Episode 3 - Keith Lancaster

It's episode three. Yay! Today's guest is Keith Lancaster, one of my best friends. I've known him for quite some time.

He's a director, videographer, producer. Most recently, he was the producer of the hit documentary Rise of the Sufferfest, which is a crazy documentary on these like tough-mutter competitions that have you go through like this intense 12-mile muddy obstacle course. It's freaking bananas and a really quite a fantastic documentary that you should buy or rent on iTunes as soon as you can because it's awesome. This episode we talk about anime, old Nintendo games, Final Fantasy, movies, and a little bit of politics, which I will warn you before we get into it just in case you're tired of people just talking about politics.

I know it's a crazy climate right now. We just couldn't help ourselves and we just started getting into it. But I will give you a spot to fast forward before that goes on. That's my dog running in the background if you can hear that.

So yeah, I'll give you a spot to fast forward to just case when it's skipped through all that. Just get right back into the meat of the conversation. There you go. So let's get on with the episode.

Here is Keith Lancaster. So good to have you here, bro. Thanks, man. This is really great.

I want to say that I'm proud of you for doing it. Oh, he's doing this doing all this doing all this podcast and working out the growing pains. Yeah, transitional period in my life. It's weird just like throwing yourself out there and doing something different.

Yeah, then you have been doing for the past however many years I've been doing it since I was 16. Yeah, I've been trying to make it as a musician. Couldn't get signed, bro. I mean, it's not even a tool world.

It would be so famous. Well, you're famous to me. Oh, that's very sweet of you. And you're famous to me.

Even though you actually have IMDB credits. I do not have IMDB credits. I have a movie playing in airplanes everywhere. That's amazing.

Rise of the Supperfest. You know what? When you started doing that, I was so put off because I first, because I've known you for a long time, we actually met when we worked together here at the Hustler Store. And you just don't strike me as the guy who would go to these fucking Supperfest and just kill yourself these fucking Iron Man marathons.

And then you started doing that after you moved to LA and I hadn't seen you in years and you started doing that. I was like, what the fuck is Keith doing? Is he having a midlife crisis? What is going on?

The funny thing about that though is that I wasn't that person. I'm still not that person. I was raised on this kind of principle of anything worth doing is worth doing well. And I was working on another movie, like a drama movie, though, shooting in Paris.

And I had a friend who was a journalist and he stumbled into that whole sport by writing an article that kind of took off, is on 16 minutes sports and stuff about the contentious origins of Tough Mudder. And he got the idea to make a documentary like a film about this topic. And I think I was the only filmmaker that he knew. And we weren't even that close.

And he just kind of hit me up. He's like, hey, will you help me do this? I was like, really Tough Mudder? Like, I don't know.

And then I showed up to a Spartan race and filmed it. And like, I was still like smoking cigarettes and stuff. And I actually, I remember I was, I lit up a cigarette on the course, like off to the side, not like where anybody. But man, people from like 200 feet away were like seeing me and like giving me death stairs.

Like, that's gonna kill you. And so dear. Yeah, it was so funny. And like, and those guys are intense.

Intense. Intense. Fucking all the time. And their life.

I was never athletic ever. I mean, I could do stuff. I was capable as a kid rollerblading and stuff. You never did any like pop, Warner football or soccer?

I mean, I played basketball, but I was such a run growing up that like I was the kid that nobody would bother to guard on the basketball team. Because I was like, like, don't worry about Lancaster. Johnson. No, seriously, I remember there's a game where I could just like shoot three pointers all day long.

I wasn't very good at them. But like, no one ever guarded me. So I could just kind of take any shot I wanted. But anyway, so like, I was like athletic, but not I never gone like far into anything.

And this race looked so fun because it was just people covered in mud and like crawling through the dirt and like looking exhausted. Some people were bleeding. Like it was nuts. And I saw like all the barbed wire and all these walls.

And it looked to me. I just saw like giant adult playground. Basically like how often do you get a chance to just go wild out in the woods somewhere. And so I just decided like, I want to do one of these things.

