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Jason of The Pinball Party Podcast - Episode 30

JBS Show·podcast_episode·47m 54s·held·Jun 6, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Jason (Pinball Party Podcast) discusses his origin story and content creation philosophy.

Summary

Jason of Pinball Party Podcast discusses his origin story as a content creator, starting from a spontaneous decision to record a podcast episode in 2022 after being inspired by listening to Triple Drain and Final Round Pinball podcasts. He details his musical background, his initial vision to find ways to offset game costs through content work, and how he's built Pinball Party Podcast into a successful show while navigating community feedback and establishing his authentic voice. The conversation touches on his deep-dive episode format inspired by Retronauts, his consideration of moving content behind a paywall, and his philosophy of being himself rather than trying to please everyone.

Key Claims

  • Pinball Party Podcast started in September 2022 after Jason spontaneously decided to hit record with no plan

    high confidence · Jason directly states he started the podcast by just deciding to make one and hitting record, prompted by listening to podcasts while working on his music album 'Cosmic' and being inspired by Triple Drain and Final Round Pinball podcasts

  • The first episode was taken down due to a DMCA claim on Jason's own music

    high confidence · Jason explains the first episode got DMCA'd because of his own music, which killed momentum until Zach Meny reached out three weeks later encouraging him to continue

  • Jason initially had the goal of using the podcast to get discounts on games and offset costs

    high confidence · Jason explicitly states he wanted to find a way to get discounts on games because he had to trade and sell to afford playing, and the podcast was partially motivated by mitigating those costs

  • Wormhole Pinball was not invited to The Pinball Network and was told 'no new members for the rest of the year'

    high confidence · Jamie Burchell describes how Zach Meny declined Wormhole's initial application to TPN, suggesting quality/audience-building issues, but offered Discord access to help them improve

  • Jason puts 20-40 hours into some episodes and 6-10 hours per podcast episode including writing scripts and editing

    high confidence · Jason directly states this effort level when discussing why he's considering paywall models, noting that writing a script alone takes 4 hours and the work extends to video editing and uploads

  • Jason's deep-dive podcast format was inspired by the Retronauts model for video game podcasts

    high confidence · Jason explicitly credits Retronauts as the model for deep-dive episodes, noting their successful podcast entity structure and mimicking their focused topic format

  • Jason is considering moving content fully behind a paywall on Patreon

    medium confidence · Jason states he's 'heavily considered it' and is 'still heavily considering' full paywall model, with encouragement from various sources including Kaneda

Notable Quotes

  • “I just came down right down in here and just said I'll just fucking make one and just hit record. I had no plan.”

    Jason @ ~19:00 — Core origin story moment — spontaneous decision to start the podcast with zero planning, setting the tone for his organic, authentic approach

  • “The best episodes are where I'm just me. You might hate it, it's, you know, meth being a pervert, it's more humor based. It's me just, you know, making fun of myself and everything.”

    Jason @ ~35:00 — Articulates his creative philosophy — authenticity over trying to appeal to everyone, establishing his brand identity

  • “I spend about 24 hours of the day in my head self-reflecting on everything. I'm just a very existential person.”

    Jason @ ~42:00 — Explains the introspective, therapeutic nature of his podcast process and why episodes sometimes come across as vulnerable or existential

  • “I don't know how to do things half-ass. So when I started doing the pinball podcast... I have higher aspirations for doing like a network type thing.”

    Jason @ ~48:00 — Reveals ambition beyond pinball podcasting, indicating strategic thinking about long-term content business model

  • “Some of these take a... I put 20, 40 hours into some of these episodes because I want to. It takes me four hours just to write a script.”

    Jason @ ~55:00 — Demonstrates the serious production effort behind episodes, justifying consideration of paywall model

  • “Sometimes you have to have the Seinfeld Chinese restaurant episode. Sometimes you have to have that episode it's a fun episode.”

    Jason @ ~65:00 — Defends experimental content (his alien abduction dream episode) as necessary creative risk-taking, even when audience numbers drop

  • “I was like okay we're ready. Yeah we're ready. We click start. Zach says no new members for the rest of the year.”

    Jamie Burchell @ ~12:00 — Humorous recounting of rejection from TPN, showing both speakers experienced gatekeeping from the network at different times

Entities

JasonpersonJamie BurchellpersonZach MenypersonPinball Party PodcastproductWormhole PinballorganizationThe Pinball Network (TPN)organizationJoel Engelberthperson

Signals

  • ?

    content_signal: Jason's podcast grew rapidly after initial DMCA setback, reaching significant listenership organically; platform building through authenticity rather than pandering

    high · Jason notes rapid listenership growth and attributes success to being himself; mentions experimental episodes causing listener drops but accepting that as natural selection

  • ?

    industry_signal: The Pinball Network actively gatekeeps membership, rejecting both Wormhole Pinball and Jason at different times; selective membership strategy signals quality control but also potential exclusivity concerns

    high · Jamie describes TPN telling them 'no new members for the rest of the year'; Jason implies he was also initially rejected before joining TPN

  • ?

    community_signal: Jason's content generates strong reactions both positive and negative; some listeners demand he change (swearing, tone, content), others love authentic voice; audience self-selection happening naturally

    high · Jason discusses receiving critical emails about swearing, talking too much, theology references; notes he responds minimally to negative feedback and doubles down on authenticity

  • ?

    product_strategy: Jason is seriously considering moving to a full paywall model for podcast content, with encouragement from industry figures; exploring sustainable business model like Retronauts

    medium · Jason states he's 'heavily considered' and 'still heavily considering' full paywall, mentions ongoing conversations with Kaneda about strategy

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Jason explicitly modeling podcast structure and business strategy on successful non-pinball podcasts (Retronauts, Earwolf, Duck Feed TV); bringing professional podcasting standards to pinball medium

