the Semi-Retired podcast

While trying not to jump any metaphorical sharks themselves (see below), the guys return for the second part of their investigation into this irritating cultural phenomenon. Along the way they identify the one popular movie franchise that jumped the shark, didn't like what it found lurking on the far side, and had the balls to turn around and jump back a full four decades later. Better late than never, we say, sort of like this episode. A few bonus movie reviews are tacked on at the end because, why not?

According to Wikipedia: "The idiom 'jumping the shark' is a pejorative used to argue that a creative work or entity has reached a point in which it has exhausted its core intent and is introducing new ideas that are discordant with, or an over-exaggeration of, its original purpose." The phrase was coined in 1985 by radio personality Jon Hein to describe what Henry Winkler had done, given that the stunt was his idea.

Music and image credits:
Shark jockey by Three-shots from Pixabay   
Semi-Retired “flipz” theme by tubebackr from SoundCloud
Music promoted by free-stock-music.com
Perforated steel by YuriyC from VectorStock

After a long and largely unplanned summer vacation, the guys are back with an apex predator of a two-parter.

On September 20, 1977, something momentous happened. On that last day of the third summer of disco and the second summer of the Son of Sam, Happy Days actor and former water skiing instructor Henry Winkler, AKA "Fonzie" and/or "The Fonz," made history when his character (ostensibly a motorcycle hoodlum from Milwaukee) jumped over a shark while on water skis in Los Angeles. The Fonz did this in response to a challenge to his bravery.

According to Wikipedia: "The idiom 'jumping the shark' is a pejorative used to argue that a creative work or entity has reached a point in which it has exhausted its core intent and is introducing new ideas that are discordant with, or an over-exaggeration of, its original purpose." The phrase was coined in 1985 by radio personality Jon Hein to describe what Henry Winkler had done, given that the stunt was his idea.

This week and next, take a long, leisurely look at just some of the shark jumpers that came to mind as Richard and Dave stared at each across the table in the (now virtual) Semi-Retired studio.

Music and image credits:
Frenzied shark by Pascal Le Lay from Pixabay   
Semi-Retired “flipz” theme by tubebackr from SoundCloud
Music promoted by free-stock-music.com
Perforated steel by YuriyC from VectorStock

With the recent release of Apple’s technologically astounding and eye-wateringly expensive Vision Pro virtual reality headset and the threatened release of its far cheaper competitor, Facebook’s Oculus Quest 3, VR may have finally reached early adulthood.

Distant progeny of the mid-20th century red plastic View-Master personal stereo viewer, through which children could stare at tiny 3-D images of the Great Pyramid or scenes from The Beverly Hillbillies, today’s VR headsets take advantage of the latest technologies to further free or tether us, depending on your point of view.

And while they could be a boon for virtual tourists, gamers, and porn aficionados, the idea of adding another ‘device’ to the household gear manifest with the attendant software updates, battery charging needs, and periodic hardware upgrades, could leave some feeling this could be a bridge too far.

What about family time together? The Brady Bunch would’ve needed nine VR headsets (if they wanted to include Alice) just to watch the latest Disney epic unfold around them as a magnificently immersive virtual experience.

Listen in as the guys strap on their brain caps for a look at what VR has become in 2023 and where it could go in the years ahead.

Music and image credits:
Cyclist with VR headset by Pexels from Pixabay 
Semi-Retired “flipz” theme by tubebackr from SoundCloud
Music promoted by free-stock-music.com
Perforated steel by YuriyC from VectorStock

Q: How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
A: That depends on which measurement system he/she prefers.

Measurements, i.e. specified quantities of a wide variety of 'somethings', are so ingrained in the way we think about the world, that we barely notice their existence. If you've ever rushed out of your underpaid 9-5 job at 5:30PM, got a $75 fine for breaking the 100KMH speed limit on the way home, thereby making you 45 minutes late to pick up the kids from after-school class where they've melted into howling bloblets in the 92° Fahrenheit, Humidex 38 heat, you'll see what we mean.

Over the past several millennia, deep thinkers around the world came up with numerous systems of measurement designed to standardize our understanding of quantities. You can thank them for sentences like the one above as you decide whether or not to spend the next 32 minutes and 8 seconds listening to this podcast while trying to shed a few unwanted pounds working out. Or, if you're like us, you'll shell out twenty bucks for a pizza, dial up an old episode of This Hour Has 22 Minutes, and call it a day.

