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Keeping Skor: Creativity, Curiosity, and the Things We Keep. A podcast about why people collect the things they love. Each episode begins with a collection - but the conversation quickly expands into something deeper: memory, imagination, and the choices we make about what matters. Through thoughtful conversations with collectors of all kinds, Keeping Skor explores the stories, passions, and meaning behind the objects people choose to keep.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, so what's, what's going on down there in Florida?
Corey Stewart: Let's see… tried to stay up and watch a movie last night and fell asleep.
Corey Stewart: Just, after a long week, and then,
Corey Stewart: This morning, doing some laundry. This afternoon, we'll go to the, Bonita Springs Brewfest.
Stephen Skorski: Nice. Brew Fest. What's that all about?
Corey Stewart: They have maybe a…
Corey Stewart: 80 different vendors from around the state, mainly from around the state. A couple of them might be national breweries, but they… once you buy a ticket, you get a little…
Corey Stewart: Souvenir glass, and they… you go around to any of the vendors, and they'll pour you, like, a third of a pint, maybe a… maybe a quarter of a pint of whatever beer you want.
Corey Stewart: Yeah, you just walk around and enjoy the time.
Stephen Skorski: Cool. So do you get… are you just, like, ripped by the end of this thing?
Corey Stewart: It's, it's definitely an Uber night, yeah, yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Thumb around.
Corey Stewart: It comes around once a year, so we have a bunch of friends that, we meet there, and…
Corey Stewart: Enjoy the evening.
Stephen Skorski: Cool. That's awesome. That's really cool.
Corey Stewart: What's going on up your way?
Stephen Skorski: Oh, not much, you know, slow start to my Saturday, but I mean, in the best way, you know, sleep a little later than normal.
Stephen Skorski: You know, roll, roll, roll out of bed, kind of relax,
Stephen Skorski: make some coffee. And then, yeah, then I was just thinking about, you know, then I was getting excited for this. I was like, alright, cool.
Stephen Skorski: I'm excited to… to talk to Corey, and so, okay, so actually, that's really funny. So last night, you… you were watching a movie, and you fell asleep.
Corey Stewart: Well…
Stephen Skorski: Now, is that… is that more of a comment on the movie, or…
Corey Stewart: No! Actually,
Corey Stewart: It was a decent movie. I was just, from all week and waking up at 4am in the morning, all week, just, I was done by the time…
Corey Stewart: this Friday evening came around. We were… my wife and I were out front watching,
Corey Stewart: what was it, the new Running Man, that was done by Edgar Wright, the guy who did, like, Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, Baby Driver, those movies.
Corey Stewart: But, it was a remake of the old…
Corey Stewart: Schwarzenegger, Stephen King story, The Running Man.
Corey Stewart: It was decent.
Corey Stewart: But, she finished it up, I fell asleep on the outdoor couch outside watching it.
Corey Stewart: So I'll have to, I'll have to, catch up on it just today sometime.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, okay. So, alright, so listen, you know, one of the first things that…
Stephen Skorski: you know, you and I have talked a little bit. We got to hung out… we've hung out a little bit, but mostly we've really talked about music, right? And records, and, you know, a shared love of all things vinyl. But you mentioned to me once what your typical…
Stephen Skorski: Like, movie watching week was like.
Stephen Skorski: And I remember thinking, like, oh my god, that's amazing.
Stephen Skorski: So, did I remember that wrong, or can you remind me, like, what is a… what is a typical kind of movie-watching week look for?
Corey Stewart: Okay. Well, currently I'm part of the Regal Unlimited plan, which is,
Corey Stewart: you pay a monthly fee, just like you would the Netflix or whatever, but you can go to the movies as many times as you want, you can see as many as you want. They have up charges for, like, IMAX and 3D and things like that, but if you're just going to watch a movie, it's, you know, you pay your monthly fee, which is less than $30, and you can go as many times as you want, so I usually…
Corey Stewart: In a month, we'll hit maybe 25 movies.
Corey Stewart: Like, two days ago, my wife and I, right after school, we just stopped by our local Regal and
Corey Stewart: watched a new movie that came out this weekend, and it was not good. So…
Corey Stewart: But, at home, I'll watch, you know… I'm more of a movie watcher than a TV show watcher. My wife…
Corey Stewart: she likes all the reality TV shows, and I'm not a fan of that, so I'm usually, on a different screen somewhere watching a movie, and
Corey Stewart: I used to keep track of all of them on Letterboxd, the little app, but I do that mainly just when I go to the movies now.
Corey Stewart: But, I'll see… I don't know.
Corey Stewart: Throughout the month, maybe 25 at the theater, and at least that many, at home.
Stephen Skorski: Wow.
Stephen Skorski: That's… it's amazing. I mean, this is what's so… I mean, really, I'm… I've been so looking forward to just picking your brain.
Stephen Skorski: About this. But before we… before I… before I even ask you anything more about movies, give me a sense, typical day for Corey. What, you know, if I follow you around, right? Typical day, what do I… what do I find out about you that has nothing to do…
Corey Stewart: On a workday? Or.
Stephen Skorski: You picked a day. You picked a day. Any, so, just tell me, you know, kind of what does it look like to be you, and, you know, that doesn't have to do with movies.
Corey Stewart: Okay, well, I'm a physics teacher at a high school in Florida.
Corey Stewart: I got that kind of from my father. He was my high school physics teacher for 2 years in Pennsylvania. He's still kicking it up in, Pennsylvania. I talked to him today.
Corey Stewart: But he was my inspiration. I actually… Real quick, I…
Corey Stewart: didn't think I'd ever be a teacher. It was a… kind of a… not a flute that I got into it, but
Corey Stewart: as a National Honor Society student when I was in high school.
Corey Stewart: My father, or… we were supposed to choose a teacher to teach one class for out of our high school.
Corey Stewart: So I chose my dad. I was Mr. Stewart to be Mr. Stewart.
Corey Stewart: And…
Corey Stewart: I remember getting, you know, some pages copied, and trying to do a lesson with the kids in this class, and after it was over.
Corey Stewart: My dad asked me how I thought it went. I said, I don't know.
Corey Stewart: The only thing I know is I'll never be a teacher in my life, that was too hard.
Corey Stewart: Here I am on my, 24th year at the same high school down in Florida now.
Corey Stewart: But,
Corey Stewart: I went to… yeah, I went to school for applied physics and chemistry, so I have a degree in those.
Corey Stewart: And used it to, I was working at a place in Pennsylvania for about 6 or 7 years.
Corey Stewart: And, it was…
Corey Stewart: It was good. It was… it was a fun time. I got a chance to work on projects with,
Corey Stewart: we worked on projects with the Department of Defense, and NASA, and General Electric's aircraft engine,
Corey Stewart: part of their company, but it was up in Pennsylvania. It's really, really cold up there, so I wanted to move south for as long as I could remember, and came down here. So, that's all just to get…
Corey Stewart: to where I am now, coming down this far south, there wasn't a lot of science industry. There's a lot of biomedical stuff, but that's not my field, so I tenderly dipped my toe in teaching, and I've not regretted it ever since. I love it. It's a very rewarding
Corey Stewart: rewarding profession. So, that's what I would start with, is that on a typical day.
Corey Stewart: My wife and I work at the same high school, so we get up together.
Corey Stewart: Get out of bed around 4.30,
Corey Stewart: Eat breakfast, get on the road by 5.30, get down to school at 6 o'clock, that's an hour before the kids start.
Corey Stewart: And then, teach physics, do some labs, have some fun. After that.
Corey Stewart: Sometimes we'll both go to a movie, sometimes I'll go on my own, if it's a Monday.
Corey Stewart: I normally won't go to a movie because it's
Corey Stewart: Pinball night, I have a league that I'm in for pinball.
Corey Stewart: And then, yeah, come home.
Corey Stewart: And if I'm doing some schoolwork or something, I'll have a movie on in the background, maybe something I've seen before, maybe something new.
Corey Stewart: Usually catch… I would probably average maybe 2 movies a day, if I'm relaxing at home.
Corey Stewart: Outside.
Corey Stewart: I get a chance to watch some stuff out there. We have a pool in the backyard, but there's a couple outdoor TVs that are facing out towards the pool, so I can put something on out there. So, yeah, that's… that's gonna be my typical day, enjoying life, living the dream.
Stephen Skorski: That's… I mean, that's okay, that's really interesting. I didn't… I didn't know… I didn't know the applied physics and chemistry background. So you, you worked in industry.
Stephen Skorski: And it was fine, but, you know, location wasn't perfect, and you didn't… you didn't love it. It wasn't like… is that right? I mean, did it not kind of scratch a certain itch that…
Corey Stewart: It was… it was interesting work, it was.
Corey Stewart: worked on part of the guidance system of some of the nuclear missiles that are in some of the submarines out there. So it was… it was very cool stuff, but…
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Corey Stewart: Again, I…
Corey Stewart: it was… it was demanding. The first year that I worked there, we weren't given any… we had weekends off, but we were given, like, 5 holidays, but we were not allowed to use any vacation time other than that.
Corey Stewart: We got paid once a month. It was, that was tough to get used to. So…
Corey Stewart: I didn't regret leaving that profession. I look back on it fondly, but I have some stories that I can tell my kids now about being, you know, the real-world applications of what you can see in science, what we do in class.
Corey Stewart: That's where I use it now.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Corey Stewart: Yeah, that's awesome. That, I mean, yeah, what a great way to… well, it's interesting, right, because you, I suspect.
Stephen Skorski: have these great stories about work, right? I mean, just what you just told me, right? Yeah. Guidance systems, you know what I mean? Like, you know, you hear things like that, and your mind starts to kind of, you know, fill in the gaps and paint pictures, but then you also have this movie thing that I suspect
Stephen Skorski: really helps to relate to the kids that you're teaching. I don't know, is that true? Is that a fair statement?
Corey Stewart: Yeah, I bring in a lot of, references to movies that they may or may not have seen, and
Corey Stewart: I don't show very much, but, you know, they're all… whenever we talk about, I don't know, let's say…
Corey Stewart: conservation of momentum. I'll…
Corey Stewart: get the example of the movie Wally, when Wally's out in space, and he has the fire extinguisher, shooting the fire extinguisher one way, and he's going the opposite direction, and he's guiding himself that way, so…
Corey Stewart: Stuff like that, you know.
Stephen Skorski: So very, actually, really one-to-one practical.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, alright, that's… and these are high school? High school kids?
Corey Stewart: Yeah, they're mainly juniors and seniors, and probably 90% going on to college, so they want to be there, which makes my job very easy.
Corey Stewart: And I have very small classes this year. They average between… my average class size this year is probably 15.
Stephen Skorski: It's beautiful. Oh my gosh. That's, yeah, perfect.
Corey Stewart: I'm gonna add to that next year. I'd like to… I don't want…
Corey Stewart: Some of my classes to be, like, collapsed in and… I want…
Corey Stewart: to offer new things, so next year, for the first time, I'm offering astronomy to the students.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, wow.
Corey Stewart: Got a bunch of kids that wanted to sign up for that as an elective, so… That's exciting, yeah.
Stephen Skorski: That's awesome. That's fantastic. That's actually… no, that is, that's really… I mean, what a great… I'm… you know, teaching is so fulfilling.
Stephen Skorski: When you feel like you're reaching the kids.
Stephen Skorski: And I, you know, I'm gathering.
Corey Stewart: You know that, of course. How's your job going?
Stephen Skorski: It's great, yeah. I mean, it's the best. It's the best job. The students are amazing, and
Stephen Skorski: you know, couldn't, couldn't ask for really anything more than, you know, being able to spend time with them, and, you know, but I, that's what I'm saying, I really appreciate the things that I can connect with.
Stephen Skorski: that are outside of the immediate subject that we're talking about, you know? So, whether it's… you know, and for me, a lot of it is music, right? You know, things like that. Yeah, yeah.
Stephen Skorski: So yeah, no, it's awesome. But it's interesting, you were, you know, you kind of just briefly mentioned about how you watch your movies, and so now I have this very incomplete, and maybe you can fill in the gaps, picture of what your home is like. So I imagine…
Stephen Skorski: If somebody walked into your home.
Stephen Skorski: there would be some things that would tip them off that you were, what do I say? Do I say… are you a movie collector? Are you a.
Corey Stewart: I am.
Stephen Skorski: Are you a historian? Like, what, you know, what do you, what would you label yourself?
Corey Stewart: a consumer, that's for sure. I consume just about any type of movie that I'll watch. I can find redeeming qualities in most anything that I watch.
Corey Stewart: But when you walk in our house,
Corey Stewart: There's a… there's a screen outside as you're coming up towards the front door, but it's behind, like, a little shutter system, so you can pull that up. That's where my wife and I were last night, out watching The Running Man.
