Speaker 1: You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of
Speaker 1: sight and sound, but of mind, a journey into a
Speaker 1: wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination.
Speaker 2: That's the sign post up ahead your next snap. The
Speaker 2: Twilight's on.
Speaker 3: Last time on the Twilight Zone Podcast, we gave you
Speaker 3: a glimpse behind the curtain on Sailing First twenty twenty five,
Speaker 3: and tonight we're going to continue that journey. But before
Speaker 3: we do, we're going to have a conversation with the
Speaker 3: man who brought you these conversations, and that is my
Speaker 3: good friend, Chad Ellis Boykin, the publisher at job A
Speaker 3: House Press. Chad, welcome back to the Twilight Zone Podcast.
Speaker 2: Fantastic to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: Back, Chad. I think last time you were on the show,
Speaker 3: we were probably talking about The Twilight Zone IIQ, which
Speaker 3: you wrote, and it's an absolutely beautiful book. I think
Speaker 3: the layout and design of it is absolutely gorgeous, and
Speaker 3: of course I was mentally grateful to be asked to
Speaker 3: do the audiobook version, which is out there right now.
Speaker 3: So how's things with, you know, the whole publishing weld.
Speaker 3: You know, you published that book house the response been
Speaker 3: to it.
Speaker 2: So far, so good. You know, I read something recently
Speaker 2: someone said there's never been it's never been easier to publish,
Speaker 2: but it's also never been harder to sell, which there's
Speaker 2: so much content out there, There's so much great stuff.
Speaker 2: That's that's the challenge is just sort of getting it
Speaker 2: getting it out there. So it's kind of like that
Speaker 2: the best of the best of times and the worst
Speaker 2: of times too. But it's been a real fun journey,
Speaker 2: especially being able to do things like sirling Fest and
Speaker 2: did a couple of book fairs recently and that went
Speaker 2: really well. So I think that it's really a process
Speaker 2: of just getting in front of people, especially when you know,
Speaker 2: my buddy Chris, who did the audio for these recordings,
Speaker 2: are sort of sound engineer. He said, you know, it's
Speaker 2: hard enough to start a publishing company, and even harder
Speaker 2: than that is starting a publishing company that specializes in
Speaker 2: niche books, and you started a publishing company that's niches
Speaker 2: within niches, right, So it's like he said, you've done
Speaker 2: the hardest thing that you could possibly do, And I
Speaker 2: didn't really think of it that way. But it's really
Speaker 2: been fun. It's it's really I'm sure it's a lot
Speaker 2: like the podcast. It's like a lot of work, but
Speaker 2: it's something that feels really good to be able to
Speaker 2: create something and to when when you get that right
Speaker 2: audience or when you get those right people who are
Speaker 2: who understand it and think, oh wow, this is really
Speaker 2: something that I'm glad exists and I'm glad to have it. Really,
Speaker 2: that's really what makes it all worth it.
Speaker 3: I Mean you mentioned it there that you know, people
Speaker 3: say you can publish anything now, and maybe that is true,
Speaker 3: but to publish something with a sense of quality about it.
Speaker 3: Sometimes you get something and it just feels like it's
Speaker 3: it's just not quite right. But the Twilight Zone Hikup
Speaker 3: was a beautiful book.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: The layout that you used with the hikups on the
Speaker 3: pages was just absolutely so in tune with what that
Speaker 3: book should be that I think you really did great
Speaker 3: work there. But that was the first Twilight Zone book
Speaker 3: that you've published. What's next, What's coming out next?
Speaker 2: Well, what's next is we we just released the Twilight Rounds,
Speaker 2: which is at first just became aware of that in
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, I think on the or maybe twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: when the Sarling Fest was online. Because of COVID, and
Speaker 2: I saw that one of the Raffle prizes that was
Speaker 2: being done was this book all about Rod Serling's experience
Speaker 2: and his boxing related writing, which I was familiar with
Speaker 2: the Twilight Zone episodes, but I didn't know about all
Speaker 2: the backstory. I didn't know that he'd had experience as
Speaker 2: a boxer at the time. And that's Chris Benedict's book.
Speaker 2: So we just released that in time for Surling Fest,
Speaker 2: and we really put a lot of work into making
Speaker 2: that the best that it could be, and Benedict got
Speaker 2: some great some great forwards done by some really real
Speaker 2: heavyweights both in the boxing and in the Surling and
Speaker 2: Twilight Zone world, and we got the cover art by
Speaker 2: Korn Shadney. So we really hustled to get that ready
Speaker 2: for Serling Fest to have that ready. So that's what's
Speaker 2: that's what's new, and it's hard to believe it's been
Speaker 2: a couple of months already. So now we're working on
Speaker 2: some other projects. We're working on sort of a Kaiju
Speaker 2: hai Ku book and then a book down the road
Speaker 2: about the links between Kaiju cinema and the world of
Speaker 2: pro wrestling. So when I say Niche within Niche we're
Speaker 2: definitely still doing that, but it was an honor to
Speaker 2: work with him on that project, and it was wonderful
Speaker 2: to have that ready for serling Fest and be able
Speaker 2: to get that in front of people. And I appreciate
Speaker 2: your statements about the layout and the layout of the
Speaker 2: Haikup to Twilet It's ow Hi Kup book, because one
Speaker 2: of the things I learned this year at surling Fest
Speaker 2: was when this I think was Joseph Doherty, he had
Speaker 2: said when he was reviewing Serling scripts, there was a
Speaker 2: lot of white space on the page, that he did
Speaker 2: that intentionally because there's all these notes in the margins
Speaker 2: and these were like, these scripts were living documents, and
Speaker 2: I think having all that white space on the page
Speaker 2: really unintentionally or unknowingly really dovetailed with what Serling actually
Speaker 2: did with the scripts, which was really cool. Cool thing.
Speaker 3: I mean, just to go to the Twilight Rounds for
Speaker 3: a moment, because Chris Benedict, he's not just a Twilight
Speaker 3: Zone fan, but he is like a proper boxing kind
Speaker 3: of efficionado. He knows the sport inside and out, to
Speaker 3: the two things kind of dovetail together beautifully. But you
Speaker 3: really kind of pulled the stops out with this one,
Speaker 3: because you know, Koran Shad Me a fantastic artist. I
Speaker 3: love his Rod Sailing book. He's been on the show
Speaker 3: a while ago, you know, met him a couple of times.
Speaker 3: Really great guy. But not only is it like it
Speaker 3: just a beautiful product with the Koran Shadmy cover, But
Speaker 3: I don't think it's any secret that at the moment
Speaker 3: I'm working on the audiobook version, and I thank you
Speaker 3: for that inviting me to do it. This just seems
Speaker 3: like a really great melding of people who have all
Speaker 3: kind of come together in this modern kind of Twilight
Speaker 3: Zone world. You've got you know, yourself as the publisher.
Speaker 3: You've got Chris as the writer, Koren shod Me doing
Speaker 3: the cover. You've got Uncommon Nasa, who is a great
Speaker 3: friend of the show, a great friend of mine, doing
Speaker 3: the kind of intro and outro music to the audio book.
Speaker 3: And then you know, gratefully, I am doing the audiobook myself.
Speaker 3: So I think it's it's just a wonderful testament to
Speaker 3: how Rod Serling's work just keeps inspiring people and keeps
Speaker 3: bringing people together, you know, oh.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent, And like if if you can't get
Speaker 2: Rod Serling to read the book. Then then you got
Speaker 2: to get Tom Elliott because I really you really have
Speaker 2: become the voice, the modern voice of this. And to
Speaker 2: be able to get NASA on the project too is
Speaker 2: just a real, real, incredible get. He actually had a
Speaker 2: I think a CD of Twilight is Own inspired music
Speaker 2: a few years ago.
Speaker 3: I think Minke swimming Pools.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Minke swimming Pools. And so having him attached
Speaker 2: is just amazing. And I think the work, the song
Speaker 2: that we were able to work with him to get
Speaker 2: is just such a perfect fit for the project. So
Speaker 2: it's really cool to be able to do the audio version.
Speaker 2: I think this is really going to be a standout,
Speaker 2: and I appreciate your being willing to do it because
Speaker 2: I know that your hands are full, just like me.
Speaker 2: You've got a day job and then you've got this.
Speaker 2: You record all these podcasts, You've done a series of
Speaker 2: audio books, so you it's not like you've got a
Speaker 2: whole lot of time on your hands. So it's it's
Speaker 2: greatly appreciated that you're able to make the time to
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 3: I'm glad to mine. I'm glad to I mean, this
Speaker 3: is this is road sailing This is the Twilight zur
Speaker 3: and I think anytime we can put our stamp on
Speaker 3: or get involved with it, I think it's it's very
Speaker 3: wealthy stuff to do. So time on the Twilight Zone podcast,
Speaker 3: we presented a bunch of interviews that you did with
Speaker 3: your friend Chris at sailing Fest. It seems like the
Speaker 3: time is taken away now, sailing Fest seems like a
Speaker 3: while ago. Both interesting people are interesting people, whether they
Speaker 3: recorded two months ago or ten minutes ago. So how
Speaker 3: was sailing Fest for you in twenty twenty five?
Speaker 2: Sirling Fest is always a great adventure, and I think
Speaker 2: there was somebody who on the chat was mentioning they
Speaker 2: were thinking about going for the first time. And I
Speaker 2: think more than one person said, you know, you can
Speaker 2: go to the big you know San Diego Comic Con
Speaker 2: or the Galaxy comm these things where you know you
Speaker 2: might be around ten or twenty thousand people with all
Speaker 2: kinds of things going on. But you know, in those
Speaker 2: environments you might pay two hundred dollars to spend five
Speaker 2: seconds with somebody, right Whereas with serling Fest, it is
Speaker 2: a it's a niche festival or convention, and it's it's
Speaker 2: incredible that we have it, because you really do get
Speaker 2: to spend time with the authors and the scholars and
Speaker 2: the people who are producing the new, the new, the
Speaker 2: new content that's carrying on this legacy, and you really
Speaker 2: get a hands on and an in depth experience there.
Speaker 2: So it's it's it's always a pleasure, and it's been
Speaker 2: different every time. And I remember last year you had mentioned,
Speaker 2: you know, lugging some audio equipment and wanting to do
Speaker 2: some recording for the show, but you got really sick
Speaker 2: and you had to muscle through to do your presentation
Speaker 2: and it was it was so rough. So I thought
Speaker 2: this year you weren't able to cross the pond, and
Speaker 2: you know, Emmy and Zach and a lot of the people,
Speaker 2: you know, Harold weren't weren't able to make it this year.
Speaker 2: And I just had this idea that I pitched to Chris,
Speaker 2: who was our audio engineer, and the guy's a genius,
Speaker 2: and I said, you know what if we could just
Speaker 2: do some interview and capture people and send it, you know,
Speaker 2: for the podcast. And said, yeah, let's do it. And
Speaker 2: so it gave us a challenge, but it was it
Speaker 2: was it really was a highlight to be able to
Speaker 2: do these interviews and it it it's a unique challenge,
Speaker 2: but it was a lot of fun and it gave
Speaker 2: us an opportunity to talk to people and get some
Speaker 2: sort of new material that it's yeah, so so really
Speaker 2: glad to be able to do that.
Speaker 3: Just to kind of peek behind the curtain kind of
Speaker 3: literally in this case. But at the last Sailing Fest,
Speaker 3: I was where I was on stage and I gave
Speaker 3: a presentation and so on, and I've said that a
Speaker 3: million times. I don't want to hop on about it,
Speaker 3: but I was just sick as anything, and literally before
Speaker 3: I went on, I was kind of a crumpled mess
Speaker 3: behind the curtain, you know, to the left of stage,
Speaker 3: and you were kind of looking after me. And I'm
Speaker 3: so appreciative of that because I was literally just sat
Speaker 3: in a chair, you know, barely able to do anything,
Speaker 3: never mind go out on stage and do a presentation.
