This! ...was Digital Watches Are a Pretty Neat Idea

Hey, Sass Those Hoopies!

November 04, 2021 Jeff Lesnik & Bryan Campbell, a Froods for Thought production Season 1 Episode 1
This! ...was Digital Watches Are a Pretty Neat Idea
Hey, Sass Those Hoopies!
Show Notes Transcript

In this introductory episode, Jeff and Bryan reminisce over how they met and how each discovered The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. They reveal some of their fandoms and mention some other works by other authors they feel are worth reading. Then, finally, they talk about the name of the podcast, what it means to them, and what they hope to accomplish with this podcast.

Here is a list of the books we felt were worth reading and mentioned in this episode...

Neal Stephenson “Cryptonomicon” (1999) & “Seveneves” (2015)
Stephen R Donaldson “Lord Foul’s Bane” The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (1977)
Piers Athony “A Spell for Chameleon” Xanth, Book 1 (1977)
Daniel Quinn “Ishmael” (1992)
Robert A. Heinlein “Stranger in a Strange Land” (1961)
Mary Doria Russell “The Sparrow” (1996)
Paul Theroux “Millroy the Magician” (1993)
Barbara Kingsolver “Prodigal Summer” (2000)
Clifford Simak “Shakespeare’s Planet” (1976) & “The Werewolf Principle” (1967)

Come back the first Thursday of next month for Episode 02...

Oh, It’ll Hurt, Buddy!
Primary Phase vs The LP - Part 1

This has been a Froods for Thought production.

