coming at you out of st charles illinois the special when lit pinball podcast starts now pinball land hello welcome to episode number 65 of the special when lit pinball podcast my name is ken cromwell and i am bill we're here to inform and entertain hopefully for the next 45 Five minutes or so as we divulge into a pinball Monday. We'll release this on Tuesday. So good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Everybody take some time out of your day to play some pinball. There we go. Folks, now we're good. Hey, that wraps it up. That's a wrap, man. That's a 26, 27-second interview right there. Podcast, that's awesome. If they were all like that, we'd probably all be better off when I think about it. Probably, especially with certain people's opinions, it seems like lately. A lot of opinions all over social media and pin side. We're going to get into that a little bit later. But what's happening with you, man? anything good no nothing at all right nothing good man yeah man just a crazy weekend uh had a neighbor that uh passed away so that kind of sucked yeah sorry um and then uh yeah man other than that that's about it dude kind of kind of a glum week so we're gonna lighten lighten the mood with some good pinball lighten the mood up with uh getting down and dirty with some uh pinball drama absolutely right the drama is very prevalent this week absolutely how about last week anything good in your world let's go let's go there yeah give me some good yeah so some coins of positivity here anyone that's followed the show you know i've discussed turning my garage into a game room for the pinball machines and the podcast studio and the uh flipping out pinball streaming studio so essentially right now i have um i've i've got the the 220 run to the garage so that i can power the mini split which it has yet to be installed meaning the mini splits not been installed the electricals there i went ahead and i uh insulated the outside wall that needed insulation drywall goes up this week so i don't know i'm i'm ahead of the game right now so we'll see what happens and i look forward to put some progress picks up hopefully we are uh transmitting out of studio c which is for cromwell uh coming up here cromwell garage yeah i would like to have that up and running i'm i'm gonna go ahead with an october 1st ribbon cutting ceremony on that so right right before expo hopefully nice now i know i'm channeling at least one listener when i say this Okay. All right. I feel this, even though it's 24 or 18 hours into the future. Right. Okay. So for that person that's wondering, was it 220 or 221 in the garage? It's whatever it takes. Okay. All right. Just making sure. I like it. I agree with that. Hey, listen, if I didn't call it out like that, somebody would have been like, mother, they finally set this joke up. Well, is it 220 or is it 240? I mean, I don't know even what's proper to say because, I mean, really, isn't it 240 that's volts that are going through like a alleged yeah but dude i think the voltage out of my wall is like actually 108 or 112 it's not 120 i got my little dedicated panel set up to run the mini split in the garage so i think i got a 60 amp panel out there and uh i'm ready to rock and roll oh yeah dude you got plenty of power that's what i need to put my shed in all honesty but so we've lost about 50 of the listening audience getting into technical uh electrical nonsense let's go ahead and let's get into the pinball news getting the news from around the industry in this week's industry buzz. This is Ryan Claytor, your Multimorphic correspondent. Are you ready for some crazy news? Actually, because this is so unprecedented, I'm going to let Multimorphic founder Gerry Stellenberg tell you about it. Dave and Buster's has two P3s on location. You heard it here first. Dave and Buster's, the giant North American restaurant an arcade chain with a reported 129 locations open as of June 2019, have committed to placing two P3s in their Austin, Texas location. If you're not stunned right now, maybe it's because you're unaware of Dave & Buster's no pinball Ryan Policky in the recent past. In fact, the last time I saw a pinball machine in Dave & Buster's was in the very early 2000s. But from my understanding, Dave & Buster's got rid of pinball machines, and this is the first time in my recollection they've committed to a pinball machine in over a decade. So what can you expect to see at the Austin Dave & Buster's? They're currently running the Heads Up game, which is our two-player multi-game battle royale where two players can connect to each other and try to beat each other by getting the highest score. Heads Up, in addition to being a really fun, simultaneously multiplayer experience, is also a game with a dedicated time limit. Plus, it's a title that is ultimately accessible. Make your shots, affect your opponent, duke it out. So if you've not had a chance to play Heads Up, you'll have an opportunity to do so at the Austin, Texas Dave & Buster's. So if you're in the area, point your GPS to 9333 Research Boulevard, Suite A600 in Austin, Texas, 78759. Until next time, stay innovative. Hello from Dr. John with this week's spooky pinball update. Emily and I managed to survive our US trip, and sadly we didn't get to catch up for the stream with Ken and Bill, but we had an absolute blast at Pinberg, and even managed a tour of the Stern factory, and our special thanks goes to Ways and Chen for organising that. The news from Spooky, from their latest podcast, is their fan club is still in development. Unfortunately, Charlie was a bit under the Carl Weathers this month, So, couldn't reveal exact details of start time, but it looks like they've decided on two levels, with the first level coming in at $25, and that will be the Coffin level, and for that you get Swag, including a membership card, and then the Bloodsuckers level comes in at possibly $350, and this will entitle you to game bling and added features on any machine you purchase. you do not have to use it on the next game they have it can be transferable at any stage Charlie did say this membership goes from game cycle to game cycle so I'm not sure whether you have to repeat your membership after every game announcement but more will be revealed on the next podcast which comes out on the first of every month anyway thanks to USA for hosting Emily and I for the last two weeks We had an absolute ball, and I'll catch you all next week. Ta-ra. Hey, this is Kaz, your special when lit American pinball correspondent. Unfortunately, there's no major news this week, as the main focus has been the continued work on Oktoberfest code and working on game