The Dogg Zzone by 1900HOTDOG - Dogg Zzone 9000 - Episode 248, RIFTS with Merritt K

Episode Date: October 8, 2025

Roll up an illegitimate, alcoholic Glitter Boy and step into the world of the RIFTS Source Book with Merritt K. What happens when you put EVERYTHING in a single tabletop role-playing game? Local lunatic Kevin Siembieda tried to answer that question and wound up with an unplayable game and a mechanical battle kangaroo. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Robert will go to jail if you don't buy his book. I know what you're thinking... This is NOT the time to be a wise guy. BUY HIS BOOK. https://linktr.ee/killyourimaginaryfriend

1,900 hot dog 1,900, hot dog Out podcast slams with maximum hype Say hot dog podcast word Yeah When you taste that nitrate power You're in the dog zone for an hour Come on, you know the number

1,900 1,900 Hot Dog 1190,000, Welcome to 9,000, the official podcast of 1,900 Hot Dogg's last comedy website. We're going to be talking about the role-playing game riffs today, so I did something a little different and I spent 16 hours rolling us some actual RIFS character. No. Oh, hell yeah.

Give me that glitter boy. I'm so sorry. I, of course, am Robert Brockway. And today I'll be playing a husky, illegitimate worry-wort pack of dogs from a little farm community.

That's my character. That's an actual RIFs character. Is that from Rifts, Russia? My comedy partner, Sean Baby, he's already said it. He is playing a pot-bellied, miscreant glitter boy from a small to medium city

with nobody hair and an oddly shaped head who is basically nice. A lot of those words do describe me. I still have one ab left, so maybe not pot-bellied. I used to use Glitterboy as like my username in online games because I thought RIFs was a very funny game like Merritt did. And that meant that about every hour I would just get a message from someone saying like homophobic slurs at me. Oh, I thought you were going to say RIFS fans.

That's so much more. No, no, no. I literally never met someone who knew that was a reference to Riffs, but so many people called me. I don't know. Add like a funny beep there, Jamie, and let people fill in the blanks, but just all, all manner of terrible things. And our guest today is Merritt K. who brought Riffs as her hot dog origin story. She will be playing an obese complaining rogue scholar from the burbs with large flat teeth and a large mouth too. Yeah, thank you. I have 2D6 years to live in real life because of the drug harness that's enhancing my agility and reaction time. I hope your large flat teeth come in handy sometime during the game of rifts. Am I playing a beaver?

I'm playing a beaver DB? And a large mouth, too. I don't know because I don't know. I've read pretty much the entire source book. I've skimmed a lot of it. but I still don't know what RIFS is. So, but before we get into that, Merritt, is there anything you want to plug today? Our game, Fletchling Manor, is on sale right now. I think it should be on sale when you hear this. If not, then whoops. No, it's on sale for like a few weeks for like most of September, I think.

So you can get that. It's like 50% off. And it's on Steam. And also I do a weekly podcast now with two of my friends, from Fanbyte, which is a video game website I used to work at when that was a job that you could have. And it's mostly just as torturing each other with stupid bullshit. And it's called if you're driving, close your eyes. It's on Xbox, I think. So that's what I play. And? And? And and your book. Oh, the book. Yeah. Did I not plug that last time? I don't know,

but you're plugging it this time. Okay. God damn it. Yeah. So I put a little novell. out called Vampirocene it's about climate change and vampires and drugs I guess there's drugs in it it's cool it's pretty cool

it's like three bucks and you know what's that going to get you in this economy right besides besides a novella and it's short too which I think is good because everything is taking too much time and there's too many

things to look at and play and see and read and a hundred pages you can get through that and like what i i get why you say that since we are talking about riffs and that's like front of your mind it's like this is this is too much 10 000 pages of tables but my only complaint i really liked vampire scene my only complaint was that i wish there was more i wish you were turning this into a novel or just doing like a series you should do a series you know you gotta leave me one more yeah that's showbiz baby well i do want more so give me more well no that's how that's my thought that's not see that's not show business babe

No, no, no, no, no, that's just me. That's my thing where people are frustrated that I won't give them more. And then I enjoy that in a way that is, let me roll on this table. Oh, extremely sexual. Oh, fuck. All right, Sean, what would you like to plug today? I rolled teeth. Merritt used all the plug time, so I'll just plug rifts for the Nokia N-gauge.

It's kind of like a phone and a taco. All right, well, see, I'm in a bit of pickle here. my AI lawyer to comb the internet for fringe law tactics. It told me to drink poison. That's a little inside joke we have. Then it told me something a little bit incredible. Because my publisher uses a publisher's flag with yellow fringe, they actually only have authority over books published at sea.

And that means that makes me, I'm something called a sovereign author. And that means I don't have to plug my phone. fucking book to them. What's it called? Suck my dick. When's it come out right after your mom's done? We're back, baby. We're back.

Author named Robert, capital R, capital O, capital B, capital E, capital R, capital T. I love this, this like, just third act twist of just going back to obstinate, you know, just refusal to. My fucking AI lawyer rules. I did, I was so sick of, of plugging things and begging. Like, I want to have some human dignity and I'm back. I'm back to having that. I'm never going to plug this book again.

So long as my AI lawyer remains correct. Come at me. Come at me, lawyers. I am unsueable on land. If I ever go out to sea, I'm fucking fucked, but I'm not going to do that. You're not tricking me out to see again. It says here in the Treaty of 1704, you're entitled to 8% of all the world's wealth retrieved from shipwrecks. That's kind of interesting.

Well, fuck, yeah. That's another bonus. Do you have an AI lawyer, too? They're the best. They're free for some reason. Huh. Everybody should have one. Well, before any sort of consequences can catch up to me for,

Jesus, just anything. We're going to talk. We're going to talk about RIFs. That's our Hot Dog Origin story series. Merritt, you said RIFs was, at least sort of, at least partially responsible for tuning you into sort of bizarre, cursed media that should not be. When did you, when did you find it?

I must have been like 10 or 11, I think. Oh, that's too young for riffs. I'm much, much too young, yeah. No, I mean, just even for like the math alone, it's, you know, you're not prepared for that. The school system hasn't set you off for that. But yeah, so we had like, one of my friends had an older brother who was into a lot of stuff that, I don't know. Like, did you know anyone growing up where they had like an older sibling and seemed like insanely cool, like the coolest person

you'd ever met or would meet because they had posters of Nirvana in their bedroom or something? Yes, that was my brother. My brother had... Sweet. It was hair metal instead of Nirvana. So I'm the older sibling so I didn't get that in my family, so I had to seek that outside of the house. And

so this guy got us into playing, I think the first game, the first RPG I played, it was RIFs, but before that my friends had played the Teenage Muti Ninja Turtles RPG, which was by-piling. system. I'm sorry, this was the, this was the cool brother?

