Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Episode 4 - Terry DeZwarte - Owner Pinball Life

Special When Lit·podcast_episode·1h 51m·analyzed·Jul 13, 2018
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

Terry DeZwarte recounts building Pinball Life from home-based eBay sales to major pinball parts distributor.

Summary

Terry DeZwarte, owner of Pinball Life in Huntley, Illinois, shares the origin story of his pinball parts distribution business. Starting as a casual player in the 1970s-80s, Terry became a route rat during pinball's golden age, then faced the collapse of the industry after Williams closed in 1999. He discovered the internet as a tool to source parts for his own Addams Family machine, began selling surplus parts on eBay, and eventually transitioned from a corporate job at Brinker International to building Pinball Life full-time with his wife Margaret. The business grew from a home-based operation in a 600 sq ft basement to a multi-building warehouse operation in Huntley, supported by key employees like Mike Fox and Justin.

Key Claims

  • Williams closed in 1999 (Black Friday), after which no new pinball games were produced for an extended period, creating a parts shortage crisis.

    high confidence · Terry DeZwarte, discussing industry history; confirmed he didn't notice for ~1 year after closure due to being a route player

  • Gene Cunningham of Illinois Pinball was supposed to take over parts supply from Williams but failed to deliver, leaving operators unable to source parts and machines fell into disrepair.

    high confidence · Terry DeZwarte, recounting what he learned in retrospect about the post-Williams collapse

  • In 2001, Terry paid $1,700 for an Addams Family machine at a live auction in Des Moines, Iowa, exceeding his $1,200 budget.

    high confidence · Terry DeZwarte, recounting his first personal machine purchase

  • Pinball parts suppliers in early 2000s (Marco Specialties, Steve Young's site, Wicco) mostly lacked add-to-cart e-commerce, making purchasing difficult.

    high confidence · Terry DeZwarte, describing the state of online parts availability circa 2001-2003

  • Terry used Ask Jeeves search engine to find 'how to buy a pinball machine' and discovered auctions and online sellers.

    high confidence · Terry DeZwarte, explaining his entry into buying machines and parts online

  • Pinball Life was started with zero external funding and zero borrowed money; all growth was bootstrapped through retained earnings.

    high confidence · Terry DeZwarte, explicitly stating 'I never borrowed a nickel' and describing two years of working for free

  • Terry worked for Brinker International (owner of Chili's and On the Border) opening new restaurant locations while starting Pinball Life part-time, working 55-60 hours at Brinker plus ~30 hours on eBay.

    high confidence · Terry DeZwarte, describing his dual employment period

  • Margaret DeZwarte (co-owner) suggested Terry quit his Brinker job and become a stay-at-home dad while building Pinball Life, based on their ability to manage childcare without daycare.

Notable Quotes

  • “My business philosophy seriously has always been hide and they will find you. And it's working so far.”

    Terry DeZwarte@ 1:38 — Reveals Terry's intentional low-profile business approach and philosophy

  • “Pinball was like a dirty word, basically. How history repeats itself.”

    Terry DeZwarte@ 16:27 — Illustrates the stigma around pinball business after 1999 collapse; Terry notes cyclical industry patterns

  • “I put a part on eBay, and it sold... and I just sort of stared at the screen. I'm like, somebody who doesn't know me just sent me $15? Like, that's my money now?”

    Terry DeZwarte@ 17:36 — Marks the moment Terry realized e-commerce viability; foundational realization for business model

  • “I never even occurred to me to get money from somewhere else. If I couldn't do it on my own, I wasn't going to do it.”

    Terry DeZwarte@ 25:05 — Explains his bootstrap-only approach and rejection of external capital

  • “We raised all our kids basically somehow by never having to put them into daycare... we'd jog our schedules around to get it to work.”

    Margaret DeZwarte (referenced by Terry)@ 22:06 — Shows how family structure enabled risk-taking in early business

  • “I had the luxury of not having to make money, just build inventory slowly.”

    Terry DeZwarte@ 25:31 — Illustrates how Margaret's income enabled organic growth without debt

  • “Whether we are manufacturing it ourself or we're distributing it for somebody else, I mean, we sell out of inventory. I don't believe in selling things I don't have.”

    Terry DeZwarte@ 23:11 — Core operational philosophy: inventory-based model, no pre-sales

Entities

Terry DeZwartepersonMargaret DeZwartepersonMike FoxpersonJustinpersonScott DenisepersonGene CunninghampersonKen CromwellpersonBill Webbperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Pinball Life built with zero external funding, zero debt, reinvesting all early revenue into inventory for 2 years with zero owner income

    high · Terry: 'I never borrowed a nickel... If I couldn't do it on my own, I wasn't going to do it'

  • ?

    business_signal: Pinball Life expanded from 600 sq ft home basement (1 yr) → 1,500 sq ft Huntley basement (2 yrs) → small warehouse (2 yrs) → expanded warehouse (multi-building operation)

    high · Terry: 'seven-foot ceiling, 600 square feet... For four years... then... 1,500 square feet... we moved it all into that warehouse... we actually couldn't handle it ourselves... we bought the building directly connected to it'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Mike Fox, first employee, hired part-time ~2007, transitioned to full-time ~2017, remains warehouse manager with 11+ year tenure

    high · Terry: 'he's been working there full-time for eight years, part-time for three before that. I mean, he's our first employee. He's a key employee'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Williams closure in 1999 created multi-year crisis: no new games, no parts availability, operator machines fell into disrepair, Gene Cunningham of Illinois Pinball failed to take over parts supply

    high · Terry: 'Williams closed... Black Friday... Gene Cunningham... promised he was going to supply all these operators with parts... he didn't do any of that, and you couldn't get any parts... games just started falling apart'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Pinball Life operates on principle of only selling products in stock; refuses to pre-sell or dropship; all inventory must be physically owned

Topics

Pinball parts supply industry and crisis after Williams closure (1999)primaryE-commerce emergence and early internet adoption in pinball industryprimaryPinball Life business founding and growth story (2001-present)primaryBootstrap business model and self-funded startup strategyprimaryRoute playing era and golden age of pinball (1970s-1990s)secondaryFamily and work-life balance in entrepreneurshipsecondaryEmployee retention and business partnerships with friendssecondaryInventory-based business model and warehouse logisticssecondary

Sentiment

positive(0.78)— Terry speaks fondly of his journey and business success; reflects with humor on early mistakes and challenges; expresses genuine appreciation for Margaret and Mike Fox; critical of industry collapse in 1999 but matter-of-fact rather than bitter. Some self-deprecating humor about naive early decisions. Overall tone is grateful and reflective.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.334

0:00
The Special When Lit Pinball Podcast is sponsored by Two Brothers Pinball Pal-El, proudly supporting the passion of the pinheads everywhere.
0:08
What's the name of the ball? It's in a pinball machine. Wow. That's awesome. Anybody know? A little quick trivia?
0:21
It's pinball, guys. Coming at you out of St. Charles, Illinois, the Special When Lit Pinball Podcast starts now. Hey, what's up everyone? Welcome to episode number four of the Special One Lit Pinball Podcast. I am Ken Cromwell. With me today is Bill Webb. We've got a special guest in the studio. I want to check in with Bill real quick. Bill, how's your day going? What's going on? Good, good. Really excited about this interview. Great weather in Chicago. A little warm, but good stuff. Good stuff. It's a little warm. It's potentially pinball playing weather. Our special guest today is somebody that if you've owned a pinball machine in the past, if you currently own one, or if you're planning on owning one, you will cross paths. with this gentleman indefinitely. And his name is Terry DesWart, the owner of Pinball Life in Huntley. Welcome to the studio. What's up, Terry? Oh, not too much. Sitting here at the Pinball Pale Ale Studio. That's what it's all about. Well, I want to welcome you to the show. I want to thank you for taking the time to come on in. Let's just jump right into it, Terry. You know, there's a lot of people that know the business. They don't necessarily know the man behind the business. So why don't you tell us a little bit about where did you grow up? Where did you come from? Well, there's a reason they don't know me. It's because I'm hiding.
1:35
You're in hiding or you're currently hiding? Well, my business philosophy seriously has always been hide and they will find you. And it's working so far. So, you know, I guess people who know me locally know a different Terry than the people who know me professionally.

high confidence · Terry DeZwarte, crediting Margaret's pivotal suggestion

  • Pinball Life spent the first 2 years of full-time operation with zero owner income, reinvesting every penny into inventory.

    high confidence · Terry DeZwarte, describing the early bootstrapping period

  • Mike Fox, formerly of Grainger, joined Pinball Life part-time around 2007 during economic layoffs and transitioned to full-time warehouse manager ~8 years ago (from 2025, ~2017).

    high confidence · Terry DeZwarte, describing Mike's hiring and tenure

  • “When you walk into Pinball Life, you walk into the world headquarters door... I remember pulling all that stuff out of the basement and we moved it all into that warehouse, and I had this sinking feeling when it was all in. I was like, man, we're almost full again.”

    Terry DeZwarte@ 27:54 — Shows rapid growth outpacing facility expansion; inventory volume surprise

  • “Listen, you decide you're going to work together. You've decided you're going to have some bad days. You've just decided it. Like when you said, I do.”

    Terry DeZwarte@ 30:06 — Philosophy on working relationships; marriage analogy underscores commitment despite challenges

  • “He's our first employee. He's a key employee. And, you know, I still consider him my friend after all this time.”

    Terry DeZwarte@ 30:33 — Indicates stability of early hire and long-term retention; values personal relationships

    • Pinball Life
    company
    Illinois Pinballcompany
    Williams Electronicscompany
    Brinker Internationalcompany
    Special When Lit Pinball Podcastorganization
    Two Brothers Pinball Pal-Elcompany
    Marco Specialtiescompany
    Steve Youngperson
    Graingercompany
    Addams Familygame
    Haunted Housegame
    Medieval Madnessgame
    Huntley, Illinoislocation
    Portage Park, Chicagolocation
    Des Moines, Iowalocation
    eBaycompany
    Ask Jeevescompany

    high · Terry: 'we're an inventory business... I don't believe in selling things I don't have. It needs to be in the building'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Pinball Life leveraged early eBay adoption (~2002), then built custom website using $50 Splash program with fake PayPal e-commerce tags (~2003)

    high · Terry: 'I started a little website for a $50 program called Splash... it wasn't even e-commerce, but you could hook up these little tags from PayPal'

  • ?

    venue_signal: Pinball Life expanded from home-based operation to commercial warehouse in Huntley with multiple connected buildings

    high · Terry: 'we moved to Huntley because in Huntley you can get a big basement cheap... we actually bought the building directly connected to it on the other side'

  • ?

    historical_signal: Terry spent 15 years as a 'route rat' (casual pinball player at public locations) from ~1980-1999, playing machines at bars and arcades; was unaware of manufacturing industry details

    high · Terry: 'I was a route rat. So I played tons of games for years, 15 years, route rat... didn't even know that Williams even made the games in the town I was living in'

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: Early 2000s parts sourcing required contacting Chicago manufacturers directly (most unwilling to speak about pinball due to industry stigma); minimum orders of 200+ units even for home hobbyists

    high · Terry: 'You didn't want to say the word pinball too early in the conversation because they would just hang up on you... you got to make... at least a thousand, but I would maybe talk them into 200'

  • $

    market_signal: In early 2000s, pinball parts were extremely scarce; Marco Specialties one of few sellers with add-to-cart capability; most sellers had basic web pages without e-commerce functionality

    high · Terry: 'Marco... was the only one, as I recall, that had an add-to-cart site... Steve Young... Wicco... not an add to cart site... just really kind of hard to navigate the whole thing'

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball Life originated from personal need (sourcing parts for own machine) and discovered market demand through accidental eBay sales, leading to business formation

    high · Terry: 'I put a part on eBay, and it sold... It was like, oh, and then I got that notification... somebody who doesn't know me just sent me $15... wait a minute. Like, this could work'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Pinball Life structured as family business with Margaret as co-owner; enabled work-from-home operations during early years when childcare was self-managed

    high · Terry: 'We raised all our kids basically somehow by never having to put them into daycare... she said, why don't you just... be a stay-at-home dad and then generate a little income on this pinball thing'

