It's Morphin' Time: Episode of the Year Edition

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey folks, this episode is a repost of It's Morphin' Time, our special from.
February of 2023 of the Giant-Sized Violence feed.
I'm publishing this episode again in celebration of us winning Episode of the
Year and Best Production at the Iowa Podcast Awards.
I also thought that since Transcending Comics just hit its one-year anniversary,
this was as good of a time as any to share my own coming-out story with my podcast

(00:24):
dedicated specifically to trans comics.
For those without historic context thinking, yeah, we saw the logo, we know you're trans,
this was the episode I published six months before the creation of Transcending
Comics as a means of coming out to the audience of giant-sized violence in the most me-way possible,
meaning it had to have the music of an EDM festival, some psychedelic storytelling,

(00:46):
and an unreasonable amount of Power Rangers references.
One last note, though, I do want to give a little content advisory that this
episode does include a retelling of a psychedelic experience.
I wouldn't describe it as a terribly disturbing one by any means,
but if that's something a viewer would prefer to avoid, then I want to let them know up front.
I'll be back at the end to share some exciting developments that have happened

(01:08):
since this episode's original release.
But with all that said, I'll leave you to enjoy the episode. It's Morphin' Time.
Music.

(01:31):
Welcome to Giant-Sized Violence, an ultra-mega podcast.
I'm your host, Tommy, and today we're going to be doing things a little bit differently.
There's no guest this time, or even any comic or TV show in question.
Instead, today's episode is going to be a little bit more personal.
Some of you have maybe noticed some changes to the show that have been occurring

(01:54):
over the last few months.
Other than my slow release schedule, honestly, I've had a lot going on.
Some huge personal developments, some really exciting experiences,
definitely some not-so-fun experiences as well.
But I'd like to spend an
episode bringing my listeners up to speed with what's

(02:16):
been going on in my life and while this is certainly
going to be different than the rest of the episodes of the show so far it's
also the one that I've put by far the most effort into yet and I've been spending
a lot of time on this show making episodes about other people's creative content
and talking to two incredibly interesting people in the field, but this one's for me.

(02:40):
While 2022 certainly wasn't an easy year for a lot of us, including myself,
it was also by far the most transformative year of my life in more ways than one.
But despite a lot of hardships and a lot of not-so-easy developments,
I have to say that it was far and away the best year of my life.

(03:03):
I'll definitely get into some of these highlights later, but yeah,
I had a bunch of amazing new experiences, traveled to a lot of new places across
the country, like Portland, Seattle,
LA, a number of other cities.
I've met a bunch of incredibly interesting people, both for the show.

(03:24):
Icons, heroes of mine, and also just amazing people that I've met along the
way in these experiences.
I went to some mind-blowing and incredible music festivals, like the Above and
Beyond Weekender at the Gorge in Washington, or the first festival put on by Grizz, Triple Rainbow,
and I've made a lot of great new friends, both locally,

(03:48):
which is kind of a new development for my area where it's often pretty hard
to meet young people, and also a lot of great friends in my travels that I definitely
plan on going out of my way to see again someday. day.
I got to go to C2E2 for the first time and met Melissa Flores and a number of
other creators that have been

(04:10):
a major part of what inspired me to make this show in the first place.
But as mentioned before, the years also had a lot of hardships.
While I've been blessed to get the opportunity to meet many of my heroes and
find some new ones along the way,
it's also been a year where I've lost some of the people that I've looked up

(04:34):
to and aspired to be like throughout my entire life.
And I would like to take a moment to talk about some of those major losses,
but I'm not going to let this entire podcast be a downer.
So while I do want to take a moment to eulogize some of those we lost this year,
it's not something I plan on doing in order to share my grief with the audience,

(04:57):
but to instead share a bit about how they've inspired me through my life and
how I wouldn't be here without them.
Any of my listeners that are fans of superhero movies,
TV, comics, and video games, especially Batman, will know that back in November,
we lost a voice acting legend, and unbeknownst to many, also a queer icon.

(05:23):
I'd like to say a few words for the sake of those that didn't know his name,
but certainly knew his voice.
Kevin Conroy was universally considered the definitive voice of Batman,
from his work on the animated series, the Arkham Asylum video games,
the Justice League cartoons, and several other beloved Batman projects.
He sadly passed away after a short battle with cancer. answer.

(05:47):
Kevin wasn't often vocal about his sexuality as a gay man due to the years of
discrimination in Hollywood he faced while trying to start an acting career
in the midst of the AIDS epidemic.
That was until early last year, when he opened up about his sexuality and the
struggles that came with it in Finding Batman, a short story in DC's 2022 Pride Anthology.

(06:10):
In Nerd Circles, when the question comes up of who's the best Batman,
while the debate rages between Christian Bale, Michael Keaton,
and the occasional Adam West fans, the room would always find agreement when
someone would answer with, Kevin Conroy, of course.
That is, until the question would then shift to, yeah, okay,
but who's the best live-action Batman?

(06:32):
Unbeknownst to most of us, Kevin's sexuality was the very thing that allowed
him to channel the voice of Batman in a way no one else could,
as he too had been living a double life since childhood.
He spent his life helping his loved ones through extreme mental and physical
illness, doing everything he could for the friends he lost, many of whom died in his arms,

(06:53):
all while hiding a secret that those in power could and too often did use against him.
I could spend an entire podcast eugizing Kevin and celebrating what he did for
both the nerd and queer communities.
Better people than myself have already done so. though. Plus,
Kevin already told his story better than I ever could, which is why I'd instead

(07:13):
like to share an excerpt from Finding Batman.
If he showed us one thing in his 30 years of portraying the character,
it's that Kevin's power was always in his words.
I often marveled at how appropriate it was that I should land this role.
As a gay boy growing up in the 1950s and 60s in a devoutly Catholic family,

(07:34):
I'd grown adept at concealing parts of myself, of putting aspects of myself
in a separate box and locking it away.
Better to wear a mask, I thought. When I walked in to the interview and met the creative team,
they talked me through the character, explained how young Bruce Wayne had seen
his parents murdered in front of him in Crime Alley, how he had formed dual

(07:59):
personalities to deal with the agony of his childhood,
a mask of confidence to the world, and a private one wracked by conflict and wounds.
Could I relate to that, they asked? I imagine myself as young Bruce witnessing
my parents attacked and crumbling in front of me.
I saw them lying in their blood in the filth of Crime Alley.

(08:22):
I saw my own father lying drunk in a pool of his dried blood.
As Bruce, I held them, comforting them in my arms.
As Kevin, I cradled my bloody father as he struggled for life.
As Kevin, I held Chris, cradling him as he raved at the voices plaguing him.

