Podcast: The Ride - Cosmic Bowling with Pat Cassels

Episode Date: March 27, 2026

Some genius decided to spruce up ’90s bowling with lasers, fog, and a ton of blacklight crap. Thank you, whoever you are!Pat Cassels (Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, Good Sports) returns to thank this mysterious stranger too!"Alf's Music Career" episode is up at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠FOLLOW PODCAST: THE RIDE:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/PodcastTheRide⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/podcasttheride⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BUY PODCAST: THE RIDE MERCH:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.teepublic.com/stores/podcast-the-ride⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠PODCAST THE RIDE IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/podcast-the-ride⁠ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Warning. The following podcast is not your daddy's podcast. It contains attitude, lasers, words spelled with Z instead of S, straight to DVD heists and real-life heists involving our guest, Pat Castles, who flips the black light that turns bowling into cosmic bowling on Podcast the Ride. Welcome to Podcast the Ride, where we've always believed that raves would be a little more appropriate if they involved less E and more B bowling, that is. I'm Scott Gartner. There's my Carlson. Hello. I'm here, and I also, I say that to myself quietly every morning when I wake up, you know?

Because I like, you know, we know I like a big, dushy party, colorful lights, but what would make that better bowling, of course? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You love colorful light. This is one thing that we know. The more colorful, the lights, the better. One of the top five things people know about me is that I love colorful lights. He himself is a colorful light into the world in and of himself via his love of colorful lights. Are you saying maybe everyone likes colorful lights?

It sounded a little generic the way. And the list was, do she party one, colorful lights too. I like here. The tune are not necessarily in the same. umbrella. I also like delicious food. I also like when the sun is out and it's not too hot. And I also like when people compliment me. So those are unique things about me.

I just wanted to let people know about. Hey, Mike, I really liked your list just now. Well, thank you very much. You know what? I really like it when I get complimented. Oh, so I heard. Jason Sheridan is also with us. I'm still just trying to wrap my head around the fact that Mike likes delicious food

reasonable temperature and sunlight and compliments okay I know a wild card we got on here I look yeah hey we know it we've been dealing with this guy for years for a guest now he's like what have I got myself into who are these crazy characters we're all different let me tell you

we're all some wax People tune in for the interesting perspectives and interests. I was still trying to do the math of the B instead of E. I'm glad you said the B was bowling. I'm still trying to figure out that E. Oh, the E is the drug E, which as far as I know is, yes, is still in 2026 as far as I know, the primary rave drug. I would be the one to know, and I do know, and it is that.

Would you like to hear my alt runoff versions of that joke also, since you're questioning? Oh, yeah. I mean, I've always thought, you know, maybe Raves, if Raves had a little less MDMA and more AMF play. AMF being one of the big bowling brands, which is something that we, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know it's a good one if you got to explain it. You know, I just, I've just always thought that raves should have less getting lit, more 710 split. Would you agree? Okay, that one.

I want you to know I was not criticizing the joke structure. I was criticizing myself for being unhip and stupid. Well, look, get some e. Listeners, send Jason to me. Send it to the Forever Dog address. Send drugs in the mail to Jason. Is that Molly? Do they just call that Molly nowadays?

Yeah. How do you not know this? Well, because I'm... You're the drug boy of the three of us. I'm up to date. I call it Molly when I'm at my raves. I think we've called you drug boy on this show before, right? A lot of times.

Yeah. So how do you not know? You should know. You're falling behind is what I'm saying. I know. The world moves too fast for a little guy like me. I made you cry by saying you're not with the drugs anymore. Just burst into tears.

He's got drugs to do. He's got catching up to do. But, you know, but look, the point of the joke was actually to, you know, bring us into kind of a world of tameness of like a little, almost like, well, I'm sorry, the word might be microdosing, but not like that. It's like a little, I think what we're talking about today is a little like microdose of theming. And I like this topic a lot because I think it's a kind of a, a, uh,

deceptively clean pitch for a podcast The Right episode. Because if we're about themed entertainment, this is a way that light-theming, sometimes extremely light-theming, is around all of us. In every city, in every town, everyone listening to this. We often bemoan that there isn't just more themed entertainment in every strip mall and every little plaza. And this is kind of a way that it is in its own little light way. And I'm talking about cosmic bowling.

That is today's topic. Cosmic bowling, the reinvention of bowling that changed bowling forever. Or for about three years in the 90s and then now it's just kind of something that happens also. And this topic comes to us courtesy of a guest who was last on the show four years ago. Can you believe that? Talking about Planet Hollywood, the centerpiece of our Celebrary Month, which we have a lot of fun doing. He is an Emmy winning, right? Comedy writer. I thought so. I didn't think I was wrong there. Who's written on full frontal with Samantha B. and most recently, Good Sports with

Kevin Hart and Keenan Thompson. It's Pat Castles. Welcome back, Pat. Hello, so happy to be here. I had a pitch two for the intro using some drug slang, a little less rolling and more rolling. That's good. That's good. That features the multifaceted uses of that word. Yeah. This is great. I was at risk.

I wasn't sure A, if that was correct, and B, if you guys would even know if it was correct. Well, I'm worried that Jason doesn't know now. Are we still call it rolling? What is it today? I know rolling. And I know rolling that big heavy ball towards those 10 pins. Oh, yeah. That glowing ball.

Right. That glowing ball, yeah. Yes, in this case, the glowing ball. Pat, I'm so excited you wanted to join us again and that you brought this to us. I did want to touch on the top. We talked about this, teased it a little before we started recording, that you joined us last to talk about Planet Hollywood. And that was an episode where I remember specifically that you brought it up and that I said, yes, but you should know

we got a lot to say about that one so you should sit your ass down for a very long Zoom episode. Get ready. It's going to take a while which is something I still feel guilty about being part of the deal. I agree. I agree. There's a lot of meat to chew on there.

I mean like you just like it takes a long time to do like one lap around a planet of Hollywood let alone like talk about its history. Yeah. Yeah. And you and the food is one area. and the locations are one area, and the, like, fancier ones as opposed to the scaled-down airport ones,

let alone the memorabilia. And you were also saying, and I agree with you, that it felt like you felt like no one had talked about Planet Hollywood for 10 years before we did that episode. And then afterwards, there's been just a weird cascade of information, whether or not that's true, or we've just,

we're just more, like, tuned to it since talking about it for so long. Well, definitely they announced that it was coming back that Times Square one within days of that recording. That's like factual. Wow. Wow. The opposite of the PTR curse. Sometimes we bring things back from the dead. The other, we go the other way.

And now you, am I correct? You went, you've been to that Times Square one since that. Yes, with one of your, my friend and another one of your guests, Mike Scalins. Yes, indeed. I met him there with some of his friends for, we were going to, I think we'd be. were going to, I don't remember why we were going to Times Square, probably a show or something. And we, he was like, want to meet at the plan on Hollywood. And we did meet there. And boy, was it disappointing.

Okay, yes. So on the ground review. Yeah, what we've, because we've heard this and we heard it referred to as like, it's going to be, you know, not your daddy's plan on Hollywood. This is a whole new deal. This is very current. This is 2020s. And that it's part of a complex. with another brand of his chicken guy that these guys are very fond of and that it's all part of one but sprawling complex of food entertainment but is that not how you would describe

what you visited? Not at all. It was, it was, you go upstairs. As many times square restaurants have that, you have to, you go lucky strike, which we'll talk about later,

obviously, that's upstairs. Anyway, yeah, it's beige. So already off to a bad start. and kind of like they clearly try to like class it up a little bit. I mean, the key, the real takeaway is basically no memorabilia. Like that's, I should lead with that, which is the heart and soul of a planet of Hollywood. So I was shocked. The walls are like 90% like video screen, LCD screen, like floor to ceiling or like waist to ceiling.

But I don't even remember. They weren't even playing like movie clips. Or maybe they were a little bit, but it was like three very random movie clips. like Jurassic Park, Deep Impact and like Casablanca or something like that, like whatever they thought constituted the history of Hollywood. Okay, kind of the same since they opened? Yeah, like it's true. That's not very different.

It's not very different. It was like our on brand for Planet of Hollywood, but it was just those three, if anything. I think it might have been just more like shots of Times Square or something. So it just felt like the soul had been sucked out of it. It's not even, I don't even understand why they would call it Planet Hollywood, except for, I guess, the brand recognition. But yeah, I don't. Maybe it was, that's coming later or something like that.

I don't know. It was shocking, I thought. Well, surely that you said that the walls were beige, but surely the carpet was the pattern of one of the most beloved zoo animals, correct? You know what? I don't even remember. I can't, the carpet is not embedded in my memory, which already means it's not a plan of Hollywood carpet. Yeah. They fucked up.

If you don't remember that from like decades later, if the carpet is. not burned in your brain. It felt like a, what's a comparison? Almost like a Chipotle or something like that. Like a higher end Chipotle. Gosh, this is heartbreaking to hear this. Yeah, I don't really understand if it's like transitional or maybe the idea is to have those things play movies or something like that.

But who, and where did all those props go? Yeah, well, I know the answer to that. Yeah, well, those, yes, Sylvester Stallone and the tube showed up in a lot of different thrift stores and stuff across this world. I know where the memorabilia went, at least some of it, because I went to like a gallery that was the opening night of an auction of all of that stuff. It was like it was an opening gala with free snacks and wine even. Just for no reason, you just had to give them your email address and that is all.

And then you could lose like some of it genuinely incredibly cool. Like, it was not all Schwarzenegger-Stillone movies, although that in and of itself would be great, obviously. But they had, like, they had the, they had the door, like, or whatever, the piece of wood from Titanic, the Jack and Rose. Yeah, yeah, that's where that's been, unless they're lying, or it's like a reproduction or something. But I'm like, I'm looking at the door,

the thing that they've run scientific experiments about. You can argue that's the most, that's probably in the top five movie props of all time. I think it could be. Yeah, yeah. That and the President Morgan Freeman's desk from Deep Impact. Well, that's what I'm saying. They should have kept that door from Titanic, and then they could, like, use it to serve, like, a big steak on or something like that.

Oh, yes. Big fajita platter. Yeah, yeah. Titanic door grilled salmon. It's much better than a cedar plank. Or, like, if you could slice door, if you can get two people to stay on this door, your meal is free. This is one steak. You won't want to let go.

See, not to do High Hollywood, not using that. Not even into slogans. I mean, again, they don't want to do quotes. They don't want wordplay like that. Yeah, no, it's crazy. So they got rid of all that stuff. I'm almost just more confused and mad, but anyway.

Yeah. Well, Griffin Newman already broke my heart the other day because it came up in a text. And I was like, well, the upper levels are playing Hollywood. And the bottom is chicken guy, right? And he's like, I'm sorry to say no. Chicken guy is on the ground floor next door. They are not really connected.

I kind of remember that a little bit. But there is one there, though. I don't know why you were so upset by that. Well, I thought it was going to be a big, sprawling celebration of Hollywood in Guy Fiori's chicken. He wants to take a slide from one to the other. He wants to be able to go on a little shoot. Exactly. Yes. Yes.

So you thought there would be props in the chicken guy as well? Well, just probably like a rubber chicken or, no, I guess Dave's would sue them for that. You know, I don't know. Okay. I don't know. It would be cool. They can have like a, here's the move. The Dave's chicken, kind of its own area, but it's all any chicken movie themed props or chickens from famous movies.

