Prepare yourself for: Killer dolphins, art as a CIA weapon, international porn habits, Balticon, the Parsecs, Sinbad, and Mulligan Smith.
Find the full show notes at http://flashpulp.com
The Skinner Co. Network
FC89 - The Russian Perspective
[♪♪♪] ♪ Sundays glue me my hours are slumblers ♪ ♪ Dearest the shadows I live with by nonetheless ♪ ♪ Little wife flowers will never awaken you ♪ ♪ Not where the brachaelchus all ends taking you ♪ [♪♪♪] ♪ Angels have no fire of evolution in you ♪ ♪ Oh, baby angry advice ♪ ♪ So don't join in you ♪ ♪ Ooh, sun... ♪ Hello and welcome to Flashcast 89, a Skinnico presentation. Skinnico, creating the sewer clowns of tomorrow, today. This episode is also brought to you by generous donations from Nick Tyler, Scott Roche, and Gigantor. Many thanks. If you'd like to sponsor an episode, please feel free to use the donate button on the site. But now, prepare yourself for Killer Dolphins, Earth as a CIA weapon, international porn habits, both a con, the Parsecs, Singbad, and Mulligan Smith. [♪♪♪] ♪ Death is no dream for ♪ ♪ Death I'm caressing you ♪ ♪ With the strength of my soul ♪ ♪ I'll be blessing you ♪ ♪ Give me Sunday ♪ [♪♪♪] Hello! My name is Opopon X. And nobody puts Jessica May, or Jay or Dee, in a corner. Never. Have you guys heard... Wait, actually I should first say, hey, nice to see you guys. Yeah, it's good to have a look and sharp. Thanks, I've been working out. New mustache. Yeah, I agree this one on my own. Uh... Root Reynolds and I, on the weekend. Yeah, things have been rather madly busy lately. But before we, I'm sure we'll cover it over time, but before we get into that, I wanted to bring up the Russian village of Alatma. Are you familiar? No, new. Not from my travels in Russia, anyway. [laughter] That was a long time ago. Yes, we don't speak at those times. Every nation, every social group in history has had to decide how to deal with those amongst us who, for whatever reason, are not as, I don't want to say capable, but who have greater challenges than us. Let's say the people with mental issues. Yeah, with long term, you know, deeply ingrained genetic problems. The town of Alatma was one of those great Russian commie ideas where they built this town and it has six institutions in it. And the institutions cover you right from birth to the grave. Wow. If you have a mental disorder, you go to Alatma. You are brought up from an infant through these various facilities, and then eventually they marry it at the edge of town. Right now, it's still running. It's still fully populated. It's a full village. It looks like a standard rural Russian village with, you know, grassy fields about and trees and-- Farmers. Russians. But the houses, but I mean that in a very modern age, like houses are all a little dilapidated. The actual facilities have cracks in the walls, and it's that, you know, but they're still operating. And it's very interesting because they're-- it stinks of that Russian propaganda period. You know what I mean? Why not seem to be an okay idea? Yeah, but also just the look of the place. Like it just, it's built so to those codes. All filled with asbestos and stuff. And the weird thing is, and I hate it, I don't want to sound insensitive. But the first thing, not the first thing, but maybe the third thing that I thought about this facility or this town was how interesting it would be. Actually, what came to mind was that old Scott Kurtz and Chris Straub gag where I forgot the fellow's name, but they would do this audio bit where it was a guy who was of average intelligence, but he had somehow woken up in the future and everyone had become incredibly dumb. So he would always be called in by the police chief to help solve a crime, but it would always be like, the guy simply forgot how to breathe. Anyway, it seemed to me like the town is falling apart. It looks so post-apocalyptic as it is. 'Cause you know, they've got very, like the medical standards are not the same. Not all the patients are clothed all the time. There's obviously like, people have been, had surgery conducted upon them, and you can see the scar tissues on the side of their heads and their heads are still shaved back. And like it does have the ring of a mental institution despite being this kind of nice little town. And I mean, they obviously have access to liquor 'cause there's a few photos in the article that I found on CNN, that's how I originally came across this thing. Drunks just sort of passed out in the middle of town, like still, you know, town problems. - So do people stay there if they're not like? - I believe it's essentially, you know, quote unquote, the patients, and then the people who work there. - And all they do when not working is get drunk. - So some sort of post-apocalyptic cop show taking place in this town with a guy who's-- - Just mental, regular mental facilities. - Yeah. - He's got all his what's better. - Or even, yeah, not to be cruel, but it would be so interesting to run some sort of reality show in which you import people into the town. - I love when you preface things with not to be cool, but it would be so interesting if. - But a reality show in which people, normal people are like, drugged, and then they wake up in this town, and it's in the middle of nowhere, 'cause it's in the backwater, like I mean, I don't wanna make it sound like-- - And none of them speak Russian. - It's a very rural town, none of them speak Russian, and everyone seems kind of crazy enough. - Yeah, don't even tell them they're out of reality. - Yeah, no, no, absolutely not. - And they may have been serious. - Oh, you said terrifying. - Yes. (upbeat music) ♪ Open where breath ♪ - So, speaking of crazy Russian things, well, I mean, I shouldn't say necessarily Russian because it's Ukrainian, but throw back to the Soviet era. - Yeah, fine, fine. - So, as it turns out, the Soviet army, like, well, not the army, I suppose the Soviet Navy had a program for militarized dolphins. (laughs) - Words. - Very Johnny Numanic, okay. (laughs) - Okay, go figure. Apparently the American Navy has went to, and they-- - Yeah, I believe it. - They feel bottleneck dolphins are really good for their sonar, but they also train sea lions because they have very acute visuals. - And have you ever been slapped by a sea lion? I have not even heard of that. - You're so good with rolling off now. - I keep my hands to myself. - I mean, I know that they're more expensive, but, you know, killing things, just like training them for these purposes and then killing them off. I don't like that. Use bots, bitches. - Yeah. - It's like those Russian dogs that were trained to eat under tanks. You remember those? - Eat under tanks. - During World War II, they would train these dogs to come to the sound of engines, right? Because one of the major problems with the Nazi invasion was that they had highly superior tanks, and it was very tough to pop them open. So they would train these dogs to come to the sound of engines, and then they would strap explosives to their back, and so that when they got under the tank, looking for the food that they were expecting up until that point, to be there, the dog would blow up and the tank would blow up. - That's so sad. Yeah, yeah. I know the history of, like, animals used in war, and it's, I think we're older now. - Do you feel like we're moving beyond that? - Well, these dolphins are in a better position. - Let's get back to that in a minute. Explain this dolphin situation. - Yes, these dolphins are in a better position. They're, I guess, they're not really being used first. - They're unionized. - Well, no, they're not unionized, but a couple of them have recently gone missing. - Whoa, I would do. That was one of them. - Well, apparently it's not the first time. - So what are these dolphins trained to do exactly? What is there? - I'm not even 100% on what it is they're exactly trained to do. I know for a while. For a while they were used for, like, rehabilitation for people with disabilities and stuff, which is interesting because I actually just saw another article in a recent way saying that really doesn't help people at all, and that dolphins are shit for rehabilitation. But that's a different story. - You push it around in the aquarium. - In addition to attacking enemy divers, the dolphins were supposedly trained to find deadly mines on the seabed and even attach explosives to enemy ships. So as long as we keep them away from a cache of C4, we should be safe from these killer dolphins. - Yes, exactly. But apparently they have a history, the male dolphins at least, of seeing a lady dolphins and just taking off, going AWOL. - That's funny 'cause I believe that's actually the case in the real Navy as well. (laughing) But yes, that's what they figure has gone on. - Okay, so clearly there's no danger of these killer dolphins setting up training camps, militarizing other dolphins. - I'm hoping not. - But, to go back to Jamie's point-- - When you assume you make an ass out of you and me. - To go back to Jamie's point though, we do live in an age, or on the cusp of an age, where it's going to become very possible that we will begin manipulating dolphin genes in ways to create like-- - Dolphin men. - Monster dolphins. Well no-- - Or dolphins that won't run away. - Militarized dolphins that will be highly effective for whatever the task we give them is. Like we can do some very odd things with genetic manipulation. And then it does become very much a problem if two or three of them slip away and get into the larger porpoise population, because then you're breeding wild monster dolphins. - And dolphins are already aggressive enough, really. - Dolphins are jerks. Have you ever had a how to drink with a dolphin? Dolphin never pays. - No kidding, that's why the seals get so sloppy. - This is something I read, I think it was in the lava a million years ago, and it was like people who have relationships and the nasty with dolphins. - Oh yeah, that's, that, anyway. - It's a thing. - It's definitely a thing. I've seen it floating around the tubes. - Yeah, floating around the tubes. - Yeah, it's like a seductive dolphin. - Ooh. I don't know why we're on a warfare kick today, but I did want to mention this article that was brought up by, oh geez. It's a, he's renamed himself recently on Twitter. So it's a Gaelic word that I'm not going to attempt to pronounce, but it is spelt T-U-A-I-S-C-I-R-T-T-Weskert. Maybe he can actually send in a MP3 sometime and tell me what time it is. - Just him pronouncing the name. - Anyway, he's definitely worth following on Twitter though. He's always posting interesting stuff, including this item from the Independent over in the UK that I guess there has been some recent disclosures from the CIA that indicate very clearly that modern art, especially the really, quote unquote edgy stuff from the '60s and '70s, your Pollux and whatever, was used as a weapon during the Cold War to try to win hearts and minds in Russia. So to have the sort of look how, not only look how far we let our artists go and let them do these things, but by forcing their government to restrict them, causing more hatred between the government and the locals. - With people. - Using like beetles and blue jeans in a weird sort of way. - Yeah, that's interesting. - The article is definitely worth a read. I believe