the card games was released back in the nineties, it was a collectible card game. And this was right when Magic: The Gathering was really hot and everybody was trying to get in on that action. And then recently there's a new one called Highlander: The Duel. And it's a deck-building game where you play as Connor or the Kurgan going up against each other. And just a couple of years ago, there was a board game that got kick-started, it was in 2018 and it's this fast paced game for two to six players. The reviews across the web were pretty positive. And again, it's one of those things where it's Immortals battling for that mysterious prize. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: But it's cool. Jessika: Nice. Mike: I’m actually pretty surprised [00:44:00] we never got like a tabletop RPG because they are not precious about applying the license for Highlander to stuff. I'm amazed that nobody went to them and said, Hey, we can make this cool historical RPG where we sorta start having players wake up and then they have flashbacks or whatever. And Jessika: Yeah Oh that would have been cool Yeah Mike: Right? But yeah we never got anything like that which I was really I actually that was the one thing I expected and was surprised to see that we never got. Okay. So we're going to go into mini tangent with video games even though they aren't technically related to comics. The first game for Highlander was a 1986 tie-in release for home computers. It was a really simple fighting title. It wasn't well received. It was apparently pretty bad. So after that the animated series had a tie in called Highlander: Last of the MacLeods. It was released on the Atari Jaguar CD console. If you remember that. Do you remember the Atari Jaguar? Jessika: Oh my god, no. I don't. [00:45:00] Mike: It kinda got lost in the shuffle in the early to mid nineties of all the different consoles that were coming out. But you can find footage of this on YouTube and it's one of those early 3d games. And so it got a lot of praise for his exploration elements and animated video sequences, but it also got a lot of criticism for its controls in combat. After that there was actually going to be an MMO called Highlander, The Gathering. And it was in development by a French studio called Kalisto entertainment, which was honestly weird because Kalisto's catalog up until now were mostly middling single-player games. They'd gotten famous for a series called Nightmare Creatures, but they also did a Fifth Element racing game on PS2 that I had and was actually pretty fun. Anyway, Kalisto went bankrupt before the MMO could come out. Jessika: Oh! Mike: And none of the folks who, yeah, that's video games. Jessika: Fair enough. Mike: So they went bankrupt. The MMO hadn't come out yet. And the folks who wound up with the rights afterwards just decided to kill the project. There's [00:46:00] one other game. That's become the source of a lot of speculation. And it's only known as Highlander: The Game it basically came about because Davis Panzer productions that's, the guys who own the rights to Highlander, and SCI, which was this holding company that owned a bunch of video game groups. They decided to ink a deal, to make a Highlander game. They announced that they basically had done a partnership back in like 2004, 2005. And at the time SCI owned Eidos who was the publisher that gave us Tomb Raider. So they were a pretty big name. The game itself was formally announced by Eidos in 2008 and the development was being handled by another French developer called Widescreen Games. It was going to be an action role-playing game. It would star a new Immortal named Owen MacLeod. The story was going to be written again by David Abramowitz and that added some [00:47:00] serious legitimacy to the project for fans. Actually, why don’t you read the summary. Jessika: Would love to my pleasure. Summary: Owen is captured and enslaved by Romans who force him to compete as a gladiator. During this time, Owen dies only to come back to life. Methos, the oldest living immortal approaches Owen to be his mentor. He teaches Owen about the game and how he and other Immortals can only be slain by beheading. As with other immortal MacLeods Owen is pursued throughout his life by a nemesis. This enemy proves to be extremely powerful. One that Owen is unable to defeat Owen learns of a magical stone, fragments of which are scattered all over the world. Throughout the game, Owen embarks upon a quest to recover these fragments and restore the stone in an attempt to gain the power to overcome his foe. [00:48:00] So dramatic. I love it. Mike: What's Highlander without any drama? But that sounds rad right? Jessika: Oh, it sounds amazing. Mike: The game was announced with a trailer in 2008 that really only showed some of the environments from different eras and then it ended with an image of Owen, but it looked promising. And then there wasn't much else after a couple of years of pretty much nothing but radio silence, Eidos wound up canceling the game and that's where a lot of the speculation has started. There's not a lot of information on Highlander: The Game. I keep waiting for one of those gaming history YouTubers to get ahold of an old dev kit and then do a video with a build, but that hasn't happened yet. So really it's all kind of speculation and wishful thinking about what could have been. And it also seems like some of the details are getting muddied as time goes on. Like Fearful Symmetry talks about the game of it but they [00:49:00] have the segment. And again I want you to read this. Jessika: Sure sure. The gam was so far along in its development stages that segments including backdrops and some of the gameplay options were presented at a Highlander Worldwide event in Los Angeles 2006 and got a very positive reaction. The beautifully rendered backdrops were almost movie quality and included the likes of Pompei, a dark forest in the Highlands, New York, and Japan as gameplay locations and introduced us to another MacLeod, Owen, the same surname but a much earlier vintage. Mike: Yeah, so, I think Mosby is a little overly enthusiastic about all of this, and this is because I think Mosby doesn't have much familiarity with how game development works. It sounds like they had concept art on display and were discussing gameplay [00:50:00] rather than showcasing a build of the game. Concept art and design discussions are things that happen very early in game development. But if you're an outsider, looking in this stuff could easily be interpreted as things being much further along than they were. Jessika: Ah. Mike: Yeah. Now that said, I did work in video games for almost a decade, and a few of my coworkers were actually involved with Highlander the game. Jessika: What? Mike: Every one of them over the years has told me the cancellation was a mercy killing. And again, this is from multiple sources, so I'm not going to name or identify because, I don't want to make things awkward for them. But basically the game was garbage . It's not really surprising to hear cause widescreen never really made a good game, the best reception that any of their titles got was just kinda mixed. But earlier this week, I actually called one of my friends. Who'd been [00:51:00] attached to the project because I wanted to get more information about this game before we recorded. Jessika: We need to get you a new shovel, you dug so deep for this. Mike: With both hands. But, they confirmed what I've been hearing from other people the gameplay itself wasn't just bad. It was boring. The biggest problem was it didn't know what kind of a game it wanted to be. Basically, it was trying to do everything all at once. There were a bunch of traversal elements, which didn't really make a lot of sense. Like why would you climb a Manhattan skyscraper when you're a roided out dude with a sword? Couldn't you just take the elevator? Or I don't know the stairs? There was going to be a bunch of Magic elements in the gameplay, which, isn't really, that's not really a thing in Highlander. There's that fantasy element because we're talking about Immortals who can't die unless you cut off their heads, but generally Magic isn't a part of the accepted Canon. And then the combat, what they were aiming to do something like [00:52:00] God of war, which was really big at the time. But, it wasn't great. My friend also pointed out that Owen looked like a bodybuilder, but his fashion sense was from that industrial metal scene of the late nineties, which neither of those things really fits with the Highlander aesthetic because Adrian Paul was arguably the most in shape of the Highlander actors. But even that was, he was a dude who was like, yeah, I could achieve that if I was really good about my diet and then just worked out aggressively but not like Hugh Jackman does for his Wolverine roles. Jessika: Yeah, yeah. Mike: So I'm going to send you a screenshot of what Owen looked like in the key art the initial title it does. Jessika: What? It looks like Criss Angel. Mike: Right. And they're trying to recreate that iconic pose of The Quickening from the first movie that Connor does at the very end where he's getting raised up and, by the rails of Lightning, or the wires [00:53:00] of lightning. Jessika: Yeah, I get what they were trying to do. Mike: Yeah,I wanna know, what the fuck is up with those weird straps with rings that are going down his legs. Jessika: I don't really know, I was trying to figure that out myself. So just so that everyone can really get the picture that we're getting here and you'll, you might understand why it's taken me so long to describe it. I had to take it all in first. Mike: Yeah, it’s a ride. Jessika: It’s all very monochromatic. And the background is of course, a cut of the statue of Liberty, the backdrop of parts of New York that I'm sure aren't even next to each other, which is always funny. And then what is this? Is this the new guy, or is this supposed to be Duncan? Mike: Yeah, this is the new guy, Jessika: It’s Owen. Mike: Yeah. It's Owen. And then Connor and Duncan were supposed to appear, supposedly. I know Peter Wingfield was recording his lines for Methos. Jessika: Well, if they haven't killed off Methos that makes sense. And I don't know in the series if they have, and maybe Duncan makes [00:54:00] sense if he hasn't died yet, but. Mike: Yeah they can't kill off Methos, Methos was my first gay crush. Jessika: Yeah. He's. Slightly problematic in a couple episodes, but he's a great character overall. But he's very Chriss Angel, he's wearing like a trench coat and that has to be some sort of a lace undershirt or something. Mike: lAnd he’s got like a weird really, like baggy leather pants. Jessika: Yes. Which cannot be comfortable. It's doing this weird pooching thing in the front. Mike: Yeah, and then I think I saw another screenshot where it looks like he's wearing skater shoes tennis shoes as well. Jessika: Oh, Vans Off the Wall, man. Mike: Just once I want to see a MacLeod in the movies with a good fashion sense. Jessika: Yeah, I mentioned that I wanted to cosplay as Duncan, which overall would be a great idea. But then I was looking through his outfits and I'm like, what do I wear? Do I wear this weird white tank top with these like acid wash jeans [00:55:00] and a belt? Or is this the one where I'm wearing like five shirts and a long jacket? Is it that day? Mike: You know who he looks like that guy, Canus. Jessika: Yes! Yes, does. He has the lace shirt and everything. Mike: And the dog collar. Jessika: Oh my god, it was so funny. I told you, I think it was trying to be edgy. Mike: Yeah, and instead it comes off as really queer-coded. Jessika: It really does though. I know, my little queer brain was like bling. Mike: Yeah, It feels like they weren't really getting the essence of what Highlander actually was and who these guys were, because usually the Highlander characters are a little bit more believable and ordinary because that's the whole idea is that they're walking among us and we have no idea unless they tell us. Okay. On top of all this. So remember how I mentioned that trailer was just showcasing environments for the [00:56:00] game. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: There was a reason for that. The reason was that they couldn’t get the character models to work. Jessika: Oh! Mike: So the shot of Owen at the end it's actually just animated key art it's the same it's the same art that you just saw. It's that image. It was just slightly animated. And then they released a couple of screenshots for the game, but apparently they were really heavily photo-shopped well, beyond industry standards. So, it was one of those things where, this was a turd and it needed to be flushed. And it finally did. But Widescreen went under about a year after the game was formally announced. They were working on another big project and apparently that got taken away, and as a result, it just caused the studio to implode. By this point in time Square Enix the guys do all the final fantasy games had bought Eidos and they formally canceled it. We're not sure why exactly, my guess is that it was probably, they just looked at cost it would take to finish this game and then the [00:57:00] amount that it would need to sell in order to be profitable or to meet their sales expectations for it and they just thought it wasn't worth it. But yeah, my friend actually said they were embarrassed to work on it and they would have been fine even if it had been an average game, but it was just bad. Even one of those kind of middling average games, I think that would have been fine, that would have lived up to the Highlander bar. Finally, there's that Highlander game that spark unlimited was working on. I never even heard a whisper about this until. We watched that episode of Highlander Heart focusing on video games, and they brought Craig Allen on to talk about the project. Based on what we know now, I think this might be why Square Enix was holding onto the rights for another year after they shut down Highlander, the game, just because they had this other title, theoretically in development or very early development. Based on the footage that they have, it looks like they had at least done enough development work to put together a vertical slice that they could show for pitch [00:58:00] purposes and at conventions. But I thought it was really promising looking overall. What did you think? Jessika: I thought it did look really interesting the game play itself I did like the idea of having a female Highlander. That being said, they had this whole concept about what Craig Allen was calling beautiful damage. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: And it was this whole thing about, oh it was the first female Highlander and her looks go when she gets damaged, and that's her whole motivation is to stay pretty. And I just, that gave me a huge headache, and it of course was super male-gazey I mean, the game itself seemed that way. Mike: It was weird because I would love to see women and Highlander being built a little bit more like warriors, like a little bit more muscly, which would be in keeping with people who battle across the centuries. [00:59:00] They don't need to be super jacked like the Amazons in Wonder Woman, but making them look like stick thin suicide girl, punk rock chick from the late aughts. Didn't quite gel with me. I understood what he was talking about though, because that was the thing where they were starting to do permanent cosmetic damage in video games. That was something that was really big in the Batman Arkham games. Every time that you got knocked out, you'd come back and you'd have a little bit more of your outfit chipped apart. So, after a while Batman's looking pretty ragged and you realize maybe I'm not as good at this game as I think I am. Jessika: Yeah And the concept itself is really interesting It just I guess was the way it was phrased by this person. And it very much was he was so proud of the fact that it was the first Highlander female in a video game. And then everything was just like so incredibly sexist. I was excited that I wasn't Mike: We're also viewing it, with the lens of 2021 at this point. At that time, [01:00:00] that was before they had relaunched Tomb Raider, in 2013, 2014, where they made her much more realistic. She was still very fit, but she wasn't the Lara Croft that had generated a lot of criticism. I think possibly, I don't know, but I hope that it would have been marketed a bit differently if it had been done today. That said we also don't know exactly what it would look like as a final product. Jessika: Oh absolutely, yeah. Mike: It’s, I agree. It's a little bit problematic viewed through the current lens. At the same time, like a lot of the Highlander properties when it was being done, I think it was kind of just par for the course. Jessika: Yeah, fair enough. But, I did like the idea of having a female Highlander and having her have a whole story regardless of whether it's the first one to be completely [01:01:00] tragedy laden which was the other comment like her experience a ton of loss because she's female and experiences empathy unlike the male characters. Mike: I really didn't like that. Actually. I thought that was. I mean the, the whole thing where they were saying we wanted to focus on lifetimes of tragedy as opposed to enjoying multiple lives. And I'm like, that's the whole purpose of Highlander. That's what I really like is when you sit there and you watch them having fun and doing all this interesting stuff. Jessika: Women aren't allowed to have fun, Mike. Mike: Apparently. Jessika: We just have to have lives full of tragedy and pining for people that we've lost in our lives. Mike: Well, yeah. And we all know that the dudes don't have feelings, so we just, you know, go on and enjoy things. Jessika: That does suck that Hugh they don't give men the ability to have that capacity or give them the the credit to have that capacity. Mike: I will say, I am sorry that this one didn't get further along the development [01:02:00] stages, because it certainly seemed like it had a lot more promise than the title that was canceled right before it. Jessika: Yes, the gameplay itself looked more interesting, it looks more complex, it easier to navigate. What they were showing us was really intense. Mike: I really liked that whole idea of being able to view the environments in two different eras. It reminded me a lot of another Eidos game called legacy of Cain soul river, where there was a spiritual world and then a physical world. And you could flip back and forth between them, which was kind of cool. Jessika: Oh, that’s neat Mike: Yeah. I dug that. I liked the idea of exploring the same environment in two different areas. I thought that was really neat. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: Let's move on to Comics. Jessika: Sounds great. Mike: Okay, so, I’m curious. When do you think that Highlander got big enough to get a comic book? Jessika: I don't know maybe late nineties Mike: 2006. Jessika: Wow [01:03:00] That's later than I had expected. Mike: Yeah. There wasn't a comic adaptation of the movie when it came out, which is weird, there wasn't one here in the States. Highlander Heart, in their YouTube podcast, noted there was a series of five newspaper comic strips that were published as part marketing promotion. The hosts weren't entirely certain if they're exclusive to Europe or not. I don't know. I haven't been able to really find much reference to it. After the movie came out, though there was a two-part comic adaptation in Argentina. It was published through El Tony Todo Color and El Tony Supercolor they were sibling comic anthology magazines, and here's the weird twist. It looks like this was an unlicensed adaptation. Jessika: Mmhm, interesting. Mike: So now we're going to take another side tangent. The important thing that you need to know is that Argentina had just come out of a brutal military dictatorship that came about as part of Operation Condor, which is this horrific program the United States was involved in. And it isn't really taught about in high school history, at least it [01:04:00] wasn't when I was going through high school and I went to a pretty good one. did you ever learn about that? I'm curious. Jessika: No, I did not. Mike: Okay I'm giving you an extremely TLDR read of this, but basically this was a program in the seventies and eighties when the US backed military dictatorships across South America. So our country helped these groups, kidnap, torture, rape murder, thousands of political opponents, like Argentina was especially brutal. There were literally death squads, hunting down political distance across the country. It was a really horrific time. I want you to read this summary of what was going on during that time, actually. Jessika: Give me the really fun stuff I see. Mike: Sorry. Jessika: No you're good. It is estimated that between - 9,000 and 30,000 that's a huge span. Mike: I know, it’s such a margin of error I don't understand. Jessika: Lack of record taking will get you there quick, I think. I'm going to start over, but we’ll leave that in. It is estimated that between [01:05:00] 9,000 and 30,000 people were killed or disappeared, many of whom were impossible to formally report due to the nature of state terrorism. The primary target, like in many other South American countries participating in Operation Condor, were communist guerrillas and sympathizers, but the target of Operation Condor also included students, militants trade, unionists, writers, journalists, I don't love this, artists, and any other citizens suspected of being left-wing activists - well take me the goddamn way away. Mike: Right. Jessika: Including Peronist guerillas. I don't love that. Mike: No it's really awful. And based on that list of targets, it's not surprising that there was a lot of media suppression during this time. Democracy returned to the country in ’83, and there was this explosion of art across the mediums. Argentine Comics [01:06:00] saw this Renaissance period. A lot of them though, weren't really licensed and let's be honest. It's not like there's an internet where IP owners could monitor stuff like this and shut it down when they learned about it. There was also this drastic comics increase in the area due to create or publishing Zines because the eighties was the decade where personal computers suddenly became commonplace and all of a sudden pe
"March" Movie Madness part 3 (of 3)! For our final Justice League movie discussion, we go outside the DCEU and discuss two movies dealing with Wonder Woman's origins in very different ways. Professor Marston and the Wonder Women tells the story of Wonder Woman's creation and also looks at the unconventional lives of her creators. Meanwhile, the 2009 animated film provides a more modern take with an all-star vocal cast. Join us as we go down the rabbit hole that is Wonder Woman's history and discuss kink, polyamory, and BDSM. And -per usual- we swear a lot, too. Have questions/comments/concerns? Hit us up: tencenttakes@gmail.com ----more---- Jessika: I hope you realize what extremely heavy California accents we have. I hope you understand when the feedback comes in, that will be part of it! Hello and welcome to Ten Cent Takes, the podcast where we correct your comic misconceptions. One issue at a time. My name is Jessika Frazier and I am joined by my cohost, the royal robot, Mike Thompson. Mike: That's right. All my circuits are platinum or I don't know. Gold, gold plated, something. Jessika: Oh, gold plated. You've got like diamond and crusted things. They also serve a purpose being one of the sharpest items or Mike: Yeah I it. Thank you for that intro. Jessika: Of course. Well, the purpose of this podcast is to study comic books in ways that are both fun and informative. We want to look at their coolest, weirdest and silliest moments, as well as examine how they're woven into the larger fabric of pop culture and history. Now, today we're discussing the final installment of our "March" movie madness. Now I'm throwing heavy quotes around March movie madness because it is actually April. Mike: It's almost tax day at this point. Jessika: It's almost tax day. So we bled out a little bit, but we're trying to do these bi-weekly we got a little ahead of ourselves because we got so excited just to be talking about these things that we did a few more than we really anticipated in March, I would say to our listeners benefit. Mike: Yeah, sure. I concur. Jessika: So we are doing a deep dive into Wonder Woman's origins today. Now I'm not just talking about the origins of the character, but also of their creator and the reasons and motivations that drove this comic into existence. I'm excited about this. Mike: I am too. These movies were really pleasant surprises for different reasons. Jessika: I will agree with that wholeheartedly. Now, before we get into that, though. We love to do that whole one cool thing you've read or watched lately. And Mike, let's go ahead and start with you. Mike: Yeah. So I've been consuming a lot of Star Trek lately. I really enjoy the franchise in general, but I have this deep abiding passion for Deep Space Nine because my great uncle who was essentially my grandfather when I was growing up , we used to watch the show together every Sunday when we would go over to their house for dinner. So like, that was just this wonderful bonding activity with this guy who used to be a dive bomber in World War II and his very nerdy little 11-year-old nephew. I have these very treasured memories and I have the entire series on DVD of Deep Space Nine, which I will be buried with by the way. But both the entire series and the recent documentary about the show is on Amazon Prime. So I've been rewatching all of that, and I've been actually rereading some of the comics and then last week Star Trek Legends came out on a Apple Arcade and... it's fine. It's nothing special, but it's a fun distraction if you're a Trekkie who wants to just mash it up all the various characters from the different series together. So I currently have a away team with characters from the Next Generation and then Discovery and then the original series all together. And it's dumb, but it's fun. But this has led me down this rabbit hole, and I think that we should probably wind up doing an episode on Star Trek history in comics and how it actually helped shape the MCU as we know it. Jessika: I would love that. That sounds like so much fun. And I love Star Trek as well. I used to watch Star Trek with my dad. We were a Next Gen family. So I, you know, next gen and Riker jumping over chairs is like near and dear to my heart. Mike: I'm really bummed that that is not an animation and Star Trek Legends. It really makes me so grumpy. Jessika: What a miss. Such a missed opportunity Mike: What about you? What have you been reading or watching lately? Jessika: So I've been casually reading through a reprint of Giant-Size X-Men from 1975, and I say casually just kind of every once in a while I'll pick it up and I'll read through a few pages and be like, "Oh that was fun." And kind of put it back down again between whatever I'm doing. So of course you know they're they're retro comics and you know things are going to... it's me: Things are going to rub me the wrong way about some of the retro comics. Mike: A comic that's almost 40 years old possibly having some problematic elements to it? Go on. Jessika: Yeah no I try to set aside a lot of that but it is quite difficult with my very outspoken mind of mine. But one scene that really bothered me was from Storm's introduction. Professor X seeks out Storm in her native Kenya where she's legitimately saving the countryside by using her weather powers to get rid of drought. Mike: Right Jessika: But Professor X has the audacity to show up and say, "nah listen: Like I know you're helping quote unquote helping people here but I also need your help. And I'm much more important, let's be real. It's just a whole bag of yikes. Mike: Yeah I mean what year did giant size X-Men come out? Was that 75? Jessika: It was 75. Mhm. Mike: Yeah... That was the same year that we got Lois Lane turning black for a literal white savior piece of journalism. Racial sensitivity was not really a thing back then Jessika: Yeah, absolutely. And I and I do try to put myself into that mindset It's just so cringey though in this day and age to see things like that Mike: Yeah. Jessika: What I do like about it that everybody is so salty to one another. Like so salty. They're so sassy to one another. Every other page has just a roast battle between the members of the X-Men where they're like "yeah, One Eye" like Mike: I think I read a reprint of that when I was like 12 or 13 but I haven't re-read it at all recently. So I'll have to go back and check that out Jessika: I'll throw it your way. You can borrow it. It's fun. Well let's get into the meat of our episode and this was definitely a meaty topic. And I know I told you a little bit earlier I love me a good rabbit hole. Love jumping just right into them right off the top I read –more like I listened to but I mean it was a lot of time spent– three different audio books on the topic. Mike: Yeah no that's awesome I'm so excited to hear about all of Jessika: this. And the hard part then was whittling down what information I really wanted to give you. I highly recommend all of these resources and I really want to just throw them out at the top We will also throw them into the show notes. But I highly recommend -if you're interested in this topic- go read more about this because I'm not even touching the surface of these books. They are amazing. So the first one that I read was it was actually an article from smithsonian.com titled "the surprising origin story of Wonder Woman" by Jill LePore which led me to Jill LePore's larger book or I would say more extended book called The Secret History of Wonder Woman. It was also read by the author, so if you're a book on tape person, highly recommend listening to it. She's one of those people who really keeps your attention and she doesn't have that kind of drowsy lilt that some people do while they're reading, So I definitely I was able to stay really focused on it. And the last one was Wonder Woman Psychology by Trina Robbins and that had a couple of different narrators but that one was also very interesting and talked about all of the different aspects of the time and the different parts of psychology and gets more into because you know spoiler alert the author was a psychologist It does get deeper into that whole aspect of the reasons behind the comic in that way. Mike: That's a really cool and I'm really excited to hear everything that you learned because this is a topic that I had a vague awareness of but I have tried to stay as in the dark as possible for this episode because I'm really excited to learn from you about this Jessika: Let's all go on a learning journey together, Folks. What do you say. Mike: Yeah. Hop on the magic school bus kids. Jessika: Here we go. Mike: We're going to hang out with Goth Miss Frizzle. Jessika: Oh my gosh I know I'm wearing all black today and I have high bun. Very McGonigal right now. Mr Porter Um so Diana Prince is the secret identity of Wonder Woman but did you know that the creator of Wonder Woman had a secret identity himself? Well, today we're going to be discussing the creator of Wonder Woman, Charles Milton... or should I say William Moulton Marston. Marston's name, like his stories, were an amalgamation of fact and fiction his middle name mixed with that If max gains one of the co-founders of All-Star Comics and later DC, which stands for Detective Comics -fun fact: I didn't know that- where Wonder Woman made her debut. But Marston was hiding more than just a name. He had an entire life that he kept hidden from the world. William Moulton Marston was born in Massachusetts in May of 1893 to Frederick William Marston and Annie Marston. They bestowed upon him his mother's maiden name molten as a middle name, and as I've mentioned the last name he later uses as his nom du plume. By all accounts he seemed to have a easy childhood though I did hear reports that he was in the military for a stint I should say acting as a psychologist... I believe that was after his Harvard education, though He was accepted to Harvard for his advanced education and he eventually graduated and became a professor of psychology. While attending Harvard, Marston had many interests. One of them being the intelligent and motivated Elizabeth Holloway, whom he would later marry and who had been taking courses in one of the lesser quote unquote lesser universities that you know allowed women at that time. Mike: That was pretty standard at the time, right? Higher education for women was a new thing that was very looked down upon? Jessika: Oh it was incredibly new. This was the early 1900s. We're talking before 1910. That area. Women didn't have the right to vote yet which we definitely will get into. Didn't have the right to vote until 1920. That was a good few years before that point So the schools had the male schools would have a sister school basically or a lesser school . And for Harvard that was Radcliffe, which is where Holloway went And this was considered again the sister school But of course didn't have the same name and you didn't get the same degree .You still graduated from Radcliffe and women really didn't have the option to go down that actual Harvard route, which of course didn't give them an edge at all No edge Thanks a lot. Mike: Yeah what did you use a degree for back then? Jessika: I mean, nothing. What are you going to do with this degree in your home, in the kitchen? The oven doesn't need you to have a degree. It's just so gross. Mike: It's not a masters in baking roasts, Linda Jessika: And how they wished it were. You would think. Harvard acted like that. It was rough. She did however finish her education and become an lawyer with her degree being issued from Radcliffe despite petitioning multiple times to get a Harvard degree, since she was taking the same classes, they were the same classes. Mike: With the same professors, too, right? Jessika: Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. The class just had women in it instead of men That was the only difference. During college she and Marston were inseparable. One of the biographies I read stated that there was this rule that a woman could not walk or ride unaccompanied with a man However Holloway thought that was a completely stupid rule and just didn't follow it, which I love. She's like, "fuck that." Mike: That's so good. Jessika: And everything else I read about her said "fuck the rules, I do what I want." Which is so amazing for a woman in the early 1900s. I mean it's kind of an interesting concept right now let alone the 1900s. Mike: Yeah... we still have all of these societal norms that women are not supposed to go against. Jessika: Yeah. So Marston varied interests also included a search for "the truth." Quote unquote the truth. This was partially inspire Now part of what he invented I should say was inspired by an observation by Holloway that when she got mad or excited her blood pressure seemed to climb. And from that Marston created the earliest version of what we now know as the lie detector test or polygraph. The test is we know it now measures more than just blood pressure which was really the only thing he was checking on. Blood pressure in and of itself isn't going to tell you everything that you quote unquote need to know for a lie detector to be effective. That being said it's also mostly an admissible as we know it now in the US court of laws depending on the place and both parties have to agree to have it be accepted into the court case which I found I didn't know that. Yeah! Mike: I knew that growing up lie detector tests were considered to be kind of this infallible thing. And then it was like well you know you can sort of get around it by all these old wives tales of like you know you put a tack in your shoe and you press your toe against it and the pain messes up the results. And then later on I found out that they're not really great, they're not really admissible anymore but I didn't know that because I know that a lot of law enforcement still loves to rely on it. Jessika: Yeah and I think about the if you think about when you're nervous you can have a lot of different reasons for being nervous. Not because you're lying, necessarily. You could be a bad test taker and then you suddenly look like a guilty party It could be as that. Mike: I'm just thinking about all the times that I had to give public speeches. Either class presentations or later on when I was a journalist and I was moderating panels. Every time my pulse would be through the roof. Jessika: Same. Now can you imagine being somebody who is of an oppressed or a minority population who's being put into a situation where they have people of power who have them in a room and they have control and that is a really scary thing. Mike: Yeah, that sounds like a nightmare scenario. Jessika: I can imagine my heart rate going up in that situation, so having that be the measure doesn't seem like the best of ideas In my opinion. That being said, it does seem to be admissible in the court of Steve Wilkos and other daytime television shows. Mike, tell me the truth: Do you or have you ever watched those daytime shows like Maury or Jerry Springer or Steve Wilkos? Mike: Yeah, so... Not only did I watch Maury during the daytime when I was just working on stuff at school and I wanted something on in the background, but I was a staff photographer for a newspaper during a celebrity golf tournament and Maury Povich was one of the celebrity golfers. He was really nice I wound up chatting with him for a minute while he was waiting for his turn at golf. I really feel like I missed an opportunity to have him record saying that I was not the father because that was the big thing that he was doing back then was all those paternity tests. Jessika: You say that like he's not still doing that. Mike: I don't know, does he still have show? I don't have TV anymore Jessika: I think so. You know, I really just catch clips. What I'll do is if I'm working and I have to be paying attention to my work -or if I if it's not something mindless like entering data or something- I like to listen to podcasts if I can actually pay attention but if I can't I'll just put on -and I don't watch it but I'll just- put on rotating clips through Facebook or something just go through Facebook watch and just whatever comes up next comes up. And every once in a while we'll get one of those Steve Wilkos and I hear "STEEEEVE" and I'm like, "Oh here we go." And it's always it's always a lie detector test, still to this day. Mike: Was Steve the guy who got his own show sprung off of like spun off of Jerry Springer? Jessika: "sprung off Springer." Correct. Yes. Mike: My roommate and I in college loved to watch Jerry Springer at night because it was the trashiest shit and we not stop. It was like a train wreck, you couldn't look away. Which I think was generally the appeal of Jerry Springer. But it's hard to resolve that because every interview I've seen with the guy he seems like a really pleasant down to earth human being. And then I'm like but you put the trashiest shit on television and it is demonstrable the effect that you had on daytime talk shows for a long time and still to this day in certain ways but for a while everybody was aping that. Anyway, this was a tangent. Jessika: That's okay It was exactly the tangent I wanted. Mike: Maury seemed like a lovely person for all two minutes that I interacted with him, and I hope that Jerry Springer is the person that he seems to be during interviews. Jessika: Same. Well, speaking of life drama, Marston had plenty. Mike: Oh, do tell. Jessika: Yeah. He was already married to his wife the aforementioned Elizabeth -who for consistency I'm going to continue calling Holloway though she did take his name when they got married. Marston, working as a professor at Tufts which is another university, fell in love with one of his students, Olive Byrne, in 1925 and advised his wife that Byrne could either move in or Marston was leaving. Mike: Oh. Jessika: Yeah. That was what the history said So we'll talk through the movie later Mike: Yeah, 'cuz my only familiarity with this so far is what I saw in the movie. *uggggh* Jessika: That was my reaction I now I did my research prior to watching the movie for this exact reason. So I watched the movie last night. It's super fresh. Mike: Yeah I watched it yesterday afternoon and then I watched the other one which we'll get into so it was the origins of Wonder Woman and then Wonder Woman a little bit more modern incarnation. Jessika: Perfect. Yeah. Byrne interestingly enough was the niece of Margaret Sanger. Have you heard that name before Mike: Yeah. She was like one of the early women's rights crusaders. Jessika: Yeah Yup Yup She was a renowned women's rights and birth control activist along with her sister Ethel Byrne opened the first birth control clinic in the United States which is so cool Mike: Yeah, that's awesome. Jessika: Both however were arrested for the illegal distribution of contraception and Ethel Byrne almost died during a hunger strike while she was in jail. Mike: I remember reading about that like in one of my one of my history classes. I mean, that checks out. Jessika: It was bad news bears. So I didn't write this down but I'm just remembering but I did read or listened to sources that said that multiple women were arrested and went on hunger strike and they were forced feeding them It was just it was bad news. The whole thing was just bad. So this obviously was during a time when women were still fighting for the right to vote as I'd mentioned earlier. And the idea of feminism was just a twinkle of a notion. So Byrne Holloway and Marston all three lived together for years as a throuple. Super interestingly they made up a backstory for all of as a widowed relative and both Holloway and Byrne were raising Marston's children. Byrne's Children were always told that their father had passed away and did not find out about the truth of their father's identity until after his death. Mike: Wow. So he fathered children with both women, correct? Jessika: He did. Yeah He fathered I believe two with Byrne and three with Holloway. They all live together in a house and again they managed to keep it secret enough that even their children didn't know. In the same house It's so wild to me Like how you and Mike: Insane to me. Jessika: You fathered children with this woman and they didn't know. No one knew. I can't fathom that honestly. Especially in a time when everybody was up at everybody else's business. Mike: Oh yeah. It's not like we had Netflix. You needed to do invent your own drama. Jessika: You look out Mike: the window. Before Marston died because he died fairly young as I remember it. So that was the whole thing in the movie is that they got out as being in a throuple to their neighbors. Nothing? Jessika: Never happened. They didn't get in trouble at the school. They didn't get in trouble with the neighbors. None of that. It was seamless. Mike: That actually makes me really happy. Jessika: Me too Mike: I love the idea of it sounds like a relatively healthy family. Jessika: I Mike: don't know. Maybe? Jessika: Y'know from what I was hearing because we're still in 1910 we're still in the 1920s I guess at this point it's still is like Marston is Papa Marston he's still man of the house. So I don't know especially when you're looking at this whole -how it was phrased and this is just a couple of sources- but just as far as how it's phrased in this I don't know that Holloway really had a choice other than "well I could be stuck here with" I don't know if she had children at that point "I could maybe be stuck as a single mother in the 1920s or I could allow this other woman to come into my house" but what's great about that is Byrne was able to just stay home and raise the kids. So Holloway was still able to go out and have a career. Yeah She still went out and had a career And so that's where it's I have a hard time saying definitively black and white Marston was a feminist as we would call him now. Probably not. But he definitely had the leanings of that. And he definitely was far advanced for his time Mike: sure I can only imagine. Was he still teaching during this time or was he doing something else? Jessika: He did so many things. He did so many things and I'll actually get into that a little bit further. But it was such a it did seem like a good situation for everyone. Marston had multiple professional interests And Marston believed not only in equality for women, but even further he believed that society should be matriarchal... which is where he goes a little bit more like a Ooh he just kind of swings off you know Cause he's like, "no no no no we should go in the exact 180. There's no middle ground here Women should rule society." Sure right now we live with men. Let's flip it over on its head and see how it goes I guess? But would settle for equality. Mike: Speaking as a mediocre white dude I'm totally fine with this plan. Jessika: Great Let's put it into effect. Who could I call? Papa Joe? I'll bring Mike: it up at the next meeting at the next mediocre white dude club meeting Jessika: I knew you guys had meetings. The gays definitely have meetings Well yeah You know you know you know I'm like well like I'm excluding you from the LGBT community That's rude of me and my Mike: apologies. The rest of them already do already. It's fine. Jessika: To Touché. We did have that conversation earlier. Biphobia. It's a real problem Mike: Yeah It's fun. Jessika: Yeah we were talking about Marston and his wild matriarchal ideas. And his idea was that women were more thoughtful empathetic and level headed when making decisions and would be better suited to positions of leadership. And Marston is quoted as saying -and if you want us to read this quote for me: Mike: okay! " Frankly Wonder Woman is a psychological propaganda for the new type of woman who, I believe, should rule the world." Jessika: So you can kind of see where he was going with that. Obviously she's powerful, she's more powerful than most of the men that she comes across. And he really was trying to flip that on its head with this character. Mike: Yeah. There was nothing like her before that Jessika: No. Absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. However Marston's entry into the entertainment business didn't start with feminine power of Wonder Woman but instead with the film industry and again this is early film we're talking. He was in the silent film era and then moved talkies. Mike: Golden Age. Jessika: The Golden Age. And there he wrote screenplays and later acted as the consulting psychologist for universal pictures which I didn't even know That was a thing Having a consulting psychologist makes a lot of sense Mike: Yeah it does I just had no idea that was even a role that existed back then. Jessika: Yeah I know. And back then even I know. And at this point he'd already been published, having written dozens of magazine articles and a novel about his opinions Let's just call them or his findings about psychology at the time. And it is called a novel So just keep that in mind. It's called "Emotions of People" I believe. And they do mention it briefly in the film I didn't read it. I'm sure I could jump around and do I just didn't want to get into 1920s garbage which to He was then asked in 1941 to be the consulting psychologist for DC by Maxwell Charles Gaines who was more or less the creator of comics as we know them. At the time Gaines was under fire for content that folks deemed at the time to be risque. So he hired Marston to take off some of the heat by approving the content that was going out. With Marston on the team the largest complaints that they received was the aggressive masculinity that seemed to be the theme of all of the comic books. Yeah I know. You would think that we live in this society that values men so much you would think that we'd be able to just carry on with that you one form. Mike: Yeah Especially during that era which was right when we were getting into World War II and we were going hard for those traditional masculine values Jessika: Yup we want strong men who can go out there and die, I mean fight, for us. Yes. Marston suggested that the best way to counter that idea with the critics was to create a female superhero. Now Gaines accepted the idea but told Marston he had to write the strip himself. So he did. And with the help of illustrator Harry G Peter, Wonder Woman was in essence born. She was fierce, she was strong, she had a lasso that was that made others obey. It wasn't a truth thing that we now know it as the lasso of truth It was an obedient situation. Everybody who was lassoed had to obey her. So it was more of a dominance situation, which we will absolutely get to. And it makes a little bit more sense. Although there again with his lie detector the truth also makes sense. Either way, it tracks but it was obedience. Mike: Yeah you don't say. Jessika: One of her most important qualities was that she didn't kill. That was her empathy. That was that piece of her that was more feminine than some of those other comic book characters, those typical comic book characters Mike: Yeah. Even in the early days I know Batman killed people originally. He was like a goon and I think Superman did too in his early run. I think, can't remember for sure. Jessika: I believe so And then they when they got the comics code? When it was stricter with the comics code that's when they kind of moved into less actual killing from what I was reading I believe. Mike: You know I don't know for certain but it may have been before that because they were just they're such popular characters for kids. But I'm not entirely certain but I know that the early appearances are pretty brutal. I remember Batman hanging a dude from his plane. Jessika: Well I mean Superman came out in 1939 so yeah it's early. I'm going to send you a picture Mike: Okay. Jessika: And so this is the first introduction to Wonder Woman which was seen on the cover of sensation comics Will you please describe the cover? Mike: Yeah .So it is Sensation Comics Number One, the best of the DC magazines. You see Wonder Woman I'm not sure if the sun is really enlarged or if she is just jumping in front of something that's yellow to kind of add a little color to it but she is being shot at by a bunch of what appear to be mobsters somewhere in Washington DC because the capital is there and... is that is that the Lincoln Memorial? I can't tell what other building is that has the flag. Jessika: Apparently they're right across the street from each other. Not real life. This is scale. Mike: It looks like a vaguely government building I can't tell. Jessika: Yeah supposed to be something like that Mike: But it says "featuring the sensational new adventure strip character Wonder Woman!" You got to get that exclamation point in. She's kind of jacked like even back then which I kind of love. She is wearing a truly unflattering pair of boots that are only going up to mid calf as opposed to what we know now where they're just above the knee and armored and bad-ass. But it's the outfit that actually she's still sort of rocking the day where she's got the kind of red bustier with the gold eagle on it and then she's got the bulletproof bracelets and then she's got what I can only describe it as the bottom part of a sun dress kind of skirt where it's like very flowy? As opposed to that that gladiatorial skirt that she has now. But it's very identifiably Wonder Woman. Jessika: Yeah. And it goes back and forth between this was her first debut but it wasn't her first issue. first issue she was wearing more of what people were calling underpants of this same pattern. And that's what more used to. Yeah We're used to those like little booty shorts that she's rocking. So, right off the bat: Mike if you were a critic, in 1942 what would your main complaint about this be? Just based on the cover? Mike: I don't know. They were really concerned about the violence that was being marketed towards kids so probably the gunfire. Probably the fact that she was showing too much skin. Jessika: it. She wasn't clothed enough .Oh, they didn't care about the gunfire. That was not what was that was not the problem. Gasp. The drama was that Wonder Woman was wearing far too few clothes for Puritan America. Mike: Jesus Christ. And that's actually super tame Jessika: It's really tame. When you think about other superheroes that we have nowadays especially: You've got these massive boobs that are up to her neck and this little waist and like wearing a thong. But this is so covered Mike: Yeah. A lot of modern comics have these very almost suggestive poses. Do you remember when the Avengers came out and and all of the dudes had very action-oriented poses and then Black Widow was turned so that we could see her butt? She had Jessika: her like her arm up so that you could see her boob line. Mike: Yeah. And it's a really action oriented pose and it's very matter of fact there is nothing sexualized about that, kinda love. Jessika: Marston made it a point for her to be doing action and for her to be doing sports and for her to be doing things that were very active because women weren't given that as a role. So he really wanted to present that as another facet of, "Hey, this can also be feminine. Yeah I thought so, too. And while a slight costume adjustment seemed easy enough to deal with some critics also had qualms with other aspects of the comic. Namely, the depiction of women especially our heroine being tied or chained up or left in other positions of containment. Now, Marston's intention behind this seemed to be twofold in my opinion. Part one feminism and part two I also think he was just in kinky motherfucker. Which is great. Like, that's fine no kink shame. But we're going to briefly discuss both. So part one feminism. Marston was a supporter of women's rights, as we said. He was a supporter of the right to vote and the ability to have access to contraceptives. He'd been a supporter of these movements in his own right and was particularly struck by the female suffragettes who would chain themselves to a location in protest. Chains seem to him to be the very image brought to life of how society chains down and stifles women from succeeding. Either chaining them to their family before they're wed, chaining them to their new husband, or chaining them to pregnancies that they either cannot afford or don't want. In each of these portrayals of Wonder Woman being tied down there is always the moment that she's able to break free from her restraints in triumph which is just a perfect metaphor for the modern woman being able to break free from the societal chains that still bind her. And this hope that women will be able to eventually free themselves for good. In everything I've read, you had women suffragettes chaining themselves to places in protest. Same thing with the contraceptive movement. That was a huge metaphor for both of those movements, so it would make sense that if you are portraying a feminist during that era that that might be a theme. And I think people who maybe didn't support or were unfamiliar with the movements might have something to say negatively against the imagery, especially if they didn't understand Mike: We had a lot of people back then who were really pushing for propriety and basically you can't let immoral elements affect the children. They always fucking latch on to like "think of the children. Protect the children." Fuck off. Jessika: We still do that shit. This is just like pizza gate all over again. Mike: Yeah Jessika: Pizza gate before pizza gate. Little did they know. But part two: the kink factor. Marston had a whole dominance theory that I think tells a lot more about him than it does to the human experience In general I'm not going to get deep into the theory because we both have lives but it pertains to dominance and submission at the very minimum. Mike: You don't say. Jessika: Yo I know right. Mike: What. Shock. Jessika: At this point it's pretty well established that individuals have different drives and things that excite them. But I think that Marston was looking at the world from a place of, oh I like this So everybody is like this." Which just isn't the case for everybody. Mike: Right. But that's also like a very stereotypical kind of dude attitude. Jessika: Yeah. This is my worldview and so it must be everybody's. Absolutely. Again, he's some Harvard bro. Mike: Yeah. Yeah. Jessika: You're able to just go to Harvard in 1925 like Mike: NBD. I'm Jessika: gonna Mike: to be living near there soon. Oh God. I'm going to Jessika: be visiting you soon. I've got the people there. You're fine. We'll get you there. We'll get you there. But my impression is that he assumed that everyone else was a little kinky like him. Also it needs to be stated that again in interviewing Marson's children they never saw toys, ropes, anything that he had mentioned in the comics or that were the things that were being taken as this great offense, they didn't see any of those things. So it was this was also a complete surprise to them nothing related to bondage. Mike: Yeah that's wild man. I just I think about the fact that my partner has stories about how when everyone was out of the house she would just snoop around when she was growing up. And I remember doing that too And kids get into shit. Jessika: We also grew up in the age in the era of the latchkey child, though. My parents would just and not for long periods of time it's not like they would go out of town or something. But they'd leave us and say "don't answer the door. You're not home. Don't answer the phone. We'll call and ring twice and then hang up and then call back If we want to talk to you know whatever there was a code. But there again we lived in a different time even this many years I mean it just we sound like old people every time we have this conversation. Mike: You know someone pointed out that if Back To The Future was taking place today Marty McFly would be going back to like 91. Jessika: Don't do this to me. Mike: We're old, Jess. Jessika: We're Mike: practically Jessika: this Okay Mike. This is going to seem like such a non-sequitur But have you ever had to do a DISC personality assessment for any of your offices jobs? Mike: I don't think so. The name isn't familiar but describe this to me. Jessika: Basically it's like any of those other stupid employee personality tests where they try to like "what part of the team are you? How can we use your strengths?" I'm a supervisor so I've had to go through all this crap. And it's cool. It's a cool concept but it's also like mind numbing if it's not your wheelhouse. Mike: No. So I've never taken anything like this no. Jessika: Okay So yeah you basically answered a bunch of questions about what you would do in a situation. And it's kind of one of those no wrong answers kind of tests. And then they put you into one of four different categories. So I have had to do this before and and other ones like it but I honestly can't remember what I scored and I'm not going to get into a long-winded lecture on the topic either but suffice it to say that part of that is dominance That's the D and part of it is compliance which is the C. Mike: So was this something Marston came up with? Jessika: Yeah. Marston came up with and it's we still use version of this today which is so interesting. So far he's got lie detector, check. We still kind of use it today. Steve Wilkos does. And then now he's got the DISC which I definitely have taken. Now, it doesn't look the same. The categories are not the same as when he first created them. So less kink forward I would say. But you still have those two that are vibing you know. And for those of you are you unfamiliar with the kink scene: Power dynamics in play can sometimes come in the form of having one dominant and one submissive partner. But again not everybody functions in that way. Ultimately, wonder Woman was allowed to continue as she was. Delighting readers even to this day though of course the writing has changed hands multiple times meaning that her true meaning was sometimes lost to those who were in charge of telling her story. For example once Wonder Woman entered the Justice League she was immediately made to be the secretary. And there were many times that she was relegated to staying behind because she just had so much to take care of and "oh little old me couldn't get involved in having lifting" bullshit. God damn. She's so fucking strong. She has powers and Batman doesn't. Why the fuck does he get to go on missions? Why the fuck Isn't Batman the secretary? That's my question. Oh he has money my own his Mike: power that he's rich. Jessika: God damn. Yeah. Thanks for that Ben Affleck. We know. Still like him as Batman. Mike: Yeah. I'll die on that hill he was good. Jessika: Yeah Yeah He was good There was also a point where she lost her powers completely though did gain them back, those were times that Wonder Woman didn't necessarily feel like the fierce warrior she truly is. Mike: Yeah, actually, Brian's comics -our local comic shop- the first time I went in there they had the all-new Wonder Woman issue where it's like this iconic cover where it's her tearing up I think the original version of her and it's like get ready for the all new Wonder Woman I think that's when they de-powered her. I think. I'm not certain I'm really bummed that I didn't pick that up when it was there. Jessika: The idea behind that apparently was supposed to be that would make her more human and relatable but that's not you're just taking away the things that make her a stronger character for people that look up to her. Mike: Yeah I'm sorry. Did you were you able to hear my eyes rolling out of their Jessika: I did actually Yeah no that was a really palpable eye-roll. well Marston passed away at the age of 53 of cancer So very young like you were saying. Yeah. Holloway and Byrne continue living together until they both went into the hospital around the same time in 1990. When Byrne passed away, in a different room in the same hospital at the age of 86. Mike: I Jessika: got teary writing this so I'm probably going to get teary reading it. Upon hearing the news of burns passing Holloway sang a poem by Tennyson in her hospital room. So everything I've read alludes to the idea that Holloway and Byrne were also in a relationship with each other not just the man with all of them that they did have there were women who were kind of rotating in the house. It wasn't just these two there were other women who at different periods of time lived in the house undetected by the way can we just give it up for the Marston Family. Mike: Like. How? Jessika: That's what I'm saying. I don't know, money? And the dude had his little hands in everything so he probably just knew a bunch of people I don't know How do you get away with things as a guy I literally can't even imagine. Mike: This is my friend who's coming over to assist with this thing? The question is were they just coming into visit or were they living there for periods of Jessika: time? They were living there for a parts. Yes I know me too. I know. Okay let's run through: You have a widowed relative. You could be bringing in a nanny. You could be bringing in another person who works in the house et cetera et cetera. You could be bringing in a cousin or another type of relative. I'm sure you could excuse up the yin yang. Mike: Yeah I mean you can come up with excuses but if they're like living with you for any amount of time there are those moments of small intimacies that other people will pick up on. I don't know I mean were the kids just dumb? I don't know like how that requires some serious commitment to acting I feel. Jessika: Yeah. Oh yeah. Mike: So much fucking effort. Jessika: I was just going to say that. Can you imagine? I can't. Mike: No. Jessika: The mental strain alone. Mike: Like I have one partner, I have step-kids, and I have pets and that's like that's kind of the extent of my bandwidth. Jessika: Oh okay So I am non-monogamous or Poly, polyamorous. So I do have multiple partners although I they're what I would consider like secondary partners or partners that I don't I don't live with them, I don't necessarily see them on a super regular basis but I still maintain a relationship with them. And I still consider them partners. To whatever you know effect that is. But it is a lot of work and it's so much communication and you can just tell that Marston had to have been really communicative and that whole family had to have been really communicative. Mike: They must have been. Jessika: Or else how. Mike: At the same time like that era men weren't necessarily expected to be super communicative or show a lot of emotion or be the one to provide nurturing experiences with the kids. So maybe they just didn't get a lot of exposure to the kids and were really just exposed to their mothers and the motherly figures. I mean, this is all completely uninformed speculation so don't take anything that I'm saying with even a grain of salt like this. Jessika: Oh no. Absolutely at any rate Holloway passed away in 1993 at the ripe age of 100. Mike: Oh wow. So there was a little bit Jessika: of an age difference. Around Yeah there was there was yeah. Sounds like about a little bit less than 20 years. About 14 years. But if you think about it she was in college. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: He was her teacher and they were already married. He went to I want to say that he started college like prior to 1910. And they met and she moved into the house in 1925. So that's a good 15. Mike: He would have been about he would have been about 17 and 1910 right? Based on it like he was 1893 he said? Jessika: Yes yes. Yeah. And it sounds like Holloway was born the same year. Mike: Yeah and I got to say the love story between Holloway and Byrne sounds like something straight out of a movie. Which we're about to get into. But we all want to have that partner who is with us till the bitter end and then they sing a poem in our memory. Like goddamn. Jessika: It's just so beautiful. Yeah. They had it when they live together in the house, they had adjoining rooms and this is where it's like how did your kids not know because Marston would sleep in both. How did he like literally how did they not know? No it's wild to me. And then when they were older, byrne and Holloway lived in a little two bedroom place in Tampa together. This cute place apparently. So let's talk about our reactions here. We did also watch Professor Marston and the Wonder Women which I think it's worth a watch in my just off the bat. Mike: Yeah. I really liked it a lot and it was a movie that totally flew under the radar for me when it came out. I was vaguely aware of it but I really did not know much about it before we talked about what movies we wanted to do and March being women's month it seemed like a natural conclusion after the DCEU. Jessika: Yeah. Absolutely. That train wreck. I'm sorry. Mike: I was Jessika: of We did. We did enjoy one of the movies and we enjoyed aspects of of them. I trailed off my brain wouldn't let me do it It's like no that sentence Mike: I mean we kind of enjoyed parts of the Snyder cut Jessika: We did We liked it better Mike: than I don't like we're still Jessika: bitching about the Snyder Cut Mike: Look at Jessika: this Mike: back Jessika: Goddammit. We've literally can't get away from it Zach Snyder, hit us up.. No don't. You're not going to like what you hear I'm going to get to eat It adds Zach Snyder is going to be like Mike: I want the Snyder cut of Professor Marston in the Women which will be just scenes of Luke Evans with the Women in the background and don't do anything else. Jessika: And there's no dialogue in this one at all. It's just it's just heavy looks. Mike: It's just all the scenes from that sorority scene just over and just dark, scenes. Jessika: Definitely talk about that. Oh. What did you think about the film overall. Mike: Like I said, I overall really enjoyed it. I had heard about this movie a little bit. I remember my weightlifting partner at the time was telling me about how she and her wife had gone and enjoyed it and she thought that I would really like it. And I was like, "yeah okay cool." And then it just I didn't get around to seeing it while it was out in it's very limited run in theaters. And then I don't think it ever came to any streaming platform when I was aware of it. I was really surprised by actually how much I did enjoy it. I thought it was a shockingly sweet love story and I was expecting something much more judgmental or scandalous I was really expecting a much more judgy story about the Marstons and Byrne raising an entire family as a throuple. Jessika: was too. Mike: I was wondering if the relationship was ever outed and if they ever did break up like they did in the movie because that felt kind of forced and it felt very Hollywood and I was like "all right, whatever. This is dumb." At the end where they're on their knees submitting to Byrne." Jessika: Spot on That was made up There was none of that. Mike: I still think the most offensive thing about that movie was that they tried to make me think that someone who looked like Luke Evans was responsible for Wonder Woman's creation. I love Luke Evans I think he's really a fun actor and I was really glad to see him in a real role as opposed to I saw Dracula untold in theaters. I saw I'm Oh man I I didn't see Beauty and The Beast in theaters but I've since seen it. He's one of those actors where I feel like he just needs to be given good roles. He's like Kiana Reeves where I feel like he's often typecast and just thrust into stuff that aren't really any good but he was really good in this. That said: I've seen that man shirtless so many times and I don't know a single comic creator with abs like that. On the flip side, I went into this trying to keep myself as unaware a lot of the history of Marston but I do know what he looked like in his forties and that was like a dude in his seventies. Jessika: Did you watch all at the end of the film they had all the pictures. Yeah And you're just like, "oh. Oh." Like because Byrne and Holloway also not looking like who they cast. Not even a little bit, not even at all. Mike: Okay this is mean. But I'm like yes you look like the type of people who would be in a throuple. Jessika: No. Okay, fair enough And especially here's you know what it reminded me of it reminded me of those pictures that I used to see from that era where the Women especially with those two they looked like the type who would dress up as men and go to the clubs. Mike: Absolutely Jessika: I get that. It's just a vibe I get and maybe it's just my gaydar Like my pansexual gaydar is Mike: going But I mean that's the ongoing lie that Hollywood loves to tell us is that truly sexy people are in throuples all the time. No they're fucking not. I'm bI And I was dating here in the Bay area and I would occasionally get hit on by people looking for a third and they never looked like that. Jessika: And in my experience and opinion if you go at it with the wrong attitude you're not necessarily going to get what you want out of it. And it's not going to be a genuine feeling relationship. Mike: Which I mean like that's relationships in general. Like Yeah I feel like a huge thing of any successful relationship is communications. Stay tuned listeners for our next podcast about relationships and relationship advice And I don't know I don't know where I was going with that. Jessika: Oh I was like we have a new podcast. We're four episodes into this podcast and Mike's like folks we have a new podcast. You know what I like I like your gusto. I like a motivated you Mike: I did have two quibbles about the movie. Getting back on topic. First we earlier mentioned there was no acknowledgement about the problematic nature of how Marston and Byrne's relationship began. Where he was her professor and she was his student. The movie was very fuzzy with time it was very fluid that way. So it wasn't really explained if she was still his student when the relationship began or if she was his research assistant but there was that power imbalance and their dynamic and that was deeply uncomfortable for me because it wasn't addressed. They just kinda hand waved it away. Fine. Whatever. For the movie, fine. Jessika: same way about that. Yeah It just it's gross and to your point there is a power dynamic that I was thinking about. If you are trying to please somebody who has some sort of control over you, whatever that looks like, if it's somebody who has your grades or your future career or your education or even your job... you know this could be at a job setting. If that person has power over you you're less inclined to say "no" to them. And that automatically puts you at a disadvantage. Mike: It was something that I noticed and I was a little frustrated that it wasn't addressed better. The second was that it didn't feel like we actually got enough time with Wonder Woman. The comics and the character felt more like a framing device but a framing device that we didn't really get a lot of payoff on, considering the title of the movie. I thought the scenes where he was actually in the comic office and there was a bit where they're like "Oh well, they're upset about the bondage. And they're like I feel like there's twice as much. And then he just is like I put in three times as much and he keeps walking. And and Oliver Platt was so great and I wanted more of him. For a movie that has Wonder Woman or Wonder Women in the title I just I wanted a little bit more time and acknowledgement. It felt like much more attention was paid just to their relationship with like the first two thirds of the movie. And then he goes with hat in hand to Oliver Platt's character at... was it all-star Comics? Was Jessika: that it? Mike: Yeah. I mix up all the publishers because they've all merged and come together at various. So yeah he It just it it was And especially cause you were like no he got hired to like do this to get them out of hot water now I'm like that makes much more sense. Jessika: Yeah He Mike: Considering the importance that we're led to believe that Wonder Woman will be to his story, I mean she's there. Like they do a number of things where they keep teasing us with Wonder Woman but we never really get that payoff. What about you like Jessika: I did my research on the topic prior to watching the film. So this will be mostly on what the film did or didn't do correctly kind of history with my own opinion of course sprinkled in as you'd expect from So to your point most of the drama seems to have been fabricated There's no indication that any issues with Radcliffe, like trying to boot him for indecency or with the neighbors regarding their relationship, and again even their children didn't know until after Marston's passing about their relationship. And I didn't read anything about them having split up at any point. And again I think that was just added for a forceful Hollywood dramatics play, since we're on the topic of dominance. And there again Marston was already working for Gaines when he created the idea of Wonder Woman and it was in direct relation to the voice of the critics. So he was answering the critics here. So it didn't necessarily seem like as big of a you did this thing and now we're going to make you pay. It was like well okay Right. The sections with Connie Britton -love her by the way, want more in my life just in general- and their back and forth minus all the people drama was actually pretty accurate as far as capturing the concerns of the day and what was being argued in the lobby against Wonder Woman. And then also pretty accurate in what his counterpoints were in relation to the to the comic itself. Mike: Yeah And I thought that was a smart choice to kind of make her the voice of the critics. Jessika: Yeah. That being said his relationship didn't come up at any point in this again because nobody knew about it until after the fact. So it's not like she would have been like what about those things you were indecent. Well, no that that didn't happen. That was all for dramatics. Overall I really liked it. So, again, me as a pansexual: love a good queer film and also being polyamorous or non-monogamous it was so nice seeing that to your point represented so positively, and without judgment. That was so surprising to me I really thought that there was going to be some sort of aspect from the point of view of the viewer to not want them to succeed. But the whole time you really do you're rooting for them. Mike: If you're a fan of history in comic books I think this is a great movie to go check out. My final thought is that reminded me a lot of Kinsey. Did you ever see that? It had Liam Neeson and Laura Linney in it and it's all about Kinsey, the guy created the Kinsey scale of sexuality. Jessika: Oh okay I'll have to check it out Mike: It's great. This kind of reminded me the same way where it's mostly true. It's not quite all there because they have to tszuj it up for the audiences. Jessika: Yeah, yeah. Well, let's move on to our other film that we watched which was Wonder Woman from 2009. And that was the animated origin story of Wonder Woman Do you want to give an overview of the film for us? Mike: Yeah, sure. This is one of the original DC Universe Animated Original Movies which were at the time this came out in 2009 they were still in their infancy. They'd only done three before. This one is loosely based on George Perez's acclaimed 1980s storyline called "Gods and Monsters" and it's written by Gail Simone and Michael Jelenic. Gail Simone has gotten her own amount of acclaim for writing Wonder Woman as well. The film introduces us to the Amazons who win a war against Ares and then they're granted the Island of Themiscyra and immortality in exchange for acting as Ares' jailer by the gods. Diana is later sculpted from clay and given life by the gods. This is kind of in direct opposition to the current mythos of Zeus being her deadbeat dad and then Diana lives on the Island for thousands of years until pretty much the modern day when two key events happen. Steve Trevor crashes on the Island by happenstance and then Ares stages of jailbreak. And Diana has to take Steve back to the United States and he helps her and request to stop the god of war. Jessika: And actually pretty similar to where they tried to go with the original Wonder Woman. So this was absolutely not a cartoon for children. Mike: Nooooo. Jessika: blood spattered backgrounds, fairly graphic death scenes, and three beheadings three beheadings. We're talking the head flying off and falling dramatically at someone's feet kind of beheading. And that being said I didn't particularly mind the violent nature of the animation as a movie for adults as I feel that it was done in a way that felt true to the battle and the struggle of what was happening in the storyline and it didn't feel overly gross in its depictions or its animations like just enough to give the definite impression that violence was occurring. That makes sense Ares is a super violent guy and he affects everyone around him into violence themself so that it did make sense in that way. So things I liked is that it it seemed to me like a fairly good representation of Wonder Woman's origin story as it was originally told by Marston based on what I was reading. Mike: Yeah it it felt like a very classic take on Wonder Woman's origin. And it was very familiar to someone who grew up nominally aware of her origins and reading her mini comics with her action figure and stuff like that. Jessika: One main difference was that the movie was set in seemingly present day America. Since at one point Wonder Woman ends up fighting in a mall, the fighter planes that Steve and company were flying looked modern for 2009. Marston's Wonder Woman was originally set in World War Two of course whereas the 2018 live action film with Gal Gadot was set in World War One. So we've just jumped around. Again DC is definitely not consistent. Mike: It's comic books. And DC's own in- comics timeline has been drastically reworked several times just in our lifetime. Jessika: Yeah. Yeah. And this time period change it definitely affects the vibe and political climate of American society at that time in the cartoon we're not presented with a particular war or a reason for fighting we're evidently just supposed to understand that the world of men is in constant battle every moment. Whereas in the original comic and Wonder Woman film Both took place during large global wars where it wouldn't be a far leap to present the god of war as the cause of those events. Mike: Yeah, absolutely. Jessika: Now things I didn't like cause apparently I veered into not liking and then we're continuing down that road. For someone that wasn't raised in a patriarchal society, Diana's internalized misogyny is staggering. At one point she says to Steve, "you're starting to sound like a woman" when he's discussing having feelings for her and later says to Ares, "how can you expect to beat Zeus If you can't even beat a girl." The fuck that? Mike: Which kind of goes against everything else that she does in the movie. Jessika: Yeah it directly against it. Yeah, so that was irritating. And then not only that, the president, because apparently they're in Washington DC, the president is told that they were saved by a group of armored supermodels. Which I had to rewind it and write that line down grossed. Out It's such a condescending and reductive statement to make about individuals that just saved your lives while you apparently slept through the whole situation, Mr President. And it drives home the point that even in heroism, women's worth is still viewed only in her attractiveness. Mike: Yeah there was a lot of that. Jessika: Yeah. Yeah. They also have Diana do quite a bit of killing with absolutely no thought whatsoever which is not in the original character at all. That doesn't feel very Diana. Mike: I mean, no. But at the same time I don't particularly have a problem with it but yeah Jessika: Yeah. So that was me. What about you? Were you at with that? Mike: I think I had a slightly more positive take on the movie. I mean it sounds like you still enjoyed it, right? Jessika: Oh, I liked it. I still liked it. Yeah. Mike: Part of it is just I viewed it at the time when it first came out and this was one of the first animated original movies. And it was the first one that I remember enjoying. So I think that it's definitely tinted my perspective a little bit. Jessika: You had a nostalgia factor that I didn't I hadn't seen it prior. Mike: I remember seeing the reviews for it and I was like, "Oh this looks really cool. The others that were released before that they were all, well two of the three were just straight adaptations of other you know quote unquote iconic stories So there is Superman: Doomsday which was the death and life of Superman and I did not give a shit about that movie. It was really I felt flat. Then there was Justice League: The New Frontier which is based on a really acclaimed mini series. And then there was Batman Gotham Knight which was -if I remember right- it was several different animated shorts and different animated styles. And none of them really did it for me. But the DC Animated Universe, which was helmed by Bruce Timm, so that's like the original Batman animated series from the nineties as well as the Superman series and then Justice League and then Batman Beyond or vice versa and then Justice League Unlimited, those were all incredible. And I knew that eventually we would get to the same point with the animated movies and Wonder Woman felt like that home run that I knew they'd eventually hit. So I really enjoyed the film overall and even watching it yesterday afternoon I had a blast, you know, even a decade later. I think its strongest element is that the movie clearly has zero fucks to give. That battle between the Amazons and Ares is incredibly violent and it's obvious from the first 30 seconds in that this is going to be a RIDE. And it doesn't shy away from some really tough narrative elements like where Hippolyta actually in that battle It's revealed that she kills Thrax, the son of Ares. Thrax is her child who is very heavily implied the product of rape by Jessika: Ares. Mike: Also the vocal cast is just incredible. This was 2009 Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion, Virginia Madsen, Rosario Dawson, Alfred Molina, and then Oliver Platt. They were really well-regarded actors at the time and they're still pretty big and side note Oliver Platt was in both of the movies that we watched for this Jessika: episode. I literally thought of that when you said that. Mike: he fucking steals every scene he's in. He was just this delightful villainous Hades and he's kinda gross but he's also just wonderfully sinister. I really dug that and I also really dug how it felt like a pretty faithful adaptation of the origin while still feeling fresh and fast. Like this movie is not long. That kind of leads into something that I didn't like was that It's a very short movie. It's barely over an hour long. I feel like we needed a director's cut or something because of the lines could have been fleshed out a little bit more like this is something Look Jessika: who wants director's cut now. Mike: Release the Simone cut or something, I don't know. I feel like there were a couple of sub plot lines that were kind of just glossed over. Like I mentioned Thrax is actually Diana's half-brother. I feel like maybe there might've been something more there. Maybe there wasn't, who knows. But it just it felt like something that I would have liked a little more room to breathe. And that's said, it was pretty solid. That said there were some problematic elements. Like Steve was so gross and so cringy Jessika: He kept calling her Angel and I just wanted to punch him in the jaw. Mike: Which, I mean, so that's like a thing from the comics and his other earlier incarnations but this time around it just felt gross. It felt like "babe" and you know blech. Jessika: Yeah. Yeah. He just he rolled in and was like "Oh naked ladies I'm in right place for me." Mike: And the problem is that Nathan Fillion was just too good at making him a sleazebag. Jessika: Which, love Nathan Fillion. Mike: I do too. Like, okay dude, we get it. He's kind of a gross misogynist. We don't need him to hit on Diana for the fifth time in as many minutes. Etta Candy viewing Diana as competition was also dumb. Candy's always been one of her best friends and I still think that her incarnation in the original movie was pitch perfect. And then her being this skinny little supermodel who's trying to flirt with Steve was dumb. You mentioned the other problematic misogynistic elements that I noted. the only other thing, and this wasn't an actual problem, was that I didn't realize how much better Wonder woman's costume is these days rather than the super swimsuit that we had for so long. It's funny because growing up with it, I never thought about it. And then really only in the last five years or so we've gotten a much more a
March Movie Madness Part 1 (of 3)! March is National Women’s Month, so -ahead of the Snyder Cut- we’re talking about Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 1984. What did we like? What would we change? What would we throw out altogether? Tune in next week for our thoughts on the Snyder Cut! Have questions/comments/concerns? Shoot us an email: tencenttakes@gmail.com ----more---- Transcript of Episode: [00:00:00] Jessika: Do you, you can be, you know what, honestly, you can bitch about Snyder again, Hello, hello and welcome to Ten Cent Takes the podcast where we rip into the comic books and characters you know and love, one issue at a time. My name is Jessica Frazier and I'm joined by my cohost, the Bitchin' Baker Mike Thompson. Mike: Hello. Jessika: Well, if you're new here, the purpose of this podcast is to take a closer look at comic books and comic related media and how it's affected pop culture and our collective consciousness shaping how we view the world around us. Our topic for today is actually a deep dive into the recent [00:01:00] iterations of the Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 84 films. What do you think Mike? Mike: I'm excited? Uh, I really, I really enjoyed the first Wonder Woman movie when I saw it in theaters. I haven't seen it since then. So it was really just a fun trip down memory lane to sit and watch it with my partner. And then. Kind of tear it apart a little bit, but yeah, we, you know, the, the Wonder Woman, the Wonder Woman, movies, I think are a bright spot and the DC extended universe. And so I'm genuinely jazzed to talk about it with someone else. Like this is kind of like, based on our, our plans for the next couple of episodes, I guess it's almost like March movie madness. Jessika: Yeah. I was thinking that I was, I was getting myself very mentally prepared for a lot of. Sitting and watching movies with my dog. So I'm excited. So is he, Carl's stoked. Mike: What's his favorite movie [00:02:00] snack? Jessika: You know, he just watches me eat movies, snacks, because he doesn't eat people, food. Whoops. I'm not owner where I'm like stuff feeding my dog eat. This is the reason he does not bag. He's such a good boy. Mike: Yeah. Meanwhile, my dogs are all over me as soon as I'm eating lunch, Jessika: Your dogs are like tiny spiders. I don't know how they climb up so high. Mike: I don't know either, man. It's weird. All right. So, uh, you are leading this episode, so let's get started. Jessika: The thing we like to do each week is talk about one cool thing that you have read or watched recently, like right. You take it away. Mike: Yeah. So the memorable thing that I have been consuming media wise over the past week or so has been a TV show called Resident Alien, which is a new show on the scifi network. Sarah and I were watching it and it's it's it's okay. At [00:03:00] first it's about this alien who crashed lands on earth, kills a human, takes his form, and then has to assume the identity of a small town doctor. It's kind of a, a sci-fi comedy drama, but it stars Alan Tudyk, who if you've watched over the past 20 years he shows up in and he is, I think one of the most underrated actors, he really is just so wonderful at playing weird roles. And so he plays this character who is an alien, trying to blend in badly with humans in a small town in Colorado. And he is so funny and you watch it and you're. You can understand how people kind of write them off as just, "Oh, this is a guy who is somewhere on the spectrum," but it's based on a comic book from Dark Horse. Um, and so after watching a bunch of these episodes and falling in love with the show, I downloaded it on Hoopla and just started reading it. And it's really solid. Wow. That's Jessika: awesome. I actually didn't even realize that that was based [00:04:00] off of a comic. Mike: I didn't until about three episodes in, and then it said based on the comic book. And so that was when I looked it up. Jessika: That's so cool. Actually, one of my really good friends has been talking about watching that show. So I guess he's going to be irritated that once again, he wasn't the one to get me to watch the thing, but here we are. Mike: So how about you? What have you been consuming? Jessika: Well, recently I've been trying to get through another. Watch through of the MCU films. Um, and I've been doing them in timeline, chronilogic-, chronological order, starting with Captain America. So that chronology it's been fun. Mike: Yeah. So Captain America and then Captain Marvel and then Iron-Man? Jessika: Yes. Yes. Mike: Okay. Cool. Jessika: Proceeding in that order, hadn't realized how many of those films I had missed. When I was first going through them, there are so many of them. So I [00:05:00] started watching just in order, making sure I wasn't missing any of them. Even if people said, Oh, you don't need to watch that one. Okay. No, let me just watch the thing and just make sure, and I was surprised there were a couple of them that I liked more than some of the conversations I had would have led me to believe I would have. So it's been fun. So let's roll into our conversation about our first film, which is Wonder Woman. And I hadn't watched this one. I watched it in theaters as well. I realized, and then hadn't watched it like you until recently until just last night, actually. Mike: Yeah. So I watched it about two hours before we started to record this episode. Jessika: You're fucking fresh. You're there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Super fresh. The bad day. The wound is fresh. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Well, I'll give a quick synopsis before we do each of our films. So this one was released in [00:06:00] 2017. And the film follows the character development of Diana Prince, and we watch her training and growth through her early adolescence in the fabled land at Themiscyra, learning the art of battle from an entire Island of strong, fierce and driven women. All of this is brought to a screeching halt when a world war one fighter pilot breaks through the magical borders of their land, prompting Diana to leave the safety of her home land in order to fight against an ancient, evil, and save mankind from. Themselves. So, Mike, what was your favorite part of the film and what would you like to throw immediately directly into the trash? Mike: Oh, man. Okay. It's hard to decide what my favorite part is. There's a lot of this movie that I really like, I, I guess I'd have to say it's really the setting, you know, World War One was a really bold narrative choice and I really liked how Patty Jenkins used to frame the [00:07:00] overall story. It's it's a really overlooked period of history, I think, because we just don't usually want to take that hard look at how awful we really were. It was a really excellent contrast to the parts of the movie that are set in them mascara. And by comparison, I kind of like to trash the entire third act. I don't know how you felt about it, but. I don't feel like that third act is nearly as strong as what comes before it. And Patty Jenkins has talked about how Warner brothers I made last minute changes and forced her to do this giant CGI boss battle after she planned for something that she describes as smaller. Um, you know, and, and on top of that, I feel like that third act doesn't offer any real payoff for Diana's party outside of Steve Trevor. So it feels like this very kind of... eh, "fine" conclusion [00:08:00] to a movie that felt really strong otherwise. Jessika: Yeah. I would absolutely agree with that. Absolutely. And I th the ending was very, for me, very kind of, eh. Mike: Yeah! I, yeah, and I mean, I was talking to Sarah about this and I said, it felt like when I sit there and I think back about the movie I was sitting there and going, Oh yeah: so they, they have that ball. And then they're at an airport. I can't remember what happens in between and it turns out not much, but it's a very sudden shift and again, it just, it doesn't quite work. So, yeah, that's, uh, that's kind my, my overall feeling about the movie, like what, what about you? Like, what did you really like and not like. Jessika: Well, I found the movie itself, and this is with both of the films. They're just beautiful. They're just, they're such a treat. It's like eating dessert. [00:09:00] And even the gritty parts are very artistically done. They're, they're framed in a way that's that makes all of the characters look very alive and real, but at the same time, almost a, almost a glorification of themselves is how it feels. So that was very, a very interesting way to, to kind of frame that in my opinion now, for what I would throw directly away is I really wish that they had not focused so much on Diana's infatuation with Steve. Like he legitimately just met this guy, take a breath. I know he's literally the only man you've ever met, but look around and then look in the mirror. I on the other hand, it's just, yeah, I don't know. The women are so fierce too. So I will go back to that. The women are super fierce and I [00:10:00] love how they show such a range of emotions that movies don't usually allow for, for women. And they showed strength and rage and honor, and little girls are usually told that those things are done for them and not by them. Mike: Sarah had a really good. Point of view along the lines of, I don't understand why Diana doesn't go out and just get laid a whole lot. Like what's so special about Steve Trevor. Like, yeah, he's good looking, but, but at the same time, he's the first dude you meet and then suddenly you're surrounded by a plethora of dudes, you know, maybe, maybe treat it like a buffet. Jessika: And I, I feel like it would almost be more true to her upbringing if she did go out and not have a care about, you know, the way she expressed herself, I feel like that would be more authentic to, to how she learned about the pleasures of the flesh as she called them. When she called men obsolete. I just about, I lost my mind, my dog [00:11:00] barked because I was laughing so hard. Mike: I will give some kudos to Steve. He didn't sit there and react like a douche. He was just, he kind of had this wounded. No, no, we're not obsolete. We're not useless then that was kind of, yeah, but yeah. Jessika: What was your biggest lesson or takeaway? Mike: I'm not sure I had a lesson from it. Like I said before, you know, my, my big takeaway was that this was the first time I found myself enjoying any of the DC EU movies that had come out to that point. So I guess my biggest takeaway was that I finally had some hope for the overall film franchise, but there was this tweet that I remember seeing a couple of days later where it was a picture of Carrie Fisher as General Leia and then Robin Wright as Antiope. And it said "I've lived long enough to watch my princesses grow [00:12:00] up to become generals." And I thought that was a really lovely sentiment just to have seen, to have seen the embodiment of all these, these characters became what I wanted them to. Jessika: Absolutely. And actually that ties very well into what I kind of took away from this, which was. You very well, may be stronger than society would have you believe so. Yeah. Well, let's talk about our, our next fish on the butcher block here. Wonder Woman 84. Mike: Ah, man, this was, this was a movie that I remember you and I both had feelings about. And I feel like we're going to spend a little bit more time talking about those. Jessika: Probably. This other one was very like doo doo doo let's jump through the park. You know, there are daisies and strong women I'm there. Um, this, this other one felt [00:13:00] very much more problematic and wow, that's such an, an intro I'm leading us. Aren't I But here we go, ladies and gentlemen and theys. So having just been released in the last couple of months at the tail end of 2020 Wonder Woman 84 is set in current day with Diana Prince bossing it out, being the extremely knowledgeable antiquities expert. She is after the discovery of a wish granting object that falls into the wrong hands and inadvertently makes Diana normal, heavy quotations normal. Our heroine must make the ultimate selfless decision in order to save the world again. So, Mike, what, what are your thoughts on your least on your favorite IC? I just started with the least your favorite and least desirable portions of this film. You [00:14:00] go first. I have opinions. Mike: Man, I really gotta have a cigarette that I can take a drag from when, when I'm having these, these moments of kind of wistful regret. God, like I said, you know, I'm, I'm a lot more conflicted about, about this movie than I was with the first one. I think the best thing about this movie was Kristen Wiig. I, she was just an absolute standout and. That fight scene that they gave her in the White House, uh, where Diana and her are just beating each other's ass. And then Kristen Wiig ends up mopping the floor with her after a little bit. I thought that was just amazing first of all, and second, I thought it was a really good example of what this movie did best, which was the smaller scenes were generally. So, so good. Which contrasts with what my big problem was, [00:15:00] which is that the quote, big moments kind of left me rolling my eyes. Like, you know, it's, it's those moments that were meant to be epic or super emotional. And I can't remember one of them that really worked. Like there's that action sequence in Egypt slash Bialya. Yeah, it's the, it's that big action sequence with the motorcade where it's supposed to be this really cool thing where she's jumping from car to car and moving super fast and chasing things down. And it just, it looks so cheap and there were so many totally obvious green screen moments that just really took me out of it. Um Jessika: Yeah. Mike: You know, and, and on top of that, there's the, the extra heightened urgency to it, where they have the kids playing soccer and then they get into the street. Right? When this, when this convoy is coming down the road and I just, I couldn't, man, I rolled my eyes so hard. It was so dumb. And then the same thing with Kristen Wiig's heel turn when she [00:16:00] beats up and almost murders, the guy who tried to rape her in the park. And I mean, Sarah and I were both on her side, you know, Sarah actually pointed out that a way more effective heel turn would have been if the homeless guy that she had brought the food to earlier in the movie and who shows up at the end of that scene, and she, she gets really aggro with. But if she had actually just been really dismissive of him, when he tried to say hi to her or something where she had just been like, I don't have time for you. And then there's finally that bit where Steve dies again. Jessika: Good riddance. Goodbye, Steve. Mike: Ahh, I, I really like Chris pine too. Jessika: I mean, I do too. Chris pine hit us up beyond this podcast. I'm sure he listens. Mike: I'm sure, but like that whole sequence where they just, they turn it up to 11 where he sits there and right before she like renounces her wish you hear him go, I'll love you forever. And [00:17:00] there's a lack of subtlety throughout most of this movie that just kind of left me scratching my head and you know, and then there's also just the less, we talk about that final fight between Diana and Barbara, when she looks like a shitty thunder cat. Oh God, I don't know. I, I feel like there were just too many cooks in the kitchen man, because like, the story just feels like it's trying to go in too many directions in any one of them would have been fine, but the movie settles for this messy middle ground instead of filling, committing to any one direction and they just. And they try to make up for that by, by going really intense and it doesn't work. So, yeah, that's my thoughts. Jessika: In the sense of kind of trying to do too much, why do we have two villains? Could we not have, you know, had her kind of evolve at the very end of this film and have [00:18:00] her be in the next film or something, or, you know, have, have something happen or I guess that wouldn't have worked with the whole wish breakdown, but. Is there some way where we didn't have to have a quarter of a story for each of these characters and then Diana making shitty decisions. The rest of it. Mike: I have thoughts about that, that we can talk about later on, but I mean, there's so many ways that they could have done the cheetah's origin, the, the recent, uh, the recent rebirth Wonder Woman comics that were done by Liam sharp and Greg Rucka. The whole focus is about how Wonder Woman and, and by extension Barbara Minerva's paths are so tangled and so warped by all these red cons and everything. And it's trying to resolve it in a way that that kind of honors all the previous stories, but also explains this new, this new development. And it worked really well. I really liked it a lot, but I mean, The whole thing with making with the [00:19:00] way that they did it, it was okay. But I, I agree. It was, it was too many villains at once. It was the same thing that they did in Spider-Man three with Toby Maguire, where it was like, there are three villains because there's a third movie and you're just kind of whatever Jessika: Spider-Man learns to shoot webs out of his feet to compensate Mike: Speedermin. Jessika: Yes. So get Spider-Ham involved. Mike: Oh man. I would watch that movie. Jessika: Let's get on that. Mike: Okay. So like I've already vented my spleen, but like what, how about you? Tell me how you're feeling. Jessika: Let's I'm going to start easy. I'm not going to jump into the negative right away, although it's bursting to come out. So my favorite part was definitely the very beginning. With a whole stadium full of strong women. I don't think that I can say enough about the fact that we don't get that very often. We don't get to see even a whole scene full [00:20:00] of women very often, let alone that many women let alone women who are competing and supporting each other and fighting and being fierce and being strong. Those aren't things that we get that often. And so I, I started crying the first time I saw this and I, I watched this movie two times when it first came out and I started crying when I first started watching the scene and I was like, well, that's stupid, but it's not, it's not stupid. It's, it's something that we don't get to relate to. And I'm a person who, um, I'm not going to say like, I'm a strong person, but I'm just like, I'm built a little more muscly. You know, I'm a runner. I can lift heavy things. And so to see someone represented that matches my not necessarily physique, but that matches like my motivation to go do those things. Maybe not to that effect like Diana, but in that same sense, it really hits me in a spot that a lot of these floofy princessy things [00:21:00] don't. I'm not a floofy princess. I would love to be a floofy princess. I dress like one sometimes, but ultimately in court they'd be like, you don't fit in that dress. So, and that's okay. We don't all fit in the stupid dress. Mike: Yeah. So you and I both come from that hearty peasant stock we're meant for working in the fields. Jessika: Oh yeah. I can, I can pick up a whole mess of oxen. Just pick them up all at once. So let's, let's move into the, Oh my God. I hated this. I hated this so much. So you and I, we talked about this I'm we're going to do it again. So the whole Steve possessing another dude's body it's super gross. Mike: And the problem is that that really sucked the oxygen out of the room. When we were talking about, about problems with this movie and, and it's something that really felt pointless. There was really no driving reason for that to happen. [00:22:00] And, yeah. Oh please like go out on. Sorry. I cut you off. No, that's Jessika: okay. I mean, there could have been so many other ways that, that he came back, quote unquote, but there were consequences to him coming back or, you know, something like that, but it didn't have to be him taking over another person's like faculties, that's not okay. And it's interesting to me that everybody else finds this super gross too, but I think it's, it's interesting because it's, it's because it's a guy there's a ton of outrage about this because it's a man, but this pretty consistently happens to female characters in films and TV and women many times have very little to no agency regarding what happens to them on screen. But we clearly view this as normal. So it really speaks to how our society functions to see the absolute outrage at this male character being treated like any [00:23:00] given female character in our media. Also the bit at the end of the film where Diana kind of gives the unnamed hallmark looking bro, and knowing look like, yeah, with that, it's, it's just gross. He didn't have any say in the matter when the implied sexual acts happened, he was not in control of his body. Nor able to consent. And quite honestly, it reminds me there's a super assist and trigger warning. Everyone. It reminds me of how many, many women's stories of not knowing what exactly happened to them went down. You know, there are so many women who have no idea. Mike: I mean, because there's that whole aspect where Steve, Trevor, you know, is basically just his, his spirit is just thrust into some random dudes body, but. There's also the bit where it's implied that he just has no memory of anything happening for days. So I think, I think that was just [00:24:00] massively problematic on a number of levels, aside from what you've just mentioned, but just narratively where it's like, what is this dude going through? Where, where he's sitting there with his friends and they're like, Hey, remember that crazy week where nuclear war almost broke out and all he can sit there and say is like, not really. Jessika: Yeah. Yeah. I, I really hope that they were trying to make the point that I'm making or the point that I'm feeling about this. But I feel like it's so lost. I feel like we feel the outrage, but we don't, we don't feel the other side of what that outrageous portraying the fact that, that the other side of the world or the other half of the people live that reality. Mike: Well, yeah. You know, back to what I was saying about too many cooks in the kitchen, like this was a story that was written by three different people. There was Patty Jenkins, there was Geoff Johns, and then there is Dave Callaham. This is all armchair quarterbacking. I don't know. I am willing to [00:25:00] bet that that whole Steve getting thrust into someone else's body and then no real follow through on that narrative. I would be willing to bet that that was something that came from either Johns or Callaham. And it just, it was something that they didn't think about because it's not something that dudes think about a lot. Jessika: Yeah. You don't have to. Mike: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I can think of at least half a dozen ways that you could have made that work without bringing in that, that whole rapey connotation. Jessika: I agree. Like what if he came back and he wasn't like corporal okay. How interesting would that be? Like, if you just came back like Patrick Swayze ghost style, and they're just like, are you thinking about what I said that they're just like sitting, they're like making pottery. Mike: Well, and I remember sitting there and watching it when the trailers came out and originally I was thinking, Oh, no, maybe it's just, he's a ghost that's come back. Like, it's probably not going to be a real thing or, or it's a hallucination. [00:26:00] And then they show him, you know, beating ass while they're doing that whole convoy chase. So I had to sit there and go, well, no, I guess he's corporeal. I don't know how they're going to pull this off. And I just, I felt really dissatisfied with, with what they did. I didn't have a problem with him coming back, but I mean, honestly the whole fact that, you know, Wonder Woman reveals that that Diana is a god, why not just bring him back. But the thing is, is that manifesting a body out of nothing, it turns out it takes a lot of energy. And so he is directly draining her divine power. Jessika: That's so much better, honestly, that makes so much more sense. Cause there was actually causing correlations. Yeah. I, this whole Diana feeling bad because at some random dude, just, I mean, with a slick wink at the end is not convincing that that was a detriment to her, you know, she's she didn't have like the whole idea was that. [00:27:00] You were giving up your most precious whatever to get the most precious, whatever, you know, and it's like, that wasn't really what she was doing. She just was using some guy and she really didn't care. I mean, that's the long and the short of it. She did not care. Mike: And that was whew. That adds a whole other problematic element. Jessika: Yeah, absolutely. Mike: There are certain characters who. Yeah, we can get the alternate universe versions of them, or they can be mine controlled and turn evil temporarily. But the core character being is that they are these uncorruptable aspirational beings that we all want to use as the proverbial role models. And so there's the characters like, like Superman who is decent and kind Captain America, who always tries to do what's right. Wonder Woman who is supposed to be the embodiment of like kindness. And there's a wonderful speech about how in one of her comics where she's saying like, you know, I [00:28:00] don't, I don't kill if I can wound, I don't wound if I can, I think capture... I can't remember this exactly. And I don't capture if I can use a word instead. That's great. You know, one of her, one of her things is that she can speak the language of all living things. And it's like, there's this, there's this really nurturing quality to her because of all that. And then it's like, Oh, and you know, she, you know, It took away a dude's agency and is totally unapologetic about it. Jessika: Yeah, absolutely. And I, I feel like it came across so much better that first movie, when she really wanted to go help the woman in the trench and, you know, and she was able to speak the language and understand the pain, not only of the language, but she really understood people's pain and what they were going through. She wanted to stop and help everyone, but it didn't feel like she was driven in the same way in the second movie. Even when she was supposed to have like learned her lesson, it didn't feel that way. Well, what was your big takeaway from this film? Did you have [00:29:00] one? Mike: Ah, I guess, again, it's one of those things where I don't have a lesson that I'm taking away from it so much, but it was just that overcorrection is a definite thing in the DCEU. And they, they did it in Batman vs. Superman, where they were trying to acknowledge and, and sort of hold accountable that, that first Man of Steel movie for like the massive body count from all the destruction of the Kryptonians fighting each other. I feel like they did it again here because it was such a, a different movie. And I don't quite know what they're trying to correct, to be honest, but it just, it felt like they were trying to pivot and then they pivoted too hard. Jessika: Yeah. Mike: Yeah. What about you? Jessika: I would say that I learned that society only gets upset at lack of bodily agency. If it involves controlling a man, that would be my take It's a rough one. Rough, like sandpaper up [00:30:00] like a little kitty cat's tongue. Mike: Remember when we started this podcast and we thought it was going to be really fun and lighthearted and... Yeah. Jessika: And we've got 13 pages of notes and just angst. Mike: The salad days. Jessika: Oh, you know, the planning phase is always super fun. Well, comparison time we watched two movies. They were... supposed to be in the same vein of movies, one was supposed to roughly follow the other from my understanding. So what was one thing that was similar or did not track it all when the two films were side-by-side or pick one thing that you, that you thought was interesting? Mike: Yeah. Yeah. So a big thing in both of the movies is that the gods like to mettle with humanity, like. You know, the the first movie it's, it's very blatant about that. You know, Aries is responsible for World War [00:31:00] One, and Diana has to set out to kill him and the war to end all Wars in 1984, it feels like there was supposed to be a big twist or reveal when it's revealed that the dream stone was created by the God of Lies. We get, we get the name of, of the God who I can't remember for the life of me, because it was so one-off and then nothing comes from that. And I feel like there could have been something really cool tying the God of lies and deceit. And I think greed, I think, is what they said to the two things that the eighties was really known for, which was one was the Cold War, but the two was just the incredibly gross commercialization. Jessika: I thought you were going to say that .Brings us to our first episode. Watch our look, go, go back and listen to our Sunday comics episode, which is episode one. Mike: Yeah. I feel like that was a really wasted opportunity because nothing came about from that. [00:32:00] And I don't know. I, I also feel like that could have been, that could have been tied to providing Barbara with, you know, a... second opportunity to get back at Diana. I dunno, I did enjoy the whole bit where the, the actual ending to that movie was its own way, a smaller, more personal ending. I liked that, but I feel like, I feel like we needed something as a little bit more of a dramatic reveal as opposed to, oh, the dream stone was created by the gods. Cool. But we got to see her murder, the God of war with lightning. Jessika: Exactly. Mike: Yeah. What about you? Like, how do you feel that it compares side-by-side? Jessika: I thought I would stick with something that I thought was interesting. That was fun between the two that was similar. Okay. Steve and Diana go through a very similar arc of discovering their new world that they've been introduced to. And I didn't really [00:33:00] remember that until I rewatched wonder woman for this iteration last night, I was like, Oh, how funny? Because. Diana comes to new world and she's like, Oh, look at all of these cool things. And she's like, Oh, that's beautiful . Oh, a baby. And she's like looking every single thing. She wants to look at everything. It's all new it's. This is literally the first time she's seen any of these things before. So it's super wholesome. My favorite part of this was when she gets the ice cream. This is so wholesome. She gets the ice cream and she enjoys it so much and she goes back and she says, "you should be very proud." And I just, it was like, you are so sweet. That is amazing. And just, I mean, it's like looking at the world, like through a child's eyes I can imagine. And then Steve, when he first comes in, I mean, obviously he was a, he was a pilot, but he hasn't seen [00:34:00] commercial airlines. He hasn't seen, you know, anything that holds more than probably two or three people. And the first thing he sees is like a huge commercial Boeing fly over him. And it was so cool and him going and finding out about space, travel and going and seeing a rocket. And it just. It was so cool. And seeing that through his eyes in that way was like, wow. Yeah, that is really neat. It's cool. And it makes you appreciate those things like, yeah, I guess ice cream is really cool. Mike: I, I got to say Chris pine continues to be one of my favorite actors out there and not just because he's super adorable and apparently a very decent human being, but just. Jessika: I mean, Chris pine hit us up. Mike: Yeah. He also takes very weird, funny roles a lot of the times that you wouldn't expect. So, uh, if [00:35:00] you have not seen the movie Stretch, I highly recommended because it is one of the most bonkers roles that you will ever see him. If I remember right he, he first appears on camera, parachuting naked? I think? It's been a little while. It's been a little while since I've seen this, but it's directed by, uh, Joe Carnahan. The guy who did, uh, Smokin' Aces, The A-Team, The Grey, uh, he just did a new one called Boss Level that's on Hulu, which is a really fun, strange action movie, which is where he kind of is at his strongest. But Stretch is about this one day that's absolutely insane for this limo driver and it's, it's... I'm not going to call it a good movie, but it's highly enjoyable, at least from my end as I remember it. But yeah. So Chris pine tangent over, sorry, Chris pine is really good at [00:36:00] just being very believable and the wide-eyed wonder that he showed in 84, I thought was so it was just lovely. Jessika: He's a really good facial actor. Yeah, he's very, very, but like, to your point, he's very believable and his facial acting is so good. Do you remember in Star Trek? When he was in Star Trek? Mike: Oh, yes, of course. Love those movies. Jessika: Um, just his face when he concentrates in that movie where he gets all red and it's like, Oh, it's like, Oh, wow. Do you really live in that? You know, it's like he would go on their journey with him because his face is just taking us there. Mike: He kind of reminds me of Chris Hemsworth, um, because he he's really good at being a solid leading man, but he is also really funny when he's allowed to be [00:37:00] like, do you remember in the third one -Star Trek Beyond- where at the very beginning where he's got all the aliens. And you can just see him getting more and more confused as they're asking him why he's delivering this artifact and then getting really fed up. It was, I don't know why, but I still laugh whenever I see that scene. Oh man. I got to agree with you. I think, I think that whole montage of him rediscovering the world was, was really just delightful. Yeah, it was, it felt special. Yeah. Jessika: Well, so I have a little bonus category for Oh, Oh, okay. So I, you know, again, I watched wonder woman last night for the umpteenth time and I jotted down just a few, very Diana quotes as I was okay. Mike: My body is ready for this number one. Jessika: Who will I be if I stay? [00:38:00] That one hit me, I would hit me right in the heart. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Yeah. Second one. I'm the man who can. Mike: Who was that a Steve line or was that something that Jessika: She said that, Diana said that . Mike: Really? I totally don't even remember this that's great. Jessika: It's when she was going into, uh, they were talking about no man's land and he said, there isn't a man who can go there or like there's no man can go there. And she said, I'm the man who can. Mike: Okay. Yeah, I totally glossed over that, which is really appalling. I mean, arguably the best scene in the movie. Jessika: I, I literally have chills. It's I'm rethinking about that, that scene. That was sexy. It was sexy as hell. And the third quote, what I do is not up to you. Mike: That was really good. Jessika: Yes. [00:39:00] So that was, those were my three quotes. They stood out to me. So I wrote them down. Well, let's move on to our category, brain wrinkles. And we like to spend a little time each episode talking about something comic related that just won't budge from our consciousness. Mike, what's been stuck in your noggin, right? Mike: So. We're we're doing these, these episodes, this one, and then the next couple, because the infamous Snyder Cut is launching this week. And, and do you want, do you want me to wait for you to Irish up your tea there? Jessika: Oh yeah. I'm almost done with my coffee. Oh, good. I have a second one sitting right here. Mike: But yeah, the, you know, the big thing that people have been focusing on ever since the Snyder Cutcat got announced and it was revealed has been the presence of Darkseid, who is, is basically the DC version of Thanos. [00:40:00] And I'm trying really hard to go into this movie with an open mind, regardless. I keep thinking about Darkseid as the villain that everyone wanted to see on the big screen, but it's really weird to realize that we're probably not going to see the coolest story with him in it, which is called the Great Darkness Saga. And it's from the eighties and it's from the comic book Legion of Superheroes, which does not have the name brand appeal of the Justice League. The whole thing is that Darkseid wakes up after roughly a thousand years of sleep and winds up almost conquering the galaxy. And it's absolutely batshit. It's like he brings back like rever- I think they're called reverse clones or shadow clones of like Superman and if I remember right Wonder Woman, and it's a huge reveal when they actually reveal that halfway through the series or the story of five issues, that Darkseid is the villain who's doing all this. So it was, it was really [00:41:00] fun. And it's, it's that wonderful, weird, crazy space opera sci-fi that we're just not going to see in the current movie environment, because it's so risky to do something like that. Jessika: But see, that just sounds cool as hell I need. If we, if we can have, if we can have Guardians of the Galaxy, like why can't we have that? Mike: Yeah. And I think a lot of it is because again, I'm not trying to sound like a Marvel fan boy, but I think right now, the, I think Warner Brothers is very risk-averse for, for all of the financial stuff that's going on behind the scenes with, with AT&T acquiring them recently and the insane amount of debt that's surrounding that whole deal. I think that they are trying to just do surefire hits. You know, if you, if you haven't read The Great Darkness Saga, you can actually go out and pick up a copy, pretty cheap of the collected edition. It's a [00:42:00] lot of fun, but one of the coolest things about it is that the, the epilogue to the story reveals actually that Darkseid wins in a way that's very personal and mean. And I kinda love that that at the time the team was allowed to do something like that. So, yeah, that's, that's, what's been on my brain lately. How about you? Jessika: I'll have to check that out though. You always give me such good suggestions. Mike: Oh, well, thank you. Jessika: So my brain wrinkle and hear me out. Okay. I really liked Iron Man 3. Mike: I rather enjoyed it. Jessika: Everyone gives it such crap. Okay. I literally like every time I talked about like, oh, I'm doing a watch through, they were like, Oh, you know how people always have an opinion about like, which movies you can like skip, you know what I mean? So like Iron Man 3 is always one of the ones that people say, Oh, you can [00:43:00] skip that one. But honestly, I rather liked it. And quite frankly, this is, I mean, The main, so the main complaint I've heard about this is that Tony is too traumatized and feely, but like, what do you expect? The guy clearly has, he's been through a ton of shit. He clearly has PTSD and he clearly needs therapy and he's making wearable weapons as an outlet, which by the way, not recommended. I also think this movie is so necessary so that Tony stark overall character arc, otherwise. His final sacrifice and his like, kind of tenderness towards the Spider-Man character. It doesn't make any sense within the story or the character if he just continued with his one note selfish, douchebag tendencies. Mike: Yeah. I really enjoyed that movie for a number of reasons. I personally think it could have used a little bit more editing, but I mean, there was no personal lesson -I [00:44:00] felt- an Iron Man 2. Like Iron Man 2 was a, it's a fun, it's a fun movie, but it was like, cool. Like the end of the day, like. He gets to make out with a girl and, and his best friend has a suit of armor now. And I don't know, was there any more of a lesson other than Mickey Rourke is fun to watch? No matter what kind of terrible Russian accent he's sporting. Jessika: Other than that, I mean, the movie itself, to me, wasn't very memorable. Mike: No, I mean, it was fun, but it was just kind of whatever, you know, it was cotton candy. Yeah. Yeah. It was fine in a, in a, in nothing but a complimentary way. The third one, I, I agree. I think, I think like the self-sacrificing nature does actually pay off better because of that. And also I thought Ben Kingsley as the Mandarin and then the twist with him as the Mandarin was one of the funniest fucking things I'd seen in a long time. Jessika: One of my friends was very irritated at that and [00:45:00] almost walked out of the theater because the Mandarin is one of his favorite characters. And so when he figured out that it was this whole spoof, he got, he took it very personally, apparently. So which I just personally, I mean, I, I think it's very funny. I can understand you wanting to see your favorite characters represented, but we have to understand that, like you're not the writer. We're not the writer. Like we can sit here and bitch about it, but ultimately, like we don't have writing privileges. And so we just have to go on the ride that they take us on. And to a certain extent, that's just what we have to do as the audience. And I understand that we are going to have feelings and that's that, you know what that means. That means that they've done well. That means that they've, they've been compelling and that they've made us, they've made a spot in our hearts. But it's not something we should be able to take personally, or that we need to, in my opinion, I mean, I don't do it. Do what you want. Mike: You know, the other thing is like they, they did all those [00:46:00] Marvel shorts as well. Do you remember those, like where you would get them in the DVDs and there'd be like a little five minute film or whatever. So I can't remember which one it was, but it was revealed that the Mandarin was. Was then being broken out of jail so that he could be brought to face the real Mandarin. And then they've never done anything with that, but they're also doing, uh, the new Shang-Chi movie, which Shane, she is this Bruce Lee style figure. The movie title is called Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Which goes back to the terrorist organization, the Ten Rings. And then the whole thing with the Mandarin is that in the comic books, he has 10 rings of power, which originally they're supposed to be magic rings, and then they've been retconned. So they're an artificial intelligent rings that manipulate reality, or they're, they're kind of like lesser infinity stones if I remember. Right. Jessika: But it's not the same kind of thing that, that Dr. Strange is [00:47:00] working with right? It's not that whole like mystic circle sitch. Mike: Uh, I don't think so, but who knows with where they're going to take the Marvel with, you know, the MCU is spinning stuff on its head in certain ways. And yeah, and I, you know, we're just along for the ride, it's going to be really interesting to see what they do, but in the original iron man movie, the terrorist organization that winds up forcing Tony Stark to theoretically build weapons for them and what he uses to build the armor. Instead, they are called the Ten Rings. And the Mandarin is, is actually a long running iron man villain -kind of problematic because he's relatively racist in a lot of ways or a racist caricature- but it'll be really interesting to see what they do with that. And I'm kind of hoping that we get some cameo of Ben Kingsley just like chained up, like, you know, princess Leia style with Jaba the Hutt or something like that when the Mandarin theoretically appears in Shang-Chi. So who knows. [00:48:00] Jessika: Yeah. Mike: Yeah. Jessika: Well, thanks for listening to Ten Cent Takes. This episode was hosted by Jessica Frazier and Mike Thompson written by Jessica Frazier and edited by Mike Thompson. Our intro theme was written and performed by Jared Emerson-Johnson of Bay Area Sound. Our credits music is "Pursuit of Life" by Evan McDonald and was purchased with a standard license from Premium Beat. Mike: If you'd like to get in touch with us, ask us questions or tell us how we got something wrong. Please head over to tencenttakes dot com or shoot an email to tencenttakes at gmail dot com. You can also find us on Twitter. The official podcast account is tencenttakes -all one word. Jessika is Jessica with a K and the Jessica has a K in it as well. And then I am vansau: V-A-N-S-A-U [00:49:00] Jessika: Stay safe out there Mike: And support your local comic shop.
Mike: So Ana, you're from Portugal, right?Ana: Yes.Mike: I was wondering, I really like movies; are there any good Portuguese movies that you can recommend.Ana: Well, actually, now that you mentioned it, there is a really nice Portuguese movie that came out recently, I think last year.Mike: Oh really?Ana: Yes, it's called the Gilded Cage.Mike: The Gilded Cage?Ana: Yes. It was actually filmed in French and Portuguese because it's about a Portuguese family living in France. So you can have it both in Portuguese and in French. It's very interesting.Mike: Okay. And what's the story about?Ana: Well, a lot of Portuguese people have had to move to different European countries to find jobs. So it's about one of these families. And the main couple, they moved to France to find jobs and now, I think, 14 years have passed and they have two children.Mike: All right.Ana: And yeah, the children were born in France, and raised French-Portuguese. And it's about their internal conflict, about their identities and whether they are French or Portuguese. So actually, the family is given the opportunity to go back to Portugal. So they need to think about the pros and cons of leaving France; all the friendships that they have created, the jobs that they have in contrast to – yes.Mike: And this seems like an issue that many people will be able to identify with because there are many people leaving the country these days because of economic reasons, right?Ana: Yes, I think so. I talked to some of my friends about it and my friends that are in Portugal, they think it's quite a funny movie. But my friends who've left the country, they actually cried a lot during the movie because they could identify with the feelings of loneliness and being away from your country, your culture, your family.Mike: So you live outside of Portugal, how did you feel when you watched this movie?Ana: Well, it's a comedy, so I laughed a lot. But there were some difficult moments actually where I felt that my personal feelings and my personal experience were being targeted or just, you know, those issues of how I feel about my country and how I feel about living outside of Portugal.Mike: So it stirred some strong emotions for you.Ana: Yes. It was very difficult actually. And I couldn't stop thinking about the movie in the next few days. And it also helped me think where I was in my life now and whether I would go back. So for me, it was also a turning point.Mike: All right. That sounds like a very good movie. Would you recommend it to people who are not Portuguese as well?Ana: I do. I think that for most people who leave their countries, these people, they shared the feeling, they always leave something behind. So I think it will be able to reach different audiences from different countries.Mike: All right. So for anyone feeling a little homesick, it's a good movie to watch.Ana: Yes.
Mike: So Ana, you're from Portugal, right?Ana: Yes.Mike: I was wondering, I really like movies; are there any good Portuguese movies that you can recommend.Ana: Well, actually, now that you mentioned it, there is a really nice Portuguese movie that came out recently, I think last year.Mike: Oh really?Ana: Yes, it's called the Gilded Cage.Mike: The Gilded Cage?Ana: Yes. It was actually filmed in French and Portuguese because it's about a Portuguese family living in France. So you can have it both in Portuguese and in French. It's very interesting.Mike: Okay. And what's the story about?Ana: Well, a lot of Portuguese people have had to move to different European countries to find jobs. So it's about one of these families. And the main couple, they moved to France to find jobs and now, I think, 14 years have passed and they have two children.Mike: All right.Ana: And yeah, the children were born in France, and raised French-Portuguese. And it's about their internal conflict, about their identities and whether they are French or Portuguese. So actually, the family is given the opportunity to go back to Portugal. So they need to think about the pros and cons of leaving France; all the friendships that they have created, the jobs that they have in contrast to – yes.Mike: And this seems like an issue that many people will be able to identify with because there are many people leaving the country these days because of economic reasons, right?Ana: Yes, I think so. I talked to some of my friends about it and my friends that are in Portugal, they think it's quite a funny movie. But my friends who've left the country, they actually cried a lot during the movie because they could identify with the feelings of loneliness and being away from your country, your culture, your family.Mike: So you live outside of Portugal, how did you feel when you watched this movie?Ana: Well, it's a comedy, so I laughed a lot. But there were some difficult moments actually where I felt that my personal feelings and my personal experience were being targeted or just, you know, those issues of how I feel about my country and how I feel about living outside of Portugal.Mike: So it stirred some strong emotions for you.Ana: Yes. It was very difficult actually. And I couldn't stop thinking about the movie in the next few days. And it also helped me think where I was in my life now and whether I would go back. So for me, it was also a turning point.Mike: All right. That sounds like a very good movie. Would you recommend it to people who are not Portuguese as well?Ana: I do. I think that for most people who leave their countries, these people, they shared the feeling, they always leave something behind. So I think it will be able to reach different audiences from different countries.Mike: All right. So for anyone feeling a little homesick, it's a good movie to watch.Ana: Yes.
Ana: So Michael, I heard you really enjoy going to the movies. What kind of movies do you like?Mike: I like many kinds of movies. But actually, I enjoy going to movies, but these days, I'm so busy with work that I don't really get to see that many movies in the cinema. But when I fly on an airplane, I like to watch many movies in one night.Ana: Oh really? Wow, okay. Can you tell me about a movie you've watched recently on an airplane?Mike: Yes. The last time I flew in an airplane, I watched a movie called the Dallas Buyer's Club.Ana: Oh, okay. Yes, I think I've heard about it. What's the story?Mike: Well, it's about HIV and AIDS. And it's basically about the early years of new drug treatments for people with AIDS. And the story is about an American guy in Dallas or in Texas.Ana: Yeah, Dallas in Texas. Yeah.Mike: Oh yes. Sorry, I don't – I'm from South Africa so my knowledge of America isn't that great. But yeah, it's about someone who's been diagnosed with HIV and then how he sort of comes to terms with it and how it's difficult for him to accept at first. And then he starts undergoing treatment for it, experimental treatment.Ana: Oh yeah, I think I've watched the trailer actually. It's really interesting. So what did you think of it? Did you like it?Mike: Yes, yes. I thought it was a very good movie. And it deals with some difficult topics or some maybe upsetting topics but overall, it was a very interesting movie to watch. And I think the acting is also very good in this movie. Do you know the name of the actor? I forgot his name.Ana: Yes. I think it's Matthew McConaughey.Mike: Ah yes. And did he win an Academy Award for that?Ana: Yes, he did. I think he just recently won several awards for his performance in that movie.Mike: Hmm, that was very impressive.Ana: So earlier you said that the movie talks about some difficult topics. Could you tell me what those are?Mike: That's true. Well, the whole question of AIDS, and how society dealt with it at that time before it was a widely known disease.Ana: But I think it also focuses on the treatment of AIDS, and what's available out there, doesn't it?Mike: Yes. At that time, there were different drug treatments available. There were actually not that many available but they started doing trial runs in hospitals of different kinds of drugs. But I think that's part of the drama in the movie but some patients were given the real drug and some patients were given placebo drugs or sugar pills. And then, it also it sort of the whole question of ethics in medicine and that some people have to die of their disease before a medicine can be approved – before it can be proved that the medicine is effective in the first place.So it was…Ana: Oh, I see. That's very interesting.Mike: It talks about some maybe unpleasant topics.Ana: Oh, that sounds very somber. Do you still recommend I watch it?Mike: Well, yes, I think so. It's exactly a feel-good or a happy movie but I think it raises people's awareness of how sufferers of HIV and AIDS had to deal with it and what sort of issues they faced and still face today even though the treatments have improved a great deal since the time depicted in the movie at least.Ana: Great, thank you.Mike: My pleasure.
Ana: So Michael, I heard you really enjoy going to the movies. What kind of movies do you like?Mike: I like many kinds of movies. But actually, I enjoy going to movies, but these days, I'm so busy with work that I don't really get to see that many movies in the cinema. But when I fly on an airplane, I like to watch many movies in one night.Ana: Oh really? Wow, okay. Can you tell me about a movie you've watched recently on an airplane?Mike: Yes. The last time I flew in an airplane, I watched a movie called the Dallas Buyer's Club.Ana: Oh, okay. Yes, I think I've heard about it. What's the story?Mike: Well, it's about HIV and AIDS. And it's basically about the early years of new drug treatments for people with AIDS. And the story is about an American guy in Dallas or in Texas.Ana: Yeah, Dallas in Texas. Yeah.Mike: Oh yes. Sorry, I don't – I'm from South Africa so my knowledge of America isn't that great. But yeah, it's about someone who's been diagnosed with HIV and then how he sort of comes to terms with it and how it's difficult for him to accept at first. And then he starts undergoing treatment for it, experimental treatment.Ana: Oh yeah, I think I've watched the trailer actually. It's really interesting. So what did you think of it? Did you like it?Mike: Yes, yes. I thought it was a very good movie. And it deals with some difficult topics or some maybe upsetting topics but overall, it was a very interesting movie to watch. And I think the acting is also very good in this movie. Do you know the name of the actor? I forgot his name.Ana: Yes. I think it's Matthew McConaughey.Mike: Ah yes. And did he win an Academy Award for that?Ana: Yes, he did. I think he just recently won several awards for his performance in that movie.Mike: Hmm, that was very impressive.Ana: So earlier you said that the movie talks about some difficult topics. Could you tell me what those are?Mike: That's true. Well, the whole question of AIDS, and how society dealt with it at that time before it was a widely known disease.Ana: But I think it also focuses on the treatment of AIDS, and what's available out there, doesn't it?Mike: Yes. At that time, there were different drug treatments available. There were actually not that many available but they started doing trial runs in hospitals of different kinds of drugs. But I think that's part of the drama in the movie but some patients were given the real drug and some patients were given placebo drugs or sugar pills. And then, it also it sort of the whole question of ethics in medicine and that some people have to die of their disease before a medicine can be approved – before it can be proved that the medicine is effective in the first place.So it was…Ana: Oh, I see. That's very interesting.Mike: It talks about some maybe unpleasant topics.Ana: Oh, that sounds very somber. Do you still recommend I watch it?Mike: Well, yes, I think so. It's exactly a feel-good or a happy movie but I think it raises people's awareness of how sufferers of HIV and AIDS had to deal with it and what sort of issues they faced and still face today even though the treatments have improved a great deal since the time depicted in the movie at least.Ana: Great, thank you.Mike: My pleasure.
In Part 2 of my conversation with Mike Oh, Principal of TSP, a tech services company, we pick up on some of the key choices he’s made over the past 28 years as an entrepreneur. We’ll dive into how the workplace has evolved to reflect and support social justice causes like #MeToo and Black Lives Matter. We also reflect on COVID’s impact on his business, his decision to remain in the UK with his family, and why his team may have been better equipped than most to shift to an all-virtual model. LINKS/RESOURCES MENTIONED Richardson Media Group Mike’s Company, TSP Mike’s Podcast, Grepcast Mike’s Instagram TSP Smart Homes
更多英语知识,请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Mike: So Ana, Portugal is not a very big country, is it?Ana: No, it's not. We're actually quite small compared to most countries in the world.Mike: But you are next to some pretty big countries in Europe, right? You're next to Spain, and France, and Germany, which are all bigger countries.Ana: Yeah. Yeah, we are. Right by Spain. Spain is so much bigger than Portugal. And it kind of covers some of the Portuguese borders, so it's very interesting.Mike: Okay, yeah. I've even heard Portugal being referred to as a province of Spain. What do you think about that?Ana: Yeah. And they think it might be in South America or part of Spain, but not really. Actually, Portugal and Spain, they have a lot of things in common but also a lot of differences.Mike: All right.Ana: So the people are similar but our food is actually very different.Mike: How so? What are the differences between Portuguese food and Spanish food?Ana: Well, I think Portuguese food, we have a lot of grilled fish, and we're right by the ocean so for us, fish is really important.Mike: Ah, I see.Ana: Whereas in Spain, I think you get a lot of meat and food that's a little bit less healthy, I think. But maybe that's just my opinion.Mike: All right. So is Portuguese food very healthy?Ana: It can be but not always. Our desserts are really rich, so you should be careful. There is a lot of egg and flour and sugar in there. So you don't want to eat too much of that.Mike: And you like very rich, cured meat, and sausages, as well as they, do in Spain?Ana: Yes, we do. Smoked ham, and cheese is also very important.Mike: Oh, that sounds good.Ana: But you know there are also a lot of similarities between Portugal and Spain.Mike: Oh really? What sort of similarities?Ana: For example, our love for football is very important.Mike: Ah, of course.Ana: So both Portugal and Spain have very big football teams that are important in the whole world. And when we play against the rest of the world, Portugal and Spain really unite and we support each other.Mike: What's the name of that famous football player from Portugal?Ana: Oh, Cristiano Ronaldo.Mike: Oh yes, Ronaldo.Ana: Yeah, yeah. He's really good. I think he won the best player – well, yeah, the title of world's best player recently.Mike: Really? Wow. Are you big fan of football?Ana: Yes, I am. I used to be a big supporter of Porto, so that was really interesting. And Portugal also hosted the European tournament a few years ago.Mike: Ah, I see. And Porto, is that a place in Portugal?Ana: Yes, it is. It's in the north. Even though I'm from the Lisbon area, I actually support another team.Mike: And why do you support Porto?Ana: I don't know. I guess, I just like Porto when I was growing up and that's why.Mike: All right. Have you visited Porto?Ana: Yes, I have. It's really a beautiful city.Mike: Oh well, maybe I should visit there as well when I go to Portugal this summer.Ana: Yeah, you should.
更多英语知识,请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Mike: So Ana, Portugal is not a very big country, is it?Ana: No, it's not. We're actually quite small compared to most countries in the world.Mike: But you are next to some pretty big countries in Europe, right? You're next to Spain, and France, and Germany, which are all bigger countries.Ana: Yeah. Yeah, we are. Right by Spain. Spain is so much bigger than Portugal. And it kind of covers some of the Portuguese borders, so it's very interesting.Mike: Okay, yeah. I've even heard Portugal being referred to as a province of Spain. What do you think about that?Ana: Yeah. And they think it might be in South America or part of Spain, but not really. Actually, Portugal and Spain, they have a lot of things in common but also a lot of differences.Mike: All right.Ana: So the people are similar but our food is actually very different.Mike: How so? What are the differences between Portuguese food and Spanish food?Ana: Well, I think Portuguese food, we have a lot of grilled fish, and we're right by the ocean so for us, fish is really important.Mike: Ah, I see.Ana: Whereas in Spain, I think you get a lot of meat and food that's a little bit less healthy, I think. But maybe that's just my opinion.Mike: All right. So is Portuguese food very healthy?Ana: It can be but not always. Our desserts are really rich, so you should be careful. There is a lot of egg and flour and sugar in there. So you don't want to eat too much of that.Mike: And you like very rich, cured meat, and sausages, as well as they, do in Spain?Ana: Yes, we do. Smoked ham, and cheese is also very important.Mike: Oh, that sounds good.Ana: But you know there are also a lot of similarities between Portugal and Spain.Mike: Oh really? What sort of similarities?Ana: For example, our love for football is very important.Mike: Ah, of course.Ana: So both Portugal and Spain have very big football teams that are important in the whole world. And when we play against the rest of the world, Portugal and Spain really unite and we support each other.Mike: What's the name of that famous football player from Portugal?Ana: Oh, Cristiano Ronaldo.Mike: Oh yes, Ronaldo.Ana: Yeah, yeah. He's really good. I think he won the best player – well, yeah, the title of world's best player recently.Mike: Really? Wow. Are you big fan of football?Ana: Yes, I am. I used to be a big supporter of Porto, so that was really interesting. And Portugal also hosted the European tournament a few years ago.Mike: Ah, I see. And Porto, is that a place in Portugal?Ana: Yes, it is. It's in the north. Even though I'm from the Lisbon area, I actually support another team.Mike: And why do you support Porto?Ana: I don't know. I guess, I just like Porto when I was growing up and that's why.Mike: All right. Have you visited Porto?Ana: Yes, I have. It's really a beautiful city.Mike: Oh well, maybe I should visit there as well when I go to Portugal this summer.Ana: Yeah, you should.
You’ve landed at the BSuite Podcast, an open conversation about keeping pace with the joys and challenges facing creative leaders in today’s world. In this episode, I’m speaking to Mike Oh, Principal of TSP, a tech services company based out of Cambridge, Massachusetts. TSP’s mission is to foster technological efficiency in both home and business environments. Mike and I cover so many worthwhile topics in this two-part conversation, from the unique path that has led him to nearly 3 decades of business ownership, to social justice and diversity in the workplace, and some of the ways TSP has navigated the COVID pandemic so far. Thank you for tuning in!
