Episode 16: Anomalous Aesthetics

Cambridge or Shawn is a weird Way media podcast. You Hello, and welcome to Cambridge and With Shawn, a podcast by two weird guys about the weird things they like. My name is Ronnie, otherwise known as Eclevator on YouTube and Instagram, and I'm here with my Hi. I'm Mark Bigley, the host of Wake Up Heavy and co host of the now available Chasing Chevy Chase podcast, or it will be. As of the time this comes out, I've been really looking forward to that.

Just a note for folks, the first episode is going to be available across all of the hosts' platforms as well. If you are a wake Up Heavy listener, it will be in my feed. If you listen to the Culture Cast or the Projection Booth, it'll also be in their feeds. Those are the hosts I host with the hosts of those shows, and of course on the Chasing Chevy Chase podcast it will be there as well. So we're spreading that first episode far and wide to get people on board so you can find it and tasts lots of places, and then the next one will be out sometime this I think we decided on the last Wednesday of the month.

So that will either be the third or fourth Wednesday, depending on the month, kind of like how this is the first Tuesday, and that just sort of depends on when that falls. I'm really excited about that. I've been thinking about Chevy a lot lately. Just a word, if you're an uber fan of Chevy Chase, you might be somewhat disappointed because we are not necessarily Uber fans. We're not like Chevy Chase can do no wrong and everything he's in his pure gold.

So I've never met somebody that thinks that way about you. Yes, I mean there's some dogs. We've the first I think we've done five recordings now. It's leaning more towards duds than winners so far. We get into some winners soon, but yeah, the winners really for Chevy Chase, at least for me, the winner's really stand out, and the less than wonderful Chevy Chase things just disappear into the enter.

For me, I don't even think about those things. But his successful moments I think about quite often, quite often. Yeah, and there'll be some good stuff in there. So yeah, just a word of warning. That's very cool.

I'm really looking forward to your episode. If there is a full episode on this. I'm not sure, but I'm really looking forward to you guys talking about nothing but Trouble. Yeah, he's a star in that, so it is on the list. Fantastic.

Lots of people have mixed feelings about that. Yeah, that's what I am not looking forward to speaking of. You know, not to give too much away right now, but the subject matter of this particular discussion today, that particular movie actually does fall into this particular into this category of discussion, and that might be the only reason why I like it. Yeah, but we'll get into that that happens. I find that how much can you separate your nostalgia for a film?

And yes, when you look at something to talk about it, like on a podcast with a quote unquote critical eye, it can kind of lower it. But sometimes it doesn't, and it's like, no, it's still nineteen forty one. And it is an example. I watched it fairly recently. I talked about that on the Saturday Night Live episode.

Still holds up a lot of it's nostalgia, But I don't look at it now and go I hate this movie. Yeah. For those of you just tuning in and if you haven't, looked at the title of this episode. We're talking about nostalgia and collecting today. We're just going to have a discussion about this because I feel like, at least for us, it's a pretty powerful force.

It's why we're doing this show, isn't it exactly. I was just going to say that that's why we talk every storiar Thunder's that's you know, we're often on the same plane. So and you know, people who listen to this. I know for sure I've gotten text messages from people who are who listen and they're like, oh wow, that like really strikes a chord with me because of blah blah blah, and it's often related to nostalgia. In fact, a friend of mine recently reached out in response to our Surf and Turf episode, Steve.

He brought up an interesting thing that I had forgotten about that we probably could have I probably should have brought up in the show, but I had completely forgotten about it. There was a little tiny skate shop on Moroa and Shaw, near that pskin in Robbins. When he said that to me and the message, I was like, oh my god, that's right. I remember that it was there for like a year or maybe I don't remember that at all, very brief period of time. Anyways, if anybody listening are from the Central Valley and you know the name of that shop, send us a message on Instagram or wherever.

Hey, guy, have you picked up anything related to our shows recently out of curiosity? Yeah? Actually I did. Although this is sort of like peripheral relation. Oh no, it's actually a direct relation because I talked about Greto.

What was that our first episode? Yeah, yeah, our very first episode. I love Greto. Greto is a huge reason why I collect toys in the first place, as we talked about before, and recently, my friend on the Frenzy Show on my YouTube channel, oz He and a few other people who are in our toy community out there have decided to do hashtag May the Power of The Force be with you, And it's everybody's going to be opening up or talking about on their various annals and platforms, the Power of the Force. Line of action figures that came out in the nineties, which are the least valuable Star Wars action figures out there.

You can still to this day get the Yeah for many good reasons. You can still get those figures for two to five dollars a pop and carted in mint condition. So that's sort of like the sort of tongue in cheek or appreciation of the nostalgia of that period of time, reason why they're doing the hashtag. May the power of the Force be with you. So I recently, for four dollars plus shipping and handling for each of these guys, I got the collection one version of Grido right here, you know, with the notoriously small heads and small waste and very muscular, very masculative.

I want to say that you gave it to me, or maybe I might have bought it at a thrift store. But they're so ugly. They are really ugly. Well, this is an interesting thing I just discovered. And I didn't know about this because I stopped collecting these.

Like so the figures first started to hit store shelves in ninety six, I believe, and I stopped collecting that. I got a bunch of them, and I stopped collecting them in like ninety seven, and I got Grito was one of my first ones. But later on down in the line, later on in the line, they started releasing figures with these contech chips that like you could I don't remember even how they worked, but you could plug them in somehow and hear dialogue from the movies. They did revise Gredo to be a more film appropriate sculpt so I got that one coming my way to both extremely affordable anyways, That's that's something that I got related to what we've been talking about. How about you.

Yeah, I got a few things I think I had been looking on eBay at Sesame Street stuff either Fisher Price Little People it's hard to find any indecent condition right for a reasonable price. Yeah, and the Finger Puppets because those are two things that I had as a kid that I so good. So I got something related to that. I won't get too specific so that we can save this stuff for holiday episode. But I got two little figures Oscar and Cookie Monster, two of my favorites from my childhood.

And I got one of the retro Star Wars figures that I had been looking at for a while, just kind of popped up in my Amazon KRT. I had a very reasonable price, and then related to this show as well as the latest episode of Wake Up Heavy, and I'll be specific about this, I got the Blues Brothers novelization Yeah, which I loved as a kid because I didn't go see the movie, and that's what I had. I had that and the album to satisfy that obsession with And I mentioned on that Sarah Live episode like over a year ago how expensive they are, and I think I went back and listened because I wanted to see what I had said the price was, and I guess I hadn't found any cheaper than fifty nine dollars. Oh my god. These were mass market paperbacks, right, which I think I bought at a grocery store off the you know, mass market paperback book rack.

I've looked off and on over the last year or so. And I've also looked a couple of times on the Internet Archive, which is where I found that Saturday Night Live book and was able to go, oh, this is this is it and it hasn't popped up, well, it popped up this last time I looked for it on there. So with the Internet Archive, if you're not familiar with it, you can check things out. Some of the items if they're older or you know there's no real copyright issues, you can actually download and get a PDF, or if it's music. I think you can download some of the music.