(08:43):
As Bruce, I felt disoriented and lost.
Not sure of my identity, as my parents were cruelly yanked from me.
I felt disoriented and lost as an actor whose identity was being yanked from
him. Was I my public face or my private face?
Had I made too many compromises?

(09:05):
My heart pulsed. I felt my face flush. My breath grew deeper.
I began to speak, and a voice I didn't recognize came out.
It was a throaty, husky, rumbling sound that shook my body. It seemed to roar
from thirty years of frustration, confusion, denial, love, yearning.

(09:28):
Yearning for what? An anchor, a harbor, a sense of safety, a sense of identity.
Yes, I can relate. Yes, this is terrain I know well.
I felt Batman rising from deep within.
I possibly made a mistake in reading Finding Batman at the beginning of my workday,

(09:51):
just after I learned he passed.
And I definitely needed to take a moment to shed several tears away from my coworkers. workers.
However, learning more about Kevin's story left me feeling inspired and emboldened
in some ways that I knew I wanted to share, some of which I've already said,
but there's certainly more to come.

(10:13):
I don't think I'd ever felt the loss of an actor in the way I did for Kevin,
especially after reading his
story, so much so that I almost felt numb or didn't have the words when,
the following week, I found out that the actor that portrayed my first favorite
superhero from childhood,

(10:34):
the person that defined the ideal hero in my mind to this day,
had also passed far too soon.
Fellow Fox Kids legend Jason David Frank, who most listeners of this show will know as Tommy Oliver,
the fan-favorite and original green and later white Power Ranger,
ended his life just 9 days after Kevin's.

(10:58):
Many of my podcasting friends dedicated podcasts to his memory and shared what
he meant to us as a role model.
I was unfortunately traveling for the holidays at the time of his death,
so I wasn't able to join in on any of these, but even if I could have,
I wasn't quite ready yet to put to words the impact he had on my life,

(11:21):
both in person and on screen.
As a child watching Power Rangers, I had never seen a character like Tommy before.
He was the first man I ever saw with a ponytail, and in the conservative Midwest
where I grew up, wearing a look like that likely wouldn't go over well.
But seeing the coolest and strongest of my favorite superheroes proudly rocking

(11:44):
long hair definitely had an impact on my mental image of the ideal hero for the rest of my life.
This all started after one fateful week where a grandparent let TV be my babysitter
when I was just one year old, and that was all it took for me to begin a lifelong
addiction to Power Rangers.
My family has stories of me as a toddler insisting on watching the show whenever

(12:08):
I could, surrounding myself with hand-me-down Ranger toys from my older brother
and various family friends, and wearing out many VHS tapes.
There's even a home video of me, no older than three, sitting right up next
to one of those little TVs with the built-in VCR,
watching the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers movie and screaming LET'S GO TOMMY

(12:31):
as he leapt from a plane on a snowboard in the film's iconic skydiving sequence.
I always appreciated the way I got to see this character change over the years,
in ways he's rarely seen among other superheroes,
going from the most threatening villain the Rangers ever faced to by far the
coolest hero on the show,

(12:51):
frequently changing powers and colors and taking charge for the team,
and eventually growing into a teacher and role model in his own right and leading
future generations of heroes in some of the best seasons and crossovers of the show.
It's the kind of path you see comic book fans clamoring for with long-running

(13:12):
young heroes like Spider-Man and Nightwing.
And it's pretty rare that we get to see that in traditional comics.
I only had the chance to meet JDF in person once, but I'll never forget how
he went out of his way to make it a really memorable experience.
My connection to Tommy actually predates even my birth.

(13:32):
When my mom was in the hospital on the edge of going into labor with me,
she was on the phone with my grandma walking her through using the VCR to record
Power Rangers since they were airing the original Green Ranger arc and my mom
knew that my older brother would be incredibly angry if he had to miss it for
something as trivial as his younger brother's birth.

(13:56):
When I told Jason this story at an autograph signing at the first Des Moines
Comic Con, he cracked a smile, pulled out his phone, and said,
Tell me that again, as he started recording.
I'm not sure if he ever posted the video on his Instagram or social media,
but I'll never forget that feeling of telling my childhood hero a story that

(14:18):
he enjoyed well enough to ask to hear it again.
Honestly, I think it kind of ruined the picture I took with him because I'd
never seen myself with such a genuine goofy smile like that.
But I'm not sharing all this just to reminisce on childhood memories of my favorite superheroes.
I instead want to tell you about how Tommy has influenced the direction I've taken in my adult life.

(14:42):
Much like how Kevin Conroy found his voice and confidence through Batman,
Tommy Oliver was instrumental in shaping my identity and finding my own voice,
especially in making some of the most difficult decisions of my life in this last year.
The world's greatest Batman spent most of his career living a double life while
helping to create a world where people like us no longer have to.

(15:06):
So I think the best way I can honor both his memory and Jason's is to finally
step out of the shadows myself.
Some of you may have noticed that, starting with my Melissa Flores interview
earlier this year, I started going by a different name on the podcast.
I've never elaborated on why, though I've certainly hinted at it in the episodes since.

(15:29):
For the last eight months, I've been going by the name Tommy Trimbath in public
spaces, as I begin a transition into a new life.
Tommy with an I, in tribute to both Tommy Oliver and my grandpa,
Tom Trumbath, the first person to ever take me to a comic book shop,
and the man who made sure my family had a roof over our head and a good Christmas every year.

(15:54):
Originally, that was all I was going to say about him, since no one came here
to listen to me talk about how great my grandpa is.
But while I was in the process of writing and recording this episode,
so he passed as well just a few weeks ago.
This wasn't a sudden loss. He was ready to go, and my family was expecting this

(16:15):
for a while, and we had the chance to tell him how much he meant to us.
With the timing of his passing, I can't help but reflect on how much he had
in common with the other Tommy I've always looked up to.
He had a difficult childhood and a rough family life, growing up with an absent
father just after the Great Depression, and he had to work incredibly hard and

(16:38):
literally learn to fight to get by.
But he didn't let the hardships of his life turn him bitter,
and he accomplished great things because of it. He became a Golden Glove champ
in his weight class when he was in his youth, and just like Mr.
Oliver, he grew up to become a teacher and later even a principal.
He went through challenges and unfair hardships no father should have to.

(17:03):
A botched surgery took away his mobility and the ability to do the things he
loved, like playing golf, riding bikes, and enjoying his life in Colorado.
And he also outlived his wife and two of his children.
Despite this, though, Tom never stopped fighting or gave into hopelessness.

