Checking In With Joel And Felicity

INT. BRIAN'S LIVING ROOM - DAY

A young man and a young woman are here, sitting on a couch and playing Madden NFL 25 on Xbox. This is JOEL and FELICITY. There is a bowl of popcorn and a can of diet cola on a table in front of them. Felicity, playing as the Las Vegas Raiders, tackles the running back of Joel's team, the Seattle Seahawks.

F: Hah! Booyah!

J: Do people still say "booyah"?

F: I just did.

J: Yeah, but...

F: But what?

J: Never mind.

F: Heh. You're sounding more like me every day.

A middle-aged man enters the room. This is BRIAN.

B: Hey, folks.

F: Whoa! It's...it's...what's your name again?
J: It's Brian. Don't you remember him?

F: Dude, I was just kidding.

B: I know, you haven't seen me in a while. I've been busy.

J: Working on that film project?

B: Yeah.

F: What was it called? Something about beer?

B: "Hold My Beer."

F: That's right.

Felicity pauses the game, puts down her controller, and takes a sip of diet cola.

B: Anyway, how are you two doing? How's retirement?

J: We're not retired.

F: We're not old, like you.

B: Oh? Then what have you been up to?

F: Stuff.

J: Mostly playing video games, writing songs, and watching movies.

B: Umm...that sounds kind of like retirement to me.

F: Hey, we deserve a break, after everything we've been through.

B: You mean, the events of Joel Suzuki, Volume Seven: Vision of Virtuoso?

F: The what of what now?

B: Forget it. I'm just glad you're having fun.

J: Thanks. We are.

Felicity tosses some popcorn into her mouth.

F: (chewing) So why are you here? Is that beer film thingy done?

B: Kind of. We held a screening for it in January, and it just went live on YouTube last week.

J: Congratulations.

B: Thanks. But we're not really done yet. We're trying to get funding to turn it into a series. And also create a real-life pub. And also develop a video game.

F: Geez, ambitious much?

B: Yeah, we really want to turn it into something that will put Vancouver in the spotlight while providing entertainment industry opportunities to people in the autism and neurodivergent communities.

J: That sounds like a good mission.

B: It is. So I just wanted to check in on you two and see if maybe you'd be interested in participating in some fashion.

F: Dude, I'm retired.

B: I thought you said you weren't.

F: Joel said that. I just said that we're not old, like you.

J: She's right.

B: So you're not interested?
F: Eh, check back later.

B: Joel?

J: Um...I'm kind of busy at the moment.

B: Playing Madden?

J: Yeah.

B: Okay, fine.

Felicity picks her controller back up.

F: (to Joel) Ready for more beatdowns?

J: Sure.

Brian starts to leave the room.

B: (under his breath) Maybe I'll have to start working on Joel Suzuki, Volume Eight sooner than I thought.

F: What was that?

B: Nothing.

CUT TO BLACK

Hold My Beer - Worldwide Premiere!

Hold My Beer is now available to watch on YouTube!

It comes in three flavors:

ORIGINAL

ENGLISH CAPTIONED

and

JAPANESE SUBTITLED

Please check it out and, if you enjoy it, consider liking, subscribing, and telling your friends and family! Doing so will show that Hold My Beer has an established audience of viewers who are interested in seeing more, helping our chances of getting it developed into a series.

Mahalo!

Second Player Score: Official Mission

Special announcement! Like a Pokemon, Second Player Score has evolved.

Having started out as a punk rock band, we are now as of this week a holistic arts and entertainment team, and our official mission has become to provide career opportunities within the entertainment and hospitality industries to people from the autism and neurodivergent communities. Same logo, new purpose.

Actually, not so new, when you think about it. We've already been doing it, like with Hold My Beer and our use of neurodivergent talent both in front of and behind the camera. But now, it's codified, and enhanced: not only will we have autistic and neurodivergent people working on our in-house projects (e.g., the SPS-Verse), but eventually we want to provide support to neurodivergent creators who have their OWN projects; i.e., serving as their record label ("Second Player Sounds"), publishing imprint ("Second Player Stories"), film and TV production house ("Second Player Scenes"), video game studio ("Second Player Software"), etc. Related to this will be a new, forthcoming program from Autism Empowerment that I'll be writing more about in a future post.

Exciting times! Stay tuned for updates...

Anime Roundup

We interrupt our wall-to-wall coverage of Hold My Beer-related posts with another Anime Roundup! (warning: mild spoilers)

Chainsaw Man

One part horror, ten parts action, this one is about...well, basically a devil-human hybrid who can turn into a dude with chainsaws for a head and arms. There's a lot more to it than that, but you'll just have to watch it yourself. It does a masterful job of balancing the raucous and gory action sequences with quiet, contemplative moments (like a character silently lighting up and smoking a cigarette for almost two whole minutes of runtime) that, thanks to the juxtaposition, are filled with a sense of dread and foreboding. It reminds me a little of Jujutsu Kaisen (which is produced by the same studio, MAPPA), and even employs a similar "magic trio"-of-protagonists formula (eventually, anyway). It was on my radar for a long time, so I was surprised when I finally got around to watching it only to discover that there's only one 12-episode season out so far. MAPPA, isoide (hurry up) and make more! P.S. - I love, love, love that each episode has a different ending song and visuals, which is what we've planned to do with Glorified when it finally gets made into a show.

