It was just a neat experience to take something that you're so passionate

about that brings your personal joy, and now you can spread it to the world.

And that's what I love about it.

Yeah, it's a plastic toy,

but it's also about relationships and I've made some amazing relationships.

Welcome to CADL Cast with Capital Area

District Libraries Executive Director, Scott Duimstra.

Welcome to a sweet episode of CADL Cast.

For most people, PEZ is a fun little candy

dispenser and a shot of nostalgia, but for some it is so much more.

Recently, Pez has made big news thanks to documentary

The Pez Outlaw, which hit Netflix top ten charts.

This incredible story follows local Michigan man

Steve Glew as he traveled the world in pursuit of Pez,

rocking the world of collectors and upsetting the PEZ corporation.

With us today is Jim Blaine, another michigan man featured

in the documentary and a behind the scenes liaison for the film's directors.

His collection of Over 30,000 Pez is one of the largest in the world.

Jim, thanks so much for joining us today on camera.

Many thanks for having me.

And this is an audio podcast, but Jim showed us his collection

and it is amazing. So related to that, Jim.

Where did you get your passion for Pez?

Well, if I got to go back to the beginning,

I actually started with a girl, believe it or not.

As many stories do.

Right. Right.

When I first moved to Michigan, I was working.

I was, you know, I think 19 years old, 20 years old.

And I got my first job working at a gas station.

And this girl would come in and she'd babysit her little brother.

And he was like a little troublemaker.

And I told him, I said, Hey,

if you, you know, are acting right for your sister, I'll buy a Pez dispenser.

So every couple of days when they come in,

I'd say, Hey, has he been behaving?

And she'd say, Yes, and I'd get him a Pez dispenser.

And then eventually I did start dating the sister,

and it was kind of a little collection between him and I.

We obviously no longer together.

But then it became something with my grandma.

It was it was the perfect Christmas gift.

You know, it wasn't too expensive.

We call those people enablers. So,

you know, there's there's there's collectors and enablers.

And, you know, they even have their own T-shirts.

You know, they make their own Pez T-shirts.

It says Pez enabler.

So it's usually the spouse or friend of or.

Yeah, so it was, it started with

a, with a girl and it ended up being a thing with my grandma.

And believe it or not, the girl and I, you know, with the post convention we host

she's she's actually ordered packets she hasn't come she lives in Virginia now. But

you know, we're still friends,

you know, but it's it's just it's just a crazy thing.

And then it became so much more that it was, you know, kind of life consuming.

But I think all of us, we have a history with Pez

and and we always kind of think of our favorite Pez as well, too.

Do you have a favorite?

I do.

I have a it's called the the skull.

It's a it's a Halloween skull came out, I think, in the nineties.

And it I don't know.

So at a certain level of collecting, you start collecting multiples

of the same one. It's called our meeting.

And one of the main reasons I have a lot of Pez and I have a lot of new collectors.

Trading is a huge thing in in the PEZ community.

So in order to trade realistically, I don't need anything.

You know, I have I have a lot of everything, you know.

So when new collectors would come in, I'd always say, Hey,

do you have any skulls?

Because chances are because it was a Halloween dispenser, they'd have some.

And I would trade them for something they need.

And then I would just get a couple of skulls from them so we could still train.

And then it just kind of became my thing.

And to date, I have 3460

of just that one dispenser.

Oh, my God.

You know, so I hold the, quote unquote world record for the largest Pez army.

And then I've just kind of been known as,

you know, the guy who collects the skulls.

There's there's other collectors who have different armies and stuff.

And so you've got a convention

and it gives you some extra to hunt for at conventions.

Sure.

You know, because a lot of times when I go to a convention,

if it's if it's not more than 100 bucks, I guarantee on it.

So, you know, to get that high end stuff, you know,

you're spending hundreds of dollars.

Yeah.

So it's like, okay, well, here's

something I can pick up for $0.50 to a dollar, you know,

and you feel good about your purchase when you're like, Oh, I'll fix that.

But a lot of times, you know, go to a convention and people just come up to me.

I'm like, Hey, you know?

And they kind of want to add one to the collection,

but it's a good community of people.

Yeah, sounds like it.

And the documentary The Peasant was fantastic.

If you haven't watched it, go watch it.

How did you get involved in the documentary?

Well, we'll try to make a long story short.

So in 2016, I decided I want to host my first PEZ convention.

So I talked to my wife and she's like, Hey, you know,

I support you if that's what you want to do.

