Cooler Than Homework #003 – Brink! & After School Activities

Nicole Sweeney 0:18
Hello and welcome to Cooler Than Homework, a Disney Channel Original Movie podcast. I’m Nicole Sweeney and my snack of the episode is a can of ginger ale.

Matthew Gaydos 0:27
I’m Matthew Gaydos and my snack of the episode is a slice of cherry pie.

Marines Alvarez 0:31
My name is Marines and my snack of the episode is an oven pizza and a cider.

Ceri Riley 0:36
And I’m Ceri Riley and my snack of the episode are the little cinnabon bites from Taco Bell hashtag not spon.

Nicole Sweeney 0:43
This week we are talking about 1998’s “Brink” and Matt is going to tell us where this cast is now.

Matthew Gaydos 0:51
And it’s not quite as sad as last time.

Nicole Sweeney 1:00
Yay!

Ceri Riley 1:00
Oh, good!

Matthew Gaydos 1:00
So, f`irst we have Andy “Brink” Brinker played by Erik von Detten. He’s the teen heartthrob we all know and love. He was in “The Princess Diaries” and did a bunch of TV things. I think more interestingly, he was the voice of Sid in the first three Toy Story films

Nicole Sweeney 1:15
What?

Ceri Riley 1:16
Weird.

Matthew Gaydos 1:17
Now he just seems to be a dad and a husband. And he does local community theater for fun in his spare time.

Nicole Sweeney 1:24
Wait, Ceri, I have to ask: do you know “The Princess Diaries?”

Ceri Riley 1:30
I have heard the name, but I have not watched it. So, I know that it exists.

Nicole Sweeney 1:35
Okay. You like really like did not touch Disney at all, like did not fuck with Disney.

Ceri Riley 1:42
Uh-uh, all Cartoon Network all Nickelodeon. Disney movies sometimes, like I know “Toy Story.” I’ve seen that with my eyeballs and heard it with my ears. But yes, nothing live action.

Matthew Gaydos 1:54
I feel like “The Princess Diaries” was one that I feel like everyone just saw at some point in their lives.

Nicole Sweeney 1:58
Yes. My mind is blown to know that it was an option to not see “Princess Diaries.”

Marines Alvarez 2:05
17 million times which is about how many times I’ve seen it.

Nicole Sweeney 2:08
Yes, same.

Ceri Riley 2:08
I’ve definitely seen like pictures from this. I just googled it. And it was like, I’ve seen gifs of like Anne Hathaway doing her transformation sequence from it.

Matthew Gaydos 2:20
Moving on to the rest of the Brinker family. We’ve got his little sister Katie, played by Katie Volding. She did some other acting, including the other DCOM “Smart House,” that we’ll get to later, but is now seemingly listed as a former actor everywhere I could see and she doesn’t seem to have any public facing things happening. So I don’t really know what she’s up to these days.

Ceri Riley 2:43
She’s probably living a happy life.

Nicole Sweeney 2:44
Yeah.

Matthew Gaydos 2:45
Yeah, we’re gonna hope and just assume that she’s off living an–

Nicole Sweeney 2:49
She probably wants it that way. So.

Matthew Gaydos 2:51
Yeah, that’s the– the people on this list to aren’t very public, I’m assuming they made that choice.

Nicole Sweeney 2:57
Yep.

Matthew Gaydos 2:58
We have Maddie girl who was the mom, played by Robin Ricker, who’s a soap opera actress these days on many, many, many episodes of “Days of Our Lives” and “The Bold and the Beautiful,” and most recently played a granny in a film called “Psycho Granny.”

Ceri Riley 3:12
Oh! That took a twist.

Marines Alvarez 3:15
I wonder what that one’s about.

Matthew Gaydos 3:19
Ceri, have any theories about that plot?

Ceri Riley 3:27
I don’t like it. Sounds like mystery movie or something?

Unknown Speaker 3:29
Yeah, it looked like a very cheesy horror movie from the picture I saw. And then our one bit of sad news this week is that Ralph Brinker, the dad is played by David Graf, who unfortunately passed away in 2001. But he’s fantastic in this and well known for being in like the Police Academy movies and being a guest star on pretty much every single TV show that ever existed in the 90s if you look him up. Moving on to some of the other skaters that we have in this movie, we’ve got Team XBladz leader, Val played by Sam Horrigan, who I knew as a kid from being in the movie “Little Giants,” which was one of my favorites. I don’t know if anyone else on this podcast has seen that.

Nicole Sweeney 4:06
Yes

Marines Alvarez 4:06
Yes.

Ceri Riley 4:06
No.

Nicole Sweeney 4:09
As you would expect, yeah,

Matthew Gaydos 4:10
The trend continues

Ceri Riley 4:12
I know nothing. This is very strong for anything we can talk about on this podcast. I didn’t realize how strong, but…

Nicole Sweeney 4:18
The brand.

Matthew Gaydos 4:20
But he was also on the TV show “Grace Under Fire” and more recently, slash 10 years ago, he was on a reality TV show called “Beauty and the Geek” where he was one of the beauties

Marines Alvarez 4:29
What?

Matthew Gaydos 4:31
Yeah.

Nicole Sweeney 4:31
Wild.

