thanks for tuning in to loser kid pinball podcast this is episode 62 62 62 62 with me my co-captain as always scott larson and scott um i can't remember i know we've changed this up why don't you tell us about our sponsor how about that yes uh okay uh so uh two things we want to talk about uh flipping out pinball so if you have an ink hankering for a new pinball machine go ahead and contact zach or nicole at flipping out pinball and they will be able to hook you up with either a new or used game they have all sorts of options and they've also branched out to different things if you want to get that big buck hunter which i have been eyeing for a while uh you can contact them also if you want to catch up to the news uh this weekend pinball is always good with jeff patterson and uh there's all sorts of other friends of the show but we're trying to keep it uh limited so people don't fast forward five minutes so anyway okay uh josh got a really cool guest on but i honestly i feel like you know him better than i do i just i just barely met him but it sounds like you guys have history together already we go way back so Way back. Way back. So when I was on Broadway. So, okay. So this is Steve Govea. I got that right, correct? Yes, correct. Close enough. Okay. So he came to fame in the pinball world by doing the Red Smoke Witch Mod, which before it looked like a bad sculpture in a clear toilet paper roll. So he decided to upgrade that. And since then, he's actually done a few upgrades. He did the Red Smoke Witch 1.0. Then he did the Flying Witch mod. And I heard Steve first when he was on Head to Head back in the day, and he was talking about the Flying Witch mod. The Flying Monkey mod. The Flying Witch mod sounds fascinating. Flying Witch mod. That would be awesome. Yeah. And then we have the Crystal Ball mod. And then he had the Witch 2.0 mod. Correct. And I'm sure there's other stuff going on. So we want to welcome to the show Steve. How are you doing, Steve? I'm doing great. Thanks, guys, for having me. Definitely. I'm excited for this. I got to ask, though, why just Wizard of Oz? Why haven't you branched out yet? What is your fascination with Wizard of Oz? Yeah, well, what started it? Other than seeing the terrible display, I have a picture of the witches next to each other, and it looks laughable, really. You know what happened is when that game came out Well that was 2011 I think when it came out Between then and 2014 Or 15 People were trying to do other versions of the witch And I really just did it I was more curious for myself There was a thread on Pinside Called Ditch the witch and leave the trees And I forget who started it But you can find it It's a really old thread But this guy took a Hallmark ornament And he cut it in half and he stuck it in the tube and it looked great. And then he put a bunch of like, I don't know, like holly in the trees. And it just kind of gave me the idea that that people were trying. So I tried the same thing he did and I completely destroyed the Hallmark toy. I mean, just completely destroyed it because he got a saw in half and trying to make it fit. And he did a great job. So, you know, failure after failure, failure. I just decided to make one out of Joshua Clay. And then I just started looking at YouTube videos on how to, how to make stuff out of resin. And I thought this just opens up a whole, a whole new world because if I can just make something that I, you know, instead of buying something and try to make it fit and then make it out of plastic, then this will be fun. But I never really intended to, to, you know, be a quote unquote modern. I just, I put the witch out there cause I thought it was a good idea. to have the red like part that protects her light it up. Um, and then it just kind of slowly, it slowly grew to where a few people wanted it and a few more people on a few more. And, and by the time it sort of died off, I started working on the monkey. And that was simply because someone asked me to do it. Someone challenged me to do it. And once that happened, I was like, well, there's no space back there. I don't know how you're going to do it, but I figured it out. Um, But I it's like I'm not a company necessarily. I just I take a long time doing it because I do it by myself and I paint them and I sculpt them in Joshua Clay and then the resin, obviously. So, yeah, that's the reason it's it's really just Wizard of Oz is I wanted to branch out like a year ago and was ready to almost two years ago. I was ready to do something else. But I went back because I figured I can make The Witch better. And because The Witch was selling for way too much money on eBay and things like that, which I just thought was silly. So, yeah, I decided to make a few more. And because it's 2.0 because I just got better. It took me three years maybe to go back to see it. And I was like, I don't want to just take the same design and cast them and sell them. Like there's certain aspects of it I can make better and do things I always wanted to do. And that's where the lighting came in and that's where the sculpture kind of changed a little bit. So. So, yeah, that's how those things came about. I'm shocked that you that this is your first your first foray into sculpting. I was anticipating that you were going to say, well, I've been playing D&D for years. And so I'm like, seriously, this is this is what my friends growing up would do. They would have their little miniatures and they'd paint them. But you're telling me you didn't have any history like that. No, I made something out of Joshua Clay years and years ago. I've been pretty artistic my entire life. I did theater design in college for a while. I worked as a cartoonist when I was younger and did caricatures and things like that. But Joshua Clay was not something I've ever really done for a living. So there's a lot of people on YouTube who are so good at it. And if you kind of have an idea of what you want to do, you can learn a lot from them. So that's what I did. I tried to learn everything I could. That's some dedication. I'm not going to lie. That's pretty awesome. It's more of a challenge. Thank you. It's really a challenge. It's like, can I make something new and unique? And I love doing it. I love, at the end of the day, finishing a mod and going, wow, that's really cool. In my opinion. I've never really made anything for other people other than for me. If I like it and I think it's good, then I'll put it out there for people to buy. But, yeah, that's