Stephen Skorski: In the front of the house. Like, the front porch kind of style?
Corey Stewart: There's a pavered area that I put in a couple years ago, a couple summers ago, that's, I don't know, maybe 20 feet by 16 feet.
Corey Stewart: And then we have, like, a…
Corey Stewart: Couch, loveseat, couple chairs out there that, we can watch.
Corey Stewart: on a… it's like a 50-inch TV that's out there on the side of the garage.
Stephen Skorski: So, if I was driving down the road passing your house last night, I would have seen you and your wife watching a movie.
Corey Stewart: Yes, we have… we don't… our neighborhood is very, very quiet. We live…
Corey Stewart: it's basically a dead-end street. You go in, and there's a loop, and then you come back out. There's not anybody that comes back in here that's not either delivering for Amazon or who lives here.
Corey Stewart: So, yeah, we all know each other. I invite all the neighbors over in the summertime, and…
Corey Stewart: We watch movies out… outside, inside, we have… let me… if I were to count all the screens in the house.
Stephen Skorski: walk me through… I got so caught up on… and we're gonna… I gotta come back to this, but I want to hear the rest… give me the rest of the layout, right? My architectural mind is like, I'm filling in the floor plan, as you're describing, so I got the entryway, you know, now I walk through the front door, like, give me the rest of it.
Corey Stewart: you walk through the front door, the first thing you'll see on the right is, like, an… it used to be an office, like a library room, but that's where I have my, pinball machine, and my record collection, and,
Corey Stewart: Movie posters, and I like vintage, old stuff, so up in the upper corner, I have four
Corey Stewart: like, old… 70s, 80s, black and white mainly, but one of them's color, little…
Corey Stewart: portable TVs that are hooked up, so that whatever I'm watching anywhere in the house also goes to those TVs if I have them on.
Stephen Skorski: So…
Corey Stewart: If I put on a movie.
Corey Stewart: to watch. It'll be… the way I have the house wired up, it can be on
Corey Stewart: All, like, 15 screens that we have.
Corey Stewart: And, it's fun. So, the library has the, oh, you would appreciate it, it's an Iron Maiden pinball machine.
Stephen Skorski: I appreciate it, and I'm wildly jealous.
Corey Stewart: Yeah, with, anyway, the…
Corey Stewart: that library room is fun, that's where I spend a lot of time. That's where my record player is. Didn't mention it before, but I have a record player at school that I have the kids request music, and I bring it in for them. We listen to it when we're doing labs and things. Cool. They get an appreciation of records as well. Alright, so…
Corey Stewart: Then, if you, continue into the main living area, there's a…
Corey Stewart: the… my main TV that we watch stuff in the living room with is a… is a nice Pioneer Plasma TV that I've had for, oh, going on 20 years now, but it's a 60-inch
Corey Stewart: And it's… has a beautiful picture on it, so that's where my wife watches all of her reality TV, and if we're watching something together, it's usually there.
Corey Stewart: There's also a little pool table in the… in that living room. It's just that my wife and I, we don't have any kids, so…
Corey Stewart: We don't have a need for a, like, a dining room area, so we chose to put a pool table in there instead.
Stephen Skorski: There's a…
Corey Stewart: Electronic darts in there, if we want to play that.
Corey Stewart: And then, as you're walking through the living room, you'll see the back…
Corey Stewart: Is, some big glass sliders that open up to the back.
Corey Stewart: Pool area. And in that pool cage, we have an 18-foot wide by 10 foot tall screen that's mounted.
Corey Stewart: to the, to the screw… to the cage.
Corey Stewart: And we can watch movies after it gets dark, we can watch movies back there from a projector.
Corey Stewart: I'll be.
Stephen Skorski: is it? How big is the screen?
Corey Stewart: 18 feet wide by… it's… I think it's 18 by 10 and a half feet tall.
Stephen Skorski: Wow, that's so cool. Alright, great, great.
Corey Stewart: Well, a few weeks ago, the one that I had up there, got torn to shreds with a windstorm that we had here, so I had to…
Corey Stewart: Get a replacement for it, so that'll be installed for this coming summer's movies that we do.
Corey Stewart: And then if you come back one of the hallways, I've converted one of the three bedrooms in the house into, like, a theater room. So I have another project… this is where I'm sitting right now, is I have a projector above me.
Corey Stewart: And there's a 100-inch projection screen in front of me.
Corey Stewart: 3… no, 4 TV… 5 TVs around the screen.
Corey Stewart: So that on Football Sundays, I can have the Steelers on the main screen, the red zone up on top, and then 4 other games on the side TVs.
Corey Stewart: This room is, probably my favorite room in the house. It, it has four, like, theater-style reclining, power recliner seats,
Corey Stewart: 4 other manual recliners in here, and there's a closet that pulls my Blu-ray collection, and a kegerator, so…
Corey Stewart: Fun, fun room. It had so much electronics in it that when we moved in, it was the hottest room in the house, so I have a couple friends in the AC business, and
Corey Stewart: They came over, and we installed another air conditioning run just to the closet where all the electronics are that run for the house, all the audio-visual stuff.
Stephen Skorski: Wow. Yeah, I mean, of course. So, okay, see, you… alright, so in that room, you have…
Stephen Skorski: One large viewing surface.
Corey Stewart: Yes.
Stephen Skorski: And then you said 5 other TV… other screens.
Corey Stewart: Yes, 3 of them are, like, flat screen, 32-inch. Below that, I have a, old-school CRT that has a DVD and VHS that I can use in it.
Corey Stewart: And then up above the main screen, there's maybe a 42-inch TV up there.
Stephen Skorski: And you can… and you can run… you can run these all independently if you wanted to, or you could sync them all up.
Corey Stewart: Correct.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Stephen Skorski: That's… okay. Alright.
Corey Stewart: I've got… so back here, I guess, 1, 2, 3… so 6 screens back here. I've got…
Corey Stewart: 5… there are four of those small TVs and a larger CRT in the library area.
Corey Stewart: So that's 10 so far.
Corey Stewart: There's one in the bedroom, the living room.
Corey Stewart: two outside, plus the big screen, so I think we're up to 15 screens. Oh, 16 in the front of the house, and one in the garage. So, maybe 17. But they're not all… they're just for convenience sake, you know, I'm not putting something on all of them at the same time, normally.
Stephen Skorski: Right, right.
Corey Stewart: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, alright.
Corey Stewart: So, it might be a little excessive, maybe, I don't know.
Stephen Skorski: No, I mean, okay, so, no, it's amazing. It's so…
Stephen Skorski: It's fascinating to me. Now, let me… okay.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, God.
Corey Stewart: Oh, I was… no, I have nothing.
Stephen Skorski: No, what I was gonna ask… I mean, I have, like, 7… so many questions right now,
Stephen Skorski: But the… the one thing I…
Stephen Skorski: do want to ask about is the social aspect, and I want you to hold off on the, on the summer movie series yet, because I want to hear that kind of in its… in its just sort of package, right, the full thing. But just as a general question.
Stephen Skorski: This sounds like a potentially very social activity.
Corey Stewart: Yes.
Stephen Skorski: I mean, it could be very solitary, but when you talk about having this thing in the front of your house, I just imagine people driving by and just being like, oh, look, Cory's outside, you know, Corey and Karen are outside, you know.
Corey Stewart: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Stephen Skorski: just rolling up and being like, hey man, what's going on? Is that, does that happen? Is that true?
Corey Stewart: We have… mainly, it's gonna be people walking their dogs around, and they'll stop and say hi, stop for 5 minutes, and talk to us, and then move on their way. But…
Corey Stewart: normally, we don't watch a lot of stuff out in the front. We… I put that out there more for, you know, when we do the summer thing, so if someone wants… if there's a group of people that want to go out there and watch what we're watching, they can, but
Corey Stewart: once, you know, every couple weeks. In the wintertime, it's nice to be out front instead of in the back, because we can have a little bonfire going in our little solo stove out there. Keep it warm.
Corey Stewart: So… It's just been in the last…
Corey Stewart: I don't know, 7 or 8 months that we've had the TV out there, and I just put an enclosure around it about 2 months ago.
Corey Stewart: Okay. I mean, it's just… Before that, I was just manually putting it out there when we'd want to watch something and taking it down. Now it's out there permanently.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, okay. Yeah, I mean, it just sounds like such an interesting take on the front porch.
Corey Stewart: I guess so. Yeah, last night we had, 4 or 5 groups of people, not groups, but people that were walking by, and they'd stop, and…
Corey Stewart: Say hi, and ask how we're doing, and see what we're watching, and…
Corey Stewart: you know, if they want to stay, they're always welcome to. We have…
Corey Stewart: friends that'll come over for a movie, and we'll sometimes watch outside in the front. So, yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Okay. Yeah, no, I mean, again, I think,
Stephen Skorski: You know, one of the sad things, I think, from an architectural point of view, is that front porches have…
Stephen Skorski: Largely gone away. In terms of, like, functioning as, you know, community-building spaces.
Stephen Skorski: You know, they, you know, if they exist, they're there, but, you know, people don't feel particularly comfortable just sort of walking up on your porch anymore. You know, there's not an expectation that this would happen, you know, in most neighborhoods. But when you're out there.
Stephen Skorski: and you're watching… I mean, that's almost like a…
Stephen Skorski: like, like a lighthouse. Like, I, you know what I mean, you know what I mean? Like, that's an invitation. That is sort of an unspoken invitation, and I love that. I mean, do you feel that? Does that feel good for you?
Corey Stewart: And I agree with you wholeheartedly. I mean, it's not like… when we were growing up, we'd watch the sitcoms or whatever, and everybody's hanging out on the front porch and talking to their neighbors, but we don't get that anymore. It's more of a solitary world, it seems, with
Corey Stewart: Everybody on their screens, and…
Corey Stewart: I do appreciate that, our neighbors feel comfortable enough to just, you know, stop by and say hi, and…
Corey Stewart: If they want to stay, stay. If they want to get warm by the fire, that's fine. So, yeah, I agree.
Stephen Skorski: That's all… I mean, that's amazing. What's so interesting to me is that I think when most people would think about movie watching.
Stephen Skorski: It feels very solitary, maybe with another person.
Stephen Skorski: But you, you have turned it into something communal.
Corey Stewart: Yep.
Stephen Skorski: I am… How intentional do you think that has been?
Corey Stewart: Let me start with the… the very first movie-going experiences that I can ever remember were going to… I was 4 years old going to see Star Wars at the drive-in theaters.
Corey Stewart: And the drive-in theater is really what I'm trying to strive for here. The sense of, you know, everybody watching the same thing at the same time, even though you're in different cars or whatever, it's kind of a communal, you know, get-together place to watch something together.
Corey Stewart: And I've got, in the back, I've got, you know, old drive-in movie
Corey Stewart: speakers that I have, that I've hooked up that I… you can listen to the sound through those if you want to, so…
Corey Stewart: It's an intentional…
Corey Stewart: trying to get people to get together to watch something, and I try to pick movies, you know, that are…
Corey Stewart: Good, crowd-pleasing movies, whether they… you know, we'll have a horror night or whatever.
Corey Stewart: Comedy night, whatever.
Corey Stewart: But I try to…
Corey Stewart: get things that I think people would want to watch together. So, we'll get to that stuff later, but .
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, no, I mean, I… Yeah.
Corey Stewart: But, depending on the crowd,
Corey Stewart: Sometimes, my favorite place to watch is in this back room.
Corey Stewart: And that's where the best…
Corey Stewart: theater-going experience is. It's inside, it's in a darkened room, the windows are blacked out,
Corey Stewart: It has the best sound system, and…
Corey Stewart: We can do regular movies or 3D movies,
Corey Stewart: So it's a lot of fun back here.
Corey Stewart: when people are back here, I noticed that they are not on their phones. If they're out in the other places, everybody's, you know, they're all connected sometimes on their phones, but back here, it's more of a…
Corey Stewart: I don't know, unspoken rule that, it's…
Corey Stewart: More to involve yourself with the movie, and be there with a few people, you know?
Stephen Skorski: I mean, isn't it awesome that, like you said, it's an unspoken rule, and my guess is people don't even… don't think of it that way at all, right? You have provided an environment where they don't want to reach for the phone.
Corey Stewart: Could be, I don't, I don't know. It's, yeah.
Corey Stewart: And my wife, I think she humors me with this entire thing a little bit, but she enjoys it, too.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, oh my god, yeah. So, tell me, alright, rewind a little bit, because that actually… it's great that you shifted to that drive-in
Stephen Skorski: Kind of experience, because that's kind of where I wanted to go, is like, okay, we know where you're at now, now take us back, and maybe it's that moment, or… but what's the earliest movie-watching experience that really made an impact, or just stayed with you? Is it that drive-in experience?