    • 1:56
    And do you want to come over and sit by? No, I was checking your mic right there. I didn't know if you were getting picked up properly. He's like nudging over the play box. I was going to sit on your lap. I do have a bent seat here. When you stop hearing me talk during this podcast, then you know something's up.
    2:11
    It's the special person. I'm on, Ken. Is it on? I know you're normally a quiet guy, so you might need to speak up with just a tad. Well, it all started with Bagatelle back in 35. Nice.
    2:25
    And then in 63, I was born, so there's a gap there. Missing time. I didn't say it was missing. I just said it was a gap.
    2:34
    So that makes me 54. Okay. Senior citizen menu. Here I come in six months. Pretty excited about that. Very nice. Pancakes get cheap. Double A-R-P. They get really cheap. We're going to go out to dinner with Terry just so he can order us all a pancake. It'll be perfect. So Denny's across the street from Pinball Life World Headquarters.
    2:55
    That's America's Diner, Denny's. And I am counting the days. I can get the senior citizen number three. Really take advantage of that discount. You've got some time to go, though. You've got some time to go. You know, assuming the business. I got summer. That's about it. Right.
    3:12
    I grew up in the end of Dedden Road in Iowa. Okay, so that doesn't sound like the very good beginnings of a pinball hobby. So how did you get involved in pinball? I'd steal five bucks from my mom's purse and walk about a quarter mile down the gravel road to a little campground that some neighbors down the road had started. And they had a little rec center there, and they had a few EM pinball machines there. And I would take this said stolen money. Borrowed. No, I never paid it back, Bill. You paid it back in love. It's fine. I need to call my mom. That reminds me.
    4:00
    And I would play. That's when I first played pinball would be those years. And when my mom would be checking out from the five and dime, people are old-timey enough to remember those things, she would give my brother and I a dime while she was checking out. And that would be two games of five balls each. on an EM machine, and that lasted about four minutes.
    4:31
    Those old games knew how to make money. And so that was a very, very, and I can't even remember the names of those games, honestly. I can remember a feature here and there, but I, I mean, I was, you know, this would be seven, eight, nine, ten years old.
    4:48
    And then Video Craze hit, so we're jumping a little bit there. but then you know in the arcades like I liked pinball but the guys that hung out in the corner you know playing the pinball machines like they were the tough guys and you know I was wasn't a tough guy and that's when I was exposed to games like Haunted House made a big impression because you know three layers there yeah the upper and lower play field it wasn't until years later I realized that there's basically no rules to that game, and it kind of sucks, but it looked really neat.
    5:27
    That's a complicated game for me to just wrap my head around with the flippers all over the place, and for whatever reason, I've always had a hard time. You're trying too hard. Nothing going on. Yeah, I've been there. Basically no rules. Gotcha. Well, keeping the ball alive has been my main problem. I'm on the main play field. I want to get to the top. Wait, I'm on the top. Let's go to the bottom. I'm on the bottom now. How do I get back up to the main play field? The bottom's reversed, and then your mind's working the other way, and then it comes back up, and I'm still behind. I don't know. I digress. And then I played several different games. Firepower, played a lot of that. I played F-14, Black Hole, Jumping Out and Meet the Moment. Those were games we played a lot of. And then I kind of graduated high school, sort of fell out of it a little bit, then bumped into a high speed in 85 and then I realized in the five years I hadn't been playing pinball or four years, wow, it had really changed a lot. The game just kind of blew me away. It just advanced? It advanced. It was faster. There was more lights. There was more to do.
    6:39
    I sort of found it then again. And then, you know, I was a poor young person in my 20s, and I was a route rat. So I played tons of games for years, 15 years, route rat. And then Williams closed. Yes.
    7:02
    Black Friday. Man, I forget what year that was. I think it was 99, I believe. and you know I wasn't really I was a route rat so I wasn't really oh yeah just really wasn't really paying attention didn't even honestly didn't know that Williams even made the games in the town I was living in I moved to Chicago in 85 by the way from Iowa so spent my whole adult life in this area and I who pays attention to that stuff when you're a route rat I'm playing pinball You don't go like, geez, I wonder if they make them next door. Like, you don't care. You weren't on the inside reading the forms. Do you have quarters or not? Yeah. I mean, that's it. Well, back then, though, I mean, it was a different time because you didn't have the Internet capabilities to look stuff up like that. You know, I mean, back then you'd really have to go digging to find out where some of that stuff was made and what was coming out. That's true. But, you know, I didn't dig an inch, Bill. You just played. I didn't care. I didn't. Right.
    8:05
    And then, and so when Williams closed, I mean, that wasn't Black Friday for me because I didn't even know it closed. Honestly, I didn't know it closed until probably at least a year later when it occurred to me that I was playing the same machines over. There was nothing new. There's been no new games for like six years. What's happening? They're really slacking off over Williams. It's like, you know, we've got Striker Extreme. That's what we had. Oh, nice. And I'm actually joking about that because I don't think I ran into a striker extreme en route. But, you know, I realized pretty quickly that because, you know, with Williams, you know, they're cranking out the games. They're cranking out four or five games a year. I mean, you know.
    8:48
    Awesome high end titles. Yeah. At any time. Well, I couldn't have told you that. Well, you couldn't then, but now you can. I either like the game or not, you know. It's like, you know, I remember Medieval Madness came out. It's like, oh, wow. It's like a little orgasm in a box, man. Look at this thing. Yeah. You know. And then, you know, other games, not. And I couldn't have told you, like, oh, I bet you this one costs more when you go to buy it. Like, who's thinking about something like that? I mean, it was a million miles from our minds. But anyway, you know, they closed, realized, like, oh, boy, something's went really stagnant here. And, man, these games don't work anymore. You know, everything just became abandoned. Like, almost like if pinball was a town, it was a ghost town. Like, almost overnight, the games weren't being supported. Willie, you couldn't get the parts, you know, so operators. I learned all this kind of in retrospect. Operators, basically, Williams shoved all the parts over to Gene Cunningham, who promised he was going to supply all these operators with parts because Williams wanted a clean break. And Gene Cunningham is? From Illinois Pinball. Okay. Pinball, two words.
    10:02
    Pinball. Yes, that kind of pinball. My secret Craigslist search. Okay. Exactly. And he said, yeah, I'm going to, you know, I'll take over. I'll make all these parts. I'll keep them going. So they basically gave him the parts, honestly. And, of course, he didn't do any of that, and you couldn't get any parts. And so the games just started falling apart, you know, and you'd go to play pinball, and they basically almost never worked or were in horrible repair. I mean, that happened in a two-year period. I mean, if you don't maintain games on route, I mean, they fall apart quickly. You don't maintain a game with average use in a home environment. You run the risk of just being too late. Well, I don't play mine, Ken, so they stay really nice and pristine. Well, I did want to touch on your collection later. Anyway, I'll speed up.
    10:56
    So I figured, like, wow, if I'm ever going to keep playing pinball, I guess I'm going to have to buy one. And so now these were nascent days of the Internet. Okay. So this is kind of a pivotal moment. We're talking 2001. Okay. But now you're looking to buy your own machine, something that you want to be able to maintain. And there was this thing, and of course, five years before, you wouldn't even know how to go about buying a pinball machine. Scratch down a phone number of the operator and call them and all that sort of stuff. but we had this thing this new thing called the internet and i could just search it i think it was on jeeves nice you weren't you weren't searching on myco i asked jeeves right how to buy a pinball machine and and jeeves said well they are available nice um and i started doing a little bit of internet research and realized oh you could buy them and then there's these things called auctions.
    12:02
    And this was back at the very beginning. Auctions meaning live auctions? Live auctions. So not on eBay? No, no, no, no. Live auctions, which not too many of them anymore, but there used to be, this was kind of the beginning of it all. It was either operators dumping their games because they just were getting out of pinball, wasn't earning anymore, couldn't get parts, or all these games were just starting to flood back, the re-imports. You know, all the games we'd shipped for years overseas were all starting to come back in containers because it was the very beginning of people kind of starting to buy games for the home. Okay, so this was about 2001.
    12:39
    And there was an auction actually going to be in Des Moines, Iowa, which is, I grew up outside of there. And my brother still lives there. And I said, hey, drive over to this auction. I want an Addams Family because I'd been playing an Addams Family, you know, forever. in the route days. And he drives over there, and I'm the guy on the phone, and I was going to bid. My maximum was like $1,200. I'm going to bid $1,200. And then you get caught up. It's like, oh, someone billed $1,250. It's like a retro play field. I was like, no, it's $1,300. And it gets completely out of hand. I paid $1,700, people. Wow, in 2001? In 2001. and basically couldn't sleep that night thinking it was the dumbest thing I'd ever done. I got caught up in the moment, and I got ripped off, and blah, blah, blah. But anyway, my brother drives it up to me, and it actually worked, barely. Dirty working, as they would call it these days. And I decided, well. Was it LED'd? Yeah.
    13:44
    It cannot see the future, Ken. It was not LED'd. I was trying to see. It was barely lit. Have bulbs on it burned out and just complete this room. Yeah, I thought a whole GI string was out, and I spent a day trying to figure that out, and it was just all the bulbs, you know, one of those things. And then I realized, like, okay, I'm going to tear this thing down. Winter project. I'm going to clean it all up, put it back together. I need to start tearing it down. Of course, you find all this stuff that's been put together with duct tape and MacGyver this. And I'm like, okay, well, Internet hasn't been working so far. It's like I'm going to go on the Internet. I'm going to get all these parts. Ask and use again, right? You can ask G's or whatever the other ones were.
    14:27
    And I realized there was almost nothing available. And I'm like, well, this kind of sucks, you know. Marco was online.
    14:40
    It wasn't a big site, but he was there. And he was the only one, as I recall, that had an add-to-cart site, which was, you don't remember, man. That was new. Ed Cart was like, that was rare. So for those that don't know, Marco, you referenced his Marco specialties now. Yeah, sure. And, of course, Steve Young was online. He had his one page, you know. And Steve Young, for those that don't know, is another guy that's just been around pinball for years. Pinball resource. Yeah, been around forever. We'll forget more about pinball than all of us will ever know collectively. his site was there not an add to cart site there's some other ones too that I don't even know if they're still around for amusement only Wicco, they had a page but again not add to cart and just really kind of hard to navigate the whole thing so I'm like okay well I guess maybe I'll try to make it and I realized like oh wait every machine ever built almost was built right here in Chicago and I started making some phone calls. I think of it now and it makes me laugh. It's so naive.
    15:53
    Naive is a common trend on these interviews. Not to detract from the story, but what part were you trying to remake on that game, if you don't mind me asking? Wow, I don't even know if I remember. That's okay. Some sort of plunger. I can't even remember.
    16:08
    I did realize, though, that you didn't want to say the word pinball too early in the conversation because they would just hang up on you. I mean, pinball just went through, you know, a lot of people ended up stiffed. A lot of vendors ended up, you know, holding the bag on stuff. Pinball was like a dirty word, basically.
    16:31
    How history repeats itself. Yeah. And, you know, somehow I finagled to where I was able to get some people to finally talk to me and take me seriously. And they're not going to make you one.
    16:47
    You know, you got to make, well, these days you have to make at least a thousand, but I would maybe talk them into 200 of whatever part. And, you know, then there's this thing called eBay because I was like, well, what am I going to, I only need one or two of them. I don't need 250. Yeah. But hey, it's not available. I bet somebody else needs it. And so I started just selling stuff, my extra stuff on eBay. So what kind of a response did you get? Because at that point, you were already offering something that most people weren't offering. The response was, you know, it was such a weird sort of epiphany, really. I mean, I put a part on eBay, and it sold, and I don't know, it was like maybe 15 bucks or something. And it was like, oh, and then I got that notification, like, oh, someone bought it, and they sent you the money. and I just sort of stared at the screen. I'm like, somebody who doesn't know me just sent me $15? Like, that's my money now? Right.
    17:46