And if I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it. And so like I quit smoking and I started running. I went from like haven't had run a mile since like middle school. And then all of a sudden I'm running like five miles at a shot.

And like it was it hurt a lot to like get into it. And then yeah, I just like ran my first one and actually broke my finger in the middle of the race. We were talking about this earlier, like the adrenaline. Not knowing what happens to you.

I broke my finger in the middle of the race and had no idea because it was like three degrees above freezing. And we were like swimming through water and stuff. I got in people screaming and you're just like. And I was just wearing shorts and like, you know, it was there was like sleet up in the mountains where I was doing it.

It was just cold and numb and I got home and took a shower and like all the mud and the bats up and everything. And also my finger started to kind of like ache a little bit. I was like, that's weird. And then it just turned black.

What is this? And then I was just kind of like weird to say, but I was just kind of hooked on it. Yeah, after that. And like, you know, it was a three year process making the documentary.

And going around the world a couple times for it. And yeah, I just kind of like fell in. I don't really run them anymore. But like there was a race that I got my shoes stuck in like two or three feet of mud.

And I tried to get them out. And when my feet came out they came out without shoes. And so I just ran the rest of the race and finished without shoes on. And there's a, there's in the documentary, there's a picture of me like jumping over fire on these like sharp rocks with no shoes.

I can see that. Why haven't seen that photo? I need to see that photo. It's ridiculous.

Jesus. But yeah. And so I became that guy. But like, you know, I'm still like, you know, I'm like, you know, my free time has been usually like video games and watching anime and stuff.

So to get out of this world, that's where we bonded. You and I. Exactly. Video games.

Yep. It was, it was your, your affinity for Mega Man music. Yes. And then, yeah.

And then the, the ridiculously unnecessarily complicated band that I was in as well. Where every song had different time changes and different tempo changes and in like seven minutes long. Seven minutes long. It's like, what key is this in?

Three keys actually at the same time. At the time. It was so ridiculous. Whatever.

I like the beginners mind. You guys were fun to watch. I mean, like, it was always one of those things. There are so many experiences you can have with music where like you see something live and you're just like, well, this is amazing.

And then you listen to a recording of it and you hear like the singer was all over the place or whatever. It just kind of burst the bubble. But like, at least in the moment, I'm not commenting on the recording part, but at least in the moment, like you guys were super fun to watch. Yeah.

I mean, we have three guitars. We have three guitars. Yeah. Three guitar players because the singer Johnny wouldn't give it up.

He's like, I'm playing guitar. That's it. We already have two guitar. I'm playing guitar.

Okay. All right. We're gonna have three guitar players then. And then we had a percussionist slash synth player slash whatever.

I love Isaiah. But I always thought it was hilarious that we had that there was you drumming and a percussionist just wailing on some bongos. Like just throw it in there. I don't know.

I love Isaiah to death. He's a great drummer too. You know, it's such a it was such an awkward position for me and for him too because I'm pretty sure all he wanted to do is play drums because he's not a percussionist. That's like his passion.

And but he was hoping that you'd give up so that way he could take your spot. Hey, you know, there was actually one time I feel so bad for him when we first moved to Nashville from Las Vegas. I took a gig because we're just still setting up and everything. And I took a two gig, a two month gig in Ohio to play for this country piano player.

But in Bay, Ohio, there it is. And the band told Isaiah that I just left without telling anybody. Like we don't know where Shane is, man. He just he just left out the door.

We don't we've been trying to get a hold of him. And so the whole time like Isaiah's like probably thinking of his back of his mind. He's like, yes, my time. This is it.

I'm gonna be the drummer for this band now. But I'm sure he was like, I hope he's okay. I'm pretty sure it was concerned for my safety too. Tell yourself that.

Oh, those days. Oh man. Yeah, I still I still have a broken symbol of yours that you gave me right before I moved LA. And it was signed.

It was signed. It looks like it's signed by Steve Win. But I know it's Steve Win. It just looks like Steve Win.

