Rish Outfield's Blog, page 3

Rish Outcast 304: A Group Hug Saves The World

After watching Marvel's THE THUNDERBOLTS (spoiler warning), Rish muses about the possibility of solving problems with a hug instead of a fist.

And Fake Sean tries his own squeezin, touchin, and lovin.

Download the episode by Right-Clicking HERE.

Support me on Patreon HERE.

Logo by Gino "Group Slug" Moretto.

Brian Wilson - You Never Need To Doubt It

Many years ago, I wrote that "I may not always love you, but sure as there are stars above you; you'll never need to doubt it, I'll make you so sure about it.  God only knows what I'd be without you" were the most beautiful words ever written.  Not sure, twenty-five years down the road, if I wasn't right.

One of the first gigs I got as an extra in L.A. was for a TV miniseries called "The Beach Boys: An American Family."  I got to wear '60s clothes and have my hair combed/cut into an era-appropriate style, and play a fan at an early Beach Boys performance.  And between takes, I hung out (briefly) with the actors playing the band, asking them about their characters.  "I drown," proclaimed the one playing Dennis Wilson.  "And I just died," said the one playing Carl Wilson.  

I liked the Beach Boys' music, and to get paid to pretend to listen to them, while hanging out with the mom on "The Wonder Years,"* felt like I had made it.

Well, the Beach Boys DID make it--they're probably the greatest American band of the 1960s--with more hit songs that you could shake a surfboard at.  And Brian was behind it all, the chief songwriter, the genius with a shorthand that spoke to a great many young people about the ocean and fun and young love and excitement and California.**

Brian Wilson, founder and chief songwriter of the Beach Boys, died this week, at the age of 82.  There was a bit of fanfare, a few tributes, and at least one person expressed that "Finally, he is at peace," which struck me as unsettling, but yeah, the man had his demons.  His contributions to music can't really be overstated, though I do wonder if any young person alive today knows who the Beach Boys are.  If not, it's certainly their loss.

I probably haven't listened to Surfer Girl since my twenties.  And yet, while I stood by the library doors, waiting for everyone to leave, I surprised myself by remembering every single line from "Little surfer, little one," to "surfer girl, my little surfer girl."  And that's kind of amazing.

Brian Wilson had a ton of problems, and had burned a lot of bridges.  But he had absolutely nothing to do with their 1986 hit Kokomo, and that's a huge point in his favor.
Rest in peace, Brian.  Only God knows what music would be without you.

*During lunch, I asked Alley Mills if she minded if I called her "Mom," since my mom was a thousand miles away.  She said sure, and I said, "That must seem pretty weird to you," and she said, "No, I get that all the time."
**This guy may have done as much good for the ocean as Steven Spielberg did bad.  Whachoothink?

Weirdos In My Library

I had two odd experiences today that, because they happened on the same shift, I felt motivated to blog about.

First off, in the computer section, there was a man sitting at one who, as I walked by, gave me a . . . uh, you know . .  a straight-armed salute.  I found that strange, but hey, sometimes people do that.

But then he did it a second time.  Because the guy's a regular, I approached him to suggest that maybe he not wave in that way because it sort of looked like, you know.  But when I went around, I could see he was watching a documentary about Adolf Hitler.  I went back to my desk.

I guess I found it amusing enough to sit down and look for when he did it on the security monitor to put the image into this post.  Scrubbing though the footage, I found him saluting at timestamp 4:46:39 . . . but that wasn't when I was on my rounds.  So I ran it backwards a little.  Turns out, he did it again at 4:43:56, and at 4:43:50.  After five times, I stopped keeping track and closed the program.  It wasn't remotely funny anymore.

But not long later, I saw a young couple come in right before we closed, one with a camera and one with a bag filled with something I thought were ice cubes at first.  But as they went about their "business," I realized the bag held googly eye stickers, and I later learned they had been through the academy building and the parking garage before this, making their mischief.