    You know, and I was like, wait a minute. Like, this could work. So it was the response. I don't know. I mean, it was small. I mean, everything was a lot smaller, obviously. I was only doing it part-time. I had a more than full-time straight job. I was just trying to sneak it in in the cracks. What were you doing full-time? Do you mind me asking? I worked for Brinker International. Okay. They own, like, Chili's and On the Border. They did. It's all been, it's all, I don't know what's going on with it now, but this was, you know, this was 18, 17, 18 years ago. Yeah, right. You know, and it was, you know, so I was opening, basically what I was doing is I was opening new stores for them, new Chili's restaurants. I think the last one I did was the one downtown, which I think might even be closed now. So, you know, as restaurant business is, it's, you know, when you're in that sort of capacity, it was 55, 60 hours a week. And I was working, it was getting to the point where I was working another 30 hours a week, eBay listing. I was going to say, you're shipping off your $15 eBay. Yeah, I know. And so, you know, handwriting out the address and, you know, it's like the whole thing. You were earning the $15. And, you know, I mean, I think I, eventually I thought, well, eBay, there's so much work. And it is. I don't know now. I've been still waiting on eBay forever. But, like, it was just so much work. Like, you know, it's just constant just listing stuff and watching it run. And, I don't know, people are even dumber on eBay. The questions you get on eBay are like, you know, I've had some good ones. Let me tell you. Like, here's one.
    19:27
    What's the name of the ball? V-Ball? In a pinball machine. Wow. That's awesome. Anybody know? A little quick trivia?
    19:40
    It's pinball, guys. Yeah. All right. I didn't want to put myself out there. Bill was looking stunned. I don't know. I was because you'd be the type of person that would come up with some sort of crazy answer like, you know, it's XYZ. It flashed me back in 2001. I remember emailing somebody on eBay asking what the ball was called that went into a pinball machine. Oh, so that's what it was. It was you. Oh, my gosh. You guys reunited. So I started a little website for a $50 program called Splash that I bought.
    20:09
    And it wasn't even e-commerce, but you could hook up these little tags from PayPal that sort of made it like a fake e-commerce site. Okay. And I think when I opened this site, I had like 32 items.
    20:23
    And I was like, it was generating like, you know, I'm not going to poo-poo any amount of money, But, you know, maybe $200 or $300 a week in gross sales, you know.
    20:35
    And you're stocking inventory in your house and your garage, right? Yeah, and so basically it kind of got to the point, though, where it was like I was working enough doing it and had a full-time job as well.
    20:46
    We just had a second kid, my wife and I, Margaret. And you know what? I mean, I wanted to mention Margaret as also an owner of Pinball Life. And she could not be here today, unfortunately. Well, she could. She just didn't want to. She doesn't like this podcast. She's available. She's just not here. All right. Well, that's great. Anybody who knows my wife knows that she's very quiet. Couldn't have made a better choice. Probably the best decision I ever made in my life. It was the best decision I ever made in my life. You may have out-kicked your coverage a little bit.
    21:18
    Wow, that's really mean. I'm sitting right here. Hey, you just told me she didn't want to come. That was mean. Look, I know this pop screen is kind of hiding my... But I'm... Look. That's why I got you on that end of the table. in the Pinball Pale Ale studio. So anyway, I'm going to wrap this part up in about three minutes, Billy. No, no, no. I'm fascinated by the story. So basically, I was going to quit. It wasn't even Pinball Life yet. I mean, it was because maybe it opened that little site. I can't remember the exact sequence. But anyway, I was going to quit Pinball Life or whatever I was calling it. I think I was calling it that because it was too much work, you know, and it just wasn't generating any real money. and Margaret said, well, why don't you just quit? And I was, you know, like, what? She said, well, why don't you just quit? It's like, you know, we raised all our kids basically somehow by never having to put them into daycare.
    22:14
    And, you know, we'd have people come into the house or we'd sort of jog our schedules around to get it to work. And she said, well, why don't you just, you know, be a, we got two little kids, you know, Why don't you be a stay-at-home dad and then generate a little income on this pinball thing, and I would give it a shot. And so I left Brinker with bridges completely open because I figured I was going to be walking back across it sooner than later.
    22:44
    So I quit, and we were doing it. So for two years, basically, every single penny. I worked literally for free for two years. Like, every single penny went back into building inventory, maybe a little bit of tooling at the time, very little. Just, you know, it's basically at the end of the day, I mean, you can call pinball life a lot of things, but basically we're an inventory business, you know. Whether we are manufacturing it ourself or we're distributing it for somebody else, I mean, you know, we sell out of inventory. I don't believe in selling things I don't have. It needs to be in the building or at the time in the house, or I didn't want to mess with it. At this point, you're still home-based. No. Oh, no, this time. Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. I was a seven-foot ceiling, 600 square feet. Okay. For two years. Yep. For four years. But the first two years, yeah, I didn't pull anything out at all. And I think maybe the third year, I think maybe Margaret asked for $1,000 once to pay a bill or something. I don't know. I mean, it was just basically, you know, tighten the buckle and just live on her income. Figured out, you know, wouldn't be great, but we could do it. And so I worked out of the house for four years.
    24:07
    And then Margaret got pregnant with Jovi, our third child. and she left to go on maternity leave and she had every intention of going back. But then sometime during that maternity leave, I was like, why you did not go back to work? And she's like, that seems a little scary, a little risky.
    24:29
    But then she didn't. So then we were live without a net, as they say. And three kids. And three little kids. And a mortgage. Man, that mortgage all just seems stupid now. That sounds like that's a terrible story. I shouldn't tell that one anymore. Well, don't let your kids listen to this, because when they come up with some idea later on down the road, you'll be like, listen, I had this great plan to start this company, and we had funding, and we had a backup plan. I had zero funding. I've never borrowed a nickel. I'm glad you brought that up. I was going to ask, were you able to rely on any family or friends for support financially and emotionally? I never even occurred to me to get money from somewhere else. If I couldn't do it on my own, I wasn't going to do it. You know, the business grows slower that way. You know, if you have somebody coming in and infusing, you know, dollars in the beginning of almost any startup, you know, I know why they're asking for money because you need it. You know, and it's like I just didn't do it that way. So it was a lot slower. And I had the luxury of not having to make money, just build inventory slowly, you know. and then we basically grew out of that house because the basement wasn't big enough it was this tiny little bungalow house in Portage Park and so I thought well I still the dream was to stay at home you know so I'm like well all I need really is a bigger basement and everything will be fine so we moved to Huntley because in Huntley you can get a big basement cheap so um ceilings weren't seven feet, they were nine. And I had like... That's another couple boxes high, right? I know, and I had 1,500 square feet. That's out of like 600 square feet. I'm getting excited. I know. So I thought like, well, this is it. Six months later.
    26:18
    No, two years. We struggled with that for two years. And then we actually couldn't handle it ourselves, Margaret and I anymore. So Margaret... You couldn't handle the volume. Okay. You couldn't handle the volume. So we hired someone to help with the shipping, and my buddy, Mike Fox, started helping me part-time. I'm glad you brought up Mike because I definitely wanted to discuss him. So he was working for Grainger, and then they, you know, this wasn't great times economically. This would have been like 2007, you know, layoffs, cutbacks. You know, it was pretty grim. And he was part of one of the just big waves of layoffs that happened at Grainger. And so he was looking for another job. And meanwhile, he was like, hey, you know, I'll come and I'll pitch in, you know, when you need me part-time here and there. And it's like, oh, yeah, that'd really help. So, you know, we had all these people basically.
    27:24
    We had one part-time sub-assembly guy, too. We had like three people coming into our house to work every day. And that gets a little weird. I was partying. You know, yeah. And so then we decided, well, maybe we'll look for a spot. And so we bought, when you walk into Pinball Life, you guys have been there, you walk into the world headquarters door there The world headquarters That the original that smaller bit there It the original pinball life I remember pulling all that stuff out of the basement and we moved it all into that warehouse, and I had this sinking feeling when it was all in. I was like, man, we're almost full again. Like I couldn't believe all that crap was in my basement. That's incredible, yeah. And so, but we stuck it out for two years, And then I bought the building directly connected to it on the other side. Yes, the regional office.
    28:20
    Ironically, so closely together. Yes, they are. I like it. It's a nice commute between the world headquarters and the regional office. It is. Well, no, because when you moved out of the house on your commute, you actually had a commute instead of walking downstairs. I did. I remember saying for the first time, honey, I'm going to work. Yeah. And it was really weird. And you didn't walk downstairs to the basement, right? You just have a 15-step commute. That's incredible.
    28:46
    So, you know, and that's just sort of, you know, and so that's kind of where we are. So going back for a second, you mentioned that Mike started part-time.
    28:56
    How did that transpire in him going full-time? I think it was just a happy accident, honestly. when we finally got the first warehouse space he was still for two years in the Huntley space which is our second basement just working part time here and there and basically when we went to the warehouse I was like you know you want to just make this a full time gig I mean you're basically almost doing it anyway and you know it's been working And he was like, yeah, yeah, I guess I'm in. And that was, I mean, it was just a real casual, almost 20-second conversation. That's kind of mine. Ten years ago. He laid back. I could see he was like, yeah, you know what, I suppose I could do that. Yeah, that's pretty much how it went. And, you know, it's a little difficult sometimes when basically you're working with your friends, you know. But, you know, I still believe, and you could ask him when I'm not listening, I guess. But, you know, I still think that, you know, listen, you decide you're going to work together. You've decided you're going to have some bad days. You've just decided it. Like when you said, I do. Yep. I was just going to say. You're going to have some days you'd like to take back. Yep. You know?
    30:19
    And I can't say that's never happened. But by and large, I mean, you know, I respect Mike. And he, you know, I know the value he brings to the company. And at this point, he's been working there full-time for eight years, part-time for three before that. I mean, he's our first employee. He's a key employee. And, you know, I still consider him my friend after all this time. So I would say in that respect, certainly it's been a success. But is he considered like a warehouse manager? Yeah, he's the warehouse manager. He's basically in charge of all the pick and pack and ship, mainly the pick and pack. He's in charge of it all, make sure that it all gets done, the flow is happening the way it's supposed to happen every day, watching the timelines, where we're at in the turnaround, alerting my purchaser, Justin, of anything that he's noticed that needs to be maybe getting into the pipeline again. Because, you know, turnaround on parts can be anywhere from, you know, two days to a year, you know. So that's all. And, you know, that's a lot to learn when you're dealing with thousands and thousands of parts. Like, you know, is this a part that, you know, should we get in the pipeline now or next January? I mean, you know, and that's a lot of knowledge. And, you know, that's a great value that, you know, one of the great values that he brings. And, you know, that would bring me to Justin, who is another person that I knew for several years before he worked for Pinball Life. Let's talk about Justin a little bit. He was also between jobs due to some shakeup where he worked. Certainly no fault of his own. And, you know, he's Scott's friend, who we can talk about in a minute.
    32:08
    Scott Denise. Scott Denise has known him since childhood, I believe. They're best buddies. Yeah. And it sort of suggested maybe bringing him in. And I was like, man, I don't really have a full-time job for the guy. I basically needed a shipper, which pinball life shipping is like an afternoon job. So Justin suggested bringing Scott in? No, Scott suggested bringing Justin in. And then the more I thought about it, I was like, man, you know, what I really need is a purchasing and receiving guy. And his background that he came from was just kind of perfect for it. And he knew pinball, which is always the struggle. It's like you can get guys that know their stuff, but they don't know pinball. And it's kind of a nightmare, really, because it's a warehouse full of stuff that is not inherently recognizable to the rest of the world. It would be completely intimidating. How about if you're going to be a purchaser for, say, a Napa store? And you go like, hey, Bill, why don't you go over and see if we're going to need any more of them air filters. And you'll be like, even if you'd never ordered air filters before, it's like, I think I know what they look like. I'll go to that area and check out the air filters. But you're not a pinball guy, and you're like, hey, Bill, you want to check out that classic Sturm Plunder Link and crank assembly?
    33:32
    What aisle is that in, right? Right next to the air filters. I know pinball, but I don't think I'd be able to tell you which one that is. And, you know, I know my stuff with pinball, and so it's rough. And, you know, when you're hiring a purchaser, they have to know all those things. And he's also receiving it in. He also does a lot of the just basic website.
