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Episode 71 - Summer's Reach
17 Plays4 years ago
This week Ben and Zach are joined by author K.I. Talar to discuss his new novel "Summer's Reach" which is a coming of age story centered around working at Cedar Point during the summer of 2003. K.I. talks about his real experience working at Cedar Point, the change in the hobby over the past 20 years, coming back to coaster enthusiasm after an extended break and much more!
"Summer's Reach" is availble to read FOR FREE right here: https://ingramspark.pressbooks.pub/summersreach/
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Transcript
Podcasting Challenges and Anchor.fm
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey Ben, making a podcast is pretty tough, right? Yeah, you gotta like record stuff and then you gotta upload it and it sucks. I know, it's a fucking bummer and it's a lot of effort, but I just found out about Anchor.fm, which lets you record and edit directly through their website or app, as well as upload and publish to platforms such as Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
00:00:21
Speaker
So anchor.fm is not a porn site, right? Not yet, because it's still free too. So you know, they'll start charging once they got only fan style content. That's good. That's good to hear. So if you want to jump on the train before it's all titties and pussies, download the anchor app or go to anchor.fm to get started. Welcome to the worst roller coaster podcast on the internet. Now let's join Ben and Zach as they tell you why your favorite
KI's Humorous Clementin Park Purchase
00:00:52
Speaker
I'm Zach, and I'm half vaccinated. I'm Ben, and I'm half overweight. I'm KI, and I just bought Clementin Park. Holy moly. We thought it might have been Gene Staples. No, I didn't. But it's the one and only KI. That's good.
00:01:18
Speaker
You have experience at parks, so now I think you're going to run Clementine smoothly. That was a fascinating, you know, my back up on it. I was going to say, you know, my Batman the Ride clone swings to the left. But I felt like I would be a little more contemporary. Well, that's perfect. I think, you know, threatened Jackrabbit a little bit or whatever the name of that ride was, J2.
00:01:46
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Well, no, that ride, they called it Jackrabbit, right? But then they changed the name to Hellcat. And I wrote, I don't know if you've written, have you written that ride? With the, when it's lemon syrup? Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was, it was one of those rides where that I could tell was really awesome. Probably the first week it opened, but yeah, it was a little janky. Yeah. It was definitely more of a Hellcat than a Jackrabbit. So I understand why they changed the name.
00:02:14
Speaker
Did you get to ride it the first season before all the trim bricks? I probably rode it about 10 years ago. I don't know what that... Probably not. No, I think it was pretty hellacious when I rode it. But I remember it was a good ride or it had potential. Yeah. Well, there's a POV on YouTube of it during probably like the opening month.
00:02:37
Speaker
And you can tell how just fucking crazy the ride looks. It basically looks like how an RMC paces, but you can tell it's not meant to be on that kind of wooden track.
00:02:49
Speaker
so oh boy it's pretty nuts yeah i oh yeah also i feel like that park probably like six seasons after that ride opened they have like a staff meeting before this the opening day and they're like all right i was doing a little research last night and it turns out you have to do maintenance on a roller coaster
00:03:15
Speaker
Well, did you know they added, there's, there was four trim breaks on the half way down the first drop. Oh, so it had like a main streak going on. I don't know. I wrote it at night. I remember it being incredibly intense. It probably needed those breaks. Um, I remember, you know, it felt like kind of like ominous, like, you know, kind of like, uh, you know, being over the water and you know, it felt kind of like, uh,
00:03:38
Speaker
Like, I don't know, being like one of those weird like, you know, Super Mario things where you're like running on, you know, a small, like narrow piece of platform and you're going to fall to your doom. So maybe they should make it like Super Nintendo Land or something. I don't know. But I feel like we promised this ride has never been ejected from the tracks. You're like, you're like, uh, cool. I didn't ask.
00:04:06
Speaker
But anyway, that was my sense of humor. I was trying to be contemporary, you know, with the latest news. Nailed it right on time. We've we've given up any sense of being timely with this damn thing because I don't know if time even exists anymore. Right. It's kind of like whatever is easier to whatever falls out of the mouth sometimes.
00:04:30
Speaker
Yeah, I only think about half the time before I speak. The rest of it is just instinct.
Summer's Reach: A Roller Coaster Tale
00:04:38
Speaker
But K.I. wrote an awesome book called Summer's Reach. It's super fun. I gleaned it's a partially autobiographical coming of age story centered around working at Cedar Point. That's really, I thought, the pitch that I got from it.
00:04:58
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good elevator pitch. It takes place in 2003, which was a big year for that specific park. An interesting season because Top Drill Dragster opened, but it's a pretty dramatic season. There were a couple other events.
00:05:20
Speaker
early alt nostalgia. It's a historical piece. It explores the kind of friendship of four friends. They're all roller coaster enthusiasts. And yeah, it was a fun passion project. And I got to say, if you've ever been to Cedar Point, you do a great job of being able to set the scene
00:05:46
Speaker
visually, you're, you're able to paint the picture very well. So as easy as the reader to just imagine the universe very easily. So the story came to life that much easier. It's a 350 page trip report. That's a good way to put it. Yeah.
00:06:10
Speaker
trip report of your working experience, pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. No, I actually did. I thought like, you know, what if, you know, I'm going to play around with the genre, you know, I, you know, I grew up in the, you know, the rec roller coaster, you know, early 2000s, you know, you know, you go to the music park, you post your trip report, you know, you write your paintings on everything. Now you do it all on the video. But, but back then you wrote and I said, well, you know,
00:06:36
Speaker
if this kind of became a longer narrative where there's characters involved, then that was one of the plot points of how I started this project. And yeah, each ride gets its due. Each ride has a little bit of an extrapolation about it.
00:07:04
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, go ahead, Ben. I was just going to say, it's nice to kind of experience that form again in writing, because like you were saying, that's all that was at a certain point. And now with YouTube and stuff is almost I don't want to say takes the fun away, but it's almost too easy to document every minute you spend in a park. And so there is something kind of special about
00:07:28
Speaker
having to write it out like a day after the trip and also kind of the anticipation of going to a park and then like, oh man, I can't wait to write the trip report and post it. It was kind of a different kind of fun. Yeah, I think there was maybe a little like a mystery to it.
00:07:51
Speaker
just helped with the excitement in a lot of ways. Like the idea of like, Oh, I'm going to this park and like, maybe I found the map on Google and I read other people's trip reports, but I still don't really know like how the park is laid out or how it'll look. You know what I mean? Right now you could type in any part and find a four hour video of a person walking around the entire thing.
00:08:17
Speaker
just ford pov and just walking around a park and it's like okay there's there's literally no mystery to it anymore but also i was gonna say you ended up being more timely than you had even intended i believe because uh the paddle wheel excursions inclusion in the book
00:08:37
Speaker
Yeah, yeah that um, I yeah I did, you know, so I started the project in probably late 2018 and it took about six months to crank down to draft and then I spent another Year writing it. So yeah, I had written that portion before They announced that they were bringing the ride back
00:09:03
Speaker
So, and actually like one of the themes of the book, you know, in addition to being a triple court is like this revisiting of places that are gone. Like a lot of my big set pieces in the book are at rides or places in the peninsula or even other parks and places in the Midwest that no longer exist. And, you know, I wanted to kind of,
00:09:31
Speaker
document my memory of those places before it faded or was like overwritten by more current incarnations because I keep going back obviously. So yeah, there's a lot of that in the book.
00:09:47
Speaker
And to that effect, I'd like to say, man, A, as a Chicagoan,
Living and Working at Cedar Point
00:09:53
Speaker
the inclusion of the rich detail of Chicago in the surrounding area to start off the book was appreciated. Also the inclusion of, and I won't give away too much detail, but a fun spot in Indiana. Yeah, yeah. Well, I, you know, I,
00:10:15
Speaker
You know, I love Chicago. You know, we were talking about this about, you know, that city's, you know, being an architecture guy, you know, you know, rollercoasters aside, I just I love the Midwest and that that's that style of Chicago specifically. But yeah, but that was my approach, right? Like you had to you had to get to the park. So you kind of start and you meet the character and you kind of learn what's inside the character's head as he's traveling.
00:10:40
Speaker
And then you experience the summer as the character did or as a version of I did back then from the approach against the peninsula, which I don't care if every article, every video on YouTube or whatever, that approach of going across that causeway to the peninsula the first time, I mean, that's un-comparable.
00:11:11
Speaker
in real life is better than you can't steal that moment. And it's also one of the hardest things to describe in writing too. I'm like, how do you describe that approach to seeing that peninsula the first time? Yeah, it's like the world opens up in front of you and then it's just the biggest collection of roller coasters.
00:11:36
Speaker
And everything, it's like amazing because even though you know all the stats about every ride, everything looks bigger than you picture it. Mm hmm. Well, like, holy shit. Like you see Millennium Force, you're like, oh, my God, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I the first time I drove over was 2000 with Millennium Force open. And I was, you know, being 10. Yeah. Like that approach. Like, I feel like I still remember it. It was pretty impactful.
00:12:06
Speaker
And then I would say that, you know, the second time was like seeing dragster for the first time on the peninsula was pretty fucking crazy too. Yeah. No, anytime I'm, you know, once you hit that corner and you see that view, it's like, it's moving. It's like,
00:12:24
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's powerful if you're a coaster per I mean even if you're not a coaster person I imagine there's some gravity to that excuse the terrible pun, but to that reveal Just because it's like it's it's overwhelming So you that that description is that is is probably about as apt as you could be and
00:12:51
Speaker
because other than, you know, it's kind of an indescribable feeling, but that description you put in the book definitely took me right back to that experience. And it's amazing how honestly that feeling doesn't really fade every time I've gone back when you see that view too. Yeah, absolutely.
00:13:17
Speaker
I mean, I don't think I'd ever drive up there and be like, oh, yeah, fucking rides. You know, well, with the exception of when you got to work all day on Fourth of July and you're stuck in traffic from like way back in town, it's a little different and it's like 100 degrees. But yeah. Maybe when you're not working.
00:13:42
Speaker
Let's see. Like I said, I'm, I'm not a part of the club. You guys both worked there. I worked at great America. So I had the regional experience. You guys share the, uh, the kinship of having Cedar Point experience. Ben, what year did you work at Cedar Point? Uh, 2010 through 2012. All right.
00:14:02
Speaker
Yeah. And you were at Chance Park, you said, or was that, I've heard on previous podcasts, you kind of discussed it a little. Yeah. Yeah. So in some ways there was, you know, I didn't have the whole ride house experience, but, um, it, it was different in its own way. Like it was kind of nice being back part of soak city. Cause it was a lot more laid back.
00:14:25
Speaker
we got away with a lot of shit. Like our, I mean, our supervisor is more of a resort supervisor than he was ride supervisor. So he didn't really care what we did. So yeah, it was a different kind of experience, but it was unique. So I don't really regret not doing rides, especially hearing all my friends when they'd have to work, open the clothes on the busy days. And, you know, we got a little bit of a break.
00:14:52
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I was kind of in the, I had similar, you know, I was back in the, at the sand castle. Um, but yeah, for the same, same, same thing that you just said, did you, did you live at on the point at any point or did you, you, you mentioned commuting into work, but did you ever, were you ever at Cedars? No, I didn't. I never did Cedars. Um, well I did Cedars for like a week, but I was mostly commons. Um, I was in four, yeah, I was in 1400s.
00:15:23
Speaker
Oh man, Sears was awesome. First of all, it was an old historic building. You really had to appreciate the character of it. It was a resort at one point. They were selling those rooms until 1930.
00:15:42
Speaker
Did you ever hear about Dick Kinzel's suite? Or like, yeah. Well, it wasn't Kinzel, it was a dude before him, right? It was, who was the guy before him? The guy in the 70s guy from Cleveland. But yeah, I did hear that there was somebody in there.
00:15:59
Speaker
Yeah, it was a, it was like a four person corner room. So I, a friend of mine was in there for the two years that I worked there. Um, so it had, the room has like five big windows. It looks over the water. Um, and if you have an AC in there, it's pretty great. Um, played beer pong on there all the time.
00:16:20
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you know, it was, I mean, just the idea of living there on the peninsula, which you can't do anymore because they knocked all the dorms down and they put all the rooms back on in breakers. But I mean, yeah, just getting up and, you know.
00:16:36
Speaker
you know, not having, I mean, I didn't have a car. So, you know, like not having that shuttle. But I mean, that was like the, you know, like me and my, you know, four or five coaster enthusiasts, friends, you know, we're all, all chose to be there. And everybody else was like, you're nuts. Like, why would you want to be at that dorm where you could be like, what did you like when you live there? Did you have an AC unit?
00:17:01
Speaker
Uh, no, I remember a box fan. I don't think so. I lived in, I lived in the portion that was closest to like the wildcat. And I don't know if you got to the part where it was talking about the screeching owls and the Snoopy theater. Like that's where our room, but we looked towards the water. We didn't look towards the park. Okay. But, uh, yeah, it was, uh,
00:17:23
Speaker
Yeah, I was gonna say as someone who isn't quite as familiar if you wouldn't mind orienting me I believe I caught the reference about Wildcat in the Snoopy theater Was it all just kind of behind there near the train shop and stuff?
