Hola, Sneakers! Welcome to Episode 484 of the podcast that knows better!
This week: no hits; 1:1 ratio; syncopated chocolate talk; waits and measures; penis thoughts; unfriendly friends; mean comedy; Covid fever; the Great Comedy Crash; Hollywood North; escaping MacGyver; tasting fame; pre-Internet nerd culture; typecast; Martin and Murray; or Chevy Chase; Firefly and Serenity; gratuitous death; powerful women are crazy; controversial flips; different experiences; bad marketing; super neck muscles; freaky dancing; my friend Ian; Dork Shadows – Journey Through Time; Question of the Week – Sneakers respond; perfect role; chopped food; chowsering; stinky pets; parents; 500 plans; and, finally, too long.
Thanks for listening.
Question of the week: What is your longest friendship and what do you think has made it last?
Sub-question (from Brent): What famous person are you related to and are people impressed when you tell them?
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I’m related to Brent, who is sorta famous and people ARE impressed!
My oldest friend is someone I grew up with on our block. She’s a year older but we went to the same elementary school, dance classes and youth groups. I think it’s lasted because we’ve lived through the ups and downs of growing up and growing older together. We’re in different professions, so we can bitch, er, talk about work freely. Whenever I’m anxious about big life changes, she has common sense advice like, “Others have done it and so can you.” She’s smart too. In the 80s, she was interested in computers so she bought shares in this company she heard about called Apple.
I’m not related to anyone famous but my cousin Steve, in his long-haired Surrey youth days, played a corpse on The X-Files. Like Ian, he was also in Happy Gilmore. He poured beer into a funnel for Happy. But I have written for some well-known Canadian actors. People whose mouths I’ve put words into include: Gordon Pinsent as Babar and Martin Short as the Cat in the “Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That.” Also, Bruce Greenwood as the centaur-mentor Chiron in “Class of the Titans.” I’m not sure how famous he is. He’s one of those “what’s that guy’s name again?” guys. I’d say he’s best known for playing JFK, American presidents that remind you of JFK, and Captain Pike in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot movies.
Fear not – I am still alive and have not been crushed under a mountain of spring cleaning shrapnel. I just got busy and distracted, between hanging my bike on the 12 foot ceiling in my closet (using only a drill, a long stick, a foot stool, duct tape, and some rope) and having to go back to my regular schedule at work after going light duty for a while. Next phase of my project involves building several pieces of furniture, but that has to wait until my stimulus check arrives.
My oldest friend depends on how you define a friend, I suppose. The non-family (or non-family-friends) I’m still friends with who I’ve known the longest are probably my old neighbors. I was 8 (so roughly 1988) and the kids were 3 and 1 when they moved into the house across the street, but as the kids moved away and started their own families, I ended up being closest to the mom, Sharon. She’s a fair bit older than I am, but we bonded over our common love of the Beatles and Paul McCartney, and we still talk and occasionally go to concerts and stuff (including a Beatles tribute band and Paul himself at Dodger Stadium in 2019!). My oldest friend of my own age would be Crys, who I met in 5th grade, but they moved away in high school and we weren’t in touch for a long time before Facebook reconnected us. I have similar spotty contact with several others from high school, but Crys is the only elementary school friend I still keep up with. My oldest friend in my own age range who I actually still hang out with regularly (we’ve even managed about half a dozen socially-distanced hangouts in the last year) is Dan, who I met through a mutual friend about 17 or 18 years ago (wow, it really has been that long!).
In answer to a question from last week, I did enjoy “Attack of the Clones”…very much. Even though I missed out on that second trailer due to Harry Potter, I remember the entire experience around the film most, waiting for it and following it online months before the release. The years between “The Phantom Menace” and “Attack of the Clones” was a huge internet growth spurt, so in a way I remember “Attack of the Clones” as the first Star Wars film I was able to follow online by going to message boards and forums…it was like a watershed moment for Star Wars fandom. I had a really great time with the second Star Wars Prequel.
I haven’t watched “Firefly” because I think it’s bad, quite the opposite actually. I just want to give it the time it deserves and it’s still kind of funny to tell others that I’ve never seen it. To be clear, I’m quite certain I’ll enjoy it.
I have a friend who I’ve known since we were five or six. When we moved to Texas, he lived only two doors down from us. My Mom remembers him coming to the door and asking to meet me, his name is Rusty Rotenberry. Both our younger Brothers were close in age so the four of us were inseparable. You know those movies where the friends talk to each other on walkie-talkies before bedtime? Rusty and I did that. We played with Hot Wheels, G.I. Joes and we saw Star Wars together for the first time. I still see Rusty and his family from time to time and it’s like we just pick up where we left off, he’s probably the most well adjusted, happy guy on Earth with a permanent smile on his face. I think the chemistry to our friendship was that our families were close, we did lots of stuff with the Rotenberrys, celebrated Christmas, went camping, went to church and were in scouts together with my Dad as a scout leader. Rusty could sing too and was in choir, he sang like an angel. I couldn’t sing, I sound like a deaf cat having angry sex with two other cats, so when we were in church I stood as close to Rusty as I could and nobody knew the difference. I’ve had a history with some real backstabbing sons of bitches over the years, but Rusty was the first and the greatest and I’m always sure to remind him of it.