I'm kind of goes a little bit to my testimony.

Being a Christian, I wanted to find a charity

that was a Christian based charity.

So we reached out to a camp up in Boyne called Higher Ground in Lake Louise,

and we wanted to work with with this camp because they worked with kids

that came from homes without a father in it.

And we wanted to have the opportunity to send these kids to camp.

So hosting a convention, there's there's kind of

a things that the convention almost all conventions have.

One is working with a charity and we do a charity night.

And during that night, we raise money for whatever specific charity

pass being, you know, the one I just told you about.

And then you have like

speakers and Saturday show to the general public

and you want to do something to make your convention a little different.

So I reached out to Steve,

you know, and I asked him if he'd be interested in coming in being a speaker.

And if you've seen the movie, you know that

he's very reclusive and has left his farm and, you know, 20 so years.

And he politely turned me down,

you know, which was a bummer, but

very well connected in the community because I've been around the community

for a long time, reached out to a couple other post collectors

and kind of told them that I'd love to have Steve there and Tina

Gonzalez, who's in the movie, and another gentleman by the name of John,

who has since passed.

But he he reached out to Tina and said,

hey, we'd love to have you come to the Michigan convention.

You know,

if I'm coming all the way to Michigan, I want you to come and see me

because they were friends from back in the nineties.

And so he said, you know, I'll come and see you.

And then she asked me if I'd be able to give him a stage to speak on.

And I said, of course, you know, because that was,

you know, one of the things that we wanted to do

after the first two conventions I did, Steve

reached out to me and had some pictures, you know, that he was looking to sell.

And I said, Yeah, I'll I'll buy him.

I said, But here's the thing.

I'll, I'll come up and buy a thousand Pez dispensers.

So it was a lot of pets.

Yeah.

And I said, I'll come up to the farm and buy them.

But a couple of caveats.

Like I want you to autograph some things for me because I had some

some articles that he did where I had the autograph of the author

and I wanted his autograph on the same piece.

And then I wanted some autographs for some donations

for the convention and stuff.

So I went up and I, you know,

I spent the whole day up there and kind of heard his story.

And, you know, he was trying to sell a story on eBay.

I don't know if he was asking $1,000,000 or whatever he was asking.

And we just had a heart to heart.

And I said, Steve, listen me, I'm like, I understand you want to sell your story,

but the problem is, is it's going to be very hard to find somebody to buy it

for $1,000,000 and then spend a million plus to make the movie.

I said, What you need to do is you need to find a director that you you trust or,

you know, one that will,

you know, take the ride with you, take a little of it upfront, then work

a financial agreement on the back end or however that works.

But that's the best way to do it.

And he said, Well,

if I get a director, I'm going to have him contact you and you got him out.

And I said, Sure, no problem.

And I just kind of left the conversation at that.

And then a couple of months later, a director called me, wow.

And, you know, it was it happened to be Brian.

And he said, hey, you know, we talked to Steve.

He asks us to call you.

And can you tell us a little bit about what you know? And

there's two camps.

There's this Steve who knew Steve in the beginning camp and people who didn't know

Steve, you know, collected after Steve and I followed that after camp.

But I knew a lot of the key players because I you know, I was, you know,

privy to a lot of the information with the story.

So long story short, I vetted him out.

I called Steve, I said, Hey, I think this is a good director.

And Brian asked if he could come on, you know, meet me in person.

And he came out to my house and

he said, Hey, will you come on board and be, you know,

like a liaison to the pens side of everything?

You know, Steve obviously knew his story, but like getting getting people involved

and he said, you know, and he showed me and he told me his vision for the movie.

And as you see in the movie, there's some factory scenes.

And he goes, Well, I don't know what I'm going to do.

I need pads for these factory scenes and kind of laughed

because, I mean, I own, you know, 300,000 Pez dispensers now.

So I said, you know, don't worry about the pads.

I will take care of having the best.

So when you said 30,000 Pez dispensers, that's how many Pez

they took from my house to film the movie.

I actually own about 300,000 Pez dispensers.

Oh, my gosh.

So yeah, I mean, it's, you know, 20 and 20 some years of collecting, but,

you know, and then after that, it didn't go my relationship with with both of them.

Steve You know, I was on set for a lot of things.

And when it was the filming of, you know, a lot of the extras

in the movie, we brought actual PEZ collectors in for the movie.

And again, I had the relationship with the PEZ community

and got to have a lot of my friends in the movie and stuff.