So you could have like, I don't know, like the claymation model. from chicken run or um that's good yes what's another famous chicken uh the other claymation models from chicken run yes and the the yes the chicken gonzos chicken is that what is yeah yeah that's what's got's good i think yeah yeah prime or just all it should be all chicken run could be 100% the chicken run at last this is very unbrand for plan Hollywood in the beginning of the sequel to the fugitive U.S. Marshall's, Tommy Lee Jones wears a big chicken outfit.

Is that true? He goes undercover in a big chicken costume? He's like, yeah, he's like, he's pretending to hand out free samples at a restaurant. And then he pulls it, it's so, he pulls like at the end of the scene, wearing this chicken suit, he pulls a gun on the suspect and the mask is off, but the rest of the suits on, he pulls the gun on the suspect or the fugitive.

And he goes, um, is like, uh, regular extra crispy. That movie has stupid stuff like that. I got to see this movie. That's how the continuation of the Academy Award winning Academy Award nominated fugitive starts. Yes, the like, yes, all-time classic movie. Wow. Okay, I got to check that out. That seems like a good, like, spiritual error to him as Two-Face.

So I'll get into that. But here's now the news that I want to break, which came to us from Griffin, that Planet Hollywood has announced. a partnership, a $100 million deal that they signed with 50 cent. And that 50 cent will be taking that Times Square location and reimagining it as yet again, not your dad's planet Hollywood, but as a whole new endeavor called PH Live. And pH Live is one of those. That's in my brain.

Like surely they must have already tried something called PH Live. Because that's just too, like, it's so generic. Like, how could they not have done that before? But here's what's weird is that what you just said about that restaurant is that, yeah, it's kind of weird. It's so there's no memorabilia and it's all LED screens. Then I'm reading the article about this place and it's what they boast is it's going to be loaded with state-of-the-art LED screens. So it sounds like that's already what it is. And then while 50 Cent does certainly have like a strong personal brand, I feel like I would understand.

what 50 cent the restaurant was more than P.H. Live, a 50 cent concept. Like, what is, what is it? How is that going to change things? And how is it worth $100 million? Did he give no other details except that there's going to be video screens and that it will not belong to our father? Like that your father will hate it, even more than the current one. Yeah.

We know already wasn't, the current one isn't his, but now, you know, he owns it even less. 50 cent isn't like, no offense to him, the youngest man or anything. He's, I think, older than us. Well, that's when he gets into a restaurant ownership, I feel like. I guess so. He's in his restaurant ownership era, like Guy Fieri.

I don't know if he has, I mean, I'm not saying an older man can't own a restaurant. That's not what I'm saying, but I'm just saying, I don't know that he has this, not your father's sort of point of view for an exciting choice. And yeah, right, he is a father. It is literally going to be his, His father's perspective, yeah.

It'll be a father's planet Hollywood. Right. That father being, I'm assuming 50% of his kids, I don't know. Okay, but there are some more details, which is that, like, it's going to host more events. Surprise performances. So the next time you have a surprise performance to boast, do it there. Live sports watch parties, album launches, over-the-top birthday celebrations that feel more like exclusive Vegas shows. Great.

As opposed to those low-key birthdays, as opposed to those low-key birthdays you want to plan Hollywood. Over the top. Yeah, yeah. What are you doing for your birthday? Just like, not keeping it simple. Just, you know,

uh, just, just 20 friends going to planet Hollywood. It's, so the Times Square one is going to be, is it shutting down or is it for a while while they redo it or whatever? I think maybe, but didn't it already?

It was down for a long time already. So now it's going to be shut down again to be molded in 50 cents image. Uh, uh, it is going to serve his personal favorite foods, including sweet chili shrimp, steak with mac and cheese. And here you go, and this is only for, this could only be from the mind of 50 cent. A signature burger featuring a secret sauce.

Yo. This, yeah, uh-huh. Is that, right? Jason, is that what excites it was the signature or the secret? It just blew my mind, you know? That sauce could be like any other sauce. And I'm hoping those big LED screens too. I'm hoping they play various cutscenes from the various 50 cent video games.

It's funny you mention the secret sauce being everything. Last time I was eating at a Times Square restaurant, they were like, how's the food now? It's like, it's fine. It's like all the other ones. And I just imagine that like I think my theory is that there's like one giant kitchen in the back of Times Square that serves all the restaurants. Every single time it's pretty much the same.

That's a very theme park. thing to do. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Just kind of shuttle those same fries and those same burger buns to every different. Yeah, but you, but you call it Fitty Burger and now we're, you know, it's an entirely new thing. I was trying to think like get rich or like a sandwich and or fry frying or something like that. Get rich or try try frying. Yeah, the optional fried sandwich. I mean, listen, I'll be honest. Like anything I might as well. It can't be any less. It already sounds more interesting than what's currently there. So I'm off board, I guess.

Possibly. It's worth a shot. It also says it will showcase memorabilia from his film and TV career. So now they have taken the open-ended concept of the premise is you see memorabilia from all stars. They got rid of all of it. And now it is solely memorabilia from 50 cents. Well, an unopened still still in the plastic copy of 50 cents. blood on the sand from the PlayStation 3?

Yo, let's go. I remember that. That was like the Shafu of of KST2. I never played that one. I did play the 50th PlayStation 2, the first game, and it was nearly unplayable. I'm just, I mean, I'm just excited because there is, like,

a dense filmography that we finally, we could, you know, that we can see. I thought aren't most of his movies those like straight to DVD things or it's like there's a few of those. Yes, exactly. That's what I'm saying. He has like a longer filmography than many due to that nature of film. Like John Chocolta is in half of them.

Weirdly like sometimes weird like Anthony Hopkins will be in it or Morgan Freeman or something like that. And it's like what's going on here? It's like the greatest cast of any movie ever assembled. Yeah. And it's a direct to DVD. You're like, what's going on here? Why did Anthony Hopkins do this?

Oh, look. The first one I clicked on, Escape Plan 2, Hades, is a co-starring vehicle with Sylvester Stallone. It all comes full circle. So maybe this is the way to get Stallone shit back into Planet Hollywood. I got to support it for that reason. There's multiple Bruce Willis movies, too. Another early Planet Hollywood guy. Yeah, yeah, he made a ton of them, yeah.

There must have been a 50-cent Bruce Willis in that run. There's multiple. There's multiple. I'm looking at multiple. There's multiple movies with Bruce and 50. Different plots. Is it a series or is it different plots? I didn't have enough time in the last minute to check.

It's different films but the same plot. That's the answer. I don't know that for sure, but like I'm looking at one that's a heist. And I bet they were five years later in a different one that's the heist. And they all have names like, you know, like maximum fury or like deceptive secret. Fatal interrogation, yes. I guess now those are just straight to streaming. Yeah, that's what's nice.

They don't even have to, everything is straight to. All things are straight to, essentially. So that helps that entire industry. I think if it hasn't happened already, with like this, the ocean of these like straight to streaming movies that we'd ever, like these, probably some of these ones, like some of these movies, I feel like,

the server that has the file is just going to, like, correct. I, the business, whoever owns it is going to go out of business, they're just going to let the, like, the link rod happen. And, like, literally entire movies will just, like, blink out of existence. Like, I think that's literally in the cards now because they don't, like, I'm sure, like, you know, Bruce Willis and 50 cent in, like, you know, sinister secrets seven doesn't exist as, like, physical media anyway.

Right. And it was made as, like, a money scheme of some kind. So, like, there's no. No, no one is even thinking about it. Right. It's all just a weird pyramid scheme of some kind. Many of them shot in like the country from the terminal that stopped existing. Yeah.

Hey, I have some plan of Hollywood news too that kind of just because we mentioned the plane of Hollywood casino in Las Vegas. News story about that recently. So that's a Caesar's hotel. There apparently is like an ongoing, like, bids. Someone is trying to buy Caesars. And it's one of our other favorite guys, Tillman Fertita, has made an offer. Wow, really? On all of Caesars?

Is that right? Cedars entertainment. Tillman Fertita is the owner of the Landry's group of restaurants, which is Rainforest Cafe, which, what are the other big Langerie? Bubba gum, Shark House. Mm-hmm.

He's a titan of this industry. Golden Nugget Casino. Oh, really? Wow. That's, well, that's huge for the Fritia umbrella of items. That's, yeah, yeah. So he is, he now owns this hotel.

He's in a, he's bidding on Caesars, which would include the Plano Hollywood Casino. Does it include like multiple? Doesn't Caesar's own like three or four? Oh, they own a lot. Yeah, Harrah's and the horseshoe, which was formerly Bally. The Venetian, right? Or the Paris one?

Yeah, the Paris one. Because I stayed there with my dad for my birthday. My, for my birthday, air quotes, my dad and I went to Vegas to see the Eagles play at the sphere. Oh, interesting. Oh, like, we're sphere fascinated here. Only Mike has been. How did you enjoy that? I'm pretty sure I sent you an update or two on the trip.

I can't really remember. But I remember like... Yeah, I think you're texting about something. Yeah. And although they're all, like, three or four of the hotel, like the Venetian, I think it might, is the Venetian? Is it a different hotel? That's the closest to sphere. Yeah, that is the closest relationship.

The two, two, two, one or two casinos that are adjacent to it, you can, like, walk to them without, you know, through tunnels and stuff like, like, you know, it's like one big mall or whatever, but yeah. Right. Oh, sure, sure. How are those Eagles visuals? What do they bring into the table as first on the screen? So my takeaway about the sphere is that when they like, when they fully utilize the space and like built out a not even 360, you know, full immersive 360 front back, left right, video, it was pretty awesome. And this is the Eagles, which I'm sure there's like bands that are much more, like you can imagine like, you know, like a, uh, BTS or some sort of much more visual crazy band, um, having going crazy with it. So the, but only like less than half of them

had built videos that were that, that were, that utilized the full 360 space. The other half or more, the front in front of you was like a gigantic video of some kind. Um, and the sides were just kind of like screen saver sort of because they clearly had not like built i guess it's probably just unbelievably expensive and difficult to make those like insane 360 sphere videos that have that can not be used anywhere else on the planet um yes yeah yeah you can't you can't send those straight to DVD so it might be a time or a money thing i'm not sure if everyone does that so i just thought that was kind of a unfortunate like because the tickets are not cheap and you know it was a my dad my dad like my dad is not a Vegas guy like uh I was surprised he wanted to go but he was uh

even the sphere even drew him the allure of the sphere even drew him so I imagine there's people coming in from all over the world to go to this thing was yeah well that was was there like a big cartoon witch during witchy woman or something that like kind of tried to snatch the audience i think no witchy woman was one of the screensaver ones it was just like a it was like this loop video of like a woman doing kind of just a witchy dance and then she like doing her like diving into water from underwater, like, over and over and over again. I think I distinctly remember that one. They have the assets from Wizard of Oz.

They could just easily take the original witch from Wizard of Oz and put her into this Eagle's song. The actual actress without permission. I didn't hear of Rich women in Wicked to. I thought that was a missed opportunity. Yeah. So they're, they're dropping a few balls in Sphereland, but not many. Yeah.

And like, and the one of something, there was one. There was one. The ones they did go out on were like pretty awesome. Like there's obviously like, you know, maybe where the early, you know, as time goes on, it's still kind of new. People learn. Hopefully. I mean, hopefully it just become this sad, enormous eyesore that takes up 10% of Las Vegas's real estate. I'd like to see that. Yeah. This is what we're hearing. But the, but yeah, when it becomes a sad ice, if it becomes a sad eyesore that nobody goes to anymore, then it's the most. Prime podcast, The Ride, material. Yes. We'll really get interested then. Well, let's move things over to something that, like, you know, an area that is a spectacle, even to rival 50 cents pH live LED screens, and that is cosmic bowling.