Matthew Gaydos 4:33
Yeah, he was very Jersey Shore tanned and tatted up. And yeah, more recently, he’s been in some extremely upsetting legal troubles that I’m not going to get into. So moving on, Gabriella, who’s one of brings friends in this movie is played by Christina Vidal and you might also know her from being the singer in the band Pink Slip in the movie “Freaky Friday” with Lindsay Lohan.

Nicole Sweeney 4:55
Yes

Matthew Gaydos 4:56
But she’s still acting consistently on TV. She’s like RC series regular on the TV shows “Training Day” and “Sneaky Pete” and– and has a sitcom coming up on ABC called “United We Fall,” so she’s still out there doing it. Two people that aren’t doing quite as much we have Jordi played by Asher Gold in this movie. The Internet doesn’t seem to know what happened to Jordi or Asher Gold. He doesn’t seem to exist anymore. So maybe he’s off living a great public, uh, private life as well.

Ceri Riley 5:23
The way that you said this compared to Katie, which I think sister’s name is, sounds like he was in witness protection or something like that. Like there’s no trace of him I google the actor’s name he’s gone. He’s not even an IMDB page.

Matthew Gaydos 5:36
I mean, to be fair, that’s kind of what it looks like on the internet is like he did a couple other things after “Brink” including being like an extra in the movie “Accepted” with Justin Long, but other than that, he doesn’t really show up anywhere. He doesn’t have any sort of like where are they now before and after kind of pictures out there in the world. So yeah, I– he– Asher Gold, if you’re out there hit me up.

Marines Alvarez 6:01
No, he’s in witness protection.

Nicole Sweeney 6:05
No, don’t, he’s in witnes– yeah.

Matthew Gaydos 6:05
Oh, right. John Smith, if you’re out there hit me.

Nicole Sweeney 6:06
Everyone else, forget that you heard us talking about him. This portion of the podcast, to be deleted.

Matthew Gaydos 6:17
Asher Gold never exidted.

Ceri Riley 6:17
Just like a robot voice over that part of the podcast.

Matthew Gaydos 6:22
Jordi redacted. Uh, then rounding out three more skaters in this film, we had Boomer who’s from Team XBladz played by Walter Jones. You might also known as the Black Power Ranger.

Nicole Sweeney 6:35
Yeah!

Marines Alvarez 6:36
Yes.

Matthew Gaydos 6:36
And we had the good friend Peter in this play by Patrick Levis, Leavis something like that. He was also in the Disney series “So Weird” and more recently, he had a Christian rock album come out in 2013 and is on the Nick Jr. Show “The Fresh Beat Band.”

Nicole Sweeney 6:52
Okay, two things: first of all, I love “So Weird.” Erik von Detten and was also on that show, so like very exciting, all the “So Weird” kids. But more importantly, the Black Power Ranger was like 30 when they– I stopped to look him up, because I was like, wait, the timeline feels off in my head because of when I was watching the “Power Rangers” versus when this movie came out. So anyway, I don’t know like Erick von Detten was an actual child skating against the the opposing team is like grown men. So, you know.

Matthew Gaydos 7:26
I didn’t even think about that of like years between “Power Rangers” and “Brink” is substantial enough. And Walter Jones was not like an actual teenager when he was playing a teenager on “Power Rangers” either. So yeah, yeah.

Marines Alvarez 7:41
What was the name of the Christian rock band?

Matthew Gaydos 7:44
Actually, it was a self titled like album that he put out so you can just look up Patrick Levis. I think the album is called “Extravagant God.”

Nicole Sweeney 7:52
Mari was excited because she would thought that this was going to be her, uh, in her wheelhouse.

Marines Alvarez 8:00
I know. I was waiting for it, like if you had been like, oh, you know, that classic Christian screamo? I would’ve been like, yes, I do know! This I do not know.

Matthew Gaydos 8:06
I personally did not dive any deeper simply because my lack of Christian rock ends at “Jars of Clay.” So I don’t think he was in “Jars of Clay.” But the last two here, I think I said three earlier and I was wrong. The last two are BJ, who is the strong silent type in this movie, played by Jacob Elliot. This is the only thing he ever acted in, and apparently now has a real estate photography business. So I don’t know how he ended up in “Brink,” but I’d be very interested to know because it’s literally only thing he’s ever done. And then yeah, lastly, we have Arne, Arnie. I don’t remember what his name was in this movie. But he’s played by Joey Simmrin, who was also in “Little Giants,” and he’s in “Clock Stoppers.” But, uh, stopped acting to become the Vice President of MDDN, a music management company started by the Madden brothers from Good Charlotte. And he seems– yeah, he’s a music manager now. And seems to be like heavily tied to managing Poppy.

Ceri Riley 9:04
Oh, weird.

Nicole Sweeney 9:05
Oh!

Matthew Gaydos 9:05
Youtuber slash musician, so I have this theory that he was probably at VidCon since Poppy, was at VidCon. And maybe we were in the same room as Arne.

Nicole Sweeney 9:15
Oh, man. We could’ve pulled him aside.

Matthew Gaydos 9:18
Be like, hey–

Marines Alvarez 9:20
Get that inside knowledge.

