Prepare yourself for: He-Man, Radio Project X, death robots, blind penguins, Father’s Day, and Coffin.
The Skinner Co. Network
FC63 - We'll Do It Live!
[music] Hello, and welcome to Flashcast 63, a SkinnerCo presentation. SkinnerCo. The magic was inside you all along, because we surgically implanted it while you slept. You're welcome. This episode is also brought to you by generous donations from Juju Click and Colorado Gym. Prepare yourself for He-Man, Radio Project X, Death Robots, Blind Penguins, Father's Day, and Coffin. [music] Hi, I'm Opoponax, and if you throw me the whip, Jessica May, hello, I will throw you the idle day already. Hello. Did you guys hear about the recent cult news out of Japan? No, there's a cult. Yeah, I don't know much about Japanese cults. Japanese cults. Well, actually, this is in some ways older news that you probably are aware of. In '95, there was a Seren attack on Japanese subways, you remember that situation? Yes, subway attacks, yes. You might have heard the name Om Supreme Truth, or Om, I can't pronounce it in English? Om, Om. Om, Shinrikyoko or something? Yeah. Anyway, the last of the cult to be accused of being involved in the gas attacks was finally arrested, 17 years later. And the reason-- well, I do like to bring up a little true crime every now and then, but the real reason I bring it up is because of how pulp-related it is. A couple weeks ago, I guess, they caught his girlfriend, who was essentially another fugitive from the cult. OK. And he quit his job. Like he said, he had to go visit family, and he went underground. And he really tried to stay low, but he found, for some reason. Well, I guess being on the lamb is kind of boring, because really, you're just sitting around probably somewhere all the time. So he started to frequent the same manga shop, where he was eventually busted, because he was the only public location, essentially, that he was going. But he just couldn't, I don't know, he just really needed the new death note or whatever. I guess, well. You'd figure the person who's getting his grocery is, and everything else would be going to the manga shop for him as well. Yeah, well, it's a very personal thing. Yeah, it's a picky guy. They don't mention what he was-- He can't browse through other people. Yeah, that's right. I'd love to know what he was reading, that'd be interesting. Apparently, 200 cult members have been convicted in the 1995 attacks. Well, that's a lot more-- And what was their desire, like, what were they trying to achieve with-- Well, basically, the same thing. Cults are always trying to achieve, trying to spark some sort of war. Yeah. Yeah, trick or something. Trick or something. When you said ohm, I totally thought of that. What is it? Nausica? Do you remember? There was that big, like, bug thing. Oh, yeah. A giant bug thing called the ohm. The ohm. Yeah, yeah. Oh, apparently, it's your turn in hero academy. Yeah, thanks, Doc Blue. Yeah, this one needs to turn the device out. After I crush him. Anyway, I just thought that was interesting. The pulp connection can't give up your pulp entertainment. If he had just been downloading Flash12, he wouldn't have been busted. Exactly, he doesn't have to leave his house for new content. Well, here is ten of the letters. We'll have to tell him what he should have done. And then I'm sure he'll want to check out our content because we're notals. If he was smart enough to be listening to Flash12, he probably wouldn't have gone the terrorist attack route. Yeah, or he wouldn't. I'm going to call this route, yeah. He would have seen the error. [MUSIC PLAYING] So I was going to say what's up. But as you guys know, I've been somewhat flooded by the ridiculous, he-man parody of "What's Up/Hey, What's Going On" by three non-blimes, definitely with the song. I'm sure Jessica is under laying it right now. Let's take a moment to listen to "Skeletor's" thing as though. And I realized quickly when I knew I'd won. And the world was meaning of all this rather old-hand man, or whatever that means. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] It tries. It tries. It tries. All the time in this institution. And he frays. Oh, my God, don't I pray. I pray to say goodbye. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] I guess I forgot a blonde. There's actually four non-bluns. Yes, yes. Well, I was counting Prince Adam and he-man as one, because they're really the same fellow. That's right, yeah. I don't really. Nice. I guess what I heard. And I think we may have mentioned this possibility before, but she recently spoke out about it. There's always debate about the next two, right? Because everyone knows that, however popular the current who is, there's always going to be the name. Another who. Or at least you hope so. Yeah, well, fair enough. I recently heard floated by her, actually. When you say her. Laura Pulver. Laura Pulver. Is that right? No. Laura Pulver? Oh. Miss Irene Adler from the recent Sherlock series. The Woman. Huh. Would that not be an interesting choice? I find that she's apparently floated the idea herself and is hoping that maybe somebody will pick up on it. That she'd be the new doctor? Yeah, she would be the first female. The first lady doctor. I think it could be excellent. There's some pitfalls that you have to avoid and be very careful about, and Steve Moffatt doesn't always do the greatest job of writing female characters, frankly. But I think he could really nail it. It could be like Miss Merphel in space. Yeah, a little bit. A little bit. I don't know how she got old all of a sudden, but okay. Well, listen. Yeah. Anyway, definitely we'd have to see what would happen. But I kind of love the idea. I think it would be fantastic. I think she's shown that she can be the right kind of saucy. You know what I mean? I don't mean that saucy and sexy. I mean saucy, like witty and banter-ish. In other interesting news, did you guys hear the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles situation? Yes. That it has stalled due to script issues and that maybe any year something may happen. Have you seen what Bay is hoping to do with the film? It's so ridiculous. No, but I would hope that they would give up the aliens, but tell me what he's going to do. Well, yes, the aliens and just how far he's gone down that road. I don't even want to get into it. I, you know, that guy could just decide to go to Mars. Michael Bay. And I would be fine with that. Yeah. Anyway, this is one time when I'm actually happy to hear a movie has stalled out. Yeah, it's clearly not ready. I guess. If there was somebody better doing it, that would be nice. Yeah, but I'd rather no movie made than a terrible movie. Yeah. Yeah, I guess. Probably possibly up to play a Robocop villain. Yeah, I believe he is. I think that's pretty solid. It should be interesting. Yeah. Well, I'll see that I'll believe the new Robocop movie when I see it. But yeah, fascinating choice. You can do anything. He can fly. Quipping in the mob that fly higher than an eagle. I'd like to see Bertie Wooster. Let him take that approach to the character. Oh my God. Yeah, he clearly won't, but that would be so funny. Yeah, that would be pretty awesome. Oh my God, do a pre! That was a Strasburg. His continuous effort to get an item into every show that's so fantastic. What, he man? I can't open it up to the notes. No, the lahue lorry. Oh, sorry. I keep going back to the he man. Yeah. Well, don't we all? So this week, we have a little bit of personal news as well. The stuff that we recently did or the stuff that may be coming up? No, we can't discuss the stuff that's coming up. But, well, actually, we do have something we can discuss that's coming up. Radio Project X last Tuesday. Yeah, we were. That was lots of fun. Our first Flash pulp live episode. Mm-hmm. It was a script that we had done before a long, long time ago. Blue Moon, right? Once in Blue Moon? Once in Blue Moon. Coffee. Yeah, and we had other actors for different parts in the narration, but Bunny was Bunny. Big thanks to Tim Walker and Kevin Ritchie if you're out there. Yeah, that was lots of fun. That was great. And Peter Church, who invited us to come hang out. Our fellow Joe. And I sang live, and it went really well. Mm-hmm. Good job putting together. Maybe you want to discuss that a bit in the back end, but good job putting together. The live episode? 'Cause you had to rip a little bit from the camera, a little bit from the soundboard. Oh, it was, yeah. It was a deal. It was very scary at first. Yeah. Anyways, we'll get into it. Yeah. So what do you think would it be something you guys would want to do again? Absolutely. Absolutely. It's so good for us. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So much practice. And they were so much fun. I just wanted to hang out. Yeah. It was so good. Fan Expo continues to roll towards us. Yes. Have you guys seen the new guest list? Yeah, the doc's going to be there. Christopher Lloyd. Yeah, Doc Brown. Mm-hmm. And Lou for Rigno. And who else? There was other... Oh, John Rice Davies is going to be there. Yeah. The Boob Doc's name, so they're like, "Oh God, I mean, I'm not terribly..." John Rice Davies will be like, "I love you in sliders!" Yeah. Oh, speaking of, did you hear that considering making a monsters reboot with Jerry O'Connell as the dad? I thought it was going ahead. They've already casted some people. Yeah. Oh, that's terrible. Take it back. Haha. Well... Jerry O'Connell. As I noted on Jim's blog over at The Oddments, is there just a really large fanbase for my secret identity? Sitting around in Hollywood back rooms because Jerry O'Connell somehow manages to continue to make things. Like, kangaroojack all the way through whatever the hell he was making last year. Yeah, he seems like he's having a very successful time in his life right now, actually. Wow, really? Jerry O'Connell? Yeah, well, something you gotta... Yeah, sometimes things just don't make it here to Canada if it's really bad. Like, we get the good stuff, but not the bad stuff, so... Maybe he's, like, really cool in America and he just doesn't so much find his way here. Yeah, maybe his appeal is just to a market that I am not part of. But Christopher Lloyd, guys, for Fan Expo, I want... There's not many people who I'd be like, "I want my picture with them, but oh my god, do I want my picture taken with them?" And I think anybody who's super special, we should get our picture taken with them, and then we should, like, frame it and then, like, put it in the studio. Haha. You know, like, the one that we're sitting on, like, right now. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. I'm not sure what kind of pictorial opportunities there will be for a lot of these fellows, but... Well, sometimes you can, like, they have a... They just hang out there, and then there's, like, a big, long line of people, and you pay them money, and they smile for you for five seconds. Yeah, oh, I dig it. I dig it. Like the side of his face and run. Touch and run. Touch and run. But no, you don't think Christopher Lloyd will take a picture with me? We'll see. I don't know what kind of condition Christopher Lloyd is in these days, frankly. He's just, like, a head and a box. That would be cool. Yeah. The drawback of being that fellow all the way back to Taxi, of being sort of the wiry, semi, heroin junkie kind of look, is that you... Like, it's very difficult to tell how old and how bad off he is at anyone's point in his career. He looks kind of creaky back in the 70s, and it's been a while. Haha. Anyway. Yeah, right. The corpse of Christopher Lloyd. Gotta go back. Haha. Well, with that bit of bother, we've got quite a bit in the back end that I'm really excited about, so we should probably just move along to the next item. So, here's Jeff. But bother. It followed the lives, or in this case, after lives, of a group of souls who died and became grim reapers. Not the dark hooded monsters with sives that we're all familiar with, but kind, gentle souls who lovingly escorted the recently departed into the light of the heavenly realm. However beautiful the thought may be of a spirit guide assisting our loved ones with their ethereal transition, there's still the matter of the body. The dying body. The one connected to the machines beeping and gurgling and dripping things into tubes. The body that may or may not, after the accident or at the end of the illness, be aware that we're even there. I've been in this position before, and I'm sure that many of you have as well. But what if the body on the bed had no one? No kind soul to moisten the cracked, parched lips and wipe the brow. No one to gently stroke the dying arm and soothe the struggling spirit. Well, that issue may now be resolved. Who's willing to take on this heartbreaking and difficult task? Why robots of course? Here's the latest from the mail online. Imagine for a moment you are lying in a sterile hospital bed in the last few quiet moments of your life, taking your final breaths. A smooth white robot starts gently rubbing your arm with a swing saw motion and then, with a metallic voice says. Are you the last moment robot? I am here to help you and guide you through your last moment on Earth. I am sorry that your style of inference can be with you right now, but don't be afraid. I'm here to comfort you. You are not alone, you are with me. Your family are afraid to love you so very much. They will remember you after you are gone, after you are gone, after you are gone. Is this a better way to go than dying alone or is it creepy? Is this kind of affection wanted when it is received by placebo or worse simply the pre-recorded responses from an unthinking programmed machine? After you are gone. So far this is not a real hospital bed or a real patient. Instead the questions posed are from artist and designer Dan Chen, who designed this setup to question our responses to machine intimacy. Chen, an artist, designer and engineer who just graduated from the School of Design in Rhode Island, said the design reveals the cruelty of life, lack of human support and social connections. On the other hand, the robot becomes something that you can trust and depend on. It could give you the placebo effect of comfort. Chen who graduated in digital media wrote his master's thesis entitled "File, Save As, Intimacy" to explore what he terms "Robotic Intimacy Technology". He has built various other loving machines such as a hugging robot and a purring machine. The last moment robot is a padded, caressing arm with a recorded voice ready to offer support and to comfort in the last moments of someone's life. It was displayed in an interactive art installation called "Last Moment Hospital" at Brown University Science Center also in Rhode Island. CNET described the process as "once the patient lies down and the device is activated, LEDs display the words "detecting end of life". At this point the doctor exits the room leaving the patient alone. Within moments the LEDs read "end of life detected" and the robotic arm begins its back and forth caressing action in what is supposed to be a comforting gesture that Chen says tends to cause visitors a paradoxical sensation of comfort and discomfort. Chen added "the device is meant to raise questions". The process of dying is probably the most vulnerable moment of a human life where one seeks the assurance of human connection. In this installation human presence is replaced with a robot questioning the quality of intimacy without humanity. This is just an art project for the moment, but as the decades pass and technology improves, who knows in which direction the path to robots will lead us. Quite honestly folks, I think robots are great in all, but in the end, I hope that mine is a little more advanced than this. Don't bother stroking my arm and whispering sweet nothings to me how. Just reach under the bed and pull the plug, okay? I'm Jeffrey Lynch and that's this week's spot of bother after you are going. Jeez. Yikes. Just pull the plug, eh? Actually, although his audio rendition of the robot sounded sort of like a cyberman, my first thought was of a Dalek, but with a pillow fixed on the end of his little plunger coming at you. Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. There, there, there, there. Yeah, um, watch me comfort you. Did like me. It's interesting. It was such a good show. Uh-huh. I remember when they decided to cancel it. I remember there was Coid and Aproar, but for the longest time they just hadn't decided, and Manny Patimkin, he had to go elsewhere for work, and then he went criminal minds. What the hell is that all about? Anyways, he gets bored quickly apparently, but it was a really good show. Mind you, I didn't find them. Jeff was saying that they were like, almost a lovable, sweet, happy, but they were majorly flawed, all of them. Yeah, yeah, fair enough. Still, there was lovable aspects about them. Well, I think what he means, though, is it wasn't like a creeping death. Yes, yes, they had personalities. They were just doing a job. Yeah. And I think there was a time maybe in our history when we were portraying death as a little more impartial, and we've moved towards this thing that we hate. Yes. Yeah, which is terrible. Well, I don't understand that. I think it has a lot to do with, and this is just me postulating wildly, but, uh, maybe something to do with moving away from farming and hunting for everything, and understanding death as a process. Like, the only time we encounter death for a lot of people now is... Yeah, it's something we fight against. Yeah, it's... Because it's in ourselves or people we care about. Yeah, it's only loved ones, basically. Yeah, like, people were on a farm. You're learning from a very young age, like, runts die, and even though they're cute little piglets. Mm-hmm. Shit happens. Yeah, and then you eat them, well, I mean, the pigs, you know, like... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's so good! Or you get the robot to rub them for a while. They're there. They're there. Don't they do that with cows? Oh, you're thinking of that temple grand and hug-shoot thing that they use? Well... They're there. They're there. They hold them tight because it's more comforting when they're killing them. Is that what it is? Yeah, they... She worked on this system for routing cows into the slaughterhouse that makes them feel much calmer as they go in. Yeah, but it's also good for... People with autism because people with autism... Taking away the choice to be freaking out, essentially being held so tight that they have no option but to stay still. It's almost as if the mind is being relieved of that option and it calms them. Mm-hmm. Although, personally, well, anybody with claustrophobia, really. Yeah. Although, I don't really suffer from claustrophobia but I do suffer from a fear, I guess, of having my options taken away. Mm-hmm. High on my list of "never want to have happen" is losing a limb. Just feeling like I had something that was taken away from me. I very easily feel claustrophobic. If I'm under something heavy, even if I know, like... If I'm an underground parking and I think about it too long, I felt like an earthquake and being crushed. Mm-hmm. When we lived in the apartment, that also freaked me out. We live in a bungalow now. Yes, we do. I love me a bungalow. That's one reason why. Mostly because they're indestructible somehow. Yeah. Yeah, I am. Sure. Well, thanks, Jeff. Yes. Thank you so much. Jeff has been releasing quite a few amazing bothers and items recently. Mm-hmm. Now, you can find them over at bothersandthings.com. I hate nightmares. Yeah. At least he keeps most of the children related items to bothersandthings.com in these days. I think he knows that you guys are right. Thank you. Especially when you're bothered. Yeah. You know what? I remember the moment I woke up what I was doing in my dream. I was like running somebody over continuously. Yeah. She's like, "You woke me up from it, thank you." I'm like, "I just kept driving and then packing up and then driving." Yeah, see, I have nightmares, Jeff. And I blame you. I don't know that you can blame Jeff for your homicidal rage. I got this really sore ankle, and I'd really like to blame it on Jeff Lynch. Blame Jeff. Yep. Why, Jeff? Why do you do that bothersome? Yeah. How dare you. Jeff. The reason for all things bothersome. Speaking of, I happen to know that this week's review from Fish is Prometheus. And I'm a little concerned because many of the voices that I trust in film, like film reviews, have had a lot of reservations about the movie. You know what? The preview for the movie was really good. Yeah, the marketing campaign was brilliant, but the devil inside, do you remember how bad that movie was? No. The marketing campaign leading up to it was brilliant, and the movie itself was ridiculous. But I think we live in an age where it's possible to hire a more creative ad campaign agency than it is to... Get a writer. Hear a film director. Yeah. An editor. Yeah. I hear that. So, with that cloud hanging over us, let's see what Fish has to say. Fresh fish. A new batch of cinematic pulp with the always listening. Three day fish. Hey, Flashcast. Three day fish here. And due to the strange time warp being caused by alternate dimensions, kinner co. Fish is now bringing you a review of Prometheus. So, here we go. Now, I have to say before I begin this review that perhaps I'm not the person to review this, because I've seen Alien, but that's it. I haven't seen any of the other Alien related movies. To many people's surprise, Alien was something of a slow burn. It took a while to pick up, it took a while to explain the story, and to develop the suspense. But that didn't bother me, as it seemed to bother some people. I personally enjoyed that aspect. I don't know what questions were meant to be answered in this movie. I felt like all the, kind of like, bait questions I might have had about the first movie were answered. And honestly, this movie felt a lot like a sci-fi version of "At the Mountains of Madness" by HP Lovecraft. I mean, thinking about it, I think about it. A team of scientists go out into this barren wasteland, and they discover this group of aliens that created us only to find out that one of them was still alive. And there was an even worse life form that they'd also created running a muck. Yeah, sounds a lot like "At the Mountains of Madness". Which, perhaps, that's the reason Del Toro, kind of, didn't pursue that. But I don't know. We shall see. Now, like I was saying though, it's a slow burn, but when it gets intense, whole boy is it intense. Like, once the first sign of action kind of began gaining momentum, I was just, like, ripping my seat going. Holy crap. What's going to happen? How are they going to get out of this? And what's funny is, I could never tell when the movie was about to end until the string literally went black. I'd think, "Okay, is this the end?" No, it's going to keep going. Oh my gosh. Like, I was surprised there was so much to this story. And, to my big surprise, the movie definitely left itself open for a sequel, and that's just a whole 'nother' set of questions. But, if you want to understand that, go see the movie. I'd like to hear what other people think due to the unique nature of this review, because this review was a bit late, and I'm sure a lot of us have seen it by now, so I'd like to hear from other people if you have the time. That is all. Always listening. So, is that like a yellow light? I don't know. That seemed pretty lightless. Yeah. I'm in the dark. It's a complex issue. I find the At the Mountains of Madness comparison interesting. I could definitely see if they spend more time exploring the ship and sort of turning that into the city from the film. I don't know that you're going to encounter, like, six-foot-tall blind penguins. You might. I do daily. Yeah. Only after the vodka. Yeah, I could definitely see a lot of comparisons with LV-426 in that sort of situation. That's very interesting. I am excited to see the film. But, we don't often see newish films. No. We kind of like, if it's a green light, we'll add it to the list. And then we'll, you know. Get to it when we get to it. But the list is backlogged by a few years. Release on DVD is a big component of general AOC in films. But anyway. Yeah. We can't actually leave to see them the theatre. I find the fact that Fish says it's a slow burn interesting. I wonder if it's a throwback to the original Alien is also a slow burn, but it's of that 70s era, right? And which basically every film is considerably slower based than the things that we're used to today. Even the action movies are more paced out. There's a lot more dialogue. There's a lot more hanging around. And it was really only, you know, 80 to 82 that we really started picking up speed for some reason in cinema. And now there's fast and furious things going on. Yeah, constant, fast, fast fury. Yep. I also noticed maybe Labcat has a bit of a contest. Or cold or drank something is very large. I think that maybe we may have a fight between Labcat and Movie Dog. I don't know what's going on there. Oh god. Oh no. Anyway. You can like Fish on Facebook. He's got it on page. He updates it with movie reviews. Check him out there and like him. And then I'll like you just a little bit more. And thanks again, Fish. As always. Your dog sounds very cute. I feel like the bubbles were at the right level there. Yeah, yeah. Sound great. So I think up next we have another New York minute with a Hollywood Russell. Yes, but we must remind everyone that this is part two of a Marvin Adventure. Oh yes. It's such a fantastic tale. Yes. Even though we've gone outside the boundaries of the city. Yeah, so they've gone to a restaurant and were incredibly cheap. Which is funny because we've had so much discussion with buffets. Yeah, and it actually comes up again this episode with Rich the Time Traveler. Some awesome stories related. Anyways, so when we get into the New York minute, just remember that we're heading right into a bookstore. Hollywood Russell and the case of the virtuous Vixen, part nine. The story so far. Never mind. Let's move ahead already. Sarah, the woman from Hollywood's past, is being blackmailed by Big Tony Spinetti, who has certain photographs of Sarah that she would rather see destroyed. What is she doing in those photos? What do you like to know? But I will say that they involve Edgar Casey, a scorpion, and three large rubber tree plants. Using her feminine wiles and memories of a shared past on Hollywood, who was not impressed, she pressed on his sense of honor. His sense of chivalry, but most of all his sense that his bank account was so low that he paid for last night's spaghetti dinner on a meatball installment plan. Seriously, he did. Next week, we