Hola, Sneakers! Welcome to Episode 591 of the podcast that doesn’t really know what it’s doing!
We’ve got good news and bad news this week. The good news is we are joined by friend of the show and Dave’s cousin Jason Dedrick, which should make everyone happy. The bad news is Ian is sick this week and couldn’t do the show. We know you’ll miss him and please send along your prayers and good wishes.
This week: techs talk; Double Dedrick; Ian is a champ; whores mysteries; our old man; absent friends; alternate history; song and dance dad; no country for old Dave; security vs. insurance; the principal of guidance; an infinity of lifetime; nothing job; citizens banned; drunken podcasting; dizzy about Disney; way down South; stolen fruit; keep on truckin’; painful past; down by the Trevi; much ado about Tintin; Jason’s thoughts about Dave’s thoughts about Strange World; picking on Pixar; muted tooting; Captain Nofun; no to funny villains; go, go, Grodin; agreeable co-host; off the Benchley; the dangers of binging; relunctantly watching the The Reluctant Dragon; corporate takeover; Peet’s beat; ambivalent about Walt; cartoon anxiety; limited animation; straight out of Termite Terrace; loving drunk electric razors; bad Tom and Jerry; the animation will be televised; let’s retire the auteur theory; a couple of Sodaheads; all the -bergs; unearned endings; Salmon Wellingotn alert; Question of the Week – Sneakers respond; Python wrap-up; get checked; fat and stupid; Picard-y; library-phobia; inefficient for compliments; and, finally, tell me I’m wrong.
Question of the Week: In what position do you sleep at night? Are you a restless sleeper or do you sleep the sleep of death?
Sub-question of the Week: Who is your favourite poet? Quote us a few lines.
Thanks for listening.
That terrifying pile of books:
The director Joe Dante talks about a tantalizing project that was never made called Termite Terrace. A real would-a, could-a, should-a…
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Question of the week:
1. I typically start to sleep on my right side, and once I’m asleep I flip over to my left side, However, I hurt my leg recently, and now I have to sleep on my back which I have learned is absolute TORTURE. lol
2. I have many poets I love, but when I start my poetry unit at school each semester, I always start with this one by Robert Frost:
‘The Span of Life’
The old dog barks backward without getting up.
I can remember when he was a pup.
Thanks to Jason for stepping in for Ian and for the frozen salmon wellington tip. On Dave’s recommendation, I watched Strange World. It felt good going down, like a nice bowl of granola. I figured out what was going on fairly early since some sequences looked a lot like ones from a certain 60s sci-fi movie. I loved the line when Dennis Quaid’s grandfather character found out they were playing a co-operative board game: “No bad guy? That’s just poor storytelling!” With its environmental theme, its diverse characters and its dog with a non-traditional number of legs, this movie won’t be popular with some parents. But maybe their kids will watch it while Mom and Dad are off at a school board meeting trying to ban the use of preferred pronouns.
FYI, the movie is from Disney Animation Studios, not Pixar. So it comes after Raya and the Last Dragon and Encanto, both worth checking out. I don’t know that I agree that Pixar is slipping. Their early movies all had lead characters voiced by adult white male comic actors – even if they were toys, ants, rats, fish, monsters or cars. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I’m glad their more recent films like Luca, Soul and Turning Red have other points of view. Lightyear didn’t quite live up to my expectations. I liked the plot and it would’ve been fine as a standalone movie, but it didn’t seem like a fictional movie that would have spawned the Buzz Lightyear merch we see in the Toy Story world.
My favourite poem is “The Tyger” by William Blake. As a kid, I liked the rhythm of the meter and the weird imagery of someone creating an animal as though he were a blacksmith working in a forge. But then I learned about the allegorical aspects of it and appreciated the philosophical musings in the poem. “Did he smile his work to see?/Did he who made the Lamb make thee?”
Ian, I hope you’re feeling better this week, rest up and hopefully you’ll be back to where you left off. We missed hearing you this past week. Jason, if you’re reading this, you ‘re such a great fit as a Sneaky Dragon podcast host! I’d love to hear more of you than just once or twice a year, the Dedrick family stories were terrific. I can relate since I have the same relationships with my cousins.
I sleep on my right side facing off the bed with my arms tucked in like a baby pterodactyl’s wings. As it gets warmer I have to stick my feet out of the covers to keep them cool but eventually pull them in at some point. If I hit snooze on my phone alarm, I return to bed sleeping on my back until it’s time to get up…after two or three snooze alarms. If I was able to, I’d love to sleep hanging upside down like a giant bat, much the way Michael Keaton did in 1989’s “Batman”, I bet that straightens out your bat spine quite nicely.
I’ve never been much of a poetry reader, more of a dirty limerick connoisseur if I had to nail down something in that area of literature. I remember my Dad sharing some of the “Man from Nantucket” classics with me for the first time along with some dirty nursery rhymes, he had Andrew ‘Dice’ Clay beat by years. Now we have the internet, so there’s no end to what we can read now!
David, “Midnight Run” is one of my favorite comedies of all time! My Brother and I still know all the lines from the film we watched it so many times. The chemistry between DeNiro and Grodin was so perfect as were all the supporting cast like Dennis Farina, Philip Baker Hall, Joe Pantoliano, John Ashton and Yaphet Kotto. I really wished Martin Brest had done a sequel while he had the chance, it might have even been titled, “Midnight Run: In the Next Life”. DeNiro and Grodin mention a few times they’re destined to be friends in the next life as they warm up to one another through their ultimate “shit happens” trip from Chicago to Las Vegas.
Sneakers worldwide, have a wonderful weekend and an even better week to follow!
David, that mountain of books makes me uneasy as I notice the “Essential Fantastic Four” that I also own, so it’s a relief that I don’t have to pull it out from the middle of that stack. If you need some recommendations on bookshelves, I might have a few…