A Geek History of Time - Episode 21- Pinball and its Discontents (Part 2)

Episode Date: July 16, 2019

Derek Lipkin returns to share more of his encyclopedic knowledge of Pinball, and Ed and Damian both geek out over his level of expertise. He explains how Pinball went through a period of decline, how it is experiencing a renaissance, and how movie tie-ins feature in these developments.

This is a geek history of time. Where we connect nerdy to the real world. I'm Ed Blalock. I'm a world history teacher in my early 40s. I have a 14 month old son, a teach middle school, and I have been a nerd basically as long as I can remember. One of my seminal moments in my personal nerd history was actually playing a samurai character for the first time in Dungeons & Dragons using the old first edition AD&D Oriental

Adventure's book and I had absolutely no idea what any of the high level abilities for my character were going to be. But as I've mentioned in previous episodes, my outlook had been warped by too many samurai movies at two young and age and I was ready. Whenever I was going to be, I was ready. Take it away. I'm Damian Harmony. I'm a Latin teacher and I am my kid's mom.

No. Well, you can't harm. No. No. No. Well, you're not. Oh, shit. You're kind of, you know. You might thought to be funnier than Saturday. Yeah. I have been a geek most of my life. I've been to to be uplifting.

I just want a note for the record. I am the father of a nine and a six year old. My nine year old is getting into slapstick comedy. The other day, I threw a banana peel on the ground and pretended to fall, and he fell over laughing so hard. Both of my kids love Marvel movies, which is fun, and my daughter is figuring out, Ms. and Sen, through the Avengers,

which is weird and cool. She's six. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And so yeah, I've been geeking out most of my life. I remember distinctly playing a game called Ace of Aces, which is a booklet game. Oh yeah. Yeah. I still have it upstairs. Oh shit. You got it. You got to dig that. Yeah, we can even do livestream it upstairs. Oh shit. I mean, yeah. Oh, you got it, you got to dig that little hole. Yeah, we could even do a live stream that game.

Oh, yeah, that would be. I used to have the dragons of Perne, version of it too, but I don't anymore. I got to find it because my daughter would love it. That's obscure. Yes. Which like has me all worked up. I got such a grab on going on right now.

I don't know. So yeah, that's the kind of geek that I am. And yeah, to my right, we have our guest back from the previous episode, because we interrupted him so much that we needed to have him back for more. For another one. You sir, what is your name? My name is Derek Lipkin.

I am a 32 year old lawyer from San Francisco, California And I like long walks on the beach assuming there's a pinball machine at the end of the beach Wow, and San Francisco that's three beaches. Yeah That's a long, that's an it's most worth of walking. It used to be easier back when they had playland That's Yeah, it was right at the beach. Alright, cool. Well, last week you wouled us with an encyclopedic knowledge, and you didn't even open the book of pinball, and we're able to handle every stupid question that we

threw at you. And every, every nonsensical segway. I loved it. It was, I reveled in it. Off, off Mike, we asked him specifically about two games that we had seen at micro points in our life, and he immediately knew the game. Who'd made it? The history of it. It's relation to thing. It was insane. Hell, it had, you even just known like, okay, I don't know what game that is, but I know where I can look to. Find it. That would have been impressive enough. Yeah.

But you already, like with the one that I mentioned, you, you, all registered from the description I gave, and it was pretty specific. I didn't think there were very many games like it out there, but I was prepared to be surprised. Just for those, since you all listening, we're not all four of you. We're not privy to the actual conversation. When I was in college in the games area of the

Immunisable union at UC Davis, there was this borderline pornographic pinball game that well, it created borderline pornographic sound effects, I should say, that I mentioned and you immediately were able to be like, okay, that's like one of two games, that I'm pretty sure, and you were like able to correct me on no that wasn't ballet was a capcom And you explain the mechanical widgets of it. Yeah, it was It was the same. We're both pretty blown away

I would just want you to understand that's like we bow. I appreciate that. No, and I think is this is the joy of I appreciate that. No, and I think this is the joy of allowing someone to open up about their space because you get to see them just teach you and show you and I think it's such a joy. I do this in my experience meeting people, like especially in the board game community in like different literary communities,

like you just give them the opportunity to open up and they pour out all of this and it's so great. It's fun. Yeah, and I was, I was saying, because I asked the same kind of thing, and he knew everything that I was asking about. He's like, oh, there was a trilogy and I was like, oh, I meant this one.

Oh yeah, that was a fun one. I just played that last week. And I'm like, holy shit, is this what it's like talking to me about Star Wars? And it is, it is. Just for the record, it totally is. How come that guy's name is bib fortuna? Well, he's actually not accepted by the Tweet Lake community.

And that's why his name is actually. And this has happened repeatedly. Yeah. We'll get tonight's night too, but that actually is. That's why I don't speed date anymore. We'll get tonight's a two, but that actually is. That's why I don't speed date anymore. So that the Star Wars data east machine is my app. Like if that's in a tournament, I pick that game.

Oh really? I got to blow it up very, you know. Wow. Okay. In a very death star in way. Oh, it's very nice. Very nice. Very nice.

Anyway, yeah. We left off last week with, I believe there's a court case, and there was, and the use of microtransistors, all wrapped up in one that legalized pinball that re-legalized. It was 76, was it? Yes, that was Roger Sharp's shining moment. His called shot, his baby roof. I love, by the, how is that something that he's named in the community,

our Lord and Savior? Yeah, I would not be surprised if there's a shirt out there that you could buy. Sure. But, is Sharp we trust? I mean, truly, Roger Sharp just isn't a side about him. I mean, he's a wonderful person, I've met him. He's still very involved in pinball community.

And his son is actually the president of the International Flipper Pinball Association, the IFPA, which manages the world pinball points ranking system, the Wappers. And it is the sort of definitive system that ranks players worldwide, which where I have my own ranking. I'm in the top 1000, not bragging. Please do bragging. Feel free. Tell us your rank. Right now it's slipped a little bit. Now I'm 706 as of a few hours ago. Because you're here instead of... Because you're out of tournament. Yeah, there's actually there was a tournament today and I was but I was more than happy to come spread the gospel. Okay. That's what pinball always desires to be distributed amongst the like people.

Out of the world. Yeah. You're seven of six in the world. Where are you in the country? Where are you in the city? Oh, yeah. I can pull it up. The city.

In the, so actually I think in the city, well, I guess if you went by the league on in which is sort of the definitive league in San Francisco right now number eight. Wow. Yeah, so we were so So so how many just just because I'm not because I shut out your virtuosity, but because I'm just curious how big is the league? So right now it has 86 players, okay, so yeah, so I'm some right there at that top 10% and actually top eight is where you want to be when the Season is said and done because that is Those players get a buy in the playoffs So at the end of the season after 10 sessions they take your eight best scores Mm-hmm that seeds you into the tournament as long as you're available to play

Yeah, and then you yeah, there's top eight players get by the 16 players under them Duke it out to get back into the final 16 bracket. Sure. And then you just go head to head until the very end. Nice. Yeah. And it's great. It is great. I had the good fortune last season of progressing into the final 16 with a, like a really, it was a saving throw of a final game. And it was such, it was like fairly made it through

with just like last minute heros. Like the giants beating the royals in the World Series. Like she would know one. Oh my God, that was a rule. I watched that and like wept at the end. Yeah, that was just like that. So much went into this. Oh yeah, one of my rotation turns out it works.

But then, yeah, so by the time I got to my Ram 16 match, I was drained. And so it really is a marathon when you get into that level of pinball. But here, let me, I'm going to go on to the IFPA website, IFPApinball.com. I'm player 33048, and then you know, anybody else wants to see me out there. Right now in California, I'm 160th, which is not very impressive, but over the course of the year, I'll play some more California tournaments, hopefully bump that up.

If you're in the top 24, you get to go to the State Championship. Oh wow. Which I got to play in the past two years, which is always just a fun honor to go and play. Nice. I went down to Southern California two years ago, actually made it into the final eight.