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.144

0:00
hello my name is jamie virtual and you are listening to and or watching our podcast called wormhole pinball presents and today i'm really really excited to be joined by a very special guest jason of the pinball party podcast welcome wormhole virtually jason thank you very much thanks jamie a pleasure to be here oh man i've heard so many great things about you i'm so glad you said yes to the podcast yeah for sure uh so many great things probably not all no i've heard good things about you it's i'm hot off of an email tell me if you get this the feedback email that they're like i don't want to like tell you what to do on your show or like how to act but then they tell you how to act and what not to say and it's like cool um however this recent one which is just like someone who's i've been listening for a long time but like don't do all this stuff like Clearly I'm doing something right if you've been listening that long, and I'm not going to change all that stuff. And I did reply this time. I rarely do unless it's like a positive thing. It's like, oh, thanks, you know, because of the negative trolls. I just replied K, and that felt pretty good. I sent it to Kale, actually.
1:11
Yeah, it was a good one. I had one the other day. Someone came up to me and said, you talk too much in your podcast. Thanks, bro.
1:21
I was like, where do I refund you? what do i refund what do they what do they expect to happen be like oh my god you're right you're gonna you're gonna save the day i appreciate i love the i i do love when they walk up to you so no man i love your podcast i love what you guys are doing over there at the wormhole you know if i could just and then you know you're oh yeah it's over it's like here it comes yeah here it comes well uh i heard we might have to make this podcast explicit that's okay since we both have interesting vernaculars but no that was exactly what uh the most popular uh criticism let's say that i get is something along that like like somehow i'm new to the world that that curse words some people are offended by or that some assume that i say it just to say it like i'm a 10 year old like breaking the law like no it's just how people talk so yeah you You have carte blanche. Do whatever you want here. It's totally nice.

  • Jason aspires to build a larger podcast entity beyond pinball, inspired by networks like Earwolf and Duck Feed TV

    high confidence · Jason explicitly states higher aspirations for building a podcast network entity and takes podcasting seriously, researching successful models in the broader podcasting industry

  • “Fuck you Zach. No no no no. No no it's from me to him. He'll appreciate it.”

    Jason @ ~15:00 — Light-hearted 'apology' to Zach Meny for initially getting rejected from TPN, reflecting the community's casual, friendly tone

    • Final Round Pinball
    product
    Triple Drain Pinball Podcastproduct
    Neon Daleproduct
    Black and Bloomorganization
    Retronautsproduct
    Kanedaperson
    Chrisperson
    Ianperson
    Kaleperson
    Methproduct

    high · Jason describes researching podcast entities, copying Retronauts' deep-dive model, studying listenership and Patreon metrics of successful shows

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Jason has clear ambitions to build podcast network entity beyond pinball; serious about podcasting as both art and business; treats content production with professional rigor

    high · Jason states he doesn't know how to do things 'half-ass,' invests 20-40 hours per episode, writes 4-hour scripts, treats editing with professional standards, researches industry models

  • ?

    content_signal: Jason willing to take creative risks (alien dream episode, Meth character evolution) even when audience drops; values artistic expression over pure metrics

    high · Jason describes dream episode losing 500 listeners but defends it as necessary creative risk; compares to Seinfeld's Chinese restaurant episode; loves that content despite negative feedback

  • ?

    business_signal: Professional podcast production requires significant time investment (6-10 hours per episode); this labor cost justifies paywall model for sustainability

    high · Jason itemizes 4 hours writing, additional video editing, uploads, and visual editing in Logic Pro; discussing paywall as necessary to fund this work

  • ?

    community_signal: Content creators in pinball community receive unsolicited directive feedback from listeners; creators learning to ignore and double down on authentic vision rather than please detractors

    high · Jason describes email feedback telling him what not to say; Jamie mentions unsolicited advice from listeners; both creators respond with indifference to negative feedback

  • ?

    creator_collaboration: Pinball podcast creators actively collaborate, share advice, and support each other; Jason and Jamie discuss peer relationships and learning from each other's experiences

    medium · Jason mentions having Zach Meny reach out; Jamie thanks Zach for rejecting them and learning from it; Jason and Jamie openly discuss their experiences with TPN gatekeeping

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Shift in podcast culture toward authenticity and personal voice; audiences self-select for creators who are genuinely themselves rather than polished; 'being yourself' becomes competitive advantage

    high · Jason describes learning from Kale to 'double down, be yourself'; notes best episodes are when he's just being himself; audience grows naturally when authentic rather than trying to please everyone