Speaker 3: But you were like, do you want me to get
Speaker 3: you some water? Do you want me to say? You know,
Speaker 3: do this?
Speaker 2: Do that?
Speaker 3: And and I really appreciate it because you know, I
Speaker 3: went out there and I did it. It was fine.
Speaker 3: I wish I could have done better if I wasn't
Speaker 3: so sick, but I always appreciate that before that I
Speaker 3: had you behind the scenes kind of prop on me up.
Speaker 3: So thank you man.
Speaker 2: Well, you had a whole team, if I remember, I
Speaker 2: remember Emmy, and there was there was there was a
Speaker 2: lot of concern because it was it was pretty rough.
Speaker 2: But I'll tell you, I think the people in the audience,
Speaker 2: I don't think anybody knew. I don't think anybody knew
Speaker 2: that you were under the weather or how much it
Speaker 2: took to be on the stage. I mean, you were
Speaker 2: a true professional in that presentation. I'll tell you. The
Speaker 2: hardest part about it was I had to follow you
Speaker 2: and everybody left the auditorium to get to see you
Speaker 2: because it was like the Beatles were in town. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't think anybody there knew that how much it took,
Speaker 2: but it was inspiring to see that kind of like
Speaker 2: determination and professionalism at work. And so yeah, I don't
Speaker 2: think anybody knew it. I don't think it could have
Speaker 2: gone any better.
Speaker 3: Thank you man, Thank you. So my plan always was
Speaker 3: that I would try and get interviews with everybody at
Speaker 3: sailling first, and obviously I was too sick to do it.
Speaker 3: But this time, you and Chris stepped up and you
Speaker 3: did it, and I just want to kind of pay tribute, really,
Speaker 3: because it's not as easy as all that. It's not
Speaker 3: as easy as just kind of ten and up and
Speaker 3: doing this. You really need to be on your game.
Speaker 3: You need to have your stuff ready to go for
Speaker 3: when you get a chance to speak with these people.
Speaker 3: So it kind of becomes the whole focus of your day.
Speaker 3: You know, you can't really really relax when you're doing
Speaker 3: something like that. So I want to thank you and
Speaker 3: Chris for doing it and getting these great interviews for
Speaker 3: the show. Was the you know, any standouts for you
Speaker 3: in terms of the people that you spoke to.
Speaker 2: You know, it's going to sound it's going to sound odd,
Speaker 2: but really every single interview was a standout, And I mean,
Speaker 2: there were there were some people that I was really
Speaker 2: looking forward to speaking with. I mean, and there was
Speaker 2: a lot of buzz about the new documentary that's happening,
Speaker 2: and to be able to get a few minutes with
Speaker 2: Joanah Tullis, the director of that was was fantastic. But
Speaker 2: truly everybody had something unique, and every interview was this
Speaker 2: like living dynamic catches catch can kind of thing and
Speaker 2: there were a few people that I wanted to speak to,
Speaker 2: but like you said, it's it's it's kind of chaos,
Speaker 2: and you sort of can catch who you can. But yeah,
Speaker 2: everybody brought something unique to the table and every conversation.
Speaker 2: Listening back to it last week was really special because
Speaker 2: I'd sort of, you know, you do it, and you didn't.
Speaker 2: I hadn't listened back to any of them, so yeah,
Speaker 2: it was. It was amazing to get this diverse range
Speaker 2: of people who were all all inspired by the same figure,
Speaker 2: and just the range of you know, being coolly on
Speaker 2: NPR professors, authors, documentarians. You know, I think Mary Kate,
Speaker 2: who made the hats and was a first time vendor,
Speaker 2: her energy was was just amazing and inspiring. And you know,
Speaker 2: you make this long drive, I'll tell you the real
Speaker 2: one of the real magic tricks as we turned a
Speaker 2: nine hour drive into a fifteen hour drive because I
Speaker 2: missed a few exits and I'm not the best navigator
Speaker 2: in the world. But you know, you're pretty spent your shot.
Speaker 2: You've traveled. But once you get there, the energy of
Speaker 2: the people and all of these incredible, unique people just
Speaker 2: it sort of gives you that adrenaline and inspiration and yeah,
Speaker 2: the whole thing was pretty remarkable.
Speaker 3: I'm going to say here and now that you know
Speaker 3: there is going to be an in person sailing fest
Speaker 3: next year, I am hoping to go. There's a couple
Speaker 3: of things that need to line up for that to
Speaker 3: happen that I'm hoping that they do. So I'm going
Speaker 3: to try and start the buzz early. And if I
Speaker 3: can go, I mean, whether I can go or not,
Speaker 3: then people should go. But if I can go, I've
Speaker 3: said that a million times. I just love meeting people
Speaker 3: there and connecting with people who listen to the podcast,
Speaker 3: connecting to people who are Twilight owned fans, road sailing fans,
Speaker 3: and I just feel that when you are there, you're
Speaker 3: truly with your tribe, you know, and it's it's a
Speaker 3: feeling like no other. So what what is sailing Fest
Speaker 3: to you?
Speaker 2: Chat surling Fest? I think we're so fortunate to have
Speaker 2: it and every every I've gone three times and each
Speaker 2: time has been completely different. The first time in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: I went and I got to experience it from the
Speaker 2: audience and listening to all the presentations and meeting the
Speaker 2: people and going through that vendors room, and just being surrounded.
Speaker 2: You know, they have this beautiful old theater that this
Speaker 2: is held in. Just being in that theater is incredible
Speaker 2: by itself. And then the second time I went, it
Speaker 2: was the first year I was in the dealer's room
Speaker 2: and I was presenting, you know, on the stage, and
Speaker 2: that was a whole different experience. And this year, this
Speaker 2: year was all about the Twilight rounds, getting you know,
Speaker 2: getting that ready for the for the festival and setting
Speaker 2: up you know, the book signing at the Barnes and
Speaker 2: Noble in Vestal. They've let us generously let us have
Speaker 2: to you know, tie in surling Fest book signings and
Speaker 2: author events at that Barnes and Noble investible to invest
Speaker 2: two years in a row getting that coordinated, getting all
Speaker 2: the authors there, and then this year doing the audio
Speaker 2: and getting this sort of audio documentary done was so
Speaker 2: each year has been completely different. But it's I guess
Speaker 2: if I had to put it into one word, that
Speaker 2: word would be magic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's definitely a magic about it. You know, it
Speaker 3: really is a great feeling. So, you know, fingers crossed Man,
Speaker 3: next year, I want to be there. I want I
Speaker 3: hope you'll be there because I'm not sure we've actually
Speaker 3: had a drink yet. Chat you know, we've kind of
Speaker 3: we we cross paths in various ways while we're there,
Speaker 3: but I think we just need to sit down and
Speaker 3: have a drink and take this all in because it's
Speaker 3: it's truly a magical time, I think. So next time,
Speaker 3: we've got to do it.
Speaker 2: Man, we've been talking about that drink for years and yeah,
Speaker 2: it's always escaped us. But I'm having one right now,
Speaker 2: so I'll let that cat out of the bag.
Speaker 3: Okay, there you go, have a nice golden delight on
Speaker 3: the air. Okay, so let's let's go over to some
Speaker 3: of the interviews that you recorded a sailing Fest this
Speaker 3: year and we will catch you on the other side.
Speaker 2: Well, thanks so much, And I think this round there's
Speaker 2: some of the actual producers and people who make Surling
Speaker 2: Fest happen, and I've definitely gotten an appreciation for all
Speaker 2: the work they put in, like Tony and Nick Parisi
Speaker 2: and just the work that goes into this is tremendous.
Speaker 2: So it's I hope everybody enjoys this and it was
Speaker 2: a pleasure to do it. I'm here with Jeff and
Speaker 2: Andrew Serling, members of the Sterling family here at Surling
Speaker 2: Fest twenty twenty five. How are you doing.
Speaker 4: We're good, We're good. Thanks for thanks for having us.
Speaker 2: Absolutely And so this year is twenty twenty five. Is
Speaker 2: Rod Serling in his own words? How do you feel
Speaker 2: about that? That? That theme?
Speaker 4: It was good.
Speaker 5: We you know, we try to give a different theme
Speaker 5: to the to the Surling Fest each year. This year
Speaker 5: seemed really kind of you know, pushed onto rather than
Speaker 5: you know, us talking about what's going on in the
Speaker 5: world and what you know, you know, kind of the
Speaker 5: pulse of everything that's going on is really giving an
Speaker 5: opportunity to people hear from Rodd's earling, you know, in
Speaker 5: his own words. So a lot of speeches, a lot
Speaker 5: of his writings, and a lot of his works just
Speaker 5: really coming out less of the twilight zones and the
Speaker 5: night galleries and all that, and really more of the
Speaker 5: speeches and the things that he talked about from other places.
Speaker 2: And that's wonderful because we know he put a lot
Speaker 2: of messages into his shows and episodes, but this is
Speaker 2: just direct, you know, his his speeches. And is there
Speaker 2: anyone in particular that you're fond of did you have
Speaker 2: sort of input on what was selected.
Speaker 5: Well, it's part of the We have a committee that
Speaker 5: puts this together. So as part of the committee, we
Speaker 5: we had a lot of different ones we worked with
Speaker 5: and that we looked at the Library of Congress. One
Speaker 5: is always one that resonates with everybody, the one that
Speaker 5: Mark Mark Hallshaker did this morning, simply because when you
Speaker 5: listen to the words of it, it could have been
Speaker 5: done in nineteen sixty eight, it could have been done
Speaker 5: two weeks ago, and the words resonate just years later.
Speaker 4: So I think that was probably one of my favorites.
Speaker 2: And I just love that this so infest just really does.
Speaker 2: He never felt like his work would go on, but
Speaker 2: in fact, his work has gone on. It's it's one
Speaker 2: of the most He is one of the most vaunted
Speaker 2: and respected writers of all time, and this is really
Speaker 2: a way to just keep his legacy alife. Do you
Speaker 2: feel like this is doing just that?
Speaker 4: I think so.
Speaker 5: And I think the more people we bring in that
Speaker 5: have been influenced by Rod Serling, I think really kind
Speaker 5: of you know, gives you the opportunity to really see
Speaker 5: the impact that he made, not just in pop culture,
Speaker 5: but you know, the industry of writers themselves. And you
Speaker 5: hear about, you know, whether a writer has been inspired
Speaker 5: or a TV producer or a showrunner and all the inspirations.
Speaker 5: Just getting the people that we got here in Joe
Speaker 5: Dougherty and Frank Spotnitz and David b and Coldy and
Speaker 5: you know, just hearing their stories about the impact that
Speaker 5: Rod made on them throughout their entire career.
Speaker 4: David said it best.
Speaker 5: I think he was talking yesterday, or maybe it was Joe,
Speaker 5: but they were basically saying that so many people didn't
Speaker 5: know what TV writers were until they heard Rod Serly's name,
Speaker 5: and he was really the first identifiable person that they
Speaker 5: that they could connect with. Before that, TV writers were
Speaker 5: a lot of times people you think, in the back
Speaker 5: rooms and they were doing all the writing and stuff.
Speaker 5: But suddenly there was this personality and this person that
Speaker 5: came out on the screen. But it was also just
Speaker 5: an amazing writer. And I think that was a big
Speaker 5: part of his popularity, is the fact that he was
Speaker 5: not only an incredible writer, an incredible person, but also
Speaker 5: you know, kind of an on screen persona people can
Speaker 5: see him and they recognize him, and you know, it
Speaker 5: just kind of made him stand out a little bit differently.
Speaker 2: And what stands out, especially today, is that you know,
Speaker 2: Rod Serling was front and center as the host and
Speaker 2: the narrator and the writer. But it wasn't about him.
Speaker 2: It wasn't it wasn't about no furthering his own ego.
Speaker 2: It was always about bigger things for him.
Speaker 4: It was always about the words on the page. It
Speaker 4: always was.
