All get around, he's on the rebound Hear the sound of our buddy, oh lordy, it's Orby Pinball now to rejoice He's tugging pinball, craft beer and coffee Miffed with syrup and honey Almost a laugh with his family in a random tangent Stories of his boys He's on the poor man's pod network We're gonna get more listeners for the Pinball Nerds Podcast. Coming to you from beautiful River Hibbert's, Nova Scotia. Welcome back, Pinball Nerds, to episode number 581 of your fifth favorite pinball podcast. I'm your host, Christopher Franchi, and with me, as always, the lovely and attractive Mr. Albert Orbital Albert Or what is it? Orby Or What does Canada call you? I am known as forever Orbiter Albert Orbiter If you're an orbiter What are you orbiting? The pinball world? I guess so I mean I prefer shooting orbits You know in pinball As opposed to orbiting But you know That's just me Franchi How you doing buddy? Good You know, we've got some business to get out of the way, so let's just start with this. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, Orbiter Albert. Happy birthday to you. Thank you. Oh, my God. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Oh, got the family there. Number one. Thank you. Okay, so one other order of business. I need to get out of the way. I'm calling out other pinball creators, other pinball artists. This man has done 581 episodes. Can we show the man some love and come on his show? Why is it always me? You know? I mean, come on. Where's everybody else? Where's George Gomez? Where's the boys from Stern? Where's the boys from Jersey Jack? Show you some love, man. Come on the show. This is, what, my third time? Oh, I think this is maybe your fourth, but I could be wrong. Fourth. But thank you for coming on the show. The thing is, I don't have, like, personal relationships with a lot of those people, right? So if I did, I mean, if Ken Cromwell, you know, wanted to come on the show, I'd love to have him on the show. You know? Yeah, but no, if you know Ken, get a hold of Ken, Ken can get you the people at Jersey Jack. Right. Get a hold of George Gomez. He can get you the people at, well, Stern might not want to talk to you right now. But you know David Fix, you've got his number, I believe I sent it to you. Yes, yes. Call him up, you know, get Ryan McQuaid on there. I already told you I wanted to talk to Ryan. I love Cuphead. My son already beat Cuphead on hard. I'm like 64% through on easy. It's like one of the hardest video games of all time. I love the aesthetic. I love the cartoon look. If Cuphead is real, I will talk to Ryan McQuaid at any point in time. There you go. So, I mean, anybody, just reach out. Use the connections you have. If there's somebody you want to get a hold of and you don't have a connection, call me up. I'll give you a connection. thank you I really appreciate that the thing is like I'm known more for a solo show of course and I love talking to people but especially like yourself when you were kind enough to come on my show I just contacted you this morning of my birthday when you're kind enough to come on the show I feel like this obligation to make sure I have a couple decent questions but because this is just a birthday pop in I have nothing written down Franchi I mostly just want to know what you've been up to what have you been doing I know we haven't heard from you in the podcasting world for quite quite a long time and even the times we have heard from you in the last year you've just been did a little you know a little thing about gtf here a little thing about this specific thing how have you been doing how's everything going i know you're working on lots of projects i'm not going to ask you for your next five titles uh exactly but you know uh i might title the podcast that but tell us all about how how are you doing how's barlow and how's the art let's just say this first of all it's better i come on your show than come on your forehead, right? Hey! Who knows? Depends who's asking. And just like that, it's rated R. Let's see. Barlow's is fantastic. Barlow's yard is fantastic. It's rained here the last couple of days, so he's been a little irritated. He doesn't like walking in the wet grass, but no, he's doing good. I'm doing good. I'm keeping busy. Um, lots of stuff going on, lots of stuff going on. Um, I've got, uh, I'm working on an art package with Dutch pinball. I'm working on an art package with American pinball. I'm working on two art packages with spooky pinball. Wow. Um, I have a, a big announcement to make at, uh, Expo actually, that's going to affect my future in pinball. Okay. Um, so. Oh no, you're sounding soft. Tom or Franchi? Oh, no, no, no. I'm not going anywhere. I mean, some people may wish for that. No. Who doesn't want Radder? No, not going anywhere. Okay, good. Not going anywhere. It's just, you know, it's going to change things up a bit. But I don't want to give too much away. So, yeah, just keeping crazy busy. I have, like most people don't know, I have a day job, too. I work for Aristocrat, which is a slot machine, you know, gaming company. And I design games for slot machines, you know, artwork. Not the games. I can't do that stuff. But I can create characters and illustrations and draw the little symbols and all the artwork and logos and stuff like that. So I work with Joe Camico doing that during the day. and then I take that hat off and I put my pinball hat on and work on pinball at night so next time you see me and you go god damn what a big fat ass just know that this fat ass is fat because I sit in a chair all day and draw pinball artwork for you guys so you don't get out I don't exercise okay to be fair to be fair I think it is possible you know to you know put your mental and physical health on the same pedestal that you do your side hustles but that being said I don't judge like that i mean uh honestly like the last time i saw my uh my two nephews i hadn't seen in a couple years they looked at me and said are you eight months pregnant or nine and i was like okay wow and i get it like i get this beer belly francie and i are on video right now unfortunately i i'm not recording anything but like i'm a full eight and a half months in the summer in the winter at least nine so i hear you hey i don't feel bad i'm having twins well but the good news is my exercise is getting out into the car and driving up to McDonald's you know oh my god well I did do that a lot last month which we will talk about in a second but I will say this if I think 99% of the people listening to the show myself included I thought maybe you had a little part-time job on the side that you helped with other projects but I thought like your main like your nine to five was the five freaking packages you're working on at once right now we're like six like I thought That was your main stay, and you're telling us you have to work like a 40-hour-a-week job and then almost do another full-time job with pinball. Exactly. And I would say pinball is probably more than 40. Basically, I get up at around 7 in the morning, and I work until 2 in the morning. I don't get enough sleep. I might take a little nap during the day at some point, maybe in between jobs, lay down with Barlow and I don't tend to fall asleep but I usually do but yeah it's pretty much work, work, work all day but work keeps me happy and if it sounds pathetic it's not because I don't like people I don't like going out into the public I find people to be irritating they're the worst Franchi people, it's too people-y outside so I just stay inside and my daily excitement is I usually get, you know, two, three, four packages a day from some toy company or something and so I rip open all my little crap and you can see behind me, you know. This is nothing. Look at the other side of the room here. Oh my God. It's like being in a toy store. Those are like three or