Matthew Gaydos 9:21
Yeah, I’m sure you want to talk about “Brink” some more.

Ceri Riley 9:23
We just need one sound bite.

Nicole Sweeney 9:29
I have burning professional questions for you. No, it’s not about your career as a music manager.

Matthew Gaydos 9:33
It’s not about Good Charlotte. It’s not about Poppy. It’s about “Brink.”

Nicole Sweeney 9:39
The most important thing you ever did.

Matthew Gaydos 9:43
But yeah, that’s where they are all now.

Unknown Speaker 9:47
And now it’s the part of the podcast where we find out if Ceri’s guess from last week was in fact, correct. I believe Ceri said it was about a lifeguard. Mari, what is “Brink” actually about?

Marines Alvarez 9:58
Not a hot lifeguard. I was like, I almost like gasped, like I kept it to myself when you started with skating. Yeah, even though you were on the ice skating, I was like [gasps] she might get this and then you just veered and you went to hot lifeguard.

Ceri Riley 10:13
I can’t believe it. I’m so mad. I sent out an email to the three of you saying as soon as I saw the cover, it was like this is a skating movie. I should have gone with my first instinct. I’m never gonna talk myself out of anything ever again. I’m gonna go with the first dumb idea I have.

Nicole Sweeney 10:31
It was an all caps email about how personally attacked she felt by the poster.

Ceri Riley 10:35
How dare they make a skating movie?

Marines Alvarez 10:40
Probably entirely on your rationale: brink sounds like rink sounds like skating. So this movie is indeed about skating about Andy Brinker, who is known as Brink. And he really loves aggressive inline skating. He has three pals that also love aggressive inline skating. And they do it as a hobby totally for free as many of us namely the three of us and making a podcast about Disney movies for the fun of it. We can totally relate.

Matthew Gaydos 11:13
We’re soul casters!

Ceri Riley 11:17
That’s the shirt for this episode.

Marines Alvarez 11:20
These pals all go to high school with a group of skaters who are sponsored by XBladz so they get cool things like new gear and skates and also money. Team XBladz hates Brink and his friends because I don’t know competitiveness and like teenagers, I guess I don’t know. Brink’s parents, namely his dad just don’t understand his love of skating and also how happy he is all the time, which is like a legit complete his dad has is like that kid is just too happy, which literally never happened to me growing up, but okay, dad. Things get really rough when a series of pranks lead Brink and his pals to take on Team XBladz in a race on school property. Like all through the school and over like school property and nobody notices at all. But unfortunately, one of the dudes on Team XBladz, the Black Power Ranger, he gets badly hurt and Brink tops the race to help him and call for help. But they all get busted and they get suspended for the rest of the day, which also makes his dad super unhappy. This also leaves an opening on Team XBladz for somebody to fill in for the Black Power Ranger In the meantime. Brink his pals would never because they are soul skaters aka skaters who skate for the fun of it. Except Brink’s dad has been out of work for six months because he got injured on the job. There are a lot of money worries at the Brinker home so Brink decides that he’s going to sell out and join Team XBladz because they get paid doing $2 a week. I’m laughing but I’m not really. I mean if I got paid $200 a week to do this podcast I would not be laughing.

Ceri Riley 13:03
Even if you had a manager that reminded you how much you sold out 24 hours a day.

Marines Alvarez 13:10
Don’t care.

Ceri Riley 13:10
Photoshoots. Interviews.

Matthew Gaydos 13:12
Send us $200 and new inline skates now.

Marines Alvarez 13:15
Uh, fuck soul casting. Brink briefly floats the idea of doing this like sponsored skating by his parents. His dad is all for him getting a job but definitely not a skating job, $200 or not because then Brink would think about skating all the time versus like now where it’s like most of the time. Brink tries out for XBladz anyway and he gets on the team and no one consults a parent at all even though they’re like paying this kid. It’s cool. It’s fine.

Ceri Riley 13:47
I really liked how the business deal was a handshake. No contract or anything. It was just like a very menacing handshake.

Marines Alvarez 13:54
Like up in his face, like by his eyeballs. I don’t understand why that handshake was like so high up but there you go.

Matthew Gaydos 14:00
You know that guy’s stealing all of their money for sure.

