The Thirteenth Hour Podcast

Today's episode is an update on the work I've been doing on writing the sequel to The Thirteenth Hour .  In reality, I have been working on the sequel's story for decades in small ways and started actually writing it a number of years ago but then took a hiatus to work on other things.  In the past 3 weeks, I've made a point to get back to it, so far writing about 8K words in littl...

This week, on the show, my brother and I are watching Men at Work , from 1990, a funny, lighthearted, somewhat absurdist ensemble film.  You can watch film for free if you have access to Tubi .   Check out Jeremy 's work over at Pixel Grotto , CBR.com , and Classic Batman Panels on IG . If you are of the DnD persuasion, his articles on DnD Beyond may be right up your alley, and you can view hi...

This week, I'm reading Chapter 23, the final chapter of the Peter David penned movie novelization of the 1991 Rocketeer film.  Ironically, this episode will come out right after the United States' birthday (7/4/1776), at a time when there is a lot of turmoil in the country.  It's not the first time, nor will it be the last, I suspect.  I won't get into the wasteland of politics, bu...

This week, on the show, my brother and I are watching Manhunter , from 1986, a prequel of sorts to The Silence of the Lambs films.   Not having seen any of those films or read any of the books they were based on before, I went in with no expectations, but I will say, this is quite an entertaining, very stylish 80s movie.  The synth soundtrack alone is worth a listen if you can find it (see this li...

This week, I'm reading Chapter 22 of the Peter David penned movie novelization of the 1991 Rocketeer film.  This part of the film picks up on top of the zeppelin, with a daring autogyro rescue by Peevy and Howard Hughes.    A few other things:   1.) Once Upon a Dream is out!  Listen on most major streaming platforms, though if you have no preference, I suggest Bandcamp , which has a bonus track. ...

This week, my brother and I are watching the 1991 animated movie, Wizardry , a Japanese rendition of the computer RPG series from a decade before.  Sometimes the term OVA (original video animation) is used for these often standalone films that were produced for direct VHS/laserdisc/VCD/DVD release.  Sometimes, I think there were earlier series that came prior, and the OVAs had higher budgets and c...

This week, I'm reading the second part of the twenty first chapter of the Peter David penned movie novelization of the 1991 Rocketeer film.  This part of the film picks up on the gondola of the zepplin, and you can watch the segment in the film (at least partly) here .  One thing I always wondered as a kid was that if you shot a flare at something, would it actually ricochet like it does in th...

This week, I'm reading the first part of the twenty first chapter of the Peter David penned movie novelization of the 1991 Rocketeer film.  Before we get to the reading, there are a few noteworthy announcements:  -I finished a set of breaking training cards to help add an element of randomization to solo dance practices.  Those are available on itch.io and are free to print out.  I will make a...

This week, I'm reading the twentieth chapter of the Peter David penned movie novelization of the 1991 Rocketeer film.  There's a whole bunch of prereading announcements that occur prior to this (about 22 min in; it's not a long chapter). This chapter takes place in Griffith Observatory, which is a real life location you can visit should you ever find yourself in Los Angeles.  I was the...

This week, I had the honor of speaking to Scott Holcomb , who was Hideo Takamini in the 1986 film, Spacecamp , one of my favorite films, and one I watched over and over as a kid (not seen it?  I was not able to find it streaming anywhere, but you can find it on Youtube, e.g. here ).  I stumbled on Scott's contact info when I was making the first wave of Spacecamp Lego minifigures as a fundrais...

This past two weeks, I have had the honor of speaking to Sahbunim Jamie Webster, who played himself (and the character of Great Wolf) in the mid 90s martial arts show, WMAC Masters .   Sahbunim (abbreviated here as SBN) is the Korean term for master instructor at a martial arts school, and the Webster Martial Arts academies have been serving the Northern Alabama region since 1973, when SBN Jamie&#...

This week, I had the honor of speaking to Sahbunim Jamie Webster, who played himself (and the character of Great Wolf) in the mid 90s martial arts show, WMAC Masters .   Sahbunim (abbreviated here as SBN) is the Korean term for master instructor at a martial arts school, and the Webster Martial Arts academies have been serving the Northern Alabama region since 1973, when SBN Jamie's father, op...

