Star Wars Cantina Patrons 34: Jawas

So, this is it, the last video. Or was the last one the last video?

Either way, this one's about Jawas.

Star Wars Cantina Patron 33: Garindan

I'm still not sure if this should've been an episode or not. Is Garindan in the Cantina?

Star Wars Cantina Patrons 32: Wioslea

While I'm still not convinced that Wioslea was in the Mos Eisley Cantina, let's take a not-brief-enough look at him.

Star Wars Cantina Patrons 31: Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes

Couldn't find my set of the Cantina Band, but I'm sure it'll turn up.

Poor Man's Refrigerator

The family cabin used to be powered by a gas generator, that you had to pull start for electricity.  But after a few years, my dad and brother set up some solar panels, so we'd get a few hours of 'lectricity each day before we'd have to turn on the generator at night.  And then, they got enough car batteries charged up by the solar panels that you could have power until somebody plugged in a hairdryer or portable refrigerator, and then the lights would flicker and go out.  And because of that, I have never, ever, ever, never, ever considered using the plug-in cooler or mini-fridge at the cabin . . . even though they're effing there.

This week, because of Harrison Ford's birthday (okay, it was last week now--and two weeks ago by the time I'm actually publishing this), I bought a banana cream pie to take to the cabin, to eat, yes, all by myself.

But life experience has taught me a thing or two, and one of those lessons is that banana cream pies go bad ridiculously fast if they are not refrigerated, and then they don't even taste like banana cream pie . . . I'm not sure what they even taste like after that.*

So, I came up with this brilliant idea--something that has worked as a fridge substitute for me for the last two years: fill up the bathroom sink with ice cold underground spring water, then place the soda, bacon, hamburger patties, apples, or head of lettuce in it . . . and it will stay cold for hours.  And I thought, "So, why not do it with the pie as well?"  Problem solved.

Oh, I was clever as can be, but as Oingo Boingo taught us: "Don't forget, you've only got so many tricks, my friend; No one lives forever."  When I went to eat my pie, I discovered that yes, it had stayed cool, but the water had also seeped into the pie tray, eventually filling it with water and submerging it in the pool.  Nicely chilled slop, anyone?

*The other lesson I have learned in my long life is, you have to eat the mango in one sitting, because it will dry out and turn brown within a literal hour or so, even though you don't want to eat the whole mango at once.

Star Wars Cantina Patrons 30: Lak Sivrak

Rish talks about the wolfman, Lak Sivrak, late of the 1997 Special Edition. 

Note 1: The Cantina reshoots were in Los Angeles, not Marin County. 

Note 2: This episode appears out of order because I couldn't find the figure.  Turns out, it was within me all along (ouch).

A Birthday Favor

This is no big deal, really, and I wasn't going to mention it, but I'm at the cabin right now, and glancing out the side window, I can see the remains of a tree, handily chopped into segments with a chainsaw, then abandoned.  The last time I was here, it was my birthday, and even though I knew my brother was going to be working at the cabin, I came up anyway, because it was 103 degrees at home, and I hadn't been able to come up on my usual day, and just wanted to sit and edit audio and record a story and shoot a couple more Star Wars guy videos.  But when I got here, my brother had just finished sanding the big front doors, which are on this spring strung so tightly that it has hit me in the back of the legs and the arse, oh, twenty times or more (sometimes I think about getting your fingers in the way, or my nephew, now seven, getting his little fingers broken by that unnecessarily-dangerous metal door).  My brother showed off what he'd done, telling me it had taken him three hours to get it done . . . and there was still the back door to do.  Immediately, he handed over the sander, and put me to work.  In it for the long haul (after all, this is essentially his cabin, not mine, and I recognize that I'm up there in the one percent Bernie Sanders always bitches about that I have access to it), I put on my headphones and listened to songs as I sanded away all the peeling, sun-bleached paint from a couple of years ago.

At one point, while I was working, I thought I saw a bit of red movement on the other side of the cabin, but didn't hear anything, what with the sander and the music (I am lucky to have downloaded enough songs onto my phone to go running a dozen different nights and never hear the same song twice--except for the first night, you know how that goes).  But not too long after, I heard the older man in the cabin next door start up his chainsaw, and go to work on some of the dead trees on his property.*  I paused in my sanding when I heard the big cracking sound that signifies that gravity is taking over where sawing left off, and stepped around the side just in time to see a thirty foot tree fall, from the neighbor's property all the way across to ours.  And where that tree landed . . . was where I had parked my car an hour before.

