A Geek History of Time - Episode 53 - Twilight Zone and Existential Terror Through the Years Part II

Episode Date: May 2, 2020

I said good day sir. You don't ever plan anything around the Eagles because the Eagles represent the grace of God. You heathen bastards. One of vanilla nabish name. Well you know works are people too. I'm thinking of that one called they got taken out with one punch. So he's got a wall, a gall, a gall, and a wall. Every time you mention the Eagles, I think done Henley.

Ha ha ha ha! [♪ Music playing in background, music playing in background, playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music next nursery to the real world. I'm Ed Blavock, I'm a world history teacher and part-time English teacher from my home here in Northern California with a two-year-old son who just tonight got the opportunity to watch Big Hero 6 for the first time. And the Baymax flying scenes were very cathartic for him. He was apt, which was awesome, but then it made it really hard to put him down for bed. So, so fan parent win, general parent draw maybe. It's still a win. It's a good reason to not have to be able to put them it out. Yeah, okay, good point. Good point. So, who are you? I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a Latin teacher and a part-time history teacher, world history teacher up here in Northern California.

Also teaching from my room, not my classroom, my dining room, recording all kinds of content and grammar lessons for my students and doing all kinds of Zoom meetings to make them feel more normal. And also trying to produce two other shows via Twitch, so I'll probably plug those at the end. But all in all, I'm also a parent of two little kids. One is 10 and one is almost eight. Neither which I don't think has even seen big hero six yet. And we have the Disney channel. So we might be hitting that pretty soon. That's that's one I think I think both of you kids would get a really big kick out of it. Nice. Um, both really like tiny tunes and the pink panther.

So they're big on slapstick. Okay, well there's some of that there. Have you seen it? No. Okay. Highly highly recommended. Okay. Yeah, it is in some ways, I think, a Ravenclaw's angle on a superhero movie.

That sounds fun. And I know my brother likes it. So he's a good judge of taste. So, when last we talked, we didn't really get to the Twilight Zone, because it's a Damian episode. So we never get to the thing I want to talk about right away. Well, number one, it's not, we don't ever do that number one, and number two, do you ever really get to the Twilight Zone on purpose or just can't even vella people? Well, normally I open a door, and behind it, I find.

But a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mine. Yeah. You're familiar with that. Yes. Yeah. So picture of you will. Yes. Beyond it.

Yes. The twilight's. So it's so funny. So many people do that. Noony, noony, no. I always go do do do do do do do do like just different people have different sounds. It's kind of like some people stand up to wipe their butts,

some people stay seated to wipe their butts. Like it just like nobody teaches you how to do it. It just, you know, do the best you can with what you got. Well, okay, so, so, you know, and thinking about that, kind of kind of related, you talk about nobody teaches you how to do that. So if I if I were to say to you that I saw a crazy man out in the middle of the street with a rubber chicken strapped to his head. How do you imagine the rubber chicken pointing? Straight ahead like true North essentially on top of his head and it's going north to south. Yeah, for an aft. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know, there are there are roughly 70 or 80% of the population

who it's it's for an aft like that. Yeah. And then there's 20% 20 to 30% of the population for whom it's go east to west sideways. Yeah, yeah, yeah, towards Starbound and and and you know, it's just a spontaneous like I think that's that's an and unused personality test criteria. I do believe that Plato said something like this. Yeah. Behold the chicken or behold a man. No, that was the adjunies. It was the adjunies trolling him. Yes. People hold A-man. But I would also point out though, I think it was Plato or might have been Aristotle, I don't remember who, but they said draw a table and nobody ever draws a table the same

way. It's the same kind of thing. Now here's a fun one. I think of a chicken, foreign aft, right? Head facing forward, feet facing backward. Does anybody go feet facing forward, head facing backward, or does that seem perverse and weird? I'm pretty sure in the DSM 5, are we up to the 5 now? I think so, yeah. I think in the DSM 5, that's probably one of the symptoms of schizophrenia.

So here's the other question. If somebody's going east to west or west to east when they're doing starboard, like, which way is the head pointing? Is it towards your left ear, your port? Or is the head pointing toward, like, then we really get, yeah. This is a more fun than trolleology. Now we get the ugly granular about the tolls there.

Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. And also, how are you tying it down? Like, the other thing is you could tie it to the side of your head to That's true like a like you know like a telecom operator Yeah, but you think about the way the way it's phrased though if I say on my head. Oh, I thought you said tied to your head

I tied on your head on your head on your head on your head on your head And then the phrase on your head implies on the top of your head. Your ears are on your head. For once, you know, well, yeah, true. You know, good point. Yeah. So, you know, there are any number of ways to see, I want to see somebody with an actual abnormal psych degree.

Like, I want to hear from a psychiatrist about like, okay, what does that mean? Yeah, hit us up on the Twitter. E-H-B-L-L-O-K. I think it is. Yeah. Yeah. So, L-, eH, Blaylock. It is. Yeah, yeah. So, Blaylock on Twitter. So, thank you all for coming to Cocktalk.

So, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Sorry. Oh, okay, what's the time stamp? We don't have preus and Georgia with us tonight. It's true, it's a nice time. It's a true, it's a true, it's a nice time. I would be proud, I'm at 620. So, all right.

Yeah, all right. That's, that's about part of the course. It is, it is. All right, so I had to give a ton of context to the Twilight Zone because it comes out at a time that is rich with context. There's so much going on. There are so many different things happening

that are catastrophic changes to the status quo. Okay? So, I mean, there's always so much going on, but these are actual catastrophic changes. There are people challenging the way of things in so many ways, and the way of things is batch it crazy. Well, yeah. And, you know, the background noise was, I mean, I think right now you and I are living through the closest we have ever come in our lifetimes

in the middle of a global pandemic. We are in our lifetimes right now. We are as close as we are hopefully not wood ever going to get to the level of ambient oh fuck we're all gonna die. Right existential terror? of ambient, oh fuck, we're all gonna die. Right. existential terror? Yeah, I mean, absolute existential terror. And, you know, the idea that no, no, it could happen any day. And it felt literally imminent.

Yes. Like, like nuclear holocaust felt to everybody in the world 1960s the way that You know the the rapture feels to evangelical Christians like all the time Yes, I'm the reason I can't understand that particular branch of evangelical Christianity, but you get what I'm saying Why because they're their total hope for The world ending well number one, but you get what I'm saying. Like, because they're their total hope for the world ending. Well, number one, but I have a lot of things. How do you maintain that emotional pitch of no no man?

