A Geek History of Time - Episode 135 - Babylon 5 Part II

Episode Date: November 27, 2021

So first thing foremost, I think being the addition of pant leggings is really when you start to see your heroes get watered down. The ability to go straight man, that one. Which is a good argument for absolute girls. Everybody is going to get behind me though. When you hang out with the hero, it doesn't go well for you. Grandfather took the cob and just slid it right through the bar. Okay. And that became the dominant way our family did it.

Okay. And so, both of my marriages, they were treated to that. Okay, wait, hold on. Yeah, rage, I could. How do you imagine the rubber chicken? My grandmother actually vacuumed her pearls. Oh my god, high-cool. How do you imagine the rubber chicken? My grandmother actually vacuumed in her pearls. Oh my god, you always had to sexual revolution. It might have just been a Canadian standoff.

We're gonna go back to 9-11. Do you get over it? And I understand that the birds are still in the water. Agra has no business being that thick. With the cultists, what in the world? This is a geek history of time. Where we connect to Nuggery to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylogg and I'm a

world history teacher here in Northern California, also dabbling in English. And in my life, this past week, the biggest piece of news I have to share with everybody is that my son has started spontaneously singing lines from sea-shanties. He'll be sitting in the back seat of the car, we'll be driving somewhere, and my wife and I will be talking, and all of a sudden she'll go, do you hear him? I'm like, no, I'm driving the car, and I'll listen for a moment, and I'll hear.

Son, may the weather, may come, bringing us to the TNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN I am so Sicking them to your man says Lullaby's to go to bed is apparently paying off How about you what do you got going on? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a Latin and drama teacher up here in northern California And I just got to say you could fire back to her and just say this guarantees that we will not be young grandparents Well, we wouldn't be young grandparents. Well, we wouldn't be young grandparents in a way. Well, that's true. You're both older than water. Yeah. But Wow. Also, I like the geology involved in that because, yeah,

older than dirt, not really. Right. Okay. Yeah. No, but which is ironic because a sea shanty is what sailors would say and they got late all the time But now like it's shifted. So I you know just point that out. Yeah But no what I have going on is did I tell you that I had my kids reading Comic books this summer that dealt with issues of social justice in America. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, did I tell you my son's Yeah, yeah, did I tell you that my son asked me recently quite innocently about a word?

That you don't get to say ever So he's in the closet getting something out and he says hey dad what's that and he says it just very plainly like okay I'm gonna use the word Tool belt, okay, okay So he says dad what's a tool belt And I say you know, it's the N word and I'm like oh Oh, I'm on duty right now Okay Oh, I'm on duty right now. Okay.

Let's the phrasing there. Okay. Here we go. The alarm bell just rang. Yeah. I got to get. Yeah. So I said, all right, first off, where did you hear that word?

And he said, oh, it's in March. And I was like, ah, context, this helps. Marches. Yeah, March, March is about the civil rights marches. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's John Lewis telling the writeres, yeah, Marches about the civil rights marches. It's John Lewis telling the writer, and okay, cool. Okay, I tell him very simply, it is a word that is used to hurt and demean people. It's never word that you should say out loud. I'm very glad that you asked

me about it. I'm very glad that you asked me here at home when every you have a question about a word like that you need to ask me and not anybody else because I I as an historian have the understanding of what you're trying to get to and I know what you're reading so that word You know tool belt I I explained was is a word that is absolutely used to hurt people and dehumanize them and make it easier to do violence against them and so you know number, never use that word. Number two, anytime you hear somebody using that word, you need to speak up against it.

You need to either support the person who's being attacked with that word by standing near them and telling them that you're sorry that they're having to deal with that or more importantly, tell the person using the word that is not okay. And he understood, you know, it was like, okay, because it's a rule, he's got it, right? So then I immediately called my brother-in-law, and he and my sister, he's black, my sister is Yemeni, so my nephews are Afro-Arabian, her word, and it's a nice little call back to the 70s, you know, but I I called him and I was like, hey, here's what happened. You got anything else you want me to make sure I tell him because he's gonna be hanging out with his cousins and that word might get thrown around and he and I had a nice long

talk about the you know what what I as a white dad should tell my white kid who has black and brown cousins, and just the intersectionality of that, and what not. And it was good. It sounds like I handled it well, which is nice. And it was kind of like no notes. This is good. You did good. And then, you know, we talked about, you know, what, you know, do I need to do anything when his nephews start using that word without the hard r. This tool belt has an hard r at the end of it. And he said, no, no, because I already told them about XYZ and blah, blah, blah. So it's like, okay, cool. So, so yeah, that's, that happened probably a couple of months ago. And I don't know why it came up to me tonight, but fun little story to share. So. All right.

Yeah. Also, we have a new friend of the show. My, my friend was talking about the Orientalism that is inherent in Dune. Okay. And I said to her, I said, hey, we have a podcast that just talked about that. If you want to give it a listen, she gave it a listen and she's one episode in on the Dune episode.

Of course, by the time that this hits, she'll probably have finished it and give me notes. But my friend, Arouj, so if you're listening, good on you for enjoying Babylon 5. I hope you and your husband enjoy this one too. Er, well, enjoying Dune, this one is Babylon 5. Right, but if they're listening to this, they will. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so speaking of Babylon 5, that's what we spent a budget time last time with me,

kind of kind of trying, I don't know how successfully to to give an overall understanding of the made up universe, right, of J. Michael Strasinski's epic series. And so now that we've kind of seen what the great, the large shapes and the big themes are kind of involved there. I don't think I explicitly called out the themes but we're gonna get back to them. You know hopefully you remember enough that we'll be able to kind of talk about it. Oh yeah. I now want to do the the reverse of the way things usually go when you're the one guiding everything usually first and we then do the make right right so now let's let's

get into what the world looked like in 1993 particularly from the point of view of dominant mainstream American culture okay okay so in 1989 we got to go back because that's the way this always works. Yes. In 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall happened in November. As the German Democratic Republic allowed citizens to freely pass in and out of the country, that is the popularly accepted and cold war. Right. Okay. I'm laughing because of the typo that actually led to people storming up to the wall. Are you going to cover that? No, no, I mean, you go ahead.

No, since you bring it up, you know, it's... Basically, as I recall, it was the East German government. They were speaking in a like citizens' council and they essentially misread one of the things that they were going to give an announcement for and it basically came out as y'all come down to the wall it's fallen down. Now I'm Damien phrasing quite a bit here but you know it's kind of like when you hear that there's going to be a run on the bank yeah you cause a run on the bank. Because a run on the bank. Yeah. And that is, yeah. That is because it run on the bank. And that is a simplification.

Yeah, well, yeah, it's not my episode. So like Agent Cho would say in a law division, a simplification, but correct. Yeah, yeah, basically correct. Yeah. And so that was, that was, again, the popularly accepted end of the Cold War. Right.

Now, in 1991, in February, we had the beginning of Operation Desert Storm, which was the beginning of the active invasion and was the ending of Operation Desert Shield, which had been going on for, I don't know, over a month before that. And this is when the United States led an international force in the invasion of Kuwait in order to drive out Iraqi forces. Okay. That's a simplification?

Yes, a simplification, but basically, but basically accurate. Yeah. And now the thing I wanna point out about this is that it culminated the invasion culminated in the highway of death Yes, where thousands of Iraqi soldiers were killed on their way out of the country The carnage stopped literally on the Iraqi border Because Bush senior who was just Bush then because we hadn't had Bush the less I mean the sun yeah didn't want to incur the costs and trouble involved in

occupying Iraq and the UN resolution legitimizing the action didn't say anything about removing Hussein from power right in my, I have pause for effect. Good God, there's so much to unpack there in hindsight. But anyway, so, um, also in 1991ies dissolution of the USSR right The process had started back in 1988 Okay, I was just going back to Christmas of 90 but yeah, but I get you you know legally Yeah, the process is started back in 88 as a response to Gorbachev realizing the authoritarian Soviet system was was falling apart Yeah scrambling yeah economically the USSR couldn't stay as the USSR and continue functioning. Member States at that point, starting in 88, had been claiming ever greater levels of independence. Until in August of 91, a group of hardliners said, no, fuck that.