This has been long in the works, just between Pat and I, you pitched this a long time ago, and I'm always delighted when it comes up, and I'm excited that we're doing it now. Just because, like, we have definitely never thought about this. And yet, I think there's, I think there's a lot to talk about. I think in hope. Like, you know, we'll see how much there is as far as, like, history or story to this, which maybe there isn't. But I don't know, what made this occur to you, Pat, is an area for us?

Well, I don't remember the, like, when it just popped. I probably, maybe it was bowling or something like that. Yeah, I think I was like amused by the fact that like I didn't even know What to call it like it's not a ride It's not like an I guess it's an experience. It's more like a vibe I think this is maybe this is the first ever just vibe you've ever done on the show I think so this totally classic but yeah because the experience is not different in any way than the Actually than the regular act of bowling like it really is like pure theme and that is 100% what we're

talking about. But also I think, you know, as a fan of this podcast, I, and I've been listening to it for many, many years, some of my personal favorite episodes, and sometimes they're on the secondary or third tertiary podcast are the ones that are like, don't necessarily, you wouldn't expect to like fit into the rubric of what this show, because it's pushed the boundaries of what could be on this show. Like, I think you did a Joe Camel episode once and like, and I think it's, I think it's fun because it simultaneously, has no business being on the on the on the on the on the on the on the on the podcast and yet feels like it has to be like it feels perfect for it you know so and i think cosmic bowling is you know sort falls into that rubric i don't know it's just something about it that and i and you know and i think also the the nostalgia of it um you know it kind of lives in that same spot as like chucky cheese or um other childhood um birthday like occasions that i'm sure you've done multiple of uh So I think, and I honestly, honestly, I'll be totally honest. Like I kind of felt like I'm getting like I sort of this is a free.

I set like the Scooby-Doo squad to get the history of cosmic bowling. And I'm getting like the dossier for, I'm expecting the dossier for free now. Like, yeah, who did make this thing? Like what, who has done it and stuff? And, you know, I don't know. Well, yeah, there's a little bit about that, although I'd say measure your expectations. I think let's overall, uh, uh, does. describe what we're talking about, which is that, I mean, I guess then this, this involves some history,

that in the, in the mid-90s, in an era when bowling was starting to hit its ceiling as far as customers and people who do it, and it was very much, you know, starting to feel like a, a middle-aged or older man activity, some genius, I believe within the, I'm not even exactly sure if it's in the world of Brunswick or AMF, but then all these things kind of merge together. Wait, name a third one, Scott. There's, well, look, you got Lucky Strike, you got Bolero. There's a boat to say nothing of, yeah, they're pyltsville. Yeah, well, they're all kind of of this.

I've realized they're all just kind of part of the same organization. No, I'm sorry. Yeah, I was, I just, the dominance of Brunswick is just incredible. I always tickled by that. Brunswick, yes. That'd be a good child's name to bring. That's a strong child's name. Well, that's Little Brunswick.

But anyway, it basically, it was somebody's genius idea of a way to expand the business on nights and weekends into a younger demographic. That what if we took what people regard as staggy old 1950s bowling and we turned it. on its head and we sent it into outer space and to go back to what we're saying about 50 cent not your dad's bowling this is crazy bowling it's wild everything glows the ball it's black light the balls glow in the dark in some cases there's fog machines there's lasers there's colorful lights mike's favorite thing i mean really like very much after mike's heart and And there's like, there's a ton of names for this, but Cosmic seems to be the strongest one. Have I, do you feel like I've missed any details that we feel like are the big, big tenets of what we're describing?

Sometimes the music will change over to something a little more, like a little louder, a little more, you know, maybe more contemporary or something like that. But I think you've bailed a lot of them. the decline in well it's less interesting but the decline in league like bowling leagues there is an LA Times article from 2000 and they're like oh yeah they're really struggling there's a huge drop in people in like leagues or company teams and they're trying to make up for it and I get I I know it used to be very popular, but when we were kids, I just knew it as like friends' birthday party or like when you were teenagers, you got a bunch of people together and go rent a lane. Well, I think also, I think for my childhood, it's like if I was going out and doing something, it was like a movie. And before you can go to concerts or go to bars, it's like you could either go outside and like go into the woods and walk around. But like, you know, you,

go to a movie. Arcades were already kind of on their way out. So, like, bowling was, like, kind of one of the only other, like, third places, I feel like, as a child that existed. You could, like, bum around the mall. Yes, and even though, and it made a lot of sense as a third place and another thing to do. And so appealing was it as that it kind of would override for me that I don't strongly care for bowling.

I don't feel terribly good at it. But it sort of doesn't, Matt, like, you could, you know, it's. It's like fine and pleasant to do. I like that there's kind of a rotation. It's your turn. Everybody talks, you know, like, it's like a dinner. It's like there's structured here. And there's a little bit of the, you know, you got to pay lip service.

All right, it's my turn. I'll go do it. But it's, you know, basically just like a good way to get people. It's like a dinner. It's like one of those dinners where people kind of actually. And to your point, Scott, good for socialization is like, as each person gets up in bowls, like the combination of people sitting at the at the seats waiting kind of changes so you're forced to talk to other people like when I bowled the other night you know it was I I went with three friends and you know I was talking to one person one minute and they had to go up so you switch to the other person and yeah there's uh I will say I I don't I don't know where um this might be the best place to say this because we're kind of getting into like our core memories of bowling but I yeah I was thinking like my history with cosmic bowling you know as a child I enjoyed it. like it was always kind of fun to do, but I think just overall as a kid, I actually really loved going to bowling alleys.

Like it was something I was in a bowling league briefly. I didn't stay for long, but it was a, but I just like and I think the reason I was so drawn to it was going to bowling alleys because as a kid, it felt like the one truly adult place that I was allowed to go. Like when you go to a bowl, like a non-lucky, like the bowl. like the book is bowling house there's usually a bar adjacent to it back then people were smoking inside you see some like childless adults like kind of not in like want to see kid mode like you the vibe of it was sort of old fashioned um and and you get the you're entrusted with a pair of shoes that aren't yours that you have to return and so i think i i always remember like just really feeling like kind of a grown-up when I went to a bowling alley.

And to me, that's sort of part. And I think as a kid, I was always trying to be a little more, a little adult. I had a briefcase and all that stuff. And so that was kind of a, for me, that's one of the allure of just the bowling alley overall, which is funny because I think cosmic bowling is kind of trying to do the opposite, as you were saying. Like it's sort of, it's kind of almost autumn on this podcast, because I'm probably the minority of kids who preferred standard bowling to cosmic bowling. You would rather have bowled in the 50s and had a bunch of cigar smoking men in a league invite you over.

Yeah, I'd rather bowl the 50s than outer space. Right. Now, I'm the opposite. Yeah. I wanted a bowl in space. You wanted to bowl in space. This gave you your opportunity. And look, you are still assigned brown loafers even in cosmic ball.

The shoes don't seem like one of the things that get fun. So you still get your old 50s, man. Yeah, yeah. Which seems like a big, I mean, I guess that requires any bowling alley to like, you know, replace their entire shoe lineup, which is every size and every half size. It's a big, like, I feel like there's a reason very few bowling alleys have started in the last 60 years. You could get moon shoes. Yeah, I mean, it would be cool. As long as they have that, as long as they're treated with that spray that every, every, every movie with a bowling alley scene has to show a guy spraying the shoes.

with the spray. Can you look at what's in the spray? That spray would kill a squirrel if it breathed in a little bit of it, I bet. Is that proprietary sprayers or is it just like Lysol? I actually know it's a good question. I didn't look into that. What kind of spray? Is it only for that or could we all get bowling spray?

Because it's got to be killing. It's all healthier, cleaner lives. Fungus is probably what it thinks, like it's killing supposedly. Yeah, what else? Bacteria, yeah. Right. So it has to be like some pretty, I mean, if it's, working. It might be fake. We might be able to expose that like that spray is just for show,

which honestly would make more sense. I just Googled Bowling Vision shoe sanitizer. Sandy Spray 501 has been used in leisure and retail since 2007. It's 90% alcohol. So that's all that mystery. Wow. Okay. 90% alcohol, but maybe Jason 10% secret ingredient. Hey now. Secret sauce. If you got a drink from the bar, you could do a little spray of that spray into your drink. I bring my own spray. You're all an alcohol spray. Spray a little in your mouth and a little on your shoes. Slowly go blind.

Uh-huh. I was hoping had a little more magic to it, but alcohol is probably a good... Seems very functional, very clinical, as a lot of bowling culture is. So to introduce this like hip extreme teen element is kind of a, you know,

it was a big swing, I think, for bowling to take. And I I feel like in searching for anything from around the time when it was getting popular, that I would find articles that are very much in the genre of, tell me if this makes sense to you. Like, it's something I've noticed about local news broadcasts is things that would involve the phrase, they call it.

And then in this case, cosmic bowling. Like dripping with judgment, there's a new thing, and I distrust, they call it cosmic bowling. I apparently designed to appeal to a demographic that needs a little bit more, a little more of the ADD generation. You know, I sensed hostility in the 90s to this new invention.

No, there's nothing wrong with your television. They're bowling in black lights. Around 10 p.m., this bowling alley turns off the fluorescent lights, but they're not closing. No, they're turning on the black lights. They're turning on a black light, but no, they're not looking for semen. They're not looking for semen. This bowling alley becomes more like a disco tech than your local lanes. If any after-hours masturbators are caught, it's purely accidental.

Maybe that's the origin of it. It's like the guy that invented silly putty was actually trying to develop rubber or something. bad. This guy was like, as you see, I've developed a semen detection machine at our bowling alley to get rid of all the masturbators and they're like, oh, it actually is kind of fun. Or it was like one repair man who was like jerking off on the lane and he wanted to make sure he cleaned it up one night. And then the owner stumbled upon him. Did you put that black light up there? That's a really fun idea for kids. Oh, uh, yeah,

yeah, that's right. It looks great. Thanks, John Cosmic. John Cosmic, the chronic masturbator. John Cosmic, the Chronic Mastervator. Wow. Well, this is a great waiter. Yeah, he was able to write his legacy and make his word. The word cosmic didn't exist until him. It wasn't used by NASA.

Well, that's another point. How often do you use that? The only use of cosmic that I have ever used is cosmic bowling and then the power cosmic with Silver Surfer. And in both cases, it's awesome. Yeah. No, it's, is there a bad use of? the word cosmic? Not as far as I'm concerned.

Is there a third one? I'm trying, Cosmic bowling, the power cosmic. Well, there's this, very good comeback album, Cosmic Thing. Which is a song as well? B-52s. Okay. Which is a little bit before this.

So maybe that might have been going to word out and Smash Mouth's album is called Astro Lounge, not Cosmic Lounge. That's close. Mike, that was too ham-fisted of a way to get them into the show. you tried your best but Astro is not cosmic

I think it was pretty close I think it belongs here I think the reference I'm with my the reference belongs here because I do feel like if you could like take a late 90s bowling alley

and turn it into a band it would be smash mouth yeah you think that's right it's sort of like the facial hair it's the style of hair it's the style of shirt certainly right or yeah we were we were bowling when I'm one of my friends had there at the music

was whoever's DJing was great because it was a lot of like early late 90s early thousands just felt bowling appropriate i think like the kill that somebody told me about the killers played and i was like you know i could see being cosmic you know teenagers bowling to that i was probably i probably aged out of it at that point but um music the music the very essential point of cosmic bowling yes yeah and and i think maybe the music has shifted a little bit from more like electronic to, I feel like now it's, like, Cosmic Bowling is maybe more likely to be like 90s throwback. It certainly was the other night when we went. Okay.