number three. I talked to Joe this week, and they were, quote, heads down, working hard, no public news mode. so they wanted everyone to know that they should check out the new Oktoberfest code and to send them feedback if they have any issues. American Pinball is also running a contest on their Facebook page, so you need to like, follow, and share their page to be entered in an Oktoberfest prize package with the winner to be announced August 30th. So hope everyone has a great week and has fun playing pinball. For American Pinball, this is Brian Kosner. And Deep Root, they went ahead and they made good on Zidware claims by compensating those that didn't want to extend Deep Root's self-imposed deadline of having a machine ready in trade for money lost to Zidware. And Stern Jurassic Park Pro unboxings are currently being seen across the United States. Exciting times for pinball. When a new game comes out, Bill. Yeah, we were fortunate enough to get Jurassic Park and unbox one. Very fortunate. Let's talk about that in a second. Let's go back to Multimorphic real quick. And so it looks like Jerry's kind of penetrated a chain of an arcade chain, the biggest arcade chain in the United States with Dave & Buster's. He's got two of the multi-morphic machines inside of Dave & Buster's out there in Texas. What are your thoughts on that? You know what? I'm happy that they were able to break ground and get, you know, machines into that arcade. You know, I've heard about it a few times today. But the one thing I'd really like to see is machines returning to, like, 7-Elevens in your local hot dog stands. Oh, yeah. You know, back in the day in the 80s, 90s, you couldn't walk into a 7-Eleven without seeing Elvira and the Party Monsters or Whirlwind or any of these kind of games. So, I mean, I think it's one small step forward, but I think there's potential there. I don't know that you'll ever see 7-Elevens and, you know, getting that kind of stuff. And I think it's just because of a service standpoint. You don't have the guy behind the counter that's going to lift the play field or get some glass off to get a ball that's unstuck. And unless you have 24-7 roving techs for companies, I don't know how practical that is. I'd love to see that, too, because a lot of times I wouldn't know what was out until I went to a 7-Eleven. And more times than not, it was like a new arcade machine. Maybe like a Roadrunner was in there or then like a Mortal Kombat showed up. Dude, pole position was like in every 7-Eleven across America. Yeah. Or you go to Pizza Hut and they had the little cocktail cabinets that are always there. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, sorry, you just sparked a memory there. A little nostalgia there. The last time I saw Pinball at Dave & Buster's, it was when X-Files was released. So, I mean, it's been a long time since I've seen, or at least I had an X-Files there. It's been a long time since I've seen it. So, congratulations to Jerry. Congratulations to Multimorphic. I'll say congratulations to Ryan Claytor, who's been covering this company. Yeah, good job. for a while and he's got some news. You know, it's something we've talked about. You're not always going to have news involved with your segments, but the correspondents always hustle up and they come up with some interesting tidbits, you know, during the course of the week for that company. Now, sadly, we had to say goodbye to Stephen Haberman, who was covering Jersey Jack Pinball for us for the last few weeks. You know, he's got things going on, which just wasn't conducive to him trying to get his his segment in every single week. And, you know, we wanted to thank him for coming in and covering because I thought he did a really good job. And I wish him well and, you know, no hard feelings. We appreciate his efforts. Absolutely. You know what? Honestly, October's around the corner, man. I mean, at that point, I might even have to take a few weeks back. Well, and that's the thing. Real life is so much more important than that. Family is definitely more important. It is. It is. So now that being said, if somebody would like to cover Jersey Jack pinball for our correspondent list, go ahead and contact us at special when lit pinball podcast at gmail.com. Now we transfer over to Spooky Pinball, and it looks like they've got their fan club going on. And it's, what is it, $25 to get the swag? Bloodsuckers level. Or $350 if you want to suck the blood and the money out of everybody. No, I'm kidding. I'm assuming that that $350 and what it sounds like is. Buys you a spot. It allows you to jump the line, right? So that's really what it is. So I would just say, you know, you're tacking on $350 to the cost of the machine in order to have that. Now, if these reset every cycle, it would be $350 every single time a new game comes out. Right. So if $350 is worth it to you, and I know it is for a lot of people, for me, I probably would pay $350. If there's a spooky title, for instance, Scott Danesi's next game is coming out. Now, we know that it takes spooky, what, like maybe a year or so to get 500, 600 pinball machines out? Sounds about right, yeah. And what did I talk about? We both talked about this. If I don't have a machine after 90 days of me putting an order in, I've lost interest. So for me, that $350 is peace of mind and assurance that I'm going to get the game. I'm going to be interested in the game. So where it might sound like a little bit shocking, if you really put it in perspective, especially with the cost of the Spooky Machines, $350 I think is a good deal and good for Chuck and good for KT, good for Bug and everybody at Spooky Pinball. If you can make a little bit of extra money and it involves allowing people to jump the line, I commend you for it. I think more manufacturers should consider doing that. Jump the line and get your pin. But I think other people would take this on the chin for trying to pull that move, though. Oh, interesting take. Well, here, let me play devil's advocate here for a second. Okay, yeah. So they are a smaller boutique company, and they don't push out as many games, right? Right. And they have a very, very loyal following, right? Correct Which is a beautiful thing I am not knocking that one bit I think they great people a good product good stuff But But Here we go If you throw Stern Pros Jurassic Park just hit the line If you can call up and say, hey, listen, I'll pay an extra $350 to get my game in the first month that it comes out, I think that they would be ridiculed and people would just not buy their stuff. I see your point. I see your point. But the game cycle with Stern is so much shorter