No, no, Soviet system. You're all part of the Soviet system, which really means the Russian Empire, but Soviet system, and so they attempted a coup in Moscow, which was overcome by popular resistance, and very dramatically changed the paradigm between Gorbachev, in the general secretary of the party of the USSR, and Boris Yeltsin, who was the president of the Russian Federation, who all of a sudden was now the guy. It's kind of like being the governor of Virginia when people storm, you know,

and then he comes in on a National Guard tank or something. Yeah, and like aims it at the Duma. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. But, you know, fun thing about that too is I recall Gorbachev was kind of given the opportunity. So there's kind of a history of any time things are going uh, coup word. Uh, the coup word. Yeah, anytime the things are going coup word, the uh, the secretary general of the US's are would go and take a vacation on the on the black sea. Yeah, he'd go to his, uh, one of those seaside villas essentially.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, go to the DACA's this? Like one of those seaside villas, essentially. Yeah, I remember the Russian docket. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You go to the docket and then they'd be like, you can just stay there. Yeah. We're not gonna kill you. You can just stay there. What's remarkable, what is so remarkable is,

you know, when we were growing up, the USS arm was this huge, communist modelist. Right. There was salt to us as being this totally alien, nothing like it has ever existed in history, you know, kind of like the leftist, you mind fuck kind of thing. And what's really funny is if you look closely enough

at the history over a long enough period of time, no, it was just the Russian fucking empire. Yeah, it was the Russian empire fucking empire. Yeah. It was the Russian empire with a different group of people in charge. Because historical inertia is a fucking thing. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, it's kind of like the and the court culture of the Zars. Mm-hmm. Was the culture of the Kremlin. It yeah, the titles were different. I was gonna say it's it like when strip clubs turned into disco clubs, and then into comedy clubs, you know, there were still all called beavers, you know, so it's...

It's a thing, kind of the flip side though. It was a different thing, they called it the same name, in this case, it's the same thing, being called by different. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, good point. Okay, so, yeah. It's an inversion of, I mean, yeah, you still kind of prove the beavers turns into ha ha turns it yeah. Yeah, you know, so.

But, so, so yeah, so Gorbachev was given the opportunity as you're going to have to say that. Yeah, so, COVID had to go to Gorbachev. Yeah. Now that you're on vacation, we're going to cool you. Yeah, now that you're on vacation. And're gonna cool you and that's usually what happened It wasn't like go down there. It's not we're waiting for you to go Okay, and go and here we go. Yeah

And now we're going to anti-Smedley the fuck out of this And so do you remember because I remember being in in high school Yeah, and and seeing Boris Yeltsin as the president and seeing the fun that people would have with the fact that translators weren't as good as they needed to be with him, largely because of the vodka, but also... Well, also because there's a real issue with dialect in any language. Not only dialect, but also with idiom. So for instance, if I recall correctly, to say that someone is tone deaf in Russian is to say that a bear sat on his ear. Yeah. Um, which if you don't have the context for that, you're like, what in the flying fuck is that?

Um, so when someone asked him, you know, I think it was like, Diane Sawyer or somebody like that, they said, do you think you've been too thin skinned that you need to be thick or skinned in dealing with these problems? And you know, you see him listening and then he speaks. And then the interpreter says, do you want us to end this interview? We're going to have to end this interview if you don't knock this off, basically. And he's like, what just happened? What did I say? And it turns out, thin skinned or thick skinned, I think it came across as,

do you think you're being a fat hippopotamus? What's on his end? The fuck? Right. Yeah. I like that. Yeah. And there are just, there. So, I like that. Yeah. And there are just, there are like many instances

like that where the translation just didn't quite work English to Russian with him. With him. With others, it seemed to be fine. Yeah. But with him, you know, it was specifically problematic. Yeah, the vodka is as much, you know, I remember, God, when was it because he he wound up

Staying a an important figure for years. Oh, yeah, he was the president of Russia for forever. Yeah, and through 99 I want to say like he passed it off to Medvedev Medvia and then Medvedev and then and then Putin took over yeah. And we're never gonna get rid of him because he's a cyborg and he just won't fucking die. It's not RC get rid of. Yeah well, yeah, but for the sake of the world. Yeah. Anyway, I'm getting off the track. No, no, I'm sorry.

He was succeeded by Putin and then. And then Medvedev. Yeah, Putin basically installed Medvedev and then came back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I remember an article, my first wife, had gotten a Finnish news magazine. And this was in 98. Her folks, her dad had gone back to Finland

and been on a trip to talk to university friends of his or something. And he'd come back and he brought back a bunch of Finnish stuff from the family and a bunch of magazines and all that kind of stuff. And one of the articles in this Finnish News Magazine, because they keep an even closer eye on the Russians than anybody else in the fucking world. Oh, why so? why? I wonder. For those of you not up on your finish history, of course, Finland shares a very long land border

with the Russian Federation. And they have a long history of being either Russian territory or fighting bloody wars to not become Russian territory. Yeah. So anyway, it was a picture of of Yeltsin holding up an AK-47 with a laser sight on it and you know posing for for some kind of some kind of photo and it was the article was about you know Russian military stuff doctrine. Right. And I just remember looking at it going, oh my God, he looks worse now than he did five years ago. Like, oh, yeah. And ham. Yes. Yes. Like you could, you could see his liver dying in real time. Yeah. He's just that bad.

He's human foie gras. Yeah. Yeah. Just awful. So, yeah, I just, I, I, because it didn't sit right with me that it was Dianne Sawyer, because it wasn't, it was Mike Wallace. And Mike Wallace said to him, is Yeltsin thin skinned about the press, and that got mistranslated to asking whether the Russian leader was a thick skinned hippopotamus, to which Yeltsin said, an experienced journalist like yourself should express himself in a more civilized fashion Wow Mike fucking Wallace Yeah, so anyway, yeah, so so so Yeltsin takes over. Yeah, so Yeltsin takes over and the USSR again completely

Shatters into into a whole bunch of little pieces And the independent states that result, a whole bunch of those wound up going on to turn around and join NATO and the EU to defend themselves, strategically speaking, from Russia. I just, I feel like that needs to be stressed. Not so much for my my upcoming thesis. Sure, in this episode, just because again, the pattern of history is such that like, no, no, the Russians, we're all terrified of the fucking Russian.

Right. Have been since since the Mongols yeah, historically this is what you do Yeah, or a terrifying group of people and we all need to unify against them what the fuck sure like is a thing so anyway in 92 Bosnia and Herzegovina is recognized as an independent state and ethnic serve forces open fire on Sarajevo. Later that year, Bill Clinton wins election to the White House on a platform built mostly around how out of touch George H. W. Bush has been from ordinary voters.

Uh huh. I remember there was the scanner. Yeah. Yeah. That like he was yeah, at the ated at the barcode scanner in a grocery store. And really what he was marveling at was the fact that a laser could now read a barcode and that it was like he's like, okay, and you just swipe it across. It's actually a pretty normal thing to marvel at at that time. Because prior to that, you were typing in codes. Yeah, you know, and so this was a new thing and the fact that It had the mirror next to it meant that you could you know bounce it a number of places So he was marveling at that. He was not marveling at the fact that you could scan

Yeah groceries, but but but just like the the press took it and ran with the Willie Horton shit Yeah, so yeah, just like and just like do caucus got massacred with the Willie Horton shit. Yeah. And just like, and just like, Duke Caucus got massacred because of how goofy he looked wearing a helmet in a tank. Uh-huh. The same thing. Yeah, it really was. It really was.