Yeah, it's it's been beaten up a little bit over the course of whatever 12 years of moving and but it's been hanging in the kitchen. The hammer of Thor. Hammer that is your hand. Hammer of Thor that is my hand.

Your hand is your hand. You play too hard. I don't play. How many symbols do you think you've broken?

Countless because I've seen you playing with five knives. I don't think you've gotten any lighter. Definitely have not gotten any lighter, especially with five knives music. I loved playing for five knives because it was just straight for the floor most of the time.

And so I could be like that that drummer that's in the wrong band dude that you type in drummer in the wrong band. I just throw my arms around playing just the simplest beats. Or do you mean crazy drummer who took over the title of your video? And then you renamed the video Crazy Drunk Drummer?

Yeah, I want to try to make it unique. I was like this guy's clearly stealing the thunder. What a dick. Yeah asshole.

Why are you so good? I just remember seeing like when you announced that you're doing this whole like podcast kind of like nerd culture blog thing. You made the trailer for it and then you posted it and then one of the shots is like a walking behind the drum set shot of like you and a big crowd and you're standing up just fucking wailing left and right on your two symbols like as hard as you can. Dude that set up was so weird.

That's really iconopopt where and they wouldn't allow us to have real drums. For some reason it makes sense because you know I get it's electronic show. But so we never did this before. So we did is we set up an SPD, a little drum pad thing and then I had a symbol.

I had a drum pad a symbol and that's it. That's all I had. And so a lot of it was to tracks and I would play some of the percussive parts in like really important areas that I can show off whatever. Yeah so there's most of the parts where it's during like the the break in a song or like the drop that's coming.

I'm just like on the symbol just with both of my hands. I was like I gotta make this look cool. Like I'm just sitting in front of a box and a symbol. I mean and I'm standing.

So I don't know how to fucking dance or anything. So I might as well just throw my arms up as hard as I can. When it out go completely eight shit. Yeah.

It looked good. It looks really that shot's amazing. That was from iPhone too. But yeah, this is this is fun because I feel like we've been talking about random crap for the last couple days.

You've been here in the last couple days. Also just like in the last 13 years in general, I feel like I don't know what I haven't talked to you about at this point. So it's fun to like and kind of weird to just formally do it. I know this is weird to have a microphone just stuff right in your fucking face.

You're talking to somebody. It's still weird to me. It's I'm slowly getting over the fact that I'm being recorded right now. Yeah.

Because I'm just not confident. I haven't just before many times. So you said that we were being recorded. I forgot.

But now a little weird. That means this conversation is interesting and you're not wanting to get the hell out of here. I can't wait till it's done and then we can go back to never talking. Ever.

We can just go into our separate rooms and then you can leave tomorrow on a plane back to Portland. I'll be taking your dog. Good luck. Yeah.

Go ahead. Take him. Good luck. I've actually never seen him around a cat before.

So I'm pretty sure he's going to go ape shit. He'll be fine. Don't worry about it. He's basically a cat anyway.

Yeah, he's a cat dog. What did Ron Swanson and Parks and Recreation say? If you have a dog that's less than 10 pounds and cats are useless. He's a cat.

What about my cat that was like 17 pounds? Your cat's 17 pounds? Wait Memphis is 17 pounds now? He's 19.

Did he get that big? He was so small and tiny. He was. You're remembering it wrong.

Am I remembering it wrong? When he was a year and a half old, my roommate was right around the time I got my job at Hustler. My head was roommate. His name was Johan.

He's the guy I bought that Volkswagen from. I remember your whole swag in. Yeah. Yeah.

Fucking. Speedster. That thing. This is crazy.

But yeah. So he called him one day. Memphis walks into a room. He's like, Hey, what up fat cat?

And I was like, Dude, don't come with cat fat. He's like, Dude, your cat's fat. And he was like, I did the math on this. And he was one year old at the time.

He was still like so young. And he was already getting gold fat. Was he fat though? I mean, he was a little chubby.