Or 90s thousands. Yeah, it does feel like there's been a shift musically in Cosmic Bowling to where, I think in the 90s it might have been more, it's going to be electronica, and that's part of it. And then now I feel like you're maybe just getting like it's 90s music. That's what the, the whole thing maybe exists as a 90s throwback today. Yeah, so that was I, when I went the other night with my friends bowling, that was the case for us, certainly. More late 90s or thousands, been, and it was music videos because at Lucky Strike where I went, there were, you guessed it, big LCD screens over all the alleys. And they were playing music videos.

If you market it, yeah, like Cosmic, which is obviously very 90s, like it feels like you owe it to people to make them transport back in time to their youth. But then also just the aesthetic of Cosmic Bowling has been absorbed by the like sexier bowling alleys of current day, you know, the lucky strike type. So like it's sort of the some of the aesthetic has been peeled off and integrated fully into the regular nights. And I think like they're, I know what you're like. And they're right, I feel like Mike. Like they're like we can't get mad at them because the whole point of like the guy when the guy invented Cosmic Bowling, John Cosmic, the masturbator. There's a lot more sexuality in this. episode then I thought there would be.

Speaking of sexy. Well, it wasn't the guy I wasn't thinking like, oh, I'm going to make this like quaint, nostalgic quirky thing. He was like, I want to make bowling cool. And that is kind of what Lucky Strike is trying to do. Yes. To the bitter end. Yes.

So, like, that is, I can't really get mad at them. Not that you were expressing anger at them or something like that. But I think I think we all probably would prefer, and I'm sure we'll get into this, but like, prefer the kind of more classic like just just basically black yeah black like lucky strike I don't you know we can get into whatever you want Scott but like you know lucky strike I went the other night to you know just try and make sure I did a little cosmic bowling book so I didn't come on here too cold but it was very difficult to find a cosmic bowling alley in New York City I called many places there was one place that was

she was like this woman, she was almost like surprised that I called, which is never a good sign. And she was like, we could turn it on for you. How many people? And I was like, well, I don't know when I'm going or how many people I'm going, but I'll call you back. But then so apparently maybe there's apparently one like on call black light bowling alley in Brooklyn, FYI people. But then I knew Lucky Strike advertised this thing called Night Strike. I got three, my friends who were on pretty much within 24 hours.

I was surprised while we're down to go to Lucky Strike after work. Shout out Justin Cassidy, Megan. Wow. Good adults, living their best lives. And they weren't even mad when it turned out to not be Cosmic Bowling because I advertised it as Cosmic Bowling. But like I said, I think it's as Lucky Strike, the general vibe of it is kind of, it's lucky, it's adjacent to Cosmic Bowling or something.

It's sort of the Disney, like if you think Cosmic Bowling was fun, we're, We're turning a bowling into like a nightclub slash theme park. Right. It's always a little bit cosmic. Can I backtrack to, Mike, you use the word sexier. What caused you to describe Lucky Strike as sexy? Well, I did say sexier. So I feel like your old aesthetic of a bowling alley perhaps isn't so sexy.

I feel like it's sort of bad lighting. A lot of, in my mind, like 1950s guys in shirts, league play, weird food smell. You're there to get away from the wives in the 50s. You're getting away from the wives, of course. But sexier, the lighting is dark,

it's a little neon. You can get a plate of like loaded fries now. It's not just regular chips and nacho cheese. Oh, you know, there's these upgrades. What could be sexier than loaded fries? Cosmic bowling and loaded fries.

Doesn't that put you in the mood more? I get a heart on in this. episode. You might not get a full heart on, but there's a better chance you'll get erect in the Lucky Strike situation than the old bowling situation. That's what I like. Unless you're Johnny Cosmic,

the masturbator. Unless he gets off more on the classic bowling. The first to desire to get a heart on in a bowling alley. I think that has a point though, because I'm pretty sure if you look at like the marketing or the images when you kind of look up Lucky Strike, I'm trying to bring it up now.

Like you will see like two young guys and like a girl and like a cocktail dress or something like that. There is a nightclub-esque vibe to the luckiest. I think they're trying to make it seem like a fun thing to do. You could get lucky. I see a big get lucky sign. So that's obviously an innuendo. Oh, you get lucky.

All right. Yeah, yeah. You could hook up there. I don't think you were hooking up in the old days at an old bowling alley as much, as much. Hucking up at a luck. So how did you guys meet? We met at the lucky strike. And like we just went into the bathroom because we were so all over each other at the

lucky strike at Hollywood. I know that sounds crazy. We were slip sliding around in those cursed shoes. We couldn't get our shoes off fast enough. Smash mouth was playing. She was bathed in black light. Right.

The sexiest music. She peeled off her disposable socks from the vending machine and I knew it was on. I don't think I had. Did they have socks? They didn't have them there when I was there. I didn't ask for them.

I didn't see them. I think that's a place by place thing. Yeah. I was thinking there's like a very vintage bowling alley in Korea town in L.A. called Chateau Lanes that like has not been updated in years. But it's just like it's it's so much fun. It's like they have the raised seating like above the lanes.

So you just kind of hang out and eat between your turns. and they have a lot of arcade games. Is it like stadium seating like for like spectators? Like whether they would have a bowling tournament there? It kind of looks like a lecture hall kind of seating. Like college lecture. It's like a college lecture hall. There's a great dive bar inside it.

But no one's hooking up there. Well, I don't know. Well, I don't know. They don't encourage it with a scandalous name like lucky. like implying you get lucky. Right. Yeah. It's not an innuendo.

I think I remember like when I went to Vegas because I'm not the biggest gambler. Like I'm always trying to find maybe you guys do the same thing, trying to find like what else can I do here? Which is many, many things. There's like there's always some weird thing. But like I was almost running out of like I had done the neon graveyard and the pinball museum and stuff like that. And I, I may be corrected on this on Google, but I think. think the the there's a giant bowling alley there no it it's the bowling alley where the end of kingpin happened it's like a giant almost arena for bowling and there's only like one of them really

around and it's that out oh really you remember the last remember the end of both the big tournament at the end of kingpin it's like a giant seating behind it and stuff like that like i think that's in vaga wow really i didn't know yeah also another thing another bowling love it's so just as it was aging out of the like this is cool to me because because it makes me, I feel like an adult. Then the Big Lobowski hits, and that kind of keeps my bowling, my sort of weird,

loving bowling for reasons other than bowling, love going for another couple of years. Yes, that is, I do, you get the urge to bowl if you watch the Big Lobosky. One of my friends, she ordered a white Russian, and I asked the waitress, I was like, you must get that a lot. She's like, oh, yeah.

Well, I wonder, did Big Lobowski like, Did Big Lobowski, like, cause a return, did it make people want classic bowling again, brown and tan bowling again? Did it like make that cool in a new way? Maybe not right when it came out, but by the time the cult had built to where now cosmic bowling feels like the weird dated relic. Hmm. Yeah, perhaps.

I mean, it took a while. How long did it take probably to be like popular? Because it was a hit movie. But it was probably like five years later. or four or five years before like everybody was talking about it yeah yeah it was when I was in college it was like very it was cool to like that movie so that was yeah that that would that that tracks for me I um I I mean I I would be very confident that bowling in general like league met I bet there was a spike in bowling

once that as that that corresponds with the rot the popularity I mean for sure like I just feel like that's yeah it's it's like it's like like you wanted to live the Lobowski story. You wanted to live your Lobowski. Or just embody him as in many ways as possible. Yeah. But it is, yeah, it's the complete opposite. The dude would not like cosmic bowling at all.

No. No, I don't think so. Yeah, yeah. Jesus might. Of course. Here's a thing. As far as like culture trying to reflect bowling right around this time, I think Big LaBosier

was a more relevant entry as far as bowling media than a video game that I looked up. Although this game might have been plenty popular. I don't know. But I found a game called Brunswick, beloved Brunswick, Circuit Pro Bowling, which was on PlayStation 98 and it was out on PlayStation in 98 and then on N64 in 99. But I found this because it says. Scottie, we couldn't get you Final Fantasy, but. I know you've always wanted to be a circuit pro.

What's that Simpson's video game, a golfing video game, instead of blood sport or whatever? It's so Lee Carvallo's Flooding Challenge. It's extremely Lee Carvallo's budding challenge. I've maybe never seen a video game more that than this. Yeah, yeah. Basically, this is a game where, I mean, just the select the player of the game is very funny.

and our friend Kevin Tully I've texted about, like, he's fond of like old stodgy video games that are based on golf where you can play as pros of the time like Craig the Walrus Stadler and so you're select the screen instead of like it's not NBA

jam where like oh I'm Scotty Pippen it's like you're being some like boring mustache guy and this game is so much that where like pick your Brunswick pro staff member like your staff Remember?

Yeah, now that I read that out loud, I was like, these must be like championship bowlers, and they might be, but it really waters it down to call them Brunswick Pro staff members. So either you're on a menu where you're going, who do you want to play as? Mike Alby, Parker Bone the Third? Do I want to be Ricky Ward or Walter Ray Williams, Jr.? And all of them have mustaches. Every single one of them is mustache. But then separate screen, create your own bowler.

If you don't want to be stuck being Chris Barnes or Steve Jaros, you can create, you can be, and use your imagination and be anybody. And there's tons of like select options like to customize your bowler. But the ones that I lit up at are like, I just can't believe that there's a video game where you can choose like, I mean, first of all, it's just like shirt. Like, what shirt do you want? Yellow. Pants, tan, please.

And then. But my favorite one is build, and you can select large. Like, you can decide if you want to be a big stocky bowler. And then shave, and the options are clean, mustache, goate, or beard. I thought it was going to be like, your options are mustache or bigger mustache. No Hitler's, though. They eliminated that. That's inappropriate.

What yours is from? What years the game from? This is 98 or 99 for N64. But I bring it up because there is a cosmic bowling option of the lanes that you can pick. This might be the only video game in which you can play cosmic bowling. One thing you can't do is play as a female. That is not an option. No such thing as female bowlers.

It didn't make sense in the 90s that a lady would bowl. The old man's, they can't wear those shoes. What mustache could a woman have? Did you look at the cosmic setting? Like, how did it look in the game? Did you notice anything? Well, you know how, I mean, I thought this is going to be the way to, like, blow this thing out. And like, now, oh, wow, now we're really using the graphics card, right?

Like, it's now colors are flashing and there's lasers and stuff. No, just it just, the colors change and the balls glow and that is all. There's no lasers. There's no music. It's still quiet. It's like, it's extremely tame. Oh, man. I was hoping it was like Rainbow Road and Mario Kart.

You know, speaking of video games, we didn't, I know, we didn't mention in terms of like both things that brought bowling back into the public consciousness, uh, we bowling. Oh yeah, of course. That was pretty big. I mean,

I forgot. I did that all the time. But I feel like that really like people almost in a weird way didn't even associate that with like bowling or bowling alleys. It was more of like a, I'm being fit kind of thing. But still, I'm sure,

certainly people like were bowling a lot during that, the great. Yeah. I wonder. I wonder if that actually helped bowling alleys at all or it was like, no, you know what? We can do everything.

in the house now. Yeah. We don't have to go out. We can just go wee bowling. We does every, we can do everything on the Wii. It's crazy how like it was treated like it was like it was like it was treated like they had like to pioneer AI or something like that. It was like a really big deal considering how like Matt doesn't really seem that impressive.

I don't know. It also led to some very funny like blooper America's funny his home kind of video kind of clips where people forget to put. a wrist strap on and just nail, like, throw the controller and just destroy their television. The very Wii, which is in this room I'm recording in, is broken now in a box somewhere. The GameCube broke and my Wii broke, but my original system, my three original, they all work. Nintendo Super Nintendo. All the original ones, wow.