So, you know, anyway, Clinton ran on this whole platform of lookout of Touch This Guy is with ordinary voters, which, you know, fair cop, little bit, you know, yeah. And a falling economy, you know, fair cop, a little bit, you know, yeah, um, and a falling economy. Mm-hmm. You know, the, the surge of the Reagan years was now the mortgaging of the Reagan years. Yeah. Yeah. Was now the bill for the mortgage of the Reagan years was now starting to come do. Uh, which I do love that the guy left holding the bag was the guy

that called out Reagan for voodoo economics. Yeah, it just there's a symmetry to that He had to kick himself. Yeah, years later. Yeah And so Clinton won Mm-hmm in large part Thanks to third party interference Mm-hmm from multi-millionaire Texan and certified whack job at Ross Perot from multi-millionaire Texan and certified WAP job, H. Ross Perot, pulled voters from the right away from Bush,

because Bush had said, read my lips. No new Texas. No taxes. I thought it was Texas. I thought he was just pointing out they're not gonna split in the five. I thought he was gonna split okay. Yeah, oh, yeah, okay.

So I was like, he kept their promise. He said, he said, no new taxes. And then Green Span went to him and yeah, okay. So I was like, he kept their promise. He said, he said, no new taxes. And then Green Span went to him and said, okay, bro. Let me explain some things to you here. I understand, you know, you wanna be, you wanna be the good guy and you wanna keep that campaign promise, you just literally fucking can't. So he was green-splaining.

Yeah, he was. And so those voters got pulled away. Uh-huh. And I don't remember what percentage Perot wound up wound up winning. I want to say 12, but that might be me conflating him with the other third party guy from the South who was like segregation today, segregation tomorrow. Yeah, Wallace. But I want to say it was about 12%. Somewhere in the neighborhood of between 10 to 12, something like that. Yeah. And now I do think it's interesting.

What did you call Ross Pro? Certified whack job. Yeah. I think that. All the millionaire in Texan and certified whack job. Yeah. Now this is the same man who paid for a private expedition into Iran to rescue his guys. Oh, yeah.

And it worked when Carter got beat by a sandstorm. Yeah. Which bummer that the sucks. I'm not going to say Perot didn't get shit done. Right. I would just also point out that calling a certified whack job implies that there are amateur whack jobs. And I don't know what the certification process is.

Is it kind of like being a Roma therapist or like you could just like print something out online? Because I always had him down as being an enchanted tree stump with ears. Okay, that's good. He was he's a failure Okay, could be and it could be also a good Yeah, yeah, but again, failure. It's not like they're democratic. Three buttons on my desk. Yeah, you know, this is this is a one that fire senators And this is the one that fires representatives and this right here. That's my favorite one. That's the one that makes the trains run on time I don't I want to say that was Saturday night live I don't I want to say that was Saturday night live imagining it very well might have been yeah, I want to grow

Presidency yeah, cuz yeah cuz Dana Carvee did do a skit. Yeah with Perot where he said and y'all y'all better get to better early Cuz you're gonna be surprised when the national wake-up call goes off at 4.30 in the morning I loved I loved that Dana Dana Carvey had two chances to continue his career imitating a presidential candidate and lost both. Yeah, you know, which which bummer. Yeah, although he specifically said I would be fine with not working for four more years doing this. So now now I also there is a comedian in San Francisco. First comedian I ever saw was Wilde Durst. So I'm on my 18th birthday. Okay, and as far as I know, he's in poor health now. But Wilde Durst, which is a bummer,

because I'd hope to share a stage with him someday. But oh well. But Wilde Durst, he had my favorite quote of all time. He was talking about Ross Perot. I think he might have even coined the term in Chanatrice dump with yours, because that's too poetic for me. But he said that Ross Perot would say things that made no sense whatsoever, and because of his accent, you accepted it.

And he would just walk in and be like, look, they'd ask him, well, what are you going to do about the taxes? Well, you can't put a porcupine up on a bar and expect to make licorice. So here's what we're gonna do. And that has been a quote that I've used forever. To the point, now we're a student, recently a former student texted me.

Now that he's an adult, you know, he's off to college. He texted me asking for comic book advice and stuff like that. He texted me and said, I just, and he's in a very Christian college, I just used that quote and shut a blow hard down. And I was like, well, that's fantastic. You were doing God's work. I am. That quote. Yes. Yeah. So, but getting back to the 92 election, I think it's really important to note that the election wound up hinging 100% of domestic politics. Like, for the first time in literally decades. Yeah, Republicans couldn't really put on the hat and go, I'm the one that's going to keep

you safe at night. I'm the one who knocks. Yeah. You know, they didn't get to Walter the hat and go, I'm the one that's gonna keep you safe at night. I'm the one who knocks. They didn't get to Walter Whitehead. They can't, because we'd won. We'd won. Yeah. No, so now you actually have to pay attention to fixing shit around the house.

Yeah. Okay, so now that the crack house next door is no longer a threat, which is not a great analogy for the Cold War, but you get what I'm saying. I get you. Yeah, yeah. Now that we don't have the big exterior threat, we got to worry about now how about you fix the gutters? Yep. How about you go out and oh, by the way, we need a new electrical panel. How about let's do the laundry list of shit that's needs fixing that you've been putting off because you've had the excuse for forever. Well, you know, I got to be standing outside with a shotgun because you know, bad guys. Right?

Yeah. You know, now that I think about it, I mean, I'm not saying that Bush, the lesser, and he is the lesser because, yeah, his, and, and, and frankly, he and his father are both grubs of a type. So he's the lesser of two weevils, but the greater of two evils. But I would point out that second bush, kind of, he didn't manufacture.

He didn't. No. But he was ready to play it up like a motherfucker as soon as he could. Oh yeah. A foreign. Oh yeah, so as soon as soon as he could. Oh yeah. Um, a foreign. Oh, yeah, so as soon as soon. Oh my, yeah, and he came in though saying I'm going to be a domestic guy. Oh, yeah. And sure that there were, uh, policy and and communications types. Uh,

within the GOP who the moment the ramifications of 9-11 on American politics occurred to them. Right. They probably had an orgasmic embolism. Oh yeah, it was. Oh my God. We don't need to worry about coming up with a domestic agenda ever again. Yeah, and not only that, but we could actually win the next election. Yeah.

Instead of just cheat to our weight of victory. Yeah. And so, you know, so the Cold War has ended, and now the outside world is a mess. Because again, I'm going to go back Bosnia, Erick's, Covenia. We had, you know, to the mainstream American dominant culture perception. We had this whole situation happen in Kuwait with you know Big Scariest Adam who's saying right running running into a foreign country and we we have to you know rally everybody And now we're the unipolar power in the world and so like okay now that we're we are the hegemon

Let's fix shit at home because we got to fix shit at home, like I said. Right. And so now I think it's worth unpacking here. This is also the moment where this makes the whole situation with the contract with America, which you keep coming back to for good reason. Yeah. But this is like, this is the roots of that.

Yeah, you're right. You know, not merely the fact that it was a reaction to Clinton getting elected. Right. But the fact that, okay, well, we got it like politically, we have to figure out some way to respond to this situation. Yeah, it's kind of like a, So this is what we're gonna do.

It's like, fine, we will deal with home stuff. And then it's like, oh, that's the shittiest way you could have done it. That's the thing. How could you have- Why did you do that? That's not harder. Yeah.

And then because of the contract with America, Clinton then went, all right, you wanna do that? So I'm gonna add work requirements to welfare and I'm gonna become the tough on crime guy Right, I'm gonna start talking about super predators, right and like oh you want to get racist? I'll get racist. Yeah, you know, and the over-to-window just like leaps right word. Yep, it does Of course over the course of the next six years. Absolutely. It just gallops to the right. Yep And so in April 1st of 1992,

this is worth pointing out just because in the middle of looking up what happened in 91 and 92, I found this out. The fifth largest wrestling crowd ever recorded gathered in Toronto. Oh yeah, WrestleMania six. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. and that's and that is a changing of the guard that failed by the way, because that was Hulk Hogan rescuing against the ultimate warrior, warrior, beat him Hulk Hulk went down clean right in the middle of the ring, warrior, beat him, and everybody was looking at Hogan on his way out instead of warrior in the ring. Now interestingly that WrestleMania if you because I was 92 92 okay 92 wait that was 92 no that wasn't 6 that was 8 okay but you said Toronto Toronto Toronto and 92 yeah yeah Yeah, because it was 90 when they did Mania 6.

