Ep. 86: Dragon Con American Sci-Fi Classics 2024 with Joe Crowe

0:12 Thank you. hey y'all it's me tara strong aka miss minutes for bama geeks I hope you're ready to watch and if you don't I will have to prune you stay on your sacred timeline and hello hello hello welcome to the bama geeks we are live streaming on youtube Hope you're doing well tonight.

1:00 If you are in the chat, please jump in, say hello, make yourself known. We'll put you up on screen. So if you're new to the Bama Geeks, I'm Brock Parker. That's my wife, Jess. I'm over here. Hello. And down below her, of course, is Bo Bearden. Howdy. And normally Kevin Gardner is here, but we sent him to prison. it's it's just how it goes sometimes he's doing fine he should be back next time so instead tonight right below me we are thrilled to welcome once again joe crow a dear friend of ours thank you hello hello joe Welcome back.

1:50 And he is the co-director of the Dragon Con American Sci-Fi Classics track. We are absolutely less than two weeks away. Don't panic, Joe. It's okay. We are less than two weeks away from Dragon Con. So Ghostbusters and everything that we love because we are awesome and old. Everything we love. happens in the american sci-fi classics track so we're thrilled to have joe on with us and we'll discuss dragon con and everything what uh what we can look forward to coming up but uh first of all our good friend skylar davis in the chat hi skylar hey skylar I said, how to tune in tonight since I'm coming to my first Dragon Con.

2:39 Welcome. Welcome. And of course, the ever lovely Chase Ambrose. Handsome Chase Ambrose. Greetings, fools. Cover commander boys. We all know Chase really well. and we're really looking forward to seeing you there, Skylar. We have not met Skylar in person, even though we've been friends with him online for quite a while. That happens a lot. As these things happen, yeah. I've met a lot of dear friends for the first time in person at DragonCon, so it's a good meeting ground. Absolutely. There are two sisters, two ladies, who I met at the very first website I worked with 20 years ago, I met them online and they just came to Dragon Con two years ago because I bugged them to death.

3:29 And they finally said, okay, fine. And they love it. And they've been back every year since. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. This is a Dragon Con is a massive family reunion for us. Um, I know, uh, I've been going to PKA surge, which is the ghostbusters convention within dragon con. So our big gathering, um, I've been, I, I, I'm one of the few that have been going since the first one, I haven't missed a one since they started it in 2009. And that that was my first Dragon Con. Chase in the chat has been going to Dragon Con for ages and is always there.

4:12 He and his wife, Katie and both came in 2010 and has been coming ever since. Yeah, I missed the first surge. But once I was in the second year, I've been hooked. I did. That was the only year I did one day and wore me out. But it was still worth it. Now I come the whole weekend. Yeah. You had to stop on the way home because you were there for that one day. My first experience was I drove over that Friday night. Then we got this, I had to get up at the crack of dawn to get my, uh, my one day pass. And then, um, We did that, and then we did the Surge dinner. We did the parade that morning, did everything else, the Surge dinner that night, and then I left about shortly before 11 p.m.

4:52 or around 11 p.m. to go home, and I made it all the way to Oxford, and then I had to stop in the Home Depot parking lot there and take a nap. I was like, yep, never ever do it again. Yeah. Chase, you are the veteran for sure. Chase has his first Dragon Con was 1998. What was yours, Joe? I believe my first one was 99. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay, let's say 99. And it might have been... 2000. I think it was 99 because I was working for a website in Tuscaloosa called Heckler's Online.

5:42 And they recruited me to start up a sci-fi website. And me and a couple other people. And like every website in the year 2000, we crashed and burned almost immediately. You were heckled out of there. Yes. Yes. And so they gave me the old bootski pretty fast, but not before they sent me with a guest pass to Dragon Con to cover it that first year. And I did interviews. I took pictures. It was a whole thing. Yeah.

6:22 My first year was 2016. That's where we met. That's where we met. That's where I met. A lot of the core group of my people that are now a part of my life was in 2016. If I'm not mistaken, I believe it was Katie's first year or two, I think. And we met and, you know, friendships form out of Dragon Con. And here we are. Like Brock said, it is the family reunion. That's what it becomes for us now more than anything else. And you get to see some cool celebrities and go to some great panels.

7:04 But just in case anybody here doesn't know, we keep talking about Surge. We're talking about PKE Surge, which is now listed as the oldest annual gathering of Ghostbusters fans in the world. Okay. Yep. I thought so, yeah. The oldest gathering of a lot of the oldest. Yep. The oldest gathering of the most awesome. That's right. Ghostbusters in the world. Joe has taught us a new word, by the way. It's awesome now. We can't say we're old. We're awesome. That's right. We're so awesome that it hurts when we climb stairs. Exactly. Mm-hmm. And the sad thing about Dragon Con is if you need to take an elevator, you're going to be sitting there a while.

7:51 You must go up to go down. Yeah. Unless you stay in the Cortland. And the elevators aren't that bad. But then again, you may get evicted from your room before you get in the Dragon Con. Oh, what a mess it has been this year. Cortland Grand has... it used to be the Sheraton and was run really well for years. And the last two years they've been, uh, the Cortland grand under Wyndham hotels and, we we had a scare uh we we thought we lost our room and thankfully we got it back but a lot of people did lose their rooms and a lot of people a lot of people right now still are posting uh like in the official dragon con group hey uh we just got shifted over to the omni from the courtland grand so Yeah.

8:39 This close to the con and people are having their reservations moved to other hotels from this place. And it's like, Oh, so I don't know what kind of strings you can pull Joe, but hopefully I don't think it's going to get much worse. If you're at the Cortland have mercy, they've been having some issues. But we're still slated to be there. We've been staying there for, oh, golly, at least 12, 13 years.

9:19 Wow. It was good until it changed ownership. Yeah, well, there was that one year that they had Legionnaire's disease. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which was the same year that we did not have air in our room, was it not? Yeah, that was a great year too. They cleared out the Legionnaire's disease, but forgot the AC. They brought us some nice box fans though. It's been a mixed bag because there was one year we got there, somehow they didn't have our room ready and then they wound up and we got thrown into one of the big spacious corner rooms, which is still my favorite room. That's probably my favorite DragonCon year.

