Unleashing the Jugger: From Cult Classic to Real-Life Sport w/ John Fawkes

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Welcome back, listeners, to another exciting episode of the podcast is real. Today, we've got a special treat for you. Our guest is none other than John Fawkes, and we'll be diving into the fascinating world of jugger. Now, if you already know what Jugger is, it's because you have seen one of the most unsung movies of 1989. But if you're like most people who haven't seen that, you're going to find out what Jugger is tonight. And it's a wild ride. So thanks for joining us. But before we get started, I want to make sure that you know that our episode is brought to you in part from our friends over at Paramount Pictures, who have a new comedy. Casino in Ischia, which is new today on digital stars Dominic Purcell of Prison break fame, a fading action star who heads to Italy to revive his career with a bold new movie. But when the production spirals out of control, his comeback turns into a hilarious misadventure by casino in Ischia on digital now not rated from Republic Pictures. And you can find out how you can get a free digital copy courtesy of Paramount Pictures, right on our social media. So follow us there. Now let's welcome our guest and explore the unique sport of jugger. In 1989, a film emerged that would spark a unique sporting phenomenon, the blood of heroes, depicted at a post apocalyptic world where teams traversed barren wastelands, engaging in brutal matches of jugger, a sport where players wielded sharp, dangerous weapons to score points by placing a skull on their opponent's spike.

Goal.

This gritty portrayal of athleticism, strategy and survival has inspired enthusiasts to bring jugger to life today. And tonight, we're going to delve into how this cinematic vision fuels their passion for this exhilarating sport. Today, we're going to explore this world with our special guest, John Fawkes. Welcome to the show, John.

Hey, guys.

Hey.

I am so glad that you're here. When I saw that you guys do this, as soon as I saw that it was related to the blood of heroes, I was immediately intrigued. This is a movie that I absolutely adore. I had a vhs copy of it back in the day that I wore down to the tape. So much tracking issues in that tape by the end. I love this movie, and I don't know if most of our audience knows about this movie yet. We're going to find out. It's one of those movies that I think a lot of people, it's like a cult classic, but maybe a lot of people didn't see or didn't appreciate. And so we're going to get into that tonight. But before we do that, I want you to tell us a little bit about yourself. I know that we're going to cover the fact that you're a part of this brutal blood sport from this great movie, but tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do there in LA. Right. That's where you are right now.

I live in Los Angeles. I live in Hollywood, actually, but I don't work in the film industry. I am a marketing consultant and I have a sideline in photography. And I've taken some photos at the event, the main event that we play at, which we'll get into, I'm sure, but neither of those have too much to do with jugger, other than taking photos at the event. Most of all, I'm a geek. I love fantasy and sci-Fi novels, fantasy and Sci-Fi movies, which is how I found jugger. And I like sports. Awesome planes.

Well, you're in the right place because.

We.

You'D rather play than watch. You don't like to watch. Is there anything.

Yeah. To be clear, when guys say they like sports, it usually means like they watch sports and they can name players and tell you standings of major.

They're a fan of the, of watching the. Yeah, right.

I like to play rec sports and sometimes I'll watch major league sports. I couldn't tell you what the Dodgers record is right now. I, I'll watch occasionally. Mostly. Yeah. Yeah.

I like to.

Dodgers. Is that a dodgeball team?

What is that? Now we here at World Gun geek, we celebrate everybody's passion. We don't care how involved they are. I do have a small little debate that has been arched throughout geek and nerd them forever. Is there a difference between a geek and a nerd? And I say there isn't. There's, first of all, it's, it's fine to be either there or, and to be both. You could be both. But a geek has a lot of information in his head that is mostly trivia and pop culture related and is just kind of, you know, geeks out about things, whereas a nerd is someone who also retains all of that sporting news information. So if you're, if you might be a sports nerd, if you can recite the baseball stats from, you know, wherever and all that kind of stuff, but if you're just a sports geek, like me, you just want to watch. And you care if the team that you town you live in wins. Right. Like, that's all I care about.

Yeah, I agree.

But it's okay to be either. We're fine with that. You know, we don't. We don't judge what kind of. How much of a fan you are. You're a fan regardless.

Yeah. I don't know. Consistent definitions to them. I very broadly hear geek to refer to more pop culture stuff and nerd to be like, math and science.

But there's no considering academic.

Right.

No.

And then they're not. They're not mutually exclusive, like Jeff said.

Not at all.

Both. No.

Right.

You can be. I don't know if they call that a gerd or a neek. I don't know what. But you can be both or one or the other. But we're all part of the same.

That's the point.

Yeah.

What is it? Genus. We're the same genus. The same family.

Genus.

So.

Well, you're a nerd because you.

That was very nerdy.

I'm such a nerd.

Love it. Love it. All right, so for people who don't know this movie, just really briefly, this is a movie. It came out in 1989. I was a senior in high school when it came out Utah. You had just started. You were a freshman in college. Right. Because I think you're a year ahead of me.

Correct.

And now everyone knows how old we are. And it starred the legendary Rutger Howard.

Yeah.

As. And it took place in a post apocalyptic world. Very mad Max type of world type situation, was even filmed in Australia.

It was in Australia, where they roam.

This barren wasteland, going from town to town, playing this brutal bloodsport for basically little bobbles and bolts and nuts and things which I guess are used for currency. It's never quite for alcohol.