    33:55
    You know, to keep a website fresh, I mean, anybody who's ever maintained a larger website, which we have a lot of pages, you know, it's big. it's hours of work a day. So Justin's on top of the website. Justin, I would say, at the moment, does a good majority of it. My son, who's working for the summer, is doing a little of that, too. He's sort of apprenticing this summer. Good. And mostly following Justin. And Scott is not without doing it. He does a little, too. But, you know, I think most people, I guess we can talk about Scott for a minute. Scott Vinici, which is, you know, so glad he works there. A, because people used to come in and ask for me, and now they ask for him. Well, and just to catch everyone up to speed in the event you're not aware, Scott Vinici, who is the, really, the founder of Total Nuclear Annihilation, which you designed. Wrote the code. Yeah, Nuclear Annihilation. So that was his number. Recorded the music. Yep. He did everything. And then it was contracted out where Spooky's manufacturing that pinball machine. And there's now, I guess, confirmation that he will be working on game number two. But this is the same Scott Dinesi that is in your building that is playing pinball life. Yes. Again, now Scott was a guy I'd known for a decade before he started working there. And Andrew Barney and I from APB Enterprises, he winds coils. And he's local also. Local also in Huntley, and been friends with him for, boy, probably 15 years. Nice guy. Nice guy, great guy. And one of our sort of casual bucket list pinball things has been like, you know, someday we're going to build something from nothing. We're going to build a whole thing, not just a part or an assembly. We're going to do a whole thing. This is you and Andrew. Me and Andrew, yeah. And so I don't know how, but somehow we ended up saying, like, Well, we don't want to do, you know, just, I don't want to be a pinball machine company. I don't even want to do it. I don't even want to worry about it. I just don't want to lose too much money. I don't have to make any money. You know, it's a small thing. Just sort of a bucket list, like, we did it thing. Yeah. And so. Like this podcast. Yeah. Right. Well, my friend, Yancey, basically had bought. And here's where John Papadu keeps giving and giving to the community people.
    36:27
    John Papadu. My friend Yancey had bought a, I can't remember the name because I've been saying Scorgasm Master for so long. Contact Master. That's what it was. That was the original name? The original name. It was a design by Harry Williams before Williams when he was just designing, making designs and selling them to whoever would buy them. Made this game called Contact Master. They call it a bagatelle now, but when you look back in the literature and the flyers and stuff of the time, which would have been the mid to late 30s, they don't ever call it a bagatelle, ever. I don't know how this French word snuck into, like... What is bagatelle? I don't even know what that is. Well, it's pre-flipperless pinball. Okay, okay.
    37:18
    And we now refer to it... Kind of like a pachinko machine, almost. No, pachinko is vertical. Okay, so this is a horizontal plane. Yes, absolutely. Okay.
    37:27
    And we now usually refer this to it as a bagatelle, but they were called pin games. That's what they were all called. And so we decided we were going to make this pin game because who's going to get mad? You know, I don't want to be a manufacturer. It's crossing some streams there. I have no interest at all. Okay. You know, I don't want to like, you know. You're not taking pre-order done. I have business relationships with all the manufacturers, all the other parts suppliers.
    37:59
    I didn't want to do anything that was going to create any waves. No conflict of interest. No conflict. We said, well, we make this pin game. It's like, no one's going to care about that. Not pinball. It's like, oh, there goes all the pinball businesses. Ever since Pinball Life started making those pin games. Those pin games are wiping us out. So I started a new company anyway. Called day one pinball, because I knew this thing was just going to be a money pit, and I didn't want to have pinball life losing the money.
    38:31
    So anyway, long story short, we started assembling a team to do this, and I cold called John Yousey, who did basically half the art on pinball machines to this day. Yeah, incredible artist, yep. It turns out that he could basically see pinball life from where he lived. He lived literally three minutes away. Wow, wow. And I just cold called him, meaning emailing him, I guess, not calling him. I was like, you know, we're doing this dumb thing. I hadn't really done anything yet. I'm like, you got any interest in doing the art? And he said, well, I'll come over and take a look. And he's like, yeah, this is just kind of crazy enough to work. So he signed on. And so he just brought a lot of class to it, actually. Since it was called Scorgasm Master, we wanted to have... It sounded like a good drinking game. We wanted to have, like, okay, so you would think, like, all right, what are they going to do? What sort of, like, horribleness is this going to be art-wise? We wanted to have, like, classic 40s, sort of like World War II era, like what you'd see on the side of a... Kind of like horror flick? No, no, like what you'd see on the side of, like, a fighter pilot. I love that thing. That's sort of art. An old gay.
    39:49
    That sort of stuff. Like the army military girl. Exactly. That sort of stuff. Yeah, that's really cool. And so he did a really great job. So we had him and Andrew was taking care of a bunch of the different technical things. And I was kind of, you know, had my fingers. Did John Yossi do the artwork for Dialed In? Yes, he did. Because that makes complete sense because there's that kind of similar art style on some of the backpacks. Without, he did almost every Pat Lawler game. Awesome. Okay. I'm not going to say all of them because I don't know for sure, but he certainly did the lion's share. Okay.
    40:30
    So we're gathering these different people, this team basically, you know, whether it be Jay Brand who, you know, just, you know. Jay Brand, a.k.a. Banger Jay. The guy who. That guy's a character. The guy who wears the, what are they called? I don't know what you call them. The mankini. He's the man, you know. I lost sight in my left eye. Oh, come on. Looking at that once. I'm still regaining it. He's the party.
    40:59
    So it was him, it was me, and it was Yancey, and it was Dino because Dino was doing some of the custom metal work on it. These are all pretty local guys then. Yeah, yeah. We basically figured between, there's like eight of us, right? We're like, you know, between us all, it's like we could probably do this. And Scott signed on because he was, you know, in the friend group. He was going to do like a lot of the 3D printing because some of the stuff, we only made 30 of these things. So a lot of the little plastic bits were going to have to be 3D printed. There's no way you're going to, you know, create all this plastic injection tooling and do all that. It just wasn't right. That was a lot of that engineering for you still now, right? Oh, absolutely. Because all of it.
    41:45
    But at the beginning there, he wasn't working for Pinball Life. And then at some point, just in the conversation, again, it's just kind of these things go. He was just kind of like, you know, I was kind of like looking to make a move maybe. You know, what do you, you know, what do you think? Is there a chance you'll be offering either of us a job at the end of the podcast? I mean, we're open. I've been brushing up on my pinball parts. No. Okay. Was that too direct? No, it wasn't. It was to the point. You didn't get enough beer yet. You didn't get enough beer yet, Ken. All right. Well, hey, thanks for coming in, Terry. Appreciate your coming on the podcast.
    42:20
    And then we're like, yeah, well, at first I was like, wow, how am I going to tell one of my good friends that, no, how am I going to do that? We just did. You just did that. I was just going to say. I said good friends. Oh, okay. Okay.
    42:35
    Not a value to me. That's awesome. All right. JK. Anyway. And then, you know, the more Margaret and I thought about it and Scott and I talked about it a little bit. And we're like, you know, this actually could be a really good direction.
    42:53
    And that was three and a half years ago already. and this was way before TNA this was way before all that kind of stuff was really just a happy accident honestly, Scott decided to make his own game just for him back to Scorgasm though how many were produced? I do know that the prototype is still in Scott's office at Pinball Life, I've seen it yes, we keep it in the bathroom is that where it goes? it's in the bathroom we don't use because Margaret doesn't want to clean five bathrooms. Oh, okay. So it's a storage for Scorgasm the Scorgasm museum. I think it needs to come to the Pinball Pale Ale Studios. It is 100% working. Is it? It is. I think I would love to have that on loan. Yeah.
    43:46
    We'll have to talk about that after the show. Okay. You sold more than one? We made 30, not counting the prototype. everybody who worked on it, which I think was seven or eight of us, what you got paid for literally two hours of work in the evenings was one game. You're welcome. That's awesome. And you actually paid out in a game. We paid out in a game. You didn't leave somebody high and dry, thousands of hours, unpaid, no pinball money, no money. Well, they were pretty high and dry. Holding pinball life. They got something out of it, though. Right. And then we sold, I've never, we did, it's so hilarious because we did all the promo material. We made the flyer, Andrew and I did the flyer, a two-sided flyer, like in the kind of the lexicon of the day. It's awesome. You know, the jargon of like the, hey, boys and girls, it's all selling great now here. And this whole, like this whole nonsense. And we took nice photos. You're creating a wave. We built a big day one banner, one of those like pop-up banner things. And we did all this stuff. And then I never listed them for sale. Oh, you're kidding. So a few sold just word of mouth. I did a big blog. There's still a blog out there somewhere. It's like extensive.
    45:04
    Wow. Pictures and the whole get-go. And then I just decided I wasn't going to sell them. Okay, let me ask you this. I mean, because you had a band of eight guys. So they took eight. I had 22. and a few got wrestled out of me. A few went overseas.
    45:24
    And then it got down to, like, I think I have seven new in box, totally done. And I enjoy walking past them. So they're still there. They're still there. So is there any chance of those leaving? Are they for sale? No, they're not.
    45:39
    So they're just vaulted, literally in a vault, super limited vision scorgasms. They're just a little part of my weird, guys. I don't know what to tell you. Wow. Yeah, check one out. Well, you can't. They're inside the box. Wait, I don't understand. What are they doing in the box? They're not doing anything good in the box. I don't know what's not to understand. We're going to have to go on Pinball Ice's website and see if those are on the website. They are not. So, for instance, what was MSRP on Square Game? What was MSRP on Square Game? 1995. Wow. Okay, so you're cheaper than a Stern home.
    46:15
    It's actually a super awesome game. I love it. I have mine at home, and I probably play that as much as anything else, if not more, still. So if someone were to come in on a hard offer, say, hey, Terry, I'd like to take one of these off your hands for $4,000.
    46:33
    A scorgasm. I reserve the right to change my mind. Okay. Money talks. I guess I just don't understand. I don't understand it either. I have everything. I could have that up on my website fully live in probably 15 minutes if I wanted to. What if you raffled one month going away or something? Well, that might be a good giveaway at Pinball Expo. It would be a ridiculous giveaway. Well, why don't you buy it and give it away then, Bill? Well, maybe it should be donated to the Special In-Lid Pinball Podcast. Yeah, so we could try it out. I think Terry likes that idea. No, but that would be cool, though, to do at your... What, we're going to auction to who? What? auction it off at the Pinball Life Open House.
    47:14
    I want to play Scorch. Yes, but I'd be so sad if it went for like $40. Then I'd cry. It would turn my happiness into sadness, Bill. But you'd have six others to cry over. $20 raffle tickets. But I don't want to cry over any of them. Now they bring me joy.
    47:31
    Just open up another one. I get it. So you have seven new-in-box scorgasms. I do. It is. People don't even know they're there, but I guess they do.
    47:42
    If anybody's listening, I guess they know now. But anyway, enough about Scorgasm. I hear you've got this list of questions. No, actually, we do everything off the cuff here in the Pinball Pale Ale studio. There's no prep work.
    47:55
    Yes, I mean, what do you want to talk about? Well, Charlie from Spooky Pinball just bought a boday, and so I'm... A boday? A boday.
    48:06
    Like for the toilet? A bidet. Do they have those in Wisconsin? I always say bow day. Bow day. What? Do they have bow day? I didn't know they had bow day. Is it bow day or boo day? It's bow day. It's bow day for the boo day. Bow day. Right. Because it's so country. Like Tarjay? Yeah. So business is good. You know the state of a business when you start upgrading the toilets to bow days. I know. When you no longer have to wipe. That Alice Cooper's Night at the Castle is affording amenities across the board for the spooky family. That's awesome. It's like, you know, when you can adjust the warmth of the water hitting your bottom, you've made it. Do you have one? I do. See? It's the sign of a successful business. It's the Toto E350. LE, right? It would be considered the LE model. Now, premium, because I don't think they're limiting them. Why would they? Signed by the charge designer.
    48:58
    So, anyway, I was just texting back and forth to Charlie. We were just seeing how awesome the bidets are. Because this podcast certainly isn't holding your attention, so you have to field some texts. Because that's kind of pinball. It's definitely pinball. Because it's a guy in pinball. It just happens to be about washing your butt. Well, when you're playing pinball, drinking beer, you know, it kind of falls in place, right? There you go. All right. Next thing you know, clean up. Yeah. Clean up his bed. You don't want to use the bathroom of the pinball pale ale studio. There's no water hitting the sinks. There's no bidet here yet. We haven't made it. We keep it real. We're doing the best we can. VFW has three bidets in Michigan. Really? In Vintage Woods. It's impressive. Actually, three per side. And at first, so there's a remote, right? At first, the women's remote was triggering the men's bidet, and that was pretty interesting. That sounds like it's code for something else. You could get a little surprise.
