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Ep 62: Talking Mods and Rush with Steve Gouveia
41 Plays4 years ago
Steve Gouveia, the mind behind the Red Witch Smoke mod and Flying Monkey Mod, joins us on this episode to talk about his inspiration for the mods and tease us with a new one!
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:06
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast.
00:00:11
Speaker
This is episode 62.
00:00:14
Speaker
62.
00:00:14
Speaker
62.
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Speaker
With me, my co-captain as always.
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Scott Larson.
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Speaker
And Scott, I can't remember.
00:00:22
Speaker
I know we've changed this up.
00:00:23
Speaker
Why don't you tell us about our sponsor?
00:00:25
Speaker
How about that?
00:00:25
Speaker
Yes.
00:00:27
Speaker
Okay.
00:00:27
Speaker
So two things we want to talk about.
00:00:30
Speaker
Flippin' Out Pinball.
00:00:31
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.
00:00:42
Speaker
They have all sorts of options.
00:00:44
Speaker
And they've also branched out to different things.
00:00:46
Speaker
If you want to get that big buck hunter, which I have been eyeing for a while, you can contact them.
00:00:51
Speaker
Also, if you want to catch up to the news, This Week in Pinball is always good with Jeff Patterson.
00:00:57
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
Steve Govea's Modding Journey
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minutes.
00:01:03
Speaker
So anyway, okay, Josh.
00:01:08
Speaker
We got a really cool guest on, but I honestly, I feel like you know him better than I do.
00:01:12
Speaker
I just barely met him, but it sounds like you guys have history together already.
00:01:17
Speaker
We go way back.
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Way back.
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Speaker
Way back.
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So when I was on Broadway, yeah.
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So, okay.
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So this is Steve Govea.
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Speaker
I got that right.
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Speaker
Correct?
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Speaker
Yes.
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Correct.
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Close enough.
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Okay.
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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.
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So he decided to upgrade that.
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And since then, he's actually done a few upgrades.
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He did the Red Smoke Witch 1.0.
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Then he did the Flying Witch mod.
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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.
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Speaker
Or the Flying Monkey mod.
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Speaker
This Flying Witch mod sounds fascinating.
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Flying Witch mod.
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Speaker
That would be awesome.
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Speaker
Yeah.
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Speaker
And then we have the Crystal Ball mod.
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Speaker
And then he had the Witch 2.0 mod.
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Correct.
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And I'm sure there's other stuff going on.
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So we want to welcome to the show Steve.
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How are you doing, Steve?
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I'm doing great.
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Thanks, guys, for having me.
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Definitely.
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I'm excited for this.
00:02:29
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I got to ask, why just Wizard of Oz?
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Why haven't you branched out yet?
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What is your fascination with Wizard of Oz?
00:02:34
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Yeah, well, what started it?
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Other than seeing the terrible display, I have a picture of the witches next to each other, and it looks laughable, really.
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You know, what happened is when that game came out, well, that was 2011, I think, when it came out.
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Speaker
Yeah, a while ago, yeah.
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Between then and 2014 or 15, people were trying to do other versions of The Witch.
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And I really just did it.
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I was more curious for myself.
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There was a thread on Pinside called Ditch the Witch and Leave the Trees.
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And I forget who started it, but you can find it.
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It's a really old thread.
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But this guy took a Hallmark ornament.
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And he cut it in half and he stuck it in the tube and it looked great.
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And then he put a bunch of like, I don't know, like holly in the trees.
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And it just kind of gave me the idea that people were trying.
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So I tried the same thing he did and I completely destroyed the Hallmark toy.
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I mean, just completely destroyed it because you've got to saw it in half and try to make it fit.
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And he did a great job.
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So, you know, failure after failure, I just decided to make one out of clay.
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And then I just started looking at YouTube videos on how to make stuff out of resin.
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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
Creative Process and Challenges
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fun.
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But I never really intended to, you know, be a quote unquote modder.
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I just, I put the witch out there because I thought it was a good idea.
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to have the red part that protects her light it up.
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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.
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And by the time it sort of died off, I started working on the monkey.
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And that was simply because someone asked me to do it.
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Someone challenged me to do it.
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And once that happened, I was like, well, there's no space back there.
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I don't know how you're going to do it.
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But I figured it out.
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Um, but I, it's like, I'm not a company necessarily.
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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.
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Uh, and then the resin obviously.
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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.
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And was ready to – almost two years ago, I was ready to do something else.
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But I went back because I figured I could make The Witch better.
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And because The Witch was selling for way too much money on eBay and things like that, which I just thought was silly.
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So, yeah, I decided to make a few more.
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And because it's 2.0, because I just got better.
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It took me three years maybe to go back to see it.
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And I was like, I don't want to just –
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you know, take the same design and cast them and sell them.
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And I was like, there's certain aspects of it I can make better and do things that I always wanted to do.
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And that's where the lighting came in and that's where the sculpture kind of changed a little bit.
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So, so yeah, that's how those things came about.
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Speaker
I'm shocked that you, that this is your first, your first foray into sculpting.
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Speaker
I, I, I was anticipating that you were going to say, well, I've been playing D and D for years.
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And so I've been painting sculpt.
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I seriously, this is, this is what my friends growing up would do.
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They would have their little miniatures and they'd paint them.
00:06:04
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And, but you're telling me you didn't have any history like that.
00:06:08
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No, I made something out of clay years and years ago.
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I've, I've,
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I've been pretty artistic my entire life.
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I did theater design in college for a while.
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I worked as a cartoonist when I was younger and did caricatures and things like that.
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But clay was not something I've ever really done for a living.
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So there's a lot of people on YouTube who are so good at it.
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And if you kind of have an idea of what you want to do, you can learn a lot from them.
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So that's what I did.
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I just, I tried to learn everything I could.
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That's some dedication.
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I'm not going to lie.
00:06:45
Speaker
That's pretty awesome.
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It's more of a challenge.
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Thank you.
00:06:48
Speaker
It's really a challenge.
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It's like, can I make something new and unique?
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And I love doing it.
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I love, at the end of the day, finishing a mod and going, wow, that's really cool.
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Am I, you know,
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in my opinion, I've never really made anything for other people other than for me.
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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.
00:07:10
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.
00:07:18
Speaker
So you, you did the first witch and then you went to the flying monkey mod.
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Speaker
Correct.
00:07:23
Speaker
And, and how many of these did you make?
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Speaker
How long did it take you to make each individual one?
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Speaker
It took so long.
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I'll tell you, it took, it, it,
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Speaker
It took almost a year, took 10 months.
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By the time I got to the end of the list, some people are like, I paid for that?
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Or did I ask you for that?
00:07:38
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Well, yeah, you did.
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And I didn't care.
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There were so many other people who wanted it.
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I'm like, yeah, you did.
00:07:42
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If you don't want it, that's fine because I got to make some more.
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Speaker
But it was, I was, I had just moved.
00:07:49
Speaker
God, we were talking so much before the podcast.
00:07:51
Speaker
I forget where we were, but I'm from San Diego and I used to live all over the place.
00:07:55
Speaker
So I came back home here and I didn't really have a job.
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And, uh, I had some time to just kind of, you know, do this at night for myself.
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Speaker
And that's, that's where it came from.
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It's just truly just a hobby for fun for me that I thought was a cool idea.
00:08:12
Speaker
And now you have two version of the witches now.
00:08:14
Speaker
So there's the 1.0.
00:08:15
Speaker
So full disclosure, I'm really good at buying things and not very good at installing them.
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Speaker
So I bought the 1.0 witch
Steve's Artistic Background
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mod and I saw actually kind of late to the game.