Not only is it like going to happen because that's in one form or another, that's a part of Christian doctrine, cut nearly all all right groups. But the idea that to those folks, no, no, it's like it's imminent. Like we are all living in the time when it's gonna happen. Never mind the fact that everybody's been living in the time it's gonna happen since the second grade awakening.

Oh, even before that though. There was a gap of about 1800 years. His followers were like, no, he'll be right back. He just went to get some smokes. But he has trouble counting change with the hands thing. Right, exactly. The dime just went through.

That's why you would have carried all the hands thing. Right. Exactly. The dime just went through. That's why Jew had just carried all the silver form. Yeah. Yeah. I think Easter's coming, isn't it? Well, yeah, it's actually it should be added here from from the Catholic that we are recording this on the night of good Friday. Yeah. And just for some sobering statistics, we now have 460,575 cases of COVID in our country. So if you ever need to backtrack this, if this becomes the time capsule, the audio time capsule, what's going on, over 16,000 deaths from COVID on Good Friday. We have eclipsed everyone else in the world as far as total cumulative deaths. Yeah, and I just want to point out in a somewhat less sober note, if our

podcast becomes the time capsule for, you know, a later generation of historians than man something is fucked up ahead of us. Yeah. That's the time string. Not untrue. Yes. Yeah. So, good Friday to you, sir. So at the time that all of this was happening at the time that and again, if you start by listening

to this episode, what is wrong with you? But at the time where all of this is happening, many, many things. Yeah. You have Rod Sirling writing the entire time. And Rod Sirling was writing all through the fifties, all through the forties, when he got out of the army and into college, and he just kept writing and writing and writing.

And he, in his writing, was virantly anti-fascist and very pro-justice, pro-social justice. He wanted to write about those things, and he was a writer, right? So now we're caught up to all the original conditions in which the twilight zone was birthed. Yes, sir. Question.

You talk about he was very powerfully pro-social justice and anti-fascist and all of that. Did he run into any problem from McCarthy? Do we know? Like, because he was in, he was in the end of one Emmy. Right. During, you know, that- Because it was sci-fi, it seemed ghetto-fied or ghettoized.

Like it- It was, yeah. Yeah, it's so I didn't run into any stuff where he's dealing, where McCarthy goes after him but It partly because McCarthy probably was going after Jim Aubrey And Jim Aubrey was the guy who was in charge of CBS During that time and Twilight Zone

I I'm gonna point it out here and I will bring it back up later Never was a commercial viability. It really wasn't. No, because of that, it flew under McCarthy's radar because there was plenty of other stuff on CBS that was capturing everybody's imagination. But Sirling's personal motives are, you know, he hates Nazis and he likes justice for the beleaguered. His culture's need is that this shit isn't normal and nor should it be normalized. And he has the need to call out the injustice and the paranoia that we're all living in. Something to point out is that this wasn't normal,

even though it was normalizing. So- Or normalized? Yeah, yeah, because by the time he's writing, yeah, it is fairly normalized, because it's been around, like, this kind of paranoia has been around since about 47. because it's been around like this kind of paranoia has been around since about 47. So, he, and this is really the crux of what I'm saying, the Twilight Zone keeps coming back. Every time there's an existential threat that's brought about by institutional paranoia and gaslighting. So we took till the, I'm not a very good writer. My thesis statement shows up in the second episode of a multi-episode thing. But that's essentially it. The Twilight Zone keeps coming back and it does come back

number of times when there's institutional paranoia and gas lighting. Because someone at some point, needs to call out what's happening, and the Twilight Zone bubbles up in that environment. And it's not ever commercially successful, but it is always coming up in these times, where it's not commercially successful, and at the same time, it is necessary to call these things out.

And like we said, sci-fi is ghettoized in a way that's safe. It's safe for humanity or society to pretty much ignore it. It's warnings. And it's also safe for the networks because they're not really shifting the culture in any way. Incidentally, it always comes out under a Republican president. Okay, wait. So the original would have been under Nixon. No, I's an hour. No, Ike. Yeah. I mean, Nixon was a VP, but yes, 59. Okay. Okay. Oh, okay. All right. Okay. Okay.

Because the election in 60 was Kennedy. Yeah. Right? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. It was Kennedy against Nixon. It won't.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we'll get to the other. So it ran for five years. And then it stopped. And in the beginning, it was was and I say not commercially successful Because it's very often critically quite successful

Although I think the the later iterations were a touch to nostalgia Which is what a weird goddamn nostalgia that is like hey remember when the world was fucked up before it is again Well, you know the thing is it's it's not it's not nostalgia for will you remember when the world was was fucked up. It's nostalgia for hey, you know, that was a really great series. The writing on that was really amazing. And you know, we it and and you know, so many elements of the original series became cultural touchstones. The terror at 40,000 feet or 30 feet,

with William Schatter having an iris breakdown in the cabin of an airplane, seeing your Gremlin on the wing. And that amazing jump scare. Yeah. You know, and then seeing it again with John Lithgow in the 80s. Yeah. Who, you know, that's, which by the way, there's this wonderful episode of Third Rock from the Sun, because John Lithgow is a main character, but will shatter his boss. And there's a scene where they both get off of a airplane and they're both shook.

So good, such a funny story. Oh, that's amazing. Well, in that same episode, got really visited in the most recent inter- Oh, did it really? No, that one's, yeah, no, that one. See, the thing is that's part of what I'm saying is those, those stories and those beats, those narrative beats have all become

code within our cultural lexicon. Actual means. Yeah, yeah, and we keep coming back to them the monster the monster on Naples Street right to the monsters monsters yeah yeah is is you know another one um and I mean if I thought about it long enough I could I could I could rattle off probably four or five more oh easily yeah uh and and it's and it's the nostalgia for those stories and The reason we have the nostalgia for those stories is that on a sub-rosa level we realize we're living in surreal surroundings and so we we we want the catharsis of seeing that surreality in the stories that we're watching Well, and do you ever get good art during good times? Honestly?

Like, I'm not an art expert, so I don't know. But like, it occurs to me that, and the fifties were a special time, because Jackson Pollock was all the goddamn rage because you weren't allowed to express yourself. Like, at all. So of course, it's just abstract. It's just a matter of the thing.

