Hey, little dude. You in the middle? Kiss the boot, man. Kiss the ass, bozo. This program contains dirty potty mouth. Because we like to swear. Fuck! Dammit! Holy shit! Balls! Hey! Ladies and gentlemen, you wanted the best. And you've got the best. The Super Awesome Pitbull Show! With Christopher Franchi, Christian Lai, and Jed Parsons! Yeah! Meet the new boss Same as the old boss Hello everybody and welcome to episode number 31 of the Super Awesome Pinball Show. We really appreciate all the emails about the first part of our interview with George Gomez and now we present the second and last half of our interview with George Gomez. We can't thank George enough for what he called a two-day Franchetti recording marathon. We love you, George. Everybody, enjoy the show. Hello, everybody. This is Christopher Franchi, and speaking on behalf of my co-host Christian Line, Jeff Parsons, and myself, I'd like to introduce you to the second and last half of our George Gomez interview. Yes, this will be a no extra bullshit episode. We're cutting straight to the rest of the interview, and we will see you guys in episode 32. So enjoy Mr. George Gomez. Because it's everything stern today, I'm drinking a Sexton whiskey. I had to buy that. You know, there's a bar in New York that's got a drink named after me. Did you know that? You? George Gomez? Yeah. Oh, no way. They've got a series of pinball drinks. I think I'm the only designer in the thing. I wish they would have called me because it's not a drink I would drink. Oh, what's in it? Well, yeah, I think you can look it up. Hang on a second. I used to have a picture. Of course, you know, pictures are so easy to find on your iPhone. But I used to have a picture of the menu. Here it is. Habanero shrub? Yeah, that might be it. Let me see. So what did you Google? George Gomez drink New York City. Stern Pinball actually posted it. It says that George Gomez got that habanero shrub. It's jalapeno tequila. Wow, that's going to put you there. Are you looking at that menu image? Yeah, Solid State is the bar. Solid State is the bar, right. Greg Pavarelli's wife works there. There you go. Okay. It's got chocolate milk. Yeah. I wish they would have called me. What would you have suggested for your drink? Something with rum, right? and a bottle of rum. Okay. That's me, you know. You know, I think, let's see. So the skill shot, there was the George Gomez. Let's see. So what is it? It's, I can barely read the image. I know, that's my issue. I'm going to have to zoom in on it to really see it. But it's got chocolate milk and some sort of spicy tequila. That sounds disgusting. It's Tanteo Jalapeno Tequila, Bailey's Bosco Chocolate Milk, and Habanero Shrub, whatever that is. Oh, that's nasty. So are they trying to say you're spicy and sweet? Is that kind of what they're getting at there? I don't know. And chocolatey. All the times I go to New York on a regular basis, my girlfriend lives there, and I don't know why I haven't made it over there. I guess I've got to make it over there. No, they'll make you drink one. Yeah, that's true. It can't be any worse than Malort, George, and I know you're in the town of Malort, so it's got to be better. That shit is awful. I've been christened so I don't have to drink it again Jack Danger loves to pawn that off on everybody take a shot of Malort I bought a couple shots for the poor man's pinball guys quick editor's note, it was not the poor man guys it was Zach and Greg from Straight Down the Middle and they hated it they were not pleased I'm like come on, it's really good, chug it well George, thanks for coming back on man and we really appreciate getting part two tonight Where are all you guys? Jeff, where are you? I am in Portland, Maine. Okay, and Chris, you're in PA? Hershey, Pennsylvania. All right. We sent you guys, I think it was maybe last year or the year before last, we sent Stern Pinball a giant box of Hershey chocolate. I remember this. And you sent us a Christmas card, and you signed it, and it literally made my wife's entire year. She was like so, she goes, you're never going to believe this. You're never going to believe this. And I was like, why, what? She goes, George Gomez sent us a Christmas card. and we were all like we're like dancing around the kitchen and so you made us very happy you know there's a bunch of behind the scenes people that you guys never hear about never see never talk about so yeah gabby alvarez runs the bill materials group and she's got you know i think there's like four girls that work for her and in the studio their cubes are sort of like put together so you know so they can all like turn around and and a lot of times they have like whitewoods in there so they're like checking the bill against the whitewood kind of thing right so they have a table there and that's the table where all that stuff goes like during the holidays you know and yeah sending us stuff you know it's like this goes goes right on that table and everybody knows the stuff's there and the word gets around fast yeah and it doesn't last long i'm sure right there's donuts over by gabby okay chocolate yeah that's awesome yeah yeah george i work for a radio station in the radio business we call that listener food and we never touch it right you never know what's in it is that what you're saying you never you just can't don't trust that no i have to tell you i have gotten some packages that you know i you really do want to call the bomb squad take a look at this and you go wow what is you know how did they wrap this well george as you know toppers are selling for crazy insane prices right now in the secondary market what if any past toppers may see what if any past toppers may see the production line again so pretty much anything that we still have a license for is fair game so like the last time i was in the factory i don't know if a week ago or so and there was uh we have a whole dedicated like mini line that does stuff like accessories and toppers and i walked by there and there was like shelves and shelves and shelves of Elvira toppers. Cool. So, you know, surprise the hell out of me. I hadn't seen one of those in a while, so I'm not sure. I think anything we have a license for, we can make. I need a Beatles and a Munsters, so let's get those going. I'll see what I can do. You probably stand a better chance with the Munsters. I don't know if that Beatles license is still in force. Yeah. We never got a Beatles topper. No, or Munsters. Really? that's what everybody tells me like stern didn't give you one i'm like no they're fuckers i'm shocked i'm shocked you didn't get one i told mark the other day my batman's still not home and and i i told mark i said you know i don't think i have a batman topper stash somewhere and he said oh i got your back i put one away for you let's go thank god thank god i'm calling mark monday morning before you get in hey mark i need a batman topper well Well, Stern has always been one of the biggest and most talented rosters of people working on their games. So let's let's just jump into a few questions about the Stern crew and our good friend and world famous pinball streamer. You pay me to say that. Jack Danger said on our show that his ultimate dream job would have been to design a pinball machine. And he recently designed your Jurassic Park, the pin. So how has it been working with Jack? So clearly Jack brings, you know, really high pinball IQ, right? And that's one of the things I look for in the designers. So Jack got my attention because he was by hook or by crook screwing stuff together. And he was clearly proactive in trying to make something. He had no idea what he was doing, but he was making stuff all the time, right? And so I thought, you know, this is a guy that maybe I can work with. You know, he has a different background. And, you know, he did spend some time as an animator in computer graphics. And he clearly is tech savvy with all the video stuff. And like I said, he has a really high pinball IQ. He has a lot of energy. He brings a lot of energy into the studio. So I thought, well, we can maybe teach him the stuff he needs to know. He's been backed up by serious talent. Let's not make light of that. I'm surprised you let him in the building with that mullet. I think he's had some guys sort of filling in where he's like, and hopefully he's learning from those experiences. But I think he's, like I said, super high pinball IQ, lots of energy, lots of talent. And it's a question of channeling the talent. It's funny that you say, so I was in his team meeting yesterday, and I wasn't happy with something they were