And then this year, I was in the field of 24 and fortunately I lost my first match in a barn burner. So you'd be best of seven games every round and we went to the seventh game. It was just a crazy back and forth. So yeah it was great. And you've gone out to Pittsburgh for this stuff. Yes. So the largest... Well so aproximally there are apparently pinball tournaments that happened in the 60s and 70s that had upwards of like 5,000, 10,000 purchases of pins. I think those numbers were inflated by whatever journalist was reporting on them at the time. Sure. But the on the record largest pinball tournament is in Pittsburgh. It's called Pinberg.

And it is an annual event at how it takes place at a larger gaming event called Replay FX, which is put on by the Replay Foundation in Pittsburgh. And it's you know, just like California Extreme in Santa Clara, big convention where there's all sorts of games. They have the largest pinball tournament. Last year was 800 players. This year is going to be a thousand players. Wow. And the tickets. So you just buy your way in. Okay. It's just a ticket system. Tickets sold out in under 20 seconds.

It is a hot ticket. Oh, wow. Yes. A thousand spots sold out in under 20 seconds. So that's amazing. Yeah, and I was fortunate enough to get another ticket this year. Nice. Yeah, I don't, and it's funny too.

A lot of people talk about technical issues that they have when they're booking their ticket. I just always go on, I mean, I go on right when nine o'clock rolls around in the tickets release, but I never have a problem just getting, getting going. Going, yeah, I don't know if I just have a very good connection.

Yeah, that's karma. But yes, so that's like, I try to get tickets for San Diego. Yeah, you're either one of the elects, yes, the God's favor or you're not. Yeah, so there's a ton of great tournaments. And actually I help with the live broadcasting of the San Francisco tournament.

It's called City Champ. Used to be every December, but we're actually moving it into June. So I don't know exactly when this will drop, but if it's around June, if you go to twitch.tv slash SF pins, you can watch the tournament live from where you just go. Yeah, so anyway, yeah, 160th and then worldwide 706. So I'm gonna pump that up. My goal is to get top 500 by the end of the year.

That's a very good role. I'm gonna put up some good numbers. Nice. I think you like with it. Yeah, thank you. Anyway, yeah, so we were talking about Roger Sharp and his Ilkair, it's still in charge of pinball today. Sure. But he, yeah, that was really a pivotal moment for the game. Because yeah, finally, landed at this legitimacy as an amusement rather than having this stigma of being associated with the gambling of days of old.

And we're just kind of the seediness of it all. Because I know when my dad reminisces about that machine that was down at the service station down the street from his flat house, when he talks about it, there's always this edge of like, well, we were getting up to no good, kind of toned. And he was a fraternity brother in the early 60s. There was a certain amount of getting up to no good that was, you know,

there was probably a sweater. Yeah, well, you know, I was North Florida. I don't think it was too warm for a party as wetters. It was Florida State, so I don't think. So he really kind of wrote the seminal work I was letting Derek ever for a Yeah, I know you leave a trail of tears Oh my man. Oh, that was good. But yeah, I think I think you're totally right. Yeah, I did have that kind of sense. And I think because of that

trajectory, it really was not available at least in the way that we think of it. Like the modern arcade was not really present yet. Yeah, right. And so yeah, like a pinball hall probably wasn't quite as well established. It was probably out of bar or it was probably, you know, kind of low rent gangsterism. I imagine. It would be like Bugsy Malone when he was a kid kind of stuff, you know, like, you know, just like,

juvenile delinquent. Right. Like, it's how you kind of work your way in kind of, you know, yeah, the junior league, you know, would, would, if it Jones was a gangster, you know. There you go, yeah. So if, so they were, they were frequently, you know, earlier on in pinball, they were, they were found in, in taverns as a thing we, we mentioned last time.

And just, I don't know, because the thought occurred to me. Do, do you know if they were a thing like in pool halls? Because we're talking about them being associated with vice and, you know, seeding and the snowless kind of stuff. And I'm wondering, you know, because the reputation pool halls have had historically, do you know of? Yes, okay. Well, I can say at least there was always a very present

connection between pinball and pool, or like billiards, in the sense that there are good many pinball games that are themed on pool. And actually some of the best pinball games from the 70s and 80s are all pool related. So I would not be surprised if that was prioritized in order to get them into pool halls, you know, probably in the back corner or something like that.

And yeah, so it was, it was definitely waiting for a table to open up you, but put a quarter in the machine corner or something like that. And yeah, so it was definitely while you were waiting for a table to open up, you put a quarter in the machine. Right. So you had, there was actually, it's funny, I'm forgetting the name right now. There's one that is almost exactly, like you look at the back glass and it's happy days,

but it's not, they did, it's not themed after happy days, has some other name, but then there's eight ball to look, which was one, there's rack them up, which was another one, there's pinball pool, which was got leave game. So youum Up, which was another one, there's Pinball Pool, which was Gottlieb Game. So you had like this really strong nexus, I think, between those two. I think to a lesser extent, there was bowling. It was as a theme of the game.

I could imagine that bowling alleys were probably a place you would all show, see a McKay's. Baseball would probably be a pretty easy game to go. There's a couple in there, yeah, that are quite fun. I'll actually be very first game that was, oh gosh, I'm forgetting the, I could look it up, but I think basically the first one that had the LCD scoring back glass, we had that display, was a baseball game. It was the Coggo Cubs triple play,

which came out I think in the early 80s. And it kind of had an old style to it, but sure. But it was the modern game. Probably had the organ sound, the MIDI file or something. So, you mentioned the back glass. This was a question that occurred to me when we were talking about the evolution of the physical game last time. You talked about the introduction of electrical elements and it intrigued me that lighting

up the box itself was not one of the first electrical elements that you described happening. I would assume that if you're going to hook electricity up to the thing, putting some lights in the box to illuminate what you're playing would just naturally be something that would be one of the first things that you would do. But it sounds like that came later. Well, certainly for the back box because the back box came later. So yeah, so that as a means of conveying any information was not until someone thought to actually put the scoring up there. So before the scoring used to be actually on sort of like the same plane as the rest of the game. So you'd like look down at where you were standing and that's where you would see like on the baseball one I described that's where it would count your outs and your strengths right there was

nothing there's no display the way you think of it so yeah so as the that became more in vogue then there was finally a function for the back area and then of course I think quickly it just came up yeah with that and so and then of course that progressed from lighting up the score doing the math to figure which would have been a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of a bit more of of real that was a zero that would never turn. Right. Some of them actually, it would turn because the games would go by 1.2.3. Now it's very common for Pimolishis to always end in a zero. So you would never have a score that ended in any other digit. And so, it's, yeah, so I think that was really once the advent of that as the display came along then, I think quickly they added the lighting

in there. Before the lighting would go directly into the game. So if you had like the bumpers which were already available those might be illuminated you have lighting that was sort of along the sides that were illuminating the the play field. I think what we're also saying there is also that the game becomes obviously it's recreational but like prior to the backboard having that kind of function, it's a me and the game thing. And I'm trying to make money maybe, right? Once you get the backboard, backbox, and you get the displays up there, it becomes communal.

It becomes, let's go with our frat buddies and go take turns and stuff like that. And so it clearly is stepping into out of the shadows and it's a spectator. It's a spectator. It becomes partly a spectator sport, actually. And actually, in the end. In the community. Yeah.

And then also sort of with that, I mentioned how you always see the fore amusement only sticker. You often in these games, mostly from like maybe the late 50s into the 60s definitely, see a lot where there's additional signage around the back box or down by the apron near the flippers, something along the lines of it's more fun to compete. And you see this real push as the two player game becomes, because a lot of those early games that I described where it's illuminating, that was just a one player at a time. So you would illuminate, and that would be the score

for a single person. Then when you could put two score reels up, then you have the ability to have player one and then player two. Also, the place from which we get one up in video games came from pinball. So on the back, you can see this, if you ever go see an old pinball machine,

often they will have one up, two up, three up, four up to indicate which of the four players who have had a credit is up. And that was adopted by essentially, like Shigeru Miyamoto used that when he was creating the Mario system, or I should say the Mario game. And so yeah, it's a fun little link there to video games. And so the, anyway, just to get back to, I wanted to make sure I didn't lose my trail. But, so if we're talking about the late 70s, pinball starting to come back. Oh yeah, and then you mentioned the community. So then we have the real sort of test, I think, in terms of pinball's history, and the first sort of serious challenged a pinball that wasn't state run.