the CIA may have done some funding of various artists, and it's just really, okay, so as an example of over in the article, this was the long leash, the centerpiece of the CIA campaign became the Congress for the Cultural Freedom, a vast jamboree of intellectuals, writers, historians, poets and artists, which was set up with CIA funds in 1950 and run by a CIA agent. It was the beachhead from which culture could be defended against the attacks of Moscow and its fellow travelers in the West. At its height, it had offices in 35 countries and published more than two dozen magazines, including Encounter. So like a vast propaganda arm for art. - And there was like an agent in charge of art. - This organization put together several exhibitions of abstract expressionism during the '50s. One of the most significant, the New American painting visited every big European city in 1958 to 1959. Other influential shows included Modern Earth in the United States, 1955, and Masterpieces of the 20th century, 1952. Anyway, I thought that was very, you know, art as weapon, government-funded art and that sort of approach. And definitely, I think you would be hard-pressed to run a budget through these days that said, let's use art to, I don't know. - Propaganda. - Fake loose, the North Koreans or whatever. - Yeah, yeah. We leave that up to this, Rodman. - Yeah. - Oh man, to think that that's the cultural export difference? Anyhow, speaking of cultural differences actually, I don't know that he wants to be, I don't know that he wants it to be known, but the Time Traveler's not in this comic which had an associated link. Now, okay, so the comic is called Scandinavia in the world. And essentially, I'll just link it in the show notes, but it's essentially about the differences between porn preferences in the various countries. - Oh, Mr. TT. - Yes. And the comic itself is rather cutely drawn and it's a fun little comic, but it links to the source of his data, pornmd.com. - Oh, I have heard of that. - Yes, I think we had a day when we were kind of poking around and laughing about this. - Pornmd. - Have you heard of it, Jamie? - No. - Okay, so pornmd.com provides you this bi-nation breakdown of top porn search terms. - Okay, and it's a weird-- - Now, I don't know how accurate it is. I sometimes wonder how they get their data and where they get their background info from, but I do find some interesting things. Like right now, North America, the top two searches are teen. - Oh. - Yeah. - It's understandable. - It's common or whatever. But interestingly to me, the second term is milk. - I can see that too. It's like the young and the old. - I almost kind of-- - The young and the restless. - I almost in a weird way find that heartening, that at least-- - Yes, yeah. - It's not just this weird, youth-centric constant fetishizing-- - That's true. - Anyway, and so to hop around a little bit-- - Yeah, tell me what are the top picks in Norway? - Oh, okay, I can't avoid some-- Like, I avoided some of the lower North American ones because it was only going to get naughtier, but-- - Oh, you go for Scandinavia. - There's some words that I'm not going to be able to avoid here. So in South America, Brazil, their number one is Brazilian. How do you even know that Brazilian is being searched for as a porn term? That's where I get weird about this, because their number one term is Brazilian. What if they're just looking for a dude from Brazil? - Or to get a Brazilian wax. - That's right. - Brazilian food. You're looking for a Brazilian restaurant, anyway. But the number two term is a little less unclear. It's just anal. - Brazilian anal. - Brazilian anal, yes, absolutely. - And then, but to be fair, number three is Brazil with a Z, and then number four is Brazil with a nest. So I don't know. I don't know. To get deeper into it. - China, China's number one search term. Can you guess? Japanese. - They're not quite like us. - Number two, though, Chinese. - Oh, there you go. That's a ride, China. - I was kind of heartened to find. Number three and number four were Asian gay and Chinese gay. - Okay. - I mean, I suspect that the internet is probably a place of freedom for people in an oppressed society. Like that, you know what I mean? - Yeah. - Russia? Can you guess number one term? - Tell me, please. - It's just another, it's Russian. How do they even know? - I like to, vodka sex. (laughing) - Vodka sex, yes. Wait, vodka, animal. Didn't we do something about vodka animals or vodka dishes, like a little vodka? - Yeah. - And weren't they like fatal? - Someone had died. - Not to Russians. - From a, (laughing) Russians I like. - Okay. - They have their 80 souls. - 80 percent vodka. - Number three team, number four mature, so that's interesting. Although it's interesting that their choice of term is mature as opposed to milk. - Milk. - Yeah. - It's much less derogatory. - Now, I found this sort of weird. Number five, very specific, sashigre. - Huh. - Yeah. Huh. - That's interesting. - And then number 10, I felt this actually, this is a verged on maybe me being a little uncomfortable. Number 10 was simply just mom. - Mm-hmm. - Mm-hmm. - Mm-hmm. - How does the internet even know it's your mom? Anyway. (laughing) - Google, they know everything. - Skidicle-y outfits. - Okay, well, we actually have quite a bit to discuss in Skidicle announcements today. But first up, I wanted to mention true crime Tuesdays. 'Cause I don't think we've ever mentioned it on the podcast, although it is a regularly running feature on flashbulb.com. - Indeed. On Tuesdays. (laughing) - Usually a couple, sometimes a trio of true crimes. - Just weird, weird, ridiculous. - Ridiculous. - Yes, yeah. - Bagley related, hopefully usually. Here's the thing though. I've been a fan of true crime stories for quite a while. I don't know what that morbid fascination comes from. I usually chalk it up to research, but the thing is I do find it interesting to read the articles, it's not just that I-- - Like to look at the pictures? - No, I actually generally do not like looking at the pictures in true crime, which is why I only ever put up pulp covers as the art, unless there's a really good mug shot. Sometimes you get a mug shot that's two goals, not the most. - Take good to pass, yeah. - But, the thing is, I'm not an expert by any means in crime, but I've got my toes in it. And-- - I thought you were a criminal mastermind. It bothers me to see people, this is what it comes back to, Nancy Grace. Nancy Grace bothers me. - Nancy Grace. - Here's a woman who does nothing but interact with real crimes on a daily basis, right? Theoretically, she should be well-versed in criminal activity on every level. - She shouldn't have to say such crazy-- - But it's the same thing. - Well, she does, which is ridiculous, but also, you can't be that just mind-blown about every crime, every time, if you see these things all the time. - Yeah, generally, it's been my experience that the more that you're around crime, the more you see the reasons for it and the tragedy of it and the realness of those people of not just being like, low-life, but these situations that are really complex. - So, for Nancy to have all these experiences and just think that they're just a crap ton of evil people out there, I think is kind of weird. - Kind of weird, yeah. - Yeah, it's very different than my experience. - Speaking of sort of painful items, Janelle and the mob on Facebook, if you've been in the area, you know that she's been having some difficulty lately, I don't wanna get too specific, but sad to hear it, I hope she feels better soon, just wanted to give her a little shout out. - She's on the mend, she's got lots of people watching her, she's taking the proper meds, she's taking care of herself. - Oh my gosh, she never has spirit. - Weaves, oh God, I love her and she's doing updates for us. It's like everything I've asked her to do, she's like, "Okay, cool, yeah, very cool," except I haven't seen the grandparents yet, 'cause she's afraid that they'll run away if when they see her recording. But we do have a package going to her and she will receive it on Monday, Monday, Monday. And this illness is related to food and now it seems like she's gonna be able to eat things. She hasn't been able to eat in so long. - I'm so excited. - Part of her problems. - I'm hoping, I'm hoping. - Anyway, yes, yeah, well. - And in lighter news, the parsec nomination items are all away, they're all in, everything's out of our hands. - Yes, at first, yeah. - At first, we're like, okay, we gotta get it in by this time. And then we looked and we were way past the time. - No, we weren't. - No, we were like 50 and a half. - Oh yes, yes. - A Pope and I running through things on the couch, trying to get ready for the submission and then realizing that we had messed up the date and it was like, are we-- - Yes. But then we received a lovely email from them extending our submission until Sunday. So we got it in. - So we got it in. - We had time of plenty, it was great. (gasps) - Feels good. - Do you wanna tell them which one was picked in the end? - Oh, we-- - It was a very rigorous-- - Like, yes. - Pick. - It was 307, Mulligan, and the patient, right? - That's right, we had a big long list and we got some input from some of the people in the mob. See, that's why you should be in the mob, on Facebook. - Really helpful, actually, 'cause, you know, we ended up cutting out all the coffin stories. - Yeah, that was interesting. - Because some people were saying, you know, I can be grading with the beeping and stuff. - You love money or you don't dig it. - Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, there were several cutting rounds based on different criteria, but I think we came to a good compromise at the end with Mulligan and the patient. I see all the holes in every possible submission, so. - And I also wanna just point out a quick little, quick little something of note that you may not catch, but actually last night's episode with Mulligan does have a connection with that episode, and we'll see if anybody can pick it out because it certainly jumped out at me on the page. - If it makes you a little hint, I should say. - I love hints. - I have a speculation thread on the mob. But he wants to go check it out. - Yeah, yeah, actually, it's gonna be a slash mob. - Dying to talk about this with people, and maybe it's such a tease 'cause he doesn't really tell me that, you know, it's just like any other book I wanna speculate about, but I have no one to speculate with. So, come speculate with me. - Sisters, the hint is sisters. - Yes. - But speaking of the mob, actually, speaking of Skinner.fm slash mob, isn't, are we going to be visited by Sophia Esperon? - Oh, yes, I'm so excited about this now. It's been a while since we've had a mafia game. We recently had one on forum. I guess you can't really say it recently, but... - Not that long ago. Doc Lou Ray. - It went back. - Exactly. - Fantastic. Although I totally killed everyone. I apologize, it was all my fault. I was the bridge that broke. (laughing) - Yeah, I got off regularly in that one, but we had a very lovely Doc Asriel game. It was actually the second Doc Asriel game that we've had conducted by Doc Blue. And it's really nice to have-- - We were much more successful the first time around. - Yeah, it's really