    • 2:20
    So up until Monday, you're going to see me going like this. Up until Monday, I had really long curly hair, very hippiest. Yeah. I didn't recognize you right when you joined. I was like, that's the wrong person. No, I wear a hat a lot. And, well, let me tell you my bald story. Okay, I'll start with this. I'm going to tell you my bald story. I have a bald spot. I've been hiding it pretty good. Like in the back here? Yeah, like in the back. I've got some Puerto Rican thick hair that was covering it up. And, you know, not too many people know about the bald spot. Well, a couple of weeks ago, we streamed Ghostbusters here.
    2:55
    Great game. It is great. But I choked at the end, and I took my hat and I threw it. Uh-oh. There, for people to see, is this bald spot on Twitch. And I fixated on it for four weeks. Naturally. Yeah, of course. I listen to you. We're both crazy. We'll talk about that later. After the 4X this weekend, it was so hot here, and we're in Houston, so I just Monday morning found the first person open at 10 a.m., and I shaved it. Wow. Good for you. It's freeing. Yeah. It's, you know? I used to shave my head. Yeah, look, that looks great, man. It's freeing. Yeah. Especially because you were, what, like a couple feet long? or i was down to the shoulder wet even further i used to shave my head as a kid and it looks like just a tennis ball uh and then the next time i shaved my head i was i was 34 years old i had started working out stopped smoking cigarettes after doing that forever and i miss it dearly but i stopped doing that and then i started working out but i also wanted to like really get into it like doing the um you know eating well counting calories doing all that and For me, my personal, like, all right, I just got to do it. I shaved my head just as another transformation. But, hey, you got to do what you got to do. Did you get a tattoo in the back, like a triathlon tattoo, one of the Iron Man things? Did you go for the Iron Man? At that time, no. I mean, I do have tattoos, but not at that time. No, I was just curious if you were one of the Iron Man people. God, no. That is ridiculous. You know how you know someone's an Iron Man person?
    4:33
    They tell you it. Yeah, they don't shut the fuck up. All the fucking time. Oh, I've done it many times. And the first time I passed out, I almost died. I'm like, okay.
    4:42
    I mean, it is impressive. Don't get me wrong. It is. Yeah. A blessing. All right. Where is Auclair, Wisconsin, and how long have you been in the pinball? I've been in Auclair. Thank you. Yeah, no. Yeah, you're welcome. It means clear water.
    4:57
    Yeah. It is nice. How long have I been here? Well, I'm 41 years old. I've been here 41 years. I have been actually across the street. I grew up somewhat and then got older. It's a really nice neighborhood. And then when you get to be like 25, 26, and you think your parents are, oh, I guess they're all right, and then 30 or whatever. I moved back anyway. I've been here not like permanently for the whole time, but came back here. And when did I get into pinball? You know, like normal when I was a kid and once in a while. I could play it and I'd see it. And then high school, it was when we smoked cigarettes, which we had to do because that's just all we did. What was your brand? Marb Reds. Yeah. I was a wuss all the way back then. I was an old- Camelite? No, I was a light. No light. Gold box. Okay. Well, unless I was sick, and then we thought, well, we'll smoke menthol, and that's correct because it just seemed like. So it was Marb Red's or it was Newport's. And we couldn't, you know, our parents were very not accepting of smoking cigarettes. So we would go to like coffee shops to smoke cigarettes or just, you know, skateboard and stuff. It was a classic punk rock, skate, smoke, do drugs, all that. I guess not much has changed, but a successful one, I guess, at this point. There you go. So we would go to the bowling alley because you could smoke cigarettes there. Like, all right, well, we're here. Let's, you know, play Street Fighter or whatever. And then pinball was there. And you just kind of gravitated towards it. And Adam's family was kind of the first one that was like, oh, there's more to this than just hitting the balls around, as they say. And then it had a Attack from Mars next to it and Gottlieb Waterworld, which is the one I first fell in love with, which is strange to say. And then around that era, other bowling alleys had like Tales of the Arabian Nights, Twilight Zone, all the stuff around there. And that's when I first got the kind of like, oh, I like this more than I thought. And pretty good golden age, though. Pinball right there. My God. Yeah. And then the pizza place would have medieval madness, you know, like anyone at that age that would or that era would play. Yeah. How did you start the pinball party podcast in September of 2022? to like what how did you decide to get into this i uh i was man um it kind of came out of nowhere that's what she said it was like uh i was working on an album called cosmic for uh it's called well the group it's not group it's just me but the band name is called neon dale um so i was a musician growing up i still am right um and i went to school for music theory and music composition and I was playing in a bunch of punk bands as a drummer. I was a drummer first and foremost. This is the long-winded answer. No, go on, man. Okay.
    7:50
    It'll satisfy my buddy who says I talk too much, that guy. Okay, I'll talk too much then. Yeah, that'll be perfect. Yeah, then they can email me and tell me to shut the fuck up. I was a drummer. I went to school for music theory and all that because I was much more into songwriting and melody stuff and all that. I was known as a really good drummer in this town. It's a very big jazz town, and I couldn't shake it of like I'm not just a drummer and like people would like it's a long story but so I left for that go to music school came back um started doing it where I was you know writing songs playing guitar being front man and leading a band and doing all that and uh met my wife kept doing it and you know she was very supportive of it and I've always been just a good songwriter and I had a lot of problems like anyone who's been in a band or is with like The band is not successful if the rest of the people aren't or if you're not on the same page. And there's a lot of drama that can be in that. And my biggest problem was I would surround myself with people that wanted to do it but weren't as, at this age you can just say what it is, but weren't as talented, weren't as good, weren't on the same page. And I was getting held back by some of that. So I was recording this album called Cosmic, which was really a practice of, I don't want anyone's help, I'll do all the instruments myself, all the vocal, everything. I'll do all myself because I just wanted to. Like, prove something to myself. And instead of recording it myself this time, which I could do, I wanted to pay a different studio to do it. And we used the studio called Black and Bloom out of Denver, Colorado, which does a lot of punk bands in the realm of like Legwagon, Mel and Colin, Fat Records type stuff. Anyone who knows what I'm talking about knows what I'm talking about. But the kind of catchy pop punk type of stuff.
    9:33