And in this case, it was... It didn't wear a bad. Yeah, exactly. And so this was in the form of video games. And so as video games came along, I would interrupt you real quick. So we're talking, pinball is legitimized in on a major way in 1976. 1978, the fantastic four end up fighting against a villain named Arcade.

Remember the red headed guy who turns everything into a pinball game. Yeah. Yeah. He tries to kill the Fantastic Four in Murder World. Yeah. And it's this demonic carnival and of course he's a fucking red head but whatever. But, always. You're not better.

Yeah, not at all. Not at least. But, but. Sultry is there. Yeah, not at all. Not at least. But salty as hell. Yeah. But it's 1978. Yeah. And I think it's its own issue.

It's not even part of the Fantastic Four and I have it. He becomes a mainstay villain against Fantastic Four and I think Spider-Man and I think the Avengers as well in the late 1970s. I can see him being in the Spidey books. But it's not until after that court case, and it's just before video games, and historically comics are a little trailing indicator of culture, but I do think it's interesting

that you don't see pinball being used in a major plot device. Again, it's in the background. I mean, you see times where the kids are at the malt shop or something and it's over there. Or Johnny Storm, I'm sure there's something where he talks about going to play pinball. But the actual like centralization of it

as a character's motif is after the legalization. So I just I needed to pop that in there. So yeah video games. Yeah, so I mean I think I probably we all have at least some familiarity with the video games and one way or another and of course I think that was in at least with respect to pinball. It was sort of a double-edged sword in that. I think it finally provided a new venue. So suddenly you had arcades that were I think a place where Pinball could co-exist with video games. But then you also had the sort of preference of the children of America who were probably wowed by new graphics, probably wowed by the sounds of Pac-Man and Donkey Kong,

you know, 80 and 81, and really bringing these really interesting things to bear. And so I think this is the first point where Pimball has a bit of like an identity crisis of like, how are we going to stay relevant? And I think it does spark Indie 80s, one of these sort of pinball renaissancees that you might talk about, where games started becoming really a lot more sophisticated with, certainly with the inclusion of ramps, with the inclusion of, so at this point we have solid states so we have more sophisticated scoring so we talk about multi-ball. That had been around in some older games but you have a game like this game called Multi-ball. That had been around in some older games, but you have a game like

this game called Multi-ball Firepower, where you had a place to lock three different balls and it had a lot of the sound system that you might find in a video game. So it was sort of trying to occupy a similar space using the pinball framework. And so, and often you'll hear, there's actually one particular for all the Williams games of that era. There's like one sound board that they use. And so, all the sounds are very spacey and like lasers

and whatnot. So, there's actually a whole spring of games, one of which I own, where they almost all have a space theme because they were just reusing the sound board on all of them. And so, yeah, and I I think that kind of like how rock in the 70s all had that same synthy. Yeah, and you start hearing 808s on everything. Yeah, in the early 80s. Yeah, because everybody was playing with the same set of toys. Right. Now you said that it's having a crisis and that there's a resurgence. Do we have figures on how many people were playing?

Cause you talked about 50,000 were made. But how many people were actually playing pinball? I mean, like I said before, it was ubiquitous. It's always in the background. I don't think there's a person I know, my age or older that didn't play pinball at some point. But do we have like record of the amount of, is there a way of backtracking that like the amount of

maintenance that had to be done on these machines? I imagine there probably is. I don't know that it was ever well documented. I think it was, I mean, you probably could look at the numbers of the machines. That's probably the best metric. Because I think that really does track to like how popular it is. Sure, how distributed the games are. And so I think when in this era, you're probably seeing, yeah, like the numbers, the raw numbers of the actual output of

huge manufacturer go down, even though there was still, I think, a pretty good number of players. So you still had Gottlieb, you still had Williams, you saw Balli, you saw Midway, also making their own games. But then this is a time of consolidation. And so I think this, you know, as with many things in the 80s, where there were companies acquiring and being, you know, hostile takeovers and one not. I think you finally saw that in the amusement world and certainly for pinball, where you see these different companies start to join together, I think, to gain efficiencies or probably survive. Yeah, exactly.

So you have Balli and Midway joining together and that's why you see- I was about to ask about that because you mentioned Balli and Midway, there's like, wait a minute. Yeah, Balli Midway. Exactly, so you'll see a ton of games that have that branding on it.

And then you'll also see, I think Williams at one point started doing sort of co-development. So they would work on games together and kind of share resources in order to keep production up. But I think I'm happy to, while we're chatting, kind of get some of the numbers, but I know that there was a sharp increase as we move through the 80s and into the early 90s

when there, so as these games are getting more sophisticated in order to try to stay relevant, I think they're sort of trading water for a time, but there are still innovations happening, like the DMD, so that's the dot matrix display And so this is the the leap forward beyond the LCD that you have just sort of like the alarm clock You were describing in the last episode of those sort of blocky the numbers Now you have the ability to sort of represent actual graphics

Sure saying yeah, so so this is the more like the adab's family and the Jurassic Park. Okay. Those more mod that kind of what you think about, I think when a lot of people think of, you know, at least people in our peer group, probably going to an arcade and seeing that kind of pinball machine.

Sure. That has, sometimes even like full animation that they just, you know, in newer games, they pull wholesale scenes from a movie on the Iron Man game. Right. It actually, it doesn't always translate perfectly because it's hard to represent, which is four shades. Yeah.

But yeah, which is an irony, no pun intended there, but it's an irony considering that. It's four color comics. Exactly. Well, when it's four shades, the same hue. Yeah, it's a little bit more than four. Yeah. And you definitely saw there were efforts to, so actually this was a time where pinball actually tried to meld with video games for a time.

So there was baby Pac-Man was a pinball game that actually had a pinball a table below. And then when you hit it certain shots, it would send you up to a video screen and you would play Pac-Man. Oh wow. And so you would actually be able to play, but. I remember seeing, I don't remember where I saw that,

but I do remember seeing that. Yeah, it's like Herman Gurren was deciding He's like it can dive bomb and it can be a fire Yeah, no It's gonna be shitty of both no it really yeah It it it's good at one and it sucks at the other yeah What what I find interesting about this is, in order to compete with video games, it sounds like the spectacle of the pinball machine became even more of a thing.

Yeah, I think so. We were talking about the community nature of everyone going down and having multiple player features. Right. So you can compete against your buddies. You're all kind of playing at the same time. Yeah. And it's something that, you know, two of you can be playing the other guys are talking and watching what's going on.

And now it's a multi-sensory, I mean, you know, the big bang, whatever it was, that my buddy loved playing in the M.U. Was this, I mean, it was highly inappropriate, but it was, it was the sensory overload kind of thing. Yeah. Another one of the games that we had down there for a while was Black Knight. Oh, yeah.

Black Knight's great. Which, you know, the number, the number of just, you know, sounds that this thing would make. When you score in the, you know, the stentorian voice of the black knight coming over the speakers and thunder strikes, you know, and all these sound effects, there was a certain aspect of almost overload,

like this just sensory, a phantasmagorical kind of experience playing the game. And I think that's probably a function also of the competition if you're in a arcade. You're sort of competing for what's going to happen. Natural selection, you know, whoever the loudest bird is, the one that gets to mate. Yes, kind of thing.

But the weird thing with that though is that they're stepping in to compete with something that has every advantage over them, though. Video games are video games. They're not mechanical in any way. They're not, I mean, they're all computerized. You're going to lose that fight. When in graphics, you're gonna lose that fight

in frankly, in playability options, because you kinda only have like your fighting gravity and you're trying to finagle it to not hit somewhere, or to go hit somewhere else. Whereas in a video game, like, oh, I could hit little, I could hit medium, or I could hit big, I could hit high, I could hit low. I can be Bart Simpson, and I could jump on Principal Skinner, or I could, big. I could hit high, I could hit low. I can be Bart Simpson and I could jump on principal Skinner.