doing with a toy. And I gave him some ideas. And today I was walking back from lunch and on my phone, he had already mocked it up. I was like, wow, that's that's cool. That's exactly what designers are supposed to be doing, because I wasn't happy with the thing they were doing. And I went in there and said, you know, hey, guys, I don't this is not good enough. So and I just gave him a couple ideas and he came back with a thing. And so I think that's what you need. You know, I backfilled my traditional education in the areas that I needed to backfill it so that people couldn't tell me that can't be done or, you know, that's nonsense. Right. So I did it only to be able to bring my ideas to light. And I know the things I know because I've been doing this for four years. But I think that very early on in my career, when I rolled into Midway Games and, you know, I could draw and I could make things. But, you know, there was always an engineer telling me it couldn't be made. And okay, let me understand why. And that's my hope for the new guys that come in is that it, you know, it's not enough to just make cool stuff. It's like to make cool stuff real, you have to be able to defend your work. And how you defend your work is when people tell you no, and you really want to make it, you have to be able to help them see what you're seeing and get there. Yeah. So there's a lot of young guys in the building right now that, you know, want to aspire to. They want to be in different areas. And I think part of the mentoring process from the senior staff has got to be, let's help these guys, you know, let's help them understand, you know, why is it important that, you know, a ball guide is made this way? Why is it that, you know, we do this this way? The single biggest thing that I see when I look at the other companies in the pinball business is I see that the lack of tribal knowledge in a variety of different areas is absolutely stopping them. Right. So they don't even know what they don't know. Right. They don't even know what they don't know. So I see stuff all the time and I'm like, man, if there was like one guy in that building that knew how to do this, they wouldn't have done that. So, you know, it's not an accident that the companies other than us that fare best are companies that have guys that have been in those places, you know, and so they're bringing some of that tribal knowledge. Now, that tribal knowledge is a double-edged sword because I think we've moved the game on, meaning that, you know, I love the stuff I did in the 90s, but I got to tell you, the stuff we're making today is better than the stuff we did in the 90s. And I was like, as much as I will always love my Monster Bash, I will always own it. I will always have it. It will never leave. But the reality is that I have in my house, if you look behind me, you see a bunch of my 90s stuff back there, right? Yeah. And I play that stuff and my attention span, it won't engage me very long. It's a trip in nostalgia for me. It's like it reminds me of, you know, good times and bad times from those given eras. But the reality is that the stuff we're making, I'd much rather play Godzilla, Deadpool, Monsters, Rush. It's just greater depth. We've moved the game on. So I say that to you because if you don't, if you're constantly hearing, this is the way we did it at Williams, because those days are gone, buddy. Those days are gone and the world has moved on. And so it's kind of like, yes, it was a moment in time. Yes, we were the best there was back then. but I think that I'm more engaged by the stuff we're doing today. Yeah, I mean, how do you balance that? Because you have designers who have been in the game forever, right? I mean, and they know what feels good to them. If you look at the guys that I dragged from there, look at the stuff they're building, right? They agree with me. They've moved on. Dwight Sullivan has moved on. He doesn't want to make stuff like he did in the 90s. And so I think you've got a bunch of guys that, you know, some guys are slower in coming than others, but I think a lot of them agree with me. Elwin absolutely agrees with me. He's like, yeah, man, I can't play that 90s stuff anymore. It's like, I get it. I totally get it. So I think it's a question of making everybody aware that, you know, you've got to immerse yourself in this stuff. The tribal knowledge about what happened in the 90s and how to do things is important from a functional standpoint, but even that stuff's changed. Materials have evolved. Technology has evolved. Manufacturing processes have evolved. and I see that in some of the older guys that are still around from that era. Man, I'll tell you what, I cringe every time I hear that's the way we did it at Williams. I just like, I think that's probably not great advice today. Now you have to confess, are you going to let Jack put a spinner in the out lane? You know, Jack's got a killer flow play field that you guys are going to love in his next year. Another editor's note. If it suddenly sounds quieter in the background, that's because we made George close his posh high-rise penthouse window. Is that better? Much better, yes. That's much better, yeah. Jack is great at streaming and marketing pinball, and now he's designing pinball, and you have got a solid group of talented people that are working his turn, and a lot of them are strong in multiple areas. Keith Elwin, a great example of someone who can work with rules and design. You're a perfect example of someone who can do everything, pretty much. As the chief creative officer, how do you take someone like Raymond Davidson or Tim Sexton, who are amazing on code, but also great players who know what makes a pinball machine fun and help them branch out into other areas where they can showcase those other talents. So my vision is that game designers don't have a lock on creative. So amazing creative stuff comes from guys like Harrison Drake and Elliot Elliot Eismin and Tom Kopera and, you know, John Rothermel and Robert Blakeman, you know, the mechanical engineers, right? Amazing creative stuff comes from guys like Jeremy Packard, you know, in terms of impact, you know, Greg Ferraris is famous. He's an art director, but Greg is like slash game designer. I mean, he played an amazing, you know, I mean, Dennis gets the game designer title on those games, but good God. I mean, a lot of those ideas were as much Greg's. So my vision is that the best designers empower the teams to do what they do and to participate in the creative. So it's kind of like it's about letting people sort of, you know, water finds its own level kind of thing, right? You let these guys be what they want to be in the context of what they have to do. We all have, when you put a team together, everybody's got deliverables. The deliverables have to happen. So you want to geek out designing, you know, some cool element of that game. I don't think anybody's going to get in your way as long as your deliverables are there. So it's kind of like you want to cut plastic, but your job is to code. You know, somebody will let you cut plastic and try to get your ideas across. But the reality is that, man, that code's got to be there. So because it is somebody else's job to cut plastic. But the way they stay with the company is because they're learning, because they're growing, because they're engaging. Some of them are very happy doing what they do and staying in their lane and they're going to be in their lane forever because that's what they enjoy. Some of them are going to grow out of that. They're going to grow into other things. I can't tell you the number of guys I want to say, you know, they come to me and they say, hell, I was thinking I want to be this. Okay, here's a road and no guarantees. Nothing says you can get that seat because you're going to be put through the same filters I put everybody through. And so it's like if the deliverable in that area of your talent extension is not as good as your other talent, the conversation we're going to have is I really need you here because I really need you doing your core thing that you used to do for me before you tried to reach out to do this because you're really good at it. And you know, I mean, you got to realize it. And when you have those conversations, guys have a decision to make. I don't want to lose them. I want to keep them But at the same time I don want to handicap I don want to I don want to cripple the effort by getting somebody that you know maybe he a great coder He not such a great designer Maybe he a great designer He's not such a great rules guy. Maybe