Transcript
Speaker: Thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast.
Speaker: This is episode 62.
Speaker: 62.
Speaker: 62.
Speaker: With me, my co-captain as always.
Speaker: Scott Larson.
Speaker: And Scott, I can't remember.
Speaker: I know we've changed this up.
Speaker: Why don't you tell us about our sponsor?
Speaker: How about that?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So two things we want to talk about.
Speaker: Flippin' Out Pinball.
Speaker: So if you have a hankering for a new pinball machine, go ahead and contact Zach or Nicole at Flippin' Out Pinball, and they will be able to hook you up with either a new or used game.
Speaker: They have all sorts of options.
Speaker: And they've also branched out to different things.
Speaker: If you want to get that big buck hunter, which I have been eyeing for a while, you can contact them.
Speaker: Also, if you want to catch up to the news, This Week in Pinball is always good with Jeff Patterson.
Speaker: And there's all sorts of other friends of the show, but we're trying to keep it limited so people don't fast forward five minutes.
Speaker: So anyway, okay, Josh.
Speaker: We got a really cool guest on, but I honestly, I feel like you know him better than I do.
Speaker: I just barely met him, but it sounds like you guys have history together already.
Speaker: We go way back.
Speaker: Way back.
Speaker: Way back.
Speaker: So when I was on Broadway, yeah.
Speaker: So, okay.
Speaker: So this is Steve Govea.
Speaker: I got that right.
Speaker: Correct?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Correct.
Speaker: Close enough.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So he is, he came to fame in the pinball world by doing the red smoke, which mod, which before it looked like a, a bad sculpture in a clear toilet paper roll.
Speaker: So he decided to upgrade that.
Speaker: And since then, he's actually done a few upgrades.
Speaker: He did the Red Smoke Witch 1.0.
Speaker: Then he did the Flying Witch mod.
Speaker: And I heard Steve first when he was on Head to Head back in the day, and he was talking about the Flying Witch mod.
Speaker: Or the Flying Monkey mod.
Speaker: This Flying Witch mod sounds fascinating.
Speaker: Flying Witch mod.
Speaker: That would be awesome.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then we have the Crystal Ball mod.
Speaker: And then he had the Witch 2.0 mod.
Speaker: Correct.
Speaker: And I'm sure there's other stuff going on.
Speaker: So we want to welcome to the show Steve.
Speaker: How are you doing, Steve?
Speaker: I'm doing great.
Speaker: Thanks, guys, for having me.
Speaker: Definitely.
Speaker: I'm excited for this.
Speaker: I got to ask, why just Wizard of Oz?
Speaker: Why haven't you branched out yet?
Speaker: What is your fascination with Wizard of Oz?
Speaker: Yeah, well, what started it?
Speaker: Other than seeing the terrible display, I have a picture of the witches next to each other, and it looks laughable, really.
Speaker: You know, what happened is when that game came out, well, that was 2011, I think, when it came out.
Speaker: Yeah, a while ago, yeah.
Speaker: Between then and 2014 or 15, people were trying to do other versions of The Witch.
Speaker: And I really just did it.
Speaker: I was more curious for myself.
Speaker: There was a thread on Pinside called Ditch the Witch and Leave the Trees.
Speaker: And I forget who started it, but you can find it.
Speaker: It's a really old thread.
Speaker: But this guy took a Hallmark ornament.
Speaker: And he cut it in half and he stuck it in the tube and it looked great.
Speaker: And then he put a bunch of like, I don't know, like holly in the trees.
Speaker: And it just kind of gave me the idea that people were trying.
Speaker: So I tried the same thing he did and I completely destroyed the Hallmark toy.
Speaker: I mean, just completely destroyed it because you've got to saw it in half and try to make it fit.
Speaker: And he did a great job.
Speaker: So, you know, failure after failure, I just decided to make one out of clay.
Speaker: And then I just started looking at YouTube videos on how to make stuff out of resin.
Speaker: And I thought this just opens up a whole new world because if I can just make something that I, you know, instead of buying something and try to make it fit and then make it out of plastic, then this will be fun.
Speaker: But I never really intended to, you know, be a quote unquote modder.
Speaker: I just, I put the witch out there because I thought it was a good idea.
Speaker: to have the red part that protects her light it up.
Speaker: And then it just kind of slowly grew to where a few people wanted it and a few more people wanted it, a few more.
Speaker: And by the time it sort of died off, I started working on the monkey.
Speaker: And that was simply because someone asked me to do it.
Speaker: Someone challenged me to do it.
Speaker: And once that happened, I was like, well, there's no space back there.
Speaker: I don't know how you're going to do it.
Speaker: But I figured it out.
Speaker: Um, but I, it's like, I'm not a company necessarily.
Speaker: I just, I take a long time doing it because I do it by myself and I paint them and I sculpt them in clay.
Speaker: Uh, and then the resin obviously.
Speaker: Um, so yeah, that's the reason it's, it's really just wizard of Oz is I wanted to branch out like a year ago.
Speaker: And was ready to – almost two years ago, I was ready to do something else.
Speaker: But I went back because I figured I could make The Witch better.
Speaker: And because The Witch was selling for way too much money on eBay and things like that, which I just thought was silly.
Speaker: So, yeah, I decided to make a few more.
Speaker: And because it's 2.0, because I just got better.
Speaker: It took me three years maybe to go back to see it.
Speaker: And I was like, I don't want to just –
Speaker: you know, take the same design and cast them and sell them.
Speaker: And I was like, there's certain aspects of it I can make better and do things that I always wanted to do.
Speaker: And that's where the lighting came in and that's where the sculpture kind of changed a little bit.
Speaker: So, so yeah, that's how those things came about.
Speaker: I'm shocked that you, that this is your first, your first foray into sculpting.
Speaker: I, I, I was anticipating that you were going to say, well, I've been playing D and D for years.
Speaker: And so I've been painting sculpt.
Speaker: I seriously, this is, this is what my friends growing up would do.
Speaker: They would have their little miniatures and they'd paint them.
Speaker: And, but you're telling me you didn't have any history like that.
Speaker: No, I made something out of clay years and years ago.
Speaker: I've, I've,
Speaker: I've been pretty artistic my entire life.
Speaker: I did theater design in college for a while.
Speaker: I worked as a cartoonist when I was younger and did caricatures and things like that.
Speaker: But clay was not something I've ever really done for a living.
Speaker: So there's a lot of people on YouTube who are so good at it.
Speaker: And if you kind of have an idea of what you want to do, you can learn a lot from them.
Speaker: So that's what I did.
Speaker: I just, I tried to learn everything I could.
Speaker: That's some dedication.
Speaker: I'm not going to lie.
Speaker: That's pretty awesome.
Speaker: It's more of a challenge.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: It's really a challenge.
Speaker: It's like, can I make something new and unique?
Speaker: And I love doing it.