00:17:38
Speaker
Yeah, it was on the other side of the perimeter road. So like, okay, but it was like a, it was like an E. So there was like, uh, there was like, uh, uh, an area that kind of like flanked the road. And then there were like, I don't know, maybe more than three wings, but there were wings that then ran perpendicular out towards Sandusky Bay. Um, interesting. Cause it was originally like two different hotels. I think it was called like the white hotel and something. And it's,
00:18:06
Speaker
there were two hotels there that like from like the early, you know, 20th century that predated breakers and then they kind of combined them into the Cedars Hotel, but they never like modernized it in a way that they provided like, you know, restrooms in each of the rooms, bathrooms. So it wouldn't, you know, that became like modern amenity and
00:18:34
Speaker
I think like in the twenties or the thirties, they, uh, they started making it, uh, uh, employee housing. So you had shared restrooms your whole summer then. Yeah, but there was like, actually, like, like there was, uh, um, like a little one in our hallway. At least like there was like, uh, if I were, you know, there was like, we had like, yeah, it was, it was shared. It was like being in college. It was like, uh, I think they all had shared restrooms. All right.
00:19:02
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Um, I mean, other than Bayside, um, yeah, commons was all shared restrooms down the hall or per per floor. Yeah. Like one per floor. They're like, we're not giving these kids a cocaine room. Well, like, um, yeah, the, the only thing that sucked was the showers. So, um, like in the morning, our floor only had five showers. So you kind of had to just wait.
00:19:30
Speaker
for the showers to open and they're usually pretty gross. I've seen some pretty disgusting things in those showers because the curtain only go would like would be like two, three feet off the ground so you could see everybody's legs. Sometimes there is more than one person in there. So this is where the power tower shower hour comes from?
00:19:53
Speaker
Well that cedar somewhat. So, okay. Did all the bathrooms, was there like a main like shared shower area in Cedars?
00:20:03
Speaker
Yes. So like the shower that I used was like, we had like kind of, it wasn't a private shower because it was shared between like 10 rooms, but it was like a single stall. So like that was what I always use. But yeah, there was a reputation and you've talked about this on the show before. And I brought it up in the book and I was like, you know, you know, there were a couple things that I'm going to
00:20:27
Speaker
Yeah, like, like I remember seeing that shower, but I wasn't I didn't I don't remember if like that's how all the showers were in the building. Or if it was just that one big shower. Because it was like that one central one. Yeah, okay. But there were other places. I mean, now it's all gone.
00:20:49
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I like go. Yeah. You'd like go into the bathroom to take a shit at like 3 a.m. And sometimes there just be like four people in a stall. You didn't really. And you just kind of like walk past it like, oh, OK. I think they didn't try to ignore it.
00:21:09
Speaker
I never had that experience, but again, I didn't use, you know, I, you know, but I did write about that because I did, you know, from a kind of like an urban legends standpoint. It's like, well, does this need to be mentioned? But I think it was part of the mythology. I think you just kind of reinforced that.
Cedar Point Employee Stories
00:21:32
Speaker
Well, I always thought it was funny too, when guys would bring, if they'd bring their, they would try to sneak their girlfriends into the shower sometimes. And then it was always a matter of not getting caught by security, trying to, and then like sneaking around. That was always kind of funny. Yeah, well, as I wrote in the book,
00:21:53
Speaker
you know, my characters. And, you know, I, again, I should put this disclaimer, the book is fiction, right? You know, it's a, it's a, it's a tall tale of a, you know, novel. You know, all the characters are figments of my imagination. But, you know, there, you know, there is, you know, characters that sneak girls in and, you know, explains how it was done. Yeah. Building one that existed.
00:22:22
Speaker
Well, I mean, I have to ask real quick. All the housing is different now from when the book was written. I think they just knocked down comments, right? I just I saw pictures of them demoing all that. I think all the dorms have been demoed at this point. I know where people are living. Oh, really? I so initially I thought it was just those shared apartments and the dorm state. But I don't know. I have to look into that.
00:22:49
Speaker
Well, I have to ask our buddy who works at housing. Yeah, Zach. So like when I worked there, there was like, there were the, the, the on point dorms, there was Cedars, which was like over, you know, by the wildcat. And then there was a dorm called a gold dorm, which was over by breakers next to the water tower. Kind of ran along course here, which was like the girl's door.
00:23:07
Speaker
Um, and then there was like, this is before they did the breakers ran out. They kind of had people scattered upstairs in the rotunda rooms that also didn't have private bathrooms and weren't accessible elevator at the time, but now those are all renovated. Um, so like, that's where you could live on point, one of those three places, but now you can't live anywhere on point.
00:23:30
Speaker
Gold's gold was a shithole. That was probably the worst one or the employee housing and set of breakers. Yeah, some of that was pretty bad, too. Yeah, I lived there for a little bit. I wrote about that. Oh, was that was that coed? Um, I mean, I lived there by myself. So like, I don't know if it was. Yeah, I mean, the rooms were. Yeah, I think it must have been. I mean, it was like in the hotel. So it was like, you know,
00:24:00
Speaker
OK, yeah. Yeah, Gold's just reminded me of like a. It was like a shack. Like a military barracks shack. And it was like super old. Cedars at least had the Cedars at least had a historic charm to it, and then Commons was like living in a jail. It was like you were in jail, but
00:24:30
Speaker
It was easy to meet people in Commons. It was more social, I felt like. Plus, it was easier if you had a car. Yeah, I remember. I was there for a couple days, too, I think. But yeah, I don't know what those gold buildings originally were. I'm sure they had some historic purpose before there were dormitories.
00:24:58
Speaker
Well, did you, I mean, did you see what they have there now, or what they had put in recently, or I guess like 10 years ago. Now there's this whole employee area where the food is super cheap and they have like game rooms and there's like a computer lab and there's soda and I guess you can buy beer now too, apparently. No, I haven't been there as an employee since 2003, so I'd be able to,
00:25:32
Speaker
Yeah, it's like a totally different experience now. Yeah. Until this past year, I guess. Zach, did you ever see the Six Flags employee housing?
00:25:48
Speaker
I mean, there was, they had it, right? So here's the deal with quote, unquote Six Flags employee housing, at least at Great America. I don't know about any other park, but when I worked in rides, Six Flags did offer employee housing, but only for international employees who stayed at like Akano Lodge in Waukegan down the street.
00:26:15
Speaker
Oh, OK. And so they would have like these parties at the pool where all of them were underage here and would drink. But they were all of drinking age from where they came from, you know. And so they'd get busted by the cops. I heard about it all the time. There'd be like international people on my cruise and they'd be like, yes, we parked here last night, but we get bused by police.
00:26:43
Speaker
Yeah, I saw that at Cedar Point too. A lot of people who could drink in their home country and were just like, what the fuck? I can't drink here. And they'd get drinking tickets. Yeah. Well, hopefully they didn't pay them. I don't even know how that law works.
00:27:04
Speaker
So guys, I thought I would read a very short excerpt from the book. Perfect. For your audience. So I'm going to just read a little here. And you can cut me off if you think it's too much.
00:27:19
Speaker
We swooped down once more, a sharp dip. I yelped in surprise, and I felt myself fly up the seat. The trees word by, and in the dark nightlight, the car clattered noisily as it began to climb again. This is great, I screamed at Ashley. Her face was bright red, her blue eyes were wide, staring up at the top of the track. She grinned at me and started to reply, but instead she let out a startle whoop as our car plunged down.
00:27:42
Speaker
You were right, James, she exclaimed. The beast registered trademark is awesome. It's the best I told you, I cried breathlessly. I climbed out of the roller coaster car and onto the platform. Hey, I am dizzy. You're always dizzy, Ashley T. She's following me out. She staggered for a few steps then grabbed my shoulders. Whoa, I guess I'm a little dizzy too, I guess. So I got a question real quick. Is this from the chapter that I skipped over?
00:28:13
Speaker
That actually I didn't write that that that's from R.L. Stein's The Beast. So there's no there's no plagiarism occurring here. No, no, I want to make sure that I did not. I did not write that. That's not in my book. I just I thought that it would be I don't know. Appropriate for your part. Let's ride the beast again. Cried Ashley. Her eyes lit up as an exciting, exciting grin crossed her face. Said no one since 1983.
00:28:44
Speaker
Yeah. What's your, what do you like the beast? No, no shade. Just, just curious. Yeah. So I was, I was talking to Zach about this before. I love the beast. Um, uh, you know, I remember before, the first time I rode the beast was in 2003, you know, when I was coastering in Ohio with my, my friends, but, uh, you know, I remember as a, as a kid watching all those coaster videos and being like, what the hell is this? Like the drop is like, you know, 12 degrees. Like, how could that be exciting? Like, you know, like,
00:29:14
Speaker
This is a very long POV, but little did I know that that was actually the most intense part of the ride. Oh God, I love the beast. The beast is like, I mean, again, like, you know, like location and just like, like the beast is the magnum of wood roller coasters. It always has a place. Yeah.
00:29:35
Speaker
I think for me, it's definitely growing. I'm growing in appreciation for it, but for me, I had to kind of decouple it from how I rank roller coasters and think of it as more as just its own thing and not a roller coaster to compare it to other roller coasters.
00:29:54
Speaker
Plus, like the history of it is pretty fascinating. So I say we just categorize it as a mind train. But but let's be fair here. We also must include Magnum and Gemini in that category as well. So in terms of a mind train, not quite as good as Magnum, not quite as good as Gemini, but not bad. I think it's in Cedar Creek Mine Ride or Adventure Express. That's for sure.
00:30:26
Speaker
See, I think Beast is better than on my train. I... I don't know, I don't know where to rank it. It's good though, it's fun. I bet it was even crazier in the 70s when people were like strung out on acid and riding it at night for the first time. The first night of the Beast, yeah. You think Earl Stein was there then? You think he actually rode the Beast?
00:30:55
Speaker
Yeah, on acid. He was like, anyone who remembers the beast has never been on it. With his 12 year old cousin, Ashley. He's he's like, yeah, I remember that night in 79. Me and my buddy did a bunch of quaaludes and went to Kings Island. Oh, did you guys hear that bang from my end? No, there's a gunshot outside my apartment. Oh, wow.
00:31:24
Speaker
Yeah, that's fun. And I just want to clarify, you're not the one in Chicago, so. You good, you duck in? No, I mean, I'm not concerned. It's just it's just weird, like. Just just weird. Well, you know, you hear a gunshot. It's a little. Anyway, we can continue. Did the bullets go like farther in Denver, like the baseballs do?
00:31:54
Speaker
Oh, because of the, the altitude. Yeah. I don't know. That's a good question. Is that actually true about the baseballs? Oh yeah. Like, yeah, like they, like, you know, the Rockies where they play, it's like a big, like it's a home run derby, basically. Damn. I'm going to have to go to a game at Corey's park next time I'm in Denver during the season.
00:32:23
Speaker
It's a good time. More fun than a Litch Gardens. I've been by Elitch twice. Actually, it'll be a third time very soon where they're actually not open. And I really don't give too much of a shit other than other than it really pains me to be that close to both an Arrow shuttle looper and a wooden coaster, even if it's not a good one that I can't ride.
00:32:49
Speaker
Yeah, I was going to caveat that I was going to say, actually, yeah, a Lich Gardens is like, is it one of the only what? It's one of the only two arrow shadow loops left in the country. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's only two in America. No. Yeah. Yeah. The one in Blackpool is there. And then, yeah, the one at Frontier City. And from our earlier conversations and my book, you know how much I love a fucking arrow shadow loop. You know, dude, they're great. Yeah.
00:33:19
Speaker
Like those launches are surprisingly forceful. Like they're not even that like it's not that the top speed is that great on the launch, but the acceleration is surprisingly good for a launch system that old. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think probably the last one I was on was I mean, I was in a glitch once probably 20 years ago and.
00:33:45
Speaker
I don't know if I was on the one in Blackpool more recently than that, but I want to go.
00:33:51
Speaker
goal to go on the one in frontier city because the one in frontier city is the bottom half of lightning loops. And you know, I rode lightning loops, but I rode the top half. So I want to get there before they remove that. But I think I got a little more time because they just built like a roof or something for it. I'm like, Oh, cool. They're not going to pull that out. Like, yeah, they like upgraded the queue this year, I think. So that's a, that's a good sign. Yeah. Yeah. I could see that one being there for a minute.
00:34:17
Speaker
Yeah, I want to get out there, but it's like a plus. I can't imagine the maintenance cost on those is that high because I think it's a pretty basic launch system. And since, as you pointed out in your book, there's no banking that the trains don't really get that banged up. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no. And the track doesn't the same way it would on like any other Aero Coaster. Have you guys been out there to Frontier City? Is that?
00:34:47
Speaker
Yeah. Frontier City is kind of cool for, for what it's nice. It's a very interesting park. Like the theming is incredibly well done. And then you look around on a ride and you're like, Oh, there's the highway. Huh? Yeah. Yeah. I driven by it, but it wasn't open.
00:35:09
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, like pretty much you can like slap the ground and that's the entire footprint of the park. I mean, at this point, though, it's kind of cool that they're maintaining, you know, those types of like the looping star and the shuttle loop. And that wooden coaster seems pretty unique.
00:35:31
Speaker
As far as I mean, it's OK. I wish it was like better. Because like the queue line, they have this whole like basically like museum set up of different wooden coasters.
00:35:44
Speaker
they're like here's all these great wooden coasters and you're like oh wow you know and then you ride this ride and you're like huh this doesn't deserve a spot on that list but uh right but it's
00:36:01
Speaker
I don't know. Cool little park. And I'm also super fascinated with how that park amazingly plays such a giant part in the story of Six Flags.