Music and image credits:
Hoagie and calipers by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay
Excerpt from Heaven is Ten Zillion Light Years Away by Stevie Wonder
Semi-Retired “flipz” theme by tubebackr from SoundCloud
Music promoted by free-stock-music.com
Perforated steel by YuriyC from VectorStock

Our parents said our eyes would turn square. We feared the mundanity of household chores would interrupt the magic of the moment. By Richard's own admission, his eyesight was weak and blurred as he crept upstairs and into the light like a stunned mole after each Saturday morning of sustained cartoon absorption. We were in such danger all the time. And loving it.

Although we occasionally hyperlink forward to more contemporary animated classics like Watership Down, the Simpsons, Johnny Bravo, Beavis and Butt-head, and Cow and Chicken (while unforgivably overlooking the enlightened genius of SpongeBob SquarePants), this episode is all about the Golden Age of Saturday morning cartoon characters like:

Fred and Wilma Flintstone and Barney and Betty Rubble, George and Jane Jetson, Bugs Bunny, Sylvester the Cat, Foghorn Leghorn, Rocket Robin Hood, the Mighty Hercules (and Newton), George of the Jungle, Roger Ramjet, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Sherman and Peabody, Tennessee Tuxedo, Johnny Quest, Woody Woodpecker, Felix (not Fritz) the Cat, Space Ghost, Cool McCool, and the list goes on and on.

As a bonus, or perhaps not depending on your taste, Dave rants about the recently inflated price of his favourite tourtière.

Music and image credits:
Kids watching the boob tube by National Library of Medicine on Unsplash
Bugs Bunny Overture (This Is It!) by Mack David and Jerry Livingston
Semi-Retired “flipz” theme by tubebackr from SoundCloud
Music promoted by free-stock-music.com
Perforated steel by YuriyC from VectorStock

Richard (now re-christened a Templar-esque 'Ranchard de Valois') and Dave (still just Dave) reveal what kept them from publishing an episode last week before seguing into this week's topic: musical genres they love and musical genres they love less.

Under the dual-microscope are the mother ship--rock and roll itself, progressive rock, psychedelic rock, new wave, jazz, so-called protest music, and rap. Brief mentions of 80s hair bands, glam, reggae, and bebop round out the program, punctuated as always by random hyperlinking to anecdotes with varying degrees of relationship to the subject matter at-hand.

Music and image credits:
Grey haired guy (who looks like Nick Lowe) by Ryan McGuire from Pixabay     
Semi-Retired “flipz” theme by tubebackr from SoundCloud
Music promoted by free-stock-music.com
Perforated steel by YuriyC from VectorStock

It was Canada's 100th birthday year.

In January, Timothy Leary told the world's youth that it was time to "tune in, turn on, and drop out." Across the Atlantic in Swinging London, the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. In San Francisco, people from all across the nation came to the Haight Ashbury district to wear some flowers in their hair and celebrate the Summer of Love. Many would head down the coast to attend the Monterey International Pop Festival where artists like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, and The Who first broke big. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, The Doors had already broken on through to whatever was waiting on the other side. And on a more somber note, US helicopter gunships, Phantom jets, and B-52 bombers rained death and destruction on the innocent people of Vietnam.

Up north in Montreal, the same week that Sgt. Pepper's acid-seasoned soundscape began enlightening the airwaves, Expo67 opened its doors to the world. By the time it closed them in October,  more than 50 million people, including numerous international dignitaries and celebrities, had visited the 65 national pavilions that dotted the Expo67 site which, against all odds, had been built on man-made islands huddled in the St. Lawrence River along the south coast of the island of Montreal.

So put your feet up (unless you're driving), and take a trip back to the astonishing cultural event that put Canada on the map, a magical time when the whole world came to Montreal.