    50:00
    Interesting. Anyway, enough about bidet. I hear this podcast is about pinball. It is. You know what? Real quick, one of the questions I have is you and I have talked before many, many times. So I think you said before you have 35 games. Is that right?
    50:15
    Yeah. Something like that. 30, 35 with two more on the way. So I guess 37. What are the two on the way if you don't mind me asking? Paragon. I love Paragon. I've been looking for a Paragon. Never owned one. Played a lot. Always like it. Finally. Where's Paragon coming from? Coming from Kevin Clank. No kidding. Kevin sells his Paragon. He's selling his Paragon. Interesting. I'm picking it up. For those that don't know, Kevin is a local guy here that goes through machines quickly because he's just excited to play these pins. I think he gets to the wizard modes, and he kind of goes on to the next one, and he wants to play as many as he can and find his true collection at some point, I would assume. God bless him. That's where I come in. Well, and then what's the second game that you've got coming in? I have Lexi Lightspeed coming in from Multimorphic. I really want to see that one. So that's coming in later this week or next week. Now, is that going to the house or the warehouse? It's going to go to the warehouse because my house is full. Okay. Oh, and I also have a Harlem Globetrotters. So, okay, 38. That one's coming in, too. How many are at Pinball Life? How many are at your place? That's 13 at home, so whatever's left is at work. So the good ones are at your house? I wouldn't say that. And Baywatch is that pinball line. Oh, no. It is. I've been told we talk too much about Baywatch. And that's number uno right there. To Bill's point, Terry is the guy that turned us on to Baywatch. Yep. But we can't talk more about Baywatch. Joe Balser's second best game. Behind what game, in your opinion? Godzilla, baby. Godzilla. I've never got to see one of those. I have one at my house. Okay. Well, you can't come over. Well, yeah. But it's there, just so you know. You're free. We're going to mess with them. Just like the scoregassers. You're free. You can't play them. Aren't you invited to our summer party? We are. But you're free. We're going to mess with them all day. And Ken and I are going to be doing a podcast in the bathroom. I'm going to be taking a bath in the bathroom. That's what I'm saying. That's Robbie all day. I'm going to come home as clean as a whistle. Wow. When did this podcast get so sexy? Right. So one other question. So I know for me, I got like nine games. Are there any games? And there's more games that I'd love to own. That's not as many as 38. No, it is not. You have quite the collection. But are there any elusive unicorns that you would love to still own besides the 38 that you already have?
    52:38
    Off the top of my head, I'd only say one, really, and that's Foursquare. It's a gotlet wedgehead. It's such an awesome game. Foursquare, and I thought of the app Foursquare. No, this is a little different. A little different. This is a pinball machine. It's not an app. Nice.
    52:59
    I would love to have that game. It just doesn't come up. So if anybody has a four square that they'd like to sell, this is the... You've heard that. What Bill wants to buy segment. Yeah. What Terry wants to buy segment. Another segment. If a guest ever comes on, they do have that. If anyone has, you know, said game that they'd like to get rid of, that would be... I would love... I mean, you know, my other game, it took me 10 years to find in the condition that I wanted was volley, which was the other guy with wedge head that I always wanted. And actually, three or four years ago, that finally happened. And so now we're down to four square. And I'd always like a birth year game, but I'm not sure. Because it's kind of a cool thing to have. Were those wood rails at that point? I think it was before that. Depends without the flipper. I think you just had a can and a stick.
    53:56
    That's the way to do it. I don't know. So that would be 63. And there's a lot of cool games from 63, but I haven't purchased one from 63 as of yet. But that would be a Grail game. I guess that wouldn't be a Grail game, but that's kind of something to do. I've always wanted to do that I haven't done yet. There are some fun EMs. Oh, yeah. I noticed that collectors, the hardcore collectors, they seem, their tastes go in waves. Whereas it's classic Bally Williams. Then it's, I need all the new stuff. Then it's like, you know what, I'm going all EMs. Now, hey, I'm going all System 11s. Well, generally speaking, I could tell you how long you've been in the hobby by you just telling me what games you own.
    54:41
    Really? I bet I get pretty darn close. It's like guessing your way to the carnival. You are at the... All right, so first of all, my collection is in complete disarray right now. There's a Twilight Zone here, and there's an Earthshaker here. I'm going to put you at about three years. Well, I'm a little longer than that. Three and a half? No, I'm longer.
    55:03
    Because people start with the either. Well, that's my second Twilight Zone and my second Earthshaker. If you have money, you start with new in box.
    55:13
    That's where you start. But if you're like the rest of us mortals, you usually start with either DMD stuff from the Williams era or Williams era, 90s. You know they dominated that era But you know it could easily be any of the other manufacturers from that era Or maybe sort of that kind of what I call that first classic sweet spot of Stern like that you'd have like a Simpsons or Lord of the Rings, that sort of stuff.
    55:48
    Something that earned a lot of money en route somewhere. Once you've been in the hobby for several years, you'll notice people start drifting backwards. realizing that, wow, just because it's not brand new or technologically advanced, it's still really fun. And you'll start maybe drifting into the System 11 stuff or even System 9. From there, you go back to what I think would be like the heyday for me. My favorite games from Williams is the early 80s when you're looking at Blackout and Firepower. That whole era to me, I just love that era. And then you'll drift even a little further back to sort of what I would call, in my opinion, really just the golden years of Valley, which would be Strikes and Spares and Stern, too, at that time, the classic Stern stuff. Stern Stars. Stars, which I love that game. What year is that? 80? 78? 79? Right there.
    56:58
    I haven't been doing it long enough. I'm still in that zero to five year range. I have a Nugent from that era, too, which I love. Nugent. Yes. That no one ever talks about. He's coming to the Arcata here in St. Charles. I've seen the Arcata. Freedom. Yeah. Freedom. America. I'll tell you what. Freedom. Anybody gets an opportunity to go to St. Charles to the Arcata Theater, it's an excellent place to see it show. And if you'd like to hear... We were both at the same show at the Arcana. If you'd like to hear a middle-aged man yell freedom a lot. Freedom. Man, you'll be in the right place that night. You were at Scott Weiland in the Wildabouts. I was. The same night that I was at Scott Weiland. We were two of like 105 people that were there to watch that show. I'm the kiss of death. I see you live. You're dead in two weeks. That's what happened to me. That was a bucket list. I was able to go backstage and meet Scott Weiland and get a picture taken with him because it was like a dream of mine. My favorite band is Stone Temple Pilots. I don't know why anybody cared when he died, because they didn't care that night that he was alive. No, it was unbelievable. Really? There was a thunderstorm that night, though.
    57:59
    Yeah, excuses, excuses. Yeah, I don't know. It was a strange night, but I had documented a lot of that. I got it up on YouTube, and it was fun. Too bad he passed in Minnesota. I saw Bon Scout on the Highway to Hell tour at ACDC in 1980. What do you think of ACDC? Oh, so you are the reaper. I'm the kisser. I'm the grim reaper, man. You don't want me in your show.
    58:20
    Oh, man. So anyone that's going to have a show, look up Terry. Kick him off the list. Right. I'm hoping one of us make it for the next couple weeks. Yeah. Well, we're not doing a physical show where we're singing, so I think we're okay. Okay. That's what I'm hoping. First, you have to form a rock band, work hard, have some hits, and then go to a large auditorium where lots of people see you, and then me like to be there. Interestingly enough, you bring that up because there's a piece of audio that I'd like for you to listen to, and then if you wouldn't mind. Well, I love surprises. I'd like for you to comment on this piece of audio if you don't mind. All right. Here we go. All right.
    59:17
    So that was a band that had made the Chicago tour, like played places like Metro in the early 90s, 94. We played the Met, we played the Metro.
    59:30
    Now you say we, who's we? What did we just listen to there? It was a band called Rust Bucket that I was in from 89 to 95. And you were the front man. I was the swaggering lead singer. And I hope you don't mind me bringing this up, but I did not know. I don't mind humiliation. This is not humiliation. I think this is pretty incredible stuff, because when you go back and you listen to this music, it's good. And it was alternative rock, right, that came out of the early 90s. All that grunge. So I wanted to sound like, my dream was to sound like Soundgarden, right? Well, Chris Cornell. So it turns out it was a little more REO Speedwagon, but, you know, you do what you can do. I mean, I don't have any spectacular talent. And I was also the songwriter, which seems odd to me because I could play guitar, but I rarely did live. Usually the guys that could actually play the instruments played. But, Terry, you don't play the Vic in the Metro unless you've got some talent. And for you to have been able to do that during the heyday of alternative rock. I mean, I saw Candlebox at the Metro. Yeah, it was a good time. I mean, there were big bands that go through there. It's impressive. And you opened up for some pretty big headliners, too, at one point. Yeah, we opened up for a whole.
    60:56
    Courtney Love. Never met her. But, you know, people are like, what was she like? It's like, she didn't talk to us.
    61:06
    It was still a big deal, though. Who did that song where you spin the bottle? That song, I forget. Did Julianne Hatfield. Yeah, she was super nice, actually. Yeah. She was like, this is it. It's my one hit. I'm saving all my money. Good night. That's awesome. She totally was, too, man. She was so grounded. She's like, oh, man, I just got to make enough money on this six-month tour just to somehow make it last forever. That's crazy. You had Liz Phair came out of here. Oh, yeah. Who are the guys from Zion?
    61:38
    Local H. That's still a good friend of mine. I mean, I don't see him much, let's be honest. He's busy, but I met him because he was a Rust Bucket fan. It's incredible. That's awesome. And I was the first time he ever went backstage at Metro. He was like a 19-year-old kid, and I took it back there, and he was just like so excited and happy. That's crazy. He's like, yeah, and I've got a band too. And I'm thinking like, yeah, it probably sucks.
    62:07
    And their band is like literally a three-man band. It's a two-man band, as a matter of fact. Okay, so he played my drummer's 30th birthday party back in, oh, geez, back in the 1900s, that's for sure. um he they were three piece it was joe was the drummer uh and i forget the kid's long hair orange hair i forget his name he was the bass player and uh then of course scott was playing guitar and they were getting along and you could tell that night like he like huffed out uh and then i see i see we were doing some recording in a studio somewhere in chicago and and i guess i told Scott we were there and he ambles over and he's got his guitar with him and his guitar case and he goes, yeah man I was fired. Well, fired. There's no firing. No one's making any money.
    63:01
    Like, kicked out or he quit, the bass player. I'm like, oh that sucks. What are you going to do? He goes, I think I'm just going to replace him.
    63:10
    And I'm like, what? What are you? What? He goes, yeah, I think I can just do it myself. I'm like, well who's going to play guitar? He's like, me. And he had a guitar with him and he opened up his guitar And, yeah, he had, like, taken out one of the pickups. Yep. And he put in a bass pickup. And then he removed the top two strings of his guitar, right? Yeah. And put in bass strings. And then the next four strings were the top four strings, as I recall. Scott's not here. He'd probably say, like, no, that's not the way it works. But I think that's the way it works. The next four strings are the top four strings of a guitar. I think. I mean, I don't know. That would make the most sense. Well, first of all, I was barely paying attention because I was like, this is stupid and not going to work.
    63:54
    It was all I could think and say at the time. I was like, that's like the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. And then it worked. That's crazy. I don't know if you've ever seen them live, but it sounds like there's like five people. I don't know how he does that. I saw them open up for Stone Temple Pilots at the Rosemount Horizon.
    64:13
    And Copacetic, I think, was probably there. Yeah, they're bound for the floor. Yeah, back in the 90s. But you're right. I mean, it sounds like a four- or five-man band, and it's a two-man show. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. It's pretty impressive. Let's switch gears. So, wow, that's not pinball at all. No, I know. You know what? That's okay, though. It's okay. We're going to come back into pinball here. That's a former life. Just a little bit. Pinball, let's do it. So pinball life has a great reputation for running one of the best local parties or gatherings during the time of the local Chicago Expo.
    64:49
    And this takes place at Pinball Life. Is it two, three days? Or why don't you tell us a little bit about the pinball? We keep changing it. Another thing that just started as an accident, honestly, I think this will be our 14th or 15th year. I'll have to look that up.