Generally you check stuff out quote unquote for a week or something like that, and then you can download. I don't think you can download it as a PDF. It's another kind of file, but if you're of a certain capability, you can turn it into a PDF. So anyway, this it was on there, but you could only check it out for an hour at a time. Oh my goodness.

And I was like, well, I mean I could do that because I generally don't read much longer than that because I end up falling asleep. So I could read it this way on my computer, which isn't really all that great. So I checked it out for an hour and I started reading it and every verso page, so the left hand side somebody had cut the book up to make these scans. Yeah, the last couple of letters or like shorter words were actually cut off at the end of the I could sus it out, but I'm like, this is bullshit. So I went back on searched again and there was one for cheap and my birthday was coming up, and I'm like, oh well, I'll wait and see if I get like an eBay gift card.

Or something. And by the time my birthday rolled around and I'd gotten all the stuff I was going to get, I was like, damn. So I went back to get it and it was gone. Of course, yes, and everything else was in the forty all the way. I look on abe books and they're like hundreds of dollars, and I'm trying to see, like, this is a mass market paperback.

Who even cares if it's a first edition? What's the what's the thing that's making this three hundred dollars versus the ones that are eighty nine, which is still way too much for a mass market yapperback. I'm like, well, it's keep looking. And I kept looking and an auction came up was by it Now that it was kind of high, but it had a low starting bid, Right, I'll just put this one on my watch list and keep an eye out on it. So I did that.

There were a couple others that were around the same buy it now price, still too much, not in the greatest condition. This one that I put on my watch list ended up getting a bid. I was like, okay, so the buy it now option is gone. I just thought, well, I'll just see how it goes it was a Saturday afternoon when it was going to end. I was alone at home and did my thing where I waited till the last thirty seconds put in my high bid and not like the plastic rock ball, I didn't keep increasing it or anything.

I just let it. I let it go to the end and got it for a dollar more than the high bid, so the high bidder didn't come back and battle over it or anything. So it was a little bit more than the one that I had missed, but a lot less than all the other ones. It showed up, and I want to say that it is an unread copy of the book. It's not in it's dinged up from shelf.

Weere right, But the spine isn't broken. I mean, it doesn't look like anybody has cracked this book open to read. So I'm pretty happy and I am reading it, and I don't know, I may end up having to do them again as an episode of the show when I finished the book, So I don't blame you, I mean, And also does it make it just question because this is what would make me nervous, And for books that I have that I sort of treasure, I'm very careful about when I open them. So, how are you doing how? Because trade bieberbacks are so small, Like, how are you doing that?

I am? I know some people don't care about this, and they just fling it open so that that middle crease happens immediately. I just am kind of like moving my head around to see the last couple of words. That's how I do it. I am being very careful because I remember when I was a kid and reading Stephen King books and like this book and stuff.

I also tried to be careful, but I remember always having ink on my fingers and inevitably the spine would crack a little bit, and once it does, there's nothing you can do about that. Yeah, I'm being very very careful. If I were more anal about it, I probably would switch back to trying to read the one on archive, which is what I was doing with the Saturday and Out Live book actually, so as not to mess that one up. The book that I think about in that regard is the movie Monsters book Ormsby and I every time I open that because I just sometimes I get the urge or the craving to see those images, I'm just like opening it up, turning my head to the so I could just see it without giving you know, just something about that you're not about to be a state.

Well, let's jump into these. So Mark took the time to create some questions that we could ask ourselves ask each other regarding nostalgia and collecting. And these are awesome questions and I think we'll get to the bottom of this first question. We could both sort of provide our answers to this. Were you a collector, even at a young age, you go first with this.

I made these questions, and this is something that I've done with Cleo over on wickip Heavy as well. And sometimes I don't even know the answer, but I figure, you know, you might have a better answer than me, and I can say not really, I don't think I thought of stuff that way. I guess I could say I quote unquote collected migos because I had quite a few of them, and maybe comic books because at some point, even as a young kid ten to twelve, I had subscriptions to a number of series and also would buy them at the grocery store or wherever I would encounter them and had a decent amount. Plus I got some hand me downs from neighbors as well. So I had a pretty decent sized stack of comic books as a kid, would I can you know I didn't look at them as a collection, like, oh, I've got to keep these pristine and yeah, I mean I was anal about stuff.

We just talked about the book stuff, and I was sort of the same way, like I didn't want the covers to fall off, for pages to fall out, and it was probably hesitant to cut stuff out of them. Yeah, just because I'm weird. The only thing I can think of that I actually actively pursued at some point, and I don't even know if I had a collection of them, were frogs, like ceramic and or plastic frogs. That's interesting. I don't know what set that off.

I think I found a ceramic frog somewhere at some point and the look of it just appealed to me, and so I would try to find and I don't even know if I had more than like two or three frog items as an interest in quote collection, buttons maybe kind of at one point that you pin on your jacket. I think I had a little collection of as a kid beetles. I know I had beetles buttons, and I mean it collected Beatles stuff in a way I didn't have very much but books and yeah, so not really like I didn't do rocks like I could say, Cleo, my daughter collected rocks when she was a little kid. Anytime we went anywhere, she'd picked up a fucking rock. What are we going to do with all of these?

I love that, that's they so yeah, yes and no. How about you? In a similar way, I was interested in things. But my answer to the question is different than yours, and that is I'm fairly confident I was a collector from the very beginning, and part of that is that. And there are few remaining photos of me in my bedroom as a kid, but in looking at those, it was pretty clear I was interested in organizing and displaying these things.

So the toys that I was interested in I would play with, but when they weren't being played with, they were on display in groups, and they were in groups by theme and by category or by ip I guess is the best way to look to look at it, or in boxes that were organized like little shoe boxes, or I was kind of obsessed. I would become obsessed with you said, ceramic frogs, And that's really interesting because when I was very little, we lived near a lake that my ex stepfather was a groundskeeper for this summer camp, and we lived there briefly. We would live there through the winter when no one would be around, but the people who worked the grounds would be there. And there was like this little gift shop and they sold little ceramic animals, and I became like, you know, I've always been interested in miniature things, so I would go every once in a while and just sort of, you know, with allowance or whatever it might be, grab a little tiny ceramic animal.

There was something about the teeny tiny ceramic animal that was interesting to me. So these I couldn't play with the ceramic animals, but I was, you know, for the few of them that I had. They were like on display and I sort of exalted them. I didn't want to. I didn't want them to get hurt.

So that's to me an example of how at a young age I would be interested in collecting, and along with all of my varying interests over the years, one thing sort of remained as a as a go to, and that were the little tiny PBC figures of Disney and Looney Tunes figures. Whenever I could get one for fifty cents or whatever. I would I try and get it, and I had them all on display. And so that's going way back. That's going back to when I was teeny tiny, and there I would have moments of play and then I would return them to their display.

So it was this relationship. I never displayed my toys. I always had them in toy boxes or this trunk that's sitting behind me that I've had so that my stretch Monster died in. Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. I never looked at them like that until I got older.