nice to have these themed games I'm finding. It's much more fun than just having a regular vanilla game. That's not so fun. But the latest flashpaulp incarnation, I guess. I've come up with a little theme of Sophia Esperon in the 100 kingdoms. - The kingdoms. Which is interesting because she is still a special episode thread. - Yes. - Like, although we have repeating episodes. - It'd be like having an achievers one, you know? I don't know. - Yeah. - Well, the achievers fits into the canon, Sophia Esperon is totally outside of-- - She's like your Conan. - Yeah, that's exactly what she is. She is the pulp fiction that people within the flashpaulp universe would be reading. You would read, you know? - Like Mulligan would be reading the Sophia Esperon. - Every now and then you'd be like, are you going to the Sophia Esperon reboot movie? - Mm-hmm, exactly. So, we have one set in that game. I believe it right now has 11 players. It was supposed to start a little while ago, but unfortunately I've had some trouble with my laptop, and it's currently in the shot. - Yes, we had two production machines explode within days of each other. - Yeah. - And by explode, I mean their fans died. - Yeah. - And that's not the end of the world. One of them was still under warranty, so that was a very simple fix. And the other one was a work, technically a work machine, so. - You got to replace. - It was easy to replace, but there was some software installation sort of business. It was one of those unfortunate incidents that leads to a pleasant upgrade. - Yeah, so my computer's still in the shot, but I'm waiting until I get it back to actually call the game started. - Yeah. - Because I want to have that at my fingertips. I have to update easily. But regardless, I know I've posted about it in the mob a couple of times. I've also gone to the mob forum and created a page for it. And it's got the little intro for it. If you want to go take a look. But I've also just recently put up a cast of characters. So if you're part of the game, and you've let me know about it. Which you should, if you want to be part of the game. - Are you, I should ask, are you still open to last seconds? - I'm still open to sign up, so if anybody's interested, 'cause I don't know when my computer's going to be back. But hopefully it will be safe. - Sometimes this week, it will definitely be some of these weeks. - But what I've done is I've gotten little avatars for everybody and given them titles. And you can go read who's going to be playing. - I saw Strasburg being snarky, but it's tight alone. - Yeah, that's great. - Is there a sneekel straw-throb? - Oh yes, that was really nice of them. - Yes, yes, yeah. But yeah, so if you want to go check that out, see who all is playing. If you just want to, you know, follow along on the thread and not say anything. You know, feel it feel free. - That's fine too. - But when I put my laptop back, I'm going to be posting the first script for the game and I'll be sending out people private messages with their roles. So if you want to sign up, let me know. You have to have a member on the mob forum, but it's free, so go sign up. - Just a quick mention. I can't recall. It's been so long since we've done one of these. I can't recall if I've already announced it, but the Walk the Fire Kickstarter went through. Mr. Miro got his funding, which is fantastic. - Are you writing a story for it, right? - Yep, sometime this fall, I will have a Walk the Fire story published in the anthology. Speaking of other people's sandboxes, we talked nerdy with Jason Gregory Banks. - Yes, we did. Yes, that was unfortunate that I missed it, but you were suffering greatly. - I was. - So we had you sleep and I went to talk to you several times and you didn't wake up, so I figured it was probably best. But what I love about this dude and that is so hard to find, and Nutty's is very much the same way, but when you're talking to the Mon Air, it's exactly the same as when you're in person, and it made me feel so comfortable and the chat was just effortless, so I really, really enjoyed that. So yeah, that's my input so far for talk nerdy to me. - It's been really nice to have some ongoing discussion with Jason about movies and stuff that we've been watching, so hopefully we can do a little something together. - It did feel sort of like a natural fit, 'cause we basically got on and talked to VHS one and two, and given how much weird found footage film we've watched in the last few weeks. - Yes, we were always, like we were comparing notes, and then we'd be like, "In back to the film as we were discussing." - And I wanna say too that it's not even just like, we're big fans of the found footage type flick, because that's not it. It's just a lot of the B-movie horror genre that's kind of-- - Right now. - Recently, which is what we are into, the B-movie horror. A lot of it has been the sort of found footage style, you know? - Well, we did discuss on the show about how Netflix and found footage films are sort of the new cheap way of getting your product out there and being able to do it on a very tight budget. - Being able to sell your film, like, you know, well not sell it, but to-- - Have no money and still get it done. - Yeah, but done in a way that's believable. - Yes, it's becoming more accessible to people, and I like that. - And how VHS is like Netflix, because things that wouldn't have their opportunity or the budget to go through the theaters, you're having another way where, as opposed to going to be straight to, straight to, what did they say? - Straight to video. - Straight to cassette or something. - Straight to video. - Straight to Netflix. - And you know what? Some of that Netflix original programming is really awesome, but that's not Netflix, specifically. - Yeah, yeah, but there's a lot of, like, asylum, for example, they wouldn't have a market, I think, or they would, but it would be, like, Walmart, bargain bins. - Yes, yeah, and this way, everyone can see it. You're not all having to go to Walmart. You're all just, like, going to Netflix, which is so much easier, except for the Canadian to American, which is always a little different, which is annoying. - Yeah, so anyway, you can listen to the whole stream and discussion over at Talk Nerdy, too, as in numerical two. Mepodcast.wordpress.com. - Or you can find them on Facebook. They just started a group there, as well, so. - And as always, I'll put a link in the show notes. I'll put it directly to the stream we were involved in. - But he was totally repaired, and dude knows what he's talking about, you know? It was really good. - Yeah, it was an excellent person. - It was really, really good. - Yeah, absolutely. - And Jen, she was also feeling under the weather, but she popped in just before work. - Oh, yeah, sure, make me feel bad, Jen. (laughing) - Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Well, she had to go to work, whereas you had already gone to work. - Now, this seems like a natural segway, actually, into Balticon, because this is where we really-- - That's where we met them, yes, exactly. That is where they both were. - Jason was grilling, and Jen was like-- - As the legendary cook-off. - She was just so effortless about it, but she was assisting him and getting things on and off, and all the various implements on to the meetings and such. - I was glad they weren't part of the competition, 'cause they would've been a fearsome team. - Oh, good boy. - Well, no, they stopped on the way to Balticon at their friend's smoker in order to smoke the meat, and just the look of it, the glazing of the ribs, it was almost black, and I wasn't hungry, but I want, I'm like, do you think it's bad if I were to put this in a little baggie and eat it later when I'm hungry? But I couldn't do it, I couldn't do it. - The challenge of cons is always the argument against Galetni, right? Like you want to just do everything, you want to be awake all the time, 'cause there's always things going on, especially at Balticon. You want to take in as many panels as possible, buy as much crap as possible. - There are as many after parties as you can. - The worst moment of like, I think I need to step back from this for me, though, in that entire con was seeing those ribs there, and then having already had to have eaten two burgers, so if two really delicious but filling burgers. - Yeah, 'cause we had to cook off, right? - 'Cause we had to cook off, right? - 'Cause we had to cook off, right? - So in time travel. - So I actually, I-- - And sampling, and sampling, and my stomach was going to murder me. - I divided my burger into three, both of the burgers, and so me and two other ladies, like, totally sandwich. - Ah, it's such a good idea. - I couldn't stop myself. I have to admit both burgers were you? - 'Cause I think, honestly, I felt pretty ill, almost the entire time I was in Baltimore. - Yeah, my stomach was really upset. - Yeah. (laughs) But a lot of it was spent in a haze of eating, as well. - Which, yeah, we really helped by going to Taco Bell and Sonic, and eating them and eating them. - I extremely enjoyed five guys, but it was like the moment I was done, I'm like, you know what? I need to get some air, dude, something is just not out right, dude. - And-- - I don't really remember very much about eating. - Five guys-- - I was, at that point, drinking so much fruit in the morning and when I went to the stage-- - It was really easy, yeah. - It was just, by the time I hit five guys, it was like, no, no, this isn't right. And I just completely fell apart and couldn't go to any of the panels. - But it was still all pretty wonderful, though. - Oh, it was, I watched fabulous tramp. - Yeah, I watched Memorial Day settle celebrations and cried the whole time. It was beautiful, a little time in my bed with, oh yeah, and you guys got me gas station salads. - Until it was Wegner, it was the mega grocery store. - It's like a good night. - We just got this sad plea via text, bring vegetables. - I need that. - But it was like so late. It was actually like, last call had just been called at the bar. - Yeah, and we went across to the 24th grocery store where we were sandwiched between the lady discussing her sex in psychiatrist or something. It was very difficult to make it was going on, but she sounded pretty drunk during the whole thing. And then the people in front of us were buying, I don't remember what it was, but it was something really, it was like. - Sushi and something. - Sushi and something. Anyway, it was two a.m. sushi. - But I, like honestly, I should have just gotten room service salad, but I just kept like, it was like an hour past, and I'm like, (sings) And then I started like messaging Rich. I'm like, (sings) And then they got me two different salads that were both like crap, but then we put them together to make something that was reasonable. But my stomach stopped burning, it was a beautiful thing. One of the running themes of the whole weekend or whole time there, I guess, was my, not actually having service for my cell phone in America. So I was dependent from just hopping between these free Wi-Fi networks. - And I was alive again. - Oh, this place. I wanna talk about myself. - And he would just stop talking. He would just stop talking. Like, what are you doing? He's like, I can't Wi-Fi. - I just had to process everything that I have missed. It was like jumping from puddle to puddle. - Yes. (laughs) - Good times, good times. - It was so good, though. How about Rich to like drive us around? 