    65:09
    I, you know, having a bunch of parts locally, you think like, oh, so you go to Expo, right, and you bring all your parts to Expo, and then you sell them at Expo. But, like, bringing all your parts to Expo when you're not a – your business isn't built on travel, you know. You're not a mod maker. You're not. And I'm not. I don't have a trailer full of stuff that basically I drive around, then I come home, and I fill my trailer up, and then I keep driving. Like, it's all in a warehouse. It has to be completely removed, driven down, and loaded all back in. You should throw stuff in your trunk and drive around like the speaker sales guys and try to see if you can offload some flipper rebuild kits or something. What's a speaker sales guy? You remember those guys? Really? The audio guys would come out. Go ahead, Bill. I remember guys selling steaks out of their trunk. No, you'd be at a gas station. The guy with the van would roll up and be like, hey, we got these extra speakers that a customer didn't want. We'll sell them to you for $200.
    66:07
    It's like $1,200. Yeah, they're like, call our bucks in the stores. You know, we'll wait. I mean, we could do 180 if you needed. They must have looked at me and thought, man, that guy don't need those speakers. Right. That guy, he's going to have a bidet one day. That was real popular. That man doesn't deserve speakers. Drive on. Dated myself.
    66:25
    I've never heard of that. I've heard of selling the stakes. I apologize. Anyway. So pinball like part. I didn't want to bring the parts down there. For better or worse, I don't know. It's been like this long-running contentious thing between Expo and Pinball Life for 15 years that I don't want to get into deeply.
    66:42
    So people would say, like, oh, I'm coming in. So the first year, I'm very, very new. And people are like, yeah, well, meet me down there. Bring me this. Bring me that. Well, no one's answering the phone. No one can hear anything. You can't find anybody. You can't get any service. It's like such a nightmare. So the next year, I thought, now at the time, remember, Expo was at a different place. I lived in a different place. I lived 10 minutes from Expo back in 2003 or whatever it was.
    67:11
    Anybody then, I decided one year, if they wanted to get some parts, if they wanted me to bring them some parts, I'd say, like, I'm not going. I'm not vending. But if you want to come over to my house, you can peruse what I have or I can get an order ready for you or whatever. I'm just 10 minutes away. I'll do that. So the first year, I think, maybe 20 people. But, you know, we pulled the pinball games out of the spare bedroom. That's where I kept them, put them in the dining room. My wife put out a few sacks because, you know, if they're going to drive all the way to your house, you know, you want to make it. And that was the whole thing. It was me and my wife. Without ruining anything. It's evolved tremendously. Or devolved. I'm not sure which one it is.
    67:59
    And that just built, you know, the next year I thought, oh, I need a little help. And so Andrew Barney helped me. And so it was like me, Margaret, and Andrew. And the next year I was like, okay, well, now I need a little more help. And so I think Mike Fox was helping. And it was still, you know, I know my neighbor called me at one point. He goes, there's a bunch of Japanese men outside of your house taking pictures of your house. Do you know that? Can I say something really quick? Really quick. The last pinball-like party I went to, literally, there were a couple Japanese guys. Same guys. Are they the same guys? Really? Same dudes. Yeah. I was like, how did you guys do it? They've been there every year. Oh, they were so happy. And those are the same guys. Yeah, same guys. That's awesome. I love that. And so I did. I looked out my window, and indeed, they were taking pictures of my little bungalow house. World headquarters. The world headquarters, which had not yet been named that, actually. Vince, the corn, named it that. casually one day and it just sort of stuck um so anyway yeah and then we what happened is by the time our fourth year i suppose i don't know if there was maybe 50 60 70 people that would come out and that's a lot i lived in a really little house i mean that was a lot of people and then we moved to huntley and we thought well now we live a lot farther away and And remember, that's about when, I think, I'm not even sure when Expo moved to Wheeling. I'm not sure how the years all kind of coincided. I think it was pre that. Not the Ramada, but the one after that, whatever that one was for a couple years.
    69:41
    We said, well, let's get a shuttle. We'll shuttle people back and forth because now it's like too far. And it's like, well, if you're going to go all the trouble with shuttle, And then it's like, you know, you just kind of slowly but surely, accidentally, on purpose, upping the ante a little bit every year, every year. And then, you know, we got into the warehouse. Attendance is increasing, I suppose. And then attendance keeps increasing. Word is spreading. Right. And, you know, legends of various hijinks and this and that's going on, which I won't embarrass anybody. Right. All the different stories that happen. And to the point of about, I think it was three years ago, it just reached an absolute boiling point. I mean, it was just a free-for-all. It just got completely out of control. I distinctly remember a post that you had created on Pinside.
    70:34
    And for those who don't know, Pinside.com is an online forum group that discusses pinball. And I think that post kind of discussed what you just said right now, that it was kind of time to... We dialed it way back two years ago. We dialed it back a little bit. We dialed it way back. Basically, we dialed it so far back, most people thought we'd canceled it. Yeah. Yes. We dialed it so far back, which was great, because we had some time to take a breath and say, like, how are we going to do this? I wanted to keep doing it. Look, I didn't want to be the guy that used to have a free party and then stopped. I didn't want to be that guy, you know. But at the same time, there's liability issues. I mean, you know, basically we're giving away booze, you know, food. Why wasn't that one party, the one that you're talking about, the one that was crazy, and literally I showed up, it was like 3 o'clock, I couldn't get in the door, and when I did get into the door, I mean, it was wall-to-wall, shoulder-to-shoulder, and I was like, you know what, I'm not claustrophobic, but this is just insane. No one's having fun. Yeah, no, no, no. You know, over the years, we've just added elements and added elements. Like we added the VIP room. We added all the different laser light shows and the museum. Don't worry, Ken, we're not invited to do it. Gosh. We'll never pervy. First I heard of this. There is a big picture window where you can watch us having more fun than you behind the window.
    71:53
    Plain scorgasm. Next to the bidet. You know, we're at the point now where we've got like off-duty cops in there. You know, that's like. So, you know, anyways, we dialed it back. So last year, actually, knock on wood, I think we finally, it only took 15 years, I think we found the formula that works. And basically is this. It's two days, which helps a lot.
    72:15
    Spreads out the masses. You basically have two kinds of people that want to go to this thing. You have people who want to shop for parts. Everything's on sale. And parts are able to be picked up on location. Yes, you can pick up your parts. And you're literally walking almost within the warehouse. Right. And people, you know, a lot of people don't get to see that every day. They want to, like, you know, they literally want to shop, like look around, you know. You have those people, and then you have the people, they just want to be where the action is, and they want to be at the party, you know. So we basically broke it down into two days. And Thursday was the free day, the low-key day, where it's really for people who want access to the parts. They don't want to fight through any crowds, any loud music. They want more of the commerce experience. And then Friday is we bring the party. We limit the alcohol. We were giving out tickets at the door, and when you're out of tickets, you're out of booze. I can't stop people from doing what they're going to do on their own. But, you know, from a liability issue and getting this thing insured, it was getting, you know, difficult. So we had to put some parameters in. And also, so there isn't 700 people there not having fun that can't move, you know. Right. We decided. Especially with some of the games that were being offered and in which they were being offered. There was a Playboy that was spinning on a rotating disc. Oh, that was the controlled year. That was last year. Last year. And then. That was a good year. The orbiter in the. The orbiter inside. The orbiter inside the. The twirling tube. I walked into that. The vortex. Yeah, that was awesome. It was intense. Yeah, very intense. So I just couldn't imagine. It had music going, and it was just, that's nuts. Two or three pinball pale ales in there. That works. Oh, yeah. That thing works. And then we had the bowl. We had the writing bowl. You're using the bidet to rinse and puke off your shirt instead of anything else off of anything else at that point. So we do charity for. I was just going to say that. So the pinball-like party is not about making money. It's about. No. So extending an olive branch or offering people to come in to see your business and people, you know, pinball people to come in and commiserate and have a good time. Right. And so we did the charity not only because it was just a good idea. It was Brian Kelly's grandson. And Brian Kelly was a very well-known restorer within the pinball community. Great guy. Known him for many, many years. Lots of friends. Do anything for you. His grandson has childhood leukemia. and I don't really have any sort of charity that I work with regularly. And we thought, well, that's a good one. And I was aware of his work with that. And so I was like, well, let's just contribute. And the reason we did that is because we wanted to limit the attendance so the people there could have fun. So we basically made, I think, 200, 250 tickets available. You have to put a price on them. You can't just say they're free because then people will get them and they won't use them. and then you'll have people outside who can't get in who really want to go. So you have to assign a value to it. So we assigned $10 to it, I think. So people will say, like, well, I paid for this. I'm going to go. But then all the money would go to charity. So we're still throwing a free party, but you've figured out a way to not have so many people there that no one's having fun. So I think last year was great. I mean, Jay, who does the Pinball Olympics, Banger Jay, once again, And he brought in all those big, I call them pinball carnival rides. So Banger Jay is the one responsible for making an ordinary pinball machine a completely different experience to play. Yes. And, yeah, it's one of those things you can't describe. When you're playing Orbiter with trance music in a vortex tunnel, I mean, we've built an entire room around this thing. I mean, with Lion Man going around and around and around inside. It was incredible. Yeah, to play that game. We were there last year and played that, and that is just one of the hardest things. You know, you play one game, you're like, I can't do this. Then 10 minutes later, you come back, your senses, and the floor stops shifting. You're like, I've got to try this again. It was hard to stand up, not just to play the game. The only thing you could focus on was the game. Yeah. If you had looked anywhere else. You're done. I remember I literally stepped in during setup. Terry's like, go in there and check it out. But I opened the thing. I looked in there for like four or five seconds. I turned around and came out, and he's just smiling. I'm like, not for me, man. I can't do it. No way. We all put a lot of work into that. But Jay put me and Scott and Jay a lot of nights welding and building. And Jay five times more than me and Scott did. That's a built from scratch thing. It's incredible. Out of the mind's eye of Jay, which is, you know, those are the sort of things, you know, that I think sets the party a little bit apart from everything else. I really like that element of, you know, and basically Jay's idea is like, you know, we just play pinball, we play pinball, we play pinball, and we like pinball. But, like, you know, sometimes it's like, you know, let's do something different. Yeah. I mean, it's completely different. That's for sure. Do you have any idea? I guess with ticket sales, I mean, you don't have to talk about numbers, but did you think you had to turn people away then? We did, which is the negative aspect of the whole thing.
    77:49
    Because, let's face it, everybody thinks they're special. Everybody thinks they shouldn't have to need a ticket, even though all the tickets are gone. And the whole idea is you have to limit it. The thing is, it didn't sell overnight either, so I don't really feel that bad. I mean, it took a couple weeks to get all the tickets sold.
    78:09
    I will say this. I did see there was a conscious effort for people that had missed purchasing tickets, posting online asking if people had tickets for sale. And honestly, I think there was a StubHub posting for the Pimbal Life Party, which is pretty unbelievable.
    78:28
    What were they getting, like $70 or something? That's incredible. But you know what, though? Well, too bad that didn't go to charity.
    78:38
    That's like more than an REO Speedwagon ticket, man. It was a good party, though. I mean, honestly, we had a great time.
    78:47
    Last year was the first year I had a good time. So that's saying something because it's that thing every year. You're like, never again. Never, never, never again. And about halfway through the year, you're like, oh, man. I know I'm going to regret this. Oh, no. And then two months before, you're like, ah, like there had to be something that was fun. And then you do it again. And again, it's inertia, in my opinion. It's like the thing at this point after 15 years, nothing is forever. I get it. But after 15 years, it's like I just don't want to be the guy that used to have the party. That doesn't sound as fun as the guy who has the party. So I think now, and, man, I know I'm jinxing it, but it feels like, you know, we finally got this thing figured out. And hopefully for the people who are there, it's fun. Sounds like we have to find the VIP room this year. No kidding. That was a little bit different. Oh, no, we tore that down. Oh, that's a thought. Oh, no.