Nintendo, Super Nintendo, N64. Well, all the cartridge, you know what it is, it's the cartridges. And not the disc drives. Yeah, right. Oh, they're the day they're their hardier devices. It seems so far, yeah. Do you crack the N64 open from time to time? Like, you'll just be in the mood for like a couple of rounds of F zero or something? I haven't in a while.

I used to more. But also then I have the switch where you can just, if I want to pay the extra, I can play a lot of those games on the switch now. So space-wise right now, it doesn't really make sense if I wanted to play Star Fox 64 or something. Right, right. Right. Well, you're not sure if they have Brunswick champions yet. Well, right. If they have that on the virtual console, then I'm in. The licensing, it was just too hard. The license, they haven't been able to figure it out.

It's like why Muppet Baby. Johnny Mone Smith or whatever his name was wouldn't give his life rights over. What was that? What was the guy of name again? He's only a, yeah, yeah. What was his name again? Do you have it? Wait, did, I don't think. there was a Bones in this. Oh, wait, there's

Parker Bone the third, but that's Bone like B-O-H-N. Yeah, yeah, amazing. Not a nickname, but just last name is... That's not a nickname, that's a last name, Bone. Maybe he's like a bowler. Different spelling, different. Yeah, that might, yeah, that's one of the most prominent. We don't know if he was a bowler in his regular.

Did Kenbone pass away? Is that, am I making that up? No, I don't think he, I think he's around. Our regular segment, are they still alive? I believe Ken is still around. I could be wrong. Did I just implant a memory of Ken Bone's death? Oh, yeah, okay, good. All right, good for Ken Bone.

I hope he's doing good. Hey, I gotta say it. Someone's got to say it, beautiful human submarines. What? That was Ken Bone writing about pregnant women. He described them as beautiful human submarines. Oh, wow. I don't remember a Ken Bone's essay.

in like a book or something or not in my brain whatsoever like his online history like I don't know if it was in a sci-fi novel is that it it does seem like he would have some self-published side-wise you think what you think like 20 you know because when you go to when you go to lucky strike there's not like um actually there's different areas that were that are like different corners of the of the of the time square lucky strike are like themed as different like Ours was like kind of New York City themed and like it had like old like had like faux lamp posts and stuff like that and then there was another area that was like kind of like like more like future themed or whatever or stuff like that but um I'm thinking about like trying to make things red like you go to these places that have all like the retro stuff like

will there be like photos of Ken bone on the wall in 20 years or 10 years feel really strongly fondly recalled 2008 or whenever when was Ken Bone Why? What is he? Yeah. I'm reading about it now specifically it's pregnant

women in bathing suits are beautiful human submarines This was his Reddit Someone found What does it mean? What does it mean? His Reddit You I

Jason recalled that so quickly And some like I just Sometimes there's like other basic things You're like The most common reference on earth I was I was impressed I remember Ken Bone at all, but Jason knows like Ken Bone's deep dark secrets.

Yeah. I don't know if he was alive or dead, and Jason knew the phrase beautiful human submarine as if he'd thought of it yesterday. It's like Donnie Darko, they say cellar door is some beautiful, the most beautiful phrase in the English language or something. Same. I thought it rough, kind of within a year or two of I love my curvy wife. So there was something to me.

I love my curvy white. Oh, you're right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. These are similar sentiments. Cliff wife? Clip wife. They're still married.

For the record. Oh, that's nice. Curvy submarine wife. My curvy beautiful submarine. Yes. Yeah. I guess we should talk about any personal experience we have or like strong, vivid personal memories because I think I have been now through the entire history of cosmic bowling.

Well, actually, you know, it's the only thing I didn't say is that in 97, I think, I was actually legitimately the peak of bowling, like the most people did it that year, and it was entirely due to cosmic bowling. Like the most new customers were in the door. So it was extremely successful at the time. Today, it seems to be kind of this novelty, and like Pat was saying, like, yeah, we could turn it on, how many people want it. And I've called places that say they have it, but then they, when I get on the phone, they say they don't.

Both Pat and I had to do a lot of calling. This is kind of a strange aspect of the same thing. A lot of confused people. So we do not know. We do not know who, for lack of a better term, invented cosmic bowling. Or you didn't find, like, who developed it or whatever. I don't know what the word is. I don't think we have a name on it.

I know that cosmic bowling is a copyright. The phrase was owned at one point by Brunswick. But I think Brunswick got swallowed into Bolero. And now Lucky Strike, which you went to controls. Bolero and therefore Brunswick, Lucky Strike, of course, and AMF. So almost all bowling is all part of Lucky... So therefore, I think Lucky Strike owns the phrase Cosmic Bowling.

So we don't know if... What's kind of the David Ellison of bowling, right? A hero? It's weird that... If they do own cosmic bowling, if Lucky Strike does own cosmic bowling, it's odd that they... They don't use it because, like I said, they either call it night strike or glow in the dark bowling.

This adds a real air of mystery. Like, who is the first person to kind of have this idea? It's interesting. I wonder if some guy got screwed over by Brunswick. I said somewhere say it was invented in the town of Antioch. And I don't mean the one in the Mediterranean region. I mean, I don't think I know what state Antioch is in. Does anyone?

Where my Antiochians at? Is it Illinois? Yeah, shout us out in the comments. I believe it's Illinois. Antioch is who. I think it might be the one in the Bay Area. Is the one that invented Cosmic Ball. I see.

I see. So if you have ties to there, you're our only hope. I feel like that's a town name that not on the level of like Springfield, but there might be an Antioch in every state. It's possible. It does have that ring to it. But thank God they didn't call it. They could have called it Antioch Bowling.

There are many other names to it. This is probably one thing to say. But in that they call it type articles, I did find, just here, let me do a quick run of, I've seen it referred to as glow bowling, glow in the dark bowling, extreme bowling, midnight bowling, rock and roll bowling, that's after Mike's heart, rock and bowl, moonlight bowling, disco bowling. And then in an LA specific article, I saw that maybe just one alley in San Dimas, California, referred to it as nuke at night. What? Is that a little inexplicable? Yeah, it's a plan. I guess it's a Nick at night parody, but nuke?

Because it's like the glow is like nuclear power. It's like there's been a nuclear meltdown and now the bowling alley glows. Perhaps at the time that wasn't such a feeling in the air. Yes. What year was this? You're paranoia. It's funny San Demos, it's funny San Dimas, California, because that is the setting of Bill and Ted's excellent adventure. And there is a scene in that where I believe Napoleon goes bowling.

Oh, okay. Wow. Not Newk at night bowling? Plain bowling? No, it's regular bowling. I guess you can't really copyright neon lights. Definitely. Yeah, it does seem tricky.

Like just the concept. That's what I'm saying. It's a vibe. No one owns it. You can't own it. It belongs to the people. Exactly. It belongs to the earth.

Well, yeah, it's just like it surrounds you. I actually, you were asking Scott, if anyone said to have any personal stories about cosmic bowling. And I do actually have one. Yes. When I was young, so when I was, like I said, I loved going bowling when I was a kid, my regular bowling. And it was like I said, it was just probably the middle of the middle of a day on a Friday or a Saturday. And we were kind of bored and we wanted to go bowling. But it was like late afternoon.

Me and my cousin Anthony, by the way, who I hung out with a lot when I was a kid. So we go to this bowling alley. And it's like late in the day. And we are like, you know, can we, you know, we'd like to go to the counter. We're like, we'd like, you know, two hours on the lane or whatever it is. And, like, actually, um, uh, our prices are, we're about to switch it. We're switching over to Cosmic bowling in a few minutes.

So, um, you know, the prices, pricing is going to be a little different. As probably worth mentioning, I think oftentimes causal usually, usually paired with some kind of deal or different pricing structure. Um, and I think it's more meant for a big group of people to save money. But obviously we were just there alone. So it kind of was going to want it being more for us. So we're like, well, we're here before cosmic bowling. Can we like, you know, get charged the regular rate?

And the guy's like, well, no, because, you know, we're starting in a few minutes. So while you're, while you're bowling, the cosmic bowling is going to be starting. And it's like, you know, it's everywhere. So you're going to be, you're going to be participating in the cosmic bowling. And I went, well, yeah, but, you know, we're not going to be like enjoying it. And just totally deadpan. He's like, that's impossible. And you know what?

He had a point. That's a great moment. Wow, he's damn right. You were operating, like, those are buffet rules. You go at the end of a breakfast or a lunch buffet, so then you pay less, but then you can grab the other stuff when the clock ticks over. Wait, how does that, how does that save you money?

So, like, if you go with, like, breakfast buffets, breakfast is the cheapest meal of the day, okay? You go at the end of the breakfast buffet, and towards the end, and then you get the lunch items too. But dinner is very expensive. So, like, if you go towards the end of lunch, they'll be putting out the good dinner stuff. So, okay.

I was thinking of a, like, I see what you're saying, going from one buffet. This is a restaurant where they just go from one buffet to the next buffet. I think a buffet is, like, it's an option. It's either buffet time. I'm used to places that only have one meal of the day is buffet. style, but I guess maybe like Golden Corral is different or something. Yeah, certain, like, like an old country buffet or hometown buffet, they just switch out the foods.

Jason is saying that you're just going to eat, you're going to eat breakfast and lunch within 15 minutes of each other. And then he's probably also advocating hiding out an event of some kind to stay for dinner. Well, you just have like enough to keep up appearances. No, that's not what he's, no, it's not what he's saying. Eat as much as you can. and then eat as much as you can at lunch. They eat all meals. Yeah.

And don't forget the healthy bags in your bag. Right. And wear big pants. But yeah, you're right. You're right. Take a big bag of roast beef home. You could wear several pair of underwear and keep the roast beef in the different meats is like almost like a filing system and your different underwear you're wearing. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. You know how like casinos have like walls of people who are like, They know our card counters and they like politely ask them to leave. Like, are you blackballed from certain buffet places because they know you're onto them? Am I? Yeah. You don't want your business, sir. No, they don't know.

He's too slick for them. Catch me if you can scenario with him where he's still on the run. Sir, our food margins are plummeting. And I can't understand why. Customers always right, pal. Jason's running out with it like a whole side of people. beef. I honestly, I don't even like buffets that much.

I don't know why I know these tricks. You don't like buffets at all? I don't, no, I like them okay, but I feel like the food quality is usually worse. Well, I was surprised. When I went to Vegas, I, you know, I feel like the buffets in Vegas are these legendary things. So the first time, or one of the times I went, I was very excited to do it. And I was surprised how expensive it was.

Yeah. I think they've scaled back a lot of them, and then the ones that have remained, they've really built up so they can charge you like $80. This is the thing. If you're after deals, buffets are not the way to do it. Like, if what you're after is a discount, stay away from buffets to begin with. Yeah, I agree. I just... Jason does.

You're saying you can make it cost effective if you're willing to, like, I guess, hack the system or... If you go into... In an all day endeavor, get five meals out of it. Yeah, and much like a bowling select your player's screen, come with an array of mustaches and goatees so that you can never be put on a do not serve list. Go in the bathroom in between each meal and change your outfit and your facial hair. See, you change from a plane polo to a striped polo and they're thrown off, you know. I haven't been to a buffet.

Maybe it's another city thing. I don't sure there's many buffets here. I wish there was. No, I don't think there's a lot. There's like hot bars at like certain bodegas and grocery stores and stuff like that. But like kind of, but those are not at all buffets. You're paying by, you know, the pound or whatever. By the pound.