I don't and so I was just when when we started talking about the theme for this show, I was like, I wonder what it is, because I get an equal amount of joy from just looking at something or holding something versus playing with it. Right, you know, there's playsets where you put the figures in and you can engage with the play sets and display the figures or or actually put the figures in and then use the action features to move stuff around. That's a visceral pleasure for me to this day even. But then just like behind me, like just having them turning around every once in a while in my little office area, and just staring is equally equally pleasure. I mean, I don't fucking play with these plastic rock balls.

I went on for five years about they're just sitting on my desk. I could juggle them. I've got three, so I could juggle them. But yeah, I could see you doing that. I could see you just during downtime, flicking them across the rolling them around.

So when did Maybe it didn't for you, but when did collecting things end? Yeah, well, puberty was way was when my collecting changed. I don't think it ever really ended, because and I was starting to read Stephen King, and I was starting to read Star Trek books. I was starting to engage with or started to be interested in silent film and old timey comedians a little bit more than what I was when I was younger. But when puberty hits, I start to do like my very first job was like painting holiday windows in the small town where I was living, and so I could buy things that were in my mind a little bit more mature or advanced than buying toys.

So it didn't really I didn't stop collecting, but I did change my interests. I mean, you know what I liked about Stephen King is there would event there would sometimes be slightly steamy scenes, and as a boy going through puberty, like finding those were exciting to me, you know, Discovering cult films was exciting to me. And if I could find a copy on VHS, or if I could find a book or something that appealed to those particular interests, thinking about subculture, punk, skate culture, film culture, all those things. So it went from toys to sort of edgier subject matter. How about you, Yeah, same, you stop thinking about star wars and superheroes and start thinking about girls and music and books, and yeah, same type of stuff for me.

Actually, I mean we did the Surf and Turf episode, so I got into all that surf iconography and stuff. Stephen King read him religiously for years and never really considered it a collection necessarily, but I'd get the paperbacks that I wanted to read, watch the movies when I was able. Music becomes much more important, I think as you get older. Yeah, for sure, I guess you could say you're collecting albums, although I didn't necessarily look at it that way, but I once I got into the Beatles, I started buying the albums and for that. Generally speaking, there's a finite amount you can collect.

I mean even as a kid. Though back in the early eighties there's all these compilations and you know, Capital did a whole bit. That's a whole other story for when I do talk about the Beatles, But so you can garner quite a large amount of these things. Yeah, girl, I mean girls become important. So yeah, you're not collecting girls.

I mean some people are collecting girls, but that idea of things or displays or whatever becomes a lot less important. And then since you're not really engaging with that stuff anymore, that's when mom comes in and gives them all away or throws them out, and then you spend the rest of your life trying to get them back. Yeah. And I became conscientious of this if for some reason friends were going to come over, and if one of them were a girl that I had a crush on, if they came to the house, I was like, well, do I better put my little PVC figures away? And then you know, you start having those thoughts and it's a little sad to think about it, but kids are you know, young people, especially junior high and high school, can be pretty cruel to one another, and so we become a little bit self conscious of all that.

And I think that that culture has changed, at least for my daughters. I feel like they're and they've told me this, like being a geek today is kind of considered cool. You know, if you collect something weird or interesting or or you appreciate, you're not afraid. Kids aren't afraid to say that they appreciated my little pony, or you know, what is that magic school bus? So not afraid to talk about that stuff with each other as they get older, which is a really interesting collecting magic school bus a femoral I don't know.

I just thought I was just trying to think of, like, maybe there's magic school bus stuff, or what's another thing. Well, here's an example, I guess like our youngest has been a fan of Taylor Swift since since she was little. Though her friends may not listen to Taylor Swift, they don't judge her for liking Taylor Swift. That to me is like, that's kind of an excite. Maybe it's not like that for all kids, but I feel like it's a friendlier environment for children today to be like, yeah, I like minecraft still, right, or horses or horses, and they're not going to make fun of them for liking that stuff.

It seems I'm not a kid today. Monster High Monster Cleo still gets Monster high figures. So and that's and her friends probably don't give her a hard time about it. I have never heard anything about that, So that's exciting. I would just say for me, at least, it never really stopped.

It just adjusted based on my interests and also my self consciousness, and then it came back hard in the late nineties. Yeah, that's I think for me as well. I started thinking about I mean I always kind of thought about migos, even in college and stuff, and so I was maybe or so years separated through most of high schools. Like okay, girls and boobs and music and all that stuff is taking control of your mind. But I remember having dreams about searching in my closet and going, you know what, I think I still have that twelve inch spider Man.

I don't think it got tossed out, and I would find it in my closet up in the top part where you store boxes and crap, and I'd wake up and I'd be so fucking disappointed. Yeah, going that was a dream, and I sometimes would go look and just to make sure that that twelve inch Spider Man. I don't know why it was the twelve inch Migo Spider Man that I always dreamed of, but I had those dreams regularly. The twelve inch Migo Spider Man was fucking cool, Like there's nothing, there's nothing like it. I mean, it's just a very cool thing.

It was something I never had, and I can understand why it was treasured by you. And you're going back and thinking about that, understand that the incredible Hope Spider Man. Each figure I'm booked tall and fully posable. In the mid nineties, without any real way to find them, that interest came back, and I remember Jeff Martin and I trying to go. I think we tried to find like Arthur's toys, and they were probably already gone, you know, the one over by McClain High that had been there, and I knew the one down by my old house was gone.

But there were these famous covers figures in Target stores from toy Biz. I don't know if you remember seeing these and all. So they were Marvel figures and they did quite a few of them, and I remember encountering those and they were kind of ugly. The toy biz X Men figures and yeah, X Men came out I think kind of later. They had Fantastic four.

I want to say, they did a Spider Man, they did like an They did a whole bunch. If you look it up online, there were just tons of them. Jeff ended up getting me the Iron Man, which is probably the only decent figure because it sort of makes sense. But they had these really tiny heads, at least the first couple of series of them. And this may be apocryphal.

I don't know how true. This is. Years later, getting on the Mego Museum message board, I kind of learned some of the lore of these. They were supposed to be Mego scale. They were supposed to be one ninth scale.

Interesting, so eight inches. Something happened and the bodies were actually made at one eighth scale, but the heads were made at one ninth scale, so they're always tiny. Wow. It works for the Iron Man because you can actually remove his masks, so he's got a great Tony Stark sculpt but it's kind of small, but it makes sense so that the mass that fits over it isn't ginormous, which is what tends to happen when you do that stuff, and so that kind of satisfied me for a while. And then once I got the Internet and eBay, probably Migo Ironman was probably the first thing I searched for on eBay, to be honest, it took a number of years before I actually ended up getting one, but that was what I would look for on eBay generally, were mego stuff from my childhood and books which you kind of get to in a little bit, certain books by certain people, by a certain publisher, which is also how we met.

Really, we'll get to that in a little bit. Yeah, late twenties, early thirties by the time I met Kurlida, and I was collecting Japanese toys by then, and so it's been pretty consistent for the last twenty five years. I'm now fifty five. For me, what brought me back was something I already mentioned today, which was the Power of the Force figures showing up in stores in ninety six, I was interested in Star Wars. Of starting to become interested in Star Wars again in ninety four ish because I was in a band with Matt called Ig eighty eight.

