Lighten Up While You Still Can

I was bummed out earlier today when I heard that the townspeople of Bozeman, Montana are not fond of Star Trek fans who travel there to mark the (future) site of mankind's first contact with aliens.  Anecdotally, they have been known to brandish rake handles and corn cobs and suggest that Trekkies "shove long and prosper."

It made me sad because, just like Metropolis, Illinois, which proclaims itself the home of Superman, and Riverside, Iowa, which calls itself the future birthplace of James T. Kirk*, you'd think any town would welcome the kind of tourists that would come there for the day, buy mugs and t-shirts, take pictures, then scatter (of course, Bozeman is literally a hundred and eighteen times the size of my hometown, so maybe they don't need that kind of thing).

But then I found out that Winslow, Arizona, a little town that used to be on the famous Route 66 but lost all of its industry and tourism when the historical highway was relocated, has thoroughly embraced its minor bit of fandom.  You see, in 1972, the Eagles released the song Take It Easy, which includes the line:

         Well, I'm standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona,
         Such a fine sight to see;
         It's a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford,
        Slowin' down to take a look at me.

. . . and the lovely folks of Winslow (a little burg only nine times the size of my hometown) decided to honor the song by building a park (Standin' On The Corner Park) and tribute, where Eagles fans can go and, I dunno, imagine that a girl is slowing to look at them too.  Because wouldn't that be great?

There's a mural, a painting, a prop vehicle, and a statue of "The Troubadour," which folks say looks like Jackson Browne, who wrote the song.

In 2016, after Glenn Frey (singer and cowriter of the song) died, another statue was put up to honor him . . . all in an attempt to draw tourists to their little corner of the globe.  

People can go there, take a picture, buy a souvenir, and remember a great song.  And maybe they fill up at the Maverik gas station or Circle K, or have lunch at the McDonalds on Park Drive or the Brown Mug Cafe on Second Street.  And then, everybody wins. 

It's difficult to explain how much joy I got from reading about it and seeing the various photos people have taken over the years (it opened in 1999), because it doesn't really do anything, you know what I mean, and yet it somehow manages to mean something.

Would it kill you, Bozeman, to put up a statue too?

*Oh, and I just learned that Vulcan, Alberta in Canada has an annual Spock Day celebration, complete with a bust of Leonard Nimoy and a statue of the Enterprise.  All in an effort to lessen my sadness at Bozeman's (alleged) assholery.

Nice To See A Familiar Face

C-3PO figures tend to be plentiful.  He's a popular, perennial character that requires few paint applications (especially if you're doing a die-cast figure).  His design isn't quite as useful for customs, since other protocol-type droids had different style heads, but the figures are cheap and plentiful.  So I grabbed one and took a picture of it to send to Big, warning him I was going to do something unholy to it.

He seemed excited to see what I'd do with it, and I decided to play it safe and pattern it after the blue droid in the worst-ever episode of "The Mandalorian."  It was an unbelievably beautiful repaint, in a decidedly less-than-beautiful hour of television.

Amazingly, in the more than two years since the series ended, I couldn't find any other photos of it, except the one I grabbed in 2023.

And speaking of lack of photos, I forgot to take some of the work-in-progress.  Which pretty much leaves us with:

I might need to ask Big to send me a better photo, since I gave the repainted Artoo and Threepio to him when he last visited.

Podcast That Dares 58: Notebook Found In A Deserted House

I guess it's been enough time to do another Robert Bloch story . . . hasn't it?

This one is the 1951 Lovecraft homage, "Notebook Found In A Deserted House," about a twelve year old boy who discovers that the only thing worse than a mystery is the answer behind said mystery.

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

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

Logo by Gino "Perverted House" Moretto.

I Narrate "The Sin Eater's Chrysalis" on Tales To Terrify

If you like, check out last week's Tales To Terrify podcast, where you can hear me perform the story "The Sin Eater's Chrysalis" by Matt Hollingsworth.

It tells the story of a lonely, bitter man who, like his father before him, is able to consume the sins of the recently-dead so that they can go to Heaven, using some pretty disgusting supernatural methods.  But every consumption takes its mental and spiritual toll on the sin-eater, so he determines that nobody will follow in his footsteps.  It's a dark one, more so than . . . gee, any story in memory I've been asked to do, and way more so than anything I've written.  Sound fun?

I suppose this could be considered a cursed production, because I recorded and edited the story, sent it in, and only heard back the next year to learn that the podcast didn't have my audio.  Not a huge deal, since I always keep my file until the show is released . . . except this time, apparently.  Not sure why I had deleted it, because now we were both a bit scragged.*  Even so, I sat down and re-recorded the story, transferred it, and re-edited the sucker.  This is the ONLY time I've ever done this, in the, what, fifteen years I've put in narrating stories for podcasts.  