than it is with Spooky. So I think where I agree with you, I don't know that it would make sense, I guess, to your point, for a bigger company to do something like that. Yeah, I think for them that's a great move. Yeah. I don't know if I'd actually do that, but I mean I think it's very niche. I would 100% do it. I think it's very niche and works. Yeah. Stern, JJP, don't take a page out of that book, so I think you guys would just be ridiculed and lose sales. Nice. Actually, I love the take, man. It makes absolute sense. So go ahead. Get that money while you can there, Chuck. And allow people to jump that line, get that game for $3.50, small price to pay. And I'm sure you're getting other things, probably add-ons to your cabinet, added swag and bling. So it's not all for loss. You pay a little bit more. You are the cool kid on the block. You have your game first. And for a lot of people, that's what it's all about. It's about having something that somebody else doesn't have. And $350, it's not a big price to pay for that. Well, let's be real, and we can drop this after this. But, you know, with that kind of money, it's just going back into the games that they're developing. So, I mean, it's not for naught, you know. Right. They're not going to take another vacation to Japan with an extra $350. Yeah. It's tough. So, you know what? Go for it. Go for it. Yeah. So, finally, we went to Brian Cosner, who's covering American Pinball. And not a whole lot going on over there that can be spoken about. They're still working on Oktoberfest, and they want feedback on the code. That's cool. Now, Deep Root paid out on those that needed to be made whole. Now, the way that this worked out, Zidware customers originally who had lost money on deposits on games were given the option by Deep Root Pinball saying, listen, we will go ahead and you can go ahead and drop your litigation against Zidware or against an employee. And then we will just go ahead and we'll compensate you by giving you a brand new machine or machines, depending on the amount of money that was lost during that company that never evolved. Now, those that jumped on and said, sure, I'll go ahead and I'll take this trade out, deep root and pose a deadline. They said, if we don't get your games to you by this date, we will give you a full cash settlement. And when that time came and went, Robert Mueller contacted everybody and said, listen, this is what it is. We can extend that deadline and we can still get you the game or we'll give you the cash settlement. Those that asked for the cash settlement were given their cash settlement. No questions asked. It sounds really smooth. My hat goes off to Robert and Deep Root for staying true to their word. Yep. Because remember, guys, they're not obligated to do any of this. So for those of you that may have lost money in Zidware and were able to recoup it from another company that's trying to put pinball out, I think it's a pretty commendable move in all honesty. So were they made whole or did they get half back? I don't know what the conditions were. But, I mean, at that point, even if they got – Something is better than nothing. A hundred bucks is better than nothing. You know what I mean? and there were thousands out. But from the way that I've been, from what I understand, what I've read for those that have commented on their settlements, everybody's very happy, and now there are those that are still in waiting for Deep Root to come out with their first game. Supposedly that we'll see in Houston around the November time period, and we're hoping to see, I think, Raza, which is... Retro Atomic Zombies Attack. Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland. Adventureland. Is that one. So we'll see what happens there. And then it brings us full circle now to the newest game that's been out released by Stern Pinball, Keith Elwin, and his newly designed Jurassic Park. Now, we had one of the first ones off the line. Yes. And we unboxed that, what was that, Friday? Thursday. Thursday of last week. Yes. So, first of all, let me ask your initial impression. Now, we saw the stream, but now you've had a chance to put, what, 10 games on this? Roughly. Roughly 10. And I probably have about 25 games on this. Now, the game is here in our studio, so Bill goes home. The game stays here. Bill played on pinball night. We hosted a pinball night last week on Thursday, and it was funny because our friends that we haven't really seen in months, because our typical pinball nights have been committed now to the podcast and the stream. Kind of suffered. It was great to see all those guys come back together because we haven't hung out in months. And then I think it was a special treat for those guys to come in and just see a Jurassic Park unexpectedly. This brand new game is here. Well, no one had any idea what kind of stuff you were going to have down here. No, no. And, I mean, they were pleasantly surprised with, you know, Meteor. Is Meteor? Yeah. I'm going in order, man. That was huge, right? Black Knight. Black Knight. TNA Whitewood. Well, TA Whitewood. Lord of the Rings. Jurassic Park. And Monster Bash. Yeah. It was a solid lineup right there. It was a fun night. None of these pins are which I own except for Meteor. Damn right, dude. Right. So right now I'm fostering. I've got pins from different pinball companies. And Zach of Flip N Out Pinball was able to get us one of the first Jurassic Parks, which is here. But going back to my original question, you've now played, say, 10 games on this pin. Has your impression changed from the original stream and now with having undergone the pinball experience? What are your thoughts on Jurassic Park? I really, really like the game. I think the artwork on the play field is incredible. I think the shots are very smooth. I really like the animations. And honestly, the movie clips not being in there, I know they've taken some crap on that. But I like the premise of how they lined that up. Didn't bother you, huh? No. Actually, I'm forcing the wife right now to watch Jurassic Park the last couple nights. Oh, can you stand watching it? It was all blurry on your TV. Did you spray it with the Windex? Or how did that go? I'm quiet because there's expletives that are flying out. Is that what's going on? I just don't know how you compare to watch it. I was just curious. In my head that are coming out right now. That I'm family friendly, whatever. Um, yes, it was cleaner than I, I remember. Okay. All right. That's good. Um, but, uh, yeah, we've had a great time watching that. I look forward to bringing this pin in my basement. Right. I don't see how you can go wrong on this game