Speaker: I love, at the end of the day, finishing a mod and going, wow, that's really cool.
Speaker: Am I, you know,
Speaker: in my opinion, I've never really made anything for other people other than for me.
Speaker: If I like it and I think it's good, then I'll, uh, you know, I'll put it out there for people to, to buy.
Speaker: Um, but yeah, that's, that's kind of where it came out, came about is me just working for myself just for fun.
Speaker: So you, you did the first witch and then you went to the flying monkey mod.
Speaker: Correct.
Speaker: And, and how many of these did you make?
Speaker: How long did it take you to make each individual one?
Speaker: It took so long.
Speaker: I'll tell you, it took, it, it,
Speaker: It took almost a year, took 10 months.
Speaker: By the time I got to the end of the list, some people are like, I paid for that?
Speaker: Or did I ask you for that?
Speaker: Well, yeah, you did.
Speaker: And I didn't care.
Speaker: There were so many other people who wanted it.
Speaker: I'm like, yeah, you did.
Speaker: If you don't want it, that's fine because I got to make some more.
Speaker: But it was, I was, I had just moved.
Speaker: God, we were talking so much before the podcast.
Speaker: I forget where we were, but I'm from San Diego and I used to live all over the place.
Speaker: So I came back home here and I didn't really have a job.
Speaker: And, uh, I had some time to just kind of, you know, do this at night for myself.
Speaker: And that's, that's where it came from.
Speaker: It's just truly just a hobby for fun for me that I thought was a cool idea.
Speaker: And now you have two version of the witches now.
Speaker: So there's the 1.0.
Speaker: So full disclosure, I'm really good at buying things and not very good at installing them.
Speaker: So I bought the 1.0 witch mod and I saw actually kind of late to the game.
Speaker: I missed it.
Speaker: And I said, oh, he's doing a 2.0 mod.
Speaker: And so I begged you to make the mod for me and add me to the list because that was one of the last ones.
Speaker: And kind of ironically, you asked me a basic question about Rush.
Speaker: And so I actually, I know a lot about Rush.
Speaker: And so I gave you way more information than you wanted.
Speaker: No, it's funny, but you passed.
Speaker: You passed with flying colors.
Speaker: I did pass.
Speaker: I passed.
Speaker: I passed.
Speaker: And then, so I was one of the last ones, but tell me the differences between the first one and the second one and what you changed.
Speaker: Let's see.
Speaker: The first one was based off of that Hallmark toy I told you about that I cut in half.
Speaker: If you go back and find it, they're on eBay somewhere.
Speaker: There's this, it's a witch and she's got this kind of red plastic around her and inside is this little LED.
Speaker: And if you push the button, I think she screams or something and the light kind of flashes.
Speaker: And that to me was, that was a great idea because the trick with the first witch or fixing the witch in general is that you can't have the ball get into that mech.
Speaker: because then the mech won't know there's anything in there.
Speaker: And that's why the tube is there.
Speaker: But you can make the most amazing sculpture and stick it in that tube and you won't see anything because that tube is so reflective.
Speaker: So the idea for me was to make this like cloud that I saw in this Hallmark ornament,
Speaker: but make it bigger so the ball can't get up there on the top.
Speaker: So initially I made it and I, and I started, uh, selling them out to people who wanted them and balls were getting stuck in the mod because I didn't make it high enough.
Speaker: So someone had asked me along the way, if I could incorporate it more into the castle that comes on the, uh, the red version of the game and kind of tie it into that whole thing.
Speaker: So I looked at the bricks on there that, that, that, uh, Matt had made from, uh,
Speaker: back alley creations.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I, and I just kind of looked at what he had done and tried to tie in this wall structure underneath what I had done and I made the mod hire and that seemed to fix the problem.
Speaker: But like I said, I made about, I made about 200 and,
Speaker: 30 maybe, but I was, I was tired of making them and I had no intention of going back to make them like zero.
Speaker: Um, I thought it was neat that people are collecting them and they're selling them for a lot of money.
Speaker: I think that's really cool.
Speaker: It's fun.
Speaker: It just means I'm not making something that's, you know, junky.
Speaker: But when I saw the prices for them going up, and just like dumb prices, I thought I could make a few more.
Speaker: So I went back and I looked at it, and I saw that I could – someone at one point said, can you make the witch look out at me?
Speaker: And back then I'm like, no, I can't.
Speaker: I don't know how to do that.
Speaker: Well, now I could.
Speaker: So I took this sculpture, and I made her more sort of dynamic –
Speaker: and perspective kind of based and had her looking out.
Speaker: And then, um, I remember when I was making the first witch, I would take these pieces of red and I'd stick them on the play field just to make sure things were fitting.
Speaker: Well, when wizard of Oz goes into a test mode,
Speaker: there's this pulsing rainbow color thing that goes up every once in a while through the play field.
Speaker: When those lights were coming up through the red piece of plastic, I just thought it looked so cool.
Speaker: I didn't have the knowledge to make it light up like that.
Speaker: The original game, if you don't own it, it's two LEDs that flash.
Speaker: One is red and one is white.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: All this time passes and I learned about this thing called an addressable LED ring.
Speaker: And what that allows you to do is program it and you can do whatever you want with this ring.
Speaker: So I went back and I looked at the mod that I made.
Speaker: I had to dig out the base of it and kind of reconfigure it.
Speaker: I made it so this ring fits inside there.
Speaker: And then I had a friend.
Speaker: who, uh, pinball buddy of mine isn't involved in pinball at all.
Speaker: He's actually involved in, in theater, Scott.
Speaker: Uh, but his dad was a, uh, uh, electronics, um, programmer or whatever, you know, uh,
Speaker: And so he had a basic knowledge of what this ring did in programming it.
Speaker: And he got really excited.
Speaker: He's like, let me do it.
Speaker: Let me do it.
Speaker: So we came up with about seven patterns of light that are all random.
Speaker: They're tied to the music.
Speaker: So they kind of billow and smoke.
Speaker: And when the music goes out, the lights go out.
Speaker: And then the witch...
Speaker: Once again, learning from just the past, someone had asked me, or I think I made a joke, like, I'm going to make the witch again in a few years, but this time it's going to glow in the dark or something stupid.
Speaker: I was never going to make it glow in the dark.
Speaker: But the monkey...
Speaker: Because the game is so dark in the back, which I love, by the way.
Speaker: I loved how dark Wizard of Oz is.
Speaker: But the monkey, to light it, I didn't just want to put a spotlight on it.
Speaker: So I painted it with UV reflective paint.
Speaker: And then when you light it with UV light, it glows, but it's not like a glaring spotlight like most pinball machines have.
Speaker: It's more subtle.
Speaker: So I did that with the witch.
Speaker: I painted her with UV paint.
Speaker: And then I replaced the white light that's originally in the game with UV lights that shine up from above.