    And to do that, I had to go on two different weeks to fit in between work and different altitude. as a singer, you have to just do a lot of I would sing on the treadmill with tape on my mouth to just get myself ready for that. There's a reason I'm saying all this.
    9:48
    In all the prep of all this, it was between the first week and the second week. First week, I went to do drums and rhythm guitar with a buddy to help me so I didn't screw up my wrist too much from tendonitis.
    10:02
    Then when I was prepping for the second part, which was all more rhythm guitar and all the vocals, I was mowing my lawn and I was listening to Triple Drain podcast. I had been doing like the pinball stuff, you know, on my own, like buying and selling a little bit here, there, one or two games and listening to Triple Drain a lot and the pinball show back then. And Tom and, or Travis, sorry, Joel was like, hey, we should get this theme song for this Tom Talks kind of thing. If someone wants to make one, that'd be great. And I'm like, you know, I seen the Realm of Pinball podcast and knew the like the ability of some of this and the great podcast, like the music and all that. I'm like, I'll give him one. And so I stopped mowing the lawn. I went in the house because I just had an idea right away. And I was just, when you're in it and like songwriting for me, it's like riding a bike and it just kind of comes out. Wrote the song quick, sent it to him. And he basically sent back a message like, holy shit, what the fuck? Can you do more? And I was like, okay. But like at some point, like, all right. So he's like, can you do a theme song for the show? I was like, well, okay.
    11:06
    Recorded it really quick, sent it. And she's like, Jesus Christ, can you do this thing on that? I'm like, all right. So Joel Engelberth and myself built this kind of like relationship on the side of just doing this thing. And I wasn't doing a podcast or anything. And I went and recorded the album and took a break from pinball and came back like six months after that. And I was listening to a lot of Final Round pinball because the humor is great. The swearing is my style. And Jeff and Marty.
    11:32
    And I started emailing them once in a while like, hey, like giving them shit. I just liked that. and I was missing more podcasts.
    11:41
    There wasn't enough for me. I wanted to get more, get more, get more. And I was like, well, basically, all this comes down to one day I just came down, right down in here, and just said, I'll just fucking make one, and just hit record. I had no plan I was like well I can make a theme song or something I can be impressive audio I know what I doing but I don know what I going to talk about And I hit record and just start kind of talking And the first one actually it got DMCA because of my own music It thought I was copyright infringement. I was like, fuck me. I had to email them back. They took it down. That's my music. I do own it. They took me down. And the wind got out of my sails, to be honest, on the first one. It's like, oh, whatever. I don't care. I just did a podcast for fun. I'm not going to release it. I don't care. And Zach many reached out after like three weeks and he's like, Hey, I was trying to find this podcast you made, but like, it's not there anymore or something. He's like, Oh, anyways, I was like, it kind of like gave me a little more like, all right, maybe it's okay. I'll do it. I'll finish. I'll do another one. I did another one and then started to see some of the listenership go up pretty fast. And I was like, okay, this is just normal. What's going on? And then Zach, you know, reached out. He's like, Hey, You should come on the Pinball Network. And I was like, okay, there we go. And that's it. And the rest is history. Yeah. Wow, you're still writing it. Just like the no invite to the Stern Media Day, Wormhole didn't get an invite to TPN either.
    13:04
    Oh, man. Yeah, well. I have a good story for you about TPN. Do you want to hear it real quick and we can cut it off if it doesn't work? I love it. All right. Excuse me. So my stupid story of TPN is if you're listening to Wormhole for the first time, we started in covid you know we have a pinball club yeah dollar games on monday nights right and then we morph later into the more tournaments podcast this sort of thing that we're doing here but when we first started the stream like first i sent an email to zach and announced that we were ready to join the pinball network right nice yeah right now that's some insight into my mind Jason a little bit I'm like okay we're ready Yeah we're ready We click start Yeah So Zach says no new members for the rest of the year Which is a very nice way of saying no Not only does No one know who we are but our stream is pretty bad Our audio sucks Litany of issues Okay I'm willing to learn And Zach's like he's a nice dude And he goes hey why don't I invite you to our this dpn discord okay and you can learn a few things that's a nice way of saying you suck come on buddy yeah right so i joined the discord and no one knows who we are but they really i come in hot a little hot but they really helped me with obs tremendous helped me with the gear wait when was this what year this is like 2022 were you was i in the discord while you were in there i thought i might have seen i don't know in there okay maybe i was only in for a little bit all right you know i felt like because then i come of course then we start doing better and then i ask again like it's total and utter jackass i'm actually cringing telling the story right i love it i love it do you it's a terrible story i do because i'll tell you before you go on to make you feel better i had sent a very similar message to the pinball network before he reached out and when he did he never saw the email that i sent that it was the same as you like i'm ready um yeah i was like then he found it like a month later he's like look at this i was like ah you got me bitch um we laughed about it what i i think what i wanted jason was probably a shortcut you know you know because i built my own companies and i know how long it's going to take i was like okay maybe we can get a shortcut but you know tim and john of the wormhole sat me down And they were like, look, are you having fun on the mic? I go, yeah, it's my favorite thing to do. He goes, you're going to learn everything else. You'll learn it. Keep effing up.
    15:47