00:36:15
Speaker
Yeah, they were like running their corporate. Was their corporate office actually in the park or was it? I don't know if it was in the park or if it was like adjacent or somewhere in like Oklahoma City proper. But yeah, that park was like the center of premier parks.
00:36:33
Speaker
So it's like, yeah, that serves such as such a focal point for six flags, like the and then the six flags we were talking about before we started recording that like 96 flags and continuing on into the 2006 flags, like. You just don't picture Frontier City because it's always like, you know, you think of Magic Mountain when you think of like the commercials and shit like Frontier City, really? Yep.
00:37:00
Speaker
Yeah, no, I get that. I'm chasing that history too, you know, but, well, mostly the shuttle loop, but yeah. And also the fact that since it did better than they expected, they were like, Oh, we were going to build apartments here, but I guess we'll just keep the amusement park. Yeah. It's kind of a, it reminds me of knots that it's, it's just wedged in between urban sprawl and highways. A little bit bigger.
00:37:29
Speaker
Yeah, like, not, I feel like there was nothing around there. So I was kind of thinking, like, I wonder if there was anything around that area when they built the park, like, if it was a super developed area or not. Disneyland. I haven't been there since 2002. I watched Accelerator Test. I never wrote it. And that was, it wasn't open yet. And that was the last time I was at Knott's Ferry.
00:37:59
Speaker
Damn, gotta get out there. Yeah, I do. Yeah, I mean, I've been to Southern California, I've been to other Southern California parks. Have you been, I gotta ask this one, have you been to Disneyland? Yeah, oh yeah, I've been, yes, I've been to Disneyland. The last time, I haven't been to Disney since they opened Cars, or like, I don't know what else has been, I've been on the Star Wars stuff in Florida, but. Okay, because I know you're kind of a Disney fan, right?
00:38:29
Speaker
Yeah, I have some history there. I appreciate their stuff.
Disneyland Expansion Speculations
00:38:36
Speaker
But yeah, I like Disney. And I've been to DisneySea too, actually. That one looks incredible. Yeah. I've only been to the stateside parks, but I think for me, Disneyland is the gem. Yeah, yeah. Everything in Florida is great and enjoyable, but Disneyland's on a whole other level.
00:39:00
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it is. And I'm not I'm not talking about DCA, just Disneyland. Cross the Esplanade. It's getting better. Looking a lot better now, but certainly there's how would you say it? There is room for improvement.
00:39:20
Speaker
Yeah. I want to get back out to Southern California, you know, when that, when, you know, after this, all this, uh, you know, it's one of the tougher spots. I, I, I don't usually travel that far, but I'm, I mean, you know, on a, on a regular basis, so it'd have to be a, it'd have to be appointed trip, but, uh, but yeah, I will, you know, I saw they just released, did you see the, here we can talk about news of the week that they'd like released a plan that they want to expand the parks, you know, west over them. I did see that that's a very intriguing,
00:39:50
Speaker
concept they have. Yeah, what do you think of that? I mean, that kind of blows up the original, you know, hub and spoke hardcore. Well, I think based off of what I've seen of it, they don't really have any specific plans yet. They just kind of want to open it up to be able to expand.
00:40:10
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. But not as third gate though. Yeah. As like, you know, pedestrian overpass into additional land. Yeah. So like there's talk of a third gate, which would be incredible. Oh, maybe. Yeah. I don't know what they would even do. I think, I think what would really work well for them seeing as they have such a limited space would be like, I remember hearing about this kind of like hybrid model thing that Disney wanted to do in Sydney, where they had like
00:40:41
Speaker
a handful of attractions mixed in with basically like a Disney Springs type of thing. And the attractions would all be like just upcharge. So it would have been like a selection of like a couple of tickets from various parks. Yeah, I could see that like a mini land like that. I like Port of Torre did or who did who made the dragster in Europe or.
00:41:07
Speaker
So like I think they could do something like that where like instead of they have downtown Disney They have like kind of a downtown Disney esque area but they also put an attraction or two just kind of floating outside of the park to either a Increase revenue or B Increase interest of going in the gates, you know
00:41:30
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, or more hotels or a water park. Oh, yeah, I could see that as well. It's it's landlocked. They're going to be doing something to make some money. I know that's for sure. That's why I'm like hesitant to say, yeah, I think they'll have another park. I don't know. Yeah, it's I'm I'm supposed to have the room to spread out because there's basically strip malls that line the property already.
00:42:00
Speaker
I mean, I think what they want to do is be able to like. I think essentially what it was is that they basically wanted to rezone their entire thing so that they could construct whatever they wanted rather than having to have their land broken up into parcels and being like, OK, this parcel is zoned for a theme park and this parcel is zoned for dining. And you know what I mean?
00:42:28
Speaker
So they want to just be able to be like, we can expand and do whatever we want anywhere rather than these pre set up spots. Yeah, right. Makes it like point.
00:42:44
Speaker
half a step for a 20-year plan. Don't get excited, Disney people. Nothing's happening soon. Yeah, I would say there's not gonna be anything to actually come of this announced for at least three years, which means you won't actually see anything for at least five years. And that's at a bare minimum. 2032.
00:43:09
Speaker
There's your Disney minute, right? We got to stop talking. Yeah. Well, I mean, Hey, it's exciting to actually see some news happening period. Cause it's, it's been a while. So any, any, uh, you know, news of hopefulness or expansion, that's, that's all great.
00:43:33
Speaker
What about that park going wild in Iowa with those neon rides popping up in the cornfields? You see that? No, what's going on?
00:43:46
Speaker
It there's like, uh, I can't remember. It's like a Tiki themed, uh, expansion of a water park. That's, but they got like the Intamin from somewhere in Europe. Oh yeah. Canon and just happened to pop up in a field. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, did see the picture of that. Yeah. And it's like bright colored or, you know, it's like, I think it was green or something. Yeah. It was like, whoa, it looks great. Yeah. Yeah. It's like awesome. Great. That'd have been a good coaster to go indoors.
00:44:18
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. In a mall. Ha. I feel like that ride would have been great if all of it was indoors except for the top hat. Because like the layout's interesting and it doesn't like return near the top hat. Yeah.
00:44:51
Speaker
Yeah right in the snow
00:44:55
Speaker
Yeah, well, so that mall that's in New Jersey, it's not too far from me. I've been there. I've been over there? I've been over there. I have not been to Nickelodeon University. I got one of my buddies, actually, the character that Javier is based on. He's planning on coming to the Northeast.
00:45:12
Speaker
We have kind of like a tentative, larger scale coaster trip, which is going to be cool because it's not something I've done in 17 years. I was saving that for later in the year, but I did go to the water park with my wife a few weeks back because it was like a really cold wintery day. Oh my God, I have to ask, was it worth $100?
00:45:41
Speaker
Well, you know... I don't know if that's what you paid, but I saw that ticket price when they announced that and I was like, holy shit!
00:45:52
Speaker
You know, I, it was a, the novelty experience of it. It was a very good water park. The rides were very intense and they had that like drop slide. I mean, I think that those, those shoot slides where the floor drops out and like are pretty much the scariest ride out there today. I have never been on one of those.
00:46:11
Speaker
They are, but they're also like, you feel very, or at least I feel very vulnerable, like, you know, because you're not, you don't have anything like to protect you, right? Like it's just your, you know, bare body moving at what, 40 to 50 miles an hour. And I did one like a few years back at, you know, the old action park in New Jersey. And, and, but this one that they have there is like the equivalent of, you know, the, you know, I think it might be the biggest one in the world. And it's just a straight down slide. So, so yeah, that slide, which I only did once was, you know,
00:46:42
Speaker
I don't know if it was worth a hundred dollars, but it was worth the price of admission. Um, and they have some other good stuff there too. And it was, you know, it was cool. I enjoyed it. I would go check it out if you, and I got to imagine that like open air ceiling and heating systems got to work pretty well. If you said a couple of weeks ago, cause I know you're up in the Northeast and it's.
00:47:02
Speaker
Yeah, it was fun. Not exactly the warmest stuff there right now, much like Chicago. Yeah, no, it was cool. I think the other park is on the other side, and I looked at it, but yeah, I'll go later in the year. They got four or five roller coasters in it, so it's pretty cool. You're in New York, right? Yeah, I'm in the suburbs, the north suburbs. Okay.
00:47:28
Speaker
So I'm actually, so they're building that other park up like about like in the other direction, about 20, 30 miles away, that Legoland park, which is gonna be for kids, but I've been driving by that like pretty consistently. So that's exciting too. There's coasters going into that, right? I think there's like one little kid coaster. I don't think there's much, but I mean, it is a full blown theme park that they're building out. I mean, they built like a new overpass and stuff to like,
00:47:57
Speaker
provide access to it. It's, I think it's similar to the one in Florida, um, without the like Cypress garden stuff that existed. Okay. But the closest part to me actually is ride play land. Like that's right down the street. Oh, that's such a cute little park. I love that park. Yeah. I love that park too. It's, it's awesome. The dragon. Um, does the merry-go-rounds, do they still allow employees jump on and off it?
00:48:27
Speaker
Oh, you're talking about the Derby racer. Yeah. Yeah. That thing is, uh, it runs much faster than the Cedar Point one does. Um, yeah, that thing is awesome. Are they still allowed to jump on and off though? Like, Oh, you mean like, yeah, I know what you're talking about. Yeah. They still do that. Holy shit. Really?
00:48:45
Speaker
Yeah. Cause I think they have to like, like, I think that's like part of, they have to be able to move on it. But I mean, it's like old school, like, you know, operation. I mean, that thing hasn't been modernized. So that's probably the only way they can keep it standing. Given safety codes is probably grandfathered in. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Touch it. Then you have to modernize the whole thing.
00:49:13
Speaker
So I gotta ask then, if you're in New York, I have a suspicion, but who's worse, Colmo or de Blasio?
00:49:22
Speaker
Oh man, you know, Cuomo's on a, you know, he's in hot water recently. I like Andrew Cuomo, but he, you know, he actually, he just legalized weed too, because like, you know, he's trying to get some favor like as of last week through like a budget resolution. So that's like coming in. He's trying really hard to win some support back.
00:49:47
Speaker
Yeah. And today, today he announced that like everybody over 30 can get like a COVID vaccination. But, uh, yeah, I think, um, yeah, I like Cuomo a lot more. I don't live in the city. I don't live in de Blasio's jurisdiction. Um, I was a big Michael Bloomberg fan. Okay. You know, he cleaned up Coney Island, brought up, brought, brought those, uh, you know,
00:50:08
Speaker
Well, unlike those two guys, Bloomberg just seemed more like, and obviously I'm in a totally different state, so I'm not affected the same way, but he seemed more just kind of like a weirdo. Those two seem kind of like classic New York, like what the fuck are you looking at type of dudes? He just seemed more like an independently wealthy weirdo.
00:50:34
Speaker
Yeah well he had like a kind of like an eye for design and development and kind of like hey let's make the city a better place through like design and you know in my background I'm like I appreciated that where you know the current administration they're like um and I'm not against this but they're like more like focused on like uh you know uh
00:50:53
Speaker
like kind of social programs and less focused on like placemaking, you know, like kind of like Robert Moses was back in the day when he bulldozed off Coney Island, like, ah, we don't need him. So, but, uh, you know, Duvalladio is done. So he's up, you know, he's, so there's somebody new coming in, you know, they think, Oh, okay. That primary, you know, two terms, you know, so, so, uh, yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens. Uh, let the battles begin. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's not a clear front runner yet.
00:51:21
Speaker
I mean, it's probably very similar to Chicago. I mean, I know Chicago's got crazy politics, too, with like, you know, all the aldermen and, you know, the machine there. But yeah, the deal with Chicago is that like.
00:51:33
Speaker
Everybody sucks. So, I mean. Who is that infamous guy? Was that Blagojevich? That infamous guy. You're not narrowing it down. From Illinois? Barack Obama? Blagojevich. He's currently serving a sentence. He was our governor.
00:51:58
Speaker
Or no, he yeah, he was our governor and he was trying to bid off Obama's Senate seat when he got elected. But before that, our governor was George Ryan, who also went to jail or no, he was indicted for financial crimes. Yeah, our current governor, JB Pritzker, he actually removed plumbing fixtures from some of his houses to avoid paying taxes on them.
00:52:31
Speaker
Whole bunch of cool shit, you know. Illinois is basically like, do I know this person's name? No. Well, then I'll probably go for them. Are you from Illinois to banner? Where are you originally from? No, I'm from Central Wisconsin. So is Mount Olympus your home park? No. So where I grew up, so I grew up closer to Milwaukee. So Great America was my home park. Great America was like an hour.
00:53:01
Speaker
And Mount Olympus was an hour and a half. So you don't want to claim Mount Olympus because that was like, you know, technically it was in your state, right? Yeah. Well, at the time, I mean, at the time, though, like as a kid, the Dells didn't have too much. They had Noah's Ark. But Mount Olympus wasn't a thing until about 2005. But yeah, before Mount Olympus, the Dells pretty much just had
00:53:25
Speaker
Noah's Ark, which was always pretty cool. And then there was a place called Family Land, which is what Mount Olympus merged into. But it was always just kind of like a, like a shithole tourist trap to collect people from Illinois and Minnesota. Branson of the North. Yeah, I've never been up there to Mount Olympus or the Dells, but if you guys do do something there, you know, late in the summer, I would consider going if the timing works.