But I, yeah. In fact, there was a guy from Michigan, I forget his name, but he even said that modern art is un-American. Uh, and there's a guy in the Soviet Union who said the same thing, modern art is un-soviet. And it's like, yeah, were you guys at the same orgy? Like what? How? Okay. You know, so, but so it's all so, you know, remember when art was good? Well, when art was good, it's usually during shit times. I'm, you know, okay.

I wonder what we need to say about when art was good. Hello Geek Timers, this is producer George, interrupting this podcast to let you know that we have space available. This space could be used to promote your product, book, event, group, even wish a special someone happy birthday. If you're interested in using this space, please contact us on Twitter via private message at Geek History Time. Go. Because I think there could be an argument certainly made. And I'd have to take a look at the historical record,

but Shakespeare was, I mean, during a significant portion of his career, England was in pretty good economic circumstance at the very least. in pretty good economic circumstance at the very least. And I would wanna say rock well, but a lot of his stuff was during the depression. I was gonna say, yeah, and a lot of his stuff that we see is only for sanitized stuff.

Anyone who granted? Yeah. And then the four freedoms was, you know, prior to the outbreak World War II. But I think statistically, a safe argument would be that the majority of really cathartic powerful art comes from times of uncertainty when artists just like everybody else have that level of angst and that level of you've used the word Paranoia a lot. I'm going to say anxiety. I would agree. Paranoia was only institutional. The anxiety was definitely within the masses. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

And, and, you know, and then there's, you know, even in the midst of times that for society are not so bad, times can be really, really shitty for an individual, you know, look at, for example, the life of Edgar Allan Poe. Yeah. You know, the father of the mystery novel and in one of the founders of the modern horror genre. You know, so I think I think that's a generalization that gets made in awful lot.

And I think there's something to it it but I don't think it's It's necessarily a a universal truth. Okay, that's fair that way Well in the beginning the Twilight Zone got a lot of good reviews in early television You know, it's 1959 it was a cut above the rest and it really was quite different But commercially it was not warmly welcomed CBS was actually really close to canceling it in its first season. And in its second season, the new head of CBS Jim Aubrey came in. This is 1960. Jim Aubrey was not an artist, he was a beam counter. He was not an artist, he was an outsider looking in. He is what happens when

it becomes a business. He cut costs as much as he could and he was regularly eyeing the budget of filming the Twilight Zone. That's how involved he was in cutting costs. Not just I need to drop things by 5%, but actually going, we're going to to video tape Instead of film. Yeah. Yeah Interestingly at that time Sirling wins an Emmy for the Twilight Zone and it also won a a Unity award for for quote outstanding contributions to better race relations Really yeah and despite this or maybe because of it, Jim Aubrey was vehement about cutting costs on this show. So it's getting a lot of artistic and critical success, but he's looking at it.

Either he doesn't like it because it's not a moneymaker or he doesn't like it because it's challenging, but either way, he's really heading out like trying to cut its head as hard as he can. And the measures that he took would actually end up harming it artistically, but it saved far less money than the cost of just filming and producing an episode. Well, you know, you say, you know, you're not sure if it's because if he didn't like it because it was challenging or if he didn't like it because it wasn't a money maker, I think there's a really good case to be made for Porque Nello's dose. You know, I think we, we as the viewing public have historically since the founding of the genre of television. I think we have repeatedly been done a really powerful disservice by television executives who insist that everything has to be made as palatable to a mass audience as possible. And from a strictly statistical standpoint,

they're not totally wrong. Yeah, it's gonna say there's a hive feature to that where we end up with good stuff that is palatable to the masses. Cheers, mash, lost first season. There's all kinds of really good, you know, yeah. Well, yeah, I, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to argue, I think cheers, we, we can agree on, I think mash wound up getting away with an awful lot.

Yes, they did. Because there's some really, there's some really strident, subversive as hell, yeah. Deeply well, yeah, I mean, subversive, but not just subversive, but like finger pointing at the screen, you know, and being dropped, kind of stuff going on. Yeah.

You know, especially after Alan Alda got a lot of sway with and in the writer's room. Yeah. a lot of sway With and in the writer's room. Yeah, um, and you know, I mean to the point that a conservative like my father Stop stop wanting to watch the show. Oh wow because it was it was so much, you know Anti anti-war peacenick, maybe, you know, what's word I'm looking for. You know, yeah, just the animals were just so obvious that he was lucky at whatever bunch

of liberal Hollywood types. And, you know, but it still had a compelling enough character ensemble and a compelling enough cast. I mean, there genuinely was not anybody on that show, right? who was not compelling as an actor to watch. Oh, very true. Even father Mokahi was really good.

Like, he was the most milk toast character, most vanilla character, and he was fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, and the writing on it was top notch, even when it got kind of obviously, you know, political stride and kind of stuff. Sure. You know, it's easier now for me to say that because I tend to agree with its stride and siege, but I think there are an awful lot of other cases where we get a lot of stuff that is very

popular, that is not badly written. No, it's vanilla ice cream. It's yeah. But vanilla ice cream is the top seller too. You know, it, and no one mind the vanilla ice cream. You know, it's everybody's second or third choice. Yeah, okay, I can see that. Yeah.

But, you know, what I, what I, I guess, what I'm trying to get at, though, is there, there is consistently, you know, this underestimation by television executives of what the viewing public wants. You know, the viewing public, they don't want to be challenged, they don't want to have to think, you know, don't, you know, you gotta, what, why is this character here? Tell me, tell me about this, you know, you gotta explain this. Right. And it's like, oh man, if you write a good story,

people are gonna fucking watch it. Yes. You know, except that they're not. That's, that's the thing, is like commercial success versus, it doesn't mean it's not good. It just means that it's not popular. And, you know, that's, and Jim Aubrey had a case

to make with that. He's a really interesting study, by the way, because he came on essentially, his career is during the span of the run of Twilight Zone. And under him, CBS got some of its greatest successes, especially compared to NBC and ABC, which were also nascent. This is right after the quiz show scandals. And he had kind of a Simon Cowell-esque understanding of what the masses enjoy.