(17:26):
He still went to great lengths to enjoy time with his family and be there for our major milestones.
I'll never forget the way he would play with my siblings and I growing up,
telling stories in ways no one else did,
bringing them to life and putting us in the spotlight, like letting my sister
and I be the ones to stand up to the big bad wolf or kick the troll off his bridge.

(17:50):
He was my family's Santa Claus and our Superman and a real-world hero that fostered
my lifelong love of comic books,
which is why it's his name that I want to carry on and someday put on my first published work.
As for the name change itself, self, I think that it's past time that I tell

(18:11):
my audience why I did this.
I'm trans. Trans femme to be specific.
As in, I use she her pronouns and embrace a feminine appearance and presentation.
But not exactly as in trans woman, though it's a welcome term.
Because too many people get upset about defining what is a woman and who gets to use that label.

(18:36):
And since I'd frankly rather not waste my time talking to people hung up on that.
I'll just meet them halfway and use the term femme instead of woman for now.
And that's the only concession I'm going to make.
If you're wondering how someone comes to this conclusion and why it took me
28 years to get here, I'd like to share my story in hopes that you can better understand my journey.

(18:58):
I've been inspired by the stories and personal experiences shared by creators
like PhilosophyTube, ContraPoints, and Jesse Gender.
Gender, and if my story can reach just one person struggling to come to terms
with their own identity, then this will all have been worth it for me.
It was at a music festival, one in the Midwest called Summer Camp,

(19:21):
mainly for jam bands like Umphreys
McGee, Moe, Twiddle, and several others inspired by The Grateful Dead.
When my partner's friends offered me what they called Lucy Juice,
I had assumed it was just a kitchen sink cocktail like Jungle Juice.
Lucy Juice, because it loosens you up.
I was at first a little suspicious when they only poured me a little.

(19:43):
I thought, it must be meant as a shot, but it didn't taste like strong alcohol.
It was only after I turned them down when they offered me cocaine out of a Zycam
bottle that I realized, that may not have been booze.
The Lucy in this juice was the same one you find dancing in the sky with diamonds.

(20:04):
Now, thankfully, I'd recently had friends tell me about acid and what it's like,
And I was very curious to try it someday if the time was right.
When my partner filled me in on what I just drank, I didn't freak out,
since I knew this wasn't something that was going to leave me with an addiction
or burn a hole in my brain.

(20:24):
Plus, if I was ever going to have a psychedelic experience, a music festival
would be an almost perfect place to do it, since I'd at least be surrounded
by people that could relate to what I was going through and expected to be around
people tripping anyway.
Anyway, over the next couple hours, I went from feeling nothing to slowly feeling
a euphoric, rhythmic body high come over me.

(20:47):
Weed on steroids, but with increased energy and heightened senses allowing me
to experience music and lights in a way I'd never seen before.
Going into the festival blind, all the music was new to me, but each performance
was even better than the last, more so than the night before.
All this accompanied with lights
that made me realize just how much lighting alone can add to a show.

(21:12):
So despite being sunburned, sleep deprived, and halfway through the second day of a music festival,
my body felt great, like it was moving on its own accord, allowing my mind to
fully take in the new lights and colors of my surroundings without having to
concern itself with something as trivial as moving my body from place to place.

(21:33):
It was sometime after midnight, as we were on our way to one of the last shows
of the evening, that my journey really took off.
We were walking through some surreal, neon-lit woods, like something you'd see
in a PS1 game, leaving one stage and heading to the next to see a band called The Works.
It was as we were walking that feeling began to return to my feet.

(21:55):
Just a bit. My joints felt strange.
Not in pain, but it was likely the strange combination of aching joints and
body high being experienced simultaneously.
Simultaneously, I looked over to my girlfriend and asked hey looking down my
legs seem to be working just fine But they're feeling weird. Do they look okay?

(22:17):
She stone-cold sober looked to me and said with a smile. Oh, they're not there What?
Yeah, they're gone.
And that's when things got weird. This is where I began to lose touch with reality.
With each step I took, my mind took me to another place to explain the numb,

(22:38):
yet somehow painful sensation in my legs.
I was in Vietnam. I had just stepped on a landmine and was collapsing to the ground.
In the present, a golf cart passed by on the path we were walking on.
One that I realized must have hit me and sped off as I lay there dying at the
festival. On the ground, I saw my future self, not in agony,

(22:59):
but in acceptance of his ongoing death from a lawnmower accident.
My future wife was with me and began to explain that this was my brain coming
to terms with its own death.
This was the chemical journey that it was taking my mind on as the last of your
neurons fire, reliving your memories over and over again, allowing you to eventually

(23:22):
calmly embrace your fate as you move on.
In the present, I continued spinning toward the ground as time slowed and then stopped,
and started moving backwards and forwards, seemingly in sync with my own movements,
as if winding my arms and moving with the right rhythm was controlling the direction

(23:46):
and speed of time around me.
It was at this point that I realized this wasn't a dream.
Times never stopped or moved like a scene from Tenet in a dream before. I was dead.
I began to realize there were signs that this was all in my head,
just reliving my memories over and over before the moment of death.

(24:07):
How else could I explain my surreal surroundings, or the people and outrageous
outfits around me, or the fact that so many important people and places in my
life happened to share my name.
My best friend in high school, my best friend at church camp growing up,
the street where I spent most of my time in high school, or the greatest superman
writer of all time that wrote about experiences just like this. All of them named Grant.

(24:32):
It was all my brain trying to tell me I was dead, but between the euphoria,
the new and indescribable experiences, both real and imagined,
and the companion with me, changing form between my girlfriend,
my future wife, my inner self, and any other number of friends,

(24:53):
loved ones, and other voices, all guiding me through the process.
Couldn't help but feel at peace with the
experience the voice explained you're dead
and that's okay and it was i was experiencing so many new things my first festival
first time hearing these bands first psychedelic experience first trip with

(25:16):
my favorite person at the time surrounded by lights and friendly people dressed
and presenting in beautiful unique ways the transcended gender.
Hell, I'd just seen a Sasquatch playing the saxophone in a neon-lit forest under a giant tree man.
That one was actually real, by the way. Shout out, Sasquatch.
If I was going to die, though, I was happy to be dying here.