Neil talks about his childhood wish to stop the waves. DJ and academic Mike Dimpfl talks about his research on "toilet feelings." ABOUT THE GUEST Mike Dimpfl is a teacher, academic, costume builder, and DJ. His academic work explores the connection between hygiene, bureaucracy, and institutional racism, particularly in the southern US. Mike’s costumes often focus on the comic and confusing relationship human beings have to their garbage and to the possibility of the divine. When music is his focus, he is especially committed to reckless abandon on the dancefloor. ABOUT THE HOST Neil Goldberg is an artist in NYC who makes work that The New York Times has described as “tender, moving and sad but also deeply funny.” His work is in the permanent collection of MoMA, he’s a Guggenheim Fellow, and teaches at the Yale School of Art. More information at neilgoldberg.com. ABOUT THE TITLE SHE’S A TALKER was the name of Neil’s first video project. “One night in the early 90s I was combing my roommate’s cat and found myself saying the words ‘She’s a talker.’ I wondered how many other gay men in NYC might be doing the exact same thing at that very moment. With that, I set out on a project in which I videotaped over 80 gay men in their living room all over NYC, combing their cats and saying ‘She’s a talker.’” A similar spirit of NYC-centric curiosity and absurdity animates the podcast. CREDITS This series is made possible with generous support from Stillpoint Fund, Western Bridge, and the David Shaw and Beth Kobliner Family Fund Producer: Devon Guinn Creative Consultants: Aaron Dalton, Molly Donahue Mixer: Fraser McCulloch Visuals and Sounds: Joshua Graver Theme Song: Jeff Hiller Website: Itai Almor & Jesse Kimotho Social Media: Lourdes Rohan Digital Strategy: Ziv Steinberg Thanks: Jennifer Callahan, Larry Krone, Tod Lippy, Sue Simon, Jonathan Taylor TRANSCRIPTION NEIL: Mike Dimpfl, welcome to SHE’S A TALKER MIKE: I’m so delighted to be here. NEIL: It’s impossible to imagine you’re as delighted as I am to have you here. Now, can I ask where this recording is finding you? MIKE: Yeah, this recording is finding me, sitting at my dining room table in Durham, North Carolina. It’s a lovely gray, 64 degree day. NEIL: Do you like a gray day? MIKE: I do right now because I have a bit of sort of structural gardening work to complete. And when the summer comes here it becomes so insanely hot that it’s just completely impossible to be outside. We’ve had a really long, cool spring, so the bugs aren’t here yet. NEIL: What is structural gardening work? MIKE: It’s a critique of the, sort of political economy of earlier forms of gardening. We’re remaking our yard and we’ve been doing all of the actual construction work. So not planting plants, but building walls and building fences and moving dirt around and things that. So all the things that are sort of a pain in the ass and give my sort of inner type A control freak a lot of pleasure, but don’t actually produce anything you would say is recognizably a garden. It’s a lot of getting your hands cut by all of the pieces of broken glass that are in the soil around your house. NEIL: Oh, how come there’s broken glass inside the soil around your house? MIKE: It’s just an almost a hundred year old house, and I think that over time things break and people throw bottles into the former dump behind the former garage that’s no longer there, and you find them and I’ve probably taken out an entire garbage can, an actual garbage can of broken glass out of the yard. NEIL: Wow, one shard at a time? MIKE: One shard at a time, yes. I’m going to start an Etsy store with all of the other things I found, like yard cured fork and yard cured wrench, they have a nice patina. NEIL: Oh, I bet, people would pay a pretty penny to give you their new wrench to make it look that. MIKE: To bury, totally, totally. NEIL: It’s like the kimchi of wrenches. MIKE: Exactly, exactly. NEIL: What drove you to leave New York? MIKE: Oh God, I had a terrible day job, crushing, horribly boring development work that I was doing. And I don’t know if you knew, I’d had a bunch of surgeries on my ears. I had a genetic hearing loss condition and they actually messed it up in my right ear, so I’m super deaf in my right ear now. And it meant that I couldn’t DJ as much. And so I kind of lost the love of New York, and I was like, “Maybe I’ll go back to grad school.” And I did, and of course grad school is a little bit returning to the fourth grade playground. But you realize that your bully is secretly closeted and you’d just know that. And then I did my PhD down here at Chapel Hill and was lucky enough to get a job at Duke, and I teach in the writing program there. And I have been kind of unlearning grad school since then, but enjoying life. NEIL: What is unlearning grad school consist of? MIKE: I mean, I’d be curious about what your own experiences of this actually is because you teach in another kind of weird, precious environment. The performance of mastery, I think is one of the most insane and weird things that we encounter. There’s some tension between mastery and a willingness to just be open to what is, I feel they push each other away. And I feel like a willingness to be open to what is, requires a particular kind of thinking and willingness to take things apart in a careful way. Whereas the production of mastery is, do I know these terms? Can I Lord over this seminar space? Can I make some comment that seems complex? And there’s so much value placed on that style of interaction. NEIL: That question of mastery makes for such a great segue to the first card, the connection between teaching art and 19th century medical practices. You tell someone like, “We will bleed you for 30 minutes and then you must go home and apply the poultice.” MIKE: Yeah like, “Wait for the moon to wax, and put these three stones on your back steps.” NEIL: Exactly, but instead it’s, watch this other artist read this text. MIKE: Yeah, I feel like mastery and practice are at odds with each other. NEIL: Yes, yeah. MIKE: Practice is what I’m into, practice, just keep practicing, right? You just have to keep doing. NEIL: Yes, yeah, and if you’re holding onto idea of mastery, you will make one piece of work, maybe. Because making art is about getting to the place of most resolved failure, where the failure becomes clear, and then that is what carries you over into the next piece. Also this idea of professional development, to use that term where, where so many students have the idea of, “Okay, well, if I do this, this, this, and this, I will have an art career versus if you do this, this and this, you will make art, I guess.” MIKE: Well, I mean mastery, it relies on it in some ways, like the way that we’re so addicted to exceptionalism. It’s a weird narrative that despite the fact that all, effectively statistically, all artists are failed artists, right? NEIL: Right, exactly. Exactly, exactly. MIKE: They’re like, “No, it’s going to be me. I’m going to be the next Jeff Koons, but I hate Jeff Koons.” That whole… NEIL: Totally, that is the Vegas thing that keeps graduate programs in business. This card is writing midterm evaluations for art school is like doing a horoscope. MIKE: Oh my God, I love that for a number of reasons, just because I imagined you doing it. Just sitting cross legged with your taro out and the incense going, just watching videos of student work on your phone or something. You’ve got a very rough hewn robe on, you’re like- NEIL: You nailed it. MIKE: … your wicker sandals, whatever it is that gets you in that sort of coastal medieval witchcraft mood. Yeah, it’s funny, as a grader, I tell my students that I’m a harsh critic, but an easy grader. We have to be able to look at our own work with critical kind of generosity and be willing to be wrong. But to be a generous writer is a whole thing that takes your whole life to do. It’s easy to be critical, right? It’s easy to be snarky and sarcastic or funny or quick, right? You can be creative and original, but also quick in a way that I feel is not always helpful, right? Being generous is about taking care, but also I was just thinking about it and if only we could be actually honest. If only you could just be super honest with your students about what they’re doing. MIKE: I mean, would that change what you said to yours? Because I feel like I am honest to a certain extent, but I’m also not, and I don’t mean this in a mean way, but I just want to be like, “This is just a terrible waste of your time, this thing that you’ve written. The way that you’re going here, isn’t going to get anywhere that’s going to be fun for you, interesting for other people, allow you to do the work that you’re going to do.” And I never quite do that. NEIL: That’s where the horoscope comes in though, about I’m honest but there’s always kind of a anomic, is that the word? You add this intentional ambiguity. MIKE: It’s both honest and a little bit of a sidestep- NEIL: Exactly, yeah, yeah. MIKE: You’re like, “There’s something that’s not right here. It’s in this thematic zone of things that aren’t right, consider that zone for yourself.” NEIL: You said something about mortality as it relates to grades and we’re all going to die. MIKE: No, my thing was like… I think the thing that I always want and increasingly want, I always want students to think of themselves in their lives… Think of themselves as living their lives, not as having goals about what it should be. I was at Chapel Hill and now I’m at Duke, they’re both iterations of very fancy campusy bubble experiences. The way that we produce the isolation of education always struck me as a little bit problematic. I used to teach about labor at Duke and I’d be on the first day, my activity was like, “On one side of this card, tell me a job that you want based on your experience here. And then on the other side, tell me a job that you would love to have if money were no object or job security were no object?” And it’s like stockbroker, magician. The world of the jobs they want is the world we all want to live in. It’s like, runs a dog farm, is a chef, is a magician. And the really problematic ones are the ones that are stockbroker, stockbroker. MIKE: I think in my most compassionate sense, I want to be like, for kids who are really freaking out, but really good students just be like, “This is great, it wasn’t awesome. There’s a lot more in the world that you should be thinking about besides this class. Go call your mom, go be with your family, go do something that’s about your life that’s worth living because you’re getting lost in the illusion of mastery.” NEIL: Professor Dimpfl, what’s my grade? MIKE: Yeah, literally at the end of all that, I’ll give them this whole… I will put on my NEIL: shaman cloak, I will go for a walk around Duke’s campus and I’m trying to share some… I’m always trying to get all my aphorisms in check and at the end they’re like, “But do I still have an A minus?” NEIL: Okay, those people who you think are going to eventually feel embarrassed for themselves, but never do. MIKE: I feel like they’re from a more perfected future. People who are never embarrassed, I feel like they just are doing it better, right? Their inability to feel shame is in some ways a rejection of our worst selves, right? Shame is a wasted emotion, it’s not even they’re proud, it’s post embarrassment. Not being able to feel embarrassment is not about not being ashamed, it’s just being beyond embarrassment. If we could only live in that world, think about how forgiving you would be about being wrong, if being embarrassed wasn’t a part of being wrong. NEIL: So where does Donald Trump fit in that? Sorry to do that but… MIKE: Donald Trump is from the post embarrassed future, at his best self. There’s some childhood version of Donald Trump that would be able to exist in the post embarrassed future. And in a tragic way, he was just corrupted in the most horrible way by his life and turned into this horrible… He is his own portrait of Dorian Gray, there was some switch that happened. He walked through the mirror, in the mansion early on and that was it. It’s actually Ronald Trump that we wanted to be living with and Donald was the one that we got. But the ethos there, I think isn’t wrong. The content is horrible and hideous, but the idea that you would live in a world where your mistakes, aren’t the thing that define you is a world beyond embarrassment. NEIL: This episode is going to be called post embarrassment, I think. MIKE: I hope for all of us it is, I want that… Because shame is such a heavy, historical emotion. I don’t know if you read, I always want to call it The Velvet Rope, but that’s the Janet Jackson album, The Velvet Rage. NEIL: No, I never did. MIKE: The Velvet Rage is some queen wrote a book about how, it’s problematic in a number of ways, but the overarching theme is that gaze of a certain era learn shame before they have a word for it. And it just festers inside of them and creates all this anger and frustration and all these problems later on in life, the closet and all that stuff. And I think just in general, we govern ourselves so much through shame. Instagram culture is shaming. Facebook culture is all about shame. Mastery is about shame. Our actual inability to deal with the future, and the inevitability of death is about being ashamed that we’re not going to be living a life that’s rich enough to justify our death. I think that there’s a lot tied up in that experience. MIKE: And to be looking at someone who’s beyond embarrassment. I mean, I think about the people that I was like, “Gosh, I hope they feel embarrassed about that.” And now in retrospect, I just admire them all. I’m just like, “God, you just don’t care that everybody hates that joke. You just don’t care.” And your joie de vivre is unassailable and it’s a like a Teflon joie de vivre, what a joy. NEIL: Okay, next card. When someone mentions shit while you’re eating. MIKE: Oh my God… Okay, first of all, it just reads as when you mention shit, because I am this person. I still get toilet news from people that I’ve encountered across the globe, all the time. NEIL: Could you share for the audience, your professional relationship to shit? MIKE: My professional relationship to shit, I am not only a person who shits, like all of your audience, but I wrote a master’s thesis, I would like to say that it’s about toilet feelings. I interviewed a bunch of people who had been forced by the city of Syracuse to install composting toilets in their lake side cabins, as a means of protecting what was an unfiltered watershed. So they couldn’t install septic systems. They had this kind of high functioning, but archaic system where they all had outhouses, and instead of shitting just into a hole, they would shit into buckets. And then every week the city would come around on a shit boat and collect all of their buckets of shit and take them away from them. MIKE: A job that I think about a lot, just when your job is to, in the hot summer sun, drive around on a beautiful, pristine lake with a boat full of buckets full of shit. That boat is post embarrassment, that boat is living a post embarrassment life. We have nothing on that boat. MIKE: Anyway, so I wrote this master’s thesis and I interviewed all these households and it was a lot of older folks, people who have had these cabins for a long time and a lot of retired folks. And I’ll tell you what, if it’s summer and you’re going to visit an old retired couple and you actually want to talk to them about their shitting, they’re there for that. They are really there for that. In some ways, the knowledge of their own death to get back to it, the fact that they’re like, “It’s coming.” They’re like, “There’s no reason to hide.” They’re all trying to, for better or for worse, are trying to deal with these strange toilets that don’t flush and encountering them with their bodies that sometimes don’t work with them. MIKE: So this one couple, the wife was always on antibiotics and you can’t use a composting toilet when you’re on antibiotics because it kills the bacteria in the shit that actually digests the toilet, so it just becomes a kind of cesspool, kind of anaerobic nonsense. And so they had two toilets, one, one of my favorite, the macerating toilet, which is a toilet that has a food processor on the back that you turn it on and it makes this kind of horrible grinding noise, and it turns your poop into kind of a poo shake. And the other was this incinerating toilet, and it has a little jet engine in it and you poop and then this jet engine thing turns on and just burns your shit to ash, it’s like an outer space thing. I mean, obviously I had to use all of them, so it’s this crazy noise of like, “…” It’s like being in an airplane. MIKE: And so to be honest, I did it for two reasons. One was how we structure our relationship to the nature in our households is a real problem, right? We have a lot of weird ideas about what is inside and outside. I think that’s the kernel of truth behind it, if I were to be my post embarrassed self. But I think the other is that I just was so aware of the absurdity of grad school at a certain point that I was like, “I’m just going to write my stupid master’s thesis about people shitting.” So that I get to go to conferences and give presentations, which are like, “Here are things that people said about their own shit.” On panels of academics who were like, “What is the materiality of the biological other?” MIKE: All this theory that actually not only makes no sense, but it’s profoundly unethical and has no politics. And is the bread and butter of graduate school theory. All of these things where they’re like, “What is the boundary of the human? And we cannot tell.” And what do you say? It makes no sense. NEIL: I was just reading Jacques Derrida on the animal, he’s talking about the violence done on the animal. And someone asked him, “Are you a vegetarian?” And he was like, “I’m a vegetarian in my soul.” It’s like, “Fuck you.” I’m sure the suffering pig is so happy that you’re a vegetarian in your soul. MIKE: So happy to hear that, like in a real zen like moment. NEIL: Yeah. MIKE: But the crazy thing about that shit thing is I was at dinner the other weekend with Jackson’s sister’s family and she’s a plastic surgeon. And I just thought about, I’m mentioning shit at the table and maybe people are uncomfortable with that or whatever. And she was like, “Yeah, this…” One of her former clients was run over by a backhoe or something. But she talked about reconstructing one of her breasts and then did this gesture of like, “And then you just kind of stitched up her chest.” And kind of did this putting out a vest of your chest skin kind of gesture. And I had a bite of food in my mouth and I was like… It turned to like ash. MIKE: On the one hand, it was perhaps the appearance of mime at the dinner table that I was like, “Goddammit, mimes.” I wanted it to seal myself up in my own mime box to not have to hear it. But then I was sort of like, “Wow, props to mime, it’s a powerful medium. Actually, I get it now, you can fake make the wall all you want.” MIKE: But when you hear someone mentioning shit, are you that person? Or are you someone- NEIL: I’m not mentioning shit at the table, no. MIKE: You’re not NEIL: I think about it all the time, but I know I don’t talk about it at the table. And Jeff, for instance, my husband, Jeff will casually mentioned shit at the table and I’ve never told him in our 12 years of being together… MIKE: Don’t do that. NEIL: Yeah, because at that moment, something happens in my mouth. Yeah, where it’s just like, it’s wrong, but yeah. MIKE: You got to be post embarrassed about it. You got to just be like, “Yep, I’m just chewing future shit right now.” NEIL: Right, future shit, future shit. I love… Oh, God. Makers spaces and the fetishization of making. MIKE: I don’t even know what’s that… I just want them to just be like, “Call it a real thing.” Where I understand what’s going on there. Makers spaces, it’s like we work. I find it to be such a twee like… The maker space is just Ren Fair trying to be normal. It’s like Ren Fair without the foam swords. I’m like, “What’s the point of going to Ren Fair if you can’t have a foam sword?” It’s like Ren Fair without the carbs, I guess is what I would say. NEIL: I think it’s Ren Fair with 3D printers. MIKE: It’s Ren Fair with 3D printers. Where is the raw craft in that? I feel like 3D printing is the cheating of making. NEIL: But the flip side of it, first of all, this is going to come back to shit, I just realized. But the flip side of it is the fetishization of making. Why don’t you just make and not tell us about it? MIKE: I think that there’s something there, the fetishization of making, because we live in embarrassed culture, so we know that we don’t make anything, right? NEIL: Right. MIKE: In the system we live in, we don’t make anything, right? You don’t make shit, you maybe make your lunch and that’s the end of it. NEIL: You exactly make shit. That is what you make. MIKE: You only make shit, and even that you’re like, “Let’s not talk about it.” The fetishization to me is just all back to the leg, what is missing? I mean, I’ll wear a cutoff overall that’s handmade, for sure. But I don’t need to post it on it in my Etsy account or the hand carved spoons, even though I really love the hand-carved spoons. It was a local spoon maker that I just found that’s in the triangle or whatever, and they make these gorgeous spoons and the fetishization of spoon making is that it’s very hard. People are like, “Oh, it’s a very…” I don’t know if you’ve heard that, but people are like, “If you carve wooden spoons…” It’s some achievement of woodwork to make a spoon. And I always think in my head, spoons have been around for a pretty long time, we’ve known how to scoop a thing for awhile. NEIL: Well, just the idea that you fetishize it by virtue of its difficulty, that is a… MIKE: Totally, totally. It’s like endurance performance art, right? Which I love, I’ll tell you this, I have been doing a performance art project with my friend Ginger for a couple of years now. It’s called, Leaving Impossible Things Unattended, it’s a waste project. And we work with plastic… We’ve made this half mile long braid of plastic bag that we roll in unroll in awkward ways. But we went to Miami to the art fair this year, and the piece that we did, it’s physically super, super hard. But watching people say stuff about it there, it’s like the fetishization of how painful it is, becomes the mark of its value. NEIL: Oh my God, yeah. MIKE: What I want to be is like, “No, encounter your fetishization of that as the mark of the thing you’re supposed to be thinking about here.” Your fetishization of that is more important to me as a thing that you’re engaging with right now, then anything that we’re doing. What is it about you that you need to see someone bleeding from the cut glass that they’re crawling over to be like, “That’s real.” NEIL: The thing I wanted to add, to just put a button on the whole question of maker spaces and what are we making, is when I was a kid, my parents would ask me, “Do you need to make?” MIKE: Oh yeah… Yeah, totally, to take a shit. NEIL: Right, do you need to make? MIKE: Yeah, no, I feel like do you need to make is a North Eastern cultural description for taking a shit that is so like… I want to just know the colonial etymology of that, is it the puritanical thing or like… Also, I find, do you need to make to be similar to people who say that they make instead of take pictures, I make pictures, I make photos. NEIL: Oh, that’s interesting. MIKE: I’ve heard photographers say I make photos, instead of saying I take pictures. NEIL: Oh, right, right, I take photos, yeah. I get that. MIKE: …around shitting in the exact same… it’s like, do you need to make a shit or do you need to take a shit? I mean, why don’t we say, I need to leave a shit because that’s really what’s happening. NEIL: Okay, let’s end with one last question, which is, what keeps you going? MIKE: I think the thing that mostly keeps me going is a pretty secure notion that it’s not supposed to be bliss, it’s just supposed to be work. So if you’re ready to work in whatever way, then life is just going to keep unfolding for you moving forward, right? There is a future if you think that life is a struggle. Because that’s a beautiful thing, even though it’s incredibly difficult. And I think that, even though I have a deep, deep concern for the future and I certainly worry about it a great deal, I don’t feel hopeless. I don’t feel like a cynic or a nihilist I guess. I don’t have that energy in me whatsoever because it’s not supposed to be easy. NEIL: Mike… MIKE: Neil… NEIL: This is amazing, thank you so much for being on She’s a Talker. MIKE: And it’s my absolute pleasure.
更多英语知识,请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Mike: So we're talking about ideal hotels. What do you think is an ideal hotel for you?Erina: That's a tough question but when I choose a hotel I would look at where the hotel's located.Mike: Right.Erina: And also the food. So as long as the hotel is surrounded by nature, you know, preferably on the water.Mike: OK.Erina: And maybe some mountains in the back and if the food, the breakfast and dinner and all the food that they have is amazing, I'm good, I'm set.Mike: Now what about the facilities? I mean, you know, hotels have various facilities whether it's gyms or movie rooms or computer rooms that allow you to do, you know, the internet and various things. You know some hotels have pools. Would those be things that you would want in your ideal hotel?Erina: Oh, yeah. Gym, I'm not so interested in it because I can, you know, play sports outside when I'm surrounded by nature. Why would I be, you know, inside working out?Mike: Right.Erina: But in terms of swimming pool, I'm actually interested because when I was looking at pictures, I don't know which country it was, but there's an outdoor pool, infinity pool, that looked like it was connected to the ocean.Mike: Oh, wow.Erina: And it was just so beautiful and, you know before I thought why would I swim in the swimming pool when I have an ocean in front of me but, you know, if there is a swimming pool like that at the hotel, I would definitely stay there for a long time.Mike: Right. Now, what about spa facilities? You know, massages and different spa treatments. Is that something that would interest you in your ideal hotel?Erina: Oh, yes, yes, for sure. I'm so into massages and yeah, I would definitely want massage room and spas in the hotel. That would be perfect.Mike: OK. And, you know, there are some really expensive hotels that offer the service of a personal butler. Do you think that would be necessary for you in your ideal hotel or would that be one amenity that you could do without?Erina: I think it depends but I don't really, when I'm staying at the hotel I would usually, you know, want to be alone and want to enjoy my time with my family or my, you know, my husband or myself that I actually don't want anyone following me everywhere I go. So, you know, to a lot of people it might be that's a good idea, you know, it's a nice treat to have but I am personally not up for that.Mike: OK, well it sounds like a pretty nice hotel you've just described.
更多英语知识,请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Mike: So we're talking about ideal hotels. What do you think is an ideal hotel for you?Erina: That's a tough question but when I choose a hotel I would look at where the hotel's located.Mike: Right.Erina: And also the food. So as long as the hotel is surrounded by nature, you know, preferably on the water.Mike: OK.Erina: And maybe some mountains in the back and if the food, the breakfast and dinner and all the food that they have is amazing, I'm good, I'm set.Mike: Now what about the facilities? I mean, you know, hotels have various facilities whether it's gyms or movie rooms or computer rooms that allow you to do, you know, the internet and various things. You know some hotels have pools. Would those be things that you would want in your ideal hotel?Erina: Oh, yeah. Gym, I'm not so interested in it because I can, you know, play sports outside when I'm surrounded by nature. Why would I be, you know, inside working out?Mike: Right.Erina: But in terms of swimming pool, I'm actually interested because when I was looking at pictures, I don't know which country it was, but there's an outdoor pool, infinity pool, that looked like it was connected to the ocean.Mike: Oh, wow.Erina: And it was just so beautiful and, you know before I thought why would I swim in the swimming pool when I have an ocean in front of me but, you know, if there is a swimming pool like that at the hotel, I would definitely stay there for a long time.Mike: Right. Now, what about spa facilities? You know, massages and different spa treatments. Is that something that would interest you in your ideal hotel?Erina: Oh, yes, yes, for sure. I'm so into massages and yeah, I would definitely want massage room and spas in the hotel. That would be perfect.Mike: OK. And, you know, there are some really expensive hotels that offer the service of a personal butler. Do you think that would be necessary for you in your ideal hotel or would that be one amenity that you could do without?Erina: I think it depends but I don't really, when I'm staying at the hotel I would usually, you know, want to be alone and want to enjoy my time with my family or my, you know, my husband or myself that I actually don't want anyone following me everywhere I go. So, you know, to a lot of people it might be that's a good idea, you know, it's a nice treat to have but I am personally not up for that.Mike: OK, well it sounds like a pretty nice hotel you've just described.
更多英语知识,请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Chugi: Hi, Mike, how are you doing?Mike: Hey, Chugi, I'm good.Chugi: I'm so done we're with classes.Mike: Yeah, me too.Chugi: What are you doing for the summer vacation?Mike: Right now, I have no plans.Chugi: Well, I am planning to go home to Mongolia. You should come with me.Mike: Really? Mongolia?Chugi: Yeah, summertime. It's very nice. We have a very nice holiday called Nadam and during the Nadam we have three days festivalMike: Really. I've always wanted to go to Mongolia. That sounds like a good time to go.Chugi: Yes, it is. Nadam is in July. And then it's for three days, from July 11th to July 13th and it's happening all over the country. You can experience anywhere in Mongolia. And during the Nadam festival, we have wrestling, archery and horse races.Mike: Really. Wresting, Archery, and horse-racing.Chugi: Yes, and you can get to see all of them in one place.Mike: Really, can I ride horses?Chugi: Yes, you can right next to the place where they horse-race, people are offering horses for other people to ride, and they just charge a little bit of money.Mike: Really.Chugi: Yes.Mike: And wrestling? That sounds interesting.Chugi: Yes, wrestling is held just a few kilometers away from the horse racing in the biggest stadium and it's for like two days. I mean, if I were you, I would go to the second day and see them. It's very nice.Mike: And the archery? What kind of archery is it?Chugi: It's more like the traditional kind of archery. You just hit the target, and just as many targets as you hit, that's the better, and even in archery, they have female and male together. It's not separated, so that's a very unique thing.Mike: Oh, sounds interesting. And how long is the horse race?Chugi: The horse race? It's actually very different than other places. The horse race there is six different kinds of horse races, depending on the different ages of the horsesMike: Oh, really?.Chugi: And the distances are different because of the ages as well. For example, the youngest horse would run for thirty kilometers, but the oldest horses would run for forty kilometers.Mike: Oh, really.Chugi: Yes.Mike: Very interesting.Chugi: Yes, I think you should come with me and experience the big festival in Mongolia.Mike: Well, this sounds like a good plan.Chugi: Yes, it is.
更多英语知识,请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Chugi: Hi, Mike, how are you doing?Mike: Hey, Chugi, I'm good.Chugi: I'm so done we're with classes.Mike: Yeah, me too.Chugi: What are you doing for the summer vacation?Mike: Right now, I have no plans.Chugi: Well, I am planning to go home to Mongolia. You should come with me.Mike: Really? Mongolia?Chugi: Yeah, summertime. It's very nice. We have a very nice holiday called Nadam and during the Nadam we have three days festivalMike: Really. I've always wanted to go to Mongolia. That sounds like a good time to go.Chugi: Yes, it is. Nadam is in July. And then it's for three days, from July 11th to July 13th and it's happening all over the country. You can experience anywhere in Mongolia. And during the Nadam festival, we have wrestling, archery and horse races.Mike: Really. Wresting, Archery, and horse-racing.Chugi: Yes, and you can get to see all of them in one place.Mike: Really, can I ride horses?Chugi: Yes, you can right next to the place where they horse-race, people are offering horses for other people to ride, and they just charge a little bit of money.Mike: Really.Chugi: Yes.Mike: And wrestling? That sounds interesting.Chugi: Yes, wrestling is held just a few kilometers away from the horse racing in the biggest stadium and it's for like two days. I mean, if I were you, I would go to the second day and see them. It's very nice.Mike: And the archery? What kind of archery is it?Chugi: It's more like the traditional kind of archery. You just hit the target, and just as many targets as you hit, that's the better, and even in archery, they have female and male together. It's not separated, so that's a very unique thing.Mike: Oh, sounds interesting. And how long is the horse race?Chugi: The horse race? It's actually very different than other places. The horse race there is six different kinds of horse races, depending on the different ages of the horsesMike: Oh, really?.Chugi: And the distances are different because of the ages as well. For example, the youngest horse would run for thirty kilometers, but the oldest horses would run for forty kilometers.Mike: Oh, really.Chugi: Yes.Mike: Very interesting.Chugi: Yes, I think you should come with me and experience the big festival in Mongolia.Mike: Well, this sounds like a good plan.Chugi: Yes, it is.
更多英语知识,请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Erina: So Mike, do you have any bad habits?Mike: Of course not. I'm perfect, I've no habits that are bad. Yes, I do have some bad habits. One of my bad habits is fidgeting and I think I'm a very high energy person so, especially when I'm on the phone, mixed with my slightly obsessive-compulsive tendencies, I tend to arrange all the things on a desk so if there are pens and books and different things on the desk, I would be turning them and arranging them in order and pretty much always using my hands and keeping them busy and although this might not be such a bad habit, perhaps for people who are with me or next to me they might be a little bit uncomfortable because it seems like, you know, I'm a bit nervous or, you know, have something on my mind so...Erina: Not in confidence for your speech, yeah.Mike: Right, in fact, that's not the case but what happens is I start playing with things.Erina: I've seen you do that before.Mike: Oh have you?Erina: Yeah.Mike: Well then I guess that really shows it is one of my bad habits. You know, I think that I do that to focus because, you know, while I'm speaking to somebody or while I'm on the phone, I arrange things on the desk and that is kind of metaphorically me arranging my thoughts in my head which is probably where this habit has come from.Erina: I see. Yeah, do you have any other bad habits other than fidgeting?Mike: Well maybe a bad habit is driving quickly and I'm not sure if that's considered a bad habit but I guess when I get behind the wheel of a car I sometimes get impatient and that impatience drives me to put more weight on the gas pedal and in turn I go faster and of course speeding is not a good thing especially when you get pulled over by the police. So that's a bad habit that I might have to work on.Erina: Yeah, definitely. You don't want to lose your license.Mike: No.
更多英语知识,请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听 Erina: So Mike, do you have any bad habits?Mike: Of course not. I'm perfect, I've no habits that are bad. Yes, I do have some bad habits. One of my bad habits is fidgeting and I think I'm a very high energy person so, especially when I'm on the phone, mixed with my slightly obsessive-compulsive tendencies, I tend to arrange all the things on a desk so if there are pens and books and different things on the desk, I would be turning them and arranging them in order and pretty much always using my hands and keeping them busy and although this might not be such a bad habit, perhaps for people who are with me or next to me they might be a little bit uncomfortable because it seems like, you know, I'm a bit nervous or, you know, have something on my mind so...Erina: Not in confidence for your speech, yeah.Mike: Right, in fact, that's not the case but what happens is I start playing with things.Erina: I've seen you do that before.Mike: Oh have you?Erina: Yeah.Mike: Well then I guess that really shows it is one of my bad habits. You know, I think that I do that to focus because, you know, while I'm speaking to somebody or while I'm on the phone, I arrange things on the desk and that is kind of metaphorically me arranging my thoughts in my head which is probably where this habit has come from.Erina: I see. Yeah, do you have any other bad habits other than fidgeting?Mike: Well maybe a bad habit is driving quickly and I'm not sure if that's considered a bad habit but I guess when I get behind the wheel of a car I sometimes get impatient and that impatience drives me to put more weight on the gas pedal and in turn I go faster and of course speeding is not a good thing especially when you get pulled over by the police. So that's a bad habit that I might have to work on.Erina: Yeah, definitely. You don't want to lose your license.Mike: No.
更多英语知识,请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Mike: So Dusty, you told me that you tend to grow your own kind of plants and things, and you're into kind of greenery and into kind of like ecology.Dusty: Yeah.Mike: You grow your own plants on your balcony, is that right?Dusty: Right, yeah. Well, you know, I live in Tokyo, and the balcony gets a lot of sunlight. It was actually a pretty good growing season, so we grow a lot of herbs on our balcony, like basil, thyme, mint, or lemongrass. They grow quite well. Even coriander, we have growing right now.Mike: Wow.Dusty: It's just going well.Mike: So you use that stuff for your own cooking and everything, right?Dusty: Yeah. You can really see the difference, especially when you're making sauces and things. It just has a lot more flavor to it. We've also started growing some vegetables, so we've got carrots going, and we've got lettuce. We're going to start doing grapes in about a month or so.Mike: Wow! You must have a huge balcony.Dusty: We are lucky. We got a pretty big balcony, but it doesn't take much room. And even some things you would never expect, like goya or grapes, grow well on the balcony.Mike: Really?Dusty: Yeah.Mike: Wow!Dusty: And it's like good-Mike: I always thought goya was like a tropical kind of vegetable.Dusty: It will do okay in Tokyo.Mike: Really?Dusty: Yeah. And then the grapes, you know, the grape quality isn't very good.Mike: Okay.Dusty: But during the summer, they have leaves, and so it kind of cools down your balcony. In then in the winter, the leaves drop away, so you still get a lot of sunlight. It's kind of a very eco-friendly way of cooling your house.Mike: So what advice would you give to somebody if they wanted to, let's say, grow their own vegetables or herbs, or whatever, on their balcony?Dusty: Well for one thing, don't be scared to stack things.Mike: Okay.Dusty: Yeah. If you don't have much room, it's okay to kind of build a little shelf above one. Herbs don't need a ton of sunlight.Mike: Oh, really? Okay. Wow, I didn't know that.Dusty: So you'll be fine with that. And then also, grow things you're actually going to use. Like last year, we grew jalapeno peppers, and we grew habaneros.Mike: Wow!Dusty: Yeah. Habaneros are great. We've got tons of them, but we just couldn't eat them. It was so spicy.Mike: Oh, really?Dusty: Yeah. In the end, we eventually deep fried some of them and had like cheese poppers.Mike: You mean, you eat them like deep-fried, all straight habanero peppers?Dusty: Deep fried with cheese inside. But yeah, that was about the only way we could do it. And even just handling them, like your eyes would hurt afterwards.The other thing is be ready for bugs. Even if you're up like eight stories or nine stories, you'll be amazed how many - you'll wake up one morning and just find your plants covered in caterpillars.Mike: Really?Dusty: Yeah.Mike: Wow! I guess so. I mean, in fact, that makes sense. Insects fly, so they would eventually get themselves up there.Dusty: Yeah.Mike: Thanks a lot, Dusty. That's really interesting - fascinating stuff.
更多英语知识,请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Mike: So Dusty, you told me that you tend to grow your own kind of plants and things, and you're into kind of greenery and into kind of like ecology.Dusty: Yeah.Mike: You grow your own plants on your balcony, is that right?Dusty: Right, yeah. Well, you know, I live in Tokyo, and the balcony gets a lot of sunlight. It was actually a pretty good growing season, so we grow a lot of herbs on our balcony, like basil, thyme, mint, or lemongrass. They grow quite well. Even coriander, we have growing right now.Mike: Wow.Dusty: It's just going well.Mike: So you use that stuff for your own cooking and everything, right?Dusty: Yeah. You can really see the difference, especially when you're making sauces and things. It just has a lot more flavor to it. We've also started growing some vegetables, so we've got carrots going, and we've got lettuce. We're going to start doing grapes in about a month or so.Mike: Wow! You must have a huge balcony.Dusty: We are lucky. We got a pretty big balcony, but it doesn't take much room. And even some things you would never expect, like goya or grapes, grow well on the balcony.Mike: Really?Dusty: Yeah.Mike: Wow!Dusty: And it's like good-Mike: I always thought goya was like a tropical kind of vegetable.Dusty: It will do okay in Tokyo.Mike: Really?Dusty: Yeah. And then the grapes, you know, the grape quality isn't very good.Mike: Okay.Dusty: But during the summer, they have leaves, and so it kind of cools down your balcony. In then in the winter, the leaves drop away, so you still get a lot of sunlight. It's kind of a very eco-friendly way of cooling your house.Mike: So what advice would you give to somebody if they wanted to, let's say, grow their own vegetables or herbs, or whatever, on their balcony?Dusty: Well for one thing, don't be scared to stack things.Mike: Okay.Dusty: Yeah. If you don't have much room, it's okay to kind of build a little shelf above one. Herbs don't need a ton of sunlight.Mike: Oh, really? Okay. Wow, I didn't know that.Dusty: So you'll be fine with that. And then also, grow things you're actually going to use. Like last year, we grew jalapeno peppers, and we grew habaneros.Mike: Wow!Dusty: Yeah. Habaneros are great. We've got tons of them, but we just couldn't eat them. It was so spicy.Mike: Oh, really?Dusty: Yeah. In the end, we eventually deep fried some of them and had like cheese poppers.Mike: You mean, you eat them like deep-fried, all straight habanero peppers?Dusty: Deep fried with cheese inside. But yeah, that was about the only way we could do it. And even just handling them, like your eyes would hurt afterwards.The other thing is be ready for bugs. Even if you're up like eight stories or nine stories, you'll be amazed how many - you'll wake up one morning and just find your plants covered in caterpillars.Mike: Really?Dusty: Yeah.Mike: Wow! I guess so. I mean, in fact, that makes sense. Insects fly, so they would eventually get themselves up there.Dusty: Yeah.Mike: Thanks a lot, Dusty. That's really interesting - fascinating stuff.
Daily Devo is a special podcast season here on the CV Podcast. Join us each weekday during the COVID-19 lockdown for a short reflection from Dan and people in our community.
In today's part two of two Chuck is talking once again to Mike Nunez about his tips for being a successful buyer. We first heard about Mike's nine tips for a successful acquisition, and today he delves into the types of things he looks for in a business he is considering for purchase. We're also diving deep into one tip that Mike shared on part one of this two-part series. Finally, Mike also shares some great efficiency tools he's loving these days. Episode Highlights: What Mike looks for when buying a business. What he brings to the business with his own expertise. Examples of things that stand out to Mike in a listing. Advertising account criteria he checks for in a potential new business. Goals and intentions he has and the opportunities he looks for when on the hunt for a business. The importance of keeping criteria lists. Tips for content sites looking for affiliates. Certain synergies to look for in a search. Lessons Mike has learned through his acquisitions. Tools Mike is using and recommending these days. Transcription: Mark: Chuck in the last podcast episode that we had we had Mike Nuñez on. He offered nine very actionable tips on how to be a very good buyer; how to be a buyer that can win deals by having the right disposition. And I know you guys talked; you guys are friends, you live close to each other there in Florida and all that. So you guys are friends and naturally, your conversations are long but also Mike's got a ton of content to share with us and you guys got into a second episode. What can we expect from the second episode with Mike Nuñez? Chuck: Yeah, so let's start off by saying if you haven't watched the first one or listen to it make sure you do because it kind of leads into this. On this one, we talked about what are the types of things that he's looking for as a buyer and you should be able to get some stuff out of that to help you figure out maybe some ideas for the types of things you're looking for. We also talked about; there was like one tip that we gave that he gave us somebody at Rhodium conference a year or two ago and it gave that guy a 25% boost in his revenue like overnight. So that was a nice little take away there and then at the end of the call, one of the things I always like to do is just ask for any special tools or things that he uses so he gives us a list of additional tools he uses so a pretty little bonus at the end. Mark: Fantastic. Mike is a great guy. I'm super glad that he was able to come back on the podcast. Let's get right into it. Chuck: All right welcome back everybody this is Chuck Mullins here with Quiet Light Brokerage and this is part two of a two-part segment with Mike Nuñez. Welcome, Mike; welcome back. Mike: Thank you, Chuck. Thanks for being accepting of my long-windedness. Chuck: No, I think we had a lot of great stuff in the last one. If anybody didn't get a chance to watch it you might want to go back and watch that one first. What did we end up on; nine super-secret tips? Mike: They go to 9, yeah 9 super-secrets. Chuck: 8 or 9 super-secret tips of how to be a great buyer which Mike Nuñez is a great buyer. Now we wanted to segway in and Mike wanted to make sure that everybody know that he's not wearing, or he is wearing the same suit but only because we're recording these back to back because the last one went pretty long. So you still look great Mike. For anybody who didn't watch the last one, Mike purchased a custom-tailored suit business from us so this is probably why he's wearing the suit because I've never seen him wear a suit before he had purchased that business. So he's definitely stepped up his wardrobe game since then. So today we wanted to talk about what you're looking for when you buy a business and maybe some of the lessons you've learned along the way. So again maybe let's start off; before we jump into that just give a brief introduction for anybody who didn't watch the first part of the series about you. Mike: Well, so I think it's important if you're listening to this one you probably should listen to the first one first because it does set up a lot of the things that we're going to talk about here. But for those that just don't listen, I've been in internet marketing for about 20 years now. I spent most of it working for an agency or owning an agency. I worked for Google for four years in their paid, search division. And so today I own a company called AffiliateManager.com that manages affiliate programs as well as the performance company which manages paid search for companies as well. So that's the super brief synopsis. Chuck: Perfect. So let's jump into what is it that you look for when you're buying a business? Always people come to me and they; Chuck what kind of business should I buy? And I say okay well what are your interests, what are you good at? So I think you probably you're looking…well, let me just let you tell what are you looking for. Mike: Yeah, so I think it's important to say what I look for or what we look for; so I do have a pretty solid team around me but what we look for is going to be very different than what somebody else looks for. And so please take that with a grain of salt; everything that I'm going to say today and I think is important for everyone to just recognize, just be self-aware what is it that you are incredibly good at? If you're good at sales go find a company that has an incredible product and but they're bad at sales and you plug yourself in and you now have an incredible business overall. Or if you're fantastic at operations go find a company that's selling like crazy but their operations just can't keep up with all the offers and plug yourself in there and that's going to work. I like to say that real opportunity is at the intersection of two different expertise or two different types of expertise. So for me, it's online business and online marketing and I'm not so great at everything else. So I'm not an operations person, I'm not a finance person so I don't look for companies that are lacking in those areas. I look for companies that are strong in those areas and that are; I don't want to say lacking because I think that's potentially disrespectful to either the people that I purchased businesses from or will in the future but it's more where I see opportunity where they wouldn't know unless they worked at Google for several years or they wouldn't know unless they've been in online marketing for 20 years or they never had an affiliate program. They never thought about it and we're incredible at it. So plugging what we are really good at into things that maybe they've tried that they're above average at because you have to be above average if you're going to own an online business but they've spread themselves so thin that they couldn't be an expert at just one thing. Another nice side effect that I've seen with buying these businesses, some of the previous owners they just worked so long and hard in the business that when you're so down in the weeds like that it's hard to pull yourself out and kind of take a 40,000-foot view picture. When acquiring a company it's almost a natural thing that happens along the way and you start to say okay let me take a step back and look at this not so closely; so close I can't tell exactly what this is and what's going on. And then as you start to peel that back and say okay this is something that the previous owner did, is this something that I need to take over, do I bring the value? The previous owner either maybe they enjoyed it, maybe they liked it, or maybe they were really good at it but I'm not and so the answer there is who else within the company can take that over. And I got to say that's probably one of the biggest benefits of purchasing an online company not only for the buyer but for the seller that they're able to peel themselves out and all the while that's the transition of okay these are the daily duties that this person does and this is who can take that over. So the new buyer; so myself as an example can go focus on what we're good at. So with that caveat to what it is that you're asking some of the things that I look for and I think just another quick note on this; this is an ever-evolving list, just because I've written this today doesn't mean that there's not more to come. Every time we go through a business or every time actually we have a call we run into an issue with the current business. I say okay that sounds like an opportunity that when we purchase the next business that we need to look at and say can we help there. So some of these are super simple and most listeners might say oh well that that's kind of common sense. Well, it's not always common sense. Somebody on this call is going to really or somebody listening to this podcast is going to really benefit from it but I listed because it's things that I want to make sure that I go and check every time that we're looking at a business. So, for example, we are like I said really good at online marketing specifically affiliate marketing and paid search. So we'll go look do they have an affiliate program? Are they overpaying? Are they not paying out commission based off of the influence that each affiliate had on that actual transaction? It's actually super interesting to see how much people overpay for things. And even more interesting to see when they're underpaying affiliate. So for example affiliates, they are business just like you, just like me and they want to maximize their revenue for their inventory. A lot of people get stuck and they look oh my competitor pays 5% commission, that's what I'm going to go pay. But a really good affiliate is equivalent to an upper-funnel page search keyword. And if you're paying a two to one for an upper funnel page search keyword; let's use my custom suit business, if I'm willing to get a two to one for the keyword custom suits or men's custom suits, if I'm willing to take a two to one return on ad spend for that I should be willing to pay an affiliate who is upper funnel; who's educating customers about me, I should be willing to pay them a 50% commission because they're upper funnel. Chuck: Alright so that makes a lot of sense to use something that you do on a day to day basis with your main business to look to acquire a company. So can you give some examples of specifically what something you might look for is? Mike: Sure. I'll give two examples one of where we succeeded at this and one where we failed but then you use that failure to learn and regroup. So the first business that we acquired we identified that there was a significant amount of overspent. It wasn't the previous owner's fault. They had hired an agency who was just; they were doing good. I would give them a six out of 10. But within 20, 30 minutes we can evaluate a Google Ads account and say we can save this account 10, $15,000 a month. Chuck: And you were talking about like an Ad Words account as opposed to affiliate stuff? Mike: Correct. Yeah, a Google Ads account that maybe this ad, the Google Ads accounts is spending 50, 60, $70,000 a month and if we can look in there and say we can save 10, 15, 20,000 on this and still get the same level of sales based off of our expertise we're adding 1 to $200,000 straight to the bottom line; straight to EBITDA and we did exactly that. We actually just finished reviewing January through October and we actually generated more sales than the same period last year and we spent I think it was $160,000 less to do so in that period. Chuck: It kind of goes against the thought of ad expenses are going up, right? There's more and more competition every day for ads so people think that but yet you're able to cut ad spend and make more money with it. Mike: That's 100% correct. You have to know what you're doing. There are very, very few good paid search companies out there. And I know because I used to work with a lot of them when I was at Google. Kevin who's on our team; his job was to go out and train agencies on how to appropriately use Google Ad Words. Pat who's the mastermind on our team has been doing Google paid search since Yahoo or as Yahoo started before Google was in existence. So it's just such a level of expertise that we have on our team overall that we can go and then apply and get these level of savings overall. And again it's straight to the bottom line and we take that money; the first acquisition was partly done via an SBA loan and the savings that we've got doesn't quite cover the SBA loan but it's about 75% of it. It's almost like we acquired the company for the price of the down payment and a much smaller SBA loan so to speak. So that's got to be our number one criteria; same thing with an affiliate program again with the first acquisition they weren't doing attribution based commissioning. It was a smaller effect on the overall business. We probably saved somewhere between 30 and 40,000 for the entire year on that one. So it's again a much smaller effect but that's a part-time person. That's an initiative that we can go fund now because we're saving 30 to 40 grand that we wouldn't have to spend otherwise. Chuck: So let's call out specifically there what it is you're looking for. So Mike looks at a company, requests access to their ad account, and then Mike looks for what? Mike: So in their ad account I'm looking at are they using negative keywords appropriately, what bidding algorithm are they using on Google, what matching types are they using, are they using segmentation correctly. And this is all super 40,000-foot level things but as Pat, our behind the scenes masterminds like to say, a poorly run paid search program is typically death by a thousand paper cuts. It's not one of these things. It's a thousand of these things that we meticulously go and identify, find, correct, and improve. Chuck: Alright so you will go into an account, you see all these things and they're doing everything right does that mean okay it's a great company I'm not looking to buy this one; like are you specifically, if there's not something you can fix you're not going to acquire it? Mike: Yeah, that's a fun question. The good news is for me at least I've never seen one. That's good. And to be fair I've seen; when we are getting an RFPN for the agency business I've seen two or three that were so well run that we tell them we can't help, they're doing an amazing job. You're going to look to us for growth in three or four months and we're not going to deliver because your current company is doing fantastic so don't leave them. But when acquiring a business and the research that I do before making an offer I have not yet come across that. If that were the case yes it's not a kiss of death but it is a factor in whether or not we feel like we should purchase the business because we know that there's so many out there that do it so poorly. Investing; I know I'm not teaching anybody on the call anything new with this but investing is where's the next best place to spend your dollar? And if they're doing a bad job with paid search that's a good place for me to spend my dollar because I know we can fix that. If they're doing an incredible job well there's probably a better place for me to go spend my dollar. Chuck: Sure. And I don't think it's a negative thing for you to say nope I'm just going to move on to the next one they're doing everything right. Like you're looking for specific things in order to want to acquire and like you said you've only got so many dollars to spend. You need to place it where it's going to do the most good for you. And if somebody else is doing everything right like that's not your area of expertise to grow the business. Maybe again they're not doing sales well and that's not what you're specifically looking at so sales is where the person that is going to end up ultimately acquiring the business is good at. And there's also people who maybe they don't have necessarily an expertise at something and they're just looking for an overall good run business that can keep chugging away for the years to come. And that's not a negative like just because you don't have some really specialized thing that you're good it doesn't mean that buying a business would necessarily be a bad idea for you. Mike: Yeah it's one of those things begin with the end in mind, right? And if the if your end goal is that you want a super stable business but it's not going to grow because everything is so well optimized and you're willing to pay the same multiple for it and you just want to kind of run that business day to day as is without expectation of growth then that's it. And there are people that want that. I would even consider a business like that if it was strictly almost a lifestyle business. But the businesses that we're buying; our goal, our intention is to take this 15 million dollar company and turn it into a 25, 50, 100 million dollar company and so there has to be opportunity when we're purchasing and the bigger the opportunity that we identify that we can do so fairly quickly with what we have the more we're willing to pay for it and the more we're willing to compete for it overall. Chuck: So we were talking recently we had lunch and you said that you recently discovered something with one of your businesses that was something you know I'm going to start looking for that and it revolved around shipping. Do you remember what we were talking about? Mike: Oh yes I have it. It's on my list. And that's funny and that's yet another reason to have a list right, right? Chuck: Right. Mike: And so as we're talking like; I know I'm not alone in this, right? I know you're like this Chuck. I'm sure you, the person listening to this right now is the same way. And I'll wake up in the middle of night and I feel like sometimes not thinking about things or telling yourself think about this in the back of my mind and you'll solve problems; like I'll get things out there just to solve them. I'll wake up in the middle and be like that's the answer to this and literally I'll roll over, I'll pick up my phone, and I'll just type a note to myself and say this is the answer and I'll go back to sleep. And the one that you're talking about is we have a warehouse for both of the business but the one that we're talking about now has a warehouse, a large warehouse; tens of thousands of square feet, I'm not sure exactly how big it is but we were getting fined by the shipping company because the dimensions of our packaging was incorrect. And so as we printed out the shipping labels for it, it was off maybe by an inch or whatever it was. And so when we send it to FedEx who was our shipping carrier and they would measure it we would be off by however much and they would actually fine us and so it added to tens of thousands of dollars in fines that we are receiving; not shipping costs, fines because our dimensions were wrong. And so for less than $10,000, we purchased a dim scanner and basically eliminated that. That dim scanner pays itself in one to two months and then from that point forward we now recovered yet another 20, $30,000 back. So you see the recurring theme here; paid search, this is how much we can save by doing it better, affiliate, this is how much we can save by doing it better, shipping, this is how much we can save by doing it better and then here's the freaking key. Like this is the thing though; don't just sit on that. And again I guess this depends on your goal. If your goal is to just absolute squeeze every penny out of these companies that you want then go and do it. My goal is growth and to turn these companies into large companies so that one day I may list with Chuck and get a great multiple on these companies. But take those dollars that you're taking and now do all of the things on the list; in that plan and the things that the previous owner said I could never afford, I could never get to, I can never pay somebody to do it. Now you found the funds to go and actually do those things. Use that money to fund that growth. Again I'll refer to Pat who runs our paid search; he calls that feed the winners starve the losers, so just taking the wasted money and putting it back into reinvest on growth and winning. Chuck: So with the shipping fines that you discovered how long have you been running this business; it's been a year and a half? Mike: A year and a half, yeah. Chuck: And you just discovered it now. Is there something that you are having; we don't know what we don't know, right? So we don't know what to look for. Is this something that you could have identified on day one to have seen even more value? Mike: Yeah, thanks for pointing it out Chuck. It's always painful to look back and say oh we could have made an additional 30 to 50 grand in the last 12 months if we just would have found this. Chuck: And this is probably not a common problem, right? But it's something you're going to look for in the future. Where would they have identified that; what due diligence would you have done in order to have seen that? Mike: Yeah, looking at the shipping invoices and seeing exactly what those are. And there are some pretty cool companies out there that will A) look at that for you and B) they'll actually monitor your shipping and make sure that it arrives on time. There's one called Late Shipment it's I think the one that we use; LateShipment.com and if FedEx doesn't deliver within the agreed-upon time; the one to two days, they'll actually refund; we get a refund on that shipping cost. So that's another example if they're not using; if you send out a million dollars or if you pay a million dollars in shipping costs every year and I think I know ours is above a million but I'll just use that, so a million dollars, if you can recoup 2, 3, 4% that's 20, 30, $40,000 back in your pocket that just appeared out of nowhere. So that's another one on my list. So are they using a dim scanner? Are they getting fined for this? Are they using LateShipment.com and getting a refund on anything that's late? Again stacking up this $160,000 in savings in paid search, $40,000 in savings in affiliate, 30 to 50,000 in dim scanner, late shipment another 30 to $40,000 just stacking and stacking and stacking. Another one is credit card fees; are they using a good credit card process? Have they negotiated their rates since they grew from zero to 15 million dollars in sales? And if they haven't that's an opportunity like just a one or two; what do they call them? Bits I think is what they call it but it could mean a huge difference in your overall company. Just one or two bits is 15 to $30,000 on a 15 million dollar business. Chuck: And so in your defense, I think on the shipping thing the company that you purchased did have one of those companies in place that were looking at the delayed shipments but that company wasn't looking at the penalties you were receiving. Mike: That's right. Chuck: So even if somebody is using a company that is monitoring the late shipping and getting those refunds they may not be looking at the fees which is strange. You think they'd be doing it but they weren't. Something I've heard you say at conferences when looking at it from a different type of business, so right now we're kind of talking about e-commerce but you also work with people who are doing content sites and their affiliates with other people. So what's your number one tip if you purchased a content site that makes money off affiliates; what's your number one tip for those people? Mike: Go ask for a raise. Chuck: What does that mean? Mike: Go to the affiliate management; either the advertiser or the affiliate management company who's managing them and say I want to make more. And there's many ways that you can position that. One is if you're a content site just know that my affiliate company, AffiliateManager.com is always looking for more content sites. We want to bring that value to our clients and you are in a position; it's a content site's market, let me put it that way. We all want what you have and some make the mistake of because they've been beat down and offered 1, 2, 3, 5, 10% commissions in the past day they just turn away affiliate marketing. Don't do that. You're leaving money on the table. If you find a good advertiser or a good affiliate management company that knows what they're doing and they know that this content site is upper funnel and bringing incremental business to the table they're going to be willing to pay for that and they might pay 20%, 25%, 30%. One of our clients pays 100%. Another one pays up to $150 for an acquisition and they might make zero on it. So it's just one of those things where you have to go and be willing to ask for a raise. And again a good affiliate management company they're going to look at the incremental value, we; not to get too much into us because I know this is more about acquisition but we actually have an attribution tool that we built because it didn't exist that shows where in the clickstream each of these sites are. And if it's a content site going back to your point and we look at their overall numbers and 70% of the time they're the first touch for anybody who's making a purchase on your site, yes we want that incremental traffic and sales coming from that content site. So to you content sites out there you are in a position of desire. We all want to work with you more and go and ask for raises. Somebody who recognizes your value is going to very much be willing to pay it. And if they're not go find somebody else; they're going to be willing to pay it. You are valuable. Chuck: And just to give an example of something like that. I've got a number of content sites and one of them the affiliates that I was getting paid from is a Canadian company and they send me a Canadian check. So every time I cash the Canadian check I get hit with like a 10 or $20 cashing fee. And it's just like annoying and it's small amount of money but it's annoying so I emailed them and I said hey can you just like PayPal me the money or wire me the money or do something else because I want to get ahold of the $10 fee every time I cash your check and they go oh how about we just double what we pay you? Okay, that'll work. So they really are willing; if they see the value in what you're providing them they are willing to pay more, so just a nice little tip there from Mike Nuñez. Mike: Yeah. And there was a guy Greg; I won't say his last name at Rhodium one year and I said that at a table and one year later he came back and said by that one tip that you just said because he was a content site or is a content site, I have grown my revenue by 25%. All I did; I didn't do anything else but go back and ask for a raise and the revenue on my site grew 25%. Chuck: Amazing. Mike: Free, yeah. Chuck: Alright, so we've talked about shipping, we've talked about affiliate, we've talked about ads, is there anything else specifically that you're looking for when you're acquiring? Mike: Yeah if they're not on Amazon I think that's a pretty obvious one. If they are on Amazon and either doing a poor job or no job at Amazon ads; Amazon ads I probably the biggest opportunity right now for everyone that sells on Amazon. Chuck: And this is kind of new to you in the last couple of years, right? Mike: Yeah. Well, I mean it didn't really exist a couple of years ago or it was very nascent. So it's still one of those things like if you remember Google back in the day when clicks used to be available for a penny or five cents and such. Chuck: Yeah man they sent me a refrigerator. I had spent so much money I got a Google refrigerator. Mike: So I'm not saying that pen that clicks are available for a penny on Amazon but if you incorporate the right system and how to manage it you can gross it; like I'll give you physical numbers year over year in November even those Cyber Monday fell outside of November this year. We grew Amazon sales on that outdoor brand by 50% using Amazon ads. So it's another example of having expertise in this paid search world and finding opportunities within it. Amazon ads; I think maybe that's super-secret number 10. I think we've gotten away from the super secrets but maybe super-secret number 10 and it's probably one of the most