    79:52
    I know why. That's where the other two pins are going now. Actually, we changed the VIP format. It used to be for everybody who helped out and brought games, you go to the VIP room, and then that creates all this weird animosity. And so last year, everybody could go up there if you wanted to. It's basically if you wanted a beer, it was in the fridge downstairs, you gave the guy a ticket in front of the beer fridge. Or if you wanted a cocktail, you gave the bartender a beer at the bar up in the VIP room. So it actually ended up working out really good. So I know you guys went up there. Maybe I accidentally stumbled up there. I might not have.
    80:24
    That's all right. 2018, are you going to be doing it again? I have every intention. All right. Yes. So at the conclusion of your party, because do you have an after party then? We have an after party for everybody who either brought a game, which is basically nobody at this point because I have enough games. Right.
    80:43
    And anybody who helped out. I mean, it's a six-hour party that Friday, and there are 21 people there, all of them getting paid, by the way. I don't believe in doing a for-profit party because at the end of the day, it is. It ain't much, but I hope I'm making a little bit on the part sales, and I believe that everybody working should be paid. I hate volunteer work for a paid event. You're a good boss. I mean, it just doesn't make any sense to me. And so, you know. Terry, do you go to the expo after your party?
    81:22
    On Friday? Or any day? Do you frequent expo? I went last year on Saturday. I did. And actually, for the first time ever, I actually got a room and stayed overnight.
    81:34
    I hadn't been to Expo for a couple years just because I am so drained after that. It's not because I don't want to go to Expo. I do want to go to Expo. As a matter of fact, I am 100% behind Chicago. It's a world-class city. I love going to our Expo. It's the cradle, the birth, whatever, of pinball. We should have the best. The best Expo. The best. then, man, I'm 100% for that. Like, why wouldn't I want a great pinball show right in my hometown? Yeah. I mean, who likes pinball would go like, well, not in my town. It's like, no, of course that's what you want. Everybody does. And who wouldn't want a great pinball podcast in their hometown? Out of Chicago. The Special When Lit Pinball Podcast. Go ahead, Terry. I'm done. What? Sorry.
    82:20
    What's next? So I think next we go into the future of pinball life and moving forward. What does the future bring? I wish I could tell you. I didn't think I'd be doing this 15 years ago, that's for sure. The last, and I'm going to choose what I say carefully, because there may be an effort to still save these particular companies' efforts, But Dutch Pinball, who was struggling to bring Big Lebowski up to the consumer, and then Alien Pinball Machine with Highway Pinball didn't really make it.
    83:01
    Were you involved with any of the distribution of parts or supplying of parts for either of those manufacturers?
    83:06
    Look, I make pinball machine parts for a living. Okay so if anybody has interest in buying them like I have interest in selling them I mean I don there no reason for me to play favorites to sell to one entity and not the other It like you know every single OEM has decided how much they want to be involved with pinball life. They all are to a certain degree, some more than others. And that's up to them, in my opinion. That's not up to me. That's the way that works. I'm the salesman. They're the buyer. you know the the the ultimate decision lies with them so having said that yeah i mean you end up working to some degree with all of them so you know if you're if it's if it's skippy or it's uh i even talked to vonnie d on the phone when he was pretending to start a pinball machine fact pinball what what was that puppets or something i don't know what he was doing everyone's got their ventures um i don't know the guy and personally no personal dig at him but But that would be an example of a very extreme situation where I didn't sell any parts because there wasn't any parts necessary. There wasn't any game. Okay. Certainly with Highway, I got introduced to Andrew a little bit late. He'd already done a lot of his own engineering work on things like flipper assemblies and things like that. He already completely redesigned the whole thing for better or worse. but there were some other things that we did.
    84:49
    Big Lebowski, we did some work on that, and obviously kind of before Scott worked for Pinball Life, Scott Denise again, he was very involved in that project, in the design, engineering.
    85:03
    He'd have to have him on. Another good interview for you, I would say. He could shed so much more light on that stuff than me. but we ended up having, I remember Barry coming over and after work one day, he was in the United States and I'd never met him before and Scott was bringing him in. I don't even think Scott worked for Pinball Life yet. I can't remember, honestly. And we were talking and he told me the whole. Barry from Dutch Pinball. Yeah. Barry and Yop, right? Yes, they were both there. and Eric told me the whole kind of the back story it hadn't broke yet actually nobody knew about the game as I remember my memory and he told the whole story about how he was starting up, what he was going to do his whole plans and his whole thing and he was obviously very proud of what he had accomplished so far and he was very excited and why wouldn't you be right and he said so what do you think Terry you think it's good, you think it's great Is this before he made the announcement at Expo? I think so. Okay. And I can't do the accent, so I'm not going to try. But it was in a funny accent. I would love to hear your best effort. We can save that for another day. And so I'd say, Barry, your shirt's really tight. And he'd say, I know. Which I always thought was really funny. That's awesome.
    86:30
    Anyway, he's like, so what do you think? What do you think? and I said, oh, Barry, turn around. Run quickly. Really? Do not look back. Do not do this. Hmm.
    86:45
    And I'm not sure what his reaction to that was. He was like a little offended or not. I didn't mean to offend him. I honestly, every single person, everyone, whether it was Charlie, who's done a great job. Yep. You know, the guys from American, anybody. Anybody who has said, I'm starting a pinball company, what do you think? I've told, so I can sleep well. I've said, don't do it. And it's in your best interest to encourage these people to do this. Of course. If it's one thing I will say about you, and I know that Bill will agree, you do not shy away from giving somebody true advice and offering your true opinion. You're not there to canvass it. It's opinion, that's for sure. You definitely steered us in better directions.
    87:33
    What was I just saying to you during the break there? I don't remember. We do take secret breaks. No one knows that. Yeah. You guys took a break?
    87:45
    I don't remember. But anyway, yeah, I'm here to be involved in any project that I feel like I can contribute. And sometimes it's to a larger degree, and sometimes it's just to a smaller degree. And, hey, I'll take it all. Are you at all concerned? For instance, a new pinball manufacturer starts off, and they're like, hey, this is our idea. This is what we're doing. We're going to need these parts.
    88:15
    And what comes to mind to me most recently is Deep Root Pinball out of Texas. I have to be honest. They're really intriguing me at this point. and what they are looking to bring to the pinball scene. It's one thing to hire a bunch of people, but the people that they've hired on have bought into their general idea.
    88:38
    It's hard to know because there's nothing to really know right now. Everybody knows the same thing. I'm certainly no industry insider when it comes to Deep Root. I mean, I do personally know Robert. I have no issues with the guy. It's Robert Mueller. Yeah, why would I? I mean, you know, it's all in our remains to be seen. Let's see what happens. I mean, you know, he doesn't owe anybody any money. He hasn't taken any deposits. I don't know how mad people can be. You know, it's like I would, it could be something, it could be nothing, and that's nothing against Robert. It's like we don't know. Nobody knows. Yeah, we've got to wait and see what happens. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it seems like they put a lot of the good pieces of the puzzle together to come up with something awesome. So, I mean, now it's really intriguing to see. I mean, there's definitely some players there. Oh, yeah. There's no doubt about that. They put themselves in a position where they're kind of holding themselves accountable based on deadlines, which I think is interesting because we've seen how deadlines have worked out for other pinball manufacturing companies. So that intrigues me a little bit. I think what was a little off-putting was how they came into the scene initially with a little bit of a sense of arrogance, whereas some of the existing pinball companies talk about how difficult it is to actually make pinball happen. Deep Root kind of had a little bit of a tone, whereas it's not as hard as you guys make it out to be, and we're going to show you how. So I'm very interested to see what happens with Deep Root. And it's not about giving the benefit of the doubt. It's about, you know what, you set these expectations. Let's see you follow through on the expectations. I don't think it's any more complicated than that. No.
    90:20
    It's hard to disagree with that statement. I have a hard time seeing the point of anybody even trying to guess what's going to happen. I would say, you know what, you know, they started a pinball company. Right, there's nothing negative that can happen to anybody personally without having any money out of pocket. So at this point, it's entertaining to me, and I hope for the best. And as do I. I mean, obviously, as a being in the business of parts, you know, it's like, of course I'd like to see it be successful. I'd like to see them all be successful. Can they all? Well, I think that's been proven that they can't because that's not an opinion. That's history at this point. Right. But I'd certainly like it to be. There has to be a sense of personal pride that you have knowing that so many of the parts that you've either manufactured on your own or have resold are in all these pinball machines. And what has intrigued me a lot over the last couple years, because I'm a major purchaser of this specific product, is the pin gulp. And every time I get a pinball machine. Registered trademark, buddy. I get a pin gulp, and the pin gulp is the little beverage holder that hooks on either your left or right leg, and it allows you to place your beverage down while you're flipping. You pick it up and take it with you after you've drained the ball. The next guy comes down and puts his beverage down in the holder. You don't like shoving your beer two feet under the game on carpet? No, I do not. You know what else I don't like? Real quick, is selling my game and somebody asking for the damn pin gulp, because then I have to buy another pin gulp for the next game that comes in. And it's like now I'm thinking I've got to take my pin gulps off the game when people come over. Because, like, it's – Well, it's on there when they get there. It's there, baby. I know. I can't. Don't put it in the picture. It's like when you sell a house. If it's attached, if it's screwed into the drywall, dude, it stays with the house when you showed it. It's horrible. You know, I just sold a game recently, and I forgot to tell the buyer that I had Stern HD glass on the game.
    92:29
    And I didn't include it in the listing. And I just – I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, how do I flip glass, like, sleight of hand here? So I just told him, I said, hey, man, I didn't put this in the listing, but I've got this Stern HD glass. Do you mind if I give you the stock glass? But it's the same thing with the pin golf now. It's like, hey, man, do you use these pin golfs? Because if you don't, I certainly do, and I've probably bought my share. Who's not using them? Oh, yeah. We've got nine in my basement. How many pin golfs? I know you probably can't tell, but let me ask you this. Over or under 5,000?
    93:02
    Oh, over. That's very low. Oh. Could you tell me if it's over or under $10,000? I'll tell you what my goal is for a lifetime. Okay. As far as a business lifetime. My goal when I set the place. So this started in 2008, I think, was the first year of the Pingulp. So we're a decade in. Yeah. And my initial goal, my very unrealistic goal, still unrealistic goal, was $100,000 is what I wanted to sell.
    93:37
    You know, it goes on almost every game. I don't see that as being unattainable by any means. At this certain rate, I won't make it. Let's put it that way. But if you wanted to be $100,000, you just might. It is certainly been something that's a snowball rolling down the hill. It started, they had to just slowly get out there the first few years where people saw them, saw how they worked, what the function was. You know, we've now completely, we do. You've evolved the pinball version too. We have. You went from the pros to the premium now. We do. We have the pro now. We have the premium. And we have the LE as well. Doug Manley makes those. The L.E., Doug Manley, who does some incredible airbrush work on those pinballs. He's the L.E.'s. For those that don't know Doug, he's the guy, the Trilogy Beer Pinball Machine. He's Lion Man. You know what? Absolutely. The cat's out of the bag. That guy's the Lion Man. He is Lion Man. And I've got an unbelievable, like, freaking video. It was in Scott's basement after a stream of TNA. and we're all sitting around after party and I'm like, Doug, can you just do me one favor? And he's like, what? Yeah, what do you need? I'm like, can you just scream out Lion Man so I can record it for prosperity? He's like, yeah. And I got it. It's like, what? Do you know how that started? No. Can you explain Lion Man? I can explain it. And maybe this is how we wrap this up. It defies some defining. I know the history of Lion Man. The seed from which it grew.
    95:16
    At Expo, they had made an announcement or something. I can't remember. They left the mic on, the PA mic on at Expo.
    95:29
    Oh, man. Time flies. Eight years ago, I don't know, and Doug did a couple beverages, as we all will, picked up the microphone and started screaming Lion Man over and over and over. And let me tell you, and over and over. Why Lion Man?
    95:54