10:00 What was that? That was what, 2018? That was 2014. 2014. That was a fun DragonCon. That's when Ryan and Evelyn and Todd, all from Vancouver, from the Ghostbusters of British Columbia, came down. And we had Ryan Kemp staying with us in our room that year. And Ryan, if you didn't know Ryan and you're a Ghostbusters, been part of the Ghostbusters fandom, if you didn't know Ryan, you missed out. He unfortunately passed away in 2015. What a one of my favorite memories from when he stayed for us I remember because we kept it cold in there and the poor guy he was he was diabetic and he always ran cold but I would never forget this is like we came in after like because he would be asleep at the odd times compared to us yeah but we came into the room one time he was sitting in like the provided office chair of the room wrapped in a like I think he was in his full flight suit still wrapped in a sleeping blanket sleep sleeping upright like this no ah he was covered the blanket his head was covered too yes yeah he looked like a ghost in a sheet just sitting there like a giant cocoon type yeah because we had it so cold in there I feel horrible but he was he was fine but ryan was a dear friend to a lot of us and um I there's one person on this face of this earth I miss is ryan oh we could gush about that guy for hours yeah but uh So yeah.

11:27 Uh, hopefully if, if you're heading to dragon con this year, hopefully your hotel is good. Um, hopefully you're not being evicted. Less than two weeks. Unbelievable. Two weeks. So we, we wanted to have Joe on here. He joined us a few months ago and, um, like I said at the beginning, the, the dragon con American sci-fi classics track is one of our absolute favorite. Uh, we go, Joe lives in that room. So, uh, he's frozen. Oh, there he goes.

12:07 There he is. Oh, look who it is there. Look at that. Our good friend Roberto. And I thought he said he was only being listening. Look at him. Look at him participating in the chat. That's right. Thank you, Roberto. Hey, Roberto. Ectovator, boogeyman, Roberto cop in the house, y'all. Our dancing Jawa. Yes. Yeah. Our Michael Jackson trooper, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Michael Jackson stormtrooper. He has many aliases. Yeah. I don't think I've met Mr. Roberto, but Domo Arigato, I'm sorry, but are we talking boogeyman like WWE's boogeyman?

12:48 I don't know which boogeyman. And are there worms? That is all I'm asking. I don't think that boogeyman, not the one he's going to get you. Okay. He also has Don Condor Man one year. Yes, he was Condor Man. Oh, wow. Okay. And it's funny that you say Domo Arigato is he actually has done that costume. I haven't even seen it, but excellent. Roberto is a man of many, many talents when it comes to these things. You never know what he's going to pop up as, but that one year he did Condor Man.

13:29 I was like, oh, that's impressive. I think he, Roberto, correct us if we're wrong. You won an award in one of the, in the costume contest that year, right? I think he had the fully extendable wings and everything, didn't he? Yeah, I think so. But so, yeah, while we're while we're sitting here, Joe, oh, he's panicking. That's the exact mode to be in two weeks. Yeah. Except for us. We're just sewing, sewing patches on our. on our casual Ghostbuster shirts. Jess and I have not done anything massive in years.

14:12 We need to get back to it. Anyway, why we're here is for Joe. Joe. And we want to hear all about what's happening this year for the American Sci-Fi Classics track. Well, we, against everyone's better judgment, we start programming on Thursday. Mm-hmm. Instead of, and we were one of the first tracks to do that. And I think all the other tracks may be a little mad at us because now they start Thursday also. It was an accident. And here's the story. There's a group called the Dragon Con Newbies.

14:53 And if this is your first year, Skylar up in the chat, there's a group called Dragon Con Newbies. And they do tours that tell you where everything is. And those guys got on the schedule, and they were doing stuff Thursday in their first year. So they added a day to the schedule gizmo that we all fill out with our schedules every year. And myself and my co-director, Gary, we were looking through it and said, hey – there's, there's an open times for Thursday. And we were like, Ooh, let's put panels there. And then we like packed out our room on the two or three panels that we did.

15:35 Um, and, and, uh, It's been chaos ever since. But starting on Thursday, we are doing... Let me... Yes. What we're doing on Thursday is... Now, our buddies in the American SF Fantasy Media track... which is, I believe, the shows that are on TV right now. They always host a geek sing-along on the first night of con, on Thursday night. And so they just put words to TV themes and movie themes on the screen, and everybody sings.

16:20 They put it in a big ballroom. Everybody goes nutso. While they are doing that, we are doing a... a panel called this is only the second time we've done it. We're doing a, uh, sci-fi music video book club. And what we're doing is we're picking out each of each, every person on the panel is picking out a music video, probably from the eighties since, you know, music videos, if it has some kind of sci-fi connection, and then we're really digging into them and analyzing them. And by that, I mean, making fun of Casey and the sunshine band. Yeah.

17:02 Cause that's the one I'm picking this year. It's give it up by Casey and there's animatronic lizards in it. It's crazy. But the craziest music video is Billy oceans. Is it, it's not Caribbean queen. Is it? I think it may be, but it is like a star Wars movie. No, no. I know which one it is. I know which one it is. It's not Caribbean queen. Is it lover boy? Thank you. Dang it. It is Loverboy. Talk to me about 80s music. Yeah, exactly. But no, that video is amazing. See, that is why they're good friends.

17:45 They're on that same wavelength. Oh, and, um, later in, I'm gonna skip ahead. Uh, we are doing a, for the, I don't know how many years in a row. It's, it's somebody's first year at Dragon Con every year, but we started doing a very fun thing where we read, we get a, we get a group of folks and we do table reads of TV episode scripts. And this year, Jess and Brock are going to be involved and, I am? Yeah. We're doing two episodes. We're doing one episode of Out of This World. A...

18:26 quickly canceled, I think, sitcom where a girl was half an alien and she had powers and her dad spoke to her through a crystal, like a rectangle, not a rectangle, it was like an octagonal crystal. And the crystal's voice, her father's voice was Burt Reynolds, right? He's not making this up. I'm not making any of this up. And then we are getting together with another group at DragonCon, a cosplay group that has sprung up in the last few years, the Mrs. Ropers group.