Okay. So, I wonder what show this was. I couldn't find out. I Google Foo. Yeah. Okay. We'll figure it out. Okay, that's not the ultimate word.

That's not the change in the other guard. Because by 92, by April of 92, April of 92. That's gonna be right after Mania 8, we're right before Mania 8, which was in Indianapolis, which had one of my favorite matches in it, but it's widely regarded as one of the worst wrestle manias because of the match that was on top. Where Hogan, again, left and the warrior came in

to save him from Sid Vicious and Papa Shango. But Papa Shango was late, so they were beating on Hogan for too long, and then the warrior came out late, and it was just a Shima's finish. So interesting. Okay. Anyway, so Toronto had the fifth largest river. Yeah, fifth largest wrestling career out there were cool. That's crazy.

Yeah, cool. Okay. So, and, you know, just because I knew there'd be a, there'd be a segue there ahead to include that. So, um, and then in December of 92, on his way out of office, Bush orders US troops to Somalia for peacekeeping operations. Okay. In a, in a move that, I think historians are going to go over a whole lot of primary source documents forever.

And I think it's going to be a long time before we have a definitive answer about was this HW seeing that there was something where action was actually needed to be taken and he was trying to do something because hey, I'm still the one in charge. Something needs to be done right now and he was trying to do something because hey I'm still the one in charge Something needs to be done right now and I got to do it right Or was it just oh all right you want the job? Fuck you Here's the first thing you're gonna have to fucking deal with right let me show you how much of a mess the world is Motherfucker did I mention I ran the CIA for years before I you know got this job was it for

years I mean he got put in I was under Ford I don't know he knows Ford and then Carter kicked him out right after Carter came to power so yeah but either way I mean he was a huge political yeah he was an aporacic yeah he was the Republican Party version of an aporacic. Yeah, he was the Republican party version of an aporacic. Yeah, he worked his way up through the party. But anyway, so, and again, and again, I think it's important, because this is something you said in the last episode, about our perception.

And I would say our perception, I mean, the perception of dominant white American culture at this time was that all of these things in the world were happening to us. And Somalia was one more thing that was right. You know, and in our peculiarly self-interest interested way, and I simply mean that in that we are interested in ourselves, not necessarily in a way, in this context, in the way meaning selfishness, but in our self-interested way,

the way the whole Somalia situation got played on the evening news was like this was this thing that, you know, we had to get involved in. It was this thing that, you know, we had to do was it was again, this thing that was happening to us. Never mind the fact, it's literally on the other hemisphere of the fucking planet. Right. It's literally on the other hemisphere of the fucking planet. Right. It's happening to a whole bunch of people who are a lot less well off than, you know, the most unfortunate American is, is wealthier by an order of magnitude than, than the average Somali. Right. You know, and certainly at this time and, you know, I'm speaking again in very broad

terms. Right. Right. you know, and certainly at this time, and you know, I'm speaking again in very broad terms, but like, you know, the level, and I don't mean to say, I don't want anybody to think that I'm somehow, like speaking denigratingly of, it's a very important factor of economic power. Yeah, I'm just, I'm trying to point out the privilege involved in our perception as a dominant culture of like how this is going on.

And so we have this situation to take all of that and tie it together a little bit before we move on. I am curious, you are focused very much on the external and I understand that. And I kind of see where that's going when you've got a show based on a star base. But internally 1990, 1991 and 1992, I mean we just did the whole thing about the LA riots. Yeah

You know, and I'm interested as to why is it just because you are focused outside of the US? Yeah, part of it is that. Okay, because of the nature of kind of the argument I'm going to get to know. Okay. But I think the events that we're taking place here in our country in 1991, 92, fed into, I don't want to say the B plot, but the other half of the main story arc. Okay. And I think in Strasinski's subconscious, he was thinking about large-scale external arcs of history. As opposed to internal rot. As opposed to, there is some internal rot.

I was gonna say, from what you've told me of the Babylon 5, communities and cultures, it did seem like there was some corruption with it as well. So, okay, I get you. Yeah, so the story arcs, I see as being very much a response subconsciously. I don't think this was anything, I don't think Strzyski said down, I was like, I'm going to write something to talk about our role as Hegemony and the unipolar nature of power in this new world.

Right. But the story arcs, I think, are responses to that. And so, Kosh versus Morton is in the early and the first three seasons of the show, we have the, we have caution on the one side and more than working for the shadows on the other. And the moral choices that every character gets faced with because again, caution looks at everybody and says, who are you? And he pushes characters to really get self-aware. And to really understand

literally who they are and where they're coming from. Morton asks them kind of the same question, but from a very different angle and it leads to a different train of thought. Morton looks at somebody goes, what do you want? I was about to say, there's the essence and then there's the existence. Yeah, yeah. You know, and everybody who makes a deal with Morton

gets what they want. Mm-hmm. And then they wind up paying for it. Right. And everybody who listens to Kosh and doesn't get scared and run away, because there's a wonderful, wonderful moment when Malari gets kind of button-hold somewhere by Kosh, who ever the actor slash puppeteer was, who was in the encounter, did a wonderful job Dr. Slash Puppeteer was who was in the encounter suit, did a wonderful job of this big looming semi-robotic looking alien kind of slides up on him and the one-eyed head of the encounter

suit, kind of tilts to one side. And even though there's no eyebrows, there's no nothing, but you can, from the tilt of the head, the way the iris on the eye kind of contracts, you can, it's, you know, I'm really looking at you. Right, right. And the deep synthesized voice says, who are you?

Not in a looming, threatening kind of intimidating way, but in a confrontational way though. Conffrontational, but in a, I'm asking you this question, kind of intimidating way, but in a confrontational way though. Conffrontational, but but in a I'm asking you this question. Right. Kind of way. And Malari, it sweats. Like, like it's this wonderful moment where like he sees who he is. Right, right.

And he doesn't want to face it. He doesn't want to face it. Okay. And, and I don't remember my timelines, but he basically runs the board. Okay. You know, on the timeline of the series, he goes straight to the board and goes,

I'll tell you what I want. I want the planet gnarled back. I want the empire to be great again. I want, you know, this that board, the board goes, my friends can help you with that. Mm-hmm. And yeah. And so, a generation before, a generation before, the shadows

would have been an allegory somehow for the USSR. Okay. Okay. The way they are in the actual show, they're apolitical. The difference between the Vorillons and the shadows isn't political, it isn't ideological, it's spiritual. It is essential. It is, yes, it's a wonderful way of putting it. Yeah, and so the shadows are a moral threat. They represent what's gonna happen to us if we make the wrong, we are the hegemon. Right.

What's gonna happen to us if we make the wrong choices? Huh. If we don't look at who we are. Right, right. And figure out who we are and we just say, well, what do we want to do? Where's the big guy on the block? Right. Who's gonna stop us, right? And I think Strasinski was interested in this very large scale moral kind of question.

moral kind of question in part because of what the world scene looked like at the time they sat down to write it. And so what we wind up finding out, spoiler alert, the series is you know well over 20 years old so I don't feel too bad about that. The what we find out is the warlons and the shadows are remnants of an earlier generation of races and all the rest of the races of their generation have ascended to becoming energy beings. They exist on a higher plane. The warlons and the shadows stayed behind in order to to help younger races, or in order to help younger races, or in order to point younger races

in the direction of that ascension. Okay. The Vorlons want to do it by encouraging younger races to work together to cooperate and to be a collective pacifistic might not be the right word but but one of the cooperative cooperation sure the shadows believe no no nature read into and claw you're going to ascend when you become strong so all this suffering yeah they want to create chaos

in order to push everybody because when everybody is fighting, they're all driven to become stronger. Yeah, you sharpen yourself. So it is about cooperation and and cohesion and unity versus strife and chaos. So in other words, we're talking democratic socialism and capitalism. Well, okay, I mean, you could. Yeah. So you got the one. We're not living an even later stage capital. Yes. Yeah.