Simon Cowell has a genius when it comes to knowing what people will like popularly never mind if it's good They're gonna like it popularly like he made a lot of money realizing that the music from the WWF at the time WWE as well as the power Rangers would sell massively That's how cowl made his money to start with So you're kidding me. No, no, there's a lot. Yeah That's how Cowell made his money to start with. So... You're kidding me. No, no, there's a lot going on. Yeah.

So this guy, Jim Aubrey, he said that people want to see, quote, broads, bosoms, and fun. So the show's... Can we take half a second just to unpack how incredibly early 60s like blatant sexist like all of that is yes. I mean I'm going to confess in a very blunt crude way he's not wrong. No, it does work. Yeah. In wrestling there's a good name Vince Russo who kind of was along the same lines. Wow. Yeah. In wrestling, there's a guy named Vince Russo, who kind of was along the same lines.

Never mind the art of wrestling or anything like that. He was all about like, no, that's pop a rating. Let's show a woman's boob. So give the people what they want. Yeah. And drag them down with it. So his shows that he promoted were critically panned, but they were vulgarly quite popular. And he very much.

Okay, I'm sorry. Are you using, are you using vulgarly in the classical scholar Latin sense of the vulgates? Or do you mean in the, or in the or or or or do you simultaneously mean in the way that it gets used moderately in English. There's a part of me that wants to but I cannot in good conscience clutch my pearls and say oh that was vulgar because I think that there is a lot of really good art out there that people consider vulgar and And I'm like, oh, it's just that just didn't appeal to your assumptions, sorry. You know, so I'm gonna go with a classical volgate. Okay, and you're also not a believer

in guilty pleasures to be given in. No, not, so. Yeah, exactly. Now, he very much answered to sponsors and that influenced all kinds of content. So Life Magazine did a story on him, and they described his methods as quote, feed the public little more than rural comedies, fast-moving detective dramas, and later sexy dolls.

No old people, the emphasis was on youth. No domestic servants, the mass audience wouldn't identify with maids. No serious problems to cope with. Every script had to be full of action. No physical infirmities. Okay. And then... Twilight.

So... Like, these are a nathema to each other. Well, you know, they don't necessarily need to be anathema, but they are indefinitely on different ends of a spectrum. Oh boy, howdy. And yet in February of 65, okay, he suddenly and without any explanation is removed from his post. A journalist who covered it said, quote, the fourth president of CBS TV as Caligula was

the fourth of the 12 Caesars. Each carried the logic of his imperial authority as far as it could go, each was deposed and disappeared suddenly, leaving bad press behind him. I like the Caligula. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, because that makes me picture

some guy in a toga and a fedora with a press card sticking out of the out of the out of the headband. With a tablet and like a wax. Speaking. Yeah, yeah, with a wax. Yes, precisely with a wax tablet and a stylus speaking speaking in an old news real mid-Atlantic accent like, no, I really tell me. What's what's a real what's a real skinny hair, come on.

Haha. Claudius, you like mushrooms? Uh, Claudius, yeah. Haha. So, he, uh, he, he was not liked, um, Lucille Ball. Lucille Ball, called him a son of a bitch. Uh, here's a list of people that he screwed over artistically and commercially. Red Skeleton, Danny Thomas and Jack Benny.

Okay, back up. Okay, back up. Okay, back up. I'm sorry. Yes. If you screw over Red Skeleton, like the church, again, as the Catholic here, the church doesn't like us saying who's in hell because yeah. Dr. and Lee we can't know but I gotta say screw and over red skeleton of all people. That earns you, that earns you a like. You're next to a guy who had a hard dog on Friday.

I'll tell you that. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah. During Lent Friday, during Lent. Yeah, but yeah. My God. Yeah, he made decisions about their shows without their input. And during season four, the Twilight Zone was made to go to one hour because of sponsors. And that was not a decision that Rod Sirling liked. So when the network cancels Twilight Zone after five seasons in 1964, Sirling was pretty

burned out. Part of it was writing, but also part of it is this constant back and forth, which I'm Aubrey trying to nibble at his show, and still Sirling claimed that it was his decision to leave CBS, and he sold his share in the show back to CBS. Interesting. Yeah. So, okay, question.

You say that Twilight Zone had to go to an hour to satisfy sponsors. Yes. What had it been before? It had been a half hour? Yeah, it's been a half. The only season where it's an hour long is the fourth season, the rest of the time it's a half hour show. And I believe in the second season, they switched over to, I want to say a British studio

for a bit, but I think I found out that they were switching over to videotape because the frame rate changes, distractingly so. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Instead of 32 FPS, it's 40 FPS and that makes it unwatchable for me for some reason. So there's certain episodes of the Twilight Zone I've never seen because as soon as I start seeing that frame rate, I'm like, I can't pay attention. This is why I've never watched Red Dwarf, by the way. Okay, I can see that. So, and I can't, that's the...

It's bleeding, shame. It is, but it messes with me. There's a whole fandom subculture that you're like completely missing out. Well, and people pointed out they said, now there's ways to adjust it. So apparently, I am not the only one who has this problem. So people have figured out ways to adjust it online. I'm like, oh, cool. Well, maybe I'll find a frame rate reducer.

So again, Twilight Zone was not all that successful commercially, but critically it was considered a success. Interestingly, the population was not as interested in it as they were in rural comedies. Beverly Hillbillies. Oh, that was the same time here in London. The response that society had at the time to the institutional paranoia being dropped on them regularly was not reflection. It was escape.

And this becomes a repeating theme throughout the history of the Twilight Zone. So that's 1960 through the mass media. Yes, but that matter. Yes. You know, in the depression, a little more finnany, it was, you know, it, you know, Captain Midnight, all of those radio serial, kind of dramas.

That's true. That's true. That's a good point. But every time Twilight Zone pops up, it pops up at like the most needed time in the worst possible time commercially. So 20 years later, it pops back up. Okay, so that was 64, 65. Yeah, 60, do I say 64? Yeah, 64. Yeah. In 85, it pops back up. And so CBS owned the rights. So it was cheaper to bring that back than it was to find a new

property to produce. So now it is about bean counting to bring that back than it was to find a new property to produce. So now it is about bean counting to bring it back, which is interesting because that's kind of what drove it away. But we still need to look at why this was considered a good idea in 85. Yes. Can I guess? Sure. Alright.

So by that time, the Soviets were in Afghanistan and we were busy fighting a proxy war against them using the Mujahideen. Yes. And we have all of Iran, Contra and all of the associated scandals related to that are going on. Although in 85, I don't know how much we knew about that yet. It comes out of a president. Okay, we have a president talking about the Soviet Union as an evil empire.