Yeah. But I certainly would like. I've heard there's, I read an article just recently about the sit down pizza huts. They still exist out in the world. A few of them. A scattered few. I guess there's salad bars, though. Yeah, there's one.

There's one. I think Scalins and I are going. to go next time when we're I think we're we have he's definitely going but we have loose plans to go to Halloween horror nights and I emailed him when I read this article about the close the only one that I could find that was anywhere even remotely like convene is two hours outside Orlando so oh I want to go I're going to do a two hour trip for that specifically he was game I think I might have said it was one hour but that's a lie I figured I would just like I'll let him know and we're it's like Christopher Klaus, like Magellan, like we're already too far out to see the turn back.

And then I'll let them know. Oh, that traffic on I-4, you know, you never know. Is it a pizza hut or is it just a sit-down pizza hut? It's a sit-down pizza hut. Yeah, also, I think I was conflating buffets with salad bars, but I think it does have a salad bar. We had a pizza-hud buffet in Schaumburg or nearby Shambard. Like an all-you-can-eat? Yes.

Yeah. It was amazing. What was in the buffet? What did serve? all the different types of pizza Oh wow We would just put all the pizza out There would be a salad part too

The answer is just pizza Just different pizzas Unlimited pizza It's a dream It's a dream Jason's right Yeah it's a dream A bunch of teenagers

With like a You know A few bucks It was under $10 for that buffet She would just go and camp out Yes and they would have That is a buffet I love But even when pizza

Sit Down Pizza Huts were like, were, you know, when they were, when they ruled the earth. They rule the world. I don't remember. They weren't all buffets, right? That was a unique thing. Correct. Okay. Wow.

Not all. Yeah. Yeah. But we had one specific one that was a buffet during the day, I think. I don't think there was a buffet at night. I think it was during the day. I like these Wild West days of like letting franchises kind of go off the grid like that and giving them autonomy.

Because I think even in this article I read about the sit down pizza huts, it's like, you know, pizza hut, it depends, like, it's kind of up to the guy who owns the franchise if he wants to spend the money that, I guess, expand or whatever they have to do. Oh, I, Pat, I got to tell you. Now it's like all Chipotle's kind of like the same. Really, really bad on Chipotle today, by the way. Sorry, Chipotle. No, it sucks.

Not a good vibe, bad vibe. I'm sure I've talked about it before, but I still, like, have such fond memories where there was a very large, like, pretty beautiful, like, brick and, Wood Burger King that had a Super Nintendo and then it upgraded to an N64 that you would just play. And then Friday nights, you ordered at the counter and then they seated you and brought the food out to you. And before your food came, they brought you a basket of freshly popped popcorn. And that was an event to go to the Burger King. And that probably was like not that.

I'm guessing that was just like that franchise owner was like a really loved his job, I guess. I don't know. I like they to describe that as beautiful. So I assume it's like he's thinking like St. Patrick's Cathedral, then this Burger King he's talking about. I don't think it was built originally as a Burger King. I think something had gone in there before where it's just like a very pleasant looking building that like eventually Burger King moved into. It used to be the Museum of Natural History. Yeah.

You could have a cheeseburger under a giant whale. Yeah. I'd love to see a picture of it. I mean, it might be beautiful. I'm making jokes here, but, you know. The whale blew popcorn out of its blowhole. Fresh popcorn. The Sit down pizzas do kind of exist and that's, I guess it's the same.

I mean, the common theme here between Sit Down Pizza Hutts and Cosmic Bowling is birthdays, I feel like. Both places you would have, you would have birthdays around that age. Yep. I've had a pizza birthday and I had a bowling birthday. These are all places that like a pizza hut, a Chuckie cheese, a bowling alley. I never did the Chuckie cheese. I think I was like, I don't know, maybe those didn't blow. I don't know.

For some reason, that always felt too kiddie for me or something. Like I said, I wanted to be an adult and I wanted to go to, I'm going to sit down and have my pizza or go bowling. You wanted to sit in the back and smoke a cigar with Chuckie, but not play in the ball pit with Chuckie. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. We wanted to learn with them. Does he wear a bullshit? You want to discuss this business ventures, hostile takeovers.

Yeah. I want to see what the books look like. When I went to Lucky Strike, I ordered food there. I think I'm the only one to order food, but I shared. I got chicken fingers and French fries because I didn't have dinner. And I was thinking that I asked for a knife and fork with the chicken fingers because, you know, you're putting your fingers in the bowling ball hole. and you know, it didn't have, it didn't, and I did, it didn't remind me another thing about bowling alley. It's like, I don't know if I call it charming because I don't think anyone would agree with me if I did.

But like the sort of, there's a bit of like the riskiness that you kind of buy into when you go to a bowling alley because it is kind of disgusting in a lot of ways. Like the shoe thing we describe, the shoe thing is pretty gross. Or I think a lot of people would find it gross. And then the fact that like we eat food, it's like, it's like very normal to eat all this finger food. while you're bowling. It's like part of, you know, people associate getting, going to be in a basket of French fries, be their buddies I do. I don't know. But like, yeah. And I can't think of really a worse place to eat finger food than a bowling alley. Like you're literally just putting your fingers. You're touching greasy items that you're sharing with others. It's insane. And you're, but like as you're

putting your fingers, literally just your fingers in these dark holes that I'm guessing they don't watch those. And it's just like, uh, so it these, I think these days, I'm almost surprised. that's something that gross is like people are still cool with it. I'm kind of glad. I like it. I don't know. I do find this charm.

This is my version of like we should be allowed to smoke indoors. Well, yeah, we did the downtown Disney bowling alley and we had the same problem. I mean, we had like so much food sitting on the table. And I think I went to the bathroom in between every frame to wash my hands. Yes, yes. Because it was just like gooey and dri-and-like, I'm like, I don't want to touch anything. And then, yeah, I don't want to touch the balls which are like rolling in lane grease. And then the ball, and they come out of the ball return.

I'm sure that's greased up. That's got to be toxic, too. And then I'm just like putting my hand in some sort of like fondue or something. Like, I don't, it's too gross. Did it, was everyone washing their hands between or did it do you get the other two? Did you guys kind of just, was there a sense of abandon? Absolutely not. Jason said, I like it.

would lick the balls before, like the Jesus from Big Lobowski. Yeah. Just the holes. Or the Jesus from, let's not forget, the 2019 pseudo-official sequel. I know. I don't want to forget that John Totoro wrote and directed his own sequel to the Big Lobosky. But it was also a remake of a French film. Yeah, a remake of a French film.

I honestly have not watched it. How am I seen this? I love the Big Loboski. Well, I bet it might be a little different than the Big Lobosky. Yeah, it's not the call on Rose. The buzz is maybe not extremely strong on it, yes. Officially written and directed by John Tutoro. Mike is right.

When you said absolutely not, Jason, you mean you absolutely not? You didn't wash your hands before you ate? Or absolutely not you didn't eat the food at all? I washed my hands before I ate, but I wasn't washed after everything. I probably just took a fork and just kept stabbing stuff. Ed light. Yeah, that's what I did. But I'm sure, but the people next to us, there was actually a, next to us was a,

the lane with a private party, uh, owned the next couple of lanes next to us. It was the gap corporate was having some sort of event. Wow. Wow. That's like, did you get starstruck? A little bit, a little bit because actually one of, one of my friends who was there. She was apparently a new, she was starstruck because there, I guess there's a new bowling ad starring this rapper, some Puerto Rican rapper who is very popular.

I sound like a million years old. But it's like the current cool Gap ad. And so weirdly, and that came up before we realized the gap was there. So I did lean over at one point. I was like, hey, just so you know my friend there, we're big fans of your work. Because I'm a big fan of their, you know, like the khaki stuff from the 90s and all those ads. And, you know. And we weirdly, it felt on brand because we were talking about how the late 90s is a very bowling cool because there was, of course, Lobowski, but also swingers and like bowling shirts were kind of in.

And those gap ads had a lot of like, I don't even know why I would associate it. I just feel like there's probably some gap ad with a bunch of guys in like khakis and T-shirts like in a bowling alley dancing. Like I don't know if I have that, but it's all how to feel. it's like I guess the gap well the gap did embrace the kind of like um swingers esk um uh swing swing dance the swing dance revival yeah oh right and i think bowling kind of fits into that and the gap was very much at the forefront of that of course with their commercials it does fit into like you know the the brian sets orchestra of it all there's all the parts of like kind of retro greaser type looks like it's all kind of part of the same family so i think we it was bizarre that

We were literally talking about the gap, which is something I haven't, I don't make a habit of doing all due respect to the gap. So, yeah, we were a little. I got the name. I got the name of the rapper, though. Young Miko. Yep. That's it. That's it.

I'd love to walk up to a gap, like a gap corporate part and go like, hey, wearing your slacks. You know? Hey, got out. Hey, I'm wearing your quarter-zip sweater right now. And you've got like a Sharpie? Recognize these bad boys? Yeah. You had a Sharpie and you're like, would you sign the pants please? You guys made these.

They were 70% off online with an additional 30% off with this email coupon. So I have no idea how you made any money. I write the email coupons. That's my job here. There is a gap credit card. And most of the stores under Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic, I believe, From what I've seen of employees posting on Reddit, it seems to be the clothes are secondary to trying to get customers to sign up for a credit card. Wow. Jason, why are you on these clothing store Reddit so frequently?

Because I like to buy these clothes. I was to say you're spending your time. Learning about credit card schemes. What our kind of content is on the Gap Reddit? Oh, just talking about like trying to get PTO, trying to get promoting. motions, but there's all these corporate shakeups. Oh, people are always going on. I should take a photo with the Gap Corporate and posted it on there.

It probably would blow up. Oh, yeah. Is that East Coast director of sales? Well, it's John Anderson himself as I live and breathe. But the Gap, so the Gap private party, though, they did have like, you know, as a party, they had all this catered by Lucky Strike, I assume, sliders and mozzarella sticks. And I'm sure again, I think they were raw dog in it, if you know what I mean. Mm. Really?

By which I mean finger food at a bowling alley without washing hands. Were they, would they change their pants if they got a spill? Do they have a bunch of fresh pants? Yes, yes. They all. And they also, also their side of the lane was in black, in like very cool black and white. And they did a choreographed swing dance every time they rolled the strike. Well, that's fun.

Pat, we should talk a little bit about our experience. Oh, my God. our little cosmic bowling expedition because like here we you know we've been talking about personal experiences of which i have very little i don't know that i did this as a kid particularly i probably thought it was like four teens and therefore scary so i i don't know that i have gone cosmic bowling so i was curious and i thought we should do it together while you were in town because you're typically in new york but you were out here for work so we wanted to uh hook up and and uh you know get a not that kind of hookup, Mike.

Even though I know that's very common at bowling alleys. A lucky strike sexy variety. Right, right. Yeah, we set out to try to do Cosmic Bowling together, which immediately we ran into some obstacles because as we were talking about needing to call places, which you needed to do in New York as well. But here, we ended up with kind of the quagmire of like,

we had a limited amount of days in which to strike, pun intended. And those days were not Friday and Saturday, the most common days for, the days where maybe a lot of bowling alleys become just fully cosmic bowling. But what we had to work with was like a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, right? So we had to figure out what bowling alleys offer that maybe all week during the week, which sent us both onto phone call expeditions separately. I'm sure you called the same people. So I bet these people haven't gotten these. bowling eyes that haven't gotten a phone call in like 25 years got two in like like what's going on here all the things are looking up and not to blow up your spot uh scott but like this is and this is the kind of person you are like this we're doing this deep research and like moving heaven and earth to find cosmic bowling and i feel like this correct me this like in the middle of you directing the oscars opening right yes this is yes this is accurate i don't imagine you on set

with like stellen scars guard being like hey stella can you hurry it up i got a cosmic bowling appointment in 20 minutes Well, here's a little Hollywood magic. He wasn't actually in the piece, but I, uh, uh, that was the magic of editing. You had to cancel that chute for cosmic bowling. Yeah, yeah, sorry. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not, I'm not going to line up with his schedule.