Like you pick the video game and there's so many more playability options. Even, and here's where it's this weird reverse though. Video games have spectacle beat hands down that over pinball. Pinball has long term playability beat hands down over video games, because most video games at that time are either fighting games or Side scrolls or you just keep leveling up. Yeah, they're they're limited in their playability whereas a pinball

You can just go and go and go and go on this is because By their very nature like you're talking about, the very intrinsic nature of video games is binary. It is dealing with machine code, it is dealing with somebody actually has to sit down and write the code for, how do you hit principal skinner in the head with your skateboard? Every one of those options has to be thought out, planned, animated, you know, every one of those options has to be thought out, planned, animated,

you know, coded out, whereas the interactions that you can have on 1980s and 1990s computers, by the way. Yeah, on, on, on, with, 1990s graphics. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and, you know, with, with all of it being written, yeah, because the computing power did exist for you to have any part of it be machine-generated like now. But, you know, whereas with a pinball machine, there is, and the only adjective I can think of is organic kind of nature too, because it's analog. Because it's analog, there is a built-in level of variability that you can't get with

ones and zeros. Right. Yeah. You know, and so, yeah. I think that's a remarkable insight. It's where their strengths are. Yeah. And yet they're trying to compete where they're weakest.

Yeah. Well, yeah. And, and, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I think one thing that also sort of played into it is that, and so I think this was the time where they started kind of throwing everything at a pinball machine in order to figure out what was going to make it sticky.

Yeah. And so, and so we were talking about this a little bit between the upsets, but it was so to make it. Yeah. That's the link. That's the top of it when they get it. The actual top of it would make it. Yeah, I didn't even go there. That was well done.

Yeah, well, that's that's I wait on a tour. I'm not where I am. I'm not where I went. I'm telling you, because it's time I roommate spend playing pinball games in the EMU. I thought it was. And so yeah, you would have certainly technical, but then also, I think we were talking a little bit in the break about sort of the theming and the sort of,

there was this bent of kind of, Pym on Machines kind of playing to Americanism, with like putting Reagan on the back glass, making fun of Gorbachev and Taxi. He's like one of the characters you have to collect in order to get the jackpot. Along with Santa Claus, Marilyn Monroe, Dracula, and Pimdeff. I saw the picture you were showing in the book. Oh yeah, very good. Wow. So yeah, so I think there was this sense of like, okay,

you know, and really I think there, so there had been licensing throughout. So you could certainly find games in the pinball history that were themed after Incredible Hulk. Of course. Close encounters of third kind. Yeah, exactly. Superman's great game. Space Invaders, there actually was a pinball machine, which has a great back glass that has

the sort of infinite mirror effect. Okay. So there was, but I think there was pretty still in a mode of coming up with an original theme most of the time. And a lot, there's a lot of love for a lot of those games from, especially the late 80s, that were developed by some like Pat Lawler is just one of these designers who has a very distinct pinball style. He always has this upper flipper that hits to an upper ramp. And so, and actually, he just recently made a new game. Sorry, you were going to say. Well, you mentioned the upper flipper up to an upper kind of, I've seen that immediately made me think of machines that I've

actually played. Yeah. You know, in that passing, I'm a filthy casual kind of way. But yeah, that, that, that, so, so designers have signatures. Yes. Well, certainly there's a, yeah, to talk about the designers, there are, yeah, certain, I guess, you would find, well, I guess, to a certain extent, all pinball has a certain similarity. And there are certain trends, like when multi-ball was introduced and as it became standardized across a lot of games, the shot to lock a ball often became green. So like on a lot of games you'll find that the green shot is the one where you'll put the ball away and then eventually you do it three times, you'll be doing multi-ball.

Of course it varies with certain machines. But yeah, there's certain trends that's for show up. And then you see certain trends in the sort of physical layout. So yeah, the side flipper that's up on the machine that you have to use to hit, that become, that's on the most widely produced machine, Adam's family. And so that is, yeah, you start to see these trends and certain designers kind of gravitate to certain designs that way. And even to the design. So there's one designer who's sort of like a fire brand in pinball for things he's done and said, but he always embedded the display within the game. Rather than having it on the back box, he had one, is one called a certain Voltaire, where the game is actually,

the display is right on the back of all of the stuff on the play field, and he had another game they made later on that, also implemented that. So you kind of see this sort of design elements go into people's thoughts. But of course, the sort of most notable person is Steve Richey, who is the voice that finish him in Mortal Kombat. Really?

Yes. Which is a midway video game. Exactly. And so he is the creator of what a lot of people refer to and himself called flow. So pinball machines that have this ability to just like, as long as you're hitting shot after shot, you almost get into this like flow state of the ball Just constantly traveling from one shot to the next shot and there's always like a path for it to go And so his one of his games is the getaway or rather it's called high speed

That was the original one and they had high speed to the getaway Which actually was the exact same play field but with modern pinball technology sort of upgraded in the game so anyway, yeah. But I think in terms of certainly where I come in as a child in pinball, and I think this is maybe sort of indicative of the way the culture was moving a little bit, there did become this sort of like the blockbuster, I think became a little bit more prominent.

And maybe that's my sort of bias from my time as a... You mean like license after the movie? Right, so I think this is... I remember Twister. Yeah, Twister came along. And certainly I think, you know, 92 you get, finally they, like a... Which could be Jurassic Park at that point, right?

Well, actually, that was 93. Okay. And then, obviously, it's a 92, it was the Dany Star Wars game. Oh, there was an Empire Strikes Back Machine that came out before. But I don't it's that one sort of like less notable in the sort of pinball history. But you finally get a lot of these big ones get Jurassic Park. And you have the the sort of build up again of a lot of the original themes. And so there's medieval madness. That was actually one of the most highly rated games ever.

It's still sort of, there's a company that, again, licensed to make that game brand new because it's just so popular. And so people love it. You get Monster Bash, which is licensed of the Universal Monsters, so the Frankenstein's monster, and kind of Frankenstein and all that, the mummy. And then, yeah, I think that's when I think there becomes this, yeah, like the blockbuster becomes the motivator for pinball

in a lot of ways. To the point where today, there's almost no pinball that is an original theme, at least from a major manufacturer. Really? There is, so Stern's Kimball, which is actually, the, so Data East was started by Gary Stern with money from Data East Japan. Gary Stern being the son of,

I'm not quite sure his first name, but the founder of Williams. And so there was, anyway, this move toward just licensing because I think that became the more sort of profitable way to make something. If you had some that built an audience, then I think that became a preference. So really in the past, there have been smaller manufacturers now that kind of build their own original themes, but they are becoming sort of few and far between. It is certainly the exception of the rule.

But yeah, so I think it's, but this is really another high point. The 90s become a really high point for pinball where suddenly I think the games are sophisticated, they're accessible. They're being widely made. So like Adam's saying, we had 20,000 machines, which is very high. And certainly not for the older machine like Baffleball, I said, doing a 20,000 machines which is very high And certainly not for the older machine like baffle ball I said I think that was a sort of a much you know more niche or this is a much more niche, but still popular item I think baffle ball is so simple at the time that you probably could make a bunch And I'm sure that it was also the only show in town. Whereas Adam's family is one of...

It is co-peating again. Dozens. Yes. A whole bunch of other games. Yes, and you still have... In that same spirit. Right, and you still have a lot of the players likes of Williams still around. You have Valley Midway, you have Gotley, but Gotley is now premier and not making nearly

as high quality machines as maybe they're once were. That's my opinion, I'm editorializing. But then yeah, and then there's say yeah really great. I think generally pinball players in this day and age have a very strong affection for that run in the 90s. So like from the Adam Samuels and the Indiana Jones pinball adventure. Is it because you were kids at that time? I mean I think there's a bit of that but I think so. I think there I think it also did. There was a certain like standardization of the experience. I think there might have been like enough variability between games before that, you know, there it might not always appeal to the broader population. And then

finally, you have like an independent state machine, and it's just as good as the other machines, at least to the untrained eye, maybe. I remember the independent state machine too. Yeah. And you have, I think it's just a good time. And finally, I think, but there was, I think the writing on the wall toward the late 90s.