kind of where it came about is me just working for myself just for fun. So you did the first witch and then you went to the flying monkey mod. Correct. And how many of these did you make? How long did it take you to make each individual one? It took so long. And I'll tell you, it took it. It took almost a year, took 10 months. By the time I got to the end of the list, some people are like, I paid for that. Or did I ask you for that? Well, yeah, you did. And I didn't care. There were so many other people who wanted it. I'm like, yeah, you did. If you don't want it, that's fine, because I got to make some more. But but it was I was I had just moved. God, we were talking so much before the podcast, I forget where we were, but I'm from San Diego, and I used to live all over the place. So I came back home here, and I didn't really have a job. And I had some time to just kind of, you know, do this at night for myself. And that's where it came from. It's just truly just a hobby for fun for me that I thought was a cool idea. And now you have two version of The Witches now. So there's the 1.0. So full disclosure, I'm really good at buying things and not very good at installing them. So I bought the 1.0 Witch mod, and I saw actually kind of late to the game, I missed it. And I said, oh, he's doing a 2.0 mod? And so I begged you to make the mod for me and add me to the list because that was one of the last ones. And kind of ironically, you asked me a basic question about Rush. And so I actually, I know a lot about rush. And so I gave you a way more information than you wanted. No, it's funny, but you passed, you passed with fine colors. I did pass. I passed. I passed. Um, and then, uh, so I, I was one of the last ones, but tell me the differences between the first one and the second one and what you changed. Uh, real, let's see. The first one was based off of that Hallmark toy. I told you about that. I cut in half. Um, if, if you go back and find it, they're on eBay somewhere. There's this, it's a witch and she's got this kind of red plastic around her and inside is this little LED. And if you push the button, I think she screams or something and the light kind of flashes. And that to me was, that was a great idea because the trick with the first witch or fixing the witch in general is that you can't have the ball get into that mech. Because then the mech won't know there's anything in there and that's why the tube is there. but you can make the most amazing sculpture and stick it in that tube and you won't see anything because that tube is so reflective um so the idea for me was to make this like cloud that i saw in this hallmark ornament but make it bigger so the ball can't get up there on the top so initially i made it and i and i started uh selling them out to people who wanted them and balls were getting stuck in the mod because I didn't make it high enough. So someone had asked me along the way if I could incorporate it more into the castle that comes on the red version of the game and kind of tie it into that whole thing. So I looked at the bricks on there that Matt had made from Back Alley Creations. Yeah, and I just kind of looked at what he had done and tried to tie in this wall structure underneath what I had done and I made the mod higher and that seemed to fix the problem. But like I said, I made about, I made about 230 maybe, but I was, I was tired of making it and I had no intention of going back to make them like zero. I thought it was neat that people are collecting them and they're selling them for a lot of money. I think that's really cool. It's fun. It just means I'm not making something that's, you know, junky. But when I saw the prices for them going up and it just like dumb prices, I thought I could make a few more. So I went back and I looked at it and I saw that I could, someone at one point said, can you make the witch look out at me? And I'm like, back then I'm like, no, I can't. I don't know how to do that. Well, now I could. So I took this sculpture and I made her more sort of dynamic and perspective kind of based and had her looking out. And then I remember when I was making the first witch, I would take these pieces of red and I'd stick them on the play field just to make sure things are fitting. Well, when Wizard of Oz goes into a test mode, there's this sort of like pulsing rainbow color thing that goes up every once in a while through the play field. Well, when that light, when those lights were coming up through the red piece of plastic, I just thought it looks so cool. But I just I didn't have the knowledge to to make it light up like that because the original game, if you don't own it, it's just it's it's two LEDs that flash. One is red and one is white. So all this time passes and I learned about this thing called an addressable LED ring. And what that allows you to do is program it and you can do whatever you want with this ring. So I went back and I looked at the mod that I made. I had to dig out the base of it and kind of reconfigure it. I made it so this ring fits inside there. And then I had a friend who, a pinball buddy of mine, isn't involved in pinball at all. He's actually involved in theater, Scott. Okay. But his dad was an electronics programmer or whatever. And so he had a basic knowledge of what this ring did and programming it. And he got really excited. He was like, let me do it. Let me do it. So we came up with about seven patterns of light that are all random. They're timed to the music. So they kind of billow in smoke. And when the music goes out, the lights go out. and then the witch once again like learning from just the past someone had asked me or i think i made a joke like i'm gonna make the witch again in a few years but this time it's gonna glow in the dark or something stupid i was never gonna make it glow in the dark right but the monkey because the because the game is so dark in the back which i love by the way i loved how dark wizard of oz is um but the monkey to light it i didn't just want to put a spotlight on it so i I painted it with UV reflective paint. And then when you light it with UV light, it glows, but it doesn't like it's not like a glaring spotlight like most pinball machines have. It's more subtle. So I did that with the witch. I painted her with UV paint. And then I replaced the white light that's originally in the game with UV lights that shine up from above. so she glows when all the fire disappears. She sits there and glows. It looks really