But even then he was probably like, he was small. He wasn't fully grown yet. But he was probably like 12 pounds at that point. Which is what an adult full grown cat should be.

Yeah. But yeah, he got up to 19. And then I got yelled at by a vet because I didn't understand like, this is a little embarrassing. But so the package of food on that you feed to your animals has a little chart on the side of like weight weight of animal.

How much daily they should be fat. They put that chart there for stupid people. Well, get on over this. So it ends at 15 pounds.

And my cat was 17 at the time. And I was like, Man, I don't know what to do. I guess I'll just feed them the 15 pound amount plus a little bit. You know, I just I kind of like I actually did like the ratios and worked out.

Okay. Well, if 15, then what would it be for 17? I worked out like the next level of the chart and started feeding them for that. And then he went to 19 pounds.

And that's why I took him to the vet. And the vet told me like, you have a 12 pound cat. And I was like, wait, what? He's like, you have a 12 pound cat that weighs 19 pounds.

You should be feeding him as a 12 pound cat. And I was like, Oh my God, this whole time, like I was measuring his food for like a year and a half trying to like diet him. And all I was doing was just making him huge. It's a common mistake.

I mean, come on. That's, that's, you know. But anyway, it's just he might be a little diabetic, but he's alive and kicking and he's happy with all that food. I wonder how you like exercise a cat because I know you can exercise a dog because that's why I try to do with pig and because he's, you know, he's a toxins and toxins are so like aware and just always like looking at you like, what's going on?

Are we doing things? You know, like he's obsessed with that ball. You know, oh, yeah. And so like, my idea is to just get him tired.

And every time I get him tired, he just like, then he'll just be like, fuck it. I'm going to go take a nap. And I finally I can play my video games or like sleep with my wife. I don't know.

Something. But so how do you like exercise a cat because you can't take a cat on walk? Well, I think it's like I tried once. Like with Alicia.

You were that guy. Yeah. Well, I wasn't that guy. It was just he was like six months old and I was a new cat owner.

This is right when I moved to Nashville. I was 19 years old. And the first thing I did was get Memphis before I even bought a bed. So like it was me and him sleeping on the floor.

And we so I just I don't know. I saw harness and I was like, oh, I'm going to put a little thing on him and I put it on him. I think that's acceptable. If it's a baby cat.

If it's a kitten. Well, exactly. So he's little. But I put the heart on the back.

And he just went limp and fell over and wouldn't move and like just gave up completely gave up into the state. He's still like, you know, my old roommates back in LA would buy him like holiday outfits. And if I was out of town because I travel a ton, I'd be out of town. Like I'd be in England or something.

And I would get a text photo of Memphis with like a Santa hat and a beard on and he's flopped over on his side not moving because that's what he does. Like when you put things on him, he just gives up. I wonder if cats are automatically have that like, you know, I don't like this because cats are free cats are independent. They don't like being harnessed.

Yeah, they're like real animals. Yeah, they like don't give a fuck about it. They like don't give a fuck about you. They still have their kind of like ancient ancestors in them.

That's why I don't like cats. It's like they don't give a shit. You live with a wolf. I do.

You live with what used to be. Right. And it's loyal. They will attack.

It will attack any intruders that come into my house. Cats as long as they're smaller than like three inches. Well, maybe he's so cute if an intruder comes in. He's like, I don't want to mess with this house.

I thought he was super cute. I'll lock up. Yeah. No.

He leaves something he stole from the last house in your house as like an apology for breaking the lock. It's like all the dogs so cute. Here's a here's a coffee maker. It's like the TV.

It's like it was great ad campaign that they came out for Volkswagen when they remade the beetle. I don't know. Did you ever see those? It's like an hated.

It's like this shady. Well, I mean, yeah, not the band, but it's like those cars most overrated band ever. We have a friend. We won't name him.

But he has said in the past that the Beatles are the most overrated band ever. And I'm pretty sure those who are listening has a friend or someone who has said that that that the Beatles are the most overrated band ever. I just want you to know that people who say that are just saying it for hipster brownie points. They're just trying to be cool.