We are at the point where, this is 80, if we're talking about 84, 85, I don't know off the top of my head whether Reagan and Gorbachev have actually reached an arms negotiation yet. Nope, the Helsinki. There's a lot of overtures for peace, but nothing. Okay, okay.

So what that means is everybody's nuclear stockpiles are just about as big as they ever got. Yep. Both sides have enough thermonuclear firepower to reduce the planet to a cinder multiple times over. Literally overkill. Yeah, oh massive, massive overkill because mutually assured destruction. That's the only way to do it. I mean, based on the doctrine,

it was based on the doctrine, it was in existence at the time, that's what it was. And let's say, I mean, the thermonuclear stuff is pretty big. Yeah. Which was also big in 1969. Well, yeah. And we have an administration here in the United States in power who is who are, is our

singular administration, people within the administration plural, who are wildly inflating the statistics of Soviet military power in order to justify the expansion of the military industrial complex. The same one that Eisenhower warned us about as he was leaving in 1960? Yeah, as he was leaving in 1960 to be replaced by a Democrat who was a harder cold warrior. Yes. Which like, let's think about that for a second. But and then of course now we're talking about Reagan

who's like right up there with Maggie Thatcher in terms of champion cold warriors. Oh, I learned something the other day. This is completely kind of a tangent. But when Margaret, we recently found out that the current prime minister of the United Kingdom has been hospitalized for COVID. He's literally in the ICU last I heard. Yeah, he's, well, I don't know. is he's well, I don't know. But when that came out, there was a lot of chatter in the Twitter sphere and in the UK from a lot of people who were unapologetically kind of cackling about about Boris Johnson having caught the Roni. And a lot of American commentators saying,

you really have to, I mean, this is just wrong, you shouldn't be so gleeful about somebody else suffering, even if it's somebody you hate. Right. And some British Twitter commentator said, no, no, no, I don't think you understand how much we hated Margaret Thatcher. People through house parties when Margaret Thatcher died. Wow. The British don't fuck around. Do they? No, no, they don't. And Scotland offered to dig her grave because I'm trying

to remember exactly how it was, but they said, we'll totally dig it a whole straight to hell. I love it. Like, like, you know, and, and, you know, just just talking about, you know, leadership and the cold warriors, Maggie Thatcher. And just, no, no, no, we'll happily bury her because we're more than willing to dig a hole to give an express elevator straight to hell. Nice. Like, and, and that was how many decades after she'd been in office. Like, no, man, if you want to talk about people in the UK not fucking around, the scots don't fuck around.

No, they don't. Because if anybody in the UK had a reason to despise that woman. Besides Ireland, yeah. Yeah, they're near the top of the list. Oh, yeah. So, anyway, yeah. Oh, yeah. So anyway, sorry, so it's being cold power. We oh, oh, oh, and of course, we've already talked in one of our very early episodes. We discussed the the jarring rightward shift that had taken place in the UK and in

the United States with both bacon and iron Maggie thatcher Maggy Thatcher in power. So what did I miss? Well, I'm going to drop it back a little bit before I move forward. So the 80s version was better received in the beginning. Okay. Partly due to the cult like following that Twilight Zone had gained. Sindications a thing. However, a lot of this was because the show essentially just retread a lot of old episodes.

And they did it in color, and in some ways they did it better. The rest of the show was an anthology of old and new writers. Guest stars who were just starting their career Morgan Freeman was in it Bruce Willis was in the very first one my friend is going to kill me because I forgotten the name of the author of a whole bunch of the episodes Harlan Ellison maybe might have been it yeah but there were a lot of people who were you know just getting started or who were visible in... Harlan, Harlan Ellison was a big name.

I mean, if it's him, he was just getting cut. He might be. He would have, no, he was a writer, but I'm talking about your actors. I mean, Bruce Willis is getting in at a time of moon lighting, you know? You're at least, no, not you're at least Smith. Any pots, she had just done ghost busters.

Like there were some recognizable folk. But yeah, Wes Craven, that's the name that's from, he did a lot of the writing. So you have really good writers, it's not like you didn't have good writers before and it's in color. And this time, it's in color and this time It's a one-hour time slot that's filled with a collection of two to four shorter episodes every week Yeah, it was much more

mythology. Yeah, so I'm gonna back it up. Oh, yeah I'm looking at the castlets here from Google And as you mentioned Bruce Wallace George our ourR. Martin, who now everybody knows his name, but back during that time period, he was very well known in kind of right-of-release science fiction circles for some of his work, but he was not a big popular figure. Jeffrey Tambor. Yes. Shelly DoVal. Let's see. Got to actually get a TINDB page here. Yeah. There's a lot of names. Yeah. A lot of folks who are right now. Let's see. But let's see. Robert Downey Jr. was in three episodes. I'm just going down looking for names I recognize, but yeah, all right. So there's an Alan Smithy writing credit on one of their several. Yeah, yeah. So an Alan Smithy writing credit on one of our several. There were several.

Yeah, yeah. So, and Alan Smithy is when you put a fake name because nobody wanted the credit for. Yeah. So, all right. So, I'm going to rewind a little bit because no show pops up just completely fully formed, right? So, in 1983, the U.S. had invaded Grenada. A suicide bomber killed over 200 Marines in Lebanon.

The Reagan administration began working on the Strategic Defense Initiative. These are all violent happenings, that point to our collective security being a brittle, brittle thing. In 1984, so you've got this bedrock of, you know, violence. In 1984, most of the Eastern block had boycotted the Olympics in Los Angeles Because because we had boycotted in 80. Yeah This highlights a growing discord between two big nuclear superpowers not a growing accord The crack at epidemic which was started by the CIA began making headlines and showing up on the news

As did child abduction and pedophilia. Those are getting into the news. It's not like they weren't happening, but people are having to confront them. There were a lot of special episodes. I remember especially different strokes where the guy who is a comic book shop makes Dudley drink wine and ends up with his shirt off and it's gross. In 1985, here's what's happening. Well, no, I mean, that show had been around for a lot longer before that. But here's what has had been happening in 1985.