and I'm not trying to be a shill, but I just, I really like this game. Yeah. I wasn't really price point. Yeah. It's when I heard Jurassic Park was coming out. I'm like, all right, that's cool. Jurassic Park is here in full disclosure. I say this a lot. The first few games I put on it, I was like, I don't know, man. There's a lot going on. It's almost a little bit overwhelming at first. There are so many shots, so many things to hit. Yeah. And I couldn't really get anything going. So I kind of stepped away from it after like two or three games, and I was like, well, we're going to stream it. So I don't like playing the games, these new games, a lot before we stream. And it's because I like to learn the game on stream as we're all kind of doing it collectively. But I probably, after like 10 or 11 games, because I've got about 20, 25 games total on the pin, things just started making sense. shots started clicking. There are two shots on the right-hand side that are both vital shots that are a little bit tighter than what you're used to, but it makes hitting them so fulfilling. I really appreciate what Keith did with the layout. There's a lot of different ways to obviously approach your scoring, but there's a lot of different approaches to several shots on the field. In some shots, you just, that maybe you're used to backhanding or whatnot, you're just not going to be able to do on this game, but because there's a third flipper, there's different ways that you can go into the ramps and the side ramps. I really like the layout. especially for a stern pro i don't recall a game at the pro level and maybe even at the premium level that has as many shots and as many things to hit uh from your flippers you know honestly i agree with you i think the one of the last ones that really pulled me in and honestly for me it's not about the shots as much as the experience right being immersed in the world okay okay um And I really feel that Ghostbusters really did a great job of immersing you in that world. Yeah. I haven't had enough time on Monsters. I just got it. So I haven't had any time to play it, honestly. Sure. So that's why Ghostbusters is still fresh on the brain. But yeah, that's why this game is just awesome to me with how you can visually see yourself in this world. I mean, it is the proverbial world under glass. Right. You really feel immersed with animations. Okay. Yeah, the thing that I appreciate a lot, because you don't have any of the movie clips on the LCD, the animations are top-notch. And you'll realize that as soon as you hit the start button, you start becoming immersed in the world of Jurassic Park. And the opening is kind of cool because now you're starting a game, and it's like you almost hit start on a video game where it's giving you kind of a short intro and you're flying in on the helicopter. Now, if you don't want to continuously see that, you can hit both flippers and just kind of skip that whole intro. But I think it's really awesome for somebody that steps up to the pin for the first time, first couple times, to just kind of feel that Jurassic Park music hits you right in the face right away, and you're like, all right, here we go, Jurassic Park. And then right from the plunge, that ball's coming right back at you and setting you up for a skill shot. You don't have anything that's going up and getting lost into the pops or anything like that off the plunge. It's a different approach. It's a fresh approach. I really, really like it. I love the animations on the game. The sound is good. I think where the call-outs maybe aren't what I would expect out of Jurassic Park, but you've got a voice actor that's there and is doing that. I agree with you. It's not what you're accustomed to, but to me that doesn't bother me. It's not a deal-breaker by any means. And the artwork is decent. It's nice artwork. It's different artwork than what we're used to seeing on these pinball machines lately because we've had a heavy dose of Zombie Yeti, Christopher Franchi, and then prior to that we had Dirty Donnie. We had on Black Knight Sword of Rage we had Kevin O'Connor. a different art style and now we're seeing uh johnny crap on here with uh jurassic park that artwork looks like crap bill uh literally johnny crap uh all right so i'm gonna i'm just saying that tongue-in-cheek i think the artwork is decent it's it's nice artwork package i think he killed it on the playfield i like the playfield a lot the sides and the head are not what i'm accustomed to from a jurassic park right and that's no fault of his own that's just my own personal opinion because i'm used to the 993 data east jurassic yes yes um it's your condition to kind of expect that yeah and it takes a little getting used to and that might that might not be the popular vote and i'm willing to accept that just you know i kind of like the very simple black cabinet blah blah blah blah blah right on on a jurassic park i mean any other game i'd be like you know you're high off your ass but you know just on this game yeah i really feel um it his beautiful artwork just on this game i would still love to see it re-decaled but i did not like the play field on the pictures that i had seen or the stream and it really reminded me at the time of oktoberfest because you had a lot of greens and then you had a lot of those inserts that were in the center in between the flippers which reminded me of the tent inserts on oktoberfest and we had just streamed oktoberfest yeah so i was like wow it really kind of reminds me of that but when you have the game in front of you and you're sitting down and we've talked about this you really have to get in front of a pin to kind of get full appreciation for it uh some people may be able to claim if they like a game or not based on you know shots that they see on a on a stream or trajectory and for me i like to kind of take it all in before i pass final judgment so and i'm glad that i have it here because now like i can appreciate the play field um and the artwork again it's it's not it's really good artwork it's just not in the style which i'm used to seeing in pinball and it but it's not you know it's not anything where i'm like really harping on it It's a decent art package. Oh, no, it's great. I mean, it's great art. Just it's not what, you know, I'm accustomed to. Yeah, that's it. Sorry about my. That's okay. I have Mario Brothers as my email. Oh, and Back to the Future has your text. Absolutely. So we're going to stream Jurassic Park tonight. Now, by the time you guys are listening to the podcast, it'll be Tuesday. We're streaming it on Monday. We're debuting New Code on Jurassic Park. And we got Keith