We talked often about the Bounty Hunters. It was this gradual thing that happened. And one of the integral aspects for me was that I lived in a little mountain community that every spring would have a flea market that took over the entire town. It was phenomenal, and I would go there as a At the beginning of my high school career, i'd go there just to hang out with friends. By my junior year of high school, I was going there to look at the Star Wars figures, to look at the migos, to look at the things that I didn't have as a kid, the things that my mom had already given away masters of the Universe, and I wasn't buying them because I didn't have a lot of money.

I was definitely just like soaking in the nostalgia, holding that figure in my hand again, smelling the stink or you know that still had to petruly smell and just like and then putting it back down and then going home. But that was also when a ride around the time where I was thinking about starting to rewatch the Star Wars trilogy. It was starting to come back. Then I graduate high school and then boom, the Power of the Force figures come out. The films are re released starting in ninety seven.

I believe with the digital changes that Lucas put in there, I'm pausing now, so I don't complain, and let's not get into it. Let's not getting good. But the exciting thing was that I could start collecting again, and I did. I would. I didn't go and try to find vintage figures, which was dumb.

I realized that that was dumb now because they were like fifty cents three dollars a vintage figure at an antique store or at a flea market or a thrift store even sometimes probably I could have gotten the complete Millennium Falcon back then for probably no more than twenty bucks vintage Millennium Falcon. I regret that constantly. But what I did do is this is so, Jeff, if you're listening, and I know Jeff listens, we're both mentioning you today. You did this for us. You went with us on these trips, and you and I, Jeff and I would go out looking for Power the Force figures, and especially when the Phantom Menace was announced, like and those figures were starting to come out, Jeff and I would go out searching we'd go to write aids.

We go to wherever we could go and find these toys. I went fully in on the power of the force line at a job I was going to college. Sometimes I had two jobs and I could go and I could buy those figures. And then I was very willing to give them away once I realized that they weren't fantastic and that I could probably they were ugly as hell. They were ugly that they they didn't have the appropriate body sculpt That actually did strike a chord with me through nostalgia.

It was that I was buying the idea or buying the visage of these characters. It was what was available at the time, just like those famous covers were what were available at the time. Yeah, and I'm looking at the back of this card and there were some things that were super cool with about the power of the forest line, like Hammerhead finally had a name. Mom, I hate that. I hate that, Mama Nate on and I was like, I can see his Hammerhead and then and then Ja always had that like little the light tubing so the light come through the top of the head and make the eyes glow.

That was super cool too. But nothing comes close to the way those vintage figures look, and to me to this day, it's nothing quite comes close to that, but it was. It was definitely Power of the Force for me that got me back into collecting. And then soon after that, or not soon after that, but yeah, actually soon after that. Just a few years later, same thing happened with Masters of the Universe.

The two thousand and two cartoon series paralleled a resurgence of interest in toys, or interest in Mattel releasing toys. Right before the cartoon series comes out, they re released the main figures from the line, and they were basically reissues of the original sculpts of these figures. I never bought them, which was a huge regret too. Late nineties, early two thousands, Star Wars and Masters of the Universe come back, and that's what got that. That's really what got me back into it.

Oh, the universe has changed forever. The Star Wars Power the Force collection. But Darth Vader and his storm Trooper's attack joined Prince's player, Luke Skywalker and Hans Solo escape in the Mighty Millennium, Falcon experienced the real movie sounds of light Speed, but Darth Vader's type fighters are on your tail. Here the force of the Falcons turbo lasers. Can you blast vaders, tie fighters to pieces him?

Or underestimate the power? The force? The star Wars power the Force collection heat sold separately from Kennon. So here's we'll switch gears a little bit because his next question is a challenge in You and I talked a little bit about this, But what are some of the non pop culture things that you've collected over the years. Yeah.

I had to think about this kind of herd after I thought of the question, because I'm like, wait, are there is there anything? Man? I just thought of the buttons earlier, and that's one thing. Yeah, pinbacks. What I don't know what if I say buttons, if people understand when I'm talking about In other countries they call them pinbacks anyway, So I did have quite a few of those, and then I remembered, oh yeah, like in my twenties when I smoked, I collected ashtrays.

Oh, and I had quite a few of them and would actually get them from relatives and other people. And those were displayed in the Cambridge and with Shon apartment. That's cool, that's right, I remember, and used in the Cambridge and with Shan apartment. Yeah back then on Cambridge and was Shan smoking in the apartment was just part of what we did. So I had those out and displayed for a long time and just got rid of them.

Actually when we cleaned out our rafters and just discovered during Easter and my sister and my shared birthday celebration that my nephew is now collecting ashtrays and I could have given them to him, but oh well, wow, there wasn't anything all that special in there. And then the other kind of adult quote unquote thing that I collected, we're swizzle sticks for a very brief period of time. That's funny. That was one of the things that I searched for on eBay and tried to find, you know, ones that were specific to dive bars and stuff that would just have have a bar's little logo or whatever on them. And then people started giving me swizzles.

And by people, I mainly mean my mom's side of the family, right because antiquing is one of their big pleasures in life. There. That's awesome. They're all antique collectors And when we would go up to Portland, that was one of the things that they would do. We would go to Oh, shoot, I've forgotten the name of it, the place where Goonies was filmed.

Oh yeah, go there. The town is called Astoria. Kindergarten, cop and green Room were also filmed there. There's a bunch of antique stores, and everybody would go antiquing. Oh, Mark's interested in swizzle sticks, Let's go swizzle Star, which I don't know where those ended up, but I don't have any of them.

I love antiquing, and I feel like I don't really share that with my family. I don't know what it is about antiquing. I feel like it's solely mine. I don't have any memories of us purposefully going to antique stores either side of my family. Ever since I was young.

Anytime there would be an antique store in a town, I would ask to go there. That's because you're really a forty year old woman. I think so, I really do think so. And then the flea markets in that town I was living in, which was in case anybody's ever wondering, I don't think the flea markets happened there anymore, but maybe they do. But the town was Okhurst, which is above for us.

Now about forty five minutes away every time i'd go, and now to this day still I love going to antique stores. And I sent you a picture of some stuff from an antique store in Monterey not too long ago. Oh and I also apparently collected frogs, so let me home. Yeah, that and the other thing that we've kind of hinted at. I have a pretty serious, decent Blacksburrow Press collection, and that started with Bukowski but branched off pretty extensively.

I have quite a bit of a fimera in that trunk behind me, of broadsides and flyers and the little New Year's greetings that they would put out prospect I for books and Diane Well all the people that I ended up publishing and wake up heavy the first iteration of that. That's the other thing I seriously collected, mainly because eBay was around, and I can track those things down because we weren't going to find them here in our bookstores unfortunately. No, which is a good transition. I'll briefly state this that I have a nice, fairly adorable little Black Sparrow bookshelf right up here. You know, there's nothing quite like the design of those covers and the way those books look and feel.