And it was just it was just a neat experience,

you know, to take something that you're so passionate about that

brings your personal joy.

And now you can spread it through the world.

And, you know, that's what I love about Pez.

It's, it's, yeah, it's a plastic toy, but it's a lot about relationships,

and I've made some amazing relationships. God.

Well, I think that's why the documentary is so popular as well too,

because all of us have some type of Pez story as well too.

And I'm sure you see a lot of that at the convention.

So could you tell us a little bit more about the Michigan PEZ convention?

Sure. We started in 2016.

Like I said before, we work with a charity called Higher Ground at Lake Louise.

We have a charity night in five years.

We've raised over $81,000 for charity.

Last year alone, we raised over $30,000 to send those kids to camp

who don't usually get those kind of experiences

Saturday, you know, and we have a game night on Thursday, a charity

night on Friday, and then Saturday we open up to the general public.

We have people come from all over the country, all over the world.

We've got people coming from Israel this year California,

Florida, Georgia, so New York, Texas.

So we have a big draw of what we call regulars,

you know, regular collectors that come.

And then Saturday we open it up to the general public.

It's going to be in Farmington Hills.

And we don't charge an admission.

It's not about it's not about making money.

It's more about like showing,

showing, you know, the community, what we do as a community.

And it's it's like a big family reunion.

It's it's just this,

you know,

in a world where we have so much diversity

and we're having so many issues with that diversity

has communities

very come as you are a community doesn't matter your background doesn't matter

how you collect, doesn't matter

if you like the high end vintage stuff or the low end common stuff.

You know what?

Whatever diversity you want to bring to the table, it's welcome in the community.

And a lot, you know, with the movie, if you if you watch it it touched

it touches a lot about, you know, mental health awareness.

And, you know, you're in this world, we all deal with some sort of mental

health, you know, or issues or at least know somebody who does.

And just to have a community of people that accept you for who you are,

it's just a great thing.

And that's what I love about this community.

It's just very come as you are type community.

And we have a lot of people who come to the Saturday

show and realize like, hey, these are my people.

Like I feel accepted.

I feel, you know, that awkwardness that that a lot of people have.

It's like, hey, I'm accepted, you know?

And I just it feels good.

I think personally.

I love it. I love to hear that.

And we always like to end with a library type question.

We ask our guest for recommendation so it can be something

that you're reading, watching or listening to doesn't have to be pairs related.

It can be pairs related though.

So but just something that you'd recommend to our listeners that you've

either read recently, watched recently, or listen to recently.

Wow, the Tesla. No, I'm

yeah.

I'd love to see some libraries get some

have the Tesla we just saw somebody had the Tesla

in one of their libraries a DVD copy of it which I thought was cool.

So I'm going to I'm going to answer it, but I'm going to go a little old school

and I'm going to say one fish, two fish, red fish, bluefish, love.

It, love it.

You know, that was that was actually the first book I ever read.

Cover to cover. Yeah.

Never been a strong reader myself, but

it was, it was almost, you know, I mean, who doesn't love Dr.

Seuss to begin with?

But it was almost a sense of accomplishment, even at that young age.

Had to read a book as simple as that, and

and be able to say, hey, look, I read it cover to cover.

And the other thing I'm reading right now and I'm reading the Bible.

So but that's just part of my testimony.

So, you. Know, I love it.

That was that was a great recommendation.

And Jim, thank you so much for for joining us today.

Thank you for having me.

You can learn more about the incredible story

by watching the Pez outlaw on Netflix.

And also, we do have the Pez outlaw, as Jim said, some libraries have it on DVD.

We do have it on TV

and it's also available streaming through our hoopla service as well, too.

And if you are a PEZ enthusiast, you can go to the Michigan PEZ

convention coming to an arbor from June 21 to 25 and 2023.

Jim, thanks so much for joining us today.

Thanks for having me.

Don't miss another great interview.

Subscribe to the CADL Cast podcast and share it with a friend.

Hey there.

It's Tyler Reeder, but you can call me Ty, the library guy.

Did you hear the news?

Capital Area District Libraries is celebrating its 25th anniversary

this year.

They'll be hosting exciting programs and fun projects to commemorate

this significant milestone.

And you're invited to celebrate with them.

Cheers to you, CADL.

And here's to the next 25 years and beyond.

To learn more about Carol's 25th anniversary and celebratory events,

visit Seattle Dawgs 25.

Until next time.

I'm Ty, the library guy.