My car was not there, however.  While I'd been sanding, my brother had gone upstairs, found my keys from beside my laptop, gone down, started it and moved it to the other side of the gravel driveway, then replaced the keys.  When I talked to him, he said, "I just had a feeling that tree was not going to go where he wanted it to."  And he'd been right.  My brother admitted, however, that he'd been more worried that the neighbor's fallen tree would have landed on the big white propane tank on the very edge of our property.  That, the man had missed.

Well, it's not much of a blogpost, but I'll admit that it was a pretty kind birthday gift, so I thought I'd say something.  And I'll further say that, after my brother went home, the neighbor cut down two more dead trees . . . and one of them indeed landed right onto our big propane tank.  Fun.

*This is something we have to do (or rather, my brother has to do it, and I have to stack the wood) every single year.  It's not a large property that my dad built his cabin on--maybe half an acre, maybe a quarter--but there are easily a hundred trees on it, in various states of growth.  And one of those states is death, my friend . . . something you'll become intimately aware of very soon.

Star Wars Cantina Patrons 29: Wuher

Rish didn't buy the bartender Wuher, in protest of his No Blasters policy.

Star Wars Cantina Patrons 28: Dice Ibegon

Another cool name for a character that . . . wait, is Dice Ibegon cool?

The Illustrated Man(boy)

The next physical book I aim to publish is the first Lara & the Witch volume, which includes five and a half stories, from "Like A Good Neighbor" to "Here To Help."  As a bonus to those who purchased the actual book (as opposed to the digital versions), I included a bonus flash piece (newly-named "A Short Interlude") and after looking at what Big was doing with one of his future collections (though at the rate he's going, it's probably already available), I wanted to throw some illustrations into it.

One of the ideas I had for an image would be of Old Widow Holcomb, young and beautiful, but with her true old woman face creeping in on one side, similar to how Steve Ditko would show Peter Parker with half of his face as Spider-man.

Anyway, I did my best to get an image of a young and vibrant black-haired woman, and then one of an old one, and see if I couldn't merge the two.  It didn't really work Dikto-style, but I was able to take part of the old woman's features, resize them, and paste them onto the young woman's.  And I thought it looked pretty good, so I sent it to Big.

Maybe add a streak of grey in her hair on the right side?

He thought it could look better, though, and revised it himself with a program of his that works surprisingly well at smoothing out edges or replacing problematic images (such as hands with eight fingers or cars not touching the ground or Rish Outfield with his arm around a woman).  It works great at expanding on what's already there (for example, he put out a book recently, but misjudged the page count, so he had to adjust the cover to be bigger, and he had the program extrapolate what would naturally be beyond the borders of the finished art), but not at creating stuff out of whole cloth (or whole pixels).

Big fixed the lips on the old side, because it bothered him that they didn't match.

Big Version 1

So, this one doesn't look too bad.  But what it looks to me is cool Eighties prosthetic makeup being applied to a section of her face.  Cool makeup, but not really a transformation or revelation, which was more my intention.

Big Version 2

Big smoothed out her forehead, and it looks a little bit less makeup-y, but I told Big that I had actually liked the dividing line between her young visage and the old one, and that the lips were not MEANT to match.

Big Version 3

So, he made it VERY obvious, a split down the middle kind of thing, so you could see beauty on one side, and ugly on the other.  I explained that, at least in my head, what I wanted was the idea of the youth and looks being an outer shell, with the ugly old self being the layer underneath.

Big Version 4

So Big did this one, which has more of an eggshell quality splitting the two, and does seem to have a false skin layer feeling, kind of like Diana on the 1983 V miniseries.

So, what did I do?  Like an infuriating sitcom character, I told him I liked the original just fine, and just to go with that.  Don't you despise that kind of person?

Star Wars Cantina Patrons 27: M'iiyoom Onith

 

M'iiyoom Onith? What, another of these aliens with the unpronounceable, ridiculous names? Maybe we should stop doing this series.

Star Wars Cantina Patrons 26: Ketwol

This is the NEWEST Cantina Patron . . . a whole twenty years after all of the rest, Ketwol/Melas.

Yes, Another Audio Collection

It's finally here, my next audio collection . . . Volume 5 of "The Audio Fiction of Rish Outfield."  It's available and ready to purchase.

Okay, okay, this isn't the ACTUAL cover, but a mock-up Gino sent me as a test.  Still, it's so good of him to do it that, I did sit down and try to think up a story that could fit that title.  When I came to, I decided it just wasn't worth it, as awesome as that story might be.

