Cleveland film culture meets COVID-era media debates—programming, policy, and the politics of storytelling

Corrupt adults from Ikebukuro

We open on the guest’s day job: building arts education in Cleveland—first running non-degree programs at an arts college, then leading the Cleveland International Film Festival’s education wing. FilmSlam (the long-running student mini-festival) gets a spotlight: selecting submissions, curating blocks for middle/high school, and creating classroom study guides.

Beyond classrooms, the festival’s “community partner” model pairs films with local nonprofits.

Local infrastructure matters. The guest sits on boards (Greater Cleveland Film Commission associate board and the stewardship board for the historic Capitol Theater) wrestling with post-COVID realities: how to keep a neighborhood cinema sustainable when theatrical habits and business models have shifted.

Programming life at an art-house gets some love: designing calendars, stunts, and special events. We trade notes on the shot-for-shot fan remake phenomenon (the Raiders kids) and why the documentary around it can be more watchable than the artifact itself.

Screenwriting vs. comics: development hell, endless notes, and why creators like Daniel Clowes sometimes swerve away from Hollywood. Comics can ship under a single vision; films demand money, logistics, and a village.

Then the COVID digression: lab-leak vs. zoonotic narratives, masks as social signaling, shifting public-health guidance, censorship/algorithms, pharma incentives, EUA dynamics, and policy overreach (travel restrictions, mandates). We frame it as contested terrain that shaped culture and film production.

COVID in cinema: minimal-cast movies shot under restrictions, a Canadian-made-in-Taiwan horror entry (The Sadness), and why most viewers don’t want masks in fiction. Broader ripple effects: money-printing, inflation, supply-shocks, and the 2020–21 crypto boom as zero-rate capital chased risk assets.

Process notes: perfectionism and “Frankensteined” pages; how starting without a finished script creates rework. We kick around the “easy win” idea—a graphic nonfiction comedy about tech confusion and cord-cutting, sparked by a local TV segment on a Roku location snafu—tentative title: My Dad Cuts the Cord.

We wrap with shop talk: why voice notes are a misuse of tech when speech-to-text exists, how to keep projects scarce and focused, and a quick tease of upcoming guests.

Guest Links:
Get "Horse Girls" Here
Get "Ain't It Fun" Here
churchghost.com
instagram.com/aaronlangecomix

Socials:
x.com/justinisis1
instagram.com/justinisis93
instagram.com/dblv

Channels:
youtube.com/@BukuroBoys
open.spotify.com/show/5TYzulRQh4IVfSatyisxIF

Audio Only RSS:
anchor.fm/s/f9cb9e3c/podcast/rss

Patreon: Want more? Support us on Patreon to get bonus content and behind-the-scenes discussions.
patreon.com/BukuroBoys

Punk, Cleveland, and the Myth of Peter Laughner

Corrupt adults from Ikebukuro

We sit down with Aaron Lange, Cleveland-based author and illustrator, to dig into his graphic biography of Peter Laughner—the first casualty of the punk era and a cult figure whose legend still lingers. Lange explains how he used Laughner as a literary device to tell a bigger story: the rise and decay of Cleveland, from industrial boomtown to post-industrial wasteland, and the cultural scenes that emerged along the way.

We explore Laughner’s restless life—his poetry, his role in Rocket from the Tombs, his chaotic friendship with critic Lester Bangs, his zipping between Cleveland, Detroit, and CBGB’s in New York. We talk about how he never recorded a proper studio album, how his myth grew after his death at 24, and why his presence still haunts the first Pere Ubu record.

Lange describes his seven-year research odyssey: combing archives at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, paging through old school yearbooks, and even unearthing unheard recordings. We dive into the Cleveland backdrop—industrial decline, race riots, the river catching fire, Kent State, the strange world of supper clubs and tiki bars—and how all of it seeps into the book’s pages.

We go blow-by-blow through the book’s structure: its collage-like illustrated style that defies traditional comic panels, its dense history-packed early chapters, and the way it juxtaposes music scenes with the city’s noirish history—the Torso Murderer case, the tragic Dr. Sam Sheppard trial, even TV horror host Ghoulardi (father of director Paul Thomas Anderson).

The conversation veers into punk’s uneasy relationship with progressivism, the overlooked intellectual side of the Electric Eels, and the contrast between proto-punk’s raw urgency and the expansive weirdness of prog rock. We discuss the book’s reception in the music world, its cool but mixed reception in comics circles, and the challenges of publishing such an ambitious project.

We reflect on how Lange’s hand-drawn approach—ink, brush, Bristol board—shapes the texture of the work, why digital tools often fall short, and how the book stands as both a biography and a psychological portrait of a city. More than a tale about one doomed musician, it’s about the environment that forged and forgot him.

Guest Links:
Get "Ain't It Fun" Here
churchghost.com
instagram.com/aaronlangecomix

Socials:
x.com/justinisis1
instagram.com/justinisis93
instagram.com/dblv

Channels:
youtube.com/@BukuroBoys
open.spotify.com/show/5TYzulRQh4IVfSatyisxIF

Audio Only RSS:
anchor.fm/s/f9cb9e3c/podcast/rss

Patreon: Want more? Support us on Patreon to get bonus content and behind-the-scenes discussions.
patreon.com/BukuroBoys

Sex, sorcery, and the collapse of civilization

Corrupt adults from Ikebukuro

We kick things off by mourning the Tokyo of the early 2000s—when English teachers made real money and the city still felt like Paradise. From there, we spiral into a surreal cultural vortex: Jesus on a Paramount soundstage, deepfake desert sermons, and a takedown of nostalgia-fueled fandoms like South Park, Rick and Morty, and Harry Potter.

We drift into the Saddam Hussein villain arc of the 90s and the media’s need for paper tiger enemies—whether it's Rushdie, ISIS, or whoever the narrative demands. Then it’s back to Epstein, the mysterious empty files, and why cultural thresholds for outrage seem completely eroded. Even extreme abuse scandals are met with shrugs.

From there, we enter the gay sex dimension. We talk frankly about experiences with age gaps, technique vs. anatomy, hookup culture differences, and why gay men often trade intimacy for access. Stephen Fry’s attempts to make homosexuality palatable to Ugandan pastors gets roasted—because sometimes, yeah, it is about anal sex.

We pivot hard into magic, especially the terrifying beauty of Enochian workings. One guest urges everyone to just recite the keys and “see what happens.” We debate the risks, metaphysical implications, and what kind of spirits you're inviting into your life. Spoiler: they don’t care about your feelings.

That opens the portal to a deep dive on Secret Chiefs—Crowley’s mysterious metaphysical overlords. We question why no one talks about them anymore, even though they supposedly orchestrate all of reality. According to them, the collapse of humanitarianism is not just inevitable—it’s necessary.

We wrap with ketamine-induced communions, universal coincidence as a metaphysical operation, and a haunting synchronicity that unfolded just before recording. What are the odds? Apparently, orchestrated.

Andrew Logan Montgomery Links:
substack.com/@andrewloganmontgomery
andrewloganmontgomery.blogspot.com
x.com/magnioperis
threeseasonsinsartar.blogspot.com

Socials:
x.com/justinisis1
instagram.com/justinisis93
instagram.com/dblv

Channels:
youtube.com/@BukuroBoys
open.spotify.com/show/5TYzulRQh4IVfSatyisxIF

Audio Only RSS:
anchor.fm/s/f9cb9e3c/podcast/rss

Patreon: Want more? Support us on Patreon to get bonus content and behind-the-scenes discussions.
patreon.com/BukuroBoys