Speaker: So she glows when all the fire disappears.
Speaker: She sits there and glows.
Speaker: Looks really cool.
Speaker: It's like if you've ever been to Disneyland,
Speaker: in the Haunted Mansion, it looks like that little woman who's at the end of the ride who's like, you know, come back in your death certificate or whatever.
Speaker: It looks like that.
Speaker: And so once I figured that out, I got excited about it.
Speaker: But I was only going to make 50.
Speaker: That was my plan because it was hard to do.
Speaker: And I just wanted to make 50.
Speaker: And so many people wanted one.
Speaker: I'm just about to finish.
Speaker: And we're about 125.
Speaker: So, um, so that's where we are on the witch 2.0.
Speaker: Now I, I just barely installed it.
Speaker: And, um, for the record, it's really cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: My, my son who I actually adjusted wizard of Oz cause it was kind of too hard for my kids.
Speaker: It's a hard game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's really hard.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so I adjust the outlines a little bit, but my son was so excited to play it because he was like, Hey, I entered my initials and I,
Speaker: I didn't have the heart to tell him.
Speaker: It was like the high score of the day.
Speaker: But he loved doing it.
Speaker: He loved playing.
Speaker: But it is so cool when the witch pops up.
Speaker: It really is a showstopper.
Speaker: Oh, thank you.
Speaker: I tell you, I've been working on it for so long.
Speaker: that, um, and then like, like I said, once COVID hit, it's like everything just slowed down.
Speaker: It was just, I mean, we've all, we're experiencing it.
Speaker: It was, it felt, it felt weird just to make a toy during all that.
Speaker: I wasn't quite sure what was happening.
Speaker: Um, so it's, it's taken a long time to finish it, but I'm just about getting it for the, the tail end of people who wrote me asking for one, but, um, but, uh,
Speaker: it took so long.
Speaker: In fact, the crystal ball was not meant to be something on its own.
Speaker: It was make, it was something I was just going to make because my friend was busy programming the new witch.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: But it's one of those things.
Speaker: It's a labor of love.
Speaker: And no one was necessarily waiting for me.
Speaker: And I don't have anybody pay up front.
Speaker: So you're not out of any money.
Speaker: And I don't feel obligated to make you something.
Speaker: So I kind of keep the pressure off myself that way.
Speaker: And I'll just make something that I really enjoy.
Speaker: And that's what happened with this.
Speaker: So you did this based off of a challenge.
Speaker: At least the monkey mod, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So can I make a challenge?
Speaker: I've been thinking about this after Scott said we were going to talk.
Speaker: I knew if I said challenge, you're going to ask me to make something, but we'll see.
Speaker: We'll see.
Speaker: This isn't for Wizard of Oz and you can totally shoot me down.
Speaker: No, it doesn't need to be.
Speaker: Trust me.
Speaker: Not at all.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So you remember the truck nuts that used to be on all the trucks?
Speaker: The truck?
Speaker: Oh, oh, so for like a truck?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, for like a truck, you know, you hung them on the back of your truck.
Speaker: And that's how you knew it was.
Speaker: That's how you knew it w as a mail truck.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: We've got a neighbor who has them and my wife, Trisha wants to go yank them off.
Speaker: oh my gosh you want you want to castrate the truck yeah yes he hates him but what what do you want you want me to make okay make make a tilt bob that hangs instead of truck nuts you have a tilt bob that swings back and forth and when you depress on the brakes it could say tilt across the bob huh i'm already sculpting it right now yeah there you go i knew it it's really easy it's just two balls yeah
Speaker: I thought it'd be really cool if you could hook this.
Speaker: I know that it would probably be against the road rules.
Speaker: There's probably some law saying you can't have lights and sound.
Speaker: But I thought it'd be really cool if it's swaying back and forth when it actually hit the rim like you do with a regular tilt bob.
Speaker: It'd make a tilt sound.
Speaker: You could have it light up.
Speaker: Actually, when you hit the brakes, you can actually have things light up.
Speaker: It's kind of weird, but yeah.
Speaker: That's what I'm saying when you can do it with the brake with the tilt.
Speaker: So if you press on the brake, it would say tilt across the tilt, Bob.
Speaker: But obviously you can't do it every time it hits the edge of the, and that could get annoying too, because I swear that thing would be swinging all the time when you're driving.
Speaker: So if you got double danger, would it like shut your car down?
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: Is this something you guys see a lot up there in Utah?
Speaker: Does your car have a pair of balls attached to it?
Speaker: Nah.
Speaker: There's more than you would think.
Speaker: But usually I'm just like, oh, really?
Speaker: You went there?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: No, I just thought it'd be funny to have a tilt bob hanging off the back of my truck.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: And I know the community to get behind it.
Speaker: Everyone wants a tilt bob hanging off the back of their truck.
Speaker: Everyone wants a uniball.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Get on it.
Speaker: Get on it.
Speaker: That could be your thing, the way the head-to-head guys had the kangaroo sacks for a while.
Speaker: Absolutely, yeah.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Dang.
Speaker: You just spelled truck balls.
Speaker: But this will look like a tilt bob.
Speaker: It won't look like balls.
Speaker: It'll look like a tilt bob.
Speaker: It'll look like a triangle, so there you go.
Speaker: Well, good.
Speaker: That's half the clay, so I don't have to worry about the other baller.
Speaker: So you're wrapping up this mod.
Speaker: Are there any other mods that are on your horizon?
Speaker: Yes, there are.
Speaker: And that's all I will say about it.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I'm just on record as saying that I want to be on the list.
Speaker: But we got to know.
Speaker: Can you at least tell us what it's going to be for?
Speaker: Is it for a game?
Speaker: Like, which game is it for?
Speaker: That was my thing.
Speaker: If you didn't know what game it would be for, they would kind of be silly buying it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I'm not going to tell you that either.
Speaker: okay all right no stay tuned i'll stay tuned and if you want uh you guys will be the first to know well i was going to ask are you going to venture outside of wizard of oz because that's i am okay okay that's the only thing i was going to ask because i was going to tell you to point to a particular game because i mean obviously it's josh has a bugs bunny pinball party that he really wants to bling out
Speaker: Oh my gosh, really?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Someone was giving one of those away nearby and I went, nah, it's still too expensive.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: I'm modding Thunderbirds.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: So you have to hit International Rescue twice to start.
Speaker: Well, at first I've got to find a Thunderbirds to mod it, but that'll be harder than...
Speaker: I probably think.
Speaker: Any plans for modding a Deep Root game?
Speaker: Yeah, and I've been waiting.
Speaker: I've just been waiting.
Speaker: I've been waiting and waiting and waiting.
Speaker: The good news is, if you made 130 of them, you would get the whole thing.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So I want to know how, now we talked a little bit offline a lot.
Speaker: You have a significant theater history.
Speaker: How did you get into pinball?
Speaker: Like what, what, a good question is kind of niche.