he's a great artist. He's not such a great concept guy. So it's kind of like, you know, you let people do as much as they want to do within the constraints. At the end of the day, you know, I've told you guys many times with our success comes a lot of discipline. And I know people don't want to hear it. And I know all the other shops out there are laughing at me as I say it because, you know, they think that's anathema to the process. But I believe in sandboxes. I believe in constraints. Constraints inspire creativity. I believe in discipline from the standpoint that we all have to be accountable. We all have to have responsibilities. You know, products got to cost the right amount of money. But it all begins, the very most important thing. I manage down, I manage up, right? I have to work with the other guys on the executive team. And we got nothing to make if the thing I'm making isn't fun and compelling. It's not fun and compelling. You're nothing. Your factory means nothing. Your we made it cost the right amount of money means nothing because nobody wants it because it's not fun and compelling. So the sacred mantra, the most important thing, fun and compelling. Now, lots of guys do fun and compelling and can't execute, right? They can't deliver. They can't make it cost what it needs to cost. It doesn't work, whatever. So the magic is you start with fun and compelling, but now you got to do your homework. You got to get it to the finish line. You got to do due diligence. So a lot of what I do is sort of let these guys do these things. But I'm the constant reminder, you know, hey, we got to, but we got to bring this in or we got to get this right. It's not always pretty, but it's, you know, it's what we have to do. Well, we had a few listeners reach out to get your advice on breaking into the industry. Ken Kemp asked about what you would say is the most helpful pathway in high school and college to break into design work. And Mervyn Heibert wants to know how you scout for new talent at Stern. Yeah, right. So you know, the history of a lot of the guys that broken into our business, a lot of the guys have made things that got people's attention, right? I first met Keith Elwin at a tournament in Arizona in 1996, when I did NBA fast break, and I was on a promotional tour with fast break, and he won the tournament. And I think fast break was like the game or whatever, in the tournament. And I sent him a bunch of swag. And I thought he was, you know, he's a great player. I didn't think anything more. And of course, I saw him, you know, throughout the years, I'd see him win tournaments and stuff. I knew who he was. I didn't really know him. A lot of guys in the studio started talking about, you know, he's building a homebrew. And, you know, like, you know, Gleiman said to me, I ought to take a look at this homebrew. Mark Guidarelli worked with him to try to help him with the homebrew. Mark had access to a lot of tooling and just different things and helped him a lot. And so one day I went on YouTube and I watched the Archer videos and I thought, this is pretty complete. You know, it's rough. but it's pretty complete. So, you know, we picked up the phone, flew him in, flew the prototype in, met with him, played it, and the rest is history, really. So I think lots of people approach me all the time with, I want to design, I want to do this, etc. And I get, like, some guys thinks he has to become a CAD expert to do this, or another guy thinks that he's got to do X to do this. And the single biggest thing is deeds, not words, right? It's kind of like, I don't care how you do it, just do something that's impressive that will get our attention. And that's a start. You know, Jack Danger showed me relentless. Like, I mean, he was like, relentless with, you know, here's this, and here's that, and here's this, and here's a drawing for this. And here's a, well, I'm doing this, I'm building this. And so at some point, I was like, high pinball IQ, working his ass off, trying to get my attention with different things. And, you know, some of them were, you know, I thought like you know conceptually you know pretty good so I thought let's give him a shot I told him and to this day you know I tell him all the time I said you know let's see you know designing a home edition the cool thing about home edition as a as a break-in is that it's hard to work with the limitations of that particular cost target it's very hard and I did it I pioneered that so I took the first shot and you know at the time when I was doing it there's a lot of guys that haven't arrived at where I am, where the true challenge is be elegant. That's the true challenge. It's not here's everything and the kitchen sink. Here's a billion dollars. Go do this thing. Well, that's not particularly challenging, you know. So I think that the home edition was a great challenge because, hey, you got one note board, whatever you can drive with one note board. That's what you're doing. That's like eight coil drives. I know. Yeah, that's the magic. It's like do something cool with eight coil drives and and you know some lamps and some switches and and that's that and beyond that you couldn't make one of those games full of steel because you couldn't afford it so it's like even then it's like you have to be clever with your ball guides you have to be clever with your ramps you have to be clever with your toys i told him i said you got to be checking yourself constantly and was it easy no it wasn't easy did they get in trouble yes i got him out of trouble a couple of times. So I say deeds, not words, build something, make me something. It's like, I want talent in all areas. I don't necessarily, you know, it doesn't always have to be designers. You know, I mean, a lot of our software engineers have come with a passion for the game, right? All the way back, all the way back to, you know, Willie days. Larry DeMar has a computer science and engineering degree from MIT. He could have gone to work anywhere. He could have done whatever he wanted. And he was interested in making games. And he came to Williams to make games. I have a lot of guys like that over the years, big credentials, big, big, big credentials, they could go to work anywhere, but they made a conscious choice. You know, in some cases, they took less money, because our industry is not, you know, we're not General Motors, you know, we're not Ford, we're not Boeing. So my salary scales are, they're competitive, but they may not be competitive to, you know, a guy with a degree from MIT maybe can get a lot more money somewhere. So I think a lot of people have said, I'm in it for the love of the game. And, you know, I have, it's interesting, I won't tell you who it was. I overheard a conversation amongst a couple of mechanical engineers, one guy wanting to design, and the other guy saying to him, good God, why would you want to do that? Right. And what that means is the guy that said that is perfectly happy being the mechanical engineer for a game and has no ask. You know, it's like that's why would you want to do that? You know, it sounds like if they end up at Stern, they clearly want to be there. And that passion is what drives good products. Absolutely. I don't have anybody that isn't there. I've said it in terms of my own career, I'm blessed, you know, that I've that I've had the opportunities I've had to make entertainment products. God knows how boring my life would be if it wasn't that, right? Well, that kind of leads us to the next question. And it's it's it's just that if you look at the work history on the resume of any of the pinball greats, you see that almost everyone has worked for multiple companies. The shuffling of staff from one to the next is pretty impressive. And most recently, Steve Ritchie left Stern. And I know that you guys had a long history together. He was there with you at Williams when you first got into pinball. So how do you deal with losing someone like that? And do you have a favorite Steve Ritchie story or memory that you can share with us? Well, I have a lot of Steve Ritchie stories. I think that when somebody, you know, happiness in our lives is really important. And so when somebody's not happy, for whatever reason, they need to go make themselves happy because I can't make you happy. There's nothing I could do. It doesn't matter even if you're fighting with me about what you want to do and I'm saying no, it doesn't matter. I can't make you happy. So I think that I think Steve clearly wasn't happy and he went to make himself happy and, you know, more power to him. Organizations have cultures