00:53:55
Speaker
Yeah, I think it would be a lot of fun to go to Mount Olympus as a group because it would actually make it more fun. Plus you can get away with a lot of shit there, which would be kind of fun. I don't know.
00:54:09
Speaker
Yeah, we just have to figure out like a place to stay that wasn't the quote unquote Mount Olympus Hotel. Oh, right. Right. Yeah. We have the wilderness or something. So they like bought up every shit hotel in town. So like the cedar is basically.
00:54:26
Speaker
Yeah, but they consider all the Mount Olympus Hotel. So if you book with them, you could be booking a hotel that's like three miles away, or you could be booking the one next door. You don't know until you get there. Does the Mount Olympus Hotel have communal showers? I don't even know if they have a shower. Yeah, it's a crapshoot. It depends what property you get. I mean,
00:54:53
Speaker
Like some of them, you'll get two beds and you go into the room and you realize it's a bunk bed. Um, some of them are more like dorm. Some of them are old roadway ends that are half still used for like, uh, housing. So yeah, it's, it's fucking weird. They basically bought up the entire Dells and there's such an awful, um, park that they made. They found a way to make the Dells worse.
00:55:22
Speaker
and more corporate kind of stuff. Because at least like there's a charm, like there's like a charm to paying $50 for a shithole hotel or motel in the Dells. It was like, all right, we're in the Dells. Like this place
Mount Olympus and Wisconsin Dells Adventures
00:55:38
Speaker
is a shithole. It's a roadway and that's been here for 50 years. But now it's like, oh, this is Mount Olympus. It's a resorts. Yet I'm staying in the roadway and three miles down the road and I don't have towels.
00:55:51
Speaker
Yeah, the Greek overlay does not match the historical Americana. I like places like that. I probably would have liked the Dells back in the day. Yeah, I'm trying to think of a good
00:56:15
Speaker
what it can compare to. I mean, historically, the Dells is all there because of the Tommy. What's it called? Right, Ben? Yeah, the Tommy Bartlett show on like. Yeah, yeah. Well, it was it was partially. Well, that show actually. No, the real reason is there is because of the actual Dells. So the Dells are it's this
00:56:38
Speaker
like a river canyon kind of system so it's like I don't want to say mini Grand Canyon but there's all these different rock formations that formed from the rivers and then there's this giant lake so you can take the ducks it's like those amphibious boat car things and you drive through these canyons and there's these
00:56:57
Speaker
rock pillars and ledges. And there's this guy who jumps from one pillar to another. It's called Stan Rock. There's all this like tour stuff. And then, yeah, then there's the water ski show. So then people found reasons to stay there, you know, over the weekend. And then it kind of grew as this tourist route. But it used to be less we not forget robot world. Yeah. Yeah.
00:57:24
Speaker
I do remember, I remember going to robot world. There was Ripley's believe it or not. Um, there was like a bunch of knickknack shops, a bunch of t-shirt shops. Oh, there was that park extreme world across the street from Mount Olympus girl broke her neck. Yeah. No worse. No worse. That's not funny.
00:57:45
Speaker
Like where she like, uh, fucked her brain, like was like hemorrhaged. Oh yeah, that's right. It was pretty bad. Yeah, it was pretty nasty. Dude, those scared towers looked awesome, but also like, I don't know if I would ever do one now because of that. Well, I think the last one just closed, right? And yeah, I heard, I never did one, but I heard that the one in Dallas just closed and wouldn't surprise me. I know. So what was super sketchy too. Mount Olympus owned.
00:58:15
Speaker
And the thing is, this was like 10 years ago, so I can't confirm it, but I'm pretty sure they owned a S&S Skycoaster, so a non-Skycoaster licensed Skycoaster. So it looked a little bit different. It was weird because the flight suit
00:58:33
Speaker
There were these straps that would like you would tie your ankles into it and it looked super sketchy. And it was actually where this girl died. And also in Wisconsin on this ride called Air Glory, which was a portable sky coaster that wasn't actually a sky coaster off of the side of a construction crane. Oh, my God.
00:58:53
Speaker
And yeah, I guess they didn't hook the cables up correctly, which I don't know how you do it. You got to fuck that up pretty bad. Yeah. And she fell. She pulled the rip cord and fell to the ground. Jesus. Oh, Wisconsin. Yep. I know that I'm going to get another beer. I'll be right back. Go ahead. Yeah, totally. Um, I think also I'm going to go refill my drink. I'm in a monologue for a minute.
00:59:23
Speaker
Yeah, do it. I don't know what to say. Let's let's just rant about Mount Olympus some more. So. There was this thing back in 2006 where all of their toilets overflowed.
00:59:46
Speaker
And the thing is, because it's Mount Olympus, there's only like two bathrooms in the park. So when you go into this bathroom, there's like two inches of standing water and there's just floating chunks of toilet paper and like wood chips and just disgusting shit. And it's pretty fucking disgusting. Also, if you've never seen it, look up a POV of Dive to Atlantis, the Mylar water coaster.
01:00:17
Speaker
That probably shouldn't have been a water coaster. Are either of you guys back yet? All right. The other thing that happened there was go carts catching on fire.
01:00:46
Speaker
with like kids driving them. Yeah. All right, I'm back guys. I was trying to talk to myself about Mount Olympus, but I think I told all the stories already. Yeah, the farthest north I've been, I've been to like spring green, like Telly Essen.
01:01:16
Speaker
But what spring is that a park? It's like, no, it's like the Frank Lloyd Wright stuff up there. And like, I think it's like a resort area, but, okay. Okay. No, I have not. No, I haven't been like, so yeah, I would love to go to like, um, the beach bend and, uh, um, little America. I heard you say include right. Come up. You know, we have a couple of those around Chicago.
01:01:45
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I've been to some of those. I'll be honest, I have no idea the context of why those are important, but I know they exist. You're probably upset with me.
01:02:04
Speaker
no no no it's like you know he's like just like a famous architect and they like you know he was from chicago so like he has a concentration of work there but then like he is he had his uh... is like summer house up in wisconsin which is like this huge compound they had another one in phoenix and then he went to japan too he was like kind of like you know coaster enthusiasts of the architecture world you know he had like the best stuff he was like the you know the intimate of the nineteen thirties
01:02:33
Speaker
Nice. Yeah. Interesting. All right. I'll have to I'll have to go actually see one. Yeah, I knew there was a ton around here. But again, I didn't know the context. So I'll have to go see one and see if I can. I don't know. Appreciate it. Yeah, if you also should hit up. Well, have you been to Indiana Beach in 2003? I've been back since.
01:03:02
Speaker
Yeah. I wonder, you think they're going to get that, uh, that, that short cuff up this year? If they do, that'll be amazing. And I really want it to happen, but I don't know. I'm not hopeful. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, it might take him a couple of years, right? Like it's, you know, I imagine it needs some work. Well, uh, lakeside, uh, here in Denver, they, oh, but they bought a shorts cuff. Um,
01:03:29
Speaker
Not a wildcat, one of the larger ones. Um, I forgot the name of it, but it's been standing, but not operating now for four years. So I'm not, I'm not sure what's going on with that, but I hope it's not a Schwarzkopf like issue with finding parts or whatever.
01:03:49
Speaker
Yeah, just, you know, small park stuff. I went to Lakeside. I didn't ride any of the rides there. We played like a Simpson, like a video game, but I was with some friends and they didn't have patience, but I'm like, Oh, let's hang out until, uh, you know, this was like five, maybe longer than that years ago. Let's hang out until the lights come on. But I've never been on the rollercoaster there. So I want to get back there.
01:04:14
Speaker
Yeah, it's still a pretty interesting park. I just wish they had the money to take care of everything in the park. It's definitely, you can tell it's in a decline and it's pretty sad because that land is becoming pretty valuable. So unfortunately I definitely see it becoming like condos or something.
01:04:42
Speaker
in the near future. Same with eelage. Yeah. Yeah. Well, eelage is done, right? They're going to like, definitely. Well, so that's the rumor, but it, nothing's actually confirmed yet. So basically there was a developer who has a plan or an idea of what to put there, but nothing's actually confirmed. Um,
01:05:05
Speaker
So as far as I know, the park is still owned by the guy who owns the nuggets and there's no plan to actually close it yet. So then the city hasn't approved anything. So I don't, I'm not saying that can happen still, but yeah, I don't know. It'll be interesting to see. And who owns lakeside? Is that privately owned?
01:05:26
Speaker
It's a family who hurts. Yeah, it's like some woman She she's part of the family, but I think she's in like her upper 70s and And so I guess in the last five years Apparently the family's been getting harassed by real estate developers But I want to say the park is actually
01:05:49
Speaker
a historical landmark, but I don't know what that means in the context of the city. They just need a lot of money. I wish someone would just donate $10 million and just renovate the place because it could definitely stick around.
Lakeside and Rye Playland's Historical Challenges
01:06:08
Speaker
come on roller coaster museum come through yeah right what the fuck yeah that our play land is like that it's the same thing where you have kind of this beautiful historic uh park that really really needs um some love and care luckily they're not in uh danger of being redeveloped because they're like a state park or county owned park yeah but yeah i
01:06:37
Speaker
Yeah. Isn't that like one of the only parks that's like state owned? Yeah. Yeah. I think, well, the one up in, uh, up in Wisconsin is too, that where they just put the Pippin that's kind of, that's right. But yeah, it started as a park and they put rides there. Yeah. The, uh, it's like super cool when communities like find there's that much value in the park, you know,
01:07:06
Speaker
Right. Yeah. And that's, I wish that would happen with lakeside, but, um, yeah. Cause that's a pretty historical park too. That dates back pretty far. Yeah. A fifties or earlier. Yeah. Yeah. And the problem with it is that they've let so much of it go for so long and they have no way of renovating it that
01:07:31
Speaker
I would say half of that park is just not operate, like it just doesn't operate. So they have an old Ferris wheel that's just standing there. They don't even replace the lights anymore. And that giant tower, it's not a clock tower, but it's like a tower that used to be covered in all these lights.
01:07:53
Speaker
Like 80% of the lights don't even work. And now they have it fenced off or you can't even go near it. So it's, uh, it's too bad. That sucks. I got to get back out there. I want to, I want to see that park. Yeah.
01:08:13
Speaker
I want to see Eilich too. I mean, I'm going to be through Denver soon, but neither of those parks are open, unfortunately. Yeah. To not see Eilich is to not see Denver. Well, I'll just have to buy some weed and visit the Denver beer company. Did they really close Casa Bonita? I heard you guys say that on one of your earlier shows. Yeah, but they're going to plan on reopening.
01:08:40
Speaker
I guess they were just doing they're doing renovation right now. So I guess it should open up soon. Hopefully. I heard that referenced on the newest South Park that it's reopening. Yeah. Oh, nice. Well, you should go there, Zach. I'll see if I can convince the life. Ben, you want to go? I don't know if it'll be open then, but I mean, I would go back. Yeah, I want to fucking go.
01:09:09
Speaker
It's the food and the food is awful. And so here's the thing. The first time I went there, I knew that the food is bad going in because I'm like, I'm not going to expect it. We ate dinner before we went there, actually. But it's worse. It's actually worse than you can imagine. And it's not like gross bad. It's just.
01:09:32
Speaker
like plain. It's it's like, I don't know, like you get a plate and it's the food is like $15, which is crazy. I've been there. I've been there. I've raised the flag, you know, many times. Nice. Yeah, the sober is the question is, who's working the kitchen? The gringos. It's probably like kids. It's probably like 16 17 year old kids.
01:09:59
Speaker
probably like the guy in the gorilla suit between the two, the shows. Yeah. Yeah. Like, so you get, it's like a third. Yeah. So you pay like 15, $16 for a plate. So like you, you're like a three taco plate. Um, and it's like a plain shell and it's like a microwave Velveeta over the most flavorless meat you've ever had. Um,
01:10:22
Speaker
But it's all you can eat, but it's all you can eat. But it's almost like they make the food intentionally bad so you don't eat a lot of it. And then, yeah, the Soba Pia's are good because there's honey on the table. They at least the honey's all right. And then they have margaritas, but they're super weak and they're like eight dollars.
01:10:44
Speaker
actually the one we ordered around a margaritas like we the server came back we're like um are these alcoholic um because like it doesn't taste like there's any tequila in here the server's like oh yeah people say that all the time it's not a it's not a yes
01:11:08
Speaker
I should also clarify that guy in a gorilla suit was not some kind of racist joke. There is actually a guy running around in a gorilla suit as part of the entertainment. They were when they were, I mean, I always saw them advertising that they're, they're, they're hiring cliff jumpers. You never went for an interview or anything? No, I should have. I did. I did dive team for a little bit in high school.
01:11:41
Speaker
All right. I'm checking their website. All it says is they're reopening soon. I'm glad. I'm glad. Too much. Too much like classic Denver shit's been closing the last five years.
01:11:57
Speaker
Now, Ben, they market themselves as the greatest show in Denver. And they they specifically say immediately after mouthwatering Mexican food. Now, I'm going to assume based off of your description, that's like the mouthwatering like that you get before you vomit. No, like I said, it's not bad. It's not bad gross. It's just it's plain. It's like.