will finally, mercifully, meet the bad guy already. Big Tony Spinetti. This story should finally start going somewhere, don't you think? To be continued. Hi, I'm Barry, and this is your New York Minute. We found it, and I was unimpressed. They must have raised their prices. So while we walked around the mall, and Marv Sr. decided that we should go out and sit on a bench while waiting for her mom to finish. Neither Marvin, Nura's father, had any intention of gambling. They took me there with a direct intention of sitting around and not gambling. To Marvin's father, it was a waste of money, and they only came in the interest of family harmony, meaning if Marv Sr. led his wife go to Atlantic City alone, she might lose more than the $5 limit and cause a financial disaster. Price of gas aside, and I'm sure he siphoned it out of some other car when I wasn't looking, they were determined to make a profit, some way, anyway on this trip, regardless of if mom won or lost. So far they were showing a profit from the buffet, and to prove my point, they munched on some stuff out of their pockets while they sat on the bench. I wanted to gamble. While they sat, I went into the casino, and I lost about $40 out of my $50 at about 10 minutes, which is actually pretty good for Atlantic City. I came back out to find Marv and looking at his watch and wondering where his mother was. We had only been in Atlantic City for about 2 hours, and it was already time to get mom and leave. At this point, I should say that, except when they were talking to me, almost all conversation was in Chinese, and I had to figure out by body language, inflection, and whether or not we were going the wrong way on a one way street, what was being said. The male Marvin's both spoke perfect English, but mom spoke little to no English. To finish off my description of Marvin Sr., I offer this. By a fluke of fate, my father and Marvin Sr. were old high school friends. Dad remembered him well. My father was a people person in every sense of the word. For example, I was once walking with him in Manhattan when he greeted and was in turn recognized and greeted by name by a former midget from Steeple Chase Park, which was one of the old fabled Coney Island Parks. We were once together at a wallbound's deli counter when Dad struck up a conversation with a total stranger behind the counter and talked him out of his wallbound's hat for no other reason than he could. He gave it to me, and some months later, that became my fishing hat, and also, while wearing it in the store, I unwittingly stopped the shoplifting because the crooks saw me wearing the wallbound's hat and thought I was security. Dad had also become friendly with some chefs in Las Vegas and would bring them New York City pickles and bagels when he flew out there a couple of times every year. No matter how incidentally he knew you, my dad always knew your name and he always wanted to talk. But he never, not once, showed any interest again in seeing his old high school friend Marvin Sr. and that should tell you the whole story right there. We eventually found Mrs. Marvin, and I think she might have lost as much as $6.50, which as you might imagine caused a huge fight. They spent a lot of the trip back fighting, and I spent most of the time with my headphones on pretending not to be totally hating the whole day. Someone else might have been embarrassed for Marvin with his family feuding and acting all crazy, but Marvin had no such emotions. This was all normal family stuff to him, food in his pockets, his parents feuding, almost dying in the highway, everything, another day for Marvin. Somewhere outside of Atlantic City, the road splits. One way leads northeast to New York, the other leads westward to Philadelphia. So when we went west, I was sure it was just another wrong turn, and calmly, since at least we were not rushing into oncoming traffic, I told Sr. that we're going the wrong way. Oh, didn't you hear? We're going to Philadelphia to see my other son. He's in college there. How could I have heard? It was all in Chinese. Marvin's mother was in the front seat stealing every once in a while, barking out some sort of angry burst. Marvin was sitting there, stoic as a boulder, and I wish I was home. But I wasn't. I was going with them to Philadelphia. To be continued in the next not-so-New York minute. So that kind of sucked, because I was expecting that Marv would go into the bookstore and have some way of, like, scamming out free books. But they ended up going to the mall, and he was like, "The price is a terrible kid!" And they ended up going back to the casino to go yell at Mrs. Marvin, or Mrs. Marvin, or whatever. It's kind of a nice detour into a Father's Day sort of subject. Yeah. Very appropriate. Oh my god. I couldn't imagine, like, just expecting in a few hours I'm going to be home and then think, "I'm going to Philadelphia!" Man, that would, like, that makes me scared. I feel homesick, and I'm in my house. I'm like, "No, I don't want to!" Anyways, I know that you survived it, because you are here telling us the tale. You can find all of Barry's Tales over at bmj2k.com. Indeed. Or on Twitter, it's bmj2k. Mm-hmm. Okay, so what do we have up next, Charity? Actually, we have a special treat. We do. A little safety suggestion from our friend Gigantor. It actually came from, it stemmed from a conversation that we had when he was here the last time a few weeks ago. And we were like, "Oh my god, wait, man, we need to discuss this." And we were hoping to do it during the show that he was visiting, but unfortunately he was trying. Yeah, the babies were interrupting, and he had to get out of dodge. Mm-hmm. So he left, and then I immediately sent him an email and asked him to call in to give us the information that he started telling us when he was there. (crickets chirping) That is quite cool, guys. Hey Flashcast, it's Gigantor. I'm here to arm the mob today, with more than pitchforks and torches. I wanna arm the mob with a bit of information. Should you ever have to call for an ambulance? And here's hoping you never have to. I wanna offer a few tips to get an ambulance to you as quickly as possible. First thing, everyone needs to realize that they're probably gonna have to give up call control. That's to your benefit, as difficult as that may be. The call-taker knows exactly when information they're gonna need to get an ambulance to you as quickly as possible. We understand how scary that is. I've had to be, I've been carted in the back of an ambulance myself, so... It may seem like a long time, but usually within like 45 seconds an ambulance is already on the road toward your location. One myth I wanna dispel is picking up the phone saying I need an ambulance and then hanging up. Yeah, that's a TV thing. That doesn't do anybody any good. We need a location. We need a phone number. We need to find out what's going on so we can give that information to the paramedics so that they're also better armed to deal with the situation when they get there. Being forewarned with proper information can do amazing things, like stroke victims. If everything is done and caught in enough time, the recovery rate is amazing. Same thing with diabetics. If we can get the right questions and we can figure out the right bit of information, a paramedic can help a diabetic and they may not even need to go to the hospital. What basically would happen is you'd call in, say what you need, and then the call-taker will ask for your address. Ask for an apartment. Ask for a cross street. Ask for a phone number. And then they'll start asking questions about the condition. Breathing questions, age, situations. Most of the questions, I would say all questions except address and what's going on will be yes or no or I don't know questions. And there's a flow and I find a lot of patients in the past or people calling in the past have just fallen into that flow. And it moves things along extremely quickly. It might seem like a lot of questions and sometimes it can be a lot of questions. But about 10, 15 seconds, 30 seconds into the call, the call-taker has probably sent all the information to the dispatcher. Without the caller ever knowing the patient, without the patient ever knowing, it's happened. But the information is being fed to a dispatcher who's already giving it to paramedics. When you're panicking, we understand how difficult it can be to just give up control or the anger. The anger is a big thing too. That's a huge roadblock. But we understand where it comes from but it just doesn't help. I don't know how many times I've been sworn at and yelled at and sometimes it feels like because they're so panicked or so upset that they're not helping themselves at all. They're actually making it worse by just yelling and trying to demand an ambulance and refusing to answer questions. It's actually going to end up being detrimental. The longer we need to take the less information the paramedics get and we also provide first aid instructions. Then we let you go. You can do whatever you have to do and usually by then I've been on calls where by the time I was done the call the paramedics had been at the door. We want to help and it all basically hinges on the caller cooperation. Once you call an ambulance, you become a team mate with that guy until he can get an ambulance to your house. Hopefully those tips will help the mob. Hopefully these tips will never have to be used. In case you do, here they are. Thanks for listening guys. Thank you so much, Jack Gantor. Yikes. Yeah, so I guess the lesson is like, don't scream. 