and you either fit into that culture, embrace that culture, feel a part of it, or you don't. And I am somewhat responsible for the culture of my studio. I'm proud of it. And I don't think I have to make apologies to anybody. You know, the portfolio speaks for itself. And so I want guys that want to be there and that they, you know, they come to work every day, excited to be there in that environment, in that culture, doing the things they do. And so everybody's got opinions and the guys that are inside working on stuff. I think, you know, for the most part, they're happy to be there. Is every day a walk in the park? No, every day is not a walk in the park or every day is not a walk in the park, no matter what you choose to do. You know, there's hard days, there's easy days, there's days when you're biting with your co-workers and days when you're not and you know look i've got some amazing talent right Brian Eddy right and i think brian is is one you know we were talking earlier about how you know you just can't have your feet stuck in the williams mud right and um brian is a guy that has clearly moved on from the williams mud you know meaning that you know he's had several careers like i have always creating creative stuff you know always making stuff he's learned different things. One of the coolest things about the studio is that I really do have a depth of expertise in lots of different areas. So when I want to talk about interactive products, video interactive products, and when I wanted, you know, to bounce IC ideas, or I want to talk about some future digital effort or something like that, Brian will be one of the guys that I go to for counsel, because he's been in those places. You know, we were both executive producers running development teams in Xbox and PlayStation Land. And then he went on to make mobile games. And so I think that, you know, you tap the areas of expertise, right? When I have a mechanical engineering problem, I'm going to go see Tom Capera, right? And I'm going to say, hey, what do you think about this? And so I think the depth of talent, I'm happy that I have guys like that that have been in lots of different places because they are richer for it than someone that's been in the same thing every day for many years, right? Because those people have not learned as much. Maybe they know a lot about, you know, the rope process or whatever is related to making a pinball machine. But the, hey, I took five years off and I went and made mobile games. Guess what? When he comes back to make pinball machines, that experience is influencing his work. Just like I told you guys that my experience, like wrapping my hands around Xbox Live and PlayStation Network, when I was making NBA Ballers informed a lot of my thinking on Insider Connected, right? Just like, so whatever those experiences are, Jack Danger has a lot, you know, he knows a lot about, you know, essentially the notion of entertaining people, entertaining them in a different way. So those kind of experiences out of the day-to-day, you know, I make pinball machines thing, inform those designers. Dwight Sullivan is an award-winning board game creator, right? And so it's like, how do you not imagine that those forays into that area of creative aren't influencing his design of pinball machines? They absolutely are. Yeah, you're taking the strengths from every industry you've been in and applying them to pinball. That's great. And you know, you learned Years ago, I was at some IMAX movie, and there was a little movie at the beginning while you're waiting with the previews. And the entire movie was about Tour de France guys and how they're preparing, right? And they show this bike racer crashing on wet cobblestones. And the message was, you know, the next time that he encounters wet cobblestones, the act of crashing on those wet cobblestones made all kinds of new neural connections. This movie was from a drug company. The point they were making was that, you know, there was a period in time in which there was a belief that our brains worked in a certain way. And since then, they've determined that, you know what, it's not such a linear process. And there are new connections that you make when you experience new things. And whether those new things are positive or negative, every one of those new things builds new neural networks. And so the notion of experiencing new work environments, new challenges, I can tell you that in my own experience, every environment that's been new to me when I started working there is an environment that I had to prove myself in. you know, I'm ambitious, I'm motivated, I want to be successful. There was a moment in time when I came into the business and my charge was to work on coin-operated upright video games, and I wanted to prove myself in that arena. And I knew nothing when I went there, right? And then I wanted to invent toys, and I knew nothing when I went there, and so on and so on, right? So it's kind of like those experiences, the fact that, hey, one day you're the effing new guy, and, you know, you're absolutely, you know, in the military, you're a boot, you know, you're just absolutely lowest rung, and you have to work to get out of that. Those are the experiences that I think in all those different environments, you know, there was a point in time when Brian went into mobile games, he didn't know anything about mobile games. And, you know, Dwight had some idea for a board game, but he played board games, but he had never really been through that process, right? So those things inform us, and those things, they make us richer. And that richness is the thing you bring to the creative when you work in my studio to build your pinball machine. Yeah, I can't imagine the learning curve that Jack Danger is going through right now and any other people who are new to the industry. It's new and exciting. That's awesome. I have to ask, when Steve left Williams to go to Atari, you said you snagged his fancy, expensive drawing table and you got that in your apartment? It's like right here. Did you steal anything from Steve this time when he left? No. No, I walked in there and said, throw all this shit out. all right well you had mentioned in previous interviews that you had often designed a game when there was an unexpected opening question from our listeners jonathan houston of pinball magazine hi my name is jonathan houston asks if stern is still releasing Steve Ritchie's final game that he designed for them or will george or someone else redesign it uh yeah no it was So Steve's game got trashed. You know, we're not doing anything with it. And yes, I picked it up. I picked up the brand and saw I'm working on it. It's another super awesome exclusive. Yep. New George game. All right. Excellent. One last thing before we get into new topics here. One legendary of a certain team who left us much too soon was Lime and Sheets. a few listeners including Mervyn Heibert and Jeremy asked if you could just share a story or a favorite memory that you have about Lyman wow, I'll tell you that you know this thing is it's a thing I'm still processing it's too soon, that's fine it's a thing I'm still kind of wrapping my head around we'll save that one for another day yeah it's just it's too soon it's I mean I just yeah I have a day will come when I can talk about that stuff yeah you know this is real life so you know you just it's real life man yeah our last episode was an interview that we did with Lyman and it was so good to hear him again and just how passionate he was about pinball and all of his all the stories I could listen to forever yeah I mean look I I have this guy and I made some of the most significant stuff in my portfolio together so we had a we had a very um a very rich but difficult at times and and complex and also fun relationship meaning that you know it was uh it was uh uh there were a lot of you know there were a lot of battles but there was also a lot of joy and uh it was you know it's you know it's uh it's just i'm not done processing it yeah understood george i appreciate you even attempting you need a moment george because we can hang on first no i just let me get some water yeah of course sure you know that's that's something that no if i would have read through these questions i would have taken that well that was a common that was one of the most common questions asked by our listeners and yeah but still though i know i wouldn't have expected to get an answer from anybody on that one that's a tough one uh like like chris was saying i think uh there there will come a time when i think that uh you know i