Hola, Sneakers! Welcome back to Sneaky Dragon, the podcast that is still walking on sunshine.
This week: king com; uncredited; speechifying; free frame policy; some college; some Catholic; catechissing; the lines you amend; modern love; tasteful jokes; too helpful; selling service; restaurant bullies; customer torment; too much monkey bus-ness; bicyclical; the fart tank; animal poots; pet training; too smart for college; new neighbour; ELO, ELO; no cancel culture; you can’t do that; comedy cars; money matters; the test of time; too much Kong; too much synergy; opinions about Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows; Dork Shadows – This Old House; zines; Question of the Week – Sneakers reply; reached the peak; comedy in the shadows; spybrarians; in praise of neuro-diversity; unfunny Fifties; and, finally, asking why about Y.
Question of the Week: What is your schooling? Is there more schooling you’d like to do?
Sub-question of the Week: What is the scariest monster?
Sub-sub-question of the Week: What are you dressing as this Halloween?
Thanks for listening.
Brent Tannehill was kind enough to provide a link to the great and very funny Bob and Ray. Please check them out here!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
WHAT IS THE SCARIEST MONSTER?
The scariest monsters are probably those ghouls in nun’s habits in front of the bulldozer in the ASHES TO ASHES video clip. The song is co-incidentally on the album entitled “Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)”.
WHAT ARE YOU DRESSING AS THIS HALLOWEEN?
Halloween – as a holiday – has really been pushed by retailers in Australia over the past few years. Confectionary brands are re-designing their packaging to have the words “spooky” written on them, and there is a piss poor attempt at fake spiderwebs at the Post Office. We’ve been hearing about Halloween’s advent onto our shores for years, but I’ve still never in my life had kids knocking on my door to trick and treat. I think younger millennials dress up when they head out into city to drink. British Sneakers, is Halloween firmly entrenched over there?
I’d love to go as a piece of coal in honour of our knumskull Prime Minister who once brought one into parliament as a prop. But alas I’d probably be mistaken for poo. The most scariest thing this month is the prospect of our country not even agreeing to Net Zero Emissions by 2050, when the conversation at Glasgow is discussing 2030 commitments!
I have a Bachelor of Arts degree but I was never interested in any subject enough to go for a Master’s. However, I enjoy learning about new things in smaller doses. After graduating, I took night school courses in subjects like sculpture, life drawing, Italian, and jazz choir. These days, you can find lectures and educational videos on almost any subject on the Internet for free. If you don’t like the presenter, you can switch to another video and you aren’t out a course fee.
The creatures in the sci-fi movie Pitch Black were really scary to me. I guess it was because you can’t see them flying at you in the dark. Also, they attack in a pack so if one doesn’t get you, another one will. And you can’t reason with them. It’s nothing personal; they’re just following their instincts to eat you. Happy Halloween, Sneaker friends!
In to the pan, diced bulbs did slide;
The onions sizzled as they fried;
“Mine eyes do burn and water,” cried
The Lady of Shallot.
I graduated from the University of North Texas in December of 1989 with a Bachelor’s of Arts, Design and Advertising. Other than keeping up with the new technology I use for designing, I can’t really see myself going back for any further degrees. I got lucky about five years into Dr Pepper when they decided to pull the trigger and convert the creative to digital, I got all my training for free from professionals they brought in to train us on the Macs. I’m sure I saved a sizable amount getting all that free training on Dr Pepper’s dime. back when I was at the University of North Texas, I was about a semester and some Summer classes away from being done when they offered an Illustration degree. I took this to my counselor who was also one of my professors. When I asked him about switching to the Illustration degree, he told me to shut the door to his office. He said, “You didn’t hear this from me but do whatever you can to get the hell out of here…in your profession a degree doesn’t mean shit. You could drive up to a studio for an interview on a loud Harley, tattooed from head to toe with a bone in your nose with no degree. If you were good at design, met deadlines and showed up on time, any studio wouldn’t give a damn what your education is. On top of that, you’ll be here for an additional semester at least if you change over to that degree, now open my door.” I was glad he told me that, best advice I ever had in college and again, hopefully saved me a sizable amount of time and money.