Ellin who will be in chat for the first 20 30 minutes to answer any questions We see if he sticks around after that We got our PinQuest challenges I want to take a minute and talk about PinQuest For those of you that don know about PinQuest go to pinquest It's actually a way for you to kind of tackle challenges and quests on pinball machines on locations and be rewarded for your efforts. And we've been giving PinQuest challenges throughout our streaming nights, and it's just really made the streaming fun. So just a quick shout-out to Neil for doing a good job over there. Thanks, Neil. Sorry, so social media, right? We talked about this last week. We had an incident where we were discussing how we were kind of disappointed on how somebody had set up and posted a meme on a pinball enthusiast group that we didn't really appreciate because it was about a friend of ours that works in pinball. Correct. Now, this past week has been like way above and beyond anything that happened the week prior. And if we just take it like a quick minute, and I'm not going to get into all the specifics of this because I'm sure a lot of you know what's going on, but I will at least kind of touch base and bring you up to speed if I can. We have Bowen Kerins versus Christopher Franchi saga where Christopher Franchi is upset with Bowen Kerins because he believes that Bowen kind of picks and chooses people that aren't acting appropriately, especially with the women's movement going on in pinball. and that they get pulled into kind of like a public display of ridicule. And Chris doesn't appreciate that, where Bowen is kind of saying, well, these people should know better on what they're doing, and by calling them out publicly, hopefully this helps to let them know that they've made a mistake and not to let them do it again. And that's just kind of paraphrasing. We have Pinside versus Penn Stadium, where Pinside's upset that Scott from Penn Stadium has seemed to completely annihilate the marketplace and the ad system there with with Penn Stadium ads. And there's been displeasure that's been there. We have Tommy Nitro, his wife. Now, if you remember, Tommy Nitro was accused of alleged sexual. I don't want to say harassment, sexual propositioning, sexual assault. I think what most people have chalked that up as being with somebody that was with a female that was in a bar during like a time of a pinball tournament. And he said since kind of stepped away from pinball because he had kind of acknowledged that he that's not the person that he wants to be. Now, his wife jumped on pin side and had some words to save for those that were dragging her husband's name into certain things. So we had that saga. It's been all over the place, man. And real quick on the nitro thing. Tommy Nitro. Or from Nitro Pinball. Tommy Floyd is, I believe, his name. I was going to leave kind of whatever. Okay. But, you know, honestly, a lot of that, we weren't there. We know what we've seen on Facebook and what he's posted. But, you know, I want to tread lightly on that because we weren't there. Right. You know, circumstances could be completely different. We weren't there, so we're just saying what we know, whether it's accurate or inaccurate. We are not passing judgment here. We're just reporting on what has been transpiring on social media. Now, this is the thing. When the Tommy Nitro thing happened, we didn't talk about it, and it wasn't because we didn't want to support the young lady that was assaulted, and we didn't want to back up the man that potentially did something that was horrible. So, and the reason being, like you said, we weren't there. There was no final decision. Nothing went to litigation where there was proof. There were witnesses, and you kind of formulate an opinion. But when it gets into somebody's livelihood, I want to be absolutely certain that I know exactly what's going on before I would put somebody out there and pass judgment. Or start commenting on something like that. Right. And that brings me into Penn Stadium and Scott. Now, Penn Stadium, Scott makes these PinStadiums. It's his livelihood, right? I mean, it's how he supports his family. Yes. And we have a little more vested interest in this because we know him personally. Yeah, well. Or at least, you know, I'm going to say I do. I think a lot of people know Scott personally. I think if you know Scott, you know that he's a good guy, and he's an excellent figurehead for a company, and he supports his company, and he supports his customers, and he puts out a quality product. Now, whether or not you want to buy the product, you think it's worth the product, it's beside the point. But I was really disappointed to see on Pinside just people going out of their way to kind of take this guy down. And what ultimately ended up happening after we heard some clarification, the reason that all those ads had peppered Pinside was because Robin, who runs Pinside, had had given Scott the ability to kind of test something to allow him to post the multiple games versus singular games. And it just it went out of hand. And before they realized what was going on, it had already kind of peppered the marketplace and they were already making corrections to take to fix it, to fix that. But during that process, you had people that were expressing their displeasure. Fine. I get it. But then you kind of crossed the line because now you've got somebody. Personal attacks. Personal attacks. You've got somebody going into the guy's past trying to bring up personal information and posting online. That's where I thought it was kind of just kind of sickening to me, where somebody is going to go on an agenda without having all the facts straight, throw stuff on pin side for everybody to kind of make their own judgment. Now, once that stuff's out there in the public without having all the facts, there are people that are very easily influenced. And I thought it was unfortunate. I thought it was done in poor taste. And, you know, a lot of this stuff was this week. It is. From hearing somebody call somebody else a derogatory term of enjoying relations with the same sex. Oh, right. And that was Tommy Floyd's wife, right? Brought up. I mean, there's a difference between agreeing with somebody and just being straight personal attacking. And there was so much personal attacking. I didn't want to even be a part of it, dude. And just kind of would love to gloss over this. But, I mean, we have to cover it because this is just such crap. It's just eating us. And you know what? The hobby, this is the one downside of the hobby for me. everywhere else is pretty much like, I love it. Now, it's not that I'm trying to