can talk about it yeah talk about everything that's totally fair uh i'm just not there yet and and it and it's uh it's it's actually you know the fact that i'm not has actually surprised me i don't have my head wrapped around I didn't imagine that it was going to affect me the way that it did. So anyway I mean I think a time will come and I gladly share a lot of great stories and we memorialize him the right way Because the emotion the emotion set you know that I feeling right now is just a very it very complex There's a lot of some days I'm not happy with him. Some days, you know, I really miss him. You know, that's man. It's just, you know, it's it's not it's it's. it's never cut and dry you know it's like you just never i wasn't prepared for it in any way so it's kind of like and uh so anyway we'll talk about it yeah i think how you know how difficult it is is a testament to how special he was absolutely quick editors you know we all took a break right here just to collect ourselves after talking about lyman george specifically asked us to leave that part in so that you could understand how he felt about lyman and i think it's very brave that he did so so right now we're going to go to a commercial break and try to come back and lift the show back up the super awesome pinball show somehow number one without a twippy it does go well with a chicken Brought to you by Cointaker in lovely Sunbury, Pennsylvania. Also available at All Save War and Cunningham's Drugs. Now that will word drive our sponsor! This show is sponsored by Cointaker, distributor of brand new full-size authentic Stern pinball, Chicago gaming, raw thrills, arcade games, and much more. Also a full line of dramatic pinball mods, LED flipper kits, speaker lights, custom laser LED toppers, playfield protectors, Bally Williams parts, pinball apparel, and much more. Get the latest releases and glam out your game room with Cointaker. Everything at your fingertips at Cointaker.com. Get your game on. Well, hello, folks. Ed Ed Robertson here from Bare Naked Ladies. If you can hear my voice, it's because you're listening to the super awesome pinball show, and you do so at your own peril. You see, I know the people that make this show. They are rap scallions, scallywags, ne'er-do-wells. So continue listening, but don't say I didn't warn you. Now, back to our program. Recent Stern games have shown a more custom animated interface with video assets as opposed to actual TV, movie, band clips, that sort of thing. Is this a trend that will swing into a standard first turn or will we actually see assets return to games? Maybe it's a cost-cutting move or a solution to assets being squelched by other studios and IP owners. No, it's definitely not a cost-cutting move when we have to make stuff. It's actually costs more to make stuff than it does to play clips. It's just that, you know, we talked a little bit earlier about the licensing complexity, the complexities of the licensing world. And there are brands where you don't get anything in the way of assets. You get the brand. You get some ability to, you know, extend their world or operate in their world, but you don't get much. And then there are other brands where you do. And when you do, you want to leverage it. You know, I mean, think of, you know, think about Batman, right? Think how cool it was that we managed to use all those clips, right? those clips are really integral to taking you back making you feel like when you're a little kid you're watching that stuff you know i think lyman you know it did a masterful job of editing them it was a passion project for him a passion project for all of us right i mean passion project for chris um and so you know i think that we all you know we grew up with that stuff so when we found out that we had access to those clips we're like wow this is like phenomenal um you'll notice that there are a couple of areas in the game that we didn't have anything to show we couldn't use the clips from the film so the extra ball animations and the shark stuff and all that you know you know him running down the dock with the ball steve Steve Ritchie on the dock i wish you know that that that was like you know we had to do that because we didn't get access to the film got access to the tv clips or not the film so i think when we do animation first of all you know realize that it's not costing less chuck's guys are great at uh chuck himself and the way he runs his little studio within the studio he's a guy that he's firmly grounded in reality so designers you know and and developers come in waving their arms all the time and he's my first line of defense you know he says you know he waits patiently while they do their big show and tell and run around and you know waving their arms and and then he says yeah i can't do that but but the follow-up is but i could do this right and that's the magic right and and you know look at Godzilla right those guys are so they're so creative they're very inventive that facial motion capture rig that they screwed together you know a bicycle helmet and you know a freaking webcam or something you know it's like like you know to get the facial animations on the aliens you know I mean that's that's great stuff right so so Insider Connected does dictate a sort of a basic interface because of the way that scores have to line up and and so that we can display avatars and and i you know and certain icons and stuff so that influenced sort of a template so the template you know we'll follow the template it doesn't mean the score frames are going to look the same the score frames just you know may still be themed to the game but you're going to see less weird interfaces where you know like this guy's got four stacked scores on the left and that guy has them all along the bottom and stuff like that as a matter of fact i got some grief when ic came out from the deadpool guys because some guys were used to my old deadpool interface and they didn't like the new one but it was you know it's a functional constraint you know that we had we had to make some compromises to integrate ic into into the games and that was one of them and so you'll still see themed interfaces and stuff but they're going to follow that pattern that template if you will and then you know it's it's really not about that interface anyway it's it's about the stuff that happens because you know inside of beyond it right and so when we have clips you'll see clips when we don't have clips you won't see clips it's funny you mentioned the Batman clips because now it's the reverse because I went back and I've been watching old Batman episodes. I'm like, hey, no, that's the one in the pinball machine. That's the one in the pinball machine. They used that one. It's really kind of cool. Well, heck, speaking of artwork, with legendary and super nice guy Greg Freres staring down a cozy life of retirement after an amazing pinball career. Not anytime soon, Greg. That's not what I'm saying. But even so, have you been preparing Jeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti) to assume the role of Stern Art Director? zombie yeti no we haven't had any any discussions uh i mean that the role of the art director i have been thinking about you know i mean there's a succession you know the company we believe in succession planning because succession planning ensures the longevity of the company sure and it starts at the highest level and so in the executive team we are all thinking about our succession plan i'm not going anywhere soon but the reality is that you know i'm old. And so you're old. We believe in succession planning. Am I going anywhere soon? No, I'm not going anywhere. But at the same time, I have to think about, you know, what comes after me, who's going to do my job in, you know, in five years, or whenever it is that I decide that I want to just consult to the company or something. So I think that the best example of succession planning is, you know, we just hire Seth Davis, who hopefully, you know, one day, you know, when Gary decides that he's going to take it easy, you know, Seth, you know, may take over. And so we've all been thinking about, you know, how does that happen? And, you know, you asked me specifically about Greg. Well, I, you know, I hope Greg sticks around for a while, but yeah, at some point I may have to think about replacing the art director. The art director role, by the way, is, it's a very difficult thing. And sometimes it's, I think Chris, you have some insight into this, you know, it's a, It's a guy that can effectively bring the best out of the diverse talents that are