That'll be an episode for me someday. Yeah, exactly. That's part of how we met was bonding over Bukowski. So bonding over Bukowski, bonding over Bukowski. Yeah, old bastard, I know right, Old Journey's the original, old dirty bastard.

Absolutely absolutely look at that old man. A sweet birdie with brown eyes said to a sweet birdie with green eyes, he's really fucked up. So what was available in the bookstores around Fresno, and they used bookstores, surprisingly were books by local authors, and there were also a few There was one bookstore in fig Garden Village that would have I forget what the name of the bookstore was, that would have local authors there as well. You could buy new ones Fig Garden Bookstore, Yeah, I think that's what it was called. That was something that was also happening to me during my junior and senior year of high school, as I had a pretty influential English teacher.

His name is Mike Cole. He was in tight with a lot of the local Fresno authors poets. Primarily I started to meet them because they would just hang out in the Tower District, which is funny. I guess in that retrospect they were all older writers. I quickly became obsessed with the voices of the Central Valley.

So I have discounts as non pop culture because you know, a lot of these people aren't even talked about these days. I do have quite an extensive collection of Central California, central San Joaquin Valley published authors, and some of these books are published independently, some of them were published by universities, and some of them are, like Philip Levine, published by larger presses. Yeah, I've got a nice collection of Central Valley authors, but I think pretty much everything else that I've collected over the years does fit into the category of pop culture, because that's just how it works. What's the biggest collection you have, Mark, I would say it's probably either Migos slash Migo like figures because there are a number that were made by other companies, or my Black Sparrow stuff.

If I had to count the items separately, I would say it's either one of those. I can't really think of anything that I have that I've spent as much money on. How's your vintage Star Wars collection or even Star Wars well plus the gentle giant figures. But what are your numbers there to do? I mean, I have my childhood Yeah, it's considerable, it's not I wouldn't put it up against even the smallest novice collector.

Really just my childhood ones. And then I think I have four of the gentle three or four of the gentle giant figures. Yeah, and some of the retro stuff, more recent retro figures. But I don't even almost really don't even consider that a collection. It's just like here in their items, sad items.

I can vouch for this. Your Black Sparrow collection is really impressive, and your Migo collection is really impressive too. Fortunately none of that stuff is on display, all in boxes. You used to have your Black Sparrow stuff on display, it was like a museum wall. There are some of it in one of the bookshelves, all the Pokowski stuff and the actual books, but a lot of the ephemera is since it's smaller items and sometimes single sheets and yeah, things like that.

They're pretty much in a box in that trunk behind me. They did some really cool stuff. I'll just say that they did. And no matter whether or not you're a fan Ofkowski, are not John Fonte, Diane Mkowski, Larry Eigner. There are a ton of really important authors that they put out.

They were often overlooked because of Bukowski's public interest level. I guess all of those books are just absolutely gorgeous. Yeah, and the little things they did are really cool. To the promotional items and all that other crap is really really well thought out and beautiful stuff. Making beautiful physical items out of poetry or fiction or essays is really an awesome thing.

You were doing some of that stuff too. Like, my largest collection is by far Masters of the Universe that started Even though there were I had leanings toward this starting with the two thousand and two Masters of the Universe line, I didn't start collecting Masters in a serious way until about ten years ago go. That's when I started to sort of look on eBay for the vintage figures, started to buy the occasional Masters of the Universe Classics figure that was available at a reasonable price. I missed the subscription option for Masters of the Universe Classics back when they were first coming out, so I would grab what I could grab at a reasonable price as they were available either on eBay or on the Maddy Collector site.

When I really started to get serious with this was when I discovered I could own again those vintage figures that I coveted as a kid. They were fairly reasonable ten bucks five to ten bucks for a vintage figure online. Right before gosh, a couple of one or two years before the pandemic, I got my first beast Man, first vintage Beastman figure, and that was just huge for me. It was like finally being able to hold that in my hands. I'd never had that.

Then fall it up quickly by Skeletor, something I didn't have as a kid but that I always coveted, and then doing the research online and finding out if you could get the Skeletor with the pink cheeks, that was awesome. I never found one at the reasonable price, but what I did find was Skeletor with the half boots, and that means the front of the boots are painted, but the back of the boots weren't painted. And then it started to get real exciting for me. And then of course during the pandemic, right at the end, the tail end of the pandemic, origins come out. Then Master Verse figures start coming out, which are, you know, for people who aren't familiar, these are the deluxe, fancier or more detailed versions of these characters.

And then the Origins was like a more articulated version of the vintage figure, and I just went in as deep as I possibly could without breaking our bank. It's remained that way. I've got a really cool collection of vintage Masters of the Universe figures now, and I think a pretty impressive collection of the newer stuff and making items and trading items, whether they be little paintings or the sculptural playsets, trading these items for toys and has been really exciting. There's been really cool to be to discover the community out there around Masters of the Universe and be part of that and went to power Con before it changed and went out to the Midwest, and this has been a really exciting era for me as a collector, the Masters of the Universe.

So yeah, Masters is my biggest collection. The whole thing of getting those items that you never had that you coveted will come for me with Migos, that is a whole episode for me. Yeah, I've touched on them. I'm not going to get into any details, but there are certain figures that man, oh man, they put the whammy on me and I never had them. Yeah, that kind of is the segue into the second part of this.

Yes, we'll get to in a second because we're going to take a break because I need to go to the bathroom me too, and we need to play some ads. So we'll do all that and be right back. Each superhero action figure as old separately rum me go. Jeff is like an extremely consistent listener of our show, and he's going to love twice. Well, Jeff, you can answer this question for yourself while you're listening and everyone else.

How do you define nostalgia? Ronald? This is really hard because it's sort of anomalous or ethereal is the best way I can describe it. It's so it's difficult to describe. Here's an example of the the anomaloust nature of that nostalgia button being pushed for me.

I hadn't seen I hadn't seen cinder Ella since I was a kid. It's always been my least favorite Disney film. It just wasn't that exciting to me. I love Sleeping Beauty. I always love Sleeping Beauty.

Something about the artwork snow White like if we're talking princesses, like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, the best, like the best Disney princess movies in my opinion, although I've seen some other goods. Anyways, Cinderella as a kid for me was not that interesting, but I put it on the other day just as an experiment. I was like, I wonder, I wonder if it's going to kick something into gear for me, and boom, the moment that first song is sung by her, it gave me a kind of euphoric feeling in my brain and my body. Like so it's not just logic, it's not just physical like it's not holding the action figure, it's not hearing the song. It's like a full body experience, like a visceral joy.

Nostalgia for me is that, Okay, just yesterday Fewer had a street fair and you know, walk by one booth and there was a slight patuli smell at this booth and boom. I'm not only am I in the nineties with the neo hippie movement, but I'm also in the eighties the stink oar like boom. That smell just gives me a visceral smells are the most effective trigger of memory I have come to learn over the years. At first, I mean, I think that's scientifically proven. Anytime we go back to Portland, the minute we get to a certain point in the drive, yes, I start smelling those smells.