Yeah. That doesn't check out. I mean, I was 10 and it was the mid-90s. The mid-turtle system had like the greatest character creator, like, of all time. Like, you'd roll up, like, what animal you were, like, you know, you'd get, like, kangaroo. And then, like, an almost childlike understanding of kangaroos would come in and adapt that into role-playing. So be like, okay, so you're kangaroos, you got jump. powers and punch powers and your pouch let you carry six extra items and it's just like yeah

those are the aspects of kangaroo adapted into game I love it I think that did come up before rifts so the rifts sometime I think it's like 1990 so I would have played this a few years after it came out and um this is my first role playing game experience I never played d and d um I remember seeing ads for um like the street fighter game in game pro and stuff and being like what is this like I don't understand what they're saying like oh, the only limit is your imagination. And I was like, I don't understand, like, what screen, what system isn't on. And I got into RIFs, and this was all I knew of role-playing games for, like, a long time.

As a child encountering this in the 90s, it was like, okay, this kicks ass. Like, there's art in here that's extremely cool. There's, like, just wild, weird shit. And then also, like, page 20 is, okay, here's how to do combat with giant robots. like it's laid out in an insane way there's rules for insanity like just random insanities that you can get there's like 10,000 skills

and they all have their own percentile that increases like by a very small percent every time you level up there's like it's just complete nonsense and it was like I think it was like the first time then this is something that's come up

in this series before is like the first time that I realized like oh this is made by a guy And he was completely out of his mind Like he was a total maniac But it was made by him and I'm holding it now It's not just like appearing out of the ether This is so cursed

I don't know a good way to talk about it Like my notes, this is the most scattered My notes have ever been Because the layout of this source book Is totally broken and insane Like it As you mentioned it kind of has everything You could ever possibly think of

But also not nearly enough Like the things that it omitted are just as important as the things that it has. Like, for example, I did find a picture of me on page 79, and I found Sean Baby in the supplemental art you included. So, like, we're in here. I think I know exactly which pictures you're talking about. Yeah, you're the rogue scholar.

I know this shit. Yeah, we're in here. Yeah. We're in this book. And yeah, Sean's a never-ending story thing. You're hitting a guy in the face, right? Yeah. I got my look from that.

The first time I saw that, I'm like, this is where I'm going to look like for the rest of my life. I think what happened, something worth mentioning is that in the old system of this role-playing game, they used a thing called SDC, which was basically like hit points that they used for everything. And they made riffs. They're like, oh, these things are like giant robots and superheroes. So like, they would have like 10,000 hit points.

And they're like, this guy who is very much a guy, was just like, no, that's fucking stupid. What if we just built on the ruins of this old system with this new system? So they had mega damage. and that each one of those was like a hundred standard damage. And what it meant was that like these beings existed in a world where like most stuff was just sort of squishy goo, including most of them, unless they had like a special mega damage hat or a gun or whatever. And so it really is like a like a baby child trying to make sense of how Superman and

Batman can exist in the same world. And, like, to put numbers on that is obviously an absurd thing to do. They're comic books. It's magic. Don't think about it. My understanding of Dungeons and Dragons, for instance, was, like, these hit points aren't exactly, like, the number of, like, the amount of times you can sit under a drill, right? Like, this is supposed to represent, like, dudes kind of getting out of the way of shit

because they're really good at sword fighting. But, like, this game is very much like, no, no, no. This is how many lasers you can take to the face. Zero. The answer is always zero. I've always thought of it is how much blood you have. It's just a proportion of all the blood. Like, I have 128 blood right now, and if you punch me, I'm going to lose one of those.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's like a good point in Rifts. So the whole setup, just to like give a very, I wrote about it for the site like last year, but the basic primer is like it was created by this guy, Kevin Sambietta, who had previously done a fantasy role playing game just called Palladium Fantasy RPG and the Ninja Turtles thing. and basically just took the same system

and added mega damage to it. And it's set like in a post-apocalypse where nuclear war killed everyone and then because so many people died at once, it like brought magic back basically and opened up holes in time and aliens came out. And so it's just like what if you just had everything?

Everything. Like just what if everything was in this? Like that was the entire point of this game. And the mega damage thing is like, yeah, like if you're a rift, if you're a human character or if you're anything but like a dragon, or like an ogre or something crazy,

like the smallest laser in the game will instantly kill you. So you have to be wearing your like fucking future night armor at all times. Which is, it's probably fused to you, right? That's probably one of the character classes. I mean, you can be a borg, yeah, you can be a cyborg for sure. Yeah, they built an arms race into the mechanics of the game

and they had no, there was no like, it's war games. They're like, no, the only solution is to not play this game. Otherwise, it's just going to keep escalating forever. What resonates with me the most is you can really sense, like, the creative energy, but like not the creative effort. So you can see, like, this guy thought, like, wouldn't it be cool if you could fucking have everything? And then just, like, put that down on a napkin and said, well, I guess I'm done.

That's the final draft there. And so, like, all the ideas are just really half-baked, and the systems are just like, I don't know. It kind of does. None of this matters. So, like, I guess if you were, like, from Chicago, you have, like, pizza powers and, like, mafia powers. It's just what the first things you think of.

And so all the books that they made were very much exactly that. Like, there's, like, a rift rush. And it's like, okay, so, like, you're a farmer with a laser cannon and, like, your artist kind of based around sentimentalism. But, make a damage, sentimentalism. You know, it's, it's, it's, I mean, I appreciate that as. As someone who starts and abandons many projects, I can really feel like that the joy of the first steps of creation and the joy of abandoning it before the work gets hard.

He did the fun part. He made a book out of only the fun parts, except for all the stuff that isn't fun. Yeah, I want to disagree a little bit with that because there are a hundred pages of just tiny numbers of math. That's fun to him. It seemingly has no relation to anything else. Worthless to anyone. It's, but it's fun for him.

He had a good time. I'm looking at a page right now that just is titled Missiles, Ranges, Warheads, Damage. So in a way, I went through this. All right. So here's like, there's like an order to tabletop role-playing game books, right? There's some variance, sure, whatever. But like, even as a source book, there's sort of a structure. And it goes like, it goes like introduction, right?

Here's the setting, here's the world or your conflict or whatever, like your story seed. Here's a sort of, next is like a basic manual on how the game is going to work fundamentally. Like how do you, what do you do to like operate a game? And then you've got like your character creator and then following that is like your skills, your abilities, your spells or whatever. Then you've got your supplemental material and then like one final section being like, okay, here's how a game goes. Here's something to get you started. It's like, you know, beginning, middle, and end. In this book, in the RIF source book, the character creation process starts on page 8 and goes to page 127.