powerful ones I see right now available for people. Chuck: So what else are you looking for? Mike: So besides being on Amazon and Amazon ads, me personally I'm looking for a strong operational foundation because I'm not an expert at that. I'm not good at that but thankfully the businesses that I purchase have that. I'm looking for a barrier to entry like how replicatable is this business and what is the barrier that people have to get through? And this is a little bit less quantifiable but this is just a general do I want to be involved in this business; how hard is it for somebody who's just as good at paid search as me or Amazon or whatever, if they just got a hold of my supplier could they replicate this and do I want that? And if the answer is it's too easy then I move on. Is it a learnable industry? One of the things I was worried about with the custom suit company was maybe before purchasing it I wasn't as sharp a dresser, Chuck. Maybe my wardrobe might have consisted of free conference t-shirts but I was worried about that and… Chuck: You're pulling it off still. Mike: Thank you. And once I got into it I learned no this is a learnable industry. I can do this and it's worked great since then. Is it Amazon resistant? And I know that's a little counter to saying are they on Amazon. Is Amazon going to move into that space? Are they going to want to replicate what it is that you're doing? And on the outdoor brand, it's more of we joined to them; we couldn't beat them so we joined them and a good 50, 60% of our sales are on Amazon on that brand. On the suit brand, we're looking to sell accessories; expand our brand awareness because you can't sell custom suits on Amazon and it's unlikely that Amazon is going to get into that realm. So we're thinking how can we use Amazon to expand our brand awareness, generate some confidence in the brand, and yet not have to; since we're not able to send custom suits and sell custom suits on Amazon directly so is Amazon a threat to the business is something that we look at overall. Inventory management optimization; so leveraging just in time inventory because anybody that's involved in an inventory-based business knows that a lot of times your profit can go straight back into purchasing additional inventory. And if you want to realize any profits before you sell the business you've got have inventory optimization. Is the current ownership leveraging that inventory optimization? Are there conversion rate optimization opportunities; have they ever even tried it before? I just had a call today for the suit company and this is going to be ultra-specific but it is an indicator of what we've done. We launched a new cart in early November and we just ran the numbers and today on desktop for new customers we have doubled our conversion rate which anybody knows that the lifeblood of a business is acquiring new customers. So to do that is pretty amazing. Now on mobile, it was pretty static but we've also generated significant amounts of more traffic on mobile to the suit company. So that's a little bit misleading to say that it's exactly the same. Well anybody who knows conversion rate optimization and knows how traffic works; if you increase traffic the quality is potentially a little bit lower and so the fact that we slightly beat our previous conversion rate on mobile is a huge win. So are there conversion rate optimization to opportunities in the acquisition? Here's one that you know is near and dear to my heart, Chuck. What is the current platform; are they on Net Suite, on Shopify, on Magento? Because the one thing I never ever recommend is changing platforms. So can you accomplish all of the things on your list that you want to do on the platform? We use Net Suite as one of them and it is extremely difficult to get changes done but we are not moving. So it's just something that I think everybody should really consider. Or are you on an archaic platform like at Yahoo stores; something that's not being updated anymore and there's seven people in the world that can code to Yahoo stores? Now you're beholden to them. You have to pay exorbitant rates for their development because they're the only one that knows it as opposed to a Shopify or a Magento that developers are plenty. Chuck: If you're on Yahoo shout out to Rob Snell, look him up if you need help with your Yahoo business. Mike: There you go. See I didn't even mean that. That helps. And I think the last thing; us particularly we enjoy custom products, so custom made suits is a really good example or even for the branded products; things that other people makes, turning them into custom products. We really think that that's a good market to be and again slightly more defensible against an Amazon. And then finally this is my last on my company acquisition algorithm that I'll share today just I know we're limited on time is what synergies can you participate in? So if you listen to the last call you heard me talking about a brand that we made an offer on that it was a full price offer, quick close, no due diligence because it was a trusted brand. And before Chuck chimes in, he recommends that you never do that but the reason why we wanted that brand is because it was geared towards outdoor enthusiasts and we have tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of outdoor enthusiasts that come to our website every day. So looking for synergistic brands that are out there to acquire and diversify the income and now not only sell other people's brands but also sell your own brand; white labeling things like that, finding things with opportunities like that, that's the last opportunity that we're looking for in our algorithm. Chuck: Awesome. Alright, so now let's maybe move into what some of the lessons you've learned from the various acquisitions you've done. And you had acquired some stuff before Quiet Light as well. Mike: Yeah. So I think a lot of them are listed on what I just said but I will say there's; because every time I learn a lesson to me it's an opportunity for the next acquisition. So again I will buy another business on Net Suite but I wouldn't have bought the first one knowing what I know now about Net Suite. But now that we've had to learn it, now that we've had to; our developer is familiar with it now and can make the changes that we need and want, now I'll buy another one. And so to me there's an opportunity there, right? It's harder for people to do that than it is for me. It's yet another level of expertise. So that's one thing is a lot of the lessons are kind of listed already in that but there's one I would say recently and again it's with the custom suit business, don't get so caught up in your own expertise. Again we are really, really good at paid search and one of the reasons why is because we're so return focused. A mistake that we made with the custom suit business is we went straight for a return. If a dollar didn't turn into five; I'll just use that as an example, we didn't spend it. And because of that, we saw sales drop. And I talked to the previous owner about it and said hey we're seeing this, why? And he's like well yes cross-device tracking is good however it doesn't capture everything. And mobile devices; think about who buys suits these days, and it's somebody with a mobile life. It's a lawyer that's always in the courtroom. It's a doctor that's always walking about. It's a financial person that's not necessarily sitting at their desk, they're going to meeting after meeting after meeting and where are they searching up for their next suit? Well, it's probably their mobile device. They find it and then they go on the desktop and they go on and they purchase it. And we had pulled back pretty significantly on the mobile spend because the conversion rate just wasn't as good. And so that's one example of us kind of getting in our own way. But to our credit, we were able to kind of step back and say okay we learned a lesson here, let's get better at it and change our approach. And since then that's when we now had some of our best days that we've ever had. So I like to think of it as a lot of these owners or the previous owners they had levels of expertise; they were doing something right and so it's our job as experts that are better at it to take the lessons that they've learned and apply our expertise to it to just throw some gasoline on it. Chuck: Alright Mike so one of the ways I like to usually end these things is just to ask if you have any kind of tools that you use on a regular basis; just some things that can either help with productivity, it could even be outside of work. One example the other day I was kind of upset about it because you ordered the chicken sandwich from Popeye's through Uber Eats so that you didn't have to wait in line and you didn't bother sending me one. That's a great little life hack. So what else do you have? Do you have any tools that you might recommend or any other little things? Mike: I did the same thing with Amazon two years ago when they were operating like the one-hour delivery and we had a hurricane coming to Florida and I just ordered all the bottled water and had it delivered while everybody else is fighting each other at the store. But now that secret's out. That's no longer an advantage but yeah some tools that I like that we use; so for Google Ads, I'll say if you're using things like maximize for clicks run we prefer an enhanced CPC bidding algorithm or a target CPA. We always test to see which one's better. Prioritization, I love Air Table. I got to give a shout out to my business partner Daniel for that. Air Table is a prioritization tool and basically, it can help identify what is the easiest to implement to get the most impactful change that you can make. And so it just really helps to prioritize what it is that you're doing and the changes that you're making to the company because obviously, we all want to make the biggest impact as quickly as possible. I love Grammarly for sending emails so that I don't sound silly. Chuck: That one saves me all the time. Mike: It's so good. I haven't used their pro version but even just the regular version is fantastic. For the affiliate management company, I got to give a shout out to Mail Shake. We love Mail Shake. We use that very often. It's a terrific tool. I love Moz. So the Moz toolbar is something that I use a lot. And then I think we use a lot of the things everybody else uses like the Evernotes and Google apps and things like that. So I think the first ones that were probably some of the others may not have heard them. Chuck: Awesome. Well, I think everybody who's been listening appreciates your time. I'd love to have you back at another time. We can talk about some more stuff once you've hit that next goal of purchase through us we'll talk about that one. But again thank you for the time today and we'll talk to you again soon. Mike: Thanks, Chuck. Links and Resources: Affiliate Manager
Some of the most popular episodes we've aired have been with guests who have experienced the buying or selling process firsthand. Today's guest has acquired several businesses and is genuinely good at the acquisition process. In part one of a two-part series, Chuck is talking to Mike Nunez about his various acquisitions and his 9 super secret to tips to being a great buyer. Mike has been in the online marketing space since 1999. After gaining experience in affiliate marketing, he launched Affiliate Manager with his brother while he continued to work full time for Google. More recently, Mike has purchased several e-commerce businesses from Quiet Light. We'll hear about how Mike is becoming one of our top buyers, how he's realizing his dreams, and that one last goal he may just reach. Episode Highlights: What it means to be a good buyer. What values the seller looks for aside from the monetary value. Ways to put the seller at ease by focusing on what is important to them. The importance of having a plan in your approach to the seller. How to accept and value of the previous owner's advice during the transition. Why you should avoid poor positioned questions when working with the seller. The buyer needs to find what he wants – the fit has to be right for the buyer too. Finding the component that will help make the business yours and not focus solely on the money piece. The relationship of trust in your broker is also a key factor in being a good buyer or seller. Transcription: Mark: Some of the most popular podcasts that we've put out here at Quiet Light Brokerage are the episodes where we get the chance to interview either a seller or a buyer on their background or their journey of going through a buying an online business. And Chuck I know you had a good friend of ours, a good friend of Quiet Light Brokerage's and a previous podcast guest as well, Mike Nuñez on because he's acquired a couple of businesses from us and more specifically from you in the recent months. How did that discussion go? Chuck: Yeah it went great. Mike is what I would consider probably one of our best buyers. The way he's able to get on a phone call and just talk to people, and sometimes I use the word tactics throughout the call. I don't feel like when he's doing it he's being tactical, I feel like he's just a very genuinely friendly guy who is just really good. His experience is that he's been in internet marketing for 20 years I've been in it for 24 so he's almost up there with me. Mark: He worked at Google so he's got that on you. Chuck: Yeah, he worked at Google for four years in the paid search department. So he talks a lot about on this one so I ended up having to split this up into two podcasts because it was just going so long. So the first one we talked about his nine super-secret tips to being a great buyer and there was a lot of really actionable stuff in there that I think everybody is going to be able to get a lot out of. Mark: Guys that's awesome and you talk about the difference between tactics and just being a good guy and look they can blend together, right? I mean Mike isn't the type of conniving guy saying here's what I'm going to do, I'm going to say this phrase and that phrase to make sure somebody absolutely loves me and then I'm going to be able to get an additional 20% off. That's not the way he works. He is just generally a good guy. He helps a lot. He's got that help first mentality. We preach this all the time and Joe is the one that coined a lot of these phrases which is nice buyers tend to do better. And it's just really, really true that sometimes we need tips on how to do it. This is why Dale Carnegie wrote the famous book How to Win Friends and Influence People just to give us some actionable tips to be like how do you actually encounter people in a business environment in a way that will benefit you. And if you read the book you find out that a lot of it is; well it starts with that right disposition and who you are. And Mike is a good person. I love that you broke this out into nine tips. Are you able to give me any preview of any of the nine tips or do you not remember them offhand? Chuck: Yeah. So one of the questions is around positioning the way you ask questions I think it's a really good tip. I won't get into all the details but you'll see it in the video. Mark: Okay, so not just going out there and hammering people with questions in a very kind of combatant way but I'm sure Mike has a very unique approach to that. Chuck: Well, Mark I just said I'm not going to get into the details. Don't try to pressure me. Mark: Alright. You know what I was talking to Joe the other day and he's like do you listen to the podcasts, Mark? And I said no, I don't because I hear enough of you Joe I don't want to hear more of you and he records all the episodes. So he said your intros are getting to be too long so let's cut it out. Let's get to it. Chuck: Hey everybody today on the call we have Mike Nuñez. Welcome, Mike. Mike: Thank you, Chuck, it's great to be here. Chuck: So people may have heard your name before because we mentioned you quite frequently on the podcast. And the reason we mentioned you so frequently is because you're what I would consider my number one buyer. I think probably one of Quiet Light's top buyers and not from a monetary perspective. You do purchase a lot of businesses, you purchase a lot of large businesses from us but more so just from your personality; the way you interact with clients on phone calls like whenever I'm telling somebody how to be a good buyer I'm always in my head thinking what does Mike do and then I'm telling them what Mike does in order to be a good buyer. Because we're friends and I know you outside of Quiet Light but like I really do mean that. Like you are really a great buyer and you're easy to talk to. And if anybody's watching the video today they're going to notice that you look somewhat like a sports commentator with that headset on and you've got a suit and tie and the suit and tie isn't the normal way I see Mike but one of the businesses he purchased was a custom-tailored suit business so I guess he's got to rep that brand now. Mike: That's right. Chuck: But maybe you could tell everybody a little bit about yourself. Mike: Oh great. I'm happy to. And first, let me say thank you. That was super just kind of you to say. I always whenever I have any of these phone calls I just take an approach of what I want to hear and recognizing that these business owners have been working on this; their babies, right? And you just have to be careful as you ask questions because we all want to know where the opportunity is and I'm sure we'll talk much more about that here but we want to know where the opportunity is and the way that you find that is by asking questions. But it's a very fine line between asking questions and becoming insulting and so you just have to walk that fine line. But there's absolutely a way to do it and there's a way to lead these sellers into that and realizing that you're both kind of on the same team. But again; well I think we're getting ahead of ourselves or at least I am so I'll tell you a little bit about me to start this off. I've been in online marketing since 1999, I was in college at the time and I know that dates myself a little bit. The first job was in lead generation, online marketing. I moved in to travel doing affiliate marketing and travel. I eventually launched my own affiliate marketing business along with my brother that's still going today so its AffiliateManager.com. Last year we merged with a company called Rhino Fish to create the performance company which is our page search division. Overall that marketing company is about 22 people. We have 3 former Googlers myself included on that staff. So we're quite good at both affiliate marketing and paid search. I like to say so. We also have two other businesses or I have two other businesses; one is an outdoor equipment seller that I purchased from Quiet Light, another is a custom made to measure suit company that I purchased from Quiet Light as well. So overall I'm about 20 years down it hurts to say experience in online marketing and business and online businesses in general and it's been a really fun journey. I always like to say Chuck my dream used to be I want to be able to work from anywhere and now I'm there. The new dream is that I want to not have to work. So someday I'll realize that second dream. Chuck: I don't like to hear that because I think the term not working would be not buying additional businesses and you're one short away from a special goal that I; I told him if you bought a certain number that I would buy him a specific thing. So he's just shy of that goal. Mike: Yeah it's just without getting into too many details like we're talking about less than what is it 4% on millions of dollars that I'm short. Chuck: But I set this goal early on, right? So it's your fault that you haven't reached it. If you have just paid a little bit more in that last acquisition you would have hit that goal. Mike: We need to round up Chuck. That's what I'm saying. We need to just round up and I should hit that threshold. Chuck: I'll remember that on the next acquisition. We'll just round up. Mike: Right. Yeah. Only when it's in my favor, please. Chuck: So part of the reason I wanted to have you on the call today was one just to talk about maybe some tips or just maybe even not tips but just discussing what it is to be a good buyer. But then also from your perspective what it is you're looking at when you're looking to buy businesses. I know you have a specific criteria that you're looking for and your criteria is different than other people's. And I wanted to also maybe talk about some lessons you've learned along the way. So I guess to kick it off maybe let's just dive in a little bit about being a good buyer. So I would start off just by saying that you know I talked to a lot of people; constantly I'm on the phone and people are always asking me what it is to be a good buyer? And some people I talked to think that in order to be a good buyer it's about being aggressive in trying to negotiate. And maybe they're not thinking that as being a good buyer but they want to try to get the best deal by doing that and they'll say negative things about people's businesses. And you take a very different approach than that. So I think you already addressed it a little bit but maybe you want to dive into maybe the approach you take to negotiating and to speaking with others. Mike: Sure. I think it's important context to say both of the businesses that I've purchased from you Chuck and Quiet Light had multiple offers, were very much generating a lot of interest and so there were multiple potential buyers. And I don't want to say we were the lowest offer. I don't think we were. I know in both cases we weren't the highest offer either. Chuck: Yeah just maybe to add a little context before you dive into further, one of the; I think actually both of them said I wanted to sell to Mike. So they're talking to multiple people and they said get Mike up to this number I want to sell to him. Even though that number was lower than what some of the other potential buyers were offering. Mike: Yeah. Chuck: So I think that speaks a lot to you. Mike: Thank you again, Chuck. But I would say that therein lies the quote-unquote the secret which is money is valuable, right? They want money. If you're nowhere near what they're asking or if you're nowhere near what their magic number is, the rest of this conversation goes away. Let's put that aside. I think Quiet Light does an incredible job overall of valuing companies fairly and appropriately. And you know that walking in. So if you know that walking in okay this is a fairly and appropriately valued business now it's a matter of percentage points maybe either way and in either direction of that. The purpose of the call, at least the initial call is to identify; one of the purposes of the call is to identify what value is this seller seeking beyond the dollars because the dollars are going to fall within a certain range. So a good example for the suit business is the seller really cared about his people. He really cared about his co-workers that he's had for the last however many years; almost 10 years that have put in their blood, their sweat, their tears into this. And he wanted to know that they were going to be okay. And I think actually in the ranking of why I won the business even though I had a lower offer than other people had, that's probably number one is just feeling comfortable about that the new owner is going to come in and take care of the people that were there. And I made no promises. Let me say that. I didn't say I promise I'm not going to let anybody go or I promise; I said no, I promise I'm going to be fair and appropriate with everybody and evaluate everybody based on performance. And he was confident knowing that he had hired stellar people. And it was part of what was so attractive about the business is he had incredible people that were already working there so it made it even more attractive for us. So I think that was number one for him. Second I think there was a sense of patriotism maybe. So this is a European company. It was based in Europe. It's in a European country. And this European country is kind of known for textiles and for creating things and such. And so I think one of the other buyers; and again there's multiple people in here that you're kind of competing against and so you got to think of like a pros and cons checklist and I'm being compared to each one of these other potential buyers in their pros and cons checklist. One of the other potential buyers wanted to move the production out of Europe and into China. There's nothing wrong with that if that's where their connections are if that's where their factories are and such; great. That's where they want to move their production, good for them. However this particular seller wanted to keep production because of his pride for his country, because of his desire to benefit his country, he wanted to keep production in his home country. I didn't have any alternative contacts in China or in any other potential production areas and so I felt like that was important to them and so I made it known. And I think a lot of, and I think it's the second thing is kind of just listening on the calls. Maybe that's super-secret number two is listening and hearing what's important to them and asking that question okay let's move money aside what's important to you in the future of this company? And another good example of that is potential branding or taking care of the customers. I know this may sound a little bit cliché but this is their baby, right? They've grown this baby. They've watched this baby grow. They've poured their love, their sweat, their tears, their hours. The seller of the custom suit company is an example. I remember him saying like I can't remember the last time I took a vacation. He just poured everything he possibly had into this company. And so when you're that invested overall they just kind of feel a comfort level that the new owner is going to come in and do right by what they've built. They just don't want to see it go away and it's they've already got their cash at that point and they still care. And I will say one positive side effect and please know that this is partly or mostly; not even partly, mostly because of the owner and this is one of the criteria; we can talk more about this later, but one of the criteria that I look at is an owner that cares and they're selling for potentially a different reason other than they don't care about the business anymore. I think those are the ones that kind of phone it in afterwards. The two owners of the businesses that I've purchased are still very much invested. One of them still works full time in the company and works as hard today as when he owned it. And I am very appreciative for that. Same thing for the custom suit company, he chimes in all the time. Like hey, this is how we did things, this is how we did it. It's so helpful in the transition of a company to have the context of somebody who built this business from the ground up. And I think the super-secret number three there is when somebody is on your side, let them be. Both of their intentions aren't to harm the business in any way. They want to see it grow. And even though in both instances there's been times where we didn't quite agree on how to take things to the next level, we absolutely welcomed their feedback and sometimes they were right. Sometimes we were right. Kind of checking your pride and moving it to the side for a second when you're good at something and allowing them to tell you, yes I know you're good at this, let me tell you how what you're doing applies specifically to the business that you're purchasing from me. It's a really important lesson in the growth of the business which might be a good segway Chuck if it's okay with you to start talking about the lessons learned for some of the businesses or did you want more on…? Chuck: Before we move on you mentioned that both of the owners of the businesses were kind of still somewhat involved in the company. Is that something you're specifically looking for or was that just a happenstance of you buying a good quality business that had an owner that actually cared about the business? Mike: So in neither instance was it a requirement beforehand that the owner would stay on with the business post-acquisition. The first acquisition, the owner requested it. They said hey I see the plan and I didn't intend to call out these super-secrets but let's call it the super-secret number four is have a plan. Don't just walk in and say hey I'd like to buy your business. In that instance, I just so happened to be in London and as I'm trying to buy this business the owner of the business lived in an island off of the coast of Morocco. I had a free weekend while I was in London and I flew over and met with him and his wonderful wife and they were gracious. They took me to dinner. I insisted but they wouldn't let me treat for dinner. I think they were just thankful that I flew to go visit them and talk about the business; so just again that personal connection there. So while it wasn't a requirement that they stay with the business post-acquisition I'm always open to it if they're open to it. And I started talking about the plan; having the plan and being able to approach them. In both instances they got excited. One of them and I'll try to talk vague because I don't want to say anything about either one of them that they wouldn't want me to share. But one of them said when I said why are you selling it they said well I'm almost running out of ideas. Like I don't know what the next thing to do is. I don't know where to take this next and how to make it grow. And so for me, it's a choice of whether we stay at the level that we are now and continue happily down that path. Or do I allow my baby to grow by giving it to somebody who's going to take it to that next level? And so to be able to show them okay not only can we take it to next level here's how; yes, you recognize we have the experience before this on how to get this to that next level but here let me lay out the plan in front of you. And all throughout the while of reviewing the business and going to the website I have a checklist and I'll go over some of the points with you later today, here's all the opportunities that we think that we can have. And based off of those opportunities that's how we create the plan. And then we plug that into our for lack of a better word, our company acquisition algorithm to say okay is this worthwhile? And based off of the competitive advantages that we have with this business can we offer a little more? Do we need to offer a little less? Like where do we think that we're going to fit into this overall picture? So I feel like I didn't fully answer your question. The answer is no we don't require the owners to stay on post-acquisition. We are completely open to it. We prefer it. In both instances, they're both quite engaged overall. And just to reiterate the point maybe super-secret number five is if somebody wants to be on your side let them be. And in this instance, both the previous owners want to be on our side. They want to give us the feedback. We 100% remain open to receiving that feedback even if it's counter to what we want to achieve we'll at least receive it. I have a philosophy that you're not entitled to have a point if you can't justify it. And so if they come to me and say hey I think you're doing this incorrectly or I don't think you're doing this right. I tell myself okay, here's an expert that's owned this business for a long time, they feel strongly enough to come to me and say I think you're doing this incorrectly. I feel strongly that I'm doing it this way. But feeling trolling isn't good enough. I need to go pull data, go look at numbers, go say why are we doing it this way. And then I go back to them and say okay here's the reason why we're doing this way and they can poke holes in it or say no you know what that looks good. I wish I would have known that when I had the business. So I think that answers your question, Chuck. Chuck: Yeah I think so. And maybe secret; what number are we on, number six? Mike: I think we're on number six now. Chuck: Okay, so I would say super-secret number six, what you kind of just alluded to and what you didn't is you know when in school like high school or whatever and the teacher is like oh there's no such thing as a dumb question. There 100% is such a thing as a dumb question when you're talking to a seller. I would say super-secret number six is be prepared when you get on a call, be dedicated to the call that you're on, don't be in a car with a lot of background noise. Be at a desk, be in one place, do some research, if there's an interview to watch, watch the interview with the seller, read the package, ask intelligent questions about the business. It's okay to ask something that's already been addressed in the package if you want some additional information but show that you've actually researched the business because constantly when I'm talking to my sellers and we get off a phone call they're like that guy is not serious, don't connect me with him again. They want to know that you're serious and a way to show that you're serious is to have done some research ahead of time and ask intelligent questions about the business. And that's something that you definitely do. Mike: Thanks, Chuck. And I think that goes with having a plan. Like I don't have the time, I know you don't have the time, I don't have the time, I'm sure the sellers don't have the time to just sit there and answer questions that for somebody who clearly isn't prepared for the call it's a horrible signal to the seller that you're not serious about this that even if you do have the cash, even if all other things fall into place you're not going to be an organized person handling their business moving forward. So it's just an awful signal to send upfront. And I think one of the other things that you said; I don't want to say that there's bad questions, there's unprepared questions. Chuck: There are bad questions. I've had them on my calls. Mike: Okay. Chuck: And I know you're; Mike again this gets back to Mike being a super nice guy and doesn't want to; there are dumb questions and I've had many of them on my calls. Mike: I'm still going to stay that there's poorly positioned questions. And one of them might be hey Chuck I feel like this is a really dumb question and so forgive me for asking what's going to seem like a dumb question but it's just weighing on me and I need to ask it. That's a well-positioned dumb question. Another really good example of that is starting a call. I have a big belief and maybe this might be in one of the other super- secrets but we'll call it super-secret number seven, are we on seven now? So super-secret number seven, figure out what they want and give it to them. And again part of that is money but that's the beauty of working with a broker especially Quiet Light, that part's already figured out. That's almost done. They've declared that this is the multiple that they want now it's up to you to figure out does that fit within your company acquisition algorithm. Can I afford this based off of all of these criteria? And again I'll go through some of those in a little bit. Move that aside and now figure out what do they want. Do they want to stay on with the business? Do they want to hand it over to somebody who's going to keep the work within their country or somebody who isn't going to start selling poorly made products to their customer base that they've built up over time? Figure out what they want and give it to them. It's the best negotiation technique. If you walk into a call or a negotiation and you're trying to think how can I squeeze every dime out of this person on the other side of this phone call; I mean good luck to you, you may win or you may not. I have the philosophy of; I took a course from the Wharton School of Business one time and we talked about negotiation and one of the things we talked about was the difference between an average hitter in baseball and a Hall of Fame hitter in baseball is one in nine hits. If you can get one more hit in nine at-bats, that's the difference between average and Hall of Fame. The same thing with negotiation, if you can get one more hit in nine at-bats it's potentially a huge difference in the overall success that you're going to have. So same thing here, and so I approach the call as hey let's figure this out together and I'm listening the entire time trying to figure out what's important to the person on the other side of the call. Also, another; super-secret number eight is going to be disarming the call. It doesn't have to be this contentious conversation where I'm battling you for information. That's not the case. I start out almost every call and you can attest to this Chuck, and by the way, I've purchased a couple. I've probably had maybe less than 10 but several phone calls with people. Some of them after the call I decide this is not the right fit for me. I can't give them what they want so I just walk away and I go on to the next business. Other ones I've made offers for and maybe somebody else was giving something that they wanted and I didn't get that. But the two that I've got I'm very happy with thus far. But when I start the call I say hey I need to ask some questions and some of these questions might come across the wrong way. They may seem offensive or it may seem like I'm trying to prod or I'm trying to poke, all I'm looking for is opportunity. What opportunity exists in your business? And I'm trying to use it to go justify pulling this money out of other places and spending it and handing it over to you. So I'm looking for your help in bridging that gap here. And so when you position it that way and say help me get there it's amazing how they almost start to fall over themselves to tell you all of the potential opportunities in the business beyond what they've already written into the marketing package. And I'll even call that out. I've read the marketing package. I see that you see that this is an opportunity, this is an opportunity, this is an opportunity, based off of some research that I've done I think that this might be an opportunity. Is there a reason why you haven't attacked that market? Is there a reason why you haven't advertised on this channel? Is there a reason why this or this or that? And after you've position that I'm looking for opportunity, I want to make this happen, help me get there, usually they're quite open and willing to volunteer that information. So I'll call that super-secret number eight. Chuck: Yup, number eight. I can see the headline of this interview now; eight super-secrets of Mike Nuñez. We've got to get it to like 9 or 10 maybe. So yeah I think that those are some really good tactics. And I hate to use the word tactic because I don't feel like it's a tactic. I guess it is but like that's just your normal personality and maybe some people don't have it. But I think one of the major takeaways there is don't be super aggressive with a seller. Like the businesses we sell at Quiet Light, they're generally speaking super high quality with owners that care. It's not we generally; like sometimes we do but often it's not people that are just starting a business to flip, to flip, to flip. These are people who started a business because it's something they're passionate about and they're ready to move on for one reason or another and they want to pass on the torch to somebody who cares. And when you come in aggressive and if you try to beat down their business or things like that, that doesn't work. Maybe if you're working on a 100 million dollar deal and you got to like get in there and be super aggressive like that doesn't work with what we're doing at all. Mike: I just have to add to that Chuck because I think it's like if it works you should be worried. If it works it's probably not the right business. Like that's not; feel free to take this out Chuck if I shouldn't or can't talk about this but in the last offer I made I did not get the business. I made an offer but in our call, I recognized that what they were looking for was a quick close and a short close. They wanted to make sure that it closed. They wanted to do it quickly. And that was beyond the dollars and it was very fairly priced already, beyond the dollars that's what was important to them. And so for the caller just to give you an example of how much I personally trust after physically spending millions of dollars with Quiet Light already I made an offer, all cash so that they knew that this was going to close. I offered close at your convenience. And third I offered no due diligence. Now I wouldn't recommend that for everybody and all things. Chuck: I don't recommend that either. Do not offer to close. This is a certain special deal with a person that is a known entity that was trusted. You should always do your due diligence. Don't listen to Mike. Don't rely on us to do due diligence. It is your job to do the due diligence. Mike: 100% that was my decision that I was aware of this company, the numbers were small enough where even if this was a complete disaster it wouldn't be a disaster for me. But it was a complete cash offer, it was a complete quick close and I offer that with the hope that that was the value that they were looking for that was not a cash value that would allow them to choose me because they had; I mean I don't even know how many Chuck. Chuck: There were nine offers on the deal and you were; because of that they wanted to sell that component to you but the other offer was just so much; it was more money, the guy was willing to do a quick close as well so it just beats you out. They wanted to sell it to you. The other guy was just; it was a better offer with the other person. Mike: Understood. And so I got close right with the untangible non-monetary aspects of the offer.; it got me super close, right? I almost got that extra hit and that nine tenth bat. So just a good example of listening to what they want, trying to give it to them, and it's going to save you dollars in the long run. And the fact that they were considering me sounds like even though my offer was lower; yet again that seems to be the MO here overall. And by the way, I made a full price offer so it wasn't even like I made an under offer. I made a full price offer but somebody beat the full price offer and I'm still under consideration. Chuck: And just to let maybe another super-secret number nine; this isn't Mike's this is mine so I think that's like two of the nine. Listen to the broker. If I'm telling you something there's a reason I'm telling you it. Like when I say this is going to sell for at or above asking, it's probably going to sell for at or above asking. I'm not just trying to increase the price, right? I do represent the seller and I'm trying to do my best to get as much value for the seller but I'm not going to do that by lying. I'm going, to be honest. There's things I can't say to you. If you say well what's the other asking price is or what's the other offers, I can't tell you that but I will try to lead you in the direction of making an offer that's going to be accepted. Don't think that we're just; if I tell you there's multiple offers, there are multiple offers. I'm not just B-S-ing you. And we get it all the time where I tell people there's multiple offers put your best highest final offer in and then yeah okay asking price and I'm like put your best offer like I'm just telling you and then it goes for above asking and then the person is mad oh why didn't you tell me? I would've put a higher offer. And it's like I did tell you; I told you to put your best offer in. Like I don't want you to stretch, I don't want you to put an offer that makes you uncomfortable but you need to put your best offer in if you want to win this business. Mike: So I just want to say to that people have been kind of beat down and trained to not be trusting especially to brokerages. And at the risk of sounding like a Quiet Light commercial, it's just not the case with Quiet Light. And is it okay with you if I tell the story of how I found Quiet Light and why I just trust you guys implicitly? Chuck: I'm not sure of the story but please do tell it. Mike: I've had the affiliate manager and the performance company; the affiliate managed business overall since 2002. I started it with my brother and we built up the business. And in 2015 my brother passed away. He passed away fairly unexpectedly. And I was working at Google at the time and I had a decision to make; do I leave Google and come back to Affiliate Manager or do I sell the company? And so through some mutual contacts, I was referred over to Mark and Joe. This was before Chuck was there so I totally would've went to Chuck. But I went to Mark and Joe and just talked about the business and they asked me just great questions and they asked me for the P&L and they asked me what does the growth rate look like over the last few years. And we had been growing at like a 50%; no I'm sorry 100% rate year over year. We had doubled every year for the previous three years from '13, '14, and ‘15. And this is in January 2016 that I'm talking to Mark and Joe. And they even though this would have been a multimillion-dollar deal to sell that company; and I'm sure they do many, many multimillion-dollar deals which makes it easier to; I don't want to say turn it away but to give this advice. Chuck: So I will stop you there before I was with Quiet Light which was I've been about three years they weren't doing a lot of multimillion-dollar deals. So at that time a million, two, or three million dollars was a lot. It's just been in the last few years that we've really got up to where we're selling some of these really large businesses. Mike: So that makes it even more impressive, right? And I just remember this phone call with Mark and Joe so clearly where they said Mike when you sell this we'd love to be the brokerage for you. This is the wrong decision to sell right now. If you keep growing at this rate you will get what you want. Because of that conversation; I talked to other brokers who are ready to list my business or promising me the world and because of that especially now knowing that it would have been a very high multimillion-dollar deal for them and that they weren't doing as many at that time, for them to turn away that commission just gave me a level of trust with them that this is the company that I'm going to do business with. I am not comparing myself to Warren Buffett, Chuck. Not in the least. But one thing that he does that I love is he makes things easy and he; I don't want to say he takes shortcuts but he has built-in shortcuts. He can go from looking at a potential deal to executing a deal very quickly. And I don't know how he does it but my interpretation of how he does it is he identifies businesses and companies that he feels confident and he trusts. And so to me the implicit trust that I get from working with Quiet Light is a shortcut. To me, it gets me from here to this point. My comfort level right off the bat knowing that Quiet Light is not going to take a company that's shady or take a company that doesn't have solid P&L numbers or things of that effect, it's just such a comfort level. And if my comfort level was at a 90 pre these two deals because of what Mark and Joe did when they told me go continue to grow your business. It's at 100 now that I've actually purchased two companies and both of them are better than what I had expected. Now granted I'll take some credit for that that I've done the due diligence on it; I hired Centurica actually for both due diligences. We did the due diligence and we got into the company. Both of them feel; were over a year in on the first one, we're almost a year on the second one and both are solid. Both are growing. We just ran the numbers and after a little bit of a rocky start with the suit one because of some of the changes that we were making and that's what happens but we are now; November is our biggest month and we were up 30%. If you shift to include cyber Monday because everybody is obviously one of our biggest days. Chuck: How long have you owned that company? Mike: Since April of this year. So to go from there we beat our biggest day previously in the company not once, not twice, but three times by over 25%. So to beat your previous biggest day which was Black Friday; I'm sorry Cyber Monday last year, we beat it Black Friday this year, we beat it the Sunday after Black Friday this year, and we beat it again on Cyber Monday this year. So we literally doubled Black Friday. So it's been amazing. And again if my comfort level was a 90, it's 100 because of that. Like I'm not walking into a business that's a money pit or that has craters I didn't expect or potholes that I didn't expect. So I think that's just super important overall. Chuck: Awesome. So we're running a little long on this call, we've got a ton to talk about. So would you be interested in having this become a two-part segment where we'll end it here and then we'll keep going but we'll put that as a part two, to be continued? Mike: Yeah. But in case people are watching this on video just know that we cut it into two parts. I didn't wear the same suit on two different days. Chuck: We'll make a quick wardrobe change. Mike: Okay, I'll go change my jacket. Chuck: No. Mike: But that's fine. Yes, I'm happy to do that. Chuck: Alright. So, everybody, Mike Nuñez thank you for the interview today. And for everybody watching stay tuned. Next, we will discuss some of the lessons you've learned and what you're looking for when you purchase a business. So, for now, bye everybody and thank you, Mike, for joining us. Mike: Thanks for having me. Links and Resources: Affiliate Manager
Tips for Automating Your Business With Chatbots Josh: So I've got Mike here from Chatbot Agency, and as everyone knows, I'm all about automation. The one thing that everyone needs to do in their business is automate, automate, automate, and he's got a fantastic product, a fantastic system, that allows for you to create something that you would never have been able to do 20, 30 years ago. He's able to create the human conversation in a digital world. Now tell me Mike, why did you get into this? Get more tips for automating your business with chatbots at dorksdelivered.com.au Mike: Well Josh, great question. I was a Facebook Ads dude. And we used to drive a lot of traffic from Facebook into landing pages, and based on the analytics and the backend material that we were looking at, at least 50% who were clicking on the ad weren't actually making it to the landing page. Obviously, because they load too slow and when they get there they're going to have to put their details in. So capturing leads meant that out of the 50% that was left there, we might end up, luckily, and this is being conservative, we might end up with 15 or 20% that might actually put their email address in. Now, back in the late 90s while mucking around with automation WeChat, we built a platform whereby we were going to put chat in there. We left that on the back burner, and then as soon as Mark Zuckerberg opened up the API for Facebook Messenger, we thought, "Wow, I wonder if this could respond the same way SMS marketing works," because we were all mobile marketers. So we mucked around for about a week and we actually got Messenger to respond back to us and we thought, "Hey shit, we're on a winner. How cool is that?" So getting back to the initial bit, Facebook Ads played a big part. So now we're able to take them from Ads into Messenger and actually start having a conversation with people and find out exactly what they really want from that business. Josh: Cool. So I guess your end goal is to turn someone without a face, that doesn't know your business into giving someone a face around your business and their business and making sure they start doing business with your business. So that'd be right? Mike: That would be absolutely spot on. Remember Josh, every transaction starts with a conversation. That's in the real world. Josh: You don't want to remove that personal touch. And that's something that I think is really, really good with the way that you've actually created your application because you're able to get the details, get the nitty gritties, the bits and pieces they need to get in a very, very human way. Would you agree? Mike: Totally, absolutely. You still have to remember, it's still machines talking, so we don't want it to make it too human. But at the end of the day, mate, if we can start bringing in tomorrow's prospects overnight, so when you start work first thing in the morning, you've got a nice bag of prospects sitting in there you just have to convert and then you can go knock off and go home at 10 o'clock. Josh: And that's ultimately what it's all about. If you've got a money-making engine that's just driving income, if you've got the ability to have a 24-hour salesperson, the ability to make sure that when you've created something and you've created a process, people are able to follow that process and you've got people falling through and into your funnel, filling up your funnel and you're removing any of the friction such as, as you said, like slow landing pages, you're removing those, you're making sure they have the least friction, a frictionless transaction, you're going to be having conversions go through the roof and as you said, like a 20% conversion on landing page is pretty good. A bad landing page, two to 6% in my experience and you're going up to 20, 22% in a very, very good landing page. So what are you finding your conversions currently? Mike: So we look at from the ad, we measure the click on the ad and we're effectively converting into the funnel between 20 to 50% of those. So if we have a hundred people click on the ad, we can put 20 to 50 those into my funnel. Josh: Okay. So that's pretty good. That's definitely much, much better. And the research that I've done and I'm going to be honest to everyone here listening in podcast land, I am a novice when it comes to this, but I will say straight away they are very good conversions. Now, if we rewind 20 years and as Mike was saying, he was here in the SMS boom and using some mobile marketing stuff. If we rewind 20 years, the effectiveness of email marketing, I would say, is on parity now with what you'd be having with Facebook Messenger marketing. Would you say I'm talking out my arse? Or where are you at? Mike: Yeah, I would say you're talking out your arse. Messenger is a new beast. So especially when we're talking mixing with Ads, putting the bot inside your website, all that kind of stuff. Obviously it's going to be a bit higher. Messenger, actually, we're getting a higher rate with Messenger that we were with SMS. Josh: Sweet. Mike: Especially when you're pushing messages back out. The read rate is somewhere between the 90 to 95% mark. So the strategies we're educating our clients on is getting them into your list, and then use Facebook sponsored messaging from Messenger to pull them back in. And that's where it's going to become a little bit different down the track because that's the way Facebook wants us to go. We believe that that's going to be way out the way what your gang did to get from SMS. Josh: All right. So hold on. You're saying that not only can you attract them through Facebook using their APIs, you're able to push them into your CRM system from the CRM system, then able to enable any other automated marketing systems that whether it be through email or anything else, is that right? Mike: Oh, absolutely. No, no. If you can pull the data in you can use any CRM you like. What I'm suggesting here is if it's in Messenger, purely Messenger in your inbox, what we're able to do is push back out to those Messenger users through Messenger. Mike: So we're getting a higher conversion rate there. So what we're able to do inside Messenger is, imagine this. You can build the best email newsletter along with the best website pushing it out through SMS. That's what Messenger is all about. Josh: And it's on an engaging platform that everyone's on. Mike: That's right. And the more you push through it as an engagement, Facebook's AI algorithm was learning. So Facebook now knows where to point the rest of the people who are thinking and talking about the same thing. Josh: So that's pretty awesome. And I'd say everyone knows what the bell curve is. There's the adoption cycle and then the replication cycle. And then the people that finally jump on at the last stage there. I would say this is something that isn't like a wait until you hear your friend about doing it. Do it now, because you want to be at the start of the adoption cycle. Mike: Absolutely. Right now, Josh, mate, the number is out. Less than 1% of all business pages have an automated chatbot. There's a lot of business pages out there. There's about 600 million, I think that's the last wacko number they've come up with. They're telephone book numbers of course. But this means there's a lot of opportunities for small business to actually stake their client the same way if you were able to state your claim in 1995 on the internet. Josh: Well, I think that that that speaks worlds of words. If you're able to get on board now and have this done for your business, you're going to be seeing huge advantages. You're going to be seeing massive, massive lead generation. Your lead funnel's going to be full, really. Mike: Oh, mate, this is the simplest lead funnel ever invented for mankind. Josh: I don't need you to go through process and bits and pieces because as everything that lives on the internet lives forever, but my understanding is at the moment it's got a reasonably affordable entry price. Is that right? Mike: Yeah. I think he used a really good number there. 2020. If you want someone to professionally build it for you, you're looking at 2020. If you want to do it yourself, you can get on there for about 20 bucks and try and build it yourself. Knock yourself out. Anyone can do it. It all depends on, okay, what's your end goal? Do you want to actually turn it into a tool and generate leads and make money and do it the right way, or do you want to try and suffer and do it yourself? Mate, the videos are there, you can do it yourself. We'll provide all those videos. You just value your time, brother. Josh: I guess that comes down to one of the other episodes we've had there on money and being frugal. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not. It depends on what you charge yourself out at and making sure that you work out that's an acceptable rate. What I can say is if you check out Chatbot Agency, you're going to be able to see an amazing result with the professionalism as well as the speed to delivery, to be honest. And when you get that up, tell me, what have you seen? What's the fastest time you've seen a lead generated after you've had one of your bots be thrown up? Mike: Mate, I love telling this story. I do training for marketing people and it's basically a three or four-hour process, where we go through, we train them how to build the chatbot. So here we are teaching marketing people how to actually set up Facebook Ads and do their targeting. I assisted this young lady with putting together a real estate listing ad for her client. She must've been charging the guy three grand, but she only paid me 900 bucks. Josh: The story of my life. Mike: Yeah. So I trained her how to do it all herself and by the time she left my office and she was on the City Cat heading home, this is within an hour of running it, she had a phone call from the real estate agent going, "What is going on? My inbox is killing me. What am I meant to do now?" So that was within an hour. Josh: So there's no reason why you don't want to grow your business. You've got to jump on this. It's 2020. This is a new technology. You've got to be jumping onto it. Do you have anything else that you'd like to add before we round up this episode for today? Mike: Mate, I reckon, look, if you're a small business right now and you're not on Facebook, I suggest you do it, because it's going to be hanging around for a while now. There are so many people on the platform. Josh: It's no longer Myspace, is it? Mike: No. This has gone way past Myspace and it's probably the best platform where you can target to the right audience from interest-based, and it's actually pretty good fun. Josh: Cool. So everyone hear that? If you'd like chat bots, chat bot automation or anything like that, makes sure to jump onto Chatbot Agency and you'll be able to get some really, really cool deals thrown through there. I might even be able to get a link here, a specialised link that you'll be able to jump across and check out. It may maybe a cool deal from Dorks Delivered across to you guys. If you've enjoyed this episode, make sure to jump across to iTunes, leave us some love and stay good. Enjoy 2020.
更多英语知识,请关注微信公众号:VOA英语每日一听Mike: Hey, MJ, I heard that herbal tea is good for your complexion[面色,膚色,氣色]?MJ: Yes, I think so, cause recently I'm drinking lots of herbal tea, and then face getting more white and smooth I think. It really helps on your complexion. Mike, you should try sometime.Mike: Actually, for me, it's the opposite. My skin's pretty dry right now, especially since summer is coming, and so I've been using some kind of moisturizer[/ˈmɔɪs.tʃɚ.aɪ.zɚ/,保濕霜,滋潤霜] but it doesn't really work that well so maybe I should take up the ... I should start drinking herbal[香草的;藥草的] tea.MJ: Yeah, you should cause, a long time ago my face was kind of dry like you, but after drinking herbal tea, which my roommate recommended to me, and you really help your skin to be more bright and energetic. My skin no more dry. It's really good.Mike: Other than tea, what about food?MJ: I think garlic is really good for your complexion.Mike: Oh, I heard about that as well.MJ: Yeah, most Korean girls, they have such good skin, especially on their face, I think because they're eating kimchi which the main ingredient is garlic.Mike: Right, that's a big problem for me because I don't like garlic. I don't mind it if it's fried with vegetables, but I don't like the raw taste of garlic. Garlic's out for me, so are there any other stuff I can try?MJ: You know tomato? It is low calorie and it is a vegetable which tastes like fruit but is a vegetable that is really good for your complexion as well so if you like tomato, just try to take as many tomato as you can.Mike: Fresh tomato?MJ: Fresh tomato.Mike: What about like tomato-based stuff like pasta? Is that OK or is that no?MJ: That is OK but when you cook the tomato, there are vitamins just goes away, so the fresh one is better.Mike: Fresh stuff. OK. OK, I got that.MJ: By the way, what about Singapore? Like do girls eat special food for their skin?Mike: Good question. I don't know that much, but there's always this thing about eating tofu and for my dad, he doesn't even cook it. He eats it like ... he just eats tofu without cooking it. And my dad has great complexion. My mom, she drinks a combination of Bali Green. It's just a green substance from the bali plant, and she basically blends them together with garlic and one other fruit, and a little bit of honey and apple cider, so it's just a few ingredients together and then she mixes it with juice and she drinks it like every morning, but I've tried it but I don't like raw garlic so I couldn't stomach that, but my mom's complexion is good, but these are not only good for your complexion, this is just good for overall health.
更多英语知识,请关注微信公众号:VOA英语每日一听Mike: Hey, MJ, I heard that herbal tea is good for your complexion[面色,膚色,氣色]?MJ: Yes, I think so, cause recently I'm drinking lots of herbal tea, and then face getting more white and smooth I think. It really helps on your complexion. Mike, you should try sometime.Mike: Actually, for me, it's the opposite. My skin's pretty dry right now, especially since summer is coming, and so I've been using some kind of moisturizer[/ˈmɔɪs.tʃɚ.aɪ.zɚ/,保濕霜,滋潤霜] but it doesn't really work that well so maybe I should take up the ... I should start drinking herbal[香草的;藥草的] tea.MJ: Yeah, you should cause, a long time ago my face was kind of dry like you, but after drinking herbal tea, which my roommate recommended to me, and you really help your skin to be more bright and energetic. My skin no more dry. It's really good.Mike: Other than tea, what about food?MJ: I think garlic is really good for your complexion.Mike: Oh, I heard about that as well.MJ: Yeah, most Korean girls, they have such good skin, especially on their face, I think because they're eating kimchi which the main ingredient is garlic.Mike: Right, that's a big problem for me because I don't like garlic. I don't mind it if it's fried with vegetables, but I don't like the raw taste of garlic. Garlic's out for me, so are there any other stuff I can try?MJ: You know tomato? It is low calorie and it is a vegetable which tastes like fruit but is a vegetable that is really good for your complexion as well so if you like tomato, just try to take as many tomato as you can.Mike: Fresh tomato?MJ: Fresh tomato.Mike: What about like tomato-based stuff like pasta? Is that OK or is that no?MJ: That is OK but when you cook the tomato, there are vitamins just goes away, so the fresh one is better.Mike: Fresh stuff. OK. OK, I got that.MJ: By the way, what about Singapore? Like do girls eat special food for their skin?Mike: Good question. I don't know that much, but there's always this thing about eating tofu and for my dad, he doesn't even cook it. He eats it like ... he just eats tofu without cooking it. And my dad has great complexion. My mom, she drinks a combination of Bali Green. It's just a green substance from the bali plant, and she basically blends them together with garlic and one other fruit, and a little bit of honey and apple cider, so it's just a few ingredients together and then she mixes it with juice and she drinks it like every morning, but I've tried it but I don't like raw garlic so I couldn't stomach that, but my mom's complexion is good, but these are not only good for your complexion, this is just good for overall health.
更多英语知识,请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Mike: Hey, Mari. So, we're comparing places this week and you've lived in two great cities: Tokyo and New York and you speak both English and Japanese so you must know them very well, so can you tell me about the people in the places?Mari: In New York City, the people are friendly. If you're lost in the subway or you're not sure which bus to take, if you ask someone, even though they look pretty busy or absorbed they'll be willing to tell you which way you are supposed to go, and they'll be very blunt and tell you if they don't know which one you're supposed to take. When you go into the stores, the people in the stores are... they like to make small talk with you. They're interested in you as a person in terms of where you're from or you know, what you are looking for that day and why you are looking for that item.I think in Tokyo, if you are in the subway station, or the train station, the JR people or the subway people are very helpful in terms of which subway you're supposed to go on, or to help you get to that destination, but when you go into the stores, the clerks are very helpful in terms of finding whatever you're looking for, but I think because of the culture, they're not... they don't delve into your personal life as much as the shop attendants in New York.Mike: So in terms of food, how does it differ between New York and Tokyo?Mari: I think New York and Tokyo both have very international foods. In both cities, you can find foods from all over the world. I think that because New York City is a city of immigrants, you get very... the people who cook the foods are from that country, while in Japan I feel like if you go to a Mexican restaurant and you see like a Japanese person cooking the Mexican food, so I think that the cuisine, the international cuisine in New York City is more real versus the one in Japan.Mike: So, if you had to eat one thing in New York and one thing in Tokyo, what would it be?Mari: Oh, my gosh, that's a very difficult question. In New York City I would eat pizza. I think that they have the best pizza in the world. If you like greasy, cheesy pizza. In Japan, I really like the Italian food in Japan. I know that it's not very authentic Italian food but I think they do a really good job with Italian food here.Mike: Oh, that's interesting. So, in terms of shopping, where would you like to shop more?Mari: I feel like I'm going to be biased towards New York City but I think that the shopping in New York City is a lot better. The primary reason being that it's just cheaper.
更多英语知识,请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Mike: Hey, Mari. So, we're comparing places this week and you've lived in two great cities: Tokyo and New York and you speak both English and Japanese so you must know them very well, so can you tell me about the people in the places?Mari: In New York City, the people are friendly. If you're lost in the subway or you're not sure which bus to take, if you ask someone, even though they look pretty busy or absorbed they'll be willing to tell you which way you are supposed to go, and they'll be very blunt and tell you if they don't know which one you're supposed to take. When you go into the stores, the people in the stores are... they like to make small talk with you. They're interested in you as a person in terms of where you're from or you know, what you are looking for that day and why you are looking for that item.I think in Tokyo, if you are in the subway station, or the train station, the JR people or the subway people are very helpful in terms of which subway you're supposed to go on, or to help you get to that destination, but when you go into the stores, the clerks are very helpful in terms of finding whatever you're looking for, but I think because of the culture, they're not... they don't delve into your personal life as much as the shop attendants in New York.Mike: So in terms of food, how does it differ between New York and Tokyo?Mari: I think New York and Tokyo both have very international foods. In both cities, you can find foods from all over the world. I think that because New York City is a city of immigrants, you get very... the people who cook the foods are from that country, while in Japan I feel like if you go to a Mexican restaurant and you see like a Japanese person cooking the Mexican food, so I think that the cuisine, the international cuisine in New York City is more real versus the one in Japan.Mike: So, if you had to eat one thing in New York and one thing in Tokyo, what would it be?Mari: Oh, my gosh, that's a very difficult question. In New York City I would eat pizza. I think that they have the best pizza in the world. If you like greasy, cheesy pizza. In Japan, I really like the Italian food in Japan. I know that it's not very authentic Italian food but I think they do a really good job with Italian food here.Mike: Oh, that's interesting. So, in terms of shopping, where would you like to shop more?Mari: I feel like I'm going to be biased towards New York City but I think that the shopping in New York City is a lot better. The primary reason being that it's just cheaper.
Kay and Derek are back to talk about Week 2 of Bachelor in Paradise. Derek tells us what it’s like to watch himself on the show and admits to losing sleep this week. At 6:20 they spill the weekly tea on Bachelor Nation news, including Jared and Ashley’s wedding and the latest on Tyler and Gigi. At 9:30 they discuss night-one of the week where Derek gave Demi the first rose, Cam forced himself to cry, and Dylan awkwardly interrupted Blake and Hannah. Plus, they talk about the tension between Mike and Cam, and recap what went down with Katie and Wills. At 41:45 they dive into night-two, including a conversation about slut-shaming and the purity of Dylan. They also talk about the arrival of an unrecognizable Dean and reflect on Derek’s tender moment with Demi. At 1:09:05 they finally discuss the shocking fight between Jordan and Christian. Will Jordan be sent home next week? They finish out the show with the salty, sweet and cheesy moments of the week, and their Cringe Harrison Award winner. Thanks to our sponsors! SkinnyPop Popcorn: You can find SkinnyPop at retailers nationwide, or go to shop.skinnypop.com!