four deep. You're only seeing the ones in the front. There's crap all over the place in here. like up there all all over in this room and this is just my office my the room next door is the batman room and that's where all the batman stuff is so sorry people on the podcast are like what's he showing you know it's just a big room full of toys and the big fat child sitting in the middle of it all well it's you know what yeah so but you got to enjoy your money you know what i mean like so many people they just sit on their money and it's like no go enjoy it like you're enjoying this every second you're there it's inspiring you to work and let's be honest i think your next five themes are all in the background there so i won't tell them i won't tell them about it but uh at least i are yeah there's like yeah if you look right over in this area there is one two three themes oh my god why did i not screen record and uh will somebody please uh make this one oh god wait can i say that one or no yeah okay okay okay i agree let's i think i think i think ron and bruce over at slam tilt would also agree with you perhaps and among many others like the shows had a revival and even dropped target danielle way over there on the couch one of the rare cartoon shows she'll actually watch with me is the new beavis and butthead we're loving it it's hilarious it's i'm not gonna say it's funnier than the og because at the time we'd never seen anything like that and now there's you know youtube reviewers everywhere look at this honey giant giant that's all good so anyways yeah i'm very excited for that and it's 69 days today until i'm gonna see you meet you for the first time at expo you're going to expo obviously 69 it was hey that's a music butthead thing i you know that's not for my type of you're You're counting down the days? No, I heard on a pinball podcast yesterday. I think actually Dawn's. He mentioned it's 70 days until Expo. Oh, yeah, I will definitely be there. And the best thing is, this year, I am not setting up a table. I'm just going to be there so I can play pinball. I can walk around. I can talk to people, meet people. I will be at the signing. so if anybody has anything they want signed I can still sign stuff and if you see me walking around and you got something certainly for letting me down I'm happy to sign stuff I'm just not going to sit at a table because I miss everything when I do that and I've done that enough times I think it's not like anybody's getting ripped off it's like I've been at pretty much almost every show for the past four years if you wanted to sit down and chat you had your chance and I'm not saying you blew it. I'm saying you probably came by and sat down and talked. So I don't want to sit at the table at Expo. It's the 40th anniversary. There's going to be a lot of stuff going on. I want to walk around and mingle. So that means lunches and dinners with friends. So if you want to pile in on one of those, I don't know what my schedule is like yet, but you know Charles Thomas? I've heard the name. Everybody knows Charles. we're going out to dinner with him and um got dinner with George Gomez I got dinner with Ken Cromwell dinner or lunch but none of these things are scheduled as to what day or what time so as a birthday gift to me Franchi what you're going to do is you're going to let me sit in on both dinners with George Gomez and Ken Cromwell that's your you're like I'm sorry George doesn't know who I am come on he's never heard of me before I have some obscure pinball blog that only gets like 100 or 200 listens. He's not sitting there listening to the top 500 content creators in pinball. You know what I mean? But he might have heard that rant one night. Which one was that? That might be the problem. Which one was that, Franchi? The one where you were pissed at Stern for not inviting you to their thing. Oh, I must have missed that one. I don't think I was present for that one. No, I'm just kidding. Between me and my therapist, we've decided to not talk about that a lot. No, I'm just kidding. It's fine. once it's on the internet it's always on the internet it's there forever but I don't have to listen to it thankfully and I never have and I never will but I hear from time to time that if people are having a bad day they play that and they're like well my day's not that bad so at least I helped one person out there yeah oh I thoroughly enjoyed it I thought it was hilarious but just the repercussions so I can't say I can't invite you to the George Gomez I know that was a joke That was a joke. Ken Cromwell, you know, that one, definitely. And I don't know who else is going to be there. You know, I try, you know, unless I've got business to discuss, you know, I'd rather go out with, like, ten people than just a, you know, one-on-one thing. Oh, yeah. Keep it social. Yeah. So we'll pile in a bunch of people and we'll go do lunch or dinner or something anyway. Sure. Most definitely. That's great. Now, one thing I wanted to ask you about is recently, of course, with the Godzilla black and white coming out. There's been this whole argument online. Some people love the black and white versions. I've always said, still to this day, my favorite, the OG, the Munsters Premium, that's still my favorite black and white of all time, and I think it always will be. I don't know what you've got up your sleeve right now, but what do you think about all this hoopla? Is there too many black and whites now between the Elvira black and white and this black and white? At some point, if we just do black and white of everything, is it too much? Is it taking away from it being special? first of all, to be fair, Monsters isn't the OG, Centaur is. True. So, you know. No, you're right. But the Monsters was not like, hey, did you ever see that Centaur? Why don't we do that with the Monsters? The Monsters was more like Greg Freres, who recently retired from Stern, the art director. Said, hey, you know, the movie, the TV show was in black and white. You know, what if we did a black and white one? And then everybody knows the story about how long that took to convert color artwork to black and white, layer by layer. But as far as being too many, I don't think so, because pinball is not a thing where you get every game that comes out. You know, you might like Elvira, but you don't have Godzilla. You might like Godzilla, you don't have Elvira. You might like the monsters, and you don't have Godzilla or Elvira. So if you got one of those, you got a black and white edition. You know, not too many people have everything. And there's other options. If you have the monsters and you don't want another black and white one, you get the color Godzilla, you know, or space them apart. You know, I don't see there being too many. I mean, unless it just keeps going and getting kind of out of hand, I would rather see more unique things. Like, I can't say too much about one of the ones that I'm working on. Ah crap Don no Francie Francie don say anything that going to get you in trouble Please outside of the cabinet is going to do I can just say this the outside of the cabinet is going to do something that has never been done before And that's the kind of stuff I like, is when you, when you, like the backbox on one of the Star Trek games, they did an actual cutout and put an insert of the Star Trek shield in there and it lit up. Okay. And I love that kind of stuff. I've been trying to talk people into doing stuff like that for a while, and usually they say no. But I'd rather, you know, rather than just always do a black and white for something different, I'd rather, you know, explore different options, different printing materials. You know, there's a lot of different stuff out there. There's glitter stuff, holographic, metallic. Lenticular. Dark. Foil. Well, lenticular I don't like much. Like for a