Speaker 5: I think the fact that he was on screen added
Speaker 5: to the credibility and added to the kind of the
Speaker 5: lore that has made this last a lot longer. There
Speaker 5: have been some amazing TV writers, but sometimes you don't
Speaker 5: know what they look like, you don't know what their
Speaker 5: personalities are like. But he was one of those people
Speaker 5: that just simply stood out above everybody. And even though
Speaker 5: they were amazing writers all during the time period that
Speaker 5: he was producing The Toilet Zone, you still, you know,
Speaker 5: you identified with him, You could connect with him because
Speaker 5: you saw him, you knew him, and it was just
Speaker 5: it was an amazing thing he was able to accomplish
Speaker 5: in a day that writers didn't go on screen, writers
Speaker 5: didn't didn't go in front of their you know, writers
Speaker 5: were at the host of TV shows.
Speaker 4: But you know, he pulled off something that no one
Speaker 4: had ever done before.
Speaker 2: You know, and it's being here in Binghamton. Had said
Speaker 2: that no one can be a profit in their own hometown,
Speaker 2: and I think, you know, the sort of message of
Speaker 2: that is when you're in your own hometown, maybe people
Speaker 2: see you differently than the aggrandizement or But when I'm
Speaker 2: here in Binghamton, I feel like everybody that I meet
Speaker 2: has something that they're just as in all all of
Speaker 2: Rod Serling as everybody that didn't even grow up here
Speaker 2: around him. I mean, what do you.
Speaker 5: Think it's It's an interesting upstate New York, the whole area.
Speaker 5: So when you're talking to Syracuse and Ithaca and Inner
Speaker 5: Lake and Binghamton, there's just there's a there's a presence
Speaker 5: up here and people, you know, they found this person
Speaker 5: that that was relatable and it's one of their own,
Speaker 5: and you know, they talk about the homegrown kid that
Speaker 5: made good in life, and he was just simply one
Speaker 5: of those people that Binghamton has had a lot of,
Speaker 5: you know, people that have come out of there, but
Speaker 5: Rod Serling is kind of the child of Bampton, and
Speaker 5: I think it just resonates with people throughout throughout the community.
Speaker 5: You see it in the number of people that come
Speaker 5: out here and are telling their stories. And for you know,
Speaker 5: doing this as many years as I have, I have
Speaker 5: people that come in and some of the people that
Speaker 5: have been living in Binghamton for years and years and
Speaker 5: years would tell me, hey, do you have your grandmother's
Speaker 5: pickle recipe? Because when when my grandfather had a deli,
Speaker 5: my grandmother made pickles. I didn't even know my grandmother
Speaker 5: made pickles. But you know, you find these people in
Speaker 5: the community that just you know, tell you all these
Speaker 5: stories about Rod and my dad and you know, and
Speaker 5: my grandparents all living here and you know, being on
Speaker 5: Bennett and what parts of the community they are, and
Speaker 5: it just it just you know, like I said, it
Speaker 5: kind of warms your heart knowing that this is really
Speaker 5: like a second home for a lot of a lot
Speaker 5: of us in this Earling family. This is this is
Speaker 5: a second.
Speaker 2: Home for us. And yesterday at the book signing, Chris
Speaker 2: Benedict met someone who said, oh, yeah, you know Rod
Speaker 2: Serling Box at the y m c A. He trained
Speaker 2: there and he worked out. There's just one of a
Speaker 2: kind to be in a place where you can have
Speaker 2: that kind of insight, you know, just from people around.
Speaker 2: And so it's amazing to be here, and last year
Speaker 2: was the big statue unveiling and I think we've h
Speaker 2: he has would be surprised at how much his legacy
Speaker 2: has UH has influenced the world.
Speaker 4: Would be the first one to say, I don't know
Speaker 4: how he would react to this, but.
Speaker 5: I think he would be floored that that he's that
Speaker 5: we're doing festivals for him, you know, years later and
Speaker 5: you know, you know, celebrate his hundredth birthday last year
Speaker 5: and erecting a statue. I mean, these are things I
Speaker 5: don't think anybody really looks to and inspires to in life.
Speaker 5: But he made an impact. He made an impact on
Speaker 5: nearly everyone he worked with everyone, He touched every person
Speaker 5: that's looked at his work.
Speaker 4: He's made that impact.
Speaker 5: On people, and I think that that's you know, that's
Speaker 5: something that you know, we all can kind of aspire to.
Speaker 2: At some point. Absolutely, And with this, this is going
Speaker 2: out to a podcast that's hosted in Liverpool, England, is
Speaker 2: worldwide and any last thoughts for for the for the
Speaker 2: listeners of maybe what's coming down the road or any
Speaker 2: ideas you've got for future events or.
Speaker 5: Well we're always looking for you know, you know, Surling
Speaker 5: Fest is one of those things that we're always looking
Speaker 5: for ideas and you know, we we we scoured to
Speaker 5: find you know, new and unique ways of presenting this,
Speaker 5: and you know, we never want this to get old
Speaker 5: and stale where people will say, hey, you know what
Speaker 5: I did that last year. We want Surling Fest to
Speaker 5: be always an everything as Wow, they're doing this and
Speaker 5: look at who they've brought in, look at this new
Speaker 5: perspective and you know, the boxing perspective last year, the
Speaker 5: haikups that we brought and all the things that we
Speaker 5: do that are just just.
Speaker 4: That are different.
Speaker 5: People come up with new ways to honor and tribute
Speaker 5: Rod Sterling, and we want to make sure we're identifying
Speaker 5: those type of artists and the new writers and the
Speaker 5: you know, the people that have found influence and talk
Speaker 5: to people you know that have been influenced by him
Speaker 5: throughout the industry and bring them in and let them
Speaker 5: tell their stories. It's you know, I think that's really
Speaker 5: the goal through Surling Fest is really just not not
Speaker 5: to promote just the work and the twilight Zone, but
Speaker 5: it's really just you know, to show the man and
Speaker 5: to have the family come in and give you the
Speaker 5: opportunity to meet, you know, all the people that have
Speaker 5: been involved in his life.
Speaker 4: I think that's always probably the most important thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like the Twilight Zoners. Just the door you
Speaker 2: walk through and there's so much more on the other side.
Speaker 4: There's more on the other side, just walk through that door.
Speaker 2: Well, this is wonderful. Thank you so much for to
Speaker 2: speak with both of you. And yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: absolutely ask the question. Yeah, now, I'm thinking that Rod
Speaker 2: Sterling was kind of punk rock before punk rock was
Speaker 2: punk rock? What do you think?
Speaker 6: Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, there was lots of like
Speaker 6: music in the Twilight Zone, and I'm sure he loved
Speaker 6: like punk rock as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And so what's been your experience, I mean,
Speaker 2: you've been I've seen you around. I've been to three
Speaker 2: of these and I always see her. What's how has
Speaker 2: this changed and evolved for you?
Speaker 6: Well, it's interesting hearing about like like his life, and
Speaker 6: I love hearing all the people's stories about how Rod
Speaker 6: impacted them. It was really cool.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Do you have any particular favorites, favorite works that he
Speaker 2: did or things that inspired you.
Speaker 6: Well, I do have a favorite Twilight Zone episode. It's
Speaker 6: it's timing to fit last and I loved the character
Speaker 6: and not the main character because he he met me,
Speaker 6: have my my grandpa. Yeah, so I decided to rep
Speaker 6: this Shart because it's my favorite episode.
Speaker 2: Yeah so your favorite character was Henry Beamish, Yeah, that
Speaker 2: was That was actually the episode that got me hoped
Speaker 2: when I was a kid. It was nice. It got
Speaker 2: me because I thought, you know, this, this person's the hero,
Speaker 2: he's the Protagonistbody's yelling at him. Yeah, he's the underdog.
Speaker 2: But then the universe sticks it to him. Right, It's
Speaker 2: like what But but it felt like he was telling
Speaker 2: me the truth. Yeah, it felt like he was telling
Speaker 2: me the truth like TV shows the happy ending and
Speaker 2: stuff like. It felt it felt that felt really like
Speaker 2: he was willing to.
Speaker 5: Now that's probably one of the out of all of
Speaker 5: his writings is everybody can see themselves in so many
Speaker 5: of the characters, whether it's you know, whether it's Henry
Speaker 5: Beamis or you know, really anybody. There's there's always there's
Speaker 5: there's there's good, there's evil, there's protagonists, there's antagonists, but
Speaker 5: there's they're relatable characters, and you know they're they're not
Speaker 5: people that you know, are the beyond the everyday man.
Speaker 5: They are really just people that you know, at some
Speaker 5: point you find something in yourself in some character in
Speaker 5: the Twilight Zone.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, that's that's wonderful. We've got the same favorite episode.
Speaker 4: I love that mine is Out to See a Flight
Speaker 4: thirty three. I love that one. That's that's the one
Speaker 4: that my dad and Rod collaborated on.
Speaker 2: Oh I didn't know that, dude. Oh yeah, tell me
Speaker 2: about collaboration.
Speaker 5: So I wrote about this in one of the newsletters
Speaker 5: that we did for the foundation, But uh, do we
Speaker 5: have time for It's a little bit of a long story,
Speaker 5: but so, uh, my dad and Rod were in California
Speaker 5: and Rod went into his office and he was picking
Speaker 5: up a bunch of mail and they had a mock
Speaker 5: up in an advertisement for a like a seven oh seven,
Speaker 5: uh you know jet that you could use for filming.
Speaker 5: And so my dad had horrible eyesight and he was
Speaker 5: not a very great driver. But Rod tossed him the
Speaker 5: keys to one of his brand new cars. He says,
Speaker 5: you drive, I have an idea. I want to think
Speaker 5: about something. That's where it was kind of born from.
Speaker 5: And Rod was talking. Rod was talking about, Hey, well
Speaker 5: would happened if there was a plane and it picked
Speaker 5: up like a freak tailwind, and that tailwind moved him
Speaker 5: back in time. And so he was talking to my
Speaker 5: dad about this, and my dad you know, kind of
Speaker 5: got you know, kind of interested in it, and Rod said,
Speaker 5: I really want to make this authentic, So I really
Speaker 5: want you to help me with the cockpit dialogue to
Speaker 5: make it very accurate. And many pilots who listen to
Speaker 5: it at the time said it was one of the
Speaker 5: more accurate portrayals of cockpit dialogue. If you go back
Speaker 5: and listen to the episode when the pilots and the
Speaker 5: copots are talking to each other, they say that that's
Speaker 5: that was the part that my dad kind of wrote
Speaker 5: with The funny part of the story is years and
Speaker 5: years later it became very much like the Serling fish
Speaker 5: story because the fish got bigger. First, it was a
Speaker 5: collaboration and he got a consultant's credit on the on
Speaker 5: the episode, and it was one of the ones that
Speaker 5: they worked on together. But then over the course of
Speaker 5: you know, by the time my dad was in his nineties,
Speaker 5: he co wrote the episode. It was one of those
Speaker 5: things where he just you know that the fish story
Speaker 5: just got bigger and bigger. The amount of participation he
Speaker 5: put in it, but you know, they were able to
Speaker 5: collaborate together. They had such an amazing relationship as brothers,
Speaker 5: and you know it's something that you know, I have
Speaker 5: two sons as well, so putting them in a relationship
Speaker 5: where they have, you know, hopefully the type of relationship
Speaker 5: that my dad and Rod is something that I've worked
Speaker 5: on as a father, and you know, I hope that
Speaker 5: they have the relationship.
Speaker 4: That they did.
Speaker 5: But it was it was a cool story and having
Speaker 5: the two of them worked together on a twilet so
Speaker 5: so honestly, a fly thirty three If when you go
Speaker 5: to the statue, you'll see that the odyssey of Flight
Speaker 5: thirty three is what we put in our brick. Yeah,
Speaker 5: so that's that's the one that we did, and Flight
Speaker 5: thirty three Forever was kind of our family model that
Speaker 5: we did for all the bricks. We did a brick
Speaker 5: for my family, my wife and my two sons, and
Speaker 5: we decided we wanted to do a brick for my grandparents,
Speaker 5: so they have a brick there and then my mom
Speaker 5: and dad we put a brick for them as well,
Speaker 5: and they all have the Flight thirty three se.