01:12:27
Speaker
I can't describe it. No, I think he described it pretty spot on. If you were writing a book about the mountain portion, the Velveeta, the plainness of the cheese, no, that's spot on. It's not bad, you're right. It's just, but it's an experience. Right.
01:12:53
Speaker
I mean, to be fair, if you were to order tacos off the children's menu at Ponderosa back in 1998, I'm sure it would be about that on par. Dude, Ponderosa, gross. Yeah, it's pretty gross. Have you guys ever tried to eat at a Ponderosa like beyond 2015?
01:13:19
Speaker
No, I didn't realize they were still around I don't hate my body that much
01:13:24
Speaker
So my ex and I, him and I went into a ponderosa as a joke. We were like, you know what?
The Decline of Ponderosa Buffets
01:13:30
Speaker
We should go. Let's get drunk. Let's go to the ponderosa. And this was in the middle of Wisconsin in a small town, like by West Bend, where I went to high school. And so we went in there and we literally didn't get any food. Like I did two laps. I grabbed the plate. I did two laps. I'm like, I literally don't want to eat anything.
01:13:50
Speaker
And so we just walked out and we didn't get our money back. We just like literally walked out. I think Lee grabbed like a fish fillet, like when it was frozen fish fillets and then a piece of pizza and took one bite of the pizza and like, it was like, nah.
01:14:07
Speaker
I remember I went to one in Florida with my mom when we went to visit my grandma. Yeah, a Ponderosa in Florida is already a bad start, I know. We went to visit my grandma, so we went to the Ponderosa.
01:14:22
Speaker
It was like we sat there and I like ate a plate and my mom didn't need anything because she never really liked buffets. And so I like ate a plate and I'm like, I'm good. And then you remember me like 10 years ago, one plate of buffet was like unheard of for me. Yeah. Yeah, I was like, I'm good. And it's like, oh, shit.
01:14:52
Speaker
Yeah, they're disgusting. Yeah, okay. Have you been to a Ponderosa? Not in like probably like I think there was one in my town when a child but I don't think it
01:15:09
Speaker
I must have been like 13. I don't think that I've been one to one since. And I'm thinking, I'm trying to think back to Orlando because I'm thinking of like the Golden Corrals and the Sisi's. But I don't even, you know, Orlando had like every, you know, like relocated restaurant because they had Chicago style, you know, the only Pizzeria Uno and 250 miles and they had like a Promonti brothers and they brought everything in. But I don't even remember Ponderosa's being
01:15:40
Speaker
Yeah, I wasn't even near Orlando in Florida. It was like. What's it called? Closer to like. Fucking Miami area. Oh, yeah, not even Miami. It was Pompano Beach.
01:15:59
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I now, now I'm curious now. I, now I want to, uh, I want to go see what a para Ponderosa looks like. Well, you mentioned, um, golden Corral and CC's and that's like a one, two gut punch right there. Yeah. Well, you know, I was like, I haven't been those since, you know, 2010, but I, you know, I remember those. What about, did you ever hit that Ryan's and Sandusky?
01:16:28
Speaker
Yes. So, no, I don't remember eating there. I've been at Orion's for other reasons. That sounds like. So I know what Orion's is, but I don't think I've ever, you know.
01:16:42
Speaker
It's like another. Yeah, I don't think that was steroids there in 2003, honestly. OK, see, it was there. I remember eating there at oh nine, but I always assumed it was super old and there forever, but it could be totally wrong. It also could just be a Ryan's that, you know, it just has that decor. Now, when I was in Sandusky, we hung out at the Steak and Shake and the Thirsty Pony. What about Diana's?
01:17:13
Speaker
No, that was there and that was like the other place. I talk about that in the book, being like the other option that was open really late. But no, I wasn't that cool. Really? Amen. And you said in the book you avoided Louise. Yeah, well, I was underage and I actually got kicked out of there once, but I didn't tell that story.
01:17:37
Speaker
But yeah, I wasn't a huge drinker. I mean, we were like so gung ho about like, you know, having, you know, spending all our time like riding rides either at Cedar Point or like driving, you know, 250 miles away and like to hit, like go to Indiana Beach when we had like a four hour window or, you know, or go to three parks in two days. And, you know, which, you know, we did, we did that trip that, that we failed to do in the book.
01:18:08
Speaker
I was, like, excited when I read that part, when they're, like, planning it out. Yeah, we did that. I was, like, so disappointed when it, like, kind of, like, unmaterialized. Minor spoiler.
01:18:22
Speaker
Yeah. Sorry. That's a total spoiler. Now you can leave it in. I do remember. So like we did, we did a two day trip and this is 2003 and we, we drove to holiday world and did we drove at night. We drove all the way out to holiday world. Then in the morning we did holiday world in the afternoon.
01:18:38
Speaker
for the evening, we did Kentucky Kingdom, and the next day we did Kings Island. But we fucked that up, because when you go from holiday world to Kentucky Kingdom, you lose an hour, right? So if we had done it the other way, which would have been the more logical way to do it, because then you get night rides at holiday world. So we're driving to Kentucky Kingdom, and it's like 3 PM, and the park closes at 7, and then all of a sudden it's like 4 PM.
01:19:08
Speaker
But I think we got on everything. That was there. I also love that the reference in there was made specifically to Six Flags in Ohio. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I went there, too. You know, that was a. Oh, yeah. No, I was three. That was probably a day for them. Well, I don't know when that park started to decline. It was after the party. Yeah. I mean, it was like.
01:19:38
Speaker
You know, it was still functional, but there was nobody there. I mean, you could see the writing on the wall. Yeah. Yeah. Like 2000 was their big, biggest year. That's when they added like all those coasters and one dump. So like, I think after that six flags was like, well, if it ain't working now, I ain't ever going to work. Fuck it.
01:20:04
Speaker
since we're talking about this is a good, good time to bring up that, you know, Zach, who I give props, he told me he read like the book in one day, which is awesome. I have never even read the book in one day. You know, he found, unemployment's a hell of a thing. He found a, an, an era, an era. And, you know, he fact checked me and, and he rightfully so called me out on, on, on something that other, nobody had,
Funny Coaster Story and Dutch Company Correction
01:20:34
Speaker
caught sense, you know, my editors, but although I told my editor, I said, you know what, like focus on the grammatical stuff and the coaster stuff, you know, there's a lot of coaster stuff. You don't have to fact check all the coaster stuff, but but I got something wrong. I said, I said, what did I say? You can you can tell. I'm going to read the message I sent you.
01:20:51
Speaker
Yeah, do that. That put it perfectly. I sent you this message. All caps. Fuck. Dash, I'm guessing since you sent this book to enthusiasts, I won't be the first to say it. Dot, dot, dot. You were the first. In parentheses, showing my nerd card here, close parentheses, Vekoma is a Dutch company. And you're like, wait, did I get something wrong? You're the first person to call me on this.
01:21:21
Speaker
There's the title of your episode. Vekoma is a Dutch company. And I'm looking at the... Okay, it's on.
01:21:32
Speaker
It's on page 198, and the Abreavian acronym and slang-heavy assessment was a rundown on their roller coaster lineup with only an enthusiast
Roller Coaster Nerds as Fact-Checkers?
01:21:40
Speaker
would understand. Their rides included a few off-the-shelf generic models by Swiss designer Vekoma, including Boomerang, SLC, blah, blah, blah, Flying Dutchman, and Flying Dutchman. So the sentence ends, Flying Dutchman, but, you know, I didn't realize that. It was Flying Dutchman because of a Dutch company.
01:21:57
Speaker
Fail. I just, I don't know what level of shame I should feel for that level of nerddom. No, you should feel safe. You should feel... Actually... Oh, you should get a job as an editor in the entertainment industry of coaster produce and content. Right. The next time a coaster book comes out, I'm sure.
01:22:24
Speaker
You get a side gig fact checking like YouTuber coaster videos. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's what a YouTube commenter is. That's true. I wish, I wish my nerdiness would have paid off into something. I just don't have the follow through to make it happen or lacked it when I was a kid and now I'm too old.
01:22:53
Speaker
Nah. It's young. Shake it better when you get older. There ain't nothing cute about a 30-something year old man with a beard going, this coaster was actually built into Holland and you got it. You can do that until you're like 50 and then you're good. It's actually 4.6 G's.
Bucky's Hype and Theme Park Possibilities
01:23:21
Speaker
Hey, if you can ride dodo the pond until you're 50, you can fact check until you're 50. I don't think I don't got I don't got the swagger like Sean Flaherty does. Yeah, he's pretty smooth. I'm way more abrasive than he is. He's he's got a way, yeah, he's got a way cooler and coir personality than I do. I don't think I can pull that off.
01:23:53
Speaker
And you just need to wear like a three XL full print coaster shirt and then have glasses and a ponytail and wear socks with flip flops. Glasses with a strap. Yeah. A minimum of two fanny packs.
01:24:20
Speaker
Yeah, like on your on your like over your forehead kind of like a hat so like because you so you can see to the video, right? Because it'll just be like your face coming up. So you could just see that. Oh, yeah, totally. It's got to be like one of those vintage 90s hats, too, but not one of the cool looking ones. One of the just the bad retro looking ones. Like, I don't know, it'd be like a Bucky's hat.
01:24:47
Speaker
A Bucky's hat? Yeah. Fuck Bucky's. I'm sorry. No, no, no, no, I love Bucky's. Bucky's is awesome. So I think Bucky's as it exists
Bucky's: Expectation vs Reality
01:25:00
Speaker
on its own is fine, but the response to Bucky's is, is, uh, I don't know. Yeah. Is it awesome? Yes. But is it overhyped for what it is? Absolutely. It's almost like America. The theme is just America.
01:25:17
Speaker
Do you think that a Bucky's will ever build a roller coaster? Cause I could actually kind of see that happen. Yeah, but I could see them getting like a mall, a small Mylar or like a minor Mike.
01:25:29
Speaker
The thing I wonder is, would it be in a place that's adjacent to an already existing amusement facility, like a Six Flags over Texas or near Orlando? Or would it be one of their completely middle-of-nowhere locations? No, I'm talking about over the gas pumps and stuff, like 40 miles outside of Houston. They don't have an amusement park. Let's just make one at puppies.
01:25:57
Speaker
Just like a full a full on Bucky's with an F.E.C. That'd be dope. Dude, I love Bucky's. Although if you get disappointed by one, but. Yeah, but well, you because you were like. You said you'd been there before.
01:26:23
Speaker
but the people you were with were two ston- Go ahead, you tell your story. Well, no, it was just, I was, okay, so I was super hungry, I was super stoned, and I was with some coaster people, and I was like, hey,
01:26:36
Speaker
I can, I can expense like a lot for
Bucky's vs Midwest Grocery Giants
01:26:40
Speaker
dinner, like what we should eat dinner at a cool place. Um, and then it was like, yeah, let's go to Bucky's. And I'm like, I was all hyped up. I'm like, Oh, sweet. Like, okay. Like I was expecting just this, like, I dunno, like, you know, they're like, yeah, there's pulled pork and there's this, and I'm like, Oh, sweet. Okay, cool. And then it was like just a really big speedway or quick trip. And we're expecting Casa Bonita.
01:27:07
Speaker
I don't know. Yeah, like we're we're friends like 22. No, no, no, I get. Here's the thing. I appreciate that we went there. Like I'm not I'm not trying to talk shit. Like I totally understand the hype about it. It was just.
01:27:22
Speaker
what I had in my head in that moment was totally different than what it was. I was, cause then I went to the food kiosk and I was like, Oh, it's, it's gas station food. Okay. And then, you know, everything, there's just like 20 of everything. There's, you know, 20 Pepsi fountains and there's, um, fudge and there's, you know, you can buy t-shirts. It just, you know,
01:27:49
Speaker
I could sympathize, understand, being a little overwhelmed and confused, especially if you were high. I mean, it's like, oh, it's a gas station. I'll just go in and do my gas station stuff. And it's like, no, it's a gas station. That's the size of the Walmart and everything. And there's this beaver. Is it a beaver? It's I think. Yeah, I think you have beaver nuggets. Yep. It's a beaver. All right. Ben, I was going to say, like, that just sounds like some shit like you and I did when we were like,
01:28:17
Speaker
in our early twenties. Yeah. If I,
Ohio's Liquor Sales Workaround
01:28:20
Speaker
okay. If I were, if I was 19 and we were on a coaster road trip and we randomly found Bucky's like, what the hell is that? We should stop there. And we're like, holy shit, this is awesome. I understood like that was a little more, I could understand, or I could see that, but I can almost picture like you and me and Eric and Aaron, like on a trip in Texas and like, Oh, Hey, I heard about this thing online. We got to stop here. Yeah.
01:28:47
Speaker
And then like, we all get like super hyped because it's buckies. But yeah, if you're an adult, like fucking go there for dinner. We get, we get back in the car and it's just like, this fudge is only $3 and three cents. Eric, Eric's like cheap ball and everything. Yeah. He's like trying to get a discount at the register. He's like, I bought gas. Isn't there a discount if you buy gas?
01:29:16
Speaker
I had like an equivalent experience, which I wrote about in the book, probably at like Meyer, like, you know, that Meyer and Sandusky or any Meyer in the Midwest. And just that experience of being in that like ridiculously large kind of, you know, grocery store. That's also a department store at three in the morning and how weird that experience is for the first time. And the fact that they sell that water down booze,
01:29:43
Speaker
Like there's a full liquor section and it's all the regular liquor you would see, but you don't realize it's cut 50, 50 or 50. Actually changed that now. Oh, it's changed.