    And we'll get there. Build your audience. Build it organically. And I think that's what we're on. Build it ourselves. But this is my formal apology to Zach Meany. I'm sorry for putting you in a position where you had to tell me no. But thank you for telling me no. Fuck you, Zach. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, it's from me to him. He'll appreciate it. Yeah. So what was your initial vision with this podcast? Did you have, like, did it change from the beginning? Did you brainstorm something even more and say, I want it to morph into this? I mean, yeah, I guess if you really want to know, I had no vision in the beginning, except for, like, I wanted to find a way to get discounts on games because, you know, you run that awesome organization. I just have to trade and sell just to be able to play games, so I needed to find a way. and I did like try to think of is there a way I can do audio for certain other podcasts or other pinball things to just like mitigate some of the cost of everything and the answer is yes in the end I did so I did accomplish one of those goals but um Kale would know this more than anyone um of like the vacillation in my head that I would do with the because of the amount of emails that I would get the pinball the podcast became popular fast and still is but with it comes um oh i love it i love it you've like a lot of meaningful stuff like i listen to then and it really feels good some of them but then there's the dark side of you swear too much you're an asshole you bring god into this stuff you say things like this like okay then don't listen you know and i had to learn in the beginning like i i was always second guessing myself and like i'm doing the wrong thing i shouldn't you know i'm trying to be everything to everyone like what am i doing like what you know and and kale would often talk me off the ledge um of like no no just double down be yourself like whatever and then you know part of music all right i'm gonna make the theme song, I'm going to use the word fuck a lot in it. So it was just like, fuck, fuck, and all that. And then I would burn, I wouldn't burn bridges, but I just, I kept not knowing what I wanted to do, I guess, to answer your question. And whenever I find myself trying to not be me, which is the best episodes are where I'm just me. Uh, you might hate it. It's, you know, meth being a pervert, it's more humor based. It's me just, you know, making fun of myself and everything i just have to enjoy it so i i mean to use like an example and it's for me you shared something somewhat as you said embarrassing this is embarrassing to me but if i had any sort of vision in my head it was like i would if i had to pigeonhole this podcast it would be much more in the like always sunny in philadelphia realm of like that that's just kind of me anyways george carlin humor that humor yeah you live once it's a fucking joke who cares make fun of everything um i think what you really do well is talk to the mic if that makes sense what i mean is it's very difficult to be one-on-one with the listeners and you do that extremely well i'm kissing your ass way too much early on but i think you do that very very well and it's a it's very few can do it carry a conversation flowing with yourself it's it's an impressive ability so i'm at the point where i could do it i'm a i appreciate that and i mean yeah i mean you come across as very easy to listen to and the ones i've seen so i mean same to you i guess the other thing that i and i say it out loud sometimes like i will often record this when i'm okay people will reach out afterwards are you okay are you depressed like no i'm not nothing against that like i'm i'm very um i spend about 24 hours of the day in my head self-reflecting on everything I'm just a very existential person. That's all I that's all I do. So oftentimes I'll record and I will just go in that realm and I will talk to the mic like it's just I'm letting stuff out, whether it's pinball or whatever. And that's why it sometimes comes across, I guess, is really natural because I am just saying like, you know, I'm going to say whatever and use it almost as therapy. I I loved the conversation the other day you had about peeing in the sink. I thought I was like, that's freeing, right? It's freeing to be able to sit here and say, I, Jamie Burchill, pee sitting down. I like to pee sitting down. I live with my wife. I don't want to deal with the up and down crap anymore. And that's true? Yeah, I do. That's nice. I just pee sitting down.
    20:07
    That's almost more work for me. And there is, I almost started doing it, the peeing in the sink thing is somewhat, not somewhat new. A buddy I do music with, I asked him that like a year ago via text. And I just was like, hey, dude, do you ever pee in the sink? And he responded aptly, what the fuck? And then within three hours, he sent me a song. There is a song about peeing in the sink that a songwriter I work with sometimes.
    20:35
    Yeah. And I was thinking of putting in there, but I'll save that for some other time. It's fine. Where did the idea for deep dives into the Machine podcast come from? Those are awesome.
    20:47
    I can tell you exactly where it came from. There is a very popular, one of the most popular video game podcasts out there is Retronauts. They do basically, well, to answer that, let me answer a question you didn't ask. Some of the vision and things that I've thought of in the past. Like, I don't know how to do things half-ass. So when I started doing the pinball podcast and the TPN and why I left was where I have higher aspirations for doing like a network type thing. Not like a pinball network, but beyond that. There's some big podcast entities like Duck Feed TV, Earwolf, like big, like there's business out of podcasts and it really very much intrigues me. So for podcasting, I take it seriously in a lot of ways and doing research and listening to them. I'm a podcast addict myself. I listen to podcasts all the time. I've been doing it for forever.
    21:39
    Retronauts does a video game podcast. They're so very successful and they have this other offshoot. They don't technically, so I shouldn't say that. Another similar podcast than them. And what they've done over the years is a very successful model looking at both their numbers from listenership and Patreon stuff and like my listenership of like, no, that's work. That's very fair. What you do is awesome. It's like their main show is all, you know, weekly or biweekly, whatever they do. And then they have this, they don't call it deep dive, but it's the same thing as what we do on deep dive. They pick a very specific thing and they're like, we're only going to talk about that. We're going to try not to get off the rails. But if we do, you know, it's just that. and they put that behind the paywall of, so I basically mimicked it, you know.
    22:20
    They would do it with like Contra or Mario 3 or Mario 2 Japanese or pick, yeah, pick something specific and just do it. Awesome. And I noticed in pinball, for some reason it just wasn't happening. Yeah, there's Silver Ball Chronicles, which is probably the closest somewhat thing. Right. Yeah, but, and it was another excuse, honestly, for me to talk to a buddy, Zach, who lives a couple states away that we do a lot of this stuff and he's very similar mindset. and yeah, that's how it started. Let's just start picking our favorite games and just only talk about this and I say a lot of that predication because of course, the smartest people out there who are not doing these podcasts want to give me feedback on how to do all of that which said, you should really stop putting these five-minute previews on your main channel because we don't want to be downloading it. It's like, great, well, news for you, it works really well. So yeah, like one, you don't have to, let's download it. It's really to say, and the other side of it is instead of just saying, go pay for the stuff that you might not like, it's a preview. Like, if you like this, join the Patreon. If not, like, no harm, no follow. You know, I didn't, I was like, what's wrong with you?
    23:23
    Speaking of Patreon. Yeah. Do you think you would ever go 100% behind the wall? Because I think you should, actually. Okay. I thought of it because of, so from, I won't say too much just because of the respect of the TPN. I know from being on Pinball Network, like, where I stood in the pantheon of pinball podcasts, and I'll say very high.