going to work for him. And you've seen a bunch of new guys come in and, you know, and do work. And, you know, we still believe that the skill set of the artist is relevant to the theme. And so, you know, the guy that did Rush, you know, I think he did a great, marvelous job with Rush. It looks like Rush, feels like Rush. So I think that the art director has to bring that out. he has to make those choices. You know, he's got to say, this is the talent that I think fits that. And, you know, Jeremy loves every minute of his day. And, you know, it's really funny. You know, he's got that giant wet constant teak, right? And, you know, he's like on number seven or something. Yeah, I'm experiencing the same thing on mine too. Are you? And so it's like, yeah. And I have a funny feeling. I was like, I was kidding him that, you know, might have something to do with the fact that the damn thing's on 20 hours a day. yeah yeah definitely could be because sometimes i've been trying to make a habit of shutting it off but i do sometimes come into the morning and there's my work from last night the good news is the guy's working 20 hours a day the tools can't take it we've got a we've got a question from the listener from a listener uh steven new wants to know what happens to all the prototype stuff the artwork the whitewoods the notes and designs after a game is done and dusted like who owns the the original stuff to a lot of these games uh so the company keeps a lot of it and the company archives things that are significant some stuff gets trashed and some stuff gets given away for auctions to charities and signed by designers and some stuff gets given away at shows so it's a combination of things there is storage in the company of a bunch of things that might be relevant you know and like for example there's a One of my Lord of the Rings whitewoods is at the Strong Museum in Rochester, New York. So museums get some of it. The company actually owns notebooks and stuff like that, right? Because it's intellectual property that belongs to the company. That's cool. Well, I have to ask one question that a listener sent in because it was the funniest question that I heard from anyone. Jordan Stoltz asks, did it hurt? What? When you fell down from heaven to design pinball machines. I guarantee that dude has used that as a pickup line in a bar. Guarantee. Oh, my God. I don't think I've ever heard that one. You got a lot of fans out there, George. I can never tell. Honestly, I can't because I don't spend much time in what I call the negative spaces. But, you know, sometimes I see things that I shouldn't see, you know, and I think, man, I wish I hadn't seen that, you know. but but there are there are also a bunch of guys i think i reawoke a bunch of guys with deadpool i have a lot of deadpool fans and so i had a guy came up to me and i think he was trying to pay me a compliment but it's really a backhanded compliment he ran into me in the factory and he says oh my god he says i love deadpool he said you still have it i mean listen i feel like the people who are in pinball tend to stay in pinball for a very long time and it's got to be tough to continually evolve and one-up yourself you know or at least just come out with the same quality stuff that you've been doing when you've gone through so many iterations of what's going on in your head and what you think might be a good pinball machine just to keep it fresh. I mean, do you feel like that's a challenge? Yeah, it's a big challenge. I don't, you know, I'm never happy with my own stuff, meaning, you know, it's like now I'm happy. Like, you know, we were talking about yesterday, the last time we talked, you know, I don't think I'd change anything in a Deadpool. I don't think I'd change anything in a Monster Bash. So clearly I arrived at happiness. But I can tell you that while I was making the game, you know, I was never happy with it and uh you don't even want to talk to me about the one i'm working on now because i you know i'm in that phase where i hate it and i think uh Jeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti) he's very much like this in some ways and that he he'd like show you he'll show you this beautiful thing and you and you go wow that's amazing and he'll go i hate it i've never met anyone more self-deprecating than jeremy everything he does It doesn't matter if he wins a million awards. It's the worst. No. So part of the blessings, you know, for me have been the fact that I've been able to evolve the arc of my career. I'm in a really good place in that I've enjoyed building the studio over the last, you know, since 2011, I've started with full time with Stern. So I've enjoyed the arc clearly because I don't know if I would have enjoyed it if we would have had a lot of failures. But but certainly, you know, it's kind of like the work reflects the effort. And so we, you know, we, we work hard, we've been disciplined, we've, you know, strive to make great shit. And so, you know, we just like keep pushing, pushing, pushing. So I'm, I feel like I'm in a really good place because I can, I love, I love, uh, when I see a team struggling, uh, with something or not, or needing help with something. I love, I love jumping in and helping. And I love directing and directing them to try to get them to a place. And, and so, so that's a lot of fun for me. And then the realities of running the business, that's something that I learned at Stern. It was new to me because I always came from that, you know, from just from the creative side. It was all about, you know, don't talk to me about that business stuff. You know, but the reality is that business stuff is really instrumental in being successful. And so you have to kind of pay attention. You have to learn it. And I think that what Gary and Dave put together in an executive team was pretty rough in 2011. we didn't get along we didn't you know we weren't working happily together we weren't bumping into each other it was tough but that's not the case today the pressure of it the reality the realization of the fact that you know i need for kevin schichtel to be very successful and he needs for me to be very successful and i have to do everything i can to make him successful and he's got to do the same for me and i can say that about john and and all the other guys on the executive team right because that's what it takes that's what it takes to to do the thing we do so i think you know you ask about is it hard to reinvent myself is it hard to do new games yeah it's hard to do new games i mean it's like uh everybody talks about you know can't wait for my my next two flipper game guess what this one's got three really it's another super awesome exclusive All right, that was one of the characteristics of a Gomez design, was only two flippers. Except that my very first game ever was a three-point game, and everybody forgets that. So I've revisited that, just because I said, yeah, let's break out a little bit and do something. So I think that part of it is always challenging, because I'm never thinking, when I shoot the game today, I think, yeah, I'm not happy with this, I'm not happy with that, I've got to do something about that, it's just like a billion problems. and then that's no different than it's ever been but the other part of my job you know working with the teams and working with the exec team on the company and and trying to say you know what I'm not sure what the word is maybe it's proactive maybe it's we're living in the moment but we're really focused about on what does this company look like in 10 years and the reason that we're focused on that we do two things we call it when you're there every day we call it working in the business. And then we do a quarterly offsite, the executive team. And on those days, when we're at the quarterly offsite, we're working on the business, not in the business. So it's sort of like, what does this company look like in 10 years? And I'll tell you this, I'll tell you that in 2011, when I joined and we started doing these things, the vision for 10 years from 2011 is the vision that we built. It's the vision that we built. But in 2011, we weren't who we are today. And we are what we are today because in 2011, we sat down and said, what does this business look like in 10 years? Right. So it's a great amount of effort, some amount of luck and some proactive strategic thought. You know, like, what do we want it to be? How do we want it to work? And by far, there's so many broken things. Right. Like, I mean, you know, I think I'm not hiding from the quality problems. I want to fix the quality