And basically, that's when the major pinball manufacturers But there was sort of I think the writing on the wall toward the late 90s and Basically that's when the pinball the major pinball manufacturers start going out of the business So in 96 there's the exit of Valley Midway. So you have a what you have a glut in the early 90s And then they go out in the late 90s. Yeah, there's a lot of things that are doing that at that same time I'm remembering. You remember, well, wrestling nearly went out of here. There you go. You mentioned it. Wrestling does that hugely.

Like, you have this explosion and then by the mid-90s, they're almost drying up and desiccating and then it comes back in a major way. Yeah. Because you have the Monday Night Wars, but I'm also thinking in terms of comic books Yeah, the mid 90s is when you start seeing all the licensing happening the first round of licensing happening because they're trying to save Marvel and DC You also start to see Superman getting killed Iron Man dying Everybody dies for a little bit to just please be interested in us.

And so you have like, when Robin got killed. Jason Todd. Yeah. Oh, that would have been the late 80s, early 90s. Because, yeah, because one of my favorite lines was, I don't know if you know, there are multiple robins in one of which was Jason Todd and you could vote in the back of the comic book as to whether or not he dies. Wow. And yeah, more people voted to kill him than not. And it's a really dark chapter and it's Joker beats him to death with a crow, nearly to death with a crowbar and then he leaves a bomb on him.

But he has this wonderful line of, this is going to hurt you a lot more than it's going to hurt me. And it's just like, oh, Joker is not a fun loving guy. Yeah, but at the same time, we're talking about mid to late 90s. TSR, terribly shitty rules. As somebody who loves, as somebody who loves Dungeons and Dragons, terribly shitty rules. That's somebody who loves. That's somebody who loves Dungeons & Dragons. Yeah, and the Marvel game. Up until he became a dad, was it a very long-running first edition A&D campaign

with the orange spine books, the whole line of yards. I could get away with using that nickname for the company because it's bunch of things. He is sainted by the community Gary Geigax had some really weird ideas. Um, but. T.S.R. goes out. bunch of things. He is sainted by the community Gary Geigaxe had some really weird ideas. But T.S.R. goes out. T.S.R. goes out. And it's then in the 90s they get bought by Wizards the Coast, which

then spins off Paiso publishing and then winds up. Yeah. then spins off Paiso publishing, then winds up. Yes, so it's... But you're seeing the death of a lot of artistic things. A lot of pop cultural mainstays are somehow go through this period where they're all trying to find their way and they're all starting off. Interesting, and I don't know if this is anything other than correlative but conservative talk radio shoots up in the mid-90s. Yeah well I think my own kind of knee jerk hot take on it is that's also when

you have you get to the point where you literally have 500 channels and nothing's on on TV. It's true you you don't have TV guide anymore, you have the TV guide channel. Yeah, and so there's just so much out there that I think we collectively as a culture went through a period where there was all of this stuff going on and we were so spoiled for choice that we just kind of sat there metaphorically

in front of the TV, clicking through channels, maybe not really being able to settle on anything. I think that that could have been... That could be, or it could be that the market shifted in and businesses are always a little behind the market. They don't know how to capitalize on it. And so yes, now we have all these options. And we're consuming just as much if not more,

but now it's not going to the same seven. And then what happens is in the late 90s, also the internet. You've got the internet starting up, right? And I don't know what you paid for internet in the late 90s. I paid 899 a month for the internet in the late 90s. And that was pretty premium pricing, right? And the late 90s by internet connection was...

Yes. I graduated. Well, depending on what we call late 90s, I was in college. Mid-delay 90s. I paid for it instead of California. Right, but mid-delay 90s, and there were, you could open the phone book.

I remember when I moved up here I opened the white pages they still existed Um, and I looked at yeah, I looked under internet service provider and There were 30 listings in the Sacramento area alone. Now there's I Literally only have one choice where I live. Yeah, that's it And now it's been $90 in our apartment complex. Yeah, we only have the one right so I live. Yeah, that's it. And now it's $90. In our apartment complex, we only have the one. Right. So I'm just thinking about this is like it's it diffuses is what happens is everything's diffusing in in the 90s. And I don't know I'm just I'm also thinking what's happening politically. And there is a long piece at the top

of the food chain in terms of geopolitical stuff. But then there's also an internal devouring that's happening in both countries of the Cold War. Yeah. And I'm also just thinking culturally, you're getting into mono culture with friends. And we haven't had that episode yet. No, we haven't.

It really wasn't. But I do too. But you're getting into that, you're getting into anti-hero stuff, you're getting into a lot of things. I'm wondering what's happening that suddenly they go from blockbuster, there's your monoculture maybe, to suddenly nothing, and that sounds a little bit more

like the diffuser. I don't know, I'm spitballing on pinballing, but... Yeah, yeah. I mean, the only thought I've had, and this is just my own speculation, is that, at least for the sort of the youth, the access to entertainment that was sort of tickling that same bone, became very much easier at home. I mean, of course, you have games pricing from way down. Yeah, yeah.

And I think that's what killed the video arcade. Right. As somebody who in high school would go to the Nikolar Cade on a Saturday and blow through $20, $25. In video games, you20, $25. In video games, there, and then going to college, coming back two years later, and all of the arcades had dried up and blown away. Blockbuster got its start right around then, too.

Yeah, so they would rent things out, yeah. But you were saying, yeah, I just think that, and of course, consoles had been around since the 80s, but I think there was, I think at least, some kind of critical mass where they finally did have the penetration and they had the attention, such that they really did have this impact on the communal places where people used to go.

Of course, now I think, and we can talk about this as sort of now, a sort of modern era. You know, pinball really does kind of die, you know, just in a very comic book way, in 1989, where there's like one last chance to try to say pinball for, I guess, Bally Williams is at that point, or I think it was actually just Williams, but they pinballed 2000, which was a sort of prototype game, I mean, they made two, so it was Revent from Mars, which was a sequel to an earlier pinball game, Attack from Mars, also one of the most beloved games in the pinball community now, and then also

Star Wars Episode 1. And so, see why I died. Yeah, that's it. There were these two games, and basically there was a tube television mounted in the back box, which sat sort of over the play field, which displayed backwards onto the play field and that reflected correctly to the player, so that it looked like there were graphics embedded on the ramps and on the shots there. And so it was an interesting attempt to try to really modernize pinball on like a way, you know, try to make it more immersive.

It just was too late at that point for still indespectable too. Yes, yes. So it was really, so at that point, you have essentially one player left and that is Stern pinball and Stern pinball is basically Sega pinball which was Data East pinball and it gone to these multiple iterations and eventually Sega just sold the rest of the company over to Stern pinball to go forth and do whatever they did. So this was basically a period of roughly 10 years from like 2000 until maybe like the late arts where there was really only one game in town.

It was Stern Pimbal. And so they were continuing to make games and they made some unlicensed, some license as they could go along. But really it was, you know, this is actually kind of like a low point for a lot of pinball players in terms of how they feel about the games, like a lot of these games, you know, they just weren't quite as interesting. They didn't maybe have the rule set that they were looking for.

It felt a little perfunctory, I think, to some extent. I mean, sometimes games still are very fun. Right. I think there was this sense that there, because there was a competition, there wasn't really any need to be creative or try to come up with something. It's the same exact criticism of wrestling. Interesting.

Yeah. Yeah. So it was really that that was sort of the main situation for a while. And then there is finally sort of this spark, I think, when the odds turn into the teams. And we finally get at least some competition with a new player named Jersey Jack.