Maybe, but there were plenty of people making those claims at that time. Yeah. So, okay, let me, let me just back you up a hair. So the essentialists versus the existentists. Yes. Okay. The who are you? They were the ones saying like, our goal is that people become collective.

Or am I mis? Am I? Yeah, well, they're maybe not become collective, but instead of solving problems through violent conflict, that they find that common ground. They don't know they find common ground. Okay. So they want people to look at themselves to reflect, to see themselves for who they really are. Yes.

And the others want them to externalize their angst. Yeah. And through doing that, that angst will be a visit upon others. Number one, you will strengthen yourself and you will burn away the weakness. Number two, they'll be forced to do the same to you and you're both be sharper for it. Yes. Okay, so one side is...

You're at a shallow reading of Nietzsche. Yeah. On one side. Yeah, and a shallow reading of... What, it's a lock? I was gonna say... You're not a lock. I was gonna say. Ben-Thom. Yeah, okay.

Maybe. Yeah, I don't, I struggle with utilitarians, but yeah, there's a collaborative thing that needs to happen over there. So, but it's also reflective, you know, so it's like look at yourself. You are the man in the mirror you need to make that change, whereas over here, you're going to be blind with so much disregard. So okay, cool. Nice. So make that change. We have a way to get that reference in there. Thank you. Not even mad, hardly enough, not even mad. So now at the same time though. So we have the arc of the first three, almost four seasons of the show.

Is the Voral on Shadow War. And how long does this show go for? So five seasons. Five seasons. Okay, so just enough for syndication, really. Okay. And so that's like the first three seasons. So almost entirely on that.

Now in the background of those first three seasons though, from the very beginning, there's also a storyline happening simultaneously where the president of the Earth government dies under mysterious circumstances when we find out about it. And like it's within the first two or three episodes in the show.

And his vice president takes over and immediately starts pulling the direction, pulling the government in the direction of, okay, look, we're done with all of this and counters with alien species stuff. We need to fix things here at home. We just stuff with devastating war. Sure. We need to focus on things at home. And that goes from there to over over time, the word coming out of Earth is getting gradually more and more xenophobic.

Mm-hmm. And people who don't agree with him are starting to disappear. What year is this happening in our lifetime? In our lifetime, this would have been beginning of the TV series, so 91, 92, no 93. Oh, okay, so that's the beginning of it. Oh, okay.

Okay, because I'm just thinking about, you know, deep space nine and it's arc and you don't get to this xenophobia until really until the dominion is shown. And that's not until like season three or four. Yeah. So then it's really kicks in. This is a background story during the War on Shadow War.

This is kind of, this is the background story on the Earth Force. And one of the challenges that the first, the two commanders of bat five wind up running into is their Earth Force military officers. And they're having to constantly tell the folks back home, no, no, we need to be paying attention to this. Because if we're not part of the solution to this,

we're gonna get wrecked. Sure. And the home government going, it's an alien problem. Like, we don't give a shit. Like, we don't care. Right, right, right. And so at first, that's the subtext for it is, no, no, we've just got to drag everybody into being,

and again, this is the early 90s, so that's the conflict between, you know, the internationalists, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the of these coalitions we need to be doing all this stuff. Which is just an echo of 1945, which is just an echo of 1918. Yes. And yeah. And add nausea. Yeah, quite forever. Yeah.

Um, well, once the capitalists realize, oh, man, we could squeeze the shit out of the poor. Yeah. Then they're kind of on board. Then things happen. Yeah. So, so, so at first that's the subtext. Well, then it becomes overtly. No, no, he did the vice president did in fact have the president

assassinated. You know, the main characters get a hold of evidence that no, no, that is what happened. Is that is that still season one? This is tell me that season two or three. That would bad. I want to say it was in season two or season three because Rwanda was 93 and there's a president flying and blow it up. Yeah. Interesting. And so they they get they get proof that it wasn't assassination and about the same time they figure that out the earth earth government goes straight up fascist.

They institute a new, like a force within earth force that's kind of the secret police, S-A-S-S. Okay, yeah. And there's a great episode where, you know, the security forces aboard the station are infiltrated by these people. episode where the security forces aboard the station are infiltrated by these people. Okay.

Like folks who are openly night watch, I'm gonna say it was night watch, are like, get everybody in the security forces to join night watch, cause they're like, no, this is the cell, we're gonna solve things, we gotta have a strong hand on it. And Garibaldi, the commander of security says, no, if you're wearing a night watch badge on your uniform, you're going to take your

security badge off and you're going to walk out the fucking door and you're going to leave your gun right here. Oh, wow. He doesn't use the swear of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. says, no, if you're a night watch, you're not one of my people. Okay. And There's there's a great There are always men like you kind of seen, you know, where essentially that's that's the moment where the soul of Bab five get saved if I'm remembering it correctly, you know and and Garibaldi manages to convince

the majority of the security staff that no, no, these are Nazis. Mm-hmm. And we're not Nazis. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah, yeah. No. And and actually has to win over, you know, a kind of a second tier character who's, you know, one of the people we like who has been seduced by night watch. And so we also have this other argument that winds up getting resolved and finally by the end of season 5, where as a response to winning in air quotes, the Earth Mimbari War, simply because as I explained before, the Mimbari just suddenly said, oh yeah, hey, sorry about that, we surrender when they were about to burn Earth to a cinder and there was nothing we could do about it. And they said, oh yeah, sorry, peace out, you know, right. And we never got an explanation, but we won. Kind of. And so, you know, in in response to that, we have this rising fascist threat within Earth's government that leads

to a civil war and, you know, different sides of Earth Force fighting against each other. And that winds up getting resolved at the end of the series, you know, the fascist losing. Oh, nice. But Strasinski had both of these arcs in his mind from the very beginning of the series. So we have this very spiritual, moral, you know, cooperation, goodwill versus nature-red and tooth and claw, chaos, warfare, kind of dimension to the story, which I think, again, is motivated very much by, you know, look at where we are in the world. What are we going to do from here. And then at the same time is this very grounded in history. We just lost, we just almost lost a war. And what's going to happen to our politics, you know, on a similar level, right, voices are we going to make kind of kind of thread that is very overtly political and very overtly makes references to post-World War War I Germany. And both of them, I think, are coming from, as Estruzinski is coming up with the

story, both of them are coming from this place where we didn't know what the fuck was going to happen. You know, people were talking about the end of history. Yeah, I mean, it was postmodernism and then like inject it with steroids. Like post-postmodernism. Yeah, what was the philosopher is Fujikawa? I forget his name, I'll look it up, but he's the one that talked about the end of history.

Yeah, but... And like I remember around the same time, one of the big kind of hits that was on MTV, I want to say it was in 1993 when I was graduating high school. Fukuyama, that was the I apologize. Francis Fukuyama, yeah. Yeah. And he published that in 1992. Yes. Yeah And at that same time right here right now Was was in heavy rotation. Oh, you're right. Yeah, you know watching the world wake up from history was Your thing. Oh, okay. I was I was thinking of the van Halens song right right now. Now, well, I mean, same. It really is, but you were talking about Jesus Jones. Yeah, right here. Yeah, right here right now. Yeah, okay.

You know, the Jesus Jones song is over about, you know, look at what's going on in oh quite so yeah halyn again is the spiritual looking who you are yeah yeah hey it's everything right now yeah and very immediate and very yeah you know oh wow I like that tie-in nice job so you know and and because we were in this place where we had spent 50 years and the year before that, you had unbelievable, by the way. Yeah. So by EMF. Beliveable. Yeah.