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I missed it.
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And I said, oh, he's doing a 2.0 mod.
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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.
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Speaker
And kind of ironically, you asked me a basic question about Rush.
00:08:45
Speaker
And so I actually, I know a lot about Rush.
00:08:47
Speaker
And so I gave you way more information than you wanted.
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Speaker
No, it's funny, but you passed.
00:08:51
Speaker
You passed with flying colors.
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Speaker
I did pass.
00:08:53
Speaker
I passed.
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Speaker
I passed.
00:08:56
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.
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Speaker
Let's see.
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Speaker
The first one was based off of that Hallmark toy I told you about that I cut in half.
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Speaker
If you go back and find it, they're on eBay somewhere.
00:09:13
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.
00:09:20
Speaker
And if you push the button, I think she screams or something and the light kind of flashes.
00:09:25
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.
00:09:34
Speaker
because then the mech won't know there's anything in there.
00:09:37
Speaker
And that's why the tube is there.
00:09:39
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.
00:09:47
Speaker
So the idea for me was to make this like cloud that I saw in this Hallmark ornament,
00:09:52
Speaker
but make it bigger so the ball can't get up there on the top.
00:09:56
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.
00:10:08
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.
00:10:17
Speaker
So I looked at the bricks on there that, that, that, uh, Matt had made from, uh,
00:10:22
Speaker
back alley creations.
00:10:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:26
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.
00:10:38
Speaker
But like I said, I made about, I made about 200 and,
00:10:43
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.
00:10:50
Speaker
Um, I thought it was neat that people are collecting them and they're selling them for a lot of money.
00:10:55
Speaker
I think that's really cool.
00:10:56
Speaker
It's fun.
00:10:56
Speaker
It just means I'm not making something that's, you know, junky.
00:10:59
Speaker
But when I saw the prices for them going up, and just like dumb prices, I thought I could make a few more.
00:11:08
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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?
00:11:15
Speaker
And back then I'm like, no, I can't.
00:11:17
Speaker
I don't know how to do that.
00:11:19
Speaker
Well, now I could.
00:11:20
Speaker
So I took this sculpture,
Music and Pinball Themes
00:11:22
Speaker
and I made her more sort of dynamic –
00:11:25
Speaker
and perspective kind of based and had her looking out.
00:11:28
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.
00:11:37
Speaker
Well, when wizard of Oz goes into a test mode,
00:11:41
Speaker
there's this pulsing rainbow color thing that goes up every once in a while through the play field.
00:11:47
Speaker
When those lights were coming up through the red piece of plastic, I just thought it looked so cool.
00:11:54
Speaker
I didn't have the knowledge to make it light up like that.
00:11:59
Speaker
The original game, if you don't own it, it's two LEDs that flash.
00:12:04
Speaker
One is red and one is white.
00:12:07
Speaker
So...
00:12:08
Speaker
All this time passes and I learned about this thing called an addressable LED ring.
00:12:15
Speaker
And what that allows you to do is program it and you can do whatever you want with this ring.
00:12:19
Speaker
So I went back and I looked at the mod that I made.
00:12:22
Speaker
I had to dig out the base of it and kind of reconfigure it.
00:12:24
Speaker
I made it so this ring fits inside there.
00:12:27
Speaker
And then I had a friend.
00:12:29
Speaker
who, uh, pinball buddy of mine isn't involved in pinball at all.
00:12:34
Speaker
He's actually involved in, in theater, Scott.
00:12:37
Speaker
Uh, but his dad was a, uh, uh, electronics, um, programmer or whatever, you know, uh,
00:12:45
Speaker
And so he had a basic knowledge of what this ring did in programming it.
00:12:49
Speaker
And he got really excited.
00:12:50
Speaker
He's like, let me do it.
00:12:50
Speaker
Let me do it.
00:12:51
Speaker
So we came up with about seven patterns of light that are all random.
00:12:57
Speaker
They're tied to the music.
00:12:59
Speaker
So they kind of billow and smoke.
00:13:01
Speaker
And when the music goes out, the lights go out.
00:13:04
Speaker
And then the witch...
00:13:06
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.
00:13:16
Speaker
I was never going to make it glow in the dark.
00:13:19
Speaker
But the monkey...
00:13:21
Speaker
Because the game is so dark in the back, which I love, by the way.
00:13:24
Speaker
I loved how dark Wizard of Oz is.
00:13:27
Speaker
But the monkey, to light it, I didn't just want to put a spotlight on it.
00:13:30
Speaker
So I painted it with UV reflective paint.
00:13:36
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.
00:13:46
Speaker
It's more subtle.
00:13:47
Speaker
So I did that with the witch.
00:13:49
Speaker
I painted her with UV paint.
Pinball Community Insights
00:13:51
Speaker
And then I replaced the white light that's originally in the game with UV lights that shine up from above.
00:13:57
Speaker
So she glows when all the fire disappears.
00:14:01
Speaker
She sits there and glows.
00:14:02
Speaker
Looks really cool.
00:14:03
Speaker
It's like if you've ever been to Disneyland,
00:14:05
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.
00:14:14
Speaker
It looks like that.
00:14:16
Speaker
And so once I figured that out, I got excited about it.
00:14:20
Speaker
But I was only going to make 50.
00:14:21
Speaker
That was my plan because it was hard to do.
00:14:25
Speaker
And I just wanted to make 50.
00:14:27
Speaker
And so many people wanted one.
00:14:30
Speaker
I'm just about to finish.
00:14:32
Speaker
And we're about 125.
00:14:35
Speaker
So, um, so that's where we are on the witch 2.0.
00:14:41
Speaker
Now I, I just barely installed it.
00:14:43
Speaker
And, um, for the record, it's really cool.
00:14:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:49
Speaker
My, my son who I actually adjusted wizard of Oz cause it was kind of too hard for my kids.
00:14:55
Speaker
It's a hard game.
00:14:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:56
Speaker
It's really hard.
00:14:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:57
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,
00:15:05
Speaker
I didn't have the heart to tell him.
00:15:06
Speaker
It was like the high score of the day.
00:15:08
Speaker
But he loved doing it.
00:15:11
Speaker
He loved playing.
00:15:11
Speaker
But it is so cool when the witch pops up.
00:15:14
Speaker
It really is a showstopper.
00:15:16
Speaker
Oh, thank you.
00:15:17
Speaker
I tell you, I've been working on it for so long.
00:15:20
Speaker
that, um, and then like, like I said, once COVID hit, it's like everything just slowed down.
00:15:26
Speaker
It was just, I mean, we've all, we're experiencing it.
00:15:29
Speaker
It was, it felt, it felt weird just to make a toy during all that.
00:15:34
Speaker
I wasn't quite sure what was happening.
00:15:36
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,
00:15:48
Speaker
it took so long.
00:15:49
Speaker
In fact, the crystal ball was not meant to be something on its own.
00:15:52
Speaker
It was make, it was something I was just going to make because my friend was busy programming the new witch.
00:15:57
Speaker
Um,
00:15:58
Speaker
But it's one of those things.
00:15:59
Speaker
It's a labor of love.
00:16:00
Speaker
And no one was necessarily waiting for me.
00:16:03
Speaker
And I don't have anybody pay up front.
00:16:06
Speaker
So you're not out of any money.
00:16:07
Speaker
And I don't feel obligated to make you something.
00:16:10
Speaker
So I kind of keep the pressure off myself that way.
00:16:13
Speaker
And I'll just make something that I really enjoy.
00:16:17
Speaker
And that's what happened with this.