19:12 And, yeah, it is. Again, this is real. A supporting character from a 70s sitcom, Mrs. Roper, now has new life at DragonCon. And everybody just puts on orange wigs and caftans. Yeah. It's the easiest cosplay. May not be the easiest. And comfortable. So comfortable. Yeah. and uh and exactly the uh chase is gonna be on the panel he is hey um and he's gonna be uh well it says here he's gonna be chrissy so yeah hey yeah chase says I have a special announcement I'm invited again to participate in the table read one of the shows we're doing is three's company and I'll be in full drag as chris as chrissy suzanne summers I hope you have a Thighmaster.

20:04 You better have a Thighmaster with you. Oh, you got to, Chase. Bring the Thighmaster. He's got the long wig. But what we're going to do is, no matter how many Mrs. Ropers we get, we're going to get Mrs. Roper's dialogue up on our video screens and just have all of them yell their lines at the same time. Now we've got to find some kind of termination of a gathering of Mrs. Ropers. We need to think about that. Ruma Ropers. Okay, I'm working on that. I want to spin it off from PKE Surge, and I want to call it Something Surge.

20:49 And I want to call it... Let's see, what are... The Stanley Surge. The Stanley Surge. The Kaftan Surge. We're working on it. We're workshopping it. It's fine. Kung Pal Kirby, welcome to the chat. She says, hey, Joe, it's Sarah Rose. Oh, hey, Sarah. Our friend Sarah is part of an unofficial group at DragonCon where uh called the they're doing the an unofficial theater track so for okay but they're working on getting a full official theater track happening at the con but in the meantime they're spread across a bunch of tracks and they're doing panels for theater geeks uh we in fact one of the nights we're hosting a rent sing-along and that's spread across several tracks they're doing a bunch of other cool stuff okay If you're a live performance nerd, like apparently I am.

22:00 Anyway, it's fun stuff. Awesome. I think, is this the first I've heard about me being involved in the table read? Maybe. Well, you're going to be with me wherever I go and I'm going to be at the table read. So you just, you just let me know what you need me to do, Joe. I am at your beck and call. Yeah. And we've got other panels you can be on, too. YouTube-o, we'll get something for you. Yeah, I'll look at it. Just walk in the room and stick us on something, even if it's nothing we know about. I can ramble. Yeah, exactly. The very first panel I ever did at DragonCon that I was ever on was assigned to me, and it was a show that I had never seen.

22:47 It was Andromeda, that Kevin Sorbo spaceship show. And luckily, one of the other guys on the panel had written novelizations of the show. So I just let him talk. It was great. Anyway, so also Thursday night, we're doing a, because of our table read, we're doing a panel on classic sci-fi sitcoms. Mm-hmm. Probably from the 80s, mostly. And, of course, gosh, we'll go as far back as you need to. But my favorite Martian, Alf, Third Rock from the Sun. You know, we'll go there. It'll be great. But our big capper on Thursday night is we are doing an alternative music MTV 120 minutes dance party.

23:35 I did hear about that. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Speaking of old and awesome, we... Go ahead. What night is that? Thursday. Thursday. Okay. We're doing it an hour and a half earlier than we did it last year because we are awesome. That's right. It's too late to be alternative. It is. Our alternative rock isn't dead. It just goes to bed at a decent hour. There we go. And last year we did a panel before the dance party started and we, quickly we realized let's just get to the dance party so now there's no panel we're just doing a thing we're just doing the dance thing so that's happening jay says we still need a table read of the episode of the dukes of hazard with the alien they called little cousin oh it's happening joe's gonna go print the script right after the last this we have there's literally uh 90 years of television episodes we can do.

24:48 Right. And so, Dukes of Hazzard is, I really want to do it. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Katie says it's the worst episode ever. But that's why it belongs on the track, right? Yeah. And we do panels about things that are of some quality also, maybe. Right. But we... And another thing we're doing on, I'm talking all about Thursday. I'll skip around. We're doing now our celebrity guest this year. And again, this is totally, we don't know who's going to show up or who will be able to show up.

25:31 But Smallville and Heroes are our shows this year. Mm-hmm. And guests from both of those series are coming, like Kristen Krug, who played Lana. Lana Lang on Smallville will be here. And several of the heroes from The Heroes Show will be here. And we'll do Q&As with them and fun stuff of that ilk. And we're doing anniversary panels of the show, the, I guess, comedy drama, Freaks and Geeks. Oh, nice. Oh, okay. Gotcha. And we're doing a, it's called Every Ape I See, A Celebration of Apes in Cinema History.

26:23 Stop. I'm sorry. I don't know why that got me. Good. I don't know if there's an award for names of panels, but if there is, I should be grandfathered in as the winner. I agree. Oh, good. I got it. I got brought to you're you're correct. Mitchell. Hey Mitchell. Hello. It's like a mini dragon. Anyone needs to be in any of the panel for the singing of the TV theme songs. Is that gentleman right there?

27:03 Got to get Mitchell in into the TV, TV songs. Oh, we're doing it Thursday night. He's got to be there. He's got an album by the way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We got it. Well, Oh, I wish I could, I wish I could put my hands on it right now. I've got it somewhere. My CD case back over there. Yeah. Where Mitchell sings the kids. But our big panel that we're doing Friday night is, let's see, it starts around 1030 at night, but we are doing our charity movie lock in. Oh, that's right. Yeah. What we do is we show an allegedly unpopular or and or bad movie and we lock the door.

27:49 If you want to leave, you have to donate to the Dragon Con charity, which this year, I believe, is the Arthritis Foundation of Atlanta. But, you know, technically, we can't officially kidnap you. That's illegal. Yeah, that's it. So really you could leave without giving anything to the charity, but you know, commit to the bit. Come on. Right. Right. We're going to make you feel guilty if you don't. Yeah. So we are. Going back to the information. Chase says, I just learned the other day that the orangutan from Cannonball 2 is the same one from Every Which Way But Loose.

28:35 Right turn, Clyde. This is good information. We can use this at that panel. Thank you, Chase. Thank you, Chase. Always bringing the information. Exactly. Anyway, that night, the movie we're watching is Miami Connection. I haven't heard of this one. I am not familiar with this. It is from 1987. It is a martial arts epic. He uses the term epic loosely now.

