WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.040 --> 00:00:05.719 You. Chilly Effect is sponsored by Wall Street Window dot com and listeners like 2 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:17.559 you Yeah now y April twenty six, twenty twenty three, allegedly according to 3 00:00:17.600 --> 00:00:20.640 that thing we call a calendar, and this indeed is the show you were 4 00:00:20.679 --> 00:00:23.640 looking for. How do I know that? Because you're hearing me say what 5 00:00:23.679 --> 00:00:27.000 I'm saying. Anyway, Woden's Day, Wednesday, middle of the week. 6 00:00:27.359 --> 00:00:32.439 Allegedly again here it is live on Ocelli dot com. I've gone to air 7 00:00:32.520 --> 00:00:36.719 about twelve almost thirteen minutes late. So if you're on the live stream, 8 00:00:36.719 --> 00:00:41.640 you're pissed at me or you left already. But podcasters and pod catch her 9 00:00:41.719 --> 00:00:45.960 to your your fondal slab of choice, your applicable application. You don't give 10 00:00:45.960 --> 00:00:49.600 a damn because you play it on demand. Anyway, Well, we do 11 00:00:49.679 --> 00:00:54.000 this live, so please do enjoy and catch us on all the wonderful radio 12 00:00:54.039 --> 00:00:57.159 apps if you can. I never mentioned that. Do I know? We're 13 00:00:57.200 --> 00:01:02.759 available on Apple Radio, We're available on tune in, Roddy, various things 14 00:01:02.799 --> 00:01:07.159 online. No longer with FM or AM affiliates with stay tuned because by the 15 00:01:07.239 --> 00:01:11.760 end of the year we will be back there again, I hope. Anyhow, 16 00:01:11.159 --> 00:01:15.519 back to it, and this is being video recorded. So yeah, 17 00:01:15.560 --> 00:01:21.000 if you're looking at my face made for radio, then you're probably watching us 18 00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:23.519 on Rock Finn or possibly Rumble. Not sure if we're gonna put this one 19 00:01:23.560 --> 00:01:27.439 on Rumble, but definitely going to Rock Finn. So that's where we're at. 20 00:01:27.480 --> 00:01:32.640 And we do have channels on every one of those video platforms out there, 21 00:01:32.680 --> 00:01:40.280 pretty much except YouTube. Anyhow, am I gonna am I gonna talk 22 00:01:40.319 --> 00:01:42.239 about the the bud Light Cans tonight? No, I'm not. Am I 23 00:01:42.319 --> 00:01:47.799 gonna talk about things in the news. I might, I don't know, 24 00:01:47.879 --> 00:01:51.120 because it's really up to the guest. And the guest tonight is Guard Goldsmith. 25 00:01:51.480 --> 00:01:57.280 Now you have, if you're in the circle of interesting podcasters that well, 26 00:01:57.319 --> 00:02:00.920 you know, seems to be getting collected by our good friend Chris Graves, 27 00:02:00.280 --> 00:02:06.319 you have definitely encountered Guard Goldsmith. Okay, if not, this ought 28 00:02:06.319 --> 00:02:08.520 to be an interesting introduction, and I'm going to talk to him about something 29 00:02:08.560 --> 00:02:13.520 that I don't know if everybody talks to him about it, I'm not sure, 30 00:02:13.560 --> 00:02:16.639 but it's a curious piece of his history, and he's got an interesting 31 00:02:16.759 --> 00:02:21.599 history. So also, you're you're you're on Rockvin too, aren't you Guard. 32 00:02:22.360 --> 00:02:24.280 Yeah, I am just started up a few months ago, really started 33 00:02:24.319 --> 00:02:28.520 the year, and we're building nicely. I like the guys. They're real 34 00:02:28.599 --> 00:02:30.439 nice people, and you know, the people who are creators. Big thumbs 35 00:02:30.520 --> 00:02:34.479 up to everybody. Great people. Oh absolutely, look a lot of great 36 00:02:34.479 --> 00:02:38.319 stuff on Rock Fin. A lot of great people on rockfn uh. By 37 00:02:38.360 --> 00:02:42.240 the way, Ricky Randez will be coming up on the show soon, Ripple 38 00:02:42.240 --> 00:02:45.000 Effect, you know, that's his main thing, but also the Union of 39 00:02:45.080 --> 00:02:46.800 the Unwanted. Wait a minute, I think I've seen you on there, 40 00:02:46.840 --> 00:02:53.680 too, haven't. I haven't been on Union of the Unwanted yet, but 41 00:02:53.759 --> 00:02:57.280 I know Billy Ray is off and over there, and I've done stuff with 42 00:02:57.280 --> 00:03:00.120 Billy Ray on his own thing on the Infinite Fringe. Infinite Fringe. Yeah, 43 00:03:00.120 --> 00:03:02.240 we did the Friends a couple of weeks ago. That was great. 44 00:03:02.360 --> 00:03:05.879 You know. I just recently did that for the first time too, and 45 00:03:05.919 --> 00:03:08.479 it was strange because Billy Ray and I it's kind of weird that we hadn't 46 00:03:08.520 --> 00:03:13.919 run into each other earlier and done something together. But yeah, so I 47 00:03:13.919 --> 00:03:15.919 don't even know if he put that out yet. The well, anyway, 48 00:03:16.039 --> 00:03:20.080 whatever it is, what it is, you're out there in a lot of 49 00:03:20.080 --> 00:03:24.439 places, though, So let's get straight to it. Tell people what they 50 00:03:24.479 --> 00:03:28.360 can find, where they can find it before I delve into the thing that 51 00:03:28.439 --> 00:03:31.199 I want to pick your brain about. Because there's a lot of stuff you 52 00:03:31.240 --> 00:03:35.800 do out there. I see a lot of interesting conversations. You're also active 53 00:03:35.800 --> 00:03:38.319 on Twitter, and I notice that you and I do retweet some of the 54 00:03:38.360 --> 00:03:42.919 same people and things. So, you know, tell people where they can 55 00:03:42.919 --> 00:03:46.039 find you, where they can reach you. Thanks a lot, Chucks. 56 00:03:46.280 --> 00:03:47.919 This is a blast. I'm so psyched that I get to hang out with 57 00:03:47.960 --> 00:03:53.039 you. This is really cool. It's like being at a big liberty minded 58 00:03:53.080 --> 00:03:57.199 convention and spying this dude that you've always heard about in your friends, like, 59 00:03:57.240 --> 00:03:59.719 oh you gotta Meeta and saw So, and then you go and get 60 00:03:59.759 --> 00:04:02.439 to hang out outside for a while, having some marshmallows or something over at 61 00:04:02.479 --> 00:04:05.400 the fire, you know. But yeah, thanks man, I appreciate it. 62 00:04:05.479 --> 00:04:10.000 Um. Yeah. People, if they're interested and they want to find 63 00:04:10.360 --> 00:04:13.960 what I've been doing over at ROCKFN, we'll start with that. Since January 64 00:04:14.039 --> 00:04:19.639 started up Liberty Conspiracy at ROCKFN that broadcasts always free Monday through Friday at six 65 00:04:19.720 --> 00:04:25.639 o'clock on ROCKFIN. They can look up Gardner Goldsmith or Liberty Conspiracy. Also 66 00:04:25.720 --> 00:04:28.560 we have a bit shoot channel, We have a Rumble channel, we have 67 00:04:28.639 --> 00:04:32.240 a YouTube channel, and we have an Odyssey channel. But the YouTube channel, 68 00:04:32.279 --> 00:04:36.639 I'm very selective, haven't gone live over there yet. The Rumble channel 69 00:04:36.680 --> 00:04:41.480 we stream live over there, while we stream at ROCKFN and bit Shoot. 70 00:04:41.519 --> 00:04:44.759 I put stuff out over there as well. And if people are interested, 71 00:04:44.839 --> 00:04:50.720 they can find my writings at my substack, which amazingly is Gardner Goldsmith substack 72 00:04:51.079 --> 00:04:58.439 and it's GRD yeah, gr D n R. And it's like Gardner Massachusetts. 73 00:04:58.439 --> 00:05:00.160 It's like an old family name. They came over in the Mayflower something. 74 00:05:00.160 --> 00:05:03.079 They actually founded Salem. They were one of the five families that founded 75 00:05:03.079 --> 00:05:08.000 Salem, mass where the witch Hunts went else. I might have talking about 76 00:05:08.040 --> 00:05:11.959 the Satanist convention that's going on up in Massachusetts pretty soon. Oh man good, 77 00:05:12.120 --> 00:05:15.360 you know, yeah yeah. And and I do occasional films for David 78 00:05:15.439 --> 00:05:19.560 Knight and he's just been fantastic. And I also do work for MRCTV. 79 00:05:19.920 --> 00:05:25.399 MRCTV is the media research center founded by Brunk Bozell. They just went through 80 00:05:25.399 --> 00:05:29.839 their fifty thirty fifth year fifty three that would have been even better, but 81 00:05:30.399 --> 00:05:32.519 thirty fifth year and I worked with a great team of people over there, 82 00:05:32.920 --> 00:05:38.040 and it's been really cool to be able to, you know, sort of 83 00:05:38.199 --> 00:05:42.920 take the sort of paleo conservative audience and introduce them more to some of my 84 00:05:43.319 --> 00:05:48.759 much more hardcore libertarian arguments and discussions about voluntarism, about real hardcore free market 85 00:05:48.759 --> 00:05:55.560 economics and things like. You know, some definitely definitely framed as conspiracy theories 86 00:05:55.600 --> 00:06:00.959 that are not theories, they're facts. And I also planned to to sort 87 00:06:00.959 --> 00:06:03.519 of touch on what you were discussing earlier about Star Trek and sort of the 88 00:06:03.519 --> 00:06:08.600 theme for some of the things you want to discuss, Chuck. I also 89 00:06:08.639 --> 00:06:13.839 spend time obviously in script departments at television series, and I have novels and 90 00:06:14.399 --> 00:06:16.879 novellas. Currently novella's out, but I've got three novels that are going to 91 00:06:16.920 --> 00:06:21.040 be coming out, and so I'm going to start up a YouTube channel that 92 00:06:21.160 --> 00:06:28.399 I think will not be censored called Former Star Trek Writing Fellow and that way. 93 00:06:28.680 --> 00:06:34.319 Yeah, like the same way Nerd Rotic and people like Razorfist and folks 94 00:06:34.360 --> 00:06:39.639 like geeks and gamers and those guys have been so successful on YouTube talking about 95 00:06:39.720 --> 00:06:44.439 quality entertainment from a more pro freedom viewpoint. That's what I want to do, 96 00:06:44.519 --> 00:06:48.519 bringing in my experience as a writer, tips about writing, analysis, 97 00:06:48.560 --> 00:06:51.600 critiques, stuff like that, so that'll be kind of cool. So right 98 00:06:51.600 --> 00:06:57.040 now it's Gardener GOSM substack, check out Liberty Conspiracy on Rockfan, and then 99 00:06:57.040 --> 00:07:00.839 I'm at Guard Goldsmith on the Twitch. Uh. That's why I keep saying 100 00:07:00.879 --> 00:07:04.759 Guard Goldsmith instead of Gardener Goldsmith because I see you on Twitter all the time. 101 00:07:05.120 --> 00:07:08.639 Okay, now I got it. You know, I got these weird 102 00:07:08.720 --> 00:07:11.680 mental cues that I come up with. Uh, and that's one of them 103 00:07:11.800 --> 00:07:13.839 is that you know, if your Twitter name is in front of me all 104 00:07:13.839 --> 00:07:17.160 the time, that's what I'll call you. Unfortunately for some people, uh, 105 00:07:17.160 --> 00:07:19.759 you know, you're talking on a Q ball right now, so they 106 00:07:20.040 --> 00:07:24.319 we're good. Hey, it's all good. Uh. And and I gotta 107 00:07:24.360 --> 00:07:29.199 say it's a diverse area of things that you're into here. And also somebody 108 00:07:29.199 --> 00:07:32.240 who's a creative writer, uh, not every libertarian as a creative writer. 109 00:07:32.759 --> 00:07:36.680 I think it's it's fascinating when these guys do a lot of stuff about like 110 00:07:36.759 --> 00:07:40.879 say their life story, like h Murray Sabran. I don't know if you're 111 00:07:40.879 --> 00:07:46.000 familiar with him. The only libertarian guy to ever run for governor in New 112 00:07:46.079 --> 00:07:49.680 Jersey I ever saw, so, you know, interesting guys. He was 113 00:07:49.759 --> 00:07:54.199 a professor and all this kind of stuff, has a lot of interesting things 114 00:07:54.199 --> 00:07:57.560 to say. I don't know if you've ever seen him before, but he's 115 00:07:57.560 --> 00:08:01.040 a good writer, but not a guy who's creative. He's he writes his 116 00:08:01.079 --> 00:08:05.279 own life story and he writes other narratives, but they have to be based 117 00:08:05.399 --> 00:08:11.480 in something that has a three D sort of structure. Right. It's a 118 00:08:11.639 --> 00:08:16.240 different it's a different process mentally when you've got to generate things and you've got 119 00:08:16.240 --> 00:08:20.240 to, you know, create a believable character that exists in a world. 120 00:08:20.600 --> 00:08:22.680 Oh, by the way, you might have to create that world, depending 121 00:08:24.160 --> 00:08:28.399 on what it is you're dealing with. And one of the fascinating things is 122 00:08:28.800 --> 00:08:33.559 Star Trek. Okay, Yeah, and look, we can bounce around all 123 00:08:33.639 --> 00:08:37.559 different topics you want. But I had to get to this with you because 124 00:08:37.600 --> 00:08:41.399 I'm a big Star Trek fan. And here's the funny thing. You participated 125 00:08:41.440 --> 00:08:48.039 in some way with the Voyager series. Now, back at the time Voyager 126 00:08:48.120 --> 00:08:52.320 was a new thing. There wasn't as many series as there are today. 