A Real Joel Dehn
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arealjoeldehn.bsky.social
A Real Joel Dehn
@arealjoeldehn.bsky.social
920 followers 510 following 1K posts
Gadabout and affable scamp | It's pronounced "deen" | he/him | MPLS, MN | What's new with you? Really? That's cool! Good for you.
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arealjoeldehn.bsky.social
As a Gen Xers, Nintendo wave (as opposed to Atari wave), I think it's nice to get the recognition we crave. But Greatest is an epithet that's far too strong. We are and were merely an OK generation.
Three cans of OK Soda, an underachieving pop brand aiming at an interesting alt-boring marketing style. Taste-wise, it did the minimum, which was all we, as a generation, were striving for. We were better than the Tab laid on us by older generations.
December 3, 2025 at 3:51 PM
arealjoeldehn.bsky.social
Is Smitty in fact still live?

This is the first time I've tuned to Cities97 since the Current first took to the airwaves; I don't think I've missed much.
A screen cap of the local FM Radio station Cities 97. You can't hear it, because it is a picture, but there is a tortured harmonica wailing going on in the live feed. The picture claims that the feed is live and the on-air DJ is named Smitty, but this unceasing clip of music indicates that Smitty may have passed beyond the great station sign-off.
December 3, 2025 at 3:45 AM
arealjoeldehn.bsky.social
Driving around Lake Harriet, wishing some enterprising copper thief had disabled the streetlights. We still saw some beautiful red, green, and white displays, though.
A red and green smear across the night sky. Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights. Located not in my kitchen, but spread across the great dome of the sky. The green light means that the topmost layers of atmosphere are reacting to solar particle ejaculate, the red light means it has pierced our atmosphere and I am currently taking fatal amounts of alpha radiation. Or something, I don't think I did well in my college astronomy course.
November 12, 2025 at 3:32 AM
arealjoeldehn.bsky.social
Lots of people at the Lynnhurst candlelight vigil for the Annunciation Church... massacre? atrocity? tragedy? tonight.
Hundreds of people gather in the outfield of one of the baseball diamonds at Lynnhurst Park in Minneapolis, as an activist group organized a candlelight vigil recognizing, supporting, and grieving for the children and grown-ups attacked at their back-to-school mass this morning.
August 28, 2025 at 1:49 AM
arealjoeldehn.bsky.social
Uh, anyone know what happened at the fairgrounds? I got an Amber-like alert telling me that while there was an extreme emergency, everything is cool now according to the police, who are done doing whatever they did.

"Absolutely nothing happened today in sector 83 by 9 by 12", am I right?
A pop up phone alert "Emergency alert: Extreme. Police activity near the fairgrounds is clear - back to normal operations." OK. But, wow, IS everything okay?
August 17, 2025 at 7:11 PM
arealjoeldehn.bsky.social
A lock screen for an old Google Pixel smartphone. The time as of the picture's taking was 8:12 am, making this a historical document. The battery saver is activated and I was down to 82%. The lock screen picture, arguably the most important of this picture, are the painted forms of two robots and one of the best human hosts from the old TV show Mystery Science Theater 3000. In foreground and to the left, half of the yellow robot Crow T. Robot, made of a bowling pin and ping-pong balls and other detritus, stands facing you. Behind him, centered in the picture but partially obscured by Crow, is Tom Servo, who looks like a red gumball machine with a small chicken beak. Finally, Joel Robinson stands back and to the right of Tom Servo, wearing a red jumpsuit and a self-deprecating "what are you gonna do" smirk. In the far background are screenshots of famous MST3K episodes, presented as a patchwork in hexagons. There's Ann in the Pan from The Brain that Wouldn't Die, Manos The Master spreading his robe-hands from Manos: The Hands of Fate, the dead lug from Plan 9 From Outer Space, and so on. I'm afraid I don't recall the name of the original artist, to my shame.
July 26, 2025 at 1:23 PM
arealjoeldehn.bsky.social
You've inherited a movie theater, what's your first double feature?