01:29:55
Speaker
So what they do now, they have a workaround, which is so Ohio, it's hilarious.
Diluted Liquor and Faygo Disappointment
01:30:01
Speaker
Inside of the Meijer, there's a separate inside liquor store. And it's basically where they used to have two aisles, it's all just been enclosed, and there's a door, and you walk in there, and that's where all the liquor is, and then you could buy the liquor in there, and there's a cash register,
01:30:23
Speaker
And then you take it out and then you're back into the mire. OK, that makes sense. Interesting workaround, but yeah, at least they don't sell that diluted bullshit anymore. God, I remember like I was so hyped that they sold Faygo at the mire because I was like going to make some juggalo juice and get turned up and ride Magnum, you know, so we're like in the Soak City lot mixing these drinks.
01:30:53
Speaker
And then it's like this just tastes like fucking gross grape soda with like a little bit of whiskey in it. Not like a mixed drink, you know? Yeah. And then I read the label and it's like diluted and it's like, oh, what the fuck? The mine right of liquor.
01:31:17
Speaker
Like you could, you could probably drink an entire like fifth of one of those whiskeys and been good to drive. Yeah. Okay. Just put a straw in it. Take it to go. Right. I mean, it's watered down. Yeah. Shit. I'm hydrating.
Odd Hotel Bell Station Requests
01:31:40
Speaker
Fucking Ohio. Right. Steve rules.
01:31:45
Speaker
Right? That was, that was the quote of the book for me was, uh, the character Ben saying, dude, I pictured, by the way, I pictured Ben to be kind of like a portly blonde dude. I don't know if that's accurate at all.
01:32:11
Speaker
But he said it was like about, was that a real story that you had to try and get sleeping kids into a car? There may get a little, uh, you know, exaggeration, but yeah, some weird things happened. You know, you know, there were some weird requests at the Bell station.
01:32:31
Speaker
Okay. Well, the context of that scene was the, the patron of the hotel was trying to get their sleeping children to the car by means of bell card. And so like, he offered your character a tip if you were able to do it and you like went to the Ben character and you're like, is that even legal?
01:32:59
Speaker
goes to the YOS red state laws. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. You know, I'm glad that's the first time I've heard that line be pulled. And, you know, it's nice when people, you know,
Ohio's Realistic Portrayal in Literature
01:33:21
Speaker
acknowledge and pull something very specific out that's meaningful. I always enjoy hearing that. I mean, if you didn't get at least one good dig in on Ohio in that book, I would have questioned you actually living there. Yeah, I love Ohio and I love Sandusky too. I mean, I hope I, you know, and I love the park. I hope that I, you know,
01:33:49
Speaker
you know, did it, uh, you know, well, I, I tried to, uh, you know, be, uh, you know, diplomatic and, and, and give a realistic perspective without, you know, you know, sorry. Go ahead. No, no, no. I love the portrayal of, uh, the little side trips to Cleveland and Detroit.
01:34:17
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I love Detroit and Cleveland. And that was just me giving my fitting things that I wanted to talk about into the plot and letting my mind riff on these various locations. And it is part memoir. So
01:34:43
Speaker
just kind of writing about that. As an architect, we had to write a lot about places and think about places and sense of places. So I feel like that's a lot is reflected in the writing. Places weren't as important
Roller Coasters as Narrative Characters?
01:35:00
Speaker
as people to the story and to the way that I was viewing things then and when I wrote it.
01:35:11
Speaker
Interesting. Yeah, I mean, I guess now thinking about it, I could see how, in some senses, the locations are almost like a non dialogue character. Yeah, definitely. And the roller coasters too. That was the purpose of kind of diving into each of them because they each had their own like insignia associated with, you know, various characters.
01:35:37
Speaker
So I gotta ask, speaking of the roller coasters, did you actually get a pizza delivered to you outside of Dragster? Oh man, you're making me kill all the mythology. I like probably admitting the things that are true, but I don't like saying the things that aren't true.
01:36:00
Speaker
But we did get a lot of pizzas delivered to a lot of different places. And Ben, or the person that inspired Ben, definitely had that phone number on speed dial without any shame. Like, hey, like we should get a pizza. Well, didn't we get a pizza like three hours ago? Well, yeah, we should get another pizza.
01:36:25
Speaker
Yeah, I know there was a couple things we discussed, you know, in our other meeting about the book that I don't want to bring up because it's definitely more on, you know, it's hard to spoil exactly,
Nostalgia for Old Log Flumes
01:36:40
Speaker
but
01:36:42
Speaker
more on the second half of the book that I don't really want to give away, but there's that one Ben story in there that was just so great that we had talked about with the log flume. Yeah, yeah. Well, again, that's again, ghost places and places that no longer exist.
01:37:07
Speaker
Yeah, and that whole sequence of the book as well is just fantastic. Yeah, go out and ride your local log flume if you're listening. They're all about left and right, but they're still the best. And that actually reminded me, I had not exactly forgotten, but
01:37:28
Speaker
I guess I didn't really think about I had written that log flume once and I had kind of forgotten the detail about the the turntable platform the loading like I know that that's the Maverick key line now and you see it every time so it's like kind of hard to forget but like that's one of those things that the two flumes at Great America actually both have
01:37:52
Speaker
Yeah, most of them do. I mean, well, I don't know who's there. Are those Hopkins flumes? I don't even, those are actually, I think those are arrows. If I'm not mistaken. Maybe. Yeah. I mean, I know that the Hershey park coal cracker has it too. I mean, a lot of them from the era do well. Wait. So I got great America. Loggers run is, is that one arrow too? I thought they were both arrow. Okay.
History of Great America's Dual Log Flumes
01:38:20
Speaker
Like I know, I know the hydro flume or whatever is, uh, arrow. So white water landing was an arrow flume according to Wikipedia. Yeah. Cause the hydro flume, I mean, I don't know if it's specifically hydro film, but they do like that skipping, like they skip on the water. Whereas, um, uh, like loggers run. It's more of the, it's more of a splashdown. Yeah.
01:38:51
Speaker
There's like a bump like the hydro flume has like the bunny like the bunny hill at the bottom of the of the hill or the of the drop. I don't know log flumes as well as you, which I like. I'm just thinking about it mechanically, like. Do you like, do you remember Yankee Clipper? Yeah.
01:39:16
Speaker
Yeah. Like, you know how you go down the, you get on the big drop and then there's the bunny Hill at the, the tiny bunny Hill at the bottom of the drop. And then you kind of like skip on the water until you slow down. Yeah. Like the front of the boat kind of. Yeah. Lager's run was arrow 76 Yankee clipper was also arrow 76 again to this, you know, Hey, I fact checked you.
01:39:46
Speaker
You know, I was sweating for a second because I was like, God damn it, I fact checked you in your book. So if I'm not right about this, I'm going to look like I'm going to have a that's good. Yeah, I'm wondering because like, you know, Ben, we were talking about this off too,
Schwarzkopf vs Huss Enterprise Rides
01:40:00
Speaker
but like the old great adventure stuff and a great adventure at two flumes. They have the one that exists over in Frontierland, but they had another one, which is boats, not logs that had that kind of skipping thing, which is like behind the old lightning. I don't remember what it was called.
01:40:14
Speaker
Well, it's weird looking at it cause it's, um, it's surprising how those boats never have had an accident. Cause when you look at it, you see this huge drop and then you see this tiny little bunny hill at the bottom, which I think the purpose of that bunny hill is to actually lift the front of the boat up. So that way it can actually skip over the water. Yeah.
01:40:35
Speaker
which is just crazy to prevent it from capsizing or sinking. Yeah. Which is so crazy to think that a ride with no upstop wheels where you're in a boat with no restraints is able to do that.
01:40:50
Speaker
without just like Ron tumors, like, trust me, it'll work. Yeah. Yeah. But also I'm thinking about that arrow documentary. Um, and they were talking about how when they built the first one, they had to like dig the trough deeper to make it splash. Oh yeah. So like the mechanics of that also kind of makes sense. Like if it has to be a shorter trough or something, they have to accommodate somehow. Yeah. Right.
01:41:21
Speaker
So yeah, it's got to be speed loss or something. But yeah, the fact that they built that in the 70s with a with a bump like that and there's no upstop wheels of any kind. Probably terrifying when they first tested it. Yeah, I need to look at a POV
Memories of Iconic Amusement Park Rides
01:41:40
Speaker
of this now. Because first of all, Yankee Clipper is a great flume.
01:41:46
Speaker
It is. I wish loggers run didn't have that bump in the drop. Yeah. Yeah. But I do love how they both like have the long meandering path before the lift hills. Yeah, totally. So I need to also I wish Yankee Clipper was the one that was open more frequently.
01:42:10
Speaker
Are they both still there or did they remove them? They're both still standing. Um, and they both operate, but typically the park favors loggers run. Like if there's a staffing shortage and they can only open one, they'll open loggers run, which is the case most of the time. Yeah.
01:42:37
Speaker
which is too bad because Yankee clipper, you don't get super soaked on it. Right. And there's a better drop. Yeah. Yeah. It must've like, I'm looking at the, both the great adventure rides, um, were both arrow rides to one year apart, 74, 75. So it's that same era. What about the other great America? Did they have the dual? It was that, did they have the same one, same ride as in, in California?
01:43:03
Speaker
I'm pretty sure they had a logger's run. I think they might have had a Yankee Clipper, too. Yeah, I want to say it was exactly the two same flumes. Are they still there? I don't know. I've never been to that park. I don't know. The only major differences on the initial build
Strange Coaster Riding Opportunities
01:43:20
Speaker
of the parks, I think, was that Sky Trek Tower had to be made shorter in California because of the airport. Well, and also I want to say Yankee Clipper was taken out for stealth.
01:43:34
Speaker
Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're right. Yeah, they got rid of one of them. They got rid of their pictorium a long time before we did. So, yeah, I think they still have loggers run, though. Look, I've never been to California's Great American. I really want to. As someone who grew up so frequently attending this great America,
01:44:03
Speaker
Yeah, that's got to be pretty, uh, kind of mind blowing. I mean, that is cool that like, you know, that there was a mirror and, but then at some point, well, like the early eighties or that they diverted and, you know, developed completely differently from that point forward. Yeah. Like, yeah, I think it was early eighties. And interestingly, the one in California, I think ended up being owned by the state briefly, if I'm not mistaken.
01:44:35
Speaker
Oh, I don't know if they have it anymore. I'm on their website. I see Whitewater Falls, but I don't see Loggers run. Knowing Cedar fair, they probably did take it out. Yeah, I wouldn't surprise me.
01:44:52
Speaker
I mean, when you look at a map to have great America, it is kind of interesting that just those two flute, well, that roaring
Rollback Tricks on Top Thrill Dragster
01:45:00
Speaker
rapids and those two flumes take up probably a quarter of the park. Oh, damn. They still have their orbit though. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Ours ours bit the dust a couple of years ago. What's an orbit?
01:45:22
Speaker
Um, it's a schwerps cough. What's it called? That enterprise. Yes.
01:45:30
Speaker
Yeah. Those ones are pretty crazy. Um, cause the hoos ones, like the hoos ones are still fun. And I like those big open like witches wheel, but, uh, the Schwarzkopf ones were different cause you sat, you sat more upright and the car swung a lot more violently. So when you're going upside down, it was just like a lot more of a tens of a ride. Yeah. Like when you went to the inversion, you were still swinging.
01:46:01
Speaker
So like. You almost made it to a full full one hundred eighty, but it was more like a one sixty one sixty five, but it would rock, too. So you would make one eighty. That shit was fun. Yeah. I definitely miss that. I think Great America was also next to like
01:46:30
Speaker
a bunch of trees and a little water. Yeah. I'm looking at Wikipedia, but it doesn't, it doesn't either buys who's who's in the enterprise
Wind Experiments with Condoms
01:46:41
Speaker
article. What's it called? I remember I had a friend who was a mechanic at great America and he had this picture of him working that ride and he was standing under the hub of it while it was operating.
01:46:58
Speaker
Oh shit. Yeah. Yeah. It was hilarious. Like scary, but also funny because you knew it was cool. Yeah. Right. Um, I've also heard stories of those things that you stopping and Oh God, they go into a straight free fall. Yep. It reverts back to load position like immediately after or before centripetal force stops.
01:47:29
Speaker
as like during the wheel stops moving and the whole thing drops at the same time. So the cars are just my swing. Yeah. See, before they bit before that one bit the dust, it'd be fun. Like they should pay. I'd pay to ride an orbit stop.
01:47:55
Speaker
Dude, that would be awesome if you had a park and you could do that before you retired or ride. Just offer enthusiasts a chance to ride a weird cycle of some sort. Right. I remember this one time I got the Tower One Miss Catch on Deja Vu and I was so stoked. Yeah, that was always fun.
Magnum XL-200 vs Millennium Force Debate
01:48:20
Speaker
It's kind of like when rollbacks are super common.
01:48:25
Speaker
I was going to say, KI, do you ever end up getting your roll back? No, we tried so much. Like we would sit there and like, you know, and we would try and play it, but no, I never got one. Do you guys get any? Yeah. Um, did you ever try this? I don't know. Maybe this is just me and my friends, but like try to get the ride to roll back where you all, like a bunch of people get on the train on the same train. And then you violently rock back and forth to try to like ruin the momentum.