(25:39):
It was as I was spinning, bumping into people, and spiraling backward in time
that I started to see myself in the faces of the people around me,
seeing my life through their eyes.
You're dead, and it's okay. Because you're everybody, the voice continued.
I began to realize that I was about to find out what's next,

(25:59):
as my life started to flash before my eyes in all its best and worst moments,
allowing me to recontextualize feelings,
memories, and recurring patterns in my life in ways I'd never seen before,
seeing it all so clearly for the first time.
I was dancing in line with my past and future lives, all spiraling behind and

(26:21):
ahead of me in a Fibonacci-like sequence.
Like I was entering an avatar state as I was seeing my life through the eyes of others.
Because you're everybody, that means you're also a woman, the voice explained.
And I realized that the gender nonconforming crowds around me,

(26:43):
my trans partner, my queer friends of the last several years,
I was seeing myself in all of them.
All showing me the way is guides who had crossed between the worlds of gender.
You're every man and every woman, so this gendership doesn't matter.
Forget about it. You can throw it all right out the window, because it's not

(27:04):
going to help you going forward.
Before I could even finish putting all the pieces together in my mind,
of all the moments and memories that reinforced the idea, the voice continued.
Now this is the hard part, Grant. Because you're everybody, that means that
every act of kindness you've ever done has been an act of self-love.
The brief, warm, loving feeling that followed was quickly interrupted, as they explained.

(27:30):
Which means conversely every act
of hate or malice is an act of self-harm meaning
that you're also responsible for all
the pain and suffering in the world thoughts and images of humanity at its worst
rushed through my head on the global scale of war starvation mass graves oppression

(27:50):
but also on the personal level as the memories of my most painful moments the
people I failed and people people I didn't stand up for, all rushed through my head.
But don't dwell on that. It's okay. It's out of your control.
We all make mistakes. It's part of the experience and we can't change the past.
And there's lessons to be learned from all of it.

(28:13):
They continued to try to inspire my mind with better thoughts as I came to realize
what was meant by hell as a state of mind.
Some of the deaths I saw became more unpleasant, specifically the worst ones
I could imagine so I could know death at its worst before passing on.

(28:33):
I was dying as a child in the most frightening and humiliating ways my young mind could imagine.
I was dying shamefully from a bar fight I could have avoided,
or in a drunk driving accident in the Oldsmobile Bravada I drove in high school.
Whatever I thought of in this mental state where time meant nothing was where
I was going to dwell seemingly forever.

(28:57):
So, we had to think lighter thoughts. It was here that I began to lose myself
more and more with everything happening around me, my mind constructing narratives
of who or what I really was.
I was an excited face in the crowd on the edge of my seat for the upcoming performance.
Right as the band was about to start, my perspective shifted.

(29:18):
I was heading on stage, about to deliver some kind of speech of protest or incitement of violence.
But as I approached the mic and began to speak, reality seemed to reset again.
I was a comedian about to smooth over the crowd with a joke I could almost remember.
I wasn't a comedian, I was a musician about to break out in song.
Just as I began to belt out my first lyric, I realized I was actually just a cautionary tale.

(29:44):
I was a young man with prospects who tried drugs and died at a music festival.
I was a fucking DARE commercial.
And right as I was about to deliver a sick anti-drug rap to the camera, reality reset again.
But this time, everything started to piece together a little bit more clearly
than before. The speaker slash comedic performer, the musician,

(30:06):
the ironic spokesperson, it all culminated into one identity.
I began to see three words seeming to flash through memories of my life,
as if they'd been there all along with some kind of hidden meaning.
I'm Bo-Yo. At the center of this spiral of past and future lives was Bo Burnham,

(30:27):
playing away at his keyboard as if he was some kind of final,
self-aware incarnation of human life.
I began to feel my mind sync up with the music around me as I started to get
this feeling that I myself was Bo Burnham in my next life.
I started repeating out loud over and over again. I'm Bo Burnham.
I'm Bo Burnham. I'm Bo Burnham. I'm Bo Burnham. I'm Bo Burnham.

(30:51):
I'm Bo Burnham. I'm Bo Burnham. Oh my god, I don't want to be Bo Burnham.
He seemed depressed as hell inside.
But as I was processing all this, the next major realization came to me as I
started to lose track of my physical form.
I wasn't Bo Burnham. I was Bo Burnham in a song about Bo Burnham.

(31:13):
And much like his puppet Socko explaining how the world works,
I was going to to stop existing at the end of the song.
No, this was just a framing device, or the logic my brain used to get to the
ultimate conclusion that the entire universe was just a song about itself,
singing itself into existence over and over and over again.

(31:34):
I began to hear music and see lights and video flash before my eyes in rapid succession.
This song of the universe consisted of every song I ever heard and more happening
simultaneously. Simultaneously, the song of the universe was a remix consisting
of, in simple terms, everything, everywhere, all at once.
I began to see the moments of my life all happening simultaneously,

(31:57):
on a flat plane spiraling ahead of me.
The voice, or possibly the song itself at this point, explained that there would
be moments in my future where I would hear this music, or some part of it,
and be brought back here, reminded of what reality actually was.
The spiral that was once my perception of the moments of my life began to meld

(32:18):
with the rest of the universe, consistently shifting its direction in a seemingly
perfect ying and yang balance,
while also collapsing and expanding at the center of this spiral,
with my perception of reality resetting every time we hit that center.
This wasn't just a visual and auditory experience I was going through.
I was feeling this in my body. I seemed to be stepping into the center of this

(32:41):
spiral, like my foot was landing standing on the nail piercing the center of reality.
Every time I'd step into it, I'd feel the pain spiral.
Tip of my toes stretching up to my lips. It seemed my body was unraveling,
feet first from the future death via lawnmower that somehow felt more true than
all the others by the second,
all ending with my lips seeming to kiss the end of existence and return experiencing a sharp pain,

(33:05):
like my face was being scraped from the pavement in front of me,
peeling me off the ground after being run over by a lawnmower.
I'd cry out in pain, but before I could fully process what was happening to
me, the voice explained that things are going to get worse, then they're going to get better.
Then they'll seem to get worse again, but then they'll get better again.

(33:28):
That's the nature of existence, and you need to find peace with that,
because there will be a lot more pain before the end of this.
I wanted to scream in despair of the realization of the never-ending suffering
that comes with the immortality of us all being the same person,
but with every step of agony,
the voice would remind me of the beauty in the world, and the joy of music and

(33:50):
love and new experiences,
feeling pain and pleasure all at once as to not leave my mind in an entirely hellish state.
The ever-approaching and receding of the spiral began to speed up as the music
intensified, along with the world around me, as if we were approaching some ultimate end.
The voices explained that the point of all of this, not just the truths revealed

(34:11):
to me in death or the meaning of life,
But that of existence itself was to answer the ultimate question the result
of what it called the great experiment The truth of whether it was better to
exist or not exist to be or not to be I Needed to justify all of it to find
a reason for why it was all worthwhile,

(34:32):
The overwhelming warm loving feeling that came with the realization that all
acts of kindness were expressions of self-love Love!
Love is the answer. Love is what makes this all worth it.
That's not it, the song answered in response.
If this is all about love and we're all the same person, then that love is ultimately
just a form of cosmic narcissism.