Was it worth it?  Go TO THIS LINK to find out.

*Of course, about a month later, I did find the original recording on my back-up SD Card, though far, far too late.

Firewalk With Me (and Marshal)

One of the subgenres we like to visit on our Outfield Excursions podcast is the Indiana Jones knockoff, and strangely, I seem to enjoy these more than Marshal does.  So I was happy to sit down with him and watch FIREWALKER, a Cannon Films adventure starring Chuck Norris, Louise Gossett Junior, and the girl from FLASH AhAhhhhhh GORDON.

But if he ever finds an Indy Jones KO with Jean Claude Van Damme in it . . . that's a bridge too far.

Rish Outcast 303: Reply Hazy

Rish shares an old story, "Reply Hazy," about a young man named Rafael, whose Magic 8 Ball really is magic.

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

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

Logo by Gino "Reply Crazy" Moretto.

Rish Performs "The Window Boy" on Cast of Wonders

The last time "Cast of Wonders" asked me to narrate a story was "My Hilt Itches" in May of 2022.  Seems like longer, but hey, better late(ish) than never.

Every writer has his or her strengths and weaknesses.  There are naturally subjects and scenarios I am drawn to, and some I tend to stay as far away from as I can.  One of those that I've struggled with is the dystopian future of Science Fiction or Horror.  

This story, "Window Boy" by Thomas Ha, is a pretty masterful attempt at the age-old idea of a utopian future story . . . where it becomes clear that it's not a utopia at all.  It's also a fanciful Sci-Fi tale about an innocent child that becomes a truly chilling Horror piece by the end.*

Jakey lives with his parents in a world where you don't go outside, but there are TV shows about cybernetic mailmen that protect the outside world from the monsters that roam its streets.  And pretty much every night, Jakey has a conversation with the boy who comes to the window, shares a sandwich with him, and asks him questions about the house he lives in.

Dang, this was a good one--in fact, I'm going to interrupt this blog post and write the author an email about it.  Well, that felt good.  I suggest you do the same, if there's a writer you know of that could use a word of appreciation for their work.  In the meantime, check out my performance of "Window Boy" HERE.  But don't get too close.

*That is, if I interpreted it the way the author intended.  Maybe I didn't.  But if that's the case, well, that would mean the story was much less than the sum of its parts.  And I don't think so.

Big 'n Rish Finally Confront The Elephant In The Room

 For the past few months, Big Anklevich has been running his beefy novella, "The Elefante in the Room," on his podcast.  I wasn't really involved, except to talk about his brief Eurotrip*.  But now, the story is finished, and it's time for us to talk about it.  So, you might as well listen to the whole darn thing (that's what I did).

A teen boy discovers some kind of alien-looking egg about to hatch in his room and uncovers a conspiracy that goes all the way to Selena Gomez.  Oh, and the President.  What is going on, and who will be next, and how can he possibly stop it?  

Anyhow, he had me on for the last episode.  We talk about the source of the idea, whether it's about what you think it's about, and would Big end it in the traditional Anklevich way?  Find out the answers HERE.

*R.I.P. Michelle Trachtenberg.

Podcast That Dares 57: The Three D's

Rish shares the (very) short 1957 story "The Three D's" by well-known poet Ogden Nash.

If Victoria is going to join a select group at her school, she must do something Daring, Deadly, and Done-never-before.

To download the episode, Right-Click HERE.

To support me on Patreon, click HERE.

Logo by Gino "In Three-D" Moretto.

Too Much Time On My Hands?

It might have been last year, it might have been ten years ago--that's how these things work--but I grabbed a couple of Star Wars guys and did repaints on them, just for fun.  Now, Big Anklevich is finally creating his space station, and I thought I could make a couple of repaints for him to have walking around his station.  The movies have shown us that the R2 unit and Protocol Droid designs are so good that you can paint them practically any color (or combinations) and they will look good, so I am going to test that theory.

Here's my first one:

This is just a standard late 90s/early '00s R2-D2 with the third leg.  It has a chromed dome, so I put tape over it to protect it from the grey primer that I've been told you should use first, so the paint sticks better to the figure.

I didn't take a photo of him when he was grey, whoops (but I did on the next one), but I decided to put black where there had been white and green where there had been blue (plus a little extra).

It did NOT come out great, but as I said before (and will continue to say as I do more of these), the droids look pretty good even with a crappy paintjob, partly because of the great design, but also because of Lucas's idea of a "used universe," where things were old, beat-up, or falling apart.

Above is the finished product.  It looks awful to my eye, but Big Anklevich, whom I gave it to, said it would be a fine addition to his space station.  Which was nice.