Speaker: It's total niche.
Speaker: And it's always, I get the same question every time someone says you're into pinball.
Speaker: They always say the same thing.
Speaker: Huh?
Speaker: They still make those.
Speaker: That's always the first question.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they still say it a lot around.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The second question is, can I come over and play it?
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: Why not?
Speaker: Yeah, we've got some we've got some good brew pubs down here now.
Speaker: There's a lot of pinball around town if you want to play.
Speaker: I mean, now things are opening up a little more, but I got into it.
Speaker: Gosh, right around the time you guys are probably you're a little younger than I am.
Speaker: I'm 52.
Speaker: So you're like 40s or something.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm turning 47 this year.
Speaker: Oh, there you go.
Speaker: I'm turning 34 here in a couple weeks.
Speaker: He's a baby.
Speaker: Yeah, baby.
Speaker: It goes back for me when I didn't pay attention to pinball when I was playing in the arcades.
Speaker: It was right around the time that Mortal Kombat and all of those fighting games came out, and I just lost interest, where you need all these secret moves to play your game.
Speaker: And I was getting older, and I just wasn't interested in it.
Speaker: Um, and pinball machines, I just started gravitating toward cause they were new and they were different, even though they've always been around, they just caught my attention.
Speaker: Um, so I remember, I love Raiders of the Lost Ark and I remember what, excuse me, I remember wanting the movie poster, uh, just to put in my room, you know, my bedroom.
Speaker: Uh, but they were hard to get back then cause you know, the theaters would get rid of them and they'd send them back to the, the,
Speaker: the movie companies, all that.
Speaker: So I thought, man, you get a Raiders Lost Ark movie poster, that would be so much fun.
Speaker: Well, then I'm in an arcade somewhere and I see an Indiana Jones pinball machine and that just upped the ante like, oh my gosh, I didn't even know it existed.
Speaker: How much fun is that?
Speaker: If I ever owned one of those, that would be really fun.
Speaker: And I didn't have the money for it.
Speaker: But I ended up buying one for $1,900 back in 2002.
Speaker: And I just loved it.
Speaker: And I took it apart and I blew so many fuses on it, putting in lights and modding it myself and just figuring out how a pinball machine works because it's daunting when you flip it up and see all those wires.
Speaker: And there was a website.
Speaker: I think it's still out.
Speaker: It's called Mr. Pinball.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that's actually from Utah, by the way.
Speaker: Is it really?
Speaker: Oh, that's cool.
Speaker: Yeah, the original guy is from Utah, Mr. Pinball, yeah.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: I remember just a long time ago that there's a page on how to fix Bally Williams games from the 90s.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so I just was looking at that all the time.
Speaker: and figuring out how to fix pinball machines.
Speaker: It was just an obsession for me.
Speaker: I put little toys in there.
Speaker: I get a little rubber snake from the San Diego Zoo, and I'd stick it in there and put some plants in there and all that.
Speaker: For me, it was just really fun.
Speaker: I never really considered it a hobby.
Speaker: It was just this fun kind of antique that I had in my house.
Speaker: This is 2002, remember?
Speaker: Pinball is dead.
Speaker: Dead.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Dead.
Speaker: So, yeah, it's just one of those things.
Speaker: I just, I treasured it.
Speaker: And so my tie-in flash forward with theater is I was traveling around the country on tour.
Speaker: And we were in cities for a long time.
Speaker: You know, at least four weeks, sometimes 10 weeks, we were sitting in a city.
Speaker: We weren't just, you know, overnighting it.
Speaker: So you get bored kind of quickly.
Speaker: And one of the things that I just started doing was like going around and looking for pinball machines.
Speaker: And it just gave me a chance to get out and walk through cities and explore them.
Speaker: And this is before like having some sort of app that says, hey, they're over there.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: This was people talking.
Speaker: It wasn't an app like Pinball Map or something.
Speaker: It was just I would do like a deep dive on the computer and find people talking.
Speaker: So I remember we were in Minneapolis at one point, probably 2009, I think.
Speaker: And I see SS Billiards.
Speaker: I'm like, oh, what's this?
Speaker: They've got pinball machines.
Speaker: So I take a car out to SS Billiards and I meet Lloyd.
Speaker: Didn't know who he was.
Speaker: I didn't know what LTG was.
Speaker: I didn't know what Pinsight was or anything.
Speaker: But I got to experience all these great places.
Speaker: So like Sunshine Laundromat, Jack Bar, because I was living in New York for a while.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: uh places all over the place i think it's cactus jacks in nebraska which is an amazing pinball collection and and it was it really is just i i look at pinball as kinetic art that to me is more appealing to me i don't care about competing i don't care about multipliers and all that um
Speaker: I'm good at pinball.
Speaker: I'm really good at it.
Speaker: But I'd rather explore a game's story, I guess, than, you know, take someone on to get high score.
Speaker: That's not as interesting to me.
Speaker: But yeah, that's kind of been my passion for it.
Speaker: So
Speaker: In terms of getting other games, I got a Theater of Magic maybe to not so long.
Speaker: I remember around 2009, someone had one up in LA.
Speaker: I'm in San Diego, by the way.
Speaker: And they couldn't get it to restart.
Speaker: And they were selling it for $2,200.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: I went and I bought it.
Speaker: And I drilled out the lock and I hit the reset button and the whole thing just came up like pristine.
Speaker: It was just dusty.
Speaker: It was just, you know, pristine.
Speaker: And so that, you know, kind of became, you know, that was my next game.
Speaker: Uh, and then flash forward to 2010, 2011, whenever Jack, uh, how do you say his name?
Speaker: Gornieri?
Speaker: He's a tough one.
Speaker: He's like Gouveia.
Speaker: Uh, Jack, Jack.
Speaker: Jack did his spiel about his new game.
Speaker: And he was saying everything that I thought about pinball is I was out searching for, you know, theater magic, twilights, all these classic games from the 90s.
Speaker: And the new stuff I just thought was terrible.
Speaker: Wheel of Fortune, I had no interest in that stuff.
Speaker: And here comes Jack saying, hey, I want to make a machine with all these old guys from Bally Williams.
Speaker: I don't know what it is yet.
Speaker: I'm not going to tell you, but will you pay for it?
Speaker: And I'm like, yes, I'm going to pay for it.
Speaker: And I got so excited with just what he was doing.
Speaker: He's making an old game the way I liked it.
Speaker: And I paid for it sight unseen.
Speaker: And, you know, obviously it's Wizard of Oz and everything.
Speaker: But that was my third game.
Speaker: So it's not like I've got a basement.
Speaker: First of all, I'm in San Diego, so we don't really have those.
Speaker: But I don't have a huge collection.
Speaker: I just, you know, it's one of those things.
Speaker: Like they say, you buy one and you want another one, you want another one.