And we went there every summer while I was a kid going back. I mean, we haven't been to my mom's child at home in years, but when we would go there, it had a very distinct smell. Yeah. I put down as my definition a glorified view of the past, and that's very one note ish. Yeah, glorified could be read as either snarky or Yeah, but we don't have a nostalgia about bad things, yes, exactly about good things.

So that's why I use glorified. But so I have a funny recall that it was the impetus for this show which I sent to you. Carly and and I were laying in bed, getting ready to go to sleep and doing our doing the worst thing you can do before you go to sleep, scrolling through Instagram. Absolutely, we do it pretty much every night. I look at posts, so pictures, and she mainly looks at reels, which often these days have music in the background of them, or someone talking or both, and so she was doing that and this song popped up.

So this will explain why this is playing at the beginning of the episode, because people are going to go, what the fuck is going on? Or they're going to be like that song. Yeah, right of a certain age, I think you'll do that. This song came on and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I can't even explain.

It's the same sort of feeling you're describing where it was full brain and body, and it hit me upside the head. And I was like, oh my god, I haven't heard that song, yes, and at least thirty five years, if not longer. And I said, I totally remember that song, and she's like, oh yeah, music Box Dancer. The title means absolutely nothing to me, that fucking melody. Man.

Oh it had been burned in my brain for quite a while and then completely disappeared. But hearing it again, no specific memories, because I don't know why I remember it. I kind of have figured it out a little bit. Maybe it was ubiquitous at a certain time in the early eighties. I think Carly and I talked about this maybe yesterday, because I was sourcing the music to put on here.

Ye kind of chuckled when she heard it again. I said, yeah, I put that on my phone. I went to iTunes this week and put it on my phone and it played in my car on one of day, said, I drove Cleo to school. But I said it was on like one of those compilation record ads that they used to run on TV. I said it was like either soft rock or instrumental classics or something all the time, and people used it for their ballet recitals or for their preyano recitals or whatever.

I mean, it was just massive. I don't know if that guy made a million billion dollars off, but I hope he did, because I hope so too. It's I can't even describe it. I will say this. My stepsister had a music box that had that song in it, and I was absolutely fascinated.

I would turn that knob and wind it up, open the lid and watch a little ballet dancer dance and listen to that song like on repeat. Every time I was at their house, which is like every other weekend. I would be line it for that either the oh what is that now? I'm blanking out on it. We've talked about it before.

But the light bright you plug in the things and is was it light bright? Yeah? Yeah, light bright? Okay, I don't remember talking about that before, but yeah, that's what that is. I think I dreamt us talking about it.

I would be lining to the light bright or to the music box that they had upstairs in their shared bedroom. When you sent me that song, You're like, this is the impetus part in part of this conversation we're going to have. I was like, oh, that's interesting. I wonder if it's the song, and then I pushed play on the YouTube link, and sure enough, that song and all that nostalgia came back from me too. Yeah.

It's like a minute long. Really, it's a three three and a half minute song. Yeah, but it's the same thing repeated three times with an extended sort of version at the end. And because I listened to it and I'm like, oh, they're just repeating this over and over again. That takes me to another song, which you're going to play right now, and that is Minis You Who?

Now, Mini's You Who? Use me? Yeah? I know right. Minnis You Who was a Disney song that was on one of my I had a little Fisher Price record player when I was a kid, and I had a few Disney records, one of which was The Electrical Parade and another one which was Disneyland Song.

So like the Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion, these songs that were snippets of the rides. But I had this other one that was like a collection of songs. I still to this day can't picture the album cover, nor have I ever been able to find it. But it had a song on there called Mini's You Who? And I didn't even know the name of the song, but I was in the car.

Do you remember Blake Hanson. I was in the car with Blake Hanson in like ninety ninety six, probably he put a tape in the machine in the car and it was that song. And it hit me like a ton of bricks. This song. I must have listened to it a thousand times.

It's a kid the anomalous again with the word anomalists, the aluminous, anoma of anomalist nature, anomalist nature of nostalgia can be embodied in this. I didn't know what the name of the song was, but as soon as I heard it, it hit me sort of a similar experience that you had. So what I did not too long ago, about three months ago, I found a little I found it on vinyl that's like a you know, a single, and it's the song. Now, I've put it on like ten times since I bought it on the record player, and I did the same thing. I found it on Apple Music.

And there's something about that song that's just takes me to a place. I'd there's something really off color right now, but maybe I shouldn't. Well, it's a little a little hard to not because of the name of the movie, but i'm the name of the song. Is it just a bunch of quef sounds? Right?

No, it's quite lovely. Well, I'll insert it where you advise me to. I wrote the title down and everything. I actually think that that's a good lead into what part does nostalgia play in your collecting habits? Yeah, huge and enormous part.

Yeah. I think it's you and I both talked about this consistently, and that is like the search for It's like the researcher in US is not just looking for information, it's also looking for that sensory fulfillment of this thing. And I don't like for me. Nostalgia can sometimes bring back difficult memories, and sometimes it's the act of facing that difficult memory through nostalgia too, which can be difficult but also also rewarding in a way, in a kind of healing process, if that makes sense. But it can also be joyous, and the healing can be joyous too.

It took me a while to figure out that part of the reason why I collect stuff is because it helps me deal with difficult situations I faced as a child, and how important the role of plastic played in my life as a child going through these difficult things. Yeah. Yeah, it plays a very strong role in why I collect things. You're already getting into the next part of that question is you know, yea, what is it about that? And that was my thought, like not everybody does this.

I know tons of people who would look at this and go like why not even comprehend why are you buying toys from your childhood? Right? So I always think like, is it just that glorified view of like these things made me happy, whether you were had a happy childhood or not, whether you had difficult times, these are the things that made me happy. My memories around them are happy. Maybe my life wasn't happy.

I didn't have I had a pretty safe, happy childhood, not a lot of trauma or anything. My parents have been together for decades, and so I don't really have any bad memories. Why these things? What is it? What is this fulfilling?

Right? I don't I don't really, I don't know. I don't know if it's just the esthetics of the thing. Because you've mentioned esthetics, I'm gonna fumble over that word now. As of these things, that's a big part of it.

I have mentioned to you in the past, like I've got a few of these items on my desk here, so munch bunch or cutie freeze, when I grabbed this guy versus when I look at Star Wars figures versus when I look at the cyclops from the Tomland toy line versus whatever else. It's like you mentioned with the Mini's you and the music box, it's a very specific thing, not necessarily even a specific memory. It's a different feeling for each thing. I agree, it's weird. I can't really articulate it very well, but it's not the same old thing for each item exactly.

So they've hit something in your brain and I know that this is scientific to a certain degree. The neurons that connect when you watch a movie or listen to a song, it's a specific neuron, you know, it's a specific thing each time. So I guess it's just hitting those things again, yes, because it's not just a blanket like oh nostalgia, oh stuff for my childhood. There's a microt in front of me that elicits a very specific feeling of nostalgia versus this great. Here's what I think it is.