It was basically they for tribute. Alcohol and sex.

Yeah. Well, the reason they're called juggers is because they take payment partly in jugs of liquor. That's. Yeah, basically they're live fast, die young minor league athletes who just travel around playing this blood sport in return for food, booze, and. Yeah. Hooking up with locals until they get.

And the basic premise of the sport is there's a skull in the middle, like an animal skull in the center. Is it a dog skull? Then you have two players on each side that are a player on each side. That is the quick who grabs the skull and tries to put it on the spike of the opposing player. So it's sort of like capture the flag was more like, put the dog skull on the flag. And in the meantime, they're trying to, you know, basically kill each other to get there. The meantime, the rest of the juggers are all beating the snot out of each other, trying to make sure that they don't interfere and, you know, can get. Get there quick where they need to be. That's the basic premise of this movie. And there's a league in the movie, and they're trying to, you know, get better and get. Become part of this league. And there's a. A whole story of Rutger Howard's past, but we won't get into all that. It's a great movie. You guys will love it. What? The reason I say all that is because our guest here, John, actually plays this sport for real.

He's an actual juggernaut.

Yeah.

In LA, there is a league that has decided to take the sport from this movie and bring it in to real life. So let's start from the beginning with your story. How did you first come to find out about this movie? Tell us, like, what drew you to this movie and to this sport?

Yeah. So when I was something like eight years old, which is way too young, I watched Blade Runner because I had a cool uncle. I still have a cool uncle. He lives in the Los Angeles area, so he is the family member I see the most. But I was at my cool uncle's place, and he was like, yeah, sure, you can watch Robocop and Blade Runner. Why not? And Blade Runner immediately became my favorite movie of all time.

Parenting.

I thought Daryl Hanna was super hot. I thought Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty was, like, the coolest movie character I'd ever seen. So he's been my favorite actor ever since. And so in late 2020, when there wasn't much going on because of COVID and everyone was marathoning movies and tv shows, because what else can you do? I decided to have myself a Rutger Howard movie marathon. And. And so I watched the blood of heroes. I watched Blind Fury.

Blind fury.

Flesh, flesh, blood.

Hitcher.

They Hitcher. Yeah, I think those Hitcher.

Lady Hawk. He was in Lady Hawk.

Oh, Lady Hawk. Yes, I was Lady Hawk.

That was great.

Yeah.

I watched Empire Slayer to the movie.

He was in the original Buffy the vampire Slayer movie. That's right. That one. That one I did see as a kid. And I did not realize at the time that that was him, actually, that I rewatched. I was like, oh, yeah, played run.

There he is.

Yeah.

So I marathon one of Paul Rubin's greatest roles as well.

He had one of the best lines, by the way.

Most of these I'd never heard of before. I never heard of the blood of heroes until that day. I was like, I'm bored. I'm going to marathon Rutger Howard movies I'd never heard of. I'd heard of the Hitcher, because I think it's one of his. More. The Hitcher and blind fury are pretty well known. Lady Hawk, flesh and blood, the blood of heroes, those I discovered, like, on that weekend that I think it was probably a whole weekend for the number of movies I watched. Just the weekend. I was like, oh, post apocalyptic sports movie. Okay, sure. Yeah. It's got Rutger Howard. It's got Vincent D'Onofrio. It's got Joan Chen, who I wasn't familiar with until I saw that. Yeah. Actually has a lot of pretty somewhat well known actors.

Yeah.

Now I'm on his name.

Lindo Delroy.

Lindo Delroy.

Lindo was in there.

Oh, and also, by the way, Hugh Rice Byrne. Hugh Cry God, the guy who plays Lord vile, was also toe cutter in the original Mad Max and a Morton Joe in Fury Road. That guy. It's the same guy. Yeah. Yes, it's the same guy.

Cool.

And then he died. He died a couple of years ago. So he's not a Morton Joe Furiosa. Hugh Bryce Kern, I believe that's, yeah.

That's amazing.

So he is a apocalyptic film legend.

Right? That's incredible. Now I'm gonna have to rewatch it.

And so what were your, what were your thoughts after seeing that movie then, for the first time?

I mean, I just thought it was a brilliant concept. A post apocalyptic sports film just sounds kind of random and dumb. And really, it was in this time period shortly after Mad Max, when there was just a craze for kind of knockoff post apocalyptic movies. But it was one of the ones that actually had an original idea and executed it well. I mean, it's like a low budget art film, but very well done. I mean, not that low budget, I guess, Vincent D'Onofrio, Rucker Hauer. But I'm not Mad Max high budget. And I loved, I loved the world of it. I loved the setting. It's not exactly post apocalyptic. It's more like post post apocalyptic because it's nothing. The apocalypse didn't just happen, and humanity is not on the verge of extinction. The worst is over. Civilization is starting to come back. There is actually like a trade network between cities and towns where villages provide food for the big cities that are built out of these giant underground bomb shelters.

All right, the main cities. That's right.

In the original version that I still haven't seen, but I've heard in the original version, there is a scene that didn't make it to the american cut, the blood of heroes, where the main characters get sort of stopped on the road by the highway patrol. So, like, there's an actual functioning government that goes beyond, just beyond just one village. So this is like civilization starting to come back. And, like, it's not just everyone killing each other like in Mad Max. It's a kind of a crappy civilization, but one that works and humanity's not going to die off. And there are no more cars. Those are long gone. But there's still stuff being made out of tires and scrap metal that's left over from the apocalypse.