Speaker: But that's kind of how my collection and my interest in pinball started, I guess.
Speaker: So we talked randomly about Rush and you actually have this connection with Rush.
Speaker: Tell me about that connection.
Speaker: We're going down the nerdy hole.
Speaker: It's a pinball podcast.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: Hey, at a Rush concert, this is the only time where the lines for the men's room is way longer than the lines for the ladies' room.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Well, first of all, before we begin that, do you think they should make a Rush pinball machine?
Speaker: So that's actually kind of where I was going with this.
Speaker: I was going to say, you guys...
Speaker: It was somewhat officially unofficially announced.
Speaker: Well, not Rush itself.
Speaker: I think it's the theory behind it.
Speaker: It's like it's always been floating out there.
Speaker: So the challenge is Rush is one of those.
Speaker: Go ahead.
Speaker: I was going to say they announced on Pinball Show, or at least the correspondent did, saying that they're going to try to squeeze in a Rush pinball machine from John Borg between Mandalorian and Godzilla.
Speaker: Yeah, well, okay.
Speaker: And that's a theory, right?
Speaker: It's not like Stern's going to say anything about that.
Speaker: I can quote you ready for this.
Speaker: I'm going to quote Zach Sharp verbatim.
Speaker: I cannot yet confirm nor deny that it's actually true.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Well, yeah, that's his go-to message.
Speaker: Yeah, no.
Speaker: So the challenge with rush is that they're one of the few bands that have a niche following for about 40 years.
Speaker: And so they have, you know, the big album, they have moving pictures and they kind of came in their heyday.
Speaker: about 10 years into them, or six years into them being a band.
Speaker: And so the challenge is they have eras almost, and very few bands have eras that are, because very few bands actually make it that long.
Speaker: And so you can have the 70s version of the band,
Speaker: And because, you know, that's the, that's the same time as Led Zeppelin was out there.
Speaker: And so there's a lot of fantasy themes and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker: And then you have the eighties version, which is a little more of the synth pop version.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Then, then you have nineties, which they're going back to, to grunge slash guitars.
Speaker: And then you have others.
Speaker: So could you fit all of those in to one game or would it be just, you know what, we're just going to focus on this era of,
Speaker: when they were the biggest and say, you know, we're just going to do moving pictures, era rush, 1980.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think, I think the latter is a better choice.
Speaker: I think you either make 21, 12 machine or you make a moving pictures machine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think you'd have to go with moving pictures.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So have, you know, every song could be some sort of mode, you know, but then you're right.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: this is super nerdy, but, um, they're a prog rock band.
Speaker: And so a lot of their things, I, a lot, okay.
Speaker: A lot of, um,
Speaker: Well, okay.
Speaker: Topics that are typically in bands, there is, you know, the sex, drugs, rock and roll, right?
Speaker: Correct.
Speaker: They don't really typically do that.
Speaker: And so, you know, a lot of their songs are very niche.
Speaker: And they have a car about, they have a song about a red sports car.
Speaker: They have a camera eye, which is going through different cities.
Speaker: And it's just, it's kind of...
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's very prog rock nerd stuff.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So like, would that fit with pinball?
Speaker: And you could say, yes, Tom Sawyer would be great.
Speaker: YYZ would be a great song.
Speaker: Red Barker would be fun.
Speaker: You know, you could race around.
Speaker: Yeah, you could, but it's a slow start.
Speaker: It's the same thing as like Led Zeppelin.
Speaker: Well, that's my thing is I don't need to hear the music, you know, in a pinball.
Speaker: I've heard it so much in my life that I wouldn't necessarily need a game to hear it.
Speaker: So it's a tough one.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't know if the theme translates super well.
Speaker: I guess that's a very long way, a long prog rock way of saying that I'm not sure it would translate well, but I think I would buy it.
Speaker: I think most importantly, whoever does it should really like the band.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Because that would be my issue with it.
Speaker: I did not like the Led Zeppelin game.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Ooh, hot take.
Speaker: Well, you know, if I keep saying in my opinion over again, that gets redundant.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: I hate it when people say, I think, well, of course you think because you're talking.
Speaker: Yeah, this is my opinion.
Speaker: I think therefore I am.
Speaker: Yeah, of course.
Speaker: This is my opinion.
Speaker: Other people won't agree, but I didn't like what they did to it.
Speaker: Granted, it's tough to do Led Zeppelin with whatever assets they have, but I just, I don't want Rush to get the short shrift.
Speaker: I'd rather have them focus on it the way Slash focused on Guns N' Roses.
Speaker: But I don't know how many people would be interested in that.
Speaker: So to put that amount of time and money into it.
Speaker: So I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know if I'd get it unless it was really, really cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But it would have to be like the living two members of the band.
Speaker: You have Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And unless you have one of their involvements, I'm not sure.
Speaker: So apparently, you know, Alex.
Speaker: So why don't you just call him up?
Speaker: Why don't we just call him right now?
Speaker: You know, I thought of that.
Speaker: I'm like, that would be the geekiest thing ever.
Speaker: That would be awesome.
Speaker: Hey, there's a rumor you're making a pinball machine.
Speaker: Who is it?
Speaker: No, the way I know Alex, and I think it's really cool.
Speaker: I got so lucky.
Speaker: By the way, for those of you who do not have your nerd card, he's the lead guitarist for us.
Speaker: And he was my main guitar player.
Speaker: I've played guitar since I was 10 years old.
Speaker: And so right around that time, when Moving Pictures came out.
Speaker: And Rush was the only band I listened to.
Speaker: So I just absolutely worshiped their music.
Speaker: They could do no wrong, in my opinion, in my teenage years.
Speaker: Because we were talking so much before, I was in a show called Jersey Boys.
Speaker: And I was on Broadway for about two years and then went on tour with the show and then the first national tour.
Speaker: So when we were all these cities and I was searching my pinballs machines, we were there for a long period of time.
Speaker: So at one point we were in Toronto for 10 weeks and I knew that Alex and Getty had just gotten off of tour and
Speaker: And I was in a position where people were paying attention to me because I was doing lots of press for the show and articles, news articles and things like that.
Speaker: So I thought, I want to get these guys to come and see the show.
Speaker: I want to invite them.
Speaker: I'm here for 10 weeks.
Speaker: There's got to be a way for me to get them to see the show.
Speaker: So I had a mutual friend of theirs, this guy named John Wesley, who's the guitar player when they were on tour for a band called Porcupine Tree.
Speaker: Have you ever heard of them?
Speaker: Great band.
Speaker: Sounds familiar.
Speaker: Really, really great band.
Speaker: They're a London prog band.
Speaker: They're not playing anymore, but, uh, but I saw them, uh, in, uh, in New York and I became friends with one of their members.
Speaker: Well, Wes was Neil Peart's, uh, motorcycle buddy.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He, and he knows the guys.
Speaker: And he and I just geeked out over him one night.