The funny thing my wife and I discuss about our past genealogy is that her roots run deep with theologians and scholars, one going all the way back to the Knights Templar. Whereas mine are all Circus Performers and Vaudevillians. No joke. My Dad’s Mother’s side was named Galetti and around the late 1800’s to early 1900’s Giacomo Galetti owned a traveling monkey, dog and bird act in Vaudeville. Giacomo was known as “The European Bird Monarch” from his famous bird act and briefly joined P.T. Barnum’s Circus…rumor has it that they even performed for the Emperor of China. My Dad has kept very extensive detailed genealogy on all this and can pretty much track their act over their most active years. He has photos of the act gifted to him from relatives, they show chimps and baboons who were trained to cut hair and box one another. The bird act had cockatoos that were dressed as firefighters trained to put out a burning dollhouse and the dogs were trained to drive little cars. One of the Galettis also married Mignonette Kokin who was a world famous dancer but her blood doesn’t run through me, just the “Monkey Blood” as my Grandmother used to say. Google “Galetti Monkeys” and you’ll see a fair amount of posters and stories from the “Showfolk” side of my family.
https://travsd.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/galettis-monkeys/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mignonette_Kokin
https://hdl.huntington.org/digital/collection/p16003coll4/id/1786
Now if you’ll excuse me, the moment I’ve been waiting for is finally here. Zack Snyder’s JUSTICE LEAGUE premieres tonight, maybe you guys have heard of it?
I’m that guy who watched Serenity without seeing Firefly! I liked Buffy, but I never watched it regularly, and the idea of a space western didn’t appeal to me. One of my college housemates really liked it. I didn’t get the DVDs, and to this day I still haven’t seen the entire series.
That said, I was intrigued enough to go watch the film, and I really enjoyed it. I think it hits differently than if you knew the series. It was upsetting when Wash dies, but it wasn’t outrageous to me. (Also, there’s an amusing bit when you rewatch the movie: while the party is on planet Miranda, there’s one scene where the camera spins around from person to person, and it stops on Wash when someone says “they died for no reason”.) I was suprized when I went back to the series and found out that Sheppard Book and Inara were core cast members.
The movie gives enough info to make things work. It was an extremely info-dumpy intro scene with layers upon layers, so you know who River and Simon and the antagonist are. There’s a quick introduction to the crew with enough detail to get the relationships. And you know that the ship is under stress. Away we go.
> Questions of the week
I’m terrible at keeping in touch with people, so my active friendships tend to be with people nearby. Of those, the oldest are some friends I made at university in Prince George who moved down here after graduating. That said, I have a couple friends I met over the internet back in the ancient days of the late 90s who I’m still in touch with, so I guess they win. Neat!
I am not related to any famous people … that I know of. One of my uncles was involved with Quebec politics, though, at the level where his name would pop up in newspapers and magazines. A few years back I went to his big 70th birthday party, and among the attendees was a wizened-looking Lucien Bouchard from the Bloc Quebecois. I’m fairly certain that there were a lot of big-name economists and politicians there, but most of the speeches were in French and I couldn’t follow.
Cheers, eh!
Longest friendship’s an easy one.
I met Diane in 1988. We started going out in 1989. Broke up in 1990. Got back together in ’91. Married ’92. And here we are.
But wait, there’s more…
Back when we were first getting to know one another, I found out that, when Diane was a child, her family had lived for a few years in my home town. She mentioned the name of her older brother. Not only did I know him, we had been in the same class at school. And I could clearly remember calling in at his house one day and seeing his little sister in the garden.
Me: “I’m picturing you sitting in the dirt, scooping up earth and making it into shapes on the ground.”
Diane: “Yep, that sounds like me alright.”
So we actually first met in 1969, when I’d have been 7 and she was 5. It just took me 20 years to find her again.
What’s made it last? Well, lots of things, but I have to give some credit to that breakup we had in the early days. I was so sure we were made for each other and knew very quickly that I wanted to be her life partner. But suddenly – it seemed – our relationship was over.
Reconnecting was far from easy. But it taught me never to take a friend or lover for granted, and always to remember and value the qualities that drew you to that person in the first place. When nothing lasts forever, every moment matters.
I’m not related to any famous person – yet. However, there’s always the chance that one of our children might buy us a house some day. I’ll let you know you it works out.
I’ve been listening to Sneaky Dragon for the past couple of months (having worked my way through Compleatly Beatles and needing something else entertaining to listen to while commuting to work). I absolutely love the podcast, and my little boy doesn’t seem to mind either. This may be my first comment, but it certainly won’t be my last.
Anyway, question of the week:
My longest friendship has been one that is going on 30 years with a teacher who actually wasn’t my teacher. In school, I got along better with the teachers than my peers. In this particular case, I guess she saw someone worth investing her time in mentoring. This friendship has lasted because she is the type of personality who likes to keep up with people and visit even if it is once or twice a year. She is positive and supportive, and really a wonderful friend.
Next question:
I’ve spent over 20 years doing family genealogy and trying to see how far back I can take the family tree. I’ve never come across a real celebrity in my lineage. There is a Lady Godiva dating back to the 1100s, but I doubt it is the *real* Lady Godiva, and certainly not the one from the Peter and Gordon song. I did ask my family which relative they thought came the closest to being famous, and they said I was because I was interviewed for a History Channel program years ago. Fifteen seconds of fame, a very empty IMDB page (because of this one interview), plus $1.00 won’t even buy a cup of coffee.