(34:54):
I began to rack my brain for other reasons to justify our existence.
Meanwhile, the oncoming entropy of the universe began to take a new form as
my reality began to experience yet another simultaneous narrative.
I was an astronaut, and the center of the spiral was a breach in the hull of
my spaceship, or perhaps a black hole ahead of the craft, at possibly the beginning

(35:17):
and end of existence at the same time.
The answer I was looking for was something that was needed to save myself and
mankind along with the rest of the universe.
The next closest thing to love came to my mind as I thought about the ever-shifting
companion at my side and all the loved ones I saw in them.
Friends! It's the friends we made along the way that make this all worthwhile, right?

(35:41):
Sorry, bud, but that's not it either. If we're all the same person,
that's too close to the same cosmic narcissism of the first answer.
I looked to the rest of my surroundings, the great visual, musical remix of existence.
Music! Music is the answer! Music is what makes this all worth it!
Along with the art and the stories of the past, all of it building on the work

(36:03):
those before us left behind to inspire us in the future to make something better in the present.
This answer felt better, but apparently wasn't acceptable since if the nature
of the universe was just a song about itself, then that answer just boiled down
to, because of the way things are.
Not to mention that not all beings can experience music.

(36:23):
My mind was spinning, trying to find some other answer that would be acceptable,
but each one was weaker than the last as reality continued to reset faster and
faster with every time we hit the center.
I thought that maybe my scholarly mind could be of some use.
The answer could be found in the computer science knowledge I went to college for.
If the universe is some sort of simulation, then a computer scientist may be

(36:46):
exactly who you need to solve a universal problem.
Okay, then it's a matter of recursion. We buy ourselves more time to find the
answer. We iterate, we iterate, we iterate, and iterate, and each future life
or cycle in the universe will build on the last, going ever closer to the ultimate
solution to the problem.
I was looking for an exit statement, the condition that needed to be met so
that the final iteration could return its answer to the previous iteration that

(37:08):
called this operation, and that would then be returned to the one that called
it, and so on and so forth back to the beginning, the first one that cried out looking for an answer.
This seemed to only be a temporary solution that biased just a bit of time.
If we're all the same person, though, the issue was still my responsibility
no matter how much time we bought, and each future life lived would come along

(37:30):
with added suffering along with their contributions to the great song of existence.
It was at this point that I began to realize that I may never find an answer
to this, and that this may just go on forever.
I started to control my breathing and calm myself.
Maybe I'm wrong. I thought, maybe there's no reason for all of this,
and not existing is better than existing.

(37:52):
There's certainly been enough unpleasant bits in my life to understand that mindset.
But ultimately, I'm glad to have had the experience, since all the beautiful
moments and the people I've met have more than made it worth it for me.
If this is the end, it's alright.
I'm okay with this. I'm okay with this. I'm okay with this.

(38:18):
And then we hit the center of reality again, and everything reset,
once again, and I began to feel the hopelessness of it all, that no matter what
answer we found in our lives, existence would continue to go on,
for better and for worse.
It was around this time that I felt arms embracing me from behind,
stabilizing me and getting me to

(38:40):
my feet, as though some alien force was reconstructing my physical form.
My eyes were covered by my girlfriend's soft hands, and the voice said,
it's okay, it's not your time, forget what just happened, you're at summer camp,
and we're going to walk back to our tent.
The hands left my face, and I found myself not far from where this encounter

(39:02):
with collective consciousness began, though now I was pointed back toward the direction we came from.
However, all the lights and faces mixed with at least three different stages
of music kept taking my mind away from the present.
I continued to see myself in these other lives as various stimuli reminded me
of where I previously was.
The generator powering a street light was a helicopter flying overhead in Vietnam.

(39:24):
The golf cart that just passed was the one that ran me over and killed me in another life.
Or perhaps I was actually on the golf cart and the camp I was at was the church
camp I went to growing up.
I kept stopping, nearly collapsing, and trying to ask my partner to tell me
again that I was at summer camp, that all of this was real, but I could barely
formulate words or speak a coherent sentence.

(39:46):
I may have been in my body again, but the trip was far from over.
Something about the building guitar music around me sparked a better thought in my brain, though.
This paired with the Grateful Dead lightning bolts I was seeing on shirts and
colorful tapestries everywhere, I was reminded of my favorite things since childhood.

(40:06):
I started to hear the song as the theme to my favorite superheroes as it dawned
on me that I was one of them.
I was a Power Ranger. I was Tommy Oliver.
I was Superman. I was any hero I could imagine. As my girlfriend put her arm
around me and helped me get to my feet after yet another fall,
I took one synchronous step with her to get to my feet and stabilize myself
and laughed out, We're a Megazord!

(40:29):
The cars and RVs we walked by were their giant combining robots.
The wild flashing lights of the psychedelic campground was their battlefield.
I remember seeing a cherry picker in the sky and also seeing it as a mechanical
brontosaurus about to take a bite out of the moon.
I saw myself on stage as a Power Ranger, or maybe just someone in a costume

(40:51):
about to promote the show,
or maybe an actual ranger about to give a rallying speech before battle,
or a humiliated young boy promoting something like Power Rangers underoos or
pull-ups in front of a live audience.
Regardless of how powerful or powerless I was in my ever-changing perception of reality, reality.
The voice returned in the back of my mind to explain that there was a reason

(41:14):
this alien force was reconstructing my consciousness.
That the answer, or at least part of the solution, to save humanity and solve
the Great Experiment was found
in my brain and the love of Power Rangers I'd had since the age of one.
My partner even told me the next day that at one point I touched my belt and
shouted, It's morphin' time!
Which, in the many narratives going on in my mind, seemed like an important

(41:38):
key to what was going to save us.
Something on our belt or waist to protect us, a seatbelt to secure the astronaut
at the end of existence, or perhaps a button to bring down the helmet of a protective suit.
Whatever was at our waist was something that was going to keep us safe and was
of incredible importance. It was going to give us what we needed to fight some
larger opponent or take on some colossal problem or impending doom.