Presently, if I think I need a seminar or a workshop that applies to my job, I write up a request and I can attend it at the expense of my employer. Just like any class, there are good ones and not so good ones but you never really know until you’re right in the middle of it!
Those damned Universal Monsters haunted me as a kid. For some reason when I was little and in bed, I imagined Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, The Mummy and The Werewolf might come crashing through my bedroom window. It seemed like they were always jumping through windows in those old movies, but they terrified me even though I loved watching them. A few years later, and we discussed this a few shows back, the Ray Harryhausen stop motion creatures from Sinbad and Jason and the Argonauts creeped me out to no end. The medusa and some creature in a cage in one of the films supplied me with plenty of nightmare fuel as a kid.
My costume is the same as it’s been in years past…an overworked, underpaid Art Director. If anything, I’ve nailed it every year.
As a note to Crystal, I’m afraid I am the guy in the library ripping out and drawing on the pages of books and magazines!! I’m only a few steps away from Harpo shoveling books into a roaring fire like he did in “Horse Feathers.”
Hi,
Always been afraid of werewolves.. Why? I really don’t know. Thriller scares the shit out of me…or was it just Micheal Jackson ?
Obsession number 4 (remember: my falling life) chapter one: studies… schooling reminds me of Whole Lotta love lyrics…so it’s a bit uncomfortable.
So studies, one thing I miserably failed to failed.
I roughly going to find the equivalent grades in your (or at least American) school… study system.
I started, in 2nd grade, humming and watching birds or whatever was on the other side of the window, for instance clouds are pretty fascinating and of the higher interest.
In 4th grade I was the class timer for tests, whenever I had finished the test was over. Those other lucky bastards they got extra time because of me.
I retake 5th grade.
In 8th grade I attend specialized classes with extra hours of french, math and I think some other boring stuff. And as a result got better and more stable grades.
In 9th grade I went to live with my father and with some strings pulled entered the Lycée Condorcet, one of the top ten best high school of Paris, I think the 9th or 10th at this time. The principal did not quit enjoy the joke.
My grade fell back directly down. So I retake the 9th grade.
It’s around this time that I tried to get in command on my own failure.
I wanted to stop school and became a photographer. But my father don’t.
Or go to a short technical training to become a tractor mechanics. He doesn’t like this idea neither.
At 11th grade the principal try to eject me, but with the help of some teachers I won my trial and stayed onto the 12th grade and barely got my baccalaureate, the french must have diploma to leave school and go fetch a real diploma to then have a successful life/career in a suit in some big company and get some money(or is what I’ve been told).
Tried to enter an agricultural private school, but failed. So I ended in University for an Associate’s Degree in biology. Which I leave mid term in the middle of an exam.
I then decided to go to a technical Associate’s Degree in computer science in a university institute of technology, promising myself to stop after those 2 years, get a job with a salary to buy an Audi 80. I’ve got big dreams in those days!
But I made a internship in a french national research institute laboratory and let me tell you, intelligent people are tight… And It seems they do or have done studies. All of them. Shhiiiii…..
So, against my own will, I asked the right to pursue my studies (this particular technical curriculum is not meant to allow you to continue studying, but rather go to work as a technician in one fo the companies which financed the school, and it’s a public one….) and reenter the university I had left 2 years ago, for a Bachelor‘ s Degree and a master 1 in computer science.
At the end of which I decided that it was really enough, no more schoollll… studies for me. I’m done, I quit, I’m through, goodbye !
But during my internship for my master 1 my tutor said to me that “this diploma or your Associate’s Degree is the same buuut If you continue to a master 2 degree, you will hit the jackpot, big companies, suits and some real dough and even maybe women”. No she did not say this last part.