Corey Stewart: Yeah, it was. I believe…
Corey Stewart: I went with my family, and then I went with my friend's family to the drive-in theater to watch Star Wars again. I think I saw it 3 times. We had 2 drive-in theaters that were pretty close to us.
Corey Stewart: growing up in, rural Pennsylvania, and it was… those…
Corey Stewart: I mean, I couldn't get enough Star Wars when I was a kid. I was into the toys and everything, and when the movies came out.
Corey Stewart: But it was…
Corey Stewart: whenever my family chose to go to the movies, we made a day of it. We made, you know, we'd go out, and we'd go to the movies, and get the popcorn and enjoy it, but it was not something we did all the time.
Corey Stewart: And I cherish those moments of going to see, you know, Back to the Future, or…
Corey Stewart: Raiders of the Lost Ark, those movies are iconic that we still think of today.
Corey Stewart: And… that… But the other thing was.
Corey Stewart: I grew up… grew up in a very, Christian.
Corey Stewart: family, and it was church every day, every Sunday, and another… they didn't want to…
Corey Stewart: My parents didn't want to spend money on I'd say…
Corey Stewart: when I went to an arc… I never went to an arcade unless we had a coupon for, like, a free token or something. That stuff was just frivolous stuff. They didn't think you should, you know, own VHS tapes or anything, it was just money you're just thrown down the tube, so I don't know if…
Corey Stewart: repressing that in me then just made me burst forth with it later in life, but I kind of feel like that did, because I always wanted to have a way of watching those things again, and we never even got cable
Corey Stewart: cable TV. We were just using antenna for, like, 3 channels up until, oh, I was well into high school.
Corey Stewart: And into the… I think it was maybe the late 80s where we finally broke down and got basic cable.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, well, kind of… I was in a similar boat,
Stephen Skorski: We, we, I mean, we… I don't… I don't think we got cable until I was out of, of, of, high school. Oh, wow. Yeah, we had, like, this little,
Stephen Skorski: it was a… I don't know, maybe… like, my… the first TV that we had, that I remember in our house, was, like, a 12-inch black-and-white TV, that my grandparents… it was, like, their hand-me-down.
Stephen Skorski: And yeah, and it was, you know, it had the… had the rabbit ears, and it had the dial on the side, and, you know, that dial underneath it that was supposed to help with, like, reception. Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: And yeah, you know, we got, I guess maybe 7… you know, it was 2 through 13, but maybe 5 of them didn't have anything, you know? Right.
Corey Stewart: Right.
Stephen Skorski: We have the UHF…
Corey Stewart: You could twist that and get a couple channels up in that.
Corey Stewart: Range of the, the dial, but…
Corey Stewart: Yeah, it was… yeah, we got, you know, ABC, NBC, CBS, and PBS, and that was about it.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But there was something,
Stephen Skorski: It does make you appreciate, and it also makes… you know, but it… it makes you appreciate things
Stephen Skorski: But it does connect you with the greater population, because most people only had those choices. And so, you know, you could kind of know, like, if I saw this thing last night, there's a good chance.
Corey Stewart: Orange.
Stephen Skorski: Saw this thing also, which was very nice and kind of comforting.
Corey Stewart: Yeah, we all watched, you know, whatever it was, Dukes of Hazzard, Knight Rider, or whatever, and talked about it at school.
Stephen Skorski: Knight Rider. Oh, man. So go back to this, go back to the drive-in. When you think about the drive-in experience, is that just sort of, flashes?
Corey Stewart: Yeah, I don't…
Stephen Skorski: these pictures, or do you have a more… yeah, tell me about what you remember, and then, if that's just flashes, give me the next version where you have a more continuous kind of memory of the experience.
Corey Stewart: Well, the drive-ins when I was a kid,
Corey Stewart: I don't remember much about it, just…
Corey Stewart: other than going to see Star Wars, and…
Corey Stewart: But, and then once I was in high school, and
Corey Stewart: Started dating, then we would go to the drive-ins more often, things like that.
Corey Stewart: So, I enjoyed the experience of, you know, going out and driving
Corey Stewart: To a place, and watching a movie, or… it was usually a double bill.
Corey Stewart: And, it was just a… I don't know, it just…
Corey Stewart: it's something that we don't really have much anymore. I mean, there might be 3 of those drive-ins left in Florida now, you know? They're pretty much gone.
Corey Stewart: But it was whenever I was in…
Corey Stewart: high school, and I wanted to see some movies. We had, you know, VHS, and I started I think…
Corey Stewart: Well…
Corey Stewart: going to the movies was a lot of fun with my dad. I remember he introduced me to my first James Bond film, and first Clint Eastwood film, and things like that, where he was
Corey Stewart: I think wanting me to…
Corey Stewart: enjoy things that he did as well, and I do, I… you know, I look back on those movies fondly.
Corey Stewart: My first Clint Eastwood movie that I saw was,
Corey Stewart: Firefox, which was a… a weird one to see as your first Clint Eastwood film, because it's about him in a…
Corey Stewart: As a…
Corey Stewart: operative in Russia trying to steal their, plane, in the 80s, and one thing that I remember
Corey Stewart: From that movie was…
Corey Stewart: there was a scene in it that I think I was maybe a little too young to see where… and it wasn't nudity or anything like that, it was, they lined up… the Russians lined up a…
Corey Stewart: Bunch of their scientists, and just gunned them down with,
Corey Stewart: with machine guns, and that… that stuck with me well after I watched that movie, and I would… I don't know what it was, but just that scene…
Corey Stewart: stuck with me. Don't know where I was going with that, but .
Stephen Skorski: And how old were you at the time?
Corey Stewart: Well, at the… I was probably 10.
Corey Stewart: No, I would have been less than that. I think maybe 9? It came out in 82, so I was…
Corey Stewart: no more than 9 years old at the time. I guess I was probably old enough, but again, being…
Corey Stewart: raised in such a Christian household, we… we didn't seek out R-rated films and things like that. I was, you know, kind of pushed away from watching that stuff, so… it had an effect on me.
Corey Stewart: But then, once that opened up, then I was curious about other types of movies, and
Corey Stewart: I mean, my parents never, ever watched horror films or anything, but that's my favorite genre now, and it has been since…
Corey Stewart: Pretty much when I was in high school.
Corey Stewart: One of the first VHS films that I bought at a Suncoast video was, Hellraiser, and I'd never seen the movie before.
Corey Stewart: Came in a 2-pack, and
Corey Stewart: That movie scared the living daylights out of me.
Corey Stewart: I watched that by myself in the basement after everyone went to bed, and yeah, I didn't sleep that night.
Corey Stewart: So…
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: First of all, that's very funny about the scene.
Stephen Skorski: Not that it seems funny, but the fact that you ended up being a physicist…
Stephen Skorski: chemists. You know, I mean, very quickly, we've got.
Corey Stewart: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: We have figured out the trajectory of your life. It was, like, planned at, like, 9. You're like, I'm gonna be a scientist, because screw those Russians.
Corey Stewart: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: I'm gonna collect movies because we don't have them in the house.
Corey Stewart: Done. Yeah, you know what? I shouldn't pay a therapist for that, though. Thank you very much.
Stephen Skorski: You're welcome, you're welcome. Okay, so I have, I wanna ask you more things about all of this, but I thought this would be fun, because you watch movies, obviously, in a way that most people don't, and certainly not the way I do. So I'm gonna give you some… on occasion, I'm gonna take a little break and just give you some… just the quick hitters. These are just…
Stephen Skorski: gut reaction, you… this is, like, either or, yes or no. You just basically have to pick.
Stephen Skorski: And we're gonna start off as simple as can be, and then we'll go back to the regular questions, and then… and I, you know, I was thinking about this?
Stephen Skorski: I, like you, I also loved the drive-in, and I loved the intermission. I mean, I love the movies, I love the double feature.
Corey Stewart: But the intermission was really a magical… Yeah, it is.
Stephen Skorski: No. Loved it.
Corey Stewart: I try to keep that here as well, so we'll talk about that at some point.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, and I… and I know that about you, so knowing that, I thought, you know what, I'm gonna… I'm gonna insert little intermissions into our conversation, and it's gonna be these… so, okay, here's… so the first one is just, the theme is performers, and you just… you just have to pick.
Stephen Skorski: No, no, no wrong answers here. Alright. De Niro or Pacino?
Corey Stewart: De Niro. As a body of work, I like his stuff a lot better.
Corey Stewart: I, you know, I have a soft spot for both of them being in
Corey Stewart: you know, the Godfather films, but I think the career trajectory was much better with De Niro than it was with Pacino. If you try to watch any of his latest stuff.
Corey Stewart: it's not really that good. I think. So, yeah, I'll go De Niro on that.
Stephen Skorski: Alright, Hanks… Tom Hanks, Harrison Ford.
Corey Stewart: Dang.
Stephen Skorski: And again, just top of your mind, just, these are quick, this is gut reaction time.
Corey Stewart: as performers, I would say Tom Hanks. As one that I…
Corey Stewart: enjoy more of his movies, I would go Harrison Ford.
Stephen Skorski: That's true.
Corey Stewart: Because of the iconic characters that he's portrayed in a lot of the movies that I love.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, alright, I get it. Very non-committal, very, very very political.
Corey Stewart: That's familiar with Brandeis.
Stephen Skorski: Meryl Streep?
Stephen Skorski: Or Cate Blanchett.
Corey Stewart: Yeah, trying to…
Stephen Skorski: Just cut. Just feel it.
Corey Stewart: Cate Blanchett.
Stephen Skorski: Alright.
Corey Stewart: Yeah, I,
Corey Stewart: It's a… it's a neither nor for that one for me, almost. I mean, I appreciate their… their work, I'm just not mesmerized when they're on the screen. I don't know. I know that they're accomplished actresses, and they…
Corey Stewart: Yeah, it's, it's… yeah, I don't know.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, you're going neither.
Stephen Skorski: pass. That's a hard pass.
Corey Stewart: Not a hard pass, I just… Mmm…
Stephen Skorski: No worries. Again, these are… these are quick. This is an aside, this is no, this is no stress zone. This is, this is, you know… So, let's, Denzel Washington or Brad Pitt?
Corey Stewart: Denzo.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, Viola Davis, Francis McDormand.
Corey Stewart: Francis McDormand.
Stephen Skorski: Alright, Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock.
Corey Stewart: Sandra Bullock.
Stephen Skorski: Okay. DiCaprio, Morgan Freeman.
Corey Stewart: I'll go DiCaprio.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, we got 2 more.
Corey Stewart: Okay.
Stephen Skorski: Jack Nicholson, Anthony Hopkins.
Corey Stewart: Hopkins.
Stephen Skorski: Interesting. Alright, last one, Daniel Day-Lewis, Christian Bale.
Corey Stewart: Daniel Day-Lewis.
Stephen Skorski: Alright, alright.
Corey Stewart: Good.
Stephen Skorski: Alright. Once I took the, the pressure off me, it was a little easier to…
Corey Stewart: cut through the fog with those.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, no, that's the thing, we just, you know, I don't think that many people…
Stephen Skorski: Get to pick the brain of somebody who's watching
Stephen Skorski: 50 to 60 movies a month.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah. Really, I mean, that is, you know, really… it's amazing. I mean, it's really cool. So, so then, when… when do you think, right, maybe you can identify, when did movies shift from something that you enjoyed.
Stephen Skorski: To something that you started keeping.
Corey Stewart: Probably started with Columbia House. When I started with their CD club in the 80s, they also came out with a movie club, and I started… I think I got 5 movies, and I was able to watch them over and over, and
Corey Stewart: Yeah, those… I mean, they weren't…
Corey Stewart: let me think if I can even remember what they were. It was like, Top Gun, Days of Thunder…
Corey Stewart: I think I had Caddyshack, Major League, and
Corey Stewart: Maybe Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.
Corey Stewart: And I was able to watch those over and over. And from there, I grew…
Corey Stewart: when I was out, I'd, you know, I would… one of my favorite places at the mall was Suncoast Video, because they would always, you know.
Corey Stewart: have decent deals on some movies, and I'd usually pick up one or two. It was my place to go to.
Corey Stewart: Liked that, and I loved, Camelot Music and Walden books.
Corey Stewart: But… I started growing the VHS collection.
Corey Stewart: And it got to be a few hundred.
Corey Stewart: And then… DVDs came out in, let's say, 97, I think, and I…
Corey Stewart: got a DVD player pretty early.
Corey Stewart: and then started collecting some DVDs, and then ended up on a website selling pretty much all my VHS.
