Episode 141 features Alex T. Dragonson. Who happens to share more than just a few fandoms with me. We met on Mastodon and outside of a few threads there, this is our first real conversation. We discuss music, knitting, anxiety and anxiety remediation, work life balance, early internet experiences, Hermitcraft, FOMO and much more!
Mentioned and Helpful Links from This Episode
Music created and provided by Henno Heitur of Monkey Tongue Productions.
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00:00:00:08 – 00:00:20:26
Agent Palmer
Previously on Agent Palmer dot com. Sometimes three isn’t the magic number. An object of beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And we are more than halfway through the episodes that will be contained in one final question. Volume six. Can you believe it? This is The Palmer Files episode 141 with Alex Dragonson, who happens to share more than just a few fandoms with me.
00:00:20:29 – 00:00:51:40
Agent Palmer
We met on Mastodon, and outside of a few threads there. This is our first real conversation. We discuss music, knitting, anxiety, and anxiety, remediation, work life balance, early internet experience, hermit craft, FOMO, and much, much more. Are you ready? Let’s do the show.
00:00:51:44 – 00:01:07:49
Agent Palmer
Yes.
00:01:07:54 – 00:01:37:46
Agent Palmer
Hello, and welcome to the Palmer Files. I’m your host, Jason Stershic, also known as Agent Palmer. And on this 141st episode is Alex Dragonson a writer? Yes. I consider them a writer, a knitter self-described, and a person who I connected with on Mastodon because of a few shared fandoms such as loading, Ready Run and Hermit Craft. During this episode, we’ll discuss being creative, mental health, anxiety balance, writing YouTube, controlling your own algorithm, FOMO, and just how much of ourselves we bring to other people’s fiction.
00:01:37:51 – 00:01:57:56
Agent Palmer
All of that and a whole lot more is coming your way shortly. But first, remember that if you want to discuss this episode as you listen or afterwards, you can find all related ways to contact Alex and myself in the show notes. You can visit Alex online on Mastodon as Wizard of Docs or on Wizard of Docs. Dot Neo cities.org.
00:01:58:01 – 00:02:13:27
Agent Palmer
Don’t forget you can see all of my writings and rantings on Agent palmer.com. And of course email can be sent to the Palmer Files at gmail.com. So without further ado, let’s get into it. Alex. We met on Mastodon.
00:02:13:32 – 00:02:27:46
Alex T. Dragonson
I kind of like you followed me at some point, and that’s. That’s how I knew you were. You know, you weren’t just some random stranger setting me an email about a podcast like this. That’s how you. That’s where you know me.
00:02:28:01 – 00:02:57:39
Agent Palmer
Yes, yes. And we we we crossover in fandoms, and it feels like to, I want to say talents, but maybe just skills, because writing comes up a lot in your. I’m. I’m a lurker, so I’m just seeing the things and I’m like, oh, this is definitely someone who’s, knows the pain of writing or creation. I don’t know which I mean.
00:02:57:39 – 00:03:19:10
Alex T. Dragonson
Yeah, like for first thing, I don’t like to think of it as talent because I was a gifted kid. I’ve I’ve done gifted burnout. I, you know, all of those things that came easily to me when I was younger that maybe I have to work more on now. I, you know, I can get back up to where I was maybe.
00:03:19:19 – 00:03:43:32
Alex T. Dragonson
But like, it’s it’s just sort of, sort of an art thing that I watched a lot of Bob Ross and Lockdown. And my main takeaway from that was talent is a pursuit interest. Anything you’re willing to practice you can do? Yeah. And it took me a couple of decades to find things that I was willing to practice and write writings.
00:03:43:43 – 00:03:56:26
Agent Palmer
Okay. That’s fine. I, I would say that I got a little lucky in finding some musical instruments when I was in my teen years that I still pick up on occasion.
00:03:56:26 – 00:03:58:39
Alex T. Dragonson
Which ones?
00:03:58:43 – 00:04:04:15
Agent Palmer
The, bass guitar or bass and guitar?
00:04:04:20 – 00:04:22:20
Alex T. Dragonson
Yeah, I did, I did piano lessons first through eighth grade, violin, kindergarten through high school, clarinet, fifth grade through high school. And somewhere in there I picked up the guitar like the guitar was the only one I actually got excited about.
00:04:22:21 – 00:04:39:16
Agent Palmer
See, I would get I. So now, decades later, I, I regret not know not learning the piano. That’s the one that got away from me because I can, I can I’m, you know, I like to say I’m good enough to be bad at drums.
00:04:39:21 – 00:04:44:08
Alex T. Dragonson
Yeah. And that’s that’s not a bad way to think about it. Like, let yourself be bad at stuff.
00:04:44:12 – 00:04:44:59
Agent Palmer
00:04:45:04 – 00:04:46:05
Alex T. Dragonson
The only way to get good stuff.
00:04:46:05 – 00:05:04:59
Agent Palmer
I the piano was the one that got away, and I it feels like it probably will just remain the one that got away because I, I enjoy playing the other ones too much to, like, start divvying up time for a new one.
00:05:05:03 – 00:05:17:06
Alex T. Dragonson
Yeah, I’ve I’ve been thinking I should get myself a keyboard and get back into the habit. I. The reason I don’t play guitar anymore is my mostly yeah my arthritis. I decided to stick with knitting instead.
00:05:17:11 – 00:05:17:37
Agent Palmer
00:05:17:42 – 00:05:20:43
Alex T. Dragonson
But also I left my guitar at my partner’s place in Canada.
00:05:20:44 – 00:05:47:12
Agent Palmer
Okay, well, I mean, not having it around definitely hinders practice. But you do get, Is it the same? Like, if I want to sit down on a Sunday afternoon and noodle on a guitar, I can literally lose myself. If you sit down on the couch and start with the, needles. Are they eat their needles, right.
00:05:47:17 – 00:05:53:46
Agent Palmer
Okay. So if you if you sit down with the needles, can you just lose yourself for a little bit like Zen out a bit?
00:05:53:51 – 00:06:09:03
Alex T. Dragonson
Yeah, it kind of depends on what I’m working on. It’s it’s pretty good for my mental health, actually. And it was, you know, I was really scared when I got diagnosed with arthritis that I would have to give up knitting because it’s just so karmic.
00:06:09:08 – 00:06:21:04
Agent Palmer
So we’re going to we’re going to take a stab right at this right now. Did you take up knitting because you knew it would be good for your mental health? Or did you.
00:06:21:11 – 00:06:26:10
Alex T. Dragonson
Know I took I took up knitting because I got introduced to Doctor Who in college.
00:06:26:15 – 00:06:31:58
Agent Palmer
I, I, I am aware of Doctor Who. I have not watched any of.
00:06:31:58 – 00:06:51:04
Alex T. Dragonson
It back and forth back in the 70s, back in the 70s, the guy who was the doctor for most of that decade wore a scarf of absurd proportions, like the story goes, that somebody gave a woman in the costuming department a big bag of yarn and said, make a scarf. Tell her how long to make it. So she used to do it all.
00:06:51:04 – 00:06:52:59
Agent Palmer
But just kept going. Okay, yeah.
00:06:53:04 – 00:07:22:01
Alex T. Dragonson
And that scarf became iconic. So when I ran out of new who this was in like late 2011 or early 2012, I started watching the old stuff and it was it’s now it was before that because I got a cousin of mine to teach me how to knit. Sophomore year, Thanksgiving. I think. And then I went to Walmart, bought myself, those big chunky super saver skeins and all the right colors.