It's the closest thing to time travel that we can have each I could just describe each thing or each song or each smell is like a portal to a place, and it's a brief experience. It's like this, like you can have that moment. If I listen to a song by the Melbons that I listened to on repeat in nineteen ninety eight, I'm taken to that moment. If I listen to Minnie's You Who, I'm taken to my bedroom in Dunlap. Or if I smell Petulia, I immediately think of stink.

Or if I see the cross I mean, it's really weird. It happens to me sometimes on the frenzy on Thursday nights. We've got a Master's of the Universe expert on that show, Adam from the Battle Round blog, and he'll sometimes show cross sell art from the back of Masters of the Universe packaging when we're talking about a particular character or the history of a character, and just looking at that image gives me that feeling and it takes me to that place where I'm looking at the back of that card back guard as a kid. Part of me feels like special in that I accept that opportunity. I feel a little bit sorry for folks that push those opportunities away or or feel like, oh, I shouldn't do that because that's not mature, or whatever however they define it in their brain.

I feel like it's a gift to allow myself the opportunity to experience those portals again and again and again. It's for me at least. I know for you it's a little different, but for me, some of those portals take me to difficult places. It has helped me in a very serious way heal and when I was in my twenties and in my early thirties, I wasn't aware of the healing properties of this kind of engagement. It helps me sort of face things that I was angry about for me years and why why I was self destructive and all kinds of stuff, And so collecting for me at least, is a way of accessing a kind of joy that's that's also also difficult, Like it's a really weird place to be difficult joy.

It's like it's a nominalist aesthetics. Yeah, I'm almost a fuck. It is aesthetics. It's smell, it's thematic, and it's it's exciting. I mean, there are things that I don't even that I'm not even that interested in, like the Metallica Black album.

I much prefer Metallica from the earlier years, but the Black album takes me to write to this place, this very specific place and sophomore year of high school of hearing those songs and being with friends and being in that in that moment. Yeah, the weird thing about the music Box Dancer being the trigger being a big trigger for this. The other ones that I couldn't decide on a specific topic, but like we talked about when you were tracking down that Hooskerduce song, I mentioned, I don't look at songs that way because most of it I kept for my child Divo and the Beatles and the Doors and the Stones and Pink Floyd and all that stuff. I kind of kept. I can't.

I tried this whole past week. I'm like, what's a song that I want to remember? And I can't think of one. It comes to me. Like I mentioned, then, a lot of it is I've heard a song in a movie.

Yeah, but like pretty, Let's not pretty sixteen Candles. There's a lot of good songs on there that I would like, be what is that song? Yeah? Then realize, you know, well, you can watch the credits and try and figure it out. But there's a ton of songs.

Which one is it? As I mentioned, nowadays, when something comes on in a movie, I shazam it, and then now I've got that saved on my phone, I can go back look at my Shazam and try to find that song on iTunes. This has happened in a lot of shows like Fargo and stuff. When they were the series was based in the seventies, they were playing all these songs. I'm like, oh, what the fuck is that?

And I chiz am it and I can go find it and I can put it on my phone. So I have to encounter them again to be like, oh I remember that, Yeah, that's what happened with this music box dancer, And I'm like, this would have been something I called a guilty pleasure back then. Like the melody of that song is just like amazing. Yeah, so I put it on my phone. I literally haven't thought of that.

I wouldn't even I can't even see myself going, what was that instrumental piano song that they played all the time when I was a kid? Oh, I sure loved. I had no memory of it at all, but man, when it came back, it came back hard. It was bizarre. Well.

An example of this is yazz or Yazoo, the band from the eighties. They recently had like two or three songs on commercials. I hadn't thought about this band since the eighties, but when those songs came on the radio, I remember noting the name of the band, seeing their records in a store and thinking that's something I want to have eventually. And then that period of time passed in my life. I didn't have the means to buy records for myself.

But when I was a kid having my little tiny radio and going out into the woods with my toys and listening to the music my battery power radio. Several songs by them, the hits by them would come on, and I just loved them. There was something I absolutely loved about those songs. I hadn't thought about yaz or yazoo in forty years, and suddenly commercials are using them, and I'm immediately transported to a place a similar things. Yeah, I'm making sure I've lost music over the years.

I just don't think about it in the same way as like, oh I never had that mego or what was that plastic rock ball? I remember? You know, they didn't stick. But when they come back, it's like, oh yeah, okay, see back then on the radio, like you're lucky if the DJ even says the title of the song before you turn it off or leave or whatever, you know, or match it up with the song that actually played, because they might play four songs and then say all the titles and artists of the song because they have to do that, try and match it up, and then what do you do with that information? You know, these days it's so much easier.

Here's something that I know you can identify with them. I don't think I've talked about it on the show before, but maybe I have. When I first heard songs by Tears for Fears, I was really digging in deep with the Muppets, and I was also drawing Muppets on a regular basis with sharpie pens in my mom's classroom before school would start. So I have this through the gift of nostalgia and sensory, the magic of our sensory associative properties of our sensory abilities. If I smell sharpies, I immediately think of Tears for Fears and the Muppets.

If I see the Muppets, I immediately think of Tears for Fears, and I smell Sharpies. If I hear Tears for Fears, immediately think of the Muppets and Sharpies. That's phenomenal to me. I think you told that story on our on your Muppet So, yeah, because this all sounds really familiar to me, You're it's really stalgic feeling for me. Yeah, it's it's it's magical to me.

I feel like it's magical. It's a weird thing, and I hope that other animals are able to experience this like we do, because it's pretty cool. Well, I mean to hear about dogs or cats finding their way home, so in a way, they have probably some kind of nostalgic instinct. We'll say, Well, we kind of answered all the last three questions with our yeah, with our answers. So we've talked about what the feelings the nostalgia and collecting elicits in us, What need or desire does this fulfill?

What makes us surround ourselves with items from our past? All that, all that, I think we've made pretty clear. Let's talk briefly about contemporary nostalgia, because this is something I've been thinking about too. What am I going to adhere to when I'm seventy about this particular era of my life? Oh?

Yeah, it's interesting. I've I've been thinking. I've been trying to like sort of predict the like forthcoming nostalgia. Yeah, I don't know, because I'm trying to think because for me, I would say it's probably the same stuff. Yeah, maybe, because for the last since shortly before I met Carlita, which was twenty five years ago, it's been the stuff from my childhood right that I got back into.

As far as am I going to feel nostalgia for the Mandalorian in twenty five years. Maybe I don't know, but that can also be traced back to Boba Fet So it's like, you know, well, and it's maybe different when you're older. It might be that, you know, having a kid is what you ponder on. This is bringing me to what I was just about to say. The only thing I use Facebook for these days is looking at the things that I posted in the past.

So when I go to Facebook and open it up, I just hit the memories button on the side. Yeah. I was a lot more active when she was little. Yeah, So that's what I'm seeing is stuff from her playing in the yard right now as it warms up, you know, every year around this time, and so she's back out playing in the dirt and playing with rocks and her little dinosaurs and lizards, and so I don't know. I don't know if it'll be things or if it'll just be a home life.

