Outro S2 E3
Hello and welcome back survivors.
Here we are, episode 3 of season two and it feels like we’re hitting our stride.
This was a fun episode to construct. I love the visual of the river devouring the bridge. Just a great picture in my mind’s eye.
The other thing that happened here, not to give you too much of the sausage-making, was a roller coaster ride. It’s a series of tension builds and releases, where we are just letting you off the hook and we slap you again with a new shock wave.
I would be interested in your feedback on how all that worked for you.
We are moving right along in season 2 and keeping up our production schedule. Which is great because I’ve been super-busy in my real job.
Last weekend was the Wasteland Weekend. We’ll have to ask Mike Darling how it all turned out this year with the actual apocalypse still going on in the US. It sounded like they had a full schedule out there in the desert and that attendance was going to be good.
As a reminder that is a desert festival every year with an apocalypse theme. Which sounds scary and dangerous – but probably is just a lot of fun.
Imagine you’re out for a hike in the desert and you come across a gang of folks dressed like Mad Max characters? Would you be scared? You probably shouldn’t be. In my experience the folks that do this type of character playing aren’t the dangerous types, they’re the arty types.
I‘ll tell you a story.
A few years back I had to drive into Boston to pick up my daughter who was attending Anime Boston, one of the big regional conventions.
I pull into the Marriott and the place is full of kids in bizarre costumes. Monsters, aliens, etc. you get it.
And I asked the bellman who was standing there if this was a hard week for the hotel with all these crazy, costumed kids hanging about? And, he said, “No, they’re just nice kids. No trouble at all. Last week we had the police convention, and they tore the place up.”
That was a lesson for me. You can’t judge a book by it’s cover so to speak.
Speaking of books and covers, I’m still stalled out on the season one manuscript. I’ve been super busy. But, I’ll keep working on it. As long as I’m still creating new content the offering just keeps getting stronger.
Sampled a couple new Apocalypse type media pieces this last week that I’ll share.
I watched Alita Battle Angel2019 American cyberpunk action film based on Japanese manga artist YukitoKishiro's 1990s series Battle Angel Alita.
It is loosely a cyber-punk themed future Earth after some apocalyptic war with Mars. But this only has a pasing cyber-punk content, it’s more of an anime themed film.
I have always loved the cyber-punk genre of science fiction. Neil Stephenson’s Snow Crash was a revelation in 1992. It brought cool to tech.
I wasn’t that much of a comic book or anime kid.
Anyhow, what keeps this film from being the same as every other Anime-marshal-arts film is it’s investment level and pedigree. It was produced by James Cameron, while he was making Avatar and you can see the Avatar influence. Especially that mildly creepy performance captured animation.
It was directed by Robert Rodriguez, yes that Robert Rodriguez of El Mariachi Fame and, by the way you should read his book Rebel without a crew if you haven’t, it’s a fantastic glimpse into the making of a director. I bet Makeshift sleeps with a copy under his pillow.
Alita is a decent story and a watchable movie. It’s got some good acting and tries hard. Worth a watch if you’re decompressing after a long day in the salt mines.
I also watched the original Ip Man movie. This is a Chinese martial arts movie dubbed in English with the subtitles. But, it’s a Chinese marshal arts movie, so do you really need subtitles? Do you really need dialogue?
It is just one big marshal art movie trope, but somehow it works. It think it’s because the main character, played by Donnie Yen, is just so likable.
So again, worth a watch if you’ve got time on your hands and is currently on Netflix.
The protagonist, Ip Man, is based very loosely on the story of the kung fu master who trained Bruce Lee. And if you don’t know who Bruce Lee is then there is no hope for you.
I am still working my way through Heinlein’s Stranger in a strange land. I’ll have more thoughts on it when I get to the end. It gets a bit slow in the middle.
Next, our friend Dave, one of the editors here at Apocalypse HQ, tipped us off to an apocalypse podcast story. It is on a podcast named StarShipSofa – all one word and the story he tipped me to is episode 603. It is a story by Elad Haber titled “Number One Hit” read by Jonathan Danz. I listened to it on my long bike ride last weekend and it was outstanding.
So my survivor friends, I hope you’re enjoying Season two. We are up over 25,000 downloads. As always you can leap over and join us at the Facebook group by searching for ‘oldmanapocalypse’.
I’ve been informed by one of you that you can just search for “After the Apocalypse” in FaceBook and that will probably get you there. The URL is:
You can find these notes on ACastwith all the links imbedded and you can help keep the show going on Patreon.
And Do me a favor – Keep Surviving!
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