00:16:17
Speaker
So you did this based off of a challenge.
00:16:21
Speaker
At least the monkey mod, right?
00:16:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:25
Speaker
So can I make a challenge?
00:16:27
Speaker
I've been thinking about this after Scott said we were going to talk.
00:16:29
Speaker
I knew if I said challenge, you're going to ask me to make something, but we'll see.
00:16:33
Speaker
We'll see.
00:16:34
Speaker
This isn't for Wizard of Oz and you can totally shoot me down.
00:16:38
Speaker
No, it doesn't need to be.
00:16:39
Speaker
Trust me.
00:16:40
Speaker
Not at all.
00:16:40
Speaker
Okay.
00:16:41
Speaker
So you remember the truck nuts that used to be on all the trucks?
00:16:46
Speaker
The truck?
00:16:48
Speaker
Oh, oh, so for like a truck?
00:16:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:51
Speaker
You know, for like a truck, you know, you hung them on the back of your truck.
00:16:54
Speaker
And that's how you knew it was.
00:16:56
Speaker
That's how you knew it was a mail truck.
00:16:57
Speaker
Yes.
00:16:58
Speaker
We've got a neighbor who has them and my wife, Trisha wants to go yank them off.
00:17:02
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
00:17:29
Speaker
I thought it'd be really cool if you could hook this.
00:17:31
Speaker
I know that it would probably be against the road rules.
00:17:35
Speaker
There's probably some law saying you can't have lights and sound.
00:17:38
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.
00:17:43
Speaker
It'd make a tilt sound.
00:17:45
Speaker
You could have it light up.
00:17:47
Speaker
Actually, when you hit the brakes, you can actually have things light up.
00:17:50
Speaker
It's kind of weird, but yeah.
00:17:51
Speaker
That's what I'm saying when you can do it with the brake with the tilt.
00:17:54
Speaker
So if you press on the brake, it would say tilt across the tilt, Bob.
00:17:57
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.
00:18:04
Speaker
So if you got double danger, would it like shut your car down?
00:18:09
Speaker
Maybe.
00:18:09
Speaker
Maybe.
00:18:11
Speaker
Is this something you guys see a lot up there in Utah?
00:18:13
Speaker
Does your car have a pair of balls attached to it?
00:18:16
Speaker
Nah.
00:18:18
Speaker
There's more than you would think.
00:18:19
Speaker
But usually I'm just like, oh, really?
00:18:21
Speaker
You went there?
00:18:22
Speaker
Okay.
00:18:24
Speaker
No, I just thought it'd be funny to have a tilt bob hanging off the back of my truck.
00:18:27
Speaker
You know?
00:18:30
Speaker
And I know the community to get behind it.
00:18:32
Speaker
Everyone wants a tilt bob hanging off the back of their truck.
00:18:34
Speaker
Everyone wants a uniball.
00:18:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:36
Speaker
Get on it.
00:18:39
Speaker
Get on it.
00:18:40
Speaker
That could be your thing, the way the head-to-head guys had the kangaroo sacks for a while.
00:18:45
Speaker
Absolutely, yeah.
Future of Pinball Mods
00:18:46
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:18:47
Speaker
Dang.
00:18:47
Speaker
You just spelled truck balls.
00:18:50
Speaker
But this will look like a tilt bob.
00:18:53
Speaker
It won't look like balls.
00:18:54
Speaker
It'll look like a tilt bob.
00:18:56
Speaker
It'll look like a triangle, so there you go.
00:18:58
Speaker
Well, good.
00:18:59
Speaker
That's half the clay, so I don't have to worry about the other baller.
00:19:03
Speaker
So you're wrapping up this mod.
00:19:05
Speaker
Are there any other mods that are on your horizon?
00:19:08
Speaker
Yes, there are.
00:19:11
Speaker
And that's all I will say about it.
00:19:13
Speaker
Okay.
00:19:14
Speaker
I'm just on record as saying that I want to be on the list.
00:19:18
Speaker
But we got to know.
00:19:20
Speaker
Can you at least tell us what it's going to be for?
00:19:22
Speaker
Is it for a game?
00:19:23
Speaker
Like, which game is it for?
00:19:25
Speaker
That was my thing.
00:19:26
Speaker
If you didn't know what game it would be for, they would kind of be silly buying it.
00:19:30
Speaker
Right.
00:19:30
Speaker
And I'm not going to tell you that either.
00:19:33
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
00:19:56
Speaker
Oh my gosh, really?
00:19:58
Speaker
No.
00:20:01
Speaker
Someone was giving one of those away nearby and I went, nah, it's still too expensive.
00:20:09
Speaker
Wow.
00:20:10
Speaker
I'm modding Thunderbirds.
00:20:14
Speaker
Oh.
00:20:15
Speaker
So you have to hit International Rescue twice to start.
00:20:19
Speaker
Well, at first I've got to find a Thunderbirds to mod it, but that'll be harder than...
00:20:24
Speaker
I probably think.
00:20:26
Speaker
Any plans for modding a Deep Root game?
00:20:30
Speaker
Yeah, and I've been waiting.
00:20:33
Speaker
I've just been waiting.
00:20:33
Speaker
I've been waiting and waiting and waiting.
00:20:37
Speaker
The good news is, if you made 130 of them, you would get the whole thing.
00:20:42
Speaker
Okay.
00:20:43
Speaker
So I want to know how, now we talked a little bit offline a lot.
00:20:46
Speaker
You have a significant theater history.
00:20:49
Speaker
How did you get into pinball?
00:20:51
Speaker
Like what, what, a good question is kind of niche.
00:20:55
Speaker
It's total niche.
00:20:56
Speaker
And it's always, I get the same question every time someone says you're into pinball.
00:21:01
Speaker
They always say the same thing.
00:21:02
Speaker
Huh?
00:21:02
Speaker
They still make those.
00:21:04
Speaker
That's always the first question.
00:21:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:05
Speaker
And they still say it a lot around.
00:21:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:08
Speaker
The second question is, can I come over and play it?
00:21:11
Speaker
Yeah, sure.
00:21:11
Speaker
Why not?
00:21:13
Speaker
Yeah, we've got some we've got some good brew pubs down here now.
00:21:17
Speaker
There's a lot of pinball around town if you want to play.
00:21:19
Speaker
I mean, now things are opening up a little more, but I got into it.
00:21:24
Speaker
Gosh, right around the time you guys are probably you're a little younger than I am.
00:21:28
Speaker
I'm 52.
00:21:29
Speaker
So you're like 40s or something.
00:21:31
Speaker
Yeah, I'm turning 47 this year.
00:21:33
Speaker
Oh, there you go.
00:21:35
Speaker
I'm turning 34 here in a couple weeks.
00:21:37
Speaker
He's a baby.
00:21:38
Speaker
Yeah, baby.
00:21:40
Speaker
It goes back for me when I didn't pay attention to pinball when I was playing in the arcades.
Episode Conclusion
00:21:45
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.
00:21:54
Speaker
And I was getting older, and I just wasn't interested in it.
00:21:58
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.
00:22:08
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.
00:22:21
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,
00:22:27
Speaker
the movie companies, all that.
00:22:28
Speaker
So I thought, man, you get a Raiders Lost Ark movie poster, that would be so much fun.
00:22:32
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.
00:22:42
Speaker
How much fun is that?
00:22:43
Speaker
If I ever owned one of those, that would be really fun.
00:22:48
Speaker
And I didn't have the money for it.
00:22:51
Speaker
But I ended up buying one for $1,900 back in 2002.
00:23:00
Speaker
And I just loved it.
00:23:04
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.