Speaker 4: Theme on it.
Speaker 2: That is beautiful and the big Fish story. I mean,
Speaker 2: the older I get, the better I was.
Speaker 5: Right, that's exactly correct. But it was so much fun.
Speaker 5: And I don't think you ever got a chance to
Speaker 5: meet my dad. But like I said, he was a character.
Speaker 5: And you know, so much of the two of them
Speaker 5: in terms of being brothers and how they worked with
Speaker 5: each other and how they supported each other is exactly
Speaker 5: how we all hope to raise our kids someday, because
Speaker 5: they just had this amazing relationship through life and it
Speaker 5: was really.
Speaker 4: Cool to see.
Speaker 2: But you had so many stories growing.
Speaker 5: Up of Dad had a lot of stories. Rod died
Speaker 5: when I was two, So like I said, there are
Speaker 5: definitely some some pictures of me and we'd go down
Speaker 5: to the cottage at kug all the time. But h
Speaker 5: but like I said, some of Dad's stories are just
Speaker 5: things that they did were just incredible, and like I said,
Speaker 5: it's you know, it's the type of thing that you know,
Speaker 5: this is why we like to come to curling fast
Speaker 5: and tell stories and get people to understand that.
Speaker 4: You know, Rod Surly was more than the guy in
Speaker 4: front of the television.
Speaker 5: He was he was he was a father, husband, you know,
Speaker 5: a friend and you know, anybody who met him probably
Speaker 5: has more stories that are funny than stories about his writing.
Speaker 4: It's just that's the type of guy he was.
Speaker 2: Well, I can tell you like to live on the edge.
Speaker 2: Because you got somebody with bad eyesight and you throw
Speaker 2: them your car.
Speaker 4: Keys, you'r got shocked.
Speaker 5: It was a brand new car too. That was the
Speaker 5: one thing my dad used to say. The only thing
Speaker 5: he was ever jealous is Rod had a new car
Speaker 5: like every other year, just because he was he was
Speaker 5: able to and so and Rod loved collecting cars. And
Speaker 5: you know, my grandfather loved it too, I mean so
Speaker 5: much so that he bought for the house in Bennett's.
Speaker 4: Which if you've ever driven by there is a really
Speaker 4: small one.
Speaker 5: He bought like a like an osmobile that barely fit,
Speaker 5: so they couldn't get their bikes in. So my grandfather
Speaker 5: built a Pulley system so that when they rode their bikes,
Speaker 5: it would go on a ramp up above the car
Speaker 5: and that they could move their bikes around and then
Speaker 5: get them down again.
Speaker 4: So that was something that he did.
Speaker 5: Because he had such a huge car, there was no
Speaker 5: way to get off to the side.
Speaker 2: You couldn't get the bikes in Oh, that's incredible. So
Speaker 2: I'm almost thinking of like et the bike lifting off
Speaker 2: the ground.
Speaker 5: Of It's kind of well, my grandfather was a was
Speaker 5: an aspiring engineer.
Speaker 4: He always wanted to be an engineer, so he was
Speaker 4: always tinkering with things.
Speaker 5: And so my dad used to tell a lot of
Speaker 5: different stories about things my grandfather built or things that
Speaker 5: he was able to work on. He worked on the
Speaker 5: panel and he and my grandmother were worked on the
Speaker 5: Panama Canal. I don't know if people know that. Oh,
Speaker 5: that's amazing. Yeah, yeah, and my grandmother were I believe
Speaker 5: they were part of the Peace Corps. But they worked
Speaker 5: on the Panama Canal in the mid nineteen or nineteen sixteen,
Speaker 5: nineteen seventeen, they came back because she was pregnant having
Speaker 5: with my dad, and.
Speaker 4: They came back.
Speaker 5: And if you go to Ellis Island, which we went
Speaker 5: to New York a couple of years ago before surling Fest,
Speaker 5: you can see their entry back into the US from Panama.
Speaker 5: So you can go look up the Surlings, and you
Speaker 5: can go look up Sam and Ester and when they
Speaker 5: came back into the US.
Speaker 4: So it's kind of cool.
Speaker 2: That is absolutely amazing. Yeah, Well, it's great to great
Speaker 2: to meet you, and I think this has been a wonderful,
Speaker 2: wonderful interview and I look forward to seeing you again absolutely.
Speaker 4: Thank you, appreciate it, thank you, good to see it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I am here with Tony Albarella. Surling Fest twenty twenty five. Tony,
Speaker 2: how's it going this year?
Speaker 8: Great chat, Great to see you again. We had a
Speaker 8: great time last year doing the book signing together and
Speaker 8: then sirling Fest and doing it all over again this year.
Speaker 2: It's nice to have you with us. Absolutely. So this
Speaker 2: year's theme is Serling, Rod Serling in his own words.
Speaker 2: Can you tell me a little bitout how that theme.
Speaker 8: Can just developed as a theme because we definitely wanted to.
Speaker 8: I mean, we always present the that wrote things that
Speaker 8: Rod said, but we wanted to really do an extra
Speaker 8: special focus this year just on his so much of
Speaker 8: what he did in speeches and what he did in
Speaker 8: interviews because the man, you know, everybody has access to
Speaker 8: the stuff that he wrote, the stuff that was produced.
Speaker 8: They can determine his voice and his politics and everything
Speaker 8: else from what he wrote. But in particular, he was
Speaker 8: such an intellectual man. He's such a well spoken man.
Speaker 8: It's a grate vocabulary and such a wonderful interview subject
Speaker 8: that we really wanted to focus on some of his
Speaker 8: non filmed work and bring that out for people who
Speaker 8: might not be familiar with it.
Speaker 2: And it seems like an unofficial theme is sort of
Speaker 2: like Serlings. How relevant Serling's work is today and for
Speaker 2: what's happened.
Speaker 8: I think that just kind of generated organically because this
Speaker 8: stuff that he wrote is kind of is kind of timeless.
Speaker 8: There's a lot of it that, you know, like Michael
Speaker 8: I said in an interview last night for The Loaner,
Speaker 8: he was writing about eighteen sixty five and the Civil
Speaker 8: War and the divisive country coming together in the wake
Speaker 8: of war, and he was writing this in nineteen sixty five,
Speaker 8: where a lot of the same stuff was going on
Speaker 8: with the civil rights movement and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: So so much of his so much.
Speaker 8: Of history is cyclical, so so much of his work
Speaker 8: is timeless. It really applies to all errors, and it
Speaker 8: just seems to keep coming up and up and up
Speaker 8: over and over again. Things that we think we got
Speaker 8: resolved or that we made some progress on seemed to
Speaker 8: fall back, and it just it always comes around again,
Speaker 8: and we're at a particular high point right now, our
Speaker 8: low point right now, where things that he said really
Speaker 8: seemed to be prescient. So I don't really know, other
Speaker 8: than Mark Olschenker's Library of Congress presentation that he just did,
Speaker 8: I don't think any of it was planned to be,
Speaker 8: you know, overtly showing lots more political side, but just
Speaker 8: the fact that we are highlighting so many of his
Speaker 8: his his spoken word things, his his interviews and editorials
Speaker 8: he wrote, and things of that nature. So much of
Speaker 8: that comes out and really is applicable right now and.
Speaker 2: From this side of the stage, and really feel that.
Speaker 2: And you introduced the loaner last night. Is there are
Speaker 2: any any of the presentations you're really looking forward to
Speaker 2: this year or anything that you're.
Speaker 8: Actually looking forward to the majority of them, because even
Speaker 8: though I did the tech for some of them, and
Speaker 8: I received some of the files that people were going
Speaker 8: to run, I purposely just tested them and didn't even
Speaker 8: look at them, or because I wanted to. I wanted
Speaker 8: to see and hear them in context. I wanted our
Speaker 8: presenters to. I wanted to be a part of the
Speaker 8: audience when the presenters introduced the clips and all. So
Speaker 8: so all of it was gonna other than my own.
Speaker 8: Was was new to me and so far has been
Speaker 8: new to me, and I wanted to experience it that way,
Speaker 8: just like you guys.
Speaker 2: How do you balance the stress of having to be
Speaker 2: the technician and make all the things operations go and
Speaker 2: also enjoy it?
Speaker 8: You know, you just roll with it and you you know,
Speaker 8: you can deal with the problems as they come up.
Speaker 8: It's it's inevitable happens on this level of you know, production,
Speaker 8: so we just roll with it.
Speaker 2: Well, it's kind of like the trouble of being Santa
Speaker 2: Claus instead of being the kid that gets it right.
Speaker 8: You get to see that, you get to see the
Speaker 8: yells in action.
Speaker 2: Well, we're lucky enough to be tabling right next to
Speaker 2: you and you've got some absolutely beautiful hardback books. Can
Speaker 2: you tell us a little bit? Thank you?
Speaker 8: Thank you so much. Yeah, the Timeless Infinity series was
Speaker 8: a wonderful thing to be involved with. And this is
Speaker 8: the production in ten volumes and then an eleventh best
Speaker 8: of paperback version. This was put up a Gauntlet Press
Speaker 8: from two thousand and three, I believe it was till
Speaker 8: and put out one a year. So we did that
Speaker 8: project for ten years, and I was working on it
Speaker 8: for about twelve because I was interviewing so many of
Speaker 8: the people that were still alive at the time and
Speaker 8: involved in the series, actors, directors, producers, directors. Just because
Speaker 8: I had Carolyn Serling's involvement in it, I had so
Speaker 8: many doors open up to me and had the great
Speaker 8: pleasure of being able to interview so many of those
Speaker 8: people and frame Rod's original scripts. But that's what the
Speaker 8: series is. It's all ninety two of the scripts that
Speaker 8: Rod wrote for the Twilight Zone. And I'm very thankful
Speaker 8: to Galtlet Press for sticking with that project and being
Speaker 8: able to do that. It's a hell of a commitment.
Speaker 8: You know, a big hardcover, signed volume that's not cheap.
Speaker 8: You know they retail for sixty dollars apiece. That's not
Speaker 8: a great commit That's not an easy commitment for a
Speaker 8: publisher to make. And they did, and they stuck with it,
Speaker 8: and it took us ten years, but we were able
Speaker 8: to get every single one of Rod's scripts out there,
Speaker 8: and the ability to go through them and edit them
Speaker 8: and put some lost things in the books, or not
Speaker 8: lost things, but things that people just didn't know existed
Speaker 8: into those books and get that out to you know,
Speaker 8: the reading public who might want to see it. Was
Speaker 8: just a great, great privilege of mine.
Speaker 2: Well, it's amazing that that happened. I mean, was it
Speaker 2: a long process of getting them getting this?
Speaker 8: Not really no. I previously had originally started writing by
Speaker 8: doing an article on Earl Hamner because he was what
Speaker 8: we titled the forgotten Twilight Zone writer. He became so
Speaker 8: popular for the Waltons that and so well known for
Speaker 8: the for the Waltons and some of his other work
Speaker 8: that people didn't even realize that he got his start
Speaker 8: on The Twilet Zone writing eight episodes for the series
Speaker 8: because he had known Rod and when Earl himself was
Speaker 8: a novelist. But when he came to California to break
Speaker 8: into television, he found out that it didn't matter how
Speaker 8: many books, so how many best selling books you might
Speaker 8: have written, you need to have you need to have
Speaker 8: televi and credits, so you weren't going to break into
Speaker 8: the business. So he called Rod up, and Rod bought
Speaker 8: a couple of his stories and let him adapt a
Speaker 8: couple of stories for Twilight Zone. Not because Rod knew him,
Speaker 8: but because Rod liked the stories and and so that's
Speaker 8: how that's how we're all got his break, but a
Speaker 8: lot of people aren't aware of that part of his career.