 Hey Brian how you doing today I'm doing great Jeff how are you I am not doing bad so we have now be gone the first introductory episode to this endeavor of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and everything that it encompasses but first I want to talk about how we met because you were conducting a job interview and I don't want to get into the job that neither one of us are attached to any more but no that wouldn't be so Guide to the Galaxy then we did the job oh I don't think there's any doubt of that we met 29 years ago at a job interview and immediately started talking about hitchhiker's so that's kind of the reason that we are here now early earlier when we were discussing this I said I was never going to just ask you a question to put you on the spot and here I am first episode I'm going to do it but it's not going to be a tough question it's Lorraine think of you she's she's in favor of it knows that I like to talk and she knows that this is one of my areas of of obsession as you've indicated so she thinks it's a good idea okay how about Denise what does she think Denise when it comes to me and my obsessions she likes to hold her finger kind of like pointing down at my desk and she draws a big circle and she says all this foolishness so this just gets mugged in all this foolishness okay so maybe in the back of her mind that's what Lorraine is doing it right there on the surface all of my foolishness that she talks about is my trading card collection I have way more knots for cards than I could ever ever ever use or even look at some of the Phantom's that I'm in Star Trek we share a love of Star Trek I happen to like Deep Space Nine that's that's my go-to when people say what's your best yours is well mine's been Voyager for a long time I really a big fan but I got to tell you it for me Star Trek can-do-no-wrong I'm I'm a fan in the biggest sense of the word unlike some that have very narrow understanding and if you don't stick to the original time line or the original Concepts you're going to lose them I really enjoy every one of the programs and episodes that I've seen even if they're not directly align with the original Canon I will agree wholeheartedly there are shows that I've watched with another person and he wanted to end them and I'm like no you can't end this like we'll just get their Discovery Discovery Discovery is a great TV show it is not Star Trek of what I think of as a Star Trek show but it is a good show it's got the Star Trek name we're going to watch it it doesn't matter so that's I think the same thing that you're thinking well right I mean the discovery is is a perfect example of the kind of things that fan hate where they get in their own minds that the only way Star Trek in existence the way there existed in its original form but as they pointed out in Discovery nearly at the very beginning of the show that entire ship and entire crew was meant to be in secret and as you go through the seasons they continue to support that concept and I think they do a fairly good job of it plus they bring in the characters from the series in the end and I'm just impressed with the way that they can leave those things together but we're here to talk about our whole background of where we're coming from but believe me we'll be talking a lot about hitchhiker's side from the Hercules and Xena big fan of those I was laying on the couch late one Sunday night in this goofy Hercules show came on where he was fighting these rubber monsters and I was hooked for all 7 Seasons aside from that I wanted to come up with a couple of other books that everyone should read aside from The Hitchhiker's series Becker's series to a couple that I wrote down or Ishmael by Daniel Quinn Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein Milroy the magician by Paul Theroux the sparrow by Mary Doria Russell and prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver is there any other books that you want to throw in add to that list that's a good question recently I've been reading some suggestions by other people and I just finished reading Carlos Casteneda and I found it very interesting I always recommend a book a spell for chameleon by one of my favorite authors and now the name slip my mind yes brought the actual notes that would have helped you know but but to talk about books I think I need to back up just a little bit and say generally speaking when I started my reading phase which oddly enough would have been not until like the 7th grade or so I read books that other people suggested to me and my sister was a big influence around the books that I read what by the way the author's name is Anthony I just remembered so I've read a great deal of books that I find very interesting Stephen Donaldson I think his name is as written a couple of books that I really recommend Necronomicon I think it's the name of that book it's about that the world of understanding ciphers and understand code-breaking that kind of thing we've all seen well you know what and I'm wondering if that's the correct name of that book now that I've said it out loud you know you know what now that's going to drive me crazy cuz I didn't come prepared so I have my books are in my other room I'm not in the room with the book so I can look up in my shelf and he's written a number of books Stephen Donaldson that I find absolutely fascinating. I wish I could think of some of the others that were inspiring to me oh I know the what was that book that I told you to read about the Captain Crunch you remember that story I remember it but I do not remember which that was okay well there is if I was so obsessed by this there is such a phenomenal piece of writing that just blew me away to the point that I became obsessed with it about a bowl of Captain Crunch and I believe that it's in one of Donaldson's books and I actually went to the point of getting it copy over onto into a computer file so that I could just reread it and reread it so that I can try to memorize the whole thing but I'm telling you that doesn't tell you how weird I am fascinated by Clifford Simak who basically started his career back in the late forties or early fifties and wrote book through the through the 80s the guy you never hear of his works are made into all kinds of movies and and all of that but they're just beautifully crafted books in my opinion and I remember you have a story about the werewolf principal what I hope you share in a minute if you remember it but I have a 1 about one of my favorite which is book called Shakespeare's Planet I have been trying to get Denise to read a Clifford Simak book forever but she has like all this foolishness remember that she has no interest in Reading any of my stuff so we were right on a long 7 hour car drive I've got it on audio this is a great time to Yellow get her into Clifford Simak and so I took one of my guys have a captive audience about a half-hour into our trip and she looks over at me and she's like did I do something to you that you feel the need to get back at me. How can you find see this way if it's like so what did I do that you're going to make me listen to this 7 hours are Venn diagram of common interest really has a very narrow overlap but do you remember the werewolf principal story I don't I add my memory is is kind of odd if you jog it I probably will remember it all but two of the werewolf principle while you were babysitting somebody else and you are at a spot that was pretty tense and somebody came in the room or something and scared the bejesus I think now that you mention it I do remember that story it was quite a long time ago oh yeah but it's one that I've never forgot I thought it was great I want to grab something real quick cuz I want to tell you story okay so I don't know if I can put this puzzle back together or not I got my authors all mixed up here the author of Cryptonomicon is actually Neal Stephenson okay that book I was actually recommended to me by my father once I read that I became obsessed with Neal Stephenson's books and the story that I was going to tell you was about another student Neal Stephenson book that he just wrote A couple of years ago see if I can find the name of it cuz I couldn't find my book line on the counter all right so he wrote the snow crash and Anthony M and the one I was talking about with 7 XIV and sevens Eve is a really interesting story well it's about a cataclysmic event that destroys the Earth my wife and I were traveling together and it was another audiobook story we're traveling along listening to this on the British version of the Stevenson and it starts off where the folks are trying to figure out how they're going to survive this paticos make event with the moon gets destroyed and then the destruction of the Moon results in the destruction of Earth and so they've got so many years to try to come up with a plan to save the world and it seems like I'm normal kind of science fiction story cuz it's talking about well we can really into the Earth and we can live inside caves or we can go to the bottom of the ocean and live in the bottom the ocean or we can go out into space and living space and most of the story is really about the colony of people that decide to go out into space will you read the book you listen to story and it talks about this group of people that go out into space and in the end of that sequence of events only seven women survive the space travel they're living out in space and these seven women are the last 7 people alive because the Earth of course has been completely destroyed by a hail of comments and I think the story is primarily about the folks that are out in space and they actually do survive gives it all the way but what I thought was funny was spoilers right here in my life with my different in that respect but we're listening