This week, I'm reading the nineteenth chapter of the Peter David penned movie novelization of the 1991 Rocketeer film.  This chapter takes place in the study of Howard Hughes, the inventor of the Cirrus X-3 rocketpack in the world of the film (in Dave Steven's original story, it was his unnamed analogue of Doc Savage).  In this scene , you can see what's in Cliff's pockets, a Dave...

This week, my brother and I are watching the 1981 movie, Spiderman: The Dragon's Challenge , a composite of two 1979 episodes of The Amazing Spider-Man where Peter Parker ends up in pre-handover Hong Kong protecting an influential Chinese diplomat.  As far as we could tell, the live action Spider-Man show did not have that much to do with the comics and take a more realistic view of what a man...

This week, I'm reading the eighteenth chapter of the Peter David penned movie novelization of the 1991 Rocketeer film.  This short chapter takes place in the Bulldog Diner and features a scene where Cliff falls down a ladder from the attic after he is startled by Patsy, the daughter of the proprietress, Millie, and in the censored version we'd taped off the Disney channel when I was a kid, they ac...

This week, I'm reading the seventeenth chapter of the Peter David penned movie novelization of the 1991 Rocketeer film.  This chapter takes place in Neville Sinclair's home, where he's kidnapped her , though she ends up figuring out how to get the upper hand, at least temporarily.  I don't remember if I usually fast forwarded through this part as a kid, but I think I usually wanted...

This week, I'm reading the sixteenth chapter of the Peter David penned movie novelization of the 1991 Rocketeer film.  This chapter takes place in The South Seas Club, like last chapter, and is great fun.  Cliff wreaks absolute chaos on mob boss Eddie Valentine's club (crime doesn't pay, kids!).  The full clip is here.  The novelization adds a few interesting tidbits that I suspect wer...

This week, I'm reading the fifteenth chapter of the Peter David penned movie novelization of the 1991 Rocketeer film.  This chapter takes place in The South Seas Club, and has one of my favorite parts of the movie this part where Cliff stands by the table with Neville and Jenny awkwardly and tries to poof up these flowers - which go right back to the way they were before.  I don't know why...

This week, my brother and I are watching the 1992 movie, Army of Darkness .  Both of us remember the movie poster from comic book ads from the time.  (It's still not clear to me what the X shaped belt Ash is wearing if for ... I don't think he wears something like that in the actual film). It was my first time seeing in a few decades and Jeremy's first ever.  We watched the director&#3...

This week on the show, we are celebrating the 500 episode mark with a story!  I alluded to some of this in the past few weeks and was inspired by the scene in the 1988 film, Big , where both the young and adult Josh play a CGA text parser style game with a wizard and a cavern .  You will be hearing from the following guests in this episode that I am happy to call friends: ​ Shawn Wells and Colin S...

This week on the show, I wanted to talk through the creation of a character who will not only show up in episode 500 next week but also some subsequent Thirteenth Hour stories.  I wanted to explore some of the references, motivations, and conflicts behind the character, who I am calling Faltron, the cloud dragon, kind of a mix between Falkor from the film, The Neverending Story and Voltron from th...

This week, my brother, Jeremy Lesniak from Whistlekick, and I are brainstroming how to turn The Thirteenth Hour workout cards I've discussed here before into an actual analog martial arts game that could also be a training tool for practicing martial artists. The cards were are talking about prior to cutting them out: Some pictures of the "Easy Exercise Plan" I made for my parents as a teenager th...

This week, it's not me reading the next chapter of the Peter David penned movie novelization of the 1991 Rocketeer film.  That's because we have a special guest - Billy Campbell , who played the Cliff Secord / the Rocketeer in the 1991 film - is taking point to read Chapter 14!   Billy was last on the show in 2022 (follow this link for a preview of an exclusive podcast recorded for people who had...

This week on the show, I'm brainstorming ideas for episode 500, coming in a few weeks.  I was thinking about doing a group DnD-lite style adventure so anyone who joins can essentially join in on a role playing journey (virtual/theater of the mind style) with the goal of emphasizing cooperative gameplay with a minimum of time spent attending to inventory (maybe you'd have one item), character class...

This week, I'm reading the thirteenth chapter of the Peter David penned movie novelization of the 1991 Rocketeer film.  This chapter takes place in the legit front for Eddie Valentine's business - The South Seas Club. In preparation for episode 500, coming in a few weeks, I've been toying with some ideas.  Let me know if you have thoughts!   Ideas for Episode 500: -group draw in (every...