127 00:08:52.480 --> 00:08:56.279 The universe was a little smaller. You didn't have a separate Kelvin timeline and 128 00:08:56.360 --> 00:09:01.639 all this other stuff. Honestly, if you saw a light back here, 129 00:09:01.679 --> 00:09:05.639 you'd see one of those big old Trek bibles back there that gives you the 130 00:09:05.639 --> 00:09:11.320 whole universe and all that you know, and it's outdated. But but anyway, 131 00:09:11.559 --> 00:09:15.759 how did you get involved with that? I mean, let's let's get 132 00:09:15.799 --> 00:09:18.480 the whole story here. You didn't just show up one day and go, 133 00:09:18.519 --> 00:09:20.960 hey, I want to write for this. And oh, by the way, 134 00:09:20.960 --> 00:09:26.120 who even knew it was coming out? Because Voyager dropped on upn where 135 00:09:26.159 --> 00:09:31.399 I was kind of almost as a surprise. It was sort of announced the 136 00:09:31.399 --> 00:09:35.399 week before and boom, there it was. I didn't read about it a 137 00:09:35.440 --> 00:09:39.080 lot in advance or anything. It just sort of showed up. Now, 138 00:09:39.120 --> 00:09:41.440 it could be that, you know, because I'm just not that interested in 139 00:09:41.559 --> 00:09:46.639 entertainment magazines, that I missed it. But it was definitely a different sort 140 00:09:46.679 --> 00:09:52.600 of series, and frankly became one of my least favorite and there's a reason 141 00:09:52.679 --> 00:09:56.480 for it, and I bet I can't blame you, but we'll get there. 142 00:09:58.080 --> 00:10:00.360 Tell me about how you got involved with that in the first place. 143 00:10:00.440 --> 00:10:03.320 Like, you know, hey, I was doing this and I ran into 144 00:10:03.480 --> 00:10:07.000 or I networked with give me an idea. Yeah, well, you know, 145 00:10:07.080 --> 00:10:09.159 it's it's funny. You should bring it up. Check because there are 146 00:10:09.159 --> 00:10:13.279 a couple prongs that will sort of jump out that the audience can sort of 147 00:10:13.320 --> 00:10:16.039 hold on to after they, you know, listen to this. They hear 148 00:10:16.120 --> 00:10:20.679 us chatting and stuff like that, and get the conversation back and forth from 149 00:10:20.879 --> 00:10:24.080 my side of the story, which is that a crazy thing? So I 150 00:10:24.120 --> 00:10:28.840 grew up loving television, you know, and in a way, as you 151 00:10:28.879 --> 00:10:33.000 start to look back at it, you realize that you were actually participating in 152 00:10:33.360 --> 00:10:41.559 almost a mass hypnosis, mass propaganda type thing with the diffusion of television, 153 00:10:41.799 --> 00:10:45.519 with that box in front of you. If I, and I've mentioned this 154 00:10:45.559 --> 00:10:48.960 to a friends of mine, if I had not had television, if we 155 00:10:48.000 --> 00:10:52.679 hadn't had radio or anything like that, and we just lived in an area 156 00:10:52.759 --> 00:10:56.600 in southern New Hampshire where we had farms around us, and I remember watching 157 00:10:56.600 --> 00:11:00.399 a blacksmith do his thing when I was like eight years old. We went 158 00:11:00.440 --> 00:11:03.639 to watch a blacksmith. I would have been more of a local guy, 159 00:11:03.240 --> 00:11:07.519 and I would have learned a trade. I would have learned some skills. 160 00:11:07.600 --> 00:11:11.000 I was interested in astrophysics. I almost went to Cornell for astrophysics. I 161 00:11:11.039 --> 00:11:16.080 would have learned something that I just you know, pretty much stayed local, 162 00:11:16.360 --> 00:11:22.000 right, Okay, But yeah, because I was exposed to this phenomenon in 163 00:11:22.200 --> 00:11:24.440 you know, from beyond my birth, you know, television starting in the 164 00:11:24.480 --> 00:11:28.480 forties, I just took it as read that what I saw on TV, 165 00:11:30.320 --> 00:11:33.000 I could just go and do it. Okay, So contexts wait a minute, 166 00:11:33.039 --> 00:11:37.600 context though, because the television experience would have been different in different decades. 167 00:11:37.679 --> 00:11:41.200 Now, I'm I just turned fifty one. So for me, the 168 00:11:41.200 --> 00:11:46.279 introduction to television was the nineteen seventies, and that is a decidedly different time 169 00:11:46.360 --> 00:11:52.440 than say the earlier the inception the nineteen forties and nineteen fifties. It's a 170 00:11:52.480 --> 00:11:54.879 different time period. By then. In the seventies, you had syndication, 171 00:11:56.000 --> 00:12:00.519 you had the repeats, you had different formulas, and also in a major 172 00:12:00.600 --> 00:12:03.279 market area, having you know, growing up in New Jersey, which man 173 00:12:03.320 --> 00:12:07.799 I had access to New York and quite frankly, if you moved just a 174 00:12:07.799 --> 00:12:11.440 little bit over in the state, you had Philadelphia's media market, and this 175 00:12:11.519 --> 00:12:16.320 might have been a different landscape than maybe the whole country got later as it 176 00:12:16.360 --> 00:12:20.840 was homogenized and cable was in existence, but it wasn't as fashionable. So 177 00:12:22.200 --> 00:12:24.639 let's talk about that for a second. How old are you. Were you 178 00:12:24.679 --> 00:12:28.600 sitting down in front of the big box TV like I did at my grandma's 179 00:12:30.399 --> 00:12:33.480 right and dealing with this thing in the seventies or was it later? Give 180 00:12:33.480 --> 00:12:37.360 me an idea. You know, I'm five years older than you, so 181 00:12:37.480 --> 00:12:39.000 I had the same experience as you. We got to see the reruns, 182 00:12:39.039 --> 00:12:43.159 you know, we were watching reruns a Rat Patrol, the Riflemen, Dilligan's 183 00:12:43.159 --> 00:12:46.159 Island, you know, falling in love with Mary Anne and Star Trek, 184 00:12:46.360 --> 00:12:48.559 and that was one of the things. You know, Star Trek had been 185 00:12:48.559 --> 00:12:54.480 off the air. It's the seventies. There's no hint that there's going to 186 00:12:54.519 --> 00:12:56.799 be more Star Trek, but it's a show that I love, you know. 187 00:12:58.200 --> 00:13:01.759 So I'm thinking, You've got this world of fiction that's in front of 188 00:13:01.799 --> 00:13:05.279 you. And I loved fiction, you know, my parents reading stories. 189 00:13:05.279 --> 00:13:09.519 We'd read Wald Doll, we'd read Robin Hood, twenty Thousand Leagues under the 190 00:13:09.559 --> 00:13:13.200 Sea out loud, just great, great stuff. As a kid, I 191 00:13:13.279 --> 00:13:18.200 got audiobooks. I used to listen to audio shows. And my brother actually 192 00:13:18.840 --> 00:13:22.240 what he did was a big impetus for me because he used to record TV 193 00:13:22.480 --> 00:13:28.519 themes and so he had real to reels, not cassettes, but real to 194 00:13:28.679 --> 00:13:33.279 reels of like all these amazing TV themes and I still I can I have 195 00:13:33.360 --> 00:13:35.600 them in my head. There were like little pieces of amazing orchestration, so 196 00:13:35.639 --> 00:13:39.120 many of them done by some of the best, you know, John Williams 197 00:13:39.159 --> 00:13:43.799 and other people liked Lalo Schiffrin, and so you think yourself, wow, 198 00:13:43.879 --> 00:13:48.120 you know, we got some great samples. As I get older, I 199 00:13:48.279 --> 00:13:54.960 loved television, so I would record television shows on audio. So that started 200 00:13:54.000 --> 00:13:58.960 to give me an ear for dialogue because I would play them over and over 201 00:13:58.600 --> 00:14:01.519 and over and over again. Cole Chack, the Night Stalker, you know, 202 00:14:01.600 --> 00:14:05.279 I would, I had those on tape. I would sneak into movie 203 00:14:05.320 --> 00:14:09.919 theaters and record movies right. And just to let you know, man, 204 00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:13.279 when I was a kid, will this will tell you how strange it is. 205 00:14:13.919 --> 00:14:18.679 When I was a kid, I had a dream that I was on 206 00:14:18.720 --> 00:14:24.279 the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. Okay, yeah, I dreamt that I 207 00:14:24.320 --> 00:14:28.159 was at a Chinese restaurant and I was with my brother and one of these 208 00:14:28.200 --> 00:14:33.600 like almost like carnival ride type, like you know those little train things where 209 00:14:33.600 --> 00:14:35.879 you're sitting and sit in the box seat and it takes you up like a 210 00:14:35.960 --> 00:14:39.559 roller coaster type thing. It goes click click click click. Yeah. So 211 00:14:39.879 --> 00:14:43.600 we used to go to this place where there was this haunted house place that 212 00:14:43.679 --> 00:14:46.039 had that at a carnival place, and it was really cool and the doors 213 00:14:46.039 --> 00:14:48.000 would go from couldn't you go flying through? And you know, all the 214 00:14:48.159 --> 00:14:52.639 kings would be there, yeah, the monsters and stuff. So I dreamt 215 00:14:52.679 --> 00:14:56.600 that we were sitting in the booth at this restaurant and that this carnival thing 216 00:14:56.639 --> 00:15:01.399 came up next to us and we got in it. It took us through 217 00:15:01.399 --> 00:15:05.679 the double doors to where the kitchen would be, where Grover went back and 218 00:15:05.720 --> 00:15:07.919 forth on Sesame Street with the soup, like, hey, Charlie, you 219 00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:13.720 know going back and forth in that skid on Sesame Street. And I ended 220 00:15:13.799 --> 00:15:16.279 up. It didn't take us to the kitchen. It took us to the 221 00:15:16.320 --> 00:15:18.720 Bridge of the Enterprise. And I was on the Bridge of the Enterprise, 222 00:15:20.039 --> 00:15:22.720 and the Bridge of the Enterprise wasn't like the original Star Trek bridge. It 223 00:15:22.759 --> 00:15:28.120 was this weird it was. It was laid out very softly, sort of 224 00:15:28.159 --> 00:15:31.320 the same design, but it was plush and it had like it was like 225 00:15:31.480 --> 00:15:37.000 raspberry Sherbet color. Well. Strangely enough, I also had another dream that 226 00:15:37.080 --> 00:15:41.279 I was at a place called the Bedford Mall in New Hampshire, and on 227 00:15:41.320 --> 00:15:45.559 the Bedford Mall, inside the mall before you got to the movie theater entrance, 228 00:15:46.080 --> 00:15:48.240 on the wall at the end of it, there was this giant screen 229 00:15:48.480 --> 00:15:52.399 and the ship of the Enterprise was flying through space and I was like, 230 00:15:52.480 --> 00:15:56.279 whoa, man, wouldn't it be cool if there was a Star Trek movie. 231 00:15:56.919 --> 00:16:00.559 Wow, that'd be great, you know. Well, so it turns 232 00:16:00.559 --> 00:16:07.200 out a few years later there's a Star Trek movie I actually like about yeah 233 00:16:07.240 --> 00:16:10.840 exactly, And I still have my little pin that I bought at the movie 234 00:16:10.879 --> 00:16:14.200 theater and stuff. So I'm in the movie theater watching what I dreamed, 235 00:16:14.240 --> 00:16:15.879 you know, like ten years before, like, whoa, this is so 236 00:16:15.919 --> 00:16:21.960 cool. And then the other thing is finally due to various circumstances that allowed 237 00:16:21.960 --> 00:16:25.360 me to get over at Star Trek, which I can describe um when I 238 00:16:25.440 --> 00:16:27.480 when we went in for the story meeting, the first story meeting for the 239 00:16:27.600 --> 00:16:30.000 for the writers, and I was a new guy in the block under this 240 00:16:30.080 --> 00:16:33.879 term called the Writers Guild. Fellow. We went into Jerry Taylor, she's 241 00:16:33.879 --> 00:16:38.399 an executive producer. She and Brandon braga Um and I said, I walk 242 00:16:38.480 --> 00:16:45.080 in and her office it's not shaped like the bridge, but the furniture was 243 00:16:45.080 --> 00:16:51.960 was was plush and it was all decked out as that raspberry Sherbet color. 244 00:16:52.840 --> 00:16:56.360 That's what it was. And I'm like, and I even told Jared's like, 245 00:16:56.399 --> 00:16:57.679 Jerry, this is really weird. She's like what. And I was 246 00:16:57.720 --> 00:17:00.919 like, like, when I was a kid, I dreamed that I was 247 00:17:00.960 --> 00:17:07.160 on the start I was at I was on the enterprise and it was decked 248 00:17:07.160 --> 00:17:10.319 out. It was it was you know, however they call that dressing the 249 00:17:11.920 --> 00:17:15.720 couch and all that stuff. It was like that well and that during that 250 00:17:15.799 --> 00:17:19.720 time period, there was a kind of a design of furniture that contained this 251 00:17:21.039 --> 00:17:23.680 sort of like wooden base and then they would put in those kind of colored 252 00:17:23.680 --> 00:17:29.119 pillows and that would be in a nicer office. To be honest, that's 253 00:17:29.119 --> 00:17:30.880 exactly what it was. Like. Okay, yeah, all right, that's 254 00:17:30.920 --> 00:17:36.400 wild, because that's just that's a period thing. You'll never see that again. 255 00:17:37.359 --> 00:17:38.799 I don't think, yeah, I don't think anybody's you know, going 256 00:17:38.839 --> 00:17:45.440 to retrofit anything like that anymore. But that's really cool. Um and Okay, 257 00:17:45.440 --> 00:17:47.279 so you sit down you're like, hey, this is sort of like 258 00:17:47.319 --> 00:17:51.039 my dream and uh, that's pretty wild. Okay, Yeah, I remember. 