Marines Alvarez 14:03
100%. Brink tries to hide the fact that he’s on Team XBladz from his friends, but doing double practices is wearing him out. And things get worse when his dad announces that he’s found Brink a non skating job at a dog groomer so now he’s got two practices, school and a job. He’s running himself ragged and alienating his friends who he keeps ditching to do other things. So the day of the invitational arrives which is this like competition like halfway between the big competition and Brink pretends to be sick. He tells the rest of his pals to go practice without him and definitely do not go to the Invitational. Do not go there. Do not be there. Brink himself does go to the Invitational and helps team XBladz win. Unfortunately, the other soul skaters do show up and see that he’s been lying to them this whole time, friendship over. The douchey captain of team XBladz, who is Val, gloats and so Brink quits team XBladz. Brink tries to talk to his friends again and repair their friendship and explain but they are too mad and won’t listen. Val, I don’t know stalks Brink and sees this happen and is like I’ll be your friend and still pay you $200 a week and Brink is back on Team XBladz. One day they are at the place where the downhill portion of the big competition is going to happen and Brink’s old pals show up. And for some reason they can’t share this whole ass road. So they’re going to race in order to see who gets to stay on the road. Brink really doesn’t want to race Gabriella and tries to get her not to do it. But he also like to I don’t know he’s still races, So they race and Val is a cheatery cheater who cheats and he throws some gravel on the road in front of Gabriella who wipes out and badly hurts her arm. Brink goes to visit Gabby at home to see how she is and explains that he only sold them out for the money and Gabby is all like DUH, we all need money. You can’t stop doing something you love for money because then you are a sellout like that’s the whole thing. Brink quits team XBladz again very dramatically throwing his skates on a pizza and chocolate milkshake in Val’s face. Brink also has a heart to heart with his dad who tells him that skating is not who he is. It’s what he does. Even if he never skates again, he’s a good son and he’s got good friends and he still Andy Brinker. Brinker gets a pay advance at Pup ‘N Suds to buy his friends new skates and shirts and buy back their love, which seems a little contrary to the message of this movie, but I get. New skates are cool. So they all make up and decide to compete together. They compete in the big competition and we get a lot of shots and montages of aggressive inline skating. They end up in the final downhill with team XBladz, so it’s Brink against Val. Val cheats a lot to during the downhill, including faking getting hurt because he knows that Brink always stops to help whoever is hurt like he won’t finish the race. But Brink still manages to like get up and get back in the race and win and Brink and team Pup ‘N Suds and doing your hobbies for free wins in the end. Actually, no, it’s taking out loans to do your hobbies wins in the end. And we end with him and like the classic champion pose of lifting up his trophy.

Nicole Sweeney 17:36
To the brink!

Marines Alvarez 17:37
To the brink!

Ceri Riley 17:43
I forgot that I said that in last week’s episode. And so I was like did they actually say that in this? Like is that what he’s shouting and I just zoned out?

Nicole Sweeney 17:57
Okay, real quick nostalgia check. Do you remember watching this as a kid? Matt?

Matthew Gaydos 18:01
Yes.

Nicole Sweeney 18:02
Mari?

Marines Alvarez 18:03
Yes.

Nicole Sweeney 18:03
Me also yes. Ceri?

Ceri Riley 18:06
Definitely no.

Nicole Sweeney 18:08
Okay, so what are we all think of this movie? Did you like it?

Matthew Gaydos 18:12
I mean, I loved it. I think this is one of the quintessential DCOMs for me. And so yeah, no, I had a lot of fun.

Nicole Sweeney 18:25
Big same. This is definitely one of the like, when I saw that this was third. I was very excited. When I first saw the list that we were operating off of my initial reaction was trepidation because “Under Wraps,” “You Lucky Dog” were things I didn’t recognize. But then I saw that “Brink” was third and I was like it’s fine. This is gonna be great. And it was everything that my heart remembered. It made me every bit is happy, I feel as it did as a you know, 10 year old.

Marines Alvarez 18:55
I also really enjoyed it. I watched this a ton growing up, so there was definitely that to like build off of but I even with like all of the like, do what you love, like messagin, I thought it was really sweet. And I thought, I don’t know, I laughed. I expected it to be more dated because I remember Brink like would talk in a way that his dad was always like, what are you saying? But he even calls his family he’s like bye fam I’m like, dude, we’re still saying that.

Matthew Gaydos 19:21
Yeah.

Nicole Sweeney 19:24
Timeless.

Marines Alvarez 19:24
I know. It is timeless. It did not make me feel as old days as I expected and I did like enjoy myself while watching this movie.

Ceri Riley 19:32
Yeah, I had a lot of fun too. I had no idea what to expect as is the case of all of these movies. But it was just so much fun. And if I had watched it as a kid I would definitely begged my parents to get me inline skates probably not so I could do tricks like that. But just so I could go down the street and and feel cool.

Nicole Sweeney 19:51
Because remember, Ceri was a nervous child.

Ceri Riley 19:53
Yeah. Wouldn’t want to do the jumps. I wouldn’t want to do the flips off of the walls, but just like skating down the street going somewhere, feeling cool. Yeah, this is definitely my favorite. I say definitely as in we’ve watched three movies of the three that we’ve watched so far. So

Nicole Sweeney 20:11
But this is definitely the best of the three. This feels objectively true that this movie is the best of the three that we’ve watched.

Marines Alvarez 20:19
Yes.

Matthew Gaydos 20:19
And yeah, rollerblading was so cool in the like mid to late 90s like I had so many flashbacks all watching this to like the opening scene of “Mighty Ducks 2” is a whole rollerblading sequence. The opening sequence of the Power Rangers movie, which is a few years before this, is a lot of rollerblading. Like rollerblading was just the cool thing for teens to do in movies back then,

Marines Alvarez 20:42
I also had this thought when they were talking about like the sponsorship of like these kids skating and how many, or how many millions of dollars this dude was making off of like the promotion. And I was like really? But yes, no rollerblading back then I guess it was like making tons of money to the point where you needed like a sponsored team. So remembering through that where I was like, where’s all this money coming from? And then being like, Oh, yeah, 90s

Matthew Gaydos 21:11
Yeah, the X Games was only like three years old at this point. So we were like, in the peak of this sort of like extreme sports movement happening.