cap. Yeah, like the one for Galactic Tank Horse, to me, the lenticular, the lines, the vertical lines, they're made up of like little, they're like rippled, you know, plastic ripples that go vertically. And that's what reacts to the artwork and the way it's printed underneath and makes it 3D. But the lines themselves, the individual lines were really thick. and what it does is it kind of makes the art look clunky, like a low-res file, you know, like pixelated or something. Okay. They can tighten that up. Like I've seen postcards and trading cards that were lenticular. Like I remember getting those in, like, boxes of Hostess Twinkies when I was a kid, baseball cards that were 3D. And they were really tight. You know, you didn't get that. They were able to hold nice detail because the lines were really tight. They can do that, yeah. Yeah. Another thing is, though, is that lenticular is very susceptible to damage because it's just plastic and it's like little bumped up lines. And if you bump up against it, you could scratch it. You know, if you scratch it hard enough and you flatten out those little ridges, then the 3D ceases to work. So I don't think that would be a good thing to do on a cabinet. What about that foil? What about the foil? Yeah, like the foil in the 70th, Godzilla 70th, would that foil be a little bit more brittle, or is there some type of sheen they put on it to make it the same? No, no, it's, yeah, the foil's not brittle. It's, there are different surfaces, but it's a really thin, like mylar, it's very thin, and then it's applied to a sticky backing and then a clear coat or a laminate on top of that, and that's what makes it thicker and more sturdy, but it's actually very thin. But, you know, yeah, I love the idea of trying different things, you know, thinking outside of the box and doing some different stuff with the outside of the cabinet. It doesn't always just have to be stickers on a box, you know. Yeah, it's funny you said that. I was just watching the return of Pimberg on IE Pinball with Carl D'Python Anghelo, of course. Shout out to Pimberg being back. I'm actually doing an interview later on this week with someone who was at Pimberg to chat about that, so really excited for that. but what I will tell you is that there's a game called Super Soccer, an old EM and in the back glass, every time you do something on the play field a ball shoots up into this little thing and slowly the soccer balls all add up and when the ball finally goes down the trough it gives you all the bonus with the Super Soccer coming through and there was another ball they were playing another game they were playing at Pimberg that did that and I thought, that's so incredible how did they have this technology in the 50s and 60s and now we just do, like you said like art or sticker on the background Like, let's make the back, it doesn't have to be as interactive as Congo or something like that, but let's make the back glass more interactive. I think that would just be incredible. Now, I would be. I still, one of my favorite back glasses is Scared Stiff with that spider that spins around. And the thing is, is companies don't have an excuse because there's more room in the backbox now than there was back in the 60s and 70s and 80s. you know it's all these little just a little computer in the back and there's all this space before they didn't have that kind of space it was a little more cramped and they were still doing you know cool things Banzai Run and that fun little maze thing um you know so i i say you know yeah let's let's try different things i wanted to do things like in three dimension with a back glass where you print a background piece and then you print a piece of glass in front of that that has something else printed on it and then when it all stacks up it looks three-dimensional um but uh usually a lot of that stuff's met with a you know that's going to cost a lot but you know whatever yeah i b-o-m is a real deal of course but uh um i was gonna say we're about 20 minutes in and i know that you love your baseball monikers and pinball podcasts i've been giving you lots of softballs so i'm just curious you haven't been on the airwaves for almost a year. You've got to have this whole hot tub just full, ready to pull the drain of hot takes. I want to hear a couple of them. What's been going on in Franchi's world? What do you think about the other content creators? What do you think about the new pinball machines coming out? What can you or can't you tell me about your next pinball machine maybe coming out from someone? I don't know, all that stuff. Well, we'll hit that one at a time, because I'll address one of those and forget the other three. Okay, pew, pew, pew. Let's start. As far as podcasting goes, I am starting, and I've been talking about this since I think February or March, a new podcast called Pinball Dinner Party. And it's more of a conversational podcast, one-on-one. And I'm not coming into this with a list of questions. I'm just going to start off with, how's your day? Or something along those lines. and we're just going to see where the conversation rolls, you know. Might not talk about pinball the entire time. Might veer off into weird directions, favorite food, whatever. But pinball personalities, you know, people enjoy finding out, like, what does, you know, what does George Gomez like to do on a Saturday afternoon? You know, no one ever asks him that. They're always talking about pinball machines and how to fix something that's broken or whatever. So I want to do something more conversational. because I've had tons of fantastic conversations with these people, and I always thought this would make a more interesting podcast than the typical, you know, when a game comes out, George shows up on five different podcasts, and he's repeating the same thing, nothing against him. Maybe he's trying to sell a game. But, yeah, I think it would be interesting to have that conversation. Now, the first one I already announced was to be Joe Camico, but me and Joe have been so busy trying to get our schedule synced up to where I have time and he has time. And then on top of that, for a guy who has everything, the guy doesn't have a stinking microphone. He always wants to do interviews through a cell phone or his laptop microphone. And I'm like, you know, look, Joe, I'm trying to sell this as like we're sitting down and we're eating dinner at a restaurant. You know, I've already got a sound effects bed that's like two hours long of a restaurant noise. So it's supposed to sound like we're sitting at a restaurant. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Which restaurant, Franchi? Is it Arby's, McDonald's, or the king of restaurants, Burger King, where Don himself is a night manager? Neither. It's Franchetti's Italian cuisine. Yeah. So you used a microphone just to tape yourself eating for many hours over a whole week, and then now we're listening to that later. No, no, no, no, no. No, I just went on to YouTube and I typed in restaurant sound effect. And then I just looped it over and over again. You didn't use AI, did you? Don't use AI, Franchi. No, no. No, but the thing is, I can't pull off something like we're sitting together having dinner. If I'm talking like this and he's like, yeah, so anyway, I came up with this idea for a pimp. You know, talking through a walkie-talkie. So he's got to get, I have to send him a microphone. And luckily I have another blue microphone that I can send his way and he can hook up. And so we'll get that done. So podcasting, basically, Super Awesome Pinball Show has basically been whittled down to the year in review show, which we will get together just because, you know, we miss being with each other all the time. So we're going to get together at the end of the year, every year, and do a year-end review show, which at the