An out of the past/out of the future noir double bill with Out Of The Past and Looper.
Movie poster for (in cursive) "Out of the Past". In the top right corner, Robert Mitchum's giant head supports a giant sickly green fedora and a giant slightly drooping cigarette. His narrow sleepy eyes are looking over his shoulder to the left side of the poster. On the left, the gorgeous Jane Greer, wearing some night clothes that suggest a Wild West dance hall that she doesn't actually wear in the movie, casually holds a small pistol loosely at her hip, pointing toe-ward. In the bottom right of the poster, Robert Mitchum bilocates and chastely yet passionately smooches Rhonda Fleming. The cast list lets us know that Kirk Douglas is in this too. A movie poster for "Looper". The tagline reads enigmatically "Hunted By Your Future. Haunted By Your Past." There's a clock face in the first O set to 3 o'clock. A large figure in the middle of the poster kind of resembles Joseph Gordon-Levitt if he had put a lot of shit on his face to make him kind of like a younger Bruce Willis. He's holding a big gun in his left hand that looks like a cross between a shotgun and a cattle prod. You only clearly see JGL's head and body's outline -- the middle of him looks like it was blown away by a similar gun or turned into dust like Spider-Man in Avengers: Infinity War. Inside that outline is a Bruce Willis dressed like his Butch character in Pulp Fiction but standing like Jane Greer in the Out of the Past poster to the left.
July 21, 2025 at 1:40 AM
arealjoeldehn.bsky.social
There's a sad duet in the news today.
Illustrations accompanying two stories in the evening edition of the June 11, 2025 Washington Post website, where David Hogg (top), lips pressed sadly together, leaning into a microphone, faces the accompanying article that "David Hogg to depart as DNC vice chair after months of turmoil", while below, a file photo of Brian Wilson (bottom, alive), lips pressed sadly together, leaning into from a microphone, looks away from his accompanying article/obit, "Singer-songwriter who created the Beach Boys dies at 82". I believe that this shot/reaction shot does not break the 180 rule, and perhaps neither prodigy were made for these times.
June 12, 2025 at 2:31 AM
arealjoeldehn.bsky.social
This used to be a proper country.
Old Home Foods, the makers of the best cottage cheese ever chunkily squirted out of a cow, made up an apologetic sign promising to get right on fixing their lack of production of said cottage cheese. The sign was found in the dairy section of my local grocer. Or is it "at" my local grocer? Anyway, I want my Old Home 4% Cottage Cheese, preferably with sea salt, and hope that they will reach out to me upon seeing this skeet with a carton or two (unexpired!) to try to make it up to me.
April 10, 2025 at 6:57 PM
arealjoeldehn.bsky.social
Dang. It was selfish of me to want him to go back and take another pass at his Dune, but what a career. Lynch's movies were the mirror to an eccentric world, and by most accounts his meteorological updates were accurate.
David Lynch's Facebook page notes that he passed away, to the great loss of the species.
January 16, 2025 at 6:28 PM
arealjoeldehn.bsky.social
Followed closely by this, my second favorite Doctor Who, I think.
What if Dr. Giggles, resplendent in blood-drenched lab coat, vest, and bowtie, and a rictus grin, was a Time Lord?
January 13, 2025 at 7:45 PM
arealjoeldehn.bsky.social
Post your favorite #DoctorWho. Wrong answers only.
A man in a white derby, flamboyant yellow bowtie, and technicolored dreamcoat smiles, or does he scowl? This guy is my favorite Dr. Who, or so I purport.
January 13, 2025 at 7:42 PM
arealjoeldehn.bsky.social
There were some recent comix adaptations of boring ol' nonfiction books that I thought were really good.

Showtime At The Apollo
Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors
A WWII-era destroyer rocks back as her guns let loose, the dark clouds of cannon smoke dim the billowing white clouds and clear blue in the background. This ship is in combat and will likely soon be sunk, no matter the cleverness or daring of her crew. Or maybe it will survive? The title reads in blood-red: THE LAST STAND OF THE TIN CAN SAILORS The marquee of the world-famous Apollo Theater reads "SHOWTIME AT THE APOLLO: THE EPIC TALE ID HARLEM'S LEGENDARY THEATER". Below the marquee, some of America's best musicians pose smiling, some holding instruments.
January 12, 2025 at 9:06 PM
arealjoeldehn.bsky.social
Yeah, these are fun.
Sub-Zero from the Mortal Kombat games levels a nonsensical ice-themed zinger borrowed from Arnold Schwarzenegger's Mr. Freeze from the godawful Batman and Robin movie: "You know what killed the dinosaurs? THE ICE AGE!!!" The screen in the racing game Outrun where you choose what tunes you want to listen to before promptly flipping your dad's Ferrari. The radio station selected is 80.3 and is playing LCD Soundsystem. Officer Jim Walls, the muse and Dungeon Master of Sierra's first few Police Quest games, shakes his head sadly in a death/failure screen. He advises you to "turn off the bodycam first and tell your partner it malfunctioned." What? That's more like something that Darryl Gates, the designer of the next few PQ games, would say! A monk from Final Fantasy Tactics says in a speech bubble: I never got far enough in this game. I hear you, monk. I've played it on the PS1 and PS3 and never got close to finishing the game. But maybe one day...
December 9, 2024 at 3:01 AM
arealjoeldehn.bsky.social
Age yourself with a movie you saw in the theater as a kid.