    23:48
    And when I left, it was really to just have a little more control. I know it does well but I know beyond that the stuff that I do with like meth and some of the sound editing like believe it or not some of these take a so I put 20 40 hours into some of these episodes because I want to. That's what I'm saying. That's another thing what I'm saying is it takes me four hours just to write a script, right? To try to have some resemblance of an interview to go down, Right. And that really depends if I know the person or not. Yeah. That doesn't include video editing now that I'm getting better at and things and uploading to YouTube on HD. So we're talking six to 10 hours per pod. And that's just me doing an interview. I can't imagine with meth and all the things that you do. So that's why I was curious about it.
    24:41
    Yeah, I've heavily considered it and I'm still heavily considering it. And I've, you know, full disclosure, behind the scenes, I actually have a pretty good relationship with Kaneda. And we text about, talk about certain things. And it's, I don't know him in real life, you know, but in this kind of realm of, you know, and there's encouragement from other avenues as well. But I want to really, I like podcasting as a field, pinball or not. I'm very interested in growing a pinball – sorry, a podcast entity.
    25:16
    That's a long-term goal. Then, yes, I think certain parts of it would go paywall only, but I think it would – yeah. Yeah, and I like Chris very well. In fact, I'm going to New York in two weeks, and I'm having – we're going to go play pinball. Nice. I've had him on the podcast. Great dude. He's been good to me, so I don't have any – I never got – so no worries there. do you have any favorite podcasts that you personally recorded maybe you go back and you go and that was a good one they all have to do with most of them have to do with meph um i was just actually going through all of them the other day not listening to each one like but like i so i use logic pro for my editing and like when it's a meph episode or something i can just visually see how much was done to it so i was going through all the episodes and pulling out meph clips to do like a best of meh that'll probably be patreon or something um uh but as aside from the meh ones um i i there's a couple that stand out one is the first one i did on tpn with zach because we put a lot of editing into it and we got greg to do a little cameo and i was like hey let's really like lean on this and um let's let's steal straight down the middle thunder and like we it was really just like a meta making fun of all of ourselves which was really fun but that one of those first one's with Zach. The 12 Days of Balls one I did with Ian from Nudge, I know you had him recently, because behind the scenes, him and I hadn't talked for a long time, and he had gone through a lot of health stuff. And it was like, honestly, us catching up in real life while doing the podcast. And it was intended to be a half hour, it ended up being like an hour and a half. Yeah, those are great. Yeah. And it was, yeah, one of those natural ones. But yeah, out of all the ones that I like, there's one that I like the best that I've gotten other feedback like what the hell were you doing like well what was my next question like any podcast that reside really with you that maybe not so much with the audience or or yeah two of them one and I get it but I still fucking love it where I had meth so anyone who picks up on some of the like through lines with meth like he slowly is evolving he becomes a pervert he learns how to masturbate he has this small affinity with horses which is weird and then it escalated to the point where i'm at a park with meth and um he gets an argument with this little girl he calls her a bitch or whatever it's it's to me it's hilarious and then there's a horse that starts walking through the park and his gallops and stuff and he starts getting horny and jacks off to the horse and i fucking i i was on cloud nine and sharing it with my wife who absolutely loves it like she loves that humor she's the same as me She's my best friend and also, so like I was, so, you know, there's an animation of it. I love it. So, you know, meth jacking off to a horse. Not everyone loved it. You know, a couple of people were like, what is wrong with you? But, you know, growing your listenership naturally, that weeded out some of them. That was one. And the other one was completely different. Very early on, I did this dreams episode where I kind of sound created a dream that I had the night before, which I actually had to edit over a few days period because there's, I can take a screenshot and show you. It's stupid how much editing was in there, but it was a dream about me getting abducted by an alien. It wasn't humorous. It was just, I wanted to experiment with just some sound design and do all the stuff and make it pretty cinematic and had nothing to do with pinball. And a couple of people were like, I saw the numbers. Like that episode was great. in the next episode like dropped like 500 listens because people are like what are you doing and i think even zach many gave me shit he's like well when you make a podcast about dreams in a pinball thing you might lose some listenership i'm like yeah well it's pretty awesome though sometimes you have to have the seinfeld chinese restaurant episode man sometimes you have to have that episode it's a fun episode yeah uh let's talk about like the pinball rumor mill content is that of space you would like to plan getting scoops cnn news um i don't care about the breaking news part of it but i love to talk about it with uh i love it in my head it's my favorite thing so when a podcast talks about it i love it if uh yeah all the time i sometimes do know things and i make light of it you know like anyone has to do uh i would love to just say i know this is coming next year or whatever but um you know via text or whatever when people don't say anything because I do know some stuff, but I do love it, yeah. Yeah, I think KineticisNap and Kineta do a good job of getting the info out there for us, and then we can sit and talk about it. Yep. I mean, you know, they do a good job. Do you post on Pinside a lot?
    30:12
    Well, aside from – I don't – I just – I'm not there yet. Not in blogs. I don't want to – no, I mean, that's – I posted, like, our podcast early on, and I got crickets, and I – Oh, yeah. If you want to get wrecked, go post that stuff on Reddit. They will eat you alive. It's awesome. The pinball Reddit? Yeah, go to r slash pinball and be like, hey, there's a new podcast. They'll be like, fuck you, get out of here.
    30:40
    Because they don't want any promotion or all this because it's all these angry people in their basement. It's just like me or you. And it's like, dude, I know, but I'm just saying. It's out there. Come on, it's a good podcast. It's fun. Yeah, they rip you apart. I go to Tilt Forums. They say there's no one there, but it seems to be nicer. And they help me a lot with my cameras and equipment. Oh, good. So shout out to Tilt. We just had a wormhole meeting. I saw that you only have one sponsor. You use Flippin' Out, right? Yes. That's your sponsor. And we had a meeting and we said, no more sponsors. And we're just going to do beer.
    31:16