So, this one is noteworthy because Big Anklevich recorded an introduction for it.*  Beyond that, it features the following stories:

A Lovely Singing Voice
Palm Reading (Flash Fiction)
Last Lunch At Charburger
Troubled Child
You’ve Got A Friend
Worrywart (Flash Fiction)
Monitored Conversation
Bad Trip
Birthday Boy (Flash Fiction)
Know When To Walk Away, Know When To Run

And, as a twisted bonus, I included the author's notes this time.  I mean, why not?

It's available to purchase AT THIS LINK.  I realize this has taken me longer than The Winds of Winter, but it's finally out there now.  What's an extra three years between friends?

*Though Audible did give me a hard time about that when I initially credited both of us as narrators on the audiobook.  I think something similar happened when he tried to put out a version of "Last Contact," after I had already claimed it as my work.

Star Wars Cantina Patrons 25: Bom Vimdin

Ugh, Rish didn't even open Bom Vimdin. What a hockey puck.

You's The Force Ten (From Navarone)

Marshal and I tried really hard to do a consistent series of Outfield Excursions episodes this year, so there's already a new one available, discussing FORCE TEN FROM NAVARONE (starring Robert Shaw, Harrison Ford, and Carl Weathers), the sequel to THE GUNS OF NAVARONE.

For some reason, we talk about the sequel and then the original film.  I'm sure that was my fault, but ah well.  Check it out HERE.

Star Wars Cantina Patrons 24: Zutton

The flies say this is my worst episode of Star Wars figures yet. Zutton, however, disagrees.

Podcast That Dares 50: The Jaunt

Rish performs Stephen King's 1981 short story "The Jaunt." In this dark Sci-Fi tale, a father tells his nervous family how the Jaunt came to be before they take off to Mars.

Note: This episode has been a long time in coming, longer than you think.

You there, to download this episode, Right-Click HERE. 

To support me over on Patreon, click HERE.  You know you want to.  Nobody will ever know.

 Logo by Gino "The Aunt" Moretto.

Star Wars Cantina Patrons 23: Dannik Jerriko

Dannik Jerriko is up today, whose species is Anzati, despite me calling him human. 

Note: The talent agency where the Cantina patrons (and bartender) came from still exists, and is called Ugly Models today. Huh.

Richard Simmons, I Hardly Knew Ye

Last Sunday, Marshal Latham contacted me to offer his condolences at the loss of Richard Simmons.  Huh, I thought.  The next day, Big contacted me to ask why I hadn't done a blog post memorializing Simmons.  After all, he died on my birthday.*

Years ago, when I first moved out to L.A., the only work I could get (not unlike today, I suppose) was extra work (which I enjoyed, don't get me wrong).  But the lowest rung on the ladder of extra work was being an audience member on a talk show or game show.  They would pay you to sit and applaud for the taping of the show, and then you'd either sit for another episode, or drive home, knowing that what you made today would barely feed you for the next twenty-four hours.

I did audience work for shows hosted by Craig Kilborn, David Allan Grier, Alan Thicke, and Roseanne Barr (oh, and "Win Ben Stein's Money"), and one day, I was booked to sit in the audience for "The Richard Simmons Show."  Now, everybody knew Richard Simmons from the Eighties, but always more of a punchline than a real celebrity.  He was so odd and flamboyant, like Liberace in short-shorts, but a very positive person, who helped fat people become less fat, probably by the millions.

I sat in the audience and was struck by how sincere he was, happy to have a show, and eager to use his little forum to brighten folks's day.  His first guest was Michael York, there to promote the second AUSTIN POWERS (everyone in the audience got a--get this--free VHS copy of the first movie, which I already had on DVD), and his second guest was an unwell civilian woman who Richard had helped feel better about herself.

Big Anklevich remembered me telling him that I was moved to tears by her story, so, at the end of the show, when Richard Simmons stood there and asked who in the audience wanted to hug him . . . I ran up and did so.  Yes, I made fun of the fact that he was oily and in a tanktop, but I had been genuinely impressed by his exuberance and decency, and from that point on, when I made fun of Richard Simmons, I did it with affection.

So, the man slipped from the public eye for the last few years, alarming some (I vaguely remember standing in front of a People magazine with the headline What Happened To Richard Simmons? in 2020 or so), and the last I heard from him was when it was announced that--ugh--Pauly Shore wanted to play him in a biopic.

He died at the age of seventy-six, from natural causes.  And I hope he was remembered for his sparkling personality and big heart, as well as his oddness and camp appeal.

As foul and obnoxious as Pauly Shore is, he's no Richard Simmons.  Richard Simmons was one of a kind.

*Can you imagine if some celebrity you loved died on your birthday (although, technically, Lon Chaney Jr. did)?  Conversely, can you imagine if a celebrity you HATED died on your birthday?

