Let’s take the lightrail down from LTC to NYC, the city that never sleeps, BABYEEEEE. Dimension 20’s own Brennan Lee Mulligan lets us play around in the Dreaming and Waking worlds of the Unsleeping City, as we look at what two rivals in an urban fantasy sports league might look like. As always, what seems to be about sports is actually about stardom, drama, and lots of New York City references.
Housekeeping
- Watch Brennan Lee Mulligan on Dimension 20’s newest arc, Unsleeping City Part II, at dropout.tv
- Pick up Sports Are Just Numerology by Ben Roswell at https://roswellian.itch.io/
Find Us Online
- website: jointhepartypod.com
- patreon: patreon.com/jointhepartypod
- twitter: twitter.com/jointhepartypod
- facebook: facebook.com/jointhepartypod
- instagram: instagram.com/jointhepartypod
- tumblr: jointhepartypod.tumblr.com
- merch & music: jointhepartypod.com/merch
Cast & Crew
- Dungeon Master, Co-Producer: Eric Silver
- Editor, Sound Designer, Composer: Brandon Grugle
About Us
Join the Party is a collaborative storytelling and roleplaying podcast, powered by the rules of Dungeons and Dragons. That means a group of friends create a story together, chapter by chapter, that takes us beyond the tabletop to parts unknown. In the first campaign, we explored fantasy adventure, intrigue, magic, and drama. In the newest story, we tackle science, superpowers, a better future, and the responsibility to help others.
Every month, we sit down for the Afterparty, where we break down our game and answer your questions about how to play D&D and other roleplaying games at home. We also have segments at the beginning of each campaign to teach people how to play the game themselves. It’s a party, and you’re invited! Find out more at jointhepartypod.com.
Transcript
Eric: That's a fire in a fireplace going psh psh psh psh. Chestnuts roasting over an open fire psh psh psh psh that seems dangerous, I wouldn't do that, psh psh psh psh. Hello! I didn't see you come in there. This is Eric your D.M. usually. But I'm bringing you a wonderful winter holiday present, a bonus episode with Dimensione 20 DM and all around incredible person Brennan Lee Mulligan Dimensioned, 20, has begun a new arc of their D&D show returning to the unsleeping city. For those of you who haven't watched yet, you should. And it's incredible. But before that, Unsleeping City is an urban fantasy setting of New York City. The city that never sleeps has very specific magical properties that allow the waking world and the dreaming world to intersect, allowing humans and fantasy creatures to intersect. And the sleeping city has their own rules, structures and society that mirrors our own. In this game, we dive into what some of that might look like by playing the game Sports are Just Numerology by Ben Rosewell. Don't worry, you can find a link to that game in the episode description, but we teach you how to play as we go along. You don't have to like sports to enjoy this. As the game focuses on the arcs of a relationship between true rivals as they first meet, as it comes to its heights, maybe they become friends at the end and then it all comes together as their sports careers finish once again. Seems like sports, but actually it's feelings and drama. One final note, this was an excuse for two DMs to have a bunch of fun, but also two longtime New Yorkers to make very specific New York City references, if there's something you don't get, don't worry. It's probably just an NYC thing. And we will remember to explain what it is in just a little while. Most importantly, be sure to watch Dimension 20 and the new Unsleeping City part two campaign by signing up at dropout .TV and we hope you enjoy our Unsleeping Party. Get it? It's like a slumber party, but it's not because it's unsafe keeping. And that's the name of the arc. It's all comes together. Yeah, I'm gonna do a look back at fire psh psh psh psh pop pop pop. A smell of burning up that wood.
[Transition note]
Eric: We heard you, all the people out there, and we know that what our podcast listeners want more than anything is sports content that are related to the things that you're good at and all the ways that you can be good at sports and the strange ways that are getting there. First, we had blazeball and we had Clear Eyes Full Hearts, and now we are going to do another sports thing. But it's not just going to be me talking about this. I have a wonderful guest who is here to talk about the strange world that we are going to play our game in its Brennan Lee Mulgan, hello!
Brennan Lee Mulligan: Oh, my God, Eric. I'm so happy to be back! Thank you so much for having me. I look, I get to play a game. I'm so excited!
[Eric laughs]
Eric: That was the main thing that I got from our conversation last time. I was like, man, Brennan really just wants to play a game. And now here we are.
Brennan: We I just get on awesome gaming podcasts and streams and just hard guilt, whoever the game is on that stream to be like "run a game for me, please." And it worked. And so I regret nothing.
Eric: It's perfect. You absolutely did it. [Laughs] This is so fun and games. We're playing a DM-less game, so I feel like both of us are getting a little untethered here. But of course I did prep ahead of time, so I can't even let go even when I'm not a DM, when no DM exists, I cannot let go. But first, before we get into the game itself, hey, I feel like you did something that's out now that you should tell the people about!
Brennan: Gang over here in Dimension 20 Land, we're in it with all y'all in this bizarre pandemic COVID world and are in the midst of releasing our current season shot remotely with our core cast, with the intrepid heroes Lou, and Zac and Ally and Siobhan, and Emily and Murph are all back in the Unsleeping City Chapter two, which is a return to a setting that we had played in previously of the Unsleeping City, which is the urban fantasy, fantastical adventures of the hidden magical world behind [in a thick New York Accent] New York City. Baby, finally, the Big Apple gets it's chance to join. You know, London's neverwares. And all these are the old school cities is think there's some magic - New York's magic too baby! Don't forget! [Regular voice] So that's our current season. And for those that don't know, Dimension 20 is an anthology actual play show by college humor, which is me and six other awesome comedians that do dendi actual play with crazy homebrew settings where we tell very heartfelt and tragic and dramatic, but also very ultimately comedic storylines that are a little bit short. You know, our longest series are like 18 episodes and the episodes are usually about like two, two and a half hours. So for people that are looking to jump onto the Dimension 20 bandwagon, we always got new seasons starting up and the stories are meaty and cool, but also very fun and approachable. So check it out.
Eric: Absolutely. For those of you who don't know what this is, something that we talked about the last time Brennan was here, was that something that people who listen to Join the Party know we are taking Dungeons and Dragons and going to a different sort of genre, a different sort of setting. Well, we are doing our modern superhero thing over here and Join the Party. You are doing your urban fantasy, finally giving New York City its due, which is so important because no one has ever represented New York City, except for all the Billy Joel references that we do.
Brennan: Yeah. And when we just wanted a world where Billy Joel could be statted out as some type of bard and that was significant to us. And, you know, and that dream gets to come true, which is great.
Eric: So he will get in his car and run you over and then write a song about it.
[Brennan laughing]
Eric: That's that's his special power. That's his background.
Brennan: Yeah. Where where bottle of red bottle of white can be a verbal component of spell casting, and that's what the people want! It's what they want!
Eric: I got to fists right here, red and white. But I'll show you, Rose, if that's what you really want. I got them right here. Alright, well, it's so wonderful that you're talking about this urban fantasy New York City, because I wanted to play a game within this world here. We were introduced to it in Chapter One and no spoilers, but there is a time jump of three years forward for Chapter Two. So there's a lot of stuff that we haven't explored about the dream world and the real world in New York City and how all of that comes together. And we're going to play a game called Sports Are Numerology by Ben Rosewell. You can go to Roswellian . itch . io And we're going have the link in the episode description if you want to check it out. It is a one page tabletop RPG where all you need is a piece of paper and something to write on and a random number generator. So we have all this and we're going to play a game where Brennan and I, we're going to play two sports players whose careers and lives are irrevocably linked through stories and memories. Are the numbers that permeate sports luminous meaning, because sports are just numbers in drama, as we found out.