I have other things to, better things to get up to. But you know what? At the party afterwards, I did see him in a pizza line. Nice. Oh, wow. It comes back to, was it a pizza buffet? It was a, you know what? It was one station at the ball that I guess was.

a pizza buffet. I wish I had Jason's tips then and I could have passed them all on to Stellen Scarsgard. If I have to hear about Scott and Stellen Scarsgard, he, one more time. Those two sniping at each other

in the press. Just calling each other frauds. But I just wanted to bring that up to, I mean, this is like, I guess, to sort of, um, just to emphasize how committed we were to this task. To this goal, yeah, well, actually, what I remember I was doing is that I was like casting the kids in the weapons sequence. So I was watching audition video after audition video of kids running and yelling.

And if you can imagine that that task, though I love the kids that we found, that task at that moment was proving somewhat repetitive. So the opportunity to call some bowling alleys and ask when they would turn on the black lights was kind of a welcome distraction. Oh, good. I'm glad. I'm glad. Scott tromping on a cigar, a big cigar watching on these videos like, you don't got a kid, get back on the turn-up truck to Mayberry. The turn-up truck. Not loud enough, too smiley.

You slowed down at the end there, a little bit of hustle, and maybe you would have made it this time. I'm looking for it. Play that one kid again. Put that one back. There's a glimmer in his eye. No, there was a funny confluence of thing. And we did end up tracking down a place, which met our very specific criteria. I remember that they were, I think it was like only, we could only do Tuesday and Wednesday.

They were closed Tuesday, but they can do Wednesday, and they have cosmic polling every night. And we said, all right, this is exactly what we need. It truly felt like divide providence. Cosmic. You might call it cosmic. It was of cosmic significance that we found it. And this place, this magical place was in students. City. It is a place called pins with a Z. P-I-N-Z. So it's got edgy attitude even before the cosmic

aspect has started. And we were so pleased with ourselves that we figured this out. All right, I'll see it, pins with a Z. Here we go. It'll be the night of our lives. We get there. I think I arrived like one minute before you, and I arrived and pulled my car into the full parking lot. The absolutely not one space, not one spot for a person to walk parking lot. And I knew something was up because this was not just

like it was not a live, just one lively night there. This was all nice cars. It was like car service cars, like limos and escalades. Like, oh shit, something is happening at Pins with Z tonight. And then I, when I saw one of the

two parking attendants, not common from what I remember about Pins with a Z. I realized, oh, something is afoot tonight. And I asked one of those guys, I guess they know it's Cosmic bowling. They really go all out for Cosmic. They got a staff up. Yeah, yeah.

And people arrive in their finest clothes and their finest rented cars in order to go to outer space. So I ask one of the parking attendants, like, what's going on here? And they're like, oh, yeah, it's closed down. So many celebrities. Big deal. I'm like, oh, no. Oh, all right. Well, I guess I will pull out of here and I will get a hold of Pat and tell him that plans have not exactly worked out.

But we end up finding each other in this very busy parking lot. And you are, you, I felt like were drawn like moth to flame to the event. You did not go, oh, no, I guess we can't get in. You went straight to how do we get into this huge, fancy, celebrity-laden event. Well, thank you for portraying me so heroically. You didn't give up. You had can do spirit. We pushed each other on because I'm, yeah, I think we talked a lot about like,

I'm not really a sneak into party kind of guy normally, but I think something about this one. Well, I hate being told, like, I hate being turned away from places for sure. Like, I will, like, not even try to get into places if I think there's a chance I'm not going to get in because I just, like, would rather avoid the, like, the little sting of rejection at all costs. So it's a little uncharacteristic to me to be so, like, let's, try and get in here. But you came all this way. You're in town.

It took us discussion. It took us away from important work. We'd come all this way. We want to experience the majesty of cosmic bowling in person, damn it. If we got in, it wouldn't be like sneaking into somewhere like, you know, with like high security. It's like we could be like, oh, I'm sorry. We just thought, you know.

You wouldn't be arrested. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been to that pins before. Correct me if I'm wrong. Is there still an arts delicatessen? Oh, my gosh. This plays, this plays completely into the story, Jason.

And I'm going to say, I'm laughing because there's like the first thing Scott noticed about this as well. I used to live in that part of town. So I like kind of know that strip pretty well. Yes. Well, it's here. We will put a pin in that. It is actually not an arts,

but I will get to that in a minute. Let's put a pin with a Z in that because this completely factors into the story and it's important. But just to kind of like weave through what ended up happening to us here. Yeah, we set out to see, like, could we sneak our way into this thing?

And then we have the question, what is this event? And we go up to a window with a door. We check the door. The door is not open. All right, that's not going to be our way in. But it does. Yes, yeah, yeah, not the main door.

There was a guy taking names and I think maybe wristbands were in play. So like, I think I tried like lingering near him and like striking up some small talk. And like that was kind of seeing determined this is not, we're not going to be let in like through some sort of charm or whatever. So that. Yeah. Yeah. Despite us having so much of it, the charm would not be our main asset tonight.

We would have to rely on cunning as well. So we go to this side door and this gives us some more information about what's going on. there is a step and repeat and a little mini red carpet. And by piecing together the things on the step and repeat, we see the names of the celebrities who have put this event together. The first celebrity whose name I see is Byron Scott. And I grew up in Los Angeles, so I know who Byron Scott is. Byron Scott was a major Showtime era Laker.

He was a major player from the 80s before I was born into up until 93. So when I'm first going to Lakers games, Byron Scott is one of the guys. He ended up leaving the Lakers. He came back. He was like a senior player for Kobe's first season. And then the coach of the Lakers for Kobe's final season. We got to get it.

This is a chance to see like the basketball players. I loved when I was a little kid. We got to get into this place. Pat, you had a night. This gave you an idea, which I thought was an outside the box idea. You realized that you know somebody who is friends with a different Laker legend. Amir Blumenfeld, my friend.

from my college humor days. And still to this day, who lives in L.A., by the way. And he's also a huge fan of, I mean, a huge Lakers fan as well. He is, I believe he is personal friends with Rick Fox, another like Lakers legend. And Rick Fox, in fact, has been, this is not a secret because Rick Fox is actually a recurring character in their web series, Jake and Amir. So I was like, it just, I throw that weird neuron fire. like, I was like, let me text me. Like, maybe Rick Fox is at this party.

Which is just fully a guess. We had no idea if Rick Fox was there. What did he end up saying when you made this request? This is a lot of information to throw at him. The theory is that, like, I guess if Rick Fox was there, he could get us in. Or if not, I guess, if not, maybe he could like it. Which is why? What incentive would Rick Fox have to let these strangers?

I don't, actually, I don't know these guys. They're friends of friends, but they sound really cool. Yeah, this is our, it's, you would have been like even one more degree separated than I was, which is very tenuous. So I texted him here. I said, uh, hi, does Rick Fox know Byron Scott question mark? And then he replied, I haven't spoken to you in years. Wow. Wow.

Perfect. Which is fair. That's true. It was kind of, I didn't, we were kind of in a rush. I would have been, I would have given it some more runway and kind of set the scene for him more. But, um. Buttered him up. Yeah.

But that, you know, I think it was, time was of the essence. I think our, as much as I was, as much as we were, we had psyched ourselves up to get inside. I think obviously, like, eventually we were going to like, we kind of agreed neither of us were like comfortable doing this. No, no, not a common thing. We don't sneak into things commonly. And yet, we're willing to work this Rick Fox connection of a friend you hadn't talked to in years. But you've got to throw everything at the point. Obviously, he did say he did help and, you know, first of all, he said, of course, you know,

Byron Scott, and then he was like, why do you ask? And I gave him the long story and whatnot. But he determined that it was unlikely that Rick Scott was, Rick Fox was there at the party. So unfortunately, that avenue was also close to us at this point. Another door shut. Oh, man. So things are looking down.

Yes, the very tangible Rick Fox connection had been blown. Rick Fox was not there. So we're trying to figure out more details about this event, what other stars are there, and just what is it in general? and what is something with like the scope enough to take over all of pins? And at this point, there's two guys at the door, and they are supposed to be in there, unlike us, they are waiting for somebody to let them in.

One seems to be a photographer, and they are being, I'd say, oddly friendly to us, despite us being two white dorks lurking around. What we should probably say is like an entirely black event. I don't think there were any white people inside from what we could see. And as I think you might have referred to that this tableau was a little bit like the movie sinners. This is us. Oh, because we were trying to get in the door. Yeah, we were like literally out front of the door.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it seems like you got a nice party here. Hey, you might just letting us in from it. I think, oh, I think we could really kick this thing into high gear. Please, please just let us. You're Irish, right, Scott? I am more Scottish, but close enough. Sure, yeah, yeah.

But anyways, we're asking them, like, so what do you know about this? And they're being very friendly. They're telling us about things. And they say that part of this event, the other co-host of this event is Kiki Shepard. And I was having trouble placing who Kiki Shepard was. And they started from the ground up explaining the show Showtime at the Apollo to us. And we're like, oh, no, no, no, we know Showtime at the Apollo. That's the show that's on.

If you tape SNL and you leave a 10 minutes extra on the tape, that's the show that came on after. If I'm taking the Greg Kinnear episode of SNL from 98, maybe I get a little Showtime at the Apollo after. I know what this is, of course. You talked to them more than I, because I think they were talking about some, they made some reference that I did not understand that you did, and that sparked up a conversation.

I think it was about a rap song or something like that. Literally, that's what it was about. When they explained that, they explained what Showtime at the Apollo is because they were telling me that Kiki Shepard was the host of Showtime at the Apollo. And that caused me to go, oh, right.

I know this name because that's from the outcast song. That's from So Fresh, So Clean. Oh, yeah, of course. Showtime at the Apollo minus the Kiki Shepherd. And I said, okay, great, I know who that is. And at this point, they go, okay, and I get a fist bump from these guys. They are impressed at my knowledge of the song. So now we're warming up to the clientele of this thing.

Maybe this could be, all right, like, maybe we'll fit in there, actually, if we get into the event. And then we'll be Cosmic Bowling with all our favorite basketball stars. Now, at this point, I should say something that some listeners are possibly already thinking. In the relatively short amount of time since this event occurred in February and now, Kiki Shepard has tragically passed away. She died a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, horribly. Passed away at 74 recently. I'm not willing to take PTR curse on that because it hadn't been set on the air.

That's just a different thing. and a sad thing, especially because she seems very cool. She did tons of charity work, and it was one of the big things pointed out about her in articles and obituaries. So I guess I want to say... And this is one of those events. And this is one of those events. And here's, I don't think we talked about this, Pat.

I looked up what the organization was. It was the KIS Foundation, and this was all devoted to raising awareness of sickle cell disease. And that is her foundation. She put, and even before she had her own foundation, she put a ton of time into supporting and trying to help sickle cell. This is a lot more elaborate than what I was going of like, there's a news article where the manager of citywalk said the bowling alley was doing real good for them. Look, it's all relevant. It's also not as, like, it doesn't, like upon learning that, I would be like, all right, I mean, I don't know, maybe you guys still got in. Hopefully you did.