Donnie: Alright was this is going to be an amazing episodes we are going to sit down with mike Michalowicz, We didn’t spend whole lot of time on a back story, we just started jumping in a lot of the philosophy of business, entrepreneurism and there wasn’t any flop, it was a pretty cool conversation, I really enjoyed and I know a lot of you guys asked for me to get him on the show you could more of an intimate conversation with him so I think you are really going to enjoy this one. And this show has been for a quite few episodes now, is brought you by point blank safety services, so Stacy and Mike are doing awesome and amazing things for the freeways and highways and everything they do by protecting the constructions workers, drivers and just keeping everybody safe while helping police officers that we know aren’t just paid enough to do what they do and put their lives on the line every day for us, so they are really helping this police officers not only protecting us in the afterhours but protect their families financially by giving them additional jobs and work they can do on a regular basis, these guys are doing just tremendous work. And I love that they have taken their business success and turned it out over to the nonprofit they started which is called … family fund you know that organization is giving scholarships and is helping out the families of fallen officers, you know it’s really cool to see a company remember really where they came from and really giving back to the community as a whole, so do me a favor guys, go follow them on Facebook, go them out on Instagram, check out their website, send them messages and let them know Donnie sent you , you can find almost everything that they are at either at … family fund or point safety in almost all platforms, say hi to them, I couldn’t do this show without them. So I know a lot of you guys have been harassing me about get mike on the show, so I’m bringing on Mike Michalowicz and this going to be a lot of fun, we already smoke and joke about two Polish guys on a podcast, what could be wrong? But this is going to be interesting, I’m Donnie Boivin this is Donnie’s success champions, mike tell us your story brother, welcome to the show! Mike: Donnie thank you for having me, I’m an author, I’m excited to be here and I’m on a missing to eradicated entrepreneur poverty, there are so many elements I struggle with entrepreneurship and some many fellow entrepreneurs struggle with and my goal is to fix that for all of us. Donnie: I love the whole phrase, entrepreneur poverty, because that was my business for a long time you know. Mike: Well you know what it is, Donnie when you started your business I suspect is the same as I started mine and everyone listening, you star your business and his friends who never own a business, they look at you and they who “oh you started a business, you are millionaire and you sit in the beach and all you do is sit and all you do is drink margaritas” There is this perception as that if you are business owner, you are wealthy and you got all the time in the world, the reality is the opposite, so we have no time, we work our ass off, we sacrifice family, we don’t go on vacations anymore and we make no money! As the general population we are struggling financially, so there is this gap and I called entrepreneurial poverty and so my mission is to resolve that, to make us what we are envisioned to be and when you have wealth and you have time you can be of impact you can serve others, I mean we need to do this. Donnie: No I love this, because Ii think there is one more twist on that whole entrepreneurial jump, because if they don’t think are automatically super wealthy the other questions is, what the hell do you actually do for a living? Laugh Donnie: So you are not only battling how much money you are supposedly making and all this freedom that you have, you know my wife, people still ask her, what does Donnie do? And she’s like, he kind of does this podcast, speaking, I don’t know what he does. Mike: Is fine, so when I sold my first company I go proud, I came home to my dad and said “Dad I sold my business” and told them what happened, and he goes “congratulations, so you are gonna have a really job now” and I’m like what? And he’s “yeah because your security and all that” And I love my parents, they have been extraordinary to me, they love me, both of them tho are in trap in their perception of what success is, get a job, stick to a job for entirety of your life, and I think we are surrounded by that perception, spouse, have other perceptions, as entrepreneur the rule is to break the rules, to challenge industries, to bring in our concepts, is new to everyone, Everyone’s is like “what the F are you doing?” is not comprehensible. Donnie: You know is all interesting, I don’t about you, but when I launched my business, it took me a long time to realize that I spent so long as an employed so when I launched a business I kept constantly trying to almost create a job for myself vs a company and I get lost in the business because it was so hard to make that shift, that is why I tell people that entrepreneurs a made not born because you get punched in the face a lot by life to start figuring things out, was that kind of the same thing to you or you just stepped in gold and riches fell from the sky? Laugh Mike: Oh of course that was exactly my journey! I started the business and people where throwing money at me like what= Is this real? NO! No of course, my first business was in computers system, I was a computer guy and I open the door. Donnie: Where’s your pocket protector I don’t see it? Mike: Yeah well yeah, actually Donnie that’s what happens , I made a few phone calls and said I started a business and the money will flow in, I called a few people and they were “Oh congratulations, but I’m already taking care of” I said what? You know! I’m your friend! “No, I’m taking care of” and at the end of the day of and they didn’t mean, the holy crap moment kicked in, I think, in the beginning stages, and actual motivators for us entrepreneurs is fear, the first few years of my business I was terrified and what that terror does is kept me awake, I would wake up at 4 in the morning and get to work whatever it takes and I worked until midnight and repeat the process all over again because I was scared I was desperate as parent, the challenge tho is that fear in certain point becomes detrimental it gives you energy but it also gives you stress and start breaking you down, so illness kicks in or exhaustion so of course is a flip side, you don’t want to live in fear for the entirety of your life, use it as a spark and the over time you need to convert that idea was to confidence and when I started to get a bit of a routine I started to see some results, I said ok I’m gonna trying and repeat on that and I started to focus on what was working and doing more of what was working. Mike: But of course for none of us, you don’t start a business and the money falls in your laps and if it does, you are lottery winner but is actually a curse because then you believe that you don’t need and effort to make this money and so I think when you see on the cover of Ink Magazine “Oh started a business when she was 23 years old and by 24 is a billionaire” In many cases that becomes detrimental because they don’t understand the real journey of an entrepreneur, which is the struggle on the valley to get to the peaks. Donnie: Yeah Jim Ron when back to as far as motivational speakers go, he’s got a great phrase, he said, the first thing you done when you are handed a million dollars is you mentally have become a millionaire because most people will go through that ride and journey to whatever success they get through and is all those lessons that mold and prepared them for that success and I looked on people that entrepreneur is the new multilevel marketing thing because people go into multilevel marketing or neuro marketing and they are like “Oh Imma be a millionaire tomorrow you know, this I the greatest thing, I can sleep whenever I want t and do all that” so they launch businesses thinking along the same lines and I was just guilty of it, when I launched my business I thought the heaven was going to open up and everybody was going to be “Finally Donnie show up, let’s make a lot of money together” not knowing that you have to learn to run a business before you can try to find any sort of success but is a really interesting twist that how much you have to personally evolve along that journey to become a better version for yourself Mike: Holy F and true, and I love it you called the multilevel marketing but I sort of had a sentiment of it about a year ago kicked in, everything I talked about is entrepreneur and entrepreneurship and all the books I write, everything’s is of the entrepreneur, I’m sort started to becoming convinced that the word entrepreneur I a dastardly term now, I think is actually hurting us because entrepreneur has been equated to hustle and grind and I hate those terms, I hate them, so I understand the sentiment tho, I understand hustle and grind means you gotta make effort, like when I started my businesses fear was my motivator, I had to hustle and grind, here is the problem I think people are interpreting that entrepreneurship is perpetual hustle and grind and ten years into you belter be grinding out, in twenty years you better be grinding harder, you gotta carry this business on your back and this is the antithesis of what entrepreneurship is, the true definition is identifying n opportunity, taking a risk to make it happen and the choreographing all these resources, people, technology and even your clients to make that vision a reality, is not doing the work is the choreographing of other resources. I tell people, I was speaking yesterdays at an event and I’m on a room as an entrepreneur and I say yeah I got a challenge for you, when you are at a dinner party and someone ask you got you do, what do you say? And often is “I’m an entrepreneurs that does X” What about we don’t use the word entrepreneur anymore, and not even business owner because is the same thing, what if you call yourself a shareholder in a business, just by changing that label people are “what the what? Donnie: If somebody hit’s me that I would be like “what?” Mike: You know many people are shareholders, I own some stock, I’m in mutual funds, I’m a shareholder, no do I go to these companies and hustle to make successful? No, Do I do anything in the business? No! I do row when it comes to share holder boats and stuff, I do give I some directions as shareholder but I’m not actively participating in it, when we use the label entrepreneur we are saying that we actively work our asses of inside the business and I think we use the term shareholder is shocks ourselves back to reality, that our mission is to vote maybe through some action but. Donnie: Wait you should make a book out of this. Mike: How should I call it? Donnie: I don’t but something along the lines of start calling yourself a shareholder I think because is a cool philosophy. Mike: Is funny, so I may have a title now called “entrepewhore”. Laugh Mike: My publisher I told him and probably nah I don’t think so but maybe, because I think we bastardize ourselves so much we got to change our label if we change our label we change our behavior, is hard to change our behavior first still holding all labels Donnie: I agree with that, I got a funny book too, it’s called, “that’s not how you journal jackass”, so I got one of those too, is an eBook is free. Here is what I do, when I launched my business I had no idea how to call myself, I really didn’t think I was an entrepreneur because I think in true to my opinion, are the craziest sons of a bitch on the face of the earth because you got to be jut that shit crazy nuts to go launch a business, so I was warping my head around that I more this business owner that wanted to create this one business, this one company , this model and take it through, wasn’t it really worried about even a legacy type thing, I just wanted to get to that freedom state and I never been hung up on titles and such and people keep asking me, what do you put on a business card, my name? I didn’t know what to actually put in there, but it evolved, now is says business owner, I think I out CEO in one point but I’m like, Am I a CEO? I got virtual assistants but I don’t really have employees so am I a really a CEO? You know, but you dance with all this thought processes and I really love this whole idea of your shareholder because it really makes you shock your own system to reinvent how you position yourself in the market place. Mike: You know this plays out to employees too, my company is tiny we have 13 employees, I am number 14, we were a micro business and I used to give my colleagues big titles, so I bring someone on and maybe call them the CFO or the office manager and what I found is this that they just like me started believing the title as like who they are, so I had a person who has not even a degree in accounting, she was part time, but she was handling our number so instead of calling her the internal booking person I said we are going to call you the CFO, she went online and found that instead of paying $30.000 that’s what we were paying for that a typical CFO makes a $125.000 so she came back to me literally and said Mike I’m being so freaking underpay I’m being a CFO for this organization I’m not on 125.000 you are ripping me off, and I’m look whoa is just a title and she is no all CFO’s make that and my response was, you can’t got to Ford or GE and say I want to be your CFO and 125, is just a title , didn’t matter she quit, she couldn’t comprehend that, what I realize is that once we star owning a title that becomes who we are, is not just true for us the entrepreneurs, it’s true for all the humanity, if we call ourselves stupid then you become stupid if you say I’m lazy you will become lazy, if you say I’m driven you will become driven, but you have to keep on repeating enough times until you actually believe it to comply with that title otherwise we can’t own that title. So be very judicious in how you use titles is kind of the lesson here. Donnie: Yeah I love it, so Kevin is known to build all the automation to backing up my stuff, he put under the title of my first email campaign “founding badass of success champions “ and I’m like ok I take that, so if you are going yourself a tittle that you want to step into , you know that you want to own, like “founding badass” or something else along those lines, but is interesting I can see that, going through my career there was part that wanted to be a sales manager and I got sales manager and I’m said “fuck, I don’t want to be a sales manager” so there is a lot to be said in those roles, in corporate America structure formality, there’s a lot of responsibility in owning certain titles. Mike: Totally is, I think as a small business owner I aspired, not anymore, I aspired to be the big company, I wanted to have a billion dollar corporation, I wanted to be the CEO of Amazon after Jeff retire I wanted to take over, so I wanted to make my own version so I said if I want be that I have to act as if, that’s a popular term, act as if, so I’m gonna start using those tittle right now, but in the outside world that’s kinda of a shame, if I call myself the CEO and I walk in with my little company, people are like, who many people report to you? But none is only a couple of virtual people, are you really a CEO? O are you an entrepreneur that’s is starting in bootstrapping, so there is a risk there too, theirs is this disconnect and if we package ourselves in the wrong way is dangerous in fact our business … no titles whatsoever, because I do know that I go into a sales situation, sometimes it helps to say that I’m the owner and sometimes it helps to say that I’m the sales guy and being the owner is actually a detriment so I think a title is just a thing of conversation in what e aspire to have but also have to see the outside perception around titles. Donnie: I got other question because I know my followers have been counting on me and I got a lot of people that followed your book First, it was the first book that I read of yours and horrible book by the way. Laugh Mike: Worst book of all the time, hey at least I got a ranking somehow. Donnie: Hey you put profit in there; at least it has to sell one book. Mike: Right! I should have put an F bomb because that seems to be the popular books now, the subtle art of F’ing and I should put like F profit or something. Donnie: You know I’ve been getting a lot of the guys out of the UK right no on the podcast because they are really trying to make a push, they are calling it “the UK invasion” where a lot of the UK speakers are trying to come to the US and is so funny when they come to the podcast because I cursed a lot but those dudes say cursing to a whole other level. Mike: The brits do? Donnie: Oh my god yeah! And I have to forward warning because there a couple words they throw around like candy and I’m like, ok look, this is a US based primary show, I mean it plays in almost a 100 countries now but you got to be careful with the certain couple of words, the F bomb fine, but there are some other words they can’t just bring to the table! But profit first, that and pumpkin plan I think two of the two books of yours that get thrown around the most, at least on my circles, is profit first the first book out of the collection. Mike: So I’ve written 5 books, technically 6 as profit first has been re-released as revising expanded so that counts too, so I wrote this book of toilet paper entrepreneur. Donnie: Oh I remember that! Mike: Kind of a spit on the face of traditional authorship and it was my angry teenage years but it worked, it worked to put me on the map, at least with the publisher and it built a small … The pumpkin plan was my first kind of mainstream book and profit first was the break through. Donnie: That’s the one that really put you on the map, I’m in forward Texas, you know my hometown and I know there is a little workshop group to get together and discussed that book- Mike: Oh that’s awesome I love to hear- Donnie: And the content and everything is out of that, but I’m curious, when you wrote that book was that philosophy for your business? Or something you were attempting to do and you thought it would be the breakthrough for other people if you took on the same thing. Mike: No, it was purely for me, here’s interesting when you hear the resume of an entrepreneur like me I share the highlights, got a company, sold it, the thick of the story for most entrepreneurs is the struggle, the entrepreneur poverty and I have evaporated all the wealth I’d accumulated in some priors businesses that were dealing with debt, I was able to sell them pay off the debt and make money and never really understood profit, I started this 3rd business that … my resume I evaporated everything I had, lost my house over it, lost possessions, did not loss my family, that’s one thing, they stood by me, went through depression for a couple years, from 2008 to 2010, the highest level was called functional depression, you are a drinker and stuff and during that phase I realized that I fundamentally didn’t know the most basic elements of entrepreneurship, profits is one, I realized all the things I was doing was misunderstood, and profit what I realized is that we have been told profit is the bottom line or were you rent, every book I read is profit comes last, and I realized omg I’ve been putting profit last, I didn’t consider it until once a year I looked at profit and I’m like “Dammit, maybe next year”. Donnie: Wait so your business is supposed to profit? I’m confused by that. Laugh Mike: That’s what my old accountant said,” you don’t want to profit, hey congratulations you got nothing left” And I’m like “what?” Donnie: Hey that’s the whole reason I’m in business. Mike: And that made no sense, and entrepreneurship is not a parent child relationship, I call it BS on that, we often say hey I started a business I gave life to it is my child and one day I will nurture it and it will come back and feed me, no, is more of conjoint twins, as the business goes we go and as we go the business goes so if I’m struggling at home my business is going to struggle and if I’m going struggling on business my home is going to struggle, especially the finances, pour finances are in so last step, so I say I really gotta resolve this and I realize that is human nature when something comes last is insignificant , so profit can’t be last, profit has to be first, and the exclusion of course says, make profit to have it, every time you sell take a predetermined percentage of that money, is profit, hide it away in your business, repeat day in and day out and you will assure profitability. Donnie: Is awesome, is one of those book, at least it was for me when I read through it, it just made sense, because same thing, school hard … somebody could tell me the stove is hot three times and still touch twice to just to make sure. Laugh Donnie: But it’s one of those book that when you read you are like “ok that make sense to me why I don’t do it”? So I started to employing some of the principals of the company and the being typical growing up financially foolish, “oh we are hitting a down turn, let’s just pull form the profit pile we have already put into the business” and you are like ok that’s not the whole principles of the book but it was a fun read, what did the success of that book do for your business, you company, what evolved or changed for you? Mike: That’s an interesting question, there’s a couple of realizations, when the book hit, so it came out 4 years ago and 2 years ago I did the re-release and it hit right away, is funny how ego is, I got like omg all this main stages, Seth Golden move here comes Mike “Polish” Michalowicz. Donnie: Because you got that name that belongs in light. Mike: Right, exactly, when you hit the movie theatre and my name is two lines.. Donnie: Or is turned down on the edged Mike: I think the better one is a limp penis of an A, So first my ego is move over Seth Golden, here comes the new main stager and it was like deadly silence, I’m like for how long? The book is so popular and went on for a year like this and my agent who I spoke to me was “get ready for the pumped up fees” nothing, and so I was like I guess it takes more than just a popular book, and yea about a year ago also did … is not move over Seth Golden but is oh you are speaking Seth Godin is coming after you. So that happened, so I realize is when a book hits it takes time for it to start playing out in other facets which is speaking but I think that satisfies my ego and I love public speaking and is a joy. Donnie: Look, nobody writes a book without waiting a little bit of that ego. Mike: I call it C list celebrity. Donnie: So if there’s another alphabet out there I am in that I alphabet. Mike: I put myself in position C , what’s funny that means that if I walk through an airport none knows who I am, except one person every like 3 or 4 airport checks will say “AAAAA” and you get one fan that comes and say “ARE YOU MIE MICHALOWICZ?” actually one person came up and said “ARE YOU TONY HAWK?” And I’m like fuck no, but somebody will say that, and I’ll be like who is this guy, is very weird. Donnie: You next book you just gotta put your picture on the cover that is all. Mike: I will put a Tony Hawk picture, be my strange brother tony hawk. Is this kind of weirs moments when none knows who I am but one person who just happens and lose their shit but everyone else is confused by and everyone’s like why? Who’s this guy? Is he a doctor? Did he save your life? But the bigger thing is I’m on my mission to eradicated entrepreneurial poverty now we get the metrics in place, and I get emails actually I can see we get two since we started the interview, I get emails in 3-4 5-6 hour now of people saying, because I actually ask people to email me on the book, I say emails if you commit to this and they are coming constantly now and I can see I can measure the changes having in business and that is the greatest joy of my life, If I am ever down, for me is just log in the email now and sit there for an hour and everything is ok Mike, you are not looser. Donnie: I wanted people to hear that last phrase you said, everybody’s chasing something you know and I had a lot of coming even this morning with the couple guys I was talking to, they were liken men I could just have this happen to my life, life would be X, and I keep telling life is never X, life is right now, is that time you need to embrace you don’t need some sort of trigger mechanism to be catapulted to the next version of your life and I love the fact that you were humble enough to say that there are days like, this day sucks, this day is horrible and you gotta go look in the email to make sure life is on the same path and track, because is good for people who aren’t even in the first level on the alphabet list, you know you got the C list rockstar status to hear those kind of things because they are a lot of people, I know fans of the show I know were like “holy cow is Mike Michalowicz, he’s got “Profit First” and this and the other and they put you into rockstar status and often times when people put people on that rockstar status they gave them like the super power feed of strength and everything else, like nothing ever happens to them they are always killing it and crushing it and I really appreciate that humility you speak through. Mike: I want to speak that because I think is so important, I believe when we see someone as in a better position we put them on a pedestal, we look up to them, really that is a form of envy and I think is really damaging to ourselves, if you say “oh this guy is better than me, I wish I liked him” but in the same we are saying “I’m less than” and when we see ourselves as less then we want to disassociate, we actually one to pull someone down, as human nature say, well that person is not observing, Michalowicz they guy that probably got myself in driving, you pull in down, pity is just as damaging, pity is where you see yourself here and then there’s this homeless person in the street and “Thank god is not me” that causes a voidance when we move around them, both are form of dissociation an so I think they are very damaging. I don’t think we should ever use the term look up towards someone or look down to someone, I think we should always say look over, as cheesy as it is I’m big on like totems and this things you can see as the infinity circle and is my reminder that all of us are on the exact same path, no one is front or behind each other, we are on different positions of the path and we have just much to learn from someone who’s in the deepest struggles as someone that we perceived is having the greatest successes, all of them are learning experiences and we can call from each other but if we look up or look down we disassociate, I think we need to say Donnie I look over to you I want to learn from you, tell me your secrets, Mike I look over to you, so I say never look up, never look down. Donnie: I love that, I never heard it put in that perspective but you know Richard Branson when he takes people out to his private island , one of the first things he asked to everybody out there is, teach me something and I’ve always been fascinated by it because you got Richard Branson, one of the wealthiest man in the world , one of the most cool CEO, at least that is the brand he puts in the market place, a whole part of that is true but the fact that everybody comes back from me to the island going “Richard Branson asked me to teach him something” and I’m always curious to say, what could you teach as Richard Branson and I think a lot of those pull some random shit out their ass but “I taught Richard Branson” Really? Really!? Mike: I never heard that story I love it and I think it speaks therefore to great intelligence because I bet you, we all got something to teach as much as he teaches us, I don’t think he is more successful than a brand new startup entrepreneur, by certain definitions, the wealthy accumulated, the exposure he’s gotten, I don’t know and this is no judgment, I don’t know what his family is like , I don’t know what is balance is like, I don’t know his contribution to society is like, I don’t know, I also think that we hold people to a higher celebrity ship when they have broader impact as oppose to deep impact and I think most of us are designed for deep impact, Let me use doctor Oz because that example come to mine, Initially he was a cardiovascular surgeon with very deep impact, he saved some people’s life forever, he gave people not 6 more hours of life but 60 more year of life because of his work, he then made a choice to go broad meaning he went on Oprah he started to talking about health and then the guys is Impacting many people, the difference is , Doctor Oz now has a very broad impact but is very shallow you see him on tv shows and eat your vegetables is the lessons, when we worked as a cardiovascular surgeon, now he’s got a very deep impact, I think is a choice and I don’t think is one is better than the other, the shame is we hold up to celebrity ship people with only broad impact, it’s the famous football player, the famous movie start or the famous author like Malcom Gladwell, someone I exalt but never met Malcom Gladwell he just had an impact in some many people and is a name other people recognize I think is equal regardless of what we do of significance and people that are going for deep impact, I guess the lesson here is don’t aspire to be broad, aspire to be who you are call to be, if it’s deep go deep, if it’s broad is broad if it’s something else do it, just speak truly to yourself, they are all significant. Donnie: Man I love that, is such a powerful message because most people in my belief that have hit a celebrity status they are really good at one thing. It comes down to … marketing, I tell people all the time Tony Robbins, one of the biggest motivational speaker of the world and I ask people all the time and they are like omg is Tony Robins, Tony Robins, he’s done amazing things I’m not knocking down for anything but I ask people all the time, What’s Tony’s job? “Oh he is the CEO of the company blah blah blah” and I mean no he is not, and they look at me like “ what do you mean?” He is the face of the company, Garyvee, he is the face of the company and even Mike Michalowicz a C list celebrity is the face of the company, now all that to say is not meaning they are not making decisions, they are not having vision but they are the PR machine their job is to build brand new awareness for the company is the broad stroke. Mike: Is like a band, the front man is the one who everyone knows and is constantly with the groupies but the drummer and the bassist and the keyboardist who’s behind the curtains sometimes they are the ones collectively that need to make the music and I think that is what this organizations have, I think we can positon ourselves as the spokesperson and we will get all the accolades, I think the day I sort believe in that, over. Donnie: Have you seen bohemian rhapsody yet? The movie? Mike: Yeah. Donnie: I love the whole scene where the lead singer of Queen, can’t remember his name. Mike: Freddie Mercury. Donnie: Yes Freddie Mercury, thank you, that he hits all the fame and he goes out of his own and launches his own band and he’s trying to create the music and it all fails and he goes back to his guys and he goes “they did everything I told them to do” and I’m like that’s it! And he goes “They weren’t pushing back they did everything and the problem is I don’t know how to do all the stuff that you are great that” Mike: I think a great leader recognizes that , as a spokes persons you gotta be careful about being inauthentically humble, I see that too, and is like “oh is not me is not me” and declining as is actually discrediting the people who are fans of you, you can’t do that, the same thing you can’t say “this is all me” because you discrediting the people collectively making the product or the service that you do, so is a fine balance, I also think for the rest of the band, like Freddie mercury was the recognize brand and you have Brian May and then two guys like what was their names? That’s an ego check for them too but they are just as important. Donnie: Even if Freddie would have made it in a solo type carrier thing, even then he still has a band behind him. Mike: Even that is true. Donnie: The craziest thing about this whole ride and journey, I know the good things I’m good at, I’m really good on podcast, really good on interviews, well talking on stages but here is the thing I suck at the accounting side of things, I should read you book again “profit first” maybe probably help me out a little bit, but it’s a lot for entrepreneurs, business owners, whatever screwing tittle you want to give yourself, founding badass, is knowing your lane and knowing what you are good at and finding the right people that geek out on the stuff you suck at, is like I’ve got people that do some video editing for me, they freaking love that stuff, I’ve got people that do automated email for me, the gal who does some of the writing for me I call her a magician every Tim, I don’t know how she takes all the crap I put together spins it up and turns it into a master piece, she’s just got gift and a talent for it, but a lot of that is a humbleness for an individual to go “ok this is my lane, this is what I’m good at, how do I get other people to come along for that ride to pick up the slacks for me”. Mike: There is this thing I call the super hero syndrome when we first start a business we have to do everything, you have to do the accounting, you have to do marketing, there is no one else there, you have to, and we start believing wow I can do anything and then we start superheroing in swiping in when there’s problem oh I will fix this I will fix that, and the trap is, when we bring on employees we actually interning with their progress, they start doing something and we swop in we fix it we resolve, disabling them from doing the work themselves, plus we leave often awaken destruction behind us, entrepreneur like myself are known to fix the 5% of the problem, the big part that is noticeable and 95% like we can skip that and there is this shattered destruction behind us that needs to be swooped and cleaned up, I found that I can’t change my ego, I can’t tell “I’m just going to be mister Mike humble and everything is fine” what I did find is that I can rechannel my ego, I used to be very proud of being the superhero, the savior of my business, and now I use the term supervisionary and what that means to me is that I’m clear of where I want to take this organization but I am also as importantly clear about where my individual colleagues want to go with their lives and then my job is ok “how can I help Amy and Mike and Ron and Kelsey to achieve what their vision is personally and have that aligned the business” and I put more significance on that than being a super hero, now my ego is being filled, hey! I’m doing what I meant to do and the interesting is what I revert to being a super hero because I revert to that often and I say oh I fix this and I swipe in again, I realize that is a step down in where I see myself and put negative context around and I’m less likely to do it, before I thought if I had to remove myself form the business and no longer be the super hero I saw that as a step down so when I reverted back to this super hero role I was stepping up and therefore be stuck in it, so the goal is to put more significant to something else and it will naturally pull us put of doing the stuff that is actually not helping our business. Donnie: Yeah that’s a really interesting thought, I don’t have kids but I will say the next statement with that in front me, but often times, people that went through a rougher childhood, maybe didn’t have all the things they wanted as a kid and by the time they have kids they spoil they hell out of them because then have become success and the kids don’t learn the grind and drive that they learned to get and find the success, they hit the workplace and everything else and they will be a bit lost, entrepreneurs do the same thing with the employees, when you are taking care of the problem you are taking out he learning they need to evolve, I ran into this all the time in the creative side of things and Think this is probably the biggest screw that entrepreneur s have is they have a creative vision of their brand, their image, their everything else and when they try to explain to somebody else that other person doesn’t grasp their visions of what those color schemes or whatever else side of the businesses so they are like “Oh I screw up I will do this myself” Mike: I was talking to this guy Scott Alfred, I actually put him in one of my books, he said an entrepreneur would tell to an employee “hey we need to cook food here, get something that will cook food here” and they come back with sticks and rocks to spark a f ire and we are pissed of Like” Don’t you understand? I wanted a Viking?” and the employee is like “Oh I’m so sorry” but the reality is that we didn’t communicate what we wanted, they did the job, In other times they want the Viking and we just wanted sticks and rocks. So I think first of empowering them to make decision but also giving them the freedom that if they don’t comply to our vision to realize that maybe is not their fault, maybe we didn’t communicated well or maybe their vision for that thing is actually better than ours, maybe sticks and rocks is better, is this clinginess we have to what we have a personal vision or mission, how we see things in our mind and we can get upset when people don’t see what we see but we are often to communicating well at all. Donnie: Well and I would also add in there that I think, I want to speak for myself, there were a lot of times along this journey so far that I wanted somebody to swop in and take care of that problem for me, If this was an issue or problem and I wanted to go like “hey this is now yours” and take it completely of my plate and when it comes back and not what I had in vision and I am like “What the hell -” Mike: “ - Are you an idiot” Donnie: Right! Mike: That is called abdication; so many people think you are doing delegation when they are doing abdication. Donnie: Thank you I just added a whole new word today. Mike: Big word, I wanted to drop it, sort of finding where to use it. Laugh Donnie: You have been waiting the whole episode just to use that one. Mike: So I just thought of blurring it out if you didn’t have a question, but abdication is simply point someone and say you take care of this and that is the entire instruction said, and entrepreneurs are notorious for to scenarios, either micromanagement where is total control, here’s step 1, step 1.a - 1.b, or abdication which is the polar opposite and both of them are extremely ineffective, both of them prohibit growth to the organization. Donnie: So how does an individual doesn’t go to the extreme of both of those and actually find that happy medium combination because I’m guilty of both, Because sometimes I’m like “ok I have to tell them what to do or they are not going to figure it out so let’s roll out the power point and walk you through the 500 steps because I need it to get done” but other times I’m just off it, so how do I find the happy medium between those two? Mike: Is simply, you ask the employee, you say listen I want you to achieve certain results in the organization, I know you want to achieve these results, I will give you information, I need to know form you exactly what is enough information to give you direction or when am I going to the field that is too much, where’s actually hurting your creativity, I need the reverse too, if I’m giving just giving you way too little and you can’t achieve the visions that Ii have I need to know them too, is communication, is asking, shockingly we don’t do that often, is that you sit down the first day of the job and say “your job is to tell me when I’m not telling you what you need to know about me” that doesn’t make sense, is constant communication. Our little company we are going to a company retreat to Nashville Tennessee, literally next week and the whole thing is about communication, we are just going to sit there, have a talk, build a report, we have half day to set and learn from each other’s stories, because I know to grease the wheels of this organization is the communication and trust among each other is the ability of my colleague who I write her paycheck out to come back at me and say Mike you’re being an ass about so and so and not feeling threaten or in risk, that will only happen if we have a true connection beyond functional connection, if we have a human connection, I think there is where the answer comes. Donnie: And I love that, I think some people when they go into business they are looking for the pedestal, they are looking for people to look up to them and be that guy and I think that was a hard lessons for me because I know that was a part of my struggle as well is that I wanted people to seem me in a certain way which put me in this weird situation on how I was dealing with vendors and stuff until one of my mentors and coaches said dude, knock it off, but the whole thing is realizing that you are not superman, you are not creating something that hasn’t been created before, you are just repackaging somebody else’s shit up into a better more usable consumable product and format Donnie: I love the fact you are taking your employees in things like retreats and stuff, is that something you did out of the gate with your company or is that something you evolved into. Mike: Well we got it out the gate but is also something you have evolved into, well we had it out the gate but we’ve also evolved into, like going into Nashville is because we’ve had quarter after quarter of profitability that’s grown and we actually set an account called the retreat account so the firs retreat we went to Starbucks because we couldn’t afford lunch, me and my partner we jut said hey let’s just hang out before we get back to go back to work is something evolves, but what I did, recently I did the 4 week vacation, is something I wrote about in one of my book, so if you are going extract yourself from your business for 4 weeks, full disconnect and the business can grow or operate in your absence, you’ve proven the business can likely run into perpetuity in your absence. Donnie: I think that across the world every entrepreneur that just go and take this big gasp because they know way their business functions if they are gone. Mike: Which is a major problem, if you’re carrying the business on your back, and everyone will take the 4 week vacation or over, when get sick or die, so it’s going to happen, we are going to make it delivered so we are prepared for. The funny thing is that I’ve been presenting this concept around the world, when I was in Europe talking about this, we did this, literally yesterday, I flew back form BMW as there yesterday, all august, Germany shuts down and BMW ain’t going out of business, we need to do this for small businesses and so I went for 4 week vacation last year and when I did is not that business was perfect, I put a lot of structure in place to make it happen but there were some problems, one of the problems I realized is internal communication, I’ve become this choke point, when people have questions they come to me a group of come to me to see what’s Mike’s decision but they weren’t making laterally and internally, well I’m absence they were forced to, but there were some uncomfortable things like this person doesn’t really know the other person should approach them? Even if they went only 14 people, so that’s why we are doing this retreat, is all about just building report, we are going to do some cooking sessions together, we are going to have some wine together, we are just going to talk about our lives together, we are going to talk about our struggles and challenges, just to have that human connection, I really believe it greases the wheels. Donnie: Love it, I don’t why this popped to my head but I have strange question for you, what is your actual business? Mike: I don’t freaking know, laugh, I am a full time author, I write books, that’s what I do, so people think you can’t make any money out it, which is total bull, you can become very wealthy as an author if you do it right, the lessons here is I interviewed Tim Ferris on how to be an author a long time ago, he isn’t talking to me now, and he said of course you can make money, before that I was talking to people about being an author, and they said you make no money is horrible, and I said what has been your experience? I’ve never written a book, I don’t know, don’t trust people that haven’t done it, trust people who’ve done it, people that have failed learn why the fail and then learn and then I have talked to people who have been successful and find out the difference and go for the ones who are successful, I have a license: profit first, the pumpkin plan, clockwork, I have a new book coming out, to other companies and they pay me override of revenue so I have a constant revenue stream from all these different companies. Donnie: What do you mean by license, like program? Mike: Yes the program is called run like clockwork that teaches the clockwork system, they pay me a license in fee in front and 15% override … processionals for accountants. Donnie: You have accountants around the world. Mike: Yes over 350 and now and I license this organization but also in the case In that case I took an equity interest but the other two companies I don’t have any equity just the license in fee they pay me. So one of those things as people run their journey, one of the things I had to do was to turn to the people that has done it before , and realize somebody else had cut the trail, go learn from them and get advice from them along the way. Donnie: I gotta tell you man, this has been one hell of a ride I had no Idea about what you and I we were going to get into tonight and actually it has been kind of fun. Mike: Yeah on the recap my head says oh we talk about entreprewhore, you learned a new word abdicated. Donnie: Dude, don’t do the spelling bee on me, if you ask me to spell abdicate. Mike: I don’t know how to spell it I think it starts with an A Donnie: We talked about C level celebrities in there somewhere I am sure. Laugh Donnie: So that’s awesome, but dude I really appreciate the job done here, here’s how I like to wrap up every show and I do stump some people over this so get ready… Mike: 17 INCHES. Laugh Mike: Take it right? What’s the question? Laugh Donnie: I don’t want ask what 17 inches is! Now if you were going to leave the champions who listen to this show, people from all over the world, business owners, entrepreneurs, people who are trying to make the next movement in their life, if you were going to leave them with a quote a phrase a mantra or a saying, something they can take with them on their journey, especially when they are stack up against it and goring through what would be that quote or phrase you would say? Mike: So, I have it above my desk, Oscar Wilde says: Be yourself, everybody else is already taken. Donnie: Oh I love it is one of my favorite quotes from all time, didn’t know it came from Oscar Wilde, I saw it on a meme on Instagram and I thought “Oooh is brilliant”. Mike: Actually I went to Ireland, not specifically for this, but visited statue from him, visited his own home. Donnie: Where ahead in Ireland? because we were just there last year. Mike: Outside Dublin Donnie: Oh no kidding, Dublin was my least favorite city. Mike: Did you see the “Stiletto in the ghetto” the big spike in the middle of the city? Donnie: No we didn’t see that. Mike: I would say it was my least favorite too because is like any other metropolis. Donnie: That’s what my wife and I kept saying, is that if you go to Ireland go to Dublin and I would not knock in Ireland would no knock in Dublin by any means. Mike: No Omg. Donnie: Is like any other big city. Mike: The people in Ireland I would argue are the nicest people, India is number 2 but Ireland is number 1. Donnie: Did you do the breakfast thing? Mike: Yeah! Donnie: Dude I wanna tell you the nicest people, they were so genuine, and the breakfasts were insane. Mike: Insane, blood pudding. Donnie: And the two different styles and all that, so awesome, but look man I really appreciate what you doing, thanks for joining out and looking forward to many big things coming. Mike: Thank you! END OF INTERVIEW Donnie: Wow, what a fun episode, got to tell you, when you see one of these guys and hit some of the celebrity status and maintain this cool level of humility like Mike did all the way through this is just a fun thing to see is a great conversation you are part of. If you like those rise together authentic style conversations o a regular basis you really need to come and hang out with us in our Facebook group “success champions”, daily we are putting cool inspirational stuff or having awesome stories and we helping other rose and go together, so come hang out with us, just go to Facebook type In “success champions” look forward in groups join up and come tell us hi, we will be glad to have you there, if you got any value of this show whatsoever do me a favor, rate it, review it, share it with at least one fiend that would get value out of it, it would mean everything to me to get more people sharing and listening to these stories and ratings and reviews mean everything, so wherever you are listening this podcast, leave a rating leave a review, share it with a friend I really appreciate you guys, thank you for being a champion, thank you listening this show, keep on rolling shit up and keep going baby! 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Donnie: Alright was this is going to be an amazing episodes we are going to sit down with mike Michalowicz, We didn’t spend whole lot of time on a back story, we just started jumping in a lot of the philosophy of business, entrepreneurism and there wasn’t any flop, it was a pretty cool conversation, I really enjoyed and I know a lot of you guys asked for me to get him on the show you could more of an intimate conversation with him so I think you are really going to enjoy this one. And this show has been for a quite few episodes now, is brought you by point blank safety services, so Stacy and Mike are doing awesome and amazing things for the freeways and highways and everything they do by protecting the constructions workers, drivers and just keeping everybody safe while helping police officers that we know aren’t just paid enough to do what they do and put their lives on the line every day for us, so they are really helping this police officers not only protecting us in the afterhours but protect their families financially by giving them additional jobs and work they can do on a regular basis, these guys are doing just tremendous work. And I love that they have taken their business success and turned it out over to the nonprofit they started which is called … family fund you know that organization is giving scholarships and is helping out the families of fallen officers, you know it’s really cool to see a company remember really where they came from and really giving back to the community as a whole, so do me a favor guys, go follow them on Facebook, go them out on Instagram, check out their website, send them messages and let them know Donnie sent you , you can find almost everything that they are at either at … family fund or point safety in almost all platforms, say hi to them, I couldn’t do this show without them. So I know a lot of you guys have been harassing me about get mike on the show, so I’m bringing on Mike Michalowicz and this going to be a lot of fun, we already smoke and joke about two Polish guys on a podcast, what could be wrong? But this is going to be interesting, I’m Donnie Boivin this is Donnie’s success champions, mike tell us your story brother, welcome to the show! Mike: Donnie thank you for having me, I’m an author, I’m excited to be here and I’m on a missing to eradicated entrepreneur poverty, there are so many elements I struggle with entrepreneurship and some many fellow entrepreneurs struggle with and my goal is to fix that for all of us. Donnie: I love the whole phrase, entrepreneur poverty, because that was my business for a long time you know. Mike: Well you know what it is, Donnie when you started your business I suspect is the same as I started mine and everyone listening, you star your business and his friends who never own a business, they look at you and they who “oh you started a business, you are millionaire and you sit in the beach and all you do is sit and all you do is drink margaritas” There is this perception as that if you are business owner, you are wealthy and you got all the time in the world, the reality is the opposite, so we have no time, we work our ass off, we sacrifice family, we don’t go on vacations anymore and we make no money! As the general population we are struggling financially, so there is this gap and I called entrepreneurial poverty and so my mission is to resolve that, to make us what we are envisioned to be and when you have wealth and you have time you can be of impact you can serve others, I mean we need to do this. Donnie: No I love this, because Ii think there is one more twist on that whole entrepreneurial jump, because if they don’t think are automatically super wealthy the other questions is, what the hell do you actually do for a living? Laugh Donnie: So you are not only battling how much money you are supposedly making and all this freedom that you have, you know my wife, people still ask her, what does Donnie do? And she’s like, he kind of does this podcast, speaking, I don’t know what he does. Mike: Is fine, so when I sold my first company I go proud, I came home to my dad and said “Dad I sold my business” and told them what happened, and he goes “congratulations, so you are gonna have a really job now” and I’m like what? And he’s “yeah because your security and all that” And I love my parents, they have been extraordinary to me, they love me, both of them tho are in trap in their perception of what success is, get a job, stick to a job for entirety of your life, and I think we are surrounded by that perception, spouse, have other perceptions, as entrepreneur the rule is to break the rules, to challenge industries, to bring in our concepts, is new to everyone, Everyone’s is like “what the F are you doing?” is not comprehensible. Donnie: You know is all interesting, I don’t about you, but when I launched my business, it took me a long time to realize that I spent so long as an employed so when I launched a business I kept constantly trying to almost create a job for myself vs a company and I get lost in the business because it was so hard to make that shift, that is why I tell people that entrepreneurs a made not born because you get punched in the face a lot by life to start figuring things out, was that kind of the same thing to you or you just stepped in gold and riches fell from the sky? Laugh Mike: Oh of course that was exactly my journey! I started the business and people where throwing money at me like what= Is this real? NO! No of course, my first business was in computers system, I was a computer guy and I open the door. Donnie: Where’s your pocket protector I don’t see it? Mike: Yeah well yeah, actually Donnie that’s what happens , I made a few phone calls and said I started a business and the money will flow in, I called a few people and they were “Oh congratulations, but I’m already taking care of” I said what? You know! I’m your friend! “No, I’m taking care of” and at the end of the day of and they didn’t mean, the holy crap moment kicked in, I think, in the beginning stages, and actual motivators for us entrepreneurs is fear, the first few years of my business I was terrified and what that terror does is kept me awake, I would wake up at 4 in the morning and get to work whatever it takes and I worked until midnight and repeat the process all over again because I was scared I was desperate as parent, the challenge tho is that fear in certain point becomes detrimental it gives you energy but it also gives you stress and start breaking you down, so illness kicks in or exhaustion so of course is a flip side, you don’t want to live in fear for the entirety of your life, use it as a spark and the over time you need to convert that idea was to confidence and when I started to get a bit of a routine I started to see some results, I said ok I’m gonna trying and repeat on that and I started to focus on what was working and doing more of what was working. Mike: But of course for none of us, you don’t start a business and the money falls in your laps and if it does, you are lottery winner but is actually a curse because then you believe that you don’t need and effort to make this money and so I think when you see on the cover of Ink Magazine “Oh started a business when she was 23 years old and by 24 is a billionaire” In many cases that becomes detrimental because they don’t understand the real journey of an entrepreneur, which is the struggle on the valley to get to the peaks. Donnie: Yeah Jim Ron when back to as far as motivational speakers go, he’s got a great phrase, he said, the first thing you done when you are handed a million dollars is you mentally have become a millionaire because most people will go through that ride and journey to whatever success they get through and is all those lessons that mold and prepared them for that success and I looked on people that entrepreneur is the new multilevel marketing thing because people go into multilevel marketing or neuro marketing and they are like “Oh Imma be a millionaire tomorrow you know, this I the greatest thing, I can sleep whenever I want t and do all that” so they launch businesses thinking along the same lines and I was just guilty of it, when I launched my business I thought the heaven was going to open up and everybody was going to be “Finally Donnie show up, let’s make a lot of money together” not knowing that you have to learn to run a business before you can try to find any sort of success but is a really interesting twist that how much you have to personally evolve along that journey to become a better version for yourself Mike: Holy F and true, and I love it you called the multilevel marketing but I sort of had a sentiment of it about a year ago kicked in, everything I talked about is entrepreneur and entrepreneurship and all the books I write, everything’s is of the entrepreneur, I’m sort started to becoming convinced that the word entrepreneur I a dastardly term now, I think is actually hurting us because entrepreneur has been equated to hustle and grind and I hate those terms, I hate them, so I understand the sentiment tho, I understand hustle and grind means you gotta make effort, like when I started my businesses fear was my motivator, I had to hustle and grind, here is the problem I think people are interpreting that entrepreneurship is perpetual hustle and grind and ten years into you belter be grinding out, in twenty years you better be grinding harder, you gotta carry this business on your back and this is the antithesis of what entrepreneurship is, the true definition is identifying n opportunity, taking a risk to make it happen and the choreographing all these resources, people, technology and even your clients to make that vision a reality, is not doing the work is the choreographing of other resources. I tell people, I was speaking yesterdays at an event and I’m on a room as an entrepreneur and I say yeah I got a challenge for you, when you are at a dinner party and someone ask you got you do, what do you say? And often is “I’m an entrepreneurs that does X” What about we don’t use the word entrepreneur anymore, and not even business owner because is the same thing, what if you call yourself a shareholder in a business, just by changing that label people are “what the what? Donnie: If somebody hit’s me that I would be like “what?” Mike: You know many people are shareholders, I own some stock, I’m in mutual funds, I’m a shareholder, no do I go to these companies and hustle to make successful? No, Do I do anything in the business? No! I do row when it comes to share holder boats and stuff, I do give I some directions as shareholder but I’m not actively participating in it, when we use the label entrepreneur we are saying that we actively work our asses of inside the business and I think we use the term shareholder is shocks ourselves back to reality, that our mission is to vote maybe through some action but. Donnie: Wait you should make a book out of this. Mike: How should I call it? Donnie: I don’t but something along the lines of start calling yourself a shareholder I think because is a cool philosophy. Mike: Is funny, so I may have a title now called “entrepewhore”. Laugh Mike: My publisher I told him and probably nah I don’t think so but maybe, because I think we bastardize ourselves so much we got to change our label if we change our label we change our behavior, is hard to change our behavior first still holding all labels Donnie: I agree with that, I got a funny book too, it’s called, “that’s not how you journal jackass”, so I got one of those too, is an eBook is free. Here is what I do, when I launched my business I had no idea how to call myself, I really didn’t think I was an entrepreneur because I think in true to my opinion, are the craziest sons of a bitch on the face of the earth because you got to be jut that shit crazy nuts to go launch a business, so I was warping my head around that I more this business owner that wanted to create this one business, this one company , this model and take it through, wasn’t it really worried about even a legacy type thing, I just wanted to get to that freedom state and I never been hung up on titles and such and people keep asking me, what do you put on a business card, my name? I didn’t know what to actually put in there, but it evolved, now is says business owner, I think I out CEO in one point but I’m like, Am I a CEO? I got virtual assistants but I don’t really have employees so am I a really a CEO? You know, but you dance with all this thought processes and I really love this whole idea of your shareholder because it really makes you shock your own system to reinvent how you position yourself in the market place. Mike: You know this plays out to employees too, my company is tiny we have 13 employees, I am number 14, we were a micro business and I used to give my colleagues big titles, so I bring someone on and maybe call them the CFO or the office manager and what I found is this that they just like me started believing the title as like who they are, so I had a person who has not even a degree in accounting, she was part time, but she was handling our number so instead of calling her the internal booking person I said we are going to call you the CFO, she went online and found that instead of paying $30.000 that’s what we were paying for that a typical CFO makes a $125.000 so she came back to me literally and said Mike I’m being so freaking underpay I’m being a CFO for this organization I’m not on 125.000 you are ripping me off, and I’m look whoa is just a title and she is no all CFO’s make that and my response was, you can’t got to Ford or GE and say I want to be your CFO and 125, is just a title , didn’t matter she quit, she couldn’t comprehend that, what I realize is that once we star owning a title that becomes who we are, is not just true for us the entrepreneurs, it’s true for all the humanity, if we call ourselves stupid then you become stupid if you say I’m lazy you will become lazy, if you say I’m driven you will become driven, but you have to keep on repeating enough times until you actually believe it to comply with that title otherwise we can’t own that title. So be very judicious in how you use titles is kind of the lesson here. Donnie: Yeah I love it, so Kevin is known to build all the automation to backing up my stuff, he put under the title of my first email campaign “founding badass of success champions “ and I’m like ok I take that, so if you are going yourself a tittle that you want to step into , you know that you want to own, like “founding badass” or something else along those lines, but is interesting I can see that, going through my career there was part that wanted to be a sales manager and I got sales manager and I’m said “fuck, I don’t want to be a sales manager” so there is a lot to be said in those roles, in corporate America structure formality, there’s a lot of responsibility in owning certain titles. Mike: Totally is, I think as a small business owner I aspired, not anymore, I aspired to be the big company, I wanted to have a billion dollar corporation, I wanted to be the CEO of Amazon after Jeff retire I wanted to take over, so I wanted to make my own version so I said if I want be that I have to act as if, that’s a popular term, act as if, so I’m gonna start using those tittle right now, but in the outside world that’s kinda of a shame, if I call myself the CEO and I walk in with my little company, people are like, who many people report to you? But none is only a couple of virtual people, are you really a CEO? O are you an entrepreneur that’s is starting in bootstrapping, so there is a risk there too, theirs is this disconnect and if we package ourselves in the wrong way is dangerous in fact our business … no titles whatsoever, because I do know that I go into a sales situation, sometimes it helps to say that I’m the owner and sometimes it helps to say that I’m the sales guy and being the owner is actually a detriment so I think a title is just a thing of conversation in what e aspire to have but also have to see the outside perception around titles. Donnie: I got other question because I know my followers have been counting on me and I got a lot of people that followed your book First, it was the first book that I read of yours and horrible book by the way. Laugh Mike: Worst book of all the time, hey at least I got a ranking somehow. Donnie: Hey you put profit in there; at least it has to sell one book. Mike: Right! I should have put an F bomb because that seems to be the popular books now, the subtle art of F’ing and I should put like F profit or something. Donnie: You know I’ve been getting a lot of the guys out of the UK right no on the podcast because they are really trying to make a push, they are calling it “the UK invasion” where a lot of the UK speakers are trying to come to the US and is so funny when they come to the podcast because I cursed a lot but those dudes say cursing to a whole other level. Mike: The brits do? Donnie: Oh my god yeah! And I have to forward warning because there a couple words they throw around like candy and I’m like, ok look, this is a US based primary show, I mean it plays in almost a 100 countries now but you got to be careful with the certain couple of words, the F bomb fine, but there are some other words they can’t just bring to the table! But profit first, that and pumpkin plan I think two of the two books of yours that get thrown around the most, at least on my circles, is profit first the first book out of the collection. Mike: So I’ve written 5 books, technically 6 as profit first has been re-released as revising expanded so that counts too, so I wrote this book of toilet paper entrepreneur. Donnie: Oh I remember that! Mike: Kind of a spit on the face of traditional authorship and it was my angry teenage years but it worked, it worked to put me on the map, at least with the publisher and it built a small … The pumpkin plan was my first kind of mainstream book and profit first was the break through. Donnie: That’s the one that really put you on the map, I’m in forward Texas, you know my hometown and I know there is a little workshop group to get together and discussed that book- Mike: Oh that’s awesome I love to hear- Donnie: And the content and everything is out of that, but I’m curious, when you wrote that book was that philosophy for your business? Or something you were attempting to do and you thought it would be the breakthrough for other people if you took on the same thing. Mike: No, it was purely for me, here’s interesting when you hear the resume of an entrepreneur like me I share the highlights, got a company, sold it, the thick of the story for most entrepreneurs is the struggle, the entrepreneur poverty and I have evaporated all the wealth I’d accumulated in some priors businesses that were dealing with debt, I was able to sell them pay off the debt and make money and never really understood profit, I started this 3rd business that … my resume I evaporated everything I had, lost my house over it, lost possessions, did not loss my family, that’s one thing, they stood by me, went through depression for a couple years, from 2008 to 2010, the highest level was called functional depression, you are a drinker and stuff and during that phase I realized that I fundamentally didn’t know the most basic elements of entrepreneurship, profits is one, I realized all the things I was doing was misunderstood, and profit what I realized is that we have been told profit is the bottom line or were you rent, every book I read is profit comes last, and I realized omg I’ve been putting profit last, I didn’t consider it until once a year I looked at profit and I’m like “Dammit, maybe next year”. Donnie: Wait so your business is supposed to profit? I’m confused by that. Laugh Mike: That’s what my old accountant said,” you don’t want to profit, hey congratulations you got nothing left” And I’m like “what?” Donnie: Hey that’s the whole reason I’m in business. Mike: And that made no sense, and entrepreneurship is not a parent child relationship, I call it BS on that, we often say hey I started a business I gave life to it is my child and one day I will nurture it and it will come back and feed me, no, is more of conjoint twins, as the business goes we go and as we go the business goes so if I’m struggling at home my business is going to struggle and if I’m going struggling on business my home is going to struggle, especially the finances, pour finances are in so last step, so I say I really gotta resolve this and I realize that is human nature when something comes last is insignificant , so profit can’t be last, profit has to be first, and the exclusion of course says, make profit to have it, every time you sell take a predetermined percentage of that money, is profit, hide it away in your business, repeat day in and day out and you will assure profitability. Donnie: Is awesome, is one of those book, at least it was for me when I read through it, it just made sense, because same thing, school hard … somebody could tell me the stove is hot three times and still touch twice to just to make sure. Laugh Donnie: But it’s one of those book that when you read you are like “ok that make sense to me why I don’t do it”? So I started to employing some of the principals of the company and the being typical growing up financially foolish, “oh we are hitting a down turn, let’s just pull form the profit pile we have already put into the business” and you are like ok that’s not the whole principles of the book but it was a fun read, what did the success of that book do for your business, you company, what evolved or changed for you? Mike: That’s an interesting question, there’s a couple of realizations, when the book hit, so it came out 4 years ago and 2 years ago I did the re-release and it hit right away, is funny how ego is, I got like omg all this main stages, Seth Golden move here comes Mike “Polish” Michalowicz. Donnie: Because you got that name that belongs in light. Mike: Right, exactly, when you hit the movie theatre and my name is two lines.. Donnie: Or is turned down on the edged Mike: I think the better one is a limp penis of an A, So first my ego is move over Seth Golden, here comes the new main stager and it was like deadly silence, I’m like for how long? The book is so popular and went on for a year like this and my agent who I spoke to me was “get ready for the pumped up fees” nothing, and so I was like I guess it takes more than just a popular book, and yea about a year ago also did … is not move over Seth Golden but is oh you are speaking Seth Godin is coming after you. So that happened, so I realize is when a book hits it takes time for it to start playing out in other facets which is speaking but I think that satisfies my ego and I love public speaking and is a joy. Donnie: Look, nobody writes a book without waiting a little bit of that ego. Mike: I call it C list celebrity. Donnie: So if there’s another alphabet out there I am in that I alphabet. Mike: I put myself in position C , what’s funny that means that if I walk through an airport none knows who I am, except one person every like 3 or 4 airport checks will say “AAAAA” and you get one fan that comes and say “ARE YOU MIE MICHALOWICZ?” actually one person came up and said “ARE YOU TONY HAWK?” And I’m like fuck no, but somebody will say that, and I’ll be like who is this guy, is very weird. Donnie: You next book you just gotta put your picture on the cover that is all. Mike: I will put a Tony Hawk picture, be my strange brother tony hawk. Is this kind of weirs moments when none knows who I am but one person who just happens and lose their shit but everyone else is confused by and everyone’s like why? Who’s this guy? Is he a doctor? Did he save your life? But the bigger thing is I’m on my mission to eradicated entrepreneurial poverty now we get the metrics in place, and I get emails actually I can see we get two since we started the interview, I get emails in 3-4 5-6 hour now of people saying, because I actually ask people to email me on the book, I say emails if you commit to this and they are coming constantly now and I can see I can measure the changes having in business and that is the greatest joy of my life, If I am ever down, for me is just log in the email now and sit there for an hour and everything is ok Mike, you are not looser. Donnie: I wanted people to hear that last phrase you said, everybody’s chasing something you know and I had a lot of coming even this morning with the couple guys I was talking to, they were liken men I could just have this happen to my life, life would be X, and I keep telling life is never X, life is right now, is that time you need to embrace you don’t need some sort of trigger mechanism to be catapulted to the next version of your life and I love the fact that you were humble enough to say that there are days like, this day sucks, this day is horrible and you gotta go look in the email to make sure life is on the same path and track, because is good for people who aren’t even in the first level on the alphabet list, you know you got the C list rockstar status to hear those kind of things because they are a lot of people, I know fans of the show I know were like “holy cow is Mike Michalowicz, he’s got “Profit First” and this and the other and they put you into rockstar status and often times when people put people on that rockstar status they gave them like the super power feed of strength and everything else, like nothing ever happens to them they are always killing it and crushing it and I really appreciate that humility you speak through. Mike: I want to speak that because I think is so important, I believe when we see someone as in a better position we put them on a pedestal, we look up to them, really that is a form of envy and I think is really damaging to ourselves, if you say “oh this guy is better than me, I wish I liked him” but in the same we are saying “I’m less than” and when we see ourselves as less then we want to disassociate, we actually one to pull someone down, as human nature say, well that person is not observing, Michalowicz they guy that probably got myself in driving, you pull in down, pity is just as damaging, pity is where you see yourself here and then there’s this homeless person in the street and “Thank god is not me” that causes a voidance when we move around them, both are form of dissociation an so I think they are very damaging. I don’t think we should ever use the term look up towards someone or look down to someone, I think we should always say look over, as cheesy as it is I’m big on like totems and this things you can see as the infinity circle and is my reminder that all of us are on the exact same path, no one is front or behind each other, we are on different positions of the path and we have just much to learn from someone who’s in the deepest struggles as someone that we perceived is having the greatest successes, all of them are learning experiences and we can call from each other but if we look up or look down we disassociate, I think we need to say Donnie I look over to you I want to learn from you, tell me your secrets, Mike I look over to you, so I say never look up, never look down. Donnie: I love that, I never heard it put in that perspective but you know Richard Branson when he takes people out to his private island , one of the first things he asked to everybody out there is, teach me something and I’ve always been fascinated by it because you got Richard Branson, one of the wealthiest man in the world , one of the most cool CEO, at least that is the brand he puts in the market place, a whole part of that is true but the fact that everybody comes back from me to the island going “Richard Branson asked me to teach him something” and I’m always curious to say, what could you teach as Richard Branson and I think a lot of those pull some random shit out their ass but “I taught Richard Branson” Really? Really!? Mike: I never heard that story I love it and I think it speaks therefore to great intelligence because I bet you, we all got something to teach as much as he teaches us, I don’t think he is more successful than a brand new startup entrepreneur, by certain definitions, the wealthy accumulated, the exposure he’s gotten, I don’t know and this is no judgment, I don’t know what his family is like , I don’t know what is balance is like, I don’t know his contribution to society is like, I don’t know, I also think that we hold people to a higher celebrity ship when they have broader impact as oppose to deep impact and I think most of us are designed for deep impact, Let me use doctor Oz because that example come to mine, Initially he was a cardiovascular surgeon with very deep impact, he saved some people’s life forever, he gave people not 6 more hours of life but 60 more year of life because of his work, he then made a choice to go broad meaning he went on Oprah he started to talking about health and then the guys is Impacting many people, the difference is , Doctor Oz now has a very broad impact but is very shallow you see him on tv shows and eat your vegetables is the lessons, when we worked as a cardiovascular surgeon, now he’s got a very deep impact, I think is a choice and I don’t think is one is better than the other, the shame is we hold up to celebrity ship people with only broad impact, it’s the famous football player, the famous movie start or the famous author like Malcom Gladwell, someone I exalt but never met Malcom Gladwell he just had an impact in some many people and is a name other people recognize I think is equal regardless of what we do of significance and people that are going for deep impact, I guess the lesson here is don’t aspire to be broad, aspire to be who you are call to be, if it’s deep go deep, if it’s broad is broad if it’s something else do it, just speak truly to yourself, they are all significant. Donnie: Man I love that, is such a powerful message because most people in my belief that have hit a celebrity status they are really good at one thing. It comes down to … marketing, I tell people all the time Tony Robbins, one of the biggest motivational speaker of the world and I ask people all the time and they are like omg is Tony Robins, Tony Robins, he’s done amazing things I’m not knocking down for anything but I ask people all the time, What’s Tony’s job? “Oh he is the CEO of the company blah blah blah” and I mean no he is not, and they look at me like “ what do you mean?” He is the face of the company, Garyvee, he is the face of the company and even Mike Michalowicz a C list celebrity is the face of the company, now all that to say is not meaning they are not making decisions, they are not having vision but they are the PR machine their job is to build brand new awareness for the company is the broad stroke. Mike: Is like a band, the front man is the one who everyone knows and is constantly with the groupies but the drummer and the bassist and the keyboardist who’s behind the curtains sometimes they are the ones collectively that need to make the music and I think that is what this organizations have, I think we can positon ourselves as the spokesperson and we will get all the accolades, I think the day I sort believe in that, over. Donnie: Have you seen bohemian rhapsody yet? The movie? Mike: Yeah. Donnie: I love the whole scene where the lead singer of Queen, can’t remember his name. Mike: Freddie Mercury. Donnie: Yes Freddie Mercury, thank you, that he hits all the fame and he goes out of his own and launches his own band and he’s trying to create the music and it all fails and he goes back to his guys and he goes “they did everything I told them to do” and I’m like that’s it! And he goes “They weren’t pushing back they did everything and the problem is I don’t know how to do all the stuff that you are great that” Mike: I think a great leader recognizes that , as a spokes persons you gotta be careful about being inauthentically humble, I see that too, and is like “oh is not me is not me” and declining as is actually discrediting the people who are fans of you, you can’t do that, the same thing you can’t say “this is all me” because you discrediting the people collectively making the product or the service that you do, so is a fine balance, I also think for the rest of the band, like Freddie mercury was the recognize brand and you have Brian May and then two guys like what was their names? That’s an ego check for them too but they are just as important. Donnie: Even if Freddie would have made it in a solo type carrier thing, even then he still has a band behind him. Mike: Even that is true. Donnie: The craziest thing about this whole ride and journey, I know the good things I’m good at, I’m really good on podcast, really good on interviews, well talking on stages but here is the thing I suck at the accounting side of things, I should read you book again “profit first” maybe probably help me out a little bit, but it’s a lot for entrepreneurs, business owners, whatever screwing tittle you want to give yourself, founding badass, is knowing your lane and knowing what you are good at and finding the right people that geek out on the stuff you suck at, is like I’ve got people that do some video editing for me, they freaking love that stuff, I’ve got people that do automated email for me, the gal who does some of the writing for me I call her a magician every Tim, I don’t know how she takes all the crap I put together spins it up and turns it into a master piece, she’s just got gift and a talent for it, but a lot of that is a humbleness for an individual to go “ok this is my lane, this is what I’m good at, how do I get other people to come along for that ride to pick up the slacks for me”. Mike: There is this thing I call the super hero syndrome when we first start a business we have to do everything, you have to do the accounting, you have to do marketing, there is no one else there, you have to, and we start believing wow I can do anything and then we start superheroing in swiping in when there’s problem oh I will fix this I will fix that, and the trap is, when we bring on employees we actually interning with their progress, they start doing something and we swop in we fix it we resolve, disabling them from doing the work themselves, plus we leave often awaken destruction behind us, entrepreneur like myself are known to fix the 5% of the problem, the big part that is noticeable and 95% like we can skip that and there is this shattered destruction behind us that needs to be swooped and cleaned up, I found that I can’t change my ego, I can’t tell “I’m just going to be mister Mike humble and everything is fine” what I did find is that I can rechannel my ego, I used to be very proud of being the superhero, the savior of my business, and now I use the term supervisionary and what that means to me is that I’m clear of where I want to take this organization but I am also as importantly clear about where my individual colleagues want to go with their lives and then my job is ok “how can I help Amy and Mike and Ron and Kelsey to achieve what their vision is personally and have that aligned the business” and I put more significance on that than being a super hero, now my ego is being filled, hey! I’m doing what I meant to do and the interesting is what I revert to being a super hero because I revert to that often and I say oh I fix this and I swipe in again, I realize that is a step down in where I see myself and put negative context around and I’m less likely to do it, before I thought if I had to remove myself form the business and no longer be the super hero I saw that as a step down so when I reverted back to this super hero role I was stepping up and therefore be stuck in it, so the goal is to put more significant to something else and it will naturally pull us put of doing the stuff that is actually not helping our business. Donnie: Yeah that’s a really interesting thought, I don’t have kids but I will say the next statement with that in front me, but often times, people that went through a rougher childhood, maybe didn’t have all the things they wanted as a kid and by the time they have kids they spoil they hell out of them because then have become success and the kids don’t learn the grind and drive that they learned to get and find the success, they hit the workplace and everything else and they will be a bit lost, entrepreneurs do the same thing with the employees, when you are taking care of the problem you are taking out he learning they need to evolve, I ran into this all the time in the creative side of things and Think this is probably the biggest screw that entrepreneur s have is they have a creative vision of their brand, their image, their everything else and when they try to explain to somebody else that other person doesn’t grasp their visions of what those color schemes or whatever else side of the businesses so they are like “Oh I screw up I will do this myself” Mike: I was talking to this guy Scott Alfred, I actually put him in one of my books, he said an entrepreneur would tell to an employee “hey we need to cook food here, get something that will cook food here” and they come back with sticks and rocks to spark a f ire and we are pissed of Like” Don’t you understand? I wanted a Viking?” and the employee is like “Oh I’m so sorry” but the reality is that we didn’t communicate what we wanted, they did the job, In other times they want the Viking and we just wanted sticks and rocks. So I think first of empowering them to make decision but also giving them the freedom that if they don’t comply to our vision to realize that maybe is not their fault, maybe we didn’t communicated well or maybe their vision for that thing is actually better than ours, maybe sticks and rocks is better, is this clinginess we have to what we have a personal vision or mission, how we see things in our mind and we can get upset when people don’t see what we see but we are often to communicating well at all. Donnie: Well and I would also add in there that I think, I want to speak for myself, there were a lot of times along this journey so far that I wanted somebody to swop in and take care of that problem for me, If this was an issue or problem and I wanted to go like “hey this is now yours” and take it completely of my plate and when it comes back and not what I had in vision and I am like “What the hell -” Mike: “ - Are you an idiot” Donnie: Right! Mike: That is called abdication; so many people think you are doing delegation when they are doing abdication. Donnie: Thank you I just added a whole new word today. Mike: Big word, I wanted to drop it, sort of finding where to use it. Laugh Donnie: You have been waiting the whole episode just to use that one. Mike: So I just thought of blurring it out if you didn’t have a question, but abdication is simply point someone and say you take care of this and that is the entire instruction said, and entrepreneurs are notorious for to scenarios, either micromanagement where is total control, here’s step 1, step 1.a - 1.b, or abdication which is the polar opposite and both of them are extremely ineffective, both of them prohibit growth to the organization. Donnie: So how does an individual doesn’t go to the extreme of both of those and actually find that happy medium combination because I’m guilty of both, Because sometimes I’m like “ok I have to tell them what to do or they are not going to figure it out so let’s roll out the power point and walk you through the 500 steps because I need it to get done” but other times I’m just off it, so how do I find the happy medium between those two? Mike: Is simply, you ask the employee, you say listen I want you to achieve certain results in the organization, I know you want to achieve these results, I will give you information, I need to know form you exactly what is enough information to give you direction or when am I going to the field that is too much, where’s actually hurting your creativity, I need the reverse too, if I’m giving just giving you way too little and you can’t achieve the visions that Ii have I need to know them too, is communication, is asking, shockingly we don’t do that often, is that you sit down the first day of the job and say “your job is to tell me when I’m not telling you what you need to know about me” that doesn’t make sense, is constant communication. Our little company we are going to a company retreat to Nashville Tennessee, literally next week and the whole thing is about communication, we are just going to sit there, have a talk, build a report, we have half day to set and learn from each other’s stories, because I know to grease the wheels of this organization is the communication and trust among each other is the ability of my colleague who I write her paycheck out to come back at me and say Mike you’re being an ass about so and so and not feeling threaten or in risk, that will only happen if we have a true connection beyond functional connection, if we have a human connection, I think there is where the answer comes. Donnie: And I love that, I think some people when they go into business they are looking for the pedestal, they are looking for people to look up to them and be that guy and I think that was a hard lessons for me because I know that was a part of my struggle as well is that I wanted people to seem me in a certain way which put me in this weird situation on how I was dealing with vendors and stuff until one of my mentors and coaches said dude, knock it off, but the whole thing is realizing that you are not superman, you are not creating something that hasn’t been created before, you are just repackaging somebody else’s shit up into a better more usable consumable product and format Donnie: I love the fact you are taking your employees in things like retreats and stuff, is that something you did out of the gate with your company or is that something you evolved into. Mike: Well we got it out the gate but is also something you have evolved into, well we had it out the gate but we’ve also evolved into, like going into Nashville is because we’ve had quarter after quarter of profitability that’s grown and we actually set an account called the retreat account so the firs retreat we went to Starbucks because we couldn’t afford lunch, me and my partner we jut said hey let’s just hang out before we get back to go back to work is something evolves, but what I did, recently I did the 4 week vacation, is something I wrote about in one of my book, so if you are going extract yourself from your business for 4 weeks, full disconnect and the business can grow or operate in your absence, you’ve proven the business can likely run into perpetuity in your absence. Donnie: I think that across the world every entrepreneur that just go and take this big gasp because they know way their business functions if they are gone. Mike: Which is a major problem, if you’re carrying the business on your back, and everyone will take the 4 week vacation or over, when get sick or die, so it’s going to happen, we are going to make it delivered so we are prepared for. The funny thing is that I’ve been presenting this concept around the world, when I was in Europe talking about this, we did this, literally yesterday, I flew back form BMW as there yesterday, all august, Germany shuts down and BMW ain’t going out of business, we need to do this for small businesses and so I went for 4 week vacation last year and when I did is not that business was perfect, I put a lot of structure in place to make it happen but there were some problems, one of the problems I realized is internal communication, I’ve become this choke point, when people have questions they come to me a group of come to me to see what’s Mike’s decision but they weren’t making laterally and internally, well I’m absence they were forced to, but there were some uncomfortable things like this person doesn’t really know the other person should approach them? Even if they went only 14 people, so that’s why we are doing this retreat, is all about just building report, we are going to do some cooking sessions together, we are going to have some wine together, we are just going to talk about our lives together, we are going to talk about our struggles and challenges, just to have that human connection, I really believe it greases the wheels. Donnie: Love it, I don’t why this popped to my head but I have strange question for you, what is your actual business? Mike: I don’t freaking know, laugh, I am a full time author, I write books, that’s what I do, so people think you can’t make any money out it, which is total bull, you can become very wealthy as an author if you do it right, the lessons here is I interviewed Tim Ferris on how to be an author a long time ago, he isn’t talking to me now, and he said of course you can make money, before that I was talking to people about being an author, and they said you make no money is horrible, and I said what has been your experience? I’ve never written a book, I don’t know, don’t trust people that haven’t done it, trust people who’ve done it, people that have failed learn why the fail and then learn and then I have talked to people who have been successful and find out the difference and go for the ones who are successful, I have a license: profit first, the pumpkin plan, clockwork, I have a new book coming out, to other companies and they pay me override of revenue so I have a constant revenue stream from all these different companies. Donnie: What do you mean by license, like program? Mike: Yes the program is called run like clockwork that teaches the clockwork system, they pay me a license in fee in front and 15% override … processionals for accountants. Donnie: You have accountants around the world. Mike: Yes over 350 and now and I license this organization but also in the case In that case I took an equity interest but the other two companies I don’t have any equity just the license in fee they pay me. So one of those things as people run their journey, one of the things I had to do was to turn to the people that has done it before , and realize somebody else had cut the trail, go learn from them and get advice from them along the way. Donnie: I gotta tell you man, this has been one hell of a ride I had no Idea about what you and I we were going to get into tonight and actually it has been kind of fun. Mike: Yeah on the recap my head says oh we talk about entreprewhore, you learned a new word abdicated. Donnie: Dude, don’t do the spelling bee on me, if you ask me to spell abdicate. Mike: I don’t know how to spell it I think it starts with an A Donnie: We talked about C level celebrities in there somewhere I am sure. Laugh Donnie: So that’s awesome, but dude I really appreciate the job done here, here’s how I like to wrap up every show and I do stump some people over this so get ready… Mike: 17 INCHES. Laugh Mike: Take it right? What’s the question? Laugh Donnie: I don’t want ask what 17 inches is! Now if you were going to leave the champions who listen to this show, people from all over the world, business owners, entrepreneurs, people who are trying to make the next movement in their life, if you were going to leave them with a quote a phrase a mantra or a saying, something they can take with them on their journey, especially when they are stack up against it and goring through what would be that quote or phrase you would say? Mike: So, I have it above my desk, Oscar Wilde says: Be yourself, everybody else is already taken. Donnie: Oh I love it is one of my favorite quotes from all time, didn’t know it came from Oscar Wilde, I saw it on a meme on Instagram and I thought “Oooh is brilliant”. Mike: Actually I went to Ireland, not specifically for this, but visited statue from him, visited his own home. Donnie: Where ahead in Ireland? because we were just there last year. Mike: Outside Dublin Donnie: Oh no kidding, Dublin was my least favorite city. Mike: Did you see the “Stiletto in the ghetto” the big spike in the middle of the city? Donnie: No we didn’t see that. Mike: I would say it was my least favorite too because is like any other metropolis. Donnie: That’s what my wife and I kept saying, is that if you go to Ireland go to Dublin and I would not knock in Ireland would no knock in Dublin by any means. Mike: No Omg. Donnie: Is like any other big city. Mike: The people in Ireland I would argue are the nicest people, India is number 2 but Ireland is number 1. Donnie: Did you do the breakfast thing? Mike: Yeah! Donnie: Dude I wanna tell you the nicest people, they were so genuine, and the breakfasts were insane. Mike: Insane, blood pudding. Donnie: And the two different styles and all that, so awesome, but look man I really appreciate what you doing, thanks for joining out and looking forward to many big things coming. Mike: Thank you! END OF INTERVIEW Donnie: Wow, what a fun episode, got to tell you, when you see one of these guys and hit some of the celebrity status and maintain this cool level of humility like Mike did all the way through this is just a fun thing to see is a great conversation you are part of. If you like those rise together authentic style conversations o a regular basis you really need to come and hang out with us in our Facebook group “success champions”, daily we are putting cool inspirational stuff or having awesome stories and we helping other rose and go together, so come hang out with us, just go to Facebook type In “success champions” look forward in groups join up and come tell us hi, we will be glad to have you there, if you got any value of this show whatsoever do me a favor, rate it, review it, share it with at least one fiend that would get value out of it, it would mean everything to me to get more people sharing and listening to these stories and ratings and reviews mean everything, so wherever you are listening this podcast, leave a rating leave a review, share it with a friend I really appreciate you guys, thank you for being a champion, thank you listening this show, keep on rolling shit up and keep going baby! 