Star Wars Cantina Patrons 22: Mosep Binneed

Another figure I declined to get, from that ill-advised 3.75" Star Wars Black Series, Mosep Binneed, aka Fake Jabba.

Star Wars Cantina Patrons 21: Myo

Whoops, I got his name wrong. His name is Myo, not Ryo. I'm sommy about that.

Star Wars Cantina Patrons 20: Feltipern Trevagg

His species is Gotal. His name is Trevagg. His attitude is...surprisingly positive.

Star Wars Cantina Patrons 19: Leesub Sirln

 Talk about weird girls... Rish never bought a figure of Leesub Sirln. Did you?

Star Wars Cantina Patrons 18: Hrcheck Kal Fas

Today we're talking about Bossk's crazy uncle, Hrcheck Kal Fas. 

Note: Apparently, they're not even the same species--Bossk is Trandoshan, Hrcheck is Saurin. Please forgive my racism.

Star Wars Cantina Patrons 17: Doctor Evazan

Today, we talk about my awful Doctor Evazan figure. Turns out, he doesn't like you either.

Star Wars Cantina Patrons 16: Kitik Keed'kak

Today I talk about . . . oh no. 

I curse the eyes of whoever named the mantis Kitik Keed'kak.

Why Do YOU Hate The Acolyte?

Just asking.

In the latest Delusions of Grandeur podcast, Marshal Latham and I got together--very briefly--to discuss the new Star Wars Disney+ series that has everyone's Jedi robes in a bunch.

We talk a little about it, why people are upset with it, but don't really answer the real question: why do you hate "The Acolyte?"  Check it out HERE.

By the way, EFF Ki-Adi-Mundi.  There, I said it.

Star Wars Cantina Patrons 15: Labria

So, the HasLab campaign has ended, but this series has miles to go before it sleeps. 

Today, I talk about Labria, the Devonarian. 

Note: This character is now officially called Kardue'sai'Malloc . . . but eff that.

Star Wars Cantina Patrons 14: Djas Puhr

Rish has a figure of Sakiyan bounty hunter Djas Puhr. Do you?

Note: In the video, I say there are a couple of days left to back the Cantina.  The campaign has since ended.  I should have posted these videos faster.

Taking It To The Mats

More than twenty years ago, Big Anklevich challenged me to write a story based on his premise, which was the first Broken Mirror Story Event.  If you recall, I finished my story, "Monitored Conversation," around a year before he finished his own story, "The Baby Dies - What, Does That Surprise You?"

And that's been the status quo for pretty much all these years (though never with that long a gap in between*).  But not anymore.  No, the sock is on the other glove now, kids, because Big continues to write like crazy, maintaining a steady workman's pace, while I can only manage to fart and watch YouTube with a similar frequency.

A couple of weeks ago, I told him it was time for us to start thinking of another writing contest, something we could do across both our podcasts.  He, disgusted as usual by my suggestion, asked what I meant.  I said, "Oh, something like, Write a story about evil or haunted floormats**, that sort of thing."

The mats on my car look like they've been driven over and dragged a country mile, then put back in my vehicle using a pitchfork, and I keep meaning to replace them, but I'm way too cheap.  A couple of times lately, I've thought they might be cursed and it's high-time to burn them in the backyard, like I'm from West Virginia and it's a class textbook by a woman author.  

And I thought, as I do every week, there's got to be a story in that somewhere.

I wish my mats looked this good.

Well, to my surprise, Big said, "Challenge accepted," and commenced work on it before the suggestion was even out of my mouth.  And not only has he finished his, but it's over twelve thousand words long (the crazy bastage even considered running it in the next episodes of his podcast).

Meanwhile, my story isn't even half that length, is far from finished, and for the third time in a row, just not very good.  Hmmm.

Well done, Anklevich.  Truly, the student had eclipsed the teacher, and has been sleeping with the teacher's wife. 

*Technically, this is not true, as he wrote a story about working at Little Caesar's Pizza after challenging me to do the same, and his was done a couple of years before mine (Big claims that his was written more than a full decade before mine, but I assure you, he is lying).  But that wasn't technically a Broken Mirror Story Event, since we had just said, "We both worked at Little Caesar's?  We ought to write a story about that."

**I realize that "floor mats" is supposed to be two words, but enough is enough--English is constantly shifting anyway.

Star Wars Cantina Patrons 13: Trinto Duaba

Yet another SW alien I never picked up, the insanely-expensive Trinto Duaba.

Winter Breakdown

So, a few months back, I put out my 2020 story "Winter Break," even including it in my Female Protagonist collection.*  I vaguely remember, when I was recording it, finishing Chapter 5 and then noting that I'd designated the next one Chapter 8, a little odd, but just changing it and going on.