Ceri Riley 21:20
What are the X Games? I’m sorry if his is a dumb question.

Matthew Gaydos 21:23
I, uh– where do we begin? Basically, it was a sort of Olympics for skateboarding, rollerblading, that sort of thing that like those cool up and coming activities that were not allowed in the regular Olympics.

Nicole Sweeney 21:40
The “x” is for extreme so

Matthew Gaydos 21:42
It always is.

Ceri Riley 21:43
Got it. I see. XBladz, X, extreme. Yeah. I get it.

Matthew Gaydos 21:52
XBladz which has the x and the Z with no e.

Ceri Riley 21:56
Mmmhmm, Yeah, it’s just x blads.

Nicole Sweeney 22:01
If the x blads want to give me $200 to do my hobbies.

Matthew Gaydos 22:06
But yeah, I enjoyed, like flashing back to my days of like, rollerblading with my friends. And also, there’s this– this soundtrack is so much better than the last two.

Nicole Sweeney 22:17
Yes, yes.

Matthew Gaydos 22:18
There’s the– the credit song aside, which is very, very bad in every way that music could be bad, through out there’s like a ton of good like ska and punk songs that make me feel like I’m also playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. So this like, this is very of an era, but it’s an era that I look back on fondly.

Nicole Sweeney 22:41
Yes.

Ceri Riley 22:41
All the stunts just felt very fun, and I feel like the way that I consume media is that I don’t pay as close attention as I should do things like music or lighting, or like the details that went into filmmaking, but every time they did a montage of skate trick, I was like yeah is great and the music was definitely part of that.

Marines Alvarez 23:03
I very early on was trying to play spot the stunt double to see if I could because I like there were times where it was mostly on close ups that it was clearly Erik von Detten and like going by, and I was trying to decide like Is he on skates? Is he really doing today got him on some sort of like other wheeled contraption while they’re doing this like close up. But then I stopped because then I was just having fun.

Nicole Sweeney 23:28
I also just like the fact that this kid’s defining character trait is being happy. I mean, I for context, I am in the middle of free watching all of “The Americans” for Snark Squad Pod, and so taking a break from watching this really intense and stressful spy show to watching this incredibly happy child inline skating was a gift.

Ceri Riley 23:52
All the characters were so fun and so good. I loved Gabby. She was great. I want her to be my best friend. If I watched this movie, I would want to be her probably because I was very into the I’m a tomboy, too, as someone who played video games and Pokemon cards and things like that. So not as cool as her because she did sport, but would’ve definitely– like when she showed up to school in a dress and was like my mom made me wear it because she said on the first day of school, you gotta dress nice. It’s like I feel that in my soul, where all I wanted to do is wear graphic t shirts and baggy jeans, but not skater aesthetic just because it was more comfy. I don’t know.

Matthew Gaydos 24:39
I was also like, like he said about looking for the stunt doubles, Mari, of like, I was surprised at how often I saw that it wasn’t a stunt double.

Marines Alvarez 24:48
Right.

Matthew Gaydos 24:48
Especially during the end, like Val is doing some really cool tricks at the end. And as far as I could tell he was doing all of them himself. So I don’t know what sort of training they went through before this or if they intentionally cast teens who could skate, but I bought that it wasn’t a stunt double. from the majority of the time.

Nicole Sweeney 25:08
Well, yeah, skating was all the rage in the 90s. So all the all the teens–

Marines Alvarez 25:12
Everyone did it.

Nicole Sweeney 25:12
Everyone did it.

Unknown Speaker 25:14
Have a question for you guys? What was your reaction in the moment to the worm sandwich scene?

Nicole Sweeney 25:21
visceral displeasure.

Marines Alvarez 25:25
It was a very quick one two of like watching him bite into the worms and being grossed out, but then that that point where they lift up the signs that say don’t be a wuss, or whatnot, I was, I was laughing again. So I, I think that movie did a good job of distracting me fro– from the moment that he points at the worms and he’s like, you know, formulating the plan silently, like I was already cringing. I was like, Oh, no, no, no.

Nicole Sweeney 25:50
I don’t wanna.

Marines Alvarez 25:51
Yeah, but they want me back quickly.

Ceri Riley 25:54
Much like the rest of this movie, I loved it. It was just so– what a, what a good, weird prank to play that would only I don’t know, kids in my school weren’t that wild, but sure. Let’s steal some worms and shove them in a kid’s sandwich. Uh, what a good goof.

Marines Alvarez 26:14
I like that, you know, I don’t know why I want to mention this here. But I was just thinking about that scene. And the fact that Val the actor does like 87% of his acting with his pouty lips. So I just keep remembering his like, pouty lip face every time. He was like, oh, like upset that they did something. But yeah, I just wanted to make sure that I mentioned his pouty lips.

Matthew Gaydos 26:37
His pouty lips and his luscious locks.

Marines Alvarez 26:41
Beautiful hair.

Ceri Riley 26:42
Accentuated by that earthworm just hanging right out.

Marines Alvarez 26:46
Ew!

Ceri Riley 26:46
You gotta recreate it for the listeners of the podcast who haven’t experienced this along with us.