Corey Stewart: to try to get upgraded versions on DVD.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Corey Stewart: And then ended up selling most of my DVD collection when Blu-ray came out.
Corey Stewart: And that was, you know, maybe 2010 or so.
Corey Stewart: And then, once I had a large collection of Blu-rays, many of them had the digital code on the inside, so I would… redeem those digital codes on… at the time, it was ultraviolet, and there were other places, but
Corey Stewart: then I started into a digital…
Corey Stewart: like, a service called Voodoo at… it was probably about 2012 or so, and I had all those ultraviolet movies
Corey Stewart: In there, and they also had a…
Corey Stewart: a way that you could put a Blu-ray or DVD into your computer, it would read it, figure out what it was.
Corey Stewart: It then just, You could prove that you had the movie, and then you could…
Corey Stewart: purchase that movie digitally for $2, or if you did 10 at a time, it cut the price in half, so it was a dollar a movie. So I went through, and with my entire Blu-ray collection, I was able to start my digital collection with maybe
Corey Stewart: I don't know, 500 copies for not too much money.
Corey Stewart: And from there, it's just grown every year, and I've…
Corey Stewart: Cut off buying a lot of let's say,
Corey Stewart: Physical media, and grown the digital
Corey Stewart: side quite a bit more, but I still… there's a lot of movies out there that you can't find on
Corey Stewart: digital services at all. I mean, you can't find a… you cannot find a…
Corey Stewart: a digital copy of, let's say, Young Frankenstein.
Corey Stewart: You can't… Really? Cocoon from 1985 is not… there's a ton of movies that you can't get besides physical copies.
Corey Stewart: And now it's even becoming a problem with, let's say, Netflix and those type of services that want to keep hold of their catalog. They're only online, but they don't release a lot. Once in a while, maybe a Stranger Things season here or there. They don't release a lot on physical media, so… and then they'll…
Corey Stewart: for a lot of their movies that they've made, or some TV shows, they stop
Corey Stewart: Streaming it, and it's kind of like lost media if they don't ever bring it back.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Corey Stewart: So I, I tend to still enjoy
Corey Stewart: the physical act, kind of like with, you know, you and I with records, of taking a disc out, putting it in, and playing it, and…
Corey Stewart: Enjoying it that way, and a decent amount
Corey Stewart: and I've done this not only with, Blu-rays, but… I have…
Corey Stewart: DVDs that have never been upgraded to Blu-rays, I have…
Corey Stewart: a bunch of Laserdiscs, mainly music Laserdiscs, that were never put on any
Corey Stewart: they were never put on, let's say, DVD or anything further than that, so…
Stephen Skorski: Okay, so, give me the… give me the present count. What are we talking here? How many… how many DVDs, how many Blu-rays, how many, you know…
Corey Stewart: Dvds, probably in the low…
Corey Stewart: I don't know, maybe 100 or so of those. Not… not much there. Okay. Blu-rays, I think I'm around 800 on there.
Corey Stewart: And then… Laserdiscs, it's a niche type of thing, maybe… 80 of those?
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Corey Stewart: Vhs, I still have a lot, and again, it's mainly for music concerts and things that were not released beyond VHS or Laserdisc.
Corey Stewart: I have maybe, maybe about a hundred… VHS.
Corey Stewart: And then, once we get to the digital realm.
Corey Stewart: Tv shows, I'm up over 900 TV shows, and over 10,000 movies.
Corey Stewart: Which, yeah, it's… It's… it's, I guess… Mmm, that's… Do I have a problem?
Stephen Skorski: Well, okay, so…
Corey Stewart: At least I've watched, you know, more than three-quarters of the movies that I own, and there's always something out there that I haven't watched that I have that I can, you know, have lots of choices.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, I mean, that's… it's amazing. So, but so this begs the question, do… and I kind of asked you before, and not sure that I really understood, like, do you think of yourself as a collector, or just someone who loves movies?
Corey Stewart: at this point, I do consider myself a collector, because… I… if you go…
Corey Stewart: if you go onto a website like Just Watch, it's a place where you can search for any movie, and it'll tell you where it's streaming, what it costs at, like, Prime, or Voodoo, or Apple, or wherever. It'll show you all the different places you can stream it for free, or where you can buy it, or rent it.
Corey Stewart: You can filter their… the entire, like, online
Corey Stewart: Communities of all the different streaming services, and see what they all have to offer.
Corey Stewart: And they range, like, if you go to Netflix, currently they have
Corey Stewart: Around 3,500 movies in total that they're streaming.
Corey Stewart: Now, when they were a disc company, you had access to well over 100,000 movies.
Stephen Skorski: Wow.
Corey Stewart: Now that they are streaming, they've pared that down, and they bring stuff in and take stuff out, but it's never…
Corey Stewart: Really ever above 4,000 movies.
Corey Stewart: Smaller services like, Shudder, which does horror movies, they hover right around 500 to 600 movies that they stream.
Corey Stewart: Prime is one of the larger ones. They have all sorts of stuff that they consider a movie, which, I mean, it might be even somebody with a camera out their back door watching a bird feeder, they consider that to be a movie that they have on their site.
Corey Stewart: But, they have, like, 20,000 movies.
Corey Stewart: So…
Corey Stewart: I would… I'm at the point where I could probably cut off all my streaming services and not have to worry about it for the rest of my life.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, let me make sure I… I mean, I know I heard it right, but I just want to just follow up with this.
Stephen Skorski: So you're saying Netflix, when they were handling physical media, mailing you the DVDs, that they had over 100,000…
Corey Stewart: Hot.
Stephen Skorski: in their titles, in their catalog.
Corey Stewart: will be TV along with movies, but yes.
Stephen Skorski: Okay. Yeah, yeah. And now they're down to, like, 4,000.
Corey Stewart: Yes.
Stephen Skorski: Wow.
Stephen Skorski: Man, that's… boy, talk about the power of the gatekeeper.
Corey Stewart: Yeah, true. And a lot of it has to do with deals that the studios make, like,
Corey Stewart: once Disney started buying up Fox and all these other
Corey Stewart: they own, like, what, National Geographic? I think they're all under that… that umbrella.
Corey Stewart: They have all the Marvel movies, the Star Wars movies, they have the Fox movies, so they're very… they're not gonna really let those over to Netflix, you know, so you've got to pick and choose what you want to watch, and you're gonna be subscribing to a bunch of different services to get everything.
Stephen Skorski: Otherwise, I'm happy to have.
Corey Stewart: all of those movies in my collection that I don't have to ever worry about.
Corey Stewart: Well, unless the service goes down, you know.
Stephen Skorski: Sure. Right, right, right. Well, so how do you… I mean, how do you feel about this? You know, as someone who is obviously incredibly invested, and I don't mean monetarily, although that clearly is a part of it, but just emotionally invested into this world, what is your take on this…
Stephen Skorski: gatekeeping… yeah, again, and I don't mean that in, like, a nefarious way, although it probably could be used that way. Yeah, what's your feeling about this?
Corey Stewart: There are… I feel like,
Corey Stewart: Even though it seems like we have more choices, we're being limited quite a bit from what
Corey Stewart: we could have. And it gets worse the more streaming services that there are. You know, Peacock's gonna have the entire
Corey Stewart: NBC catalog of, they have the Universal movies on there.
Corey Stewart: So, Universal's not gonna be on Disney, and the Fox stuff's never gonna be on Netflix, and it's just… it's… Paramount has…
Corey Stewart: their own streaming service, and it goes with CBS, and…
Corey Stewart: all those CBS shows are on there, and the Paramount movies will all be streaming there. You're not gonna watch Top Gun over on Netflix, because it's, you know.
Corey Stewart: it's just a strange world that we're growing up in, because it seemed like streaming was gonna be, oh, you get to subscribe to Netflix, and maybe, something to watch your TV stuff on, and you're good to go. But it's…
Corey Stewart: it's very limited, and it seems to be even more limited the more time each of these… because we're all… I don't know about you, but I subscribe to a few things. Some of it's…
Stephen Skorski: Crap. Yeah.
Corey Stewart: And I feel like I should go through and just start axing away a lot of it, because I don't need it anymore.
Corey Stewart: Now that I've built up this library.
Corey Stewart: And… it's… I don't know, it's…
Corey Stewart: when I first saw what Netflix had, when I was checking it around.
Corey Stewart: And I saw that I was… I think at the time, Netflix might have had 3,200 movies on their streaming service, and I was at, like, 2,500 movies that I had in my catalog of digital movies. Like, that doesn't seem right. That seems very, very strange that that was all that they had.
Corey Stewart: And it's never… they fluctuate up and down a little bit, but it's never, you know, what you think Netflix should be would be this overarching
Corey Stewart: One-stop place for all the movies, and it isn't that anymore.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Corey Stewart: you know.
Stephen Skorski: So…
Corey Stewart: Oh, another thing, another part of my, my movie experience was, I would…
Corey Stewart: I was a member of
Corey Stewart: Netflix for the DVD in, you know, sending them back and forth in the mail. Yeah. And I would always… I had a way that I would take those discs and copy them, so I had a… I had boxes of, you know, copied movies that I've since thrown away, but I used to collect them that way as well.
Corey Stewart: Hmm.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, that's always a nice little entry point into,
Corey Stewart: The piracy, yeah.
Stephen Skorski: No, no, I was gonna say, no, I was gonna say, there is a disclaimer. There's no, advocating for piracy.
Corey Stewart: No, no.
Stephen Skorski: in this conversation.
Corey Stewart: I hope that the, I hope that the, statute of limitations has gone away from that.
Corey Stewart: I don't think Netflix is coming after me for that.
Stephen Skorski: No, I don't think so. But if… okay, so… but if…
Stephen Skorski: And I'm thinking about things a little bit, and I don't want to put words into your mouth, but,
Stephen Skorski: if movies and TV shows, are cultural artifacts, and I think that's a fair statement, because I think, you know, institutions like the Smithsonian and, you know, other, other, you know, kind of well-respected, you know, warehouses of these things,
Stephen Skorski: Include, this type of communication or storytelling.
Stephen Skorski: If that's true, right, if they are these cultural artifacts, and now we're talking about…
Stephen Skorski: Kind of big corporations limiting what people have access to.
Corey Stewart: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Have you ever given this any, you know, kind of depth of thought, or is this… Not really.
Corey Stewart: No, there's, there are channels that I follow on YouTube that, they talk about this quite a bit, that there's gonna be a lot of lost media,
Corey Stewart: That was broadcast, and will never be.
Corey Stewart: brought back again, and not everything was ever put onto, you know, physical media either. There's a lot of films out there that
Corey Stewart: Have come and gone, and they're no longer fires or whatever. We'll never see those works of art again.
Corey Stewart: And it just seems like we're in the digital age, and it seems like everything's available to us all the time, everywhere, but
Corey Stewart: It's not, it's… It's…
Corey Stewart: The companies are picking and choosing what they want us to watch, giving us availability of, you know, some type of choice, but it's not…
Corey Stewart: everything that we think is out there right now. I… I don't know how else to…
Corey Stewart: Say it, but there's gonna be…
Corey Stewart: It just seems like, I don't know.
Corey Stewart: We're gonna lose a lot of…
Corey Stewart: things that you and I grew up with, or…
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Corey Stewart: that, you know, if I don't have kids, but if I were to want to show my grandkids something that I enjoyed as a… as a kid that was kind of niche or not mainstream, it's not going to be…
Corey Stewart: Maybe available, ever.
Stephen Skorski: So, is there a part of your… Collecting brain.
Stephen Skorski: That is, feels more historian.
Stephen Skorski: archivist.
Stephen Skorski: You know, is it…
Corey Stewart: Is this.
Stephen Skorski: You know, do you feel a little bit of a responsibility or an enjoyment in knowing that you are preserving some of these things in a way, or giving access to people to these things in a way that maybe they aren't going to have.
Corey Stewart: angle.
Stephen Skorski: I guess, kind of. What I'm…
Corey Stewart: Choosing for this summer plays into that a little bit, and we'll talk about that.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Corey Stewart: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, okay, well, let's… alright, let me do a little another intermission, and ask you a few more quick hitters, and then… and then let's talk about the… let's talk about the summertime, because I… like I said, I know briefly kind of what you do, but… but not to the, you know…
Stephen Skorski: I'm really excited to hear this. Okay, so here we go. Again, just quick hitters, just top, just give me the gut reaction.
Stephen Skorski: Airplane or space balls?
Corey Stewart: It's very small.
Stephen Skorski: The Big Lebowski or Anchorman?
Corey Stewart: Big Lebowski over every other movie you're gonna mention.