'Cause he was on meds so he couldn't drink. And we were away from the kids. So we'd have a couple shots before we went anywhere. - Yeah, he was very patient. It was appreciated. - Yeah. - Oh man, he was very patient. - Oh, the trip to Sonic's with Hugh. - Oh yeah, he had never gone either. That was so super. - Yeah, yeah. It seemed to not to cast whatever on Hugh, but Hugh was incredibly busy throughout the years. He was incredibly busy throughout the entire time. And by the time we found him and he needed an EVAC out of there just to get some food in him. - Oh yeah, he was like, it's good to see you. I need to eat now. - Yeah, he just-- - We were like, Sonic's with so many people. - He looked like he was ready to just collapse. - Yeah, can you handle it? He's like, I've never gone, and I can wait 20 minutes where like, let's go now. - Yeah. - And he's just like, you know, like, eating like a squirrel, these like nuts and stuff. - Oh my God, that was one of the best parts of it. - You could tell, though, you could see the vets. - The vets all had like a trail mix or like the-- - Oh, you're hungry? Have some trail mix. - 'Cause no, no, no, I got my trail mix. - We're looking for Hugh, looking for Hugh. Finally, we just sit in Nutty's room when we're chatting and then Hugh shows up. We're like, what the heck? We're like pugging and photos. And then she had nuts and he had nuts. It was a beautiful thing. And then we ran to Sonic. And that's just crazy. - It's just a revitalization. I don't know, I haven't heard his take on it, but it seemed to bring him back to life. - Yeah, I think he was gonna die if we hadn't shut up at that moment. - Yeah, I think we see him as what I'm getting to. I think he was us. - Yeah, I think he should have a disclaimer at the end of every way the Buffalo podcast to thank Flashbulb crew for bringing him to Sonic and saving his life. (laughing) - Standard. - Yeah, it was just, we haven't really touched it on the con much and we're a little bit away from it now, but it was very much, hmm, how to explain this. I think that Fan Expo was very much comic con style. - But this one was a little bit or anything. - And this one, yeah. - It was a lot of Joe Schmoes. - It was a lot closer to Bimbals of the Death Sun, but not in a way that would be unpleasant. Like it was really nice, but it was a lot more intimate and you kind of got to know people. You would see the same people passing in the hallway and I did a lot of, you know, hellos and high fives and handshakes and well, not really high fives. I say that I high fives, everyone, but I never actually high fives. - That it was in a hotel too. That was interesting 'cause there was all those people back and forth from their rooms. Whereas, say Fan Expo, it was at a convention. - Yeah, absolutely. With Fan Expo, you would get whisked into these side conference rooms and it's just, or like even a stage area. When we went to see the recording of-- - Giant hallways and stuff he did not have that. - Jalen Silent Bob get old. It was in a little, you know, auditorium area or whatever. Whereas you go into just a side room and it's obviously just a converted bedroom that's been-- - Bunch of chairs. - Yeah, it turned in one direction in the bedroom room or whatever. I mean, not every room was like that. They had larger rooms and there was the gaming area and the anime room and there was a bunch of different areas, but it was interesting. You never were quite sure when you were going to a panel what the room was gonna be like when you got there. - Something about it reminded me of like a camp where I feel like I don't necessarily wanna stay in the same hotel as the con, but I really enjoyed staying in the sweet places that was across the road where it was like, you could totally separate yourself from it. You know, you'd get outside and smell the fresh air and, but I think next time we'll probably be at that place that had the barbecue 'cause we had a barbecue, yeah. And we almost couldn't do the burger off, but somebody was staying at that hotel and was able to get the barbecue. And then we just had this amazing patio space for just as geeky folks. It was so, so cool. - Yeah, we met some pretty awesome people there. - Yeah, so I think we'll do that next year. - So Baltimore is fantastic though, if you're happen to be in the area. - Next year, 48, I believe. But I would definitely say that whereas Fan Expo is like a massive geek market with a side helping of panels and exhibitions, like weird things and interesting things to look at, Balticon is about the panels. - That's more community related too. - With a layer of some merchandising on top. - There was a lot of, like-- - There was definitely like Dither area, but it was a lot of used books. There was a lot of geek related, like toys and-- - Vintage stuff. - Yeah, there's some games. There's very much of that ilk. - Yeah, very specific. - It wasn't these like, you know, towers and towers of printed t-shirts and, you know, fluffy slippers and plushies. - Yeah, well, I think we're kind of lucky with Fan Expo 2 because it really is, I don't remember now, four or five other little mini cons slamming together. So you wander very easily from the anime section to the horror section and you don't really realize, but it's old. - But overall, Balticon is a go. - Yeah, yeah, it was a win. - And we had a great time. - A lot of ladies and corsets looking very uncomfortable. - Very steampunk-y. - Some of them looked like they knew what they were doing and some of them looked like-- - It was all they were thinking about. - I remember the first person that I really took note of being cosplaying and not just dressed up steampunk-y was the lady, which unfortunately I don't know her name, but the lady dressed in the blue Star Trek dress. And apparently she got a lot of flack for that and she has gotten a lot of flack at several conventions and I believe there were some people just, 'cause it was a short dress. - But it was accurate. - Yeah, it was accurate to the original series. - I actually looked great. - Yeah, I didn't think first. - My considering all the like heaving boobs that are practically popping out of these corsets, she can't wear a short skirt, come on, people. - But it didn't. - It was just the people, even if she did have heaving boobs popping out of her short skirt and corset or what? - Be kind of weird that they popped out for skirt, but-- (laughing) - She was really old. - Yeah, okay, the point is, even if she were dressed more provocatively, it's still nobody's right to say anything about it, you know? - I'm generally-- - Both the cod, people wear whatever the F they want. - I thought she was-- - I could be a little bit old school and of the North and whatever, but I didn't, when we saw her, I didn't think like, "Oh, that's a little short," or anything like that. - Oh, wow, she's fabulous. - Put together. - Yeah, she's just-- - Yeah, she's just together. - Yeah, absolutely. - It wasn't like she had a little cheek peeking out or anything, it was perfectly, anyway. - But apparently she got a lot of flack and not just from dudes, I don't wanna say, it's like probably from the ladies with the hairy lips, whatever. - Yeah, the ladies with the boobs hanging at the bottom of the skirt. (laughing) Anyway, if you haven't heard the Balto Questions minisode, that way you released not too long ago. - And then what the hell is your problem? - We brought together a panel of Americans and a Canadian, well, in a hybrid, actually, who answered some questions for us, regarding America. - America. - Before we move on, I did wanna mention that I'm setting up a fantasy movie leak for the fall. This is another one of those form-related items. So if you wanna check it out, it's gonna be.fm/mob. Well, it's nothing like baseball. - But it's for movies. - Yes, you pick, we'll be setting up a draft, you'll pick a series of movies in the fall, and then depending on their, a balance of their rotten tomato score to sort of give the critical movie, like the serious films that aren't necessarily going to have box office popularity. - Some weight. - A chance, yes. Versus the actual gross of the film, so that you can still win big with Transformers 5, or whatever. - 77. - 77. So, skinner.fm/mob, and speaking of film, I believe we have a double feature. - We do from fish. - From our man, fish. - Fresh fish. - Starting with... - The Great Gatsby. - Fresh fish. A new batch of cinematic pulp with the always listening. Three day fish. - Hey, Flashgast. Three day fish here with another review. I'm going to be reviewing The Great Gatsby. I think the only thing that would make this movie, or would stop this movie from being appealing to all audiences, is the fact that it was directed by Baz Luhrman. Because Baz Luhrman does things the way Baz Luhrman wants to. And it is distinct, to be sure. Like, the first hour of this movie is going to appear wacky. Like, that's the only word I can't really think of. It's going to appear wacky, and even strange. But the last half of this movie will have all the seriousness and gravity you would expect in like a classic word. I think that's the only stumbling block here. If you don't like Baz Luhrman, you're probably not going to like this movie. But I think this movie really succeeds artistically, because you can't help but notice the use of light and shadows in this movie, and you can't help but notice. You can't help but notice each particular detail. It does take some artistic licenses from the book, but honestly, if it hadn't, it would probably appear dry. And what I think is great about what most people consider great works in any facet of art, be it music, drawing, or painting, or movies is that there has to be an entertainment factor to it. It doesn't have to be pure entertainment, but if there's a factor of it, no matter how serious that is entertaining, then I think it's a success. And this movie definitely does that. Honestly, the other thing I did not like about this movie, though, is I did not like the choice in music, 'cause there's, I think there's like literally one or two scenes that I think were representative of the 1930s. One of the things I did like about this movie is, now, keep in mind, it's been five plus years since I have read this book. But one of the things I did like was how they portrayed Gatsby as almost like villainous. And what I liked about that was, I remember when I read this book thinking like how shallow and unlikable everyone in this book was, except for Nick Caraway's character, who was well played by Toby Maguire. And this movie definitely touches more on the Gatsby, has done bad things. And it's not really a good person. But touching on that, Toby Maguire did, he was like, I think he was genetically engineered to be a plane looking every man. And Leo, I can't help but like Leo in a lot of his stuff, and he doesn't disappoint here as Gatsby. The other thing, also I like Carrey Mulligan, who does a great job as Daisy, which was kind of a surprise for me, 'cause I was worried, 'cause then drive, Carrey Mulligan looks very plain. And this, she's like vibrant. But no one really