29:17 To set the mood, to set the scene, before the movie, we're bringing in a band from Atlanta who some of the members of the band are panelists or have been panelists for us. The band is called Neon Warlords. They are a synth band Rock band. And they costume as if they're in the 80s. Headbands, spandex. It's a whole deal. And they're going to wear Dragon Sound t-shirts. Dragon Sound, the fictional band from Miami Connection.

29:59 Delightful. In fact, in the chat, I'm going to put a video from Neon Warlords. Anyway, they're performing live. And then that's going to be our intro to the movie. Fantastic. Katie said Miami Connection is rough, but amazing. What night is this? This is Friday. Friday night at 1030. Yep. I prayed that morning, though. Oh, yeah. You know what? I may suffer for this this year because now I'm interested in seeing this movie. It is a delight. Chase, is there anyone that leaves that? There's the skating review you need.

30:40 And if you're in the chat, Joe has put the link to the video. I'll put the trailer for Miami Connection in there too. Like I said, just watch this when you're finished with us. Don't watch it now. Stay on here with Joe. For goodness sake. I mean, he's got Santa in the background showing his backside. I don't know what y'all are talking about. Y'all keep mentioning Santa. Apparently his Santa is portrayed by John Cena, I guess. John Santa! Oh, you guys, you guys, I did something I'm very proud of. At my last pro wrestling show, I heard a little kid out in the crowd go, I wonder if John Cena's going to be here.

31:26 And we're just a little low. We can't afford John Cena. We're at our local wrestling show over in Gadsden, Alabama. Spartan Pro Wrestling. Look them up on the YouTubes. Yes. And come see us live in person. Anyway, different topic. So the kid said that, and I said, I'm the announcer, and I got on the mic and I said, I would like to let you guys know that John Cena is here tonight, but you can't see him. And I got... It was kind of mixed cheers and boos at the same time.

32:08 It was like a valley, peaks and valleys. And I said, king of dad jokes. Yep. I mean, how can they disprove you, right? They can't. Exactly. And fun fact, John Cena follows us on Twitter. Yes. What? Yes, he does. He is a follower of the Bama Geeks. Yes. Yep. Absolutely wonderful. Dad jokes with Joe. I think that plays into him winning all the sci-fi track names. I think so. Welcome in, Deanna. Hold on. Is this the Miami Connection trailer?

32:50 There it is. Boom. There it is. There you go. So Joe put the links in the, in the chat. So make sure y'all go check those out after the live stream. Yes. see what you're in for it at, uh, at the sleepover. So much. I understand there are other things going on at dragon con. There are a lot of cool celebrity guests this year. Like the, the full cast. I think most of the full cast of resident alien are going to be there. That show is hilarious. Yes. And a bunch of like more star Trek people than I've seen in forever, uh, like the cast of strange new worlds. Yes.

33:30 And, uh, I think a couple of people from lower decks too, which is my favorite. Yeah. That show is, it's just chef's kiss. But we are, we have a cast photo, strange new worlds cast photo. We've been building on each year for the last two years with dragon con. We're going to finish it with the exception of Rebecca Romaine. Rebecca Romaine. So, you know, uh, get her eventually. Eventually. I hope so. Yes. I hope so. She is one I would have been dying to meet for years. She's got, she's got a lot of, we could get her for the X-Men. We could get her for librarians. Right. Yeah. She was in that.

34:10 Yeah. We've got, she's got banks. We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll run her down. We'll find her. We will find you. We will get you to Dragon Con. And some of the anniversaries this year that we're doing panels about are, um, The Crow, interestingly enough, no relation. And The Shadow, which is, I don't know. The Taylor Dayne theme song to me is the best part. And then, of course, Saturday night at 7, we're doing the 40th anniversary of Ghostbusters. Yes. Yeah.

34:51 I don't know if you guys have heard of them. I think so. Kind of. Sort of. Yeah. But you guys are going to show the movie right there in our track room for however many people we can squeeze in there. And I'm turning you all loose. Y'all can do games and contests and whatever. You know, you guys do you. Oh, that can be. That's dangerous. That's dangerous. But I am going to donate something, first of all, to the, before your panel starts, for auctioning it off for charity or whatever you would like. Custom Ghostbusters necktie.

35:32 Look at that, y'all. Yep. That is officially Joe Crow worn apparel that's going up for auction today. Didn't you say you're going to wear it at your next wrestling promotion? I am, yes. So it will have been ring worn at that point. And perhaps a bad guy may have grabbed the tie and wiped his sweat with it. Hey, look at this bonus stuff you're getting. As I say, look, we have a lot of bonuses. No study. No study, exactly. Hey, no study. Chase is already in the lead. There's your opening bid.

36:14 Yeah, so that's happened. In addition to the Ghostbusters necktie, every year for charity, in addition to escaping from the lock-in movie, we do a panel called Roll-A-Panel. And we have a cool guy. His name is Joe Kaczynski. And he is a, I believe he is a Ghostbuster in Indiana, maybe. Okay. But he is part of their group up there. And he... Indiana bids 50 bucks for Joe to keep it.

36:57 But anyway, he makes customized 20-sided die. They're giant. And do I have one? I don't have one at hand. Anyway. It's such an eye-catching thing because it's one of the first things I look for every time I go into the panel room. I always look for that die. It's like that. It's about that same size, too. What we do is we get a group of movies. $50 Canadian, so that's like $28.50, I think. I still... So every year we pick a, whatever anniversary year we're covering and we'll do a, a roll a panel on the movies from that year that we did not have time to do full panels on this year.

37:48 It's 1984, which covers a ton. Yes. Yes. And then we're going to auction off that, that 20 sided die. And I believe it's, I don't want to guarantee this. I think it's happening. I'll let it be a surprise if it actually happens, but I'm going to go and spoil it anyway. We are doing a custom Ghostbusters 20-sided die. Scenes and characters from the first movie. I think it's going to look super great. Y'all are going to dig it.

38:29 All right. So just go ahead and take some of the money that we've got set aside for autographs and, and reserve it for this. I want to bid on this. Yeah, most definitely. Yes, absolutely. Y'all can bid on me to keep it too. Take it home. We'll roll you for it. Guys, so much fun. I love getting together with Ev. This is the thing about DragonCon, and you guys have talked about it. It's found family. It's a community that you... in the olden times you could only see them once a year probably but now with the interwebs you know you can connect with people like we're doing right now you can connect with them all year round and that's what I love about doing live video panels and what I love about dragon con and You know, community is what pulls big old nerds together.