00:23:18
Speaker
And there was a website.
00:23:19
Speaker
I think it's still out.
00:23:20
Speaker
It's called Mr. Pinball.
00:23:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:22
Speaker
So that's actually from Utah, by the way.
00:23:25
Speaker
Is it really?
00:23:25
Speaker
Oh, that's cool.
00:23:26
Speaker
Yeah, the original guy is from Utah, Mr. Pinball, yeah.
00:23:30
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:23:30
Speaker
I remember just a long time ago that there's a page on how to fix Bally Williams games from the 90s.
00:23:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:38
Speaker
And so I just was looking at that all the time.
00:23:41
Speaker
and figuring out how to fix pinball machines.
00:23:45
Speaker
It was just an obsession for me.
00:23:47
Speaker
I put little toys in there.
00:23:49
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.
00:23:55
Speaker
For me, it was just really fun.
00:23:56
Speaker
I never really considered it a hobby.
00:23:58
Speaker
It was just this fun kind of antique that I had in my house.
00:24:04
Speaker
This is 2002, remember?
00:24:05
Speaker
Pinball is dead.
00:24:07
Speaker
Dead.
00:24:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:08
Speaker
Dead.
00:24:10
Speaker
So, yeah, it's just one of those things.
00:24:11
Speaker
I just, I treasured it.
00:24:13
Speaker
And so my tie-in flash forward with theater is I was traveling around the country on tour.
00:24:23
Speaker
And we were in cities for a long time.
00:24:27
Speaker
You know, at least four weeks, sometimes 10 weeks, we were sitting in a city.
00:24:31
Speaker
We weren't just, you know, overnighting it.
00:24:33
Speaker
So you get bored kind of quickly.
00:24:35
Speaker
And one of the things that I just started doing was like going around and looking for pinball machines.
00:24:39
Speaker
And it just gave me a chance to get out and walk through cities and explore them.
00:24:44
Speaker
And this is before like having some sort of app that says, hey, they're over there.
00:24:48
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:24:50
Speaker
This was people talking.
00:24:52
Speaker
It wasn't an app like Pinball Map or something.
00:24:53
Speaker
It was just I would do like a deep dive on the computer and find people talking.
00:24:58
Speaker
So I remember we were in Minneapolis at one point, probably 2009, I think.
00:25:03
Speaker
And I see SS Billiards.
00:25:05
Speaker
I'm like, oh, what's this?
00:25:06
Speaker
They've got pinball machines.
00:25:08
Speaker
So I take a car out to SS Billiards and I meet Lloyd.
00:25:13
Speaker
Didn't know who he was.
00:25:15
Speaker
I didn't know what LTG was.
00:25:16
Speaker
I didn't know what Pinsight was or anything.
00:25:18
Speaker
But I got to experience all these great places.
00:25:21
Speaker
So like Sunshine Laundromat, Jack Bar, because I was living in New York for a while.
00:25:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:28
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
00:25:50
Speaker
I'm good at pinball.
00:25:52
Speaker
I'm really good at it.
00:25:53
Speaker
But I'd rather explore a game's story, I guess, than, you know, take someone on to get high score.
00:26:01
Speaker
That's not as interesting to me.
00:26:04
Speaker
But yeah, that's kind of been my passion for it.
00:26:07
Speaker
So
00:26:09
Speaker
In terms of getting other games, I got a Theater of Magic maybe to not so long.
00:26:16
Speaker
I remember around 2009, someone had one up in LA.
00:26:20
Speaker
I'm in San Diego, by the way.
00:26:22
Speaker
And they couldn't get it to restart.
00:26:25
Speaker
And they were selling it for $2,200.
00:26:26
Speaker
Wow.
00:26:26
Speaker
I went and I bought it.
00:26:30
Speaker
And I drilled out the lock and I hit the reset button and the whole thing just came up like pristine.
00:26:36
Speaker
It was just dusty.
00:26:37
Speaker
It was just, you know, pristine.
00:26:39
Speaker
And so that, you know, kind of became, you know, that was my next game.
00:26:43
Speaker
Uh, and then flash forward to 2010, 2011, whenever Jack, uh, how do you say his name?
00:26:51
Speaker
Gornieri?
00:26:52
Speaker
He's a tough one.
00:26:53
Speaker
He's like Gouveia.
00:26:54
Speaker
Uh, Jack, Jack.
00:26:57
Speaker
Jack did his spiel about his new game.
00:27:02
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.
00:27:13
Speaker
And the new stuff I just thought was terrible.
00:27:16
Speaker
Wheel of Fortune, I had no interest in that stuff.
00:27:22
Speaker
And here comes Jack saying, hey, I want to make a machine with all these old guys from Bally Williams.
00:27:27
Speaker
I don't know what it is yet.
00:27:29
Speaker
I'm not going to tell you, but will you pay for it?
00:27:30
Speaker
And I'm like, yes, I'm going to pay for it.
00:27:33
Speaker
And I got so excited with just what he was doing.
00:27:36
Speaker
He's making an old game the way I liked it.
00:27:39
Speaker
And I paid for it sight unseen.
00:27:41
Speaker
And, you know, obviously it's Wizard of Oz and everything.
00:27:43
Speaker
But that was my third game.
00:27:46
Speaker
So it's not like I've got a basement.
00:27:48
Speaker
First of all, I'm in San Diego, so we don't really have those.
00:27:51
Speaker
But I don't have a huge collection.
00:27:53
Speaker
I just, you know, it's one of those things.
00:27:56
Speaker
Like they say, you buy one and you want another one, you want another one.
00:28:00
Speaker
But that's kind of how my collection and my interest in pinball started, I guess.
00:28:08
Speaker
So we talked randomly about Rush and you actually have this connection with Rush.
00:28:15
Speaker
Tell me about that connection.
00:28:18
Speaker
We're going down the nerdy hole.
00:28:20
Speaker
It's a pinball podcast.
00:28:21
Speaker
I know.
00:28:22
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.
00:28:29
Speaker
Right.
00:28:30
Speaker
Well, first of all, before we begin that, do you think they should make a Rush pinball machine?
00:28:35
Speaker
So that's actually kind of where I was going with this.
00:28:38
Speaker
I was going to say, you guys...
00:28:41
Speaker
It was somewhat officially unofficially announced.
00:28:43
Speaker
Well, not Rush itself.
00:28:45
Speaker
I think it's the theory behind it.
00:28:47
Speaker
It's like it's always been floating out there.
00:28:48
Speaker
So the challenge is Rush is one of those.
00:28:52
Speaker
Go ahead.
00:28:52
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.
00:29:02
Speaker
Yeah, well, okay.
00:29:04
Speaker
And that's a theory, right?
00:29:06
Speaker
It's not like Stern's going to say anything about that.
00:29:10
Speaker
I can quote you ready for this.
00:29:11
Speaker
I'm going to quote Zach Sharp verbatim.
00:29:13
Speaker
I cannot yet confirm nor deny that it's actually true.
00:29:16
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:29:17
Speaker
Well, yeah, that's his go-to message.
00:29:19
Speaker
Yeah, no.
00:29:20
Speaker
So the challenge with rush is that they're one of the few bands that have a niche following for about 40 years.
00:29:29
Speaker
And so they have, you know, the big album, they have moving pictures and they kind of came in their heyday.
00:29:36
Speaker
about 10 years into them, or six years into them being a band.
00:29:40
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.
00:29:50
Speaker
And so you can have the 70s version of the band,
00:29:54
Speaker
And because, you know, that's the, that's the same time as Led Zeppelin was out there.