So Reagan wins his second term, winning in a electoral landslide, 49-1. Bobby Knight starts throwing furniture onto the court. WrestleMania debuted. I have to put that in. There are lots of bombings back and forth between the CIA and Islamic jihad and Hezbollah and other groups that the CIA targeted and or supported efforts against. New Coke comes out. Oh, yeah, talk about a flop. Now, do you want to know, do you remember who the spokesman for New Coke was? Bill Cosby?

Yes. Now, here's the best part. Do you know that he sued Coke for like $26 million? Because of the damage into his reputation. Uh-huh, of getting people to trust him when he offered them something to drink. And we're walking. We're walking. Oh, you, oh, this will get better for you. Ronald Reagan visited an SS graveyard. Probably unwittingly, but he did it. What?

Yeah, he went over to Germany. He went to this graveyard. Okay. Talking about these brave soldiers and blah, blah, blah. And people are like, um, the SS are buried there. He's like, I stand by what I said. And we're like, okay, the unit of bomber steps up his, uh, his campaign. He bombs a couple people in the same year.

Several planes crash that year talk about you know locker beat uh... note locker became around in eighty nine i want to say eighty seven eighty nine okay i don't know just a lot of planes fell out of the sky um... there was a little girl who was an activist against nuclear war she's like twelve she died in a plane crash going over there.

It's a crazy stuff. Oh wow. Yeah. And in the background of all this, there's a lot, a lot, a lot of nuclear war talk. Like I said, like you said, there's overtures toward peace, but there's a lot of grandstanding. So it's like, my button is stronger.

Could you imagine? Yeah, Iran contrafare is about to break open. And the threat of nuclear war by 1985 had both dissipated and increased. It had become, as we've often said, part of the background noise. But and in my notes, it says, as we're fond of mentioning, and at the same time, it's intensity had actually increased multiples due to the increased severity of the threat under a president who's a former movie actor. Well, it had it had it had become it's long since become background noise, but the volume of that background noise was climbing. And again, the the noise was

getting increasingly discordant and screechy. And again, it's more severe because there's a man who is a former movie actor who is now president, who thinks that reality and movies are the same thing and who thinks that like, you know, how you are viewed popularly is how policy should be guided. I'm talking about what led up to 1985 and into 85 because this is what was in the zeitgeist when we talk about the second attempt at the Twilight Zone, which is now in color and when it got its start, okay. Hold on, I want to interject you're talking about, you know, the intensity of that and Reagan thinking that the world worked like, you know, a movie. I want to point out that his, his, his hot mic moment

was in 84. Oh wow. Yes. I forgot about that. You know, my fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today I signed legislation that will allow student and legislative speakers to do do do do do hold on. Prior to speech itself, my fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever, we begin bombing in five minutes. Yes. This sort of movement was not uncommon for Reagan.

That was it. Yeah, so anyway, he joked around during sound checks, but like, I'm sorry, Anyway, he joked around during sound checks, but like I'm sorry, um, joke. Yeah, like, and and of course, you know, as I've, as I've mentioned, like multiple times every time this story comes up because it's, it's one of my favorites from the Cold War that that literally led to the entire Soviet defense grid lighting up. Yeah. Like, like, yeah. And and in a very gallows humor kind of way, I still find it really funny that like that many thousand guys went, oh, shit, simultaneously. Oh, yeah. are there are gallows humorous moments that I don't need to list here, but that that that delight me and tickle me. Not the least of which Boris being in the ICU. Carb. Yeah. So here's what's going on in 85. A lot of anxiety, a lot of existential stress, and a lot of uncertainty. The threat of nuclear war is coming back to the front pages, to the front pages, partly

due to the efforts of actually bringing about an end to the hostilities, and this is a very clear echo of 1959. Eisenhower was also trying to draw everything down, and it was only stepping up. In fact, there's this wonderful discussion that I and Khrushchev had and he said, you know, through the interpreters, he said, you know, every time I want to draw down our nuclear weapons, my generals say that you are just about to invent the next big thing. So we have to stay ahead of you. And Khrushchev says, that's funny, because my generals keep telling me the same thing. And it's just so butter battle book. Mm-hmm.

Yes. So there's other things echoing too, by the way. So in 1959, it was much harder to ignore the civil rights movement, as was the growing distrust of the young due to their use of pot. Much bigger deal to the square community in 60s, but the ground was swelling, right? Yeah.

And that's happening again in the 80s. There's just a different drug now, okay? Yeah, right. And the rise of hip hop is making, and the rise of the crack epidemic, again, started by the CA, is making it very hard to ignore the black community again. Yeah, echoes. It's not the same, but it is. Well, yeah, but what's what's what's sorry,

but what's what's interesting about that is in in the 19 early 60s, it was, you know, the civil rights movement, which of course, a settling was a very vocal. Sometimes not very artful. Support of reporters in Alabama indicate that it's especially dark. The title of the episode was like, man, you really had to drop that fucker, didn't you? Yeah. That's an ample.

You know, some of them need to be dropped, of course, but still, man. And so then it was, well, I guess what I'm getting around to is in both cases, it is a very targeted level of uncertainty or a very, very specific uncertainty there for the dominant culture. Very much so. Yeah. And funny thing about it in the 80s is,

like if you wanna talk about who should have been really worried about the crack epidemic, it was the folks who were actually, you know, having their children and their, you know, siblings and members of their community, having members of their community die from it. But the hand-ringing and the pearl clutching all came from Nancy Reagan and, you know, white suburban. Well, it was a way to dog whistle too. It was a way to step up the prison industrial complex I mean there were a lot of moving parts on that So it first the Twilight Zone was popular in the 80s writing largely on people's misremembered nostalgia

But also the success of syndication for less successful shows like the Twilight Zone. Just the same reason that like Star Trek is just ineffably like very very popular, which also had a second run in the 80s because of syndication. Well later in the 80s, but yeah. Yeah, well 87, that's only two years later, but yeah, again, it's 20 years after the last one started. Wait, back up. Hold on. 80. Somehow I had thought it was 89. No, TNG started in 80. Maybe I'm thinking about when it actually got good. Yeah. Yeah. There's a couple of plastic episodes that were good.

Well, yeah, but when when Riker, when Riker grew the beard, it got a lot better. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. So, but pretty quickly it sees a repeat of its prior lack of success. Now, here's what is more attuned to people's tastes. Webster, Mr. Belvedere, and different strokes. Apparently people liked having Shetland African Americans, but caught a drink. But they wanted, well, who were wiseasses. So they didn't mind black people on screen as long as they were physically smaller.