steals the show in this movie. Each actor, big and small, plays their part and gives you an idea of what that character was like in the book. And honestly, if it weren't for the Baz Luhrman roadblock that I, at least that I perceive that this movie has, I would give this movie a green light. But I think in the end, I'm gonna have to give this a yellow 'cause not everyone's gonna like this movie. That is all, always listening. Huh, now this was a film that was definitely on our radar. - Yeah, I'm really excited to see this, although I haven't seen it yet. - I have to admit, I did not realize it was Baz Luhrman. Now for reference, do you guys know who Baz Luhrman, Mulan Rouge, Romeo, and Juliet, the remake with DiCaprio? - Yeah, yeah. - Who plays Julian in that again? - Claire Danes. - Claire Danes, that's right. Anyway, so he has a certain style that he presents, and it's interesting. - It's monstrous, I would say. Because the first thing I thought of, when he mentioned that it was Baz Luhrman, was that I have a lot of heavy associations with his soundtracks, but I'm not necessarily-- - It's pretty great. - Yeah, Romeo and Juliet soundtrack, especially. There are parts that are kind of, I can leave for whatever, but there's a lot to love there. - And I've been very excited to see this movie. I really loved the book, though granted I haven't read it since high school. - Yeah, it's interesting that Fish is pointing out that he has to bring in some sort of empty entertainment, if you will, to the film, when that's kind of the crux of the book, right? Like, living that false life, and-- - Yeah, and I'm interested, I was interested to see how they would portray Gatsby as like, the sort of reformed bad boy, or darker kind of. - With the boot, like an aspect. - Yeah, I'm kind of happy to hear how it's turned out, 'cause I can totally appreciate Leonardo DiCaprio and the villainous role. - When I hear that he's playing a villainous role, which not exactly what I thought of when I read Gatsby, but I could definitely see it working. - Yeah, dark, right? - I wondered how much of his character from Django had carried over into this. - Yeah, or it made me think of his character in Blood Diamond, too. - I suppose. All right, what do we get next? From the fish, what's the second back-to-back review? - Man of Steel. - Hello, Flashgast, three-day fish here, with a double feature. Today I will be reviewing both "This is the End" and "Man of Steel" onto business. This is the end. I enjoyed this movie as I enjoy all of Seth Rogen having Goldberg's movies. If you're not into that kind of raunchy comedy, it's definitely isn't for you. But this movie takes a lot of pokes at LA and kind of more narrow-minded Christian views and whatnot. So, if that sounds like things that won't make you laugh, then don't go see this movie and then don't cry on the internet about how this movie offended you. There is a fair amount of demon dicks in this movie. I'm gonna let that word settle in for a minute. So, if that also sounds like something you'd rather not deal with, then again, don't say this movie. Don't cry on the internet about this movie. But there's just so many good movie references, TV references, jokes on themselves because almost everybody in this movie is playing themselves. That it's just a funny, funny watch. So, we'll give this a yellow light because the raunchiness is a bit much and is prohibitive. All right, now fish is going on to the good stuff. Man of steel. I have expressed concern in this movie ever since I learned that it was coming out, mainly because there's just nothing appealing to me about Superman as a hero. I mean, I win at everything. Like, it's like when you play rock paper scissors and that kid pulls out tornado and he's like, "Oh, tornado beats everything." He's like, "Well, what?" No, but this movie does a good job of making me think like, "Oh, Superman does have problems. He's not so perfect." Oh, Superman can have his ass handed to him every once in a while. I'm gonna have to say this though. This movie is neither fish nor foul. I think is the best way to put it because this movie does a good job of like establishing his background story. Though I guess if you're more into the comics, they did a lot of changes to his background story. But heck, how many of these superhero movies have been like strictly, strictly canon, you know what I mean? You know what I mean? So it's just good enough and just impede my interest enough that I would like to see a sequel. I really would because they've shown me what they can do to make Superman appeal to me. My only concern now though is I really hope they don't go with like a Lex Luthor villain or if they do, they're gonna have to do something different because like really when it comes to Superman, you wanna see Superman like using his powers. I mean, so he's gotta be facing like giant monsters or General Zod as it was in this movie. Like somebody who's really gonna test his abilities, not like the Luthor because he cracked up some fiendish plot that involves Kryptonite, which as far as I can tell, like Kryptonite has not been introduced yet because like Krypton was like, was destroyed because it came unstable and I don't know if that's like canon or if like in other versions it was like blown up by some invading race. So I guess there is still the possibility of Kryptonite like floating through space, becoming radioactive and hitting Earth, but they don't let that out, which honestly was kind of nice because they, they were kind of staying away from the, I guess, boy scout-ish, eagle scout-ish, Superman, the do-gooder, he's a tortured soul, but that, but again, like it's something that kind of bothers me 'cause I'm like, so you're just, you're just making another Batman, like you're making another like dark emotional film about a tortured soul, so I don't know. Maybe we should leave the fun-loving antics to Marvel and DC can just be all dark and Batman-ish. So I'm not gonna call a light on this one. I think it is too up in the air. I think it's like literally person-to-person, so I'd like to hear from the mob actually on this one. So yeah, I believe that's it. Always listening. - Oh my, so it actually turned into a fish-triple feature. I didn't realize he was doing this as the end. - And we actually saw this as the end. - Yeah, that's, we intended to see the second half of his bill here. We intended to see the main of steel, but we ended up arriving a little too late, and we had the babysitter in place, we weren't turning around, so we just went to, this is the end. - And I wanna comment on the demon-dicks. - You know what, we went on, when we were on "Talk Nerdy" to me, we did kind of wander into the topic of this as the end briefly, I don't remember how. And we had, although it's not normally something, you may have listened to that review and thought to yourself, "Oh, come on, fish." Of course, you're gonna bring up the large demonic penises that are littered throughout this film, but it's not just that he focused on them inappropriately, there's a lot of-- - It's true. And I wanna talk about that. - CGI penis. - Yes, because we actually had a discussion right after we saw the movie about the amount of dick in it, and it was, you felt, not to push an envelope here, you felt it was straddling the line. - I don't think that this would normally have been rated what it was to have that much penis wandering around, but I felt like because it was largely CGI, and it was sort of cartoonish animated cock that-- - It could be, got no way with it. And so they didn't wanna, you know, push it, and be like, "Oh, dick everywhere," but they were able to-- (laughs) - And they were able to slip in it. - The largest, the largest, you know, even dick of ever. - Yeah, it was that spoilers, spoilers, but yeah. - I thoroughly, thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed that movie, though, not just for the demon dick, but-- - And it had that guy from Popular Mechanics for Kids. - Yeah, well, yeah, they'll-- - We just have a-- - Ring true for the one Canadian listener we have. - I was a little concerned going into that film about James Franco, because I am very hit or miss on Franco, but this actually reinforced my, this was a win for him, this, and "Rise of the Trinity." - And Jonah Hill, I just loved, I just loved Jonah Hill. - That was another thing that I loved about this movie is that they were all playing themselves. - But the characters, the people in the film that you would normally be like, "Oh, that guy's in the movie," actually turned it around to such an extent that you really enjoyed seeing them. Like Michael Sarah, they're doing anything away. Jess, it does a great turn. - Such a great, such a great job. - Okay, but I also wanted to discuss some things about "Man of Steel," or specifically "Superman." - No. - As opposed to the other man of steel, what? - Well, no, I, the general concept of Superman, the general concept of Superman. Well, let's not get into, you remember when Superman died and then came back as four Superman, and it was like the man of steel and then-- - What? - No, are you not remembering? Is this going too far for you? - It is. - When he fought doomsday to a standstill, and then he died, and then four of him came back, there was like a half-side board. - And then four of him came back. - Yeah, there was like a half-side board, half-human Superman, and then there was like kid Superman with a jacket and like a-- - Okay, I remember that one. - And then there was the man of steel who was, I think like a black guy in an armor thing, and then there was-- - So literally just a man in steel. - Yeah, well, no, he was super powered or he had, or the armor was powered, I don't remember quite which one. But he was a secret identity guy, kind of my point. And then, oh, there was like an energy Superman, although maybe he came later on. I'm mixing up that period, 'cause they went through this whole cycle of trying to redefine who Superman was gonna be. I think they introduced all four of these, hoping that one would really hit, and then they would be able to do something like this. - They'll just write the other three out somehow. - Well, they just ended up writing them all over the end. Anyhow, although I do believe man of steel got a movie, if I remember correctly. - 2013, "Man of Steel." - No, I mean, ha ha ha ha. - He looks so nice. - He looks so disappointed. Me right there, guys, I wish I could do it. - To get back to my point, though, the interesting thing about the flip side of what Fish was saying, that Superman is just too powerful to make for an interesting character in a film. The flip side of that is that, interestingly, Superman almost makes a perfect villain in that he's so powerful, like you need that scrappy underdog to, I think that's where the Batman Superman camp comes in. You know what I mean? People want to cheer for the Batman, the normal guy who just manages to get it done, and maybe gets beat up along the way. - Who's great spy, yeah. - And they don't, you know? - As opposed to Superman who just needs, you know, a rich guy with some-- - It's very easy to associate Superman with self-righteous authority, you know. And that's unfortunate, 'cause I do like the Superman archetype, but the truth is, I think a lot of people like having