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In part two of the incredible exit of Mike Jackness's Colorit, we are hearing his first-hand perspective on what the process is like from the side of the seller. Mike honestly and openly goes through the process, from the letter of intent through due diligence, all the way to the handoff and transition. He reveals the humbling moments, the surprises, and things he would do differently. This episode is for anyone thinking about being on the seller or the buyer side of the acquisition process. Ending your involvement in a business can happen more easily and smoothly if you are in a good position and absolutely prepared no matter what. The takeaway to all business owners is put your business in that position from inception in case of an eventual sale. Episode Highlights: Mike's background and how he found himself in the coloríng business. How the due diligence process went and how in many ways it was harder work than running the actual business. The things that came up during the process that were surprising and how to approach number discrepancies in due diligence. The value of using a professional firm for due diligence. Why early preparation is critical. The creation and review of the asset purchase agreement and how it went for Mike. The small things he relayed to the buyer in order to make the transition smoother. Why in-person meetings are very important during the hand-off. The importance of doing everything you can to facilitate while still creating limits to your involvement in the process. What's next for Mike. Transcription: Mark: Mike Nuñez. Yes, Mike if you're listening to this podcast congratulations for sending in the right answer to the movie quote. And which one was it; that was the Boiler Room, right? Joe: I think so. You expect me to remember. I don't know. We need Chris Moore our content director on here. Come on Chris. Mark: Hey Chris, we need your show notes for before we actually record these. But I do know that Mike you sent in a correct answer. Thank you for doing that. I don't know the prizes although the next time I see you I'll buy you a drink for sending that in and getting the right answer. Joe: For people that don't know, why don't we tell who Mike Nuñez is? Mark: Yeah, Mike Nuñez is an old friend of Quiet Light Brokerage. He is also a buyer with Quiet Light Brokerage and what are we getting out Joe what am I missing? Joe: Doesn't he run AffiliateManager.com? Mark: He does run AffiliateManager.com. Joe: He's huge in the affiliate space so if there's anybody out there with products that are looking for a great affiliate company to connect with look up Mike Nuñez on Linked In and connect with him. He's one of the nicest guys in the country and you'll love working with him and his company. Mark: You know what this movie quote is going to become, right? All of the show vendors, all of the other vendors out there that want us to make a pitch on the podcast are going to start sending in the right answers to us here on out. So those of you listening whatever the movie quote was send us an email and let us know what that's from. We'll give you a shout out on the podcast. But now let's talk a little bit about today's podcast episode. I'm excited about this. I love the actual stories of selling some of his business. Joe, you've been working with Mike Jackness is on ColorIt.com getting his business sold and today we're continuing the story. We already have one podcast on this where we talked about getting the offer, preparing the business for sale, going through all that, and now we're looking at the other side of it. And that is preparing for the close and doing that due diligence and some of that stuff that gets pretty difficult towards the end of a sale. Joe: Yeah the 1st podcast was right up until the letter of intent and now we're talking honestly and openly about the process that we had to go through; that Mike really had to go through with his team from the moment you're under a letter of intent all the way through the due diligence, that financial trusted exam if you will, negotiating the asset purchase agreement, meeting the buyers face to face, working with transitioning your virtual assistants over to them, closing, and training and transition after. We go through all of it. Nothing is left out. Mike is honest and humbled and surprised in some cases. I don't mean to plug people but Centurica did the due diligence and Mike—we'll let people listen to it but Mike made a promise to Bryan at Centurica and he said something about this process and his accounting and how it's going to work out and Bryan said yeah okay we'll see and Mike was a little humbled and surprised in the process. Mark: Well, that's great. Mike is a good guy. We plugged him before. He's been on the podcast now a few times. Let's get over to this because I think anyone that is thinking about selling or even if you're a buyer and you're going through this process, it's so useful to get that perspective of what it's like to go through this process as a seller. Because boy it can be frustrating sometimes, it can be stressful and just getting to the psyche of what's going on there I think is invaluable. Joe: And not to go on too long but one of the most important things you're going to hear is what Mark and I say all the time but you're not going to hear it from us, you're going to hear it from Mike. He's built, he's bought, he sold, and he's gone through this process most recently as a seller. And there are some things if he could turn back time that he would absolutely do and he would have made more money. But he was at a certain emotional state and life state where he wanted to sell and we made that happen. And we achieved his financial goals but if he could turn back time that would have changed things a little bit. So we're hoping that the lesson that you'll get out of this is planning; planning your exit eventually. If you may wake up one day and decide okay today's the day I need to reach out to Joe or Mark or anybody at Quiet Light and begin that process what will you plan well in advance for that? That's part of the mistake that we talked about with Mike. So that's it, let's go to the podcast. Joe: Hey folks it's Joe Valley with Quiet Light Brokerage and we have another great episode of the Quiet Light Podcast here with our good friend Michael Jackness. How are you today Mike? Mike: I'm doing good man. Joe: It's good to have you back. I know that we've been chatting a lot lately because we just closed a transaction together. Mike: We did. It's good to be on the other end of it now. Joe: It is and it's been a process. We're recording this folks on April 18th and we started in mid-December. And we ended up closing the transaction on April 5th. So giving you a little bit of a recap; this is Part 2 of the process of selling Mike's business Color It. Mike those that are just tuning in and didn't hear it the 1st time why don't you give a 60 second background on yourself so they know who you are. Mike: Yeah. So I always joke that this background story gets longer and longer as I get older but the short version is that I have a background in IT. I'm an entrepreneur by heart and was doing affiliate marketing. I quit my day job in 2004 and I've been out on my own doing various things since then. I got into e-commerce in 2012 when we bought Travelo.com and sold that—had an exit to that in 2015 in January. Four e-commerce brands one of which we just sold through you. And we've been blogging and podcasting about that journey since 2015 at EcomCrew. Joe: And you're being a little humble there because you really travel all over the world and speak now. Not just with EcomCrew but also on your email marketing campaigns that you do with Klaviyo. So I'm going to boost you up a little bit. Mike: Thank you. Joe: You're famous man, I'm humbled just having you on the podcast and to call you my friend I think. Mike: Inaudible[00:07:06.7] has this show notes that say famous on Amazon I had one that says famous in my own head. Joe: I'm famous in my house but the least famous according to my family. There you go. Alright, so just a quick recap; again we launched Color It for sale in mid-December against my better judgment but you're influential and you pushed me and we did it anyway. But we try normally to have three to five conference calls in the 1st 30 to 45 days and at least one acceptable offer. We had three or four. We can't remember. We talked about this the other day and I didn't bother looking it up. But we had enough so that we got two offers. We ended up under LOI on Feb 5th, intentionally chose not to close for 60 days so you could move three of the brands out of the seller account into other seller accounts and that was a fun process, right? Mike: Oh yeah. Lovely. Joe: And then we ended up closing on April 5th, roughly 60 days later after going under the LOI. So we talked about the process, getting to LOI in the previous recording. Let's talk about what happened afterwards and talk about due diligence. How was your experience in due diligence; how painful was it, how good was it, how easy, all that good stuff? Mike: It was a lot less enjoyable than receiving the wire. Joe: Is this a yes or a no that you really worked harder getting the business sold than you did actually operating the business? Mike: I'd say absolutely. It was a lot of work. It was stressful just because—I kind of strive for perfection and I wanted everything to be exactly what we had communicated in the preliminary process. But Centurica is really good and they found stuff that I didn't even know about my own business which was really frustrating for me. It was a little bit unnerving. I was worried about how that would be perceived if it would—how it would affect the deal. What I realized I guess eventually was that every one of these deals I think that goes through due diligence stuff comes off and we were kind of within that normal boundaries of acceptable tolerances I guess or whatever they would call it and I probably was making [inaudible 00:09:12.1] but for me at the moment that it was happening I was pretty upset. Joe: Yeah so we had two or three things that came up where the P&L wasn't exactly right; the discretionary earnings wasn't exactly right for the trailing 12 months. And it's funny I had a call this morning, I'm working on launching a listing tomorrow and the owner of that business said well what happens in due diligence if that happens? And he was worried that the whole deal would just fall apart and you start from scratch. That's not normally the case. Normally you just use logic and math and say okay if you're off by $1,000 and your multiple is a 3 time you take $3,000 off the contract price of the business. That's really important when you build that trust that you've built over the last two or three months with the buyers of your business Mike. But in your case we didn't make any adjustment at all even though your numbers were not exactly the same as in discretionary earnings, right? Mike: Yeah and I think a few things kind of happened and number one as we were going to do diligence and working towards closing our January numbers came out and our February numbers came out and eventually we kind of knew what March was looking like and we were up significantly year over year. So I mean it was getting to be to a point where in some respects I was kind of hoping the deal will fall apart just like be realistic for money. Joe: Yeah. Mike: Obviously, that wasn't what I wanted to happen because I didn't want it to go through [inaudible 00:10:37.3] but that certainly probably helps. And I think a little of the trust kind of was established like you said that they knew that there was nothing the fairest going on there or at least they hope that that's what they were thinking. I'm sure that's what they were thinking obviously. And I also think that just based on talking to Bryan over at Centurica like after the whole thing was done it was basically like when a report comes out it's always going to be—there's always something that's kind of found and I just—it's kind of like a home inspection. When you go buy a home there's going to be a home inspection and there's always going to be stuff that that guy finds. Some of the stuff you can try and negotiate for to lower the price of the home but a lot of it you just accept. It's just like there are things that you're going to just go okay well I didn't know that when I signed the agreement to buy this house and put it in Escrow but I want to buy the house nonetheless and here I am and I'm going to just go ahead and still do it. So I think all of those things combined and I just I mean legitimately was willing to walk away. I wasn't willing to sell it for less. Because I feel like the number that we picked in my mind was the least I was willing to sell the business for. I was willing—we had talked about willing to—because we had already started separating our companies and making things better that if we waited another year we would have gotten more money for it. But at the same time, I also had set my mind to sell it. So I mean there was a bunch of things going on there but luckily all kind of worked out in the end. Joe: Yeah, you were emotionally ready to sell. There's no question about it. I talked to you three times about waiting; separate them all out, wait another year or so, and you definitely were ready. Mike: It wasn't about the money. I mean it was just a lifestyle adjustment and realizing we had too much going on and leaving some money on the table for this transaction to almost certainly put us in a better situation moving forward. So all and I think we're going to do much better by selling one of these businesses. Joe: Yeah, and you're going to be able to narrow your focus with the sale. So with regards to Centurica; for those that are considering using them or are fearful that you're under LOI and your buyer is hiring Centurica. I've never had a deal go sideways with Centurica. What they do is they find out like Mike said what the issues are with the business and really what it is, it's a little scary but for the buyer of the business it's really things that can be fixed and it's a path towards future growth and making the business stronger. So I like it when somebody else steps in on a buyer's behalf and really digs into those numbers. It helps the process and instills confidence in everybody that it is a good investment and that nothing's going to come back to you Mike in this situation after the sale if you closed and the buyer found something after the fact. It's better that they find it during due diligence like we did here. Mike: I think the only reason you really need to be fearful is if you are hiding something and you know it. And these guys will find it. I promise you—I mean they're incredible. And if I ever go buy a business I will absolutely hire them. They are incredible. I almost want to hire them just to tell them to come do an audit on our existing businesses to make sure we'd get things fixed before we go sell it—another piece of it a year or two from now. They're really good. Joe: It's not a crazy idea preparing in advance for the sale of a business 12 to 18 months out. You know now that that is critical. We've talked about it recently. You got a good value for Color It but I think realistically if the brands had all been separated out and you had clean tax returns, a staff that was delegated just towards Color It, it's possible you would have gotten a higher multiple. And with your January, February growth numbers and December was just killer, there's no doubt that the buyer of your business is really excited and didn't even think about making an adjustment because some of the numbers were off by a little bit. Because the numbers were so high for January and February he knew that he was getting a great business. And he told me personally that he thought that this one is probably the best of the three Amazon FBA businesses that he's bought for me in the last eight months. So we got through due diligence, it was a little painful, a little tough. Centurica helped. We had some trust built early on so we didn't make any adjustments and mostly because of that trust and because of you keeping your foot on the gas in terms of the numbers and the growth of the business. The worst thing you can do folks is once you're under LOI have a bad month or two during due diligence. It scares the buyer. They're making a lifetime investment putting their life savings on the line and they want to see positive numbers, not negative numbers. So we got through it and the next phase sort of when we got most of the way through it was to end up drafting, editing, and signing a 30 to 45 page asset purchase agreement. And that can be kind of scary and overwhelming in itself but the situation was pretty smooth, don't you think Mike? Mike: Yeah. I mean it was incredible. I expected it to go one way. This is actually funny, I expected due diligence to go one way and it kind of went a different way because I was building to Centurica when I had did the kickoff call that this will be the most accurate—I forgot exactly how I said but I really hear myself on that [inaudible 00:15:57.3] accurate company that have ever gone through diligence with you, you're not going to find anything off here by a penny. He was like yeah we'll see about that. That went one way and then the legal actions in my career and the ones where the other party drops the agreements are usually just an awful experience of their lawyer is dropping the agreement on behalf of their clients and all the things that they would want in a perfect world for their client with complete disregard to what the other party would want to see in that agreement knowing exactly what they want. They already know what the 3rd party is going to want but they don't care about that. They hope that of a hundred things that are in there you only asked to change 50 or something and the other 50 stays in the other party's best interest. So what I got was an agreement and—so I'm not a lawyer and I've been through these a million times and I don't really get emotional about this. I just send it immediately off to my attorney I was like let me know and I was expecting pages of stuff that were going to be really difficult to go back and forth on. And I really hate this part of the negotiation process because you've already signed a deal and now you're negotiating over a bunch of other points that you weren't expecting to have to fight over and there was none of that. Like she just like make sure you fill in the blank for this number and they haven't created this LLC that they're talking about in the agreement and make sure that that's done so it's actually a legal entity before you sign. I mean there was little pebbly stuff like that, there was a couple of small things that had some substance but it made me so happy not to have to go through a tough process. It kept our legal fees down only spending 2,500 bucks reviewing and editing the APA which I was expecting 10 or 20k just from previous experience of having to go back and forth. And it was such a great experience. I actually emailed the buyer afterwards and I was like dude I just want to let you know that I really appreciate this because somebody along the way from your team said do not send an agreement off to Jackness and Terran that's just lopsided. Like, make this a middle of the road agreement from day one. Like that was clearly someone communicated that because otherwise, I think it would have been the other way. Joe: Yeah. This is the 4th transaction I've done with Matt and his attorneys; the 1st one years ago and the last three within the last eight months. And every one of those contracts had been fair and balanced and turned around very quickly. And we actually have an attorney referral list now where we just want people to have good attorneys because we've had situations where people have awful attorneys. So we started gathering a list and we put this firm Jones and [inaudible 00:18:35.7]. if anybody is working on an asset purchase agreement and doing it directly with another buyer or seller and you want a referral to an attorney, shoot me an email at joe@quietlightbrokerage and I'll be happy to send it off to you; I'm happy to do that. So that's good, we got through that APA and we actually signed it. It's interesting because we signed it on the 14th of March and normally when we sign it money goes into Escrow and then we're right off to closing. But in this case, we waited almost another three weeks. So it could have been even longer. Mike: It did [inaudible 00:19:16.7] Escrow. You might not recall but there was like a $25,000 deposit. Joe: Yeah because of the request—actually it was necessary because you moving things out of the seller account. It was a nonrefundable $25,000 earnest money that was put in Escrow after signing the asset purchase agreement. I think it was nonrefundable. But that went to the attorney Escrow agreement and then the balance was sent in just prior to closing. It all worked out very well. We ended up closing on March 5th. But prior to that, we had to have some calls and some meetings and doing some planning but there were times when you were a little nervous because there wasn't a whole lot of planning and a whole lot of conversations going on. Mike: Yeah, and it was from my point of view like I wasn't worried about me because like I knew the money was going to be there. But I'm the kind of guy as you know that I'm looking out for the other guy. They just spent a lot of money, I want to make sure it's a good experience for them. And I was just like guys you're buying this business in a couple of days and we haven't talked about changing passwords and billing and things are going to just start breaking if you aren't paying attention to them and the team needs kind of a handoff to know exactly where to look for things etcetera. So it was a little bit weird to me that it didn't seem to be—like they were the kind of guys like everything was like T's crossed I's dotted, really highly motivated and passionate about everything that they're doing but that didn't seem to be as big of a concern. And I think we were talking a little bit—I think it was a combination of they just purchased another business like right before that. Joe: Yeah. Mike: I was also coming to visit them for two days like a couple of days after closing to be with them two, four days in person which I think probably they were just mostly waiting for that to happen. And I think the last part is that they just basically trusted me by that point that I was a good guy and wasn't going to rake them over the coals. But there were definitely some moments where I just like I—if I wanted to like really screw these guys [inaudible 00:21:09.4] kind of I was like thinking that and more just from the perspective of I think they probably should just be more careful because not everyone is a good person and I've seen scribbly stuff happen. Joe: And remember you didn't read every line of the purchase agreement. I'm sure whatever the potential screwing was or could have been was covered there. Mike: There's probably, I did not read the agreement. My lawyer read it but yeah I'm sure there was some legal stuff on there that had I screwed them—I mean again that wasn't even like—I was [inaudible 00:21:39.9] that I was just more—I'm worried for them. Joe: Yeah. Mike: The biggest was that if a wire did come in and we still had that lump in the Amazon accounts and—who knows someone could just like catch a fly out of the country and really see it later and it was a little bit scary for me on their behalf. I just worry about stuff like that. Joe: Yeah. Well, I think that the last minute stuff was due to they had just closed one so they were busy with that and they also knew what was coming. And they are so busy they have so little capacity for anything about what's in front of them that they were like we'll get to that when it's necessary and it's necessary just after closing; after the money is wired. The other thing you mention was that you went to meet with them in person. You happened to be going on a road trip and going to be in their neighborhood just after closing. So that worked out perfectly. Mike: Yeah. Joe: I always recommend to people, to buyers in particular regardless of the size of the transaction that if you can; if there's any possible way, you get in a car, you get on a plane and you go visit your seller during due diligence. Once you're under a letter of intent get in front of them; have lunch with them, have dinner, get a tour. You don't want to let the staff know that the business is forsold, the large part until the APA is signed. But you could go in as a consultant or at the very least meet them so that you can gain that level of trust because it makes a huge difference. The worst situation I've ever had—I actually had a guy from San Diego where you're from. Early on when I 1st started back in 2012, he bought a business from me that was $35,000 and there was about $40,000 worth of inventory. He flew from San Diego in January to Minnesota and he didn't have a winter coat and I was trying to talk to him because I grew up in Min and I'm like you really—you don't know what 10 degrees is and with the wind chill factor of 20 below but it worked out. And he said to me later, he said look if I hadn't met them in person and learned everything I learned in due diligence I would have walked away because due diligence was tough when you've got a business that's $35,000 and there's $40,000 worth of inventory. But he met them in person and that made a difference. He still owns it today. I saw him at the Prosper Show a few years ago. So definitely in person meetings are really, really important. So let's talk now about those two days; in most transactions, there's a transition period, a training period that is part of the purchase price. The standard asset purchase agreement says up to 40 hours over the 1st 90 days after closing. I don't think you're going to use 40 hours or they're going to use 40 hours from you but you put in a couple of very long days right after closing, right? Mike: Yeah. I mean I don't know that it was required and I committed to be there whatever but I'm again that type of guy and I want to see them have success with this business; bottom line. And part of it is just treating others like I like to be treated. And I have been in transactions before when I bought Ice Wraps on the wire hit the guy ghosted me. It was like I literally never heard from him again. Joe: That's why we do hold backs people. Mike: Yeah but I mean it was a $50,000 purchase. It was actually the exact same situation as going—I went to Michigan, it was also in January. I also didn't have a winter coat. And I was also [inaudible 00:25:13.8] I thought you're talking about me for a second. But the employees did help me with the transition. The owner just was gone. And there were a couple of things that I could have used his help on that would have just taken him 30 seconds to answer. So again I just would never want to be that guy. And there is a lot—I mean a lot of things are going on in our business that I probably needed to hand off you realize it is all complicated; they are but it seems so easy to you because you learned them one day at a time. And when you're trying to take five years of something that you learned one day at a time that for me they're like sending orders into Amazon or you have something come from our 3PL or coming from China go to a 3PL and go to Amazon or deal with the customer service issue or do Facebook Ads, I mean all the different pieces of the business it all just seems so 2nd nature to me. It's no different than breathing. But when you try to start explaining to somebody you realize like just how much there is. And so I actually made a list of like 40 items as I just started thinking of them over and above what they were asking for or things that I thought that I needed to explain to them. And I just I wanted to feel like when I left there that I felt good about myself that they had everything from me to make sure that they were going to be successful. Now what they do with things from here on out isn't really—I look at that and that's not my problem. I mean I've done everything I can it's up to them now if they want to end to the ground there's nothing I can really do about that. I'd rather that they'll make a billion dollars with it. I'd be much happier with that result but I want to tell they felt good about me. Like I gave them every tool possible to be successful and I'm still there for them. They still have been in contact with me but they've been really good about it and respectful. And I've been spending 10 to 15 minutes a day maybe since I left there helping them which I think is completely reasonable. And I see the light at the end of the tunnel in that within two to three weeks I'll probably never hear from them again other than to say hi and maybe have a drink some day because they're really awesome guys. I really like them and I'd love to hang out with them just on a personal level next time we're in the same city. But they're obviously not going to take advantage. That's when I would get upset is like if the other parties are taking advantage and like asking you to continue to do stuff and spend eight hours a day helping them and just taking advantage. And they're not doing that and again I just want to make sure that I do the best that I could and I can feel good about myself with the hand off. And that's kind of how things transpired. Joe: Yeah. And that's why as far as the taking advantage that's why it's called transition and training. It's not operating the business. Mike: Yeah. Joe: So we've always got a certain period up to and over, the reality is that even after three months they may send you a note, a Skype message, a text, an email with a quick question that you're going to respond to. It happens. There's just no way that you can pack everything that's in your head inside of a two day training period. Because they're going to come up against something that may not happen for four months and it's new to them and it wasn't covered in training. It's just the nature of all of the pieces and parts. But at the same time, it's not overly complicated. These businesses are fairly easy to transfer and the training is fairly easy. It's just running on its own now and it's the key thing that I always tell people is especially people that are leaving the corporate world and are used to working 60 hours a week and they take over a business like yours that might take 15 hours a week on a high side that just put in 30 but 15 working in 15 observing and training and don't fix anything that's not broken. I see that happen too often. People come from the corporate world and they're just fixers; they want to fix things even if it's not broken so they do break it. So that's the big piece that I try to have them not do which is really important. Okay, so we're doing a video here. Most people listen to audio but you've got the EcomCrew shirt on so I want to talk about that a little bit. I want to know; we've closed, the money is in the bank, you've dropped one of four brands so you've got a little bit more free time. Not a lot, I know you're crazy busy but what's next for Mike Jackness? Mike: Well immediately following as just I have the EcomCrew shirt on is because we're doing an EcomCrew webinar right after this. That's what's immediately next but I think you're talking bigger picture. I'm trying to get—I have some life goals, I do a podcast every year about yearly goals and a couple of big themes are less is more. I think that would be just trying to do too much. We've been successful in spite of ourselves, in spite of running at full scene. I'm concerned about burning out because I've been there before and I can kind of feel that coming to [inaudible 00:30:01.6]. So before running off the rails and feeling like I'm completely burned out, I wanted to make some changes. And one of those things was selling one of those businesses to make sure that the burnout thing doesn't happen. And overall like the thing that I really enjoy doing is the teaching and education part with EcomCrew. It's just been awesome. I talk about how I feel like I have enough in life. I mean it's always nice to make more money. I'm not going to be one of those guys that's like I'm not going to take any money when I have enough to make money but there's different ways to make money. And one of the things that have been really cool is just to help others while doing that. It might be a situation where I might make 10,000 instead of $20,000 but somebody else might make $100,000 so it's like a net win for the role and it's still good for me and it's still in an environment where I get way more enjoyment out of it and it's a lot better than coming to the office every day and just kind of grinding which is not really for me. That was the reason why I left my day job in 2004. So those are kind of some big picture things that we're working on. I also want to get into an e-commerce business I have just a personal interest in. I think that that's really important after just being in e-commerce and business stuff over a long period of time. The things that you are personally interested and passionate about are just way easier. And Color It was an amazing business, amazing brand for a whole bunch of reasons that we don't time to get into here but it's just not something that I'm personally into. And the same thing with Ice Wraps and Tech Miner and Water Baby, those are just things that they make money. I'm an entrepreneur at heart, I think a really good business person at heart like I am very strappy. I will figure out a way to make money doing just about anything but it's not just about that. It's doing something that I actually have an interest in and enjoy which I think will be a lot better. So those are some big picture things for me. Joe: But I think a lot of that estranged and left comes with age and experience; hustled in the past and you did what you had to do and you got ahead and you're giving back. For those that have not listened to EcomCrew, the podcast, I highly advise it. We talk about it often here on the podcast for people that have just purchased businesses or even those that have them and are trying to expand their channels either to Amazon or email marketing or anything like that. You got to tune in and listen to Mike and Dave on EcomCrew. They've got a great series, Under the Hood, we're going to try to do something like that on valuations here at Quiet Light someday but Mike is one of those guys that has been there, done it, and now he's helping. He's not teaching because he had nothing else to do. He's teaching because he's been very, very successful in sharing his experience with others. So I appreciate that. Mike, any last thoughts, any last words in terms of what you'd say to people that are thinking about selling in the future and how to prepare? Mike: Specifically, on thinking about selling and how to prepare, the 1st thing I would say is that everything comes to an end at some point. So even if you're like I'm never going to sell my business that's complete B.S. because everything comes to an end. And what I've learned in life, entrepreneurial life is a lot of times it sneaks up on you. You think you're in a good spotting and you're happy with what you're doing but there's a lot of things that happen in business that are irritating and wear on you. And eventually one day you might just throw your hands up and you'll be like I've had enough of this. And if you're in a better spot to sell and you're prepared to sell all along the way that can happen a lot easier and smoother than if you haven't prepared. And you'll also get way more money for your business if you have prepared. So it's something that you should be thinking about at all times. It will probably make you a better business person and make your existing business better anyway because if you're always thinking about it from the perception of I might need to sell this business any time it will force you to have better procedures in place. It will force you to be looking at your accounting every month and scrutinizing all your expenses. Making sure that your net profit is always as high as possible. There's a lot of [inaudible 00:34:09.9] benefits having that thought process. And even if you “never do sell” it will probably put you in a better position no matter what. So if there are things that I wish I'd—if I could go—if you try and go back and change things and I was thinking a lot about this; our plan was to sell the whole thing as like a big conglomerate originally. But things changed and so I wasn't—I had been marching towards to sell everything as a conglomerate goal, everything was together and I thought one day e when I was done with e-commerce I would just be done with e-commerce. But that's not how it worked out. What ended up happening was we got too big for what I was comfortable with in terms of risk to reward and I want to take some money off the table and I still immensely love e-commerce and I want to be involved in e-commerce. So I could have better prepared ourselves for that by having multiple LLC's for each brand that maybe one LLC owned each one of those and it still would have been that conglomerate thing and structured in a better way. You can't foresee the future all the time but you can definitely plan—put yourself in a better position when the unexpected comes. Joe: I don't know if I could have said it any better than that so we're just going to wrap this up, Mike. Mike: [inaudible 00:35:20.4] Joe: It's about a complete pleasure working with you. I'm glad to have been your broker in helping you achieve these goals and maybe another year or two we'll do it with the next one. Mike: I'm looking forward to it. Joe: Alright, thanks, Mike. Links and Resources: ColorIt.com MIke's Podcast Email Mike Centurica
更多英语知识,请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Todd: Hey, Michael, I just met your wife. She's a really nice woman. Really friendly.Mike: Yeah. yeah. We met a long time ago. We've been married a lot of years, now.Todd: How did you meet actually?Mike: Oh, gosh, we back when we were both students, at Arizona State University in Tempe Arizona, and I had volunteered to be one of the tour guides for new students, foreign students who just come in for that school year, and it was the end of August, and it was very steamy, a very hot day, and I remember I met the students, there were maybe four or five of them at the Student Union for this walking orientation tour of the campus. It's a beautiful campus, by the way, and so, you know, I remember she was sitting on this bench and I went and, you know, she smiled at me and I smiled at her, and there was some kind of spark.Todd: Yeah, yeah, like a connection.Mike: There was a connection. There was a connection there, and I, you know, we went on this walking tour of the campus and when we were you done, you know, I kind of reluctantly, sort of said goodbye to her and the rest of the group, and you know, kind of said, see you around, and I think the next day even, she went found out who I was and where I worked and she dropped in my office.Todd: Wow, that's pretty cool. That's pretty romantic.Mike: It was very cool. Very romantic. You know the funny thing is, that particular bench, where we met, on our anniversary, 20th anniversary, we went back to the campus (no way) where we met and we took a picture of ourselves on the same bench because this is where we first met.Todd: What a great story.Mike: It was very cool to go back there.Todd: So, in terms of your personality, how are you guys similar?Mike: How are we similar? Oh, man, I think we're more different than anything. I think our biggest similarity is that we're both so different, in other words, that we're both very tolerant (yeah) of people who are different and so we, you know we kind of get along. We have an understanding that's we're going to misunderstand each other most of the time.Todd: Right, right.Mike: But we sort of approach that with a kind of humor and flexibility so I think that's what makes our relationship work is that we got that kind of agreement.Todd: So you think that's the key to any successful marriage?Mike: Is not getting so upset at misunderstanding each other or kind of using misunderstanding as a way of getting to know each other. I think that is one of the keys.Todd: That's nice. Thanks.Mike: Sure.
We have the pleasure of sitting down with Role Tea CEO and co-founder Mike Johnson to discuss the topic of entrepreneurship while other and what building an effective network looks like for underrepresented communities. Connect with Mike (and Role Tea) on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikecjohnson1/https://www.linkedin.com/company/role-tea/about/Learn more about Role Tea:https://www.drinkroletea.com/https://www.instagram.com/roletea/?hl=enhttps://twitter.com/getroletea?lang=enhttps://www.facebook.com/GetRoleTea/Connect with us: https://linktr.ee/livingcorporateTRANSCRIPTZach: My grandfather was born in Mississippi and was a sharecropper on a cotton farm. With only an elementary education, he eventually moved to a small Illinois town to work for John Deere. After working for over 20 years, he established his wealth through entrepreneurship, namely real estate. "Remember," he would say to me as a child, "jobs are to pay your bills. If you want to be successful and make real money, do something else." Though he was successful, his journey was challenging and fraught with various hardship. It actually reminds me of an excerpt from a piece from Inc Magazine authored by Web Smith called "What It Really Means to Be a Black Entrepreneur in America," and I quote, "Regardless of race or ethnicity, entrepreneurs always begin at a disadvantage. However, blacks tend to need to reach levels of traction with our own money since seed money is often unavailable. This contributes to the rarity of URM entrepreneurs. Richard Kirby, vice president of Vinrock, recently compiled a list that reported a total of 23 African-American investors in the U.S. It should be of no surprise that black founders receive less than 1% of institutional capital. As important as money is the ability to realize your potential through mentorship and direction. This begins with confidence, belonging, and familiarity." End quote. Listen to that. Confidence, belonging, and familiarity. Networking is the catalyst for each of these things, but what does building such networks look like for underrepresented communities? My name is Zach, and you're listening to Living Corporate.Ade: So today we're talking about entrepreneurship and what it means to be an entrepreneur as a non-white person.Zach: I'm glad that we're dedicating an episode to this. Living Corporate isn't just about working for someone else, but also we want to explore ways in which you can work for yourself.Ade: For sure, and shout-out to your grandpa. That's an amazing story.Zach: Yeah, it's inspiring for sure, and while it's impressive--you know, he built his empire through real estate in a small Midwestern town after building up decades of social equity by being in the community, right? Like, he bought homes, like, no one else was really wise enough to invest in, then he fixed them himself, then he managed all of his own maintenance on this homes.Ade: Wow. Yeah, I mean, he weaved his own boot straps out of thin air and then pulled himself up by them. Like, he's an amazing success story, no doubt. To your point, in 2019, the world is just way more connected and social, which is cool, but it also creates more invisible hurdles and roles and just stuff to navigate in being a full-time or even moderately successful part-time entrepreneur, right? And those three things that you quoted--confidence, belonging, and familiarity--those are all needed in the hyper-connected world.Zach: It's just funny, 'cause I was telling a colleague that because of that fact that entrepreneurship success is built on access to capital, which lie in relationships, that people of color are well-benefitted by having partners and backing that don't really look like them, and I remember I had this conversation, and you would think this person, like, thought that I had said, I don't know, just something, like, really racist or, like--"What are you talking about? What are you trying to say? I mean, anybody can do anything." I was like, "OK, all right. Yes, we can do anything." And it also helps to know the right people so that we can have access to things, so that we can do the things that we want. I mean, like, let's be realistic. It frustrates me sometimes when we talk about, like, success and striving to do better and building things that we don't acknowledge, like, the very real capitalist structures that exist, right? Not even that we're fighting against, but that we have to plug into to be successful. Like, come on. Like, this is America. Everybody does not--everybody with a great idea does not wake up and then work really hard towards that idea and then somehow, like, become successful. There's plenty of people out there with great ideas who work very hard who are never successful, right?Ade: Right, and because people of color often don't have access to power or the relationships or the rooms in which these bills are being made in these countries to be movers and shakers there's a bit of a disadvantage. Let's look at the most prominent black clothing brand ever, FUBU. Long story short, FUBU popped off by having a relationship with LL Cool J, and yes, that LL Cool J. He is black, but guess who else LL Cool J had a commercial partnership with? Gap. He plugged FUBU in the middle of a Gap promotional commercial, and he did it while he was rapping, so nobody who was on set or was clearing the ad afterwards really noticed.Zach: Right, and it's a crazy story, but people just forget about that and the fact that Damon John, he had a ton of creative methods to promote FUBU, right? Like, he had a ton of different ways he was kind of getting it out on the street, but it was that Gap commercial--that's the one that really got 'em on the map and really--anyone who studies FUBU and studies, like, advertising, they know about the LL commercial, right? Like, it's common knowledge that's--that was the tipping point for that brand, and so, like, the point is entrepreneurship is changing already. Like, the majority of entrepreneurs don't make it, but being someone who doesn't have advantages built on centuries of historical inequity makes it even harder. Not to say it isn't possible. I'm not saying that it's impossible at all, it's just--it's just hard.Ade: Correct. Wouldn't it be dope if we had an entrepreneur with, let's say, over a 15-year track record of successfully launching dozens of new products or services in the food and beverage media and industrial goods industry? In fact, I would love to hear from someone who has experience maybe launching a brand from concept to the shelf of three of the top ten grocery chains in the country.Zach: Oh, you mean like our guest Mike C. Johnson?Ade and Zach: Whaaaaaat?Zach: [imitates air horns, then Sound Man supplies them] Y'all thought we weren't gonna have these air horns this season. Y'all thought. That's right. We still here with these air horns. We are here with these air horns. More fire for your head top. I'm not playing.Ade: This is really all Zach. I'm blaming it on you.Zach: Aye, drop the air horns. In fact, hold on, drop extra air horns, because we had someone who was actually from Jamaica hit us up on Instagram and say, "Please keep the air horns coming, and make them louder."Ade: Make them louder?Zach: Make them louder, so we here for y'all. We here for the people, 'cause we got it like that. We love y'all, okay?Ade: Not surprised. Not surprised in the least. All right, y'all. Keep listening for a really dope conversation.Zach: And we're back. And as we shared before the break, we have Mike Johnson with us. Welcome to the show, Mike. How are you doing?Mike: I'm doing good, man. How are you doing?Zach: I'm doing really good, man. So today we're talking about entrepreneurship. So can you tell me--where did your entrepreneurial itch come from or start with?Mike: Oh, man. I really can trace it back to my early 20s. I had a couple ventures around that time that I went after. I had a website called VirtualREGallery, which was basically a website that displayed virtual tours of real estate listings before virtual tours were pretty popular. I was a realtor for a little while, and I also did some construction on the side. So I've always kind of had that aspiration to somewhat control my own destiny, but I would say what really motivated me to start Role Tea was just as I learned more about marketing and innovation, I always just had this dream to want to turn an idea or a vision to a concept and go start to finish and pretty much have complete control over how that product will come to market. So that to me has been the most gratifying part of entrepreneurship. Even to this day when I walk into a store or restaurant and I see someone, you know, drinking Role Tea and, you know, just randomly, that to this day still makes me a little excited, 'cause I'm like, "Man, 3 years ago that product was just an idea in my head, and now people can actually purchase it and consume it in a store." So that's just probably the most gratifying thing, to have that control over the idea from start to finish.Zach: That's amazing. And, you know, you talking about your previous ventures, it reminds me of another question that--you know, in season 1 we had a guest who brought up the concept of failing forward--failing quickly and failing forward, so can you talk a little bit about that concept and perhaps what some of your biggest Ls--and we'll say Ls are lessons--that you've taken in your entrepreneurial journey?Mike: Yeah, man. That's a great question. The crazy thing for me about failure that I've learned in this experience is that--you know, I've realized that you really only fail at almost anything when you quit. Like, going into this venture, you know, sometimes your mind can play tricks on you. You start thinking about the worst things that could happen and failure and whatnot, but when you get into it you realize that, man, virtually everything that happens to a business can be resolved if you have the fortitude to try to work through it. So, I mean, you know, we're no different. Like, you know, everyone talks about the great side of entrepreneurship, but man, we've had at least four or five near-death experiences with our company in 2 years. Like, you know, from running out of cash, which a lot of startups have that issue with running out of money, to, you know, having key suppliers back out last minute, literally weeks before launching into Wegmans, which is a 95+ grocery chain from Virginia up to upstate New York, to having distributors back out the last minute. I mean, all of these things have taken out other companies, but for us we just looked at it as, you know, "Okay, here's another problem." You know, "What are our options just to get past it?" And you kind of take it on the chin and move forward. So, you know, you really only fail at almost anything when you quit or when you run out of, you know, hands to play. So once you realize that and you realize that, "Wow," you know, "what happens with me and this business is largely up to my control," it's kind of empowering once you realize that. But as far as just lessons in general around business, to me the two biggest lessons that come to mind for me is--the first one is just starting as small as you can until you can completely the validate the concept, and when I say validate the concept I mean that, you know, you have a product or a concept that people are gonna want to buy, where the economics of it will actually be able to create a business, right? There's a lot of ideas out there that you can sell, but you're never gonna get the price point that you need to actually have a business. Making sure that you actually know who the consumer is. You know how to talk to them or the channels to sell to them. Those are all the things that are required to really validate a concept, and it's best to try to do that on a very small scale to start. That's definitely been a lesson that we've learned early on, and then I think the second big lesson that I've learned in this in terms of failure as well is just trying to get the business to a point where it can be self-sustainable as quickly as possible, right? So right now we're going through some pretty, you know, dramatic changes around our operations to get a little bit more margin back in house versus giving it to a supplier or an outsourced vendor, and that's just all in an effort to get our business to a point where it can pretty much eat off of what it kills, right? We can sustain ourselves based on our own selves as opposed to relying too much on outside investments. So that's a piece of advice I would give to any aspiring entrepreneur. Even if you want to raise capital, it's just good to have financial discipline to try to get your business as self-sustainable as possible as quickly as possible. So there's many lessons, but those two stand out the most.Zach: And so, you know, you've talked--you talked a little bit about Role Tea, and we're definitely gonna get into that as we get further along in this interview. I'm curious to know about your ventures. Could you--would you mind walking us through? Typically when I meet--the reason I ask your ventures is because typically when I meet entrepreneurs, they may have, like, one big thing, but they have a few other things kind of cooking around them. So I'm curious to know, what are your ventures right now?Mike: No, yeah, that is very true. We tend to have short attention spans, so it's easy to kind of get involved with different things. You know, we launched Role Tea in December, November timeframe of 2016, so we're right at the 2 years, and to be honest, man, aside from, you know, being a new father, which I actually became a father the same year I became an entrepreneur with Role Tea, that's been my primary focus. Now that Role Tea is a little bit more established in terms of distributors and it doesn't take as much of me doing virtually everything to keep it going, I am starting to get back a little bit into consulting. That's something that I did prior to launching Role Tea, so I do like to work with other startups and help them however way I can, but aside from that, man, the bulk of my focus right now is with Role Tea.Zach: What challenges do you believe that you've had as a black entrepreneur? And I ask that because in the research that Ade and I have been doing, we've noticed that there are some challenges that are unique to being a non-white builder of businesses, and so I'm curious to know, like, if you--have you run into any challenges that you believe are unique juxtaposed to your white counterparts? And if so, what are they?Mike: Entrepreneurship, just inherent in the way it is, is already built with plenty of challenges. White, black, yellow, whatever. So sometimes it can be a challenge to understand, "Okay, is this a challenge that I'm facing because I'm simply an entrepreneur, or is this a challenge that I'm facing because I'm a black entrepreneur?" And that can be difficult sometimes to decipher, but one challenge that I think is definitely tied to us being, you know, African-American [and own a business,] especially in the food and beverage industry. It's just the fact that, you know, we are launching a beverage brand that is--our intent is to scale to 100+ million in sales and potentially exit, so we're treating our business like a true startup, not like a family-owned business where we're just, you know, looking to sell locally and et cetera, and I think that that's a very different thing in the food and beverage industry amongst a black entrepreneur that most people would expect. So I think that just simply not having a whole lot of examples to point to of black-owned food and beverage brands that have been able to do that successfully makes it hard for a lot of people to see the vision and see the potential in our concept, and I think that's especially true primarily with investors. We've actually had, you know, pretty good success with, for example, some major retailers. We've gotten our product onto the shelves of Whole Foods, of Wegmans. Those are two of the top-rated grocery chains in the country. Hy-Vee is another one. You know, but from a business standpoint, I think that's where we've seen most of the challenge in terms of, you know, working with investors and things of that nature, and I think that's largely because there's just not a whole lot of examples of African-American-owned food and beverage brands that have done it to that level, which is what we're aspiring to do. So I'm sure that there is plenty more, but that's definitely one that I can say for certain I think is unique to us.Zach: So what advice would you give to the person who thinks, you know, entrepreneurship is an all-or-nothing thing and it isn't--they're not starting their journey because they're afraid of missing a steady paycheck?Mike: Yeah, man. That's definitely something that is--I find is very common amongst a lot of people. I struggle with that myself. The first thing is you don't have to be all in to be an entrepreneur, right? Don't listen to everything that you see on Instagram and, you know, social media. There's a lot of people out here glamorizing entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurship is great, right? I spent 12+ years in the corporate world, and now I'm 2 years as an entrepreneur, so I can give you the perspective of both sides, and there's definitely a lot of advantages on the entrepreneur side, but there is nothing wrong with side-hustling it for as long as you can, right? That extra paycheck from your job is--it actually can position your business to be more successful, you know? Thankfully I have 12+ years of experience in the corporate world working for other people, learning, collecting that nice six-figure salary so that I can actually build up a savings to even have a chance to do what I'm doing now. So it's all about when is the right time for you, even if you ever want to go all in, right? All in meaning you're full-time with your entrepreneurship venture, but that's the first thing. Don't feel pressured to go all in, right? And when you go all in is another big question that I hear a lot, and it's also one that I--challenge that I dealt with, and, you know, there's no right or wrong answer. Everyone has to lok at their particular situation to know when is the right time, but I will say that there's probably about four or five things that, you know, anyone that's in that situation is looking to do, to transition, to go all in, they should be looking at. Like, the first thing is, you know, what does your business require? Like, for example, if you're gonna launch a catering business versus a restaurant, you know, they're two very different demands and requirements, right? When you're talking about a restaurant, you have to deal with a storefront, which likely comes with remodeling, et cetera. Not the typical type of thing that you can get, you know, to market on the weekends and evenings, right? Whereas a catering service, you can do that evenings, weekends. You can pretty much side-hustle that until you actually get paying customers before you even have to leave your job. So the type of business that you're looking to start a lot of times will dictate largely when you can actually go all in or if and when you can actually cut the 9-to-5 path. The other thing you've got to look at is, you know, what type of support do you have going into it, right? Do you have people, whether it's family members or friends, that can help you out early on without having to get paid, right? I mean, early on there's no cash coming in. To get it stood up, you're gonna need people to help. You're gonna need your team. What type of support do you have? If you have a pretty good support system, you may be able to go all in a little bit sooner. Also you've got to look at, you know, what are your responsibilities in terms of financially and with people, right? Are you 21 years old, no kids, no family, very low bills? You know, that gives you a whole lot more flexibility in terms of what you can do sooner and the risks that you can take, whereas if you are--like, in my situation, I started, you know, Role Tea already in my mid-30s. Like I said, I'm a father, newly father, so I have to move a lot different in that situation.Zach: Congratulations on that, by the way.Mike: Oh, I definitely appreciate it, man. Fatherhood is a lot of fun, a lot of fun. But yeah, you have to move a lot different if you have a lot of financial responsibilities and people responsibilities. Obviously you have to be a little bit more smart about when you go all in. You also might have to look at are there skills that you just don't have yet but you need to develop before you go all in, right? And then lastly, this is probably often times, you know, skipped and not really taken into consideration, but you definitely have to look at what's your appetite for risk and uncertainty, right? Once you pull the plug on that 9-to-5 and you're all in, you know, on the good side is it really motivates you to have a sense of urgency, to move forward fast, but at the same time it can also be stressful by not having that paycheck coming in every week or two or whatever it was you got paid, and that can definitely cause a lot of stress and anxiety, and if you're the type of person that doesn't deal well with that type of uncertainty and stress, #1: you're probably going to struggle as an entrepreneur, 'cause that's gonna come naturally, but that may also dictate you keeping your business as a side hustle a little bit longer. So I never tell someone exactly what to do in that situation, but I would definitely tell you that those are probably the four or five things that you should be thinking about in your situation to determine, you know, when you go all in or if you go all in at all.Zach: And so, you know--and I alluded to this earlier about some of your challenges as a black entrepreneur, but the research I was speaking to specifically had to do with the variance in acquiring capital, right? So venture capital, angel investments, and other types of non-business loan-sourced funding. I'm curious, have you had any challenges in acquiring that type of funding, and really what's been your journey in building those relationships with those with access with the capital to help your ventures?Mike: Yeah, that's a great question. It's definitely one of the bigger challenges that I'm finding with not just our business but other black-owned entrepreneurs, and it's a complex one, which I--I know that this is probably an area of business that's foreign to a lot of people, so I definitely want to make sure I kind of break this down because, you know, I have an MBA, but yet 3 years ago I didn't understand hardly anything about the idea of raising capital. I've had to learn a lot through this venture, and the challenges that are unique to African-Americans is--it's kind of a snowball effect, so let me explain it like this. So investment in startups typically happens in a progression, right? So, you know, the first step is typically money out of your own pocket, right? So that's called bootstrapping, right? Maybe you've worked in the corporate world for a number of years, you've built up some savings. Maybe you got an inheritance. Whatever the case may be, right? But you need some sort of cash to get things going very early on. That's typically the first step. Second step is you look to friends and family, right? "Who do I know in my own personal network?" Friends, family, associates, that have the means to write a $10, 20, 30, 50,000 check or more, right? That's the second step, and then once you get past that, then you get into what's called angel investors, which are typically either high net worth or high-income individuals who choose to invest in startups, right? And then lastly you get to venture capital, which essentially are, you know, funds that investors who are called limited partners, or LPs, invest in, and they then have managers of those funds look for startups to invest in, right? And they can go from $500,000 up to, you know, $100,000,000, right? They write very large checks. So that's the typical progression of a startup raising capital for their business. So let's think about that, right? Now, what we know about African-Americans is we traditionally have a lower income than non-whites. We also traditionally have a lower net worth, which is probably more significant, than whites. So going back to the very first step in that progression, right? Most of us could struggle with having the means to even bootstrap, to have that $20, 30, 50,000 just to get started, right? Because of the points that I just made, right? And if you get past that hurdle, then now you have to find friends and family that also can write that $10, 15, 20,000 check or more. Again, that's a struggle that's unique for African-Americans moreso than others because of the points that I just made. So right out the gate as an African-American entrepreneur you have some disadvantages, right? And VCs and angels, you have to get past those first couple stages typically before they're even interested in looking at your business, right? And the crazy thing about investment, the investment world, that I've learned is investors rely significantly on their personal networks to even be introduced to an entrepreneur to invest in. So they're--again, how many African-Americans have the social network, the connections that people that have that kind of means to write those checks, right? So it's a snowball effect that, collectively speaking, puts us at a disadvantage, and again, that's definitely a challenge that is well-documented. We've experienced it. Other founders that we know have experienced it, but, you know, how you deal with that is--again, I don't want to make it sound simple, but the first thing that we've tried to do is just bridge that gap in terms of relationships, right? And that's really done largely by just putting yourself out there, putting yourself in situations to meet people that can invest in your brand. So, you know, the very first angel investor that we had we met at the Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Summit last year. We were chosen as a finalist to pitch in that competition, so, you know, we got a lot of visibility at that show down in Houston last year. We met with our first investor there, our first angel investor I should say, and, you know, months down the road after the rapport was established he decided to invest in us, right? So that was an example of where we had to kind of bridge that gap by just going out and making those connections, and then the second thing really is just--you know, you have to have the mindset that you're gonna make your startup undeniable, right? You know, if someone says no now, which we've definitely heard tons of nos, and you're gonna hear nos. Raising capital is very difficult for any startup, so you have to have the mindset that, you know, "Okay, you say no today, but we're gonna build up the traction that we need over the next 6 months to 12 months to the point where if you say no you're basically foolish," right? So you just have to make your startup--you have to make your startup undeniable, 'cause everyone likes to make money, and I think it's a little bit more of a challenge to show that we can do that, but, you know, if you can definitely demonstrate that, people will invest in your startup. It's just a little bit difficult for us for those reasons.Zach: That's just such a great point around--especially when you started--when you talked about, like, the various levels of investment, right? So I'll even use Living Corporate as an example. For us, you know, I'm one of the few people in my family even in corporate America. We don't all have money like that. I certainly would not--I don't even feel comfortable. I mean, and some of that might just be culture too, Mike. I don't feel comfortable walking to a member of my family talking about, "Hey, would you mind investing $10,000 to help us hire writers and videographers and so on, so on, and so forth," and really invest in Living Corporate. Like, what? You know what I mean? Like, just the thought of that, right? And then, you know, we had an episode again in season 1 when we were talking about family [inaudible]--like, the wealth gap. The wealth inequality gap, and there's plenty of research to show that in the next 10, 20 years, that the average value of a black home will be zero dollars, right? So you're talking about the fact that starting up and getting all this capital, for a community who has no money--like, we don't have the centuries of privilege and things of that nature to have an uncle or a second cousin who can write a check, right? And I think that's just a really good point. You know, I'm curious about Role Tea, so let's dig into that a little bit more. So first off, when can Living Corporate get a case of the tea?Mike: I'm always open to giving Role Tea to whoever wants it, so yeah, I'll let you go with the second question.Zach: [laughs] Okay, so we're good on the tea. And then why tea? Why Role Tea, and then what was the inspiration behind Role Tea?Mike: Yeah, yeah. So yeah, we definitely got you on the case. No problem there. As far as the inspiration for the tea, we always say on the--we launched the tea 2 years ago, but the idea for Role Tea really started probably in my early 20s more than 10 years ago where I had the experience of losing 100 pounds, right? So, you know, I'm like 22 years old, and I get that scale shock where I go to the doctor and--I know I'm obviously way too big, but I didn't realize I had actually gone over 300 pounds, and I'm like, "Man," like, "Okay, something's gotta change." So at that point my relationship with food changed, and I learned that, you know, a lot of the traditional foods and beverages that I had consumed, that were, you know, typically less than healthy, right, if I'm creative I can remix those recipes to be better for me, still taste good, and actually serve a purpose to either help me feel better or perform better, and so, you know, over the course of the next 2 to 3 years I lost 100 pounds just, you know, changing the way I ate and exercising more, et cetera. So fast forward to 2015. At this time I was training for a boxing match. I'm a huge boxing fan. I've boxed for several years. Anyone that knows me knows that I'm passionate about boxing just as I am about business, but I was training for a boxing match in 2015, and I noticed--again, now in my mid-30s, you know, after training, what used to take a day or two to feel normal again, not feel sore, not feel stiff, was now taking 2 or 3 days, right? So I started to research beverages that I could drink--you know, not supplements, but just every day traditional beverages--Zach: Natural.Mike: Yeah, natural beverages that I could incorporate into my diet that may help, and so, you know, that's when I learned about ingredients like tumeric and ginger and, you know, green tea and tart cherries, which all have natural anti-inflammatory properties, and so I looked for options in the store, and virtually everything I saw was $6 or $7 bottles of juice, [inaudible] sugar. So, you know, my background is in innovation, new product development and launches, so I immediately saw a business opportunity. I went to a friend of mine named Corey Benson with the idea, and he has an operations background. He was running a manufacturing plant at the time, and he said, "You know what, man? Like, I see people every day that are standing up at the job for 9, 10 hours a day. They're popping Aleves. They're, you know, popping Advils and drinking Mountain Dews to deal with the soreness from just their job," right? So he immediately saw the pain point that, you know, the concept that we were thinking about would address, but he saw it from a regular 9-to-5 job, whereas I was dealing with it from a weekend warrior boxing perspective, right? So we immediately saw, like, "Wow, this whole thing around inflammation and a functional beverage that can help with that has some legs, and it probably could impact a lot of people." So from there we were ready to go. We started to research the industry a lot more in 2015 and 2016. We worked with a development company to take our recipes that we had created with tea and juice and spices, like tumeric and ginger, to basically create a product that could be sold on a shelf. We chose tea because, you know, tea is a very popular drink, and it still is. Shout-out to Guru, even though he talked about lemonade. But tea's a very popular drink, and the great thing about it is, again, you know, a lot of the options before were juices, which is more expensive. Tea is a much less expensive catalyst to use to deliver functional spices and benefits, so we figured we would be able to create a functional drink that's also affordable, right? So we're probably one of the first functional beverages in stores like Whole Foods and Wegmans that was under $3 per bottle, and again--plus I'm a huge iced tea fan, right? So that was a natural ingredient, or product, to use. So, you know, we worked through the recipe process in 2016, and we launched a product literally the night before Thanksgiving in the D.C. Metro area in 2016, and, you know, we started off just very independent, selling out of the trunk of our cars, and, you know, now we're currently sold in over 100 locations, from Virginia up to upstate New York as well as a few states in the Midwest. So right now we're just, you know, looking to continue to grow the business, bring on more partners, bring on more investors, and just see how far it can go.Zach: Man, that's incredible, man. You know, and down the road, once, you know, we get this tea and we drink it, we'll make sure to shout y'all out on the podcast on the part of our Favorite Things.Mike: Definitely. Definitely do that.Zach: Yeah, man. Now, this has been a great conversation. I really want to know where people can learn more about Role Tea and where they can get some.Mike: Yeah, yeah. So Role Tea--and that's R-O-L-E, as in, like, play your role. Role Tea is sold online, so you can see us at RoleTea.com. R-O-L-E-T-E-A dot com. We're also sold on the East Coast, primarily in stores like Wegmans as well as some independent stores in the D.C. Metro area. So yeah, check us out online, RoleTea.com. A lot of good information there. You can order right through that website. Yeah.Zach: That's what's up, man. Now, look, before we get out of here, do you have any parting thoughts or shout-outs?Mike: Yeah, I definitely want to shout-out everyone that has tried Role Tea, everyone that will try Role Tea, including you, Zach. Yeah, everyone that's worked with the brand to help get us this far, to this point, definitely appreciate the support. I definitely want to shout-out my co-founder Corey Benson. Definitely want to shout-out, you know, again, everyone that's listening to this podcast. I didn't get a chance to say this before, man, but when I first heard about this podcast and what you guys are attempting to do as far as help educate people in how to navigate, you know, the world of corporate America, I'm like, "Man, that's definitely something that's needed." Like you mentioned yourself, you're a first-generation corporate professional, right? Did I hear that right?Zach: Right.Mike: Yep, so same here. You know, first in my family to, you know, get a bachelor's degree, master's degree, corporate world and, you know, going into the corporate world I'm thinking, "Okay, I'm ready for success based on my education," but I quickly learned that most of what determines your success in that world is the things that are not taught in the classroom, right? It's the soft skills. It's the implied cultural norms that are often times a little bit different than what we grew up with, so, you know, a lot of us learn those lessons on the job as opposed to being prepared beforehand. So this podcast is doing a great service to help educate young professionals on those waters before they get into them, so kudos to you guys, and again, I'm glad to be a part of this.Zach: Man, Mike, thank you so much for the kind words. Again, the drink, Role Tea--like know your role, R-O-L-E T-E-A, and we're excited to give it a little review. So I appreciate your time. We consider you a friend of the show. Can't wait to have you back, man.Mike: Definitely appreciate it, man.Zach: Peace.Mike: Peace.Ade: And we're back. I thoroughly enjoyed that interview, Zach. I mean, I've known Mike for a little while now. He's been a great friend and supporter. Like, he's always good, not only to listen to you for advice but just listen to his experiences, and how he's been able to grow Role Tea as a brand has been very inspiring, and I'm so glad that we got so much of that in that interview.Zach: No, for sure. In our discussion, and outside of it too, we talked about--just talked about his history and talked about the challenges of building up his brand and really, like, trying and failing at some other things too, but super happy he was on the show, and hopefully we'll get some--we'll get some tea out of this. He told me he'd actually send us a couple pallets. I don't know about pallets, but he said he'd send--Ade: Word?Zach: Yeah. Not pallets, 'cause pallets sounds like--Ade: 'Cause that tea is delicious.Zach: Yeah. No, I've heard it's--I haven't had any yet, but I'm positive that once I have it I'm gonna enjoy it.Ade: Okay. Well, I am keeping an eye out, because Role Tea is amazing. Anyway, awesome. Thank you, and shout-out again to Mike Johnson and Role Tea. I'm looking forward to that tea.Zach: Salute to Mike. Okay, so Favorite Things?Ade: Favorite Things. Let's go. All right.Zach: All right, cool. So look, my favorite thing right now has to be Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Now, some of y'all are like, "Super Smash Bros.? What's that?" But let me tell you something, those who know--Pusha T voice. "If you know, you know." So look, my favorite thing right now has to be Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on my Nintendo Switch. It's super fun. I play in the evening after a long day at work, and I love it because I can just kind of pick it up. I don't have to, like, sit down in front of a big TV, boot up the game. I can just pick up my handheld, boot it up. And for those who want to know, my favorite--my main character is Chrom. So again, for those who are kind of, like, outside of this whole video game space, Super Smash Bros. is a Nintendo game, right, but it's like you can, like, pick Nintendo characters against each other to fight, right? But, like, not in a, like, super violent Mortal Kombat way. More, like, kind of, like, a cartoonish, fun way, but it's a deep, deep game, right? So you can put Mario against Sonic. You can put Princess Peach against Captain Falcon or Fox or Falco or Ganondorf versus Kirby. You can do all kinds of crazy match-ups, right? Super fun, and so it's been cool. It's a really good stress reliever. That--you know, working out sometimes, you don't want to necessarily want to get up and work out. Forgive me. I don't want to work out all the time. Sometimes I just want to kind of veg out, and it's great. It's great for that. So that's my favorite thing.Ade: Okay, self-care. I see you.Zach: That's right.Ade: So my favorite thing lately has been a book called Cracking the Coding Interview. It's been invaluable, I think. I struggle--for those of you who are just joining us, just in case this is your very first Living Corporate episode ever, I am switching careers, or I'm in the process of switching careers. I'm becoming a software engineer, and part of that process is self-teaching both foundational concepts and computer science, but also understanding algorithms, binary trees. Just how the very technical elements of software engineering, something that you are supposed to pick up in a classroom that I did not have the luxury of doing, therefore I have to teach myself. And there are also books that exist out there that kind of help you through the process of thinking through and developing strategies for coding interviews. I'm discussing it like it's a journal or something like that, [inaudible], but yeah, it's been a really important book, and I've kind of been adding more and more base computer science books and algorithm books to my library, right next to Frantz Fanon and Audre Lorde. So yeah, those are my favorite things.Zach: That's a sick combination though. That's dope.Ade: I want you to know our library in our home consists of tax law code and regulations and vegan chef--vegan cookbooks and regular cookbooks and Sister Outsider. [laughs] And computer science books and data science books.Zach: That's dope though.Ade: Oh, and [Ola had a?] self-help book. So there's no way you can walk into my home and not have something to read.Zach: You're gonna have something. You're gonna learn about something.Ade: There will be something available to edify you. I even have, like, fiction novels, everything from John Green to Grisham to Tomi Adeyemi, which, again, shout-out to her.Zach: Shout-out to her. No, straight up. She's great.Ade: I'm looking up to the next book in the series, by the way. Okay, we have veered so far off track. Did you have--Zach: Good. It's a Favorite Things segment. We're supposed to turn up. It's cool.Ade: You know what? You're right. You're right. Sir, sir. Sir. [Not turning up. Cruise?]. I'm tired. [laughs]Zach: [laughs] [Turn me up. Cruise?]Ade: Nope, I'm tired of you.Zach: Okay. No, no, no, but that's dope. So look, you know, y'all, if it wasn't evident by our kickoff episode, as well as our Supporting Black Women at Work section, the B-Side that we had as well as the full episode, we're here, man.Ade: We outchea.Zach: We're gonna have a good time this season. Make sure you keep checking us out. Thank you for joining us on the Living Corporate podcast. Make sure to follow us on Instagram @LivingCorporate, Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod, and subscribe to our newsletter through living-corporate.com. Please say the dahs.Ade: The dash.Zach: If you have a question you'd like for us to answer and read on the show, just email us or hit us on DM, right? We out here. Don't forget to give us 5 stars too. Now, look, some of y'all actually been responding and gave us some stars, but not all of y'all though. That's right, I'm looking at you. That's right. We need those 5 stars, okay? Right? Am I tripping, Ade? Do we need the 5 stars or nah?Ade: We need the 5 stars.Zach: We need the 5 stars. Okay, cool. Look, y'all. That does it for us. We'll catch y'all next week. This has been Zach.Ade: And this is Ade. Free 21 Savage.Zach: Free 21 Savage. Peace.Ade: Peace.