00:07:22:01 – 00:07:31:06
Alex T. Dragonson
And I made myself a doctor Who scarf that was, six straight weeks of doing the same exact motion over and over and over. And then I felt like I knew what it.
00:07:31:06 – 00:07:39:18
Agent Palmer
Was an amazing way to learn, like one big project like that. And I feel like perfect.
00:07:39:22 – 00:07:45:10
Alex T. Dragonson
Like, the best way to pick up a new skill is have something you really want to do with it that you could work out.
00:07:45:15 – 00:07:57:25
Agent Palmer
So when do you know this is good for your mental health? Because if you pick it up as just a hobby, you don’t. You’re not thinking of it as like escape or like relief.
00:07:57:30 – 00:08:21:05
Alex T. Dragonson
That was probably in grad school. I think I think I developed by anxiety, while I was writing my, my master’s thesis. Okay. And that was probably around when I realized that knitting was making me feel better, but also when my arthritis was bad and I couldn’t knit, I got anxious because I couldn’t. I didn’t have my fidgets, okay.
00:08:21:13 – 00:08:52:07
Agent Palmer
I gotcha, I’m I’m a little jealous in a, in a in maybe the darkest way possible that you have an actual, big bang, in it, at least the way you introduced it for your anxiety. Because my mind came completely out of left field and I had, Yeah, two isolated, panic, anxiety attacks, followed by a third one that just kept on going.
00:08:52:07 – 00:09:00:38
Agent Palmer
And then I had to learn to live with it, and it was like. But there was no. Yeah. There was no,
00:09:00:43 – 00:09:02:17
Alex T. Dragonson
You don’t know what said.
00:09:02:22 – 00:09:30:45
Agent Palmer
The first two happened randomly and the first one happens when I’m in a good place. Right. And I’ve told this story and I’ve been telling this story a little bit more often. In my real life. I told this story way back in episode 13 of this podcast because I wanted I wanted to tell the story. I wanted to get it out there recently.
00:09:30:50 – 00:09:55:02
Agent Palmer
I’ve just been telling it to people who I who have known me for years. But I, I guess I just don’t talk about it, and I like, I obviously it’s not something I hide, but it’s also not necessarily something you just. It’s. I’m not wearing. Hello. My name is anxiety. Like, that’s not the name tag I, I wear.
00:09:55:06 – 00:10:07:42
Alex T. Dragonson
You know, I think I think we’re very lucky to live in an age where, you know, internet discourse is perfectly fine with people talking about their mental health. I can say, hello, my name is anxiety in my Mastodon.
00:10:07:52 – 00:10:08:43
Agent Palmer
That’s that’s.
00:10:08:43 – 00:10:11:23
Alex T. Dragonson
True. People will that’s true. People will go lol say, yeah.
00:10:11:23 – 00:10:35:17
Agent Palmer
But but the first I’m I’m at a baseball game when my first attack happens. I’ve been to plenty of baseball games in my life before and since. Nothing happened. It’s not like my team lost like nothing. Nothing game related happened. Nothing with the people. There was just random. Okay, here. Here we go. This is your first one you’re going to remember.
00:10:35:21 – 00:10:41:09
Agent Palmer
This is. It was almost like my internal clock was like. You’re going to remember this one.
00:10:41:14 – 00:10:56:18
Alex T. Dragonson
Yeah. It’s just anxiety is, you know, anxiety is something humans evolved when we were prey animals. And our our brains have not let go of that because sometimes it still saves our lives.
00:10:56:18 – 00:11:20:01
Agent Palmer
Yeah, yeah. Although, I’m, I’m just sitting in the upper deck there along the third baseline at Camden Yards in Baltimore until like the second inning. And, nothing’s going on. There’s it’s a beautiful Saturday afternoon, by the way. I have no idea why that many, many, many years ago at this point,
00:11:20:06 – 00:11:24:14
Alex T. Dragonson
Some switch flipped in your brain. It’s just like that now you’re going to be scared.
00:11:24:18 – 00:11:52:55
Agent Palmer
Yes. Here we go. It’s time. It’s time. Yeah, it it was. It’s wild. But I, I find myself telling people a little more often, and it’s really because, I want them to know that when I say no, I can’t do this thing. It’s not personal. And it’s not because I don’t want to. It’s, It may.
00:11:53:02 – 00:11:54:34
Alex T. Dragonson
It’s just. Your brain can’t relax.
00:11:54:34 – 00:12:30:50
Agent Palmer
Yeah, well, there’s always an argument to be made that maybe this was, like, the overload, because I never could relax, like, I. I’m. I don’t know that I would say I have, like, like ADHD or ADHD or any of those kind of things, but I am conversely or equally a workaholic. So while I don’t have to always be doing something, I don’t have to always be, motivated or stimulated or any of those things.
00:12:30:55 – 00:12:35:13
Agent Palmer
I am always working on whatever’s next.
00:12:35:18 – 00:12:52:41
Alex T. Dragonson
Yeah, like, I like I’m I’m not a workaholic. I never want to be a workaholic. I think, you know, early on, like, I said, it was a gifted. I was a gifted kid. School was easy. It was the social stuff that I struggled with, and nobody was. Nobody was giving me classes and tests on how to do that.
00:12:52:41 – 00:13:21:49
Alex T. Dragonson
And more recently, I yeah, I work in the tech sector. I’m a technical writer, and one of the things I learned earliest in this line of work is your your employer will try to erode your boundaries. Don’t let. Oh yeah. And so I’ve always been very careful about keeping as much time as I can to not now. I’m not going to say I slack off.
00:13:21:54 – 00:13:49:05
Alex T. Dragonson
I get the work. Yeah, but I try and spend as much as I can, as much time as I can, recovering from doing the work. And it doesn’t. I don’t always get there. Like, sometimes even, you know, I took some time off to work this episode and like, when I, when I’m not working, I’m worrying about work. That’s what I mean when I say my brain can’t relax.
00:13:49:05 – 00:13:57:28
Alex T. Dragonson
There’s always something that somebody is expecting me to do. So, like, I haven’t been able to write for myself consistently in years.
00:13:57:43 – 00:13:59:53
Agent Palmer
The best you miss it.
00:13:59:58 – 00:14:15:59
Alex T. Dragonson
Oh, yeah. That’s, you know, if if I did not have to work for a living, I would have finished my novel already. Okay, as it is, I write best when I’m supposed to be falling asleep.
00:14:16:03 – 00:14:16:38
Agent Palmer
Well, that’s.
00:14:16:38 – 00:14:18:46
Alex T. Dragonson
That’s when I finally relax. Enough.
00:14:18:51 – 00:14:20:48
Agent Palmer
That’s, healthy at all.
00:14:20:53 – 00:14:26:04
Alex T. Dragonson
No. And deal. That’s why I keep my phone next to my bed so I can write stuff down, and I won’t forget it.
00:14:26:18 – 00:14:37:04
Agent Palmer
Okay, but it also means you’re not getting out of bed to go to some other writing space. So you can kind of keep the sleep disruption to a minimum.
00:14:37:09 – 00:15:01:28
Alex T. Dragonson
Yes. Unless. Unless an idea really grabs me like one time a couple of couple of years ago, I was feeling really intense writer’s block, and I texted a friend of mine about it who I talk with about writing a lot, who was the DM of the best D&D campaign I’ve ever been in, who gave me the setting after he burned out on it.