Yeah. Even some of the armor was made out of tires.

Yep. A lot of tire armor, which we use in the real life version. Tire makes very good armor. It's reasonably light. Stuff bounces off of it. It looks cool. Looking cool is a big part of how we build our armor. It's not all.

Well, I mean, you know, it is. It is a priority. I mean. I mean, yeah.

I mean, we're there to put on a show, you know? Yeah.

Yeah. Well, let's talk about that then. So that this was when you were eight. Obviously, you didn't start doing this blood sport when you were eight.

Jugger. Eight year old John.

I watched when I was eight was when I watched Blade Runner and became a Rutger. Howard fan. Jugger. I watched in 2020.

Oh, my bad. You're right.

Yeah. So what happened was I went on the Wikipedia page for Jugger for the blood of heroes. And on the Wikipedia page, there's a little note, by the way, this has become a real life sport. And I click over to the page on jugger. Turns out there are two versions of the real of jugger that are played in real life. There's the armored version, where people beat each other up, and the unarmored version that's more like fencing. One touch, you're out, which I still haven't played because there's not a league in LA, but I'd like to try. And then it's in the armored version on that page, there's a picture of it being played at Wasteland Weekend, which is this post apocalyptic festival in southern California that kind of grew out of the Wren fair, largely. It's like if the Ren Faire was a five day festival instead of, like a thing you go to for the day. And it was post apocalyptic instead of elizabethan. And everyone was in costume, and I'd heard of it before and hadn't gotten around it going before then, but I saw that and I was like, oh, yeah, I'd been thinking of going to that. And so I immediately went to their facebook page and said, I'd like to try out. And they said, all right, well, tryouts happen at the beginning of summer, so come see us in June. And so I just, like, took a note of that. And the following June 2021, I just showed up to a park in Pasadena and started, started practicing with them, which, by the way, no one has ever done that before, just to be clear. They're like everyone who finds everyone who gets into jugger, they go to Wasteland weekend first and they find it there. Or they're friends with a jugger. Or we've had a couple people who got into Wasteland weekend and, like, read about the juggers and decided to try out in advance of their first wasteland weekend. But I'm the only person other than the founders of the league, because the league kind of predates wasteland weekend. Other than them, I'm the only person who decided to become a jugger first and then basically just went to wasteland because he wanted to play jugger. So I remember at one point, at one point during tryouts, I was asking people questions about wasteland weekend, and they were just like, messing with me and telling me it was the size of burning man. Like, oh, yeah, it's about 5 miles across. It's not that big. It's like 4000 people quarter mile across. And one guy's like, wait, so you haven't been yet? No. Wait, so, like, who here do you know? No one. How did you find us? Internet.

Rutger Hauer.

Yeah. That's fantastic.

My good friend Rutgerhauer pointed me in this direction.

Yeah. Yes. My very, my idol, ruckerhauer.

So when you first show up for this practice, you don't have armored. Like, when do you start? Like, how do you get started then? When do you start building armor at some point? Like what?

Yeah, yeah. They give you advice on building armor. I mean, you can show up with stuff, but I didn't. I wanted to show up first and get guidelines on how to make it. So I showed up with, like some shin guards in a cup, maybe. And you don't need armor the very first day of tryouts, you don't really need armor because they go over. You don't play the whole game yet. You're just kind of going over the basics as tryouts. As practice goes on throughout. The practice goes from June to September, about three months. As it goes on, you buy or build stuff and start putting your armor together. Some people are very good. There are a lot of people in this community who are very good at making stuff. There's a big contingent at wasteland weekend of people who work in the film industry, making props, making costumes, making movie sets. There are a lot of people who are like Ren Faire people who do blacksmithing and stuff like that. We actually have a kind of a famous. The high referee of the league is kind of a famous blacksmith. One of the league founders, who's now the commissioner, is like a welder by trade who's also learned to blacksmith and knows how to build basically everything. Another guy makes chain mail as a hobby. I'm not good at any of that. So I used actual sports gear as the basis for all pretty much everything that I make and then decoed it up. I'm not a guy who can make chainmail or. Yeah, you have to deco it up. You can't just look like you just bought stuff off the rack. But I mean, like, all I attached.

Look like a ML MLB catcher, right?

Yeah, I. Yeah, I. Funny you say that. I just bought a pair of catchers, like knee and knee pad shin guard combos because I've been wearing military knee pads and shin guards separately, and they keep slipping and I'm tired of it. But, yeah, I need to, like, paint all that up in a camo pattern. And I have this new set of, like, biker armor that I have in deco that I'm gonna. That I'm gonna paint in a camouflage pattern and attach strips of camo so it looks kind of like a Gillieson. Yeah. Okay, speaking of the deco. So we have. This gets into the league concept. We have two teams and they have distinct identities. One is the army of Los Angeles. That's my team. And the other one is the red city Raiders, which, like in the kayfabe or the lore, the army of Los Angeles is the professional army of the city, state of Los Angeles. Red City is a biker gang that controls riverside in our little roleplay thing. So they. They are a lot less uniform in their appearance. They're bikers. We all wear camo of some kind and work that into our appearance. So that's why everything I've made has involved a lot of camouflage. My original armor was a set of hockey pads that I attached some tires to on the chest, and I covered it in this, like, faux alligator skin latex, but it started to fall apart because when you punch holes in foam, the holes want to tear wider and wider. So I'm making new armor this year.