Music and image credits:
Cheerleader image from the Library and Archives of Canada & Expo67     
The Centennial Song  was written by Bobby Gimby and performed by the Young Canada Singers
Semi-Retired “flipz” theme by tubebackr from SoundCloud
Music promoted by free-stock-music.com
Perforated steel by YuriyC from VectorStock

Dear Semi-Retired listeners,
My humblest apologies for not being here for you last week. Dave was so emotionally fragile over the nightmare surrounding his Crave TV account scrub, that he couldn't hold himself together long enough to record a new episode. Things are better now.
Yours, Richard

This week, the guys look back at all the cameras they've loved before. From Richard's 2 1/4-inch honeymoon dream, to Dave's high school sweetheart rangefinder, from TLR to SLR, from roll film to CMOS sensor, and everything in-between, Gearheads: it's time to buckle up. And remember to keep your hands and feet inside the automobile at all times during the podcast.

Music and image credits:
Yashica Mat 124 Image by Michael Gaida from Pixabay   
Semi-Retired “flipz” theme by tubebackr from SoundCloud
Music promoted by free-stock-music.com
Perforated steel by YuriyC from VectorStock

In our humble opinion, popular culture often gives actual culture a bad name. Certain oeuvres and oeuvrists ooze onto the cultural landscape and proceed to suck up an ungodly amount amount of praise and attention that we feel is richly undeserved. There's a veritable mountain range of material to choose from, so we took a nice, thick first cut and proudly serve it up here, expertly seasoned, for your listening pleasure.

As added value, Dave rants at length about a horrifying (as yet unresolved) customer experience with Canadian streaming service Crave TV.

Music and image credits:
Aqualung doppelgänger by Daniel Páscoa on Unsplash 
Semi-Retired “flipz” theme by tubebackr from SoundCloud
Music promoted by free-stock-music.com
Perforated steel by YuriyC from VectorStock

Codes, passwords, PINs, logins, credentials, two-factor authentication, encryption and decryption, keychains and resets, are among the more irritating features of modern life. Who would have thought that it all started with the concealment of sensitive information by shaving a servant's head? Or that it might end with quantum computing. (That last part's uncertain, but so is quantum mechanics. Or so they say.) This week, Richard and Dave bisect, trisect, and dissect the realm of information hidden, and not so hidden, and the many ways resourceful humans have tried to hide it.

Semi-Retired trivia note: The battered combination lock used for this week's episode graphic is Richard's actual high school locker lock, the unforgettable 41-15-54. What tales it could tell, if only combination locks could tell tales.

Music and image credits:
Combination lock and notebook image by Richard
Semi-Retired “flipz” theme by tubebackr from SoundCloud
Music promoted by free-stock-music.com
Perforated steel by YuriyC from VectorStock

Back behind the microphones after the week-that-became-a-month off, the guys get their podcasting groove on by talking about what they did on vacation, complete with hyperlinking to topics that have varying degrees of relationship to each other, and what's actually being discussed.

We missed you. It's good to be back.

Music and image credits:
Piggybackers by Jade Masri on Unsplash
Semi-Retired “flipz” theme by tubebackr from SoundCloud
Music promoted by free-stock-music.com
Perforated steel by YuriyC from VectorStock

In the concluding episode of our first three-parter, we delve into issues like good and evil, the existence (or lack thereof) of Satan, the relationship (or lack thereof) between science and faith, and what it would take to convince each of us to change teams. We thank Sam once again for taking the time to sit down and wrangle with us. We all had a lot of fun.

Music and image credits:
Neist Point Lighthouse by Frank Winkler from Pixabay
Semi-Retired “flipz” theme by tubebackr from SoundCloud
Music promoted by free-stock-music.com
Maple Leaf by Vectoro Artworks from Vecteezy
Perforated steel by YuriyC from VectorStock

The existential voyage continues as Richard, Dave, and their guest Sam Piazza, wrestle with some of life's most enduring and controversial questions. Valiant attempts to breach various walls of belief and conviction are made, but no breakthroughs are achieved. This one was so big we made it our first three-parter, with the concluding episode on-deck for next week.

Music and image credits:
A compass and the road ahead by Ahmed Zayan on Unsplash
Semi-Retired “flipz” theme by tubebackr from SoundCloud
Music promoted by free-stock-music.com
Maple Leaf by Vectoro Artworks from Vecteezy
Perforated steel by YuriyC from VectorStock

Our sincere apologies for the late release of this episode. Real life gave our finely tuned production schedule a small kick in the ankle. All is well now, and we think it'll have been worth the wait.