Yeah. We had spent five decades. Yes. Staring into the face of an adversary. Right. You know, thinking that like this is this, you know, titanic existential threat. Right. We thought it, they thought it like whether it was actually grounded in that or not,

Sure. You know, we can kind of quibble with as historians, but living through it, everybody was convinced that, you know, that was, and we all, in the way humans do, we all thought that was just the way it was going to be, like, forever. Yeah, we normalized it. You know, we, we were the Mayfly born during a storm. Yeah. Like the world is a rainy place. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, the storm ended. The storm ended. May you be born in interesting storms. Yeah, and the and the adversary, you know, crumbled all the way.

Said, I'm sorry, I can't keep up the steering contest. I'm done. And then like, okay, well now what are we gonna do? Because there was not a cataclysmic end as had happened previously in 1945. There was the destruction and total leveling of Germany and Poland. And there was also two giant fucking bombs that were cataclysmic. And I mean that in all the ways that that word exists.

So our idea of okay, and now it's settled. Absolutely built on this cataclysm model because we, as a culture, had seen World War I and not with a bang, but with a whimper. Yeah. And that just didn't quite sit right, so we came back for round two, as a world. But so then, yeah, but then when the Cold War ended, not with a bang, but with a whimper,

you and I have both done this as men and as dads and as just whatever, you get amped up for a thing and then the thing doesn't happen. Like whether it's, I need to save my kid from something, oh, it turns out he turned left instead of right anyway. I'm good. Or it's, oh, good. I'm going to get in a key time with my wife.

Oh, I guess the sink blew up. I guess I'm dealing with that. I'm going to get her places on Friday night, rather than getting, yeah. So which may sound oddly specific. And yes, it is. Well, plumbing gets in the way of plumbing sometimes. But just that what do you do with that build up of adrenaline? What do you do with that emotional build up when you don't have the cataclysmic release

that is the other side of that mountain? And inevitably it goes poorly. I don't want to speak too much out of turn But I knew somebody wants who and I'm gonna keep it very vague who spent a lot of time dying from something and then they didn't die from it and Then that made their life worse and then you got to figure out how you're going to carry on after that, after the chain of decisions you've made right, right? Right. Well, not going to be around here very much longer.

Right. Well, and you made your piece with it, and you had the time to make your piece with it, which very many people don't get to do. You don't get, yeah. Cool. And then it didn't happen. And it's like that ruined your life, you know. And so I just, I think of that very often, or I think of the chief in Little Big Man,

the Dustin Hoffman film, where he takes him up there and he's talking to him, he's like, okay, I'm going to die now and he lays down and it pans back and it's this very sad moment and it just hangs for a while and the chief doesn't die. And I think the rain hits him on the face. He's like, he's a little pissed off when he gets up. He's like, I guess now is not the time.

And he storms off. So that in many ways, culturally is what happened in the cold. Because it wasn't like, in Vietnam, it was a cataclysm. It was a cataclysmic defeat. It was an embarrassing defeat. But it was a chromatoniclysm. Yeah. You can do something with that.

Now usually it's fallen to alcoholism and abusing people, but, and we as a culture certainly did that effectively, but it's still a marker of the end of it. Whereas the clear, there was a clear point at which you can say, okay, the helicopter got dumped off the aircraft carrier. And now we're done.

And now we're done. Exactly. And we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. Exactly.

And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done.

And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. And now we're done. and now we're done. And now we're ready. What do we do? Yeah. Yeah. So, oh, that's so interesting to me because because when that happened, you also start to see, you start to see porn moving out of the theaters and onto VHS too. Okay. And people are drawing in. Well, yeah. And the VHS craze really takes off and people stop going mostly after P. E. Herman. Stop going to porn theaters is often and now it's much less a collective experience. And then like and then the internet kicks on and you're downloading pictures. I mean yeah, no, the internet is still, if we're talking about 93, 94, the internet is still, I mean, okay, in 95,

Sunny was the most downloaded woman on AOL. From WWF. Okay. And so that's 95, right? And so yes, in 94, it didn't seem like much was happening. And then in 95, suddenly you have a measurement like that. So I'm saying like after all that happened, people start coming into their own homes for this.

Yeah, well for all kinds of stuff. Yeah. I mean, yeah, the gradual retreat into our homes as our... As the external threat is seeped away. Everybody stops collectivizing out of their homes. Oh, that's fascinating, because then you also had the baseball strike in 94 and 95.

Yeah. And you, wow. I think there's a confluence involved. I think it's a thing. I don't think it's causal. It's not, yeah. But it is a whole lot of things suddenly reacting and pulling people out of the public space. Yeah

It's an interesting thought. Yeah Because attendance and wrestling was way down in 90s in 90 by by the way the the thing that you were talking about in 92 I'm pretty sure your year is off because two years earlier it was 1990 and it was April 1st It was a Toronto Toronto maple dome or whatever it's called and that was one of the largest houses ever at that time and there had been Toronto's a huge rest on town but yeah I was off by two years yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and so yeah I think I think and I think there's an interesting contrast between the way this is reflected in battle on five and

The way this gets reflected in DS9 because this does get reflected in DS9. Yes but interestingly For a property that is the child of Roddenberry or the grandchild of Roddenberry. Yep. DS9 treats it all on a much more grounded, much more intergalactic political military kind of way and the all of the internal reflection that's involved is on a very personal level. Yes it is. And Kira, Odo, the sheer later on. Yeah, you're absolutely right.

Yeah, later on. Yeah. Yeah, and there isn't it isn't framed in this Tolkienian Light versus darkness right epic kind of kind of framing. It is no. No, there is the dominion Mm-hmm, which is this you know multi-species, you know fascist empire right, you know on the other side of the wormhole gate and we've we've got to worry about them invading right right and it's and it's still very much grounded in it is it is more recognizable Mm-hmm as a as a an allegory as a direct allegory for the real world Do you think some of that has to do with okay Babylon 5 didn't have in

92 Two series before it stretching over 40 years, or stretching over 20 years, to kind of guide shape and mold its storytelling. Like it came on, and maybe this is why I was turned off in Babylon 5 because Star Trek, the original series I've also never really appreciated much. There's aspects of it I like. But it's starting, and it's kind of like, you know, that comparison I've always made with Edison and Westinghouse.

Yeah, yeah. You know, all the energy goes into the startup, and there's not as much energy in clean storytelling. So, you know, in many ways it just kind of suffers from from being new kid on the block that way. But DS9 had a very rich tradition of storytelling through TNG and then stretches back to TOS. And so it had plenty, it could pull on when they ran dry a few times here and there.

Yeah, I think. Whereas Babylon 5 had to generate everything itself Yeah, I think I think that's part of it. Okay. I think also There is an Interesting tendency that we have this goes all the way back to Trubodores in the Middle Ages When there is an established cannon of something right It is easier. I think, for us to say, oh, okay,

I recognize these symbols. I recognize this world. I know this framework. Right. This is legitimate. See, that's why I think the catty-shack too is better than catty-shack. Okay, well see, there.

Because you have. You already had everything established. Yeah, and you have the Diane Cannon effect. Yes. Because there's an established Diane Cannon in Caddyshack too. Good taste. I do actually think it's a better movie.

That might be something we gotta talk about in an episode. Sure, but because I will argue with you. But um. So established can and I'm sorry. So but because because you already knew the universe for Star Trek. Yes. And funny rubber faced aliens. Yeah.

It was easier for you to go. Well, you know, the effects aren't like fun. I've seen those. Yeah. I've seen those before. Yeah. What's going on there? Whereas battle on five shows up

and you like well I don't know any of this shit this seems chinsy like yeah yeah it's also too much and I'll tell you as a person who never watched it one of the reasons I never watched it too much intellectual weight it's the same reason that that bookshelf is filled with nothing but Star Wars books I can dive into those books no problem Do you see any other fiction in this room? No. You know why? That takes too much effort. Like, I am historically lazy when it comes to nonfiction.