Speaker 8: So I wrote that article on an interviewed Earl, and
Speaker 8: then that started a friendship with with Earl Hamner between
Speaker 8: myself and my whole family that we really cherished until
Speaker 8: the day he died. And it was Earl himself was suggested, well,
Speaker 8: why don't we put these scripts out in a book
Speaker 8: because they're already had a publisher. So I was more
Speaker 8: than happy to do that. We worked out a process
Speaker 8: and you know, I interviewed him exclusive interview through him
Speaker 8: for the book, and then I had been interviewing people
Speaker 8: I could find and actors and directors and people that
Speaker 8: were in his episodes. And we released that book of
Speaker 8: his eight scripts with my kind of commentary to support
Speaker 8: it from from the interviews that I had and that
Speaker 8: had already been out. And when Gauntlet saw that and
Speaker 8: also knew that through the foundation, I knew Carol Serling.
Speaker 8: They put two and two together, and so I wonder
Speaker 8: if it'd be if Caarrol would be interested in doing
Speaker 8: this for Rod's scripts, and so they approached me and
Speaker 8: I approached her. She was happy to do and I
Speaker 8: was certainly happy to do it, so that one happened
Speaker 8: kind of quickly because that groundwork was already laid.
Speaker 2: The hardbacks are absolutely looks like a museum. It looks
Speaker 2: like something that should be in a museum. How about
Speaker 2: the artwork for the covers, was that as.
Speaker 8: An artist, an in house artist that works for I
Speaker 8: don't know if I don't think it's exclusively what he does,
Speaker 8: but it's an artist named Harry O. Morris who works
Speaker 8: for Barry Hoffmann a Garnlet Press, and does a lot
Speaker 8: of his covers, and yeah, he's a very talented artist.
Speaker 8: In fact, I'd edited a couple of things with Richard
Speaker 8: Madison because Madison was also heavily involved with Gauntlet. Garanlet
Speaker 8: brought out a lot of lost Mathison stuff, a lot
Speaker 8: of stories and scripts that you know, had never been
Speaker 8: published before. And I don't remember the total of how
Speaker 8: many different Gauntlet books Richard Madison ended up doing with Gauntlet,
Speaker 8: But Richard really really loved Harry's work and had him
Speaker 8: do all of his covers, and luckily and we were
Speaker 8: able to get him for his time with his fit
Speaker 8: me too, because it's a little tricky. You know, we
Speaker 8: try to try to put one element from this series.
Speaker 8: You know, you've got the eyeball, the door, all that stuff.
Speaker 8: You tried to try to spread that out over ten
Speaker 8: volumes and it's not easy to do without a getting redundant.
Speaker 8: So Harryo did a lot of passes of colors and
Speaker 8: elements and really put his own stamp on it.
Speaker 2: Well, the finished product is amazing. Any favorite Hamner scripts
Speaker 2: or episodes of yours.
Speaker 8: I know, my favorite Hamner script I would say probably
Speaker 8: The Hunt, but it's but very closely behind that is
Speaker 8: Jess bell I just I just love his.
Speaker 2: Dialogue in that it is a beautifully shot one of
Speaker 2: the one.
Speaker 8: Of the better hour longs, of which there aren't that
Speaker 8: many that you would really include in your top Twilight zones,
Speaker 8: but I do love that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm with you on that. So yeah. Any last
Speaker 2: thoughts for our Serling Fest twenty five.
Speaker 8: I'm just so happy that we're doing it again, and
Speaker 8: hopefully we plan on we're going to do a little
Speaker 8: post mortem on this and make sure we want to
Speaker 8: continue to do it in person every year. There's some
Speaker 8: debate as to whether or not we'll do it, you know,
Speaker 8: alternately in person and virtual, but hopefully we do it
Speaker 8: in person again and time will tell. But I'm really
Speaker 8: really happy to have you guys show up again and
Speaker 8: all the people who came, just grateful to you all.
Speaker 2: Oh, we love to be here. This is just unlike
Speaker 2: any other type of convention. It's not like thousands and
Speaker 2: thousands of you know, different things happening. It's not a
Speaker 2: free ring circus. It's very focused and it's very much
Speaker 2: like a you feel like you know your people every.
Speaker 8: Absolutely, and it kind of hits all the buttons too.
Speaker 8: It's not it's not fan service totally, and it's not
Speaker 8: totally intellectual. It's it's a nice mix of both with
Speaker 8: the presentations that are in it and the people who
Speaker 8: show up.
Speaker 2: Like you said, we just.
Speaker 8: Wish Tom could make it every year, but I know
Speaker 8: that's that's a heck of a trip for him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're giving him a little audio so he can
Speaker 2: do something with this. And it's brought people from all
Speaker 2: over the world. I met someone from Australia.
Speaker 4: Today.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think we had we had I believe you.
Speaker 8: I know we had counted out. I believe we had
Speaker 8: three different countries besides the US, represented this weekend. So
Speaker 8: that's that's pretty amazing.
Speaker 2: It is amazing. It's also amazing that I think it
Speaker 2: took me as long to get here as it took
Speaker 2: the Australia guy because I took some wrong turns I
Speaker 2: don't know how to use.
Speaker 8: It's not very surprising.
Speaker 2: Unbelievable, very surprising, but I'm an idiot. No, we can't
Speaker 2: go out on anything better than that. This is the
Speaker 2: perfect fish.
Speaker 1: But you take it as you wanted.
Speaker 2: Wonderful. This is fantastic as always, Tony. It's always great
Speaker 2: to see you.
Speaker 3: Thanks.
Speaker 8: I appreciate it all right.
Speaker 3: So, unfortunately a technical hitch meant that the first part
Speaker 3: of this interview isn't available. Well, hopefully you will recognize
Speaker 3: the voice because this is the voice of Joseph Doherty,
Speaker 3: who wrote Rod Sailing Get one hundred one writer's acknowledgment,
Speaker 3: and you gave a great interview here on the Twilight
Speaker 3: Zone podcast. So let's go over to Chad's chat with
Speaker 3: Joseph Doherty.
Speaker 2: Now, now you have the days of streaming, but there
Speaker 2: was something about staying up late, not knowing what was
Speaker 2: going to.
Speaker 9: Be on and having to see it when it was
Speaker 9: on exactly if you didn't, it would just go away.
Speaker 2: So what was what was the zeitgeist like at that time?
Speaker 2: What was the reaction of your friends and felt like?
Speaker 2: What was the reaction people were having during this first
Speaker 2: run of the series.
Speaker 9: My memory of it basically was that if you realized
Speaker 9: it was something that was like nothing else that was
Speaker 9: speaking to you directly because it was at the time.
Speaker 9: You also have to remember that at the time science
Speaker 9: fiction was not really anywhere near as respected as it
Speaker 9: is today. It was considered kid stuff, which is one
Speaker 9: of the reasons he was able to do the show
Speaker 9: the way he did and talk about what he wanted
Speaker 9: to talk about without upsetting sponsors who were rather literal
Speaker 9: minded people.
Speaker 2: And do you think those messages got through. Absolutely.
Speaker 9: I think the fact, the very fact that we're sitting
Speaker 9: here talking about it is it has to do with
Speaker 9: why the impact he's had. It's just that we still
Speaker 9: talk about it. And I think we're up to now
Speaker 9: easily three, possibly four generations of writers who have been
Speaker 9: inspired in some shape or another by his view of
Speaker 9: of drama. They never wrote, you never wrote an insincere word.
Speaker 2: It's life. And do you think that he shaped the medium?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 9: I think you could make an argument that Rod Serling
Speaker 9: is the first showrunner. Before then, you had hosts of
Speaker 9: antology shows, but they usually were just that hosts. Alfred
Speaker 9: Hitchcock didn't write any of the Alfred Hitchcock Resents. But
Speaker 9: here here was the guy who wrote the show as
Speaker 9: a prime and produced them, and he was presenting them
Speaker 9: to us. I think you I don't think you get
Speaker 9: Roddenberry and people like that without without the control that
Speaker 9: Serling had, and at least Twilight zoned.
Speaker 2: Him, and so he really started the show runners for
Speaker 2: somebody that doesn't know, like what what is the showrunners?
Speaker 9: There are as many ways to do it as there
Speaker 9: are shows, but primarily you're the guiding vision it this.
Speaker 9: You know, you're talking to writers, you're shaping it. With writers,
Speaker 9: you're you're laying it. Go off and find their own path.
Speaker 9: But then you help them. You're watching everything. You're on
Speaker 9: the stage, you're looking at the cuts. You're the final
Speaker 9: cut before the studio sees it. It becomes your vision.
Speaker 9: It's it's you're allowed to do your vision. It's it's
Speaker 9: it's not an easy job. That's why only a certain
Speaker 9: number of people get to.
Speaker 4: Do it well.
Speaker 2: And you were a showrunner as well.
Speaker 9: I was a showrunner, and it was incredibly frustrating. And
Speaker 9: then I decided what I wanted to do was was
Speaker 9: a writer director as opposed to a showrunner.
Speaker 2: So I didn't so I didn't want to. Very welcome
Speaker 2: for authors who have written books about and inspired by
Speaker 2: the Twilight and its iconic creed or local hero rods, local.
Speaker 10: Heroes in the center.
Speaker 2: Of our stores take up the side copies of their
Speaker 2: books today now.
Speaker 8: And it's always thank you for shopping.
Speaker 2: At It's really cool. I hope the microphones picked it up,
Speaker 2: are they?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 9: I mean he was the first person as a writer
Speaker 9: who basically was in charge of it and wanted to
Speaker 9: tell his stories and it yeah.
Speaker 5: It.
Speaker 9: I was a showrunner, so I know precisely how hard
Speaker 9: a job it is, and it takes it took a
Speaker 9: lot out of him. It's why, you know, he says,
Speaker 9: it's a young man's job. He says, he he said,
Speaker 9: I've quoted no where it's from, but basically said, it's
Speaker 9: not a job for anyone over forty. It's just will
Speaker 9: burn you right out.
Speaker 2: And so and following in these footsteps and being inspired
Speaker 2: by rot sarying if you were a comic book character,
Speaker 2: what would be your Rod Serling origin story? How did
Speaker 2: how did you know? You stayed up late? Your parents
Speaker 2: let you sit up and watched it. Was there any
Speaker 2: episodes that really spoke to you or any particular aha
Speaker 2: moment of well.
Speaker 9: All of the classics hit me the way they hit me,
Speaker 9: But frankly, just to just to talk about what we're
Speaker 9: going to be doing later tonight at the festival is
Speaker 9: I'm going to introduce what I admit is my favorite episode,
Speaker 9: which is on Thursday.
Speaker 2: We leave for home.
Speaker 9: That might have been the aha as well. You know what,
Speaker 9: I'll claim it is the aha.
Speaker 2: As a writer, it was Oh, if.
Speaker 9: I could do that, that would be a great thing
Speaker 9: to do.
Speaker 2: It was absolutely no wasted words. It was.
Speaker 9: It's an amazing fifty minutes. I've never seen it with
Speaker 9: an audience, so I'm kind of looking forward to seeing
Speaker 9: that tonight. And and yeah, I'm going to do a
Speaker 9: little spiel in front of it, which hopefully won't embarrass
Speaker 9: myself or anyone else, but I want people. I want
Speaker 9: to set it up a little bit about where he
Speaker 9: comes from and why I think he wrote it.
Speaker 2: Really, he did wonderful and it's it's a resonant today.
Speaker 9: Yes, well that's he doesn't go out of style because
Speaker 9: I don't think the thing the kind of personal responsibility
Speaker 9: and humanity that he was interested in and wrote about,
Speaker 9: it's basic.
Speaker 2: Core and you core people. You can see all sides.
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, there's something there. You can you can find something.
Speaker 2: Looking very forward to it. Last year I was asked
Speaker 2: what the favorite episode Wasn't that was the one I named,
Speaker 2: even though depending on the day right it can change.
Speaker 2: There's so many that can change.
Speaker 9: Yeah, and it's the first hour, the hour episode they've
Speaker 9: shown at the festival, so I'm pretty pleased about that.