Brandon: Ugh, I love it. I love it.
Eric: So I have watched all of Chapter One on Sleeping City and the episodes that are out from Chapter Two and also. [With a thick New York accent] I've been fucking living in the Empire State my entire life, Westchester and 914 baby!!
Brennan: Hell yeah!
Eric: NYU class of 12 and 13. You know what it is, [regular voice] I really like Chapter two because of the Greenpoint representation, which is really important to me and everybody here at Multitude. So the first thing that you do on sports or numerology is you name yourselves and you decide the place where you end your intertwined careers. So the first thing I wanted to give you, because I've consumed your media and I've kind of processed it through my terrible sports knowledge and everything. So I had some ideas for sports leagues and then I had some ideas for characters that either one of us could play.
Brennan: Hell, yeah. Alright.
Eric: So the sports leagues, I have four different options. Or we can build our own. I just have the MLB, which is the Monster League Baseball, obviously just straight up Shadow Baseball League. I don't know this, so I would love to ask you this question. If there are other cities that do have a permeated area where dreams and reality are so it's like New York City against I guess it doesn't even matter if it's the United States very like baseball sort of understanding.
Brennan: One hundred percent this season actually gets into that a little bit more. And I don't think it's a spoiler to say: magic exists throughout the world. So it is accurate to say that there are other powerful nodes of magic in the world other than New York City. However, in the Unsleeping City, New York does have a uniquely powerful attachment to the dreaming world because of its relationship to insomnia, the idea of a city that never sleeps. It's relationships as being the city of dreams, like specifically a city you go to to pursue whatever your ambitions or goals are. So, yes, lots of different magical cities in the world of the sleeping city. No, not all of them are as powerfully connected to the concept of dreaming.
Eric: Right. okay, so this would be a real like Yankees in the 2000's situation where the New York City team wins all of them.
[Brennan laughs]
Eric: So this is our our entire city one. So we'll put that on a shelf. So I have three other ones that are just intra-city sports leagues. There is a New York City professional kickball league that was invented in the dream world. It's all the different neighborhoods where people just use to let off steam in their own way. So this is a little less professional. But the way that he came to our world was that a guy in Murray Hill had a dream about it. And now that's why all of these guys in finance do it now. That's how it happened.
[Brennan laughs]
Eric: So, yeah, we had the professional kickball league level that you're interested in.
Brennan: I love that!
Eric: There is something that's like more classical, it's a boxing meets, professional wrestling sort of thing where, you know, people deal with their issues by having this wrestling. There's a mountain kind of in nod where 30 Rockefeller Center stands. And that would be the Top of the Rock tournament, of course.
Brennan: Oh, incredible, incredible. Love that.
Eric: Right, and finally, there is just a inner city basketball league which takes place on the Umbral public courts. So whenever you see that there are nets down or it's closed for repaving or something, there's just a game going on. And that explains why the Knicks are so bad, because all the juice go to the park courts.
[Brennan laughs]
Brennan: Oh, my God, poor Knicks. I love all four of these so damn much. Let's do a collaborative narrowing down. I would say of those ones, just for whatever reason is like pinging my inner dramatic bell. Top of the Rock sounds incredibly cool. Like wrestling like in the Sixth Borough Wrestling Group and also Monster League Baseball. Even though we put it on a shelf because there are other magical cities, they just draw their power from other realms beside dreaming. So I would say I'll let you do the coin flip between Monster League Baseball or wrestling boxing like Top of the Rock.
Eric: okay, I'm going to go with Top of the Rock because one, I do have some wrestling feelings that I want to get out, but also in like the back of my head, this is like also the way that they deal with budgetary problems.
Brennan: Yeah!
Eric: In dream world is like, "oh yeah, we'll deal- we'll deal with it at the Top of the Rock tournament." Like we'll take care of that.
Brennan: Hell yeah. I think we're both from New York and break our hearts to have one of us have to be from some other frankly lesser city.
Eric: Yeah. It's like oh yeah. [New York Accent] And then the fucking the L.A. - the L.A. Banshees come and like you got traded there. So fuck you Brennan like there you go. [Normal voice] Yeah. So I think we should do the Top of the Rock tournament.
Brennan: Sounds good to me.
Eric: Cool. And then we have some characters that we have here to play. So now that we know that we're doing this like boxing, wrestling. So I don't know if you saw the most recent season of Ducktails, but there's like the Norse Gods deal with, like Ragnarok doing this like kind of like fighting wrestling tournament in this way and it's kind of like that or something like a little bit more classical like. Oh, yeah, like we started doing this because we heard Gilgamesh like did it a bunch and like he was pretty sick, so that's why we started doing it, to just work out our feelings, getting your problems out by doing professional wrestling.
Brennan: Love it, yes, hundred percent.
Eric: okay, so I have some characters here and you can come up with your own. We have Consolidated Eddie, who is a fast talking electricity elemental. I feel like his whole gimmick is being really fast and being electric. There is Hephaestus Lower East Sideberg foulmouthed fire dwarf who turns the heaters and the radiators on in the winter. But it's a seasonal job, so his other job is wrestling. There's Yoseph, who is Willie's cousin, who is a Golem, he moved to Greenpoint after the rent got too high in Williamsburg, and Willie is just such a bad roommate. I have the ghost of Captain William Kidd, so Captain Kidd was hanged for piracy in 1701. And there was the legend that he buried his riches on Liberty Island where the Statue of Liberty is. But really, he was betting on his own matches, and I assumed that the Pixie's had a sportsbook going, so he he was betting on his own shit in the Pixie's, beat them up. So now he's like a ghost who's stuck doing this and he's just like a pirate ghost.
Brennan: Oh, man, that's so good.
Eric: And in the tradition, I hope I don't think this is a spoiler, but Stephen Sondheim does work within the umbrella arcana. So there are just people we know from New York City. I thought it would be funny. I did have just baseball in the brain, but anything for this, I thought Mike Piazza, former catcher for the New York Mets, if someone wants to be him, we could just do it.
Brennan: I mean, just a truly beloved baseball player. Yeah. Mike Piazza. Yeah. Honestly, that's the idea of Mike Piazza wrestling a fire dwarf on top of Rockefeller Center, that really that really, really does it for me.
Eric: Listen, if you have a Bell and Sebastian's song written for you, you might as well be a legend. So it's fine.
Brennan: You tell me your favorite so that I know, because that's going to help me pick my my character.
Eric: I'm going to choose one of the two coded Jewish ones just for my own sake, although I literally created Yoseph to to do this Hephaestus Lower East Sideberg has been growing on me so much ever since the radiator's got turned on. So I think I'm going to be him, and I just need to think of like, our wrestling names. But also that's just a good name. So I'm going to I think I'm going to be Hephaestus.