cool. It's like if you've ever been to Disneyland, the Haunted Mansion, it looks like that little woman who's at the end of the ride who's like, you know, come back, your death certificate or whatever. It looks like that. And so once I figured that out, I got excited about it. But I was only going to make 50. That was my plan because it was hard to do, and I just wanted to make 50, and so many people wanted one. I'm just about to finish, and we're about 125. So that's where we are on The Witch 2.0. Now, I just barely installed it, and for the record, it's really cool. Wow thank you man Yeah my son who I actually adjusted Wizard of Oz because it was kind of too hard for my kids It hard Yeah it really hard Yeah And so I adjust the outlines a little bit But my son was so excited to play it because he was like, hey, I entered my initials. And I, you know, I didn't have the hard time. It was like the high score of the day. But he he loved doing it. He loved playing. But it is so cool when the witch pops up. It really is a showstopper. Oh, thank you. I tell you, I've been working on it for so long that and then like like I said, once COVID hit, it's like everything just slowed down. It was just I mean, we've all been experiencing it. It was it felt it felt weird just to make a toy during all that. I wasn't quite sure what was happening. So it's taken a long time to finish it. But I'm just about getting it for the the tail end of people who wrote me asking for one. But it took so long. In fact, the crystal ball was not meant to be something on its own. It was something I was just going to make because my friend was busy programming the new witch. But, you know, it's one of those things. It's a labor of love, and no one was necessarily waiting for me. I don't have anybody pay up front, so you're not out of any money, and I don't feel obligated to make you something. So I kind of keep the pressure off myself that way, and I'll just make something that I really enjoy. And that's what happened with this. So, yeah. So you did this based off of a challenge, or at least the monkey mod, right? Yeah. You did that based off of a challenge. Yeah. So can I make a challenge? I've been thinking about this after shots that we were going to talk about. I knew if I said challenge, you're going to ask me to make something, but we'll see. We'll see. This isn't for Wizard of Oz, and you can totally shoot me down. No, it doesn't need to be. Trust me. Not at all. Okay. Okay. So you remember the truck nuts that used to be on all the trucks? The truck nuts? Oh, so for like a truck? Yeah. Yeah. You know, for like a truck. You hung them on the back of your truck. Oh, jeez. And that's how you knew it was a mail truck? Yes. I have a neighbor who has them, and my wife, Tricia, wants to go yank them off. Oh, my gosh. You want to castrate the truck? Yeah. Yes. See, I hate them. But what do you want? You want me to make some pinball? I'm bold. Make a tilt bob that hangs on. Instead of truck nuts, you have a tilt bob that swings back and forth. And when you depress on the brakes, it could say tilt across the bob. Huh? I'm on it. I'm already sculpting it right now. Yeah, there you go. I knew it. It's really easy. It's just two balls. Yeah. I thought it'd be really cool if you could hook this. I know that it would probably be against the road rules. There's probably some law saying you can't have lights and sound. but i thought it'd be really cool if it swing back and forth we actually hit the rim like you do with a regular tilt bob it'd make a tilt sound you could have it light up actually when you hit the brakes you can actually have things light up it's kind of weird but yeah that's what i'm saying when you can do it with the brake with the tilt so if you press on the brake it'd say tilt across the tilt bob but obviously you can't do it every time it hits the rim the edge of the uh and that could get annoying too because i swear that thing would be swinging all the time when you're driving so So if you got double danger, would it like shut your car down? Maybe. Maybe. Is this something you guys see a lot up there in Utah? Does your car have a pair of balls attached to it? Nah. There's more than you would think. But usually I'm just like, oh, really? Like you went there? Okay. No, I just thought it would be funny to have a tilt bob hanging off the back of my truck. You know? Yeah. And I know the community to get behind it. Everyone wants a tilt bob hanging off the back of their truck. Everyone wants a U. A uniball, yeah. Yeah. Get on it. Get on it. That could be your thing, the way the head-to-head guys had the kangaroo sacks for a while. Absolutely, yeah. Absolutely. Dang. It's called truck balls. Yeah, truck balls. But this won't look like a tilt bob. It won't look like balls. It'll look like a tilt bob. It'll look like a triangle, so there you go. Well, good. That's half the Joshua Clay, so I don't have to worry about the other ball. so you're wrapping up this mod are there any other mods that are on your horizon yes there are um and that's all i will say about it okay i i'm just on record as saying that i want to be on the list so just but we got to know can you at least tell tell us what is it for a game like like which game is it for that was my thing if you didn't know what game it would be for they would kind of be silly buying it right um and i'm not going to tell you that either okay all right no stay tuned i'll stay tuned and if you want uh you guys will be the first to know well i was going to ask are you going to venture outside of wizard of oz because that's i am okay okay that's the only thing i was going to ask because i was going to tell you to point to a particular game because i mean obviously it's josh has a bugs bunny pinball party that he really wants to bling out Oh my gosh, really? No. No. Someone was giving one of those away nearby, and I went, nah, it's still too expensive. Wow. Yeah. Okay, so I... Go ahead. I'm modding Thunderbirds. Oh. Nice. So you have to hit International Rescue twice to start. Yeah. Yes. Well, at first I've got to find a Thunderbirds to mod it, but that'll be harder than I probably think. Any plans for modding a Deep Root game? Yeah, and I've been waiting. I've just been waiting and waiting and waiting. The good news is if you made 130 of them, you would get the whole thing. Okay, so I want to know how – now we talked a little bit offline a lot. You have a significant theater history. How did you get into