259 00:17:51.079 --> 00:17:52.079 I even told my brother, and my brother was like, hey, 260 00:17:52.079 --> 00:17:56.079 I remember when you dreamt that you were going to be on on the Enterprise. 261 00:17:56.160 --> 00:17:57.000 I was like, well, I wasn't on the Enterprise, but I 262 00:17:57.039 --> 00:18:02.039 got close, you know, I got need unclosed. So it was it 263 00:18:02.119 --> 00:18:03.680 was a neat, neat thing. And there were some great people there, 264 00:18:03.680 --> 00:18:07.880 really nice people, and Jerry Taylor was just such a nice lady. She 265 00:18:07.960 --> 00:18:11.559 retired at the end of that year. And there were some other people, 266 00:18:11.680 --> 00:18:14.880 you know, you kind of have a hard time with whatever. Brandon Braga 267 00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:18.000 was great. I had to dinner with Brandon a few years ago, and 268 00:18:18.319 --> 00:18:21.920 he's a pro liberty guy obviously. I mean, he created the Borg and 269 00:18:21.920 --> 00:18:25.079 I mentioned this on my show before, but I sort of gave him the 270 00:18:25.119 --> 00:18:26.720 sly wink. I was like, yeah, the Borger based on the Cybermen, 271 00:18:26.920 --> 00:18:30.720 aren't they And he's sort of like nodded, like, yeah, you 272 00:18:30.720 --> 00:18:33.720 know, of course they're based on the Cybermen. Yeah. So, um 273 00:18:33.119 --> 00:18:36.960 anyway, and it was a it was a wonderful experience because you know, 274 00:18:37.000 --> 00:18:42.039 you're constantly searching for stories to tell that have some sort of resiliency and some 275 00:18:42.119 --> 00:18:48.519 sort of can make some sort of moral connection as well as telling the plot, 276 00:18:48.880 --> 00:18:51.880 you know, and I think that that that really has been destroyed by 277 00:18:51.880 --> 00:18:53.160 Wolcism, which is one of the reasons why I want to start up that 278 00:18:53.279 --> 00:18:56.920 entertainment channel. You know. Well, and it's an interesting thing because the 279 00:18:57.240 --> 00:19:03.079 like I say, the incarnation that you got involved in is different from the 280 00:19:03.160 --> 00:19:07.640 rest of the universe. Why because look, let's just go with the template 281 00:19:07.720 --> 00:19:11.400 as it existed, Okay, nineteen sixties. These guys they go out there, 282 00:19:11.400 --> 00:19:15.759 they're on an adventure, they're explorers. They get into different, you 283 00:19:15.799 --> 00:19:19.839 know, interesting situations. You know, what did they describe it as or 284 00:19:19.839 --> 00:19:23.599 what was it described as at one point the wagon train to the stars kind 285 00:19:23.599 --> 00:19:27.119 of deal, you know, and all that. Gene Roddenberry, of course, 286 00:19:27.119 --> 00:19:30.079 I know the story about him developing it and being a sickly kid and 287 00:19:30.480 --> 00:19:36.240 all that stuff. And people have had a lot of arguments about Gene Roddenberry 288 00:19:36.240 --> 00:19:40.079 over the years. You know, was he somebody was tapped into things about 289 00:19:40.119 --> 00:19:44.160 the future or was he just somebody who you know, had just a brilliant 290 00:19:44.240 --> 00:19:48.119 vision that was really large because he didn't you know, imagine a universe there 291 00:19:48.559 --> 00:19:53.400 that has maintained itself. I mean, you have a very consistent, very 292 00:19:53.519 --> 00:20:00.720 interesting, interlocking universe here that has come together. And even when they've done 293 00:20:00.720 --> 00:20:07.119 it at different times with different technologies, it all has come together. The 294 00:20:07.200 --> 00:20:11.039 cannon is very nicely fitting together, at least in my opinion. Others you 295 00:20:11.240 --> 00:20:15.279 argue about it online and whatnot, but you know, continuity here was a 296 00:20:15.359 --> 00:20:21.440 huge thing. Voyager was weird because it starts out first of all with this 297 00:20:21.480 --> 00:20:23.640 thing called the Caretaker, which was the I think it was a two part 298 00:20:23.720 --> 00:20:29.799 introductory, like two hour long you know, pilot, and when they put 299 00:20:29.839 --> 00:20:32.839 it out, now you have, Yeah, they're going out to be explorers 300 00:20:32.880 --> 00:20:36.640 like all the other ships do, and that's typical. But they get flung 301 00:20:36.640 --> 00:20:40.680 into an area's space and they end up in a conundrum where they can go 302 00:20:40.759 --> 00:20:45.880 home but it'll screw things over, or they can do the right thing and 303 00:20:45.200 --> 00:20:51.960 not be able to get home necessarily in their lifetime, and it's a weird 304 00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:56.359 sort of stranded kind of issue, which we've never seen in that universe before 305 00:20:56.720 --> 00:21:03.599 and really is not the most common open sci fi. Usually there's a resolution, 306 00:21:03.000 --> 00:21:07.599 there's an achievable goal. This was left sort of open ended, and 307 00:21:07.799 --> 00:21:11.440 uh, you know, lent itself to that, and then I think there 308 00:21:11.480 --> 00:21:14.799 was there was trouble there. And this is why I want to ask you 309 00:21:14.839 --> 00:21:18.000 about it, because I think there was a problem here because being in that 310 00:21:18.039 --> 00:21:22.720 position meant that it was going to be difficult to tie it in to the 311 00:21:22.720 --> 00:21:27.759 rest of the universe, and so it makes it a unique problem for the 312 00:21:27.799 --> 00:21:30.759 writer. And I'm wondering if you could talk about that a little bit, 313 00:21:30.799 --> 00:21:36.440 because not just because I'm going full on nerd here, but believe it or 314 00:21:36.519 --> 00:21:38.160 not, there's a method to my madness on this. I want to get 315 00:21:38.200 --> 00:21:41.480 into it because yes, indeed, there's a whole lot of things that if 316 00:21:41.480 --> 00:21:48.079 you read into it, you can certainly see that the board clearly represents the 317 00:21:48.119 --> 00:21:53.039 transhumanist agenda, what is that like with a totalitarian twist on it? And 318 00:21:53.119 --> 00:21:57.400 that evolved over the years and so on and so forth. We have the 319 00:21:57.680 --> 00:22:06.039 different representations of the various global geopolitical global structures being played out depending on the 320 00:22:06.079 --> 00:22:10.680 time period a lot of people used to say the Klingons represented the Soviet Union, 321 00:22:11.640 --> 00:22:17.079 so on and so forth, and they clearly brought in modern to us 322 00:22:17.160 --> 00:22:22.519 anyway, modern historical ideas regarding say, World War two and what was going 323 00:22:22.559 --> 00:22:26.559 on, different conflicts, civil rights, and that wasn't wokeism. That was 324 00:22:26.599 --> 00:22:33.839 a representation of the time when they did something on racism there like Original Series. 325 00:22:33.880 --> 00:22:37.119 You know, apologies again, but you know, Original Series, and 326 00:22:37.160 --> 00:22:40.720 I don't remember what it was. I think was Frank Gorshen was half black 327 00:22:40.759 --> 00:22:45.480 and half white, and battlefield there you go, and these two guys are 328 00:22:45.480 --> 00:22:48.839 struggling and everybody else looking at him, going, you guys are the same 329 00:22:49.240 --> 00:22:52.039 and they go, no, no, we're not. I'm black on the 330 00:22:52.079 --> 00:22:56.279 left side, he's black on the right side, and everybody goes you know, 331 00:22:56.359 --> 00:23:00.839 and clearly that was a metaphoric statement, and those kind of things persisted 332 00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:03.160 in you know, despite the fact that we get dealt you know, Spock's 333 00:23:03.160 --> 00:23:07.000 Brain and nonsense. Later. A lot of that stuff was significant, well 334 00:23:07.039 --> 00:23:11.759 thought out, very cerebral. But now you're stuck in this unique position in 335 00:23:11.799 --> 00:23:17.720 this expansive universe that again has continued to evolve, and by the way, 336 00:23:17.759 --> 00:23:22.599 I'm one of those weirdos who actually likes Discovery. I'm not thrilled with some 337 00:23:22.680 --> 00:23:26.920 of the wocism in there, but I don't think they've overdone it just yet. 338 00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:30.680 They've come to the edge of it, but not quite, you know. 339 00:23:32.440 --> 00:23:36.559 And still it does represent the time period though. It represents this time 340 00:23:36.559 --> 00:23:38.720 period pretty well, even though they've now gone into the future and they were 341 00:23:38.759 --> 00:23:44.240 part of the past and so on. You know. Anyway, a lot 342 00:23:44.240 --> 00:23:48.759 of things to break down here, but let's begin with Voyager itself in that 343 00:23:48.880 --> 00:23:52.519 unique position you're in. Were you part of the inception of the show or 344 00:23:52.559 --> 00:23:56.400 when did you come in? No? I came in after the third season, 345 00:23:56.640 --> 00:24:02.680 and it was they had just introduced seven of nine and so she had 346 00:24:02.680 --> 00:24:07.400 been around I think for a year and um so what was interesting, So 347 00:24:07.480 --> 00:24:12.440 these the themes were already established, But what was interesting about it was the 348 00:24:12.480 --> 00:24:18.000 way that I got in there was I proposed a story that was a two 349 00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:29.559 part story that had um um uh Tom Paris get Remember how Tom Paris was 350 00:24:29.559 --> 00:24:33.880 was in Federation prison and the Janeway gave him a second shot and brought him 351 00:24:33.880 --> 00:24:37.680 out of prison. Oh yeah, that was part of his backstory that he 352 00:24:37.759 --> 00:24:42.599 was the rehabilitated, sort of revisited again in Discovery. But anyway, Yeah, 353 00:24:42.640 --> 00:24:48.240 so I had a two part story that never got produced, and I 354 00:24:48.279 --> 00:24:49.759 wanted to pitch it. I only got to pitch part of it, which 355 00:24:49.839 --> 00:24:53.839 was the first part, and the first part ended up getting translated into a 356 00:24:53.920 --> 00:24:59.319 slightly different story by a different writer. Um And originally my idea was that 357 00:24:59.400 --> 00:25:03.039 Tuvok was going to go through Pond Far and he would be the only one 358 00:25:03.160 --> 00:25:08.559 left aboard the ship because he was comatose and every other sentient being was beamed 359 00:25:08.599 --> 00:25:14.160 away by some malevolent aliens, so he had to helm the ship himself and 360 00:25:14.240 --> 00:25:18.279 work with the hologrammatic doctor and all these different types of things. And then 361 00:25:18.680 --> 00:25:21.839 the b story to that would have been Tom Paris getting injured in the head, 362 00:25:21.839 --> 00:25:26.480 and the next episode would have seen Tom Paris getting these weird flashbacks to 363 00:25:26.680 --> 00:25:30.519 Federation prison and a Vulcan who had been in Federation prison. And what you 364 00:25:30.640 --> 00:25:37.000 find out is that the Vulcan had he had been working with some very nefarious 365 00:25:37.079 --> 00:25:41.160 characters within the Federation, and it's actually something that they started to sort of 366 00:25:41.200 --> 00:25:45.000 develop on Deep Space nine. Upstairs we were on the first floor, they 367 00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:47.759 were on the second floor, and they were just they just did it independently 368 00:25:48.279 --> 00:25:52.759 about this idea that you know, within certain elements of the Federation, they 369 00:25:52.759 --> 00:25:56.720 were incredibly corrupt. Because I'm like, if you've got a central government, 370 00:25:56.960 --> 00:26:00.079 it's gonna be corrupt. It's gonna be massively corrupt, already beyond the concept 371 00:26:00.319 --> 00:26:04.559 of government itself being an imposition on people and not allowing people to be free 372 00:26:04.880 --> 00:26:07.880 from the government. So I thought, okay, I want to I want 373 00:26:07.880 --> 00:26:11.279 to slam the Federation a little bit, right. So I wanted to make 374 00:26:11.279 --> 00:26:18.599 it that the entire concept of Voyager being put out there by the caretaker was 375 00:26:18.680 --> 00:26:23.000 actually not the truth. I wanted to revise it so that in the end 376 00:26:23.039 --> 00:26:29.279 you found out Paris, while he was in Federation prison, had encountered this 377 00:26:29.400 --> 00:26:34.160 vulcan who had all this knowledge, who was killed at that Federation prison. 