Gotcha. Now, in the actual sport, there.

There are.

In the movie sport, there are positions. There's the quick. That's the one who's trying to get the skull to the spike. There's the.

There's a slasher or slash, right?

Yeah.

There's a griffin.

And then there's the chain guy.

He's the griff. Or at least. At least, right.

That was the term they use in the movie. So we don't use all the position terms in the movie. We use the term quick, as in the movie, and then the movie uses, like, specific terms for all four of the other positions. We just. We have the quick, the chain. We don't bother with the riffer term. And then each team is. Then all the other people who have sticks are collectively called enforcers. Up to one person on a team is allowed to have a hooked stick. In the movie, they're called the slash. The two other people with straight sticks in the movie are the drive and the back charge. We do use the term back charge. That's basically the goalie, the guy who stays back and stays near the goal. We don't really use the term drive. I've heard the term interceptor used for someone who's faster and uses two sticks. We have some weapons that you don't see in the movie. We have sword and shield. We have dual swords. Those I don't think are in the movie at all. But so we allow it. We allow a few things that are safe and cool that are not in the movie, but we have the rule of one chain and one chain. And, of course, one quick per team. That's required because they're the only ones who can handle the skull and score.

Right, right.

It's funny cause I think of them kind of like the seeker in Quidditch. Right? Like they're the one who's looking for the snitch there at the end. And if they can capture it, that's the end of the game. And that's what the quick trying to get the skull on the spike is. The end of the game. And then. So in the film, ty, they do three. It's kind of like hockey in that they have three periods, but it's three. It's 100 stones three times.

How do you guys do the timing? Do you guys do the timing?

Let's explain it for people who haven't seen the movie. There's a guy who throws a rock at a metal thing, 100 rocks.

It's always an old guy throwing stones at, like, a metal plate or a God.

He does it kind of slow, and you have to score before that hundredth stone hits the panel, which there's a break. You guys do that as well?

No, they tried that early on, and it's very hard to get the stone thrower to be consistent about it because they want to watch the game. That's the weird thing. In the movie, this is the only form of entertainment, and one person in every town volunteers to do that instead of just watching the game. So we actually play it. Instead of three periods, we play it with two halves and we don't time it. The high referee just kind of makes his judgment call about when either when the audience is losing interest or when we're getting too tired or for the second half when we have to wrap it up because there's, like, a concert or something after us because we.

Oh. Cause you have a schedule.

We play in front of the main stage, so there's always going on right after us. We have a time slot right before us. There's always, like, a metal band doing sound check, which is great because they'll, like, play some riffs as we're walking up there and introduce us. But, yeah, the high referee just kind of makes a judgment call. But it's usually about 20 minutes, a half, and then we'll have a burlesque show at halftime while we're resting up.

Interesting. So then tell us, are there any. Are the rules different then? I guess it's like when you guys are playing, like, how. How does a match, like, progress? Like, what. What will happen? What would we see if we were watching?

Well, like, for starters, in the movie, it's played to one point. As soon as someone scores, it's over. And it's often over in, like, 20 or 30 seconds, which is, like, not fun. So. So we don't. We don't play to one point. We play till we're done. We, in the movie, there are also, like, metal weapons, which we don't do because this is real life. So the sticks are usually rattan sticks, which we will add. We'll pad with, usually yoga mat or pool noodle or a mix of both. The chains are plastic chains, and they will, at some point along the chain, have a breakpoint where the chain is connected with some rubber inner tube. And that is so that if the chain wraps someone and you yank on it, the chain will break. Instead of dislocating their shoulder, which happened, or choking them out, which happened a lot. The dislocation, not like strangulation, I don't think has happened, but there were some dislocated shoulders in the early years until they started requiring breakpoints. So no metal weapons. No bladed weapons or sharp edges. No zip ties, because those can cut people. No helmets with nails sticking out of them, which I'm told there was in the first year. I don't know why. What? So in the first year, they weren't, like, playing the game. They were just, like, doing some sparring matches and not playing the whole game. So maybe it's not quite as crazy as it sounds, but it's still pretty crazy. Like, I guess I had nails sticking out of this helmet.

Wow.

We have a lot of stories about people getting, like, concussions and dislocated joints in the first few years before all the safety rules we have now were implemented. Since I've joined, no one has been immediately hospitalized. We've had a couple of injuries where people were like, I'm going to go to the hospital in a few days after wasteland weekend is over, but it's not urgent. I had one of those, but we've had no, like, this person needs an ambulance incidence in the last three years.

It's just a flesh wound.

Did you notice that when you said hospitalized? I don't know whose house it was, but someone had an ambulance going by the background. Did you hear that?

Yeah, it was funny.

As soon as you mentioned hospitalized, it sounded like people aren't listening on the podcast. You'd be like, wow, real clever, Jeff, putting on a sound effect in there. No, that was a real ambulance.

Yeah, I'm really going to the hospital.

That was hilarious timing. Yeah, that's crazy. And I don't want to. I'm hoping not to offend with this question, but.

Oh, no.