'Cause honestly there is... Don't that seem reason, like, isn't that the logical thing to do in the first place? Most people just panic, but... 'Cause I guess, like, whatever answers you do have for the dispatcher, I mean, like, whatever questions they ask you, it's going to lead to different questions that are going to be useful for the paramedics. So if you don't get to those questions by the time the paramedics get there, then they're having to go through these things, you know, there, as opposed to, you know, being steps ahead. So I can appreciate that. And it's kind of nice that they stay on the phone with you for so long and wait with you. It's reassuring. Yeah, they even do that when it's, like, the police and stuff. Yeah, but obviously... Can you see the car? Yeah, you just want to deliver the address and the condition of the person as quickly as possible, I suppose. Yeah, well, first is just shut the F up. Yeah, I suppose. And just do what you're told, you know, like, Jack Gantor has done this a long time. So just shut your mouth and be nice to him. Yeah. If he refuses to answer questions, that seems a little insane. I don't care. I don't know. She's not breathing. Just come here. Yeah, I suppose. Well, he's got some 20-bit stories. He had some stories when he was here about people being great big jerk bags. Yeah, and honestly, I think, like, for those times in your life, if you could not be a jerk, that really goes to show what kind of person you are. Wow, you're calling for help here, you know. Yeah, like, I would want to be as cool and collected as possible, so you don't make those silly mistakes. I wonder if there's a relation between panic and just growing irrationally angry and the idea that there was a time when most of the dangers we encountered, if we were panicking about something, it was because we were being attacked by some sort of, you know, animal or whatever. Yeah, something that was getting all ragey with them. Yeah, irrational anger actually was probably a good thing. Yeah, but now it is so very much not. Yeah, it's sort of. We are not monkeys, people. Yeah. It'd be nice to Gigantor or we will take the whole mob. And there will be problems. Yeah. Smack your ass down. Butchas. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much, Gigantor. We're going to see him at Fan Expo. He's staying at the mobster hotel. He'll be our medic. Yeah. Yeah, he actually has been here for a medical emergency. And it was really great. But maybe that's for another day. If there's some sort of incident with too many mojitos, he can walk us through with some sort of a... Listen, guys, but he has to do it with a phone in his hand or else he doesn't know what he's doing. So he pulls out his iPhone and he's like, "Okay, listen, I know what to do now, guys." Okay, maybe not, but that's a good story. Yeah, that's open. I'm like fishing for someone to be like, "Yes, Jessica." Very good. It's very good. Thank you. Thank you. Well, let's move from life-saving to the Angel of Death with the newest entry of Doc Asriel's ongoing saga. In the last episode, Sergeant Parr confronted Jimmy Keenan regarding his new status, while officers were poorly investigated the mysterious blue lights. And now the latest episode of Doc Asriel, Angel of Death. Do you do? Kenny Clarkston ran in circles in front of his parents with his arms outstretched, pretending to swoop and swore. That was the best Falcon yet lab picture yet. Thank you so much for taking me. Joan Clarkston clung to her husband's arm. Kenny dearest, please stay close, I don't want to lose track of you in the dark. She fangled her pearl necklace and tried to control the quiver in her voice. Normally, the Clarkston family attended the cinema much earlier in the day, but Martin had been detained at work much longer than he had intended. He had briefly entertained the idea of canceling the outing, but it was Kenny's eighth birthday and he did not want to disappoint his son. The younger Clarkston pulled his official Falcon lab goggles over his eyes. You're not afraid of the dark, are you, Mom? Don't worry, Falcon lab junior will protect you. His parents had not allowed him to bring his official Falcon lab fan cloak cake to the theater, but he struck a pose as if you weren't, allowing the imagine cloak to flutter behind him in the nonexistent wind. Martin closed the distance to his son with a few steps and put a firm hand on this boy's shoulder. That's enough, boy. The patriarch of the family led his clan through the alley by habit. He always parked his car along the street at the opposite end. During the daylight hours it meant a quicker return home, but by the darkness of night the short come seemed much more sinister. A dad, there's nothing to be scared of. The power of the sun will protect us. I am an official member of the Falcon lab young heroes brigade after all. If there's any danger, Falcon lab himself will swoop in to defend us. The senior Clarkston gripped the junior shoulder firmly and started walking again. I said, that's enough. The Falcon lab movies are just that. Movies. There are no more heroes. Martin looked away from his son and lowered his voice. No more heroes. Not anymore. The family walked the last few feet to the opening of the alley in silence. When he saw their car Martin Clarkston released the grip on his son and allowed himself a small smile. Let's get home. I believe your mother has a cake waiting for us. Look, dad, a Falcon's feather! I told you! Joan, gently glad, snatched the plume out of the air. I don't think that's a Falcon's feather, dear. It's black, like a raven. Aren't Falcons mostly brown? Martin helped his family into the car and started the engine. I'm sure it's just a crow's feather, Kenny. I understand they roost on the rooftops around here. As the Clarkston started to drive home, a figure of black dumped a wood bean mugger behind a trash can. That's right, Kenny. There are no heroes anymore. And that boy went on to become Batman. Yeah, that was nicely done, though. I really liked the way he built the tension and the safe delivery and the references to the fucking wild and the whole business was very good. And it's probably a crow. Yeah. Yes, there are no heroes. That's great. Yeah. I really enjoyed it. Yeah, excellent. Good job. And interestingly, along the Father's Day theme. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Thanks. Thank you very much, sir. An excellent entry. You can find all of Doc Blue's business over at thescrewtlayer.com. He's got post-up for every chapter of the Doc Esri Alsaga, as well as a variety of other items he does. He's got a little stats post he does weekly, which is fantastic. So, and on our Father's Day, I think we should throw to the captain. Is there a secret you need to tell us? Likely has several fishy bastards scattered throughout the Seven Seas, I'm sure. So, here's a nice adventure that we got from the captain. If you would love a good tale on the splash of the salty brine on your face, then prepare yourself for the adventurous expulsions of Captain Ignatius Picard. [Crowd Cheering] Hi. This beamy pitch-black adventure. Car. There's a mean-looking fish-legged fellow at me door, using a trident as a doorbell. It is likely to progress in an ill manner for all concerned, namely myself. I've been evading these seamen for these past weeks, but they've finally caught up with me. Twin times, they've plagued me with oceanic assaults, and scores are nice and sea beasts. The last maritime misfortune I'd suffered by the Finns of them, Merfolk, was the sad loss of Grimpitch, the cabin lad. The manner of his death called to mind, the ancient curse we'd once found and largely ignored, as we plundered an undersea cave. Dare ye to dip ye mitt in a mermaid's purse, and Neptune's foamy fist'll bring down on ye a terrible curse. It was not redolent with clarity about the nature of the curse, though some annoyance on the sea's part was plain. But since I'd begun my wound of mermaids, I'd felt a team in worry about King Clam's paternal temper. For the Merfolk were a proud and more like race, and take such sea-shuffling shenanigans most seriously. You may not directly perceive the length of the death of my third favourite cabin boy, but tis me belief that all bad things congregate by the window when