Podcast Episode Introduction
In this podcast episode, I had the pleasure of chatting with an old buddy of mine; Vampyre Mike from SegaCDUniverse.
Mike has been running his channel on YouTube for almost 15 years now and we met right in the beginnings of both of our channels.
Episode Transcript
Mark Phillips (00:02.769)
Hey everybody, this is Mark from Graveside Entertainment, and today my special guest is Vampire Mike from Sega CD Universe, a huge retro gaming channel on YouTube. He’s got about ten thousand subscribers and he is from New York. Welcome to the show, Mike. Glad to have you here.
Vampyre Mike (00:20.459)
Thank you for having me, Mark. I appreciate it.
Mark Phillips (00:24.005)
So Mike, you and I have known each other probably for I don’t know, what did we say? Eleven, twelve, thirteen years now?
Vampyre Mike (00:30.454)
If if you started up Graveside around eleven, it might have been eleven or twelve, so it’s gotta be thirteen, fourteen years roughly. And thank you for the little shout out there. But yeah, my channel’s not huge and I don’t I don’t do as much retro anymore. But I I do love retro stuff though. So I appreciate it.
Mark Phillips (00:40.082)
Yeah, we met.
Mark Phillips (00:49.155)
It i it is huge compared to our channel and the other channels that I follow. You’ve been you’ve been diligently at that channel for a long time. When when did you start Sega C D Universe?
Vampyre Mike (01:00.605)
boy,
And I don’t remember. I wanna say two thousand ten, two thousand eleven, probably around the same time we started talking roughly.
Mark Phillips (01:10.011)
Yeah, so it was pretty new at the same time then?
Vampyre Mike (01:12.576)
Yeah, yeah.
Mark Phillips (01:14.493)
Yeah, and a and as you know through our conversations, I used to have tons of reviews and stuff on the ch on the the channel and everything and deleted them all and then have to start over from scratch, so
Vampyre Mike (01:26.079)
I know, that was a shame. I liked I liked your old reviews.
Mark Phillips (01:29.979)
We had some funny ones on there, so I wish I wouldn’t have deleted stuff. That’s I’m bad for that. I I go through like binge and purge stages in my life. So when I when I moved out of my place and got my own apartment, I threw out tons of my old horror VHS and horror action figures too. Like I had all the old you know those eighteen inch NECA and McFarlane ones, like the the ones that make sounds? I put them all in the bin because I’m like I’m tired of lugging them around, so I’ll just pitch them. And then of course now
Instant regret.
Vampyre Mike (02:00.319)
Yeah, yeah, now they’re all worth money too. So I hear I hear ya. Well at least they’re just material, right?
Mark Phillips (02:03.783)
And you can’t get him back.
Mark Phillips (02:07.995)
Yeah, man. So so that that’s something that I I talked to my previous guest Sara about and I’d love to hear your your thoughts on this. What is with the huge VHS resurgence in especially in horror? Like people are collecting tapes again like crazy. Have you seen this?
Vampyre Mike (02:24.958)
yeah, I mean I I collect some here and there. But yeah, there’s there’s a big resurgence in VHS and there’s even now DVDs and stuff are coming back a little bit as well.
Mark Phillips (02:39.421)
So do you still have like a V C R and all that sort of stuff so that you could still play all your tapes?
Vampyre Mike (02:44.51)
So I got a tape at the flea market of a movie that is not on DVD. I only have seen it on YouTube as like a upload. And I love the movie. So I I bought it for a dollar at the flea market. And I said, I have nothing to watch it on. So I’m in this like buy nothing group in my home area. And I said, Does anyone have a VCR? And this woman says, I have one. You can have it. It has a remote. I haven’t used it in years, but you can have it. So I pick it up like a town over.
It works great. I watch my movie, I’m all excited, and then it starts the floodgates opening of, well I’m at a thrift store or a flea market and this this movie I’ve never seen is fifty cents or a dollar. Okay, I’ll buy so now I have about I don’t know, twenty, twenty-five tapes maybe. I make sure not to go overboard and if if I don’t love something, I end up giving it away or passing it on. the DVDs and the Blu-rays I have fourteen hundred. So behind me is like a
Mark Phillips (03:38.439)
Holy cow.
Vampyre Mike (03:40.933)
Over here is like kids’ movies and then back here is just two or three big racks of everything. Sci fi horror, just all my stuff mixed together.
Mark Phillips (03:51.101)
‘Cause you’re you’re not a super digital guy, right? You still love the physical media and o and owning all the copies of the games and the movies and stuff.
Vampyre Mike (03:58.513)
Yeah, I mean I’m not a fan of digital. If if it’s a free copy with a Blu-ray, I’ll watch you I’ll keep it and say upload it, you know, use the code. But overall, I don’t like digital media. I don’t like how they trap you with licenses. I don’t like how it’s like a disc you’re buying, but really just a key on the disc. So like even I I know I mentioned to you before we started recording, I got a switch recently and I love that all the games are on the cartridge. So
Mark Phillips (04:26.81)
Yeah, that’s a big huge thing for Nintendo is is so you have a Switch one.
Vampyre Mike (04:31.568)
Yeah, I know the second one isn’t doing it as much. They’re doing some keys and people are getting mad. Yeah.
Mark Phillips (04:35.674)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So that that was the awesome thing as you said about the original Switch is everything’s cartridge and yeah, now the new one, the Switch too, it’s got like these weird red cartridges that come out. And it’s just essentially you pop it in and it’s a license key for the game and it seems seems crappy ’cause that’s Nintendo’s thing, right? Is having the cartridges.
Vampyre Mike (04:57.722)
Right. No, exactly. It’s it’s it’s silly and I just don’t like the way media is going in general. So to see this little uptick and resurgence of I go to the thrift store and there’s always people now at the D V D section and I talk to them about movies and it’s like a little you know, you make like a quick acquaintance ship and then you leave and I enjoy that. I think that people are sick of paying for all the streaming services, saying, I wanna watch this show, but it’s not available on this, it’s only available on that, so I gotta do that and I think it’s just
burdening everyone so that at this point people are going backwards to an extent, some people.
Mark Phillips (05:32.38)
I wonder if it’s ever gonna get popular enough that we’ll start seeing like video stores again. That would be so cool.
Vampyre Mike (05:38.3)
I I would love that. I mean, I buy a lot of like horror and B movies. So I do see like, you know, Vinegar Syndrome, Arrow Video, VHS Hitfest, I don’t know, Culture Shock. They all put out these really obscure and weird movies that you’ve like never heard of. And I love it because you’ll like watch a trailer or review and be like, this looks really cool and then I’ll like spend twenty or twenty five dollars and blind buy some
Z grade movies someone made in their backyard and I like usually I like them a lot. Sometimes they’re terrible, but you know, shot on video stuff and I like that these little companies are doing these, you know, boutique Blu rays and stuff. So I do hope that there’s a resurgence in physical media.
Mark Phillips (06:09.126)
Ha ha ha.
Mark Phillips (06:24.356)
It would be super cool, man. I know I I got to take my my daughter, she’s sixteen now, so she just kind of made it under the wire where the video stores were shutting down. And so when she was young, we got to take her into a video store to rent some flicks and that’s a a pretty cool experience that my other child has not experienced.
Vampyre Mike (06:44.698)
Yeah. my son is five and we have, you know, the VHS tapes, D V D’s, Blu rays. So some of us he’ll say, What is this VHS tape? You know, he’ll ask questions and he said something, we should watch whatever on VHS and I said to him, It’s funny ’cause if he goes to school, I would say ninety percent of those kids aren’t gonna know what the hell a VHS tape is, so
Mark Phillips (07:04.218)
Yeah, they won’t know what it is at all for sure.
Vampyre Mike (07:06.554)
Yeah. Or even maybe even D V V D even. I mean, you know, most people get rid of their collections and they just stream and they’re okay with that. So
Mark Phillips (07:10.129)
Yeah.
Mark Phillips (07:14.652)
Yeah, I totally agree with what you’re saying about digital. I I kind of went for a while where I was like, I don’t want to have tons of DVDs in games because I’ve got bags and bags of video games and I’m like, I don’t know if I want the clutter anymore, so I want to just do everything digital, but now I’ve gone the other way where I hate having it on digital now. I’m like, I wanna collect the discs again, I want the cases, and I just bought Resident Evil Requiem for PlayStation 5 and it came with a friggin’ poster inside.
Vampyre Mike (07:43.567)
Wow, there you go.
Mark Phillips (07:45.22)
Yeah, and I was like, Wow, I haven’t got anything physical inside like a disc for forever. So that was super cool to get.
Vampyre Mike (07:52.441)
Yeah, even with those blu rays I was talking to you about, like you can’t see it over here, but some of the companies put posters and like little knickknacks and things in there. I think that goes a long way.
Mark Phillips (08:03.159)
It does, and it’s criminal that the prices of digital media are the same as physical. It seems like such a ripoff.
Vampyre Mike (08:09.186)
Yeah, I mean the other day, GameStop, I don’t know what the what is it, E B games there still, if they even have them?
Mark Phillips (08:14.447)
We have GameStop here now in Canada too. Yeah.
Vampyre Mike (08:16.94)
You you do. they did a they did a sale the other day for fifteen dollar Switch and PlayStation and Xbox games and there were some like thirty dollar games that were fifteen bucks. I said, I’m gonna go pick up a couple ’cause you know, and I just I enjoy holding the the media, looking through it and you know, fingering through the shelf and figuring out what to watch or what to r play and I just it just you know what it is? Someone wrote this the other day and I read it. I’m not gonna say it is eloquent ’cause I’m not an eloquent person, but
There is an in a very intention, like a specific intention you have when you take a movie off the shelf or go to a store and buy a movie or a game and you sit down and you play and you make sort of an event of it, where when it’s digital and you’re like flipping through Netflix, it just doesn’t feel as special. Where you could say, I found this movie at the thrift store for a dollar. I’m so excited to see it. I’m gonna go home tonight make popcorn and like it’s like you make it a spectacle where I feel like when you’re flipping through.
Mark Phillips (09:12.355)
It’s true.
Vampyre Mike (09:14.02)
For Amazon Prime or Netflix or Hulu or whatever, it just doesn’t have that. It’s like, this sucks next. This sucks next. It’s like you get in this zombie mode of just like switching the channels.
Mark Phillips (09:24.887)
Yeah, and I I think that’s probably it subconsciously. For me, I’m very ADD when it comes to gaming, man. I’ll be playing and I’ll be like, if I get bored of something, I’ll just jump out and go and play something else. And I think ninety percent of my gaming library I haven’t finished because I’m just I get bored of stuff and I always want to try something new, but it’s because it’s all digital and it’s all installed on my consoles. And if I actually had to get up and change the disc and do everything.