Stephen Skorski: That was the softball, Corey. Monty Python and the Holy Grail, or Young Frankenstein?
Corey Stewart: Now you're, now that's, that's a…
Corey Stewart: the… the balance of power, I don't know there.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, the Big Lebowski was the easy one, followed by… that was the setup.
Corey Stewart: Alright, I'll do Holy Grail. I've enjoyed my theater-going experiences a few times with that one more.
Stephen Skorski: Alright, great, great. Dumb and Dumber, or Step Brothers?
Corey Stewart: Dumb and Dumber.
Stephen Skorski: Hmm.
Stephen Skorski: Groundhog Day, or Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
Corey Stewart: Ferris Bueller.
Corey Stewart: Yes, Paris Bureau.
Stephen Skorski: I would agree with that. One more. Superbad or the 40-Year-Old Virgin?
Corey Stewart: They both have their dumb humor, but I'll go super bad.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, fantastic.
Stephen Skorski: Back to our regular scheduled programming. Okay, so tell me, tell me about the summer. Like I said, I, I, you know, you briefly mentioned this, you know, to me, you know, maybe, whatever it was, but yeah, give me, paint the full, full picture of…
Stephen Skorski: you know, kind of this… what you do in the summer for yourself and your friends, and, you know, the people around you. Yeah.
Corey Stewart: Let me start off that it wasn't always like it is now. The first year that I did this.
Corey Stewart: was in… let's see, 2012, and we hadn't even moved into our house here yet. It was at our condo.
Corey Stewart: And we just had the same TV that I have out in the living room, we had it at the condo, so it was a one-screen thing, but we invited a bunch of our friends for the summer. Every weekend during the summer, we would watch something, and it was based on all the movies from 1982, so it was 30 years prior.
Corey Stewart: Because 1982 was kind of a magical summer for blockbusters and movies in general.
Corey Stewart: And I have the flyer here from when we did that.
Corey Stewart: But a lot of our friends are also teachers, so we all have the summers off, and it was easy for people to come over and hang out.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Corey Stewart: We started this even before school let out, but…
Corey Stewart: here's the… here's the… the lineup of the movies we had the very first year that we did this in 2012. So, movies from 1982.
Corey Stewart: Conan the Barbarian.
Corey Stewart: The, the Road Warrior.
Corey Stewart: Rocky III.
Corey Stewart: Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan.
Corey Stewart: Poltergeist.
Corey Stewart: E.T.
Corey Stewart: Firefox, we mentioned that one earlier.
Corey Stewart: Blade Runner.
Corey Stewart: the thing.
Corey Stewart: The Secret of NIMH… Tron, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Pink Floyd's The Wall.
Corey Stewart: Friday the 13th, Part 3, in 3D.
Corey Stewart: Halloween 3.
Corey Stewart: and the Dark Crystal.
Stephen Skorski: So we did… we did those, I think it was 16.
Corey Stewart: Movies throughout the summer, and we had people come over.
Corey Stewart: And it was, it was just a chill thing, and…
Corey Stewart: it was a lot of fun. We had people sign a little poster when they came, so we had, throughout the summer, we kept the same poster, and if you came and
Corey Stewart: We still do that to this day. I have a hallway where I just have the, the movie posters.
Corey Stewart: well, I make a poster that people can sign, and it has all the movies on it that we watch during the summer, and everybody that comes during the summer gets to
Corey Stewart: Sign it and say something.
Corey Stewart: But that was the first year we did it. It was very low-key, you know.
Corey Stewart: Had people… we had some snacks there, it wasn't anything big.
Corey Stewart: And then we ended up moving…
Stephen Skorski: Hold on, sorry, one sec. So, so, the first summer, this is essentially in a very typical Florida condominium living room.
Corey Stewart: Yep.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, 16 movies, one a weekend.
Corey Stewart: Kind of. Sometimes it was double features, but yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, okay, and you, you got, you know, you got a couple bowls of popcorn… Yeah.
Corey Stewart: Popcorn.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Corey Stewart: Learned how to make, at that time, learned how to make theater-style popcorn, by doing a lot of research, and still use that same recipe to this day.
Stephen Skorski: Is this a secret, or can you share?
Corey Stewart: No, no, it's not a secret.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, tell us! This is… see, this… this is… you only get things like this, you know, when you're an hour deep into a movie, a conversation about movies. What is the secret to, you know, tell me, how do you make movie-style popcorn?
Corey Stewart: Okay, so I just get, regular popcorn kernels, whether it's Jolly Time or whatever it is in a bag.
Corey Stewart: You need… for the best experience, you need one of those Whirlypop, like, it's a little hand crank thing you put on the stovetop.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Corey Stewart: And… I use… it's a… I think it's a third of a cup of popcorn kernels.
Corey Stewart: First, I get the heat up to medium-high, on that, Whirlypop.
Corey Stewart: And then I pour in, you need coconut oil, and the coconut oil that they use at movie theaters
Corey Stewart: it has this, it's like a beta-carotene that makes it, like, an orange color whenever you see it. There's a white coconut oil.
Corey Stewart: And there's this orange stuff, and the orange stuff is what you want. You can get it… I buy it by the gallon from Amazon.
Stephen Skorski: Cool.
Corey Stewart: And it'll last me an entire summer of movies. But it's… it's solid at room temperature.
Corey Stewart: And then, if you hold it in your hand, it melts. So, it's that kind of consistency.
Stephen Skorski: Wow.
Corey Stewart: So, maybe 2 or 3 tablespoons of that in the stirrer, in the pot where we're gonna do the popcorn.
Corey Stewart: And then there's this stuff called Flavacol, F-L-A-V-A-C-O-L. It comes in, like, a, it looks like a…
Corey Stewart: What do you want to call it?
Corey Stewart: a quart container of milk or something, that you would buy. But it's dry powder, it's like a salt.
Corey Stewart: And it's a flavored butter salt that they use
Corey Stewart: in the theater sell popcorn, so I…
Corey Stewart: shake a little bit of that onto the, the oil, and then I make sure it's up to temperature, pour in the popcorn kernels, and then just slowly stir it, use the hand crank, and it comes out beautiful. So, there's no real secret to it, it's just you need Flavacol, and you need, the
Corey Stewart: Coconut oil. Those two things, that'll get you to where it's the dry popcorn. And then the, topping, if you want a buttery topping, I use,
Corey Stewart: Oh, who… Colonel Seasonings.
Corey Stewart: Buttery topping for popcorn.
Corey Stewart: So, that's what I have out, if anyone wants extra butter on it.
Stephen Skorski: And is that like a… is that a shaky kind of thing, or a liquidy kind of.
Corey Stewart: No, it's a liquid, it's… I'll send you a link to it later, but if you…
Stephen Skorski: Oh my god, yeah, if you… I will put these… I will put links to these things in the show notes. This is… this is great. I love this. This is fantastic.
Corey Stewart: Oh yeah, there's whole communities on Reddit that just want to make the perfect popcorn, and it's… yeah, there's…
Corey Stewart: research way back in the day, and now I have one of those big
Corey Stewart: Popcorn poppers, you know, that's like a… on its own… Wheels and things.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, yeah.
Corey Stewart: But I don't do the popping in there because it doesn't taste as good. I do the popping on the stovetop, and I pour it into there to keep it warm, because it has a warming feature. But, yeah, that's…
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Corey Stewart: stupid.
Stephen Skorski: And one last question about this, because I want to make sure… how do you make sure that you get an even coating of the butter, or is that not
Stephen Skorski: Like, that's, you know, that would be incorrect.
Corey Stewart: You mean the last step?
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, the last step, you put it in a big bowl, like, how do I make this, like, exactly like I'm in the movie?
Corey Stewart: Well, if you're into movies,
Corey Stewart: what I would do is… whatever container I'm going to be eating the popcorn out of, fill it up about halfway, put some of that drizzle in it, and then shake it up a little bit, and then put the rest of the popcorn on, and drizzle over it again, and shake it a little bit. That's how I do it. It doesn't take a rocket scientist.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, and no salt, no additional salt on this thing?
Corey Stewart: I never need it. I mean, I have it out if people want it, I have different types. We used to have, like, 15 different types of
Corey Stewart: It was, seasoning salts that was, like,
Corey Stewart: what do they have? Like, nacho cheese flavor, and ranch flavor, and jalapeno, and all this other stuff, but people just wanted the regular popcorn.
Corey Stewart: We tried doing glazed popcorn as well. We tried doing some, caramelized…
Corey Stewart: But again, people just gravitated back to the movie style.
Stephen Skorski: Alright, let me… alright, this is… see, this is… this is why I love talking to people so much, because this is going to take a bit of a left turn for a moment. Okay.
Stephen Skorski: Tell me about…
Corey Stewart: The… tell me about food…
Stephen Skorski: Oh, yeah. And everything that, like, you know, because it's, you know, it's interesting, we're starting, we're talking about movies.
Stephen Skorski: And again, in my mind, I was thinking about it very simplistically, like, it's Corey, you know, I get it, your wife, you know, maybe a couple of friends, you're watching a movie, but I am still thinking that you're very much inside of yourself while you're doing this, and that might be the case, but…
Stephen Skorski: Initially, we kind of quickly talked about, like, community, and sort of this thing that's bringing people together, and now we're talking about the other things that create, like, this really enjoyable, impactful.
Stephen Skorski: atmosphere. And part of that is the foods, and the smells, and… like, tell me about that. You know, how do you incorporate that, and what does it mean to you?
Corey Stewart: Sure, I mean, if you go to a movie theater, we have all of those staples. We have the Twizzlers and the, you know.
Corey Stewart: all the different types of candy that you could think of. We have a couple different spots that we have shelves for the movie candy.
Corey Stewart: And we have the popcorn. We have a hot dog roller that we have constantly going while people are around, that'll do… we used to have a larger one, but it got
Corey Stewart: damaged in one of the hurricanes we had here, so we… ours, the one we do now, it's a better size, it can do 18 hot dogs at a time, so it's just constantly rolling, like you would have at a 7-Eleven or something.
Corey Stewart: We had…
Corey Stewart: Don't have it anymore. We had a nacho cheese and chili dispenser, like you would find at a 7-Eleven.
Corey Stewart: Every… Tuesday, before we do the movies on Friday, I make batches of pizza dough from scratch.
Corey Stewart: And I have an outdoor pizza oven that I do 10 pizzas.
Corey Stewart: For movie nights.
Corey Stewart: And what else? Oh, we do… just this past year, we incorporated doing
Corey Stewart: made… I think it was… maybe 40…
Corey Stewart: between 40 and 60 sliders, little smashburger sliders that we made, as well, on, like, a Blackstone grill.
Corey Stewart: So, there's a lot of prep that goes into it, there's a lot of time, but yeah, it's another way that people come together, they enjoy the…
Corey Stewart: the food, they enjoy the company, they enjoy the weather. Sometimes. It's really hot in the summertime, but there's a lot of air conditioning around.
Corey Stewart: But…
Stephen Skorski: How… how much… You know, if,
Stephen Skorski: I don't want to break it down into percentages.
Corey Stewart: Yep.
Stephen Skorski: But… How much of the movie-watching experience Has to do with… Taste and smell and flavors.
Corey Stewart: Hmm.
Corey Stewart: It's difficult for me to go to a movie and not
Corey Stewart: have that craving for popcorn. It's just so ingrained in me.
Corey Stewart: And I normally don't go for any of the other stuff that they have there. My wife sometimes likes, like,
Corey Stewart: cheese sticks or chicken tenders or something, but I'm just always a popcorn and…
Corey Stewart: And a diet soda type of guy.
Stephen Skorski: Bye.
Corey Stewart: I would say that,
Corey Stewart: it's… it's exciting for me to do the pizzas and things. I take inspiration from a place down here in Cape Coral.
Corey Stewart: It's a pl… it's a… Pizza slash pinball place that, they do… Their own style of… pizzas, where…
Corey Stewart: They have, like, a Big Mac pizza, and they have a peanut butter and jelly pizza called the Washington Carver. They have… and I've incorporated some of those ideas into what I do.
Corey Stewart: I do a lot of regular pizzas, but each…
Corey Stewart: Friday, there's a… there's a special type of gourmet pizza that we do.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, okay, so, so, so I, I, I sidetracked you a little bit, but then you, you brought it back to the, to the, to the kind of drive-in, backyard vibe. So, tell me, tell me, okay, you told us where we started.
Stephen Skorski: and then talk about, kind of, the evolution, and then where you are now. And yeah, you know, I didn't mean to cut off or jump to the food, you know, but even, you know, even recap that, because the thing is, I guess what I was so fascinated by when you were talking about it.