time was kind of unique because I don't recall anybody ever really doing that. But then when we announced that we were going to do it, then everyone else came out with their year-end review shows. That was probably me. I probably did that too. well our version is different though because we don't sit there and talk about what we think happened you know how we feel about what happened throughout the year we get all the people in like you know the the people who run the companies and ask them to grade themselves on what they've done for the past year that was great so it's an interesting twist yeah it was a really fun show to do um and um yeah i don't think i had haggis on there I don't want to ask you a specific haggis question but can you just I've been saying for the last 3 or 4 months on this show play before you pay of course this is the way kind of my Mando saying but even more importantly just like Terry Hatcher and Seinfeld don't buy a pinball machine unless they're real and they're spectacular and if you can't remember Terry Hatcher's beautiful bosom then you're not going to remember or be saying it right so that's what i'm suggesting is that i just think people should not put money into pinball machine companies until either they can buy the company like till the machine is made and ready to go you know what i mean or unless it's a company that's had multiple machines in a row like right now i would 100 if i could afford it which who knows i could get some huge donations on my birthday if i could afford it i would have no problem uh putting in money at Spooky or Jersey Jack or Stern or, you know, there's a couple other companies out there that have been around for a while doing CGC that I have zero, you know, it might take a long, long, long time to get your stuff, but you're pretty sure for the most part, as long as there's not a zombie apocalypse number five or something, you know, we're going to end up getting your machines. But with Haggis, I was always like, I don't know. It seems like, you know, anyways, the point is, what would you tell people to do or not to do moving forward in the future with their hard earned dollars so that it doesn't become a Haggis situation? Well, number one, we've been down this road many times, so there should be no surprise that it's happened again. It's sad, but we've been down this road before. And the hobby, I mean, the economy in general is very unstable right now. The hobby, it's very unstable right now. A lot of companies are hurting right now because of lack of sales. Whether it's you're out of room, you're listening to podcasters tell you not to buy new, buy secondhand. There is no secondhand if there's no firsthand. That is true. If you don't go out and buy a game, there's nothing to buy used. So someone's got to buy them. But, you know, see, the thing with Haggis is that it was in Australia. Internationally, things are different. Now, I know a lot of people went through, like, Zach, and I feel bad for Zach. I had a conversation with him, Zach, from flipping out. Answer it live on air. Is that Zach Mennie on the phone? Hey, Mr. Chris Marquette of Cointaker, you're on live with Albert Agar on the, what is it called, Pinball Nerds podcast. Say hello. Hello. All right, I'll call you back later, all right? Bye, Chris. See you. Bye. There you go. He got a free commercial there. So in the middle of me talking about another distributor, yeah. So Zach at Flip N Out Pinball is eating, it's not for me to say, but he told me the number. So I don't want to repeat it because he didn't say tell everyone. But he's eating a lot of money on that deal, and I feel sorry for him. But when it's an international company, you're kind of screwed. Because, like, you know, we've got laws in the United States. You can go after a company, you know, you can get your money like that. But we have no laws with Australia. They're their own thing. So if they screw you over, there's nothing you can do. I don't think anybody saw it coming with this one. But, yeah, it's, you know, I've never put a game, like, on prepay or, you know, or whatever they call it. So I don't know what you have to put down. I don't know that you have to put anything down. I know, like, for example, I talk to Chris Marquette pretty much almost every day, and they just have lists. You know, if somebody says, oh, you know, I think that they're coming out with a Back to the Future or whatever, if they do, put me on that list for one. And that's it. They don't ask for any money. I like that. I like that better for sure. Yeah. Yeah. So I would say if you can get away with it, don't put any money down on anything. Because to tell you the truth, I don't think anybody, none of these companies are safe right now. you know, if you want to talk about Stern, you know, Stern, they're the big boys. Yeah, but they've got the most to lose. You know what the overhead is on that place? Well, just for the microwave repairmen. What's that? Oh, just for the microwave repairmen there. That wall of microwaves costs a lot of money to keep upkeep. Yeah, but, you know, if they're not selling any more machines than anybody else, they've got a lot of money going out the window on a daily basis. So if you think, like, oh, well, they're safe. Nobody's safe right now. it's too volatile. So I would say keep your money in your pocket if you can. If you're interested in something, you're going to have to take the chance, I guess, if you have to put a deposit down for something. I would ask what the deal is with that particular company. If you want to put a deposit down with Spooky, say what's the, you know, how long am I going to have to wait? How much do I have to give? You know, et cetera, et cetera. You have to roll the dice if you want to make sure you're locked in. Because if you want, you know, you can certainly say, well, I'm not going to give you a nickel. I'll wait until the game comes out. Then you're rolling the dice because you don't know if you're going to get one. Especially if you want the LE, right? So I just want to address what you're saying with Zach for a second. I do appreciate that flipping out refunded everybody. That's really cool. Or at least maybe not refunded with cash. we could use that money towards a future pinball purchase or something in the store. So that is great. They did that. I think it was important that they did that for our industry. So that was, I applaud him for that. That was really cool. I have no clue how much money they had to bite it on. I'm not going to ask you how much, but I'm, I'm sure it was, you know, a good amount. I'm guessing a couple hundred people put down like, I don't know, 500 bucks or a thousand, whatever it was. Right. So that's unfortunate that that happened. I think we can all agree with that. but why not just say moving forward unless you're looking for the LE version because you know you're always going to be able to get a pro within the first couple weeks Stern is coming out with a machine and you can play it within a couple weeks even Jersey Jack when your masterpiece I'll just say it right here when your art masterpiece Elton John came out they had them ready to go in a box at the same show right so like that's incredible I would have if Elton John were Back to the Future even if you didn't do the art which I hope If Back to the Future ever happens, I hope you do the art, Franchi. But if Back to the Future came out, even me, I would break my own advice. Before I even played it, if I just watched it and it looked awesome and it looked gorgeous, I would be calling in immediately to put my money down if I could afford, say, the LE or the top version. But if you just want the bottom version, if you just want a pro or a premium or the equivalent of that usually with most spooky games recently they haven sold out so you probably can wait to play