I mean fiction. Yeah, fiction, I'm sorry. Nonfiction, you're all over the place. I'm all over the place. Yeah, maybe. But, yeah, you're probably right. But I think I'm also lazy when it comes to that. I have so much knowledge or stuff. I can just pick up and be like, I know this world here we go.

Yeah, okay, good. You know, but, but yeah, when it comes to fiction, I'm like, oh, fuck, is wedge in this? You know, okay. Yeah, well, and again, you know, interestingly. And you love picking up new shit. Yeah. And you love world up new shit. Yeah. And you love world building.

So it makes perfect sense that you went for the lesser of the two options. Well, cause five is less than nine. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah. So, yeah, I think I think it's an interesting comparison, especially when you think about what a, you know,

anvillicious guy Roddenberry was. Yeah. And I think part of it is also that bear, and the other guys who were involved in DS9, were responding to Roddenberry being so anvillicious. Yeah. You can talk about that before it was like, no, no, we're actually going to deal in some shades of gray. Yeah. Not if the federation Federation is not always gonna be the

Paragon shining good guy jeans dead now we can do the cool shit. Yeah, you know And I take it you with him you calling him an avalicious. He clearly was the hammer. Okay, um because he loved pounding the hell out of his many women he could So I thought you meant the point, but yes, that too. On occasion. On occasion. Yeah. Can't you see he's black on one side of his face. Right over there.

I mean, you know, now here's Detroit. Yeah. Wow. You know, but, you know, and the thing that made DS9 so polarizing amongst the Star Trek fandom at the time was that it was this departure in all of those ways. Like the people, the people aboard the station did not like each other. No, they did. And they did not get along. No.

And, you know, that had been part of Roddenberry's story Bible was we don't do that shit right, you know Right, no everybody gets along. It's the future It would we don't have these interpersonal conflicts. We've evolved beyond that. It would be like making another Coyote versus Roadrunner series and the coyote Just fucking malls the Roadrunner. Yeah, you know, you're like wait what wait that work. I have K-90. Yeah, I can actually yeah all the rest of this shit. Yeah, like no, yeah, yeah. Also, I'm a pack hunter. Why am I wait, coyotes? Yeah, where's the rest of my family? Oh, you know what it is. I always only ever see a single coyote because he's drawing out the prey okay I get it yeah no I can tell you from growing up in the neighborhood that I did they are pack predators okay because you will hear you will hear one of them how oh yeah yeah we have that out here actually and you can hear them being yeah Ooh, yeah. Yeah, my mother, when I was only a few months old,

or no, I'm sorry, it was in the house of scripture, and so I was over a year old, but I was little. Sure. My dad was on cruise, mom was home alone with me. We had just moved into our house. It was wilderness. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Back behind the house.

And a pack of coyotes began baying literally right outside her bedroom door. Oh, wow. On the back patio and just she to this day tells the story with fear in her eyes. Yeah, wow. So okay, so that five. But yeah, DS9 folk did not like each other. Yeah. Okay, so dad five. Yeah, DS9 folk did not like each other. Yeah, and and you know, whereas on on bad five

Clearly people didn't like each other because of because of the the backgrounds they were all coming from right the Fact that people didn't like each other was organic to just the nature of the universe that it took place in. Right. And it was and the difference between them was the scale, the lack of a better word, of the of the ultimate differences was was very much more, I think, more grounded in DS9 because working very hard to try to be and to try to introduce that aspect into the story they were telling. But they're also in a lived in universe.

But a universe that you were used to, you had short hand for, you knew what dilithium was. You knew what photon at torpedoes were. Yeah. Or no, proton torpedoes. Photon torpedoes. I never remember. Proton torpedoes are worse than torsion.

Thank you. Okay. Yeah, photon, you know what those were. You knew what a force field was. You knew what transport is where. You knew how shit worked. Yeah. Which is why they were like, and now we're gonna make Kardashian tech work with,

Trek tech poorly, because then you're like, oh, oh yeah, that makes, like they could just shoehorn you into that through poor miles, you know? Whereas, Bab5, you have to explain all of that, and you can't use those words, because that's someone else's IP. Yeah, somebody else's intellectual property.

Yeah. And so there's this remarkable space opera, space fantasy, element to things in Bab 5 that is, because Star Trek is also like, you know, scientific gobbled, scientific sound and gobbledy-gook. Oh yeah, yeah. You know, unobtainium kind of stuff. Yeah, tectoc, tectoc, tectoc. Yeah, yeah. Whereas like in places in Babvive, no, it's literally magic.

Mm-hmm. Like we're not even gonna, we're not gonna try to fuck around with that. No, it's literally magic. Okay. But at the same time, in the same universe where this is a spiritual thing, don't question it, is also the one in which, well, you know, we know that Earthforce, vehicles, Earthforce Starships are more primitive than in Bariones because they have big rotating sections to create gravity.

Right, right, right. Because we're gonna, you know, there was, there was this weird juxtaposition. Where, where are we gonna be hard science fiction and where are we gonna go full on? No, no, it's Game of Thrones in space. Sure. Which they wouldn't have actually said because Game of Thrones followed this by Yeah, yeah, yeah, decades, but you get what I'm saying. Mm-hmm. Like, no, no, this is, this is a fantasy novel in space, but we're gonna to pick places where it's going to be very hard science fiction. And so they're both dealing with the same things in the Zit guys, but they're coming at them

from two completely different directions. Yes. And I think each of them is made great in its own way by that. Because it would have been very hard for Battle on 5 to have, and I'm forgetting the title of the episode, but where Sisco winds up but where Cisco winds up either imagining the couple of episodes where he becomes Benny. Yeah, yeah. You know, it would be very hard for Bab5 to do that because the tone of the show, DS9 was able to do that really well and you know, having the crew of actors that they had was a big part of that. Um, you know, by the same token, you're never going to be able to see anybody in Star Trek pull off, uh, you know, uh, share it in, uh, crashing a starship into Zahadum to try to destroy the shadows.

Okay. You know, because that's just, Tomally, that's not how it works. Well, and like you said, like, there's an entire scene where there was, you know, the, the waving at his head on a pike. Yeah. You're not gonna have that in DS9. You're just not. Yeah, I know.

Yeah. No, that, that level of, because, because Strasziki is really great about, no, no, I'm going to take this, and I'm gonna go all the way to 11 Mm-hmm. And DS9 and I think Trek in general Mm-hmm is a little bit afraid

Actually a lot of afraid to no, we're gonna. This is space opera now, right? So we're so we're going to let the soprano go right. Yeah, they don't they don't do that There there is there's this really weird, it's all super technology, but we're gonna keep things grounded and believable. Whereas... Well, just because it's super technology, I mean, keep in mind, a pencil and paper are super fucking technology. Yes. They're just not because they're such a ubiquitous part of our life. Yes. They're just not because they're such a ubiquitous part of our life.

Yeah. Same thing with Star Trek. Yeah. So, I mean, I've made my case at this point, whether I've succeeded or not, we'll be up to the viewer or listener. What do you take away from this now? Now that we're at the end, what's your takeaway? What is it, what is it leave you with?

It leaves me for an appreciation for the creative artistic vacuum that existed in the early 90s. And because you see such fertile things coming up, and yet it still feels like a desert there. The 80s were very clearly the 80s. You know, and they were far less creative, I'd say. I genuinely, I think they were much more formulaic.