Before my eyes, they proceeded to walk around, sticking them to posters and displays and worst of all, to the statue of the little boy outside the children's library.*  

It was the first time was ever sad not to be armed on this job.

But I did have pepper spray . . . 

At the end of my shift, I told my boss about the googley-eyed bandits, and he said that he had just spent a few minutes walking through the building, peeling eye stickers off walls and statues and photos of our donors.  Just like the Nazi-saluting library patron, my boss didn't find it remotely funny.

*The statue is constantly being used for selfies or photo ops, or kids will hug it or climb on it or kiss it.  But one time, there were a pair of ten year old boys who dared one another to rub their butts on it.  
P.S. I asked the janitor how often she cleans the statue.  And she told me, "The statue?  I've never cleaned it."

Lighten Up While You Still Can

I was bummed out earlier today when I heard that the townspeople of Bozeman, Montana are not fond of Star Trek fans who travel there to mark the (future) site of mankind's first contact with aliens.  Anecdotally, they have been known to brandish rake handles and corn cobs and suggest that Trekkies "shove long and prosper."

It made me sad because, just like Metropolis, Illinois, which proclaims itself the home of Superman, and Riverside, Iowa, which calls itself the future birthplace of James T. Kirk*, you'd think any town would welcome the kind of tourists that would come there for the day, buy mugs and t-shirts, take pictures, then scatter (of course, Bozeman is literally a hundred and eighteen times the size of my hometown, so maybe they don't need that kind of thing).

But then I found out that Winslow, Arizona, a little town that used to be on the famous Route 66 but lost all of its industry and tourism when the historical highway was relocated, has thoroughly embraced its minor bit of fandom.  You see, in 1972, the Eagles released the song Take It Easy, which includes the line:

         Well, I'm standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona,
         Such a fine sight to see;
         It's a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford,
        Slowin' down to take a look at me.

. . . and the lovely folks of Winslow (a little burg only nine times the size of my hometown) decided to honor the song by building a park (Standin' On The Corner Park) and tribute, where Eagles fans can go and, I dunno, imagine that a girl is slowing to look at them too.  Because wouldn't that be great?

There's a mural, a painting, a prop vehicle, and a statue of "The Troubadour," which folks say looks like Jackson Browne, who wrote the song.

In 2016, after Glenn Frey (singer and cowriter of the song) died, another statue was put up to honor him . . . all in an attempt to draw tourists to their little corner of the globe.  

People can go there, take a picture, buy a souvenir, and remember a great song.  And maybe they fill up at the Maverik gas station or Circle K, or have lunch at the McDonalds on Park Drive or the Brown Mug Cafe on Second Street.  And then, everybody wins. 

It's difficult to explain how much joy I got from reading about it and seeing the various photos people have taken over the years (it opened in 1999), because it doesn't really do anything, you know what I mean, and yet it somehow manages to mean something.

Would it kill you, Bozeman, to put up a statue too?

*Oh, and I just learned that Vulcan, Alberta in Canada has an annual Spock Day celebration, complete with a bust of Leonard Nimoy and a statue of the Enterprise.  All in an effort to lessen my sadness at Bozeman's (alleged) assholery.

Nice To See A Familiar Face

C-3PO figures tend to be plentiful.  He's a popular, perennial character that requires few paint applications (especially if you're doing a die-cast figure).  His design isn't quite as useful for customs, since other protocol-type droids had different style heads, but the figures are cheap and plentiful.  So I grabbed one and took a picture of it to send to Big, warning him I was going to do something unholy to it.

He seemed excited to see what I'd do with it, and I decided to play it safe and pattern it after the blue droid in the worst-ever episode of "The Mandalorian."  It was an unbelievably beautiful repaint, in a decidedly less-than-beautiful hour of television.

Amazingly, in the more than two years since the series ended, I couldn't find any other photos of it, except the one I grabbed in 2023.
And speaking of lack of photos, I forgot to take some of the work-in-progress.  Which pretty much leaves us with:
I might need to ask Big to send me a better photo, since I gave the repainted Artoo and Threepio to him when he last visited.