them as well every cgc game you can play a demo before it takes like three years for those pins to come out so you going to get to play the demo and see it for years before that so unless you're going for the creme de la creme you don't have to buy day one fomo is basically dead i think but i would put money down for it doesn't matter who came out with it other than maybe haggis uh pokemon back to the future you know and there's quite a few of them that were are right up there that I would buy in a heartbeat without, and I would break my own rules. So who knows? Who's to say that? Well, you know, a couple things need to happen. We need to quit with this Ponzi pinball business where you're taking the deposits to build your games. Like if you can't afford to build your games, you don't deserve to be in business. We shouldn't be giving you deposits for you to pay for what you're doing. I think a deposit should be something that's more affordable to lose. $250. Mm-hmm. You know? That's better. That's much better. $250 says, like, hey, if I pull out, then you get to keep my $250. But give me $250 because I seriously want one. Now, I think what needs to happen, too, is it needs to be more of a scheduling thing where it's like, when are the games coming in? And the distributor should hang on to the money because they're the ones that tend to lose if something happens. So if I give, you know, if we play by today's rules and I give CoinTaker $1,000, you know, down on a game, they do not forward that money to whoever the game is being made by until that company ships those games. Once you have the bill of lading that says these things are on the way, you send the money over to them. You know the games are coming. You don't send the money to them and then wait for them to send the games because if they never come, you're screwed. So the distributor should either hang on to the money and not send it until the games ship. Number two, I think the deposit should be lower. So if you do lose for whatever reason, either if you're out the money, you're only out $250, bucks and if you're not at the money and like something like zach has to pay you back he's not on the hook for a thousand dollars or something ridiculous so i mean you know i'm just a pinball artist stop stop i don't have the answer to everything you're making too much fucking sense okay everything you're saying is making sense it seems like you're just a pinball artist but it's like if all the distros follow that if all of the people buying pinball machines follow that now that's the funny part is I own a small little coffee company and when we get an order for over a thousand dollars we say sorry we need half the money up front we're a small little company but we're not a multi-million dollar company you know we're doing like 10 20 30k a year max profit if we're lucky so it's kind of different for us so I will never say oh I would never take a deposit but I like the 250 deposit because it shows your intention if the company screws up nobody's not like nobody buying that can afford a pinball machine is going to be down and out for 500 bucks but a thousand bucks like if our family was out a thousand bucks like that could be my profit honestly doing four or five collectible shows or even six or seven markets slinging coffee over a month so like that's a lot of money for me 250 bucks it's like yeah okay yeah yeah not everybody in this hobby is you know a millionaire or whatever certainly there's a lot of people that are well off and have you know 40 machines and their pole barn out back but um you know it's This hobby is for everyone, and people who don't have that kind of money should still be able to play in the game and put money down in the game and all that. So, yeah, I'm thinking if it's more affordable. Hey, if you've got a reason why that can't be done, I'm sure you've thought – if you're a distributor, I'm sure you've thought about it more logically than I have. It's easy from the outside looking in. Yeah, I know. It's a simple solution. so that's why I said I'm just a pinball artist I don't have the answers for everything no we don't know the numbers but we're just we're allowed to just you know we're just people you and I like you obviously are way way way more into the pinball hobby than I am but still even you don't know 100% of why which distro does what or why which company does what we're all just here guessing speaking of guessing I've been throwing you all these hardballs and I want to throw you one softball it is my birthday is there any chance in heck I've been trying to get a couple of my Facebook friends. I've been working on Glenn the Skateboarder for a while. I've been working on Tim the Lion Man Lee here on the Poor Man's Pinball Network for a while. I've been bugging everybody saying, you know, Ryan Barry's coming, but not until next year to come visit with Kimba from Phantom Tilt there. But would you ever come visit me here on the East Coast? I'd love to come pick you up at the airport. You could stay at Shay's Orby. The hard part is Barlow, obviously, but even if you came for three or four days. You hate people. There's hardly anyone here, Franchi. You can look around and there's nobody anywhere. If you ever want to visit the East Coast, Nova Scotia. You're in Nova Scotia? Yeah, fly into Halifax. Come visit sometime. I'd love to see you here. How far are you from Halifax? To the airport only an hour and a half. To downtown, two hours. So you're on the sticks. I'm on the sticks. Nova Scotia is Halifax and farmland. you've nailed that. Well, actually, to be fair, there's not much farmland. It's mostly forest. You can't farm much here. You can't do really corn or beans very well. It's too far north, and the season's so short. But it's mostly trees, to be honest. Well, whenever I come visit, well, I don't have a passport. Well, that's a problem. I don't know that I need one, though. Is it a problem? Oh, no. If you drive, it's okay, but you don't want to drive to Maine. Yeah, no, no, no, I wouldn't want to do that. Yeah, because I'm in Detroit, well, outside of Detroit, so I drive south over the Detroit River and I'm in Canada. All I need is what they call an enhanced ID for that, but for Nova Scotia. Yeah, so I'd have to get a passport. But would I come out there? Probably not. you're supposed to lie on the show and be like yeah i'm gonna come visit you next week no but anyways the the invitation is there i love trying to get people to come out here it's such a it's such a calm relaxed if you ever just need a week away or five days away i don't even know do airlines let people travel with dogs is that a thing or or dogs don't like it you can travel with them in in the uh the cabin now as well at least one of the one of the airlines has made that a new rule. I don't know how Barlow would do though. See, Barlow has... Barlow's not an aggressive dog. He would never bite anybody. His problem is he wants, like any dog, he wants everybody to pet him. But the way he goes about his business is he thinks he has to bark at you to get you to pet him. So he barks at everybody. Not in a threatening way. And that's why everyone says, why don't you bring Barlow out to the pinball expo or whatever because he would just sit there and bark the entire time and all the people around me that have tables whatever manufacturers or other people would be like will you shut that fucking dog up please so I don't want to ruin everybody else's time because I had to bring my dog who's Mr. Barky Pants and he's very happy when he goes to puppy camp whenever I go out of town so he's in a place with a bunch of other dogs running around and playing and, you know, they got little stuff for them to run around and pools and sprinklers and different things. So he has a blast. He's more than happy to do that rather than to travel with