It is, it’s it’s way more of an event. Like I finished Resident Evil Requiem because I bought the disc and I have the the case and everything and I was like, Well, I’m in it now, I’m stuck in it for the long ride until I’m done this game ’cause I I got the physical media. It does make it more special for sure.
Vampyre Mike (10:10.253)
Yeah, definitely.
Mark Phillips (10:12.601)
Yeah, man. So I I really hope that comes back. that’s one of my goals and dreams too with with this and and doing graveside again is of course the digital stuff, you know, as I do websites and I and I run the YouTube channel and all that sort of stuff. I’m always part of the online, but I want to get the store again going. Like that’s my lifelong dream is to get back to owning a shop again and just have, you know, my businesses and the online stuff carry the lion’s share of the of the finances. But
be able to do what I love and and sell, you know, D V Ds and and and music albums and CDs and vinyl and shit like that. It would be so cool. So like that that’s kind of the goal is where I want to get to within, I don’t know, the next five years or so is I wanna open a shop here in town and just have my own little headquarters where I can sell all that physical media and just geek out with people.
Vampyre Mike (11:04.223)
That would be awesome. You know, vi I know I’ve never been a vinyl collector, but I know it has made a big resurgence.
Mark Phillips (11:10.583)
Yeah, it’s definitely picked up a lot. yeah, so many people like even Dylan, he’s like a hardcore record collector now. He goes and buys different black metal and death metal albums all the time. And man, they look awesome. They come with all the stuff. They have all the artwork. They have the the the record and the vinyl has like all different paintings and diagrams and designs on it. It’s so neat, man.
Vampyre Mike (11:22.047)
That’s cool.
Vampyre Mike (11:33.075)
That is cool, yeah.
Mark Phillips (11:35.011)
Yeah. I’m just worried about falling into that trap, you know, like start collecting one record and then it’s like, man, now going nuts.
Vampyre Mike (11:43.155)
Yeah, that’s how I think I mentioned to you before we started recording with the Switch. I never wanted to buy one. My son got it. I I was like, I’ll buy a handful of games I missed out on and then it went to, well, this one’s ten bucks, this one’s twenty and and I just started buying things I wanted and my Amazon wish list filled up, you know.
Mark Phillips (12:01.21)
You always have the you you I I I like talking to you about video games ’cause you always have you don’t have like super mainstream taste when it comes to video games. You always find stuff that’s very niche and very off the wall. And tell me about that game that we talked about briefly before we started recording for the Switch.
Vampyre Mike (12:19.858)
Yeah, so one of the ones I was really excited about, which isn’t the one you’re referring to, is Deadly Premonition Two. I don’t know if you know that one. I love the first
Mark Phillips (12:28.835)
Is that the one where you’re a Japanese girl and you take photos everywhere?
Vampyre Mike (12:32.112)
No, no, that’s Fatal Frame.
Mark Phillips (12:34.616)
that’s fatal frame, yes, yes.
Vampyre Mike (12:36.367)
Deadly Premonition 2 was one I really wanted to play when it first came out, but I didn’t have a Switch. It’s like a sequel to it’s like a Twin Peaks kind of game where you’re a detective in this town, all this ghost stuff happens or whatever, like this weird stuff. But anyhow, I digress, as Taz would say. the the one I was referring to you that that I started playing, it’s called Good Old Days, and it’s actually it’s on PC as well, but I picked it up on Switch and it’s
It’s pretty much like dot for dot the Goonies. So you’re doing this platforming and finding all these keys and you have to just go through these like little puzzles and go through this underground like sewer system and each area is different. And you get as you play, you get different abilities to get you further in the game, like blocking water or blocking rain, so you can get through like a fire hazard or whatever. But you’re you and your friends are called the Nooggies instead of the Goonies.
And you’re going through and finding your friends. And then your friends have different abilities that they can hit things or jump higher or do special things. So you’re every time you beat it, it shows you like a little stand by me type segment of you and your friends. And then when you beat it again and get further and beat, you know, every time you beat it, it shows you more and more of an ending. And it’s really great the game. And it’s good because it’s like two hours each run. So I think the whole game is let’s say 15 or 20 hours if you do every ending.
Mark Phillips (14:02.203)
That’s awesome, man. That’s right up my alley. I’m gonna I’m gonna seek out and get that game ’cause I love Goonies and Stand By Me and yeah, I’m I’m a big fan of the old school retro stuff too.
Vampyre Mike (14:13.564)
Yeah, I think you’ll like it. It’s it’s simplistic, but it can be a little frustrating at points, but it’s not hard. it’s fun, it’s got this classic like throwback fun to it and it’s on Steam, I think, so it’s easy to get.
Mark Phillips (14:26.203)
Cool man. That’s sweet. See, I mean I never would have heard of that game or discovered it. I’ve never never heard of it at all. So that’s that’s awesome. It’s a good one to look into. Have you did you play that that bloodstained ritual of the moon one, that that ego one, the Castlevania guy?
Vampyre Mike (14:35.389)
Definitely.
Vampyre Mike (14:45.23)
I played so I always get confused. There’s Curse of the Moon and Ritual of the Night or something. What what is it?
Mark Phillips (14:52.313)
Y yeah, there’s like Curse of the Moon and then like Ritual of the Night or Ritual of the Moon. I can’t remember the name of it, but yeah, one one is kinda like a New Age Symphony of the Night remake, and then the other one is like old school kind of eight bit Castlevania remake.
Vampyre Mike (15:08.187)
Yeah, I think I I think I beat both years ago and I I bought them on disc and I didn’t even open the disc because I was like I already beat these. But they were good. I enjoyed those.
Mark Phillips (15:17.179)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, they’re super cool, man. Like I’ve been I I played a lot of that one on PS five and I’ve been playing through it again on the Switch and yeah, there’s they’re really fun, man. I think I think they kind of have to stand for the Castlevanius now because he doesn’t work for them anymore, so Konami’s not gonna be kicking out the same quality.
Vampyre Mike (15:39.056)
Yeah, just like with what’s his name? I wasn’t a fan of really most of his work, but Kojima with you know, Metal Gear, I feel like they went in a weird direction with it and he was gonna do that Silent Hill game and that got that got canceled. but I love Snatcher, the old Sega C D game that he worked on. so yeah, it’s weird when they are main people leave and then the directions of the games go in these like crappy directions, you know.
Mark Phillips (15:46.607)
Yes.
Mark Phillips (16:06.691)
What was Snatcher about was it a horror game?
Vampyre Mike (16:09.603)
Snatcher was an amalgamation of like sci-fi and horror movies. So it’s a it’s a pretty much like a text-based adventure visual, not text-based, but like a text they’ll show like a scene and you know there’s movement. It’s like there’s video, but it’s you know not cell shaded, but like comic booky. And then you pick things you want to talk about, and then every time you talk to someone, another word or phrase will open up that you can use to progress the story.
But there’s also shooting segments and it’s in like a cyberpunk future where you’re trying to take down these blade runners pretty much. You’re like a blade runner and you’re taking down the the cyborgs and it’s in Japan and it has a mixture of like Terminator, Blade Runner, and probably a few other movies I can’t think of, but it’s it’s got this quirkiness and this fun vibe to it, very Kojima esque before he started doing the Metal Gear series, yeah.
Mark Phillips (17:05.125)
So it
Did you play the what’s the Norman Redis one? I can’t remember the name of it off the top of my head. Yeah, yeah, Death Strandy. Did you play that?
Vampyre Mike (17:11.945)
dead that’s random.
Vampyre Mike (17:16.961)
No, I didn’t have a PlayStation. I only had Xbox and I think the second one may have come out on Xbox, but it looked kind of dull. Like it looked interesting but dull.
Mark Phillips (17:26.917)
Yeah, my buddy bought it and he he said it’s like a delivery simulator. He said I essentially feel like I just work for Amazon and I’m just walking around delivering shit the whole game.
Vampyre Mike (17:37.303)
Yeah, I think it’s hard for me to get into RPGs now and it’s hard for me to get into long games ’cause I just don’t have the time. So another reason I like the Switch, it’s sort of like quicker. But games like that where they expect you to do fetch quests the whole game or like listen, if I was twenty and I was sitting back like, you know, having a drink or something and like playing this game, getting lost in this world for five hours, like I wouldn’t care. But I can’t afford to lose all that time. I can’t
Mark Phillips (17:44.708)
Yes.
Mark Phillips (17:49.296)
Yeah.
Vampyre Mike (18:06.848)
spend that much time now doing that.
Mark Phillips (18:09.657)
Yeah, time is finite now, man. As we get older and have more responsibilities and Yeah, and and like I mentioned before, I touched on my attention span. It’s getting less and less the older I get. So I got Crimson Desert, that new RPG, and it’s amazing. It’s fantastic, but I’ll never finish it because it’s so huge. Like every time I fire it up, it eats five hours, and then I’m like, Well, there goes the night. And what did I do? I I got some new swords, and that’s about it.
Vampyre Mike (18:38.068)
Yeah, I I felt you know what’s funny, a game that always makes me think of you every time I hear of it, the Witcher series. And I bought Witcher three. It was on sale at Best Buy when it first came out. There was a price error. And it was like sixty dollars everywhere, and they had it for like twenty or twenty-five. So I ran to Best Buy like half hour away. I bought it. I played it. I liked it. It was so big, I never could get far in it.
Mark Phillips (19:05.209)
Yeah, it is massive.
Vampyre Mike (19:07.187)
Yeah, and it’s like Grand Theft Auto. I can’t I don’t have fun with them. They’re just too they’re too big in scope for me, to open. I need to be a little more directed.
Mark Phillips (19:17.433)
Yeah, it’s kinda nice having those those corridors and and you know the the linear gameplay. That’s why I I jumped into Resident Evil ’cause I was like, there’s only so many places I can go. Like it’s you’re pretty much pushing forward and you gotta keep pushing ahead so you’re not gonna get distracted very much.
Vampyre Mike (19:35.091)
Yeah, I mean Cyberpunk I loved and that was open world. I think it’s just ’cause it was a Cyberpunk setting and that’s my favorite genre. and then I thought Watchdogs One and Two were decent fun, even though those are open I kinda stayed to the main story.
Mark Phillips (19:39.643)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Phillips (19:51.853)
I remember I used to talk to you back in the day about and you loved Shadowrun. That was like one of your favorite franchises, right? And and so I figured, man, when Cyberpunk comes out, I’m like, yeah, Vampire Mike is gonna be loving this.
Vampyre Mike (19:56.254)
Yeah. Yes, yes.
Vampyre Mike (20:05.864)
Yeah, when I was playing I think Cyberpunk and either before or after it I played Like a Dragon, the Yakuza game. And my son was born and we brought him home and as you know, babies sleep a lot. So I would put him in like a swing next to the T V, just going back and forth, and I would play games for an hour. So I had this like great tie in in my mind of our kid being home and then Cyberpunk and Like a Dragon, you know.