So I did a master 2 degree in computer science…
I know, what a lack of free will. I told you, a complete failure!
My dressing for Halloween? Black like everyday other day. Why d’you asked?
Oh and I watched the last Jarmush, Dead Don’t Die… The thought that came to me right away after the first minutes between Bill Murray and Adam Driver is “dead pan alley”… or should I say boulevard.
It’s like he wanted to mix Romero and a caricature of existentialist European movie genre with a Takeshi Miike Dead Or Alive touch for the big unbelievable twist at the end and some Tarantino references for good measure.
But he kind of ruined the sympathetic weirdness off all this mess by not resisting to make a too long plot exposition at the end in case you did not catch the obvious in your face political critic of our society… Yes we know, since Romero second movie , that aaaallll Zombies movies ARE critics of the occidental society… And we even got 11 saisons of the Walking Dead for those who need some catch-up… shhheeesh!
Sneakers don’t die! It’s a statement and an order.
Hello David! Hello Ian! Hello Sneakers!
I hope all of you are well!:
These are my three quick answers to the questions of the week:
1) I have only gone as far with formal education as taking a few college classes, no degree. 10 years ago I went back to school, enrolling in an intensive 6 month massage therapy course. Not anything I’d ever planned, but it changed my life and set me on a new path. Every two years a massage therapist is required to renew licensing with 24 course hours of new education in the field. So I’m always learning and improving…
2) The scariest “monster” for me in movies is Javier Bardem in “No Country for Old Men”! That guy…Wow! Just the thought of that character freaks me out!
3) I won’t likely do a costume this Halloween… but I will put on a Happy Halloween t- shirt that glows in the dark when I accompany my daughter and her kids around the neighborhoods. I am a pretty fun Grandma! Really!
Now Ciao everyone! I am off to make use of my massage skills now!
Good Lord, I could really use a massage…
I have quite a bit of education under my belt. In addition to my degree, I have a number of certifications including Public Library Management and Archive Management. My state library even set standards for libraries, including required continuing education for all staff. I have to complete 25 hours of training a year. Classic overachiever that I am, last year I completed 57 hours.
The scariest monster is COVID-19.
I’ve been so focused on completing my son’s Halloween costume that I have failed to consider what I will wear. I suppose I may pull a costume from the back of the closet and re-wear an outfit. My son’s school is allowing costumes on Friday if they are based on book characters or if they depict jobs that children want to have when they grow up. They are trying to avoid “scary” costumes. I see a flaw in their logic, and I bet your mind has already gone there, too. Dracula and Frankenstein are book characters. Anyway, I’ve got a few more things to do before he’s outfit is ready, so I’ll probably be up late tonight finishing up painting and attaching things to his wheelchair for tomorrow. I’ll share a picture to show you how it turns out. 😀
Ian, I appreciate the update on Y: The Last Man. I’d read some news online but I never know what to believe anymore, so much gets bogged down in opinion and advocacy that it was helpful to hear it from the source. I hope all the hard work bringing the show and its story will continue to be told, fingers crossed and sending all positivity to everyone involved, especially you and Pia. Please keep us posted.
I know you’ve already recorded this week’s episode, but I wanted to share a picture of how the wheelchair costume turned out. My son was super excited to go to school this morning. https://drive.google.com/file/d/18OqPhdvNqeRiuWnDigcErGHQB6gGwV_5/view?usp=sharing That’s my husband in the picture making sure everything is fastened correctly. He had a great idea of recording sound on one of our son’s assistive buttons so that his costume would have sound, too! I bet it drives the teacher and aides crazy and gets removed from the chair before the end of the day!
I’m pretty proud of how the costume turned out. The only thing I wish I would have done differently is the bottom of the poster board. I left it white so that it would blend in with the school floors, but in hindsight I wish I would have painted it black so it would blend in better with the wheelchair.
Happy Sneak-o-ween, everyone!
Best tractor costume ever !
Thanks! 🙂
That is so great!!!