(41:59):
It seemed there was some piece of trivia or obscure knowledge to be found in
the recesses of my brain, the identity of a ranger or the actor that played
them, that this alien force needed to either find a solution to the great experiment
or at least part of what would save humanity.
I began to see this cosmic truth layered over Power Rangers as well,
of it also being some kind of ultimate remix of a franchise,

(42:22):
as this Japanese TV show built on decades of Eastern and Western superhero media,
taking inspiration from Ultraman and Spider-Man and Kamen Rider and putting
all the best elements into one show that then got brought to America and added
American actors and American music, bringing the series to an entirely new audience,
and how that then went on to inspire a generation of comic book writers and
podcasters and internet content creators and fans of all shapes and sizes,

(42:46):
going on to make new media inspired by the show to reach new audiences that
the previous generation didn't.
All of it adding more and more to this colossal franchise, building on what
came before and contributing to the ultimate remix of a TV show.
It was as I was having these thoughts of being Tommy Oliver and the meaning
of Power Rangers that we finally reached our tent, and my partner laid me down on her air mattress.

(43:11):
Ironically enough, the door to our tent was split right down the middle,
half of it green and the other half white.
My brain perceived the shape on this door as a split between the helmets of
the green and white rangers, on the top half at least,
but the lower half I saw as a split of the faceplate of their giant robot Megazord

(43:32):
and that of their villain, Lord Zedd.
My mind was able to take this visual and make a very poignant realization of
what comes along with seeing yourself as Tommy Oliver.
Even if I was Tommy this representation
of my ideal peak human form I could be a hero like the White Ranger or a villain

(43:54):
to others like the green I could be a tool of war like the Megazord or a monster
like Zed even if I became my ultimate hero I'd still be the villain of someone else's story I.
The rest of the trip as I came up was a fever dream mixing several narratives,
some sparked from a single thought and the worst-case scenario that ensued.

(44:17):
I saw myself as some kind of half-formed human with my parents crying over the mistake that was me,
or a helicopter surrounding above our tent about to expose me as some kind of
monster or fraud that harmed countless people hiding away in there.
I saw our tent as a failed spacecraft meant to populate a deserted planet,

(44:38):
like in the first episode of Raised by Wolves.
The closest thing I can compare this to is the end of the first new Dune film,
where Paul Vitrades is basically tripping on magic space cocaine and seeing
all the futures that could be and all the great and terrible things that he could become.
I felt an urgent need to escape the tent. Much to my girlfriend's dismay,

(45:03):
but once I peeked my head out, I realized that this was my body graciously getting
me to a better place to throw up and finally ground myself back in reality.
God only knows how late it was at this point, but neither she nor I were awake
enough to unpack what just happened, so I crawled in bed and began to pass out,

(45:26):
still not convinced that this wasn't just another part of the trip.
When I woke up in the morning, I didn't know how to process what I experienced the night before.
I frankly couldn't believe I was actually alive. I didn't know what was real
or what kind of adventure sparked everything I just saw.

(45:46):
And the only answers I could get from my girlfriend were that nothing happened,
you just fell down a lot, and kept spinning when I tried to get you back to the tent.
It was honestly pretty terrifying. I panicked a bit when her first very concerned
question for me was, Are you a woman?

(46:06):
Which, in the moment, I really wasn't quite sure.
I had apparently said the words, I'm a woman, out loud the night before,
but at the time I chose to perceive this as more of a cosmic statement,
as in that I was every man and every woman.
So, more to unpack on that later. As for the deaths and unraveling realities

(46:31):
I experienced the night before, while some may assume the experience was terrifying,
which it certainly was at times, it also felt incredibly liberating to be on the other side of it.
I experienced deaths that were painful and real to me, some I'd describe as
the worst I could imagine.

(46:53):
If I could go through so many deaths and come out the other side,
facing just one more in my future didn't sound so bad.
I certainly came away understanding how psychedelic medicine can help the terminally
ill come to terms with death.
As I continued to piece together what happened to me over the night before,

(47:13):
I realized there was a big change I wanted to make in my life.
I was surrounded by seemingly male audience members presenting in feminine ways I'd never seen before.
With long hair and boho dresses, flowery hats, and wild outfits,
I looked around and realized that a year from now, I could look like them.
And that that's what I wanted to do.

(47:36):
This, paired with seeing myself as my childhood hero the night before,
started me down a direction of manifesting the person I wanted to be.
I could grow my hair out, get in better shape, lose my beard,
and start presenting more androgynously while adding a lot more green and white to my wardrobe.
It took me over a year to put the lessons I learned from all of this into words,

(48:01):
but I finally found a way to make sense of it all in a way that means something to me.
When I lost my sense of self, and what I've since found out is commonly called
an ego death or ego dissolution among those who have had psychedelic trips,
near-death or spiritual experiences,
and even seizures, I realized that everything that Grant was was just a collection

(48:24):
of thoughts and feelings based on increasingly unreliable memories of past events,
and I I was giving my worst moments and most anxious thoughts and the fear of
what strangers who I might never see again might think way too much power by
making them vocal points of my personal narrative.

(48:46):
If perception is reality and the universe is all just a song about itself,
and we in turn are just the stories we tell ourselves and the world around us
about who we are, then maybe it's time we tell a better one.
Over the next six months, I began to acquire an increasingly feminine wardrobe

(49:09):
as my hair grew out longer than ever and I started to develop a more androgynous
appearance that I loved more and more by the day.
I started to be seen as more feminine, even being called pretty at times.
One friend even asked how long I had been on hormones when the idea of starting
something like that hadn't even crossed my mind yet.

(49:31):
One fateful Sunday last March, someone who's now one of my favorite people in
the world took me hiking with a friend, both of whom happen to be in the trans community.
We got about a mile in and stepped off the path to take some pictures,
and they began to ask me some hard-hitting questions about my gender.

(49:52):
How I felt about being seen as a guy. Would I say I liked being the gender I was assigned?
Did I feel like I fit in with the others? Or did I feel more connected to my
female friends over the years?
Did I feel like my gender was in the way of having the same kind of friendships
they had with their other girlfriends?
How did I feel about being seen as pretty as opposed to handsome?

(50:17):
I voiced my feelings that I didn't think I was was trans because I figured I
would've known early on like some of my other friends did by the age of like 12.
But both my friends there said that wasn't the case for them or a lot of their friends,
that they didn't come to terms with the realization until they were well into

(50:37):
adulthood and could look back and recontextualize their memories with their
newfound knowledge and perspective and understanding.
I mentioned that a friend had recently asked how long I had been on hormones
while wearing a flattering tight shirt, and they asked, and how did that make you feel?
When I answered with, honestly, kinda hot.