Mark Phillips (20:15.886)
Mm.
Mark Phillips (20:24.954)
Yeah, yeah.
Mark Phillips (20:35.832)
Yeah, so those always will be special to you and like stick in your memories as like a really nice, happy time. It’s funny. I have the same story with the original Borderlands when it came out for Xbox 360. I had Anna sitting beside me in her swing and I I picked up Borderlands like the day it came out and played through that. So those are the the franchise that I always correlate with become becoming a dad too is like yeah, so I have a soft spot for those.
Vampyre Mike (20:41.851)
Exactly. Exactly.
Vampyre Mike (21:03.644)
That’s awesome. Yeah, I I like stuff like that. It’s you know, it’s like the little things that become important, sorta.
Mark Phillips (21:10.404)
For sure, yeah. The good memories at the big milestones in life. But it makes me wonder if I picked up Borderlands four and had a new kid, would I still think it sucked as bad as it does? Cause it’s not nearly as good as they used to be. It feels like they’ve run out of ideas and they’ve just kind of lost all the personality and the edge that made the game so unique when they first came out.
Vampyre Mike (21:31.417)
Yeah, it’s like just with movies too, you know, they seem to rehash a lot, they run out of ideas and they’re like, we’ll we’ll do that again. It was it’s been thirty years, no one will remember. And they just make things worse and worse and worse.
Mark Phillips (21:43.587)
It makes me wonder if that’s done because you know, are they making decisions by committee where they have so many board of directors and chairmen and chair people to answer to that they’re not the same to be able to do like the same crazy off the wall stuff they could when they were more of a smaller independent studio?
Vampyre Mike (22:01.507)
Yeah, I think that’s probably part of it. Part of it is lack of ideas and then another thing is, you know, how can we make as much money as we possibly can? these people really liked whatever. Total recall. Let’s remake total recall. It’ll make money and then it sucks ass.
Mark Phillips (22:17.386)
Right. Yeah, I think there’s a lot of that. It’s it’s yeah, running out of ideas and trying to tap into the fame of of certain IPs.
Vampyre Mike (22:26.083)
Yeah. Yeah. And then we’re getting older so they’re trying to like you know, like they did with Stranger Things, which I think I watched one or two seasons of. I didn’t finish it. But, you know, they captured that eighties, nineties, I guess it was more eighties vibe, the music, and it brought all this these people back to the show that, you know, are maybe our age or even a touch older.
Mark Phillips (22:40.538)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Phillips (22:46.328)
Yeah. Yeah, I mean I loved Stranger Things. I I was right into it ’cause yeah, I mean, you hit it. It reminded me of childhood, man. It reminded me of the eighties and growing up as the kids and yeah, it was I I loved it, but I I think as it went on it kind of got a bit long in the tooth and not as good as it was in the beginning. But yeah, overall overall I enjoyed it and thought it was pretty cool. ‘Cause it like kind of had that horror sci-fi element, but also like with the Goonies adventures of like the young eighties kids going on their bikes on trips and shit, right?
Vampyre Mike (23:16.159)
Exactly. I I saw this video the other day on it. I think it was like Instagram. These kids, I guess on their phone, like pan the room and there’s like all these like st I don’t like Star Wars at all. I hate Star Wars, but it was all these like Star Wars Legos and Domino’s pizzas and they put like a video game or a movie on and they’re like, It’s Friday night and they’re like all the like there’s like two or three guys like kids, like probably I don’t know, eleven year olds and they’re like, we’re we’re hanging out, we’re getting dominoes
And we’re playing with our Legos and we’re watching whatever the hell they were watching or playing. Yeah. And then it cuts to this other guy talking. And the guy goes, These are the moments and the memories you will remember forever that like you’re just trying to recreate as an adult man. Because what’s like even now you get together with your friends, which is like more and more infrequent as you get older. And, you know, you order a pizza or you watch a movie and you play a beer, and it’s just there’s something about it that
Mark Phillips (24:07.566)
Definitely, yeah.
Vampyre Mike (24:13.678)
You’re just trying to recapture your youth. And it it’s totally true. All guys need is like some food, a video game or a movie, and buddies around and they just have a great time.
Mark Phillips (24:16.431)
Yeah.
Mark Phillips (24:23.374)
That’s true. That’s very true. me and my buddy Chad, we we try and do it like once a year. We have a guy’s weekend. It’s usually on WrestleMania weekend, so we get the the wrestling action into. But yeah, we go over and we we do BK and games weekend, so we get like Burger King and we just get a bunch of video games and beers and just hang out in the basement and kick it just like we used to when we were friggin’ teenagers in school, man.
Vampyre Mike (24:48.214)
Yeah, exactly. It’s I think guys are really simple people. You know, women have that emotional side to them and they can kinda overthink things sometimes. No offense to women out there. But yeah, I love women, but men are more simplistic. It’s like feed me, sleep with me, throw a video game in front of me, I’m good. Like it’s not like this big it’s not this big deep thing usually.
Mark Phillips (24:57.39)
Yeah.
Mark Phillips (25:07.758)
That’s right.
No, it’s n it’s not a difficult puzzle. That’s that’s usually what I say for for birthdays and Christmases too. It’s like, what should I get you? And it’s like it’s so easy. Like all the stuff I like I wear on my sleeve. So just look at me and get me anything that I’m wearing or listening to and I’ll be happy. It’s not a puzzle. Whereas, yeah, getting stuff for for a girlfriend or the wife, who could be a million things. You never know what you’re gonna get.
Vampyre Mike (25:28.374)
Right, right, right.
Vampyre Mike (25:38.121)
Right. Yeah. I know what you mean.
Mark Phillips (25:40.282)
That’s why it’s it’s always better just to make lists, man. Just listen over the year, make lists and keep track of it all so that you can surprise them when the time comes.
Vampyre Mike (25:48.798)
Exactly. Exactly.
Mark Phillips (25:51.211)
Yeah. Well that’s cool, man. So what else have you been up to in in your life? what’s new since the last time we talked? There must be lots happening in New York and around where you are. Is there any cool stores you’ve been to, cool bands you’ve been listening to or seen live? What do you what have you been up to?
Vampyre Mike (26:10.827)
So I don’t go to a lot of concerts. I think the last two concerts I went to were years ago now. I think I saw Godflesh, probably eight eight years ago maybe. It’s one of my favorites. And Ghost, which I know we both like. I saw them in Manhattan, probably geez, I don’t I’m trying to remember what house I lived in. It was either maybe nine years ago. it they were really good. I still enjoy them. I didn’t love their newest album.
Mark Phillips (26:19.192)
Nice.
Mark Phillips (26:34.682)
Yeah.
Vampyre Mike (26:40.105)
The same with Mike Patton’s Tomahawk. I didn’t love their newest album. I don’t go to a lot of concerts because they got so expensive and I’m just not a fan of like the crowds. I feel like, you know, and then in terms of around here, you know, I like I love thrift stores, I love flea markets. I’m always trying to like dig and find something cool. Sometimes I’ll buy something and flip it and then buy something with the money I want. So I don’t feel bad that I spent money. but that’s really it. I I try to keep it
Mark Phillips (26:49.497)
Yeah, man.
Mark Phillips (27:05.358)
Yeah.
Vampyre Mike (27:08.927)
Yeah, I’m still pretty frugal overall. I don’t go too crazy.
Mark Phillips (27:12.802)
Is there lots of thrift stores and flea markets where you are?
Vampyre Mike (27:16.563)
Yeah, there’s a flea market that’s every every Sunday up until I think November. It just started up again like a month or two ago, about a month ago. And I love that. And then sometimes I’ll find like new thrift stores or there’s a f it’s quite a few here, but maybe three or four off the top of my head I could think of. And it’s just fun. I mean, the only thing that sucks is when someone starts
you know, cherry picking what they have and they’re like, this game on eBay sells for a hundred dollars. Like, all right, well, we’re at a flea market, you have no overhead, you’re not paying eBay a fee. Give it to me for seventy, you know? So like stuff like that can happen too, where you have these people are a little extreme with their prices. You expect a little a little bit of a better deal than eBay prices in person. but those are my main fun things besides like hanging out with my family. Obviously that’s that’s fun and doing, you know, seeing family and doing things with them.
Mark Phillips (27:58.66)
For sure, yeah.
Mark Phillips (28:09.518)
You still have like the guys live close, like you got buddies that live in in the neighborhood in the area and stuff?
Vampyre Mike (28:15.24)
Yeah, sadly, one of my friends had a house fire. One of my closest friends lost his house. So he moved with his family like down the block from me practically now. So the other day, it’s funny we talked about this you and I a moment ago. He came over and we were gonna go to the flea market and then I brought him back to the house and we hung out, like, hey, you wanna play Scott Pilgrim versus the World on the Switch? And he’s like, Yeah And we just for like twenty minutes and it felt like being
Mark Phillips (28:21.965)
Geez.
Vampyre Mike (28:42.461)
I don’t know, twenty years old again playing video games with him in my apartment, you know? ‘Cause I haven’t done it in in so long. usually you’re online and even then, like I pay for these stupid like Xbox Live and no one’s ever online and it’s hard to link up and yeah, yeah, I’ll be on at eight o’clock and then nobody shows up. So it’s you know, it’s hard when you get older. But yeah, they live everyone lives fairly close, I think, all my close friends, present company excluded.
Mark Phillips (28:46.49)
That’s awesome.
Mark Phillips (29:08.026)
Do you still you still have you still have buddies like that you grew up with and stuff, like since you were kids that live around and and hang out with?
Vampyre Mike (29:16.381)
Yeah, I mean I did get back in touch with some kids well they’re men now that I lived in Florida with, and one guy from the Bronx. I recently got back in touch with some
Mark Phillips (29:25.498)
I forgot you moved to Florida for a while, yeah.
Vampyre Mike (29:27.678)
Yeah, you have a good memory ’cause I w I I am my memory terrible as I’m aging. but I got back in touch with some of them and then there’s a lot of guys from high school I’m still you know, a couple of guys I’m still close friends with and in my early twenties I’m still close friends with. So yeah. How about you?
Mark Phillips (29:45.836)
Yeah, it’s usually like the same two or three guys that I’ve been friends with forever. yeah, I mean I’ve got I probably there’s five or six of us that I’ve known since I was a kid, but probably only two or three that I see regularly. The other ones it’s kinda like just busy with life, man, with kids and all the family stuff. So yeah, you never see as much as you’d like. But yeah, I mean I I I honestly don’t make new friends very often. I’m very, very
Like I I typically don’t make friends with people I work with ’cause I’m like I feel like we just have to be there, you know? And we’re just working ’cause we’re we have to. And it it doesn’t seem like a real friendship. It’s like a forced friendship. So I usually don’t hang out with people that I work with unless it’s like, you know, one of my own companies, like the store or something, of course. Like that’s how I met Dylan and stuff, but yeah.