00:29:59
Speaker
And so there's a lot of fantasy themes and all that kind of stuff.
00:30:02
Speaker
And then you have the eighties version, which is a little more of the synth pop version.
00:30:06
Speaker
Right.
00:30:07
Speaker
Then, then you have nineties, which they're going back to, to grunge slash guitars.
00:30:11
Speaker
And then you have others.
00:30:12
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,
00:30:21
Speaker
when they were the biggest and say, you know, we're just going to do moving pictures, era rush, 1980.
00:30:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:26
Speaker
I think, I think the latter is a better choice.
00:30:29
Speaker
I think you either make 21, 12 machine or you make a moving pictures machine.
00:30:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:33
Speaker
And I think you'd have to go with moving pictures.
00:30:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:36
Speaker
So have, you know, every song could be some sort of mode, you know, but then you're right.
00:30:40
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:40
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:42
Speaker
this is super nerdy, but, um, they're a prog rock band.
00:30:46
Speaker
And so a lot of their things, I, a lot, okay.
00:30:50
Speaker
A lot of, um,
00:30:53
Speaker
Well, okay.
00:30:53
Speaker
Topics that are typically in bands, there is, you know, the sex, drugs, rock and roll, right?
00:31:00
Speaker
Correct.
00:31:01
Speaker
They don't really typically do that.
00:31:03
Speaker
And so, you know, a lot of their songs are very niche.
00:31:07
Speaker
And they have a car about, they have a song about a red sports car.
00:31:11
Speaker
They have a camera eye, which is going through different cities.
00:31:14
Speaker
And it's just, it's kind of...
00:31:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:17
Speaker
It's very prog rock nerd stuff.
00:31:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:20
Speaker
So like, would that fit with pinball?
00:31:23
Speaker
And you could say, yes, Tom Sawyer would be great.
00:31:26
Speaker
YYZ would be a great song.
00:31:28
Speaker
Red Barker would be fun.
00:31:29
Speaker
You know, you could race around.
00:31:31
Speaker
Yeah, you could, but it's a slow start.
00:31:32
Speaker
It's the same thing as like Led Zeppelin.
00:31:35
Speaker
Well, that's my thing is I don't need to hear the music, you know, in a pinball.
00:31:39
Speaker
I've heard it so much in my life that I wouldn't necessarily need a game to hear it.
00:31:43
Speaker
So it's a tough one.
00:31:45
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know if the theme translates super well.
00:31:47
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.
00:31:54
Speaker
I think most importantly, whoever does it should really like the band.
00:31:59
Speaker
Yes.
00:32:01
Speaker
Because that would be my issue with it.
00:32:03
Speaker
I did not like the Led Zeppelin game.
00:32:07
Speaker
Okay.
00:32:08
Speaker
Ooh, hot take.
00:32:11
Speaker
Well, you know, if I keep saying in my opinion over again, that gets redundant.
00:32:16
Speaker
I know.
00:32:16
Speaker
I hate it when people say, I think, well, of course you think because you're talking.
00:32:20
Speaker
Yeah, this is my opinion.
00:32:21
Speaker
I think therefore I am.
00:32:23
Speaker
Yeah, of course.
00:32:23
Speaker
This is my opinion.
00:32:24
Speaker
Other people won't agree, but I didn't like what they did to it.
00:32:27
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.
00:32:38
Speaker
I'd rather have them focus on it the way Slash focused on Guns N' Roses.
00:32:43
Speaker
But I don't know how many people would be interested in that.
00:32:46
Speaker
So to put that amount of time and money into it.
00:32:49
Speaker
So I don't know.
00:32:51
Speaker
I don't know.
00:32:51
Speaker
I don't know.
00:32:53
Speaker
I don't know if I'd get it unless it was really, really cool.
00:32:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:59
Speaker
But it would have to be like the living two members of the band.
00:33:04
Speaker
You have Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee.
00:33:07
Speaker
Right.
00:33:07
Speaker
And unless you have one of their involvements, I'm not sure.
00:33:14
Speaker
So apparently, you know, Alex.
00:33:15
Speaker
So why don't you just call him up?
00:33:16
Speaker
Why don't we just call him right now?
00:33:17
Speaker
You know, I thought of that.
00:33:19
Speaker
I'm like, that would be the geekiest thing ever.
00:33:21
Speaker
That would be awesome.
00:33:24
Speaker
Hey, there's a rumor you're making a pinball machine.
00:33:27
Speaker
Who is it?
00:33:29
Speaker
No, the way I know Alex, and I think it's really cool.
00:33:32
Speaker
I got so lucky.
00:33:35
Speaker
By the way, for those of you who do not have your nerd card, he's the lead guitarist for us.
00:33:41
Speaker
And he was my main guitar player.
00:33:44
Speaker
I've played guitar since I was 10 years old.
00:33:48
Speaker
And so right around that time, when Moving Pictures came out.
00:33:51
Speaker
And Rush was the only band I listened to.
00:33:53
Speaker
So I just absolutely worshiped their music.
00:33:56
Speaker
They could do no wrong, in my opinion, in my teenage years.
00:34:04
Speaker
Because we were talking so much before, I was in a show called Jersey Boys.
00:34:08
Speaker
And I was on Broadway for about two years and then went on tour with the show and then the first national tour.
00:34:15
Speaker
So when we were all these cities and I was searching my pinballs machines, we were there for a long period of time.
00:34:21
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
00:34:28
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.
00:34:40
Speaker
So I thought, I want to get these guys to come and see the show.
00:34:44
Speaker
I want to invite them.
00:34:44
Speaker
I'm here for 10 weeks.
00:34:45
Speaker
There's got to be a way for me to get them to see the show.
00:34:49
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.
00:34:57
Speaker
Have you ever heard of them?
00:34:59
Speaker
Great band.
00:35:00
Speaker
Sounds familiar.
00:35:01
Speaker
Really, really great band.
00:35:02
Speaker
They're a London prog band.
00:35:04
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.
00:35:10
Speaker
Well, Wes was Neil Peart's, uh, motorcycle buddy.
00:35:15
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:35:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:16
Speaker
He, and he knows the guys.
00:35:18
Speaker
And he and I just geeked out over him one night.
00:35:22
Speaker
And I said, we're going, I wrote him, I said, we're going up to Toronto.
00:35:25
Speaker
Can you send Alex a letter saying I want to get in touch with him?
00:35:29
Speaker
And he's like, sure.
00:35:31
Speaker
So I never heard from him.
00:35:32
Speaker
And I'm doing press.
00:35:34
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.
00:35:41
Speaker
And it starts off with Alex Lifeson.
00:35:43
Speaker
If you're reading this, Steve Gauvea really wants to meet you.
00:35:48
Speaker
And she did it.
00:35:49
Speaker
The person interviewing me was like, yeah, I'll do it.
00:35:51
Speaker
And I was doing everything I could to meet these guys.
00:35:54
Speaker
So eight weeks go by and nothing's going to happen.
00:35:58
Speaker
I don't hear anything.
00:36:00
Speaker
The show's happening along.
00:36:01
Speaker
And I'm down in this tourist area of Toronto called the Distillery District.
00:36:06
Speaker
And I'm down there with my girlfriend at the time.
00:36:08
Speaker
And we're walking by and I see this old sort of like Jewish woman sitting at this table eating lunch.
00:36:15
Speaker
And I walk and I'm walking past and I say, hey, look, it's Geddy Lee, just as a joke.
00:36:20
Speaker
And I look again and it's Geddy Lee.
00:36:22
Speaker
And he's just sitting there with his wife, Nancy, and they're just having lunch.