So is it, like, legitimate, like, you guys play to win, or is there. Do you guys have any kind of theatrics that you add into, like.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Storyline? Are you like. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, kind of like, you know, I mean, almost like pro wrestling.

Yeah, kind of. So we like to say it's about 70% sport and 30% theatrics. I mentioned that wasteland in general grew out of Ren Faire. The founders, the people who started our league, they did something called battle Pageant at Ren Faire. Which is the simulated medieval combat, which the specific thing they did kind of got discontinued at that Ren Faire that we go to. So I never saw it, but I guess it had a mix of staged mass combat and actual, real individual combat that was a bit stylized. So this is heavily inspired by that. The individual combats that are not scripted, but a bit stylized. That's kind of the lineage of our version of jugger. So we are playing to win. It's not scripted. You really can't script a five on five sport, but it is a little stylized in that we will exaggerate our movements a bit. We will pull the hits a little bit and not follow through as hard as we could, especially if we're hitting the head or the back. We will fight until we can tell that we've lost. And, like, when we go down, we're not on. We're not. It's not like a boxing match where we literally can't get up. We're taking the loss when we know we've been beaten, because if we actually fought until we couldn't get up, we would not be getting up within a matter of minutes. It would be. It would be a while. We. We would die. These are. These are wooden sticks we've seen. Yeah, I. Yeah, we would. We would honestly not, like, get broken legs and stuff, like, in the movie. So we're not trying to cripple each other as far as, like, storyline. We don't have, like, a story for the games theatrically. Like I said, there are two teams that represent city states in Southern California. To the extent that there is a role play, the idea is that these two cities are allied, and the league is kind of the two of them showing off their alliance to everyone else. Like, look how tough our people are in, and look, we're friends now. So the nice thing about that is it doesn't require us to pretend in front of the audience that we're, like, enemies or anything. Like, we can actually have good sportsmanship, and it's not something we have to hide.

Yeah, that's cool.

Beyond that, it's not like a story behind the game or that we try to do.

There's not, like, an overreaching, like, story arc for the season or whatever.

No, we don't do anything like that.

And you mentioned earlier that you have a jugger name. Is there a Persona that comes along with that? Like, do you have a backstory?

Yeah. My juggernaut, because we haven't Hydra. So I chose that name before I even made it to my first tryout inspired by the actual medieval monster, not the marvel weird, whatever. Whatever. Hydra is an alien hive mind or something I only saw in America.

It's an organization very much like the Third Reich, and they do base their name and their logo on the mythical creature Hydra, because one of the things they say is cut off one head and two will replace it.

Someone told me that in the comics, Hydra turns out to be like an alien parasitic hive mind or something. But I. Oh, wow.

I haven't read comics in a while.

But I was inspired by the monster because I knew I was going to get hurt playing this game. And I did get hurt in my very second practice when I was trying out, my helmet popped off because the chinstrap sucked and I actually got punched in the mouth instead of in the helmet and just. I'll send you guys the photo. It's great. I'm just like, covered in blood. There's even a video of it somewhere. I'll have to see if Wolf girl still has that. She's one of our players who took the video, but I. Wolf girl.

Nice.

Yes, we all have cool names. I came up with the name Hydra because I knew I was going to get hurt. And Hydras only get stronger when they get hurt unless you do it just right. So that was symbolic for me. But actually, there are naming conventions for the two teams. Red City is just generally like a name that sounds like a biker would use it as a nickname. Like just vaguely. If it sounds like a nickname a biker would have. Army of Los Angeles is we mostly name ourselves after american weapons systems like Tomahawk or Seawolf. And I got lucky on that because the Hydra there is actually a rocket pod. Yeah, the Hydra rocket pod. An anti armor rocket pod carried by helicopters. So I was lucky that I just happened to choose a name that fit that rule.

Is there somebody named Star wars?

No. That might weapon system.

You know, someone could be called Patriot, I guess. Maybe a specific weapon system rather than the overarching patriot would be one.

Yeah, that's interesting.

Yeah, there are a lot of open names.

Sidewinder. There's so many.

Harper, we have a Sidewinder. Sidewinder is a new. Wait, no, sorry, I take that back. We have a player who used the name Sidewinder for this other thing called Neotropolis, which is a cyberpunk festival run by the same company. And we do a different thing there that's more like pro wrestling that scripted. He's the name Sidewinder in that.

The name sidewalk on their page. It's kind of the logo looked like american gladiators.

Yeah, gladiators. That is inspired by american gladiators. And the running. Yeah. A different thing that we do that is a lot more scripted, more like pro wrestling. At this other festival that grew out of jugger or they grew out of.

The festival, we have some cool festivals.

Yeah, yeah. It's a very fun community with these themes.

In Ohio here, we've got. We got the Ren Faire. We got the Great Lakes. Not Ren Faire. What's it called? Utah? Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival. No, it is. It's like a ren faire, but it's called something else. I can't think of it. All of a sudden, the girls just going on right now. Medieval fair. I think that's it. Yeah, those are. They're always medieval related.

Although you're looking to the past. You guys are looking into the future out there.