Blue Box

A gentle, slice-of-life romantic dramedy about a high school badminton player who has a crush on his slightly older, basketball-playing schoolmate that mostly goes unrequited even as they're living under the same roof (for reasons too complicated to explain here) while, in a classic love-triangle-type of plot, his childhood friend has a mostly unrequited crush on him, Netflix has been slow drip-feeing this to me one episode per week, so I've been watching it for the past nineteen weeks now and there's still a ways to go ("mada mada desu").

I'm Quitting Heroing

This story starts off right after the "usual" ending, with the overpowered hero having triumphed over the evil Demon Queen. But when he finds his efforts unappreciated by the people he's saved, he decides to switch sides and applies for a job with the now-rebuilding demon army. At first, it's a goofball workplace comedy that makes you wonder where, exactly, this is going. But it eventually takes some - spoiler alert - surprising twists and turns that, frankly, become a little dark, before wrapping things up in an ultimately satisfying ending. Or does it? Yes, it does. Or does it??

Murai in Love

A rom-com about a high school student who is in love with his homeroom teacher and cuts/dyes his hair so that he looks exactly like said teacher's favorite video game character in an effort to win her heart (trust me, this is not as creepy as it sounds), this one was a lot of fun, with very Japanese-style deadpan humor and a lot of great voice acting (I lost count of how many times I said to my TV, "this voice actor who plays the homeroom teacher is THE BEST.")

Dandadan

Two high school students! Aliens! Ghosts! Psychic powers! Spiritual possession! A love triangle! A second love triangle! The most unique MacGuffins* I've ever come across! Combine these ingredients with a - spoiler alert - major cliffhanger ending to Season One, and you have the recipe for a show that, like a lot of anime, takes some getting used to, but gets more and more fun as you go along.

* An object, or objects, that the characters are trying to get/find/recover, thus driving the plot. Like the Songshell from Joel Suzuki, Volume One.

Hold My Beer, The Game!

Remember back in May of last year, when I said we were developing a tie-in video game for Hold My Beer? Well, it's here!

As promised, it's an arcade-style minigame in which the player's job is to wash kegs before time runs out. It's meant to be only a small portion of a much larger, Zelda-style adventure game set in a village called "Vanwa," which is either a future, post-apocalyptic Vancouver, WA, or is in another world or dimension that has been influenced by the Hold My Beer film, Galaxy Quest-style.

The player starts out as an apprentice brewer at "Oowi Brewy" (based on Loowit Brewing Company) whose job is to wash kegs, but dreams of one day becoming a great brewmaster who owns their own brewpub, just like "Master Val" of the "Legend of H.M.B." (see what I did there). Their fellow apprentices ridicule their dream, saying that the "Legend of H.M.B." is just an old children's fairy tale. But then one day, fate intervenes, and the player is sent off on a quest that includes stops at locations like "Cafe Zetheba," based on Seize the Bagel, "Redab's Supply Store," based on Bader Beer & Wine Supply, and "Pear-Air Hall," based on the Pearson Air Museum's Historic Hangar. Our goal is to secure enough funding that we can develop this larger game concept and provide employment opportunities for autistic and neurodivergent people who want to work in the video game industry.

In the meantime, you can play the minigame on the official Hold My Beer website at this link!

Thank You! Mahalo! Arigatou! Gracias!

A huge thank you to everyone who attended the sold-out premiere screening of Hold My Beer last week!

Big thanks also go out to our sponsors, Sensory Tool House, LLC, Employers Overload, and Stephen's Place for helping make the evening possible, The Kiggins Theatre for being such gracious hosts, and Chris Martin Studios and Spry Social for documenting the proceedings.

There are a ton of cool photos and videos from the event that I don't have room to post here, but if you want to see them, you can follow Hold My Beer - Pilot Episode on Facebook and/or subscribe to the Hold My Beer YouTube channel (if you haven't done so already).

If you weren't able to attend the premiere, you can still watch the film when it is uploaded to YouTube on February 27!

P.S. Yes, the marquee says "Brian Tasmina." I later discovered that "Tasmina" is an Arabic name meaning "One Who Fulfills," which I actually like better than "Tashima," which is Japanese for "Rice Paddy Island." I'll take it!

Tonight!

The premiere screening of Hold My Beer is tonight!

And guess what - it is officially SOLD OUT.

But if you haven't reserved your tickets and you still want to attend, there's a chance there may be some no-shows (because, life), so come on down and the theatre will try to accommodate you if possible.

See you all there! It's going to be a lot of fun!