39:31 And we, a lot of us, me included, did not have that when we were in high school, maybe. I had like legit two nerd friends in high school. And they're still my buds today. But that was all. And now I've got... a few more, a handful more, more buddies that I do nerd stuff with. And they, it's, it's just the best thing. Dragon Con is, is where you can get together and find people, find a, a clutch, a gaggle, if you will, of fellow nerds and geeks.

40:12 Yeah. Yeah. You, you hit the nail right on the head with that for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, some of us meet their future husbands and wives at DragonCon. That does happen, yes. Sometimes people meet, then a couple of years after that, sometimes they get engaged at DragonCon. So, you know, those things do happen. I'm told it happens. The only thing is we didn't get married at DragonCon. Oh. So I have a story about that. Okay. this was years ago, like maybe like turn of the century at the masquerade, which happens either.

40:56 I think Sunday night, but the big costume contest, dragon con every year, tons of people, a lady did a cat woman cosplay and, like Michelle Pfeiffer Catwoman. Oh. And it was good. And she was cracking the whip and doing the thing. And a dude comes out and proposes to her on the stage. And she says, yes, it's very sweet. Good luck to him. 24 years later, maybe. Let me ask you guys this. Do you think He was dressed in a Batman costume.

41:43 I'm going to say no. Yeah. For effect. I'm saying no. Cause it would be the obvious for me. Batman. Was he dressed like cat woman too? He was dressed as just a, a, a, like a medieval peasant. Okay. Look, if you know, your future fiance is dressed as cat woman. It's pretty easy to decide what to wear in public, unless perhaps the Catwoman did not know you were going to propose. Yeah. But because I got to say, if I'm I've never been Catwoman.

42:26 I just can't understand why. Yeah. If I can get in the Catwoman frame of mind, I'm going to be proposed to. Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to be a guy dressed as Batman, for goodness sake. Or you know what? You could be like me. One year, I'm just sitting there minding my business and I'm inebriated. Elsa thought I was her husband. Yeah. Drunk Elsa. I dressed like Hades from Hercules. I was in my button-down Ghostbuster t-shirt hanging out there. But hey. You never know. You could be confused for someone's husband. We talked about that on a previous episode. If you go back and look through our past episodes on here, you will see the thumbnail of drunk Elsa chatting with Beau.

43:14 Awesome. We're all a cat woman in our hearts. Joe, I would have to say I think you're more Julie Newmar than Michelle Pfeiffer. Thank you. Classic. She's a classy lady. She is. Uh, Chase says Dragon Con is why I got a job at Troma, which is how I got into TV news for 20 years. But more than that, I've met the best friends I've ever had. And that absolutely is a family reunion, except I like them. And that's, that means a lot right there. That's a strong difference there. Chase is definitely, I met him at Dragon Con and I guess 09 and he's one of my favorite people of all time.

43:57 Love Chase. I look forward to every year Spending a lot of time sitting in a hotel floor With people I only see in person once a year It's like Beyond the program We'll gush about it as always It's There's people I've known my whole life I love them, still care for them But the core group that I really like to see every year Is Labor Day weekend That's why I tell my work Any of the holidays fair game, Labor Day is mine Y'all can have it Yeah, they know at work. They know at work every year that this is where I'm going to be. And this is what Labor Day weekend means to me now.

44:39 So, yeah. So outside of the times that you have told us about in the American Sci-Fi Classics room, what else is going on like the rest of the time? Oh, gosh. I'll hit the highlights. Let's see here. There's usually somebody always in there, though, right? Namely you. Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're Gary. Our friend Gary, yeah. One of the two of us is always running through there. We are doing a live reading of a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

45:22 Ooh. One of those old books from the 70s and 80s where you would- I still have that. If you turn to page 37, you might get killed by an orc, you know? Mm-hmm. Yeah. And the audience gets to choose which page we turn to. Fun. Oh, that's great. That's happening Sunday afternoon. And in fact, that's like two panels before the table read. Mm-hmm. And then Sunday night, we are doing a, one of our frequent panelists is Daniel Griffith, who does, he works with Shout Factory and does, he puts together DVD features, like documentaries and stuff.

46:07 And he did, he produced a documentary about the 1984 Dune movie. And that's an anniversary year for that. So he is going to show this documentary on Sunday night about the 1984 Dune, which is relatively topical, except, you know, there's no Timothee Chalamet in the 1984 one. Yeah. Or Batista, but handsome people anyway. Sting! Sting is in the... Yeah. And not that Sting. Not the wrestler.

46:48 Oh, that would be great. Look. I assume they're friends. I assume there's... You share a name. You have to be. I know, and I may be mistaken, I know years ago in some... wrestling magazine that there was a photo where um sting and sting were together and and the musician staying had face paint and the other sting was playing drums I i think that is a real thing that happened it could be maybe I'm making it up completely I don't think I am though And no, no, go ahead.

47:29 What are, what are you guys? Okay. Obviously they, you guys got Ghostbusters stuff, PKE surge going on the whole weekend. What, what else are y'all going to be doing? That's it. Yeah. That's it. Only the only celebrity. I mean, I got, I got the star, the star Trek folks. I want the, the, my, my main celebrity is I want Danny Trejo. I need his autograph on something. Absolutely. I have a, I bring it on. I brought up, I have a picture a couple of years ago. Call of duty did a, like a zombies map that had, it was like a tribute to like all those actors or whatever. And it was a, uh, it was, it's called call the dead, but it was a tribute to like a Romero movie. And they had, they had, uh, of course it's, uh, George Romero was like a monster himself in it, but you had George Romero, the picture I've got, it's currently signed by George Romero.

48:15 Um, Oh, uh, Michael Rooker, Robert England, And then Danny Trejo there after Danny Trejo, I'll have one, one left to go, which would be Sarah Michelle Gellar. So I need dragon con to get her eventually too. But Danny Trejo is the one that is my must get autographed in person. I meet this year. But I mean, Machete, how do you not Machete don't text, Bo. Exactly. For goodness sake. If Dragon Con does not get Sarah Michelle Gellar, she does the occasional private signing because I was able to get I'm just nervous about mailing my stuff off. That's just me. And I also like the being in person thing. That's just me. She says Joe Crow is the jam.