Right? And then every mad fucking thing you could possibly think of is in there. And you're like, is this still character creation? And then it stops to do a couple of pages on what happened before RIFs. Not what's happening now. but like the time before riffs sure and then then an atlas of every single

place on earth but not really like Canada is really really represented in this we've got every like district and city in Canada here it's because he lived in Detroit see that that's another thing

it's astonishing that he was not Canadian like he was almost Canadian but he ended up not being Canadian and he was just like Canada's so fucking important to this world Africa is the dark continent. Aren't there two Canadian books? There are two Canada books. Yeah, they're amazing. I fell off of Rifts at some point. And there's a Rifts Canada and then Free Quebec. So excellent. Because he knows one thing about everything. Like so this is one thing

that is also a very early instructive lesson to me in like world building and storytelling. In the first Rift's book, he has this like, yeah, this world overview section where he uses this character named Aaron Tarn, who looks like B. Arthur, uh, to explain like what the world is like. And she hasn't seen a lot of the world. So she doesn't know. And that was sort of like a cool thing, right? Of like, you have this world where there's rumors of what's going on, but there's no like telecom systems. So how do you actually know? And you could go there and have an adventure and what would it be like? And then he was like, okay, I'm going to spend the next 15 years just putting out books that explain every single fucking corner of the world, except it's

exactly the first draft thing of like, oh, Japan. Oh, okay. They have like robot samurai, robot dragon. Canada, Quebec. They're separatists. They want to separate. They're separate. Okay, so they separate from the coalition states. Let's see. Mexico vampires. Mexico vampires, obviously. I saw.

Here's a troublesome question. John Carpenter's vampires. A very troublesome question. Yeah, of course. In the location atlas in this first main book here, all of Africa gets one sentence and it just says, yeah, it's still the dark continent. Mm-hmm.

Does Africa? Is there a RIFs Africa? So there is a RIFs Africa. And all I remember from it is that it's mostly about the four horsemen at the apocalypse. Huh. The classic African myth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, honestly, though, I feel like they kind of got off easy in that respect because

most when he tries to do something like actually historical, it's like in Canada, he's like, what if there was a demon beaver or like he'll just hear about him. myth and be like, oh, that's actually an alien or like a cyborg? Right. He was at least self-aware enough to know it was a trap when someone was like, hey, what class do you play in Riffs Africa? Name some classes.

Oh, I can name some classes. I'm looking at a list right now. Nine new classes, including the powerful African medicine man, rainmaker, priest, tree people, pygmy hunter, and others. Pigmy hunter. Okay, so he was not clever enough to recognize that was

a trap. He felt, just went, fucking 1840s Disney cartoon. You could be a pygmy hunter. Not a pygmy, a pygmy hunter. I feel like being a pygmy is the more fun character class. Right. Yeah. I mean, so the furt of pygmy is so easily forgotten,

but he didn't forget to hunt them. That's for sure. What do you do with him when you hunt? Is he like just covered and like pygmy foreheads? No, but maybe, wait, maybe that's not we're not reading it right maybe it's pigmy hunter oh he's a hunter both of those things yeah i would feel silly say that can we even say pigmy is that okay i don't know but i probably wouldn't risk it in the if you had i blame it's gonna sound worse

if like we have jimmy beep it and we're saying what are your african character classes and one of them is beep hunter like that's gonna sound fucked up they're not gonna think we said Kigna. Yeah. Jamie, if you can go ahead and do that, I actually beep all of that. We'll include this in the behind

the scenes for people to know maybe we're not the biggest monsters. Yeah, like a small percentage of people. Don't do that, Jamie. God damn it. I liked the idea of having I don't know, like a limited prospective character introduced the world in the first one. Because I thought it was

very interesting that you already mentioned it, that like, she was like, Mexico. is a place of vampires. Now let's talk about Michigan because I know a lot about Michigan. There's probably vampires in Mexico. Fucking, we don't go there. We don't know.

Yeah. Just like her neighborhood, but like super detailed in her neighborhood. Right. Yeah, the Midwest is like completely filled out. And he, yeah, he almost really did to see from dusk till dawn

when he was writing this. And as I've gotten older, I've realized like how much of the stuff that I thought was like an interesting idea is just stolen from somewhere. Yep. Like Craig Simbiera, or I start Craig Zimbiera, yeah. Kevin Simbietta is a Craig Stormon of Blue Comet Press, except somewhat more successful.

Like he kept this business going. I think it still exists, which is crazy. But he is that same kind of maniac where like in all of the intros to his books, he has kind of like a strange rant. These are fascinating. Including one where he blames the. first writer of the book for it not being good enough and names him and then says I had to fix it all, which is insane. Is that for Ris Russia? Yes. I loved that one. John, go ahead, but I want to

delve into that one. Okay. Well, I think the thing that I liked about that is like once he broke the seal on complaining about scheduling, like other shit came up. He's like, God, this fucking guy gave me this manuscript that was so terrible. And also, like, my power went out for a few days and like, oh, I didn't help. It's like, why? This is in like a book that like a young child will treasure forever. And there's just a full page of it dedicated to this guy like fucking bitching and moaning. Okay, I'm going to read a little bit from that.

Please. I have that there. When freelance writer Kevin Kruger first suggested the idea of a book on Riffs Russia, I figured, sure, why not? I didn't have concrete plans for that part of the world and thought it would be exotic enough to make a wonderful addition to the Rifts Megaverse. Hold on. Both words are those. All rights reserved. Rifts. All rights reserved.

Megaverse. All rights reserved. Gotta lock that down. Megaverse especially. If done right, it would serve as a linchpin to the new German republic and the rest of Europe as well as the Orient. We'll talk about the China book. They already know what it is. Fucking long dragons. Kung fu.

But his rant, and that book is really something too. So, yeah, sorry. I love that he thinks he has to like have a fantasy manual for a play. before he can conquer the nearby places? Like, we don't need, we don't understand until until we get the New German Republic nailed down. I have that idea.

And here's the truly crazy part that already a maniac says. He says, I approved the project, commissioned a cover painting, and started advertising its release. You think I'd know better by now, advertising a book before seeing the finished manuscript. Yes, I fucking would

think that. That's completely crazy. He's acting like, what who could have foreseen I would have stumbled into this I mean maybe I should have known you started advertising like somebody came up to you and said I think I might like to write this and you said cool I'm going to start advertising it now and I hope it's fucking good when you come back how could it not be because if it's bad I've completely screwed myself he knows four things about Russia the beat soup uh communism he spends like the next I don't know six paragraphs just talking about like how much this guy sucked, how much the book sucked,

and then how much like work he had to do to fix this book. And again, this is why you don't say, sounds good, I'll publish that and then start advertising it. I put, then then be surprised when they turn in, oh, I thought you were a good writer. I, whoops, that is on you. That is 100% on you. It's crazy that you thought it might not be on you. It's the kind of, thing you would like maybe burden a close friend with. You're like, can I talk about work for a second? Oh, this guy gave me, like, but to type it all out and to publish it forever in the start of a book that has nothing to do with you. Like, who gives a shit about you is what every single person who saw this said. And I think this was for, this was for Riffs Russia, right?