Stephen Skorski: The popcorn was just… in the…
Stephen Skorski: In a big umbrella sense, not your backyard, you know, but just… The role of the…
Stephen Skorski: All of the things that surround a movie.
Stephen Skorski: That maybe we don't really think about so much. But I know, I mean, when we were talking about the drive-ins earlier.
Stephen Skorski: My memories of the drive-in
Stephen Skorski: I get, if I really think about it, is less about the movies. It is much more about…
Corey Stewart: the environment.
Stephen Skorski: Sitting on top of the roof of the car with my sister, and eating, you know, whatever snacks that we packed and brought with us, and we would, during intermission, we would go into the snack bar.
Stephen Skorski: And the smell of that place, and they were like, they would… hamburgers, hot dogs, mixed, you know, the french fries…
Stephen Skorski: And we… we didn't have the ability to buy, like, a lot of things there, but we would always get a thing of french fries. At least in my memory, that's what we would do.
Corey Stewart: That's great.
Stephen Skorski: And it was magical. I mean, truly, if I, you know, if you said to me.
Stephen Skorski: you get a choice. You get to experience one of those things at the drive-in. You get to either watch the movie, or you get to have the fries. You know what I mean? Like, anyway, so I guess that's where…
Corey Stewart: point.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, man, it was… oh, God, I love that time. So go ahead, so go back to your evolution of this summertime, you know, extravaganza.
Corey Stewart: Yeah, that was 2012 for the first year, and then we…
Corey Stewart: Didn't do it in 2013. We were moving… we moved into our…
Corey Stewart: House, and there was a lot of work that needed to be done here.
Corey Stewart: But one thing that we wanted to do was install a pool in the backyard.
Corey Stewart: And from the moment we decided that,
Corey Stewart: I wanted to make it a place so that you could watch
Corey Stewart: And I didn't have anybody… any friends down here, or anybody that I really knew had done this, but I… in my mind, I thought.
Corey Stewart: I want to make this into a place where I can watch a movie while I'm in the pool.
Stephen Skorski: And…
Corey Stewart: So it took us until… The pool didn't get,
Corey Stewart: installed completely until… it was about September of 2014, so we didn't do the… any movies for 13 and 14.
Corey Stewart: And it was 2000… 15, when we did movies from 30 years prior to that.
Corey Stewart: that we were able to open up the entire kind of experience. And we started small. We…
Corey Stewart: we didn't do any pizzas, we didn't have that pizza oven at that time. We didn't do the burgers like we're doing now. It was just, basically, people would come, we would do hot dogs and popcorn, and we had bags of chips and
Corey Stewart: Movie candy, and that was it.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, so it was like, it was like the living room, but outside, and a little bit bigger.
Corey Stewart: Yeah, but… in the same way, we can watch it in this… I did have the back theater room.
Corey Stewart: So you can watch it. We had the living room and the back… Theater room and the outside.
Corey Stewart: All playing the same thing.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Corey Stewart: And for the first couple years.
Corey Stewart: It was difficult to get everything synced up in terms of the sound in different rooms. Because you could hear, if you were in between the theater and the living room, you got an echo from one to the other.
Stephen Skorski: Right. And it wasn't until I…
Corey Stewart: cracked that nut, not that, it really came together, and I enjoy it much more now. So now.
Corey Stewart: I have one sound source coming from the movie, and I put that into a FM transmitter.
Corey Stewart: Just like the drive-in theaters do now.
Corey Stewart: And…
Corey Stewart: I have the different receivers in the house set up so that they're just picking up that FM channel, and they get the audio that way. And I also then am able to have portable little transistor radios that people can walk around with and still have the audio from the movie playing wherever they are.
Stephen Skorski: So you supply the transistor radios?
Corey Stewart: Sure, yeah, I don't know, 8 or 9 of those if anyone wants to use them. People usually don't pick them up, but I like to… I like to have those every once in a while.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, great, great.
Corey Stewart: But it fixed the audio problem that we had. And from there, each year, we've…
Corey Stewart: like, that first year, 2012, when we were doing it at a, you know, at our condo, we watched a ton of movies. It was from May 11th through beginning of August, and it was…
Corey Stewart: You know, normally a couple movies
Corey Stewart: And we've cut that back from 16 movies back to about I think we've done…
Corey Stewart: 4 Fridays or 5 Fridays the last few years. It's a lot of work to get everything ready for one of these movie nights, with all the… basically, it's a lot of food prep.
Corey Stewart: But, instead of doing 8, I think… let me…
Corey Stewart: Yeah, I think we did 8 the first year that we did it with the… in 2015.
Corey Stewart: But then we realized that that was really a lot of work, and we cut it back to, I think, 5 is what we're doing for now… for now, and from now… from now on, we'll probably just do 5… 5 Fridays during the summer.
Stephen Skorski: So, 5 Fridays during the summer.
Corey Stewart: Two movies back, and an intermission, yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Well, I'm sorry, say that again?
Corey Stewart: Two movies a night, with an intermission in between.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, alright. And so, someone comes over, they have, like, 3, 4, 5 different venues that they could enjoy this experience in. You have… you get… you have, essentially, a concession stand, hot dogs.
Corey Stewart: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Pizzas…
Corey Stewart: And we never… we've never charged anything for anybody, we just have a little donation jar that if anyone wants to drop a couple dollars in there, we appreciate it.
Corey Stewart: So, yeah, we have… we supply,
Corey Stewart: bottles of, you know, bottles of liquor, we have the keg going in the back room, there's all sorts of mixers of Coke and 7-Up, or whatever you want there.
Corey Stewart: And it's… it's a fun…
Corey Stewart: you know, it's just a fun time to get together with friends. We send out, I don't know, it's probably between 75 and 80 invites to different people that we know from
Corey Stewart: Whether it's people that we play pinball with, or teacher friends, or people that we've known for our whole lives, or our families.
Corey Stewart: All sorts of people get invited, and not everybody comes. We normally… we'll get…
Corey Stewart: Between 20 and 40 people show up.
Corey Stewart: And, that's… that's a good night for us.
Stephen Skorski: Alright, that's awesome. So I wanna hear… I wanna hear about this, this summer's theme, and what you're gonna watch, but before we do that, I want to do another one of these little breaks.
Corey Stewart: Oh, cool, alright.
Stephen Skorski: Alright, so, quick, quick, again, quick hitters here. IMAX Blockbuster, or Intimate Indie Drama.
Corey Stewart: Oh,
Corey Stewart: They both have their place, but I'll go with the indie drama. I'd like indie horror better, but indie drama, I'll go with that.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Stephen Skorski: Physical effects or CGI?
Corey Stewart: Physical.
Corey Stewart: All the way.
Stephen Skorski: Nice. Opening night premiere, or weekday matinee?
Corey Stewart: Both?
Stephen Skorski: All of the above?
Corey Stewart: I do try to catch the movies that come out
Corey Stewart: on Thursday afternoons and evenings, I try to catch those first on Thursday before the crowds come on Friday and Saturday.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, cool. Horror movie in a packed theater, or Home Alone in the Dark?
Corey Stewart: Oh…
Corey Stewart: I've enjoyed some of the packed theater horror movies. A couple years ago, one of my favorite experiences was
Corey Stewart: I had a friend here from Indianapolis, he and his girlfriend, and we decided to go to… they… Regal has these Monday mystery movies. They show them at 7 o'clock at night, it's like $5 to get in, you don't know what you're gonna see, but it's usually a movie that's coming out in the next few weeks that you get a… kind of an early preview to.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, cool.
Corey Stewart: Yeah, and we went in and we watched a movie called Talk To Me.
Corey Stewart: And it ended up being one of my favorite horror films of the entire year. It traumatized the girlfriend, but my friend Colin liked it. He was… he enjoyed it. But it was, it was a packed theater, and everybody was jumping, and
Corey Stewart: Gasping in breath at the same time, so it was… it was a cool experience.
Stephen Skorski: Nice. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, there's something about…
Stephen Skorski: Something about being around other people, if they're invested the way you are.
Stephen Skorski: you know, kind of having that reaction at the same time, is really fantastic. I actually hate going to movies because most people are just busy doing other things.
Stephen Skorski: So, you know what I mean? Like, in an ideal world, if we're all kind of laughing and screaming and crying at the same time, it's magical. But, unfortunately…
Corey Stewart: Yeah, that's few and far between. I will tell you that
Corey Stewart: Going back to the movies after the pandemic,
Corey Stewart: The viewership has been so low.
Stephen Skorski: that I rarely encounter.
Corey Stewart: a packed theater anymore. Okay. And within the last…
Corey Stewart: month, I've seen, more than a half a dozen movies where I'm the only person in the theater.
Stephen Skorski: Wow. Yeah, that… I mean, that's sad from the point of view of you don't want theaters to disappear, but… oh, man, I know what you're saying. That's… if I can get that.
Stephen Skorski: I… that is magic. That is… that… really, that's amazing. You're the only one there? Ugh.
Corey Stewart: Yeah. I love it.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, last quick hit here, and then we'll get back to… get back to the,
Stephen Skorski: Director's cut or theatrical release?
Corey Stewart: for what I'm showing here would be theatrical release, but I know…
Stephen Skorski: This is just what you enjoy. Just what do you enjoy?
Corey Stewart: Director's Cut, for the most part. There are
Corey Stewart: There are caveats to that, though.
Corey Stewart: Donnie Darko, the theatrical cut is way better than his director's cut.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, cool. Yeah, again, no hard… no right answers there, just… just…
Corey Stewart: example of a movie like Blade Runner, and it has, like, 5 different cuts, so you have to choose whichever one you want to watch there.
Stephen Skorski: Right, right. Okay, so this summer, right, you've painted the scene pretty well for us about, kind of, the physical environment, we got the food, we got the smells, what's this summer's theme, and what are you showing?
Corey Stewart: this is gonna… it's going to be different than what I've ever done before. I've always had a big…
Corey Stewart: I don't know, diversity of films.
Corey Stewart: with a theme, usually from 30 years prior, you know? But I've… like, last year, I incorporated Jaws because it was the 50th anniversary of Jaws, and we watched that. That's kind of a cool movie to watch out in the pool, whenever you're…
Corey Stewart: But this summer, We have a… we have a…
Corey Stewart: very revered filmmaker who is turning 100 years old on June 28th, and we are going to do an entire filmography of Mel Brooks, all of his films that he's done in his life.
Stephen Skorski: Oh, that's awesome.
Corey Stewart: Yeah, he's done 11 films in his entire career, and we're gonna catch them all.
Stephen Skorski: Wow. That… first of all, the idea that he's only done 11.
Corey Stewart: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Is shocking to me.
Corey Stewart: And we've got some, I'll usually pair something that…
Corey Stewart: People might not be as familiar with, with something that's… they're more familiar with. Like.
Stephen Skorski: Mmm.
Corey Stewart: Life Stinks is a movie from 1991 that he directed. I'll pair that with maybe Spaceballs or something.
Corey Stewart: I mean, he had the producers, Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, Robin Hood Men in Tights, and…
Corey Stewart: Dracula Dead and Loving It were his last two that he directed, and that's been 30 years ago now.
Corey Stewart: But yeah, I just…
Corey Stewart: it just… it blew my mind to know that he was still alive and kicking, and and in fact, he's going to be in Space Balls 2 that comes out next summer.
Corey Stewart: he got the entire gang back together. Well, actually, I think it was an idea from Josh Gad, the actor, who came to Mel Brooks and said.
Corey Stewart: can we get your blessing to make this as a Spaceballs 2? And it's gonna have, Bill Pullman in it, and they're getting Rick Moranis to come out of… I mean, he hasn't done a film since 1997.
Corey Stewart: He's gonna move back as Dark Helmet, and Daphne's Aniga,
Corey Stewart: every… I mean, John Candy's no longer with us, but…
Corey Stewart: You know, it's kind of a neat thing to celebrate this filmmaker's life, as well as kind of look forward to next summer when he'll have a movie that he's in as yogurt again.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, I love Melton.
Corey Stewart: And I think, at the end of… I mean, we watched Spaceballs here one other time a few years ago, and it was a big hit for people, they loved it.
Corey Stewart: But I think that one had, at the end, they said, wait for Spaceballs 2, the search for money or something. So, it's taken them quite a few years to get there, but they're making it.
Stephen Skorski: Right. Okay, that… man, that… I'm bummed that I'm not, like, you know, your neighbor, because… well, I mean, you know, the whole thing sounds so fun. I, you know, I love… I love when people get together.
Stephen Skorski: I do, you know, especially when it's something like that, you know, it's, I don't know, it's just, it's fun to have fun, right?
Corey Stewart: Yeah, we have a very eclectic group of friends that we've collected through the years, and everybody's welcome.