pinball? Good question. Pinball is kind of niche. It's total niche, and it's always – I get the same question every time someone says you're into pinball. They always say the same thing. Huh, they still make those. That's always the first question. Yeah, and they still say it a lot around. Yeah, the second question is can I come over and play it? Yeah, sure. Why not? Yeah, we've got some good brew pubs down here now. There's a lot of pinball around town if you want to play it. I mean now things are opening up a little more. But I got into it, gosh, right around the time, you guys are probably, you're a little younger than I am. I'm 52, so you're like 40s or something. Yeah, I'm turning 47 this year. Oh, there you go. I'm turning 34 here in a couple weeks. He's a baby. Yeah, a baby. It goes back for me when I didn't pay attention to pinball when I was playing in the arcades. It was right around the time that Mortal Kombat and all of those fighting games came out. and I just lost interest where you need all these like secret moves to play your game. And I was getting older and I just wasn't, I wasn't interested in, um, and pinball machines. I just started gravitating toward cause they were new and they were different. Even though they've always been around, they just caught my attention. Um, so I remember, I love Raiders of the Lost Ark and I remember what, excuse me, I remember wanting the movie poster, uh, just to put in my room. you know, my bedroom. Uh, but they were hard to get back then. Cause you know, the theaters would get rid of them and they'd send them back to the, the movie companies, all that. So I thought, man, you get a Raiders lost art movie poster. That would be so much fun. Well, then I'm, you know, I'm in an arcade somewhere and I see an Indiana Jones pinball machine and that just upped the ante. Like, Oh my gosh, I didn't even know it existed. How much fun is that? If I ever owned one of those, that would be really fun. And I didn't have the money for it, but I ended up buying one for 1900 bucks back in. Wow. Yeah. Back in 2000, something, 2002. And I just loved it. And I took it apart and I blew so many fuses on it, you know, putting in lights and modding it myself and, and just figuring out how the pinball machine works because it's daunting when you flip it up and see all those wires. And there was a website. I think it's still out. It's called Mr. Pinball. Yeah. So that's actually from Utah, by the way. Is it really? Oh, that's cool. Yeah, the original guy is from Utah, Mr. Pinball, yeah. Oh, wow. I remember just a long time ago that there's a page on how to fix Bally Williams games from the 90s. Yeah. And so I just was looking at that all the time. and figuring out how to, you know, fix pinball machines. And it was just an obsession for me. And I put little toys in there. You know, I get a little rubber snake from the San Diego Zoo, and I'd stick it in there and put some plants in there and all that. But it's just, for me, it was just really fun. I never really considered it a hobby. It was just this fun kind of antique that I had in my house. Because this is 2002, remember? I mean, pinball is dead. Dead, yeah. Yeah, dead. uh so yeah it's just one of those things i just i treasured it and so my my my tie-in flash forward uh with theater is i was traveling around the country on tour and we were in cities for a long time uh you know at least four weeks sometimes 10 weeks we were we were sitting in a city when we're just you know overnighting it so you get bored kind of quickly and one of the things that I just started doing was like going around and looking for pinball machines and it just gave me a chance to get out and walk through cities and explore them and this is before like having some sort of app that says hey they're over there oh yeah yeah yeah this was people talking it wasn't it wasn't an app like pinball map or something it was just I would do like a deep dive on the computer and find people talking so I remember we were in Minneapolis at one point probably 2009 I think. And I see SS billiards. I'm like, Oh, what's this? They've got pinball machines. So I take a car out to SS billiards and I meet Lloyd. Didn't know who he was. I didn't know what LTG was. I didn't know what pin side was or anything, but I, but you know, I got to experience all these great places. So like sunshine laundromat, Jack bar, because I was living in New York for a while places all over the place. His name is Cactus Jackson, Nebraska, which is an amazing pinball collection. And it was – it really is just – I look at pinball as kinetic art. That, to me, is more appealing to me. I don't care about competing. I don't care about multipliers and all that. I'm good at pinball. I'm really good at it. but I'd rather explore a game's story, I guess, than take someone on to get high score. That's not as interesting to me. But yeah, that's kind of been my passion for it. So in terms of getting other games, I got a Theater of Magic maybe not so long ago. Around 2009, someone had one up in L.A. I'm in San Diego, by the way. uh and they couldn't get it to restart and they were selling it for 2200 bucks wow i went and i bought it and i drilled out the lock and i hit the reset button and the whole thing just came up like pristine it was just dusty it was just you know pristine and so that you know kind of became you know that was my next game uh and then flash forward to 2010 2011 whenever jack how do you say his name? Guarnieri? He's a tough one. He's like Govea. Jack. Jack did his spiel about his new game. And he was saying everything that I thought about pinball is I was out searching for, you know, Theater Magic, Twilight Zone, all these classic games from the 90s and the new stuff I just thought was terrible. Wheel of Fortune. And I had no interest in that stuff. And here comes Jack saying, hey, I want to make a machine with all these old guys from Bally Williams. I don't know what it is yet. I'm not going to tell you, but will you pay for it? And I'm like, yes, I'm going to pay for it. And I got so excited with just what he was doing. He's making an old game the way I like that. And I paid for it sight unseen. And, you know, obviously it's Wizard of Oz and everything. But that was my third game. So it's not like I've got a basement. I don't, you know, first of all, I'm in San Diego, so we don't really have those, but, um, I don't have a huge collection. I just, I, I, you know, it's one of those things, like they say, you buy