01:48:55
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think that works. But yeah, no, we did try that. You know, we tried everything. I mean, we tried to like, you know, cause there were a lot of rollbacks in 2003. I mean, it wasn't, but no, I never got one. I think I got like, I think I wrote dragster like probably like 20, 25 times that year, which is not like comparatively, like I probably wrote Magnum like 200 times that summer. But I mean, dragster was closed like for large swaths of time. And.
01:49:24
Speaker
When it wasn't closed, it was pulling an hour long line. Did you ever do the condom thing? No. What's the condom thing? Where you just hold the condom out to the side and let the air inflate it and it gets like eight feet long. No. Did you ever do that? I didn't know that was a thing. No, I didn't do it personally, but my friend did it next to me.
01:49:51
Speaker
Nice. No, I don't think that somebody had discovered, that wasn't discovered in the inaugural year yet. I also, I also heard of people wearing
Intensity of Intamin Rides
01:50:00
Speaker
like three XL giant windbreakers in the front row on a cold day. So like two people would sit on the front and then you'd unzip and then basically like wingsuit in the front row and try to add drag to slow it down.
01:50:15
Speaker
Wait. So when the condom thing trying to propel a roll back and that was just like, yeah, the kind of thing was just funny. Yeah. Like, how do you even hold onto a condom when you're on that ride? It's, it's not that hard. Well, yes, they're, they're,
01:50:45
Speaker
I mean, just don't buy the lubed ones, I guess. I mean, but you never, so if you like, if you've ever ridden a school bus, you've never done the condom thing out of bus window. No, no. Oh man. You guys must've had normal childhoods.
01:51:07
Speaker
Yeah, we used to like- How fast did your school buses go? When it was on the highway, like going 55, 60, you're just like, yeah, you'd stick a condom out the window and it would like get really big. Good time. I understand, but I'm also like, no, I don't think anybody at my school ever thought of that.
01:51:33
Speaker
It's a good time. But also, our school buses didn't go on the highway. Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
B&M Flying Coasters in Hot Climates
01:51:40
Speaker
But yeah, now I'm curious to try this experiment. Yeah, I got to buy a rubber for the next time I'm on a road trip and give this a try. Well, I think we discovered it because we had health class or something. We were given condoms. And so we're on the bus. And then, yeah, we were just like, yeah, stick them out the window.
01:52:03
Speaker
So this was like a lab as part of like, you know, physics day. Putting condoms to the limit. Yeah. So watch this transition right here. K. I. I know from the book that you said you're like. Favorite coaster there is Magnum. That is a good transition.
01:52:31
Speaker
You know, it's funny, there is a point in the book where I said, where, you know, Kevin and Javier are having a conversation and they're talking about the origin of the Magnum name and like, they don't make a condom joke, which is like,
01:52:51
Speaker
a missed opportunity, they talk about it being named after a TV show versus it gone, which is like a real inside joke because if you read one of the biographies on Dick Kinsell, he says that he named it after the TV show, but I definitely should have made a condom joke there.
01:53:12
Speaker
I could see it, though. It worked because I pictured two like super nerdy people that like that type of joke almost
Aging and Intense Coaster Challenges
01:53:20
Speaker
would have gone right over their heads. Because there's like almost like a hyper focus to coaster nerdiness. Yeah, it kind of made sense that they wouldn't even that wouldn't even enter the conversation, you know. Yeah, yeah.
01:53:39
Speaker
But yeah, no. So I've grown a bigger appreciation for Magnum. Ben, I know you like Magnum. Yeah. It's good. I love Magnum. The one thing I will say that I did not care for in the book.
01:53:56
Speaker
is the amount of goddamn shade you're throwing at millennium fours. Yeah, you know, so it's funny, like, you know, and I can kind of loop these things together. But, you know, as I've kind of gotten older and, you know, Magnum's gotten rougher, and, you know, you know, Magnum is entering that beast territory where it's like, you know, now it's legacy, you know,
01:54:18
Speaker
precedes its actual right ability. On some days, I mean, I still stand by 6.2. Don't go over a wheel unless you're feeling a little frisky, then you could do 1.3. But back then, I did feel those sentiments about Millennium, but now I actually
01:54:37
Speaker
really love that ride. Um, you know, because it's more of a, uh, you know, it's, it's smoother. I mean, it feels like, you know, I mean, I wrote it for the first time in 2003, but it feels like 2003. I mean, it's, it's a great ride, you know, except for that one moment of, you know, heavy G's. Um, but yeah, I, that, that
The Beast's Nostalgic Appeal
01:55:00
Speaker
was how I felt then, but it's not really how I feel now about that ride.
01:55:06
Speaker
Well, that is very much so my number one of all time. Yeah, it's a great ride. I mean, it's such a great ride. But however, I will say there's a caveat here. Being the host of a podcast called Your Favorite Coaster Sucks, I'm pretty used to hearing it by this point.
01:55:31
Speaker
Well, know what ride I will throw shade at and I do really think sucks and is like overrated as hell is maverick. I never liked that ride, you know, and maybe. Oh, we got a, we got a certified YFCS hot take right here. Oh really? What does that, what does that acronym mean? Why you're very coaster sucks.
01:55:55
Speaker
Oh, okay, I got it. I didn't visualize it, but yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, there's a lot of Intamin rides post-millennium forest that I never understood the enthusiasm for, like the really intense ones. They had their spell where they did really intense stuff, the one at Hershey Park and the one at King's Dominion.
01:56:23
Speaker
You know, Maverick's cool because it provides something that you don't get elsewhere, which I guess is the point. Like, but yeah, I, you know, I wouldn't put that in the top five rides at Cedar Point. Yeah, I would, I would agree with you on that. I remember when I worked there, all of my friends
Humorous 'Roller Coaster Expert' Label
01:56:40
Speaker
were pretty into that ride. And so we would always ride that, but I was kind of indifferent on it. Like I thought it was good, but I never thought it was really top 10 or anything. I don't even know where it would rank today, to be honest.
01:56:54
Speaker
It's just better with the new restraints. Yeah. I don't think I've written it since they've, you know, changed the restraint. I, so I actually do not like the new restraints personally, um, because it's like, I don't like fabric. I don't, I don't like anything in the public, in a public area where there's thousands of sweaty, gross people using them like with fabric. It's just kind of gross. Um,
01:57:22
Speaker
Whereas the older strains, you actually got a lot of room, so there's a lot more freedom and you could kind of like, I don't know, just a little more open. Yeah, I get that. I can imagine that. You put me in this spot where I have to visualize like,
01:57:43
Speaker
Every Ohio dad wearing some tank top, all sweaty all day at Cedar Point. Yeah. Riding before me where I can just like make peace with that and not think about it, but then you have to say it and then I'm forced to think about it. Uh, live in my brain for five minutes.
01:58:05
Speaker
No, thanks. I don't want to see the world your way. No, yeah, no, I don't know.
NFTs and Roller Coaster Meme Culture
01:58:20
Speaker
Shit. Yeah, that's I mean, what else? Yeah, B&M, a B&M flyer in Florida. What the fuck?
01:58:32
Speaker
That is disgusting. Okay, but Manta's really good. It's a really good ride. It's a good ride. Yeah, but that's not the ride you want to have in Florida. I don't like the idea of having 40% of your body covered in like some kind of plastic or rubber in a hot climate is pretty disgusting.
01:58:54
Speaker
I'm biased because the first time I rode that ride was during Covid and they were like wiping all this shit. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's great. That's that's the ride the car wash should have. They ship dual load car wash blow dryer. Right. And. Oh, go ahead. Yeah.
01:59:17
Speaker
No, I was like, I was going to give you my hot take on Manta, but I don't, I remember that was, that ride went up when I was down there and you know, there was a level of excitement about it. Um, but, uh, that'd probably take Superman over it. I don't know. I was like, I wrote the one recently at Nagashima's Spa Land, which I think it's the same ride and. Oh yeah. Yeah. I don't know about the flyers, but.
01:59:47
Speaker
I think I like, I think the flyers is a concept is it's a cool concept and it's, it can be executed well, but it's almost like, I don't think it's worth it. The, like the discomfort of it,
Digital Ownership and NFT Applications
02:00:00
Speaker
it's a weird flying position. The vest restraints, the forces, it's just kind of, uh, I don't know. I don't know if the gimmick pays off. But Tatsu's fucking amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Tatsu's good.
02:00:16
Speaker
Like, as an experience, Tatsu is kind of just like on its on its own, you know? When, uh, when, uh, when was last time you've written Tatsu? Um, December, 2019, 2011. Okay. It's gotten a little dirtier since then.
02:00:46
Speaker
I wrote it in 2017. And it could have just been the fact that I was day drinking, but that's the one. I don't normally ever get sick on rides, but that was the one ride that actually got me kind of sick. So I was like, Oh man, I'm getting older. Yeah.
02:01:05
Speaker
Like the pretzel loop definitely fucked me up a little bit in the back. Day drinking and coasters when you get to your thirties, it, it can be a careful thing to navigate. Yeah. No, I, I, I understand that recently the one that I went on and it was, it was, I was like, whoa, this is, um, you know, something I've aged out of.
02:01:30
Speaker
Yeah, like, especially if you don't ride them like you used to, like you don't go quite as frequently or whatever, you know, it hits you in a different way.
Future Coaster Developments
02:01:41
Speaker
Yeah, I am. In 2016, my friends and I, we went to Eilish Gardens opening day and my friend had a dad pen and we rode Sidewinder like so we were hitting the dad pen on the platform. Um,
02:01:57
Speaker
And the backwards part definitely fucked me up a little bit.
02:02:04
Speaker
Dude, I remember we were at Over Texas and oh, yeah. You know, our homie Shockwave Dan, he brought he brought the dab pen and we got we were like ripping them because you like you showed me how you like really can rip one of those fucking things. Well, no, what happened was I was I tried it two times. I didn't get anything. So I was like, OK, so I couldn't get anything for 10 seconds. So I must have to pull it for 30 seconds.
02:02:35
Speaker
I'm just sucking it like a dick and then security walks past. So I have to hold it for like a minute until security walks away and then I exhale it and I was just like, oh God, I'm done. I'm done for the day.
02:02:56
Speaker
You know guys, soon the only rollercoaster we're gonna be able to handle anymore is the beast. You realize that's like on the trajectory where- I totally get it. Oh shit. Yeah, that's why it ranks so high. Jesus. KI's unraveled the mystery right here. No, imagine a bunch of like middle-aged dead heads on acid riding the beast.
Gratitude for Podcast Community
02:03:20
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. So long. So you can listen to an entire Grateful Dead song. Ten minutes long. Yeah. You can listen to them playing trucking from Europe 72. That'd be great, though, to see a bunch of like gray ponytails and fucking tide eyes. Yeah. Everyone's just like.
02:03:49
Speaker
Whoo! Right in that train!
02:03:55
Speaker
Oh, here's another little thing from Mr. Stein. This has to be the longest roller coaster ride anywhere, I explained. Other roller coasters last only a minute or two, but this one takes over four minutes. And then the next paragraph starts, I'm an expert on roller coaster. I ride them whenever I can. This is on page four of the book, so he's establishing the groundwork. Which, you know, to be fair, I probably did too. Like, oh, I'm a coaster enthusiast. I know everything. Yes.
02:04:24
Speaker
roller coaster experts. My character didn't get to ride the beast. I love that title. Roller coaster expert. Yeah. There was a, um, there was this old news footage of great America's screen machine and they were interviewing some guy that got off of it and they had the title of roller coaster expert on his name. That's incredible.
02:04:54
Speaker
I want that on my business cards. NFT.
Cedar Point's Cultural Significance
02:05:00
Speaker
That reminds me, we have to figure out an NFT for your favorite coaster sucks to sell. Yeah. Like our memes. I don't even know. You know what I mean? Did you see the SNL skit? That's pretty good. That was good.
02:05:21
Speaker
And despite all the research I've done about it, that helped me more than any of the YouTube videos I've watched about it. Yeah, no, that was a good explanation. The one thing about that, though, is now I'm like, oh, so Pete Davidson is just like M&M impersonator now? Yeah, yeah. It's a little weird how deep they're going on that with like, you know, considering it's like, you know, Dan for Christmas.
02:05:51
Speaker
Yeah. Talk about 2003 nostalgia right there. For real. Well, you know, it, it makes a lot of sense because the nostalgia cycle is about 20 years. Yeah. So like right now is the time. Hey, give me one minute. I'm going to use the bathroom. Counting it down.
02:06:18
Speaker
No, I don't know. We've been at it for a minute. I don't know. Make sure, you know, we actually didn't give you a chance up top to tell everyone where the book was at. You can just Google it. It's called Summer's Reach. The author is K.I. Teller. And you can find it out there, you know, in various formats to your liking. And yeah, it's, you know, it's on the Internet.
02:06:46
Speaker
and it is absolutely free to read. Yeah, yeah, it's free. Yeah, you can find it as either a web hosted or there's an ebook out there too. You have to download the ebook off, draw a blank, the file server that is, but it's just an ebook file.
02:07:12
Speaker
There are some for sure. Well, we'll we'll include things, but I'll send you the link and you can give it to them. Yeah, we'll include all the links. They'll be down in the episode description when you're listening to this. The book, the book is awesome. I really enjoyed reading it. So I like, you know, I want our listeners to read it because I think a lot of the people that are around our age group would enjoy it for the nostalgia sake.