Brennan: Cool! I'm immediately drawn to the pirate, but I've also done the pirate voice so much that I don't want to expose people to yet another pirate, lemme actually - I'm going to let fate decide. I'm going to roll a d6 real quick. I'm going to say 1-2 is going to be consolidated Eddie 3-4 will be Yossef and then 5-6 I'll just pull a rabbit out of my hat trying to do a deep dive into some other bizarre piece of New York City lore.
Eric: Incredible.
[Dice rolls]
Brennan: That is a 2 baby! Consolidated Eddie!
Eric: Yes! I was so hoping you would do a fast talking New Yorker. So this is this is very good.
Brennan: I'll tell you, this is a true story. First of all, Consolidated Eddie, for those that don't know, Con Ed is the main power company in New York and Consolidated Eddie is such a great name for a lightning elemental. Number two, what I want to say is the idea of a fast lightning elemental for Con Edison, one of the slowest companies in the world is uh [chef kisses] a choice. It's a brilliant choice. And then number three, this is a bizarre personal tangent. I tried to teach my dad to play D&D when I was 11 years old. My dad consummate New Yorker, like where my love for the city largely comes from. But High Fantasy was not his cup of tea. And he had a he really struggled with D&D when I was a kid, I was like, "no, dad, take it seriously!" He made it first level elven wizard. And when he came up with name, I was like, "what's your what's their name? And I was like, elves have names like Fanor or Halerial or things like that." He went, "My elf's name is Fast Eddie." So true story: Fast Eddie is the name of the first D&D character my dad ever made. Consolidated Eddie, the Lightning Elemental. I love it.
Eric: This is incredible. I also love that both of our names could also just be the wrestling names that we needed to do. Like like Hephaestus is Lower East Sideberg. He's just like the guy they pulled in off the street who's like still wearing his construction like, that's still is like,
Eric (as Hephaestus): [In a thick New York accent] Yeah, I got all the stuff from home. It's fine, like I got it. Oh man. I've been I've been making this one radiator sound so fuckin loud that I just my ears are ringing. I got to get some shit out.
Brennan: [Lauhging] I love that so much! It's such a perfect piece of like magic New York folklore because anyone who's ever been in an old railroad apartment with like an ancient radiator in it is like I know for a fact there is a dwarf on the inside of the radiator hammering. It is the only explanation for the sound that is piercing through the apartment at this very moment.
Eric: Wonderful. Okay, so the first thing that we do is we decide the place in which you and your intertwined careers do you retire is bitter rivals, has the protege replaced their mentor? Do you have you become lovers? You would tell the story of how you got there. So I think there's this first scene here. I wonder if, like, since this is not like a sports league in this way, but it's more of an event, I feel like. If Eddie is an elemental and Hephaestus is a real corporeal person, I think this ends when Hephaestus just can't do it anymore and Eddie can because he's just reforming energy. So I think it just ends at like a bar that's underneath the Williamsburg Bridge. It's divey and it's also like a little wet because it's too close to the East River and it's a years later when Hephaestus like can't do either. He can't wrestle or use a hammer to turn on the heat anymore, and he's just like a guy. So people like send him shots. He's like,
Eric (as Hephaestus): Oh, yeah. Hey, I am so glad that you came to all the Top of the Rock tournament. So thank you so much. It's so nice.
Eric: And I think it just comes to a time if you see another wrestler or fighter there, then you just like - I'm sending my free drinks that people are sending to me over to Eddie who can still do it. And like, I don't even know if we're sitting next to each other or something.
Brennan: I love that. I think that there is something very tragic to the idea of a truly like inhuman being trying to understand, like the frailties of like corporeal life. I think that, you know, it's one of those bars that there's no big fanfare about with the name of the bar. It's probably like an old dirty green awning and it's like under a bridge already. So the awning is already redundant, but it's like faded old letters, like green awning, white lettering that says some, you know, Irish name like Handwrattie's. But it's like, you know, why would anyone refer to it by name? It's just "the bar under the bridge" and I think that this is a place where people go. To have their legacy observed and have people come pay respect, so I don't think that Hephaestus is the only wrestler here being paid homage.
Eric: Right.
Brennan: And I think that their relationship, Eddie and Hephaestus ends here, because I don't think Eddie would corporeal eyes in this place because it is a temple to aging and to the past, which for something that is eternal and unmarred by the physical aging process, there is something just deeply terrifying about this place. I think the way that Eddie manifests in this place and says goodbye to Hephaestus, here is Eddie, who never had a kind word to say about Hephaestus to his face. Appears in the old television above the bar and using his electrical elemental status, fabricates a lot of New York one memorialising of Hephaestus, his incredible career as a wrestler in the Top of the Rock tournaments. So it is a - I think that Eddie. No pun intended, wrestles with his old rival being here by continually reframing his career through these little televised, you know, almost like the fake TV commercials and fake New York One things about incredible legendary bouts that Hephaestus was in during his time wrestling.
Eric: I love that, no that's incredible. I think it's like someone sends over a Long Island iced tea and a vest just takes it, slides it one over to his left and he's just like.
Eric (as Hephaestus): God this TV so fucking loud. Please just mute it, put it mute, mute it please.
Brennan: The bartender may try to, but for some the TV, the mute channel keeps coming undone and the channels flip around, do that thing where they like, move back and forth between a couple of channels really quickly to have the TV do something like,
Brennan (as Eddie): Hey there Hephaestus! Go fuck yourself!
[Eric laughing]
Brennan: Like matching perfectly between different channels to have Eddie say what he wants to say without having to be physically present in the bar.
Eric: I love that. I feel like a one for a second. It switches to like MTV Cribs and that it's just like Coolio's just like this is where the magic happens, and it switches back to the other one. Incredible. Alright. So we have our ending unless they're adding more tragic things we want to say about the wrestler Mickey Rourke style, in this relationship
Brennan: No, this is exactly as melancholy and filled with a lot of heart, but only in the most painful way. This is so far we are doing New York justice. This is this is the vibe.
Eric: Absolutely. Okay, so now the game mechanics are going to start. The main game mechanic of sports are just numerology is a random number generator. So we're going to ask each other to give us a number of digits between 1 and 6. And I have a random number generator that is going to generate a number with that many digits. And I'm going to write it down in our notes here.
Brennan: Awesome. We are going to say what this number represents and why it is significant. It could be a player stat, a date, a jersey number, a score, add decimal points zero slashes anything else. As long as you do not change the order or change the number of the original core digits. If you don't know a stat that matches perfectly, just make one up because most stats are made up anyway. Ben, you're nailing it. I love this game so much. Then you're going to ask your partner how and or why they remember it. So, for example, I agree, like if you got the number 21, then you would ask me how I remember it and then I'd be like, oh, that's because I was playing blackjack when I heard that you were first on the come up or whatever. So Brennan what number of digits would you like between 1 and 6?
Brennan: Yeah, let's do 2.
Eric: Boom, alright, I'm gonna give you the number 57.
Brennan: That's the number of official Top of the Rock matches between each other in our career as wrestlers.
Eric: Absolutely. I remember that number because I intentionally lost count because Eddie is incorporeal. I feel like if this feels like it's set up like a professional wrestling ring just on the top of this mountain, which is theoretically where 30 Rock is like if you laid the dream world on top of New York City, it's on top of rocks. You can like etch stuff into the rock if you want to do. And I feel like around the 30th one, I'm like,
Eric (as Hephaestus): I don't care how many times we're going to have to do this. I'm still going to kick your fucking ass!