Corey Stewart: And everybody gets along. It's an amazing time. And then, in between the two movies, I always, I get on the microphone and we do movie trivia, where I call out some questions, and everybody writes down their answers, and they…
Corey Stewart: Trade their papers back and forth, and the winner gets a little plaque for the night, and yeah, we have a lot of fun with it.
Stephen Skorski: And do you also… I don't know if you still do this, but do you program the kind of dancing popcorn…
Corey Stewart: Oh, yeah, yeah, I… I usually start,
Corey Stewart: I… I… I'll start in the next few weeks, getting all the digital assets and everything together so that I can put it all together for the summer. But yeah, it starts…
Corey Stewart: I think we usually start at 6 o'clock or 6.30.
Corey Stewart: And… that's when the…
Corey Stewart: Old-style drive-in theater commercials and things come on, and then it transitions into a couple trailers for films that we're gonna be showing in the next couple weeks here.
Corey Stewart: -Oh.
Stephen Skorski: And do you make those trailers, or are those… are those things that you can find somewhere?
Corey Stewart: I pulled the trailer… I want to get as close to what they actually were, so I'm looking for the theatrical trailers from 1986, or whenever they came out, and any TV spots that I can find online for, like, 30-second quick clips of the movies.
Stephen Skorski: So…
Corey Stewart: yeah, it's…
Corey Stewart: do that. So, it takes… as people are coming in, they want to maybe get some popcorn or something, or just socialize while that stuff's on in the background. And then we get into the
Corey Stewart: The feature presentation of the first movie, and then after the credits run, then it goes into
Corey Stewart: one of those… I have a bunch of different ones, but they're the drive-in theater intermission
Corey Stewart: shows that they used to have. So it, you know, like a couple… like a 15-minute block of time that was just taken from the reels of drive-in theaters, where it has the countdown clock from 10 minutes, and tells you when you have to be back in your car, and…
Corey Stewart: shows you the commercials of the old Sprite, or
Corey Stewart: The hot dogs and french fries at the… at the…
Corey Stewart: You know, where you're going for the intermission, so it's a lot of fun. And then…
Corey Stewart: Once we go through the movie trivia.
Corey Stewart: Everybody gets settled down again, and…
Corey Stewart: then the second movie starts. Once I start… once I hit play on the computer that I have hooked up into everything, I don't have to really touch that for the rest of the night. I don't have to switch out discs or anything, I have everything digitally put on there so that I have a flash drive for the entire summer. Once I get it together, it's kind of locked in.
Corey Stewart: And I just have to choose what night we're doing. So I have… if…
Corey Stewart: at some point, I can send you a flash drive, and you can have… you can have your own movie night if you want to enjoy what we do here.
Stephen Skorski: David, I would love that. I would love that, at least to just experience, you know, one of them. If I can't get down there, you know, in person, that would be… that would be pretty cool. So five times a summer…
Stephen Skorski: You're doing this, and it sounds like it takes almost a full week .
Corey Stewart: Well, yeah, there's a lot of prep. Right, really? I mean, it's…
Corey Stewart: The day of is where you get the most amount, because I'm doing the pizzas, I'm doing the burgers, that's… but the prep work for the couple days before, the pizza dough has to rest in the refrigerator.
Corey Stewart: To taste the best, it's usually, like, 3 days.
Corey Stewart: And then, so it doesn't take long to make it, but it… the prep does start on a Tuesday. And we have… our living room is…
Corey Stewart: It's a… it's its own kind of place during the summer, because we have, you know, tables set up with
Corey Stewart: Drop claws around them, and we have all the… You know, they're…
Corey Stewart: The hot dog roller there, and the popcorn, and the candy, and chips, and all that fun stuff.
Corey Stewart: And then getting everything ready on the day of, making sure we have enough ice. We have an ice machine outside by the…
Corey Stewart: Oh, I… we have a couple more TVs outside, as well, on the back porch. So, there's the main… anyway, alright, sorry, I'm getting ahead of mine.
Stephen Skorski: You're, like, planning in your head, you're like, oh my god, I forgot about, you know…
Corey Stewart: replace one of those TVs out there this summer, so…
Corey Stewart: They don't last all that long down here.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, yeah, no, the weather, the weather's tough. So, do you think…
Stephen Skorski: You know, when you're programming this experience for people.
Stephen Skorski: how much are you thinking about programming an experience for people, and how much of it is just like, no, no, I just thought it'd be fun?
Corey Stewart: I do it for myself, it's fun, and if other people like it, then they like it, but it seems to work out okay.
Corey Stewart: Okay. I… I enjoyed…
Corey Stewart: usually during spring break is when I'll get a lot of the work done, as far as getting the movies ready to, you know.
Corey Stewart: switching them from, let's say, Blu-ray discs onto the digital format that I can use.
Stephen Skorski: And…
Corey Stewart: Getting together.
Corey Stewart: getting different files together of all the TV spots and trailers, and if there are behind-the-scenes stuff that I want to show, or different commercials from the 50s or 60s or 70s.
Corey Stewart: Things that go along with the movies, all that stuff's a lot of fun for me to get together.
Corey Stewart: And if people watch it, they watch it. If they don't, they don't. It doesn't bother me at all. I just kind of enjoy having that, and if I ever want to revisit it, I can.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, because you sort of have these movie nights archived in that way.
Corey Stewart: Yeah, for the last, probably, 4 or 5 years, I have all the summers on a flash drive.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, okay. So when you're… when these movies are playing, do you find yourself watching the movie or watching the audience?
Corey Stewart: I…
Corey Stewart: For the first movie, I don't get to see very much of it, because I don't… I start making the pizzas fresh, when that first movie starts. So it takes me a good hour to get through all the 10 pizzas,
Corey Stewart: And…
Corey Stewart: I've already seen the movies, watching them, getting them ready, so I'm not as… I'm more to be there to, you know, socialize with everybody at that point.
Stephen Skorski: And then, intermission.
Corey Stewart: It's a fun time, and then…
Corey Stewart: Second movie's where I lock in and I'll find a place to sit down and watch the movie, and that's my favorite time.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, yeah.
Corey Stewart: Usually it's in the back room with the theater room, and some people enjoy staying for the first movie, and then they'll take off. We had some older, older guests that they don't like to be out too late, so they would come for the first movie, enjoy it, and then the crowd thins out a little bit, maybe sometimes for the second movie.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, so you're, you're, you're wrapping the evening up almost… Not by yourself, but…
Corey Stewart: Oh, no, no. In fact, sometimes we have to kick people out.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, okay. Alright.
Corey Stewart: We normally have, through the second movie, more than half of our audience will still be with us, and…
Corey Stewart: And we have some guests that like to stay after… after that. Sometimes Karen will go to bed early, and I'll, you know, continue, and we'll watch a third film just off the cuff, and…
Corey Stewart: People that want to stick around.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, that's cool. So, alright.
Corey Stewart: So, it starts maybe at 6 or 6.30, but the movie itself, maybe at a quarter till 7, and the night usually finishes up with the second movie by 11 o'clock.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, alright, that's cool. That's amazing. I mean, you must get so excited for the… For some…
Corey Stewart: One time.
Stephen Skorski: I mean, this is… what a great…
Corey Stewart: Not only do I not have to work during the summer, but I also get to do the movies.
Corey Stewart: Yeah, that's, that's.
Stephen Skorski: That's really cool. So… Like, you said that you… You do this for yourself.
Stephen Skorski: Right.
Corey Stewart: But… I do it…
Stephen Skorski: I mean, I'm…
Corey Stewart: I choose the movies for myself. I've not really… I talk to other people about it, but we don't… I don't collaborate with anyone, so it's movies that I want to show to other people.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Corey Stewart: movies that I normally enjoy. Now, I'll tell you right now, I have not seen
Corey Stewart: life's things. I haven't seen, a couple of Mel Brooks' earlier films.
Corey Stewart: there's a couple that I've not seen yet, and I'm looking forward to seeing those by myself, and I'm hoping that they're good enough so that we can…
Corey Stewart: show them here, but I think everything's gonna be… Fine.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Corey Stewart: Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: Well, I'm sure they will, right? I mean… Yeah. Because, you know, you got all the other stuff going on, and sometimes watching a bad movie is equally.
Corey Stewart: Oh, yeah.
Stephen Skorski: enjoyable.
Corey Stewart: Yeah, I also am… we're also very cognizant of, let's say, rated R films, because we do have families that come. It's a family-friendly environment, so I always will…
Corey Stewart: make… if there's two movies, I'll push the R-rated film to the second movie. Like, he had two R-rated films, Blazing Saddles and History of the World Part 1, and those two will definitely be the closers of two of the evenings.
Stephen Skorski: Right, right, yeah. Well, I guess this is what I'm getting at, like, when we're talking about it.
Stephen Skorski: Almost everything we talk about You talk about, in a fairly light, hearted way.
Stephen Skorski: Right? Which is awesome, I mean, it's movies, right? But everything you're doing… is like… really deeply…
Stephen Skorski: thoughtful.
Stephen Skorski: to the people around you. And I guess this is what I'm trying to get, you know, I don't know what the… I'm not sure what the question is, but, like, you're telling me, like, you want to make the perfect popcorn.
Stephen Skorski: You're prepping pizza dough 3 day out, 3 days out, because you know that's going to be the best pizza dough, right? You want the sound, right? You want the sound to be right in the house, so that people can hear it.
Stephen Skorski: You know, you're, you're programming the intermission, so, you know, you're, you're providing transistor radios.
Stephen Skorski: You're doing all of these things that are really deeply, deeply thoughtful, and you're sharing a collection
Stephen Skorski: And so I guess, have you thought about this? Like, is this something that you consciously, you know.
Stephen Skorski: Understand that you're doing, or is it just happens?
Corey Stewart: For the first time.
Corey Stewart: it just kind of happened. It was inspired by… I don't… have you heard of Alamo Drafthouse?
Corey Stewart: theaters.
Stephen Skorski: No, I've not.
Corey Stewart: Okay, they started in Austin, Texas, and they were famous for
Corey Stewart: they don't allow anybody to talk during the movie, they'll kick you out. You can't check your phone during the movie, they'll kick you out. But they're also famous for showing
Corey Stewart: you know, series of movies that they put a theme to, and they were the ones where I read an article about them doing the Summer of 82 films, and I just piggybacked on them for the first time doing this. And once I did it, and had all these
Corey Stewart: Friends coming over, they were… then looking forward to doing it again. They wanted that experience again.
Corey Stewart: And once we moved into the new house, made the…
Corey Stewart: Kind of theater place in the back by the pool.
Corey Stewart: we… it's something that I always wanted to do again, and get all our friends together. It's… I mean, I don't know about you, but…
Corey Stewart: I feel like during the school year.
Corey Stewart: I'm so busy with things that I need to do to keep on top of things at school, whether it's getting ahead or getting caught up with grading, that I don't get a chance to socialize with a lot of the people that I know. And this gives me a chance that
Corey Stewart: I don't have to go to…
Corey Stewart: a dozen different places during the summer, I can instead invite all of our friends over to our place, and if they show up once or twice, or all five nights, it's wonderful. I get a chance to hang out with them and catch up with them that way. And we all kind of look at it
Corey Stewart: as a communal type of way to get together and catch up. So, yeah, I do it for myself, but I do it more with people in mind. I want their experience. I try to make it as close to the drive-in theater
Corey Stewart: experience that I grew up with, kind of, as I can.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah. No, I mean, the thing I… you know, I love… I love hearing about this, because it's connecting…
Stephen Skorski: your collection… With the people around you.
Stephen Skorski: Cool.
Stephen Skorski: And…
Stephen Skorski: you know, if… you know, for anyone who was… you know, I guess if I said to somebody, hey… first of all, I love collecting, like, let's, you know, that's the base point, right? Like, I think collection… collecting is something that can really enhance somebody's life, right? And then, if I said to somebody, hey, did you ever think about collecting movies?
Stephen Skorski: I could see somebody just saying, well, I don't know, maybe, why would I do that? You know, that sort of thing.
Stephen Skorski: I don't know that I would have had a very good answer, you know, an hour or so ago.
Stephen Skorski: But now, I actually have a really good answer, right? Because I… through your description and what you do, I'm just starting to see things that are, much more expansive than what I had thought.
Stephen Skorski: And so, you know, you're bringing in all of these people into…
Stephen Skorski: your world a little bit, which I think is amazing, because I don't know that many people do that, or really have the opportunity to do that.
Stephen Skorski: So, I think that's… I think that's wonderful, because I do think that people could listen to the description of how you engage with movies, and what your relationship with that is, because initially, if someone just heard, oh, you know, this guy goes to the movies 8 times a week.