00:15:01:37 – 00:15:24:47
Alex T. Dragonson
And that’s what that’s what my novel is, is that campaign and what would what would have happened next? And so I asked this friend for a writing prompt and he said, you know, tell me about some ordinary people living their lives in a place that you’re the protagonist of your novel won’t necessarily get to.
00:15:24:52 – 00:15:29:58
Alex T. Dragonson
And I had that draft together before I fell asleep.
00:15:29:58 – 00:15:31:49
Agent Palmer
Wow. Okay.
00:15:31:53 – 00:15:38:24
Alex T. Dragonson
You know, sometimes, sometimes an idea gets me and it won’t let go.
00:15:38:28 – 00:15:39:28
Agent Palmer
Those are the those are.
00:15:39:39 – 00:15:39:58
Alex T. Dragonson
Some of the.
00:15:40:09 – 00:15:41:48
Agent Palmer
Ideas, though, like.
00:15:41:48 – 00:16:03:48
Alex T. Dragonson
Yes, yes they are. And so I, you you got to run with them as far as they go or else they’ll run away. You lose them. I’ve had a couple of story ideas recently that I took some notes on. Decided to wait a few months until, you know, one of them was for an anthology. I wanted to wait until, you know that we were.
00:16:03:53 – 00:16:17:08
Alex T. Dragonson
Other people were starting to work on that same anthology so I could talk to them about it. And when I came back to that story idea, I didn’t want to work on it anymore. And I still, I still feel bad that I have nothing to contribute to this anthology.
00:16:17:08 – 00:16:48:06
Agent Palmer
I, I’m thinking back on like, all right, well, I, I can’t speak for everyone else, but I have been a pretty substantial packrat of my own writing. And I’m not talking about the blog because I, I hit publish every Thursday and share that with the world. I’m talking about the middle school and high school poems. I’m talking about a half a short story from college.
00:16:48:06 – 00:16:54:36
Agent Palmer
Right? Like I’m talking about like, yeah, all of those. No physical notebooks. I the.
00:16:54:36 – 00:16:55:28
Alex T. Dragonson
Plot, but I.
00:16:55:28 – 00:17:23:59
Agent Palmer
Can look and touch. Yeah, I can, I can do that. I but I look at all of those things and I go the finished ones, I can’t seem to touch. I don’t, I don’t, I just don’t have the. Discipline to actually edit myself or change it. And then the, the, the short stories I’ve lost like I can read them.
00:17:24:03 – 00:17:39:28
Agent Palmer
I’d be better off handing them to you. Like, do you write? Because I just cannot, so I don’t know what happened. These are unfinished, clearly, but I read these and I go, I have no idea what comes next.
00:17:39:33 – 00:18:05:09
Alex T. Dragonson
I’m happy to have a look if you want. This is actually this. This is a thing I’ve been doing more of recently with this friend. Is, the host of a podcast. It’s called The Voice of Dog. It’s, furry literature, short stories. And actually, is that that story that he that he gave me the prompt for when I had writer’s block.
00:18:05:09 – 00:18:31:52
Alex T. Dragonson
That was my first submission to his podcast, because like I said to him, the draft, he liked it. That. And then after that episode went up, he invited me into the the telegram group for contributors to the podcast. And I’ve made a bunch of great friends there and just just getting into each other’s, each other’s heads, into each other’s settings and just helping each other figure out what comes next.
00:18:31:56 – 00:18:45:50
Agent Palmer
So that that leads me to this. Those people in that telegram, they’re global, probably. Or regional. Yeah. Not all down the street.
00:18:45:54 – 00:19:05:02
Alex T. Dragonson
And no, they’re that my my friend who hosts the podcast lives reasonably close to me. But like, there’s there’s people all over, the U.S. and Canada, and there’s even some in the UK and Australia and other places that I, I’m forgetting. But yeah, it’s a global.
00:19:05:02 – 00:19:42:59
Agent Palmer
Okay. So how. Because this is so I am I am the worst hypocrite when it comes to this. But as someone who is married to somebody that I met online, like we met on Twitter because we both were tweeting and, listening to the same podcast. Yeah. And I have a group of friends because of that. Similar to the way I met you, as, like just overlapping fandoms.
00:19:43:04 – 00:20:07:30
Agent Palmer
And the internet is good. And so I have friends. I’m on the east coast of the US. I have friends in the middle and on the west coast and on both sides of Canada. A few in the middle. And then I also have friends around around the rest of the globe, and all of that is a preamble to say, I still think I’d rather turn off the internet.
00:20:07:34 – 00:20:17:59
Agent Palmer
And that’s what I think makes me a fun, weird like kind of hypocrite. Because while I get all these good things and these actually healthy relationships.
00:20:18:04 – 00:20:47:51
Alex T. Dragonson
Yeah, like, you know, I didn’t I didn’t have a whole lot of in-person friends as a kid. I did not have like, a fulfilling, supportive social life until I discovered social media, like I was part of the Facebook generation. I joined, in the late OT to keep up with people from my youth group who turned out didn’t really want to keep up with me all that much.
00:20:47:51 – 00:21:15:44
Alex T. Dragonson
But then as as I got into fandom stuff, I started meeting other Doctor Who fans on Tumblr, and I was an admin of a Doctor Who Facebook fan group for a while, and more recently, Mastodon and Discord. Like, actually, I had to explain this once to a woman I sat next to on an airplane. Okay. She was complaining about, you know, kids these days, we’re.
00:21:15:44 – 00:21:20:12
Agent Palmer
Talking a fairly massive age difference. I’m going to guess.
00:21:20:17 – 00:21:39:57
Alex T. Dragonson
Okay. Yeah. And I explained to her that I, I, you know, I was a lonely kid, and without the internet, I would have been even lonelier. I was like, my my pocket friends helped me figure out how to be how to be an adult, how to be a person. Honestly.
00:21:39:57 – 00:21:55:28
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I I’m and I, I love some of these people that I’ve never met. Right. Like I can genuinely say that I still kind of think on a whole, I’d rather turn off the internet than leave it on, but that’s just me.
00:21:55:28 – 00:22:04:40
Alex T. Dragonson
There’s definitely there’s there’s definitely huge chunks of the internet we could do without, you know? And if anything, Elon Musk has his tentacles in for one.
00:22:04:40 – 00:22:14:21
Agent Palmer
I, I would just say just new. Like go back to the paper. Let’s go back to an actual newspaper and no news on the internet. Let’s do that.
00:22:14:32 – 00:22:29:04
Alex T. Dragonson
Like, I, I kind of wish I kind of wish I were ten years older so I could could have come on to the internet ten years earlier and like, really experienced, you know, Usenet and forums and stuff. So that it was your first it was small, it.
00:22:29:04 – 00:22:31:04
Agent Palmer
Was your first online experience.
00:22:31:04 – 00:22:35:34
Alex T. Dragonson
It hey I yeah. Okay. So and then.
00:22:35:45 – 00:22:58:33
Agent Palmer
So that means that I’m, I, I because I was an early adopter of the internet. And when I talk about the internet, I talk about like, getting on to prodigy and, which was a, a small service here on the East Coast, as I just learned out, not recent, not not too long ago that it was, regional service.
00:22:58:35 – 00:23:25:56
Agent Palmer
I was like, okay. And that got me, access to the wider world Wide Web. So I used to pick on, contemporaries for being in their walled AOL gardens. But I started out on IQ, an IRC, and I eventually only ended up going to A.I.M. because that’s where all of the that’s where everybody gravitated towards.