Eric: And I feel like Eddie intentionally, like has carved the number of times they've done it, like in in tally marks on the side of the rock itself.
Brennan: One hundred percent. I think that's absolutely right. And I think the number is meaningful to Eddie as well, because Eddie does a very good job of when he is manifested in that sort of elemental form, knows how to have a lot of swagger, is actually a very like, vibrant character when he's present. But there's still part of him given the sort of like utility company that birthed him magically, that is very obsessed with measurement as a concept. Like he runs through gauges all the time and needles measuring his amperage and his voltage. Also as wrestlers, like his version of making weight is like conducting whatever his voltage is. So he's constantly, you know, like,
Brennan (as Eddie): [In an old school New York Accent] Yeah, you know, I'm trying to cut down on coal and try to up my, you know, my green energy a little bit because I've got a match coming up next week. So I'm trying-
Brennan: Just like very aware of his "body" in quotation marks, which is just a given amount of electricity, but -
Eric (as Hephaestus): Ugh, but Mr. Fucking Solar Panel over here is a fucking talking about himself all the time!
Brennan (as Eddie): Talk about using it's about to be - [New York gibberish] IT'S ABOUT TO BE [Stuttering] YOU GOTTA DIVERSIFY! You know what I mean? I'm not sure whatever the fuck you're "Lower East Side" fucking stopping by Pomfrey'S It's loading up on them greasy ass fuckin' -
Eric (as Hephaestus): Wow.
Brennan (as Eddie): Wow it is a deep cut? Hey, how about it?
Eric (as Hephaestus): Well, why do you think Pomfrey burned down the first time? It's because I couldn't deal with it anymore.
Brennan (as Eddie): Yeah, you fucking burned that place now because you couldn't [garbled yelling] if you - here's the fucking problem with you, alright? You have no respect for history. I know what's going on there. You know, Pomfrey was wasn't just a place. It made French fries. It was a place they had over thirteen light bulbs in it. But you wouldn't give a fuck about that. You fucking stugats.
Eric: I love these weigh-ins, these weigh-ins are my new favorite thing. Holy shit. Oh, my God, I love this. I'm going to go with a six digit number because I know exactly what I want out of a six digit number. Alright, I got 1, 4, 2, 3, 6, 2. And that is the number of amperes. I don't know, fucking science. I guess that's energy. It's the number of amperes that, like, blew through a Con Ed transformer, which is how Eddie got created in the first place. It's like so thing that there are these two people in in the world that you have you have the vox populi, the voice of the people and the vox Fantasma. And what we've learned is how unprepared some people might be when this comes upon them. So I feel it like with the Vox Fantasma, who's always like someone with a connection to the dream world. I think it needs to be like the Vox Fantasma could not control. The powers in like 1932 and it just got too much, and they were hanging out like all the way down on Avenue D where that Con Ed transformer is. Let's say it was there in 1932, whatever. That's fine. And like the heady mix of all the dream energy around there, like spun it up big 1932 explosion. And then that's how Eddie appeared.
Brennan: I love that. I love that so much. Well I think it's significant because it's an amperage that I think was present at the time of my creation and I have never fully gotten back to that number, right. Like I was at my strongest at the moment of my creation. And since then I've gotten, you know, upwards of 90% of the way there at rare moments, but have never close that difference, nd it's like an asymptotic relationship where like, you know, it's easy to get to 75% of that amperage. It's hard to get to 80, very hard to get to 85 by the time you get to 90, it's like taking all of your effort. So that's sort of like a North star in Eddie's history. Also true story. I lived for a long time. IRL in the old Excelsior Power Company building down on Gold Street in Manhattan. So I live in the shell of one of the first power companies in New York for a long, long time.
Eric: We'll just make it there!! It would happen at the Excelsior Power Company because it must have been turned into apartments by that time. So you're. Yeah, I think also finding out about it. I feel like there's a manager who's just like my manager is just like a smaller fire dwarf, seemingly smaller, he was like,
Eric (as Manager): [Higher pitched, new york accent] Oh yeah, yeah, I found my calling. I got fuckin' to be a manager for you. Hephaestus, Heph- you know, we've got to have this. But there's this new guy here. He's out of the town! He's just lightning, but he's not like you get turn into things.
Eric (as Hephaestus): But can you, can you please, I just spent - I spent three days in a row, it's December 1st, I've spent so much time turning these on, what's happening?
Eric (as Manager): Oh, yeah, this is a new guy. There's a new guy here is here to wrestle with is like, oh, yeah, you, like, broke all the numbers of the amperage, but that has been fucking around. That's what happened!
Brennan: Oh, that's great.
Eric: Alright. So you have done a two digit number. Brennan you've one through six other than two left.
Brennan: Let's do four. Let's do a four digit number.
Eric: Alright, 1479.
Brennan: I'm going to say that our mutual sort of like rivalry went on for obviously decades and decades and decades, right? The baddest beat that Eddy ever got from Hephaestus happened with a tournament rule change that basically got rid of a long standing rule of what people were allowed to make their costumes out of that, like what people were allowed to look forge their whatever out of and Hephaestus just rolled up during a time where, like, plastic and rubber suddenly became a lot more like affordable and easy to manage, like sometime in the 20th century, like mid 20th century and or in with a costume and walloped Eddie so badly that for one thousand four hundred - and you said seventy nine?
Eric: Seventy nine,
Brennan: That's how many days Eddie was out of commission. So it was multiple years, for years. He was like out of the game from a just titanic ass whupping. And I think it was a point of like the emotional despair lingered after he had mostly physically healed from it. Right?
Eric: Yeah. And like I feel like there's these are champions. This is like a budgetary thing is like of the Pixies designate one person and like the other fairies or just like trolls designate another another faction they need to deal with each other is like Eddie was putting someone out when he wasn't there. And it's not good for anyone if you are not doing the thing that higher ups need you. So I feel like that number is significant to Hephaestus because like Eddie's his co-worker, so it's like if your co-workers doesn't show up for two weeks, so it's a lot of like every week, I think Hephaestus went down to the what was it, the Excelsior Excelsior Power Company at the Excelsior Power Company station, whether or not it was open at this point or not, and that's Eddie's house and his home.
Brennan: He was just curled up in a fuse box in the basement.
Eric: Yeah, in my head, these fire dwarfs the work, the radiators, like can Santa Claus into the radiator pipes like that. So it's a lot of like trying to get through the pipe and it's blocked. Like in Mario, like if you were going in, it was a blocked pipe and you're like, oh fuck,
Eric (as Hephaestus): I'm not fucking doing this anymore. Like can you just come to work? They're looking for you. We got it. We have stuff to do, like come on!
Eric: Like every week Hephaestus like knocked on the door to try to come in and try to figure out where Eddie is.
Brennan: I love that.