avoid things that are negatively impacting the hobby, because I think those need to be addressed. It's the way in which people go about themselves. And again, you've got, is this is, is it going to happen where, for instance, we're podcasting, we have good intentions. We don't have ill will towards anybody, but if we say something and it doesn't come out as perfect as we want it to, does that mean now that people can make an assumption, take something out of context, tell us how we feel and tell us what we meant and then go into running background checks on us and pulling up our personal history and throwing that out because that's ridiculous. That sounds about right, though. This is a freaking pinball, dude. That sounds about right. It's pinball, but you've got people that go on these crusades. Here, you show me one person that can walk on water. No, nobody can, and that's the thing that I've noticed. All you people that are out there that are high and mighty and righteous, you've got skeletons, too. I guarantee that you do. Be careful because now you're shaking the bear and you got other people that are looking into your stuff. I don't want any part of it. I don't I don't I don't want. And that's why largely we tend to try to stay outside of the drama because you ultimately are going to be asked to choose a side. Right. For instance, let's visit the Christopher Franchi versus Bowen Kerins situation. OK, now I've got a lot of respect for Bowen Kerins. I don't know Bowen personally. I've got respect for the guy because of what he's done in pinball. and that's all that I can really evaluate on because I don't have a personal relationship with Bo and Karen. We've spoken. We've exchanged messages. Everything's been fine. Christopher Franchi, I know a little bit more on a personal level. I would consider him a friend of mine for sure. I don't always agree with the way that Chris is outspoken in the way that he presents himself. And you have had conversations with him telling him that you might not have chosen the road that he has. Nothing behind his back. Absolutely. In complete honesty. Just wanted to make that point clear. For sure. I've had conversations with Chris and expressing the fact that, you know what, it would be difficult for me to back him up on certain things just because of the way that he's presented themselves. So it's like, so I can't really back up Chris. I can't really back up Bowen because this is what happens, right? If I back up Chris, I've got everybody that's with Bowen that now puts me into a category of somebody that doesn't understand I'm a sexist, da-da-da-da. Now, if I back up Bowen, then I'm ridiculed by everybody. Well, you know what? You sold out, and you're part of the problem. You're part of the bullying, da-da-da-da. It's like I'm not going to choose sides. I'm going to call it how I see it, and the way I see it, I think it sucks. I think everybody needs to chill out and grow up. Nobody should go ahead and have to feel like they've got to fight everybody else's fight. And nobody should be overly sensitive where they think they have to overreact because somebody pointed out something that they thought was done wrong. There's a way that you can go ahead and have a conversation as adults without having a personal agenda and bringing it up on Facebook and bringing it up on Pinside and then getting everybody, all your people behind you to fight the fight for you. I hate it. But right now, what you're saying is absolute malarkey. What does that mean? You're telling me that people could actually mutually disagree respectfully and move on? Not in today's pinball climate. Oh, okay. No, you can't. I know. I'm just poking fun. There's a group of people that it seems like their names are always involved in all these things. And it's like, are they pioneers for a movement or are they part of the problem? I don't know enough about it to comment either way. Looking at it from the outside, I do know this. Who doesn't like a little drama every so often? It makes it interesting. It's like everybody, to a certain extent, I think most people for the most part. It keeps it fresh. We'll slow down if there's a car wreck. And curiosity wants to know what's going on. But when it escalates and it's nonstop and it's the same people involved, it's rinse and repeat. It's totally, at this point, worn me out of even wanting. I forget what people are originally fighting about. Well, it's fabricated. because it's just too much. Now, there was a... Now, real quick, I want to jump in here, okay? Okay. But remember your point. So I followed some of that on Facebook as much as I didn't want to because it was kind of like a car wreck. Dude, you're just driving by reading the comments. Right. And the only thing I'm going to say is art is art, whether people like it or not. And so some of the people that might not like what he's doing, you know, is that giving him a Franchi now? Christopher Franchi. Okay. So if you don't like his style of art or whatever, because there's disagreements and opinions, whatever, does that mean that you need to go down to the Art Institute and start burning up Joshua Clay models of half-naked women? I mean, that's art too. Well, you know what? But now, what you potentially have just done to yourself is you've just exposed yourself as somebody that doesn't see the problem and you don't see the person behind the problem. So now and just hypothetically speaking, you could be attacked and ridiculed and drugged through the public by a whole nother set of people because because you obviously don't get it. Now, I could say, well, you know what? I think that if the artists understood that it was a sensitive subject in in the public domain, that he could have very simply said, listen, although my intention was not to offend, I can understand that with the movement in pinball that it might have been considered offensive. Now, where I don't want to change my drawing or my original illustration because that was not what I was intending, I can at least keep it in the back of my head moving forward to potentially make sure that I don't put something out there that could be considered offensive. I mean, there's so many different ways to look at it. I'm not siding with anybody here. I can't do it. I'm not siding with You're making a generalized point that I think artwork is subjective. I think it's fair. You know, that's it. It is collectively, and again, it's a sensitive issue and I get it, but I want to approach it in a different way here because it just been nagging at me And I have Artwork is not sex slaving right Artwork is not people raping people or other of these nasty horrible