(50:59):
They said that might be a sign of something more going on.
Another few weeks for the egg to fully crack, but once it did and I started
to come out to my loved ones, I found out that several of my friends,
especially those in the trans community,
had known or suspected I was trans for quite some time, but had to follow a

(51:20):
prime directive of letting us come to the conclusion ourselves,
lest we let someone else decide whether or not we're trans for us.
In my personal life, I took on a new name, one short for Victoria.
At the time, I knew that Tommy with an I was a name that appealed to me,
but with a voice like mine and a body so early in a transition,

(51:42):
I thought most would just hear the name and assume I was a guy.
So I instead went with Victoria, since years before I had the very cis thought
that if I were trans, that's what I'd like my name to be.
The following months have been absolutely incredible. Without a doubt, the best in my life.

(52:02):
I've traveled alone for the first time and had adventures I never imagined,
especially after spending so long as an extreme extrovert that felt dependent
on others joining me in order to have a good time.
I started to meet incredible new people, especially since traveling alone seemed
to make me much more approachable.

(52:23):
The people I approached for dates actually seemed quite interested more often than not.
People I would have imagined were out of my league any time before that.
It wasn't just a matter of coming out as trans and everything magically changing for the better.
No, the change in my life was coming from surrounding myself with people I admired

(52:44):
and could aspire to be more like, and going out of my way and stepping outside
of my comfort zone to experience new things.
Imagine letting all of your deepest secrets, the things about yourself you're
the most embarrassed or ashamed of, hold you down all your life,
planting the seeds of self-hatred,

(53:05):
that no matter how much you try, you just can't seem to get rid of.
Then, one day, you start to find that many of your favorite people in your life
actually have these things in common with you, and that they're things you actually
admire or enjoy in a friend,
which in turn helps you appreciate them in yourself.

(53:29):
All of a sudden the things you've always seen as weaknesses and sources of self-loathing
instead become something you're proud of.
Seeing part of yourself and the people you love, and in turn loving yourself
more because of it, is an incredibly eye-opening experience that can help you
realize just how much you've been denying yourself of self-love all this time.

(53:52):
And then, the most exciting development of all happened for me.
Got the opportunity to meet some of my heroes. It all started when Melissa Flores
had offered to come on the podcast to discuss Dead Lucky.
At the time, I was only weeks into my transition and had more or less put the
show on hiatus, since I wanted to come back when I felt I had a more feminine

(54:14):
voice that people wouldn't assume just belonged to a guy.
But when someone who worked behind the scenes of Power Rangers,
and would later go on to write the comic series as well, offered to be interviewed
on my show, I couldn't just pass up an opportunity like that.
Honestly, if it weren't for that interview, the show may have died early last year.

(54:36):
Not long after, I found out about a Radiant Black themed event going on outside
of Chicago, at the very bar where he gets his powers in the first issue.
Many of the creators behind the series and spin-offs, including most of the
writers of the Power Rangers comics, were all going to be there.
Everyone from the comic book writers I look up to most, like Kyle Higgins and

(54:57):
Brian Parrott, to podcasters like Matt Groom and Michael Bichetteau,
whose format is what I wanted to emulate with my own show.
I even got to meet the woman that inspired the hero of Dead Lucky,
and stood in the very spot just outside the bar where Radiant Black got his
powers, even holding a little radiant light given to me by Kyle Higgins.

(55:18):
This wasn't just some simple Q&A or autograph signing. It was an opportunity
to actually spend an evening with these icons, along with a bar full of other fans.
To have a drink with Kyle Higgins and discuss storytelling with some of my favorite writers.
I always figured I would need to be some famous author myself or the host of

(55:40):
a much bigger and more important podcast to find myself in a room like that.
And yet, here I was, being my true self, more confident than ever before,
doing things I only ever dreamed of doing before that point.
To bring this entire experience full circle, on Christmas Day of 2022,

(56:01):
I feel like I fully achieved what I set out to do when I started down this path.
My girlfriend Aerie and I were in my basement on a heroic dose of cocktails,
watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and cats, now an annual tradition for me.
We were getting up to grab a snack upstairs, but getting to our feet was a bit

(56:22):
of a challenge, a very Bambi learning to walk kind of moment.
We knew my roommate was also upstairs enjoying tipsy Christmas movies,
and I didn't want to bug them too much so we straightened
ourselves out and put our game faces on and I grabbed
the door handle and looked to her and said it's morphin time and in less than

(56:43):
five seconds the door swung open and almost hit Aerie right smack in the middle
of the nose at full force and I with reflexes I've never seen myself use before
caught it within an inch of her face since Since I was then looking in her direction,
I noticed she was looking dizzy or lightheaded.
And before she could even finish saying the words, I think I need to sit, she collapsed.

(57:08):
But before she hit the ground, I kid you not, I full on did a Spider-Man.
I swooped in and I caught her like Tobey Maguire catching Kirsten Dunst in that cafeteria.
She was so wobbly while falling to the ground that I began to panic that she
may be having a seizure or something.
So I threw on the lights, propped her head back up under my arm,

(57:28):
looked into her closed eyes, and with all the confidence I could muster,
gave a calm, You're okay.
Hoping to God I could will that into existence. Her eyes opened,
and she started to blink away the dizziness and said she wasn't quite sure what just happened.
Meanwhile, it dawned on me that within three seconds of saying the words,

(57:50):
It's morphin' time. I had just lived the most superhuman moment of my life and
saved my girlfriend in the process.
I had apparently found the magic words to activate my three seconds of power,
and I was even wearing a white sweater with my Green Ranger socks at the time.
And in case you haven't hyper obsessed over the Power Rangers since the age

(58:11):
of one like I have, in the episode where we first see the Green Ranger come
back as the White, The first thing that happens is his girlfriend,
the Pink Ranger, gets overwhelmed and faints, and he catches her.
So this was the closest thing to morphing that I can probably ever hope to experience in real life.
And I couldn't help but feel like I'd just lived the White Ranger's origin story.

(58:35):
Like Tommy, before his return as the White Ranger, having lost his powers and
getting kicked off the team, here I was.
After having lost my job and any sense of self-empowerment during the pandemic,
I was back in a new wardrobe and a better position both professionally and personally,
with newfound confidence and abilities.

(58:57):
Turned myself into something better, something closer to the hero I always wanted to be.
Honestly, part of me is still riding the high of that moment.
The old Grant wasn't dead. At least not anymore.
She was back, stronger than before, with new powers, a better costume, and a new lease on life.