This was, this was in Rifts Russia. So this is how you start your book and you're like, can't wait to have a grand adventure here in this book that sucks. Thanks for setting the stage. can't wait to make a character and live in this world right yeah the cover of riffs russia there's two russia books there's mystic russia which is like witches and shit and then there's just armies of warlords of russia and it's just like a giant robot

holding a hammer and sickle because that's all he knows about russia of course i'm just so like like literally first idea for all of these like the australia book is a guy riding a kangaroo uh-huh the camera of a book is a guy who looks like a G.I. Joe in like with a maple leaf on his armor in like the

fucking Arctic. Fighting Mechanical Beaver? Probably. Okay. Okay, the China book is, I don't even know, it's a guy summoning a fucking dragon. And like his rant,

or not ramp, but his like essay, the beginning of the China book is really good too. Because he basically says like, yeah, so I don't know. We're trying to get like the vibes of China. Like, You know how you have like an idea of what China is?

Like that's what I had when I was doing this. So like, uh, you know, and also I know that they're like trying to like standardize the language with Pinyin, but like, I don't want to call it Beijing. Because that's how I know it. So just, I don't know. No disrespect, though. I think I liked this one maybe the best because it's pretty clear someone gave him some notes and he's like passive aggressively responding to those notes. It's like, you know, maybe, maybe I'm a little cultural. Intensitive. Yeah, he's clearly, this is clearly a response to somebody that's like, it's like, that's not how you spell that Chinese word. And he's like, oh, oh, really? Oh, is that not how you spell it? Well, sorry, I made a fantasy game word. That is how you fucking spell it, all right? In Rift's Earth, that's actually is how you spell it. And the other one that's really good is, uh, there's a book. So there's an old, or a new west book, which is just cowboys with lasers. And then there's Spirit West.

which is Indians with lasers. Yeah. And his opening for that is like, he's like, uh, it's 1997. I can still get away with this, right? Like, it's fine. I don't know. It's like people are going to, they're all just basically like the same type of guy, right? We should read one of them.

Well, let's read this one. Okay. We summed up the China one. I'm going to skip someone. some of the words in this one? Yeah. I think that's a good idea. But it's titled a few words from...

How do you pronounce his name? Siamida? I think it's Siambiata. I've never been in pressure, though. A few words from Siambiata. Of course this is a fictional book set in the fantastic science fantasy setting of Riffs Earth.

Not only have we homogenized a number of different Native American cultures and beliefs, we have extrapolated, twisted, and warped many aspects of those beliefs. and myths much. Yeah, you sure have. So while the culture, beliefs, and myths of the Native American people were a source of inspiration, the material presented here is not intended to be a true or accurate portrayal of the people or their culture.

Besides, no matter how many books we may have read as part of our research, we don't pretend to be experts. This is a work of fiction, science fiction and fantasy at that. So nobody can blame me for anything. For all of the stuff I'm about to say, like, that's a wonderful, that's a wonderful preface. Let me keep reading. It gets pretty crazy. He goes, we hope none of the material in this book is offensive to Native Americans. Furthermore, we hope the term Indian used in this book and others is not offensive.

It's meant as a familiar, general, descriptive terms. I said, come on, we're good. We're all good friends here, right? I just, like, the idea of being like, to even think about this and to have done what you've done and then to come in and apologize is so fucking, I don't know, like mealy-mouthed and crazy. Like, just fucking own it.

You fucking got magic Indians because it's set in New Mexico or whatever. Like, who would fucking have a problem with that? And then you've invented this person as a problem with that, and then you've done nothing to placate them. You're like, God, come on, fucking get over it, dickhead. You're like, no, you made that guy up.

Fucking. I love that he starts there, Indian, which is, at least in my experience, what often people of Native American descent, prefer to be called. They don't like to be called American at all if possible. And he's like oh, I hope that one's okay.

Anyway, hear all the other words I would also like to like no, no, that one was okay but that doesn't mean that all the rest are. Right. It's really fine as long as not being an asshole and you're being a total asshole. Because then he says a bunch of words

you might use for Indian people that I am not going to repeat here. But he's like, we also used this word this word this word and this word to describe you like no no no you can't do the we hope we hope indian is okay because we also said every other slur we knew yeah hey if indian's not all right we're in a lot of trouble okay and then after the list of slurs he says no disrespect is intended in the world words or portrayal of any people or in culture enjoy just straight a list of slurs and then enjoy right this is like contemporaneous with uh like the white wolf games

like World of Darkness and those games were also doing just like really crazy like shit that they've had to like step away from in the last few years because it was just like it was just corny too it wasn't even like really offensive it's just like really this is what you think

but like they weren't out here like putting disclaimers at the front of their books and he's just like I am going to do it and I am going to explain that I did it but I'm not going to change it the disclaimer rants were so funny. If these are like, if these paint a picture, it seems like it's all in response to one review, which was a positive review. Like he starts, he kicks it off by saying like, uh, where is it? Where is

it? Uh, yet, I guess the RIF's source book is a success. Yet in a recent, mostly positive review, the book was criticized for too much specific detail, attention to details, and too much emphasis on the military combat machines and not enough new world information. It's just frustrating. And since I'm the author and the publisher, I can get stuff off my chest by publishing it in my books. So I'm gonna. Okay. I think one of the maybe the most telling was from the desk of Kevin Sambiata. Are there 30,000 to 50,000 people reading the Rifter trademark? So this, I guess, was a magazine about rifts. It was. Yeah, it was like a quarterly magazine. And I don't think it had a very good, like, readership.

So it looks like they sell about 8,000 copies, which, whatever, that's fine, plenty. But then he decided that wasn't enough people. That wasn't important enough. So he's decided three to five people actually read each magazine because the kid gets the magazine and gives it to his friend. And that's not impossible. But it's weird for anyone's common sense to think that happens to every issue out there. So now he's taken this, like, let's just say, let's just say.

to five people. And then he's like added to it to now he's at 50,000 readers for every issue of a magazine that sells 8,000 copies. And it takes him a full page in his own. And again, this is in a in a book, a source book for children to, I don't know, it's, it's very telling that this guy's ego would even allow this. I love that he takes through. And you say three to five, everybody assumes that means like a range. And what he takes that as is a logical step. Yeah, he says like, well, we'll start with three, and then it goes to five, because his exact text here is, so if 10,000 copies is the average, and if three people actually read every copy sold, that means 30,000 palladium fans are enjoying every issue. 50,000, if five people read every issue, way cool. Like, he's so proud, like we got it up 20,000, just like that.

He's convinced himself by the end of the paragraph. It's weird he didn't consider the number 0, 1, and 2 is all, because those are numbers. Right. There's one where he, like, says goodbye to the ninja. This is very good. Merritt put all this supplemental material together. There's one where they lose the license for teenagers and ninja turtles, which at no point in human history was a good business decision.