Speaker: And I said, we're going, I wrote him, I said, we're going up to Toronto.
Speaker: Can you send Alex a letter saying I want to get in touch with him?
Speaker: And he's like, sure.
Speaker: So I never heard from him.
Speaker: And I'm doing press.
Speaker: There's an article in the Toronto Star where I'm doing like a lifestyle page on how to make my favorite drink in the afternoon.
Speaker: And it starts off with Alex Lifeson.
Speaker: If you're reading this, Steve Gauvea really wants to meet you.
Speaker: And she did it.
Speaker: The person interviewing me was like, yeah, I'll do it.
Speaker: And I was doing everything I could to meet these guys.
Speaker: So eight weeks go by and nothing's going to happen.
Speaker: I don't hear anything.
Speaker: The show's happening along.
Speaker: And I'm down in this tourist area of Toronto called the Distillery District.
Speaker: And I'm down there with my girlfriend at the time.
Speaker: And we're walking by and I see this old sort of like Jewish woman sitting at this table eating lunch.
Speaker: And I walk and I'm walking past and I say, hey, look, it's Geddy Lee, just as a joke.
Speaker: And I look again and it's Geddy Lee.
Speaker: And he's just sitting there with his wife, Nancy, and they're just having lunch.
Speaker: And I go around the corner and I'm so nervous.
Speaker: My knees are shaking.
Speaker: I'm like, oh my God, oh my God.
Speaker: And I've got to say something.
Speaker: I have to go back and say something.
Speaker: Yeah, you have to.
Speaker: You have to.
Speaker: And I've built this up so much, just trying to meet these guys.
Speaker: And there he is.
Speaker: Like, you know, of course you go to Toronto and there's Getty just sitting outside waiting to say hi.
Speaker: So I go back to him and my knees are shaking and I shake his hand and I'm just like, Oh my gosh, I, uh, Getty, I really want to meet Alex Lifeson.
Speaker: That's what I said to him.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: You're not the person I want to meet.
Speaker: No, there's someone else.
Speaker: I really want to meet Alex Lifeson.
Speaker: And he starts laughing.
Speaker: He goes, Oh, okay.
Speaker: And I explained who I am.
Speaker: And luckily there are Jersey boys, like banners all up, up and down the streets where we are.
Speaker: So I had some sort of like credit, you know, and,
Speaker: And he goes, well, give me your email and I'll give it to him.
Speaker: So I'm staring at him and my girlfriend, she ends up writing my email in a napkin and giving it to Getty.
Speaker: And then we go away and I'm on cloud nine.
Speaker: I got to meet Getty Lee and shake his hand.
Speaker: I'm like, we're done.
Speaker: Well, two days later, I get a message from Alex Likes.
Speaker: I get an email from Alex Likes.
Speaker: I'm told people.
Speaker: And I just fall out of my chair.
Speaker: And he says to me, he says, Steve, I know, I think you're Wes's friend from Porcupine Tree.
Speaker: He goes, he goes, I can't make it to the show.
Speaker: But thank you for the invite.
Speaker: You know, and I appreciate it.
Speaker: And I couldn't even believe I was even having a conversation with him.
Speaker: So I wrote him back and I said, look, I just wanted to thank you for all the guitar lessons.
Speaker: And so he wrote back two days later and said, I'm doing an interview at noon at the Four Seasons Hotel.
Speaker: You want to come down and have coffee afterwards?
Speaker: And I was like, oh, my gosh.
Speaker: So, of course, I got my Power Windows album.
Speaker: I got whatever I could.
Speaker: And I go down there, and I had lunch with Alex Lifeson for about two hours and just talking about everything.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he was just so funny.
Speaker: And I brought up the story about how he had met Jimmy Page.
Speaker: And I remember how nervous he was.
Speaker: He goes, oh, yeah, we were so nervous.
Speaker: And I said, that's me with you.
Speaker: And he just starts laughing.
Speaker: He goes, oh, you know, thanks so much.
Speaker: I said, the next time I see you is probably going to be when you guys are touring in San Diego.
Speaker: And he goes, well, just call me.
Speaker: You have my phone number.
Speaker: And so as the tour went on, they were in San Antonio.
Speaker: I got in touch with him.
Speaker: We went backstage.
Speaker: We hung out.
Speaker: And then we just became friends.
Speaker: I saw him in like three different concerts and kept going backstage to say hi to him.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: And so Des called me up and said, I want the band to play.
Speaker: And Des, before directing Jersey Boys, directed Tommy, the musical Pinball Machine is based on.
Speaker: And he wanted Pete Townsend to play with us.
Speaker: And so Des calls me and he says, I need you to come up here.
Speaker: We're putting the band back together that we're playing the show on Broadway.
Speaker: And we're going to play with Pete Townsend.
Speaker: And I said, I really can't do it.
Speaker: I'm busy.
Speaker: I got to sit in.
Speaker: He goes, well, that band you really like is going to be here too.
Speaker: And I go, he goes, Rush?
Speaker: I go, oh my God, really?
Speaker: He goes, yeah.
Speaker: So we go up there to Ottawa.
Speaker: Rush gets their Governor General Awards.
Speaker: I'm on stage playing Pinball Wizard with a bunch of pinball machines behind me with Pete Townsend in front of Rush.
Speaker: And the whole band comes backstage to meet Pete Townsend afterwards.
Speaker: And his dressing room was right next to mine.
Speaker: There's a picture of the three of them meeting him somewhere if you search for it.
Speaker: And the three guys come into our room with my, my little band and we get a picture of all of rush and,
Speaker: with me and my band guys.
Speaker: I'm like, it just doesn't happen that way.
Speaker: Especially with Neil.
Speaker: Especially all of Rush.
Speaker: That was a key thing.
Speaker: Neil is very private and he's basically, well, he relegated the PR stuff to Getty and Alex because he felt a little overwhelmed by it.
Speaker: Oh, without question.
Speaker: But I remember seeing Geddy again.
Speaker: I said, Geddy, remember me?
Speaker: I told you that I really wanted to meet Alex Arson.
Speaker: And he goes, yeah, I do remember you.
Speaker: And he started laughing.
Speaker: I said, but I really wanted to meet you too.
Speaker: And he started laughing.
Speaker: So yeah, that's kind of been my connection.
Speaker: So I've been in touch with him since then.
Speaker: I saw their last tour.
Speaker: Alex just put out some new music because he has a new guitar out.
Speaker: I just saw that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I wrote it briefly.
Speaker: I said, I dig it.
Speaker: It's really cool.
Speaker: The music is great.
Speaker: And he's, you know,
Speaker: doing his thing up in Toronto.
Speaker: But yeah, that's that for a period of time there, we were really like, like, you know, in contact a lot.
Speaker: And it was great.
Speaker: He took me out to dinner when I was in Toronto rehearsing and we just had a great time.