00:36:27
Speaker
And I go around the corner and I'm so nervous.
00:36:30
Speaker
My knees are shaking.
00:36:31
Speaker
I'm like, oh my God, oh my God.
00:36:33
Speaker
And I've got to say something.
00:36:34
Speaker
I have to go back and say something.
00:36:36
Speaker
Yeah, you have to.
00:36:37
Speaker
You have to.
00:36:39
Speaker
And I've built this up so much, just trying to meet these guys.
00:36:43
Speaker
And there he is.
00:36:44
Speaker
Like, you know, of course you go to Toronto and there's Getty just sitting outside waiting to say hi.
00:36:49
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.
00:36:59
Speaker
That's what I said to him.
00:37:00
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:37:02
Speaker
You're not the person I want to meet.
00:37:03
Speaker
No, there's someone else.
00:37:06
Speaker
I really want to meet Alex Lifeson.
00:37:07
Speaker
And he starts laughing.
00:37:08
Speaker
He goes, Oh, okay.
00:37:09
Speaker
And I explained who I am.
00:37:10
Speaker
And luckily there are Jersey boys, like banners all up, up and down the streets where we are.
00:37:14
Speaker
So I had some sort of like credit, you know, and,
00:37:19
Speaker
And he goes, well, give me your email and I'll give it to him.
00:37:22
Speaker
So I'm staring at him and my girlfriend, she ends up writing my email in a napkin and giving it to Getty.
00:37:28
Speaker
And then we go away and I'm on cloud nine.
00:37:30
Speaker
I got to meet Getty Lee and shake his hand.
00:37:33
Speaker
I'm like, we're done.
00:37:34
Speaker
Well, two days later, I get a message from Alex Likes.
00:37:37
Speaker
I get an email from Alex Likes.
00:37:38
Speaker
I'm told people.
00:37:39
Speaker
And I just fall out of my chair.
00:37:42
Speaker
And he says to me, he says, Steve, I know, I think you're Wes's friend from Porcupine Tree.
00:37:47
Speaker
He goes, he goes, I can't make it to the show.
00:37:50
Speaker
But thank you for the invite.
00:37:52
Speaker
You know, and I appreciate it.
00:37:53
Speaker
And I couldn't even believe I was even having a conversation with him.
00:37:56
Speaker
So I wrote him back and I said, look, I just wanted to thank you for all the guitar lessons.
00:38:02
Speaker
And so he wrote back two days later and said, I'm doing an interview at noon at the Four Seasons Hotel.
00:38:09
Speaker
You want to come down and have coffee afterwards?
00:38:12
Speaker
And I was like, oh, my gosh.
00:38:15
Speaker
So, of course, I got my Power Windows album.
00:38:18
Speaker
I got whatever I could.
00:38:20
Speaker
And I go down there, and I had lunch with Alex Lifeson for about two hours and just talking about everything.
00:38:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:28
Speaker
And he was just so funny.
00:38:30
Speaker
And I brought up the story about how he had met Jimmy Page.
00:38:35
Speaker
And I remember how nervous he was.
00:38:36
Speaker
He goes, oh, yeah, we were so nervous.
00:38:38
Speaker
And I said, that's me with you.
00:38:40
Speaker
And he just starts laughing.
00:38:42
Speaker
He goes, oh, you know, thanks so much.
00:38:43
Speaker
I said, the next time I see you is probably going to be when you guys are touring in San Diego.
00:38:47
Speaker
And he goes, well, just call me.
00:38:48
Speaker
You have my phone number.
00:38:50
Speaker
And so as the tour went on, they were in San Antonio.
00:38:55
Speaker
I got in touch with him.
00:38:56
Speaker
We went backstage.
00:38:57
Speaker
We hung out.
00:38:59
Speaker
And then we just became friends.
00:39:01
Speaker
I saw him in like three different concerts and kept going backstage to say hi to him.
00:39:05
Speaker
Wow.
00:39:24
Speaker
And so Des called me up and said, I want the band to play.
00:39:28
Speaker
And Des, before directing Jersey Boys, directed Tommy, the musical Pinball Machine is based on.
00:39:34
Speaker
And he wanted Pete Townsend to play with us.
00:39:38
Speaker
And so Des calls me and he says, I need you to come up here.
00:39:43
Speaker
We're putting the band back together that we're playing the show on Broadway.
00:39:47
Speaker
And we're going to play with Pete Townsend.
00:39:49
Speaker
And I said, I really can't do it.
00:39:50
Speaker
I'm busy.
00:39:50
Speaker
I got to sit in.
00:39:51
Speaker
He goes, well, that band you really like is going to be here too.
00:39:56
Speaker
And I go, he goes, Rush?
00:39:57
Speaker
I go, oh my God, really?
00:39:59
Speaker
He goes, yeah.
00:40:00
Speaker
So we go up there to Ottawa.
00:40:03
Speaker
Rush gets their Governor General Awards.
00:40:06
Speaker
I'm on stage playing Pinball Wizard with a bunch of pinball machines behind me with Pete Townsend in front of Rush.
00:40:13
Speaker
And the whole band comes backstage to meet Pete Townsend afterwards.
00:40:17
Speaker
And his dressing room was right next to mine.
00:40:19
Speaker
There's a picture of the three of them meeting him somewhere if you search for it.
00:40:23
Speaker
And the three guys come into our room with my, my little band and we get a picture of all of rush and,
00:40:30
Speaker
with me and my band guys.
00:40:32
Speaker
I'm like, it just doesn't happen that way.
00:40:35
Speaker
Especially with Neil.
00:40:37
Speaker
Especially all of Rush.
00:40:38
Speaker
That was a key thing.
00:40:41
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.
00:40:50
Speaker
Oh, without question.
00:40:51
Speaker
But I remember seeing Geddy again.
00:40:53
Speaker
I said, Geddy, remember me?
00:40:55
Speaker
I told you that I really wanted to meet Alex Arson.
00:40:58
Speaker
And he goes, yeah, I do remember you.
00:40:59
Speaker
And he started laughing.
00:41:00
Speaker
I said, but I really wanted to meet you too.
00:41:02
Speaker
And he started laughing.
00:41:04
Speaker
So yeah, that's kind of been my connection.
00:41:06
Speaker
So I've been in touch with him since then.
00:41:08
Speaker
I saw their last tour.
00:41:10
Speaker
Alex just put out some new music because he has a new guitar out.
00:41:13
Speaker
I just saw that.
00:41:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:15
Speaker
So I wrote it briefly.
00:41:16
Speaker
I said, I dig it.
00:41:17
Speaker
It's really cool.
00:41:17
Speaker
The music is great.
00:41:18
Speaker
And he's, you know,
00:41:20
Speaker
doing his thing up in Toronto.
00:41:21
Speaker
But yeah, that's that for a period of time there, we were really like, like, you know, in contact a lot.
00:41:27
Speaker
And it was great.
00:41:28
Speaker
He took me out to dinner when I was in Toronto rehearsing and we just had a great time.
00:41:32
Speaker
And I'm like, this is my guitar hero.
00:41:34
Speaker
And he's the nicest guy on the planet.
00:41:36
Speaker
So nice.
00:41:39
Speaker
It reminds me of, again, Behind the Lighted Stage.
00:41:43
Speaker
You remember that?
00:41:44
Speaker
You saw that.
00:41:46
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.
00:41:57
Speaker
And so she goes up and asks him for his autograph.
00:42:00
Speaker
And Geddy's like, do you want his autograph?
00:42:02
Speaker
And Alex is sitting there.
00:42:03
Speaker
And she's like, no, no.