    Good. You know, because we have, we're open three days a month. That's it. and we got sponsored by St. Arnold, which is a brewery here in Texas. Okay. And they sponsored us for the month of June, and then we've got a month of July and a month of August, and we just get eight to ten cases of beer that they donate to us, and we open them up when we have our tournaments, and we let everyone have a lot of fun.
    31:43
    Oh, that is a great sponsor. Who is it? We were trying to get sponsored by, oh, I can't remember. If I think of it, I'll tell you later in the episode. It was nothing to do with pinball. It was like a super inside joke.
    31:57
    Was it Trojan condoms? We were trying to get sponsored by something like that. Just like, what the fuck? Yeah. I was on a soccer podcast a long time ago.
    32:07
    And I know how much you love sports. Oh, please. Okay. So I was on a soccer podcast. And we got about like 10,000 to 15,000 downloads a week.
    32:18
    Fuck. But it was all in Scotland and Ireland because it was a soccer team over there. So, yeah, the American co-host, you know, sidekick, really. OK, the reason I'm telling you this is we would go some places and get recognized.
    32:34
    And I went to Vegas to like a Celtic convention and I got recognized and people taking pictures. How is that weird for you now? Did that get weird? All of a sudden in 2022, people are getting to know you and they're sending you friend requests on Facebook and they're trying to be your buddy. Isn't that weird? Yeah, yes.
    32:58
    I stay off of all that stuff. I never say my last name. My Facebook is completely locked down. I don't – I'm just not a social media guy and I like my privacy. and I haven't gone to any the only expo I went to or convention was one of them but I kind of went to go hang out with Ray Day and a couple people there and it was like I don't wear like my pinball party shirt there's only one of these shirts I don't have merch I don't like whatever I don't like that I like the adoration you know I like the you know that the compliments and sure more so in music but I don't want to be recognized no I don't know It just kind of comes with it, though, sometimes.
    33:39
    Yeah, I shouldn't say I don't want to, but like those numbers, by the way, like for anyone listening, like 10,000, that is not pinball numbers. I have like 3,000 followers on Twitter, former ex, right? Sure. When I try to reach those Celtic supporters and get them into pinball, they could give two shits. They don't care. So none of that transformed. Yeah. anyway that's what i've struggled with in the past of like i speaking about myself of putting all this effort into a pinball podcast where like many people including myself and my wife and myself and myself like every day of like why are you doing this in pinball do this in video games do this in movies where the the listenership would exponentially skyrocket if you were doing something else i i have the same conversation all the time because i'm saying okay i'm dealing with criticism we talked about that earlier i'm dealing with you know not as many we these rigs behind me they cost a couple of dollars to build yeah yeah yeah and you know i would like to recoup some of that of course i chose a hobby that's a subculture of a subculture so what are we doing yeah i have an idea that i'll tell you about after i can't wait yeah don't tell After these podcasts, I'm going to tell you an idea. It's fucking good, too, dude. Okay. All right. This is where the editing just kills me. I stopped editing because I did. Unless I accidentally, well, I won't say it. If my humor, there is a spot where I will be like, all right, I won't say that. There's been a couple of dark things I've removed. But I because I would just I can't edit like all this one or two. So I'm like, well, I just spent six hours editing during work hours and I forgot to do my actual job as a manager, a bunch of sales engineers. And then I so now I'm just like, you know, fuck it. I'm just going to be better at enunciating and my thing. I'm trying. This is only podcast 30. So I'm not there yet. I need to get better I get better How many podcasts have you done full music for
    36:01
    Well, none of them except for Triple Drain have asked for it. Triple Drain, Flippin' Out, or so. Well, he uses the Flippin' Out song for a lot of stuff, and I use it. I have a few different versions.
    36:15
    That's the one I buy my pinball shit I buy from Flippin' Out. Yeah. Thanks for that one, by the way. Yeah. It's almost as bad as like 1-800-CARS-FOR-KIDS. Yeah, as in like catchiness? Yeah. Not terrible, but catchiness-wise. Because I'll be doing these hikes with my wife, and then I'll listen to the pinball podcast, and then I'm singing your song. I don't even hear what they're saying. Good.
    36:41
    That makes me feel good, honestly. Like when I get, you know, anything, oh, good podcast, cool. No, that's the stuff because music is still my, to me, what I feel like I'm put on this earth to do the closest thing. I don't, and to be honest. So does this just scratch an itch for you? Yeah. Okay. Because this scratches an itch for me. I wanted to be on the radio. People that listen, they're sick of me telling the story, but I wanted to be on the radio. I went to college to be on the radio. Yeah, okay. All right. They canceled that program my freshman year. Oh, shit. Shit. All right. I guess I'll go to business and be a recruiter. that's something i'll damn yeah it's an itch scratcher yeah it's all right are you ready for rapid fire this is uh a rapid fire little game that we play donovan my co-host sometimes he writes these and this is his baby all right so all praise goes to him all shit goes to him if we don't like it all right donovan donovan wade that's my buddy he does video editing what's up don oven all right you're on a raft and can only save one person is it jeff or marty oh fuck uh i i'm gonna do jeff just because that yep i'll do jeff okay i was gonna ask you uh zach or uh joel the same question but i switched to jeff or marty oh you're saying if if it was of raft would i save joel or zach yeah holy shit oh man i think you save zach and eat joel because he's big he's got like i've just met him the other year at tpf this year and he's got gigantic tree trunks i mean yeah he's a lumberjack yeah i mean my god yeah you know between that the joel zach I'd take one for the team. I'd jump out of the boat. See ya. Yeah. Better pinball soundtrack, Black Knight Sword of Rage or TNA?
    38:46
    TNA. This is a ridiculous question Donovan sent me. You are a deposed Panamanian dictator claiming asylum in a Catholic church. What music does the United States government blare outside to get you to surrender?
    38:58
    Fuck. Give me that nut by Eazy-E What is your go-to crank it up mode in Metallica? Fuck, I haven't played Metallica in so long So I don't have a default I'm happy to get there You secure the license for a music pinball theme But it cannot be rock What license do you secure? Oh, because I was going to say Neon Dale Damn it It can't be rock. Can't be rock.
    39:34
    Oh. God, it would just be called Irish. And it would be, because I'm not going to be like Floggy Moller, Dropkick Murphys, or the Pogues, but it would be like Pogues and the Dubliners and the Irish Rovers. It would just be called Ireland.
    39:54