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Some sixty percent of people go to Amazon when they shop for a physical product. If you have one to sell and you're not on Amazon, this episode is for you. In today's product market every seller has got to learn the Amazon ecosystem. Today's guest is the person to turn to when looking to save, grow, and make more money on Amazon. Michael Zagare was doing something he hated for many years. He was ready for a change and finally sold his Physical Therapy practice and began dabbling in internet sales. Amazon FBA was a great fit. Mike now owns PPC Entourage and runs his own profitable Amazon business. PPC Entourage is an Amazon Seller software that analyzes all of your sponsored advertising data and then optimizes everything for you. Today Mike shares his insights from his own selling experience and from helping countless Amazon FBA sellers. Episode Highlights: When you should start optimization. Finding a niche in the marketplace and breaking in. Organic rankings versus paid rankings. Lowering ACOS with optimization. Your average ad spend. How to go about optimizing a paid spend. Sifting through the search terms in order to fine-tune your listing. How much data is needed to draw a good conclusion on a product's optimization. What to look for in opportunities to expand through optimization. Creative tips and strategies to use for sponsored ads. What Amazon sellers can implement today in order to start optimizing. Ways sellers can protect against the competition and dying out. Continual product development and brand building. The importance of the intellectual property portion of your products. Transcription: Joe: So, Mark back in the day … I could say that now because I have gray hair on my chin. Back in the day I learned Google Ad Words I used to spend a little bit of money and eventually grew it and grew it and grew it and grew it. It got to the point that I was spending $50,000 a week on Google Ad Words. I maxed it out and then you know just do that on a monthly basis. And I didn't take any courses and I should have. And I didn't hire any experts and I should have. And I didn't outsource it and I should have. Maybe they didn't exist, I don't know what the issue was, it was probably just inside my head. Today there's almost too many experts and in every possible category and some of them really just take your money. But you had someone on the podcast specifically talking about Amazon sponsored ads which if … folks if you've got a physical product and you're not selling on Amazon simply because you don't think you need to … I personally will not shop for anything other than on Amazon. I will go there first. If I can't find it there I think it doesn't exist. So, I think something like 60% of people looking for a physical product shop on Amazon. So, you've got to learn the Amazon ecosystem and sponsored ads and their marketing and things of that nature. And you had Michael Zagari is that how you pronounce his last name talking about this? Mark: Yes, that's right and he is an Amazon ads expert. And you're right back in my day I don't have the same gray hair mainly because I don't have a chin … I'm sorry a beard, I have a chin. Joe: It's very revealing about how you feel about yourself. Mark: Why do you think we've stopped the video? I have no chin. So, I had Michael on and you're right back in the day it used to be that you could setup campaigns with pretty much every advertising platform. Set them up run them and take a little bit to get them up and going but today really need to be an expert in each of these categories, each of these advertising platforms. Amazon is really no different than that. And what Michael does is he really helps people. He's developed a platform that people can use which will help manage their advertising platform through Amazon. Be able to identify those keywords that maybe they are paying for and add them to this negative keyword list to be able to make their ad spend a lot more efficient. In our conversation which … it's pretty funny actually, so he actually has an Amazon store and they sell litter boxes and other cat things and they're in the video which hopefully we'll get some clips up. That's a note to our editor Chris you've got to get the clips up. His cat was literally like walking around all over the chair behind him and everything else so very, very appropriate. We talked a little bit about the strategies that- Joe: I want to say “ah cute” but I'm not sure if it actually was. Mark: I made a joke that we developed into cat videos here at Quiet Light Brokerage just to get more views. We got over some of the strategies that he's employed over the years to be able to get some really crazy returns on his ad spend. And I don't want to quote them off hand, we'll let you listen to this because there are some solid numbers that he puts out and some solid techniques. We really talked about some other techniques that you can do to help out with your organic rankings as well on Amazon. So, anyone that's an Amazon geek or has a business or mobile business on Amazon put this episode on. We got somebody here who's doing this at a pretty high level and very interesting as far as adding that paid portion and maximizing that paid portion to your acquisition channels. Joe: I think you know even if you think you're an expert at it and you do pretty well listening to other folks that do things maybe just slightly differently in the next 30 minutes you maybe will pick up a nugget that will help boost one of your campaigns or decrease your CPA. Mark: All right Michael thank you for joining me. Mike: Hey glad to be here, what's up guys? Mark: All right let's go ahead and start with an introduction and I'm going to let you go ahead and do that like we usually do. Mike: Sure, yes. So, my name is Mike Zagare. I am a recovering physical therapist and I always lead with that because I was doing something from nine to five that I absolutely hated for many, many years. I love that it's helping out people but it was definitely not my passion or my dream job. I'm a thorough grade entrepreneur and I think that runs in my family. And I realized that as I was going through college that this is just like not what I want to do the rest of my life. So actually, my hair is starting to fall out and I kind of went through and was a physical therapist for 10 years. I started and sold a physical therapy home care practice in that time. Thankfully I no longer have that and I can focus now fulltime on Amazon. It has been an amazing journey along the way and a part of that journey was discovering how to build an Amazon business and how to scale that business and get as much traffic and eyeballs to our listings as possible. And that's why we started working with sellers to help that as well. To help them get as many [inaudible 00:05:31.8] for as sufficiently as possible to their listings. Mark: So, when did you start your first Amazon business? Mike: So, I started in 2015 and at the time I had a bunch of … I had a homecare business and I had a bunch of losing entrepreneurial ideas. Actually, the first time I dipped into Amazon it was started off as eBay and I realized well that's not something I can do full time; it's just too time consuming it's not scalable. And then I tried to do retail and online arbitrage. And if you guys have ever heard of that, it can be profitable but I think you really have to be in the right place at the right time and I had no experience. I ended up ordering hundreds and hundreds of the wrong units on my house and completely shut down the post office in doing that. So, like I really had the energy and the intensity but it really had to be channeled in something that was like … something where it was streamlined. Like Amazon FBA was perfect for me because you get to combine value creation and creativity. Create something that's really, really great and new to the marketplace and then it's much more scalable and it's like kind of out of your hands at that point once it gets to the FBA warehouse. Mark: Sure, so with retail arbitrage you're going out and you're finding this kind of products in other places, ordering them, and putting them into Amazon FBA, right? Mike: Yeah that's retail arbitrage. And online arbitrage is finding discounted deals on sites but then the problem with that is if a lot of people found the same deal. So, by the time you got your inventory over to Amazon your profit margins were gone and then you're left with a lot of inventory. So, I just felt like the model wasn't right for me and Amazon FBA was like lethal … definitely the way to go in terms of selling on Amazon. Mark: Sure, and we've had kind of a hierarchy here at Quiet Light as far as the businesses we like to see on Amazon that we consider to be most sellable with the retail arbitrage obviously being towards the bottom of that list because it really requires that special skill in being able to find products. And like you said the problem with that is there's a lot of arbitragers out there. They are looking for all the same opportunities. Everybody has the same equal opportunity for those and it can be pretty difficult to scale that. Not that it can't be done, I've talked to some people that are doing arbitrage at a really, really high level but it's pretty hard to transfer that as well. So when you're saying that you were doing Amazon FBA are you doing private label or did you create a brand and a product? What … where would you fall on that ecosystem? Mike: Yeah, I do private label and we have a brand that we're building. We sell cat products around litter solutions. We started there and basically, we started with one product that did really, really well and we found a niche in the marketplace, made it better, and then we just were the first ones to the market. And then we reinvested all that cash into other products based on the search term report. So basically, we got into the minds of people who are shopping for our products and you can see what they're actually looking for and what they purchased and sometimes it's not always the same thing. So, we would try to find the search terms that were similar to the products we were selling and then come out with those products because we knew that there was an audience there and we knew we could cross sell. And then it steamed rolled into that okay we have a bunch of litter solutions products, why not cat toys and why not this and why not hospitality item and now we're going to health and skin care as well for pets. So, it's just kind of branching out from there and now we have a brand and we're more focused in on building that brand. We have a community manager, we have all these different channels that we're engaging people on. We're getting Facebook groups, YouTube channels, stuff like that to really build up the brand which I know when you get to sell a business I feel like this is the secret sauce that people probably can utilize. Mark: Right and I would agree that brand … being able to have a good brand set up is towards the top end of that scale, right? So, the arbitrage is kind of at the bottom end because it's really, really tough to sell those businesses. It's really tough to transfer those businesses and a brand you obviously have a protection of the brand and the goodwill that comes with that. And even in the pet space too that's awesome man. I know we don't put up our full interviews anymore, we're hopefully going to putting up some clips but your cat is literally like obviously are behind you so. Mike: Yeah, I locked him in the room so he wouldn't make any noise but yeah, he's here and he's the inspiration behind the whole thing. It was me and him. I was a bachelor when the whole thing started and he's been the … he tests all the products so he's at [inaudible 00:09:39.3]. Mark: So, we're now devolving into the world of cat videos at Quiet Light Brokerage. Mike: There we go. Mark: In order to stealth views videos. All right cool so the heart of what I want to get to let's get into like the real meat and potatoes and that is paid product placement on Amazon. And I think there's a lot that we can really talk about here. And I want to start with just sort of the basics with this. And when I say that when I think about an Amazon business, when I know a lot of our buyers are evaluating an Amazon business they're going to take a look at its organic rankings in Amazon. Obviously, you want to have good organic rankings but there's also a really big role that paid placement can take in any Amazon business and especially from a buying opportunity being able to maximize that just in the same way that we would have organic rankings and Google versus paid rankings they are a little bit different they have different flavors too. I'd like to pick your brain for it in the next 20, 25 minutes here about that whole process of paid products within Amazon. So why don't we just kind of start there … what would you describe the difference and kind of the role maybe that a paid product placement on Amazon should take in an Amazon business? Mike: So, it really depends on your strategy. If you're going and you're launching a new product and you're trying to get of the best visibility on Amazon then paid advertising is the way to do it. You can get top line visibility right from the very beginning. And that's something that we've been really doing really well is because now we have an audience and we do paid advertising and we target people from our list over to Amazon and we have them purchase but we also use the paid advertising to supplement that. We love paid advertising because it gives us massive visibility for specific keywords. And we know what people are shopping for and for those specific terms we want to dominate the marketplace. We want to have what's called the sponsored branding ad which is the very top of the ad. We want to have a sponsored product ad which is basically an ad directly to our listing. And then we want to have the organic placement and we call that the swimming the competition approach. Because now we have a lot of visibility for our major keywords and if people see you two or three or sometimes four times because on sponsored branding ads you can have your image in there a couple of times then you're more likely going to get that sale. And the way we look into it is that we make sure that our … what we call the true ACOS which is the average cost of sale which is our ad spend is about 10% of our … [inaudible 00:12:08.7] margin is about 10%. And as long as that's happening we're cool with that. We want to get as much visibility and as much exposure to our brand as possible. So typically, what we look for is what we call an average cost of sale about 40% or less and then we scale at that level. And if it's affecting our account about 10% in total then we're cool with that. When it starts to get more than that then we start to optimize because there's a lot of ways … you can spend a lot of money on Amazon. You have to know how to optimize the right way otherwise you can lose your shirt. You have so many people on that site. And there's different ways to do that with keyword, bid traces, and negative exacts, negative phrases, that kind of stuff. Also sending traffic to the right listing. There're various things you can do but there's a lot to talk about so I'm interested to get into it. Mark: Well let's back up a little bit here because you threw out a couple of numbers here I just want to clarify here. So, it's a 10% into your margins so what do you mean by that? Mike: So, your ad spends, let's say you're spending $10,000 a month and you're making 100k a month then that's 10% percent right there. Mark: Okay and then you said 40% percent of ACOS. Mike: Yeah, so if you're spending 10k a month, let's say you're spending $1,000 on ad spend then you want to make the fourth … so basically the $2,400 you want to make 1,000. That would be 40% ACOS. So, it's 400 in ad spend to make a thousand return on ad spend. Mark: I got it. Thank you. Okay so let's start with just kind of the how this all works. How do you go about optimizing a paid spend because we get a lot of our buyers who … a lot of our listeners are buyers right? They're going to be inheriting a company that has an existing paid account or some paid advertising going on. Where do you start in that evaluation process to find out what you need to do to be able to optimize it? Mike: So, you start by looking at the search term report to see what people are actually searching for and how much the bid prices are. And there's a couple of different ways to optimize you can do on a keyword level. If a keyword is too expensive and it's really not … it's driving a lot of traffic but it's not doing it at a profitable level then that's just not a good thing. You want to start to lower down that keyword bid price to get a lower cost per click. And you really want to determine how many clicks it's going to take you to get that sale. And if it's too many clicks and your average cost per click is too high then you're simply … unless there's another advantage of getting that traffic, maybe you're getting a lot of return customer. You're selling sport supplements and you got to do 100% ACOS to get them in one time and have them come back again and again and again that would be a good idea of wanting to do that. You could be a little bit more aggressive but for somebody like me who sells cat products typically about 12 to 15% of our customers are return customers so we take that into account. But we try to keep it so that it's within our 40% ACOS because of that. And you have to tailor the keywords to make sure that they're not too expensive and that you're wasting all of your ad spend on keywords that are just draining your ad spend. Mark: Okay. All right so you start with a keyword report and then you look in to see what's driving sales right now, the cost, the areas that you could drive that down right? Mike: Yes. Mark: Okay and then where would you go after that? Mike: So basically, we'd start with the keyword report … search term report and then you would also find the search terms that are really, really not doing well at all. Some of them have zero like sales whatsoever but tons of clicks. And those are the ones that you want to start to do a negative exacter phrase on so that you can start to fine tune who's going to your listing and what you're paying for in terms of your ad spend. So, we use a tool inside of entourage called negative word finder which will tell you the words that are never … that have never been associated to a profitable sale. And you find those and you can do a negative phrase match which means any search term that the customer puts in you're not going to get that exposure to your listing and you're never going to get hit again. If you do it on a campaign level your entire campaign will be sensibly shielded from any time somebody types in that word. And then negative exact is like if you could take the exact search term that's not generating any sales and you could use that as a negative exact so that's why you're not getting any exposure to that that search term in its entirety. Mark: How much … this is exactly the same process that you would use with say Google Ad Words itself like you're taking a look to see what people are searching on, the stuff that's not really related or not really driving the traffic to a site, what have you driving conversions that's within the ad words world, how much data do you think you really need before you can start ruling out certain phrases or certain words and adding those negative words? How long do you have to let it run before you can really know and draw any good conclusions? Mike: There's a lot of factors that go into it; seasonality, how new the product is, is the listing seasoned. Because you can make some decisions early on where a listing doesn't have a lot of reviews and doesn't have a lot of questions that people could ask. People could ask questions on a listing so there's a lot of factors that go into it. Typically like a general rule of thumb it could be 10 clicks without a sale is when you start to make some adjustments and optimizations and that's to a really, really good well-seasoned listing. If it's earlier on then there could be a little bit more leniency in terms of when you start to optimize but really the fundamental thing is you have to have a really good listing. You have to have a solid product. You can't just sell a me-too product that's up there just competing based on price. It's got to have a really good high value to people who are searching for it. So, if you start with that then you can really get a better understanding of when you should start to optimize. But the rule of thumb is basically 10 clicks without a sale is when you would start to do some work. Or 10 clicks with a relatively high ACOS you would start to optimize that cost per click so that it's at a better cost … the bid price is better and not as expensive. Mark: Okay so in this case if we're evaluating a business for sale and taking a look at it one of the first things we'll be looking for that low hanging fruit of hey these guys are wasting money on their product sponsored listings spend right? They've got a lot of keywords that they're paying for. We've received 10 maybe 20 clicks we're not getting any sales from them and that cost is pretty high. So that seems like a pretty low hanging fruit there. When you're evaluating the campaign and let's say that it's pretty clean that way and looks like they're doing a decent job of going through and eliminating those nonproductive keywords, where do you look for or what do you look for opportunities to be able to expand a product that they currently have? Mike: So, there's a lot of opportunities when typically you can see keywords that are performing really, really well within the desired ACOS range. Meaning if you're … let's say you got an ACOS of 15% that means for every $15 you're spending you're making a 100. So, you may be missing out on some of the potential opportunity because your bid price is a little bit too low or Amazon doesn't really … maybe your campaign budgets are a little bit too low. So, you want to give Amazon more room to breathe. You want to basically tell them hey this works out for me you know I want to do this any time of the day. And you would then go ahead and optimize your keyword bid price and also raise your campaign budget so that you can get as much exposure to that opportunity as possible. And now it's a lot easier to see that stuff in bulk with software. You can see all of the individual keywords that are performing really, really well over a given period of time and where they really could use a little bit of a boost in terms of their ad spend. So, you can give that more love and then direct traffic there and then negate it elsewhere. Mark: Okay. Do you ever use paid sponsored listings for anything other than just the direct sales? I mean are there some more creative strategies that people can use with these campaigns to be able to maybe do some other parts of like with their organic rankings or other aspects of their account? Mike: There so many things you can do. Yeah, it's really exciting. There're different things that Amazon is coming out with. Now they just came out for sellers and sellers central sponsored brands, headline search ads. So basically, there's a big … there's a much bigger creative element to that and you can really brand to get massive exposure to your brand doing that. And if you've ever seen on Amazon they're very top ad when you go there. There's a [inaudible 00:19:53.2] to the left, there's a headline, and there's three product images and you can direct your traffic to a storefront which is basically your website on Amazon or you can direct it to a single list of items on Amazon. And there's a whole bunch of strategies to do that. Very creative headlines, you have to be really good at copyrighting, good main images, you have to connect the copy to the main image and to the three main products. It is very simple but I feel like there's a lot of opportunity and a lot of sellers really don't take the time to make a good headline. They just kind of put stuff up there and just kind of set in and forget it. And I think that's a really big headline. It also sets the stage for sponsored products and for organic visibility. It's like the first line of defense when people see your brand and then they see unsponsored products they may not want to click on it and they see you organically. And as long as your numbers are right we find that approach really sets stage for a sale. Mark: All right so you're talking about this again once you could be on multiple places so that people have those multiple touch points with you. Okay what are some of these other strategies? You said that there's lots of opportunities, I want to get in to one of these here and see something that the listeners can take away here as something that they could actually implement today. Mike: Right so if you have a brand I think the biggest opportunity is to dig into your search form report and actually find out what people are looking for. That has been the best opportunity there still that people just don't really dig into that as much as they could. So that's like instant intelligence as to what people are looking for and how you can build and expand your brand. The next opportunity I would say is to really dive into sponsored products and headline search ads because a lot of people … well there's opportunity moreso overseas now with sponsored products it's getting a little bit congested in the USA. Canada, UK, Germany, all of these overseas markets there's plenty of opportunity there. If you have a good product in the US that's an easy way to expand. We're getting better numbers over there in terms of our PPC recently as we are in the US. So that's a killer opportunity. And since the world is really open right now there's … the doors have come down. There's plenty of opportunity out there. But in terms of opportunity really coming up with creative ideas and creative products and really diving into that is the way to go in my opinion. Mark: Are you able to share any creative things that you've seen over the past six months? What's one of the most creative … obviously not explaining or giving away anyone's trade secrets here but what are some of the most creative things you've seen in the last six months? Mike: Yeah so, I like to build a listing that incorporates the entire product line. And this basically is you're getting … you're paying for traffic anyways, you're spending a lot of money to get your people to your site why not cross sell your other products, why not … and there's like five or six ways to do it within your listing that I think a lot of sellers aren't doing. You can have an image that has basically a visual of all the products in your line. A bullet point that explains that this is part of a product in your line. You can have a coupon that allows them to purchase another product in that line for a little bit less money. You could have what's called enhanced brand content now which shows the entire product line and has comparison charts with links to your other products and also you can link people to your storefront. So, I feel like that's the big play right now is to get traffic over but then really build the customer [inaudible 00:23:11.7] retarget them with emails and then get them on your sequence and then go from there. And then launching becomes very simple because you have this entire list. We did that process and we have about 7,000 new emails in one year which doesn't seem like a lot but these are customers who came to our site. They basically gave us their information, they registered for a coupon. They're loyal customers and now we're retargeting and also, they're part of our fanbase and we can grow at that rate. That would be a great thing for us. So that's one tip is to get more exposure to other products in your line. Mark: Okay let's talk a little bit about competition this is something that I hear from a lot of people that are looking at the Amazon space looking to possibly buy but aren't quite sure about it and their number one fear and even among sellers for that matter. What I hear is this kind of worry about competition and taking away from that share that maybe they've built up over the years. What are some ways in your opinion that sellers can start to protect against that slow believe that happens so often with product lines? Mike: Yeah it does happen it really does. I mean there's going to be competition within 60 months or less of whatever you're selling. That happens to us with all of our product lines and it's always been about reinventing and coming up with new stuff. If you're not reinventing I feel like there's the entropy is going to take place and that's just inevitable. Also, just keep in mind that Amazon consistently raises their fees. And then also from a PPC perspective there's more competition so the cost per clicks are going up not down. So constantly squeezing out that margin which is something that you have to be very mindful of. So, the protection mechanism that I feel is the best thing is your audience. If there's so many who is loyal to your product brand outside of Amazon … if someone loves you outside of Amazon they're going to come to Amazon to purchase your products even if it's a little bit more expensive. So, you can maintain your profit margins that way. The other thing is having … going where people typically don't go, so oversized items. Like really, really big items. People that are just usually scared away because the cost per unit to purchase that may be a little bit too expensive and basically there's a less … there's a bigger barrier to entry and it scares more people which I feel like is a bigger opportunity. So, if you combine that and even if you sell five or ten of those a day versus 100 widgets a dollar profit it just pays off that way. I think those are ultimately the mechanism to really scale. Mark: And those are things that we've been emphasizing for years. I'm glad that you said that because it makes me look smarter than I probably actually am. But these things, the less desirable is just one that we see you know not with Amazon businesses alone it's actually with any online business, right? The barrier to entry which might be a little bit scary from a buying standpoint. I remember we had a business that was selling a certification program and a lot of buyers are worried because they we're thinking I don't know anything about this how can I actually teach people how to get certified with it. Well you know what that's protection against competition. And so, when you get into that sort of less desirable niches where you have to solve a problem … and I think that's the big thing if you can figure out a solve a problem that problem is something other people are going to have to deal with as well. That's really key. And you're echoing as well with something that Chad Rubin from Skubana told me on the podcast several episodes ago and that is that continual product development. He made the point that Apple comes out with an iPhone every year and pretty much cars come out with a new car every year. It's not that the previous cars don't work well, they do. They could continue to just produce those ones but they want to create some new excitement among their consumers. And then finally get I know I'm literally just reiterating what you said but I think it's important to do so. Moving that brand so it's not just Amazon centric and dependent but creating that brand and kind of loyal customer base outside of Amazon as well. Mike: Yeah so … and one more thing I want to add to that is intellectual property especially at Amazon. I mean that we … I'll give you guys a quick story. So, we sell cat products and we started selling this cooling pad basically two summers ago. And it was a huge seller; a very seasonal item obviously but it was a huge seller. And then the next summer we got an email from a company saying that they had intellectual property rights to that thing. It basically kicked off everybody on Amazon and they are just doing … just normally you can't … now obviously we can't compete with them. And they're making so much money. So, if there is a product out there that you think is … and I've actually had trouble with this. I'm not … I don't have a lot of experience with this but I've never really come up with a product that is truly patentable but I feel like if there is something, some intellectual property you can get and you have something great on Amazon and there's no other competition because you're the only one man you do really well. Mark: Yeah and nobody thinks about the IP portion until it gets crowded right? I mean that's when you start thinking about IP. At first, it's like hey it's a big pie everybody can have some and then you're like why actually this pie is starting to get a little bit crowded. I'd like to be able to protect my slice. But you're right being able protect what you have through intellectual property is a really, really key thing to do and do it early as well. Mike: Oh yeah and then on Amazon it's almost inevitable you'll come up … there'll be people who will try to get your slice. I mean sooner or later and maybe from random countries and sometimes they don't always play the right way. So, it's important to make sure you have that in feel. Mark: Awesome. All right I feel like we could probably branch into another topic but then we would end up going completely off our existing conversation. So, I'm going to have us wrap up right there. I know that you also started PPC Entourage and that is to help Amazon paid accounts correct? Mike: Yes, it is, yeah. Mark: Okay do you want to tells us just a little about what you're doing over there? Mike: Yeah absolutely so in 2016 is when I … I started my business in 2015. 2016 I spent a lot of time with sponsored products and it was just a pain … it was great because we got a lot of visibility but it was frustrating because it just took forever to get it done. So basically, it's my first experience working with a software … a SaaS business and it has been an amazing experience. Basically, what we did is we made sure that everything that we did to scale our business could be done in like a fraction of the amount of time. So, if you're looking to get more exposure to your Amazon business, if you're looking to spend less on ad spend, if you're looking to optimize in a quick efficient way PPC Entourage can help you do that. Now we have bulk edit tools which allow you to look into campaigns … all of your campaigns all at once to see what those winners are. You can get more money and spend more money on those particular keywords and campaigns. And then also we have something called auto pile which is becoming much more intuitive. Basically, something that goes in every single night looks at your metrics looks at the settings that you place and make sure you calculated adjustments to your keywords so that you're not spending a ton of money on ad spend. It makes adjustments every single night. So that's one of the really cool, we also just launched Spotlight which is our headline search. Basically, our solution to headline search which allows you to create 27 different variations of headline search ads. Anyone who's on seller central knows it's one at a time. It's a huge pain in the butt. It takes forever but this allows you to find the best products. It allows you to find the best images. It allows you to find the best headlines. We have a headline creator. It lets you find 27 different combinations and you can slowly send them off to Amazon over time and then optimize those ads. So that's PPC Entourage and PPC Entourage spotlight and yeah, it's a growing business and we're so excited about where it can go. Mark: Awesome. Well thank you so much for coming on the podcast here and if anyone wants to reach you what's the best way for them to contact you? Mike: Sure, you can go to PPCentourage.com or you can also go and email me at mike@ppcentourage.com. Mark: Awesome. I'll include those links in the show notes. All of those will be at the bottom. Just scroll past the transcript and you'll be able to see it. Thank you so much for coming on and let's have you on again in the future. Mike: All right thanks. Take care Mark. Links and Resources: PPC Entourage Email Mike
更多英语知识,请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Todd: OK, guys we're going to talk about Halloween. So, what do you think about Halloween?Adrienne: I actually like it. It's a fun holiday for kids especially because you get to dress up in costumes and you get lots of candy if you go trick-or-treating. I have a lot of good memories. of Halloween growing up.Todd: OK, what is trick-or-treating? Why do you trick-or-treat?Adrienne: Trick-or-treat is when you go, you dress up in your costume on Halloween and you go door-to-door ringing doorbells, knocking on doors. One person comes to the door, you say, "Trick-or-treat" and usually these days they give you a treat which is candy or apples or something like that but in the older days, you could, if they didn't give you a treat, then you could play a trick on them or they could play a trick on you, instead of giving you a treat, something like that.Mike: I always thought that it was they performed, the person at the door performed some kind of trick for the kids because they didn't have candy to give, but I could be wrong.Adrienne: Yeah, I don't know exactly. It's one of those three options.Todd: Yeah, I think it's you play a trick on them.Mike: Oh, reallyTodd: You throw trash against their house.Adrienne: Toilet paper their.Todd: Toilet paper, eggs,Mike: Egg their window.Todd: Dog poohs in the paper bag on fire. On fire!Adrienne: Yuck.Todd: Yeah, that's gross. So, Mike, you're from Canada, so do you have Halloween American-style in Canada? Do you celebrate trick-or-treating? Do you go trick-or-treating?Mike: Oh, yeah, I think it is the same as in the U.S. I believe it is a little bit different in Europe, maybe. They don't have the same kind of traditions but, yeah, exactly the same as in the U.S. We watched all the Snoopy, Charlie Brown Halloween kind of things, just like everybody....Todd: OK. That's good. I'm glad because now we can diverge. What was, what were your costumes when you were younger?Adrienne: Ah, I had so many. My mom was a seamstress so she used to make a lot of my costumes. I designed them and she would make them for me and my sister so one year I was Batgirl, another year I was Wonder Woman. Another year I was Princess Lea from Star Wars, I was a rainbow and a clown and a cat, and a witch and everything, basically that you're supposed to be for Halloween I was.Todd: A lot of heroines in there.Adrienne: Of course. Strong women!Todd: Mike, how about you?Mike: I was a goat boy.Todd: Goat boy!Mike: I was always a goat boy because there...Todd: Every year?Mike: Yeah, we, I couldn't afford to get a decent costume every year.Todd: So how were you goat boy? What did you look like?Adrienne: Where did you get goat boy from?Mike: They just put some sort of, they put a lot of trash on me, and forced me to eat a can. It's OK. I got lots of candy but then the other kids would beat me up and steal it from me. That's OK.Adrienne: That's the saddest thing I've ever heard.Mike: Well, you know. That's all right. It toughened me up when I got older.
"If we don't start doing things differently, there won't be agriculture to pass down." Climate change is a hot-button political issue, but in the Western U.S., no one can deny that the drought and above average temperatures are real. Mike Nolan, a young farmer in Mancos, Colorado, gives an insider perspective on farming in extreme weather conditions, building resilience, and shares how an innovative conservation policy idea that started over beers and ended up in the Senate farm bill. What is the path forward for farmers in the arid West? Mountain Roots Produce: https://mountainrootsproduce.com/aboutus/ U.S. Drought Monitor: https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/ Rocky Mountain Farmers Union Drought Diaries: https://www.rmfu.org/homepage-2/latest-news/happening-now/the-drought-diaries/ Episode Transcript This is the Young Farmers Podcast. I’m Lindsey Lusher Shute. Today I’m speaking with Mike Nolan, a farmer at Mountain Roots Produce, and chapter leader at the Four Corners Farmers and Ranchers Coalition that’s based near Mancos, Colorado. Mike is already growing in a dry climate, but this year has been especially tough. He explains the challenges brought by drought and severe weather and how he is cop ing with it all. He also tells us how micro-equip, an idea he had over some beers, made it all the way to the Senate version of the farm bill. I’m Julia Sherman, farmer at Rag and Frass Farm in Jeffersonville, Georgia, and a leader of the Middle Georgia Young Farmers Coalition. I’m a member of the National Young Farmers Coalition because it’s so important for young farmers to work together to create change. For $35 a year, you can join too. In addition to being part of a bright and just future for agriculture in the United States, you’ll also get discounts like 40 percent off Filson and 25 percent off farm to feed socks. To join, go to youngfarmers.org. Mike: You know, you guys had that at your place. You had that massive hail storm. Lindsey: Yep. Mmhmm. Mike: You know, we’ve had like kind of like one of those events or something like that, like every 10 to 14 days where it’s like— Lindsey: Woah Woah Woah… Mike: We’re like really? It’s either hail or bug infestations or water issues or smoke or fire or something. Lindsey: Ah wow, you’ve had it all. So can you just, you know, even now when I talk about the water situation, particularly to really new farmers where you are, who are east coast farmers, it’s just so different. I mean you’ve farmed on this side of the country for a while so you can understand the contrast. Could you just very briefly describe how your farm gets water? Mike: Yes, definitely. Um, basically our water rights go back to the late 1800’s. They’re some of the oldest in the state, so a lot of the farms and ranches here have adjudicated water rights. So they’re water rights that kind of stay with the ground. Like ours come off river. So we have river water rights and then we also have storage water rights. So we have storage water out of our lake, which serves to make this valley, and that deeds us an acre foot of water per acre on an annual basis. And then we have– Lindsey: And that’s not water that you have on your farm–that’s in the reservoir. Mike: Yeah, that’s in a reservoir. And that reservoir also serves Mancos role water, which is our domestic water. It serves the town of Mancos and it also serves to Mesa Verde National Park. And that reservoir is small compared to a lot of place s. It’s only 10,000 acre feet when it gets full. And right now after this summer, I think it’s sitting at about 1400 acre feet going into the winter with the 2 municipalities or municipal water. Mancos and Mesa Verde will be continuously using it all winter. Lindsey: Okay. So over 10 percent full. Uh, how does that compare with a normal August? Like where should the reservoir be at this time of year? Mike: You know, normally the reservoir would be 30 to 40 percent full, possibly higher. The tricky part this year, Lindsey, was that in a normal year we get to run off our adjudicated water, our priority water, and in the past five years on this place we can run off river water until about, you know, fourth of July, sometimes early August, and this year we didn’t get a single day of river water. And then our storage water was limited to 60 percent of our total allotment. So this is really abnormal. And the hardest part about it honestly was we didn’t get any precipitation all winter, so the ground was so dry. So even hay guys around here, they could grow two to three inches of water in 24 hours on hay grounds and it would just drop right into the water table. Like you’d come back seven days later and it’d be bone dry. Lindsey: If you have senior rights, then there’s a lot of other people who clearly didn’t get water either. Lindsey: Yeah. Some folks, I mean, some folks still have river water. Um, so here’s kind of an interesting thing. The town of Mancos is priority 3, but the priority is sitting at two right now. Um, so the town of Mancos is actually using their storage water and there’s two irrigators in the valleys that are priority one and two that are using water right now to irrigate hay. So the town has actually fallen out of priority, which rarely happens. Lindsey: So the town has fallen out of priority for its river water? Mike: Yeah. So the town usually is able to pull off the Mancos River for their domestic water use. Um, but right now they’re just pulling off the lake Lindsey: And so they’re further depleting the reservoir? Mike: Yeah. And I don’t totally know what their usage is. It’s a small town so I can’t imagine it’s more than an acre foot or two. So yeah, they were using their lake water. Everyone’s on storage water right now and it’s scary out there. Speaker 2: Yeah. So you have received 60 percent of your total allotment this season for storage water. How is that impacting the farm? Mike: So we, this winter by farm partner and girlfriend Mindy Perkovich and I kind of sat down and we knew it was going to be tight, so we wanted to, we knew we needed to do the CSA crops and we can kick that on domestic water. Then we kind of had tears of like, okay, storage, beets, potatoes, winter squash. You know, last year we did about seven acres in production. This year I think we did about 1.7 or 2 acres of production. So we’re super limited. Our water came on about four weeks later than it should and we’ve been out of water for I think two and a half weeks now. And we’ve had like barely any rain. We’ve been running off our Mancos role water just to ease things along, and we’ve just taken crops that we would like to finish out, like the cabbage and the beans. And we’ve either just mowed them and decked them or picked them early. We could afford the water with rural water. Lindsey: That’s like from the town? Mike: It’s our domestic water for the valley. So it, you know, we don’t like to use too much of that stuff because the Ph is a little bit off. It’s a little bit higher in salt, it’s chlorinated. Lindsey: It’s treated water. Mike: It’s treated water and I hate using treated water for vegetable production personally. Lindsey: And it’s expensive I imagine. Lindsey: Oh yeah. You know, we budgeted about a thousand dollars for the last six weeks of the season to be able to tide us through. Speaker 2: Wow. So what, so what is next for you guys for next season? Doesn’t seem like it’s expected to get much better next year and the reservoirs are lower than in previous seasons. What are you thinking about for the 2019 season? Mike: We’re thinking a lot of stuff. It’s, you know, with all the workers in NYC, you know, we are always talking about resiliency, right? Resiliency and drought. And what I’ve realized this year is that I can totally figure out how to be resilient, resilient with my markets and crop production. What I’m having a hard time with is being resilient in relationships and with mental health. And I don’t think that Mindy and I could do this again next year. I think it would crush us. So if things don’t get better, we’re just going to get jobs for a year. Um, we’ll have some water. We’ll be able to cover crop things great for some rain. Um, in the meantime, financially we’re okay. Like we’d have enough to start up again next year. Um, but if we don’t farm, we won’t have enough to do it again in 2020. We’re being, we’re trying to be really pragmatic about it and not take it too close to heart personally if we can’t farm next year, because fighting it is not..you can’t fight this. In order for us to be looking good next year. Um, and these are things I think folks out of the Mountain West don’t totally understand about water is that, you know, we need some good fall rains to wet the mountains so that the snow, and then we need a good snow pack and then we need a good slow melt. And the reason why we want mountains to go in wet is that if the mountains go in dry, which is what happened last year, the little bit of snow there, you know, for every 10 inches of moisture up there, you can lose 40 to 60 percent of it to the ground and we want that to run into the rivers. So we need to kind of have like a very normal fall, winter, spring, um, in order to kind of pull ourselves out of this. Lindsey: If there are those conditions possibly in the fall, then you and Mindy might consider making a go of it for 2019. Mike: The plan will be to farm next year until we really get those clear signals that it’s not a good idea basically. Every year is a gamble that, you know, I have this silly analogy when it comes to this water stuff that helps me understand it, is that it’s all this stuff. It’s kind of like a GPA. So it’s like you do all this. It’s good, good, good, good, good. And then you have one year or one bad grade and it totally screws you up. And then it can take years to get back to that place that you were prior. And that’s kind of where we’re at now is that one winter is not going to save us. We probably will have a limited year next year. It’s going to take a couple of good winters and some good summer rain to pull us out of this. Lindsey: And what are you hearing from folks who give technical support and are making projections on the weather? Lindsey: You know, all spring they were like “this is going to be one of the best months and years on record” and we have gotten about an inch of moisture or less than that all summer. And so it’s like they’re predicting for a wet fall. But I, I honestly have no idea like what to expect. We’re just grateful that it’s cooled off a little bit because the other thing is that, um, our nighttime and daytime temperatures are five to 10 degrees above average for most of the summer as well. It was, it was a very bizarre summer here. But you know, some of my 80 year old neighbors are like, they’ve never seen this before. So we have some CSA members that do, you know, there’s a lot of folks that work for the FEDS around here, a federal government, whether it’s BLM, Forest– Lindsey: On federal lands? Lindsey: Yeah, national parks, I mean they employ so many people in our region because we’re surrounded by every form of public lands. Um, so there’s lots of scientists and biologists and we have a woman who is a CSA member and she does lizard studies and she was telling us that she’s seeing Pine, Pinyone and Juniper trees that are 80 to 90, 100 years old, just completely dying in front of her plot that she’s researching. Lindsey: Because, because of the weather, because of lack of rainfall. Mike: 2018 is one for the books is the most quiet way I can say it. Lindsey: And then on top of that there was, was the 416 fire, is that the one that has impacted you as well? I know there have there been quite a few in the region. Mike: The big impact of the fires is that, um, it just, it hit the economy super hard. Everybody’s numbers are down. I mean, wholesale numbers are down across the board for farmers. People weren’t eating out as much. Tourism kind of dropped off. Honna and Daniel, who are NYFC members, um, they’re about 45 minutes away from us. They were saying that there was a four or five week period where their wholesale numbers were down about 60 percent or more. Locals were leaving town, so they weren’t buying the local restaurants and tourists weren’t coming and it was just this really weird—. Like one restaurant we sell to was closed for three weeks because the fire, because they couldn’t access it, um, they’ve pulled them out of there on opening night. So we’d lost that account for about three, four weeks. And then you first smoke on top of that and you know, that kind of messes with the plants, we would call it. It was causing all of our head-lettuce successions to bolt, because I think it was messing with their, with their daylight requirements. You’d have multiple times where our visibility was like a mile and a half, two miles and the sun was red. Kind of like the eclipse last summer. And we would plant these head-lettuce successions and they would just barely grow and then bolt. It was usually a couple days after you’d have one of those kinds of smoke events. So yeah, that’s another, another crazy thing about the fires, but the economy hit was the really big one. Um, and I will give props to everyone, like being really resilient about it and also to our elected officials on both sides of the aisle that showed up. I mean we had our congressional rep, both senators, governor, um, everyone in the State House, State Senate, county commissioners. Everyone’s really pushing for people to like come back to our area because we’re such a tourist economy. Lindsey: Just by, just by promoting it and saying it’s still safe. You should come. It’s beautiful. Mike: We’re still open for business. Lindsey: I mean, I guess that sort of brings me to another question. How does policy relate to any of this and what do you want elected officials to do to help farmers in your region? Mike: Havin g direct assistance payment is I think what they really need. There’s so many cattle producers, hay producers, you know, producers that are just on the verge of bankruptcy. The last thing they need is a loan. Lindsey: And you’re talking about like an emergency loan offered by a farm service agency? Mike: Yeah, and those, you know, I appreciate those and I think they work for some people, but we’re down here with our state representative, Marc Catlin, and that’s what all, I mean these are guys and girls that do not want to ask the government for everything. And they were like, we need something. Otherwise, you know, our centennial farms are going to be filing for bankruptcy and we’re done. And there’s no reason for the next generation to come in if it’s not economically viable in any way, shape, or form. Lindsey: I don’t disagree with you at all. But I wonder what is the strategy to keep those farms viable if these conditions continue? Like I think they do need, you know, more than a loan potentially. But like for how, I mean no one knows for how long. What we’re seeing with global warming is only going to make these conditions potentially even worse than they are now. So what are people talking about just like the future of agriculture in the region? Like is there a path forward? Mike: Yeah. So I would, I think that’s a great question. I don’t think it’s smart for anybody to prop up types of agriculture that are long-term unsustainable. Stewardship-wise, but also economically. I think a couple of steps would be to like prop things up now and get it so you know, these families aren’t dipping into all their savings and their kids are going to be left with nothing. Just prop them up for a minute so we can all sit down and figure it out. There are a lot of families in this region who are coming to. I’m on the Mancos Conservation District Board as well. And we have multi-generational families and cattle families that are coming to our offices being like, “what can we do that’s different? Like what crops can we grow that are more profitable, what’s up with all this market gardening stuff? What’s up with this root crop vegetable stuff? Like what can we change to be more economically versatile and resilient?” Lindsey: And what are they growing right now? Mike: I mean in this valley like hay and cattle. There’s no real crop production in Mancos per se. Lindsey: So one of the things that I’ve heard you talk about that I appreciate is this need for young farmers to really stand with multigenerational farmers. Some farmers who are doing things very differently at a much different scale. You describe culturally like the importance of having this farm community intact. Can you just speak to that for a minute? Like why do you think it’s so important to have these larger farms in your region? Mike: Farmers make up two percent or less of the population and whether somebody is raising commodities or you know, these hay guys are raising hundreds of acres of yay, you know, and hundreds of heads of cattle, and I’m over here doing an acre or two of potatoes. We’re all on the same boat. We’re all in that small number of people. So, inadvertently creating divisions, being like we’re really different and better or worse than or any of those kinds of things. I don’t think that’s helpful because you sit down with a lot of these farmers and ranchers and you know, I understand there’s a unique set of struggles that NYFC is addressing really well when it comes to young and beginning farmers and ranchers, but they’re not too dissimilar to some of the things that these farmers or older farmers or ranchers have gone through and also are kind of struggling with too. I mean it’s still hard to make a living whether you’re starting out or three, four or five generations in. It can be really challenging. You know, there’s just such a wealth of knowledge there. And so like that kind of cohabitation is really important to me. Lindsey: We’ve definitely had a similar experience in New York. Just really needing those farmers to be there for so many reasons because they’re the reason we have a tractor dealership and a market, you know, and availability of, you know, mechanics and even if we’re doing things totally differently and even if they think we’re crazy on some level, you know, they still, there’s still like this mutual respect and understanding about the life we live and the hours we work and the seasonality and the risk and that sort of thing that is just like so, so vital for farmers to do well. I think it’s just too hard to be out there by yourself. Mike: It’s pretty awesome to have those kinds of connections. Lindsey: So, you know, on the federal level, I think people are looking at conservation programs. Do you think conservation programs can help them in a moment like this? Mike: Oh yeah. I mean, I don’t have any ground and obviously in CRP. And there’s a lot of ground in our region that’s in those conservation programs, and on a year like this that ground has become really vital. A lot of folks up in the Duck Creek area and some of these other places in Montezuma county and Dolores County, the state has allowed them to graze their CRP ground, which has been in literally a lifesaver for some of their herds. Lindsey: So you guys in the Southwest are really feeling the brunt of climate change. And I think people are, seems like with, with rising temperatures and extended drought, folks are more comfortable pointing to your farm and saying, Oh yeah, that’s climate change. So do you feel, how do you feel about the government’s response on climate and to what extent do you feel like there should be greater action taken on it? Or do you feel like it’s just so slow moving? It’s not really gonna make a difference? Mike: That’s a loaded question. Lindsey: Like, if anyone should be complaining, it’s you and you’ve got a pretty strong case to make that climate is having a major impact on your farm, on the local economy, on food security. I mean, I feel frustrated about some events that I associate with climate change in New York, but we’re not having to cut our production by more than half. Do you feel like, um, we should be taking more action on climate? Do you feel like the farmers in your region are feeling more passionate about climate issues as well? Mike: To be totally frank on a federal level, with the Paris accords and all those other things, I honestly don’t know what the Feds can do. The western slope for the most part is pretty conservative. Folks don’t want government help for the most part. What I see is that that’s changing a little bit. So people want pipelines put in, they want dams and storage upgraded. Um, but what I see is people aren’t really on the ground talking about climate change. What they’re talking about is that water is scarce and water is rare, and we need to adapt our farming models and we need to do all this kind of stuff. So it’s kind of funny. Like I don’t, we don’t actually have the climate change conversation around here all that much, so I don’t know how much whatever the Feds are going to do is really going to change that? There’s a lot of people, the majority of folks around here understand that something is changing and that if we don’t start doing things differently, there won’t be agriculture to pass it down to the next generation. Lindsey: So when they’re thinking of doing things differently, that’s we need to farm differently, we need to manage water differently. It’s not we need to stop emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Mike: Yes, exactly. Lindsey: And uh, and I guess it’s like we have to bring these communities together at some point, right? Because you guys are feeling that you are, you’re in it, right? You have the stories to tell that I think can really move people to take action, broader action on climate change. Obviously taking care of this season and next season and keeping a family and business needs to be priority one. But clearly to achieve climate mitigation, to lessen the longterm impacts for, you know, for 100 years from now, we all sort of have to have that recognition of how the United States and globally we’re impacting this situation. Mike: Yeah, I totally agree. Mindy and I were having a conversation about this maybe yesterday, the day before. You know, a lot of the old timers that we know, like they just don’t believe in climate change. And I said, well, what I’ve kind of realized is that when you tell somebody who’s in their sixties or seventies that climate change is going on, I don’t know if it’s not that they don’t believe it, but I think their perspective is that they’ve been farming for 60 years. Every year is completely different. They see what they think is climate changing all the time. So telling them like we need to do something. They were like what are you talking about? Like we’ve kind of realized that kind of stuff and I think that’s like, you know, a lot of the others, like the things you’re talking about, I agree with. And I think for me, doing what we can here when it comes to management practices in water efficiency, I think that’s really huge. Lindsey: When President Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Accord, was there any reaction from the farm community? Mike: No. Lindsey: No. Yeah. Mike: Not really. But also, you know, we live in the wild west, like, you know, I grew up in California and living here now the political landscape is, I find it super intriguing. It’s like you can throw yourself into a ditch in the middle of winter and anybody’s going to come by and pull you out, like people get along really well here and you know, you just don’t talk politics. Speaker 2: It’s like we have, we have to maintain these strong and positive relationships that are really driven by being neighbors and being fellow farmers and community members, but also figure out some way to recognize and take action on these global issues because they are also impacting us locally too. Mike: I think the other thing, you know, with doing all the advocacy within NYFC and locking down Farmers Union and the conservation district and all this kind of stuff, is there are people in our region doing that thing you’re talking about. And I just realized my role is to not do that. I’m going to sit on my four wheeler on the fence line and talk to my neighbor about, you know, whatever. You know about the boxes and chickens and like what’s wrong with this chapter and all this kind of stuff. And that’s kind of my end. Lindsey: Yeah, I mean it’s all gotta sort of start at the fence line anyways. Right. It’s has to be like a personal trust and communication. Mike: Yeah. Lindsey: So my last thing, I just wanted to congratulate you on micro-equip and getting that into the Senate version of the farm bill. And I wanted to ask you just to, if you could describe sort of the process of making that happen. Mike: Yeah, thanks. You know, it’s funny. So Alex funk, who used to be the western policy director, so we we’re at convergence two years ago in San Diego. Lindsey: And I’ll say, convergence is National Young Farmers Coalition’s gathering of chapter leaders from all across the country. And Mike is the chapter leader of Four Corners. Mike: Basically, we were sitting around one evening after everything having some beers and what I realized about this, it’s very hard to get anything new into the farm bill, and so if you do want to make changes or want something new, to me the smartest way to go about it is taking an existing program and make an adjustment. And part of the inspiration was what you did and what NYFC did in its early days with the micro loan. Lindsey: Microloans. Sure. Mike: Yeah. So you were taking something that’s there and you’re like well let’s just tweak it and see if we can get more people in the door and more people accessing it. So that’s kinda the idea between for micro-equip. There’s lots of programs that small scale growers can access, but there are certain aspects of it that’s really challenging, but the hope is to change the equip program a little bit. So we just have more young beginning and small scale growers walking through the doors in our CRS offices. That alone to me is super beneficial because if we don’t have that generation of folks coming through the door, what’s the point of those offices being there in 20 years? Lindsey: And it’s like the identifiable product for I think a lot of young farmers, the micro loan has been. So, like they know, “oh yeah, farm service agency through USDA. They have those microloans. I should go check that out.” Now that so many new farmers have gotten microloans, it’s like it seems like a place to start for a lot of people, which is great. So and micro equip– so environmental quality incentives program, which is how we’ve used it on our farm for instance, to do high tunnels, to build greenhouses for season extension. Was there a project on your farm that you sort of had in mind when you were thinking about this concept? Mike: I had looking at the cover crop payments. We do a lot of cover cropping here and the payments didn’t make sense for me to access them, both for my agent to deal with the paperwork and also for me to make the trip over the Cortez to kind of deal with it. A lot of the payments for some of these programs… they’re scaled out so big. So the payments per acre are actually really low. So how do you incentivize somebody who’s doing say three acres or two acres of market grabbing crop who’s contributing to the local economy? How do you incentivize them to go and access something for subsurface drip or some sort of other aspect of an equip program where the payments are really low? And I think if there was a micro equip where paper work was kind of streamlined and we could kind of trial out some of these programs to see if they can be scaled differently or the payments could kind of be different, I think that’d be really great. Lindsey: All these programs and why the micro lending program was necessary, all of the paperwork is pretty intense. I mean it’s a lot because it’s written and designed for oftentimes a much larger system, a much larger farm and much more scaled farm than what many of the projects that beginning farmers are bringing to the table. Like that’s, that’s why we just need to have, you know, different, a more flexible system that can make it easy for agents to say, of course. Yeah, let’s, let’s work with you. I have this program that was designed for this case. Mike: Yeah, exactly, and that’s the thing. I will say, I’ll give a shout out to Julie, our NRCS agent over there in Cortez. This program wasn’t coming out of him not being able to do anything or that office not being able to do anything. It’s more that with the hiring freezes and everything going on, these offices are stretched so thin there. So part of the idea of micro equip is to obviously incentivize young beginning and small acreage growers that need to instill, like you’re saying, we need to incentivize the agents. They do so much work and there’s just so much paperwork and bureaucracy to be able to access these things. So if this program can alleviate even a little bit of that, I think they’d be much more amenable and available to work with young, small beginning producers. Lindsey: So the idea for this started with you and Alex having beers at convergence and then like what was the, what was the next step? Mike: Well it’s funny like when we had the idea we weren’t expecting it to go anywhere, to be quite honest. Like, you know, we were just like, we both thought it was a good idea. So then like, you know, Kate Greenberg, who’s western program director, you know, I told her about it and she talked to people about it. I talked to Andrew in DC about it and it just kinda kept on getting kicked around. It was like kick the can to be quite honest. It was just kinda like, oh, this got mentioned here, it got mentioned here, it got mentioned at Bennett staff or it got mentioned to Tifton and it got mentioned blah blah blah. And you know, I think it’s serendipitous to a certain degree. I think we’re lucky because there’s all this awesome NYFC infrastructure. For some silly reason, I love policy. And also, our state Senator Michael Bennett is also on the Senate Ag Committee. So there’s these little things that part of it’s luck, part of it’s hard work. Yeah. And I think eventually it just kind of got picked up like when all that went down and I was like, okay, this is, this is crazy. All of a sudden, you know, there’s like a signed thing with Michael Bennett’s signature being like, you know, “this is going into the farm bill” and he’s like saying my name on the Senate floor and I’m like “okay,” so at least you know, my mom’s proud now. Lindsey: Well, she should be. Mike: Yeah, so it was kinda good. I mean the thing that, you know, if I want to communicate to those listening to the podcast, NYCF members or not, is that those crazy ideas, you know, those late night ideas, early morning ideas like if you think it’s a good idea, try kickin it up the chain. Email your congressional staffer, email your senator. Like if you think you have a good idea, like see if they can go up the chain Speaker 2: I mean the best ideas definitely come from real life experience in the field and interaction with federal programs. We need that as Young Farmers Coalition to know what ideas need to be moved up to Congress. And frankly not everything needs to be in the farm bill. Right? A lot of the micro equip program, or excuse me, the micro loan program was piloted by USDA, by farm service agency, before it was put in the last farm bill. So there are things that can change, you know, just through a conversation with folks at USDA. We can make a lot of change by just as you said, like thinking about how this might be different or how it might be better and with the knowledge that indeed we can be quite powerful in this and really help to make those changes become reality. Mike: Yeah. And I think another big thing for me is like thinking about changes in programs and adjustments that aren’t super major but benefit, you know, your neighbors too, or even just benefit your neighbors. Because what I realized around here is if my neighbors are happy and healthy, that has a direct effect on what’s going on with me. I hope, hopefully we’ll access micro-equip. Um, you know, it’s my plan that if I don’t, that’s okay. I just hope that for a whole bunch of other people, that it benefits them. Lindsey: Well, we’re going to be fighting for it in the House version of the farm bill and the final conference version. Of course, if you know we don’t have a farm bill this year, we will look to your administrative changes or if it’s not put in the farm bill this year, I mean that, that won’t be the end of it. Uh, so thank you so much for your leadership with your chapter, with, with Four Corners and thanks for speaking to me today and man, I really hope that you guys have a good fall because I know you need it. I hope you’re going to be farming in 2019. Mike: Well, I appreciate you giving me the opportunity. Lindsey: All right, Mike, thanks so much. Next week, the farm bill is back. Andrew is going to tell us all about what’s going on in conference committee as they try to get a farm bill done by the end of this month. Thank you to Mike Nolan for being on today’s show. This show can be found wherever you get your podcasts. If you like us, please take a second to both rate and review us on iTunes and tell somebody else about what you learned on the show today. Thanks to Radio Kingston. Thanks to the National Young Farmers Coalition, the whole team for being there, to Hannah Beal for editing and to you for listening. Thanks so much.
Mike: Welcome back, server nation, to Process Server Daily, the number-one podcast for legal support professionals. I am your host, Mighty Mike, the podcast server. I'm excited about today's episode, and I look forward to knocking your socks off. Let's get right to it. Mike: Welcome back to the show, server nation. We are joined by the owner of Alaska Investigation Agency, located in Palmer, Alaska. He started out his career in the Army Reserves and transitioned into private investigation in 2001. Since then, he has owned and operated numerous investigative agencies across the country. Luke Smith, welcome to the show. Luke: Thank you, Michael. Glad to be here. Mike: Thanks. So Luke, tell us a little bit about how you got started in the industry. Luke: About 15 years ago, 16, 17 years ago, a friend of mine was a police officer in Mississippi. He invited me to go do some surveillance with him on some private cases that he was doing, and I fell in love with it. The investigations morphed into process serving, and so now I do both. Mike: That's excellent. Do you remember your first job, your first investigation job? Luke: My first investigation job, I remember it very well. It was a cheating spouse, and I lost the husband in, like, the first block of trying to follow him. Mike: But you've learned a lot since then, right? Luke: I have learned so much since then. I haven't been burned in quite a while. Knock on wood. And I like to think that I'm pretty good at what I do now. Mike: That's awesome. So we don't like to focus on the negative stuff. As humans, we get a lot out of the negative and rising out of the negative and going into the positive, like finding your path in life. And so my first question always starts out with, tell us about your worst experience working in the field. Luke: My absolute worst experience, I was working a child custody case one time, and I was part of the team that located a mother, and I helped the troopers physically take the child away from the mom. Although it was what was best for the child, it absolutely broke my heart, and I realized then that child custody was not for me. Mike: How do you deal with that, Luke? Luke: You go home, and you hug your kids a little bit tighter and a little bit longer, and you move forward. I know it was what was best for the child, but it still was just heartbreaking, and I even tear up now sometimes when I think back to that child screaming and yelling and wanting his mommy. Mike: Yeah, as a parent we always relate it to our own relationships, and you want to be able to help them. But like you said, it was probably what was best. If the mom spends a few weeks without her kid, a few months without her kid, she might turn things around. You know? Luke: Absolutely. Mike: Luke, what do you want server nation to take from your story? Luke: What I want server nation to take from that particular story is just do right by your kids. Yeah, just be good parents. Mike: That's awesome. Yeah, being good parents is a great thing, and so you can ... Being in this job, one of the beautiful things about this job is you get to see the worst of the worst and you know where things could go. I don't know. In some respects, it makes you happier. You know? Luke: It does. Mike: Let's go to the positive now, Luke. Tell me about your greatest experience working in the field. Luke: I tell you what. I did a job a couple of weeks ago, and I followed a gentleman to a restaurant, and I sat down at the bar two people away from him, and I videoed him eating lunch. And then I followed him to his hotel. Six hours later, I followed him to another restaurant, where I sat right next to him at the bar, and we had dinner together. Mike: Wow. Luke: And then I followed him back to the hotel, and I rode up the elevator with him to find out which room he was in in the hotel. In that particular job, I think I pushed it to the limits just to see how far I could go, and it was such a satisfying feeling because he never had a clue I was even there watching him. Mike: So I'm going to sound like a total new, but did you feel like a CIA agent or something? Luke: Every day. Mike: Oh, that's awesome. Luke: No, I feel that way every day. Mike: What I take most from your story is enjoy what you're doing and go after it. What do you want server nation to take from your greatest experience? Luke: Take a few risks, ask that person that you're following to hold the elevator for you, and if you're trying to find someone and serve someone, ask questions. People love to talk, and they will give you just about all the information you need if you sound like you are supposed to have that information. Mike: Interesting. So I've heard it said before that you ask a question, not a direct question, but a related question that some stranger might actually ask. Luke: Absolutely. Mike: That's a pretty cool ... Do you guys still call that sub rosa? Luke: Yes. Mike: Okay, cool. Look at me knowing all the terms. Okay. So Luke, tell me what you're working on right now that you're most excited about. Luke: I guess probably one thing that I love that I have coming up is I'm adding a canine unit to my business. Mike: That's definitely something worth being excited about. Are you getting German shepherds or ... Luke: I'm getting Belgian Malinois. And actually, I have the opportunity to hire a handler that already has two Mals that are already trained. Mike: Wow. Luke: So I'm super excited about that. Mike: So Luke, tell me, why would you need a canine unit? And I think I know the answer, but could you just tell the audience, as a private investigator, what would you use a canine unit for? Luke: There's so many different uses for a canine. Here recently, Alaska has become one of the states that marijuana is now legal. However, you have a lot of corporations up here that it's still against company policy. So we can run the dogs through the companies to ensure that the employees are not breaking policy. There's no law enforcement side to it, but we are not law enforcement officers, so that's okay. The other area is we found that there are a lot of real estate agents that will have us run the dog through a house to make sure that there's no drugs in the house or there was no meth lab in the house or anything like that, just to limit their liability. Mike: Oh, I never thought about that perspective. Just the civil service. Luke: Sure, yeah, absolutely. So we're really excited to get that up and running. We've already nailed down a few contracts, and so we're really excited about that being a part of our business. Mike: Well, that's definitely worth being excited about. I am excited to hear about how you go and serve people on a snowmobile. How does that happen? Luke: Yeah. So Alaska offers unique challenges to the lower 48. Where are you from, Michael? Mike: I'm from New Mexico, but I'm based in Chico right now, in Chico, California. Luke: We're the largest ... obviously, the largest state in the United States. Here's a good comparison. Denver, Colorado, has one and a half million people. Alaska, there's 700,000 people. So we're the largest state in America, but we have the fewest people per acre or per square mile even of any other state. And so of course, if you call me and say, "Hey, what counties do you serve?" we don't have counties. We have boroughs. And we're statewide, but let's say, for instance, I serve the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. The Matanuska-Susitna Borough is the size of West Virginia, so we have maybe 300,000 people that live in the borough. And so if you could imagine West Virginia and 300,000 people, they're pretty spread out. Mike: Wow. Luke: So there are tons, I mean, hundreds of villages across Alaska that are only accessible in the summertime via plane or boat or a four-wheeler. In the wintertime, you either take a plane or a dog sled or a snow machine. I mean, that's just part of what we do, and we have planes and snow machines and four-wheelers all at our disposal for serving papers and working cases. Mike: That's why you feel like a CIA agent when you're out there because you're in planes and ... You ever jump out of a plane to go serve someone? Luke: No. Mike: Come on! Luke: No. I did jump off of a four-wheeler once. Mike: Wow! And then I heard something about a moose chasing you. Luke: We have wildlife scattered across Alaska. And inside the city of Anchorage, there's a very large population of moose. I've been chased by moose. I've turned corners and been staring a moose face to face, and you just slowly back away. You don't need that 1,800-pound animal trying to trample you. We have bears that you have to deal with sometimes. Luke: So obviously, everywhere we go, we're armed to the teeth, ready for really the wildlife, not the people. But yeah, I've been chased by moose. I've never been chased by wolves, but I've felt them kind of breathing down my neck, if you will. That one was interesting, a little bit scary. The moose aren't really scary. You just know what to expect from them, and you respect them. This was their land first, so we're just visitors on their land anyway, and they believe that. Mike: It's the truth. Luke: Yes. I have video of moose walking down the street in Anchorage in the middle of traffic, and they just do not care. Mike: That is awesome. Server nation, Luke has been dropping some major value bombs on us today, telling us all about Alaska and the crazy private investigation stuff that he's got going on, from the canines to the planes and the quads, you name it. But prepare yourself, because we're headed into the rapid-fire round right after a word from our sponsors. Recording: Server nation, I know you're with the times, and you want to do whatever you can to have all of the resources for your client. That is why I created 123efile.com. As a process server, attorney, or even an [inaudible 00:10:59], you can visit the website and file your documents in any of the Tyler courts in California. With its easy-to-use, one-page operation, you can have your e-filing done in a matter of minutes and get back to what really matters. If your time is important to you, visit 123efile.com. Mike: Okay. Welcome back to the show. Luke, are you ready for the rapid-fire round? Luke: I am, Michael. Mike: What is your favorite skip-trace tactic? I imagine it's got to be a little bit different in Alaska. Luke: My favorite skip-trace tactic is going and asking the wildlife if they've seen my skip. Mike: You said asking the wildlife? I had to think about that for a minute. I was like, did you just say ask the wildlife? Luke: All right. You know, my favorite skip-trace tactic, I think, pretending to be a guide because there's so many fishing and hunting guides in Alaska that you can call just about anyone up and say, "Hey, I'm a guide, and I'm looking for this person. They booked a thing with me, and I'm just trying to confirm," and they will tell you where they're at, where their mom and dad are at, how to get in touch with them, what they drive, when they come home. They'll give you everything because, up here, hunting and fishing is a big business, and it's a big deal. Mike: So who do you call for that? Luke: The skip that I'm looking for. Mike: Oh, you call the person. Oh, wow! Luke: Or their family members. Mike: Oh, wow! So they're like, "Yeah. Oh, you're a guide. Yeah, let me get him over here." What's the incentive for them to help you, though? They're like ... because it's their friend or family, and they want to connect them to the guide? Luke: So many people up here need to hunt and fish just to feed their family. It's the sustenance thing. So maybe this isn't the best wording, but I prey on that a little bit, if you will. Mike: No, yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, we manipulate things all the time. People say, "Hey, what are you doing stalking that girl?" I go, "Oh, that's my job. That's what I do." What is your favorite tool for defense? I know you said you're armed to the teeth. What does that entail? Luke: You know, my favorite tool for defense depends really on where I'm going and what I'm doing. I always carry a firearm everywhere I go. I am a certified firearms instructor. But if I'm going out to some of the remote locations, I'll carry a shotgun along with my sidearm. I do carry concealed when I'm in most areas because I don't want to approach people looking like law enforcement. Mike: Yeah. Luke: And in Alaska, everybody carries a gun. It's legal to carry a gun here concealed or otherwise, and so everybody has one. So even people walking around showing their sidearms, it's not really that big of a deal. My personal preference is to keep it concealed, though. But if I'm going, like I say, out to remote locations, I'll carry a shotgun mainly for bear protection. Mike: Well, that's awesome. That's some cool defense. What kind of pistol do you carry? Luke: I carry a Glock 19-9 millimeter. Mike: Luke, what book would you recommend? Luke: What book would I recommend? Mike: From guns to books. Luke: I know a couple of different people that have written books, and one is a skip-trace queen. Her name is Valerie. She wrote a book, "Skip Trace Secrets." That's a very, very good book. And then also another friend of mine, Kimberly, wrote a book about process serving and mayhem, and she's got tons of funny stories in those. I can't remember the exact name of that book, though. Mike: That's okay. I'll look them up, and I'll link them in the show notes. Anybody who's interested can go to processserverdaily.com/Luke, and they'll see all the show notes word for word and the links and everything. Luke: Perfect. Mike: Luke, what is the greatest advice you've ever received? Luke: I think the greatest advice that I ever received was be professional, be respectful, and be ready to take care of business regardless of what that is. Mike: To close this awesome episode, can you tell me what parting piece of advice would you give the servers out there that are ... Maybe they're struggling. Maybe they're new. Maybe their business is circling the drain, and they don't know what they're doing wrong. What advice would you give them? Luke: My advice to all the servers out there across the board is be professional, do not be judgmental. We don't know what people's stories are. Do what you say you're going to do in a timely fashion, and hang in there and just keep pounding the pavement. Mike: That's awesome. So if you had to start your business over again, Luke, how would you ... What would be the first thing you would do? Luke: I would go get a job somewhere. Mike: So you would work for another company? Luke: If I had to start my business all over again, I think I would probably have made a lot of contacts prior to opening my business because, in this business, that's what is very, very important, is your contacts. Mike: That's perfect. They say your net worth is your network. Build your network, and you'll grow your business. Luke: Absolutely. Mike: Luke, what is the best way that we can connect with you? And then we can say good-bye. Luke: You can connect with me through Facebook or my website, alaskaaia.com. Mike: So Luke, I want to personally thank you for coming on this show, man. This has been really cool. I'm excited to share it with the world. Luke: Thanks for having me, Michael. Mike: Well, I'm going to have to come visit one day. Luke: You do that, buddy. Mike: All right, partner. Well, until next time, server nation, you've been served up some awesomeness by Alaska Luke and Mighty Mike, the podcast server. Server nation, I want to personally thank you for listening to today's episode and ask you a question. Do you or your staff need additional training? Can you handle more clients, but you're not sure where to get them? I've developed a solution. Psduniversity.com offers a step-by-step online training by the top legal support professionals in the industry. Visit psduniversity.com.