Speaker 9: I kind of I said, I would like to do something,
Speaker 9: and this is what I would like to do is
Speaker 9: I would like to present this episode wonderful.
Speaker 2: I'm looking very forward to hearing it. I appreciate your
Speaker 2: time today, And this is for Tom Elliott in the
Speaker 2: Twilight Zone podcast. If you have a message for Tom,
Speaker 2: I know he wanted to meet you and he was
Speaker 2: hoping he could get a chance to meet you, but
Speaker 2: he wasn't able to be here, So feel free if
Speaker 2: you have anything to say to him.
Speaker 9: Well for you know, Tom, continue the good work. And
Speaker 9: if we don't do it this year, we'll do it
Speaker 9: next year.
Speaker 2: Wonderful, Thank you so much.
Speaker 9: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Joseph Jordan's I'm here with Joonah Tulis and he is
Speaker 2: working on a brand new documentary of Rod Serling. Great
Speaker 2: to meet you.
Speaker 11: A nice meet as well.
Speaker 2: Wonderful. So you gave a little preview, little three minute snippet.
Speaker 2: Can you tell us about the how did this film
Speaker 2: come to be? How did this project get started?
Speaker 11: Project got started? I was on a zoom call with
Speaker 11: the guys at Appian Way, Leonardo DiCaprio's production company, and
Speaker 11: they were talking about different ideas and different things they
Speaker 11: were passionate about, and Rod Serling was one of them,
Speaker 11: and they'd been in touch with the estate and I
Speaker 11: jumped at it right away, and I know it was
Speaker 11: very interesting at first, but then I did sort of
Speaker 11: more of a deep dive and found all these Dick
Speaker 11: debut recordings and then I was like, oh, wow, there's
Speaker 11: a much bigger story here than I even imagined.
Speaker 2: Ooh, So, I imagine it's got to be difficult to
Speaker 2: come up with what specific pieces to use and what
Speaker 2: story you want to tell. Yeah, imagine that's still evolving, right.
Speaker 11: Yeah, it is still evolving. We're getting close, but there's
Speaker 11: so much out there, and there's he really had so
Speaker 11: much to say and he was so prolific, So it's
Speaker 11: you know, it's a lot to fit into one hundred minutes,
Speaker 11: but I think we're close.
Speaker 2: Amazing. Were you a fan to begin with or from
Speaker 2: childhood or when were you first What was your origin
Speaker 2: story with like the Twilight Zone and Serling's work.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I was exposed to, you know, watching it and
Speaker 11: syndication in the nineties with my dad and time and
Speaker 11: flast was probably my favorite back then. It still might be,
Speaker 11: but there's some others that are in close intention and yeah, yeah,
Speaker 11: but I've always been a fan and sort of it
Speaker 11: was that, you know, focusing on the Dock was sort
Speaker 11: of finding that next level and sort of understanding all
Speaker 11: the sort of different beats of his life, sort of
Speaker 11: specifically involving with his activism and social and respect for
Speaker 11: social justice.
Speaker 2: Awesome and how has how is your production? Sort of
Speaker 2: you mentioned the PBS documentary from a few years ago.
Speaker 2: It seems like you have a different I think it
Speaker 2: was almost thirty years ago. Well thirty, It make me
Speaker 2: feel old now. You got to just go with me
Speaker 2: and say it was ten.
Speaker 11: I'm not exactly sure of the year. I thought it
Speaker 11: was the nineties, but someone said two thousand. So but
Speaker 11: I'm watching it off of a copy I found somewhere
Speaker 11: that's VHS copy of a VHS copy, So maybe I
Speaker 11: got tricked into the tricked in the actual year.
Speaker 2: So you're sort of going in a different path. So
Speaker 2: there's gonna be some reenactments or is there.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I wouldn't call them traditional re enactments, but they
Speaker 11: are sort of We shot four three black and white,
Speaker 11: you know, recreations of Rod's old office and sets and
Speaker 11: sort of that's the visual language to complement sort of,
Speaker 11: you know, I would say a good portion of the
Speaker 11: film is Rod speaking and archival. There's no sit down interviews.
Speaker 11: It's all from that era, like a time capsule.
Speaker 2: Oh that's amazing, because he did he used that dictaphone
Speaker 2: a lot, so you're gonna actually use his actual voice.
Speaker 2: And yep, and the theme this year is Rod serling
Speaker 2: in his own words. So that's a perfect, perfect encapsulation.
Speaker 2: So we're looking forward to this documentary and any anything
Speaker 2: else you can share that you'd like to share.
Speaker 11: No we're excited to get a cone and should be
Speaker 11: out sometime in twenty twenty six more soon.
Speaker 2: And the fact that Leonardo DiCaprio, I think people have
Speaker 2: heard of him, he's he's pretty fantasy. He's that he's
Speaker 2: a fan is really really amazing. So we look forward
Speaker 2: to seeing more. And thank you, so thanks for having
Speaker 2: me great, Thank you. Hi. I'm here with Nicholas Parici.
Speaker 2: He is the author of the definitive biography Rod Serling,
Speaker 2: his life, work and imagination. Unfortunately it's no longer hardcover.
Speaker 2: We got soft cover only now, but it is. It
Speaker 2: is the definitive tone and we are here at the
Speaker 2: Barnes Noble right before the Serling Fast kickoff. Nick, how
Speaker 2: are you doing, sir? I am doing great.
Speaker 1: Chad, how are you doing?
Speaker 2: Wonderful? It's amazing to see you. And so Rod Serling
Speaker 2: origin story. You're a comic book character. How did this start?
Speaker 2: What's the what was the flash of inspiration?
Speaker 7: Well, in terms of my fandom, it started with The
Speaker 7: Twilight Zone. Like so many other people, I started watching
Speaker 7: when I was a kid and became enamored with the
Speaker 7: Rod Sterling as a presence as a writer, as an orator,
Speaker 7: his speech patterns, you know, the way he used the language,
Speaker 7: and that's what drew me into the Twilight Zone to
Speaker 7: begin with. And then gradually I became aware of all
Speaker 7: the other things that he had written and became obsessed
Speaker 7: with trying to find out about all these other things
Speaker 7: that he had written, and that was really the impetus.
Speaker 2: For the book. Amazing. Now, if there was one thing
Speaker 2: that your average Twilight Zone fan that you could tell them,
Speaker 2: if you haven't seen any of his other work, what
Speaker 2: would you steer them towards?
Speaker 3: Oh boy, there's a lot.
Speaker 7: Actually, one thing, I guess. I mean, part of the
Speaker 7: reason for writing my book is that so much of
Speaker 7: the stuff that really was great.
Speaker 10: Is not generally available.
Speaker 7: So if I'm going to steer somebody towards something, I'd
Speaker 7: like to steer them toward something they can actually get
Speaker 7: a hold of. So from that standpoint, I would certainly
Speaker 7: recommend The Loaner. The Loaner was a Western series that
Speaker 7: he wrote after The Twilight Zone and it was released
Speaker 7: on DVD about ten years ago, I guess at this point,
Speaker 7: and I think it's a fantastic piece of work. It's
Speaker 7: about twenty six episodes and road Road fifteen of them,
Speaker 7: and I think he does some of his best writing
Speaker 7: for the Loaner, So I would certainly recommend that we're
Speaker 7: going to be screening an episode of it at this
Speaker 7: year's Sailing Fest, and other than that, I would just
Speaker 7: generally point people towards Playhouse ninety. I mean, Rod wrote
Speaker 7: ten episodes of Playoffs ninety and I think they're all terrific,
Speaker 7: So they're generally you know, again, they may be hard
Speaker 7: to find. A few of them are available on DVD
Speaker 7: in commercial box and commercial collections. Some of them you
Speaker 7: can find on YouTube, but those be the two that
Speaker 7: jump to mind.
Speaker 2: Fantastic and if you can't find them or get ahold
Speaker 2: of them, you can read about them my correct.
Speaker 7: Yes, the idea of the book was part of the idea, anyway,
Speaker 7: was to inform people about everything that Rod Serling had
Speaker 7: written that had been produced, so if you can't get
Speaker 7: a hold of it, you can read a description of
Speaker 7: it in my book. So it's the way I structured
Speaker 7: the book was to give people a when they read it.
Speaker 7: I hope that they come away feeling like they have
Speaker 7: watched some of these even though they haven't seen them,
Speaker 7: because I give more than just a one or two line,
Speaker 7: you know, description the way that you know TV guide
Speaker 7: might This is an actual, you know, synopsis of the
Speaker 7: whole story that we're talking about. So so yeah, so
Speaker 7: pretty much anything that you might be interested in that
Speaker 7: Rod Serling wrote is covered in some way in my book.
Speaker 2: And this is absolutely a definitive tone. Was there any
Speaker 2: surprises when you were doing the research and writing. Was
Speaker 2: there anything that surprised you or that that really that
Speaker 2: you weren't expecting that you came across.
Speaker 7: Or the surprises were Some of the surprises were, as
Speaker 7: I detail in the book, and as you probably know,
Speaker 7: Rod Serling was his own harshest critic.
Speaker 2: He was.
Speaker 7: He was very very hard on himself. He never gave
Speaker 7: himself a break. So some of the surprises were things
Speaker 7: that I watched or read that turned out to be really,
Speaker 7: really good that Rod Sterling had denigrated over time, you know,
Speaker 7: things that he said, oh, this was terrible or whatever,
Speaker 7: and then I watched it and.
Speaker 3: Realized it was really good.
Speaker 7: And again that's primarily just because Rod was so hard
Speaker 7: on himself. If something was great, Rod thought it was passable.
Speaker 7: If something was good, he thought it was terrible. You know,
Speaker 7: that's just the way he was. So some of that
Speaker 7: surprised me. The other thing that surprised me, I think
Speaker 7: is I go into some detail about the genesis of
Speaker 7: the script Noon on Doomsday, which was Rod's attempt to
Speaker 7: tell some version of the mb Till story on television,
Speaker 7: And after reading the first draft of the of Nowon
Speaker 7: on Doomsday, I think I came away with a whole
Speaker 7: different version of that story that you won't find anywhere
Speaker 7: else but in my book.
Speaker 2: And so you detail that in the book, and so
Speaker 2: you actually get to know what the real story was
Speaker 2: before the censors and the sponsors.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and to spoil it to some extent, what I
Speaker 7: found was that the Rod's very first draft was not
Speaker 7: all that different than what ultimately aired. So I go
Speaker 7: into some some detail about what the actual censorship of
Speaker 7: that script was, and like I said, I think it
Speaker 7: turns into a story that a different version of that
Speaker 7: story than you've ever heard before.
Speaker 2: It's amazing. I think that now is a time where
Speaker 2: I've really looked at Rod Serling as a figure who
Speaker 2: you wish he was here today because it's a voice
Speaker 2: that we need, and.
Speaker 7: No doubt I hear that all the time.
Speaker 2: I think that all the time.
Speaker 7: You know, the thing that we hear at the Foundation
Speaker 7: and the things that I hear by email, by messages
Speaker 7: that you know, we really could use Rod Sterling's voice
Speaker 7: right now. It's not the twist endings at the end
Speaker 7: of the Twilight Zone episode that people are missing. It's
Speaker 7: Rod's moral compass and Rod's moral certitude that people are looking.
Speaker 2: For right now.
Speaker 7: And yes, Rod would have a lot to say about
Speaker 7: everything that's going on in our country right now, and
Speaker 7: I wish you were here to hear what he had
Speaker 7: to say.
Speaker 2: Absolutely feel exactly the same way. And when you say
Speaker 2: that Rod Serling was sort of self deprecating, you feel
Speaker 2: like that was genuine. He really did feel that he
Speaker 2: was a harsh credit. It wasn't so much sort of
Speaker 2: tongue in cheek.