The guys that I’ve known forever, yeah, they’ll always be my buddies and stuff. But yeah, I’ve usually only see each other like once or twice a year now, I think. Just everybody’s so busy, man.
Vampyre Mike (30:46.695)
Yeah, just the way it goes. I mean, how old is your youngest?
Mark Phillips (30:52.195)
he’s eleven.
Vampyre Mike (30:53.274)
Okay, so they’re they’re at good ages where they’re doing their own thing and probably don’t want dad to bother them too much where you have a little more time. I guess as as they get older you have a little more time, but it’s still you know, you’re probably running out to hockey games and doing all this kinds of crap with them, you know?
Mark Phillips (31:09.335)
Yeah, and I split the custody with their mom. So I I do have like half the time, it’s just me and the cats. And I live on my own. I’ve got my own place here. So I bought a house like three years ago. So I live by myself and that’s nice, man. I’ve I’ve never lived by myself before in my entire life. Like I I I stayed at home forever because I had the shop and had the rent and all the expenses of that. I couldn’t afford to run the shop and then and then pay for my own my own rent of a place.
So I I didn’t end up moving out until like I met my ex-wife, moved in with her, and then we were together for twelve years and whatnot. And yeah, I’d I’d never lived by myself. So now I’ve been by myself for three and a half years. It’s fantastic. I love it, man.
Vampyre Mike (31:52.9)
Yeah, there’s there’s a peacefulness with living alone, yes, but just even like sometimes my wife will go to bed a little earlier than me and my son’s already asleep, obviously ’cause he’s little. And I’ll be like, All right, I could just I’m exhausted, but I’m just gonna sit here for an hour and do whatever. And then like there’s this peacefulness that you kind of need sometimes. So I totally get it. Yeah.
Mark Phillips (32:17.111)
It’s true. It’s very nice. Yeah, it’s just just chilling and watching T V or having a beer or whatever before bed and it’s it’s really nice, man. It’s nice and quiet. I I’m glad I have the pets. I have two animals, two cats. I don’t know if you ever met her. Do you remember my pug Jesse that I had? Did I ever show you her? Yeah, she passed away like two months ago. I had to put her down ’cause she was she wasn’t doing well, so
Vampyre Mike (32:36.42)
Yes, you did.
Mark Phillips (32:44.449)
It’s nice that I have the cats still for company ’cause I don’t think I’d be as happy living alone if I didn’t have pets.
Vampyre Mike (32:49.925)
Right. I’m sorry to hear that. Yeah. That’s
Mark Phillips (32:53.015)
Yeah, it’s su that’s the sucky thing about pets, right? Is that we love them but then when when they have to go it’s it’s a a rough and sad thing, you know?
Vampyre Mike (33:01.516)
Yeah, we my parents dog used to sleep over here a lot when they would go on vacation. So my son really liked her and he’s not big into dogs for some reason. They they when they come over to him and like kiss him or jump on him, he just gets like freaked out. I don’t know why. Meanwhile, my in-laws had like four dogs, so he was always there. So I don’t understand what like the weirdness with him is, but either way, my parents’ dog passed away and then my in-laws dog, two of them passed away and it started get it started getting to him and he was like, you know.
Mark Phillips (33:28.189)
no.
Vampyre Mike (33:31.735)
Like, I miss, you know, Jackson or I miss Jem, I missed this you know, and he’d he would cry about it and I’m like, It’s all right, like, you know, they went to heaven, you know, you have to start explaining it in whatever way you believe in or don’t believe in or whatever. And but it’s always tough with with pets because they they give such unconditional love. They don’t really want much in return. And they’re definitely great companies, so
Mark Phillips (33:43.971)
Yeah.
Mark Phillips (33:53.284)
They are, yeah, man. It it it it helps so much. I I’ve had kind of pets my whole life growing up and yeah, just just having them around and in the house i it makes it feel like the house isn’t alone and empty ’cause I’ve got the cats here chilling with me.
Vampyre Mike (34:08.001)
Right. No, definitely, I agree.
Mark Phillips (34:10.317)
Yeah. Yeah, I I watched changing lanes here. I I’m I’m in a tube group on on Facebook. It’s like tubi horror movies. And so I are you in that group too?
Vampyre Mike (34:19.822)
me too, yeah. I’m pretty sure we’re both in it, yeah.
Mark Phillips (34:24.693)
Yeah, so so I I go through their recommendations and and there’s been a lot of AI postings lately, like tons of AI pictures and profiles and everything, and I was like, man, but so I’m I’m going through and compiling their recommendations in that letterboxed app. And this weekend I watched one. I watched one called Darkride. Have you seen that?
Vampyre Mike (34:47.36)
It sounds familiar, but no, I don’t think I did.
Mark Phillips (34:50.069)
it was it was bad, man. It was it was a movie about like these young teenagers that go to a kind of like a fun house with a killer in it. And yeah, man, the characters of the story, everything was bad. The killer like looked terrible. He was very, very generic, like a little dollface mask on, like seen it a billion times. I think something like fun house or something even like Tourist Trap would be a zillion times better than than what that was. Even one that I saw on Netflix, I think it was called.
Vampyre Mike (35:10.356)
Yeah, no.
Mark Phillips (35:19.491)
Hell House or Hell Hell Knight or something. That one was even that one was even better, man. Like this friggin’ dark ride was terrible and they were pushing it so hard in this group and I’m like, this movie was frickin’ terrible.
Vampyre Mike (35:22.206)
Yeah, Hellhouse, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Vampyre Mike (35:31.902)
Yeah, I mean a lot of the new I tend to watch eighties and nineties primarily, like B and C and D movies, but the newer stuff just doesn’t doesn’t have it usually.
Mark Phillips (35:40.568)
Yeah.
Mark Phillips (35:44.46)
Yeah, that that’s that’s how I feel, man, is I I there’s not a lot of stuff that I love, man. I always go back ’cause the eighties are my favorite decade for horror, so I’m always wanting to check out like the old school splatter classics and stuff. I don’t like much of the new stuff at all.
Vampyre Mike (36:01.232)
Yeah, I I agree. Most of it I’m not into either. I I I tend to go to the older stuff too.
Mark Phillips (36:07.255)
I’m not really my finger’s not even on the pulse. I don’t even know what’s coming out. Like I’ve tried some stuff. Like I I recently saw one, it’s a few years old now. It’s called Oddity. I thought that one was really good. It was about that kind of spectral, ghostly shit going on in the house and they had the have you seen it?
Vampyre Mike (36:25.508)
No, I’ll have to look into it. I haven’t seen it.
Mark Phillips (36:28.001)
It was good. It was creepy. It was just like about I don’t want to ruin it, but it was it’s good. It had like ghost stories in it. It had some killing and it had you know, it w it was good. And there was like some golem creature that was in it that looked pretty awesome. It was scary. the director has actually made another movie now that’s coming out or is out now called Hokum, I believe it’s called. People are raving about that one. Again, I wanna see it just based on how good Oddity was. So s there are some good new ones that are out.
Vampyre Mike (36:57.308)
Yeah, I’ll look into it. I mean, I think I think the most recent ones I’ve seen were like Weapons, which I thought was decent fun. And what’s that other one? Sub The Substance with Demi Moore. That was okay. That was pretty good. But Yeah. I mean it’s not like but the thing is I don’t go out and want to buy them either. It’s like these are movies I’ll watch once and go, that was interesting. And then I don’t really think about them. I tried Sinners and I couldn’t get into it at all. I shut it off.
Mark Phillips (37:04.601)
Mm.
Mark Phillips (37:10.349)
Yeah, that was a cool body horror flick, yeah.
Mark Phillips (37:24.793)
My my review of sinners I just put from black until dawn. ‘Cause it’s essentially from dust till dawn set in Prohibition times, man. I th I I you know, it’s not overly original. It was like from dust till dawn during Prohibition. It was okay.
Vampyre Mike (37:37.241)
Yeah, no I
Vampyre Mike (37:45.059)
Yeah, I started it. I I I was I don’t know, a quarter through and I’m like, I’m just not having fun with this.
Mark Phillips (37:50.968)
Yeah. Yeah, it’s that one that one w got all the rave and same with weapons, man. Those are the two that everybody was talking about last year. and long legs as well, the year before.
Vampyre Mike (38:03.373)
I liked long legs. I thought that was pretty good. It was interesting.
Mark Phillips (38:07.167)
I I I saw it and I was like I I when I saw the trailers and I watched it, I thought this is the trailer was I was like it’s gonna be amazing because Nick Cage looks terrifying in this. But then I felt like nothing really happened in the movie that wasn’t much about him and he wasn’t in it nearly enough. And so I felt like I got blair witched, man. I got pulled in by the trailer and then there was no payoff at the end. So I was kinda like, Ugh I I would love to have seen more of that character because he was so creepy.
Vampyre Mike (38:17.103)
Yeah.
Vampyre Mike (38:35.736)
He he was very creepy. I don’t watch trailers. I I go into I go in I go in blind with everything because I figure I can’t be disappointed. I can’t get my hopes up. I just go in and say, What the hell’s this about? I I I had no idea Sinners was like Dust Till Dawn until I got into it. And I was like, Yeah, I’m not feeling this. I don’t and I also don’t like Dust Till Dawn. So Yeah, I never got into it.
Mark Phillips (38:39.425)
you went in blind.
Mark Phillips (38:56.918)
Really?
Holy cow. I think you’re the first person I’ve ever met that doesn’t like from dust till dawn.
Vampyre Mike (39:01.231)
I don’t I I don’t hate it. I just don’t love it.
Mark Phillips (39:07.809)
Yeah. Yeah, but you’re a big vampire guy too. You love the vampire flicks, so maybe you hold them to a different standard.
Vampyre Mike (39:15.931)
Yeah, I think it was like kind of the campiness of it, like that kind of goofy, like tongue in cheek, like Tarantino esque thing going on where I was like, I don’t I’m not feeling the way they mix things, even though I know it’s a classic. Just n not for me.
Mark Phillips (39:29.943)
I love Tarantino flicks though. Like I love his writing, how it’s so dialogue heavy and it’s always focused on like every specific character. There’s so much dialogue with all of them. There’s so many inside jokes. It kinda reminds me of like Kevin Smith’s writing, but a lot more crude and a lot more dark, I guess. But yeah, th that’s the kind of stuff that I like.
Vampyre Mike (39:47.899)
Yeah. Yeah. He he kinda fell off for me after Kill Bill. I really enjoyed those and then I you know, I watched The Hateful Eight, I didn’t like it all, Django I didn’t like it all. And what was the other one? Inglorious Bastards was pretty good.