Eric: Incredible. Okay, I'm going to do I'm going to do 3. Mm hmm. Alright. I got 7, 9, 3. Oh man, if this was a few acts of a play, I feel like this is an act two when Eddie is coming from just being like a newly created babe, this is the first time that Hephaestus and Eddie get paired together in like a big match. I do think that this is like a professional wrestling. There are cards and other cards or even boxing cards on other cards. And this is like the big one. And I think that the Pixie's who's kind of like the mob, in your fantasy New York City have bet really big on Hephaestus here. And he get paired with this new kid like the Pixie's must have beef with someone, as they always do. So like Hephaestus is the challenger and this was 793 consecutive hits from Eddie onto Hephaestus. LIke if this was a fighting game, it's like boom, boom, boom, 793 combo. We just like a massive uppercut to end it. And Hephaestus lost really big when he was backed by the Pixies. And this was like the coronation of Eddie being like real shit like this was his first one up. And Hephaestus has been like on the circuit for a while and he got wrecked by the 793 hit combo.
Brennan: I think that number is significant to Eddie as well, because I think that, like. Executing that combo was, I think, that that this league with all the magical creatures that are in it, has that thing that a lot of different leagues and stuff do where innovations get made by like a team or a player that completely changed the game. But over years, that change gets adapted to and some other strategy is made to come up and handle that. So I think there was a period of like five to 10 years after that, 793 hit combo where like in the preceding two to three years, that was an unbeatable combo. It was a thing where it's like, oh, there's just two or three years where this one athlete developed this thing that nobody yet knows how to stop or deal with. And it's going to take a while for the sport to you know, it's like you study like Babe Ruth in baseball and it's like, okay, we like the art of pitching within baseball is going to need to catch up with this one person, right? Like, we are going to have to adapt to whatever the hell this is right.
Eric: Eddie has changed the meta so dramatically that now everyone just hires fast people like like golems are out of work for years because there's no reason to have a strong person right now.
Brennan: Exactly. It's like we are going to have we are going to have to figure out some training regimen or some other way, because this there's no answer for this strategically yet. And so I think that following that fight for Hephaestus, it adds insult to injury because it's it is a coronation of Eddie that then leads to him being at the top of the sport for like truly unbeatable record breaking for two to three years. And then even for some years after that, it's still being this like growing period where even as Eddie is not undefeated after that period, it's still like the entire sport is just people trying to answer this question posed by this new combat style.
Eric: Yeah, I a hundred percent agree. I feel like on the back of the magic New York Post, it's just like "no hammers, no fist, just speed!" it's like 10000 miles per hour or nothing, says the magic New York Post.
Brennan: Yeah, that two to three year period and then another five years on the end where it's all speed style and it's just people trying to do what Eddie did. And even in that period, he's still the reigning champ. And it's not until after five years of that that someone actually comes in and realizes like, no, you can't beat Eddie at Eddie's game. It's not a game about speed and that that he gets toppled somehow when some new style comes in and is like, you can adjust for this and not have to try and replicate it, right?
Eric: Yeah. Oh, a hundred percent. I feel like there's a moment where someone's like, "hey, why is anyone brought a sword in here?" And that it's just swords because Eddie can't deal with it because it's metal. So then there was this like a big sword period.
Brennan: Hell yes.
Eric: I love that. Alright, Brennan, you have 1, 3, 5 and 6.
Brennan: Let's do 5!
Eric: Alright, let's do 5.
Eric: Okay, 4 2 1 6 2.
Brennan: I don't want for some reason, I want that to be a number, but not a no no. 4 2 1 6 2, I think is the. P.O. Box, that Eddie had for fan mail and stuff because he doesn't actually live in an address where mail is possible, so 42162 is the P.O. Box, where he gets fan mail. And for the first time, I think that Eddie is really reliant on fan mail to sustain whatever his emotional core is, because I think that in a weird way, Eddie's entire understanding of people comes through telecommunications. Like when he was first created, it was just telephone lines and like operator switchboards.
Eric: Yeah,
Brennan: But at the birth of television going into like the 50s and 60s and stuff like that, he just became a larger than life. Like I think that Hephaestus knew him before TV was really a huge thing, but he really became this like I think that the birth of television maybe coincides with his winning streak where he becomes like a larger than life character because now he can actually interpret what personality is through electrical signals, you know what I mean? Like, you can get like, oh, that's how you're supposed to behave. That's what being a celebrity is like watching what's my line and being like. "Got it. Yes, I can I can be this larger than life character!" Like watching Groucho Marx or whatever and be like I get it now,
Eric: Right. Even even earlier, there might be like just some Buster Keaton stuff. It's like, oh, that's how you don't get hurt. Like that's how you avoid things. Like I also love that this continues even like once pro-wrestling is on television,
Brennan: A million percent. And that's like huge for him. I think in one of Eddie's many like comeback tours that his comebacks usually involved some advancement in electronics, like as arcades start becoming a thing. And like the 1970s and 80s, it's a huge comeback for him in the wrestling scene as he has a new vector to, like, learn and grow and change with. Yeah, professional wrestling when that comes to light becomes his entire frame of reference for what it to be like. But he does get this P.O. box, and I think that he has to rely on some analog person to collect that mail, and it has to make himself vulnerable in some way to have that, like, read to him.
Eric: No, I like that going off of that, Hephaestus knows about it because he works that he lives in the Lower East Side, obviously, but he obviously works just all in that whole downtown area. So he definitely heats up the post office that delivers to the P.O. Box. And there's a post office worker who I don't know what happened, but I can see the Umbral Arcana in this way and knows that Eddie needs mail written to him and he knows who it is. Who is this post office worker who knows about it?
Brennan: I think that it's an older, like pillar of the Mail Carriers Association. I think her name is Mabel. I think that she is probably like part of the civic investor in a big way and delivers a lot of the magical mail of the city. And it's not part of her job, but it is an act of extreme generosity that she will actually, like open and read this mail for Eddie.
Eric: I love that. I just pulled up the motto of the U.S. Postal Service. It's neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of light night. And I feel like "gloom of night? Got added once the U.S. Postal Service started sending mail to the Sleeping City.
Brennan: I love that!
Eric: Because that's what Mabel does. I think that Hephaestus slips a piece of mail in once he figures this out, and it's just like a really kind of like hurtful thing. And he says it's like from Mike from Lantau, like some guy from Long Island who's just like writes a letter to him and is just like super mean and like talks about his mother, but he doesn't have one. So it's just like all this fucking Mike, from Lantau I got a lot of problems with the shit you're doing. And this woman, Mabel, needs to read it to Eddie and it's devastating.
Brennan: I think that there are a period of years where Eddie is really hurt by this until the arrival of the Internet, where email becomes more of a thing, and I think he still keeps the P.O. Box and keeps up with Mabel, but I also think that he finds a way to email this fake person for Lantau. And that dude gets well, he gets, maybe we roll for it, gets such a huge amount of emails per day from Eddie, who's like,
Brennan (as Eddie): I got a bone to pick with something. You wrote to me in 1962. I've been thinking about this fucking mind. You got a lot of fucking nerve, buddy you know that?! You've come to me, you don't mean my style's outdated. Let me tell you something, bro. I invented this fucking sport on short pants by the time I was innovating this fucking wrestling league fuck, I show your fucking face!
Eric: And Mike is like,
Eric (as Mike): Hey, Linda, can you get your get your fucking nephew. I keep getting these fucking - it won't go to spam can he help me?! I rolled a d20, I rolled an 11. So he gets 11 emails a day for like a year from Eddie. I love that. That's incredible.
Brennan: Absolutely.
Eric (as Mike): It's a guy gives you fucking the other fucking nerd who knows about computers. Why. I don't know why this happened. And Linda. Linda, get your nephew.