Nicole Sweeney 26:55
I’m sure they all thank you for that, Ceri.

Ceri Riley 26:57
Yes, you’re welcome. For my great guesses and my knowing nothing and my earth worm appreciation.

Nicole Sweeney 27:06
So inspired by Brink and his love of soul skating, this week, we are talking about our own after school activities. Matt, what did you do after you got home from a long day of being at school?

Matthew Gaydos 27:23
Oh, so so many things. I was like, when we talked about this in the email a little bit. I was like trying to think of everything I did as a kid. And I got tired like just thinking of all the things that I used to do. I did basketball, football, Little League, guitar lessons, karate, like, you name stereotypical 90s kid activities, and I probably was doing that.

Ceri Riley 27:48
Did you get good at any or all of them?

Matthew Gaydos 27:52
I would say I got decent at guitar. I technically am a black belt in karate, but I stopped when I was

Ceri Riley 28:00
Ooh!

Matthew Gaydos 28:00
Yeah, but I stopped doing karate when I was like nine.

Nicole Sweeney 28:04
Matt, this is wild! I did not know this about you.

Ceri Riley 28:06
You peaked early. That’s a very good fun fact.

Matthew Gaydos 28:09
Yeah, but one, it was not like clearly if I was able to get a black belt by age nine, and then retire from karate forever, it probably wasn’t the best karate.

Nicole Sweeney 28:24
Matt I know nothing about karate, but you just said black belt, so I don’t know that sounds impressive to me.

Ceri Riley 28:30
Yes. As far as we know, you’re a child prodigy, and you can beat us all out right now.

Nicole Sweeney 28:34
Correct, yes.

Matthew Gaydos 28:36
I could definitely break the desk that I’m sitting in half of one, one little wave of my hand. Splinters everywhere.

Ceri Riley 28:44
Yeah, you learned it as a kid and you never forget that.

Matthew Gaydos 28:46
Yeah.

Marines Alvarez 28:47
It’s like riding a bike being a black belt. That’s what I heard.

Matthew Gaydos 28:50
Yeah, so I don’t think I got good at karate, but technically, like by the book, I guess I got the best at karate? As far as sports go, no, because I was very mediocre at all sports. And I played them for like a very small amount of time. Like I’d do, like one year of football and be like, eh, that was fine. I’ll do something else. And then I did like– I didn’t– I did wrestling in junior high. I did track in junior high. But then once High School came around, I decided to get into more of the music and theater stuff. So then I sort of abandoned all sports and joined show choir and did the plays and all that jazz. Again, I don’t know where like, where was that time coming from? I try to think about doing any one of those things now.

Nicole Sweeney 29:38
Right? Yes. Yes.

Matthew Gaydos 29:40
I guess when you get out of school at like three o’clock, you got some extra hours in your day?

Marines Alvarez 29:44
You got some. Yeah, I often think about the fact that I had to start school. Like at seven o’clock in the morning. Like High School, we started at 7:25.

Matthew Gaydos 29:55
Yikes.

Marines Alvarez 29:56
Granted, I was waking up at seven and literally rolling into school, but also, that seems awfully early to me now.

Nicole Sweeney 30:07
Well, what what things were you doing after school then?

Marines Alvarez 30:10
So, I am going to paint you a little picture first. And that picture is that I am a first generation American. And so my parents are counterculturalist, I would say I guess not like purposefully, so but because they are immigrants to this country, and also I grew up in a very conservative household, which I’ve mentioned before, so this really created an atmosphere of like, go to school and come back home. And that’s the end. However, I guess my saving grace was that I am the second child. I’m the middle child. So my older sister, like you asked her this question. She’s like, I literally never did anything ever. But by the time that I was going through school, I was you know, figuring things out a little bit more. So like elementary and middle school, I was doing as much as I could while still– like I couldn’t really stay after school oftentimes, or if I had to stay after school, I was like, fudging it. So I clearly remember being a Safety Patrol. And you had to like stay after school, like I guess, like 25 minutes or 30 minutes to like, patrol the halls and like help, I don’t know, keep control. And I would stay like 10 and like book it and just be really late to my dad picking me up or things like that, like trying to piece this all together. But then I like started excelling academically, so my parents let me do a little bit more. And so I was doing lots of really nerdy things like science fairs and Speech and Debate club. And then in high school, I started doing musical theater. So it was a really weird transition– Our gifted program in middle school was like, totally not legit. And the same teacher who was running the gifted program was the person who did the musical theatre stuff. So we had a two hour like, block with him. And he’s like, alright, everyone, we’re doing musical theatre. And so my gifted class turned into musical theatre class. And uh–

Matthew Gaydos 32:16
That sounds like a DCOM waiting to happen.

Marines Alvarez 32:21
Thankfully, I loved it and I did that all through middle school and high school.

Matthew Gaydos 32:24
Don’t spoil the plot of High School Musical for Ceri.

Ceri Riley 32:29
Now, I’m just going to describe Mari’s life as the plot.

Marines Alvarez 32:33
“She’s a first generation American…”

Ceri Riley 32:37
Gifted at school, was in it for the smarts, but then everything turned upside down.

Marines Alvarez 32:46
Save that, roll it back later.