Mark Phillips (40:03.575)
Yeah. Yeah, Inglorious Bastards was good. Yeah, I I like those other ones. I like Django and I liked the Eightful Eight too, but he’s kind of hit and miss. I didn’t really like his last one. Once upon a time in Hollywood he did. I I I know lots of people love it, but I’ve I always thought that was his weakest flick so far that I’ve seen.
Vampyre Mike (40:20.767)
I’ve heard that but I haven’t seen it yet.
Mark Phillips (40:23.619)
But I mean they all have funny parts. I think the things with Tarantino movies are the more you watch them, the better they are. Cause they always have memorable pieces of dialogue that you come back to and quote with your friends and laugh about.
Vampyre Mike (40:34.347)
Yes, no, definitely, you’re right. Definitely.
Mark Phillips (40:37.911)
He even he even made one called Four Rooms, which was like really, really flew under the radar before Pulp Fiction. And it was about Yeah, w Tim Roth, yeah, where he goes into all the different rooms as the bell hop. That one’s pretty funny and quirky too. They have tons of different weird characters, right?
Vampyre Mike (40:44.482)
yeah, yeah, I’ve seen that with with Tim Roth.
Vampyre Mike (40:54.955)
Yeah, yeah, it was pretty good if memory serves.
Mark Phillips (40:58.007)
Yeah. And then he’s got Deathproof, which is awesome because of the cars, man. If you like me and you like muscle cars and old school seventies and sixties cars, that was like so many tributes to like the vanishing point and movies like that from the seventies with that old Challenger and yeah, that kind of shit’s awesome.
Vampyre Mike (40:59.425)
Yeah.
Vampyre Mike (41:17.579)
Yeah, I’m not into cars at all. I’m not I I’m just not I’m not handy and I don’t know a lot about cars, so I never got into them. I appreciate them. I think they look cool. I actually like the Robert Rodriguez movie better on that set. Yeah, I found it just a little more fun, I guess, in a way.
Mark Phillips (41:32.803)
Did you, yeah?
Mark Phillips (41:37.421)
Plan the planet terror one, yeah.
Vampyre Mike (41:39.122)
Yeah, yeah. I like that one a little more. Yeah.
Mark Phillips (41:41.526)
Yeah. I was the I was the opposite ’cause I like the car stuff more than the zombie stuff. Just cause I’d seen so many zombie movies, I’m like, this car chase movie is pretty cool. There’s not a lot of these out anymore, especially with that 70s flavor. And those super strong female heroines, they were all badass bitches that kicked Kurt Russell’s ass. So that stuff was really cool.
Vampyre Mike (42:00.839)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what you mean. That was cool.
Mark Phillips (42:05.687)
Speaking of car movies, this is one from the eighties. I just watched it, shamefully so this past weekend, called The Wraith. Have you seen that one? Yes.
Vampyre Mike (42:13.587)
Charlie Sheen, right? I I think I saw some of it. I don’t recall, but I think when they have like ho car car horror movies, like kinda like Christine, I find them so silly that I just don’t get into them.
Mark Phillips (42:28.237)
You steer out of there, no pun intended. Yeah. Yeah, I love the Wraith, man. It was so good. It had Charlie Sheen in it. It had Randy Quaid, like pre insanity Randy Quaid before he went nuts and fled to Canada. I think he’s living up here somewhere in the wilderness, hiding from authorities, apparently. But he was in that. Yeah, like I don’t know what’s up with that dude, but he was in that and it had Cheryl Lynn Fenn in it too from Twin Peaks fame. And from Thr
Vampyre Mike (42:30.556)
Yeah, yeah.
Vampyre Mike (42:47.923)
Yeah, I heard that too.
Vampyre Mike (42:56.72)
I love her, yeah.
Mark Phillips (42:58.74)
man. Her face, she’s gorgeous, but her voice is incredible. Like as soon as she starts talking, I was like
Vampyre Mike (43:07.366)
Yeah, she they the whole cast of Twin Peaks was very attractive. If you look at them, all the women were were like smoke shows. Even the nerdy girl, Lucy at the front desk, I liked her too. I thought they were all pretty.
Mark Phillips (43:07.597)
Very, very nice.
Mark Phillips (43:22.091)
I have to revisit it, man, ’cause I saw it when I was so young and I don’t remember any of it at all.
Vampyre Mike (43:28.174)
I I I’m gonna get a lot of hate for this. I love the first two seasons. I love the movie Firewalk with me. I really didn’t like that third season that came out. I was so disappointed. I I had this friend at the time who I no longer we don’t speak anymore. Long story. And we were like, my god, Twin Peaks is coming back after twenty years, holy shit And we like sat down and we the same night we watched it and we were like, I don’t know about this.
It’s it completely loses all of its small town charm. The main character who you wanna like see the whole show is gone for eighty percent of the show and they replace him. a lot of it’s in like the city and a lot of the characters are so like such pieces of crap that you it it just it just lacks kind of that quirky, I guess
I I think what happened was and I could be wrong, I think Lynch was reined in so much by the the television studio when he was doing that show and it had like a goofy, campy, you know, small town charm and all that’s gone. It’s just it’s like one of his movies. It’s like watching Mulholland Drive or you know, Lost Highway, which I enjoy, but I didn’t want that for Twin Peaks.
Mark Phillips (44:39.319)
no.
Mark Phillips (44:48.331)
Yeah, Malholland Drive is like that doesn’t seem anything of his at all. Like it’s so mainstream and not quirky and wild at all. Like I didn’t wouldn’t have even have put those together.
Vampyre Mike (45:00.621)
Yeah, it y let me know if you ever watched Twin Peaks again. I I know I’m curious to see what you think how that last season was, because I just was very disappointed in it.
Mark Phillips (45:10.162)
Now that I know Sheryl Lynn Fenn’s in all of them, is she in the last season too?
Vampyre Mike (45:14.722)
She is. She’s much older, obviously, but yes.
Mark Phillips (45:17.891)
Okay, well then I’ll I’ll watch I just need to know where to find them. I’ll have to am I gonna have to order these or are they streaming somewhere? Where are they?
Vampyre Mike (45:25.55)
you know, I don’t know. I have them on Blu-ray, but the I’m sure there’s the first three the first two seasons in the movie have to be streaming somewhere, either legally or illegally. And then that last season I know HBO I think it was put out. So that’s gotta be wherever HBO puts their streaming service, I’m not sure.
Mark Phillips (45:45.785)
Sweet, sweet. I’ll check it out. And so I’ve I’ve heard this, but I I obviously don’t know for myself because I haven’t I don’t have Twin Peaks enough in my memory. is the Alan Wake game similar?
Vampyre Mike (45:59.256)
Yeah, like if you’ve played Alan Wake, it’s kinda got that what the hell’s really going on here? Why are stuff so weird, but it still has that sort of small town charm to it. yeah, I thought the Alan Wake games were really good. I beat the second one, I don’t know, a year or so ago. And I really enjoyed them. I thought they were good. I not to get too off topic in the only thing I didn’t like about Alan Wake too was everyone was upset. Did you do you know about the whole controversy with Alan Wake too?
Mark Phillips (46:08.633)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Phillips (46:30.166)
No, tell me.
Vampyre Mike (46:31.264)
So the first game it’s all about Alan Wake trying to find his wife. The second game, you’re Alan Wake for half the game. Maybe maybe half, I would say. The other half, you play as a a half black woman detective. And he’s stuck in this other realm or whatever, and you’re now trying to help him and all this stuff. I didn’t care that they made it a woman. I didn’t care that they made it a half black girl. None of that bothers me. I really don’t care. If the character’s good, it’s good.
Mark Phillips (46:34.85)
Right.
Vampyre Mike (46:59.987)
But then at the end of the game, it starts getting into a little bit, not much. There was like a couple lines where you’re like, why did they have to throw in this like
racist or anti-white kind of line in there. And I just some of it feels so forced to me. Like I feel like I don’t play games to hear that or to go into politics or stuff that I hear on TV. It’s just everything is so negative. Like I just want to play this game and be immersed in this world that’s, you know, totally unrealistic. so I just don’t like how everything leeches into it from you know, and then they hired that team,
Mark Phillips (47:22.958)
Right.
Vampyre Mike (47:37.523)
Is it Cool Baby or something? Baby Sweet Baby Inc., whatever it was called, that is known for doing like forced diversity in video games and like yeah, like propaganda and everything’s very pro feminist. And I I don’t care how everyone feels about it, but I also don’t want it in my games. So
Mark Phillips (47:47.268)
really?
Mark Phillips (47:57.23)
Yeah, you don’t want it shoehorned in and feel like you’re getting forest fed the stuff.
Vampyre Mike (48:00.691)
Right. So I stuff like that kind of irks me. But overall the game the game was good. I enjoyed it.
Mark Phillips (48:04.633)
Yeah.
Mark Phillips (48:08.463)
that’s cool. I I have it but I haven’t played it yet. It’s on my on my list of stuff to do. I think I picked it up cheap from like an Xbox Live sale and it’s sitting there. I gotta get through the first one and then I’ll jump into the second one.
Vampyre Mike (48:21.996)
The first one’s definitely more simplistic and shorter, but I thought the evolution of the game was good. I thought that there’s a lot more to the second game.
Mark Phillips (48:32.553)
Sweet. Yeah, I’ll have to finish up all of my Resident Evil. I did Requiem and then I went back through and I bought two, three, four, skipped five and six because I hated those. Went to seven where they’re with biohazard first person, and then seven and eight. So I have them all to play through again. I’m back on the second one right now. Not as good.
Going back to it from Requiem, the brand new one, you really see how everything’s progressed and how good the gameplay is. So kind of feels a step backwards going to the older one, but it’s still good.
Vampyre Mike (49:07.505)
I I I you know realize I didn’t beat a lot of the Resident Evil games. I actually have never beaten the first one. I have it, but I find it difficult to find where like all the items and stuff are because I don’t you know know the game, even though everyone else kind of knows it by heart. And I beat the remaster of or remake whatever of two and three I enjoyed. I played the original four and I didn’t like it much. I beat it, but I didn’t like it much. Five and six were okay.
Mark Phillips (49:18.841)
Mm-hmm.
Vampyre Mike (49:35.847)
And then I loved seven and eight. I thought Village and Biohazard were my favorites. And then I picked up the remake of four because I heard it was like a lot better. I haven’t started it and then I I haven’t picked up Requiem yet. I’ve just been playing other stuff.
Mark Phillips (49:50.637)
Yeah, the the second one, I don’t know if they changed this from the original or I was just not as soft back then, but man, those zombies take a lot of bullets and they keep getting back up, and I’m like, stay down, dude. Like, I have no ammo left for you. And you keep getting up. It just irritates me and drives me crazy. That’s the survival horror aspect, I guess. But I think when the second one came out for PlayStation 1.
Vampyre Mike (50:09.648)
Right. Yeah.