the idea that there's that comic out there, but not actually reading it, you know. - Everybody wants, like, the ultimate superhero that can do anything, whatever, but deep down. - But to keep that running and the interesting over-- - Yes, a long period of time. - If they released one Superman, like, the Supermanual once a year, and it was just the best Superman stories of that year compiled, as opposed to trying to keep a monthly comic going, or multiple monthly comics I believe going, yeah. And it's weird, because now we've looped back, I don't know if you follow the comics at all, or you just watch. I only really watch what comes into the kids' hands, but they seem to have a new super family line going on, which was something they did back in the '70s and '80s, where they would have, it's a Lois story, and it's a Jimmy story, and it's, but it was all done in the style of the time, which was still that fairly realistic comic style, but the stories might be a little goofier and a little kittier. They've come back to that, but they're doing it in a more cartoony style, so that it's a little more kid friendly, and it's an interesting approach. Well, I'm trying to think of what the alternate would be. A little chibi, like it's obviously been inspired by that sort of, anyhow, I just thought that was interesting that they've looped back to that idea when it was considered so cheesy, and got ran out of town eventually. It used to be something people would joke about. Oh. - Now we call it vintage. - I don't recall if we mentioned this last episode, but Doc Lue did actually respond to us 'cause we were talking about Superman at that point too, and he pointed out that crypto was rocketed off the planet at some later date, which is how he managed to get to, 'cause I was complaining how crypto arrived. - Of course. Thank you. - Fish compared this to Batman, like the Batman franchise, no one's Batman franchise, and I find that an interesting comparison because Batman Begins isn't that great a film. Like, it's okay, it's a good, you know, it's a solid seven. It's a pretty okay film, but it's not a dark night as much as there are parts of it that I complain about, like the slow fighting and the goofy Batman voice. - It's still good. - It's still a really good movie. - Yeah. - It is like, of its time, it's definitely one of the most notable pieces. The thing is that if this franchise can move to that level, you know, have the introduction get used to using the character and then finding a way to bring it up to the dark night level with the sequel. - Well, I've already ordered another Superman, so. - Yeah, I know it's coming. I'm just not sure that it's going to be able to follow the same arc, yeah, 'cause I, yeah. - Well, it might, 'cause he's super wicked, hardcore. - On the other hand, dark night risers didn't seem to critically fair as well either. - I get so much trust, I have no idea which one is rich. - That's the third one, the final film. I wonder if it's sort of the Star Wars situation where somehow because you can make it pretty miserable in the middle it's easier to make it a hard hitting film. - Yeah, I guess it's a little bit more intense. You don't have to have the nice resolution. - Full resolution, yeah. - We haven't seen the last Batman yet. - Yeah. - You do. - I just wanted to point out, though, 'cause if they are going to go with the sequel, if they are going to go with the sequel, I think it would actually be a very good idea to bring the Lex Luthor in. Now, we watched the original Superman not long ago. - Oh my God, that was embarrassing. I was embarrassed for Lex Luthor. - For Gene Hackman? - No, not for Gene Hackman. I was embarrassed for Lex Luthor. - Yes, well, I was embarrassed for Gene Hackman as well because that whole portrayal was ridiculous. The whole Hackman part of that plot is ridiculous. - I gotta say, I loved the set of his leg. - Yeah, it was a brilliant set. And I appreciate what they were trying to do in the sort of classic Superman style, but it did not work. What Reeves was selling and what they were selling was too different. - It was like comedy. - Yeah, it was too far the other way. The thing is, though, if you consider outside of that goofball approach, Lex Luthor, I'm about to blow your mind, Lex Luthor is evil Tony Stark. - Yeah. - He has the power suit. That's why he can fight Superman. He's got a massive corporation behind him. - I know. - Wouldn't it be great to go into the second film? I love the Iron Man movies. I love the Marvel franchise as that have come out, but it would be a lot of fun for them to take a poke at the Iron Man franchise by having Lex Luthor get the crap kicked out of him by Superman. - Yeah. I gotta say, I have not huge on Superman or whatever, but I watch Smallville when I was younger. (laughing) And I love-- - Come on, yeah, no. - Come on, yeah, no. - I loved the, I love the portrayal of Lex Luthor in that. - Yeah, but the thing is his powers were scaled down, right? That's what made Smallville compelling, 'cause-- - Exactly. - They could dole out. It was the RPG of Superman shows, 'cause it would be, once again, to level up and gain this. Once again, to gain this little piece of his personality. - But I loved how like-- - Apparel, or his powers. - Kind of a moral, you know? - Oh, Lex, yeah. - Lex, yeah. - Yeah. - All in it for Lex. - Anyway, brilliant work fish. Appreciate the triple header, the three-day fish. - Yeah, no joke, thank you, sir. - We have three whole days of fish. - Mm-hmm. - Next on the docket, we have a ramble and amble with Tibby. - Okay, rambling while ambling, ambling in Oregon. Today will be a new show review. The new show is Sinbad on the sci-fi channel, premiered last weekend. I love the Sinbad stories ever since I was first introduced to them in the thousand and one night stories. I'm gonna make amazing collection of stories. And the first movie that ever scared me so much that I had to leave the theater and stand in the lobby was a Sinbad movie. I don't remember exactly which one, but there was a swamp scene in Hydra, and it just, I couldn't take it. I think I was like 14. It was a summer urban camp at the time, and they took us to movies. And somebody thought it'd be a good idea to take us to see Sinbad. But that did not stop me, eventually. I love Sinbad movies. I don't care how bad it is, I'll watch it. The commercials for Sinbad looked really awesome. I looked it up and it's filmed in Malta. The first episode was actually filmed in Basra. One of the actresses is actually from Malta. It's a very ethnically diverse cast, which I always love. And the story has an interesting twist in that. It's a little flying Dutchman in that, okay, spoilers. He kills the nephew of the Shah of the city in a fight, in retribution for it. The father of the boy kills Sinbad's brother. Who kind of just follows him around and could be more, but he reminds Sinbad so much. And the grandmother of Sinbad is very upset with him and curses him that he has to go to sea now and learn his lesson, or become better than he is. And part of the curse is he can't spend more than 24 hours on land. It's a little flying Dutchman action there. Of course, the father of the man he killed is still after him. So, as soon as the grandmother pronounces the curse, Sinbad's friend, who happens to have got a job in the guard, bundles them off, off to the docks, Sinbad sews away on a ship. So the curse is already pushing him into this life. So while it's keeping him at sea, it's also protecting him because he can't learn his lesson if he's dead. And I think part of the curse is giving him a group of people who will support him that he will be able to protect and thus learn his lessons in the end. The Shah still after him, he's got an evil sorceress who's egging him on. She wants to actually see the Shah killed and chaos rule. I guess you get some power from it maybe. And one of the things I love about this character is she is really obviously modeled on the evil sorceress, in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, who I think she's one of the best evil sorceresses there it was. And it was a great storyline, really cool Harryhausen effects. Anyways, yes, it's gonna be a really good show. First episode really held my attention. Minimum CGI, I mean, there's a storm in the ship and there are these creatures called storm demons and they are made entirely of water much like the creatures in The Abyss, the movie The Abyss. And they look kind of like dinosaurs, water-going dinosaurs. And they kill almost everybody in the ship, except for war. This is large of Northern-ish, blonde guy, more to him than it seems. The actress from Altar, her character's a thief. Obviously Mystical Cook, who's got an embossed dragon tattoo on the back of his head. There's more to him than it seems. A naive first time it seemed doctor, 'cause I think I'm gonna learn some lessons real fast. Kind of reminds me a little bit of Sidemen on Firefly. Not as much, but this, that in a sense. Oh, and this one woman who she and her father were actually robbed by Sinbad and his brother robbed something that was obviously magical, so I think she's gonna turn out to be a magician and sorceress herself. I heard the father gets killed during the storm. Anyway, so now they're all stuck on this ship and they'll have their first, their next adventure next week. And I recommend it highly. Isn't for nothing else than the scenery. But the acting is kind of nice to see a new group of actors I haven't really seen much of before. Okay, and that's it. Signing off. Anything you wanna compare to I as a tiger is okay. My book, I love that movie so much. It's the I of the Tiger, it's the, I don't remember the next line. (laughs) Yeah, totally. No, I-- Hey, wait, speaking of, I don't remember hearing a theme song at the start of Tibby's piece there. Do you remember those guys here? I just got those giant fake nails off my fingers so I can get back to work. Well, I have been playing my Sunday song but I'm-- Oh, you're wedding nails? Yes. Wooden nails. You're wedding nails. Okay, I do like, sorry, go. I've always been a big fan of the Sinbad movies. Like, I've got to say my favorite one is the golden wedge of Sinbad that has to make her as the me and adversary in that one, that one's pretty fabulous. But my second favorite was I have the tiger and I loved a lot of those sort of campy, like anything could happen in a Sinbad movie and it was like the perfect sitcom setup, you know? Very much like a Star Trek where like, everything could be back to normal within an hour. Yeah. It was the same thing for Sinbad 'cause he could just go like anywhere. Get on the boat. Good dining thing. Yeah. Yeah, well, I was actually thinking the same thing. Yeah. We haven't seen, I think probably the HBO effect where continuity is becoming a much larger part of quote unquote adult series. We don't have so many of the shows like we did, especially in the '80s, but even up to sliders and that sort of thing, where you would enter into some weird situation by the end of the episode, it's done. Yeah, we want a better story. The only-- But you'll get things like castle or-- Long order. Yeah, no, you make a good point. The crime show still work on one mystery, one show. Mm-hmm. Although they-- But that's only in the front. I saw some show, they