problems. part of my what does this look like in 10 years is all this stuff's gone you know and all those problems are not what they are today you know we need more statistical data management relative to the faults we need more application of the of the processes that will allow us to troubleshoot that stuff we need more vendor accountability you know you can't just substitute materials on me and when shit fails i eat it you don't own it you know so so there's a lot of a lot of those kind of things that they're not fixed in a day. And it unfortunate because you really want to wave your hand and say tomorrow no more of these issues right Because it painful It costs the company money We try to make good on warranty stuff et cetera And the same thing too is in 10 years what's the revenue picture for the company? How many owners do we have? What's the footprint of the company? What are the different areas of business activity, right? What's the parts department look like? What's the accessories business look like? Have we fixed these issues of not being able to deliver stuff on time, not being able to deliver stuff, you know, when people want it, all this kind of stuff, right? So it's big. You'll see us, you know, I mean, we're making moves. You know, we are trying to, you know, we are trying to satisfy demand. You know, you'll see a lot of growth in the company in the next couple of years. And so, yes, part of my blessing is that my career has allowed me to evolve from, at one point, just focused on, I'm just designing these things, and now my picture's bigger. Mm-hmm, that's awesome. That was a great answer. I'd love to know what the 2032 outlook is with Stern, but obviously that's not going to happen. Fire Jack Danger. Well, hey, it's time for our celebrity question. We got more response for this contest than any other contest before. I think we had something like 50 names. Man, I don't want to disappoint. I think you have a good shot at this. But I had my daughter just close her eyes and pick from all the names that came in. And she picked Ryan Lowe from Yakima, Washington. So, George, you are playing for Ryan. Okay. Ryan, I hope I don't let you down, man. And now it's time for Mystery Celebrity Question. George, what was the creative vision and what was the management reaction when you designed the wacko cabinet? Okay, George, now you have seven seconds to guess who that is before you answer the question. Okay, your guess? Greg Freres? Greg Freres? No. Incorrect. How many guesses does he get? Play it one more time. And George, listen to the inflection, because even though the voice is disguised, you can probably pick up on it. George, what was the creative vision and what was the management reaction when you designed the Wacko cabinet? That's tough. You know, I like first. So I didn't design the Wacko cabinet. Oh, that might be important. So we know the celebrity question. But I was there when the Wacko cabinet was designed. And I was doing cabinets from time to time. So my first thought when I heard this was it had to be somebody that was around that knew that I was there and sort of assumed that I did that. The Wacko cabinet was actually done over at Marvin Glasson Associates where I would go on to work. And those guys conceptualized, you know, it was a great fit to the game, right? Because they did the game, actually. And so they did the cabinet with it. And so there was an engineering team inside that took their concept, you know, the whacked out cabinet and made it real. I wasn't a part of that. So take a second, try and guess who it was, and then let us know what the management's reaction was to it. So who do you think it was? We'll give you one more guess. Let me hear it again. George, what was the creative vision and what was the management reaction when you designed the wacko cabinet? That's tough. I mean, it's really altered. It is really hard. I have no idea. No stuff. Is it somebody that's currently in my sphere? Yes. Think about who Franchi knows. Hey, why don't you shut up? Why don't you just give it to him? I'm doing my best. Think about who Franchi knows. No, don't think about who I know. Jeremy? Who? Jeremy? Jeremy? are we gonna let him guess until he gets it i don't know i honestly i can't tell i can't tell uh ryan is it yeah no it's all right that was that was the uh that was the risk all right so yeah okay here we go are you ready for the big reveal yeah george this question was asked by your buddy joe camenco oh my god you guys really really jacked his voice i didn't pick up inflections at all i mean i thought that little yeah christian was right that little lift on the last word you said was very joe oh my god i'm yeah so joe and i have talked i think we've talked about this because this is classic joe he calls me up one day he's in a creative meeting at one of his many creative efforts and he's trying to teach or he's trying to tell these guys that he's working with about a game called clone which was done at marvin glass associates in that same era and it was a game that had a camera and it would you know snap a picture of you and make you the character in the game coin operator game i mean you know 1984 85 so you can imagine how ahead of its time that was right um you know today that's no big deal but back then and so joe's telling them you know oh this was done you know back in you know such and such and he knew it had been done at glass so he calls me up right and and i think you know he was like wasn't that game or i can't remember what the question was but it was like yeah you're talking about clone and so there was marvin glass used to pitch video game concepts to Bally Midway and during that time they did you know they did domino man they did wacko they did tapper and uh and journey uh remember journey and journey yeah and so and and and those guys being toy inventors or being you know the studio was was was full of different talent and so the video game guys were surrounded by guys doing toys and so at some point in time you know they stepped out the video game guys stepped out into the studio and said somebody give us a chance you know here's the concept of the game somebody gives a cabinet they brought us this cabinet that was like whacked out because it was like you know all like the marquee was at an angle the you know the you know like the you know the the roof of the cabinet was like you know sideways it looked like it was broken uh peewee's playhouse yeah and so uh so yeah so no i didn't i actually didn't do that but one of the guys there did you know i went to midway first out of school and then i went to Glass. And when I went to Glass, they had gotten out, they were getting out of the video game business. But my introduction to those guys was when they were in the video game business, because I was at Midway and I was helping them with like understanding how our system worked and stuff like that. So in terms of the art stuff, you know, like, like our pixel tools and that kind of thing. So yeah, call the reaction that management had. Yeah, it like, yeah now you gotta throw a picture of the wacko cabinet up there so people can see the thing people can google it but the guys at glass got a lot of you know they they had such a reputation that they got a lot of a lot of things that would have been um poo-pooed internally in the internal development teams those guys got a buy-on so i think that everybody was kind of like we can't make that you know so like you know because like wait how are we going to do that and so because it's like you know you're basically creating this whacked out shape and our cabinet house at the time like smith manufacturing which is this physically was in the space where chicago gaming is and that was like smith manufacturing the cabinet company that supplied all the midway and valley cabinets and i can tell you that those guys were like hey you guys out of your minds you know you got a bunch of guys i think at the time i don't think there were any cnc routers i think they were still routing stuff with routing plates so you know they would cut you know take a four by eight sheet of plywood and they would make fixtures and you know the guy would literally you know run a router around on you know on a table so you can imagine like the bizarre conglomeration of wood that was required to build this whacked out cabinet. Yeah. Hence the name the Wacko cabinet. All right, well sorry Ryan. Hey, you know what? We can get him on a technicality because Joe was wrong in that. George didn't design it. Ryan wins the prize. Oh nice, Ryan, congratulations. I'll throw in a