Mark Phillips (50:16.758)
I don’t think they got back up. Like once you killed them they were done. They didn’t come back up and like be alive when you leave the room and then re enter again. That’s annoying.
Vampyre Mike (50:25.424)
Yeah, they they did something similar in their remake or whatever the hell remaster of the first game. I have like an Xbox One set with Resident Evil and Resident Evil Zero. And they have these I think they’re called Crimson Heads. And if you don’t light the zombie on fire on the floor, they come back stronger. And I didn’t know that. Like I’m going through the game a little bit once in a while and like these crazy red zombies will come after me, you know.
Mark Phillips (50:45.57)
Yeah.
Mark Phillips (50:51.764)
Yeah. It it’s it’s I don’t know, man. Like I think people in the series, the fans of the series like it, but for me I’m like it’s too much. I’m like I I already killed these guys. It’s just a nuisance to me. It’s not it’s not making me happy.
Vampyre Mike (50:59.229)
Yeah.
Vampyre Mike (51:04.87)
Yeah, no, I I get what you’re saying.
Mark Phillips (51:07.734)
They do that in Requiem too. If you don’t yeah, you set them on fire or blow their heads off entirely to like just disintegrate them, they come back as blister heads and they get swollen and they get super aggressive and they take like a zillion shots to kill.
Vampyre Mike (51:24.413)
yeah. I’ll keep it in mind.
Mark Phillips (51:26.018)
But at with Requiem you get this cool tool where you can make up like this chemical concoction and then you stick it in the zombie and it makes them explode so they don’t come back. Yeah.
Vampyre Mike (51:35.161)
okay. okay. I like when they add stuff like that.
Mark Phillips (51:39.499)
Yeah. And I mean I the thing that I love about Resident Evil, like especially the second one when it came out, was that Leon felt like a badass action star. Like you have so many guns and so many attachments and different things that that’s what I really liked about four, because they kicked that to a whole new level. And now Requiem is like that. When you get to do the sections with Leon, he’s like the friggin’ Terminator, man. You have so many awesome guns that you can use with him.
And he like kicks zombies across the room and makes them explode. Like he’s super powerful. And and it’s a good juxtaposition because the other chick that you play in Requiem Grace, all of her missions are first person, like like they were in Biohazard. And she’s useless, man. She’s you just pretty much run and hide and stay out of the way with her. And so it’s a it’s a good dynamic of like being badass action hero Leon and then
Vampyre Mike (52:11.474)
That call.
Mark Phillips (52:34.082)
frail grace where you have to run round and hide and they split it about fifty fifty.
Vampyre Mike (52:38.248)
Yeah, I l I I don’t mind when they do stuff like that, when they kinda make it different different genres almost in a sense.
Mark Phillips (52:45.014)
Yeah, it’s cool, man, because they’re mixing like all the best parts from the two games, right?
Vampyre Mike (52:50.268)
Right, exactly. Exactly. I mean I’ve always been more of a silent hill guy. But but I did enjoy the Resident Evil games when I went back and played them recently. Even the ones that people didn’t like, like five and six, I thought they w they were okay. I didn’t hate them. I they weren’t like my favorite or anything, but they were all right.
Mark Phillips (53:06.924)
I’ve only ever played Silent Hill one, never played any of the other ones.
Vampyre Mike (53:11.182)
I heard the remaster’s excellent. I just don’t have a Playstation. I I would probably recommend that one. I I love to. I just never played the remake.
Mark Phillips (53:18.166)
The first one I really liked, but I don’t know, man. It was so dark and it affected me when I played it and finished it. I I took it back to the store. I was like, I don’t want this in my house. It was so dark and so evil. Finding out that the the town and the village are like a bunch of Satanists and stuff. I was like, this is wild. This is I I don’t even want this. So I got rid of it. It really affected me. And then I never played any of the rest.
Vampyre Mike (53:38.31)
That’s funny. I
I played a lot of them back to back to back. I think actually I the video I made about them, I remember you and I had started talking at that point. So if I go back to that video, I’ll I’ll know when we started speaking. But I had played I think like two, three, four, and then maybe Downpour or Homecoming all back to back. I was having nightmares because I was just playing through these horror games like every day. So
Mark Phillips (53:53.654)
Okay.
Mark Phillips (54:06.816)
I think you wrote reviews for them on the website too back in the day. I think you reviewed some for us.
Vampyre Mike (54:11.502)
I think so. You should you should definitely try the remaster. I I heard it’s excellent.
Mark Phillips (54:17.098)
Is it a remaster of the first one or the second one? Second
Vampyre Mike (54:19.482)
The second one, but they’re the stories are unrelated. Yeah, one one and three are tied together to an extent. but you could still play three without I I never played one until about a year and a half ago or two years ago. I played I played two and three I played in you know, two and on. I even played the V the PlayStation Vita one. The Book of Memories, it was like a Diablo clone.
Mark Phillips (54:25.035)
really?
Mark Phillips (54:35.387)
wow. Okay.
Mark Phillips (54:46.667)
it was like a dungeon crawler?
Vampyre Mike (54:48.164)
Yeah, but it wasn’t very good. It was all right. Like it was fun with friends, but it wasn’t tech it wasn’t essentially a good game, yeah.
Mark Phillips (54:50.796)
Yeah.
Mark Phillips (54:54.944)
That’s awesome. I love Dungeon Crawlers. They’re some of my favorite games. I’m still playing Diablo Four like crazy.
Vampyre Mike (55:00.663)
It doesn’t touch those. Yeah. It was it was clunky and like not very good. But because I loved Silent Hill I found a little bit of it interesting at least.
Mark Phillips (55:08.182)
Sweet. And then as far as the wrestling stuff, are you are you still watching?
Vampyre Mike (55:13.744)
man. I I was really big into when Kenny Omega was in Japan. And when he came over to AEW, I watched a little and I like, this is okay. It’s not as good. I like the Japan aesthetic. I like how hard hitting it is and how like serious they take it. The stories are very grounded. It’s not like supernatural usually or crazy or goofy. I guess I guess it could be supernatural, like the Great Muda. But
Mark Phillips (55:20.056)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Phillips (55:31.223)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Phillips (55:36.024)
Mm.
Vampyre Mike (55:40.918)
I really stopped liking AEW. I stopped watching. And then I put on WWE a handful of times, like pay per views with friends, and it’s so cheesy and just not my thing at all.
Mark Phillips (55:52.184)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, it’s it’s it’s bad, man. Like the the last WrestleMania we watched, two days of it, and I’m like, I I think that’s probably the worst WrestleMania I’ve ever seen. Like it’s just I I feel like WWE’s gone downhill ever since they started I mean this forever ago. When I was a kid, they only did like they did WrestleMania, Survivor Series, SummerSlam, and The Royal Rumble, and that was it. So you had four pay per views a year
And the rest it was like just jobbers in the ring. So when two main guys fought, it was like a big event. But now you see them on Raw and SmackDown every week fighting and it’s like, What am I paying for a pay per view for? Or like what am I gonna subscribe for? Cause who cares? I’ve already seen these guys fight four times.
Vampyre Mike (56:39.447)
Yeah. Yeah. I I there’s just some kind of like I wanna see matches and I wanna see the athleticism and sometimes there’s so much filler and like talking and weird s goofy storylines that I just lose interest.
Mark Phillips (56:55.902)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I know I know the wrestling in Ringwise from AEW to WWE is like night and day difference. Like Dylan’s really big into AEW, he loves it. And I watch the matches and I’m like, yeah, dude, like the wrestlers in AEW are ten times the wrestlers that they are in WWE. And I think it’s probably because they don’t wrestle as much and probably because
Vampyre Mike (57:15.66)
I think what
Mark Phillips (57:20.748)
The WWE you’re like at the top of the show, so you’re like, I’ve already made it, so who cares? I’ll just take it easy and coast.
Vampyre Mike (57:26.87)
I think a lot of it has to do with them limiting what they can do. So you’ll see people who went from WWE to AEW and in AEW they’ll they’ll pull some tricks out. You’re like, that was pretty interesting, where they don’t take as many risks in WWE, I think, because it’s so not choreographed, but I think it’s so they don’t want to hurt their main guys, you know? So they’re like, Well, don’t do that crazy backflip. Like, you know, we’ll just just play a little more safe. And a lot of that happens with people in WWE, I noticed.
Mark Phillips (57:42.707)
Right.
Mark Phillips (57:49.324)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Phillips (57:54.711)
Yeah.
Mark Phillips (57:58.305)
And I and I really thought that by having them move to Netflix that it would be more adult content. Like I thought that it’d be, you know, more hardcore matches and there’d be more swearing and like, you know, maybe not as far as the attitude era, ’cause you can’t really do that anymore, but at least not PG where it’s family friendly and boring. Like but
They’ve hardly changed any of it. Like even I noticed on Netflix they’re they’re muting out and blanking out swears and stuff on the mic. And I’m like, this is terrible. Like you’re on Netflix, you should be able to just go full bore here.
Vampyre Mike (58:31.199)
Yeah, yeah. My my favorite still is old E CW. I loved ECW with, you know, Raven and Rob Van Dam and Sabu and all that. And then the closest I’ve come to that is when Omega was in Japan with the Bullet Club and I was watching that and it felt like I don’t know, it just felt different than a lot of what America was doing at the time, to where now I just I have I don’t have an easy way to watch the Japanese stuff. I don’t have cable or anything.
And I’m not gonna pay some extra fee every month to watch, you know, one episode of Japanese wrestling a month. and AW and WWE just isn’t doing it for me. I don’t know, just not not clicking.
Mark Phillips (59:08.95)
When when you were a kid did you like like W W F when they had Hogan and Warrior and stuff?
Vampyre Mike (59:13.813)
Yeah, when I was really young I did like like Macho Man was my favorite and Ricky Steamboat and Hogan and them. And then as I got older I watched W C W and E C W primarily.
Mark Phillips (59:24.172)
Yeah, WCW was a big shock, man. When that came out, it was like, whoa, they’re using real names. They don’t seem like they’re playing characters. It seems a lot more gritty and real. And WWE in in comparison seemed like child’s play.
Vampyre Mike (59:33.387)
Yeah.
Vampyre Mike (59:37.375)
Until they did the Attitude Hour, which I wasn’t even watching by that point, but I should have been ’cause I heard it was excellent.
Mark Phillips (59:43.577)
There w there was some stuff in the Attitude era that was too much though that I was like, this is just it’s it’s gone ridiculous. Like there was a an episode I watched where they’re talking about how Kane used to like have sex with trees and stuff. I’m like, this is so bizarre. Like why we why are we talking about this? It’s so weird, right?
Vampyre Mike (59:57.59)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that is that is weird, definitely.