Stephen Skorski: I don't know that they would understand, you know?
Corey Stewart: Yeah.
Corey Stewart: Oh, I appreciate that.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, no, I mean, it's… I love it. So, just a couple more things that, again, will help me sort of, I think, ground in my mind what you're doing, right? And so…
Stephen Skorski: Are you… do you think you're building something here?
Stephen Skorski: like…
Corey Stewart: If I was… if I was not… Teaching.
Stephen Skorski: Yeah.
Corey Stewart: My dream would be to have my own theater and do this full-time.
Corey Stewart: But I'm never gonna do that.
Corey Stewart: So, what I do is, this is my compromise. I like…
Corey Stewart: Presenting the movies to other people.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Stephen Skorski: So… Okay.
Corey Stewart: In lieu of not doing… that with my life, I'd do it this way.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, so even in retirement, this might not be a… this is not a possibility?
Corey Stewart: You know, it's just… I mean, I'll do this here, but I just don't see a viable business model from something like this, the way that theaters are going now, and you can't get people into the movies to see new movies, you know?
Corey Stewart: This is… this is a… it's a… it's a dying… so many of my students, they don't watch movies at all.
Corey Stewart: I have… I have… Hello!
Corey Stewart: students that… They're like, in 2 hours.
Corey Stewart: I'm watching… a movie.
Corey Stewart: And I… it's… Media has been truncated so much, it's…
Corey Stewart: So… I don't know. It's… it's… it's a different world now.
Corey Stewart: That's the quick and easy.
Corey Stewart: You know.
Stephen Skorski: Well, let me give you an alternate perspective.
Stephen Skorski: And are you getting a little feedback on your end? All of a sudden, your audio started to kind of do some funny things there.
Corey Stewart: When I… when I looked onto the screen here, it said, internet was unstable for a second, but it looks like it's back to normal.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, good, good.
Corey Stewart: Can you hear me okay?
Stephen Skorski: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're fine, you're fine. So let me give you an alternate perspective.
Stephen Skorski: And it has to do with the things that we're talking about. You know, when you go to a movie theater now, at least the big ones, and this is my experience, other people may feel very differently,
Stephen Skorski: It feels really impersonal.
Stephen Skorski: It's very clear that it's kind of a big corporation. Everything is wildly overpriced.
Stephen Skorski: It feels like…
Stephen Skorski: You know, there is this big, faceless entity that is trying to siphon every nickel that they can out of me.
Corey Stewart: Yes.
Stephen Skorski: And then I, you know, okay, the seats are probably more comfortable than they used to be, and, you know, it's not that there aren't some improvements, but then I have to sit through, I don't know, what seems to be, like, 16 hours of, you know, other things that I might want to watch.
Stephen Skorski: It just feels like a big rip-off and a sales pitch, okay? Yeah.
Stephen Skorski: But what YOU are talking about, and what you are doing,
Stephen Skorski: Is you're, you know, you're curating an experience.
Stephen Skorski: You are doing something that is very different.
Stephen Skorski: And so, my perspective would be, when you retire, if you were to open a small theater and run it in the way that you run your backyard.
Stephen Skorski: You know, kind of movie parties.
Stephen Skorski: I think it would be successful, not because, you know, because it wouldn't be people going to the movies, right? It would be people wanting a community experience that involved food, and drinks, and sound, and lights, and, you know, like, the whole thing, so…
Stephen Skorski: Anyway, not sure if that sways you in any way.
Corey Stewart: I would consider it, except that would cut into my movie-watching hours that I had during the.
Stephen Skorski: All right, we'll see. I'll work on that, then, over the next couple of years.
Corey Stewart: I do… I do enjoy it, and I look forward to it all year. It's something that I put a lot of thought into.
Corey Stewart: And…
Corey Stewart: If you had asked me 2 months ago, I would have had a different set of movies, but once… you know, it's just…
Corey Stewart: I've thought of doing different movies every year.
Corey Stewart: And this is the first time that I'm doing just a single filmmaker. We'll see how it goes, I think it'll be okay. Should be okay.
Stephen Skorski: Wow.
Stephen Skorski: I'm sure it'll be awesome. Alright, so let's, we're gonna wrap this up with one last set of questions. Now, these are a little bit more difficult, as they are not either-or, or just kind of select. You do have to fill in the blank a little bit, so…
Corey Stewart: Okay. If you do need a moment.
Stephen Skorski: To, you know, to.
Corey Stewart: Is this Mad Libs style, or what are you doing?
Stephen Skorski: No, no, but still pretty quick. Alright, so, greatest film of all time.
Corey Stewart: Well, for my life, I like The Big Lebowski. It's always… once I watch that, I can never… I'll watch that movie more than anything else. So, for me, that's my film.
Stephen Skorski: Alright? You just, you just, you just crossed two questions off the list.
Stephen Skorski: And maybe a third, a movie you think everyone should see at least once.
Corey Stewart: Toll.
Corey Stewart: Oh, I gotta get something, powerful there.
Corey Stewart: Dang.
Corey Stewart: Oh, I don't want to go, oh, man.
Corey Stewart: Movie that I think everyone should watch at least once.
Stephen Skorski: Again.
Stephen Skorski: Don't need to overthink it, just what bubbles to the surface.
Corey Stewart: Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.
Stephen Skorski: Alright, that is awesome, that is not at all what I would have thought, and I love that. Greatest movie soundtrack.
Corey Stewart: Blade Runner.
Stephen Skorski: Mmm, okay.
Corey Stewart: I'm jealous. I love the synthesizer score that he did for that film.
Stephen Skorski: Fantastic. Now maybe this one you've already answered, but maybe not. Best movie theater experience you've ever had?
Corey Stewart: in college, our local college theater, watching Star Wars, the very first one, with an entire packed room that was shouting out all the lines. It was just such a communal experience that I'll never forget.
Stephen Skorski: That's great. See, right back to community, right? It looks so good.
Stephen Skorski: Most underrated film in your collection?
Corey Stewart: Underrated.
Corey Stewart: Dang. Something that I like that, let me think… Oh… That's something that's underrated, damn…
Corey Stewart: I am drawing a blank right now, something I really like that…
Stephen Skorski: I'm… I'm… That's fine, we could put a pin in that one.
Corey Stewart: I like coming back to that one.
Stephen Skorski: Okay, okay, put a pin in that one. Movie that changed the way you think about film.
Corey Stewart: Psycho.
Corey Stewart: From Pitchcock.
Stephen Skorski: Alright, fantastic. A film that you love that most people don't?
Corey Stewart: a film that I love, but most people don't. Probably,
Corey Stewart: Dang, these are tough questions!
Corey Stewart: A movie that I love that a lot of people don't.
Corey Stewart: What's a movie that I go back to? I'm gonna say… thing. Pet Sematary.
Corey Stewart: People like that, but… I just… no, I'm just at a loss right there.
Stephen Skorski: Alright, we got two more, two more. I knew these were gonna be a little harder, but, you know, just fun to sort of think about. A movie that surprises you, that you still love.
Stephen Skorski: You know, sometimes we have those movies that we really love when we're, like, you know, 8, 10.
Corey Stewart: Princess Bride. Love this as a kid, and enjoy it more now as an adult, even.
Stephen Skorski: Alright, fantastic, and then the last one…
Stephen Skorski: If you could keep only one film, What is it, and why?
Corey Stewart: The unadulterated version with no extra stuff on it, the very first Star Wars film.
Stephen Skorski: A new hope.
Corey Stewart: from 1977.
Corey Stewart: That's it. That started me on my path of movies.
Corey Stewart: So… I love that film more than anything.
Corey Stewart: I mean, I… even more than Lebowski, I just…
Corey Stewart: That film has a special place in my heart.
Stephen Skorski: That's awesome. Well, cool, man, this has been great.
Corey Stewart: Enjoy.
Stephen Skorski: I've enjoyed hearing about this,
Stephen Skorski: I pre… I appreciate your, you know, the conversation, and…
Stephen Skorski: Sharing a little bit of your, what's the right word?
Stephen Skorski: Not just your experience, but your…
Corey Stewart: Obsession.
Stephen Skorski: I mean, well, it… I mean, is that how… I mean, is it… that how you would categorize it?
Corey Stewart: Sickness? I don't know.
Stephen Skorski: I mean, it feels… it feels very…
Corey Stewart: it's very large, but it's grown over time. It's not like I,
Corey Stewart: I grabbed 10,000 movies all at once.
Stephen Skorski: Right.
Corey Stewart: True.
Corey Stewart: But I'm always on the lookout each week for different things that I might want to pick up.
Stephen Skorski: Well, you know, I mean, the thing… and maybe this is the last question, and I think I maybe kind of asked you earlier, but now that we have had this conversation, right, I'm gonna give you some categories here.
Stephen Skorski: And you can tell me if you feel that you fit into any of these. Okay, I'm gonna list them off. Sure. Curator?
Stephen Skorski: archivist.
Stephen Skorski: programmer, exhibitor?
Stephen Skorski: Ritual maker.
Corey Stewart: Dang.
Stephen Skorski: I…
Corey Stewart: I like the first few, I'm not sure about Ritual Maker,
Corey Stewart: That makes me sound like I'm, Anton LaVey, about ready to…
Stephen Skorski: do a satanic.
Corey Stewart: cult or something.
Stephen Skorski: Well, to be clear, I mean, I actually really love the idea of ritual, in its most spiritual sense, but also in its kind of daily rhythm of life sense, and so this thing that you're doing in the summer, I mean, that's really what is driving that.
Corey Stewart: That feels very ritualistic to me.
Stephen Skorski: Again, why? Because it encompasses all of the senses. It's really thought out.
Stephen Skorski: I mean, it's evolving over time, and maybe that makes it less ritual, because there is sort of some change involved, but it feels like you are very…
Stephen Skorski: Actively trying to create an energy and an environment,
Stephen Skorski: that stimulates people in a very specific way. And that's… that's where that… that… that term comes from my point of view. So, yeah, so of the… of those five, is that… did any one of those kind of feel really comfortable? Or, you know, you said the first couple.
Corey Stewart: Creator, archivist, programmer, which ones resonate with you?
Corey Stewart: just Collector would be the one that I would go with.
Stephen Skorski: Okay.
Corey Stewart: Yeah, I don't know that I'm archiving too much. So much of what I have is, mainstream that…
Corey Stewart: I would just say, I'm a… I'm a… Deep cut collector.
Stephen Skorski: Deep Cut Collector, cool. Alright, I love it. Well, again, thanks, Corey, I appreciate it.
Corey Stewart: No, thank you. You made it very easy. I've never been on a podcast before. I hope… I wish you all the best luck with this. I hope this is a good endeavor for you that you can grow in the future.
Stephen Skorski: Well, thanks, man. I mean, for me, it's just fun. You know, there's no… it's kind of like what you were talking about with movies. There's no expectation of anything other than, you know, I just… you know, at some point, you start to realize the things that you really enjoy. And I just enjoy talking to people.
Stephen Skorski: I enjoy collections, and I guess I discovered that I can find out a lot more about a person.
Stephen Skorski: if I… if they share why they do what they do, and how they do it, in revolving around their collection, you know, it's.
Corey Stewart: Yeah. It's a very…
Stephen Skorski: What's the right word?
Stephen Skorski: you're not coming at a person directly, you know? If someone just says, like, hey, Steven, you know, tell me why you feel this way, you know what I mean? Like, you know, you're like, wait, you know, you're just not sure how to deal with that. Like, for me, personally, right?
Corey Stewart: But if somebody was to ask me about the things that I really care about from my collection.
Stephen Skorski: I think they would probably get to know me in a way that they wouldn't if they were just like, oh, well, tell me about your childhood, you know, that sort of thing. So, it's… this is, like I said, there's no expectations for me other than having enjoyable conversations and learning about collect… other people's collections. It's really… it's been fantastic.
Corey Stewart: Very cool. I've enjoyed this. I didn't know that,
Corey Stewart: I'd ever be able to talk for almost 2 hours here, but it was a very enjoyable, enjoyable conversation. I appreciate it.
Stephen Skorski: Cool. Thanks, man. Well, enjoy, enjoy the beer fest.
Corey Stewart: Yeah, yeah. Hey, maybe we can get you down here one of these, summers, so you can watch a movie.
Stephen Skorski: That would be awesome, I would love it. Really would. That would be great. And I appreciate the invite.
Corey Stewart: Sure.
Stephen Skorski: Cool. Well, great, man. Enjoy the rest of your day, and we'll be in touch soon.
Corey Stewart: Thank you very much. I'll email you the, links for the popcorn stuff.
Stephen Skorski: Cool, awesome, thank you. Alright, bye-bye.
Corey Stewart: biasing.