378 00:26:34.200 --> 00:26:37.000 But before he died, Paris went to try to help him, and a 379 00:26:37.119 --> 00:26:44.519 guy implanted all this knowledge about these conspirators and cabalists from within the Federation in 380 00:26:44.680 --> 00:26:49.599 his head. So when Janeway pulled Paris onto the Voyager, I wanted to 381 00:26:49.599 --> 00:26:55.000 make it that they had they had an assassin, and this woman has actually 382 00:26:55.079 --> 00:26:56.359 been with them the whole time, but she had changed her mind. She 383 00:26:56.440 --> 00:27:00.799 was supposed to kill Paris, and when she didn't do it, they said, 384 00:27:00.799 --> 00:27:03.119 we got to do something. Let's get rid of the whole ship. 385 00:27:03.319 --> 00:27:07.000 We'll send him to the Delta Quadrant. They'll survive, but they'll never come 386 00:27:07.000 --> 00:27:11.240 back. And so I wanted that to lead towards the final end of the 387 00:27:11.720 --> 00:27:14.680 series. But of course Brandon did a really good job at the end of 388 00:27:14.680 --> 00:27:17.480 the series, you know, sort of tying everything up. And I want 389 00:27:17.480 --> 00:27:19.559 to mention also to bring it back to current day Star Trek. As you 390 00:27:19.599 --> 00:27:25.039 mentioned, you know, the mythology is so big that in order to keep 391 00:27:25.160 --> 00:27:29.319 things correct according to the mythology, to have any sort of consistency, it's 392 00:27:29.440 --> 00:27:33.480 very hard. But I think you've probably been hearing a lot of praise about 393 00:27:33.559 --> 00:27:38.720 the most recent episodes of Piccard, and I yes, and I knew that 394 00:27:38.720 --> 00:27:45.720 that's what was going to happen because Terry Mattalus was selected to take over Picard. 395 00:27:45.119 --> 00:27:52.359 And Terry Matalus had been Brandon bragas assistant for quite a while on Terra 396 00:27:52.480 --> 00:27:57.039 Nova and then he left. He was on Enterprise with Brandon. When Brandon 397 00:27:57.119 --> 00:28:02.200 was on Enterprise, then he went over to you m Terra Nova. He 398 00:28:02.279 --> 00:28:07.039 was an assistant to Brandon there and then he became executive producer and showrunner for 399 00:28:07.119 --> 00:28:11.160 twelve Monkeys, And anybody who's seen twelve Monkeys knows that that plot was one 400 00:28:11.160 --> 00:28:17.839 of the most complex, most intellectually satisfying plots. They didn't let any string 401 00:28:18.039 --> 00:28:22.519 hang. It was beautifully put together. And even even as I watched it, 402 00:28:22.559 --> 00:28:26.720 My sister has a PhD in um biology from Harvard, and we'd be 403 00:28:26.759 --> 00:28:30.440 watching stuff it should be like, well, wait a minute, how can 404 00:28:30.440 --> 00:28:33.759 they say that? And they literally in the next line they would answer your 405 00:28:33.799 --> 00:28:38.400 possible skepticism was some way that they had found it. So Terry has taken 406 00:28:38.400 --> 00:28:42.440 over Picard and I think that is a really good sign. You know what 407 00:28:42.799 --> 00:28:45.960 that explains to me, Well, they have they have wrapped their final season 408 00:28:47.400 --> 00:28:53.160 allegedly so that that third season, though absolutely redeemed any issues that were had 409 00:28:53.200 --> 00:28:56.599 with the other Uh, it really was well done. I mean, this 410 00:28:56.799 --> 00:29:00.079 is just I have no reason to praise the guy you're talking, but apparently 411 00:29:00.119 --> 00:29:04.000 this is the guy I have to thank for it because it was. Yeah, 412 00:29:04.079 --> 00:29:10.759 he's so clear on trying to make sure continuity works. Yeah, yeah, 413 00:29:10.839 --> 00:29:14.839 I mean it was absolutely. Uh you know, I I thought it 414 00:29:14.839 --> 00:29:18.519 would be ridiculous to read to to to sort of reccon data into existing again. 415 00:29:19.400 --> 00:29:22.680 I thought that would be a bad idea, but it ended up being 416 00:29:22.720 --> 00:29:27.319 well done. Uh you know, the whole thing was remarkably still cerebral, 417 00:29:27.400 --> 00:29:34.200 but contained those more intense like action adventure elements that you know, ended up 418 00:29:34.359 --> 00:29:40.079 getting lost a lot with Next Generation quite frankly, and even during some of 419 00:29:40.119 --> 00:29:48.160 the really the first the early stumbling season of Enterprise where it just kind of 420 00:29:48.200 --> 00:29:52.400 dragged on because it just it was nice to set the table, but it 421 00:29:52.440 --> 00:29:56.680 was missing certain elements. And there are just certain writers that have gotten a 422 00:29:56.680 --> 00:29:59.720 hold of things and been able to make it work all the way around. 423 00:30:00.240 --> 00:30:02.960 Oh yeah, yeah, and R Terry is one of those guys. He's 424 00:30:03.000 --> 00:30:06.880 a very nice guy, really really nice dude. I havn't communicated with Terry 425 00:30:06.920 --> 00:30:10.359 for a while, but I met him when I saw Brandon. When I 426 00:30:10.359 --> 00:30:11.519 had dinner with Brandon, he asked me if I wanted to stop out of 427 00:30:11.559 --> 00:30:15.720 the Terry Nova studios, and that was only on for a brief period, 428 00:30:15.480 --> 00:30:19.359 but I went over there and then that's where I met Terry Metalis and then 429 00:30:19.680 --> 00:30:25.440 communicated with Terry. I was actually supposed to go over to LA for twelve 430 00:30:25.440 --> 00:30:29.680 Monkeys thing that they were doing at the Pailey Center of all Things, but 431 00:30:29.880 --> 00:30:33.079 I gave my ticket to someone because I couldn't make it out, and she 432 00:30:33.200 --> 00:30:37.000 actually went over to Terry and told told Terry like, oh, I got 433 00:30:37.000 --> 00:30:40.279 my ticket from gardener goals and He's like, oh hey, cool. So 434 00:30:40.359 --> 00:30:42.599 that was a nice little thing for that fan to be able to go talk 435 00:30:42.599 --> 00:30:45.200 to Terry and stuff. And you know, it's it's funny you should bring 436 00:30:45.279 --> 00:30:52.359 up because as far as continuity goes, if you look at you look at 437 00:30:52.400 --> 00:30:56.839 some of the recent Star Trek stuff, that's been one of the most frustrating 438 00:30:56.920 --> 00:31:00.079 things I think for a lot of people. Where you got the Kelp and 439 00:31:00.200 --> 00:31:03.039 timeline, are they gonna make it work? They're just rehashing old stories and 440 00:31:03.119 --> 00:31:07.000 things like that. And I, you know, I don't mind these shows 441 00:31:07.119 --> 00:31:11.519 taking chances are possibly going a little bit woke if they've got a plot, 442 00:31:11.559 --> 00:31:15.519 because I imagine think of it this way. You know, I was thinking 443 00:31:15.519 --> 00:31:19.359 about this, Chuck because when I was a kid, I never really noticed, 444 00:31:19.400 --> 00:31:22.000 like when they had the guys who were half black half white thing, 445 00:31:22.559 --> 00:31:26.519 I didn't think of that. I was so small, Like I didn't think 446 00:31:26.519 --> 00:31:27.640 of that as like a racial thing. I was just thinking, like these 447 00:31:27.680 --> 00:31:30.079 two guys that don't get along, Like, oh, that's definitely why don't 448 00:31:30.079 --> 00:31:34.000 they get along? Right? And like a lot of racist racial stuff by 449 00:31:34.039 --> 00:31:37.400 that time, like in the seventies, especially for us growing up, Like 450 00:31:37.400 --> 00:31:41.559 I never thought about any of that stuff like at all, not at all. 451 00:31:41.599 --> 00:31:44.599 You know. It's like whether I was watching Samford's Son or Cheeko on 452 00:31:44.680 --> 00:31:47.599 the Man or I didn't care, you know whatever, No, but it 453 00:31:47.640 --> 00:31:51.960 was there. See. That's the thing. It can be present and not 454 00:31:52.400 --> 00:31:56.039 dominate the entirety of the presentation. See. That's the thing is it survives 455 00:31:56.160 --> 00:32:00.640 even if you don't need to make those statements the things served vibe sow if 456 00:32:00.640 --> 00:32:05.119 you hinge the entire story on that statement, I'm sorry, that's a mistake. 457 00:32:05.640 --> 00:32:08.480 That keep wondering. I keep wondering if I were like older when the 458 00:32:08.519 --> 00:32:14.039 original Star Trek was on, were you know and uh and I saw you 459 00:32:14.039 --> 00:32:17.440 know, Roddenberry's take off of the un Insignia, um, you know the 460 00:32:17.519 --> 00:32:22.640 star thing, which is very Saturnalia type stuff. Um, you know, 461 00:32:22.680 --> 00:32:24.519 and then I saw, you know, the enterprise being populated with all the 462 00:32:24.559 --> 00:32:28.759 different races and stuff like that, and you know, all that stuff. 463 00:32:29.039 --> 00:32:32.920 I keep wondering, like, would I have been less interested in watching the 464 00:32:34.000 --> 00:32:37.240 show because I thought, oh jeez, this, I'm really seeing the boardroom 465 00:32:37.319 --> 00:32:38.920 here? Or would I have just gone along with it? You know? 466 00:32:39.400 --> 00:32:45.279 Um, that's something I can't really well judged now, you know, watching 467 00:32:45.279 --> 00:32:47.880 the show, it's interesting because of the demographics. And I've talked to people 468 00:32:47.920 --> 00:32:52.440 about this, um, you know, separately, uh, you know, 469 00:32:52.599 --> 00:32:54.400 and not not even on my radio show or anything, just in general, 470 00:32:55.200 --> 00:32:58.440 people that were a little older to me, What was it like seeing this 471 00:32:58.480 --> 00:33:01.079 stuff when it first aired and so on, you know, And and they 472 00:33:01.200 --> 00:33:04.680 the way that they viewed it is different than the way I see it. 473 00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:07.559 If you were in your you know, if you were like twenty years old 474 00:33:07.559 --> 00:33:10.279 and you were sort of idealistic and you saw that there were things that needed 475 00:33:10.279 --> 00:33:16.240 to change, you embraced that. Um. But there would be other friends 476 00:33:16.279 --> 00:33:21.640 they had that didn't need to embrace it, that just enjoyed it because it 477 00:33:21.799 --> 00:33:24.359 was action. It was well, that's interesting. How does that work? 478 00:33:24.799 --> 00:33:27.799 You know? What? What what happened all of a sudden We're in a 479 00:33:27.799 --> 00:33:31.680 mirror universe? Which they've gone back to in every incarnation pretty much. Uh, 480 00:33:31.720 --> 00:33:36.160 you know, the mirror universe the other yeah right, yeah, um, 481 00:33:36.480 --> 00:33:39.240 and I think yeah, I think memory search. I think even Voyager 482 00:33:39.279 --> 00:33:44.160 had to do it at some point, um, which which is weird because 483 00:33:44.160 --> 00:33:47.160 they did some other weird stuff that if you think about it now looking back, 484 00:33:47.640 --> 00:33:52.960 could be statements about other things like, you know, tampering with genetics 485 00:33:52.400 --> 00:33:57.160 and exactly like crisper technology and all that kind of stuff that we were talking 486 00:33:57.200 --> 00:34:00.200 about just a few years ago. Well, that sort of stuff was being 487 00:34:00.240 --> 00:34:05.039 presented in Voyager because they had that whole thing where there was an entire copy 488 00:34:05.079 --> 00:34:07.519 of the ship and all that, you know what I'm talking about. I 489 00:34:07.559 --> 00:34:10.760 mean, yeah, you know. It also occurs to me that an uninitiated 490 00:34:10.840 --> 00:34:20.280 listener might not appreciate who Brandon Bragga is. Okay, would you mind doing 491 00:34:20.280 --> 00:34:22.840 me very like Okay, let's just say you're a casual viewer of Star Trek 492 00:34:22.840 --> 00:34:27.679 and you're not an idiot like me to analyze this stuff and you just enjoy 493 00:34:27.719 --> 00:34:31.840 it. How responsible is Brandon Bragga for I don't know, Star Trek as 494 00:34:31.960 --> 00:34:38.440 of m the nineteen eighties, Um, you know, give us a thumbnail 495 00:34:38.440 --> 00:34:42.360 on. Yeah, so we'll look at Okay, so you got you got 496 00:34:42.360 --> 00:34:45.599 Star Trek running through its sixties run, and then they do the cartoon series, 497 00:34:45.639 --> 00:34:50.280 which is excellent, great, great series, and then Alan Dean Foster 498 00:34:50.360 --> 00:34:53.360 does the novelizations of those. So we we as kids get to watch some 499 00:34:53.480 --> 00:34:58.440 Star Trek on reruns, we get to watch the Star Trek cartoons show. 500 00:34:58.679 --> 00:35:01.559 A lot of those were actually scripts that they had designed for the next season 501 00:35:01.639 --> 00:35:06.280 Star Trek. They just used those in the cartoon thing two. Great stuff, 502 00:35:06.880 --> 00:35:09.400 Yeah, yep. And then there's this period, this sort of fallow 503 00:35:09.519 --> 00:35:15.079 period that thankfully sees this popularity of Star Wars, and then all of a 504 00:35:15.079 --> 00:35:21.440 sudden, paramount is like, okay, we need a Star Space based vehicle 505 00:35:21.960 --> 00:35:24.480 to get things rolling here. What are we going to do? And Gene 506 00:35:24.519 --> 00:35:28.440 Roddenberry had been pushing to try to get Star Trek back, They had been 507 00:35:28.440 --> 00:35:30.400 talking about doing a TV series again, what are they going to do? 508 00:35:30.719 --> 00:35:35.360 They let you, Gene Roddenberry do it. And just as an aside, 509 00:35:35.400 --> 00:35:38.559 I'll mention that, um, well, we'll get into we'll talk about like 510 00:35:38.599 --> 00:35:43.440 any speculation about you know, how much was Gene Roddenberry clued into the future 511 00:35:43.519 --> 00:35:45.280 how much did he get from CIA, you know, any of that stuff 512 00:35:45.599 --> 00:35:47.360 in a little bit. But as far as