(59:18):
Now, the reason I shared all this isn't to say that I think everyone should
go out and try psychedelics in an attempt to transform themselves and become a superhero.
I'm well aware of the fact that I'm lucky to have had someone look after me
and that all of this could have gone worse in almost any other time and place.
What I am saying, however, is that sometimes you need to take a step back from yourself,

(59:42):
and your life as you know it to experience something new and unbelievable to
realize that it's time to look inward and change yourself for the better.
Even the smallest efforts to pursue your passions or become a better version
of yourself can lead to incredible results.
I will say that spending time creating content, learning new things,

(01:00:04):
and spending time with the people I love to balance out the amount of time I
spend consuming content has made my life feel a lot more fulfilling.
And I think it's helped lead to a lot of the incredible opportunities I've had
this last year. And I can trace this all back to my good friend Nate setting
me down this path of making podcasts and comic books together just two years ago.

(01:00:28):
So if there's one thing I can suggest, it's to find a way to pursue and embrace
your interests in any way possible, no matter how small.
Start a podcast or a blog about the things that you love.
Learn how to play a new instrument or how to make a comic book or a video game
or whatever you want to make. Or if nothing else, find some way to embrace and

(01:00:52):
learn more about the things you love in a way that enriches your life.
It may start as something that only you and a handful of friends ever see,
but you never know what doors that's going to open for you down the line and
what you might discover about yourself along the way.
Nothing is stopping you from taking the first steps toward a better life and

(01:01:13):
pursuing what you love right now.
Music.

(01:03:05):
Thank you, the listeners, for taking a chance on by far the most personal podcast
episode I've released so far.
This is the Tommy of 2024 back again, here to share with you some exciting developments
that have happened since we originally published It's Morphin' Time,
and a few thank yous for those that have been there for us along the way.
I went from creating a single trans coming out episode to starting a podcast

(01:03:27):
dedicated specifically to trans representation in the comic book industry,
and now becoming a trans comics writer myself.
Just last month, we successfully kick-started my first comic book, When We Transform.
Much like It's Morphin' Time, it's also inspired by my love of colorful,
transforming superheroes, and I did my best to include a bit of music festival

(01:03:48):
culture in there as well.
The special edition of the book is a first-of-its-kind, light-reactive,
color-changing comic, which was made possible by the folks and artists at Colorimetry Lights.
They're an incredible art company we found at Electric Forest,
and they're known for their color-changing, psychedelic art prints,
and the interactive experience they bring with them to major music festivals across the country.

(01:04:09):
I am beyond excited to help bring their art style to the world of comics as
I bring their artwork to fan conventions and music festivals alongside my own
comics as I start my career as a vendor.
In the last couple months, I've started traveling for my podcasts and have even
hosted my first live panel and in-person interviews for my shows.
I'm also collaborating with a few other talented folks on some exciting projects

(01:04:32):
coming in the near future, but I can't share too many details about those just yet.
It's Morphin Time has been by far my most ambitious and personally fulfilling
project I've made so far, and I want to make more episodes like it.
Though, not about myself next time around, and not necessarily for either of my existing shows.
I've met some incredible individuals in my short time as a podcaster,

(01:04:54):
and many of them have stories to share that deserve more than an interview alone.
I want to help others tell their
stories in a way that's as unique to them as this episode was for me.
But episodes like this take exponentially more time and effort than a typical
podcast episode, and it's not something I can sustainably do alone.
I'm in the process of finding a means to bring this podcast dedicated to living

(01:05:17):
narratives to life, but it's going to be a while before we have a season's worth of episodes ready.
If this sounds like something you would want to be involved with,
then we'd love for you to reach out to us.
We just launched our own website dedicated to our creative projects at keymastercollective.com.
You can reach us through our contact page or by emailing us at keymastercollective at gmail.com.

(01:05:37):
We'd love to work with you on our future projects and do our part in helping
you bring your own ideas to life.
Now, on to some thank yous. First and foremost, I want to thank the folks at
the Iowa Podcast Awards for helping bring attention to our shows and for giving
us the awards for Best Production and Episode of the Year.
Also, thank you to Upload Media Group for throwing such an incredible event

(01:06:00):
and creating an opportunity where podcasters from across my state could meet
and celebrate each other's work.
I left that night with a long list of shows I'll be checking out in the near
future. I want to thank my partner, Aerie, for listening to many different drafts
of the script for this episode and giving me some much-needed encouragement
throughout the editing process.
A recurring thank you to Nate for being the ultimate sounding board for creative

(01:06:23):
ideas and for getting me started on making podcasts and comics in the first place.
Thank you to my friends, Dylan and Angel, for being the first to listen to the
completed script for this episode.
And a special thanks to Sadie, a friend of the show that's recently helped us
break into the world of video. I especially want to thank all the creators who
have taken the time to join us on Giant-Sized Violence and Transcending Comics.

(01:06:45):
You've all kept my passion for these shows alive, and I've learned so much about
creating comics from each and every one of you.
And finally, I want to thank you, the listeners of my shows,
and especially the repeat listeners of this episode.
You're a constant reminder to me that it's worth it to keep creating from a
place of love, and your support means the world to me.

(01:07:06):
Now, back to past Tommy for the episode's musical credits.
Our intro and outro music, as always, is You're an Ace Kid by Demon Dice from their album Alcatraz.
Other songs used in order, Enchantment by Nora and Pure.
The Greatest Pac-Man Victory in History by Aesop Rock. The Starting Line by Neil Cicerega.

(01:07:28):
Clouds by Sonny and Gabe. Welcome to the Internet, Ixva Remix by Bo Burnham.
All Eyes on Me, Origin Tori Remix by Bo Burnham, Remix by me,
which I'll gladly upload to SoundCloud upon request,
Space Monkey Mafia by Neil Cicerega, the That's Not It line was a sample from
Girl Talk sampling Salt-N-Pepa in his song Still Here, Aha by Nate Roos,

(01:07:51):
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Original Theme by Ron Wasserman,
Megazord by Grizz featuring Prob Kaz and Krishira Parir,
Legend of the Powersaurus by Victorious, We Need a Hero by Ron Wasserman Blueish
by Animal Collective Survive by Lane8 and Gratitude by Above and Beyond though
a mashup by me of the Oliver Smith remix and the Split Bootleg remix.

(01:08:14):
And one new addition, Kamsusertad by Shirosugisu, Arian, and Hidekiyano with
lyrics removed by YouTube user Yodel.
Finally, I hope you'll tune in again in the future to see just where this show
goes this next year, but But until then, take care and remember to do your part
in preventing the spread of the kaiju virus.

(01:08:35):
Music.

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