00:23:26:00 – 00:23:46:14
Alex T. Dragonson
Yeah, it’s like the big the big centralized platforms are just they’re good at they’re good at promoting themselves. Yes. And like that’s you know, that’s both one of the great things about Mastodon. And one of the terrible things about Mastodon is, you know, it’s not it’s not that, which means it has an image problem.
00:23:46:14 – 00:23:48:11
Agent Palmer
Yeah. Well, but I also.
00:23:48:11 – 00:24:04:12
Alex T. Dragonson
Feel it’s hard to. Yeah, it’s just hard, hard to get people out of that. Yeah. Out of, like, the walled gardens and into places where they objectively have more control over their information because moving and doing new things is hard.
00:24:04:18 – 00:24:29:04
Agent Palmer
Yeah, doing new things is hard. If you’re comfortable, if you’re uncomfortable, maybe, say, as the reason why I find myself on Mastodon and Blue Sky and threads because Twitter became untenable. The change is not that hard.
00:24:29:09 – 00:24:52:50
Alex T. Dragonson
Yeah, but like, even thread threads is a whole other discourse, like, I, I would like to think of it as a way to show, you know, people who have been locked into the Facebook ecosystem, other things that the internet can be. But, you know, there’s a lot of people on Mastodon who are more worried about Facebook getting its tentacles into Mastodon.
00:24:52:55 – 00:24:54:00
Agent Palmer
Yeah, that’s fair.
00:24:54:00 – 00:24:54:25
Alex T. Dragonson
So it’s.
00:24:54:25 – 00:25:24:20
Agent Palmer
Complicated. It it is. But I just there are times when I find myself wanting either to turn it off, like I said, or just make it, that I sound like I, I like I, I don’t mind being the crotchety old man by saying this, like, like, let’s make getting on the internet as easy as it was at the beginning of WarGames, starring Michael Brown.
00:25:24:25 – 00:25:36:30
Agent Palmer
Matthew Broderick. Right. Like, let’s make it so that you need a phone coupler and you need to know a telephone number and you have to get a solid connection. Let’s not make it easy. Maybe that would solve some of our problems.
00:25:36:44 – 00:25:41:56
Alex T. Dragonson
Yeah. It’s it that’s I think that’s a very first world perspective. Yeah, yeah.
00:25:42:01 – 00:26:18:15
Agent Palmer
Well I but I was also thinking I, I watch a YouTube channel called Retro Days and you know, as weird as you’re listening to this listener, it’s, 20, 25, but as we’re recording this, it’s the fall of 2024. And I just watched their special on Back to School, shopping, basically. And I, I was just thinking, like, kids these days don’t carry books around anymore, so they don’t need the brown paper, bag to cover their books necessarily.
00:26:18:15 – 00:26:23:17
Agent Palmer
Or the fancy ones. They just don’t have books.
00:26:23:22 – 00:26:30:25
Alex T. Dragonson
Like, I don’t even think I had my my text books had I didn’t get special covers to put on my text books. They were just.
00:26:30:30 – 00:26:37:40
Agent Palmer
I were just like, yeah, we used to just cover them in the whole, like, brown paper shopping bag thing.
00:26:37:45 – 00:26:49:22
Alex T. Dragonson
But yeah, if you know, if text books are going digital, that’s probably, on balance, a good thing. Like if you were teenagers with back problems, hopefully.
00:26:49:27 – 00:26:50:29
Agent Palmer
You don’t want that you like.
00:26:50:31 – 00:26:50:56
Alex T. Dragonson
You don’t go.
00:26:50:58 – 00:26:54:38
Agent Palmer
Back and go like they should suffer like I did. Like that’s not.
00:26:54:43 – 00:26:57:16
Alex T. Dragonson
No, no you are.
00:26:57:21 – 00:27:01:11
Agent Palmer
You are so much nicer than I am. Like just on a whole. So much.
00:27:01:12 – 00:27:11:17
Alex T. Dragonson
Like I’m. I don’t know if it’s. I don’t know if it’s nicer so much. Yeah. Now I. I just like breaking cycles of I.
00:27:11:17 – 00:27:13:06
Agent Palmer
Okay, okay.
00:27:13:11 – 00:27:35:53
Alex T. Dragonson
Like, have you read Homestuck. No, I think that was the first the like the first work of fiction I had that really laid this out for me was just with the desire. But there’s a lot of revenge happening back and forth. There’s a lot of wanting to make people suffer because you have suffered.
00:27:35:57 – 00:27:50:04
Alex T. Dragonson
And, you know, there’s there’s a lot more to Homestuck. There’s also, in some ways, a lot less to Homestuck. It’s there’s a perspective from which it’s just a shitpost parody of adventure games that got massively out of control.
00:27:50:19 – 00:27:51:28
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:27:51:32 – 00:28:34:38
Alex T. Dragonson
But it’s also it’s also a multimedia masterpiece. And like, my partner makes fun of me for occasionally for, getting so excited about it. Because this Homestuck is not the first, you know, the not the first massively multimedia work to to do stuff like that. But it’s the one my generation because it’s that inspired people to want to play with formats to do that, that sort of to use that sort of adventure game trope like there’s still people making comics in the Homestuck style that have nothing to do with Homestuck like it’s one I’m following right now.
00:28:34:38 – 00:28:43:53
Alex T. Dragonson
That’s actually a yeah, it’s, hermit craft fan work, kind of. It’s it’s called quadruple life.
00:28:43:57 – 00:28:46:05
Agent Palmer
Maybe a sign of things to come, I don’t know.
00:28:46:07 – 00:29:07:39
Alex T. Dragonson
Okay, I, I don’t, I don’t think so. But great Gran has said that that who comes up with like the Third Life etc. storyline that the gimmicks she has said that he wants the idea to come out of his own head so he doesn’t listen to suggestions.
00:29:07:43 – 00:29:23:57
Agent Palmer
Well, let’s, let’s let’s go there for a moment, shall we? I came late to hermit craft, which so did those who don’t know. How late is, a minecraft? A minecraft, SMP with a whole bunch of different creature.
00:29:23:58 – 00:29:26:06
Alex T. Dragonson
Survival multiplayer server.
00:29:26:11 – 00:30:04:33
Agent Palmer
And they, they put out videos, they stream their stuff. And I, I discovered them. I mean, I can I, I know this because I follow Alex on Mastodon, but I can go through all of our, a bunch of our fandoms, which is how I got there. I started, learning about Minecraft because James from LA, from Loading Ready Run was doing the punch a chunk, at the very beginning of the lockdown.
00:30:04:38 – 00:30:05:29
Agent Palmer
And then.
00:30:05:29 – 00:30:09:39
Alex T. Dragonson
Yeah, I my Minecraft journey started a little earlier following. Okay.
00:30:09:44 – 00:30:10:11
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:30:10:25 – 00:30:35:47
Alex T. Dragonson
But yeah, but browse the same place and then I got into hermit craft because I was, I was on a short term technical writing contract with, Microsoft. That just happened to end as everything was shutting down in mid-March 20. Okay. So I was unemployed. I suddenly had a whole lot of time on my hands and oh, time television.
00:30:35:52 – 00:30:36:30
Agent Palmer
This is true.