Mark Phillips (01:00:03.38)
Yeah, so they had some of that stuff. I was like, Man, I don’t know who’s writing this shit, but it’s weird. But yeah
Vampyre Mike (01:00:07.676)
Well like that whole thing I didn’t watch but I know of it when Mark Henry had a baby with what’s her name, the old lady? Mae Young. Yeah, and then it comes out with the hand and I was like what it’s just like that’s stupid to me. I I don’t know.
Mark Phillips (01:00:15.175)
yeah, with with Mae Young or whatever. Yeah, yeah. She g
Mark Phillips (01:00:23.444)
Yeah. Yeah, it was pretty weird, man. I didn’t watch the Attitude Era either. I just watched a few episodes. You know me, I’ve always been a Hogan and Warrior guy, so when whenever they went to WCW, that’s where I was watching.
Vampyre Mike (01:00:37.146)
Yeah. Yeah. I just I think I did backyard wrestling when I was younger. So I was big into ECW from their, you know, craziness and then WCW had that more refined but you know, still kinda raw, no pun intended, side to it with the NWO and all that stuff. It was still cool. So
Mark Phillips (01:00:56.79)
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And then in terms of tunes, what what do you listen to these days?
Vampyre Mike (01:01:02.832)
You know, I thought of that this morning and like you kinda crossed my mind because I’m not the kind of guy that listens to like the radio or anything, so I don’t listen to anything new. I think I well, like anything, like even like serious XM, like my wife listens to country music, so she’ll like, I I heard this new song. I I don’t know any new music unless I know a band where you tell me a band and I check them out. Like you and my friend Tom from the tattoo shop. Like I th I think it was him. He said maybe it was you actually.
Mark Phillips (01:01:12.596)
Nobody listens to the radio, man.
Vampyre Mike (01:01:32.432)
Someone says, Have you heard of Woods of Epres Woods of Ypres? And I was like
Mark Phillips (01:01:36.734)
yeah, yeah. We talked about them. Yeah, they’re from they’re from Canada.
Vampyre Mike (01:01:39.93)
And I was like, this is really good. I like this. Like the guy’s voice isn’t the best and he’s dead now, so he’s not making any more music. But I enjoyed it. I was like, this is cool. and then someone else told me about All Your Sisters, the like industrial kind of gothy metal band. I really liked it.
Mark Phillips (01:01:42.647)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mark Phillips (01:01:54.947)
I haven’t heard of them. I gotta check that out.
Vampyre Mike (01:01:57.003)
Yeah, if you like like Godflesh kinda with with some more goth elements, check out all your sisters. I really like them. So otherwise I don’t I don’t necessarily check out new music. I I go backwards and I’m listening to like Hypocrisy and Godflesh and then I go to like Sade and you know, all other kinds of shit I listen to, but it’s all just old stuff that’s in my car on a flash drive.
Mark Phillips (01:02:03.285)
Sweet.
Mark Phillips (01:02:21.395)
you still use the flash drive?
Vampyre Mike (01:02:22.999)
Yeah, I have thousands of songs on a flash drive and I just listen to that in my car.
Mark Phillips (01:02:26.839)
Nice, nice. That the only way I discover new music is because I listen to Spotify and I just put it on a discover playlist and it essentially takes all my taste profile and whatever I’ve been listening to and it throws me new stuff.
Vampyre Mike (01:02:41.067)
I should do that because I make it play I I don’t know Spotify well enough, but I I have my, you know, favorite bands or followed bands or whatever and I just play daily mix and it just mixes all the stuff I like. So I guess I could do like a discover thing.
Mark Phillips (01:02:54.23)
Yeah.
If you do a discover playlist, yeah, you get into all different weird shit. Like they’ve been I I really love high on fire and stuff like that. So they’ve been throwing in other types of like heavy doom metal, and then I’m getting like stoner metal stuff put in and discovering all kinds of cool shit. And then Proggy stuff, they know I love Mastodon, so they’re like, check out Elder. This is another Proggy band. And so I’m I’m finding all these cool bands that I never would have discovered without Spotify’s assistance.
Vampyre Mike (01:03:26.596)
that’s cool. I I love Mastodon too. I liked them a lot. And then I know the two other bands always remind me of you or Typo Negative we both loved. And I didn’t love this band, but I remember you you thought it was pretty good. Sleep? Not Sleep Token. Sleep.
Mark Phillips (01:03:40.885)
Yeah, yeah. No, not sleep toga, just sleep, yeah. Yeah, the original. Yeah. Super, super slow studgy stone sludgy stone or metal stuff, yeah.
Vampyre Mike (01:03:44.968)
Yeah, they were like a sonar metal.
Vampyre Mike (01:03:52.618)
Yeah. So that that always reminds me of you. And then I think back to that typo negative offshoot band. I didn’t get into them, the pale horse or whatever, mate something.
Mark Phillips (01:04:02.391)
a pale horse named Death, yeah, it’s Saul’s band.
Vampyre Mike (01:04:05.738)
Yeah, I couldn’t I couldn’t what was the other one? Wasn’t there another one? Was it what was the one? that one I couldn’t get into either. Yes, I couldn’t I didn’t love it. It was okay.
Mark Phillips (01:04:09.547)
There’s another one too. Kenny’s in another band. Sun Don’t Shine.
Mark Phillips (01:04:18.301)
I think it’s missing Peter, man. It’s just not the same without Peter.
Vampyre Mike (01:04:21.994)
Yeah. Yeah. It was a they were both okay, you know, but they weren’t like typo negative. And I saw them Yeah, I saw them in concert, typo negative. It was it was great.
Mark Phillips (01:04:27.783)
No, no, that’s the sad part, man.
Mark Phillips (01:04:33.111)
I’m so jealous, man. I I wish. I Alison Chains with Lane Staley, Chris Cornell from Soundgarden, and Typo Negative, and Pantera with Dimebag are the four that I never saw that I absolutely wish I did.
Vampyre Mike (01:04:48.234)
Yeah. I there’s been a couple of bands over the years I regretted not going to see, but you know, I I did get to meet them, typo negative, I got autographs, I have a couple of pictures and I think you were the one who told me that my picture was on that Instagram.
Mark Phillips (01:04:59.417)
that’s so cool. Right, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, that was so cool. What what album cycle were they on? Were they doing like World Coming Down or something?
Vampyre Mike (01:05:09.17)
No, that’s actually my favorite album by them, but no, it was Life Is Killing Me.
Mark Phillips (01:05:17.001)
Okay, okay, so newer newer stuff.
Vampyre Mike (01:05:19.218)
Yeah, it was my it was that. Yeah, I went to see them and the picture you sent me was pretty funny ’cause I have a fri a friend who was there at the time. So she took a picture of of me and Peter Steele and when I went to shake his hand, our did I tell you this? Our arms were really long.
Mark Phillips (01:05:35.509)
No.
Vampyre Mike (01:05:36.19)
So he has, you know, he’s a big dude. So his my arms are pretty long. His arms are long. So our arms are really long together, shaking hands. And he goes, Brooklyn Bridge. So he screams out he screams out like at the top of his lungs, Brooklyn Bridge. I go Brooklyn Bridge. I go Brighton Beach. He goes, Brighton Beach. And we took this picture and it was just kind of like this funny moment. He had like I think he had like a wine stain on his shirt and he like chugging wine. So it was just it was really surreal. It was funny.
Mark Phillips (01:05:38.82)
yeah.
Mark Phillips (01:05:46.565)
Ha ha.
Mark Phillips (01:05:54.213)
Ha ha.
Mark Phillips (01:06:01.858)
Probably, yep.
Are are you super tall too, like Peter is?
Vampyre Mike (01:06:07.924)
No, I’m like five ten.
Mark Phillips (01:06:09.963)
You just have really long arms?
Vampyre Mike (01:06:11.464)
I guess I have long arms and yeah, I was thin at the time so it just looked longer than it than it was. I d I don’t know.
Mark Phillips (01:06:15.607)
That’s awesome. I love Peter Steele, man. He’s one of my favorites. I I still love Typo Negative. I think Typo are probably one of the only bands that I’ve listened to every day, probably forever, man. I I’ve listened to them every day.
Vampyre Mike (01:06:18.74)
Yeah, it was a funny moment.
Vampyre Mike (01:06:32.242)
Yeah, I I listened to them a lot. I even got a little more into carnivore, even though I wasn’t as much into them as typo negative. I I still like to listen to them once in a while too.
Mark Phillips (01:06:36.822)
Yeah.
Mark Phillips (01:06:42.035)
Yeah. Yeah, and I I’m with ya. I don’t I don’t like the typo negative offshoot bands nearly as much because Kenny’s backing vocals are cool on typo negative, but just too much Kenny, man. I don’t wanna hear it. I would rather hear Peter. His voice is way better.
Vampyre Mike (01:06:59.248)
Yeah, they I I I completely agree. And they said recently, I don’t know if you saw it, they said they were gonna do like a tribute show or something possibly. That’s interesting.
Mark Phillips (01:07:07.655)
Mm-hmm. Who are they gonna get? Are they gonna get Yusie from Sixty Nine Eyes to sing for them? He could probably pull it off.
Vampyre Mike (01:07:15.91)
I don’t know, maybe. I’ve heard a couple of their tracks. They’re pretty good. And there’s some guy on YouTube who sounds just like Peter. He does like covers and stuff. You ever heard of him?
Mark Phillips (01:07:24.831)
Is he the guy with the curly black hair that has like the mustache and the goatee?
Vampyre Mike (01:07:28.442)
I think so. There’s some guy like that.
Mark Phillips (01:07:30.473)
And he like blends different types of songs together.
Vampyre Mike (01:07:32.954)
I think so. There was a guy I heard do like this is what Peter Steele would sound like if he sang whatever and i it it it’s impressive. He sounds pretty similar.
Mark Phillips (01:07:42.492)
that reminds me. Okay, I’ve got a perfect band for you to check out. There’s a band. okay, so there’s a kind of a thrashy, proggy metal band called Spirit Adrift. Have you heard of them? So the guitarist, his name’s Nate Garrett, and he’s he’s from Texas, and he’s he grew up listening to like Typo and Sepultura and all that good stuff. So he’s got a really good taste profile. His band, Spirit Adrift, is wicked, but he started his own band, like
An offshoot from them called Neon Nightmare, and they sound like a typo tribute band. Like when he makes the album covers, he’s even got like the name of the album and stuff in the corner, like typo does. And he covered Everything Dies and he covered a bunch of their shit, but he’s written lots of his own music for his albums, and man, he sounds awesome.
Vampyre Mike (01:08:17.876)
good.
Vampyre Mike (01:08:33.584)
I’ll check that out, definitely. Thanks. Maybe it’ll come up with my Spotify Discover.
Mark Phillips (01:08:37.939)
Yeah, man, neon nightmare, they’re good. And I don’t know if he’s packing in that band, but he’s packing in Spirit Adrift because his wife has stage four cancer. She’s passing away and he’s had a GoFundMe running for like a year for and stuff. And poor guy, man, like I think he’s just broke and he’s like, I don’t want to put out any more albums because he said every time I put out an album, something horrible in my life happens.