02:07:41
Speaker
I think a lot of our younger listeners would enjoy it for the realism of the prospects of like working at a park sake and kind of the nerddom sake. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think there's a pretty broad appeal, especially to our audience here.
02:08:06
Speaker
that I think a lot of people would really enjoy it. And I mean, I know we're, we're coming up on the tail end of COVID here, but we all still got to be safe. So what the hell else are you doing? Read a book. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. It's there. No, I'm just making sure that we get a good proper plugin for summer's reach here.
02:08:34
Speaker
So, okay, speaking of Cedar Point movies, did you ever see or hear about Edge of 17?
02:08:42
Speaker
I've heard about it. I haven't seen it, but I understand what it is and what they did. And I think they didn't film too much of it. They set it at the park, but they filmed most of it across the Bay and in greater Erie County, right? Yeah, pretty much. I think they used like, I don't know, three clips from like B roll footage of the causeway and then
02:09:09
Speaker
There was like one shot of downtown Sandusky and then one shot of that Maples Motel down, is that Erie? Forgot the name of the road. It's if you were to go directly east along the lake. Yeah, six or four or something.
02:09:36
Speaker
I don't know. There's I'm sure if you've seen the motel, like you'll you would definitely recognize it. But I don't know. I guess it's kind of a shithole. Yeah, no, I haven't seen that. I should check it out, I guess, though, if it's similar. And I mean, it's like a coming of age coming out movie in the 80s, but. There's not there's not really a lot of there's not too many stories, though, and it's always kind of cool.
02:10:10
Speaker
Yeah, no, I definitely think it was. It's cool and I love how it fits the time that it's set in. Yeah, no, I will. I'll look at that now that I'm. Oh, I meant your book. I haven't seen that film. Yeah, well, yeah. Well, thank you.
02:10:33
Speaker
I was going to say real quick, I also love that time period it's set in because you didn't have to bother fucking explaining cell phones, really. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was their place and.
02:10:47
Speaker
Yeah, that's what was so perfect about it too. I mean, like how, you know, my age at the time, but just, yeah, it was like, and right on the cost of that, like, you know, incoming technology. And I kind of hinted at it at a couple points, but I mean, the whole thing with Dragster too, like Dragster was this new tech. I mean, it's crazy to think how like, you know, that that ride is, uh, you know, 18 years old at this point, because it still seems pretty advanced. And I do.
02:11:12
Speaker
You know, you know, I don't blame them for, you know, not being able to, you know, keep it off because it's just crazy how, how like forget the stats on speed and stuff and then height, but just the, just the advanced, uh, element of that launch system and all those sensors and stuff. You know, it was really, you know, it was, it was a change from, you know, hold up a lift and let gravity do the, do the trick to the,
02:11:39
Speaker
You know, now, now we see things that are more launched than not, right? You know, now everybody has to have a launch. And a multi launch. It's like a standard part of the lineup now. Yeah. Now everybody has a track that switches out when the, when the, when the coaster is going at full speed. Yeah. That, that part is pretty crazy to see, um, you know, moving parts,
02:12:07
Speaker
Like, uh, and move it at, at the speed of the ride. Yeah. Yeah. And the fact that it's intimate. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Hagrid's is one of the most impressive rides. Like ever. Technologically. Yeah. What about Pantheon? What?
02:12:37
Speaker
honestly scares the shit out of me knowing it's Intamin. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's like you think about every single point where something could go wrong and you're like, oh my God, these guys don't have the greatest track record for that. Yeah, I saw that footage of Pantheon that came out this week. That ride looks really impressive. Yeah, I'm glad and I'm glad it's Intamin because Intamin
02:13:07
Speaker
Like mocks are cool, but copper at strike just wasn't that, I don't know. I feel like people were expecting it to be kind of a maverick and it was good, they're just not the same. Intamin, although I haven't written like the brand new Intamin's, but even the more modern Intamin's, you still feel like you could die if there was a restraint failure and I really enjoy that.
02:13:34
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, no, they are. I mean, they've, you know, even if they tone it down a little, I mean, from, you know, where we last saw them with, you know, Skyrush and I 305 and Maverick, there's, you know, yeah, no, I'm excited to get down there and check that out. I haven't been to that park either in a long time. So hopefully, hopefully it opens and I'll have the opportunity to go down and check it out. Yeah. Right. Well, okay. Remember that Draken spiral, spire, whatever. Is that a thing anymore?
02:14:06
Speaker
I think I read somewhere that canceled it, but I don't know if that was, you know, that may have just been like a wet dream. That may have been like, you know, the Disney, you know, 30, 30 plan or whatever, you know? Right. Okay. Huh. What are you talking about? The other Busch Gardens Intamin multi-launch, the 300 foot one, the Giga.
02:14:30
Speaker
Oh yeah. But it was like, it looked like wicked twister, but it was 300 feet tall and they announced it at the same time, but they didn't really announce it. I don't know. It was like, yeah, they kind of like, like that animation leaked and like,
02:14:45
Speaker
Yeah. I wonder what's up with that. But who knows? SeaWorld's been like going, you know, ham with like, uh, you know, all these installations. They're like, they're like, we're going out of business, spend all the money. Yeah. Let's, let's spend all this money and then we'll short the company to with some insider trading. Yeah. But I'm sure the games change, you know, in the past 18 months. I mean, I have no idea, no insight. I'm just speculating.
02:15:15
Speaker
Yeah, I don't don't follow our stock tips. Put it all in Bitcoin or NFTs, you know. Yeah. Don't do that. Don't don't know. Yeah. Disclaimer, you know, get yourself a nice nine cat meme and you'll hopefully be able to retire one day. Anyway, I don't know.
02:15:39
Speaker
I mean, I think the idea behind the NFT is that because it's using the Ethereum blockchain that essentially the value of it will rise with inflation. So if Ethereum raises in value due to inflation, the NFT itself should as well. So I think that's the idea behind it, which is kind of cool.
02:16:08
Speaker
I don't understand it well enough. I just know that you can sell them, so I think we should. Yeah. I'm probably closer to Zach than Ben on that. I mean, in terms of understanding them. I don't really know. I don't know, but I know we have an opportunity here.
02:16:34
Speaker
You sound like John Hammond. It's like, it's like you saw it and you just, you just, you know, slapped it on a t-shirt. And did you understand what you were? Yeah, actually. So right now there's, there's a something I'm looking into kind of for work and its idea of basically using an NFT as like a VIN number for a car. So when you buy the car, you have the NFT as like, uh, you know, as like a deed of the car, basically to prove ownership. It's kind of cool.
02:17:06
Speaker
Yeah, that seems like it would be that seems useful. Not not practical. Yeah, not not NFTs of like buttholes and selling farts, though, you know, that could be a thing. That is a thing, actually. But yeah, it's like it's like virtual title. Yeah. So sell your farts on NFTs. I don't even know what can we NFT like we could like
02:17:35
Speaker
Review a roller coaster. We could ride a roller coaster and have the onboard audio or something. Just like talk about it afterwards for 30 seconds. I like the shitty golden tickets.
02:17:54
Speaker
Yeah, we could sell like our logo as an NFT because it's not selling the actual logo. It's just like the file or something. I don't see. I don't really know how it works. That's the problem. I don't want to end up selling ownership to something that I don't intend to. Right. Oh, man, you know, when a lighter is about to go out and it's like. That's the worst fucking feeling.
02:18:25
Speaker
Whenever I when I used to smoke regularly and I would have like smokes, but not a lighter, I would have to ask someone for a lighter and I would always be like, this is the worst mistake a smoker could make. Anyway. Anyway, we've been at it for about two and a half hours, y'all.
02:18:46
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. You want to, you want to wrap it up since it's after the midnight hour in the East coast. Yeah. I don't want to keep you, uh, keep you up all night, although this is fun and I'm really glad you, uh, you were able to come on. Yeah, totally. Thank you so much for reaching out to us and sharing your book. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for reading it and having me on your show. Like I said, I'm a fan and you know, I'll continue listening and get into the coaster season here.
02:19:14
Speaker
Yeah, it's the time and, um, uh, you, uh, potentially thinking about any events this year? No. I mean, like I said, if, you know, uh, you know, you guys, uh, you know, want to go to mountain Olympus, you know, but, uh, no, I got my, I had no events, but, uh, you know, I have some trips planned with, you know, my buddy, like I said, you know, sometimes I'm moving around and wind up hitting the park here and there, but, uh, you know, we'll see what the, see what the future brings.
02:19:44
Speaker
For sure, for sure. Well, we're going to put it out there because now it's on the books. Hollywood Nights. So if you're available for that, that's going to be fun. I think that's early, right? I don't know about that one. That is June. Never say never, I guess. Fourth and fifth, I want to say. Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah, I think it's fourth and fifth. Yeah, I know that one's like like the quintessential on like that one is like
02:20:13
Speaker
You know the event, you know above all others Yeah, I mean we've been talking about it and Kind of like a group thing came up between us and a couple friends and Now the the wheels are in motion. So we're we're announcing it here cool You guys have fun, you know, are you but are it's this first time that you guys have gone to that one or have you done that one in the past? I
02:20:43
Speaker
I went to the first one in 06, like after they brought it back from Stark Raven mad as Hollywood nights, but I haven't gone since. So it's been 15 years. Yeah, I've never been to the event. And actually I haven't been on Thunderbird either, so there's a credit there for me. So that's cool.
02:21:16
Speaker
Cool. But, um, yeah, we'll be there. So, um, if you're able to make it there, it'd be great to meet you. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, sometime down the road. Yeah. You know, who knows? Like I said, I, you know, you know, otherwise if you end up in Chicago, definitely let me know. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you wind up in, uh, you know, the New York Metro. Yeah. Let me know. Absolutely.
02:21:47
Speaker
Yeah, so I don't know. What do we got? Our normal annoying shit. Quick shit. Socials. We're on all of them. Give us the follow. We put dumb memes online and maybe we'll sell one as an NFT soon. You don't have to stay tuned. Give us a review on whatever app you use to listen to podcasts. We appreciate it. That's the way new listeners can find us.
02:22:15
Speaker
All of us weirdos can have this hangout sesh together and it's all fun. You can hit us up. We are available. Your favorite coaster sucks at gmail.com. Voicemail line, 312-572-9552. The website's the easiest way to find any of this stuff. Your favorite coaster sucks.com.
02:22:39
Speaker
We are on Patreon, and I'll insert the list of listeners right here. All right. Thanks a bunch to these awesome folks on Patreon. Gabe Misurik, Keith Iorio, Iorio, thanks a bunch. Keith is awesome. Koster Ferg, Davis Skelton, Danian, Danian, Jesus.
02:23:05
Speaker
Dan and Rafferty, Hemi, Sean Brokheiser, Drew B, Gabriel Ludwisky, Nathan Slater, Brian Lewis, Joshua Knight, Luann Lewis, Scott Levine, Mikey Mayo, Michael Muldoon, Tristan Cox, Dominic B,
02:23:22
Speaker
Stefan Feinbaum, Daniel Puckett, Nathan Hart, Jonathan Hawkins, Jared Mullen, Brandon Carter, Ryan Shoemaker, and of course, our executive producer, Prairie Coasting. Go check out his podcast. Thanks so much to those wonderful people. You all are fantastic.
02:23:41
Speaker
Thanks to all those fine folks. And if you're interested in getting your name on that fine list, jump on over to patreon.com slash your favorite coaster sucks, starting at just $1 a month. We give you a shout out on the show. We do our monthly zoom hangs. We got bonus episodes.
02:23:58
Speaker
It's a lot of fun, and you know what? You can show your support, and we totally appreciate it. Yeah, so thanks a bunch again for joining us, K.I., and sending us your book. This is absolutely a pleasure, and totally unexpected. Because I did not expect anyone who listened to our show to write a book.
02:24:25
Speaker
Ah, you're appealing to the academics out there. Thank you guys for doing what you do and creating humorous and entertaining content on a weekly basis. I know it's a lot of work.
02:24:39
Speaker
I mean, for me, this is an excuse to get high and drink with my buds. Yeah, I was going to say it's kind of like it's like a day on the calendar of like, all right, don't do anything the next day, like, or, you know, nothing major.
02:25:00
Speaker
Yeah, it's always just having fun, but yeah, no. Yeah, it's good. I promise I'll finish the book. I'm genuinely interested. I'll send you a message when I finish. I'm excited. Cool, yeah. Let me know what you think. Oh, I forgot to mention, also, thank you for joining our Discord. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been popping in there. Yeah, it's a...
02:25:23
Speaker
cool scene. It is. It's a fun group in there and it's pretty lively. So thank you for joining there. There's a lot of good chatter. Keeps me sharp on my knowledge. If you want the cutting edge, those guys are on top of it in there. Seriously, some of our crew in there could put Ben and I to shame if it was trivia night. Yeah, they break stories.
02:25:50
Speaker
They do all the work, you know, but, you know, hey, that's, you know, let the, you know, let the next generation have it. Right. We're all a bunch of nerds. So let's just have some fun. And yeah, thanks for being so actively a part of our thing, man. We super appreciate it. Yeah. All right. All right. Thanks for joining us, KI. And thank you for listening. And until next time, your poster sucks.
02:26:17
Speaker
I can see you, your brown skin shining in the sun I see you walking real slow and you're smiling at everyone And I can tell you my love for you will still be strong after the boys of summer have gone