00:30:36:32 – 00:30:50:25
Alex T. Dragonson
But YouTube with YouTube had started recommending me mumbo jumbo videos. And this was right as season seven was started. So from from mumble, I found Brian from Gary, and I found Scarlett just kind of radiated very.
00:30:50:29 – 00:31:12:38
Agent Palmer
I it took me a little bit longer from James, but I went I went to empires first and then because of the empires is a different SNP and because empires crossed over. Not in actual nice for season one, but like with the the members, a lot.
00:31:12:38 – 00:31:17:25
Alex T. Dragonson
Yeah, a couple of empires players, joined Hermit Craft for season eight.
00:31:17:26 – 00:31:50:40
Agent Palmer
But there was also Secret Life Happens at that time, which kind of introduces me to a lot more hermit craft members because, like Joel and Lizzy and Scott and all of the people that were on. And so it’s it’s a long way to say that I am a late 30s, early 40s guy watching Minecraft YouTube videos and loving it like, I make no apologies for it, but it is very much not what people expect.
00:31:50:50 – 00:31:59:54
Agent Palmer
I, I was at a function with like a 12 year old talking about Gary and Scott.
00:31:59:56 – 00:32:00:35
Alex T. Dragonson
Nice.
00:32:00:48 – 00:32:16:30
Agent Palmer
Like it just it it. I know that I’m their age a lot of I’m I’m the age of most of the people there for for some of it. And it’s just like I can watch this and so can 12 year old and hopefully we’re going to get different things.
00:32:16:30 – 00:32:39:55
Alex T. Dragonson
But yeah. And like that there’s there’s layers. So many layers to it. There’s you know you’ve got the builds on the one hand and there’s some of the players get into really technical stuff. And then just on top of that there’s this amazing layer of improv comedy. And like I did, how much of season seven, like I went to season seven, I.
00:32:39:55 – 00:32:44:28
Agent Palmer
Didn’t I came in at the end of season eight, but what I did was I went.
00:32:44:28 – 00:32:45:00
Alex T. Dragonson
Back, you.
00:32:45:00 – 00:32:48:26
Agent Palmer
Haven’t. And watched season seven.
00:32:48:31 – 00:32:55:41
Alex T. Dragonson
So you’ve you’ve had less a lot less experience of hermit craft before they got the proximity voice mod.
00:32:55:46 – 00:33:00:44
Agent Palmer
Oh no, I mean it’s I a little bit but not much.
00:33:00:49 – 00:33:20:44
Alex T. Dragonson
Yeah. That that changed the format completely. It’s made spontaneous collaborations a lot easier to set up. You could just you didn’t have to arrange a discord call or whatever. You could just drop by somebody base, say hello. And there’s some great moments at the end of season seven and in Third Life that highlight that it’s.
00:33:20:49 – 00:33:47:05
Agent Palmer
Like, yeah, I mean, and I, I, I also think that like, this opens the door at the same time, I, I don’t know how I found loading really run. I, all of this, I guess is to say this is how YouTube became the first thing I open when I have free time, right? It’s it’s not TV, it’s not Netflix or Hulu or any of the others.
00:33:47:10 – 00:33:50:28
Agent Palmer
I check YouTube first.
00:33:50:33 – 00:34:00:30
Alex T. Dragonson
Yeah, I like I don’t, I don’t even have I don’t even have any subscriptions to streaming services. There’s, the family Netflix account, but I think my sister’s in charge of that now.
00:34:00:30 – 00:34:21:56
Agent Palmer
Need it. I mean, genuinely, I think that there and I know it’s just hermit craft and and you can make an argument that it exists outside of hermit craft. As a lot of these small small I get okay, I’m going to say this and explain it real quick. A lot of these small independent creators are doing good work.
00:34:22:01 – 00:34:30:31
Agent Palmer
However, I don’t know that you can call them small. Some of these people have like 10 million subscribers.
00:34:30:35 – 00:34:34:33
Alex T. Dragonson
Yeah, but they still depend on YouTube ads for to for their livelihood.
00:34:34:33 – 00:34:43:44
Agent Palmer
That’s fair. And it is a lot of the times it’s them. Maybe them, plus an editor. It’s not massive teams behind this stuff.
00:34:43:48 – 00:35:01:04
Alex T. Dragonson
Yeah. This is hermit craft is explicitly a group of friends who got together to play Minecraft and who have been doing it for continuously, pretty much for just over a decade. Like the who’s in the group of friends has changed, sure, but that’s like every.
00:35:01:04 – 00:35:06:54
Agent Palmer
Other group of friends we’ve had in your life. Like, people come and people go.
00:35:06:58 – 00:35:34:00
Alex T. Dragonson
And one of the things I love about the current season, the season ten, is that at the end of season nine, they all kind of got together and realized that they were doing too much algorithm chasing that. That’s, you know, the whole the Clickbaity Megabase stuff wasn’t what people came to their videos for. It was just that, people come to these videos to hang out and be parasocial with this, this group of really good friends.
00:35:34:00 – 00:35:51:38
Agent Palmer
That’s and that’s, you know, it’s that’s kind of what my hook was, with, going back to season seven, I watched ish Gal and Ethan, who were sharing a base. Who?
00:35:51:46 – 00:35:52:16
Alex T. Dragonson
Season eight.
00:35:52:19 – 00:35:53:50
Agent Palmer
Oh, season eight then. Yeah.
00:35:53:54 – 00:35:55:36
Alex T. Dragonson
And so what were they? Were they were up.
00:35:55:41 – 00:36:18:09
Agent Palmer
Yeah. And what was interesting to me was they had amazing interactions together. But because they’re in different sides of the globe and different time zones, the specter of the other was always whole, like hovering over even though it didn’t happen very often.
00:36:18:18 – 00:36:21:10
Alex T. Dragonson
Very. So I made you some guidance to your shopping.
00:36:21:14 – 00:36:31:37
Agent Palmer
And it’s just it’s there in the background, like a friend, like two ships. It is two ships passing in the night. It’s just on occasion they hit each other.
00:36:31:42 – 00:36:52:43
Alex T. Dragonson
Yeah. It’s amazing how much collaborative potential there is when you’re deep, when what? You’re never online at the same time. But, at the same time, the hermits. I enjoy watching most of the ones who go out of their way to engineer like, face to face. Well, as face to face as it can be, collaborations like Joe Hills Hermits helping hermits with Joe’s idea.
00:36:52:55 – 00:37:14:33
Alex T. Dragonson
Just people get together every Monday, work on some some big project that one of them needs doing it. It didn’t didn’t last all that like most of season eight. And then by the end of season eight, it was just kind of usually back to just, him and Zombie Cleo working on their, their shared.
00:37:14:33 – 00:37:19:18
Agent Palmer
And they did a lot of it in season nine. I didn’t know where that started from. Yeah.
00:37:19:23 – 00:37:43:51
Alex T. Dragonson
That was, that started late in season seven when, Joe decided to build a scale model of the Ever Given kit with the functional model to, I think it would be dubs. It was trying to transport villagers by boat and he had to go around. So Joe got very excited that his his scale model of the Ever Given actually disrupted commerce on the server.
00:37:43:56 – 00:38:05:06
Agent Palmer
I mean it, but this is how to someone who has no idea about Minecraft, no idea about YouTube, no idea about SNPs. What you’ve just heard us talk about for the last ten minutes is what people that didn’t watch Game of Thrones heard when Game of Thrones was on HBO.
00:38:05:11 – 00:38:12:02
Alex T. Dragonson
Yeah. Except there’s except I feel a lot better about watching her crap Game of Thrones just that.