one and you want another one, you want another one. Um, but that's kind of how my collection and my interest in pinball, uh, started, I guess. Um, so we talked, uh, randomly about Rush and you actually have this connection with Rush. Tell me about that connection. we're going down the nerdy hole it's a pinball podcast i know hey hey at a rush concert this is the only time where the lines for the men's room is way longer than lines for the ladies room right well first of all before we begin that uh do you think they should make a rush pinball machine so that's actually kind of where i was going with this um i was gonna say you guys it was somewhat officially unofficially announced well not well i think it's the theory behind it it's like it's always been floating out there so the the challenge is rush is one of those go ahead i was gonna say they announced on pinball show or at least the correspondent did saying that they're going to try to squeeze in a rush pinball machine from john borg between mandalorian and godzilla so yeah well okay but that and that's how that's a theory right it's not like stern's gonna say anything about that i i can quote you ready for this i'm going to quote zach sharp verbatim i cannot yet confirm nor deny that is actually true oh yeah well yeah that's his go-to message yeah no so uh the challenge with rush is that they're one of the few bands that have a niche following for about 40 years and so they have you know the big album they have moving pictures and they kind of came in their heyday, about 10 years into them or six years into them being a band. And so the challenge is they have eras almost and very few bands have eras that are because very few bands actually make it that long And so you can have the seventies version of the band and because you know, that's the, that's the same time as Led Zeppelin was out there. And so there's a lot of fantasy themes and all that kind of stuff. And then you have the eighties version, which is a little more of the synth pop version. Right. Then you have nineties, which are going back to, to grunge slash guitar. So could you fit all of those in to one game, or would it be just, you know what, we're just going to focus on this era when they were the biggest and say, you know, we're just going to do Moving Pictures era Rush 1980? Yeah, I think the latter is a better choice. I think you either make a 2112 machine or you make a Moving Pictures machine. Yeah, and I think you'd have to go with Moving Pictures. Yeah, and then you could have, you know, every song could be some sort of mode, you know. Right. But OK, this is super nerdy, but they're a prog rock band. And so a lot of their things, a lot of. OK, a lot of. OK, topics that are typically in bands, there is, you know, the sex, drugs, rock and roll, right? They don't they don't really typically do that. And so, you know, a lot of their songs are very niche and they have a car about they have a song about a. a red sports car they have a camera eye which is going through different cities and it's just it's kind of yeah it's very prog rock nerd stuff yeah so like would that fit with pinball and you could say yes tom sawyer would be great um yyz would be a great song red bar would be fun you know you could you could race around you could but it's a slow start it's the same thing as like led zeppelin so well that's my thing is i don't need to hear the music you know in a pinball i've heard it so much in my life i wouldn't necessarily need a game to hear it so it's a tough one yeah i don't know if the theme translates super well i guess that's a very long way a long prog rock way of saying that i'm not sure it would translate well but i think i would buy it i i think most importantly whoever does it should really like the band yes because because that would be my issue with it. I did not like the Led Zeppelin game. Okay. Ooh, hot take. Burn. Go for it. If I keep saying in my opinion over again, that gets kind of redundant. I hate it when people say, I think. Well, of course you think because you're talking. I think therefore I am. Yeah, of course. This is my opinion. Other people won't agree, but I didn't like what they did to it. Granted, it's tough to do Led Zeppelin with whatever assets they have, But I just – I don't want Rush to get the short shrift. I'd rather have them focus on it the way Slash focused on Guns N' Roses. But I don't know how many people would be interested in that, so – that amount of time and money into it. So I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if I'd get it unless it was really, really cool. yeah but it would have to be like i the the living two members of the band you have alex and um Geddy Lee right and unless you have one of their involvements i'm not sure um so why apparently you know alex so why don't you just call him up well you know why don't we just call him right now you know i thought of that i'm like that would be the geekiest thing ever hey there's a rumor you're making a pinball machine who is it um no the way i know alex and it's really i think it's really cool i got so lucky um by the way he's the for those are you who do not have your nerd card he's the lead guitarist for yeah and he was my main guitar player i've played guitar since i was 10 years old um and so right around that time was when moving pictures came out and and Rush was the only band I listened to so I just absolutely worshiped their music that they could do no wrong in my opinion in those you know in my teenage years um well I was because we were talking so much before I was in a show called Jersey Boys and and I was on Broadway for about two years and then went on tour with the show and then the first national tour so when we were all these cities and I was you know searching my pinballs uh machines we were there for a long period of time. So at one point we were in Toronto for 10 weeks and I knew that Alex and Getty had just gotten off of tour. And I was in an up, I was in a position where people were paying attention to me because I was doing lots of press for the show and, and articles, news articles and things like that. So I thought, I want to get these guys to come and see the show. I want to invite them. I'm here for 10 weeks. There's gotta be a way for me to get them to see the show. so i had a mutual friend of theirs this guy named john wesley who's the uh guitar player when they were on tour for a band called porcupine tree have you ever heard of them great band sounds