Real inspirations from real life

We’re Gen X.

Raised on latchkey afternoons, static-filled televisions, and the slow realization that the adults didn’t know what they were doing either.

We learned early that the world hums beneath the surface. That something is off.

We're five former misfits returning to a dying hometown that remembers more than they do. 

The stories emerge in the space between memory and revelation.  No scripts.  No safe outcomes.
Sanity optional.

We explore:

• Repressed memory and unreliable nostalgia
• Small-town decay and institutional rot
• Friendship as survival mechanism
• The quiet horror of realizing you were part of something long before you understood it

This is cosmic horror for people who already know the world is fragile. We chase resonance, not jump scares

If you grew up suspicious…If you remember the woods feeling larger than they should have been…
If you’ve ever felt like the past is still watching you…

You’re one of us.

Welcome back to Ashwood.

Smirk accordingly.

James Altwies  Producer, Editor, Writer, Keeper

James grew up in a small Ohio town and couldn't get out fast enough (once he realized what was going on).  As a kid, his bike was freedom, the 7-11 a temple, and the Gauntlet game meditation.  He spent far too much time in the library and was even kicked out because it was summer and a teenage boy in the library must be up to no good.  He was.  He learned how to built a still and make gunpowder.  The nuns told him he'd never amount to much. 

James got out of town and met his future wife in 1992.  After doing their time in undergrad, he and his now wife migrated to Madison, WI for grad school and they never left.  Over the years James has build several ventures (some more successful than others) and even found himself working in the medical device industry as a risk advisor.  Oh yeah, and consuming lots of trauma therapy.

And now, finally, he has this misfit chosen family and couldn't be happier.

Suck it, Sister Mary Leona.

Gregg Baimel  Lance McClane, hosting, general PITA

Gregg grew up in the kind of New York suburb that pretended it wasn’t connected to the city (an hour from Manhattan if traffic behaved.) Three minutes from woods that felt older than zoning laws. He rode his bike everywhere.  Knew which drainage tunnels echoed.

He’s been married thirty years. Two kids, both in college.  Scouting extraordinaire. The house is quiet now in a way that feels less like peace and more like something waiting.

Gregg has never learned how to say no. He volunteered for Scouts.  Then more Scouts.  Then committees.  Then boards.  Then whatever needed a warm body and a steady hand.  Then his wacko brother-in-law and his stupid audio stories.

Gregg says he hates people and prefers to live in a cave.  His social agenda says otherwise.

Angela Edwards Dawn McBride, Patreon producer

Angela grew up on the far eastern part of Long Island when people still went to the farm stand for produce and “pick your own” was a seasonal tradition. A stereotypical rebellious gifted kid, she escaped the torrential bullying from her home town by running off to college. She was the “evil math teacher” and ubiquitous nerd and lgbtqia club faculty leader until she retired.

Married to Davis for 26 years and with young adults for children, she prefers things being simpler but with good restaurants nearby. She likes sewing, incense, tarot cards, the Oxford comma, and reading. Angela has her own mental issues to try to overcome without James picking at her, thank you very much.

 She met James in 1995 over late-night dorm lounge conversations and even later truck stop meals. Some bonds are forged in fire. Theirs was forged under fluorescent lights and bad coffee, which may be stronger.

Carrie Harris, Bex Lexington, actual author, inventor of sarcasm

Carrie is a professional nerd, because it was the only way she could think of to professionally apply her ability to speak fluent Gen X snark. She writes novels, comics, and games for licenses like Marvel, Warhammer 40k, Miraculous Ladybug, Lady Lovely Locks, and Arkham Horror.

Carrie grew up in small town Ohio and is very triggered by the content of this podcast, but she joined it anyway because her kids are tired of hearing the same stories about Ye Olden Days for the seven-hundredth time, even if it is funny to hear about James attacking plants with swords. Carrie has known James for over thirty years. They were roommates in college and co-conspirators in late-night storytelling experiments.  Some people grow out of that phase.  They didn’t.

She’s an empty nester who lives in New York with her husband and a very neurotic dog named Slartibartfast.

Davis Edwards Oz Hannigan 2.0, Angela wrangler

Davis grew up in a military family and continued to relocate every couple of years even as an adult. He has lived almost everywhere in the United States except Ohio, enjoying the travel, and experiencing a remarkably angst-free life. Unfortunately, this left him a mentally stable optimist devoid of the snark that defines GenX. He would fit right in as the Wall-Street bound evil boyfriend from any 1990s teen movie.

Despite that lack of snark, he’s been interested in role-playing ever since the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. With some internet research and practice in the bathroom mirror, he can occasionally fake being a normal GenXer for brief periods.

He’s interested in decidedly non-nerdy activities like sword-fighting, tactical board games, non-fiction writing, and mathematics. He is married to Angela, who brings some balance to his otherwise stable, mission-oriented, existence.

Grant Gleisner, Harry (the Assman) Glassman, world-traveler, derailer of plots

Grant, who plays Harry “the Assman” Glassman, was born in Wisconsin about an hour’s drive from the holy ground of role-playing games: Lake Geneva. He started playing DnD at an elder cousin’s kitchen table and was immediately hooked when he derailed the DM’s battle plans in his very first session.  Games have been his hobby ever since.

Growing up in rural Wisconsin inspired both a hunger for adventure and a desire to escape long, punishing winters. He’s since visited all 50 states, 50 countries, and lived in six of them, quietly collecting stories the way other people collect retirement accounts.

Grant has known James for roughly twenty-five years. Over time, he and his wife became some of their closest friends, the kind forged not in childhood chaos but in narrow-boat adventures, Belizean ceviche, Mayan ruins, and shared refusal to completely grow up.

Art Pratt  Oz Hannigan 1.0, Trouble-Maker, Best Man 1997

Art is an enigma.  A shadow.  Here one second, gone the next.  We don't ask questions anymore.  Central American Cartels call him "El Diablo Fantasma" for good reason.  He may or may not have been single-handedly responsible for capturing El Chapo. 

Art created Oz Hannigan using characteristics eerily similar to his own (minus the burn scarring).  Due to yet another clandestine operation, Art handed the care of Oz to Davis Edwards in Act One.  Be assured Art will return when he crawls out of deep cover yet again.

Back in reality, Art living in the Pacific Northwest, hunting Bigfoot and repelling wave after wave of hippie invasions.  He and James have been friends for nearly 40 years, mostly because of the mutual blackmail they have in common.