00:38:12:11 – 00:38:21:08
Agent Palmer
Well, I didn’t, I watched the I watched a season and a half a Game of Thrones, and then I just kind of, like, shook my head through conversations with people that kept watching.
00:38:21:13 – 00:38:28:48
Alex T. Dragonson
I didn’t even watch the show. I read the first book. I regret finishing the first book. I it was not for me.
00:38:28:48 – 00:38:38:01
Agent Palmer
I, I yeah, I, I, I didn’t haven’t, I didn’t have an interest for somehow the token fan in me.
00:38:38:06 – 00:39:15:09
Alex T. Dragonson
Part of the part of the last five years or so for me, I think has been a bigger focus on curating, curating the art I give my attention to, to just, you know, there’s enough depressing shit happening out there in the world. There’s enough scary shit. I, I don’t need that for my fiction, too. I want, you know, the fiction and the art more generally that I interact with to be places I actually want to spend my time and, that’s a yeah, that’s that’s also something I try to focus on in my own writing.
00:39:15:09 – 00:39:40:38
Agent Palmer
Well, and it’s, it’s how I ended up going from being subscribed to a million podcasts to and list and listening to them to being to subscribe to a billion podcasts, and not because I, I started listening to music again. No. 000I0 my moods better when I listen to music. Nothing again. These are not like podcasts that are depressing.
00:39:40:38 – 00:40:09:54
Agent Palmer
Most of them are just comedy podcasts, but at a certain point, it’s really hard for the world, the the people that are trying to create something to avoid some of the negativity from like the outer, the outer, I guess. And so I just I can pop on an album from 1997 and just sit and listen or do anything else and just be happier, because I remember 1997 and it was a simpler time.
00:40:09:58 – 00:40:11:22
Agent Palmer
Do you listen to music.
00:40:11:26 – 00:40:26:33
Alex T. Dragonson
By not a whole lot. Not not for the sake of listening to music like the last the last album I bought was, hang on, let me, let me look up the name. It, it’s called Perihelion by Sun Gazer. It’s Adam Neely’s band.
00:40:26:33 – 00:40:35:56
Agent Palmer
Okay. And is it? I mean, that specifically you bought, but, like, do you just have music on in the background usually, or.
00:40:36:01 – 00:40:50:51
Alex T. Dragonson
Like usually I’ve got like videos on with with people parking lot of lot of Minecraft, YouTube, lot of Minecraft streams occasionally other loading ready run stuff like this is this is my happy place right now. I mean.
00:40:50:53 – 00:41:13:38
Agent Palmer
It I like to commend you that you found a happy place because, like, I think I’ve got a similar one. And I don’t know that a lot of people actually have a happy place. Like, I’m not. I’m not. It’s not doom and gloom, but like, Alex and I have found a YouTube algorithm, so to speak, that, relaxes us.
00:41:13:38 – 00:41:24:53
Agent Palmer
And it’s not here’s all the news. Here’s everything you need to know. Which, by the way, sounds like that by comparison to the stuff we watch that makes us laugh.
00:41:24:57 – 00:41:53:41
Alex T. Dragonson
Yeah, well, you know, I am my own algorithm again. That’s the thing I like about Mastodon. I actually, yes, I use a new pipe mostly for YouTube videos that it it’s open source that lets you block ads. And there’s, there’s a version of it that lets you skip sponsor reads and stuff and help. You could tell it not to recommend you stuff, and it doesn’t, you know, it doesn’t go down.
00:41:53:42 – 00:42:02:54
Alex T. Dragonson
Those those depressing and, you know, angering, rabbit holes that social media algorithms are known for.
00:42:02:54 – 00:42:27:24
Agent Palmer
Now, I, I ask this question with all due respect, because I’m very curious about it, but you said it’s YouTube mainly. How did you get over or did you ever have a fear of missing out? Like, did you ever have a FOMO, issue before?
00:42:27:28 – 00:42:50:19
Alex T. Dragonson
I, I think my experience, my experience was so small goes probably goes back to before my experience with the internet because, again, I didn’t have a whole lot of friends as a kid. I always, I always knew I was getting left out. And so, yeah, it’s not it’s not so much the internet that sets off FOMO for me, it’s it’s people doing things in real life.
00:42:50:19 – 00:43:00:11
Alex T. Dragonson
And I either now I my, my anxiety tells me that people have forgotten about me and that’s why I don’t get invited to things. Okay.
00:43:00:16 – 00:43:18:46
Agent Palmer
I mean, I, I did I, I legitimately did that to parts of my family. Like when my anxiety was at my highest, I didn’t go anywhere. I didn’t I didn’t go to any family gatherings for a few years. And at a certain point, you stopped being invited because you don’t go.
00:43:18:51 – 00:43:42:11
Alex T. Dragonson
Yeah, exactly. Does that to you. And it’s I feel very privileged to have friends who are kind of in the same boat as me. So if I just kind of kind of forget, I can talk to them for months and I can when I do remember, I can come back and poke them and say, hey, how were you doing?
00:43:42:11 – 00:43:45:26
Alex T. Dragonson
And they they’ll respond like, I wasn’t gone.
00:43:45:31 – 00:44:11:16
Agent Palmer
That’s that’s pretty big. And I think that’s, that’s an internet thing. I, I genuinely believe that because, it, it’s a time zone thing and it’s an internet thing because, like, I wouldn’t I wouldn’t know anybody. How often am I going to know somebody outside my time zone without the internet? And if you’re not in my time zone, I can pick up the phone and call you.
00:44:11:16 – 00:44:23:53
Agent Palmer
But most of the time, I’m absent mindedly going, oh, I just texted so-and-so. And for him, it’s 6 a.m., and for me it’s 9 a.m.. Oh, like.
00:44:23:58 – 00:44:31:24
Alex T. Dragonson
And so that’s the kind of a synchronicity is one of the great things about the internet. Yeah. Have you read because internet.
00:44:31:24 – 00:44:34:26
Agent Palmer
Oh should I.
00:44:34:31 – 00:44:49:47
Alex T. Dragonson
Oh, yes. It’s, this internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch has written an internet linguistics blog. Okay. It’s it’s really good. It explains a lot of the social dynamics you see online, especially like generational gaps.
00:44:49:52 – 00:44:54:08
Agent Palmer
And this feels like a book that I’m going to have to give to other people.
00:44:54:12 – 00:45:32:00
Alex T. Dragonson
Yeah. My my dad is an English professor, and I talked him into teaching it to his freshman. And the question he gets consistently is, why doesn’t it mention TikTok? Because it was written before TikTok existed. And my my response to this is, okay, there’s a homework opportunity. I don’t I don’t know if that has done this yet, but you know, I would, I would, I would say to his students, you if you read this book, you know, a little bit about how Gretchen’s my public thinks, write me what you think she would say about TikTok.
00:45:32:02 – 00:45:48:33
Agent Palmer
Yeah, okay. I mean, it it. Yeah. And by the way, that’s a homework assignment that keeps on giving because ten years from now, when there’s three new platforms, they can write about, each of them.
00:45:48:38 – 00:45:49:41
Alex T. Dragonson
Absolutely.
00:45:49:41 – 00:46:15:21
Agent Palmer
I now treat all platforms equally. Not in that they all get my time undivided, but in that I know that they’re not permanent. I know everybody thinks Facebook is permanent, but it’s not. And I and and it’s based it’s all based on user base as I know that, investors say as long as it makes money, it’ll be around.