I had a moment with our youngest about four or five months ago. We cracked open her collection of zoom zooms, remember those tsum tsum And it was really interesting because holding those little things in my hand and going through the different Disney characters, it was the three of us, Ariela and Faith and I And it took us all back to that era where we were actively searching those out hunting for them as a family. We'd go on road trips, we'd stop by target, we'd look for zoom zooms. It's like it was really a fun time and trying to figure out which mystery bags were what characters, And it took us all back to that, you know, fairly, it wasn't that long ago that I guess what was it, like six five six years ago?

It was. It was pretty significant that portal, the zuomsom portal exists for us. So I think, as you, I think having kids helps with this. I think it probably exists for people who don't have children too. It takes some distance to identify what that portal was going to be, or what that trigger is going to be.

We had no idea that by breaking out those zoom zooms that we would all be I mean, we spent a good two hours going through and just like looking at them. Yeah. I don't know where cleos are, but she has quite a few of them too. Yeah, the little rubber ones and the plush ones. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

I'm looking behind you and you've got those alien eggs from what five easters ago? That was Yeah, and you and I we got to find these. I think I just ordered them on Amazon. But when they were first announced, it was like, wow, that's cool, Like they probably haven't been cracked open since then. Yeah.

I see posts by Dustin crops Boy aka sugar Frosted, and he's working on McDonald's stuff, and that gives me nostalgia for last year when you and I were digging deep in McDonald plan. But that relates to an old thing. Portals can piggyback off of portals. Sure, the Star Wars memory of the late seventies early eighties and the movies and the toy collecting we have the share. I have the memory of toy hunting with Jeff Martin in the late nineties, and that transfers to watching The Mandalorian and finding these figures and then re experiencing power of the force.

Now, it's like these layers of nostalgia can build over time if you're open to them. Yeah, and just bring this my question back up. What if we had stopped at those three movies, I think we'd still be in it. Those three movies made such an impression on me at least, I think I'd still be fascinated by the toys. And yeah, I think so.

We'll never know because it just keeps coming. Yeah, there's just more and more. There's more stuff coming. I will say that I'm less interested in the new stuff, but I am always interested. Hey, so I wanted to mention something that I keep forgetting and I finally wrote it down.

This time is And it's been a while now since this happened, but our little show here and I'm going to call it little finally hit five hundred plays a while back, so actually we're closer to six hundred now, so you know, pretty the insignificant amount of plays for a show that's existed for over a year, but it's a milestone. So there you go. We're doing this for the joy of doing it. Yeah, maybe if we complained more then we would get more stage bait. Let's Get're not going to play into that, because that's that's bullshit.

Just like I started with Wake Up Heavy, if ten people listen, it's ten more than I would have expected. So absolutely so, if you're listening right now, thank you for being here and listening to us rant about this stuff. I have another definition for nostalgia. Oh, let's hear it. Nostalgia is a bitch.

It is. Oh and we haven't even talked about the addictive qualities of this. I know that's that's another that's a whole episode. I think the downside, the dark side of nostalgia that gets me in a bad mood. Yeah.

Yeah, we can talk about that sometime. Addiction and all that stuff that people fall into with when it comes to collecting, and that's a little that's scary, and we don't want to downplay that at all because that's really difficult for a lot of people. I have kind of figured out a way to keep myself in check, but I know that probably just works for me. And well, yeah, and I've had to put a check on a lot of things, and there are external things that helped make that easier. But yeah, that is that's a that's a good topic to do another a second one of these episodes on Actually, I might get a little it'll get a little rough though, because I have some strong opinions about a lot of that.

It'll be our Empire strikes Back, the type of sequel to this episode. It's gonna get dark folks. Yeah, I'm gonna break that down. Actually, yeah, dark side of click. Yeah, the nostalgia strikes back.

Yeah, but this is good. I'm glad we talked about this today and I hope that it resonates with some folks that are listening. What do you got coming up? Mark? Yeah, I don't, I don't know, I don't care.

I'm gonna plug this though. My wife and I are now currently watching The Bionic Woman, so oh cool ties into my six million dollar man stuff. We got access to the three seasons of The Bionic Woman and we watched four episodes last night while Kleio was that prom nice. They're pretty cheesy. Yeah, speaking of cheesy, my wife and I have I've been watching as we're falling asleep at night and watching super Friends in chronological order, and those early episodes are really bad and it's super cheesy, but it sure does push the nostalgia button for both of us.

And we were talking about how we don't recall any of these episodes, but there's something about the theme song. There's just something about the Hanna Barbera animation. It's kind of just nice to have on as white noise in the background as we're like dozing off. It's pretty great. Well, you should start scrolling through Instagram instead, and maybe you'll stumble on a forty five year old earworm that'll smack you in the face with memories exactly vague memories, but very strong, very strong, vague memories.

If that makes any sense. Oh yeah, definitely it makes sense to me. Tune into the Sclevator channel if you're interested in more of this type of stuff. We've got the Frenzy on Thursday nights where we talk about toys and other pop culture stuff and ever is garnering our interest in the moment. And lately I've been working on this Snake Mountain build that's ongoing, so tune in for those or watch the back episodes of those.

The build is coming along so it's a lot of fun. And also it should be mentioned that Jeff Martin, who has been mentioned on the show several times in today's episode, and I have started making some music with our friend Matt. The name of that band is No and No Slash and and you can if you're interested in hearing the stuff we've been doing. It's on Instagram as No Underscore A and D underscore band. That's something that's been fun recently too.

You know where to find me if you want to find me. If you don't, I'm over plugging myself. Well I'm going to plug you a little bit because I really enjoyed Get out of here. I enjoyed the last episode. Wrap this up.

Do you want to hear me and my daughter talk about the Blues Brothers that I finally got her to watch. You can go over to wickip Heavy. That's right, that's what I was about to say. Good stuff. There you go.

I enjoyed it. Remember until we meet again, have fun, stay weird, and keep collecting. Don't done, don and here's some more music Box Dancer or many as you who I'm the guy they called little Mickey Mouse, not a sweety cow in the chicken mouse, neither fat nor skin. She's the horses. Whinny is my little meime mouse When it's eating time for the animals and they howl and bowl like the cannimals.

I just turned my heel to the hand the house deel and you hear me sing this song. Oh the old um get with is me all hound dog with ito? Wow? Wow, the growth gosh wanta So I have listened to. Then I heard the roost of Daka do with the cows and the chicken sail sounds like that they can find a hair.

My little manny, I'm the guy they called ittle Mickey mouse, not a sweedie cow in the chicken house, neither bad nor skin. She's the horses when he is my little many mouse. When it's feeding time for the animals, and they howl and growl like the cannibals. I just turned my heel to the hand mouse steel and you hear me sing this song. Oh the old jump pat with is me now all hound dog with a wow wow wow?

The growth mules gosh, wanna reckon I get home. So I have listened to the Google Boo ban. I heard the roost of Daka Doodle dude with the cows and the chickens. Sale sounds like the nickens finda hair, My little nanny, you you Cambridgector Sean is a weirding Way Media podcast mh