Nonthreatening. Right. Framed, framed, framed. Confirutational, but jokingly. Yeah. And framed in a... Raised by white people. Framed in a context of being fish out of water amidst comforting levels of whiteness everywhere.

Yeah. Look how they don't find. Yeah. Yeah, look how they don't find yeah, and and Portraying very much a Adjustor kind of figure we're gonna talk about that Science filter to yeah fish out of water smug British housekeeper who's a smart ass. Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah or collection oh going It will just just you know the the collection going. Well, just just you know the the you know, ghettoization of science fiction as the genre that is the the court

gesture. Yes. To go back to William Gibson, who I quoted a step-a-step. You know, we need on a subconscious level to have somebody poke holes in our illusions, but we prefer that it'd be done in a funny, non-threatening way. And in none of its incarnations has the twilight zone been None of its incarnations has the twilight zone been funny or non-threatening true true You know what was funny and non-threatening though what a bunch of drunk people in Boston Oh, yeah, and yeah, and on a drama level by the way because not like drama wasn't big in the 80s Yeah, oh geez oil families in Texas that can't stop scheming against each other. Well done. Yeah. Um, one of them ends up on his deathbed because his ex sister-in-law ran him down in an insane rage.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Yeah. Is that J.R. or Bobby? No, that's Bobby. J.R. I'm going to get shot. Okay, Bobby got run down. J.R. Got shot. Yeah. Okay. Um, and then it turns out it was all a dream, right? Uh, good Lord. A cop drama featuring the former captain of the Enterprise and Heather Locklear. Oh my God. And who wouldn't be attracted to a comedy about four girls who are living with their former

nutritionist above her bakery, which burned down in the same year? Wow. I mean, you take the good, you take the bad. Take the bad. You take them both. There you have it. There you have it. The facts of life.

So did seem to be a saturation of the market too. Because not only did Twilight Zone came out in that year, but so did Alfred Hitchcock Presents in color, which had also come out at the same time, and so did amazing stories, which was kind of a spill burguian version of outer limits. So anthology series were evidently a proven commodity and fairly cheap to make, but the other two were way more family-friendly and escapist. Twilight Zone at its core was far more reflective, and the ratings showed we still don't want that again.

But it is interesting to note that some of the first episodes dealt directly with nuclear war. So they tried reflecting, by the way. Well, they did. I think there's other elements to that also. You know, talked about Alfred Hitchcock presents there that is catharsis because you're dealing with the thriller genre. True. Murder mystery or thriller genre, which has that adrenaline. And it's wrapped up in an hour and you get a comforting ending to it all.

And amazing stories was straight up escapism. It was fantasy slash sci-fi. And I mean, there were, I remember there were a couple of episodes of that show that were really freaky. They were, I remember there were a couple of episodes of that show that were really freaky, but most of them were pretty, pretty happy fluffy Jim Henson. And they were kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

They were affirming. Yeah. They were affirming. They were positive. And Twilight Zone. And to a lesser extent, outer limits. Yeah. But twilight zone, particularly, has always been, when it's been really good, artistically,

it's been subversive. Yes. And the others were affirming, like I said. So yeah. Yeah. And I think the other thing that wound up dooming the toilet, it's almost not just we don't want to be reflective, we want to escape, we don't want to have to actually face our demons.

I think the other thing is it did lean really heavily on nostalgia. Yes. And when they ran out of the old ideas, they didn't have another rod circling to right-shit for them anymore. Yeah, but look at the people they did have doing the writing. Those were some really good fucking writers, too.

Well, during the first season, I don't know, I mean, later seasons, I don't know if they still, because again, we're talking about budgets, we're talking about viewers falling off. I don't know if they could get Harlan Ellison or George R.R. Martin. Well, the second season had an hour long run time, but it switched to Saturdays because of poor ratings. So it's not even that they had bad writers as they just weren't getting the ratings. And then it got switched to Saturday nights, which is death for any show, except for like two of them. And it was canceled that year. And then it got brought back after a gap year.

And it's really kind of the same stuff that we saw under Jim Aubrey, format changes, day changes, et cetera. And then it was just gone again. Until 2002. Now, this time it only lasted for a season and for the same exact reason. It's not commercially viable. But we need to look at what happened leading up to it. Okay, so it's 2002.

All right. Nothing happened, not a damn thing. No crises, no president who'd created a situation in which an existential threat to our existence through bad policies, no inheritance of a world obsessed with stability. Total coincidental that shows us about our culture using this format popped up again.

So now we're going to move on to 2019. Back up. Oh, what? Hold on. Did I miss something? Who actually, yeah, well, I'm not saying necessarily you missed something, but in 2000, it was 2002, you said? Yeah, so I mean, nothing had happened. Like, we were... No, well, no. Yeah, I mean, there wasn't the same level of existential dread not at all Who did it in 2002 because it's still CBS CBS and with force Whittaker as the host okay And a whole shit ton of guest of guest stars. Yeah, Jessica Simpson was in it

There I mean yeah, oh they had tons of people that end up like really making their bones in the mid 2000s. And it only lasted a season. Yeah. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Okay. I'm just going to say until you mentioned 2002. I don't know if I ever even noticed that it happened at the time, but if I did, I had completely forgotten about it. Was there something happening in your life that was important then? Because back then, there was nothing important that happened in this country in 2001 and 2002, nothing at all. Especially during the beginning of the 2001 TV series or the 2002 TV series, nothing important happened in this series. Well, I mean, the 2010 election was a complete moondoggle.

Well, OK. We all had the brief absolute panic mania of Y2K. Right. But I'm talking 2001, 2002. There's nothing important historically that happened there at all, just absolutely nothing. I'm sorry, 2001.

Yeah, like, nothing, nothing, not a damn thing. Like how many episodes have you spent ranting about the fall 2001? I don't know what you're talking about. What do you, what do you mean? September of 2001. Yeah, fuck it, kidding. What? Nothing happened.

I don't, I just, no, there was no existential threat to us whatsoever in 2001. I don't, right. Yeah. Uh-huh. Right. It ruined enterprise. What? You know, that's coincidence.

I don't know. No, I see. No. No. Fuck you. There was a point where we tried to read past this so much. Would you like me to reread the paragraph that I said? Yeah, no, I...