Most of us are in Ren Faire. Yeah, I got into Ren Faire after I got into jugger. I got talked into it because one of the juggers. I mean, a lot of the juggers do Ren faire, but one of the guys on my team, Colonel Megadeth, has the coolest gig at Ren Faire. He's. He's the upright man, which is basically the mafia boss of the town. So while everyone else is, like, at their station, like, blacksmithing or roleplaying a shopkeeper or whatever, he just gets to wander around the Ren Faire playing cards and scamming people. He just walks around and threatening people. Yeah, it's great. So I I I get to be one of his henchmen, and it's great because we're the only people at the whole Ren faire who gets, like, threatened to break patrons legs and throw them in the river is weird. I mean, not just any patron. We go up to, like, people who are dressed as, like, criminals, like assassins or pirates, and we're like, are you. Are you planning to commit crimes in my town?

Smart.

Oh, no, no. You're welcome to pick. You're welcome to commit crimes. We encourage crime. Just, if you do, you owe us our 10%, though. If you. If you steal anything, then we're going to have problems. You're going to wind up in the river.

It's quite direct.

That's fantastic. Oh, what fun.

Yeah. So he got me into Ren Faire. It's a great gig.

So tell. Tell us a little bit about Wasteland weekend, then. This is a. You said it's a five day festival.

Yeah, it's just like, a big organized gathering of like, Mad Max fanatics or.

I mean, yes, it literally, it started out as a much smaller event called Road Warrior Weekend that was put on by a couple hundred people who work in the film industry. And the founders of our league don't work in the film industry, but they knew someone who does. And so this friend called them up and said, we're doing this thing, road warrior weekend. A bunch of film industry people are going to be camping out, cosplaying as Mad Max characters, and we need entertainment. You guys have been like, developing this jugger sport based on that movie. Could you play it there? So the league predates the event, and after that first year, they changed the name to Wasteland Weekend because once it became a thing, they did not want to get sued. But it's, I mean, I mean, the creators of Mad Max know about it. They promote Mad Max there. The year, the Wasteland weekend, before Fury Road came out, they actually unveiled it at Wasteland weekend. Like they, the director and George Miller and Hugh Bryce, current I believe, was with him like video conferenced in on this big screen to weekend. And that was before I joined that. So they know about us, you know. But yes, it was originally specifically a Mad Max thing. As it's grown, it's become a little broader. You see costumes inspired by Fallout, the stalker, video games, blood of heroes, other post apocalyptic stuff that I'm blanking on or just generally like totally novel post apocalyptic stuff that's not specific movie inspired.

That's cool. That's cool.

Five days camp out, everyone is in costume. There's actually a rule that everyone needs to be in costume because like I said, this crew out of red Fair, the people running it want to blur the distinction between performer and audience by having everyone be in costume.

Interesting.

And people just kind of hang out. There's music. There are a lot of themed camps that have events going on. Most of the entertainment is put on by the patrons that have organized camps like us, and then a few of the bigger events are put on by the festival itself. So it's like burning man in that regard, although it is really in terms of who goes more closely related to the local ren Faire here in Los Angeles.

That's very cool. Now, are there, are there, I'm assuming that not everybody is going there to roleplay all weekend. Some people are just there dressed up in costumes to enjoy the five days. Are there some people that take it seriously?

Yes. My friend Colonel Megadeth, who is also the crime boss at Renfre, is a hardcore roleplayer, he tries to not break character for five whole days. He can't quite do it, but he tries to. He really likes to stay in character. I'd say about 20% of the people who go there get really into role playing. And if you do, there's a stuff you can do. Like, so I gotta tell you, when I first, when I first heard about this, I thought, well, that sounds dorky as hell. Like, it was like, I remember Colonel Megadeth said to me, so would you like to try some role play stuff? We're an army. We can go around doing winning hearts and mind stuff. I'm like, yeah, sure, dude, I'll try it out, whatever. So I get there, and on my first day, there's another camp there, the Wasteland Communication Corporation, that actually prints a newspaper at Wasteland. Every day they print a newspaper on site. And so the first, the first issue, the first issue they have written up beforehand, and then every. The other, like, four days after that, they have. They actually will write up and then print on site at the festival. So, like, it's written that day, like, little, like, reports they have there. So I read the first day's paper as the festival's beginning, and it has an article about how last year at wasteland weekend, our leaders, Colonel Megadeth and General city Buster, were kidnapped by some guy, by a guy named Zero, who runs Rabid Asylum. That's like the insane criminal group. And our good friend Captain Finn, who was a pirate in the desert, for some reason, wants to hire mercenaries to strike back then in revenge. And then I was like, okay, well, fine. If it's for our group, I'll do it. And so I go to Captain Finn. I'm like, yeah, I'd like to take this scary gig and go raid these guys. And so right off the bat, I'm, like, casing the place. I'm like, getting together a crew and, like, going and, like, just raiding this guy's camp and stealing a box that has a label on it that says it's meant to be stolen, taking it back to our place, then going to raid another camp that's allied with them. So I just jumped right into it. Thanks. Thanks in part. Yeah, yeah. I mean, thanks to. Thanks to Colonel Megadeth and Captain Finn. Big thanks to them for getting me into it. Because if I. If I was on my own, I would have been like, live action role play. No, not for me. Right, right. If you really want to get into it, it can feel like you're in one of the fallout games, where you're going around getting quests like, go on the scavenger hunt, go raid these people. Go uncover some information for us. We'll pay you in bottle caps.

That's awesome. I saw in one of the videos I was watching, learning a little bit about this, that they even had a. An actual thunderdome built there.