Episode 211: Putting together a touring high school show How do you put together a touring show with your students? Drama Teacher Mike Yoson and his advanced production class completed their first tour this past year. Listen in to hear the successes and struggles of this fabulous project. Show Notes The Bright Blue Mailbox Suicide Note Episode Transcript Welcome to the Drama Teacher Podcast brought to you by Theatrefolk – the Drama Teacher Resource Company. I'm Lindsay Price. Hello! I hope you're well. Thanks for listening! This is Episode 211. Woot, woot! And you can find any links to this episode in the show notes which are at Theatrefolk.com/episode211. All right. I love starting with questions. I have so many questions for you! And then, it becomes interactive. You can answer. I can't hear you but… well, actually, yes. Yes, I can. Of course, I can. I always hear you. Do you have an advanced theatre class? Are you looking for a new challenge? What about a touring show? Can you imagine putting that together with your students? Eh? Yes? No? Never? Maybe? Well, our guest today did just that, and you – lucky you – get to find out all the successes and struggles of this fabulous project. So, let's get to it. I'll see you on the other side. LINDSAY: Hello everyone! Lindsay Price here from Theatrefolk. Thanks for joining me! I am talking with drama teacher – Mike Yoson. Hello, Mike! MIKE: Hello! How are you? LINDSAY: I'm fabulous! I'm fabulous! So, tell everybody where in the world you are. MIKE: I am in Piscataway, New Jersey. That's the central area of New Jersey, about an hour outside of New York. LINDSAY: Very cool, very cool. How long have you been a drama teacher? MIKE: This is my third year – fairly new. LINDSAY: That's okay. That's all right. We know lots of people who are new. What was it about teaching? What drew you to teaching drama? MIKE: Sure. I grew up being the biggest drama kid ever. I actually went to school for acting. I went to school in New York for that. And then, after I lived there for four years, I came back to New Jersey and I ended up working at a school for students with multiple disabilities as an aide. It was a school that I'd worked at in the past and I ended up having a full-year job there. Through my time at that school, I realized, “Hey! I think teaching is a really cool thing to do and I really enjoy it.” So, I decided to combine my two passions. I went back to school, got my theatre ed certifications, and started teaching high school. LINDSAY: Have you been at the same school since you started? MIKE: Yes, Piscataway High School. LINDSAY: But it's a very specific shift, eh? MIKE: Oh, yeah. LINDSAY: To go from “I want to be a performer” to “I want to be in the classroom.” What do you think it is about being in the classroom that that's the thing that you wanted to pursue? MIKE: Well, I loved my high school theatre days. I look back on it so passionately. I just think it was so much fun. Once I started delving into the teaching, I realized how cool it was to expose kids to theatre for the first time or even develop their skills if they were “theatre kids” from birth like I was. Just to see them grow and develop and find a new passion or just find a place where they can grow more confidence. That's what I love about teaching theatre. LINDSAY: You've been doing it for three years now. What's one thing that was pretty unexpected about teaching that they didn't really prepare you for when you went to school? MIKE: Hmm… LINDSAY: Unless you had an amazing teacher, unless you had an amazing school. MIKE: I had great professors and everything. I guess the biggest – how do I say it? – obstacle starting teaching was that not every kid is super passionate about what I'm teaching or what we're doing in class. My first year specifically because, when I came into my position,
Morgan: Alright Mike, I’ve got another great question for you today. Are you ready? Mike: Oh, I’m ready. Morgan: Alright, here we go. “I believe hierarchy is socially important for dogs. Number one, do you agree? And number two, do you think this is important in terms of preparing my dog for my child and, […] The post Is Canine Social Hierarchy Important When Preparing My Dog for My Child? appeared first on Good Dog Happy Baby.
Layered security refers to the practice of combining various security defenses to protect the entire system against threats. The idea is that if one layer fails, there are other functioning security components that are still in place to thwart threats. In this episode of the Inside Out Security Show, we discuss the various security layers. Human Physical Endpoint Network Application Data Cindy: Hi and welcome to another edition of The Inside Out Security Show. I’m Cindy Ng, a writer for Varonis’ Inside Out Security Blog, and as always, I’m joined by security experts, Mike Buckbee and Kilian Englert. Hi, Kilian. Kilian. Hi, Cindy. Cindy: Hey, Mike. Mike: Hey, Cindy. You call us security experts. I’m actually, where I don’t know if you can see it, “I have a fake internet job”…because I still haven’t been able to explain my job to my mom and dad. “He does something.” Human Cindy: We’ll see who’s most fake at the end, okay? So recently, Rob wrote a layered security guide and I thought it would be interesting for us to go through each of the layers and share stories that we’ve read or heard as it relates to each of the layers. The idea with layered security is that you want to make sure that you have many different layers of defense that will protect you. If there are any holes, just in case something gets in, you might have a security layer that serves as a backup that will catch it. So the first layer to start is the human layer. So that layer is all about educating people to spot scams and be cautious about the passwords that they give out, their social security numbers that they give out, their credit card information. This layer, Kilian, you talk about this a lot. I feel like, increasingly, criminals are using and exploiting services that we rely on and turning it into like an attack vector, like there is an article recently about people texting you pretending to be Google and saying, “Hey, there was this suspicious attempt to get it in.” And we talked about passwords and alternatives and using two factor and it’s kind of like, “Oh man, I have to check my text messages and make sure I’m not scammed again,” like another thing to worry about. Kilian: Oh, yeah. People, by nature, want to be trusting of other people. We kind of have been trained since day one to feel kind of bad about being suspicious … The bad guys out there know this and they exploit it. It’s so much easier to go after a person and just kind of play off of emotions because they’re far more malleable than a system, and people often are not trained or educated around security practices. And even if they are, they’re kind of trained into a certain mindset. So if they see something that looks semi-legitimate like, “Hey, a text from Google. Oh, they’re protecting me. They have my login name or my IP address or something, NIC address,” because most people are not going to investigate that closely, it’s going to look fairly legitimate like, “Oh, hey, Google’s looking out for me. This is great.” It’s very easy to, just with a little bit of a legitimacy, to get people to kind of go along with it and it’s…the con of that sort is as old as time basically and it’s only getting easier any more, too. Mike: I’ll go with something that you said Kilian, which is that it’s really about our mindset. And I think from a security practitioners’ standpoint, we’re typically very focused on exploited time and this and do this things and so we forget a lot about on the human layer which is education and like how to educate your users and to help make them part of your line of defense. I think a fun activity for that is actually to do phishing, and there is a couple of companies that do this, that do like fake phishing attacks, and then basically, so I go, “You clicked on this so we are reporting you to IT.” And it’s kind of almost like in hospitals where they like shame the doctors into making sure they wash their hands all the time. You’re kind of like trying to enforce this IT hygiene aspects on all of your users, and either hire a company or you have some free time, you can just try to phish your users individually to mess with them. Kilian: Sure. Physical Cindy: Our next layer is the physical layer , and you know, I would be like the worst security person to hire because I wanted to skip talking about this layer. There are so many layers and Mike’s like, “Why aren’t we talking about it? It’s the most important one.” And Kilian is like, “It’s often overlooked.” And I said, “It’s just the physical layer, like everybody gets that.” Tell us a little bit more about the physical layer. Kilian: I guess I’ll jump in. It is so often overlooked. We worry about firewalling the data off to protect from external attacks and stuffs that come in over the wire. But how many times in businesses do people check badges? You can walk into a corporation. If the guy sitting at the desk is distracted for a minute, and then you’re inside and nobody looks twice at you. If the doors aren’t locked in the server room, you walk in, plug in a USB device. Basically, once you have physical access to something, it’s game over. There’s no other layer of security that they probably can’t get around at that point. And we rely so much on just kind of observing people and we put a lot of faith in locks, too, like physical key locks. They’re such a terrible false layer of security. Most front door locks or bike locks or anything else are easily defeated within seconds. The physical layer is often overlooked but it’s such a false layer of security, too, that we know we have somebody watching the door. Because again, we are relying on people and people want to be trusting. Mike: What I was going to mention with respect of the physical layer was I think a lot of things are changing. So businesses are much more just personnel, lots more different, just physical branches, places, people working from all sorts of different remote situations, as well as it used to be everything was hard wired, and now, most every place has WiFi. And so you have this very different situation of like everyone in the office walking in with the WiFi radio that’s connected to the internet. But we don’t think about that. We just like, oh, we are on our cellphones, but if there’s malware on there that potentially perform an attack or some form of disruption. There are some real interesting exploit tools that basically do things like DHCP exhaustion on a network and so you have to do things like MAC filtering. I worked on a high security environment on the military. They have things like if you unplug a computer from the wall from the CAT5 and plug it back in, it won’t let it back on the network as it lost the MAC connection. You can’t just bring a laptop in and plug it into the Ethernet port in the waiting room. Things like that, like very good sensible suggestions. Cindy: I just had a paranoid thought that when I go home, I want to like install 10 locks, put on a password, and I need somehow to after-authenticate myself to get in. So in terms of a business security, like can you go overboard in terms of putting like a trillion locks on something? And then what’s kind of a good balance for an extreme paranoia or paranoid person like me? Kilian: I’ll get dogs with bees in their mouth so when they bark, they shoot bees at you. Mike: From a business standpoint, I think the biggest thing is actually more procedures, procedures around access to servers, access to changes, that kind of thing. And then from there, the procedures are implemented that helps with the recognition of what’s a threat and what isn’t. On a personal level, something that I’ve been seeing a lot more in terms of physical stuff is skimmers on ATMs. That’s probably like we were talking like a personal sort of physical attack. That’s probably the big one, that every ATM you go to, you sort of want to tap at the card holder to see if it falls off because it’s so easy to put a skimmer on. Kilian: That kind of distilled… it’s situational awareness, kind of being observant of the people and things around you, what you’re interacting with. Endpoint Cindy: Another thing we need to be alert and aware of are endpoints – protecting devices, PCs, laptops, mobile devices, from malicious softwares. People really like using endpoint protections to guard against a ransomware, and people’s found out it’s not really effective. But if it’s not ransomware, malware can really sit on your system for like six months before it’s even identified. But people also really want to protect their endpoints. What are your response and thoughts on this? Mike: I’ll go. I guess my first thought is we’re talking about layered security, and so no solution is going to be a homerun 100% of the time. And so what we are really trying to work on is percentages, reducing the surface area we can be attacked on, reducing the opportunities for an exploit. An endpoint security can certainly be part of that but it’s not a complete solution. But by limiting the types of apps that can be run, the type of traffic that can come in, it’s a way of helping to manage that risk. And that’s what we’re talking about with all layers, is how can we manage risk at all this different layers? And hopefully by doing that simultaneously at all the layers, we really improve our security much more than if we thought, “Okay, it’s just endpoint security or it’s just doing training of the users.” Kilian: The way I would think about it, too, is if you ever see the machines for like looking for gold or sifting rocks, like you have the different size of screens. Endpoint protection antivirus, I would think, is like the biggest size of screen. It’s gonna get like the bigger rocks out, so the kind of most obvious, most basic vulnerabilities. And kind of, as you go through and sift out the different pieces, that’s exactly what it is. You can just, multiple layers, sift out different things that one might not catch until you get it. And then just good patch management, too, on endpoints and servers, things like that. If you leave vulnerabilities that have been patched for 10 years on your system, that’s kind of inviting trouble in a lot of ways. But then people often overlook it. Mike: Those are the big holes in your screens as your trying to through all the data and everything is falling through these unpatched systems. Cindy: But there are a whole bunch of alerts. People get thousands of them, like daily and weekly. That’s another annoyance. You can’t actually check thousands of alerts every day. Mike: And for all this sort of systems that monitor the things, all the vendors, us included, are trying to…people talk about alert fatigue. If you get an alert every 10 minutes, like, “Oh, something’s happening, something’s happening,” like you just cease to care about. It’s not something that actually needs responded to or thought about. So there’s a lot of work with like machine learning, better filtering, and better tracking on how to handle that to reduce that amount of alert fatigue. But you’re absolutely right, Cindy. Cindy: And also make alerts that are really worth alerting on so that you’re not like, “Oh my God, my blood pressure is increasing,” and then you end up in the hospital or something. Mike: What kinds of alerts are you getting? Network Cindy: No, listen, it’s not me. I’m just hearing all these stories when I go to conferences and I go, “If I had that many alerts, I will just be like…ahhhhh! Watch out for the crazy woman.” So another layer we should talk about is network security. I’m thinking firewalls, intrusion prevention, detection system, VPNs. And I was kind of tricked to read an article that says “Utility board hears about network security.” And I was like, “Oh, they’re really serious about network security.” Like, “What about the other stuff?” So I went through and I read it. I clicked on it and I read it and they take security seriously. Like in the article, the IT director talked about network security. He made references to all those different layers that we’re talking about so far. And he made the analogy of a Swiss cheese as security and you put layers upon layers of them and said, “That even then with all the layers of cheese, a small hole, so a small hole in your security can be catastrophic.” And I thought it was just really great that they’re talking about it. And further on in that article, it mentioned that a board member requested that presentation because he had heard about a utility at a utilities conference that there was a hacking of an electrical system in Colorado. So we hear a lot about things that go wrong in companies and they’re not doing anything about it. But I really liked that they’re saying, “Hey, I’m protecting our utilities network.” And it’s a great way to get more of like security funding, too, because security systems are expensive, like whether it’s network. Even if it’s like a $200 thing, you still have to be like, why do you need this, and explain. So back to network security, the talk that they had, presentation they had, it’s a great way to just get money like, say, there is an article in Rob’s layered security guide about “ What’s the difference between a $1000 one and a $200 one?” Mike: For a firewall, you’re talking about? Cindy: For a fire…yeah. I went on a tangent. I think someone… Kilian: I mean, you brought up an interesting point. That article, I thought, was really kind of fascinating because the one thing that kind of really, if I can pick one thing a security thing that scare me on a daily basis, it’s a lot of this, like command and control type, or not command and control but the SCADA systems or the industrial control systems that run a lot of our infrastructure. And back to the unpatched systems, these things are from the whatever, ’80s, ’90s, that they said, “Oh, well, hey, we can monitor whatever, our damn controls online, stick it on a network with an IP address,” and then it controls kind of a vital piece of infrastructure, like something in the physical world that can cause a lot of damage. Or the controls at the electrical system, you can wipe out power and that will cause a lot of problems in the physical world. Network security is, again, one of the critical layers. Again, if you have to connect it to a network, at least run it through something. You still need the defense and depth across the whole board, but that’s kind of the first line of defense for a kind of network connected systems. Mike: The only other thing I was going to mention is that I think a lot of times, people think of network, especially with from a lot of employees, it’s like, “We need VPNs for very everyone. We have VPNs for everyone. We’ll be protected.” But you have to remember that also, it’s sort of like punching a hole in your firewall because VPN, it’s like making a home computer as if it was on your network, and all the ensuing issues that that can cause. Kilian: And then we can tie it right back to physical security then. On your VPN at Starbucks, you walk away for a few minutes, someone walks up, plugs something in, or you don’t lock your laptop, then the internal network’s compromised. Mike: I know for sure there has been multiple reports on people getting ransomware on their networks from, like someone at home and they get like an infection, they bring it to the IT group. Like, “Oh, Bill in IT, he’ll help me out. He’s always such a nice guy.” They bring it in. Like, “You look at this real quick? It’s real weird.” “All right, let’s plug it in the network.” And, boom, the network is now infected with ransomware. Good intentions gone awry. Application Cindy: Oh my God, I’m so scared that whenever you guys just share stories and I get like extra, extra scared. Okay, the next two on application security , that, there’s a lot to talk about in that one. I wrote a blog post about it, that our IT people won’t let me install anything on my computer. When we talk about application security, it refers to the testing and doing the work to make sure apps work as they should. But there are some drawbacks to that, which is why IT won’t let me install anything, and I have to get permission. I have to tell them why. That, I understand it’s a dangerous world out there. What are some things about application security that we need to be worried about or concerned about? Mike: Most companies, they have a mix of things. They have a mix of applications they built in-house, third party systems that they bought off-commercial, off-the-shelves of, or cut software, and then now, sort of cloud systems. We joke about cloud doesn’t exist, It’s just other people’s computers. It’s just other people…our software are running other people’s computers or software as a service type application. There’s different considerations for each of those. I think, across the board, one of the things to really think about for all of this is single sign-on, that the procedures for provisioning access to this and then removing it as people’s role change or as they come into or leave the company is incredibly important. And if it is one place where that’s most often missed, it’s in those kind of things where…I use to work at a company. I won’t say the name of it. But there phone system was separate from everything else and so that a salesperson that left, removed all their computer access, left them with their phone access, and they changed their outgoing voicemail, which for months, was just a harangue against the company, and like what blood-sucking horrible people they were and how unprofessional and incompetent. And it stayed that way for months as people called in to talk to this salesperson he was known over there. But that can happen anywhere, with timesheets software, that can happen with reporting software, the project management software. All of these things can exist somewhere on the spectrum. And without that single sign-on and really strict procedures, it’s very difficult to control. Kilian: Just kind of a little bit of side, too, as we’re developing more software and it gets more complex and we expect more out of it, that just increases the chance that there’s going to be a bug and it’s a guarantee that every piece of software you run is going to have some type of issue or bug in it. Again, especially as the citizens gets more complex and more interconnected. So it’s being cognizant of that and, again, we’ll go back to a couple of topics ago, is good patch management, making sure that the bugs are reported and then the software vendors you deal with take it seriously and patch it eventually, or soon rather than eventually. Data Cindy: And the next layer on the data layer , we talk about that a lot. I think it’s the crown jewels. We want to make sure that our health data isn’t stolen, our PCI data isn’t stolen. People are really…you hear it often in every kind of podcast or show that you hear. You kind of expect data breaches to happen. People are really hurt that that’s happening. “Oh, they’re not doing enough.” But the reality is data security is tough. What are your thoughts about this layer? Mike: We, at Varonis, we deal with structured data. Structured data, for the most part, falls under application security, so that structured data is anything that’s in the database, typically in the accesses, typically mitigated and arranged and managed through an application. I just want to make sure there isn’t direct database access somehow through the network where I exploit tools. But for the most part, that’s fairly sane. Our niche is the unstructured world which is the files and where typically, what we see is the end results of all the structured data. So the structured data is the giant Oracle database that says like, “Yes, we should actually acquire this company,” and then the unstructured is the Powerpoint that says, “We’ll do this next Monday.” And that got out, has huge implications for stock price, and Sarbanes-Oxley, and reporting, and governance, and all these things. So there’s different risks involved with those. Kilian: The thing about the unstructured data is that, there’s so much of it and it just grows so constantly. Every second of every day, at every business, somebody is putting some type of information out, sending an email, writing a document, editing a Powerpoint, any of this stuff. It’s just constant and that’s how businesses evolve and get better because they share information. They just keep producing and producing and producing it and it never seems to go anywhere. It’s like the internet never forgets. Well, your data center never forgets either. The project might be forgotten but it’s still out there somewhere, the Sharepoint site. All this team collaboration is over but it’s still up there and contains a lot of information. There’s some life cycle information on that. But things like social security numbers, those never change. There might be or there is an age on credit card information, but it’s still fairly long, several years, depending on how long it’s out there. The life cycle of this data is often overlooked and you expose yourself to a lot of risk because it ends up…again, it’s created for some legitimate reason and it’s out there for some legitimate reason, but it’s forgotten about or it’s not dealt with or disposed or even secured properly. Cindy: So to kind of wrap up, you both shared stories that I’m just like, “Oh, it’s nerve-racking,” but the overall goal is security. So we make sure we educate the people. We make sure that they don’t have access to stuff that they don’t need. We make sure they don’t get in. We make sure we protect ourselves from malware, make sure we protect our data, make sure that apps are working properly. What are some kind of wrap-up conclusions or things that I’ve missed that you want to share your thoughts on? Mike: I think we should go back to your Swiss cheese sandwich metaphor because honestly, I think it’s actually viable because the big challenge of all this is communicating this to people who are not in our business, it’s communicating it to the executives and to the users that we need to deal with. And so we say exactly that, but it’s like stacking a lot of pieces of Swiss cheese, and the more layers we have, the fewer holes there are, the less vulnerable we are. It’s a very easy to understand metaphor. Hopefully, they are lactose intolerant. But I think that is really the case. The more layers we have and the more all these things work together, the safer we are. That’s like an old powerful thing. Cindy : Kilian, do you have any last thoughts? Kilian: No, I like the metaphor. I think it’s great. I have other metaphors I use for thinking about security, but the Swiss cheese one, I think, is very visually pleasing. I guess it’s something people can recognize. Cindy: That is from the IT director in Nebraska. Like maybe he’ll listen to our podcast or join our show. Mike: I thought we decided we’re just going to start sending packets of sliced Swiss cheese to all our customers… “Stack this together until you’re secured.” Cindy: Make sure your bad guys don’t go in. Our Parting Gift Cindy: So to wrap up, our parting gift, what are some things people should check out? For me, I’m pivoting to something else. Back to our show last week, we talked about the EU’s general data protection regulation. We just published on our blog an infographic. So if you do not want to read long texts, Andy and I, we created a really informative infographic describing consumer rights, as well as obligations companies have to the consumers. So head over to our blog and check it out. Mike, do you have any parting gifts for our listeners and viewers? Mike: I was going to recommend; I was going to say I just looked at the infographics you’re talking about. It’s at blog.varonis.com, and I think it really is great. And we’re talking about educating other people, it is the perfect thing, that if you are an IT, to send to an executive or to send to some stakeholder on your company to try to get help get their minds in the right place for dealing with the new regulations. My suggestion for a parting gift was going to be a game, actually. It’s called Hack Net. It’s probably one of the few games you could get expense by your company. It looks so much like one of those, like in the movies when they’re like hacking into a system and it has everything scrolling and doing stuff. So it’s the simulation of that but it covers actual exploits, the concepts of how they are exploited, what is done. So it’s very educational but super fun to run through and has a little scenario and you actually hack into all these different systems. It’s called Hack Net. And right now, it’s $10. But I mentioned it last week, during this…summer sale, I think we’re going $5. But it’s very cool and interesting. And if you’re interested in this as a general topic, I know we have a lot of people on the IT side and not necessarily like security pentesting side, it’s a great way to really like deeply understand all those concepts. So, cool, check it out. Cindy: Cool, thanks. Kilian, do you have a parting gift? Kilian: Actually, what Mike was saying just reminded me of something. The other week, I was in Uber. I was taking a ride to the airport or train station or somewhere, and on the screen, they popped up a little thing like, “Hey, code while you go,” or something like that. And they gave you like little snippets of code and they wanted you to find the error in the code. And I thought it was a really, you know, crowdsourcing something, information, maybe for a potential job offer. But I just thought it was really interesting they were kind of doing this little application security type of initiative within the app itself like while you’re on the trip. I don’t know if the pops are for everybody but I saw it. I thought it was interesting to look at while I was on my ride. Mike: Are you saying you got a job offer from Uber? You’re leaving Varonis? You figured it out? Kilian: The next time you’ll see me with my dash cam and my car driving around. Mike: Oh, man… Cindy: Kilian might be doing both. He might be driving and working at Varonis. You never know because you know he’s fake. Thanks so much, Mike and Kilian, and all our listeners and viewers for joining us today. If you want to follow us on twitter and see what we’re doing or tell us who’s most fake on the show, you can find us @varonis, V-A-R-O-N-I-S. And if you want to subscribe to this podcast, you can go to iTunes and search for The Inside Out Security Show. There is a video version of this on Youtube that you can subscribe to on the Varonis channel. So thanks, and we’ll see you again next week. Mike: Thanks, Cindy. Kilian: Thanks, Cindy. Cindy: Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Kilian. Subscribe Now Join us Thursdays at 1:30ET for the Live show on Youtube, or use one of the links below to add us to your favorite podcasting app. iTunes Android RSS The post Layered Security – IOSS 14 appeared first on Varonis Blog.
If You Are Ready To See Massive Results On LinkedIn, Then Listen To Expert Level Tips And Tricks On This Terrific Interview Between TWO LinkedIn Gurus. Just A Few Short Minutes Into This Great Conversation About How To Use LinkedIn, You’ll Get: The Single Most Important Networking Philosophy To Use In Combination With LinkedIn The “Real” Way To Maximize Your LinkedIn Profile How To Protect Yourself While Using LinkedIn Which LinkedIn Connections To Have That Will Boost Your Network (Not Just Any LinkedIn Contact) Plus Much, Much More! In 2011, Mike began sharing his insights and perspectives on LinkedIn with audiences throughout Maryland. In 2015, He founded Mike Shelah Consulting to work directly with companies and sales professionals across the United States to find more customers and find them fast, leveraging the power of LinkedIn. Mike also uses his experience to evangelize the value of LinkedIn and assist those in the job market wanting to find their dream job and get to the front of the applicant list. A resident of Westminster Maryland since 2005, Mike is a dedicated: husband, father and community advocate. Covert Store Builder $47 (Automatically have an affiliate store on your site) What is LinkedIn? LinkedIn is a very powerful, crucial online tool for professionals. When used correctly, LinkedIn can help you build a great network, find and get introduced to your ideal prospects and showcase your true value and worth to them. All you need is basic networking skills to make it happen. If you have networking skills and understand the golden networking philosophy. It’s a philosophy best described as one where “You to give before you get”. That is you should give value and not just look for an immediate return. When you give true value to somebody, most of the time, they will try to give back to you. LinkedIn is a great place to apply this networking philosophy. How To Power-up Your LinkedIn Profile What Makes Mike Shella Unique and Successful? Mike is a well-known LinkedIn Expert, but thinks of himself not as an expert or guru but just a successful salesperson who’s figured out LinkedIn. He suggests, a lot of people think that including words like “expert”, “guru” or “ninja” will make their LinkedIn profile more attractive and will outshine others…but those people have got it all wrong. A LinkedIn profile doesn’t have to be extravagant and boastful. By making it realistic, a profile with value and strong content will easily give you an edge from other professionals in your industry. LinkedIn Guru With The Answers Mike started out in sales in 1995 and got into technology sales in 1999. He was one of those traditional sales people making calls and setting appointments. It was a repetitive job. Sadly, Mike noticed he was becoming less effective at it…that is, until a good friend sent him a connection request on LinkedIn. It was a request that started him down a new road in life. That new direction, led Mike from the telecom/communications industry, to starting a business teaching and consulting with professionals on how to properly leverage LinkedIn. Because of his one-on-one consulting, group presentations, and seminars, he was able to help many individuals take full advantage of LinkedIn. After listening to Mike, they were able to find customers, find a job, and succeed in their careers. How To Properly Leverage Your LinkedIn Profile LinkedIn was still fairly new during the time he accepted that friend’s request. He did not waste time exploring and experimenting the ins and outs of it. He found a lot of good and bad things with LinkedIn and both helped paved the way to his success. LinkedIn has an extremely valuable section called advice for contact. Most people use this option in the wrong way. Based on Mike’s experience, most of the people contacting him, will just write a long paragraph or even a short one saying “send me an email” without including so much as their email address or phone number. Simple Power Tips For All LinkedIn Users Sending Contact Requests: • Keep it simple, make it easy for people to contact you • Include a phone number • Include an email address • Utilize the summary section to include your contact details Most of us are not comfortable giving out personal information over the internet. Check Out Two Solid Tricks For Protecting Yourself While Building Your Network: • Have A Dedicated LinkedIn Email Address – Create an email address mainly to be used for LinkedIn. This will let you completely control your inbox. • Sign Up For A Google Voice Number – If you are not comfortable giving out your mobile or landline number, go to Google Voice and sign up for a free Google Voice number. You can then pair the Google Number to your mobile number without anyone seeing your “real” phone number. You then, don’t have to worry about people knowing your mobile number. You can also get an application that can be downloaded directly on your smartphone for this. Are You Committing The Single Biggest Pet Peeve On LinkedIn? How would you feel if somebody sent you a message or you sent someone a message and received a response with a huge delay (like a week or so later) – only to apologize for the late response. The most common excuse? People say they are not checking their LinkedIn mailbox regularly. Avoid this embarrassing and unprofessional situation, by using LinkedIn often and spend time checking the 3 most important sections regularly: 1) Inbox 2) Wall 3) Notifications. It will only take you around 5-10 minutes per day to check everything. LinkedIn is a great tool to engage others with, even more so, if you are using it for your business. Take the time to answer questions from your notifications, celebrate with your connections (who got a new job, who are celebrating their work anniversary, etc.) and go through your invitations on a regular basis. Building A Bigger, Stronger More Responsive List Of Subscribers Is The Fastest And Easiest Way To Add More Profits To Your Bottom Line. 3 “Expert Level” Ways To Spot A Good Connection on LinkedIn Since LinkedIn is open to networking, you will always get invitations from people you don’t know. Make sure to use this list when considering a new connection request: Always ask yourself the following before accepting an invite: Is this person a legitimate customer for me? Can I do business with this person if I accept his invitation? Is it a personalized invitation to connect? (Only few people personalize their request to connect with a personal message) Great example to filter your invitations: Try this one fantastic trick to filter invitations, especially from people you don’t or you’re not really connected with in any degree. Don’t ignore invites, but send them all of these “unknown” people an email with the same message -- “Hello Name, Thank you for reaching out to me, I don’t believe we have me. What are your thoughts about helping one another? I will wait 3 days for your response before I accept your connection request” By sending this response email, you’ll find that 90% of those people will not bother to respond. “Don’t bother sending out connection requests if you don’t know what you can do or if you’re not yet ready to start networking with the big boys” Mike Shelah The key is message customization and profile research. If you are trying to connect with somebody and looking at them as a prospective client, be prepared because you need to let them know your value and the level of engagement you can provide. Everyone needs to learn the fact that we have to reach out as a person and try to develop a personal connection because that can and will make a difference. 3 Tips using LinkedIn To Manage, Develop and Nurture Contacts Engaged – LinkedIn will always give you the opportunity to post an update (like Facebook). However, your update shouldn’t be like the regular Facebook posts about your breakfast, kid’s rehearsals, etc. but it should be on more of a business level. Post an update and invite people to engage and join the conversation. Join Groups – LinkedIn now allows you to join max of 100 groups. Joining groups will help increase your audience and engagement. Share your posts – LinkedIn has made it possible for you to share your posts with other social media channels like Twitter. How To Create Attention-Grabbing Professional-Looking Marketing, Explainer & Training Videos in Just Minutes! Explaindio $57 annual Connect With Mike And Get The Following Anybody that goes to Mike’s website will get: FREE 3 page personalized LinkedIn profile report He will also share with you his top 5 tips and tricks Recommendations based on what he sees on your LinkedIn profile After Reviewing his free report, if you have a specific goal you want to achieve, Mike will offer you one on one coaching! [content_toggle style="1" label="Click%20Here%20To%20View%20The%20Full%20Transcript%20Of%20The%20Show" hide_label="Hide"] Mike: Hi, this is Mike Shelah with the social media business hour with Nile Nickel and today we’re going to empower your Linked In profile. Woman: Are you in business or thinking about starting a new business and could do with a bit of help and guidance when it comes to social media? Then you’re in the right place. Social media can seem daunting and even frustrating but it doesn’t have to be. That is why we offer insights and experience from social media experts from around the world. Discover tips, tricks and information that will help you leverage the power of social media so you can start growing your business today. Welcome to social media business hour with your host Nile Nickel. Nile: Hey, welcome back to our first segment and you heard in the tease that tonight we’ve got Mike Shelah and Mike Shelah is a Linked In expert and I really like talking to Linked In experts. We’ve had probably -- what would you say Jordan? About a half dozen on the show? Jordan: Yeah, sounds about right. Nile: And I really like those experts. Don’t die on me Jordan. Don’t die on me. I really like the Linked In experts because that’s sort of what I do so we always have fun. We tend to learn a lot from each other and we all become better so just to give you some background on Mike. In 2011 Mike began sharing his insights and perspectives on Linked In with audiences throughout Maryland. In 2015 he founded Mike Shelah Coaching to work directly with companies and sales professionals across the United States to find more customers and find them fast leveraging the power of Linked In. mike also uses his experience to evangelize the value of Linked In and those in the job market wanting to find their dream job and get in front of the applicant list. And so Mike welcome to the show. Mike: Thank you Nile. Excited to be here today. Nile: Well, I’m excited. You wanted to -- you talked about helping people out with their profile and I look at profiles as where people really can shine and most of the time they don’t. They just fall flat on their face. In fact I do a product why your Linked In profile sucks and exactly what to do about it so I’m really interested in what you’ve got to talk about tonight. But if I look at all of the Linked In consultants that are out there and you and I both know there are thousands. In fact maybe even tens of thousands. What makes you unique out of all of us Linked In people out here? Mike: The first thing that makes me unique Nile -- and that’s a great question. I get asked it a lot. Is I don’t think of myself as an expert or a guru or a black belt or a ninja or any of those other foolish words that people like to put in their profiles because they think it’s going to somehow attract people to their profile. What I am is a successful salesperson. I started out in sales in 1995. I got into technology sales in 1999 and like many salespeople I come from that tradition of you get a list, you make a 100 phone calls, you set 10 appointments, you get three sales out of that, you move on to the next month. Then you repeat. And what I started to notice about eight years ago was that was becoming less and less effective and a good friend of mine sent me a connection request on Linked In and at that time Linked In was still fairly new. People had it but it certainly was not the platform that it is today and I began experimenting with it and I found lots of bad things to do that I stopped doing and I found a lot of good things to do that really helped me be successful as a salesperson and I’ve been able to modify that to also help people that are in the job hunting process because a lot of the skills that it takes to use Linked In for selling also apply to people that are in the job market looking to find a job. Nile: Sure, absolutely. Absolutely. Of all things that you found with Linked In what would you say is your biggest pet peeve on Linked In? Mike: There is an extremely valuable section to Linked In that says advice for contact and it amazes me how many people in that section don’t actually put a way for me to contact you. They’ll write a big long paragraph or they’ll say shoot me an email but I don’t have your email address. I say keep it simple. Put a phone number in there, put an email address in there and I recommend to people create an email address just for your Linked In account. With Yahoo and Gmail and all the other email platforms out there create an email. Keep it just for your profile and for the phone number -- some people are uncomfortable giving out their personal cellphone number which I can understand. Go to Google Voice, sign up for a free Google Voice number, put that in your profile and that way you can check any messages that come directly from Linked In and you’ll know because it’s a separate app on your smartphone that you just pair with the smartphone number and people never have to know your smartphone number. Nile: Both -- a couple of golden nuggets in there. One of the things that I always recommend is you make it easy for people to contact you and like you said there’s the advice for contact section, there’s information but I also even recommend putting it in the summary section. Make it super easy. And you’re right. So many people don’t do that and after all, if they find you on Linked In which is one of the goals that you likely have if you’re really optimizing your Linked In profile and you’re using it for business or to find a job, you want people to contact you. Mike: Absolutely. Let’s make this simple. Let’s take the confusion out of it. How do I get a hold of you? Nile: In fact, not only taking the confusion out of it. Make it super easy. Mike: Yeah. Nile: If they’re used to looking in a place where it’s not at make sure that it’s in the place that they’re going to look so I love it. I appreciate that advice. Of all the things that you’ve done and the people that you’ve worked with what would you say your favorite Linked In success story is? Mike: Probably my favorite one comes from about six years ago. I was actually at a networking event in Baltimore and I met a gentleman who was the owner of a small business and he was one of the distinguished guests at that event. It was very obvious he didn’t want to talk to any salespeople that day but he was nice enough to give me his business card and after the event I sent him a connection request on Linked In. simply Wayne, thank you for your time. It was a pleasure meeting you this evening. And then a couple of weeks later I see in the Baltimore Business Journal that he’s going to be a keynote speaker at an event. Send Wayne another quick message. Wayne, best of luck with the speaking event. I hope it’s a great success for you. Couple of weeks after that a friend of mine is looking for a job and he’s got a perfect background for this gentleman Wayne. I sent Wayne a message. Wayne, I’d love to introduce you to my friend Dereck. He just got back into the job market and I think he’d be an ideal candidate for your company. Wayne immediately calls me. We spent 15, 20 minutes talking about Dereck and at the end of the conversation Wayne says to me by the way Mike, what do you do? And within 10 minutes of that I’m talking to his office manager. Shortly after that Wayne becomes a customer. But even more important, three years later there was another article in the Baltimore Business Journal about a bank and how they’re going through this explosive growth and they’re interviewing the CEO of the bank. I look her up on Linked In and who does she know? My friend Wayne. Reach out to Wayne. Wayne, would you mind introducing me to Mary? And he says, I’m not going to introduce you to Mary. I’m going to introduce you to the person that I do all my work for her bank through. And within 60 days of that Linked In message I landed the largest account of my professional career and today they spend a quarter of a million dollars a year with my daytime job company. Nile: As you go through that story it reminds me of so many things. One of the things that I talk about and I’m really interested on your thoughts on this as well is Linked In is a tool and it’s a networking tool but it’s just that. It’s a tool. So, when you’ve got good, basic networking skills and networking skills is about give before you get, giving value, not always looking for a return. It’s sort of a natural thing that happens. When you give true value to somebody they look to give back. And so I take that networking philosophy that I have and I’ve shared and I just heard you describe that philosophy perfectly but you used Linked In to implement that strategy. You used the tool of Linked In. Mike: That is correct. And I think you alluded to this earlier. So many people really don’t take the time to develop their Linked In profile and most of the time when I meet someone at a networking event now and they say oh, what do you do? And I tell them I do Linked In consulting, I’m a sales strategist. They look down their feet as if they’re ashamed. As if they’re being addressed by their third grade teacher and the answer’s almost always the same. Well, I have a profile but I don’t really do anything with it and oh, please don’t look at mine because it needs to be updated. And my first thought is well, if you know that why haven’t you done it? Nile: Exactly how long does it take to do that? Mike: In my opinion it takes an hour of hard work to really set up a great profile and then depending on what you do for a living it’s 15 to 20 minutes of maintenance a day. Nile: Well, I’m going to give you my thought and it’s one of the things that I teach. In fact, I teach to really develop your profile and I go through -- there’s currently 13 sections and I talk about going through each of those sections in detail. Spend a week on it but spending a week, you’re probably going to spend anywhere between 15 to maybe 20 minutes a week. Not a day. A week. And then go back over each one of those 13 sections after you’ve went through it the first time which takes you about a quarter so first quarter just build your profile. Second quarter is you start to go back through each section just one section a week which will take you another quarter but that means that you’re touching your profile each and every week and you’re making sure that all of the sections are updated and most sections aren’t going to change that frequently. If at all. But the bottom line is you’ve at least looked at it and you could do that in five to 10, maybe 15 minutes a week. And so you could really have a top of the line profile with very, very little time invested. Mike: Agreed. Nile: Now I suspect that when you’re talking about maybe 15 minutes a day you’re doing the other maintenance things like people send you messages. It might be a good idea to answer those messages. People have connection requests and depending on what your personal policies are and I’d be interested in hearing you’re either going to accept or reject them, whatever. But the flipside is -- and there’s other minor maintenance things you do and then strategically how are you using it for your business. So, I know that I gave you a lot about what I’ve done but I’m interested; and I know you followed all of that too but I’m interested in what you think and what you recommend people to do through those processes as well. Mike: Yeah, you’re hitting a lot of similar ideas that I like to reinforce to people and I apologize. You asked me what my pet peeve earlier was and I think I gave you the wrong one because nothing drives me crazy more than when I send somebody a message on Linked In and then a week later they respond and they say sorry Mike. I don’t check Linked In very often. Again, take 15 minutes a day. You’ve got that little banner right on top of your profile. You’ve got an inbox that shows messages. You have the flag for to dos and then you have invitations. It’s really that simple. Those three things, that’s the 15 minutes I was referring to. You’re right. Those three things should not take you more than 15, 20 minutes a day. Answer the questions that come through, check out the notifications. Who wrote a good blog, who’s got a new job, who’s celebrating an anniversary? Engage on those things and then go through your invitations. And I am not _____30:58 Linked In open networker but I’m not a lock down Linked In user either. What I generally recommend to people is -- because you’re going to get recommendations from people that you don’t know. It always happens. My first thought is is this person a legitimate customer for me? Is this somebody that I could do business with and if so then I accept the connection request and I follow that up with hey, thanks for reaching out? How can I help you today? And I want to get the conversation going and I want to start it just as easy as what can I do to help you. Now, for people that don’t fall into that category -- maybe we don’t have a mutual contact, maybe they’re in Switzerland. The list could be extensive. My first thought is did they customize the Linked In introduction? Did they write something in there because if they wrote something in there there’s a very good chance they’ve described why they wanted to connect with me? Very few people do that. I would say one out of about a 100 invitations I get actually have a personalized introduction. So, I recommend to everybody that that’s what they do when they reach out to people. Particularly if you don’t know them. Linked In doesn’t like you doing that but if you’re going to take that risk, customize it and maximize your opportunity to get connected. When people don’t customize instead of ignoring or accepting I reply to the message and my message is consistent. I say to that person hi Nile. Thank you for reaching out to me. I don’t believe we have met. What are your thoughts on helping one another? I’ll wait three days for your response before I accept your connection request. And then I wait to see what happens because what I found is 90 percent of those people don’t bother to respond to my follow through and I think well, if you can't do that you’re probably not ready to start networking with the big boys. Nile: Yeah, that’s probably true. Well, listen, I know that I want to continue this but we’re going to take a short break. We’ll be right back after this message. Hey, welcome back. You’re listening to the social media business hour with Nile and Jordan and our special guest tonight Mike Shelah and we’re talking about Linked In. you know it’s one of my favorite subjects. And in the last segment we were talking about how people -- or better yet, how you personally respond to the connection requests you get in messages Mike and I liked what you were saying and one of the things that I think we agree on but I want you to continue with where you were but one of the things that we both agree on here is that you don’t want to just use the default messages because why do you just want to be run of the mill? Stand out and it doesn’t take long. In fact, I use a program -- I’m Mac based. It’s called text expander. On PC it’s called Brevity. But literally all it does is -- it’s a short key. I type in three keys and it fills in the message for me and I just fill in the blanks if there are any and it doesn’t take any length of time to sort of put my standard message out. Some people could just save it and cut and paste it but because I do different ones depending on the situation I like having that customization there. But you give a unique response and I liked where you were going in the last segment. So, let me hear more about how you respond to some of those requests that you get. Mike: Sure. The key is customization and even more important delivering some value. If you’re going -- if you’re trying to connect with somebody and they’re a prospective client let them know what was the level of engagement. One of my favorite things about Linked In is that you can research a person before you try to touch them. I went to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County also known as UMBC and in this part of the country UMBC is now very well renowned as a top technology school and if I see on somebody’s profile that they’re an UMBC graduate I’m writing go retrievers because that’s our mascot. Our mascot’s a Labrador retriever. Go retrievers. And because that’s something that’s going to really create that common bond. That’s going to -- it’s going to ground us. And for the sales audience listening today it enhances your prospecting tool. You come up with that target list of 20 accounts that you want to engage and you’re going to reach out to someone what better way than your mutual connections. The people that you know that they know. Looking through their mutual contacts. I got a call back from a client one day because the message I left on his voicemail was hey Bob. Calling you today. We’re both members of the Baltimore County Chamber. I saw that you are friends with George and with Brad. How do you know George and Brad? And he called me back and he said well Mike, how do you know George and Brad? And we got the conversation going. I didn’t say anything about my company or my product or any of that. I started as a person and I started deeply, personally and it just so happened the two names that I mentioned that we had as mutual contacts -- one was a business partner of his that he rents space from and the other one was his childhood best friend. Oh, and I could say that the one man was my former boss that I have a good relationship with and the other one’s my fraternity brother. He was more than happy to set a meeting and have a conversation with me because I wasn’t just another salesperson. I was a person. Nile: And he approached you on a completely different level and I always like to say people buy from people. They don’t buy from companies or businesses. Mike: Amen brother. Nile: And so the fact that you’re reaching out as a person and you’re developing the personal connection just makes all the difference in the world. Great golden nugget there. I’m curious, you’ve been using Linked In for a while. Have you ever used Linked In to find a job? Mike: I have actually and what normally happens is jobs normally find me and what I mean by that is because I’ve optimized my profile, because I’m engaging on a regular basis on there I have people reach out to me all the time saying they’re having trouble finding a job and I say well, I get contacted by one new recruiter on average once a week and they say well, how do you do that? I’m like my profile’s optimized for the industry that I’m in. they naturally find me. and I’ve been happy to say that I’ve been able to just reject most of those job opportunities because they weren’t better than the one I have and the company I’m with right now; I’m with them now because I saw an old friend of mine had gotten a new job there as a sales director so he was above a manager and I just reached out and I again, I had no attention -- I said Rob, congratulations on the new job. I wish you nothing but success. And Rob immediately pinged me back and said Mike I’m desperate for good sales people. Will you come and interview with us. And at the time I was open to hearing about new opportunities. I came in. I met with my now sales manager of three and a half years and I’ve had ridiculous success at that company. And that’s how you find the opportunities. By optimizing your profile and doing that daily engagement. I wasn’t looking for a job when I reached out to Rob to congratulate them. I genuinely wanted to say hey, best of luck with your new job. Nile: Again, it’s on a person basis. Not a company basis. Makes all the difference in the world. We’ve talked about some strategies and I’m curious and obviously want to relate this to Linked In but what do you think has made you successful with Linked In from a personal level? Mike: I think it starts with the personal component. I certainly do. When I think about my big wins, like my big successes that I’ve had as a salesperson almost every single one of them has started with a personal referral that I’d leveraged through Linked In to get the opportunity to speak to that client. Almost every single one. I have some close relationship to someone who knew to get me in the door and they got me in the right door and that person had to be ignoring me before and the plates just shifted into place. I had this one company, huge law firm in Baltimore and I had been calling on them and calling on them and calling on them and they never returned my phone calls. And a friend of mine went to work for that firm and I said Joe would you mind introducing me to Brent. I’ve been trying to get a hold of him. He has not been returning my calls. Joe sends one email to Brent introducing me. Brent gets -- sends me a follow up email and says I would be happy to work with you -- meet with you Mike but I don’t think there’s much you’re going to be able to help us with right now. That was the second largest sale of my professional career. It again happened in less than 60 days and I actually got the customer so excited about what I was offering that they broke their contract with their current vendor to come and work with my company. Nile: Wow. That’s actually saying something. Mike: And it really was leveraging that other relationship. He had no desire to talk to me but because I knew someone that he respected he said all right. I’ll hear what you have to say. Nile: Excellent strategy there and thanks for giving us insights into your success as well. One of the other things that I’d like to ask is that I know that you teach people, you have a strategy to average a new connection every day to get the right introductions. So, it’s not just the connection but it’s the connection to get the right introductions. How do you do that? Mike: It’s the value of the second degree connection. That’s what I try to impart on people. I connect with my clients all the time but I -- I say I connect with everyone. I connect with everyone that I meet. Great example, I was at a business expo last week in Baltimore and it’s a big semiannual event. They do one in the fall, they do one in the spring. There’s usually 60 vendors and about 500 people and typically when I go to an event like that I’m going to see 20 or 30 people I already know and I’m going to meet 15 to 20 people that I don’t know. And with each one of those people I follow up right after the event. Nile, great meeting you at the Bizz Expo this week. I hope we have the opportunity to work together very soon. And that’s all the introduction is. I’ll tell you, I have a coworker right now who is doing some great volunteer work with a nonprofit here in Baltimore and that nonprofit has got this big event coming up in June and they’re looking for ways to market and promote the event and so my coworker said well, you’ve got to talk to my friend Mike because he does all this stuff with Linked In and you’re just going to love him. And I have a phone call with my liaison there. Her name is Karin. And it turns out that Karin’s not connected to my friend on Linked In. now, I know that they know each other but neither one of them has taken that step and my first thought was why aren’t you taking that step? Because I found out that another friend of mine in the marketing company is also doing a project for them and in fact I’m helping her behind the scenes to prepare for that presentation. And I said to her why aren’t you connected to Karin? If you’re working with her why haven’t you taken that step? Why wouldn’t you? Because once you’ve done a good job, once you’ve delivered on what they’ve asked for I’m going to ask for a recommendation because I want that on my profile. I want people to see that I have customers that are happy, that love me and that I’ve done great work for. Nile: That makes absolute sense there and again, I think there’s a number of golden nuggets there. As we’re going through this and I’m listening to what you’re talking about there and the way that you’re talking about connecting people -- again, I’m back to old fashioned networking and it’s sometimes good to connect the virtual world to the real world and when we’ve got these real world connections it does amaze me as well how many people aren’t sharing those connections that they have. Not only -- I look at Linked In I guess and I’m going to take a sort of different angle here. I look at Linked In as my best resource for my online rolodex and if -- now, we’re talking rolodex so we’re dating ourselves a bit because most people today have no clue what that is if they’re new to the business world but it was basically on the corner of your desk and you kept notes on there about anniversaries and spouses and children and events and whatever it may be you kept on that little card. I like to keep all of those notes on those little cards in my Linked In section but -- Mike: Absolutely. Nile: But if I’m not connected to those folks I can't do that. And so I like the recommendation you just made. Why aren’t you and why wouldn’t you? Because I think sometimes we could help the folks that are in our community deal with the value that sometimes they overlook or quite frankly they don’t value. And I want to get into some other strategies as well as talking to about how people could find you and all of that but we’re going to do that in the next segment. So, we’re going to take just a short break and we’ll be right back after this message. Hey, welcome back to the social media business hour. We’re here talking to Mike Shelah and we’re talking about Linked In and Mike I personally think we’re into some advanced strategies but before we get into some -- Mike: Love it. Nile: Some of the other questions and all of that good stuff, one of the things that really strikes me in the face and I think of this the same way. I think anybody listening to this is going to say there’s nothing real detailed or real fancy. I could do all of this. Sounds pretty simple. And I would agree that they could. But they don’t do it. like you said, the most common thing that I hear people say is yeah, I’ve got a Linked In profile but I really haven’t touched it. It’s out of date. Don’t look at it. And we’re talking about some tremendous power they could get and it’s pretty simple if you just do a few simple things. Would you agree? Mike: I completely agree, yeah. And that’s why I use the word evangelize, I use the word catalyst because that really is my goal. I want to turn on as many people as I can to this platform. And not just make them aware because as you’ve stated plenty of people are aware of Linked In. they’re not aware of what it could do for them. And by me getting their awareness cranked up to 11 it’s just going to benefit me. I mean, ultimately it’s very selfish. The more people use Linked In, the better off I am. Nile: Well, and the more people you help you become valuable to those folks. They’re more interested in helping you at that point in time. Mike: Very true. Nile: So, do you have any tips on how you use Linked In to manage and develop and nurture contacts along the way? Now, I know you’ve shared a few things but I’m interested if you’ve got any more details there, any more nuggets? Mike: Yeah, I -- my favorite thing is the engagement piece and you may have seen -- you may have talked about this on previous podcasts but Linked In now has that social selling index tab. You can click on it and it will highlight your profile and put it into four buckets and show you where you need to do a better job and it gives you a ranked score of one out of 100. And the one thing that I think most people don’t really take advantage of is the engagement. You have an opportunity to post an update like you do on Facebook although we’re not talking about what you had for breakfast or your kid’s rehearsal or anything like that. We’re talking about things that matter to business. Do an update and invite conversation. A more detailed update, Linked In Pulse -- once a week put your thought together or for people that don’t like to write what I recommend is they take their daily updates from Monday through Friday and they lump those into a pulse blog post on Saturday. So, take the five articles or relevant stories that you connected throughout the week and just do a two, three sentence paragraph on each one and make that your pulse bog post for the week to increase engagement. And not only to increase engagement but to position yourself as a thought leader and an industry expert. That’s really what those two tools do for you. And then you can further leverage that blog post by engaging it in groups. Linked In now let’s you join up to 100 groups and those groups can be everything from your favorite football team to your college alumni to something based in your community. It can be faith based. It can -- the spectrum for groups that you can join is almost infinite. Get yourself north of 50 groups and then once you’ve written that blog post on Saturday the following Monday share it in five groups and it’s as simple as I wrote this blog post about -- what are some of the things you’ve done in this situation that have benefited you? And get the conversation going. And now you’re being positioned as a thought leader. You’re increasing your audience. You’re increasing engagement and that’s really how you get yourself to adding one new connection a day. By going through those steps. You start with the daily posts. You summarize them in a weekly pule blog and then you push them out to your groups to further engage your audience. Nile: Well, groups have changed dramatically just in the last six months on Linked In that for people that think they know about groups and maybe some of the things that they used to do that don’t work anymore -- it’s worthwhile taking a new look at groups and we don’t have that much time. We can't get into that much detail there but I agree with the group power. It’s just people leveraging that power. And developing that power. Having that said, what you just talked about was an excellent social media strategy and when you do those shares -- we haven’t talked about this but a lot of people don’t know this. I know you do. You’ve got this nice little box down in the bottom right hand corner of your post where you could share on Twitter. Mike: Oh, yes. One of my favorites. Nile: And most of those posts that you’re doing make sense to be shared on Twitter as well. People will engage with you on the platforms that are their platforms. It’s where they work and play. That may or may not be Linked In. may not include Linked In. so, if you’re doing something there why not leverage the power and be able to put it out to Twitter at the same time and if you happen to think about how you’re doing those things it works perfectly when you could do that and just check that little tiny box. Mike: Yeah, very -- and you make a good point that it doesn’t have to be automatic. When Linked In first rolled out Twitter there was a feature that you could select to make it automatic and I learned very quickly that was a bad idea because I was getting these random post updates on my Linked In profile for when I would tweet something. So, I quickly learned to make it a toggle that when I post something on linked it then pushes it over to Twitter and not the other way around. Nile: Yeah, absolutely. Because a lot of things that you put on Twitter may not work very well on Linked In. virtually everything you do on Linked In would work on Twitter so use it accordingly. Mike: Flip the phone. Absolutely. Nile: But I love the way that you talked about doing that because that same strategy works with a lot of the different social media platforms and engage with people where they are. They may or may not be on Linked In as I mentioned but certainly the fact that you could pick up one or two over the course of a year -- new contacts that are valuable contacts just by sharing out the same information may not sound like much but if you look at it 10 years later and it was only two per year that’s 20 good, solid contacts. That could make a business all by itself. Sometimes we -- Mike: That -- believed in -- yeah. They’ve believed in what you said and it resonated with them and they wanted to get engaged. Nile: Exactly. Sometimes we think about the big numbers and I’d rather have 10 followers that are actively engaged than a thousand that aren’t. And it’s just so important to make sure that we don’t get caught up in big numbers. We get caught up in good numbers. Mike: Quality. Nile: Quality over quantity so great stuff. Mike: Nothing wrong with quantity but quality and quantity, much nicer combination. Nile: A much nicer combination and sometimes you have to have quantity just to sort of validate that you’re in the game and you probably have some strategies related to that but we’re running close to being out of time. We’ve got about three or four minutes left and before we run out of time I want to ask about what you do with your clients and to the extent that we’ve got people that are interested in learning more and talking to you, how would they do that? So, let’s talk first about what you do for your clients. Mike: Sure. Three phases to that really. First is anybody that goes to my website can get a free three page report where I review their profile and I believe you said you have 13 points. I have 12 points and then my five tips and tricks. So, we’re basically talking about the same things. And I go through there, I make my recommendations based on what I see. Then the next phase is they’ve gone through that report, they’ve done the things I’ve suggested but they’re looking for more the strategic -- they have a specific goal that they want to attack; I’ll do one on one coaching. The nonprofit that I mentioned. I’m going to be doing that for them. I’m going to be working with them starting in December through June on a biweekly basis to promote this event that they have. It’s one of their biggest fundraisers of the year. That’s what I’m going to be doing with them. And then the last one is I do a 10 week program that is sale centric for the business owner that has a sales force of five or more people. I do a snapshot before this program begins where I do an overview of each participant and I present that to management. And then through the 10 week course we’re going through 30 minutes of Linked In and then 30 minutes of sales strategy. Once a week. At the end of the 10 weeks I do another snapshot for management and it generally falls into four categories. You’ve got your DIY people at the top mister manager. They’re doing great. They don’t need any more help. You’ve got your people that are picking it up. They probably could use some more help. You’ve got these people bellow. They really need a lot of help. And then you’ve got that unfortunate group at the bottom that I can hit them over the head with a hammer and they won't know that it hurts. Nile: Well, I just re-categorized your list there. I like it. The DIY, great. They’re ready to fly. Need some help. Needs a lot of help and helpless. Mike: It can't be helped. Yes. Nile: So, yeah. Beyond any help. So, that’s absolutely awesome. So, if people are interested in learning more, give us that information again. Mike: Certainly. I’m on Linked In. you can find me at www.mikeshelah.com. M-I-K-E-S-H-E-L-A-H. Nile: I was going to say make sure we spell Shelah because you know people will be getting that wrong. Mike: Yes, it is not like the girl’s name. Just pronounced that way. And I’m also on Twitter @mikeshelah. I have a Facebook page, Mike Shelah Consulting and I have an Instagram @mikeshelah. Nile: You just mentioned Instagram there. That’s powerful stuff but most people seem to ignore that. Mike: Great for pictures. Nile: Well, great. Great for a lot of things actually. We might talk about that in the future. Well, listen, we’re basically out of time. I want to thank you so much for joining us and us just having this great Linked In discussion. I always like it when I can have other Linked In -- I know you don’t like the term expert. You say you’re not but I like when other Linked In experts are out there and experts are the people that are sort of at the top of it, of the Linked In platform as you are that are really helping pull other people up to the top because it is a great platform. Most people just aren’t using it. So, Mike, thanks so much for joining us. Mike: Nile, this has been a blast. Thank you for your time. Nile: I appreciate it. And to our listeners, I want to thank you for joining us on the social media business hour. Hopefully you learned at least a few new ideas or concepts. Maybe you were just reminded of a few things that you already know but you haven’t been doing to improve or grow your life or business. Our desire is that you take just one of the things that you learned or were reminded of today and you apply it to your business or your life this week. I know that a small change will make a big difference and I’m committed to bringing you at least one new idea each week that you could implement. So, identify just one small change that you could make to your business or your life this week and see what a big difference it will make for you. So, until next week, this is Nile Nickel. Now, go make it happen. Woman: Thanks for listening. Social media business hour is sponsored by linkedinfocus.com. Be sure to get the latest social media business tips and tricks plus free tips on how you can use Linked In to help your business today. Visit socialmediabusinesshour.com. [/content_toggle] Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mikeshelahconsulting Twitter: @mikeshelah Website: www.mikeshelah.com
Happy Halloween. This week we listen to an older recording of Mike and Adrienne talking about Halloween. Go to elllo.org for the complete lesson. Transcript of the Conversation: Todd: OK, guys we're going to talk about Halloween. So, what do you think about Halloween? Adrienne: I actually like it. It's a fun holiday for kids especially because you get to dress up in costumes and you get lots of candy if you go trick-or-treating. I have a lot of good memories. of Halloween growing up. Todd: OK, what is trick-or-treating? Why do you trick-or-treat? Adrienne: Trick-or-treat is when you go, you dress up in your costume on Halloween and you go door-to-door ringing doorbells, knocking on doors. One person comes to the door, you say, "Trick-or-treat" and usually these days they give you a treat which is candy or apples or something like that but in the older days, you could, if they didn't give you a treat, then you could play a trick on them or they could play a trick on you, instead of giving you a treat, something like that. Mike: I always thought that it was they performed, the person at the door performed some kind of trick for the kids because they didn't have candy to give, but I could be wrong. Adrienne: Yeah, I don't know exactly. It's one of those three options. Todd: Yeah, I think it's you play a trick on them. Mike: Oh, really Todd: You throw trash against their house. Adrienne: Toilet paper their. Todd: Toilet paper, eggs, Mike: Egg their window. Todd: Dog pooh in the paper bag on fire. On fire! Adrienne: Yuck. Todd: Yeah, that's gross. So, Mike, you're from Canada, so do you have Halloween American-style in Canada? Do you celebrate trick-or-treating? Do you do trick-or-treating? Mike: Oh, yeah, I think it is the same as in the U.S. I believe it is a little bit different in Europe, maybe. They don't have the same kind of traditions but, yeah, exactly the same as in the U.S. We watched all the Snoopy, Charlie Brown Halloween kind of things, just like everybody.... Todd: OK. That's good. I'm glad because now we can diverge. What was, what were your costumes when you were younger? Adrienne: Ah, I had so many. My mom was a seamstress so she used to make a lot of my costumes. I designed them and she would make them for me and my sister so one year I was bat girl, another year I was Wonder Woman. Another year I was Princess Lea from Star Wars, I was a rainbow and a clown and a cat, and a witch and everything, basically that you're supposed to be for Halloween I was. Todd: A lot of heroines in there. Adrienne: Of course. Strong women! Todd: Mike, how about you? Mike: I was goat boy. Todd: Goat boy! Mike: I was always goat boy because there... Todd: Every year? Mike: Yeah, we, I couldn't afford to get a decent costume every year. Todd: So how were you goat boy? What did you look like? Adrienne: Where did you get goat boy from? Mike: They just put some sort of, they put a lot of trash on me, and forced me to eat a can. It's OK. I got lots of candy but then the other kids would beat me up and steal it from me. That's OK. Adrienne: That's the saddest thing I've ever heard. Mike: Well, you know. That's all right. It toughened me up when I got older.