We just like because I don't know much about the Beatles. I've seen the circus. I've listened to like Sergeant Pepper. I've listened to a few other records and be like you can't grow up without having exposure to them.

I don't know enough to be into them, but I would never say that they're overrated. Like I still think about Paul McCartney doing his thing. Like I have the last part of the Paul McCartney record that came out. It's awesome.

Like how a guy can get into what is he like late 70s or something now and still feel like he has something unique to say and actually has a lot of stuff. He's like, well, I think we need to say and actually have something unique to say. That blows my mind. He's like one of the last living legends of that time period.

Totally. You know, him and I guess Ringo too. Ringo's kind of does his own thing. He's like, Oh, Ringo, do it alone too.

Hey, Paul. Ringo remember me? Well he sits at home and collects fat royalty check. He does.

Yes, he does. You know what? He's an under-op opening all those envelopes. Speaking of overrated underrated.

He's one of the most underrated tremors. Like pocket tremors. Underrated? I feel like everybody loves Ringo.

I don't know, man. Like people don't really like because he doesn't do anything like fucking... He didn't do anything like fucking like a Terry Bozio status where he's like, he wasn't super syncopated and weird, but he would put things in the pocket that were like, oh, that's really cool. And then go back into the beat.

Like he was very good at just showcasing just a little bit here and then just go back to the beat. Totally. And that's like, I'm just in a spot now. We're at 32 for the first time in my life I'm playing music with people.

I know. Yeah. And people like him are really inspiring to me because I know a lot of really, really amazing, super technical drummers. Like a whole cast of friends, you included who I watch play and go like, I'm never going to get there.

Like I don't have the million hours in a day to practice for the next 10 years to try to do that. Like it's just not going to happen for me. Like I have a full time career going on. And like, but then there's people like Ringo where it's just like, okay, awesome.

Just like have fun with it. Have fun with it, solid pocket and ever play something appropriate. And that's still good. You don't need to be technically freaking amazing to be like a good rhythm keeper and to fit into a song well.

Well, that's the beauty of music. And that's what makes like those like hipsters, like our friend who says the Beatles are overrated. Where they're, you know, it has to be different. Something that no one's ever heard before.

I was like, well, yeah, I can see the merit to that. And that's what makes music going forward. And you know, but at the same time, all you need is a catchy little tune. Do you want to ride in?

I'm like, I don't want to check my bank account. It's the stupidest line, but that thing will get caught in your brain and you will be singing it for the rest of the day. Super simple. And that's what the beauty of music is.

It doesn't have to be super overly complicated because if it's overly complicated, then it'll go in one ear and out the other for most people. Unless you're just really, you're trying to get better at your instrument and you're learning and you're charting and you're okay. And then it gets in your brain that way. But most people just listen to music and they're like, oh, that's really cool.

I like that song. Next. Next track. I love Katy Perry.

So I know that like your millions of listeners are gonna be really upset because I didn't resolve the Volkswagen commercial thing. Oh, sorry. We got on that real quick. Yeah, Tandon.

Sorry. So there's a great campaign where these like shady looking dudes, I don't know if it was multiple people in like different commercials, but I just remember there was one specific commercial where there's like kids playing at a park and like their moms around and everything is very wholesome, neighborhood vibe and a little like yellow beetle parked on the sidewalk and this guy is like coming down the sidewalk, like checking door handles and stuff. And he's like going down and this beetle's unlocked. And so he like looks around and he gets inside and he's like looking around and like somehow like in all movies, like the keys are like in the door flap or the visor, the sun visor, like who puts their keys there?

Nobody, but they're always there in the TV. Or movies, yeah. And so he like gets the keys and he fires up the car and he takes off with it. But as he's driving it, he just like notices how cute it is.

And it's like this little yellow beetle. It's like the inside of the door has yellow details and they have the little flower holders, you know, like next to the steering wheel. And so there's like a little toy flower. There's like a little note from like, I love mommy or whatever on it too.