Oh, yes.

With people hanging from the wires and fighting and.

Yes.

Do they do that every year, or was that a.

Every year other than one year that that group missed it? I think because. Because of COVID Yeah. That is run by a group called Death Guild out of San Francisco. Back when I lived in San Francisco. Actually, I don't know if they still do it, but they did a weekly event at the local Goth club in San Francisco that I used to go to. So they actually also do the Thunderdome at Burning man. So that's. They're one of the few groups here that also does Burning man, which is like, a month before wasteland. So it's really back to back. But, yes, they have an actual thunderdome that's like a big geodesic, metal dome. And just like in the movie, people will climb on the dome to watch the fights from above, and they have, like, bungee cords that people hang from while fighting each other. And unlike jugger, anyone can sign up. Sign up to fight in it. And I still haven't. And I need. I need to do that this year. I still haven't. The thing about a jugger doing thunderdome.

That'S calling your name.

Yeah. The thing about juggers doing Thunderdome is we're only supposed to do it on Saturday night after we finished our jugger matches, because God forbid we get injured. Yeah, no, we have. We have a performance we're supposed to put on. Right. So, yes, there is a Thunderdome. I do need to sign up for it and do it this year. It is calling my name. Yeah. That's going to be one of my birthday gifts to myself. Oh, yeah. Wasteland weekend is always on my birthday, as luck would have it.

Really? You're a September birthday?

Yes, I have a. It is always the last week of september, which is when my birthday is.

Nice.

That is. Yeah. So this just will. This is a perfect time to segue into this year. It is September 25 through 29th. And where exactly does it take place if somebody wanted to find out more or go.

Yeah. It takes place just outside of California city or Edwards. It's, like, right next to Edwards air force base. So for those who don't know that's like 2 hours. Yeah, 2 hours north of Los Angeles. Seriously? Right next to Edwards air. Like, you see military planes fly over all the time. We. We saw last year or. No, at neotropolis this year, we saw the new B 21 raider prototype fly over the new bomb. Yeah. You see flat. You see military planes fly over it all the time. So that's 2 hours north of los Angeles. Because I know people are going to ask this. It is not where coachella is. Coachella is Coachella and some of those other things are 2 hours east of los angeles by palm springs. This is north in the kind of the higher desert.

Right. Coachella is in the nicer desert area, where this is actually more of wasteland. Apocalyptic mad max.

This is a lot more middle of nowhere because coachella is by palm springs and this is by California city, which is just a tiny little town. So it's. Yeah, there's gonna have a lot more.

Water and green grass over coachella.

Yeah, it's a little greener. This really, really is the desert. I mean, there's. It's just dirt.

Wow. So if people want more information, that's at wastelandweekend.com. that is the website for wasteland weekend. If people want more information about the juggers league. Well, I mean, I don't know if you. They would have to look google in their local area, but if they're in LA and they wanted to find out what you guys were doing, what would they. What would they do?

Facebook. So they go on Facebook and look for the juggers of the wasteland. We have a Facebook page. If you want to try out message, you go on that Facebook page and message the admin general city buster. And if you're interested in Wasteland weekend, aside from the website, go on Facebook and look for a group called Wastelander Central. That's kind of the central social hub for Wasteland. Pretty much everything related to Wasteland weekend is through Facebook and Facebook groups. And by the way, like, half the people who go to Wasteland actually have their Wasteland name rather than their real name as their, like, as their Facebook name. I don't know if they have another Facebook profile with their real name or it's just like Wasteland.

Is it like a second profile or can they change? I don't know.

They're. Honest to God, there are people at Wasteland who, like, I'm friends with on Facebook, and I still don't know their real names because they're like, their Facebook name is like, you know, Sheriff trail boss or captain Finn or slugger or whatever. Those are all real names. Real wastelander. Oh, yeah. So everyone at Wasteland has a wasteland name, by the way, everyone at Wasteland has a wasteland. They use. My first day at Wasteland, I introduced myself. I said, hi, I'm John to someone. And one of the guys, like, no, you're Hydra. No, real names get in character, even if they're not, like, role playing, which most people don't. It's just like, get into the spirit. Use your. Use your stage name, you know?

Yeah.

So everyone has a wasteland.

Fantastic.

What would your wasteland name be? Utah, what do you think?

I don't know. Slim?

Yeah. I have no. I'd have to give some thought. There's a wasteland name generator out there, and I'm sure there is.

I would want to give it some thought. Thought.

I mean. I mean, the thing is, you would want to think about what you're doing at Wasteland and what your costume looks like and maybe work backwards from there.

Yeah. If I were going to wasteland, I would. I would want to kind of come. Come up with a character and be that character for even just a little bit.

Yeah. Like, our high referee is. He's a blacksmith, and he fixes stuff. And then, of course, then everyone makes the same joke about him fixing the match every year. Oh, that's great. Figure out what you're doing. Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Because there are a couple of name generators out there I just googled, so I just. I just randomly, apparently, am decimation of mankind. I don't know.

Wow, that's. That's aggressive.

That's a very aggressive name. What else?

Or something like that.

The purge. Okay.