Brennan (as Eddie): I'm in your fucking modem, bro.
Eric: Oh, my God. I'm gonna make it easy. I'm going to do one. Gonna see what happens. Boom. Alright. I got a 7. I think a 7 is significant because in the time after Hephaestus lost at all to the Pixie's, he had to work for the Pixie's. And please forgive me if I'm doing too much fanfiction in your world. Do the Pixies have like an underground casino? I feel like they have to.
Brennan: Oh, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. So if you like to have one and Hephaestus like is both like works there is security and also turns on the heat.
Brennan: Yes.
Eric: And then there's an opportunity where like some high roller comes in. This is like when, when Mike Bloomberg eventually passes away, he comes back as a as a zombie and then he he just like spends it all at the underground casino as a zombie. And I think that he's like given out chips and he gives one to Hephaestus that's like a thousand dollars just like on a chip. And Hephaestus puts it all on the craps table and or whatever dice game they play, if it's not even craps and he puts it on just like incredibly difficult roll, he has to hit, like said, like a bunch of these rolls in a row and he keeps rolling sevens just over and over and over again. I think after this is finally when he starts to forgive Eddie. For the 730 ninety three punch combo, because now he's finally underneath the Pixie's after winning it all and he comes back in the next round and be like,
Eric (as Hephaestus): finally I get to be my own man again, like, this is great. I'm just loving the game, baby it's just heat and heat. You know what I do it.
Brennan: I love that. So during the first 40 years of the tournament's existence, you had to be an amateur like there wasn't professional wrestling at that point. It was like, this is a thing that we do for X, Y, Z reason for the bragging rights. You can win the purse on it. But the tournaments held once a year and you can't live the whole year of what you make in that. And I think that Hephaestus' return to that sport. The reason I remember that those 7 so importantly, was that you needed to hit this exact number to get out from under the Pixie's because Hephaestus' return to the league presaged a period of time, which was probably the time period in Eddie and Hephaestus' relationship where they were closest when they unionized the wrestlers to get a bigger cut of the tournament and expand the calendar for qualifying matches throughout the year. And basically, it was like Hephaestus' return to the league was a collaboration between Eddie and Hephaestus, who, again, it was like we were still rivals. But that was a period of like the year of negotiations, followed by another five years of setting up the league to actually make this not only a way to make a living, but a way to if you were smart about your branding and smart about your fan base or whatever, to like this now could be your full time gig. You could just be a wrestler. And that wouldn't have happened if Hephaestus hadn't gotten out from under the Pixies.
Eric: I love that this is something like you turn it from just being a gladiator in Roman times to it being a literal job.
Brennan: Yes!
Eric: I love that.
Brennan: Yeah.
Eric: Alright, Brennan, you have a 1 digit number, a 3 digit number and a 6 digit number.
Brennan: Let's do a 3 digit number.
Eric: Alright, let's do it boom, 7 1 0.
Brennan: Eddie and Heph have have a long, storied career together, 710 is the number of rounds that they went for when Hephaestus perfected the style that would come back in answer to Eddie's winning style. So it was one of those things where certain other styles had started to come back into the league where, like certain speed boxers, certain speed wrestlers had started to lose matches. I think it maybe even was like Yossef, who started to come in with a heavier, slower style and was like, you don't have to live in fear of this speed style. There is a way to address this with training and technique, with strength and durability and mass and things like that. So the style had already started to crumble. And this was during also a contentious period of time because the league was changed, the business end of the league was changing as like Eddie and Hephaestus were like negotiating with the like owners of the league. But it was the beginning of the end because Heph had had a period of time where he wasn't even wrestling. He was like doing worse. And he was like, oh, the Pixie's or whatever. And then came back in, and it was one of these things where it's like, you know, he like a condensed training season. It was like he started training like months after everyone else. It was like, oh, you know, the first time the fastest gets back in the ring with a real speed player. We're going to see that combo again for sure. We know the same way that half got lit up by Eddie in the first time. It's like their first rematch. And ends up being a 710 round combat goes for days, people leave and start coming back in shifts. The league owner comes in to try to convince them to end in a draw. They won't end it in a draw, and after 710 rounds, it ends in forfeiture as Eddie, his amperage gets so low that he unwillingly dips into a battery at the edge of the ring and defaults the match after 710 rounds.
Eric: Yeah, I think that this is a big deal. Hephaestus remembers this both because at the last thing he does is take the battery and try to attach it to a light bulb and then he smashes a light bulb on the court, like it's a Jewish wedding. But the other thing he does is that like New York City, there's one winter where the heat was so shitty. And this is why, because the fire dwarfs were down a big dude with a hammer, who was obviously probably one of the best. Where New York City was so cold that year because Hephaestus couldn't go to work.
Brennan: Yes. Love that.
Eric: Going into a battery is so funny. When Hephaestus wants to get under his skin, he calls them a triple a.
Brennan (as Eddie): Triple a fucking - triple a my ass! It was a nine volt! Don't rewrite history.
Eric (as Hephaestus): Oh yeah. You always say was nine. Yeah. Oh yeah. I'm sure it was nine, alright.
Brennan (as Eddie): It was a fucking - look at the fucking records people were filmin! Look at it!
Eric: [Laughing] That's incredible. I'm going to go with a five oh, shit, okay? I got 0 0 2 3 5. Damn. Oh, God, I was not expecting this, I think when Mike Piazza became a really big deal in the subways in the 2000 Subway Series, when the Yankees and the Mets played each other, there was an understanding in the league that someone from the Unsleeping City could be like athletic, famous, like. I think that we've established an unbelieving city like Stephen Sondheim, as we said before, is like a member. And there are people who, like one of the characters in the first chapter was like a long-standing Broadway diva. So there are people who did that, but no one did it for athletics. This is what I think. This is when Hephaestus tries to come over to the real world of New York City and like be a real person for a little bit like it can't just be all only this, which is going into heating vents and also then wrestling and getting my ass kicked by like not only Eddie, but like there was like five goblins in a trench coat that did a really good job and worked them over at one point like Hephaestus felt like he got old and then like all these new kids were coming in. So he tried to do something in the real world. And I think 00235, he was like the 230 fifth employee of I think we work - he must have worked it like The New York Times or something for a while, like working on the in the printing press and like working it over and working the machine because he wanted to do something in the real world and like it was the same, but like it actually felt a little more tangible. I can only imagine that doing professional wrestling or gladiator fights in the big city is just like doesn't feel good at all. So I think 00235 is his I.D. number from The New York Times. At the time it was like the two hundred thirty fifth employee, and of course the 00before is because, you know, all the people who've come through there before.
Brennan: Do you think that happened in our timeline after the league got organized and unionized or did it happen in the early days?
Eric: That's a good question, because in both ways there could be young people coming up who either they are starting to come up because they know it's secure or they're coming up because this is a young man's game. I think it's more interesting if it's at once the job like these five goblins are like, hey, yeah, let's get ours. And that's why they're in there.