Two weeks ago we sat down to talk with a young man named Sam Piazza, who was introduced to us by Dave's eldest daughter. Sam is a person of strong Christian faith, whereas we pitched our tents well on the other side of that particular fence many, many years ago. So we thought it would make for some lively and engaging conversation if we were to explore each other's beliefs a little bit and hopefully bump up against some universal truths while doing so.

We hope you enjoy part one of the show and thank Sam for his time, his willingness to get into the weeds with us, and for enduring more than a few verbal U-turns with grace and good humour.

Music and image credits:
Man with a lantern by Evgeni Tcherkasski from Pixabay
Semi-Retired “flipz” theme by tubebackr from SoundCloud
Music promoted by free-stock-music.com
Maple Leaf by Vectoro Artworks from Vecteezy
Perforated steel by YuriyC from VectorStock

Is AI coming to recommend our next vegan lunch? Or eat it?

This week, Richard and Dave satisfy their simmering hunger for knowledge by cozying up to ChatGPT, the headline-dominating AI language model developed by a company called OpenAI and launched a mere three months ago.

In a wide-ranging interview with this flashy new bundle of code, the guys try to get the measure of just what a language model AI is, what it can do for us and what it can't, and wrap up with a Siskel & Ebert-style assessment of where all this might be going.

As a bonus, Dave opines on America's swift and glorious victory in the recent Balloon War with the People's Republic of China.

Special note: The thumbnail graphic for this episode was generated in DreamStudio by Stability AI, a new AI system powered by Stable Diffusion, which is a deep learning text-to-image model released in 2022. Stable Diffusion can create realistic images, art, and animation from a description in a natural language prompt. Richard supplied the natural language prompt 'AI chatbot conversing with two podcasters in the style of Ralph Steadman.'

Music and image credits:
Semi-Retired “flipz” theme by tubebackr from SoundCloud
Music promoted by free-stock-music.com
Maple Leaf by Vectoro Artworks from Vecteezy
Perforated steel by YuriyC from VectorStock

Our two-parter on the creative impulse behind photography concludes with a discussion that ranges from photographers who've influenced us, to favourite photographs we've taken, our thoughts on and approaches to post-processing, the thorny question of titling, equipment we currently use and equipment we'd rush out and buy if money was no object. Which it is.

Music and image credits:
Fuj and Friends by Dave
Semi-Retired “flipz” theme by tubebackr from SoundCloud
Music promoted by free-stock-music.com
Maple Leaf by Vectoro Artworks from Vecteezy
Perforated steel by YuriyC from VectorStock

These days almost everybody's packing a very capable high-resolution camera, and nearly two trillion photographs are taken every year. (Note: we still don't have a decent shot of a UFO.)

Join the guys as they get back to their photographic roots in the first half of a two-parter that tries to uncover the essence of creative photography. Starting with memories of their first cameras and earliest photographs, they dig into existential questions like: Is Instagram food photography actual photography? Is the ubiquitous smartphone camera truly worthy of that name? And is there a 'cult of sharpness'?

Find out why Richard took 14 lenses, 2 flashes, and a tripod on his beach vacation one year and came back without any photos. Find out why Dave felt it was necessary to pack a compass and hunting knife on suburban photo trips where he was never more than a few hundred yards from his parked car.

And much, much more...

Music and image credits:
Fuji X100s camera porn by Dave
Semi-Retired “flipz” theme by tubebackr from SoundCloud
Music promoted by free-stock-music.com
Maple Leaf by Vectoro Artworks from Vecteezy
Perforated steel by YuriyC from VectorStock

Someday something's coming
From way out beyond the stars
To kill us while we stand here
It'll store our brains in mason jars.
— The Mountain Goats | Lovecraft in Brooklyn 2008

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own. Yet across the gulf of space, … intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. … (But) before we judge them (the Martians) too harshly, we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought. … Are we such apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?
— H. G. Wells | The War of the Worlds 1898

“I'm frequently asked, ‘Do you believe there's extraterrestrial intelligence?’ I give the standard arguments; there are a lot of places out there, the molecules of life are everywhere, I use the word ‘billions’, and so on. Then I say it would be astonishing to me if there weren't extraterrestrial intelligence, but of course there is as yet no compelling evidence for it.”
— Carl Sagan | Scientist and Author 1934-1996