The purge. The best piece I've seen. There's a guy who calls himself lead cloud. He's with. He's with. I think he's the leader of the group. There's a small group that is based on the stalker video games and with, like, ukrainian writing on it, and they're all, like, in camo and. But I love that lead cloud, you know, like, you know who red cloud was? The Lakota war leader. Like. Like a post. Like, I think inspired by that. Lead cloud. Like, bullets.

Interesting.

Yeah. I mean, it's just a very, very creative.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

That's my favorite faction is available, too.

Putrefaction. There we go. Yeah.

And apparently. Oh, there's french. There's a french version of.

Oh. I'm not sure if any french names would sound l'interruption. That's intimidating enough.

No, it doesn't. It doesn't sound at all. I'd be, like, not afraid of that guy.

It's very hard for a french name to sound intimidating. They're just too pretty.

No german name, maybe.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. Awesome.

Unless you. Leon the professional.

Yeah. Well, yes. Leon the semi professional maybe, because that name's not taken yet. There you go. Leon the side gig.

Yeah, right.

Leon. Leon, Leon the guy who's working on his passion. Leon the guy who needs to pick a few extra bucks by killing people.

Leon the 1099.

Yeah.

Yeah. Because warrior Leon the independent contractor.

That's right.

Oh, my gosh.

Leon the substitute assassin. So when your main guy.

Oh, man. Well, I. I don't know, John. This sounds amazing. I am. I am sold. I wish that I lived near LA or at least could get out there for this, because this is amazing. I would love to see it live again. I don't know how I would dress. Like. I. That's not. I'm not a cosplay guy. My daughters are the cosplayers in this family. I love cosplay. I just have. I just. It's just not something I've thought about.

Jeff, worst case scenario, get some khaki pants and put white powder all over yourself and be a war boy.

Yes. Yeah. Nobody wants to see that. I'm pale enough as it is, and I will. You wouldn't have it on the white. Yeah. And I'm not going shirtless, so let's just forget about it.

We do have war boys. There are war boys.

Yeah.

They are shirtless and silver.

Fantastic.

As they should. As they should be.

Well, John, I want to thank you so much for coming on the show and talking to us about this. It was great to share this passion for blood of heroes with you. I can hear the excitement in your voice when you talk about it. That's why. One of the reasons I think I would love to come out and see it, because obviously, you guys take it seriously and have a great time ever had.

And, I mean, I wish we played more events outside of wasteland. We all want to, and we're hoping to be able to do that again in the future.

Yeah. And I imagine there's. You might have to drive a little ways, but there's probably other, like, conventions or cons and stuff that would be interesting. That kind of stuff.

I mean, so in the past, we played at combat Con in Las Vegas, which is a medieval, like, historical european martial arts convention. One year they played at Knot Fest, which is a heavy metal festival. Put on by Slipknot. Right now, we just need to increase our numbers to be able to field enough people to do other events. So if we can get our recruiting up, and that's my main motivation for coming on podcasts, I want us to recruit enough people that we can play other events, really. But the ability and the desire to do that is there. We just need a deeper roster. So hopefully one of these days soon we will be playing events that don't require you to go to a five day festival to see us play. They still will be in Southern California, or maybe tryouts are every summer going from June through September. So we, last Sunday was our second tryout. We do them every other Sunday for about three months. So, yeah, right now we've got a few new tryouts who are going to join us this year. And funny enough, like last Sunday, a guy who plays the unarmored version of Jugger in Portland who was on vacation down in Pasadena, just happened upon us in the park and just like came and hung out with us, and he's hoping to join us next year.

How cool. That's awesome.

Yeah. Small room.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, and if people want to join us, I already said, right, juggers of the wasteland on Facebook.

There you go. Well, before we go, you did say you were a photographer, too. If you want to share your photography website as well, tell us a little bit about that so people can find you and get more information. Let you do that now, too.

Oh, yeah. I mean, my photography, I do fashion boudoir. I'm not primarily a cosplay photographer, although I do some of that. Johnfoxphotography.com, although I think people might be more interested in my Instagram. It's official. John Fawkes and I do have some stuff from wasteland weekend and neotropolis on my Instagram every year. I do. Even, I'm not on the photography team there because they have like an official photography team, but every year I take my camera, I take a few photos and I put some of that up on Instagram. And they are some of my more popular photos because, you know, there's a built in audience for them. So if you want to get a look at what that's like, I'll be posting Instagram stories about our practices every other Sunday. So, yeah, official Fawkes on Instagram.

And that's Fawkes Fawkes.

Yes.

Awesome. And we'll put all this in the show notes too, for people to check it out. So make sure you check that out. Check out his instagram. Check out wasteland weekend. If you're in the LA area and you this sounds like fun. You want to go beat on some other people with sticks and hooks and plastic chains for some fun? If that sounds like the place to be, make sure to check it out.

Yeah. No, I hope some people who listen to this will decide to join us. We are always looking for people who are not afraid to get punched in the face while wearing a goofy costume.

Nothing wrong with that.

In front of hundreds of screaming fans who are demanding blood. That's also fun.

See, that's the part that would make it.

That's what makes it worth it, right?

Yeah.

That's really why you do it.

Yeah. I've never been a performer by nature. I'm a sports guy, but it is fun. Yeah.

There you go.

Sorry.

Nice.

No, you're good. Well, thanks again for being on the show, John. It has been absolutely fascinating to talk to you. I'd love to get back in touch with you after wasteland weekend. We'd like to hear how it went.

Yeah.

Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

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