    Have Doug on. Make him explain it. I don't think there is a Doug. Like a ten minute segment on Lion Man because that's actually pretty funny. And so that's where it started. He just wouldn't stop screaming Lion Man over the PA, and no one got the microphone. No one got the microphone, couldn't get it turned off. And then Scott Denise started the thread not too long after that. So Scott Denise is the no-trash cougar on Pinsight. He started the thread. And he did start. Now, Pinsight started moderating people posting in other threads, posting Lion Man, because that gave such traction. Because Lion Man can only be said in the Lion Man thread. Really? I did not know that. Unless, because Scott's a star now, he gets to say Lion Man if he wants to. Well, Doug should be the guy that gets to say Lion Man. No, it doesn't work that way.
    96:48
    I can't say Lion Man. You just did. On Pinside, unless I'm in the Lion Man. First, they were going to shut down the Lion Man thread. I think I saw you debate that a little bit. And then we had to negotiate just keeping Lion Man in the Lion Man thread. Because it actually was a pinball thing. That might have been a mistake. I'm not sure if that's an accident or not. It's part of lore, right, at this point? And Robin, who runs Pinside, he does a great job. He keeps the site evolving. He does. Overall, he does great. And I completely understand that. You don't want 17 abstract threads going at any time. I'm a blind man. I mean, I get it. And he's smart. He keeps one thread. Because if you keep closing a thread, it just keeps popping up in three other threads. and you just sort of like, oh, I don't get this Lion Man thing really, but go over in this corner and just say it all you want. And it makes sense to me. It does make sense. It has kind of grown into its own thing. I don't really know what it is. I know how it started. What is it? I don't know. It's because Lion Man. You know what it is? It's pinball camaraderie is what it comes down to. It is. It's like a rallying call. Rally the troops. We will have to get some more info on this and dig deeper. But, you know, we'll talk to Doug. Maybe he can come on for a few minutes and just kind of give us a little bit of gist. You need to get Doug and Banger Jay here at the same time. Banger Jay. You know, they're lifelong friends. They've known each other since they were kids. I believe that. I haven't exchanged too many words with the Banger Jay. Again, I'm still shocking out after the first sight of Banger Jay and the Mancini. But I know that he's been in the hobby for a long time, and he's made many friends. And, Terry, you vouch for him. Oh, absolutely. He's awesome. He brings the party, baby. That's what I like. Yeah, yeah. So future of pinball life. We were talking about going forward. Do you see yourself running pinball life for the next 20 years? Have you ever contemplated maybe selling the business? Well, I'm 54. I mean, here's the thing. And here's, you know, I'm 11 years from what you would call classic retirement age, right? Isn't that 65? From your Jenny's free breakfast? No, I'm months from that. There you go. That's 55. Is it 55? Correct. It's 55. I would know. No, it's not. I'm rubbing it in. I'm rubbing that menu, baby. What do you get at Denny's at 55? Oh, there's a whole, you get your own page. What? It's the 55 and over page. I didn't know that. All right, we're going to go to Denny's after this. I'm going to have to get a fake ID that I'm 55. I've heard. The moon's over my hand. The rumor has it. Right. You got the balls to order off of it? They don't ID you. Just a little inside. Is that what it is? I love it. I love her. Well, try this. That's awesome. You can be like, what are you guys, like 27? No, man. Look at these gray hairs. Yeah. I just dyed it. I'm going to have the over 55 number three and just stare them down. Did you think you just dyed your hair? No, I would just say that if we were at Denny's. Oh. Yeah. I dye mine. No, you don't. I do. No. I do. Really? Yeah. I also had a chin job. What is that? That's where they tuck it in.
    100:00
    What? Look, there's a cigar right there. I thought that was from a fight you got in with Mike Fox at Pinball Life. I'm vain.
    100:08
    Hey, you know what, though? You take care of yourself. You've got to keep up with Margaret, right? And I wanted to go back to Margaret real quick because recently now, for the last six months, going into Pinball Life, picking up my cards and just kind of, you know, having some conversation, you guys have added a T-shirt printing machine. We have. Which is Margaret's baby. It's her baby. I don't even know how to turn that thing on. Why don't you talk about what happened with that? Because for people that need some custom T-shirts or one-offs, they can go through Pinball Life at this point, right? And they can order those? Yeah, well, it's a little grayer than that, I would say. Okay. Margaret had discussed to me at one point, maybe a year and a half ago, saying, like, you know, I want to get one of them T-shirt printing machines. And I thought, no. but then I thought how do you say no when you have 37 toys pinball machines, yep and so that was as she is she's never given me one minute's grief about any pinball machine so I said of course yeah, do it and you know, it was kind of the coolest thing because it's really awesome you can say, wouldn't it be cool if you had a t-shirt that said blank and then 40 minutes later you're wearing blank. It's pretty awesome. Something crazy can happen overnight and then you're walking into the store the next day wearing the shirt talking about it and people are like, wow, that's some crazy I've made a t-shirt about that somebody at work said something stupid and I'm going to make a t-shirt after work and then wear it the next day. That's awesome. You could do that. Do you have a pinball machine, man? No. It would be a lot cooler if you did.
    101:57
    It would be a wicked T-shirt. That's all right. That's still the confused reference. We have the Scott Denise is awesome. Yes. So do you sell the Scott Denise is awesome shirt? Justin is just okay.
    102:10
    If you really have the Justin is just okay shirt. Yeah, well, Scott had it made. Margaret made it. Oh, my gosh. Get back for the Scott Denise is awesome. Scott Denise is awesome shirt would actually sell. Do you have it listed? No, because that's I remember Doug used to print those Doug Manley, the lion man Doug is a genius because all he had to do for a practical joke that never dies is just simply get the boat in the water and now it just took off he just made a few shirts and then three years later joke's still going Well you do have the TNA shirt and then I thought back and says, you had me at Whitewood. Yes. Not anymore. Can't get those anymore. So those are limited editions. My wife got sick of printing both sides. Yeah, okay. So do not ask Margaret to print two sides. Come with lots of money. She will, but that was just a lot of work. That shirt actually sold. T-shirts don't sell, man. I'm telling you. That's why screen printing is tough. Pinball shirts just don't sell. Well, I don't know. I can think of at least two people that would be a lot cooler if you did. Well, we could do that. We've got a fund. I was going to say there might be three. Oh, okay. Well, I'm not going to speak for Margaret, but she might do it. Anyway, that was her thing. But Margaret doesn't shy away from anything like that. I mean, she's dedicated to the business. But what you realize quickly when you buy a T-shirt printing machine is it goes from being, And if you're the one making them, like she is, it goes from being a fun, cool thing to a sweat shop super quick. Let me tell you.
    103:57
    It's about a long week, and you're like, man, this is just work. Oh. So this is a bad time to ask for a pinball podcast. Obviously, that's not what Margaret does at Pinball Life.
    104:10
    Well, I do know that. I just brought that up because I know that that was something that you guys added recently to the business. Well, today we added a full-scale industrial 500-pound soft-serve ice cream machine.
    104:24
    No, you didn't. Yes, we did. What? Now, is that going to get some use at the Bimbo Life Party? Margaret wanted it. I love this, man.
    104:35
    Margaret's the best. So today, all day, we're like serving endless ice cream cones to ourselves. That is awesome. We've got enough ice cream to make 20 gallons of ice cream. So you have soft serve ice cream. It's like vanilla and chocolate, and then you can mix it with the middle. Dude, you shouldn't say this, man, on the podcast, because people are going to be like, I'm here for my free ice cream. Come out all day tomorrow for free ice cream cones. Are you doing dipped cones yet? We got the crunch coat. Oh, my God. Crunch coat's awesome. And I'm looking for the hard shell you're talking about. I'm trying to find it in bulk, like a big can of it. So we're going to have that for the open house, and we're going to have it for our summer party as well. You need a slurpy machine. Dude, don't give me any more ideas. Yeah, okay. You know, all joking aside, Margaret's been very instrumental to the success of your business. Margaret is a business partner and a co-owner of Pimmo Life. From day one. I've said before, like, she's the best decision I ever made. And, you know, she's involved every day in pinball life. She answers the phone when Lori doesn't answer the phone when she's not there in an errand or something because I decided about two years ago that I'd answered the phone enough. You can call and ask for me, but I don't have to listen to I say, hello, this is Terry, and they say, hi, Jerry. I don't ever have to hear that again. Yeah, right.
    106:03
    Another good T-shirt right there. Hi, Jerry. Pinballlife.com. But, yeah, so, you know, it's more than ice cream machines and it's more than T-shirts. She's, you know, half the owner and is actively involved in every aspect.
    106:20
    And she's a nice one of the two of us. I will say that, though. Yeah, she is. She's always nice, willing to give you a hand, willing to find. I don't think I've ever seen her aggravated in the five years that I've been going to pinball life.
    106:35
    Can you say that about me? No, not necessarily. Right. You know, we've made it work. I am not going to be on my deathbed going like, man, I wish I had spent more time with my wife. It's like that's one thing I'm going to have wrapped up. Yeah. It's like we spend basically almost every waking moment together. so you know 21 21 years later one of your good friends mike fox you're spending a almost every waking moment with him i mean well at least eight nine hours 10 hours 12 hours a day uh yeah we spend a lot of time together and so slowly but surely i guess i'm just hiring all my friends i don't really know how else to do it i do i want to shout out to mike real quick though because it was interesting mike was somebody that i knew before i even got into pinball and yeah and it was He's coming from the arcade side of things. He's actually a legend over there. Yeah. And more known for that, maybe not at this point, but, like, that's his background. And that's, you know, he's known for a lot of different things that he did with the arcade stuff. I remember I reached out to an ad on Craigslist to make this a 30-second story. And it was a guy that had a gutted Frogger cabinet. And I'm like, yeah, I'd like to kind of get my hands on that and try to do a restoration. And this guy comes out, and he's got his truck and a little trailer. He's got the Frogger cabin, and he pulls up into the driveway. Super nice guy talking to him, and he's like, yeah, by the way, I'm just getting out of the whole hobby, so here's a bunch of stuff. And he gave me a bunch of buttons and stuff, and I was like, this is one of the first transactions I had in arcades at all. And I was like, wow, what a nice guy. And then going forward, years and years and years later, probably seven, eight years, it was running into Mike again at Pinball Life. A lot of people come in and they're like, hey, are you Mike Fox? I was like, yep. Another arcade guy sold all his arcade crap. Now he's into pinball. I think he still dabbles in the arcades, though. He does. Yeah, he does. I've never heard him say he's getting out of the hobby.
    108:42
    I've heard a lot of people say they're getting out of the hobby. Yeah. Well, it's fun to sell all your games and buy them back for more a year later. That's true.
    108:50
    Because that's what's going to happen. Yeah. Prices don't seem to be going down. So, do you ever find yourself not playing your pinball machines? All the time. Take a beat.
    109:00
    Don't sell them that weekend. That's my advice I'll leave you with. Interesting. Okay, are you listening? I am listening. Okay. Just making sure. I am listening. All right. I'll share that story on the next episode. But, Terry, I want to say this. I want to thank you so much for taking the time and effort to come in today. Thanks for having me. sit down and have this conversation with myself and Bill. I think for those that have interacted and purchased from your business, I think it's great that they have an opportunity to know the personality, the pioneer behind this business, and his better half that's not able to make it today, being Margaret from Pinball Life. I told you she was able to make it. She didn't want to come.
    109:39
    So it's unfortunate she wasn't able to make it, but we appreciate that you were able to make it in the studio today, Terry. Yes, thank you. Thank you so much, and thanks for pointing that out to us. In closing here, do you have any personal shout-outs?
    109:52
    Lion Man! That's it, buddy? Yeah, that's all. Good night. Thank you, Jerry, for making it out. We really appreciate you making it out once again. The front man.
    110:06
    Of Rust Buckets. Slytherin. Owner of Pinball Life. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to episode number four of the Special Ordinance Pinball Podcast. We want to thank Terry for coming into the studio, owner of Pinball Life. Sorry Margaret couldn't make it. I know she wanted to make it, but she just wasn't able to do so. If you guys want to catch us live outside of the action, you can go to our Facebook page, Special Win Lits Pinball Podcast, or you can even email us directly at specialwinlitspinballpodcast at gmail.com. We might not be able to catch you in real time on the show, but we can certainly interact in those two pages. If you get an opportunity, give us a like on Facebook, but that's not what this podcast is all about. It's about spreading the news of pinball, and we thank you for all your support. Everybody, thanks for listening. We'll talk to you next time. The Special Windle at Pinball podcast was sponsored by our friends at Two Brothers Artisan Brewing and their Pinball Pale Ale. Because nothing goes better together than pinball and a beer.