Storytime with GamerDude
Stagione 6
di Storytime with GamerDude
With some personal things going on, and his voice not quite 100%, GamerDude has gone back to Season Three for one of his favorite Best of Storytime episodes. In this episode, GamerDude shares stories about how he drove on his aunt's farm when he was 11, and how he spent quality bonding time with his dad while learning to bake. He also discusses his own "golden age" of television, and what TV was like when he was a kid. He also shares a story about combining his basketball skills and his job at a radio station to form the WRNJ All-Stars for charity events.
GamerDude has gone back to Season One for another one of his "very special episodes." He has re-mastered and re-edited this episode about Christian Science to get a cleaner, better-sounding version. In this episode, he talks about what Christian Science is, and what it was like to grow up in a religion where you don't visit doctors or take medicine. He talks about what it was like to grow up that way, and also discusses why he stopped following the religion when he got older. He also talks about the effect he believes it had on his parents as they got older as well.
Those who follow GamerDude on Twitch or Twitter know that he's been struggling with some allergy-related voice problems this week (which you'll hear in the intro to this week's episode!) So, he's gone back to Season One to remaster one of the most popular episodes from that season: GamerDude's Stories About Books.GamerDude talks about his love for reading, and how he practically devoured books when he was a kid. He talks about reading everything from Sally, Dick and Jane to the Hardy Boys when he was a kid. He talks about how he developed a love for all different genres, from fantasy adventure to true sports stories to mysteries. He also talks about some of his favorite authors. He talks about how he discovered Stephen King and how he really enjoyed his early stuff, but has not enjoyed some of his more recent work. He talks about reading Tokein, and how he loved it the first go-round, but hasn't been able to get through a second reading. He talks about Donald Westlake, and his love for the "caper novel." And he mentions Michael Connelly and Elmore Leonard as a couple of his current favorites. And, he does this in a remastered version of the original episode with (most of) the clicks, pops, and gaps removed!
GamerDude loves to talk about movies and tv, and over the years he's done several episodes about movies, television, and the tropes we see over-used in them. This week's Best Of episode revisits some of the tropes GamerDude has compiled over the years, from the ever-present parking space out front, to the hero trying to escape by climbing up the building, to the villain revealing all of his dastardly plans while pontificating about how wonderfully villainous the villain has been.
GamerDude has gone back to Season One for this "very special episode" about being bullied as a child. He has re-edited this episode to clean up some of the pops and clicks from the original version. GamerDude wanted to share the stories in this episode again because being bullied happens to so many kids, and so many people, and so few feel comfortable talking about it.GamerDude talks about what it was like being bullied, and how he handled it back when he was a kid. He talks about some of the things he went through, and discusses the kind of emotional and psychological scars that being bullied can leave you with, all throughout your life.
This week, GamerDude talks about how the lust for power, or love, or sex, usually leads to scandal in the political arena. He also talks about how some political types survive these scandals while others simply disappear. GamerDude talks about the sexual scandals involving trump, from the Access Hollywood tape, to Stormy Daniels, to E. Jean Carroll and how, years ago, any one of them would have been disqualifying, but in this day and age, they are not. He compares them to the scandals that former presidential candidates Gary Hart, John Edwards, Newt Gingrich, and Ted Kennedy were involved in, and how they each suffered different types of consequences. GamerDude also talks about sexual scandals dating back to the 19th century, involving Grover Cleveland and Andrew Jackson.GamerDude also talks about scandals involving the lust for power. He talks about Watergate, and Iran-Contra, both of which involved those in power trying to expand or extend those powers.
This week, GamerDude talks about the "generations" sociologists have created to characterize people born in different eras. He goes back to 1908 to talk about The Greatest Generation, which fought World War Two, and goes through the chronological sequence of generations as described by the Pew Research Center. GamerDude talks about The Silent Generation, The Baby Boomers, Generation X, The Millennials, Gen Z, and the latest: Gen Alpha.GamerDude talks about how some characteristics and attitudes are attributed to a specific generation, but also discusses how there's some overlap between the generations, and how these characteristics are not necessarily unique to one generation. He also talks about how not every person born during a certain year ticks all the boxes for a particular generation, and that the creation of these "generations" is more a convenient reference than a genealogical tool.GamerDude also talks about how the world has changed over the years, which is one of the reasons why Boomers, and Gen Z, and Millennials have a hard time dealing with each other. GamerDude talks about how Boomers were brought up by The Greatest Generation, who grew up in a different world than the one Boomers brought their children up in, and it's the Boomers failure to realize this that causes so many conflicts.
GamerDude goes back to Season 1 this week for his "very special episode" about growing up as the fat kid. He has re-edited, tightened up, and cleaned up some of the pops, and sounds, and gaps in the original episode in order to preserve and present the stories in an even better form. GamerDude talks about being heavy when he was a kid, being rewarded with food, and how that impacted on his weight and his ability to socialize in school. He talks about the social anxiety he suffered with, and how growing up as the fat kid meant that he was always perceived as a fat kid, even when he was no longer fat.He also talks about how he came to the decision in high school to lose weight. The decision wasn't made easily and the process took time, but GamerDude talks about how and why he did it, and how the effects of being a fat kid stay with you throughout your life.
This week's episode was inspired by a casual mention of "Josephine the Plumber" in an episode of the Golden Girls. We have commercial spokespeople these days like Flo from Progressive, Jan from Toyota, and the Limu Emu, but GamerDude grew up with some of the all-time classic commercial characters that lasted for decades. He talks about characters like Mr. Whipple, who couldn't help but squeeze the Charmin, and Mother Nature, who didn't like to be fooled, as well as many others.GamerDude also talks about the commercial jingles he grew up with, and how they have stayed with him for decades. He talks about (and sings!) jingles from Life Buoy soap and Oscar Mayer. He also talks about how the pop singer Barry Manilow got his start in commercial jingles, and shares some of his classic jingles. Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use. No copyright infringement intended. ALL RIGHTS BELONG TO THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS
This week, GamerDude talks about sleeping and dreaming. First, he talks about how his sleep habits have changed as he's gotten older, and how he used to be a stomach sleeper who now needs four pillows just to sleep on his back.GamerDude also talks about how peoples' sleep-patterns, in general, have changed over the centuries. He talks about segmented, or biphasic, sleep patterns, which were the default pattern for most people before the industrial revolution. People would sleep from just after dinner to midnight, wake for a couple of hours, then sleep again until dawn. Once the demands of society changed after the industrial revolution, biphasic sleeping essentially disappeared.GamerDude also talks about sleep patterns while working overnights, and how it's impossible to catch up on sleep once your sleep patterns are broken. He also talks about dreaming, from keeping a notebook to record your dreams, to the prophetic nature of some dreams.