Speaker 7: I think Rod was somewhat insecure about his own abilities
Speaker 7: and about his own talents. And yeah, I think it
Speaker 7: absolutely was genuine. He was also very very sensitive. He
Speaker 7: was very sensitive to critiques and to criticism. His brother
Speaker 7: Robert would say that Rod could have a show on
Speaker 7: the air and the next day he could read ten
Speaker 7: glowing reviews and then one bad one, and he would
Speaker 7: totally forget the good ones, and it was the bad
Speaker 7: one that would stick with him and that he would
Speaker 7: be upset about for the night and for the rest
Speaker 7: of the day. So he was very sensitive to that,
Speaker 7: and then he was just very hard on himself too.
Speaker 7: He always believed that he could do better, he could
Speaker 7: do more.
Speaker 2: And what a tragedy that he wasn't around to see
Speaker 2: that there's a statue in Recreation Park that's been erected,
Speaker 2: that there's an entire foundation, which you're a big part of,
Speaker 2: that is dedicated to preserving his legacy and his works,
Speaker 2: and how he has stood the test of time and
Speaker 2: is still standing the test of time. He would be amazed.
Speaker 7: I'm sure he would be absolutely flabbergasted that there is
Speaker 7: a statue of him standing in his hometown, that there
Speaker 7: is a foundation dedicated to his work, that so many
Speaker 7: people have come out to say what an influence he
Speaker 7: was on them.
Speaker 2: He would be amazed.
Speaker 7: I mean, he very famously said, you know, what I've
Speaker 7: written is momentarily adequate. You judge good writing by its
Speaker 7: lasting qualities, and nothing that I've written will last one
Speaker 7: hundred years. Well, it's been one hundred years since he
Speaker 7: was born. It's been fifty years since he was gone.
Speaker 7: It's been sixty five years since the Twilight Zone ended,
Speaker 7: and we are certainly we're still talking about Twilight Zone now,
Speaker 7: We're still talking about Rod Serling now, and one hundred
Speaker 7: years from now, we'll still be talking about Rod Serling.
Speaker 7: So his work has shown how wrong he was in
Speaker 7: that estimation.
Speaker 2: And this year's Serling Fest is Rod Serling in his
Speaker 2: own words, and I think that's a wonderful theme. Any
Speaker 2: preview of this year's events or maybe what's coming down
Speaker 2: the road.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Well, on Saturday particularly, we're going to have you know,
Speaker 7: it's an old day of series of events, and we're
Speaker 7: going to be showing and screening some interviews with Rod
Speaker 7: Serling that you've never seen before, one particular one interview,
Speaker 7: particularly one speech particularly that you've definitely not heard before.
Speaker 7: Some clips that you have not heard before. So we're
Speaker 7: trying to give people a taste of again, Yeah, definitely
Speaker 7: Rod Sterling in his own words. You know, a lot
Speaker 7: of us, and I think I'm just guilty of this,
Speaker 7: or more guilty of this than anyone. We're attempted to
Speaker 7: speak for Rod Serling, you know, because he's not here
Speaker 7: and we feel like we're experts on him, and but
Speaker 7: it is it is a risk that we run. So
Speaker 7: this year we wanted to be real clear that we're
Speaker 7: going to let Rod Serling speak in his own words.
Speaker 7: We're going to let Rod Sterling tell you what he
Speaker 7: thought of the issues of his day, which unfortunately are
Speaker 7: very very relevant for today.
Speaker 2: Oh well, that's incredible. Thank you so much, Nick, And
Speaker 2: this has been a wonderful event here to kick off
Speaker 2: Surling Fest. And thanks Jad, it's great to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Great great as always.
Speaker 3: So there we go. That was our COVID of Sailing
Speaker 3: Fest twenty twenty five. What a pleasure, What a pleasure
Speaker 3: to listen to these people and chards you mentioned before
Speaker 3: we started playing those interviews about people, the people who
Speaker 3: put their time into organizing this convention, all of the
Speaker 3: board members of the Rod Sailing Memorial Foundation, Nick Parisi,
Speaker 3: Tony Alborella, all good friends, all great people. But also
Speaker 3: I think Nick actually said it that Jeff Sailing, who
Speaker 3: was a relative of Rod Sailing, he's obviously part of
Speaker 3: the Sailing family, was a big part of the organization
Speaker 3: this year. He put a lot awake in and I
Speaker 3: think that's just such a lovely thing to have the
Speaker 3: sailing family so connected to this. So, you know, well
Speaker 3: done to Jeff and everyone involved. I think it's really
Speaker 3: great to see.
Speaker 2: Well absolutely, and it was really such a pleasure in
Speaker 2: an honor to speak to Jeff and Andrew Serling this
Speaker 2: time around. I think we had a really good interview
Speaker 2: with them, and they were actually the first people that
Speaker 2: I saw this year. Went over to the Lost Dog Cafe,
Speaker 2: which has become one of my favorite places to go
Speaker 2: when I'm in town, and there they were, and I
Speaker 2: remembered them, you know, from seeing them last year and
Speaker 2: meeting them, and they were also you know, greeting people
Speaker 2: at the door or thanking them for being there. I
Speaker 2: mean to, like I said, to be able to spend
Speaker 2: time with these people is just incredible, right, You're not
Speaker 2: paying five hundred dollars and waiting five hours on the
Speaker 2: line for two seconds of somebody. This is and to
Speaker 2: be around the people who grew up with Rod Serling.
Speaker 2: I remember one of the people that we spoke with
Speaker 2: at the Barnes and Noble event, they said, hey, yeah,
Speaker 2: they were talking to Chris Benedict and said, hey, yeah,
Speaker 2: I know, you know Rod Serling used to box over
Speaker 2: at the YMCA right here in town. You know, my
Speaker 2: dad knew that and stuff, and so you get to
Speaker 2: have these kind of experiences of the people you know
Speaker 2: right there in town, who who grew up with him
Speaker 2: and knew him, and everybody's just so gracious and yeah,
Speaker 2: just fantastic. But yeah, Jeff, Jeff and Andrew were fantastic
Speaker 2: to talk to you.
Speaker 3: Okay, we will leave it there. We will leave it there,
Speaker 3: because man, I wish I could have been there, But
Speaker 3: I am so hoping to be able to go back
Speaker 3: next year. Things are looking okay and if the stars
Speaker 3: aligne I want to be back among you know, our people,
Speaker 3: that the Rod Saling people and Chad. I want to
Speaker 3: thank you and Chris for all the hard work that
Speaker 3: you put in to make this coverage possible. So thank
Speaker 3: you so much, Min.
Speaker 2: It was an honor to do it. And fingers crossed
Speaker 2: for next year. I can't wait to see what's in store.
Speaker 3: So now that you've heard from the people who put
Speaker 3: the event together or presented at the event, I'm going
Speaker 3: to play out with some audio from a friend of
Speaker 3: the show, Joe Brown, who was in the audience. So
Speaker 3: he can give that perspective. So if you went to
Speaker 3: Sailing Fest twenty twenty five, I hope you had a
Speaker 3: great time and I hope to see you the next time.
Speaker 1: By for now, Hey, Tom Joe Brown here, just want
Speaker 1: to leave some feedback on the experiences at this year's
Speaker 1: Serling Fest. However, I'm not alone on this journey. My
Speaker 1: good friend John Harbor went with me. Hey everybody, Hey,
Speaker 1: we just want to share our thoughts on what we saw,
Speaker 1: what we heard, and what we took away from this
Speaker 1: year's event. So Friday, we get to Binghamton in the afternoon,
Speaker 1: we went to the hotel and got squared away there,
Speaker 1: then went over to the bookstore for the book signing.
Speaker 1: So we get there in Chris Benedict, who's the author
Speaker 1: of The Twilight Rounds, Chad Boykin, the author of The
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone Haiku, Nick Parisi, author of Rod Serling his life,
Speaker 1: work and Imagination, and finally Joseph Daugherty, the author of
Speaker 1: Rod Serling at one hundred one Writer's Acknowledgment. All four
Speaker 1: of those authors were there and I purchased three of
Speaker 1: the four books because last year I had met Nick
Speaker 1: and got him to sign one for me, I had
Speaker 1: the other three guys all signed their books and spent
Speaker 1: some time talking to each of them. On an interesting note,
Speaker 1: I talked to Joseph Doherty and I mentioned your interview
Speaker 1: with him on the podcast, and I had mentioned we
Speaker 1: had listened to it again on the drive down from
Speaker 1: the Syracuse Airport. He got really excited and he's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember that. And I told him was hey, man,
Speaker 1: I really appreciate your candor and the interview was really
Speaker 1: well done that you had done with him, and he
Speaker 1: remembered it very well. So after the bookstore we headed
Speaker 1: over to the Forum Theater on Friday. They had scheduled
Speaker 1: Friday Film Night with an episode showings of On Thursday,
Speaker 1: we Leave from Home, an X Files episode called The
Speaker 1: Lost Art of Forehead Sweat, which had a Twilight Zone
Speaker 1: sequence embedded in the storyline. Then they did a showing
Speaker 1: of the first episode of The Loner called an Echo
Speaker 1: of Bugles Now. This one also included a promo film
Speaker 1: that Rod had made in order to sell the show
Speaker 1: to the sponsors. And this is a rare event because
Speaker 1: I had never seen this before. But it was always
Speaker 1: good to see those I remember. It reminds me of
Speaker 1: the first one of the Twilight Zone when Rod did
Speaker 1: the pilot film for Where Is Everybody to try to
Speaker 1: sell the show. Well, anyway, let's talk about let's talk
Speaker 1: about Friday, John just a little bit. If you remember
Speaker 1: when the when the speakers came out. First we heard
Speaker 1: Frank spot and it's uh, he had talked about being
Speaker 1: inspired by Ron Serling. And then we heard from Joseph
Speaker 1: Doherty who introduced on Thursday we leave for Home, and
Speaker 1: he talked about the leadership aspect of the episode. And
Speaker 1: then Tonyl Aborella talked about authority and also leadership and
Speaker 1: the loaner. Would you take away from those three speakers
Speaker 1: on Friday?
Speaker 10: Well, I think it was interesting to me the effect
Speaker 10: and the impact that Rod had on all of their lives,
Speaker 10: the way they right themselves their ideas. And also I
Speaker 10: had never even heard of the loaner. That was a
Speaker 10: kind of a shock to me, and I thought that
Speaker 10: was as well. Yeah, and that's a good show. But hey,
Speaker 10: let's talk a little bit about Saturday.
Speaker 1: So I get a kid kind of this. I'm getting
Speaker 1: ready to talk about it. So we get there at
Speaker 1: the Forum Theater and there's a raffle table set up
Speaker 1: and it's got about thirty things on it. And you
Speaker 1: weren't too lucky here, Worr you Johan?
Speaker 4: Did you win anything?
Speaker 10: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yes, I did imagine that. I won.
Speaker 10: Any Twilight Zone T shirt and DVD and a little
Speaker 10: writing tablet in the first raffle, and then the second
Speaker 10: raffle was a group of three Planet of the Apes figureines.
Speaker 1: And so would you spend on that? John? Two dollars
Speaker 1: and I spent forty and didn't win anything. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: like it. Yeah, I bet you do. So, so I'll
Speaker 1: tell you what Saturday when we got there, a large
Speaker 1: segment all day was going to be filled up with
Speaker 1: these events. But I think it will buy really fast
Speaker 1: because the theme of the event was Sertling in his
Speaker 1: own words and a lot of what we heard. That
Speaker 1: began with Friday night, it segued into Saturday, and it
Speaker 1: opened up with an audio of Rod's Library of Congress
Speaker 1: speech that was presented by Mark Olshaker. This was very
Speaker 1: powerful stuff. Now, Mark's relationship to Rod Serling is he
Speaker 1: met Rod when he was fourteen years old and continued
Speaker 1: to correspond with Rod through his formative years of being
Speaker 1: a journalist. And Rob was kind of his mentor, it
Speaker 1: was a really cool story that Mark told. But this
Speaker 1: Library of Congress speech was really, really good.