Well, this week at the cabin, I found on my laptop a file called Winter Break Chapter 6,7.  I looked at the file, and thought that for sure I'd already incorporated them, but when I read through it, none of it was familiar, and I didn't have the published version to compare it to.

I did have the audiobook version, though, and sure enough, it did not include Chapters 6 or 7 (the narrative just skips ahead, with a couple of paragraphs summing up what happened in the missing section).

Great news.

But this sort of thing happens again and again (and again and again) with me, because, as Big would gladly point out, I don't keep all my stories on Google Docs, where every time I work on one file, it updates on every computer.  And how much extra work has that cost me?  Well, enough to have written a couple more stories, maybe even a couple novels.

But today I'm sitting down and recording those two chapters**, because I just can't let it go.  If it makes the finished products even a little bit better, I guess that's a price I'm willing to pay.

*Oh no, I should be thinking about what I should put in the second Female Protagonist book now.  Do I include a Lara Demming story?  How about one of the Dead & Breakfast tales focusing on a girl/woman?  Maybe put that Princess Leia story in it, since I've never released that other than our podcast?  That story about the girl in college that tells the sorority girls their darkest secrets that I never dared put out because it was mean-spirited?  None of the above???

**After doing it, I found that it involved redoing four chapters, as I now could take out the summary I'd written for one of them, as well as as contradiction this addition created in yet another later chapter.  Such fun.  Except it is kind of fun, to do audiobooks, and nobody MADE me do it; this is all on me.

Star Wars Cantina Patrons 12: Hem Dazon

 

So, today's alien is the first one we see in the Cantina: Hem Dazon. His species is Arcona.

And hey, today is the last day you can go HERE and back the HasLab Cantina campaign . . . you can have this, if you want it.

Note: The actual puppet was only a head and neck, so somebody somewhere had to make up what the rest of this guy looked like, including the weird legs on this one.

Star Wars Cantina Patrons 11: Pons Limbic

Today, let's talk about Brainiac aka Pons Limbic, which I do not have.  

Do you have him?  If so, why?

Rish Outcast 283: All's Well That Ends Well

Inspired by Big Anklevich and Taylor Swift, Rish talks about some of his favorite unhappy endings.

Warning: Spoilers abound!

Timecodes (unreliable)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) - 20:02

Halloween: Season of the Witch - 25:20

Se7en - 28:45

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Normal Again) - 31:05

Pet Sematary - 35:15

The Mist - 37:25

Planet of the Apes (1968) - 38:16

On Her Majesty's Secret Service - 42:35

The Descent - 44:44

Also, various Stephen King stories (The Jaunt, Gramma, The Mist), Big Anklevich stories, The Outer Limits, maybe more. 

If you want to download the episode, Right-Click HERE.

If you want to support me on Patreon, click HERE.

If you want to hear the whole Taylor Swift song, go HERE.

Logo by Gino "All's Swell" Moretto.

(I published this at 7:07 on 7/7)

Star Wars Cantina Patrons 10: Nabrun Leids

Today I talk about Nabrun Leids of the multiple arms. 

Note: The HasLab Cantina DID reach 14,000 backers, so it will include Mister Leids.

Exercise Goal - First Six Months

Whoops, we're into July now, and I haven't posted my exercise progress.  Six months are over, and for my silly goal of 200 days of exercise, that means I should be at around one hundred.

Whoops, I'm at 146.

I feel a little bit like Big Anklevich* (since I have a craving for juicy red flesh and neighborhood women can't keep their hands off me) when he was so far ahead of his yearly writing goal that he could slack off for two months and still have no problem achieving it.  

But like Big Anklevich, I'll keep exercising (on Wednesday, there was a whole family fishing off the dam where I do my weekly runs, and I just tucked my head down, turned the music up, and ran past them twice, ignoring the cries of "What is that man doing, Daddy?" and "Why does he run like Forrest Gump if he'd never got the leg braces off?"), and we'll see just how far past it I can run.

Star Wars Cantina Patrons 9: Takeel

In this one, I talk about the Snivvian alien Takeel. 

Note: Most Star Wars die hards refer to the character Zutton (which I don't have) as the inspiration for the Snaggletooth 1978 figure.

Star Wars Cantina Patrons 8: Greedo

Today, I talk about the MOST important Cantina denizen (other than Han and Chewie, I suppose), the bounty hunter Greedo. 

Note: Hasbro WILL be making a new Greedo in the Vintage Collection in 2025.

Star Wars Cantina Patrons 7: BoShek

Now I talk about a figure I never did buy, BoShek. Mind the tears, kids.