And he's like looking around this cute ass little car and like how it like turns corners really well as he's trying to steal it. And then he ends up driving it around the block and he parks it back to the spot and walks away cause he can't steal it. It's too cute. So that's actually never seen that commercial.

But that's what your dog is gonna do to people that will break into your house. That is exactly what would happen in your sleep. That is exactly what would happen. Pretty much.

Like back to music. Yeah, back to music I guess. Oh man. So just to keep things going, I've heard your first two episodes.

You were playing Mass Effect or both of them. Yes I have. Yes. Cause I don't have as much time as I used to playing video games.

You're a home podcast. Yeah. Making podcasts, editing videos, trying to get my drum set up to do more covers. And that's been interesting.

Cause I've never used electronic drums before and these apparently are difference. And we tried to set it up at Kyle's studio and it took like a full day to get it set up. Because apparently the infused module is an interface as well. So when we tried to plug it in through logic, it would have a tough time reading the module and we couldn't get any sounds going.

And that happened for like three hours. So we are on the phone talking to the infused people and they didn't know what was going on. But they immediately said it was, it's probably an interface issue with logic. And of course we didn't believe them.

We thought we knew what we were fucking doing. Of course. And it took us four hours to realize like, oh yeah, they're right. Oh yeah.

It is logic. So it's whatever in logic settings that wouldn't allow it to the MIDI to go through. And but we used Ableton at the end of the day and Ableton just picked it up immediately. And Ableton uses, it's like the MIDI King.

You could just set anything via MIDI through Ableton and it worked like a charm. So for future covers and stuff, I'll probably go to his nicer studio because it looks nice and I like it to be. What's the next cover gonna be? Have you?

I'm thinking about doing a chemistry fighter. When I sent you the text of the story. I know what you can do. Yeah, I won't give it away.

Don't give it away. But that one I think is gonna be pretty funny. I think that would be amazing. But I think I'll do like some like other covers here at home just to do for fun and because it'll be easy to turn out and just do some like Lufia 2 and get into that soundtrack again which you've never played.

It's a great game. There's Lufia 1 and Lufia 2. Yeah, back in the day when Super Nintendo was around, I was too busy playing Mario Kart, stuff like that. I never like, I never got into the role playing games.

I mean, I played original Zelda, like Gold Cartridge Zelda. Like I have a video of Christmas 1989 when I opened up my Nintendo, my first Nintendo. And we were playing like the Mickey Mouse game and which was super hard. And all those games were super hard.

I just realized that like as a kid, I would just play the first 20 minutes. And then just every game. And then give up. Over and over and over and over.

To the point where now that I'm revisiting them on Emulators and stuff, I'll get through every part that I remember from the game. Like in the first sitting and realize like, wow, I played none of this. Like I was really bad. But the games were so hard as kids.

Like I had when I first got Mario, I had my dad finish a lot of the stages because I couldn't do it as five. Yeah, that's so funny. My dad played Nintendo twice and both times he would have to set the controller down onto a coffee table in front of him and then use it like a keyboard. Or he would put his fingers down on it.

So like A and B would be his two pointer fingers on his right hand and then he would use his two pointer finger middle finger on his left hand to do the direction pad. That's so weird. The weirdest thing I've ever seen. I was playing it like a keyboard.

Yeah, and I was just like, okay, not playing games with dad anymore. Dad can't do it. I guess that would work so if you get the joystick, the pro controller. Yeah, I guess.

I know they would sell that with the arcade looking controller. Totally. Yeah. I was like, I was playing you know, F zero and before that, I mean, things like pro wrestling.

I guess it was sweet. Did you really pro wrestling? Yeah. Okay, good.

The black cartridge or the black box pro wrestling? I think so. I had the guy with the weird starfish face. Yeah, man.

That's the purple dude. The purple dude. Yeah, all you basically do is just suplex people over and over and over again until eventually. Yeah, then you just like you punch them in the face and then cover them up and then they kick out and then you kick them and then cover them up and you just do it over and over again until eventually like it counts the time.