familiar a really really great band they're a london prog band they're not playing anymore but uh but i saw them uh in uh in new york and i became friends with one of their members Well, Wes was Neil Peart's motorcycle buddy. Oh, okay. Yeah, and he knows the guys. And he and I just geeked out over him one night. And I said, we're going, I wrote him, I said, we're going up to Toronto. Can you send Alex a letter saying I want to, you know, get in touch with him? And he's like, sure. So I never heard from him. And I'm doing press. There's an article in the Toronto Star where I'm doing like a lifestyle page on how to make my, you know, my favorite drink, you know, in the afternoon. And it starts off with Alex Alex Lifeson. If you're reading this, Steve Govea really wants to meet you. And she did it. The person interviewing me was like, yeah, I'll do it. And it's, I was doing everything I could to meet these guys. So eight weeks go by and nothing's going to happen. I don't hear anything. The show's happening along and I'm down in this tourist area of Toronto called the distillery district. and I'm down there with my girlfriend at the time and we're walking by and I see this old sort of like Jewish woman sitting at this table eating lunch. And I walk and I'm walking past and I say, hey, look, it's Geddy Lee, just as a joke. And I look again and it's Geddy Lee. And he's just sitting there with his wife, Nancy, and they're just having lunch. And I go around the corner and I'm so nervous. My knees are shaking. I'm like, oh, my God, oh, my God. And I've got to say something, I have to go back and say something. Yeah, you have to. You have to. And I've built this up so much just trying to meet these guys. And there he is. Like, you know, of course, you go to Toronto and there's Getty just sitting outside waiting to say hi. Sure. So I go back to him and my knees are shaking and I shake his hand and I'm just like, oh, my gosh, Getty, I really want to meet Alex Alex Lifeson. That's what I said to him. Oh, wow. You're not the person I want to meet no there's someone else okay i really want to meet alex leifson and he starts laughing he goes oh okay and i explained who i am and luckily there are jersey boys like banners all up up and down the streets where we are so i had some sort of like credit you know and and he goes well give me your email and i'll give it to him so i'm staring at him and my girlfriend she ends up writing my email in David Hankin and giving it to getty and then we go away and i'm on cloud night. I got to meet Geddy Lee and shake his hand. I'm like, we're done. Well, two days later, I get a message from Alex Alex Lifeson. I get an email from Alex Alex Lifeson. I just fall out of my chair. He says to me, he says, Steve, I think you're Wes's friend from Porky Pantry. He goes, I can't make it to the show, but thank you for the invite. I appreciate it. I couldn't even believe I was even having a conversation with him. I wrote him back and I said, look, I just wanted to thank you for all the guitar lessons. And so he wrote back two days later and said, I'm doing an interview at noon at the Four Seasons Hotel. You want to come down and have coffee afterwards? And I was like, oh, my gosh. So, of course, I got, you know, my Power Windows album. I got, like, whatever I could. And I go down there and I had lunch with Alex Alex Lifeson for about two hours and just talking about everything. And he was just so funny. And I brought up the story about how he had met Jimmy Page. And I remember how nervous he was. He goes, oh, yeah, we were so nervous. And I said, that's me with you. And he just starts laughing. He goes, oh, you know, thanks so much. I said, the next time I see you is probably going to be when you guys are touring in San Diego. And he goes, well, just call me. You have my phone number. and so uh as the tour went on they were in san antonio i got in touch with him we went backstage we hung out um and then we just became friends i saw him in like three different concerts and kept going backstage to say hi to him and yeah and he's such a nice guy and so so what what made it really really cool was the director of jersey boys is this guy named des mackinac and des was getting a Governor General Award up in Ottawa the same time that Rush was getting theirs. And so Des called me up and said, I want the band to play. And Des, before directing Jersey Boys, directed Tommy, the musical Pinball Machine is based on. And he wanted Pete Townsend to play with us. And so Des calls me and he says, I need you to come up here. We're putting the band back together that we're playing the show on Broadway and we're going to play with Pete Townshend and I said I really can't do it I'm busy I gotta see he goes well that band you really like is going to be here too and I go he goes a rush I go oh my god really because yeah so we go up there to Ottawa Rush gets their governor general awards I'm on stage playing pinball wizard with a bunch of pinball machines behind me with Pete Townsend in front of Rush. And the whole band comes backstage to meet Pete Townsend afterwards, and his dressing room was right next to mine. There's a picture of the three of them meeting him somewhere, if you search for it. And the three guys come into our room with my little band, and we get a picture of all of Rush with me and my band guys. I'm like, it just doesn't happen that way, especially with you. Yeah, well, especially all of Rush. That was the key thing. Yeah. Neil is very private and he's basically, well, he relegated the PR stuff to Getty and Alex because he felt a little overwhelmed by it. Oh, without question. But I remember seeing Getty again. I said, Getty, remember me? I told you that I really wanted to meet Alex Larson. And he goes, yeah, I do remember you. He started laughing. I said, but I really wanted to meet you too. You know, he started laughing. And so, yeah, that's kind of been my connection. So I've been in touch with him since then. I saw their last tour. He just, Alex just put out some new music because he has a new guitar out. I just saw that. Yeah. Yeah. So I wrote it briefly. I said, I dig it. It's really cool. The music is great. And he's, you know, doing his thing up in Toronto. But yeah, that's for a period of time there. We were really like, like, you know, in contact a lot. It was great. He took me out to dinner when I was in Toronto rehearsing and we just had a great time. And I'm like, this is my guitar hero. And he's the nicest