Brennan: So I think Eddie and Heph the best times of their career were in that time where they were working together to unionize the wrestlers. They had that 710 round match, which I think was so record in such a piece of news, and it just elevated both of their stations as like nobody like these two are undeniably at the top, that there is that kind of camaraderie and brotherhood, even in rivalry of like, hey man, we went 710 rounds. That's record breaking. Like you're the only person in the world that could have taken me for that long. And I think that Heph then makes this personal decision and that is a moment of complete betrayal to Eddie who basically goes like "you're another legend. I'm not done having fun," and also I can't go to the real world like I exist in like the like wiring and hard lines and third rails and all these other places like that. Like even when I materialize to be able to fight in the ring, there's probably some kind of electronic framework for me to be able to do that. And I think there's this idea of like a real life because again, everything Eddie knows about life is through electronic television signals. So it's all to him. Like, why would you want to go be normal and being deeply hurt by that?
Eric: One hundred percent, I definitely I definitely see that, especially someone who's only knows that being on the TV is the only thing to do. Why would you go somewhere where no one knows your name, especially like you're intentionally being the person who makes the newspapers and not in them, you fucking idiot.
Brennan: [Laughs] Oh yeah. Yeah, a million percent.
Eric: Wonderful. Okay, you have a one digit number and a six digit number.
Brennan: Let's go six digit number,
Eric: Boom. Alright, 651949.
Brennan: Okay, assuming there's a 718 one eight invisibly at the beginning of that number.
Eric: Yeah, yeah, 100 percent.
Brennan: That is the exact numbers sequence, minus the last number that Eddie dialed internally when news got to him that Heph had retired and Eddie wanted to call to give respect and also beg Heph not to do it to be like, "listen, if you need medical help, the league can cover that. Like, have you really aged out of it? Are you sure? Like, I don't that doesn't sound right to me." And had all these things that he wanted to say to Heph at that point and never got to the last number.
Eric: Wow. I think this number is significant because. I think I Heph met some real person friends, some humans, and they asked him to, like, hang out one night or like like, hey, I'm having a birthday party, do you want to come? And he's like,
Eric (as Hephaestus): Oh, I mean, I guess I don't have anything. I'm not doing anything tonight.
Eric: And they're like oh, well, I'll call you with the details. And he's like.
Eric (as Hephaestus): A - on what would look like, how are you going to call me?
Eric: So I think it was a big deal for him to assimilate into human society that he needed a phone number.
Brennan: Yeah,
Eric: And I think that also 718 was that one of the new area codes that they had to add the New York City?
Brennan: I think so, right? Yeah. It's a Brooklyn area code, but it's not like a 917, which was like the classic one for a while. So if it's a newer one, the newer area code that they added for New York City, he got a new thing I think that there's something like the magical properties of putting the designated hitter in baseball or all these things like that is that it also demonstrated a change of New York City, not a dilution is what the old heads would say, but just like growth and change. So like him having a 718 phone number also might have made him like a little bit destabilized as its connection to the Unsleeping City.
Brennan: Yeah, well, I just looked it up: 718 is 1984. So that was added in 1984 to parts of all the outer boroughs. And again, I think that is like even for Eddie, it's like, oh, he has a seven one eight number. And it's like, when did that get added in? Like, I was here back prior to any area codes at all. I'm still getting used to 212 you know, like I love that. And that's great.
Eric: Absolutely. I'm gonna do a four digit number because I have something that I'm very excited about. Boom. Okay, 5777. Oh, good, we got to we have a Jewish year number, perfect. I think there was a royal rumble. And please forgive me, my wrestling terms are a little rusty, but there's a one type of match where people just keep showing up like it starts is like a two person match. But then, like all of a sudden, like Hulk Hogan shows up and then gets in there and people just keep showing up as it goes like they do it and wrestle mania sometimes. Yeah. And I think that Eddie had to, like, defend a title and this was like the match that was set up. But Eddie maybe didn't even know about it. Like people just kept showing up. And at one point, maybe early on, Hephaestus came back in his his theme music played as Eddie came. But Hephaestus came in and this was the twist. He's like,
Eric (as Hephaestus): You know, you know, I can't pin you fast, lightning motherfucker. I think we should just take everybody else down.
Eric: And 5777 is the number of people they took down in this royal rumble together when Hephaestus came back out of retirement.
Brennan: Five thousand seven hundred and seventy seven opponents. It's the whole league, baby. And I think it's one of those things where, like
Brennan (as Eddie): We took, we took down five thousand seven hundred seventy seven opponents. Okay?! That is over four hundred opponents, plus that one opponent. That is a colony of ants inside of a burlap bag!
[Eric laughing]
Brennan (as Eddie): Okay, so if you count all the ants individually -
Eric (as Hephaestus): we're actually we're actually doing you a favor because that hydra is actually only counted as one, so we're actually being really specific about the number.
Brennan (as Eddie): Yeah, we're being generous. OKAY!?
Brennan: I love that so much. Is this after the phone number incident? Yeah. Awesome.
Eric: Yeah, I think this is the most recent because this is also like Eddie juiced with thirty years of professional wrestling and like the league then becoming very WWE-esque other than it actually having jobs. So it's like this is the most professional wrestling the the Top of the Rock league has ever been. And like this is like a big event which is the Top of the Rock. The thing that harkened back to that time, Gilgamesh like wrestled people is like, oh, remember when fucking Jacob turned to the fucking angel? Like, that's what this shit is, is the Top of the Rock wave championship. And like this was the event that is calling back to all of this. And this was like the royal rumble that happened to the big the big, big, big, like the wrestle mania equivalent.
Brennan: Yeah, I think this number is significant to Eddie because Eddie doesn't experience aging, but the larger a sport grows and the more money that comes to it, the more people it attracts. And there is a degree of like, yeah, Eddie is still very good. But like this, you know, is a sort of older creature at this point. And like, how many innovations does he have? It ends up being this thing where, like in his youth, he, like, revolutionized the sport. And now he's gotten to a point where it's like you'll only ever just be very good, like you've gone from being a sensation to being this kind of measuring post for new styles as they come in. It's like, oh, look at this brand new innovative look at this, like Necromancer, Death Knight wrestler. How are they fare against Eddie? Oh, they beat Eddie in three rounds. Well, that kind of lets you know how effective their style is because it's better than this other it sort of becomes this thing of like, damn like I can still occasionally pull out some victories here and there, maybe even win a championship once in a blue moon. But I'm not something that anyone's really talking about. And then Eddie comes back in and we take on this royal rumble thing. And there's this moment of horror and fear I think Eddie has of like they can't beat Heph, because then it's a referendum that all of our victories in the past deserve an asterisks next to them. And then when we win, I think that victory is more meaningful to Eddie than any of his individual victories in the sport.
Eric: I like that. Absolutely. There's something about this that you've secured. And here's the electricity thing. You've secured Eddie, as he's like the middle person in Mike Tyson's punch out.
Brennan: Yeah, exactly, exactly!
Eric: Like a fucking hippo was real. He's like, oh, let's see if these boxers can figure out that you punch him in the in the stomach and then his pants fall down and then you punch him in the face. You can't do that. You can't box like I'm sorry. So there's it's exactly like that. I love that.
Brennan: Yeah, exactly.
Eric: Alright, Brennan you have one more digit left, you have a one digit number and that number is 3.
Brennan: After Heph final retirement. Which. Eddy understood. And talk to a bunch of shit, because I think Heph came back, won that royal rumble, and that was like sayonara. It was like, Yeah, man,
Eric: Oh hundred percent. Yeah.