Somewhere between the Borrowers and The Secret Of Arietty were The Littles. I remember loving the show and this movie at the time, but don't care to check it it holds up for a grownup.
This is a movie poster for 1985's "Here Come The Littles", which was about the mouse-like people who lived in a house, stealing and scavenging materials to make their own shadowed reflection of Big People society. I think the bad guy wanted to catch them, but not necessarily because he thought they were vermin.
September 1, 2024 at 3:35 PM
arealjoeldehn.bsky.social
Pfft. Whatever.
This WaPo ad for an article asks if YOU spend money like a "Gen Z-er", millennial, or boomer, to which this sincere-hearted-under-a-jaded-exterior Gen Xer says "No, it's cool that you forgot about us again, man, whatever. Never mind."
September 1, 2024 at 3:06 PM
arealjoeldehn.bsky.social
Reskeet with a favorite book from your childhood
H.M. Hoover's This Time Of Darkness, a story of one kid growing up in a subterranean dystopia and the weirdo kid who said he came from Outside and Aboveground.
August 24, 2024 at 2:33 AM
arealjoeldehn.bsky.social
Unlike you, I get my news from a reliable source.
Announcer: And tonight, another segment of Vox Populi. Stagehands on The Howard Beale News Hour spin a round stage in front of a TV camera, revealing one of the popular segments on the mad prophet of the airwaves' evangel -- a box, perhaps a calculatrix, polling the wise and dumb that watch the show about the hot news items of the day. Remember, we're as mad as hell, and we're not going to take it anymore!
August 9, 2024 at 2:57 AM
arealjoeldehn.bsky.social
Plus, also, the swearing in of President Morgan/William Clark on Babylon 5
Swearing in of two one-term presidents, LBJ, 1963, and Morgan Clark, 2258.
July 15, 2024 at 6:21 PM
arealjoeldehn.bsky.social
The sight of John Moe on the stage of the Fitz as Paul F Tompkins said silly things was like reading Tennyson describe Ulysses reunite old oar-mates, and then giving that poem a 1-star review. Bravo!
I did not like this book, Tompkins probably said, reading a 1-star review of a classic literary work deposited on Amazon. It's a classic Wits bit revived for the stage on the stage on which it was first bit.
June 8, 2024 at 4:10 AM
arealjoeldehn.bsky.social
Yeah, when I found out a couple of years ago, I walked a couple of blocks to see if it was still there. Sorry, it was 4330 Nicollet, not 42nd and Nicollet. Now it's a remodeling place.
A long picture of a Jon Bream article from a local newspaper borrowed from the Internet, which mentioned Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and their Flyte Time studio locations, first in South Minneapolis, then Edina. A photo of a nondescript brick building, a remodeling business, taken back in 2022. Forty years before, magic happened there.
June 5, 2024 at 2:49 PM
arealjoeldehn.bsky.social
Unpopular guy from Out East comes to Arizona, starts making trouble, but the authorities can't figure out where his radio show is coming from? Man, what a terrible reboot.
A brooding teenage-ish Christian Slater stares at you from behind a microphone on a swing arm and from his fingers protruding from his own swing arm. From his sanctum sanctorum/his parents' basement, he broadcasts his own hyperlocal pirate radio show to the cool and/or outcast high school kids he would never be brave enough to interact with in person. It's the poster for Pump Up The Volume (1990).
May 16, 2024 at 5:08 AM
arealjoeldehn.bsky.social
Search your camera roll for art.
A child hunches over the handlebars of a strider bike and considers a police officer sitting within a police vehicle, looking at their phone while ostensibly on crowd control duty. In front of the parked vehicle is a striped orange and white traffic control sign. On the top plank of the sign, a graffiti artist has tagged the sign with the four letter designation "ACAB" in blue spray paint. At this point, this child can identify the letters but does not understand any meaning assigned to them.
May 13, 2024 at 7:17 PM
arealjoeldehn.bsky.social
The skies were clear last night but there was a lot of light pollution. I was lucky to get this aurora pic.
May 11, 2024 at 2:20 PM
arealjoeldehn.bsky.social
"You've been kidnapped! The characters from the last TV show you watched are trying to save you. Who is coming to save you?"

There is NO way I'll survive. But later, they might solve my murder and figure out what my prohibited Discman did. Or maybe the shadowy controlling society will kill 'em too.
Two cast members from the show Silo, about a society stuck in a missile (?) silo for generations, posing on the endless stairways and bridges. Both are police officers, but don't hold that against them.
January 12, 2024 at 7:56 PM