guy on the planet. So nice. It reminds me of, again, Behind the Lighted Stage. You remember that? You saw that. And so the part where the waitress who has only a peripheral idea of who Rush is, she recognizes Geddy Lee because he's very distinctive looking. Sure. And so she goes up and asks him for his autograph. And Geddy's like, do you want his autograph? And Alex is sitting there. And she's like, no. you have no idea who alex lyson was yeah that's his thing he's like he's like i look like everybody else steve you know it's like getty getty looks like getty but me i'm just kind of fitting in but i i couldn't have been luckier and i could have been happier but yeah i'm a huge rush fan if you look at the thread you i got my bobble heads up there um yeah um yeah so that's that's kind of how i became friends with him just fortunate and very lucky and you know but it It was great. I would hate to meet him and have him be a jerk, but he was really great. No, that's actually the danger, right? Meeting your heroes. Yes, definitely. It's so hard because you have – well, I call it like the illusion of intimacy, especially when you listen to either radio shows or podcasts or something like that. You kind of feel like the silent chair in the discussion. Sure. You're there. You feel like you're involved in the discussion. but in many ways um you're and you're not really because they are you saying people feel and are you saying people feel intimate with us oh geez yeah this is kind of weird here scott you're saying no no well i'm just saying that it's it's this illusion of like you know it's a relationship but i and i will say thankfully that's worked really well for josh and i because there's a lot of pinball podcasts out there that we have been able to become friends with because it does feel like, you know, them already. It's just kind of this odd situation, but I would say the same thing with your heroes. When you meet them, if they turn out to be just a major jerk, then you're like, uh, it's, it's kind of hard to appreciate them and their work. Once you see behind the curtain. Well, it's funny you say it. Cause I, I mentioned this story briefly when I did head to head a couple of years ago, whatever. But, um, Keith Elwin is from San Diego. Obviously he's in Chicago now. I was about to ask, did you know Keith when he lived down there? Only barely. He came to work on my Indiana Jones machine once over at my dad's house. But I remember the one time I was watching Special When Lit when I was on a plane. And I was flying back to San Diego, and I watched the whole thing. I'm like, who's this guy with the San Diego Padres hat on? And I'm like, oh, it's Keith Elwin. He's the best pinball player in the world. I'm like, oh, that's weird. Okay, interesting. I think I'm here for a week or so and I needed a part for my Indiana Jones. I called up a company called Area Amusements and I said I need this part They like yeah come on up I drove up maybe 10 minutes away from where I live and the woman at the front says um hey Keith can you help this guy out and I turn around the corner and working on a machine is Keith Elwin because he worked there and I'm staring at him like I just saw him on TV and he's like he's like this major star I'm like you're Keith Elwin and he's just very shy he's like yeah yeah I'm like you're the best pinball player in the world he's all yeah yeah you know but i you know and i said i said you have uh i forget how the topic came up but he gave me a copy of his uh his dvd uh yeah yeah and he's 101 pinball 101 yeah and i was so excited that i met you know keith elwin so since then yeah you know paying attention to him and knowing he is and um uh watching what he's doing and his games are great he's great so yeah i mean he was a nice guy too as well you know so talking about meeting your quote-unquote heroes or you know right people well we have interviewed him a few times and uh legitimately he could not be nicer and he was one of the first guys to come on even before we really cut our teeth oh that's right yeah it just felt uh it's it's a confirmation when you talk with people it's like oh well they're really this nice like they really are. Yep. Yeah. It's refreshing and it is, uh, you know, it's, I think it's necessary. People are nicer. So, yeah. Well, I, I gotta, we, we gotta wrap up here shortly, but I, I want to get, have, have you guys both looked at the new spooky pinball play field? Okay. The underneath. Yeah. Yeah. I saw the underneath one. Yeah. Okay. I didn't know if, if you guys had any takes on it or what you thought about it. Well, can you direct me there and I'll look at it? So I just sent over the link in the chat below for the picture of spooky stuff. Oh. So this is the underside, so you have to kind of visualize what the top's going to look like. But they have promised it's going to have two upper playfields. It looks like it's got a subway and stuff. Wait one second. did you send it to because I'm on the computer with this oh I see it yeah oh wow good they're putting some stuff in there yeah lots of mechs yeah if you look at that that right side that's a upper playfield towards in the picture it'll be the bottom right but on the on the actual place it'll be the upper upper right once you drop that's great I mean To me, honestly, the more mechs, the better. The more toys in there, the better, I think. I know every... For me, it's always been... If the game is too barren, I might as well just go play pool or something like that. I like to have lots of toys. But yeah, I'm looking at this. But they haven't talked about a theme for the game at all? That's all mystery? There's been a bunch thrown out there. There's Scooby-Doo, Halloween, Army of Darkness. I mean, the list goes on and on. Who knows? Oh. You know how the game of misdirection goes in pinball? I know. Here's the problem. When I look underneath the play field, I am not smart enough to know what that possibly translates to up on the play field. No, this is a tough one too. Okay, so here. I'm going to send you this thing. And you can take a look at this is what they did to my Tron. So there you go. So you can take a look and see. Like when I first got Tron, I was kind of disappointed because you expect a little more of an immersive environment with a game like Tron. But it felt kind of barren. It was a pro. And I was kind of disappointed. But after I got everything lit up and the way it looks, it really changes how how involved in the game you