me. Actually, when I go to pick him up, you can see it in his face. He's kind of like, God damn it, you know. I was having a good time. Why are you here? Yeah, it's like, you know, if you're coming back from Pinburg or, like, you know, fun expo where you hung out with all your friends and everything, you got to go home, right? fun vacation so right I gotta throw you I gotta throw you another softball here I don't I don't want any names I don't want you getting fired but what could you or what can you tell us about you know I don't want to know about three or four years down the road but like do you maybe even have one or two more pinball machines that you've done the awesome art packages coming out before the end of this year oh yeah there's one coming out one for sure a year okay there's one for sure. There's one art package that I have had in the can for three years for a company that has paid for it. What has not been done is the play field. I don't know if that game's ever going to be done. I keep on, like, once a year, I'll send them a message saying, hey, if you're not making this game, I want to post this artwork and I want to let people see it. Because, you know, it's people like to see that kind of stuff but here's a game that'll never be made you know oh that's you know interesting um and i always get the oh you know yeah well we're gonna we're you know the first quarter of the next year we're gonna look into starting to get this going again and then another year goes by and then another year goes by so um i don't know what's going to happen with that but i do have one coming out at the end of this year i have three coming out next year. One at the beginning, one in the middle, and one towards the end. Wow. So four within the next year, really? A year and a half, I guess. Wow. Yeah. And then what I do beyond that is contingent upon the news that I will share at Expo, the announcement that I have that, like I said, will affect what I do in this industry. Wow. I don't want to guess, but if I had to guess, you might be going exclusive with one company. I don't want to say that, but I don't, you know, I, that would, that would be maybe my guess, but you know, who knows? I guess that wouldn't be a bad guess. Okay. Well, I guess we might have to see, we might have to see, wait and see, right? Just like Craig Bobby says. um, what else could we, like, I'm trying to think here. I know that I promised my wife I was going to head down to the beach. I might do a birthday, uh, live stream, not at my birthday suit. Don't worry. I'll be wearing a bathing suit, but I might do a birthday live stream if these clouds could F right off for my B-day. But I'm so curious to hear, like, what pinball podcasts are you digging? Which content creators are you watching? You know, like, what are you thinking? Like, I'm sure because you did Saps for so many years, you're curious. Like, man, like, who's going to, you know, pick up the torch where Saps was? Well, because I think Christian Line is and was and is still one of the best pinball interviews out there. Will we see him ever go to another pinball show? Does he want to do another pinball podcast? Will you guys maybe ever bring back the Saps? No. No? He's done. He's retired. No. Christian, yeah, Christian, the way we handled things, the way the hierarchy was at Super Awesome was Christian would be in charge of the interviews and the research. Okay. And then what we would do was, like, me and Jeff would, Parsons, me and Jeff Parsons would submit our questions, and then he would take those, you know, so we all wrote questions. Right. They weren't just Christians. They were all of ours. But he would organize them in a nice flow, you know, because you don't want to bounce around. So he had a good knack for putting them in a nice line where everything worked. What are you laughing at? Oh, I'm so sorry. When you said that, all I could hear is your call out. You don't want all those balls bouncing around, that Christopher Franchi call out. You know when all those balls bounce around. Sorry. Sure. Sorry, I interrupted you on the topic. He would organize all that, and then he would get the research. So, like, at the beginning of an interview, you know, he would usually do this diatribe, like, well, this man's been in pinball for 35 years. He started off at whatever. No, that was all his research. Yeah. So that's the way we did our interviews. Now, the reason why we don't do it anymore is because we are all too busy. It wasn't just, like, me. I didn't bring the show down because I was too busy. as a matter of fact it was brought to my attention by Christian that we should pull the plug because it was taking too much of his time he's got two young girls that are on the brink of becoming teens and you want to spend as much time with them as possible before they grow up you want to punch them in the face that's what happens remember when your kids turned 13 or 14 and you just wanted to hit the back of their head and make their hair go poof Yeah, both my sons are. What are you thinking? What's wrong with you? Both my sons, I want to try to spend the least amount of time with them as possible. That's why I'm digging in hard on the show. Yeah. Well, see, that's why marriage is, you know, if you ask people who have been married for like 40 years what the secret of their success is, they don't spend a lot of time together. You know? That's the ticket. So anyway, yeah, so we had to pull the plug on the show. So Christian would never, I think, he would never start another podcast because he would just come back to Super Awesome. And, you know, I would imagine he would say to me, hey, you want to start the show up again? That doesn't prevent him from being on another show as like a guest. Right. You know, he's done that before. Him and Mrs. Pinn have done things together as well. And certainly he's, you know, any of us have the freedom to do that. but if anybody started a show again I think we would just come back together to maybe you know let's do it four times a year instead of once a year you know don't know I don't know where that stands but as far as other podcasts the one I listen to religiously is Ron and Bruce Slam Tilt yeah yeah Slam Tilt that's the one like whenever I see a new episode I listen to it. I also listen to yours. Whoop, whoop. And a couple other ones I listen to are like Electric Bat on YouTube. Yes. Some of the other ones are like YouTube shows. Rachel and Kale, shout out. Yeah. Shout out. I think they're very entertaining the way they run their show. And they have such a different take because they're talking about which pinball machines get the most play, and they're talking about it from an operator's standpoint, and they're so chill. Like, of all the other pinball podcasters I haven't hung out with, they're, like, at the top of the list for wanting to party with. Well, maybe Ian over there at Nudge Magazine, too. I don't know. He seems like he'd be fun to party with. But probably those three are up there, so that's awesome. Right, right. Oh, I just got a message on Facebook from Mr. Jonathan Houston and wanting to know if I'm going to be a guest at the Dutch Pinball Open. I hope so. Did you manage to get a passport? Uh-oh, you've got to get a passport. I'll go to Holland with you. You come to Nova Scotia with me. Yeah. Well, see, the thing is when they invite you out to the Dutch Pinball Open, they pay for your flight and they pay for your hotel. Well, tell them to invite Orby as well because together we are a team. We'll provide content, and that'll be the only place I can legally get high on planet Earth other than Canada probably, so it would be great. You pinball leech. Leeching off my free trip. No, I'm your assistant. I'm your assistant. Back to pinball podcasting. Yeah, it's, you know, the pinball landscape has, podcast