So Jersey Jack is the nickname of Jack Quarini, this guy who's in New Jersey, and he is makes the Wizard of Oz pinball machine in 2013. And so the reason that is notable, and I'm sure I've skipped over at least some details, but this was definitely a amazing sort of entry into pinball where there was just nothing prior. This is a game where the entire back box at this point had an LCD screen, which was showing full animation of the movie, of all of these graphics, all of these interesting sort of little tidbits. The sound was amazing, the colors were all in every single light on the play field is multicolored,

so it can be different colors and different themes throughout the whole thing. And they really, I think put forth something that was actually a colorable competition to Stern, who at the time was really kind of playing by themselves at the S point. And so I think that it was a moment where finally Pimbal started to come back to life in a way that I mean now we are really at one at the high point again of Pimbal having Stern, Joseph Jack, there's another company called Spooky, there's two other new companies that are starting to produce their own machines. So you're seeing this really,

and I think it's also motivated by sort of the maker community. Yeah, I was gonna say, like it's, you know, it used to be, there were these long standing companies that got their start when it first started and they were just grandfathered in. And now you're saying there's five players on the field,

all of a sudden, in less than a decade. And I was thinking, yeah, we're talking startups. Why did they choose Wizard of Oz? It's not public domain yet. Right. I think there's, I actually don't know if there was a particular thought as to, I mean, it hadn't been used prior. So, just novelty right there. Yeah, I think that's one. I mean, certainly hadn't been used prior. So, like just- Just novelty right there. Yeah, I think that's one. I mean, certainly something where there's a lot of elements that lend itself to a good pinball

machine, so you have- Sure. There's a little upper play filter you have the house in the tornado, and it spins around. You have each of the pop-uppers are one of the trees, and there's the crystal ball that you have to hit at certain times when it activates certain modes. If bad things happen, you could see monkeys fly or I'll get you my pretty. Well, yeah, and also there is a shot where you put it

into the shot, the monkey comes down, grabs the ball and takes it up to the tower. Oh, fantastic. And so really, like, that was a, at least I think at the time. And this is around when I think it's finally breaking through such that like I'm aware of it two years later. I guess a year and a half later. Where yeah, like there's just again throwing everything into the game and trying to make

something that is a spectacle. But this time the spectacle was not like we're going to beat you graphic for graphic. The spectacle is how the game operates now. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and you know, you talk about the maker community. Yeah. And I think that's interesting note, but something occurs to me talking about the nature of the Zitgeist kind of shifting,

that in the 90s it was one way. Do you think there is something generationally kind of going on with, you know, in the 90s talking about, you know, video games at home and being able to get all of our, easily get all of our entertainment at home through, you know, cable and whatever all. Do you think there's like,

that this is part of a bigger movement toward like millennials and folks of that generation now looking for a way to get out and form face-to-face kind of communities because of the way that so much of everything else we're doing is across computer screens. And I think so.

I mean, I think that's certainly like the optimist reading of the situation because it's... No, that's me. Yeah, no, but I think there's something to it because it really, I mean, this, the sort of rise of pinball and now like there's pinball leaks in so many places and there's now a real drive for inclusion in pinball and there's actually one of the founders of a group called Bells and Chimes. Her name's Eka. She is out in Oakland, started this group for female identified pinball players and now it's like chapters all over the world. Just for the curiosity of this Bells B-E-L-L-E-S.

Indeed they do. Okay. Hi. I appreciate that. It's perfect. And yeah, so I think there is this sense of this, we have this. It is a place for people to congregate, is a place for people to compete, but in a low stakes way.

Of course, it's increasingly becoming high stakes as now there's betting on Bimbal. So they're actually the most recent tournaments from the IFA. There have been like I think it's called my bookie dot com setting odds for finishing places of like the top ranked players in each of these tournaments. Which I just find fascinating. We'll put money on you. Yeah. Before there was there was no way to do it. Now you have like you can you can use it. Well, yeah, there's an app. Yeah, I know. You've loved it. Before there was no way to do it. Now you have like, you can use a pen. Well, yeah, there's an app.

There's an app for that. It's like with everything. Yeah. Well, and that's interesting too, because now you have the combination of isolation. This is an entirely private thing. I'm the only one who has access to this. I'm holding up my phone.

And I can privately interact with a community that is you are live twitch streaming it from another place so that I can be involved. But there are lots of bodies there. There are lots of people there. And yeah, like you said, there's this desire, there's this need to get out and congregate again because we spent so long in Plato's cave. We found really cool fire. We really did. That sounded really amazing fire. Yeah, and now we're kind of, because I remember I got to the point

with video games where I was just like, yeah, I'm kind of, I don't wanna finish this one. I don't care. And I've stopped playing as much that kind of stuff. And I use it mostly as a vehicle to talk to my friend. But, and yeah, now more people are wanting to get out. And there's still an nostalgia factor with pinball. And I wonder also if that's not,

one of the pulls of Wizard of Oz there was everybody's seen it. Everybody knows it's an identified. It's a part of my childhood. Yeah, and at the very beginning of the last episode, when you mentioned, you mentioned the Renaissance. You know, part of what I wondered, and this is now a question for you, is at League

Knights, at these Get Togethers, how, like, demographically age-wise. How much of the community is, like, mid-30s, as opposed to, and this is because, this is me as a late gen exer. I'm wondering for us, how much nostalgia is driving, or how many of us are being driven by an nostalgia into this community on an earlier level than folks your age. I think there is, I'm trying to think about,

I think probably the, like in terms of, yeah, the numbers of the 86 people, the, I would say, you know, close to like 30 to 40% are in my age, like 30. I think there's probably maybe like 20 to 25% that are like toward maybe like late Gen X. We did have one person who was, actually we do have a few folks who are like, I think maybe in their 60s. Yeah, but they're standouts. They're not. Yes, they're certainly exceptions to the rule. And so I think there is, yeah, like that, the breakdown is there.

I'm trying to think of, there are some folks who are maybe like mid-twenties. I think that's a little less common though. But it is sort of interesting because we I do see like when I go out to tournaments and whatnot there is It is like incrementally growing and it is a lot of the growth is coming from people who are younger than me So it's always good for any any industry. Yeah, and so so it's it's very cool and I mean, of course, I know some of these sort of stand out very young people like one of one of the players his name is Nick

recently won two large tournaments in the Bay Area including the one I was talking about earlier. He's I think he's 20. He's actually in Davis fantastic player and yeah, so he's part of the actually there is sort of this vanguard of young pinball players right now there's One who is actually I think the reigning world champion Or actually it might have been a few years ago now, but yeah, there's the heat I think at the time when he won he's 13 So yeah, like there is at least some interest from the younger generations in doing it. And I think as it becomes more, I mean, I know for like the young people in my life that I know, like my nephew, like Fortnite, being like a big sort of cultural touchstone for him.

And really the, you know, every game now is like focused around the online multiplayer aspect. I think as pinball becomes more present, and there you're certainly people who are agitating for it to be, I mean, it's gonna be on ESPN shortly. Yeah, the Ocho will have a pinball. I mean, truly, they do like that sort of promotional thing. They're gonna do a fully produced show about the most recent circuit finals that were in Chicago. Nice. On Aspirin.

And so, yeah, I think as that becomes more present and more sort of online, there is going to be, I think, a easier way for younger people to get in. And so I'm hoping that this sticks. I think this is a revival for Pimbal that feels like it's sustainable in a way that maybe before it was sort of the, it was just the vicissitudes of like the market. And now it's like, no, we're not, we're not doing anything to excess or anything. It's like we're trying to. You all are staking a culture. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So when was the last time you saw, like, you know the history of the stuff. When was the last era that pinball was this kind of big? Or at least a shade of this kind of big? I mean I really do think it was, it was probably the mid-90s because that was really the advent of competition pinball. It's first more sort of organized self. I think before that there were probably competitions that were won off, you know, very casual maybe. This is where, like the first pinberg, I believe that was in like the late 90s.