Speaker: And I'm like, this is my guitar hero.
Speaker: And he's the nicest guy on the planet.
Speaker: So nice.
Speaker: It reminds me of, again, Behind the Lighted Stage.
Speaker: You remember that?
Speaker: You saw that.
Speaker: And so the part where the waitress, who has only a peripheral idea of who Rush is, she recognizes Geddy Lee because he's very distinctive looking.
Speaker: And so she goes up and asks him for his autograph.
Speaker: And Geddy's like, do you want his autograph?
Speaker: And Alex is sitting there.
Speaker: And she's like, no, no.
Speaker: She had no idea who Alex Lyson was.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's his thing.
Speaker: He's like, he's like, I look like everybody else, Steve.
Speaker: You know, it's like, he looks like Geddy, but me, I'm just kind of fitting in, but I couldn't have been luckier and I could have been happier, but yeah, I'm a huge rush fan.
Speaker: If you look at the, I got my bobble heads up there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that's, that's kind of how I became friends with him.
Speaker: Just fortunate and very lucky.
Speaker: And you know,
Speaker: But it was great.
Speaker: I would hate to meet him and have him be a jerk, but he was really great.
Speaker: No, that's actually the danger, right?
Speaker: Meeting your heroes.
Speaker: Yes, definitely.
Speaker: It's so hard because you have, well, I call it like the illusion of intimacy, especially when you listen to either radio shows or podcasts or something like that.
Speaker: You kind of feel like the silent chair in the discussion.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: You know, you're there, you feel like you're involved in the discussion, but in many ways you're, and you're not really because they, they don't know who you are.
Speaker: Are you saying people feel intimate with us?
Speaker: Oh, geez.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is kind of weird here, Scott.
Speaker: You're saying.
Speaker: No, well, I'm just saying that it's, it's the solution of like, you know, it's a relationship, but I, and I will say, thankfully that's worked really well for Josh and I, because there's a lot of pinball podcasts out there that we have been able to become friends with because it does feel like, you know, them already.
Speaker: It's just kind of this odd situation, but I would say the same thing with your heroes.
Speaker: When you meet them, if they turn out to be just a major jerk, then you're like, it's, it's kind of hard to,
Speaker: appreciate them and their work once you see behind the curtain.
Speaker: Well, it's funny you say it because I mentioned this story briefly when I did Head to Head a couple of years ago, whatever.
Speaker: But Keith Elwin is from San Diego.
Speaker: Obviously, he's in Chicago now.
Speaker: I was about to ask, did you know Keith when he lived down there?
Speaker: Only barely.
Speaker: He came to work on my Indiana Jones machine once.
Speaker: over at my dad's house.
Speaker: But I remember the one time I was watching Special One Lit when I was on a plane.
Speaker: And I was flying back to San Diego and I'd watched the whole thing.
Speaker: I'm like, who's this guy with the San Diego Padres hat on?
Speaker: And I'm like, oh, it's Keith Elwin.
Speaker: He's the best pinball player in the world.
Speaker: I'm like, oh, that's weird.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: And I get back there.
Speaker: I think I'm here for a week or so and I needed a part for my Indiana Jones.
Speaker: And I called up a company called Area Amusements.
Speaker: And I said, I need this part.
Speaker: And they're like, yeah, come on up.
Speaker: I said, so I drove up maybe 10 minutes away from where I live.
Speaker: And the woman at the front says, hey, Keith, can you help this guy out?
Speaker: And I turn around the corner and working on a machine is Keith Elwin because he worked there.
Speaker: And I'm staring at him like –
Speaker: I just saw him on TV and he's like, he's like this major star.
Speaker: I'm like, you're Keith Elwin.
Speaker: And he's just very shy.
Speaker: He's like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I'm like, you're the best pinball player in the world.
Speaker: He's all, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: But I, you know, and I said, I said, you have, I forget how the topic came up, but he gave me a copy of his, his DVD.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he signed one one pinball one on one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I was so excited that I had met, you know, Keith Elwin.
Speaker: So since then, yeah, you know, paying attention to him and knowing he is and, um, uh, watching what he's doing and his games are great.
Speaker: He's great.
Speaker: So yeah, I mean, he was a nice guy too as well.
Speaker: You know, so talking about meeting your quote unquote heroes or, you know, right.
Speaker: Well, we have interviewed him a few times and, uh,
Speaker: legitimately he could not be nicer.
Speaker: And he was one of the first guys to come on even before we really cut our teeth.
Speaker: Oh, that's right.
Speaker: Yeah, it just felt, it's a confirmation when you talk with people and it's like, oh, well, they're really this nice.
Speaker: Like they really are.
Speaker: Yeah, it's refreshing and it is, you know, it's, I think it's necessary.
Speaker: People should be nicer.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, I, I gotta, we, we gotta wrap up here shortly, but I, I want to get, have, have you guys both looked at the new spooky pinball play field?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: The underneath.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I saw the underneath one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I didn't know if, if you guys had any takes on it or what you, you thought about it.
Speaker: Well, can you direct me there and I'll look at it?
Speaker: So I just sent over the link in the chat below for the picture of Spooky's stuff.
Speaker: Oh!
Speaker: So this is the underside, so you have to kind of visualize what the top's going to look like.
Speaker: But they have promised it's going to have two upper play fields.
Speaker: It looks like it's got a subway and stuff, huh?
Speaker: Wait one second.
Speaker: Did you send it to... Because I'm on the computer with this... Oh, I see it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: They're putting some stuff in there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Lots of mechs.
Speaker: Yeah, if you look at that right side, that's upper play field towards... In the picture, it'll be the bottom right, but on the actual play field, it'll be the upper right once you drop it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's great.
Speaker: I mean, to me, honestly, the more mechs, the better.
Speaker: The more toys in there, the better, I think.
Speaker: For me, it's always been, if the game is too barren, I might as well just go play pool or something like that.
Speaker: I like to have lots of toys.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, I'm looking at this.
Speaker: But they haven't talked about a theme for the game at all.
Speaker: That's all mystery.
Speaker: There's been a bunch thrown out there.
Speaker: Scooby-Doo, Halloween, Army of Darkness.
Speaker: I mean, the list goes on and on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Who knows?
Speaker: Oh, you know, you know how the game of misdirection goes in pinball, you know, I know.
Speaker: Here's the problem.
Speaker: When I when I look at underneath the play field, I, I am not smart enough to know what that possibly translates to up on the play field.
Speaker: No, this is a tough one, too.
Speaker: Okay, so here, I'm going to send you this thing.
Speaker: And you can take a look at this is what they did to my Tron.
Speaker: So, there you go.
Speaker: So you can take a look and see, like when I first got Tron, I was kind of disappointed because you expect a little more of an immersive environment with a game like Tron, but it felt kind of barren.
Speaker: It was a pro and I was kind of disappointed, but after I got everything lit up and the way it looks, it really changes how involved in the game you are.