00:42:06
Speaker
She had no idea who Alex Lyson was.
00:42:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:08
Speaker
That's his thing.
00:42:09
Speaker
He's like, he's like, I look like everybody else, Steve.
00:42:11
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.
00:42:19
Speaker
If you look at the, I got my bobble heads up there.
00:42:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:24
Speaker
So that's, that's kind of how I became friends with him.
00:42:27
Speaker
Just fortunate and very lucky.
00:42:30
Speaker
And you know,
00:42:31
Speaker
But it was great.
00:42:33
Speaker
I would hate to meet him and have him be a jerk, but he was really great.
00:42:36
Speaker
No, that's actually the danger, right?
00:42:38
Speaker
Meeting your heroes.
00:42:40
Speaker
Yes, definitely.
00:42:42
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.
00:42:52
Speaker
You kind of feel like the silent chair in the discussion.
00:42:56
Speaker
Sure.
00:42:56
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.
00:43:07
Speaker
Are you saying people feel intimate with us?
00:43:10
Speaker
Oh, geez.
00:43:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:13
Speaker
This is kind of weird here, Scott.
00:43:15
Speaker
You're saying.
00:43:16
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.
00:43:33
Speaker
It's just kind of this odd situation, but I would say the same thing with your heroes.
00:43:37
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,
00:43:43
Speaker
appreciate them and their work once you see behind the curtain.
00:43:47
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.
00:43:53
Speaker
But Keith Elwin is from San Diego.
00:43:55
Speaker
Obviously, he's in Chicago now.
00:43:57
Speaker
I was about to ask, did you know Keith when he lived down there?
00:44:02
Speaker
Only barely.
00:44:03
Speaker
He came to work on my Indiana Jones machine once.
00:44:07
Speaker
over at my dad's house.
00:44:09
Speaker
But I remember the one time I was watching Special One Lit when I was on a plane.
00:44:14
Speaker
And I was flying back to San Diego and I'd watched the whole thing.
00:44:18
Speaker
I'm like, who's this guy with the San Diego Padres hat on?
00:44:21
Speaker
And I'm like, oh, it's Keith Elwin.
00:44:22
Speaker
He's the best pinball player in the world.
00:44:23
Speaker
I'm like, oh, that's weird.
00:44:24
Speaker
Okay.
00:44:24
Speaker
Interesting.
00:44:26
Speaker
And I get back there.
00:44:28
Speaker
I think I'm here for a week or so and I needed a part for my Indiana Jones.
00:44:32
Speaker
And I called up a company called Area Amusements.
00:44:36
Speaker
And I said, I need this part.
00:44:37
Speaker
And they're like, yeah, come on up.
00:44:38
Speaker
I said, so I drove up maybe 10 minutes away from where I live.
00:44:41
Speaker
And the woman at the front says, hey, Keith, can you help this guy out?
00:44:45
Speaker
And I turn around the corner and working on a machine is Keith Elwin because he worked there.
00:44:49
Speaker
And I'm staring at him like –
00:44:52
Speaker
I just saw him on TV and he's like, he's like this major star.
00:44:56
Speaker
I'm like, you're Keith Elwin.
00:44:58
Speaker
And he's just very shy.
00:44:59
Speaker
He's like, yeah, yeah.
00:45:00
Speaker
I'm like, you're the best pinball player in the world.
00:45:03
Speaker
He's all, yeah, yeah.
00:45:05
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.
00:45:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:13
Speaker
Uh, yeah.
00:45:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:14
Speaker
And he signed one one pinball one on one.
00:45:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:17
Speaker
And I was so excited that I had met, you know, Keith Elwin.
00:45:22
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.
00:45:29
Speaker
He's great.
00:45:30
Speaker
So yeah, I mean, he was a nice guy too as well.
00:45:33
Speaker
You know, so talking about meeting your quote unquote heroes or, you know, right.
00:45:37
Speaker
Well, we have interviewed him a few times and, uh,
00:45:41
Speaker
legitimately he could not be nicer.
00:45:43
Speaker
And he was one of the first guys to come on even before we really cut our teeth.
00:45:47
Speaker
Oh, that's right.
00:45:49
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.
00:45:57
Speaker
Like they really are.
00:45:59
Speaker
Yeah, it's refreshing and it is, you know, it's, I think it's necessary.
00:46:04
Speaker
People should be nicer.
00:46:08
Speaker
So.
00:46:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:10
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?
00:46:18
Speaker
Okay.
00:46:19
Speaker
The underneath.
00:46:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:21
Speaker
I saw the underneath one.
00:46:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:22
Speaker
Okay.
00:46:24
Speaker
I didn't know if, if you guys had any takes on it or what you, you thought about it.
00:46:28
Speaker
Well, can you direct me there and I'll look at it?
00:46:32
Speaker
So I just sent over the link in the chat below for the picture of Spooky's stuff.
00:46:40
Speaker
Oh!
00:46:42
Speaker
So this is the underside, so you have to kind of visualize what the top's going to look like.
00:46:46
Speaker
But they have promised it's going to have two upper play fields.
00:46:49
Speaker
It looks like it's got a subway and stuff, huh?
00:46:51
Speaker
Wait one second.
00:46:53
Speaker
Did you send it to... Because I'm on the computer with this... Oh, I see it.
00:46:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:00
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:47:02
Speaker
Good.
00:47:02
Speaker
They're putting some stuff in there.
00:47:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:05
Speaker
Lots of mechs.
00:47:07
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.
00:47:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:20
Speaker
That's great.
00:47:21
Speaker
I mean, to me, honestly, the more mechs, the better.
00:47:25
Speaker
The more toys in there, the better, I think.
00:47:30
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.
00:47:36
Speaker
I like to have lots of toys.
00:47:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:39
Speaker
But yeah, I'm looking at this.
00:47:41
Speaker
But they haven't talked about a theme for the game at all.
00:47:43
Speaker
That's all mystery.
00:47:44
Speaker
There's been a bunch thrown out there.
00:47:46
Speaker
Scooby-Doo, Halloween, Army of Darkness.
00:47:50
Speaker
I mean, the list goes on and on.
00:47:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:53
Speaker
Who knows?
00:47:55
Speaker
Oh, you know, you know how the game of misdirection goes in pinball, you know, I know.
00:47:59
Speaker
Here's the problem.
00:48:00
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.
00:48:09
Speaker
No, this is a tough one, too.
00:48:12
Speaker
Okay, so here, I'm going to send you this thing.
00:48:16
Speaker
And you can take a look at this is what they did to my Tron.
00:48:21
Speaker
So, there you go.
00:48:29
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.
00:48:42
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.
00:48:54
Speaker
And I know it's silly, but there's a reason why you don't play Whitewoods.
00:49:00
Speaker
Yeah, but I don't think that's silly at all.
00:49:01
Speaker
I think that's the appeal of pinball.
00:49:04
Speaker
For me, it just, you know, the world, oh, that's pretty.
00:49:09
Speaker
I'm looking at the game now.
00:49:10
Speaker
That's great.
00:49:11
Speaker
Yeah, that's cool.
00:49:13
Speaker
Doesn't it look amazing?
00:49:14
Speaker
Like how much... And the cool little Tron arcade machine, which is just one of the coolest things ever.
00:49:23
Speaker
It's a cool mod.
00:49:24
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:49:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:26
Speaker
Yeah, that was one of my favorites when I first started doing this was that.
00:49:29
Speaker
And there's the T-Rex mod.
00:49:34
Speaker
I don't know if you guys remember that one.
00:49:35
Speaker
Yeah, I've seen it with I don't know how to pronounce the guy's name.