crimes that are going on I mean, there's a heck of a lot worse things going on in this world than artwork. So I still get pissed off by this because it's the fact that if you have this much time to dedicate, both sides do something productive with it. Well, it seems like there's different sets of rules for different people in pinball, too. This has become very apparent to me over the past 12 months. And it's where somebody can make a mistake, and they'll be pulled out into the public, and they'll be ridiculed for it. And somebody else that's prominent in pinball can do something that's extremely similar, and it's lighthearted, and it's funny because they know that the person didn't intend it to be bad. I don't like that there's this double standard, that there's different sets of rules where some people are labeled as troublemakers and other people are labeled as pinball ambassadors. If you do something that's considered distasteful by others, there's nothing that you can do about it except apologize or dig in deeper. And regardless of what you do, if you apologize, you admitted that you're wrong. So then you open up the door of getting publicly ridiculed. Are you? And if you dig in and defend your stance, you open up a door for people to attack you. It's like you can't win. Now, be smart. And I really think if you're a good person, right, and this is going to sound like lolly, lolly, lolly land to everybody. If you're a good person and you do something that was not intended to be in poor taste, like this guy, the IFPA play-by-play announcer guy, I think his name is Fred. He had said something when he was introducing his team. It was him, another male, and a female. And he introduced himself. He introduced the male. And when he introduced the female, he introduced her as the beauty in the booth. and when looks were shot in his direction, he said, and the brains, and it was an uncomfortable moment. Now, do I think the guy's a sexist and he doesn't like women and he's part of the problem of holding women back? I don't know that, but when I saw that, I'd like to try to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. He retracted right away and said he was trying to make a joke at his own expense and that he realized it probably didn't come out as well, And that situation was taken to the next level on Facebook. And then this guy kind of went through a little bit of public shaming. Exactly. So I wouldn't be surprised if this podcast with us talking about this, we go through some type of public shaming. And I'm going to tell you what, guys, I'm going to tell you what. Anyone that's listened to this show for the last year, I hope you realize that we're good people. As somebody that has we both have daughters and wives, we respect women 100 percent. You know what? We put out a T-shirt that had a tiki girl on it. And we caught caught flack on. I mean, caught flack on by three people. Yeah. Three people. And you know what? I reached out. And the thing was, well, you know, I got a daughter. I don't really like that. The tiki girl. She seems like it's exposed. It's you know, it's not good for women. And I reached out to each one of those individuals. And I said, look, I apologize that it came across like that because that was not my intention at all. And I said, in fact, I've got a lot of respect for women. I'm raising two daughters. I've got a wife. I said, this is something that we're doing in the spirit of like an art package of an island package. And I said, where I apologize, and I hope that you realize that wasn't where I was coming from. I'm not trying to make a political statement on my show either. Now, that's how I handled the situation. I wasn't drug out through the public as somebody that, oh, this guy sucks. Now, Brian Holderman, he's the artist. This was his creation. I liked it. I appreciate it. We liked it. We approved it. That's it. We're not sexist. Well, no, but here, I mean, do we want to see more women getting a pinball? We don't want to see crap like propositioning for favors of any sort. No, absolutely not. Right. No. Gross behavior, i.e. literal assaults like we saw on Facebook last week, I think is untolerated. I think that is the one that should be frowned upon. And we all make mistakes when we're in the heat of the moment, period. I mean, no one is perfect. Nobody's perfect. It sucks when it's out there because it's very hard to take it back. is perfect no one no one yeah right um except my wife she is that's that's how you've been told you should feel absolutely exactly um sorry little little joke there no it's it's it's it's fine you gotta be a little bit like no this is the only thing i noticed too though like you got people that are offended by i mean and this is not a podcast about backing up Christopher Franchi i'm just we're looking at this from both sides because or i can see people are offended by certain things And I think it's the delivery method from Chris when he tries to defend himself where he's coming from. It's off-putting to people because he doesn't seem like he's sensitive to the issues. He's basically saying, well, like it or not, that's what it is. So, you know, suck on it. Sorry about that. That's just what that's it is what it is. Well, because you're taking what he has created. I mean, and anyone that's created anything can understand when they get that criticisms of said piece, whether it's art or a table or whatever. You might have you. OK, that stuff hurts. So, I mean, I can understand why he might not have carried some of the the best way possible to dance around that situation. But, you know, to me, it wasn't. I mean, I think everyone in these situations is kind of guilty by some degree. Well, and some of the people that are very vocal against those that are kind of going through the public walk of shame. if you look at their profiles and you just click on a couple pictures you find some stuff that's considered pretty offensive and it's not easy it's not like you're doing personal investigative reporting but if somebody says something this is disgusting i can't believe that you would treat women like this and then you go on their on their facebook profile which is in the public domain and you see some of the pictures that these people are personally uploading with themselves included it's just like wow it just seems so hypocritical so how is that going to be okay and it's not the other way. And again, I want to make sure there's no misunderstanding here because I do not, I am not siding with Bo and Karen's. I am not siding with Christopher Franchi. I can see both sides. I can see where both people are coming from. I just don't agree