00:46:15:26 – 00:46:23:28
Agent Palmer
But that’s not really how it works. If the younger generation gives up and the older generation dies, no one’s on Facebook anymore.
00:46:23:33 – 00:46:43:23
Alex T. Dragonson
Yeah. Now, I do like to think Mastodon is a little more resilient to it, because Mastodon is not one social media platform. It is many, many social media platforms. And you see the the churn of new instances popping up and others, you know, others going under all the time. There’s, you know, got to make moving between them easy.
00:46:43:23 – 00:46:46:03
Alex T. Dragonson
And that’s I think how Mastodon sustains itself.
00:46:46:03 – 00:47:23:33
Agent Palmer
Did have a GeoCities website back in the day, though, and GeoCities is gone now, and I know that that was mainly a money issue, and it got sold and moved around a lot, a bit like a commodity, even though it wasn’t. But I look at everything is temporary on the internet now. Like, I just, I just do and I think it’s not, it’s not great because it also means that when I look at anything on the internet like, hey, you should market your podcast on TikTok, it’s like, I, I very much could, but I also know that it can go away in this.
00:47:23:38 – 00:47:47:46
Alex T. Dragonson
And in the same vein, give, you know, our archive what you can like one of one of my favorite webcomics from a while back, Miracle Science, I think I think my partner introduced me to it. Not sure, but it’s just it’s this great science fiction story about a world where basically mad science is a communicable disease.
00:47:47:51 – 00:47:51:04
Agent Palmer
Okay, okay.
00:47:51:09 – 00:48:09:00
Alex T. Dragonson
It’s it’s wild. And it came back to it sometime this year or last year. And I was shocked it was still online. And so I got my partner to, to download it for me. And so that that’s probably good. It’s probably going to be in my hard drive backups for the rest of my life.
00:48:09:04 – 00:48:34:33
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I it for me, for me, it was discovering that Homestar Runner was on YouTube. Because I was like, well, flash doesn’t work anymore. So even if the website did still exist, I don’t know. I have a if I have a browser that is flash compatible anymore, but that.
00:48:34:42 – 00:48:52:43
Alex T. Dragonson
I just missed Homestar Runner. Like I don’t know if it I it was probably more of a yeah, you know where where I was getting my fiction from van and age or any other kind of demographic thing because like I had a friend in elementary school who loved Homestar Runner and Quality constantly, and I never knew what she was thought.
00:48:52:44 – 00:49:14:03
Agent Palmer
Okay, so yeah, it it’s it’s that’s Homestar Runner feels to me like a band. Like you have to actually there’s always look away for our generations, even plus or minus ten years. There was always that one guy in high school who loved rush, but that did not mean you.
00:49:14:03 – 00:49:15:15
Alex T. Dragonson
Went that guy. Okay.
00:49:15:15 – 00:49:23:17
Agent Palmer
But that did not mean that the people you talked to about rush went out and listened to the album. And I think that Homestar Runners very much like.
00:49:23:22 – 00:49:32:47
Alex T. Dragonson
I, I mean, in terms of rush, I, I did go out and listen to Farewell to Kings because this guy was cute, but.
00:49:32:52 – 00:49:34:59
Agent Palmer
Have you listened since?
00:49:35:03 – 00:50:02:29
Alex T. Dragonson
Not I haven’t gone out looking for it. And my my partner also likes rush. They’ve probably got that. They’ve probably got, you know, albums in a format I can listen to if I want to, but I don’t know, it just, you know, it seemed it seemed like suitable music for the moment. I was listening to it in like, it’s like catcher in the Rye, my, my high school novels teacher.
00:50:02:34 – 00:50:26:35
Alex T. Dragonson
Like, this was the the honors senior honors lit class would not teach catcher in the Rye because she thought it was bad. And I read it at about that time and it was like, no, it’s I mean, it’s it’s maybe it’s not amazing, but this is this is the age group that will appreciate it. It’s a book about being 16 and nobody understands you.
00:50:26:43 – 00:50:30:00
Alex T. Dragonson
That is the perfect thing to start a discussion in a high school class. Yeah.
00:50:30:08 – 00:50:56:21
Agent Palmer
No. Yeah. And meanwhile, when I went to college, I. And I only know this because I recently read them, there was a book called The Meadow that I had to read when I was in college, and I hated it, I hated it, and I’ve been trying to downsize my library, so I’ve been reading and sometimes rereading books.
00:50:56:26 – 00:51:28:34
Agent Palmer
And I reread The Meadow as a 38 year old, and I went, I like this. But I also am smart enough to go. I absolutely know why 19 year old me hated this. Also, why was anybody forcing a 19 year old to read this book about old people? Like, I know I’m an old soul, but I wasn’t that old yet.
00:51:28:39 – 00:51:29:38
Agent Palmer
It’s a book you have to age.
00:51:29:45 – 00:51:38:51
Alex T. Dragonson
It’s amazing. It’s amazing how much, how much of yourself you bring to somebody else’s fiction.
00:51:38:55 – 00:51:54:45
Agent Palmer
Yeah, that’s a different that’s another that’s a different podcast. That’s not even a different episode. That’s another podcast. Yeah.
00:51:54:50 – 00:52:19:47
Agent Palmer
I really enjoy when some of my real life arguments or positions appear in this podcast from my guests. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, I usually smile. But this time I’m not just going to smile, I’m going to reiterate it. Alex controls Alex’s algorithm. I control my algorithm. And yes, you should take control over your own algorithm.
00:52:19:52 – 00:52:43:04
Agent Palmer
You see, the thing is that your feed isn’t just what you programed, the site or platform you were on to know what you like. It’s also any random aside, any loaded link from someone else. That’s why I don’t use my YouTube when I’m doing research for something. My algorithm is based on what I watch, and I control that based on if I use the platform logged in or not.
00:52:43:09 – 00:53:05:32
Agent Palmer
It can be that simple, and I appreciate that. If you’re listening now I’m part of your feed on something. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you’re getting your podcast. Thanks for making this a part of your algorithm. And of course, thank you for listening to the polymer files episode 141. And now for the official business. The Polymer Files releases every two weeks on Tuesdays.
00:53:05:32 – 00:53:25:57
Agent Palmer
If you’re still listening, I encourage you to join the discussion. You can find all related ways to contact my guest, Alex and myself in the show notes. You can find Alex online on Mastodon as Wizard of Docs or on Wizard of Docs. Dot neo cities.org. The music for this episode was provided by Henno Heitur. Email can be sent to this show at The Palmer Files at gmail.com.
00:53:25:57 – 00:53:40:55
Agent Palmer
And remember, you’re home for all things. Agent Palmer is Agent palmer.com.
00:53:40:59 – 00:54:16:20
Agent Palmer
You.
00:54:16:25 – 00:54:18:19
Agent Palmer
Alex, do you have one final question for me?
00:54:18:20 – 00:54:28:21
Alex T. Dragonson
What’s a story? You want to see a muppet movie adaptation of? And who’s the token human?
00:54:28:26 – 00:55:09:30
Agent Palmer
So many, yeah. I mean, just so. I mean, what isn’t improved with Muppets? Let’s start there. Everything is improved with Muppets. But there I. I’m immediately drawn to the spy genre. I like I could borrow from my namesake, Harry Palmer, and go with, like, let’s keep Michael Caine in the Harry Palmer role and replace everybody else with Muppets on the of Chris file and be done.