you feel a might blew, and those nearby may find themselves splashed with a calamitous cast-off. I fear that the poor, hapless, stupid, and unlucky Grimpitch was the accidental victim of me Merwench in lifestyle. I'd never taken the boy with me when I sought out my saucy sea life, tis only metaphorically that I suggest that he were caught between me and me mermaid-mating, to be an inappropriate venture for a lad of his indeterminate age. Grimp's me lad for patching of the sails, for his grip's fine and his head for height's second to none. After taking issue with a flock of gobshite gulls, our sailcloth was the worst for wear and need for a Grimp's magic slatherin'. The lad's tower was freshly drawn and ready for use when a freak swarm of tiger-faced penguins took the ship by storm. The ferocious harbinges of nasty pecks and shin-kicking barreled up out of the water and smashed through or over our railings. They'd stepped to their notorious war warbles and grumpily pecked at me crew with their cruel, pointy beaks. Huge and striped like the tigers that also bear their names, they lack some of the feline's artistry and cunning, but they makes up for it with their weight of numbers and slappy fin wings. Their beast that call for up close punching in the feather patch. Alas, in the excitement no one thought to safeguard the bubbling pitch. The added weight of the penguins had the good ship lollipop pitching in urine like a fat man struggling from a bathtub. As poor Grimp fought with one of the vicious birdfish creatures, the bucket flipped over and engulfed them both in boiling gunk. The wailing and foul squalling were pitious and irritating in equal measure, although the latter did motivate me to boot another tiger-faced penguin right in the air sex and hurry to Grim's aid. To his like watching an exotic love dance under a black silk sheet, though involving a great deal more pain and but a man in a penguin. There was little we could do but knock him overboard in the hope of cooling the stinky bernie fluid. The explosion of vapors they hit the sea saw off most of the tiggy winds. The steam also took the eyes of Watful Harry and perfectly prepared a pair of penguins for our post meridian picnic. Poor Grimp and his Siamese twin penguin sank without a trace. I was enraged for I takes the care of me crew as of at least middling importance and we really had needed that bucket of pitch. I bellowed me to find to the skies and then realised in me era redirected me complaints to the sea and that miserable king clam, whom I were certainly behind our recent spate of watery worries. I suppose I could've recanted me invective but I was fond of the king's daughter and her scaly thighs and I pouted reluctantly at the thought of never more tickling her teasing tail. Now of course, as the sound of the mermen beating down me door alternates with the sound of them falling over and hauling themselves back up again, I've caused to regret me angry words. Maybe I'll just climb out of this window and see if I can give these flippery slap-footed lads the slip. See? I told you. Very nice, very nice. Tag your face penguins. And merwinches. Yeah, another penguin theme, some more Father's Day business in there. Yeah. I do have a question though, I do have a question actually. So you're dealing with a mermaid. Now even under a magical transition, like the classical mermaid falls in love with the dude on land, manages to magically get legs. Mm-hmm. Okay. Oh, lady. So, let's say through that magical transition, she somehow gets a J.J. and they can mate in a proper way. Yeah, and it's not like a fish baby, it's like a human baby. Well, your child's going to come out one quarter fish, right? What is that going to be like? Just the genitalia. Just a little bit like the creature from the black lagoon. Yeah, gills in the side of their neck. I don't know. You should draw that a pope. I don't want to see it. Somebody who's one quarter fish. One quarter fish. That'll, uh, okay. Or three different versions. Come on, I want side by side. I'm sure we can probably- Three different visual interpretations of a quarter fish. Cook something up in the skin and coat department. Thank you, Captain. Yes. Thank you very much. You can find all of Nick's business over at CaptainPicker.com. Mm-hmm. And the Good Ship Lollipop. Comedian and Captain. You can send your comments, questions, or suggestions to comments@flashpult.com. See what we got around here. Oh, seems we get a little something from Rich. We do indeed. Let's hear from the time traveler. [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] Hello, Flashpult crew and fellow mobsters. Rich the time traveler here. So Nutty touched on this and the mob that Slaughterhouse 5 was not real time travel but mental time travel. I agree with that and just wanted to add that Vonnegut was always unhappy with the label of science fiction. Now there can be non sci-fi time travel, but it leads credence to him not intending it that way. Vonnegut talking about it after publishing Player Piano said he "learned from the reviewers that he was a science fiction writer." He also said, "I have been a sore-headed occupant of a file drawer labeled science fiction ever since, and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal." Pretty strong words. Not clearly sci-fi has gained much more credibility since then, and it's also clear that no matter how he interpreted his works, that's how he intended them to be seen. So I'll let your personal philosophy of literary analysis determine if that matters to you or not, but that's his view on the matter. The latest coffin three-parter tale was quite enjoyable. I found that I kept expecting a more literal canary in the coal mine. That there was some creature that's only purpose was to act as a warning for something else. It took me a little to realize that the canary aspect was an unintentional side effect. Nice work. You guys also mentioned Playboy Explorers. Isn't that just a return to the 50s and 60s style idealized newsreel explorers as we're sent up and Pixar's up? Only instead of becoming rich and famous for the exploring, they're doing it the other way around. I'm glad you guys are enjoying the box. DONE DONE DONE. Sorry, that happens every time I say the box. DONE DONE DONE. You must look at the chewing and wrapper rattling sounds as just signs that you're enjoying it. Spree, original and sometimes chewy, do show up from time to time of vending machines around here. Also, I think it was a pope who was talking about a model candy with gum in the center. I recall one called dino sour eggs that were, at least for a while, a welcome product. They had modeled layers that melted away as you sucked on them and had different colors and the center was a hard packed sour candy powder. I haven't seen those for years now and I wish I could find them again. At the same time, we also used to get watermelon jawbreakers that looked and tasted like watermelons. They're even packaged in little boxes like crates. The outside was light and green stripes and as you let it melt, it turned white and then red all the way to the center until it was gone. No seeds though. Those also, sadly, had disappeared. You guys mentioned the buffet bandits when you're talking about berries last in New York minute. I was once as a golden corral buffet as a child, probably around 8 to 10 years old, and saw this old lady with a huge purse that was obviously lined with a ziplock bag or two. Every time she went to the buffet, she'd bring back one whole orange or apple and one large yeast roll. She'd look around and then she'd put them in her purse and eat what was on her plate. I think I counted her scoring a half dozen pieces of fruit. I know it had to be obvious to the staff, but I think they let it go because it was clear she was on a fixed income and probably came there once a week to eat a meal and stock up on fruit and bread. Recently, I finished reading Dead Again, Book One in the Zombie Diaries by George Magnum. Now I have to say that I have a lot of problems with this book. This is a case where these problems fall into two groups, and alone, either one of them would not have doomed the book entirely, but together, it makes for a mess. The story follows an elite group of soldiers who were sent out during the beginning of a zombie outbreak to retrieve a brilliant scientist who might have a cure. Certainly perfect zombie and pulp fodder. The first problem set has to do with the story and characters. All the people are two-dimensional cardboard cutouts picked off a checklist of stereotypes. The leader has a loss to his past at Hansem. There's a female operative on the mission he has a romantic history with. The scientist who has sit along, acts smug and superior, and so on. On top of that, the story is peppered with jargon about the weapons they have to the point where he seems like every encounter they're pulling out a new big gun to use. Now I can't