this, you know, this 513 00:35:47.679 --> 00:35:53.960 little history run and Brandon's influenced in particular, so you know, Brandon Brandon 514 00:35:54.079 --> 00:36:00.000 was brought in by Gene and Jerry Taylor was brought in. Jerry had worked 515 00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:05.400 on shows like Quincy. She'd been very involved with shows like that. She 516 00:36:05.480 --> 00:36:09.559 had quite an extensive background and episodic television for things like Universal and stuff like 517 00:36:09.599 --> 00:36:17.960 that. So so Star Trek the Next Generation is not in the in the 518 00:36:19.000 --> 00:36:22.039 works yet, I should get you know, we have the movies, the 519 00:36:22.159 --> 00:36:28.280 move. The first movie is mildly successful, sort of allows for the next 520 00:36:28.320 --> 00:36:30.920 movie to come around. But the next movie they got to make sure it's 521 00:36:30.920 --> 00:36:35.599 going to be really, really good. So in that case, for the 522 00:36:35.639 --> 00:36:39.119 next movie, they got Nicholas Meyer. And Nicholas Meyer of course had written 523 00:36:39.119 --> 00:36:45.559 The seven Percent Solution, a very successful scriptwriter, novelist, very creative guy. 524 00:36:46.119 --> 00:36:51.199 Really really did a fantastic job. I feel I feel like Trump really 525 00:36:51.239 --> 00:36:55.400 great job with well, look quick aside, just because again I'm a fan 526 00:36:55.480 --> 00:36:59.840 and even as a child, I was totally thrilled and excited to go see 527 00:37:00.639 --> 00:37:02.599 you know, I saw Star Wars on a drive in movie screen. I 528 00:37:02.639 --> 00:37:07.760 went to go see Star Trek in a theater, and as a kid, 529 00:37:07.840 --> 00:37:12.480 I was happy with it and all that. However, over time that movie 530 00:37:12.519 --> 00:37:15.480 does not stand up so well because you know, it sort of drags on 531 00:37:15.599 --> 00:37:19.320 and this and that. So when you're talking about when they go to do 532 00:37:19.440 --> 00:37:24.480 Star Trek two, which is The Wrath of Khan almost indisputably one of the 533 00:37:24.519 --> 00:37:30.440 best sci fi major motion pictures a of its era, but be some people 534 00:37:30.480 --> 00:37:35.639 would say of all time, because it contains so many great elements. And 535 00:37:35.840 --> 00:37:37.119 look, there's a little cheese in there. I mean, it's Star Trek 536 00:37:37.159 --> 00:37:39.800 man, You're gonna get some cheese. It's just the way it goes, 537 00:37:39.960 --> 00:37:44.280 right, you know. And how many times are we gonna quote Shakespeare in 538 00:37:44.320 --> 00:37:46.440 these movies and things? Okay, and you got to read it in its 539 00:37:46.440 --> 00:37:53.360 original cling on anyway, that's later. But it gets interesting here because there 540 00:37:53.880 --> 00:37:59.000 is the way that people embraced it, and the idea was that it was 541 00:37:59.039 --> 00:38:04.840 still a successful property as something that was independently being syndicated, different than the 542 00:38:04.880 --> 00:38:07.760 way the networks would syndicate their shows, and they would hang on to them. 543 00:38:07.079 --> 00:38:10.920 Star Trek was running on all these independent channels very cheaply, but so 544 00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:19.000 often that it was a seriously profitable thing. So when Wars is super successful, 545 00:38:19.079 --> 00:38:21.519 somebody said, we got to be able to do that. We got 546 00:38:21.599 --> 00:38:23.840 a big ship we can put out there, Well let's do it. And 547 00:38:23.920 --> 00:38:29.079 there was enough of a groundswell for a return of Star Trek that it made 548 00:38:29.119 --> 00:38:34.039 sense. But then again, like I said, not as flashy and great 549 00:38:34.079 --> 00:38:37.840 as it probably could have been, so on and so forth. Okay, 550 00:38:37.400 --> 00:38:40.000 and I'm not trying to bash stuff. Believe me, I love this stuff. 551 00:38:40.039 --> 00:38:43.599 But no, it's a realistic assessment, one hundred percent, and it 552 00:38:43.679 --> 00:38:46.400 is exactly what it was. You know, when Nicholas Meyer came out with 553 00:38:46.800 --> 00:38:52.280 Star Trek, rat the Khan people were like, whoa, Now this is 554 00:38:52.360 --> 00:38:57.679 Star Trek. That just kicked all doors open. And you know, the 555 00:38:57.800 --> 00:39:01.519 acting in it was phenomenal. Scenes were great that the special effects and the 556 00:39:01.639 --> 00:39:07.239 music by Jerry Goldsmith just incredible music. It was just it was amazing. 557 00:39:07.360 --> 00:39:10.800 The whole thing was amazing, and that, of course, more success after 558 00:39:10.880 --> 00:39:17.400 that was searched for Spock and Voyage Home Undiscovered Country. So they're building the 559 00:39:17.480 --> 00:39:22.320 franchise, so it's a natural outgrowth to say Okay, Roden Murray goes back 560 00:39:22.360 --> 00:39:27.440 and says, let's do the next generation. He's got the template, wants 561 00:39:27.480 --> 00:39:30.119 to do it. And that's where guy's like as you you know, you 562 00:39:30.159 --> 00:39:34.599 mentioned Brandon Braga get brought in as an early writer. They so they have 563 00:39:34.679 --> 00:39:37.960 this mix of young and older writers. And one of the things that they 564 00:39:37.000 --> 00:39:42.320 did at Star Trek, which is a really really admirable thing, is they 565 00:39:42.360 --> 00:39:45.079 if they had writers who were around the area or any anything like that, 566 00:39:45.199 --> 00:39:52.440 or they had interns who showed promise with those within those offices. And Brandon 567 00:39:52.519 --> 00:39:55.239 was one of the people who really took this on because he had been sort 568 00:39:55.280 --> 00:40:00.039 of fostered along by some of the higher ups who had more experience. He 569 00:40:00.159 --> 00:40:02.280 recognized what they had done for him and he tried to do it for other 570 00:40:02.320 --> 00:40:06.199 people. So, for example, if you look at a guy like Naren 571 00:40:06.320 --> 00:40:12.199 Shankar Narrain, I knew Narrain up at Outer Limits. He's he's the producer 572 00:40:12.320 --> 00:40:17.360 of um um uh, what's that show on Amazon um and dropping the name 573 00:40:17.400 --> 00:40:23.079 now um based on yeah, the Expanse. He's the producer the Expanse. 574 00:40:23.480 --> 00:40:28.519 And so all these people have branched out. You got Brian Fuller. Brian 575 00:40:28.559 --> 00:40:31.599 Fuller was brought in. He became producers so many types of types of things, 576 00:40:31.639 --> 00:40:37.719 American gods, um, pushing daisies, all sorts of good stuff at 577 00:40:37.760 --> 00:40:42.760 Hannibal Um. Then you got Um one of the other people at Star Trek 578 00:40:42.840 --> 00:40:49.960 Voyager. He went on to produce Um Elementary for CBS. So they've given 579 00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:52.480 a lot of chances to people who were sort of upstart people, and that 580 00:40:52.599 --> 00:40:57.480 was one of the things that really admired because Brandon first he was sort of 581 00:40:57.719 --> 00:41:00.599 not you know, he wasn't one of the executive producer, but he was 582 00:41:00.760 --> 00:41:07.280 under a writer under under Jean mister Rodberry. And I never met mister Roddenberry. 583 00:41:07.679 --> 00:41:09.840 Oh but you know, yeah I didn't. He had passed away by 584 00:41:09.840 --> 00:41:14.199 the time I got there. But it was weird because when I would proposed 585 00:41:14.199 --> 00:41:17.639 certain things, like I remember I pitched a story to Jerry Taylor one time 586 00:41:17.679 --> 00:41:22.559 and I said, Jerry, you know this story has to do with they 587 00:41:22.679 --> 00:41:28.000 need to get something for their their dilithium crystals and they need you know, 588 00:41:28.039 --> 00:41:30.079 they need to get some money for it. They need to and she goes, 589 00:41:30.119 --> 00:41:31.440 oh, Guard, I gotta stop you there, and I was like, 590 00:41:31.599 --> 00:41:34.760 oh, what is it, she goes, Well, before he died, 591 00:41:34.880 --> 00:41:38.599 Jean stipulated that man would have risen tota such a level that they wouldn't 592 00:41:38.599 --> 00:41:43.480 need money anymore. Oh, you still had to work with Roddenberry's rules. 593 00:41:43.840 --> 00:41:46.400 Yeah, and it was really weird. And so I had this weird mixed 594 00:41:46.400 --> 00:41:52.840 feeling because it was interesting to have grown up having watched his creation on this 595 00:41:52.880 --> 00:41:58.400 little screen and now on there in a professional capacity, using my mind with 596 00:41:58.480 --> 00:42:01.360 other people using their minds to try to perpetuate what he created, playing in 597 00:42:01.400 --> 00:42:07.639 his sandbox, making new toys to put into the sandbox, and he's got 598 00:42:07.639 --> 00:42:10.000 the rules for how it operates. So now the rules are affecting my life. 599 00:42:10.480 --> 00:42:15.639 Yeah. But see, but it wasn't universal because there ends up being 600 00:42:15.760 --> 00:42:19.760 a texture here, like you know, the Ferenghi, on the other hand, 601 00:42:19.840 --> 00:42:24.079 Yeah, they're completely motivated by what gold. Everything's latinum and sheets of 602 00:42:24.159 --> 00:42:27.639 latinum and so on and stuff. I mean, and that's you know, 603 00:42:27.719 --> 00:42:30.000 clearly. I mean, I've had people tell me that's, you know, 604 00:42:30.159 --> 00:42:32.960 just like an anti Semitic thing and whatever. I'm like, okay, maybe, 605 00:42:34.239 --> 00:42:38.000 but at the same time, it's still there, Okay, the yeah, 606 00:42:38.039 --> 00:42:42.840 you know, and their whole society is based on the rules of acquisition. 607 00:42:42.920 --> 00:42:45.079 I think they call it. Look well that yeah, that was one 608 00:42:45.079 --> 00:42:46.679 of the things I mentioned that Jerry. I said, well, Jerry, 609 00:42:46.239 --> 00:42:52.079 that's really stupid. He goes, I know, so that I don't want 610 00:42:52.440 --> 00:42:54.639 it. She says, you have I'll quote, you have no idea the 611 00:42:54.679 --> 00:42:59.920 headaches that that has brought us. I was like, so you've got to 612 00:43:00.079 --> 00:43:05.719 twenty third century civilization and they have to barter. It's like, yeah, 613 00:43:05.719 --> 00:43:07.880 like that's insane. And that was one of the cool things when when um, 614 00:43:08.239 --> 00:43:12.280 when I ra Bear decided that he was gonna you know, was he 615 00:43:12.360 --> 00:43:15.039 got to go ahead to do Deep Space nine. That was really cool because 616 00:43:15.320 --> 00:43:21.000 that was a way that he could get around since it's a space station and 617 00:43:21.159 --> 00:43:24.880 there's all this constant interplay, you can have those races, and you can 618 00:43:25.039 --> 00:43:30.119 have a race that deals with they're the trading guys, and you can start 619 00:43:30.159 --> 00:43:31.639 to incorporate that. So that was that was a great way. He was 620 00:43:31.679 --> 00:43:36.360 able to make things darker and do a lot of things that regular if you're 621 00:43:36.360 --> 00:43:37.920 on a federation ship, they just couldn't do. You know, well, 622 00:43:38.039 --> 00:43:43.719 very very much metaphoric. Uh you know what, what what will we call 623 00:43:43.800 --> 00:43:49.480 that um pre you know, when when you have foreshadowing of nine to eleven 624 00:43:49.519 --> 00:43:52.440 actually on a deep space nine. But let's leave that alone because that wasn't 625 00:43:52.440 --> 00:43:57.079 the show you were writing on. They were upstairs, right, uh so, 626 00:43:57.599 --> 00:44:00.199 I and I'm look, I could do this with you all day, 627 00:44:00.280 --> 00:44:01.800 but I know we got to crunch it down a little bit. So let's 628 00:44:02.119 --> 00:44:06.239 let's get back to the voyage your story, because that that's something that involves 629 00:44:06.280 --> 00:44:09.320 you even more. And I want to go into that some more because to 630 00:44:09.400 --> 00:44:13.960 me, it's an interesting like corner that they sort of had you painted into 631 00:44:14.000 --> 00:44:16.599 before you even walked in the door. You're you're stuck in this situation where 632 00:44:16.599 --> 00:44:21.360 you're out there. They still want you to drag in some of the recognizable 633 00:44:21.440 --> 00:44:24.880 things for continuity. They want you to keep the universe together. Eventually these 634 00:44:24.880 --> 00:44:29.519 people are on their way home, but there's these other elements coming in. 635 00:44:30.639 --> 00:44:32.519 I had a hard time with Jane Way as a captain. I don't know 636 00:44:32.559 --> 00:44:37.000 what it was about her, but it's just I just had a hard time 637 00:44:37.000 --> 00:44:40.559 whether as the captain. I thought it was interesting they brought the marquis in 638 00:44:40.639 --> 00:44:45.400 and all that. So you have this sort of you know, an ad 639 00:44:45.440 --> 00:44:51.480 hoc sort of situation regarding command. But but I'm sure that people have asked 640 00:44:51.480 --> 00:44:55.199 you about mentioned many times about what about all of this stuff that