 along and normal travel time and work for five or six or eight hours into the travel book and all the sudden you turn the page in this book and its 5000 years later from the 7 people surviving in space to the next events in the story I mean it just an in comprehensible amount of time has passed and the story then talks about how the seven Eves as this title story is have involved and how their plans each from one of the seven women how they genetically modified themselves and how what their progeny are all about and write the folks in space obviously are monitoring the face of the planet Elsa from there but their story to be told I got the same reaction from you like we're all those people what the heck happened I mean what I'm like oh well you know that's a story that's the way these things go the other gentleman that I was talking about was another writer that I really enjoy and he's got a number of great books about Thomas Covenant and it's all science fiction stuff basically where we I think I've taken over lost track at the same time that's fine we were just talking about other things that people should read but now let's get to the Hitchhiker’sGuide to the Galaxy a story of how it was introduced to me it's long and convoluted like all of my stories I don't know if you actually have a story so I'll just tell you my story first because it's kind of approaching it on to when's back in high school my friend's brother just could not shut up about The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and because he was my friend's older brother both of us said quit talkin about to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy nothing could be that good and we are not going to read it just on principle that you are recommending it so that is going on if you had to be about the same time that way back in the early eighties our TV viewing was quite Limited we had basically six channels one of them was the public station and that's where we would watch all of our Monty Python we would watch Benny Hill we would watch Dave Allen The Two Ronnies every once in a while there would be this show that I would just refer to as the show with the guy in his pajamas and that was the Tiger but at the time I had no idea that it was A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy I don't know if I turn it on after the deal was just flipping through the channels and when you start something in the middle you're just watching the guy in his pajamas you're not watching right the opening credits ever see what the name of the show is called it runs for six episodes and then it's gone for a year before PBS brings it back and then you're turning it through and then you catch it in the middle again and you never realize what it's called so I think I both liked and hated page up cursor at the same overlapping time then one Christmas I unwrap my present for my uncle and it was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and I'm like oh my God not this book I might as well read it it was a gift from my uncle so I'll read it there aren't many books that have done this in this had to have been the first or I'm actually laughing out loud while I'm reading the book it was that that good and then later on he gave me the fourth book in the Jeep which I was super excited to get which was just like remembering of how hitchhikers came into your realm of understanding as I mentioned earlier I was talking about the influences of people that's the way I read her the books that I read and I would have thought this was the kind of thing that my sister would have started me on but she doesn't even talk about this so I know that she didn't read it and I believe that my first exposure to it would have also been on the PBS channel and I know that I watch you know I stayed up nights and turned it to the UHF Channel whatever I can do to get that channel in tune leave it on my a black and white TV believe it or not in my bedroom that I could watch Monty Python and it had to have fallen around that same time that The Hitchhiker's Guide came out but if you look back I believe that was 1981 around there that the book was released this is not right or do you know what did you look that up in October of 1980 the book was released in the United States and that 1981 was paper okay right right so I can tell you for sure that I read the paper back I don't know how I did and I've been looking back cuz I almost felt like if I had a tangible reminder of the book itself I could ask remember how I started reading it and looking into it but the fact is that 81 would have been a pretty transitional year for me that's why I would have gone off to college so I would have been back and forth from home and I know that this was a book that I was so impressed words that I probably gave it to someone to read and it's not in my library anymore many of the others are but one of the unique aspects of my story with hitchhikers is that as you know with our job that we both shared in various alarms we have a lot of Road time so I have all five of the novel's in their unabridged version read by the author on audio tape and I listening to that continuously I believe it was easily brought to mind is because when I have to travel for my job I'm easily could have been traveling 445 hours at a time and books on tape for a phenomenal way to keep your mind focused in that is a Stephen King book on audiobooks immediately all of them so I can write them on my phone what will I be enough I lived in Grand Haven Michigan for a while and those books are actually recorded in Grand Haven Michigan or at least digitally mastered there I think maybe the book by the authors are probably red from their own locations but books that are read by readers were done right there in Grand Haven I literally recall driving up to their okay well it was really a warehouse with the reception room and purchasing books directly from the secretary sitting here saying what the hell are you on and how can I help you I'm sorry but I did I know that those were on audio by the author came out many many years later I know that even at that point when they hired you I was probably listening to those books on tape 1 driving to Chicago cuz Chicago the next thing on my list here to talk about is the name of the podcast maybe we should have started with that huh finish the name of the podcast came into my head I wanted to do this podcast with you so I was like well we do need to give it a name and I like this name but I really want to like have a discussion of possible names which then turned into I want to pretend to have a discussion about possible named but Force this one in there to do by the way Brian I've already named the podcast unless you got some kind of an absolute objection but the reason that I took it is even though the radio series was first and it's not the first thing of the of the radio series of the book which is the first thing I was exposed to because remember I didn't realize it was The Hitchhiker's when I was watching it it's the first joke and not only is it the first joke but in my head it's one of those perfect jokes because there's multiple interpretations I was looking at a website where somebody was talking about all these years I misinterpreted with this joke meant and the first thing I thought was you can't put the joke is crafted because everybody could put their own interpretation on what it means so there is no wrong answer yes Douglas may have had some idea and he has expressed what that idea was you're making me now do math to tell time rather than just looking at two hands you make things more complicated and think it's an improvement so that was his what I took out of it is the digital watch was a piece of technology that captivated human beings beyond anything I have ever witnessed before or since there is no piece of technology that will ever come out will have people so amazed by as the digital watch was back then so I've always thought the digital watch what's the big idea but oh man some people digital what's digital but when I read the joke where my mind went to is how crazy people were for digital watches which to me was no big deal but everybody else thought they were a pretty neat idea so that's why I wanted to have that as the name of the podcast plus it wasn't taken well I wasn't going to abject to begin with and I do agree with you that is one of the earliest jokes in the book and I think that's one of the things that makes reading his material and understanding his Logics that is so interesting about the whole hitchhiker's Pantheon as I interpret the idea there it's not shortly thereafter that he makes the comment that time is irrelevant and lunchtime even more so I think what right he's saying and another Essence is that a digital watch it's just a representation of a span of time that doesn't need to be incremented falsehood that exists throughout any linear life and that to me is part of what makes it really a unique thing in the story and I do appreciate the title of 12 hour podcast Mike I hope it brings joy to some folks as much as it has to us just before we started first time in re-reading it I read a line that the jumped out at me and which I know we're going to end up talking about eventually but he mentions that Arthur's friends were all in advertising I don't know if you picked up on that and but you really wouldn't you know unless you went all the way to the end and back and I don't know how fathers can do that where they didn't in the first chapters of the book that has you do 5 books and so many chapters and so much content how he can put a word or phrase or comment into the beginning of the story and have it rap all the way to the end of story it just boggles the mind because I know I don't think he intended it to be 5 books I don't even sure what he intended but it's funny to me that