Speaker: And I know it's silly, but there's a reason why you don't play Whitewoods.
Speaker: Yeah, but I don't think that's silly at all.
Speaker: I think that's the appeal of pinball.
Speaker: For me, it just, you know, the world, oh, that's pretty.
Speaker: I'm looking at the game now.
Speaker: That's great.
Speaker: Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker: Doesn't it look amazing?
Speaker: Like how much... And the cool little Tron arcade machine, which is just one of the coolest things ever.
Speaker: It's a cool mod.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that was one of my favorites when I first started doing this was that.
Speaker: And there's the T-Rex mod.
Speaker: I don't know if you guys remember that one.
Speaker: Yeah, I've seen it with I don't know how to pronounce the guy's name.
Speaker: It's Loire.
Speaker: Oh, Leo.
Speaker: No, I'm not talking about one.
Speaker: There's one that was done by and I don't know his name, but it's called his his pin side name is Winter is Coming.
Speaker: And he did one for Data East.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: I remember that one.
Speaker: It's pretty cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like a six year old thread, but he, he sculpted the whole thing out of clay and it's beautiful.
Speaker: And so when I started out, that was inspiring to me.
Speaker: If someone could do that, you know, I could try to do something like that.
Speaker: Yeah, because his complaint was like, why is the dinosaur look... Because it doesn't look like the T-Rex at all in the movie.
Speaker: And so he was like, I want to make something that resembles what the movie does.
Speaker: Yeah, I was surprised by the Stern Jurassic Park.
Speaker: How mine... I have the NLE and it's green.
Speaker: And I was surprised that the ones that have been coming out recently, or at least my friend's premium, it's a brown dinosaur.
Speaker: So it's closer to what the T-Rex looks like.
Speaker: Oh, interesting.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, when I first started out, it was just a few guys making a few things here and there.
Speaker: And so, you know, the mod companies and things like that, I don't really pay attention to much, but there's so much stuff out now.
Speaker: But I think it's great, man.
Speaker: Make your game look like this Tron.
Speaker: You know, it's, I would like the company to make it look like that coming out of the gate, but if not just, you know, do it on your own.
Speaker: Cause that, yeah, that looks great.
Speaker: And it has all, does this have the ramps that light up and everything?
Speaker: Yeah, it does.
Speaker: And really the, my version has, yeah.
Speaker: So by the way, people want to look at it.
Speaker: It's just search for Z door custom Tron on pin side and it'll pull up and he did an amazing job.
Speaker: Yeah, that's beautiful.
Speaker: This is the one that you owned.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, I still own it.
Speaker: He still owns it.
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: Are those mirror blades on that side?
Speaker: They're mirror blades on the sides.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that's really beautiful.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm still not good enough to actually play it very well, but it's an amazing game.
Speaker: As Colin McAlpine plays in the background, he's already taken your grand champion.
Speaker: Ironically, I just had to pause it because Colin McAlpine, and just in case you don't know who he is, he kind of won a small tournament, Papa 2017.
Speaker: So I have a feeling that every single one of my GCs are going down.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: anyway.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's good times.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I do have one question though.
Speaker: And I, I'm not talking about the game that shall not be named, but the top five other things that you're like, I would like to modify this.
Speaker: Oh boy.
Speaker: Gosh, that's tough, man.
Speaker: That's tough.
Speaker: Cause other people, cause other people are doing so, so well with that.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Pirates is beautiful.
Speaker: The, the Jersey Jack one, but people have modded that one.
Speaker: So I'm not going to get anywhere near that.
Speaker: Um, gosh, that's, it's tough to answer because I have to be really into it before I'm going to spend time on it.
Speaker: Um, so yeah, I, uh,
Speaker: I don't know if I can answer that.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: That's a tough question.
Speaker: I kind of accept, I think Indiana Jones, first of all, but Lior, that's the way you pronounce his name, Rajwan.
Speaker: Lior got all over that years ago.
Speaker: That's how we met.
Speaker: Great sculptures for that.
Speaker: So I wouldn't go there either.
Speaker: And it has to be a good game.
Speaker: I'm not going to spend time making something for a game that nobody... For Popeye.
Speaker: Well, you guessed it.
Speaker: Gilligan's Island.
Speaker: Wait, you could do the minnow.
Speaker: Gilligan's Island.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Everyone's clamoring for a Gilligan's Island, you know?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: They made like 4,000 of those.
Speaker: I've never seen one in person, but I'm amazed at how many they actually made.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm close to the Pinball Museum in Banning.
Speaker: So they had one.
Speaker: They also have the Bugs Bunny.
Speaker: birthday bath and a bunch of other really crappy games that you'd never play.
Speaker: But so that gives you an opportunity to see those things up close, but yeah, it's not.
Speaker: Well, Steve, we appreciate you coming on.
Speaker: We've had a wonderful chat.
Speaker: I mean, we're almost at an hour now.
Speaker: We are.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: I could talk Rush for another five hours.
Speaker: I know you could.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: People probably tuned us out once.
Speaker: He's like, oh, God, here we go.
Speaker: Between Rush and theater.
Speaker: Oh, really?
Speaker: We scared off everyone.
Speaker: Nothing wrong with that.
Speaker: Well, this sucks.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, this guy again.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The show truth guy.
Speaker: Here we go.
Speaker: Really, it's been awesome having you on.
Speaker: I appreciate you for saying yes.
Speaker: Well, thank you so much.
Speaker: If people want to follow you on Pinside, what is your Pinside username?
Speaker: It's my last name, Gouveia.
Speaker: G-O-U-V-E-I-A.
Speaker: Or search, you know, red witch or monkey or something, and I think you'll find it.
Speaker: Red monkey mod?
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Flying witch monkey mod.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Nice, nice.
Speaker: And apparently it's a to be determined one that's coming out.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's hard, but I'm excited about it.
Speaker: Well, we will certainly get you, you know, you can have your own Keith Elwin hat, which is the Loser Kid pinball hat.
Speaker: Hey!
Speaker: Only call it that because he makes it look really good.
Speaker: But we'll definitely send that out.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I've been waiting for one.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Well, we are loser kid pinball podcast.
Speaker: You can get ahold of us at loser kid pinball on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Speaker: And now we are officially affiliated with Twitch.
Speaker: So if you want to watch us there, you can go to at loser kid pinball on twitch.tv and follow, subscribe, all that jazz.
Speaker: Um, yeah,
Speaker: Am I missing anything else, Scott?
Speaker: No, I think it's good.
Speaker: We actually, so since Colin McAlpine showed up, we're going to do a, we're going to try to coordinate something too and talk about competitive pinball coming up and opening back up and get his take on it since he is a little, he's pretty good at it.
Speaker: So he understands it a little bit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Thanks guys.
Speaker: We'll we'll see you in roughly about two weeks.