There's a whole lotta time and space out there:
- The universe is 13.7 billion years old
- There are between six and twenty trillion galaxies in the universe
- Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, contains 100 billion-400 billion stars
- Its diameter is 100,000-120,000 light years (1 light year = 10 trillion kilometres)
- The central bulge is 12,000 light years thick, the disk is 1,000 light years thick
- Our nearest neighbour galaxy, Andromeda, is 2.5 million light years from us
- Each sun-like star in the Milky Way likely harbours one half to one rocky planet in the range of orbital distances where liquid water could be stable on the surface
- Liquid water is necessary for life as we understand it

Music and image credits:
Lovecraft in Brooklyn by the Mountain Goats  from their 'Heretic Pride' album
Huge, really pissed off alien  by Pete Linforth from Pixabay
Semi-Retired “flipz” theme by tubebackr from SoundCloud
Music promoted by free-stock-music.com
Maple Leaf by Vectoro Artworks from Vecteezy
Perforated steel by YuriyC from VectorStock

“Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.”
—Sigmund Freud | Founder of psychoanalysis and uncle of Edward Bernays

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country (America)."
—Edward Bernays | “the father of public relations” from his book, Propaganda, 1928
Watch a summary of 'Propaganda' by Edward Bernays
Listen to a full audiobook of 'Propaganda' by Edward Bernays

“The public must be put in its place … so that each of us may live free of the trampling and … roar of a bewildered herd.”
—Walter Lippmann | American writer, reporter, and political commentator, writing in the 1920s
Watch a short video about Walter Lippmann and his book 'On Public Opinion'

The engineering of consent is the “use of an engineering approach—that is, action based only on thorough knowledge of the situation and on the application of scientific principles and tried practices to the task of getting people to support ideas and programs."
—Edward Bernays | The Engineering of Consent 1947

The Century of the Self is a British television documentary by filmmaker Adam Curtis. It focuses on the work of psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud, his nephew Edward Bernays, and daughter Anna Freud. Curtis says, "This series is about how those in power have used Freud's theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy."

Not to know the past is to be in bondage to it, while to remember, to know, is to be set free.
—Sigmund Freud 

Music and image credits:
Semi-Retired “flipz” theme by tubebackr from SoundCloud
Music promoted by free-stock-music.com
Maple Leaf by Vectoro Artworks from Vecteezy
Perforated steel by YuriyC from VectorStock

As they continue to access their collective read-only memory (ROM) at blazingly fast speeds, Richard and Dave unearth more fading snapshots of an old world since replaced by a shiny-binary new one. Re-live the early browser and email wars (which sound a lot more dangerous than they were), the ripping of MP3s (which sounds a lot more bad ass than it was), and the flying of combat flight sims (which definitely sounds a lot more manly than it was).

Experience one of the first really big Internet ‘memes’ as discussed in this episode

Richard admits to leaving ‘Leisure Suit Larry’, a lovelorn, polyester-clad cruisebot in a state of permanent unfulfilled mission-hood on a Radio Shack computer he sold off decades ago. After stumbling upon multiplayer gaming while dabbling in ‘Quake’, Dave teams up with a group of gentlemanly Finns to fly his fave flight sim in friendly formation high over virtual war-torn Europe.

In the realm of digital photography dear to the hearts of many of our first listeners, the guys talk about how they transitioned from film to digital, remember some of their favourite cameras and the discovery of Instagram before it became somewhat polluted by selfie-porn and photographs of food. (Our photographer friends will grok.)

This epic double-episode wraps up with a discussion of digital technology in podcasting, a look back at low-tech prank phone calls made in the 1970s, and a vow to explore Dave’s ‘bunker’ where, it is rumoured, those prank phone calls are preserved on analog magnetized tape thingies called cassettes…

Music and image credits:
Tiger budgie by Sarah Richter from Pixabay
Semi-Retired “flipz” theme by tubebackr from SoundCloud
Music promoted by free-stock-music.com
Maple Leaf by Vectoro Artworks from Vecteezy
Perforated steel by YuriyC from VectorStock