with how we can take something that might be considered innocent by most and then kind of blow it up to where it's a major story and it gains traction and it's all because of social media. and is it anybody's job to to police everybody and to pull stuff out and to and to bring everything to the forefront maybe it is maybe it isn't i just personally i just don't enjoy seeing people go through it scott of penn stadium does does he deserve to have some guy on pennside and and he knows who he is jump on and and start making speculations based on doing google searches and throwing stuff up on pin side, like this guy's a saint that has done no wrong. I don't know. It's just, it's so, it's, I'm stuttering, dude, because it frustrates me. We are all in glass houses. It frustrates me. So when you're throwing stones, you might want to be careful. And here's the other thing. Scott might have had, you know, a thousand ads up. I don't know what the number was, but, you know, obviously there was a glitch in the way that this all went down. He was actually on Kaneda and did an interview with Kaneda. Anyone that's listening, please listen to that. I thought it was a very good interview. But this is the same dude on Saturday night that if you call, he answers and walks you through for an hour to make sure that your product is working. Right. I just don't understand. How can you attack somebody like that? Well, I mean, if the guy was a serial killer and had bodies in his basement or something like that, you could be like, well, I warned you. But you know what? I can do that with anybody. I remember when – if you remember episodes back when – and going back to Franchi, he had decided that he had enough, and his last public appearance was supposedly going to be at Pinberg – or not Pinberg. Fantastic. Fantastic. And he said he had a statement, and I said that we would read it on his behalf because I didn't want him to come on the show and have a platform. And he didn't ask for a platform to come on the show, so I read the statement. Now, interestingly enough, Bowen contacted us and asked, well, why don't you have some of the females that were offended by the artwork come on your show so that they can express their thoughts in rebuttal? And I said, you know what? I don't have a problem if there's any females that were offended that would like to submit a statement. I'm happy to read that on their behalf as well. It's equal opportunity here. I just didn't want to give one individual person a platform where the other side couldn't present themselves or approve a point. But guess what? Not one female sent us anything. And you say that now, and guess what you're going to have Thursday? I don't care. Then bring it in. I would like to read it. You know what I mean? That's what I'm saying. We're giving the platform here. Like, is the problem, is it, are some of these things bigger or seem bigger than they actually are? And I'm not talking about the major issues. So let's not nitpick and be like, oh, well, how could you say what Tommy Floyd did isn't a big deal? That is a big deal. Well, how can you say that Christopher Franchi's artwork didn't offend people? I'm sure it did probably offend some people. But, I mean, have we come to the point now where we're calling a pay-per-view podcast on Jeff Teal's pinball profile where he could potentially moderate Bowen Kerins and Christopher Franchi in a discussion? Which actually, in all honesty, I would love to hear that. I would love to hear that, too. It's a way where it's like where Franchi is very vocal with the way that he likes to argue. It seems that Bowen uses social media in the way that he likes to get his point across. At some point, it would be nice, and it doesn't even have to be on a podcast. It would be maybe beneficial for both these parties to at least have some type of conversation. And if it never happens, it never happens. But, I mean, these people are adults. and if they can both call each other out, why can't they mesh it out together on the same platform? And you know what? You can argue that – and man, I'm turning this into Franchi Bowen, and it's because to me it was like the most fascinating thing that happened in the week, and I don't mean to. And again, I'm not siding with anybody here because I can see where both sides are coming from. I just don't agree with the delivery method on both sides, if that makes sense. I totally agree. I totally understand and agree to your point because it should have never gotten this far. It's crazy. I still think that there are bigger problems in this world. I mean, you can always say that. It's pinball. What is there, like 10,000 people that are involved in pinball or 20,000 people involved in pinball seriously and maybe 5,000 or 10,000 of them are on social media, and 5,000 of those kind of follow this stuff, and then maybe we get 3,000 people listening to podcasts, that sort of thing. But if you're not screwing people over, right, because that's also kind of frowned upon, hurting people, like literally physically hurting people, or some of these other nasty crimes in this world, well, whatever. It doesn't matter. I mean, that's the beauty of this country, or I think in the world should be. you can have your own opinion that's fine right but how you handle it is the defining moments of your life and again respect for both individuals not looking to pick a fight here i just think if everybody has their platform in which they can share their thoughts i'd like to use our show how i can share my thoughts i'm burnt out from the social media back and forth where everybody's picking sides one side's right one side's wrong nobody is compromising we went over on this topic And, in fact, we're now past what we should be doing for our normal episode. We're going to end this one early, Bill, and get this going. We do have a stream to get going with. So my apologies to Lermods.com for not running the Drain It or Save It segment this week. But go to Lermods.com because if you go there, they have brand-new Wonka mods that are unbelievable. The Wonka Vader mob is sick. Insane. It is sick. So go to Lermods.com. And I want to thank everybody for listening. And you know what? Hopefully we're here next week. Hopefully the podcast doesn't get burned to the ground by the public. But listen, we got into this to speak our minds, and if we can't be at least truthful to ourselves, how can we be truthful to everybody else out there? You know, for Bill Webb, I am Ken Cromwell. Everybody have a good morning, good afternoon, good evening. And don't forget to take some time out of your day and enjoy and play some pinball. So long, everybody.