Vampyre Mike (01:09:01.699)
Wow, that’s that’s a shame to hear about him and his wife.
Mark Phillips (01:09:04.917)
Yeah, and I mean he’s a fucking amazing musician. Like all of the stuff he puts out, I love, man. His bands are amazing, so I hope I hope that he can come back and get through it because he’s he’s he makes amazing shit. So yeah. Yeah, Neon Nightmare. Check those guys out. I bought one of their vinyls because it’s for his wife’s GoFundMe, and they made a special vinyl that was like pink inside and stuff and all colors splattered.
Vampyre Mike (01:09:17.855)
Well, I’ll definitely write it down and look in the
Mark Phillips (01:09:31.433)
It’s it’s pretty good. It looks like a typo negative album, so I’m like, Yeah, it’s gotta get it for sure.
Vampyre Mike (01:09:36.196)
Wow.
Mark Phillips (01:09:38.389)
Yeah, man, and I’ll I’ll kick you some more cool shit. I’ll text you stuff and send it to you on YouTube and stuff of different bands as they come up ’cause I can’t think of them all off the top of my head.
Vampyre Mike (01:09:47.737)
Yeah, it’s hard on the spot. Even w when you were talking about video games before I’m thinking like, what have I been playing? You know, like it’s hard on the spot.
Mark Phillips (01:09:54.366)
It is hard on the spot for sure. So what what kind of stuff have you been covering on Sega C D Universe lately? Are you still posting regularly and putting videos up there?
Vampyre Mike (01:10:03.456)
Yeah, I do one a week. and I have a bunch queued up until the summer or so, maybe around September ish. I talk about anything at this point. You know, I used to just focus on game first it was just Sega City games, then it was retro only, then it was any games. Now I’m getting more back into games again, but I for a long time it was movies, you know. You you have a small child, you can’t, you’re tired at the end of the night, you throw on this hour and a half movie.
you hopefully love it and then you do a little video about it. So it was a lot of movie reviews. So I do a mixture of whatever I feel like at this point. If it’s a game review, a movie review, there’s no captured footage. I still am low tech and I just talk about things I enjoy.
Mark Phillips (01:10:49.207)
think the cool thing about your channel is it’s you so that you always have the best ability to connect with your community because you’ve always got people sending you videos and sending you stuff and recording things and then you record messages back to them. That’s super cool. I don’t see a lot of that in YouTube and online. So that’s like something that’s really unique to you, I think.
Vampyre Mike (01:11:12.457)
Yeah, I I c I’m sure you did too, but when YouTube first started with when I first started with YouTube, I should say, it was very much community driven and it was a lot of I made this move this video about X and I’m gonna tag Mark in it and then Mark’s gonna do a reply and then you know, it it was the small, like tight knit network where now everyone’s gotten so negative and even the people that I was close with on YouTube that I became friend Facebook friends with, they’ve gotten so nasty and negative with one another that like
someone I don’t even speak to anymore ’cause like I don’t have time for all that negativity. But I still have that sort of community driven mentality where on my YouTube channel I just want to talk with people and have fun. I want it to be like you’re I’m on I’m sitting on a couch chatting with you like a buddy. I don’t want it to be, you know, I’m not making a T V show for consumption, you know?
Mark Phillips (01:12:03.275)
Yeah, and I think that’s cool. It’s it’s that I think that’s why, you know, we’ve always gotten along and clicked so well. ‘Cause it’s just like a vibe of two buddies just chilling and chatting and shooting the shit about stuff we like and that’s it, man. I mean it that’s the thing. There there’s so much negativity and nastiness in the world today that it’s like you gotta you gotta celebrate the stuff that you love and your hobbies and just have fun with it, ’cause there’s so much toxic shit out there. It’s awful, man.
Vampyre Mike (01:12:29.223)
Yeah, no, it really is. And it’s it’s easy to get caught up in it and you know, I just rather not have it around. I I don’t have time for that. You know, time is so precious as it is. Do I really want it to be bombarded on wherever Facebook or Twitter with just this negativity? Not really, no.
Mark Phillips (01:12:46.507)
And I think it got so bad during COVID, right? When everybody was at each other’s throats and just going on and on about vax or anti vax and it destroyed friendships and relationships with family members and all sorts of stuff. And it’s like, man, we’re all just getting played by puppets like puppets, man, by the puppet masters. So we just need to just ignore it. Just shut it down and don’t let it infiltrate and poison us.
Vampyre Mike (01:13:11.431)
Yeah, between that, you know, how extreme everyone is with politics, everything, religion. I mean, it just everyone is so quick to not look at each other as people and say, Listen, I may not fully agree with this guy, but I could sit down and have a cup of coffee with him or a cup of tea and talk and we could find common ground and be okay with each other. We don’t be best friends, but we could be okay. Instead it’s like, wait, you you disagree, I I wish you death. You know, it’s just crazy. Yeah, it’s nuts.
Mark Phillips (01:13:33.847)
We Yeah.
Mark Phillips (01:13:38.293)
That’s nuts. Yeah, I mean, growing up as a kid, man, like I I remember like my dad and my buddy’s friends would complain about the prime minister or complain about what’s going on, but they never ever used like politics and political parties as their identity as people, you know? It was kind of like a passing interest. It wasn’t like a dividing line in the sand.
Vampyre Mike (01:13:54.76)
Yeah.
Vampyre Mike (01:13:59.814)
Yeah, exactly. And I’m I’m like that. I can you know, whatever I believe, I can hear someone with an opposite opinion, I could talk to them and still be completely cordial, but other people can’t do that.
Mark Phillips (01:14:11.541)
Yeah, and I think I think people have to be because I mean everybody’s gonna think differently in in regards to politics and religion and everything else. I mean, honestly, I get more bent out of shape over musical and movie taste than I do of politics and religion. I’ll be like, You listen to what? We can’t talk anymore. But you know, I chill out I chill out a lot over that too, because yeah, I it’s just it’s all in good fun, right?
Vampyre Mike (01:14:29.18)
That’s funny.
Vampyre Mike (01:14:37.052)
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Definitely.
Mark Phillips (01:14:39.305)
Like I see you wearing a Faith No More shirt. I always make complaints about Mike Patton, right? You’ve probably heard and seen those.
Vampyre Mike (01:14:44.434)
Yeah, yeah. He’s one of my favorites, but he’s d especially now, he’s they they seem like they wanted to get back together and he like, Nope, doing my own thing, like I’m done with that and I was like, man. So
Mark Phillips (01:14:56.405)
I I think they’re probably one of the most like niche and passionately followed bands in metal, man. Like people that love Faith No More and Mike Patton, like hardcore. They love it. And Mr. Bungle too. Like it’s all in together.
Vampyre Mike (01:15:09.093)
Yeah, Mr. Bungle’s all right. I I I like a couple of tracks, but and some of his albums he did on the side I really enjoyed. But some of his avant garde stuff is just not for me at all.
Mark Phillips (01:15:20.671)
Honestly, I haven’t even heard of much of their stuff. Like I’ve heard of a bit of Faith No More stuff. Epic to me when I heard it, I was like, it just sounds like the Red Hot Chili Peppers. That’s what I thought of it. I was like, it sounds like Anthony Keatus and Chili Peppers. I don’t know if their other stuff sounds drastically different than that. I’m sure it does. Cause that was just like their radio single, right?
Vampyre Mike (01:15:37.095)
It does, yeah.
Yeah, if you I would probably recommend the album Angel Dust. If you haven’t heard it, you might like it. It’s you know, it’s still it’s not heavy by any means, but it’s definitely different. And then they moved into like I don’t know, weirder with King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime. But I would say Angel Dust is probably their best album.
Mark Phillips (01:15:59.831)
Okay, I’ll check it out ’cause I trust your musical taste because you put me on to Sisters of Mercy and I still love them. I still listen to them a lot when I’m on the motorcycle.
Vampyre Mike (01:16:09.381)
One of my favorite bands. They’re great.
Mark Phillips (01:16:12.17)
They are, they’re so good, man. Like and and lots of bands cover them. I heard a cover of The Creature My Reflection by Warl Dane and it’s so heavy. It It’s good, yeah. Yeah, it is good, man. And that’s they have just such a unique sound, man, and they I don’t know, like typo negative, they create that atmosphere and that environment with their music, and I love shit like that.
Vampyre Mike (01:16:20.645)
Yep. It’s good. It’s good. I have that on my flashback in my car. That’s a good that’s a good track.
Vampyre Mike (01:16:37.368)
I find it so funny that the singer they they toured like a year ago. the singer can hardly sing anymore, but they have like other people fill in with him. But I find it so funny that they sort of moved goth music in like a good direction and he’ll say like we’re not a goth band. We’re we’re we’re a rock and roll band, we’re not got and I always think like, how can you say that considering how much you brought to the table, but he just doesn’t want to be labeled with it.
Mark Phillips (01:16:57.694)
really?
Mark Phillips (01:17:01.418)
Wow.
Mark Phillips (01:17:08.456)
And I mean, isn’t there music like in the eighties I imagine it just full of dance clubs of leather clad men and women given or grooving to these tunes, man?
Vampyre Mike (01:17:15.928)
Yeah.
Yeah, like that and like s you know, Suzy and the Banshees and you know, London what is it what yeah, the patchmone of London after midnight and Bauhaus and whatever. So I don’t know. I don’t know why he pulled away from that so much, but I guess he just didn’t want to be i into it.
Mark Phillips (01:17:22.538)
Depeche mode and shit.
Mark Phillips (01:17:28.266)
Yeah.
Mark Phillips (01:17:33.642)
He even looks like it with his black sunglasses and his slick back hair and and everything, right?
Vampyre Mike (01:17:35.661)
Yeah.
I mean he’s bald now, but yeah, still, yeah.
Mark Phillips (01:17:41.655)
I think he looks creepier now that he’s bald. He’s kind of got a Hellraiser Centibyte thing going on. Yeah. All right, man. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Mike. It was super fun and a pleasure catching up with you and shooting the shit again about all the stuff.
Vampyre Mike (01:17:45.987)
Yeah, yeah, he does. He definitely does.
Vampyre Mike (01:18:00.801)
You too, bro. It’s been great. it’s great to hear from you and I’m glad you’re doing well.
Mark Phillips (01:18:05.12)
Thank you, man. You two and say hi to the family for me and yeah, we’ll talk again soon. We’ll catch up online and keep in touch. Maybe we’ll play some games together on Xbox too.
Vampyre Mike (01:18:15.021)
All right, bro. Sounds good. Be good.
Mark Phillips (01:18:17.097)
Alright, thanks, Mike. Take care, man. See ya.
Vampyre Mike (01:18:18.755)
Take care.