The thing about doing like some let's plays like bringing back and like getting a Raspberry Pi doing some let's plays with like old ass fucking Nintendo games kind of similar to it like Matei and them at some Masquer do. I mean, there's so many thousands of games that even like. Did you ever play River City Ransom? I've heard of it.

No, it sounds familiar. Dude, it was such a cool game back in the day and it's become like an underground obsession for a lot of people because it was a fighting game like Double Dragon, but there was RPG elements. Yeah. And then you can like gain experience and like there's a storyline to it and you can like it's kind of open worldy where you can go into shops and buy things and yeah.

And it was old Nintendo. It was like any of us. Yeah, man. There's yeah, I have a my brother who was building as I was about the same day.

My brother is building those little Raspberry Pi emulating systems that you can fit in an NES cartridge. So instead of like the game chip at the bottom, it's USB ports and an HDMI port. And you have like the entire catalog of all Atari NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, Sega Master System. All in that little bit.

And all the mamestuff which is like an arcade preservation project. So like literally any game from your childhood is right there. Anything before Nintendo 64. And it's been so fun to just like you go to the NES section and it's like 1,268 games.

I don't even know where to start. Where do you start? Start with the games you've never heard of. What is this?

Exactly. And like yeah, you just realize how bad some of them are. Like some of these things were just made in a week. And just like oh whatever, let's just take this game and change the colors and make it about very users instead of.

You know what's funny? Speaking of bad games, the famous Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that angry video game merit is reviewed over and over again.

And God famous for. I actually remember playing that not remembering the name of the game. And I thought as a kid, I remember the picture on the cartridge because there's such a cool looking man of this half green face. And he's like, yeah.

And I'm like, what a cool cartridge. And I remember playing it and being like, this is so hard. Why is this game hard? I must suck.

And then I watched that review. And I'm like, oh, it's just a terrible game. Oh, OK. It's not me.

It's not me. It's everybody. It's them. It is actually really terrible.

Yeah, no. I just love that review how it starts out with him just like no explanation. He just puts it in and plays it and gets 30 feet and then dies from like a B or something. And then all of a sudden he just wakes up and starts going the other direction.

And then lightning just kills him. Just out of nowhere. And then it just cuts back to him and he's just staring at the screen. It's like game over after 20 seconds of play.

That was our feeling every time playing those kind of games. Just like, what the fuck just happened? Exactly. Why?

Why? Why is this? You know what game is really fucking hard? It's double dragon three.

Oh my god. That game is too fucking hard. Why is that game so fucking hard? They like upped up the difficulty just for the fuck of it because they thought, you know, let's be different.

It's like, you know what, guys, people beat the last one. We don't want that to happen. We want to show people how it is to be in a real fight. You're actually going to get your ass beat a lot.

Stop the TV. This is what it feels like to get your ass kicked every day. The time it takes to be good at that game is the time it takes to actually be good at fighting. It's like, go to a trainer.

They're trying to teach us all a lesson. We should stop playing video games as much as we are and just start actually start learning real life fighting. Yeah. Well, you know, if you follow the whole video games, make people more violent thing, then, you know, I'm surprised more people didn't go learn to fight after playing double dragon.

I mean, I would blame, I would blame like Kung Fu movies more than I would blame a video game. Right. There's still violence. I go to a Kung Fu thing in Portland every month.

It's amazing. There's like a community nonprofit theater called The Hollywood Theater. And they do a lot of like email blasts about for whatever movie you want us to play this month or whatever. And they do big releases, too.

But yeah, it's the second Tuesday of every month. The guy who owns it. He has the second biggest Kung Fu collection in the world outside Quentin Tino. And they know each other.

They're friends. They trade movies. And like he's, Quentin's even come to some of these before. And he, yeah, he just like puts out an email blast.

Like next Tuesday is going to be the only known 35 millimeter prints of like the seven grandmasters or whatever. Just like every single time it's the only known 35 millimeter print. And people just pile into this theater. It sells out every time.