And he's like, he complains about how the cartoon becoming successful killed the property as a serious franchise for adults. Yeah, right. Because he's like, oh, it's all kidified now. It's not like the gritty, hard-hitting comics anymore. I really want to read that one too I know we're reading all of these but I just find it very special

to like to access a maniac in their own words like when you give them an editorial yeah like they I feel like so many industries have moved so far away from this being a possibility like you unless it's like some tiny self-published indie game

you don't open a role playing game anymore and have like the lunatic who made it telling you about how his water heater broke. In general, imagine opening a tabletop role-playing game to an editorial. Like, what? Who are you getting? It doesn't happen anymore.

Before we learn how to make a character, let me read the essay, My Bitch Wife by Gary Gidex. That's what this is. All right, here's this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle one. On the other hand, the successful mass marketing in, you know, scare quotes, killed the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the comic book and role-playing game markets where they first took off weird,

but true. You see, the turtles were what I refer to as kiddified. The once gritty, satirical, hard-hitting turtles. Really? Became cuddly, fun-loving, pizza-swelling heroes to little kids, ages 3 to 10. They joined the ranks of Mickey Mouse Donald Duck, and the Smurfs. The Smurfs is bolded and italicized.

Okay, yeah, that brings up something I need to mention after you're done with this. Well, this made them a vile. mass market property it hurt them in the small specialized market of role playing basically no self-respecting teenager or preteen wanted anything to do with the ninja turtles again not my experience why because they had become little kid stuff it didn't matter that the role-playing game and comic book was the same gritty butt kick and imaginative fun game it had always been the turtles were taboo to the teen market role-playing sales plummeted overnight and then he

He proceeds to list like the exact numbers of his failures from 4,000 plus copies a month to 1,200. That's a Craigstormon thing that I love when he will list the numerical failures that he's had. Like you can actually see how bad I am in business. Look at this. Let me explain to you exactly how bad I am. Just in case any like investors are reading this and like maybe want to think about it, fucking don't.

This role playing system that I own became a household name overnight and I somehow turned that into a failure. into negative 2,800 copies overnight. That's what the kids did to me. So the italics bolding reminds me of something that I really do need to mention, which is for like the first few years of Palladium, definitely well into rifts existing. They were just doing layouts like analog.

Like they weren't using digital like word processes or anything. It was just like literally copying and pasting things. So, like, that's why the book looks completely insane. And also, I think it was basically 90% Kevin Simbietta doing it. But another quirk that he has is his use of, like, exclamation marks and bolding and italics is just, like, really crazy. Like, he never had an English teacher tell him. Like, you don't need to use, like, three exclamation marks when you're talking about

how much experience someone gets for killing a dog man with the laser. It's just, like, reading his book is, like, Yeah, I mean Yeah, that's what it's four. Minimum five. But like reading this book is like the voice of this man comes through so strongly because it's written in this really strange semi-conversational way with all of this bizarre punctuation.

And like all of them are like this because he did this thing where even when someone else like had the idea and like wrote part of it, he would like go through and rewrite everything and then also like put his name on the cover. so again very much like a Craig Stormont type that's an exact classic Stormon move like they're the same there's a genre list of maniacs they're the same maniac yeah absolutely they would have gotten they would have either gotten along so well at a convention or that would have been just an instant fist fight like it would have been cops cops separating them then they're still trying to brawl all the way all the way home just yeah it is a fiercely territorial maniac like a like a spider only one one

One kind of maniac can be allowed at this convention. Yes, this is such a good tactic for really, like, understanding a maniac. Like, there's so much here to just say, here, like, give me a source book. It's as near as I've seen to a map complete with a legend and everything of a mind-shattering. Like, it's just, like, please see the appendices for all of the ways I'm going completely fucking insane right now. You're like, okay, I guess I will try to unravel that. One of my favorite things, I'm like, if you want to get a sense of, like, a role-playing game system, go to their abilities of their magic and, like, start reading what they put in there.

Because everybody will have the normal, like, I'm going to turn invisible, I'm going to shoot a fireball, I'm going to fly. But then they're going to realize I have to do my own things, too. So what do I want to be able to do? And the spell manual in this source book is really something special. I've got a brief list here. I'm just going to read a few of them. Yeah, what are your faveses? I liked carpet of adhesion.

Sticky carpet. Fucking classic, just giant flypaper spell. That's completely overpowered because there's like no real way to get out of it effectively. So like also, yeah, none of this book is balanced. Like you can be Indiana Jones, like a normal guy who reads books because most people can't or like an adult dragon who just can crush people's minds. Yeah, that's the problem with like putting everything in there is that somebody will just be like, okay, I'm going to be the giant robot.

Like, I don't want to be the guy who's good at poetry. It was like known as like the power gaming RPG for that reason. And like that's why the audience was mostly like 10 year olds because they wanted to just build like an unkillable monster character, which is what I did. Sure. But please tell me the rest of that. of your favorite spells.

I liked heavy breathing. Heavy breathing was great. I don't need a spell for that. That's the mage is able to conjure a mysterious, frightful sound of heavy labored, labored breathing, as if something invisible was lurking about. So you tend to think like, oh, it can't mean exactly what it sounds like. No, it's just pervert breathing that you can summon it will. I feel like any other game system would have said ventriloquism, like your voice

throw or something and then from there the player would decide on heavy breathing or a distress call something you know that would be there no no no only only only a pervert only a pervert hot breath in your ear you see that's because if you want to actually talk or send some sort of message you fool you would use magic pigeon that's my other favorite spell of course Magic Pigeon. What I loved, like I said earlier, I did actually play this a little bit. Mostly we made characters with my college friends and then laughed about how stupid the books were.

But I liked Glitter Boy because his ability, it was like a super mech armor suit. But his ability was he was like so shiny that lasers couldn't hurt him, which is such a like Final Fantasy 3 ability for your armor. But like try to imagine that, like how someone shoots you with a fucking laser cannon that like cuts things in half, it vaporizes things. And it's like, oh, no, I hit a disco ball. Ar! It's so funny.

So it would refract in every direction. Yeah. Yeah, everything's dead for a million miles. That is a great character. I liked fingers of the wind. Fingers of the wind was a good spell. You're not even talking about spells anymore. That's just stuff you get up to.

Fingers of the wind are exactly what they sound like. You can poke. It specifies that you can, you can poke. You can poke or must. massage with fingers of the wind. So more... Why? You use your mana to do that.

Or cast a fireball. I didn't like look into whether, how exclusive the abilities are in which slot, but hopefully you can make just a pervert mage. Though it's just like, all right. Well, everybody knows what you're going to do, Lester. That's right. I cast heavy breathing in fingers of the wind again.

Okay, so a crucial thing I should mention here is there's a character called the techno wizard and instead of casting spells, they build things that do the spells, but only when they're, I think only wizards can like use them. But so you could build a sex toy that casts fingers of the wind and hand the wheeling. Done.