landscape has changed recently, I think, much for the better. You know, we're doing without, we're dealing with the fallout of the absence of a certain award-winning pinball podcaster that I think The Hobby could have done without for a long time Well don talk about Marty Robbins like that No Well I don know what going to happen with that See I don I thought you were talking about Marty No, I mean, I'm not going to unfairly throw him in with that. I don't know what happened. And I guess I would leave it... It would be up to him to come out and say, here's the deal. Here's what I was responsible for or not responsible for and see where that lands. So I'm not going to, you know, spit any anger at him for anything or say that he's responsible for any of that until I know. But I didn't listen to that podcast much anyway. What? I'm very good friends with Jeff Jones. The final round? I love the final round. They talk too much about tournament. Yeah, there's too much tournament. Oh, gross. If people are talking tournament pinball, I'm out. I don't care. I don't know any of those people. Fair enough. gave a squat about how he might have heard of Keith Elwin and Raymond Davidson, though. Yeah. I mean that, you know, all more power to you if you're into that sort of thing, but that, that I avoid those shows like the plague and that's not, I don't mean that in a negative way. It's not what I'm interested in. Yeah. So, um, that's, that's about it. You know, I mean, there's, there's some, there's some podcasts I used to listen to, but they're out there so much it's become more of a me, me, me show than a pinball show. I'm just not interested in that. But what happened to, like the other day I tried to find poor man's pinball podcast and could not. They stopped? Ian and Drew, they did one live stream earlier this year. They did another podcast not like less than a year ago. they do a couple podcasts year here there their main their main thing like is that they've left the tribe they have the poor man's pinball network here of course uh foghorn leghorn is still here i'm hoping the ray ray show with raymond davidson and uh rachel risto i'm hoping that will make a comeback again at some point they haven't had a show for a while but ian and drew are welcome here on this show at any given time i would love to chat with either of them i don't know you know i know they're both busy with other things of course drew is working like hustling I don't know if he's working as many hours as you per week, but probably close to it doing real estate. And I know they both have kids and they both have their other lives. And Ian's doing his own YouTube with drinks channels. I'd love to hear from them more too, though. So there you go, Ian and Drew. You heard from Franchi. Yeah, come on. I just thought of a couple more that I listened to. You're also a fellow Tribe member. I haven't mentioned that. Yeah. I listened to Loser Kid as well. Yep. um shout out no offense to those guys i love those guys um but i i have to listen to them while i'm working and working on something that's that's got me focused because they're a little too laid back for me their delivery is a little too soft and slow and i'll fall asleep if it's like late at night and i'm trying to listen i'll just be like pass out my chair um sometimes that's good though right sometimes a good mellow pinball podcast is like very measured and controlled is good, especially if you just want to chill out. If I'm cutting the lawn, I listen to Loser Kid all the time. Yeah, and there's another one that I've watched. Well, on YouTube, there's a guy, what's his name? He's from Robert Englunds. Pinball Haven? No. Gonzo's Pinball something. Love that guy. Love his show. And there's a girl who's doing, she started a show recently on YouTube. Do you remember? Erica's Pinball Journey? Erica, yeah. I like her too. She was just saying her Stern tour content is going to come out soon. Well, I won't watch that one. No, it's going to be good. That whole thing, nothing against Stern. I mean, they're trying to sell games and all that. They bring all those people up there, and there's these Stern blowjobs going out everywhere. I don't want to listen to that. You know, I just, you know, whatever. Yeah, you know, just... This video is not being recorded. Oh, God. I was watching... Did you see that clip of Keanu Reeves playing John Wick at San Diego Comic-Con? Yes, I saw that. All I could look at was Jody and that other guy acting like assholes. I'm just like, look at them sucking up over there. Like, get out of there. That's their job, Franchi. That's their job. I don't defend Stern that often, but if you have Keanu there, that's your moment, man. Yeah, what? To try and steal from that? Look at me. Look at my pals with Keanu. Look, I'm nudging him. I'm talking to him. I've got sunglasses on inside of Expo Hall. What's up? Stern. Stern. I disavow everything that Franchi is saying. I love you guys. I would never say anything negative about you. I never have. Oh, there's people I love at Stern, and I always will, sure. I just, no, I just, the love fest from that whole, you know, let's invite people out and see our thing has just lasted too long. And I don't want to keep hearing about that stuff. You know, I've heard it and it's fine. I've got nothing against her. I just, you know, it's like listening to Top 40 radio, you know, same crap, same song every half hour. You don't want to hear Britney Spears again three times in the next hour? well Brittany mmm Brittany so am I creepy if I like that one where she's in the schoolgirl outfit is that creepy one more time I think that you it would be creepy if you didn't find that attractive because well how old was she she was like a little teeny bopper no no no I was born in 1980 I was very close to her age when that came out my friend So I am in the clear here. I don't know your age, but I'm in the clear. Oh, so when that came out, how old were you? Well, what year was that? Like 1997? Here I can ask Google. I don't know. I'm just making sure that she was at least 18 because I really don't want to come off like a super creep. Super creep, super creep. Well, how about this? Why don't we change the topic because that's probably a bad topic to be on. Let's do that. And she still is beautiful to this day. If you don't find her attractive swinging those knives, there's something wrong with you. I love her, but I don't. You know what I mean? Anyways, it was great to have you on the show. I love her, but I love her. I love her, but I hope her mental health is better. I'm glad she got out of that weird thing where she was arrested and people were stealing her money. I'm glad she's free. Free Britney is real, okay? We freed Britney. I'm going to head down to the beach soon. Do you have any last words to any content creators out there? Or do you want to just tell us one more tidbit? You did say something before we started that you truly believe two of your best art packages are two of the three next art packages coming out soon. Is that information you can speak on at all on our way out the door? well I don't want to say best because I mean anybody should hang it up if they think something they just did or something they had previously done is the best they're going to be if you can't top you know if you can't if you don't think you can top what you've done then just retire you know if it doesn't get any better than that I tend to think that the way I look at it is I'm just on a good roll right now and things are getting better I don't I don't see that stopping. I hope it doesn't stop anytime soon. And I hope that my best is still yet to come. And I'm speaking about stuff that I haven't done yet. There's, there's stuff that I've done that you haven't seen that I think is my best, but I'm thinking beyond that, like hopefully whatever I do after that, um, you know, continues to get better or at least be as good as if I start to slip, let me know, then I'll just pull out and retire. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I don't think you're slipping at all gtf is easily in your top five art packages i mean elton john is either the top or or it depends on the day or the time i don't know you know like you have so many like even going all the way back it could be well here's here's content here's content for your next or one of your next upcoming okay top 10 top five in order franchi pinball art packages ranked. I'm going to do not just a top five, I'm going to do all of your art packages in a pyramid tier list, all the way from D minus, which there'll be none. Maybe you could send me artwork you did in like grade six and I'll give it a D plus or something. No, we don't need to go there. I'll start looking at your Kiss lunch boxes and we'll move our way up to concert posters and then into your pinball art packages. Just pinball. Just pinball. Pinball career spanning, you know, top five in order like what's number one and then maybe you can figure out a way to do that on like go on your facebook page and ask your listeners like let them rank it as well and compile everything i don't know anyway i have no notes for other content creators do do what you do do your thing keep doing it if i don't listen to your show number one no offense number two that doesn't mean your show sucks just not for me but you you know you know your listeners you know people are listening and and that they love your show so just keep doing what you're doing we all appreciate it, whether I listen or I don't. All of us pinball people, whether we're people in the industry or just fans, appreciate what you do and what you take the time to do it and give us something to listen to. So just keep doing it. And what else? You said something else you wanted to know. Oh, I wanted you just to straight up be honest. If someone were listening right now and they wanted to buy me a beer for my birthday. Do you have any clue how they would do that? How they would buy you a beer? Well, let me tell you, this man has put out 581 shows, which I guess has only been bested by one other person that's no longer in the business. That person was making $50,000 a year doing podcasting. why shouldn't you at least be making $10,000 a year? I'd take $5,000. So I'm saying, I'm putting this out to all of you out there, and I'm going to do the same. I'm going to put my money where my mouth is. And so it's what? AngryAlpacaTee at Gmail.com. Yes, and I will put it in the show notes for everybody if they want to buy me a beer or five. Yeah, because there's any funky spelling there. So angryalpacatea, T-E-A as in like hot tea, iced tea, whatever, at gmail.com. That's their PayPal. You got it. Hey, if you're embarrassed to send $5, realize that if 10 people sent him $5, he's got $50, which is better than a kick in the dick. And I have thanked every person who sent me even $5. I have thanked every person even who sent me $5 on here. Yeah. And quit sending stuff out. don't tell people, hey, if you give me this much, I'll send you a bag of coffee. No, you've done enough. You do a show. You do a long show. People don't need to be rewarded. If they run into you at a show, give them a sticker or something. But don't send them all this crap. No, and people don't expect anything. You're paying, you're donating for a service, and he's already provided the service. So just throw him some bones or whatever you think it's worth. It's worth $50, send him $50. If it's worth $5, send him $5. but send the guys something for crying out loud uh thank you thank you you know i do i do appreciate that you know what it's it's more a labor of love i like just being included in the conversation honestly it's thanks enough even for people to listen so even if you don't have an extra penny save that five bucks to go play five games of pinball and maybe just tell your friend about the podcast or maybe share it somewhere right so you don't even have to suck it up as well Don't play pinball for a week and send the guy some money. Anybody can afford $5. Anybody. Anybody can afford at least $5. So, yeah, do that. And, hey, you know, the old adage, time is money. If you spend an hour a day doing this, you know, you're losing money. You know, you could have done something to earn money in that hour. Instead, you lost money. So you're doing what you need to, and you deserve it. So show the guy some love. give you guys some freaking money damn it oh well chris thank you so so so very much i did want to also thank you you sent me those beautiful cards uh signed in the silver i still have them i'm still working on the podcast cards i want to add one per pack i want to bring the packs with me to expo don't worry you're getting the first free pack ranch you're not paying a penny but i'm just so excited to i'm so i'm more excited i don't even the donations are great they're nice they show that there's some value to my time. But I'm really just excited to meet all these people, especially you. You're the top of the list at Expo. I'm going to get out of here and I'm going to go take your namesake over here, Franchi to the Beach with Elwynn, of course, and have a nice birthday. Thank you so much for being here. I really, really appreciate it. And if you want to say goodbye to the nerds with me, I'm going to sing a song that I'm not going to make you stay for, Franchi. But the good news is I will chat with you soon. and say it with me if you know it. Until next time, pinball nerds, remember to eat, sleep, sleep, and breathe, and breathe, pinball, pinball, Christopher Franchi style. Thanks for having me. Talk soon, buddy. Thanks for having me. Bye, love you. All right. Oh, I think I hung up on Franchi there a little bit, but we should be fine. Wow, that was so cool. Chris, I just said, you know, I saw he was online, and I said I'd love to chat with you at breakfast. I had no questions prepared. I do apologize. The volume was a little bit all over the place. I was trying to change the volume. I think sometimes Chris was looking at notes back and forth, so his head was going back and forth a little bit from the microphone. But I do appreciate he had a microphone, and that helped the volume. Should I sing? Should I not sing? Probably not. We're already past an hour. So as an ode to how much I love singing, my voice is still hoarse. I just got back from Prince Edward Island with the fam. We had a wonderful three days there. We had a great time. A couple of you got to see the live streams. Thanks so much for Franchi for coming on the show. and thank you to everybody who's already said happy birthday to me on Facebook. That is so rad. That's so great. I really appreciate it. I'm going to try to rap along. Just in the background, one of my favorite rappers, Mr. Mac Miller, this is Blue World. If you don't want to stay to hear horrible rapping from a scratchy-voiced Orby, you're free to leave. You're dismissed, pinball nerds. Take it easy, class. Have a rad day. And until next time, Mac Miller's Blue World will keep you not blue. It's a blue world without you. It's a blue world alone. Yeah, well this mad world made me crazy Might just turn around and do a 180 I ain't politicking, I ain't kissing no babies The devil on my doorstep being so shady Don't trip, we don't got a devil man Don't trip Yeah, yeah I let it go but I never go with it Yeah, okay, cool, it's fall Carl Weathers, fuck bullshit, I'm here to make it all better with a little music for you I don't know what to do without you, it's the color blue, the whole trip I was in the city, they were talking that shit, had the homies with me, they split We ain't even worried, we just laughing, that's rich, you know how it goes when they broke, don't fix it