00:55:09:35 – 00:55:26:05
Agent Palmer
But I think that you’re probably better off with one of the bonds where the whoever the villain is is the human.
00:55:26:09 – 00:55:28:35
Agent Palmer
That’s where that’s what I would do. I would take any bond.
00:55:28:37 – 00:55:36:07
Alex T. Dragonson
I’m thinking. I’m thinking like, maybe, maybe we keep Dame Judi Dench as the token human.
00:55:36:12 – 00:55:49:16
Agent Palmer
You could, you could. But I just like the idea that, like, Goldfinger or Doctor No has to look at, like, Pepe in a tux.
00:55:49:21 – 00:56:03:11
Alex T. Dragonson
Right? Yeah, I kind of like that. I also, now that I’m thinking about it, I like the idea of. Could you do one with a male? And have have, you know, the no nonsense guy? Just be Sam the Eagle.
00:56:03:16 – 00:56:05:49
Alex T. Dragonson
I think Q is gone, so it’s a great contrast.
00:56:05:54 – 00:56:33:34
Agent Palmer
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Although, I, I do think I know, I know not a lot of people liked the reboot, but I think this would also be a good place for Walter to play this by, if we wanted to just kind of keep it like, maybe straight level on the nose, and then everybody else can basically be an extra from Archer.
00:56:33:39 – 00:56:37:36
Agent Palmer
You know, something like that. I don’t know, I think it feels.
00:56:37:36 – 00:56:39:03
Alex T. Dragonson
Like I have no context for that.
00:56:39:12 – 00:57:05:33
Agent Palmer
Okay. Well, the, Yeah, I’m not. Well, yeah. That’s fine. It’s. Don’t worry about it. Yeah, it’s not that important, but I just feel like maybe the spy genre is probably the the way to go. We’ve already seen fantasy. Like, it needs to be something else. And I guess the only other option would be like, I don’t know, take maybe like a fast and the furious.
00:57:05:38 – 00:57:06:03
Agent Palmer
Maybe.
00:57:06:06 – 00:57:14:19
Alex T. Dragonson
See what I was thinking, like, wrote down this question and immediately forgot every work of classic literature I’ve ever read.
00:57:14:19 – 00:57:21:54
Agent Palmer
Well, that that’s that’s normal for like, that’s that’s why people fail on game shows. It’s not because everybody.
00:57:21:54 – 00:57:46:46
Alex T. Dragonson
In the world after after some thinking I came back to was The Great Gatsby. Okay, make make make the narrator human. That’s the the whole setup of the story is just how weird everything that’s going on is to Nick and how disconnected he is from, you know. Yeah. And Daisy and the parties and he’s he’s always an outsider.
00:57:46:46 – 00:57:53:32
Alex T. Dragonson
And that’s, you know, that’s one of the things you could do in a with a token human in a cast full of Muppets.
00:57:53:36 – 00:58:05:47
Agent Palmer
I mean, I also think like, maybe Lord of the flies, but I’m also thinking, like, I don’t really know who I want the human to be in that instance.
00:58:05:52 – 00:58:12:06
Alex T. Dragonson
Yeah. Lord of the flies. Another one I read in, high school that I don’t particularly want to return to.
00:58:12:06 – 00:58:37:47
Agent Palmer
But I, I read that for pleasure in high school because it was, I, my parents had the same copy because they both had to read it in college. So they’re both of their college copies were in the house, and it was not required reading for my class. But like, like an older friend had to read it and was telling me about it.
00:58:37:47 – 00:59:00:39
Agent Palmer
So I read that on my own. Yeah, maybe that, I mean, we you could also just straight up take, I mean, I, I would be very comfortable rebooting the MCU with Muppets. Can we do that? Can we do, like, keep Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury?
00:59:00:44 – 00:59:06:30
Alex T. Dragonson
He can be The shield, unfortunately. I mean, unfortunately, all the IPS are in the same place, so they could they.
00:59:06:35 – 00:59:08:56
Agent Palmer
Yeah. There’s nothing to stop them.
00:59:09:01 – 00:59:32:50
Alex T. Dragonson
Like I’ve seen. I’ve seen this on Tumblr and I agree with it that Disney is, you know, wasting, you know, wasting audience suspension of disbelief or whatever. Attention. I don’t know, whatever however you want to measure your audience and doing mediocre live action reboots of animated classics and what they should be doing is making a little better use of the Muppets.
00:59:33:05 – 00:59:52:13
Agent Palmer
Oh, I absolutely like let’s take every. Yeah, of course, let’s, let’s do Aladdin with Muppets. Let’s do Sleeping Beauty with Muppets. Let’s do The Little Mermaid with Muppets. Yeah, I’m. I’m building the beast with Muppets. But the beast is human. That’s the twist I want on that one.
00:59:52:17 – 00:59:54:43
Alex T. Dragonson
And. And at the end, he turns into a muppet.
00:59:54:45 – 00:59:56:24
Agent Palmer
Yes, absolutely.
00:59:56:26 – 00:59:57:27
Alex T. Dragonson
You know, pull of Shrek.
00:59:57:27 – 01:00:09:37
Agent Palmer
Of course. Of course. By the way, we’re not that far removed from probably. I mean, there’s going to be a new Shrek movie coming out, but there’s nothing to say. We can’t reboot the original Shrek with Muppets.
01:00:09:42 – 01:00:12:15
Alex T. Dragonson
I mean, the first two Shrek movies are very good.
01:00:12:26 – 01:00:16:43
Agent Palmer
They really are. They. Then they kept making them for some reason.
01:00:16:43 – 01:00:20:58
Alex T. Dragonson
Yeah. Yeah, because I mean, we know why they kept making them. So they made money.
01:00:20:58 – 01:00:29:17
Agent Palmer
Yeah, they did, they did, they did. The music industry would have been utterly different without those soundtracks. Let’s.
01:00:29:22 – 01:00:59:46
Alex T. Dragonson
Yeah. And I’ve, I found a video essay once. Channel’s called sideways, I believe, about the music in the first two, Shrek movies that that starts sort of thematic juxtaposition of licensed pop music when, you know, people are, you know, masking, being who society thinks they should be. And then the orchestral music, when they’re being themselves, like that whole like, Greg has an orchestral hero theme.
01:00:59:51 – 01:01:14:18
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I need to rewatch. I haven’t rewatched it in a while and I feel like I need to because I believe in college. I don’t I don’t know what that says about me, but I’m pretty sure that was the first DVD I ever bought.
01:01:14:23 – 01:01:16:54
Alex T. Dragonson
I mean, it, it left a strong impression on a lot of people.
01:01:16:59 – 01:01:41:09
Agent Palmer
Yeah. It just. Yeah, very good. But yeah, I don’t know, I, I think, why stop at movies like, I think can we have cheers redone as Muppets? Norm, whoever plays Norm can still be a human. I feel like that works. But everybody else Muppet. Perfect.
01:01:41:14 – 01:01:44:45
Alex T. Dragonson
I mean, I don’t I don’t see why that wouldn’t work.
01:01:44:50 – 01:01:53:07
Agent Palmer
Yeah. No, because it because it it. Yeah. No it does I think again everything is better with Muppets.
01:01:53:11 – 01:01:53:26
Alex T. Dragonson
Yeah.
–End Transcription–
This transcription was processed by PalmerTech 3.1 and may contain errors for HUMINT (human intelligence).