Sort of everything is in here, but obviously a ton of stuff is not in here. Like I don't know if there was a lightning bolt spell. So you're like, you didn't do lightning bolt, but you did you did sex toy that casts magic wind fingers? Like what you're doing by including, quote unquote everything is telling us

so much about you. Fingers of the wind could have been anything and it was Fingers of the Wind. Same with Magic Pigeon. Could have been anything and you're like, nope, it says right here in the spell, it's just a normal ass pigeon that you can conjure up. It obey's pigeon law

in all respects. What a precious maniac. You know what? I'm going to shift gears here. I will pay money if anybody can prove that they've played a game of riffs exactly how Kevin C.M. Betta intended it to be played. There's no way. There's no way anybody has ever done that. It's, that became apparent pretty quickly to me as a kid even that like as written,

these rules make no sense are needlessly complicated and, um, not fun. Like combat, like, I mean, that's in D&D and stuff like combat takes the longest because that's what the game is built around. But in rifts, like a single round. of combat can take like upwards of six hours it's just like because you're doing all kinds of shit it's like d and d is like oh i attack oh you hit the ac no it's like abstracted right right um but like ac incorporates like your ability to dodge or like how thick your armor is in rifts it's like okay i roll the hit um then if it's a hit then they can like parry or dodge or like roll with the punch or like counter attack or like do like a million different things

And, uh, roll the finger it. Roll the finger it. Roll the finger the damage. Yeah. Um, and it's just, it's really, really bad. I don't know. We, I think we were simplifying it pretty quickly on, like, pretty early on because it was just like, oh, this is not good. It's bad. We, we have to live our lives. This is the most free time we will, we will ever have. I guess, I don't remember being clear, like, what the world used for money and stuff. Like, oh, yeah. Like, it was just kind of everything, like a, a, a. dinosaur just came out of the ground and that's what New York is now. And you're like, okay, so can I buy a magic potion there? Right. They just kind of, like, abstract it. They just say, like, oh, it's credits. And, like, so there are, like, governments, right? Like, there are, like, little, like, city states ruled by war alerts and stuff.

But then the main government. Mostly Canadian. Mostly Canadian. The main government is the coalition states who are just clearly, like, Nazis. Like, they're, like, human supremacists. Like, they're, like, the empire and Star Wars. They're Nazis. They want to kill all magic users and aliens and whatnot.

whatever. And he spends a lot of time in the main book explaining that, like, okay, but actually though, like, they're not all evil, right? A lot of these guys wear skull armor and have skulls all over them and have guns that shoot people. Like, they make some good points. They're just following orders, you know? Like, it's fine. I mean, there's probably a reason that in Riffs, Russia, he's like, if done right, it would serve as a linchpin to the New German Republic. Huh, would it? Is that what the important bit is? What's that all about? Yeah, that's the goal.

How am we got to get there real quick? Oh, everyone's going to know this about this maniac, but there's a long series of these things that you put together that we haven't talked about yet, where someone wrote in to complain that, hey, this fucking guy keeps telling me that it's not real. Because obviously, Kevin was insecure about, like, at the time, maybe 10 years before this, everyone is really worried about, like, the demonic nature of role-playing games. So he's like, whenever he has a spell, he's like, okay, but remember. remember, this is just a game. The spells aren't real. Don't even worry about it. And so someone

around it's like, dude, we fucking know they're not real. And, okay, here's this exact words. I would concur with that sentiment if it were the case. But it is not. As far as I can recall, there's only our standard page one warning about violence and magic in the Rift's source book number one. Okay. And then over the course of the next several paragraphs, he explains over and over that magic is not real, and it's okay for him to say as often as he does that magic's not real. So he's this guy that throws every argument against the wall to see which one will stick, even though he's not arguing with anyone. And so he'll contradict himself many times over the course of one essay. Again, to one stupid asshole no one knows about. Nobody cares

about any of this. I like that Merritt included like the other 15 times he actually did say it wasn't real. Yes. Right. It's like, um, I only said that once. No, no, no. You said you spent like a thousand words saying that in eight different books. And maybe I did. But if so, that's okay. Yeah. And if it isn't, fuck you. And if that's not okay, uh, here's all the names I have for the natives.

There is a book. I forget which one it is, but, uh, where he expands on the disclaimer to be like, hey, you guys see that movie, The Program, you know, with, uh, James Con and Omar Epps. Like, yeah, the program, you know how they lie down in the middle of the road and the one part to prove that they're brave. Some kid did that and died. And that's why I say that Rifts is not real, okay? Okay?

It's like I had never heard of that movie before and I still have never seen it. But it apparently made a very big impact on him. It was a pretty big news story, whether it was real or not, like most people's understanding of that movie was that's the movie where they lay down on the road and then someone really did it and died. Yeah, but one of them wasn't a pack of dogs, a pack of like sentient dog people. like there's a there's a there's a point in which like all right i can't try most of this what am i going to try exactly from this get some cans drilled into your skull and get psychic powers you could do that

i mean i i guess i could try heavy breathing i should call somebody up to try heavy breathing yeah give me a try i'll give you my phone number after the after the podcast maybe me and my friends can try fingers with the wind together just to like just to figure some things out you know But a lot of this is like, it's like, open your dick and find a laser. No, I can't, I just can't do that. I think there is a robot. I don't know if it's in the main book or not, but there is a robot that has a dick laser. Obviously.

Fuck, yeah. I didn't know that for a fact, but I assumed it was true. I have a dick pigeon. I don't know, just for the record. Oh, sweet. The summit of it is real. Kevin's right. Some of it is real.

The dick pigeon parts are based on fact. A very complicated, a long story we don't need to get into. I think something amazing happens towards the end of this source book, which is, again, the character creation is page 8 to 127. And then there's a little break for a complete atlas of the world, but not the African parts. Right, like it's one sentence, yeah. And then we jump back into character creation for like 20 more pages. And then we do some supplemental art, and then we talk about the time before rifts. And then there's some more character creation

for just like seven pages out of nowhere. This is the craziest organization for things. But I think like most maniacs, and as Merritt pointed out, very Stormon-like move, by the end of the comic, by the end of the source book, they both

realize, maybe this sucks. All right? Maybe this sucks. Because on page 248, we finally get to the Game Masters section, which should have been page one. Like here's how you, the person who bought this source book it's a pretty special

I'm just going to read some of the game master's section during play tests some players initially seemed a bit disgruntled over the facts that first there seemed to be too many good characters to choose from can there be such a thing yeah that's the fake one and second that character generation

took between 20 minutes to an hour really page 8 to 127 took them 20 minutes to an hour no they did grumble they were disgruntled He says, they also grumbled about what seemed to be a great number of skills and, in some cases, abilities. That was called preparing for the game. So this is the Game Master's section. He's making the first paragraph is, players hate this, but that's a little thing I like to call the game.

It is the game. No one has ever gotten past character creation in this game. Right. And it's fine. It's fun. Yeah, so I'm actually thinking about it now, and I'm realizing I didn't make my character that I played in RIFs. my friend's older brother did and that character was actually not even

from Rifts because the big thing about Rifts was like and the one thing I will say for Kevin Simbietta is like when every other company was like okay we're doing a new edition of our game it's completely different you have to buy this new book he was like I'm never going to do that I'm never going to do that I'm never going to change the rules ever what I'm going to do is sell 10 million source books

like about the different parts of the world so I guess kind of principled but it was a bad system to begin with so terrible idea Why would you change the rules when they don't work, when it's every rule? Exactly. They already don't work. What are they going to do? Not work?