49:01 only nicer and without the tennis racket I can get a tennis racket yeah and Roberto yeah that's why we're not popping your comments on screen right now is because you are quite a few minutes behind the conversation either refresh in your browser or if you're watching on mobile try that too you know yeah you can hit the live button on there and catch up I'd love to include your comments but and keep in mind that The signals coming from you have to go to space first. That's right, Mr. Roboto. As far as, I mean, we're good.

49:43 We do the Dragon Con. We're going to do wrestling, attend the wrestling show on Thursday night. And Rikishi is coming to Dragon Con, which I'm super excited about. No stink face. Yeah, no stink face though. So that... Thursday night. I can make it happen. I think I can make it happen. We're good. Joe Crow, the science bro. If she only knew what my grades in science were in school. No, I am excited to meet Rikishi. I don't know.

50:24 How to make this work? I want to get him. I will pay him Canadian money. I will pay him Deanna's Canadian money to get him to do a promo for my little wrestling company. I think that would be sweet. He's got his own little wrestling school out there. I'm just saying, you could maybe ask him to do it for The Rock. That seems to work. Do it for The Rock, yeah. Or do it for the people, you know. Yeah. We got Tara Strong to do our intro, so surely you can. That would be super cool. In fact, Spartan Wrestling is running the weekend that I'm at DragonCon.

51:09 I'm like, you guys know what I do that week. You're the general manager. You know what I'm going to do? There's a wrestling... Oh, Deanna. I've got an idea for you. Oh boy. But there is a wrestling cosplay group and I think their photo shoot is Thursday. Yeah. So you can't, if I can't find Rikishi, I am going to, Oh, there you go. Thank you. He would, it'd be perfect. Yeah. Chase said, I'll do a promo for you in my big boss man cosplay for free. That's a bargain. I am so in Chase. This is happening. Yeah.

51:51 I think I got plans already. This is all working out. I'm not going to be running crazy for 24 hours a day at all. Not true. I'm totally going to be doing that. So you say it's a, I, I get, um, I get a few hours sleep. Yeah. Don't we all though? I mean, you really don't, you don't sleep at dragon con either. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I do. You recharge. You're awesome. Yeah. I'm so awesome that I don't need sleep. Uh, no, I, I just, I run on caffeine and, um, Anarchy the whole time.

52:35 Adrenaline. Yeah, adrenaline. Like I say, yeah, we need to install a Jax where all the older folks could be in the table drinking coffee to recharge there for the next session. Yeah. But it's, you know, I think of it as performing, you know, and I'm basically doing improv for five days in a row. All the time. Oh, there's my buddy, Joe. Oh, there's Joe. Sorry I'm late to the chat. I was working on the Ghostbusters chat. I'm the membership liaison of Ghostbusters Virginia. Yeah. 501c3 registered charity recognized by Sony's Ghost Guard. Absolutely. Joe, in case you don't know us, we're with the Alabama Ghostbusters.

53:17 Awesome. Good to see you, man. Thanks for stopping by. That's our D20 guy. Very nice. Very fun. American sci-fi classics track and Bama Geeks just bringing people together. That's right. Hey, that's what we do. And let's say while we got our Ghostbuster people here, we'd be remiss. Do we want to kind of get a quick rundown of what we're doing for Surge? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what? I meant to pull up the graphic before the podcast started, and I just absolutely failed. Well, that's where I was kind of going to go into next. Do you have the graphic? If not, I'll run into the group and pull it up. Yeah, you go ahead. No, that's just what I was going to lead into.

53:59 Usually we do. We've done the 80s prom on Thursday nights. That's at the Cortland. I'm not sure if they're doing that yet this year or not. I hadn't heard anything or seen anything, but. I do plan to attend the Dragon Con Wrestling Thursday night for the first time. I haven't been to Dragon Con Wrestling since I've been going. This is my first year to go. Hopefully, Xavier Woods is going to be hanging out. He needs to get injured on the next Raw episode coming up so that he can take off for injury to come to DragonCon like he does.

54:40 But yeah, we'll kind of... Friday, Brock and I usually try to do our autographs and walk-a-frame stuff on Friday and get that knocked out. Then we're going to lead into our PKE Surge activities for Friday night. There you go. We have a theme. It's country, western. You can interpret that country and western however you want. Wild west. Yeah, both kinds. Country and western. Some people are like, well, do you mean wild west? Yeah, you can do that. Do you mean e-hall? Yes, absolutely. You can do that. So, you know, it's got a broad theme to it.

55:23 Um, so that is Friday night and, uh, then Saturday, of course we have the parade. We're always, the Ghostbusters always have a, uh, showing in the Dragon Con parade on Saturday. And if you are in the Ghostbusters fandom and want to be, uh, be in the parade with the Ghostbusters and what you need to do is come to the mixer on Friday night. And that's where the, uh, That's where we hand out the parade wristbands and all. Katie's. I love that. I love this. She said, y'all, I'm getting ready to rhinestone my spirit pack. Perfect. Wee-haw. No point trapping.

56:03 We be rhinestoning. Or as we heard on a video from Tennessee today, yee-yee. Yee-yee. Oh, were y'all really? Oh, yeah. Chase says, Ron and I will be doing a Smokey and the Bandit thing for our costumes. Perfect. I'm so glad to hear that. I can't wait to see this. When I get home, I'm going to slap your mom. Go ahead, Jess. No, yes, as you were saying, I mentioned that too. Yes, you need to come to the Mixer on Friday in order to get your wristband for the parade for Saturday morning.

56:48 Then, as Joe was mentioning, Saturday evening that we will have the showing, the Ghostbusters, just in case. To signify or to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the movie. We'll be showing that on Saturday night. Thanks to American Sci-Fi Classics track. And on Sunday, we all get together at the Mellow Mushroom and we have lunch with each other. So that's just a little rundown of these surge events for 2024. Maybe they just be on launch. We have the award. So like, if you have some kind of like, we're going to have an award for the best country Western costume for that night. And it's like all awards for participation.