This will prove it. No crises, no president who has created a situation in which an existential threat to our existence through his bad policies exists, no inheritance of a world obsessed with stability. A total coincident that a show like this shows us about our culture using this format pops up again, totally coincidental. So nothing happened. I didn't even bother researching, I just know. Nothing to do with it.

Nothing. Well, wait, that was what the 30th anniversary of Pinochet, right? That was... Okay, before I say what I'm about to say need to clarify for our audience of course that we are doing this via Skype. You are lucky. Yeah, that is the only reason I that the audience has not heard a very loud set of thuds is I reach across the table and slam your head into the

into the table solving your problem. I should know as I haven't been broken 20 times, but I'm doing it probably three or four more. Are you kidding me? You know what? We're out of time for this show. So let's just skip that time and then I'll come back for the 2019 iteration. So, so okay. the 2019 iteration. So, so okay. So in in in 2002, we were getting into another war and into a war in the Middle East for the second time and in just over a decade. I'm sorry the show is running long. We're gonna have to stop it. We'll just assume that people So, you know, I mean, I think I think intellectual honesty should be should be called on here to point out that Maybe somebody got the idea to revive that series because you know September 11th happened.

Um, maybe. I mean, I guess, uh, I mean the scalar the scalar issues that you're talking about the level of existential everything might not be there, which might be the reason I only managed to last her that brief period of time. But some group of executives had to be fucked up enough to have said, well, you know, I'm thinking, you know, Rod Sirling, man, maybe, you know, I'm just thinking. I don't think anybody was that cynical. I think they were just reacting and they're sitting around going, all right, we need, we need an idea for a show. We have a half hour gap or we have a one-hour gap. What do we got? And so he's like, how about Twilight Zone? People are like, fuck it, let's go with it, you know? But I don't think that Dana Carvey's movie coming out at that

same time was really that big a problem for our country. I still don't know why you're making such a big deal about September 11th, 2001. I mean... I fucking hate you. Anyway, moving on. Fine, 2019. Well, actually it has been a good episode and this is a good, good stopping point and we'll pick it up in the next week's episode of 2019. pick it up in the next week's episode of 2019. And so, you're cheap.

I'm not going to ask what you're reading. I'm going to ask what you're drinking because you're going to need a belt after you give me a belt. Oh, two or three. Right now, I'm earlier in the evening. I finished off a not small bottle of Brother Thelonius Belgian style Abby ale. I'm so proud of myself. I'm sorry And and you know I had thought you know I drank a lot earlier. I shouldn't have another beer And I went and got myself a sparkling water at one point when we paused. And now, now I'm in need of another goddamn bigger. If only just to break the bottle over my head. Pastor, yeah, well, yeah, maybe virtually. Okay. Figure out how to do that.

All right. Well, if you want to reach out to To measure it with with Ed here Where can they find you on social medias on on the Twitter machine. I'm at eH bla lock on Instagram. I'm at mr. Bla lock and How about you? I'm at duh harmony both on the Twitter and the insta So you can find me there. You can also find me on twitch.tv, forward slash capital puns every Friday night at 8.30.

And it is hell yeah. As well as every Sunday night at 8.30 on twitch.tv, it's forward slash calling it in the ring, where I and Johnny Taylor, local comedian, as well as world traveling comedian, breakdown, different wrestling matches every week. So we're starting that this coming Sunday. So those things are happening. And now for the really fun part, hey Ed, what did you glean from this episode? That's not from the fact that my podcast partner is an asshole.

That's not from the fact that my podcast partner is an asshole. I think what really struck me in thinking about it is the extent to which our generation, Gen X, has spent our entire lives on one level or another dealing with some kind of existential dread. Like, you know, the boomers were born into the Cold war. And they they they suffered through dealing with that. And now and and then we came into the cold in our early adulthood, where it looked like we had beaten that and we weren't going to have to deal with anymore. Yes. So this like, oh my God, the world is gonna fucking end. We're all gonna die. Yeah. You know, that stuff wasn't gonna be a problem anymore because the evil Empire, as we had all been raised from childhood to view it had fallen apart. And then, and then, 2001, happened and we realized, no, we fucked that up. And... Is that because Cheryl Crowe didn't get her album released at that time?

Yes. Did we have to listen to her? Yeah. time. That's exactly it. And since our own blowback, you know, the chickens came home to roost. We have now had to deal with We have now had to deal with Watching the generation after us now having to deal with a different kind of existential issue in that you know The kids I'm teaching the kids we're both teaching even though the ones you're teaching are older than mine They have all grown up in a world where we are just constantly at war Mm-hmm in the Middle East. Perpetual war. Yeah. We have always been at war with East East.

Central Asia. Central Asia. Yeah. And, you know, we see, you know, the memes on Facebook and on all over the internet about, you know, how millennials are reacting stuff and how boomers are reacting stuff. And then the picture is always, whenever Gen X gets mentioned and we don't always, but when we do, it's always, here we are with a gigantic martini glass cackling because

like, well, we saw this before. Right. You know, and just, just, I don't know, the, the, the, the, the, the weight of realizing how we have never gotten away from that really hit me. Yeah. You know, how about you? Well, as I think we said before in our very depressing COVID episode, the students who are graduating this year were born because of 9-11, many of them. And in the four years that they've been in my high school classes, 9-10-11 and 12-graders,

they have seen calamity after disaster, after calamity, after catastrophe, after pandemic. Like, and that's been their norm. And it's just, it worries me because it feels like the, the drain is, the circles are getting tighter and faster in the drain. And I, I just want to grab them and tell them, by the way, this is not normal. You got a really bad draw, and I worry that I'd be lying. I mean, I'll find out in four more years, and I'm not talking necessarily, presently. I'm talking just, if this goes on for eight years,

then this has been a problem. And by the way, when they were in middle school and late elementary school, the economy collapsed. It's just never not been shitty for them, and that worries me. It really does. No way to totally understand that. But we are running up into a hard deadline, so I'm going to stop it there.

I'm just going to plug one more time, Twitch.tv-cappable-puns, and Twitch.tv-forwards-lash calling it in the ring. Please come and check those out. One on Friday at 8.30 and one on Sunday at 8.30, respectively. So, and in the meantime, for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock, and until the next time, don't go through the doorway.

time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock. And until the next time, don't go through the doorway.