And you just like you get a beer. You get some popcorn. And you just like laugh at these Kung Fu movies that are so violent. And so like someone hits you with a karate chop.

And all of a sudden there's a slice in the shirt and blood coming out of it. Like as if it was a knife. You know, it's stuff like that. It's like the crazy exploding heads.

It's head punch explode. Pretty much. Yeah. And like yeah, it just things where they, I mean, half of these movies end in like a huge epic fight where the underdog is trying to kill this evil master, whatever.

And then the master leaves like some quick opening. And the underling kind of has this chance to use everything he's learned in the whole movie to land this one strike in the opening. And he does. And it goes like, it goes out.

And then the guy goes, whoa, and flies back. And then it like frees frames and says end. Like the guy doesn't even hit the ground. The movies end like the second the final blow struck.

Like you don't even get to see the guy die. You just assume that's what happens. It's just the movie ends almost immediately. It's when they didn't realize how to end a movie.

They're just like, well, there's nothing else to do from here. Or think about all the movies. Like, you know, I'm not going to say anything about something like Lord of the Rings. But some of those movies have like seven endings as you're trying to like, all right, we're at two and a half hours.

And I thought it was over three times now. And like the music used all tell you credits are about to come up. It fades to black. And then it fades up a new scene.

And you're like, what the hell is going on? We still have an hour left of movie. What's going on? I think the Chinese knew something.

I think the Chinese knew what was going on. And they were like, you know what, people are here in action. They want to see the story. As soon as it's over, no more movie.

Like, at the same point. You know what I thought was interesting about those old movies. Watching like old Bruce Lee flicks. Like a lot of those ones that he made in Hong Kong, which were most of them, the ending of those spoiler alert, the ending of a lot of those where he would beat the final boss.

He would kill him or something. And then he'd be arrested. Yes. No, at least in two movies, that is the ending of the movie.

It's to say that fighting is bad. Yeah. Because there's a nice little moral lesson at the end of it. Like revenge doesn't get you everything.

You know. It does. It just also gets you in jail. Yeah.

I'm not going to kill him, but just let you know. You are going to go jail. That's why you have to hurt the bad. Or there was one.

Do you remember the famous one where he jumps towards the cops? There's this one ending where he's beaten all the people. He's killed the final boss. It's the end of the movie.

The police all show up. And there's like 17, 20 policemen just in a hall and just down a street corner, whatever. And then they're all pointing their guns at him. And Bruce Lee is like, I must do this.

And he turns towards the police and jumps towards the police. And then it frees frames. Like a flying kick or something. Yeah, flying kick.

Frees frame. And then everyone goes, and the cops, all you hear is just guns firing. And then I see another one. Man.

Like what a terrible ending. But it's Kung Fu. So you know he somehow dodged all the bullets. Like one at a time.

I forget what watching that as a kid is like, what? He dies? Oh, yeah. It's a little tougher kid.

I don't think they're meant for young people. How old were you? Oh, man. I was young.

My dad will always let me watch all this. That's how I got into Jean Claude Bandam. I started watching Bruce Lee. And then he showed me Jean Claude Bandam.

Like from his blood sport. No, kickboxer. Kickboxer was my first Jean Claude Bandam movie. Nice.

And I fell in love with all sorts of training sequences after that. Mm. Because those are kind of like, it's like Rocky on steroids. Yeah.

In a way. Where like a way bigger life is what's at stake. Not like your boxing reputation or whatever. Yeah.

Fuck your boxing reputation. This is to death, man. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

That's why I always appreciate about that. They just invented their own thing. It's almost like there's like cinema. And then there's Kung Fu movies.

And they're almost not even part of the same thing. Yeah. I was wondering why don't like huge blockbuster action movies ever get like Oscar nominations. Or well.

It's actually, I mean, there's a lot of people that have different opinions of that. But I mean, things like, I guess not action, but big budget things like Avatar. Yeah, I guess so. Avatar got nominated for a lot of stuff.