Speaker 10: I would agree that that was fantastic from beginning to end.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just it was. I mean, the way he
Speaker 1: addressed those concerns and how he felt about his writers
Speaker 1: to have the freedom to do what they needed to
Speaker 1: do and talked about freedom and speech. It was really
Speaker 1: good stuff. So Amy Boyle Johnson spoke next. She's the
Speaker 1: author of Unknown Serling. My takeaway from her speech was
Speaker 1: referring to Rod's experiences in the war, and then the
Speaker 1: Planet of the Ape screenplay. The Wrong End of the
Speaker 1: Banana was the title of her presentation, and it came
Speaker 1: from an excerpt from an original line of Rod's screenplay,
Speaker 1: and what Rod wrote was the protagonist gets into a
Speaker 1: cab driven by an ape cabby and says, hey, buddy,
Speaker 1: to you, I look like the wrong end of a banana.
Speaker 1: But in time, we'll get to know each other for
Speaker 1: who we really are. And I think this was Rod
Speaker 1: at its deepest. The quote is really a metaphor for
Speaker 1: judging a character for who they are and not what
Speaker 1: they look like. And then the program segued into a
Speaker 1: TV interview of Rod Serling on a program called Look Here,
Speaker 1: a Dick Cavott type of interview interviewee TI style program.
Speaker 1: And this is where I think you really got to
Speaker 1: see Rod in his element. This interview was done in
Speaker 1: the backyard of his house at Pacific Palisades, and Rod
Speaker 1: really cut loose when he was asked about sponsor interference,
Speaker 1: very passionate, and I think watching this video you could
Speaker 1: see Rod, and I've seen other videos of him talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, I got to play to the sponsors in
Speaker 1: order to get my shows sold. And you could just
Speaker 1: tell this way he was coming from the gut that
Speaker 1: I don't like it when they, you know, trim down
Speaker 1: my stories because these are stories that don't need to
Speaker 1: be trimmed down. And I really like that.
Speaker 10: The interview to me, it was almost confrontational.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was, yeah, because questions the guy was asking
Speaker 1: him is like he's putting him on the spot exactly.
Speaker 1: But you know what though, Rod didn't fold. I mean
Speaker 1: he held his ground to it, and it was like
Speaker 1: almost they wouldn't a guy kind of attacking him a
Speaker 1: little bit.
Speaker 10: Yeah, he kept pressuring him, you know, well, you have
Speaker 10: to kind of cater to the sponsors on one hand,
Speaker 10: in order to get the sponsors and get the money.
Speaker 10: But then you're kind of in a catch twenty two situation.
Speaker 1: Yep. He's constantly pushing and pulling trying to get what
Speaker 1: he needs. Yeah, if you get a chance to see
Speaker 1: that one, it's a good one. Look here. So the
Speaker 1: next thing, coup This is the next portion. I get
Speaker 1: excited about talking about it. I'm gonna spill over my
Speaker 1: words here. But director Jonah Sullis came up and he
Speaker 1: is doing a movie documentary on Rod Surley. Now there's
Speaker 1: been some clips of a title card and a frozen
Speaker 1: Seni or two have been spotted around the internet. So
Speaker 1: Jonah comes in and he explains that this project he
Speaker 1: is doing is being produced by Leonardo DiCaprio and should
Speaker 1: see a release date soon. So then he proceeds to
Speaker 1: show us a little film I called a demo video,
Speaker 1: but he called it a sizzle film, which is what
Speaker 1: I guess in today's words, they used to sell to
Speaker 1: the sponsors to get them to back the project as well.
Speaker 1: It was basically a three minute video of what to
Speaker 1: look for in this coming film. I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: I was speechless when I saw this and I was
Speaker 1: really excited. Would you think about it? Man? Does it
Speaker 1: look good? It looks exciting?
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean, what's not to like? It just was
Speaker 10: really really grabbed your attention and and made you excited
Speaker 10: of what this is going to turn out to be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember how he said he was going to
Speaker 1: do it. He's using some dictaphone words to where the
Speaker 1: whole movie is going to be in Rod's own words,
Speaker 1: just like the theme of this Serling fest was in
Speaker 1: his own words. Here we got a movie that's going
Speaker 1: to be being produced with Rod's doing all the talking.
Speaker 1: That's really cool. So next up after Tullis was and Serling,
Speaker 1: and she's the daughter of Rod. We all know that.
Speaker 1: But she recited a very poignant speech with the help
Speaker 1: of her cousin, Jeff Serling, Rod's nephew. And during this
Speaker 1: speech they had some rare photographs that were showing up
Speaker 1: on the big screen up on the stage. And I'll
Speaker 1: tell you what, I'm sitting there listening to Anne's speak
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm just like, it was very emotional. It
Speaker 1: was bringing tears in my eyes, and she did a
Speaker 1: very very good job of that. What was your reaction
Speaker 1: to something like that.
Speaker 10: Yeah, it was. It was a very well done speech.
Speaker 10: And in the background, as you're seeing these these photographs,
Speaker 10: these these home pictures that they're taking in their own
Speaker 10: private home and their surroundings, and and watching the one
Speaker 10: with the guitar, well, the one with the guitar, yeah,
Speaker 10: and the other one where he had Anne's lampshade on
Speaker 10: his head.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 10: You just you see this man in a in a
Speaker 10: light that that you don't we don't typically see him in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I agree, it was. It was. It was
Speaker 1: a look behind the curtains speak, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It was. It was really cool. So then the next
Speaker 1: person that was a guy named David B. And Keoley,
Speaker 1: and he is a movie critic TV critic, and he
Speaker 1: talked about teaching through the Twilight Zone. And I really
Speaker 1: liked his presentation because what David talked about was enhanced
Speaker 1: by how lively he was an informative was in his
Speaker 1: presentation and he explained how he would take Twilight Zone
Speaker 1: episodes and incorporate them in the class episodes. And I
Speaker 1: thought that was a really interesting concept and it makes
Speaker 1: me want to go back to school again just to
Speaker 1: have David be the teacher, so I could figure this out.
Speaker 10: I think the funniest part of when he was speaking
Speaker 10: he was having computer difficulties and he was asking anyone
Speaker 10: who would answer for for help, and someone gave him
Speaker 10: the answer, and he whipped out a dollar bill and says,
Speaker 10: take this, take this.
Speaker 1: No, I I.
Speaker 10: Needed the help, So I'm going to pay for the help.
Speaker 10: And this happened a couple of times and it was
Speaker 10: really kind of humorous.
Speaker 1: It was that was that was. That was a good
Speaker 1: time with him. So then next up is Mark Dewidzieck. Now,
Speaker 1: Mark was the author of a book called Everything I
Speaker 1: Need to Know about Life I Learned from the Twilight Zone.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you what, Mark has got to be
Speaker 1: the smoothest speaker because this guy doesn't need a script.
Speaker 1: You could say, Mark, we want you to talk about
Speaker 1: X and he would talk about X yan Z and
Speaker 1: tie it all together and he just knows his material.
Speaker 1: And what Mark talked about was Rod's time at Antioch College.
Speaker 1: And he reminded us because the question came up to
Speaker 1: him was can you do the Twilight Zone without Rod Serling?
Speaker 1: And he was like, no, you can't do the Twilight
Speaker 1: Zone without Rod Serling because the Rod's not in it.
Speaker 1: Everything else is on its own, you know. And then
Speaker 1: he Mark is from Ohio, so when he talks about
Speaker 1: Antioch College, which is in Ohio, you really can hear
Speaker 1: the passionate voice in his and it's like, long live
Speaker 1: Ohio is right there you go, Mark, So that was
Speaker 1: pretty cool, and I think the next part is what
Speaker 1: I always look forward to, is this roundtable where the
Speaker 1: panel of guests, speakers that have been on the programs already,
Speaker 1: David b and Kewley, Frank Spotnitz, Jonah Tulis, and Joe Dougherty.
Speaker 1: They all fielded questions. They were moderated by Jeff Serling
Speaker 1: and Nick Parsi. And the cool thing about it was
Speaker 1: is once they got through a certain number of questions,
Speaker 1: they turned to the crowd, so we all got to
Speaker 1: ask questions of the group, and it was really cool.
Speaker 1: That took it really about forty five minutes to an
Speaker 1: hour to get through all these It was really informative
Speaker 1: and I can't recap everything that was talked about, but
Speaker 1: I will tell you this, it was good to be
Speaker 1: involved in in mixing and hearing those different ideas and
Speaker 1: how four guys can answer the same question differently, so
Speaker 1: and then you know, of course the night ends with
Speaker 1: the raffle and John we know how you did with
Speaker 1: all that. But I think to wrap things up and
Speaker 1: some things up, just a couple of questions, and you know,
Speaker 1: I think we could talk about is what did you
Speaker 1: like most about serling fests?
Speaker 10: I think what you were just talking to well talking
Speaker 10: about there the roundtable discussion.
Speaker 1: I was one and.
Speaker 10: Joanah told US's presentation about his documentary. When we were
Speaker 10: listening to those presenters taking turns and each giving their
Speaker 10: answers to the same question, that was really interesting to me.
Speaker 10: You got four interpretations or four answers to the same question,
Speaker 10: how they would solve that or however they would go
Speaker 10: about that question. And listening to Jonah described the process
Speaker 10: for putting this documentary together, it's unbelievable.
Speaker 12: The painstaking hours that he went through sorting through all
Speaker 12: of these audio collections on the dictaphone and the innovative
Speaker 12: filmmaking ideas.
Speaker 10: It's really exciting to me. I can't wait to see
Speaker 10: the film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't either.
Speaker 1: I think it's gonna be really, really well done, and
Speaker 1: I think it's gonna be worth it. You know, I
Speaker 1: think you know what did I like most at Sermifest? Yeah,
Speaker 1: the roundtables. It was exciting to see Frank spot and
Speaker 1: that's that, you know, the Xbole episode they show the
Speaker 1: Lost Artist for It's what I've never seen it before,
Speaker 1: but it was. It was really funny and I liked it.
Speaker 1: It's just as everything went through I just I tried
Speaker 1: to when I was thinking about what is.
Speaker 10: The most, what I like the most.
Speaker 1: They really put presentations together that drew Serling's words out
Speaker 1: and explained them and expanded the thought processes behind them,
Speaker 1: or at least the interpretations of the individual And I
Speaker 1: really liked that because it made us all think. You
Speaker 1: remember the round table, I remember spotting this goes Rod Serling.
Speaker 1: Joe had already said it too. He makes you think,
Speaker 1: and that's what I took away from this surling Fest
Speaker 1: the most. So would you ever come back to surling Fest?
Speaker 10: Absolutely?
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 10: I really enjoyed the entire experience.
Speaker 12: You know, we we saw people there that were from
Speaker 12: all over yeah, England, Australia, yeah, yeah, you know, were
Speaker 12: walked through the streets of Rod's hometown where he we
Speaker 12: took the steps he took we drove past his boyhood
Speaker 12: home in Recreation Park, we saw the statue of Rod
Speaker 12: and Uh rode the carousel.
Speaker 2: That was yeah uh.
Speaker 10: And then when we when we left.
Speaker 12: Headed back to Syracis, we we stopped off to seem
Speaker 12: Rod Serling's grave and you know, those are those are
Speaker 12: just a handful of experiences and that I'll remember from
Speaker 12: a great weekend and me too.
Speaker 1: Man. It was just a really good time, and I'm
Speaker 1: glad we got to spend it together because I got
Speaker 1: to do a lot of talking back and forth and
Speaker 1: sharing these experience and that's the good thing about going
Speaker 1: to Surling Fest is having camaraderie and being able to
Speaker 1: experience these things and share those thoughts, you know as
Speaker 1: you listen to other speakers. He's just wonderful. So anyway,
Speaker 1: well Tom, that's it from John and I. We just
Speaker 1: wanted to get these thoughts out and share them with you.
Speaker 1: It was a really great time and we look forward
Speaker 1: to future Surling Fests. So till next time, mate, Cheers
Speaker 10: Cheers along everyone,