seems to 641 00:44:55.199 --> 00:45:00.840 be almost celebrating or embracing the new world order or so to speak in the 642 00:45:00.880 --> 00:45:04.119 Star tr Now. I don't know if you were thinking about it back then, 643 00:45:05.719 --> 00:45:08.440 but looking back on it, you know, how do you feel about 644 00:45:08.480 --> 00:45:13.119 it? And how do you feel about your participation in it? To me, 645 00:45:13.920 --> 00:45:15.599 I don't know, I don't I don't get upset about it. I 646 00:45:15.639 --> 00:45:20.519 see the you know, the one world idea. There's a way that the 647 00:45:20.559 --> 00:45:23.920 world can come together and it doesn't have to be slavery, okay. Uh 648 00:45:24.079 --> 00:45:29.880 And and believe me, they opted into all sorts of narratives regarding slavery many 649 00:45:29.880 --> 00:45:32.519 times. The darkest one really on enterprise, where oh, we're going to 650 00:45:32.599 --> 00:45:37.239 take some of your people in exchange for the repairs. Uh, you know, 651 00:45:37.320 --> 00:45:40.960 and that's it. They're now you know, cattle um really direct, 652 00:45:42.000 --> 00:45:45.400 really in your face. But as Voyager is in a place where they have 653 00:45:45.440 --> 00:45:50.599 no support, they've got nobody who's supposed to be their ally outside of the 654 00:45:50.639 --> 00:45:52.559 fact that they ended up you know, having a copy and they end up 655 00:45:52.639 --> 00:45:57.800 encountering the board, which we already covered. I mean, it's a weird 656 00:45:57.880 --> 00:46:00.840 corner to be painted into, so that like as a writer, I mean, 657 00:46:00.960 --> 00:46:05.480 I hear your joy, I see your joy, and I'm involved in 658 00:46:05.519 --> 00:46:08.960 this thing that is part of the icon of my youth. And I've watched 659 00:46:09.000 --> 00:46:12.840 this thing evolved from Afar and I'm so glad to be involved in it. 660 00:46:12.920 --> 00:46:15.400 At least that's what I'm getting from you. But you're kind of painted into 661 00:46:15.440 --> 00:46:22.440 a corner creatively between Roddenberry's rules, the constraints of the script, the constraints 662 00:46:22.480 --> 00:46:25.840 of well, you know, you're not you're not the executive producer, so 663 00:46:25.880 --> 00:46:30.960 you're not making primal decisions. You're offering up ideas, you're pitching stories. 664 00:46:30.519 --> 00:46:36.880 I mean, give me an overview of what that was like for you, 665 00:46:36.880 --> 00:46:40.320 you know again, because even though if you weren't fully engaged in your liberty 666 00:46:40.360 --> 00:46:44.880 mindset as you are today, you had to be on your way at that 667 00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:47.719 point, so something, you know, just give me, give me a 668 00:46:47.719 --> 00:46:52.559 sketch on that real quick before we move further in that definitely. So by 669 00:46:52.599 --> 00:46:54.760 the time I got to Star Trek, I was already a hardcore libertarian, 670 00:46:54.800 --> 00:46:59.199 anarchist and In fact, it was interesting because when I had dinner with Brandon 671 00:46:59.239 --> 00:47:02.360 a few years ago, Brandon, of course becoming an executive producer a Voyager 672 00:47:04.000 --> 00:47:07.519 after gene Ronburry passes away, and he had become a producer at Star Trek 673 00:47:07.599 --> 00:47:12.920 Next Generation and was one of the integral guys and helping those last few years 674 00:47:13.000 --> 00:47:15.440 really pick up steam at next Gen. And it was it was a lot 675 00:47:15.480 --> 00:47:22.480 of what Brandon did and introducing the board, creating the board. But there 676 00:47:22.519 --> 00:47:25.039 was one day when I was at the Voyager offices and I had a Reason 677 00:47:25.159 --> 00:47:29.440 magazine t shirt on under a button down shirt and you could sort of see 678 00:47:29.480 --> 00:47:31.079 it through that and one of the other writers when we were in the writing 679 00:47:31.119 --> 00:47:35.639 room and the other writers like, what's down on here? What's that shirt 680 00:47:35.719 --> 00:47:37.719 you got under? Under there? And Brandon. So, Brandon and I 681 00:47:37.840 --> 00:47:42.039 had we're having dinner a few years a few years ago, and he's like, 682 00:47:42.159 --> 00:47:44.199 yeah, man, so I was reading about your stuff. You know, 683 00:47:44.320 --> 00:47:47.920 you're really doing the political stuff libertarian. I was like yeah, And 684 00:47:47.960 --> 00:47:51.199 I was like, you're a libertarian too, and he goes, how'd you 685 00:47:51.239 --> 00:47:52.599 know that? I was like, because there was that day when I had 686 00:47:52.639 --> 00:47:57.800 the Reason magazine shirt on and somebody asked what the shirt was and you said, 687 00:47:57.800 --> 00:48:00.320 oh, it's a Reason magazine, it's libertarian magazine. I was like, 688 00:48:00.559 --> 00:48:06.079 only somebody who read Reason Magazine at that time would know what liberty Reason 689 00:48:06.159 --> 00:48:08.239 Magazine was. So what you're saying, So, what you're saying, in 690 00:48:08.280 --> 00:48:13.280 short, is that not all of Hollywood is run by liberal Satanist spirit cookers. 691 00:48:15.039 --> 00:48:17.039 Definitely not. And again, you know the sort of give Gene Roddenberry 692 00:48:17.079 --> 00:48:22.079 a little bit of a little bit of some some soft touch here. Um. 693 00:48:22.599 --> 00:48:28.280 You know, I disagreed a lot with Gene Roddenberry's concepts about the Federation, 694 00:48:28.320 --> 00:48:30.079 about whether that would be workable about you know, getting rid of money. 695 00:48:30.119 --> 00:48:34.960 I wrote an article for Foundation for Economic Education about that interplay that I 696 00:48:34.960 --> 00:48:37.920 had with Terry Taylor, and I may I turn it into an economics lesson 697 00:48:37.960 --> 00:48:42.519 for like a teenager to understand that money is an outgrowth of human interaction, 698 00:48:42.760 --> 00:48:45.519 division of labor and surplus, you know. And uh so it was. 699 00:48:45.559 --> 00:48:49.039 It actually turned out to be kind of a neat thing that I couldn't do 700 00:48:49.079 --> 00:48:51.840 the story, you know, because I was able to make an economics lesson 701 00:48:51.880 --> 00:48:53.960 for kids out of it. But what was interesting is you look at these 702 00:48:53.960 --> 00:48:58.800 guys. And I've mentioned this about Rod Sterling as well. Um, they 703 00:48:58.840 --> 00:49:01.719 came out of the World War two era. Whether they were hoodwinked into thinking 704 00:49:01.719 --> 00:49:06.880 this or they it was just a natural outgrowth whatever. You know, they 705 00:49:06.960 --> 00:49:10.119 probably thought that if there was some rurled government, then it would stop all 706 00:49:10.159 --> 00:49:15.679 this international World War stuff between the Nation States. Rod Sterling definitely thought that. 707 00:49:15.800 --> 00:49:20.039 He did a film in the late sixties promoting the United Nations. I 708 00:49:20.039 --> 00:49:22.159 don't know if he got paid or if he just did it, but yeah, 709 00:49:22.199 --> 00:49:23.679 and I think like George de kay was in it, like it was 710 00:49:23.840 --> 00:49:28.079 it was it was just some you know, some short film that he did. 711 00:49:28.360 --> 00:49:30.039 So, you know, because they they you know, he Rod Murray 712 00:49:30.079 --> 00:49:34.320 was in the military, was in the army, I think and uh and 713 00:49:34.519 --> 00:49:39.639 uh Rod Sterling was a paratrooper. The first jump down, his buddy lands 714 00:49:39.719 --> 00:49:43.760 right behind him. They sent the crates down wrong. His buddy got his 715 00:49:43.760 --> 00:49:46.000 head lopped off by one of the crates, I mean instantly, the first 716 00:49:46.000 --> 00:49:50.280 first jump in World War two. And he was seventeen like he got in 717 00:49:50.360 --> 00:49:53.519 early. So's the shock of what those guys must have gone through I can't 718 00:49:53.519 --> 00:49:58.559 even imagine, right, So you can kind of see how they'd be pulled 719 00:49:58.599 --> 00:50:04.880 into this if they weren't wary of the tendency of if they a weren't already 720 00:50:04.880 --> 00:50:08.679 opposed to government on a moral level the way I am as a libertarian voluntariist, 721 00:50:09.039 --> 00:50:13.480 and b if they thought, well, we need something to stop the 722 00:50:13.559 --> 00:50:15.480 Nation States from fighting, because look at what we just saw, you know, 723 00:50:15.599 --> 00:50:17.760 that sort of thing. And I think a lot of the people, 724 00:50:17.800 --> 00:50:22.599 the rocket Fellers, they clearly understood how they could use that and they could 725 00:50:22.719 --> 00:50:28.119 promote that. They could promote that across a lot of spectra. So whether 726 00:50:28.199 --> 00:50:31.440 Rodenbury was a willing participant or it was just his natural outcome, I don't 727 00:50:31.440 --> 00:50:36.840 know. But it is interesting because you get people like Dry might have been 728 00:50:36.880 --> 00:50:40.519 also influenced by a lot of the political rhetoric of progressives at the time, 729 00:50:40.639 --> 00:50:50.360 because the idea that cooperation as opposed to competition might be more sensible because we 730 00:50:50.400 --> 00:50:54.119 are actually unified in the fact that we're all on I don't even want to 731 00:50:54.159 --> 00:50:58.360 go into flat earth and whatever, but you know, we're all on the 732 00:50:58.440 --> 00:51:02.440 same rock. Right, Let's call it a rock for argument's sake. We're 733 00:51:02.480 --> 00:51:05.880 all here on the same rock. We're all going to share the air. 734 00:51:05.920 --> 00:51:09.599 We're all sharing the planet, so we are actually together on a ship of 735 00:51:09.639 --> 00:51:15.079 sorts, right, So if we cooperated, we might get a lot more 736 00:51:15.119 --> 00:51:19.280 done as opposed to competing with one another and you know, slaughtering each other 737 00:51:19.320 --> 00:51:23.039 over resources. I could see how that's sensible, and I feel that way 738 00:51:23.159 --> 00:51:28.079 myself, you know, yeah, cooperation, I think, Chuck, I 739 00:51:28.119 --> 00:51:31.960 think this is part of the thing between the idealists who don't recognize that all 740 00:51:32.079 --> 00:51:37.880 forms of the polis are forced. That's the essential definition of it. Otherwise 741 00:51:37.960 --> 00:51:43.119 it's a voluntary, contractual arrangement between willing participants. In order to have the 742 00:51:43.159 --> 00:51:47.039 state the polis, somebody's got to be forced. Otherwise it's just a club 743 00:51:47.119 --> 00:51:52.039 of people getting together doing what they want, right, And that their idealism 744 00:51:52.480 --> 00:51:59.840 and their notions of everybody cooperating are actually hiding the fact that when it's done 745 00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:04.159 through world government or any nation state or anything like that, even down to 746 00:52:04.199 --> 00:52:07.519 the small level, but at least decentralization, you can escape the smaller government 747 00:52:07.519 --> 00:52:10.920 and go someplace else. Right. But the larger it is, I was 748 00:52:10.920 --> 00:52:14.599 just talking about this on my show, the larger the sphere of control, 749 00:52:14.880 --> 00:52:19.000 the more tendency there is going to be for mistakes to be made, for 750 00:52:19.039 --> 00:52:22.559 corruption to happen, and for more people to be affected by bad decisions, 751 00:52:22.719 --> 00:52:28.320 and the harder it is to escape it. So these people were sort of 752 00:52:28.320 --> 00:52:31.480 fed the idea of cooperation, and of course we saw that manifested probably to 753 00:52:31.559 --> 00:52:36.360 its apex at places like Woodstock, as all these people are rolling around in 754 00:52:36.400 --> 00:52:38.280 the mud saying like, oh, yeah, you know, world peace and 755 00:52:38.280 --> 00:52:40.079 all this stuff. Well, how are you going to get the world peace? 756 00:52:40.239 --> 00:52:44.119 Are you going to force it on people through government or not? Because 757 00:52:44.119 --> 00:52:47.280 that's not peaceful. So I think there was this weird, you know, 758 00:52:47.320 --> 00:52:54.440 this weird bifurcated thinking where the two bipolar sides never really connected with a lot 759 00:52:54.440 --> 00:53:00.400 of these idealists. At the same time, I think organizations like the Tavistocktitude, 760 00:53:00.840 --> 00:53:04.440 the Rockefellers, a lot of the people behind the UN, the EU, 761 00:53:05.000 --> 00:53:07.559 you know, they had long term plans and they knew that a lot 762 00:53:07.559 --> 00:53:14.920 of very honest, idealistic people who wanted peace could be used to portray things 763 00:53:15.039 --> 00:53:17.360 as well. We're moving towards peace. How are we doing it? Oh, 764 00:53:17.400 --> 00:53:22.840 we're establishing the United States military bases over here or over here or over 765 00:53:22.920 --> 00:53:27.840 here Oh, we're going to establish a world tax. We're gonna do this, 766 00:53:27.920 --> 00:53:30.719 We're gonna do that. I mean, the WHL is trying to do 767 00:53:30.800 --> 00:53:34.000 that with you know, for viruses. Now they're doing it with the climate. 