would leap forward in time. Quantum leap. Quantum leap, yep. You know, they were just doing a talk on Nutty Bytes, what should be rebooted, and the first thing that came to mind for me was quantum. Oh, absolutely. I concur. Yes, that was a great show. Thanks, Timmy. That was so great. I had actually, I have to admit, I was a little wary of the show, but now I will check it out and report back. I'm interested to know which Sinbada was that you ran out of when you're 14th in the theater. Yeah, we should watch some sort of mob movie marathon, where we line up all of the Sinbad movies of that period and just watch Tibby until she starts feeling really anxious. Be like, I think this one's it. Anyhow, fate has to work, Tibby. Thanks. Next up, I think we have something a little out of the ordinary. Yes, indeed. They've fresh flavor to the brew. So fresh. Actually, I don't want to say anything about this. I just want people to take it in. Just unleash it. Exactly. (orchestral music) (orchestral music) Hello and welcome to Masterpiece Theatre, or I mean, audio drama, or something like that anyway. I'm your host, Sir Hector Stewart. Since the bank has taken our studio cameras, sets, wardrobe, and pretty much everything else, we've had a resort to continuing to entertain you with the tools at our disposal. As my theatre teacher always said, the show must go on. Now with that out of the way, let me have the pleasure of introducing you to our audiobook listeners. We've got Tom later, say hi, Tom. We're Harry. We've also got with us the gruff brothers, Bob and Billy. Gentlemen. Eric, how long is this going to take? What's wrong with you? Which is bloody started? Give us a minute to get this cat rolling. Hiya, people of the Interwebs. Interwebs, what the? Hold that thought, Bob. We've only got so much time. We're also joined by Jeffrey Ventura, J. Langgens, and Menchik Majinovic. Hello, good evening. Is this being recorded? I want a copy for my records. What? Well, that's everybody looking at me. You've got to be careful. There's-- again, we've only got so much time, gentlemen. Now, the audiobook that we've all listened to is titled "Shantaraam" by David Gregory Roberts. The narration was performed by Humphrey Bowers. It is 43 hours and five minutes in length. And we download the book from Audible.com. Excuse me, Bob. But please, wait till I've finished. This is a podcast, and the listeners won't be able to hear us if we speak over one another. Would you like to give the group a brief summary of the book, rather than it's a shameless hunk of crap? Now you just hang on there, dang, good minute. That was a beautiful story. There was love and action, and the characters. They were my crop. I've got the Google Reads book jacket right here, sir, Hector. If I may. No, please do, J, and Bob. Keep your two bits yourself till he's done. And I quote, "It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make. But the heart of it came to me in an instant while I was chained to a wall and being tortured." So begins this epic, mesmerizing first novel set in the underworld of contemporary Bombay. Chantiram is narrated by Lin, an escaped convict with a false passport who flees maximum security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of a city where he can disappear. Accompanied by his guide and faithful friend, Parak Bar, the two enter Bombay's hidden society of beggars and gangsters, prostitutes and holy men, soldiers and actors, and Indians and exiles from other countries, who seek in this remarkable place what they cannot find elsewhere. As a hunted man without a home, family, or identity, Lin searches for love and meaning while running a clinic in one of the city's poorest slums and serving his apprenticeship in the dark arts of the Bombay mafia. The search leads him to war, prison torture, murder, and a series of enigmatic and bloody betrayals. The keys to unlock the mysteries and intrigues that bind Lin are held by two people. The first is Khadar Khan, mafia godfather, criminal philosopher saint, and mentor to Lin in the underworld of the Golden City. The second is Karla, elusive, dangerous, and beautiful whose passions are driven by secrets that torment her and yet give her terrible power. Burning slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison agonies, criminal wars and Bollywood films, spiritual gurus and Muja Haden guerrillas, this huge novel has the world of human experience in its reach and a passionate love for India at its heart. Based on the life of the author, it is by any measure the debut of an extraordinary voice in literature. - Thank you, Jay. Bob, do you have anything better to say than it's crap? - Nothing has crap. - I love the story. How can you say that? Lin is a great character. I couldn't stop listening. He was so interesting and Karla, it's beautiful. Yes, but gangster is bullshit. No, my boss acts like that. They're all assholes. I should know. And they doubt the whole Afghanistan thing too. I've been in those mountains. I have done things. Well, I never thought about that part. I was so into the story. Humphrey has a great voice and rage, it's so well. All of his characters have such diverse voices. He really did an excellent job. I give you that. I was much impressed by him. I agree, his wide range really added to the story. I'd recommend it based solely on that. - Jeffrey, do you have anything to add? - It's conspiracy. Hollywood Hulk Hogan and the New World Order have dished in the bag. They're trying to lull us into like an India. Can't you see that? - No, we can't Jeffrey, but thank you. - So let's put this to a group vote. Story out of 10? - I give it an eight out of 10. A good story with only a few places that gave me pause. Agreed. My brother doesn't know what he's talking about. - Arabella has cropped too light of these people. - Well, I give the story a 10 out of 10. It was wonderful. - I vote seven. He loses points for my boss. - I give it a five. It's a work of misinformation. - Did we even listen to the same book? - Gentlemen, please. I also vote an eight. Considering the other votes will settle on a solid seven out of 10 for story. Vote on narration? - They give him in nine. - I give him a nine as well. - Namatin. - I give him an eight for narration. - That's crap. When the reader does not write job, I give him a six for simply being able to read the old am thing. I take to fish. - So, with a five added in with my nine, and we've got an eight and a half out of 10 on narration. - Did you do that all in your head? - Hmm, yes, yes I did. Now then, as a group, we recommend listening to Humphrey Bauer Read Chantaram by Gregory David Roberts. A little long but an engaging story, well performed. I'd like to thank our guests, and until next time, this has been Masterpiece Audio Theatre. Good listening and good night. (orchestral music) (orchestral music) - Fabulous segment. - Yeah. - Good. - Excellent entries there. - Thank you. - He was kind of a bigot for his like... - For serves. - He was like, "I got this idea, I got this idea." I'm like, "Yeah, okay, do it." And then it was just... - He did it. - It was far beyond my imagination. - It was very solid, it actually reminded me quite a bit of John Bell's, Bell's in the battery. No? - Sorry. - An excellent podcast of yesterday. Well, he's gone now, I believe he's shut down shop. Me does mostly voice acting now, but he had a whole cast of characters that he would maintain the voice. - I love his Russian, yeah. - Mm-hmm. - So great. - What was that? (speaking in foreign language) - The whole voice is bullshit. - I loved that. - He's an old romance, really born out of being chained to the wall being tortured. - Yeah, and fleeing from Australia to go to an underground society in Bombay or some junk. I really was listening. (laughing) Super, super good, super good. - I need to have a-- - You're French Canadian, you need to realize it's funny. - Yeah. (laughing) - I need to talk to Jay about what exactly he wants to attribute it to him, but I believe you can find most of what he's got on hand at NewFictionRiders.com. - That is true. And he's got a Facebook page for New Fiction Writers. - Which I will link in the notes. - He's always there. He's always known tap. I gotta talk like Paula Dean. Now that he uses-- - Oh, you gotta fill the Paula Dean void. - Oh, well, right now in this time, I don't know, when you're listening to this, but Paula Dean and we're just hitting the fan and it is all over Paula Dean. And you know what's funny? - I think we're all kind of better off over the world. - Yeah, speaking of racism, Jared said, "Oh, where that white guy is." And he meant like the white car in front of it. And Mr. 10 was like, "Dad, that sounds racist." (laughing) I'm like, "Yeah, Dad, that sounds really racist." And then I realized I probably shouldn't encourage that because he doesn't potentially know that I'm actually joking and I don't want to think those fathers are racist 'cause he's really not. - I guess problematic. - But he did watch Magetta right after eating tacos. - Yeah. - I just wanna say, yeah. - It was a coincidence. (laughing) - Share it with. - It was themed in a celebratory-- - Speaking of tacos, we must now move on to, guess what time it is? - A mailbag, taco bag. - All right, up front, I will mention that you can send your comments questions or suggestions to comments@flashbob.com. Now, we had mentioned previously that I believe actually in the mini-soad, the Baltic questions mini-soad. - Yes. - We had mentioned that JMA had tipped a guy at Taco Bell. - Yes. But he was a very nice guy at Taco Bell. He cleared our table twice while we were-- - He was working hard. - Yeah. - Yeah, they don't do that here. They don't come to your table and take your trash while you're sitting there and ask if they can get you anything. - Okay, no, not to single-load David Hayes, but his comment kind of encapsulated a response we got from a few people. - Yeah. - You do not tip at a fast food place. - Listen. - Servers at restaurants will make like two bucks an hour. That's why you, at real restaurants, make like two bucks an hour. That's why you tip. Fast food places make minimum wage. - What is minimum wage? It's bullshit, sir. And I tell you, if you go above and beyond what that normal teenager who doesn't give a shit, then, you know, I understand-- - Or you know what? - This whole like nutty set of two issues, like you don't tip at fast food restaurants. I'm trying to do my nutty, it worked. But you may not, people generally may not, but we can change the tide, bitches. - Yeah, and I mean, you say it might be nice for that teenager who's working there, but I wanna point out that the guy you tipped at Taco Bell, he was not a teenager. But that doesn't mean that, you know, he's making money hand over fist 'cause he's not some youngster, you know, at a Taco Bell. - Yeah, you know, if you're working at a Taco Bell, for all I know, he has kids to support. He went above and beyond the call of duty, and if I feel like somebody's done more and is deserving, yeah, like what we worked at a particular coffee shop and then when you would get more tips in the day, you felt good, so you wanted to work harder. - Exactly, and then it was pointed at some places. You can't take a tip. And okay, I can appreciate that too, but if I'm going to give