    It's tech night here, so you're going to see some techs in the background. We're going to do a Tech Night stream in a little bit I'll tell you about that in a minute Alright, Pearl Jam or Nirvana?
    40:04
    Ooh, damn Nirvana But a special shout out to Pearl Jam 10 Yeah Beatles or Stones? God, I don't like either of them But Beatles Zeppelin or The Who?
    40:23
    Fuck Zeppelin because it's a big inspiration to Danny Carey and Tool good news the license to the matrix has just been secured bad news they didn't get the first movie what other matrix movie is a good consolation prize i would oh god so it's pick one of the other yeah two three or four four is garbage it's not even christ i would take four for the memes but out of those I would take three. Okay. Any future tattoos on the horizon?
    40:56
    Yeah. Yes. How many do you have already? One, two, three, four, five, six. Six? Six. One of them has a lot in it, but yeah, six. I have ten all here, and I keep them under wraps. No shit. I do. I have like a few on the leg that people can see, but I keep that shit under wraps. I don't know why. Are they all dicks? Yeah. Rachel wrote, and I got a stencil, and it worked out really nice. It was good. Good. That's good. Last question in rapid fire.
    41:33
    What pinball machine have you sold, brought back, sold, brought back, whatever? Which one do you want back the most?
    41:41
    I've had Lord of the Rings so many times, and I just had it again. I just sold it two days ago again. It's just a problem.
    41:47
    What would I... God, I'm kind of in a spot right now. I don't know if you get to this place where I don't want anything right now. Ah, no, Iron Man Vault Edition. There we go. Ooh. Yeah. I've had it a couple times. For a while. You haven't had it a couple times? How many times have you had it? Iron Man twice. Maybe three times. Twice, yeah. All right. That was fun, Jason. Thanks for taking the time to meet with us today. I would absolutely love to meet and hang out with you. Have you ever been to Houston?
    42:22
    Have I? No. I've only been to – God, have I been to Texas? What the fuck? Maybe. All right. So here's the deal. All right. We've got the Houston Arcade Expo in October. Sure. It's probably not going to happen. You've got TPF in March. That should happen for you. Okay.
    42:40
    We have – I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that we have a pinball museum called the Wormhole East Pinball Museum. It's going to open in late 26, 27. Uh, it's going to feature 125 pinball machines. Very rare. If you know, Tim and Christine and Tim's collection, uh, I'm going to build the most incredible streaming shit that you've ever seen. I'm going to rip off, uh, everyone on the grandmother to make that just incredible. So as this gets closer to the wormhole East, uh, we're going to throw a monster grand opening slash tournament. And we would love for you to come to that. So, okay.
    43:16
    20, 27. I'm sure it, you can. I'm busy that day. You'll be fine. Yeah. I'm busy. Rachel and Kale will come. We'll get Ian. We're going to have a party. It's going to be incredible. Okay. All right. Where can everyone find you?
    43:33
    Yeah, not many places because I stay off the grid and I don't update my social media as much. So don't come find me. But Instagram is probably the most busy or Patreon, honestly, even if you join as a free member. we have a pretty good community there and a lot of chatting and just talking there. So come join Patreon. Even it's just free to hang out. Really good community. If you're of, if you know, similar ilk. Otherwise, I mean, I do have a Facebook and I, when I remember to post, I do, but I don't try to like build followings or, or that kind of stuff because I just don't like social media and that's probably a bad thing. So yeah. Otherwise come find the pinball party. Just search in your podcast of choice called the pinball party and I'll be there. thank you so much for your time today i appreciate thank you for the therapy session letting me uh delve again should i send the copay anywhere is there uh yeah just cash cash well thank you man i really appreciate your time dude thanks same i really appreciate it all right brother thanks yep thanks so much for doing this podcast jason and uh really thank you to ian jacoby of nudge magazine for making this happen i'm serious i want to hang out with these guys we could all get into a lot of trouble and that'll be fun. Listeners, email us at warmallpinball at gmail.com on who you think would be a good guest on the show. Someone we should highlight. Some good emails have come in, so please keep them coming. Like and subscribe and all that shit. And if you want to join Discord, let me know as well. Stream's coming up, guys. I'm really geeking about this new camera that I bought. I have it right here. It's called the Osmo Pocket 3. it's totally and utterly badass and we're going to be doing some really good video content with it and i already filmed two videos they're on youtube so go check those out one is a quick intro to the wormhole i walked through it and then the next is a really uh in case i won the lottery a nice video on how to set up the rigs pardon me and all that good stuff speaking of content on twitch we already have a channel called wormhole pinball we have a new stream that we're going to be put on on Wednesdays. In fact, I need to wrap this podcast up because it is Tech Night at the Wormhole, and that's going to be the name of the stream, Tech Night at the Wormhole. So we've got this large whiteboard, and we're going to, that's called the list of grievances, and we're going to have a camera on the board, and all through the night, walk around with the mobile rig and the mobile camera and see what everybody's doing. So your hosts are going to be John Spates and Kira Warren. I'll occasionally stop by that as well. Father's Day weekend big tournament Pinberg golden ticket tournament Sponsored by Barrels of Fun We're going to be streaming that in its entirety This entire Saturday qualification and then the Sunday finals. I'd like to end this Podcast on a feel good Story if you will. We could all Use a feel good. Feel goods are nice Across the street from the wormhole Are two restaurants. The Burger Joint And the Taco Stand. Not the most Original names for restaurants But they are really good restaurants and good place to eat. And one Saturday afternoon, a married couple were having lunch at one of the restaurants across the street and they see people coming in and out of this small, nondescript, one-story building with a $39 insurance written on it, a DJ Lo blasting, his name is DJ Lo, blasting music at an apartment complex being built around the wormhole. So one of them had to find out what this place was. So he researched and he found out our story and he found out that in a few weeks we'd be having a tournament. So he plans a blind date, if you will, for his husband. He told him that they're going to go do something fun, but it was a surprise. And so when people walk into the wormhole for the first time, it's a cool sight to see, especially for the regulars. We instantly loved their story, made sure they felt at home here at the wormhole, and they both actually played pretty well in the 4X. So thank you guys for coming. Thank you for finding us. It was a pleasure to meet you both. And thanks again for listening. I'm Jamie Burchill for Wormhole Pinball.