Podcast That Dares 58: Notebook Found In A Deserted House

I guess it's been enough time to do another Robert Bloch story . . . hasn't it?

This one is the 1951 Lovecraft homage, "Notebook Found In A Deserted House," about a twelve year old boy who discovers that the only thing worse than a mystery is the answer behind said mystery.

If you wish to download the episode, Right-Click HERE.

If you wish to support me on Patreon, click HERE.

Logo by Gino "Perverted House" Moretto.

I Narrate "The Sin Eater's Chrysalis" on Tales To Terrify

If you like, check out last week's Tales To Terrify podcast, where you can hear me perform the story "The Sin Eater's Chrysalis" by Matt Hollingsworth.

It tells the story of a lonely, bitter man who, like his father before him, is able to consume the sins of the recently-dead so that they can go to Heaven, using some pretty disgusting supernatural methods.  But every consumption takes its mental and spiritual toll on the sin-eater, so he determines that nobody will follow in his footsteps.  It's a dark one, more so than . . . gee, any story in memory I've been asked to do, and way more so than anything I've written.  Sound fun?

I suppose this could be considered a cursed production, because I recorded and edited the story, sent it in, and only heard back the next year to learn that the podcast didn't have my audio.  Not a huge deal, since I always keep my file until the show is released . . . except this time, apparently.  Not sure why I had deleted it, because now we were both a bit scragged.*  Even so, I sat down and re-recorded the story, transferred it, and re-edited the sucker.  This is the ONLY time I've ever done this, in the, what, fifteen years I've put in narrating stories for podcasts.  

Was it worth it?  Go TO THIS LINK to find out.

*Of course, about a month later, I did find the original recording on my back-up SD Card, though far, far too late.

Firewalk With Me (and Marshal)

One of the subgenres we like to visit on our Outfield Excursions podcast is the Indiana Jones knockoff, and strangely, I seem to enjoy these more than Marshal does.  So I was happy to sit down with him and watch FIREWALKER, a Cannon Films adventure starring Chuck Norris, Louise Gossett Junior, and the girl from FLASH AhAhhhhhh GORDON.

But if he ever finds an Indy Jones KO with Jean Claude Van Damme in it . . . that's a bridge too far.

Rish Outcast 303: Reply Hazy

Rish shares an old story, "Reply Hazy," about a young man named Rafael, whose Magic 8 Ball really is magic.

If you wish to download the episode, Right-Click HERE.

If you wish to support me on Patreon, click HERE.

Logo by Gino "Reply Crazy" Moretto.

Rish Performs "The Window Boy" on Cast of Wonders

The last time "Cast of Wonders" asked me to narrate a story was "My Hilt Itches" in May of 2022.  Seems like longer, but hey, better late(ish) than never.

Every writer has his or her strengths and weaknesses.  There are naturally subjects and scenarios I am drawn to, and some I tend to stay as far away from as I can.  One of those that I've struggled with is the dystopian future of Science Fiction or Horror.  

This story, "Window Boy" by Thomas Ha, is a pretty masterful attempt at the age-old idea of a utopian future story . . . where it becomes clear that it's not a utopia at all.  It's also a fanciful Sci-Fi tale about an innocent child that becomes a truly chilling Horror piece by the end.*

Jakey lives with his parents in a world where you don't go outside, but there are TV shows about cybernetic mailmen that protect the outside world from the monsters that roam its streets.  And pretty much every night, Jakey has a conversation with the boy who comes to the window, shares a sandwich with him, and asks him questions about the house he lives in.

Dang, this was a good one--in fact, I'm going to interrupt this blog post and write the author an email about it.  Well, that felt good.  I suggest you do the same, if there's a writer you know of that could use a word of appreciation for their work.  In the meantime, check out my performance of "Window Boy" HERE.  But don't get too close.

*That is, if I interpreted it the way the author intended.  Maybe I didn't.  But if that's the case, well, that would mean the story was much less than the sum of its parts.  And I don't think so.