Nicole Sweeney 32:50
What did you do after school?

Ceri Riley 32:52
I feel like I’m less interesting. Well, okay, here’s the thing. The way that my dad parented– he was was very controlled as a kid, I think. I think that’s fair to say. He’ll also listens to the podcast that I’m on. So you’ll hear me saying that, but he was in daycares a lot, after school cares. Had activities very structured. And so I think when going into parenting, me and my brother, he wanted us to have a lot of choice into what we were doing. But the problem is, is that I didn’t like other kids, because I was scared of them. And so I didn’t like doing a lot of organized activities. I did gymnastics when I was really little until third grade, and I got good, not the best, like Matt at karate, but very good at gymnastics and was invited to be on a gymnastics team and like, go to competitions and train up and things like that. And my dad asked if I wanted to do it or not. And I was like, no, the girls seem scary. They’re older than me. And I don’t want to, but I was really good. I was so flexible, I could bounce so high, I could do flips. That other Ceri, parallel universe, is a gymnast. She’s doing great. She’s so strong. She got a scholarship to college, probably. And then I don’t I didn’t really do much else. My brother signed up for Aikido. So it’s a different martial art. And so I did that for a little bit. I also tried a couple instruments, I think I played guitar and piano. But again, I played piano to the extent of I had one computer CD that taught me the lessons from I don’t know, like a very basic song to the entertainer. And then once I learned the entertainer, I was out of piano songs. So I quit piano because I didn’t want to go to a lesson with a real person. That’d be nonsense. And then, I don’t really know what I did in middle school, I just went home and played video games or read books. And then in high school, my friends started roping me into doing after school activities. So I did theater too. We got a bunch of theater kids in media. Wow.

Nicole Sweeney 35:04
Oh, wow, imagine that. Theater kids grow up and make a podcast.

Matthew Gaydos 35:10
It’s the only skill we have!

Unknown Speaker 35:14
Talking about ourselves. But the thing is, I was not I guess this is even more podcast-like. I didn’t act in any of the plays, I did sets and lights. And I was very much tech for all the shows. And then I also focused a lot on academics. I was in different national honor societies like science and art and normal that had volunteering. But I didn’t really structure my after school activities very closely. It was just like I followed my friends around and so they were going camping one weekend, and they said you had to be a part of science national honor society to do that. And so I joined so that I could go camping with my friends. And same thing with art. And then, I don’t know very, very unfocused. Very unfocused parenting, very unfocused after school activities.

Nicole Sweeney 36:02
My after school activities were also very unfocused, probably a little bit more like Matt’s, though, in that it was just everything I like, I feel like I took one lesson in all sorts of things, but like just nothing ever really stuck. My mom was really big– I don’t know if this is just like a deeply Midwestern parent thing, but my mom was very big on us needing to have activities. Like she wasn’t very, we didn’t have much in the way of rules and she really care about follow through. It was just like you have to you can’t just come home and do nothing like you have to have some sort of activity, something in your life that you care about, that isn’t school, and I don’t care how often you change what that thing is, but you should have other things. Especially– I was, I was homeschooled for a few years in the time I from like, seventh through ninth grade. And so that in that period, in particular, she was very big on it, because otherwise I was literally just at home all the time. But even before that, like when he was a kid, she just you know, I don’t know, we had we had to have activities. So I, a lot of like, I don’t know, very stereotypical, like little girl stuff. I took a bunch of different dance classes. Probably most of my childhood I was in a handful of dance classes. I also did community theater as a kid for a lot of years. So you know, here we all are.

Matthew Gaydos 37:27
So the finale of Cooler Than Homework will be a live stage performance of an original play put on by the four of us.

Nicole Sweeney 37:35
I have a random aside about my community theater days, which is that one of the kids who was in the theater was friends with Erik von Detten and so Erik von Detten was like, I don’t know made a cameo in our community theater. I like didn’t– I like saw him backstage is the extent of this, didn’t actually interact with him at all. But he was he was there. I shared stage very briefly with Erik von Detten as a small child doing community theater.

Marines Alvarez 38:05
This episode really has come full circle.

Nicole Sweeney 38:11
I did kind of like of the degree to which team haunt Earth had like very cerebral and nerdy after school activities and team haunt space was like, I don’t know man, I did everything. I continue to look for more, more haunt earth, haunt space parallels. As the podcast continues.

Matthew Gaydos 38:33
I think we eventually will have a quiz you can take that will sort you whether your team haunt space or team haunt Earth.

Nicole Sweeney 38:42
Don’t know which one you want to haunt in the afterlife?

Marines Alvarez 38:47
How were your after school activities?

Nicole Sweeney 38:52
Now it’s time to talk about the lessons that we learned from “Brink.” Matt?

Unknown Speaker 38:56
Talk to people. Just you know, anyone, everyone in your life. Use words be open and honest. Whether it’s your family, your friends, your dog washing, like, I guess, employer, anything. Just use your words, so many problems are solved and you’ll feel better.

Marines Alvarez 39:18
I’m going with the obvious one because I learned that if you take money for doing a thing that you love, you are a big sellout. And you will be quickly and happy. You might also become a cheater. Yhere, there’s very little or no path to success. If you get paid for doing the thing you love.