Brennan: Like I'm the king. I proved it. I'll go out on that high note. And I think Eddie talked so much shit about Heph doing that he's like the
Brennan (as Eddie): Guy comes and cleans up. You couldn't tell me this guy can't do a regular fucking season bullshit. This guy's a coward. This guy doesn't know - he's got his head up his ass -
Brennan: You know, Eddie gets a three month suspension in the league, making him miss a shot at the championship for the first time in his career because at weigh in, he's fighting some kind of like celestial, almost like some like, you know, angel blooded, there's some sort of celestial person, who at weigh in they're trash talking each other to drum up interest. And the guy says something like, "I'm going to send you into retirement just like your loser friend."
Eric: Oh my god.
Brennan: And Eddie straight up clocks him at weigh in, and it's clearly not part of the banter it fucks with the match. And Eddie gets a three month suspension, which the league always was having, you know, Eddie kind of had the bad boy thing of the league was - always in a fight with the league or whatever, but this was a three month suspension that took him out of ability, the ability to qualify for the championship and was clearly not part of his heel persona for sure.
Eric: I think it's funny, we've established that like Christian heaven and hell exist in this as well. So, like, is just this like an angel, like a classic Christian angel with like the tons of eyes and hands and wings and stuff. And then Saint Peter is like his manager. He's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What is like book? He's like, try to hold Eddie back of this thousand eyed angel fighter.
Brennan: Incredible, a thousand eyed fucking swimming fractal with a weird polygon flaming sword overhead. And I'm like, "let me at 'em!"
Eric: Be not afraid! I think the three month suspension resonates because now that Heph keeps up with this is like he has the equivalent of pay per view, but like to the Top of the Rock league. And he saw this. And then he sends a letter to the P.O. Box, as Mike from want to say.
Eric (as Hephaestus as Mark): Eddie, when I wrote this, I was a real hothead. But I really you know, I've grown up with you in the league and seeing you with Heph in the Royal Rumble, just like really meant a lot to me. So like, don't keep you down. I love that you did that. That was so that was so cool. Signed Mike from Lantau.
Brennan: Incredible. I don't know that Eddie ever responds to that letter from Mike from Lantau, because I think that he figures out who Mike from Lantau is but can't bring himself. To check and maybe be wrong.
Eric: Right, he just wants to keep sending spam emails to him.
Brennan: Yeah, exactly.
Eric: My last number is 56. [Blows raspberry] Man, I think 56 is like the number of nieces and nephews that have Hephaestus has, like he has money has been taking care of people in the Lower East Side because, you know, there are different ways to heat now, like the space heater took out the like a third of the business, like the radiator still stay, but like, well, with all the development, especially in the Lower East Side, as that area got developed and all those fucking new apartments came that like don't use radiators, just like or nests even. There's just less work. Yeah. So Hephaestus went back because they got paid a bunch of money to do the Royal Rumble. And he's supporting like 56 people of the Lower East Sideberg clan on the Lower East Side. It really still is in so many ways, it's still like a classical dwarf family. There's tons on. They all work together. They all the same last name Lower East Sideberg and they all like the same fiery hair and beard. And he has to stay prop this up as the heating business is getting harder.
Brennan: Yeah. I think that's significant, too, because once Heph retires and starts to really like age and age out of health and his ability to kind of like care for those people. I think that a spree of. Electrical errors in the electrical heating grid of the Lower East Side really gets out of whack. And so developers and landlords and all those different kinds of people suddenly have a tremendous need to fix things the old fashioned way.
Eric: Yeah.
Brennan: I think Eddie performs his duty as a hidden agent saboteur so that it begins to become, at least in some parts of the neighborhood, more cost effective to just go with the old tried and true dwarven heating methods.
Eric: Yeah, I think there's a moment where Hephaestus is like standing out with some of these buildings. You see like a landlord in a Con Ed person yelling at each other. And Hephaestus just like says to himself is like,
Eric (as Hephaestus): Yeah, man. I mean, that's why you diversify. You know, you got to make sure you diversify you can't just trust electrical stuff. You got to do all that stuff. I had a friend told me that.
Eric: And then they're like, "who are you?"
Eric (as Hephaestus): I just know stuff... I'll see you later, you know, stuff.
[Eric and Brennan laughing]
Brennan: And oh my God, what a beautiful story.
Eric: Oh, it's wonderful. I'm just going to do a real recap of all the stuff here of 7 was Hephaestus winning at the dice game for the Pixie's 56, where the people in the Lower East Sideberg Clan, 793 was the punch combo on Hephaestus by Eddie in the big match where the Pixie's bet on them 5777 were the competitors taken down in the Royal Rumble, if you include all of the ants, but you subtract for the number of Hydra heads that grew back 00235 was have ID number of the New York Times. 142362 was the amperage of Eddie when he was created. Brennan Your Numbers was a three month suspension when Eddie fought the classical [laughs] the classical New Testament angel with many eyes. "Be not afraid. I'm a kick your ass in the ring." 57 was the number of of matches in total between half and Eddie, 710 were the rounds were when Hephaestus came back to combat Eddie's fast electric style and Eddie ended up in a battery. 1479, after the rule change for costumes 1479 days was when Eddie was out of commission. 42162 was Eddie's P.O. Box, where Mabel would come and read him his letters, including the letter that was written by Hephaestus under the name of Mike from Lantau. And 718651946 and the final digit was when Eddie tried to dial Heph's number to say to tell him not to retire. The final thing that you do in sports are just numerology is you label it and sign it as if it was memorabilia. So I'll send it to you and put a digital signature on it and we'll post it when this episode comes out.
Brennan: Beautiful!
Eric: Brennan. Thank you so much for doing this. I'm so glad that both of us got to not just DM by ourselves for a second. And this was lovely. Thank you for letting me play in your New York City world. And thank you as always for coming. Please plug Unsleeping City Chapter two.
Brennan: First of all, Eric a joy and honor and a pleasure. What a true, true, true blast.
Eric: Thank you.
Brennan: For those who want to check out the Sleeping City Chapter two, the entire first season, if you haven't checked out, the first season is going up on YouTube at Dimension 20, which is the name of the channel that we have on YouTube where you can go check it out for free. And the new episodes are airing every Wednesday on Dropout . TV, which is Drop Out's streaming service. And you can find me @BrennanLM on Twitter and @ BrennanLeeMulligan on Instagram. And it's been a goddamn pleasure and honor.
Eric: Thank you. This was so much fun. And, you know, as they say in my hometown of [New York accent] fucking New York, you better fucking diversify or like fucking all your shit's is going to fall out. It's going to get fucked up.
Brennan: [In a thicker accent] I see what your problem is right here. You forgot to fucking diversify the story about them
Eric: Oh, you didn't- here is here the fucking problem, I've been down here for thirty seconds and you didn't respect the fire dwarves. That's your fucking problem. What kind of fucking fucking jamoke doesn't respect the fire dwarves?
Brennan: You get a lot of fucking Guy Einstein over here. There's no fire dwarves. Alright. You know this guy.
Eric: Here's what I do. I take a fucking pizza. I put a bunch of honey on it and throw it down in the basement. They just fucking eat it they love it. And that's why I've been warm every fucking December.
[Brennan laughing]
[Transition note]