768 00:53:34.079 --> 00:53:37.840 Mcguffin, as David Knight would say, So there's always this sort of 769 00:53:37.920 --> 00:53:40.559 you know, large percentage of people who are idealistic, and they can be 770 00:53:40.639 --> 00:53:45.719 pulled into this stuff if they don't recognize that it is immral to try to 771 00:53:45.760 --> 00:53:52.320 achieve their idealistic notions of cooperation through the force of the state. And I 772 00:53:52.360 --> 00:53:54.079 think that that's, yeah, I think that's one of the major problems. 773 00:53:54.079 --> 00:53:59.159 And these guys practically speaking, I don't think they recognize that the larger the 774 00:53:59.159 --> 00:54:01.639 state, the worst to be. You know. Well, but one could 775 00:54:01.719 --> 00:54:05.679 say that if you have an evolved state, there's a whole lot less reason 776 00:54:05.760 --> 00:54:10.039 for force because you don't you're not any longer struggling over you know. It's 777 00:54:10.480 --> 00:54:17.000 it's a it's an interesting exercise because if you remove force from the equation completely, 778 00:54:17.440 --> 00:54:23.000 okay, and you talk about only unifying to utilize force to defend the 779 00:54:23.000 --> 00:54:29.199 collective, and that's it. That's literally not such a bad principle. But 780 00:54:29.960 --> 00:54:32.679 you know again it's it's a much larger issue, but I get Look, 781 00:54:32.679 --> 00:54:36.440 if you lived through World War Two, though, you might see it this 782 00:54:36.480 --> 00:54:40.360 way. Uh, and especially because well here here's a question I have for 783 00:54:40.400 --> 00:54:44.239 you actually about about Voyager. Again, sorry to go back to it, 784 00:54:44.280 --> 00:54:46.920 but uh, you know, did did you feel bad that you didn't have 785 00:54:47.039 --> 00:54:52.920 use to Section thirty one very much through Voyager because a lot of people Okay, 786 00:54:52.920 --> 00:54:58.000 so the casual Star Trek person might not know, but uh, they 787 00:54:58.079 --> 00:55:00.679 kind of have the CIA there in the One World Government, which is really 788 00:55:00.719 --> 00:55:07.000 funny. They have Section thirty one, which all kinds of chicanery goes on 789 00:55:07.159 --> 00:55:13.119 with top secret weaponry and stuff that's supposed to be like absolutely against the different 790 00:55:13.119 --> 00:55:19.000 conventions, and it's the CIA and the Star Trek universe. Yeah, and 791 00:55:19.159 --> 00:55:22.920 out in the Delta Quadrant, you don't really have as much a need for 792 00:55:22.000 --> 00:55:25.960 a Section thirty one necessarily, So, I mean, you know, I 793 00:55:27.000 --> 00:55:30.960 thought it was great when they introduced it as early as the Enterprise series, 794 00:55:30.800 --> 00:55:35.199 which initially was not called Star Trek Enterprise was actually just called Enterprise. But 795 00:55:35.280 --> 00:55:39.800 anyhow, it h it's interesting to me that that was I mean, did 796 00:55:39.800 --> 00:55:44.480 you ever get get to even play with any of those story ideas related to 797 00:55:44.519 --> 00:55:46.960 them, or you know that idea that I had that would have wrapped up 798 00:55:46.960 --> 00:55:52.920 the Star Trek Voyager series as they came back to the Alpha Quadrant and exposed 799 00:55:52.960 --> 00:55:55.519 these bad guys. It sort of was a precursor to thirty one, Okay, 800 00:55:55.559 --> 00:56:00.000 and I didn't you know so and Enterprise, and you brought up Enterprise, 801 00:56:00.199 --> 00:56:02.280 how you know you were sort of disappointed with a little bit of Enterprise. 802 00:56:02.559 --> 00:56:06.079 I was too, And by that time I had come back home and 803 00:56:06.159 --> 00:56:08.679 I was out here with in New England with my family and stuff like that. 804 00:56:09.119 --> 00:56:14.719 What was really getting me about that was I thought the Enterprise concept showed 805 00:56:14.800 --> 00:56:19.079 amazing promise because to me, yeah, as a guy who you know, 806 00:56:19.280 --> 00:56:22.960 was interested in space travel and almost went to Cornell to study astronomy and stuff 807 00:56:23.000 --> 00:56:29.360 like that, I was just just I was hoping that Enterprise was going to 808 00:56:29.440 --> 00:56:34.480 be the most bare bones concept of interstellar travel, where if you make the 809 00:56:34.559 --> 00:56:40.320 most minute mathematical error, you could be launched off into a star, you 810 00:56:40.360 --> 00:56:44.000 know, sort of like what Han Solo says when they're going in a hyper 811 00:56:44.119 --> 00:56:47.559 hyper drive, you know you end up. So the first episode of Enterprise, 812 00:56:47.679 --> 00:56:52.400 I was hoping that what they would do is have it that they make 813 00:56:52.920 --> 00:56:55.599 a calculation error as they're trying to use the warp drive and it screws them 814 00:56:55.679 --> 00:57:00.800 up and they literally have no power and they're like dying. They're gonna either 815 00:57:00.880 --> 00:57:04.519 freeze to death or they're not going to have enough oxygen. And that's the 816 00:57:04.559 --> 00:57:08.159 story, like an Apollo thirteen type thing. So it's the adventure is brought 817 00:57:08.199 --> 00:57:15.559 back the actual area around them that the the the world, the universe around 818 00:57:15.599 --> 00:57:20.880 them, the space, the environment is the threat. So you recognize how 819 00:57:20.960 --> 00:57:24.880 dangerous space travel is because I thought by that time Voyager, even even next 820 00:57:24.880 --> 00:57:28.760 generation, it was very comfortable. You know, it was like, you 821 00:57:28.800 --> 00:57:31.360 know, oh, we got carpeted, carpeted bridge here, let's make it 822 00:57:31.440 --> 00:57:35.400 metal, Let's make it that. Yeah, we could have a leak, 823 00:57:35.599 --> 00:57:37.440 we might run out of air. How are we gonna where's our food gonna 824 00:57:37.480 --> 00:57:39.679 come from? What are we gonna do? And then I wanted to have 825 00:57:39.679 --> 00:57:44.039 another episode that I thought it would be really really cool, which would be 826 00:57:44.440 --> 00:57:51.159 that they don't have they don't have a teleportation yet and on over the course 827 00:57:51.199 --> 00:57:53.159 of the course of like the next two or three episodes, I wanted to 828 00:57:53.199 --> 00:57:59.159 have it that the folks on Earth are encountering. There's a number of people 829 00:57:59.199 --> 00:58:04.719 who are dying, and they're like high profile Federation politicians or whatever, you 830 00:58:04.760 --> 00:58:08.599 know, and they want to connect with the Balkans who have given them warp 831 00:58:08.679 --> 00:58:12.920 drive. They want you know, they want more space exploration, and they're 832 00:58:13.000 --> 00:58:15.679 dying, and it turns out they're like they're getting hemorrhages and stuff like that. 833 00:58:15.800 --> 00:58:21.559 Turns out somebody finds that there's an energy signal that every one of these 834 00:58:21.599 --> 00:58:24.800 people encountered. Somebody backtracks it right, somebody you know, with the Enterprise 835 00:58:24.840 --> 00:58:30.119 Team or whatever back on Earth, and they realize what is this? And 836 00:58:30.159 --> 00:58:34.880 they find some piece of tech that shows them that a portion of the Vulcan 837 00:58:35.000 --> 00:58:40.880 population that doesn't want contact with the human beings is assassinating people with teleportation, 838 00:58:42.079 --> 00:58:45.880 beaming air bubbles into people's heads, so their brains just explode, and there's 839 00:58:45.920 --> 00:58:50.960 basically no record of it. And now they're wondering what's going to happen next. 840 00:58:51.000 --> 00:58:53.239 Could they actually teleport a virus into people? Could they make a plague 841 00:58:53.280 --> 00:58:57.280 start? You know, so that would have been that episode, and then 842 00:58:57.320 --> 00:59:00.719 they have to work it all out, you know, ahead of your time, 843 00:59:00.760 --> 00:59:05.480 because they didn't get into all this kind of thing until Picardy. Yeah, 844 00:59:05.719 --> 00:59:08.599 And it's really it's so wild because you know, like I wrote a 845 00:59:08.639 --> 00:59:12.039 story. You might have heard me. I talked without a couple of people 846 00:59:12.039 --> 00:59:14.840 about this, like Tony Harterburn and I were talking about it. I wrote 847 00:59:14.840 --> 00:59:19.800 a story like probably eight years ago now called Whitechapel. It was a short 848 00:59:19.840 --> 00:59:23.000 story that was in an anthology, and it was about a pandemic and I 849 00:59:23.039 --> 00:59:28.280 had the six foot distancing thing, and I had the shops being shut down 850 00:59:28.880 --> 00:59:31.960 and all that stuff out there, you know, like color codings and the 851 00:59:32.119 --> 00:59:36.800 passes, you know, to make sure. So people could have looked at 852 00:59:36.840 --> 00:59:39.239 me and said, oh, you know, that's revelation of the method. 853 00:59:39.480 --> 00:59:44.280 That guy had inner knowledge, you know, the same way they might have 854 00:59:44.320 --> 00:59:49.000 looked at Gene Roddenberry. And I can tell you from from my experience with 855 00:59:49.039 --> 00:59:54.199 the writers at Outer Limits and at Voyager, I never met one person who 856 00:59:54.360 --> 00:59:59.760 was privy, just some sort of I've been handed knowledge sort of a situation. 857 01:00:00.519 --> 01:00:06.639 But I know it happens, well, it does happen. It does 858 01:00:06.679 --> 01:00:09.000 happen. And here's the thing. Look from an esoteric standpoint, and I 859 01:00:09.000 --> 01:00:12.599 don't usually go into these areas on my show, But what the hell, 860 01:00:12.679 --> 01:00:16.599 let's do it. The idea that someone has written something in fiction, though 861 01:00:17.079 --> 01:00:22.079 it's not as simple as that, is separate from reality. Once it is 862 01:00:22.119 --> 01:00:27.480 imagined and it's been fleshed out like that, it becomes part of the reality, 863 01:00:27.920 --> 01:00:32.440 whether it is physically manifested right away or not. From an esoteric point 864 01:00:32.440 --> 01:00:38.119 of view, it has been created. So the idea that someone physically manifests 865 01:00:38.119 --> 01:00:42.519 it later like old thing with the cell phones and all that kind of stuff, 866 01:00:42.559 --> 01:00:45.360 you know, with ron Berry and the tablets and look that that's collective 867 01:00:45.360 --> 01:00:50.360 effort and the idea that people were able to draw upon that. That tells 868 01:00:50.360 --> 01:00:55.159 you a little something about how I just think the creative mind in its normal 869 01:00:55.320 --> 01:01:05.199 natural state reaches into these things that indeed do uh you know, telepathy telepathically 870 01:01:05.760 --> 01:01:10.400 reach into the future. One and two are informed by that. So I 871 01:01:10.440 --> 01:01:15.039 think that there there there is something there that is not fully measurable. You 872 01:01:15.079 --> 01:01:20.559 can't put it on a scale, you can't necessarily scientifically replicated for me. 873 01:01:21.119 --> 01:01:27.239 But quite often many fictional writers create things and some people become inspired to then 874 01:01:27.599 --> 01:01:30.519 bring them into the you know, three D world and on the other hand, 875 01:01:30.840 --> 01:01:35.039 there's something else at play here, and I'm not saying that I fully 876 01:01:35.079 --> 01:01:38.840 understand it, but there is something to the idea that once the thought has 877 01:01:38.880 --> 01:01:44.280 been manifested, it does exist. Now it doesn't exist in the three D 878 01:01:44.400 --> 01:01:46.719 world yet, not necessarily, but it's on its way, you know. 879 01:01:46.800 --> 01:01:51.119 And that's kind of a yeah, you know, you know, it's funny, 880 01:01:51.199 --> 01:01:53.320 Chuck, because you bring up something that only recently have I started, 881 01:01:53.360 --> 01:01:58.599 because you know, we've been faced by so many and you brought this up 882 01:01:58.639 --> 01:02:04.880 too. We've been faced by so many contemporary real world things happening that have 883 01:02:05.039 --> 01:02:13.159 required our attention, required our devotion to exposing our communication with fellow Kindred travelers, 884 01:02:13.360 --> 01:02:15.360 and then we meet these people like you, and it's like, yeah, 885 01:02:15.360 --> 01:02:19.559 oh this is awesome, you know. And you know, brothers Kindred 886 01:02:19.599 --> 01:02:25.280 spirits. And so my fictional output actually got delayed a lot. So I've 887 01:02:25.320 --> 01:02:28.960 got like a bunch of novels, a bunch of books, but I have 888 01:02:29.119 --> 01:02:32.480 put off writing new stuff for the time because I've been writing so much nonfiction 889 01:02:32.480 --> 01:02:37.119 and doing more video stuff because the battle is upon us, you know, 890 01:02:37.159 --> 01:02:38.599 It's always sort of been there. So, like you asked about, when 891 01:02:38.599 --> 01:02:42.960 I was working at Voyager. When I was at Voyager, what I would 892 01:02:42.960 --> 01:02:49.280 do is try to subtly get in questions about large spheres of control, about 893 01:02:49.360 --> 01:02:52.199 large government, to say, you know, it's not all it's not all 894 01:02:52.280 --> 01:02:55.280 roses here. Let's let's look at some of the corruption and stuff. And 895 01:02:55.320 --> 01:02:58.400 I thought that that would be a good way to do it. I put 896 01:02:58.440 --> 01:03:02.079 in themes about the drug war. I put in a lot of different themes 897 01:03:02.119 --> 01:03:07.840 that I thought would be useful to say, no, individual liberty is key. 898 01:03:07.079 --> 01:03:10.559 You know, I always, I always trended in that direction, and 899 01:03:10.679 --> 01:03:14.639 I think you can find those teams a lot with what Brandon had to write 900 01:03:14.639 --> 01:03:17.639 as well. But what's interesting to me is now that I've gotten older, 901 01:03:19.199 --> 01:03:22.840 and you know, I can't watch a show now without knowing that I'm looking 902 01:03:22.840 --> 01:03:27.159 at it from the perspective of the camera guys and the lighting piece. Yeah, 903 01:03:27.199 --> 01:03:30.000 you just spoiled. You just spoiled My last question, you know, 904 01:03:30.039 --> 01:03:35.119 which is can you enjoy anything anymore without deconstructing it, not only as a 905 01:03:35.159 --> 01:03:38.920 professional who worked in the industry, but now as somebody who, by the 906 01:03:38.960 --> 01:03:44.840 way, is enlightened by knowing how some of these things work. On the 907 01:03:44.880 --> 01:03:47.199 other hand, and I'm wondering if you can actually enjoy any of it anymore. 