No, they don't. So, but you could also bring characters because the RIFs, you use the same system, and there's a in-world reason, right? There's portals to every fucking dimension in the megiverse, TM. So you could use characters from their other games like ninjas and super spies or Heroes Unlimited, which is their superhero game. And my character was from the superhero game. Um, but then later went to Atlantis and got, uh, giant cool bat wings and became

mega damage and, uh, was the greatest psychic in the world and, um, had a giant flying pyramid and it was pretty cool. I don't know. It was like pretty cool, I think. Not bad. Um, but yeah, I didn't make the character. Someone else did. So I don't think anyone has ever actually gotten past that. Yeah. Nobody's played this how he intended it. If he knew, if even he knew what that was like I bet if you asked him right now if he's still alive he's not still alive he is is he this seems like the guy that shouldn't still be alive like if I look it up and he's dead I'll be really sad on this this just reads like a heart attack like an early heart attack to me no he's alive he's only wait do you know how old he is how old's he yes 69 yeah is that exactly right

yes I don't know what that means it means something I really like how you said, Yeah. Yeah, but every good idea he's ever had, 95% of them I feel confident saying we're stolen from other things. Like there's another game called Nightbane, which was initially called Night Spawn

before Todd McFarlane sued. No. They changed it to Nightbane. But it's just a rip-off of that movie, what is that night? Where there are monster people? And he goes to live with a monster people? Nightbreed.

Nightbreed. Wow. But when I was a kid, I was like, this is so cool. And then I saw Nightbreed and was like, hey, hold on. Hey, this is so cool. He made NightSpawn based on Nightbreed. And then Todd McFarlane said, hey, no, you're copying my thing. He's like, no, I'm not.

I'm copying Nightbreed, dumbass. And Todd McFarland was like, oh, fuck, somebody's going to sue me. Oh, I just realized. I also don't have any ideas. There's an implied horniness here that kind of sinks with Nightbreed, too. There's just a, there's a lot. There's a lot you can tell about that's not necessarily. necessarily in the source book, but you can just tell about the guy.

I always thought Rifts was weirdly not horny. Like, I remember joking with my friends in college, like, how do any of these people fuck? Like, everyone's sealed into suits or have like the, like, from their torso down as robot. I'm like, nobody in this entire universe can fuck. Well, hold on. I didn't say erotic. I said, horny. It's very, very horny.

You're right. And that can be a consequence of having your dick sealed up in a mega glitter boy suit. That's what you're like, I can't. I can't get to it lasers can't penetrate to get me out of this I do want to point out for people who have not seen it the cover of the book is like it's a van painting from a van on a van in like the ninth dimension

it's a giant monster covered in slime with like a bunch of tonnacles whose lower half is a giant like floating platform and there are three women wearing like bathing suits or like body suits with like sunglasses and lasers and like this cover made this book like very like almost like taboo in the 90s like it was just like I mean if you're like you know

eight to 10 years old it was like uh should you have this like why is there so much ass on the cover of this game like what is going on here? Yeah there's a lot there are tentacle mechanics and We know what you're doing. I don't know. Maybe I had too many Conan books and Mars books, but it's just, that seemed like background noise. Like everyone's like, oh, look at this cover. I'm like, yeah, that's the cover of everything.

Everything looks like that. Right. But yeah, no one fucks in it. And also, like, I don't think really, even though there are rules for drug addiction in the first book, those are just copied and pasted from some other game. And no one does drugs either. Oh, Jesus. There's no discussion of drugs.

There's no discussion of sex. It is very, like, sexless, like, nerd. bullshit like this the people who were fucking were playing like vampire the masquerade i guess or thinking that they were fucking or i don't know but like no one who's playing rifts was like can we explore the other option that they were not playing tabletop role playing games at all that there was not one for people who fuck is that is that a thing i mean people did that not play role playing games wow i appreciate this as an artifact and i can understand how this like started you off on your your journey into into oh no

people make these things and there can be something very, very wrong with them. Because this is like, this is so, this is so detailed and so thorough of like a map to psychosis that it could be a valuable service to psychology. Like this is how psychological papers should be written, right? Like you just, you just sit a maniac down and be like, hey, explain to me. I mean everything about how you think the world works. and then all the doctors are going to get together and we're going to play it and maybe we're going to fix you. Is that the end game of this?

Is that he wants someone to play it and fix him? I think so. I think if anybody ever actually plays this the way that he intended, they will be able to say, oh, I know what medication you need to go on. It's just a big puzzle. God, we didn't even talk about the crisis of treachery. Go read the article that I wrote if you want to hear about the crisis of treachery when he's had to sell off all the Star Wars figures. Was that part of the game?

Do you have to sell up all your Star Wars movies in the game? Like it gets really sad? Yeah. His wife leaves him and he puts it in the game? I hope so. I hope that, I hope there are source books about the divorce.

Rifts, the sundering. 1,900, Frankfurt. 1,900, Frankfurt. And to podcast can out. And with maximal in shawl. Talk Frankfurt podcast? Correct. Yeah.

This nitrat is not under. Shicked you in the hundred zone. The hour an astounded. Come, John. You can't the number. 1,900, Frankfurt. 1,900, Frankfurt. 1,900, Frankfurt.

1,900, Frankfurt. Once 9, new, you, new, yeah. Yeah, 9,000. Please welcome once again, one night. 900 hot dogs, very own in-house comic, the overly specific insult comedian who makes things to real. It's Mr. Jimmy Juggles. Hey, thank you, thank you. It's lousy to be here. Got a lot of Supremes in the audience tonight.

Look at Aaron Crosson here. Hey, you look like you don't get enough colonoscopy. Like you're gonna die of ass cancer at 54, just when you start really getting comfortable with who you are Oh, what's a matter? A little too real for you? Yeah, I know, I'm working on that. Hey, I see Adrian Hesbrook. Hey, I see Alex Nolenberg. Look at this, it's Alpha Scientist Javo. Hey, and Andy, I see you back there. I once went on Safari with this guy, and I watched him kill a white rhino so he could powder and snort its horn. He was so sad when it did not give him an erection. I wasn't supposed to tell nobody that. Oh, it's a very serious crime. Oh, oh. Hey, it's Armando Nava. I see Autumn Armstrong Berg. I see Bim Talser. Oh, Brandon Garlock,

I know you ain't got enough in your retirement fun. You're blowing it all on FunkoPy of obscure movie monsters and your elderly self is gonna curse you for it oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh that one's a sprinkler it was supposed to be a sprinkler it's summer i'm trying something brian sailor i see you there brockway famously loves the meat millie hey cyril i'd see chloe here she got a face only a mother could love could but did not oh ho ho keep secret that validation from cam girls and escorts, babe. That's you. That's what you do. That's not me. Why would you think that's me? That's you. I only say true stuff about you. Like, uh, like, uh, like a common sense here. He looked like he got one of those ironic names. Like calling common sense's mother, Mrs. Had a positive influence on common sense's body dysmorphia. Whoa. Hey, come on, It's just a joke. There's no truth to it. It don't mean nothing about neither of us.