somebody a tip and they're gonna say, regardless, oh, I can't take it, they're still going to know that I wanted to give them a tip and I thought that they deserved a little extra because they had done a little extra and that still makes me feel good about themselves. - All right, you guys, nice. David Hayes also mentions coffee in the USA. He says it's different to New England. There's at least one Dunkin' Donuts for every 500 people. In my town, there are two within a two minute walk of each other. - Isn't that like water coffee? I heard that's like-- - Yeah, well, that's what I feel about Tim Hortons too. Like, I think this is-- - Well, yeah, we have to ask for espresso shots to actually make her coffee taste like coffee. - It tastes like something. - That's 'cause we grind like super caffeinated caffeine every day. - No, no, it's just normal coffee. People expect somehow people have been trained to like, water coffee. - If you go to, that's what Starbucks was selling originally, right? It was that it actually tastes like coffee. - Like, I'm putting it in my vein. Like, I can feel it immediately where I'm like, whoa, whoa, like that. Straight to the vein. - Inject coffee directly into your eye. - Okay, NML, I heard they're really, really good. - I heard that they're addictive. - Oh, wait, I made a note, sorry. - Well, I don't have an addictive personality, so I'm fine. - Thank you, Mr. Hayes. - I have a note here that I've just read well, wandering out of your conversation, that Doc Lew had actually said, "I believe crypto arrived in a prototype rocket "that was sent as a test before Kylell's flight." So crypto was the experiment, and that gives it a weird spin. - It makes more sense to me. - Was crypto the first? Is crypto like dog three? - Weird. (vocalizing) - And then those other two dogs, because once they get away from whatever is weakening them on Krypton, I'm a little fuzzy on my-- - They're gonna have their own plan-- - What if they were super powerful, but trapped in the middle of space? - Yeah. - Anyway. - They land on various planets. - They've gone mad being alone this whole time. - Yeah, maybe dog two was the one that taught him, like, oh no, I have to make sure the baby's hibernating 'cause this is the dog just ate its way into the vacuum. - Yeah. - Through the little shield. Like, it tore out its teeth and whatever, biting through the-- - What? - Anyway, yeah. Hey, yeah. So there's that. - Anyway, on a little more pleasant topic, we were discussing what people do on Sundays. That was the research question. And not launching dogs into space. Gina said her Sunday's instead of a German bakery for the world's best coffee and a fruit tartlet. - I have heard of this bakery and-- - The library? - It's good. - Grocery shopping, putting up groceries, reading outside, making food for the rest of the week. Sometimes church, a couple drinks, shower sleep. And oh, I forgot the gym and watching Food Network while on the elliptical. - Hmm. - Watching Food Network. That is-- - While on the elliptical. - Yeah, I think that's a more and more common thing, but it's just, we've gotten to an age where we watch Food Network instead of actually eating. - Yeah. If I watch it too late, I'm like, I just get angry that I can't have any access to this food. (laughs) You get to the end of Iron Chef and you're like, "Oh my god, I need some turkey in 75 different ways." (laughs) - Turkey ice cream right now. (laughs) - Oh yes. Do we have any other Sunday activities? - I did receive some other ones, but honestly I forget to put them in the notes. - Pretty laid back for our Sundays here. We've got our typical flash casting, but-- - Yeah, although we've been a bit off schedule lately. - We try to do brunch every once in a while. - We-- - Yeah, eggs benedict quite often. - One of the days in the weekend, somebody gets up early and then the other, they get to sleep in, right? So generally, if I'm sleeping in on Sunday, I get a kind of stupid light, and then I will not leave the bed because every morning I generally have to hop right out of bed. So I refuse to get, I get my phone and I text people from outside of the bedroom to bring me coffee. And then they will eventually get that while I press buttons on my iPad and then it comes to me and then we chat and I do nothing for about a half an hour while I press more buttons on my iPad and then I get out of bed. But that is like my most favorite weekend activity and sometimes falls on a Sunday. - Well actually, I'm gonna leave this Sunday question open one more week. I'd like some more diverse, you know, if you've ever been over somewhere and they have a weird Sunday ritual, I would be happy to hear that as well. 'Cause sometimes you end up in somebody else's house or your... - Like barebaiting? - Yeah, about one time. Anyway. - Are you a dassy? Oh, ho! - I've been working on my Sunday song, but since I had those crazy wedding nails, I don't really need to think that it's ready. My guitar is not really ready. So I'm gonna take another week on this song and I hope that you like it a lot when it comes out of the tubes. And I hope to be a more regular when I eat more brand. No, when I eat wear less fake nails. (laughs) Sorry, I can love it. Yeah. - The art of never raised up. (laughs) - I am pretty regular, but no. - Thank you. I'm glad to know that you're regular. - Yes. So, the comic, I think this is week two where I haven't put one out. - Dun, dun, dun. - I know, it's really breaking my heart that I don't have my laptop. And particularly Photoshop, 'cause-- - Yeah, I see you panically pawing at the window, just breathing in on it and drawing funny little comics that vaporize into the nothing. - And then I cry on the floor. - Can't find permanence. - Yes. - You have your tablet out near drawing, but like you don't have a laptop in front of you. - I'm just imagining what it would look like. - You're just watching TV. - It's beautiful. (laughs) - There's just static under your laptop for some reason. - Yes. (laughs) - No, you've like written and crayon on top of your like, the old laptop screen or something. - Oh, the TV. - It's so horrible. - No, isn't it all as the way to when you don't have something and you think, oh, I want to do this with, oh damn it. - Yeah. - Yeah, so, of course. But again, hopefully I will have it back this week and we will all rejoice. - Hurrah. - That's all. - Okay, before I get to my background plot business, I wanted to give a big thank you to Doc Blue. - Thanks. - Who didn't have a entry this week because he's on vacation. - Mm-hmm, well deserved. - Yeah, absolutely. But put up a fantastic guest episode a couple weeks ago called M Day, which I greatly enjoyed. - And if you haven't listened, go and listen to it. - Yeah, absolute high-vives for that one. - Backroom plots. - So we also released Fastest Gun in the West. - That one was lots of fun. - Peter and the Mob, Peter described it, our fellow Jello, described it as warm. And I think that's a very good description. It was sort of of that archetype. I just wanted to write like a Western of its ilk. - Dusty and warm. - Yeah. - What I really liked about that is that most of the story was about one guy and then you realize that it's not about him at all. It's about the person who shows up at the very end. (laughing) - Yeah, I wonder if we'll see that guy again. - Yeah, well, that's another thing. It would be really interesting to see this guy again. And I noted that he sounds like the kind of tough Virginian that a fellow we know up north may be familiar with. - Oh yeah, yeah, of that era, huh? Yeah, well, I don't know. I will note that although this is the sort of thing that might normally be allocated to the special episode bin. - I wonder if he smokes. - It was definitely a straight FP328, filling in the timeline a little bit. - Yeah. At some point I will build some sort of flash scale device or I don't know, HTML5, whatever the best option would be to just show all the episodes in chronological on a timeline. - And since we're sort of speaking of that era, I'm really excited about your upcoming storyline. I don't know, it's not your series, but your upcoming black hole tale. - The three-parter that's coming up on the horizon. Yeah, that'll actually be following this in the feed theoretically. - Yes. - Yeah, that should be fun. We'll be seeing some major pieces in place, anyhow. - Yeah, well, it's kind of the settling in and everything now, you know. Perth is kind of done with. - This is the culmination of-- - I'd be settled there for him to move on. - Yeah, so. - Yeah, there's a lot going on in that thread, although it doesn't seem like it sometimes, manyhow. We also did a Mulligan three-parter, which we just completed. - Mm-hmm, indeed. - Can't live with him. - Can't live with Adam. - Yeah, I don't want to give away too much, but I felt like it was a fairly solid three-parter. I felt like it was a little closer to something like the crumble than some of the other Mulligan three-parters we've done. - Okay. - In that it was structured as such that you might be able to take, I think, a viable guess at what had gone on, or at least have suspicions about perhaps what had happened with the wives in question. - Yes, yeah, I remember during the second when we questioned you being like, "Really? "Like, is this plausible? "Would she really be doing this?" And you've been like, "I don't know, would she?" - But do you feel like at all sold in the end, it all made sense, yeah, okay. - Like in the case of the teenage son going to school, I was like, "Why with it, that's kind of, oh, is it?" - (laughs) - Really? - Anyhow, I was pleased with how that came out. - Mm-hmm. - And yes, black all three-parter on the horizon, so watch out for that. We'll see some- - Very good to know. - An old friend return, an old four-legged friend. - Ooh. - And you'll be doing some fun voices, yeah. - You can follow us at SkinnerCo on Twitter, or J.R.D. Skinner, or the Jessica May, or openX with a zero. Thanks to Jim for hosting wiki.flashbulb.com and flashbulb.com. Enjoy the show, tell a friend. Really enjoy the show? We've got a donate button on the site. If you have comments, questions, or suggestions, you can find us at flashbulb.com, or email us, text, or mp3s to comments at flashbulb.com. The entire run of flashbulb can be found at flashbulb.com, or via the search bar and iTunes. Flashcast is released under the Creative Commons attribution non-commercial 3.0 unported license. (upbeat music) ♪ I'm there to leave my arms up from the land ♪ ♪ Here is the saddle I live with our number left ♪ ♪ With a light cloud we'll never wake a door ♪ ♪ Not well, the flagpole of sorrow has taken you ♪ ♪ Angels have no part of ever returning you ♪ ♪ To a day behind me if I'm not joining you ♪ ♪ Oh, dear, come there ♪ ♪ Come there to me ♪ ♪ I'm willing to give ♪ ♪ This is the last time ♪ ♪ And then I am ending you ♪ ♪ To melt the candles and smells of us at a door ♪ ♪ Why should they cry ♪ ♪ When they know that I'm glad to go ♪ ♪ It's a dead dream ♪ ♪ Then I will be mine for asking you ♪ ♪ On the long journey I know I'll be blessed to you ♪ ♪ Oh, dear, come there ♪ ♪ Oh, dear, come there ♪ ♪ Oh, dear, come there ♪ ♪ Oh, dear, come there ♪ ♪ Oh, dear, come there ♪ ♪ Oh, dear, come here ♪ ♪ Oh, dear, come here ♪ ♪ Oh, dear, come here ♪ [ Silence ]