57:31 And like I said, if you're, you're in within the Ghostbuster community, like it's, it's, you know, it's, it's something to really strive for. Like it's, it's a very, the people who do the acknowledgement of your, the wardship are good people. that, uh, recognize, Hey, somebody who deserves that award and they it's, it's, I'm trying to not over, over. Yeah. It's, it's, it's something, if you can participate in it, do it, please. Yeah. Do you talk, did you talk about the scavenger hunt? No, I was going to, I was going to go into that, but you can go ahead if you want to. No, you're doing fine, honey. Okay. Um, yeah, we also have a scavenger hunt that takes place on Dragon Con weekend. Uh, thanks to Ron Daniels. He does a good job at putting together that scavenger hunt. Sponsored by Daniel's Law.

58:11 Daniel's Law, LLC. Roberto Joe, out of curiosity, what's with the Santa in the background? When did you say that, actually, Roberto? I think he's live now. What are you talking about? So yeah. Uh, scavenger hunt, uh, just stop by the fan table, uh, down in the Hyatt. Um, those clues will be available Friday. Uh, and you got to complete them by 11 o'clock Sunday morning.

58:52 I know Sunday morning is kind of rough for everybody, but, um, the first 50 complete entries will win a prize. Yep. And it's a, it's the fun little scavenger hunt. I always enjoy doing it every year. Yeah. So yeah, definitely. If you're, uh, If you're coming to DragonCon and you're a Ghostbusters fan and want to partake in all of this, please come join us for every one of these. We have such a great time. And if you don't have an outfit for Friday, please don't let that exclude you from stopping by. I mean, that is just, we want you to come and interact. You know, it's not a requirement. It's just a little fun theme that we always try to put together every year.

59:33 Some kind of theme for PKU Surge Weekend. which I'm sure if you're a collector of the ribbons which has become a big thing you know I'm sure there'll be plenty of ghostbuster themed ones that you can get so you know if you want to add to your never-ending ribbon collection go with that'll be there for yeah oh ribbons everywhere man I had honestly I had the the dragon con ribbons group on facebook I had to mute them Yeah, they get a little excited this time of year. Wow. Yeah. Granted, it's about this time of year I actually mute all the DragonCon groups outside of Joe's. I keep in touch with Joe's. Thank you. Well, Joe, you're not posting endless postings of your cosplay lineup for the weekend.

1:00:14 I'm not doing that. Basically, I appreciate everyone's enthusiasm, but I'm pretty sure I will probably not run into you, especially if you're not within my circle of people I know. Yeah. And we know people who do that love and enjoy it. Oh, yeah. No knock on that. It's just we know the crowds at Dragon Con, and there is a slim chance people are going to find you. Yeah. At wrestling last year, where I saw Bo and Brock – I was, there were a couple of wrestlers on the show that I know that I've worked with and they were looking for me and I could not find them. And we were in the same room.

1:00:54 Yeah. That's a big room. And there's a lot of people in there. That's like early. If you want close, get there early. I mean, it's silly. You can sit anywhere and have a good seat, but it's get there early. If you can. That was a lot of fun last year. That was my first time going. It's, it's, it's everything. Like it's, it's a great is indie. It's an indie vibe show in a fun way. And like some of the wrestlers are dressed like other wrestlers. So it just adds another level to it. It's, it's just, it's fun. Yeah. Thank you. Yes. I, um, uh, here we go. Yeah. Yeah. Chase said, I noticed there are a couple of other GB panels and other tracks, no hate mentors them at all.

1:01:37 But American Sci-Fi Classics is the real Ghostbusters panel. Yes, it is. Absolutely. And has been for ages. So the PKE Search official panel is always in American Sci-Fi Classics. Yeah. We're the best. We're the oldest. We're the most awesome. Exactly. Thank you. But I am so glad you guys are coming. I will see you all in a few weeks. And I will see everybody in the chat. Even if you're not coming to DragonCon, I know where you live. Hey, Phil. There's Phil. Phil says yo. So if anybody will hang up for... You got a couple of minutes, Joe? Yeah.

1:02:17 Okay. We'll hang up for a couple more minutes. We'd like to... Uh, if you've got any questions for Joe, we'd like to get those, uh, up there for him. If you've, uh, any questions about Dragon Con at all, you've got a lot of Dragon Con vets here, uh, both here and in the chat. Um, so Phil says you finally made a life. We are so glad you're here. Thank you for dropping by. See you in a couple of weeks. Cannot wait to see Phil. phil and jamie yeah phil and jamie well maybe think like so we're sitting here talking here while some people are bringing some questions all right maybe they were crow but joe um one of my favorite things about dragon con is eating the restaurants I can't go what is your favorite restaurant you can only have at dragon con oh there you go um gibney's right across the street from the marriott tree dogs at 2 a.m The only time you can escape the room.

1:03:09 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure you have to go for the like late night eats, right? Yeah. I kind of work in panels that I'm not involved in around dinnertime so that I can be like, Oh wow. Look at the time. Yeah. And he's out of there like William Shatner. Watch out. He may run you over. Indeed. No. For some chili dogs. If, if Gibney's is still there, then I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm in it. Um, Oh, very sweet. Katie said, I just wanted to tell Joe, I really enjoyed the in memoriam panel that maybe happened just once or twice a few years ago.

1:03:55 We, okay. We did that when we did it. We did a panel about, I think Leonard Nimoy, when he passed away, that was the first in memoriam panel we did. And I remember saying to the audience that, well, we just wanted to do this because of all the other stuff he had done besides Star Trek. We assume that the Trek track did a Leonard Nimoy tribute panel and somebody in the audience went, no, they didn't. So we kind of saw an opening there. And so we started doing tribute panels to, I think the next year we did Carrie Fisher. And then we started looking at, And sadly, the sci-fi actors and sci-fi adjacent people who passed away throughout the year, the list is so long.

1:04:54 And after a couple of years, the whole panel died. turned into less of a in memoriam thing and a reading the list of the dead. And we had, it just kind of got to be a bummer. Yeah. So one of our buddies who is all a frequent panelist of ours just moved it to his podcasts. And so now around Dragon Con time, he just does the yearly list of, And no offense to my buddy, Kevin Eldridge and his podcast, but it's a bummer. Well, see now this year, I mean, with John Cleese, that's who's going to be there.