00:49:39
Speaker
It's Loire.
00:49:41
Speaker
Oh, Leo.
00:49:41
Speaker
No, I'm not talking about one.
00:49:43
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.
00:49:49
Speaker
And he did one for Data East.
00:49:52
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:49:53
Speaker
I remember that one.
00:49:55
Speaker
It's pretty cool.
00:49:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:56
Speaker
It's like a six year old thread, but he, he sculpted the whole thing out of clay and it's beautiful.
00:50:03
Speaker
And so when I started out, that was inspiring to me.
00:50:05
Speaker
If someone could do that, you know, I could try to do something like that.
00:50:08
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.
00:50:15
Speaker
And so he was like, I want to make something that resembles what the movie does.
00:50:19
Speaker
Yeah, I was surprised by the Stern Jurassic Park.
00:50:23
Speaker
How mine... I have the NLE and it's green.
00:50:27
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.
00:50:34
Speaker
So it's closer to what the T-Rex looks like.
00:50:36
Speaker
Oh, interesting.
00:50:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:39
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, when I first started out, it was just a few guys making a few things here and there.
00:50:46
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.
00:50:55
Speaker
But I think it's great, man.
00:50:56
Speaker
Make your game look like this Tron.
00:50:59
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.
00:51:06
Speaker
Cause that, yeah, that looks great.
00:51:09
Speaker
And it has all, does this have the ramps that light up and everything?
00:51:12
Speaker
Yeah, it does.
00:51:13
Speaker
And really the, my version has, yeah.
00:51:17
Speaker
So by the way, people want to look at it.
00:51:19
Speaker
It's just search for Z door custom Tron on pin side and it'll pull up and he did an amazing job.
00:51:26
Speaker
Yeah, that's beautiful.
00:51:27
Speaker
This is the one that you owned.
00:51:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:29
Speaker
No, I still own it.
00:51:30
Speaker
He still owns it.
00:51:31
Speaker
Oh my gosh.
00:51:32
Speaker
Are those mirror blades on that side?
00:51:34
Speaker
They're mirror blades on the sides.
00:51:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:36
Speaker
Yeah, that's really beautiful.
00:51:38
Speaker
Yeah, I'm still not good enough to actually play it very well, but it's an amazing game.
00:51:44
Speaker
As Colin McAlpine plays in the background, he's already taken your grand champion.
00:51:49
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.
00:51:57
Speaker
So I have a feeling that every single one of my GCs are going down.
00:52:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:05
Speaker
anyway.
00:52:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:08
Speaker
It's good times.
00:52:09
Speaker
Okay.
00:52:09
Speaker
I do have one question though.
00:52:11
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.
00:52:19
Speaker
Oh boy.
00:52:22
Speaker
Gosh, that's tough, man.
00:52:24
Speaker
That's tough.
00:52:27
Speaker
Cause other people, cause other people are doing so, so well with that.
00:52:31
Speaker
Um,
00:52:33
Speaker
Pirates is beautiful.
00:52:34
Speaker
The, the Jersey Jack one, but people have modded that one.
00:52:38
Speaker
So I'm not going to get anywhere near that.
00:52:41
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.
00:52:50
Speaker
Um, so yeah, I, uh,
00:52:54
Speaker
I don't know if I can answer that.
00:52:57
Speaker
I don't know.
00:52:58
Speaker
That's a tough question.
00:53:00
Speaker
I kind of accept, I think Indiana Jones, first of all, but Lior, that's the way you pronounce his name, Rajwan.
00:53:06
Speaker
Lior got all over that years ago.
00:53:08
Speaker
That's how we met.
00:53:11
Speaker
Great sculptures for that.
00:53:12
Speaker
So I wouldn't go there either.
00:53:17
Speaker
And it has to be a good game.
00:53:19
Speaker
I'm not going to spend time making something for a game that nobody... For Popeye.
00:53:25
Speaker
Well, you guessed it.
00:53:26
Speaker
Gilligan's Island.
00:53:27
Speaker
Wait, you could do the minnow.
00:53:29
Speaker
Gilligan's Island.
00:53:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:36
Speaker
Everyone's clamoring for a Gilligan's Island, you know?
00:53:38
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:53:39
Speaker
They made like 4,000 of those.
00:53:41
Speaker
I've never seen one in person, but I'm amazed at how many they actually made.
00:53:45
Speaker
Yeah, I'm close to the Pinball Museum in Banning.
00:53:50
Speaker
So they had one.
00:53:51
Speaker
They also have the Bugs Bunny.
00:53:53
Speaker
birthday bath and a bunch of other really crappy games that you'd never play.
00:53:58
Speaker
But so that gives you an opportunity to see those things up close, but yeah, it's not.
00:54:06
Speaker
Well, Steve, we appreciate you coming on.
00:54:08
Speaker
We've had a wonderful chat.
00:54:10
Speaker
I mean, we're almost at an hour now.
00:54:12
Speaker
We are.
00:54:13
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:54:14
Speaker
I could talk Rush for another five hours.
00:54:16
Speaker
I know you could.
00:54:17
Speaker
I know.
00:54:17
Speaker
People probably tuned us out once.
00:54:19
Speaker
He's like, oh, God, here we go.
00:54:21
Speaker
Between Rush and theater.
00:54:24
Speaker
Oh, really?
00:54:25
Speaker
We scared off everyone.
00:54:27
Speaker
Nothing wrong with that.
00:54:29
Speaker
Well, this sucks.
00:54:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:32
Speaker
Oh, this guy again.
00:54:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:35
Speaker
The show truth guy.
00:54:37
Speaker
Here we go.
00:54:39
Speaker
Really, it's been awesome having you on.
00:54:41
Speaker
I appreciate you for saying yes.
00:54:44
Speaker
Well, thank you so much.
00:54:45
Speaker
If people want to follow you on Pinside, what is your Pinside username?
00:54:50
Speaker
It's my last name, Gouveia.
00:54:52
Speaker
G-O-U-V-E-I-A.
00:54:55
Speaker
Or search, you know, red witch or monkey or something, and I think you'll find it.
00:55:00
Speaker
Red monkey mod?
00:55:01
Speaker
Sure.
00:55:02
Speaker
Flying witch monkey mod.
00:55:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:07
Speaker
Nice, nice.
00:55:07
Speaker
And apparently it's a to be determined one that's coming out.
00:55:11
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:55:13
Speaker
It's hard, but I'm excited about it.
00:55:18
Speaker
Well, we will certainly get you, you know, you can have your own Keith Elwin hat, which is the Loser Kid pinball hat.
00:55:24
Speaker
Hey!
00:55:27
Speaker
Only call it that because he makes it look really good.
00:55:30
Speaker
But we'll definitely send that out.
00:55:32
Speaker
Thank you so much.
00:55:36
Speaker
I love it.
00:55:37
Speaker
I've been waiting for one.
00:55:38
Speaker
There you go.
00:55:39
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:55:39
Speaker
Yes.
00:55:41
Speaker
Well, we are loser kid pinball podcast.
00:55:43
Speaker
You can get ahold of us at loser kid pinball on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
00:55:48
Speaker
And now we are officially affiliated with Twitch.
00:55:52
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.
00:56:01
Speaker
Um, yeah,
00:56:02
Speaker
Am I missing anything else, Scott?
00:56:04
Speaker
No, I think it's good.
00:56:05
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.
00:56:19
Speaker
So he understands it a little bit.
00:56:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:23
Speaker
All right.
00:56:25
Speaker
Thanks guys.
00:56:25
Speaker
We'll we'll see you in roughly about two weeks.