They really dialed into this is what direct to video market is. This is what action movies are. This is, this is, this is. But in the 90s, your action stars are this is this is this is this is but in the 90s your action stars are older and they're making fewer films in the 90s you don't have the very obvious tropefied evil empire outside your gates yeah and as a result it takes some time to find your feet creatively yeah and it ate for lack of trying because don't you

have vertigo and dark horse comics starting up around then? Oh, I'll have to look that up. Yeah, it's sometime around there. They're at least popularizing big time in the in the early 90s, you know, and you have, you know, again, you have new versions of Star Trek coming up in the early 90s. You have DS9, you have Babylon 5 coming up. You have this idea of stations being a departure from the old idea of moving exploration, which is what we talked about last time. And I think that you don't have, you still don't have as iconic a creative movement as you had in the 80s, even

though that was less creative. So I think with that hegemony, with that, the taking away of the very obvious and easy to lean against trope. You have some shuffling of feet because I do think that by the late 90s you have some very obvious late 90s stuff. Oh yeah. But the early 90s, what you think of all the time, you don't think of it in terms of art,

you think of it in terms of advertisement. You think of Bugleboy, you think of Neon, you think of that stupid font. Extreme! Yeah, you know, you think of that stupid font. Xtrees! Yeah, you know, you think of those things, but you don't think of, you know, you don't think of creative stuff in the early 90s. You think of creative stuff in the late 90s. Yeah, what's interesting, so I did look it up.

Vertigo, the Vertigo imprint from DC started in 1993. There you go. Dark Horse comics was actually founded in 86, but I think that's the thing. Vertigo, the Vertigo imprint from DC started in 1993. There you go. Dark Horse comics was actually founded in 86, but I think they broke through. Yeah, I was gonna say popularized, yeah. Around that same time. Yeah.

And that's also similarly kind of also the same time as, you know, image. So I'm gonna say Alan Moore is getting going on some properties too in the early 90s as well. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm not mistaken. Yeah.

And of course with the Vertigo imprint we're talking about Sandman, we're talking about spawn. Spawn? Yeah, spawns around the same time because one of my remakes, we talked about the anti-heroes too. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, and that's part of the same reaction to those. Well, and in the 90s, you don't, in wrestling, you don't get the anti-heroes

until about six years later, because there's a floundering that happens in the 90s, wrestling, still trying to figure out who it is, because they've lost Hulk Hogan because I am a real American doesn't matter as much when he's not having to fight the foreign guy a week and so there's some like well how do we grow how do we do this how do we do that And yeah, it it it is hard to Yeah, it is hard to identify it as a genre so much as you can identify. Oh, these people were the champions in this happen, but it's considered a real bold time. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

So, yeah. So again, the early 90s has a unique stamp of not having a unique stamp, I guess. And it is spawned in Kuwait and undefined. And yet it is spawned two series that exist entirely on stations, or primarily on stations, which don't fucking move. They're stations. That's their job. It comes from the Latin StoStare, which means to stand, to stay put. And yet when you have a thing on a station, it is a departure, and the plot has to come to it, which means you have to get much more. There's so much more creativity going into that. And yet it's not seen as much. Yeah, well, and I think I just want to hit on this one last time too, is the plot has to come to it. And during this time period, within the Zitgeist,

our perception within the dog culture of the United States was all of this is happening to us. Right. Like totally not. But again, that was the perception. Yeah, absolutely. Dominic culture says, yeah. That's a thing. Yeah. Cool. Yeah.

Well, thank you for that. Yeah. I hope that was, uh, if it shows up on Amazon or Netflix or another streaming service, I may well pick it up and start watching it. So, yeah. The whole reason, of course, that I got inspired to do this episode, because, uh, J. Michael Strzysinski announced that he is working with folks on doing a reboot.

Oh. In the same kind of in the same vein as the Battle Star Galactic, a reboot, which is my favorite science fiction series of all time. Now, I don't know how they're ever going to be able to pull off the character stuff that they did with any group of actors other than the ones they had. But I'm excited to see what JMS does. Now, the distance in time early 90s till now is roughly 20 years.

Thirty. Thirty, Jesus. Close to 30. And the distance in time between BSG1 and BSG2 is roughly 25, 30 years. Yeah. Wow. Ain't that something? Yeah.

And in the meantime, they're in talks with, oh God, I forget his name. But the character who played red and the character of Lake Kitty to do that 90s show. Oh yeah. Yeah. Which is actually further from the 90s now than they were from the 70s. Yeah. 70s when they did that 70s show. Yep, on nostalgia, it's just not what it used to be. But, so. Cool, well, what are you reading? What am I reading?

I'm reading an awful lot of student work still. Jesus, it's great. Coming up, cause we're coming up on a great day. When I say to make this timeless, I don't mean to like have you say the same thing over and over. Yeah, I understand that. I am working my way through slowly, working my way through rereading children of Dune. Okay. Because I got through Dune Messiah. I mean, I'm working on the next one because I'm a glutton for punishment. And otherwise, I'm not, I don't have a whole lot going on there.

How about you? So I'm listening to a podcast. I'm going to actually plug another podcast on our podcast. I know, I know, but you know, intellectual honesty is kind of our hallmark. So I'm listening to another podcast. Yeah It's called Marvel Wastelanders Hawkeye and it is I believe Five six episodes

Okay, and it's just it's a radio play and it's it's Hawkeye After V day so after the Red Skull has killed everybody off. So it's like old man Hawkeye So I'm listening to that upon the recommendation of a former student of mine I want to told you about who is is slaying it in parties Down at that Christian college of his So I'm listening to that if you want to listen to that. That's that's a good one. I'm also Get encouraged people and you got to do some digging for this one

But the guy's name is Matthew for back FOR BECK. Okay. He's written a number of books He's written a number of role-playing games and stuff like that. Okay, but he took this series Or he took this role-playing game called Brave New World, which I love the world Okay, and it's very much product of the 90s or he took this role-playing game called Brave New World, which I love the world. Okay. And it's very much product of the 90s. And then he wrote three novels, based on Little Novellas. And the first one I believe is Brave New World Revolution. And then you can find the other two as well.

And- What's Brave New World, the one in which the Pluto-Crat party was the thing? I don't think so. Brave New World is the one where JFK lived through the assassination attempt, but his wife didn't. And then the world got really terrible because emergency powers and superheroes.

So it's cool. All right. Anyway, that's what I'll recommend. Matt Foreback, Matthew Foreback, Brave New World Revolution. All right. Yeah. Where can people find you on the social medias? I can be found on Twitter at eHBlaylock. I can be found on Instagram at also eHBlaylock.

On TikTok, I am Mr. Blaylock. And where can you be found? You can find me on Twinsta at Doha Harmony, two Hs in the middle. You can find me on Twinsta at Da Harmony 2H is in the middle. You can find me every first Tuesday of the month on Twitch.tv forward slash capital puns. More importantly, on January 14th, you can find me at in Sacramento, at Luna's doing capital punishment, the live version. Because yes, I just started booking everything

from January, so January 14th, February 7th. Is it 7th? No, it's February 2nd, March 2nd, and April 1st. So it's basically the first Friday of every month. But in January, it's the second Friday. Okay, but so January 14th go go check it out You can find capital punishment on the Facebook's there will be announcements coming out soon We have one hell of a lineup coming at you all the best and brightest of Sacramento When I reached out to folks it was like watering a plant for the first time and a long time

Everyone's like I'm so glad it's back. I'm like, you have no idea how many tears I've shed. I had no idea how much I missed it. But yes, we are back baby, live January 14th. So I am very excited to hear that. I am too. I'm stoked. I can only imagine.

Yeah. So. Very cool. Yeah. Corporately working with where can we be found? We can be found at Geek History Time on Twitter and at www.GeekHistoryOfTime online. The podcast, of course, can be found on the Apple podcast app on stitcher and Spotify and So please wherever it is you are getting us from Go there give us a review. Give us the five stars. You know that we've earned Encourage your friends to check us out. We we are not for everybody, but you know, we've got something for everybody

Got something for everybody. Yeah, we are a buffet. Yeah, and so please let folks know that we're here. Yeah. And that's all I got. Cool. Well, for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Laylock. And until next time, keep rolling 20s.