1:05:36 You know, you can bring out the day. Perfect. I just, I want to be somewhere near John Cleese. I don't think I'll be able to get close. That was a big, that was a big get for this year. Yeah, absolutely. We got to see. Yep. So going back to restaurants, Chase said Who's and Big Kahuna and Trader Vic's. Absolutely. Big Kahuna's. I've been having that on my list every year since I've been going and I keep forgetting to go every year. I'm the same way about Trader Vic's. I have never been. I keep saying it's right there. I've just never gotten down there.

1:06:19 Ours is max loggers. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's one place that, that, and who's we, uh, that we've, we've got to go. Um, yeah, that's what, that's what I was going to say. Who's, um, max logger. And it's offsite, but I always try to at least try to go to the vortex every few years. Yeah. Yeah. That's usually when we hit up on the, that we've hit up on the way out, out of town. Yeah. Yeah. When my, uh, some people who've listened to the podcast, uh, my son had a cardiac event earlier, uh, in May. And, um, and so we were coming back from the hospital in Atlanta. We drove right past vortex.

1:07:01 I'm like, no, you're right. Oh my gosh. First of all, let's let's palate cleanse. You haven't been to Max Lager's in a few years. You need to join us this year, Phil. And Chase, the Claremont Lounge. You do your own research on that. We're not touching that one. Just go ahead and pop it into the Googles right now. Don't be surprised at what you'll see. Clear that browser history afterwards. I see here that Chase called it the Claremont Lounge. It's not about the X-Men.

1:07:42 There are. Well. Well. Okay. Good night, everybody. Oh, me. Well, if you've enjoyed hanging out with us for the past hour, we invite you to follow us on social media. We're everywhere. You can find us on every platform at Bama Geeks. If you're on Facebook and you want to stop in and have fun conversations like this, just search the Bama Geeks front porch on Facebook. And we also have memberships available five bucks a month. And with Patreon's pricing that they're about to start doing for iOS and Apple pay members, we might lower that price.

1:08:27 Who knows? Read up on that if you haven't yet. But patreon.com slash Bama Geeks. And also you can join our YouTube channel. If you're on a desktop, just look for the look for the join button below. And if you're not on a desktop, you can look in the description of the video. That's got a link to it there. Real quick, while you're talking to YouTube, while everybody here who's watching, if you do us a favor, even if, like I said, hit the like button for this video. Yeah. And that'll add to the YouTube algorithm warlords and everything. Yeah, absolutely. Please hit the like button. And we appreciate everybody commenting tonight. Yes.

1:09:08 We are eternally grateful for everybody who stops by. And definitely tell your friends about us. Tell your mom and dem about us. We are here every two weeks. Thanks, Phil. Yeah. This is my favorite Surge shirt. I have two of them, just in case one of them ever wears out for me. I love this one. Yeah, we are here every couple of weeks live. Yeah, and I didn't say what you're referencing. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, Chase said props to Bo for wearing a 13-year-old shirt. I still have mine from 09, my original one. That's the only year I don't have one from. And thank you, Phil.

1:09:48 Appreciate it. Thanks for the like and all. We have a good time because of work schedules and everything. We do these every other week. Now for the next episode, it will actually, the live stream might just be Kevin when he's back. Um, he's tossed up the idea of doing a solo stream because We'll all be at dragon con. All of us will be at dragon con. Most of you will be at dragon con. Maybe we can pop in or something. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully so. If not though, uh, if you're not going to dragon con, come hang out with Kevin. We'll, we'll be back here again. It should be at eight o'clock central, uh, that first Sunday night in September, September 1st, actually, I think, um, That should be if Kevin decides to do that.

1:10:41 Chase says that's his favorite shirt, too. Katie says, bless Kevin. He's a good guy. Chase is only joking. Kevin does some really good stuff. Oh, yeah. I think the last time none of us could join him, he did a really fun episode. So, um, yeah, we, so, so Kevin will be here. Hopefully if not, we'll be back a couple of weeks after that. Uh, but definitely, uh, again, tell everybody about us and, uh, like the video. And if you're coming on here after the stream is over, leave comments. You know, we always go back and, and see what everybody adds to, uh, to, uh, the previously viewed videos.

1:11:24 So, uh, pod catchers, uh, the audio form of this will release Wednesday morning. If you want to catch it there and listen to all of us ramble again. And don't forget Joe's tie that he is wearing right now will be up for auction during the Ghostbusters panel Saturday night at dragon con seven o'clock Eastern time. And if not, go watch Miami Connection and pay to leave, but still watch it. You can still watch it if you just drop your money. Yeah, I mean, you don't have to leave. You don't have to leave. Yeah. You've got an idea now for me now since y'all have the Miss Ropers.

1:12:05 We need a Fury of Furlies. That's what I'm thinking. Oh, God. Give it time. That could be put together. A jungle of jacks? Oh, let's see. A clan of Christies? A chase of Christies since he's going to be doing it. A chase of Christies. Oh, me. Well, Anything else you want to promote while we're here, Joe, before we call it a night? Just follow us on the Facebook for all of our shenanigans.

1:12:46 Facebook.com slash groups slash American Sci-Fi Classics. And we've got a bunch of virtual panels on YouTube that we're going to be doing more of, like this very one that you're watching here. And we started doing those during the pandemic. And then we, against our better judgment, we didn't stop. And so we've got a bunch of those. And I thought I would put the link to that in the chat. You can join our little group over there. Yeah, go right ahead. But yeah, I would love to see all you guys. Can't wait to see all you guys at the Dragon Con.

1:13:27 We can't wait either. And man, I can't believe it's this close, but we're going to have a good time. But again, please like, subscribe. If you're listening to the audio feed, please leave us a five-star rating and leave us a review if you'd like. We'd appreciate that. Anything you can do to help get the Bama Geeks info out there is appreciated. They don't do anything at Bama Geeks that's less than five stars. That's right. Thank you, Joe. joe actually made this a six-star show so yeah we're gonna wrap it up and joe thank you again so much for being with us and joining us and we hope to have you on again very soon after you get some rest after tracking con yeah I don't know but yeah uh good stuff Awesome.

1:14:20 Well, for, for Bo and Jess, I'm Brock. We're the Bama Geeks. And for Kevin, we'll see Kevin soon. I hope. Safe trip home. And we will catch you guys again very soon. Bye. Bye y'all.