 the here in the first chapter of the book he he comes back and then does a little foreshadowing of the end of the story the only other thing that I want to talk about is what we're hoping to accomplish with this podcast personally it's an excuse for me to revisit all of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to experience some that I've never experienced that until I started this I didn't even know existed back in 2004 and 2005 they came up with 3 4 and 5 of the radio series and in 2018 they came up with 1/6 I had no idea that they existed so now where was always just the radio series there's now a primary phase and secondary phase and tertiary phase and quandary phase and then went to Central and that there are four radio series that I have never experienced that I'm going to get to experience for the first I am really look Have you listened to it too I have not I probably I don't know where exactly I got to end the radio Series so this this will be interesting cuz I I know that I have listened to much of it but I don't know where I ended back then in the early 90s I would needed a book flipping through a catalog my wife saw The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy full complete radio series on and bought it for me for Christmas 12 Italy in rotation in every time you listen to it you hear something new so that is the first six episodes are primary phase you've definitely listen to all of that cuz I've given it to you episode 6 through 12 would you also listen to our secondary face which very differently from the book go off and just goes in a completely different direction right and then do it talk about that so that's why are absolute first podcast content I just want to do the first six episodes which is now considered primary phase and we're going to do a whole nother episode for secondary phase just because it has very little to do with the existing box and then there's the video game and there's comic books and there's the movie and there's the TV show that we talked about already a little bit so I do want to cover all of that I have no idea what order were going to do it in I don't want to do all of the radio series and not get to the books will figure that out as we go that's totally alright is there anything else that you want to say about hitchhiker's before we go and I can't think of anything off the top of my head but I'm hoping that everybody that enjoys the book ends up finding us and can enjoy our lives through our history with it of course I went there you know what happened Costello that's where it all starts right?