908 01:03:47.480 --> 01:03:52.800 That was my next question. I'm so glad, brother, because that's 909 01:03:52.800 --> 01:03:55.480 a really for the longest time, I was very difficult to handle. I 910 01:03:55.519 --> 01:04:00.760 think there's been about a ten year period where after I came back, I 911 01:04:00.920 --> 01:04:04.920 started writing prose fiction much more. I wanted to exercise my abilities with that, 912 01:04:05.519 --> 01:04:10.119 and I wasn't doing scriptwriting because there really wasn't any use. You can't 913 01:04:10.159 --> 01:04:13.559 pitch stories from New Hampshire in LA You've got to be like amongst the people 914 01:04:13.599 --> 01:04:18.400 going to meetings. Yeah, So what was interesting about that was I couldn't 915 01:04:18.440 --> 01:04:21.679 really do that. I couldn't really enjoy just what you're saying, you know, 916 01:04:21.800 --> 01:04:25.239 because I had seen I had been on the set, you know, 917 01:04:25.320 --> 01:04:29.039 I knew that it was wood behind that, you know, and so but 918 01:04:29.079 --> 01:04:33.880 there was something that came along that I started to recognize that it's actually almost 919 01:04:33.880 --> 01:04:42.440 a greater appreciation. And that is as we've encountered these problems with the pandemic, 920 01:04:42.480 --> 01:04:46.239 and as I started to see that real metaphysical evil does exist. And 921 01:04:46.280 --> 01:04:49.360 there have been various things in my life that have confirmed to me that, 922 01:04:49.679 --> 01:04:53.920 you know, like those dreams I had about Star Trek and stuff like that. 923 01:04:54.159 --> 01:04:58.599 I met Richard Mathison's son, Richard Christian Mathison one time and we were 924 01:04:58.639 --> 01:05:00.840 talking about predictive dreams and just out of the blues, like, did you 925 01:05:01.039 --> 01:05:04.800 did you start getting predictive dreams after your car accident? I'm like, how 926 01:05:04.840 --> 01:05:06.719 did you know? I was in a car accident and you can see I 927 01:05:06.800 --> 01:05:10.519 got the scar on the side of my head. When I was eighteen, 928 01:05:10.559 --> 01:05:14.280 a lady ran a light and smashed into my car and sent my head through 929 01:05:14.280 --> 01:05:17.760 the windshield and all this stuff, and I do get these predictive dreams. 930 01:05:17.760 --> 01:05:20.920 It's very, very strange. And you know, Michael Crichton looked into this 931 01:05:20.960 --> 01:05:25.639 stuff with his book Travels, where he started to see, you know, 932 01:05:25.679 --> 01:05:29.519 these claims of the sus Sayers, he learned the tricks and then he, 933 01:05:30.239 --> 01:05:31.719 you know, he decided in the end, now there are definitely there's something 934 01:05:31.840 --> 01:05:36.360 going on beyond the veil. And then I started to realize as I started 935 01:05:36.400 --> 01:05:42.400 to teach philosophy, of course the physical can't come from the physical. The 936 01:05:42.440 --> 01:05:46.559 physical has to come, by definition, from something meta physical. And that 937 01:05:46.800 --> 01:05:51.239 led me on the course of exploring Christianity. So now what I think is 938 01:05:51.320 --> 01:05:57.760 interesting is I've gotten almost beyond that sort of frustration that you mentioned, like 939 01:05:57.840 --> 01:06:00.679 can you watch a show? Now? I think I've got a greater appreciation, 940 01:06:01.800 --> 01:06:06.320 which I wish I had gotten sooner, because remember how we talked about 941 01:06:06.360 --> 01:06:11.199 like growing up watching television. It's almost like you're hypnotized and the thinking you 942 01:06:11.239 --> 01:06:13.599 can just go do that. You know, oh, I could just go 943 01:06:13.639 --> 01:06:16.400 to La. A million other people want to just go to La. Right, 944 01:06:16.760 --> 01:06:20.159 It's not like working on the farmstand five miles from my house, which 945 01:06:20.199 --> 01:06:24.480 I did as a teenager. I could have continued to do that and married, 946 01:06:24.559 --> 01:06:27.199 had a nice life of kids and stuff like that. Right, You 947 01:06:27.360 --> 01:06:30.239 think you can do these things when you don't realize that there are impediments that 948 01:06:30.239 --> 01:06:33.719 are real world impediments out there. So some people can do it, some 949 01:06:33.760 --> 01:06:36.480 people can't. I did it for a little while, came back here. 950 01:06:36.559 --> 01:06:39.679 That sort of stuff gave up a lot of stuff, but I'm glad I 951 01:06:39.719 --> 01:06:44.840 did. Right. So what's interesting is in being exposed to that, I 952 01:06:44.960 --> 01:06:46.519 thought, oh, gee, you know, it sort of spoils it for 953 01:06:46.599 --> 01:06:50.079 me, the magic of storytelling. I used to love it so much. 954 01:06:50.679 --> 01:06:54.199 I get to spend a lot of time with my niece. We would tell 955 01:06:54.280 --> 01:06:59.000 stories that would be these eight week long epic stories with characters from Red Dwarf 956 01:06:59.159 --> 01:07:02.039 Doctor who back in time to meet Sherlock Holmes. Then we would do Sonic 957 01:07:02.079 --> 01:07:06.960 the Hedgehog stories, all these amazing tales that were it was amazing, It 958 01:07:08.039 --> 01:07:11.760 was great, and she got to see it the same way I did. 959 01:07:11.920 --> 01:07:15.639 She got to see these things that were just in her imagination. Even as 960 01:07:15.679 --> 01:07:18.760 the world around us was there and you could see it, she was seeing 961 01:07:18.760 --> 01:07:21.440 other stuff. And I'll give you a quick example, real quick. We're 962 01:07:21.480 --> 01:07:27.719 down at disney World and we were telling a Sonic the Hedgehog story in which 963 01:07:27.800 --> 01:07:34.400 Sonic had ended up finding this secret underwater base beneath a fake lake and he 964 01:07:34.559 --> 01:07:42.639 stops doctor robot Nick and um, robot not not not robot Nickum, who's 965 01:07:42.639 --> 01:07:45.719 the robot Nick or was that the creator? I can't remember anyway. Um, 966 01:07:45.800 --> 01:07:50.320 So Sonic ends up looks like he's dying. He saves the bunny girl 967 01:07:50.480 --> 01:07:56.159 that like loves him, and um, and he's purged through this water thing. 968 01:07:56.440 --> 01:07:59.679 And then we stopped it and we continued the story while we were eating 969 01:07:59.679 --> 01:08:02.840 dinner at Universal Studios in this like a little burger joint. The sun was 970 01:08:02.880 --> 01:08:05.840 setting outside. I'll never forget it that. The image of it is so 971 01:08:05.880 --> 01:08:11.360 stark in my mind. It was beautiful. I translated that sunset into the 972 01:08:11.440 --> 01:08:15.600 scene where we picked up the story and the girl Amy, the character who 973 01:08:15.640 --> 01:08:18.439 loves Sonic, and he's sort of, you know, uh, I'm a 974 01:08:18.560 --> 01:08:21.199 I'm a I'm a teenage I'm a I'm a little boy. You know. 975 01:08:21.239 --> 01:08:24.840 He has that little boy's mindset, like stay await me, cooties, you 976 01:08:24.840 --> 01:08:28.199 know, kind of thing. And he's like, I'm not interested, but 977 01:08:28.239 --> 01:08:30.840 you know, he really does love her, and so Sonic. She's out 978 01:08:30.880 --> 01:08:35.159 there and she's crying to Sonic has been lost and he rescued her. And 979 01:08:35.439 --> 01:08:42.479 she's at the shore of this lake and she sees something rippling in the water 980 01:08:42.800 --> 01:08:45.840 through this through the sunset that's just at the edge of the horizon. The 981 01:08:45.920 --> 01:08:50.199 sun is reflecting off the water. It's this beautiful orange sunset and I described 982 01:08:50.239 --> 01:08:55.640 it in a certain way, and it's Sonic and he's he's floating in the 983 01:08:55.640 --> 01:08:58.640 water. So she goes out to save him. She gives a mouth to 984 01:08:58.720 --> 01:09:00.880 mouth. It's very embarrassed seeing and stuff, and it's cute and we're just 985 01:09:00.960 --> 01:09:06.600 making up the story, right so years later I said to my niece, 986 01:09:06.640 --> 01:09:13.239 I said, Bree, you know that story, what we imagined in our 987 01:09:13.239 --> 01:09:18.279 minds, is still as clear to me as the actual sunset that we had 988 01:09:18.319 --> 01:09:21.359 outside that window of the Burger place. And she said, yeah, me 989 01:09:21.479 --> 01:09:27.720 too. And that's an amazing gift to be able to do that. And 990 01:09:27.800 --> 01:09:31.800 that is what led me to connect it to Christianity, because especially listening to 991 01:09:31.840 --> 01:09:36.840 David Knight, who's done just remarkable things and helping me understand Christianity better reading 992 01:09:36.840 --> 01:09:40.359 more of the Bible, I was already sort of there, and then I 993 01:09:40.399 --> 01:09:44.920 got much closer. And what I think is interesting is when they say that 994 01:09:45.399 --> 01:09:54.760 we are made in God's image, there is the idea of imagination that there 995 01:09:54.880 --> 01:10:00.800 is an image. So if we can recognize that every thing around us that 996 01:10:00.880 --> 01:10:04.119 we see physically, we can see this physically. If we can just use 997 01:10:04.199 --> 01:10:14.119 our imagination and imagine that the physical has to come from something we can't see 998 01:10:14.199 --> 01:10:19.880 from the metaphysical, there's this connection there to storytelling. So now I look 999 01:10:19.920 --> 01:10:25.720 at storytelling in two ways. I can still suspend disbelief, which is awesome. 1000 01:10:26.439 --> 01:10:29.479 I can still dig a story, I can still dig a plotline. 1001 01:10:29.760 --> 01:10:32.399 But I also take with me. In the end, I come back to 1002 01:10:32.479 --> 01:10:39.039 reality and say, those were people that actor Kevin sorbel doing good stuff, 1003 01:10:39.560 --> 01:10:44.279 William Shatner, you know, whoever the people might be, they're people making 1004 01:10:44.319 --> 01:10:48.239 their living. God bless them. And they've gotten up on the stage for 1005 01:10:48.239 --> 01:10:51.840 a little while. Now they've stepped aside. We'll let somebody else come in 1006 01:10:53.439 --> 01:10:58.640 do his thing, and they're going to tell these stories that hopefully they'll give 1007 01:10:58.720 --> 01:11:01.680 us moral lessons. And that's what I take from it. Everybody is given 1008 01:11:01.720 --> 01:11:08.199 this opportunity to hopefully offer us something that will give us value and let us 1009 01:11:08.279 --> 01:11:11.479 recognize that we're all human beings that have been created by God, and we're 1010 01:11:11.479 --> 01:11:16.159 telling stories that remind us imagination. We're all based on the image of God. 1011 01:11:16.600 --> 01:11:18.439 So that's sort of the way that I look at it now. And 1012 01:11:18.640 --> 01:11:21.359 I'm you know, hoping to write more stories and things like that, but 1013 01:11:21.439 --> 01:11:26.880 I'm kind of glad I'm not in LA because I would never achieve these these 1014 01:11:26.920 --> 01:11:30.960 thoughts, you know, about my life, my soul. I don't think 1015 01:11:30.960 --> 01:11:33.039 I would have. You know, well, there you have it. And 1016 01:11:33.079 --> 01:11:39.039 normally I give a little a little outro here for the discussion. But I 1017 01:11:39.079 --> 01:11:43.600 think Gardner Goldsmith did it much better than I could have, so we'll leave 1018 01:11:43.640 --> 01:11:45.960 it at that for tonight. Thank you Gardner Goldsmith for joining me, and 1019 01:11:46.000 --> 01:11:49.600 thank you guys for listening. I am merely o'celly. All of you are 1020 01:11:49.640 --> 01:11:51.479 indeed the effect. Take care,