All right? I don't wish I was a small, frail, pale man, racked by consumption. Like that's, I'm happy being big and healthy. That's what I like. That's what I like. Don't question it. Here's Craig Lemoyne. Let's move on. Here's Craig Lemoyne. I see Dan B. I see David Scholl. I see Dean Costello. I love this guy. Dean Costello, he once watched someone. He loved drown. and he was too scared to help him, so he sold the song rights to Phil Collins. You guys gotta stop trusting me with your secrets. Oh, sorry, I hiccoughed while doing that one. And it came out weird, that won't happen again.

Delta, Fox Trot, Devin the Rogue Supreme, Doug Redmond, Dusty's rad title, Edgar Matthias, you look like you find comfort at night by telling yourself nobody remembers the embarrassing stuff you did. But I've heard it. It's all anybody talks about. Oh, back to normal O's. Oh, it was a one-time fluke.

Just like all your exes say about you, Elizabeth Shope. Oh, ho! All right, I see Elliot Watson here. He's all right. I'm all right, too. I'm glad I got my normal O's back. I was not just testing the waters for a new and scary change that I desperately want to make in my life.

Not like Eric Christianberg. Look at that ball cap. They call this the receding hairline special. Oh! I got Fancy Shark. I got Gareth. I got Jello Ho. I got good Satan and all his hot witches over here.

Oh, look at this. It's Greg Cunningham. Greg Cunningham, you work so much. Your kids are going to have trouble remembering your face after they leave for college. Oh! That one's about. That's not about something haunting my kid said to me.

All this stuff's about you guys. Hey, Haraka, a Harvey Pengweenie. Oh, I'd love to see you here, honk. Hey, Jabberal Aiden, James Boyd, I got Jared Clack, I got Jared Mountain Man. Oh, I got Jared Ruiz. Hold on. Jared Ruiz here. He's gonna wait until everyone's gone for the night,

and then he's gonna go around and lick all the seats of the people who didn't laugh at my jokes. That's what he's gonna do. gonna do. Oh, he likes the taste of failure. This guy does. Not me. Jeff Erasky, John McCam, and I got John Minkoff. Hey, you smell like extramarital sex, my man. Everyone can smell it. Even your wife there next to you. She just don't have the courage to disrupt her whole life because she don't know. She's worth 10 of you because she's too fucking stupid. Oh, I got you both. Oh, I'm sorry there was again. Uh, that's weird. I don't know what's going on with that. Okay, I got, I got, I got Joseph

Searle's here, I got Josh S, I got Joshua Graves, I got Justin B, I got Ken Paisley, I got K&M, hey K&M, your AI girlfriend called, just kidding, no she didn't. Oh, there we go, that's the normal one, that's okay, everything's normal, I'm not learning nothing about myself up here. Okay, okay, we got Kamutsas, we got, we got KVH we got Lane Haygood we got Lisa Lisa worries she's the weird girl at work because she never gets invited to nothing don't worry Lisa they don't think you're weird they don't think about you at all oh normal one again all right we got it we got it M Jahi Chappelle Mark Mahoney Matt Riley Max Broyroy

mercenary Sissidman Michael Lair a Mojou you carry yourself like you're not the hero in your own story Oh, that one seems gentle at first, but it will haunt you. Some things, they just, they just haunt you. Uh, Mort, I got Mort here, I got Mr. Bob Gray, I got N.D. What does N.D. stand for, non-descript? Oh, that one's on purpose. It's a callback to that thing I did earlier.

I'm owning it, okay? I'm owning it. It's just a joke. Neil Bailey, Neil Bailey liked that, oh, right? Right, Neil Bailey liked it. He likes that pop stuff, am I right? I hate that stuff. He loves it though. Neil Schaefer, I got Neku104, I got Nick Levino, I got Obsolete over here. Now Obsolete, he's like Neil Bailey.

This is someone who wants to prance about in a powdered wig. I can see it. I can see it, Obsolete. Oh, that's me doing an impression. That's an impression of Obsolete. That's not me. Ornry Weevil. I got Ozzie Olin. I got Patrick Herbst. I got Peewee's uncle. I got Rebrandrew.

I got Red Wine Time. Red Wine Time probably got a secret storage unit full of ruffled shirts and tights. Sometimes they sleep in there just to be physically closer to the person they think they are inside. Oh, that's what you do. That's what you do, Red Wine Time. Hey, Ria, I got Russell Bowman, I got Sam Kopnik, I got Sarkovsky, look at Sean Chase. I got seed over here. Hey, Space Jam Fan. Space Jam Fan, now this is a guy who sees an old-timey Fop or Dandy put on his white face makeup, and paint the little mole on and he's like, ooh, that's me.

That's the way I wish I was. Oh, I got you, I know that's how you are. Hey, spotty reception. A super knot, Tater's Tales, Thomas Cavatzos. Oh, who do we got here? You know how sometimes you can see a man, you take one look at him and you just know. You just know.

This guy, this guy likes to titter. I got you, Thomas, I got your tittering ass. Timi Leahy, Toasty God, Tommy G, Velo, Victor Malavankin, Booster. Oh, don't sink down in your seat. Now, Booster, I see you. I got you, I know you. You think you're some strong, independent woman, but I know you're tight.

I know you're tight. You live your whole life just hoping. Oh, you're just praying. Some big, strong man comes along and calls one of your quips, Rybalt. That's you. That's what you hope happens. That has nothing to do with me. I can just see it on your face.

Waylon Russell, Yvonne Clapham. Zach and Ava, I'm looking at John Dean here. And I just know this guy sees old-timey fops and dandies in movies, and he don't know. He don't know. Are they a German thing? Are they French or English or something? Are they just kind of all Europe rolled together into like one stereotype that maybe never existed at all? But that don't matter to John Dean, because every time he sees them boys mincing and prancing, he thinks, that's me.

That's not the me I am But is the me I should be And he goes And he becomes an insult comment Because that's what they say the men do That's what they say the modern day man equivalent Is of that But it just doesn't

It's not enough for John Dean He thinks he's like I'm Oscar Wilde up here You know telling it like it is And everybody everybody laughs and joins in And calls me pretty And it never quite happens that way Does it John Dean?

It's not the the same thing being an insult comic as it is, being a real, being a fop with a savage wit. I see you, John Dean, all over your face, man. It's all over your face that you wish that, that was what you were. That's you. That's what, that's what you are. It's a joke. It's all a joke.

It's just, there's no truth to it. There's no truth to it, man. Oh.