But it feels like it would have been more fun of it was like somebody's energy drink was launching or something. Like then we're going to sneak in to this thing. But it was a jubilant event. It was like a bowling tournament and very fun. Obviously it's for like a real nonprofit and stuff like that. But it was like a very fun time in there. So it wouldn't be like we were crashing awake or something like that. Sure, sure.

But we did. Yeah. I think we also kind of agreed that like if we got in, we weren't going to like, you know, go go hog wild on like free snacks or something like that because obviously we did not want to take advantage of the yes exactly say we got inside maybe like do a lap maybe shake a few a few lakers hands and leave yes exactly yeah yeah yes but i know what you see yeah my i wish that it had been like at a launch of of uh like byron scott has a new crypto he's that he's launching byro coin and uh we feel a little less guilty about trying to get into the thing then the photographer gets inside

Though I got the fist bump, we did not feel like it was a good time for us to say, and us too. We didn't take it that far. So I said, let's sort of the almost famous scene. It was kind of like the side door and getting him with Stillwater. That's what was my head. That's the dream that was in my head, but it did not happen. And then we could have gone on a big magical summer with Byron Scott.

Then we're changed forever, indelible memories. Insane, I'm a golden guy. We could have sung Tiny Dancer. with Byron Scott on a bus. Anyways, so I say at this point, let's scope the perimeter. Let's see if we can figure out if there's another door that we have not checked out. And at this point, Jason, we end up outside what I knew at one point in time was a Jerry's famous deli. A Jerry's famous deli that was attached to the bowling alley separate from it.

But I remember going there and I remember thinking it's weird that it sort of like shares a wall and that they sort of function together but aren't exactly the same. same organism, but I'm like, okay, maybe this is the key. And this is something that I wanted to show Pat anyway, because I had the knowledge in my brain that I had to, that I had to share, which is that Andy Kaufman worked at that Jerry's famous deli. That was the one where he served as a busboy when he was like trying to weird people out that he just has like a regular guy job, even though he's on TV every week. So this was very impressive for me to win, by the way. This is like, just Scott just knowing this, you know, speaking of the Lakers, this was like watching like Magic Johnson just like sing a couple of threes.

They're just like knowing arcane, L.A. history, ephemera on the fly. That's me, that's me doing a sky hook to use Showtime. Exactly. So knowing that, I said, all right, let's go over this way. Maybe there's a door we can check. I discovered that it is no longer a deli and it is now just a restaurant that is attached to pins. So these aren't even separate businesses.

Perhaps this door could be the key. We checked the door. The door was the key. no doorman there. It was not locked. This was our way straight into the open bar of this event. We are now in. We go straight to the bar in which we see that there are custom drinks just for the night. One is called Inglewood's finest. One is called Scott's shot. But we, Pat and I discuss the guilt that we are immediately feeling and we decide to just go and get just a little bit of soda water. Is that correct? Or did you get a soda proper, Pat? I got a soda proper, but I paid for it. Oh, really? I go to the bar and it's kind of crowded like, you know, a typical bar thing I can't really get through. And this, this woman at the bar like helps.

She kind of like clears away for us and like gets the bartender's attention. Very politely sort of, you know, helped me acquire my soda. That turned out to be because we, that she looked familiar. We couldn't place it. But then it turned out to be Jackie Harry, the mom from sister sister. Wow. Jackay. Jackay.

The first person, as soon as we walk into Open Bar, we encounter the great Jackay. And then as we go into the alley, we start seeing, like, the names of everybody who's there are projected on the bowling screens. We realize Horace Grant is there, who we 100% expect to be wearing the goggles. Because how else would you recognize for scintz? I guess I forget that he does not just day to day. They aren't fused to his face. But it's like all kinds of Laker legends. Michael Cooper, Norm Nixon is there.

Eric Dickerson from the L.A. Rams. I know him from the song, Ramit. He's one of the guys that is football accomplishments. I don't know. I just know he's on the L.A. Rams rap song, Ramit. The guys call me Dick instead of Dickerson. McKelty Williamson is there. That's Bubba from Forrest Gump.

We were talking about Bubba Gump earlier. We are with the Bubba from. From actual Forrest Gump. I think to kind of button it up from the cos. You know, we're trying to get into cosmic bowling, you know, so that we can play among the stars. And then sure enough, what happens? Wow.

We are instead mingling with the stars to play. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Way better. The other thing we did, though, there was like a silent auction there, like Mike Tyson's boxing gloves and things of that nature. and a woman came up to us that was kind of running the auction or something like that. And she was like, like, asked if we were like interested in bidding on it.

And I was like, well, what's the minimum bid? And she was, you know, of course, like $10,000. I was like, I don't think I'm not going to outbid Horace Grant on Mike Tyson's gloves, I don't think. They also just had functional items. They had like just like a hot plate, just things that you might need around the house. So the most expensive way to get a hot plate, but also the most glamorous way to get a hot plate. but also the most glamorous way to get a hot plate. And then if you have a hot plate at home,

you don't have to go to a buffet to run buffet schemes. You can do them right from the comfort of your own own. It's a mini hot plate. Yeah, that's not bad. And there were buffets to bring it all full circle. There was a somewhat buffet style food there, which we didn't eat, but it was there. Wow. Well, let me, now you say that this is, I felt,

this is where I have to admit a little bit of guilt, because look, it felt to me like the event had been going on since 6 o'clock. It is now 8.30 by the time we make it in. The dinner hour has long since passed. And these gigantic trays of pizza, mozzarella sticks, wings, you know, things that Jason would have happily absconded with in Vegas and eaten five days later after the flight. It's a dream platter for Jason. But I don't necessarily, I'm like, do I or do I not?

It's been sitting out for a while. Here's what I ended up at. I took five tater tots and just a small dot of cheese sauce. That is what of this gigantic spread, that is what I took. And that is what I felt comfortable just snacking on lightly. That said, I did feel like it's a fun night and that I'm doing any sort of snacking to this. I owe the KIS Foundation. And I feel like I should make it right with them, especially given.

what's happened with Kiki Shepard. And that is why, for my five tater tots, I have made a donation to the KIS Foundation. And that makes me feel right about the whole thing from the fun night that they get for the opportunity to briefly meet Jack A, to sneak around with a drink that was to enhance the disguise, to see Horace Grant.

I believe to see Horace Grant after, do you remember that at one point we thought we saw the one of the friends from Martin but then we looked it up and realized that he's been dead for many years yes yes yes yes that was I love Martin so I would have that would have been excited I think we bumped into the photographer and the guy again and we had to chat with them I believe so

it was a very nice event we did and I wondered if the guy would be mad that we made it in but in fact it felt to me like one more fist bump it was kind of like you motherfuckers you did it and everyone was extremely welcome And if you too want to donate to the KIS Foundation, that's at the kISFoundation.org. Seems like they do good work and they certainly put on a good celebrity bowlathon. So look, Pat, I'm just, I'm really happy that the pursuit of Cosmic Bowling led us to

something more specific, better. We got to, we got to sneak around. We got to meet Jack A. And, you know, no diss to Cosmic Bowling, which might have been fine, but it might not have been anything to write home about. We all love, we all these fond men. memories of cosmic bowling because it reminds us of childhood. And, you know, like, what, what do we might have doing?

We might have sneaking around, sneaking into a place we shouldn't have been, seeing the mom from sister, sister, and getting starstruck. Like a mother figure from our childhoods, absolutely. Yes. You know, it's the kind of scheme that Tia and Tamara would have gotten themselves into. Yeah. They might have, like, switched clothes disguised as each other. One was good and one was bad, right?

One was like a nerd and one was like a bad girl. One was kind of a wild child. Yeah, one was more bulkish, I believe. Oh, okay. But not like evil. One of them was not like kind of a bad scene kid. No, one wasn't a murderer. Wow, can I say that location you're talking about?

There are two important things that I've had happened there at that Pins. Oh, yes, please. Number one, I saw John Void at the deli having a meeting with somebody. Wow. This is probably like eight years ago, seven years ago. Very. With President Donald Trump? Trump. Oh, you know what?

Now that you're saying and I'm remembering Trump was there. Oh, wow. No, no. You see like weird hair on the other side of that? That might be who that was. And the other thing is there was a wrap, like a year end party for the CW network when I was a PA there. And I drank five Guinnesses and I bowled like a 240. What?

That is a five Guinness story. I don't want to say it. I don't believe you. What was your normal score? 115? 1.25? Like, I cannot,

I don't know. It was unbelievable what was happening. How do you try to replicate it since? Like, just getting hammered and going bowling? No, I have not, not to that degree.

Also, more importantly, were there any, did you do this in front of any of the stars of CW? No, it was just the staff. It was just like PA's and administrative staff. And then this is also like pre-iPhone,

so I don't have a photo of it. Oh, Of course, of course. How convenient. But I truly, it was like, I couldn't lose. It was like the craziest. No, actually, come to think of it. When we got in on the wall, there was a framed picture of you.

Oh, really? Wow. I got to go back. Yeah. Weirdly, they don't have framed photos of people who have bowled 300s. They, like, you got the photo because, like, and it says 240 in parentheses, impressive because it was all fueled by Guinness and because he never usually We bowls that well.

Yeah, there's a lot of qualifiers on it. But yeah, no, it's one of the... It was a long frame, a big black, yes. So it was connected and you could get into the bowling alley from that restaurant, even when it was a cat's is. Yeah. We're not cats as a juries, right? Jerry's, yes.

How odd. Is that a chain of restaurants known for being adjacent to bowling alleys? That's a good question. I don't know. Weird. Not that I recall. I believe that is the only, the others were freestanding. I guess there's one more important thing to say about pins with a Z,

which is that the bathrooms are labeled women's with a Z and men's with a Z. That is, so now we leave between Mike's exceptional score and this exceptional use of the letter Z, I think we have covered everything there is to cover about this place. That's thorough. We're very thorough, Joe. This has been a blast. Thank you, Pat, for taking us, you know, in this direction that I had no idea would be so star-studded in that way. And I guess we can say, Pat Castles, you survived, podcast the ride.

Let's exit through the gift shop. Is there anything you would like to plug? Thank you. Well, yes, Scott. I'm glad to have gone through that adventure with you. I feel closer to you now that we've snuck into a place. I feel like we're like Rusty and George Clooney in Ocean's 11. It was a heist for five Tater tots.

Exactly. Yes, I guess, well, speaking of bowling. Speaking of sports, you could watch good sports on Amazon, The first season's already over, but you can watch it all right now. So you can hop on Amazon Prime and watch that. I don't think there's any bowling clips on there, unfortunately. But, and otherwise, you can find me at Packcastles on Instagram or Packcastles.com. And yeah, that's it.

Or I pins on Tuesday nights. Oh, you could also, I also write a column for Atlas Obscura. I should have said that too. Oh, great. Hey, all right, fantastic. Well, we still have time. Terrible plug. All good.

No, no, no. down to the wire at the buzzer. And as for us, for three bonus episodes every month, check out Podcast the Ride the Second Gate or get one more bonus episode on our VIP tier. Club 3. You'll find all of that at patreon.com slash podcast The Ride. And I guess also just generally plug the show,

Sister Sister, with an excellent performance by Jack Kaye and, you know, great portrayal of an extremely evil sister, one of the most evil characters ever in fiction. This has been a Forever Dog production. Executive produced by Mike Carrey. Carlson, Jason Sheridan, Scott Gairdner, Brett Boehm, Joe Silio, and Alex Ramsey. For more original podcasts, please visit Foreverdog Podcasts.com and subscribe to our shows on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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