Ceri Riley 39:43
I learned that baking a cake is a lot like friendship. Because that was such a great line. And yeah, I don’t know in the movie, I wrote this down, because I thought it was cute. And little little Ceri would have definitely taken this to heart as like, that’s how you make friends. In the movie, they said sometimes it doesn’t turn out the way you expect, but it still tastes sweet. But I’d like to extend that metaphor and say sometimes you just throw in all the wrong ingredients and you mess it up and then you don’t have a cake. Because sometimes that’s how friendship works. That’s adult Ceri’s perspective on this child movie.

Nicole Sweeney 40:29
I learned a very important lesson about leaning on your friends for support. And Ceri has another lesson that she learned, so I’m gonna hand it back to Ceri to tell us the other lesson learned that she learned. I’m going to lean on my friend for support.

Matthew Gaydos 40:48
Nicely done.

Ceri Riley 40:49
Yeah, good. My other lesson is do Mario Kart shortcuts and you’ll win. ‘Cause that’s all he had to do! He just went off of a random ramp and then came in first. Wow.

Nicole Sweeney 41:02
Beautiful. And now to end this episode of Cooler Than Homework, it is time for Ceri who knows nothing except for the title of the next movie to guess the plot of the next movie. So Ceri, what do you think the plot is for Halloween Town?

Ceri Riley 41:21
Okay, imagine a town where it’s Halloween every single day. Not like a “Nightmare Before Christmas where everyone’s like spooky and undead–.

Nicole Sweeney 41:31
I was gonna say, are you just gonna do the plot to Nightmare Before Christmas.

Ceri Riley 41:34
Yeah.

Marines Alvarez 41:37
Not like that.

Ceri Riley 41:38
But unlike that even though very similar premise. It’s just one where there are adults, there kids trick or treating, everyday is Halloween, this is how you operate socially. You knock on your neighbor’s doors, you get candy, this is the exchange. You do not eat your own food. I went a little far with that one. That one’s going to be missed, but I’m gonna keep going forward. There are, as part of this, so there are trick or treaters, but there are also people– so there there are trickers and there are treaters. There these are the factions in this world. Treaters, very sweet, celebrate the good parts of Halloween: the costumes, the festivities, the candy. The trickers are the monsters in this universe. They are trying to cause mischief. They they are mayhem. And it’s a Disney movie, so it could be some magic involved. Maybe they curse other people, maybe there’s magic involved. But there’s one tricker who just wants to be good. She just loves candy. That’s it. She’s sweet. And she her whole family is trying to get her to cause mischief on her 12th birthday. The Halloween day– no the 13th definitely a 13th birthday because that is a tricky number, to cause her first mischief and become a true adult. But she’s like, what if I just want to give out candy? What if I just want to make friends? And so like a forbidden friendship she crosses over learns the way of the treaters and then there’s some— mmm, how does this end? I think she grows and shows the trickers that they don’t have to be mean all the time. And that they can alter their community values to value treats too and so they still cost some mischief because that’s deep in their souls, but they learn to cooperate on the one day of the year, October 31, where everything is perfect. And then they’re in chaos the rest of the year. The End, Halloween Town.

Matthew Gaydos 43:45
Wow. That is amazing for several several reasons.

Nicole Sweeney 43:53
I’m delighted for you to watch Halloween Town for the first time with that, you know, and just like living in the back of your brain is going to be great.

Matthew Gaydos 44:02
Yeah.

Ceri Riley 44:04
Now it’s more ominous after knowing how close and how far I was on Brink simultaneously, this is all so cryptic, all your feedback.

Nicole Sweeney 44:12
Yes.

Matthew Gaydos 44:13
I mean, you are similarly very close and very far at the same time. There are some details that I was like does she– she saw this movie but

Nicole Sweeney 44:24
And then you would– the next word out of your mouth–

Matthew Gaydos 44:27
Yeah.

Nicole Sweeney 44:28
Wildly far off.

Ceri Riley 44:30
This is all real, folks.

Nicole Sweeney 44:35
Well, thank you all for joining us and listening to another episode of Cooler Than Homework. If you want to help us sell out you can do that.

Marines Alvarez 44:45
Soul casters!

Matthew Gaydos 44:47
I’m team XPodz.

Nicole Sweeney 44:49
For real, for real though, you can support the show if you go to snark squad dot com slash ghost wars. We are doing a limited campaign of Haunt Earth and Haunt Space shirts. After this episode goes up there’s only one more week left in the campaign and we are raising money to help pay for our hosting fees and also you can look real cool and support the show and we would love that. Again, you can find out more information at stock squad com slash ghost wars. We would love to hear all your thoughts about this podcast and about Brink. There will be a post dedicated to this episode up at snark squad dot com or you can find us all on Twitter. I am @SweeneySays.

Matthew Gaydos 45:19
I am @MatthewGaydos.

Marines Alvarez 45:21
You can find me at @mynameismarines.

Ceri Riley 45:23
And I’m @ceriley.

Nicole Sweeney 45:25
Thank you to Stefan Chin for the wonderful theme music that is playing us out right now and we will see you all again next time.

Ceri Riley 45:45
Soul casters for life.