are. And I know it's silly, but there's a reason why you don't play Whitewoods. Oh, yeah. But I don't think that's silly at all. I think that's the appeal of pinball. For me, it just, you know, the what of the world? Oh, that's pretty. I'm looking at the game now. That's great. yeah that's you see doesn't it look amazing like how much uh and that cool and the cool little um the little tron arcade machine which is just one of the coolest things ever it's it's a cool mod absolutely yeah that was one of my favorites when i first started doing this was that and um there's a guy the the t-rex mod i don't know if you guys remember that one yeah i i've seen it with, I don't know how to pronounce the guy's name. It's Loire? Oh, Lior. No, I'm not talking about that one. There's one that was done by, and I don't know his name, but it's called, his pin side name is Winter is Coming. And he did one for Data East. Oh, okay. Have you seen it? I remember that one. It's pretty cool. Yeah, it's like a six-year-old thread, but he sculpted the whole thing out of Joshua Clay. And it's beautiful. And so when I started out, that was inspiring to me. Someone could do that. I could try to do something like that. Yeah, because his complaint was like, why does the dinosaur look – because it doesn't look like the T-Rex at all in the movie. And so he was like, I want to make something that resembles what the movie does. Yeah, I was surprised by the Stern Jurassic Park, how mine – I have the NLE, and it's green. And I was surprised that the ones that have been coming out recently, or at least my friend's premium, it's a brown dinosaur. So it's closer to what the T-Rex looks like. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when I first started out, it was just a few guys making a few things here and there. And so, you know, the mod companies and things like that, I don't really pay attention to much, but there's so much stuff out now. But I think it's great, man. Make your game look like this Tron. I would like the company to make it look like that coming out of the gate, but if not, just do it on your own. Because that, yeah, that looks great. And does this have the ramps that light up and everything? Yeah, it does. And really, my version has, yeah. So, by the way, if people want to look at it, it's just search for Z-Door Custom Tron on Pinside, and it'll pull up, and he did an amazing job. Yeah, that's beautiful. This is the one that you owned? Yeah. No, I still own it. He still owns it, yeah. Oh, my gosh. Are those mirror blades on that side? Yeah, they're mirror blades on the sides, yeah. Yeah, that's really beautiful. Yeah, I'm still not good enough to actually play it very well, but it's an amazing game. As Colin MacAlpine plays in the background, he's already taken your grand champion. Ironically, I just had to pause it because Colin MacAlpine, and just in case you don't know who he is, he kind of won a small tournament, Papa 2017. So I have a feeling that every single one of my GCs are going down. Anyway. Yeah, that's great. It's good times. Okay, I do have one question, though, and I'm not talking about the game that shall not be named. But the top five other things that you're like, I would like to modify this. Oh, boy. Gosh, that's tough, man. That's tough. Because other people are doing so well with that. Pirates is beautiful, the Jersey Jack one, but people have modded that one, so I'm not going to get anywhere near that. Gosh, it's tough to answer because I have to be really into it before I'm going to spend time on it. So, yeah, I don't know if I can answer that. I don't know. That's a tough question. I kind of accept – I think Indiana Jones, first of all, but Lior, that's the way he pronounced his name, Rajwan. Lior got all over that years ago. That's how we met. Oh, okay. Great sculptures for that. So I wouldn't go there either. And it has to be a good game. I'm not going to spend time making something for a game that no one. For Popeye. Well, you guessed it. Oh, Gilligan's Island. Wait, you could do the minnow. Gilligan's Island. Yeah. Everyone's clamoring for a Gilligan's Island, you know? Absolutely. They made like 4,000 of those. I've never seen one in person, but I'm amazed at how many they actually made. Yeah, I'm close to the Pinball Museum in Banning. So they had one. They also have the Bugs Bunny, Birthday Bath, and a bunch of other really crappy games that you'd never play. So that gives you an opportunity to see those things up close. But yeah, it's not a good one. well well steve i we appreciate you coming on we've we've had a wonderful chat i mean we're almost at an hour now and we are absolutely i can talk i can talk rush for another five hours i know you could i know people probably tuned us out once he's like oh god there we go yeah between rush and theater oh really we scared off yeah nothing wrong with that well this sucks yeah Oh, this guy again. The show-to-show guy. Here we go. Really, it's been awesome having you on. I appreciate you for saying yes. Well, thank you so much. If people want to follow you on Pinside, what is your Pinside username? It's my last name, Gouveia. G-O-U-V-E-I-A. Or search Red Witch or Monkey or something. I think you'll find it. red monkey mod sure flying witch monkey mod yeah nice nice and apparently it's a to be determined one that's coming out so yep yeah yeah it's it's hard but i'm i'm excited about it so yeah well we we will certainly get you uh you know you can have your own Keith Elwin hat which is the loser kid pinball hat Hey! I'll call it that because he makes it look really good. But we'll definitely send that out. Thank you so much. I love it. I've been waiting for one. There you go. Absolutely. Yes. Well, we are Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. You can get a hold of us at Loser Kid Pinball on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And now we are officially affiliated with Twitch. so if you want to watch us there you can go to at loser kid pinball on twitch.tv and follow subscribe all that jazz um am I missing anything else Scott? no I think it's good we actually so since Colin MacAlpine showed up we're going to do a we're going to try to coordinate something too and talk about competitive pinball coming up and opening back up and get his take on it since he is a little he's pretty good at it so he understands it a little bit yeah alright thanks guys we'll see you in roughly about two weeks bye bye bye bye bye bye you you you you you you