signed Deadpool Translite. How's that? Whoa! That is amazing. The next contestant, Christopher Franchi, is playing. Thank you so much, George. That's awesome. Yay. So we had a few more listener questions. Oh, here. How about this one? Lucas Pepke asks, Dear George, are you sending me a signed katana for my Deadpool Pro? That would be super cool if you did. It's really cool that you did that, though, for a few random customers. Like, how often do you just throw something fun into the cabinet? We do it from time to time. some of the Deadpool guys that just got their Deadpools, they're going to find is that I vandalized some of those games with my signature. That's cool. Now, where do you sign it? Well, see, that's just it. Different places because I just kind of went out on the line one day and grabbed what I grabbed and signed it. That's cool. All right. In truth, I can't do all of them, but I grabbed some random stuff and, you know. That's cool. Some guy's going to lift his play field up to, you know, pick something. And he's like, I can't play. Look at this. Autographed flipper coil. No, I can't put this jerk sign in my game. It's broken. That's what I'm thinking. Like, if I did that, somebody would be like, why don't you wash your crap off my game and send it back, jerk? Sorry. Jonathan Joosten of Pinball Magazine asks, is there a story to George's handwriting? He has a very unique way of writing by hand, very stylish. Was that always his way of writing by hand, or did he just change to that later on? So I've gotten this question before, right? I can't remember. Somebody's asked me this question, but where it comes from is back in the day, all of us that learned how to draw on a drafting board, we had to letter our drawings, right? And so it was typically a very architectural style. And it begins when they teach years ago. I don't know what they do now because we do it all on computers. But years ago, when people taught hand drafting, everyone had to, you know, there was some amount of effort in lettering a drawing accurate, you know, so it was legible. And legible became moved into stylistic. And so if you look at old architectural drawings, even like look at some of the drawings from famous architects, like look at Frank Lloyd Wright's stuff or whatever, and you'll see a style in the lettering that calls things out on the drawing, etc. And so it began that way. And I just, I always hand lettered. And in school, you know, we were taught, you always sign and date your stuff. And I've been, you know, not entirely consistent in that. Over the years, my signature evolved. At some point, it was just kind of a pain in the ass. And it's like, you just kind of, like, I just finished this drawing. I've been working on it forever. And I just like scribble something on there. But it always basically was an extension of the hand lettering, meaning it was stylistically close. And then it just sort of evolved and it got, it got, you know, and, and, and then as I came into pinball or, you know, different things and people started asking me to sign stuff, then it just, you know, it just became more necessary. Yeah. And then, and then when, you know, it was like the guys had like, actually two of your buddies, Mr. Franchetti, Dennis and Greg always bust my chops about it. And, and bored. This is great. So I get like a Borg vacation sign-off request on my desk, and he has forged like mine. Borg is just a little squiggle, though. So the funniest part is it's Borg trying to forge my signature. So it's not pretty. It looks like a 10-year-old took a crayon and tried to draw straight lines, you know. and Greg you know Greg and Dennis you know they would go on a podcast and laugh they were like you know get your T-square out you got to do your I said that to somebody we were doing a signing at it might have been Texas Pinball Festival and you were supposed to be there but you were running late and somebody asked if you were going to be there and I said you had to run up to his hotel room and get his protractors and T-square right Right. The other question I get all the time is, how do I determine the number of dots on the line? After each line, right? So, so, Jonathan, you'll see the dots and everybody asked me. And so I was at some show and some guys were comparing. Hey, mine's got three dots. Mine's better. Mine's got two dots. Another guy's got, I only got one dot. so so the dots were a thing that happened because the earliest paint markers that we were using were kind of loose you know and so you know if you weren't paying attention you know you'd do a thing and then you'd get a couple of dots out of it so you just made it part of it it's official so the first time i saw that i was like i was like oh i screwed that up and i was like no That was kind of cool. So then I started adding the dots. Nice. And I always put the dots somewhere else because it's become a thing with people. So now it's just like I got to keep them entertained. This time one of my fantastic posters, I got to go look to see how many dots I got to see how valuable it is. The dot should be like a fan rating, like how much you've entertained. You only get one dot if you're a nice guy. no because like gary used to bust me because back in the day well like gary and the designer signed certain le's like i don't know 100 years ago when they when we used to sign them on the playfield yeah so what would happen is you'd get a call from uh the guys at the cabinet company chicago gaming or whatever and you'd get a call and you'd say we're gonna have you know 100 playfields in the morning and so the playfields you had to sign them before they went to hard code so they would be so you know they'd be screened and back and back in those days we were Marc Silk screening stuff still uh you know we weren't digitally printing yet so so you'd get up at the crack of dawn right because the factory would start early and you didn't want them to have downtime so i'd meet gary out there you know with our coffee it's like you know uh really early and i'm doing the signatures and gary's done in 20 minutes and i'm and it shows and he'd say well i guess we're not to have breakfast together. I'm not going to wait for you to sign all these boards. Well, I'll tell you a time-saving technique which won't sacrifice the quality of your signature whatsoever. You just go to G instead of George because I always sign my stuff C for Angie now. I don't sign Christopher anymore. It's just too much prep. Right, right. For sure. Yep, that's the question. I'm glad I figured out this Skype thing. It was making me crazy. especially when you guys were alluding to the fact that my technology level is equivalent to Dennis Nordman's. I told my wife that story. She was dying laughing. I want to reach to the screen. Well, I know we all feel very lucky to be able to spend so much time with you, George. We know you're extremely busy. It's an honor to have you. We can't thank you enough for being so candid and sharing all of this with our listeners. I'll tell you that I have a good time talking to you guys. We laugh a lot, and it's always a good way to do this. I just checked my Pentastic poster. I got two dots. It's way better than one dot. Not quite as good as three dots. Two dots is, you know what? You're okay. That's right. I'll take it. I will take it. Appreciate it, George. Well, I know you've got stuff to do tonight, so thank you so much for coming on. Thanks a lot, guys. It was great. This was great. All right. Thanks, guys. Thank you, George. Have a good night. and that's going to do it for episode number 31 of the super awesome pinball show we'd like to thank our pal george gomez for coming on the show again we love having him on be sure to tune in for our next show when we have american pinball's randy mcquade coming on to talk about the future of sonic spinball all that and more on the super awesome pinball show if you'd like to email us you can do so at super awesome pinball at gmail.com and the contents of this show is copyright at 2022 Asshat Radio Productions. Good night, everybody. Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies. Okay, bye-bye now. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. Goodbye, goodbye. Okay, bye-bye for now. Bye. Later days. Goodbye, goodbye, good friends, goodbye This isn't over until I say it's over! Bye, bye, bye Bye, bye Bye, bye, bye Goodbye to you Good day, sir Get the fuck out of here Hasta luego, shit face I gotta go, I'll see you later Okay, okay, show's over, folks, bye-bye Bye-bye Hasta la vista, baby Hey, your fucking chalupa sucks, dude Thank you.