So pinball previous to the 90s was always much more just recreational, something to do while you're waiting on this. And then you got the 90s and there's competition in it serious, but even that was magnitude's lesser than what we're seeing now. Yeah, I guess so. So this is a fairly unique thing then. I think so. Culturally. Yeah. We're kind of seeing the real first critical mass of it, whereas like with baseball, there were waves. You know, there were absolutely waves whereas like with baseball there were waves, you know

There there were absolutely waves with wrestling. There were waves with gaming. There have been waves, but like with pinball With football there were waves and and basketball All the reason we're dying out, but yeah, but but with pinball like this is the first time it really You know, it's not like there weren't burps and sputters along the way right but this is it's really finally declaring itself yeah I think so and it is cool to be involved and it's still small enough that you still know everyone so it's like I it's nice to go to try and that's the perfect phase to get involved in it. Yes, I got to say, as somebody who was born in the phase of history that I was, I'm

envious of you for this interest because that's amazing to be able to be part of something in that phase of its growth. Yeah, yeah. I mean, just to give you this stat, so when I joined the league, and I finally got my first world ranking points, that's when I got my league and I finally got my first world ranking points That's when I got my league my IPA number. I was 33048 so 33,000th player basically They just passed 70,000 and that so that was from 2015 to now 2019 So like that feels like a pretty significant number like basically doubling in that time. Yeah Yeah, that's that's the population of Davis, I think.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so I think maybe a little bit less. I'm going to check census date. That's still. Yeah, and at least the only other thought I was going to share was in terms of millennials congregating. It is sort of, to me, it feels like the natural joining of,

okay, it's legal for you to drink now, and you still have this like nostalgia, like sort of childish, I mean, I say that trying to be as least pejorative to my own group, because I love millennials. And so I think there is though this feeling like there is an okay, it's okay to kind of be, have fun.

And that's something you guys have down that my generation is like kind of jealous of. Yeah. But yeah, you guys have actually figured out like, oh, work hard and then die kind of stupid. So, let's, we, well, here's the deal. Jen, Jen, I actually figured out that work hard does kind of stupid. But we're stuck.

We couldn't figure out an alternative. Yeah. You know, all our favorite shit kept dying in the 90s. Yeah, like, so, you know, yeah. Yeah. That's great. Yeah, that's amazing. So anyway, that's, I hope that was a fun and interesting

history of pinball. I think we touched on almost everything. Yes, it's amazing. So anyway, I hope that was a fun and interesting history of pinball. I think we touched on almost everything. I'm pretty sure I didn't say anything totally wrong. Well, I mean, as far as we know, everything was gospel true. So, I'm just gonna make sure I have some pinball people listen to this.

Oh, yeah. So, you're definitely more of a man. I'm just sure. Yeah, but, yeah, I'm sure yeah, but it's I have another episode where we address it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, perfect. So thank you. Yeah, for being a part of this. Ed, what's your takeaway? I'm I'm really inspired. I got to say, in a way I didn't expect to be, you know, kind of finding out that this is this, this whimsy that is resurgent, that is, that is growing, you know, with, with, you know, new people getting involved in the industry where there's actually, the trend in our society is everything moving toward monopoly. Disney has now bought 20th century Fox.

Mickey only needs one more stone before he controls the infinity god completely. And finding out that there is some aspect of popular culture that is actually experiencing growth and kind of a grassroots kind of expansion. There's a layer of joy here that I don't see with Disney buying shut up.

You know, no, because how could you? You know, well, because the X-Men, but still. But still, yeah, I mean, that's one bright note in another wise, you know, dark thunder cloud, like, oh my God, in another 10 years, that's gonna be, you know, big brother will have mouse ears. You know, that's the Gen X talk right there, that's right there, right there, that's how you can peg me. But you know, but but finding out that that there is this this thing that is that is bright and joyful literally bright and and joyful and and

and Goddy in the classic sense of Goddy, you know, Goddy taken from the Latin Gaudet. Joyful. Joyful. Joy, yeah. And that it's experiencing this kind of growth and that that growth is built around leagues and community and people wanting to get together and have this experience in the real world, you know,

in the same physical space together, you know, when so much that we hear everybody lamenting about our culture is everybody having their face buried in their phones. And, you know, what I'm seeing too often, like even with my students who are really young, is, you know, the ways they're able to be horrible to each other over social media and all that kind of stuff. In the middle of all that, this is a wonderful bright spot that I'm gonna carry a happy over that. So thank you very much for that.

That means a lot. Damien, how about you? Yeah. So my takeaway, I just realized there was a huge movement to get working people who had children and families out of the house in the 50s and it was bowling. And it was, there's this weird corridor that essentially runs through Cincinnati, interestingly enough, that huge bowling leagues,

enormous in the 50s, and bowling leagues were a big, big thing, and so was bar culture, going to bars, and this is kind of combining both of those things, but in a much, and bless the millennials for this, in a much more joyful way, like it's not scotch-induced. The alcohol is a lubricant, not the fuel. It's not three packs of cigarettes a day. I'm winding down so I can handle the pressures

of everything. It seems to be, and I might be wrong, maybe I'm projecting my hopes, but it seems to be, no, y'all are doing this because you want to, because you enjoy it, not because there's this need to not go home yet, and not because there's this need to self-medicate, and you had this, in the 50s, you had the advent of the nuclear family prior to that You didn't have that you had multi-generations living in the same space now you have this advent of the nuclear family and this sense of isolation

And you have you know and then you had these ways of addressing that isolation This doesn't feel like it's born of that This feels like it's born of a desire to enjoy, not a desire to avoid isolation. It's not a coping mechanism. Yeah. It doesn't have the feeling of a coping mechanism. Yeah. And you talk about the nuclear family in the 50s.

I want to point out, sympathetically, to our millennial brethren and sister that an awful lot of them are finding themselves not living in a nuclear family anymore. They're stuck financially in situations where they're still living with their parents in their into their 30s. And they're having to find alternative living arrangements

where there are friends, multiple groups of friends sharing the rant on a house, forming their own families. And so in a way, we almost see a culture moving back in a direction away from what we saw with Levitown and the nuclear family in the 50s, I mean, fueled by reasons that we wish were happier than they are, you know. But the outgrowth of that, I think, is that

this is more like you're saying, is at least our perception is a couple of you know salty generics is that it's more that it's more joyful and less of a oh my god I gotta do something I'm gonna go mad kind of thing. When you guys compete in your tournaments is there kind of shouting for it when someone does poorly or is it you kind of cheering each other on all the time? I mean I think it's somewhat situational. But I think, you know, because there's certainly times, I can certainly be honest and say like there's times where, you know, like when I have, there's just barely

scrape and body gets in the round like, I mean, I don't have a super great ball, but just not as great as mine. Right. So I think that, but really, I gotta say, I think that's a shame. But really, I gotta say, I really, I mean, as much as I, I mean, in so many ways it is an individual sport because, you know, he's just you in the game, you know, you're not worrying about somebody else doing something while you're playing, barring somebody like bumping into

you from the next machine. But it's, I think for the most part most part, I see people be very positive. And really, there is a, as much as there might be a disappointment that you didn't win, there is a certain satisfaction of like, oh, I'm glad that you did well. There's nobody in the league that I can think of who's like, you know, they do well and people are like scowling.

There's no Cobra Kai for the whole thing. Yeah, yeah, and even actually one thing that was sort of interesting, I did have sort of a spat recently with some folks. So there's a secondly, that's a team league, where we have like, you know, you farm your own pinball gang, and then you have a whole schedule and you go to people's dojoes and you fight them, and it's great. We, really fun, but we put in certain restrictions in order to try to make the league have some kind of parody, basically like a salary cap, but based off of the rankings.

And so this season, we introduced not only the rankings, but the ratings, which are calculated from this other source that logs up with Tom Pindball information. And so we had one team that was very upset because it broke up their team, because even though those players didn't play in a lot of tournaments, they were very good, and so their rankings were very low, but they were unrestricted players. But now with the new information, they suddenly became restricted. And it wasn't a bit of a shock to them.