comment on the accuracy of the weaponry or the military jargon they use, but about halfway through they start talking about being lone ammunition. Yet they seem to keep blasting away at full speed the rest of the story, which takes any tension the author is trying to build up due to dwindling resources and makes it completely ineffective. The second set of problems are all related to the actual mechanics of writing. Now I'm a big fan of self-publishing. It gets a lot of content out there that might not otherwise be available. However, if you're going to go that route for the love of all this good, have someone proof your work. Have two or three someone's proof your work, because if you don't have a paid editor, you need the help. This book has subject verb agreement problems, tense issues, pronoun gender disagreements, and spelling mistakes. There's even one or two sentences that I couldn't even put together what he was trying to save because these mistakes were so egregious. And they got worse as you got closer to the end, which tells me most of these were due to fatigue and intention by the author as he read his work later to edit it. I got this one for free from Amazon, I believe is regularly 99 cents, so I can't complain. But while it somehow managed three and a half stars there, or sorry, three out of five stars there, I can only give this book one out of five brains. Skip it. I'm starting to read another book, actually a series of novellas called Wool, Omnibus Edition, which is the first five books in that series, by Hugh Howie. It's been great so far. The prologue was a real mind screw. So I'm looking forward to finishing this up and giving it a review in the next set of comments or two. I'm really getting excited for summer plans and getting to see you guys at Fan Expo in August. Though JRD's comments last time about cosplaying as McCready had me a bit concerned. I want to perform warn you guys that if he shows up, just like that, I will have Petri dishes and a blowtorch with me, and I will be testing all of your blood up front. That's it for now. We're off to the Outer Banks tomorrow to visit lighthouses, see the Wright Brothers Memorial and Museum at Kill Devil Hills, and enjoy the beach. I hope to collect some pulpit ghost stories, if I can, to share a few with the mob on Facebook, along with any good pictures. Tell Carrick Rises this is rich. Oh, that's a laugh out loud right there. That's great. I love that you didn't actually laugh while you did laugh out loud and we're listening to it, but instead of laughing, you're like, "Wow!" That was a laugh out loud. And I would expect none of us to do this. If I could laugh, I would be laughing now. We've been able to follow a bit of the Time Traveler's vacation. Very exciting, as you wait a minute for a Time Traveler. I'm so excited for it. It's been interesting. Oh, yeah, yeah. And when I say excited, I mean jealous. Yeah. A lot of seed bugs in there. I try to be like, happy for, but sometimes I challenge them. Yeah. That's just me. Okay. Too bad about dead again. I mean, it's definitely a double-edged blade with self-publishing. Hmm. Great. Well, I don't know. I'm sure if we were to sell, well, whatever. We are self-publishing. But I'm just saying, we have an appobe and that shit would never happen. I absolutely agree that you want to have as many people as possible perforated, beta-read it. Or one good one. Yeah. Oh. Interesting about the Clint Eastwood into the Eagles' nest sort of problem with being low on ammo, but never really, in any way, having to change your behavior because of it. Yeah, that's great. Do you have dino eggs familiar to anybody? I, at first, well, I thought we were talking about those gums that were the shape of spree, but they were speckled different colors. It was kind of like pastel. Right. Great pink. Yeah. Chewy choosers. Singy zaps or tangy tings? My mouth is getting more slabbery. I was thinking it had like a dinosaur name, like a dinosaur name, but it was like a dino. But it wasn't powdery in the center. Yeah, it doesn't. Yeah. What he was describing sounded very job-breaker-y. Yes. That's not what it was like. Oh. I must say, however, the watermelon job-breaker sounds fantastic. Sounds fantastic. I love the idea of the little crate. That's so cute. Get your time travel on. Yeah. As a man with a deep love of job-breakers, I have to say, the fact that I've somehow missed this, you know, the unicorn of job-breakers. You know, we really should be looking at your preferences online and just buying them. Buying online candy. There's something to the magic of stumbling into candy, you know what I mean? Yeah. Speaking of candy, we're stumbled into. Oh. That's the insect nerds. Oh. Insect nerds. But we must... Hold on. You need to discuss the peeps. Crap with this. Yes. Because I spoke to the time traveler and I said, "Uh, we're going to do peeps, dude." And then he's like, "Oh, well, did you open a package? Did you cut a slit into it?" Did you prepare? He's like, "Uh, yeah, go ahead, eat 'em, 'cause, you know, he's a nice guy." So I was like, "Yeah, sure." But, you know, if they're no good, I'm going to have to bring in some stale ones for an expo. If it were me, I would. So, 'cause he likes a stale crusty exterior with a gooey center, a fluffy center, a chewy center, if you will. Everything that I've ever read about peeps seems to indicate that there's a certain amount of staleness necessary to their consumption. So we have cut a slit into it and put them aside for a week. For next week. And have instead chosen the Hoppin' Nerds. Hoppin' Nerds. And now there's a reason why Darod is calling them bug nerds. Bug nerds. And he will tell you his selfish reasoning right now. If I can associate eating insects with these candies, then I, in fact, get to eat all of the candies. Yeah. Thank you very much. You know what? The insect nerds. If I could easily tell myself that the food in front of me was bugs, I would have an easier time with portion control. Yes. Definitely. We would all be center people, wouldn't we? He looks so excited, guys. He loves nerds so bad. Tiny, tangy, crunchy candy. I think you like the grape and strawberry, but not so much the peach blueberry. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the peach that we get. Yeah. I am, however, rather fond of the variety boxes. Let's just have a rainbow of colors. Yeah, you just recently got one, and you finished them all the other day, and now, surprise, you want to try these ones. So it makes them hopping. I'm my hypothesis is that there's something like a pop rocks. These are just plain nerds. But they're nerds, and that's good. I remember the first time I ate a box of nerds in front of you, J.R.D. You laughed at me because I ate them one by one, which is a ridiculous way to eat nerds. Okay, so now I have a question. Are nerds hopping nerds in the States? What's going on with this? I just sent a note to the time traveler and asked him, "Oh, I'm like, these nerds don't hop. What's the hell?" It appears that hopping nerds are pesto colored for spring. Oh, like bunnies. Like bunnies. Like the bunnies on the package. So obviously, these are fertility nerds. Is it like that? What are you doing, Rich? We've got four kids. Yeah, we're done. Is it that octopus that made babies in a lady's mouth? Oh, yeah, that was a rough. I just started reading that story. That was really gross. Uh, cooked calamari with a exact fella. So they, like, embedded themselves in the sides of her mouth? Yeah. And her throat. And her tongue and cheeks. And then they got to a certain age or something, and then they popped them out. And they got barfed. I don't know. I don't know what the real little process was like. Didn't like my description. I don't know if they rounded up all the little squids and brought them to a little squid orphanage. Oh, yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah. Yep. Great point about Playboy Explorers, Rich. I think you're absolutely on the nose with that one. Thanks for the kind of words with the coffin story. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that one was lots of fun to do, so. I absolutely agree about the slaughterhouse five mental time travel situation, PTSD, essentially. As Nutty Enrich mentioned. Listen, I felt like Vonnegut. He was around from the '50s till, what, the late 2000s when he died? I'm trying to recall what year it was. It feels like it was 2009, but that might be wrong. And that's a long career to have. Mm-hmm. For a writer. He... I can understand his complaints about being cataloged as a science fiction writer or just a genre writer in general, everyone knows the stigma about that business. But at the same time, there's no denying that Kilgore Trout is... Although obviously not as obvious as when he inserts himself in the story, there is some connection between himself and Kilgore Trout. Kilgore Trout has always struck me as a caricature of himself. And he shows up in a lot of places. Yeah, and Kilgore Trout in the same way that it's interesting because it's the same, it's always the same situation as what Vonnegut finds himself in. Kilgore Trout was always characterized as a man with great ideas who couldn't carry them across properly. And although I feel Vonnegut was a master writer, and I'm a big fan of his style... He obviously was not happy with the box he was put in. Well, if he has... It felt like he wasn't getting his point across, otherwise people would understand better. Well, I don't know. I don't think Kilgore Trout is meant to sort of a response to the media, necessarily. I feel like it really is part of... It's almost like the part of Vonnegut that he doesn't like about himself in a weird way. Does that make sense? I don't know. That's an interesting question. To go back and read it as if it was his response to the media, I hadn't really considered that. Anyway, interesting, Rich, interesting. Thanks a lot for calling in. Indeed. Mm-hmm. I appreciate it. I'm very excited to meet you at Van Expo. Mm-hmm. Well, now I think it's time to close the mailbag, for we have no more comments, right, for the show? We're all done there. Yeah, for now. There was a few items from Nutty. We were supposed to ask about Fire Island and the deer there. But we'll get back to that at some future date. In the meanwhile, I think it's time for... I do a dassy, hope. I was very afraid about Radio Project X. I'm going. It's been a long time since I've sung in front of a crowd of people. Anyways, so yes, I was afraid. But then we went and we rehearsed. Everything seemed fine. My usual sweat was there. Usually when I start playing music, I sweat a lot. And yeah, it was so much fun. When I was looking forward to it, normally I would be so filled with, like, afraid. And I'd be so nervous, and I wouldn't be able to sleep or eat. I would be very uncomfortable. I get pains in my stomach and stuff. There's lots of fun, eh? It totally was. It totally was so much fun. And my mom and my brother gave. Anyways, so mostly this week I've been working on the live version of Klimi Sunday, one on the guitar that I can play. And yeah, it went really well. I wanted it to sound kind of old school to kind of keep it with the OTR theme. The OTR theme. Old time radio for people not in the know. They also offered that I could play a couple of my own songs, but it seemed like so quick and frightening. So I ran away from that idea. It's not some future opportunity. Yeah, I'll be the next time about whatever it is later. But baby steps, what I did, my 30 seconds, it went well. Excellent. Hurrah. The R.O. Never race up. So I took, I think it was the last two weeks off of Skinner go, just so I took a little mean cation, I guess, maybe cation, no, me cation, yeah, it was a mecation, okay. But we are releasing another Skinner co and I just put the finishing touches on it today. Back to the Kalmari. Yes, yes. And it features the general Lee and it was funny first presenting the comic to JRD because he kind of scowled at me and said, well, that looks like a pinto. And so I spent, I think the next two hours refining the general Lee. I don't want to be quite a little grumpy. Oh, yeah. She's like, this has got enough fire. I'm like, who's my first goddamn car dreamy. Yep, the class came out and then they drew a car. So I came up very well. Successfully. Yeah. It's the general Lee. How did, how did it feel not to be the only narrator or the only voice on stage at Radio Project X? It was fun and also kind of not frustrating, but like you want to just re-long. I don't know, like I wanted to do the narration parts too, but then I was like, no, I shouldn't. And then I'm thinking, that sounds good, but it's not the way I would have done it. And then like listening to the guy that did coffin too, and it's like, that's not how coffin sounds to me, but it sounds really good. So... Do you think it's going to change the way you delivered it all? I don't know, because it's interesting to see somebody else's perspective on it, you know? Yeah. I feel the same way when we do pieces of fan fiction, lost by Donahue just recently. Yeah. Yeah, that was fun. Yeah. Well, we'll get to a little bit more of that in a second, I guess. Oh, yeah, so that's about it. There's a new Skinnaker kind of note, and it's got the Genneluley. And the giant squid. That will birth babies in your mouth. No, it won't. Backroom plots. So although we haven't been releasing a huge volume of story episodes lately, at least not penned by me, I have been doing quite a bit of writing in the background while doing so. Musically, I find I've been listening a lot to "Slaybells" latest album. I have no idea who that is. You don't really like them. Oh, I'm all right. Or at least you didn't really enjoy their last album very much. Well, then I'm sure they suck. I quite enjoy them. I quite enjoy the fullness of their sound. I guess it's because you're wrong. They're sort of a, in a weird way, they're sort of a rock and roll marching band. Oh, well, I don't know. That sounds like something I'd like. I think maybe you are wrong. Yeah, feasibly feasible. Likely. I'm usually wrong until I'm right over there. Until I let you be right. We did put out an episode, but penned by John Donahue, a loss that I wanted to quickly thumbs up. Yeah, that one was quite enjoyed. Just so much fun to do. I loved doing the editing back and forth with him. It was so handy because he had hints to me on what he thought the people would sound like. Yeah, he had a deep characterization going on there that was. Yeah. I felt like these characters had backstories. And it was sort of implied in the story, but I felt like there could have been more, you know? I really enjoyed it. Yeah. It was a popular story too. Yeah. Keep hurting them, please. I like that. Well, I enjoy all of the guest episodes. I'm really looking forward to it. Well, so do I. But I like his too, okay? We've got the next one in the can, and it's another solid one, so I'm really pleased. Are you saying we have a solid one in the can? In the can. Oh. Charity. It's disgusting. But in the meantime, sometimes there's a script I end up writing, and it doesn't really fit into the flash bulb universe, but I just... Yes, that happened. Just like a fancy, I sit down at the keyboard and I just want to run off in a weird direction. Some people were actually hoping that it was a new serial. Well... Oh, yeah. And you were mentioning today that you should have a romantical one and I want you to have a romantical one. Yeah. The Princess' long ride is not the last we're going to hear of that thread, but it will appear only as a special episode, or there may be a couple more coming up. But they won't be in the same way... Well, as I described it on the Facebook page, in the same way that Captain Pighart is the black freighter of the flash bulb universe, this may also be... This is the Conan we should have had, I don't know, or something to that effect. Yeah, because we need like a venturer/romance genre to our pulp. Yeah, we're lacking. Well... I can... And it's heart. There's a bit of romance coming up in the next little tale. I've been inserting it slowly. It's not bad I have to be with Mulligan. Boy, all these lobsters every time. Yeah, well, there's also some issues that people have a bit of concern with some characters having, yeah. Unless it's... You? Yeah. If it's me a second... Yeah, am I going to bonnigate you into the story? Yeah. It's okay. If you do that. A poponax into the room. Oh, she's excited. She remembered to giggle away from the mic. Good girl. Yeah, I try. Just for you. Okay, well, where might people find you on the interview if they were looking for you up hope? They won't find me on the interview right now. I've got to go. Well, how about you, Jessica? You can find me on Twitter at @TheJessicaMay. And you're all over the Facebook group, all over the mob. The Instagram. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'm on the mob all the time. You need anything? Some sugar? No. No sugar. I meant, like, for cookies. I'll take out my slap and glove, ma'am. You can find me on Twitter at @jarityskinner, or you can find us as a whole at SkinnerCo. Big thanks to Jim. Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Jim. For hosting Wikidadislife.com, which is always in need of edits if you want to swim by. I love that. And flashbulb.com. Yeah, there, too. Enjoy the show? Tell a friend. Really enjoy the show? We have a donate button on the site. Mm-hmm. If you have comments, questions, or suggestions, you can find us at flashbulb.com or email us text or mp3s to comments@flashbulb.com. Jessica May's vocal talents and musical stylings can be found at maintenance.com. The entire run of flashbulb can be found at flashbulb.com or via the search bar and iTunes. Flashcast is released under the Canadian Creative Commons attribution non-commercial 2.5 license. [Music]