I thought we have socialized it well enough. And especially the commissioner of the league, thought he did it so as well. And so, this person expressed their distaste on the Slack server that we have for the Pimbal community. And it turned into, you know, pretty heated discussion on Slack, but then when it came to Info Person,

I mean, I had to see this person at Pimbal tournament the next day. I went right up to him and I was like, hey, I just like shook his hand. I was like, hey man, like, well, I'll try to have a good time. And went right up to them and I was like, hey, I shook his hand. I was like, hey man, we're all trying to have a good time. And we had a very serious but adult interaction that I feel like was born out. I don't know that I would feel the ability

to be at, or the obligation to be has direct. If I didn't have a physical space where I had to be with that person. Like, it was, I mean, maybe that's not, you know, so unique to Pimble, but to me it did feel like. I couldn't see that kind of maturity in a magic together. Yeah. No, you wouldn't. Right. So I think you got something. There would be the flinging of all kinds of stuff.

Yeah, it's like cards, but a lot of others. Brown decks. of all kinds of stuff. I was like, cards, but a lot of others. Brown decks. Yeah. Yeah. So, sorry, I didn't know. No, no, I was just going to say, I think there is, yeah, like on the whole, it is a community

where people are, they're looking forward to other people doing well in their game. As much as it might pain them in certain instances where they lose. You know, it's... Well, I think the thing that I think of is I think everybody in your community probably has the ability to appreciate seeing somebody playing well. That there's something to, like, you know, if you're watching somebody, like my father for a very long time played golf, he can't anymore because his blood pressure gets too much. But you know, if you're watching somebody else play and just having an amazing game, there's

a certain amount of just seeing the artfulness of that, that you know, I mean, outside of, you know, it being somebody you've got to work with, you know, the guy's an asshole, you just, you know, I mean, outside of, you know, it being somebody you've got to work with, you know, the guy's an asshole, you know, but there's the beauty of seeing everything clicking along that flow state, that flow state, you know, or whatever like it, that I think also would kind of move in that direction toward it being easier to be happy for other people doing well. I think so. I think in my experience, I'm always trying to improve as a player, so just watching to learn as one element, but then yeah, especially I can think of several times where somebody was just

putting up a giant ball too. And even though I knew I was going to be on the short end of the stick because my score was not nearly that, it was exciting. I actually really was watching with Bated Breath. It was like, are they going to get to this motor? Are they going to get to that? What are they going to do next? So yeah, I think there's a little bit of that.

Cool. Ed, what's your reading lately? Fair amount for 51. Oh. As part of my job. So much for joy. As part of my job. You know, here's the thing.

I'm actually really enjoying it. And I'm actually finding a lot of meaning in Montaggs' arc. Okay. And in Montaggs' development. And part of that is because of what I've got going on at work while I'm teaching the book. And life and the T-Tarts. Yeah, and I know I'm projecting onto him because that's kind of his role as the protagonist in that story. But, you know, I had not picked the book up in years, and now I'm teaching it to my eighth graders.

And being in the position of teaching it kind of opens it up in a way that it didn't exist for me before. And you overheard me saying this a couple of weeks ago after we finished recording, I'm a whore for pros. And there is not anybody in science fiction, I think, who can be as poetic as Bradbury. Okay. And so I'm really grooving on it and it's forcing me to really think about the ideas in the book again,

which last time I read it I was a student and it was like, okay, get it. This is a very big book with very big ideas and I'm a precocious you know high schooler and I understand this and this is meaningful okay to orient tones moving on you know and then go home and pick up my dungeons and variance books and forget about it completely and now as an adult you know worrying about what the world's gonna look like for my kid. Yeah. There's a whole other set of levels that exist in it. And so yeah, I highly recommend it to anybody and everybody if you've read it before, reread it, and spend some time thinking about it.

Nice. How about you? Well, I've got a couple books there on the shelf behind me, but I also just recently picked up Caesar's Civil Wars. So every year I teach Demolicalical every year I teach the anion every year I teach Catalyst every year I teach some livy It's fuck I love my job But and we believe you yeah, tone so much, but I I have not read the Civil Wars

In their entirety I I think, ever. And I've certainly probably pieced it all together. Yeah. And so I've just gotten past the Wars in Spain. Okay. So he's gone there. And now he's going back to Missilla and settling in for the siege. He's already chased Pompey to Greece.

So I'm almost done with book one, and it's a three book, right? And so I'm rereading Civil Wars, and it's just so interesting, because I mean, I teach excerpts from it, but what's fun about it is that I'm seeing just the extent to which Caesar is clearly writing after the fact as the victor. Like he is so sympathetic to himself. And he is so, so, like he doesn't demonize the others, but he reduces them in so many ways. Like it's just, it's so interesting to see just the word choice.

And I'm reading an English translation of it, so I'm not reading it from the original. But it's just, it's been a lot of fun so far just to see that. So a question, you talk about him really being a really sympathetic to himself, really reducing everybody else's. He's really trying to make Rome great again. I doubt, okay, that was all, that was all I needed. He's just a lot smarter. Yeah like he really he has a strategy. Yeah the direction direction I want to go in yeah I mean you know I know that sounds like you know three a.m. shitter tweets from a certain personage that

I'm not gonna mention but you know the the, again, the pros is probably a lot better structure. Oh, yeah, there's a far fewer superlatives. But, here's, I think the main difference is obviously the intelligence. The main similarity is the personality defects that are allowing him to succeed. Yeah, god damn it. the similarity is the personality defects that are allowing him to succeed. Yeah. God damn it. You know, the, the, this shouldn't work. utter complete narcissism and the inability, and the inability to concede of being wrong.

Yes. It's astounding. Yeah. Or to concede to the enemy. Yeah. Yeah. It's astounding. Derek, you reading anything? I'm a terrible reader.

I must admit, I made it through halfway of Chernaus Hamilton. Okay. And it was quite enjoyable and then I kind of lost the thread. I think I'd do my best reading in Ace Attorney Phoenix Wright games. Okay. But yeah, it's actually, but I have been, I finally got back into gaming a little bit, as we were talking a little bit before the show. So that has been, and that's always been sort of my preferred storytelling. Yeah, it's great literature. And so yeah, I think that's, that's been a nice treat for me. Fantastic. Very cool. All right. Well, we ran a little bit long, but I think it's totally worth it. Definitely. So, it's entirely concurred.

Yeah. To find us on social media, you can find me at at the harmony on the Twitter, the U.H. Harmony. And you can find me at at EH Blalock on the Twitter or Mr. Blalock on Instagram. Oh, but if you find me there, it'll be a private account. And I'll have to follow me or not. You can also find us at Geek History Time on the Twitter. And please subscribe and like us so that we get our viewership up and we can be

influencers. You like us. Do you like us? Derek, is there anywhere that you want to play? Sure, yeah. If people want to follow me, I'm at Derek Lipkin everywhere. I'm the only Derek Lipkin ever. Nice. D-E-R-E-K-L-I-P-As in Papa, K-I-N as in November. I am also fresh poetic on all gaming services. So at FreshPoetic also on Twitter, you can find me there. I'm also the only FreshPoetic ever. At least that I've found. I keep searching.

I keep searching myself just to see if there's another Derek Lipkin in the world or another FreshPoetic in there, I as none. Shockingly, Argyle Jedi has taken up several places. I'm like, damn it. I guess they can't be Argyle Jedi there. That's funny. But also, if you would like to see some great pinball action,

follow twitter.com slash SF pins. So I'm sorry, I said Twitter. It's twitch.com slash, or twitch.tv slash SF pins. So many modifications on that. But that is the channel for the best Bay Area pinball streaming. And we will be streaming the city champ tournament on June 22nd and 23rd. Fantastic. Very cool. Just as a side note talking about, you know, googling yourself. Every time I Google myself, the first response that comes up is a voice actor for Anime. Oh, very good. It is not me, but it's like if there's going to be a famous Ed Blaylock, obviously

he had to be some kind of titanic nerd. So on that note, this is Ed Blaylock. I'm Damien Harmony. This is a geek history of time. And until next time, keep rolling 20s. Until next time, keep rolling 20s.